DiscoverGolf Featured in Barrons Magazine
How DiscoverGolf Aims to Draw Younger Players to the Sport
Desert Mountain
You are a 12-year-old child of the 21st century. You’ve never known a life without Wi-Fi, let alone the 24/7 presence of the internet. The digital, on-demand world provides you with your social life and entertainment immediately and with minimal effort. Your primary source of amusement is video games that provide enveloping sensory experiences that flood the brain with powerful neurotransmitters.
Then, you are presented with the sport of golf. It is not virtual. It requires its players to get up and go to a golf course. Golf takes hours to play and offers potential for frustrations. It takes years and countless hours of work for a golfer to become competent, let alone excel. With an eight iron in your hand, those same neurotransmitters can be few and far between.
It’s little wonder golf has seen a significant decline in young players over the last 20 years. According to the National Golf Foundation, 2013 saw 400,000 fewer golfers coming to the game—with half of those staying away under the age of 30. Even though Covid-19 lockdowns and closings were a boon to a sport played in the open air, golf needs to find ways to engage young, digitally trained minds to survive.
Richard Franklin has a plan. In 2016, the veteran junior golf coach and former professional player created DiscoverGolf—a youth-centric teaching program using principles of education, psychology, storytelling, and modern game design to teach golf skills without putting children through disciplined coaching or learning by rote.
“Kids just have more options today,” Franklin, 37, says. “Teaching with old methods is tone deaf, and we need to find a way to provide a spark for the game of golf and encourage emotional investment.”
DiscoverGolf’s new international HQ is Desert Mountain—the elite real estate community in the hill country of Scottsdale, Ariz. Amid the development’s seven golf courses (including six designed by Jack Nicklaus ), the new Junior Sports Academy offers Franklin’s in-person lessons and hosts both online and in-person DiscoverGolf workshops for coaches from around the world.
“The real goal I have is to make golf education culturally relevant,” Franklin says. “It’s a coach by coach movement, and we currently have more than 180 DiscoverGolf facilities on five continents.”
The system uses fun, colorful games with names like King Putt, Fruit Pursuit, and Croctology that teach golf skills without pushing children straight onto courses. The games break down into age groups, including 4 to 7, 8-14 and “all ages.”
Franklin’s education at the University of Arizona introduced him to game design theories. After building those principles into the DiscoverGolf activities, it became clear its young students pick up more than just golf skills while they drive, chip, and putt.
“We live in a ‘gameful age’—a ludic age, using games to explore life,” Franklin says. “By using game design and storytelling, we can abstract the game of golf and teach life skills along the way.”
For example, DiscoverGolf Games explore such essential life and business principles as resource management, the handling of randomness, and the experience of fiero, a key game design concept. Franklin’s light, unthreatening games can introduce a young player to the sensations of risk and reward—gently teasing out risk aversion for a child once on the golf course.
“Fiero” is a buzzword for that unique feeling earned when we triumph over adversity. If a game fails to balance its challenges with the eventual fiero of victory, the experience might disappoint the player as too easy or offer so much frustration the player could quit. Golf leans into the frustration zone, so DiscoverGolf games keep it light.
“You risk exhausting a child if you push him or her into golf and teach via repetition,” Franklin adds. “That’s a mistake because you really don’t find repetition in golf. There’s constant randomness to manage. You have 14 clubs in the bag. You have the elements. You can hit any shot with any club at any time. A player never really does the same thing twice the exact same way on the golf course. We distill that experience down into our games.”
A given child matriculates through the DiscoverGolf games as the challenges become too easy, rather than hit age limits or forced graduation. The young player can head out to the driving range or the course to begin refining actual shot making skills with a foundation of abilities and philosophies refined by DiscoverGolf.
Introducing the system to the world took Franklin to 45 workshops around the world before setting up shop among the sun-drenched, million-dollar homes of Desert Mountain. As 2021 reopens the world, he’ll get back on the road to bring the system to new teaching spots, building on more than $175,000 in game sales through 2020.
While Franklin still enjoys teaching in the trenches at Desert Mountain, he knows there will come a time when he’ll need to step back into an executive role, allowing young instructors to work with the eager kids.
“There’s a time limit for that youthful exuberance of teaching children,” he says. “When that moment passes, you don’t want to be the 40-year-old guy trying to be cool for the kids. You can always be sure that those kids know when you’re no longer being genuine. There’s a saying in the game design world: ‘Never by cringy.’”
DiscoverGolf Featured on The Golfers Journal Podcast
Grip, stance, posture...yawn. Has junior instruction grown stale? Richard Franklin thinks so.
After 15 years of studying game design, Franklin brings a more playful approach to junior golf involving birds, eskimos and more unusual suspects. In his conversation with host Tom Coyne, the two unpack his unique teaching style while discussing game theories, adding more fun, and the importance of richer rewards. And for anyone who ever whispered “This putt is to win the Masters,” on the practice green—Franklin says you’ve been on the right track all along.
Because hell, golf is just a game after all, right?
A Message to the Parents
Watch DG Founder Richard Franklin present the methods behind DG’s foundation of child education. This is a must watch for any parent who is looking to broaden and grow their child’s educational experience of the world. Learn how DiscoverGolf singlehandedly builds emotional intelligence, strategic analysis, community, and more all through embracing the power of play.
" Tae Kwon Dough "
" Tae Kwon Dough "
There is a 0% chance that I take up TaeKwonDo.
0.
My family- my friends- my immediate network of acquaintances; we live in a TaeKwonDo – less world.
When a child rebukes the idea of “ golf “ it should be considered along the same lines as other complex motor skills that find themselves cloaked within its own sub culture of rituals- etiquettes- customs – and traditions.
But what about “ Tae Kwon Dough “ ?!
Oh, yes , Ill definitely play that !
But what is it ?
“Tae Kwon Dough” is a game …….. more like an event……. more like a sequence of games held together by a group of people steadfast in their belief for the underlying importance of the entire premise.
Even more , in this case - a way to conceptualize and administer the essence of Taekwondo.
So what is it ? EXACTLY?
“ Tae Kwon Dough “ is crazy.
It takes the best thing about Taekwondo ; smashing bricks ! and it lets you do it over – and over. But these bricks are different , their vibrant colors and foam constitution excites the mind and body for showcasing ones “ Taekwondough-ness” .
It gets better.
You have choices ! Not all bricks are created equal – some take precise knocks – other only respond to blunt trauma. Better yet their VALUE is abstracted into money $$ dominations , as well as their properties as engineering elements within ANOTHER game loop.
It gets better.
Your BEST FRIEND IS HERE ! And shoot ! shes earning money – smashing bricks – all while drying up critical resources pools that make you question your initial strategy .
Icing on the “ better yet” cake is your collective plot lines weaving amongst ( seemingly ) to life size Korean pagodas that adorn the scene. These artifacts are more than just FLOW – bait they are representations of YOUR – THEIR decisions , your impending confrontation ! and inevitability of an epic conclusion.
Tae Kwon Dough is DiscoverGolf.
And DiscoverGolf is respect.
Respect for the child.
By not heavy handedly foisting the values of TaeKwonDo on to the child, but rather yet focusing on meeting THEM – WHERE THEY ARE – NOW.
It is also respect, no, REVERENCE, for TaeKwonDo.
We are enlisting game design – social science – how humans make emotionally charged decisions and then “ rationally” explain them later - how human beings are arrested by PLAY ; transformed at a cellular level by its power- a consciousness around the cultural moment , AS A TOKEN of love, for the mothership – the muse – the reason for all of this in the first place- TaeKwonDo.
Richard Franklin
Richard Franklin is a play scholar , the Founder of DiscoverGolf , and Director of Junior Golf at The Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale, AZ.
Visit www.discovergolf.co to join hundreds of worldwide facilities that are getting more kids to " discover golf "
PGA of America X DiscoverGolf
PGA of America features DiscoverGolf as the newest and greatest approach to junior golf education…
Unlocking Junior Golf: How DiscoverGolf is Changing the Game
By Keith Stewart, PGA
Published on Friday, January 28, 2022
The most successful golf facilities are fueled by junior golf programs. Within those golf
communities, we find a couple very simple themes always exist.
Passionate coaching
Engaged children
Management support
If you are looking for a game changing solution to take your junior golf program to the next level in 2022 then make sure you keep reading. It’s amazing all the different ideas you can discover when you walk around the PGA Merchandise Show. Coincidentally, when we were looking for inventive junior golf solutions for facilities, DiscoverGolf really caught our attention.
Richard Franklin is passionate about getting kids involved in the game. His approach is unlike any other and the company’s two most important principles check off all the bullet points above. He connects with kids like no other coach in the space due to his research and education in behavioral psychology. Alongside industry leading engagement, he delivers support and scale to his partners.
DiscoverGolf is truly a turnkey junior community builder, but before we get to the logistics think about kids learning the game base upon their everyday lives. The lifeblood of Franklin’s philosophy calls upon genuine curiosity and competition through games. Patience, strategy, pressure, and focus can all be incorporated in teaching children the basic skills of golf.
With real rewards kids want, their attention is always on the coach. The behavioral background plays a huge part in making this program successful. Engaging kids in 2022 is a very difficult challenge. You truly won’t believe your eyes, or better yet, your child’s feedback after taking one of DiscoverGolf’s classes. It’s like going to a birthday party at TopGolf every day!
Two of the three traits you need to succeed involve the coaches and supervisors. Facilities are stretched thin in 2022, so even if your intentions are there, getting all of this done feels impossible. Here’s were Franklin’s industry knowledge really helps. His product is truly turnkey. He doesn’t just supply the gaming products, but the passionate coaches as well.
No longer will facilities have to hold back based upon labor constraints. DiscoverGolf is starting a revolution in growing the game. Their success will make your bottom line blow up at the facility. Watch this video with PGA Member Gavin Parker. Listen to Richard explain the simple things he can help you accomplish. Then take the next step and contact him. Once you start, you won’t believe the scale and goodwill you can generate.