‘The Game Is Going To Look More Like America’

First Tee celebrates its 25^th birthday this November. The program blends youth golf instruction with a life skills curriculum offered in school, after school and in summer programs that introduce golf to children, with an emphasis on those in underserved and underrepresented communities who might not otherwise ever pick up a club.

The timing of the organization’s founding in 1997, amidst the early throes of Tiger Mania was no accident. First Tee sprung into existence just months after Woods’ record shattering 12-shot victory at the Masters ended the soft clap epoch, transforming golf into a game of roars.

Spearheaded by Tim Finchem, the World Golf Foundation launched First Tee with the backing of the sport’s major powerbrokers: Augusta National Golf Club, the LPGA, the PGA of America, the PGA Tour and the United States Golf Association.

“It was Tim’s vision. Clearly, he credits the excitement and growth around golf to Tiger’s emergence and what happened as a result of the Masters that year and the overall interest and excitement in the game. The view was, let’s try to leverage that,” First Tee CEO Greg McLaughlin, whose history with the big cat runs deep, explains. He not only helmed the Tiger Woods Foundation for 14 years but long before that he was the tournament director at the 1992 Nissan Open who gave Woods his first sponsor’s exemption to a PGA Tour event.

The USGA believed in First Tee’s mission from the get-go providing an initial three-year $3 million commitment that would grow over the years into a $30 million investment into a program that reaches over 2.2 million youth annually. To commemorate First Tee’s silver anniversary, the USGA has awarded grants to 25 chapters totaling $325,000 through their IDEA (inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility) program.

“I think with all the tour stuff that’s been going on in the last two years we’ve missed the fact that we are living through the greatest golf boom in the history of this game,” USGA CEO Mike Whan says.

The First Tee has played a significant role in that groundswell and Whan is encouraged by the evolving demographics of the game with women now comprising over a third of beginner golfers and non-Caucasian players now accounting for a fifth of the sport’s player population.

“It’s a pretty exciting time for our game. The future of the game is going to look more like America and the reason I know that is because junior golf looks more like America,” he adds.

Domestically, there are a network of 150 First Tee chapters operating in every state in the country that provide programming to 10,000 schools and 1400 golf facilities from coast to coast.

“If anyone thinks we have tapped into golf’s potential, they are kidding themselves. There is a long way to go to make sure every kid thinks about golf like they might about baseball and football and I think that’s possible,” Whan says.

“What people are waking up to is that golf is about so much more than golf. That’s probably true with other sports, but as much as I played football growing up I never remember anyone helping me with life lessons in football, even though I’m sure I was learning them—it wasn’t as evident,” he continues.

Four First Tee alums have gone on to earn PGA Tour cards including three-time winner Cameron Champ and on the women’s side Taylor Totland and Andrea Wong have logged time inside the ropes on the Epson Tour. Unsurprisingly the list of alumni impacted by First Tee who found success outside of golf as doctors, lawyers, software engineers and other various professionals is a much, much longer one.

Recent First Tee endeavors include a need and merit-based college scholarship program, that has so far helped send 46 kids to college. The goal is to reach the 100 mark by 2025. Beyond financial support recipients get paired with a mentor and receive professional development opportunities. Twice a year they make a trip down to Ponte Vedra, Florida for enrichment programs: learning resume writing, mock interviews, goal-setting and dress for success seminars.

“We’ve had kids go to Harvard, Yale, Georgetown and Duke—top universities across the country,” McLaughlin says.

First Tee also helps college students land internships and once their scholars graduate the plan is to further assist them with job placements. While academics is the focus and these are not athletic scholarships, quite a few of the recipients are currently playing college golf, a testament to the quality of the program’s instruction led by LPGA and PGA certified teaching professionals.

“Kids that have stayed in the program for 6 to 11 years, their golf ability has developed a lot and they’ve turned into good players.” McLaughlin explains.

In the early years of First Tee quite a few chapters were based in bare bones ranges or on fields hitting off of mats but as the program has matured chapter leaders gained access to much more comprehensive golf facilities which has been a major boon to skills development.

“We learned very early that you got to take them off the driving range at some point if you want them to be able to get better. They can only hit balls so long. They want to get out and play,” McLaughlin says.

In 2019 First Tee launched a $200 million fundraising endeavor, the largest capital campaign in their history which will wrap up in 2023. Despite a couple off years during the dregs of the pandemic they are still on track to meet the objective on schedule.

“Golf is healthy and so is the First Tee,” McLaughlin says, but like any great golfer he’s still always looking for ways to smooth First Tee’s operational swing.

Long-term goals on his wish-list include developing a distance learning technology to expose the program’s reach beyond kids who live in the vicinity of a local chapter and also enhancing remote training capabilities to remove impediments to becoming a coach. The more coaches they can train, the more kids they can ultimately reach.

Another program they are aspiring to develop is First Tee University, a series of online courses aimed at chapter leadership covering everything from recruiting board members and fundraising to proper governance.