The Myrtle Beach golf market lost one of its award-winning and most generous teaching professionals this past weekend.
Darren deMaille, who operated the Quick Fix Golf school at Tupelo Bay Golf Center in Garden City, died Sunday morning in his sleep at the age of 48.
deMaille was on vacation in Key West, Florida, with his wife Leanne Graham (Shelley), a former morning talk show host on Hot Talk WRNN 99.5 FM.
deMaille, a Class A PGA of America professional, was instrumental in increasing access to golf on the Grand Strand for people with disabilities, particularly military veterans, and also had a passion for teaching junior golfers.
“He was a real asset to the community and a good guy,” said Gary Schaal, past president of the PGA who is the executive director on the Strand of Project Golf and an administrator of PGA HOPE, which deMaille participated in as an instructor. “He’d do anything to help people play better. He was a technician with a good bedside manner and good sense of humor. A really good instructor.”
Shortly after moving to the Grand Strand in 2016, deMaille founded the Myrtle Beach Chapter of the Stand Up and Play Foundation and raised $15,000 within a couple months through his golf academy and word of mouth to purchase a single-rider ParaGolfer cart from Germany.
The ParaGolfer allows people who are paralyzed below the waist to swing a golf club from the cart. He offered free initial lessons with the ParaGolfer, eventually purchased a second one and donated one to a veteran who needed it.
In addition to his involvement in Stand Up and Play, deMaille became involved in PGA HOPE instruction after the veterans program gained a Myrtle Beach chapter through Project Golf in 2020, and was an advocate of the Adaptive Golf movement.
Project Golf has programs specifically for juniors, newcomers to the game and veterans. PGA HOPE is designed to provide veterans an opportunity to learn the game, share camaraderie with fellow service members, and have an activity that in many cases can serve as therapy and physical and/or mental rehabilitation.
He was arranging a PGA HOPE instruction series at Tupelo Bay this fall or winter for 10 to 12 veterans.
“He was really helpful with PGA HOPE, really good with veterans,” Schaal said.
Building a legacy
deMaille was a Connecticut native and graduate of the Campbell University PGA Golf Management program. He worked for Jack Nicklaus for seven years as an instructor at The Bear’s Club in Jupiter, Florida, was the head pro at The Bridge golf course in Bridgehampton, N.Y., and had a teaching academy in Huntington, N.Y., before moving to the Carolina Forest area of Myrtle Beach to be close to his then in-laws in Conway.
deMaille developed a passion for assisting golfers with physical disabilities after meeting paraplegic Anthony Netto, the Stand Up and Play Foundation’s founder who was injured in both military service and an auto accident. Netto taught deMaille how to instruct with the ParaGolfer.
“Darren loved golf so much and wanted everybody else, anybody who wanted to, to feel confident about playing golf so they’d really love playing it, too,” Shelley said. “He loved people and he loved how the game brought people together.”
He opened his Double D teaching business at Harbour View Golf in Little River upon his Strand arrival and has been at Tupelo Bay for the past several years.
Together with seven-year business partner Bobby Lopez, a 55-year teaching pro who splits time between Richmond, Virginia and the Strand, deMaille created the Quick Fix Golf school and app.
The app allows golfers to send swing videos to receive virtual swing analysis and instruction, and golfers were encouraged to go to Tupelo Bay for further instruction if they wanted it.
“The QuickFixGolf app was what Darren lived, slept and breathed every day of our six-year relationship,” said Shelley, who met deMaille taking a lesson from him. “He spent every spare moment, and every spare company and personal dollar, creating and perfecting that app. It is on the precipice of being a virtual golf game-changer. The app is completed and awesome. . . . What I think Darren would want is to see his app become what he intended it to be.”
deMaille was named the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021 for Quick Fix Golf.
Lopez said he’s still processing deMaille’s death and isn’t sure about the future of the app and golf school at Tupelo Bay without him.
“It’s a lot to handle with just one person,” Lopez said. “We put so much work into it I hate to see it die. But it will be hard to find another [partner] like him.”
deMaille won several awards over the past few years, in addition to his chamber honor.
He was named a top 100 teacher in the nation by the Golf Range Association of America in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
He won the Myrtle Beach Herald readers choice award as the Best Teacher on the Grand Strand in 2023 and 2024.
He was a 2021 Golf Digest instructor nominee for best in state and top 100 nationally, as well as a Carolinas PGA Section Teacher of the Year nominee in 2021, 2022 and 2024.
“He sent me a text out of the blue about two days before he died just saying how much he loved teaching golf,” Lopez said. “That was his No. 1 love. He did [a lot] of things without any income coming out of it. He just did it out of the goodness of his heart. He was high-energy. He would go the extra mile with people. He would be patient with people trying to learn the game. He was very big on helping.”
deMaille has three children from his previous marriage “that he absolutely adored,” Shelley said: Mackenzie, 14; Dylan, 12; and Teighlor, 10.
Funeral arrangements were yet to be finalized as of Tuesday.
