Born: November 23, 1960 in Palatka, Florida
Education: PhD. School of Hard Knocks; Certified Hard Head—I didn't finish college, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!
Experience: Approximately 26 years of active involvement in the health & fitness industry; a golfer of 37 years; a Published (health & fitness) Author and an occasional Health/Fitness Source for local TV Stations. And most valuably, over the past 30 of my 44 years on this earth, I've experience nearly every injury in the book. I believe it was through these injuries I was given the opportunity to learn so much about sport specific health & fitness.
Joined Playfit Enterprises: In 1999, I founded Playfit Inc. and produced an average golf specific fitness video that we marketed via infomercial. In order to provide value and help market the video, I began publishing an online newsletter for the golfers who purchased it—an effort that turned out to be futile. Once I accepted the fact that in spite of my efforts, the video was going to be a failure, God gave me the full vision of the Playfit® Project and firmly planted the seed.
After sharing my vision with Jim Harrison (our current Senior VP), I began writing the Playfit® Performance Enhancement System (PPES©) Book and designing the overall Playfit® Project operation. This process continued for the next 5 years, during which there were many odd jobs, a great deal of self doubt and an incredible stress load on our family. But in spite of my occasional unbelief (and self pity), God was faithful to his promise, as he always is. Looking back, I can see that He used the difficulties of this period and the lingering taste of my past failures as tools to quite literally press the Playfit® Project out of me.
In November of 2003, the design specifications (blue prints) of the Playfit® Project were finally finished. After a period of reflection, I began sharing it with a hand full of people who I believed would fit in well with the project and would share the vision. After pulling a few weeds, we formed Playfit Enterprises Inc. and began the actual construction of The Playfit® Project .
Current role at Playfit Enterprises: Trying to get golfers to think outside of the box and go to the next level in golf specific fitness. And since the Playfit® Project Components have an extremely delacate and highly interdependent relationship, my primary role is making sure no one inadvertently alters something that reduces its efficiency. And finally, trying to keep people who know more about business than me from taking us to the cleaners—most people know more about business than me.
Favorite aspect of Playfit Enterprises: The unique blend of education and competition the Playfit® Project features provides enjoyment and stimulates my mind. Its complexity, its ability to raise overall golf performance to a whole new level and its power to advance the sport appeases my ego. The fact that the Playfit® Project allows everyone to participate, regardless of their qualifications or social status allows me to feel like I'm helping to right something I feel has been wrong. And finally, our philanthropic endeavors are the icing on the cake, in that they not only allow us to give back a portion of what God has so graciously blessed us with, but they enable us to do what I believe we’re all meant to do on some level (serve others), in an extraordinarily powerful way. This is the part of the Playfit® Project that develops the heart, which is far more important in the game of life than our physical condition, our athletic ability or our golf games.
So as broad and as powerful as we feel The Playfit® Project is with regard to golf performance enhancement, in our opinion, it’s simply the (foundational) structure that to support our philanthropic endeavors.
Playfit Enterprises Future: My ego would like to tell you where we’re going and all of the “great and magnificent things” we’re going to do in the future, i.e., we’re so great, Blah, Blah, Blah, but that always seems to get me in trouble. Besides, it's not about the company; it's about the project. We believe that if the golf industry embraces the philanthropic side of the project first—The Playfit® Philanthropic Plan, it's educational and performance enhancement value will be imeasurable.
So the one thing I can say about our future "with confidence" is that we will do our best to continue improving both as individuals and as a team in order to provide quality service to the golf world and to operate with maximum efficiency in all philanthropic arenas.
Life outside of work: Spending time with my wife Debra, thinking about my daughter Lauren, planning new ministries, keeping the weeds out of my yard (and my mind) and battling my last true addiction—college football. “Go Gators”
Favorite Movie: Lonesome Dove (Fried Green Tomatoes is pretty good too)
Favorite TV Shows: The Fox TV show "24," Fox News and John Hagee
Favorite Sports Figure and Why?: My father, Willard Knight. But it's not because he was a great Club Professional, a versatile athlete, and a great football coach and school teacher. It is because I watched him endure two decades filled with enormous difficulty, yet he never put himself before his children and he never spoke a negative word about those who were causing the difficulties
Personal Philosophy: There's no limit to the good we can do, provided we don't care who gets the credit.
