Katie Bakken, PGA of America Director of Instruction, Brookview Golf Course,Golden Valley, Minnesota
If you think summer means no school, you haven’t met Katie Bakken, PGA.
The Director of Instruction at Brookview Golf Academy in Golden Valley, Minnesota, built a sprawling adult program this past summer that included more than 100 separate classes across a relatively short season.
“One of my students said they thought I was crazy to do as many classes as I do,” says Bakken, a PGA and LPGA Professional who spent seven seasons playing the LPGA Tour, the Ladies European Tour and the Ladies Asian Golf Tour before she started teaching full-time.
But the cadence is intentional. Her goal is to offer a variety of subjects for players in groups as small as four (pictured), and to make them attractive to a wider variety of students. Bakken moved to the public-access Brookview after a stint at the private Bridges at Rancho Santa Fe, California, where she never had a male player sign up for a beginner class. In Minnesota, that ratio is closer to 35 percent.
“How you name the classes isn’t something to be casual about,” Bakken says. “I run four Get Golf Ready sessions a week and two LPGA Golf 101 classes, and the content is identical. But some women are more comfortable learning alongside other women, so I want to give them that choice.”
Another important differentiator? Calling some intro classes “refreshers” makes them more attractive to players who might have played actively years ago but are interested in getting back into the game regularly. That’s an important distinction from a beginner class, where the lessons literally start from ground zero.
“I also go out of my way to make sure players understand that they don’t even need to own clubs to come and participate,” Bakken says. “You might be coming in to find out if you like the game before you commit to spending money on equipment. My goal is to take away as much of the uncertainty as I can.”
Bakken produces elaborate posters for each class, which outline exactly what topics will be covered – a kind of golf syllabus that would be familiar to anyone from Day 1 of a college class. Programming is tight, too.
“I used to offer 90-minute happy hour classes, and by the time new players got an hour in, you could see the dazed looks on their faces,” she says. “Their brains were full. They literally couldn’t take in any more information. In an hour, you can cover enough that they make real progress and stay fresh the whole way through.”
Using the CoachNow app, Bakken annotates a copy of the syllabus’ description for a given course with general notes from each session, and encourages each student to add their own personal notes from the lesson. That way, players can get reminders and notifications about drills and practice in their own voice.
All of it is designed to get players from the range to the course, where Brookview’s par-3 layout is a valuable introductory tool.
“That’s the whole point, getting out and playing. Even if it means going out and hitting a few different short game shots to understand when to use them,” says Bakken. “Going through it with them helps players feel more comfortable. It’s not just how to hit the shots, but just how to be out on the course. You can see the confidence level grow right away.”
