BATH — Summertime opens the door for kids to sharpen their skills as sporting camps flood the Beaufort County area this summer season. The rains held off, the weather was great and the course was freshly mowed for a three-day junior golf camp at Bayview golf course in Bath this week starting on Monday morning.

Bayview golf course and country club is located at 49 King Blunt Dr. in Bath. It is a 9-hole golf course with the ability to play 18-holes with different tee box locations. The 2,830-yard course opened in 1975. Leon and Alice Wingate, the owners of the course, do their own mowing and upkeep of the course, which they were doing on Wednesday morning.

Golfers began around 9 o’clock every morning with lessons on the fundamentals of golf, before ending the camp with a tournament style event on the final day of the camp Wednesday.

This is the seventh consecutive year the junior camp has been held according to head golf coach at Northside, Jared Adams. He is also the director of the camp and has been for all seven years.

Every year, the camp’s location is at the same course Northside High School plays their home golf matches on, at Bayview.

“Every year it’s grown. The first year we did this we might’ve had eight to 10 golfers. Now, we have 29 golfers between the ages of 8 to 17-years-old,” Adams said. “It’s all about striking the kids’ interest. Making it competitive but making it fun gets them involved and makes them want to do it. They’re intrigued by it.”

The interest level of golf has risen in the Beaufort County area, and so has the level of play. This past year, Northside, Southside and Washington High Schools all made it to at least the regional level with their golf teams, while Washington and Southside both played at the state tournaments.

“It’s become kind of a tradition every summer now. Kids come out and make new friends, new connections, and they all look forward to the tournament,” Adams explained. “(This camp) kind of feeds the programs into the Beaufort County schools.”

Since the first year of this camp, Adams described how encouraging it was to see kids improve throughout their time participating in the camp.
“You know, I’ve seen a lot of these guys when they were 8 and 10 years old, now they have their license,” Adams said. “I’ve been able to see them progress into young adults and watch their game change. It’s uplifting (to see their games improve). You watch some of these 8-year-olds hit a good shot and they think they won the lottery.”

The kids enjoyed themselves. Some of them picked up a golf club for the first time during this camp. Adams, along with the rest of this year’s campers, are looking forward to returning next year.