Author: edunne

Inside Golf: Girls Golf

Inside Golf host, Harry Donahue, stopped by our Tea Time for Girls Golf event on August 1st to conduct a few great interveiws. Thank you Jennifer McAleese, Michael Brown, Catlin Plover and Elenia McCreedy from Lilly Pulitzer for helping make this event possible!

Tea Time For Girls Golf

August 1, 2018

Girls Golf segment on Inside Golf   Tea Time for Girls Golf was a tremendous event held at Bluestone Country Club on August 1st. The event helped raise crucial funds for our Girls Golf Program! We had a great 9 hole tournmament followed by a fashion show sponsored by Lilly Pulitzer!! Our girls even got to keep their fashions!! We can’t thank Lilly Pulitzer enough for their wonderful support of the event and we can’t wait till next year. One of our participants, Caitlyn Plover, spoke at our gala a few years ago and mentioned it was her dream to create and host a Girls Golf fundraiser. We are so happy to see her dream come true!!!

EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

Check out some highlights of the event below and follow us on FACEBOOK for all things First Tee!    

SEI Equipment Drive For The First Tee

SEI Institutional Group generously ran a donation drive for the First Tee. Thank you so much to SEI staff,  John and Steve, for organizing the golf equipment drive. These donations will greatly aide our programs and kids!

First Tee Audi Quattro Cup

The Audi Quattro Cup was held yesterday at Walnut Lane Golf Club. The Audi Quattro Cup, the largest amateur tournament series in the world, offers continually growing fascination. Since 1991, more and more Audi importers and dealers from around the world have been inviting their customers to experience golf passion during an exciting tournament day. An expected number of over 100,000 golfers will be competing in teams of two across more than 700 tournaments in the Audi Quattro Cup in 2018. This series is special as every team winning its regional tournament will be invited to the national final and thus has the opportunity to qualify for the World Final. This event helped raise over $15,000 for our programming!! Thank you for coming out to play yesterday in The First Tee Audi Quattro Cup. Congratulations to our winners, Dave and John MacDonald, who are now headed to Pebble Beach for an all expenses paid five-day trip to play in the United States Audi Final.  

FIVE REASONS YOUR KIDS SHOULD LEARN GOLF THIS SUMMER

Summer is almost here, which means you may be wondering how to fill your child’s time while school is out. This summer, consider an activity that keeps your child active while learning values and life skills that will help them at school and at home: GOLF.

HERE ARE 5 REASONS YOUR KIDS SHOULD LEARN GOLF THIS SUMMER:

1. YOUR KID WILL HAVE FUN

Golf looks different at The First Tee. Kids participate in group classes where they meet others from all walks of life. And they don’t start off by playing 18-holes, which can be really intimidating for a beginner. Our trained coaches come up with fun and creative games to introduce golf concepts to kids. Not convinced? Just wait until your kid plays golf tic-tac-toe!

2. ANYONE CAN PLAY

To a kid, golf may seem like a sport only older people play, but that’s only because golf is a lifelong sport. Imagine playing a game you love and can play forever. We offer youth golf programs to youth ages 7 to 18, no matter their background or experience. Worried about affording the game? The average cost per 6-week session is $72. And chapters offer financial aid, so no kid is ever turned away.

3. MORE TIME OUTSIDE

Studies1 show that kids are spending less time outside these days. At The First Tee, you’ll rarely find us in the classroom. We are in the business of doing, not telling. Increased sports activities lead to improved cognitive and academic skills2, which is why participants are taught the game of golf through experience-based learning, out on the golf course or driving range.

4. LEARN MORE THAN A GOLF SWING

You know that “experience-based learning” we were just talking about? Well, that isn’t just to teach kids the basics of golf. While learning the fundamentals of a golf swing, The First Tee’s character education programs provide a fun, active environment to teach kids how to manage emotions, resolve conflicts, communicate, set goals and much more. They will learn about The First Tee life skills, Nine Core Values and the Nine Healthy Habits.

5. GOLF IS MORE EXCITING THAN EVER

Ask anyone who watches golf today, the game still has a few surprises up its sleeve. A large part due to the return of Tiger Woods and many other PGA TOUR players who are defying the odds. The First Tee has a few surprises too, as we offer many exciting national events for kids who progress through our program, including an event played at Pebble Beach! So why not pick up the game this summer? You may just end up achieving greatness.
 

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An Interview with Jay Sigel, First Tee Chairman Emeritus

An Interview with Jay Sigel By Brian Isztwan

  Brian: How did you get into the game of golf? Jay: Well, that’s a great question.  I had caddied at Bala Golf Club, and on this particular day I was caddying for my dad and carrying three golf bags on my right shoulder.  I guess I was about ten and a half, thereabouts, I was a pretty big ten and a half. I was kind of amused at the game, but I had played a lot of other sports.  In any event, my dad said to me, “Would you like to try this game?” I said, “Yes, it’d be a lot easier than carrying three bags!” So he let me try it, although I did continue caddying.  I found it a difficult game for the first year or two, and then things got better.   Brian: So would you say your dad was the one who got you interested in the game? Jay: I would say so yes.  You know, as I continued to play a bit more and get a little bit better, he would remind me that it is a game of a lifetime.  That the baseball, football, and basketball that I was doing wouldn’t continue forever. And not only was golf a game of a lifetime, you meet a lot of nice people.  I didn’t really understand what that meant at the time, but I certainly do today.   Brian: What advice do you have for young kids just getting into the game of golf? Jay: Well, I think it’s a curious game: it looks easy, it’s not easy.  I think if you observe the people that are in the game, there’s a certain conduct they have that’s evident.  There are a lot of smiley happy faces and there is a lot of interaction between the golfers as they play, which doesn’t happen in games like tennis.  You really get to know someone in a round of golf, be it 9 holes or 18 holes.   Brian: What are some of the life skills and values you were able to gain from playing the game? Jay: Oh boy…lots.  I would say honesty and sportsmanship were very evident when I was a kid.  As a kid, I had an opportunity to cheat with an extra club in my bag in a big-time tournament, and I vacillated with that for a hole or a two.  I put the towel over the bag, tried to hide the club, I knew nobody would see it. But that just didn’t work. I’m so happy that I bit the bullet and confessed.  I got a 36 shot penalty, but that was O.K. I mean, I felt so bad during that wrestling of whether to tell the truth or not. Man, that hit home and what a great story that was for me to learn from.  We have to live with ourselves and our actions, and you’ve got to proud of yourself.   Brian: Moving on to your golfing career, were there any big differences between playing as an amateur and playing as a professional? Jay: Amateur golf is played for recognition, trophies, and trying to succeed at a game that’s a lot of fun.  Professional golf is the same thing! Except the scoring is not necessarily with trophies, it’s with money.  If one can stop the money from becoming so overriding or important then I think one can succeed. It’s all about the process, not the results.  So they changed the scoring but the game’s no different because the hole is still the same size! The whole thing is very similar to amateur golf, it’s just the way it’s scored and the way the individual looks at it.   Brian: To what do you attribute your long-tenured success? Jay: I’ve always been a competitor, whatever the game is.  That served me well. Also, I was very focused on dealing with other parts of my life and balancing my family time, practice time, and business time so that I could maintain my business and stay healthy during my golfing career.   Brian: How did you get involved with The First Tee? Jay: In 1963, I had serious hand injury when I was at Wake Forest.  My left hand went through a window pane in a door, and the glass broke and severed the ulnar nerve in my wrist.  It was a mess and I’m still handicapped to a certain degree. So that became a blessing in disguise. It took me a year to come back and it was a painful process, but when I started coming back, my golf was getting better.  I still couldn’t forget because people said, “This is a blessing in disguise.” I said, “Sure it is,” although I didn’t really believe it. But I started to win local, regional, and national tournaments. Well, I finally won my first major, the British Amateur in 1979.  I never believed I could come from this hand injury, to which some folks said I may never play golf again, to winning a major amateur event. That just blew my mind. At that point, I thought my career might be over and might not win again. I’ve got to give back, I’ve got to say thanks for all the enjoyment and success I’ve had and do something to help people.  With that in mind, I got involved with the Greater Philadelphia Scholastic Golf Association, which was at that time very similar to The First Tee, and got involved with The First Tee from there.   About the Interviewer: Brian Isztwan is a senior at the William Penn Charter School.  He is doing his Senior Comprehensive Project with The First Tee of Greater Philadelphia.  He will be attending Harvard University in the fall, where he will play men’s golf.    

Mike Quick Celebrity Invitational Recap

CBS3 Coverage of The Mike Quick Celebrity Invitational

Event Summary

We thank all of our sponsors, celebrities, players, auction and in-kind donors. With Audi, as our title sponsor and because of you, we were fortunate to raise over $100,000 which directly supports our programs. We had 125 players and 25 celebrities playing to benefit our kids. Mike Quick, we cannot thank you enough for your leadership, passion, and dedication to our young people. It was an honor to celebrate your birthday together and we are most grateful to have you as a First Tee Board Member.
Thank you Philadelphia Country Club for offering The First Tee of Greater Philadelphia a unique opportunity to introduce our kids and programs to you while having fun. Many thanks to Callaway for the Callaway Experience. Our golfers are now enjoying their brand new Callaway clubs and luggage.
Together, we are making a significant difference in the lives of over 17,000 young people.
We like to say that The First Tee creates Good Golfers but Even Better People.

First Tee School Field Trips

As the May days start to warm up, multiple schools are sending groups to Walnut Lane Golf Club for field trips with The First Tee.  Last week a couple of different schools joined in the activities. First Philadelphia Preparatory Charter School and Blair Christian Academy were out in full force for the beautiful May days.  With students ranging from grades K-7, there was a lot of fun in the sun to be had.

Each field trip session runs for about two and a half hours.  The program starts with a talk from our program director, Rebecca Caimano, about some of The First Tee core values, most notably the value of Respect, our The First Tee’s Code of Conduct.  After the kids talk a little about how they respect themselves, others, and their surroundings, they head out to the teaching area for some stretching and a fun relay race.

After the relay race, the students are split into three groups and go to different stations like putting, chipping, drivers, irons, and even golf-baseball!  Each group gets to work with a couple of coaches and gains a beginners understanding of one facet of golf. They get some instruction at each station but also play some fun games. The groups rotate throughout the day until everyone has tried each station. Then the kids race in for lunch!

One of The First Tee’s many initiatives is to spread the game of golf to people of all ages and backgrounds.  These school field trips are a great opportunity for us to teach our wonderful game while also allowing the kids to gain life skills and values, bond with each other, and have some fun.

If you would like to book a field trip for your school please contact Rebecca today!

2018 Kick Off Events

Thanks to everyone who came to our Kick Off Events at Walnut Lane Golf Club and FDR Golf Club! We are so excited to get this season started. Registration for Spring II and Summer I are open. Click below to register today! We hope to see you.

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