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Long before he won his first of his eight major titles, Tom Watson didn’t know how to hold a club. It’s the same for every golfer. You have to start somewhere.
Watson was lucky. Catch the game early.
As an ardent supporter of junior golf, he has spent much of his career helping others do the same.
“It’s something we always talk about — it’s a sport for life,” says Watson. And that’s something we can impress on kids – or at least parents. What happens when they stop playing basketball, baseball, soccer, and volleyball? What will they do when they are 30, 40, 50? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to give them the skills and passion for the game now? “
Turning that message into meaningful action has been a part of M. O. Watson since the early 1970s, when his career was on the rise, but another aspect of the game was on the decline: Caddy programs—and the important course in golf for many—were increasingly being replaced by Trolleys.
Watson worried about the repercussions.
“I’ve always felt that caddies are the players of the future,” he says. With the caddy yards depleted, I thought, ‘Oh my God, we have to do more to get kids in the game.'”
Over the years, Watson, 73, has thrown his weight behind a range of junior golf initiatives, including First Tee and Youth on Course. The former teaches the fundamentals of golf, along with core values; The latter reduces the cost of entering the game. Watson believes in both from their inception.
But he also felt that more could be done. Easy access and affordability were not enough. Once the kids got into the game, you had to encourage them to stick with it.
“And so I started thinking about my history and I said, ‘How did it get started?'” Watson says. “Well, my dad gave me basic skills, and then he took me to the golf course, and I played with him. The ultimate guide, right? So, why not start a program where kids who have developed some skills can go to a course and play with someone like my dad – a teacher with a passion for the game? “
Enter Watson Links, a one-of-a-kind, eponymous initiative founded in his hometown of Kansas City.
As Watson intended, the program simulates his own childhood experience by giving young golfers, ages 10 to 18, free access to select golf courses, accompanied by an adult mentor who shows them the ropes as they play, and shares ideas on every aspect of the game. The game, from hacking to etiquette and strategy. Each instructor undergoes a thorough background check before being paired with a junior, and tee times are covered by course donations and support from the Watson Charitable Foundation.
After taking a test run in 2022, Watson Links is in the midst of its first full season, which will run 22 weeks through mid-October. The response was strong, with 65 mentors and 90 children signing up within days of the program’s launch. The goal, Watson says, is to enroll more than 200 junior golfers by the end of the year.
Even as he develops the program locally, Watson hopes to replicate it nationally. He has already held discussions with industry leaders about launching similar pilot programs in other cities.
Although Watson Links currently operates under the umbrella of First Tee Greater Kansas City, Watson says the program isn’t as much a part of First Tee as it is a complement to it.
“I hope the First Tee team sees this as an enabler for their program,” says Watson. “They teach these children skills, but then they lose them because they don’t have a place to play. The way I look at it, that will be an important bridge. It will lead to an influx of children learning the game and developing a passion for it, and even if they give up on the game for a while, they will always have Those skills, so they can always come back to them. That’s the goal. To create golfers for life.”
For more information visit firsteekc.org