Groundbreaking for the new facility at the Willow Park, Texas property, which is being built by The First Tee of Fort Worth in partnership with the Ben Hogan Foundation, has been delayed because of the coronavirus outbreak, but officials remain hopeful that construction can begin soon for an opening by the end of 2021’s first quarter. It will be the second Hogan Learning Center in existence, following the initial facility at Rockwood GC in Fort Worth.
Sometime in the next year, Squaw Creek Golf Course in Willow Park, Texas will be home to a Ben Hogan Learning Center—the second such facility worldwide, the Weatherford (Texas) Democrat reported.
The First Tee organization, in partnership with the Ben Hogan Foundation, built the first Ben Hogan Learning Center at Rockwood Golf Course in Fort Worth, Texas, the Democrat reported. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Squaw Creek facility was scheduled to take place on March 27, but with the COVID-19 outbreak, it has been postponed for now.
“[The schedule for the groundbreaking is] a TBD right now,” Kevin Long, Executive Director of The First Tee of Fort Worth, told the Democrat. “We will start construction pretty soon and we’ll have a date when we do that, and maybe do a virtual groundbreaking ceremony if we’re still under restrictions.
“Assuming that we start sometime this spring, it’s about an eight- to nine-month project, so we would be open sometime in early 2021—hopefully a year from now,” Long added.
Lynn Vaughn, Squaw Creek’s Director of Golf, said he began having discussions with Long in 2015 about bringing a program to Willow Park, the Democrat reported.
“I went over to The First Tee headquarters in Fort Worth and spoke with Kevin,” Vaughn said. “At that time, Kevin and I really didn’t know each other and he didn’t know that much about our facility. I talked him into driving out here—at that time we were doing the first phase of the remodel, which was our practice facility—and when he came out and saw what we had done with our practice facility, his jaw dropped. He could see it was a perfect setting for the kids being out here, so he was all in at that point.”
“We are just so very proud to be associated with The First Tee and the Ben Hogan Foundation and what this means for the kids in this community,” Vaughn added. “That’s the main thing for us— [it’s] a great organization to be associated with.
“The thing I like about it is this is not something that’s taking kids and trying to turn them into great golfers,” Vaughn noted. “If that happens, that’s good, but they’re trying to turn them into great young men and women, and that’s much more important.”
The new facility, Vaughn believes, will bring worldwide attention to Willow Park and the surrounding area, the Democrat reported.
“This is tremendously beneficial not just for the golf course, but for Willow Park, for Parker County and for West Fort Worth,” he said. “Once the Ben Hogan Learning Center is built, it gives this area worldwide acclaim—there’s only one of these in the world, and we’re getting number two. It’s going to bring a tremendous amount of traffic to the golf course and the businesses of Willow Park and Parker County.”
Doyle Moss, Mayor of Willow Park, told the Democrat that he’s excited to see what the new center will do for the city and the golf course.
“Lynn Vaughan welcomes kids to the golf course, and I’m thrilled that this is coming to Willow Park,” Moss said. “I’m very excited about what it will do for the city, Parker County and Squaw Creek.
“Those nine core values that The First Tee promotes is teaching kids good life skills and we want to help promote that, and be good partners with them,” Moss added. “I’ve been very impressed with the organization and the people that are involved in this. It’s just been a great relationship that we’ve started and hope to continue for many years to come.”
Both the Rockwood and Squaw Creek facilities seek to advance The First Tee’s mission of helping youth build life skills—honesty, respect, perseverance, integrity, confidence, courtesy, sportsmanship, responsibility and judgement—while also learning the game of golf, the Democrat reported.
“We’re a youth-development and -character education program that just uses golf as our vehicle to teach those principles and core values,” Long said. “We are one of about 200 chapters around the country and world—we’re all our own individual entities, but all under The First Tee umbrella. Here in the Fort Worth area, we serve four-plus counties and about 60,000 kids.”
While learning the nine core values, youth can spend time golfing or resting and hanging out with friends, which is a strategy in line with one of the main goals of The First Tee—to provide access to the game of golf across all socio-economic boundaries within communities, the Democrat reported.
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