A Brief Bio

My journey has been far from the conventional pathology. On my second birthday, my uncle gave me a right-handed sand wedge. Right after opening it, I immediately began to grip it as a lefty, even though it was right-handed. My parents tried to move it around, but I refused. Later, my dad bought me a left-handed wedge. They have videos of 2-year-old me hitting plastic golf balls out of our backyard.

I was born in Kentucky, then moved to Florida at 11 months old. We stayed in Florida until I was 5, and my family moved to Chico. The beginning of life was challenging. When we moved to Chico, we couldn’t afford our own home and had to stay with family for about 2 years. My dad landed a job a few months after moving to Chico. When I was 8, he got laid off. I vividly remember seeing my parents crying on the couch, praying and pleading together not lose the house we were in. By some miracle, 5 different people showed up at our house that day unannounced to give us money for no reason. A few months later, he got a job that paid roughly $30,000-$35,000/ year until my senior year of high school.

I struggled quite a bit in school as a young kid. I got beaten up constantly, and my teachers thought I was on the spectrum and had me go to special ed to get more help. In 5th grade, my parents pulled me out to be homeschooled. I began to golf way more once this happened.

I used to mow lawns and wash cars to pay for the $6 all you can golf fee and Bidwell Park Golf Course. By now, I was dominating local junior camps and watching guys like Noah Norton, Tyler Collier, Kurt Kitayama (these three are all professional golfers from my hometown), and others start taking golf to another level. I wanted that badly. When I was eleven years old, my parents sat me down to talk about my future in golf. They explicitly told me that if I wanted to compete, it was on me to pay for it. Obviously, at eleven years old, that’s absolutely devastating.

My grandpa owned a small masonry construction at the time. Doing little odd jobs was not cutting it to get new clubs and play tournaments, so I began working for him. At 12 years old, my days soon consisted of working from 7am-3pm on a jobsite, golfing from 3:30 till dark, and homework after getting home. At the time, I was involved in 4-H and used finances from selling market lambs for golf as well. A couple of months after starting in construction, my parents approached me again. This time, they told me they needed financial help from me. We were so poor that they often couldn’t afford rent and relied on my help to bail them out. We did end up losing a home again in 2015 and had to live with family. I worked like this all the way through freshman year of high school. I began to have a twisted sense of hard work. There never seemed to be a correlation between hard work and success, which made me resent it.

Mike Mattingly (my golf coach at the time) gifted me a membership to Butte Creek Country Club in 2014, and this is when my adoration for golf really took off. Noah Norton and I would practice and play nearly every day. He convinced me to go to Pleasant Valley High School in my sophomore year. We played as teammates, and I really enjoyed the experience, though my scores left much to be desired. I could no longer afford to go to public school because of the work I missed. The summer after sophomore year, I had to skip all tournaments because of how bad a spot we were in financially.

Junior year, I slowly began to learn how to be a competitor. I would sprinkle in a lot of low 70s rounds, but also some mid 80s. However, later in the year, I would go on to win every high school event, and I played as an independent and found a few small wins and top 5s in junior events.

That summer, I received the Ace Grant from the AJGA. I was able to play in 2 of their events. I played incredibly well in the second one at Sunriver Resort and finished in the top 15. These results began to attract a couple of schools. My favorite option was the University of Hawaii. We talked back and forth for months and months. Unfortunately, during my senior year, I was thrown from the bed of a truck, broke both arms simultaneously, and lost all but one of my college offers. The small school that held interest was in North Dakota. Some quality schools like UCLA, Texas, and TCU were interested but wanted to see me dominate in a smaller division first. I struggled a bit when getting to that school. I played very average for the fall season. I practiced so much; our host course told me to stop coming out. So being the genius 19-year-old, I decided to park next to a field and run across it with a few clubs just to play a 3-hole loop the pro shop couldn’t see. As the year went on, the program fell apart, and my coach and I disagreed so often that he kicked me off the team, and I left the school after one year.

Turning pro had been a dream of mine since I had the first conversation with my parents about paying for golf. Upon leaving school, I kept looking for other schools to play at. Then the pandemic hit and recruiting came to a halt. At that point, I decided to pursue golf on my own.

About a year later, I moved to Arizona with my then-wife to pursue golf and for her to finish school. I had to pause golf for all of 2022 due to financial constrains but got the break of my life in 2023. A friend of my sports psychologist offered to sponsor me in a major way. From then on, I was all in on getting as good as I could as fast as possible. In 2023, I practiced 307 days out of the year and frequently would be at the golf course for 12-14 hours a day. It bordered on unhealthy obsession, but this felt like my only shot. I turned professional in October of 2023 and got off to a slow start. I kept shooting in the mid 70s and would miss cuts by quite a bit.

2024 presented the best year of golf to date. The first Asher Tour event of the season, it was cold and extremely windy. I played incredibly well on the second day and came in with 33 on the back 9 to make the cut on the number. I’ve never been so happy in my life. What a feeling that was. All the work and sacrifice made seemed to have been worth it. This was truly the first time in my life I had ever been proud of myself. Throughout the rest of spring, I continued to play well, making a few more cuts. During the 2024 Reno Open, I even held the lead for a moment.

Then began the series of disasters. In April 2024, I re-aggravated an injury from college in my left trapezius and left arm. I had hit a shot out of the desert incorrectly, impacting the ground, which sent searing pain up my arm to my spine, sending me to the ground instantly. Over the next 8 months, I would seek serious medical attention and end up working with UC San Francisco and Stanford Neurology. They told me I had spinal accessory nerve damage originating in my neck and moving down into my left trapezius and left shoulder. If they operated, there's roughly a 70-80% chance of paralysis in my left arm. Now I’m pursuing more natural treatment options and am fortunate to still be able to golf.

Rewind to the summer of 2024. I played a few sporadic events due to injury. In September of 2024, I was hit by a car accident, leaving my left leg mangled. We did not realize at first, but the impact led to a micro tear and contusions in my left MCL. At this point, golf came to a complete stop. I returned to Northern California to continue testing and begin treatment.

In January 2025 came the biggest personal tragedy of my life. For privacy reasons, I won't share details, but it derailed the last bit of my life. I truly believed golf was done, and the life I had built outside of golf had just gone up in flames. As 2025 progressed, all my endorsement deals came to an end, and I was in a mad dash to work and find any sort of stability. I moved to Colorado in October of 2025 for a temporary job, then back to Arizona in January of 2026.

As of 2026, I’ve never been so focused and driven to pursue golf in my life. I’m so blessed and fortunate to even still be able to play. On this run, I won’t leave any stone unturned to pursue my highest and best capabilities. My hope is that this journey inspired those around me and the next generation of golfers, if I make it all the way to the PGA Tour.

My plan is to play quite a few amateur events over the next year and try to get in contention often, to then carry the momentum into professional golf. Here’s a quick overview of my path forward:

- Compete in the Asian Tour and DP World Tour for broader opportunities and growth.

- Participate in Monday qualifiers for Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour events.

- Engage in open circuit tours across the US, including the Asher Tour, All Pro Tour, and Minor League Golf Tour.

These steps are intended to make me a more rounded player and capture the interest of sponsors by showcasing my ability on various platforms.

Over my lifetime, I’ve lived in 6 states, had 19 jobs without ever being fired, and faced 3 major breaks from the pursuit of golf. This has been the journey of a lifetime, and it has uniquely equipped me to handle the long road to the top. Every day I wake up to the obsession of the pursuit and will give it everything I have. Join me on this incredible journey. Whether you're a fan of golf or simply love a great story of resilience, I invite you to follow my chase towards the pinnacle of the sport. Thanks for following along!