Elite on the green

It’s been done for hockey. It’s been done for soccer, and it’s been done for baseball.

Now Dustin Wilson wants to do it for golf.

Wilson, who morphed from hockey hopeful to golf professional, is bringing an elite junior golf program to Thunder Bay, an effort to both boost interest in the game at a younger age and help develop top talent ready to play at the college level and beyond.

A partnership with the Golf Association of Ontario and Golf Canada, the Core Golf Development Centre will create a pathway for first-time golfers, moving them through seven levels of development through the use of clinics, camps and teams.

“It will help the athletes develop the skills at a young age and then go into provincial and national competitions when they’re older,” said Wilson, who unveiled his plan Tuesday night during an informal session at Whitewater Golf Club.

“I’m here for support because I never had this opportunity as a kid growing up. So I played AAA junior hockey and golf was really kind of a second or third sport for me. I never took it seriously because I never knew I had the potential.”

Indeed, he did what so many young golfers do. He hit the course with little or no idea what he was doing right and what he was doing wrong.

“I didn’t find out until I turned pro that I had a really messed up golf swing,” he said. “I had probably a combination of bad posture, bad fundamentals and bad mechanics. I’ve spent nine years fixing it.”

The Core Golf program, which began in Orlando where the likes of Sean Foley, Tiger Woods’s swing coach, have endorsed and taken part in, eventually moved to Toronto.

Local junior golf sensation Evan Littlefield, who this fall will debut at Western New Mexico University on a golf scholarship, spent two years at the Orlando academy and credited it with helping him get to where he is today.

“It was probably the best decision of my life. I improved drastically,” said Littlefield, who will join Wilson and fellow Core Golf graduate Jeff Hunter on course this summer.

It’s about taking that next step, Littlefield added.

“You really have got to learn how to practice,” he said. “You’ve got to learn to go hard at it. A lot of people will give 50 per cent here and there.”

The idea, said Wilson, is to capture the golf imaginations of children at an early age.
Like a competitive hockey program, practice should make perfect – or as close to perfect as one can get in golf – he said.

“There’s never really been coaching in golf (here) from the different levels of development. And if you want to play at a provincial or national championship, you really need to get the quality of practicing and learn the fundamentals and learn how to compete to get to that next level,” Wilson said.

“I’m excited to have that opportunity to work with some of these kids.”

It’s an idea whose time has come, said junior golf guru Hank Wilke.

Wilke, who has operated a successful junior program for years, introducing and nurturing young talent to the game of golf, said the development aspect is key to the creation of great golfers down the road. 

“What I’m excited about is getting the kids out of the house and getting them more active and part of the process. What I mean by that is if they get out and practice more and get involved with some structure, then the results will come. I’m not trying to put so much pressure on results, but those results will come naturally by getting into this process,” Wilke said.

The program isn’t inexpensive, but the payoff can be enormous, Wilson said.

The week-long CN Future Links half-day golf camps are $225 for a week’s worth of instruction, though weekly three- and four-day clinics are as little as $60.

For the more advanced junior golf development and elite teams, parents can expect to shell out between $1,300 and $1,600 for the summer, though like elite hockey programs, fundraising opportunities do exist to help offset the cost.

Private and semi-private coaching programs are also available.

For more information, phone 630-4653 or email Wilson at dwilson@coregolfacademy.com.