FootJoy and The PGA have brought back the #FJTHANKSAPGAPRO campaign for 2026, inviting golfers across the country to nominate a PGA Professional who has helped improve their game, their confidence, or simply their chances of leaving the course with dignity intact.

A Campaign For The People Who Actually Fix Golfers

Every golfer knows the type. The pro who spots a grip issue before the player has finished explaining their slice. The fitter who knows which shoe will survive 18 holes of sideways walking. The calm voice in the shop who somehow turns panic, stubbornness and a seven-iron into something resembling progress.

That is the territory FootJoy and The PGA are aiming at with the latest #FJTHANKSAPGAPRO campaign, which celebrates PGA Professionals who have made a tangible difference over the past year.

Nominations can recognise anything from a lesson that changed a swing, to an expert equipment fitting, to the less glamorous but deeply valuable work of creating a welcoming club environment. Golf may be played by individuals, but very few golfers improve alone.

How Golfers Can Nominate

The campaign promotion runs until Friday, 24 July, with golfers able to nominate their PGA Professional through an online form shared across FootJoy and The PGA’s communication platforms.

The winners will be selected by a combined FootJoy and PGA panel and announced at the end of July.

For the winning PGA Professional and one golfer who submitted a nomination, the prize is rather better than a sleeve of lake balls and a handshake.

The package includes Wednesday Pro-Am tickets to the 2026 British Masters at The Belfry Hotel & Resort, a behind-the-scenes Titleist Tour truck experience, and access to a Tour-level FootJoy footwear R&D session on the range with a DP World Tour winner.

There is also a one-night stay at The Belfry Hotel on Tuesday, 25 August, plus a day at the Titleist Performance Centre in Woburn for a personal FootJoy R&D footwear session with a GASP Systems Specialist. Winners will also receive FootJoy goodie bags and two pairs of shoes following their R&D session at TPC Woburn.

Not a bad return for saying thank you properly.

Peter Roberts Set The Standard

FootJoy and The PGA named Peter Roberts, PGA Professional at Surbiton Golf Club, as last year’s winner of the #FJTHANKSAPGAPRO campaign.

Roberts received nominations for his work supporting golfers with Parkinson’s disease, as well as for helping players find the right footwear model for their game through regular FootJoy shoe fitting events.

“The role of the PGA professional is an incredible opportunity to make a difference, whether it be a swing tip in the shop, a series of lessons over a few months or advice on a change of equipment seeing a player’s score improve,” said Roberts.

“Over the past couple of years, we have hosted multiple FootJoy shoe fitting events at Surbiton – both were very well attended and resulted in over a dozen shoe sales at each event.

“Any opportunity to give our members an elevated level of customer service and knowledge is imperative. It is our chance to add a little theatre and make sure that the customer walks away with the size and performance model to help them play better golf.”

Why The Club Professional Still Matters

For all the game’s obsession with launch monitors, ball speed, yardage gaps and drivers that appear to have been designed by a defence contractor, the PGA Professional remains one of golf’s most important figures.

They are part coach, part fitter, part psychologist, part retail expert, and occasionally part hostage negotiator when a mid-handicapper insists the problem is definitely the putter.

The best PGA Professionals do more than teach technique. They translate the game. They notice the detail the player misses. They make newcomers feel less exposed. They help better players find small margins. They bring service, knowledge and personality into a sport that can otherwise feel brutally indifferent.

That is why campaigns such as #FJTHANKSAPGAPRO have a useful role. They pull the spotlight away from the tour ropes and back towards the lesson tee, the fitting bay and the pro shop, where a great deal of golf’s real improvement quietly happens.

A Proper Thank You, Not Just A Polite One

Golfers are famously good at blaming. Wind, greens, bunkers, playing partners, the wrong glove, the wrong socks, Mercury in retrograde. Gratitude, by comparison, can be in shorter supply.

This campaign gives players a simple chance to acknowledge the PGA Professional who made the game better for them over the past year. That might mean lower scores. It might mean better shoes. It might mean finally walking onto the first tee without feeling as if disaster has booked the 9.40 slot.

Either way, FootJoy and The PGA are asking golfers to look beyond their own scorecard and recognise the person who helped them enjoy the game a little more.

In a sport where improvement is often measured in inches and patience is regularly lost by the yard, that feels like a thank you worth making.