In this episode of the Upgame Podcast, we sit down with professional golfer and coach Chris Petefish to talk about what it really takes to play smarter golf. Chris shares how he uses strokes gained analysis, course mapping, and the Upgame by Trackman app to help players of all levels make better decisions, practice with purpose, and lower their scores.
From juniors and college golfers to aspiring pros, Chris explains why golf today is about more than just swing mechanics—it’s about strategy, mindset, and using data to your advantage.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
How strokes gained can transform the way you approach your game.
The role of Upgame in practice, tournament prep, and on-course strategy.
Why the mental side of golf is just as important as the physical.
Chris’s journey—from top junior and Georgia Tech standout to Korn Ferry Tour player and US Open competitor.
Why Watch?
If you’ve ever wondered how pros think their way around the course, or how data and technology can actually save you shots, this conversation with Chris is packed with insights you can apply to your own game.
👉 Learn more about Chris’s coaching at courseofactiongolf.com
👉 Explore Upgame at upgame.app
Okay. So, we’re joined here today by Christopher Petefish, uh, professional golfer, also going in some coaching and consulting. A little background about about Chris here. He is a Georgia Tech standout back in the day. Two-time all-American. More recently participated in the 2024 US Open and a career best um ranking in OWGR of 288th. So Chris, thanks so much for taking the time to get on. How’s it going? Doing well. Thanks for having me and excited to be here talking with you. Yeah. No, I mean thanks for taking the time. you know, you’re you’re a busy man between your your plane and and your other endeavors. So, we’d love to get to know a little more about you, what you do. So, just before we get into the coaching side of it, I mean, as a player, there’s already a lot to talk about, you know, can you just tell us a little bit more about your journey as a player, a coach, a mentor, and like, you know, kind of what led you to get into golf at this type of level and professional golf and all of that? Yeah, I guess going back to my playing history, you know, I picked up a club when I was seven, six, seven years old and kind of the age where you’re trying out all sports to see what you like and I just loved golf from the start. Just the fact of I mean just kind of taught me to be a perfectionist and how good can I get at this sport and it’s really just all on you as a player. And you know from there I had some good success as a junior player. I was, you know, fifth in my recruiting class in high school and, you know, end up playing golf at Georgia Tech, part of some awesome teams there. Um, had some good success in like amateur summer events, you know, was ranked probably 45th in uh the amateur world rankings and some point in my senior year. And then, you know, from there, I think, you know, during that process, having some success in junior golf, it was just kind of natural like, hey, I want to see how good I can get at the sport. And like, wherever that takes me is where it takes me. And it just kind of was a natural progression where it’s like, okay, well, I think I can, you know, turn pro and then see how this goes just based on the results I was having in amateur tournaments in college. And uh yeah, I turned pro in 2018 after playing four years at Tech and having a lot of great wins as a team and some success myself. And uh from there, I played a little bit on PJ tour Canada for a couple years. I got through Q School in uh 2021 for the Cornferryy Tour. Played on there for 3 years. Had some uh some really good results. Uh I was really one shot away from my card in 23. uh finished like 44th, 45th on the points list. Had two runners ups that summer and then uh lost my card last year. Uh but you know, that’s how golf goes sometimes. Good years, bad years. Been playing some good golf this year on PJ Tour Americas. And so yeah, it’s it’s it’s hard to like summarize your whole career, which has been most of my life in like four to five minutes. Uh but it’s been an incredible journey. I feel like I’ve just met some amazing people. I’ve been able to travel the world and play courses I never thought I’d be able to play. And so it’s one of those things it’s like, yeah, I’m doing this now, but if you told me like this is what going to happen when I was 7, 8 years old, I’d been like, no way. Like that’s crazy. Uh, so definitely, you know, pretty cool to be a part of this journey. And then as far as the mentoring side, uh yeah, like my my parents have this company they’ve had for quite a while, Course of Action Golf. And they have done a lot of navigating helping junior players on where to play, where to get noticed in terms of recruiting for college. And you know, I helped a little bit uh kind of during my college years with them on that. and and then kind of had this opportunity this season to kind of expound on that from the perspective of a player performance coach, you know, through strokes game analysis, through platforms like UpGame and helping players kind of achieve their full potential of everything that I could go back and tell my 15 18-year-old self on like, okay, this is how you have to operate as a professional, as a great college player, is an only junior player if you want to make it to the next level. Yeah. And I mean from that that crazy journey because I mean you’ve you’ve done a lot of what so much of those kids are just dreaming of doing someday even just maybe once and haven’t had a career in that you know what are some some philosophies some principles that you’re trying to emphasize to those younger players. Yeah I mean there there’s a definitely a lot of principles and philosophies. I I think really understanding not only your game but really like the principles of scoring and how to get the ball in the hole like you know this game is so much more about avoiding bogey especially avoiding doubles is so key for a lot of junior players and uh really understanding your dispersions is something that probably isn’t talked about enough. I know Epame has that with diamonds, but uh yeah, that’s something I really hammer into like my students is like, man, like a lot of people just take in account like, hey, if I hit great shots to these, you know, aggressive targets near the hole, like I’m going to have a great day. It’s like, dude, if I hit the shot 50 times with an eight iron, like I have to account for all of them, you know, and like use understanding your dispersions and like where are my tendencies is like a way to kind of like almost another level of the game of understanding of how to play golf, how to score. Um, there’s a great book that I read from Josh Wadekin. It was uh the art of learning and it’s just he was a grandmaster chess player turned into like Tai Chi martial arts and was roll class and it was a lot of him talking about like natural flow and not being able to force it and that’s what a lot of golf is is like you just can’t force it. It’s just not a sport you can be physical with. there’s no opponent. And it’s just I think understanding a lot of those principles, understanding how to score, understanding your game is really key to being like having consistent performance. Yeah. No, I mean that’s spot on. And I I think it’s becoming that much more critical now because it just feels like there’s more and more talent out there where gets to a point they’re hitting the ball pretty similar. So, what you’re what you’re touching on here with understanding your game, how to how to optimize your shot patterns, your target selections is it’s it’s starting to be like really the the key factor because everyone has access to similar technologies across the board. Um, but I mean as far as different technologies and going into game management now just going to touch a little bit on on upgame how you’ve started using it both you know as a player as a coach you know how has that integrated in into how you approach the game whether it’s it’s for you even for your players you know what’s it what has it done for their performance? Yeah. No, I would say just the details that Upgame has is so nice from not only like I would just start from my perspective. Like it for me it like confirms a lot of my priors of like how I’m feeling about my game as someone that’s like understood strokes game for a long time and so it’s good to like kind of confirm oh what I’m seeing on the data is kind of what I’m feeling. Uh, but it also has is somewhat nice for like expectation management because there’s sometimes where like, oh, you know, just didn’t feel like I hit my irons that good today, blah, blah, blah. And then I go back and look at the data. It’s like, okay, well, compared to myself, like I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. actually had a pretty decent day. You know, those are the kind of things it’s like especially when you’re playing tour golf and you’re going week to week to week. Like, you know, seeping in a couple like doubts here and there may affect you like long term as the season goes on because all it takes is like a little bit of doubt to creep in and then, you know, you miss a cut and then things can snowball so fast. Um, and so just having that baseline in that tech technology like Uping has is like, man, I’m really on top of like managing my game and like almost like an MRI machine like I just have a really good X-ray of like what is happening. I’m not guessing. I am uh it just makes it much more efficient when I practice um what to look for, you know, with the time that I have. But also with, you know, coaching students like hey, you know, the data is clear. It’s not overly complicated. Like I feel like I’m not talking to code with these people. Uh you know, it’s easy to understand. And so yeah, it just makes like solving the root problem, not problem, but like you know, when you diagnose someone’s game, it’s like you’re able to get to solutions much easier. Yeah. Yeah. No, for Sure. I mean, it’s it it ju it’s becoming such a key aspect of performance golf, you know, now because every everyone is using I mean, not everyone’s using up, but everyone’s using a variant of of of stat platforms and and really using it to kind of find direction in what they’re doing. And I think what you’re what you just touched on here with the mental side of it is I I think not not brought up enough of keeping that confidence for a player of just being able to think that you’re actually maybe not doing that bad while also still having, you know, kind of the right expectation of what’s going on. And and I mean I think from that perspective of our whole industry of of golf statistics, you know, how are you seeing different like technology data driven platforms? How do you see that kind of shaping shaping coaching and even just highle performance in the years to come just from your side of things? Yeah, I mean I think the technology as a whole is is crazy. Even like comparing my I guess you could say generation of guys in their late 20s, early 30s to those college kids coming up. Just think about the speed that these kids have now and how far they hit the ball because I think they’ve just understood. Yeah, it’s crazy. I think they’ve really understood the uh how to use the ground and TPI is much more prevalent and they were taught as they were eight years old and that really wasn’t, you know, taught when I was seven, eight years old. And so just stuff like that. I mean you look at it other sports as well like just people there’s more as technology grows there’s more information more knowledge there’s more leaps and bounds in performance so it’s like it’s not just golf like this is happening in other other sports for sure and we talk about sleep and all these other things you can now track much more efficiently like it’s just a natural evolution of where things are going in performance of like how do we get better how do we you know stretch ourselves but as far as like the coaching like yeah is obviously when you have better information you’re able to solve problems quicker. So like having something like the diamonds and up game where it’s like hey as a as a player I can go either as a student as one of my students or as myself like hey I’m going to take this information my coach be like these this is exactly what’s happening with my like seven iron through five iron like these are the mis patterns like you know this is the information I’m telling my coach I’m not guessing when I go to a lesson say hey I maybe I feel like I’m pulling it maybe I’m doing this and then you might just be working on the wrong thing for 60 minutes and wasting your time instead like now you have the information to be like I know exactly what’s happening with my you know shot patterns with my tendencies or maybe it’s even a specific club that’s like hey look at this hybrid like I’m hitting it pretty well but my hybrid is like off the map like we need to maybe adjust you know the the loft we need to adjust the shaft or something but u it just takes again takes guessing out of it which is like if you can remove variables like that it’s it’s obviously helpful. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, speaking of of diamonds and, you know, you’ve you’ve mentioned it a couple times. Would would you say that’s probably what you’ve been using the most just from, you know, from the upgame platform, whether it’s it’s for you or for players, you know, maybe give us a couple words on, you know, maybe a couple instances where it’s it’s it’s really helped whether it’s a player or whether even just you from your own playing. Yeah. No, it’s a really cool system where obviously like I’m able to see of on a little diamond that you know where all these shots are are ending up with each club uh you know compared to my target or you know there’s also a dispersion compared to the uh to where I was intending to hit it which is a whole another conversation but yeah I think for me like I had uh I remember like my gap wedge I had a lot of misses to the right I was noticing a slight pattern And I really just kind of found out like my uh you know, my club had just the line angle had bent a little bit from travel, you know, it was a little flat. And then so I just started missing stuff, right? And I was like, “All right, well, I’m glad I noticed that with diamonds and just kind of was able to adjust it a degree and was able to see some improvement.” Uh, and so that something like that is pretty key because you could also one not notice it, but two, you have to know what to do with that information because, you know, you might just be like, “Oh, I need to change my swing now.” It’s like, “Oh, no. Well, your langle just got bent.” But, you know, to have that information like, you know, if I didn’t have up game or, you know, 15 years ago and this stuff didn’t exist, I might be sitting there like, I got to change my swing because I’m missing all these wedges, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s that that’s a good lesson for all the all the junior golfers out there. If you’re if you’re traveling with your clubs, check your loss and lies because it might not some of them care, some do not care about your clubs. Yeah, that’s that’s that’s fair. Um, but I mean now just to as as a kind of closing closing question here and go and open it up a little more generally, you know, what what advice would you have to give to whether it’s other professional golfers, coaches, juniors on, you know, what what would you tell them if they’re wanting to take things to the next level as far as playing professional golf going into performing at a higher level? I would say it’s just that. I mean, a, you have to believe in yourself. Um but then you have to kind of believe in the processes that you have like start operating like a professional going into college in college like don’t don’t wait to start you know prepping thinking of the game as a BJ tour player would you have a lot of catching up to do so it’s like you have to start operating like one sooner whether that’s how you train how you practice take care of your body you know how well can you understand data such as strokes gain that you know it really all this stuff adds up like the little shots, even tense of shots that separate good from great when there’s so much talent in the game. Um, so yeah, I think an easy one is again is like using a platform like upgame to really understand like, hey, how should I best practice? Where, you know, where are my strengths? How do I utilize that? You know, where are the areas that I can improve? Like, hey, I’m just wasting shots in this area. Um, but yeah, I mean those those are little things that are going to matter when a the ball goes so straight now, everyone hits it so far, it gets harder to separate yourself and b there’s just so much talent. Yeah. Wow, that’s great great way to cap this out. Um, Chris, thanks so much for taking the time. You know, we know you’re you’re very busy and everything you’re doing. Uh, can’t can’t thank you enough. And here before we we hop off for anyone who wants to, you know, follow what you’re doing or maybe is considering, you know, needing your services for what they do, where where can we find you? Yeah, you can find me at courseofactiongolf.com. Got my website there. Pretty easy to navigate. I’m also on Instagram, chris petefishgolf. Uh you kind of follow what I’m doing. I’ll talk about some, you know, strict game principles and whatnot on there and some entertainment. So yeah. Awesome. Chris, thanks so much for your time. Good luck for the rest of the year. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
