New First Tee executive director eyes golf project to connect Coachella Valley
Kyle Winn wants to keep growing The First Tee of the Coachella Valley in his new position st executive director of the local chapter. But offering the game to the youth of the entire desert might take some pie-in-the-sky thinking, like somehow building a facility in the eastern part of the desert.
“That is definitely a big project that we want to look at,” Winn said. “Is there an opportunity in the east valley to build a golf course? Are there people in the Coachella Valley that would be willing to go on that journey with us?”
Based at the nine-hole The Golf Center in Palm Desert off Cook Street near Palm Desert High School, The First Tee of the Coachella Valley continues to offer life skills to juniors with golf as a teaching tool. For Winn, taking over as executive director after three years with the desert program, the growth of the specific programs has been remarkable already.
“We’ve gone from about 300 kids every session, we grew that to 500 kids every session,” said Winn, who has been working on program development for the chapter. “We refreshed some curriculum from the national First Tee. Instead of doing nine-week sessions, we did six-week sessions. So we have more sessions a year, even though the weeks add up to be the same.”
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Part of that growth has been taking programs away from The Golf Center, which is the home of The First Tee chapter but is also limited in its size and the fact that it is a public golf facility within the Desert Recreation District.
“We are kind of maxed out of what we can do at The Golf Center. We are still going to Tahquitz Creek in Palm Springs. They have been a great asset, a great program location,” Winn said. “Same thing with The Lights in Indio. So we have a chance to increase those programs as well.”
But the biggest challenge is how do we get to the kids in Desert Hot Springs better and how do we get to the kids in the east valley better, east of Indio,” Winn said. “That’s going to be the biggest challenge.”
Long-time First Tee supporter
Winn, a PGA of America member who has worked at local clubs like Avondale Country Club and Shadow Ridge Golf Resort, moved into the executive director position when Teal Thron advanced from Coachella Valley executive director to director of chapter relations for the national First Tee. Thron, who played high school golf at Palm Springs High School, is still in the desert, and Winn said she continues to help him and the chapter in general.
For Winn, the executive director position is the latest step in his First Tee journey.
“I started in First Tee in 2009 as a part-time coach in the San Francisco chapter,” Winn said. “They are very fortunate to have Harding Park as their main base, main campus. I got hired as a part-time coach and just immediately fell in love with the program. I was like, I get it, hook, line and sinker.”
When he moved to the Coachella Valley six years ago, Winn was interested in joining the local First Tee chapter, but it wasn‘t until three years ago that the chance to join the chapter turned up.
Winn says most people around the golf world know The First Tee, but that people outside the program may not understand that the chapter isn't trying to produce college-level players.
"That is usually the No. 1 misconception, that we are a golf-focused program," Winn said. "Golf is the vessel and we use it to teach life skills."
In addition to growing the program – which includes basic golf skills for beginners, competitive programs like the U.S. Kids Tour in the desert and enhancement programs such as girls golf – Winn is in charge of fundraising for the chapter. That will include the 14th annual fundraising golf tournament for the chapter, which returns to Desert Horizons Country Club in Indian Wells after they could not host the tournament last year because of clubhouse renovations. The Desert Horizons event will be in April, but a joint fundraiser at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage will be in December.
Raising funds will be more critical than ever for the chapter if it wants to expand to cover the entire desert. Last year the chapter held some programs at Mission Lakes Country Club in Desert Hot Springs, and Winn said that club hopes to host more events around its own membership schedule. The idea of a standalone facility or nine-hole golf course in the eastern part of the desert will be more challenging. Raising funds like that will be more of a focus for a new position in the chapter.
“We have got to the point where we are hiring a director of development to help with that,” Winn said. “So it is the first time this chapter will actually be hiring, because we are at the point where we will have to fight for funds. But there is money out there, and that’s why that position exists in the non-profit world.
“We’ll be excited to grow that side of it, especially if we are going to get to the east valley,” Winn said. “That is going to be a really, really big project.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: New First Tee executive director eyes golf project to connect all of the desert
