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By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
Fore!
Millennium Development gave some junior high school Brooklyn scholars the chance to shoot a few of rounds of golf at Marine Park’s beautiful course on Aug. 23, in a partnership between the community group and the golf course to give the city’s kids a taste of that country club lifestyle.
“Most kids in the city don’t have a chance to get outside and play golf,” said the Marine Park Golf Club’s Evan Silkworth, who also manages the course’s pro shop. “It’s a beautiful space and we want to bring out as many people as we can.”
Silkworth has developed a beginners program that starts the kids off hitting tennis balls with over-sized clubs, helping them get a feel for the swing, but with less whiffs and frustration.
The budding pros then graduate to the basic putting and swing course, before they go on to target shooting and, eventually, the driving range.
Silkworth and his team of college athlete instructors typically work with groups of 20 to 30 kids at a time, who will visit the course four times throughout the summer program.
They tend improve gradually throughout the summer — at least, they usually do.
“Golf is one of the only sports where you get to be a beginner over the course of several years,” Silkworth said, only half joking. “But you definitely see some improvement over the summer.”