Brent Wadsworth's Links Across America concept to grow game is worth a look
A few great thoughts, minor scoops and war stories from the cluttered notebook, mailbox and mind of an ink-stained wretch:
PROPOSED SOLUTION?
I have written numerous times over the years that from my perspective,
most initiatives to “grow the game” have been little more than lip
service – golf organizations throwing cash at the problem and hoping
someone at the grass roots level steps up and does something. As long
as they keep a few grant dollars flowing downstream, those
organizations will tell you yes, they’re doing their part.
While
we hear about a few, scattered “award-winning” junior golf programs,
they really haven’t done much to “grow the game”. We have seen
well-publicized celebrity photo-ops of programs in the inner city,
where the kids don’t have access to clubs or money to play on a golf
course. We have seen in the past “Junior Clinics” in the suburbs where
kids are bused from the city to get a 5-minute lesson and a T-shirt,
hit some range balls, eat some hot dogs and drink Cokes, and go home
with a useless 5-iron. We have seen junior golf programs that are not
much more than thinly-disguised tournament schedules for the offspring
of private club members.
How can we truly determine if any of
these programs are “growing the game”? Simple. Ask golf course owners
if the results are showing up on their tee sheets.
You know the answer.
Now I find someone who might have a viable solution.
The
other night I went to hear Mike Small speak at a banquet for the First
Tee of Aurora, which itself is an impressive and well-organized
program. Sitting to my left was Plainfield’s Brent Wadsworth, whose
best-in-the-biz Wadsworth Golf Construction Co. has built over 680 golf
courses in 44 states in the last 50 years.
Bubbling over with
vibrant enthusiasm, Wadsworth told me about a new initiative he’s
envisioned. Links Across America will involve developing feeder short
courses (6-hole and 9-hole par-3s) across the country to provide
desperately-needed access to golf – especially for youth. His plan will
also include families and individuals with disabilities and injuries
from all ethnic backgrounds.
Over the past few years, we’ve lost
too many par-3 and executive-length feeder courses to development,
which has greatly hurt participation numbers.
As I wrote in
this issue’s page one article, the golf industry failed miserably in
creating new players while it was building and opening thousands of new
courses over a 20-year boom period. In the May, 2007 issue, I reprinted
the “grow the game” concepts from Golf Summit 1992. There were some
great ideas in that white paper, but no one ever carried them out.
So what we need is both salient ideas and people to roll up their sleeves. Wadsworth thinks he has the answer.
He’s
funding the startup of Links Across America through his Wadsworth Golf
Charities Foundation. Using Andrew Carnegie’s model for the
establishment of libraries nationwide, Wadsworth feels that like the
literacy created by Carnegie’s libraries, the premise is that golf can
be a good and powerful teacher.
Links Across America would solve
the problem of affordable access. The Wadsworth Foundation would
partner with communities, park districts, YMCAs, developers, existing
courses with available land, hospitals, and forest preserve or school
districts which could donate land and operate the facility.
Next,
Wadsworth establish teams of Company Partners from the golf course
construction and golf facility industries who would whenever possible
donate their talent at no charge (course construction would be done at
cost) to create the feeder short courses. Finally, the Wadsworth
Foundation would work with the ownership group to secure Funding
Partners interested in paying for the cost of a Links Across America
course and have it named after their company.
The preliminary
response from park districts and municipalities in Chicagoland has been
very positive. Right now, the Foundation is focused on assembling the
team of Golf Course Builders and will follow with teams of architects
and golf course construction suppliers. There’s a very real possibility
that the first two Links Across America models will be built in Joliet
and Oswego.
WHADDA YOU THINK? Have you heard about the “accomplishments” of Jacqueline Gagne, aka “The Hole-In-One Lady?”
Someone
has been sending me press releases about this unfolding saga all along
– I’ve read them with a raised eyebrow – but when the totals reached
four and five within a few short weeks, I decided it had to be a hoax
and refused to give her any publicity until her records could be
substantiated.
Gagne did rope in some gullible media types to
toot her horn, though – Golf Digest, Golf World, USA Today, The London
Times and The Wall Street Journal, according to her website.
Gagne
claims she can “read the green” from the tee box on a par-3 and uses
that information to place her shot. Now there’s a red flag if I ever
saw one.
Best part is, she’s only been playing the game for
about five years. In the last six months, she claims to have played
about 120 rounds of golf – in which she now claims to have made 16
holes-in-one.
In the November Golf Digest you’ll find a
fascinating piece about this person written by Dave Kindred. The
Harvard math wiz quoted in the story says the odds against making 16
holes-in-one in six months are
2,253,649,101,066,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1.
Gagne
claims witnesses to some of her aces; Kindred says half of them never
returned his calls, and of those who spoke with him, none even saw her
shot hit the green on the “lucky” holes, let alone see her ball go into
the hole. Her playing partners were usually looking for her ball where
they thought they saw it fly – in greenside bushes or bunkers, where it
wasn’t to be found. Then Voila! Someone finds Gagne’s little pill in
the bottom of the jar. Sixteen times in 118 rounds, according to
Kindred, which computes to something like one hole-in-one every 29
par-3 holes.
Anyway, it’s a fascinating story if only for the prominent, apparently naive media that were sucked in. Kindred writes: “Gagne
twice appeared on CBS television’s ‘The Early Show.’ Co-anchor Harry
Smith began the first segment saying, ‘Oh, do I love this story.’ Later
he brought her to New York, where he enlisted golf analyst Peter
Kostis. When Gagne revealed that she reads the green from the tee,
Kostis declared that ‘the first clue’ to the holes-in-one. Then she
made a few swings, and Kostis liked what he saw. His conclusion: ‘It’s
the real deal.’”
Egad.
WHY NOT?
If other athletes aren’t already jealous of Tiger Woods, what will they
say when Woods rolls out his own brand of sports drink next year under
an endorsement deal with Gatorade.
It marks a couple of firsts
for the world’s No. 1 golfer – his first U.S. deal with a beverage
company and his first licensing agreement. Gatorade said it will
introduce “Gatorade Tiger’’ in March, with more products to follow.
Woods even picked out the flavors himself, with the drink available in
a cherry blend, citrus blend and grape.
Terms are said to be for Woods to receive as much as $100 million over five years.
Drinking it just before playing golf will help a person hit the ball longer and straighter.