Meet Kelly Huff: Colorado’s Unconventional Golf Instructor with a TrackMan Advantage

His clients range from beginners to sports celebrities. Find out how Kelly Huff turned his passion for golf into a successful teaching business in Colorado.

Susan Fornoff //March 24, 2023//

Meet Kelly Huff: Colorado’s Unconventional Golf Instructor with a TrackMan Advantage

His clients range from beginners to sports celebrities. Find out how Kelly Huff turned his passion for golf into a successful teaching business in Colorado.

Susan Fornoff //March 24, 2023//

Kelly Huff has tattoos and no PGA teaching credentials, which means he’s not your typical golf instructor. Yet, if you want to book time with him, you’d better be on the South Broadway Country Club website the third Monday of every month, when his calendar opens promptly at 9 a.m.

It’s not quite as difficult as buying Taylor Swift tickets. “No lottery yet,” Huff says, laughing at the thought. But, note the “yet.”

READ: Inside Colorado’s Post-Pandemic Golf Goldrush

“Some instructors are big talkers but they don’t really communicate,” says SBCC staff member Sam Dudley, who has a front-row seat for Huff’s sessions in the nearby TrackMan bays. “He speaks softly and communicates a ton without being overbearing. And it’s all very positive.”

It’s also very egalitarian. Huff’s students range from sports celebrities to newbies to top local golfers. “He does a really good job of leveraging the technology his facility has in TrackMan and using that for instruction,” says client Chris Thayer, the Colorado Golf Association’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year in 2022. “And he does a good job of explaining that to his students. I think he was an early adopter, and it’s paid off for him.”

Huff fell for TrackMan, the simulator used by most PGA Tour pros, when he was director of instruction at an Atlanta private club.

“I had a good gig,” says Huff. “But I wanted to open my own teaching facility and started doing a lot of research on different golf markets around the country. TrackMan was all over the Southeast, and it was out in California. I saw the writing on the wall and I knew it was going to be a household name for golf improvement, but it hadn’t really made its way to Denver yet.”

READ: 6 Indoor Golfing Spaces to Book Your Tee Time in 2023

It had, however, made it to Portland, Oregon’s RedTail Golf Center, which had 10 TrackMen (now 14!) and an outdoor teaching line. Huff spent 18 months there learning the technology, earning certifications from the Titleist Performance Institute and U.S. Kids Golf, before moving to Denver in 2017 and opening on South Broadway. In 2018 he finally had his liquor permits, and SBCC joined the now crazy-popular niche of indoor golf bars.

By then, Huff had already built his teaching business, mostly by word of mouth but also by watching customers practice or play on the TrackMan. He’d watch them hit a few balls, guess their handicap and speculate on their typical miss. Next thing you know, lessons were booked.

For all his unconventional style, Huff hasn’t felt stigmatized by golf traditionalists. He and his wife, Amy, a real estate attorney who has helped him expand the business to Tennyson Street and Fort Collins, joined Lakewood Country Club in 2020 and have a regular Friday game there.

“I really do love the old school, traditional, mind-your-Ps-and-Qs country club side of golf,” Huff says. “But I obviously like the avantgarde modernization of the game as well. Golf is becoming cooler and cooler. It’s not as stuffy as it used to be, but I truly like both sides of that.”

 

Susan Fornoff has covered U.S. Opens and the Masters for the San Francisco Chronicle, written two golf books and founded GottaGoGolf.com, a website and newsletter for women golfers. She recently relocated to Littleton, and hopes to play all of Colorado’s 10 toughest golf courses – from the most forward tees.