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Lemon Bay Giving Kids ‘A Better Shot’

October 15, 2021

ENGLEWOOD, Fla. – “A better shot at golf, but more importantly a better shot at life.”

 

This is what Ben McCoy, the Director of Golf at Lemon Bay Golf Club, said when describing the club’s junior golf foundation. For Lemon Bay, the golf has always been an added bonus to the lifelong values that they hope kids take away from their program.

 

Over 25 years ago, John Kimpton Honey, one of Lemon Bay’s founders, wanted to give back to the community. Honey, along with a small group of club founders and golf professionals, had the idea to use the game of golf to reach out to the local kids in the community.

 

With this A Better Shot Junior Golf Foundation was born. It began with about 100 kids attending a summer program and has grown exponentially over 26 years.

 

“I’ve been here since the beginning and I just can’t even say how much it has grown,” Cindy Claude, A Better Shot Executive Director, said. “We strive to make it better every year.”

 

This past summer there were 171 kids, with ages ranging from four to 18, that were a part of the eight-week summer program at Lemon Bay. The kids are split into groups based on their skill level. There is an hour of golf instruction in the morning and then the kids will go out and play a selected number of holes with their group.

 

Each year the staff introduces a different theme or focus for the summer. This past year the focus was on education. Each week, a different mentor was brought in to speak to the kids, like teachers, police officers and other members of the community.

 

“We want to teach kids that you’re never too young to start setting goals for life,” McCoy said. “Even if you’re seven years old, we want them to strive for something.”

 

The staff and volunteers also worked with the high school students to help plan their future. Whether they want to go to technical school, a four-year university or play a sport in college, the program provided assistance to get them on the right track for their goals.

 

The cost of the summer program is $100, but no child has ever been turned away. Lemon Bay works with the families to make sure every child has the chance to attend.

 

“We want them here,” McCoy said. “We don’t say no.”

 

The club also provides hundreds of sets of junior clubs to the kids that they are able to use throughout the summer and the year. Included with the price of the program is a hat, shirt, lunch and everything the kids need.

 

A major part of the program is the healthy and nutritious lunch that is provided each day, especially during the summer when kids are not being provided lunch at school.

 

While the summer program lasts eight weeks, the staff at Lemon Bay continues to work with the kids throughout the year, hosting clinics and offering lessons.“We want these kids to just be great human beings,” Claude said. “We want them to understand that everyone has a place.”

 

One of the major reasons that Lemon Bay is able to help the youth in its community is because of the membership at the club. Lemon Bay had a goal to raise $1,000,000 for its endowment, its members provided over $700,000 over the course of a year.

 

Members volunteer and support the program and the children that come through it. They help teach etiquette and offer help during the summer program, even covering the admission fee for some of the children.

 

“We have dozens of members that assist in the summer program,” McCoy said. “Some of them even work with the kids outside of the program, just to help them grow. They’re very invested in the program.”

 

It’s clear that this program has an impact on all the children from the amount that come back year after year. Lemon Bay said that about 70 percent of the kids come back and participate in the program every summer, starting when they are young until they graduate high school.

 

Not only do they want to come back each, but they to help give back to their own community as well. Over 40 high school or college students volunteer each summer. The program has graduated future doctors, lawyers, nurses, business leaders and entrepreneurs.

 

“We have some many kids that have been through the program and followed up with us,” Claude said. “Some even have children of their own that are in the program now.”


None of them have felt the impact more than Ryan Hartnett, the head golf professional at Lemon Bay.

 

Hartnett began attending the summer program as a young kid, jumping out of bed to get to the camp and riding his bike to the course with his pushcart. He recalls that one of his favorite parts was standing around the scoreboard at the end of the day to see if he had won a ice cream gift certificate.  It was a place where he made lifelong friends and  grew into the person he is today. 


"The golf coaches are more like life coaches in a sense," Hartnett said. "They always help to lead us down the right road. It was a place were you could surround yourself with good people."

After graduating from Florida Golf Coast University, Hartnett made his way back to Lemon Bay where he has been for the past nine years, mentoring the kids in the program like he once was.

 

"The best part of is being able to give back to the program now to kids like myself," Hartnett said. "I take great pride growing our juniors love for the game while instilling the core values of young man or women. It is truly a blessing and would not be possible without the support and dedication from the Lemon Bay Membership."

In addition to the summer program and clinics throughout the year, A Better Shot also awards college scholarships to graduating seniors. The first scholarship was given out in 1999 and has grown from $10,000 a year to $40,000 a year now – thanks to Lemon Bay’s fundraising. This year, eight different students received a scholarship.

 

“It means a lot to the community,” Claude said. “Everyone says it’s an unbelievable program to have. There’s nothing in the area like it.” 

 

The foundation is also planning on instituting a scholarship to honor its founder, John Kimpton Honey, for what he has created. It will give one student four years of tuition, room and board at a Florida college.

 

When that small group of founders led by Honey founded A Better Shot all those years ago, they could never have imagined the impact that the program would have. But it has become a shining light for the families involved, the club and the community as a whole.


“They’re learning so much more than golf – that’s the bottom line,” McCoy said. “We’re striving to make an impact in our community and for the future of these kids.”