Whether golf is your passion or something you want to take up as a new hobby (or a healthy activity you want to introduce your kids to so they can enjoy a fun, lifelong sport), Greystone and the Blackburn Golf Academy can help you.

“We’ve got an environment where we can coach pretty much anyone,” says Mark Blackburn, who has been recognized throughout his career as one of the top golf instructors in the country—including being named the 2020 PGA Teacher & Coach of the Year. “We have the best players in the world to the complete beginner, so we have the whole continuum, which is really, really cool.”

Get Access to the Best

Not only is Greystone home to two of the finest courses in the Southeast—Legacy and Founders—but the Greystone Golf Performance Center is filled with state-of-the-art technology and is run by a team of experienced, compassionate instructors who love to help people learn the game and improve in any area they’d like.

“All the technology that is in the Performance Center is basically anything you need to measure anything you want in golf, whether it’s putting or full swing,” says Blackburn. “We’ve got the latest 3D motion capture and six coaches who all have their own strengths. We take all of that and a very holistic approach and then give a person a very simple recipe for them to go play golf.” 

Those who work with Blackburn and his team appreciate how they focus on both the physiology and psychology of playing better. It’s hard to argue with this approach when you consider the number of PGA Pros who have found success working with Blackburn. 

Justin Rose, who started working with Blackburn in November 2022, earned his first PGA Tour victory in four years when he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February 2023, finishing 18 under par for the tournament. 

Speaking on the Fore Play podcast, Rose said of working with Blackburn: “You can see the success he has with different guys with different body shapes and totally different swings. He doesn’t pigeonhole anybody into a particular style of swing, and I think that’s obviously pretty impressive.”

Improving Your Game

You don’t have to be a pro or a scratch golfer to improve under the instruction of Blackburn and his team. Many Greystone Members take advantage of club fitting at the Performance Center, which is a simple way to ensure you’re swinging the right clubs for your body.

The Blackburn Golf Academy caters to players of all levels and ages. Take, for instance, Taylor Trible.

“The Blackburn Golf Academy has been with Taylor since she began playing golf,” says George Trible, Taylor’s father and a Greystone Member. “She has taken lessons or engaged with every person on the Blackburn Team in some way.”

Taylor helped lead the Spain Park High School Girls Golf Team to two state titles and now plays for the University of Southern Mississippi. Taylor is also the reigning Junior Girls Club Champion at Greystone and was the Alabama Women’s State Amateur Champion in 2021. 

World-Class Instruction

Blackburn, who is from England and came to the States to play golf on scholarship at the University of Southern Mississippi, knows Greystone already has a national reputation as a place with elite-level instruction, but his vision is truly global. “We want to make it where Greystone is synonymous with, essentially, high-performance golf and coaching, and our academy is at the base of that.”