About 10 years ago, Danny Fisher walked into The Golf Practice for the first time for his very first lesson with a professional. The eighth grader, who possessed a bit of raw talent and a deep desire to get better, was attempting to make the Lake Forest JV team even as he struggled to break 90.
“I played baseball, basketball, soccer growing up, so I was in a bunch of sports. Then I got sick of the whole running thing, I like to say, and I picked up golf and really started taking it seriously in eighth grade,” he said.
Fisher’s golf career took flight from there, shooting in the 80s his freshman year and then in the low 70s by the time he was a junior in high school.
“The Golf Practice basically was the root of that the entire time,” he said. “I wasn’t a prodigy or anything like that to begin with. I just liked it and thought I could get pretty good.”
A decade and hundreds of hours spent at The Golf Practice later, Fisher is now a professional golfer, competing in tournaments, qualifiers and Q schools as he moves up the ranks. Most recently, Fisher earned his exempt status for the North American Swing of the 2025 PGA Tour Americas season.
Fisher graduated from The Farmer School of Business at Miami University, where he played on the golf team.
The 24-year-old credits The Golf Practice with not only helping him develop and sharpen his game but also grow as a person.
“If you want your eight-year-old to not only be a better golfer, but get to know other kids who like golf, get to know coaches who have amazing values as human beings, The Golf practice is a place for you,” Fisher said.
“I found The Golf Practice as kind of a cheat code through high school,” he added.
Fisher was a member of the academy’s first M360 class. That is when he was introduced to Dr. Arthur Hoffman, who is an expert on mindfulness and meditation.
“We would meet with Arthur once a week,” he said. “I just remember being like this is a cool thing for me, not only in life, but golf purposes. I found (it) pretty fascinating.”
It was during those early sessions with Hoffman that Fisher learned about mindfulness techniques involving breathing, body scans and visualization, which he still uses to this day.
Fisher continues to work with Hoffman along with his first and only swing coach ever Chris Oehlerking, the owner and dean of instruction at The Golf Practice. In addition, Fisher remains a fixture at The Golf Practice’s Highland Park facility when he is not on the road, competing in tournaments.
Fisher is known to spend hours honing his skills at The Golf Practice while gleaning knowledge and tips from coaches and other players in the facility.
“The coolest thing I think about The Golf Practice is how no coach really has ego. They’re bringing other phenomenal coaches in to teach each other. No one does that,” he said.
Fisher’s golf journey has mirrored, in a way, The Golf Practice’s growth. Over the last decade, the Highland Park facility has gone through several renovations as the organization has opened a new facility in Lisle, all to meet the growing demand for programming and instruction.
The academy “continues to look at what kids need to get better and students need to get better. That’s been cool from my perspective,” he said.
The organization, he said, also takes a methodical approach to golf instruction, an aspect that should be attractive to all golfers regardless of their aspirations and skill level.
“Society today is all about the quick fix and to get to the highest levels of golf, whatever your goals are in golf, it’s just not a quick fix,” he said. The Golf Practice is “going to build you as a golfer and as a person over months and years, not seconds and days.”
