Next Level
by
ARTHUR
UTLEY
A YEAR AGO SUSIE AND FRED HANSON were like so many
other parents of a junior golfer who has aspirations of playing in
college. They didn’t know where to begin.
They didn’t know how to schedule tournaments for their son,
Charlie, then a freshman at Deep Run High School in Glen Allen, and
they were uninformed on how to navigate the recruiting process.
“We were new to it. [Charlie] played in a couple of tournaments
the year before, but he was just getting warmed up,” Fred said.
“Then last year was like the first year he was competitive. Honestly,
we knew the VSGA stuff and that was about it.”
A fortuitous meeting between Susie Hanson and Maggie Will,
a winner on the LPGA Tour and a former college coach, at a U.S.
Junior Amateur qualifier at the Country Club of Petersburg last
summer changed everything.
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“She told me a little about herself. She gave me her card and said
why don’t you check out my website?” Susie said.
Will is the founder and owner of Will2Golf.com, a Richmond-based
website dedicated to junior golf. She launched the site in December
2016. As she says on the website’s video tour, “My goal in building
this site is to educate, empower and entertain junior golfers and
their families. You will find Will2Golf addresses and solves some of
the largest challenges facing junior golfers and their families.”
The website’s primary feature is its national database of tour-
naments. Listed are more than 12,000 junior, amateur and open
tournaments in the U.S. and Canada. They are run by nearly 600
tours and associations. Will says the site could hit 13,000 events this
year. The directory includes 9- and 18-hole tournaments, as well as
national, state and city events; even parent-child tournaments and
vsga.org
Will2Golf helps junior golfers grow their game and reach their goals