DENMARK -- Youth sports camps offered during the heat and humidity of a South Carolina summer are nothing new. Most usually involve team sports, including everything from basketball to football. However, a new movement in youth golf is quietly growing at Denmark's Crestwood Country Club, and the word on this activity is spreading rapidly.

Gene Kemper, Crestwood's owner, has just concluded his second summer of four-day youth golf camps. The program started out small last year with only one camp for beginners. This year, the popularity of another novice junior golf camp in June was followed up with an offering for more experienced players. Many of the same kids who attended the beginner's camp quickly signed up for the second session.

Kemper, a native of West Virginia who bought Crestwood two years ago after retiring from New Jersey, said it was his involvement in a youth golf program in the Garden State that fed his desire to offer a similar opportunity in Denmark.

"I got involved in a teaching course there called 'Hook A Kid On Golf' and did that for three years," he said. "We had one junior golf course last year with 20 students, where we gave them all new clubs, shirts, caps and other items, like divot repair kits and rule books. This year, we also gave clubs to 30 novice students during last month's (June) session, and we had 20 returning students last week.

"Next year, we'll do it a little differently. We'll have a camp for kids who are beginners that already have clubs and one for those with clubs that are a little more advanced."

Last summer's junior golf camp had about as even a distribution of youth as possible: 11 boys and 9 girls, with the same ratio of white and black children being represented. Kemper says the waiting list for next year's camp is 46 children. He anticipates approaching his current business sponsors in order to handle the increase.

"None of this could have been possible without the very generous donations of a number of businesses in downtown Denmark and around the area," Kemper said. "Thanks to them, we've been able to raise around $5,500 in goods and services to support the program. That also allows me to charge only a small fee for camp participants."

"Bamberg County donated funds, Piggly Wiggly and Reid's donated the food, Brooker's and NAPA and a lot of businesses in downtown Denmark helped out," he said. "South Carolina Bank & Trust, which has the mortgage here, was also a big contributor to the camp."

Frank Thompson, a retired chemist from Louisville, Ky., who recently moved to Denmark, was one of the volunteer instructors at this year's junior golf camps at Crestwood. He says he took up the game at the age of 30 and has played and taught golf for the last 39 years.

"I taught the junior program back in Kentucky for five years and taught some adults, too, but I've always had an interest in developing golfers," Thompson said. "The most potential is in kids. We need to grow the game, and the way to do that is to bring the kids in.

"When I met Gene and asked if he had any plans on teaching juniors, he was adamant about his interest in that. My experience with this program has been thoroughly satisfying."

Thompson said most of the young golfers are 8 and 9 years old, with the oldest being only 12. Some come from as far away as Irmo and Lexington to attend the camp.

"Most of them are brand new," he said. "We've tried to introduce them to the etiquette of the game and the rules and basic techniques. But day after day, I've seen improvement. Not only are they hitting better shots, but I've seen some really high quality shots out there. And that really surprised me because I wasn't expecting that. Somehow kids learn faster than I did when I took up the game as an adult."

Kemper says the kids not only learn the game but add to their confidence level.

"If you could see some of them in the beginning -- they were just so timid and shy to the point they wouldn't even go out and swing the clubs," he said. "Four days out on the golf course with their peers, and they just come right out of their shell. It's like turning a light on. It's amazing how some of the kids turn it around."

Joe Fields of Orangeburg, whose 8-year-old son Myles attended this year, says the greatest benefit of the Crestwood junior golf camp is that it widens the participant's horizons.

"It means a whole lot to me as a parent to bring Myles here because it gives him an opportunity to branch out and see different things," Fields said. "He came for the first half of the summer and enjoyed it. He's been talking about it ever since, and so we brought him here to the second camp. It has opened up other things for him because now he has another avenue other than basketball, soccer and those type of things. He had never golfed before, and he just enjoys everything about it.

"It has been a positive experience because the instructors here are very patient and work with the kids very well."

Kemper is not standing pat, either. With the popularity of the junior golf camps growing, he plans more changes.

"Our goal by this time next year is to put in a driving range, which will make teaching a whole lot better," he said. "This has been a very worthwhile endeavor, and I just want to keep it going for the kids."

T&D Correspondent Phil Sarata can be reached by e-mail at pmhsarata@aol.com. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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