Midnight Golf Changing Lives in the Motor City

By CyberGolf.com

A unique golf program located in one of America’s roughest neighborhoods is helping change the lives of young adults. Modeled after the Midnight Basketball League, Midnight Golf was founded by Reneé Fluker, a single mother in Detroit who founded the program at the suggestion of her son, Jason Malone, just before he left to attend Loyola University of Chicago.

Malone had played high school golf and junior events, so Fluker was responsive to her son’s suggestion. Fluker, 47, began Midnight Golf in February 2001, and has served as its director ever since. The program seeks to engage inner-city young adults in learning life and career skills through developmental classes, mentoring and golf lessons. Fluker is assisted by three golf pros from the Michigan Section of the PGA – Randy Tylo, Frank McAuliffe and Brian Cairns. McAuliffe makes a 50-minute commute from Ann Arbor, where he’s the head pro at Ann Arbor Country Club, to help oversee the program, now held at the Franklin-Wright Settlement community center in Detroit’s east side.

The program has received support from the PGA of America since its inception; the organization has contributed about $100,000 to Midnight Golf since 2001. In an article in the December 26, 2002, USA Today, Tylo recalls driving to his first Midnight Golf class from Ypsilanti, where’s he’s the pro for Kendall Academy at Miles of Golf. “I wondered what I was getting into,” he told reporter Harry Blauvelt.

“I’m a white kid from the suburbs,” continued Tylo. “But once you get inside and meet the kids and you see they want you to be there, it propels you to want to be there. Some are pretty good golfers.” Tylo believes that most first-timers genuinely want to improve their lot in life, but then they grow to love the game. “Now they’re all excited to be there,” he says. “I get a lot out of it, too.”

Some of the participants have endured urban horrors most of us will never experience. One student, Zarnell Dicus, 19 and a high school dropout, was more concerned about survival than golf while growing up on Motor City’s east side. In 1991 he escaped unscathed when a gunman opened fire in broad daylight while Dicus and his family were sitting on their front porch. The shooting left his brother, Virgil, dead, and his mother, Brenda, wounded.

Of his neighborhood, Dicus told Blauvelt, “There’s dope, violence, shooting, robbing, alcohol, prostitutes. That’s where I’ve been all my life. Midnight Golf has opened up a lot of positive things in my life. There’s no telling where I’d be without it. I’m thankful.”

The 2003 program is comprised of 30 African-Americans, including 14 women. Players can participate for more than a year as long as they meet the age requirements (17-22). One of the current participants is April Batchelor, 21, a single mother and now a full-time student at Wayne State University in Detroit. She had never held a golf club before enrolling in Midnight Golf.

“I thought golf was only for distinguished white gentlemen,” she said. “I knew about Tiger, but I didn’t think there were other African-Americans playing anywhere.” Batchelor was introduced to the program by her brother. “I’d just gotten kicked out of the house,” she said. “I was moving from friend to friend for a place to live. I had (her 3-year-old son) Jordan with me and no money.”

Batchelor credits Midnight Golf for getting her life turned around. “We’re like a big family at Midnight Golf,” she told USA Today. “It’s my second home. It makes you feel good to know there are people who care. None are getting paid. They come out to be there for us.” Like most new participants, Batchelor was skeptical at first, but the program grew on her and her golfing skills are improving. “I’m pretty good,” she said. “But I need to work on my putting.”

Every year Midnight Golfers travel to the PGA of America’s Learning Center in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The trip includes instruction, travel bags, clothes, a nice hotel and meals in local restaurants. One young man told Fluker, “I feel so good because I never before slept on a pillow that had a pillowcase.”

Earnie Ellison, the PGA of America’s director of business and community relations, told reporter Blauvelt, “Many of the kids have never seen this much green grass or wild animals like alligators, foxes and birds running around. This program has given them an opportunity they would not otherwise have had.”

One of the highlights of the 2002 program was a dinner at the swank Detroit Club. Midnight Golfers dined there as the final step in an etiquette class. One member of Midnight Golf’s board, Marcus Williams, made it a special evening for Darius Seal, 18, who didn’t have appropriate attire for the semiformal dinner. Williams bought Seal a suit and dropped it off at his house.

“He was very proud, and so was I,” said Williams, chief engineer at Detroit’s WDIV-TV. “We’re going after a very tough demographic. But rewards are huge when you see turnarounds.”

Dicus now has a full-time job as a custodian at Franklin-Wright. He lives with a friend, but he’s on a waiting list for his own apartment. He talks about resuming his education. “I used to keep my clothes in a car and stay at a friend’s house,” Dicus said. “It was tough, but I never had that much anyway. Now Midnight Golf keeps me off the streets and out of trouble.”