01한 챔피언의 30년 기부, 골프의 미래를 심다
"골프를 성장시킨다"는 표현은 골프계에서 자주 사용되는 말이지만, 닉 팔도는 30년에 걸쳐 자신의 주니어 골프 시리즈를 만들면서 그 말이 무엇을 의미하는지 실제로 보여준 인물이다.
팔도 시리즈의 주니어 파이널이 벨프리에서 개최되는 올해는 특별한 의미를 갖는다. 30주년을 맞이한 팔도 시리즈는 단순히 팔도의 경력을 축하하는 것을 넘어, 젊은 세대를 위한 기회를 만들어온 그의 헌신을 재확인하는 자리이기 때문이다.
021996년의 출발, 그리고 45개국 4만 5천 명
팔도 시리즈는 1996년 영국에서 시작되었다. 팔도가 직업 생활에서 얻은 경험을 젊은 선수들에게 전하기 위한 프로그램이었다. 초기 프로그램은 팔도 팀과 함께 발전했고, 선도적인 주니어들이 팔도의 경험에 직접 접근할 수 있는 기회를 제공했다. "우승자들을 플로리다로 데려가 영국의 겨울에서 벗어나 좋은 잔디에서 연습할 수 있게 하고 싶었어요"라고 팔도는 회상했다. 그 첫 여행에서 시작된 전역 주니어 통로는 이제 4번째 십년을 맞이하고 있다.
30년 동안 팔도 시리즈는 45개국을 방문하며 4만 5천 명 이상의 주니어 선수들이 참가했다. 50개의 그랜드 파이널을 개최했으며, 그 중에서 70명 이상이 프로 선수로 진출했다. 로리 매킬로이, 타이렐 해튼, 마르코 펭제, 대니 윌렛, 닉 더거티, 야니 싱, 찰리 헐 등이 모두 팔도 시리즈를 통과한 선수들이다. 이번 주 열리는 허스크바나 브리티시 마스터즈에도 시리즈 출신 선수들이 여럿 참가한다.
30년의 세월 속에서 팔도 시리즈가 흔들릴 순간들이 있었지만, 팔도는 그것을 허용하지 않았다. 자신의 미션에 대한 신념이 흔들리지 않았기 때문이다. "시리즈의 기본 목표는 항상 아이들에게 기회를 주는 것이었어요"라고 팔도는 말했다. "다양한 코스, 시간대, 잔디 종류, 햇빛, 다양한 음식들을 경험하게 하면서 그들 경기 수준과 커리어를 한두 단계 올려주는 거죠."
03매킬로이와 더거티, 시리즈가 만든 스타들
팔도 시리즈의 가장 유명한 동문은 로리 매킬로이다. 매킬로이는 먼저 팔도 시리즈 주니어 토너먼트들을 통과한 후, 팔도 팀에 선발되었다. "팔도 시리즈를 통해 많은 이점을 얻었습니다"라고 매킬로이는 말했다. "영국 전역의 주니어 골프 토너먼트에 참가했고, 팔도 팀의 일원으로 캘리포니아와 홍콩으로 여행을 다녔어요."
닉 더거티는 1997년 포레스트 오브 아든에서 팔도 시리즈를 우승한 후 팔도와 9홀을 함께 플레이했다. 그 이후 더거티는 팔도와 깊은 관계를 맺게 됐다. 팔도는 더거티의 어머니가 심장마비를 겪었을 때 플로리다 최고의 심장 전문의를 찾아주었고 병원 이전을 주선했다. "다른 누구도 팔도처럼 손을 내밀어주지 않았어요"라고 더거티는 회상했다. "그것이 팔도 시리즈의 진정한 가치, 그리고 개인적 측면의 진가입니다."
0445,000명 중 70명, 그리고 5,000명의 신입
팔도는 이렇게 말한다: "1,000명을 도와야 1, 2명이 나와요. 지난해 아시안 시리즈 우승자는 고토 아이라는 16세 일본 여자 선수였어요. 소년부와 소녀부를 모두 우승했고, 4월 오거스타에서 ANWA를 뛰었으며, 정말 믿을 수 없는 골프 능력을 보여줬어요."
코로나19 이후 시리즈는 새로운 성장을 맞이했다. 팔도의 아들 매튜가 참가 선수 수가 두 배 증가했다고 전하자 팔도의 반응은 즉각적이었다: 다른 코스를 찾고 공간을 만들자는 것이었다. 팔도 시리즈는 항상 누군가를 돌려보내기를 원하지 않았기 때문이다. 선수 수는 120명에서 240명으로 확대됐고, 여성 비율은 약 15%에서 30%로 상향되었다. 이 모멘텀이 팔도 푸처스의 탄생으로 이어졌다.
이제 팔도 푸처스, 팔도 주니어 시리즈, 팔도 엘리트 시리즈라는 3개의 투어가 존재한다. 현재 약 5,000명의 7~12세 어린이들이 160개 클럽에서 참가하고 있으며, 내년 250개 클럽 확대가 목표다. 팔도는 더 이상의 글로벌 스폰서를 찾고 있다. "우리는 모든 상자를 체크하고 있어요"라고 팔도는 말했다. "남자, 여자, 골프, 건강한 스포츠. 모두 갖춰진 프로그램인데 왜 더 많은 글로벌 스폰서가 없는지 이해가 안 가요."
우리는 모든 상자를 체크하고 있어요. 남자, 여자, 골프, 건강한 스포츠. 이런 프로그램을 더 많은 곳에서 지원하면 좋겠습니다.
05Original (English) — DP World Tour
The phrase "growing the game" is a term that is often thrown around in golf settings, but Sir Nick Faldo is one who can legitimately claim to have done it through three decades of building his junior golf series, 'The Faldo Series'.
As the Faldo Futures Final returns to The Belfry, a landmark year celebrates not only Sir Nick Faldo's achievements, but his enduring commitment to creating opportunities for the younger generations.
We sat down with Sir Nick to talk about the Series, its incredible progression, and his ambitions for its future.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, in the same year Sir Nick celebrates the 50th anniversary of turning professional and 30th of his 1996 Masters triumph, the impressive longevity of this Junior Series is perhaps what says most about the character of the most successful English golfer of all time.
Since 1996, Sir Nick has poured his experience, time and money into giving young golfers a route forward and opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise had. He has attended almost every Grand Final, never taken a penny from the Series and, on occasions, propped it up financially to keep it moving.
The Faldo Series began in Great Britain in 1996 as a way of giving young players the sort of high-quality practice and experience Faldo had learned to value during his own career. The early programme developed alongside Team Faldo, giving leading juniors direct access to his experience.
"I thought, well, if I take the winners to Florida, get them out of the British winter, because I knew how valuable it was to practise on good ground, with the sun on your back," he said. "So we took them to Florida for almost a full week."
From that first trip grew a global junior pathway now entering its fourth decade.
From small beginnings to a global offering for junior golfers, the scale of the Series is only emphasised by its impressive numbers.
Since its inception, the Series has seen over 45,000 juniors play in events across 45 countries visited worldwide, with 50 Grand Finals and over 70 players who have made it to the professional ranks. Among those are Rory McIlroy, Tyrell Hatton, Marco Penge, Danny Willett, Nick Dougherty, Yani Tseng and Charley Hull, and this week's Husqvarna British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo sees several players in action that have competed and come through the Series.
Over the last three decades there were moments when the Series might have faltered, but Faldo refused to let it, his confidence in the positivity of its mission unwavering.
That patience is now paying off. The 2026 Futures Final takes place at The Belfry on August 26 and 27, alongside the Husqvarna British Masters hosted by Faldo, with finalists earning not only a place on the course but the opportunity to learn directly from him.
"That's always been the goal of the Series," Faldo said. "Just to give the kids an opportunity, give them opportunities and experiences.
"To go and play different courses, different time changes, different grasses, different sunshine, obviously different food, it's all kind of giving them a little taste of trying to take your game and your career up a notch or two.
"30 years on, I'm very proud that, well, when we look out, we've got lots of players who may have just played in the Series. I'm delighted that I meet so many people now in the industry of golf and they go, 'I played the Faldo Series', it might be 25 years ago, they remember it, which is very cool."
Faldo's influence is perhaps best understood through Nick Dougherty, who grew up watching Europe's most successful golfer before winning the Faldo Series at the Forest of Arden in 1997 and being invited to play nine holes with his hero.
"It was like a dream come true," Dougherty recalled. "You'd met your hero, played golf with your hero."
Not long afterwards, Dougherty and his father drove from Liverpool to St George's Hill through lashing rain, expecting the session to be cancelled. Faldo was waiting with an old-fashioned camera and spent six hours filming his swing and hitting balls with him.
"No one to see it, no one to cover it, no one to give him the plaudits," Dougherty said. "He didn't care about any of that. He just wanted to do the right thing."
That personal access set the Series apart. Faldo was not simply the name on the door: young players met him, played alongside him and learned how a champion prepared, travelled and thought. "I think it was the first of its kind at the time," Dougherty said. "You certainly didn't get to meet them or play golf with them like I did, and actually end up getting mentored by them like I did."
The first winners escaped the British winter for the Faldo Golf Institute in Orlando, where 12 juniors practised and played each day with Faldo alongside them. Team Faldo later travelled to California and Hong Kong, exposing players not only to better conditions but to the realities of taking a game abroad.
"It was more seeing things from a professional standpoint, which is gold dust, It's not just the name on the door. It's him. He's hands on. He cares," added Dougherty.
Faldo's guidance followed Dougherty into the professional game. Before his first Masters, the three-time champion spent around five hours over dinner taking him through Augusta National hole by hole, using his own yardage books to explain the pin positions a debutant could expect. Dougherty made the cut and believes that accumulated knowledge may have been the difference. "He was willing to do that. He wanted to do it," he said. "It gave me a leg up on everyone else that was maybe a newbie."
The most profound example came quickly after, when Dougherty's mother suffered a heart attack while he was competing at Harbour Town.
"I was in contention in Harbour Town on the PGA TOUR going into the last round and mum had a heart attack, they were down in Orlando," said Dougherty. "So obviously life turns upside down, pull out of the tournament so don't even play the last round, drive down to Orlando from Harbour Town and mum's in it, she's in a coma but we don't know what's going on, the heart was the big issue but now we don't know if she's had enough oxygen to the brain, all this sort of stuff. Nick knew the best cardiologist in Florida and organised to have her airlifted to this other hospital where she could see the best guy. And in the end, her heart would have recovered. Unfortunately, she was without oxygen for too long to the brain. I've spoken to Nick about it, but it's not actually something I've talked about that much before, really, because it's quite a personal thing, but it's an example of how the personal side of Nick is actually one of the reasons why his business in the Junior Series and almost that level (is successful). And it comes across in the Junior Series. He leaves no stone unturned and I think (his son) Matthew running it now is a lovely touch too."
Dougherty won three of the first four editions of the Series. Rory McIlroy followed, first through its junior tournaments and then Team Faldo. He travelled to California and Hong Kong as part of an elite group of young British and Irish players.
"I benefited from a lot of those initiatives growing up," said McIlroy "I was part of the Faldo Series that put on junior golf tournaments around the UK. I was part of a thing called Team Faldo which is like an elite team of the best juniors in the UK. That we got to travel a couple of times a year to California or to Hong Kong once, as well. So there were things that I was exposed to that definitely helped my progression as a golfer."
Tyrell Hatton is another player who has fond memories of the Faldo Series, having experienced his first time playing overseas.
"I did play in the Faldo Series growing up," he added this week.
"I remember I ended up going to Brazil for the final. I think I was 15 at the time. I qualified at Walton Heath. I think that was really my first experience of going that far away from home. I'm pretty sure my parents weren't on the trip. Obviously we were well looked after. There's a lot of kids in different age groups but that was certainly an experience for me.
"I think it's pretty impressive what Sir Nick has done with junior golf and the events he putts on for kids. I was fortunate enough to be able to play them, too."
For Marco Penge, memories of qualifying for a final at Lough Erne include a childhood photograph with McIlroy and the sense that each event was helping to bring an ambition closer.
"All these things are great stepping stones if your aspirations are to become a professional golfer and play on the DP World Tour," Penge said. "The most important thing for the game is to continue giving people opportunity, and that is where the great stories come from."
Cameron Adam has been the most recent breakthrough star. A winner during his time playing on the Faldo Series, Adam made it to a Grand Final in the United Arab Emirates, which took him abroad for the first time.
"I think the Series is amazing," he said. "I think that was my first time playing abroad. I went away with the Series to the grand final in UAE. They've been super supportive kind of ever since I've kind of gotten involved. And yeah, I think what they're doing for the development of golf is brilliant, putting on a load of tournaments and giving guys a purpose to go and play and goal to qualify for something, so yeah, it's brilliant, that's awesome."
The reach can be more profound still, and the Grand Finals have always been designed as more than a reward. They place young golfers in unfamiliar conditions and ask them to adapt to new courses, grasses, climates, food and cultures. It is a condensed taste of the professional life, where performance may depend on how quickly a player becomes comfortable somewhere new.
Faldo remembers three sisters, triplets, travelling across Europe in a camper van in pursuit of three qualifying places. One secured hers in Germany and the family drove on to further events in Poland and the Czech Republic until all three had made it. It is a story of persistence, but also of the pull of these Grand Finals .
Faldo also recalls a young player from a remote community who had grown up playing a rudimentary nine-hole course among the rocks. Before reaching a Series event, he had never left his country, flown on an aeroplane or stayed in a hotel. Golf carried him into each experience for the first time. When Faldo later met him at an Asian Grand Final, the transformation stayed with him.
"He hasn't flown, he hasn't stayed in a hotel in his life, okay And he somehow goes and plays a qualifying event… So he's suddenly flown for the first time, stayed in a hotel. So he's now at Singapore playing in the Asian Masters. I meet him and he's in his blue jacket… a 16-year-old boy, mega smart and everything. I couldn't believe it."
There are similar stories across the map: Faldo recalls a player from a favela in Rio de Janeiro travelling to Germany with ambitions of supporting his family, and juniors taking overnight trains across India simply to tee it up. From Iceland to Turkey, and from Nepal to Chile, the Series' scale is counted not only in tournaments and countries, but in the distance young people are prepared to travel for an opportunity.
It would be easy to tell the Faldo Series story solely through its most famous graduates. Faldo's ability to recall far more speaks to the opposite of that.
"You have to help 1,000 to get maybe one or two," he said.
"Our Asian Series winner last year was a young girl called Ai Goto. Sixteen-year-old Japanese girl who won the boys and the girls. She played the ANWA at Augusta in April and she's an unbelievable golfer. What an experience she's had through the Series."
If the original Series was built to help talented juniors travel further, Faldo Futures represents the reward for Faldo's refusal to stand still. Its roots lie in the unexpected surge that followed Covid, when his son Matthew – who helps run the Series - called to say participation had doubled and asked what they should do.
Faldo's response was instinctive: find another course and make room. The Series had never wanted to turn anybody away. Fields expanded from 120 to 240, the proportion of girls rose from roughly 15 per cent to around 30 per cent, and the momentum helped inspire Faldo Futures, an accessible first step for children aged seven to 12. Now there are three Tours: Faldo Futures, the Faldo Junior Series, and the Faldo Elite Series.
Three years in, around 5,000 children played across 160 clubs this season and the ambition is to reach 250 clubs next year. For Faldo Futures, the programme's nine-hole, shortened-course format is designed to make competition welcoming and accessible before the best progress to regional events and, this week, the Final at The Belfry.
It is the clearest sign of patience paying off. A Series that Faldo once had to sustain himself now has the breadth to create a genuine entry point into competitive golf, with a growing staff, rising participation and plans to carry the model further across Europe.
For all that progress, Faldo believes the next leap depends on finding a global sponsor who recognises the scale of what has been built: 30 years of history, boys and girls competing across continents and a proven route from a first experience in golf to the professional game.
"I can't believe we don't have a couple more global sponsors because we tick all the boxes," he said. "We've got boys and girls, it's golf, it's healthy sport. It's really encouraging for youngsters."
The hope is not sponsorship for its own sake. Faldo wants the resource to take Faldo Futures across Europe.
"More is better," he said. "More golfers, more events."
The clearest measure of that appetite came at The Belfry last year. Faldo was accustomed to asking older juniors if they had any questions and being met by silence. When he put the same question to 120 children aged seven to nine, every hand went up. "I got 120 kids, I got 120 hands go up," he said. Soon they were in a bunker with him, each wanting to hit the next shot. "The enthusiasm is fantastic."
That enthusiasm is driving the next phase. Faldo is developing colourful AI-led instruction aimed first at introducing children to the fundamentals of golf. TrackMan competitions and parent-child events bring another route into the game, while Faldo Series Media offers young people experience in filming, editing, interviewing and presenting.
The projects may look different from a week of practice in Florida, but the overall goal of junior participation and pathway is unchanged. Faldo is still searching for ways to make expertise accessible, to create a destination worth chasing and to give a young person a first glimpse of where golf might lead - with plenty of big names that can already show what's possible.
Features
This year sees our host of the Husqvarna British Masters Sir Nick Faldo celebrate 50 years since he turned professional.
