The "Swifts" Tour - a British Independent Schools Golf Team
The Swifts Tour is a golf exchange between the UK and the Eastern States of the USA. A team of 8 British schoolboys tours the USA at Easter of the "odd" years, and a reciprocal US team tours the UK in the summer of the "even" years. It has been going since 1968.
The touring party of eight boys and two adults plays 18-19 matches on some of the finest courses on the Eastern Seaboard - covering about 3000 miles in the process. Recent tours have included matches at Pine Valley, Merion, Baltusrol, Congressional, Robert Trent Jones Club at Lake Manassas, National Golf Links of America, Maidstone, Somerset Hills, Columbia and Baltimore CC. It is a tour requiring exceptional stamina. The cost to each player will probably be in the region of £1750, which includes all travel, accommodation, green fees, most meals and also some team clothing, which represents quite astonishingly good value. This is an indication too of the level of goodwill and subsidy extended to the tourists on both sides of the Atlantic, and gives some hint as to the quality of individuals required to accept this in the right spirit.
While the competition and good golf are very important, it is not purely a case of selecting the best 8 golfers, although some recent successful Swifts have been exceptional players. Among the best of these have been Ross McGowan from the UK (Epsom College) in 1999 (English Amateur Champion, England International, +3 handicap, completed a full scholarship at Tennessee, winner of 2 events on the Challenge Tour in 2007), and Chris Nallen from the US in 1998 (PAC 10 Golfer of the year 2003, Walker Cup 2003, Palmer Cup twice, US Amateur Semi finalist, now between the Nationwide and PGA Tours).
Crucially, they should be personable young men, capable of blending into a happy and disciplined tour party. Perhaps the most important question to ask oneself when considering a possible candidate is: "Would I want to spend three weeks in a minibus with him?" The selected boys are expected to be outstanding ambassadors for their respective schools and country.
The Swifts Sports Trust is a separate trust, set up in the 1960's to support representative or semi-representative overseas tours by teams from a mix of schools in the UK.
The next Swifts Tour to the USA will be Easter 2009. Selection is through reference from the boy's Headmaster and Golf Coach, as well as a personal letter of application and a meeting with members of the selection panel.
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