Golf is more than just a sport — it's an art. 

Or at least it is for Richmond, B.C.'s Nathan Leonhardt, who was hired to help the actors in Apple TV+'s new series Stick to perfect their golf swings. 

Having played professionally for several years, and then worked as a coach for many more, he's learned a thing or two about what goes into a good golf swing. 

"Going in, we said, 'Hey, I need to help you build this swing that is beautiful looking, like you could play at a high level, this is believable," Leonhardt said during an interview on CBC's The Early Edition. 

The series, starring Owen Wilson and Marc Maron, has been compared to the hit show Ted Lasso and centres around an ex-golfer who is coaching a troubled teen prodigy, played by Peter Dager.

It premieres on Apple TV+ on June 4. 

Leonhardt spoke with The Early Edition guest host Lyndsay Duncombe ahead of the show's release. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Oh, man, it's amazing. We wrapped up the show in mid-September and it's just been kinda like biting the tongue since then, waiting for this moment to finally come. 

I got this random phone call one day back in March last year — from an Apple TV+ show starring Owen Wilson looking for a golf consultant. And I'm just like, come on, that sounds too good to be true, a little bit like a scam's going on here. I looked up the person who called and he's like, "It'd be great to have you, but I need to have an answer by the end of today." This is asking me to take off my entire summer of teaching, which is obviously our peak time, to do something else. Once I thought about it, spoke with my family a bit, it was something that was going to be hard to turn down.

One of the main actors, Peter Dager, the young guy who plays Santi in the show, he would come into my academy in Richmond, the Tour Development Academy, and we worked together pretty much every day for weeks before filming actually started, getting this aesthetically beautiful golf swing ready.

And then from there, it was just being on set the entire season making sure that nothing felt out of place or awkward or weird and that the golf things, the golf lingo, the words they said, made sense. And if not, it was up to me to stop them and have them do it again properly. 

Some, but not a lot. He was a baseball player, so he had rotational things. But he was fairly scratch. And I think that when you watch it, you'll be pretty amazed by how good his swing is. 

I'll take some of it. He's an athlete. 

He's a good player. He plays a lot. I found that with him it was like, let's get out on the golf course and play versus practise and work on the swing. And when it's Owen Wilson, it's hard to kind of say no, but he's a great, great guy and a really good player. 

One hundred per cent. I got out of golf for a little different reason than him, and you'll find out in the show, but I got out because of injury which is always never fun, but it led me into teaching and coaching. I started coaching a young junior golfer full time and I would take him to tournaments around North America. Thinking back to me stopping golf competitively, finding this young protege and going on the road for tournaments around North America, it's a very similar story to what Stick is all about.

They're super excited and it's been tough because obviously last summer when I didn't coach for all summer, they kind of knew. And I had told them what I was doing, but I couldn't go into depth. But now, actually letting them kind of know what's been going on there, they've been super excited to finally see what it is that I was busy with all year last year.

I hope so. Honestly, I really enjoyed it and after working on this I had a request for another one, another thing small, and so I'm hoping doors open for that because I really enjoyed it. It's golf and I can use my expertise, but just in a different capacity. I enjoy helping others who are kind of in my position, coaching, helping other coaches and things like that. It's definitely added to what I enjoy doing for my career.