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The stats, both in terms of kids impacted and kilometres on the odometer, are mighty impressive.

And Matt Seifert is adamant that he is just getting started.

Seifert is determined to both give back and grow the game. That’s why he just returned from his latest RV road-trip to northern Alberta, travelling from course to course — and from campground to campground — to conduct clinics for juniors and women at facilities that don’t employ a certified teaching pro.

“There’s about 150 courses (across the province) with PGA of Alberta pros,” Seifert said. “And there are just shy of 300 that I’ve found that do not have a pro. My goal is to go to every single one of them. The only problem is it will take me about 10 years.”

That’s not so much a problem as a passion for Seifert, also an instructor at Golf Future in Calgary.

Two summers back, he was on the road for a 24-day stretch. He even made it as far as the Northwest Territories.

He had to cancel his plans in 2023 due to forest fires but was determined to hit the highway again.

“This latest one was 13 days, just me and a truck and trailer,” said Seifert, who covered more than 3,200 kilometres on his most recent roadie and worked with upwards of 500 golfers along the way — roughly 400 juniors, 140 women, and 20 dads or husbands. “I made it all the way up to High Level, which is the most northern golf course in Alberta. I made it to Fairview, where I had probably the best experience I’ve had on the RV tour. I actually had to go back for my day-off because there was such a demand for lessons.”

Seifert knows first-hand that the demand isn’t limited to Alberta’s major centres. 

While he’d started to groove his golf swing as a youngster in Calgary, he was just about to start Grade 10 when his family moved to the village of Linden, a farming community with a population in triple digits.

The nine-hole Acme Golf Club became his home hangout.

“All of a sudden, everything I had in the city, all the golf resources, everything was gone and I was kind of left to fend there for myself,” Seifert said. “But I just worked really hard and there were some people that didn’t know a lot about golf but still inspired me to pursue it as a career when no other kid in town was even looking at golf as a career. So, I was lucky. 

“I guess I’m one of the few professional athletes to ever come out of Kneehill County. So that’s pretty cool for me.”

There have been, in Seifert’s golf journey, plenty of pretty cool moments.  

He’s competed on the mini tours. He’s worked in Australia and New Zealand. He has volunteered at the Hero World Challenge in Bahamas, a star-studded shootout that benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation. That has provided the opportunity to chat with some of the biggest stars in the sport — from Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa to Nelly Korda and Michelle Wie and even Tiger himself. Seifert has a cherished photo with the 15-time major champion.  

“I’ve dined with celebrities and I’ve caddied for presidents and I’ve met Tiger Woods,” said Seifert, not boasting but rather explaining why he feels indebted to the game of golf. “I’m like, ‘This shouldn’t have happened to a small-town kid.’ This RV tour means the world to me, because it wasn’t supposed to happen to me. But it did.”

That is exactly why Seifert, who just turned 40, gasses up and hits the road — because he hopes it will eventually happen again for some other kid from some other speck on the map in rural Alberta. 

He plans to focus a little closer to Calgary in 2025, since he’ll soon have a baby at home. He has already started a list of stops in southern Alberta. 

“I’ve had parents who will tell me, ‘I haven’t been able to make my kid smile in two months and all of a sudden, you have them smiling and they want to come back to the golf course the next day,’” Seifert said. “For me, I get emotional just talking about it. But that was my goal to start. It wasn’t about making money. I just wanted to give back to the game of golf. It was if one small-town kid sees my tour bag, like I saw Ron Laugher’s or Dale Tomlinson’s or Greg Griffith’s when I was kid … If one kid decides to pursue golf and they get to live half the life I’ve lived travelling the world, to me that’s it. One kid is enough. 

“I’m very lucky right now that dozens and dozens of these hundreds of kids are starting to think, ‘I want to work in a pro-shop’ or ‘I want to play on the PGA Tour or the LPGA Tour.’

Things like that probably weren’t on their minds until I rolled through.

“I know we’re definitely inspiring a few kids out there. And with kids and sports, that’s what it is all about.”