THE BOOT ST O R I E S F R O M T H E T E X A S H I L L C O U N T RY
D R A W N BY L EG ACY, A FO U R-STA R G E N E R A L RETURNS HOME
F R E D E R I C K S B U R G’ S RO B U ST J U N I O R G O L F P RO G R A M
E X P LO R E O N E O F T H E F I R ST W I N E R I ES I N T H E T E X A S H I L L CO U N T RY
2020 | ISSUE 1
28
Hole 8 on the Boot Ranch golf course.
BOOTRANCH.COM
Photo by Brian R Walters
ABOVE:
THE LONG GAME The Boot Ranch and Fredericksburg communities are cultivating character, discipline, and opportunities for a new generation of golfers.
O
n Saturday nights, Denver Schneider stays out past dark. The Fredericksburg High senior is not out with friends partying or cruising around downtown. He can usually be found working on his short game at Boot Ranch, where the 18-hole putting park is lighted until 9 p.m. The six-foot-four, 225-pound teenager doesn’t look like your typical golfer. In fact, he isn’t. And if it weren’t for an outreach program between Boot Ranch and the Fredericksburg community to provide free golf lessons to any kids who want them, Denver Schneider may have never picked up a five iron in his life.
ISSUE 1
29
Emil Hale, former director of golf and now general manager at Boot Ranch.
30
BOOTRANCH.COM
Hal Sutton, PGA legend and designer of the Boot Ranch golf course.
Hale’s late father, Tommy Hale, who loved golf and was passionate about young men and women flourishing in the sport. “Golf has taught Denver, as he has matured, really to be responsible,” Jennifer says. “Golf is all up to you.”
HOLE IN ONE If not for people like Jim Penn and other dedicated volunteers, junior golf in Fredericksburg might not have made it to the next generation of golfers after Denver. After serving about 75 kids in its peak years, by 2010 the junior golf program began to dwindle in numbers. The financial downturn had ravaged the economy. The golf pro at Lady Bird Municipal Golf Course had retired, and Hal Sutton had left Boot Ranch. About four years ago, though, Jim Penn, a local resident and golf lover, helped breathe new life into junior golf in Fredericksburg. Penn had seen the power of junior golf, as Hale had helped his son Justin reach the top position on his high school team and achieve his full potential at Texas Christian University. Penn wanted more kids to have access to the game and the life skills it instills. With an idea to start his own nonprofit, Penn hoped to reinvigorate junior golf in Fredericksburg, but was told it would be a difficult proposition. Instead, he approached the Friends of Lady Bird (FOLB), a nonprofit established to support the local municipal course, whose operations had by then been outsourced to a golf management company. That had left FOLB with a single mission: junior golf.
Photo of Hal Sutton by Miguel Lecouna
It all started in 2004 when PGA legend Hal Sutton was building the Boot Ranch course in Fredericksburg. He and Boot Ranch golf pro Emil Hale started offering free clinics every Tuesday for any young kid who wanted to learn how to play. Six or seven kids would typically show up; 15 on a good day. The head golf pro at the municipal Lady Bird Johnson Golf Course in Fredericksburg soon got on board, as did the high school golf coach. In 2010 Denver Schneider was a nine-yearold just getting into sports when he started going to the golf clinics. Over the years, Schneider grew to love the game more and more, eventually joining the Fredericksburg High School golf team and excelling. Last fall, at age eighteen, he won the Boot Ranch Club Championship. Schneider’s mother, Jennifer, says her son was nervous because he was competing against older players. “Denver asked me, ‘What if I win? Are these guys going to be mad?’ Most of them see him out there every day, though. They are very supportive. He built good relationships with them.” This fall, Denver will leave Fredericksburg to start college at Methodist University in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on a golf scholarship. He also has received the Tommy Hale Memorial Scholarship, given to a local high school senior who has demonstrated a love and respect for golf, shows skills as a leader, has outstanding academics, and serves the community. Part of the Boot Ranch Scholarship Fund, it was established in honor of Emil
Denver Schneider, a product of the junior golf program, at the Boot Ranch golf course.
ABOVE:
ISSUE 1
31
TOP & LEFT: Junior golfers take lessons at Boot Ranch. RIGHT: Jim Penn restarted junior golf in Fredericksburg.
32
BOOTRANCH.COM
In 2017, he pitched the Friends of Lady Bird board about joining forces and providing the fundraising prowess needed to accomplish their mutual goals. Joining Penn in his proposal was Denver’s father, Brad Schneider, and Brian Fairchild, another golfer dad, and their pitch was enthusiastically received. Friends of Lady Bird changed its name to the Junior Golf Foundation of Fredericksburg and began focusing on junior golf.
BEST BALL Aside from lessons and clinics by the pros at Lady Bird Johnson Golf Course and Boot Ranch, the foundation is expanding by introducing the game to Fredericksburg kids in local classrooms. “The first year we got seventy kids that came out for clinics during the summer and fall,” Penn says. “Then we said, ‘Okay, that’s great, but how do we get more kids involved?’” The answer was simple: start earlier by going to physical education classes. They introduced a PGA program called Short Golf to the PE teachers at seven primary and middle schools in Fredericksburg. The teachers then began to incorporate golf into the curricula, teaching young kids how to use equipment and introducing golf concepts through fun and accessible games, such as hitting tennis balls with golf clubs onto targets. Through this classroom initiative, the Junior Golf Foundation now has the potential to reach 1,200 kids each year. “We’ve been quite successful in getting our message out, having the city understand the importance of golf for boys and girls,” says board president Leonard Bentch. “We’re making this the cool sport for kids, all through the school experience.” At any time, a child can come to Lady Bird Municipal Golf Course, and a golf pro will match him or her to a small set of golf clubs.
The foundation has provided about thirty sets of these clubs from U.S. Kids Golf, each with about six or seven clubs in a bag. Today, the relationships between Gillespie County schools, the Lady Bird Golf Course, Boot Ranch, and the Junior Golf Foundation of Fredericksburg are flourishing. Lady Bird head pro Chris Meade, Boot Ranch head pro Alex Rhyne, and their assistant pros teach weekly clinics alternating between the two courses. At the same time, they continue to visit schools and coach kids who compete every Saturday in a traveling golf league.
S W E E T S P OT In addition to playing on the men’s golf team at Methodist, Denver Schneider will also be starting to pursue a degree this fall in PGA Golf Management at one of only thirteen schools in the nation to offer it. It’s an intense program that includes working a three-month internship every summer. For Schneider, it’s a chance to build a career thanks to the people of Fredericksburg and its two golf courses making junior golf a priority. It’s also an opportunity for him to figure out how he can pay it forward to the next generation. Schneider likes working with his hands, he says, and the PGA Golf Management program includes lessons in club-building. “Custom clubs are really expensive,” he explains. “I thought maybe I could do something along that line to help get the right tools into the hands of kids who can’t afford them, so they can play better golf.” When he started giving free lessons to Fredericksburg kids in 2004, Hal Sutton knew that golf could be the right tool to help build discipline, responsibility, and good character. Denver Schneider and his generation of junior golfers are proving just how on-target Sutton’s instincts were.
ISSUE 1
33