Player's Journal: Brandon Canesi

I've been adapting ever since I was born. One of my favorite stories my grandpa told me goes like this: When I was one, I was sitting there playing with toys. I don't know if you know what my hands look like, but my left hand is a claw and my right hand is just a nub, so I can't hold anything with my right hand. I had a toy in my claw hand and I was holding it and I was trying to pick up a toy with my nub and I couldn't do it. He was watching me and I just put the toy that was in my hand up against my arm and held it with my nub and then picked up the other toy and walked away. He said that from that moment on, he knew that I was going to be fine.

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Golf suits me so well because I've always tried to find ways to simplify everything I do in everyday life. If I'm holding something or if I'm doing something, I try to make sure I’m doing it in the easiest way possible. That's all golf is: trying to take the least amount of steps required, minimizing everything in general.

My friends poke fun at me because often when we sit down for a meal, I just inhale my food. It happened the other day when I was getting tacos—one minute the taco was there and within a blink, gone. My buddy was watching me and was like, 'Damn, dude, you eat so fast.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, well, once I got a good hold on it, I'm not going to keep putting it down and picking it up. I’m going to eat it while I'm holding it and just inhale it.’ He had never thought about that. I have to think slightly differently than other people do. That's just what golf is. Now, I'm not saying that an increase of food consumption will increase your swing speeds, but there's a magic to finding a way to do what you need to do, but in one less step.

I got my start in golf when I was six years old. Again, it involved my grandpa. He lived on a golf course in Florida and when I went to visit him, I naturally just tucked his club underneath my arms because I was so little and his clubs were so big. That's how I held it. I grew out of the ability to do that and forgot about golf for a little while. I played every other sport as a kid growing up from baseball, football, basketball, and then action sports. Action sports took over my life big time. As soon as I got in my teens, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, all that kind of stuff.

When I was 16 or 17, though, I got back into golf. I was talking to my uncle and we decided to build longer clubs. It was a way for me to swing the same way I did when I was a kid. We really had no idea what we were doing, and we just glued some stuff together. For the most part, it was two full steel shafts, one inside or the other, and it would rattle around. It sounded like a broken bat, but it got me out on the course because my dad also played and my older brother wanted to play. I didn't want to be left out. I'm very competitive, so I didn't want to not be able to do something.

As soon as I started playing I knew I could be good. We built another set of clubs using all graphite driver shafts, basically as long as we could find. I was shooting around 100, maybe in the high 90s. Then we built another set. I started breaking 90, shooting in the mid-to-high 80s on great days. When I was 25, I realized I was addicted to golf. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, but golf was always the answer. I had this weird feeling that when I was on the golf course I was in control of the ball. I knew it was something I was supposed to do with my life.

I didn't know what I was going to do with my life, but golf was always the answer.

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I saw the Golf Academy of America commercial on Golf Channel and I called up said, ‘Hey, I don't know if you guys have ever had a student without hands.’ I didn't know if it was legal, I didn’t know about rules that let me anchor my club. They were like, ‘If you can golf, we don't care.’ The Academy was in existence for 25 years or something like that. Of course, with my luck, I was one semester shy from graduation when they closed. They shut the doors and said 'good luck.'

From there, I became the first assistant at Trump National Doral beginning during COVID through 2023. Now I'm actually living back home in South Jersey. It's a big change of pace. But I moved back home because I wanted to fully invest in becoming a professional adaptive golfer. I moved home and now I'm just playing golf with my brothers and my friends and working on my game. My game is better than ever. I just shot my personal best 68 last week. It was one of those magical days where it was just me and my older brother and one of my best friends, and every putt was just dropping. It was a beautiful sunny day. Golf is just incredible.

Photo Credit: Austin Kaseman

Despite that, though, the game can hurt because I know what my potential is. I know who I can be, and what my game can be, how impactful I can be on the generations to come. I want to be a part of more opportunities. It's all about growing the game of adaptive golf. I need more opportunities. I'm still trying to figure out how I can play more when it comes to sponsors and funding and all that kind of stuff. My sponsors Cobra and Puma, they do a great job of taking care of me when it comes to equipment and clubs, but they don't pay me. I wish they did, and hopefully soon they'll see what it's worth and get behind it. More brands should, and it’s trending that way. I try to choose the biggest events to play in. For the last four or five years, I've only played in two, maybe three events a year. Now, my full list is 15 events. I'm not going to be able to play anywhere near that, but I think I'm going to be somewhere around five or six this year.

I’m happy with where my game is now, but I’ve had to turn it around. The lowest that I've ever been was actually right when I moved home from Miami. I was bummed about it. I didn't know what I was going to do. Living with my dad as a 30 year old, not knowing what my next step was. I took my first ever break without touching my clubs in the winter of 2023. When I came back in 2024, I couldn't hit a golf ball. I literally lost the feeling. I had gained some bad tendencies. My takeaway was so shallow, I was so stuck from the inside that I was topping everything. I had just spent the last six and a half years going to golf school, working on my golf game, doing all kinds of things, putting my name out there, and then all of a sudden I felt like my talent left me. If I can't play golf the way that I know that I can play golf, I feel like I lose all my sense of purpose, I feel like I lost my identity. It was the hardest fight that I've ever had to go through.

During a golf trip with a couple of friends, we were in the Pinehurst area and things felt like they couldn't get worse. I was topping the ball, I couldn't even hit it. It was just the most humbling, embarrassing, shitty feeling. I went home after that and I said, ‘I'm never experiencing that again. I'm cranking it up.’ I had to completely learn it all again, video my swings, figure out what was going on. Then I started consistently breaking 80 again and even shooting par and then breaking par multiple times. I watched my game come back and then go further than it ever was. It was the truest test of my character.

If I can't play golf the way that I know that I can play golf, I feel like I lose all my sense of purpose, I feel like I lost my identity. It was the hardest fight that I've ever had to go through.

That’s what it’s all about for me, showing my character and helping people like me. I dot this because I never had anyone like that growing up. I’m not sure I needed it, because I was just stubborn and confident. I didn’t want prosthetics, I never wanted anything. It's very clear that most people are not that way. If they have a disability, it's very easy for them to just give up. If they can see that I'm able to play golf without hands — a sport built around your hands — and break par, hopefully that opens their eyes to whatever's possible. It doesn't even have to be golf, it could be painting, it could be video games, it could be anything that they're passionate about. As long as they see that this person is able to do this just from sheer will and determination, that’s everything.

If they can see that I'm able to play golf without hands — a sport built around your hands — and break par, hopefully that opens their eyes to whatever's possible.

You never know who you can impact walking into a room. Golf is the greatest game and it can teach you so much. You can share it with everybody: your friends, your family. If we can continue this growth of adaptive golf to where it's a full tour and give kids in schools growing up adaptive golf teams, that’s the goal. I could never compete on an adaptive golf team growing up. I would've loved to if I knew that it was a thing. That’s what the U.S. Adaptive Open is all about: showing people how good we are.

-With Will Schube