MOUNT VERNON – Billy and Heather Barbour couldn’t have been happier with their sixth annual Junior Golf Camp, which wrapped up on Friday, June 18, at Irish Hills Golf Course.
The two-week camp returned after a one-year absence because of the COVID-19 pandemic with even more golfers than before.
“We went from nine golfers our first year (in 2014) to now over 50 golfers,” said Heather Barbour, who runs the camp with her husband Billy. “We actually had a waiting list for both groups because it just exploded. We wanted to have 20 in each session, but we had to open it up to even more.”
The camp ran two sessions over the past two weeks. The first week was for beginners and was designed to teach golfers everything from how to hold and swing a club to terminology, club types and different parts of a golf course.
Early skill development took place over the first three days of the four-day camp, which culminated with a tournament and a pizza party on June 11.
“The golfers each choose a caddy to accompany them and that helps us with the management of the tournament, but it also helps them learn about the game together,” Heather said. “They get a free membership with doing this camp. Hopefully, they bring their caddies out and they play even more.”
“Our ultimate goal for the camp is to make golf accessible and to make golf fun for the youth,” Billy Barbour said. “Hopefully, they walk away with some new skills and the basics of golf. The key for newer golfers and beginning golfers is that it has to be fun. It’s a challenging game in and of itself, but it has to be fun for them to continue to want to play.”
The second week of the camp is for intermediate-skill-level golfers. It features more emphasis on situational golfing, different types of play like scrambles or best ball and other more advanced nuances of the game.
“We have suggested age groups,” Billy said. “For Level 1, you’re 6 years old to 10 or 11 years old. Then we go from 10 or 11 to 18 for Level 2. If they have experience and they’re younger … we’d recommend that they (try) Level 2. (The camp) is more about knowledge and skill as opposed to age.”
The Barbours began the camp in 2014 as a way for Billy to pass on his knowledge to new golfers.
Heather is a physical education teacher in Mount Vernon. Billy thought she was the perfect person to help him grow the game.
“I said, ‘You’re a PE teacher. This is what you do every day,’” he said. “From an activity standpoint, she knows how to manage a classroom and manage kids and make it fun and exciting and just have really good structure. I’m able to provide all the golf skill and knowledge and the things they need to know to actually play the game.”
“I just love getting kids active and excited about sports and starting sports at a young age,” Heather said. “We saw a need for it in the community. Our clientele (at Irish Hills) is aging and so we wanted to get young kids started.”
Add Bill Barbour to the team and it’s a perfect blend of everything needed to make a fun, successful summer golf camp.
“He just brings along the expertise,” Billy said. “He’s been a PGA professional golfer for around 50 years now. He’s retired and he’s owned Irish Hills since 1976, and he’s just the patriarch in the game. He gets more into the one-on-one instruction with the kids when we’re working on full swings or chipping and pitching. He enjoys seeing so many young kids developing a passion for the game just like we do.”
“It’s really neat to see the two of them work together,” Heather said. “We have other employees that help out too, but the father-son … it’s just really neat to see the two of them playing off each other.”
