Thomas Hawkeye Valdez

Please indicate past awards won/recognitions:
Golf Digest Best in State, Other (Indicate specific awards below in 3-a)

Other awards won:
Golf Digest Best Young Teachers in America 2020-2022, GOLFTEC Award for Outstanding achievement in Instruction 2014-2023

Total number of individual lessons given per year:
Male: 1100
Female: 300
Junior: 500

Total number of individual clinics given per year:
70

Please indicate any Growth of the Game initiatives your facility/academy has launched over the past year (please give specifics on such programs):
Recently I just launch our Par and Play PE class. This is an off campus PE class that I teach. Elementary , middle school and high school students have the option to leave campus early to participate in a golf class at Trophy Club. They do not have to be a member. The goal of the class is to help these students get ready to play in high school. We meet 3 days a week. Tuesdays we go play. We start at 4:00 pm and right now play till dark. Each week we have different games (2/3/4 player scramble, modified stable ford , low rounds. Most green etc). We also keep track of different stats each week. I use those stats to plan out practice days. On practice days are an hour an a half long. We work on putting, short game shots, full swing for 1 hour and the last 30 minutes we work on Mach 3 speed training and work out. Days are Tuesday , Wednesday and Friday. Total time for the week is close to 6 hours.

Please share any programming you have made to keep your customers & students engaged:
Once a week I have course lesson day. This is when I set a tee time and students can email me to join. We spend 2 hours on the course going over different shots, course management and rules. This is a great way to get students from the range to the course. I have also ran simulator par 3 contest. We use the Trackman in our Swing Suite and we play different par 3 course. Time is usually 45 minutes for a two some to play the par 3 event. We did a parent child Halloween event with 36 teams and are planning to do this at least once a quarter.

I also offer a large PGA Jr League program. I have grown the program from 10 to 35 per class and am running PGA Jr League year round now. For more beginner juniors our Crush it program teaches the game and gets juniors ready to level up to PGA Jr League and eventually the Par and Play class. Adding in Golf Schools, Beginner clinics called Game On and Scoring Universities for adults. We off a large range of programming to get our members, guest and non-members engaged, improving and having fun.