Despite the so-called “golf revolution” that took place in the wake of Tiger Woods’ emergence on the golf scene in the 1990s, the grand old game still suffers from the persistent image that it’s only for those who belong to swanky country clubs.
One track making an effort to change this perception is the Corica Park Golf Course, a sprawling golf complex of two 18-hole courses that’s been a fixture on Alameda’s Bay Farm Island since 1927. Several programs there that are designed to introduce the game to kids who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity are flourishing.
Led in part by former Alameda High School golf coach Nick Wolf (coricapark.com/coach-nick-wolf), the programs include a Wednesday afternoon and Sunday program for 25 Alameda middle-schoolers, all-day summer camps for 250 kids and even a middle school golf league in the fall. And it’s all free.
“We are going to schools and networking and trying to find kids that aren’t exposed to the sport and bringing ’em out here,” says Wolf.
To that end, Greenway Golf, Corica Park’s management team, partners with organizations that aid underserved youths in Alameda, Oakland, Hayward and other East Bay cities. Wolf, a 19-year educator who teaches physical education at nearby Earhart Elementary School, got his start in golf education after graduating from UC Santa Barbara and teaching the game to kids in the First Tee program at San Francisco’s Harding Park Golf Course.
While there, he ran summer camps and after-school programs from 2011 to 2016. He’s been at Corica for the past three years. One aspect of golf that many newcomers find difficult to overcome is how frustrating the game can be. Some even blame the decline in golf after the initial Tiger Woods-inspired boom to new players unable to deal with the game’s inevitable up and downs.
Wolf, who took up the game while attending UC Santa Barbara after landing a job at a golf course in nearby Montecito, addresses the issue of golf burnout by telling young players just starting out to learn to manage their expectations.
“We talk about perseverance and how to overcome frustration. And how getting frustrated doesn’t help you play any better,” he says. “That’s something that I speak about a lot to the kids.”
For Wolf this means “knowing that every time you come out to the golf course you’re not going to play your very, very best. It’s not linear. You’re not always getting better and better and better. There’s bumps in the road. It’s like the stock market. There’s luck too. There’s a lot of luck involved in terms of how bad things can happen that weren’t really in your control.”
One tip Wolf likes to give first-time golfers is to not try to emulate pro golfers like John Daly — famous for his signature over-the-top backswing in which he holds his driver all the way behind his back. Despite being 6-feet-5, Wolf has a compact backswing, something he teaches his charges to do as well. He refers to this approach to taking the club only to where the arm and the club form the letter “L.”
“If you’re really athletic and flexible, you can have a huge swing, but most people do themselves a favor by shortening it up,” says Wolf.
He adds that swinging from the “L” position also means all your acceleration goes into the ball. Helping Wolf coach young Alameda golfers is Chester Lawton, 20, a sophomore at St. Mary’s College in the East Bay’s Moraga. While he wants to see kids learn the game, he also realizes that, for many, becoming familiar with golf course etiquette is an important first step.
“I realized that they’re usually coming after school and they just kind of want to hang out with their friends,” says Lawton. “And some people, they don’t have friends here, and so I just try and create a community where people feel like, ‘Cool, I’m just going to hit some golf balls on the driving range for two hours.’
“Usually how I treat this camp isn’t necessarily ‘let’s focus on golf skills’ because the majority of these kids have never played golf before. So it’s just really fun to introduce them to the course and the facilities so they can come later and get into it that way.”
For Umish Patel, Greenway Golf’s co-owner, the first step in introducing the game of golf is overcoming the cost factor — a stumbling block for many.
“Golf is an expensive sport. It just is. And if you’re going to provide access, how can you provide it? You have to solve for the cost. And we felt the best way to solve for that was to make it totally free,” says Patel.
For more information on the Corica Park youth golf programs, visit coricapark.com/junior-programs online.
Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at pkilduff350@gmail.com.