PGA instructor Connie DeMattia joins John Traub on swing mechanics, athletic sequencing, Cantigny's youth program, and what it takes to get better at golf.
For this episode of the Executive Air Space Podcast, John Traub sat down with Connie DeMattia, PGA Director of Instruction at Cantigny Golf and a former PGA Tour and Nike Tour competitor. Connie has also served as Director of Instruction at Medinah Country Club and has been recognized as Illinois Player of the Year and Teacher of the Year.
The conversation covers Connie's path into golf, how he built Cantigny's youth program to roughly 2,400 kids a year, and a hands-on swing session that focuses on athletic sequencing instead of swinging harder.
Connie grew up in the Detroit area and did not take golf seriously until about age 15, after a spring-break trip with his dad to Alabama for lessons with Jack Lumpkin and exposure to teachers like Bob Toski, Paul Runyan, and Jim Flick. He earned all-state honors in Michigan, then played Division I golf at Stetson University in Florida after Northwestern coach Wally Goodwin connected him with Stetson's coach.
After college he spent about four and a half years on the mini-tour and Monday-qualifier path - Nike Tour, Hooters, Space Coast, Tommy Armour - before deciding at 27 that teaching was the next chapter.
A call to Jack Lumpkin led to an assistant pro role at Sea Island, Georgia, alongside Golf Digest Schools instructors. Connie later ran Golf Digest schools in Atlantic City, taught players from the Philadelphia and New York metro areas, and eventually moved to Chicago after meeting his wife, Liz, at a Golf Digest school in Hawaii.
He became PGA Director of Instruction at Medinah in March 2000 and stayed through May 2006, then joined Cantigny in 2007. When he arrived, Cantigny's youth certification work served a few hundred kids. The program now runs from age four through high school prep and serves about 2,400 children annually, with families treating the public course like a second home.
Connie points to research that beginners learn faster when they start without a ball, club, or target - first teaching balanced body movement and sequencing, then adding levers, then the ball, then a target. In the lesson portion of the episode, he works with John on weight transfer, lower-body separation, and finishing in balance so longer clubs stop coming in steep.
The episode also covers realistic short-game expectations, why a 16-shot swing between best and worst rounds is normal even for tour players, putting tempo, winter practice indoors, and advice for parents of junior golfers: let kids own their game, and don't turn every car ride home into a post-round analysis.
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