Ep 271: APGA Co-Founder Ken Bentley on the success stories from the APGA, its purpose & more

Jim Nance (0:01)

Hello, friends, it's Jim Nance, and it's my great pleasure to welcome you to Beyond the Clubhouse, a podcast hosted by my friend, Garrett Johnston. He is a testament to one of the great things about this sport, the friendships that come from playing or even just talking about the game. And you're gonna meet some of the characters that Garrett has gotten to know from this past decade plus that he's been covering the sport. You're gonna hear from players, caddies, members of the media, you're gonna get the storytelling, the golf news, the players' swing tips, and a whole lot of laughs. It's coming your way with this edition of Beyond the Clubhouse.

Here's Garrett.

Garrett Johnston (0:38)

All right, I'm joined next by Ken Bentley. He's the CEO of the APGA, the Advocates Professional Golf Association. And Ken, how are you doing, man? What's going on?

Ken Bentley (0:48)

Good, Garrett. Thank you for having me, and thank you for all you've done for the APGA.

Garrett Johnston (0:55)

Yeah, yeah. And I'm looking, obviously, we're in our month of October, and this month already we've got nearly 40 guys, 38 guys are playing in Q School for the Corn Fairy Tour event that are from APGA, Q School for basically Corn Fairy, where they can get status there.

What does that say about the preparation that the APGA has done for them?

Ken Bentley (1:18)

Well, I think it says a lot. I think a big thing, it says a lot about the confidence that the guys have. Because the top 10 guys on our tour get scholarships, so they get it paid for. So you gotta figure the other 28 guys are paying $6,500 for a chance to go to get on the Corn Fairy Tour. So, you know, I think they're feeling good about their games.

They're feeling good about their opportunity, and that all comes with, you know, playing APGA events, our player development program. And it's really gratifying to see that many guys out there trying to realize their dream.

Garrett Johnston (2:00)

Well, speaking of your development program, tell us a little bit more about that so the audience can understand.

Ken Bentley (2:05)

Well, we surveyed our players seven or eight years ago, and we found that most had never been fitted for their clubs. They were practicing on inner city golf courses. They didn't have a launch monitor. They didn't have the tools to be successful. So we started this player development program to give them all those things. So we provide all of that, club membership, lessons from a top pro.

We've really, in the last few years, leaned into the mental side. So we've contracted a sports psychologist. And just this year, we've hooked up with a neurologist, a guy from LA, Dr. Williams, Vernon Williams, who looks at the brains and deals with the trauma that the guys have and also can see them in pressure situations and how their body reacts to the pressure.

And it's been amazing to see the guys go through that. I'm anxious to see how that's gonna show up on the golf course.

Garrett Johnston (3:11)

Well, for you, let's get into your history a little bit. You were 31 years at Nestle and in 2010, you founded the APGA. Tell us about what went into that passion and foundation of it.

Ken Bentley (3:26)

Well, I had been a tennis player. I grew up playing tennis and played division one college tennis.

Was the only African American in division one golf at the time when I played.

And I always felt like I didn't have the resources to compete on the level that I really wanted to. So I thought I would end up starting something in tennis, but it ended up golf. So when I was at Nestle, all of the executive meetings, we would play tennis initially, and then all of a sudden it transitioned to golf. Then I was the only one playing tennis and all the senior executives were playing golf. So I figured I would learn well enough to just be able to do it. So I took a lesson, was terrible at it, swore I would never do it again, but my wife convinced me to try it one more time. I hit a seven iron straight down the middle, been hooked ever since. And so I used to get a bunch of my friends, 50, 60 guys together, and we would go, we would take two golf trips a year and we would raise money for charity in the city we went in. And at one of those events, Adrian Stills, who's a friend of mine, longtime friend, played on the PGA Tour. And I asked him, why weren't there more African Americans and other minorities on tour? And he talked about the United Golf Association Tour when he was coming up and felt like if we could start something that where guys would have a chance to play and hone their games, we could get some guys on tour. So I got a donation from Nestle and I was on the Board of Farmers. Got a donation from them and put $5,000 of my own money in back in 2010 And we started with three tournaments and now we'll have 16, 17 tournaments with over a million dollars in prize money.