The next week, we showed up at Puetz with our shiny new clubs for our first 30-minute lesson—not really knowing what to expect.
With no idea where we were supposed to go, we stood around near the driving range looking like two completely lost newbies.
One of the guys at the counter noticed and asked if we were there for lessons, then pointed us upstairs to a separate area—two garage-style bays overlooking the driving range where they do all the instruction.
That’s where we met our instructor, Casey.
Since I’m a gentleman—and clearly knew so much more about golf—I let Katie go first.
More importantly, she had to go first since she’s the one who started all of this.
Casey couldn’t have been more patient with her.
After watching a few swings, he used the cameras set up in the bay to walk her through just a couple small adjustments. Then they spent the next 10 minutes working on only those things.
And just like that… she started improving.
She wasn’t standing over the ball like she was doing a box squat anymore, and she had cut way down on the sway.
Small changes—but big progress for someone brand new.
Was she crushing the ball? Absolutely not.
But she already looked a lot more like a golfer than she did when she walked in.
It was pretty cool to watch. She went from barely making contact to sneaking in a few solid shots, and by the end of the lesson you could see her confidence building.
Casey opened the second bay door and told me I could start warming up if I wanted to.
If I told you that on my first warm-up swing, I crushed the ball so hard it disappeared, I’d be half right.
The ball disappeared but only because I topped it, and it gently rolled out the bay door and rained down on someone practicing at the driving range below.
After a few more attempts, I was technically “hitting” the ball—but not very well.
No matter though, because in my head I figured I only needed a little bit of instruction compared to Katie.
Then it was my turn.
Again, in my head, I figured I’d look a little better than she did since I had at least played before.
If you’re guessing that didn’t happen—you’d be right.
I was a mess.
My swing was off, my contact was worse, and frustration started creeping in. Then came the real humbling moment.
Remember those cameras recording every swing?
Yeah… now I had to watch myself back.
While Casey was explaining what I needed to fix, all I could think about was how out of shape I looked. This wasn’t a new revelation—I’ve been overweight most of my life. But this felt different, and it hit me harder than I expected.
He was focused on helping my swing—but I couldn’t stop thinking about what I saw on that screen.
To his credit, Casey stayed patient and positive the whole time, just like he had with Katie.
Over the next couple of lessons, Katie kept improving.
A lot.
It was great to see—and if I’m being honest, a little frustrating too. Not because I wasn’t happy for her, but because I didn’t understand why it wasn’t clicking the same way for me.
Then, near the end of our last lesson, Casey asked to look at my grip.
Apparently, you’re not supposed to squeeze the life out of the club.
Who knew?
Your brain tells you to swing hard if you want the ball to go far. A loose grip and not trying to kill it? That didn’t make sense to me at all.
Turns out… it actually does make sense.
As soon as I backed off and loosened my grip, things started to improve almost immediately.
Was I crushing it or compressing the ball? Not even close.
But I was finally making better contact.
It’s been about a year and a half since those first lessons, and I’m still not a great golfer.
But anytime things start going off the rails, I go right back to that simple advice:
“Relax your grip.”
All in all, those first three lessons were exactly what we needed.
They gave us just enough confidence to keep going—and just enough reality to know we had a long way to go.
The only downside was the drive. Puetz was about 40 minutes from the house, and we knew that wasn’t something we were going to stick with long term.
Plus, with three lessons under our belts, we were basically experts at that point… or at least we thought we were.
What we really needed was somewhere closer we could practice.
We didn’t know it yet, but finding that place would lead to a whole new set of experiences—some good, some frustrating, and one we definitely didn’t see coming.
But at that point, all we cared about was getting better.
Leave a Reply