Sure, it’s true—but it’s wildly understating matters. The facility devoted to game improvement at Desert Mountain may well have no peer among private clubs in the United States. Credit the Members for their commitment to this level of excellence—but a hearty golf clap, too, for the man whose name adorns the Performance Center, Jim Flick. Without Flick’s efforts, Desert Mountain wouldn’t be the hotbed of higher golf education that it is today.
Desert Mountain’s 6,500-square-foot Golf Performance Center opened in March 2012 with state-of-the-art technology in place to embrace every instructional need, from swing technique, fitness, and mental game performance to club fitting.
A dedication ceremony took place the following year, naming the facility the Jim Flick Golf Performance Center. Flick was the PGA Director of Instruction at Desert Mountain from 1986-2005 and was beloved and admired by Members and tour pros alike. The PGA Teacher of the Year in 1988, he earned “Top 10 Golf Teachers of the 20th Century” honors from Golf World magazine in 1999.
He led the Golf Digest Schools from the 1970s through 1990 and from 1991-2003, shared top billing on the Nicklaus-Flick Golf Schools marquee.
The Jim Flick Legacy
Flick found as much joy watching a 16 handicap solve their slice mystery as he did tweaking the swing of a seasoned tour pro. Unquestionably, however, Flick’s profile rose—as did Desert Mountain’s—in 1990, when Jack Nicklaus sought him out during a rough patch on the senior tour. Flick’s fixes did the trick. Nicklaus regained his superpowers, won that week’s Tradition at Desert Mountain and went on to capture another seven senior majors over the next six years.
Although he aided thousands of other tour pros and nationally ranked juniors and amateurs, Flick was probably closest to Tom Lehman. The 1996 British Open winner credited Flick with overhauling his game and his mental approach and turning him into a major champion. Lehman captured the 2012 Tradition at Desert Mountain and confirmed he had spoken on the telephone to his cancer-stricken mentor before the final round. Jim Flick passed away the following day.
Celebrants gathered on May 8, 2013, to dedicate the Golf Performance Center to Jim Flick, with special guests that included Geri Flick, his widow and Lehman, the keynote speaker.
Ingenious Innovations
At its core, the Jim Flick Golf Performance Center consists of four instructional bays, one club fitting bay and an indoor putting studio. The club fitting bay and the four teaching bays are indoor/outdoor in terms of the ability to be weather-protected inside and then hit out onto the outdoor grass driving range.
Within the five bays are theater screens that appear at the click of a button. The projection screens can be used for instruction, or for playing simulator golf. Pebble Beach and the Old Course at St. Andrews are among 260 virtual courses offered through Trackman launch monitors. “We often host Member experiences here, such as a New Member Mixer or a group that wants to come down and play virtual golf,” says Paxton O’Connor, a successor to Flick as Director of Instruction at Desert Mountain.
O’Connor maintains that technology doesn’t replace good coaching but rather enhances it. “The tools we use provide objective data to eliminate the guesswork that commonly had to be practiced by coaches of the past,” says O’Connor. “We’re now able to create a performance plan to help golfers improve faster and more efficiently. And Trackman has been the leader in the industry for measuring club delivery and ball behavior.” Trackman is the pioneer in golf radar technology that measures what happens when the ball and clubface make contact. It’s become instrumental in providing feedback at the game’s highest levels for swing analysis, club fitting, yielding data points on ball speed, dynamic loft and launch angle, among other characteristics, with built-in HD cameras or using external cameras.
A popular recent addition to the hardware array at the JFGPC are Force Plates from Swing Catalyst. They’re now installed in every bay and measure the ground force—via the feet–as one is making a golf swing. Feedback indicates how much energy is put into the ground. What has O’Connor most excited, however, are the recent investments in the putting studio—notably, the Zen Green Stage.
“The Zen Green Stage is a movable, high-quality putting surface that we can tilt uphill, downhill, and side to side,” O’Connor says. “We can actually create and simulate double breaking putts while being indoors. It allows us to measure objectively in a controlled environment and helps us teach students about reading greens and hitting different types of putts. And then we have complementary technology such as SAM PuttLab [Science and Motion] the world’s leading putt coaching and training system and Quintic, a ball monitor. For any Member who is interested in a putter, I can blend these resources and tools and we can make a more informed decision on what putter style will work best.”
The other item that has the putting studio abuzz is the installation of an overhead ball tracking camera. “We can display that on a projection and it coordinates with the Zen Green Stage,” says O’Connor.
Another highlight at the Performance Center is the approach play area. Targets are set at 50, 75, 100, 125 and 150 yards. Even though this is fertile ground for practicing the “scoring” clubs—meaning, mainly wedges—students are taught to manage expectations, because not even the pros stick them close every time. New targets also grace the Renegade range, enhancing the visual experience through additional bunkers, barbershop poles and other devices that assist in getting the golfer aimed and focused during a practice session.
Unlike clubs that have only one or two golf courses, Desert Mountain is able to provide a variety of on-course learning experiences, including novel, fun offerings such as the Escape the Desert Clinic. “It’s one of our most popular clinics,” says O’Connor. “We teach Members to recognize the lie and to figure out how we can get it back in play.”
A Stellar Staff
None of these remarkable learning experiences could be facilitated without an equally talented group of team members that carry on the Jim Flick coaching tradition. With longevity comes a comfort factor in the student-teacher relationship, and the Performance Center excels in that department. Paxton O’Connor, a nine-year veteran of Desert Mountain, has been recognized on multiple occasions by Golf Digest as one of the Best Young Teachers in America. Jennifer Tucker, who has called the Mountain her professional home for more than 17 years, has also earned that prestigious award.
O’Connor also lauds DK Kim as a “phenomenal player,” who has been with the Performance Center for over a decade as well as Wesley Gleason, who joined the team more than three years ago and is “full of energy and a brilliant teacher.” Master Club Fitter Chris Heasley came to Desert Mountain a dozen years ago as an assistant golf professional and has specialized in club fitting since 2014. And at the start of 2025, longtime assistant professional Zach Capel was promoted to Director of the Performance Center. With O’Connor dipping further into the waters of coaching PGA Tour pros, in the manner of Jim Flick himself, Capel will now oversee the retail aspects of the operation as well as look after the maintenance and day-to-day aspects of the facility. “I couldn’t be happier to have Zach leading the retail experience moving forward,” says O’Connor. “He’s outstanding.”
The retail component has blossomed since O’Connor’s arrival in 2016-’17. “We were giving you coaching and instruction, but then what?” remembers O’Connor. “We wanted to be able to support you with the Club and equipment purchasing process, guiding you along the way.”That meant stocking golf clubs, bags and balls as well as products designed to help address the physical demands that trying to get better at golf brings. The Club hosted 600 fittings last year, using more than 1,400 heads and shafts to create custom combinations to try out before ordering clubs for Members. Club repair is another service available at the Performance Center along with regripping. “We’re doing about 5,000 to 7,000 grips a year annually,” says O’Connor.
For those hesitant about taking advantage of what the Jim Flick Golf Performance Center offers, O’Connor adroitly sums up the facility’s appeal. “If you’ve ever had the thought, or uttered the words, ‘I would like to get better at this game,’ or ‘I’d like to have greater enjoyment around this game,’ come visit one of our talented professionals to help be that collaborator.”
This story was originally written by Joe Passov, a Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA) award-winning journalist. Read the article in the Spring 2025 issue of Inside Desert Magazine.
