Stephen Sieracki

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
PGA Section Teacher of the Year, Golf Digest Best in State

Other awards won:
2016 Youth Player Development 2015 to 2025 Golf Digest Best Young Teacher

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 400
Female: 50
Junior: 150

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):
I am currently the Director of Instruction at The Legacy Club at Woodcrest in Cherry Hill, NJ. This is my fourth year at the facility. My role at the golf course is to oversee all of the teaching and coaching programs, which consists of individual lessons, ladies’ clinics, junior summer camps, junior golf programs, golf schools and training our staff. As the club has recently taken on new ownership, we are excited about our new driving range and the plans for a state-of-the-art learning center and second indoor golf studio. The club will lean on me to help with the design of both buildings due to my experience, understanding and passion for how these rooms can successfully grow the game and help members better themselves and utilize the tools and resources available to them.

A typical day consists of spending seven to ten hours teaching. In one year, that is well over 3,000 hours of golf instruction. These lessons primarily consist of on the tee instruction, on the course playing lessons, lessons on our two practice holes, as well as instruction in our indoor teaching facility during the very hot summer days and winter months. In addition, I currently complete 30 hours of online lessons per week after my daily in person instruction concludes. The online coaching is filmed and demonstrated in my new indoor golf studio that I recently just installed in my home.
This being my fifth full season at the club I have fully embraced the golf boom since the pandemic began. As of October 2020, the membership has grown 30 to 40 percent. Since I have been there, I have brought in 15 new members, which generated over $70,000 in revenue for the club. When I am not giving lessons, I am out playing and socializing with the membership in order to build a report with our Legacy Club community, and ensuring I am visible and accessible to the members. I have also found this to help with member retention, an increase in lesson revenue as well as an increase in club sales.

Not only has the teaching business improved substantially, our club fitting business has thrived as well. This was our fourth year using Trackman 4 with simulator capability. As a result of this state-of-the-art technology, paired with the social media advertising on my platforms, we have successfully sold over $80,000 in clubs for the second season in a row. A large portion of this $80,000 comes from nonmembers due to students finding me online or by word of mouth. I have successfully turned one of them into a full-time member this year. That is 16,000 for one member, with our initiation fee starting at $10,000. This past season, I sold between 15K – 20K worth of clubs alone. This has also contributed to a greater demand for private fittings at the club.

Not only have I helped implement new programs at our facility, I have also helped oversee new upgrades to the golf operation. A large improvement we made in 2019 was adding an indoor practice facility, equipped with high-speed iPads and Trackman 4. In designing our indoor facility, we met with various vendors at the PGA show to make sure the room was equipped with the best technology and aesthetics. This has allowed for all staff members to increase their teaching revenue during the winter months. The facility has been so successful, there are plans to build a second within the near future. Additionally, just this past offseason we made dramatic improvements to our driving range. I was heavily involved in these conversations from the early stages of planning and development. We added 60 yards onto the driving range and used a Bermuda hybrid grass that helps with the wear and tear of the facility. Phase 2 of this project has just begun with building a state-of-the-art learning center. These conversations have just begun and I have been in communication with the GM and owner to give them my thoughts and input. Once this project is complete, we will have one of the best training facilities in South Jersey.

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
Over the last two years I have partnered with Eric Cogorno, a well-known instructor from Bethlehem, PA to help grow an online instruction platform. This Facebook, Instagram and YouTube teaching program has generated a significant following. Smart phones have created an immediate accessibility for all generations with the ability to film your swing, which opens up the avenues of online coaching. I have heavily focused on this teaching platform within the last three years, and found that it has also benefited me with my in-person instruction. Due to the popularity of these online videos and social media outreach, there has been a significant demand for follow up in person lessons. Social media has allowed me to not only extend my reach for the game and teaching, but also add an innovative spin to my videos by adding voice overs and music which students and members enjoy learning from.

• Elite Junior Golf Instruction
• Top 50 Coach Andy Plummer
• Aim-Point Golf Clinic
• One on One golf Instruction
• Online Platform/ Indoor Golf Studio
• Mentor Coaching Program

Elite Junior/Professional Golf Instruction

I created this program to target the juniors and college players who really want to play competitive golf, and possibly at the professional level. I structure this program to mirror what occurs on the PGA Tour during a typical week. This is a monthly program that runs from March through September. Recently, I have added an online service functionality so that I can reach more students. It also makes it easier to stay in touch with professional players that travel around the country playing in top tier events. This program is not for everyone, it is very intense and requires a lot of work by both the student and teacher. I began to offer families a one-month trial version to help them decide if this is something they can fully commit to. It is guaranteed that if you are in this program, you will lower your scores and play competitively in tournaments.

Over the past three years I had 6 of my players in the top 5 on the Philly Junior POY. Age groups 13-15 as well as 16 to 18. One of them was named Player of the Year in 2020 and had 5 wins. He finished 2nd in the Carl Arena High School Golf Tournament as a Sophomore and 3rd this past year as a junior. This is the biggest high school tournament in South Jersey. He was also runner up in the GAP Junior tournament at Bala GC this past summer. He also finished the season inside the Top 10 on GAP Junior Player of the Year standings.
Chris Crawford who I have been helping for over a year had a very solid season on PGA Tour Latin America. He shot a career low of 10 rounds under 65 during the season. He had two 54 hole leads one in Columbia shooting rounds of 65 63 65 and another in Canada. In addition to other top finishes. He recently just got through stage 1 of Q-School for the Korn Ferry Tour. • Meet once a week for an hour. (Either on the range, putting green, or on the golf course)
• We look at what has been happening in their game at the time and work on where the golfer is the most deficient. We track:
o Greens hit
o Putts per round
o Fairways hit
o What side of the course do you miss on
o Proximity to the hole from 125 and in
o Three putt tendency
o Scrambling
o Strokes gained putting
• Throughout the season of practice, I will create before and after pictures using the OnForm app. In addition, I will do video reviews and send to them.

Top 50 Coach Andy Plummer

This past August I had my good friend, Andy Plummer travel to Woodcrest for a weekend of golf clinics. Each golf clinic sold out instantly and our membership was very happy. The format for the golf clinics was four students from 9am to 1pm as well as an afternoon session from 2pm to 4pm with Andy and I teaching on both sides of the driving range. We were on the range three straight days from 9am to 6pm. We taught a total of 24 students in three days! (See appendix for more details)

Each golfer left with detailed before and after pictures that they can save in their phone. They also left with detailed video analysis going over what they would need to practice as well as a personal video we made for them right there on the range.

Aim-Point Golf Clinic

This is the second summer in a row I had Mike Dynda, one of the best short game coaches in our area, come down and teach two aimpoint express classes to our members. This was a very eye-opening experience for all in attendance. Not only do days like this help our members it helps me become a better coach. Many of the members who registered had heard of aimpoint from television coverage alone, but they did not know much about the system. Most had no idea that they could use their feet in order to read a green. Off the bat, we received feedback that reading a green was very confusing, but after this clinic they found it to be much easier and this helped eliminate much of the guess work. This was the best clinic of the year
One on one Golf Instruction

As I have previously mentioned, golf has really exploded within the last three years. I have been extremely busy and have had to implement a booking system so members and clients can easily schedule lessons. In addition to the golf surge from COVID 19 my online business is allowing me to reach a larger demographic of people who will and have traveled from all over the country to see me in person. I am currently teaching between 7-9 lessons per day and am continuously booked at least two to three weeks in advance. I had Thriv Sports touch up my website and implement a booking app on my phone and website to direct students. In addition to the booking app, I was a beta tester for the new OnForm app during my lessons. I was constantly giving the creator of this app my feedback and they were implementing my daily input into their application. I am confident that there are not many instructors who look at as many pictures as I do, and the creator of this app has reassured the same. This application allows me to send voice over video to my students, in addition to sending them before and after pictures. This also allows my students to self-diagnose when I am not present to help them.
The OnForm app is currently the best golf app on the market for coaches. I would like to think that my input as well as some input from some of my colleagues has helped to the success.

Online Platform/ Indoor Golf Studio

As I stated earlier, I have partnered with Eric Cogorno, a well-known instructor from Bethlehem, PA, over the past two years to help grow and build an online instruction platform. The platform that I have helped build started with 200 members back in early 2020, and has grown to over 1,500 members. In addition to increasing our following, we have added four elite golf instructors to help us keep up with demand, as well as a full-time club fitter. These students pay a monthly fee in order to be a member of a private Facebook group, or they can choose to be a part of our CoachNow community. (I will expand more on CoachNow later on) They receive a monthly video swing analysis, as well as an active private community to ask questions, engage with other members, gain access to 500 plus drills and practice guide videos on the site. Our service level agreement is also one of our strong suits, as each member will receive feedback within 48 hours of uploading their swing.

The time and energy I have dedicated to this online community has also led to a significant increase in students seeking me out virtually, and coming to take lessons in person. When I joined this platform in January 2020, I was averaging 5 to 10 online lessons per week, I am currently up to 30 to 40 per week and it continues to grow. We have been able to reach people from across the world and help them with their golf, and grow passion for the game. In doing so, we have discovered that a total of 96% of the people who join the community shoot lower scores within 30 days. I strongly feel that the digital world of golf is the way of the future, due to the ease and speed of information at your fingertips. By dedicating my time to this evolution within the game and working with other top instructors across the country, I am confident this platform will continue to thrive.

Eric and I have also filmed over 30 YouTube videos together which have received over 1.5 million views. This YouTube channel has over 200,000 subscribers and over 40 million total channel views. With the two of us working together and sharing our platforms, we can reach a significant amount of people and grow our brands and the game at a rapid pace.Growing this online teaching platform has been challenging, rewarding and fun. I enjoy seeing all the great results and feedback we receive daily as a group. We are making a significant footprint within the industry, and changing lives at the same time. I truly believe we are on the forefront of the next generation of golf instruction. This is going to be a model future companies will look to imitate, and an example of what can be done. I am looking forward to our team expanding into helping 10 – 20,000 golfers globally in the coming years.

Recently my family and I moved to Voorhees, NJ and we renovated an old office into a state-of-the-art indoor golf studio equipped with Flight Scope and E6 technology. Creating this studio has allowed me to spend additional time on my online golf business and provides me with more flexibility as to when I can film online golf lessons, as well as mentor and help train other golf coaches. I now have the extended ability to complete live FaceTime golf lessons with golfers across the country and am very excited about growing this part of my business. Below are some pictures of the golf studio while I am doing a live lesson with a student. A standard live online lesson will last 30 minutes, but the student has the option to request less or more depending on where their issues or concerns lie.