You can understand why, as a young impressionable kid, I thought golf was this miracle cure for those with Parkinson’s disease. It was my dream to open a series of golf schools and use golf as a therapy.
At the age of 11, I started putting together clinics for those with Parkinson’s - just getting them onto a golf course, showing them how to swing - it was wonderful to connect with others who understood what I was going through at home.
Teaching golf to those with Parkinson’s did have challenges... namely tremors in their hands, and balance issues.
Over the course of my clinics, I began to notice things that worked better for my ‘students’ considering Parkinson’s disease that helped quell the tremors and improve their balance. Interestingly enough, many things I was stumbling into directly contradicted what conventional instruction was teaching. What my local PGA Professional was telling me to do would not work for my students with Parkinson’s disease - but when I did the opposite, they could swing without falling...
These observations created a lot of cognitive dissonance and ultimately led me to research with many of the top doctors at The Mayo Clinic to learn from some of the brightest minds in biomechanics; people that honestly knew everything about the body, and nothing about the golf swing.
It was through all those years of study and synergy that we developed, ‘The Four Secret Body Locks.’ A system of four simple anatomic positions that lock-in the stroke by locking-out the unwanted moving parts - that actually helped them putt without tremors and make full swings without falling.
And That's Where I Thought My Career as an Instructor Would End...