BY MATTHEW RUDY
Ashley Grier, PGA,PGA of America Assistant Professional,The Legacy Golf & Tennis Club,Port St. Lucie, Florida
Ashley Grier took a lesson herself a few weeks ago and played a tournament two days later, which is a good description of her whole year. Everything she teaches has to survive that gap. It’s the same standard she holds herself to for the players she coaches.
Grier, a PGA of America Assistant Professional at The Legacy Golf & Tennis Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida, was the playing captain of the United States Team at the Women’s PGA Cup in Chester, England, last month (Women’s PGA Cup review). Grier has been on every American team since the event began in 2019, and she has played in multiple PGA Professional Championships.
“I’ll tell students stories about recent tournaments and how I can relate to them, or even just how I feel over certain shots you need to hit under pressure,” says Grier, the PGA of America’s Women’s PGA Professional Player of the Year in 2020. “I feel like I often bring my competitive golf into answering their questions.”
Grier’s playing experience is an important filter for how she teaches. The first thing she wants from a player she coaches is knowing whether they want a big swing change or a change that works for their game and still lets them go play tomorrow — something she thinks about regarding her own game.
“I know my swing isn’t perfect. If I went to an instructor and they were looking to overhaul my swing, that’s not something I’m looking for because it needs to be playable, and playable on the road,” says Grier, a seven-time Middle Atlantic Section Women’s PGA Player of the Year. “That’s true for most of our members, too.”
Every lesson Grier gives ends with the same set of questions: Do you understand the change? Can you feel it? Do you believe that you can do it?
“If it’s a little bit too foreign, I try to find that common ground where they feel comfortable, they understand it, and they could take it to the course if they’re going to play in the next day or two,” she says.
Grier grew up with a driving range, par-3 and miniature golf operation literally in her front yard at Yingling’s Golf Center in Hagerstown, Maryland, after her parents bought it when she turned 5. Practice was a way of life. Now she teaches lessons and works in the golf shop, so she works on her game in 30-minute increments.
“If I’m closing the shop or I have afternoon lessons, I’m definitely going to hit balls beforehand,” she says. “You have to choose quality practice over quantity, because you can’t always be out there for four hours.”
Her members do not have four hours, either, which is why the plans she writes for them look like her own. Thirty minutes of putting in the morning and 30 more at the end of the day, and never without feedback attached.
“Most country club members just walk up, drop three balls and aimlessly putt,” Grier says. “They’re not really doing anything, and they’re not getting any feedback.”
The ones who improve, she adds, are the players who go home with a gate, a mirror or a couple of tees, and who move around the green instead of putting every ball from the same spot.
Grier’s strategy for grading a round comes from her competitive experience across five years on the Symetra Tour. A student recently asked how he would know he was making progress, and her answer had nothing to do with the number on the card or location on a leaderboard.
“It might not have even stayed on the green, but you know how you felt when you hit that shot. You know if you were nervous, anxious, tense. You know if you flushed it,” says Grier, who won the South Florida Women’s PGA Championship in her first season as a Section member. “You might have had 43 putts that day. Evaluate how you did with what you’re working on.”
