WORTHINGTON — Tom Walsh, chairman and CEO of GreatLife Golf & Fitness Club, visited the company’s 18-hole course in Worthington last week to drum up support for a Community Family Inclusion program similar to the Play Everything program it launched in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota school district several years ago.
The program is designed to engage children in physical fitness through golf in year-round programming offered before, during and after school, as well as throughout the summer. Walsh said he’s had conversations both with Joel Heitkamp and Josh Noble in District 518, and has partnered with the E.B. Golf Foundation locally to work toward a possible program launch in Worthington in 2026.
We not only want to make sure kids have a solid head on their shoulders … in the long run we need for the youth to get involved, enjoy it and want to play here — that’s what’s going to help this place survive.
Josh Krommendyk, E.B. Golf Foundation
“We’ve been involved with Worthington now for 10 years,” Walsh said, noting that the local course offers an eight-week junior golf camp each year. This year, they had 48 kids — ages five to seven — enrolled.
Building on that program, he said offering more opportunities for children to be outdoors — and learning a sport that has some of the same motor skills used in baseball, softball and even soccer — will also teach values and make a difference in kids’ lives.
“You have to personally invest in them,” Walsh said.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, Walsh said kids have been put in a tough situation.
“With the Charlie Kirk assassination, it’s been a wake-up call for little kids and some old farts like me,” he said. “Things have to change.
“We’ve really focused on how (to) bring communities and families together,” he added. “This community partnership we’re exploring here in Worthington — you have a very diverse community. We’re looking at a bunch of different programs …. If we can be successful in this community, we can be successful everywhere.”
Jason Schutz, representing the E.B. Golf Foundation, said the foundation is entering its fifth year. Created in memory of 1994 Worthington High School graduate and golfer Elliot Batcheller, the foundation focuses on supporting kids in golf.
“Joining forces with Tom and the Great Life Cares program, we want to give back to the kids, back to the community,” Schutz said. “If we’re going to grow the golf club, we have to get the kids involved — they’re our future golfers.”
“We not only want to make sure kids have a solid head on their shoulders … in the long run we need for the youth to get involved, enjoy it and want to play here — that’s what’s going to help this place survive,” added Josh “Woody” Krommendyk, also representing the E.B. Foundation. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that happens.”
Walsh said this year was the first since GreatLife purchased the once city-owned golf course a decade ago that it turned a profit. If things continue in a positive direction, he said he’d like to knock down the existing clubhouse after the 2026 Labor Day Classic and build a new facility. He’d also like to improve the course’s irrigation system and get a new fleet of golf carts.
“I don’t know where the closest 18-hole course is,” Walsh said. “This golf course has to stay.”
He mentioned that he briefly considered building higher end condominiums on the golf course property, and he also looked at developing it into 40 residential lots — neither of which appeared to be feasible.
Randall Hill, vice president of fitness at GreatLife, said the No. 1 reason people join a fitness center is not for fitness, but rather mental health and wellbeing.
“We’ve seen a big shift over the last few years in that regard,” he said. “One in five kids between the ages of six and 13 will be diagnosed with some type of mental disorder. The average amount of screen time for them is seven hours a day. Those are CDC (Centers for Disease Control) statistics. That’s an alarming thing.
“Kids are spending less time moving,” he said, adding that by the time they reach fifth, sixth or seventh grade they’ve already “checked out of the game.”
“If you can throw a baseball, you can also swing a tennis racket,” Hill said. “Give them opportunities through sports — a sense of teamwork.”
Hill said the more “nerdy” the kid is, the more improvement he sees through GreatLife’s Play Everything program. Their confidence is boosted and they gain a sense of wellbeing and belonging.
Tristen Jackson, who leads the Play Everything program in the Sioux Falls school district, said he works to empower students to be the best version of themselves.
“Today we’re in eight schools total,” Jackson said. “We focus on sports, fitness and nutrition. We focus more on at-risk students; those with free and reduced lunch. We try to reduce barriers by doing before school programming so parents can drop off their kids and they go to school afterwards.”
Jackson said what he’s noticed thus far is that students are apprehensive at first and typically sign up for one sport. Then, they have so much fun that they want to sign up for all of the programs offered in Play Everything.
In Sioux Falls, the University of Sioux Falls has partnered with GreatLife, and businesses have stepped up as well, including both Sanford Health and Avera. Employees of some of those businesses are brought in to help lead programming.
“We started in 2019 in two schools, and we’re now in eight,” Jackson said. “Just over 1,000 students were served last year and that continues to grow each year.”
In Worthington, Walsh said they hope to get local businesses to help sponsor a program here, noting some of the community’s largest employers.
The goal is to get local businesses to sponsor 12 of the 18 holes on the golf course at a cost of $25,000 a year for a corporate sponsorship. Of that money, $2,000 goes to the E.B. Golf Foundation (GreatLife Cares) and $23,000 goes to the GreatLife Corporate Partnership Investment (GreatLife Management LLC).
