Clubs need to start embracing the youth because it's vital for the future of the game as it teaches human values.
His book, Golf A Course In Life (2005), teaches players to take responsibility for their own actions, etiquette and behaviour.
"It's the only game where a grandfather or grandmother can play with their grandchildren on equal footing and both can come away satisfied."
Ostracising teenagers from golf courses is myopic.
"We're all teenagers, we all need to grow and we all need to learn and unless we find a way to make golf affordable the game will die," he says, confessing he doesn't have the answer but is willing to give away gear to help the cause.
World No1 women's professional, Lydia Ko, he reckons is a "very proud New Zealander".
It cast his mind back to his university days in Australia when a woman complained Asians were winning all the awards, claiming it was "un-Australian" to study so much.
"I thought to myself what does that mean. We're Australians when we turn up to Olympics and nobody trains?"
Ko, he believes, isn't just the best professional golfer this country has produced but arguably the best sportsperson.
"I know it goes against the grain of a country besotted by rugby. I love rugby and I'm very proud to be a New Zealander but what this woman's doing is extraordinary.
"Moreover, she's doing it with grace," says Hanlon, reflecting on how American professional Stacy Lewis once pointed out it was hard to dislike Ko because if opponents did they would have a better chance of beating the South Korean-born teenager.
Ko's propensity to train epitomises the Asian work ethics and lends credence to the edict that success is metaphorically 10 per cent inspiration and the rest is attributed to perspiration.
"The day you stop learning is the day you're dead, not the day you stop breathing."
Hanlon says golf went through the Greg Norman craze and now it's the Jason Day phenomenon in Australia.
He believes the young nowadays don't have enough heroes.
"Otherwise why would they watch the Kardashians.
"They can't watch our generation because they think the boomers wrecked the world," he says with a grin.
Enter Ko and Kiwi singer Lorde.
"Lorde has carved a career but she's done it her way. She hasn't bent the wheel of the big machine. She's done it in a very good and strong way.
"Lydia is representing New Zealand in a wonderful way. She's not only strong in her sport but extraordinary, humble and a good human being.
"I've never heard a person say a bad word about Lydia Ko and she's way beyond her years," says Hanlon, suspecting the code has taught her that in the company of older people.
While that makes Ko a solid role model, many people feel that also makes her feats unattainable.
"Everyone sort of dodges around the elephant in the room and the elephant is our indigenous people dealing with child beating problems and issues like that," says Hanlon, emphasising Bay author Alan Duff doesn't belong to that side-stepping brigade.
"The Maori friends that people like you and I have are the most gifted people you'll ever have.
"They are amazing sportspeople because anyone who went to school in New Zealand knows that," he says, in awe of former US Open champion golfer Michael Campbell as the best striker of the ball he has seen and someone he followed on tour.
That, he argues, is not unattainable. He suspects golf has become inaccessible more perhaps because of a social divide rather than an economic one.
"I think we think that they think golf is not a place to go to," he says, believing Maori golfers are keeping alive most country clubs in New Zealand not just as players but as greenkeepers and volunteers.
"I'd just hate to see that go away," says Hanlon who spent a week honing his skills with Doyle.
