Three young golf professionals lead the Boot Ranch golf experience. Learn more about what it takes to become a PGA member and earn the title “Pro.”
Once upon a time, you could probably land a job as a golf course pro simply by being a good player. Not anymore – at least not at most courses. To become a golf pro at Boot Ranch, you must be a member of the Professional Golf Association of America (PGA). And years of study and on-the-job training are required before you can be voted in.
In addition to General Manager Emil Hale, Boot Ranch has three PGA members on its golf staff: Head Professional Alex Rhyne, and Assistant Professionals Adam Sermo and Camille Enright. Each has earned the Class A member designation, having completed all PGA-required courses and internships, and passing a series of rigorous tests.
It also means they qualified to begin the PGA education program by shooting low enough scores in PGA-supervised, 36-hole golf tournaments. (The cut-off scores vary, depending on the difficulty of the particular tournament course, but fewer than 20 percent of applicants make it past the playing ability test, according to the PGA.)
From there, the PGA curriculum covers all aspects of running a golf course, including teaching techniques, turf grass care, tournament management, club fitting, merchandising, and overseeing food and beverage operations. The educational program is so comprehensive that the PGA allows candidates up to nine years to complete it, although the Boot Ranch pros did it in far less time.
To earn their PGA member status, Alex and Adam attended universities that offer PGA-accredited golf management programs. The programs take at least four and a half years to finish, including a mandatory 16 months of internships.
Camille took a different route. She attended a university that offered her a scholarship to play on its women’s golf team but didn’t have a golf management program. After earning a master’s degree in management at the school, she then attended golf management seminars offered by the PGA and studied under a PGA-approved mentor at a club where she worked. She was voted in as a PGA member in March, just 21 months after beginning her training, and concurrent with starting work at Boot Ranch.
The Boot Ranch golf staff also includes three PGA Associates who are working their way through the PGA Professional Golf Management Program: Dylan O’Connor, Dawson Wainwright and Collin Smith.
You can learn more about Alex, Adam and Camille below. But if you’ve read enough for now, suffice it to say that these three really are well-schooled golf professionals. And if they offer you a swing tip, take it. They really do know what they’re talking about.
Adam Sermo
Adam Sermo is at Boot Ranch working as an assistant golf professional because of:
- Christmas lights
- A young lady
- Its great reputation
The correct answer is all of the above. But let’s start with the Christmas lights.
It was December 2016. Adam had just wrapped up a six-month internship at a course in California and was driving home to Michigan, where he was enrolled in the PGA Golf Management Program at Ferris State University. Wanting to visit Austin, Adam took the long way home through Texas. Along the route, he came upon Fredericksburg, where the Christmas lights and decorations were up along Main Street. Adam thought it was beautiful. And having grown up in a small town, he saw Fredericksburg as a place where he could feel right at home.
But he still had school to finish to become a PGA member and certified golf pro. That happened in the fall of 2018.
He landed his first job as an assistant golf pro at the Dye Preserve club in Jupiter, Florida. From there, he moved on to the Elk River Club in North Carolina. It so happened that an Elk River member was also a Boot Ranch member. The member suggested that Adam check it out.
Adam remembered how much he’d liked Fredericksburg and did indeed check out Boot Ranch. It seemed to him that a job there might fulfill one of his needs. Being in the mountainous and snowy part of North Carolina, the Elk River Club was open only six months a year. Since the Boot Ranch golf course is open year-round. Maybe he could fill the gap there. He applied and was hired, starting work in November 2020.
He intended to return to North Carolina as soon as the Elk River Club reopened. But in Fredericksburg, he met this attractive young woman. She infatuated him. And, well, so much for North Carolina.
These days, you might find Adam down on the Boot Ranch practice range, giving golf lessons. Teaching is the part of the job he enjoys most. He views his job as, “Trying to make the member and guest experience memorable – the best it can be.”
That’s not to predict Adam will stay at Boot Ranch forever. He aspires to become head golf professional at a small private club somewhere. Probably up North. He’s still a northerner at heart. But for now, Fredericksburg and Boot Ranch feel very much like home to him.
Alex Rhyne
Four years ago, when Alex Rhyne was appointed head golf professional at Boot Ranch at the age of 24, he was one of the youngest people in the country to hold such a position. Perhaps even the youngest.
Emil Hale, the former director of golf who became general manager of Boot Ranch, says he had “no reservations at all” about naming Rhyne as his successor. “He’d demonstrated in his two years as assistant pro that he was more than ready to lead the golf operation.”
Rhyne, who grew up in the small town of Stony Point, NC, took up golf at age 11. He showed immediate talent for the game, playing on his middle and high school teams. By the summer of his 15th year, he was also working at a golf course.
“My parents would drop me off in the morning and pick me up at the end of the day,” he says. “I’d play golf in the morning and clean carts in the afternoon.”
One day, his mother asked what he planned to do after high school graduation. “I’m going to play on the tour,” he replied. His mother suggested he have a backup plan, just in case. That led him to North Carolina’s Campbell University, and the PGA Golf Management program there. In addition to having 16 mandatory courses, the program also requires its students to spend 16 months working in internships around the country.
While interning at the prestigious Wade Hampton Club in North Carolina, the head golf pro there mentioned having met Hale and playing in a golf tournament at Boot Ranch. He suggested Rhyne try to land a job there. Rhyne pursued the suggestion, and Hale was so impressed by the student that he offered him a job as an assistant pro after graduation. Rhyne started in 2017. Two years later, he became head pro, directing a golf staff of 16 people.
What does he like best about the job? Referring to the steps leading to the golf cart staging area, he says, “Creating a great experience for whoever walks down those stairs.”
Camille Enright
It’s hard to imagine anyone ever accusing Camille Enright of lacking drive. Or ambition.
The newest assistant golf professional at Boot Ranch, Camille took up the game at age 6 and immediately set her sights on joining the LPGA tour. She honed her skills at several junior golf camps, played on her high school team in Plano, and landed a golf scholarship from the University of Denver. There, her women’s golf team twice won the Summit League championship and twice Camille was named the league’s player of the week.
But by her senior year, she began to doubt that playing on the professional tour would be right for her. “I hated losing more than I loved winning,” she says, by way of explanation.
That led her to re-channel her ambitions. After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in management, she had plenty of career options. But golf was still her passion. So in 2021, upon finishing her university course work, she began attending the PGA’s golf management classes and took a job at a Denver golf course where the head pro mentored her.
Camille was elected a PGA member in March, after completing her golf management studies. That same month, she joined the golf staff of Boot Ranch. “I always knew I’d come back to Texas,” she says. “I’m a Texan at heart.”
Camille was already well acquainted with Boot Ranch. Her parents had bought a home there about the time she left for college. And when Covid hit in 2020, suspending in-person classes and the university’s golf program, she took refuge in her parents’ Boot Ranch home. She even worked on the golf staff for a couple of months then.
But what are her ambitions now?
“Two or three years ago, I would have said I want to become a general manager,” she replies. “But now that I’ve experienced the green grass side of the business, I think I’d be happier as a head pro or director of golf. I love just being next to the golf course. There’s something really freeing about that. And I get to work at a wonderful place, doing something I really care about.”
