Chuck Quinton is widely considered to be one of the most popular and effective golf instructors in the world. Chuck has been teaching golf since 1995. In addition to working with top players on the PGA tour, his online videos have been viewed by millions of amateur and professional golfers committed to improving their swing and transforming their game.
Chuck Quinton is the founder of the Rotary Swing and a former Teaching Professional at Castle Pines Golf Club in Colorado. He is also the founder of the Rotary Swing Golf Academy at the Ritz Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Florida.
Golf is a game that demands technical and physical proficiency, but also incredible concentration and mental stamina. Anyone who has watched all-time greats like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, or Phil Mickelson understands how intense those last few holes can be, when the line between winning and losing is measured in millimeters.
At the course, with the sun resting above a blue sky, and finely manicured green grass below, there is just a golfer, his or her chosen club, a small white dimpled ball and a hole of about 10.8 centimeters.
The wind and weather, the crowds, the stress, the exhilaration of success and the frustration of failure, are what draws over 24 million people to the course every year, and that’s just in the United States.
Golf is a global sport, attracting a passionate following in Japan, India, Australia and South Africa, and of course, throughout Europe, where golf began its humble beginning on the eastern coast of Scotland.
Golf is a game ideally suited for people who love to be in control.
Chuck Quinton loves to be in control. In a previous life, he used to be a professional snowboard mountaineer, which requires a level of fearlessness and self-confidence that most mere mortals wouldn’t even consider on a bet. In Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller “Outliers” he explains that it takes about 10,000 hours of intensive practice to master complex skills – to be great.
When Chuck Quinton set out to conquer the sport of golf, he realized it wasn’t just going to be through reading books or watching instructional videos, although he certainly spent many, many hours doing just that. It was by playing, and watching others, and playing and practicing some more, far surpassing 10,000 hours and applying the same relentless determination that he used to start over a dozen companies – all of them profitable, and to rise to the top of a profession that has its fair share of charlatans with their gimmicks and empty promises that can’t ever deliver.
So you can imagine what it must be like for someone who rises before dawn every day, and who’s entire life and identity revolves around peak physical performance to crash back down to earth.
Life has a curious way of reminding us of how small and insignificant we are, and for Chuck Quinton it took a fall from a mountain bike to remind him of what really matters.
And this is the story that he shared with me.
“When I was 35 years old, I had a mountain biking accident and broke my neck. It nearly killed me and I spent the next 12 days in the neuro ICU as I recovered from two major surgeries. I lost 30 pounds and could barely walk when I left the hospital. In moments of true weakness like this, you learn who those you can trust and rely on really are. Most people you think are dear friends will show their true colors at this time and you will quickly discover who you can lean on and trust and who you can’t.”
“For the next 6 months I was forced to lay on the couch watching Netflix all day. I was practically an infant. I couldn’t bathe myself as I had also broken my hand. I couldn’t cook and could barely even eat because my throat was so swollen from the surgeries. My food had to be chopped into tiny pieces and even then, I still regularly choked. I had to be on a regimen of pills for the pain that had to be given on a schedule as they were very powerful and dangerous if not taken at the right intervals. To ask someone to take care of you in a circumstance like this is asking the world of someone, especially when it’s something that you did to yourself.”
“But my wife, Christina, never missed a beat, never complained, never made me feel like an inconvenience and never left my side, even sleeping in a chair for weeks at the hospital while I lay there near lifeless.”
“There are very few people in the world that you can truly count on. You may not realize that until something traumatic happens, but if and when it does, you best hope is that you have someone who is truly by your side, dedicated and loving, because no matter how strong we think we may be, life has a tendency to show us how small and powerless we all really are.”
“If you find a person like this, take a moment to thank them, let them know how much they mean to you and that you are there for them as much as they are there for you and two lives can be changed – yours and theirs.”
Of course, that all feels like a distant memory now. Chuck Quinton is as active as ever before, probably even more so, and his excitement over some of the latest innovations he is bringing to the golf world, like The AXIOM, is going to help achieve his goal to help one million golfers shoot consistently in the 70s.
Like success in the game of golf, success in the game of life is about having the right priorities and remembering that it’s the little things that really matters.
To hear Chuck tell his story, it’s clear he’s already a winner.