The PGA Pro Bringing Healing Swings To Hospitalized Kids

Every Wednesday for the past 14 years, PGA professional Kevin Corn has brought weekly golf lessons—not to a driving range, country club or simulator bay—but to the hospital rooms, indoor play zones and even a repurposed baseball field just outside Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital.

The St. Louis-area healthcare facility has honored his weekly devotion by renaming its junior golf program the Kevin Corn Golf Academy, breaking the news to him at their annual Tee it Up For The Kids golf tournament last week where they raised $210,000.

Corn, the longtime director of golf at Innsbrook Resort, located an hour west of St. Louis, launched the initiative in 201. His goal was to introduce hospitalized children—many recovering from car accidents, brain or spinal injuries, or managing cerebral palsy and other complex developmental or physiological conditions—to the game of golf.

A brief yet impactful article in PGA Magazine, about a junior golf program in Dallas hospital spawned a robust re-imagining of that endeavor that has now reached over 2,000 children.

These patients learning to tee it up have often transitioned from an acute-care hospital but aren’t yet ready to return home. As a pediatric bridge facility, Ranken Jordan focuses on helping kids and their families recuperate while preparing for what is next. Unlike traditional hospital settings, patients dress in regular clothes, eat meals with their peers, and participate in activities that promote a return to a normal routine and playing golf has become a valuable part of that endeavor. Like aquatic, art, and music therapy, golf is simply another modality to encourage play, engagement, and healing through joy and movement.

“The key to so many of our patients is unlocking that one special thing that they love to do,” Ranken Jordan chief nursing officer Kristin Larose explained. “Then all of a sudden they want to do therapy and they start healing so much quicker. Some of our kids have never seen or experienced golf and it becomes that magical thing that lights them up. They begin to want to move more, get outdoors more and use their arms and use their legs because they’ve discovered golf. Kevin has been instrumental in creating that excitement.”

For ambulatory patients clinics are held on a baseball diamond outside the facility donated by former Cardinals manager Mike Matheny’s Catch-22 foundation. There’s also a recreational zone indoors called Warner’s Corner, after the football great who led the Rams to victory at Super Bowl XXXIV. Corn has dubbed the outdoor area, which also features two adjacent putting areas, Ranken Jordan National Golf links.

They use almost golf balls, distance limited practice balls that fly a third of the normal distance, allowing participants to take full swings or whatever type of all-out swing they are capable of making.

“Some kids can really rip them and we don’t tell the kids to hold back. We just get out of their way if they can hit it hard enough that we don’t want to get hit by them,” Corn explained.

While past participants who first picked up a golf club while tethered to medical equipment have gone on to make their high school golf team, seeing competitive milestones reached aren’t what keeps Corn coming back. The most gratifying moments, he explained, have nothing to do with play proficiency—and everything to do with witnessing miracles that once seemed impossible.

“We had three boys that came to Ranken Jordan as quadriplegics, and they all left walking,” Corn Recalled. “I happened to be there the first time each stood up. When you see those types of things, the golf is completely irrelevant.”

Other moments that stuck with him: seeing a young double amputee fitted for her first prosthetics. And more recently, a boy preparing to be discharged told Corn he wanted to keep playing after he went home. “I went in the day before he was leaving and surprised him with a set of clubs,” he said. “He got so happy—he looked at his mom and said, ‘Am I dreaming?’”

Making dreams come true and adapting the game to meet the individual needs of each kid has been Kevin’s forte since he walked into Ranken Jordan for the first time 14 years ago.

“Kevin is a yes man. We have literally pushed a patient in a hospital bed out to the putting green because they had wounds, and Kevin’s out there adapting things so they can still hit a ball. He has a very gentle, intuitive humility about him—he meets kids where they are. I call him the golf whisperer,” Larose said.

“So many of the kids there have been told throughout their life that they can’t do something—or because of a traumatic injury or accident, they’ve been told they no longer can,” Corn said. “This is one of the ways to show them: yes, you can—and here’s how we’re going to do it. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the word ‘can’t’ at Ranken Jordan.”

“Kids come to golf lying in their hospital bed or in wheelchairs with three machines attached to them—with tubes and ventilators and you name it—and we figure out a way that they can hit golf balls,” he added.

Groundswell Of Support

Word of Corn’s longtime volunteer work has spread among the Innisbrook resort community, where he leads the golf program. The 7,500-acre property west of St. Louis is home to a mix of residents, weekenders, and regulars—many of whom now support the Kevin Corn Golf Academy. Talk of donating to the program often pops up organically in group texts among club regulars looking to help out.

“Next thing you know I’m getting emails and texts from the people in development and they’re saying, ‘we just got another one and another one.’” Corn said. “It’s been cool to see the community buy in. They believe in it and see the good that is coming out of the program and how much it’s helping the kids.”

Thanks to that kind of generosity, kids are often sent home with a new set of clubs and a few golf shirts to keep playing after they are discharged.

The program primarily uses U.S. Kids clubs—specifically the red and blue sets, which they’ve found are best suited for children in wheelchairs and also their yard clubs which have a molded training grip that aids in hand positioning.

“Kids who may be stroke survivors or have some type of limitations, with hand strength, dexterity, or flexibility, that larger grip helps with their ability to hold onto the club a little better than a standard grip.”

Full Circle

Korn’s program has begun to be emulated across the country. He now regularly receives inbound queries from golf pros seeking to emulate what he has done.

“I’ve gotten emails from Philadelphia, Arizona, and Florida,” Corn sadi. “There is a program in Toledo, Ohio that was started from a conversation in the U.S. Kids booth at the PGA Show,” he added.

While few of the inspired programs have reached the weekly consistency of Corn’s effort, the ripple effect is unmistakable. “Whether it’s at the PGA Show in January or through emails and phone calls, I’ve had a lot of people ask how to start something like this in their area,” he said.

Corn sees national potential. Through his PGA of America section’s PGA Able initiative, he’s helped launch monthly programs at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital and at the Albert Pujols Wellness Center for adults with Down syndrome at St. Luke’s. “We’re trying to do more here within the St. Louis community,” he said, “but there’s no reason why pediatric hospitals all over the country shouldn’t have something like this. It works. If it works at a facility like Ranken Jordan, it’ll work anywhere.”

At its core, the goal remains simple: put smiles on faces. “We’re getting the smiles at Cardinal Glennon once a month the same way we get them once a week at Ranken Jordan,” Corn said. “That’s a pretty powerful tool to have—just getting the kids smiling and happy. That mental side is a major hurdle, and sometimes a goofy game chasing a ball can help you get there.”

And for Corn, that’s the bigger picture. It’s not about finding fairways or sticking greens. It’s about helping kids who’ve been through trauma feel like themselves again.