The grants, which start at £500 ($840/€608), are available to all affiliated clubs and to driving ranges which have been awarded the RangeMark certificate.

The money must be spent on activities, coaching programmes or offers which encourage regular participation and lead to club membership.

These activities should include supporting new adult players or returners to golf to play regularly and providing more opportunities for disabled players to take part.

Attracting more women and girls to the game is also being encouraged along with the provision of regular, structured coaching, playing and competitive opportunities within clubs for juniors, both members and non-members.

The Play More Golf fund supports the emerging England Golf Strategic Plan which sets out to inspire people of all ages to make golf a part of their life and is primarily aimed at reversing the trend of declining club membership.

It is being supported by the England Golf Partnership, which brings together England Golf and the Professional Golfers' Association, the Golf Foundation and Sport England National Lottery funding.

"We are making a substantial investment in this fund to work with clubs and ranges to attract more players and to encourage more members and stronger golf clubs," said England Golf's club services and development director, Richard Flint.

England Golf hopes the new funding will encourage more women and girls to take up the game ©Getty Images



Golf has had around £500,000 ($840,000/€608,000) of its overall funding cut by Sport England following the publication of its Active People Survey in December 2013, which indicated that participation numbers had decreased from 771,000 to 751,000 in the year up to October 2013.

Next month also sees the launch of the National Golf Month campaign, which aims to offer opportunities to beginners and 100,000 lapsed golfers to try the game and includes coaching courses with Professional Golfers' Association professionals.

For more information on the Play More Golf fund and the National Golf Month, click here.

To apply to the Play More Golf fund, click here.

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