[Steve Lapper]

In yesterday's NYT, the following story appeared:

Six-Hole Course Is Coming to Bay Ridge
 
By DAMON HACK
Published: November 1, 2006
With a view of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and within steps of one of New York’s oldest golf courses, large groups of children could soon be able to frolic over rolling fairways and humpbacked greens.
Children ages 5 to 17 and accompanying parents or guardians would have free access to a center that includes a six-hole golf course, a nine-station driving range and a 4,275-square-foot clubhouse with classroom space and an outdoor seating area. The CityParks Junior Golf Center will sit on 11.8 acres abutting Dyker Beach Golf Course and is scheduled for completion in September 2007. “The bigger picture for us is, we serve thousands of kids in getting them started in golf, underserved neighborhood kids who wouldn’t otherwise play golf,” said Philip Craft, a spokesman for the City Parks Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization. Several officials, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, are scheduled to attend an 11 a.m. announcement next to Dyker Beach, a course that first opened in the 1890s. Tiger Woods’s father, Earl, was said to have become smitten with golf at Dyker Beach, where he played while stationed at Fort Hamilton during the 1970s.
According to the City Parks Foundation, the junior golf center is being funded publicly and privately, with $1.5 million from the city and $500,000 from the State Senate. The City Parks Foundation is raising the rest. The total cost includes $3 million for construction and $3 million for an endowment to support yearly programming, operations and course maintenance. Although the junior golf center will not open for almost a year, it is already beginning to take shape. The golf course will stretch over six holes but can also be configured as a three- or four-hole layout, allowing players to hit longer clubs. The course will also include spectator bleachers, a practice green, a chipping area and a practice bunker. The junior center will soon have young golfers hitting shots from fairways across a tree line from older players at Dyker Beach. “There may be some netting,” Craft said.

 This is, IMHO, a gigantic step in the right direction for protecting the future of the game. It took insight from a # of local park & city officials, local citizens and others to make this happen.

THE $64,000 Question is:

 WHY THE HELL CAN'T THE USGA FIGURE THIS  OUT AND CREATE THIS KIND OF PROGRAM THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY?

They make $10-20 million per US Open and can't find a way to support this?? Instead, they charter private jets for the Executive Committee members???

Ridiculous!

[Tom_Doak]

$3 million to construct a six-hole course for kids?

[Aaron Katz]

$3 million to construct a six-hole course for kids?

"But, Mr. Doak, we can't do it for less than that unless we scrap the plans for the waterfall."

[Steve Lapper]

$3 million to construct a six-hole course for kids?

Tom,

   Wasn't that approximately the same for Sebonack??

   Actually, that $3M covers the construction costs of the course along with a nine station driving range, a 4275sf clubhouse with classroom space, club storage, modern video equipment and outdoor space. It will also include a small F&B station.

   One of the greatest features of this is that the NYC Park Commission intends to give FREE ACCESS to children 5-17 and their accompanying parents.

   This is exactly the model the game needs to follow to hand golf down to the next generation and simultaneously hurdle any class or socioeconomic disadvantage. I am so pleased to to see this.

   But the greater question remains, why doesn't the PGA, USGA, et.al apply some of their extensive resources to this kind of project?? I know many here (and elsewhere) within the golf world who would be happy to donate some time or services to assisting this kind of model for youth involvement.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Steve,

I'd disagree with you.

The way to introduce kids to golf, that's been successful for decades, is through good caddy programs.

It's not the USGA's role to attract and indoctrinate the general public to golf.

[TEPaul]

Why can't the USGA figure this out and get involved? Since when has the USGA been into building golf courses of any kind? The USGA has plenty to do and things they need to do without getting into building golf courses with our contributions and their US Open revenue. In my opinion, the USGA should get the hell out of trying to do social engineering and get back to what they were formed for in the first place.

[Tom_Doak]

I copied this from the USGA web site:

    The USGA Foundation was incorporated in December 1965 with funds donated by Gary Player from his victory in the 1965 U.S. Open. Player directed the USGA to use the funds in initiatives that support and promote junior golf. Over the ensuing years, the USGA Foundation grew to encompass additional needs in the golf community. Today the Foundation operates as the broad-based philanthropic arm of the USGA. One of the Foundation's general goals is to maintain and improve the opportunities for all individuals to take part in the game of golf.

[Steve Lapper]

Pat,

   I agree and disagree (sounds like many other GCA'ers?).

   Yes, a strong caddy program is essential to helping foster and introduce the game. However, if we left it to those venues that still support successful caddy programs to expose golf to our nation's youth, the sheer dearth of the numbers would spell out the doom of the future of the game. Tiger didn't do too much looping, did he?

 Pat & Tom,

  The USGA's mission is to foster the "good of the game" is it not? Yes, it's job is monitor the rules & standards, conduct championships, support turfgrass research and  maintain the handicap & course rating systems. But does it not also have the mandate (like the PGA) to give back to the game a considerable measure of the tens of millions it takes out? Maybe they never have built a golf course to date, but if it would demonstrably widen the spectrum and reach of the game and provide otherwise disadvantaged, should the record of it's past preclude the good it could do in the future? Why couldn't it help fund an endowment that would provide matching funds for centers like this? Would that leave it a little short on the fuel bill for the G IV?

   While I respect the both of you as individuals and mean you no slight, I believe it was your generation that did precious little for the general public save for taking its dollars and preserving status quo.

  For the record, I feel strongly the PGA should be equal in this task. The more people exposed to the game and it's values, the better a country and society we'll all have to see our children grow up in.


Tom Doak,

   So I ask those who might know, what has the USGA Foundation done to date? Where is beneficial work today?

[TEPaul]

TomD:

If that last post was directed at my last post I still think the USGA should get the hell out of trying to do social engineering and get back to what they were formed to do which sure wasn't social engineering. I think this social engineering thing they do is actually just a sop to get their political enemies to leave all things to do with golf alone.  

[Steve Lapper]

TomD:

If that last post was directed at my last post I still think the USGA should get the hell out of trying to do social engineering and get back to what they were formed to do which sure wasn't social engineering. I think this social engineering thing they do is actually just a sop to get their political enemies to leave all things to do with golf alone.  

Tom Paul,

   How is supporting projects like this "social engineering?" Have you been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh recently?

[Dan_Callahan]

The best way to grow the game is to do something about pace of play. If current trends hold true among junior golfers, a single 6-hole round on that course is likely to take three hours.

[PThomas]

The USGA and PGA have LOTS of money, so of course they should spend some of it promoting junior golf

[TEPaul]

Steve Lapper, I take a whole lot of exception to what you just said there and a pretty good amount of umbrage. Do me a favor and think a bit before you open your mouth and start generalizing about certain people in the context of something like a 'whole generation'. If you had put perhaps one tenth of the time and effort back into golf as I have for the last twenty or so years and for notihng in return maybe you would understand enough not to say stuff like that.

[Steve Lapper]

Steve Lapper, I take a whole lot of exception to what you just said there and a pretty good amount of umbrage. Do me a favor and think a bit before you open your mouth and start generalizing about certain people in the context of something like a 'whole generation'. If you had put perhaps one tenth of the time and effort back into golf as I have for the last twenty or so years and for notihng in return maybe you would understand enough not to say stuff like that.

Tom,

   I was quite careful to pay you both respect as an individual (for your efforts and gentlemenly qualities) and avow NO slight. I wasn't even remotely suggesting you were responsible for your generation. No one individual is. I was intstead directly referring to the USGA years from the 1950s through the 1990s as having done little if anything very constructive.

   I absolutely apologize if you took umbrage, but I assure you no responsibility was meant to be directly or indirectly attributed to you. My generation (the baby boomers) might well be the most selfish and uninvolved generation of Americans over the last century, and thus in sore need of a little kick in the butt!

I do, however, stand by my question of how supporting a project like this constitutes "social engineering?"

[TEPaul]

"Tom Paul,
How is supporting projects like this "social engineering?" Have you been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh recently?"

No sir, I think Rush Limbaugh is a total jerk. I'm all for social engineering, and I never said I wasn't. I'm a broken down old democratic liberal from New York, for Christ's Sake. I just don't think it's something the USGA needs to get their revenue involved in. They have enough to do to administer to American golf successfully with their revenue or haven't you noticed?

Pat Mucci is completely correct in what he said. Organizations like the USGA should put funds into supporting caddie programs and things that really do relate to golf.

If social engineering is going to really happen through golf then let's get towns and cities and states and the Federal government to do that kind of social engineering by building and operating local golf courses, golf courses in state and Federal parks and such.

Getting the USGA into social engineering by opening the golf door a crack to the intercity kids and such is a crying shame. There isn't anything for them once that door is opened a crack.

The USGA needs to spend its money on what it's there for--to administer to the golf that's out there for and from others.

[Aaron Katz]

Steve,

I'd disagree with you.

The way to introduce kids to golf, that's been successful for decades, is through good caddy programs.

It's not the USGA's role to attract and indoctrinate the general public to golf.

Uh . . . .  are you serious?  How on earth do expect some kid from the Bronx to get a caddie job at a facility?  Caddying is fine and dandy, but it is totally unrealistic to think that such is the best way to introduce a city kid to golf these days.  

[TEPaul]

Steve:

I accept your apology. Sorry I blew my top. The USGA, in my opinion, certainly isn't perfect, but I'm really getting sick and tired of hearing so many on here attack them for every single thing they try to do.

I'll guarantee you one thing for sure. If they ever go down and become irrelevent there are going to be 10,000 times more people who will appreciate what they've done for golf over the years. And if they do go down as has happened in some other compararable sports, like tennis, there will be no way in hell to ever create something half as effective as they've been for the sport of golf---both amateur and professional golf.

I realize it looks sort of bad for Ridley to have been flying around in some Net-Jet private jet but the thing we need to keep in mind is that all those Exec committee members are out a lot of their own time and money doing what they do for the USGA and golf.

[Steve Lapper]

"Tom Paul,
How is supporting projects like this "social engineering?" Have you been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh recently?"

No sir, I think Rush Limbaugh is a total jerk. I'm all for social engineering, and I never said I wasn't. I'm a broken down old democratic liberal from New York, for Christ's Sake. I just don't think it's something the USGA needs to get their revenue involved in. They have enough to do to administer to American golf successfully with their revenue or haven't you noticed?

Pat Mucci is completely correct in what he said. Organizations like the USGA should put funds into supporting caddie programs and things that really do relate to golf.

If social engineering is going to really happen through golf then let's get towns and cities and states and the Federal government to do that kind of social engineering by building and operating local golf courses, golf courses in state and Federal parks and such.

Getting the USGA into social engineering by opening the golf door a crack to the intercity kids and such is a crying shame. There isn't anything for them once that door is opened a crack.

The USGA needs to spend its money on what it's there for--to administer to the golf that's out there for and from others.

Tom,

   My apologies once again for any insinuation that you were a disciple of that royal a..h..e Limbaugh. I meant it as humor, but perhaps my delivery was much too similar to John Kerry's.

   Your points are valid, but I ask you a few more (hopefully more benign ) questions:

   If the USGA isn't doing exactly a "bang-up" job administering anything other than their championships, turfgrass work and private jet charters with their newly flush coffers, then how the hell can you expect them to reverse such a long standing tradition of negligence and ineptitude?

   Where can they support caddy programs? Public courses? I don't think so and any beneificence directed at private venues can only backfire in the bath of public light. DO they offer anything like the Evans Scholarship program (a marvelous effort)? I think the answer is no.

  The Bay Ridge project in NYC is a publicly funded intitiative (though it still needs some private dough). Why can't the USGA and PGA play that role? After all, it would be secondary to the local towns and cities (who'd have to find the land and the mandate).

  Your point about "nowhere" to go is the most poignant of all but I see some potential solutions.  Many private clubs are facing lack of prospective members and are sliding into disrepair. Quite a few could be morphed into public facilities and operated at breakeven. Towns could give these places tax abatements to facilitate such a gradual shift.

  Most interestingly, I see a local public facility nearby that avg's over 45k rounds here in NJ that is county-owned and has a oversubscribed public-teaching clinic for dirt cheap. The demand is there and public golf could be served a welcome breath of fresh air by the recruitment of urban youth discovering the game.

  The USGA seems unwilling to do little more than build up it's coffers for the pleasure of a few and witnessing a recent congregation of some of it's higher-level directors and committee people at our area's most expensive restaurant (with multiple bottles of pricey wine on the table) indicates little, if anything, will change soon. I'd like to believe, like you, that they could and would effectively adminster to the game, but I'm afraid they've lost touch with it's soul and it's needs.

[TEPaul]

"Your point about "nowhere" to go is the most poignant of all but I see some potential solutions.  Many private clubs are facing lack of prospective members and are sliding into disrepair. Quite a few could be morphed into public facilities and operated at breakeven. Towns could give these places tax abatements to facilitate such a gradual shift."

Steve:

Now you're talking my language and my philosophy. And that's pretty much what I just said. If some golf course is going down anyway to be turned into another mall, then sure, let those in GOVERNMENT put up the resources, whether they be tax abatements or direct and keep that course going for the public good which sure as hell could include some "social engineering" for local kids and such.

How could the USGA get into supporting a caddie scholarship program or caddying in some way for the young?

They could do it exactly the same way the behemoth Evans Caddy Scholarship fund in Chicago does it, or GAP's J. Wood Platt has managed to raise millions of dollars over the years for caddy scholarships, or Atlanta Georgia is trying to do right now or some of the other regional associations have done. They ask for direct contributions from their member clubs and their members.

GAP has about 130 member clubs, and most all of them support the J. Wood Platt caddie program. How many golf clubs are members of the USGA? About 8,000 to 10.000?

It's not a difficult equation to understand. They just have to do it. They need to stick close to what they are and what they do and know, and I really hate to say it, I really do, but that just ain't America's ghettos, it's golf and administering to golf and all that it has been in America. American golf is in danger of forgetting one of it's own greatest assets and one of the most interesting (golf) "social engineering" there ever was or could be---caddying--caddying by kids! They get out there in the fresh air, take some responsibility for what they do and don't do, they get paid and they get to learn some real life from some real people who just may help them out in life directly or just be example or even osmosis. I think we all need to understand that sometimes as much as things change is about as much as they stay the same.

It's just amazing to me what some people do. The IRS and the Federal government apparently wanted to help caddies a few years ago by taking away their independent contractor status and getting them labeled as employees of clubs or some crap so they could get involved in OSHA or other entitlement programs.

What they didn't seem to understand or be willing to face is caddies are independent contractors because they are part of that great big world of government imperfection called the "underground economy"---eg they get paid in cash so they don't have to pay taxes.

So in some odd attempt to help them the US government damn nearly destroyed caddying altogether because few clubs wanted to incur the time and expense of getting into OSHA regulations and other "employee" government regulations and stuff like that.

So the governement thankfully figured it out in time and let America's caddie's "independent contractor" status as it relates to golf clubs in America alone.

See what I mean?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Steve,

I'd disagree with you.

The way to introduce kids to golf, that's been successful for decades, is through good caddy programs.

It's not the USGA's role to attract and indoctrinate the general public to golf.

Uh . . . .  are you serious?  How on earth do expect some kid from the Bronx to get a caddie job at a facility?  

The same way as the kids from my father's neighborhood in Newark got a caddy job at Forest Hills and Montclair.

Caddying is fine and dandy, but it is totally unrealistic to think that such is the best way to introduce a city kid to golf these days.

Then tell us, what's the best way to introduce a city kid to golf ?  And, what will he have to show for his introduction ?
With caddying, he'll also earn a good amount of money, be in a good environment and exposed to a good element.

Aaron,

If my father could travel as a young boy from his apartment in Newark to Montclair to caddy, kids from the Bronx can travel north to a number of clubs to caddy.  

With caddy fees today, word of mouth spreads quickly.

Many golf organizations and clubs also sponsor caddy scholarship programs.

Caddy programs have been successful in bringing kids to golf for decades, and there's no evidence that they don't work.

A number of clubs on the outskirts of Paterson, NJ employ caddies from Paterson.

Based on your experience, what would be a better way to introduce the city kids from Paterson to golf ?

[Patrick_Mucci]

Steve Lapper,

Can you be sure that your position on this issue isn't more of a reflection on your personal views of the USGA, rather than your views on how to best move in the right direction ?

[Aaron Katz]

Patrick,

I don't think we live in the same world as we did back in the 1950s -- or even 1970s.  I don't think it's realistic to have a 13 or 14 year old taking the train from Harlem, the Bronx, Patterson, or wherever out to Westchester, Long Island, etc.  It's too expensive, too dangerous, too time consuming, etc.  My guess is that when your father was a teenager, he didn't have two working parents, let alone parents that both worked multiple jobs.  But that is the reality of the situation these days, and it makes it much, much tougher for a young kid to realistically commute to a caddying job.

Moreover, why shouldn't we try to make it as easy as possible for city kids, or (let's face it) poor kids, to play golf?  If I suggested that a kid should not be allowed to play at a golf course UNLESS he caddied, I think I would be universally tomatoed for such a statement.  I enjoyed caddying as a kid from time to time to pick up extra cash, but I certainly don't think I was obligated to do that job to be entitled to play golf -- and I certainly don't think that carrying bags for some rich, white hackers is a way to "learn the game."  It is the "way into the game" for some, but it certainly isn't the optimal one (unless the kid is really into architecture or something).  PLAYING the game is the best way.  I think we should try to build courses where a kid from Harlem can take the 7-train -- as opposed to MetroNorth -- to a cheap (if not free) golf course so that he can play golf.  I think that's a much better way to grow the game than making the kid go out of his way to carry a bag.

What percentage of non-playing caddies do you think actually take up golf eventually?  Let's eliminate those caddies whose parents play golf (i.e. would have been introduced to the game even if they didn't caddy).  My guess is that it is not much more than 25%, if even that.

[TEPaul]

But I'll tell you one thing, Steve, you're thinking in the right direction, albeit maybe with the wrong entity because you seem to recommend these things because you care about people who don't have what most of us have. You've got heart--a social conscience, and that's a very good thing indeed.

[TEPaul]

Aaron Katz:

Let me ask you something.

How old are you?

I ask that because that last post of yours is one of the most depressing things I've read in a long, long time on here.

Working parents? Too dangerous to get to a golf course to caddy? Jeeesus Christ man, that is just about the height of rationalization and ridiculousness.

Forty and fifty years ago most of those young caddies probably walked five miles through some pretty tough neighborhoods to get to golf courses. What do you think, do you think their non-working mom drove them over there in their mini-vans.

Kids today don't need to be given free golf by the USGA or anyone else, they need to get out on courses and clean their acts up, learn to F....ing EARN their way onto courses and into golf like their dads and granddads had to do.

This idea that something should just be given to kids is total horseshit. It's not the way to go, Never was and it never will be.

And I'm no conservative. I really am an old democratic liberal from New York and nobody understands an ineffective social program better or more poignantly than then broken down old liberals. Why? Primarily because some of the things we did and proposed now have a very clear history of just not working of being socially effective.

This country of ours never offered anyone equality. That's one of the biggest misunderstandings of this entire nation's myth. What this country offered was "equaltiy of opportunity" and that implies a two way contract---eg it can be there for you but you pretty much need to do some part in earning it.

[Aaron Katz]

I'm 28, so I can't claim to have witnessed these five mile walks that kids took back in 1950.  But there is absolutely no way that kids back then had to deal with what kids are dealing with today.  Guns, drugs, etc.  All of that crap has gotten worse in the past 50 years.  I'd concede that we have a better inner city environment now than we did in the 1980s and 1990s, but the glory days for the young caddy was not then.  

I also never suggested that soccer mom drove the kid in her mini-van over to Westchester.  But having a support system that is present at home when the kid gets done with school certainly makes it a hell of a lot easier for that kid to take advantage of whatever opportunities may reside outside of it.  I've worked with the type of latch-key, inner city kids that the First Tee program is aimed at.  And I can tell you right now that I could never in my right mind recommend that the kid head on up to Myopia Hunt.  I also have serious doubts that a kid like that would be welcome at a place like The Country Club or Charles River.  You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm just not seeing a big market in Boston for minority kids who have never played golf but want to caddy.  I've seen kids like that at Bethpage, but not at any private course I've been to recently.

I sympathize with your desire to have kids "earn" stuff.  But we're talking about GOLF!  The priorities for these kids should be (1) school, (2) staying safe, and (3) school.  Underprivileged kids have it tough enough already to keep up with the Jones's.  Golf is a game, a pure luxury.  We shouldn't require kids to "earn" golf when that would be at the expense of school and other things that should absolutely take precedence.

Now, you'll probably argue that caddying is a way to introduce a kid to golf while at the same time providing a job.  Fine.  I agree with that argument.  Spending long summer days at the local country club and looping once or twice would be fantastic, and I would encourage a kid to do that even if he wasn't interested in golf at all.

However, why should that be the exclusive option?  Why not also give the kid a course 10 minutes from home where he can go practice at 5 pm on a Wednesday in April?  Did you have that?  I sure as hell did, and it made all the difference.  In fact, my city (Tucson) had a program where kids could play for free on any city course as long as they passed a golf etiquette class.  Every single person that took part in that program when I was a kid still plays golf (most of it at the same city courses, in fact).  Is that "giving" something to a kid?  Even if your answer is yes, is that a bad thing?  And, if so, why?

How many GCA members grew up on private golf courses within a stone's throw from home.  My guess is that a great many did.  I don't hear anyone casting aspersions on those people.  Why then is it criticized when the government tries to replicate (poorly, I might add) that same thing for underprivileged kids?  

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