Online Golf Community Rallies Around Elijah

“Coach, it’s my 6 iron now. Can you fix it?” This was the third iron shaft that had broken on Elijah in just a couple of weeks. We were fortunate that I had a set of antique MacGregors with the same diameter shafts, but while they were shafts in the academic sense (they were round, they had once been made of steel), they were a far cry from matching the rest of his Taylormade R7 irons that our Pro had given to him. 

The next day was his state golf tournament. The team had won a state championship the previous year when Elijah was the idyllic sophomore third-man behind two talented seniors. The rest of the team ended up being satisfied with one golf ring, and consequently left to join the football team in pursuit of having multiple sports state champ rings. To their credit, they did achieve their goal, but it left Elijah competing as an individual for his junior season run.

After spending a good bit of the evening trying to wrestle the, “we don’t need to buy Golf Pride MCCs, we have Golf Pride MCCs at home,” grip off of his broken shaft to fit to its older but still in one piece replacement, I delivered Elijah’s 7 iron to him on the range as he was warming up. It held together for him as he landed a handful of shots right at his target. In character, he offered his sincere appreciation and resumed warming up for the round he had been waiting to play all year.

The state championship was at our home course this year, but our growing school had been bumped up a class so the competition was sharper, and unfamiliar from the year prior. The course conditions reflected that of a hillside municipal course built in the 70s that hadn’t seen proper funding since the same “Eye of the Tiger” that I suspect Elijah was listening to on the range, was at the top of the charts. However, the course is a gem, truly one of the most fun courses you’ll find. While “challenging” is not a description many give of Turkey Mountain GC, the setup for the big day made it clear that high scores were the main goal.

Elijah worked all through the summer at the golf course doing all of the things a greenhorn should get to do, and worked his way up to getting to pull a hose around and keep our greens mostly alive. He cared for the course, and took pride in the quality of his work. He may as well have lived out of the cart shed; if he was not up there working, he was surely out there practicing. He had improved so much over the past year, his physical growth giving him a little more firepower to reach new parts of the fairways and shorter shots into the small greens. The thought of taking his hat off and shaking hands with his competitors on the 18th green as medalist at the state tournament, was a common daydream to slip into while tending to the greens on those hot summer days.

At his regional tournament a couple of weeks before the state tournament, Elijah was a machine. He posted a personal best tournament score and was seven shots clear of second place at a course he had only played during his practice round. He made a statement, and with the state championship at his home course he had done everything he could do to resoundingly defend that statement.

We know the story. We’ve all flown too close to the sun, and experienced what happened next. Unfortunately the hits came fast and hard, the course behaving like a close friend who had suddenly become obsessed with fitting in with a different crowd. The missteps early certainly had a lasting impact through the round. The motivation to scrape together a score that would help his team wasn’t there. I watched, heartbroken, after the round when the shock wore off and Elijah realized what happened to the round he’d waited so long to play. He’d put so much effort in, had seemingly done everything right in preparation, but carded his highest round in quite a while. There wasn’t any waiting to see if his teammates had fared better, that was just the end of his Junior season.

Not long after, I was scrolling Twitter and came across a tweet from Ryan French of Monday Q Info, looking for deserving junior golfers for some new gear. I couldn’t type my message fast enough. I prayed that this would be an opportunity to get Elijah some new irons. I never would have imagined what this all turned into. The outpouring of generosity from Ryan’s community has been borderline preposterous. Players have mailed him tournament-worn shirts, new hats,and tournament tickets. Individuals have offered cash, and the Monday Q Info community collectively, became Elijah’s biggest cheerleaders. Everyone was so immediately and fully on board with completely spoiling Elijah. I called his mom to deliver the news, and we were both speechless and tearful. “This cannot be real” was uttered several times in this conversation, some of the few words we were able to manage.

I’ve had Elijah in class since fifth grade. I know his family well and they are truly outstanding individuals. He’s very blessed to have parents that prioritize presence over presents; they never miss a practice, game, performance, or a golf match. They are always there, supporting him and his passions. I know they go above and beyond for him, and his character reflects the environment in which they’ve brought him up. If every kid had a chance to be raised like this, I have to believe that the world would be a substantially better place.

“It's the Indian, not the arrow.” There is a tremendous amount of truth in that statement. I don’t really know if I ever heard Elijah blame his equipment. Not the 25 year old wedges, not the early 90s model womens 5-wood, not the R7 irons (being honest they were a dream set for me at one point, but I would have preferred a set that wasn’t so worn and had at least matching shafts). Sixteen-year-old me would one hundred percent blame my banana ball on my driver, it surely was not my swing that sent my ball not into a lot adjacent to the golf course, but the lot across the road from the one adjacent to the golf course. Heck, that was probably me in the last round I played. The reality is that equipment can help a lot, especially going from hand-me-downs to professionally fitted modern gear.

On the eve of his fitting, he and I had a practice round to make sure he was comfortable in his swing. On the second hole, his 7 iron followed the trend set by its longer brethren and snapped right in half. Unfortunately for me, I would have needed a few more of his clubs to break before I stood a chance that day. The pressure was quickly building for me to beat him straight up one last time.

After a three hour drive through a monsoon, we arrived at the fitting. When we met the fitter, his opening remarks gave me great confidence this would result in the best fit for Elijah. The irons were first. The orange box behind him (no free ads) revealed everything I had long suspected about Elijah's irons. After trying out a few different options, the ovals of data revealed tighter dispersion, a roughly 17 yard increase, and much better gaps. Speaking of, he is going from having one club between his driver and his four iron to a 3 wood, 5 wood, and 3 hybrid, all with the best fit shafts. (Not to open up the made-for discussion, but my goodness are they putting actual gold in these premium offerings now?)  New wedges, actual MCC grips, a fit driver and putter, bag and shoes later Elijah has gone from the hand-me-down bag to having the best equipment possible.  Anyone who thinks this won’t help him is invited to take his old clubs for a spin and let me know how they fare.

As a teacher, everything you do points towards giving kids the tools they need to succeed in the world outside of your doors. A harsh reality is that sometimes kids need things we cannot really provide for them - thousands of dollars of golf gear among them. I’m forever indebted to Ryan and his contacts for creating this opportunity for my student that I never could have done myself. I’m not sure what Elijah will do beyond high school in terms of competitive golf. What I do know is that this coming season he will have every opportunity to prove himself and show what he is truly capable of on the golf course with nothing holding him back. He has talent, he has the work ethic, and now he has the right kit and a good dose of extra confidence. Look out world.

In a short preview of more favorable springtime weather, I was able to get out on the course with Elijah before his clubs came in. I got every break imaginable on my way to getting the better of him. It had been a while since I could provide good competition for him, and I have a long list of excuses as to why for those interested. Was he distracted by his near constant stream of snapchat whatevers on his phone? Possibly. Had a couple more irons broken on him leaving him at a nine club bag? Sure. Did I let him know that I was trying as hard as I could? Absolutely not. Did I lean on him a little bit to give me some putts I absolutely would have made him putt out? Listen, that's all alleged. I have a feeling when he gets these new sticks in his hands, days like this are gone. A large part of me hopes they are behind me. I hope we get to the point where I have to start talking about moral victories and putting a bunch of dots on my scorecard.

I do know that this experience made a difference for Elijah. He’s going to roll into his senior season with a full bag of professionally fitted clubs, golf shoes, and great apparel. And though he will likely be competing next year again as an individual, at least he’ll know that he’s not out there alone, that there are people outside of his family and even his school, who are cheering him on and are willing to make sacrifices to see him succeed. I know Elijah will pay this forward when he has the opportunity, and the chain of Good that will follow will be a blessing to our community for a long time to come.

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