A national treasure in golf instruction lies at the heart of North Bay’s golfing community, though one of the great teaching secrets of the North is a secret no more.
After being named one of the top 50 golf teachers in Canada by the National Post in 2005,
Glenn Cundari stood once again in the glare of the national spotlight this past November.
At a ceremony at the PGA Village Historical Centre in Port St. Lucie, Florida, the Canadian Professional Golfers’ Association (CPGA) gave him the Jack McLaughlin Jr. Leader of the Year award.
Also known as the Junior Leader award, the honour affirmed what hundreds upon hundreds of kids have already discovered over the years through the Cundari School of Golf.
“I’m just a kid from North Bay who tries to do good work,” says Cundari, who is also a CPGA professional.
“If people see me as a leader, that’s great, but it’s certainly not why I do it.”
The award recognizes Cundari’s extensive work with children, which includes countless projects on the national and local levels, such as an effort to introduce golf to youth in local First Nations communities.
Over the years, Cundari has gradually introduced nine different junior programs at his school, where children between the age of 4 and 16 account for 225 of the 500 people that pass through his doors every year. Of that total, 70 per cent of the kids return the following year.
Unlike course pros who are beholden to the course’s owners, Cundari basks in his independence and the freedom that comes with being one of the few in Northern Ontario capable of being his own boss.
Cundari is one of just two full-time instructors in the North, and he makes use of his own off-course driving range and two local courses for teaching.
When he’s not training others, he spends much of his free time looking into research on motor skills learning, so as to help dispel the many anecdotal golfing myths that players spread amongst one another.
His prowess at combining research data with motivation has also brought him into the upper echelons of CPGA training and education.
Over the years, Cundari has become involved in different CPGA programs such as the development of new coaching certification programs. He’s also the only one in Canada to facilitate the CPGA’s workshop for coaching new competitors.
These many current roles are a realization of a life-long dream, following an enjoyment of the sport reaching back to his childhood.
Business, another long-time passion, has recently taken a much more prominent role in his life following his appointment as president of the North Bay Chamber of Commerce earlier this year.
This allows him to get away from his image as “the golf guy” and position himself more as a businessman who happens to be doing well in the business of teaching the sport, he says.
It allows him to further bring together his various passions under one roof, and it’s a position he clearly relishes.
“Golf,” he says, “is more than golf. It’s a medium through which I can access the business world.”
