Do you know the wealth of resources we have here at the Long Cove Club? We interviewed the Director of Golf Instruction for a peek into his knowledge, experience, and teaching style so that you can feel confident in his expertise. Looking to up your game? Regardless of your current skills, we are confident that Rob can take you to the next level. We hope you enjoy reading about him as much as we enjoyed talking to him. Be sure to stop in and say “hi” if you haven’t already.
Rob Stocke, Director of Instruction, provides members at the iconic Long Cove Club with the skills they need to enjoy the game. He teaches you how to play. That may seem like a simple statement, but the truth of it is what puts Long Cove Club ahead of its competition.
Rob’s approach to teaching students the game is for them to not just develop a perfect swing that they can practice day in and day out on the golf range, but to see members go out on the beautiful course itself for a round of golf. He wants to show you how to make the experience one that you can delight in. Rob says, “I try to make people enjoy it a little more, have fun, and play better. Hopefully we achieve that.”
““The big thing has been to grow the game through our club membership. We have a very diverse community.””
When Rob got into the golf business shortly after college, he knew he wanted to teach others the game. He went to work for his golf teacher and spent summers in North Carolina at a club called Elk River, and winters in Florida at Golf Digest Schools. “That was an amazing opportunity!” he exclaims.
As an assistant at the schools, he was assigned to help instructors. While he ran the technology for them (which at that time was two big VHS cameras and a 13-inch black and white screen) he watched them as they taught.
He accepted an opportunity to teach golf full-time at the Atlanta Athletic Club right before the PGA Championship was held there in 2001. That same year, another high-end golf course in Atlanta, the Golf Club of Georgia, decided they wanted to start an instruction program and recruited him. He spent the longest time of his career there - 17 years. His last golf instruction position before coming to Long Cove was for two years at another club in Atlanta called White Columns.
Rob was the 2012 Georgia PGA Section North Chapter Teacher of the Year. Named a 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 GRAA Top 50 Growth of the Game Teaching Professional, he also received the 2012 and 2015 U. S. Kids Top 50 Instructor Honorable Mention awardseven times from 2012 to 2019 and was rated Number 11 on Golf Digest’s “Top Teachers in the State” list. Future Champions of Golf named Rob a top 25 elite coach for the last three years. He was one of the first five PGA professionals to be certified in instruction.
In his instructional role the last few years in Atlanta, he taught a lot of elite juniors – young golfers who want to compete collegiately or professionally – at a large academy. For the last four years, he has had more than 35 young players sign college scholarships for golf. Rob has clear plans for growth at Long Cove. “The big thing has been to grow the game through our club membership. We have a very diverse community. We have low handicap players, we have a lot of people who may have played a little bit, but now they’ve retired and want to play more. We have people who have never really played but want to take it up. We are developing programs for all of them.” This will be huge for the future growth of the Long Cove Club. A place where everyone finds a home, camaraderie, and a teacher to help them excel, no matter what their current skill-level might be. “The women’s program has really grown. We also have intermediates and we try to do activities based around different topics on a monthly basis.
““One of the things that really impressed me about Long Cove was how engaged everybody is. You come out here at four or five o’clock in the afternoon and the range is full and there are people playing. “”
“I do a lot of private lessons, but we do a lot of clinics as well for the different groups. We might do a wedge clinic one month, a driving clinic another month.” When somebody wants to get new equipment, or wants to achieve more distance, in addition to golf instruction, Rob does a lot of golf club fitting.
“One of the things that really impressed me about Long Cove was how engaged everybody is. You come out here at four or five o’clock in the afternoon and the range is full and there are people playing. There are a lot of walkers, people want to stay in shape and they enjoy the beauty here on Hilton Head Island. It’s an active community. We are busy, which is awesome!” The goal is to offer something for everybody, whether they need a quick tune-up to fix a particular shot, want to do a program about the short game, a scoring program, or a playing lesson on the course. Rob also runs intense programs where members who want to take it to the next level can do a 12-week program to develop their entire golf game.
“My goal is that they leave better than when they showed up. I want to try and find out what their specific goals are. We’re going to address those and figure out how to reach those goals, whether it’s for an hour or over a period of time. I think that the goal of golf instruction at Long Cove is to make it world class. It’s a world class golf course and a world class community. We want to be on that level. The membership has high standards for what we offer. That’s part of what attracted me to it.”