First Tee: Great Introduction to Golf for Young People

The first tee golf organization is a wonderful institution working since 1997 to help children build their personalities. At first, they started with the aim to make golf accessible to everyone. But later, they observed that their program is helping in their personal growth. This organization started with the partnership of the LPGA, the PGA of America, the Master Tournament, the USGA, and the PGA TOUR to make golf accessible and affordable to children.

During this time, they noticed that kids are not only learning skills and values but also learning to grow. Hence, the First Tea organization decided to take their program one step further. From that time, they serve and help children build strong characters and teach them vital life skills through golf in a secure and safe environment. When they were expanding their program, they also decided to introduce physical education programs across the country with the help of their after-school and in-school programs.

Because of this organization, kids have started to feel empowered in their game and life, which helps them deal with their everyday life challenges. The curriculum is excellent, and no children can determine that they are learning something more than golf. This organization has seamlessly integrated the game with life skills. So, if you enroll your children in this program, you will see immense changes in their self-confidence, strength, and resilience.

An Overview of First Tee Achievements

Every year, this institution tries to cover 3.4 million children. These children can be a part of any classroom, social situations, golf court, or others. Although they enroll many students, they are still striving to teach the fundamental principles of life to every student.

They conducted research to determine the impact of their program, which shows that:

• 73% of the students feel more confident in terms of academics.
• 82% of the students feel more self-confident in social interactions.

You may be surprised to know that students who stay long in the program feel more improvements. In addition to it, this learning session helps them build:

• Resilience
• Interpersonal skills
• Dealing with uncertain emotions
• Goals

The best part is that participants don’t need to learn by themselves. Their coaches and teachers help them learn unique perspectives and knowledge.

Different Programs

The First Tee golf aims to develop different programs that can help participants bring a change in their lives. The following are three major programs in which you can enroll your children.

First Tee Chapters

This teaching program covers around 1,200 golf facilities and has 3,900 active coaches to educate participants. It also takes help from the volunteers to ensure the best learning environment for the children. In that case, the first tee chapter includes more than 24,000 volunteers that also contain board members. Besides that, PGA/LPGA experts serve as First Tee’s staff, coaches, executive directors, and volunteers.

The participants are approximately 61% males and 39% females. Not to mention, this program offers sessions to people belonging to different ethnic groups. So, no matter if you are an Asian, African-American, White, Latino, or other, you can take advantage of it.

First Tee School Program

This program has covered around 9,000 schools up till now. You can find an equal representation of males and females in it.

The First Tee School Program is not that different in terms of ethnicity from the program mentioned above. This program covers students or participants from several ethnicities like Asian, African-American, White, and others.

First Tee Community Program

This is another teaching program of First Tee to spread awareness among the children. It covers around 1,300 youth-serving locations in the US. Moreover, it gives chances to both genders, and it has 49% females and 51% males.

This program also shows the First Tee objective of teaching every child beyond the borders of ethnicity. Hence, you will find kids belonging to ethnicities like White, African-American, Asian, and others.

Junior Programs at Golf Courses

Junior golf programming is also part of the First Tee. This program helps to make kids understand the life skills that will indirectly help them build their characteristics. These teachings will always stay with them, which they can use in the time of need.

Kids will learn:

• The methods to resolve conflicts.
• The ways to build goals.
• The way to understand and manage emotions.
• The ideal thinking patterns to plan for the future.
• The unique way to appreciate diversity.

Additionally, the students get to a higher level with time. The levels increase according to their character, strength, and golf, and life skills. However, they must have a certain age to get to a certain level.

• Target (at least age 5) – it includes basic teachings.
• Player (at least age 7) – it includes golf games and other learning.
• Par (at least age 9) – it includes self-management and interpersonal topics.
• Birdie (at least age 11) – it includes lessons to build goals and achieve them in reality.
• Eagle (at least age 13) – it includes conflict resolution. Future planning and learn resilience.
• Ace (at least age 14 and 9th grade) – it includes almost everything like career education, setting goals, and serving society.

Bottom Line

The First Tee golf organization helps children learn how they can become confident in every stage of life. It helps them deal with the general problems in their daily lives and live happily.