Golf Academy

The UK’s Leading Golf Academy

Golf has always played a prominent role in life at Loretto, particularly since the founding of the Loretto Golf Academy (LGA) in 2002, the first of its kind at an independent school.  

In the last two decades, the LGA has established itself as one of the most successful school golf programmes in the United Kingdom, achieving 14 national titles and helping dozens of aspiring golfers further their golfing careers at US colleges and UK universities. 

Our programme offers three tailored squad levels:

Performance Squad who are especially talented and have aspirations for a career within the game.  

Development Squad who play the game competitively but who do not wish to pursue a career in the game. 

Club Squad who play the game for fun, social and competitive reasons.  

For those who aren’t part of the Golf Academy but want to learn, there are the Get into Golf and Girls Get into Golf programmes.  

Each squad is designed to provide age and ability appropriate coaching, tournament exposure and performance support. It is important to note that all players and programmes are valued equally at the LGA.  

For those in the Club Squad, we have designed a training programme built around one-on-one lessons, group training and playing sessions punctuated with a series of golf experiences along Scotland’s Golf Coast and at St Andrews. Lowering handicaps, fostering friendships and making memories are the objectives of this programme. 

For the Development Squad, we have three age groups of players – U12, U15 and U19 – who compete in the Loretto Order of Merit (2 x Matchplay, 3 x Strokeplay and 2 x Foursomes competitions). From performances in these competitions, we select teams to play in inter-school matches and in the Swift National Foursomes Championship. Winning the National Championships at both U15 and U19 level are this programme’s annual objectives. 

Finally, players in the Performance Squad participate in our own tour, the Loretto Junior Golf Tour. In 2025/26 we will host 6 World Amateur Golf Ranked (WAGR) and European Golf Ranked (EGR) events, along Scotland’s Golf Coast. The Tour is open to all aspiring junior golfers and is designed to help local talent gain multi-day competitive experience before they graduate up to the national tours and apex amateur competitions. The objective of this programme is to provide our players with the opportunity to be the best golfer they can be, whilst not compromising their academics or the mind, body, spirit ethos of Loretto.