Operation 36 Golf

A new project to encourage our youth to exercise and possibly spark their interest in a new sport teed off this weekend at the Canyon River Golf Course in Missoula Montana. Operation 36 headed by Joey Esh had their first event over the past weekend in order to cultivate golf in the younger ages.

The new program to Missoula is organized by a network of golf professionals across the nation that believe to increase interest in the game, they need to have a motivated player development organization to help introduce and develop skilled golfers. The organization is managed locally by PGA Golf Pro Joey Esh who has been involved with golf since a young age and has been working to develop golfers of all ages in Idaho until recently moving to Missoula.

The long term teaching and development program for golf was put together three years ago by two PGA professionals that were junior golf leaders who worked with youth development. Most other sports have an academy of some sort and the golf professionals wanted to create the same platform for golf in order to cultivate it. Joey explains what the goal of Operation 36 is, “The number one thing is it changes and flips the format in which we learn the game of golf.” With operation 36 golfers start from the green and work their way back to the tee box.

Operation 36 works with two groups of individuals, juniors from the age three to 18, and adults. Golfers start on the green outside the putting green and work their way back to the tee through a series of goals. The program is so advanced that it has an app for parents to track their young golfers progress, Joey talks about the benefit of the app, “When you give your kids to a coach you want to see their improvement. With Operation 36 you can see their progress and the goals they are working on with the app.”

Joey Esh’s target age group that he would like to work with is eight to eleven year olds in order to ignite a passion for the sport at a younger age. According to National Golf Foundation and the PGA, statistically if a person is introduced to the game of golf between the ages of eight and ten, you are twice as likely to play as an adult. Joey expresses what his objective is in starting Operation 36 in Missoula, “Our long term goal is create life time golfers.” The Operation 36 Academy is exclusively at the Canyon River Golf Course, the location in the state of Montana.

If are interested, or your son or daughter maybe interested in learning the game of golf, you are encouraged to check Operation 36 at  opoeration36.com, or by going to the Canyon River Golf Course website.