How to Become a Professional Golf Teacher
By Steve Silverman
Although your chances of earning a spot on the professional tour circuit are slim, the opportunities to be a golf instructor are rather plentiful. You must first prove yourself to be a solid golfer. You also need to be able to communicate and teach the skills that will help someone else improve at his own game. A good teaching pro should also get certified by the United States Golf Teachers Federation.
Instructions
Difficulty: Moderately Challenging
Make a determination of where you stand in your career. You may be a very good high school or college golfer, but that does not mean you can make a living on the pro tour. Now is the time to consider a career as an instructor. Talk to as many golf coaches and instructors as you can. Get a job as an assistant in a pro shop, where you will start off advising people about clubs and golf balls. This is effectively your first opportunity to teach.
Go to the United States Golf Teaching Federation (USGTF) for your first level of certification. You will learn the proper techniques for teaching the proper golf grip, the proper alignment and the proper way to swing.
Go to the USGTF and get Level 2 certification. You will take a four-day course and learn how to diagnose a golfer's faults and how to fix them. You will also take a course on how to teach the short game as well as another class on the psychology of the game.
Get certified by the USGTF at Levels 3 and 4. The certification process not only shows your students that you have been trained, it also offers you new ideas on how to communicate with your students. Level 3 is a 6-day course that gives you international golf teaching status upon completion. Completing Level 4 means that you are a master teacher, opening up the highest possible pay grade for you as an instructor.
Employ video cameras in your lessons. Show your students the videotape to enhance their learning experience. If they can see what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, they have a much better chance to learn and improve on their own.
Tips & Warnings
Work on your communication skills. That is the key to teaching.
About The Author
Steve Silverman is an award-winning writer, covering sports since 1980. Silverman authored The Minnesota Vikings: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Who's Better, Who's Best in Football -- The Top 60 Players of All-Time, among others, and placed in the Pro Football Writers of America awards three times. Silverman holds a Master of Science in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism.
