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For decades, golf was the only major sport in the United States without a national development program. While that officially changed in 2023, the idea was hatched years earlier.
During their time as LPGA executives, Heather Daly-Donofrio and Mike Whan discussed the creation of a U.S. developmental initiative. If you were to scan a tournament practice tee, nearly every international player was a product of their home country’s federation. Given the LPGA’s global membership, however, the pair didn’t feel it was appropriate to ask its members to allocate significant dollars to a program that would only impact only a portion of them.
Whan left his role as LPGA commissioner to become the CEO of the United States Golf Association in 2021. A year later, Daly-Donofrio stepped away as the LPGA’s chief tour operations officer. She had planned on taking six months off, but just three months into her time away she got a call from Whan. The reason? To put a long-discussed plan in motion.
“I wasn’t quite ready to go back to work yet when Mike called,” Daly-Donofrio admitted, “but the opportunity to build something that I believed would truly change the landscape of American junior golf was something I couldn’t turn down.”
On Feb. 24, 2023, the USGA announced the launch of the U.S. National Development Program (USNDP), with a mission to identify, train, develop, fund and support the nation’s most promising junior players, regardless of their cultural, geographical or financial background. The USNDP includes plans for three national teams — at the junior, amateur and young professional levels — as well as a grant program to mitigate cost barriers for promising junior golfers.
The goal is simple: develop athletes who thrive.
Building a program
Daly-Donofrio, the program’s managing director, literally started with a blank sheet of paper and spent the first year building a strategy. She did so through extensive conversations with other countries about their national programs and by researching youth development programs across other sports in the U.S.
“It started out small, and it just got bigger and bigger,” said Daly-Donofrio, who competed on the LPGA Tour for 11 seasons, winning twice, before moving into Tour administration. “I will admit, at times it did seem overwhelming, but one year in we’re really excited about where we’ve landed and with our strategy for the next five to eight years. This is a long journey. We’re just getting started. We’re just scratching the surface.”
With the USNDP, the USGA has created the country’s first unified pathway to nurture the potential of America’s top players, starting in competitive junior golf and progressing to the pinnacles of the sport.
Since this kind of program is unique in American golf, it was paramount for the USGA to start at the junior level. Also launched in 2023, the grant program provides a way to build trust and understanding, with the goal of seeing these athletes all the way through to the collegiate and professional ranks.
In addition to the three national teams — the National Junior Team (with 10 girls and eight boys) debuted on March 26, 2024 — the grant program assists players with everything from entry fees and travel to coaching costs, golf course access and equipment. The program funded 71 juniors in 2024, with the number of grant recipients slated to increase to 100 for 2025.
The USNDP is also partnering with the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) to create a pathway for players to move up from state- and regional-level competition to gain national exposure, thanks to an increased number of exemptions into AJGA events. Other key resources for the USNDP include the 57 Allied Golf Associations across the U.S., LPGA professionals, the PGA of America, Golf Coaches Association of America and Women’s Golf Coaches Association.
USGA leaders knew from the start that they couldn’t build the program on their own. Partnerships and relationships with other organizations have created a productive ecosystem in which players can develop both on and off the golf course.
“I like to say that I beg, borrow and steal from everybody,” Daly-Donofrio said. “Having the expertise and support of the other golf organizations has been critical to us getting off to such a good start.”
With all those voices involved, it could sound like a noisy room. In reality, it’s been a relatively smooth start because of one shared belief.
“If we start going in different directions, what brings us back together is the notion that this is all about the kids,” Daly-Donofrio said. “It’s not what’s best for the USGA or the PGA of America or an Allied Golf Association, it’s what’s best for the athlete.”
The state model
Early on, the USGA brought together a working group of representatives from Allied Golf Associations as well as PGA of America sections to create a regional model. After just a few meetings, it became obvious what the group really wanted was a state model.
The program is currently in the first year of a two-year pilot plan. Seven states or regions were chosen for Year 1, and 125 athletes will be named to teams in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Ohio, Southern California and Tennessee at the end of 2024. A second bucket of states will begin to field their own teams in 2025.
“Our goal is to have state programs and state teams in all 50 states by 2033. I think we’ll crush that and get there sooner,” Daly-Donofrio said. “What we’re really trying to do is use the junior golf ecosystem in each state to encourage athletes to develop in-state and have something to aspire to.”
Think of the national program like a staircase to professional golf. The first step is to make your state team. Next up will be the regional team, then the national team. After the national team comes collegiate and professional golf.
A different path forward
Chris Zambri, a former college golf coach at the University of Southern California and Pepperdine, took the reins on Nov. 1, 2023, as the head coach of the USNDP and got right to work. That same month he spent four straight days with Sweden’s national program at its annual Turkey Camp, where players meet with their program officials in the U.S.
The Swedish structure consists of 20 high schools – two considered national, 18 considered local. Throughout their high school years, golfers receive instruction 3-5 days a week, which was eye-opening for Zambri. Once the players are college-age, most, if not all, come to the U.S. to play.
“Good information, [delivered] often, and interaction make you successful. I was furiously taking notes on all the things they were doing, and part of me was like, ‘Wow, this is interesting stuff. This is maybe the secret sauce,’” Zambri said. “Then you come to find out that these kids have been getting instructions from people within the federation for years prior to me seeing them at this Turkey Camp.
“A lot of progress can be made with that much interaction,” he added. “It made me realize the secret is that, from a fairly young age, they’re exposed to really good coaching, and a lot of it.”
“We are late to this game, but I tell everybody that there’s an advantage to going last, because you can learn from everybody who’s gone before you,” said Daly-Donofrio, who noted how cooperative federations in Australia, England and Japan, to name a few, have been with their resources, knowledge and time to help the U.S. get its program up and running. “They’ve shared things that have worked and things that didn’t work with their national programs.”
Other countries sharing successes and failures with the U.S. may seem anti-competitive. Simply sharing information, however, doesn’t mean the U.S. would automatically succeed in using it within its own strategy. Other program leaders think if they can elevate American golfers, then a rising tide will lift all ships and foster even more competition in the long term.
“Countries can share with us, but then we still have to do the work and make it our own,” said Beth Brown, Ph.D., the USNDP’s senior player development advisor. “If we’re better, then they’re going to get better, too.”
Brown may be new to the USGA, but she isn’t new to golf. She played in college at the University of Oklahoma and professionally on the Epson Tour before coaching at the University of Kansas, where she earned her Ph.D. in education. Brown also spent 15 years at First Tee, where she served as the managing director of chapter programs and research.
Zambri and Brown have been tasked to design a program that provides players with the physical, technical and mental tools to successfully compete at the highest level.
“When you think about developing athletes, we’re looking at a holistic approach. We’re developing athletes who thrive. It’s the foundation for everything we’re doing,” said Brown. “There’s no doubt that having mentally, emotionally and physically healthy athletes is going to help. We care about the athletes and families in our program, and we believe we can have better performance in the long run through that.”
Taking a holistic approach to athlete development isn’t new. Sweden is doing so in a way that fits with its culture. Now, the USNDP is doing so in a way that fits its own.
The U.S. model is similar in structure to national programs around the world. The big difference for the U.S. program is its sheer scale — especially with grants.
Beyond check writers
Of the 71 grant recipients in 2024, three are on the National Junior Team and near the top of the junior world rankings; others are ranked far lower in junior golf scoreboards.
“We’re certainly not married to the rankings as it relates to identifying and turning the talent through the grant program,” Daly-Donofrio said. “That is something significantly different, even from a philosophical standpoint, from other countries where we’re really trying to broaden, strengthen and diversify our junior golf pipeline.”
USNDP officials have yet to come across another country with a grant program as substantial as the U.S.
“All other federations and national programs do fund their athletes, but not in as proactive a way as we do,” Daly-Donofrio said. “We are trying to find promising boys and girls age 13 and above in every corner of the United States, who have the ability and athleticism and are shooting really good scores at the local level, but just haven’t had the opportunity to play outside of their local area.”
Several of the grant recipients have already been able to play outside of their state against better competition, and now they’re getting recruited by college coaches. A few have even won AJGA tournaments and earned status for next year. Zambri and Brown have held one-on-one sessions with many of them. Zambri’s assistant, two-time USGA champion and former LPGA Tour player and USC assistant women’s coach Tiffany Joh, works with grant recipients to help them apply data analytics to their game and practice sessions.
“When I started, my mind was very focused on the elite development part of the program, not necessarily the grant recipients. My mind has shifted toward both,” Zambri admitted. “We’re trying to make inroads in many ways, other than just taking our best players and making them better. We’re trying to take players who have a lot of talent but might not have the means and provide them with opportunities for instruction or practice or funds to travel and play a good schedule against good competition on good courses. We’re just trying to help American golf stay super-competitive and super-healthy and be a leader in the sport.”
