Here’s Tim Henman and Brian O’Driscoll encouraging children to play golf

Non-golfing sporting heroes Tim Henman and Brian O’Driscoll helped promote family golf at the Open Championship at Carnoustie.

The duo, both HSBC Golf Roots ambassadors, promoted the ‘HSBC Family Challenge’, thanks to the help of the Golf Foundation.

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The two sporting legends played a special golf challenge with local youngsters at nearby Monifieth Golf Club to also celebrate the growth of 87 new Golf Foundation HSBC Golf Roots projects in Scottish golf clubs, as the charity extends its working partnership with Scottish Golf.

The HSBC Family Challenge, which took place on the two weekends of Open Championship week, further supports the Golf Foundation’s national HSBC Golf Roots programme that reaches 500,000 youngsters a year from schools to golf clubs and helps more children to get involved in golf, a sport which offers ‘Skills for life, a game for life and a healthy life’.

In the HSBC Family Challenge, families were encouraged to come along to 500 local golf clubs in England, Scotland and Wales, and shoot at easy-to-create targets on the club’s practice areas and record as many successful shots as possible in 60 seconds. Parents and children could then share videos of their efforts with HSBC Sport – with the best one to win a unique prize from The Open!

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Brendon Pyle, chief executive of the Golf Foundation, said: “We were thrilled to welcome HSBC ambassadors Tim Henman and Brian O’Driscoll to join this fun family Golf Roots session. Tim is a former British number one, reached four Wimbledon semi-finals and is also a fine golfer. Rugby legend Brian is the eighth highest try scorer in international rugby union history – and both guys always try so hard to encourage young players in sport. They are wonderful ambassadors.”

Playing with Tim and Brian, a group of boys and girls from Monifieth Golf Club showed off their skills to celebrate the creation of new HSBC Golf Roots projects involving 87 golf clubs in Scotland. These funding projects will support club PGA professionals to create outreach junior programmes in schools and the community to welcome more boys and girls to golf clubs and enjoy a sport which can offer them ‘Skills for Life’ benefits in a healthy environment.

Andrew McKinlay, chief executive of Scottish Golf, said: “Scottish Golf is delighted to support the Golf Foundation in creating new HSBC Golf Roots projects in 87 of our golf clubs. These projects will help in our drive to get many more young people and families playing and staying in our clubs.”

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Tim Henman and Brian O’Driscoll also supported the Golf Foundation the previous week in the ‘R&A SwingZone’ in Carnoustie’s ‘Spectator Village’, as the charity worked with Scottish Golf and the PGA to make golf more accessible for all.