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I was born and raised in San Diego, and at age 8 my Dad got me into golf. He took me to the driving range at Mission Trails Golf Course for my first time to hit golf balls. At age 9, my Mom and Dad started taking me to compete in San Diego Junior Golf Association tournaments, and our lives became golf from that point on. They would take turns taking me to the tournaments, and while keeping an eye on me, they also fully participated in the events doing the group score keeping and other duties. They were fully enmeshed, committed, and supportive of my golfing endeavors and exploits. Golf, and the study and practice of it, were my life growing up from age 8 to 30. All of my time was directed toward building and tailoring a golf game for competition. I spent many days, months, years, and decades learning and improving my game, taking instruction from some of the top teachers around the country, and competing against the best players in the world. |
After playing hundreds of local junior tournaments, as well as many national tournaments, I earned a scholarship to play golf at UCLA. I graduated with a degree in history in '93. I went on to play professional golf for over 7 years, playing on various mini tours including the Futures Tour and Asian Tour, until I qualified to play on the LPGA Tour in 1998 and 1999. I retired from tour play in August 2000. The extensive junior, college, and professional tournament experience I amassed, taught me to find a way to play better golf in the clutch. With the kind of pressure of having to make a 6 foot putt to win Nationals in college, or needing to par the last 5 holes at a pro event to make a check and pay my bills that month, I found a way to make my game stand up under the test. For the past 8 years now, I have been sharing this accumulated golf knowledge with my students. My goal is to pass on to them the valuable lessons I learned over 20 years of competitive playing experience, and eight years of instructional study. I have put the time in for them, so that they can be taught the simplest and most direct way to reach the proven fundamentals and dynamics that work. We aim to build a game that is effective for their abilities and tendencies, in order to get the most out of their strengths. We work together to create a strategy of building a swing that they can rely on and understand on the golf course. I prepare them to be able to know how to fix their swing on the course when it goes awry. In March of 2008 I passed a course to earn my Personal Fitness Trainer certification through AFAA (Aerobic and Fitness Association of America). I use this information to assist my golf students with their fitness. Many people don’t realize how important fitness is for golfers. The golf swing is a much more athletic move than people realize, and if you aren’t physically preparing your body, then you are just fighting an uphill battle trying to build a golf swing. So my students and I focus on proper stretching of the hips, back, and shoulders, along with making sure they are also doing some calisthenics or pilates to build their lean core muscles. A limber body as well as a strong back, belly, and legs, are important for a good golf swing. When I’m not teaching golf or working out, I spend time writing. Whether it’s in a journal, instructional blogs for my students, theatre reviews for an online magazine, articles for community periodicals, or otherwise; it has been a lifelong passion. I began writing my first book, “A Lifetime of Contradictions” in January 2007. It is about my now 99-year-old grandpa, and I finished self-publishing it two years later. In September of 2009 I finished writing my second book, and after over 4 months in the tedious self-publishing phase, I’m excited to say that “Have Golf Swing, Will Travel”, is now ready and available! I hope you enjoy it, and I will continue to write instructional blogs as well, in order to guide and direct my students in the right direction for lower golf scores and more fun on the golf course! |