Steve Kisner
USGTF Teaching Professional, Novi, MI

Thanks to the USGTF organization and its instructors, I have achieved a dream of a lifetime. I would like to share my journey into the golf industry with my new family of USGTF friends, but before I do, I would like to thank USGTF President, Geoff Bryant, for his vision. My examiners, Mike Levine, Mark Harman, and Bob Wyatt are truly dedicated individuals who really bring value to teaching the game of golf. Thanks, gentlemen, for sharing your knowledge.

My journey into the golf industry started when I was nine years old, when my father put a golf club in my hands. Since that day, life was never the same. After playing in many junior programs and on the high school golf team, my knowledge and skill level increased. A decision to pursue a golf career was seriously considered, but conservative thinking and advice persuaded me to become a mechanical engineer. Throughout my engineering and business career, golf played a large role in my personal life through teaching my close friends. My skills in communicating the game's fundamentals and its details, and by playing at a level I thought I never could achieve, made me think more about a golf career.

I wanted to learn more about the game, so I went on the tour as a caddy. I had a great time caddying for Rex Caldwell and my knowledge of the game increased enormously. After the tour experience, my skill level increased to the point of winning five club championships within the next ten years. It was now time to share the game of golf with my friends and give back to the game what I had learned from my past experiences. I then discovered the USGTF. What a perfect match!

My journey into the golf industry has now blossomed into an affiliation with Boulder Lakes Golf Club as an assistant golf professional and the certified teaching professional for Maples Country Club. Many new business ventures are opening every day. My intermediate goals are to teach at a golf school full time located in the southeast.

After 24 successful years in the engineering and business environment, I would like to share some advice with my new fellow USGTF members. The topic is customer satisfaction and how four easy actions can ensure the delivery of customer satisfaction. These actions can be applied to your daily golf instructions with your students. They were taken from the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Washington. They call it FISH! The four actions to ensure complete customer satisfaction and retention are:

To discover your FISH philosophies for yourselves go to www.fishphilosphy.com