Monique Thoresz

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
PGA Section Teacher of the Year, GRAA Top 100 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, Golf Digest Best in State

Other awards won:
Golf Magazine Top 100 Teachers to Watch, US Kids Master Coach, Metropolitan Section Player Development Award winner

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 350
Female: 350
Junior: 650

Total number of individual clinics given per year:
100-120

Please indicate any Growth of the Game initiatives your facility/academy has launched over the past year (please give specifics on such programs):
The 2024 season is my second at my new and what I hope to be the final home of my career – Quaker Ridge – and I have enthusiastically embraced the challenge of driving Player Engagement at Quaker Ridge across all demographics!

The first and easiest demographic to tackle has been junior golf. My goal is to continue to build a robust junior program so that our dependents/junior/future members achieve basic skills in all relevant areas, with a pipeline available for those who strive for more competitive options. The primary challenge in developing such a program at Quaker Ridge has been overcoming preconceived notions as to why we “cannot build” a larger junior culture. Since our juniors attend sleepaway camp for most of the summer, families often think that precludes our juniors from playing at a high level. Therefore, a large part of our mission is to continue to educate parents on how we can build an excellent program without the “traditional summer junior camp” schedule.

Our Women’s Program has been another challenging area of our golf operation, and we have been trying a number of initiatives with instruction and playing opportunities to both increase participation and enhance member relationships. As it is my second year at the club, I am continuing to meet new members and deepen my relationships, building trust and learning more about what our members would like to see. I regularly communicate with our women members in person and via email to gather feedback and hone our programming.

As Director of Instruction, it is my mission to craft programs that provide as much opportunity as possible for a broad spectrum of our members to practice and improve. In order to do that, I spend the last few weeks of the year reflecting on what programs were successful and what we may need more of in order to service our membership. By January 1, I have our entire clinic and group instruction program ready to be rolled out, and our website is updated and our program booklet detailing our offerings is mailed out to the membership.

Drawing on some ideas that have been successful in past years, as well as expanding what was successful last year, I offered the following programs to the membership in 2024:

Women’s Programs

• April Tune-Up clinics – individual 90-minute clinics covering full swing and short game principles as an entry into the season;
• Women’s Weekday Scoring Clinics (intermediate players) – 4-session series with specific topics (20 yards and in, Putting to Lower Scores, Beat the Bunker and Wedge Proficiency) – THIS WAS A MODIFICATION TO A PROGRAM FROM LAST YEAR WITH MORE SESSIONS
• Women’s Weekend clinic series – same format as above, but targeting women who either work or otherwise cannot make it during the week;
• Women’s Weekday On-Course Clinics (intermediate players) – targeting experienced players who are seeking solutions for specific on-course challenges with club selection, strategy, etc.
• Women’s Weekday Beginners Skills Clinics (based on Operation 36 principles) – four 2-hour sessions with a short clinic on a fixed topic and then get on the course to learn to score from shorter distances;
• Women’s Weekend Beginner Skills Clinics – same format as above, but targeting women who either work or otherwise cannot make it during the week;
• Sunday Afternoon Beginner Clinics – this offering came up organically as I spoke with members who wanted single-session clinics with other new golfers. It was one of the most successful offerings of the year, and I created a text chain with all the members that created a sense of community and belonging. What I learned from this was the importance of being flexible and adding programs “on the fly” to meet members’ needs.
• Practice Club – an informal group of novice women players who agree to get together at fixed times (set up by group text) for practice, once they let me know a day and time, I create a practice plan for them to follow for that session.

Mixed Programs (Men and Women)

• Numerous single-session clinics for men and women targeting various areas of the game (putting, chipping, bunkers, etc.) – individual 1-hour clinics;
• Speed clinics to help members gain distance – individual 90-minute sessions;
• Basic and Advanced Short Game Schools – these were tremendously popular at my prior club, so I introduced them at Quaker Ridge last year to great success as well. Single 3-hour sessions focused on technique and scoring principles on chipping, pitching, putting and bunker play.
• Individual Training Programs to break scoring goals (80/90/100).

Junior Programs

• Junior Demo and Fitting Day – we offered this as a service to members and to get families to get excited about golf early in the season; it is an opportunity to introduce parents to the process of junior clubfitting and establishing relationships for our new junior program;
• Spring After School and Weekend Junior Golf Clinics;
• PGA Junior League – clinics and matches;
• MINI-PGA JUNIOR LEAGUE – this new initiative came about as a result of brainstorming among the staff about how to increase PGAJL numbers. We recognized that since many of our juniors in the prime window for junior league are involved with other sports, that we needed to “grab” kids earlier, before they get overcommitted with other sports. We decided to have a 5-7 year old “league” consisting of practices and on-course opportunities from 5o yards and in to expose our juniors to golf and get them excited to continue to participate. It was extremely successful!
• Junior “Early” Summer Golf and Tennis clinics – two week-long clinics leveraging the relationship with the tennis program to bring juniors into our program;
• Junior “Late” Summer Golf and Tennis clinics – two week-long clinics leveraging the relationship with the tennis program to bring juniors into our program (given that our juniors typically attend 7-week sleepaway camps, we do not have a summer program during that time);
• Fall PGA Junior League team – building on the success from the spring season and in conjunction with local clubs, we developed a comprehensive series of practices and matches (20 sessions) that offered lots of opportunities for skill improvement as well as light competition. This was a new addition for 2024.
• Pee Wee Golf Program – this program existed previously, but we assigned an assistant to take it over who is a proficient junior instructor and enthusiastically built weekly participation throughout the season; our 4-6 year old contingent is one of the fastest growing segments of our junior population and should continue to be a “feeder” program for our main junior programs going forward;
• Winter Junior Clinic and Tournament Program (Simulator tournaments) – a further expansion of our program and an opportunity to make golf a year-round sport for our juniors, which should significantly increase participation in years to come;
• Introduction of US Kids Player Pathway for measurement and skills testing of our juniors so we can evaluate our teaching methods and make sure that we are tracking towards success.

Finally, I am incredibly proud of the Committed Athlete Program which I introduced last year for my advanced juniors who are pursuing a dream of college golf. Last year I started the program with 5 students from my previous facility who followed me to Quaker Ridge. This year I added a student from Quaker Ridge into the program and have two more member-families in the pipeline who will be age-eligible soon. My goal is to expand to more families and juniors over the next decade.

The CAP program allows me to provide greater support for these athletes, including things like preparing detailed written practice plans, observing two of their tournaments (an invaluable benefit to both me and the students), tournament preparation (how to make the most of practice rounds, nutrition, yardage book preparation, etc.) and other topics. I’m incredibly proud of the successes of the CAP students this season – they all significantly improved their stroke average and fired personal bests, advanced to playing in 36-hole events, and they moved closer to their dream of playing college golf. I am so excited for what is to come with these students next season!

To get a sense of what kind of instructor I am and how we conduct our programs, I invite you to look at my Instagram page, where I have a very active account that gives some in-depth insight into me as a teacher and how our programs work. My Instagram handle is @MoniqueThoresz_Golf.

Future Plans

After two full seasons at Quaker Ridge, I am more excited than ever to scale up our golf programs. I am keeping detailed records of what current participation levels are and what programs we are introducing. I have a whole host of programs that I have used previously, and I can add those programs little by little as time goes on to keep our content fresh and current. My intention is to grow our programming and keep our professional staff busy with continued outreach to all corners of our membership.

In addition to continuing to build our exciting junior golf and women’s golf program, I still believe there is more to be done to cultivate a more inclusive culture with our members and juniors alike. Although Quaker Ridge is a vibrant club, in certain ways golf has been treated as an “add on” by many of our members – just one of many activities they can choose on a given day or weekend. My mission is to have golf be at the forefront of their minds so they choose it more often – and if we are offering the right mix of programming and providing solid instruction to back it up, we should be well on our way.

A few of the initiatives I would like to establish in the coming months and years include:

• Travel with Members – both Section-based pro ams as well as more luxury travel experiences. Our members do quite a bit of travel on their own, but I believe we can tap into travel as a way to further connect with members and have high-quality experiences with them.

• Play with Pro – currently our Head Professional runs a men’s play with the pro, and has offered one for women, with not much traction. I would like to see our staff play more informally with our members to further connections with them and thereby encourage participation in our other instructional and tournament programs.

• Guest Instructor Program – I intend to continue to build our guest instructor program, bringing nationally known instructors to Quaker Ridge so that our members can experience interesting and unique opportunities to learn from well-known instructors on relevant topics.

At my prior facility, through our instructional programs I was able to grow our overall lesson revenue over 730% and our junior golf revenue over 520% over 12 years – an unprecedented growth that speaks volumes. Through those programs, we energized our core membership and attracted new golfers and re-engaged non-core and lapsed golfers. We are working to do the same at Quaker Ridge.

Growing the game of golf is of the highest importance to me, and I spend a great deal of time, effort and money studying with some of the best instructors in the country so that I can continue to improve my teaching skills for my membership. I regularly attend conferences all over the country (Top 100 Teacher Summit, PGA Magazine Teacher of the Year Planning Conferences, GRAA Top 100 Conferences, Coach Camp, Flatstick Academy, US Kids Instructor Programs, to name a few) and I have a vast network of some of the best and brightest instructors in the country that I regularly connect with on issues such as teaching and programming.

I chair the Metropolitan PGA Section’s Education Committee, and have previously served on the Communication Committee and Junior Committee, and I have presented to the Section numerous times on Program Development and other topics. I am currently serving a four-year term on the PGA’s National Committee for Junior Golf Player Development, which sets the national agenda for the PGA on these issues. I am fortunate to be recognized as a Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher to Watch and a Golf Digest Best in State instructor. I am constantly striving to become a better professional and provide more value to my membership and fellow professionals.

Lastly, as a result of my involvement with the National Player Development Committee, I’ve been extremely fortunate to be a panelist on Junior Golf Development at the National Teaching and Coaching Summit this coming January at the PGA Show. I will also be a presenter at the Proponent Group’s annual Summit in late October. Giving back to the game and to other instructors in this way is extremely meaningful to me; so many fellow professionals have helped me over the years and it’s an honor to be able to pass on some of the things I have learned to the next generation of teachers and professionals.

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
In answering the previous question, I have listed all of our 2024 programming, but I’d like to share with the Committee some of the initiatives we’ve had in prior years. As previously mentioned, every year at this time, I re-evaluate our programming for the season and determine what works and what needs improvement. It’s my job as the Director of Instruction to create an atmosphere where all levels of golfers can find something that appeals to them so that our membership remains engaged.

The following are initiatives that we have offered previously to our membership and which could potentially be improved upon or brought out again at another time if the circumstances warrant:

• Ladies Rookie League – a clinic series for newer golfers, using scoring principles similar to Operation 36 to get students acclimated to game-like situations.

• Newbie Tuesday – a twice-monthly program where brand new golfers come out for 2-3 holes and learn the etiquette and basics of how to play. We cover everything from how to get your bag out of storage, to how to tip the locker room attendant to where to drive the golf carts.

• Majors of Golf Clinics – a series of clinics where we focused on the venues for each PGA Tour major and selected a golf skill that would be necessary for the PGA Tour players to perform well (i.e. driving it straight to hit more fairways at a US Open, for example).

• Ladies Golf Team – a program targeting intermediate players who wish to learn more about match play scoring to get ready for interclub competition. We held clinics and simulated matches and reviewed rules that are necessary to know for competitive situations.

• Ladies Score Better Clinics – clinics designed for intermediate golfers looking to focus on scoring principles and breaking 100.

• Men’s and Women’s Spring Boot Camp – we’ve offered these mixed clinics as the perfect tune-up and to get the spring season going.

• Mixed On-Course Clinics – on course clinics focused on strategy, shot selection, and other specific on-course skills such as uneven lies, etc.

• Afternoon With the Pros – 45-minute clinics followed by 6-9 holes with professional staff.

• Happy Hour Clinics – mixed (men and women) clinics on single topics targeting the after-work crowd.

• Drive, Chip and Putt Clinics – these clinics focused on teaching juniors the essential skills necessary for success in this national competition.

• Parent-Child Clinics – these clinics invited parents and grandparents of our juniors to participate and offer a chance for us to educate them about how to help their children with golf, give instruction and let parents watch and understand principles of golf instruction.

• Golf With Your Girlfriends (girls’ on-course clinics) – a complement to our Saturday Girls’ clinic, but focusing on the on-course component to get middle school-aged girls out on the course more often.

Hopefully you can see that our programming uses a wide variety of clinics targeting all levels of golfers in an effort to engage our core golfers as well as our new golfers and upcoming junior golfers. Although we are technically a seasonal club, we are extremely fortunate to have a teaching facility with six TrackMan bays that keeps our membership coming to the club in the off-season to continue working on their games.

In addition, for several years I have been working with a graphic designer on creating and updating a drill library, which is a collection of many of the ideas that I’ve been working on over the years in a usable and accessible format. This year I added a substantial amount of material to the library, which I have shared with students to help improve their games. I am also working with the club’s administrative team to update the club’s website with our programs, including outlining a Roadmap for Junior Golf, a College Golf 2030 Master Plan, as well as other useful items for my teaching practice.

In short, I’m extremely proud of the strides we’ve made in the development of our instructional program and how it has benefitted the club as a whole, and I am extremely excited about the future at Quaker Ridge. When golfers play better, they come back more often and support the club more, so our goal from an instructional standpoint is to keep giving the members more of what they want and need to help them with their game and keep them coming back.

Thank you very much for your consideration of my application!