AGA NEWS
HALL OF FAME
AGA NEWS Make it a five-some!
Class of 2018 includes Farran, Johnston, Marriott, Nilsson, Rowe
Lynn Marriott Through their Vision 54 golf program, Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson have worked with golfers who have won well over 100 tour titles, nine major champions and four No. 1 rankings in the world. They also have authored four best-selling books. But they haven’t
lost sight of why they created the Phoenix- based program in 1997. “All of those tour wins
are great, but tour players are more like our laboratory,” said Marriott, who joins Nilsson in the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame class for 2018.
“The everyday golfers are
the ones who bring a lot of joy to my heart. When somebody comes to you as a last resort and is ready to quit golf and we work with them and they fall in love with the game all over again, and we go, ‘Yes, we saved another one,’ that is the most rewarding thing about what we do.” Marriott, who grew up
in central New York and went to Penn State on a golf scholarship, has received numerous accolades, including induction to the LPGA Teaching and Coaching division of the Hall of Fame. She has been named National Teacher of
the Year and has received the First Tee Founder’s Award, LPGA Ellen Griffin Rolex Award, Executive Women’s Golf Association Leadership Award and the LPGA’s Nancy Lopez Award for contributions to the game. “That is all nice, but
we didn’t start Vision 54 to accomplish those kinds of awards or recognition,” said Marriott, who moved to Arizona in 1988. “We did it for the joy of teaching the game. I have lived in Arizona longer than anyplace in my life so this is special to me. I am humbled and honored.”
Pia Nilsson Pia Nilsson and Lynn Marriott created Vision 54 with a vision of how to teach golf but never envisioned what it would become. “Not even close,” Nilsson
said. “We totally believed in the concepts and that it would be good for golfers but I don’t think we could have imagined all of the things that have happened with it, so that obviously is a good feeling in the heart.” In the early years, they
once offered a three-day school that only drew two students. Now, Vision 54, which is based at Talking Stick Golf Club, is widely recognized as one of the top teaching programs in the world and has been named the best golf school in the United States by Golf magazine. Nilsson is ranked No. 1 and Marriott No. 2 among female instructors in America. Nilsson’s achievements
are many: She won numerous junior titles in her native Sweden, starred at Arizona State, captured several European titles, coached the men’s and women’s Swedish national teams, captained the European Solheim Cup team and received the LPGA Ellen Griffin Rolex Award for major contributions to teaching. But induction to the Arizona
Golf Hall of Fame has its own special meaning to Nilsson, who began her ASU career as a walk-on golfer after hearing about the program from a high school track and field coach. “This was a total surprise
Lynn Marriott and Pia Nilsson have taken Vision 54 to the top of golf instruction. 28 | AZ GOLF Insider | ANNUAL 2018
and, with Arizona being my home now, it means a lot to me,” she said. “So much of what is happening now in my career started here in Arizona. I am very proud that I was able to get a scholarship and play and study at ASU, and very thankful for all that has followed as a result of that.”
www.azgolf.org
VISION 54
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