Summer vacation is just ahead, which means boys and girls from around Snohomish County will be looking for things to do in the coming months.
Elizabeth Armstrong / The Herald
Some will play baseball, softball, soccer and other sports. Some will hang out with friends. And some, usually the older ones, will get jobs.
The lucky ones, though, will discover golf.
Lucky, indeed, because Snohomish County has some of the best programs for kids anywhere in Western Washington. And nowhere is that more evident than in Everett, where junior golf camps and the Joe Richer Junior Golf Club provide opportunities for hundreds of young people to experience golf – from absolute beginners to those who are accomplished players – every year.
Also this year, First Tee of Snohomish County is starting a chapter at Lobo Ridge Golf Course in Snohomish. That program reaches out to young people, many of them golfing novices, with a combined curriculum of basic golf skills and life-enhancing values.
Elsewhere in the county, other courses offer a variety of camps and clinics designed to give youngsters a chance to enjoy the game.
In Everett, kids who know nothing about golf can learn the fundamentals at one of the golf camps held periodically at both Legion Memorial and Walter Hall golf courses. The camps, which actually began last month, are held over three days, with sessions lasting roughly 2-21/2 hours. Campers are taught the basics of a golf swing with the game’s rules and etiquette, and receive daily snacks along with a T-shirt and certificate upon completion. The cost is $40.
From there, boys and girls may be interested in joining the Joe Richer Junior Golf Club, which is open to players of all abilities. For the cost of $20, which is the annual fee, club members can participate in weekly clinics and competitions. Also, club members can purchase a 90-day pass, which entitles them to unlimited weekday play at Everett’s two public courses.
Bruce Christy, director of golf at Legion Memorial and Walter Hall, says there were about 250 kids in the Richer club – named for longtime Everett High School golf coach and community youth-golf booster Joe Richer – last year, with a comparable number expected this year. Another 200 or more participated in the junior camps, which means ”there’s pretty close to 500 kids a year that we’re seeing. And we’ve been doing this for about eight years, so if you start adding them all up that’s a lot of juniors.”
Many of the area’s top high school players came through the Richer program and a select few have gone on to play in college. But for instructors like Christy, some of the biggest rewards come from seeing a boy or girl who has never played golf develop an appreciation and sometimes a passion for the game. It happens, he said, ”at every junior camp.
”Half of the 20 or 25 kids in one of our junior camps have never held a club before,” Christy said. ”And they’re the ones you see getting excited after three days of listening and learning. That’s sort of where you hang your hat as a measure of our success.
”Our goal is to promote and foster the game of golf, and not just become a factory for college players. If that happens, it happens and we’re proud of it. But not everyone is going to play college golf. So for us, the kid who hits his first golf ball and hits it straight is as much a measure of accomplishment as the kid who goes on to win a college scholarship.”
The new First Tee program at Lobo Ridge, meanwhile, will offer many of the same opportunities for new golfers. First Tee offers introductory three-day classes, which begin June 20 and will continue every Monday-Wednesday through the end of the summer. The cost is $65.
Youngsters can then decide to join First Tee, which costs $50 (though scholarship money for low-income families is available, as it is in the Everett programs) and involves an eight-week program that ”combines golf lessons with life-skill lessons,” said Jeff Cornish, a volunteer and board secretary for First Tee of Snohomish County. ”It’s not just about golf skills. It’s also about teaching kids about integrity, honesty, sportsmanship and respect.
”We’re not trying to grow competitive golfers,” he added. ”We’re trying to introduce golf to kids, and particularly we want to introduce golf to kids who might not otherwise experience the game, whether the reason is economically or culturally or whatever the reason.”
Information about the First Tee program is available on organization’s website at grassrootsjrgolf.org. Anyone with questions can also contact Cornish at 425-422-9527.
For information about Everett’s junior camps and the Joe Richer Junior Golf Club, go to the website everettgolf.com, or call 425-259-4653.
Many other courses around Snohomish County offer junior programs in the summer, and information can be obtained by calling the pro shop.
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