The number of students is one way to judge the impact that Stacey Jones and Todd Tanner have made. The improvement of those golfers is another measurement. Yet the most remarkable gauge for the founders of InMotion Junior Golf is that kindergartners who began working with them are now high school golfers.
A lot can happen in 10 years, and InMotion now works with nearly300 students per week. The business “has grown into something that we never could have expected or imagined,” Jones said, “and we love it.”
Jones and Tanner share the Utah Section PGA’s 2022 Youth Player Development Award, honoring their enterprise that’s based at River Oaks Golf Course in Sandy and the Backyard Greens indoor facility in Lindon.
They try to make golf fun for children, although their approach is not just based on entertaining them. “The biggest part is actually seeing improvement from the kids,” Tanner said. “We want the kids to get better at golf.”
Jones added, “I want them to not only have fun, but truly learn the game, and learn the correct way.”
The former Stacey Parkinson grew up in a golf-oriented family and played for Lone Peak High School, prior to the launch of high school girls golf in Utah. She’s known for her patience in working with youngsters. It probably helps that she’s a mother of five children of age 6 and younger.
Jones is proud to be one of the many women whose influence in Utah golf keeps increasing. “We want to show the love of the game to these young girls, so they carry that on throughout their lives,” she said.
Tanner, a former Utah State golfer, was the top-performing Section member in the 2022 Siegfried & Jensen Utah Open. Approaching his 50th birthday, Tanner said, “I still love to play and compete, to kind of validate your teaching.”
By Fairways Media senior writer, Kurt Kragthorpe