Christiaan Bezuidenhout, a spokesperson for the Arthur M. Blank Center for Stuttering Education and Research, will play its Oct. 12 charity golf tournament in Georgia to raise funds; he says he has spent four years raising awareness of stuttering.
Bezuidenhout developed a stutter after accidentally consuming rat poison as a child in South Africa. He said golf gave him peace and that Ernie Els helped him develop as a professional. The Blank Center encourages people to communicate confidently without making fluency the focus, he said. A first stuttering-education camp in South Africa is due to begin next month.
The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation committed $7.6 million to support 6,000 PGA Jr. League scholarships and expand affordable youth golf through 30 First Tee programs. It also provided a $20 million grant to help open a TGR Learning Lab in Atlanta, offering STEAM enrichment, health and well-being, and career and college-readiness programs.
