Michael Wenzel

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
GRAA Top 100 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, Golf Digest Best in State, Other (Indicate specific awards below in 3-a)

Other awards won:
2011 IPGA Youth Player Development Award, 2019 Golf Digest Top 40 Under 40, 2014 U.S. Kids Master Professional j

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 325
Female: 50
Junior: 995

Total number of individual clinics given per year:
30

Please indicate any Growth of the Game initiatives your facility/academy has launched over the past year (please give specifics on such programs):
This year in conjunction with our Future Stars golf program which encompasses three levels for kids ages 5-13 we added a play day opportunity. Our goal with this program is to help them take the skills they are learning in class and apply them on the course, as we noticed there was a disconnect between practicing and playing. We utilize the U.S. Kids Player Pathway development curriculum, and to give players a chance to finish their playing requirement we created a play day for the kids on the weekend on our Par 3 course. These sessions are supervised by coaches from our academy as well as the players parents especially for the younger ones. With it being a wide range of skills and abilities, we have created the following steps: the first step is to have the kids learn how to move around the course without worrying about keeping score. Step two is to learn to keep score by tracking putts only, and eventually keeping score with an 8 being the max on any hole. Once they hit five shots if they aren’t on the green, they pick up their ball and putt to keep the game moving. Step three is to shoot at least double bogey or better for 3-6 holes out of the nine holes consecutively, and eventually encouraging them to aim towards shooting an average of bogey golf on every hole. With the kids being so young, we believe it’s important to have these steps to encourage them to learn to play while having fun with the game vs. setting goals that are too stringent or too difficult to achieve which can be discouraging leading them to ultimately quit the sport.
After receiving feedback from our community about how important adult golf instruction is we decided to expand our offerings. We have been running Get Golf Ready since the program’s inception, and just added a level two program to our curriculum which was very popular. The session includes more specific instruction and gets more in depth with in-swing fundamentals, as well as more time on the course. With Get Golf Ready running mostly in the evenings we created Fundamentals of Golf and Unlock Your Short Game during the day during the week for adults that aren’t available in the evenings. These classes have been a great addition to focus on more specifics of full swing and short game in a small group setting. Prior to the year starting in March we also created an indoor group instruction program called Get Ready to Golf using our TrackMan and Full Swing Kit Simulators where we focused on basic setup fundamentals and in-swing fundamentals for all clubs in the bag. It was a three-week session to allow players to get a jump start to their season.
One other highlight this year was our PGA Jr. League summer program growing from 65-89 players which allowed us to send three teams to the All-Star Game which was the goal headed into the year.
This past year I continued to run our 18-Hole Youth League to help prepare players to make their high school team in the spring, summer and fall. This has also been a great way to merge our 9-hole youth travel team league and help my eighth graders better prepare for high school tryouts. While the kids play, I actively coach them offering tips and strategies on course management, shot and club selection as, well as the mental game on how to rebound after a bad shot or bad hole. This year I had 20 participants in the program which exceeded my goal of 12-16 players headed into the year. This year eight of the kids made their team which was exciting to see especially how competitive things are in my area.

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
Every year we conduct our own youth club championship on each of our 3 golf courses. A par-3 course, 9-hole regulation course, and the 18-Hole course. This year we had great turnout as well with the help of my marketing efforts, and for the Par 3 tournament in the age division 12 and over one of my students took 1st with a score of one over par which was a personal best for him, and my other student in the 11 and under division took 1st place with a score of 29. On the 18-hole club championship for the 11–13-year-old division one of my students took 1st place, and for the 14-16 yr old division took 2nd place. On the 9-Hole Championship one of my students took 2nd place.
This year we couldn’t offer the parent child event in conjunction with the PGA Jr. League at the end of summer due to the growth of our program, and in lieu we offered a PGA Family Parent Child on October 19 with three age divisions, and 54 players. This event drew a much different crowd for us coming from our camps, other youth leagues and clinics. My eight-year-old son, Christopher, and I won his age division (8-9) with a score of 37, that included taking 3 of his drives and his two approach shots on the par 3 holes, and he even pared the 8th hole on his own without my help.
On Sunday, October 27 one of my coaches and I created our first ever Halloween Golf Fest at the club for children ages 4-10. The fest included Halloween Mini Golf on our putting green with the holes putting into the mouth of 6 different pumpkins, golf ball coloring, and relay contests balancing golf balls on spoons, as well as prizes for Best Costume overall, Most Creative and Most Scary. We handed out $5 Dairy Queen gift cards to the winners, as well as Halloween themed fidget spinners and served Hot Chocolate.