Headline: Jared Winiarz Set For Another "First"; Will Represent The First Tee of Massachusetts at the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship

For Immediate Release: September 15, 2017

Jared Winiarz will represent The First Tee of Massachusetts at the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship.

Norton, Mass. – Seventeen-year old Norton resident Jared Winiarz, a senior captain of the Norton High School golf team who competes on the New England PGA Junior Tour, has competed in his fair share of Massachusetts Golf Association events to date, including the Massachusetts Junior Amateur, the Massachusetts Open and as part of the Massachusetts squad that won the 2017 New England Junior Amateur Championship last month.

Next week, he’ll start out in another first when he travels to California.

Winiarz will represent the The First Tee of Massachusetts at the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship, an official PGA TOUR Champions event to be contested at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, Calif., from September 19-24, 2017. The tournament, which is hosted by the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, will be televised internationally on Golf Channel.

Winiarz is among the 81 competitors who will represent The First Tee program on a national level. The juniors will be teamed with 81 PGA TOUR Champions players and 162 amateurs as they compete for the pro-junior title at Pebble Beach and Poppy Hills. Players currently committed to compete in the PURE Insurance Championship include World Golf Hall of Fame members Tom Watson and Colin Montgomerie, as well as three-time tournament winner Jeff Sluman and defending champion Paul Broadhurst.

Winiarz, who was a longtime participant in The First Tee of Massachusetts program, which has five program facilities across the state, now serves as a peer mentor, a role he has held since 2014, to the program and its hundreds of participants at each of the five host facilities. He was also the 2016 U.S. Challenge Cup Hornblower Junior Classic Champion and the 2016 New England PGA Jr Open Champion.

“We are very excited to have Jared represent the First Tee of Massachusetts at the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship,” said Joe McCabe, The First Tee of Massachusetts' executive director. “Jared has long been an active participant in our programs and has been an exemplary leader as both a participant and a peer mentor to other boys and girls coming up through The First Tee of Massachusetts. We look forward to rooting for him from home and we are happy this opportunity was made available to him.”

In addition to participating in the many MGA events and now the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship, Jared and his brother Adam Winiarz have hosted the “Birdies for Babcia” golf tournament at MGA Links in Norton as a way to honor their late grandparents, Florence Rogodzinski & Michael Winiarz, and give back through the game. The event has raised more than $20,000 with all proceeds going directly to The Jimmy Fund over the past three years.

On a local level, The First Tee of Massachusetts junior golf program, which is headquartered at MGA Links Golf Course in Norton, a par-3 club owned and operated by the Massachusetts Golf Association, also operates out of the Fenway Golf (East Longmeadow), Hyannis Golf Course (Hyannis) and William J. Devine Golf Course at Franklin Park (Boston). Earlier this summer, D.W. Field Golf Course in Brockton was added as the fifth program facility.

A national non-profit organization with chapter in all 50 states and select countries, The First Tee junior golf program partners with the LPGA, the Masters Tournament, the PGA of America, the PGA TOUR, and the USGA and is a way to bring an affordable junior golf program to youth and communities that did not have them.

For complete information on the 2017 PURE Insurance Championship, visit http://www.pureinsurancechampionship.com/

To learn more about The First Tee of Massachusetts and its many offerings, please visit: www.thefirstteemass.org.