Golf is a game adults come to understand as complicated and frustrating, yet simultaneously pure and beyond addictive.

Hawaii Junior Golf Day aims to break it down to its basics for beginners. When the Hawaii State Junior Golf Association and Aloha Section PGA hold their fourth annual Golf Day Saturday at 12 courses, the aim is solely to make the game simple and fun.

Initially, organizers hoped to draw about 360 kids in 2012. They underestimated the demand. More than 700 have participated statewide each year. 

Thanks in part to relentless public service announcements on Oceanic that feature Kapalua’s Mark Rolfing, an NBC golf analyst, 600 are already signed up for Saturday, with the usual influx of “game day” registrants expected. That includes 125 at Ko Olina Golf Club, which had to cut registration short.

The primary goal for the day remains the same: reach kids — and their parents — who have even a slight interest in the game and give them something good to think about.

“Most importantly, we want the kids to know how fun the game is,” says Ko Olina director of golf Greg Nichols, “and if they really want to succeed in the game, how important it is to be a well-rounded student-athlete.”

The Aloha Section’s original proposal in 2012 revolved around six goals: grow the game and promote junior golf; provide a road map for interested parents to get their child involved; plant a seed for a lifetime of golf; promote all programs involved with junior golf; promote goodwill for those involved in junior golf, and; “keep it fun, simple to run and informative.”

From the outside, Hawaii Junior Golf Day appears to be organized chaos. 

Along with some 60 PGA pros, 150 HSJGA volunteers take part. 

Stations are set up for putting, chipping, full swing and one designed by PGA Sports Academy that features all of the basic athletic skills, which are worked into the initial swing. All 12 sites have age- and size-appropriate equipment from US Kids and SNAG.

“The idea is we want to make the two hours as action filled and as fun an experience as possible for the child,” Nichols says. “Children have a lot of energy obviously and we want them to be able to exercise that energy within a safe atmosphere and of course, while also respecting their fellow players.

“The atmosphere is somewhere between Augusta and the 16th grandstand hole at Phoenix — probably closer to Phoenix, without the alcohol of course.”

Parents are introduced to the Roadmap to Junior Golf, an online resource with information and contacts for every program in the state that offers kids an opportunity to learn, play or compete.

“Both the ASPGA and HSJGA understand that while it’s great to introduce a child to the game,” Nichols says, “it’s another issue to find ways to retain the child’s interest in playing the game.”

It helps to have tour players as charismatic as Michelle Wie, Rickie Fowler, Lydia Ko, Rory McIlroy, Justin Spieth and Patrick Reed moving on up. Their games, personalities and even their clothing are fun to follow and dramatically different than the previous generation. So is the increasing emphasis on an international game, which will only grow when golf shows up at the Olympics in 2016.

Nichols believes the game’s greatest challenges are affordability, access and time — all elements Saturday’s free clinics address. He considers competition from other sports a positive.

“We know that the best junior golfers are often the best athletes and students,” says Nichols, who is having another free junior clinic next month with scholar-athletes Mari Chun and David Fink. “We know that the best professional players from every other major sport wish that they had played golf as a kid. That’s a message we’re trying to get to kids and their families.”

The Roadmap to Junior Golf is available on the Aloha Section (aspga.com), Hawaii State Junior Golf (hsjga.org) and Hawaii State Golf Association (hawaiistategolf.org) websites.

Courses participating Saturday are Puakea and Princeville Makai on Kauai, Hawaii Prince, Ko Olina, Koolau, Olomana and Turtle Bay on Oahu, Kaanapali, Waiehu and Wailea on Maui and Hilo Muni and Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii.