Golf pro helping peers during pandemic
Landon, who is getting paid during Las Campanas’ shutdown, helping others hurt by links’ closures
Golf has been good to Brad Lardon — so good, in fact, that he has crafted a lifetime’s worth of work out of it.
He’s the director of golf operations at Santa Fe’s Club at Las Campanas and is regarded as one of the top senior players and pros in the country. He has gone where the game has taken him, and it’s safe to say he’s done quite well for himself.
Now, with so much uncertainty in the world, he’s trying to pay it forward.
Last week, he launched an initiative to raise funds for fellow golf pros put out of work due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Golf courses around the country have been shut down to create social distancing and slow the spread of the virus, leaving untold numbers of men and women without income.
“I wanted to do anything I could to help those people out,” Lardon said. “I have friends all around the country either out of work or lucky enough to still have jobs, and if there was anything I could do, I wanted to do it.”
Lardon was facing a similar situation of being sidelined until the membership at Las Campanas voted to keep paying its club personnel throughout the course’s shutdown. That’s not just true of Lardon’s salary, but also for hourly employees who worked at least 20 hours a week.
It’s not just a gesture of good faith, Lardon said, but of genuine concern for the people who work behind the scenes every day at Santa Fe’s private club.
“Las Campanas has been an incredibly philanthropic group the entire time it’s been here, but this time they’re taking it in a direction that takes care of us who work here and, for that, I can’t tell you how grateful I am, how grateful we all are,” Lardon said.
He’s grateful enough to start a program he’s calling PGA Pros for PGA Pros. He is offering golf tutorials and swing lessons through social media and traditional video chats, taking the fees he’s raising and donating 100 percent of the profits to fellow PGA professionals who are unemployed because of COVID-19.
As of Saturday afternoon, he had raised about $700, a modest sum he hopes to increase with the help of a few peers. Lardon has reached out to fellow pros around the country still on
“I wanted to do anything I could to help those people out.” Brad Lardon, golf pro
a payroll to do something similar.
“If I can get 10 friends around the country to do what I’ve done, that $700 becomes $7,000 — and then we’re talking about making an impact,” Lardon said. “I actually think we’re doing reasonably well, particularly since no one I really know has got a lot of extra money sitting around during a time like this.”
Lardon is asking potential clients to send him messages via his personal accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to get one-on-one instruction.
“With all that’s going on, sometimes that means I’m in my living room or they’re out in their back yard and we’ll just be analyzing the swing or
I’ll be offering what I can to keep things moving,” Lardon said. “Sometimes they’ll send me video clips, and I’ll go over the steps on a FaceTime chat or something. It’s actually been pretty good because at first I didn’t know what to expect.”
He said other pros still working have been receptive to the idea of helping.
“Guys around the country, associates of mine, some of them are in good positions that a lot of others can’t be a part of,” Lardon said. “This is impacting everyone. Even my stepdaughter is out of work in the restaurant business, so I see what this is doing to people.”
One of his earliest benefactors was a former client of his from
Texas more than 20 years ago. That pupil went on to a career as an attorney, and when he heard of Lardon’s idea, he donated to the effort.
“And he wasn’t even looking for a lesson,” Lardon laughed. “That’s the kind help we’re trying to give, with people just helping others because of their love of the game and what it means to them.”