Glenn Pulice, the 1995 Michigan PGA Section Assistant Golf Professional of the Year, 2020 Section Distinguished Service Award, 2021 Section Professional Development Award winner and 2025 Section Golf Professional of the Year, is a Quarter Century PGA Member and the PGA of America General Manager at Royal Oak (MI) Golf Center.
Glenn Pulice on the importance of asking ‘What’s Next?’ when planning your player development programming:
We have revamped group lessons for many years to reflect demand and need at Royal Oak Golf Center. Our long-time golf instructor, Matt Berger, and I have always discussed the concept of ‘What’s Next?’ Once a golfer is in our player development ecosystem, how do we retain him or her? As a result, we’ve created player development programs to keep golfers learning at Royal Oak Golf Center for the long term, bringing their friends and creating a vibrant learning environment that is low-pressure and fun. Our staple programs that we’ve offered for many years include: 101 Adult Group, 201 Adult Group, spring and fall after-school juniors and junior group clinics every Saturday in the summer. However, with the influx of new golfers, we have implemented various follow-up specialty clinics that are either geared towards specific demographics like beginners or women, or offer specialized topics like putting, chipping, driver, etc. Also, we implemented a 2 1/2-hour one-day class that covers the 101 Adult Group agenda in a tidy one-day session. We even have a Perfect Practice program, which is a supervised full swing practice session that meets 4-5 times per month. Each golfer tells Matt one thing they’d like to work on at each given session, and that’s their individual focus for the hour. These are ideal for students already in private or group programs who desire additional touchpoints to ensure their practice regimen is on point and help them achieve their goals.
Glenn Pulice on the business impact of asking ‘What’s Next?’ when planning your player development programming:
The genius of our enhanced programming is that the new classes are designed to keep Matt’s many private and group students in his coaching programs…his ecosystem, if you will. Matt teaches about 200 group classes per year, which leaves very little room for private instruction with his existing clients, never mind the many new golfers we continue to see. This programming not only benefits the student by giving them a next step in the game improvement process, but also generates additional coaching revenue for Matt. It also helps us introduce the game to more people, leading to more visits to the range and dollars spent outside of our programs. In addition, existing students are getting a much better bang for their buck by signing up for these new groups instead of private lessons. In addition, many first-time private lesson students are opting for these classes instead of investing in private lesson packages.
If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email glenn@royaloakgolfcenter.com.
