A father gives his son a high five on the golf course. Silhouette. Additional themes of the image are father's day, relationship, bonding, care, togetherness, love, single parent, father, parenting, child, boys, fun, sport, game, playing, leisure, recreation, walking, encouragement, role model, aspirations, dads, and congratulating. Rear view. Unrecognizable people. Boy is elementary age.

ImagineGolf

Meet the First Tee Game Changers who helped golf grow in 2025

'It’s full circle. I want to make sure that kids don’t have to sneak on and get deterred, that there’s a path for them in golf.'

By Tod Leonard

December 30, 2025

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They number in the thousands around the country—an army of volunteers at golf courses who plant seeds of love for golf in children and then nurture that interest in the game and its life lessons. Golf Digest once again recognizes and honors the First Tee Game Changers—the recipients of the highest awards given out by First Tee for their outstanding contributions.

A senior champ & 'pseudo groundskeeper'

It’s never too late. That's what Allen Doyle has taught us. He was a well-decorated amateur golfer working in the textile industry when he turned pro at 46 and won three times on the then-Nike Tour. The affable Doyle became a menace on PGA Tour Champions, capturing 11 senior titles, including four majors, and made headlines when he donated his $1 million bonus from the Charles Schwab Cup to various charities. That’s when his involvement with First Tee began. Doyle, named this year’s George H.W. Bush Volunteer of the Year, teamed with his daughter, Michelle, to spearhead the creation of a First Tee chapter in their hometown of LaGrange, Ga. For more than 20 years, they’ve run the program at the nine-hole golf course and range they designed and built at First Tee-Troup County, with Michelle as the executive director and dad as the “pseudo groundskeeper.” Allen, now 77, still mows the grass, and he says it’s only now that he’s beginning to realize the First Tee’s impact, when former students in their 30s return to say thanks. “It’s not until they morph into adults that it comes back and grabs you,” Doyle says.

A Treasure Coast gem

Andrew Hunt was destined to pay it forward. His grandfather was Roy A. Hunt, a Pittsburgh aluminum magnate who made philanthropy a family priority. Andrew, 66, has embraced that responsibility his entire life, and as a person who “lives, eats and breathes” sports—particularly golf—and enthusiastically supports causes for children, he found the perfect melding of his passions in First Tee. In 2012, Andrew and his wife, Robin, led the establishment of First Tee-Treasure Coast in southeast Florida. The Hunts’ personal contributions to First Tee total more than $3.5 million, including $450,000 for a new learning center in Fort Pierce. Over a dozen years, participation in the Treasure Coast chapter has grown tenfold. “First Tee represents my vision of youth development,” Andrew Hunt says. “All children are capable of success—no exceptions.” As the latest recipient of the First Tee’s Tim Finchem Leadership Award, Andrew got a jaw-dropping congratulatory video message from one of his childhood idols, Jack Nicklaus. “That was a dream come true,” he says.

From sneaking on courses to being 'Coach A-Rod'...

Anthony Rodriguez grew up on Long Island obsessed with golf but without the money to play. He’d sneak on to the local municipal, get caught and return the next day to do it all over again. Eventually, the head pro offered him a deal: Wash 25 carts a day and he could play all the golf he wanted. “That was huge; it really propelled me into getting the golf bug,” says Rodriguez, now 47 and the director of programming for the First Tee of Metropolitan New York. The man known as “Coach A-Rod” at Mosholu Golf Course in the Bronx, Rodriguez is the 2025 First Tee National Coach of the Year after 15 years with the program. His fellow teachers and volunteers serve 600 kids a year, with many traveling by train to take part. “It’s full circle. I want to make sure that kids don’t have to sneak on and get deterred, that there’s a path for them in golf,” Rodriguez says. “It’s huge, because everything we’re trying to teach about life is seamlessly integrated into golf.”

Bringing golf to kids 'Up North'

The province of New Brunswick in far northeast Canada had never been much of a spot for golf. Could a person be more powerful than a climate? Physical education teacher Michelle Phillips-LeBlanc happened to try the game with her husband, quickly embraced golf’s virtues beyond the scorecard, then teamed with the First Tee-Atlantic chapter to bring programming to her classes at Forest Glen School in Montcon. Recognized as First Tee’s first Teacher of the Year outside of the U.S., Phillips-LeBlanc, 38, has introduced golf to more than 400 children—few of whom had ever held a club. Each year, she works with classroom teachers on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) projects that challenge students to create miniature golf holes that become an 18-hole course in the gym, with families and community members invited to see their creations. Phillips-LeBlanc remembers one dad loudly celebrating when he made his first mini-golf hole-in-one. “It’s one of their favorite events of the year. The whole experience has been incredible.”