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CLASSNOTES | Profile
Michael Breed
’81
RARE BREED Most lists of the best golf instructors contain consensus choices. Butch Harmon and his son Claude Harmon III are invariably included. David Leadbetter, Suzy Whaley, and Jim McLean, too. Another regular on those rosters is Michael Breed, and understandably so, for the 1981 Choate Rosemary Hall graduate is among the most talented teachers in golf today. It is fairly easy to discern who the best professional golfers in the world are because they are the ones who win the most tour events. Such as Jordan Spieth and Jason Day last year. And Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson for much of the 2000s. Selecting the finest golf professionals, however, is a different matter, as determining who teaches the royal and ancient game better than anyone else – or who runs the finest golf program at a club or resort – can be subjective and imprecise. Is it about a deep knowledge of swing mechanics, or the ability to stage a topnotch tournament? Is someone considered great because he or she coaches a leading tour professional? Or is it the person who can turn a weekend hacker into a single-digit handicapper?
Consider that the Greenwich native hosts the most popular golf instruction show on television, The Golf Fix, punctuating his many suggestions for better play with the exhortation, “Let’s Do This!” Breed also has a radio show on Sirius XM, A New Breed of Golf, and serves as a commentator and analyst for tour events for the Golf Channel and PGA.com. A former head professional at the Sunningdale Country Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., and an assistant at the Augusta National Golf Club, Breed is celebrated for his successes as a personal instructor. The PGA of America honored him in 2012 as its national Teacher of the Year. Not long after receiving that award, the 54-year-old father of two founded the Michael Breed Golf Academy, at the Manhattan Woods Golf Club in West Nyack, N.Y. After two years there, he moved his operations to the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in New York City, where his boss is the golf-obsessed Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump. “I love being able to help people have a better experience on the golf course,” says Breed, “and when I think about my work, I see it not as what I have to do, but what I get to do.” Breed entered Choate Rosemary Hall as a freshman in the fall of 1977 and participated in a number of sports during his time there. He played golf, to be sure, but also soccer, hockey, squash, and baseball. After graduation, Breed headed to Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and it was at that Division III that he began to direct his athletic concentration on golf, lettering on the team there for four years and serving as its captain as a senior. He aspired to make a living on the PGA Tour after receiving a degree in psychology in 1985 and played in some mini-tour events. But Breed soon determined that he was not good enough to become a professional golfer. So, he chose instead to be a golf professional, and it was in that line of work that he has made a name for himself. Relocating his Golf Academy to the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point was the latest affirmation of his success. Opened in 2015, it is links-style, Jack Nicklaus-designed layout constructed within view of the Manhattan skyline. While the high-end, daily-fee course is owned by the city of New York, it is operated by Trump. “It is great to be involved with a public facility in New York City, and to be working with Mr. Trump,” says Breed, who somehow finds time in his busy schedule to give motivational speeches around the country, and to get in a couple of rounds of golf each month with his wife, Kerri. “Local New Yorkers come to the Academy all the time, and we have people flying in from all over the country, and all over the world. Some book lessons with me while they are in town for business, and others visit specifically to work on their games. “ Breed says that the Ferry Point gig is working out better than he could have possibly hoped. But it would be hard not to say that about his entire career as a golf professional. By any measure, he is one of the best.
john steinbreder ’74 John Steinbreder ’74 is a staff writer for Global Golf Post. His 20th book, From Turnberry to Tasmania: Adventures of a Traveling Golfer, was reviewed in the Fall 2015 Bulletin.