Jake McCullough is the PGA Head Golf Professional at Odessa Country Club, in Odessa, Texas. He was the recipient of the 2016 PGA Northern Texas Section Player Development Award and the 2010 recipient of the section’s Randy Smith Youth Player Development Award.
Jake McCullough on the importance of improving communication via smart devices:
With a busy lesson book and a passion for teaching, I have to utilize my time extremely well to balance my lessons and other responsibilities as the head professional at a busy private club. I have found that using today’s technology is a huge asset to saving time, as well as adding value to my lessons. Edufii is an application through which instructors and coaches can provide feedback and details on students’ lessons. This tool adds value to my lessons by providing students detailed feedback and clearly outlines what we discussed during our time together, as well as next steps and drills to work on between sessions. This information can be shared with any other individuals the student wishes as well, such as family members or other team members. It allows for video uploads to compliment the student’s lesson notes and progress. Each lesson’s notes are recorded in the student’s history so we can collaboratively reflect upon the discussions we’ve had in previous lessons going forward. It also reduces the amount of paperwork on my agenda by not having to write out lesson notes and recaps, allowing me to make better use of that time in the other aspects of my job duties. One process I have incorporated into each lesson is to provide games and skills challenges for my students to work on between lessons. As our lesson winds down, I have the student create the video of setting up and describing the skills challenge. We send to their Edufii page so they can revisit the instructions on their own. This work put forth between lessons is vital to timely progress as students of all ages strive for improvement.
Jake McCullough on the business impact of improving communication via smart devices:
Technology is improving society in virtually every field of business today. Golf is no different. As golf professionals, we are able to teach our students in ways like never before and provide them tools for faster improvement, better understanding of the golf swing, and a long-lasting love of the game. Edufii is just one of those tools, but its benefits are great and immediate. Using the app, I am saving twenty minutes per lesson in lesson summary notes, as well as preparation for the next lesson. With so many students, I am better able to organize my thoughts and direction for each student. I can reach out to each student individually, provide videos, and follow up drills and assignments for use between lessons. Those twenty minutes saved per lesson enable me to better facilitate the rest of my duties in golf shop sales, tournament operations, management of golf staff, and communication with other department managers at the club. With my other duties, I am limited as to how much I am able to teach. But any golf professional can reap incredible time-saving and value-added benefits from this application, especially those whose primary responsibility is teaching. Also with Edufii, I am able to keep in contact with and actually continue to teach students who have moved out of town and want to continue our golf relationship, retaining important lesson revenues. Finally, with the value added via this technology, I have been able to increase my lesson rates with no reduction of student in my lesson schedule.
If you would like to email the author of this Best Practice directly, please email jmccullough@pga.com
