A Final Recap from our Executive Director, Courtney Stiles
Pebble Beach is breathtaking. Literally. My health tracker said we climbed the equivalent of 13 flights of stairs across 8 miles, daily, for five days!
During our trip to California for the Pure Insurance Championship, I learned I love walking the fairways whether swinging the clubs or carrying the bag. But, I’m terrible at spectating from ‘outside the ropes’. Antsy, anxious, and sweaty. Just terrible.
Everyone has a story. A story on how they learned integrity, the hard way, how they show judgment on a daily basis, and how they apply confidence, without being cocky.
I saw first-hand that The Pure Insurance Championship benefiting The First Tee is truly a once-in- a-lifetime experience.
It’s an all-expense paid trip across the country to meet 81 other like skilled and like-minded high school age kids, 82 top-notch Champions Tour professionals, and their caddies, as well as 164 successful business executives, community leaders, artists and celebrities.
But it doesn’t come easy. At a minimum, participants must be actively enrolled in The First Tee for three years, or nine sessions, a Birdie Level participant and a single digit golfer. After those hurdles are checked off, then comes the application process. There’s a golf resume, school and community activities chart, five essays, and finally an in-person interview with a local board of director member, volunteers, coaches and staff representatives.
Once all of these items have been completed and submitted, you wait, and wait, for about 60 days, until the field selection is made, on none-other than, national television!
If selected, the next phase begins.
Preparation.
From practicing public speaking, prepping her golf game and stamina, as well as playing Pebble Beach Golf Links, repeatedly, on the Tiger Woods PGA TOUR video game – Mara did it all. With that said, let’s be honest, you can’t completely prepare for this experience at the age of 15.
From leaving Eastern Standard Time, for the first time, staying in private housing, playing golf during the day, every day, and attending sponsor and leadership events every night. The schedule was tight and kept each of us on our tired toes!
Everyday featured a new hurdle to conquer. A new experience to take in. A new moment to be present and enjoy to its fullest.
For Mara, her week looked like this: Tuesday she was up at 2:00am EST, arrived at Pebble Beach for player registration at 3:00pm PST, met her host family, attended Junior Orientation, attended the PURE Welcome Party and Pairings unveiling event, and finally went to bed at 9:00pm PST… 22 hours after getting up for the day!
Each subsequent day was similar, awaking anywhere between 4:30am and 6:30am, and going to bed around 9:30pm.
After Wednesday’s practice round, where she played with 2016 Champion, Paul Broadhurst, participants attended the Champions Dinner where they would mingle with Champions Tour Players, Pro Am partners, key Pebble Beach staff and area business executives.
Thursday’s post golf activities were probably the longest, yet most impactful, as they attended the Legends and Leaders Event at Monterey Peninsula Country Club. The event featured CEOs and celebrities from all over the country who had taken the time to come and speak about one of the Nine Core Values that has had significance in their life.
From Condoleezza Rice, Matt Ginella, Kevin Sorbo, Alfonso Ribeiro, Leon Panetta, and others, their messages were impactful and well worth the later bedtime.
During the first two tournament rounds, Mara was paired with Champions Tour player, Jim Carter. Mr.Carter and his caddie, Tommy, were an invaluable asset to Mara’s experience.
Playing ‘inside the ropes’ at a major event brings up a lot of different emotions and Mara having the opportunity to work through these taught her invaluable life lessons at every turn.
From seeing how Jim used judgment, when navigating a difficult course, how he persevered through a bad hole, and re-engaged to make the next hole better. Then, the amateurs in our pairing, how a smile never left their face and you wouldn’t know if they were under par or nowhere close to breaking a 100!
My most proud chaperone moment was on Day 2 when Mara faced Holes 6, 7 and 8. She had talked about these holes all week. About how she played them the most on her TW golf game at home and was skeptical about conquering them in person.
But, when we arrived to this group of holes, Mara pushed her nerves down and smiled through the apprehension. While her smile may have not radiated through her face the entire time, I could see it in her eyes. She conquered hitting her second shot over the cliff on Hole 6, safely navigating her tee shot onto the green on Hole 7, and making it to the green in two on Hole 8.
Being provided the opportunity to attend the Pure Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach as Mara’schaperone was a truly special experience. I’ve watched Mara grow over the last three years, and after having spent many hours with her these last few weeks, I am excited to see what her future holds.
This national event and the countless others that The First Tee provides our local youngsters the opportunity to attend are well worth the multi-year investment in our local programs.
I can’t wait to see what’s up next for our kiddos here in the Sandhills!
Hi everyone!
Today I was up at 4:30am to get out the door for breakfast and warm up before playing my first practice round at Poppy Hills Golf Course!
We had a lot of fog to start the morning, a new experience for me, but by the 2nd Hole it had lifted! I got to play today’s practice round with Vivian Guite from The First Tee of Naples. Vivian and I were both selected to attend The First Tee National Par 3 Championship earlier this year and met during the event. 
I played pretty well, and again, was wowed by the views and wildlife! As you will see in our pictures, we saw MANY deer just meandering across the fairways. So cool! 
After our practice round we ‘bumped’ into Bernard Langer in the Player Hospitality tent! So cool! (Yes, I think I’m going to say that a lot this week)
Wednesday afternoon we had the chance to experience 17 mile drive. We weren’t able to stop and get out of the car but it was surely a beautiful view from the window. If everything works out, we plan to walk around Cypress Point, tomorrow! 
The event event participants attended was called ‘Legends and Leaders presented by EMoney‘ and was hosted at Monterey Peninsula Country Club. During the event, 9 special guest spoke on the 9 Core Values, each highlighting a unique Core Value that carries special interest in their lives.
Each guest had an amazing and inspiring story to tell – but my personal favorites came from Jeremy Poincenot and Victoria Arlen.
First, Jeremy Poincenot spoke about Perseverance (my favorite Core Value!). His personal story was about e spoke about how he suddenly became blind and had perseverance along with encouragement to continue. Now his dad and he are #1 in the world blind golf association.
My second favorite speech was Victoria Arlen who spoke about Confidence. She was paralyzed from a young age and was scared that she wouldn’t be able to play sports. Victoria grew up in a family that golfed a lot. One day she had the Confidence to tell her family she wanted to learn how to golf – despite her condition. Today, she is able to walk, golf and even speaks three languages! Oh, and she is an Olympic Paralympic Swimmer (and medalist!)
Tomorrow I will play by second practice round, on Pebble Beach Golf Links, at 8:30am with 2016 PURE Insurance Championship winner, Paul Broadhurst! I am very excited!
PS – I forgot to mention, I also met Tom Watson at last night’s dinner! 
Great job, Jaclyn. Thanks for giving us a bit of insight into YOU.
At the first two rounds of the Pure Insurance Championship, the Champions Tour Professionals go through a field cut to the low 50 and ties. In addition, only the low 23 junior scores will advance to the final round on Pebble Beach. The remaining juniors compete in a two-person team event at Poppy Hills.
Mara’s Perspective:
Sunday morning we had the opportunity to pair up for a fun tournament at Poppy Hills. While I would have loved the opportunity to play on Sunday at Pebble, having a chance for redemption at Poppy Hills while getting to meet more junior contestants was going to be fun.
The format for this two-person team event was a little different as well. We played six holes of best ball, six holes or alternate shot and six holes of scramble. This format definitely got us into the team spirit quickly.
I was paired with a boy from Phoenix, Arizona. At first our personalities were very different but we pushed each other to hit good shots and work towards the lowest score. I definitely feel like I was able to make some improvements on this course from the first round of the tournament and was glad to have that opportunity. We ended up shooting a team score of Even Par. Pretty good for two strangers coming together!
After our round we were asked to be at the 18th Hole to watch the final groups come in. It was fun to see some of the juniors I met during the week come down the last hole, be announced when they walked up to the green and finish off the round with their pro.
The atmosphere was electric and truly capped off an amazing experience that I will never forget.
Mara’s Viewpoint on Rd 1:
To say I had nervous excitement when we arrived at the course for Round 1 is an understatement. I got through warmups, fending off some nervousness, but as we got to the first tee we realized play was delayed due to golfers still making the turn from the morning rounds and my nervousness began to build.
Once we got started, the first two holes were difficult. I wanted to do so well for my team. I didn’t have the start I wanted to and my self-disappointment got the best of me. Thankfully, I was able to shake off the nerves, regroup and begin to enjoy the experience.
Looking back, it was really neat to hit some good shots and have a few opportunities for my golf score to help contribute to our teams overall results. During this first round, the two amateurs we were paired with were a husband and wife duo from California. They had played the last three years and their time finished in third place in 2016.
At the end of Day 1, my golf results weren’t up to par but what I gained from the experience was well worth the roller coaster. I was able to watch how everyone handled themselves on course, how they used Judgment when navigating a very difficult course, and how the pros seemed to be able to persevere through a bad hole and re-engage to make the next hole better.
I was looking forward to recommitting myself to a positive day 2.
Friday evening we had a participant only pizza part at the STEM Zone which was set up on Hole 17 Green. The area was very similar to the STEM Zone set up during the 2014 US Open at Pinehurst, so it was fun to go back through and get to do all the activities again.
Mara’s Viewpoint on Rd 2:
Saturday morning we had the earliest tee time of the day, 7:15am, off of Hole 10. Sunrise right now in California is around 6:50am; so we were met by a few building lights near the range to get warmed up. The overall temperature that morning was definitely the coolest of any this week and I was happy to see the sun start to rise.
When we got out to Hole 10 Tee, it was a beautiful start to the day. There was barely any wind to speak off and the ocean was glowing from daylight peeking through.
I was ready to have a great day with my team!
We got off to a good start the first few holes, I even had a chip in on Hole 12! Definitely an early round highlight.
Of the two courses, I definitely felt more comfortable and confident playing Pebble Beach. Plus, the views were amazing so it was much more difficult to get down on yourself if you hit a bad shot with that back drop.
While our pro didn’t have his best day, we enjoying the team comradery and pushing to support one another for the best score possible for our team. Throughout the round we all had holes where we made contributions to our team score, which was a lot of fun.
Saturday night was our only ‘free’ night of the week. Our very sweet host family took us all to dinner at Spanish Bay Lodge. This was a really awesome experience because we got there in time to see the back piper play down the fairway and later was the sunset over the ocean. I’ve never seen a West Coast sunset before, so it was icing on the cake this week. 
After two days of go,go,go, the time change and emotions have set in and we are exhausted! Thankfully, today we had plenty of time for our practice round to be able to decompress before the evening’s main event, Legends and Leaders.
Mara’s Perspective: I’m not gonna lie, with all the emotions of the first two days, when I woke up this morning I was in a funk. But, I dug deep, remembered how lucky I am to be here and was ready to go to the first tee for my second practice round. Today, on Poppy Hills.
While Poppy Hills doesn’t run along the ocean line, it’s a beautiful course with very different challenges along the way. The fairways are tight and lined with very tall trees, the greens are much bigger with very udulating greens and the course as a whole has a number of elevation changes.
For today’s practice round I had the opportunity to play with three other participants from The First Tee. They were from The First Tee Contra Costa, Pittsburgh and Greater Tyler.
The 18th Hole, a par 5, was a really neat finishing hole and probably required the most strategy of all 18 holes. Two bunkers are positioned directly in the middle of the fairway, hindering the location of your tee shot, and then the second shot is a blind layup into a fairway that slopes drastically from left to right. When it’s time to hit into the green, you’re left with a very narrow landing area surrounded by hazards and bunkers.
Based on my iphone health tracker, we walked 8 miles today!
Post round, we took the shuttle back to Pebble Beach Lodge and went out to the Hole 18 to watch some of the pros come in during their practice round. I wanted to get a chance to introduce myself and get their autographs on my tournament yardage book!
The highlight for me was watching Tom Watson play the 18th Hole. He hit his third shot about 15 feet from the hole and drained the putt for birdie.
As he came off the 18th green, I was able to introduce myself and tell him I was from Pinehurst, NC. He was thrilled to hear this and said how much he loves coming to Pinehurst and playing the courses. Maybe I will get to see him in Pinehurst one day!
Tonight’s main event was called Legends & Leaders. The event was held at Monterey Peninsula clubhouse and featured CEOs and celebrities from all over the country who had taken the time to come and speak to us about a Core Value that has significance in their life.
Some of the speakers included Chris Harrison, Kevin Sorbo, John Ashworth, Ross Buchmueller, Kira Kazantsev, Sara Diaz, Alfonso Ribeiro and Leon Panetta,
Two of my favorite speakers were Condoleezza Rice and Matt Ginella.
Mrs. Rice spoke on Perseverance. Saying that once you find your goal or dream in life, persevere through to achieve it. She talked about how people told her she wasn’t going to make it through school but she knew she could and proved them wrong. And then how later she became the first female African American Secretary of State. So cool to hear her speak.
My other favorite of the night was Matt Ginella from the Golf Channel. Mr. Ginella spoke on Confidence. He told us about an experience he had when participating in the planning and execution of a Golf Digest Cover photo shoot with Tiger Woods leading up to the Masters, where he was the defending champion. During the planning process he pitched the idea of having Tiger pose with real tigers. Many people botched the idea but he was confident this was the direction to go and continued to push the idea. Instead, they wanted him to pose in front of some azaleas. So they prepped for both ideas and would see how it played out. When Tiger arrived for the shoot, they quickly found out he was allergic to azaleas! He only lasted about two minutes in front of the azaleas for photos and Matt’s idea became a possibility. In fact, Tiger wanted to do the tiger photo shoot! Needless to say, the Golf Digest cover ended up being Tiger with tigers!
While the night’s events were longer than expected, it was truly a life experience to hear from all the speakers, meet many event sponsors and players, while continuing to share the message of The First Tee.
Tomorrow brings Round 1 at Poppy Hills. I tee off at 11:45am PST with Jim Carter and can’t wait to get started.
Thanks for continuing to follow along. 
While Day 1 is all about acclamation and orientation, Day 2 and 3 is time for activation! Practice rounds, interviews, meeting amateurs playing in the event and speaking with donors. This day provided another level of excitement, new experiences and memories for a lifetime.
Mara’s Viewpoint: I was anxiously excited to get the day started! Before we left our host family’s house, I cleaned out my golf bag and moved everything over to the really awesome tournament bags they gave us to use all week. Added bonus, it had my name on it!
The tournament doesn’t allow us to schedule our Pebble Beach Golf Links Practice Round until we arrive on property for registration. So, by the time we arrived yesterday, the earliest tee time was 1:00pm PST. Beginning that late we would never get finished before our mandatory junior event at 5:00pm.
So, we decided to leave the house early and visit the Starter on Hole 1 by 9:00am to see if he had any singles cancel. To our disappointment, he didn’t envision any cancellations but kindly took my name and phone number in case something popped up!
While waiting at the tee, we saw a group of Pro-Am participants tee off. One of which was a left handed, one armed man from Quebec, Canada. Come to find out, this is his fifth year in a row playing the event. We watched him strip it down the fairway. Our quick interaction provided an extra boost of inspiration for the day!
As we headed back towards housing to grab a few items for our long day, the phone rings. It’s the Starter! “Mara, can you be back at the tee in 10 mins? We’ve got an opening!” YES, I thought, but we were 6 minutes from the course and in the opposite direction.
To our delight, even though the group with the opening had tee’d off, Champions Tour Player Jerry Kelly let me play the first hole with him and then I jumped ahead to my group. He so was welcoming and inviting.
When we got to 2 tee, to my surprise, we were paired with the tournament Defending Champion, Paul Broadhurst. How cool to play with last year’s winner!
What a golf course! Tee shots from various angles, bends in the fairways and tiny greens. Every hole had its own unique beauty; from gigantic trees, to water views and cliffs that you had to hit over and around.
To get ready before we headed to California, my dad and I enjoyed playing Pebble Beach Golf Links on the Tiger Woods PGA Tour Game. So, as we approached the 6 Hole, a par 5 with a HUGE ocean side cliff you must hit your second shot over, I was nervous and calm all at once. To see my ball land in the green grass over that cliff was so thrilling!
Those next few holes were some of the best. Hole 7 plays 90 yards on the score card, but depending on the wind you could hit anything from a sand wedge to a 6 iron. The video game definitely didn’t do that experience justice!
Getting to play with Mr. Broadhurst and his caddie was a really great experience. They gave us a lot of advice, encouragement and many laughs throughout the round. I definitely feel ready to play the course on Saturday!
Post round we took a quick nap before heading back to the 18th Green at Pebble Beach Golf Links for tonight’s Champions Dinner and concert featuring Chris Young. Before the dinner we got to take a group photo with, and meet, Chris Young. Then, they lined all of us up on these really tall stairs off the clubhouse where we were announced individually to the crowd and given a participant medal, with our initials engraved on the back, from Mr. Joe Louis Barrow.
During dinner we were tasked to sit with people we didn’t know, make introductions and new friends. The crowd included Champions Tour Players, Amateur Pro-Am participants, our host families and all of us juniors.
To cap off an awesome day, Chris Young came to the stage and did a private one-hour concert for us. It was so cool to have a stage set up on the edge of the ocean, off the 18th green of Pebble Beach Golf Links.
WOW. I’m still amazed and grateful to be here. What a Day 2!
Mara’s Viewpoint: It was truly a long morning. By far the earliest I’ve ever gotten up, but well worth the early wakeup call! Having never left the East Coast time zone, I wasn’t quite sure how the time change would affect me. But, when we were sitting in the Las Vegas Airport eating from the lunch menu at 10:00am their time, and dinner wasn’t until 6:30pm, I knew there would be some adjustments ahead.
Once we landed in San Jose, the excitement hit me. We had made it.
Player Registration was really cool. They have this really nice room set up for us where we can eat breakfast and lunch, each day. It overlooks the player putting green so we can even watch the Champions Tour Pros practice during our breaks.
While at registration we picked up our uniforms for the week, made practice round tee times and snagged a chocolate ice cream bar!
After a quick visit to meet our private housing family, the Banks, I head to our player meeting and the Pairings Party. I got to meet a number of other Junior Participants from across the country as well as some of the Amateurs that will be playing with us this week.
To find out who our pro was, they had engraved their name on a bag tag that was tucked away in our golf bag.
My assigned pro is Jim Carter. I found out that he is originally from Spring Lake, NC, which is part of our local chapter. Mr. Carter wasn’t at the party last night but I’m looking forward to meeting him during practice.
Day 1 was exciting and exhausting at the same time. For Day 2, I’m looking forward to seeing the facilities, playing my first practice round and making may more new friends.
It’s off to bed for now. Thanks for following along! 
