By Vinnie Manginelli, PGA
It was more than a decade ago that Matt Kirchgessner purchased the Elk Run Golf Club in Jeffersonville, Indiana, with his wife, Lauren and his father, a recently retired Ford Motor Company employee of more than 50 years. Since that time, the game of golf has been buoyed by the pandemic of 2020 and 2021. Business is up, and the momentum gained during those COVID years has been sustained at Elk Run.
Personally, the 2025 Indiana PGA Section Deacon Palmer Award winner has suffered great loss and tragedy that would cause most of us to question our ability to get out of bed in the morning. As a parent, I can’t imagine the pain he and his family continue to feel and the strength needed to make every day meaningful.
According to the PGA of America, “The Deacon Palmer Award bestows special recognition on a PGA Golf Professional who personally displays outstanding integrity, character and leadership, in the effort to overcome a major obstacle in their life. This individual is an unsung hero/heroine at their facility and in their community, who serves to inspire, empower and assist others, both inside and outside of the game.”
I have interviewed Deacon Palmer Award winners before, and they’re all inspirational. But no story has touched me like Kirchgessner’s. In December of 2020, the Kirchgessners were vacationing in Panama City, Florida, with their young children, Addie and Baylor. While enjoying a round of miniature golf, a truck ran off an adjacent road and struck Addie and Baylor. They were six and four years old, respectively.
Since then, Matt and Lauren started the Addie & Baylor Foundation to “enrich children’s lives through the power of reading and stories.”
The Foundation “is dedicated to providing children access to rich, diverse and interesting books to help them grow and foster a passion for reading.” They believe “equitable access and early exposure to literacy can help reduce the achievement gap before entering school.”
To date, the Foundation has put more than 160,000 books in kids’ hands in the past five years. Through book fairs at local schools and partnerships with Norton Children’s Hospital, First Tee – Louisville, First Tee – Indiana and more, Matt and Lauren are making an incredible impact on thousands of young minds and hearts through books. They host special events like golf tournaments and galas that raise funds through ticket sales, sponsorships, auctions and donations.
Since that fateful day in 2020, Kirchgessner’s view of his course has changed greatly. Although he’s still heavily involved, the facility is not the priority it once was. After all, what PGA of America Golf Professional wouldn’t want to own his or her own golf course and share it with their family? But when that family is tragically torn apart, priorities change and, where business is necessary to pay the bills, one’s perspective of what’s truly important in life becomes clearer.
“My focus is on our Foundation,” Kirchgessner admits, which is why we’re highlighting this story. PGA GMs and facility owners can check out our Featured Story in the April issue of PGA General Managers Monthly for details of his awesome public course and the incredible engagement he and his team provide their dedicated golfers. But here, we’re focusing on the great work Matt and Lauren are doing to honor their children. The Foundation is Addie and Baylor’s legacy.
The accident received a lot of attention at the time, and a family member started a GoFundMe campaign that received donations from all over the world totaling more than $250,000. Matt and Lauren looked at each other and knew that they had to do something meaningful with those funds to honor Addie and Baylor. The Foundation was started almost immediately afterward. After years of reading to their kids nightly, Matt and Lauren decided that a foundation built around books and literacy would be appropriate.
“We all remember the Scholastic Book Fairs from when we were kids,” Matt recalled, “and my wife, Lauren, who is a teacher, would come home and tell me that there were kids who would leave the book fair empty-handed. Their families couldn’t afford it or wouldn’t send money for the books.”
When it first started, the Foundation enabled kids to get two free books from each book fair — now they can get three! Think back to your childhood when those book fairs in the gym, auditorium or the school’s hallway were truly special occasions. The Kirchgessners are making those dreams come true for thousands of kids.
“To see the smiles on their faces is priceless,” Matt says. “They’re amazed that the books are theirs to keep. No, you don’t have to bring them back. Those are your books to take home. I tell them.”
They’ve done this in Louisville and Jeffersonville, as well as in Lexington, Kentucky and Panama City, Florida. They also started working with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to help Dolly send free books to small children every month. Matt and Lauren even started their own book library in Panama City.
Matt credits his wife with giving him the strength to grow their philanthropic efforts. But his vision for the Foundation is on a national scale. He says if you dream big and get close to those goals, you’ve done a lot.
In addition to the course and their Foundation, Matt and Lauren have a 2 1/2-year-old girl — Poppy — and a seven-month-old boy — Jack, and they continue to change the lives of kids in and out of their community. They’ve raised more than two million dollars in five years, and much of that can be attributed to the game of golf and the Kirchgessners’ family business at Elk Run Golf Club. They host special events at their facility, as well as in Panama City, to raise funds for the Foundation.
“Through the connections I’ve made, golf has been a huge driver of why we’ve been able to make the impact that we’ve made,” Matt explains.
Matt says they had a choice between being bitter or being better and chose the latter in honor of their kids’ legacy.
For more information on the Addie & Baylor Foundation, please log on to the Foundation’s website today.
