Jeff Ellison, PGA
Happy 2020. As we start another decade, make it a point to engage with your association and take advantage of all the programs and benefits the PGA offers to make your life and career better. Whether it’s tuning up your career development plan with Monte Koch, enhancing your PGA Junior League program with Branden Thompson to benefit your facility and your bottom line, or participating in a few of our 230 section and chapter events — the options are out there, use them!
We are starting a new feature with this issue of ForeWord Press. You will see a menu selection on the front page entitled “Employment Opportunities”. This will take you to a quick list of available positions within the Section. Each one will link to the job posting on PGA Job Board, jobs.pga.org. The goal is to give you a quick snapshot of the openings and make it easier for you to take a quick look and see if a job interests you. We also hope this will help you attract a few more applications for your open positions.
To take advantage of this service as an employer, just post your job on PGA Job Board and Monte will pull a report for us on or around the 10th and 25th of each month. PGA Job Board is still your vehicle to post jobs, this addition to ForeWord Press will simply help show our professionals what is available on PGA Job Board.
I’m off to the PGA Show next week to meet with our many sponsors. We are very fortunate to receive all the support we see each year. All your thank you notes and emails really help us renew support for your programs. Please keep it up.
The PGA Show also serves as the catalyst for not only releases about new products but also releases from the PGA of America on new programs and initiatives from HQ. Keep an eye out for emails from National and the Section about new things that benefit you.
For those of you staring college tuition in the face, I encourage you to apply for the PGA Financial Assistance Fund Scholarship. This application not only serves as the application for this scholarship but also the two Bunny Mason Scholarships offered by the Junior Golf Fund. One application, two opportunities – participate if this fits you!
https://resources.pga.org/member-benefits/scholarship-programs
Our sponsors are instrumental to our success and I’m happy to report that Wildhorse Resort and Casino is back to sponsor the Central Washington Chapter and the Wildhorse Senior Oregon Open Invitational. We enjoy a long – 18 year – relationship with Wildhorse. Why not send a group of members their way this year to enjoy their great facility? If you have not seen the new clubhouse and restaurant, Mike Hegarty, PGA would be happy to show you around!
Section entries are about to open, the chapter pro-am allocations are in process in a few chapters and opening shortly in others, so watch your email and we’ll see you at an event soon!
Enjoy the break, we’ll be going full speed before you know it!
Jeff Ellison, PGA
CEO, Pacific NW Section PGA
The Pacific Northwest Section is proud to join with our friends at Yamaha to present the 2020 YAMAHA PLAYER DEVELOPMENT GRANT PROGRAM. This initiative, launched in 2015, reflects both our commitments to growing the game of golf in the great Northwest. Two separate Player Development Grant Programs are available to support Pacific Northwest Section professionals. Our goals are to provide as many grants as possible, with a maximum of $1,000 per grant. We will focus on enhancing your programs rather than fully funding them.
At the end of the grant we’ll have two requirements. First, provide documentation in the form of receipts on the use of the funds and second, write a short one-page “Best Practice” on your program that we can share with other professionals on our website (feel free to take a look at the best practices to get some ideas). We also created a Best Practices Wiki where you will be able to easily search best practices by program type and more!
Best Practices - Past Recipients
This opportunity is open to all Pacific Northwest Section Members and Associates in good standing who seek funding to help support their own Player Development programs. This program is focused on ADULT programming. Our approach will be specifically broad and we encourage you to think outside the box. Our goals are to provide as many grants as possible, with a maximum of $1,000 per grant. A total of $14,000 is available under this program.
Do you need funding to buy rental sets for your beginner classes? Do you need funding for a meet and greet reception to introduce Get Golf Ready? Do you need part of the cost covered of a booth at the Home Show? The list could be endless. The Committee will consider all requests and your applications will help us expand our vision on what programs should be considered.
The Pacific Northwest PGA Junior Golf Fund is also proud to bring to you the 2020 YOUTH PLAYER DEVELOPMENT GRANT PROGRAM. This initiative reflects the commitment of the Junior Fund Board to growing Junior Golf in the great Northwest. Donations to the 1% Club have contributed greatly to this program. Our goals are to provide as many grants as possible, with a maximum of $1,000 per grant. A total of $12,500 is available under this program.
Do you need funding to buy junior sets or Snag eqipment for your beginner classes? Do you need funding for your personal Golf in Schools program? Do you want to offer scholarships to potential students to pay half their registration fees? The list could be endless. The Committee will consider all requests and your applications will help us expand our vision on what programs should be considered.
Applications for both programs are due no later than March 13, 2020. Please email to ahinzpeter@pgahq.com or fax to: 360-456-6745.
Monte Koch, PGA of America Employment Consultant
Newsflash: “The Golf Business Is Not that Easy…In Fact, It’s Pretty Tough” (No kidding right?) However, no business, industry or line of work is easy. For every advantage in a given career, there are trade-offs. While technology continually advances and things are supposed to get easier, the pressure to perform and to produce results grows.
Our employers in golf (even if we’re the owner) need more from us in 2020 than in 2000. In the past 20 years, the focus of our business, like so many others has been to build “higher performance cultures.” However, staffs and communities overly focused on performance may not actually produce the best, or be the healthiest or most sustainable team model. The problem in being overly focused on performance to drive results may not seem obvious, but I invite you to watch the Four Disciplines of Execution for a simple explanation.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution in a Nutshell
In the video, Chris McChesney presents the difference between two types of indicators of success: lead measures and lag measures. Lag measures track the success of your goal. “They’re called lags because by the time you see them, the performance that drove them has already passed.” In our business, our measurables are things like rounds of golf, dollars per round, or number of dues paying members, etc. and these results fall into the category of lag measures.
These lag measures are scorekeeping components on the performance of our facility, so yes, they are important. And because they’re so important, leaders can overly focus on them. There’s a problem here and we’ve all likely experienced it in our work life. According to Tony Schwartz, (the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working), “…a performance-driven culture often exacerbates people’s fears by creating up a zero-sum game in which people are either succeeding or failing and ‘winners’ quickly get weeded out from ‘losers.’”
Do you know of anyone (or have you ever thought yourself about) hiding, rationalizing, minimizing, covering up or denying a bad outcome, a weakness or a mistake just to get the “result that is desired?” That is a result of the fear present in a performance-driven culture.
Schwartz suggests that in a growth-based culture, results still matter (because they have to). However, “in addition to rewarding success, (growth cultures) also treat failures and shortcomings as critical opportunities for learning and improving, individually and collectively.” A quick thought on your leadership style (or mine) might be to evaluate where we’re focused. Are we overly focused on the results or “lag measures”, unwittingly creating a fear of failing in those we lead, and even ourselves?
Let’s grab hold of the concept that results or lag measures are just that, a result of doing the right things. They are, in fact, predicted by the lead measures. In the Four Disciplines of Execution, lead measures are intentional, accountability based activities. “Lead measures track the critical activities that drive or lead to the lag measure.” Put another way, results don’t cause results. In golf, my follow-through doesn’t result in a golf shot…how could it?
So, what does generate results? I am suggesting that growth culture behaviors, made into values and accountability between members of a staff, of a service team, are the lead measures that actually predict the results that we care about on the bottom line.
What would creating a growth-centric team or staff culture look like? I suggest we look to Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, co-founders of “Minds at Work”, to see what they suggest for building a “deliberately developmental culture.” They suggest we will need a blend of individual (people who get the why and buy into it) and organizational (we know our why, we have a noble cause/purpose) components including:
To close, Schwartz makes a good point in distinguishing the fundamental difference he sees between a performance culture and a growth culture. He says, regarding a growth culture “that fueling growth requires a delicate balance between challenging and nurturing. Think about a young child beginning to venture into the world. The infant crawls away from its mother to explore the environment, but frequently looks back and returns periodically in order to feel reassured and comforted. We are not so different as adults. Too much challenge, too continuously — without sufficient reassurance — eventually overwhelms us and breaks us down. Too little challenge — too much time spent in our comfort zone — precludes our growth and eventually makes us weaker.”
It’s this delicate balance, where the boss carefully, and gently has the difficult “coaching conversation” with the staffer, not because they’re a command and control leader, but because they want to ensure the staffer knows “they’re worth the risk, worth the difficulty” of this conversation, and they are valued by the leader and the whole team.
If you’re interested in creating or building a growth culture in the place you have influence, let’s connect soon and start growing together.
Monte Koch, PGA Certified Professional/Player Development | Career Consultant
PGA Career Services | PGA of America
Serving PGA professionals, employers in the Pacific NW & Rocky Mountain PGA Sections
Email: Mkoch@pgahq.com Cell: 206/335-5260
Monte Koch, PGA of America Employment Consultant
These are primarily “PGA Professional” only positions posted on the PGA Career Services Job Board:
https://jobs.pga.orgInternship, non-PGA positions, strictly retail and “franchise” ownership positions will not be listed here.Please visit jobs.pga.org to see these types of opportunities.
Listed in order of most recent first. Note: these are listed as of 8 am, Jan 10, 2020. Positions listed here are not guaranteed to be available. Visit jobs.pga.org to see the most current listings.
| Job Title | Facility | PGA Contact (if applicable) |
|---|---|---|
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Bear Creek CC Woodinville, WA |
Jon Larson, PGA |
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Tetherow GC Bend, OR |
|
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Lakeland Village GC Allyn, WA |
Eric Briggs, PGA |
| 1ST ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Circling Raven GC Worley, ID |
Dave Christensen, PGA |
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Fairwood G&CC Renton, WA |
Kathy Wake, PGA |
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Tumble Creek Club Cle Elum, WA |
Adam Alldredge, PGA |
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Waverley CC Portland, OR |
Jim Schaeffer, PGA |
| ASSOCIATE GOLF PROFESSIONAL | OGA Golf Course Woodburn, OR |
Mark Keating, PGA |
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | MeadowLark CC Great Falls, MT |
Dudley Beard, PGA |
| FIRST ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Wildhorse Resort GC Pendleton, OR |
Mike Hegarty, PGA |
| FIRST ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Birch Creek GC (formerly Pendleton CC Pendleton, OR |
Mike Hegarty, PGA |
| ASSISTANT GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Bend GC Bend, OR |
Emily Anderson, PGA |
Listed in order of most recent first. Note: these are listed as of 8 am, Jan 10, 2020. Positions listed here are not guaranteed to be available. Visit jobs.pga.org to see the most current listings.
| Job Title | Facility | PGA Contact (if applicable) |
|---|---|---|
| PLAYER DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR | Meadow Park GC Tacoma, WA |
Erik Haag, PGA |
| DIRECTOR OF INSTRUCTION | Fairwood G&CC Renton, WA |
Kathy Wake, PGA |
| CERTIFIED PERSONAL COACH | GolfTEC – Cascade Station – Portland, OR | Chris Woods, PGA |
| DIRECTOR OF PLAYER DEVELOPMENT | Canterwood G&CC Gig Harbor, WA |
Dale Davis, PGA |
| TEACHING PROFESSIONAL | TC Golf, LLC Spokane, WA |
Tim Connor, PGA |
| CERTIFIED PERSONAL COACH | GolfTEC – Bellevue Bellevue, WA |
Brett Wilkinson, PGA |
| CERTIFIED PERSONAL COACH | GolfTEC – Lynnwood Lynnwood, WA |
Brett Wilkinson, PGA |
| CERTIFIED PERSONAL COACH | GolfTEC – South Lake Union – Seattle, WA | Brett Wilkinson, PGA |
Note: not all positions like these will be posted here; instead, postings will generally be at the request/approval of the employer.
| Job Title | Facility | PGA Contact (if applicable) |
|---|---|---|
| HEAD GOLF PROFESSIONAL | Roseburg CC Roseburg, OR |
|
| GENERAL MANAGER | Michelbook CC McMinnville, OR |
Bob Marshall, PGA |
Branden Thompson, PGA - Regional League Manager
Things are starting to heat up with PGA Jr. League. Captain registration is going well and player registration is just around the corner. Here are a few items to keep in mind.
Player Registration
Get ready. Player registration will officially open February 3rd, with national promotion soon to follow. Make sure you have your program listed by registering as a Captain now! There are players and parents out there looking for a place to play. Word of mouth is spreading to people that you might not know you can reach. Take advantage of the initial wave of national promotion by having your program ready for registration when it opens.
Captain Registration
You will need your SportsEngine login information to register. The only change from last year in the registration process is the opportunity to include coach bios, expanded program details and schedules. If you need help getting registered, reach out.
Register at: www.pgajrleague.com/captains
17u
If you would like to build on the success of the core program and offer 17u you will need to complete a separate captain registration. 17u grew a lot last year and is on the way to be the perfect program as a middle school/JV prep program. Don’t let your players fall out of the development funnel after 13u. It’s a great way to keep teenagers involved and living a healthy lifestyle away from their screens.
Captain Resource Center
It’s one stop shopping for everything PGA Jr. League. From this one site you can access your registrations, marketing tools, team kit requests, game day materials and more. Spend some time browsing the site and take advantage of all the resources on it that make running your teams easier.
Let me know how I can help,
Branden Thompson, PGA
561-293-2585
bthompson@pgahq.com