Brandon Stooksbury

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
PGA Section Teacher of the Year, GRAA Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, Golf Digest Best in State, Other (Indicate specific awards in 3-a below)

Other awards won (if provided):
3x Section Horton Smith/Professional Development Award winner

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 800
Female: 150
Junior: 200

Total number of individual clinics given per year:
18

Please indicate any Growth of the Game initiatives your facility/academy has launched over the past year (please give specifics on such programs):
The facility closed in January of 2021 for a complete renovation. All members of the golf staff either retired, quit, or were dismissed while the course was closed. When I started in April of ’21 I began forming the golf staff. We opened the course officially in December of ’21 and the year of 2022 was spent created ALL instructional programming from scratch with myself as a new Head Professional and the new Assistant Golf professional staff. Below are the programs that were created:

• Operation 36 Junior Programming: junior golf instruction program consisting of a 1-hour group clinic per week covering the 12 core golf skills with optional supervised practice session and private instruction add-on. Also includes a quarterly “match” held on-course where participants try to “break par” by shooting a score of 36 or better beginning at 25 yards away from the flag and progressively moving further away in 25-yard increments. Program is offered in the following groups/age brackets:
o Future 36’s (ages 4-6)
o Young Guns (ages 7-10)
o Junior Champions (ages 11-13)

• Golf Fitness: partnering with a TPI Fitness instructor (who is also on the golf staff as a part-time assistant professional), we began incorporating a fitness element into all our Operation 36 programming and individual lessons. The very first lesson with any new student was scheduled as an “evaluation” and included a TPI fitness screen.

• Summer Junior Camps: weekly half-day and full-day camps held monthly throughout the summer season

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
The following programs were introduced to increase engagement, either in between regular lessons, or as an introduction into our instruction programming:

• “Instruction Night:” monthly, complimentary adult clinics on varying topics

• Adult On-Course evaluation: 9-hole on-course playing evaluation, provides a re-cap of round and customized improvement plan based on playing results.

• “Play With the Pro:” working with the GM to identify latent or “at-risk” golfers who hadn’t been using the club in the last year. They were called personally by the golf staff and invited to play golf on a Saturday morning in the hopes of re-engaging them at the club.