1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Lindsey Thiele and Megan Whittaker (Nebraska Women's Golf): June 10th, 10am

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

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It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the couple Chevrolet GMC Studios. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. Brought you by Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Happy Friday, everybody. Job. Well done. You made it through the week.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for this hour of sports radio. Brought to you, though, folks. Mary Ellen's Food for the Soul, just so good. It's so good. 402, 464, 5685, Sartar-Haman text line, Honda-Lincoln Hotline, if you want to call in, add to the conversation, say hello, contribute.

You can do that. The live video streams are up. Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter Live. So you can see in the studio, see what's going on. You might want to do that today. The studio is better looking today. That's for sure. And it's compliments of our guests.

And I'm excited because... I'm always here, though. This was not about you. Many me? Stop it. Leave them alone. Let's bring them. As we try to expand into all of the reaches of Nebraska athletics,

the one space that we had not been into, been in was golf, especially women's golf. And we have two of the best. And they're interested, and I'm excited. I'm glad they're here. but they're going to be kind of the eyes, ears, voices, and quite frankly, the finishers when we talk golf on this station.

It's good to have. The station loves golf. We have all sorts of golf deals. Now we have actual golfers that we can put in this place and not have it be about Jake Sorenswin, but Lindsey Teal and Megan Whitaker are here with us from Nebraska Golf. Ladies, how are you this morning? Doing well, yeah. Thanks for having us on.

We're excited. Look, I'm excited because I'm, I'm, I'm a sports fan at the course or anything athletic. I kind of lean in and then when it's done well, I lean in further. I admit that I'm more intrigued by things that I cannot do, and golf is it. Golf is it.

Top of the list for me, just as a spectator, I sit in wonder of it constantly. How in the world is this happening? And for you two young ladies to do it at the level that you're doing it with the consistency that you're, you're doing it takes a lot of things and I want to go into those things so first of all Lindsay let the listeners know who you are where you're from and how you got here yeah thanks well

yeah my name's lindsayal um I'm a local girl from Wahoo Nebraska so just finished my second year here at Nebraska um grew up with four sisters I'm right in the middle of them too older and two younger but a big golf family all of us golf um my two older sisters also played for the university so just kind of felt right with me coming here. And yeah, I come from a huge background in sports. All growing up, we played basketball, volleyball, and golf. So kind of have that, like to say, I have that well-rounded aspect a little bit. I definitely am a huge advocate for that, though.

It really helped, you know, growing up and just having kind of just that touch into each of those different sports and kind of just enhancing that well-rounded athlete type deal. So that I'm really, really happy that I was able to have those opportunities. when I was younger. And then kind of as I started to get older, focused a little bit more on honing into golf and then got the opportunity to come play for the university. So it all worked out well. I'm happy to be here. And yeah, it's been awesome so far. My family taught me when I was a very young age. My mom actually played golf here at Nebraska. She taught my dad when they got married. And then they introduced my brother and I when we were like four years old, I think. And so I'm similar to Lindsay

and the fact that I grew up playing a bunch of other sports did track, soccer, basketball, and decided in high school that I wanted to play golf and focus on that mostly. And my coach at the time gave me an offer to come here and I couldn't pass it up. So it's been great. You're both athletes, period. You happen to excel at golf. And what I know about athletes is that you need shoulders to stand on in order to excel and continually. change your elevation and location.

For you, you mentioned your parents and your sisters. Let's start with the parents, though. I need a description of who creates Lindsay so that she becomes this version. Yeah, yeah. So my parents, they're not huge golfers themselves, which is really interesting and something that I feel like a lot of golfers don't have that experience with that. But my dad is a super great coach. He also came from a very athletic background, athletic family.

So he grew up coaching me and, you know, all the stuff. sports when I played t-ball when I was little and then when I got into basketball and all of those things he was my coach for that all the way up through he was even assistant on our high school teams for basketball as well so he yeah coached me in all those areas and I think a lot of that really applies on the golf side of things too you know when I was younger he'd be in on all my golf lessons and stuff like that so he knows the game very well would much rather focus on that aspect of it than playing himself which I really respect so yeah he knows the game very well has helped coach a lot during all of that. So that kind of feeds into my other sports and athletic side, I would say. And my mom is just the ultimate supporter. Also not a golfer herself,

but she's always the one, you know, she's at every event. She's, you know, doing everything she can to help us out. So she comes from an athletic background as well, played volleyball a bit when she was in high school. But yeah, she's definitely taken on that role of complete supporter. So very, very appreciative of her. Megan, let's talk about mom and dad. They're amazing. I couldn't ask for better parents. My dad has, similar to her dad, he coached me in T-ball, basketball growing up. He would always be willing to go golf with me.

He plays every Saturday with his friends. He just has absolutely loved golf. Everything about it watches golf all the time. So he's been super big in encouraging the game and making it fun. And then my mom, since she does have a little more of a background, she helped me. With my swing growing up, helped me get in the right tournaments, and she has just reminded me how important it is to stay positive all the time, which helped me so much as a junior, and it still helps me today.

And she just makes it so much fun. We go celebrate after every round. We talk about the good things, and that just makes it such a great experience. It's so funny that when we have student athletes, and before I, like, we hand over keys to the car, right? You have to take the young people on the drive, and without fail, when I ask, I ask female athletes about their parents. They talk about dad first as the coach and then mom as the support system

and the soul and the spirit behind it. So you guys fell in line with that. But I'll ask competitive families create competitive athletes. So the battle with having siblings who get after it and most importantly, get after you. Because that's the voice that you hear your head quite a bit. Let's talk about the sisters who played here. and what give me a common thread for the sisters how they compete yeah it's i would say growing up it was you know kind of your typical family competition you know we go out and battle for who has

the dishes when we go home or who does the laundry um one thing i just really really appreciated from that background was just always having someone to go out and practice with and sharing kind of that love for the game and that love for competing with especially with golf you know a lot of times i think for younger kids, it can be a lonely sport. You know, it's not like your T-ball or even your basketball where you get to go out and play with your friends and meet them once or twice a week. But with golf, it's kind of like you're out there grinding on your own. There's a lot of things to work on with golf.

Very hard sport. But I, yeah, I always can say that I had that. I had three or four sisters who would always come out there and practice with me, which made all the world of difference. Did they help you by a hand in the back, a kick in the pants? Was it? Which one was it? Because we're all, as athletes, you're moved by different things.

Some people need the coach with his hand in the back, just kind of leading you forward. Some need a coach that'll kick you in the pants and say, okay, get it going. Yeah. Golf requires a constant voice in your head. Yep. Whose voice do you hear in your head when you're playing golf? For me? Yeah.

My brother has helped me a lot. So I hear that. He has pushed me because since he was younger than me, he was always trying to hit it further than me. growing up and that pushed me to do more sit-ups and to swing harder and try to hit it further because he was always gone in for me and always wants to beat me. I mean, even to this day, he'll go play high school tournaments and he's thinking about what score I shot in trying to go. It's always fair. Like, always fair game. So it pushes that he has pushed me tremendously over the like the whole course of my life to just keep getting better. Lindsay, whose voice is in your

head? Who's the one that like if you're a tough shot, you take the deep breath. whose voice pops in your head. Yeah. I would say these days it's not so much my sisters. When I was younger, it definitely was. I would say me and my oldest sister, Haley, we were very much kind of the length off the T. I was a little bit younger than her, but then as I kind of started to grow and I'm a bit taller than her now, that was always kind of, when we would go out and play, it was always, who can get the longest drive, you know, who can get that up there. It is constant. It is. It is. It is. Yeah, this one hole in particular on our home course, it's whole number five. And we'd always see who could get past that sand trap on the drive.

So, yeah, when I was younger, it was definitely that. I loved going out to play with her because it was always just that constant, fun competition. Lindsay Teal, Megan Whitaker from Nebraska Golf. And it's so funny, too, athletes are, the pre-programming is important, the stuff that you get before things get tense, right? So it's all the way. How do I get calm?

For golfers, it's, are you competing with yourself, the course, or you're, you opponents and that may change that answer may change depending on situation but for the most part who are you competing against i'm competing against myself yeah yeah i think it's kind of changed over the years too i think and i was a little bit younger and maybe didn't have all of the knowledge or the teaching that i've gotten once i've gotten to college it was very easy to kind of react and play based on who you were playing with and so i think when i was younger it was a lot more oh i want to go out and beat this person. I want to go out and, you know, do better than this person. But, yeah, kind of as I've gotten older and hopefully I've been able to get the emotional part of it and kind

of just the stress and the pressure part of golf more under control, I think it's turned into more competition against myself, yes, but I think a much more level-headed way that I've kind of learned is trying to see that against the course, too. And it kind of helps keep my emotions in check a little bit if I'm looking at it that way. What do you say to yourself? What's the, what's the thing that you say to your most? You're playing, you're going to play 18 holes today. what's the thing you're going to say the most because that is the personality trait that I'm fascinated the most. What do you say? I tell myself that my number one focus every time is to stay composed and patient and to not let my emotions become a roller coaster,

not, you know, just stay as calm and cool and collected as I possibly can. Yeah. I think, I would say the number one, I guess, kind of pep talk I give myself. And even if it's not going well or if it is going well is just telling my. myself that I've prepared for this. The preparation that I've put in up until this point, that's about all I can do once I step out there on the course. So kind of just trying to remind myself of that and saying, okay, you know, you've put in the work. You've prepared for this in the past weeks or months and even years. So you can do it. But that's the, that's the thing

that golfers have to do probably as much as anybody other than like marathon runners is the constant conversation in your head, right? No matter what the course is, you know, you've got to break things down. How much time do you and your coaches talk about the things that you talk about in yourself? Because you have a good shot. They're going to come up. Would you see? What were you thinking?

Bad shot. Okay. What would you see? What are you thinking now? What's next? How do you get through that? Honestly, this has been a huge point of emphasis since we've came to college, at least for me personally. But I know that it's something that's not talked about a whole lot when you're younger growing up in golf.

It's more like, let's just go out and play. You know, you really focus on the swing and the physical parts of golf, but the mental side is not talked about as much. But, yeah, I mean, that is the biggest part of golf. They say it's 90% mental, 10% physical. So, yeah, that's a huge, huge part of it. There's a huge emphasis on trying to get yourself to get towards the positive self-talk because it's so, so easy to negatively analyze every shot.

Even if it goes well, you know, you're still sometimes second-guessing your approach to it. Or, you know, was that the right, was that the right mind? mindset to take towards that shot. So definitely trying to wire it towards the more positive side is something that we work on a lot. How do you get through? Is that the conversation that you because and the other side of it is there are golfers that don't want to have an actual conversation while you're playing. Takes you out of rhythm. What's your preference? Do you want the support or do you want to get through it and then I'll deal with all the bits and parts later? typically I prefer the support if you know coach or teammate someone's there I like kind of talking

about it then so we can learn quicker because typically if I wait until after it's too late so I like to address it when it happens there's also the glory of getting through it yourself like there's that like wait a minute you know I'm maturing I got it like I got this um is there are there do individually do you have course preferences? What type of course do you love playing up? My eye definitely fits to more of the longer, I would say rolling hills, you know, not a lot of trees. Really? Yeah, that's, I do like those courses.

I think for myself, at least one of my strengths is definitely length off the T. Okay. A bit more of a long ball hitter, and so I do really appreciate those courses. I like playing them a bit longer. I think that gives me a little more of an advantage. Yeah, my mind goes there when I think of my favorite courses. I'm very similar. I prefer, like, Link's style, more open, more rolling.

I think it kind of gives your eye the chance to see the shot you want to hit as opposed to, I think, sometimes tighter courses. It forces you either, if it's a big dog leg and it's very narrow, you have to lay up to the corner of the dog leg or you need to work the ball left to right, right to left. So I think links is fun because you can kind of hit whatever ball flight, whatever trajectory you want. When you're practicing, it's your time. So you've done the work that the program needs for you to do.

Now you're into your own personal space. There are people that work on the things that they do well, and there are people who work on the things that they don't do well. What shot do you spend the most time on when it's just you? I think it really depends. It depends on, you know, yeah. kind of like you said, what's going well for my game at the moment, what's not going so well. This past semester especially, I've had a huge lesson in beginning to work more on the things

that aren't going so well for me. Because I think also often, you know, it's so easy to go out on the range and, hey, I'm feeling really good about this shot right here. I'm going to hit that a lot. But yeah, then you get out there on the course and you don't have that shot all the time and you really learn quickly about the things that aren't going so well. So, yeah, I've had a big lesson in that this past semester. So I've tried to focus my practice. a little bit more on, hey, you know, I went out to the course yesterday and these are the shots that didn't go so well. Let's try and work on those. Yeah. Megan, what's the shot you work on? Nobody's around. Right now, I'm trying to work on long irons. That's kind of been the weakness in my game, and I've learned I've needed to improve that. So every day, I've been working on four irons to try to hit them straighter and. See, you're getting into the deep. This is, well, well, this was a part of the reason why I got excited was, is that this will be an education for me. The mental side of it is one thing,

the physical side of it and the details are important. And most golf fans, even if you're a fanatic, you don't get the inside on how top-level golfers process. And whether it's mental, whether it's dealing with the course, whether it's dealing with conditions, and we haven't even gotten into the conditions and that sort of stuff. but I'm fascinated by hearing you guys break it down. Is there a course, you're both from Nebraska,

is there a course in Nebraska that's your favorite? I love wild horse out in Gothenburg. Partly for the views, I think. You just feel like you're kind of out there in the open and it's quiet. You know, you can hear sound from a million miles away. It also just kind of fits my eye. It's more of that open style,

kind of like Megan was saying that we both love. So, yeah, that's what comes to mind for me. Megan, where's your spot? I prefer Arbor links. Why? I love the links layout of it. I think it's a very well-designed course. I think the par fives are super fun because they're very much risk or reward.

I mean, if you go for it or lay up. But I think you can go out there. It's a course that makes you better, but it's just so fun and you can hit all different shots. You can cut corners or lay up just depending on how you're hitting it and, you know, how much risk you want to take on. Here's the question that divides. really good golfers and elite golfers. Do you enjoy it when you're not playing well? You've got to learn to.

Right? Right. Like that. Right. That's the part, right? That when it's going well, everybody loves you. You love it. It's everything.

It's unicorns and skittles. But when it's not going well, you've got to find a way to get through. Yeah. So how do you get through? What's your get through? I think for me, it's, I mean, with golf, you're constantly learning things. You're learning things about yourself, things you don't know about yourself, things that you figure out you don't do very well. And so I think if I try and frame it

in that mindset of every single time I go out on the course, I'm learning something, whether it's about myself, the game, what I need to work on. If you really focus on that mastery part of it, you're never going to be perfect at golf. The best players in the world aren't perfect at it. And so I think that can kind of help too. What are you shooting for that? Yeah, that's a good question. Perfection is not attainable. If it's not attainable and you're only competing with yourself, what pleases you, appeases you, satisfies it? There is nothing better than being able to hit a shot well that you previously have not been able to.

Like let's say I'm working on the range for this cut that I haven't been able to hit for months. And then to be able to perform that on the course, there's nothing better than that feeling to me. So I think maybe it's that living for the shots where you realize I learned this, I put it into practice. and now I'm able to do it. And then constantly being able to repeat that and learn new things. And, okay, this next week, this is the shot I'm going to work on. I think that, almost that it's just a really creative side of golf. It's finding new things you didn't know about it.

That part of golf is really special. Megan, is there a perfect shot? I think if it goes in and like a putt, I think that can be perfect. Outside of that, I don't know. I mean, I think there's drives that you just hit right on the center of the face and it just goes 20 yards. I know nothing about what you're talking about. Like, I know nothing.

The idea of a perfect drive, it's why I don't play golf on a regular basis because just quite frankly, I'm an athletic perfectionist and there's zero chance of it happening. So I don't want to put myself through insanity. But perfect drive or perfect long put. I think so.

And I mean, I think you can, that's what keeps me going, is to see how many more of those I can. get each round. So, you know, one round I might not hit anything off the center of the face and it's like a challenge mentally of staying strong and fighting until the end and seeing if you can still put up a good score. And then there's some rounds where everything's coming right off the center of the club face. You're flushing every shot. It's perfect. And then can you still score then? So I think like the challenge of it every day is awesome. It's going to be, do you young ladies, can you stay for another

segment? Can you stay? Yeah. Yeah. I would like that because I want to get into some of the things around the program and in the team. We're going to talk about your coaches and your teammates. We're going to get to those next here on one-on-one.