Ricky Kline

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
N/A

Other awards won:

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 500
Female: 200
Junior: 500

Total number of individual clinics given per year:
10

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 I’ve made it a point to spend more time on the golf course with my students and have encouraged my other coaches to do the same. It’s more difficult for us as we are an off-course facility and going to the golf course isn’t as simple as walking out the door and playing a few holes. It takes more planning and takes a significant chunk out of our days. We’ve found the best time to do it is either early morning, later in the evening, or on our days off.

What I’ve done personally, is play with with as many of my students as possible this past summer. I didn’t charge anyone for the time on the golf course for any of the sessions. I did about 15 of these rounds throughout the summer. Half were 9 hole rounds and the other half were 18 hole rounds. We used these rounds to function as many benefits to the student. They were able to see how I played the golf course and how I let good/bad shots effect my round, I was able to observe them in how they played on the golf course and how well or poorly they transferred what we were working on off the course to on the the course, and I was able to help them with specific difficult situations on the course that we may not be able to do as easily at our facility.

Engaging with the students on a golf course provided a great boost not only to the students, but benefited my facility and my own coaching. Those students took more lessons following our session together which benefitted myself and the facility. A few of them actually ended up purchasing golf clubs, because they witnessed how I was playing with mine and became interested in newer technology (these situations were ones where we talked about the benefits of clubs prior and when they saw the benefits in person their interest grew rapidly). All of the students wanted me to do more of these in the future and offered to pay me for my time in the future. Ultimately, even though I charged them nothing initially, long term this could provide a foundation of programs that could benefit my facility and myself, along with providing a service for our students/customers.

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
I’ve done “supervised practice sessions” with my students. It’s completely free to them and it’s at set times. The expectation is I am personally working on my own game during these times and they are welcome to come out and work on theirs as well. There’s no charge for the session, just need to purchase a bucket of range balls. I would then talk with whoever comes to the session and make sure they are practicing the things we discussed and that they are on the correct path, all in a no pressure atmosphere.