Tiger Woods was in St. Louis on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. With all planes grounded, he hopped into a car for the long drive back to Florida with plenty of time to think about the gravity of what had happened to the Twin Towers at New York City’s World Trade Center and life in general.
His thoughts soon turned to his nonprofit TGR Foundation, which was launched in 1996 by Woods, then just 20 years old, and his parents, Earl and Tida. In its infant stages, the focus of the charitable organization was on junior golf clinics, where Woods would introduce the basics of the game to kids who had little to no access to golf or opportunities to play.
“That drive on Sept. 11 gave Tiger a lot of time to reflect on what he and the foundation were doing personally,” says Gyla Bell, senior executive director of TGR Learning Lab Anaheim. “He really felt that he needed to be doing more; he needed to be making a greater impact.”
It was on that nearly 1,000-mile car ride that Woods came up with the concept of TGR Learning Labs, where kids in under-resourced communities would receive unique educational opportunities.
“He didn’t want it to be a school, but really a place to provide experiences for young people to explore, create and feel safe,” says Bell, who oversees the operations, educational programs and staff at the flagship TGR Learning Lab Anaheim, which opened in California in 2006.
EXPANDING THE LEARNING LAB CONCEPT
With TGR Foundation celebrating its 30th anniversary, its Learning Lab network continues to expand. A Philadelphia location debuted in 2025 at the Cobbs Creek Golf and Education Campus, with a Los Angeles Learning Lab scheduled to welcome students next year.
Future Learning Labs are being built in Atlanta, with support from the family foundation of Arthur Blank, longtime owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and PGA Tour Superstore, and Augusta, Georgia, in partnership with Augusta National Golf Club. Together, the new locations will further extend TGR Foundation’s innovative educational experiences to students across the country.
“There’s a deep respect for education in Tiger’s family,” says Hrag Hamalian, the foundation’s CEO, who is leading the national expansion of the learning lab concept. “I know people often forget that the guy went to Stanford. He wasn't allowed to play golf growing up before he did his homework. It was education before everything, and working with him closely, it's very apparent how deeply he cares about education.”
The focus of the learning labs is to provide hands-on STEAM programming — science, technology, engineering, arts and math — along with career readiness and college prep programs.
“We look at the learning labs as an educational opportunity with a connection into real life, into how to apply those things to better yourself, to better your family, to better the world,” Hamalian says. “The foundation has always been rooted in the opportunity space, and that is a space that not many other providers have filled as we connect industry and career all the way down into K-12 education. That’s not a common thing in education, but it’s becoming more and more relevant as linear education breaks down.
“From the early years to current day, the foundation has been a leader. Now that we're going from super local Anaheim to multi-market national, we continue to make a splash in the education space and impact kids.”
EDUCATION BEYOND THE GOLF COURSE
Bell says the learning labs help young people navigate a pathway to success by providing opportunities that keep them engaged throughout their teenage years.
“It’s an opportunity for many of these kids to come, feel safe, feel valued, have their voice heard, and really kind of explore where their interests lie, where their passions lie, and then see how it connects to the workforce,” Bell says.
Despite Woods’ central role in the foundation, golf is not the driving force behind the Learning Labs.
“Tiger has said he didn’t set out to create this foundation to create the best golfers in the world. He set out to create the best people, young adults, in the world,” Hamalian says. “Golf is a core component of what we do, but it's not the lead.”
The Anaheim location has a range and target greens, while the Philadelphia Learning Lab is part of a larger golf and education campus. Atlanta and Augusta will also include a golf component.
“The reason golf continues to be an important part of our story is because our founder is the greatest of all time, and it’s an access sport,” Hamalian says. “We all know a lot of business gets done on the golf course, so even knowing the vernacular of golf — even if you don't play it — is helpful in life. The way we think about golf is we have it as part of our portfolio. Every kid that walks through our doors will get a golf club in their hands and some access to it. If they choose to pursue it, we have golf programming that gets them to the intermediate level. For some, golf becomes a passion. For others, it’s simply another experience and another world they now know how to navigate.”
CHANGING LEGACIES FOR STUDENTS
Over its 30-year history, Hamalian says TGR Foundation has reached about 250,000 young people, with each of the new Learning Labs capable of serving up to 12,000 students every year. “Soon you will be able to multiply that by five, so that’s a pretty big educational impact moving forward.”
Bell’s years of experience in Anaheim have uncovered one truth: the learning labs must be different from school, football, band or student council.
“We don’t want to feel, taste or touch like school,” Bell says when asked about attracting kids who have been in school all day or may want to play sports. “All of the opportunities that we provide are very hands-on, very project-based. You won't find textbooks here. You won't find a teacher just being what I call a ‘talking head’ or just lecturing the whole time. We really try to get the kids engaged and creative. They need to think differently at the learning labs. We are introducing careers or experiences that they don't have or that are very limited in school.
“For example, we have VR headsets the kids are using, and it's integrated into our classes. They don't have those at our local schools yet. Once we get them in the building, our staff is amazing. The relationships our staff makes with the students keep them here. Our delivery method is not what school is like.”
Alma Gutierrez represents the foundation’s long-term impact. She attended the same high school as Woods and discovered the TGR Learning Labs through her Western High School golf team. She now works at the TGR Foundation as director of the Earl Woods Scholar Program and college access initiatives.
“Tiger was such a gracious donor to our golf team, providing our uniforms and equipment, and he gave us an opportunity to come use his learning lab to hit golf balls on the range there,” Gutierrez says.
She remained outside on the range for weeks on end, wondering what was going on inside.
“To be honest with you, I was kind of avoiding coming in at first just because I didn't know what to expect,” she added. “When I came in, it was just magical. It’s such a safe space. It's very creative. The thing that stood out for me, which I really appreciated and liked, was that after one week the instructors knew you by your name. I always appreciated that because I attended such a big high school the teachers didn't really know you unless you went up to them and had conversations with them.”
Gutierrez works on the tail end of the learning lab process, focusing on career building and college opportunities.
“I really love it because I feel like it is truly changing legacies,” says Gutierrez, a first-generation college graduate from California State University, Fullerton. “I think many of our students come into the program nervous and not knowing a lot about higher education. So it always makes me happy to see them succeed. I don't feel like I have a job. I really do feel like I'm living my life with a purpose.”
There are no qualifying criteria to enter the learning labs, and all programs are free.
“We do ensure that we place our labs in communities that are under-resourced, and that within a six-mile radius of our lab the primary audience that we're serving are kids coming from low-income families,” Hamalian says. “Tiger has been very clear about that, and we have been very clear about that. We bring in the kids for field trips, and the goal is to allow those kids to be exposed to what we do.
“The key to the longevity of the TGR Learning Labs was understanding the need to connect local careers and industries to kids and not be a school, but be a program that is lively and exciting for kids to be part of. That's where the genesis of all this came about.”
For information visit TGRFoundation.org/30.
