GILBERT, Arizona – Mark Lowry, Founder and President, has announced the formation of a partnership between The National Golf Player Development Foundation and Junior Golf Hub to provide NGPDF athletes that are pursuing the development of competitive golf playing skills with a tool to centralize the resources and services pertaining to their journey.
Lowry, noted, “The collaboration between the NGPDF and the JGH will allow NGPDF members to access a service platform providing tracking of competitive progress and analytics to improve playing, mental and physical development.
He also noted that, “The joint collaboration creates opportunities for:
Building an informed support team (Player, Parent, Coach and Instructor) to assist the development of the competitive player
Provide the opportunity for participation in developmental camps and academy situations
Access to professional services (golf instruction, sports psychology, equipment fitting, etc.)
“We recognize that access and affordability to quality education, golf coaching and competitions are three of the most important factors to a junior athlete’s future success,” says Roger Knick, Founder of The Junior Golf Hub. “In keeping with our mission, we feel a deep responsibility to provide total access to the resources and services of JGH to all junior athletes and parents.”
Lowry noted “The remainder of 2022 will be used to identify and select our initial group of young people to become part of the NGPDF. Our goal is to work to develop the “Player Team” and begin operations early in 2023.”
Mark Lowry’s work and success with instituting a player development system was well documented in the mid-90s when, in 1995, he was selected to create and launch the Chicago Public School’s Elementary school golf training program to feed a struggling High School team program.
By 1998, the program began to receive national acclaim as over forty elementary schools were offering after school golf instruction while simultaneously, Mark expanded the high school golf program with growth from nine of the CPS system’s seventy-three high schools to over thirty who competed and advanced from city competition to producing qualifiers at the regional and state level.
In 1998, Lowry joined the new industry initiative, The First Tee, where for 20 years he held positions in senior leadership.
Lowry played a key role in developing the strategies that would guide the development and operations of the organization from a concept to a nationally recognized youth golf development organization. As Vice President of Network Management, Mark oversaw the development and support of the organization’s eight national regions and over 150 network chapters. These experiences gave rise to the National Golf Player Development Foundation (NGPDF)
Lowry says, “The time has come to support the efforts of the players, parents, organizations and institutions that are working to deepen the competitive player pool of players of color. The NGPDF, through its efforts to secure individual, corporate and industry funding resources and developmental partnerships, will identify deserving young players of color and provide support to individuals, programs and institutions that equally share the goal to increase the competitive player pool representing minority communities.”
For more information on NGPDF please contact us at www.ngpdf.org.
