The PGA Coach platform is evolving to represent and support coaching efforts by PGA of America Golf Professionals. That includes upgrades to the significant marketing support and resources the platform offers to connect golfers with exceptional coaches and programs to ensure a successful journey in golf.
Thus far, PGA Coach has generated more than $27 million in total coaching revenue, with over 20,000 coaches having engaged with the platform. More than 200,000 consumer leads have been delivered to coaches, with 380,000-plus total bookings having been facilitated through the ecosystem.
One of the many PGA of America Golf Professionals to take advantage of the PGA Coach ecosystem of marketing tools is Sumayah Arcusa (pictured), the PGA of America Director of Instruction at The Lab 301, an indoor golf coaching facility with a pair of hitting bays in Bowie, Maryland, that opened in November 2024.
“The whole ethos behind The Lab 301 is to give people an accessible community to enjoy golf socially in a way that’s a little bit more chill for younger adult golfers,” Arcusa says. “Especially for beginning golfers, it can feel a little standoffish to go to a country club or daily fee course and worry about all the rules of what to wear or how to carry yourself. So The Lab 301 is a come-as-you-are facility, where we’re going to teach you about playing golf in a way that’s fun and part of a community.”
The Lab 301 is set up as a semi-private facility, with a nearly full membership of 60-plus golfers augmented by blocks of time that are open to the public for play and coaching. Arcusa and PGA of America Golf Professional Langston Frazier (pictured) handle instruction, and they’ve found PGA Coach to be an invaluable resource in building the facility’s community.
Most valuable to Arcusa was the ease of using PGA Coach+ and its augmented marketing tools, which helped her quickly grow her coaching base without needing to rely upon social media or advertising.
“As a single mom, time management is everything, and PGA Coach has made it so easy to put my information out there and get leads,” Arcusa says. “I made a quick video and posted it to my PGA Coach profile so people could see my face and put a face to the name, and that made a big difference in people deciding to commit to a lessons.”
Using PGA Coach+ to jump start her marketing efforts, Arcusa quickly started getting leads and a big boost in engagement from visitors to PGA.com. During major events, like the PGA Championship or the Ryder Cup, Arcusa often gets multiple leads in a day, while most weeks bring at least two or three quality leads.
“That’s been huge for building my business as a full-time coach,” Arcusa says. “Now that my base has expanded a bit, I’ve been able to invest the time in doing social media, but PGA Coach was doing the heavy lifting for me for several months. PGA Coach put me on the map and generated tons of leads, and those people followed me to Instagram when I bolstered my presence there.”
Arcusa also takes full advantage of the other business tools built into PGA Coach, like lesson scheduling, messaging with clients, storing video lessons and keeping notes on sessions with students.
“Everything on PGA Coach syncs to my phone, which is huge – from an organizational standpoint, everything is in one place and it’s super manageable,” she says. “In this business, we all need good organization and systems. PGA Coach+ provides that organization. Whether you’re at a green grass environment or anywhere else, it helps you be as efficient as possible without burning a ton of time and effort.”
Arcusa also finds the tools built into PGA Coach help her create and maintain a better work/life balance as she ramps up her coaching business at The Lab 301.
“For PGA of America Coaches looking to improve work/life balance, I think PGA Coach is definitely the way to go,” Arcusa says. “My best advice is simply to start using it, because it’s user-friendly and it really does make time management, organization and communication that much better – the app does a lot of the work for you.”