By Duane St. Clair

The average age of spectators on Wednesdays at the Memorial Tournament is a good deal younger than on other days, but that’s by design.

The Memorial, which turns 35 this year, connects with those a fraction its age through a growing set of programs created to teach youngsters about golf.

This year’s Junior Golf Day is June 2 (Wednesday during the week of the tournament). Several activities that day fall under the umbrella of The Memorial’s Clubhouse Kids program. Created by the Memorial Tournament, the program invites youth to participate in The Memorial Clubhouse Kids Golf Tour, Junior Golf Day (which includes Elementary Day and the Junior Golf Clinic) and the Clubhouse Kids Web site.

These activities create opportunities for kids and schools in the Dublin area and across the state, say Heather Baxter, the Memorial’s assistant director of sales and marketing. Baxter says she expects more than 500 students totaling 20 to 25 classes for this year’s Elementary Day portion of Junior Golf Day.

Melissa Kinsey Andrioff, a physical education teacher at Wright Elementary School in Dublin, takes advantage of all the tournament offers to expose her students to golf, an opportunity they may not get otherwise. For the first time last year, she took fourth and fifth graders to the tournament on Elementary Day, the second time it was held as part of Junior Golf Day. The school on West Case Road is at the district’s boundary with Columbus and “isn’t close to a golf course,” she says, noting that many of her students aren’t often exposed to the game.

The group was given a packet of information about the tournament and the course at Muirfield Village Golf Club, as well as a science lesson plan based on golf, which they reviewed at school ahead of time. Before making the trip, all classes participating in Elementary Day get lesson plans. In addition to the science lesson, some may be math-based, such as dealing with a scorecard, score calculations and averages, distances and converting yards to feet, Baxter explains. Or, for an English curriculum project, students are asked to imagine themselves in a successful golf career and write a story about it.

The youngsters were bused to an “on-site classroom” at the corporate hospitality area along Muirfield Drive, which is used as headquarters for participating schools that day. Divided into groups led by other teachers, Andrioff’s 179 students toured the course, watched practice and took pictures of pros during the morning.

“They met Tiger Woods. They got a lot of tees and balls (from the players),” she says. “We told (the students) about being quiet and to applaud politely. A lot of pros noticed and walked over and gave them souvenirs or autographs.”

After a trek back to the classroom, students ate lunch and talked about science-related topics they noticed, such as the trajectory and speed of golf balls, Andrioff says. They then spent another hour on the course before leaving.

On Junior Golf Day, kids 18 and younger are admitted free. For groups, passes are distributed through golf or country clubs, Central Ohio school districts, The First Tee and other Central Ohio junior golf programs. Those 12 and under get in free any day of the tournament if they’re with a paying patron, says Tom Sprouse, tournament media director.

Also that day, kids coming through the gate can receive a “treasure map,” which has a series of questions about various items that can be found in and around the main clubhouse, 18th green and practice areas. The scavenger-hunt type contest might have a question about finding where tournament winners are “etched in stone” and identifying the 2002 winner, Baxter explains. Three winners of tournament-related prizes are drawn from completed maps kids turn in near the clubhouse.

On the course during Junior Golf Day, more than 100 tournament pros will play practice rounds (weather permitting). Galleries will be treated to a skins game, a nine-hole contest between eight golfers, seven top professionals from the field and host Jack Nicklaus, competing for a $100,000 purse. The purse benefits The First Tee, a youth development program which provides valuable lessons to kids of all backgrounds through golf.

Later in the day, PGA Tour pros will put on a Junior Golf Clinic, which is free and open to the public, at Safari Golf Club across from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium on Powell Road. Winners of the Clubhouse Kids Coloring Contest will be announced during this event, and winners in different age groups receive tournament souvenir items and The Memorial’s Clubhouse Kids memberships.

Hundreds join The Memorial’s Clubhouse Kids via Internet registration from the tournament’s Web site. They receive a lanyard, backpack, autograph marker, a golf ball with a Memorial Tournament logo, a flying disc and an invitation to the Junior Golf Clinic, plus newsletters during the year. There’s also an electronic “locker room” to which they get a password. There’s a one-time $5 shipping and handling charge and automatic annual membership renewals until age 16.

Baxter, who’s primarily in charge of all the kids’ programs she helped develop, says she hopes to see many local participants continue to enjoy Junior Golf Day.

“Our goal is to continually reach out to the community and to encourage youth to explore golf and experience the Memorial Tournament in various ways,” she says.

For Memorial Tournament details, visit www.thememorialtournament.com or www.memorialclubhousekids.com.

Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor for Dublin Life.

IF YOU GO:
The Memorial Tournament begins May 31 and runs through June 6 this year at Muirfield Village Golf Club. To view a complete schedule of events, or to purchase badges for the tournament, visit www.thememorialtournament.com.  

BONUS:
In the Dublin schools, tournament-related kids’ stuff doesn’t stop there for Andrioff and many others. She uses special kid-friendly equipment for indoor lessons, which is provided by the tournament and Allstate Insurance Co. through the Memorial’s Clubhouse Kids Golf Tour for teachers to provide basic golf lessons to students. The equipment is called SNAG, or “Starting New At Golf.” She enlisted her school for the “Golf Tour” about when it began in 2004. Muirfield Village Golf Club pros visited the school to kick off lessons as the sport became part of the physical education program at Wright Elementary.

Baxter says more than 100 schools and about 40,000 students have participated in the program. Muirfield pros visit 10 schools a year to give lessons for one day as part of the Golf Tour program.