Betsy King is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, with 34 victories on the LPGA Tour, including six majors during her stellar career.
However, King is doing much bigger things these days through Golf Fore Africa, an organization she founded in 2007. The non-profit group provides healthy drinking water for residents of poverty-stricken villages.
“It was eye-opening for me the first time and every time since,” King told USA Today after returning from a trip to Zambia, her 12th to Africa, this one with LPGA Tour players Cheyenne Woods, Kendall Dye, Amy Anderson and Kristy McPherson.
” … Water is life.”
According to the Central Statistical Office and Ministry of Health in Zambia, one in every 13 children in the country dies before the age of 5 because of the lack of clean water.
Golf Fore Africa, in partnership with World Vision–a humanitarian aid, advocacy and economic development organization–has funded and dug 80 wells. It costs $15,000 to dig each well, and many more are planned.
“When you see the water sources they used before, you got sick to your stomach,” McPherson said. “When you think how poor they are, you really have no idea until you see it.
“Yet they take so much pride in what they have, and they have nothing. They focus on what they do have. Once they get clean water, they know it’s their vital source of what they need.”
King’s organization also raised money in 2010 to open a clinic in Rwanda that serves 20,000 people, and expanded a school in Zambia. It also has provided thousands of backpacks that include a malaria-sanitized washcloth, pencil, toothbrush, notebooks and soap.
But it’s mostly about the water.
Under the umbrella Project Zambia, Golf Fore Africa and World Vision will provide 133 water points, 1,600 sanitation facilities and hygiene training for 117 communities.
“They were the poorest communities I’ve ever been to,” Woods said. “But they are extremely happy and appreciative of what they do have. They love the little things. … You grew to love them. I loved their positive energy. When they saw clean water for the first time in (Chikwampu), it was so powerful.
“The head man of one of the villages stood up and said, ‘We live a good life here,’ and he was so proud of what his village had. And they basically didn’t have anything.”
Said Anderson: “I literally have more faucets in my master bathroom than they’ve ever seen. They have no concept that we can get tap water in our home. They literally have the basics of life, and that’s it. Each villager might have two shirts, and they wear one while washing the other.”
Dye and Woods raised $15,000 for the well in Chikwampu and the four players have began a drive for another $50,000, which would pay for a mechanized water system to service about 10,000 people.
Said Dye: “We can do so much more. … We will do so much more.”
Each of the golfers had to take five shots and two pills to build up their immune systems before embarking on the 20-hour trip.
They all said it was well worth it.
