Kevin Meixner, PGA, Explains How Fitness Plays a Role in Getting Better at Golf

Kevin Meixner is a graduate of the Coastal Carolina University PGA Golf Management program. After a dozen years at Chicago Highlands Club in Westchester, Illinois, Meixner recalls joining the team as an intern and working his way up to the PGA of America Director of Instruction role in 2017.

With a long-time passion for health and wellness, Meixner earned his personal training certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) in 2018. 

“We are a young club of families, juniors, high school students, and college golfers, and as such, it is important that I ensure fitness is on my lesson agenda,” Meixner explains. "To address the physical aspect of golf with my students, I started a training program to benefit members and help them stay active and physically fit.” 

Meixner’s program started modestly a few years ago with two sisters in the club’s fitness center on Mondays when the rest of the facility was closed. 

“We’d do 30 minutes of speed training, swinging Mach 3 Speed Training equipment, and follow that up with 30 minutes of weight training for golf, introducing our young athletes to various lifts with which they had no previous experience,” he remembers. 

This engagement quickly developed through word-of-mouth promotion, and Meixner had several groups going the very next year. With a mix of adult males, high school boys, high school girls, and middle school boys, Meixner saw his golf fitness programming grow in front of his eyes.

“I attained TPI certification in 2020, which has only enhanced the opportunities I have to help students with their swing and also address their fitness regimen,” Meixner adds. “After all, as beneficial as it is for members to have a team of golf and fitness professionals at their club to help them with their golf instruction and health and wellness needs, I appreciate being able to serve both roles for our Chicago Highlands membership.

 One of those students, Meixner’s first junior golfer to go on to play big-time college golf, reaches out to him from Holy Cross University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She’s told him that their trainer has been very impressed by her knowledge of golf fitness and her understanding of the golf benefits of spending time in the gym.

“That’s the fulfillment that makes my job fun,” he adds. 

Meixner says he really hasn’t had to market and promote his Monday fitness groups due to the word that’s spread throughout their facility. In addition, when parents sign their kids up for golf lessons to help better their chances of making the high school golf team, Meixner lets them know what he’s doing in the fitness realm and he touts the progress of the participants he’s had thus far. Everyone who has participated in these sessions has loved it and seen excellent results.

Meixner says people often ask him what he does to stay in shape, which he considers a valuable marketing factor in itself. 

“As a professional interested in fitness, it is important that I too keep up my conditioning and lead my students by example,” he admits. “Using our gym space for these purposes has also buoyed the value of a Chicago Highlands Club membership, which certainly aids in our facility’s member retention efforts.”