GREEN VALLEY —
The LPGA’s Teacher of the Year doesn’t work at Pebble Beach, Myrtle Beach or any place you might see a Ferrari in the parking lot.
Marvol Barnard teaches at Haven Golf Club, which is a little bit country, a little bit “Tin Cup” and so close to Interstate 19 that you could plunk an 18-wheeler with a wicked slice.
She didn’t pick up a golf club until she was almost 40, and got her start at the unpretentious Haven facility as a cashier and a bartender. Before that, she lived on a boat in Alaska.
“I teach four days a week and I’m booked into May,” she says. “I don’t teach you to align your elbow with your hip or any of the techniques that are over-taught and confusing.”
Is this a great country, or what?
On Wednesday morning outside the Haven pro shop, 71-year-old Sara Gleason grabbed my arm when I asked about Marvol Barnard.
“She makes you smile,” Gleason said. “She makes golf friendly. We just love her.”
Barnard’s reputation isn’t confined to the six golf courses that populate the Green Valley area. The great Nancy Lopez has twice been to Haven to put on golf clinics with a woman who was named one of Golf Digest’s Top 50 Women’s Teachers of 2012, and later won the 2013 Nancy Lopez Achievement Award.
The honors presented Barnard haven’t been swayed by regional prejudice, big names or some privileged link to TPC Sawgrass or Torrey Pines.
When the LPGA selected her as the 2016 Teacher of the Year it summarized this way:
“What makes Barnard stand out among her peers is that she created a Player Development Pathway, creating tremendous growth in play and participation that brings together all aspects of her professional life. Her programs include a Golf 101 program, The Next Step, Go Go Golf, Play Smart Golf, Nine and Wine, the Swing School, and many more.”
“It’s a win for the little guy,” she says, modestly. “This isn’t a high-end resort. It’s not Scottsdale. I’ve had a wonderful, exciting, blessed career.”
Every parking spot at Haven was full Wednesday morning. The driving range was hopping. Golfers are neither scared off by a course that’s too difficult, too expensive, or, worse, too high-brow.
Barnard has put a happy face to much of it.
Tom Borg, a 79-year old retired Federal Express executive, once approached Barnard with a list of 38 specific things he wanted to improve. “It was a zillion things, from clubface angle to my spine angle,” he remembers. “I wanted her to fix everything.”
How’d that go?
“I got better because she keeps it simple,” he says. “Overall, a lot of people who take golf lessons don’t get better.”
Borg, who has played many of America’s leading courses, including 28 trips to Pebble Beach, and also helped to operate the World Golf Championship event at Firestone Country Club in Ohio, has become Barnard’s self-appointed No. 1 fan.
“Haven is booming and a lot of it is related to Marvol,” he says. “If you create fun, they’ll come and play. Marvol has done that.”
After her college days in Spokane, Washington, Barnard ultimately settled in Alaska. She was a dispatcher for the Alaska State Troopers, where she met her husband, Sam. They ran a fishing charter service, and later became commercial fishermen. When they began “snowbirding” to Arizona 25 years ago, looking for a place to call home, they chose Green Valley.
It fit.
At 38 she started to golf. “I thought it was the stupidest game ever,” she says.
By 40 she was all in. As with golf for anybody, it was easy. She had to shoot in the 70s twice to get her PGA of America Class A Card. To get her LPGA teaching certification, she had a one-time chance on a difficult course in California. She had to break 85.
“That was stressful,” she remembers. “But I wanted to get both my PGA and LPGA certification. As far as I know, there are only 160 people who have both.”
In whatever free time she has, Barnard has gone back to school; she’s about to graduate from NAU with a degree in public administration. Like her late entry into golf, she wanted to start something difficult and take it to the finish.
One of Barnard’s most popular grow-the-game ideas is the frequent “Nine and Wine” outing at Haven. It’s just what it says. Nine holes of golf and some shared wine in the clubhouse. No pressure. At the beginning, eight ladies signed up to play. Now there are more than 100 and a waiting list.
At a time when golf numbers are shrinking in America and especially Southern Arizona, Barnard has grown the game at her own little piece of Heaven at the Haven.
