TEE-LO Golf

There's a hellacious thunderstorm out as Bob Biggers takes to the pulpit of the Tangelo Baptist Church one recent Friday night, sand wedge in hand, Jesus Christ and Tiger Woods on his mind.

"Our topic for today is the mo-ment of trr-uth!" the onetime Army sergeant bellows, punching the syllables for dramatic effect. "It is that critical time on which much depends. And some of you are facing that moment in your lives right now!"

His congregation of two dozen school kids, half of them drenched from riding their bicycles here in the downpour, lean forward, rapt, craning their necks to watch Biggers pace as he preaches.

"Am I going to do drugs or not do drugs? Am I going to do well in school or am I going to goof off?"

He pauses.

"And in golf, it's the moment at which the club str-rikes the ball. It's the most beautiful moment in the game. And most of you do not see it."

A couple of the kids start to fidget. Others stare at their shoes.

"At the moment of truth, you look up," Biggers says, his pitch dropping, his face suddenly solemn. "And what do you see?"

A boy, small and tentative, raises his hand slowly. "An ugly shot?" he asks.

"That's right," Biggers nods. "An ugly shot being made."

So it goes for the next hour or more, the sermon ricocheting between proper putting grip and personal responsibility, chipping onto the green and respecting parental wisdom.

Such is the agenda at Tee Lo Golf -- where the piano has been known to double as a water hazard, the Baptist church serves as a golf school, and the 54-year-old Biggers is a coach/counselor/savior for a lot of kids who, otherwise, wouldn't know a birdie from a bogey or a divot from, well, a hole in the ground.

It's a little about golf and a lot about life.

Biggers takes the wedge and addresses the ball. "OK, here's a guy taking a practice swing -- supposedly," he tells the faithful. "He's lined up, he's ready, he takes a swing -- and he whiffs. W-H-I-F-F. He totally misses the ball. Now, if you do that, the only person who will know whether that was a practice swing or a whiff that will be counted as a stroke is you. You could lie."

He shakes his head and wags his finger.

"But golf is a game for what kind of people?"

The congregation shouts in unison: "Gentle men and gentle women!"

"That's right," Biggers says, smiling broadly and taking a step back. "And gentle men and gentle women always tell the truth."

DODGING LIFE'S BULLETS

Tee Lo's "headquarters" is Biggers' overstuffed briefcase. Its founder and president is an unpaid visionary who drives a 1993 Honda Civic hatchback with a bullet hole in the back.

One night several years ago, a gunfight broke out a half-block down from the Tangelo Park home where Biggers lives with his wife and two children. Biggers was working the graveyard shift at the Orange County jail at the time, but the car, parked in his driveway, became the casualty of a .357. One of the bullets pierced the side, exiting through the rear window and shattering the glass.

The window cost $300. But Biggers purposely left the hole, plugging it with a wad of duct tape only to keep the rain out.

"It would only take a little Bondo and a few bucks to fix it," he says. "But I haven't. Because every time I want to quit, every time I think this golf stuff is too much work, that piece of tape reminds me. I walk out to my little ol' Honda and see that .357 hole and I think, `My kids will never do something like that. They're not going to be in a shootout at 3 a.m.' "

To be sure, Tangelo Park -- the predominantly black, working-class neighborhood east of International Drive -- has labored mightily to muscle out the drug dealers and thugs who had their run of the place just a couple of decades ago. These days there are scrappy lawns and fresh paint and newly planted flowers at the subdivision's entryway.

But Al Anthony, president of the homeowners association here, knew the neighborhood kids still needed a good distraction to keep them from wandering into trouble. In 1999, he approached dentist T.J. Dorsey, founder of the Orlando Minority Youth Golf Association, and asked him to start a chapter in Tangelo. Dorsey already had his hands full, but Biggers, who'd been a volunteer for Dorsey and whose now 15-year-old son, Robbie, is one of Dorsey's stars, happened to live in Tangelo.

Biggers had a nine handicap and strong notions about giving something back to his community.

On April 22, 2000, in a neglected field next to the Tangelo Park YMCA, Tee Lo was born. Biggers had 10 kids, 10 7-irons, and a bucket of golf balls. The entire budget for the year would be a $500 check from a black engineering firm.

Each Saturday morning, the kids practiced on the field, which turned muddy when it rained. Biggers burned up two of his own lawnmowers trying to keep the grass low.

Thomas Gooden, now 12, was there that first day. He'd never known anyone who played golf, and, frankly, the sport struck him as boring.

"I don't even know why I went," he says with a shrug. "My friend came over and told me about it, and I guess I just went along. But we started playing and it got interesting. . . . Coach? Well, he's kind of like a second dad to me now."

It didn't take Biggers long to start knocking on doors, looking for support for the program. One of the first places he went was his own church, Tangelo Baptist, where he hoped to get meeting space for Friday night lectures.

"He has considerable powers of persuasion," says the Rev. Frank S. Smith, who took over as pastor the month after Tee Lo started. "He has a heart for this community and a heart for these children. He sees this as his personal ministry."

In fact, thanks to Biggers' relentless salesmanship, Tee Lo is now a $10,000-a-year enterprise with an annual fund-raising tournament, up to 50 kids, Saturday practices on a real golf course and a board of directors that includes Dee Brown, head coach of the WNBA's Orlando Miracle.

The program is one part golf academy, one part spiritual retreat, one part finishing school.

"One day he walked into my office, soliciting some funds, and we got to talking," says April Forde, an administrative assistant at an Orlando property management company. "I told him about my dream."
Forde, an energetic woman with a lilting Jamaican accent, had never held a golf club in her life. And though she was already a grandmother, she'd wanted to be a teacher since she was a child.

"I wanted to expose underprivileged kids to the choices they have. I always say, if you plant a seed, it will grow," she says.

Biggers signed her up as Tee Lo's "life skills instructor" -- lecturing on self-esteem, etiquette, proper dress, study habits and career opportunities. When she began, some of the kids couldn't even look her in the eye. One boy was so shy he broke into sobs.

"You'd say, "Hi, sweetheart, what's your name?" she says. "And they'd be afraid to speak and shuffling their feet. They just needed someone to believe in them and give them a little bit of attention."

MAKING THE GAME PAY

Bob Biggers' father was three things that started his son down the path to Tee Lo: a great golfer, a hustler, and an alcoholic who turned mean when he drank.

"He and my mother divorced when I was 6 or 7 years old," he says, "and I never spent a great deal of time with him. But I did hear the stories."

Preston Allen was notorious on the golf course, or at least those that would let a black man play in those days. One course was at the old Orlando Navy base, where Allen would take on challengers with nothing but a 3-iron and a Coca-Cola bottle. The latter was used for putting. On a hot day, he'd even wear a heavy raincoat.

"A lot of people had this pride -- like, oh, you can't beat me like that," Biggers says, grinning. "But of course he would. He probably would have been a great golfer if, during that time, there had been the opportunity. People would come from miles around just to watch him hit balls."

Hattie Biggers, Bob's mother, says her son got an early start in the game. "His dad always wanted him to play," she says. "I have a picture of him -- he was just 2 years old -- and he's standing in the yard, holding a golf club."

But Hattie Biggers' second husband was an Air Force man who had no interest in the sport. The family eventually moved to Tacoma, Wash., where Bob, the eldest of five, steered clear of trouble by joining the local boys club and playing pick-up football with future Minnesota Vikings great Ahmad Rashad.

"We played on this field with glass and rocks -- a ghetto playground if there ever was one," Bob Biggers says. "But if not for the Boys Club, there's no telling what trouble I might have gotten into."

Too many of his old buddies from Lincoln Heights, he hears, are dead now -- some from drugs, some from violence.

But Biggers wound up back in Florida, spending a year at Bethune-Cookman College before being drafted and shipped off to Vietnam. He ended up making a career of the Army, rediscovering golf while stationed in Europe, and, 20 years ago, he married his longtime sweetheart, Renee, the daughter of Mable Butler, the fiery former Orange County commissioner.

Now he works long days for the jail, helping to run a program called Choices, for inmates with drug and alcohol problems.

And every Friday night, Biggers is at the Baptist church, leading the classroom portion of Tee Lo. Every Saturday morning, he is at the golf course, conducting group lessons. That afternoon -- and Sundays too -- he is with his most devoted students, playing a round or two.

He gets every kid a putter to start, then a chipper, then, for the devout, a full set. The clubs and balls are donated -- some from the golf courses, some from players who happen to see the kids and want to help.

The mission takes all of his spare time and some of his own money.

He could spend both playing golf himself. But there is the ministry to tend.

"Everybody is placed on this Earth for a reason," he says one day from a small office just beyond the cell blocks. "And mine may not be to become the glamour guy, to produce the next Tiger Woods, but I'm here to get my hands dirty. I'm here to send you some kids who know how to act on the golf course and in society."

He stops and considers his words.

"You know, you don't have to believe in God to play in Tee Lo, but this is what I do to further the kingdom, so to speak."

THEY FACE A TOUGH COURSE

Nine-year-old Sharahn Slack of Tangelo Park opens the Friday night class by leading the group in prayer, employing the leisurely pace of, say, an auctioneer.

"Dear Lord, we thank you for this day and for the clothes on our backs, the shoes on our feet and the food on our table, and please help us to honor you and do what we know is right, and please help us to have a good golf class," she says, finally taking her first breath.

"And please help Coach to have a good time and not fuss at anybody."

Biggers grins. "Amen!"

Tee Lo is a play on the golf term, to tee low, and a reference to Tangelo. But while the program is based in the neighborhood, it is open to everyone, regardless of race, creed, income or any predilection for whacking a golf ball.

In fact, Tee Lo regularly draws girls from a group home who are abused, neglected or abandoned and living in state custody. They show up for three to six months or so and then, just as Biggers and Forde get attached, they disappear again, shipped on to the next home by the courts.

"It's really hard," Biggers says. "We're constantly starting over."

But Bob Biggers didn't spend a quarter-century in the Army, running rifle ranges and training soldiers with grenades, without learning to be tough when he needs to.

He commands a healthy respect among the young troops.

Thirteen-year-old Marquise Bolden can tell you as much. A well-mannered kid who also runs track, he hit a defiant spell shortly into his first year with Tee Lo and wanted to quit. He stopped coming to practice for nearly two months.

"It just seemed like there were too many rules," he says. "I thought it was dumb, and I didn't really understand what Coach was saying about etiquette and stuff."

His mom told him he could drop out if he wanted, but he would have to personally deliver the news to Coach Biggers.

Instead, Marquise rejoined. He and Biggers had a little chat. And Marquise hasn't missed a practice since.

"Well, Coach said I had to give the clubs back if I quit," the teenager says sheepishly. "And, you know, I wanted to keep 'em."

LITTLE VICTORIES IN BIG GAME

If Bob Biggers has his way, someday Tee Lo Golf will be franchised to every disadvantaged neighborhood in Central Florida. There'll be a chapter in Bithlo, another in Pine Hills, more in Washington Shores and Taft -- any place kids grow up without the chance to play, without the chance to learn how to be a gentle man or gentle woman.

Already Biggers has received considerable support from the Center for Drug-Free Living, which has provided administrative help and invaluable liability coverage. And nearby Universal Studios has agreed to build Tee Lo a golf-practice area when it creates Tangelo's first-ever park, sometime before the end of next year. Biggers is also corralling students from the University of Central Florida to mentor his kids academically.

Who knows? Maybe someday Tee Lo will even have a big corporate sponsor and enough of a budget to actually hire a staff and move its headquarters out of Biggers' briefcase. Maybe he'll be able to enter the kids in tournaments they can't now afford. Maybe he'll build a trophy case to display their hard-won hardware.

In the meantime, though, he'll settle for smaller victories.

On a sweltering Saturday morning at Eaglewood Golf Course with 30 kids, girls are putting and boys chipping, some of them for the first time ever. There is amazingly little horseplay. The worst offense is when three of the boys decide to try hitting the ball out of a sand trap against Coach's orders.

"I'd better not catch you in there again!" he barks.

Then he spies a wisp of a girl, a ward of the state, plop herself down on the green, moping. She is 7 but looks younger.

"Oh, no, you don't," he says. "Come here, and bring that pouty lip with you. Is something wrong? Aren't you having fun?"

"I never have fun," she whines.

"OK," he says, patting her shoulder, "you need to just chill for a minute. Sit over there. Don't sit on the green."

Ten minutes later, the child is up, putter in hand, ready to try again. When she sinks a short putt, Biggers shouts, "All right!" and pumps his fist in the air. You'd think the kid just edged Annika Sorenstam for the LPGA title.

For the first time, the girl smiles.

"You can't help but feel sorry for kids like that," Biggers confides later. "Some of their stories will break your heart."

He stops to scoop up a crumpled paper cup. He won't have his charges leaving litter on the green.

"On the other hand," he says, "you can't be too easy on them. Because you know the world is not going to be easy on them, and your job is to get them ready."

Illustration: PHOTO: Always on the ball. Tee Lo's Bob Biggers uses the regular dinner outing as one more opportunity to get his positive message across.

BOX: Benefit tournament
The Second Annual Phil Ritson Golf Tournament, benefiting Tee Lo Golf and the Center for Drug-Free Living, will be held Oct. 21 at Orange County National Golf Center, 16703 Phil Ritson Way, Winter Garden. Registration opens at 11:30 a.m.; the shotgun start is at 1 p.m. Cost is $125 per person. For more information, call Tim Galvin at 407-297-3669 or Wanda Pearson at 407-245-0010. For information on Tee Lo, call Bob Biggers at 407-836-3277 or 407-345-0990.

PHOTO: Eyes on the prize . Biggers shares putting tips with his Tee Lo students, but lessons go beyond the golf course.

PHOTOS BY JULIE FLETCHER/ORLANDO SENTINEL

PHOTO: Getting into the game. Kids who weren't likely to ever cross paths with a golf course learn to play using equipment provided by Bob Biggers.

JULIE FLETCHER/ORLANDO SENTINEL

PHOTO: A class in class. Duane Slack, 7, contemplates one of the finer points of table manners during a Tee Lo dinner that stresses proper etiquette.

Keywords: GOLF LIFE COMPARISON BEHAVIOR YOUTH
Memo: Kate Santich can be reached at ksantich@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5503.

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TEE-LO Golf