Golf gets a bad rap for being an elitist game.
Whether it’s the price of clubs or the price to play; the membership rates; the exclusive, “gentlemen’s club” vibe of courses; or just the maddening difficulty of the sport itself—there’s the belief out there that golf is a sport reserved for the full-pocketed.
“Golf has the reputation of being like a ‘rich kid’ sport, but it doesn’t have to be at all,” said Brooke Cuzick, a senior golfer on the Nipomo High School girls’ varsity team, and a hopeful college golfer. “There are a lot of coaches and mentors who are willing to help you out.”
While anyone would admit golf has some inherent barriers to entry compared to other popular sports, like soccer, there are folks on the Central Coast who are working hard to tear down as many of those barriers as possible.
The First Tee Central Coast is one organization that makes golf more accessible to youth in Santa Maria.
A local chapter of a nationwide nonprofit, with the mission of “improving the lives of young people by emphasizing educational and character development through the game of golf,” First Tee Central Coast runs four, nine-week sessions of 1.5-hour lessons at 14 different golf courses on the Central Coast.
Where does the accessible part come in? Get this: First Tee charges only $125 for the nine weeks—amounting to less than $10 per hour of instruction—or, the lessons can be completely subsidized by scholarships.
First Tee Central Coast Executive Director Butch Breedon told the Sun that 45 percent of the participating youth receive some form of financial aid.
“We don’t turn anyone away,” Breedon said. “We have equipment if they don’t have clubs. They don’t need anything to come.”
The hope is that by improving the affordability of golf, families and youth who otherwise wouldn’t have considered golf as an athletic option will give the sport a try. To help facilitate this, First Tee partners with the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Maria to provide free lessons to roughly 10 to 12 youth members per session.
“We’re trying to get golf away from the concept of being an elitist sport. It’s a sport for everybody,” Breedon said. “There are all kinds of positive things that can come from it.”
Golf is a unique game, Breedon said, in the ways that it teaches values like patience, perseverance, honesty, and integrity. For example, there is no referee; golfers police themselves and keep their own scores.
“All those values are inherent to the game of golf,” Breedon said. “We teach them ways to learn those skills through playing. It’s great to have a vehicle where you can apply the skills.”
If you can’t find First Tee, then First Tee may come to you. One of the organization’s more recent endeavors is the National Schools Program, where they send instructors to elementary and middle schools—like Orcutt Academy Charter, Nipomo Elementary, and others on the Central Coast—to teach golf as part of the curriculum.
“Our coaches come in and actually run the PE class, just like we run a session in our after-school program,” Breedon said. “That’s been really well received.”
To check out The First Tee Central Coast, contact them at 637-9415, or the participating local courses, which include the Santa Maria Country Club, Monarch Dunes Golf Club, Blacklake Golf Resort, La Purisima Golf Course, Marshallia Ranch Golf Course, and Alisal River Course.
Finding competition
Santa Maria doesn’t suffer from a shortage of opportunities for youth to get involved in golf but, is that also the case for competitive teen golfers looking for opportunities to play in college and beyond?
It’s a mixed bag. For some golfers, like Nipomo High’s Cuzick, the high school competition and occasional local tournaments just aren’t enough to get on the radars of college scouts.
“Living in the Central Coast, there’s not really much of an option,” Cuzick said. “Around here, a lot of kids play locally and they just do that for fun. When you want to play more competitively, you’re going to want to look more toward Northern California or Southern California.”
Realizing that, Cuzick joined the Ventura County Junior Golf Association last year where she competes year-round in 18-hole tournaments. High school competition only plays nine holes—and colleges are only interested in 18-hole scores.
“I kind of realized that as far as playing golf in college goes, you don’t really have much of a shot if you only play in high school,” Cuzick said. “Coaches are really looking for those club scores and bigger tournaments.”
Breedon at First Tee offered another picture. He noted that the Junior PGA puts on a summer league where top golfers on the Central Coast can compete against one another.
Jack Avrit, a senior at Arroyo Grande High School and a First Tee member since he was 7 years old, was one of 81 First Tee golfers in the nation selected to play at Pebble Beach Golf Course with professionals. Avrit is bound for Santa Clara University next year to play golf.
While all can agree that the Central Coast isn’t Southern California when it comes to competitive golf, nonetheless, there is evidence that the sport is on the rise.
“The number of kids at First Tee Central Coast has more than doubled in the past three years,” Breedon said. “We’re growing like crazy.”
Send your local sports news to Peter Johnson at pjohnson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Sep 8-15, 2016.
