Egly Wins Teacher of the Year
Riverside, Iowa – Mark Egly of the Des Moines Driving Range has been named the 2021 Teacher of the Year by the Iowa PGA. This honor is based on a professional’s entire record of achievements over their career. The award is determined based on the nominee’s overall impact in teaching at the nominee’s facility, unusual, innovative, or special teaching programs initiated or implemented, instructional articles, videos or publications written or produced, list of outstanding golfers whom the nominee has instructed, involvement in junior golf activities and in the community and innovative contributions.
Philip Conover, Program Director; First Tee – Central Iowa. “Mark’s love for the game has inspired me to want to give back and make our youth better people while playing the sport that we love. We all know that at the end of the day, this is what it’s all about!”
Jay Growth, Des Moines Roosevelt coach, “As a teacher, I have brought a number of students to Mark’s facility for a fun day of experiencing and learning the game and Mark, again, is a gracious host and a dedicated teacher of the game of golf and life lessons as well. Mark Egly is a true professional who loves the sport of golf and loves to instill the many lessons that this sport has to offer all people from 5 to 95.”
Remarks from Aliou Keita. “From those humble beginnings with coming to the United States with the clothes on my back and my humble beginnings with golf, Mark has given me hundreds of lessons with golf. He has given me lessons with becoming a licensed financial professional, by studying right alongside me during the testing and licensing days and working with me side by side when I first started with Guardian Life Company and even more lessons with life!”
Egly has won the Teacher of the Year Award in 2002, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2021. He also has won the Professional Development Award in 2017 and the Player Development Award in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2020.
Mark has provided free lessons to many groups, such as the Men’s and Women’s college and university programs of the area and around Iowa, and countless high school teams from across the State of Iowa. Mark has facilitated The First Tee of Central Iowa since 1998.
The Iowa PGA Congratulates Mark Egly as our 2021 Teacher of the Year.
Tomash Wins Youth Player Development Award
Kari Tomash of Cedar Rapids Country Club has been named the 2021 Iowa PGA Youth Player Development honoree. This honor is based on the Professional’s entire record, with emphasis placed on his/her performance and achievements over the past two years. The honoree should also promote junior golf throughout the Section.
Todd Larson, PGA Head Golf Professional at Cedar Rapids Country Club. “Kari is our Junior Golf Leader at Cedar Rapids Country Club. She heads our junior program that includes over 90 juniors, participating in instructional offerings including Operation 36, PGA Junior League, Girls Golf Only Clinics, Kids Camp, as well as individual instruction. Kari has grown the Girls Golf Only Clinics by 100% in her time at the Club, and the overall junior program has seen a 30% increase in participation over the past year. Along with the increase in participation, overall satisfaction from the parents of the juniors that are participating in our program is at an all-time high.”
Along with teaching private and group lessons, she is the Junior Golf Leader at Cedar Rapids Country Club and responsible for the scheduling, promoting, and organizing of the entire junior program. She is currently the lead or co-lead instructor in all junior classes and teaches approximately 200 private junior lessons a year. “Coach Kari”, as she is called by her students, loves to be known as a promoter of junior golf. They have seen their junior participation soar at Cedar Rapids Country Club the past few years. This past season they had over 100 juniors participate in at least one of their junior programs, which is up about 30-40% from when Tomash started. Their ladies’ program has also grown by at least that much and many of their younger moms are starting to play because of their juniors. Tomash strongly believes a membership is only as strong as your junior program and CRCC has seen a huge increase in new young members. Tomash believes their junior golf program has a lot to do with that.
She has been the captain/co-captain of the Cedar Rapids Country Club Swingin Birdies PGA Junior League Team for the past 3 years. She is a strong advocate of the PGA Junior League since its beginning and has worked hard promoting and recruiting clubs to participate.
She is a strong believer that the Iowa Junior Tour is one of the best in the country. This past summer CRCC had 14 of their juniors participate in at least one Iowa PGA Junior Tour Event. She works hard to promote and represent the Junior Tour through emails and phone calls and coordinates carpools to get more of their juniors participating. She sends out weekly reminders of upcoming tournaments and highlights those juniors who have played well.
Molly Altorfer, Head Women’s Golf Coach from Mount Mercy University. “Kari is a natural teacher, and her boisterous personality and enthusiasm are invigorating for junior golfers and their families. Her passion for the game of golf – as a former Division I player at Charleston Southern University and as a Class A PGA Professional – is grounded in correct technique and current and engaging teaching methods, giving juniors a superb foundation for their golf swings while simultaneously encouraging them to grow to love the game.”
Tomash was quoted saying, " Being the recipient of the 2021 Youth Player Development Award for the Iowa PGA is a true honor. My greatest passion in golf has always been teaching and coaching juniors. To be recognized for doing something I love is very special.”
The Iowa PGA Congratulates Kari Tomash as our 2021 Youth Player Development Award.
Haverland Wins Player Development Award
Riverside, Iowa – Butch Haverland of Palmer Hills Golf Course has been named the 2021 Iowa PGA Player Development honoree. The Player Development Award is designed to recognize a PGA Professional for extraordinary and exemplary contributions and achievements in the area of player development. This award considers the PGA Professional’s growth of the game leadership commitment at the Section and National levels and the impact made at their facility.
Coach18 is a golf practice aid Haverland has been working on for the past couple years. The process of putting this together has been very rewarding with many ups and downs along the way. Coaching golf is his favorite thing to do and Haverland is always thinking how to make it easier and more rewarding for the student. Golf is a hard game and anything Haverland can do to make it more fun means he has done his job. Coach18 came to be about 3 years ago. Since then, Haverland has sold over 80 units and have built another 70. He has given many away, rebuilt many, made many mistakes, thrown many away and have many in his garage. Haverland knows 80 isn’t many, but he won’t give up and he hasn’t given it his all yet. Coach18 is copyrighted and trademarked. He did try to patent however it is too similar in nature to other patents. Presently Coach18 is in 10 states, 1 Canadian Province and 1 in Australia. He uses Coach18 in all his short game sessions. There isn’t a day that goes by that he doesn’t use it with a student to get a point across. Simple, quick, easy and efficient.
This will be Haverland’s 4th year, 2nd as Head Coach of the Black Hawk Braves. Currently he has 11 players on the team, and all are local to the area. He has learned a great deal about coaching the past 4 years. It’s not always about winning, but in golf we do keep score. What he’s enjoyed the most is watching these young men compete and learn about what they are made of inside. Many times, they have a tough day but it’s fun to watch them bounce back and achieve a goal.
Haverland was quoted as saying, “Winning this award is extremely special to me. I honestly can't believe I get to do what I do! Helping people learn this incredible game and watching them grow at golf is the best thing ever. When I started as a PGA professional I simply wanted to be around the game and learn the ins and outs of the business. I soon experienced helping people learn this game was fun and seeing them improve and shoot their personal best is the best feeling ever. There are many plateaus to reach in playing golf and helping a student keep climbing is very rewarding. No matter the student, a total raw beginner or a scratch handicap, I get the same feeling helping the player learn the game deeper. Coaching one on one or a small group clinic, I love it all. Everyone looks at this game differently and helping them learn it more is so fun. Golf can be very intimidating and helping the student get over this fear and become a golfer for the rest of their lives is a major goal of mine. Coaching a team has become another avenue in the game I'm presently experiencing. My PGA Junior League teams have been awesome and one of my favorite summer activities. Coaching my Junior College team is also a lot of fun. Whether they're 13 and below or 18 and over, a team is a team and trying to get the most out of the players is the quest. Along with learning a few life lessons both for my players and for myself. Yes, Player Development is in my soul, and I'll strive every day to get the most out of myself in order to help my students.”
Haverland has won the Player Development award in 2018 and this year.
The Iowa PGA Congratulates Butch Haverland as our 2021 Player Development Award.
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