Last year, Beaver Golf was able to provide golfers for the Junior Achievement of the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast in the PLAY4JA Golf Tourney in response to a last minute request for players. This year, we were proactive in partnering by sponsoring a tee sign, a foursome and providing golfers to complete the foursomes. Yesterday's event was successful for Beaver Golf in several ways. The organization is all about junior achievement and I saw this event as an opportunity to showcase the talent of a few of my homeschool students who have the ability to play competitive golf. One of those golfers is Shay Atkins but when we asked him to participate, he said No. While this was disappointing, I will never force a golfer to do something they are not ready to do. Fortunately, after taking some time to really think about the opportunity he chose to participate. In the following weeks, he would play practice rounds and yesterday he won one of the closest to the pin prizes!! After receiving his award, Shay went over to shake the hands of his Wawa playing partners and thanked them for the opportunity explaining that he had to leave because he had a football game to get to and he was the quarterback. Their response: "Shay!! You get to play golf in the morning and go be the quarterback in the afternoon? You are living our dream!!!" Three other homeschool golfers were invited to play. Sofia Mayer, Ike Tobin and Vivian Sterijevski. Vivian was the only homeschool golfer to play last year and this year she had the honor of sinking a birdie putt for her team. It is my hope that this kind of friendly tournament play will instill confidence in these players to the level that they will believe that they have what it takes to play good golf at a competitive level. The more they play the more confident they will become. Coach Danni Rocco suggested we sponsor a foursome this year because she had two students who are aspiring to make their high school golf team, Lily Bieber and Sophia Nores, and another, Yuvani Bhandary, who wants to become a leader on the Palm Beach Central team. This tournament provided an opportunity for Coach Danni to offer an on-course lesson to all three at the same time. Additionally, they were able to meet each other and build new friendships. "The Play4JA Golf Tournament was a great experience. My students had a fun time meeting new people and playing as a team. It was very nice seeing them take what they've learned on the range and apply it on the golf course. While all three contributed to team birdies, the most memorable moment of the round was when Lily made her first solo birdie ever." -Coach Danni Rocco Several of my tournament players rounded out the fantastic 12 that represented Beaver Golf. Annika Collado, Sydney Rogers and Danny Tadeo returned for a second year. They were joined by graduating senior, Jayda Dookie who took home two of the remaining three closest to the pin prizes.
It is an honor to develop players that are willing to give up their Saturday mornings to help out a great cause. The event raised $27,000 for Junior Achievement programming. Are golf lessons absolutely necessary to play golf? The short answer is no. There are lots of people who play the game every day who have not taken a lesson. They play because they heard it was fun, they think it would be beneficial to their career or they were persuaded by a friend and got hooked. If you watch these people closely, the majority offer more in the way of comic relief than they do skill. Every so often, these players plateau and come to the realization that they cannot improve without proper instruction.
At Beaver Golf, our goal as teaching professionals is to help our students develop a complete understanding of their swing. It is our hope that they will be able to replicate what we are teaching them during their practice time. Each lesson builds upon the other until the student has the confidence to identify and fix issues in their swing quickly when playing. One strategy that works well is to take notes after the lesson. We especially encourage this for junior golfers. A small notebook can be stored in the golf bag so it easy to retrieve when practicing and playing just like the yardage or green notebook that most professional golfers use during a round. We receive countless texts from students asking questions that were answered during the lesson. It makes sense, new information needs time to connect but note taking whether in words or pictures definitely speeds up the process. Try it!!
Healthy Habit: Family
Our junior program is unique in that all siblings can learn golf in the same group setting at the same time. It is really neat to see the younger siblings eventually grow up to be old enough to participate. We have several families where this has happened. If the love for the sport develops, any one of our sibling groups could become the next power family in golf.
Whether it is multiple children or or just one child that decides to pursue golf as a career, it is important to always remember the sacrifices that parents make to help them attain that goal.
Of course, if the desire to play golf for fun is all that develops that is a win too!! Make memories.
Tuesday at The Honda Classic is always very eventful. This year, Shannon Miller who was once the United States Most Decorated Olympic Gymnast was the keynote speaker and the Women's Leadership Forum. First Tee Participant of the Year, Jayda Dookie and Annika Collado were invited to attend to the breakfast where they were able to meet Ms. Miller and Barbara Nicklaus (that's Jack's wife). Jayda said Ms. Miller was very inspirational and her lesson about having a gold medal mindset was one that she will use as she prepares to enter college next year. She also appreciated her encouragement to keep a great team around you if you want to stay positive. Annika agreed that it was definitely worth taking the day off from school. She will be applying the gold medal mindset this week as she works hard to catch up on assignments the rest of the week before returning to caddy at Pine Tree Golf Club. One of her other highlights was meeting Barbara Nicklaus. Later in the day, several Beaver Golf students attended a free clinic hosted by First Tee. Dennis Walters and Gussie put on another wonderful show and Professional Golfer Andrew Kozan shared some insights into how he decided to pursue a career in golf. He cautioned the golfers that while golf is fun, you need to treat it like a job if you want to make it your career which means dedicating a significant portion of your day to practice if you really want to have a chance. He also encouraged the golfers to eat healthy and get fit because without your body a golfer does not have a career. The clinic closed with two First Tee participants exhibiting club head speed with the driver. Mateo Muñiz was one of those, Carl Mistretta, Executive Director of First Tee-Florida Gold Coast was very complimentary of his talent and Beaver Golf in his introduction.
Finally, all of the participants were able to celebrate 42 years of The Honda Classic Cares support of First Tee by posing for a picture with a check for $1.6 million which represents the total amount that the program received over those years. Thank you Honda, you have been amazing. Beaver Golf had the pleasure of having two students receive an invitation to play in The Honda Classic Pro-Am this year. Annika Collado played on the First Tee of the Palm Beaches girls team and Mateo Muñiz played on the boys. A Pro-Am is when both professional golfers and amateur golfers compete in a tournament. In this case, the First Tee teams were paired with a professional golfer to turn in an overall team score. The boys played gross (total strokes) and the girls net (total strokes minus handicap). The boys were paired with Marcus Byrd who competed in the Genesis Invitational hosted by Tiger Woods just this past weekend. They finished 3 strokes behind the girls when the final scores were calculated. Mateo said, "I left some shots out there because my mental game was out of focus; but I learned a lot from the experience. I have some things to work on for sure." He enjoyed playing with Mr. Byrd and thought it was cool that he had just seen him play on television last week. The victorious girls were paired with Erik Barnes who played in the 2022 U.S. Open. Annika said, "It was great opportunity. I got to see how pros practice and prepare which makes me excited to someday hopefully be there myself." She said everyone was really nice and she will always remember how the girls laughed at their mistakes and cheered when they made putts.
This opportunity impacted Mateo and Annika in different ways and that's what makes golf such a unique sport. |
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