The 11-year-old said he “just did something” during basketball tryouts that impacted his athletic ability, and it kept him out for most of the season before later appearing in tournament play.
It didn’t stop him from competing on one of the nation’s biggest stages.
On April 6, Chaz Zitzner finished fifth in the Boys 10-11 age group during the 11th Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals in Augusta, Ga.
“I’m happy with how I did,” Chaz Zitzner said. “It was super cool just being there, getting fifth out of all those people that tried to qualify, and just being there and how amazing and fun that is, and just the experience. But I think I did pretty good for fifth, but overall it was just a fun experience.”
The hip injury continued nagging him in early January, and being healthy enough to compete in Augusta was important, so Zitzner began going to physical therapy starting at Nationwide Children’s in Columbus and then Athletico at Wright State. His father Brad Zitzner said his son grew over two inches from November to March, and he thought “probably there was just too much strain on the muscles” once Chaz Zitzner started running in basketball that it “seized up on him.”
Credit: Kieran Cleeves/Augusta National
Credit: Kieran Cleeves/Augusta National
“There’s no known cause for the hip injury, but they’re speculating it was just growing too fast at the wrong time,” Brad Zitzner said.
Chaz Zitzner swung a golf club for the first time again near the end of February, and chipping and putting in the basement at his house became one way to prepare himself for the national final in Augusta while rehabbing his hip.
“I was chipping a lot because I was bored and I couldn’t actually swing,” Chaz Zitzner said. “I just hit some chips and tried to just get dialed in with my chipping and putting so that when I could actually swing the club full I just had to work on that, and my chipping and putting was already really good.”
After months of physical therapy, Chaz Zitzner was ready to compete at Augusta.
Chaz Zitzner scored 15 after his farthest drive of 208 yards, chipping 8-foot-11 and putting 8-foot-4. There were 80 participants at the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals who qualified through local, subregional and regional rounds, with 10 golfers in four age groups for boys and girls.
Chaz Zitzner gets lessons every week with Jake Houston, the Head Golf Professional at Springfield Country Club. Houston has coached golf for almost 10 years, and he’s worked with three other golfers who’ve made it to the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals.
“Drive, Chip and Putt is just an amazing accomplishment because it’s such a small sample size for all of the kids that make it that far,” Houston said. “I mean, they’re hitting nine shots and they’re qualifiers. Three drives, three chips and three putts, and they’re qualifiers. That’s a lot of pressure on an 11-year-old kid to hit such great shots with only three opportunities, so it’s pretty amazing.”
Houston has coached Chaz Zitzner since May 2021. He noticed “a beautiful on-plane golf swing” upon their first lesson together coupled with being “extremely motivated at a young age to get better every day.”
Houston “wasn’t around him a ton” at the onset of Chaz Zitzner’s hip ailment. But once the two got back together regularly and the national final remained weeks away, they got to work on finer details like control and consistency which Chaz Zitzner said “helped a lot by easing me back into it.”
“He was a little down, but that was just when he was making full swings,” Houston said. “He just stuck with his physical therapy routine. He kind of fought through the pain. His pain tolerance is like incredible for a kid his age. I mean, he was just fighting, fighting every day just to swing harder and try to hit the ball harder and fight through that pain and make it through because he knew Augusta was his goal.”
Finding downhill putts during practice the day before the national finals was among the things Chaz Zitzner did when he got to Augusta, which he said “was just amazing.”
It was a journey that tested Chaz Zitzner and his father along the way, but walking the course “lined like four or five people deep” and competing on a national stage was something they cherish together.
“It was fun,” Brad Zitzner said. “People asked if I was nervous. I would say that it really wasn’t nervous because for some reason, like, when you walk out there and there’s 5,000 people watching the tee shot, you just want to make sure he can hit that and pull it off, which he did. After that, I almost didn’t really care that much how we performed.”
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