Operation Warrior Golf Provides Free Professional Golf Swing Instruction to Wounded Service Members
When Caddy For A Cure Founder Russ Holden stood on the range at the Valero Texas Open while coaching and caddying for Masters Champion Bernhard Langer, it was an ‘aha’ moment for him. Tournament organizers had arranged for several wounded warriors to be taken down the range to watch the best golfers in the world like Langer hit balls, and to ultimately get personal introductions with some of them. In this case, these warriors had all lost legs. As they stood fixated on these great golfers, admiring their swing and shot perfection and the professional golf arena, Holden wanted to do more for them.
Since that day over seven years ago, Caddy For A Cure has been offering experiences where warriors spend an entire day with one of the world’s best players, inside the ropes. While this has been a step up from being on the range watching, Holden wanted to ‘do more’ for them, again. Maintaining the platform of utilizing his professional golf experience, Holden has expanded support for warriors by starting “Operation Warrior Golf.” Simply put, this mission provides wounded warriors and active duty service members serving overseas the opportunity to use state of the art teaching technology for receiving personal, professional swing lessons, gratis.
Holden explained, “We have been using the V1 teaching platform for years when working with professional players, including with Bernhard. Knowing that golf is an excellent therapeutic vehicle, we have been trying to figure out a way to give our warriors more instruction, but have been faced with massive costs and logistics associated with bringing them in and putting them up. It was just too expensive.” He concluded, “This new HD platform allows me to be able to give lessons on the go from wherever I am, and more importantly, from wherever THEY are. It’s the perfect tool for enabling us to achieve our goal of benefiting many more warriors than we’re currently reaching with this great game of golf.”
V1 Sports is a sports motion analysis and digital media technology company specializing in the development of video analysis software and advertising vehicles for online and mobile device applications. Founded in 1995, V1 Sports is a leader in software development and online and mobile applications for the sports training industry. Its V1 Pro Digital Coaching System is the #1 Video Analysis Software in Sports and its V1 Sports apps enjoy worldwide leadership by consumers as the #1 Sports App for Game Improvement. V1 Pro software is used by many of the most respected coaches, instructors, athletes and training facilities around the world.
Vice President of V1 Gary Palis, could not be more supportive. Says Palis, “We have been supporters of Caddy For A Cure since its inception nearly 12 years ago. We have watched the good that they do for so many and when Russ called about this new mission, we could not say ‘yes’ fast enough. We are proud to support this PGA Professional and his drive to assist our brave wounded warriors and active duty servicemen and women serving overseas.”
The software can be used from any smartphone, and lessons are easy to send to the Caddy For A Cure Academy. The entire program can be viewed at: www.caddyforacure.com/operationwarriorgolf.
The Operation Warrior Golf program is supported by the generous donations from our sponsors V1, Emerick Construction, JetBlue Challenge, Milton Millman, Atlas Embroidery and The Otter Company.
About Caddy for a Cure Caddy For A Cure is a qualified 501(c)(3) Not For Profit Corporation. It has been approved and operating with the PGA TOUR since 2004. Caddy For A Cure offers the public the opportunity to experience a day “inside-the-ropes” at a PGA TOUR venue, caddying for a PGA TOUR player—with 100% of the proceeds going to charity. It’s a chance to walk the greatest courses in the nation, next to the greatest players and names in the world of golf, at a sanctioned PGA TOUR event. For more information visit: www.caddyforacure.com