Student-led Event: Learn More About Youth Golf (+ Free Lessons!)

When I talked to my parents a year ago about starting a nonprofit, they were very skeptical. It was just after I had severely injured my right knee after hurting my left knee a year ago and was about to spend a few months on crutches for the second time. I had participated in a national golf tournament the day before, and I had reached such a good place mentally-wise after my first injury that it was kind of ironic that I would injure myself a second time the day after, effectively killing my dreams of pursuing golf further.

I knew I couldn't play golf anymore. A third time meant surgery, and I was so traumatized from the injuries that I couldn't really think about golf and not picture what happened to my knees.

I was a high school sophomore last year, so it's safe to say when I suddenly said to my parents that I wanted to start a nonprofit organization that provided free golf lessons to youth of all socioeconomic statuses and I wanted it to be nationwide one day, they were slightly worried. But I remember vividly that one month of just lying on the bed with my immovable knees, filling out the IRS forms and the tax forms and creating a website and writing mission statements and planning my budget, then filing it and getting approved and realizing that what I was about to do was so big yet so fulfilling.

Little did I know that from those injuries could come so much new experiences, stress, laughter, and giving. We just hit our one-year anniversary recently, JuniorCoach Golf Association, and in just one year, we've reached over 300 youth, over 6 regions nationwide, and taught over 350 lessons (that's almost a lesson a day!). We just went nationwide this summer.

I've met some really passionate junior golfers who want to get involved and who want to serve their community. We had a collective mission: golf is a stereotyped sport, and we want to change that. Being dedicated junior golfers ourselves, we know how impactful it is, how much it can develop strength in mentality and in character, how loving and caring the golf community is. We did not want economic factors to stop kids from getting involved in the sport. Lessons are an essential part of any type of learning, and that's why our main program is providing free golf lessons. Actually, a student of ours started out not being able to hit the ball off the ground. After being a dedicated and active student in JCGA, she's now playing in tournaments.

To celebrate our one year anniversary, on November 24th, 2:30PM-5:30PM at the San Ramon Amador Rancho Center, JuniorCoach Golf Association will be hosting its first Conference/Informational Night. I wanted to create this event because I wanted to inform more families on the impact of golf and how our program can help kids get into the sport. I wanted to honor the volunteers who were so dedicated to our organization. I wanted to just provide a free event for youth to get excited about a sport they potentially never thought about playing.

I'm so excited to invite Katherine Zhu, a junior golfer now attending U.C. Berkeley who was named three-times player of the year by WBAL and who was on the 2016 Rolex Junior All-American Team. She's an amazing junior golfer and she will be sharing her experiences with the sport and how she got to where she is. We will also be honoring a few of our volunteers with a San Ramon City Councilmember who won the Presidential Service Award by completing 100+ hours of service with our organization in a year. They will be speaking about their experiences with acquiring this award and how their efforts impacted their community. I'll be speaking there too, along with some other junior golfers, about my experiences, both with golf and with creating this nonprofit.

Thank you so much for reading, and I really hope to see you there!

For more information and to sign up for this event, visit TinyURL.com/jcgaevent.