Detroit youth combine golf, technology at expo focused on future opportunities

DETROIT – The worlds of innovative technology and golf came together today at the youth golf and tech expo — a partnership of the Rocket Classic, Midnight Golf, and Black Tech Saturdays.

Along with seminars and robotics demonstrations, the group of more than 100 Detroit kids got a chance to work with PGA pros on their putting, as well as to get up and chip shots and test their swing on golf simulators during the Youth Golf Fest.

“Golf requires patience,” Allysa Cole, the head of communications for Midnight Golf, said. “It requires integrity, honesty, and it requires you to show up as your full self”

Cole came through the program in 2011 and says that the game of golf opens plenty of doors for people, particularly in networking.

“What they learn here with that discipline, with that focus, they learn how to use that in their real lives,” Cole said. “They take those tools that they learn from the game of golf, and they apply that to their lives.”

“Golf found me through this program,” Zechariah Powell, a graduate of the program, said. “The first time I actually picked up a Golf Club and actually took it seriously is when I came to this program.”

Powell, 18, just graduated from Martin Luther King High School last month and is headed to Delaware State University on a full-ride scholarship to study engineering thanks to this program.

His scholarship came thanks you a chance meeting with the school’s president, Dr. Tony Allen, who was so impressed by the young man during a networking event — skills he credits to golf.

“The biggest thing our mentors preach every Tuesday and Thursday since I came to this program is networking. Nobody’s going to be a better advocate than yourself.”

All of the kids at Wednesday’s (July 22) event were African American.

The opportunity to be part of this program has opened doors for Powell, and he would love to see more young Black men pick up the game.

“A lot of young black men, we don’t like to play the sport of golf, or we get introduced to it later in life,” Powell said. “Now it’s becoming our favorite game.”

“Why not introduce it early on, so it’s something that we can stick with,” he added. “That way we can say we’ve been playing since we were four years old.”