At First Tee, we talk a lot about what golf has to teach us about life. It teaches us patience with ourselves, because we’re not going to master every skill right away. It teaches us patience with others, because we share the green. We learn perseverance in the face of bad weather, bad moods, and just plain off days. And we learn the importance of sportsmanship and teamwork as we support each other to each play our own best game.
2020 has called on those lessons and more as the Greater New Orleans community has come together to stay apart and stay safe. That meant a big change in our spring plans! We were sad to cancel our spring sessions, but our coaches got creative and came up with some great distance learning options. Nothing beats being together in person, but connecting virtually each week brought smiles to our faces.
“We were extremely impressed with our participants’ engagement in Backyard Links over the past six weeks,” says coach Brad Cooney. “The boys and girls were very creative when completing our assigned activities at home. We would like to thank all the participants, parents and coaches that made this online program possible. Our staff believes it was a huge success and cannot wait to see the kids back on the course this summer!”
It was a joy getting all the videos and photos our golfers sent in. Here are just a few!
A fun activity to play with friends! Here’s Jonathan with his tic-tac-toe board.
Here’s Luke practicing his distance control with tic-tac-toe.
In week two, our TARGET players drew pictures of ways that we can respect each other. Here’s Dax’s drawing of listening quietly while someone is speaking!
In week 5, our TARGET players practiced putting like different animals to learn how to be sensitive to their stance. They tried standing like a flamingo, standing like a penguin, and here’s Khyran closing his eyes like a bat!
Our Par level golfers created their own Pokemon Putt Putt in week two. Each object was like a Pokemon — gotta catch ’em all! Here’s Kai with his course.
Pokemon Putting was a great way for students to get creative with everyday objects while practicing their putting precision. Here’s Rocco, whose dog looks pretty interested in this game!
In this week four activity, each section of the pyramid is worth 1, 3, or 5 points. Players have to get as close to 21 as possible without going bust! Sebastian and Alexander are giving it a try here.
This game is great for practicing target awareness and distance control. Here’s Silas giving it his full concentration.
In week three, the kids in worked on target awareness and distance control with a pyramid chipping game. Here’s LT’s great setup!
The final activity for our PLAYer and Par levels was to build a putt-putt course at home. Miles’ architectural hole 3 looks like a doozy!
Henry’s homemade putt-putt course has plenty of tricky obstacles!
