First Tee

"He is approached regularly by people seeking donations and while he has given generously to some, it has been on a case-by-case basis. He is a supporter of Auckland City Mission because his family are Aucklanders and he likes the mission’s work with the city’s most disadvantaged. But he accepts that his children may prefer different causes when they inherit. Heatley’s name is not associated with philanthropy and his most notable attempt at it, establishing the First Tee programme in New Zealand in 2005 to use the teaching of golf to help underprivileged children, never generated sufficient impetus to become self-sustaining. Its demise disappoints him because he says the programme, which originated in the US and is supported by the golf establishment there, uses the best attributes of golf, including honesty and perseverance, to teach life skills."

"Heatley is strong on the importance of simple etiquette—looking someone in the eye when shaking their hand, for example, and using their Christian name and making conversation. If a checkout operator at the local supermarket has a name tag, Heatley will greet them by name. ‘You see their face light up. And that’s natural because what is the single most important word in the world, in every language? It’s your own name.’ He thinks too many young people do not know the importance of basic courtesies. First Tee was an opportunity to try to impart elementary social skills. It could start with kids who were scared of the world and by the end of the programme they could stand up and make a speech in front of 40 people. So he launched First Tee and spent more than a million dollars, opening ‘learning centres’, raising money from golf days and garnering support, but the programme never picked up the momentum in New Zealand that it has in the US. Heatley had hoped that it might be embraced by schools, but it was not. First Tee, John Hart says, showed Heatley in a different and philanthropic light. ‘He wasn’t looking for public acclaim—people would not even know that Craig was the face of it but he drove it, he put his own money into it, he spent a lot of time on it and it’s a tremendous programme that, through golf, teaches young people the values of life. He must be deeply disappointed that it’s fallen over.’"