Golf is a game for the wealthy. The clothes, the clubs, membership dues, and greens fees all make it a game for rich, white guys with fat wallets, not struggling inner city kids.
James Cooper and his partner Dan Sinclair are on a mission to change that.
The two men, supported by a loyal band of friends and associates, have started Mentor on the Green, a 10-week program that will hand a golf club and provide lessons to 20 kids who are disconnected from the country club world of handicaps, sand wedges and double eagles. And if you think this is just about chasing a little white ball around 18 holes, you’re not clear on the concept.
“Life comes first,” Cooper said, “While you’re learning life, you’re going to learn the game of golf. We are teaching the kids about life—through golf.”
Life came hard and fast for Cooper, a former Vineland resident who spent nine years in federal prison on drug charges when he was younger. He changed his ways, starting FedUp4U, a successful program to steer young people away from crime and violence, which earned him a Hometown Hero award for his work in Cumberland County.
Coop and Sinclair moved to Atlanta, Georgia, starting a new program, Outta Boundz, a digital learning platform that offers personalized mentorships for young people ages 13 to 25. Today, Outta Boundz is the parent organization overseeing Mentor on the Green.
Coop’s past helps fuel his passion for young people—keeping them away from violence and crime. He doesn’t play the game, never has, but appreciates the values, discipline and focus golf can lend to a new generation of children. The truth is, Cooper says, inner city kids who don’t learn the game from their parents rarely see the inside of a clubhouse or step onto the greens unless it’s for a prom or a football banquet.
Cooper hopes this first group of students—and others to come—will learn the game of golf before they get to high school.
“Most kids [who learn to play golf] are getting private instruction because their parents play or they paid for private instruction,” he said. “Golf, tennis and swimming. They all cost money and we don’t have people who look like us saying, ‘Come and get some instruction.’ ”
Cooper said the program is limited to 20 mostly middle school-aged kids who were selected from 45 applicants from all over Cumberland County and South Jersey.
“Mom, I like golf!” Millville resident Ebony Bogan’s son, Jaden Gonzalez, is part of the pilot program. The 13-year-old autistic student, who will be an 8th grader at Lakeside Middle School in September, became curious about golf after watching Adam Sandler’s comedy, Happy Gilmore.
He said, “Mom, I like golf!” he recalls.
Jaden has never been a big fan of the more popular sports and began tinkering around with golf during gym, when he would go outside and hit a few balls with some golf clubs.
Bogan, a juvenile detention officer, hopes it brings her son out of his shell a little more. For Jaden’s part, he hopes it puts a smile on his mom’s face.
“I think it can make my mom happy,” said Jaden of Mentor on the Green. “It can make my life change.”
Youngsters like Gonzalez will play at Eastlyn Golf Course on Italia Avenue in Vineland, taking lessons from golf pro Michael Zerra once a week.
Before that happens, Cooper and Sinclair are seeking sponsors to help them pay for some of the basic costs of the program, such as golf clothes, clubs and the transportation they’ll need to get from their homes to the golf courses that have agreed to participate.
“The hardest sport I ever played” The Mentor on the Green program kicked off recently at Eastlyn Golf Course, where community leaders, businessmen and women and county politicians gathered to encourage the kids.
“If you want to play golf and you want to be good at it, you have to practice,” said Ed Bethea, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Gateway Community Action Partnership in Bridgeton.
Bethea stood before the 20 students selected and spoke to them about what golf can do for them.
Yes, he said, he plays and knows the frustrations of the game and explained that unlike more popular games such as basketball or football, this is a sport where you compete against yourself.
“The hardest sport I ever played in my life is golf,” Bethea said. “It takes discipline, it takes practice. In golf, every shot is different. You’ve got to be dedicated. You’ve got to be disciplined. There’s a lot that you can take out of the game of golf that can transfer to your life.”
Cooper said Eastlyn’s owner Rob Buono gets the credit for the program’s concept.
Buono, who also is a member of the Vineland School Board, has a heart for kids and had always wanted to do something for inner city kids, Cooper said.
Cooper said Buono readily agreed to back the program, offering his golf course for the lessons. “It was Rob’s passion to get kids into golf,” he said. “I didn’t know how important it is for networking, too.”
Eastlyn Golf pro Zerra explained to Cooper what sets golf apart from other sports.
“He said, ‘It’s you against you.’ This is what the kids are going to understand. If you can get yourself together, you’ve already got 60 percent of the battle,” Cooper said.
Sponsors are needed: Cooper is hoping to attract sponsors—corporate or otherwise—to help pay for the gear (estimated at $200 per student), along with transportation costs and food.
“We want to make sure parents don’t have to pay anything for their kids to get involved,” he said.
Cooper thinks about the kids who are exposed to violence and crime on a daily basis. “They may never have been in trouble, but they see it almost every day. They should not be numb to death and crime. There’s no way we should be numb to it.”
According to the National Golf Foundation, the average cost of playing 18 holes on a public course is $43 – not counting the cost of the shoes, clothes, the bags and other necessities. Annually, the average amount a golfer spends on the game totals $2,400.
Along the Vineland-Millville border, the anticipated arrival of the Trout Golf Course is expected to bring with it steep membership fees, expected to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Cooper and Sinclair know the lessons contained in the great game go way past money: The player is faced with problem solving, learning to accept the uncontrollable things in life, maintaining his or her own integrity, patience, and much more.
There are more than 250 golf courses in New Jersey, and Cooper said he has three on board: Eastlyn, Avalon Golf Club and Harbor Pines Golf Club in Egg Harbor.
“We’re using this first program as a pilot program,” he said, adding he and his partner are keeping ties to the Atlanta area, and hope to spread the program there, too.
Coop said he has felt some “major pushback” since returning home to start the program.
“Everything hasn’t been peaches and cream,” he said. But it won’t stop him.
“The spirit is taking us different directions and we’re not going to stop,” he said. “We’re not. And that is what we are going to teach the young people. We just started.”
For more information about becoming a sponsor for Mentor on the Green, including individual or corporate sponsorships, call Dan Sinclair at 404-453-6540.
