Ace Kids Golf introduces disadvantaged Oakland kids to the game of golf, providing instruction, STEM curriculum, equipment and transportation to and from local golf facilities. Unlike other East Bay golf organizations for youth, Ace Kids Golf exclusively serves low-income inner-city kids offering their complete programs free of charge. Their professional staff and volunteers help kids learn the basics of golf, along with many life skills. The kids take part in a sport that teaches discipline, respect, and responsibility. They interact with positive role models who help them succeed in school and set goals for the future. For many of these youth, the course of their lives are forever changed.
Full day summer camps
$425 per week (scholarships available upon request)
9:00 am - 4:00 pm.
Girls and Boys Ages 8-17 are encouraged to participate.
Spring 2024 Junior Golf
Session 1: Apr 8 - Apr 25, 2024
Session 2: May 6 - May 30, 2024
Highlights Include:
•Small group instruction (1:5 coach to student ratio)
•Weekly course play
•Players learn etiquette, strategy, and course management.
•Campers leave with newly acquired skills, fun ways to practice with friends, and a new appreciation for the game!
•Contests, tournaments, and prizes!
Other Opportunities Available:
STEM Education:
With this initiative, our goal is to promote great opportunities for those in need. With access to the right resources, people can become empowered by their own abilities and gain the confidence to fulfill their potential.
Ace Kids Golf uses an iPad filled with engaging STEM curriculum donated by Sticks for Kids, USGA, and Chevron Birdies for Education. We use the iPad to educate our youth in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics. Through fun and engaging activities, students learn about Newton’s law, physics and the evolution of the golf ball and golf clubs.
Tees for Bees
In collaboration with the Pollinator Posse, NCGA Youth on Course, World Wildlife Federation and Oaklandish, we created an event to introduce youth to the pollination process of bees and butterflies. Using seed balls from local clay, soil and wild flower seeds, Ace Kids Golf participants and community volunteers launch seed balls into the air, spreading seeds across the open spaces of the Lake Chabot Golf Course. This event includes golf clinics, science demonstrations, food and fun for the entire family.
Chevron STEM Zone
In Collaboration with the Monterey Peninsula Foundation and the PGA Pure Insurance Championship, we will be chaperoning 50 Oakland youth to the Pure Insurance Championship. Participants will be served lunch, experience the STEM Zone for an hour and will be granted access at no charge to attend the golf tournament. This is a great opportunity for youth to be exposed to STEM and experience a professional golf event.
Sports Psychology:
Life Enhancement through Athletic Participation
The Mission of the Solt Evans LEAP Project
The mission of the LEAP project is to help youth from underserved populations succeed in sport, school, and life through mental skill building. Sport Psychology Program team members empower participants to reflect, recognize their potential, understand how to reach it, and to make sound, thoughtful decisions along the way. LEAP becomes a bridge to the future, using sport participation as a catalyst to help youth apply these skills both on and off the field. Through participation in the LEAP project, youth learn sport psychology techniques and team building in a supportive environment of positive reinforcement. Rather than focusing simply on sports, youth learn to use sport psychology to improve their life skills and develop respect for themselves and others.
The LEAP Project provides a bridge to opportunity by helping youth:
Improve personal decision making
Recognize choices have consequences
Promote personal responsibility and accountability
Improve self-confidence
Learn stress management skills
Enhance problem solving and teamwork skills
Develop the discipline needed to be successful in sports, school and life
Job Training: The Ace Kids Golf Job Training Program is designed to prepare incarcerated youth for jobs in the golf industry, including opportunities in golf course maintenance, club repair, golf course management, head pro/golf shop management, food and beverage/management, tournament director, marketing, business and sales.
With support from the Lake Chabot Golf Course, Touchstone Golf and the Touchstone Golf Foundation, participants are engaged in an 8-week training curriculum that encompasses topics such as agronomy, course set-up, fertilization, drainage/irrigation and the proper use of equipment.
At the end of the program, each participant is gifted a $100 stipend for completion and given an opportunity to interview for jobs at the golf course or with the City of Oakland. Students take owner of the golf course and feel a sense of pride when they complete projects.
Past projects included a golf course beautification project. During this project, students turned a boring area of dirt into a beautiful landscaped area. They added colorful native plants and shrubs and learned how to set up the irrigation so the new plants would flourish. This project took about 3 weeks to complete. They were also tasked with laying fresh mulch, weed eating around the practice areas and tree trimming.
Our current project requires participants maintain a brand new practice area which includes a putting green, chipping area and sand bunker. Their tasks include watering, fertilization, maintaining the bunkers and repairing any divots to the green or fringe daily.
Over the past few years we have hired 2 of the 15 participants. Other participants have pursued higher education or have gained employment elsewhere. We are proud of these young men and are excited to be the catalyst to help change their lives for the better.