Harvey Penick and the Academy Pros
Meet the men behind the quality instruction offered by our Texas golf academy.
Harvey Penick was born October 23,1904 in Austin, Texas. He became a caddy at Austin Country Club at the age of 8 and became head professional at 18; a position he held for the next 50 years!
Harvey Penick taught golf for seven decades and coached the University of Texas golf team for 33 years. Among his well-known pupils were Ed White, Betty Jameson, Morris Williams Jr., Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright, Kathy Whitworth, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshawand Sandra Palmer. Those ladies won over 240 LPGA tour events, 2 U.S. Women’s Amateurs and 10 U.S. Women’s Opens. The men account for 5 NCAA individual titles, 2 Masters, one U.S. Open and over 35 PGA tour wins - Walker Cupper Ed White never played professionally. Morris Williams, Jr. died in the service as a young man.
Finally, in the 90’s the whole world learned about this humble Texas golf instructor. In collaboration with Austin writer, Bud Shrake, Harvey sold millions of copies of his golf instruction books. These include:
Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book (1992)
If You Play Golf, You’re My Friend (1993)
For All Who Love The Game (1995)
The Game For A Lifetime (1996), a work in progress at the time of his death on April 2, 1995.

Jim Hopkins was born and raised in Abilene, Texas and has been playing golf for as long as anyone can remember. Jim was part of two state championship teams at Abilene Cooper High School, and later went to Angelo State University on a golf scholarship and was named Golfer of the Year as a freshman. Jim started his professional golf career in Austin in 1987 as the Assistant Professional at Morris Williams GC under head pro, George Hannon (former Texas Longhorn golf coach) and later was 1st Assistant at Lago Vista CC. In 1993, he began work at Golfsmith as one of the original instructors for the Harvey Penick Golf Academy. Jim had the opportunity to work with a great many students in his time there, including Thomas Henderson, Turk Pipkin (Jim is mentioned in his book The Old Man and the Tee,) R.C. Buford (S.A. Spurs General Manager) as well as the 2000 NAIA Ladies National Champion. After over 16 years (and over 22,000 students) as instructor, head instructor and then, head professional, he decided to leave to pursue his goal of running a top quality golf academy as well as work with students on an individual and long-term basis.
Jim’s association with Harvey began very early in his professional career. His first boss, George Hannon, was a great friend and disciple of Harvey’s and had many notes and teaching techniques that he shared with Jim. In fact, Jim feels that he got to read the Little Red Book years before it was published because of Mr. Hannon’s notes! When he went to work for Golfsmith in 1993, he had the privilege to be in the room for almost every one of Harvey’s weekly talks to the academy students. He considers it the greatest honor in his professional life to be given the opportunity, by the Penick family, to run the Harvey Penick Golf Academy.
He has a wife, Christina, and a daughter, Julia. They are the love of his life. He enjoys fishing, huntingand reading and is an avid golf book collector. He has over 1,000 books and magazine related to golf.

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