King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia: Integrating golf into modern Saudi culture and introducing 300,000 children to the game in a five-year period is the aim of Golf Saudi, the emirate’s ruling golfing body.

“That really is the crux of our challenge here,” said Ed Edwards, Chief Operating Officer of Golf Saudi, speaking in the latest edition of the Asian Golf Industry Federation series of webinars, highlighting the work of AGIF member companies across the region.

Saudi Arabia is currently home to nine golf courses and has between 3,000 and 5,000 registered golfers, of which less than 200 are locals.

Edwards said: “We have not only the existing facilities, but also in excess of 20 new golf developments in various stages of planning, design, and construction feasibility.

“So we know that there’s going to be a significant supply-demand gap and one of our primary purposes and reasons for being is to make sure that we engage and enthuse a whole new population of golfers within Saudi Arabia.”

One of Golf Saudi’s key pillars and deliverables is to create a successful mass participation programme.

Edwards said: “We’re very fortunate. We have a lot of stakeholder and governmental support through various ministries and through our Chairman, His Excellency Yasir Al Rumayyan, and our CEO Majed Al-Sorour, who are both very passionate golfers and very successful businessmen.

“They’ve been really the driving force behind what Golf Saudi is trying to do in integrating and weaving golf into the fabric of Saudi society.

“From a mass participation standpoint, that looks at every single demographic from school kids where we’ve managed through our relationship with the Ministry of Education to embed golf as part of the school’s curriculum.

“We’ve already got in excess of 20,000 children signed up to learn golf. It’s an organic programme where Golf Saudi will teach the PE teachers basic skills. We’ll provide the educational programmes; we’ll provide all the equipment for use … and we’ll provide clothing and caps.

“So it’s a programme that is then self-sustaining. We will stay in support as the children go through to the following levels by the sharing of skills to make sure that over time there are multiple golf coaches within the country that can help implement our schools programme.

“In our five-year forecast that looks at in excess of 300,000 children that will be learning golf.”

*To see the full interview with Ed Edwards, please click here.