Providing kids their 'First Tee'

By Kurt Kragthorpe
The Salt Lake Tribune

This was one time when the greatest golfer in history needed an introduction.

    Jack Nicklaus helped launch the Salt Lake City chapter of The First Tee program Monday, fielding questions such as why holes were cut in the ground on the putting green and why colored flags were stationed around Rose Park Golf Course.

    If The First Tee's intention is to introduce youngsters to golf who otherwise would not have the chance, this was the right audience.   

  "It just makes so much sense . . . to have an organized program with some purpose for these kids," Nicklaus said. "This happens to be related to golf, but anything that gives them a purpose and a meaning to their life, that's just so important today."

    They came by the dozens from the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Salt Lake to take part in the chapter's first official event, listening to Nicklaus, Gov. Mike Leavitt and others testify about golf's value. Three youngsters participated in a brief putting contest, highlighted by Nicklaus sinking a 30-footer.

    The chapter's founding was more than a year in the making, with president Alan Seko and secretary-treasurer Pat Shea leading the effort. Plans call for the development of the Salt Lake Golf Academy, using the adjacent Jordan River Par-3 with a new short-game practice area as The First Tee's primary facility, with golfers graduating to the full-sized Rose Park.

    "We are committed to the continuation of this program," Shea said.

    The First Tee is an initiative of the World Golf Foundation. Nicklaus has long been involved with the PGA National Junior Golf Foundation, and discovered that The First Tee was an ideal beneficiary of the endowment fund he started.  

   The Salt Lake City chapter is one of more than 120 in the country that have been created since the program started in 1997, bringing the game to some 170,000 youth. An outgrowth of the program is called "The First Tee Life Skills & Golf Experience," illustrating Nicklaus' point about how this is not just a junior golf push, but a vehicle for all kinds of learning.    

"Otherwise, they would be out in the streets somewhere, doing something else," Nicklaus said. "We're giving them a facility, giving them the opportunity to learn lessons    for life that they can take with them."    

Last summer, Nicklaus supported The First Tee as a character-building program in testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.   

  Monday's gathering fit the diverse racial and gender profile that the program seeks, and Nicklaus seemed to enjoy the interaction with the youngsters. Hours later, he was still chuckling about some of the questions he was asked, and was looking for support regarding the answer he gave about the origin of the golf hole. He had suggested that the cup is about the size of a fist, which was used to scoop sand from the original greens.