First Tee – Greater Pasadena Marks 20 Years of Youth Golf From Its Brookside Home

First Tee – Greater Pasadena, the youth golf and life-skills nonprofit based at Brookside Golf Club, is marking its 20th year, two decades after it welcomed its first 66 participants in the summer of 2006, the chapter said.

Pasadena Mayor Victor M. Gordo, on behalf of the City Council, proclaimed October First Tee – Greater Pasadena Month, noting in the proclamation that more than 265,000 youth and families have benefited from the program’s services since it began.

In its early days the program relied on members of Brookside’s men’s and women’s clubs as coaches, Master Executive Director Bob Baderian wrote in an anniversary letter posted on the chapter’s website.

It expanded first to the Altadena and Eaton Canyon golf courses and then to Arroyo Seco, Marshall Canyon, Santa Anita, Alhambra and Mountain Meadows. Its partners include the YMCA, Pasadena Unified School District, the Boys & Girls Club, the Wounded Warrior Project, Special Olympics and the Latina Golfers Association.

The program teaches nine core values through golf: honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, respect, confidence, responsibility, perseverance, courtesy and judgment.

In 2025 the chapter reached more than 15,900 young people through outreach programs and enrolled more than 1,600 participants in its Life Skills Experience classes across 11 sites, according to a chapter news release dated Oct. 29, 2025. After the Eaton Fire destroyed the chapter’s Altadena facility and $30,000 in equipment and temporarily displaced classes, the chapter restored full programming within a week with help from more than 100 donated junior club sets, the release said.

The chapter describes itself as the only First Tee chapter in the United States with established international relationships, having welcomed First Tee Korea to Pasadena.

Life Skills Education classes for 2026 cost $145 per participant plus a $25 annual membership fee, according to the chapter’s class schedule as of Sept. 16.

First Tee – Greater Pasadena, Brookside Golf Club, 1133 Rosemont Ave., Pasadena. For more call (626) 543-4708 or visit https://firstteegreaterpasadena.org.