Ina Kim-Schaad’s Instagram handle @fearlessgolfcoach is a tribute to her mentor Gio Valiante, a sports psychologist who steered her toward mental-performance coaching.
“I am a full-time mental-performance coach with Fearless Golf,” said Kim-Schaad, who played collegiately at Northwestern and won the 2019 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship. “I am so blessed to have this opportunity through Dr. Gio, who is my mentor. It’s not just a business. It is more like a passion. It’s something I never knew I needed in my life, but it is the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I’m super lucky and am loving every minute of it.”
For Kim-Schaad, 40, this burgeoning ingredient in the success of competitive golfers is a long way from her previous lucrative career in finance that included stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong. The Los Angeles native was the runner-up at the 2000 U.S. Girls’ Junior and a quarterfinalist in 1998 but never wanted to follow in her older sister Hana’s footsteps in professional golf. In fact, she took an 11-year-hiatus from golf before picking up the game again in earnest in 2016.
During that time away from competition she met her future husband, Ian Schaad, at a golf outing in London, where he was also working in finance. They dated long-distance until she moved to New York and, urged by fun rounds with Ian, she delved back into serious golf in 2016.
Yet, there were several levels of help needed to bring her back to national caliber as a player. She credits teaching professionals Jeff Paton, Mike Adams and Darrell Kestner as “super influential” for the return to her “technical” form; her husband for support as a “level-headed and objective voice;” and Valiante, who changed her life with the emphasis on the mental game.
Early in her road back to golf, she and Ian would play matches with a friendly bet of shoes. If she won, she would get new shoes. If he won, she would have to throw out five pairs.
“That had a shelf life of two matches,” she said. “I like being partners with him instead of being an adversary.”
Then, as she urges her clients, she put in the work – mentally and physically – and produced some good results in New York (Met Women’s Amateur titles in 2016 and 2018, Met Women’s Stroke Play victories in 2016 and 2017) and Florida (FSGA Mid-Am runner-up in 2017 and 2018).
“I try not to take on anybody who is not serious about doing the work. Mental work is not just something you just listen to, and you are fixed. You have to be willing to put in the legwork yourself.” — Ina Kim-Schaad
“I try to live what I preach,” Kim-Schaad said. “It’s like the Buddhist monks, who have perfected so many things in their training. They still practice every day. The beauty is that we’ll always be learning and getting better. That’s the goal.”
Valiante, one of the nation’s pre-eminent sports psychologists whom Kim-Schaad calls a “one-man phenomenon,” took her on as a mentee (after her time as a pupil) and gave her the necessary tools to become a practitioner, a process that was years in the making.
“It’s been a good marriage with all of his wisdom and teachings and me trying to figure out how to make my mark,” said Kim-Schaad, who won the FSGA’s President’s Award in 2019. “As a competitive golfer, I have a little bit of a different take. It’s been a good yin-yang and marriage of outlooks and concepts.”
Kim-Schaad’s tenacity and subsequent return to high-level golf were punctuated with the victory at the 2019 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Forest Highlands Golf Club in Flagstaff, Arizona. Buoyed by carefree Airbnb evenings with her husband, long-time four-ball partner Meghan Stasi and her husband, and friend Annie Dulman and her mother, Laura, Kim-Schaad disconnected from the disciplines of competition by allowing herself to enjoy the moment.
“I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a surprise, but it was also a realistic goal,” she said of her Mid-Am victory. “It was a surprise, but it was a goal of mine because I felt I had put in the hard work and it was achievable. When it came to fruition, I was so gratified. It is something I am really proud of and so thankful for.”
In her work for the Fearless Golf Academy, Kim-Schaad guides clients through training that focuses on exercises to strengthen their usually underdeveloped mental game. Competitive golfers swear by it, and weekend aficionados are fashionably not aware of it, preferring to hit that extra bucket of balls.
“I try not to take on anybody who is not serious about doing the work,” said Kim-Schaad, who has homes in New York and Florida but is primarily in the Sunshine State, and was the Women’s Metropolitan Player of the Year in 2019, winning the Women’s Met Open, the Met Women’s Stroke Play and the Met Women’s Amateur. “Mental work is not just something you just listen to, and you are fixed. You have to be willing to put in the legwork yourself.”
Known for her flair for fashion while playing, Kim-Schaad turns to a mental benefit of that personality trait. “I like to look good,” she said. “It makes me stand up straight and my shoulders go back, and there’s a lot of positivity around feeling confident in your own skin and what you are wearing. That’s been a part of me since I was young.”
Finding a balance between her practice and competitive golf is a “push-pull,” she said. But she will try to qualify for three USGA women’s championships (Amateur, Open and Mid-Am) as well as the R&A’s Women’s Amateur, at one of her favorite courses (Portmarnock near Dublin) to mix in with some Met Golf events in 2024.
“I go by ‘Fearless Golf Coach’ as an homage to my mentor who has brought me into this business and taught me everything that I know,” said Kim-Schaad, who serves on the Women’s Metropolitan Golf Association’s board.
Kim-Schaad, who prefers not to name individual clients, works with PGA Tour professionals, juniors, and college players.
“If I hadn’t seen Dr. Gio, I might not still be playing golf,” Kim-Schaad said. “Extrapolate out from there and I get to share that fight for rediscovering the passion for the game with my students and teaching them how to deal with their mindset and curate new habits. With a lot of these people, it’s super-high stakes. They are playing on the tour. They are playing mini-tours. They are trying to make a living, and it’s not just ‘for fun.’
“I can’t verbalize what it means to see them have a breakthrough and see them grow and to achieve great things but also to be a happier human being on and off the golf course as a result of the work. Even if I can leave a tiny mark in their golf lives in this chapter, I hope it will echo throughout their lives and they’ll be better people for it.”