A staff effort led by Superintendent John Fulling donated labor and equipment to revive Custer Greens Golf Course in Battle Creek, Mich. In addition to players from the local VA Medical Center, the course is now being used by New Level Sports, an organization that provides afterschool safe space and youth opportunities, for a pilot program in turf and golf-course management that has been developed in partnership with Michigan State University.
With equipment that wasn’t working, unplayable turf and tall grass, Custer Greens Golf Course was sitting useless by the Battle Creek (Mich.) Veterans Administration Medical Center, the Battle Creek Enquirer reported.
But New Level Sports, a local organization that provides afterschool safe space for children and provide resources and opportunities for them, saw that the course had potential as another resource it could offer to area youth, along with services that now include sports clubs, a farm, career advice, afterschool childcare and more, the Enquirer reported.
Fixing up the idle course, however, was a challenge New Level Sports couldn’t take on by itself. But with the help of the staff at Kalamazoo Country Club, the Enquirer reported, Custer Greens has been fixed up to now allow New Level Sports to not only introduce younger players to golf, but also, through a partnership with Michigan State University, to create a golf management program that will teach high schoolers turf and golf course management.
Kalamazoo CC’s Superintendent, John Fulling, brought others from the club as well as equipment to Custer Greens in the afternoons and spent about a month getting it back into shape, the Enquirer reported.
“It really worked out well,” Fulling said. “It was really a labor of love, certainly not a hard choice. Was it substantial? Yeah, but that’s definitely not, certainly not the emphasis, not on what it took to do it. I’d do it again. I will do it again. And the club is totally behind it. The club loved it.”
“Chris [McCoy, Executive Director of New Level Sports] does such a great job with the kids, and the [Veterans Administration] really wanted to get the golf course operational, too,” Fulling added. “They use it for the vets and people coming through the hospital as well. Two great causes.”
As he saw how the Kalamazoo CC staff was succeeding in getting the Custer Greens course back into shape, McCoy told the Enquirer, “We began to visualize a plan to introduce kids not only to golf, but the science and business behind golf,” said Chris McCoy, executive director of New Level Sports.
This is the second season that New Level Sports has been able to use the course, and the pilot version of its new program ran this summer as a 13-week session with five high schoolers from the Goodwill Connects program, a Battle Creek program that aims to promote high school graduation, college and career readiness for students by exposing them to internships and other work opportunities, the Enquirer reported.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Trey Rogers, a Michigan State University professor whose specialty is turfgrass management and science, told the Enquirer. “My hopes are they’ll enjoy it and they’ll want to pursue it—and even if they don’t enjoy and pursue it that they gain respect for those that do.”
For his role with the program, Rogers has conducted assessments of the Custer Greens course and equipment, helped to educate staff and given lectures to the students on turf management, the Enquirer reported. One of his graduate students, Thomas Green, helps out more directly with the golf course.
The program involves introduction to the game of golf at an elementary level, introduction to golf business management and science in junior high, and a turf-management elective at the high school level that will let students graduate with a certificate in turf management from Michigan State that can help them get into the university’s turf-management program, the Enquirer reported.
The curriculum was adapted from MSU’s turf-management curriculum to a more introductory level appropriate for the younger students, the Enquirer reported. The pilot version went well enough, Fulling told the Enquirer, that Kalamazoo CC is looking into running its own version of the program for students in the Kalamazoo area.
Funding for the program comes from different sources, the Enquirer reported. The Battle Creek Community Foundation helped to fund the pilot program, and New Level Sports’ McCoy isn’t worried about continuing to get support. It also helped that Goodwill Connects paid the high schoolers in the pilot program for their summer work.
“As it evolves, more resources will come,” McCoy said. “If you got a good product, people will get behind your product, especially if it’s to educate kids. Especially with the partnership with [Michigan State].”
McCoy is also looking to create a golf club as an option for children, the Enquirer reported. Unlike the golf-management program, for which the goal is to be free for students, this would be like a regular football club, with membership fees.
Though the revived Custer Greens golf course is mostly being used by veterans and children, the Enquirer reported, McCoy wants people to know that it will be open again to the public again. In time, New Level Sports will add a pro shop and bring the clubhouse to a level where it can function as a standard golf clubhouse.
“From there we want people to know it’s a public course, not just for veterans or kids,” McCoy said. “One of the challenges is getting people to believe in Custer Greens again.”
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