Trillium Rose, PGAPGA of America Director of Instruction,Woodmont Country Club,Rockville, Maryland
Would you take just one violin lesson? Probably not. Yet, many golfers begin their instruction journey with a one-off lesson – often with hopes that a comprehensive diagnostic session will give them all the keys they need to get better.
For PGA of America and LPGA Golf Professional Trillium Rose, building comprehensive programs that combine individual lessons with group sessions gives players what they really want: a better game at a right-sized investment.
“The vast majority of people have a hard time staying motivated on their own, or being able to really feel what they’re doing,” says Rose, a Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher who has built programs at Sleepy Hollow, Quail Valley, Chevy Chase Club, and now as the PGA Director of Instruction at Woodmont Country Club outside Washington, D.C. The lesson model built around single-session transactions, she explains, systematically works against the thing every instructor and student says they want: measurable improvement and more enjoyment.
Rose’s solution, refined over more than a decade of program-building, is to structure offerings that make the more frequent contact necessary for real improvement economically viable for both sides. Rose’s sweet spot? Groups of no more than four.
“That’s the magic number,” says Rose, who has a master’s degree in motor learning from Columbia University. “I can lower the price the student pays, but I can still have a lot of tailored, custom time with each person. There’s real value for them.”
The math works for instructors, too — Rose typically runs 8-10 one-hour group sessions a week, stacked against a private-lesson book that would cap out far sooner.
The group lessons also have an important social dimension that provides a multiplying effect individual lessons can’t.
“People need each other,” she says. “Especially people who are onboarding in the game. They don’t know anyone else who plays, and they think everybody is good – and then they show up and realize they’re doing better than they thought.”
She makes a point of connecting group participants by email after sessions, getting the introductions moving. Students who make friends in a clinic have a reason to come back that has nothing to do with what they shoot.
Building a program that runs well year over year starts with listening – a market research tactic just as important for a golf instructor as it is for a coffee bar owner or clothing retailer.
“You have to approach each season by asking questions: Who’s already taking lessons? Who isn’t, but could be? What’s been tried, and why didn’t it stick?” says Rose, the 2017 Middle Atlantic PGA Teacher & Coach of the Year. “You always want to know what’s worked and what hasn’t, and then figure out why it didn’t work, and whether you can solve it.”
Naming and positioning matter more than even social media content-savvy teachers probably realize. Rose has largely removed gender language from her clinic titles – “I want the guys to feel comfortable coming to clinics, too,” she says – and she has largely abandoned the word “advanced” after watching it sit nearly empty while beginner sections filled. Her fix: tiered language that doesn’t ask students to self-assess their own competence.
Rose’s schedule includes a mixture of broad offerings (Short Game), narrow ones (Distance Control and Intermediate Wedges) and even a weekly supervised practice session where any player can come and get some face time. She’s also always listening during the group events to tailor curriculum even more closely.
“At a general short game clinic, you’re always listening to the pain points that are the most common,” she says. “Those become both an area of focus in that clinic and a great candidate for a more specific offering later.”
The best instruction cadences match the way a student population actually lives and takes lessons. Rose once launched a monthly performance development program with supervised practice hours, guest speakers, and clinic access that sold out in three days. But it quietly fell apart as players found it hard to commit to the recurring schedule.
“The top line of all of this is that I want to see people more often without having to charge them the one-hour lesson rate,” Rose says. “If you’re learning a language, you see your teacher all the time. If you’re learning an instrument, same thing,” she says. “That’s how people get better.”
