No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 629: 2022 Highlight Medley

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

Our traditional holiday highlight medley is here! Catch up on some stories you missed or re-live them again as we go through some of the best interview clips of the year, featuring Harry Higgs, Joel Dahmen, Justin Thomas, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa, Leona Maguire, Madelene Sagstrom, JJ Redick, Mel Reid, JR Smith, Xander Schauffele, Davis Love III, and so many more. Thanks to everyone that has tuned in throughout the year, and we'll be ready to start the new year with a bang in January.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. I get a lot of feedback from this every year from people that really enjoy listening to it. Glad you guys send that in because it is a bear to put together. But this is our holiday medley. This is our highlight episode of some clips from throughout the year. Now this was a really weird year in golf, obviously.

So we tried really hard not to have this to live heavy. Some stuff kind of gets dated pretty quickly. But there was also some stuff as it related to live or changes to the PGA tour that I thought was too good to not include in a look back of 2022. So there's some fun non-live stories, some kind of interesting golf nerdy stuff, some stories that will legitimately make you laugh very hard as it did to me when we were interviewing it

and listening back to it and editing it, there's some really good gems in there. But the idea being this is kind of a representation of what this show is like. We always, you know, people ask how they can support the show, how they can help the show. That would be, take this, you know, send this episode to someone that maybe doesn't list the podcast, maybe doesn't listen to golf podcasts as an example of, you know, interesting content that are kind of of they may find interesting. Who knows, but it's a representation of, you know, not necessarily all of the highlights

of the year. There's too much to share in there, but little snips from a lot of the interviews. And we greatly appreciate all the guests time that have helped contribute to this and all listeners that have listened throughout the year. And yeah, maybe hopefully it inspires you to also go back and listen to an episode that maybe you skipped or you hadn't listened back to in a long time. So I'll include all the episode numbers before all the clips as well. So I'm not gonna delay it much further than that. I do wanna give a shout out to our friends at golf blueprint.

You've heard us talk about golf blueprint. If you are just heading to the range and just hitting practice shots without any real plan, you're doing yourself a disservice. Doc Darius and the professor, that is who is behind the genius, behind golf blueprint. They got indoor and outdoor memberships,

they got memberships with practice plans that help soup whatever practice situation you have. Now listen to no people in winter. This is a way to get a leg up on whenever spring comes around. If you look over something to do, something to keep you busy, some way to keep your game sharp

or make a change in some way to your game, head to golfblueprint.com or you can email info at golfblueprint.com and you can set up a gift for someone through that. These guys are great at giving direct feedback to people and how they can help you with their golf game. We've had a great time with their practice cards and you can use NLU20 for 20% off your first month of membership also. You can head to their Instagram at Golf Blueprint to check out all sorts of content.

They got, again, I remember my winners in Chicago. I would try to do some kind of drill every off season so that I could come out and, you know, have having developed something going into the next warm weather season. So we greatly appreciate Golf Blueprint's support. Again, NLU20 for 20% off your first month. First clip is from our Bay Hill recap. This was our most downloaded episode of the year. Thanks to Harry Higgs who

shared this incredible story. We're also going to step another part of this episode for later on, but it was, it really was that good. Episode 527 with Justin Huber and Harry Higgs telling the story of the strip T's at waste management. I was actually a little irritated that they didn't find me because that was Riv Week and I think we somehow I flashed my titties, Joel took his shirt off and the two of us like a heavy pop. He's probably exactly. But come, I think Wednesdays, all this Saudi golf kind of come Wednesday. Joe and I had all the leverage in the world. Someway somehow. And I was trying to convince them basically to convince them to continue to find it. Like continue down this path and find us.

And then we're going to publicize this shit out. Oh, funny. All this. down this path and finess. And then we're going to publicize this shit up. Oh, funny. All this. We're going to raise so much money for charity. And, you know, basically to pay our fine, but we were just going to pay it ourselves because we fucked up. We'll pay. Um, and then that my, the immediate thought was me, Joel, and the commissioner, t-shirts that look like your shirtless picture Raise money and it was you know probably either clothing or breast cancer awareness Boom done you guys do not look like the fun police anymore looks like you're your hilarious You're in with it and I was actually irritated because I I finally had one good idea that I was gonna be able to execute on and they all

I needed them to do was find it. What was it? Oh man. That was beautiful. It really was. It was a spectacular moment. Immediately regretted that I did it. Then a little clip of Honda, when you walk by

and the guy flies, you're like, that's why I didn't want to do it. That is the exact reason. I got to, I shouldn't have done it. I did not want to do it. I regret that I reason. I got to deal, I shouldn't have done it. I did not want to do it. I regret that I did it. But it's incredible what you'll do when 30,000 people, I mean, this was a thing on Saturday.

I get paired with Keith and he's like, texting me Friday night, we get the text about our pairing. He's like, what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? I was like, I don't know, well, what are we gonna do on 16? And I think? I was like, I don't know, well, both just, what are we gonna do on 16? And I think that's a text that a lot of guys send,

especially if you make the weekend, you're playing with a buddy and Saturday. You're saying that, yeah, that'd be fun. Saturday, Saturday, well, I shot 76, and wasn't that fucking fun. And so I get in that morning, we see the same trainer. Me, Keith and Joel see the same trainer. Edward Bolt. And Bolt had fun with, he posted like an Instagram of the two of us, Keith and Joel see the same trainer. Edward Bolt.

And Bolt had fun with it. He posted like an Instagram of the two of us. It's just like bodies by Bolt. It's me and Joel, which, you know, we both take pretty good care of our golf bodies, but after that, you know, maybe not that great overall. But I saw, I was saw, I saw Bolt before Keith. I went in there and I're like kind of whispers

I just gotta talk about me. Yeah, whatever. I'm just gonna go putt So I go out and putt and Keith meets me out there He's like hey bro. I got eight grand raised to pay the fine. You take your shirt off on 16 Only you yeah me Fuck no And just all day long all day long all day long and I'm making bogies everywhere And we get to 16 and he hit first and then looked over at me. And I'm still like, no, don't, don't even,

don't bring that shit up. No. So that day finishes and then I'm, you know, one of you said it to Colt though, on to it was that you work Keith and mentioned it. Yeah, and then we went over Colt. It said Colt would call us Friday before, hey, we're going to be there.

Please come over and say something to us. And Keith hit and then went over and called it, it said, called it called us Friday before, hey, we're gonna be there, please come over and say something to us. And Keith it and then went over to see them and then I hit it on the green, but a mile away from the hole and I went over there to see them. And then I, so I had it in my head, right? They've been asking for this shit all day long,

Max Homa, who's, you know, he was all over it. You need to do it, you need to do it, I need to do it. So I went over to Col, did it, you know, said whatever I said and said, if I make that put, I'm probably gonna take my shirt off. But that was more, and I honestly, I probably would have in front of all those people on that day.

That day is like nothing in this world. In the entire sporting world, that day is unbelievable. So fast forward, I've signed my card for 76 and go home and have a cocktail and... I look at the leaderboard, I'm like, oh shit, I'm in 65th and Joel's name is right next to me. And how it shook up. And then the text comes and it's just me and Joel. Charlie Hoffman and Peter Monotti are behind us.

It's a two-some, tee-and-off ten. And then I get a little Twitter notification, like an hour later, it's like this fucking guy. I mean, he's already put your bless. Yeah, if this gets enough gree tweets, Harry, you'll take a shirt off. 10,000 likes or something. I saw it and I was like, oh, man.

I didn't like it. Like, like, like, like, like, but he didn't put a number to it. So he was like, and then I saw, we both go see Bolt in the morning, and we're talking about it I'm like dude fuck off like I'm not doing this. No, no, no, no, no He's like I'm like, why did you tweet this? Well, I didn't give it a number like it's no one will think that it's gonna be the thing And it's also we go over there and tee off on 10 and I hit it in the fairway he hits in the fairway and on the walk down

Four people did it get off retweets. Thank you Ten fairway 10 green like every single stop that we made people are just yelling it God damn you I know still like no and anybody that if I like if I could hear them where I could like talk to them safely I'd be like nope it didn't I, it didn't, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it. And we get to 16 and we tee off, we're both like, you know, go ahead,

make noise, we tee off and go and we're walking down and then it starts and everybody's like, I think the first one was show some skin, show some skin and Joel's over there going, you know, make them louder and louder. And I'm like, I'm giving it to no, no, no, I'm flipping them off the entire time. And then it's continued, continued, continued.

And I hit it over the green. I hit a good shot, but I hit it over the green. And I could be there. It's like, no, I ain't fucking chipping this. I'll give me the putter, putter, and actually burn the edge. I don't, I actually, I think I would have kept my clothes on had that one gone in the hole, maybe. But it burns the edge and goes like 10 feet.

Joel had 12 feet and left it. Sure, sure. And then they started booning them. I'm going like this. Yeah. Like, all right, they forgot about what they were saying early. And he taps in and then I'm going to like put my ball down, you know, and I hear it and it's just like,

take it off, take it off. And I'm like, you shit me. I'm still gonna go through my teen and hit this pot and they never once stopped. And I swear to God, I think it was 10 feet, five inches, whatever it was. They were whole time, they're just chanting, take it off. The whole time.

No one's being quiet, obviously. It's 16th, Scottsdale, no one's quiet at all. As soon as I hit it I knew it was in and I swear to God the ball took two minutes. It was like, are you gonna do it? I'm not gonna do it. That's a bad idea. You're the one doing it. And I fell in the hole and I just went. And then so the best part about it was I walk up there to pick my ball to the Here they are! We're doing it! And it fell in the hole and I just went, shh. And then, so the best part about it was I walk up there to pick my ball to the hole

and my back's to Joel. And as soon as I pick my ball up out of the hole and turn around, he's got it off and he's got it around his head, the whole deal. And I was like, in that moment, I was like, I fucking hate you Joel. But, good man, that you did not let me do this shit. And then I lost all control.

I was like running around jumping. I think I flashed it. It was a flash jump. It was special. It really was. It was all I remember. At that point, I turned around and saw Joel. And he was doing this, this, and this.

And then the first beer comes right at him. And he was like, step, it was gonna fall like five yards short of him. And he like ran on the green to try to catch it. And I was like, oh shit. And I'm running around like looking up, oh my god, oh my god, am I gonna get hit? No, no, no, no. And that's a bad thing.

We, you know, that was a little dicey. Yeah, yeah, plastic cups next year and everything's fine. Yeah, somebody can get like severely hurt. And that's not something that should be laughed at, but the entire scene should be left at. Obviously that we created. And I guess the Netflix people were following us. Al. Al and Gina were mic'd up and they were there for the whole thing.

And I can't remember who it was. One of the Netflix guys, we get in the tunnel. You know, 16 green to 17 T. And one of the next look guys came up to his after was like, ah, this is great. So, but I will spoil just the fraction of it. Um, one of the Netflix guys was like, I never thought when we signed up for this, that at one point on the golf course, I would hear one of the players that we were following say, like, oh, shit, I got to put my clothes back on. I guess Joel had with like, ran off shirtless and was like, oh, I got to put my, I got to put my clothes back on. I guess Joel had like ran off shirtless and was like,

oh, I gotta put my clothes back on. What would have happened if you would have caught the beer chugged it? Cause like, you don't want the pip. Like I just kept seeing when Sam makes the whole and one of people are chucking beers. Like how hard is that not to just be like taking the whole and one? Yeah, like, I think Joel took a sip. Yeah, no, the fine. I thought they were going to call and just totally gloss over the fact that we were I flashed in Joel was shirtless. I thought they were going to get us to like, Joel, we thought we saw you maybe take a sip of a beer.

Yeah. And then Harry, you were flipping Joel off the entire time. You just were playing that whole thing. You can't do that on TV. And then again, at that point, I'm like, yeah, it's fair. Yeah, we know. Yeah, sorry. Next up is episode 512 with Joel Daven talking about the famous money game with Phil and the guys at Liberty National. You had a fun match that was played this past fall. It got hyped pretty big, but I want to hear, you know, you had a, how did the pairing with Phil come about? You know, how did the match with you, you know, you and him against Keith Mitchell and Harry Higgs

at the Northern Trust come about? And really, I want to know what the buildup was like, because I know that guy had to be texting you motivational quotes like weeks in advance. Yeah, it's kind of funny. I don't know exactly how it worked, but I saw Harry tweeted Phil and I'm pretty good buddies with Harry. And I, it was like midnight. Like, I was drinking and I texted Harry and Phil and like his group chat and I'm like, hey guys, I want to get on this match. And next thing I know I wake up in the morning and feels like, hey guys, I want to get on this match. And next thing I know, I wake up in the morning and feels like, all right, me and you, Joel, Harry find a partner.

And I was like, well, I was kind of expecting to be on Harry's team because I always want to play against Phil and kind of, you know, I want him to talk crap to me. And, you know, I kind of want to be on that side of things. But then, you know, Keith loves playing for money and whatever. So they grabbed each other and all of a sudden Phil's on my team.

So we had, there was a couple of tags about, you know, Tows your game, get, like, kind of like, building this up like it was a bigger deal. And obviously, kind of all in fun. And I was scrambling around at multiple ATMs the morning of to try to grab all the cash. Has the cash. How to be cash?

Soon you just pay on the spot. And Harry did, thankfully, nicely. So it was good. I was afraid of losing. But I would got, so the first toll, I kind of, oh, Geno gave me a wrong number on the first toll. I had a per, he lasered it with a bad number. So, and then Harry made a name for her.

And then on to, we both have like 40 feet and I'm right in front of Phil. So Phil hits it and he's like, all right, last break, we have 40 feet, like up a tear that breaks three feet and I miss it by like six inches. He's like, dude, I told you didn't break that much. And I'm like, Phil, if you think I'm not good from 40 feet, we got a problem today.

So I was already like, okay, on three, we hit it out there and he hits a bad drive, he hacks down, he's got like 50 yards for birdie, I hit a good wedge in the four feet. Phil and Harry and Keith have like 10, 12 footer for birdie. So I stuck it in there, Phil walks me down, it puts his arm around me, walks me down on the green and goes, Joel, you know, like, you know, let's get into these guys.

We're not fucking losing today. Let's, you know, we got to change your attitude right now. We got to get, you know, focus. Let's style this in and go, all right, you're going to put first because I'm away. I'm, you know, at least 50 yards away. You're going to put first, but do not put this unless you're guaranteed to make it.

It's like a four footer that's like outside left edge down hill and I'm like, all right, well, I'm going to make it. So he like a four footer that's like outside left edge down hill. And I'm like, all right, well, I'm gonna make it. So he like, he goes through the entire read. I'm like, isn't it just outside left? He's like, tell me his whole thing. I'm like, thankfully, I make the pot. And then I, they make it on top. So we're still one down, but then feel like, you know, completely starts coaching me up on every shot. Like, to the moon, tell me on the greatest player alive. Tell me why we're going to beat these guys. And then I went on an absolute run.

I think I made seven or eight buries that day, and he made an eagle on the sixth hole from another fairway. And we beat him up pretty good. But I couldn't believe how into the match he was. I couldn't believe how much he was coaching me up. I couldn't believe it was kind of cool for me. I mean, growing up with Phil's like, you know, one of my St. Crabble to watch this guy throwing up and now he's like putting his arm around me and tell me how great I am and how we're going to beat these guys. I didn't expect that,

but it was pretty awesome. I was like that. I feel like Phil as your partner is like that gif of Dremon green pumping up Kevin Durant. Like that, that always goes around and hyping him up. Like, that's what it feels like. Bill will turn a 10 handicap into a scratch call for overnight. I assure you of that. And like, the way that he reads the greens,

like, we would come to the same kind of conclusion of like a right-edge putt, but the way that he got there was a lot different than the way you and me get there, which is super interesting to me. But I was just super impressed overall with everything. He couldn't have been a better partner. He didn't play as best, but luckily those guys didn't either, and I kind of got hot that day.

So I could see how like what he took Keegan Bradley under his wing, like at the Ryder Cup or something. No, there's no, I mean, Keegan would win 19 majors of Phil Cattie for him every week. I think it's just, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I don't play for a ton, but I mean, I was, I didn't want to lose. That's for sure. It wasn't like anything. I mean, it wasn't uncomfortable. It's like, if you lose, like, you're, but I was like, this is, this is a real golf. So, for Phil, probably pennies, but for the rest of us, yeah, we really cared. I mean, I tried really hard. Typical. I mean, every tour pro answers this the same way.

Like a putt that would involve you losing $10,000 makes you more nervous than a putt that would mean getting an extra 100,000 on the 18th green. 100% yeah. Yeah, it's exactly what it is. It would be coming out of my wallet, not just gaining less money from the two or a per se. And that's, I didn't really understand that until, because I'm like, you know, last told just last week, I had like a 10 footer for birdie on 18,

and Jean was like, if you make this, it's worth $5,000. And I was like, I don't care, like just let's just get out of here. And then I kind of got reading the pattern, like this is for $5,000. Like this is a lot of money. What are you doing?

And I made it, luckily, and he was correct. It was actually for $5,000. Like, this is a lot of money. What are you doing? And I made it, luckily. And he was correct. It was actually worth $5,000. So it was like those things. But if I could lose $5,000, if I don't make it, it's a complete, it's really scary. It shouldn't be, but it's different. It's completely different.

So it's a lot of lunches at the ritz, if you make that extra. That's a lot of lunches at the ritz, that's for sure. Is that a normal 18th hole thing for Gido to tell you how much the puts worth? If we're not, yeah, a lot of times. I'll even ask him, like I'll be like, hey, like what's this worth?

It's if you're not winning or if you're not really like, it's easy to break it down into money and that's kind of like, hey dude, if you can shoot three under on this back nine, you're going to make an extra 30k. Like, oh, that's a lot of money. I should try to do that. So if you think about it, it helps me kind of stay motivated for the last couple of holes or whatever it is.

And I think really he's just being kind of selfish because he wants more money for himself. So I think that's really what it is. But he's somehow motivating me into making him more money. Next up, episode 516 with Adam Scott talking about his relationship with Stevie Williams. Over 72 holes at a place like Augusta. Is there any estimation as to how many shots he can help you save? And in what ways, right? Example, that's a very clear example of that, but, you know, is there anything else you can think of in terms of Augusta or just having him on the bag in a major championship at any location? What is the benefit for somebody that is so in tune with golf like you? What can a caddy who's not

hitting the shots change? Well, he just has to really compliment your style of play, obviously, that's, you know, it's like a relationship out there really is and If you're not hearing the right things, it's not gonna go so well So he has to understand, you know, how you're playing on a particular day and then how Aggressive he might want to talk you into some stuff or out of some stuff Potentially, but little things. I mean another example from Augusta and I'm just picking random ones, you know, I hold the pot on 18 in regulation, the 72nd hole, and big celebration, I felt like I'd run the masters, you know, I could have

run the masters with that, and you know, I calm down and we're walking to the back of the green, Leisha's potted out, and he says to me, this isn't over yet. I was the first thing he said to me after all of that. And it didn't let me switch off and relax. Like, the work may not be done and sure enough Cabrera hit it to like two feet and out we go again. And you know, a little thing like that, it was a great comment. He could tell I was so excited and probably looking around thinking, I was thinking about slipping the jacket on, a lot of things was going to happen.

And, you know, his comment, you know, he's still switched on. And so those little kind of things go a long way. And, you know, he had a great understanding for the game of golf and how it was played at majors watching Tiger win. But those other little things, he had a good feel for his timing was good. And I think, I think great caddies have great timing. Yeah, I think he was the first caddy to ever win a PGA Tour event, right? At Bridgestone after, uh, it's his, that was his greatest victory.

Yeah. If I remember rightly, he hold it out on 70 to 72nd. All right. What was, what was that after math like? Because that was, you know, for the blisters that may not remember, that was shortly after he separated with Tiger Woods, he's on your bag, you win the bridge, Tony television cameras go up and interview him on the 18th grade. And he gets quite an interview with did that bother you at

all how that played out at all? Or did you guys have a conversation after that? It didn't bother me, you know, in all these things, you weigh up the pros and the cons and without getting into Tiger and Steve so much, I think he was just almost letting off a little steam, you know. I think he he said in interviews, he just felt he was just disappointed with the whole ending to what their incredible relationship was and he was probably hurt at that point and you know whether it's right or wrong or childish or not, he was you know just trying to have a shot at tiger, you know, a bit of a cheap shot at tiger, which was a funny thing to do. For me, it didn't really take any of the gloss off what I felt I did there, even there again, and to go back, circle back

on the final hole. I think I had it too shortly, and I wanted it a seven-hine in the middle of the green, and he just looked at me, so it was a perfect number for a six, just hit it straight at the pin, and I think I hit it to three feet one by three. You know, it's that timing and there's sense of delivery, but he said a few things over the years working with me that that certainly created some trouble and that's Steve, you know, he passionate about the game and passionate about stuff and opinion he's opinionated and yeah, I didn't muzzle him quite as much as Tiger did in there. Well, would he ever, I mean, he was obviously, all the years of experience he had on Tiger's bag,

did any of the Tiger's specific experience get translated over to you? Would he say things to you like, listen, you're not doing, like Tiger did this to get better at this, this, and this, you need to be doing any of this. Was he that kind of involved in your game? Did you, I basically, did you, you know, his experience with Tiger directly? Did that,

did you draft off that at all? Well, I tried to, I mean, I'd be a full knock too. Like, what was he doing here? What was he doing there? He would never say Tiger did this. You should do this. He carried for me for three weeks, and then he said, okay, I'm gonna, I can come and work for you for all time because I was kind of loaning him at that point. But he said, your short game's average, you three part too much and something else. He said, so you got to fix that. And that was it. It wasn't like you should try and do this. That's it. That's what my assessment is after three weeks. And I kind of took that time, I went and worked on that and tried to get better, obviously. But definitely, I picked his brain a lot about how Tyga played at Majors.

And there were a lot of things, but Steve was one of the final pieces of the puzzle for me to I'm going to lift my game to play at the highest level, I would say. And we used a lot of similar strategy that he and Tiger used at major championships. And for a period there, I was certainly one of the most consistent performance at majors with Steve on the bag. Well, drafting off that as well. Tell us about a line that I heard you say somewhere about. You played with Tiger when you were an amateur and how that made you think of your professional career after that. What was that initial experience like playing with Tiger as a youngster? It was incredible. The Sunday before the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2000, I was still in amateur, but I decided to 10 pro and I'd been given an invite on the European two of the week after that Pebble Beach US Open. And Tiger came to Las Vegas to see Butch just

before going up to Pebble Beach and he said he can go and play with Tiger. And I was nervous, obviously. And I played OK the front line and I was one down and then he just kind of stepped about the gear and he flew it onto a green. I didn't fly on but it went on the green at 375 yards on the 10th and this is in the year 2000. So it was a big hit. I think you went something like 5 birdies and an eagle for the first six holes on the back nine and that was the end of our match and each had 63 in fairly windy it was a course record and I walked off and felt like well I don't have much of a chance if they all play like that on tour unfortunately you won the US Open by 15 so it kind of was a good thing for me to see. Yeah, I mean, it's really remarkable. I love sitting and telling stories of what it was like playing with Tiger and watching Tiger play at that time because I got to play with him a lot in 2000, 2001 and 2002. And I don't know if you want to call that a height of his powers, but it was, if it wasn't,

it was pretty unbelievable. And the control over every area of his game, I just, I'll be amazed if that we see someone else separate like he was able to ever again. Next up, episode 518 with JR Smith talking about his transition into college golf. Sounds like school was the number one motivation. When did golf enter the picture, right? You're playing at North Carolina A&T now. Like was it, you know, a 50-50 thing? Was it kind of like, well, I'm going back I'm as well play golf that I'm fascinated by this process. So I was playing golf with CJ Paul, Chris Paul's brother. We're playing in LA. I was living in LA at the time. We're working out, trying to stay ready for the league and whatnot.

And, but I would play golf every day. So my regiment was, I would work out at like 6am, 7am, Chris Johnson, and then after that, I would play golf pretty much all day, because my kids are in Jersey. So, you know, playing golf with him, he's from Carolina, he's from Chris has been doing, you know, a lot of things with HBCUs. And I wanted to go to a HBCU more than anything.

So once I enrolled and, you know, told him I was going to Carolina, ANT, they got so many ties and stuff down there in Carolina. It was like, man, you should play golf. I was like, bro, I thought about it. I thought about it so many times like playing, you know, playing golf on the college level or just just like competing or whatever. But then I was like, man, I want to play football.

He's like, man, the hell with that play golf? You see nothing golf, you play golf all day, I'm a dead, whatever you good. I was like, man, you think I'll make the team? Like this is probably some sticks. He's like, now what's up? All you gotta do is play again. I'm gonna put a call in.

I'm gonna see what we're seeing is going on. And then he put a call in to one of the basketball coach and him is real tight. And he talked to the golf coach and the golf coach was like, I mean, when I'm a scholarship form, whatever, I don't think he's worried about that. I don't even know what you're gonna worry about that. He's like, all right, well, I don't think he's worried about that. He don't worry about that. He's like, all right, well, let me see if he could play.

And then coach and I played and then after that, it just took off. Well, I mean, what was your competitive golf experience to that point? When did you start playing golf? When did you, I mean, competitive golf and casual golf are two totally, totally different things. So what, I mean, there's a steep curve there. Yeah, it's completely different. For me, when I first started playing

it's been what, 13 years now, Rashad Lewis had a golf event or his first foundation event was a golf outing. So we were all working out with John Lucas and Houston at the time. And, you know, TJ Ford and his guys were like, you know T.J. 4 and his guys were like you know going to recharge golf golf tournament come on man whatever whatever I'm like man I don't play golf like my pops him on brother plays or whatever I don't play golf like whatever I'm gonna get an extra

hundred shots of like nah nah nah not gonna be cool so they can best me go out there so I go out there and they tell me like man you ain't got play. Like you just ride around on a cart, you know, take shots, whatever they got. Hey, our girls out there, all this stuff. So they got cart girls and whatnot. So I'm out there just having a good time. It's sunny day in Houston, Mosamalone, John Lucas, Clyde Drexler,

Kimmel O'Loswine came out there, like all these Houston legends and Hall of Famers and stuff. I think Dr. J came and I'm just like, I'm in for me as grown up as a kid. I'm a basketball heaven just a casual though. It's like the temperature of the water. So he's nobody's in the gym. It totally different environment. And I was really feeling the vibe and most of my loan.

I got to think with Hall of Famers. I just can't when they tell me something. I don't tell them now. Like they don't feel like go give me this water. I mean, Hall of Famers. I just can't, when they tell me something, I don't tell them enough. Like, you don't feel like, go give me this water. I mean, Hall of Famers, I got you. That's just the way I was, my pops put me, got me like that. Just like, man, you don't feel the over-life and joking, whatever, talking shit, come hit this bump.

I don't like, man, I ain't crying. I come on, go out there, he shows me how to hold the club. I'm watching everybody's swing. It's like five people in a group, because it it's like he was a celebrity in his group. First time I get up there, hit it three hundred yards down the fairway. Crush it. Crush it. He's like, everybody's looking. I'm like, man, he's talking shit. I'm going to go to club, walk off, get in the golf cart, fill up. Sound glow. In the whole day, I'm bragging. I'm telling the other groups, whatever. Moses is telling the other groups I'm feeling good.

So I pulled back up on his group. He said, man, he fell, he can't do it again. Hit it again. I couldn't even hit the ball, bro. That sounds more like it. After that, I got hooked. I bought like three sets of clubs that day. I bought like the first clubs I bought was like the Nike Sosh Quash.

I think it was. And then I got like these Taylor maids like our like the Nike Sasquatch. I think it was. And then I got like these Taylor maids like our sevens or something like that. And then I got some titleists. It was just like it was on and on. I got a garage full of clubs. I'm going back to the PGA store sandwich shit. But there's a whole lifestyle around like professional athletes transitioning into like a life of golf of some kind. I mean, not a lot of no one's really going The route that you're going, but man, people gravitate towards pro amps charity golf events and it just see that's why I don't I mean, I understand the appeal of golf golf is my life. I freaking love it, but I guess what in your mind? What what what draws professional athletes to this sport as a pastime once you're, you know, playing career in your main sport is over. I think it's the overall competition of it, you know, it's like even if you're, even

if you're not planning to get to anybody else for planning to get yourself, you can beat them and be great every single day, like, and it's like for, for people who've played at the highest levels of their sports and been on the highest, you know, stages, I think that's something we chase, you know, it's a, a's something we chase. It's a feeling that we chase, when you hit that perfect swing and I had that perfect shot. When I'm playing in the college tournaments, I think of every shot that I take

as if I'm playing in the actual NBA game. If I got a cornered three, I'm looking at certain drives and putts and stuff like that. And it's just like the level of concentration is completely different when you play with your boys and you just out there, you know, playing 50-odd Nassau or whatever and what not. I posted when you got to put everything out for the team

and you know, everything counts. It's just like, it's funny because one of the kids on the other school, he caught me. Like it was like the 15th hole and I almost forgot where I was at. Like I almost just like, you know, scooped it up and it's, oh, you're not used to that environment in that setting. It's just, it can be an uncomfortable situation. So, but for, for again, for professional athletes and people who've been at the top of their sports or a game and whatever. And a lot of, especially like, you know, a lot of businessmen like that as well, you've been so successful on a Wall Street, whatever else. You think you can do anything.

And then when you get out there on that golf bar and you can't do it, it's like, it's a very, it's a very frustrating game, but it's a beautiful game. I love it. It's a very, it's a very frustrating game, but it's a beautiful game. I love it. Next up episode 522 with Hughes-Norton, Tiger Woods' first agent telling some stories of being an agent in the 80s and 90s. So is it fair to say that Norman would be on the opposite out of the spectrum on that one?

Well, I mean, I think it is. Yeah, I mean, he's gone through a lot of stuff and we've all followed it is. Yeah, I mean, he's gone through a lot of stuff and we've all followed it since. I mean, he's just convinced that he's a business czar. There was a tycoon in business and he kind of knows it all. It was a great exchange when he first was on his own. I got the second hand from the guy that ran our operation in Australia,

but the big Australian business magnate named Kerry Packer ran the biggest broadcasting syndicate in the country of Australia, very wealthy, successful guy, and he was a very blunt and to the point individual. And Greg got to be friends with him. And one day, Greg goes into Kerry's office. They're sitting there talking, so the story goes. And Greg's talking about all the businesses that he's gonna set up and how he's gonna staff them all

and do this and do that. And it was a pause and Carrie Packer, putting his feet up on his desk, which he'd like to do, lean back in his chair and supposedly said, Norman, if you wanna be a businessman, you gotta wear a fucking suit. Which was, again, that's the distinction between, you're a great golfer or you're a great basketball player.

Hard enough to do that at the top of your craft all the time. Don't try to do, the thing that comes over a lot of them, Chris, quite honestly, is when you're so successful in one sphere of life, and, and this is a big hand, you are most often surrounded by friends and associates who tell you everything you say and believe is right on and true. You get to thinking, is right on and true. You get to thinking, I'm as good a business man as I am a golfer. Or I'm a good a musician. I can be, you know, I'm LeBron James. I can go into music or whatever

the situation is. And I always used to tell my clients the one thing I would tell them on a regular basis. And since I got fired by both Norman and Tiger after 12 years, maybe this war a little thin, And since I got fired by both Norman and Tiger after 12 years, maybe this war a little thin, I said to myself, because I sense this, you can see it all the time with friends of theirs and their hometowns around. Once a week, you've got to tell your big clients that they're absolutely full of shit.

And unless you can do that, there's nobody that brings frequently the wives will do that, but not always. And you have to make sure there's some perspective here, because you get all this success at the top of the food chain and you lose it. You've said it way better than I could. We're sensing among some people in professional golf. Well, I've done this, this, and this for so many years, and everyone's, you know, kiss my ass everywhere I've gone.

Like, how could I be wrong about this? And oh, my gosh, you just, if you spend enough time, you know, around people that are yes men, or are telling you exactly what you wanna hear, your perspective on the world is bound to change, no matter what. And yeah, so tell us about,

I don't know, if we skip right to the end of Norman, but it sounded like, you know, he wanted to take a lot of credit for deals that you guys had helped him with or what happened there with, you know, with co, I think it was Cobra back in the day. I, you know, there's various reports about love to hear your side of it. Well, you can get a sense for when relationships start to sour. I guess I'm an expert on that based on my track record, but, but you know one time at Reebok, Reebok, the chairman of Reebok in those days, the guy named Paul Fireman, very difficult guy,

very egocentric as well, and we're up there for a meeting on some style issues and Normans line and stuff, and all of a sudden, I see the Greg and Firemen are having a private meeting. And that's very often the kiss of death. So that's when you kinda know things are going downhill. Cobra, that's too long a stir to go into, but basically Tom Pro who's an Australian great guy, Rand Cobra, and had a guy who was running the business side of it

who didn't like agents in general and I guess particularly didn't like me and so then they started doing it. Let's Greg, let's make this deal ourselves. And by the way, that's always out there, no matter what your relationship is with the client. There are people who will, and Nike did this with Tiger to their everlasting shame. They, not to jump ahead, but long after the process was established between the relationship with Tiger and me and his dad. Toward the end, I'd been to Nike 10 times trying to figure out what's a fair deal for this kid.

If and when he turns pro, just general discusses nothing specific. At the very 11th hour, they sent an African American gentleman directly who I'd never met from within Nike to Tiger's house. Hey, let's just do this deal with us. You don't need to use nor do you don't need anybody in between and that's that's when a relationship is tested and two is ever last in credit. Earl Woods called me told me what had happened and he said that he had told this guy from Nike, Hey, go back and tell Phil Knight. You got to trust somebody and we trust you.

Next up a couple stories from Colin Moore, a Cala from episode 526. You changed some of your equipment in between weeks before winning the Open Championship. Tell me about what you learned in week one that helped you in week two. Yeah, so let's see, I'm going to go back even before that. It was like two weeks before playing at the US Open,

Tory Pines, Po, Cacooia, and I'm striping. Like I'm hitting my driver in my iron's fantastic. And I'm like, okay, game feels amazing. Head over Scottish and I'm in the middle of the fairway a bunch of times with a nine iron. And I start hitting it to 45 feet. And I'm like, looking at my caddy, I'm like, I'm like trying to think we go to the range.

And I start blaming my clubs like everyone else, right? And you know, I'm sure my caddy has heard this a million times from other players and the tailor made wraps are like, okay, whatever, like, sure, like, let's blame the clubs. Like, and I just felt like my swing was so where I wanted it to be that all I could do was blame it on the clubs. Like, it was weird, right?

Like, and you never want to blame it on your clubs And you never want to blame it on your clubs, you never want to blame it on your equipment, but it just didn't feel right. It didn't, my arms, my short arms, and my blades weren't feeling right through the turf. And Monday morning, we got to the open, and I was like, okay, let me just try the P7MC's, which I had in my five, my six and five iron, which I felt like I was hitting it okay, but I just didn't have that many shots with that at the Scottish and put it in, started, my six and five iron, which I felt like I was hitting it okay, but I just didn't have that many shots with that at the Scottish and put it in, started hitting center of the face and was like,

okay, we're good to go. And it was like, so it was the equipment. Yeah, I mean, it was the equipment. There's something to it with how it digs in the turf, which people, you have to be able to create speed and compress the ball, but it was just so funny because I could just tell the face. I could look at my caddy's face that week in the Scottish

while I was blaming my golf clubs. You're just like, sure, sure. I've seen you not hit it well. Let's keep your foot down. Let's stay a little more down on it. I could tell he was just buying into my BS about what I was trying to say. Dude, that makes total total sense to me. That about what I was trying to say. Dude, that makes total, total sense to me.

That's what I really do. Right, but it is such a different style of golf and I'm always amazed at how fast people flip the switch and switch to that style of golf because like PGA Tour Golf is almost all airborne. I mean, this is very obvious. But you gotta get it up in the air, the more you carry it, the better.

Whereas like the first time you stand on a tee with a crosswind that you need to get the ball out of the air, the more you carry it, the better. Whereas like the first time you stand on a tee with a cross wind that you need to get the ball out of the air as fast as possible and running, it's just a different test. And I know you guys are the best players in the world for a reason, but it just seems like it would identify different players than it, but it seems like we see the same players rise up when we see that style play. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not like the clubs immediately helped me hit the ball lower and hit it exactly where I wanted.

But now I feel. But now it could feel the center of the face and then I could work the ball from there. So it was such a big thing about finding center of the face. And I think we do that every year with changing drivers, like I love the stealth driver that I'm using this year. Like it is so good, it was an easy transition. But even then, I still had to learn how to hit

the center of the face, because it's just different. And everywhere you go, you know, turf, like, you just have to find the center of the face again, and again, and again, and that's just like, it's a learning thing, and I don't like to blame my clubs, because I feel like it's always on me. But this was like the one time where I was like, sold on, I have to change irons.. Like if I didn't change irons, I would have gone crazy for those two

weeks. I understand you. Did you learn this directly from the goat, the draw chip? JT told me about this like four years ago, like trying putting draw action on your chips. I read that in golf digest article. No, that's absolutely not. I should not yes. Yes. Is that not a thing? No, it is. It is a thing. And for me, like, man, the Taylormate photoshoot days, when Tiger wasn't here this year, but the past couple of years when he

has been there, like, my ears and eyes would just glue to him. Because he just like, he just kind of spills a little knowledge. And I know he didn't do this when he was younger because he was just beating everyone else and didn't want to get a little tidbit. But like, I did a little, not a clinic. I did a little video with Taylormate with me and him hitting iron shots.

And I was like, I was just my jaw was to the floor. That was the first time, when I met Tiger, I will always remember what I've met. But that little 10 minute stretch of us hitting arms, I was just like, oh man, like, all right, maybe I am doing something good. Like, he's doing this, like, I like this. But yeah, like chipping wise, I've learned how to chip a lot more efficiently, a lot better, especially in grainy lies. The way this draw chip works is that you're pretty much just shallowing it out, right? Especially in grain, you just don't want to have the leading edge go in. Marco Mirro has helped me a lot on putting and Paul Azinger, I got like a 15, 20 minute

lesson before I won the WGC at concession last year. He gave me a tripping lesson and I still use it to this day. So I mean, those two guys, I owe so much credit to. A quick break here to check them with our friends at Walker Trolley. If you don't know, the Walker Trolley Cape is the number one premium push cart. In the market, it brings a classic style

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hairy higs, a little different tone from the first story we heard from him talking about, changes to the PGA tour and ongoing things. Remember, this is from March 2022 as all things were unfolding. The conversation like there is nothing off the table in terms of what the PGA tour may or may not do in coming years. There's no structure changes that are off the table. Yes. As of right now, it seems to be that that is exactly the path that we're going. It's just whether or not we can kind of all come to an agreement enough to appease everybody within the organization. That's all the players. I mean, it's every single one of them has to be thought of. And, you know, in theory, they should all be heard from. That's the pack is designed

so guys can come to me with their grievances or they can go to the tour. They don't have to just come to me, but share there. And then I have to take that into the room. I mean, I have to, well, so and so, you know, brought up a good point here. And it's hard, too, because we are, we're also individual. None of us want to be bothered when we're playing golf tournaments, but we're all together when we're playing golf tournaments. I think all of us need to collectively do a better job of speaking with one another and not just going rogue and, you know, trying to leverage whatever it is, leagues, anything.

Like, we can all speak to each other like grown-ass men and come to agreements amongst ourselves because, oh shit, yeah. Like we can all speak to each other, like grown-ass men, and come to agreements amongst ourselves because, oh shit, yeah, we actually control what goes on around here. To, you know, almost 90% of it. And then some of the shit that we don't control, we don't want control of. Yeah. Like we are never going, no union,

like none of that nonsense, because then we gotta go and negotiate with host organizations and everything to have them pay the purse, like none of that stuff, but we can all do a much better job of communicating with one another. Like we're out there playing golf, yeah, maybe do it off the T-Box

where the microphones are something, but like, hey man, had you heard the thought, you heard the new proposed structure and all this, you got any, I mean, there's 144 of us most weeks, you got any idea of, and most of us are pretty smart, I wouldn't put myself in the smart category, but most of us are actually really, really smart. Got any idea of how that would work?

What, you know, is anything, there are red flags in it for you? Like, the problem is the tour throws all this shit out there, they try to communicate it their best, and then none of us talk to each other about it. Yeah, my agent's talking to his son, those agents, those guys, I love my agent, everybody loves their agent.

But those guys have to feed their family too. Like, we need to make these decisions ourselves because we are the ones in charge of ourselves. That was the big irritation with Phil. Phil, stop. If you had sat, if you were in the room with us the last three years, I think he has sat on our player advisory council, you know, forever ago. If you were in the room with us and you brought this shit up, we could have done it right then and there. We could have fixed it right then and we can change rules right then and there whatever we want to do It's just whether or not it's a good idea for all the members

If you were in the room or you ever sat and player dining or you ever talked to somebody Like a normal human being and asked their thoughts on some things and then gave your opinions on other things And then came you know how to, came to a conclusion about something. This would have been fine. A lot of this stuff was, and I think he probably would realize, I gave him a mouse shot, a lot of these things are already changing. Very higgs for president. I mean, I've always thought he has a great name. It could be that part of a job. To be president. It just can't be. Well, and that's where I, you know, the numbers that are being thrown out and the idea of giving the tour this quote unquote,

personnel, like calling the tour something other than it being you players is where I'm so confused. Like I get it, but it makes it sound like that PGA tour executives are hoarding a pile of cash down underneath the data lake. I can guarantee you they're not. So if you say there's $20 billion in digital assets

or all this media rights stuff or any of that, it seems. So here, okay, media rights, here's the big issue. Phil, would you like to, or anybody, but I guess Phil has mentioned it. So we'll go with Phil. Phil, would you like to control your own media rights? Yes, I would.

Okay, well now Phil, here you go. You got to hire people to get them out there, all this stuff. But think of it now, Phil, you have just lessened the product for everybody else. Everybody. So now all of your fellow contemporaries are, and it's absolutely feels right to do that if this was, you know, this is a hypothetical, but if this was something that would be considered, it's absolutely his right to go take them, make Udels a money and hurt everybody else. I truly don't think, I mean, they're probably at some point in the next decade will be some sort of qualifier to where you can, you know, do media rights, this, this, and this.

This is a space I really don't know a whole lot about, but those that want to take them or control them lessen the product for everybody else. Now there's new TV deal, this shiny new TV deal that gets the players championship purse to 20 million gets the corn fairy purses in three years, hopefully to a million. Well, that's all got to go away. We got to redo how we do it. Less money for everybody else now because so and so one of their media rights. And look, this is again golf is kill What you eat or eat what you kill? Yeah, he would you kill and that's fine. I don't have I don't have any part of them But anybody getting more money. I am absolutely of the thought that the top players in the world are under compensated for what they bring to events

but It's been this way for a long time doesn't mean things shouldn't change or tweak. I hate the, well, that's the way we've always done it. That's the worst fucking answer in the world. But maybe just take a second and think of that, maybe just even the hassle that it would be for you to get these meteorites out there. And if Phil's the only one that takes them, then we can probably just bully him out of him being worth anything anyway. And it's, all right, well, we'll just get rid of his and now we can use everybody else's, right?

And the tours already doing things. Again, they have many programs that I lifted my shirt up in Phoenix. What? In case anybody forgot. Can I quit tidbit? I got a text from a buddy during this. And he said,

he'll ask Harry if I can have one of his chest hairs to keep slash frame been on my bucket list since he enjoyed Torupt 16 at Waste Management. I don't know how. Send his address and said, I'll cover shipping. How do you ship this? I don't know. We can figure that out.

But like, so I did that. And there are avenues that are being worked on to be put in place to where that I can sell, I think it this NFT deal which is still I don't know anything about I can sell something some sort of digital asset and partner with the tour and make money off flesh and my titties Like will buy how in the world Is the is the PGA tour not doing you like not doing a good enough job for everybody, right? They are doing their best. It is an organization that is literally just organized to funnel us money. That's the whole thing.

And they are, they are working day and night to funnel as many of us as possible, especially top players as much money as possible. They're doing a great job. Sure. If somebody wants guaranteed money and wants to go play in another league, that's fine. Go ahead and do it. But don't air out all this most of it fake dirty laundry on the tour and hurt the overall product and hurt your fellow contemporaries. I'm quite, I mean, I know everybody at RIV, I'm really fucking tired of it. I mean, it's nonsense. Stop doing it, you're hurting everybody,

and we've seen how it also hurts your individual too. Yeah, that's well said. I mean, it's like all the takes I had were just, like, being a lot more, yeah. It means a lot more coming from you. I'm interested in, you know, is there any way that Phil's gonna twist us into, you know, this thing you're talking about flashing your titties

for money? Okay, we have a real sentence. It was just, so this podcast, but is that, like something that Phil's gonna be like, see, I'm taking credit for that. That was my idea to do NFTs of these highlights. Or, you know, is the tour sitting on a ton of money in digital highlights

that they're not getting the most out of? Is that a fair critique? That could certainly be the case, sure. And I would say that would more than like, again, this is a space I know so little on, but my opinion is that it probably has been like that for a long time, sure, but it's changing, right? And they may be sitting on it,

but they don't know what to do with it. Well, but so sitting on it is a little different than like when you take it to these are your media partners and you say you have access to all of this shit, all of these highlights plus the live golf, people pay more. So they're not sitting on it, right? They're using all this stuff to leverage popular word nowadays. Yeah. These media, their media partners to give them more money. Gotcha.

And it's not like they're actively doing it in screw, they're not using these media shots of you in lining their pockets. It's not like they're getting that right now. That money goes to the tour players. Yeah. Like, it's not like they're just secretly doing this and be like, ooh, I just made a million off a hairy flash and like, and that's not happening. So there's no, there's nothing anywhere that says that I can't have, well, I have, there's a limit on how many logos I can have. But we don't have to, we don't have to play in blank shirts, right? So all those highlights,

all that this great platform they provide. If you want to go do the work or your agent wants to go do the work, go tattoo this stuff all over you and you can line your pockets that way. Yep, and they get, yeah. So how is this bad? How is this? Yes, 100% there are things that are still in need of change.

Absolutely, but most of the things that have been brought up in the last couple of weeks were already in the process of change. Absolutely. But most of the things that have been brought up in the last couple of weeks were already in the process of changing. And yes, sometimes change takes too slow between players and PGA tour, right? It just does. But it's coming. It's all going to everything's all everything's going to be fine. And everybody's going to have enough money to feed their family, right? It's it me nuts, and I really hardly ever talk about it, but a lot of the guys, I'm sure, that get interviewed and get asked questions about this stuff

that had no interest in doing this is, I can imagine how annoying it is. It's just taxing, it's just draining. It's draining, and we talk about it every week. I wouldn't even really plan it on talking about this. We can tell you said you were coming to the go, I don't know if that's correct. He's gonna talk about flashing titties

and make a money off that. But, uh, did you get fine for that? I was getting ready to ask it. Are you going to? No. No. First call was, and it was getting for, well, I'm not gonna be asking.

Man scape call, I just I want to know Manscapes, you know, because maybe in the works. I mean, there's another thing I can benefit off for sure off of myself There's already interest there and there's actually been interest there You know for a couple years with with my Counterpart that was also on the whole with me at the time He's the best Good Joel So now that's a really good Joel stories anyway Save those for later date Next up episode 6-11 with Darren Clark telling one of my favorite Tiger stories ever so

Take in I have been very good fans for a long long time and you know, we both worked to put Charmin Art and Vegas and And you know whenever they're the three of us who had for dinner and it would always be out there butch or myself would pay for dinner because Tiger was cobwebs in his wallet it's sort of I don't know I don't know it's a rumor that he has a wallet because nobody's ever really seen it so we would go out and we we get on really really well and have a lot of fun and he used to call me double F and I used to call him B dash dash dash I see it. So it came over to you. So when it come over to European would come walking onto the range and usually if there was a spot beside me who put the bag down, Stevie

would put the bag down and hit balls. It was high means. How you doing? FF, I'm not sure stuff. So back in the day in Germany, it was Deutsche Bank Tournament of European, what was it called? I can't remember one of our big tournaments over there, TBC of Europe or whatever it was, Tiger was put his bag down, started hitting some balls. Now back on those days in Germany, they weren't allowed to use certain pesticides on the grounds in Watthavgis. So unlike the perfectly manicured courses you have these days, it was good, but it wasn't quite what it is today So because they're gonna use certain pesticides it was wormcaps coming up everywhere and the turf was a little bit damp Not wasn't firm wasn't crisp around thing

Tiggy was was going through his whole back start with his low-wage start when they ended nine irons And then he had hit if you turn around and give me a little bit of a shoe It's yet give me a little bit of a juice go back head and some more balls and all that sort of stuff and he flushed every shot I mean just pureed every shot didn't mess one just pureed it and you know he finished he's finished off with his driver obviously he teed that he teed those up but finished off with his driver and stuff from about 45 minutes later he says okay okay um FF I'm aware see you by my and off he wondered so I looked down at his divot pattern and all it was was the grass was still drained and it was all brushed it was there was no divots

and he purered every shot no some of your listeners might not quite understand that but that is to this day, the single most impressive thing that I have ever seen in my career. I will never see it again. Not one day of it. Not nothing, just absolutely, absolutely pureed every shot. I mean, just off the charts. I love that story. That stage, he was obviously number one in the world, but he was just incredible. He just sure. I can't get enough of that story. It's it. I've got back to read that golf digest bit. Like every chance I get this unreal. He was that good. When you got some more good Tiger stories to

it, but I've matched play in 2000. Was that the year you beat him, right? And that you guys have breakfast together that morning. Yeah, we did. You said something to him about his celebrations if I remember. Oh, yes. So I'm sitting here, Tiggie sitting beside me. The other side of Tiger was Bertraman. The other side of me was Chubby Chandler. The other side of Bertraman was Mark Steinberg. The other side of Chubby was Mike Cadybilly Foster.

On the other side of Mark Steinberg was Stevie Williams. And we're all having breakfast and sit there. I said, I said, now listen, if you chip in today, because a couple of years ago, before you remember, I remember I had a memorial, I had a chip and I started running, like he was pulling the toilet sheet and all the way right to the ground, the great. I said, if you do that today, I will slap you in the face.

To which his head was down his plate, and he lifted his head had up and those big white teeth come out and he looked at me and he says, you can f-off you, f-f-f, you couldn't f-ing catch me anyway. That was the start to our morning. Oh gosh, I feel like you got a lot of stories over these. Yeah, yeah, I have a few. But Tiggie, you know, he's always been so cool to me and so good to me. When I won the open in 2011, he was texting me every day because he was out with his leg injury and our back injury kind of meant which one.

And he said, I was watching DC, he says, I was watching FF, don't be careful over there. Stay away from that bit over there. Go over there and he was texting me every day. I'm trying to help me every day. That was pretty cool. And you left a note in your locker after WGC, at LaCosta left a note on the local rules that I wake. He says congrats B pride. P-A-S, you're still a F F T W T. That was not a phase in Tigers life when he was as friendly towards other players in

that regard. No, you know, that was that was a period of his time when he was dominating and doing everything and everybody seemed to be a little bit more, I don't know, whenever Tiggie's name got up there, he seemed to have that effect on people right and really got in care. I just, you know, I'd give him some abuse and try and play and what I've been. I just threw my time playing with him and I'm practicing with him in Vegas and obviously got very close to him and I was was, fortunately, he would help me. Aren't any time I asked him for a little bit of advice, a little bit of help.

He was there for me and I know it was offered. Next up is episode 546 with Jason Hare. He is the director of the shark documentary that was on ESPN as well as the director from the last dance, talking about interviewing Greg Norman. I give him a lot of credit for going wherever we wanted to go. I think that any pro athlete has a certain sense of ego. And if you said to them, hey, man, we're not going to do a lot about the 96 masters.

We're going to talk about your accomplishments. He probably would have said, I'm fine with that. He's Greg Norman. He's worth half a billion dollars. And he is Greg Norman walking around for a reason. He's got that aura about him. But because of that, I give him a tremendous amount of credit and respect for, for instance, we had him watch, as you said, that final round in 96. And he didn't

know that that was coming. We didn't specifically discuss this. I think that his people had conveyed to him. They're going to show you some clips and have you discuss them. But we had everything loaded up. It was really, we were going to make him watch all 78 shots of Sunday in 96. But we certainly had those loaded up. And I didn't want to lie to him by showing him some of his accomplishments and then do him into all the sudden now we turn. It was very clear from the very beginning, like the first clip we showed him was Jim Nance's on air welcome. Hello friends in 1996, whatever that was. And it was here we are

in Greg Norman is up by a lot, is up by six strokes. And this is, you know, it's just a question of, is he a 42 long or a 42 regular, I think is what Kenny Main said. So he knew at that moment what was coming in, he could have said, guys, I'm not doing this. He could have stood up and walked out in any moment, or he could have gotten really combative, or even a little bit defensive, which on TV comes off as a lot defensive. I give him a tremendous amount of credit for sitting there and understanding what we were doing

and going along with it. And my thought always, it wasn't to victimize him, and it certainly wasn't to to make fun of him a ridicule him. I always had in the back of my mind the thought that I think that people, especially in America, in the US, when you screw up, if you own it, people are so willing to forgive you. And whether it's a moral transgression or an athletic transgression or something in between. If you screw up and say, yeah, hey, you know what, hand up. I push that thing 40 yards to the right on 18.

I shouldn't have done it. And it's still e to me to this day. So I thought he did, I give him credit for, for, um, acquitting himself really well of sitting there watching these things. It got a little awkward. I'll be honest. By the time he went in the water on 12 and he knew what we were doing, I had to skip a couple. Our producer Matt had everything queued up. And I think I skipped like he had a bad approach shot on 10 that went wide left and I skipped that because it was like I could see he and I his energy was like wait are we gonna go so but you had to have the missed three footer on 10 or I'm sorry on 11 you had to have the water on 12 he birdied 13 he was within two strokes when that famous shot where he drops to his knees on 15 and

misses Eagle by I mean I don't know how that ball didn't go into the hole to this day. It looks like it rolled over the hole. Which it may have. If he sinks that, their tie going into 16. And even I said too that if you're down to going into 16, you're still in it. Anything can happen. This is Augusta. You birdie 16 and creep with still in it. Mm-hmm. Anything can happen. This is Augusta. You birdie 16 and creep with them one. You get 17 and 18 to go. That 18th fairway starts looking a lot more narrow if you're up by one, but it was fascinating

just to consider what that place can do to an elite athlete, the aura that that place has. And I'll tell you that is one of the great rewatches too. And it's painful rewatch, but the whole broadcast is up on YouTube, like all of the master's broadcasts are. And it, I guess it's kind of Frank Tricinian, the CBS crew, new way ahead of, you know, they knew what the story was, they had to follow one pairing

basically, you know, for the whole day. And they just linger on the tension the whole time. They linger, they linger, the fact, even Fautos shot. they just linger on the tension the whole time. They linger. They linger. The fact even Fautoshot. I know it's not what this film's about, but Fautoshot into 13. He spends three or four minutes deciding on what club to hit. And it's just a level of tension. And maybe that's what I honestly think like this, this day is what made me, it not made me a golf fan, but it up the level of which I was a golf fan because it was just such incredible theater.

And what I thought a big takeaway I had from your film as well was this was not as much of a freak occurrence as maybe I would have once thought it was. You did an amazing job of accumulating all of the things that were off from the end of day Saturday all the way through to basically 16 when he hits in the water and the fidgeting of the club the re-gripping of the club Fowdo talking about that. How does that to watch it? Yeah, I mean, I'm not a over a shot. It's a tight lie in the middle of the fairway. We've all stood over that thing and then thought like oh there's a couple people watching me over that thing and then thought like, oh, there's a couple people watching me. Imagine if you're on, I think that was the second or I know it was the eighth for 24 seconds. Yeah, that's all.

And that's when Faldot even says, and Kudos to Faldot for his candor in this dog too, saying, I noticed it. And that's when I knew that I could capitalize. I'm very much as well documented, not a huge fan of Fowdo's commentary, but he was fantastic at this document at doc. And he has his perspective on things was such, I guess it came from, I don't want to call it sympathetic place. It was definitely not a taunting thing at all.

He just seemed to understand what Greg was going through on that day. And also as at the beginning, like he can't believe that Greg would go back there. He says it's like, why would you want to go watch a crap movie again? that day and also as at the beginning like he can't believe that Greg would go back there. He says it's like, why would you want to go watch a crap movie again? He's calling Greg's final round in 96 of crap movie and he's right. But to see the Faldon that we depicted in that doc, which I think is accurate at that point, was the super conservative, you know, he was the metronome. He was the guy who's had no personality and was just like, he was always lingering, always there. And then he struck when it was time to strike. He would strike

it lowly you into this. And now today to see the Nick Fowler today with the sideburns and the birth light collar and the open shirt and the medallion. It's like he's the dude that people thought that Greg Norman was back then. He's evolved into that. So that's a little like subtext that I found fascinating. Next up is episode five, 14 with Leonna McGuire talking about her soul Heimcup experience. I want to talk soul Heimcup. I'm sure you're I'm sure it's a it's a fresh enough memory that you're not, you're not, you're not tired of talking about it just yet.

So you come out, you're rookie on the team. You play five matches. Was that always the plan? When did you learn or know that you were going to be playing that much? Were there, you know, was Captain Matthews just riding the hot hand? How did that play out? Yeah, I mean, not in a million years. I think I'd play five matches.

I had a call upon Wagenley a few days before we flew out to to later just for some advice. And I see he was a very successful writer, Captain and a writer cup player himself so just picked his brains a little bit and a lot of what we talked about was what to do when I wasn't playing those those sessions if you if you were dropped in the morning how do you prepare how do you get ready how do you conserve energy how do you warm up all that sort of thing if you're dropped in the afternoon again how do you build up that energy cheer on your teammates, whatever it is, that dynamic. We spent quite a bit of time planning that. We didn't plan for five matches. He basically told me he's like, you're a rookie, you won't play five matches. Probably nobody will play five matches if they do it. It probably would be a veteran player.

So the intention was never for me to play five, but I guess someone probably has to. I knew there was a few of the girls in the team that had requested afternoons off and stuff like that to be fresh for the same girls. And I mean, I was just riding the wave, I guess, of adrenaline or whatever. And we knew the pairings for those first two.

Those first two matches the first day. And then Beanie said that night she told us who was going out in the forces and then said the four ball matches that Sunday afternoon. She was like, I'll let you know as the morning unfolds. I'll try to get to you if I can't and assume you're playing, but I'll try to get everybody that sort of thing. And I personally had assumed I'd probably be drafted the afternoon.

I was thinking there's no way I would play five. I've had a good run, fours enough, whatever. And then Susanne appeared on me and Mel, we're going to end the 12th, 13th, fairly, maybe. And we were quite a few up at that stage. And she just around the go go you two are going again get get this thing off and get ready to go again so and that was the realization of okay we're going five here and I actually the first day I brought a second

pair of shoes to the golf course with me knowing I was going out again that second day I didn't because I didn't think I was going to be going in the afternoon again. So, yeah, ultimately, it's what I have to do today, the team, that road changes as the week goes on. And just got out of the, to get my points. Well, this answer may be, may be obvious, but what, I mean, what is it about that environment that allowed you to thrive? I mean, I, I've not watched you play a lot of stroke play golf,

but your energy, like the speed at which you were walking, the fire, and like, this will look on your face, looks different than what we're used to seeing you play golf. Is that, you know, just a product of the environment and the team golf in general? And am I on to something there? Do you, would you watch that? Do you see a different person?

Yeah, I mean, I've also teamed off. I used to love representing Ireland in I'm a company swiss the European team champs. It's every summer. It was my favorite event for some singles. It used to be a force. It turned into a starly and had a blast in that. Loved Curtis Cops. So all that sort of thing to you right up to Junior Solo and Cops. my four years of Duke was was for team events. Yes, there was a lot of, there was a singles component to it, but my main objective every week was doing as well as I could for the team. And I think that's why I played so well in college.

It was, it was never about me. It was about the team and I loved every minute of Soul and that team atmosphere of doing, doing your part for the team. I was obviously fortunate to have two great partners in Maryland, Georgia, who had a lot of experience under their bed, two very different players and two very different dynamics. But I think Mel was great that first morning, especially with the draw we got against the quarters. I needed someone with me that wasn't afraid of Nellie and Jess, that respected them, but wasn't afraid of them.

And I think that was great for me. I knew she wasn't afraid. I knew she trusted me 100% and I trusted her. And I think that was massive sort of in those partnerships, but with Jordan. Well, what is it like playing with Mel? She seems like just a... You guys seem like you have very contrasting personalities

and I think she even made a comment to that at some point after one of the rounds. But how did that period come about and what's it like play with her? Because she's intense. Yeah, I mean, I think that was a pairing like we said all week. We joked about it all week. Neither of us so coming from beanie. Beanie told us, um, he was on the wednesday night. We hadn't practiced together at that point. We've never played together, ever. And then, as we did, anything, I'd know what her name was like. It obviously grew up watching her on TV and stuff.

And, yeah, Beanie was going through the order and she was like, Nana and the teller's gonna lead us off. And I think it was Georgian Celine, which were two great pairings to be going out first and second. And Celine and Georgian obviously had a phenomenal record at Plan Egos, and then I was kind of going through it and my head, and I said, I'm probably not playing the four sons,

that's fine, whatever. I knew Charlie and then we're coming up, and then she said, Mel, I'm definitely not playing that. And it's a melancholy on. And I think I nearly fell off my chair. That was a pairing I never saw coming. But yeah, I think just right off the bat,

we were super honest with each other about what we wanted, what we thought was best for the partnership. Remember, we went out that first morning on Thursday to play some four-sims and we got to, we went out that first morning on Thursday to play some four songs and we got to, we went out in the back nine and we got to 10th, 10th, green and that says,

I want you to read all my plots. All my plots and I was like, my lab never seen you hit a plot. I have no idea. I have no idea. And she was like, no, you're good at read plots. I want you to read my plots. I trust you, 100% dead weight.

This is what I want. And we just went from there and we had a lot of band we're back and forth. Very different personalities, probably, but quite similar sense of humor. I guess her being English, maybe in Irish, that we kind of bounced off each other a bit and felt very competitive, neither of us wanted to lose.

And we jailed pretty well and bounced off each other quite nicely. Next up, episode 573 with Max Homa, a long episode we did with him right after Liv had started up in June. A lot of documentation around, a lot of expression from him on his thoughts and everything and I thought this was some of the best stuff

we had on the podcast all year long. Episode 573. I think the interesting thing, and I'm gonna use both those points because obviously they are and anybody you know with a ton of money can buy kind of anything that's kind of the world. We live in unfortunately you know money kind of just talks. DJ Pihowski what you said earlier about how you know they need more players out kind of who are pro-tour to be more outspoken.

Big reason I've been like, this has just been weighing on me and like, I really wanted to get on here to at least talk about it because it's been just bugging me is, I think the top part about that is that we don't all get press conferences every week. Like three guys do. I actually was hoping and waiting to get one

the last couple of weeks, obviously playing a little bit better but still not in that like upper upper echelon. It's like I still don't get major press conferences. And I do little interviews here and there, but I haven't really been like saying at time, I've been saying that I don't love what's going on. I've obviously been using like social media here and there to joke around about it. It's been kind of tough to help. Like if, you know, I want the PJ tour to succeed. I very much enjoy my time out here. It's hard to get your voice heard because I'm not going to waste some deep thought on a small article to the local newspaper, which is more of what I honestly do. You want

to be a a Rory, if you're in thought with him, but we don't get the opportunity. I feel really bad for Rory. He should not have to do this week and a week out. He's doing an amazing job. It scares me in a way because it's all the big Batman fans out there like me.

He's kind of our Harvey Dent right now. And he shouldn't have to keep sticking his neck out. If anything ever came out like he no one's perfect, you know, and it's tough for him to keep having to say this over and over and over again and keep like I mean I'm sure he's friends with Brooks like they live down by each other. They're both elite golfers. They've been around each other a lot like he shouldn't have to talk shit about him and like they're kind of pushing him to say something bad about him and that's not his job. I think we could all help, but the problem is we're not all in a position to do so. But like the things I would say and why I've been wanting to have,

like at least be able to have my voice heard a little bit is I look back and I know it probably gets over talk about, you know, buy me probably in about me. But when I had the shitty like go of golf, I can like about me. But when I had the shitty, like, go of golf, I can, like, pinpoint my rock bottom, at least the one that, like, I pictured the clearest, and I can remember sitting in this shit hole hotel at an Adam's Torvent in the middle of Brownville, Texas, which ironically was San Burns's first

never professional golf tournament, which was kind of cool. But I remember sitting in there, and, like, I barely was watching TV. I was, sitting on my bed and just like thinking about what's going on. I remember being in my first round and you know, everybody out there, it's an Adam's for events. It's an awesome, great run tournament, but most of those guys are either getting ready for Q-score, just trying to make a few bucks. And somebody, I know, I was talking to somebody, he said he was worked in the car barn at some course down the road and he asked me what I did.

And I literally was like two weeks ago I was playing on the PJ tour. Like, I, this is, you know, and it was like a humbling feeling and it was, it sucked. So I remember, I bring that up because when I was sitting in that hotel room thinking and like just like reminiscing and, and then dreaming, I dreamed about a lot of things. Dreamed about, you know, playing a PGA tour. I dreamed about competing, contending, battling, rowing, macaroni, Justin Thomas, like playing with Tiger Woods. Like I dreamed of a lot of that. I dreamt of like climbing up the world ranking. I dreamt of winning the FedEx Cup. I dreamt of Presidents cups and Ryder cups. And I know money

comes with a lot of that, but I never dreamt of money. And I mean that sincerely. That was never the motivating factor. And I think that is a big part of this whole thing. You can buy a tour for sure, but you can't buy my goals and my dreams. And I think a lot of guys do have that. And I think that is the power of these top guys right now. And I hope it stays just selfishly for myself. The funny part is that all this goes to shit

and the live tour works and all that. I make a lot more money. Like that's the, like in my current mindset, that's like the downside. But I love playing the tournament every year, the Genesis. I love playing API, Zenipi Mastercard at Bay Hill.

I love those tournaments. They mean a lot to me. I enjoyed watching them growing up. I enjoy playing in them now. Like, I don't know. That's why I want the tour to succeed mostly is just because I really enjoy a lot of that. And for me, and I don't think I'm alone,

like, I think a lot of these guys, like, there's this argument now that it's playing for money or playing for trophies, and I call bullshit because we play for a lot of fucking money also. So, I don't know. I think that they're gonna be guys go, it's boatloads of cash, like boatloads. I'm thinkable cash, but I do think that like,

for the last year and a half, but I mean, last year, I thought I had a chance to make the router cup got fit for the clothes. I can picture myself in those clothes, looking in the mirror and knowing I was not gonna make that team with that point, cause I was playing too shitty and say, all right, I'm gonna be on this president's cup team. But I just don't know if there's an amount of money at this moment that would

this week get me to quit golf or quit the PJ tour so I could go and I would not get to play the president's cup. Like that's what wakes me up for morning. That's why I practice when it's 110 out here in Arizona. Like that is what gets me and I don't think that I'm alone there. And I think that is the beauty of professional golf. And for a lot of the guys on tour, I think that is the beauty of professional golf. Um, and, and for a lot of the guys on tour, I think that they're aligned in that. Next up, episode 548 with Saahit Tagala talking about waste management and his, uh, development on the PGA tour. I feel like I'm watching somebody that is along for the ride, right? You wear your emotions on your sleeve. The way you played it, it, you know, you got up to

the lead at waste management and like, it felt like that Saturday was the most exhausting round of golf possible. You were in the desert the whole day. Oh my god. I don't know if you wear a hoop. Like what was your hoop straight at the end of that day? If they were it. Yeah. So I wear a hoop and I've always I always get really nervous to turn them around. It doesn't matter what tournament. It doesn't matter what day. My heart rate just gets pumping. So like a normal round of 18 holes of golf for me, like is between 12 and 13 string, like pretty normal.

And it seems like a lot of golfers are pretty similar. If not even more, 14 for a category of golf. But tournament golf for me is usually between 16 and 18. And my heart rate is just so jacked up. It's like my heart rate is like averaging 120, 125 wild. But Saturday at waste management, 20.7 strain, with hitting the normal amount of balls I do, didn't do any extra practice,

no extra workout, nothing like that. 20.7 and then Sunday was 20.5. I mean, it was absurd how it was the most to the most stressful rounds of golf up played. Going back, so the waste management was not your first time in contention for, you know, not as many people are watching golf, I know in the fall, but you had a, you were in great position at the Sanderson on the back nine. It looked like your tournament to lose. What did you learn from that situation?

What was that disappointment like? And did it feel different being in contention of a tour event for other golf you played? So like leading up into that, it was pretty wild. Like the year before I got, I was lucky enough to get five starts on tour plus qualify for US Open. And then some starts on Corn Fairy. I actually wanted a qualified in the three of them.

But it was like the best golf I've played, and I felt like I was playing my best golf throughout that whole year. And I was like finishing like 30th, like a couple top 25s on Corn Fairy, had a good finish at Memorial, came in like 30th, but like, you know, nothing great. Like anyone looking at it,

it's like, oh, it's just playing, you know, whatever, average golf, but for me, it's like, oh, he's just playing, you know, whatever average golf book for me is like, oh, I'm playing really well. And then it all clicked, cornferry finals, those two weeks, those last two weeks of cornferry finals, it was probably the best two events I've ever played my life.

And I came in fourth and sixth there. And as far as I'm even still looking back at it, those are the best two four rounds of golf I've played in my life, I think considering the situation, all that. So the first couple of events of the fall series, I was just keeping that momentum from those cornferrey finals. And I was just striping. It was the best I ever hit the ball at Napa and Sanderson. And similar to Waste, I don't even know what happened. I shot eight under the first day at Sanderson. It's like, whoa, I'm leading. I'm going to be a tour event.

This is sick. And it's just, yeah, I literally played in my opinion, flawless golf for 63 holes at Sanderson. And I don't know what it was, but walking, I made a great par save on nine to find around on Sunday at Sanderson. And I don't know what it was. Maybe I just didn't take a, you know,

just take an extra moment to kind of refocus and let myself just keep playing golf. I felt myself getting a little bit nervous and obviously seeing a leader board behind nine, I had to lead on a back nine on a Sunday on tour where six weeks ago I had zero status. I don't know, I just hit two, five yard pushes with seven yards back to back

and hit it in the green seven bunker and 10 and hit it on the bank of the water on 11 and kicked in and all of a sudden I'm three back and it's like man that happened quick but you know looking back on that it was a great week and I got paired with Cam Tringoli on Sunday which made it really great he and his caddy are my caddy was staying with Cam's Caddy and he also Caddy for Cam for four years, I think. But we had dinner every night and it was pretty cool that we got paired up on Sunday. But looking back on it, I was like, I was so close, even with like ridiculous mistakes on the back and on Sunday. I mean, other than those two holes I bogeyed,

I think I had one bogey before that for the tournament. I bogey those two holes, and then I three putted from like 12 feet on 13. And at that point, I didn't think much of it. I'm like, oh, I've already lost my opportunity to weigh in like whatever, just trying run the tables coming in. But then I realized like how big of a difference it is from finishing, I finished

eighth versus finishing third or fourth, but I was shot better. And I don't know, just just the whole experience, like I learned that obviously you're not in that many positions to win at the highest level and when you're in a position, like got to go for the win. And when I felt like I did go for the win there, but also learning that, you know, I can't just be throwing away shots like it. I missed like a three footer on 11 because I was pissed that I didn't chip it in for birdie

and just stuff like that. But yeah, looking back at it, it was like, it was a little bit of a book because I was like, I played so well that I don't know, it's not like a sustainable thing to hit it that well and stuff stuff like that but at the same time it's like dude I just was my second PJ tour event ever is a rookie with my card and I was leading up for 54 rolls I was leading every step of the way and

that gave me so much confidence going forward and the second time obviously at waste I felt way way better prepared for the, for Sunday. And I think it showed like I didn't honestly played way better at Sanderson versus I did at Waze, which is, which is also pretty cool to look back and reflect on. But I was just able to manage it so much better at Waze. Like I honestly didn't get everything out of, out of my game at Sanderson. I still had the lead. So, you know, it's funny. It's like I still haven't watched the coverage from the final round at Sanderson. I haven't watched any shots.

But yeah, I just, I reflected on it, but I really didn't want to dwell on it too much because it hurt. Like, I was getting so many congratulatory messages and I was like very thankful obviously, but and I was hurting that whole plane ride Sunday night to Vegas and Honestly, maybe let it affect me a little bit In Vegas too, and I missed the cut there, but It was definitely a bag of mixed emotions that because I'm such a I'm like a closet competitive guy. I don't really show my competitiveness per se, but very competitive guide. I mean, it hurt for a while. And it still hurts to talk about now. So it's seven months after.

Next up, episode 594 with Keith Mitchell, another one of the highlights of the year. I would say, this was a immediate reaction after the PGA tour made a bunch of changes. We had a long, long podcast talking about all those, but I highly recommend going back to that one if you have not. Listen to that one episode 594 with Keith Mitchell. I think Roy said it so well in his press conference that Phil wasn't necessarily wrong. He just did it the wrong way. And what does that mean? It means that Phil had all these concerns.

Why don't him and Tiger get in a room and then him and Tiger invite Roy and you know at the time, you know know all these guys and say like hey guys this feels like we need to maybe do something about this and let's work together to get this done. What's so wrong about that right and you know I've looked up to Phil for a long time and he's been great to me and you know he's obviously had, you know, a lot of controversy. But, you know, he, I don't want to say he was right. I don't want to say he was wrong. Nobody wants to say he was right. I want to say that. Imagine if we, you know, there's a lot of top players over there. Again, why are the majors the best? It's because they're all there. Well, if

all those players came together and did it together on the PGA tour and the majors, what, I mean, why is that, why is that model bad? And that's what frustrates me a little bit is if it wasn't for live, this wouldn't happen. That's not necessarily true. It's more of like, hey, the tour had the ability to do this. The tour is clearly listening to the players. And I'm speculating in the past, but if all the players had these concerns and all these things were possible,

imagine if they all got together in a room and then went to Jay and took it to him and there are the owners of the tour. And Jay says no, or the tour says no, then you have a problem. Correct. And I don't think that would have happened. I really don't.

Like, and again, this is all speculative. So people say, well, it wouldn't, it should have it, you know, just whatever. But if they were all aligned and they all, when we, they, we are all aligned and we have a proposal and it is for the better of the tour, then there's no reason to or wouldn't do it. That's what's mind blowing to me

is that people actually think the tour is saying, no, we want to screw you. Like that's like honestly, like the argument that they're saying. And I'm like, no, I just can't possibly believe that. Because if they do that, then they're the ones that are screwed. Right.

Next up, episode 544 with Bob Herrick talking about Phil Mickelson. It does surprise me. Not from the standpoint of Phil's always sort of had this reputation as being, you know, he's the smartest guy and he's got all the answers and, you know, he knows this and he knows that and he's been outspoken about things. But it never really was to the point where it hurt him that much, certainly not publicly.

You know, he was viewed as an outgoing guy, signed autographed, smiled, did interviews, came off well on TV. I think where the whole thing surprises me is, where did this quest for chasing, you know, this big money come from exactly? I mean, it couldn't have all been about, I want to make change for the PJ tour. Well, a lot of that is true. Phil has long thought that there are things wrong at the tour. And he has long had issues with transparency and some of the things that they do. So he actually has some points in this whole thing. It's just that the way he went

about it has hurt him greatly because it's overshadowed the things that he's right about. When he talked about the media rights, that was the whole essence behind how they pay the salaries or how golf the purses are what they are. It's pretty basic. And as far as, you know, well, then using this new league is leverage. Well, like, were you that concerned about your peers coming up for the next 10 years

that you wanted to make this better for them? Or was it about you? And remember, we're talking less than a year ago, the guy pulls off one of the most incredible feats. And frankly, it's probably been underplayed. Yeah. I want a major at 50. It had been 53 years since Julius Boros became the oldest major champion at 48. We'd had guys flirt with it obviously Tom Watson, Kenny Perry, but nobody had done it at that age. He beats Keppga, you know, who's going for his fifth major, Louis Oost-Hason, who's obviously still in the prime of his career. I know, I'm kind of a U.S.

open playing course that he had never been able to master, and now he does, you know, he wanted, I think the towel score was six on it. I mean, it was an accomplishment that should have carried him for years. Clearly, his endorsement deals were going to go up. If he wanted to do TV, he could have done it and made a lot of money. He could have, he could have made some change easy money on the Champions Tour, the few, few times he went out there and look, he was exempt, he still is exempt on the PGA tour for years. You know, US open for five years and obviously the other majors he's in. So it's just odd that this became a, you know, a quest and then he became the leader in it

and how much this damage is reputation now. And it's, you know, I find it a shame because, you know, I don't want to make a judgment about what's right and wrong. He's a very popular player who we should be embracing now. And unfortunately, we're not. Next up, one of the first ones we did all year long, episode 510 with Tommy Fleetwood. Yeah, we had this thing this year where it was, we all got given our number. So I'm trying to remember correctly, it might have been 164, might have been the most recent, like the, which was burnt,

which was the, you know, the most recent guy to get in the team. We had three, did we have three ruckus this year? Shane, Victor and burnt. So we had this, it was, you know, it was an amazingly cool video of what your number is, get giving you a number, what the number means, make it count was our slogan, and then after that video you get the talk from Padreik who was an amazing speaker throughout the week, and then he announced the Rockies who've just got given their number.

And it was really cool because again, you just get welcomed into the team and again, like on both sides, rookies these days just don't feel like rookies. Because you all play the same events and such big events and you've had such big moments in the biggest tournaments. But yeah, it's honestly a very, very special thing and you just have to see the guys that played their first one this year, how much they loved it. And I was a rookie three years ago and I remember how much I loved being in the team and then you watch those guys and how just into it you are and how much

you kind of just feel like everybody's been in the team for like 20 years. It's an amazing vibe and that but it was very cool and everybody's so behind and you see the guys faces how much it means to everyone just to be you know play for Europe and represent and where the clothes and everything and get your numbers. So that was, that was really cool and just so well done by, you know, everybody that was behind that. That's why I think I'm getting closer and closer and closer to understanding, you know, this, this, how this team atmosphere on Europe has led to so much success, you know, it's, it's little stories like that that, you know, take it from being this kind of rosy, you know, media presented thing to like here in the detailed stories behind the scenes

of the things that unfolds, it's like, oh, well that makes sense why you see like so much emotion and how the, you know, the dance amazing. Right, I mean, it's a whole culture thing that, you know, I think, I guess that's a better question. How does that lead to, how does the team atmosphere potentially lead

to either better or worse golf in either way, on either side of the coin in theory? Like, how does that actually lead to better golf shots? More puts hold. Does it lead to that in any way? I don't know. I feel like, I mean, I've played both good and not so good now in two rider cups. I think there's definitely that there's a aura and atmosphere created in our team. And I obviously can only speak for team Europe. That's all I can ever speak for, because that's all I experience. But you just feel safe.

And when you have people leading the team, like we do like I say I go back to Pots and Sergio they speak amazingly and anybody that is even the slightest bit down about a result, one of those is picking you up straight away. Rory is another one like such positive people and amazing teammates and team leaders that you don't get a chance to sit there and feel down or feel sorry for yourself. They pick you up so quickly and you go out there and again you're always playing, you're not playing for yourself, you're playing for each other. And yeah, things happen in their article, don't they? I mean, they happen on both sides as well. There's always amazing goal shots here. There's always amazing moments. Well, I don't know how it translates into the goal side of things, but yeah, it's clearly a very special event.

Europe do, you know, we obviously do have a great record in recent history, if you like, but it seems to be, you know, swapping over now. Home rider cups seem to have been very, very important in the last few and we'll see where it goes in the future, but it is an amazing time and yeah, Europe, especially this one, this was such a great set of teammates for Europe. I think a few guys said the atmosphere and the unison that we all had together was like as good as they've ever experienced and again, like I think it's such a natural thing for us. It's not like we work on it, the back the back room stuff and what goes into it and how they produce those videos or how they set the team room out is unbelievable and clearly,

you know, makes, I think that makes a massive difference. And yeah, I don't know, like just the Radik-Ups cool event and, you know, some people are just made for that. Next up, one of my sneaky favorites of the year, episode 550 with JJ Reddick, an absolute golf nut, as we talked about his transition into the golf world. Well, what has been your golf journey, you know, for the listeners that aren't familiar with your current obsession, which we are going to dive very deep into, but how did it get to this point? Yeah, so the background is I didn't play any golf growing up.

I didn't swing a golf club through high school, through college. I came back to Ron Oak, maybe my first or second year, to run a basketball camp at my high school and I went and played around and obviously, you know, I didn't keep score because I couldn't score. And when I got back to Orlando, my brother came and lived with me and he had gotten into golf and we lived in a golf course community and I met this guy, Brian Thompson. You know, at the time, he was a chubby guy, very unfit, non-athlete. And I would go play golf with this guy and he would hit 330 yard baby draw bombs.

And I was like, how is this possible? Like, I'm the athlete. And so I played with Brian for a couple years there, probably my second, third in the NBA. We would play. Again, I wasn't scoring, I didn't take any lessons, I had a set of clubs, and I'd play with them, probably played like 30 rounds. I started getting my wife, I moved out of that community, I didn't play again until 2013, so probably had a five-year gap from playing, moved to Austin in the off season, and got

into it a little bit there. But didn't have like, I tried to join Austin Country Club in the wait list was three years. Didn't get my fucking membership till I moved until I could get the non-resident membership. And it's funny, I got that in 2016 when we moved and I still have yet to play around there as a member. No way. Yeah, I'm still a member. I'm not giving that up. This is where the Dell Dell match play is held the World Golf Championship match play is held Then in 15 my son was one years old my wife gets pregnant with her second son and I just stopped playing and from 15 until the bubble in

2020 I didn't play any golf. I still the same set of clubs I took him down to the bubble because I knew I was gonna be bored I didn't want to be in a hotel room all the time. I played three rounds in the bubble. I got back that fall, played a couple rounds in the New York area. Got some invites, like awesome invites, sabonic, the bridge, Hudson National. And I knew going into my into the 2020, 2021 season. I knew it was going to be my last year.

And I was like, I think, I think golf should be my thing. Like I need some sort of competitive outlet. There's also the simple process of trying to master something that has always really interested me. And I got fitted for clubs. I got back to New York in June, took my first lesson at the end of June, and played 50 rounds that summer. I was literally my wife wanted to kill me. I wanted to kill me and I've taken some more lessons since then and yeah I mean every every trip. If I leave the New York area you know it's just like what what golf course can I play. I was down in Atlanta as I was down Atlanta Atlanta, as I said, for game three. And when I got the call earlier in the week, I was kind of like a fill in for somebody,

because I wasn't contractually obligated to do games this year. And they're like, do you want to do the Hawks game on Friday? I was like, absolutely. Atlanta, Atlanta, Atlanta. So I texted some people like, who do you know at Peach Tree? I know. I know it. And so I played Peach Tree first thing in the morning and then got back to the hotel and went to the game. But yeah, I mean, it's like you guys, you know, it is such an addicting sport. And I've gotten completely bit.

Yeah, I'm obsessed. What is it, though? What is it about golf? And is it weird to kind of go from a sport that you've, as close to really mastering as you can get, you play at the highest possible level to something that you're from what I gather average at, but improving that kind of takes what your game is like and what you're what you get out of trying to, you know, improve at this game.

Um, so it's your quotes on it are like exactly why I love golf, like talking about that, that flush shot. Yeah, there's a, there's a few things on it. So number one, it's for me, it's competitive. And it's probably in terms of a competitive scale, it's, to me, it's like as competitive as any sport, because you're competing against yourself, you're competing against the course, you're competing against the weather that day. I love to play matches. I love to gamble on the course. So you're competing for money, you're competing to beat. Whoever I had a Duke lacrosse player

that we were tight in college. We reconnected on Long Island out east two years ago and we played like six matches together. We were six and no last summer. Like it's just that competitive part is a huge part of it. As I mentioned, the task of trying to get better at something, it's why I love basketball so much is that I could sort of

have these measuring sticks of feeling like I was getting better at something and golf reflects that as well as anything. And then the third component, and I'm not trying to sort of like hyperboleize this, but golf really is a spiritual experience to me. There is something about being outside, being in nature. There's this idea that like we all have something in our lives where we feel closest to God. And for me, it's always been nature. And so I spent most of my fucking life in hotel rooms, gymnasiums, buses, airplanes waiting around to go play a sport indoors. So there's something

that's very amazing about just being outside and walking around for four and a half hours and, and, you know, having 90 swings. Last break here to check with our friends at No Laying Up. That's right. A house ad for the nest. If you do not know what the nest is, it is our kind of our Patreon of sorts. It's like our per our membership platform. We always have always struggling to describe it. I'm probably not the right guy to do this ad read, but if you go to nolangup.com slash join, you will find a way to support the show if you're interested in doing so. It is not a requirement, but if you do want to support it, it costs $90 a year and you

get full access to nolangup's refuge message board. It gets you early access to sign up for our events. It gets you a discount on merchandise. It gets you special nest merchandise. It gets you a discount on merchandise, it gets you special nest merchandise. It gives you a member directory so you can see who else has members in the nest and help you grow your network as well as you have a chance to qualify for the nest invitational tournament at the end of the year. And of course, if you get signed up for the end of the year, you are eligible and you will receive the annual gift from the Merchstar himself.

He keeps it very tight and close to the chest as to what that's going to be, but get signed up before the end of the year and you will get a gift sent out to you into the new year. Again, nolangup.com slash join, nolangup.com slash join. Let's get back to the highlights. Next up episode 520, this is Chad Mom, the producer of the Netflix series that we're going to see next February talking about what was going to unfold.

Did it take much convincing at, you know, either the PGA tour level or honestly, I wouldn't be. He wasn't in my realm of even possibility that we would be seeing Augusta National, the old core, all the, all the majors involved in this because it's not a, that means it's not a PGA tour show. It is a story about a year in professional golf. So how, what was the convincing process like for that? I mean, what do you get the sense that, you know, having this blueprint like the drive to survive to put in front of somebody helps you get in the door and move those conversations

along? No question. That was extremely helpful. You know, I think the history of the show, you know, it came about three years ago in January 2019, and I had a meeting with some of the tour execs. Actually, it was at a golf course, which was fitting. And we talked about this idea, and I'd see them every year and sort of pitch them on doing something like this. And at the time, our comp was like hard knocks.

Some really authentic real story telling, and just kept saying how important it was for the NFL to let people see that relatively unfiltered and that golf probably more than any other sport could benefit from that. Especially as this new class of player came in and Tiger, we were sure if he was going to play again, obviously, we know what happened in 2019. It was just always like never the right time. And then when Jay became a commissioner, kind of heard that maybe there were things for changing over there a little bit. They were going to open up the doors a little bit.

So we played golf and the first T time off, I brought it up on the first T. It said maybe it's time to do it and by the time we finished 18 holes, we had sketched out like what would basically become where we are now, which was what would it take to give us the ability to tell the story in a real way without that editorial control, to get the kind of trust from the tour, to just be able to let someone else do that, and how important that was to do it that way, and what it meant.

And so it started with that, and honestly, to the credit, the tour, like they, within two months, they were in, fully in. We were ready to go, and then we had to get get players because obviously they can't make players do anything so I went to the Masters in 2019 great Masters to go to. I wasn't there Sunday but I didn't like cry watching it at home with my like then three-year-old daughter. And I still cry when I watch the replay on YouTube. You know, we just, I sat under the tree, like basically, and I had a list of agents, and I had pictures of them, and I would just go up to people and be like,

I think that you're, you know, face dancing or, glance young or, you know, Sam McDonough, and we started having these conversations. The tour was great at just sort of making intros, but like, they weren't involved in the player conversation. They were not guiding those. They were not saying to players, you should do this. You shouldn't do this.

They just, they got out of the way and let us build those relationships. And from the beginning, you know, did not insert themselves in that process really in any way. And so, and this was like very early on, we hadn't set it up in Netflix yet. We was just building that consensus. So Ricky, we had a great meeting with, you know, Sam

and Ricky's team at Wasserman and Ricky was the first player on board and then quickly after that Justin Thomas came aboard and then Cameron Champ and Tony Finau, so that was kind of our core crew and then you know we started putting all of it together and then COVID happened so you know it didn't make sense to like watch the show then and we still were so we kind of held off on pitching it wide and then, you know, this year, last year I guess came around and we took it to Netflix and drive this ride was doing really well and I had met Paul and James yet, but you know, Netflix really started to take interest and it started to move along a lot faster

at Netflix and I give one of the execs there, Dan, to Stefano, a lot of credit for really being the champion internally, he's a huge golf fan. He, you know, Dan, to Stefano, a lot of credit for really being the champion internally. He's a huge golf fan. He, you know, and all of a sudden, started picking up the pace. And so, you know, for Netflix, it's like, we're going to do this. Like, we're going to do the ultimate version. So, so they said, look, if you can get, you know, the majors to sign up, sign up, then, you know,

I think we're just going to happen. So, then we did. Like, and honestly, it was surreal to be on a Zoom call with people from Augusta National. That was just crazy. And it was like, I, you know, like, oh my God. We're gonna go to the National and we're talking on Zoom and I'm like, you know, LA, and here we go.

But to their credit, we met individually with all the majors, the folks from all the majors and Augusta was like the first to say yes, they got it right out of the gate and said, yeah, we get it, understand it. They had already met Fox to Box and Paul. And Paul and James had come aboard at that point, once we had started to get more serious.

And that looks that started to pick up steam. We had a meeting and joined forces on it. And then once Augusta said, hey, we're in for this, the ball started rolling a lot faster. And, you know, but all of them were. I mean, there was no holdout. I mean, I give it a lot of credit to PGM America, to USGA, to the RNA.

Like, nobody had to be convinced that this was a good idea for the game. And I mean, honestly, like, I know it's like, this is a cool, like, I, look, I get it. But get it, but the tour was willing to make it not a tour thing. And they saw that too. And I think that set a lot of spoke volumes without us even having to pitch it. And like, no, no, this is golf.

This is a year in golf. And we're going to do what's best for the show, not necessarily what's best for the tour, because we know that in success, if you do it right, and tell the right kind of story, it's going to be great for everybody. And so they got that from the jump. And so, yeah, and then obviously the majors came on board, and we got so lucky with the draw being like St. Andrews for the open championship and Colin and Cass.

So here's the event of CHEP, Champion Golf of the year. And it's sort of surreal even thinking about it. And then even just like country club at Brookline, like the French Swimette story. I mean, there's so much that people don't know that story. And it's like one of the best sports stories of all time. And so other hills is gonna be epic. Like they just, you know, the redesign makes, that course is gonna be a beast.

And yeah, we got a great year ahead of us. So yeah, anyway, so once the majors came on board, you know, that thing picked up the pace and, and you know, here we are like a few months later, like on site, you know, with the cameras out. We got the movie cameras out here at Torrey Pies. Next up, Alan Shipnuck, episode 553, talking about his book on Phil and some fantastic Phil stories. I went to Phil face to face three times throughout this whole process and asked him if he would sit down for interviews for the book

and he molded over and eventually he said no. And that's fine, that's his prerogative. He was really obsessed with this idea. He didn't want it to be in authorized biography and authorized versus unauthorized is a nuanced thing as well because, you know, Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer, they always sat

with their bargifers. You know, they saw the value and telling their side of every story and putting their spin on everything. And there's also a human element. You know, you, if you're the, if you're the athlete and you give the rider your time, then you might be able to soften them up in some way. And so they understood that, you know, tigers taking the opposite approach. You just slams the shutters down. And, and he's many books has it have been written about him. He's never participated. And I think Phil is going back and forth

and how he wanted to play it. He ultimately said no. And that was fine. I've had so much access to Phil through the years and the people around him. I had a ton of material. It would have been great to sit down and have a bunch of long interviews with him

because he's a great storyteller. And he's, he's like a high wire act when you're really interviewing Phil because he's just all over the place. But also if you are participating and it gives off the you know the idea that it is an authorized version of it then it makes it look like anything else you write in there is also signed off on him. Is that by him? Is that is that something they weigh as well? Yeah, it's complex and then then you have like an official autobiography where it's a business partnership and the writer and the subject share in the proceeds

and the editorial control, like that was never gonna happen. But that was Phil Stance. And you know, we talked at the PGA at Harding Park. We talked to Tori Pines, talked to Pebble Beach. This was over a matter of, you know, six months. When I approached him and he turned me down. So that was fine. I just plunged into writing the book and fast forward 10 months. It's Thanksgiving of 21 and the book is

actually due December 1st. I'm in the home stretch and Phil text me and says, can we talk? I was like, yeah, great. Of course. And I'm stoked. And he calls me up. And he just, he'd just start to go in. I mean, this guy was already, he went 0 to 60 in about one sentence. And, you know, his lawyer had previously reached out to me, and this is a whole other weird part of the book where the lawyer wanted to hire me as a consultant as Phil was gearing up to take on the tour for his media rights, which of course I said no instantly

because that's a massive conflict of interest. I can't take fills, money while I'm writing about fill. They'd even make that offer was utterly bizarre. I knew that this was a background. You wanted to talk about media rights, which sounded really boring. I would have preferred to talk to them about wing foot, but you take what you can get in this scenario. And so to your question like

honor off the record, I mean, when someone wants to go off the record, they have to say it, and I have to consent to it. I mean, it is an agreement. And in the context of this book, everyone wanted to tell me everything. Both Phil's fans and his supporters and his detractors. And I had so many or Nate agreements with different people about what could be used, how it could be sourced, you know, someone that feels has a gambling history with told me something that was so explosive

and would have been international headlines, but it was off the record and I couldn't use it because I always honor those agreements. And you know this from your own life, like Chris, like it can be a dance, right? Like if you're at the driving range and a pro-walk spy who your buddies with, and you're just bullshitting,

and they say, hey, man, did you hear that, player X got in a fist fight with his caddy? You're like, oh, damn, really? You're not really conducting an official interview. And so can you use that or not? I mean, it becomes a gray area. And that scenario, you might say, oh, hey, I'd love to talk about that, right about that.

Can I use that? And they'll say, yeah, don't use my name, or, okay, I'd love to talk about that. Write about that. Can I use that? And they'll say, yeah, don't use my name or, okay, but let me, they'll clean it up a little bit and give you something a little more official. And that kind of thing happens all the time in sports writing. It's very contextual, right? Like, it's not, it's not an official interview. You're just hanging out. And if you blow that, you've lost that contact, probably forever, right?

You know, they're going to share any information with you off, you know, right? Right. Even if they don't say off the record, there's plenty of guys that will come up and say, you have this as well, we'll say something and you just like inherently know, that's not to use. And I think what you're getting ready to say is in the context of writing this book and you asking him multiple times for an interview and he calls you up to talk, that is a very different scenario. Very different scenario.

I mean, I've been begging him to speak to me for this book. Over and over. I've talked to everyone in his orbit. You know, I've reached out to his high school girlfriend. I've gotten his college teammates, his family, swing coaches, like Phil knows I'm writing this book. He's nervous about it. His lawyer is trying to co-opt me.

Like, this book is happening. And there's an Amazon listing for it. And when we get on the phone, he asks me when the book's coming out. Like, we are talking because of this book and only because of this book. And every single thing he says is going straight into the book unless we agree otherwise.

And we hash it out. And he never said anything to that effect. And, you know, I guess if you want to second guess anything in this whole process, like I could have said, G Phil, are you sure you want to say that? But I don't really feel like, you know, it's my responsibility to provide guardrails for Phil. He called me, you know, he wanted to tell me this stuff. He's done this for how many years, like he has, this is not a rookie in doing media, right? Exactly. I didn't surprise him in the men's room, you know, he called me. And the other thing

to understand about Phil is he never opens his mouth without an agenda. He is a very smooth operator. And I go into great detail in the book about the ways that he's he's charmed the media and he's bullied them and he's manipulated them and he's wooed them and You know Phil is very cagey and so the idea that that he was surprised by any of this is nonsensical So you ask what what do I think his motivations were there's a few I mean When he inquired when the book was coming out. I said you you know, May 17th, Tuesday the PGA championship week. And at that point, you know, in his mind, the Saudi stuff is going to be done and dusted. You know, it's already been announced. You know, the first tournament was on the horizon. Like the decisions were going to be made. And so I believe that this was his way of foreposterity, recording his thoughts and his beliefs about the whole situation

that yes, I know the Saudis are bad guys. Yes, I know they commit these atrocities, but this is just business. And at the same time, he's working both sides of street. So if you go to Saudi Arabia, the tour and fans are outraged, he's kind of winged them saying, I know, I get it. I get it guys, but it's okay, like this is just business. And if he, if that blows up and he winds up going back

to the PGA tour and pledging his field team, which could have looked like a political defeat for him, he's told me about all his battles with Jay Monahan and all the concessions he's extracted and all his little victories. And so he's kind of covered either way. I love the part in the book when Phil goes to the minor league

tryout with the Tlito mudhands. And I kind of watched that from afar as just playing out. And I was kind of confused about the whole thing. And it came and went real fast. And it just seemed like a head scratcher. I had no idea how serious Phil was. And he had hired Tom House, you know, this renowned major league baseball pitching coach to be his tutor

and all that went into it and it was just fun to pull back the layers and then call up some of the ball players were there at the time and you know all these things like how fast was this fastball? Yeah, well wasn't very fast so he topped out at 60 which is absurd to think that he was going to get a one day call up with the Tigers which was his goal but you know what Tom Hous told me is that Phil is throwing 100 pitches a day in this, this mound he built in his backyard. And, and the house was like, no major league baseball pitcher alive can throw 700 pitches a week. I guess not humanly possible. And so Phil gets to lead him. He's just got a dead arm. And like, I think Phil should be thankful that I'm kind of exonerated for 20

years. Everyone's been like, what the hell? This guy had a 68 mile hour fastball. Like they're throwing harder than that down with the little little little league diamond. And but now we have some some context. And so I you know, so many things like that. I mean, like reliving the the 1991 Walker Cup when you know, I totally forgotten, you know, Phil goes over to Ireland. It's already overheated because the US had just lost the Walker Cup for the first time in ages and Phil played really crappy in 89 and so he's got a lot to prove in this 91 Walker Cup. He's the biggest star in the game. He's already won a pro tournament as an undergrad. Like, he's legit one of the 10 best players in the world, including the professional ranks.

And so this is a swan song for the Walker Cup. And the European team has stacked, you know, they've got they've got Pudrig, they've got Paul McGinley. It's the first time it's played in Ireland. There's, you know, Andrew Colter, there's just a lot of energy around this Walker Cup. And so in a practice round, Phil hits it into the crowd. And afterwards he gets asked about it by a reporter. And he's like, yeah, I don't want to hit it there. The Irish women are not very attractive.

And it's funny. I've met some very beautiful Irish women. I don't know if I agree, but it's a funny thing to say. It's funny that Phil said it. Definitely. It's definitely the wrong thing to say. It became like an actual international incident. Like the US team is driving away.

And the bus gets pulled over, Phil has to step off the bus and film an apology being demanded by the Irish consulate. And it's just like, it's so fucking funny. And inevitably, his becomes the most important singles match. And on the last hole, he hits one of the greatest shots of his career under intense pressure. And it's just like, you know, this, this idea that, you know, Phil, in this phone call to me, like was, was playing a rascal and maybe put his foot in his mouth. Like he's been doing that his whole life, you know, one of my favorite parts of book is the 1990 US amateur, which, which he wins which he was just get ready to get to this. Yeah, there's so much great play by play there. I'm, you know, calling up these guys that he beaten, you know, in the quarter finals, they haven't talked about this in 25 years. Like they're so delighted to get the phone call and to relive it.

And there was so many like incredibly fun in Jeff Thomas story. Yeah, all right. So that's another thing like I had heard I had heard this story many times in fills it's become part of his legend is It's second round and Jeff Thomas was like this legendary New Jersey amateur who was quite a baller You know, he wanted you want the Publinks got to play in the Masters He he won the I think the jersey state opened many, many times. Like he, he was revered, but he was also this semi, well, I don't know, he was very, very edgy character and he was combative and he was a trash talker and he loved the gamesmanship. And he was living to play Phil, you know, Phil is this pretty boy who cared himself like a tour player, had the

popped collar, has college coach on the bag, like just so punchable, right? Like who wouldn't want to be Phil Miggles in back then? And so Jeff Thomas is just, he's ready to go. And you know, the first whole Thomas winds up having some issues on the whole. He's got, he leaves himself a 40 footer for par and Phil's got, he hits a great shot in there. He's got four feet for birdie. And Phil just concedes the putt. He's like, just pick it up. And now we, you know, four feet's not a give me. I don't know what to make percentage on tour. It's not 100%. And now he's put this incredible pressure on himself to make this putt, which he does. He wins the whole. And it's just such an alpha move. You know, I got Jeff Thomas's caddy to talk about it. John Gerdy, who was the man on the scene for Sports Illustrated, and you know, is just

and you know, some Phil quotes from back to the day like, so again, this was just something I kind of heard about. I didn't know the details. I didn't really know that much about Jeff Thomas. And then you dig deep and Jeff Thomas turns out to be a fascinating character. I gave, I gave a lot of space to and And you know, again, that moment tells you so much about the young Phil Mickelson. I mean, it's the cockiest thing you could ever do

on a golf course. And then there's this quote, which I think is from the same USAM where I, this is the only quote I think I wrote down from the book, which is, I'm playing as good as I've ever played. Every facet of my game is 100% right now. Whoever I play, I'd be intimidated if I were them. Why shouldn't they be as an amateur? Next up episode 575 with Justin Thomas talking about his second major championship win and his relationship with bones.

I mean, I was pissed off. There's no other way to say it. I mean, I just was, I mean, to be perfectly honest and I'm not to call them out by any means, but what's the guy that wrote the article about Roy and I KVP. Yeah, that's honestly like pretty pretty similar to how I felt. I mean, it just was like another major buy another great opportunity and another one that it looks like, you know, I've a pretty good chance to not win. And just sometimes I mean, my game felt fine. It was like it was a really tough day and like I just not win. And just sometimes I mean my game felt fine. It was like it was a really tough day. And like I just, you know, I felt like I played a lot better than for over. I mean, for ever's never a good score, but being out there in enough major championships, you

know that. And a lot of us know that like you can sometimes you can still play pretty well and and shoot, you know, over park. But the timing of it was just terrible. And I just need to blow some steam off more than anything. It just wasn't as much of like, all right, I need to go like tweak some things, I need to go get this in a better spot. It just was like, I need to not leave the golf course in this frame of mind. Like I'm just, I really need to make sure that this feeling and this anger and this emotion that I have and I was like, I don't care if I go to the driver and I hit 20 drivers as hard as I possibly can. Like whatever it's gonna take for me to get this anger

out of me, I need to do. And it just was, I probably, we talked more than I hit. I just hit a couple balls and I just was just like, like, why, why am I doing this? Why does this keep happening? And, you know, that's when bones kind of had his realization moment and just talk to me a little bit and same with my dad and it, and it was very similar.

It was different, but somewhere to the PGA in 17, after Saturday, I went to the range just to hit a couple balls and it just was kind of like a decompressed kind of moment. And in the end, I think it is honestly a major reason why I won. I'm gonna throw this at you and I just wanna, you get your full reaction to any of it. It, this is definitely not a shot at Jimmy in any way, but it seems like the, the dynamic

of your relationship with bones as it was to Jimmy seems different. It almost seems like that bones is there as a, I don't want to say an auditor or an adult in the room, but it kind of seems like you are deferring a little bit more to him in that relationship or almost like a guy, he quizzes you to go through exactly what you need to go through before a shot, maybe even telling yourself that more than you're telling him. And I don't really know if there's a question related to that

or if there is something, if you get a sense of like, when it comes down to these important moments, his way of getting through, getting you through something seems to have an effect on you. It's just different. I mean, it's the same. I mean, there's, I've joked with, with him and with Tiger about like with Kava. I mean, obviously he's one of the best caddies in, in the world and like he's unbelievable at what he does, but like, I know for a fact that him and I would not work together.

Like it's just, it's one of those things like his personality and his demeanor and how he goes about things versus me like sometimes I just kind of need a bitch a little bit and let some stuff out and and if sometimes the caddy and like I've said that to bones before I'm like look dude like I'm gonna say something and I said to Jimmy I'm like I'm gonna say some things to you that maybe kind of passive aggressive and maybe direct it towards you I'm like but just things to you that may be kind of passive aggressive and maybe directed towards you. I'm like, but just know it's likely not personal. It's just me needing to get it out and like don't take anything the wrong way.

And like if you wanna talk about something after that's fine, but I was like, it's just weird, but sometimes that's what I need to do. And I just know for a fact that if I did that with someone like Joe LeCava, he might hit me upside the face. So it's just it's one of those things where every caddy is so different in their unique in that aspect. And you know they're the thing that's been good with bones is because we're I mean we're

still in the beginning process. I mean we're not even a year in is that we're still trying to you know even after every couple of weeks we're like what could I do different? What could you do different? I mean, like I just told him, it literally at the US Open, I'm like, bones, this is gonna sound really childish. I'm like, but it drives, I don't really like it when you pull my putter out when I got a wedge in my hand

before I hit it. I'm like, it gets in my head and it freaks me out. And he's like, I get it, I really understand. So, you know, it's little things like that. Like we're just kind of continue to learn each other a little bit. I mean, it's very different. I'm sure bones is able to have a little bit more conversation with his player now than in past in terms of talking them out of things or maybe are getting them in situations, but at the same time it ends up being being good for me as well. Next up episode 600 with Shane Lowry, another sneaky one from this year, talking about his experience at Royal Port Rush.

Janowa, that first tee turns it was the most nervous I've ever been on the first day of a tournament of my whole life for some reason. I didn't build a tournament up to myself that I, you know, obviously I wanted to go on win. I was hopeful that I'd go on win, but I didn't have it like March going right, I wanna prepare and do everything I can to win this tournament. I was more so I'd go away, but I didn't have it like March going right, I want to prepare and do everything I can to win this tournament.

I was more so I want to go there and perform as best I can and get myself in the hunt on Sunday, I'll be brilliant. I had all my old team was there, my family, everybody was there. Yeah, I hit a good teach out there and actually I shot four under in the first round and I remember coming off the course And this is obviously how well I was playing at the time. I remember coming off the course on that wasn't great You know what I mean probably should have shot a better score and and then I led the whole day I remember I led the whole day and we were watching the golf in the afternoon and Joby Holmes is every really late And he hold a birdie put on the last to take the lead for me, which I was a bit kind of whatever.

Yeah, the most nervous I've ever been in the first day of autonomous whole life. I think the T-shirt in general, the T-shirt is very, very, it's a smelly T-shirt. Yeah. How about on the both sides, you know, the grandstands are surrounding you, so you can really feel where the wind is coming from. And yeah, it's just a really tricky tee shot. And obviously, Roy didn't get on very well with it. But yeah.

Well, that ovation on one kind of last that almost a little too long for you. It sounded like you wanted to get into your routine. And then you know, I do remember on the Saturday because I was leading, going into Saturday, I was playing with JB Holmes. And I stood in the first tee and they're like, I'm on the tee into Saturday, I was playing with JB Holmes, and I stood in the first tee, and they were like, I'm under the tee from Ireland,

Chan Larry, and I was like, and I was ready to hit my shot, and the crowd were still like, going bananas in the grandson, and I'm like, I just want to hit the shot and get this out of the way, because it is almost one of those shots where you want to just get out of the way, and that Saturday went very well for me, and that was, you know, those last four holes in Saturday was probably the reason I wasn't at Ormond.

I mean, first of all, you don't want to get too amped up to hit an iron off the tee anyways, right? You know, you want to get amped up to hit a driver maybe, but is it possible to have, is it, this might be a really dumb question, but is it as fun as it looks to play amazing golf in that scene, right? Are you in the moment?

Are you able to like have fun? We see the smile in your face as it's happening, but are you having as much fun as it looks like or is there inner turmoil that kind of prevents you from having that much fun? No, you're not having that much fun. You're not. There was a couple of times where I kind of stood back and was like, well, this is unbelievable. I remember, like I vividly remember on the 17t on Saturday, because we're the final group and you look down and the 17t is a pie and you look down It's just like thousands of people everywhere and I hit my t-shirt and I call my caddy back He's gone more on the head and I call him back and I'm like

right boy, and I'm Seven under for the round and I call him back. I'm leading by two or three. I'm leading my three at home I call him back and I'm like right boy. I'm like let's the round and I call them back. I'm leading by two or three. I'm leading my three at the time. I call them back and I'm like, right, Paul, I'm like, let's enjoy this next 20 minutes. Cause who knows if this will ever happen to us again. And like it was just incredible. And then I birdied 17 and I hit two good shots and blast and just missed them.

I enjoyed that kind of half an hour more nearly than the Sunday. Generally, there was one of those where I really let it think again, but then it's just, it's just pure, the next, the next 12 to 24 hours was just filled with pure fear because I felt, it's almost like I spoke about Wentworth and standing over that five iron and it's either,

you know, it's either gonna be great or awful. And that's how I felt. And I said it to my coach on the Sunday morning of the open. I said, well, there's no, there's no, it's either first or last for me today. There's no second place. If I finish second, I might as well finish last because it's not going to be the best day of my career. It's not going to be the worst. Because I do feel like if I didn't win that tournament from there, I probably would have taken it very hard. Next up, one of our most recent ones, episode 627 with Roger Steele, great content creator who I really encourage you guys to check out.

He's got a great series called Range Talk on Calaway Golf's YouTube channel. Here he is talking about that series. I'm saying just like that. You know, because a lot of the people like, you know, I've been fortunate enough. So everybody that I had on range, so I'm a fan of what I'm in. And so I already have these intimate conversations that I've either had with them.

Oh, I got a bunch of questions that I've always wanted to ask them already. And then when you get into these environments and you start feeling people's energy and understanding, they level the comfort discussing things. It's just the conversations flow so seamlessly and I've just been blessed with everybody that's come on this show being willing to engage with me and be transparent with me and open up to me in certain ways. You know, they all come on there and treat me like we homies and

we've been homies for a while and the dope part about that is after we leave that we like our relationship actually grows in like a very meaningful way, which is crazy, man. Like we started that show off with Steph Curry last year. And I'm like, yo, bro, when Steph pulled up, we did this at Stanford Practice Facility. And with Steph pulled up, a bro was so nervous. Me and something, I'm a grown-ass man,

just nervous to me, Steph. I see him across the drive-to-range, and then somebody said, Steph Stephio. I see him bro. It's feel coffee all over my shirt. I'm like, oh, that is crazy. But then Steph walked up and he like, rise now. So excited about this and I've been following you for a minute. Man, he showed me these videos and he was like making fun of my swing and you never sent it to me or whatever. And it was just like, man, you know, this game of golf is so crazy. And it's, you know, the degrees of separation just give Reduce so much, do this sport.

And it's been an amazing opportunity just to connect with those people and show how relatable the game of golf is to the elites to people that are just, you know, amateur's recreational players, like we all get so close to this guy. So funny. I got literally in my questions here. Is do you get nervous before the red light goes on before you had interviews?

I bet like Steph Curry that's literally one of my questions. I had a step. Hey, step. Hey, step. I mean, should he. Hey, it was just because you snuck up on me because you know, you kind of pacing around like. Yeah, I'm over there practicing. I'm about to shake bro hand like. Lean in touch the back. I'm gonna touch the back because that's the

turn that's in deer me right there. I like I know I'm too much and then bro just kind of popped up out of nowhere. I'm like oh shit off down. I mean, it's like he wants supposed to be in for another 10 minutes. I always do it. You know, so it is. But yeah, he won't he won't have me shake up a little bit. But for the rest of them, they all be pretty cool, man. You know, so it was, but yeah, he won't he won't have me shook up a little bit, but for the rest of them, they all be pretty cool, man. You know, next up, episode 590 with Davis love the third talking about the evolution of captain's picks on the US team. What, what, how is the process for evaluating captain's picks evolved over the years? How do stats factor in

course fit team fit? How does that work now? And I'm wondering if that has changed in your time, both as a player and your first time being captain, head captain in 2012. Well, a dramatic change again. Jack Nicholas just asked Jeff Sloom and he said, Hey, you know all these guys. Why don't you come be my assistant and help me figure out, you know, what I'm doing and who to pick and how to make pairings. One year, I think it was Jack's first year. He said, Oh, Dave's in Fred, you guys helped me with the pairings because I don't know who likes who and who plays well together. Now it's, it's status statisticians. We have four assistants and plus we have

Tiger. We have a lot of input into the captain's selections and into the stats. And obviously your gut has, when you come down to two guys in the stats, say one thing, and you go, well, wait a minute, this is a great partner for this guy, and I know this guy's putter better than the stats. And so a lot of times it's, it's just a combination of factors, but it's completely changed. I mean, Kim Venturi is just winging it when he was captain. And now we're, we have a system that we've been running since 2015 in Korea of doing the same thing over and over again year after year. Yeah, it seems like, you know, go, I guess if you go back to 2015, the only US team to lose was

2018 in France, right? Like every, every other president's cup team has been successful and all the rider cup teams have been successful. Yeah, well, that's what Phil was a big part of the process of getting us. He stirred the pot over there in 2014 and then we took it from there and he was a big part of the plan for the future and he said, we just wanna give them the best chance to succeed in every Ryder Cup or Presence Cup.

And we have to have consistency and continuity. I think that's what we've done. Is the preparation, we have the same, we've just added our stats guys from the Ryder Cup, we've brought them on for the Presence Cup team. We're kind of like, I compared to Team USA basketball. It's a year round thing we're doing to get the international teams ready to play and

Sure, Ryder Cup is different than Presence Cup. It's a different match Different team we're playing, but it's the same Preparation our stats guys went to Kweilhaw they're breaking down the course. We were talking today about green speed and You know, and how's it going to play compared to in September versus playing in May? How is that going to favor our team versus their team? There's a lot more that goes into it. So we're picking for golf course, for parings,

for statistics, strokes game, T-degree, things that are hard to understand, and the stats guys help us break it all down and put it into a manageable package where us just average golfers can understand it. Next up episode 537, this is Matilda Kastren talking about her early days playing professional golf. It was definitely an adjustment. I mean, in college, we were pretty spoiled. We had everything taken care of and like our rent and food and

like literally everything was taken care of and then all of a sudden your uterine pro and you you're playing on Symmetra now Epson tour and you're on your own. I had a lot of friends there. I traveled with three girls and we were pretty tight group but it was still a big adjustment golf wise. You have to play well to make the card and make any money, otherwise it was just a huge expense for the week and you're not making anything. So it was quite stressful for me financially. I think I was a little too focused on the result in the beginning and just trying to kind of stay afloat, not really happy with how I was playing.

But after the first year, I kind of took a break and I talked to my family and my sponsors and I actually worked in a wine store for a month over Christmas and I had like a schedule 9 to 5 pretty much and I got I got paid consistently which was cool. I had never had that before so I was like wow this is what it's like but at the same time I was like okay I don't think this for me I really want to I really want to appreciate like the golf life more and being a professional golfer and just put all my all my focus on that and give it a real shot and just see where I can end up. So I think my second year I had like a much better perspective and I was a lot

happier wasn't that focused on the results and more like the the journey and the bigger picture and I think that really helped me getting my LPJ tour card. I have to ask, did you know a lot about wine? Did you learn a lot about wine working in the wine shop? Well, I've always been interested in wines. And I heard it's in Finland. The wine store is like one wine store everywhere in the country. So they kind of have a monopoly and they're known as, like, it's a good stepping stone

for people who want to work part-time or like I only work for the winner season, like the Christmas holiday season. My dad actually worked for them when he was younger so he's like, okay, like it's a great great place. They treat the employees very well and the pay is okay and it's like, OK, it's a great, great place. They treat the employees very well, and the pay is OK. And it's like, OK, you know what? I'll do it. And they trained us.

So we had wine tastings every now and then. So we could tell the customers and explain what's in wine and what to pair it with and stuff like that. But I was only there for a month so I can say that I'm like sommelier now, but it was interesting, yeah, for sure. Next up is episode 596 with John Simpson, the founder of the Simpson Cup. We have some incredible stories in that episode

talking about his experience with adaptive golf and I highly encourage you to check that one out. But you can relate so much to the disabled veterans that are out here is because of your own disability. Yes. I was, I caught polio when I was two and when I was 13 I went in to have some operations on my leg. This didn't work.

And I spent most of that year in hospital, which left me having to, I mean, some of them went well, some of them didn't. So I have to wear a sort of brace for the rest of my life, learn how to walk again. And luckily my dad was a golfer. I'd never hit a golf ball. And he said, you know, there's one game you can play on this level playing full of golf. I remember a story very vividly. I was conscious of the fact that I couldn't walk very well and it was a hot summer in Britain and I got some clubs of my dads or whatever and I hid behind the caddy shack so no one could see me because I used to fall over most of the time. And then he told me that he had a friend, my father, who was a doctor, who he would like

me to meet, and that's all I remember. So about a few weeks later, I was standing behind the Caddyshake and I heard this loud, billowing voice sounding John. So I came out and it turned out to be this doctor, billowing voice sounding John. So I came out and it turned out to be this doctor, friend of my father. He said, come on, we're going to play a few holes. No, I'd never been on the golf course, and I was terrified. So I said, no, no, no, no. So he really bellowed again.

Come on, we'll do it. So I went up there and to cut a long story short, we ended up playing three holes. And I must have been with that exaggeration, took me four shots to get to his drive, turned out he played off six. And just on, I only got to the second hole before he turned around to being said,

if you want to play this game, you have to walk quicker than that. And I thought, how could he talk to me like that? I've got a bad leg for, you know, I've been in hospital, my leg hurts, but, and he just repeated it again and he was quite a tough guy. You know, I was in a 13, oh, dear me. So I forget the golf. I just did kept up with him. Forget the golf. I couldn't get anywhere close to him. God in the clubhouse.

And he didn't say anything. Went into the changing room. And he waited till everybody left, just looked at me. And without saying anything, he dropped his trousers. And I thought, oh, this is going to be an end to a great day. And I can't run away. This is great. And he took his trousers and I thought oh this is going to be an end to a great day and I can't run away, this is great and he took his trousers down and he had one leg amputated below the knee and the other one was in such a mess, I couldn't look at it and he said John never ever could play in

about your leg because nobody wants to hear about it, come on let's go and have a drink and I was 13 so I said great so and he was a doctor that lost his leg in the second world war. He wasn't a doctor. He got the military cross, which is a very high medal. Lost his leg in Italy and became a doctor five years later. Next up, episode 598 with Tom Kim. This was before he blew up all over the President's Cup. We were all over this one. He was super eager to talk to us and we can't wait to have this guy back. 598 with Tom Kim. This next part's always difficult because, you know, and you don't, uh,

there's not much of a reward for being, for having hubris or overconfidence publicly in golf or in sports in general. Yet at the same time internally, you need to channel a certain level of confidence to be able to compete at any level. So when did you know you were as good as you are? When did you know you could compete at the highest level of professional golf? I'm giving you an invite to brag on yourself here.

So go ahead, go ahead. But internally, when did you know? You're not gonna like this answer, but to you guys, I still don't feel like, like I don't think I'm ready yet. Like, I'm still trying to learn. I'm only 20 and these guys have so much more experience and they are so much better than me.

I've won once in the PG2, it's been life-changing, yes, it's been a great experience, but how can I make this and keep on going and have a better career? I don't want to be a kid who had a great start of his career and faded away. I want to contend for major championships. I want to play in the best, you know, the best field in the world and just

to answer your question, no, I do not feel like I'm ready. You know, I have so much to learn. Just started this year. I, all the guys that I'm playing with now, I've looked up to them for, you know, for all my life. So for me, it's able to have the chance to play in the same field as them. And for me to have a chance to learn and look at their stats, because obviously being a panel of pdh or the stats are unbelievable. So, you know, so I'm just I'm just trying to learn and trying to get better every day. And hopefully, hopefully one day, you know, maybe in the future, if we do

another podcast, like I can tell you, like, I'm ready now. That's the one. I'm going to flip this. I'm going to flip this on you then because, all right, if you don't feel like you're ready, you're in contention of a PGA tour event on a Sunday and you go out in 27 on a Sunday, right? First of all, how are you not convincing yourself you're ready at that point, but that must mean you got to be internally freaking out, nerve wise. That doesn't permeate on TV. We don't see that on TV if you are, but tell me you were at least nervous if that was the case.

Oh, I was I was shaking my boots off. Like it was, I couldn't really take my putter back. Like it was like front nothing. Like I put it great and obviously like it's been it's happening so fast. And we realized it. But once I got to the 10th hole and I bogey the 10th hole, I I start to feel a little bit like a little bit nervous, I would say, just because I have a back nine that I can kind of realize my dream kind of feeling, but it never got to my head. But once I had

a good, like, I had a hard bogey. It could have been a great part, but I had a hard bogey. And I played 11, I told myself 10, 11, 12, if I can get through that pretty easy, it's going to be, it's going to be hard to catch me because I think I had a four shot lead going to the back night. I'm not really sure, but for some reason, I felt so calm and I just stayed in the moment. You know, I just felt like for some reason that week I just felt so patient with myself. We had a lot of rain delays and for some reason, I just felt like something special is going to happen that weekend. For some reason, I took it all in on the 18th whole and that's when I kind of let let let loose of my emotions. Next up is episode 607. We did with Lynn Marriott and Pia Nielsen from Vision 54. We did a little different episode in this one. We

basically used their expertise to give a coaching lesson to Neil live on the podcast. There's a lot of back and forth in this one. Love this episode. Number 607, Lynn Marriott and Pia Nielsen. So when you play and you play well, so share with us what do you do before the shot? Back here. What's your, you know, all of us, we call this thing box, but before the shot, and what do you like to focus on during the swing or motion

when you play well? Yeah. If I can just interject here, I wanna set the scene a little bit for Neil that he was a college football player. He hits it very far. He has is very athletic and is I've seen over the years him honing with a focus in on golf. How much he's improved in it. So he has incredible physical skills and I if I may say unlimited potential. I just want to set that part of the scene for for the conversation because of how much better he's improved and how well he hits the ball. Thank you, Sonic. Appreciate that.

I've never told you that. Well, but you know what they say, the, you know, worst thing in the world is wasted talent, right? So that's why golf can be a little bit of it can be tough for me because I do feel like I should be playing, you know, I should be scoring better. Yeah. So tell me how do you do there before the shot? Because I just want to check it up on what you're doing. So, you know. So, I've come off the tee, and I would say pretty much every shot,

you know, other than maybe chipping and putting, I have a good, like free-throw routine. And actually Max Homa, talking to him on a show we did strapped years ago, he was like, you have to find a free-throw routine. He told me, he was like, you're doing something different on every T-shot. And so I've come to a, you know, one practice swing,

I kind of find my, you know, my feel or almost my trigger. And then I pick my target, I step up, I do usually one waggle, I kind of set my shoulders and then I go. And when I stick to that, you know, some days you have the feel, I'm a, I do sense that I'm a, when I'm playing my best, I'm playing athletically,

kind of with, with feel. Yeah. So I find that when I see my swing like on camera, it starts to make me try to perfect it instead of just, you know, playing my swing. And I think that that's worked now for the past year and a half or so. Because I used to skip around a different swing feels, right? And then you start stacking swing feels and it spins out of control.

You got to start all over again. And they become swing thoughts. Exactly. Exactly. So I've done a really good job the last year, I think, of sticking to a very specific routine and I think it's really helped me off the tee. And I would say that's why my handicap is has fallen It sounds it sounds really good and it sets you up to be more censoring athletic But when since you talk about the making not so good decision at times

So is it decision making before? How do you do that? Before you go into your free throw routine? Yeah, I think that where you're not Yeah, I think it's decisions around. So we did another show with Mark Liechten's caddy, uh, Maddie Kelly, who lives here in Jacksonville. We went out to our local course and we played the, uh, you know, the forward tease. And the goal was for me to break par from the forward tease with a professional caddy. And, you know, spoiler alert, I shot four under. And a lot of the reason I shot four under was because he was on the bag.

And there was a specific hole, it was the first number one at Jack's Beach, but our 10th and the front bunker was like 205 and I said, he's like, well, that's five iron. And I said, well, in my head, I always wanna buy a little extra insurance. So I was like, instead of hitting four, I was like, well, let's just hit driving iron. Let's take the, instead of hitting four, I was like, well, let's just hit driving.

Let's take the bunker out of play. And he was like, no, we're gonna hit, we're gonna plan for a good shot. And I think that that is something that I still struggle with is that I try to, I see, I get zeroed in on one issue. And that's left over from you, a time period where you didn't hit every shot pure. Which you hit almost every shot pure now.

Yeah, and so it's like I was like, ah, well, if I hit a perfect five iron, I'd probably carry that bunker by one yard. And well, okay, well, let's just club up. And then, well, guess what? You hit a good four iron, it's gonna go to 15. And you're gonna be over the green, right? And so I have a bad habit of like taking that first piece

of trouble out or getting locked in on that, probably especially when I don't have a caddy of like taking that first piece of trouble out or getting getting locked in on that probably Especially when I don't have a caddy to talk through it with so also Maddie talked me off He said we're hitting five iron of course. I hit it to 10 feet. I made you know eagle there and it was just kind of a wake-up call for me I'm like, you know, and he was like, yeah, you got to plan He's like mark and I always plan to hit a good shot because if you're not doing that that if you're not starting from The best outcome, you know, or if you're not starting from the best outcome, you know, or we're going to play away from trouble, but like from, you know, a yardage standpoint, we have to plan to hit the shot well, right?

And and if you're absolutely not not have this state of avoidance. Exactly. You're good enough player. If you had a 20 handicap of 25, it might be different. But now it's a, you know, whatever one, two, that's really small. So it seems like is there a chance for you to have a good caddy that you can play a few rounds with to just learn how to talk through decision making differently for yourself?

I think, you know, it's, I don't, I think, yeah, I'm trying. Listen, some of these things that Maddie was telling him, I've told him for four years and all of a sudden he's like, he's like, oh, man, that made a lot of sense. Conservative targets aggressive. So he's like, I've been telling you that for years. Normally, I'm normally competing against Sally. And that's the matter is who's given you the coaching. Next up, episode five, 62 with Mel Reed.

We are previewing the US women's open and she tells some stories about her Olympic experience. I wish that I could have had some of my family there, which kind of a carly there. I wish that I could have bought my coach out there. Like we couldn't have any of that. Which I found quite weird in a certain way because I was like this is you know supposed to be like the the pinnacle of sport and we can't even I can't even have a one coach here like that to me was a bit odd, but just being at the Olympics and being around other athletes was like someone who grew up playing what we sport, like that was I never thought I would ever play an Olympics being a golfer, and so to actually

have the opportunity and to go and play in Olympics was by far like one of the coolest experiences, and like the cool thing about it right, so this is one of the, so the food hall is the cool thing about it right so this is one of the so the food hall is the biggest thing you've ever seen like it's huge it's massive and whatever food you want it's available 24 seven there's different stations everywhere and I just love to watch in what are the athletes eight like you get these big bodybuilders like these huge guys and they've got like a 16 egg omelette like fork chicken breasts for breakfast and you just like, I was just fascinated. I mean, I think I'm in shape. I mean, literally these, these athletes are just

insanely in shape. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. Like, it almost, I almost worked out too much during that week because I just like, I was like, didn't want to need to get in shape more. But too, I just wanted to like train with all these athletes. So we had a separate gym, team GB, and just to train with all these athletes. I just, this is awesome. BMX guys squatting, what they were squatting. I was like, this is just, like everything about it was just, I was in awe of. And honestly, it just gave me a whole new appreciation for how hard these athletes work.

And we're very fortunate that we can earn money at what we do. 90% of these athletes really don't. Like I was talking to a bunch of the hockey girls and they were telling me like what they're grandness and I was like, they were like, yeah, you know, we've trained for this for four years and I'm just like that. It was just a new, it was very humbling to be honest. It was just a new appreciation for for any kind of Olympics for thought to be honest. I don't know how to ask the question without spoiling the story, but tell us about what it was like for Team GB

or where you were staying in the village when somebody would come back from a successful event. Oh, so we, so it was obviously like everyone gets up for it. So they walk in, I've no idea who they are. They've just got a gold medal to run the neck. And everyone's just cheering and then you chain to them and So this was the thing so where our block was was right by the Olympic rings in the village And so when people finished their event they just get hammered

There was literally party every single night and like you you couldn't see it was almost so loud outside Like they've got loads of music on like everyone everyone's boozed up, like they haven't drank in like four years, everyone's absolutely hammered after like one bud light. And so they're all just like, they're jumping in the water and all this stuff. And so that was the only tricky thing was like, we definitely didn't get adequate to eat, but whatever. I mean, it's Olympic games and these guys have just won

a gold medal, so and girls have just won a gold medal, so allowed. But yeah, I mean, it was just carnage, like when they come in, it was just cool to see all these medals just walking in. And it's like, that's so cool. Like, these guys have given up their whole life to do this. And they did it. They are the best at what they do in that given day. And it was just, it was just really, really cool to see. Another weird question to ask. And I don't know how to ask, but it's widely circulated. How much there is activity between the other athletes in Olympic Village.

Was it like that? Was it like that, you know, in this weird COVID Olympics, did you experience any of that? Not, I'm not saying you, but did you see that going on in any other locations? So there's my caddy at the time. I think he's put on his Tinder profile.

He's a two-time Olympian, and I'm like, okay, right, I know where this is going. So he was like, I'm 100%. There's no way I'm not getting laid this week. I've got to, like, it's the Olympic Games. And I was like, okay. And even he can get laid.

So I think the COVID restrictions were a little bit more. I mean, he can't get laid at the best of times. But that was, if he was ever going to get laid, it was going to be that week. So poor buddy, but yeah, I mean, I didn't, I don't think it's been as bad because I think they tried to restrict it a little bit. Obviously, they didn't want people like we had security outside our blocks, right? Like you can get in without you could ensure, but yeah, poor, desi.

Now it's just one week and no, maybe, maybe in 2024, it's right around the corner. Yeah, three time Olympian then when I understand pray for. Next up, episode six, 20. This was just last month with Zander Shoffley talking about his major championship journey. What has that journey been like for you pursuing a major championship win? Awesome. It's been really fun. You know, pretty much exactly what I envisioned as a kid, being in the hunt at a major is pretty hard to describe.

And yeah, some of those top 5s are probably, you know, a Sunday, a lower score on Sunday, and I was in 12th and then I shopped into the top 5. So that is a rewarding Sunday and a rewarding golf stream. And like, hey, you know, we did, you know, it's good week. Some of those, you know, was in the lead or close to lead, and you know, had a meltdown along the way or had some big score come in. Those hurt more, obviously, than the others.

But, you know, it is so fickle in my mind in the high ranks of golf. Just even in the top, I'd say 50 on a PJ tour. It's really fickle. You know, it's such a tight line, you know, you try and walk and I have to just remind myself of that every day that man, in the chase to become better, you can probably get way worse pretty easily. So I need to be pretty patient in my process of what I need to make better to give myself a real opportunity. And so in order for me to win a major, I've done it,

and I have ideas of what I need to do to do it. But I'd say I've had plenty of game to get it done just now. And I just either need to be in the correct way, get off to get off to a better start, have the right mindset throughout the week. There's so many little things that come to play that can affect sort of my ability or what's gonna, you know, push me over the edge. And so my whole plan is to just try and make myself so much better

at certain things that even if I'm not firing, you know, all on all cylinders, I still will have a chance. You know, I think right now in our sports, there's just a couple guys that really, you know, off the top of my head, obviously, are current number one in the world. You know, Scott played unbelievable. He had a nice run there as number one, and I'm sure he'll get back there at some point, but Rory's played just... He kind of like, you know, he hit it so far that he pretty much will always be in like in every hole. And he will always have an opportunity to score and get a score because he will take advantage

of par-fives and certain things. It's a comfortable place that, yeah, he is, he is a true number one right now and he does play like a week and a week out. And, you know, he played an unbelievable stretch of golf, and you imagine throughout, you know, no one can play perfect golf for eight months. You know, they're going to play some crabby golf in between, and that hasn't really showed on his card, which means that his crabby golf is pretty damn good. And I, you know, I want to get to that point where whether it's firepower, that he'd increase,

whether it's my iron play, you know, I pick the part with my team every year. That's what we all do, you know what I mean. And it is a tough journey because if you are really good at something and you need to try and get better or something else, you kind of go with a fire springing. And all of a sudden you leave kind of your, the rest of your game aside to try and get better at one thing. And then now you're playing this tier tater with your entire game and your golf swing. And I'm just trying to maintain what you have and being okay with what you have. So I'm on this sort of slow patient grind of trying to get like incrementally better in certain areas without losing certain parts of my game. Next up, another one from episode 590 with Davis Love, the third talking about his experience on the PGA tour,

policy board and how he has gone about with changes. And just he shares a wealth of experience as the PGA tour is again going through a massive changing period. Really appreciated his insight on a lot of things. And this is just a little snippet of that. Well, it's been challenged back in 94, like you said, because of Greg Norman bringing this point up and trying to do the World Tour. Comment the, and it's been challenged back in 94, like you said, because of Greg Norman, bringing this point up and

trying to do the world tour. It's been challenged now, but it's also been challenged a couple times by the IRS or the federal government looking into us as a tax exempt organization. So we have, we were granted that a long time ago. We've had to defend that a couple of times on Capitol Hill. We've had to defend that a couple of times on Capitol Hill. And the reason we end up, the IRS makes a judgment, yeah, your audit is fine, and your business plan is fine, and you're giving so much money to charity, and you're growing your business every year exponentially. We're going to continue to sign off on that, because you are a unique entity, and so our lawyers and our accountants and the federal government have continued to sign off on this. Because part of the independent contractors, kind of a weird term, we're a member-owned organization.

If you sign up at the beginning of the year, you conform to these rules, you get the benefits of it. But we can't tell you when and where you have to play. Like Pat Perez saying, I had to play, it's just a complete, you know, farce. Where there's 40 termites, you have to play 15 to be able to vote next year and to get your benefits, insurance, retirement plan, all those kind of things. So it's, it's a very strange structure. It's not the Dallas Cowboys. We hire you to play on our team. You conform to these rules.

We give you a whole bunch of money. And if we get tired of you, we'll trade you to somebody else. No, we play in a member organization. And the rules have been signed off on now. You and I and others can sit down and say, yeah, there's some changes probably need to be, maybe there's a better model.

Maybe there needs to be a For-profit rather than a nonprofit. All those things can be discussed, but for right now, like Jay said yesterday to a player asking about rules, yeah, we can change the rules in the future, but right now We have to defend these rules that were written and my only choice right now is to move forward and defend them until we change them. Trust me, there's always been 20 or 30 guys that complain and argue and fight. There's 20 or 30 guys, and I put myself in that camp that are supporting the tour, working on the board,

player advisory council, whatever. The rest of them just want to go play golf. They're Max Homa and don't try to buy my dream. I'm trying to win on the PGA tour. Tom Kim is as excited as any person in the world around. He's living his dream. He always dreamed of playing on the PGA tour. He just won a PGA tour event.

He became a member. We built a platform, and I just put me as a we small, small part. We built a platform, Jack Nichols Arnold Palmer, to give these guys a chance. And Tiger and Rory and myself, we don't work for the PGA Tour. We're working for the current players and the future players to give them that platform and you let them have the opportunity we had. But it's a very complicated system and the fans just have to understand that the live can do whatever they want. The players that go there can do whatever they want. But the PGA tour should not be hostily taken over and become a feeder system to live.

And that's ultimately what they want. Next up episode 572. This is with Madeline Sagsstrom. We're talking a little bit in our KPMG women's PGA preview with her about her experience after our Week in the Life series we did with her on our YouTube channel. How big is Shane Zego gotten since the Week in the Life video? I remember the first few weeks after people went like, Shane, Shane, Shane.

And he's like, who do I owe money now? I was like, I don't know these people. I was like, well, you're famous now, Shane. Now, I think it's great. But he's the one who's like, he would never think to highly of himself. But it was so much fun. It was fun for us.

It was a team really, because that's really kind of when we started. I still love that part of the video. How long have you guys been working together? One week. We're one weekend. But here we are still a year and a half after. So it's been good. He's been so good for my game. And I think that's also been a big help to our play. So he's so, like, you guys are very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very. He's so, like, you guys are very the same. Madeline makes a double bogey. That wasn't great. Madeline makes an ego. That was good. So it's very same. He's great. What's that been like? Has there been any, have you seen any increase in interest in your game since the video came out or any addition of new fans or anything

like that? Yeah, I mean, I still find it a bit weird. Like, I you know, when you play in big group, play with Lexi Las Vegas, yeah, Lexi, Lexi. Like, you're used to hearing those, but I hear, go Madeline, I'm like, you know what I am? I was like, what? I definitely saw a different demographic than I haven't had before.

I mean, your followers are a little bit different than people that have been following me before. So that's cool. It's cool. I mean, it's cool that people are interested in that they enjoy my journey and what I do. And I think it's, that's what I like to see. I like to follow people.

You'd like to get up close and actually see what life is like. So I really enjoyed what you guys did. That's what Providing some Access does does. I think of people like people like real. It was very, very, very real content, I thought. Next up, episode 617 is with Mike Clayton. It was hard to find just a little snippet here of a long lengthy distance discussion that we had on the podcast with him, but his insight is incredible on all of that. Episode 617, Mike Clayton Clayton so this generation of growing up with swings on their phone

They've seen how tiger swings. They've seen Louis Ustaz and they've seen they've seen the great swings and their great imitators There's all kids are great imitators. So there's so many great techniques out there now the problem with the equipment I think is that there's now Thousands of kids around the world who all want to be golf pros and There's now Thousands of kids around the world who all want to be golf pros and some of them are gonna make it but most of them aren't and The more the more difficult you make the equipment to use for those guys the more difficult the driver is to use the more difficult Is to flight the ball through the wind the more difficult it is to drive the ball 300 yards the more you can differentiate The kids with real talent before they

turn pro and force the life of roads and shitty motels and planning many tours and losing their money and go and get a proper job in a real life rather than trying to chase this impossible dream. I was lucky enough to play decently as a pro and make a living out of it and I really enjoyed it. But, you know, I think that the equipment has become, the drivers become such an easy club to use. There are thousands of kids around the world who can drive the ball with an wear distance of the green and shoot great scores.

So they all think they're good enough to be pros and they are, they're tremendous players. But the biggest favor the RNA in the US shake and do the thousands of kids who all want to be golf pros is make the equipment more difficult to use. So in my era, Greg Sevy, who was a great driver despite what people think, Nicholas obviously Watson, the great players could flight the ball through the wind

with a steel shaft at the Simon driver with a blower ball. So the great players could, they were just a step ahead because they were so much better with one club because it was really difficult to use that club in the Wim with that ball. Now it's way easier to You don't have to hammer the mod and ball through the Wim with the graphite shafted head with the frying pan head on it is not Particularly difficult relative to what it was 40 years ago

So the best players in the world always won the open. Trevino Weiskov when he was playing great, Miller when he was having a great year. Nickus was always there, Watson, Norman, was he who never won it but played well in the open because they could flight that thing through the wind, difficult ball, difficult head, difficult shaft in terms of it was heavy, head was small, that was one club where the best players could break out of the pack. And the next lot of clubs was with the long lines, those blade one and two and three lines, which you know I've got I can still see Savi and Greg and

hitting those towering one-ones that the rest of us couldn't hit. So they could break out of the pack just with their skills with the long clubs. You jack the ball back 50 yards, make it more difficult to drive it in the wind and you can get away from this, there's the stounds of kids who all think they're good enough to play on the pro tour.

When there are only, whether 150 spots on the PJ tour and there are 100 spots on the pro tour, when there are only, whether 150 spots on the PGA tour and there are 100 spots on the European tour and there are 125 spots on the WebDoc on the corn ferry tour. And there aren't that many jobs. All right. Last one here. I want to thank everyone for tuning in all year long.

This is episode 588. We did with Sean Zock. He's talking a lot of his experience of cadding for Joel Damon and some of his experiences of being in Scotland this summer as a great episode we did with him episode 588, Sean Zock have a great holiday everyone a great new year we will see you back we have a lot of great stuff planned for 2023 can't wait to announce it can't wait to roll it out and we will see you in the next year tell me about caddy for Joel how that came about and what you learned there and what that experience was like? Well, as we discussed, you played a role. Whether or not you want to downsize your role, I was listening to your podcast while

playing the Duke's course here in St. Andrews. It's the least lengthy golf course here. It's the most Americanized. But anyways, that's where I was on the Monday after Brookline. And I heard him come on there and say, hey, Sully, I need a caddy. And, you know, Joel and I are friendly. We follow each other in social media,

but like that's pretty much it. And when you said I have vacation plans, I immediately DMed him. Like, dude, I'm here. And I know it's expensive as hell to travel right now. And last minute hotels are very expensive. If you need a caddy, let me know. And he got back to me a couple hours later

and said, here's my number. Let's talk this through. And I've just learned that Joel is a pretty dry texture. And so the next text was, how much do you want to get paid? And I was like, oh god. Is this a bartering system? Is this one of those, you know, airlines trying to like bump passengers, like the lowest price

wins? And so I don't even remember what exactly I told them. I basically told them like what Martin Trainor paid me and then he gave me a really, really generous deal. And I was planning on covering the event as a journalist anyways. And so, oh gosh, sometimes you just need to level up and learn how much you don't know about golf and I think that was my week of leveling up. Like I said earlier, I'm an 8-handicap, right? And I hit like two golf shots that are perfect every round, maybe one golf shot that feels perfect

every single round. And when you are cadding for a player of that caliber, you all have to believe because they believe you can find the perfect shot every single time. You can find the perfect, you know, analysis of the wind and the place you're going to land it and the amount of spin and the trajectory and the club, whatever. And so it was such a fun challenge for competitive people to do that on a Lynxie golf course that was extremely firm and the win was like way up. You know, that setup actually got players extremely riled up because they couldn't carry to the fairway on Thursday.

Which was so sick because I had catted for Joel and we were in the morning wave and played, like, that was bad. Like, we played bad in the early wave, which was nice. And so I went back into the press room, Joel went home, got dinner with his wife, and I, like, kind of, like, I fell asleep for like 10 minutes and the press room was so tired. But then I went out and, like, started writing about it. And I found Fino, and I found Mackenzie Hughes, and I found Mackenzie's Caddy and Cantlay, and all these people were coming in off the golf course, freaking pissed off. And I was like, what's going on here? And the setup was bonkers.

It was horrible. And I was like, gosh, Joel and I didn't have a really bad setup in the morning. We played horrible golf. But yeah, it was so enlightening to see how a very, like Joel to be successful has to just be a smarter golfer, right? He has to play the ball low. He has to play the ball on the ground at a firm setup. And he has to be a smarter golfer than some people who are

just gripping in, ripping it. And I feel like I learned a lot. And then, you know, I missed the cut, but the real treat of the week was when those guys came over here, and I walked around North Barric with him, and Luke List, Luke List's Catti, and Ted Scott was, I think, playing a couple groups ahead

of us, Brian Veranish, his C. Wu's Catti, he was a couple groups ahead of us, Keith Mitchell had come over after his third round, and I really got baptized in the tour stop hang for lack of a better term. They were all staying in the Marine Hotel, and we ended up taking it pretty deep that night, and I was supposed to be back in Edinburgh,

and so I ended up getting a hotel room at the Marine Hotel at frankly, at like three in the morning and there was a lot of people yelling, Sean, this is off the record at me. So I can't share too many details on the podcast, but it was a hell of a night, a hell of a weekend, and the absolute worst way to get into Open Week, which is when you're like working from 70m until 11pm. I took up all my energy like hanging out with Joel and then like got

properly zapped up in St. Andrews, but again, absolutely no regrets. Joel is a class act and then he went and just had nice little Italian vacation with his wife. Italian vacation with his wife. Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most.