From the moment I stepped onto the Ranch back in 2016, I knew it was a special place, so I was thrilled when Marc DeWall asked me to join the Cordillera Ranch team as an Assistant Golf Professional. During that time, I discovered a passion for coaching and took on the role of Player Development Coordinator in 2020 and then Director of Instruction in 2023. My role is to serve the membership’s needs with regards to individual, group and specialized instruction, and club fitting.
By:
Katie Dillard, Director of Instruction
Originally from Southampton, England, I grew up taking lessons every Sunday with friends and my cousin, competing for a chocolate bar from the Pro Shop. After a successful junior golf career, which culminated in representing England on the winning Girls Home Internationals Team in 2008, I made a spontaneous decision to move across the pond to play collegiate golf at Western Texas Junior College and then Florida International University. During those four years, I was awarded multiple academic awards, qualified for two NJCAA National Championships and finished T-1st at the Sunbelt Conference Championship after recording the lowest conference scoring average for the semester. Playing collegiate golf helped set me up for the biggest individual title of my amateur career — English Mid-Amateur Champion, made even more special with my dad caddying.
After a handful of years travelling around the country playing professional golf on the Symetra (now Epson) Tour, and other mini tours, I decided to switch gears and build a career as a PGA and LPGA Class A club professional. My experience participating in world-class development programs has been central to building the highest quality programming for the Cordillera Ranch membership. It was an honor to be awarded the 2022 Southern Texas PGA Player Development Award and a testament to how hard the team has worked to make these programs a success. As the game keeps evolving, it is important for us as professionals to continue to learn and seek out educational opportunities, new information and also give back to the sport that has given us so much. For me personally, that has included joining the LPGA Central Section Educational Committee and the STPGA Tournament Committee.
Golf also plays a huge role in our home life as my husband, Brody, and I met on the golf course during our freshman year of college, and he is the Superintendent at Landa Park Golf Course. We have traded “friendly” golf matches for Sunday drives around the golf course with our two boys — Beckett, 4 and Brooks, 1 — and are excited to watch them grow up around the game. The influence golf has had on my family is most evident by the careers we chose. My sister and stepdad are both PGA Professionals in England, my brother-in-law is a Superintendent here in Texas and my cousin, who I grew up learning the game with, has been a Greenskeeper at the course we played as juniors since he was a teenager.
After 10+ years of coaching, some of my biggest takeaways are that every golfer is an individual and the golf swing doesn’t have to be perfect. It is important for me to create a partnership with my students to ensure any skill or equipment changes make sense to them personally and align with their short and long-term goals and, most importantly, get them on the golf course playing this great game!
Katie Dillard is the Director of Instruction at The Clubs of Cordillera Ranch. She can be reached at kdillard@cordilleraranch.com and 830.336.4653.
