The Western Golf Association and its Evans Scholars Foundation released a video reinforcing the importance of the Arizona chapter, built around the Arizona Caddie and Leadership Academy and a new home for Evans Scholars at Arizona State University. The video features the people and mentors who made it happen as well as the students who are already benefiting.
Values the game can teach
For Gregg Tryhus, founder of Grayhawk Development and president of the Arizona Alliance for Golf, the point was never only loops and yardages. “We needed to make sure that people understood the values that golf teaches can be taught to kids who play the game or who just want to learn the values from somebody like Brandon,” he says.
That somebody is Brandon Rogers, founder of the AZ Caddie and Leadership Academy and the WGA’s senior director of caddie development for the Southwest. Members kept telling him the same story: they met the game by caddying first. “And I said, ‘there’s not a single student who has been introduced to the game of golf by caddying,’” Rogers recalls. In 2015 he started changing that, first at Desert Forest and later through the academy, now powered by the WGA.
A youth development program
On the surface it looks like a caddie program, but Rogers made it clear that it is more. “When you dive a little deeper, this is a youth development program.” Students are not working to become the best players in the state. “They’re working to become the best leaders in the state.”
Meagan Graber, an Evans Scholar alum (Washington ’21) and senior manager of community relations and development at AZ GOLF, sees that growth up close. In September she meets students who are shy and new to the bag. By spring they are different people. “I see so much of myself from when I started caddying in them,” she says. “Seeing them grow and flourish this spring has been absolutely phenomenal.”
Favored Olakonu, an Academy participant and an Arizona State Evans Scholar, puts the same idea in personal terms. Golf, he says, means almost everything to him. Without it he would not be where he is, would not know most of the people he knows, and would not have the friendships and opportunities that followed. “Caddying has only made that a bigger exclamation point in my life.”
A house at ASU, and a program for every caddie
Those who earn the Evans Scholarship — a full tuition and housing award — will have the extraordinary advantage of housing in the Evans Scholars house at ASU. Living together gives scholars a community of peers who share the same work ethic, the same academic standard, and the same path from the caddie yard to campus. As the chapter grows, that house is meant to become a lasting base for Arizona caddies who meet the program’s standards of caddie record, academics, financial need, and character.
The scholarship is the highest prize, but it’s not the only one. Every student in the Academy benefits from the leadership program that complements every loops: classes in communication, health and nutrition, fitness, and financial literacy are designed to reinforce what time spent on the golf course already teaches about composure, service, and accountability.
Clubs, get onboard
Tryhus says the reach is already real, with clubs using the program and urging others to follow. “If you’re a club in Arizona not using it, then get onboard. We need you.”
Graber calls it remarkable that the Western Golf Association now has a root in Arizona, and that the local golf community is working together, so caddies can earn full housing and tuition scholarships. The through-line is simple: kids, caddies, and community, and the local leaders, mentors, and supporters investing in that common good.
