Former PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem honored with First Tee’s Lifetime Achievement Award

Former PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem was recognized Monday with First Tee’s Lifetime Achievement Award, an honor that recognizes the integral role he played in the organization’s founding and growth.

In further recognition of Commissioner Finchem’s achievements, First Tee also announced Monday a campaign to accelerate its First Tee College Scholarship, positioning the organization to support an additional 100 college scholars. Dignitaries from across the world have reached out to honor Commissioner Finchem, including President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton.

Commissioner Finchem is just the second recipient of First Tee’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The organization’s longtime CEO, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., was the first.

It was Commissioner Finchem who founded First Tee in 1997, not long after Tiger Woods took the golf world by storm. The program was launched in a November 1997 ceremony at New York’s Central Park that featured former President George H. W. Bush, World Golf Hall of Famer Tom Watson and Woods’ father, Earl.

“This, without a doubt, is the biggest thing that I have ever seen in golf in my lifetime,” Earl Woods said that day. “It is the culmination of a lot of people's dreams. Never, ever, ever give up your dreams. Today we're providing an opportunity for these kids to participate in this dream.”

Commissioner Finchem convinced presidents, golf legends and golf’s governing bodies to support First Tee. His coalition building was the catalyst for First Tee becoming golf’s leading “grow the game” initiative. Today, First Tee impacts more than three million kids and teens annually through more than 1,500 program locations in both the United States and abroad.

“I love the game of golf, and I got involved because Tim Finchem, my friend, asked me to do it,” President George H. W. Bush once said. “And before he could change his mind, I said, ‘Absolutely, we'll be there.’”

Added PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan, “He worked alongside other leaders in our sport, both with golf organizations and the greats of the game, to help facilitate the establishment of First Tee, which now reaches 3.4 million young people every single day, and has now expanded outside of the United States.”

First Tee began in 1997 as a partnership among the LPGA, the Masters Tournament, the PGA of America, the PGA TOUR and the USGA to make golf affordable and accessible for all kids.

“It was daunting, there were skeptics, and that's why when we started the program, it was really about getting the first 100 facilities going,” Commissioner Finchem once said. “We felt that if we could get 100 facilities moving that would give us a platform to demonstrate that the program was viable and then we could go from there. In the first two years, we were able to get those going and we were off to the races.”

In addition to introducing kids to the game, First Tee also introduced a life skills curriculum that supported the development of values found within the game of golf, including honesty, integrity, perseverance and respect.

This was a game changer – for the kids, and for First Tee. For more than 25 years, First Tee has been committed to helping kids build character and important life skills through the game of golf, while also providing all kids with access to opportunities for personal growth in a fun and safe environment. First Tee has expanded beyond golf courses, now bringing its curriculum to in-school and after-school programs, as well, to expand its reach. First Tee is currently in more than 11,000 schools and 2,000 youth centers.

Commissioner Finchem has previously been recognized with induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame and Sports Business Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the National Golf Foundations’ Herb Graffis Award, which recognizes golf business leadership and contributions to the growth of the game.

“The important thing is that (First Tee) is going to change the way people think about the game of golf,” Commissioner Finchem once said. “They're to think about the game of golf more as a sport that's open, a sport that attracts people from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all socioeconomic levels, and the more we can move down that path, the more golf can look more like the rest of America, like the rest of the world, the healthier it will be as a sport. … That's the real hallmark of what First Tee is all about.”

It is, and for that, he is a deserving recipient of First Tee’s Lifetime Achievement Award.