Cocopah featured in PGA Magazine

For the past month, The Cocopah Golf Resort and director of golf Mark Croft have been taking phone calls from PGA pros in Dallas, Albuquerque, N.M., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Jupiter, Fla., and Boise, Idaho to name a few.

And they're all asking the same question.

"'What are you doing to make this work?'" Croft said.

"This" is Cocopah's women's and junior girl's golf program, which was recognized in the May issue of PGA Magazine with four other golf clubs for their efforts in supporting and growing women's golf.

PGA Magazine, the leading magazine for golf professionals, also featured Pinehurst Resort (N.C.), Black Lake Golf Club (Mich.), Philadelphia Cricket Club (Pa.) and Cannon Ridge Golf Club (Va.).

Among other things mentioned in the article, Cocopah was praised for sponsoring a variety of ladies group playing formats, providing women-only clinics taught by a female golf professional, increasing the number of women's apparel and golf products in its pro shop and preparing a Golf Summit for Women seminar next year.

"It's an honor to be in the magazine," Croft said. "I'm humbled by the fact. I don't know how it even happened. When I first came here six years ago we had a very active women's group, and it was plain to see they wanted to grow and do more and expand the opportunities for women's golf."

With 150 members of the Arizona Women's Golf Association at its resort, Cocopah offers discounted play for 9-hole, 18-hole and skins groups on multiple days each week. Many of those women also had a chance to improve their game working with LPGA professional Erin Szekely, who visited the resort for two weeks in January and again in March. Szekely and Croft both promote the swing theories of Manuel de la Torre.

"We wanted to see what kind of an agenda we could run for the following year when we do our Summit for Women," Croft said of the event, which will host women from around the southwest for four days. "Normally ladies go to a clinic and get hurried around like cattle for three or four hours, but this will be much more hands-on in extremely small classes of five of six women."

Plans are also in the works to begin its own junior girls academy for girls in the greater Yuma area. Patterning his program after his junior golf clinics, Croft said the resort's consist efforts to promote the women's game is the biggest reason for its success. In the article, Croft suggested to all PGA professionals to bring a woman PGA professional to work with their ladies and create programs that cater to female members.

"We created more opportunities for women and girls to be exposed to the game," Croft said. "More and more are coming out because they have a curiosity about golf, and if they like it, they like it, and we can help them improve."