Mark --
I'll try again. (This shouldn't take 350 minutes to write.)
As I was saying, before I was so rudely deleted...
As the father of a 10-year-old girl who is intensely interested in golf, and who has considerable talent -- but whose father is blessed neither with enough money to pay for all the balls she'd hit if I’d let her (a couple buckets a day, at $5-$6 per, all summer long ... and, of course, I'd have to hit a few, too, just to keep her company
), nor with a dues-paying membership in a golf club (with unlimited range privileges), I recommend that you build a top-notch practice facility -- along with as many holes, or as few, as the land will allow after you've built the practice ground.
If that's only three or four holes (with multiple tees, as someone above recommended), I think that's just fine -- if teaching kids to play is really the primary object of the facility.
Three or four holes is all that many kids really want to play, anyway, until they're ready for a bigger course. And if they want more? In the words of Ernie Banks: Let's play two! Or three! Or more!
I'd hope that this facility would be open to any kids who need a place to practice and to play, not just to poor and "at-risk" kids. (NOTE: If you build it the way I recommend, it'd attract a substantial adult patronage, too. Perhaps you could run it exclusively for kids till, say, 4 in the afternoon, then open it to adults, too. I know I'd be there, regularly, if there were a place like this in my area.) I'd be sure to offer season-long passes.
OBJECT: Let kids hit ALL the shots -- and lots of 'em. As Tom IV says, that's what they need, and they're not going to get enough of it unless their parents belong to the local CC (which these kids’ parents won’t).
Here's what I'd include in your practice area:
-- Driving range. Grass as much as possible, of course, but also mats for the wet days and the spring. Make sure they're those mats with the springy give, so that kids can learn to hit
down through the ball and take a "divot"; not those mats on concrete that teach you how to pick the ball with your irons . . . and how to develop a shank, lest you hurt your wrists by hitting down on the ball.
-- Well-defined greens on the driving range. Several of them: at, say, 100, 125, 150, 175 yards. I agree with what somebody said earlier: It’s not much of a thrill to hit to the 150-yard sign. But it can be a thrill to hit to a 150-yard green -- to see it hit and stop (or bounce up, run, and stop).. Make the greens the size of small, actual greens -- not those “greens” on the typical driving range that are about the size of a dining-room table. Put some hazards beside those greens: a bunker to one side, a shallow concrete-lined “pond” on the other. Let kids teach themselves how to avoid the hazards, in various winds, with variously shaped shots.
-- A BIG putting green. Some of it flat; some of it canted; some of it undulating. Real holes all over the joint (not just those crappy push-pin deals). Keep it fast. Let kids learn
uphill, downhill, sidehill, long, short putts.
-- A chipping/pitching green, big enough to simulate a real green. Build some mounds around it, and let the grass grow on some and cut it short on others. Leave a close-mown chipping area. Let the kids learn to hit from uphill lies, downhill lies, to close and faraway holes.
---------------------- Sponsor lots of putting and chipping contests -- short-game match-play tournaments and the like. Give away ice-cream cones as prizes, or something.
-- A few practice bunkers.
-- Most important of all, I think (perhaps beyond your budget, but perhaps not -- particularly if you can recruit some volunteer help ... from supporters of your program; from the local high-school golf team; from local golf clubs?): I would make sure that, during the Kids’ Hours, there would be one or more instructors who would wander around and offer free
assistance.
I’ve spent a fair number of hours at driving ranges and putting greens, and here’s what I’ve seen (95 percent of the time): men, women and (most painfully) children in the
process of grooving horrible swings ... while the teaching pros sit up in the pro shop waiting for someone to pay for their guidance. (I’m not dissing the teaching pros. They have a livelihood to make, and they don’t make it by giving away their services.) But the fact remains: Most of the people at driving ranges and putting greens are learning nothing
except bad habits, and there's no one there to help them do anything else.
There must have been a thousand times when I have just been ITCHING to walk over to someone and say: “Would you care for a little tip? Want to know WHY every shot you
hit is going straight right?” I know that I (an adequate player; far from professional) could help a great many of the people I see hitting balls, chipping and putting -- but I have no
standing, and I don’t feel like risking any hard feelings by accosting them. So, unless I get a clear signal of eagerness for help, I keep my mouth shut.
I wish I had a little badge that said: “Ask me for help. That’s why I’m here.”
Hope this gives you some ideas. Please keep us informed.