At Pebble Beach in 2019, Lee Elder received the Bob Jones Award – the USGA’s highest honor bestowed on individuals who demonstrate the spirit, personal character and respect for the game exemplified by Jones. It was a crowning moment for someone who had thrived in the game despite all the obstacles presented to him as a Black man born in 1934.
As that lifetime achievement settled in on the eve of the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, Macey Russell, Elder’s longtime friend, asked the honoree a simple question.
“What do you want to do next?”
Elder’s response was emphatic: “We have to make golf more diverse.”
Two years later, in November 2021, The Country Club in partnership with the USGA announced the establishment of the Lee Elder Internship – an immersive one-week program that will bring 25 diverse youths from under-represented communities to Brookline during the 2022 U.S. Open.
The goal is simple – introduce these kids to the many career pathways in golf and expose them to the game’s core values and the insight of its industry leaders. The daily curriculum will cover the gamut of some of the more than two million jobs in the $84 billion golf industry – tournament operations, media, course maintenance and design, sales and marketing, facility operations and management, etc.
If you look around the game, it’s apparent that minorities are woefully underrepresented. The mission of this internship is to help address this imbalance by encouraging young people from diverse communities to participate in golf and explore the many career opportunities in the game.
“Diversity remains one of the major challenges facing the golf industry, one that can only be addressed with continued emphasis and initiatives to reach underrepresented individuals,” Will Fulton, general chair for the 2022 U.S. Open, said at the announcement of this pilot initiative. “This program is designed to play a role in this ecosystem by reaching new audiences at formative times, providing them with information and establishing relationships with golf leaders. It’s a model we have every expectation can be replicated in the future.”
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