Max Li’s Golf Performance Fitness Allows Him to Hit it Over 300 Yards
Max Li, a 14-year-old golfer from Station Creek Golf Club, aspires to become a professional golfer.
He describes his practice routine, which includes training with his coach Steven Wu, and his daily schedule, focused on improving his golf skills and maintaining nutrition.
Max shares his experience of overcoming struggles, such as growth pains and plateaus in performance, and highlights his accomplishments, including winning first place in his age group at the Golf Week Junior Tour.
He aims to play in the PGA Tour and is considering various universities that excel in developing their athletes.
Chapter Overview:
0:05 – Max Li, 14, main sport is golf
0:21 – Golf experience: 8 years
0:24 – Aspires to play Division 1 golf and compete on the PGA Tour
0:49 – Daily routine: school, golf practice, gym
1:37 – Strongest skill: driving distance; improved driver speed with LPS
2:34 – Faced challenges, nearly quit, but stayed consistent
3:17 – Achievement: placed first in age group in Ohio tournament
4:27 – Advice to young golfers: stay consistent and enjoy
Transcription:
Hello. I’m Max. I’m a member at Station Creek Golf Club. And I will become a pro one day. Hi, I’m Max Li. I’m 14 years old and I play out of Station Creek Golf Club.
I practice there a lot. I see a lot of people that I know and it’s just a fun time being there. Being with friends, being with people you don’t even know, but playing rounds there. It’s really fun.
I’m a multi athlete, but my main sport is golf. I’ve been playing for around eight years and, I just love it. My second sport is usually soccer or, running track. My aspirations and dreams are turn into a D1 player, get a scholarship, get my tour card, play on the Korn Ferry Tour, and eventually make it to the PGA Tour. My coach’s name is Steven Wu. I’ve been working with him for about six, seven years. My day-to-Day goes like this. In the morning, I eat breakfast, I go to school, I come back, I practice, my golf training starts off with some pitching. Then I go down to my mid irons, long irons, then I go to my, driver, and then I do some chipping, and I do some putting. I eat. Then I go to the gym, then I sleep, and I redo the whole thing every single day of the week.
My nutrition is pretty solid. In the morning, I would either drink a protein shake, or eat a couple of eggs, three to four. My lunch would stay really consistent through every day: beef, rice, chicken, occasionally some vegetables. I don’t really like eating vegetables, Dinner, same thing as lunch. I would eat beef, rice, chicken, lamb, and eggs.
My strongest point in my game is definitely the driver ever since I came to LPS like My driver speed has really helped me a lot with all these courses where I need distance. So now basically I’m playing like a driver and then wedge shot, which help me with my score a lot. Before LPS, I didn’t really have a gym to go to. I never really had, a place to train my speed. So, I would usually just use super speed sticks to help me. But ever since I came to LPS, it’s better me a lot.
Before with my driver went 110 miles an hour club head speed, but ever since LPS now, it’s been improved about 9 miles an hour, so 119 miles an hour, goes around to 170 mph ball speed, about 310Y to like 330Y, depending on the roll.
I’m 14 years old right now. I compete at the provincial and national level. I usually play with 16- to 19-year-olds in the States
I have struggled many times on the golf course, when you’re like 10, 11, 12, that’s when you struggle the most, like growing as well, like growing pains, everything’s uncomfortable. That’s when you struggle the most. Through those three years, every single round I played, there was always a stretch of holes where I just didn’t know what to do.
Like at some point I wasn’t improving a lot. I didn’t really think I was getting a lot better. I thought I was just plateauing. And no matter how hard I worked at that time period, nothing would work for me. All these tournaments, all the scores weren’t to my wish.
I was thinking about, drop out of the sport. I’m glad I stayed consistent with it. I’m glad I practiced a lot. And going to the States really helped me, learn all about this.
Last year, in Golf Week Junior Tour down in Ohio I placed first in my age group, and that was a pretty big accomplishment, and it helped me really stop getting nervous over every single shot, and all I gotta do was hit the ball.
The lowest score I’ve shot was, 65 at, Carlisle golf club. A lot of things will went really well, made a lot of birdies, converted a lot of putts, my pitching was really on point. I was just getting birdies over and over.
The coolest golf course I’ve definitely played on was, Innisbruck Copperhead, where they host the Valspar PGA Tour Open. That course is amazing. even though I played in December, the course was phenomenal. it was really well conditioned.
There are some colleges I really like to go to. For example, UNC, University of Michigan, Arizona State University, Duke, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama.
These universities, when I see the players there, they really develop them really well, like through the training, through what they’re eating, whatever they’re doing, the players are really consistent.
For kids like 10, 11, 12-year-olds. Like, all you have to do is pretty much stay consistent with your practice, stay consistent with everything. Even though you’re plateauing, it’s not your more important years. Scores really don’t matter at that point. You’re just trying to have fun improving until you get to 15, 16, 17-year-old, that’s the point where you get recruited the age where you’re like almost ready to get scouted. So, like. All you have to do is really just have fun out on the course. you don’t have to play that many tournaments, but tournaments do give you a lot of experience.
About the Author: Jeremy Choi
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