Chris Yoder

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
PGA Section Teacher of the Year, GRAA Top 100 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, Other (Indicate specific awards below in 3-a)

Other awards won:
2024, 2025, 2026 Southern Ohio PGA Youth Player Development Award, 2022 SOPGA Teacher/Coach of The Year, US Kids Top 50 Master Kids Coach, PGA Junior League GameChanger Award

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 185
Female: 65
Junior: 650

Total number of individual clinics given per year:
280

Please indicate any Growth of the Game initiatives your facility/academy has launched over the past year (please give specifics on such programs):
https://www.pga.com/story/2025-pga-jr-league-championship-why-team-ohios-birdies-carry-extra-meaning

After just recently qualifying for the 13U and 17U PGA Jr League National Championships, Coach Yoder – Team YoYo – Team Ohio – plan to build on the fundraising efforts from 2025 and grow in 2026. Donations will support SOPGA PGA Reach helping underserved golf communities, juniors and veterans

The 2026 season marked another strong year for junior golf at Scioto Country Club. Several of our juniors took a big step forward this season winning multiple times across Golfweek, SOPGA, US Kids, High School tournaments as well as team tournaments including Interclubs and SOPGA Section tournaments. The comprehensive recreational and competitive programs that have been built over the past 7 seasons have significantly impacted our club leading to many incredible accomplishments.

Building a holistic program – Mental Coach Sessions/Team Workouts Bonding and Building Relationships to Retain Customers.
During the past winter and early spring, the Scioto Junior Team partnered once again with TPI certified trainer David Gatshall for team workouts to focus on strength, flexibility, and club head speed. These workouts were geared towards building an overall athlete, helping juniors with their swing, creating lifelong health habits and building mental toughness. We had 8 sessions throughout the year with Sport Psychologist Dr. Todd Kays to improve the mental side of our juniors. Dr. Kays provided great insight and help for our juniors to utilize in both a practice and competitive context. We worked again with Alex Huang who is the COO of Decade Golf to help our juniors with on course strategy and determining the highest percentage shot or best practice for certain scenarios to improve consistency and stroke average. Finally, in May, we took seven of our competitive juniors to Omaha, Nebraska to see PGA National Teach of the Year (2018), Golf Digest Top 50 and Golf Magazine Top 100 instructor James Sieckmann for the second time. Coach Siekmann is one of the top short game coaches in the world, having worked with some of the best players at both the professional, amateur and junior level. He uses a holistic approach to instruction organizing every session into block, random and competitive practice, with a major emphasis on games and competing. All of this is done to be more efficient and disciplined when practicing or warming up. Over two days our juniors were able to glean invaluable scoring and mental coaching that will be extremely beneficial both in their short and long-term development.

Programs that Coach Yoder has launched along with Junior Golf Program Highlights

• Competitive and Recreational Programs – Recreational Junior
Program consists of Beginner (ages 5-14), Lily Pod (ages 8-12),
Rising Stars (ages 13-17), Competitive Junior Programs consist of
Junior Varsity Team (ages 8-12) and Varsity Team (ages 13-18)
• 79 Drive, Chip & Putt Entries
• 79 Juniors participated in the 5th Scioto Drive, Chip & Putt Training
Day
• The Augusta National Drive, Chip and Putt Task force continues to
use our training day as a template/model for The PGA of America
and 20,000 plus PGA Professionals to follow.
• 6 Drive, Chip & Putt Local Qualifiers
• 3 Drive, Chip & Putt Regional Finalist
• 20+ Juniors participating in US Kids tournaments
• 17+ SOPGA and GolfWeek Jr. Tour participants
• 24 Competitive Scioto Junior Team Members
• 44 Lily Pod, Rising Stars playing Wilson Road weekly with team practices at Scioto during the week
• Continued partnership with Sports Ohio par 3 course with elevated Tuesday play days for Lily Pod, Rising Stars and Scioto JV Team
• 100+ Beginners participating
• 50+ US Kids Pins earned
• 4 US Kids World Championship participants representing SCC
• 3 US Kids Ohio State Invitational participants representing SCC
• 2026 US Kids State Invitational Top 3 finish Boys 12 – William Yoder
• 11 Ohio Junior participants – record number from Scioto Country Club
• 20 Jr. Club Championship participants
Mikey Pagnotto committed to play college golf at The Ohio State University
Will Mangas committed to play golf at Ohio University
Rocco Humphreys committed to play golf at the University of Dayton
40 PROGRAM VICTORIES
• 18 Ranked Juniors in 2026 -12 in 2025 – 10 in 2024 – 9 in 2023 – 9 in 2022 – 7 in 2021 – 1 in 2020
• 3 Golfweek Regional Tour Victories – Rocco Humphreys and Eva Emerson
1 US Kids Regional Victory – Colonial Williamsburg – William Yoder
2 USA Team Ohio Qualifiers – Will Mangas and Eva Emerson
USGA Junior Amateur Qualifier – Will Mangas
2 National PGA Junior Championship Qualifier Mikey Pagnotto and Rocco Humphreys
5 Pink Head Covers Awarded
Scioto Junior Team Golf Workouts – 15 juniors worked out with Coach Yoder, Coach Jared and Coach David Gattshall, TPI
Dr Todd Kays, mental coach, Alex Huang, COO Decade Golf
4th Annual Ross Cup Junior Matches in April featuring Ryder Cup style matches between Scioto CC and The Country Club of Birmingham. 15 juniors and families from Scioto traveled to compete against Birmingham at CCB. Team Birmingham was crowed champion.
Scioto Junior Team was crowned the champion of the Second Annual Buckeye Battle with NCR Country Club consisting of Ryder Cup style matches between Scioto Jr Team and NCR – Team Scioto 10 – Team NCR 6
4 Scioto PGA Junior League developmental teams consisting of 55 total PGA Junior. League players
11 Scioto juniors participated as PGA Junior League All-Stars in SOPGA Section Championship
Scioto Junior Team 13U Runner-Up at PGA Junior League SOPGA Section Championship Celebration Division
Coach Yoder coached both the 13U Team YoYo and 17U Team YoYo to the SOPGA Section Championship and the Regional Championship. Both Team YoYo 13U and Team YoYo 17u qualified for the PGA Jr League National Championship
Coach Yoder coached 13U Team YoYo – Team Ohio – to a 2nd place finish in Frisco at the PGA Junior League National Championship
Coach Yoder had the honor and privilege to coach the Souther Ohio Section PGA Junior team in the Junior Ohio Cup Matches – 2025 and 2024
Coach Yoder led a fundraiser for PGA Reach in conjunction with the PGA Junior League National Championship raising $13,750 for PGA Reach. Donors pledge per birdie on number of birdies the team made a the National Championship
With both the 13U and 17U teams qualifying for 2026 National Championships – Coach Yoder plans to build on the fundraising efforts in 2026 from what they raised in 2025
Coach Yoder named vice captain of the USGA Team Ohio
Coach Yoder – SOPGA Youth Player Development Award
Coach Yoder – US Kids Master Top 50 Kids Coach
Coach Yoder – GRAA Top 100 Growth of The Game Teaching Professional
Coach Yoder – PGA Jr League GameChanger

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
Success On The Course Continues to Bring Back Junior Golfers and Build Excitement For The Future Along With Fun Team Golf Events

As mentioned previously, this was a big year for our program, and one of our biggest achievements was at the Ohio Junior. In 2018, we had one junior from Scioto play in the Ohio Junior Championship. In 2019 and 2020 we again only had one junior representing Scioto in this prestigious event. Over the last six years, much preparation and work has been done to not only increase the overall level of junior play, but to have more Scioto juniors playing competitive golf in Ohio. This year we were proud to say we had 10 Scioto Junior Team members competing in the Ohio Junior at Shaker Run Golf Club and one female golfer compete in the Ohio Girls Junior Championship.

In addition, our Junior Club Championship was extremely competitive this year with 20 juniors competing and some very low scores. Both Rocco Humphreys and Mitchell Corbin shot under 70 during the final round firing a 67 and a 68 respectively. Rocco Humphreys and Eva Emerson both won the overall Junior Club Championship for the boys and girls division. In addition, Case Cheney won the 12-14 age division and Austin Braun won the 11 and under age group. Its hard to believe but in 2018 our junior club championship was cancelled due to lack of competitive junior golfers. Our program has certainly come a long way since this time. The future for junior golf at Scioto is very bright.
On July 21st Scioto traveled to Cleveland, Ohio to compete in our longest standing Interclub with Oakmont, Canterbury and Kawkwa with Canterbury hosting. Many of our current members played in this event when they were growing up. The Scioto Junior Team came out victorious for the 3rd year in a row. Prior to these victories Scioto had not won this interclub in more than 15 years. This is another great example of how far our junior program has grown over the past six years. On July 24th the Scioto Junior Team had the opportunity to travel and play the championship South course at NCR Country Club in the second annual Buckeye Battle. Both team Scioto and NCR had 12 juniors competing in the tournament which consisted of three nine-hole matches. Scioto came out victoriously with a 10 to 6 victory.
On August 9th Scioto’s PGA Junior League Team finished 2nd in the Celebration Division at the PGA Junior League Section Championship. This event was a great opportunity for our juniors to get some competitive tournament experience as PGA Junior League offers a fun team based environment for young golfers to grow their game.

Coach Yoder coached Team YoYo 13U and 17U to a victory at the SOPGA Section Championship and Regional Championship qualifying both teams for the National Championship.

Coached Yoder coached the 13U Team YoYo – Team Ohio – to a runner-up finish in the 2025 PGA Jr League National Championship. They look to build on that positive momentum in 2026.

Coach Yoder led a fundraising effort for SOPGA PGA Reach helping raise $13,750 dollars that will help juniors, underprivileged families and veterans.
Coach Yoder wanted find ways for his junior team to give back as this game has given us so much!

Last year many of our junior golfers had great success in high school tournaments with Will Mangas and Mikey Pagnotto qualifying for the state tournament, Will as an individual from Upper Arlington and Mikey leading St. Charles as a team. This year the 2026 DI OHSAA State High School tournament for boys and girls will be held at NCR Country Club October, 11-12, in Dayton, Ohio. Many of the juniors that Coach Yoder works with have an opportunity to make a deep run at the state tournament. Last year at the state tournament Will Mangas played very well shooting rounds of 73-72 to earning First Team All-State Honors. Mikey Pagnotto and St Charles fought very hard over the final nine holes coming from 15 shots back to finish runner-up and only two behind Dublin Jerome. Mikey had a very solid final round shooting a three under par 69 earning Second Team All-State Honors. Additionally, Eva Emerson was medalist at the Sectional Tournament and finished Top 10 at the District Tournament earning 3rd Team All-District and First Team All-Conference. Jack Woods was named Central Buckeye League All-Conference First Team. Mitchell Corbin was named honorable mention for All-District Team and 1st Team All-OCC. Finally, we are very proud to announce that senior Mikey Pagnotto formally committed to play college golf at The Ohio State University. This is a huge milestone not only for Mikey but for the junior golf program at Scioto. He is a great example that trust, hard work, and commitment to the process leads to long term success. Mikey becomes the seventh Buckeye from Scioto joining Alfred Sargent, Jack Nicklaus, Robin Obetz, Alex Redfield, Tanner Murphy, and Bo Hoag.

The Ross Cup between Birmingham and Scioto Country Club along with The Sargent Cup between Atlanta Athletic Club and Scioto helps to build great memories and experiences for junior golfers which continues to grow the game and builds exitment for the future

Ross Cup – On March 13th-15th, the Scioto Junior Team traveled to The Country Club of Birmingham for the fourth rendition of the Ross Cup Junior Matches. It was an unbelievable weekend with a lot of team camaraderie and memories made. In addition to many competitive matches and fun on the golf course; the event included a coat and tie dinner, Barber Motorsports Park tour and much fun at the Birmingham pickleball courts. Birmingham prevailed just edging out Team Scioto to retain the Ross Cup, however this event has proven to be a great litmus test for our program. Many of Birmingham’s junior have committed to play at the top levels of D1 college golf and are ranked within the top 200 of junior golf scoreboard. Over the last three years our team has improved to make this tournament a true head to head rivalry. The future is very bright for junior golf at Scioto!

Sargent Cup – On October 16th-18th Scioto will host the 2nd playing of The Sargent Cup between Atlanta Athletic Club and Scioto Country Club. These two Ryder Cup style matches feature a coat and tie dinner, fun exciting Ryder Cup matches on the golf course, camaraderie, fun dinner watching college football and a tour of The Jack Nicklaus Museum. These events take on the feel of a junior golf tournament, college tournament and member-guest all in one. These two events build so much excitement, fun and the anticipation give the juniors something great to look forward to as they bookend the golf season in Ohio. It give the juniors something to work towards and look forward to in the offseason and creates an opportunity to travel south in early spring when temperatures are colder in Ohio. This certainly helps jumpstart the spring season. Finally to close out the fall season it is great to invite the southern clubs to Ohio to play golf as fall golf in Ohio is the best time to play golf with tremendous weather and course conditions creating a championship atmosphere. These two events have really elevated junior golf at Scioto.

Coach Yoder has build and grown all these programs at Scioto Country Club