Since its inception in 1994, the MGA Foundation’s GOLFWORKS Student Intern Program has impacted the lives of more than 1,600  young men and women across the Met Area. Founded as a true intern program, GOLFWORKS is designed to give interns exposure to all areas of club business — clubhouse, maintenance and golf operations — during a ten-week, paid summer internship.

One of the recent success stories is 22-year-old Tom Lawrence, who is currently the Director of Programming at The First Tee of St. Johns County in Elkton, Fla. Lawrence got his start in the golf industry as a GOLFWORKS Intern from 2001-2006 at West Sayville Golf Course in West Sayville, N.Y., and in this letter to the MGA Foundation, Lawrence describes his experience:

                                                                   How GOLFWORKS Impacted My Life

Growing up just like many other young kids in the early 1990’s, I had a dream to one day play professional baseball. Being raised three houses down from a little league field, I often imitated Ken Griffey Jr. and pretended I was hitting the game-winning home run to win the World Series. However, it was during the 8th grade that my baseball coach recommended that I play a fall sport. Being at that awkward adolescent stage of my life, playing a fall sport would help me get in better shape for baseball in the spring. What the coach had in mind was that I play football, volleyball, or soccer. None of those sports were appealing to me (I even tried volleyball for three practices), so I decided to try out for the golf team instead. On the first day of tryouts, the team played at a course near the school. This was first time I played on a regulation course by myself and somehow managed to shoot a 58 for nine holes. Luckily, my coach liked something about me and kept me on the team as the 10th player.

Prior to the summer of my freshman year, I learned about the opportunity to work for the Metropolitan Golf Association as a summer intern in their GOLFWORKS program, from my golf coach. Never having a job before I thought that it would be a great experience to work at a golf course over the summer (and I heard that you received free golf for working at a course, which was a good incentive as well). I was lucky enough to be assigned to work at West Sayville Golf Course, where I worked under the guidance of Fred Gipp, Jimmy Schutte, Bill Carney, and Justin Dreycott. Starting out simply as a cart attendant and range picker, I became passionate about the game of golf and was able to learn a vast amount of information about the golf industry through my experiences, working all the way up to a pro shop staff member and Junior Summer Camp Counselor by the end of my five years with the program.

  I remember one day picking balls on the driving range about lunch time when I saw Mr. Gipp hitting range balls on his lunch break. I began thinking to myself that it would be awesome if I had the opportunity to make a career out of working in the golf industry. I graduated high school and set out to become a head professional at a golf course. While attending Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida, I had the opportunity to stay in the golf industry by working as a cart attendant at the Slammer and Squire Golf Course in the World Golf Village. In order to graduate from Flagler with my degree in Sports Management, I had to partake in a 10-week internship inside the sports industry. I was lucky enough to obtain an internship position at The First Tee of St. Johns County, and through my time at the organization I was hired as a staff member and promoted to my current position of Director of Programming.

  I feel that I have one of the greatest and most rewarding jobs in the world. Everyday, I walk out of the office with a golf club in my hand to teach kids valuable life skills that they can use in their everyday lives. However, without my experiences in the GOLFWORKS program, I probably never would have developed my passion about the game of golf or gained the experiences necessary to become as successful as I have in the golf industry. I am now working towards obtaining my masters degree from Springfield College and aspire to one day run my own First Tee Chapter as an Executive Director.  Thank you, GOLFWORKS!

 For more information on GOLFWORKS Student Intern Program, please contact Jeanne McCooey (jmccooey@mgagolf.org) or Lou Cutolo (lcutolo@mgagolf.org) at the MGA at 914-347-4653.