No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 465: Tom Whitney

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

From nuclear missile operations to the Korn Ferry Tour, Tom Whitney joins us to chat about the (lengthy) 2020-2021 Korn Ferry season, how much it means to have Korn Ferry status locked up for next year, his unique military background, personal tragedy, and so much more.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Laying Up Podcast, Sully here. A very different episode today as we chatted with Tom Whitney of Cornfairy Tour fame. He's got a very interesting background coming from the Air Force Academy. Spent four years in the military before committing full time

to professional golf. We talk all about his story. It's pretty amazing. All about his John's through Latin America tour, how hard he's worked just to get Cornfairy tour status and how much it means to him and his family. As we approach here, the final week of the Cornfairy regular season, thought that would be a very topical

conversation. And some lessons to be learned from Tom on the back end as well about a personal tragedy. The Haney and his family have gone through. And what he's doing to help people in similar situations. I promise, please stick around for that. It's it's a pretty important message, I'd say. No, laying up is brought to you of course by precision pro golf. We are ecstatic about the NX9 slope rangefinder.

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no-lang up at checkout for $25 off our favorite rangefinder. That's precisionprogolf.com. Use coupon code no. Lang up at checkout for $25 off our favorite range fighter. That's the NX 9 slope swing with confidence. Hit more greens with precision pro golf. Here's Tom Whitty. All right. To start things off, what kind of weight is off your shoulders to be secured in the top 75 heading into the final week of the regular season here on the corn fairy tour? Oh Oh man, yeah, you have no idea. You know, this, I'm at the most advanced place I have been in my career. As far as status goes, you know, there's different echelons of playing on many tours and having status on a developmental tour, you know, Latin form.

And then there's conditional Corn Ferry status. There's full status, but eligible for reshuffle, which is what I was or what I am currently. And, you know, now I'm full status exempt from reshuffle, so just a little higher tier. You know, it's been a long time coming. My, I was sitting with my wife last night, we were watching the Americans on Amazon Prime. And just kind of, again, relishing to the fact that, hey, I have a job next year. I've secured it, and she made the comment that it took, you know, seven years, and I'm like, man, when you say it that way,

it sounds kind of bad. But, you know, it's been a lot of fun, two years on Latin, a few years on mini tours, a few years on web and corn fairy and each year I'm learning more and getting better and getting closer to that PGA tour carat. I mean, we could be talking in another four weeks and I have that PGA tour status. That's interesting because before I got into golf, I thought, I cannot stress enough how little I thought about the importance and the value of corn fairy tourist status.

And you know, getting to know a few corn fairy guys around Jacksonville has helped that a lot. And like just tracking a few of them, the stress that comes in trying to get top 75 on corn fairy tour. Again, only the die hards, golf fans get care enough about that, but I was planning to ask you what that means to get in that Top 75, and I think you just answered it with the very first answer there. Yeah, it is a complete load-off, and it's crazy how much it changes the mindset, just going in tournaments and preparing throughout the week. It's crazy how much it changes the mindset just going in tournaments and preparing throughout the week.

So I actually just flew home from Salt Lake City. I flew to Dallas and route to Omaha. I'm on the last flight of the night there today. And then I'm going to do a nine hole program and just do a little preparation, but my swing is feeling really good. Going into the regular season championship, had I not secured status, I just, I wouldn't have this freedom. You know, I'd be thinking I need to be out there chipping and

putting and making sure everything's tuned. And, you know, when I even, even out there, I got to be logged in eight hours a day and make sure that I'm fully prepared. And sometimes you can over exhaust yourself doing that. When in reality, you should just be trusting what you've got. Yeah, fortunately I'm on the right side of things right now where I can just be confident in my current swing and do the prep that I'm comfortable doing and look forward to team it up on Thursday. How do you possibly even schedule out a corn fairy schedule? And then I don't know if

that's a separate question for this mega season, which we can talk some about here, but it once it hits, like it does not take breaks, you know, maybe there's one break at a, and yet the same time you're trying to balance playing your best possible golf. And how do you go about balancing? It was even maximum amount of weeks that you will play in a row. And that's a very different question to ask somebody on the corn fairy tour than it is a PGA tour, I think. Yeah. And I have an answer, but I haven't held to it this year, and I think you can just blame COVID

and the two-year schedule and just how crazy all this has been. But normally, I prefer to be out there no longer than four weeks at a time, mainly because I have four kids at home and my awesome wife runs things while I'm gone and I'm home for two days and it is exhausting chasing these kids around and and keeping them alive and feeding them and following them to practices and exoccurriculars and laundry and dishes and oh man. I mean hands down my wife has the more difficult job.

It's grueling now. It's awesome and I love it but yeah out of respect for her and me loving being with my kids and seeing them grow and in advance and learn you know I want to be home as much as I can and Cornferry is very difficult to make that happen. Like you said, come March, they usually go anywhere from 14 to 17 weeks in a row without stopping. And that's where the battle begins of picking and choosing which events you're going to skip. You're going to fall on the points list when you do that.

But again, on the other side of things, that's no different than over-exhausting yourself and missing a cut. It's kind of the same result. So, you know, I'm 32, I'm a decade removed from being out of college. I'm no longer a young, eager college graduate, and, you know, my body's getting older. I can feel it. And those decisions are also realizing my peak performances and I can't grind for six, seven weeks in a row like some of these young guys can. Well, what is this season been like? Admittedly, I've struggled to kind of keep up with it just with, you know, it being as long as it has been and just seeing, you know, some of the guys we were rooting for, you know, seeing them have a top finish and barely move up the standings,

just because there's so many points available and it just seems like one of the, the grindiest of the grind and you've seen a lot of grind in your career, talking about what this mega season really has been like from a competitive standpoint. Man, Sully, I've struggled to keep up with it, just like you. Yeah, it's been crazy. I mean, we had a few tournaments last year.

What is that start of 2020? Yeah, we had a couple international events and then everything halted for a few months. And I mean, that was just completely insane for me to be home. March, April, May, little bit of June with no travel. You know, so we had this mid-season, off-season. And then once we picked up again, there were very few breaks through the end of 2020. And that was kind of one of the difficult schedule and conversations I had to have with

my wife Jess's look like I kind of just had an off season and I'm going to have to break kind of my four-week maxes because sometimes we would go five weeks and then a week off and it just it wouldn't make sense for me to skip one of those when I'm going to have a week off, you know, in one or two more weeks that's built into the schedule. I'm very fortunate that my wife was supportive and really let me build my own schedule the way that I needed to and was comfortable with. And she just kind of trusted me in that and we made it work over these long two years. This was my first off season that I've honestly had in my seven year full time career as a golfer, you know, because they did this two year mega season.

So once we finished in mid-October, we didn't start again until February, I think it was. And, you know, there really wasn't much else to play in. I didn't go seeking out tournaments across the nation over in Florida or California or anything. I just kind of really enjoyed the time with the family and worked on my swing and my fitness. And yeah, this two years has been a blur, man. I'm trying to remind myself where I was and what month

and what year it was and it's all the same season. Yeah, I mean, home stretch or in the home stretch. Yeah. I am doing the math here. You're 61st currently. You are locked into the top 75. You have secured corn fairy status for next year.

Yet if I'm doing the math right, you can win this coming week and not get in the top 25 for the PGA tour. Am I doing that right? That's how many points have been given out so far this year? Oh, yeah, you're totally correct. You know, this is kind of, I think when my buddies told me I'm playing with house money on this one because I can't lose my status more can I improve it. So honestly, this is just going to be a really fun week in Omaha who knows maybe I'll go at every flag and get creative on some shots. Maybe we'll try to input more fades than I normally do. Just kind of preparing for the three finals events. That's to be determined, but there's no pressure on it.

I am now, I'm no longer on that bubble. You've said like five things that make it very clear that you're probably gonna go out and play the best week of your season, right? You're taking your preparation of a lighter? Yeah. It's so true, man. When you interterments with no expectations,

it's crazy how focused and unbothered you can be on the golf course. My first Monday qualifier I ever got through, I had just won the Waterloo Open a couple weeks prior. I had just completed the Colorado State Open. And then that Sunday evening, I drove from Denver to Salt Lake City. And I had been on the road for,

I think five weeks at that time. Obviously, Waterloo was a big check. I didn't really want to be out there in Utah for the web event. But I was signed up, I was playing good golf, and my two options were I don't get through the qualifier and I get to go home and spend the week with my family, or I do get through the qualifier and I get to play my first web.com event. And played the course blind, had a college kid from the area that had played the course a decent number of times, and he coached me through.

I think it was a five or six-under round to get through the, to get into the playoff, and then we got through that, and lo and behold, with no expectations, I'm in my first web event, you know, three, four years ago. Hmm. Talk to me about the grind of Monday qualifiers. It's, you know, it's something that I think is, you know, come more to light in recent years and the appreciation for that grind.

I still just, I struggle a ton with the finances of it, of like the probability of getting through the cost of it, the flight, do you get a practice round? How do you, you know, how have you handled that in your career, I guess? You know, you guys fight so, so, so hard, just for any entrance to any professional tournaments. And just take me to the Monday qualifier mindset and how you weighed which ones you would try for

and which ones you wouldn't. Yeah, let's see, I've probably spent three, maybe four years kind of chasing Mondays. So when I left the Air Force in May of 2014, that's kind of when I started playing full time, anything I could get in. So I'm sure I did a number of Mondays that year and then did them all in 15 and then 16 I Latin so I didn't really do many but then 17 and 18 I had the coveted conditional status on web.com which meant I was going to every single Monday qualifier trying to get in because if I had a good week I could reshuffle and I

will tell you that position is percatory. It's not a fun place to be. It's a different location in the tournament course so each tournament usually has two courses in the peak of the Monday qualifying season. You're looking at 150 guys on each course ever since this season they've dropped the qualifying spots to four per golf course So you know when you look at us open locals you're talking five spots out of 90 players and These cornferer Mondays you're now talking four spots out of 150 players So you're going to these courses that are sometimes a couple hours away. Yeah, you mentioned practice rounds. They're not always guaranteed a number of

times I've showed up and they have a member of that going on in the morning or some sort of shotgun and there really isn't much regard for the pros that are all teased up on Monday. A lot of times I've played with amateurs for my practice rounds. You're very lucky if you get an entire group of professionals that are all kind of charting the course in the same way. But yeah, to grind your pain for your flights, your pain for your entry fee, your pain for your practice round, you're probably buying a couple buckets of balls all in the hopes that you can

tee it up and then spend more money by staying in a hotel even longer and purchasing a caddy for the week and Really hoping you make the cut just so you can even scratch to breaking even for the week and Yeah, it's just tiring when I was when I had my conditional status in my first year, when it was web.com in 2017, I was right on the bubble for, I would say a majority of the season. So I would have to sign up for these Mondays. I would have to commit energy and time on the Monday, qualifier course, doing practice around on Sunday,

playing the qualifier on Monday. And I mean, by the odds, you don't get through a lot of them. So most of the time, I was not qualifying. And then I was shown up to the tournament course because I'm two, three, four out and then just waiting until Thursday to see if I get in. So you're wasting all this time, energy and resources on a course that doesn't even relate to the actual golf tournament. And if you do get in the event by Thursday, I just remember being dead tired and exhausted

before the tournament's even starting. And then you're not teed up even close to play your best golf because you have no fallback, right? You're going to be, you know, make the cut. And if you don't, you know, you're kind of, you're back in the same boat for the next week. And it just goes to, you know, tying everything together, we've talked about to this point,

like how important that status is, is really, really tough to measure because there are definitely things that separate out a lot of players around your level. But the margins are so crazy thin that I'm sure there's tons of capable people players out there that don't have any corn fairy status that are capable of even playing on the PGA tour.

If the bounces go their way and if they get the right, the right support under them to play in that, and it's just something that's kind of super immeasurable just to be bouncing around with so much uncertainty. And I say that just from a fans perspective, you've lived it. I can't even imagine how difficult shuffling all that is. Yeah. And so I've also played two separate seasons down on Latin America in 16 and 19. And honestly, there were multiple times where not only me, but a lot of the other players would agree that full status on one of those tours is almost better than conditional status on corn fairy.

Just because you have a place to play, you know you're getting to tee up for a purse every single week, albeit a lot less on the developmental tours, but you also have the ability to build out a schedule too and plan your year. And corn fairy conditional is, yeah, it's very daunting. It takes a lot of time, money, energy, willpower, support. You name it and you need it to get through just having a conditional status. I mean, yeah, but getting through on Latin too is, I mean, it's almost like Monday qualifier odds, right? Is it 10 guys graduate from Latin tour to the corn ferry tour every year? Yep.

So, so 10 guys graduate, meaning they, they advanced to final stage. Oh gosh. they advance to final stage. Oh gosh, yeah. Yeah, so they have LoSync-O on Latin to 5. And those, so top 10 go to final stage with a chance to earn full status. The top 5 have, or they did have a select number of starts in the Latin America events. So when I finished

second on the tour in 2019, I was guaranteed Panama, Colombia, Mexico, and maybe one additional tournament. But that was it. So if you if you missed the cuts and those, you're no better off than the other conditional guys. And that's something you worked a year for. Just for those starts, you know? Yes. Yeah. You finished top five. I still had to go to Q-School finals to try to improve upon that. And then fortunately, that was when I finished third place and locked up the first 12 starts on this two-year season. And then that's what enabled me to do what I did over the last two years and earn exempt from reshuffle status. A quick break to check in with our friends at Original Penguin. You can go to originalpenguin.com, use promo code NOU20 and get 20% off all purchases on their website.

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you know, I get little tees a little bit but the inseam on some of the shorts, I'm wearing some of their off course shorts that may be a little shorter than the golf shorts, and maybe I can't quite pull it off yet, but I'm working on the quads, I promise we're spending some time in the gym. Original Penguin has also been working to be more green and offering more sustainable products, not only in everyday wear,

but for golf, you can find styles that are around 20 to 30% recycled poly. Again, I wear their stuff quite literally every single day. I love their hoodies, the lightweight hoodies, I wear the jeans, I wear the shorts, plenty of their t-shirts. You'll see a lot of us rocking original penguin stuff on and off the golf course during season seven of Taurus sauce, which will come out sometime in October as well. So again, go to originalpanguine.com promo code NOU20 for 20% off your purchase there. Let's get back to Tom Whitney. Well, usually I like to start with background, but you know,

I wanted to make sure we chatted at least a little bit of golf before we got into what makes your story unique. And I think we'll kind of circle background on some more technical golf stuff as well. But in your mind, where does your background story start? You don't see a lot of people go from the Air Force Academy to professional golf, but I wonder if you could tell us a little bit of that story. Yeah, so I'll try to go just quickly leading up to the Academy. I grew up in Northern California in Lake Tahoe area, the PJ tour guys were just in in Reno, Tahoe area, and somehow picked up the game of golf at age seven where in Tahoe where it

snows nine months out of the year. So I didn't grow up skiing or snowboarding. I grew up playing golf. And once my brother and I kind of really developed some solid golfing talent. My parents made a genius decision to move all of us down to Southern California and looking to Palm Desert area. And I mean, that place, you have 150 golf courses within 30 minutes of driving. Everywhere you look, every corner, just like Starbucks, there's a golf course down there. And so that's what I did as a kid. I'd go to school and then I'd play golf. And that was my babysitter. That was my role model. That was my mentor.

It was just being immersed in golf and learning how to get better and learning life's lessons through the game. And then my brother, who's two years older than me in school, He got recruited to play at the Air Force Academy. And then through him being there, I got to visit campus, I met the coach, saw the team, saw the facilities, and really just thought it was a neat place. I won't say that I grew up with a ambition to serve my country from a young age. I don't have a long history of dad, grandfather, great-grandfather, all serving the military. My grandpa was a World War II pilot, but that was the extent other than my brother.

But I thought it would be really fun to follow my brother's footsteps and check it out and the fact that he was already there I Like I mentioned I met the coach and also got recruited to play there and Just kind of ended up there and Freshman year is absolutely terrible. I wanted to leave every single day Christmas break. What's terrible about it? So, you know, you start off with a six week boot camp. And that's in June, July and August.

But it's six weeks of basically working out every day, doing exercises you don't want to do. You're getting yelled at whistles. They don't really use logic. You know, it's if you're the first guy out there in line, well then you're just going to be the guy that's in the front leaning rest, the push-up position the longest amount of time. For six weeks you can't really do anything right. But on the other side of things, the cadre side, they're breaking these basic cadets down to where they have no other option but to rely on one another to get through this.

You cannot get through basic training on your own. If you don't make friends and ask for help, you have no chance of getting through. You know, some of my closest relationships are from people in my in my freshman squad, people I went through basic training with, people I graduated with from the academy, just because it's hard and you're going through it together, you're taught to rely on others just to survive. So out of basic freshman year, freshman year, I remember sleeping in a lot of classes, even if you have an off period, I remember falling asleep in bathroom stalls or empty classrooms because oftentimes you don't even want to go back to your room if you have an off

period because you got a traverse across campus which means you're running on these perimeter marble strips on the square in between all the buildings. If someone's curious, just Google Toronto at the Air Force Academy and the outer marble strips is what freshmen have to run on. They can't cut corners, they can't go in straight lines, they got to run this perimeter. Once you get in the hallways, you have to address every single upper class man by their name, rank. You have to memorize information about them. If they have, if they're seniors or juniors,

you gotta know what car they are, or what car they drive, what measure that they're studying, hometowns. So all is just excess pressure required to memorize and again, you can't do it on your own. You gotta lean on your classmates, make flashcards to learn all this stuff. Yeah, so, so yeah, you just, you kind of learn how to hide out.

That's why I said, instead of going back to your classroom on an off-period, you just kind of find some place to hide out, take a little nap, do whatever you've got to do. And then, the highlight of the day is lunch, because you get to eat with your teammates, and then go you know, the highlight of the day is lunch because you get to eat with your teammates and then go down to practice. And so, yeah, those first five hours of the day are pretty, pretty grueling and then you get to escape down to the golf course and man, the golf course facility at the Air Force Academy is just absolutely gorgeous. It's it's back dropped on right up against the mountains and Colorado Springs. They have 36

holes there. Now the golf team has their own locker room, short game area, driving range, indoor hitting facility. So really it's started to become a five-star facility and it was pretty cool to be able to call that place home for four years. So yeah, just a circle back. That's freshman years. You have all these kind of silly rules that you have to uphold there to kind of break you down to teach you to, well, they're supposed to teach you how to manage time and not procrastinate and somehow I slip through. But once you earn all of your rights back as an upperclassman, starting that sophomore year, a lot of that extra stuff kind of goes away,

and then it's just more classes and golf. So life kind of got a lot more normal, starting a sophomore year. Other than, I studied social sciences, that was my major, but I think other than, you know, I studied social sciences, that was my major, but I think, and one of the reasons I chose that was it was the least number of credits to graduate, but I still think that number was like 146 or 148 credits because the Gen Ed at the Academy is just so stout. It was tough, but you know, you graduate

and you get that diploma from the Air Force Academy and I mean, it opens a lot of doors. Let me tell you, I've been able to lean on the just the Brotherhood and fraternity of not only the alumni group at the Academy, but you know, I've had support from every single service, whether it be Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, just it's pretty cool because me being one of the one of the few veterans out there that are playing professional golf, anyone that's tied to the military is is eager to kind of be part of my support and be willing to lend a helping hand if I need it, whether it's host housing or support otherwise.

I mean, I've got a lot of people rooting for me in my corner just from the military alone. Yeah, gosh, I believe that. As I was going to say, on top of all that, now go out and play good golf too. It is a challenge that you're trying to deal with. But tell me about your career post academy, your career in the Air Force and some of the interesting things you got to do with the Air Force. Yeah, so in 2010, it's when I graduated, that season I'd actually cracked the top 25 in the individual rankings on golf week or golf statter, whatever that is.

So that was when I kind of realized that okay, I'm gonna eventually try full-time golf as a career path. Now when you graduate from the academy, you also owe a number of years service back. That's not a bad thing. I mean, you graduate debt-free from the academy and then you have a guaranteed job for five years. To me that's pretty darn cool. I graduated in May of 2010 as and my specialty was a nuclear missile operator. So I headed out to training in Santa Barbara California and learned everything about the Minuteman 3 weapon system and what we're in charge of is sending the launch command if the president gives us the order and obviously to this date we've never had to do that from one of our silos but then the other

day-to-day stuff is routine tests, exercises, routine maintenance. We have unexpected maintenance. We have security, security alarms that go off whether it's from, whether it's from earthquakes across the world. I mean I could do not when, when they have those seven point earthquakes, uh, over out in, in Japan and Indonesia and all that. Like, our vibration sensors on our missiles go off because of the vibrations. Really? So, yes. So we can get into alarm and we'll see it on all, we'll see the reading on all of our missiles. You can turn on the news and then you'll see, oh, yep, there was a seven point earthquake halfway around the world. Is that a big sigh of relief when you see the earthquake,

then, does it ever feel routine at that point or does everyone feel like, okay, this is it, this is it. No, it's pretty routine because, yeah, I mean, thank God that we haven't had to offensively use these missiles ever, our silos have never been attacked. You know as much responsibility as there is in this job it is pretty routine because if things were to escalate there are a lot of levels you have to go through to do so so it's not like in a second that you're gonna be launching a missile

and you didn't know about it. So, but this stuff that this weapon system is old, it was built back during the, you know, the Cold War and we're using three and a half inch and eight inch floppy disks to load data. We have five different communication systems that are some are hardwired, some are via satellite, the missile complex itself. So I'm just speaking at the base I was at in Shion, Wyoming, the missile complex, which is kind of the footprint of all of the missiles and all of the personnel silos is the size of Rhode Island and there are 150 missiles and 15 personnel sites that are all hardwired of these cables buried underground. These

cables are pressure protected obviously you know water, terrain, environmental proof and everything is hardwwire connected to each other. I mean, to this day, I'm still in awe of the technology or the level of technology and just genius that existed years ago to put the system in place and we still use it today and it is still very, very, very reliable. A lot of questions I could ask about that, but I come coming back to golf. Like, what is your golf? This doesn't sound very well set up to, you know,

be, be playing your best golf. Wind is golf, re-enter the picture, or how are you balancing that during, you know, your job? How does that work? Yeah, so, yeah, I guess circling back to, you know, I graduated in 2010, and I declared myself How does that work? Yeah, so yeah, I guess circling back to, you know, I graduated in 2010 and I declared myself as a professional

for the 2010 Colorado Open. So I turned pro in 2010, even though I was a second lieutenant and serving full-time Accadute in the Air Force. And I got to play in two, maybe three professional tournaments each year. So I'd play in the Colorado open. I would maybe go play in a Dakota's tour event. And then I remember I think every year I drove out to Wichita to try in the Monday there and then sometimes Salt Lake City just because those are the ones

that are less than nine hours away and I can drive and you know, I'm not gonna fly and book a rental car in a hotel and all this stuff for a Monday qualifier kind of like we talked about at the beginning of this pod. So yeah, I just played in a couple of events each year and then other than that, I would practice in my time off. The cool thing about the job that I was assigned to

is it's an ops job. It's 24-7 and it's shift work. So there are no weekends, there are no holidays, but essentially you will serve eight alerts each month and then do another four or five days of training in addition to that. So an alert looks like if I were going out on alert on Monday, I would leave my house around six, get to base around seven. Everyone working that day is together mission planning and we're talking about whether we're talking about Intel for the day, any plan maintenance, anything that happened on the last alert with the crew that's still out there. We're just kind of game planning with a 30,000 foot view on what to expect in the

next 24 hours. Then we drive out to the site and by that time it could be anywhere from 10 to 1 o'clock. These missile silos, you know, I explained how vast the missile complex is. Well, the farthest site we have is like two and a half hours from base. So you get to base the emission plan for a couple hours. You got to drive two and a half hours to this missile site. Then you go below ground and you change out with the crew that's been there for the last 24 hours. And then once that's done, you lock yourself in for a full day, waiting for the next screw to get there. All in all, an alert, essentially, I leave the house at 6am,

and then I could be back at my house on the next day, Tuesday, at two, three o'clock, and living in Colorado in the summer, get stuck at nine. You know, I was married no kids, so I could just go to the golf course and have the freedom to play a practice as much as I wanted. The good thing about the shift work also is, like I said, there are no planned holidays or weekends, so a lot of times my

off days would fall on a Tuesday or Wednesday. When that's the case, the courses are pretty empty, so it was actually a blessing in disguise where I could go out and practice all day long not really be bothered by a lot of public play. I had the same number of days off as a regular Monday through Friday guy would because the alert goes over two days so that's 16 days total and then another five days of training. So you're looking at 21 days of work in and then you have eight, nine days off to yourself. And, but, you know, again, it's all spread out. I had months where I would work sometimes 12 or 14 days in a row where, you know, I have an alert for two days and then I have training the next day. Then I have another alert that I'm stacked with training. And that's just kind of how the puzzle of the schedule works sometimes, but I also could have

7, 8, 9 days off in a row as well. Yeah, it was really weird and kind of it prepared me for this lifestyle too, just getting used to being away not necessarily having full control of my schedule. I mean, you know, I they're there weeks that I wish I didn't have to play, but you know, there's just some tournaments that you can't skip, or there's times where it doesn't make sense to not play in the tournament that week. So yeah, I'd say that that schedule kind of set me up for the highs and lows of being home for things and missing things and just being away in general because doing the math, I was underground away from home for 96 days of the year.

Yeah. So, our career field doesn't deploy because we don't have this weapon system stationed overseas that only exists here in the continental US. But we're also kind of considered deployed in place because we're spending almost a third of the year underground. When did you decide, I guess, to leave the military and pursue a full-time career in golf?

And you know, it sounds like, I mean, you got to be playing some decent golf in that time period to make that commitment I would assume too. So tell us how you made that transition. Again, I mentioned that I wouldn't be able to live in myself if I didn't give it a chance once my initial commitment was up at the Air Force. You owe five years of service after you graduate from a military academy. I ended up serving four.

I took advantage of a program where they're basically at the time Congress was shrinking the size of the Air Force because of budget. So they were shrinking budgets and they were also letting personnel go. So I had the opportunity to apply as one of those personnel, just saying, hey, I'll volunteer. And it worked out for me to separate out my four-year mark instead of my five-year mark. Yeah, I tell people that my game kind of stayed status quo from when I graduated for those four years. So, I didn't get worse, but at the same time I didn't really get any better. You know, I was playing in men's days, which are fun.

You got some side beds going on. You got five, 10 bucks on the line, whatever, but it's enough to make you focus. Honestly, I played as much golf as I could. I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't give it a shot. I kept posting really good numbers. I had the opportunity to every year play

in the Air Force Championship and the Armed Forces Arms Forces Championship. And what that looks like is about 30 guys will send in their resume from the Air Force to headquarters and then they'll pick maybe 18 or so to try out for the Air Force Golf team. So that's a four day tournament. At the end of that four day tournament, the top six guys are chosen to represent the Air Force team. Well, those top six join the top six from Army, Navy, and Marines, and they all play a four day tournament at the Armed Forces event. And then top six individuals from that tournament comprise the Armed Forces team. And then unfortunately, it doesn't happen every year but every so often they

have a world military championship and all four years that I was active duty I was able to play in the Air Force Championship and also won all four of those events. I won I think I won three of the four Armed Forces tournaments and then the one year where the World Military Championships happened while I was in, I was able to win that. So got a lot of cool medals and accolades from those tournaments. One of my highlights is this was my second year playing the Air Force Championship. It was at Luke Air Force Base.

I shot 29 under for four rounds. And I mean this is a legit golf tournament. You know, there's no gimmies. It's rules of golf. Very official. And I post the 29 under and the next closest score was even par. For yeah, for the top six guys to make this Air Force team. And put numbers up like that in a competitive environment. It was just adding fuel and fuel and more fuel to eventually light this fire when I got out of the Air Force. Wow. Yeah, gosh, that is quite a journey, man.

It also just speaks to a lot of that is pro golf is so much hard work, but also you just have to have, in my opinion, this inherent ability, right? And despite, you know, you're able to dedicate time to your game, but not what I would call around the clock time to your game and still maintaining a certain level that is just, it's just inherent, man.

It's just like, you can't go shoot 29 under and not be, you know, with. It's just like, you can't go shoot 29 under and not be, you know, if you're not fully tuned in and you're still shooting 29 under, like, yeah, you have a golf career out of you, but you know, it's gotta be so hard for so many people to determine if they have what it takes to play pro golf, right? And, you know, especially when you're balancing already

a career, you know, most people don't, you know, most people that play pro golf go from college to playing right away to find out if they have it and then if they don't, they go into the real world, but you already have a career. I guess a lot of those people, a lot of people don't make that the sequence of events, that's just what's unique about a military career. Yeah, and it's not like I have ever thought like, oh well I have a backup job

or something else. The path that I've taken has just given me a real appreciation for the ability to play golf. And playing with that perspective of knowing that I still have buddies that are serving, I have friends that are deployed, I've lost friends and family members. And given that perspective, I don't take golf for granted on the golf course. And that also helps me not get to emotionally attached to my play and my scores and how I'm doing and what status I have.

Because I mean, in all honesty, golf is not that big a deal. It's not the most important part of my life and but it's something that I get to do for the time being. So having that perspective I think honestly has given me a decent ability to kind of tune things out and play with the last Laksa Day' gratitude of, you know, if I play well, if I don't play well, it doesn't really change who I am as a person. I'm just appreciative for the ability, for the opportunity to be out here. And, you know, I, I hope I can make as long of the career out of it as I can.

Yeah, I truly don't know how to transition into this topic, but you mentioned, you know, the people that you've lost along the way, but tragedy struck you and your family last year in a form that unfortunately is not uncommon in military families. I'm wondering if you could tell us that story as well as, you know, I've, you know, reading about your reaction to it and what you've learned from it, I think is a,

it's been a huge takeaway for me. And I think our a huge takeaway for me and I think our listeners would greatly benefit from hearing from some of those lessons learned. Yeah and I appreciate you guys being willing to bring it up and I also remember you guys stepping in in the birdie pledge campaign that I did last year. That was really truly awesome of you guys and I appreciate that. This is actually how I kicked off my first season of Full Status on Cornfairy. I got the news that my brother had taken his life the night before I was to fly out to the first event of the season.

So it was January 8th. I was packing my bags for the Bahamas. Again, my first tournament with full status and first tournament of the year. And then I received that phone call and and had to switch gears and ended up packing up for Omaha to join the family and figure out. Just had a proceed with taking care of of my brothers' family and their kids and figuring everything out. So my brother, as I mentioned earlier in this podcast Air Force Academy grad, he was two years older than me. We got to play or we got to share two years of high school team golf and then two years Air Force Academy

golf as well. And he was a major in the Air Force at the time and really just battled a very tough, quick three-form-with-battle of depression and eventually succumbed to it in January of 2020. Pretty immediately I committed to, I'm not going to hide this or keep it down because I know that there's some good that I can do through what I'm learning and experiencing through this whole process. And that's kind of why I'm so vocal and open and honest about it. You know, like I am here now in the pod is because, I guarantee you there's someone that's going to

tune into this and they're either going through it or they have a loved one or a close one that is going through something similar and they don't know how to proceed. And just, you know, as long as I can positively affect someone, whether it be helping them or helping them help someone else, that's just kind of why I see why I'm here now.

Yeah, I didn't respect depression prior to losing my brother the way that I should have. I would kind of just scoff and say, well, if you're depressed, just look at all the good things you got going in life. I mean, my brother specifically had four kids, 10-year marriage. He was really, really good at what he did. He was an intelligence officer in the Air Force.

And coincidentally, he was actually doing intelligence for U.S. Stratcom, which is the command in charge of nuclear missiles. So the job that I got to be a part of when I was in the Air Force, he on the tail end of his career was actually involved with it. So that was really cool. But yeah he was good at what he did. He had won some outstanding awards like top major in his field, kind of awards. And he just had in his mind that he wasn't good enough and wasn't competent and it eventually overcame him. It's been crazy, man. I mean, you know, I miss him every day.

I can't say I can picture life with him now. Just because this kind of not really how my brain's wired, just the fact of the matter is there's no more Bob he's gone, but there's so many things I wish I could share with him, like walking up my full card. I know for a fact if he was still here he'd probably be the first text or phone call that I made, you know, once I got off the golf course this last weekend in Utah, I would have been very ecstatic to text him, hey I'm playing on corn for the next year. But what I am grateful for is the fact that I had a brother that that loved me and cared about me in my career.

And I learned that he had two or three or four co-workers that knew nothing about golf prior to working with him. And they knew more about the game than they could care for just through the updates that he would give him on how I was doing and what the career is like and what turn him is to follow and all that. So yeah, I mean, it was definitely a wrinkle in the plans that our family had. And it was a definite curveball, but I can definitely see God's hand working through

the tragedy here, and my heart's been softened towards anything and everything in depression related. I feel part of my calling is to help spread awareness of mental illness and suicide, and hoping to grow suicide prevention and just keep people out of harm's way. What would you say you've learned about it? I think it's something that the more I think about it, the more I wonder why we're not,

maybe we were in school and we weren't paying attention, but taught to recognize signs of it or knowing, what to do, mental illness and mental health are such a strong topic, but I can't help but think. Also, when I'm teenagers, use the word depression a lot and it almost makes real depression seem not real when it happens. You know what I'm getting at there? It's such a strong thing and you've experienced it firsthand. I wish

I knew better as to how to react to it if I knew someone that's going through it or showing signs of it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it is such a delicate balance of what needs attention and what doesn't, what's real, what's not. It's really tough. One thing I've kind of put together is you really just need to slow down. I mean, if someone is struggling or saying they're depressed, it's worth slowing down and just taking a look at what help and resources they need. Because I mean, had I known my brother was still struggling like this. I obviously I would have happily skipped the first two Bahamas events and stayed with him.

My family was up with his family right before New Year. So we headed up there right after Christmas and spent a good chunk of days. And we had known he was depressed and I went to a couple clinical meetings with him and his doctors while I was up there. But we saw a lot of progress and I saw kind of the real old Bob in his eyes while we were up there. And then life kind of happened and we had to get back to our own schedules and

we had to go back to living the high speed of life that we were living. And one thing I would do over is just kind of slow down and put everything else on pause. And that's tough because not everyone has the ability to step away from work or step away from this city they're living in and be with a family member or a loved one where they live for a undefined amount of time. You just need to be need to be aware and empathetic towards what they're going through and really be willing to just listen to their struggle. I mean, my brother would say things that like he wasn't good enough at his job. Well, listen to that. Don't just respond with, well,

that's a lie because a lot of times they can't deal with reason and logic. And, you know, like I had a list of truths that I could have told my brother, he's got an awesome life, great house, great life, great kids, great job, great job stability, you know, you could go down and down the list, but saying that to him, it doesn't penetrate the brain when they're kind of in that dark deep depression. So, but I do remember just sitting there with him in the quality time and I think they can they can feel the love that's being shown towards them and yeah just slowing down sitting with them spending quality time with them just being being there for him, not trying to fix things. That was, you know, some of the the last few moments that I did

cherish with them. But yeah, it's tough, man, there's there's no black and white clear solution to any of this. Every case is different and that's why I think just spreading awareness, you know, like I am, I'm not ashamed to say that I was naive and disrespectful of the of the magnitude of depression and what I can reach before I lost Bob. Like that's just a fact I didn't I didn't respect it the way I should have. And so now I'm trying to help others and so now I'm trying to help others learn that respect before tragedy strikes their lives in some way. I just have a soft spot in my heart for anyone going through depression now and I'll sit on the phone all night with someone if I need to. Even if it's before the final round of the finals event, I will be on the phone all night if I need to, if someone is just kind of feeling sad,

I'll be there for him. And that's just kind of, that's the bigger piece that I'm a part of, where I said that golf isn't the most important thing in my life. Yeah. Well, tell us about 22 kill, and what the name of that means

and what what that organization is doing and helping people. Yeah. So last year when I did that that birdie pledge for 22 kill. 22 is the number of suicides veterans suicides per day that that happened on average. I mean, that's a stark number if you start getting the math. Yeah, it is crazy. And, you know, I didn't know about 22 kill before my brother. This is all new information to me after this has kind of become part of my life.

So, 22 kill, they actually just updated their name. They are now one tribe foundation and they focus on providing not only military veterans but it looks like they've expanded their circle to first responders and medics and really any of the selfless jobs that deserve attention. They provide resources to give them a real sense of purpose that they tend to lose when they leave the job. So a lot of active duty guys, when they finish up their time, they're no longer part of a team,

they no longer have a mission that they're pursuing, so they just kind of lose their sense of purpose. So they surround these guys with a tribe of other people that are kind of going through the same thing. They provide different kinds of therapies and therapists. They have support for spouses and children that have been affected by suicide and that looks like therapies and camps and all that stuff you can imagine and and

really their goal is is kind of spreading awareness. They're not going to get the numbers down until more people are aware of mental illness and depression. So you know the first step is spreading awareness and, you know, like I am here, I'm happy to talk about my experiences and what I've learned, and I'm happy to slow down and pause and take the time to talk with others if they need it. Yeah, awareness is always, you know, you hear that word a lot when it comes to causes and things like that. And I can't think of a better application of that term than here in terms of, you know, this is, you know, people that are dealing with depression and especially with veterans are seeking help, even if they're not asking for it or needing help. And it's not something that's easily recognizable. But if you approach it with a different mindset of an understanding mindset, you know, different

than maybe how you initially thought of it and how I thought of depression in the past, then who knows how many lives people could save just by being aware of the effects of mental illness and your firsthand experience. So thank you for sharing that. I know that can't be easy and I have tremendous respect for people that respond to tragedy with immediate, how can I help someone else not go through this? And it's commendable.

But I never, thanks for giving me a platform to talk about it. Yeah, I never, one, I never know how to ask those questions. I never know how to transition away. But I learned something and, and doing a little bit of research that, you know, one of my favorite players, Jordan Speeth, he won the 2015 US Open. Uh, but I found out that has an enormous asterisk on it because, uh, qualification or, you know,

for that, the US Open was a bit interrupted. Uh, and I wonder if you could tell us that story. Oh, yeah. So still to this day, I tell people that our second child, Zoe, cost me the 2015 year so big. And that is because I had played in the local qualifier that day. I think I was the second time off. I shot 69 or 70 on a par 71 at Collindale and Fort Collins. And this is a muni golf course where one under par gets in every single year. It is one of my favorite courses in the country.

It is narrow, tree lines, back to front greens. And it is just a ball favorite courses in the country. It is narrow, tree-lined, back to front greens, and it is just a ball-striker's golf course. So I posted, I think, one under second group, and my wife walked the last couple holes, and then she said, I think, going into labor, and we headed to the hospital. So we were sitting there for a couple hours and I'm refreshing all the scores and eventually go from clean into sectionals to pushed into a playoff. I had about 10 minutes notice before I had to leave.

Luckily my wife's mom was also with us in the room. They reluctantly gave me the go ahead to let me go back to the golf course. I mean, everything in Fort Collins is close. I was, I was maybe 10 minutes from the hospital to the golf course. So I had been sitting for a couple hours, drove back to the golf course for this. I don't know, it was like a four for one. I think it was a fourfoot one playoff with an alternate spot for a number two or whatever. And I show up, no time to hit balls, barely make the time, and throw it in the right trees, and make him bow ye on this part five, I'm the first guy out.

And I probably look like a real jerk because I'm hitting these golf shots, and then I'm pulling my phone out, and I'm on my phone pretty much the whole time, refreshing, looking for updates or any text coming in. Of course, the rules officials know what's going on, but I don't think any of my other playing competitors did. So I tap in for six on this first hole, and then I just you turn and go straight for a golf cart and head back to the clubhouse. I don't really say, buy it anyone or good luck or shake hands.

I am just out of there. Get back to the hospital. Well, let me clarify well in time for the bird. I mean, a good 45 minutes before Zoe arrived. But yeah, I can still say that she cost me the 2015 years open champion. Gosh, yeah, Hayton, that has to be played with an asterisk now, but that's noted in the annals of history for that. Last question, and I'll let you get out of here. I know you got some golf play this week, but what kind of DIY stuff do you have going

on around the house currently? I'm trying to become handy. I'm not quite there. I saw some videos of you building bunk beds and things like that. I'm not there yet, but what's what are you currently going on? Yeah, man. So that's kind of how I de-stressed when I'm home is I love tackling projects and just the whole puzzle

aspect of seeing a project from start to finish, especially on something that I've never done before, is just really appealing to me. Unfortunately, with COVID over the last couple of years, lumber prices have skyrocketed. So I've kind of put everything on hold But with that said once my offseason starts whether it's in four weeks or another, you know, 10 weeks If I graduate there are a couple projects in mind. We're we're gonna do some built-ins in the laundry room We're going to repaint

All the cabinets in the kitchen go. We're going to repaint all the cabinets in the kitchen, go from the stand oak to a white finish. I'm going to do a wall build out in the living room and install like one of those really long electric fireplaces with the TV above that. And then I got a shed install in my backyard that I have to build the foundation for and level all that and move the sprinklers. So, man, as I say it all out loud, that sounds. That sounds, that's a lot.

That's a lot. It's a lot, it's a lot. Yeah. Well, you're a man of many talents and I hear a crying kid that you may be trying to stay away from but I think we're gonna release you back into Fatherhood of Four and Best of Luck is coming week and the upcoming Corn Fairy Tour finals. You'll be one of many guys we're tracking as they try to chase down PGA Tour cards and

Best of Luck. I know we'll be pulling for you. So thanks a lot for your time, Tom. Yeah, thanks buddy. Thanks for having me and I look forward to the next time I move. Let's do it again. Cheers, bud. Give it a right club. Be the right club today.

Yes. That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Most.