Following the path of a Berkshire native’s golf career

Berkshire Beacon Surprise Quiz of the Week:
 
1) Name a 1998 Drury High School grad (who couldn’t break 80 until his junior year) who went on to win the Mass. Amateur in 1992 at Longmeadow Country Club. 
 
2) Who, when paired with Georgia Tech’s David Duval at the 1990 US Am at Cherry Hill CC in Denver, shot 71 to Duval’s 72?
 
3) Name a former golf instructor under Jim Mitus at Skyline CC who has worked with Greg Norman, Tom Kite, Paul Azinger, Ray Floyd, John Daly and Matt Kutcher at the Rick Smith Golf School during his 11-year tenure at Tiburon in Naples, Fla.
 
If you answered Trevor Gliwski to all three questions, you may proceed to the head of the class and pick up your complimentary pint of Yuengling lager.
 
Your Beacon scribe has known PGA professional Gliwski since he was chopping it around Waubeeka Golf Links as a junior golfer who started caddying for some good players so he could learn the game from them.

“I carried [Waubeeka member] Jeff Polucci’s bag a lot, and he showed me how the game was supposed to be played,” Trevor told The Beacon. “Back then, lessons weren’t an option for me, so I sort of taught myself how to play.” 
 
I tracked him down between lessons on the practice range at Tiburon, where he is the head instructor of the PGA Tour Academy.
 
Gliwski went on to recall one of two major turning points in his life which steered him toward a career in the golf business.

“I was paired with David Hathaway of Lenox in high school, and I shot  an 80 and David had the smoothest even par round that I had ever witnessed,” he said. “I realized right there that I better learn to perform at a higher level if golf was going to be a part of my future.

“David was a classy guy who putted better than anyone I had played with and we eventually would travel to tournaments together. His dad, Mert, was our chauffeur and a great guy also.”
 
After a solid senior year under coach George Petropulos at Drury and a lot of hard work, he matriculated to Myrtle Beach, S.C., with a golf scholarship from Coastal Carolina University in his shag bag. After a productive freshman year, his coach left and Trevor was now to play for a coach that did not recruit him.
 
Time for turning point two.
 
The new coach decided to have his 20 golfers play eight different Myrtle Beach layouts, and the top 10 finishers would make the team.
 
“The first three days, I was snap hooking my driver and shot 80 each day and found myself in 18th place,” Trevor said. “On the fourth day, the new coach decides that he will make a cut after that round. The course of the day was ‘The Witch,’ a course that I had played a few times.

“I put my driver in the trunk of the car and was able to post a 64, at the time the course record, to advance past a bunch of teammates. After that round, the coach told me my scholarship and position on the team was secure.”
 
If Trevor hadn’t shot that impressive score on that day, he might have been forced to look for another way to make a living. One of his teammates at Coastal was Tom Gillis, who is having success on the PGA tour. Gillis had a runner-up finish to Rory McIlroy at the Honda Classic in 2012.
 
After a great career at Coastal Carolina, Gliwski left with a business degree in pursuit of a job in the golf industry. First stop was Skyline in Lanesboro.

“It was great, Jim Mitus had me do all the teaching and I would put the carts away each night and head back to North Adams,” Trevor said.
 
Next week, in part two, we will follow the path Trevor Gliwski took to become one of the most respected teachers of golf in the country.

Posted by Dick Syriac on April 11, 2013. Filed under Berkshire Sports Guy,Columns,Opinion,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry