The Annual First Tee Mentor Outing Celebration was held at Woodmont Country Club today with 20 wonderful kids from the Metropolitan Washington First Tee Program out for a full day of clinics, lunching, and on course time with their peers.

We had a dozen volunteers from our club along with capable professional golf staff helping to facilitate the day’s activities.

The First Tee program has introduced these kids to the principles of golf and building relationships. It is teaching them the etiquette, course awareness, and basic skills of the game.  What you see as a result is self-confidence, poise, and grace in their ability to interact with each other and adults they have to deal with along the way.

Our volunteers and staff provide support, encouragement, and a few hugs that help them feel good about what they can accomplish through this game.

Sometimes it just takes puting a confident hand on the back or a reassuring arm around a shoulder to make a connection with these kids that means as much us as it does to them.

It takes the help of the staff of the First Tee of Greater Washington and supportive parents who encourage their kids participate in this wonderful program to help us pull this off year after year.

As tradition would have it, the cost of today’s picnic lunch was covered by the sponsorship of The Keepers, who started this annual event a long long time ago. We are also pleased to report that the generous Woodmont members contributed to our effort in raising well over $5,000 to support the programs of the First Tee of Greater Washington.

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The kids were split into three groups based on their golf experience and rotated through instruction clinics for full swing, short game, and putting-led by our professional staff.

As always we had lots of kids coming back for the second or third time for this event. What we witnessed is kids with more mature skills than a year ago displaying good fundamentals and the determination to get better.

The clinics always work up a hunger so a picnic lunch is provided to recharge the batteries for the afternoon on course play.

After lunch we spent an hour and a half on the North Course and The Loop with the kids. We witnessed wonderful course demeanor and some excellent shot making.

We make sure the kids take home a load of booty including the official participation certificate, commemorative bag tag, hats and lots and lots of U.S. Adaptive Open paraphernalia.

It is amazing how the First Tee prepares these kids to handle themselves both on the course and around the facility.  They look you in the eye when they talk to you and understand the on course protocol of replacing divots, raking bunkers, an marking their balls on the green.

Special thanks to Event Chairs Craig, Steve,  and Moe, Golf Staff Cody, Ryan, JacieKate, Baily, Cathy, and Maggie, and Roger and Ben from the First for all the hard work assembling and running this event. 

Thanks to Woodmont Country Club for graciously hosting this picnic and the First Tee of Greater Washington for making it happen. And most important, thanks to these amazing kids who make this event such a special experience for all of us.

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August, 2026

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