City Councilman Alan Maisel (D-Bergen Beach, Canarsie, Flatlands, Georgetown, Gerritsen Beach, Marine Park, Mill Basin, Mill Island, Sheepshead Bay) and longtime Brooklyn Civic Activist Mike Weiss might just be bringing up the next Tiger Woods.
That after Maisel and Weiss feted the families of 60 children at the Marine Park Golf Course (MPGC) this week for their last day of a summer camp in partnership with The Brooklyn Golf Alliance, a non-profit whose goal is to foster interest and participation in golf among low income, underrepresented groups in Brooklyn.
This is the organization’s third year hosting the kids who this year, mostly came from the Bergen Beach Youth Organization. The camp was completely free thanks to a grant from Maisel to introduce the kids to golf. As part of the program, they were also enrolled in an officially sanctioned PGA Junior League which happens to be the largest group in the nation.
Maisel, who never got the opportunity to play golf as an adolescent but joked about getting an injury as an avid checkers player. He did, however, get the chance to play tennis when he was younger and had this to say about the camp and the sport of golf:
“Golf much like tennis is seen as a rich man’s game and it doesn’t have to be. Opportunities exist however these kids aren’t always privy to them so as an educator by trade, I like to give kids an opportunity to learn something new and different.”
Mike Weiss, one of the organizers and founder of the alliance, shared how much he enjoyed the sport and thought it would be great for young people to become engaged with it.
“We decided to start with young people aged 8-14 and we raised a small amount of money out of our own pockets. We then created a partnership with the MPGC to allow us to use their grounds for the camp which lasted for six weeks,” said Weiss.
Weiss said there were double the amount of participants this year from last year, and shared how he felt the camp has helped kids from communities of color. “It’s a healthy sport that teaches integrity, honesty, good manners, sportsmanship, good etiquette, patience and other values. We made sure there was a small ratio of 3-1 when it came to the counselors in each of the classes. A lot of kids know about Tiger Woods because he’s an icon but they don’t know how he got there. We wanted to help out with that and with them channeling the energy they have into something different”.
KCP also caught up with summer camp participants Imani Murray and Ava Alexander, both 11-years-old and who expressed their new love for the sport. Both girls said they had an interest in golf since they were nine and look forward to participating in the camp next year.
