Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2019 - 3

EDITOR'S
LE T T ER
Links to Success
Your support can help youth access the game.
T
In Minnesota,
1,600 youth
posted
5,000
rounds last
season.
here's a quiet golf movement afoot
that reaches from Alberta, Canada,
to both coasts and all regions of
the United States. It has 50,000 active members,
and, with the recent addition of Golf
Canada's Future Links, that number could
easily grow by 15 percent before the end of
the year.
They are 6 to 18 years old, they play a
lot of golf (142,000 rounds in 2018), and
they mirror the general golf population by
gender (20/80 female/male). In Minnesota,
1,600 youth posted 5,000 rounds last season.
They are Youth on Course, a non-profit
organization providing young people
with access to affordable golf ( " $5 or less
per round " ), college scholarships, caddie
programs and paid internships. Based in
Pebble Beach, Calif., as a charitable arm of
the Northern California Golf Association,
YoC is a 501(c)3 that thrives on the gifts of
others. In other words, fundraising accounts
for 85 percent of YoC's operating budget of
$2.6 million, says Adam Heieck, CEO.
It's no different than here in Minnesota,
says Joel Comstock, local director for Youth
on Course and longtime staffer at the MGA.
In 2018, YoC's first full season in Minnesota,
Comstock's budget consisted mostly of subsidizing
rounds to the tune of $37,000. With
rising awareness of the program (YoC had
a presence at the Minnesota Golf Show and
the Let's Play Hockey Expo in Minneapolis
and St. Paul, respectively), he expects participation
to grow by 50 percent and expenses
to increase by 35 percent this year.
The plan is to make YoC sustainable, and
the MGA is looking to the goodwill and
generosity of its members to help attain
this goal.
There are ways you can help support
YoC: Consider purchasing the Minnesota
Golf License Plate, proceeds from which
go toward player development programs
including YoC. There are also national
opportunities to donate: the Day of Giving,
July 26, and the YoC Online Auction, Nov.
10-14. Closer to home, you can be a 100
Hole Hike sponsor, Sept. 16 at LaFayette
Club in Minnetonka Beach.
Last year, Barb Hanson, MGA past president,
Tone Pulido, MGA senior tour manager,
Comstock, and this golfer spent sunup
to sundown walking more than 20 miles
Sept. 10 over Inver Wood's executive course,
a 1,600 yard, par 30 layout carved through
hardwoods and prairie. The day featured a
marathon of ups and downs, both literally
and figuratively. Hanson, who is 73, led the
way. Remarkably, Pulido, a 2.9 handicap,
played the same ball for all 11-plus trips
around the nine-hole tract. We arrived at the
100th tee just as the sun dipped below the
horizon, and played the last hole, a 100-yard
par 3, in the twilight, exhausted but elated
that the job was done.
Thanks to our sponsors, who pledged
$6,000, we moved YoC 16 percent closer to
success.
See you on the tee.
W.P. Ryan, Editor-in-Chief
mngolf.org
Spring 2019 MINNESOTAGOLFER
3
http://www.mngolf.org
Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2019
