Our History
First Tee, Coachella Valley began with a simple idea and a lot of belief. In the mid 2000s, Palm Desert city councilman Bob Spiegel encouraged the Desert Recreation District to look into bringing the national First Tee program to the valley. DRD took that idea and ran with it, submitting an application in 2007. That spring, the national First Tee office notified DRD that the Coachella Valley had been awarded its own chapter, with a planned opening in early 2008.
From the start, the mission was clear: build a program open to kids from every background and every community in the valley. First Tee, Coachella Valley opened its doors at The Golf Center at Palm Desert, a facility built with classroom space and on course teaching areas for chipping, putting, and driving, so that life skills lessons and golf instruction could happen side by side.
What started as a single home facility has grown into something much bigger. Today, First Tee, Coachella Valley serves over 30,000 young people each year, reaching kids not just at our three home golf facilities, but across 33 schools and 10+ community centers throughout the valley. We’ve built out programming for every stage of a young person’s journey, from our ACE and Junior ACE programs to our Teen Social Nights, our Caddie Program connecting teens to college opportunities through the Evans Scholars Program, and our No Boundaries adaptive golf program, opening the game to kids of all abilities.
Through it all, our purpose has stayed the same: to give young people the tools to build the strength of character that carries them through a lifetime of new challenges, using the game of golf as our classroom.
We’re proud of how far we’ve come since 2008, and we’re just getting started. As we look toward the future, including new programming in the East Valley and continued growth across the region, we remain committed to the same values that brought us here: character, integrity, and the belief that every kid deserves a place to grow.
