Watch: Sahith Theegala and coach Rick Hunter share the golfer’s remarkable journey of mastering the art of recovery shots

The PGA Tour recently launched 'The Life: Sahith Theegala' on Youtube, a 21-minute biographical documentary about the life of the rising American star and his relationship with golf.

Theegala has been one of the most impressive young players in world golf in recent years. His development and potential have behind them a story of effort and dedication that the PGA Tour felt needed to be shared with the world.

In the short movie, both Sahith Theegala's father and his first coach, Rick Hunter, give their impressions of the young golfer. Hunter explains that he was able to see very early that Theegala had the exceptional qualities to become an elite golfer.

In particular, Hunter referred to Sahith Theegala's ability to execute complicated shots and achieve impossible results with them. The video shows several examples of how Theegala has been able to get out of incredible situations, with balls lying behind trees and in other positions that anyone would declare unplayable.

Hunter began coaching Theegala when he was about eight years old. His first course was El Prado, a public facility based in Theegala's hometown of Los Angeles.

Hunter still coaches at El Prado, where he is currently the Director of Instruction. He is a highly experienced golf coach with over 40,000 lessons taught and is a Class A PGA Member.

Sahith Theegala: from El Prado to the PGA Tour

Rick Hunter certainly wasn't wrong when he saw the star qualities exhibited by the young Sahith Theegala. The golfer's junior career was a brilliant one, with four tournament wins in four years.

Theegala's meteoric rise came as an amateur. The American received a scholarship to play golf at Pepperdine University and in just three years (due to the Covid 19 pandemic), he won seven tournaments, and won all three major American college golf awards (Haskins Award, Ben Hogan Award, and Jack Nicklaus Award) in a single year (2020).

Sahith Theegala, 2023 BMW Championship (Image via Getty).

Theegala graduated from college in 2020 and turned professional that same year. He played a few tournaments on the PGA Tour, thanks to sponsor exemptions, and in 2021, he managed to play on the Korn Ferry Tour as well.

At the end of his second season as a professional he qualified for the Korn Ferry Tour postseason and put in a stellar performance, with two consecutive Top 10s that earned him his temporary PGA Tour membership for 2021-22.

In his first full season at the top level, Theegala had several outstanding results. He finished runner up at the Travelers Championship and racked up four other Top 10s. He missed only six cuts in 32 tournaments played. These were performances that qualified him for the FedEx Cup postseason.

In his second full PGA Tour experience (2022-23) Theegala's results were exponentially superior. He recorded another runner up (The RSM Classic), with another six Top 10s, including an astonishing 9th place at The Masters, his most important result so far.

This season, Theegala repeated his qualification to the PGA Tour postseason, although he was only able to play the first two tournaments. Without having yet won any tournament or his permanent membership in the PGA Tour, he is already ranked in the Top 50 (37th) of the world ranking.