No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 412: Mav McNealy

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

Mav McNealy returns to reflect on his experience on the PGA Tour so far, his vicious club twirl at Pebble, his philosophy on trying to get the most out of his game, what he's learned, what he still needs to work on, and so much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast. Solid here. Got an interview for you today with Maverick McNeely. We were fortunate enough to sit down with Maverick for about an hour actually at the Callaway

Shoot during the Players Championship week. Shout out to our friends at Callaway that helped set up the interview. Give us some of their time with Maverick for our listeners to hear some of his story. And we had him on, I think episode 177 back in the fall of 2018 had Maverick on. So we covered a lot of his background in that time period. He was on the corn fairy tour at the time. We kind of reflect on where he was at that point and how much things have changed for

him in the time since then and as you might expect from Our experience with Maverick. It's it's really interesting stuff. He's one of the more thoughtful guys out on tour Really enjoyed catching up with him. Of course, no-ling up is brought to you by a precision pro golf It is hopefully wherever you live getting to be golf season if it's not already golf season No matter what your goals are for this year precision pro golf can probably help you there. We're going to talk about a couple ways how. First off there are award winning range finders give golfers a reliable number to the target. It could be whether you're aiming at the flag or trying to avoid a hazard trying to gun you know a hill in the distance a tree in the distance. Whatever it is. Everyone here at No Laying Up uses an NX9 slope. It's got all the features that golfers love.

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finder, the NX9 slope swing with confidence hit more greens with precision pro golf. Here's mapping nearly. All right, so what do you think my first question is going to be about? Probably the club, the club twer. I knew you'd know it. I absolutely knew you'd know it.

I walk it up the fair. I go, yeah, Sully probably like that one. Oh, God, you don't need to feed me like that. If you're thinking about that, the 72nd hole of the tournament. So what I saw on TV at Pebble Beach was somebody in contention at a tournament that was absolutely sending it. It was, there was no hesitation swings.

There was almost no sign of nerves. It looked like somebody that was just going out to try to get it. Am I, am I on point with how you were feeling in that moment? You're correct for the second 17 holes of that round. Okay. The first round I made probably the most soft,

timid, wimpy bogey of the tournament and walking to the second tee, walked back about 150 yards. I just, I said, I don't care what happens. I'm not gonna hit one more timid, wimpy, scared, nervous, whatever you want to call it, shot the rest of the day. And it is actually pretty liberating, standing over every shot, going, I have one job and just don't be timid here.

Be aggressive, be committed. And that's what I did. I picked the line just left of the tree on 18 roasted one and picked a line at the 18 and T logo roasted one into the green and it's a lot more fun way to play. Well, is that something you feel like you've done in the past in those situations where you've kind of battled some just being timid or whatnot? What causes that? I mean, it's easy to tell yourself, hey, I'm going to just swing with utmost confidence and aggression all day, but how do you actually channel that and put it into play?

And what kind of an effect can that have on golf shots compared to like being timid or soft or conservative doesn't necessarily lead to better, safer, conservative shots. You know what I mean? Correct. Yeah. I'm usually pretty calculated on how I go about things. But I've noticed that I've been in contention to win a couple times and haven't performed how I wanted to out here. I had a chance to win at the Barakuda last year, didn't really finish how I wanted to. Even getting going on some Sundays, it seems like it leveled off, and after making that bogey on one, where I just took one less club off the tee because I was afraid it

might run into the bunker to try to rip an eight iron instead of smoothing a seven iron to get it back to the pin, rolled off the front and two kinda very poor putts ended up making a bogey there. I noticed the pattern there and just said, man, if I snap hook this one, I don't care. As long as I gave it a rip and I really gave myself an opportunity to hit a great shot.

I didn't hit perfect shots all day. I hit a couple of bad ones, but I could live with it because I knew it was coming from a place that I was trying to hit a great one. Do you think that's going to be something that is easy? Never the right word, but easy to channel in the future. As far as, you know, now that you've had a taste of that in the final round, do you think that's gonna be something you can draw on?

Definitely. That being said, it's still recognizing my tendency and knowing where my body and my mind go in those situations. It's gonna come up again, and again, sometimes I just don't recognize it as quickly as I'd like to, but when I do, I feel like I have a really effective override or way to deal with it, and I've kind of enjoyed this kind of mindset, which is, you said something along the lines of, and this may have been the program that we played at Hazeltein, but along the lines of, you don't worry too much about your bad golf, and that your pro-golf career is going to be defined

by getting the most out of your good golf. Meaning, you don't beat yourself up too much about miscuts. It's mostly just like, hey, how do I get the most out of when I'm playing well? Does that sound right? Maybe you can define that in better terms. Yeah, I totally agree. The way professional golf is structured is very exponential. So the difference between 55th and 56th is tiny compared to the difference between 1st and 2nd. And the difference between 2nd second and tied for second, which

was what that birdie on 18 got me was I think in the ballpark of 70 points, which is a top 10. So it's a game within a game and when you're playing well you have to really optimize and just take advantage of your opportunities. And it makes sense when you're good stuff going and you're climbing up that leaderboard, it gets more exciting, it gets more fun. That's what people care about. That's what they're watching on TV. The harsh reality is nobody really cares who's in 55th.

So it's kind of a game within a game. You gotta play well enough the first 60 holes to give yourself an opportunity to feel those things and feel those nerves and that pressure. And then it's another game to figure out how to execute and finish higher up on the leaderboard where you want to. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Maybe it's just because we've had this discussion in the past.

But I see, like, so far this season, you've made seven cuts and your top 25 and five of them. So there's not a lot of those kind of middling around in that 40th place. It seems like when you do make the cut, you have been able to take it inside that top 20, whatever that may be. Am I reading too much into that? Or do you see? Yeah, it's definitely a pattern.

If you tee it up on Sunday and you're in 40th place, you pin your ears back. Because like I said, the difference between a 69 and a 70 is not that big compared to the difference between a 69 and a 70 is not that big compared to the difference between a 64 and a 65. So it's also a lot of fun on the PGA tour that you can move up the leaderboard with the pair of 69s on the weekend.

You don't have to shoot 64, 63 like you did on the Cornfairy tour, especially if you make the cut on a number. Some places separate more, but it feels like solid golf gets you a lot further out here than it does on the corn fairy and Racking up a bunch of 20 25th place finishes is a quick way to keep your card Take me there because what is it that's interesting about

You know harder being it harder to separate yourself maybe on the corn fairy tour I don't know if this phrase or this saying makes any sense But I almost think at least at times are in some way it's harder to make it to the PGA tour than it is to stay on the PGA tour or compete on the PGA tour. Am I on the right train to thought with any of that? I think you're correct for most players. I think the Corn Ferry tour is a mentally really, really challenging. I'd say as far as golf skills go, the PGA tour is a much more difficult test, but the season on the Cornfairy Challenge is a mental grind.

Played 30 events my first two seasons out there, and that takes a different toll on your body and your mind. That's not 30 spread out over 52 weeks. That's 30 spread out over a lot less weeks than that. It's not spaced out like PJ Tour. Exactly. And look at the top. There's kind of to Alex PGA tour. Exactly, exactly. And then you look at the top, you know, there's kind of three tours within the tour on the PGA tour. There's the just got on the tour tour. There's the on the tour

tour. And then there's the top 50 in the world tour. And those guys are playing WGCs and majors and building their schedule around 15 to 20 events playing 22 maybe 23 if that There's the just got on the tour tour, which is the corn fairy category where you're playing every event you get in You're trying to reshuffle and those first five six events you play are so important to keep Getting those starts and then there's the 125 tour, which is where I am right now in those starts and then there's the 125 tour which is where I am right now. I'm finished 68 from the FedEx couple last year where I'm picking my schedule. I've got a better idea which courses I like and which ones I don't. You're in the players which you for the first time correct?

Exactly. I was sitting here second alternate last year as the world started to end so. But yeah, it's very different but I think the PGA Tour suits me better because even when I don't have my best stuff, I can manage my way around to a respectable finish better than you can on a track race at the Corde Freight Tour. That makes a lot of sense. I forget if it was on the pod when we talked or if it was before that or even after that, but I felt like your perspective on your talent level was interesting.

And it wasn't coming from a place of non-covenant, it was just more of awareness. I think you talked about in the pod just talking about your success at Stanford. Do you felt a bit like careering for lack of a better word? In terms of you played better for a stretch of time than you thought was represented maybe underneath

at the roots of your game. One, is that accurate way of summing it up. And two, has that evolved over the last few years. And I say that again, it's not in, you're not down on yourself necessarily, but you needed to be aware of all of what was going to take to be at a sustained level. Correct, yeah. I feel like my results really outpaced my experience in 2015. I went from kind of a part-time golfer, more full-time hockey player,

to being a top ranked amateur in the world in about two years. A little bit of that was just ignorance. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. I just go out there and really enjoyed these feelings. I was feeling coming down the stretch. Hit great shots, had sky-high confidence, felt like I couldn't hit it outside at 10 feet with a 9 iron and just took dead aim at the flag. And then started to struggle a little bit, especially starting on tour. Didn't see the immediate success that I think a lot of people expected of me because they see one or two or three guys a year do it. That doesn't mean it's easy or it's you know something to be expected of someone.

And I really struggled for a while with parts of my game, but I think that foundation is a lot more solid now. I think I'm a way better player now than I was in college. That's for sure. In college, I made the cut in a bunch of PJ tour events, but I don't think I finished inside the top 50, maybe 55, 45, something like that. And now I have more shots, I'm more experienced with different conditions, I know how to handle a season better, the stresses of a season. But still, to me, it's so impressive what these guys do, they come out and they win in their first 10, 15 starts. It's so impressive. He's got the curve up for so many guys, right?

He becomes like a, why hasn't Oxygen Batia dominating out there? It's like, well, guys, man, it takes most people a lot of time to get to this point. Yeah, guys, yeah. Dustin Johnson wasn't Dustin Johnson until a couple of years older than I am now. But no one's saying he didn't get there fast enough because he's the best player in the world. So it's interesting. I mean, you just you can't beat yourself up too much for not being where you want to be. But if that being said, I just I'm having a lot of fun. It's been fun trying to make little gains here and there. Because you can't race past so many of the things that I think I just I see a confidence in you now that it comes from a just a better foundation.

Now, is that is that accurate? Would you say that is accurate? It's it's funny before pebble. I didn't play well in Palm Springs, missed the cut at Tori, which is a place that I love playing at and going to pebble my game felt great, which said I was swinging at best. He's ever seen putting felt pretty good. And I was just thinking, man, what else do I have to do? I feel like I'm doing everything right. I'm doing everything well right now. I'm not seeing the results. I was a little frustrated, and then I'd go out there

and play great. And I go, huh, I guess I wasn't that far off. Just be a little more patient with myself, and don't stress about it. But I think there is another thing too. That wasn't the strongest field at Pebble. Now we're playing with pretty much all of the top 100 players in the world this week at

the players. I have noticed that there's another level at those invetational tournaments. The greens are faster and firmer. The ruffs longer, the fairways are tighter, and the players are better, and it's another level. And so now that's my focus. This week at the players is, do I expect myself to contend? No, am I going to do everything I can, obviously,

but I'm going to learn a lot about what I need to do to make that next jump and to be really, really good at playing in these conditions and at this level. Because I said there's a tour within the tour and I think I'm getting better. The opposite field events, I feel like I've played in pretty well. They're closer to a corn fairy setup

than they are to the players or an Arnold Palmer invetational or RIV or something like that. But I feel like I'm learning and I'm getting more experience in those conditions. And when I say learning, I mean it's just a familiarity with shots that you have to hit. There's tighter lies, you have to spin it off a tighter lie, you have to hit a putt with more brake and less speed, you have to kind of shape a driver in to hold the fairway. Things like that that, you know, say a Puerto Rico or Puntacana or even Tahoe,

you don't have to, you just rip it. And there's just a little bit more level of difficulty obviously in these events. Let's take a quick break here to checking with our friends at Golf Blueprint. I know you guys have heard me talk about Golf Blueprint. If you are serious about getting better at golf, or you want to be serious about getting better at golf, you need to practice. A lot of players don't know how to practice. I would include myself in this.

I go to the range, a few A-direns, hit a few six irons, hope to find it. I never really had a plan until I started working with these guys. I kind of put too much emphasis on what, you know, what happened in the most recent rounds, what I've been recently struggling with, kind of misjudged the areas of the game that needed work. Golf Plueprint, they use an algorithm of decades of research

on learning theory, predictive analytics, and golf data to create kind of a one-of-a-kind improvement plan tailored to your game. It's focused and structured practice. It's just like if you were going to the gym, like you needed stuff written out, at least I do. I need something written out what I need to be doing each day. How many sets of this, blah, blah, blah.

It's just like that. It's just like a personal training program. Go to their website, golf blueprint.com. You're going to see a great quote from one DJ, Pie Howski, raving exactly about that, about it being a personal training program. You can see all kinds of crazy stats about how much people have improved using their product.

Their average improvement, 2.7 strokes in three months, several of the higher handicap golfers improved by five to six shots. So currently there's like a master's week slash no-lingup discount that those that committed them to the rest of the winner receive 15% off monthly membership dues. And winter members have first access

to full season memberships starting up here in the spring. So go to golf blueprint.com slash join. You can get all kinds of information about how you can get better at golf through the golf blueprint practice plans. So go to golf blueprint.com slash join to find out a bunch of information about how you can get better at golf through their practice plans. Let's get back to Madden Ely. It seems that the question that is asked on the PGA tour emphasized more on the PGA tour than the Corn Ferry tour. And it just comes from truly a limit in golf courses can do this.

But it seems the demand on driver seems, I don't know if exponentially it's the right word, but it seems way, way greater on the PGA tours. That's something you have felt in your last two years here on tour. For sure. I think that's one of the things that's helped me on the PGA tour is I'm not the longest and I'm not the straightest, but I'm a pretty good combination of the two. And the more chances I have to hit driver, the easier it is for me to separate because it's really hard to make pars from the rough on the PGA tour unless you're hitting at 370

like we saw, but the rough is thicker and the greens are firmer. It just becomes harder to hit the greens. It's less, you have less control over where you leave the ball and the up and down is more difficult. And in that way, driving is more important, but I will still say that putting is the great separator. It's so much easier to gain four strokes shots around putting then it is

in any part of the game and Luckily, the holes the same size everywhere we go It's so help me out with out of that is easier to gain that in and I think in the short in the short term Right, I would say and we've emphasized a lot of Mark Brody and all the strokes game would and put a ton of emphasis on emphasized a lot, Mark Brody and all the strokes game would put a ton of emphasis on strokes gain off the tee and approaching the green, right? But big separators round by round. It's hard to gain You can't gain four shots off the tee. I mean Bryson and his best round doesn't do that But you can gain four strokes on the green. Yeah, Bryson. Yeah, Bryson led the tour last year at 1.001 strokes gained off the tee And there were 15 guys that gained more than one stroke around on average putting. So there's and Bryson was one of them. So he had a great

year. But yeah, I you know my recipe is always going to be gaining a few shots with the driver not losing with the approach. Cleaning up around the green chipping it inside eight to ten feet where I can give my putter a realistic chance, and wait for one of those weeks that I do gain 7, 8, 9 shots putting, and that's when we start house and fun. Tell me about that. You say you said not losing strokes approach. Why is that goal different than some of the other goals? That's the weakest part of my game right now.

It's been improving, and I've gained strokes approach in almost every event so far this year except for Amix. A few to many water balls there, but for me at least last year that was what I needed to do. I had a really, really good year with the putter, but it's also good because I feel like if that stuff in the middle, you have to drive it well and if I put it well, I can make up for a lot of imperfections in the middle by managing my ball to the right spots exactly. Yeah, you can kind of play smart. You can't play smart off the tee You still have to hit the fairway and you can't play smart putting you have to make the putt but You can kind of manage this stuff in the middle. Does anything related to numbers?

So I think about this a lot with numbers I'm almost scared from like my personal game to like really look at and understand the numbers. Does anything when you look at them, does anything feel very different in real life than it looks on paper to you? Yeah, yeah, it does. Like I wonder about some of these guys with driver. I feel like I'm absolutely smoking the driver and you look up and I'm losing strokes to the rest of the field. You know, I just wanted to do anything like that, sticks out. I think it's all, it all kind of lines up where I think, but one of the interesting things that I have,

I've been tracking, and this is kind of, this will kind of answer that question, is strikes. And for me, a strike is either a penalty shot, a two chip, so you miss the green inside 50 yards, or a three putt and I think the average listener will go well that's got to be easy for a pro they should never do that. I found that if I have one or less per round I'll be in the top 10 and it almost never fails. So what rounds where I have strikes my stroke

skewed sucks if you know because you're basically adding three quarters of a shot every time you have a strike and at Pebble I had one strike for the week and that was when I was called for a penalty when my ball moved behind the fifth green. So yeah it's no strikes and I have a chance to win. So it's interesting and it's a different mindset when you play to avoid penalty shots, leave the ball in a spot where you're gonna have a putt for par and have good speed. Because I think, yeah, you touch on it there. When you watch golf on TV, you don't see a lot of those holes where a guy is totally at a position,

has to punch out to 65 yards, goes just long with, like you just don't, usually the guys in contention aren't doing that. But those things happen over the course of 72 holes to a lot, a lot of players. But they do. It's, you'd be surprised. I think I'd say the tour averages one around at least. Hmm. That'd be an interesting one to, to, to track. Because you, yeah, you're talking about how, you said, you seem very in tune with what all of these numbers mean.

You say that costs you 0.75 strokes. So it sounds like you are very much in these numbers. What have you, what have you learned? What has that taught you? What's, if we were sitting here two, three years ago, what could you teach yourself, the old version of yourself in that regard? Well, I actually have a guy that helps me with all that now, getting Hunter Stewart. He was my walkup partner. He takes a deep dive into all my stats. So I don't have to worry about it now. He'll just tell me you're, you suck from a hundred to one twenty five. So I'll go do some wedge numbers and wedge combines. But no, he it's very helpful. I would still say that avoiding strikes is one of the most important things you can do. And you know, you have to work on hitting the driver in the center of the face to do that. You have to work on controlling a one way miss with your iron shots and like what I always do, putting is just work on speed and do those three things tend to help your score But yeah, it's there's there's a lot to be learned, but I'd rather just not do that all myself and have someone

Just give me one or two or three bullet points that I can go Three actionable things that I can go work on and make myself better that I can go three actionable things that I can go work on and make myself better. What's the value of getting to play with? I have imagined to this point, you know, a wide variety of other PGA tour pros and seeing the things they do, seeing the places they hit it.

For me personally, playing with even many, many tour level pros, like watching three drives go bang, bang, bang, right there. When I got up to hit my ball, it helped. It was just like, okay, now I've saw where the good players are trying to hit this right at my eye my eye line changed my focus changed so much differently you know than any other golf at any other level. Have you experienced any that at the PJ tour level?

Definitely. I've everyone on the PJ tour does something really really well like everyone talks a lot about trying to improve your weaknesses, but one of the things that guys do out here is they always bring their big guns. They always have their strengths with them. Their strengths are a strength. Rory didn't drive it good, he probably wouldn't play great, but every week he drives it great. For me, that's my putting and my driving. If my putting and my driving are sharp, I'm going to be fine. I mean, it doesn't guarantee I'm going to be in the top 10, but I can't neglect my strengths.

And that's what I've noticed that everyone spends a lot of time more than you'd think, making sure that the best parts of their game are completely sharp and firing on all cylinders. And it is fun to watch for sure. What's interesting in here and you talk about that too is I feel like approaching the green is the stat that correlates the highest with scoring. That's where you have the most upside currently

by your own definition that that's what you need to improve on the most. So if you got these other things down and you start really honing on that, you should not exponentially rise in what you're trying to be, but that should be, that's your path to improving, it sounds like. Promise admit, it'd been gulf a lot easier if I didn't have to chip as much.

You mentioned a couple things, one being butch, and I want to get to that, but you mentioned also the stressors of tour life. Couple seasons under your belt now of doing that. What are the stressors of tour life? I would say that the lack of practice time is one of the stressors. And I know that sounds really weird, but we play so much golf. I play probably 100 holes a week when I'm on tour.

That's 27 practice roundholes, 9 a day, and 72 holes of tournament golf. And if you do that 25 times that's 2500 holes. And when you come home you have 25 weeks, you're gonna take some time off, play a little bit at home, but you just don't have the time that you do in college to sit there and beat balls and figure stuff out. Really had to streamline things. Fitness has been a tough one.

I was in really good shape in college and high school played a lot of ice hockey, but you don't have as much energy when around a golf you're walking five, six miles. That's been a learning curve for me trying to be more disciplined with at least doing a little something on the road a couple days a week and then working out more and even practicing less at home, making sure that my body is good to go for a three, four week stretch when I hit the road again. Another one that I've been playing around with

is just trying to get good meals, trying to figure out how to eat well, looking at running some houses instead of staying at hotels with a kitchen so that I can at least make something or stay with a couple people where we're cooking, trading, trading, cooking every night. That stuff makes a big difference for me too. That's interesting too, because I think that, when I travel to, you know, you're trying to balance,

especially with golf, like your timing is one kind of a little bit weather dependent. If it's a bad weather day, you're gonna want to practice. Well, it's good, blah, blah. Your tea times are gonna be different Thursday and Friday depending on how you play. You don't know what your tea times are going to be Saturday, Sunday. You don't aren't able to get into a routine. When you're trying to eat healthy, the routine

is difficult, right? They're going to have food at the course, but it might not be what you're trying to eat. It might not be at the timing you're looking at. That's something I don't hear people talk about a lot, but I think it's a very real thing, especially if you're going to unfamiliar locations. You don't have the places you know to go, you know, the smoothie place here, the blah blah blah. That seems, that's interesting. I don't think I've ever heard anybody bring that up, but I feel that when I travel too. Yeah, we have really good food on the PGA tour and dining. I still bring an avocado. It's something I learned on the Corn Ferry, where we didn't quite have PGA tour level culinary experiences, I'll call them in the in the player dining and I just bring an avocado for every meal

I just add that to whatever I'm eating and it lasts me a little bit longer and I still do that here but eating dinners restaurants get a little old after a while and sometimes you just want something super plain and simple and healthy and old after a while and sometimes you just want something super plain and simple and healthy and chicken and a vegetable or something that she make at home. So that's a lot easier to do with a kitchen than in a residence in. Well, I always struggle to with fitness. You mentioned balancing fitness with, you know, rest and all these things because for me, when I'm like lifting weights or if I'm in the gym and then I'm going to go play golf same day or the next day, my body is kind of adjusting to maybe I just don't work out

enough and I'm not at a level of fitness to actually have that body adjustment but it feels tough to balance. I wonder about these dudes, I'm Bryce and the different category, but finishes around a golf and goes and lifts afterwards and how you balance your body throughout the course of a week while also trying to get rest. That sounds like you mentioned that as a challenge as well. The heaviest weight I touch during a tournament week is two pounds. I do a lot of shoulder rotator cuff stuff, a lot of stretching bands, a lot of resistance

bands and stuff like that. So I'm not fatiguing myself. I'm just activating things, keeping things and trying not to lose a bunch of strength. I always work out after I play on the road. But when I'm home, I work out before I play. I kind of like to force myself to play and practice tired and just get myself up and out of bed to the gym appointment that I got to make and get myself going on my off week. So that's been a better routine that I've established lately.

And partially out of necessity, I kind of strained my shoulder middle of last year and golf is so hard when you're not 100%. So I realize that I do need to make a little bit more of an effort to maintain that and have a fitness level just to not get hurt. A baseline level of strength and fitness that will protect me over the course of the year. Cause even last week, I was getting physically tired hacking out of that

rough. It's that was nasty. And that's another thing that I think people don't appreciate. The golf isn't grueling in itself. Like you see a lot of different body types out on tour and professional golf. And it's not like football and all that. But you are relying on so much of your body and core being there day after day to establish a route. Otherwise, you're not lasting four rounds. If your body is different every single day drastically, there's no way you can have a game that is able to overcome

all of that. Yeah, for sure. I see a ton when I go home and skate. I feel like if I haven't skated for three months, I feel like I haven't touched a stick in a year. And I can't cut as hard as I used to. I can't shoot as hard as I used to. And that's, for me, a big wake-up call that, man,

I know I'm swinging a golf club every day, so it doesn't seem like I'm losing too much speed and strength. But it's a very similar motion and I see it very drastically and it went into something that I haven't done for a couple months so I'm sure if I took a golf swing from today and if I didn't work out for two months and made another golf swing two months from now it would be a huge difference. What's the biggest highlight pairing you've had so far out on the PGA Tour? I played on Saturday with Steve Stricker.

That was a lot of fun. Talk about the nicest guy on the planet. This year's Ryder Cup captain. That was pretty cool. I would say, it was fun playing with Jason Day and Brian Stewart on Sunday at Pebble. That was pretty cool. But one of the things I've also started to do is try and play practice rounds with more good players and just watch what they do Ask them a few questions about their process and any highlights there played a practice round with Rory at

CJ Cup didn't get in but that was fun either way. It's a productive week anyways. Yeah, definitely I just played with Web Simpson and Bubba Watson today. That was fun and entertaining the just played with Web Simpson and Bubba Watson today. That was fun and entertaining. The cut Bubba hit off 18 at Sawgrass was nasty. He started that thing over the 13th green and sliced it back to the right side of the fairway. It was right of the cart path and he didn't even blink. It was, I saw it and I went, oh my gosh.

And that thing came right back perfect. And even if he hits in the water, he's dropping way up there, so not a bad shot. I don't have that one. Think of, think of Bubba whatever you want. He is the guy that I'm always like, if you go, people that are going to go watch golf, they're like, hey, who should I go see? Go watch Bubba. That dude plays golf different than most guys, almost everybody onto it. I don't know how he aims, but he just gets up there and rips it and high low cuts draws. I mean it was really fun to watch today. I wanted that too. What's the difference

between aiming 65 yards right and 70 yards right for how much for how much he cuts it? Well let's talk a bit about Butch in the kind of I guess how I know I've read a little bit about some stuff he's helped you with. Is he officially he's officially coaches you is that correct? Yeah we've been working together for almost two years now. Okay, and how did that, you know, how did that relationship come about? Daniel started working with him a couple months before and I was really struggling with my swing and I was searching. Just, how definition of searching it was a new feel, a new thought every day, or sometimes two in a single day.

And my head was spinning and I just wanted some simplicity. And Danielle mentioned that, said, oh, yeah, by the way, if you ever want a second opinion butch said he'd be happy to. Really? He'd see me. And so I went in and I was hitting balls, warming up and just hitting a couple nine irons, kind of three quarter nine irons just getting loose and he came and watched me hit three and he goes, all right, come on inside, I see what you're doing, we'll get

you cleaned up, I'll show you on the video. I was like, I haven't even hit a full shot yet. And sure enough, we've been working on the same thing just about two years later. The guys like, guys like a broken record sometimes, wide to wide, lots of body rotation, but it works. And we've been working on the same stuff for almost two years and getting better and better at it, and the results are showing, which is really cool. Wide to wide is just width in the backswing and on the follow-through. Correct. And if you look at Tiger Woods 2000, he's wide wide and has a ton of body rotation.

And I don't think anyone's ever hit the golf ball better. Is the width come from arms, like arm distance from your body? Or is it more in the wrists? Because I'm trying to learn more about the golf swing. I don't know a lot about it. Every time I learn something about like my own swing, it's like a new length. I never I've never thought about my wrist before, right? What was your knowledge of the golf swing like before this and has he helped kind of with your general understanding? Because it's as a pro you can't just always be reliant on your on your coach there to fix it. So you have to understand it and know what to look for and know how to fix it. Mid-round, mid-tournament in all kinds of

scenarios. So yeah, I mean I still imagine one of the first thing Butch told me to do. He said, there's two things we got to do. We got to get you not backing up through the ball, and we got to get you more width on the backswing. And so he stood behind me down the line a little bit in front of me and just said, try and hit me in the belly with your club on the way back. And so I was really hanging on my left side and backing up. And so he got me to really feel like I was trying to hit him in the belly on the way back and then just go as hard as I want forward through the golf ball, which felt really weird and really strange, but it's been way better and picked up speed, hitting it more solid,

and it's a lot more repeatable for sure. Because it's not only knowledge of a swing and knowing what to look for with a coach, it's also the way it gets communicated to you. So what's his style like? You've been through a couple of things there, but I've worked with some with, you know, Cory Lumberg and Cameron McCormick at Altus, and they've asked me questions and stuff while I do it. And that gets me working on it, right? Instead of them telling me what to do, they're asking me things that make me think about it. And that leads to an understanding. Yeah. I think what separates butch from anyone else I've ever seen is just how good his eye is. He can, like I said, he saw me hit three shots and knew what to tell me with those

three shots. People ask him if he uses track man much, he says, I have two track men. And they go, oh, really how do you use that? Because yeah, they're the ones right between my ears. And he is an incredible eye. We have these plaques at his range in golf academy at Rio Seco that are from 50 to 150 yards, six by six metal plaques that we hit wedges out all day.

And he is 100% on early calling. He'll call it before this wedge apex and he goes, bang, and every single time, bang. Right off the plaque, I said, you're really good at that. He goes, well, I've seen a lot of shots. And the way he delivers the message too is so concise, so clear, and he's got a lot of different ways of saying the right thing and somehow knows the right way to say it on a given day.

Because yeah, I'm always just wondered, you know, at your guy's level, when things are going well or not well or different, things are varying, it's not usually by much. Is that fair to say? I mean, do you look at golf swings you make and see things that really stick out to you now, or is the difference so small that you almost need a different set of eyes to see it? I think you can actually see it. You just have to know what to look for. Yeah. And it's not obviously, I'm not butcherman. I don't know what to look for as well as he does. He knows exactly what to look for and what he sees. But as he shows me that, I start to see it pretty clearly.

And I can tell when I'm backing up, I can tell when I'm getting a little narrow on the way back or hanging on my left side. But that just comes from repetition. And when we go into to get video, he's using the video to show me. He already knows what I'm doing, which is reverse of what I think a lot of other coaches do, but that's just the way he works. He's very old school, but more than anything, the most valuable thing from Butch is I go there

and have a ton of fun just hitting balls and practicing and hanging out with him. And he really believes, he makes you feel confident in yourself. He makes you feel that he believes in you and you walk out of there feeling like you can go shoot 65 every time. Because those those sessions are more mental exercises than they are physical a lot of the time. Is that fair to say? That is true. Because they're in charge of your psyche too. They're in charge of pumping you up, getting you confident, getting your swagger back, because you swing the club best when you have swagger. So part of their exercise is just getting your brain kind of out of the way. Absolutely. Yeah. It's, he pumps you up with confidence, but it's a good

confidence. And when Buch tells you you're doing something right, you feel really good. That's very, very point. Well, all right. We made it 30 minutes before the name Danielle came up, which you brought up first, which I was, that was my trigger. If you brought it up, I was going to be able to ask. No kidding. Your girlfriend is somewhat famously, I'd say, Danielle Kang on the LPGA tour. What's it like having a partner that's kind of on the same journey that you're on?

You know, same professional golf journey. That path is diverges a lot because you guys are in two different locations a lot of the time, but what's, what's that been like? It's been really cool you know practice partner I mean you're practicing with a talk-five player in the world for a couple years you're gonna get better it's she has a really unique approach to the game and it's been really cool to kind of get inside her head and and hear what she's thinking how she she plays shots, how she approaches things, everything from managing her team to playing golf and she sees shots. She tells me she sees shots

like an onion sometimes and then just eliminates the ones that aren't going to work, picks one and hits it. And the number of times she'll draw it with wind off the right to a tucked right pin is really funny to me, but she always throws it in there about 10 feet and works out great. But it's also cool too because this is a very unique lifestyle that we have where on the road as much as we are and the things we encounter in a day to day life as a professional golfer are pretty unique and it's cool to have someone that understands that. And you don't, I imagine there's a you know not there's a language that you both speak right that you don't have to try to relay a way you're feeling about something right you just skip past that and

probably are able to you know connect on a totally different level rather than I'm struggling with this this and this you know somebody that is doing the exact same thing has to be able to understand those things. Yeah, for sure. She's been on tour since, I think, 2010. She's been doing this for 10 years, and so I'm a newbie compared to that. There's so many experiences she's had on the golf course

that, you know, I feel a little bit more prepared having her approach to it, how things went, things that she did well, things that she didn't, and it's cool. Honestly, all she tells me is just to be patient with myself and trust myself and not to feel like everything has to come together immediately. Well, I think I asked this when we shot the video at Hazel team, but I think I said,

are you guys similar personalities or different personalities? What was your answer to that? No, very different personalities. But same values. That was your rehearsed line. So I think having such a public relationship, too, what has that been like? Has it has gone on? It's, I mean, I I'm a pretty private person I don't have social media I don't

partially for a lot of reasons I just don't really like social media there's a lot of good that can and does come from it but honestly I just I just like to be in my home bubble sometimes I like to do my own thing and that being said, we have a pretty cool setup that we get to go practice out at TPC Summerlin Abunds and it's definitely different. I tell my caddy all the time to answer your question about being public is we'd be walking down the fairway and this person will just have their phone out videoing us walking down the fairway and I looked at Travis and said, you know, it's really, really strange that for six and a half hours a day, we're in a social scenario where it's socially acceptable to take a video of somebody else just in the open.

You're not going to walk down the aisle of a grocery store filming someone, but that's what we're doing. We're in an area where there's cameras on us all the time. People can take pictures and all that, and it's just different. But it comes with a territory, and sometimes it's just kind of weird to me. But it's really cool that people take an interest, and if people didn't take an interest, I wouldn't have a job. You are in the entertainment business. It's weird, I think I would imagine, to grow playing golf.

You're in the competitive golf business for a long time, and then all of a sudden at the biggest stage, now you're in the entertainment business. It's different. So, who gets recognized in public more when you guys are together? You were her. Definitely her. Every time I get recognized, and she does, and it's a huge deal.

It's happened twice, not that I'm counting. I may have been queued in on one of those stories when we were getting ready for this, but it happened recently to you Is that new bartham is telling me that when we were out there somewhere and you said you were gonna hold it over her head forever Oh, yeah, we were also playing night golf at Angel Park in Vegas one time and I hit this gap wedge and there are a couple high school kids out there And they said wait, are you Maverick McNeely? Could we get a picture and so Danielle took the picture and then he go, wait, you're Danielle Kay. And so I was pretty happy about that. Well, so again, last time we chatted was,

I believe between, it was fall of 2018, it was gonna be between your two corn fairy seasons, right? So you finished 63rd on the money list in year one and then you graduated to 23rd in year two. A lot change in that time period. Take us back to those corn fairy days, right? Where, you know, you're out there being a professional for the first time and, you know, you're, again, we covered this in the past, but you're dealing with the perception that people think you're flying private and, you know, this, this

funded journey that a lot of people think you're on, but you set the scene very well at the time of how that wasn't the case. But how did you get from that level where you're kind of struggling on the corn fairy tour but keeping your status to now being a PGA tour professional? I like the PGA tour a lot. This is the tour you want to be on if you're playing professional golf.

I love the fact that all the promotions in our game are just earned. It's very cut and dry, what you have to do, if you want to get into a tournament. Well, here's the criteria you have to meet. You have to shoot this many shots. You have to win this tournament, and you've got to make this number on the money list.

And you have complete control, and you also have complete ownership over that. And I think that's really cool. No one's opinion of your golf game matters, whether you keep your card or not, no one's opinion of you as a person matters. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but that's just the way it goes.

You gotta get to 125 or better to keep your card. You gotta get to top 30 to make East Lake. And it's really fun to know that any week you can completely change your life as a golfer. If you win, you change your life, especially having not won before. And that's really cool to get up and because I feel so fortunate that we have that ability because that's something that's pretty rare for a lot of people that if I was the players champion in six days that would completely change my life. Well I remember reading Ryan Labner's piece. Ryan helps me prepare a lot for interviews

because he's done a lot of great work. It is very well archived. Just about some of the things you kind of experienced of all the consecutive events and times of burnout already on that, you know, young, into your young career. Kind of take us there. What, what that was like, you know, this grind of corn fairy is, you don't get to pick and choose your weeks. Like you, you need to play a lot of those events to try to get on the PGA tour, but at the same time, trying to find the balance of what helps you play your best golf. It sounds like something a lesson you learned along the way. Yeah, it's, um, I learned it really well towards the end of my second season on the Corn Fairy Tour.

I had gotten off to a great start, finished second in the fifth event in the year, and then really struggled again through the middle of the season. And I think there were eight events left before Portland, which was the last, last event of the regular season. And I was up to I think 10th or something in the Corn Fairy Points list and I was just slowly bleeding as the year went on and I fell outside the top 30. I was just trying to hang on, grinding out cuts and not really doing anything on the

weekend was considering playing 9 in a row. And finally, I just actually just started working with Butch 2 and I was hitting it great or much better at least and felt like I was giving myself a chance. And finally I finished, I forget which tournament it was, but I finished your mind right. We'll have a couple chances to go play great here at the end of the season. So I went home. I remember I didn't practice for three or four days. I just built a couple dressers from IKEA for my apartment and just did stuff around the house,

soaked up some air conditioning, slept a lot, did a little bit of working out, a little bit of hockey, and then went to the Bay Area early before the Elime Classic. Play some golf with my brothers, shot 65 at my home course, and went out and finished third at the Elime Classic, which locked up my card. And that was a lesson to me that doing more doesn't necessarily equate to more. Less is more sometimes. It's a cliche, but it really took, really needed to be hit over the head with that message

to, for it to sink in that sometimes just making sure that your body is happy and healthy and rested is all you need to do. How insane does nine in a row sound to you now? There's no chance I would want to do nine in a row. I would, that's some act. What's your max, you think? I'd say last year, my max was five or six this year, four, but I'm going to try and keep it to three. And when I go home, I want to have more two week breaks. So this season's been really busy, but I have three weeks off after Honda, which will be great. If I play the play the Masters by something great happening in the next couple of weeks.

I will gladly shorten that break, but I'm really excited for a three-week break to just reset, and I'm sure I'll be feeling great when I head back to Hilton Head. What does a reset do, or I guess on the opposite end of that, what does week four of four in a row look like? What are you trying to overcome? I know fatigue is easy answer, but mentally is it just harder to stay in a competitive mindset for that many weeks in a row? Honestly, I feel like my competitive mindset gets better as the week goes. It's a routine I am traveling and it becomes a very nice rhythm. I

do think that the fatigue and the mental sharpness isn't quite there. The strength, your body feeling good, and that club starts to feel a little bit heavy, especially in those summer months. But also, when I know I'm playing four weeks in a row, I won't do as much stuff in the first week. I'll take a little bit more rest time, I won't practice as much, and if I feel like I'm only playing two in a row, I can do everything I feel like I need to do Monday through Wednesday of week one and not worry about burning out for week four.

Interesting. And I know we covered this in pretty great detail last time you were on just about how, how it was reported when you had mentioned that you were potentially looking to do, go a different career route than professional golf. And how that kind of put you off while on a bad foot with a decent amount of people in the golf world. Do you think you're still kind of dealing with that at all? Do you still feel that at all? Or do

that feel like such a such a big part of your past? Honestly, there's a lot of people that write some poorly informed pieces. I still see that too. And that's what I'm just kind of amazed that it people just latch onto these things that you know They they learn one or two things about a person and they stay with that no matter how many times that person says Hey, that's kind of different than how it actually was. Yeah, I it's that's not to say that if I Decided not to plug off and I pursued a regular job that I would be successful There's there's no guarantee of that. I didn't have job offers. I was just a 16-year-old that didn't know what I wanted to do with my life

yet. God, you're 16 when you said that. Yeah, well, I might have been 15, but yeah. No, you know what? That's a lie. I was probably 17 or 18, but yeah, it's not like I was gonna walk into immediate success in the business world. I was still just a college grad. I'm proud of the degree I got in Management Science and Engineering, but that's what I had. And I was gonna go apply for jobs like everyone else in my class was doing, or just get a job anywhere I could and try and work as hard as I can to be the best I could at it. That was my plan if I didn't know how to do a job anywhere I could and try and work as hard as I can to be the best I could at it. That was my plan if I didn't play golf.

People love to talk about my dad and his career and how things went for him and how that must set me up for my life. But one of the things that I love about golf is that I made the five footer because I put a good stroke on it. And I can take ownership of that and feel really good about it. It's nothing's handed to you in golf and I take a little bit of pride in that for sure. Yeah, I'll say it this way. If it was only about being rich as a kid, every rich kid would grow up to be a successful golfer. It doesn't work that way.

It's not, that's what, you know, reading, you know, some of this stuff and talking to you and knowing you, like knowing how far away all of that must feel when you're on the road and Springfield on the Corn Ferry tour and like needing to get that ball in the hole and like knowing that your background, yeah, your background helped you, you know, get into golf the way a lot of people has for a lot of people. But like you said, that score you write down on the card is what gets you to the PGA tour. I think what people don't understand or probably wouldn't believe is, you know, I stay at the residence in. I, you know, I'm working on my Marriott points.

I live in a 1300 square foot apartment with two other guys. I was really pumped because I changed apartments, and now we're on the second floor, so I can have the windows open. I've driven my mom's 2011 Ford Explorer until it grew basically into the ground, and I finally bought my first car. And my dad was joking because I ordered a new Ford Explorer.

My brother works for Ford. He writes software for Ford, and so I supported his company, ordered a new Ford Explorer. My brother works for Ford. He writes software for Ford. And so I supported his company, got a new Ford Explorer. And that was the Tuesday of Pebble. And my dad called my caddy and goes, watch, Matt's gonna play good this week because he doesn't want a deep, too deep in his pocket. But yeah, that's just how I am.

And I'm really happy. I love, I live with Joseph Bramlett and one of my other buddies from Stanford and I'm so happy. But I can ask that a different way then. Are you cheap? It sounds like your dad thinks you're cheap. Are stingy, is that a better way? I don't, I have a hard time spending money on myself. I really do. I love taking care of the people that take care of me. That's one of my core life goals, but it's hard to spend money on myself. Do you and Danielle try to get your off weeks to line up? Is that a luxury you're afforded in any way?

No, we work around our own schedules independently. We play the events we need to play to play great. She's got her eyes set on being the number one player in the world and playing in the Olympics and has a ton of goals. And as her boyfriend, I want to support her and do everything I can to help her reach those goals. And I'm trying to win on the PGA tour and she's doing the same for me and we're going to do everything we can to help each other make those things work. And if it lines up in our schedule that we have an off week and we can easily travel to

a tournament or both get to be home, that's awesome. But we're trying to play great golf. That's what I was going to say too, is with traveling to each other's events, that probably can't be that easy either. Because when you're off not playing, you probably want to be home resting. Like, you want to get the most out of that rest week. So it's probably not as super easy to just jet all over the place to each other's events. No, I was a big fan of the couple weeks here in Florida where the LPJ and PJ Tour are

playing together. But yeah, on the topic of the LPJ tour, I think it'd be really cool to see a ladies' players championship talking about it this week. Have them have an event that is their own and built for them and, you know, the girls have game. They're really good players and, man, I just love to see them showcased for the shot-making abilities, the ball control abilities, and the exciting golf that they can play. I feel like somebody once pointed out that every time we talk about women's golf,

we kind of sound like Magic Johnson talking about basketball, like saying the most obvious stuff, but it is, I just want to scream it from the mountain tops, like anytime you get to watch the women play, how crazy relatable their game is, how not, relatable is not the right word. It is so much more, it's a better blueprint for so many other amateur golfers out there. Yes.

It's just like the ball just goes where they want it to go. It just goes right there. And Daniel says it too. She says if you're comparing the men's and the women's game, you're missing the point. You we want to showcase the best of their game for what it is, and it's really fun to watch. And we are even talking today about how Bubba was saying he loves watching LPGA golf, because they look like they're out there having fun. There's no complain in, there's no wine in, there's no slouching.

They're just, they have great attitudes, they hit great golf shots, and it's, don't challenge them to a closest to the hole or a straightest drive contest because you will get fleeced. I remember saying, I said this to Danielle at Hazelty enough that Pro Am, and I felt bad how I said it because it was so dumb, but I just said, we had to like hole 17 and she made it like you had another birdie and I was like,

you are really good and That's just like was the overwhelming sense. I had at the end of that day. It wasn't it wasn't like I don't know Just I'm so impressed with every aspect of her game or distance control her mid-range putting all of these things And I just I hope I want people to appreciate that in every way possible because it's it's been a lot of fun for us to follow That's fun to wash good golf. Yeah, it really is. So, well, Matt, thanks for coming back on, man. Really appreciate it. I had a lot to catch up on and I hope I didn't beat you too hard with all the repetitive questions.

But I know our listeners would enjoy here in Fremue and we're enjoying seeing you have success on the tour. Now, you guys are good and thanks for fighting the good fight and doing what you guys do. It's a lot of fun. Great. I appreciate it. Cheers, bud.

Thanks. Good luck, club. Be the right club. Be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most.

Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different.

Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different.

Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different. Expect anything different