East Potomac Instructors

Lauren Artis is a lifelong resident here in the DMV, more specifically a Maryland resident who commutes to ensure golf is enjoyed by all. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree from Hampton University, Lauren decided to commit to growing the game she grew up loving. Her journey began as a child when she needed a new sport outside of being a competitive swimmer. At the age of 11, she told her father she wanted to earn a Division 1 Collegiate golf scholarship and she did. Playing D1 golf at Hampton University helped shape her into the player she is now. 

Lauren aims to introduce women of all ages to the game of golf to show them that women are golfers too! Many opportunities are waiting for you to grab them, we just need to lay the foundation and sharpen those golf skills!

Lauren has 10 years of experience playing competitive golf in junior tournaments and collegiate tournaments.

Outside of golf, Lauren enjoys working out and having fun with her family and friends.

“Anybody can play golf with willingness and determination!” -Lauren

Lauren hit the opening shot at Potomac Shores Golf Club alongside golf legend Jack Nicklaus at age 13!

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Summer Camps
• Adults
  • Beginner Private Lessons
  • Beginner Group Lessons

Freddie is a DC native and joined the East Potomac staff in 2018 from the political field. He has been an avid golfer for over 25 years. He hopes his passion for the game of golf will inspire his students. He is USGTF certified and enjoys working with players of all ages and abilities but is passionate about teaching golfers new to the game. He hopes to pass on his golf addiction to his students. “Now if you hit one good shot, just one, and that tuning fork rings in your loins and you can’t wait to get back…and do it again.” -Tin Cup

Freddie wrote his college admissions personal statement essay on his experience growing up in DC and golfing at Rock Creek.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
  • Summer Camps
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Brent enjoys teaching players of all abilities. He has experience teaching First Tee students and working with the Get Golf Ready curriculum. He is also PGA HOPE certified. He enjoys helping better players hit the ball further and teaching beginners to enjoy the game of golf.

Brent has over 3 years of teaching experience, and over 10 years of playing experience. His experience includes: Head Golf Coach at John R. Lewis High School and Former Instructor at Paint Branch Golf Course.

Brent was a Varsity football letterman for Penn State University from 2006-2010 as a running-back and safety. 

• Juniors
  • Summer Camps
  • Leagues
• Adults
  • Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced Private Lessons
  • Beginner and Intermediate Group Lessons

Phil Cooper is a resident of Washington DC and an instructor of golf that is patient, observing, understanding and has a friendly demeanor. He keeps instructions simple and easy to understand so that an enjoyable atmosphere can be created.

His lessons are designed for beginners, intermediate and advanced students. His training aids include videos, monitoring devices, and some innovative techniques that allow students to see the principles that need to be understood.

The use of the reference techniques with each individual student not only helps them achieve their golfing goals but allows them to not forget it is a game and to have fun.

First, he was a military family student that traveled the world quite a bit but always returned to the DC area. After high school and college, he enrolled in the ROTC program, when graduated was commissioned in the US Army and became an Airborne Ranger.

Prior to, during, and after the military, he was still being an athlete with basketball, softball, tennis, and racquetball. But, as they say, the ball gets smaller as you get older and once the beginning of attending golf outings . . . the passion for the game of golf began!

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
  • Leagues

Ted is a PGA Professional with over 15 years of experience. Ted has held Head Professional and teaching positions at a number of facilities on the east coast, including the Courses at Andrews AFB, the First Tee Program in D.C. and Maryland, the LPGA International in FL, and most recently at the Cottonfield Golf Club and Sugar Creek Golf Club in GA.

Before turning pro in 1990 he had a successful amateur career winning four club championships with the Oxon Blades Golf Club and qualifying for the Public Links Championship.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Corey Higgs is a PGA professional located at East Potomac Golf Course Pointe Golf Course. Corey returns to PlayDCGOLF as the Director of Instruction. Corey is excited to return to the Academy, where he has spent his former years developing his craft. Starting golf at the age of six, he learned the basics of the game- and by the age of 15 had a handicap of 1. As an amateur, he won his club championship for three consecutive years. Shortly after completing his PGA apprenticeship he then qualified as a PGA professional. From there he dived head first into continuing his teaching education and learning more about the art of coaching, traveling around America in 2000 to study several accredited top 100 coaches. Then the opportunity came up to work under MJ. Smith, a former LPGA Tour player based at Army Navy CC, where he learned and developed his teaching, and coaching structure. During the early 2000s and even today, he credits lessons learned from observing highly acclaimed coaches and applying many of their teaching philosophies within his teaching method today.

Having worked with former European Tour winner, Mark Brown between 2006 and 2010 he learned a lot from what an elite player requires to thrive on the world’s 2 major Tours. During those early years, he also worked with many top junior golfers, including Spencer Schindler who joined Compass Pointe to work with Corey, Spencer eventually left to chase his dream of playing College golf and later became an All-American at Flagler College in Florida. Between 2010 and now Corey has worked with many students that have gone on to division 1 and 2 college programs. Working at the Institute of Golf in New Zealand, Corey worked with Jayden Ford and Darae Chung, Darae was recently awarded a full ride at highly acclaimed division 1, San Jose State. 

Corey’s most recent achievement is being awarded, Top 50 Master Coach by Operation 36 Golf. This award is recognized at 800 golf facilities and employs over 1,500 golf instructors worldwide. Corey’s passion is to continue growing the game that brought so much joy to his life. He is grateful for the many opportunities golf has provided, world travel, meeting influential mentors, and developing many lifelong friendships through spending quality time with his students on the lesson tee.

Corey is also the Director of Instruction here at the playDCgolf Academy! He is here to help answer any questions, as well as support and grow your game. Corey will step into help with any lesson whenever he is needed.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Ron has been playing and teaching golf for over 50 years (his first 9 holes cost $1.25!).  His first student was a high school buddy who became good enough to play with him on their Maryland State AA Champion high school golf team.

Ron loves introducing newbies and prepping them for the course. He simplifies things and teaches by feel, all with the goal of taking your game from the practice range to the golf course.

His students are all ages, one-quarter are lefties, and gender-wise are divided evenly. He’s great with kids (before instructing golf he coached two DCPS middle school championship baseball teams) and coaches competitive high school golfers/teams up to NCAA D-1 golfers.

Ron teaches the full swing (driver, hybrids, and irons) and short game (chipping, pitching, sand shots, stingers, bump-and-runs, cut shots, and flop shots), and works tirelessly on methods and strategies to help cure the yips. As a swing coach he teaches shaft-lean, lag, and tempo, and how to spin wedges.

Ask about his simple two-step putting method to enable beginners and average putters to quickly get to 80-90% of their ability.

He believes learning golf and getting better is a completely positive experience and his favorite phrase to beginners is “you have to hit 10,000 bad shots including whiffs, so let’s get started. We are not here to perform. We want to take the game from the range to the course.”

Ron’s teaching principles and methods are completely positive because he believes we don’t unlearn habits, we learn over them with newer, better habits. Dwelling on flaws and faults makes it more likely to repeat them. This came from crosstraining taught to him directly by nationally recognized sports coaches (eg. Tom House, Mike Epstein, and DC’s own U.S. Soccer HOF member, the late Len Oliver). Ron follows Timothy Gallwey’s “Inner Game” coaching principles.

Ron also helps with sorting through all the YouTube and Golf Channel instruction and equipment selection (clubs, balls, shoes, putters, learning aides, rangefinders, shafts, fitters, stores, websites etc.)

Ask about his simple two-step putting method to enable beginners and average putters to quickly get to 80-90% of their ability.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

James is a PGA Professional with over 20 years of experience. He is fluent and teaches both lessons in Korean and English. James is left-handed but teaches both right and left-handed golfers. He has also worked with Bridgestone Golf for 4 years working with golfers by fitting them with the correct golf balls and clubs. James worked with Titleist for a year distributing in Korea.

James joined the GolfDC Academy team in spring of 2013 with 22 years of playing experience in the US and Asia.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
  • Summer Camps
  • Leagues
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Sherwood is USGTF Certified and has over 10 years of experience. Sherwood has served his country in the U.S. Marine Corps and has also trained as an outstanding amateur boxer. He then developed a passion for Golf which led him to strive to become a Professional. Sherwood also holds a certificate from the International Golf Psychology Association.

Sherwood has been recognized for his teaching achievements as recipient of the GCS Player Development Award. He has also made it to the Top 50 Instructors by U.S. Kids’ Golf.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
  • Summer Camps
  • Leagues
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Coach Par is a PGA Professional and has over 20 years of playing professionally and coaching.

My Bio is my ego. I will assist you in developing a solid foundation in the fundamentals of golf. Having this foundation will help you break 100, 90, 80, and yes, 70! The only ingredients needed are self-love, imagination, and a little time to practice what you have learned. Golf is recreation, so let’s have some fun!

Motto: If I can change your mindset, I can change your game.

I started taking my first lessons and playing golf at East Potomac. Through those three ingredients (self-love, imagination, and practice) , I was able to break 80 within 6 months of taking my first swing.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Mac, like many, is a COVID golfer. He began playing as a child but soon stopped to play baseball. In 2020, he began working at East Potomac helping with summer camps while studying Economics in college. Through many hours of practice and patience, Mac has been able to improve and is preparing to enter the PGA Program.

Mac made his first hole in one on the Par 3 8th Hole at Langston Golf Course!

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
  • Leagues
  • Summer Camps
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
  • Leagues

Sean is USGTF Certified and has multiple years of experience as a golf instructor. Sean has over 20 years of experience working in the sports industry as an athletic director and coach.

Sean specializes in working with beginner golfers who want to enjoy and embrace golf while viewing it from a larger scale and more broad perspective. He likes working with students who are newer to the game and want to enjoy the sport while not being bogged down with complex terminology or analysis. He has worked with players up through the intermediate level and has worked with golfers of all age groups.

Prior to becoming a golf instructor, he was an Athletic Director in the private school system and coached for over 15 years in multiple sports across numerous ages ranging from elementary students through the Junior College level. 

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Robert is USGTF Certified, Master Level, with over 20 years of experience. Robert worked as an Assistant Pro and Teaching Pro in Las Vegas. He also worked at IJGA Golf and IMG Leadbetter’s Golf Academies after a playing career that includes qualifying for  two national US Amateur Tournaments and a national US Public Links.  He has worked with Hank Haney, Gary Gilchrist and David Leadbetter in developing a better golf teaching philosophy that works with an individual’s strengths coupled with sound golf swing fundamentals to better build their golf swing.

Robert also won the Oklahoma City Amateur and made NAIA All-American and Hogan Tour Participant. 

• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons

Max is a long-time Washington, DC resident, businessman, and philanthropist. Recently retired from his successful business development and government contracting career at Cornet Technology, he now lends his experience to clients as a political consultant, strategist, and fundraiser.

Working from home, Max also enjoys being an Air BnB super host and sharing his spacious home and the Washington, DC experience with others.

Max has a vast network of contacts and is knowledgeable about advocacy and lobbying. His relationships, cultivated over decades, include decision-makers from Capitol Hill, the Administration, and the military. As a former SBA minority business owner, Max has keen insight into how to help small businesses stand out and succeed, and he works to connect small businesses with government opportunities.

Max has served in leadership volunteer positions at dozens of local nonprofits including the DC Rotary Club, the Salvation Army, Recreation Wish List, and the Committee to Promote DC. He also served his city by sitting for a term as a member of the Washington, DC Alcohol Beverage Control Board.

Max is an excellent golfer and enjoys teaching others as a certified golf instructor. When he’s not on the golf course, you’ll most likely find him cheering for the Washington Nationals, Commanders, and Wizards.

 Max has two sons and three grandchildren, the lights of his life. Whenever he can, Max is visiting his grandchildren who live in Colorado and Tennessee.

Max has played golf for more than 30-years, and he’s received his United States Golf Teachers Federation certification and is a Certified Golf Teaching Professional in September 2014 (Certification/License number 8804).

In January 2019, he earned his International PGA Certified Member Designation.

When he’s not on the golf course, you’ll most likely find Max cheering for the Washington Nationals, Commanders, and Wizards.

• Juniors
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons
  • Leagues
  • Summer Camps
• Adults
  • Private Lessons
  • Group Lessons