Longtime golf instructor Kelli McKandless ‘stoked’ at being named the first coach for Team Colorado, the Centennial State’s elite junior squad that’s part of USGA’s National Development Program
By Gary Baines – 11/17/2025
If Kelli McKandless, who works extensively with junior golfers as an instructor, were looking for pretty much a best-case scenario regarding meteoric improvement for a teenager, she might not have to look far.
When McKandless herself was growing up in a small town in central Texas, she shot rounds of 108-112 at a girls state high school tournament as a freshman. A year later, when she returned to state, she shot 80-85 and placed fourth. Two years after that, she won the Class 2A Texas girls individual title in 2000, posting scores of 77-74 for a 10-stroke victory.
That’s a “crazy stat,” McKandless noted of her advancements early in high school. “Talk about a huge improvement. I got some lessons and started scoring a lot better. I improved a lot from freshman to sophomore (years).”
In her new gig, it’s fair to say McKandless won’t see any of the junior golfers she’s overseeing making leaps anything close to that magnitude. After all, they’re already very high-level players. But at that level, even incremental improvement can make a big difference.
After Team Colorado — the elite junior squad that’s been on the cutting edge of the USGA’s National Development Program — recently named its team members for Year 2, McKandless will play a key role helping the Centennial State take the next step. That’s because she was recently named Team Colorado’s first official coach.
Asked her reaction to that unique appointment, the Parker resident recently said, “It’s pretty incredible. I’m very grateful. I was pretty stoked when I saw the opportunity. I was like, ‘Oh wow, this is kind of right up my alley. If this works out, we could have a lot of fun.’ I love working with extremely good athletes. The opportunity to give back to some of the kids here in Colorado that are some of the best of the best, it’s pretty inspiring.”
Sixteen players — eight boys and eight girls — comprise the latest Team Colorado, which was announced earlier this month. Colorado was one of seven states that launched the USGA’s State Team Program in 2023. By next year, there will be 31 Junior State Teams in place throughout the nation, with two of those in California.
And now Team Colorado has an official coach. Until now, various volunteers, along with staffers Ed Mate, Ashley Harrell and Cayla Regnery from the CGA, and the Colorado PGA’s Junior Cup Series manager Samantha Crawford, have guided the way for the team. The volunteers include Colorado Golf Hall of Famer Mark Crabtree, Chris Nordling, Steve Ivan and Roger Prenzlow. That whole group will continue to play prominent roles as part of the Team Colorado Committee.
While McKandless will continue teaching through her Kelli McKandless Golf business — at Murphy Creek Golf Course during the summer and Golf Barn Parker during the winter — she’ll engage with Team Colorado year-round, serving as a mentor and helping the players in a variety of ways. That may include taking a deep dive into statistics with players and even serving as a caddie for Team Colorado members at time. She’ll also deliver “THRIVE” content to players. The acronym THRIVE — the USGA’s National Development Program “blueprint for supporting the development of American players toward excellence and wellbeing” — stands for Training, Health, Relationships, Individual development, Values and Equipment.
As the USGA states on its website, “THRIVE means to grow or develop well; to progress toward or realize a goal despite, or because of, circumstance; and to achieve successful performance. Our intention is to offer support, training, and opportunities for athletes to have the greatest probability to THRIVE in golf and life. The USNDP goal transcends scores, aiming to instill a lifelong engagement with the game, nurturing athletes who contribute to a lasting, inclusive golf community.”
McKandless has lived in Colorado for the last seven years.
“What I’m hoping I can be an asset to is maybe giving them some extra drills they might be able to do — putting, short game, games that they can play on their own,” McKandless said. “Maybe helping them find a way to enjoy range practice because sometimes people don’t really know how to handle that.
“I want to get to know each of the players, get to see where I can add value for each of them. It’s going to be unique across the board.”
McKandless already is the primary instructor for four of the Team Colorado players — Brayden Forte, Addison Dorsey, Tess Morris and Ashley Chang, with whom McKandless just started to work. Other Team Colorado players work with other coaches on an individual basis.
“Along with her proven experience developing elite junior golfers, Kelli brings positive energy and really understands high school athletes,” Harrell, the CGA’s chief operating officer and part of the Team Colorado Committee, said in a recent email. “She is focused on elements of the game beyond the swing and understands the whole athlete. Kelli has been excited about the USNDP and the State Team Program from Day 1, and we are thrilled to have her pouring into Team Colorado athletes.”
This particular Team Colorado group includes nine players who recently signed with NCAA Division I golf programs. And with six non-high school seniors on the team, it’s a good bet that many of the rest will follow suit in the coming two years.
It won’t be easy, but seeing a player or two from Team Colorado making the U.S. National Junior Team in the near future would be ideal. Currently, nine states are represented on the national squad, including six players from Florida and three from California.
“I think that would be a great goal,” McKandless said. “If we can find that young talent that’s going to continue to grow and develop and can make a mark on the national scene, I think that’s what it’s going to take. I think for the most part it’s going to take a kid that starts as a freshman or a sophomore playing in the U.S. Junior Am (or U.S. Girls’ Junior) — and if we can find that young phenom star. It could be a little Ash Edwards — you don’t know. I could see him, being as young as he is (a sophomore) and as talented as he is, I could certainly see that. He’s got a parent (CU men’s golf head coach Roy Edwards) that helps with exposure too, at the national level. You just need a couple good national tournaments for that to get exposed, and all of a sudden that confidence continues to build and from there on, before you know it he’s winning three or four invitationals — AJGAs or even a USGA Junior Am.”
McKandless is certainly no stranger to serving as an instructor to junior golfers. In fact, she estimates that her clients include roughly 35-40 juniors and about five adults. She’s also the founder of the Summit Junior Tour.
“When those kids get to be really good and start seeing things differently, scoring a little better, putting some good nine holes together, and all of a sudden we’ve got two nine holes — a full 18. Then 36 holes and a great tournament and an opportunity to win. Those are fun times for me.”
Among the members of Team Colorado are (from left) Addison Hines, Ella Scott and Ashley Chang.
While coaches use many different approaches to helping young athletes improve, McKandless is certainly no softy regarding her instruction methods.
“I think sometimes people try to make things so easy on kids,” she said. “But easy is the cop-out. We want things to be hard. I think doing hard things creates integrity, resiliency, a way to pick yourself up after you feel so defeated.”
As an example, McKandless points to a drill that she has some of her top junior golfers grapple with. She calls it “Winning Down the Stretch”. The players have to hit a fairvway — set on the driving range — then have to get up and down from about 25 yards, then have to two-putt or better from 45 feet, then have to make a sliding 8-foot putt. If they fail on any step along the way, they have to start over.
“I’ll tell you what — I’m pretty big about putting pressure on the children and making them, basically, want to kill me at times — which is a good thing,” McKandless said. “I’m there for them and there to support them at all times. There were a couple times I had girls crying at this drill. I said, ‘OK, we’re going to do this together. I want you to go through this and struggle with this because I want to do it with you. Let me walk you through how to handle this pressure. We’re doing to go from this station to this station, you’re going to complete this drill, and we’re doing to do it hand in hand and make sure you’re thinking through this properly so when you get on the golf course, you can handle this pressure better.’ That opportunity for me to apply pressure on them and see how their brain and their body reacts to that is a great opportunity for me to coach at that point — and talk them off the ledge.
“There’s times when you just want to quit a drill. ‘This is just too hard, this is too hard.’ ‘No, it’s not too hard. Take a deep breath. We can finish this finish this, I promise. We’re going to put a two-hour cap on it. If you can’t get it done in two hours, we can come back to it. But we’re going to sit through this for two hours and figure out how to grind this out.’
“There was one time Brayden (Forte) looks at me about two months (after going through this drill), and said, ‘That drill set the summer up for me.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘It was so hard, and I knew I could do it.’ He said it gave me a lot of confidence to make it through the rest of the summer — and he had an excellent summer last year. He goes, ‘It was that drill. I’m not kidding you.’ I go, ‘That’s awesome, dude. Glad I was of service to you.’”
Now, McKandless hopes to be of service to all 16 Team Colorado players.
There are numerous perks to being a member of Team Colorado — or any USGA State Team. Besides some less-tangible benefits, this past year Team Colorado traveled to Arizona to play as a team and received Vision54 and on-course training. In addition, team members get — at no cost to them — apparel and gear, statistical tracking software, and access to coaching and mentorship and competitive opportunities, among other things.
Regarding those competitive opportunities, McKandless hopes she can arrange for Team Colorado to compete unofficially against another USGA State Team or two.
“I would love to find another team that would love to scrimmage against us — whether it’s Team Southern California or Georgia or Utah that wants to do something,” she said. “I think it would be amazing to work something out where we have some sort of match this (coming) year.”
McKandless herself certainly knows a little something about being a competitive golfer. After winning her state high school title in Texas — and after a year at a junior college — she played three seasons of NCAA Division I golf at Baylor. Then she turned professional and played mini tours through 2007 before becoming a school teacher from 2007-10. Then it was back to the golf world and being a full-time instructor.
Even now, McKandless still tees it up now and then for tournament golf. Notably, at age 43 she made the cut in the 2025 Inspirato Colorado Women’s Open, finishing 42nd. And just last month, she tied for second in the Colorado PGA Women’s Championship.
McKandless earned her LPGA Class A status in 2015 and became a member of the Colorado PGA in 2023. She was named the LPGA’s Central Section Professional of the Year in 2022. And Golf Digest recently included her among their best teachers in Colorado — one of 19 instructors to make that list.
Asked which golf-related accomplishment she’s most proud of and McKandless notes, “It’s probably less to do with me and more with my kids (the junior golfers she works with). I feel like being that person for that kid. My wife (Audrey Lam), one time she lectured me: ‘You give too much to these kids. Your heart is going to break.’ And I said, ‘Audrey, I would rather my heart break than not be there for the kid in that moment.’ And she goes, ‘I get it.’”
McKandless has lived in Colorado — in Parker, not far from Blackstone Country Club — since late 2018, after moving from the Dallas area.
“Audrey, my wife, grew up here in Denver,” McKandless noted. “We’d come home to visit her mom. And I kept telling her, ‘One day I’ll just stay here with your mom and hopefully you’ll miss me enough to move the rest of our stuff up.’ I’d be looking out the window of our plane ride home and going, ‘This is miserable. Why are we leaving here? This is where I want to be.’”
Lam became the chief financial officer at Oakwood Homes seven years ago, leading to their move to Colorado.
And now, as coach for Team Colorado, McKandless is becoming ever more ingrained into the Centennial State.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com