By Vinnie Manginelli, PGA
Maureen Farrell has a list of awards and accolades that she’s collected throughout her career, including the 2011 Nebraska PGA Section Assistant Professional of the Year Award, the 2016 Midwest PGA Section Player Development Award and the 2020 Midwest PGA Section Player Development and Youth Player Development Awards. She’s been recognized by Golf Digest as a Best Young Teacher in America and also Best in State for several years running. She recently added 2023 Golf Range Association of America (GRAA) Top 100 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional honors to that ever-growing list. She’s TPI-certified and recently contributed a golf fitness story for our sister publication Golf Fitness Monthly.
Maureen Farrell joined the team at Oakwood Country Club in Kansas City, Missouri in January of 2022 and has served their growing membership as PGA of America Director of Golf ever since.
“They didn’t really have formal instruction at the time and were looking for a Director of Instruction to help build out their new performance center and manage their player development programming,” Farrell explains. “The club was under new ownership and a renaissance of sorts was occurring. They had just installed ball-tracking technology on the range and were now seeking to boost their game improvement services and increase engagement with members.”
Born and raised in Nebraska City, Nebraska, Farrell spent her childhood playing a variety of other sports – basketball, soccer, volleyball and softball – but golf didn’t enter the picture until high school. She made the golf team as a freshman when her first posted score was 120. She was shooting in the low 90s the following year, would crack the top 20 in the Girl’s State Tournament her junior year and took 7th in the state as a senior.
With several options for college that included soccer, basketball and golf, Farrell decided to follow her ambition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she was the first woman to enroll in its Professional Golf Management (PGM) Program. During her time there, she would enjoy an internship at Carnoustie Golf Links in Scotland and learn much about the business from European PGA Professional Colin Sinclair, the head professional at Carnoustie for 20 years.
Upon graduation, she gained PGA of America Membership in 2009 and spent the first five years of her budding career as an Assistant Professional and Head Golf Professional before realizing her passion was in teaching and wanted to pursue that full time.
She took the Head Teaching Professional position at Blue Hills Country Club in 2014 and accepted a role as Director of Instruction for two public facilities – St. Andrews Golf Club and Sykes/Lady Overland Park Golf Club – one year later. With five regulation courses and a Par 3 layout between the two facilities, Farrell was busy building the programming and managed a staff of five or six full-time instructors.
“I loved it there and grew a lot as an instructor,” she says. “We had a great indoor space that allowed me to teach year-round. I really grew my business and still have some clients from those previous facilities.”
Although she enjoyed her seven years in public golf, Farrell saw the possibilities and opportunities available at Oakwood Country Club and threw her hat in the ring when the Director of Instruction position arose. Since 2022, she has appreciated the opportunity to build something from the ground up and make it her own. She says she was doing well at St. Andrews and Sykes/Lady Overland Park and really took a risk in leaving.
“The risk was there, but I always bet on myself and was confident that I could help make Oakwood have the best performance center and teaching department in the region,” she adds. “I did it, and it’s been awesome.”
As she looks back, she has some people in her life who helped her navigate to success. She credits PGA of America Golf Professional Chris Thompson with helping guide her path by offering her her first head pro job at Wilderness Ridge Country Club after several years as an assistant.
“Chris was probably the most phenomenal person to have lead and guide me as a young twentysomething golf professional,” Farrell states. “He recognized my passion for teaching and helped me attain the teaching job at Blue Hills.”
Other mentors who assisted her over the past two decades include Bob and Laura Vermeer of Oak Hills Country Club in Omaha, Nebraska who have guided many Midwest golf professionals over several decades. She credits them with helping her fall in love with the business of golf during her internship there and says the club’s Director of Instruction at the time, Mike Cornell, was also instrumental in her realizing that her chosen path in the PGM program was the correct one.
In addition, Farrell learned a lot about the high-end private club side of the business from Andy Fisher, PGA of America Head Golf Professional at Kansas City Country Club when she served as an Assistant Professional on his team.
She also says her teaching philosophy has been influenced greatly by Jason Baile, the PGA of America Director of Instruction at Jupiter Hills in Florida, a highly decorated award-winning PGA coach and instructor.
They’re doing many great things at Oakwood Country Club these days, and Coach Mo, as she is affectionately known, has been instrumental in that success. Read about the club’s success in our recent Golf Range Magazine story here and enjoy Maureen’s Golf Fitness Monthly article here.
