Your time is valuable, but I’m sure you have 15 minutes to spare today, and conveniently for you I know exactly how you should spend it:
Watching this GOLF.com feature video, expertly crafted by writer Nick Piastowski and producer Darren Riehl.
Why, you ask? I will explain briefly.
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Because like any good feature, this one takes you somewhere you’ve never been. In fact, it takes you somewhere you’ll probably never go: inside the walls of a prison where golf is part of the rehabilitation process.
On Wednesday night, the softball diamond inside the barbed-wire fences of the minimum-security prison — which happens to be nestled in the high, evergreen hills of western Washington — turns into a golf course, complete with a green, a putting green and used clubs.
What it lacks in aesthetics doesn’t matter. What it means is far greater than anything else. Just ask one inmate, named Tejuan, who knew there would be some sort of sports option in prison. He just thought it would look very different.
“It’s never something that can advance you in life like golf can advance you in life,” Tejuan says. “Just the principles that you apply when you play golf. Then when you apply it to your life — and also just the socialization that you actually get when you go on the golf courses.
“There’s a different element to golf courses. There’s a different lifestyle that comes with playing golf. It’s an expensive sport, so you have to have a job. You have to pay for everything. So it keeps you working. It’s like nothing else, and it also, I will say, gives you a leg up.”
Piastowski and Riehl have been working on this story for months. My favorite part was hearing from a soon-to-be-released inmate talking about his plans to golf outside.
See below.
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