No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 919: Harry Higgs on the road back to the PGA Tour

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Harry Higgs is back on the pod and headed back to the PGA Tour! We talked with Harry about his year on the KFT and how he improved his game to earn his tour card back. We also cover his mental health and revisit his comments surrounding the passing of Grayson Murray, learning to take time off during the season, getting recognized abroad, and his view of the current state of the PIF negotiations. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Support Our Partners: Pinehurst The Stack System fanduel.com/nlu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different? better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Solly here got an interview coming shortly with Harry Higgs, old friend of the pod. It's been a couple years since we've done a full interview with him.

He's popped on to live shows here and there, but good to catch up with him after an incredible season on the Corn Fairy Tour, winning twice. He's headed back to the PGA Tour. We talk about what it was like to go back to Corn Fairy, what it's going. He's headed back to the PGA tour. We talk about what it was like to go back to corn fairy, what it's going to be like going back to the PGA tour, his comments about Grayson Murray and the Grayson Murray foundation and a lot of those things like that. Great conversation with Harry, as always love talking golf with this guy. Before we get going, this episode is presented by our friends at Pinehurst,

who can forget the duel between Bryson and Rory down the stretch of the 2024 US open. You can try that shot. You can go to Pine Pioneers number two. You can play from that bunker 55 yards away. You can do with a veranda full of people that have already finished their round, your own kind of pressure as you hit that shot back at the clubhouse. It's just one of the great things about Pioneers number two, especially as you can experience championship golf at the highest level. And it's just a freaking blast to play. It's unbelievable. Just a couple of months before the US Open reminded everyone what kind of a gym number two is. Pioneers opened a new course, Pioneers number 10.

Opened in the spring of 2024, designed by Tom Doak. It features dramatic elevation changes. It's got natural sandy areas. It has remnants of an early 20th century sand mining operation. Eight hole is incredible. You can go to our YouTube channel and check out a video on that.

Golf Di just also said number 10, there are holes that are unlike anything else, not just here but anywhere. Pioneers, of course, continues to invest in its presence in future, making it better every year. The renovations at the Carolina Hotel are now complete. They got another new restaurant, the Carolina Vista Lounge. Just incredible offerings they have there. Looking back just between the last two US Opens that have been there 2014 and 2024, the era of evolution has been insane. They introduced the cradle short course. It's been insanely popular. It opened in 2017. Gilhans also redesigned Piners number four. It's got consistent praise. Piners Brewing Company housed in the original building that served as the village of Piners. Steam plan in 1895 remains as popular as ever among guests and locals alike. The hotels are freshly renovated and their 2025 rates are out for anyone that wants to

book a trip to Pinehurst through 2025. Also you can head to events.nolayingup.com slash 2025. Donnie Brook to sign up for our event there this spring at Pinehurst. Thanks to our friends at Pinehurst. Now to our episode with Harry Higgs. All right. We are headed back to the PGA Tour after a year on the Corn Fairy Tour.

What are you most looking forward to about getting back to the PGA Tour? It's a good one. I'd say, I think I changed both as a player and a golfer, person and a golfer over this last year. Little nicer to myself, a little bit more at ease, a little more capable of handling the stress and frustration that comes with this ridiculous game

that I chose to play for a living. So I guess just plainly getting back out there and competing again at the highest level and trying to use and put into practice some of the stuff that I did throughout this year. What are some of those things? How are you nicer to yourself? Tell us, take us there. What was that journey been like? Breathing. Breathing.

Interesting. Yeah, some meditation. And then I've just been taking better care of myself. Eating right, sleeping better. I'm in the frozen. The face looks a little thinner thinner if I may say. Yeah, I, I, well, I have to, I have to watch when I, if I do it, I lose it super fast. So I'm trying to lose a little slower than that. Super fast. And then not really necessarily to lose weight, but just get stronger, get more apt to play. I mean, you know, play 25 plus weeks a year and all the travel and all the nonsense that goes into it. We are in the throes of speed camp. You know, I'm basically a top player. I get what is almost like two and a half months off based on when the corn fairy ended.

And when we start again in January, I'm going to play a little bit this fall. But yeah, I mean, I have some time to lift some weights, lift some heavier weights. I think we're a little over a month in and it's working, which is nice. So hopefully continue that. And, you know, this is, I'm finishing year 10 of professional golf, which is ridiculous to think about. And not all of it's been on the PGA tour. But so I mean, I've just you've just grown and learned over that time so much. And I felt like I grew and learned a whole lot more about myself than any other year this year. So yeah,

I'm just super excited to get back out there and compete against the best in the world. Although the guys on the coin fairy tour are really, really good too. But yeah, compete against them and see how it goes. Speed camp, take me there. I'm deep in it as well. It's insane, it's crazy. I did a little bit with the stack maybe like a year, year and a half ago

and saw some gains, almost more like immediate gains and that was just a little harder to withstand. And I also was just so odd swinging the club, the weighted club, whatever you call it, and not hitting a ball. I didn't really, I don't know, my brain couldn't really compute with that. So we decided to just go heavier lifts, you know, it's okay if I'm sore, because I'm not really playing heavier lifts. And then, you know, two, three times a day, just swing 20 balls as hard as I can. And it has worked. I would say I certainly have gotten stronger,

which is, it's really fun to see. It's nice that I, when I do stuff like this, it comes almost immediate and you're, okay, great. I'll keep doing it, I'll keep doing it, I'll keep doing it. And then if you don't keep doing it, it starts to go back to where it was and it's, you got to catch back up.

But I've done a good job of staying there and increasing and trying to just get stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. I'm not going to be walking around all buffed up anytime soon. But yeah, we were, I saw Corey yesterday and it was fast. It was really fast. I got to get the driver. I think the fastest I've gotten now is 123. Our goal was to just cruise at 120 all year next year.

So if by the end of this year I can get it like I'm rolling out of bed, and I don't have to say rolling out of bed, it takes a whole lot to even start swinging and practice. But yeah, get started and if I can keep it at that 123, 124, when I'm on the golf course, it should be, we should be cruising at that 120. And it's only going to help this day and age. And what is it? We've got maybe two more years before they change the golf ball on us. So if I can get into the, into the faster, the faster group, if you will, um, once they make that change, that should be, I should gain even more in advantage.

Yeah. So it's, yeah, this is going to be the speed race is not the change in the golf ball is only going to increase the speed race. Oh yeah. I mean, I was looking this up. It was surprising to me. If you looked at like Bryson at winged foot, which is the one that everyone refers to about speed and bombing and all that, if you look at his average swing speed with Driver in that round versus Xander at at Trune in a British Open this year, what do you think the mile an hour difference would be just off the top of your head? I would guess Xander was probably 124, 125 and Bryson was probably low 120s.

I was looking at ball speed so I don't know about this. Well Xander was like mid 180s. I thought I remember at Truen and I'd say Bryson was close to there or low 180s. I had Bryson around 186.5 with all the drivers he hit before a lot. And then Zander only hit a couple drivers on that day and he was averaging 184 ball speed. So like, yeah, two and a half miles an hour faster. Yeah, that's probably 20 degrees cooler and a thick coastal wind. And yeah, Zander was a lot of the inspiration. My trainer, Edward Ball is he's out on tour and works with a few guys, physical

therapist and trainer. But he reached out to the guys that Xander works with and just kind of asked like what, where has this jump come from? And it was some, you know, swing wise, technical, his work with Como, who's who had the experience with Bryson too, but they said it's just straight up, we just started lifting heavier and boom, there it goes. Yeah, Xander was a lot of the inspiration. He hits it really, really hard and really straight and does everything else really well too. Yeah, I've been doing the stack

and there's gonna be a stack ad read within this podcast as well. But I went from like once, I touched 127 in my backyard with my driver, not hitting a ball from 117 in like a three month span. And I'm just like, well, that's probably if you are hitting a ball,

it's probably just a few, a few less. Yeah, I could touch 123 hitting a ball. Yeah. Which is again, like, but exactly what you said, like if I can hit, if I can swing it at 119, 120 on the golf course, that is exactly where I am. People probably sick of hearing me talk about it at this point, but like, do you find that you, your fundamentals with driver get better, the more like speed training or speed work that you do in terms of how you release the club? I've referenced this a bunch

with Steven Yeager story of like he was short and inaccurate and just decided to swing as hard as he could. And he got straighter and longer. And I guess we interviewed Tasha McKenzie a couple weeks ago on the pod and I never really thought of it that way until he pointed out of saying like, when amateurs and everybody thinks about swinging the club hard, swinging it, there's a difference between swinging it hard and swinging it fast. And they think when I ramp up my swing and swing hard it goes Everywhere, but if your fundamentals actually get better and you start swinging the club more fundamentally fast

You're swinging the club better and it's not like it's gonna go off the planet. I'm curious if you've got that experience I mean, I certainly I think a lot of it's to do I'm just swinging the golf club better which also allows us to then try to swing it faster, right? If you're kind of, if your fundamentals are at a place where it's, it's staying somewhat within, you know, a dispersion range, it allows you to then try to increase speed and it has not changed at all. The only thing that I have to watch out for is that it'll just continue to get really, really long. That's a lot of the stuff we did yesterday. Just I got TPI screen and everything and it's

a lot of shoulders like to take over because some of my trunk won't rotate as well. So the shoulders will take over and then it'll tip and it'll get really long. But it's fast and I was able to time it up, you know, kind of how I personally want to. And then the last couple of weeks, it felt just a little scratchier. Sometimes it would, the club just felt like it was a little bit more behind me. So we just, I mean, literally probably shortened it up just, I think maybe an inch, inch and a half. And then it was faster because it, you know, it's, it's odd that it just felt like my, it felt like basically I could just speed my arms up

and deliver the speed out towards the ball instead of kind of the arms just a fraction behind and then kind of have to slow down to catch up down there. Yeah, I mean, I, pro-ams and everything, I tell everybody to, I guess I say, I usually say hit it hard, which is probably the wrong thing to say, but I guess hit it hard, not swing it hard.

But yeah, I mean, I think everybody could be better served by just faster, hit it hard, don't swing it hard. Yeah, swing it faster and hit it hard. I mean, I don't think anybody's ever, I don't think anybody's gone through this, gone through speed and hit it further offline. I guess maybe Rory to some degree, but he, I mean, to say a guy like that struggled, but he was reaching for speed kind of maybe during COVID-ish when Bryson was doing it and he got the speed. And then he said it messed me up and I'm not really going to do it anymore. But then you watch him hit a driver on television and it is launching off his club at 190. It's like maybe you are still doing

some speed stuff. Well that's what again Sasha was pointing this out too of like when Bryson was hitting the 190 speeds like his max speed was like 210. When Rory was trying to get up to that 190, he was like trying to play at his max speed and then like eventually over time, Rory's increased his max speed and he's playing at a more comfortable level that helps him get high 180 numbers. But that's the difference and that's kind of what you strive for is kind of just like, it's just like. Yeah, you have to, if you want to hit it 180 ball speed, you have to be able to probably come close to

hitting it 190. Yeah. Yeah. We've only really done club head speed, but yeah, I mean, around 120 and then around 180 would be, would be just lovely to play with next year. That might be what I'm most excited for to see some of this work that I've done over these months that I've had off. And I'll have to continue it into the season too,

but might be what I'm most excited for, is to get onto these golf courses. Maybe instead of hitting a seven iron, I'm hitting an eight or nine iron into them. Maybe it's not three woods of par fives anymore, it's five woods and seven woods, which signed me up. I'm gonna throw this at you, and feel free to either punch me or, or, you know, take me, take me wherever you want with this.

But is it, is it fair? If I may say, I don't think you can, and with the experience you've had to this point, I'm curious your perspective on it. I don't think you can overwhelm the PGA tour with your talent. And that's not to say that you're not talented. It's to say like, the competition's insane.

And like your angle towards success is going to be different than like, Victor Hovland's, right? I think it's a fair thing to say. I say that to ask, like, how has your perspective evolved over your career towards how you are going to be successful? I mean, we just talked about the speed thing, that could definitely be one of them. But you're going back to the PGA Tour after a year on the corn fairy tour.

Is it a different approach in any other way to say, here's how I'm gonna be successful on this tour? The only thing that I really ever struggled with on tour, and especially the last couple of years, what would be what three and two years ago, was my iron play, which is the moneymaker. Is that important on tour? And then, yeah, pretty important.

This year, although we don't have strokes gain data on the corn fray tour, I mean, this year I felt like it was back to being a strength where I think I would have gained strokes throughout the year on approach. And that really is, I mean, I think it's basically the ticket for everybody. Some speed will only help, you know, because then I can still miss a few drives in the

rough and not lose too many strokes. But if I can keep my, and we haven't sat down and done this, but I've already thought if I can keep my, if I can have a positive stroke scan approach here, I think that will be successful for me. I think I basically every year I've done it, I've been like 50th and putting I'm I feel like I'm a lot better around the greens than it's usually has said I think I'm somewhere in the hundreds around the greens, but then I'm the last couple years, I think I've been 150 plus 160, 70, 80 on approach.

And then my driving also had fallen to that point too. So I was basically just relying on my putter and I wasn't statistically, I wasn't a good enough putter. I mean, I'd have to be first for it to, for me to have any success. Can I pop in on this to say that I think there can be, and I don't know, like, correlation is the wrong word. The actual stats people would make fun of me for that. But there can be correlation between poor approach play and poor around the green play in terms of where you're leaving the ball. You might, like, I don't, I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong on strokes, getting people out there.

Like it's not to, if you like plug a ball in the bunker, it's the same as if you have not left the ball. It's just the, yeah, it's just the if you like plug a ball in the bunker, it's the same as if you left the ball. It's just the, yeah, it's just the location in the distance. It doesn't a good spot. Yeah. So it doesn't factor in the lie or. Yeah. Scotty's great around the greens, but he's also probably missing in better spots around the greens.

Yeah. I mean, he's not in the fringe a lot, but Scotty's probably in the fringe way more than everybody else or just off the green, or he certainly obviously is a very cerebral player too. So he certainly like will miss it. And he's cerebral and in control. So he'll miss it in the easiest spots. And then it looks he hits these awesome shots because he's super talented. But as I add that shot was pretty, pretty easy. Yeah, no, I mean, honestly, if I talk correlation, if I if my putting drops from basically, it's been

50th for four and a half years, if my putting drops to 80th 90th, 100th, but my strokes gain, you know, I'm positive for the year. And that gets me in the, let's say top 20 ish Then I will I will do way better on tour than I have previously And then yeah, if you if you zoom out on that, you know, I am Where I'm gonna start the year. It's certainly possible for me to play my way into the big events but in theory that the only real truly goal of this coming year is to finish in the 125. And that just gets you a fraction closer to playing into some of the elevated

events. In theory, you use Victor Hovland as an example. To compare myself to Victor Hovland is a little ridiculous. But ideally, I win and I win early, so then I have access to all these elevated events. And if that doesn't happen to be the case, then continue to play solid golf throughout and finish in the 125. And then that next year, I'll probably gain, I'd say six to seven more starts based on fully, know, fully or I guess it is still fully exempt, but full access, 125 versus yeah, full access. So then I'll have even more of an opportunity to play my way into some of the elevated events. And in theory, you know, that 2026 year, if I guess if things don't change from now to then, which some things are going to change,

I probably should mention, I probably should say top 100 instead of 125, but who knows? We'll see. We'll see what everybody decides to do. Yeah, I mean, I feel like if you just play solid golf and don't win a golf tournament all year, I am two years away from mixing it up with the Victor Hodlins of the world. But saying that there still is a ton of opportunity to play and play my way into the elevated events and then, you know, again, if we can keep that strokes gained profile, if you will, which is basically just do better on approach, you know, I really like my chances. So that's kind of definitely the thing we're going to circle for next year is I just want to be throughout the year, I want to be, throughout the year I wanna be positive,

even if it's point one, I just wanna be positive on strokes gained approach. How do you do that? Is that like, if you had to decide, is that a literal like approach, like strategy for where you're aiming and shot shape and all that, or is it range work like,

and just getting better at hitting your irons? If you had to choose between those two. Yeah, for me it's making sure that I'm hitting it solid and it's coming out of the window that I want which has been the case for the entirety of this year pretty much and then me personally it's also some kind of like feel element you know being able to hit a nine iron 160 but also be able to hit the eight iron 160 and not see to I've also just been hitting the ball higher this year higher with a little bit more spin

So it's just a little bit more control and I can be a little bit more aggressive You know if I'm hitting an 8 iron from 160, it's not launching too low and then also just not my sequence would be off on some of the off speed shots that I used to hit. And it's a whole lot better now where that 8 iron is launching higher in the air, but also in the window, the tighter window where you can be more aggressive. So obviously having the ability to hit different shots to different numbers, if you will, the feel wise, you got to bail out of that if you're not hitting the ball solid, or it's not starting in the window, you'd like to see some on the ability to curve it both ways. And then you just have to hammer the wedges. I mean, the wedges have to be

close, just constantly have to be close, have to be close. I think that's where most guys, especially the top players in the world, that's where they're gaining most of their strokes. Yes, they're also from 220. They're just hitting the ball onto the green, just onto the green. That you gain through the roof on the long shots if you just hit it on the green.

So yeah, I guess that's what, like a four part plan. No, that makes a ton of sense. Like it has to be multifaceted because if I again, like this is where I've tried to dig in as much as I possibly can to understand the difference between like, you know, an average iron player and a really good iron player and a poor iron player and I have like, and if I had to say it, it's like, if you you've been you were last year last year on tour, you were

almost almost a full shot negative on a stroke scan approach before half shot. But like, that's to say, you were almost a full shot negative on a stroke scan approach. You had a four half shot. But like, that's to say, you know, nine of, if you take 10 shots between you and an average iron player in that year, nine are gonna look pretty similar. And one is gonna look very different. Which is just kind of insane to think about.

I don't know if that like helps the approach to be like, oh, I just gotta prove one of these shots or if that seems like a mountain to climb because it's the exacerbation over, it's not 10 shots, you're hitting thousands of iron shots over the course of the year where the difference really comes in. But I find that part interesting because it,

you could go and watch you play a round of golf and hit six iron shots and nobody would say, oh, that guy's not a very good iron player because it's not, it's never the best ones that are the problem. Yeah. I mean, and I haven't seen for a while now. I haven't seen that, that crazy bad one, which is awesome. And then, you know, that certainly can be, I think the majority of it is, I wouldn't say technique, but some technique and some shot

choice. And then also there is a, I wouldn't say majority, but a lot of it into strategy, right? Which one, which shots you're going to take on, which shots you're not. Are you able, you know, am I able if Torrey Pines I'll play, you know, Torrey Pines is a lot of off speed shots because the greens are super soft and you know, you get a back pin and that, and you have 160. It has to be that eight iron to get it close. The nine iron, well, probably won't fly all the way to 160 because it's. Cooler coastal, you know, it's not going to get all the way there. And then it's going to land for short and spin to six, seven short, where you need to be able to hit that eight iron in there that takes just one hop

and just hops forward and stays there. So, you know, having the ability to do that and continue to have the ability to do that will be really helpful. But yeah, I mean, it pretty much comes down to can you hit it solid and can you hit your window? Can the start line continue to stay tight? And then for me, if I do not like the shot, hit it to somewhere where I may not gain strokes, but I'm not going to lose half a shot or a full shot based on the shot that I hit it. And I'd say I did an okay job of that, but there's a lot. Basically, every iron shot all year long on the corn fairy tour has just hit it right at the flag. There's a few that aren't. Honestly, it happens a lot on tour too. There's a bunch of that. There's just like, hey,

of the 150 guys in this field, 145 of them are hitting it right at this flag. You got to go ahead and do it too. Trying to piece together rounds where if I don't love that, just scoot it off to the side and live with it. But again, over the course of a year, that stuff adds up. If you have to continually play away, you might have a nice week, but it's going to be a 25th place finish. Then if you don't have to play away and you

have a good week, you know, you might have a chance to win or you're going to be definitely top 10, you know, maybe top three. As I teased in there, I want to take a break to shout out to our friends at the stack, especially Dr. Sasha Mackenzie, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago, episode 913. If you haven't listened to that, I highly suggest you go back and listen to it when you're done with this episode. You're probably not swinging the club fast enough.

99% of people that are listening to this podcast are not swinging the club fast enough. I've done this program, I've been doing it for four months now, and I can tangibly say my swing speed has gone directly up, immediately up. DJ's has gone directly up. Cody is sending over crazy screenshots of his swing speed going directly up. Casey's starting to get into it. It's a fantastic program. All the details are within that episode of how it can help you

swing the club faster and better. I'm more accurate now at a longer distance than I was when I was swinging at 165 ball speed, you know, and kind of hitting it all over the place. I'm touching 174 ball speed, almost immediately and I know there's more gains to be had. There's a great the application is incredible. It gamifies the whole process for you. It makes it fun to go work out. It takes like 35 minutes to do the whole thing.

Again, episode 913 has all the details you could possibly imagine. You can go to thestacksystem.com, use code no laying up for 10% off your order. It's a fantastic deal. You can do it in your backyard, great for the winter. A great thing to do this winter to get faster. You can show up to your golf season in the spring and be blown by your buddies. You'd

be amazed at how much progress you can make in just a few months. Thestacksystem.com, code no laying up, back to Harry Higgs. Is it fair to say, I mean, just kind of how you're describing corn fairy tour courses that, I mean, the tests are very different on the corn fairy tour to the PGA tour. And it's been a critique of ours and I'm sure many others over the years have saying like, all right, well, first, if we're using the corn fairy tour to identify the next players to the PGA tour and the tests are totally different. It's sometimes that I'm not asking you to talk bad about anybody in particular, but sometimes you can end up with players whose profiles don't necessarily

fit on the PGA tour for sure. Very well. I'm curious. I mean, you've, you've played corn very before this year, but I'm just curious if you had a similar perspective on that. For sure. Of the 30 I would say that there are a handful of guys that you know a great year for them is gonna be finishing in the top 125. A great year and it's gonna be a great year for almost all of the 30 of us because it is difficult how it's

set up for us to finish in that 125 or it might be 100. I think there were two guys this year that made the playoffs from the corn fairy category, corn fairy graduates. So, I mean, just right off the jump, it's tough. I mean, I'd say there are a handful of guys that are certainly, their task of being successful is a lot easier on the corn fray tour than it will be on the PGA Tour. And then, why that is, my thought, my personal thought is that I played, I don't remember how many PGA Tour events I played, but the stark difference was I qualified for the US Open this year.

And that was two, three weeks after I'd already won twice. And it's so much harder on tour. It's hard using Pioneers as an example. But then I did play John Deere this year. And even then, John Deere is an easier golf course. And I think Davis Thompson won it something in the mid-20s I mean it's easy but they're the especially the approach shot that you're hit the approach shots that you're hitting they are easy but they're just more stuff

shown to you and this is you know specific from course to course but it's just a little harder to get comfortable and for me personally and picture what I want to have happen with the shot that I'm hitting into this green on the PGA Tour than it is the Corn Fray Tour. There's just, you know, you drive it in the fairway you have 140 yards. And it's, there's usually not bunkers like obstructing your view. There might be a bunker over here and a bunker over there, but there's not a whole lot obstructing your view. There might be a bunker over here and a bunker over there, but there's not a whole lot obstructing your view and you can clearly see that the flags in the back right and there's a slope you've got to cover at 133, so you just fly it all the way back there. Whereas on the PGA Tour, it's not always because we play some very easy

golf courses on the PGA Tour too, but there's usually just more in your way and it just becomes a little harder to get comfortable. My goal at Pinehurst was just to be as comfortable and as sure about what I wanted to have happen on every shot, but especially every approach shot because that's where you're going to make your hay and that's what makes that golf course so difficult. Man, it was just hard to do. Now, it's different and it's different than PGA Tour courses too, because there were a lot of two by two, three by three yards sections that you had to land your ball in with a specific height and a specific curve and specific spin just to keep it on the damn green, not to get it close to the hole.

So it's a pretty shitty example, but stuff like that, that's one of my other goals. This might as well just be a Harry Higgs 2025 goals. Podcast. But that's one of my Yeah, that's one of my other goals is to make sure to do my best to be comfortable kind of with what I want to have happen. You know, before I hit an approach shot, really, I mean, most of the tee shots are pretty straightforward. You know what you're going to do, there's a, you know, it's a five foot out over there, it's a driver over this bunker. You know what you're going to do. It's a five-wood out over there, or it's

a driver over this bunker. But after that, to try to get the ball closer to the hole on tour, there's more stuff shown, and it's just a little harder. It's been a little harder for me personally to get super comfortable with what I'm seeing and what I want to have happen. That makes a whole heck of a lot of sense.

I mean, what you just kind of described there is the spectrum of where we like to see talent separated too. You know, I mean, it's when the consequences are different for hitting this spot versus not hitting this spot. It's a totally, totally different, different ball game. But what changes when you go, what changes perk perk wise when you go from PGA tour to cord fairy tour, what are you looking forward to about the perk returns? Courtesy card, what's the lifestyle change like between the two tours? Yeah, look, I went a little extreme

this year on the Corn Fairy Tour. I probably played five or six less weeks than most everybody else and probably spent way more money than they did anyway. The whole taking care of yourself, taking better care of yourself makes it a little harder. No offense to any of the tournaments, but I was bringing my own water to the golf course to drink because I just can't drink some of the water that they serve us for free. Actually, in theory, if I follow that rule, I'm going to be doing it again on the PGA Tour.

I think the PGA Tour thinks that Smart Water is better than the Dasani that we get on the Corn Fairy Tour. It's not. We've gotten a little into the weeds about all that. Be carrying around my own water. Parkway, yeah, it's probably the courtesy cars, just not having to, I mean, not having to walk to the rental car center

or get in a, God forbid, get in a shuttle and go to a rental car center and then grab your car. Most weeks they just have the volunteers there at baggage claim and honestly, most of the time they drive the car right up to you. You throw your bags in and you go. That's not nothing. I know that when you described that it sounds... It's not. It's really not. Over 30 weeks a year, it makes a huge difference.

But then, you know, in the same vein, I just did four years, four years fully on tour. And by the end of, you know, maybe somewhere in the third year, definitely the fourth year, I wouldn't complain out loud to a volunteer, but I think it in my head, why are they giving us sedans with all the shit we travel with? Why are these just not all SUVs? So I just got to watch and enjoy that, you know, I have access to all of this. The biggest perk is they kind of go hand in hand, the ability to compete against on, in theory, more championship golf courses.

Not all, but most of them are more tougher tests and then competing against the best players in the world again. And the biggest perk, you know, would be frank about it is the access to more earnings. And that's, that's pretty much it. You know, I'll, I'll still probably be buying and bringing my own water. My poor caddy's got carried around. We've got it down pretty good where it doesn't, we definitely have. We are the only guys that the bag gets lighter as the round goes. Cause I pull the water out and I drink it. It's just a ridiculous thing and it led, I guess, I don't think it had

anything to do with it, but it led to some success. So we'll just keep doing that. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I'm not a big like nice hotel guy. The Airbnb is usually are nicer, but more expensive. So I don't know that I count that as a perk. We still found some really great houses to stay in, in some of these much smaller towns and they're super cheap. It's nice when the town, the area is obviously hosting an event, but they have no idea that they are. And most cities and towns on the Corn Tray Tour have no idea there's an event going on. Still some of the PGA Tour don't know, but most do and they charge us a premium.

You won back to back weeks spectacular fashion in May. Did you feel that coming? If I'm looking at it, you went cut, cut, cut, cut, T43, cut, T50, win, win, cut, cut after that. What happened in those two weeks? Yeah. Found it. two weeks? Yeah. Found it. Found it. Yeah. And I did feel it coming. Kansas City was the first event and I just remember walking

to the first tee on Thursday being like, oh shit, I really feel like I'm ready to win, ready to compete to win this tournament. In that, okay, so let's focus on a handful of things that aren't that. Let's not just constantly walk around saying, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win. It's let's focus on how I'm gonna give myself the best chance to win. And it was, it started in Kansas City.

It was, this is awful. This should come right to me. No, don't hit a shot without a clear intent. Don't hit a shot without a rehearsal to match that intent. So behind the ball, this is pre-shot. Accept the result post-shot. And then, you know, it was any any form of you know

walk with your head held high or you know breathe and accept and I would just check in my yardage book and yep do it walk look again yep do it walk and I did it for four days I had a whole lot of luck to win that golf tournament. I teed off on the 72nd hole in fourth place and wound up winning. And then, obviously, the next week, it's like, well, might as well just do the same thing. I did win them both in playoffs, which I am, if you don't,

if I never have to play another playoff again, that would be lovely. They're great problems to have, but you don't, if I never have to play another playoff again, that would be lovely. They're great problems to have, but I shouldn't have been in a playoff in the second one. I should have put that one away well before that and especially on the 72nd hole, but I didn't. And then, you know, it was just back to the same thing. Let's just get ready to hit each shot and accept where it goes and accept, you know, I remember that second week whole lot easier to To be thinking this way after you just won the week before but was like I was totally at peace with whether I won or lost this golf tournament if I

You know chunk the second we played the same part five over and over It's pretty reachable if I chunk the second one and it rolls all the way down the hill, whatever, I'm going to try my best on the next one and go from there. Obviously, certainly it's a whole lot easier if you just won, but I think that helped me. That helped me obviously to win the second one as well. Line up your first win when you bet this week on FanDuel America's number one sports book. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. They've got awesome live odds. They've got great odds. I always love taking a look at the odds going into Sunday on how a day is going to play out. But picking some winners on Twitter.

Get a lot of slack from people on there saying I'm not, you know, that I'm the cooler, all this stuff. Go back and look at my record. It's actually pretty decent on Sundays, if I may say. You could check out the live golf markets every week to stay in the action, even after the first T plus track, every shot live in the app and watch select par three holes. When you place your bets, just visit fanduel.com slash nlu and get $200 in bonus bets. FanDuel official betting operator of the PGA tour must be 21 and older, 18 and older in DC and President select states gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. First online real money wager, only $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-lunar trouble bonus bets,

which expire seven days after receipt, restriction supply, seed terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. Back to Harry Higgs. You had some pretty incredible remarks in the moment after your second win in relation to Grayson Murray's passing. And those comments made the rounds in the golf world and outside the golf world really. But I'm not really sure what my question is in relation to that. It's just an extremely difficult thing to talk about and address in a truly meaningful way.

It's not just lip service, but you managed to do that in that moment. And I don't know if you can take me to how you did that or kind of what your your real inspiration was there. Yeah I remember finishing on Friday no I think it was Saturday sorry excuse me Saturday and we go into the clubhouse to sign our scorecards and a couple of the corn fairy media folks come right up to me it's like we do we do you have a second? We need to we need to speak to you. And I'm you know, any number of things. But it seemed like something was wrong. So I'm thinking, you know, selfishly to my parents, my family, like, boy, what I mean, my dad was with me. So what's what's going on? What's going on? And they just, they had mentioned that Grayson had passed. Grayson had took his own life and they found that, you know, and honestly, I was surprised that they sought me out. I wouldn't have ever said, I mean, Grayson,

I would certainly have counted him as a friend. And our paths crossed a bunch in the, you know, handful of years that I was out on tour and the handful of years he was out on tour. I was surprised that they like beelined it right to me and wanted to make sure that I knew it wasn't like I was going on to do any interviews after the round or anything like that or anybody was going to ask me. I mean, I was just going to sign my card and change my shoes and leave. And then I just remember getting back to the house we were staying in in Knoxville and

we cooked up some dinner and put on whatever it was that we were watching. It felt like it might've been some NBA finals at that time or something, some kind of sport we were watching. And you know, it was an early night to bed to try to get some sleep. And I just remember laying in bed thinking, thinking back to like how they made it a point to come right to me and speak to me about how Grayson had passed. And then, you know, jump and fast forward and just thinking in my mind, if I am able to pull this out tomorrow, is there a way in which I could quote unquote honor Grayson and honor him just by speaking about how the struggles that he obviously went through and lived with

for his what seemed like almost, certainly his entire adult life. And then is there any way that you can shine a light? It's okay if you're not doing okay. We all need to be a whole lot nicer to each other. The one thing I did miss was we need to be a whole lot nicer to each other, but also we need to be nicer to ourselves because life, no matter which way, how you're living it or what you do, or life is just difficult. It should be joyful,

but it's difficult. Try to make it as joyful as possible. And then just be kind to one another. And it was, it was, I remember then, you know, playing and winning on Sunday. Great, very fortunate for me. Awesome to have a nice result. Shared a cool moment with my dad right after I'd finished. Cool moment with my caddy after I'd finished. Then they're setting up this award and all this stuff, and they're speaking on how the tournament director is thanking everybody and everything.

And they said, we would like you to say something afterwards. And I grabbed the microphone. It's like, guys, everybody has been thanked. There's nothing more that I could say. And then I kind of thought, well, this could be the moment to. You know, I think I just briefly said thanks to thanks to everybody has already been mentioned, but forgive me for speaking on it. And I, you know, I think I just briefly said thanks to thanks to everybody who's already been mentioned, but forgive me for speaking on it. And I, you know, I did reference, I started with we lost a member of our golf family,

which is super true. I mean, Sally, you'd be counted in the golf family, too. Like it is a small family. It's a small, it's a small sport. We're certainly trying to grow it, but it's a small sport. And everybody goes through very similar things, certainly those that play the game for a living. And we all get caught up in our own worlds every week,

if not all the time. And you're really just focused on me, me, me, me, me, me, me. So I was trying to maybe make a point that it's okay to also focus and reach out and see if the other guys that are around are doing okay, because I just don't see that happen a whole lot. And I don't do it a whole lot. I still need to do it more than I've done it since I've said these things.

Because again, you just get caught up in what I'm doing and what I wanna do. And that's fine, that's what makes us all great. But it's also what drives us crazy. And we need to do a much better job of taking care of ourselves and taking care of one another. We all know, you know, professional golfers, PJ Tour, Corn Fray Tour, PJ Tour, whatever it is,

Americas, Mini Tour Golf, like it's all the same thing. We are all striving for one thing. And I was speaking with a friend at Trinity Forest who brought up a really good point. There is, and we'd probably call them microtraumas. Every shot that you hit in theory in golf, you are trying to get it in the hole. Maybe not a T shot, right? Cause you can't get it all the way there, but are you trying to achieve a goal or get it in the hole? Most of the time, just get in the hole. The ball goes in the hole one time.

You're going to hit it two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times. In theory, every shot you hit will create like a micro trauma and it just adds up and it adds up. Then if you throw in results and money and status and all this other stuff that we in theory play for, that can become really, really burdensome. If you're not equipped personally to deal with it, it just amplifies it to the millionth degree. And most of us are equipped. And I would say Grayson was equipped to deal with it.

The man clearly for, I'd say probably that I'm just guessing here and forgive me for guessing, but for the better part of a decade went through some serious, serious mental struggles, mental illness, and still achieved all that he achieved in the game. Like that to me is remarkable. I couldn't imagine, you know, I've been blessed that I've just been frustrated and down on myself. It's not like, I'm sure the thoughts that have run through his mind before and how he was able to shake those and continue to get better, continue to work on himself, continue to work on his golf game and what he was able to achieve is truly remarkable. It's a sad way for the story to end, but it should open up our eyes and if not the whole

world's eyes, the golf world's eyes, the golf family's eyes. This is something that we need to continue to monitor, check in on your, your friends, your close friends, those that you're not that close with, make sure that they are still able to have some joy in this crazy game that we're trying to pursue at the highest levels. Yeah. So that, that was basically, I guess, all that I was trying to get across. And I think fortunately I did. And that has led to some conversations there, setting up a foundation, Grayson's parents and some of his closest friends from growing up, they're setting up a foundation. And I've helped, I guess, awareness-wise now and will always continue to help. This is, you know, suicide and mental illness has touched my family and some families very

close to me growing up. And then it also has now touched the golf family selfishly. You know, I'm tired of hearing it. I'm tired of hearing about people taking their own lives because it's you are loved, the world is better that you're here. But you know, that's a selfish thing for me to say, because I have not battled. Fortunately, I have not battled some of the things that these folks that do decide to take their own lives have battled. And I just I couldn't imagine how difficult that must be. So if I, or anybody listening, can make just even the smallest difference in somebody's life,

you never know what, you know, the classic adage, you never know what people's going through. You know, a smile and a, hey, how are you doing, could be a game changer. You don't know. And in theory, just in passing, you and I have already done that because we don't know what all these people that we have met or walked by or said hello to, you don't know how what their life is like, what what battles they are facing. So just, you know, trying to continue to do that, trying to continue to to, yes, work on myself, but also help others whenever I can and whenever I'm not stuck in my own damn world. It's okay to, oh, the golf wasn't that good today.

Bummer, but things move on. Can I go be kind to myself after that? And then can I go be kind to my loved ones and maybe kind to somebody that I do not even know for the remainder of this day? Because who knows the difference that might make? It's really well said. I think I kind of struggled for words when it happened just because it is this it is this like, I hate to even use this phrase of like a black box, a black box of like, if you don't deal with depression personally, and don't

don't have mental illness, it's a, it's a feeling that I would imagine is something you can't really explain, right? And you mentioned the Grayson Murray Foundation, their goal is to raise awareness regarding depression, addiction, and hopeful to advance mental health services, research, and all these things to help someone so that... I guess I always find it moving when a family is struck by tragedy, their instincts go towards helping somebody else and maybe not go through this and if it saves one single life, you know, it's a worthwhile endeavor. So I just appreciate your ability to kind of communicate that as someone that I haven't heard any other golfers speak to it the same way that you've been able to. Yeah, it is so personal.

Again, this has happened in my family, close friends, or close family friends. I think I remember shortly after, I remember Shane Lowry speaking on this with guys that he grew up with. Yeah, I mean, it is just the classic, like, especially, you know, for males, this is not something, you know, you're supposed to tough it out, deal with it, rub some dirt on it, which look, has worked for me, but it doesn't work for everybody. It probably doesn't work for the vast majority of people.

So it is okay to ask, ask your friends and ask your loved ones for help and if you're not comfortable asking them seek help from professionals. Fortunately it seems like it's easier and easier to find folks that are able to help you deal with some of these mental struggles. And yeah it's really hard to talk about because I personally have never dealt with this. I do not know what that's like. I have done charity events. We have heard the stories of some of the young kids that took their own lives and their parents. They immediately step up and speak on it. It's truly, truly moving. But I still, I've tried to educate myself as much as I can on kind of, I guess you'd say suicide prevention and mental health awareness, but I still only know just a tiny fraction of things that people could deal with.

And it's always, you're probably never going to know because it's always so personal to the person that's struggling. It's crazy hard to talk about. For me, it's not crazy hard to talk about the subject as a whole but to try to Talk and raise awareness to what these people might be going through That's the tough part because it is it's so personal so individual But yeah, I mean there's there's a ton of resources, you know Grayson and and his family They're setting up a foundation that will have even more and more resources. There's resources everywhere. I wish I was, you know, as I'm saying all this,

I, you know, I wish I knew how to direct people directly to these resources, but you're not supposed to be the expert on it. You're raising awareness, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It sucks. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're on a topic that's not fun to talk about, but speaking of raising awareness, you had a skin cancer scare of some kind. I don't know if I know the details behind that, but another. You can't really see it.

It's, yeah, man, I'm 30. What am I, 32? About to be 33. I'm getting old. But I had, yeah, I had some, I think it was squamous cell, which is just, they probably should rename that because it's just kind of a nasty name.

It was not a threat to my health, but it had to be cut off the side of my head. I do have a little scar here. And look, I wear sunscreen. There's a lot of talk about, you know, is it the sunscreen that's making us get cancer or is it the sun? I did bring those up to my dermatologist and she said, look, I've been doing this for 30 years in my experience. It's the sun. I did bring those up to my dermatologist and she said, look, I've been doing this for 30 years in my experience. It's the sun. So I'm continuing to wear sunscreen, especially as golfers. I know Justin Thomas reached out shortly thereafter. I think I did Miley show

and he might've seen it. That was when I had the gash out of his side of my head and they put the bandage on everything. I looked kind of silly, but he reached out and said basically the same thing. No one talks about this, we're in the sun all the time. I had some cut out of my leg. Justin is, he started a sunscreen company and he was gonna send me some sunscreen and I don't know whether it got lost in the mail or he might've forgotten.

He's about to be a new dad, so he's probably got other things on his mind. And I'm sure he made it to minute 49 of this podcast. Yeah, I'm more than capable of getting the sunscreen that I need on my own. But yeah, I mean, even stuff like that. I just, I just went to the eye doctor yesterday. I'm trying to figure all that out. Yeah. there's Just hear yourself just take care of yourself take care of yourself take care of your loved ones And then try to take care of people that you've never met before. That's the only way especially what what are we? Two weeks away from from an election where everything I mean, it's already been ratcheted up

But everything's gonna continue to get ratcheted up and one side hates the other. That's just not the way that it is. The way that it's being portrayed to us, it's not the way that it is. I do think people are extremely kind and extremely willing to help when they can. That's what I've experienced in the real world for 32 years. So I'm just trying to give that back and imploring others to do the same. Although I don't think they need me to tell them to do that because I do think that's the way that this world works. And if you're struggling, say something to somebody, tweet

me whatever, message me on Instagram if you're struggling. I will say as I continue to ramble on the coolest part about speaking about Grayson and speaking about kind of struggling with your mental health in Knoxville. I finished and I was very fortunate I was going to be able to get a flight home and just I think I'd done four or five weeks on the road and just get a night at home. And as I'm kind of packing up and there were probably a hundred maybe 150 people that I was speaking to during the little trophy ceremony and I had four different people come up to me and just mentioned that

they won. Thank you for saying what you did because they have been struggling mentally as well. And that was, you know, 15 minutes after I had pieced together just this little thing that I wanted to say to honor Grayson and say it's okay to reach out for help. I thought that was really cool. That's a selfish thing for me to feel that way certainly and be able to experience that. But I thought that was awesome. Take care of yourself, take care of your loved ones, take care of the people, take care of everybody, take care of everybody that's around you.

Well, on a completely different note, you took a nice big vacation this summer, a little European trip, you were live tweeting some of it. I think you're calling yourself an influencer. Yes, yes. Now, had you done a big European vacation like that before personally? What was that experience like?

First time I'd ever been to Europe, my travels had always extended to South America. And then we did the tournament in Japan when I was playing on tour. That was probably the furthest I'd been. It's very different over there. We did kind of like three, three, four days everywhere. We did London, we were able to make it to Wimbledon, which was sick. And then we did two different Greek islands, Santorini and Paros. And then we finished in kind of

the Tuscany region of Italy. Man, it was awesome. It was so cool to experience. One, the coolest part was being able to do it in the middle of the season because from the jump from January to usually November, I'm busy and just kind of tell everybody to piss off. I'm going to vanish and enjoy some time. This was your honeymoon, right? Yes, this was my honeymoon. Enjoy some time with my wife. We did jokingly. I think Cody, your Cody brought up a great point. We got married the week before Myrtle Beach. He brought up a great point. We got married the week before Myrtle Beach. And then I wound up getting into the event on Myrtle, you know, as an alternate on like Wednesday, I want to say it was.

And Cody had replied to the PGA Tour comms notification that I'm in the field. He's like, yeah, we always knew Harry Higgs was a big honeymoon and Myrtle kind of guy, which we all laughed at. And that was technically Myrtle's was a honeymoon destination but we were able to go over to Europe and experience some of the stuff over there. The food, the people, I mean it's different. People are what I think what came through the tweets people are maybe a little less aware of their surroundings in Europe and it's not necessarily Europeans it's

probably just the people that travel to Europe. That kind of drove me nuts, but we got through and then I don't, I would imagine it'll come out today or tomorrow. We are going to go down and play the two events in Australia here in, uh, really a couple of weeks over this might be breaking news, but I'm looking forward to that too. We're going to do the. Next week. So that'll be out by the time this comes out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to do the Australian PGA and the Australian Open. I watched, I think I made it through like four episodes of y'all's tour sauce. And then I jumped

as soon as I decided to go, I jumped right to the Kingston Heath episode, which I believe was the final one or maybe second to last final one? So I've already got a little, and I'll probably watch it again before I leave to try to get kind of the lay of the land. I'm very much looking forward to that. It was, it took me a couple of days to decide just because I really didn't want to do golf really at all this fall. I'm so looking forward to just having what was like two and a half months of nothing, but it's pretty once in a lifetime to get over there. I don't know that I'll ever be able to go to Australia again in my life. I hope that I will. I hope that I know that I'm going to enjoy the experience. So I hope that I'm maybe invited back

a couple more times throughout my career and be able to do that. I think I'll get along really well with the Australians. We'll bring out the influencer series again, maybe in Australia, but they're flying me over there so I gotta kind of say nice things. In the best way, Australia doesn't feel that different from the US, I don't think. I mean, you fly all the way over and it kind of, I mean, it doesn't look the same,

but like kind of suburbs are kind of set up relatively similar and it doesn't feel, I mean, Europe is different different Europe is totally different culture well you talk to the Italians in Tuscany and they're just you know and we did a night in Rome and they're all I mean there's like just different regions and all this I mean it they they count them all different anyway yeah it was so cool it's so cool to be able to do that in the middle of the year it's so cool to be able to do that in the middle of the year. It's so cool to, you know, share that with my wife. I was just beaming with pride basically that I was able to do this and do this right in the middle of the golf season. Like, yeah, I'm not the one

doing these trips in December. I was fortunate to have some success and bail, which if I start having that success again, we might turn around and go somewhere else in the middle of the season. I might just vanish, because it sure seemed like it worked. It was so funny talking with Alex Noren about how he like sets up his PGA tour schedule so he could lock up his points enough

to be able to spend time on Visby, an island in Sweden where we ran into him. I saw you guys there. Yeah, I mean, it looked like a great place. I would love to join Alex in that. You know, lock up enough points, maybe win one or two, and then just vanish. Talk about good for your mental health,

getting away from this stupid game, which I did a whole lot better of this year. And when I came back, I didn't really feel like I had lost a step. So it's certainly something. It's hard to be able to do it with how everything's set up, especially with how this next year for me is going to be. But again, if I get off to some nice success, maybe you take a trip or you just leave.

You just come home and I take a trip during any event. If we get it good enough, I'll miss an elevated event. That's fine. Those guys can have all their points and have all their money. I'm going to go enjoy life. Try to enjoy life outside of golf. Well, there's something too about getting to Europe about the stress levels lower over there. It's, it depends on where you are. But you ride a lot of places, right? That tube in London, but that stress levels through the roof.

Yeah. You get to some places where, you know, they drive crazy. I mean, I'm not going to go to the tube in London, but that stress levels through the roof. You get to some places where, you know, they drive, you know, it could be a little, a little stressful, but people are just better at recreating. I think over there of just sitting around and yeah, all like sitting in a restaurant for hours. Yeah. All day. Yeah. That. And then Santorini is beautiful, but

it is stressful. There are five or six cruise ships every day and those people come right to where you're staying. That is a if I, you know, I think I've mentioned it in my influencer series. That's a that's a one or two night. Go see it, get a great room and then get out. Paros was much more our vibe right on the beach. Not a whole lot of tourists,

still the same great food. My wife is damn near half Greek now. She's drinking coffee the way they make it. We've got feta cheese all the time. She loved it. So we'll definitely have to get back there. And who knows, experience some other places too. Do you get recognized anywhere you go in Europe?

Did anybody say hello to you? One time, one time we were in Rome. We had gone, what's the Trevi Fountain? She just wanted to see that. We got there in the evening and then we were flying out the next morning. So we went and had some dinner, walked over the Trevi Fountain

and we were actually walking back to the hotel. And some I think he was a college aged kid, I think he's somewhere here in Texas, I can't remember the school he mentioned. But literally, we just we walked by these him and his girlfriend. And as we got past them, all I heard was Harry. And I'm turning around thinking it's somebody that I know based on you know how he how he phrased it. Now we took a picture. Obviously asked me what I was doing here. Ran away and hide but trying to hide from everybody. Now that was it one

time. I think there was a couple there was a couple times in London and especially at Wimbledon when we were there that you have, I don't know that they noticed me per se, but you walk by people and they kind of, they look and they look and they look and they look. They don't say anything. You can certainly say something to me if you do recognize me. I'm not going to, I'll take the time to say hello to you. But no, yeah, once. So that was odd. I thought I made it through the whole trip. We did have a, my wife and I had a bet whether or not I'd be recognized.

And I said, I think I will. I think at least once somebody will say something to me. And sure enough- You slid a little, you maybe slid 20 euros out of some kid to pretend like you recognized him. Yeah, just say Harry. Come on. My wife would think it's so cool.

You don't know who I am, you don't know. There was some kind of SMU connection with him. I think he said he wanted to go there, but ended up going somewhere else. Wanted to try to go there and walk on the golf team. So that's kind of like low hanging fruit. But yeah, other than that. This is the guy that took his shirt off.

Remember that video? I didn't get the shirt off. That's usually what I get. I can hear it a lot. I still hear it a lot. That will never happen again. That will never happen again. I was just rewatching you tell that story on our, it's just a freaking awesome story. It was, I mean, it was basically a day and a half story of them, others trying to get me to do it.

I guess now I think it's come full circle enough that I'm glad I did it, but I, but I'm in the same vein. I'm really tired of hearing about it. Sure. You know, I would much rather just be remembered for more. So now who I who I am and how I treat people, but also just like the golf that I play and maybe the results that I'm fortunate enough to get not the guy that took his shirt off, but it differentiates me, which is hard to do in this game. And I have certainly had some nice opportunities come my way.

And I didn't take it off. I just lifted it up. So on a technicality, I get a lot of people on that too. Joel straight up took his shirt off. We had to get redressed in the tunnel on the way to 17. That was something. Well, can you give us, I know you're not directly involved in this process, but do you got any updates for us on

live, PIF, PGA tour, like if you had to even guess like what, what is the whole I know it's all here is that it's complicated. Do you know like what the specifics are? It's certainly complicated. It cannot be this complicated. There are in Italy, this is all let are, and this is all, let's disclaimer, this is all my opinion, because I am out of those rooms now and I do not have access to anything. And I don't think anybody on our player advisory council

or even, I mean, some of the guys on the board would know, but they've set up a, we're in the subcommittees now to try to figure this shit out. Transaction subcommittee. Yeah, this is silly. Transaction subcommittee. Yeah. This is silly. I don't know whether it was last night, but I was scrolling Twitter and Charles Barkley spoke on it either last night or recently.

Just basically called everybody idiots. You need to just get this done. Look, there are some guys that we are probably going to want to play the PGA Tour. Those guys probably don't want to play PGA Tour events. And then the real holdup is probably still the lawsuit, like how do we punish those that were named in the lawsuit against the Tour if we want them to come back and play? My thought is, you know, if we get this influx of capital from the PIF, then all these guys that are, you know are moving and shaking and trying

to change everything, let's just get them all under contract. Let's just give 20 guys a $10 million a year contract, and then we can tell them where they need to play, which they won't like. So they probably won't agree to any of this. But let's just put them all under contract, and then to some degree, tell them where they need to play. Then we can kind of grow in the areas that we need to grow and leave everything else. Certainly it seems like we're going to shorten up membership and access and all that stuff, but just leave everything else as it's going to be.

There's probably 20 guys in the game of golf, maybe a little bit more, but there's probably 20 guys in the game of golf that actually grow little bit more, but there's probably 20 guys in the game of golf that actually grow the sport. Let's get them under contract. Let's pay them. If Liv's going to continue to exist, which it seems like right now it will, they got to do a couple Liv team events and then they got to do whatever, probably the elevated events and the majors here and that's that. That's what their contract, and that's that. That's what their contract says, and that's that. And then, you know, have it where if there's 20 guys

under contract, there's four or five that quote unquote get relegated and there's another four or five that play their way into the contract group. And then you get, you know, paid to just play the game and you know where you're gonna go. You're gonna go around the world some, and you're gonna play the PGA Tour some, and you're gonna play the game and you know where you're gonna go. You're gonna go around the world some and you're gonna play the PGA Tour some and you're gonna play the majors.

It just can't be that hard to figure that. That's my thought on, I don't think anybody's gonna be playing under contract because as golfers, we like some freedom. But this shit's taking this long. Let's get rid of some freedom and let's use those that actually grow the game to grow the game. Growing the game is not the right thing to say.

The game is probably fine. To grow the brand. Interest in the pro level. Interest in it, yeah. Dude, it's dying. The ratings don't lie. Yeah, it is dying. Rather than not the ratings had fallen this year,

probably wouldn't even be, like it's dying anyway. And the ratings are certainly proving that but at the ratings stay the same. It's still the same old stale four day, you know, people are really only tuning into I'd say a max of 10 events a year. It's just silly. It feels silly that this is this is taking this long and it feels silly that there we have all these subcommittees and committee this, committee that. No disrespect because there's a lot of smart people that play this game that are on these committees.

But they're in the business of me. They're in the business of just them. Let's get some folks that are, and to some degree they are in there with the investment we've already had from whatever the heck they call themselves, SSG, whatever it is. Let's just go ahead and let them decide. Let's not hold anything up. If I was to guess, and this is just a total guess, I think ripping up the media deal and starting over would be so everyone can get on the same timeline seems to be, nobody wants to do that at the tour level when it's average of $700 million a year. That's a huge revenue stream for them. I know we've hounded on this for going on a decade now,

but under a current 18 minute per hour commercial load, there's just not that much room to make it more entertaining and to draw that many more listeners. And networks feel squeezed on the cost. $700 million a year is a huge revenue stream. It's still not enough. I mean, we had to seek outside investment. So just rip it up.

Rip it up. Rip it up, and let's do something different. Won't call you guys out, but they're, you know, at least one of the networks is really no good at telling the damn story either. I mean, they're just not. Let's get, maybe let's partner with somebody else. It's all, I mean, it's all shit as of right now.

It's all shit, whatever, and they're still just deciding to change everything, you know, or not change everything, but change little things. It's all shit. Whatever. And they're still just deciding to change everything. Not change everything, but change little things. Let's just change it all. Let's just... And if I get one more damn email about the progress that's being made without any details, I mean, unsubscribe. Just send me the email when you know the details on both the change in eligibility and maybe field sizes,

whatever the hell else they're trying to change, and the update on the PIF and LIV merger wouldn't be the right word, but deal. Just, I don't care. Stop saying you're having productive meetings. Clearly you're not. You've been having productive meetings for the better part of two years. They're not that productive if you can't get this

shit. No, it's gone. That might be one of the one things I'm most excited for is when I walk into locker rooms and clubhouses and player dining, I'll get to see more of the suits this year. And maybe just in passing, just ask them, how's it going? What's going on? Uh, maybe give them a few choice words here and there. But at the end of the day, if I just do, if I just do good golf for me, it'll all take care of itself. I, you know, we're just beyond caring at this point.

It's, I care, I care about, I care about pro golf and Golf and all these people that are in these meetings and trying to make these decisions do care about Pro Golf too. But for some reason, they don't care enough to just to get it done and move it forward. It's baffling to me. I'm cool, man. If the guys on Liv and we make this deal, they want to come back and play the tour. That's fine. I'd like to see some kind of punishment for those that listed themselves in lawsuits. But I mean, it could be a service. I don't give a shit. We don't need their money back. I mean, it's just like, let's just do it. Let's just do it. We should be. Yeah, let's just figure it out. But, credit to them, they lasted this long

to get us to the point where no one gives a shit. If you asked me this question two years ago, I'd say, you know, ban them all, ban them all. Take the PIF money and ban them all. But I should go, you were on November 22, I think it was the most recent full pod we'd done. I should go back and listen to what the novelist said has changed.

I bet I did say, ban them all. Screw all the guys that listed themselves in a lawsuit against us, all that. And yeah, kudos to them. They lasted long enough that at least I don't give a shit. And it seems like most everybody else's give a shit meter is at an all time low. And we just want, we just want pro golf to be in a better spot. Totally. Well, let's end on this one, a more fun one. I feel like I've seen this on, you know, this is this gets, this is on the meme accounts, these little fun hypothetical questions, but this one, this one's like, I don't know.

There's a bunch of these, but a hundred yard hole, you have 24 hours, like normal hundred yard hole, you have 24 hours to make a hole in one. You make it, you win $10 million, you do not make one, you go to jail for a month. You try. Yeah, yeah, 100%. I think that's a, what if you go to jail for a year?

Year's probably getting a little closer. But I think I still do it. But you bet, you lose $10 million if you don't. That's a little tougher. I think 24 hours make a hole in one is a lot. And at 100 yards, like 150. It's a different question. Yeah, 200.

100 yards, I mean, in theory, I could be done with 100 yards in 15 minutes. Yeah. I mean, you could be done with it in five. You could also, the game is stupid. We're hitting a ball on a field on a spinning rock that is the earth. The game is dumb. Like, you could be there for 24 hours and never even really come that close. But 100 yards, I'm pretty, I'd probably do anything. 100 yards, 24 hours. I think I would even bet that 10 million.

Yeah. Prison for a month, nothing. Prison for a year. Real prison though. Real. No, no easy prison. I'd have to ask Scotty what it's like, but I'm trying to avoid prison with all of my being. But yeah, I bet I could figure it out. I bet I could figure it out. I bet you could. I bet you could.

All right, we're gonna let you go. Always appreciate your insights, Harry. Thanks for spending some time with us. Congrats on the success this year. Look forward, I know everyone's gonna be rooting for you in the coming year. Can't wait to watch you down in Australia. Get to, I don't know if you're gonna have time

to get to Royal Melbourne, because I know you gotta learn two golf courses for- Yeah, the plan is to... And I think at some point today, well, I guess it'll be later today because the Aussies will wake up. The plan is to go to Melbourne first to knock out at least one of those two. So basically, I'm trying to avoid as many 18-hole practice rounds as I can because the second week the Aussie opened two courses.

And if that comes together, then it might be like that Kingston Heath or Victoria one day and then try to mosey my way into Royal Melbourne and then head to Brisbane. Again, I'm going to certainly try because I'm flying 17 hours across the world. I might as well give it a shot. I mean, it's, it's tier one.

It is, there's no, there's no, Do you, can you play because the tournament golf course is a composite of both. Can you play the composite? Yeah, I didn't figure it out. I mean, not if they do it a couple, But the way everybody speaks on it, it's like, it doesn't really matter.

I mean, the West is where you, where I would suggest you play of the two and it's like it doesn't really matter. I mean, the West is where I would suggest you play of the two and it's 12 of the 18 composite holes. And you go across a paddock to play 13 through 16 or kind of like the back holes that you skip on the composite routing. You play eight and nine on the West, which are not in the composite routing as well. And the six East holes that are in the composite

are fantastic holes. And then the East kind of leaves that main area. It does leave the main area and has kind of some neighborhood holes that are awesome. They're cool, but it's a different vibe than like that main area. It'd be hard to do that in a tournament, but yeah. Yeah, you can't. It makes a ton of sense when you see it, but I mean, you just can't, West is, you can't go wrong with that. It's just a fin unbelievable golf course. I may have to bug you or somebody for a contact if we can get on that right one there.

That will be there. And that he would love. So, yeah, we're trying to fly halfway across the world. You should do it. Yeah. Oh, I plan on it. Sweet. All right, Harry, best of luck, man.

Thanks for your time, as always. Take care. Yeah, thank you, Sal. I enjoyed it. Cheers. For FanDuel, it must be 21 older and present in select states. For Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, we're 18 and older and present in DC.

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