Our History
2022
Summary:
Restart of Shands Children’s Hospital Golf Program
PBS, WUFT News, CBS4 News and Ocala-Star Banner all do news segments on Gator Junior Golf
Merged with Gainesville Junior Golf Tour
Birth of Subsidized Golf Equipment Program
Class expansion at Turkey Creek and Ironwood
Gator Junior Golf merges with the Gainesville Junior Golf Tour (GJGT) after Frank Anderson retires after 20 years of service. Gator Junior Golf takes over responsibility of hosting junior golf tournaments via www.gjgt.org. Gator Junior Golf Tour begins co-branding with Gainesville Junior Golf Tour and hosts its inaugural summer series of 8 events. New for this year was the introduction of a beginner 9 hole division to encourage participation from newcomers to the sport, particularly those enrolled in our weekly Gator Junior Golf classes. In connection with an effort to increase participation in the sport outside of golf class and to help families with inflation, Gator Junior Golf partners with a vendor and begins to offer subsidized golf equipment, including golf clubs, golf shirts, hats and balls.
In July 2022, Gainesville Country Club, our golf course headquarters, closes indefinitely. Gator Junior Golf switches weekend operations to Ironwood Golf Course and Turkey Creek Golf Course thanks to leadership of each location, Jeff Cardozo at Ironwood and the Turkey Creek board. Gator Junior Golf hosts 20 weekly golf classes for 7 different class levels, reaching a total of over 450 kids in 2022.
Later in 2022, Gator Junior Golf and GJGT host its first ever fall Tour series of three events in an effort to deliver programming year round. Under the leadership of Amica Lertkitcharoenpon, a University of Florida Medical School student, Gator Junior Golf restarts its Shands Children’s Hospital golf program where coaches teach the kids in the hospital each month.
Lastly, Gator Junior Golf incorporates and obtains independent nonprofit status, separate from the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). The move was 6 years in the making and solidifies our permanent place in the community. Further, this move enables us to continue growing our fundraising base to enhance our depth of programs offered.
2021
Summary:
Kyle Eller hired as Operations Director
Added golf class locations in Lake City and Dunnellon
Continued hiring of more PGA Professionals and qualified coaches
Gator Junior Golf transitions operational leadership from Max to Kyle Eller to become our next Operations Director. We continued hiring additional qualified coaches to lead and serve our growing participant base. Gator Junior Golf opens its first location in Lake City at the Country Club at Lake City under the leadership of PGA Professional, Carl Ste-Marie. Gator Junior Golf adds its first class in Marion County at Juliette Falls Golf Course in Dunnellon, FL under the leadership of PGA Professional, Lon Kinney.
2020
Summary:
Birth of Shands Children's Hospital Golf Program
Added Turkey Creek Golf Course
Hired more PGA Professionals and qualified coaches
Gator Junior Golf adds Turkey Creek Golf Course as a new location under the direction of John Stevens, who became instrumental in leading the Turkey Creek program’s growth. This would become an essential partnership as the pandemic lockdowns impacted all of our locations except for Turkey Creek where we temporarily shifted our classes to and resumed our Spring 2020 season in July. In February of 2020, we started our first Shands Children’s Hospital golf program where we took plastic oversized golf clubs and mini tennis balls into the children’s hospital to teach the inpatient kids, many of whom were terminally ill. This program was suspended due to COVID, but we would later resume the program in 2022.
2019
summary:
Max Meier hired as Operations Director, leads exponential expansion of programming
Added Gainesville Country Club location
Gator Junior Golf hires Director of Operations, Max Meier, who becomes instrumental in leading our program’s next growth phase. Gainesville Country Club becomes our new home base thanks to the guidance of lead coach, Bob Geambazi PGA, as West End Golf Club closes permanently. Later in the year, we add our first on-course class to serve the needs of our advancing young players.
2018
summary:
Hired our first PGA Professional, Bob Geambazi
Added more class levels to keep students progressing
Gator Junior Golf begins to exit the startup phase and enters the growth stage in an organization’s life cycle. We added more classes for a total of three class levels to serve our progressing students. We hired our first paid staff to lead golf class as we transition our operating structure under our founder, Sean Warner, teaching all of the classes to a horizontal, decentralized coaching base where each coach operates autonomously at each location. By having many coaches teaching all classes, we were able to diversify our instruction delivery since each coach has a different style to teach the same curriculum. We were also able to solve our critical hiring needs by having many part time coaches vs one full time coach. Gator Junior Golf hires it’s first PGA Professional, Bob Geambazi, as a lead instructor of some of our golf classes.
2017
summary:
Gator Junior Golf splits from First Tee as an independent organization
Partnered with Girls Place and Reichert House to establish after-school programs in underserved areas
Website is born along with our eLearning platform (click here)
eLearning Portal
Gator Junior Golf splits from First Tee as an independent nonprofit as a subordinate under the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). We add class locations at Ironwood Golf Course and partnered with Girls Place and Reichert House to help overcome the barriers to entry for golf in underserved communities in east Gainesville. We created our website and established our eLearning system where students can watch our custom instructional videos, complete online homework and quizzes. We began an aggressive expansion of our volunteer base to support our next wave of growth.
2016
summary:
Gator Junior Golf begins under First Tee umbrella
Gainesville Sun does a news article on the program
Gator Junior Golf is formed under the leadership of Sean Warner and John Stevens. After Sean Warner spent two years volunteering at First Tee of Greater Ocala, he fundraised $1,500 to attend First Tee Level 1 certification training. Once complete, Sean was able to begin teaching golf classes, but the next question was where would we hold class? Mark Dixon, General Manager at West End Golf Club, graciously took in our program to host our first golf classes. We held our first classes at West End Golf Club under the First Tee of Greater Ocala’s umbrella. We hosted two classes, serving 30 kids with only a handful of volunteers.