Golf enthusiast, Charles Anderson, an engineer with Pratt & Whitney for more than forty years, joined his first golf students sponsored by ICYG from the West Palm Beach Housing Authority in early 2000. Charles remains a loyal, dedicated member of the ICYG Advisory Board.
Inner City Youth Golfers, Inc., is a 501, c, 3 tax-exempt organization that was started with the vision toward helping to make some of our inner cities better places to live, work, shop, and enjoy life a little bit better through the sport of golf. “Golf is the Carrot & Education is the Key” is implemented through the establishment of the “Malachi and Essie Knowles Scholarship Fund.” Its corporate office is in Riviera Beach, FL (USA) where the first program was started at John F. Kennedy Middle Magnet School, followed by West Palm Beach Housing Authority Golf & Tennis (Bear Lakes Country Club), Palm Beach County Urban League, Riviera Beach Academic Summer Camp and Indiantown Youth Club.
ICYG is specifically an academic excellence and golf program that uses the excitement, etiquette, rules, behavior, dress, manners, speech about golf to help inner city children focus on the positive, mold them into good citizens and make them future role models. Golf is provided on a scheduled basis after school, selected Saturdays and holidays.School Teachers, law enforcement officials and community role models serve as mentors while professional and amateur golfers provide golf instructions as generally prescribed by the PGA, LPGA, and USGA.
We believe that ALL parents, youth and volunteers must be on the same page: “Say No To Drugs – Say Yes To Education, Culture & Golf.”
President & Founder Summary
Malachi Knowles, Founder Inner City Youth Golfers’, Inc., African American Golfers Hall of Fame and African American Collegiate & Youth Golfers Hall of Fame and Golf Fore Anyone, Inc.
His passion for golf started at an early age of ten (10) years old. He was anointed as the “shag boy” by the “Caddy Master” at the Everglades Country Club, Palm Beach Florida during his early school years at Washington Elementary (Riviera Beach) and Roosevelt High (West Palm Beach) Schools where he attended.
Malachi Knowles attended Morgan State College, Baltimore, MD, after completing high school in 1959. Morgan did not have a golf team so he “worked with the athletic director and others” to start a team under the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1960. He was its first team Captain while lettering for three years on a golf scholarship and graduating with a BA Degree, June 1963.
He is the first African American in the United States of America to graduate with the two year “Master of Regional and City Planning Degree” from the University of Oklahoma, Norman, August, 1965. He also graduated from the U.S. Army Finance School, Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Knowles started his working career as a “Housing Intern” on August 16, 1965 with the U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency, Chicago, Illinois and retired from the government after holding several executive and policy making positions in Washington, DC, March 1991.
Most notably, he was Director General of the “World Conference of Mayors”; Executive Assistant to Eddie N. Williams, President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and Special Assistant to the Director of "The United States White House Office for Urban Policy" and Director of Special Projects, US/HUD, Washington, DC.
He returned to Palm Beach County in 1993 and was recruited as a substitute teacher at John F. Kennedy Middle Magnet School in Riviera Beach, FL where he started the first youth golf program as one of its after school activities. He was determined to use golf as his way of giving back to the children in his old neighborhood.
Malachi then founded “Inner City Youth Golfers’ Inc.” (ICYG), a tax-exempt foundation that works with at risk youth between 8 and 18 years of age in January 2000. It is a “golf and education program” requiring parental and youth participation at the same time. Uniquely, ICYG has developed its own initiative: “Say NO To Drugs – Say YES To Education, Culture & Golf” in order to grow the game of golf and promote the positive aspects of life. ICYG has served as the “youth golf clinician” for the Palm Beach County Sports Commission’s “Kids Fitness Festival” since 2003. “The 2013 Honda Classic” honored “Inner City Youth Golfers’, Inc.” for its outstanding community contributions.
In April 2004, he started the “African American Golfers Hall of Fame” (AAGHOF) which is currently headquartered in Riviera Beach, FL. Under his leadership, the “African American Collegiate & Youth Golfers Hall of Fame” (AAC&YGHOF) was founded as well in 2010 in order for all AAGHOF members to continue being roll models for future generations to come.
His current goal is to construct the "African American Golfers Hall of Fame & ICYG Clubhouse" in Riviera Beach, FL.
Well, he has also taught graduate and undergraduate classes in city planning, housing, development, budgeting, policy and marketing at the University of the District of Columbia (1970-1974), Washington, D.C.; Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland (1974); and the University of Miami, Miami, FL 1975/77).
Mr. Knowles has received numerous proclamations; citations; honors; awards, most notably the, "Operation Hope's 2022 Community Service Award"; Palm Beach County Sports Commission's Champions of Equity & Diversity Award, 2021"; "AAGHOF Outstanding Sports Contributor for 2018"; Inducted into the "Inaugural Class of the Florida Black Sports Hall of Fame 2020"; "2016 Citizen of the Year" Riviera Beach, FL; Inducted into the "Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame March 20, 2016"; "2015 African American Champion For Change", Aetna Inc. (African American History Calendar); “University of Maryland Eastern Shore Presidential Award”, May 26, 2011; “2014 Dedicated Service to Children in Riviera Beach and Palm Beach County Award”; “2014 Outstanding Service Award” Palm Beach County Chapter, National Pan-Hellenic Council; “2014 Citizen of the Year”, Kappa Upsilon Chapter, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. and the, “2014 Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame Outstanding Sports Contributor” award.
He has traveled extensively in the USA and abroad. Malach is currently involved as: Board Member, Palm Beach County Sports Commission; Thousand Oaks Community Development District; Riviera Beach Community Development Corporation; Omega Psi Phi Fraternity (Life Member #88); Publisher, Golf Fore Anyone, Inc. and Fairview Golf Club, Inc.
He is married to his best friend, Esmeralda H. Knowles. His daughter's name is Malinda Frances Knowles.
