Posted: 4/21/2026 10:29:29 PM EDT
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Talk me off the ledge here. Or just push me to my death because I am probably nuts. Like the title says I've been out of the game for a bit. The backstory is that I was part of the winning team for high school golf in the 90's that won the state 3 years. Beating even Cypress high and Tiger. I was a scratch golfer then and was up until 12 years ago when I had to hang it up for financial reasons. Anyway I can play though I'm pretty rusty right now. That will come back with some time though. I look back and I should have pursued a career in golf back in the 90's but I had burnt myself out as I was a stupid kid. I turned down several golf scholarship offers to go be a ski bum. I have several contacts in the industry some famous, but I'm just in the thinking about it stage and don't want to bother them. I figured good ol arfcom would be a better test subject. Has anyone done this? Did you go the PGA route or one of the others? I'd prefer the PGA route but not certain I want to take 3-5 years to complete. either way I need to past the PAT for whatever route I go and I'm confident I can easily do that once I take a few months to get the game back on order. any advice is appreciated. I can't retire and probably never will but I need something i enjoy for my last hopefully few decades. |
| Honestly I am not sure who would want to be the client of someone that had only recently returned to the game. You are going to need to develop a reputation at a club to get clients anyway. I think I would set my sights on being a zero or negative handicap player again at your club before deciding to become an instructor. You may well not have the same skills as you did when you were younger. At the very least you are probably not going to hit the ball the way you did as a kid. |
It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.
| The bad thing is people nowadays suck in general. Afraid to change, try anything new, glued to their phones instead of putting in work. Now imagine trying to "help" them with swing issues. A few will get it but the rest will just be a pain in the ass and badmouth you when they don't get instant gratification. |
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Originally Posted By BigPolska: The bad thing is people nowadays suck in general. Afraid to change, try anything new, glued to their phones instead of putting in work. Now imagine trying to "help" them with swing issues. A few will get it but the rest will just be a pain in the ass and badmouth you when they don't get instant gratification. People have always sucked at golf and been bad students. Most coaches suck, too. 
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Originally Posted By SeanRDFA: People have always sucked at golf and been bad students. Most coaches suck, too. Attached File |
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Do you want to do this for a job to make money or do you just want to teach golf? If you just want to teach golf, the First Tee is always accepting people to volunteer their time teaching juniors. Maybe you could try that for a little while to make sure it is what you want to do. |
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I went the PGA route after playing in college. Back then it was a playing ability test (two rounds at 77 or under) and two sessions at the PGA business school but don't take that lightly, it is more difficult than you might think. I think it is similar today but not sure on that. I do recall that it did not take 3-5 years to complete, it was more like 2 at the most. Golf paid for my college but when I got into the business at a private club it was 60 hours per week, weekends & holidays and our local 18 hole tournaments were on Monday. Back then that's just the way it was and it left little free time for anything else. If you can somehow build a rep and just do private lessons and not work at a club, go for it. There is a guy at my course that doesn't work in the shop but the course hired him to give clinics and lessons for maybe a total of 15 hours per week. Pretty good gig for an older guy at about $100-150 per hour. Maybe get affiliated with a good driving range? Open your own range? I've always wanted to do that but it's too late for me now. Or, maybe become a paid high school or college coach? Some cities also offer continuing education courses for adults and golf is sometimes included. I did that as well, group lessons of 10 students etc. |
My Dad: with respect to your chosen profession son, do what you want to do, who you want to do it for and where you want to do it.