Check Out Ashley Tait-Wengert’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Tait-Wengert.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
A Colorado native, Ashley Tait is a three-time individual high school state golf champion who went on to play collegiately at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where she won the Conference Championship as a freshman.

Ashley turned professional in 2010 and has competed on the LPGA Epson Tour, highlighted by her victory at the 2011 Texas Open and a runner-up finish after a playoff in 2014. A Class A member of the LPGA Professionals and on her way to becoming PGA Class A, she qualified for the 2022 LPGA KPMG Championship by way of the 2021 LPGA National Championship.

Off the course, Ashley has dedicated herself to growing the game through player development and instruction. She has coached Mullen High School girls golf, served as the Player Development Teaching Professional at Baltimore Country Club, and currently runs player development programs and teaches individual lessons through Turkey Creek Golf Academy in Morrison, Colorado.

Ashley is also the founder of Birdie Mama, a women’s golf lifestyle and apparel brand, and Founder of The Secret Golf Society (SGS), an exclusive women’s golf community built around education, confidence, style, and connection. Through SGS, Ashley hosts curated golf retreats, golf schools, and experiences at premier destinations across the country, bringing women together to elevate their game and build lasting friendships.

Ashley lives in Colorado with her husband Adam and their children, Charles and Sophie.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
When I turned professional, I thought the hardest part would be the golf. I’d won state championships, won a conference title in college, and had the kind of game that made people tell me I was going to make it. What nobody told me was that “making it” as a woman in professional golf is an entirely different sport than making it as a man.

The developmental tours are where dreams go to be tested. For everyone, man or woman, they’re a grind—long drives, shared hotel rooms, fast food dinners, and entry fees that stack up whether you make the cut or not. But for women, the math is different. The purses are smaller. The sponsorship opportunities are fewer and often come with conditions that have nothing to do with your swing. You watch male players with comparable records land equipment deals and media coverage while you’re buying your own clubs and hoping someone in the gallery knows your name.

I won a tournament early in my career and thought the doors would start opening. Some did. Most didn’t. I finished second in a playoff a few years later—one shot, one putt, one moment that could have changed everything—and the world kept spinning like it always does. When a man grinds on a developmental tour, people call him hungry. When a woman does the same thing, people ask her when she’s going to settle down or get a “real job.” Or they just stop asking altogether.

So you learn to fill the gaps yourself. You teach lessons between tournaments. You coach high school girls and watch them fall in love with the game the same way you did, knowing you can’t protect them from what’s coming but hoping you can at least prepare them for it. You wake up early to run a clinic at a local course, then drive four hours to make your afternoon tee time, then do the math in the parking lot to see if you can afford next week’s entry fee. You do this not because anyone is watching, but because you can’t imagine stopping.

The loneliest part isn’t the losing. It’s the invisibility. Women’s professional golf exists in a strange space—respected in theory, underfunded in practice. The LPGA Tour gets a fraction of the coverage, a fraction of the purses, and a fraction of the corporate investment that the PGA Tour receives. And below the LPGA, on the Epson Tour and the mini-tours where most of us spend our careers, you can play the round of your life on a Thursday afternoon and the only people who know are your caddie, your mom, and the scorer’s tent.

But here’s what the struggle taught me that winning never could: the women’s golf world doesn’t just need better purses and more TV time. It needs community. It needs spaces where women feel like they belong—not as a novelty or an afterthought, but as the heartbeat of the game. It needs someone to say, “You’re not doing this alone.”

That’s what those years on tour gave me. Not a trophy case full of wins, but something I didn’t know I was building the entire time: a reason to make this game better for the women coming up behind me. Every lesson I teach, every community I help build, every young girl I watch take her first real swing—that’s the return on all those years of grinding. And I wouldn’t trade a single mile of it.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Tell us about your work. What do you do, what do you specialize in, and what are you known for?

I’m a PGA and LPGA Class A Professional specializing in instruction—helping golfers at every level build real, lasting improvement in their games. I own Turkey Creek Golf Academy in Morrison, Colorado and run player development programs and teach individual lessons. Before that, I spent two years as the Player Development Teaching Professional at Baltimore Country Club.

But instruction is only part of what I do. I’m also the founder of Birdie Mama, a women’s golf lifestyle and apparel brand, and Founder of The Secret Golf Society—an exclusive women’s golf community built around education, confidence, style, and connection. Through SGS, we host curated golf retreats, golf schools, and experiences at premier courses and resorts across the country. My background as a touring professional gives me a unique perspective in all of this. I’ve competed on the LPGA Epson Tour, won the 2011 Texas Open, and qualified for the 2022 LPGA KPMG Championship. I know what it takes to perform under pressure, and I bring that experience into every lesson, every event, and every part of the community I’m building.

I think I’m known for making people feel like they belong on the golf course. Whether it’s a beginner who’s never held a club or a competitive player chasing the next level, I meet people where they are and help them fall in love with the process of getting better.

What are you most proud of?

Honestly, the thing I’m most proud of has nothing to do with a trophy or a tournament result. I’m most proud of the women I’ve watched transform—not just their golf games, but their confidence. I’ve had students who were terrified to step onto a golf course, and now they’re playing in member-guests, joining leagues, planning golf trips with their friends, and feeling like they genuinely belong in a sport that hasn’t always made women feel welcome.

I’m also incredibly proud of what we’re building with The Secret Golf Society. Women’s golf is having a moment, and I’m proud to be part of shaping what that looks like—not just on tour, but at the grassroots level where the real growth happens. Creating a space where women can learn, connect, travel, and experience golf at the highest level together? That’s the most meaningful work I’ve ever done.

And if I’m being personal—I’m proud that my son Charlie and daughter Sophie get to grow up watching their mom chase something she loves. That matters to me more than any win.

What sets you apart from others?

I’ve lived both sides of this game. I’ve been the player grinding on the developmental tours, stretching entry fees and teaching between tournaments just to keep competing. And I’ve been the instructor and entrepreneur building something from the ground up to make this sport more accessible and more welcoming for women. That combination—the competitive experience, the teaching expertise, and the firsthand understanding of what women in golf actually need—is rare.

I also think what sets me apart is that I’m not just teaching swings. I’m building community. A lot of people in the golf industry focus on the technical side, and that matters—but I’ve seen over and over that the thing that keeps women in the game isn’t a better grip or a new driver. It’s feeling like they have a place in it. That’s what Birdie Mama and SGS are about, and it’s what I bring to every lesson and every interaction. I want every woman I work with to walk away feeling like golf is her sport too.

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
If you ask me about my favorite childhood memory, it doesn’t involve a birthday party or a family vacation. It involves a golf course, a PGA Tour event, and a little girl who had no idea how lucky she was.

My dad got me into golf. That’s the simple version. The longer version is that he gave me a world I never would have found on my own. And one of the earliest glimpses of that world came at Castle Pines, playing in the pro-junior during The International—a real PGA Tour event, in my home state of Colorado, with players I’d only ever seen on television.

I got to play with Clarence Rose and Craig Stadler—The Walrus. I was just a kid, walking those fairways alongside tour pros, trying to act like it was no big deal while my heart was practically beating out of my chest. Castle Pines felt like the biggest, most beautiful place in the world. And there I was, teeing it up like I belonged there.

That memory stayed with me through everything—the state championships, college golf, turning pro, the years on the Epson Tour, all of it. It was the first time I understood that golf wasn’t just a game. It was a door. And my dad was the one who opened it.

Fast forward to this year. I’m at the PGA Show, and I look across the room and there he is—Craig Stadler. The Walrus himself, decades later. I walked up, got a picture, and immediately sent it to my dad. No caption needed. He knew.

None of it—the memories, the experiences, the career, the connections, none of it—would exist if my dad hadn’t put a club in my hands and said, “Let’s go.” Everything I am in this game started with him.

Pricing:

• Adult Lesson $250/hr
• Junior Lesson $200/hr
• Secret Golf Society Monthly Membership $75/m
• Secret Golf Society Annual Membership $900/yr

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.turkeycreekgolf.club
• Instagram: @ashleytaitgolf
• Facebook: Ashley Tait-Wengert
• LinkedIn: Ashley Tait-Wengert
• Twitter: @ashleytaitgolf
• Youtube: @ashleytaitgolf
• Other: https://the-secret-golf-society.mn.co