About the Top 100 Teacher Listing

List Includes 15 New Members and 30 Teachers Honored Since 1991

The golf industry’s premier acknowledgment of teaching excellence was issued today as GOLF MAGAZINE released its biennial list of the Top 100 Teachers for 2006-07.

"There are great teaching professionals all across America, but our extensive data and arduous selection process, recognizes the best of the best," said Lorin Anderson, Managing Editor for Instruction for GOLF MAGAZINE regarding the Top 100 Listing. "Although it is quite an honor to be selected, the biggest winners are the readers of GOLF MAGAZINE who benefit every month from the Top 100's innovative and insightful instruction tips."

Among those chosen from the country’s 25,000 golf professionals is:

Tom F. Stickney II, G.S.E.D.
Director of Instructional Operations
The Club at Cordillera in Vail, Colorado.

He is among an elite group of golf teaching professionals that includes; 15 newcomers, 10 women, 30 professionals that have been on every list since the first 50 in 1991, teachers from 28 different states, and the first-ever Canadian honoree. The complete Top 100 Teachers list appears in the March 2006 issue of GOLF MAGAZINE, on newsstands nationwide January 10, 2005 as well as the magazine’s web site, www.golfonline.com.

Stickney, age 35 is one of the fifteen newcomers to join the list this year and is the youngest member of this impressive listing. The native of Memphis, played collegiate golf at The University of Memphis. He has taught numerous PGA Tour Professionals, such as Shawn Micheel, PGA Champion, Doug Barron, Don Reese, and celebrities including; Joe Theisman, Anfernee Hardway, and many others.

Over the past decade, GOLF MAGAZINE’S Top 100 Teachers list has become the industry gold standard, not only because it was the first such list ever issued, but because of the diligent selection process that GOLF MAGAZINE created to assemble the list. Every other year, the magazine starts from scratch to determine the best 100 teachers.

More than 1000 nominations are accepted from the country’s 25,000 golf professionals including the PGA of America, the Canadian PGA, the LPGA Teaching and Club Professional Division, current Top 100 teachers and from GOLF MAGAZINE readers. Each nominee must complete a thorough questionnaire that was developed in conjunction with Dr. Paul Schempp of the University of Georgia’s Sport Instruction Research Lab – the only lab designed to study how sports are taught.

The applications are first examined and ranked by the University of Georgia researchers. The final decision to include a teacher among the Top 100 is made by GOLF MAGAZINE’s instruction editors based upon a combination of 10 criteria including: swing knowledge, communications skills, innovative teaching ideas, flexibility in teaching different learning types, proven success, willingness to share knowledge with peers, longevity, success with well-known golfers, number of nominations/recommendations and industry awards.

A premier editorial franchise for the magazine, the Top 100 Teachers add invaluable instruction tips to GOLF MAGAZINE each month, contributing to over 120 articles a year.

A premiere editorial franchise for the magazine, the Top 100 Teachers add invaluable instruction tips to GOLF MAGAZINE each month, contributing to over 120 articles a year.

Here's a closer look at GOLF MAGAZINE'S Top 100 Teachers:

• 30 teachers have appeared on every list since the first list of 50 honorees was published in 1991 including: Jimmy Ballard, Peggy Kirk Bell, Jim Flick, Peter Kostis, David Leadbetter and Bob Toski.

• Teachers from 28 states plus one Canadian province are recognized (based upon main season facility). Florida (23), Arizona (10), California (10) and Texas (9) lead the way.

• The Top 100 teachers have given a combined 3.7 million lessons - an average of 37,000 each.

• For Top 100's that offer hour-long private lessons the average rate is $211 - an increase of 26% since 2001. The women's average rate is $178 compared to the men's rate of $215.

• Five Top 100's offer rates for less than $100/hour - Rick Grayson ($50), Peggy Kirk Bell ($60), Manuel de la Torre ($80), John Dahl ($85) and Eric Alpenfels ($90). The highest hourly rates go to Rick Smith ($1000), Mitchell Spearman ($600), Butch Harmon, Peter Kostis and Jim McLean ($500).

• The Top 100 average 28 years of experience. Six teachers have more than 50 years including; Manuel de la Torre (57), Phil Ritson (57), Jim Flick (52), Peggy Kirk Bell (52), Gary Wiren (51) and Bob Toski (50). Just 11 Top 100's have been teaching for less than 20 years lead by Chuck Winstead (13) and Brian Mogg (14).

• Four teachers have won PGA or LPGA Tour events and four are members of the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame.