At home on the range.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

Teaching has always been a female-friendly profession - unless the subject being taught is the golf swing. Males dominate the lesson tees even more than they do the golf courses themselves.

One out of every four adult golfers in the U.S. last year was female, according to the National Golf Foundation. Yet only about one out of every 20 golf teachers is female, judging by the number of golf instructors accredited by the PGA and the LPGA, the country's two major golf organizations.

Women teaching golf to men were hard to find in 1972, when Kathy Martin set her sights on becoming a golf pro - as an instructor, if not a player.

"I just decided I could probably make more money, if the tour didn't work out, teaching golf than I could teaching kids in high school or elementary school, which has proven to be true," said Martin, an LPGA "Class A" instructor at Emerald Valley Golf Course in Creswell. She previously taught eight years at RiverRidge Golf Complex in Eugene.

Martin is one of only 15 LPGA-accredited instructors in Oregon, and the only one in the Eugene area. That compares with 370 PGA instructors in Oregon, all but a handful of which are men.

But gender is not an issue when it comes to knowing how to help people get the most out of their golf swing.

Just look at what Martin's colleagues say. Jerry McDermott of McDermott's Golf School at Fiddler's Green - in a recent note to clients announcing he was closing his golf school to move to Texas - named Martin as one of two instructors in the Eugene area he recommends.

Or ask Martin's clients, two-thirds of whom are men.

"The swing thoughts she started me keeping are so simple. ... It's easy to keep with you on the range and on the course," said Craig Winter, who's seen his handicap drop from "about a 15' to a 3 while working with Martin over the past two years.

Another client, Ross Bridges, credits Martin with helping him make the transition from hacker to better-than-scratch golfer over a period of several years.

"I've worked with Kathy about six years," said Bridges, who was previously coached by Al Mundle, the highly regarded director of instruction at RiverRidge.

"Al got busy and referred me to her," Bridges said, "and she and I just clicked."

Taking instruction from a woman was never an issue, he said, because Martin obviously knew what she was talking about.

"She's definitely got game," he said. "I play with her quite a bit and she wins more than her share of skins."

Indeed, few other Oregon golf instructors - male or female - can match Martin's credentials as a player.

She made her living as a touring pro for more than a dozen years, having played her way onto the LPGA tour in 1972 at age 25 and staying there until injury forced her to give up the game in 1985.

While she never won a tournament, Martin amassed several top-10 finishes and took second-place money several times. Her best finish on the money list was "about 20th." She also set a tour record of 13-under par for a 36-hole score (66-65 -131). That record stood for five years.

"I had great fun out on the tour - I traveled all over the world for free," Martin said. "People paid us to come play in their tournaments."

The fun included playing in tournaments with Patty Berg, Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth and other top women pros whose games Martin admired while growing up in southern California.

"My father and mother and both grandfathers played golf, so it was kind of a natural thing for me to go into," Martin said.

But there was no help from high school or college golf coaches.

"When I was growing up there were boys teams; there weren't any girls teams. That Title IX stuff came after I was gone," she said.

"I just played a lot of golf and kind of decided one day that I was going to try the LPGA."

Her run as a pro player ended when tendinitis in her left elbow led to surgery that left her unable to even pick up a golf club for several years.

That meant Martin couldn't turn to her long-term goal of being a golf teacher.

"I felt, 'If you can't demonstrate to them, what good are you as a teacher?' ' she said.

So Martin opened a typesetting business with her sister, printing the LPGA guidebook and various golf tournament programs, among other things.

As her arm gradually improved, Martin began teaching a little and finally decided that was still the career she wanted.

While "anybody can just hang out a sign saying 'I'm a teaching pro' ' and go into business, Martin thought it important to be an accredited teacher.

That meant starting at the beginning, as far as the LPGA was concerned.

"The LPGA teaching division does not recognize what I did on the tour, so I had to do the same thing everybody else did," she said. That meant passing written and playing skills tests, serving a one-year apprenticeship, then passing still more exams to become a Class B and eventually a Class A instructor. All that took about four years.

Obtaining her credentials, however, didn't make it easy to break into the golf business.

"When I first came to Oregon, all I was looking for was just working in a pro shop and teaching. I sent my resume to every golf course within a 50-mile radius of Albany, and I did not get one reply. So that tells you right there, 'It's a good old boys club up here.' '

Eventually, however, Martin became the first head pro at the Golf Club of Oregon in Albany, a position she held 2 1/2 years before moving to Eugene and RiverRidge in 1994.

Martin's LPGA Tour experience provided her with "a solid background in course management and the mental approach to the game," said Mundle, the RiverRidge director of instruction. "These are vital aspects of the game that all great players have in common."

Also, Mundle said, Martin "is an excellent short game player, and she is likewise a very good short game instructor."

Mundle, whose own golf career spans more than 50 years, has seen the "revolution" in which golf opportunities for females have "exploded."

"The quality of the players has likewise spiraled upward," he said. "Some women continue to play professionally, and then there are those who quit playing competitively and see the financial opportunities of teaching, especially giving golf instruction to other women.

When she left the tour 20 years ago, Martin said, there were only about 200 LPGA-certified teachers in the country. Now there are about 1,200, "so there's been a massive increase."

Martin does her part to help other women become golf instructors. She organized one of nine major "evaluation sites" for LPGA instructors in the U.S. this year and is one of the LPGA's "member advisors," meaning she serves as mentor to five apprentice instructors at a time.

More women instructors will be good for golf, Martin said, "because I feel women overall have more empathy with their students. ...

"I'm by no means saying women are better teachers than men ... but I am saying I feel we're more sensitive, more in tune with what our students are doing. I think a teacher has to be genuinely excited for what each student is able to accomplish - whether it's a 70-year-old lady who hits her best drive 150 yards or a touring pro who hits it 300."

From the teacher's perspective, Martin said, gender does not figure into how people learn or the basic skills that are taught. The only difference is that men, because of the strength factor, will hit the ball farther than some women.

Nationwide, women are becoming more common among the ranks of highly regarded golf instructors. Golf Digest, for example, included 10 women in its latest ranking of the country's 100 best teachers.

Martin hopes the interest generated by such young female golfers as Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer will help give the profession another boost "if Wie would get off this kick of always wanting to play on the men's tour."

Meanwhile, top women teachers command fees equal to their male counterparts. Martin charges $55 for a 30-minute lesson, $40 for juniors and seniors - the same as Todd O'Neal, the male head pro and general manager at Emerald Valley.

Still, Martin said gender apparently remains an issue in some country club boardrooms, if not on public-course lesson tees.

"I would like to be a head pro again, in the right circumstances," she said. In fact, Martin recently applied for the head pro job at a Willamette Valley country club.

"With my background and with my credentials - having already been a head pro, a teaching pro, and being very personable - I did not even get an interview," she said. "A friend of mine talked to some of the people on the board of directors and they said, `We're just not ready for that.' For a woman. It's tough."

Kathy Martin can be reached at 554-0131.

CAPTION(S):

Kathy Martin (in pink above and left) works with Craig Winter during a recent lesson on the driving range of Emerald Valley Golf Course in Creswell. Martin spent 13 years as a player on the LPGA Tour before becoming an instructor. Thomas Boyd / The Register-Guard Kathy Martin is respected for her skills in golf's short game. `I'm by no means saying women are better teachers than men ... but I am saying I feel we're more sensitive, more in tune with what our students are doing.' KATHY MARTIN TEACHING PRO