Lifelong Lessons: Nordli Uses Golf as a Teaching Tool

Written by Doug Goodnough

Golf has always been part of Scott Nordli’s life in some way.

In his earlier years, including the time he spent as a member of the Hillsdale College men’s golf team in the early 1970s, it was about playing competitive golf. Later, he worked for several years for the PGA Tour selling golf equipment. When he retired in 2015 after a 26-year career in the retail and bank credit card business, it was about teaching golf, spending four years as a coach for a program that teaches the game to youth in the Chicagoland area.

“Golf suits itself perfectly for the values of honesty, integrity, responsibility, and things like that,” Nordli said. “You get kids involved in golf who normally wouldn’t get exposed to it.”

At Hillsdale, he said he enjoyed his time on the golf team. He remembers traveling to various tournaments in College-owned station wagons, which was the preferred mode of transportation for Hillsdale student-athletes at the time. He usually scored in the 80s for 18 holes, sometimes breaking 80. And he remembers taking his clubs from West (now Simpson) Dorm and walking to the practice fields off Barber Drive to hit golf balls. Nordli also worked a variety of jobs around campus, including being an RA, videotaping men’s basketball games, and assisting in the cafeteria.

“Hillsdale was such a great school from the standpoint that you could get involved in anything you wanted,” he said.

However, he wanted to major in marketing, a program Hillsdale didn’t have at the time, so he transferred after his sophomore year to the University of Tulsa. Although he didn’t play collegiate golf at Tulsa, he was often hitting golf balls in a field on campus. One day, a member of Tulsa’s women’s golf team noticed and stopped to give him some pointers. The golfer: future LPGA legend Nancy Lopez.

“I didn’t know her at the time, but she would stop and watch me hit golf balls and talk to me,” said Nordli, now a 6-handicap. “What a nice person she was. A class act.”

After graduating from college, Nordli served some brief stints selling shoes and carpeting before landing a job selling golf equipment for the PGA Tour. During his work, he would occasionally see Lopez at LPGA Tour events and connect with her from time to time.

From 2017-21, he spent four years volunteering for the First Tee Program, which provided equipment such as clubs, balls, and a place for underprivileged youth to play. As a coach, he taught the fundamentals of the game and had participants practice until they could advance to the next level of the program.

“They learn the lessons by doing it,” Nordli said. “If they can take a test at the end of the session, then they can move up a level. One of the outcomes is to get kids to play high school or college golf.”

When Nordli and his wife decided to relocate from Chicago to Kissimmee, Florida, a few years ago, he had to give up his involvement in First Tee. But he said he enjoyed his time and hopes the lessons of integrity, respect, and responsibility through the game of golf resonated with some of his former students.

“It’s a perfect game for integrating those [lessons] into the basics of life,” he said.

His retirement schedule now has him taking advantage of the Florida weather to golf with friends at least a couple of times each week. He and his wife raised four children, now grown, and the couple keeps busy participating in the many activities their community offers.

He said he has some regrets about leaving Hillsdale.

“Hillsdale gave you such a good perspective on the real world,” said Nordli, who remains an avid reader of Imprimis. “The exposure I had in Hillsdale, being able to sit with businesspeople and listen to the Center for Constructive Alternatives (CCA)—I valued all of that.”

Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s senior director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.

Published in May 2025