The highest designation a PGA of America Golf Professional can achieve is PGA Master Professional certification. Since the program began in 1969, only 477 men and women have earned status in this exclusive club of lifelong learning.
The PGA Master Professional program was recently updated as part of the PGA of America lifelong learning strategy to provide additional support to those hoping to reach this rarified achievement. Pursuing this designation allows you to study in the career path you’ve chosen – Executive Management, Golf Operations or Teaching & Coaching – and, after being employed for 10 years, an individual can apply for the PGA Master Professional program through the PGA Education department.
Once in the program, candidates will serve as a mentor to five PGA Certified Professionals while being assigned a mentor of their own from the roster of current PGA Master Professionals. With their mentor’s help, they’ll complete a Capstone project and present it to a review and evaluation team at the Home of the PGA of America in Frisco, Texas. Successful candidates will show that they understand the skills required to demonstrate mastery, can integrate and apply those skills in career path-specific environments and demonstrate day-to-day experience and expertise that validates their mastery.
To help raise awareness of the resources available to potential PGA Master Professional candidates, PGA Magazine will publish a series of stories in upcoming issues about the mentoring process that has helped numerous individuals reach PGA Master Professional status. To start this series, we spoke with PGA Senior Director of Education and Organizational Development Dawes Marlatt and award-winning PGA Coach Warren Bottke – both PGA Master Professionals themselves – to discuss the program and the value it can bring to a PGA of America Golf Professional’s career.
PGA Magazine: For those who aren’t familiar with the program, how did the PGA Master Professional program start and how has it evolved?
Warren Bottke: The PGA of America in 1969 decided it wanted to create a new designation for the best of the best in the business, and that became the PGA Master Professional Program. It started as a way for golf professionals to improve themselves and show the highest degree of excellence in the profession, and it has grown and changed over time. I learned about it in 1974 when there were only 13 PGA Master Professionals, and I was very intrigued. I immediately knew I wanted to be part of that team. In recent years we’re seeing a real resurgence of the program, and we want to make sure people have the resources they need to start and complete the program with success.
Dawes Marlatt: The PGA Master Professional Program is a way for the Association to showcase its best and brightest. It’s experience-based, and you follow the lifelong learning steps through the PGA Specialized and PGA Certified Professional programs in your chosen career path before embarking on the PGA Master Professional Program. It’s rigorous, but the fraternity of PGA Master Professionals is a rare group of high-achieving people who value high performance and the wisdom it brings.
What kind of support can PGA of America Golf Professionals expect to find when they enter the PGA Master Professional Program?
Marlatt: We’ve established a mentoring program to help guide people through the PGA Master Professional Program. Once you enter the program, you’ll be assigned a PGA Master Professional as a mentor, and they’ll serve as an advisor as you work through the process of creating and presenting a self-study project in your career path. If you’re in the Teaching & Coaching career path, you’ll also participate in a live lesson as part of your project. That mentor has already been through this process themselves, and they’ll be able to help you through all the steps and keep you on track without getting overwhelmed.
Bottke: I’ve mentored at least 50 people through the PGA Master Professional Program, and my goal as a mentor is to make sure there’s no way my mentee can fail. That means giving you a framework to be prepared to build your presentation on a topic within your career path – something that intrigues you, or that you want to learn more about to better yourself. Once that’s done, we help you get your presentation ready to present to a review and evaluation board at PGA Frisco. This becomes a life lesson in preparation, research and presenting to a board, which can come in handy in many other situations in your career. The whole process usually takes a year or so, which is also valuable in learning more about time management.
What does it mean for someone’s career to become a PGA Master Professional?
Marlatt: The PGA Master Professional Program is a wonderful process. It’s a journey of reflection on all the things you’ve achieved, all the lives you’ve touched through golf. The process itself changes you for the better, and at the end you have the highest certification this Association offers. This is going to help you show how valuable you are and help differentiate you from your peers.
Bottke: To me, a PGA Master Professional is someone who’s gone the extra mile to be an absolute subject matter expert. It allows you to separate yourself from your peers in a way, and that makes you a desirable mentor to the many young PGA Associates we have coming up in the Association. It can also help you in your career – I’ve seen PGA Master Professionals who were able to bypass the first round of interviews for an open position, or even be sought out for top jobs. It’s going to elevate you in multiple ways throughout your career.
How do you suggest getting started for someone who has satisfied the requirements for entering the PGA Master Professional Program?
Bottke: Just get started! Once you make that decision, you’ll reach out to PGA Education and you’ll be paired with a mentor, and you’ll start working on building your presentation. If you’re giving a teaching & coaching presentation, we’ll talk about the 30-minute live lesson you’re going to give. We’ll get you organized, make sure you’re prepared and be a resource – then you’ll be ready to help others do the same thing in the future as one of the top people in your profession.
Marlatt: I’ve talked to a number of accomplished PGA of America Golf Professionals who question whether they’re “good enough” and have enough time to be a PGA Master Professional, who might have a bit of Imposter Syndrome. And I’ll say what I’ve told them all: You can do it. We’ll get you started, we’ll match you with a mentor and we’ll take you through a step-by-step plan that will help you with time management. What everyone finds out once they get started on the PGA Master Professional Program is that it really inspires them, because it’s spending time researching and learning about a topic that you’ve chosen that is important and compelling to you. The project is tough to put down once you’ve gotten going. A number of high-level, very busy PGA of America Golf Professionals have completed the program, and it’s a life-changing feeling of success. It’s a truly rewarding feeling and accomplishment. —Don Jozwiak
Editor’s note: For more information about the PGA Master Professional Program, log on to PGA.org or email PGAMEMBEREDU@pgahq.com, or call 866-866-3382 and select option 6.
