About
I started training my golf buddies because I was tired of waiting on them.
Glenn Ritter · 12 years coaching in Saint Charles, Missouri
Here's the honest origin story: I play a lot of golf, and I take care of myself. And as the years went on I noticed the guys I golf with couldn't keep up with me anymore. Riding instead of walking. Fading on the back nine. Passing on the extra round. Not sick — just a step slower every season, and never quite noticing the day it changed.
Now, selfishly, I like having people to golf with. So it dawned on me that I should train them. Get their strength, mobility and conditioning back so they can walk the course, swing without wincing, and still have something left for the eighteenth. That was twelve years ago, and I haven't found a reason to change the plan since.
“I was in better shape than the guys I golf with, and I got tired of having nobody who could keep up with me. So I started training them. Watching them get stronger, lose weight, move better — and make it around all eighteen again — is very rewarding to me. Also, now I have more people to golf with.”
How I coach
I'm not sure what other trainers do. What I do is try to make it clear as to what your goals are and what you need to do on a consistent basis to stay active as you age. Motivational when you need pushing, professional about the details, plain English throughout. If you understand why you're doing an exercise, you'll do it in a hotel room on a Tuesday. If you don't, you won't do it standing next to me.
Nobody who calls me needs to apologize for how long it's been. Almost everyone does anyway. It has never once been a problem — a starting point is just information.
Why golf keeps showing up here
Golf is the most honest fitness test there is. It doesn't care what you can bench — it asks whether you can walk four hours on uneven ground, rotate through a swing a hundred times, keep your balance in a bunker, and do it all again tomorrow. That's the standard I quietly aim every program at, whether you ever tee it up or not — because the body that can do that is the same body that handles a long travel day, a grandkid on the floor, and a driveway full of snow.
Still in the game
Everything I ask of you, I ask of me.
Twelve years in, I'm still training for the same things my clients are: eighteen holes without paying for it, a trailhead I haven't seen, and getting off the floor like it's nothing.
Want the practical version first? See how training is structured.