From Correctional Center to the Golf Course – The Cedar Creek Golf Club Story

·30 min·2 clips

Tim Thrasher posted one flyer, got 60 to 70 responses, capped the class at 15, and lost no one to a waiting list.

1. The IMAGEN Golf Podcast episode examines the golf program at Cedar Creek, a Washington State minimum-security correctional facility with capacity for up to 500 men within six years of release. 2. Host Daniel Guest, a golf instructor of about a decade who runs Imagine Golf, interviews Tim Thrasher, Cedar Creek's superintendent and a 31-year Department of Corrections employee. 3. Thrasher's thesis, in his words, is that "the rules of golf are the rules of life," with golf serving as the vehicle for etiquette, rule-following, and re-entry rather than the goal itself. 4. He started the program after COVID, once he was in a position to make decisions, finding no comparable model in his research and building it from the ground up, largely with donated equipment and a partner course in Dupont. 5. Thrasher contrasts the program with Angola in Louisiana, where inmates built and maintain a course but cannot play it, and says some courses he approached declined to host his participants. 6. The first session covered the business of golf, including how many courses exist in the world, the United States, and Washington, and the jobs that could follow release, with free golf as a perk of course employment. 7. Selection began with a flyer that drew 60 to 70 responses; Thrasher capped the class at 15, uses a rolling waiting list, and removes anyone who provides a dirty UA, refuses one, or misses two sessions in a row. 8. Guest cites recidivism approaching 50% within about three years, and Thrasher says corrections' mandate is to help people return "as a better neighbor" while treating them with dignity and respect. 9. A golf.com story by Nick, filmed over four days, produced a comment section Thrasher describes as 95% to 99% positive and about two calls a day offering donations, with funds now aimed at a simulator and a sports psychologist already leading Zoom sessions on mindfulness and gratitude. 10. Suited to golfers curious about prison rehabilitation and re-entry programs.

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