Hi, and happy new year to the parents and participants of The First Tee of Howard County! As I start to write this, it's barely 16 degrees outside, so there is no golf going on today, but as always, we are thinking about your participants, and the role that keeping them in the program plays in making them better individuals and better golfers: "Good Golfers, Better People!"
I have spoken with several parents over the past year as I have been filling in as Program Director, and find that I answer many similar questions about participants' rate of advancement through the program. I have dealt with this in past articles in this space by spelling out the three main requirements for progression: proper age for the next level, successful completion (80 percent scores) on the academic tests of Golf and Life Skills knowledge, and successful completion of the golf skill and playing requirements at succeeding levels, all of which are required to move forward. Those are the objective markers we look at for progression in The First Tee, but they are by no means the only measures of progress or success in the program.