paul levy tours

Profound. Passionate. Professional.

LIZ LEV TOURS

See art with new eyes!

Liz's TED Talk: The Unheard Story of the Sistine Chapel

TOUR WITH THE BEST

Each tour led by experts in the field

PhD and Master's-level scholars

Professors in History, Art History, & Archeology guiding you through the Eternal City 

Consultants for major news networks & hosts on Italian programs. 

BESPOKE TOURS TAILORED TO FIT YOU

Creating the ultimate experience

Private tours: limited exclusively to you and your party

Shared tours: your party plus another (no more than 10 people) 

Large family/school tours:  the more the merrier! 

Trip planning:  multi-day experiences including tours, cooking classes, wine tasting... Name your wish and we will make it happen!

LOOKING TO TOUR OUTSIDE OF ROME?

My partners and I are happy to tour with you in other Italian cities!

Castel Gandolfo

and much more!

Special limited edition shared tours for Christmas 2024!

Shared Morning Walking Tour with Liz

Santa maria in trastevere - piazza navona - the pantheon.

Tour starts 9:00am

Cost €125/person (Max. 12 people)

Special kids rate (under 18): €90

Shared Vatican Museums/St Peter's Tour with Liz

Tour starts 8:00am

Cost €140/person (Max. 12 people), tickets included

Special kids rate (under 18): €125

Shared Afternoon Walking Tour with Liz

Saint mary major - santa pudenziana - sts. cosmas and damian.

Tour starts 2:00pm

MAY WE DESIGN A TOUR FOR YOU?

Thinking of visiting puglia .

Come stay with us at Villa Marianna!

Just outside the magical town of Ostuni

Check out the website here

TESTIMONIALS

Dr. Elizabeth Lev is an exceptional person – faith filled, knowledgeable, funny and informative! Liz is passionate about her faith and her presentation style is easy and enjoyable.

Liz is truly a blessing!

Father Tom Belczak

We did two tours in Rome with Liz Lev tours. Both tour guides (Giovanna and Sara) were PhD level experts in their fields, and it showed. The wealth of knowledge and expertise they brought to the tours was incredible. Our 16-yr-old son was spellbound!

Liz was spectacular, and the tour was beyond our wildest expectations. Getting 6-year-old Michael to pay attention to something other than a screen is a major accomplishment. He was "all in" from start to finish. And my girls, who devour art and history, left St. Peter's begging for more.

Simply terrific.

We took a Tour of the Colosseum and Palatine Hill with Massimo and he was amazing!!! Professionals with so much imput and knowledge in art history and local stories - it felt like we were there! He was friendly and funny and very attentive! It was a 3.5 hour tour and we just never wanted it to end!

We just had the most excellent tour with Liz. It was such an incredible experience and we have left just completely in awe of the Vatican and so appreciative of Liz’s expertise and charisma that just gripped your attention the entire time. In the words of our 12-year-old: “That wasn’t like our other tours - it was interesting every single second!”

A very happy family 

Thank you so much for arranging our fantastic tour with Ludovica. We could not have imagined a better guide. She understood exactly what we wanted to see and guided us beautifully through the seemingly impossible labyrinth of the Vatican Museum.  She was both knowledgeable and patient with us. All in all, it was a perfect morning!

Patricia G.

Touring the Coliseum with U.S. Senator Corey Booker

Coach Jim Harbaugh touring the Vatican Museums

Actor Kevin James and friends tour Rome's historic center

With Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums.

 Touring the Borghese Museum with Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett

Fun with Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and the gang.

Touring Galleria Borghese with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Explaining the Sistine Chapel to 20 European heads of State.

In the Vatican with Ron Howard & Co.

Borghese Gallery tour with Callista Gingrich, U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See

Liz with Chicago Bears quarterback William Cutler.

Chronicling the 2013 papal conclave for NBC.

Presidents Cup

The Royal Montreal GC

PRESIDENTS CUP’S 3 KEY HOLES

Golf Digest Logo Special Report

The Club Pro Crisis

"The last subject I want to talk about, and most importantly, is something we've discussed a lot this week. We've gone from a demand problem in terms of players to a supply problem. The lack of supply is hours in the day, lack of balance in our members' lives and a lack of pipeline of talent to replace our aging population … virtually everyone has been asked to raise the bar, to do more with the same, to work insane hours. It's absolutely unsustainable, and there's a crisis brewing for facilities that don't get in front of it. They simply won't be able to deliver the same level of service in the short-term, much less attract the next generation of talent. We have to shout this message from the rooftops, change the dynamic and restore work-life balance." —Seth Waugh, PGA of America CEO, at the PGA annual meeting in November 2021

Editor’s Note: In order to avoid professional consequences, several sources in this story asked to remain anonymous. When a first name only is used, the name has been changed and geographical details have been generalized. When a first name and last name are used, this is the person's real name and story.

Thanks to his connections, Casey Kermes had forged what looked like the start of a brilliant career. After hurting his back playing college lacrosse, he joined a Professional Golf Management (PGM) program, landed his first internship in Ireland and spent the first four years of his post-college career bouncing between some of the most prominent courses in America as a seasonal assistant pro. Frequent travel was an expectation for ambitious assistants, but money was a problem—he wasn't even making enough to rent a shared apartment and would often stay in the spare bedroom of the head pro. At his breaking point, he landed a job as a full-time assistant in North Carolina, with the promise that he'd spend most of his time teaching. Instead, when he left the clubhouse at all, he found himself babysitting large groups of kids who didn't want to be there any more than he did.

At 26, he took stock of his career. He felt like "a glorified McDonald's checkout person," his golf game was dismal—he had played just five full rounds in two years—and he was working anywhere from 60 to 90 hours per week depending on the season. The concept of having a normal romantic relationship, much less a wife and kids, was a joke. And dealing with members could be a nightmare; he vividly remembers the day when he told a board member that her foursome couldn't start on the second hole, and she chewed him out and did it anyway. There was another board member in the group she skipped, and he marched into the golf shop to yell at Casey for letting it happen. Both members, incidentally, were millionaires. Casey was making $30,000.

He knew that the pay would go up when he became a head pro, but from what he could see, nothing else would change. He couldn't stop thinking of a head pro in the south, his one-time boss, who would get free NFL tickets from a member but feel too guilty and too afraid to take his son to the game and miss a Sunday at work.

"I was at the tipping point where you go from seasonal assistant to full-time assistant to head pro," Kermes said. "And I was looking at those jobs and thought, 'I don't actually want to do that. It still sucks. When does this not suck? ' And I could never figure out when that was."

He quit before his 27th birthday. His only regret now is that he waited so long.

More on Golf + Mental Health

To almost everyone in his field, it looked like Gabriel had the dream job. He was the head pro at a famous northern club and had sacrificed time to get there—time with his wife and children. But over the course of his career, Gabriel's role shifted away from the parts of the job he loves— teaching and playing—to more about business administration. Technology facilitated the change; where once he could have headed south to decompress in the winter, now it was rare to go more than an hour without responding by phone or email to a member or one of his bosses. He watched his colleagues leave the game due to the lack of work-life balance, and if the industry already felt like having a seat on the Titanic, COVID-19 accelerated its disastrous course. While participation boomed, so did the demands on the time of the pros and assistants. Gabriel worked 85 hours per week in the summer and up to 50 hours in the winter, only to be told that he wasn't at the club enough.

RELATED: Seth Waugh on golf, business, and new ideas

His general manager once asked a seasonal assistant a loaded question: "What's with your generation and their work ethic?" The assistant, who was already putting in 50 hours a week, had an answer: Her generation put a high priority on mental health, and while career mattered, they wanted a life outside of work. And if they didn't rise as high, so be it. They'd enjoy life a lot more.

Gabriel had grown up with a different mindset. His path was to grind through his 20s and 30s, working as hard as necessary to reach the top. Once there, he thought he'd be able to breathe.

He couldn't breathe, and the day came when being at the top was no longer enough. His wife began to notice his unhappiness, and that made it harder to stomach his long absences. The pandemic ran him ragged, and he reached the point where he would have gladly taken less pay for a bit of downtime. It wasn't happening, so he left. Now he runs his own business and feels like he has an entirely new life.

"The reality is, for the clubs that don't change and the people who are sticking their head in the sand on this one, they're going to really get left by the wayside, because the labor pool is as tight as I've seen in my entire career."

—Paul Levy, former PGA of America president

After a source urged me to pursue this story, I sent a tweet asking pros and former pros to tell me their stories. The response was immediate and overwhelming, and accounts like Casey’s and Gabriel’s, and others that appear in this piece, represent a small but representative sample of those who reached out. The details were not a total surprise, but I didn't expect to find it all so heartbreaking. These were people who came into the industry with a vision for what their lives would be, had watched that vision grow dimmer over time and were now either holding on in the desperate hope that things would change or had been beaten down so thoroughly that they felt forced to quit.

To take showers or use the toilet, he had to drive to a rest stop on a nearby turnpike. Meanwhile, at the club, he felt like little more than a cashier, and at one point he worked 24 days in a row.

There were several recurring complaints in these conversations, from low pay to mistreatment to dissatisfaction with the nature of the work (not enough teaching, especially). One issue mentioned frequently was how simulators and other technology had erased even the short periods of downtime in the winter offseason, while others lamented that the head pro no longer owned the golf shop at most clubs, which eliminated a big revenue stream. These types of complaints, though, varied by person. Some pros made very good money, while others praised their members and bosses.

There was one complaint that they all shared, and that complaint was time. The message they needed me to understand was simple: There are many elements of this job that are great, and there are many others that are tolerable, but the lack of work-life balance is ruining our lives.

Johnny, 23, fell in love with golf because of the movie “Happy Gilmore.” He began his career working seasonally and ended up at a platinum club in Florida. He was excited, but things started on a negative note when his employee housing was so riddled with mold that it wasn't habitable. In Florida's crowded real-estate market, he didn't have enough money to rent his own place, and he was forced to couch surf or splurge on cheap short-term AirBnBs. At the end of every two weeks, he was out of money again, forced to sleep in his car at campgrounds and rest stops. Finally, he worked up the courage to tell his head pro. I'm basically homeless , he said, and I can't keep doing this.

The head pro told him that he better find a garage because they had big events coming up and if he quit he'd make sure he never worked at a top-tier club again. Feeling hopeless, Johnny capitulated. The only housing he could find was a run-down apartment with his friend, where he had to sneak in to make sure he wasn't seen by the landlord. Even the bathroom was under repair, and in order to take showers or use the toilet, he had to drive to a rest stop on a nearby turnpike. Meanwhile, at the club, he felt like little more than a cashier, and at one point he worked 24 days in a row.

"I used to be so energetic, but now I just feel tired all the time," he said. "Even on my days off, all I want to do is sleep all day. But I don't sleep well, because I'm always worried. The last thing I want to do is go play golf. … It's hard enough for me to get up and do my laundry."

Stuart, now in his 40s and a director of golf at a public course, remembered a dinner he attended with a few older golf pros when he was starting his career. One of them paused the conversation and asked for a show of hands: Who would encourage their own kids to get into the business?

Not a single hand rose.

"People have this weird idea that it's just cool hanging out at the golf course, that you're privileged to be here, why wouldn't you want to be here 24/7?" he said. "There's just no respect for our personal time. I do want a life outside this place, you know?"

Anecdotal evidence for the work-life crisis is easy to come by, but the nature of the disconnected network of golf clubs means that hard data isn't always readily available. It is impossible, for instance, to find out the number of hours an average pro or assistant works each week. But the numbers that do exist confirm the existence of a problem.

Bob Bruns is the director of the Professional Golf Management (PGM) program at Methodist University, one of 18 extant PGM programs in the U.S. (Clemson University recently decided to shut down its program after the last class graduates, so that number will be 17 within three years). When Bruns took the job in 2006, his incoming class consisted of more than 100 students. Today, that number is 38. He told me that in 2004, a benchmark year for programs like his, there were more than 9,700 students in PGM schools or associate programs working toward PGA membership. In 2022, according to data released by the PGA of America, the total has fallen to less than 5,000, a decline of 49.3 percent in less than 20 years. Across his program in 2021-22, Bruns placed around 100 students in internships, but had 750 requests for those interns. When he spoke with a head pro at a top-100 club recently, the pro told him that in the past, when someone needed an assistant, he could pull out a folder with résumés of applicants who would be ready to move at a moment's notice. Today, that folder is empty.

The question to the group: Who would encourage their own kids to get into the business? Not a single hand rose.

Since 2018, the number of assistant professionals nationwide has fallen from 4,037 to 3,621, while the number of head professionals has gone from 5,428 to 4,899—in both cases, a drop of around 10 percent in just four years. That number looks even more alarming in the face of a participation boom; in 2020, despite many course closures at the start of the pandemic, the National Golf Foundation reported a 14-percent increase in rounds played, the biggest jump by far since 1997. In 2021, that number rose again, by around 5 percent . As Waugh noted at the PGA of America's annual meeting last fall, this increase is putting an even greater burden on today's working pros.

At the same time, there has been a decrease in applicants for all job positions since the start of the pandemic, a fact confirmed by the PGA of America and the pros who highlighted the difficulty in finding good hires—or in some cases any hires. Again and again, they pointed me to the overflowing job boards on the PGA of America's section websites. One head pro said that just three years ago, when he had an assistant's job come open, he had 20 applicants. When the same job became available again last year, he had four. He tried to offer the job to one of his finalists from three years earlier, with a salary that was now $17,000 higher, but he was turned down—the former applicant worked 36 hours a week at CVS and couldn't imagine doing more.

Many of the pros I talked to referred to this as a “brain drain”—the loss not only of raw numbers of workers, but of the kind of quality assistants they’d want at their courses. Statistics also support the idea of an exodus; among professionals elected to PGA membership from 2009 through 2018, 27 percent are no longer members, and while there is no data on how many of the remaining 73 percent still work as pros, it's possible to maintain PGA membership without being a working pro, which means the real number of drop-outs is likely higher.

For men like Bruns, the difficult situation puts a premium on recruiting. His job has changed drastically, to the point where he now meets with every student and every set of parents who make a campus visit, and employs a full-time recruiter just for his program.

The story is the same at the PGA of America, an organization that has become hyper-focused on recruiting. In conversations with Suzy Whaley, the president of the PGA of America from 2018 to 2020, and Jim Richerson, the current president, both emphasized the steps the organization is taking to increase membership. The recruitment drive began in earnest around 2015, according to Whaley, in response to declining numbers across the nation. They began to recruit at the college golf level, including club teams, and even delved into the high school ranks through NextGen Golf and the PGA Jr. League. The PGA Hope program has opened the door to recruiting veterans, and along with these partnerships, the PGA of America now employs four full-time recruiters with no other mandate than to beat back the tide.

These efforts are robust, but as the numbers show, they haven't stemmed the overall decline. Even if they did, recruitment is a temporary solution. If the job itself is still considered undesirable from a quality-of-life standpoint, adding more people only plugs a hole in a leaky ship. The unanswered question is, how do you fix the big problem? Or, more pessimistically, can it be fixed?

The obvious impediment to progress on a large scale is that golf courses are owned and managed by individual entities, some public and some private, and while the PGA of America is the overarching organization to which professionals belong, the PGA of America is not the same as a labor union. While a labor union could theoretically fight for quality of life changes through negotiations or a more drastic collective action like a strike, the PGA's influence on individual golf courses is indirect at best.

On one hand, it was abundantly clear in conversations with the PGA leaders that they recognize the problem, understand the threat it poses to recreational golf and are taking serious steps to address it on both an individual and industry-wide level.

"We're a people business, and we're a service business," Richerson said. "You need to really be there to develop those relationships, and that has put a strain on the PGA professional. At our last meeting in November, and subsequent board meetings, we've talked a lot about the importance of addressing those challenges in the workforce."

On the other hand, it was also clear that their power to force change is fundamentally limited. If the obvious solution to this problem lies with clubs hiring more people so that the obligations of each individual aren't so oppressive, the equally obvious obstacle is that those same clubs have become used to pros who work long hours and can be reluctant to spend the money necessary to hire more personnel. That's equally true for public and private courses, and from pros around the country, it was more common to hear stories of boards cutting positions rather than adding them.

The good news is that pay has gone up. From 2019 to 2021, the average compensation for a full-time head golf professional rose by 8 percent, to $101,981, while the pay for full-time assistant professionals increased 16 percent, to $53,786. (Despite this development, Waugh acknowledged last November that the increase wasn't adequate.) Even with rising pay, it's important to remember the declining numbers of professionals, which highlights a truth that was repeated to me again and again: this is primarily a work-life balance problem, not a money problem.

The PGA has taken what steps it can to improve working conditions. Their career services department has grown to include more than 20 full-time career consultants who not only help pros seeking new jobs, but also work closely with the clubs themselves and their boards. If there's a position to be filled, the PGA of America can throw its hat in the ring as a search firm, and in the process encourage clubs to increase pay and consider adding new positions. For struggling pros, the Member Assistance Program, which costs just $5 annually, offers a variety of quality-of-life services, including counseling on mental health, relationship, and addiction issues.

Dan Simpson has been the head pro at Minneapolis Golf Club since 1990, and at age 54, he belongs to a generation that continued to work long, hard hours even after landing a coveted head pro job. "It's hard," he said. "I have three kids, and they're all in college, but I mean, the things I missed in the summer ..." Here, he trailed off before finishing. "I missed a lot."

Last summer, Simpson worked every day between April 1 and Sept. 25. That was nothing new for him, and in fact when he married his wife more than two decades ago, he told her that if she wanted to move forward, she'd have to understand and accept that he'd be gone for almost six months of the year.

"But after all these years, it kind of wore on her," he said. "And I don't blame her, you know?"

He still loves his job, loves the game and loves the staff and the members at his course. He can't imagine doing anything else with his life. But two years ago, he and his wife divorced.

Even today, when Derek's wife hears the words "the club," it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. "The club" was the place that meant Derek had to miss dance recitals, gymnastics, T-ball games and school plays because he was working 80 hours a week as head pro in the northwest, earning $20,000 less than his predecessor. He has fond memories of his time—he got to play Pebble, and he and his wife took a European trip together—but mostly it was a slow decline as his dream gave way to a very different reality. His favorite week every year came during an annual vacation to a remote area without cell phone coverage, because then he could truly check out and escape the stress of the job that never went away.

He began to experience constant anxiety at work. He felt damned one way or another; if he spent too much time outside with lessons, he'd be chastised for inventory work that didn't get done. If he spent too much time inside, there would be complaints that he wasn't showing his face. He was diagnosed with depression, and when the board changed over and he learned that one of the members was intent on getting him fired, he knew it was time to go. Today, he's "tenfold" happier, but it's the sacrifices he made, for what feels like nothing, that eat at him the most.

"Those days are gone for a lot of these younger pros," he said. "They want to live life, too, and you can't really blame them. Maybe people are smarter now."

While it's true that COVID has made the demands on pros and assistant pros incrementally worse, this problem didn't begin with the pandemic. In fact, it has been going on for a very long time, which leads to another question: What has changed? Why is this coming to the forefront now? According to almost everyone I spoke to who serves in a leadership capacity anywhere in the industry, part of the answer is a generational mindset shift.

Richerson, who along with his PGA presidency is the General Manager at historic Riviera Country Club outside Los Angeles, has spent his career in golf management, and the perspective he sees in young workers today isn't one he recognizes from his own past.

"Thirty years ago when I was coming out of college, I didn't necessarily do it so much as a job, but as something I was passionate about," he said. "Now, I just think individuals come in for different reasons. They look at their future, their careers a bit differently. Some are willing to change industries—not just jobs, but they're willing to change industries every year or two years or three years. I don't think that's something that was common in individuals of my age."

"Young people are hoppers, right?" said Whaley, who works now as the Director of Instruction for the Country Club at Mirasol in Florida after serving as the PGA of America’s first female president. "They want a five-day work week, they want to go on vacation with their family, they want weekends off. And certainly if you get into our business, that's not the case. So you have a standard of what a traditional golf professional is used to, in terms of working hours, versus a younger generation that just says, 'no.'"

It can be easy to read some of these remarks as subtly critical, but many of the pros who came up the old way see the new generation's approach as refreshing. Simpson, the head pro at Minneapolis Golf Club, understands and even envies their perspective, even as someone who never expected anything but long hours in his own job.

"Those days are gone for a lot of these younger pros," he said. "They want to live life, too, and you can't really blame them. Maybe people are smarter now."

Aaron sees the writing on the wall, and that's why he's going back to school and planning to leave the golf industry. He's 31, and as an underpaid assistant on the east coast, a future of jumping from club to club chasing a head pro job seems less appealing all the time. His base salary is $32,000 per year (that's after a recent 10-percent raise), and the fact that he's salaried means there's no overtime when he works 12-hour days in the summer. He thinks of his life like the film “Groundhog Day”—it's the same thing every day, year after year, and he can't even go out on weekends with his fiancée or his friends. He suffers from negative thoughts, and during one of his recent reviews, he was told that the members wanted to see him smile more. That pissed him off, and he could barely suppress the first response that came into his head:

"Why would I smile?"

Steve Scott is perhaps best known as the man who stood in Tiger Woods' way in 1996 in the U.S. Amateur final, which Tiger won in 38 holes in part because Scott reminded him to move his marker back before a crucial late putt. Scott continued to play professionally until 2005, and afterward, when he pursued the club-pro path, his reputation was enough to ensure a quick ascent. Before long, he was head pro at Paramount Golf Club in New York, where he stayed until 2017. Scott had what many would consider an ideal situation. He was paid well and had a 5,000-square-foot house on the course. Still, it wasn't uncommon for him to work 80 hours a week in the busy seasons, and the service aspect of the job—appealing to members, and inevitably disappointing and being attacked by some of them—began to take its toll. He found that his patience was being tried daily, and while he's a relentlessly positive person, he could feel the burnout coming. Nor did his own skill make his job any easier.

"The ability to play well really doesn't matter much anymore," he said, laughing. "It matters in some of the clubs that are more traditional, but most other places you might as well just be a shop clerk at Macy's."

After nine years of being "bombarded and hounded," he'd had enough, and left the industry. Today, he runs the Silver Club Golfing Society , which stages tournaments nationwide for amateur golfers . He's able to work from home, and like many of the pros I spoke with, he can vividly remember the moment when he knew he'd made the right choice. It was a Memorial Day weekend, and he spent the holiday at the pool with his wife and two kids. That would be an ordinary event for many families, but for Scott, it was almost inexplicably special—he hadn't been able to do something like that for years.

The battle to educate clubs about the need for fundamental change might be the most critical fight of all, and Tom Wallace wages that war on the front lines. He spent his career in golf management—his résumé includes 10 years as General Manager at Oakmont Country Club—before moving to his current role in 2014 as a partner at the executive search firm Kopplin, Kuebler and Wallace. A big part of Wallace's job is helping clubs fill positions like director of golf and general manager and head professional, and in the process of finding the ideal candidate, he works tirelessly to convince the boards to consider quality of life. (His firm is a part of the Club Leadership Alliance, a group that educates clubs about these exact issues.) Like the PGA of America, who are technically his competitors, Wallace understands that these interactions with clubs are essential to chipping away at the problem of work-life balance—a gradual process of persuasion he calls "constant gentle pressure."

"Expectations have to change," he said. "We've spent a lot of time educating the search committees and these club boards, that these new club pros, they're not going to be there seven days a week, morning, noon and night. No one's going to work like that anymore. The industry as a whole has to make an effort. Clubs and facilities have to start to budget for the extra people you're going to need. They've got to offer a better quality of life to these young people."

If the obvious challenge is that hiring more staff means allocating more budget and potentially increasing members' dues, the persuasion has to appeal on a financial level. His pitch to them is that this isn't just a moral or empathetic choice—it's good business, too.

"You're going to get a better product," he said. "You're going to get a better director of golf, a better head pro, if they're able to spend time with their families and be home and be rested."

He sees a stark divide between the progressive clubs who are already taking steps to ensure the health and general wellbeing of their staff, and those that are not. The consequences of failing to be on the right side of that divide will be steep.

"It will continue to draw a line between those that can afford to be an employer of choice, meaning that they're not just paying well, but just as important, being able to give people their quality of life," he said, "and those that cannot."

In other words, if a club take these steps, and continues to adhere to the old model, the labor shortage will ensure that they can't land the best candidates. In turn, the ones they hire will either leave for greener pastures or be miserable in their jobs, which will harm the member experience and, inevitably, the bottom line of the club itself. If you're not "an employer of choice," your business model is about to get very difficult.

Kelly Williams, the 42-year-old club manager and former head pro at Greenbrier Golf and Country Club in Lexington, Ky., is determined to make his club an employer of choice. That’s no surprise; when it comes to quality of life, he’s taken on a role akin to a movement crusader. He served on the PGA Board of Directors until 2019, and ran for secretary of the PGA of America in 2020—a position that feeds into the presidency. Work-life balance was the major tenet of his platform, and though he began his campaign before COVID hit, it became even more poignant afterward.

As someone who once worked 80 hours per week as a head pro, the pandemic has allowed him to put his money where his mouth is, and Greenbrier is a case study for how the strain of the pandemic on golf pros can be turned to an advantage. The increase in rounds played gave Williams more freedom in his budget and allowed the club to make two major moves. First, they formed a partnership with a group of local instructors to reduce the burden on their own staff. Second, they transitioned to an increasingly common model: a head pro and a director of golf.

To Williams, this kind of flexibility on the club level has presented pros with a critical opportunity, and one that they must seize. "We're in this paradigm shift, where that old school is phasing out and the new school are becoming the club members and board members," he said. "A shift in expectations is as possible as it's ever been, and I believe it's the responsibility of the PGA members to speak for themselves in that board room when they're negotiating their contracts."

What Williams sees now is something novel for golf professionals: leverage. The declining labor pool and the scores of open positions don't just create opportunities on the individual level—they give pros and assistant pros a chance to redefine the job entirely. Another former pro I spoke to made this same point more bluntly.

"If pros don't stand up right now and say, 'No, we're not doing that,' they never will," he said. "There has never been a stronger job market. If you're a good golf professional who knows how to market yourself a little bit, there is no reason for you to stand back and take that crap anymore."

One of Williams' favorite moments came after his campaign was over, when he received a text from a longtime pro in his late 50s who had heard him speak. For the first time in his life, that pro had negotiated with his club for four weeks of vacation and was going to take a week in the middle of June for a beach vacation with his family. Williams empowered him, and his hope is that the example will be followed by other pros until it becomes commonplace.

On the other hand, his vision of a future mired in the status quo is dire—a golf industry full of clock-in, clock-out employees with no knowledge or passion for the game, and a sport that withers on the vine. He knows a hospitality industry like golf will never reach a model where employees work three 12-hour shifts each week, but he also knows that if they can't adapt and meet in the middle, a collapse is coming.

Williams lost his campaign. Ironically, one of the reasons some gave for voting against him was that he had a young family, and that the travel and responsibility that come from being the secretary, vice president and president of the PGA of America over six years would affect—yes—his work-life balance.

Despite the loss, Williams feels that he achieved something by bringing the issue to light and that attitudes are changing, if slowly. As our conversation ended, he had a final message that he delivered with a preacher's conviction.

"If you can do anything through this article," he said, "it's to write to the people who own and operate clubs and facilities and say, 'Take a look at what these people are doing for you. Make sure you're encouraging them to take time away so they can be at their best when they're present.'"

Williams knows too well that the future comes down to this. The educators can educate, the PGA of America can advocate, and the pros can fight for themselves in a patchwork substitute for collective action, but the final choice falls to the clubs.

As the crisis deepens, and the clamor grows louder, it's no longer possible for them to pretend they don't hear. The question is, will they listen?

Paul K. Levy

Paul K. Levy, PGA

Search & consulting executive.

Paul has had an extraordinary career as a golf professional, general manager, president of club operations and development and chief executive officer. Coupled with his decades-long support and leadership within the PGA of America, culminating in his Presidency of the organization from 2016 to 2018 and being inducted to the PGA of America Hall of Fame in November 2021, Paul immediately adds an enormous amount of golf operational and strategic knowledge to the KK&W Team.

Following a two-year term as the 40th PGA President, Paul K. Levy was named PGA Honorary President at the 2018 PGA Annual Meeting. Previously, he also served two-year terms each as PGA Vice President and PGA Secretary.

For more than 18 years Paul was President of Club Operations and Development for Sunrise Company in which time he developed and managed several properties in California, Texas, Nevada and Colorado. Additionally, he was the CEO and General Manager at Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, California. Paul has been an active member of CMAA since 2005 and was also inducted to the Southern California PGA Hall of Fame.

Levy earned PGA Membership in 1986, and has served in a leadership capacity at both the Section and national levels since 1992.

As PGA President, Levy was influential in the decision to relocate the PGA Headquarters to Frisco, Texas, and spearheaded growing the employment consultant arm of PGA of America‘s Career Services and executive search. The $550 million PGA Frisco development will bring 26 PGA of America championships, approximately 150 jobs and a new Northern Texas PGA Section Headquarters.

Levy was president of the Southern Texas PGA Section and earned the Southern Texas PGA Golf Professional of the Year Award. He has also been named as a three-time Section PGA Junior Golf Leader recipient; the Section Bill Strausbaugh Award winner; and Section Merchandiser of the Year for Public Facilities. Additionally, he chaired every major committee of the Section at one time in his tenure as a Section leader. Levy was also elected as an Independent Director on the Southern California PGA Board of Directors.

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 760-417-9048

Resources & Insights from Paul…

Golf keeps going strong.

Another interesting statistic comes from non-green grass participation, better known as the Topgolf phenomenon. The NGF put the total number of golfers at the end of 2022 at 25.6 million. And when you include non-green grass golfers, some predict as many as 44 million Americans are now playing some kind of golf, which is a 7% increase since 2022. While many questioned whether these non-green grass golfers would also transition to playing golf on actual green grass, there is ample evidence that they have…

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Pga of america president paul levy charged with dui, share this article.

PGA of America president Paul Levy was arrested last week and charged for driving under the influence of alcohol, the Riverside County (Calif.) Sheriff’s office confirmed Wednesday.

Levy was driving eastbound in the 74-000 block of Highway 111 in Palm Desert, Calif. when his vehicle veered off the road and collided into a posted sign, according to a Sheriff’s office release.

Paul Levy. (Riverside County Sheriff’s Office)

Officers responded to the single-car collision at approximately 11:22 p.m. on June 7. During the investigation Levy showed signs of being under the influence of alcohol. Levy, 57, was transported to a hospital as a precaution but was not injured in the incident. He was booked into Riverside County Jail in Indio, Calif. and charged with a misdemeanor DUI. He is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 2 at the Indio Larson Justice Center, according to Riverside County jail records.

The PGA of America issued the following statement to Golfweek :

“Paul Levy has accepted responsibility for his terrible lapse in judgment last Thursday.  He has expressed deep regret and fully understands how irresponsible his actions were.  The PGA of America will support Paul as he seeks counseling, faces the consequences of his actions and works through the legal process in the months ahead.”

Levy succeeded Derek Sprague as 40th PGA of America president in November of 2016. At the time he was CEO and General Manager of Toscana Country Club, in Indian Wells, Calif. Levy stepped down from those roles in May of 2017.

A native of New Orleans, Levy is a 1983 graduate of Louisiana State University where he played on the golf team. He has worked an array of positions in the golf world, including a stint at Royal Oaks Country Club in Houston before his stint at Toscana.

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Team STPGA Nears Victory at the 7th Levy Cup Matches

WHITNEY, TX – The Northern Texas PGA team claimed their third straight Levy Cup Matches title with a score of 12.5–11.5 over the Southern Texas PGA.

It was a tight battle all day between the two teams competing at White Bluff Resort - The New Course. STPGA got off to a hot start winning four of the first five matches of the day, but the NTPGA was able to gain momentum with the later matches. It all would eventually come down to the second to last match of the day.

Spencer Dillard, PGA assistant professional at Preston Trail Golf Club was the lucky member to clinch the cup for the NTPGA. After losing the 16th hole to bring his match back into a tie Dillard stepped onto the par-3 17th tee as the only match left on the course. He was able to hit the green and two-putt to win the hole and guarantee the final half point needed for the Northern Texas team.

Stuart Hendley, PGA director of instruction at Dallas Athletic Club, who made his fourth Levy Cup appearance this week, went undefeated and earned all three possible points. His overall record is now 9-1-1.

Matt Lohmeyer (SLICGOLF), Todd McCorkle (Life Member), Gabe Reynolds (Topgolf - Dallas), Brian Norman (Lakewood Country Club), Spencer Dillard (Preston Trail Golf Club) and Stuart Hendley (Dallas Athletic Club) all earned points today for the NTPGA.

The Levy Cup is a Ryder Cup-style format featuring teams represented by four Assistant PGA Professionals and four Senior PGA Professionals (any classification, aged 50 and older) and four PGA Members Other who qualified through their respective Section Major Championships. The Matches were created in 2017 to celebrate Paul Levy, PGA who was completing his first year of a two-year term as President of the PGA of America. During his career Paul has been a member of both Sections

On Sunday night during the opening ceremonies Paul Levy announced the creation of the Levy Cup Scholarship. The new scholarship will be awarded to a deserving high school senior from the NTPGA or the STPGA Junior Golf Tours on a yearly basis. It will alternate based on which Section is hosting that year's matches.

The scholarship was made possible by a $25,000 donation from the PGA of America. They support past presidents of the PGA with a one-time donation to a 501(c)(3) golf related foundation. In addition to the initial donation, Paul Levy announced that he and his wife Heidi were matching the donation to bring the total scholarship fund to $50,000.

“Our goal is to grow the scholarship significantly over the coming years,” said Levy.

Mark Harrison, CEO of the NTPGA said, “The NTPGA and STPGA are appreciative of the support of the PGA of America and Mr. and Mrs. Levy for the creation of this new scholarship.”

The 7th Levy Cup Matches were presented by Club Car, Dunning, Levelwear and Ping.

White Bluff Resort - The New Course

Par: 36-36–72

Yardage: 6,985 yards

Senior Yardage: 6,548 yards

View the final results HERE . View the NTPGA photo gallery HERE.

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View the recap video HERE.

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FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICA’S  RADICAL RIGHT-WING MOVEMENT 

[ Paul Levy © 2019 ]

Introduction

For 50 years a powerful Right-Wing Movement has transformed America, capturing the Republican Party and achieving many other notable victories such as Citizens United, popularizing school vouchers, and reversing a growing commitment to address climate change by promoting climate change denial.

Recent exposés such as Jane Mayer’s Dark Money and Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains help reveal this often stealthy Movement, but it has actually been recognized for some time.  An early description of it, for example, was a book by John Saloma III entitled Ominous Politics: The New Conservative Labyrinth .  Saloma was a moderate Republican and a founder of its Ripon Society .  Writing in 1984, he saw the movement as a major danger to the advancement of his Republican Party.  Here is how he summarized it:

Over a period … political conservatives have quietly built a vast coalition of think tanks, political action groups, religious broadcasters, corporate political organizations, senators and representatives, Republic Party officials, and other groups with budgets totaling hundreds of millions of dollars annually. I emphasize the “quietly” because this major development … has arrived almost unannounced.

Although the Movement has grown enormously since 1984, many of its early benefactors and most of its original design such as think tanks, political action committees, and partnership with the Religious Right remain at its core today.  We think of the Koch brothers as being pivotal to today’s Movement, but they were already key players in 1984 and their father was before them.  In fact, the term Kochtopus , commonly used today to refer to the brothers’ broad influence, was coined in 1980. 

Progressive and Centrist activists need to confront this Movement – to shape an effective vision and set of strategies and launch a countermovement, if you will.  But a prerequisite to doing this is to understand the Movement’s history, affluence, structure, strategies, institutions, entrenchment, victories, and core ideology. 

This document is an attempt to advance these understandings. It is a collection of relatively brief descriptions of key Movement elements.  Each contains citations and often supplemental material as well as references and links to Related Essays that I have written.

  [1]  Mayer and MacLean use the term “Kochtopus” to identify the reach of Koch activity and influence, so it seems recent.  However, Saloma also uses the term, and it was originally coined by Edward Konkin III, a left-wing libertarian in 1980 (New Libertarian’s Manifesto).

WELCOME TO MY WORLD

I enjoy research and writing, and it comprises an important corner of my world.  Usually I have written about public policy and social justice issues, often approaching these issues in alternative ways.  The majority of writings on this website are of this type.  Some have been published nationally or locally and others are either unpublished or shared only in courses I taught or with organizations with which I’ve worked.  Occasionally I write songs, humor pieces, short stories, and other creative items, and I may add some of these writings to this site in the future.

 Series

FIFTY YEARS OF AMERICA'S

RADICAL RIGHT WING MOVEMENT

For 50 years a powerful Right-Wing Movement has transformed America, capturing the Republican Party and achieving many other notable victories such as Citizens United, the advancement of school vouchers, and a concerted promotion of climate change denial that reversed a previously growing consensus to address global warming.

If Progressives and Centrists are to confront this Movement more effectively, we need to understand its history, affluence, structure, strategies, institutions, entrenchment, victories, and core ideology.  

Fifty Years is a free set of brief (5- to 15-page) descriptions of Movement features.  Its Parts include the Movement’s:

    HISTORY – it emerged in the early 1970s as a response to expanding progressivism.

    FINANCES – it is a rich people’s movement that has expanded enormously, adding new funders and funding

       mechanisms.  

    KEY STRATEGIES – it has pursued 5 strategies from its inception: to create think tanks, infiltrate academia, reform         the law, develop a media presence, and create a base. 

    IDEOLOGY – it has adopted essentially a Libertarian or Deep Conservative ideology.

    KEY ORGANIZATIONS – it has hundreds of organizations operating thousands of projects, and its lead                             organizations are usually quite affluent and powerful.

    CASE HISTORIES – its victories reflect a capacity to quickly mobilize resources.

    CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS – currently in process, this part offers ideas for Progressives and Moderates           to counter the Movement more effectively. 

    RELATED ESSAYS -- various essays address topics of special interest such as a critique of Libertarianism and a               description of public choice theory.