Cooper’s work at Springfield Golf & Country
Club inspired women of all skill levels to
develop a love for the game.
“It’s all about finding that hook and that
real connection to invite people in, to keep
them involved and to help put them in
touch with each other so they want to come
hang out and play golf with their friends,”
added Barnard. “That’s something Liz has
done brilliantly.”
PROVEN TRACK RECORD
Cooper worked for the Middle Atlantic
PGA Section in 2015 as its Player Development
Coordinator and Foundations
Activities Director before heading to Army
Navy Country Club, where she worked
from 2016-2019, as director of player development.
At Army Navy, she created and
implemented all programming at both the
Arlington and Fairfax campuses.
In 2017, Cooper formed the first all-girls
PGA Junior League program in the nation
at Army Navy, which led to a 50 percent
increase in the club’s LPGA-USGA Girls
Golf participation. She followed up in 2019
with both an all-girls and co-ed team at
Springfield Golf & Country Club, where she
was the head professional.
In addition to the junior program at Springfield
and the wildly successful “Wine, Women
& Wedges” program—which offered instruction
and a chance for novice women golfers
to play three holes on the course before their
social time—what Cooper witnessed was
the overall desired result of any program.
“We started to see groups of women forming
small groups to play golf on their own,”
she said. “That was the real beauty of it.”
Some of that initiative
stemmed from Cooper’s
“101ers Ladies Golf
Academy” at Springfield, an eight-week
instructional program in which beginners
incrementally increased distance from the
hole—starting from 25 yards to 100 yards—
with the goal of shooting par for nine holes
from their designated distance. What she
was surprised to see in the weekly instructional
program were women who were
already playing in the club’s 9-hole and 18-
hole leagues.
“We were teaching beginners how to get
the ball in the hole and these more-experienced
players also wanted to get better
in their short game,” Cooper said. “So, the
academy also served as a feeder program for
the club’s women’s groups because beginners
realized it wasn’t such a scary leap
to move up to league play. We created an
environment where they felt comfortable.”
Cooper also observed that women who
enrolled in the academy spent an average
increase of $165 per person each month
and their number of rounds of golf played
increased by 374 percent for the same
time period. Those participants who had
established handicaps before the academy
began also recorded an average drop
in handicap strokes of 4.5 shots after the
program concluded.
BIGGER GOALS
And while Cooper has been thrilled to see
her members in Virginia find the spark to
“Liz connects with people and she creates programs and
events that entice women to play golf. She doesn’t just have
great ideas. She gets things done.”
—Marvol Barnard, LPGA Professionals National President
become more involved in the game, she
is also eager to reach a larger audience in
her new role at the LPGA this year.
In a typical season, the LPGA Amateur
Golf Association runs 23 association-wide
events, including scrambles and team
qualifiers for championships throughout
the nation and in Canada. Cooper
will oversee those events, as well as the
growth of the association’s membership—although
with the challenges of the
virus pandemic in 2020, Cooper doesn’t
expect their first event to take place until
mid-August.
“Becoming a member of the LPGA Amateur
Golf Association is a way to connect
with LPGA professionals and to belong to a
community of women who share a passion
for golf,” said Cooper. “We are focused on
providing opportunities for more women
to join, to learn from the experts in the
game and to have the ability to play in
local and association-wide golf events for
all abilities.”
And with the LPGA-USGA Girls’ Golf
program and the LPGA Amateur Golf
Association located under the same big
golf umbrella as the LPGA’s club professionals
and touring pros, Cooper believes
she is now in a position to help females of
all ages find their place in the game and
their motivation to play.
“We are the leaders in women’s golf and
we should have a place somewhere for
females from age 5 to age 95,” she said.
“We also want any female to walk into
any club and feel comfortable because
this sport should be available to everybody,”
Cooper added. “If we can start to
change the face of golf, the business of
golf will also have to change to become a
more welcoming environment.”
LIZ COOPER
20 V IRGINIA G OLFER | J ULY/A UGUST 2020
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