By Vinnie Manginelli, PGA
Longevity at a single facility is rare in golf. But, for Melissa Williams, the PGA of America Head Golf Professional at Tara Golf & Country Club, 2025 will be a quarter-century celebration of teaching, service and growing the game of golf in Bradenton, Florida.
Growing up in Maine, Williams was first exposed to the game of golf as a baby while accompanying her parents to the range as they pursued this relatively new activity in the Williams household. She learned to swing a club as she learned to walk and played the game on a nine-hole course that is now a top facility in the State of Maine – Boothbay Harbor Country Club.
Known as a stellar junior golfer and accomplished high school competitor, Williams was inducted into the Midcoast Maine Sports Hall of Fame last year. Among a long list of achievements, she won the 1986 Maine State School Girls Golf Championship, the 1988 and 1989 Women’s Maine State Golf Association Junior Girls Championship and the Boothbay Country Club Women’s Club Championship from 1984 to 1997.
Williams played five years of high school golf (8th-12th grades) and headed south to attend the Golf Academy of America in Orlando, Florida, earning a Specialized Associates Degree in Golf Complex Operations and Management. She completed the PGA of America’s Professional Golf Management Program and gained Class A Membership in 2006.
Meanwhile, Williams had started working at Tara Golf & Country Club as a First Assistant in 2000 and was promoted to Head Professional in 2003. Throughout those early years, she learned the ropes under her mentor Anthony Greising, the former PGA of America General Manager at Tara.
Today, Tara Golf & Country Club has 766 family memberships and hosts around 44,000 rounds each year. Williams teaches private lessons and clinics, going beyond just the golf swing and helping the newest of golfers with the most basic things to know about club membership – from the bag drop to the range to the 19th hole. Students learn how to drive a golf cart, how to tip at the club and of course, how to improve their golf skills to maximize the enjoyment they attain from the game. She maintains a text chain with many of her students, who highlight achievements big and small that have of course been put in motion under Williams’ tutelage.
Melissa has garnered several North Florida PGA Section and Southwest Chapter awards, most recently earning the 2024 North Florida PGA Section Professional Development Award. She is also a 2023 Golf Range Association of America (GRAA) Top 100 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, her first GRAA honor, but certainly not her last.
She is very proud of being a member of PGA Lead Cohort VIII and is working on her final project as we speak. The program teaches PGA of America Golf Professionals how to instill governance in their lives and careers. It promotes getting involved in your Chapter and PGA Section and educates professionals on how governance works and the benefits of getting involved. She looks forward to graduating in August.
In the meantime, Williams will be writing her own piece for us next month as part of our monthly Women Leading on the Range feature. I look forward to reading what she has to say and appreciate her many years of service to the game of golf.
