Greg Johnson, owner of a Sacramento, Calif. fitness club and a Titleist Performance Institute-certified strength-and-conditioning specialist, has helped one 54-year-old player drop his handicap from 4.3 to 0.1. At Ancil Hoffman GC in Carmichael, Calif., trainer Charles Burton has helped a 73-year-old with a degenerative back condition consistently break 100 through an emphasis on “extensibility.”

The $250,000 John and Diane Watson Short Game Training Center will open November 9 as a public-private partnership with the University of California-Davis.