Iceland moves its junior golf league indoors for winter

Iceland's golf federation has started running its junior team league on simulators through the winter, treating the months when nobody can play outside as an opportunity rather than a gap.

The reasoning is one plenty of clubs elsewhere would recognise. Outdoor courses there are busy through a short summer and unusable for much of the rest of the year, which makes holding on to a young player's interest between seasons the hard part.

The winter league opened on 28 February with three further events to follow. Forty-two juniors took part, well up on the previous year, in six teams split across boys' and girls' divisions with six to eight players in each. The format is the same one used outdoors: two-player scramble over six holes.

Five PGA professionals worked across the competition, helping players taking their first steps into competitive golf. There were two holes in one and several chip-ins.

The day finished with a quiz, an awards ceremony and a pizza party, which tells you as much about the intent as the scoring format does.