I think a lot of good things can come about from children being involved in sports, but funny enough, I never considered that golf might be one. Usually you affiliate any benefits of a sport with a team sport, where you have to work together with others, such as baseball, not a solo one like golf. The article had some very good points about how it can help with concentration (something that really is missing in most team sports, you don’t have time to “zen” and concentrate like you do in golf). and of course, I am always interested when people are working hard to bring about more equality with regards to the access kids have to amenities and activities in their cities.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
At the far end of the basketball courts at Visitacion Valley Middle School, where weeds grow between cracks in the asphalt and staff members sometimes park their cars, a strange sort of construction has begun.The school is building a driving range. When it’s finished this fall, along with a chipping area and a putting green, it will be the first of its kind in the country – a golf facility in an urban schoolyard.
The amenities, along with clubs and other related equipment, will be offered free to kids and their families in the Visitacion Valley and Bayview neighborhoods. The construction is the next stage in a program that started in the community four years ago, teaching children how to play golf, and teaching them some important life skills along the way.
“Golf gives these kids access to a decent life that they otherwise would not have,” said Frank “Sandy” Tatum, chairman of the San Francisco chapter of the First Tee, an outreach program that’s building the golf facilities at Visitacion Valley. “We’re using golf as a vehicle, so we can instill in them core values. It’s one thing to play golf, but it’s quite another to be a constructive human being.”
The First Tee has been holding golf classes for Bay Area schoolchildren at Harding Park Golf Course since 2004, and about 3,500 students have participated so far. Two years later, organizers started teaching classes in nine San Francisco schools as part of their physical education instruction.
Some of the kids wanted to continue playing after the course was over, so staff members arranged for bus trips to Harding as an after-school program. But the goal was always to bring golf to the kids, not the other way around. That’s why Visitacion Valley Middle School is getting the golf facility.
The driving range, putting green and chipping area will cost about $300,000 to build and is being paid for with private donations, said Judith Powell, executive director of the First Tee in San Francisco.
The golf facility, organizers say, is just another step in what they hope will become a lifelong passion for golf in some of these kids. First, they’ll learn the basics of the game in P.E. Then they’ll participate in after-school programs designed to help them refine their skills.
And finally, a trip to Gleneagles. The nine-hole course is just over the hill from Visitacion Valley Middle School, but it might as well be in Walnut Creek for all the access the local schoolchildren have to it, said Visitacion Principal Jim Dierke.
“Gleneagles has these 30-foot fences that these kids walk by every day, and none of them can go in, because they don’t have the skills, they don’t know how to play,” Dierke said.
“I spent 30 years working in schools on the other side of the city. The kids over there had all the advantages and these kids had none,” he said. “This (new golf facility) is a giant leap forward in social justice.”
Terek Turner, 12, and his friends first learned how to play golf four years ago as part of a First Tee program at his elementary school in Daly City. The game stuck and a couple weeks ago they played at Gleneagles with First Tee organizers. They also played a few holes recently at Pebble Beach, which Terek deemed “awesome.”
The boys said they’ve learned to love golf – a sport they once thought might be boring.
“It’s a slow-paced game and it seems like not that much happens. You mostly don’t see young people playing golf. Usually it’s a lot of rich, elderly people,” said 12-year-old Kevin Kirksey, looking a little chagrined. “No offense.”
Etiquette is a big part of the golf curriculum at Visitacion Valley. At the same time they’re learning how to hold a club, kids are taught how to shake hands and introduce themselves on the golf course.
Jonah Silifaiva, 14, said he loves the challenge of the game – ultimately he’d like to “conquer” the Gleneagles course, which he admits is pretty tough. And what about those life skills the adults are talking about?
“Golf teaches honesty. Perseverance,” said Terek, glancing at Kevin.
“That’s me,” Kevin said. “I get frustrated really easily. I can’t get it right and then it messes up my next shot.”
The same thing used to happen to him in math, he said. He’d get frustrated when he couldn’t solve a problem, and then he couldn’t solve the next one, or the one after that. Golf has taught him to be patient, he said, and to focus on the problem at hand.
“I used to get mad at math every single day,” Kevin said. “I’m getting better, though.”