Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009

by Jason Tomassini | Staff Writer

When Karthik Menta immigrated to the United States from India as a young boy, he didn’t feel welcome in his new country and was devoid of friends and the target of bullies as his father moved from job to job in Iowa, Houston, Atlanta and Silver Spring.

When he arrived at White Oak Middle School as a sixth-grader, Menta was beaten up continuously after riding the bus home from school. He became introverted and needed something besides his constant studying to quell his frustration.

One day, First Tee of Montgomery County, a program that offers free golf instruction to minority and low-income youth, visited White Oak. Menta was drawn to the sport without ever having touched a club.

“Golf was just something to do,” said Menta, now an 18-year-old graduate of Paint Branch High School who was captain of the golf team last year. “I never thought I’d be good at a sport.”

The four-handicap proved himself wrong.

Years after he took up a sport because it was offered for free and it kept him from getting beat up after school, Menta is Montgomery County’s first First Tee Scholar, awarded to about 50 youth nationwide for exemplary behavior within the program.

The scholarship covers about half of Menta’s tuition to the University of Maryland, where he will major in biomedical engineering and attempt to walk onto the golf team.

He has also used the First Tee program to qualify for the Wal-Mart First Tee Open over Labor Day weekend at the world-renowned Pebble Beach Golf Course in California.

While First Tee gave Menta a trip to play his dream golf course and an education in golf – the program at Sligo Creek Golf Course in Silver Spring lent him his first set of clubs – he says it helped his social growth more than anything.

“I made a lot of friends through the program,” Menta said while eyeing up a chip shot on the fourth hole during a round at Sligo Creek Friday morning. “Socially, they were different; I didn’t find kids like that in school.”

“Golf is a sport that brings out the good in people,” he added.

Fittingly, he then hit the short chip shot and yelled “Aw nuts!” as it landed 15 feet from the pin, a victory for most but a disappointment for Menta.

That competitive edge, despite a childhood of low self-esteem, was formed through golf, Menta said. Throughout his self-proclaimed “bad” round Friday, he could assess the problems with his own swing like a pro, even explaining why he couldn’t fix it.

He began playing golf seriously before ninth grade, after attending a regional tournament for First Tee and admiring how good the other golfers were. Four years later he was the first Paint Branch golfer in 15 years to play in the state championship tournament.

“When you lose, it’s all on your performance,” his father Prasanna, who works in the Internet technology department at University of Maryland, University College, and is working on a doctorate, said of the values offered by the sport.

Prasanna has never played golf, but attends many of his son’s tournaments. While First Tee offers its services for free, Prasanna says he has spent at least $1,000 a year on Karthik’s golf, including clubs, rounds at various courses and private instruction.

“Golf is not an easy sport to pay for,” said Karthik’s mother Seudha. “… But the benefit really shows when they become good enough.”

Menta has practically become a First Tee spokesman, lauding the program’s instructors as his mentors and a “golf and life skills” camp he attended in Kansas two years ago. He can reel off the various First Tee mantras with ease, like the program’s nine core values and the STAR philosophy, which stands for Stop, Think, Anticipate, Respond.

“Karthik validates the program in every way,” said Laura Sildon, the executive director of First Tee in Montgomery County, which has about 600 students at five county sites and is funded by about $135,000 a year in donations.

An only child, Menta was concerned when his parents half-jokingly said they would move to whatever college he chose to stay close to him. But by choosing College Park, he ensured that the first place he has truly called home will remain that way for the time being.

“In my interview to get into the Pebble Beach tournament, the first question they asked was, ‘If someone wrote a book about your life, what would it be called?’” Menta said on the seventh tee box at Sligo Creek. “I told them, ‘Moving Around While Finding a Home.’”