YOUNGSTERS were given an introduction to the game of golf by a leading professional yesterday.

Sam Oliver, a coach at the luxury De Vere Slaley Hall hotel and golf complex, in Northumberland, visited Benfieldside Primary School, in Consett, to give years nine and ten pupils a guide to the basics using specially adapted equipment, including plastic clubs and Velcro targets.

The visit was part of a schools tuition programme designed to interest youngsters in golf in the hope that they may take to it and perhaps become the British answer to Tiger Woods.

Similar school courses run in the past by De Vere Slaley Hall proved highly successful. Many of the youngsters who took part went on to join coaching programmes and some have even become junior members of the golf club at Slaley Hall.

A spokesman for the complex said: "Now in its third year, the programme is for the first time being rolled out to County Durham to increase the number of youngsters benefiting.

"This year, children from ten schools across County Durham and Northumberland will have the chance to take part, thanks to funding from local businesses and the Government-funded sports sponsorship programme, Sports Match.''