Golf nonprofit provides veteran, first responder support

Golf nonprofit provides support

There's an organization trying to open a path forward for people through a game that can be played for life.

HARTFORD, Wis. - Their journey has been a dangerous one that has included life or death situations.

Now the scars remain and can create roadblocks.

However, there's an organization trying to open a path forward for them through a game that can be played for life.

There are very few places as special as Erin Hills Golf Course, especially when it comes to getting a golf lesson from PGA professionals.

"It hones in on what I need to work on, correct, and hopefully better my game and lower my handicap a little," Dorien Ah Sam said.

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Improving is the whole reason Ah Sam is there.

"The main and primary part is the fellowship, knowing the resources and building that camaraderie of support, of friends that have been through, going through the same thing and knowing that there is, it exists," he said.

He and eight others in the group are veterans or first responders.

They’re attending a four-day camp hosted by Next 18, a nonprofit organization created in Wisconsin that uses golf to help them with their mental health.

"Through the game of golf there’s a lot of intrinsic value that touches on what we touch on where mindfulness, practice, breath work," Matt McDonell said. "And we use those tools to educate about developmental trauma, moral injury, complex PTS."

A veteran himself and a Wisconsinite, McDonell started Next 18 to help others, who have been in similar places as him, find a path forward.

"We just want to be a catalyst, okay. We don’t treat. We don’t diagnose," he said. "The clinicians that are here come in as facilitators. They don’t wear that clinician hat. It’s just education."

The intimacy of the group creates connections so that Ah Sam and the others can dig deeper to get to the root of their trauma.

"Just to seek that help and the understanding from others that have gone through it," Ah Sam said. "Because if they can provide me with thoughts and ideas to cope with and what they’ve done, I can take that on and it will help me get better."

Next 18 has camps scheduled at TPC Deere Run, Whistling Straits and Sand Valley this year.

More information on Next 18 can be found at its website.

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