How To Become A Golf Professional: What It Is and Career Path

What is a golf professional and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a golf professional. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.81 an hour? That's $39,134 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 20% and produce 48,800 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreGolf ProfessionalUS Average

Salary

3.1

Avg. Salary $39,134

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.0

Growth rate 20%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.9

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.22%

Asian 5.49%

Black or African American 9.03%

Hispanic or Latino 13.44%

Unknown 5.61%

White 66.21%

Gender

female 7.98%

male 92.02%

Age - 34

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 34

Stress level

8.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.4

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.3

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a golf professional

Explore golf professional education requirements

Most common golf professional degrees

Bachelor's

74.5 %

Associate

17.6 %

High School Diploma

3.2 %

Start to develop specific golf professional skills

Skills	Percentages
Customer Service	35.47%
Instructional Program	16.70%
POS	6.44%
Private Lessons	4.80%
Payroll	2.85%

Complete relevant golf professional training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New golf professionals learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a golf professional based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real golf professional resumes.

Research golf professional duties and responsibilities

Handicap chairperson responsible for managing, upgrading and maintaining the USGA user database.
Schedule and manage golf matches pursuant to CIF and PLHS rules and regulations.
Manage operations including employee scheduling, payroll, vendor relations and inventory management.
Provide instruction to youth -work with other PGA professionals

Prepare your golf professional resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your golf professional resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a golf professional resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable golf professional resume templates

Build a professional golf professional resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your golf professional resume.

Apply for golf professional jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a golf professional job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do golf professionals rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Golf professional reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Oct 2020

Pros

Getting to know people and applying different methods that will make people understand their individual situations and what needs to be done to improve. Everyone is different and every golf swing is different so there are many ways to encourage people to improve and be satisfied on what they learn.

Cons

Bad weather days that would prevent me from helping other people.