ASSOCIATED PRESS / 2015
Tiger Woods is teaming with Mark Rolfing on a course project.
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Maui-based TV golf analyst Mark Rolfing is teaming up with Tiger Woods and others on a $30 million urban golf course project on Chicago’s South Side.
Rolfing said his part in the project, which is targeting a place on the PGA Tour, borrows on knowledge gained from more than four decades spent at Kapalua. “It is kinda going back to my roots,” Rolfing told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Friday.
Rolfing, was head pro at Kapalua in the 1970s, where he still lives, and has been an ambassador for Hawaii golf.
“I never dreamt that Tiger would do this. But I think it has a chance to really make a difference,” Rolfing said. “It is about youth and letting kids play free.”
The Chicago Tribune, which broke the story, said, Woods “first toured the area in August with Mark Rolfing, an NBC Sports golf analyst with Chicago ties.”
Rolfing grew up in Chicago and graduated from Northern Illinois.
The Tribune reported Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is to announce on Sunday the creation of the Chicago Parks Golf Alliance, a nonprofit aimed at improving Chicago Park District courses and golf facilities, expand youth programs and raise money for the Jackson Park-South Shore project.
The course is to be adjacent to the Barack Obama Presidential Center.
The Tribune said Obama became personally involved in the project and encouraged Woods to be the lead designer.
Rolfing is a past organizer and director of the Tournament of Champions and he and his wife operate the Mark and Debbie Rolfing Foundation.