Celebrities attending Tiger Woods TGL golf matches at SoFi Center
While most fans attending TGL golf matches since January are ordinary people, there has been no lack of big-named celebrities at SoFi Center.
- Jason Baile, PGA Director of Instruction at Jupiter Hills Club, named 2025 PGA of America Teacher & Coach of the Year.
- Pam Elders, Director of Golf Instruction at Boca West Country Club, won the 2025 PGA Player Development Award.
TEQUESTA — From an early age, Jason Baile knew what he wanted to do in life.
When your father coached high school football and basketball for 40 years and your mom started a dance studio that grew to more than 600 students learning tap and ballet, Baile realized the whistle wouldn’t fall too far from his neck.
“I was never going to be a lawyer or a doctor or have a ‘real job’ where I sat in an office from 9-to-5,” Baile said. “I always knew I was going to be a coach.”
Baile narrowed his choices to coaching basketball or golf. He eventually chose the smaller ball for a simple reason.
“It seemed like golf professionals got fired a lot less than basketball coaches,” he said.
Baile doesn’t have to worry about receiving a pink slip, not after the PGA Director of Instruction at Jupiter Hills Club was named the 2025 PGA of America Teacher & Coach of the Year. Baile received the news earlier this year when he thought he was doing an interview – and instead was surprised when he was told he had received one of the highest honors a PGA Professional can get.
“It was all a big setup, and I was blown away,” said the 53-year-old Baile, a Jupiter resident. “It made me overwhelmingly proud, especially when you look at the list of who has won this award: David Leadbetter, Mike Adams, Jim McClean, Todd Anderson, Mike Bender, Harvey Penick. To be included on that list is incredible to me.”
Once Baile decided to go into golf, he learned from mentors such as PGA Professionals Jon Tattersall, Phil Owenby and Jack Lumpkin while working in Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia’s Sea Island Resort and Hilton Head. But his career took off when he decided to move to South Florida in 2019 to take the Jupiter Hills job.
His expertise is fitness and understanding how the body moves during the swing through the Titleist Performance Institute. At Jupiter Hills, he inherited a state-of-the-art Jupiter Hills Performance Center that provided him with more tools.
Former US Open champion Lucas Glover among Jason Baile’s ‘students’
Most of Baile’s work is done quietly at the back end of Jupiter Hills’ range, helping members with their game. But his talent has been evident on the PGA Tour the last few years through the resurgence of former U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover and Bud Cauley, as well as Ryan Gerard’s strong play.
When Baile started working with Glover three years ago, Glover had won just once on the PGA Tour in the last decade and had lost his exemption for winning the 2009 U.S. Open. But Glover won back-to-back weeks in the fall of 2023 – the third player in his 40s to win consecutive weeks on PGA Tour in the last 25 years – and is 35th in the world rankings after four third-place finishes in his last 16 starts.
“He’s helped me out a lot,” Glover said. “He got me over the stigma of using technology to my advantage because I’m an older player. I was always kind of scared of being too technical, and I told him that and he goes, ‘Dude, I got you.’
“But the best thing about Jason is, you look at all the guys and gals he teaches, everybody’s got different swing, everybody’s got different action, and he’s not trying to put us in a box. He’s taking what we’ve got and figuring out. He calls it each player’s superpower.”
Baile has quite the stable of fellow coaches to bounce ideas off at Jupiter Hills. Putting game guru Brad Faxon (who works with Rory McIlroy), LPGA Tour Hall of Famer Judy Dickinson and golf performance expert Lance Gill assist Baile – not that he needs much assistance.
“Jason is such an outgoing, exuberant, enthusiast person, he’s immediately likable,” Faxon said. “He’s self-deprecating, which undermines how smart he really is. He knows about the game and the situations the players get into. I’ve never seen his teaching sheet not booked every day. And when he’s not at Jupiter Hills, he’s helping the South Florida PGA Section with lectures or he’s out on (the PGA) Tour with a handful of players.”
There’s not much time for Baile to rest on his laurels. It’s why when he learned he won the award, the first thing he wanted to do was call wife Mollie, who has helped him raise their three daughters.
“She puts up with a lot of traveling and long hours at the club,” he said. “She’s been right there with me all the way.”
Baile appears to have found a home at Jupiter Hills. At least he hopes so.
“Jupiter Hills lets me dream, they let me explore,” he said. “I get excited when I can dream.”
Boca West Country Club’s Pam Elders wins Player Development Award
Baile wasn’t the only local PGA Professional to receive a national award. Pam Elders, Director of Golf Instruction at Boca West Country Club, won the 2025 PGA of America Player Development Award.
Responsible for creating custom programs for more than 2,000 members annually, Elders has been instrumental in implementing and elevating diverse player-development programs throughout her teaching career, highlighted by Ladies Beginner Clinics, Get Golf Ready and her Break 100 Program. She also was a high school coach, PGA HOPE instructor, former First Tee instructor, and former Special Olympics volunteer.
“It’s unbelievable. I never thought I would have qualified to win a national award,” said Elders, who has worked at Boca West for 22 years. “I know some people who have won national awards, and they’re famous. I never felt like I had enough content. I only worked at three facilities.
“It’s hard to reinvent yourself at the same place. We had a change in management, and they were like, ‘Go ahead, do what you want.’ I finally got an opportunity to put things in place.”
Elders was the 1978 Junior College individual Champion at Miami-Dade Community College-North before playing three years at the University of Miami. She has been recognized in the South Florida PGA Section as the Patriot Award recipient (2023), the SFPGA Player Development Award recipient (2020), the Southeast Chapter Player Development Award recipient (2020), and the Southern Chapter Teacher of the Year (1994).
Staff writer Tom D’Angelo contributed to this report.
Rosie Pro-Am coming up May 11-12
You don’t have to be a member at Jupiter Hills Club to receive a lesson from reigning PGA of America National Teacher & Coach of the Year.
Baile has donated a 90-minute Titleist Performance Institute evaluation and 3D Golf Swing Analysis at the Jupiter Hills Performance Center as one of the auction items for the second annual Rosie Pro-Am on May 11-12 at the Floridian in Palm City.
Last year’s inaugural Rosie Pro-Am raised almost $200,000 for college scholarships through First Tee Florida Gold Coast and the Evans Scholars Foundation. Baile’s lesson is valued at $1,500 (bids start at $1,000 on Rosieproam.com).
Other auction items include a chance for a foursome to play at Oakmont Country Club – site of this year’s U.S. Open – along with former head professional Bob Ford. To bid on auction items or to donate, go to RosieProAm.com.
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