How Bryan Medina found hope, empowerment through TGR Foundation, TGR Learning Lab

Bryan Medina was 14 years old the first time he walked through the doors of the TGR Learning Lab in Anaheim, California.

His high school math teacher also coached golf, and he tried to recruit the personable Medina for his team. But the teenager had never picked up a club before, so his coach wanted him to attend golf classes at the Learning Lab.

“It ended up being so much more than what I thought it was going to be,” Medina said.

It wasn’t just the golf, what Medina calls a “calculated mental game” that quickly turned into a passion, though. Or the part-time job he got working as a range attendant there.

Medina also found that the educational environment at the Learning Lab challenged him and gave him confidence. He started taking advanced placement classes in high school. He tutored other young people from underserved communities.

Medina eventually completed the Tiger Woods (TGR) Foundation’s College Bound Academy where he toured campuses, learned to fill out applications and built a resume. The first-generation college graduate who will complete his studies at Cal State Fullerton this month still has the binder of information and resources he created during the program – “It was my bible,” he says – and refers to it frequently when younger kids come to him with questions.

“Being at the Learning Lab honestly catapulted my eagerness for higher education,” Medina said. “Acting as an educator myself, because I would help educate students, it actually made me want to pursue or explore a teaching credential even after I would graduate.

“The team over there has had such a big impact on me, and they still do," Medina said. "It's kind of like me having my older brother mindset where I want my younger siblings to succeed, or I want my peers to succeed. So, I'm kind of carrying that with me in and out of the Lab … I want to take what I've learned and teach others who would benefit from it.”

The Learning Lab in Anaheim is the flagship facility of a growing network of after-school STEAM learning facilities supported by the TGR Foundation, a non-profit started by Tiger Woods and his father, Earl, in 1996. There’s another opening in 2025 in Philadelphia and a third in Los Angeles targeted for a 2026 launch.

Medina is one of more than 200,000 students who have been impacted by the Learning Lab in Anaheim since it opened in 2006. And more than 3 million young people have taken part in learning programs funded by the TGR Foundation over the last 28 years.

This week’s Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Course in the Bahamas will help increase those numbers. The tournament, which is being played for the 25th time and the 10th under Hero sponsorship, is the TGR Foundation’s longest-running fundraising event. On Tuesday, Dr. Pawan Munjai, the executive chairman of Hero MotoCorp, and Woods announced a contract extension through 2030.

“To have this relationship and our partnership continue until 2030 is truly amazing,” Woods said. “We're able to help and serve so many more youth because of it. All the players who come down here over the years have supported this event, some of them have started their own foundations because of the impact that Pawan and I have had on this event and our various charities.”

The 22-year-old Medina, who is the oldest child in a family of six, is one of the many who have been reached by the TGR Foundation. His dad, Rene, is a truck driver, and his mom, Aira, works in retail. Being the first in his family to earn a college diploma is a huge accomplishment and one he says his parents share in.

“It's almost right up there next to buying your own home, right?” Medina said. “So, I feel like I'd finally be able to say that I made it, that even they made it, right, because that was their plan from the start. That was something that they wanted.

“So, they're super proud to see that I've gotten a degree in something that I love and something that is in such demand right now. Computers, AI or just technology in general … It's only gotten bigger, and I think it's only going to get bigger. So, I feel like they feel my headspace is in the right state of mind and I'm also pushing my younger siblings to also pursue higher education.

Medina said he never had to work too hard in school. That is, until he took – and failed – the first test in his AP Human Geography class. Humbled, he was motivated to work harder and eventually had mastered eight other AP classes by the time he graduated. He even helped create an online computer science course during the COVID-19 lockdown.

“I feel like it just catapulted my need and my eagerness for education so much,” Medina said. “And because of that, I'm such an advocate for higher education, and I am such an advocate for studying, actually studying, and actually opening up books and taking the time to read … I would not have that same mindset if I hadn't been at the Learning Lab.”

Medina says the staff at the Learning Lab frequently checks in with him, even now when he’s four years removed from the program that he once attended five days a week. They text or call and ask about his classes or how his brothers and sister are doing. He’s also returned to the Learning Lab to speak to other aspiring college students.

“I love inspiring others, and I love pushing others to see what was best for them,” Medina said. “And I feel like a lot of students, when you're getting fed information from educators or your teachers, it might sound like, oh, you know what? They're old. They don't understand me, or they're older than me, or they don't know what I'm going through, or they don't feel like they can relate.

“And me being a student in college and telling them about college, I feel like that's what impacted them the most. And I loved interacting with the students, and I loved that I was able to talk to the students as a student.”

Medina also made an important connection last year as the announcer on the first tee at The Riviera Country Club during The Genesis Invitational. One of the players he met there was none other than Woods. Medina, who remembers seeing the statue of the former world No. 1 at the entrance of the Learning Lab on his first day, calls it a “full circle” moment.

“It was crazy,” Medina said, the excitement evident in his voice.

Medina remembers being amazed that Woods knew his name – “My grandparents sometimes forget my name,” he said with a laugh. Medina was also surprised when Woods thanked him for supporting the Learning Lab.

“And I said, no, thank YOU,” Medina recalled. “It was very cool to see that Tiger at that moment. He's huge. He's like a bear … But to see that he talked to me as if I was one of his peers and he was an educator, that's what it felt like. It felt like I was talking to one of the staff members at the Learning Lab because of how much they cared and how much he was concerned for me.”

The TGR Foundation is ongoing proof of that.