IISPORTSII
FIRST TEE OF THE LOWCOUNTRY INSTILLS CORE VALUES IN KIDS THROUGH GOLF STORY BY TIM WOOD | PHOTOS SUPPLIED
The first time Nick Dunham volunteered to teach a program at the First Tee of the Lowcountry, he was hooked. The Syracuse, N.Y., native came here to pursue a career in the golf industry as a student at Bluffton’s Professional Golfers Career College. What he found at First Tee was a way to use his love of golf to teach kids important life skills through the game. “It’s just such a natural fit,” said the program director for the Hilton Head Island-based First Tee chapter, who was expected to leave the First Tee at the end of March to became a personal coach at GolfTEC training center in Wisconsin. “Sports in general teach you so many life lessons, but golf especially is an arena where we can apply so many facets of being a better person.” The First Tee national program began in 1997 as a partnership between the LPGA, the Masters Tournament, the PGA of America, the PGA Tour and the USGA to make golf more affordable and accessible to kids. The Lowcountry chapter has been a national leader in spreading the program’s curriculum since building its six-hole, par 3 Gumtree Road facility next to the Boys & Girls Club of Hilton Head in 2016. Dunham has worked with executive director Patrick Zuk and a team of more than 100 volunteer coaches and board members to grow the program’s reach exponentially each year. The center of that learning is the program’s nine core values: honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, respect, confidence, responsibility, perseverance, courtesy and judgment. The program has evolved to incorporate healthy habits as well — everything from having fun and staying safe while playing, to good nutrition practices, setting and achieving goals, and developing social and problemsolving skills. The learning happens through school-based class lessons and in-person programs, school at the Hilton Head facility and at participating golf courses like Eagles Pointe, Crescent Pointe and Olde Beaufort Golf Club.
A P R I L 2 0 2 1 // 209
