Golf:  For Business & Life

The Golf: For Business & Life program is an initiative of The Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) designed to teach and improve the golf skills of college juniors, seniors, and graduate students through instruction provided by PGA Professionals. The program also suggests ways in which students can use golf as a business tool as they enter the professional world.

PGA golfers competing in the Ryder Cup team donate a portion of their earnings to a charity and university of their choice, usually their alma mater. After the 2006 Ryder Cup, LSU Alumnus David Toms donated $100,000 to the program, which has been in operation since 2004 following the PGA’s initial donation of $100,000 by Toms and a $20,000 donation by Chris Riley.

As part of the program, LSU employs a PGA “Class A” professional golfer who is classified as an expert instructor, skilled businessperson, and community leader, qualified not only to teach the game of golf but also to conduct the business of golf as well. Since the program launched in 2004, LSU has hosted PGA Class “A” professional golfers Chris Burkstaller, Emily Hanchar-Heroman, and Tim Brown, who has worked under Jim Flick and Jack Nicklaus.

Resources

Hosted on the beautiful LSU Golf Course, the class allows students access to Class “A” Professional Golfer Chris Burkstaller, a lesson that many local clients would pay more than $100 per hour for his expert instruction on how to improve their golf game. The LSU Golf Course venue also exposes students to sports technology such as the V-1 software by Interactive Frontiers that allows geometrical analysis of PGA professionals’ golf swings via computer video monitor.