My TPI Journey-PART 1: TPI Screening, Charlotte, NC

For those unfamiliar with the acronym TPI, it stands for Titleist Performance Institute.

Since its inception in 2003, TPI has studied thousands of golfers, from the top professional Tour players to weekend enthusiasts. During this time, an incredible amount of data has been gathered on players of all shapes, sizes, ages, and fitness levels. Using this data, TPI discovered how a properly functioning body allows a player to swing a golf club in the most efficient way possible.

As an educational organization, TPI teaches medical professionals, golf professionals, and fitness professionals like me how to screen golfers to see if they have any physical limitations that can adversely affect their golf swing and may potentially lead to injury. In other words, is your golf swing the way it is because of the way your body moves, or is it a technical problem?

Before 2010 I had never heard of the Titleist Performance Institute. It was in June of that year that I attended what is known as the Perform Better Summit (a gathering of fitness professionals to learn from industry experts). Since I was living in NYC at the time, I would go to the summit in Providence, RI. It was there that I would come to know Dr. Greg Rose (co-founder of TPI).

Dr. Rose gave a presentation on golf-related injuries and even though I already had a golf fitness certification by the CHEK Institute, it was clear there was so much more to learn.

2010

By the time the weekend was over I committed to taking the TPI Level 1 Certification in Chicago, IL that same August.

By Labor Day of that same year, I started working at Drive495. A golf-centric gym located on Broadway in the SoHo district.

Always hungry for knowledge, I would re-take level 1 in person as often as I could. I went to Philadelphia in 2012 and 2018, as well as Elizabeth, NJ in 2015, 2018, and again in 2020 (just a week before the COVID pandemic hit). It was at these events that I would have the privilege to learn from industry titans such as Dave Phillips, Greg Rose, Lance Gill, Jason Glass, Mark Blackburn, and Mike Napoleon of SuperSpeed Golf.