Spring 2025

For more than 20 years, Nelson has watched the program change lives. “It’s about seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces, and watching the light bulbs go on when you introduce them to something that they hadn’t experienced before,” he says. The national First Tee organization was estab- lished in 1997, when the PGA, LPGA and other partners teamed up to make golf more accessi- ble and affordable for children.Today, First Tee – Monterey County is one of more than 150 local chapters teaching both golf lessons and charac- ter development. Each chapter taps into cur- riculum, training, grants and opportunities out- lined at the national level, while administering programs tailored to local audiences. Local First Tee development was driven by the late John Zoller and the late Ollie Nutt, two fixtures of the Monterey Peninsula golf commu- nity.The Monterey Peninsula Foundation provid- ed initial funding for the fledgling organization in the early 2000s, when Nelson signed on as the program’s leader. Since 2004, the nonprofit has managed and offered many of its programs at theTwin Creeks Golf Course in Salinas. First Tee currently partners with several school districts, primarily in Salinas and southern Monterey County, to bring age-based daytime, after-school and summer camp activities to approximately 11,500 students a year. Golf is a conduit, Nelson explains. It’s how instructors reach children with lessons on goal setting, communication and sportsmanship. “In the classroom, the teacher stands there and tells. And only a small percentage of kids learn through hearing.The FirstTee is more about experiences and learning by doing,” he says. Sydney Burlison of Salinas was already golfing competitively when she joined the First Tee’s early classes. Years later, the program’s core val- ues still impact her personally and professionally. “The First Tee helped shape my life off the golf course almost more than it did on the golf course,” she says. “The way the program uses golf to organically instill those values and inter- personal skills was much more helpful to me than simply reading about them or learning them in a classroom.” Burlison, who won the First Tee Open (now the PURE Insurance Championship) as a junior, returned to Twin Creeks as a guest speaker and instructor while studying at Stanford University. She maintains lasting relationships with friends and mentors from the Monterey County chap- ter. She also joined the local First Tee board in 2020 and was named to the organization’s national board of governors in 2024. In her leadership capacity, Burlison has been especially pleased to see data that links First Tee participation with improved classroom per- formance and lower absenteeism among Monterey County students. “As we continue to responsibly expand our reach across south county and the peninsula, I’m 130 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 5 The First Tee program gets kids on the golf course where they can benefit from hands-on learning from dedicated mentors. Photo: Courtesy of First Tee