“Check this out.”
Katie Rudolph still remembers the subject line of the email that sparked it all.
In May 2017, Rudolph, the Chief Operating Officer of the First Tee of Metropolitan New York, attended a fundraiser at Cherry Valley Club in Garden City, New York, for a charity fundraiser promoted through that email. At Cherry Valley, the Kilimanjaro Initiative (KI) was raising funds to sponsor underprivileged children who climb Mt. Kilimanjaro every year — a worthy cause, but not the reason Rudolph attended.
Rose Naliaka, Kenya’s first female professional golfer, was invited to the event to promote the Africa Golf Program (AGP), her foundation which teaches golf to young women in the poorest parts of Africa. Through a string of chance encounters including meeting a member of KI while instructing young girls on a golf course, Naliaka traveled to New York to speak at Cherry Valley and play a round with Rudolph. They bonded immediately.
“We were kindred spirits,” Rudolph said.
Naliaka spoke of her foundation, her journey and how they culminated into one specific young woman she mentored: Serah Khanyereri.
Meet Serah
Khanyereri is from Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, the largest urban slum in Africa and one of the largest in the world. Out of the approximately 2.5 million residents of Nairobi slums, Kibera hosts 250,000. Most live on $1 per day.
“These kids have parents and they are well-loved,” Rudolph said. “It’s just they’re living in conditions far, far below what we would call OK.”
Through her foundation founded in 2007, Naliaka selects 15-20 young girls from impoverished areas every year, most from Kibera, and teaches them to play golf while providing clothes, food, household items and general aid. Since its founding, the academy instructed approximately 20 girls with official single-digit handicaps, according to Business Daily Africa.
Khanyereri learned about Naliaka and AGP when she was 14 after hearing girls involved in the program received food, clothes and things Khanyereri’s mother, Gladys, struggled to provide as a single mother.
Khanyereri was initially excluded from the program due to her height, but her determination and raw talent quickly caught Naliaka’s attention. Although her mother was apprehensive, Serah eventually got permission to travel to tournaments and attend practices, Khanyereri joined AGP and was swept under Naliaka’s wing. Khanyereri quickly found her passion. She loved learning about the rules, taking care of her clubs, being a good teammate, and the etiquette of the game. Most of all, she thrived in being part of a community that told her she had potential.
Despite her height, Khanyereri began to outpace her teammates. At one point she was the No. 3 amateur golfer in Kenya, according to Rudolph. Conversations between Khanyereri and Naliaka shifted from basic instruction to advancing to the next level.
“(As) I was getting better and better, Rose kept telling me there are people out there looking into players like you,” Khanyereri said. “You have to put your best foot forward. … (Naliaka said,) ‘You have to put in a lot of work. You have the potential and the sky’s the limit for you because people out there looking for schools.’”
Khanyereri was excelling in ways Naliaka never imagined. In 2017 ,she was faced with the question, “Now what?”
Operation Khanyereri
That’s where Rudolph and The First Tee came in.
The goal was established at Cherry Valley: Bring Khanyereri to the United States with the hope the then 18-year-old could play college golf.
Rudolph, who joined the AGP board in 2018, immediately started working on the paperwork to bring Khanyereri to America through the university system. Almost immediately, she hit several roadblocks. First, verifying Khanyereri’s transcript from the Hupendo School in Kenya.
“Her high school transcript is literally written in pencil on a piece of paper that looks like you wrote it at a diner on the back of a receipt,” Rudolph said.
Colleges said they couldn’t prove Khanyereri completed the minimum requirements to attend college or use a computer. Finances also posed a challenge. Rudolph, who began to personally invest in the effort when the outlook looked dismal, estimated it would cost $25,000 per year for community college plus basic living expenses.
How would The First Tee pay for Khanyereri’s arrival and stay? Just like a “fairytale,” as Rudolph was scrambling to find the funds, she received a call from an anonymous friend of The First Tee.
“He was like, ‘I don’t want to save the world. I don’t want to write just a blank check, but I want to do something where I change one person’s life. I just want to completely alter the course of someone’s life by writing a check. Do you have anyone in mind?’” Rudolph said. “I was like, ‘You have to be kidding me.’”
The donor wrote the check and made a two-year commitment to Khanyereri.
With the financial riddle miraculously solved, Khanyereri’s transcript verification and visa approval loomed. More than two years after first hearing about Khanyereri, The First Tee hired Rutgers student Nicole Eager in late 2019. On one of Eager’s first days, Rudolph dropped off a three-inch file full of paperwork and documentation surrounding Khanyereri’s case on Eager’s desk.
“This is your only job,” Rudolph said.
Khanyereri, then 20, had aged out of the NCAA recruiting window so her most likely route to the United States was attending a community college and eventually transferring. If Eager and Rudolph could clear the visa and transcript hurdles, they found a landing spot for Khanyereri to study and play golf at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg Township, New Jersey — about an hour from Manhattan and close enough to have daily, or at least weekly, check-ins.
Whether Rudolph knew it or not then, Eager, now the director of operations for The First Tee of Metropolitan New York, was the perfect person to lead Operation Khanyereri. Eager, then a senior, had experience working through monotonous and intricate government processes like visa applications and transcript verification. She also was one year older than Khanyereri and was able to connect with her as a peer.
Since January 2018, Eager put her entire self — days and nights, intellect and emotion — into the process. After countless hours, forms and late-night phone calls, Khanyereri’s transcript was verified in June 2019 and she was given a visa interview with the United States Embassy in Kenya on Aug. 13, 2019.
Eager still remembers the nerve-racking night she waited to hear how the interview went. That long-awaited call from Khanyereri relaying good news made months of work worthwhile.
“I was so ecstatic because I was just nervous the whole time because they told me ahead of time that Kenya is a really hard country to get student visas from,” Eager said. “I was so nervous that if we did everything correctly she would still not be able to get in but we pulled through.”
In Kibera, the endless waiting Khanyereri suffered since Rudolph met Naliaka in 2017 was redeemed. She was headed for the United States, even if it meant saying goodbye to her family and the only home she’d ever known.
She was set for America 10 days after her visa was approved.
Welcome to America
Khanyereri arrived in the United States on Aug. 23, 2019.
She attended Raritan Valley and worked at The First Tee to acclimate to the culture by giving lessons to young golfers and doing basic computer work. Eager’s full-time job moved from getting Khanyereri to the United States to helping Khanyereri live day-to-day. Eager consistently gave Khanyereri rides and answered questions while Rudolph occasionally bought Khanyereri clothes and purged her own closet.
“We’re the same size,” Rudolph said.
Eager’s weekly routine consisted of grocery store runs and driving 40 minutes from the city to drive Khanyereri home after practice. Eager also helped Khanyereri adjust to American currency, learn how to take the bus and screen her roommates.
Khanyereri, the first member of her family to visit the United States, was understandably wide-eyed through her first few weeks in America. Soon after her arrival, she played in a First Tee event alongside Rudolph. During the event, Khanyereri was mesmerized by canisters of M&Ms, pretzels and peanuts lined up in the women’s locker room.
“I said, ‘Do you want some?’ and she just couldn’t wrap her mind around that they were free,” Rudolph said. “I said, ‘Have you ever had an M&M?” and she said, ‘I’ve heard of them,’ and I said, ‘Well, today’s your day.’ …
“I’m pretty sure that was the highlight of her day, not playing this incredible golf course, she couldn’t believe the quantity and even the waste that we have in the U.S.”
By all accounts, Khanyereri “crushed” her first few months in the United States. Just as she was getting accustomed to her new life, the coronavirus pandemic surged. Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs quickly became North America’s first epicenter in early 2020.
To protect Khanyereri from the virus, Rudolph decided it was time for Khanyereri’s next step. She was acclimating well to her studies and the culture, but she was unable to do what she came to the United States to do: play competitive golf. Previously expecting to stay at Raritan Valley for two years, Khanyereri transferred to St. Thomas University in Miami Gardens, Florida. The four-year institution with a new women’s golf team became a possibility after Eager, a former golfer at Johnson & Wales in Miami, was connected to coach Steve Evans through her NAIA contacts.
In May 2020, Khanyereri arrived in Florida. The move has mutually benefited her and her team. Evans said she has “exceeded every expectation” in her first year after winning consecutive events as an individual at the Weber Invitational and Coastal Georgia Invitational in October.
“On the course, her confidence has grown with each event and as a freshman, she is becoming one of the top players in NAIA,” Evans told Golfweek. “Serah is extremely consistent in all parts of her game and she has a hidden intensity that comes out in the heat of competition. Serah tackled the transition to college golf at St. Thomas very nicely and is becoming more comfortable both on and off the course.”
Rudolph said The First Tee is committed to providing Khanyereri with a four-year education at St. Thomas, saying it would be a “disservice to pull the plug” based on Khanyereri’s performance.
When asked what she thinks her life would be like if she accepted that she was too short to play golf, never met Naliaka or didn’t have Rudolph and Eager’s unwavering support, Khanyereri was struck by the thought, almost as if she never considered what could have been.
“It would’ve been tough. … Mom didn’t have a stable job,” she said. “She was struggling to put food on the table so having to feed me and her and to pay for my college, chances are I would not have gotten into college when I finished my high school so I would be doing something else but not definitely studying. … I’m sure she misses me but she’s also happy that I’m here.”
Khanyereri, who has not seen her family since leaving Kenya in 2019, hopes to bring her mother and grandfather to visit her. She also hopes to play professional golf after her tenure at St. Thomas.
It’s a conceivable goal, Rudolph said.
“The sky’s the limit for what she wants to do. … She’s putting in the hard work so she’s going to write her own ticket for what she wants to do next,” Rudolph said.
‘Now what?’
Not once in conversations with Golfweek did Rudolph or Eager mention “diversity.”
They didn’t use Khanyereri as a PR stunt when they dedicated countless hours and more than three years to bring her to the United States. They saw potential from a young woman in Kibera and wanted to change her life.
Before the publication of this story, when Khanyereri’s name was searched, four news items pop up — one from the Business Daily African mentioning her win at the 2018 Sigona Ladies Open, another from an interview with Naliaka and two from her individual wins at St. Thomas.
Khanyereri’s story has not been widely publicized. The First Tee dedicated itself to Khanyereri because it’s the right thing to do, not because of anticipated acclaim or the opportunity to appear “woke.”
When discussing the stereotype of golf in the United States and Khanyereri’s professional hopes, she was asked what it would mean for a young woman from the largest slum in Africa to play among the best women in the world.
“It would be a great achievement that I’m looking forward to and I’m trying to put in the work. … We can get far only if we believe,” Khanyereri said. “Whether black, white, red, yellow, as long as you have a vision there’s nothing impossible.”
Katie Rudolph is working with the PGA of America to make African Golf Program a recognized site for PGM internships which would help solidify the longevity of the program that brought Khanyereri to the United States.
Rose Naliaka is still working with the Africa Golf Program and is in contact with The First Tee. Rudolph said Naliaka is currently advocating for another golfer to come to the United States.