terminating the National Links Trust\u2019s lease<\/a> to manage the courses.<\/p>\nNow the National Park Service will manage East Potomac Golf Links, Rock Creek Park Golf and Langston Golf Course.<\/p>\n
National Links Trust is a nonprofit with a stated goal of making golf more accessible to the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were formed because we want to make sure that there are affordable golf options for our community,\u201d Executive Director Damian Cosby told WTOP. \u201cEspecially in the municipal space, it\u2019s our duty to make sure our facilities are affordable and accessible. Golf in general has become very, very expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
That mission includes management of the courses and community programming at the courses, including Free Lesson Friday, a series of free golf clinics at East Potomac and Langston to golfers of all ages. The organization also runs a workforce development program, providing intern and caddie positions at Langston.<\/p>\n
Rock Creek is closed for a renovation that was just about to begin, but has now been halted. While East Potomac and Langston remain open, all the programming offered at those courses is now in limbo, Cosby said.<\/p>\n
WTOP spoke to a student golfer who credited National Links Trust for what she called incredible opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was the first female golfer on the East Coast to play at Pebble Beach through the Tiger Woods Junior Invitational,\u201d Aaliyah Shabazz said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been presented with that if I never came here to Langston and if National Links Trust wasn\u2019t here to support me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 17-year-old Dunbar High School student is one of the caddies at Langston, and completed a summer internship through the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we learn workforce development skills that we can use on and off the golf course,\u201d Shabazz said.<\/p>\n
One of the mangers at Langston Golf Course, Melchior George, came outside to greet Shabazz and her mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung ladies like Aaliyah have been like young roses that we\u2019ve watched blossom here at Langston,\u201d George said. \u201cThere\u2019s a rich history of that and hopefully we\u2019ll find a way to continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to George, there are between 20 and 30 student athletes who are involved with the program every year at Langston, and he said the goal is to teach them the career opportunities within golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cManaging brands, growing and being creative to be able to do what it is that they have their eyes and their hearts set on,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n
Langston Golf Course is near and dear to George\u2019s heart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been here all my life, since I was 5 years old, sitting on the porch there since I was 5 years old,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n
Not only did George\u2019s father attend school across the street from Langston, but his grandfather lived two miles away.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are deeply entrenched in this community, and how it\u2019s impacted people of underserved communities, African American, Hispanic, and we want to continue to find ways to reach out to our young people,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n
Langston Golf Course dates back to 1939 and was the second racially desegregated golf course in D.C.<\/p>\n
The course was named after John Mercer Langston, the founding dean of law at Howard University and the first African American elected to Congress in Virginia.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a steward of a municipal golf facility, it\u2019s our duty to be an on-ramp for golfers that don\u2019t have means, or are new to the game, or are on a fixed income. We are the places where they can go to play, to feel welcomed and to be able to afford to play,\u201d Cosby, executive director of the National Links Trust, said.<\/p>\n
WTOP\u2019s Nick Iannelli and Thomas Robertson contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Questions are swirling among golfers in the D.C. area about what will happen to D.C.’s three public golf…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":488604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[220464,69,220465,1430,220466,220467,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-488603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-dc-golf","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-east-potomac-golf-course","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-langston-golf-course","13":"tag-national-links-trust","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115829185006913120","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}