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ST. LOUIS (AP) — As the Monday afternoon sun beat down on 11-year-old Kortland Ware, he looked up at his in structor with pleading eyes. “Do I keep just keep hitting?” he asked, as he wiped his sweaty hands off on his shorts. The instructor from the Tiger Woods Foundation smiled and nodded his head. Ware contin ued on, driving the golf ball well past the 100 yard marker. His tiredness quickly shifted to enthusiasm when Tiger Woods, the 1997 Masters Champion, walked over to give him a quick lesson. “He just told me to open my stance, it’ll give me more power,” the young golfer said after the lesson with one of his heroes. “That's all I needed.” Ware and two dozen others were the lucky ones. In conjunc tion with the Tiger Woods Foundation, Woods was in St. Louis to personally give each of them about a five minute lesson on golf — lessons most of them say they won't forget. “If Tiger Woods teaches you, you know it has to be right,” Ware said. St. Louis was the first stop of the year for the Tiger Woods Foundation Junior Golf Clinic, which aims to teach inner city kids — and the key word is kids about golf. The average age of the begin ning golfer right now is 29 and less than 2 percent of children ages 12-17 are introduced to golf each year, according to the National Golf Foundation. Of those under 17 exposed to golf, 15 percent are from families earning less than $30,000 annual ly. And, in an issue dramatized by the success of 22-year-old Woods, only 3 percent of golfers in the United States are black and only 2 percent are hispanic. Woods said when he was grow ing up, he was denied the chance to play on some golf courses. “That is absolutely ludi crous,” Woods said. “We want to rectify that.” The day-long clinic is means more than just golf lessons for Woods and his father, Earl Woods. It is also about lessons in life. “Golf is a microcosm of life,” Earl Woods said. “We're giving kids the opportunity to dream.” The Woods started the founda tion in 1996 with the goal of recog nizing “the family as the most im portant unit in society.” The foun dation also encourages and pro motes “parental responsibility and involvement in children’s lives.” Tiger tip Golfing great Tiger Woods gives Dereck Reeves II of Madison, lll. a few golfing tips during the Tiger Woods Foundation clinic and exhibition in Forest Park in St. Louis Monday.
Newspaper Details
Garden City Telegram
Garden City, Kansas, US
Tue, Jun 30, 1998
Page 7
Full Page
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USA 11 Jun 2026
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