Ryan Dailey receives 2013 Carolinas PGA Junior Golf Leader of the Year award
With Campbell team! @cupgm @campbelledu @CarolinasPGA Great night for Campbell University! pic.twitter.com/dEzrzjKWum
— Ryan Dailey (@ryandaileygolf)
February 18, 2014
In early January, we announced on Campbell.edu that Ryan Dailey, the assistant director of Campbell University’s PGA Golf Management Program, has been named the Carolinas PGA’s 2013 Junior Golf Leader of the Year. Dailey officially received the award during the Carolinas PGA’s annual meeting this weekend. Below, student volunteer Rachel Davis offers this piece on how Dailey came to Campbell and what led him to start iGrow Golf, a youth golf development program.
When Ryan Dailey came to Campbell University, his focus was on two things. The first was attending a college with warmer weather than his home state of New York. The second was joining the school’s golf team. Today he’s the Assistant Director of the PGA Golf Management Program, along with the co-founder of iGrow Golf, a program to encourage children to explore the world of golf.
However, the best-laid plans can morph into something we would never expect, which Dailey learned upon realizing that his dream of playing on the Campbell University golf team would be deferred. “I had a really good conversation with head coach John Crooks, and he said ‘you’re not good enough to play on the team, and you need to go train and get better.’ Which I appreciated.” So he took a semester off, learning from a variety of experiences and all the while becoming a better player.
Although his road to success has been rocky, Dailey realizes he’s learned from these experiences, using what he’s discovered over the years to help other golfers, from the many Campbell students who continually wander in and out of his office for advice, to the kids he’s reaching through iGrow, a foundation to “grow long term golfers” which he co-founded in 2009. He was recognized for his talents last year, when he was elected the 2013 Carolinas PGA Junior Golf Leader.
iGrow Golf programs are weekly classes for school aged kids in North Carolina, designed to mentor children through weekly golf lessons over a series of years. Dailey compares the program to a student taking piano lessons, remarking that it’s commonly expected that a student will need years of lessons and practice sessions that build upon each other to become a proficient pianist.
“We found in golf, however, that a lot of people take only one lesson,” Mr. Dailey commented, “and then try to figure it out on their own.” Or for kids: “They go to a summer camp for a week and then never pick up a club until next year.” iGrow was developed to change this approach.
Although not in the forefront of his mind when he came to Campbell, iGrow has turned out to be a highly rewarding experience for Dailey, as well as for the students he influences through his work. “If [students in the PGM program] have a passion for junior golf I ask them if they want to come teach with me. So we go into the school systems and we teach golf, and they get to interact with the kids. They’ll come out of that saying, ‘Mr. Dailey, I love kids.’” Not only does this program help the junior golfers receiving training, but it also is an uplifting environment for the students in our PGA Golf Management program as well.
“We’re not only helping the kids play golf,” he says, “we’re also helping the PGM students interact with the kids and provide memorable experiences they wouldn’t receive at any other PGA Golf Management school.”
The goal of the PGA Golf Management program, according to Dailey, is to produce the best golfers to teach and to work in the golf industry. But beyond that, the effects of golf and the iGrow program expand to the children being influenced, the golf students who assist these kids, and the next generation of great golfers still to come. – Rachel Davis
