“Do you remember who I am, you know the reason that I became a PGA Professional was because of all of the things you did, I want to do the same thing.”
Nearly a decade after first meeting each other at the Immokalee Foundation, now Head Golf Professional at Panther Run Golf Club, Gerardo Lugo-Trejo, PGA ran into Scott Newhouse, PGA for the first time since becoming a PGA Member.
“Wow,” Newhouse thought to himself while showing Lugo-Trejo the framed picture he still has in his office from all those years ago. “You want to talk about hitting you right in the stomach, it was quite a conversation.”
Lugo-Trejo picked up the game before high school when he joined the First Tee Program, which partnered with the immokalee Foundation. Through this experience, Lugo-Trejo was introduced to many different PGA Professionals who provided him pointers in golf and in life.
Newhouse, the Director of Golf at Naples National at the time, participated in the Immokalee Foundation’s annual pro-ams with the Immokalee High School Students, where his group included Lugo-Trejo.
During Newhouse’s early experiences with the Foundation, a young lady in his group was the first to hit a short putt on their last hole of the day when she began crying.
When asked what was wrong, the young lady explained that this would be the last shot she could hit with her clubs before giving them back, Newhouse remembered.
“That round of golf with the young lady was really the catalyst,” Newhouse explained. “I couldn’t get over how a person would cry that they're not going to have golf clubs, it was just amazing.”
Taken back by the situation, Newhouse knew he had an opportunity to use his network to help and decided to reach out to the Immokalee High School Athletics Director to see if clubs could be donated to the school for the students.
Immokalee High School agreed that if students played a minimum of two years on the golf team and kept a certain grade average, the student would be able to keep the clubs.
“It was 77 sets of golf clubs that the Naples National members donated,” said Newhouse. “It was to the point that the AD at the High School called me and said we have no more space for these golf clubs.”
Now, after all the time he spent working with students from the Immokalee Foundation, Newhouse was able to see the work he did come full-circle when Lugo-Trejo became a fellow PGA Professional.
“It is neat to see a young man come out of Immokalee High School and choose to be a PGA Professional, '' he said. “That is the thing that he wanted and that meant a lot to me.”
Newhouse explained how it is important to show others that you care, especially as a PGA Professional working with younger generations.
“The fact is that the charitable things that we do as PGA Professionals does make a difference and we can see that with a young man like Gerardo, that is proof right there, proof that what we do with our time is extremely important.”
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