Is Drive, Chip & Putt The Most Important Event in Golf?

People have different opinions on what’s significant in the game of golf, but what Drive, Chip & Putt is doing to encourage youngsters and their parents to enter the game, might be more important than any tournament or any program anyplace in the world. More important than the Masters itself.

A lot of organizations have created programs to try to get more people started playing golf. There was Get Golf Ready, for adults. It’s been popular enough that PGA Tour Superstores are teaching it in their hitting bays.

The LPGA has LPGA Golf 101, which has lessons for women taught by women.

There’s the LPGA / USGA Girls Golf, based on the theory that girls learn things better when there aren’t boys in the program. There’s the PGA of America Junior League which is team golf for boys and girls together. There’s the First Tee which has reached a half million juniors at least. There are PGA Junior Golf Camps.

There are any number of golf professionals, men and women both, who put on clinics and do individual instruction for all ages. Whether it’s Kay McMahon with her Golf 8.5 program that breaks down the golf swing into simple steps, or Christina Ricci who teaches at Atkinson Resort and Country Club and hosts golf camps nationally, there are plenty of experts who can help people learn to play.

Even people who just love the game have started programs, like Debbie Waitkus, who created Take Time For Nine and Nine and Wine for beginners in the Phoenix/ Scottsdale area.

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Many golf professionals and courses across the country do whatever they can to encourage play and provide programs. But pound for pound, Drive, Chip & Putt outshines everything for three big reasons:

1. It gives a family, not just an individual, a goal.

2. It shows kids across the country that, boy or girl, no matter what flavor or lineage they are, they can have a chance to win in golf.

3. It showcases the diversity in our country and makes it plain that diverse people play and enjoy golf.

A female CEO on CNBC once said it this way: You’ve got to see her to be her. It’s the same for girls or boys. No matter what your skin color happens to be, whether you have freckles or wear glasses or are skinny or chubby or your parents or great-great-grandparents came from Africa or Ireland or Thailand or Mexico or South America, you’ve got to see someone you can identify with doing something that interests you to feel you can do it. Drive, Chip & Putt does that naturally. /

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA – APRIL 04: Kendra Graham of the USGA Executive Committee, Lee Styslinger of Augusta National and Don Rea, PGA Secretary of the PGA of America, pose with participants in the girls 10-11 group during the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship at Augusta National Golf Club on April 04, 2021 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

The goal for participants in Drive, Chip & Putt is a big prize, and that is the ability to visit Augusta National. No matter what anybody says, the prize isn’t winning the trophy for the categories, although the kids are very happy to win and sad to lose. The prize is going to Augusta National to hit balls on the range, to chip in the practice area and to putt on the 18th green where the winner finishes the Masters. Everybody knows it. For parents, it’s a chance to see Augusta National and, before they get there, some other important golf courses in person. For a golfing parent, that is the necessary incentive to give a child all the help he or she needs.

There’s no limit to the number of times a boy or girl can enter Drive, Chip & Putt, so it encourages youngsters to continue if they don’t get to the finals first time around. It keeps parents interested, too. As sports organizers know, they have to keep the parents interested to keep the children in programs.

Kids who want to participate have to work at their skills, and, importantly, they have to have the support of a parent or guardian who sees that they get to one of the 329 Local Qualification Sites. The local competition takes place in May, June and July.

Local courses across the country are all-important in this effort because they feed the most successful children that year to the next level. There is a qualifying location in every state. Folks, we’re even talking Alaska where the Anchorage Golf Course hosts.

(To see the one closest to you, just put in your zip code and click here: https://www.drivechipandputt.com/qualifying-locations )

After Local Qualifying, there’s Subregional Qualifying held in September. It’s at 60 locations around the country. And those who make it through that stage go on to Regional Qualifying at one of 10 locations across the country. Each one of those is an impressive golf course in its own right.

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA – APRIL 04: Sharon Ritchey of the USGA Executive Committee, Tom Nelson of Augusta National and PGA Vice President John Lindert pose with participants in the boys 10-11 group during the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship at Augusta National Golf Club on April 04, 2021 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

We’d be remiss if we did not mention that the Drive, Chip & Putt program is a collaboration of the Masters, the PGA of America and the USGA with a boost here and there from the PGA Tour.

What the Drive, Chip & Putt program does is create a family unit that focuses, at least partly, on playing golf. Whether mom and dad play or whether they don’t know which end of a club to pick up doesn’t matter. By the time their child is good enough to progress to the Sub-Regional qualifying, they will get the information and probably lessons that they need for themselves. If their child makes it to the final, they will likely be experts!

What’s the result? There may be a lot of late Saturday and Sunday afternoons where kids and their parents decide to go out to the golf course to play nine. Or to the nearest range to tone up what they are working on. How bad can that be for anyone? How good can it be for golf? Extraordinary. That’s why Drive, Chip & Putt, the most important event in golf.

As I wrote four years ago, the only thing that would do more is Drive, Chip & Putt for adults!

AUGUSTA, GEORGIA – APRIL 04: Sharon Ritchey of the USGA Executive Committee and Tom Nelson of Augusta National pose with participants in the girls 12-13 group during the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship at Augusta National Golf Club on April 04, 2021 in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

Regional Courses for this year include:

Medinah Country Club, which has hosted three U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships and the 2012 Ryder Cup.

Oak Hill Country Club, which has been the site of three U.S. Opens, three PGA Championships, the 1995 Ryder Cup and two KitchenAid Senior PGA Championships.

Colorado Golf Club, which held the 2019 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship and 2010 Senior PGA Championship.

Quail Hollow Club, which hosted the 2017 PGA Championship and will host the 2025 PGA Championship and annually is the site of the Wells Fargo PGA Tour event.

TPC River Highlands, which is the location of the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour.

Pebble Beach Golf Links, which has brought us six U.S. Opens, 1977 PGA Championship, the AT&T National Pebble Beach Pro Am annually and which is the future site of the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open and 2027 U.S. Open.

TPC Scottsdale, which has the Waste Management Phoenix Open PGA Tour event every year.

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