Florida golfer has given away more than 28,000 clubs to kids
When Marvin Rogoff came across about a dozen old golf clubs laying around his house, he knew they could serve a better purpose than collecting dust.
The clubs reminded him of his childhood when his baseball team didn’t have enough gloves to go around, and Rogoff thought kids in his neighborhoods around Boca Raton, Fla., might be in similar situations with expensive golf equipment.
Seventeen years later through his personal charity Golf Fore Kids, the 88-year-old has donated more than 28,000 golf clubs — along with countless bags and balls — nationwide to school districts and organizations promoting young golfers. And he has no intention of stopping any time soon.
“There are kids that want to play, but they don’t have the equipment,” Rogoff said. “They’re [in] poor neighborhoods, so they don’t have wealthy uncles that have extra sets of clubs.”
In nearly two decades, Rogoff has dipped into his own pocket to collect equipment and ship it as needed around the country to almost every state. Still an avid golfer himself, he often spends his mornings on the course and sends out clubs in the afternoons.
On Friday, Special Olympics Florida sports coordinator Sawyer Ramsey collected what Rogoff said was a fairly standard donation of about 10 full sets of clubs.
A set of used clubs run golfers about $200, so Rogoff’s frequent donations offset the steep costs for organizations looking to develop existing programs or create new ones. In addition to Special Olympics, Rogoff said other beneficiaries include the United States Golf Association Foundation, The First Tee and Palm Beach County schools.
“With a large amount of clubs like this, it gives us the ability to start golfers from scratch who don’t have anything,” Ramsey said. “It also helps those moving up in the game in getting bags or giving them multiple types of wedges or several different drivers.”
Special Olympics Florida currently has 1,199 golfers out of more than 30,000 athletes in 39 counties, and Rogoff has played a major role in expanding players’ opportunities around the state, said Jeff Hancock, the Special Olympics Florida director for St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties.
About a year ago, Hancock cleaned out Rogoff’s garage and packed a Chrysler Town and Country to the brim with 30 bags and more than 200 clubs, which he then distributed to Special Olympics golfers in his counties. Even after giving his 30 to 40 athletes their own set, Hancock said he still had 25 additional sets and passed them along to groups like First Tee and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
“Having their own equipment, it gives [athletes] a sense of ownership to it and high self confidence,” Hancock said. “They feel more empowered with what they’re doing.”
Each time Rogoff’s garage is emptied, he starts over collecting equipment from his friends and local country clubs. Even if he wanted to call it quits, his efforts are so well-known in his community that he said it would be impossible to stop because people are always offering spare equipment — sometimes brand new.
“When he matured in his life, he loved this idea of giving,” his daughter Maury Rogoff said. “He figured out a way to marry his love of golf and extend it not just to our family, but to strangers.”