"Rio favela seeks to improve kids’ lives through golf"

After the relentless attention the Associated Press’ Stephen Wade gave the Olympic golf course project in Rio—none of it positive—it’s nice to see the same news organization covering a golf-related game grower in Rio who has created the “City of Golf” training ground.

From Diarlei Rodrigues' and Mauricio Savarese’s story about Marcelo Modesto.

A caddie for four decades, the 54-year-old Modesto has opened a golf training center in the most violent area of the favela. Without public or private funding, from just a sheer passion for the sport, Modesto has attracted 100 kids to the ground in hope of starting some on the path to becoming professionals, or doing something to get off the favela streets.

The City of God golf training ground is part of a program that hopes to develop children from one of Brazil’s most violent favelas into budding golfers who are invited to use the course from the Rio Olympic Games in 2016.

Their introduction to golf is rudimentary, at best.

The City of God training ground is only 1,600 square feet (150 square meters), which is less than the size of your average putting green. A community center once filled the site. Interested kids, who are mostly Black, play with donated clubs and balls. Instead of holes, they hit buckets. As a warmup, they swing wooden sticks around their backs.

And no matter how intense practice gets, they remain alert for any sound of gunshots.