The Academy at Fancourt has partnered with Athletes USA to enable promising young African golfers to win the opportunity to gain scholarships to US Colleges.
Until now, securing a scholarship at a US College, through golfing ability, was a difficult and expensive path. Through this exciting new partnership between the Academy at Fancourt and Athletes USA, scholarships at US Colleges will become far more accessible to promising young African athletes.
The Academy at Fancourt offers a bespoke training programme to nurture the best talent in the Southern Cape. Together with its partner academies, SCGA and Scratch Golf, The Academy at Fancourt delivers a free #Activestart programme introducing over 800 juniors to the game every week. This initiative is designed to identify talent and nurture it to be further refined at The Academy at Fancourt and placed in a US College Scholarship by Athletes USA.
‘What this ground-breaking partnership means in real terms is that we can now offer a seed-to-tree training programme where we are able to introduce a young African child to the game in school at the age of six and train them up to have the necessary skills for Athletes USA to secure them a scholarship to a college in the USA,’ said Adam McKinlay, Head Professional at the Academy at Fancourt.
‘This will shine a path for other kids to aspire to develop themselves and emulate the success of others in taking advantage of a life-changing education and sporting opportunity.’
Chris Vidal, President & Founder, Athletes USA, said: ‘When you bring great people together that all share the same goals and values, you can achieve great things. This partnership is exactly that and we can now provide a pathway giving all athletes the greatest opportunity to become a champion in sport and life. We look forward to working with the Academy at Fancourt and Ernie Els Group to help create the champions of tomorrow.’
Partners of the programme include Scratch Golf and the Ernie Els Group.
‘Scratch Golf is incredibly proud to be a partner in this programme,’ said Peter Berman, owner of Scratch Golf.
‘The #Activestart program introduces large numbers of children to the game of golf at grass-roots levels and is both massively exciting and humbling at the same time. This long-term plan of identifying talent and giving opportunities to young boys and girls to attend a US Collegiate program in the future can only lead to positive changes in our communities.’
Piet Pieters, vice-rresident of the Ernie Els Group said it is exciting to be an integral part in creating a seamless path for African student golfers
‘They now have an opportunity to start as youngsters at the Academy at Fancourt, compete at top levels and eventually earn a scholarship at one of America’s Top Colleges. We are very impressed with Adam, his Academy and what they achieved at Fancourt’s world class facilities,’ said Pieters.
