Every great golf story starts somewhere. For Coach Sami Penor, it started at six years old — small hands, big dreams, and a pair of golf shoes discovered at a First Tee garage sale. What happened next is the kind of story that reminds you what this game, and this organization, is really about.
This April, during First Tee’s National Dear Coach Week, Golf Channel turned its cameras toward coaches across the country who have shaped young lives both on and off the course. Among them was Sami Penor, now a coach at First Tee – Orange County — and a living example of the full arc the program can offer a young person.
Sami joined First Tee as a six-year-old participant, the same age many of today’s youngest players are lining up their first putts. Like a lot of kids, she didn’t come from a family with country club memberships or private lessons. What she had was curiosity, a First Tee chapter nearby, and — thanks to a program garage sale — her first real pair of golf shoes. That small detail matters. It’s the kind of access First Tee was built to provide: removing the barriers that keep talented, eager kids on the sideline.
Growing up inside the First Tee program, Sami absorbed lessons that go far beyond a proper grip or a clean follow-through. She learned integrity — to call your own penalties, to be honest when no one is watching. She learned confidence — to stand over a difficult shot, to speak up for herself, to believe the effort she put in was enough. These weren’t just soft skills tucked into a curriculum. They became the architecture of who she is.
Today, Sami stands on the other side of those early memories — a coach who recognizes the kids in front of her, because she was one of them. She brings to every session the same combination of genuine love for the game and deep belief in what First Tee’s life skills curriculum can do for a young person still figuring out who they are and what they’re capable of.
She teaches her participants the same things First Tee once taught her: that honesty on the course is honesty in life, that persistence through a hard round builds resilience for hard days off the course, and that confidence isn’t something you wait to feel — it’s something you practice. Just like a swing.
National Dear Coach Week is First Tee’s annual celebration of the coaches, mentors, and volunteers who show up — week after week — to hand something meaningful to a kid who might not even know yet how much they need it. For Sami, being recognized on Golf Channel during this week is both an honor and a mirror: a reminder of the coaches who once believed in her, and of why she shows up for her participants today.
The cycle is the point. A child receives, grows, and eventually gives back. That’s not a tagline — it’s Sami Penor’s actual life. And for the kids at First Tee – Orange County who practice alongside her, it’s proof that the path from garage sale golf shoes to Golf Channel is very, very real.