Elena King of Centennial and Patti Marquis of Evergreen were among those selected for the honor out of more than 1,700 LPGA-certified professionals around the world. This is the first awarding of what is expected to be annual honors.

King teaches out of CGA-owned and operated CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora as well as Meridian Golf Club. Marquis is an instructor who works out of Fossil Trace Golf Club in Golden in the summer and Primm (Nev.) Golf Club in the fall and winter.

An independent golf industry selection committee picked this year’s LPGA teacher award winners after reviewing eligible applications.

“The LPGA is excited to partner with Women’s Golf Journal on this annual recognition,” LPGA chief teaching officer, Nancy Henderson, said in a press release. “More than 70 percent of our members teach the game of golf for a living and they are dedicated to the advancement of golf through teaching golfers of all ages and abilities to enjoy the game of golf.”

For the entire list of Top 50 LPGA teachers, CLICK HERE.

When the CGA and CWGA opened the public course in the spring of 2009, Harmon landed a job as a golf shop attendant while still a teenager. She’s seen the facility — still the newest course in Colorado — develop through its formative years, to the point that it served as one of the host sites for the stroke-play portion of last year’s U.S. Amateur.

Just like CommonGround, Harmon (pictured) has graduated quickly. Now 22, she’s moved up the ranks to the point that the PGA apprentice was recently named director of player development at the CommonGround Learning Center.

“The progression has been very natural at CommonGround,” Harmon said. “I’m obviously really excited. I’ve been here since the very beginning, and it’s great to play a bigger role. I have a passion for CommonGround and the (growth of the game) programs out here, like Ed and Dave do.”

That would be Ed Mate, executive director of the CGA, and Dave Troyer, CommonGround’s director of golf.

“I understand what they’re trying to do with the program,” Harmon said. “I’ve seen the transformation and I know what to do to make the program ours.”

After almost four years of outsourcing most of the instruction at CommonGround, the CGA and CWGA, owners and operators of the course, have restructured the teaching program, bringing it more “in house.” Elena King, a director of instruction at CommonGround since its opening, will continue to do considerable teaching at the facility, but as an independent instructor. King was the LPGA Central Section Teacher of the Year in 2011.

“We wanted to have more control over the programming,” Mate said. “We had a great partnership with Elena — and with Elena and Gary Davis before that — but anytime you outsource you don’t have as much control. We want to make sure we’re executing the (CommonGround) mission: ‘A place for all, and all the game teaches.’ Teaching is a big part of that.”

Added Troyer, Harmon’s boss during all of her time at CommonGround: “We wanted someone on salary to run player development, someone who is 100 percent focused on growing the game. She makes it much more seamless regarding our outreach efforts, whether it be with Boy Scouts, Special Olympics or whatever.

“Lauren has been very integral for us since Day 1. She has a very good understanding of our clientele and who we’re marketing to.”

Harmon grew up in the Denver area and played golf for Grandview High School in south Aurora. She hopes to complete her PGA training and become a Class A PGA professional by 2015.

If sheer energy plays a significant role in her new position, Harmon figures to be a good fit for the job.

Asked to characterize Harmon, Troyer said, “She’s a non-stop energy bunny. Her relaxation and enjoyment is to spend more time at work.”

At CommonGround, Harmon anticipates that starting this year “we’ll have a lot more options for individual instruction (including golf fitness, biomechanics and the mental side of the game). I’m really focused on expanding the game for people. We’ll have a lot of programs for those who have not played the game (regularly).”

Harmon said that CommonGround likely will have seven instructors doing considerable teaching at the course this year. Among them are expected to be Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Tom Connell and Lauren Howe, winner of an LPGA Tour event in 1983 and a former CWGA Stroke Play champion.

“I am definitely excited to have her as a part of the team,” Harmon said of Howe.

As for Connell, the head professional at Denver Country Club for 27 years until retiring in 2009, Harmon said he’s “been a great mentor to me in helping grasp the concepts of teaching kids.”
 

There have been times in the last month when Elena King didn’t know whether she was coming or going. After the case of “planes, trains and automobiles” she’s gone through, you can understand why.

King, a director of instruction at the CGA/CWGA-owned CommonGround Golf Course in Aurora, just returned from Iowa, where she went to a University of Iowa golf reunion at which she and other former Hawkeyes received their long-overdue varsity letters.

But that was just a minor trip — nothing compared to the halfway-around-the-world adventure King and University of Colorado women’s golfer Emily Talley (pictured together above) were involved in last month. King was an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s golf team and Talley was one of the five American female golfers at the World University Games in Shenzhen, China.

For King, the trip there went Denver to Chicago to Beijing to Shenzhen. That’s more than 8,700 miles in the air — one way.

“I left Denver, and door-to-door it was 34 hours (of travel),” King said this week. “I don’t think I knew which way was up. You just keep going until you get there. You’re just exhausted. We got there about 1 a.m. and we were going on sheer adrenaline. Everyone was up by 8 a.m. and the opening ceremonies were the next night. About the second or third day, you hit the wall.”

But King wouldn’t have traded the experience for the world.

“I looked at it like the opportunity of a lifetime,” she said of the biennial competition. “And representing Team USA was a great honor.”

In just the second year golf has been part of the World University Games, the U.S. women placed third in the team competition — behind champion Chinese Taipei and runner-up China — and Talley finished 16th individually. But in some respects, that was beside the point.

The trip was also about experiencing one of the biggest sporting events in the world — college athletes from all over the globe competing in 24 sports — and the culture of China.

“Supposedly, it’s the second-largest international sports competition in the world, second to the Olympics (and) bigger than the World Cup,” Talley said on CUbuffs.com. “… It was amazing. There were volunteers everywhere. There were 170,000 volunteers for 8,000 student-athletes. Every single venue (except for the golf courses) was built for this event. Now they’re turning all the dorms and everything into a university, so we were the first ones to use it.”

Talley said the highway was shut down the day of the opening ceremonies — and a national holiday was declared — to allow for the buses to take all the athletes and coaches from their compounds to the festivities. And Talley noted that she met one kid who had also been to the Olympics, and he said that the opening ceremonies for the two events were comparable, and that the one for the World University Games may have been even better.

“The whole time I was in awe of how neat it was to be inside of an event this large and of this magnitude,” King said. “It was way bigger than I ever imagined, and China didn’t miss a beat. It was so impressive.”

As for the golf, King was an assistant coach under Diane Thomason, who coached at the University of Iowa for 27 years. (The two are pictured together at left.) The team practiced and played — in very hot and humid conditions — at one of a dozen courses at the Mission Hills facility, and King said she was able to contribute most as an assistant coach during the several practice days.

“Our five girls were very mature golfers and young ladies, and their attitude was really good,” King said of Talley, Caroline Powers, Catherine O’Donnell, Brooke Beeler and Tessa Teachman. “They continue to look forward; even if they make a triple bogey they don’t let it bother them. They were very good at managing the emotional and mental parts of the game. It was fun to be part of.”

With so many different languages being spoken at the Games, the competitors often had to improvise when communicating with playing partners.

“Very, very little English was spoken,” Talley said. “Most of the interactions, you use more hand signals than anything. That was the really cool part.”

After the 72-hole competition, many in the U.S. golf traveling party did some sightseeing in and around Beijing, going to the Forbidden City and the Great Wall, among other places. Since King had visited China on two previous visits, she skipped the final side trip to Beijing, but for many, it was an experience they won’t soon forget.

Walking on the Great Wall “was amazing,” said Talley (pictured there at left — second from front — with her teammates). “It was one of those ‘I can’t believe I’m here’ kind of moments. It’s one of the Seven Great Wonders of the World and I was on it. … You get there and it’s bigger and better than I could have ever imagined.”

Meanwhile, King said she gained a new appreciation for the dedication demonstrated by world-class athletes, and how hard they work to reach their potential.

All in all, King said, “It was the trip of a lifetime. Very few people will get the chance to experience an event like that from the inside like we did. It was unique.”