The Bermuda Golf Association have taken the first steps towards developing an elite golf programme for the Island's best young players.

The BGA are looking at Port Royal Golf Course as the site for a new national academy, with future plans including the hiring of a national coach.

While the movement is still very much in its infancy, the long-term goal is the creation of a Team Bermuda, where the best of the Island's golfers would be exposed to better fitness, nutrition, and specialised coaching.

"Some of the players have said they would settle for just being given free balls," said BGA vice president Alan Gamble. "But giving them free balls isn't going to do a whole lot, it's got to be more advanced than that.

"Obviously there are questions, such as who would be the coach, would we eventually have a national coach, in the short term do we get two or three of our better teaching professionals to help out? It's in its infancy, but it's needed, and these are all questions that need answering, and are all things we are trying to work out.

"In the longer term everything has to be professionalised really, the days of an amateur approach are gone, we see it in all the other sports, football and cricket, they pay national coaches."

The foundation for an Elite Development programme was laid at the governing body's AGM two weeks ago, when physio Craig Brown, and Ocean View superintendent Nick Mansell were appointed to oversee it's creation.

Primarily tasked with identifying young talent that needs to be nurtured beyond the auspices of the Bermuda Junior Golf Association, the pair will also create an environment where future Bermuda teams will travel to overseas competition better prepared than ever before.

"Traditionally we pick teams, and we send them away, and there's no coaching programme, there's nothing to prepare them for the higher level, than just go out and play," said Gamble

"At the moment what happens is a junior golfer goes to college, plays well, gets everything that you get at a US college, and then all of a sudden comes back to Bermuda and there is nothing here to advance them.

"It's always been a problem in golf, from a cost point of view, from a participation point of view, what seems to happen is you get juniors, and they play, and everything is well organised. Then they go to college, then all of a sudden everything stops, they come back, they want to join a club, and it's expensive.

"Our job is to give them an avenue, the ones that do want to carry on, can try to improve their game. I don't know to what extent we can realistically do that, but to this point the BGA hasn't really had a programme in place that takes over from the BJGA.

"The BJGA did a really good job for a while, they've kind of collapsed over the past few years. But they are imposing some standards again, and so what we are trying to do is take that next step, so when they leave juniors, or if they are very good juniors, if we get a 15-year-old kid who can play to one or two or something, then they would go into the elite programme."

A new academy at Port Royal has been muted as a possible base for the new elite programme, but wherever it is, the focus will be on providing a place where players such as Camiko Smith, Jarryd Dillas, and talented teen Ryan Benevides can hone their skills.

"We're working with Port Royal at the moment, because there aren't that many places that have the facilities to be honest," said Gamble.

"We are trying to institute something were they would get coaching, a place to practice, the fitness side, you can bring a lot into it – it's still amateur golf, so you can talk nutrition, you can talk about all that stuff, but you have to be realistic. It's more about providing a place, where let's say, they can go and practice, where we appoint some coaches, who help with various aspects of the swing, and stuff like that."