How Joe Hallett Went From an Accountant to PGA of America Teacher & Coach of the Year

If a client had called Joe Hallett for help early in his professional life, chances are they had a question regarding taxes, balancing budgets or planning their financial future.

When a client calls Hallett today in his position as the PGA Director of Instruction at Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tennessee, as many tour professionals and everyday players of all skill levels do, there’s no doubt they want to discuss various aspects of the golf swing and enjoying the game. And those clients are no doubt glad that Hallett – the 2024 PGA of America Teacher & Coach of the Year – devotes his number-crunching skills to improving their clubhead speed, launch angle and the other data that contributes to a consistent, powerful golf swing.

Always a proficient numbers person, Hallett was sitting behind a desk putting his accounting degree from South Carolina’s Furman University to good use 26 years ago when he fielded a call from PGA of America Golf Professional Joe Lopez at Ocala National Golf Club in Florida. Lopez was aware that Hallett had just missed out on a PGA TOUR card after a third attempt at Qualifying School, but had a tremendous knowledge of everything golf and was hoping to land a job somehow, somewhere in the business.

Having just qualified for what is now the PGA Tour Champions, Lopez needed someone to run the golf shop at Ocala National so he could focus on sharpening his game. Hallett was out the door of his accounting firm and on his way to Florida – and on his way to a highly successful career in golf – as soon as he hung up the phone.

“Joe Lopez rescued me from a life in an accounting cubicle after I graduated from college and became a great mentor to me,” says Hallett, now a PGA Master Professional. “Joe began to open up the world of golf to me, not only as a potential player, but as a teacher, and to all the areas that golf connects people, businesses and personalities. Having played both the regular PGA TOUR and the Senior Tour, Joe shared an immeasurable amount of competitive wisdom. He also shared his expertise in golf operations and running a golf facility.”

Once Hallett put playing the game professionally in the rearview mirror, he discovered how gratifying and fulfilling teaching and coaching the game could be, starting a coaching business called Simductive Golf.

“That was my goal in teaching – I wanted to keep things simple, and I wanted them to be productive. Hence, I put the two words together, and you have Simductive,” Hallett recalls. "I was helping a guy who was having trouble hitting his driver one day. After I showed him a few things, he really caught one and said, ‘I’ve never hit a ball that far in my life.’ That’s when I realized how teaching can really make a difference, and how helping others play better golf is good for the teacher, too."

Hallett shaped his teaching and coaching philosophy by recalling lessons he had taken as a teen from Bob Toski, who was a masterful ball striker and scolded Hallett for having dirty clubs when he reported for his first lesson. Later in his development as a teacher, Hallett incorporated the teaching methods of former PGA Teacher & Coach of the Year Award winners Mike Adams, Jim Hardy and James Sieckmann, all of whom he often appears with at teaching summits, clinics and PGA of America functions.

Today, the affable Hallett teaches and coaches players of all abilities, including more than 30 current or former players on the LPGA Tour, a handful of competitors on the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour, along with several top amateurs. The stories of how Hallett initially connected with some of the leading players on the LPGA Tour are a testament to how many great relationships are the product of accidental meetings.

In 2000, when Hallett was part of the PGA of America’s Education Faculty overseeing the PGA Professional Golf Management Program, PGA of America Golf Professional Charlie Yoo brought five of his students to work with Hallett in Florida. One student was extremely inquisitive and kept asking Hallett a variety of questions associated with the golf swing and situational, strategic golf – a young South Korean named Inbee Park. 

Hallett enjoyed working with Park so much that he caddied for her on the Futures Tour and then in a few events on the LPGA Tour. Park, of course, went on to win seven major championships on the LPGA Tour, including three consecutive KPMG Women’s PGA Championships. She held the No. 1 World Ranking during four separate stretches and has collected 31 professional wins worldwide. 

Hallett’s work with Park opened a major door of opportunity for him on the LPGA Tour. He met Stacy Lewis while filming a CBS Sports segment at the PGA Learning Center in Port St. Lucie, Florida, and six months later, Lewis sent Hallett an email asking if he would work with her. A long-term friendship was born.

Lewis became only the second American woman to rise to No. 1 in the World Golf Rankings in 2013, and she credits Hallett with helping her to the top – and with helping her stay competitive throughout an accomplished professional career that began in 2008.

“Joe is like family,” says Lewis, a 13-time winner on the LPGA Tour, including the 2013 Women’s Open Championship at St. Andrews, Scotland, and the Rolex LPGA Player of the Year in 2012 and 2014. “He not only has a great eye and can see the little things in my golf swing, but he’s available to talk to 24/7. He’s always on call, and we talk about everything – not just golf. To me, he’s much more than a great teacher or coach. He’s a confidant, a great friend and part of the team.”

Hallett takes tremendous pride in his work with Lewis, Lexi Thompson, Angela Stanford, Juli Inkster, Ryann O’Toole, Reilly Rankin, Brooke Pancake, Sandra Changkija, Lizette Salas, Brittany Lincicome, Sandra Gal, Mina Harigae, Min Lee and many others over the years. With all players he teaches or coaches, Hallett says communication is the key – and he develops a unique approach to connecting with each as a student.

“Stacy Lewis and I have a unique relationship and friendship. I can tell you this – I have worked with Stacy longer than I was married to my first wife, so there must be a secret in there somewhere,” Hallett says with a laugh. “We’ve always been relaxed around each other and seem to understand each other. One day a few years ago, our practice session was rained out and we sat underneath the awning at the PGA Learning Center. Stacy asked me, ‘where did you go to college and what did you study?’ I replied, I went to Furman University and I studied accounting. Stacy smiled and said, ‘No wonder we get along so well. I was an accounting major at Arkansas.’

“The point is, much of working with players at the highest level is having a great communication pipeline,” notes Hallett. “It’s as important as the technical aspect and technique that you are encouraging your player to improve, and/or perfect. In terms of a positive difference in Stacy’s career, I’m not sure if the accounts are balanced on that. She has impacted and influenced my career by helping me learn how to teach high-level players. I feel I am in debt to her.”

Hallett acknowledges that teaching and coaching tour players calls for a different approach than working with club members and intermediate players.

“Professionals and high-level players all demand an answer, and a good instructor helps the Tour player find the answer themselves rather than tell them the answer,” Hallett says. “That way, when they go play, they have ownership of it much sooner than relying on what their coach told them.”

During his 26 years as a PGA Professional, Hallett – the national 2018 PGA of America National Player Development Award recipient – has been a featured presenter or host at countless teaching and coaching events on the Section and national level while serving on various national PGA education and teaching committees.

He has also grown the Vanderbilt Legends Golf Academy business to its highest level in history, necessitating the hiring of four additional instructors to meet demand. Hallett continues to mentor and advise PGA of America Associates and Professionals, as well as students in PGM Programs across the country. He has invented or co-invented numerous teaching and training aids, starred in many teaching and coaching videos, and written a series of magazine articles regarding golf instruction and coaching.

Hallet is a prominent member of every Top 50 and Top 100 golf instructors list and has earned virtually every award available on the Section level. But Hallet is perhaps most proud of his involvement with a foundation with which most PGA Professionals and others might not be familiar.

While walking the driving range at his course a few years ago, Hallett spied a young man with perfect balance and posture launching drivers 270 yards consistently down the middle – with prosthetics in place of his lower legs. The young man was Jordan Thomas, who lost his lower legs in a boating accident as a teen.

Hallett today serves on the Jordan Thomas Foundation Board and helps Thomas organize aseries of golf fundraising events to support the purchase of prosthetics for nearly 100 youths annually.

“Meeting Jordan was one of the most unique and inspiring experiences of my career on the lesson tee,” says Hallett, a three-time Tennessee PGA Section Teacher & Coach of the Year. “If you talk to Jordan, golf made all the difference in his life after the accident. The only impact I may have made was helping him tighten up what was clearly already a tremendous golf game, tremendous love of the game, and huge competitive spirit that he brings daily no matter where he goes.

“Simply said, to watch an adaptive golfer hit a great golf shot improves their outlook on life and your outlook in general. What a great example Jordan Thomas is to us all.”

Likewise, what an example Joe Hallett is to his fellow PGA of America coaches, having made the switch from being an accountant to accounting for countless lessons learned on and off the golf course.