PINEHURST, N.C. — One of the grandest stages to showcase golf is the Pinehurst Country Club. It's been 25 years since Payne Stewart won the U.S. Open stunningly at the renowned country club and 10 years since the last U.S. Open was held there. 

Leading up to this year’s tournament, young people are learning the game without having a club in hand. The United States Golf Association wants to grow interest in the sport through its new Greenkeeper Apprenticeship Program. 

More than a week before match play started, children received a behind-the-scenes look at Pinehurst No. 2, the golf course where the U.S. Open is set to be played.

Children learned the ins and outs of what it takes to make the course look so good by turning Pinehurst No. 2 into an outdoor, hands-on classroom.

Cooper Crocker, 11, couldn’t contain his excitement. Crocker said he liked the idea of making money when he grows up by making golf courses look good.

“It’s just fun,” Crocker said as he dug his hands into the sand.

The day was designed around the concept of course maintenance and management. The goal was to integrate fun into the educational process. One example is how current grounds crew members at Pinehurst demonstrated how native plant species, like wiregrass, are used to line the fairway.

“It’s cool that we are in Pinehurst doing this,” Crocker said.  “I’m spreading the rocks to make it look more natural.”

Creating this enthusiasm is why the USGA partners with groups like First Tee, an organization intertwining life skills through an introduction to the sport.

“We talk about growing the game all the time,” Carson Letot said.

Letot is the USGA program coordinator for the Greenkeeper Apprenticeship Program. The GAP partners with the Sandhills Community College to grow the industry outside the field of play.

“The maintenance industry is arguably the most important, because we can’t play the game unless we have a surface to do so,” Letot.

Letot said the creation of the GAP aimed at recruitment and eliminating barriers to the sport, including the work that goes into the upkeep of golf courses.

When the program began in early 2023, Letot said students were taught the basics of plant science and the growth habits of plants like wiregrass.

“If they start in the wintertime when (the) GAP starts in January, they're out here on the course. They're planting wiregrass. They're learning about plant science. And then they're actually making a difference. They can go back, and they can see the places where they planted wiregrass and say, ‘yeah, I made a difference there,'’' Letot said.

This minicamp is an extension of that partnership. Children were given roughly 20 to 30 minutes at each station. There were four stations. Each time Letot blew a horn the campers rotated.

Lily Rosario, 12, said she enjoyed learning how green speeds are determined. Children calculated a hypothetical green speed measuring the average length of three golf ball rolls down a miniature ramp.

“When it rolls down we will measure it from right here,” Rosario said.

She referred to the starting and ending point of where the golf ball rolled.

“It’s kind of cool,” Rosario said.

Andrea Salzman is an assistant course superintendent who discovered turf management and maintenance by accident. Salzman said while she was in college a summer factory job fell through. That’s when she said she was thrown into the mix at a local golf course in Wisconsin. 

“I fell in love with it. I didn’t know the difference between a tee and a green. Then I started working there, and I was like ‘this is so nice.’ I get to be outside every day. I get to work with the plants. It’s just a really great job to have,” Salzman said.

Salzman, 23, said she’s been an assistant course super at Pinehurst No. 2 and The Cradle at Pinehurst Golf Resort for about a year and a half. 

Salzman said part of that is letting girls know there are opportunities for them.

“I think it’s very helpful to not be as intimidated by the field. When I entered it, there was only one other girl on the crew. It was very helpful to have someone be like you don’t have to be afraid of getting in there and getting dirty. I think it’s helpful to have someone show them that it’s all right,” Salzman said. 

Salzman showed the young ones how irrigation can be controlled, timed and triggered through one click of a device.

She even broke down how moisture is detected by sticking a specialized meter into the ground to read the water volume ratio to the soil. 

“Ideally we want to get more and more people involved in golf course management,” Salzman said. 

Imagine also practicing golf course design using the 18th hole of Pinehurst No. 2 as inspiration. These young minds were given sketchbooks to outline the course. Children scribbled their hearts out as they tried to create their versions by hand. 

When the learning was almost over for the day, the campers received another treat.

Recent PGA Championship winner Xander Schauffele teed off on 18 during a practice round for this week’s U.S. Open. With eager eyes awaiting, Schauffele then walked down the fairway and over to the campers for a quick photo.

Schauffele addressed the crowd.

“What’s up, everybody. What’s going on?” he said.

The camp organizers hoped the moment left the children with a memory for a lifetime and maybe another reason to keep pursuing the game.