Personal Training for Golfers
In the past, many golfers were not concerned about being fit. Today, however, golf fitness conditioning has come to the fore as amateur and pro golfers alike strive to enhance their golf game and reduce the risk of common golf injuries. Savvy golfers are discovering that golf-specific training can help them improve their power, flexibility and strength, translating to improved play on the course.
If you have a passion for time on the links yourself, you may want to consider adding golf fitness as a profit center to your business. Here’s how other personal trainers are doing it.
One-on-One Training
Many personal trainers prefer working with clients one-on-one for golf conditioning.
“100% of my golf-specific training is one-on-one,” explains Greg Barker, CSCS, a personal trainer at NutriFormance—Fitness, Therapy & Performance in Frontenac, Missouri. “In my experience, each golfer has limitations that would make group work not unbearable, but tough to customize . . . to the individual.”
Jeannine Micheletti, owner of Personal Best training studio in San Bruno, California, also works individually with golfers. She has structured her golf conditioning package this way: a 1-hour initial assessment, creation of a specialized workout program that is emailed to the golfer, unlimited access to www.mytpi.com (which includes in-depth descriptions and video examples of her suggested exercises) and a 1-hour follow-up session. “Then I charge an hourly rate for continuing appointments,” she says.
Small-Group Training
Other trainers have capitalized on the social nature of golf by offering group sessions.
Kathy Ekdahl, CSCS, ACE-certified personal trainer and owner of Personal Best Personal Training in Hudson, Massachusetts, was formerly a staff trainer at The International Golf Club. “At IGC I trained golfers one-on-one, but I also trained couples and foursomes. Because golfers typically golf in groups of four, a foursome is a natural way to do group training. The foursome often competes in tournaments together, so a group session provides great camaraderie and improves the players’ competitive spirit.”
Personal trainers at RallySport Health and Fitness Club, in Boulder, Colorado, provide one-on-one as well as small-group training for golfers, notes Erin Marie Carson, CSCS, general manager and fitness director. The facility also provides golf conditioning for three local golf clubs. Clients have been so responsive to this type of training that RallySport has created a year-round golf conditioning program. Every phase offers small-group sessions once or twice a week. “Our program runs year round as part of a periodized conditioning program,” Carson explains. “Phase one is core stability and muscular endurance, phase two is strength, and phase three is power. We also offer a combination program throughout the summer months in conjunction with our golf outings.”
Focus on Special Populations
Personal trainers with golf-specific training have also found work and created profit centers targeting specific demographics. For example, personal trainers at RallySport teach sessions for high-school students and seniors—as well as those for “regular” adults—several times a week.
At The Houstonian Golf & Country Club in Richmond, Texas, personal trainer, nutrition coach and director of golf fitness Pam Owens designed and directs Jr. Golfletics, a long-term athletic program to help young golfers develop athletic and golf skills. Her program, taught by a golf professional and a fitness professional, trains groups weekly for 6 weeks during each semester of the school year. Owens also teams up with golf pros to run summer camps for kids and teens. “The camps teach kids foundational movement skills they can use in golf and other sports,” she explains.
Business Benefits
Training golfers has proved to be a boon for some personal trainers. Here are a number of the advantages:
Career specialization. “Golf fitness training has provided an excellent source of additional income for me in an area that has few female experts,” explains Ekdahl. “In a sport culture that is generally dominated by men, being a woman with this level of training in golf and love for the sport has made it easy to attract female clients. Being knowledgeable in golf fitness is also a great way to get into corporate settings, as executives often use golf as a way to entertain or do business with their clients.”
More clients. Owens conducts golf training programs as an employee at The Houstonian, but she generates additional profits by training nonmembers at the facility. (She splits the fees with The Houstonian.)
Barker says golf fitness attracts more clients to Nutriformance. “A majority of the golfers I see buy packages of personal training [from the club],” he says. “However, I do offer a [limited] personal training membership to clients who are nonmembers. This membership allows them to train with me once or twice a month to update their training program and gives them a very basic membership to implement the workouts I am giving them at our facility.”
Additional services. Dale Huff, CSCS, co-owner of Nutriformance (where Barker works), adds, “Golfers are a passionate group, and once they are comfortable inside your walls, they bring their family members for various other services.”
Passive profit centers. Ekdahl piggybacked onto her golf conditioning success by creating an e-book called Getting Golf Ready: A Woman’s Guide to Golf Fitness. “As any good trainer knows, if you rely on getting paid just for your hourly skills, you will eventually hit a financial ceiling,” she says. “My book is a source of passive income for me above and beyond my training and workshops.”
New opportunities. “Being a trainer for golfers has allowed me to establish relationships with PGA teaching professionals, general managers of country clubs, and individuals who manage golf retail stores; it has also given me the confidence to talk with professionals in the medical field,” says Barker.
Marketing to Golfers
Trainers strive to attract golf conditioning clients in different ways:
Targeting experts. Huff says Nutriformance generates leads by sending out mailers and by having staff members visit golf pros, high-school coaches and golf stores in the area. “This effort takes repetition, but it is low cost,” he says.
Conducting workshops. Carson’s club offers seminars such as “Golf Conditioning Power and Club Head Speed Development Kinesis” throughout the year.
Owens conducts clinics at The Houstonian and its affiliated clubs. “Sometimes people can’t actually come to the clinics but find out about my services and become one-on-one clients.”
Reaching out to the community. As ways to market golf conditioning services, Ekdahl suggests finding a golf pro you can collaborate with—and trade clients with—and getting involved in local charity tournaments.
A Great Program “Par” None
If you are a golfer and love the sport, golf conditioning may bring you personal and professional satisfaction. “Golf conditioning has added a tremendous amount to my level of enjoyment in fitness,” says Carson. “Golfers bond together with storytelling, and it is such a pleasure to have common ground as we train. I love hearing about ‘birdies’ [that occurred] on the back nine because a client was feeling strong and stable.”