The Proposal
Two Champions, One Scoreboard
A GolfbyKids campus for Michael Jordan in North Carolina and one for LeBron James in Akron, built to the same drawings, opened in the same season, with the children keeping score.
The Premise
"What produces a golfer is repeated practice, repeated competition, and repeatedly good competitors."
The proof has existed since 1980, when Rudy Duran's program at Heartwell, a public par-3 course in Long Beach, gave a small boy named Tiger Woods free access every day and a tournament every week. It closed in 1985 and nobody rebuilt it on purpose. Most junior programs in America are built to introduce children to golf. Very few are built to produce children who can play it. GolfbyKids is Heartwell rebuilt deliberately and at civic scale, with what Duran improvised designed in from the first day.
Holes
27-hole par-3 course
Designer
DMK Golf Design
Operator
Troon
Cost to children
Free, every day
Weekly competitors
~800 per weekend
Age divisions
Ages 5 through 18
Why These Two Cities
One campus proves the model works. Two built to the same drawing prove it travels.
AKRON, OHIO
LeBron James
LeBron James has said publicly that youth golf development is a personal passion and that golf is being built into the House Three Thirty and I PROMISE campus. The city has the schools, the transit, and the family infrastructure the design assumes, and a foundation already moving children to where the programs are.
NORTH CAROLINA
Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan is a Carolina native, a Tar Heel, and a serious golfer who has built a course of his own. The Charlotte and Triangle regions hold the university, the corporate base, and the golf culture to carry a campus, and the state's golf history gives the project a home ground of its own.
The Scoreboard
One published sheet, independently audited, released on the same day each year
Participation counts are inputs and prove nothing. The two campuses are measured on one published sheet, independently audited and released on the same day each year. The trophy travels, and it sits in the city whose third line is longer.
Children who posted a competitive score: a field, a scorecard, a published result
Of those, children who posted twenty or more such scores in the year
Of those, children who belong to no golf club and pay no membership
Children awarded the Golf Competency Card, the credential that opens private club doors
The Rulebook
One set of drawings. One rulebook. One auditor.
Both campuses are built from one set of DMK drawings, adapted only for terrain, and run the same weekly calendar, age divisions, six-shot maximum, and kid-run officiating and scoring. Each city holds a seat on a joint board, and one independent auditor certifies both reports.
Timing
Akron and North Carolina are designed together from one set of drawings, break ground in the same year, and open in the same season. The first annual report follows twelve months after opening, and the trophy goes to its first home. GolfbyKids also has a campus site identified in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.
Interested in bringing GolfbyKids to your city?
We are asking for twenty minutes to walk through the design, the rulebook, and the scoreboard, and to hear what your city would need.
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