First Tee calls itself an “international youth development organization introducing the game of golf and its inherent values to young people.”

The description could hardly be broader, but the reality is that each First Tee chapter is unique.

“We have a saying,” says Hugh Smith Jr., director of First Tee’s Pacific Region. “It’s ‘If you’ve seen one chapter of First Tee you really have seen just one.’

“It is absolutely true.”

Smith helped Hawaii celebrate the organization’s rebirth in paradise this week with the third First Tee Hawaii Shootout and Pro-Am at Hoakalei Country Club.

The first, won by Hoakalei pro Jason Jakovac, was played in 2013. Kellan Anderson was Hoakalei’s head pro then, and First Tee’s part-time program director.

Kailua’s Scott Simpson, the 1987 U.S. Open champion, won the second Shootout last year at age 61.

In between, the nonprofit’s original license holder ended its agreement with the national organization, which celebrated its 20th anniversary — and 12 million participants — last year.

First Tee Hawaii no longer existed, until Anderson revived it.

“I was very passionate about The First Tee of Hawaii,” he says, “and did not want to see it go away.

“Just being out there, teaching the kids and seeing the impact on them and outreach going into schools and clubs … I like the reaction of the kids when they are out there learning this stuff. And not just the golf.”

He gathered a group of devoted supporters and founded a new nonprofit called Hawaii Youth Golf Association, which applied for a new First Tee license. It took a year to raise $115,000, or half the annual budget required by the national office to remain sustainable.

First Tee was reborn last November. Programs began again in January, focusing on golf and First Tee’s nine “Core Values” or life skills, such as honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, respect and perseverance.

In other words, the golf vocabulary that can be repeated in the newspaper. First Tee attempts to serve areas not always available to traditional golf programs. Its model looks to start kids at golf courses, along with schools, clubs and after-school programs. The Houston Chapter has served 200,000 kids and Phoenix 100,000.

Hawaii is more of a challenge. For now, First Tee is at Bay View, Royal Kunia and Hoakalei. Anderson hopes to add places like Ala Wai, Makaha and Mid-Pacific Country Club to cover most of Oahu.

Programs on Maui and Hawaii island are in the works, with Kauai a while later. The idea is to start slow and branch out after coaches and volunteers are trained and certified.

Hilo Muni’s Kevin Hayashi, a member of the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame, is in the process of training so he can open programs at Hilo and the Big Island Country Club, hopefully by summer. The Dunes at Maui Lani is projected as a base on the Valley Isle.

Simpson has been a First Tee fan since before it started, after seeing what a similar program produced 50 years ago while he was growing up in San Diego. He served on the board here and partnered with First Tee kids in the senior tour’s First Tee Open at Pebble Beach.

“The core value thing is big for me,” Simpson says. “, I really love their core values. Being able to use golf and teach that … and emphasize good schoolwork and being a good citizen and treating people right, I always liked that part.”

And he liked the exceptionally kind kids he met at Pebble Beach. One was Maui’s Justin Williamson, now a sophomore on Army’s golf team at West Point.

“He is brilliant,” Simpson says. “We talked about what he was doing in debate society. He said he played violin and I was like, ‘Really?’

“Why am I involved in First Tee? Because of kids like Justin.”

Simpson didn’t reach the Shootout’s final eight this year, falling to Jared Sawada in the second round of match play Tuesday. Sawada went on to win Wednesday’s stroke-play final with a bogey-free 67.

He collected $12,000 — only a bit less than he won for his Mid-Pacific Open championship last year. Sam Cyr was second, five shots back, and Hayashi third.

Sawada will defend at Mid-Pac in three weeks, then return to PGA Tour LatinoAmerica. A 22nd-place Q-School finish in January earned him conditional status. His goal is to get back on the Mackenzie Tour — the PGA’s Canadian tour.

TJ Kua, who lost to Simpson in the first round of match play, was the low pro in the Wednesday pro-am, winning $1,200 after shooting 65.