By: Adam Scott, PGA
The ability to play and teach the game of golf are absolutely essential to success as a PGA Golf Professional. A few years ago, the PGA Golf Management staff asked ourselves one simple question, “Are we doing as much as possible to help students get better at the game both before and after the PAT?”. The staff has always worked very closely with the students while offering a number of tournament opportunities, but we felt we could do more.
So in the summer of 2013, we tested a new Player Development Program in an effort to help current students pass the PGA of America’s Playing Ability Test (PAT) and challenge the program’s better players to continue to work on their game. Through our observation, we determined all of the students possessed a certain level of ability to swing the golf club, but lack the understanding of how to practice and play the game. The question arose, how do we get the students to play and practice the correct way?
Starting in the Fall of 2013, the new Player Development Program was unveiled and all of the students in the program who had not passed the PAT were required to participate along with and other students who wanted to improve. The program was simple but effective; each student completed four assigned drills per week that addressed putting, short game, full swing, and an on-course component. Each drill was designed to challenge the student and to keep score. Students were required to submit their drill scores and they were posted in the PGA Golf Management Office. That way, each student in the program could see how he/she stacked up against the other students in the program. “This really taught me how to practice effectively,” said Senior Braxton Rainey, “I now focus each time I practice to achieve a score rather than hit balls with no goal.”
The competitive nature of each student began to arise as they began to compete during practice!
Since that semester, the PAT passing rate per event has continued to rise. Currently, 80% of the students have passed the PAT while the average number of attempts to pass is 2. We have continued to modify the program with new drills, but the premise remains the same: the more you can get your students to practice deliberately and focus on achieving a goal, the faster he/she will improve.
Each Friday afternoon at the MSU Golf Course, we spend time on the short game areas and practice tee, providing individual instruction to students who seek our help. High-speed video and our Trackman unit have made a great difference in helping students understand cause and effect in the golf swing and ball flight.
Finally, each student is required to achieve a score of 83 or below in at least one of the semester tournament rounds. Since this policy was enacted, the PGA Golf Management tournaments have almost doubled in participation while overall scoring averages have dropped below 80. With over 90 students on campus and 650 tournament rounds played, this past fall’s overall scoring average for the entire program was 79.5.
This is an immense accomplishment for the program and we expect that number to continue to improve as the students get better and better at the game. We are proud of the efforts put forth by the students and they will be better PGA Professionals due to their playing ability.
Player Development Program Takes Hold
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