Gather a group of golf administrators into one room, and the years of service add up quickly.
When Ty Riggin, a regional affairs director for the USGA, organized a focus group on adaptive golf during the U.S. Adaptive Open in Pinehurst, North Carolina, this past July, roughly 25 administrators attended the eight-hour session to hear from 15 experts in the adaptive golf community.
Then there was Anna Kittelson, a 23-year-old P.J. Boatwright intern who could hardly keep her hand down.
“Anna asked more questions than anybody,” Riggin said of his first time meeting Kittelson that week. “She’s willing to just put herself out there and ask some great questions.”
Adaptive golf is a growing niche in golf, boosted in the past few years by the USGA’s creation of the U.S. Adaptive Open. Riggin hopes that the focus group at the second annual Adaptive Open was an accelerator for this niche in the game. Kittelson, however, doesn’t need much acceleration — only information.
Kittelson began her internship with the Golf Association of Philadelphia in May. In addition to learning other elements of golf administration, she spent her first three months researching adaptive golf and then began traveling to adaptive golf tournaments around the country.
“I’ve been to five adaptive golf tournaments and I build connections and I meet people,” Kittelson said. “I’m trying to figure out what they are looking for and what there’s a need for because it’s hard when you’re working with a population that – I can’t relate to them. So the whole goal of this program is to make sure that it’s for them. Not for us thinking it’s for them.”
Riggin notes that Kittelson isn’t the first Boatwright intern to support adaptive golf, but she’s the first one dedicated to it.
“She is a trailblazer,” he said.
Kittelson, who played women’s golf at the University of Delaware and is currently finishing a master’s degree there in non-profit management, landed the Boatwright internship at the GAP through a connection at Bidermann Golf Club in Wilmington, Delaware, where she was working a few days a week in the pro shop. The GAP was looking to break into the adaptive golf space with the idea that it would bring in someone to not only help start that program but figure out how to do it in a way that would make an impact.
Mario Machi, assistant executive director at the GAP, remembers being blown away by Kittelson during the interview process. Finding her, he said, was a stroke of luck.
“That was one of our problems – how do you identify somebody specifically who wants to work in adaptive golf?” he said. “There’s not a lot of people with that experience out there. It was going to be something that was going to be difficult for us to identify the right person.
“It was pretty clear after a couple weeks we had identified the right person with Anna.”
Annually, 130 to 150 Boatwright internships are available through all 58 of the Allied Golf Associations across the country, and they range in length from three to 12 months. Riggin, a former Boatwright intern himself, has helped steer the Boatwright program for the past decade at the USGA. He has nurtured its evolution into a community of alumni rather than just a transactional, get-your-foot-in-the-door experience.
That has also resulted in more tailored internships, like the one Kittelson embarked on within the adaptive golf community.
“More and more of these interns are coming in like Anna,” Riggin said. “They’re driven, they have a goal in mind. It’s not just a summer job, and that’s really exciting. I think that’s a huge part of the evolution of the program is instilling in these golf associations to approach it the right way and create these job descriptions that are specific. That is exactly what Anna is doing.”
Kittelson has volunteered with the Special Olympics since she was in middle school and was always passionate about working with people with disabilities. In college, Kittelson found that caretaking was a part-time job she could juggle along with the demands of playing golf. She connected with Bryce, a 26-year-old with autism.
One day, Bryce’s mom asked Kittelson if she could take him to the driving range, given her background in golf. They stayed for three hours and Bryce hit five buckets of balls – remarkable, Bryce’s mom told Kittelson later, because normally Bryce doesn’t enjoy being outside in the heat.
A light bulb went off for Kittelson that day.
“I was like, ‘wait a second, I bet you there’s a career in this,’” she said. “So I started doing some research and I found all sorts of small organizations like the Disabled Golf Association, the U.S. Adaptive Golf Association, all these other things, so I was like, ‘OK, this is actually something I should look into because it is a thing.’”
Kittelson has found that adaptive golf is in its “blooming phase”. The creation of the U.S. Adaptive Open, which the USGA debuted in 2022, brought more attention to the community, and Allied Golf Associations like the GAP have subsequently worked to create adaptive golf programs.
Sometimes Kittelson can’t believe that at 23 years old, she’s getting to help build her dream program. She calls the adaptive golf community the greatest community she’s been a part of.
“I was the biggest fangirl at the event getting to meet these people,” she said of her trip to the U.S. Adaptive Open in July, “because everything they do is just making an impact.”
“People can go and play golf with whatever ability they have to play golf and so it’s such an easy outlet for people with disabilities or amputees because they just go with what they have. … So we’re trying to grow the game for a population that didn’t realize the game was an option.” — Anna Kittelson
Machi has lived that with Kittelson, having traveled to regional events with her and witnessed members of the adaptive golf community flock to her.
“Everybody is like, ‘Oh, you work with Anna. You know Anna,’” Machi said. “She knows everybody at these events and it’s amazing to see how this community has adopted her as part of their community.”
In the research element of her job, Machi has found Kittelson to be meticulous and detail-oriented. She has compiled her online research, observations and phone interviews into a Google document that is dozens of pages long, all bookmarked and organized accordingly. It has helped Machi absorb the information Kittelson is gathering and lead the association in the right direction for the different aspects of an adaptive golf program.
Before bringing Kittelson on, Machi said, the association didn’t have specific goals for an adaptive golf program other than to make a positive impact in the space. Kittelson’s research has identified two paths: one to bring new adaptive athletes into golf and another to create opportunities for existing adaptive athletes.
Kittelson said it’s important to note that the GAP, and any other association looking to launch an adaptive golf program, must be cognizant of the organizations already in the space. The GAP, for example, is working closely with the Mid-Atlantic Blind Golf Association and the Eastern Amputee Golf Association.
And while competition is important, Kittelson said the ultimate goal is to show people with disabilities that golf is a great form of activity and exercise.
“What somebody told me in one of my earliest meetings is that golf is one of the only sports that does not have to be adaptable,” she said. “People can go and play golf with whatever ability they have to play golf and so it’s such an easy outlet for people with disabilities or amputees because they just go with what they have. That’s kind of our goal with our program is to show everybody that hey, golf is a really good sport.
“So we’re trying to grow the game for a population that didn’t realize the game was an option.”