It didn't begin with a business plan. It began with two brothers and our golfing journey.
Tim Tobin and his brother, Bill
Coming Home
In 2018, my brother Bill was diagnosed with stage-four cancer. I was living in Miami at the time, working in corporate training and development.
Bill's diagnosis changed my priorities. I left Miami and returned to Fort Worth to be close to him and help care for him.
The prognosis gave us a shorter timeline than we ultimately got. Bill lived for five more years, and during those years, golf became an important part of our lives together.
I didn't know it then, but that decision to come home would eventually lead to Pathway Golf Institute.
A Different View of the Golf Course
During those years, Bill wanted to spend his days playing golf while he was in palliative care. I took a job as a marshal and starter at a municipal golf course in Fort Worth, in part to build us a community around the game. It worked wonderfully.
What began as a way to spend more time around the game eventually gave me an entirely different view of how a golf course operates.
For four years, I worked directly with golfers on the first tee and out on the course. I saw the great days and the difficult ones — pace-of-play problems, confused golfers, uncomfortable conversations, safety concerns, and the countless small interactions that can shape a golfer's experience.
And I began noticing something that surprised me.
Starters and marshals are entrusted with important responsibilities, but many are asked to learn the job largely through experience.
There was very little structured, professional training designed specifically for the work we were actually doing.
I Knew Training Could Make a Difference
That observation connected my new life in golf with something I had spent much of my professional career doing.
I had spent years building corporate training programs that had benefited thousands of people around the world. I understood how good training could give people confidence, establish consistent expectations, and help them handle situations before those situations became problems.
So I began thinking about what proper training for starters and marshals should look like — training created from the perspective of someone who had actually done the job.
At first, the idea wasn't to build a company. I simply thought the golf industry needed it.
Eventually, people around me encouraged me to take the idea further.
That idea became Pathway Golf Institute.
What We're Building Today
Today, Pathway Golf Institute is focused on giving golf facilities practical resources for the people responsible for managing the first tee, the course and the golfer experience.
PGI Training & Certification provides starters and marshals with structured training for the situations they encounter on the job. That same experience on the course is also where the idea for SimplePace™ began.
Give good people the training and tools they need to do an important job well.
Where It Really Started
Bill never set out to help start a golf company. Neither did I.
Pathway Golf Institute grew from circumstances neither of us would have chosen. But the years I came home to spend with Bill changed the direction of my life, brought me closer to my brother, and eventually put me in a position to see a need I might otherwise never have discovered.
So while PGI may have been built from my experience as a trainer and a marshal, its story began much earlier.
Without Bill, there would be no Pathway Golf Institute.
