MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The game of golf is gifting one Memphis area teen with a full ride scholarship to college, not as a player, but as a golf caddie.
Cortney Green, a Collegiate School of Memphis senior, is a golf caddie at the Memphis Country Club.
“Caddying is important for me as a caddie, because it’s just really gotten me out of my comfort zone with talking to adults. Being African-American, it’s not normal to be in a country club," Green said.
In the modern age of golf carts, caddies do more than carry the clubs. They uphold a tradition of walking and talking the course. They help maintain the course and facilitate best play with their player partner.
"The old walking tradition of golfers going with a caddie is at jeopardy of dying out. But with the Evans Scholar program, we are reversing those trends," said Marshall Clark, director of the Western Golf Association (WGA).
The WGA’s Chick Evans Scholarship is exclusively for golf caddies, offering housing and college tuition to more than 12,000 recipients since the 1930s. Green, a first-generation college student, is the first recipient from Memphis since the 1950s.
"Me going to college in itself was a lot for my family and meant that generational curses will be broken. So for me to get a full ride, it really was a cherry on top," Green said.
The scholarship committee judges candidates on their caddie record, financial need, academic standing and character. All categories Green stood out in.
"It was an easy decision. The selection committee evaluated his caddy record, and he has 115 loops in 18 months. That's amazing," said Clark. "He has the academic record, he’s a man of character. He is a kid with incredible humility for how accomplished he is in all facets of life. He's also filled with gratitude, which I don't see in a lot of young people today."
Green plans to attend Howard University and study psychology. After college, he wants to start a private therapy practice here in Memphis.
Green comes from a single parent household, but not "a broken home," as he put it. He notes his dad didn't know his own father and that his mom's parents struggled with drug addiction. Returning to Memphis, armed with knowledge, will allow him to give back to his community.
"I think it also just gives me the opportunity to put Memphis on the map for something other than violence or gangster music or blues. It just shows that we can produce good things and that people from Memphis can go out and make change in our world," Green said.
There could be more Evans scholars from Memphis in the coming year. The Western Golf Association said there are 18 caddying Memphis teens coming up behind Cortney, including his own younger brother.