“Can we come back tomorrow?”
A young girl had just spent the afternoon swinging a golf club for the first time at Brightwood Golf Club in Dartmouth. And for Sara Wilson, who spearheaded Golf Nova Scotia’s Girls Try Golf program, the question was music to her ears.
Sara, now the organization’s executive director, and technical director Shaun Margeson, were focused on developing the province’s next wave of young golfers this summer and keeping them coming back.
Since the program launched in 2024, its growth has shown up on driving ranges, chipping areas and putting greens across the province.
“We recognized that if we’re not starting girls in golf early, we’re not going to have any competitors on our provincial teams moving forward,” says Sara, who was serving as the organization’s technical director when she launched the program.
In those early days, Girls Try Golf was largely a one-woman operation.
“It used to just kind of be me in my car delivering these sessions,” she says.
And the timing was no accident.
The golf boom that followed the global pandemic brought new faces to courses across Nova Scotia, and more of them were girls. But clubs built around a traditionally male membership weren’t always ready for the influx.
“It caught a lot of clubs off guard, in a good way, in terms of the number of people that were coming out,” says Sara. “My phone was suddenly ringing with clubs wanting some programming to accompany them.”
This season, Girls Try Golf took a big step forward, with registration surging from 25 girls in 2025 to 120 in 2026. Shaun, who stepped into the technical director role in February, ran five sessions between May and August on the North Shore, South Shore and in Central Nova Scotia.
“I couldn’t have done it without those grassroots Sara had planted previously,” he says. “It’s been a huge success this year.”
For most participants, ranging in age from six to 14, a Girls Try Golf session is their first time setting foot on a golf course.
“For them to show up to a big property, a beautiful facility, for the first time, it’s a treat,” Shaun says. “It’s eye-opening. Wow, this is what a golf course is like.”
Over 90 minutes, each group rotates through three stations: the driving range, a chipping area and the putting green. At Brightwood this summer, about 20 girls learned from Shaun and members of Nova Scotia’s junior girls team, including Mikelle MacDonald.
“It was so awesome. I loved it,” Mikelle says about the opportunity to be an instructor for the first time. “Seeing the girls get excited when they hit a good shot reminded me so much of when I would look up to the older girls and try to take advice from them.”
This year, the program received funding from Sport Nova Scotia to add five sets of junior clubs. It removed one of the biggest barriers to trying the game.
“You don’t need golf clubs to come out and play,” says Sara. “You don’t need anything. Just yourself.”
Mikelle knows what it’s like to be the new kid on the range.
The 15-year-old from Ashburn Golf Club in Halifax first picked up a club at six, drifted away from the game, then came back five years ago, mainly because she saw the joy the game gave her dad, Michael.
“He loves it, and I’m a lot like my dad,” Mikelle says. “I like to do the things he does. And there’s so much to love about golf. The friendships I’ve made, being outside, practicing and seeing results.”
Mikelle carries a two handicap and typically shoots in the mid-70s.
She finished third at this year’s provincial championship, earning a spot on Team Nova Scotia and her first trip representing the province at a tournament in Ontario. Her irons are the most consistent part of her game, and she calls herself a perfectionist who loves the strategy of plotting her way around a course.
“Whenever I hit a good shot, that’s just the best feeling for me,” she says.
And when Mikelle took to instructing the girls this summer, it opened her eyes to a whole new aspect of the game.
She noticed that girls had plenty of questions, and few were about swing mechanics. They wanted to know where she had travelled to play, how often she practiced and which tournaments were her favourites. They wanted to know what the road ahead looked like.
“It was something I hadn’t really thought about before,” she says, looking back on her first time coaching. “But that experience definitely showed me that it would be great to do again in the future.”
Young leaders like Mikelle are only part of the equation, though. Because Golf Nova Scotia doesn’t control its member clubs, which operate as independent businesses, each Girls Try Golf session depends on a club saying yes to the programming.
More of them are. Brightwood closes a hole on a Saturday to host, and its members notice.
“We hear from them when we’re on site that it’s so great to see all these girls,” says Sara.
Now clubs are calling Golf Nova Scotia to ask when they can host a session.
The hope, says Shaun, is that girls who try the game at a club will join that club’s junior program and help it grow.
The program is also building the coaching pipeline. Golf Nova Scotia has funded coaching certification for leaders at some host sites, and Sara, the province’s PGA coach facilitator, says about 80 percent of the coaches in last year’s sessions were women.
“It wasn’t long ago I was the only female in the room,” she says.
There’s a new sense of momentum. This year’s provincial women’s championship drew 144 players, and the province’s junior girls placed third at the Canadian Junior Girls Championship.
Asked what sets Nova Scotia apart, Sara points to community.
“We’re really supportive. We don’t leave anyone behind,” she says. “This is a place you can come and learn and be safe and do all things golf.”
Mikelle also has a message for the girls she coached this summer, and for any girl who swings, misses and wonders whether golf is for her.
“A lot of them try golf once, and they’re like, ‘Oh, I’m so bad at it. It’s not my sport,’” she says. “That’s kind of what I thought as well. They just need an extra little push, someone telling them to stick with it. You need reps. It will come.”
That’s the whole idea behind Girls Try Golf. The first swing is only the start. The real goal is the girl who asks to come back tomorrow.
