Subpar - Charlie Beljan talks being hospitalized during his only PGA Tour win, why Rickie Fowler is currently gaming his old putter

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

On this week's episode of GOLF's Subpar, PGA Tour Winner Charlie Beljan joins former PGA Tour pro Colt Knost and jicky jack legend Drew Stoltz for an exclusive, in-studio, interview. The University of New Mexico alum talks Nate Lashley getting trolled by his college coach, what made his only PGA Tour win so different from most victories and why Rickie Fowler is currently gaming his old putter.

Hello world. Welcome back to golf subpar with Colt Nost and Drew Stoltz. Pretty normal weekends, Sleeze. John Rom wins on the PJ tour and the Cowboys losing the second round of the playoffs. Yeah. What's that make it? 26 years. Yeah. Since the last one. Whatever. Something like that. Forever. Welcome. Welcome. This is the way I felt. It's depressing. After the TCU, Georgia pounding. A little different, I guess.

DCU had no expectations to get there. This was like the Cowboys year, win or go home, Super Bowl or bust. And yeah, that looked like what I watched all year with the Broncos. Like great defense, shit offense, score a point, do anything. I was sneaky. I know you weren't. I think a lot of people out there was like, let this come down to a game winning field goal. Please, please, if there's a sports got up there, let this be like a 47 yarder to win the game. Or 43, something you should make, but it's not guaranteed.

After that first extra point, which it was blocked, luckily, a thing was going, that was spinning sideways. was going to kill one of the cheerleaders. It was going nowhere near the uprights. I was like, oh, my God, it's not fixed. He did come back, though. He did make a couple nice ones. Shit. All I was thinking is like, because the game was tied, then they went up seven,

and we obviously had a couple chances to move the ball down and score. I'm like, what happens? If we score and he's got to make this extra point to force an overdone, like you go for two is what I would do. You made field goals in between that time to give you like, okay, maybe he's, you know, somewhat back to level, but still, if you go, if you kick the extra point to tie it and he misses the criticism is just game like dude how many's he got to miss all that stuff but that was um anyways it's welcome to hell yeah it's that's what's being a fan

listen i've i've defended dack his whole career uh i've i've always thought like i mean as a fourth round pick you didn't know what you really were going to have when he came in for tony roma when he got hurt back in the day like he's way on real went like 12 and 5 in his first season 12 and 4 something like that and now i mean he's had back to back 12 and 5 seasons but when all the chips are on the line he hasn't really performed yesterday he played terrible so I'm very that one that one stung

because I honestly thought we had a really good chance going in I know San Francisco's defense is incredible which they are but still you have a third string rookie quarterback at the helm for San Francisco he's undefeated

he's played fantastic I just thought at some point the rookie rookie football would show up and he he holds together which we talk about it all the time like he doesn't have to do a whole lot he just has to not fuck up

he's one of the few quarterbacks other, like when you get down to this level division championships now, things like that, he doesn't have to go win the game. He just has to not lose the game. Other quarterbacks, like, you got to go win the game. Burrough does it. You know, Mahomes does it every single time. Purdy doesn't have to.

Dak needed to this last time. And like, if you're the Cowboys, all right, you're GM. You got a pretty good team. Pretty close. But every time, you know, chips around the table, like you said, it doesn't happen. You go, you move on from Dak? If so, who do you get? Where do you go?

Or do you just say we're another year closer, a couple more pieces, but I don't know what other pieces you need. I think you're one wide receiver away. I'm not sure about quarterback which way you want to go with that. The way I always say it is like, who are you going to get? Who's a better option? One that our good friend Ben Marsh threw out at us, he's like, trade for Lamar Jackson. Lamar Jackson and Baltimore doesn't really seem to be on the same page right now.

They pay less money to Dak Prescott. You come here, you give Lamar Jackson a massive contract. I don't know. I wouldn't hate it. That would be a big splash. That would be a big splash. That would be a blockbuster trade. And we'll also throw in Brett Maher for free.

Just take them, you know, a little party favor. But I don't know, man. It sucks. Every year, it feels like this is going to be the year. They finally get back. They're the most talked about NFL team. And it sucks. I woke up this morning, and it's not Sports Center.

It's Dallas Cowboys Center. I mean, that's all it is. That's all they talk about. It's more about them losing than the Niners winning. So it is what it is. That's being a sports fan, though, dude. Yeah. Other than one fan base doesn't get their guts ripped out.

tougher like Broncos been shit all year. I was like, okay, saying it. I can just tap out and be like, yeah, I'll watch them, but I don't have any expectation. When it's like, this is the year, it hurts. And listen, but there's four great teams left in the playoffs. Both AFC and NFC championship should be great. I can't wait to see what happens.

That's Cincinnati, Kansas City game should be an all-timer. You should get Burrow. Dack for Burrow. Straight up. And we'll take a fourth-round draft pick of theirs. Okay. That's fair. They'll pick up the phone for that.

All right, let's talk a little golf here because John Rom, doing John Rom things. Two for two in 2020. He currently has 56 holes out of 144 where he's made birdie or better. He's just 54 under than his last eight rounds. That was like a slow Sunday this past week at the Amex. That wasn't his best stuff.

But he's still 54 under par in eight rounds. That's a joke. I mean, he's going right now, like, forget the world golf rankings, forget all that stuff. We can talk about that another time. That's the best player on the planet right now. It is.

He's currently number three, but I'm with you. I mean, just passing the eye test, there's no doubt about it. John Rom is. Granted, Roy McElroy hadn't played in a couple months, and he was on an absolute heater before he took his little break. But we have some cool stuff brewing right now because there's a lot of guys playing some very good golf. April can't get here soon enough for the Masters because, man, it's going to be very exciting. Not only are some great players playing great, then you got the live thing on the other side.

Champions dinner should be very interesting. That seating arrangement. That'd be a fun one to, tune into fly on the wall for that. I think we should telecast the champions day. Oh my God. It'd be incredible. Be like Desperate Housewives Golf version. Just some catiness. Also got to give a shout out to my guys over

at Calloway. The new paradigm driver is three for three on the PJ tour this year. Yeah. Whatever Rom's plan, probably going to have some pretty good stats at the end of the year. Yeah. But he is killing it right now. It's fun to watch. And he's going to his best course where he's going to Tori this week. If you pick one place

for John Rom, he's like Tori. That's his place. He's plus 390 to win this week. That's dumb dumb. That'll be probably, I would go out on a limb and say that'll be the lowest odds for an outright winner on the PJ tour. In a real, not like a hey, he's the only guy in the top 50. I mean, you got Zander Shafley, Patrick Cantley, Will Zalatouris, Taylor, Taylor, Montgomery, playing some damn. He's golf. We almost snuck up.

That was my dark horse. He was like 45 to 1. Dark horse sitting there on 16. People make birdie there. Didn't do it. Goes to 17 and then he had a little whoopsie daisy. But fourth top 10 of the season leads all. TJ tour players this year.

The kid is, he's going. He caught a horrible break 2 on 12 where his caddy is like, all right, knock the flag stick down. And guess what he did? He did. He hit the flag. It bounced off to the fringe. End up missing.

It would have been a kick-in bird. He's close, man. Well, DeWu, I listened to you. And did exactly what you said? You're fired. Tell me to aim a yard left. It's cool. I love seeing what Taylor's doing.

One finish outside the top 15 this season. It's just crazy. Going back to John Rom. I played with Max Homer the other day, who's 15th in the world, one of the best on the planet. we're playing and look at the scores from Thursday. ROM's like 8 under par through 11.

He just goes, this ROM is a goddamn machine. Yeah. Like, it's just, it's ridiculous. It is. I think that's one of the cool. When you get compliments from your peers, that's what's so cool about it. And I mean, these guys know when John Rom's on, he is very difficult to beat. I don't know if this is a stat.

We'll have to go to Justin Ray or somebody that knows what they're doing to look at this. Has anyone ever shot more than 54 under in the stretch of two rounds or two tournaments? I don't know. I mean, there's only a couple. Hawaii is always a shootout. Tournament of champions always a shootout if the wind's not thumping. But then you got to go do it another week. Like this is kind of, I guess, the two events where you could really get it going,

but you still got to go do it. $5,000. I'll tell you what we'll do it. He will not shoot $27 under at Tori Pines. He'll win. That would be a winner. I think that would win. That would be a winner.

But, I mean, like you said, there's only been a few guys win three in a row. And he's got a chance to do it. This would be the place you would pick for him. Yeah. And you'll be out there, dog. He's on a tear. I'm heading there. Wednesday start because of the NFC and Asia Championship, wrapping it up Saturday. Our first one with CBS this year, I can't wait to get going.

Nance is going to be at Arrowhead calling golf from the football stadium on Friday and Saturday, but he can handle it. Trevor Rimmelman making his debut as lead analyst. I can't wait to get out there. Trevor? Trevor will be out. That's, God, Nancy busy dude. Him and Tariko right now.

Just flying around. flying around. Hey, got to pay the bills. Got to. Speaking of, talking about the stack because you're stacking right now, but this episode of subpar is brought to you by stack,

and I have started using the stack, and I am a 100% believer. I was just smashing it around Shadow Creek. Got a little tip from Max the other day, too, by the way. Going through one of my training sessions, where I was, with one of the weights, I was right around 106 to 108 miles an hour. Max is like, give me a little try with this,

try to squatting a little bit, pushing up a little bit. Use the ground. 113, Sleeze. That's all it took was. just him saying, hey, use the ground. One swing picked up five miles an hour. Maybe Max should be a teacher after he's done winning a bunch of shit. But I'm telling you, I love this thing.

It's literally one club. You just unscrew the bottom, add weights. The app is so detailed. It is so easy to use. I'm obsessed with this thing. I want to do it every day, but it tells you to take a day off in between, just to rest the body. You got to rest this machine right here.

Obviously. I'm a believer, man. When Mark Blackburn told me to do it, I was kind of like, hmm, yeah, I don't know. Tell you, get the stack. I'm going to be hitting bomb. So how far, how many sessions you got under your belt now? Six.

And what's your increase been? You're not hitting a ball. You're swinging a club. You're training your body to go faster, but how big of a jump have you seen? So basically I've gone up right around six miles an hour. That's nice. That's my fastest from my baseline test. That's nice.

It's almost 20 yards. I went from where it said 273 all the way up to 299. Yeah. That changes things. Get down. Mocks. You know, I know. You're just going to be a three wood guy.

But you know, I first heard about this thing with Matt Fitzpatrick. who went who was not one of the longer guys well actually was one of the shorter guys all of a sudden he got to over 180 mile an hour ball speed working with this thing it was created by sasha mackenzie marty jertson from ping these guys created it telling you you got to go get yourself one go to the golf dot com pro shop use code subpar and get 10% off 10% off the price but you're going to hit like 20% longer it'll pay for itself in just a few rounds with your buddies golf dot com pro shop and two start hitting wedges done yeah i'm a blizzard you're going to believe you're going to lever man if it works for you by god it's gonna work in our i don't know what that's supposed to me but

okay but our guest this week the man can ship it let's go this is gonna be a fun one if you're not real familiar with the name he is a pGA tour winner i'm not kidding this is one of my favorite episodes we've done i think it's one of the most fascinating interviews because you just don't get guys that have been on a type of ride that charlie belgian has been on most people that do remember the name will probably remember 2012 disney is win on the pGA tour but it wasn't a normal win i I mean, we get into this in-depth, but battling the anxiety to the point where he was being ambulance off the golf course, sleeping in the hospitals before the final couple rounds,

things like that, doctors telling him, don't go out there, don't play. And he said, nah, I'm going. That was a wild ride. It's a wild story, and I got to give him a tip of the cap. I mean, he opened up, was not scared to say everything that's going on in his life. He's doing great now, which we're very happy for him. But this episode, I'm telling you right here, you are going to enjoy this. Here's Charlie Belgian on Golf Subpar.

Okay, folks, we have a former U.S. Junior Am champ in the house, turned jickey Jack Legend, turned PGA Tour winner. He is a hell of a talent with an unbelievable story. Very much looking forward to this one. Charlie Belgian is with us. Chuckie, good to have you, bud. Hey, thanks for having me. I've been waiting to be on this for a few years, so I'm excited to be here.

It's finally here. Tell us Lee's what it feels like to be a USGA champion. Chuck, I was so close, dude. I don't even know if you know, bro. Yeah, I watched it. I was right there. Snatched from us. They can't take it from you.

And I consider it a major, man. I mean, they used to consider majors back in the day until they changed it. But if you sit down with any guys that are on the board at the USDA or work there, they all consider it a major. So I would never tell anybody I'm a major champion. But being a USDA champion, man, the USDA is what runs the world of golf. And so to be a champion of one of their major championships is something that I'll always have And to be honest, man, that was, that week looking back was better than my tour win, better than the other wins.

It was just a great week at Atlanta. Atlanta, right? Yeah, Atlanta Athletic Club. Zach Reynolds. Zach Reynolds, yeah, sure was. The OSU? Oklahoma State and then never heard a word about him after that. He was good.

He was a good junior. Who else did you run through in that thing? Anybody that ended up popping? I ran through Brian Harmon. Yeah, I sure did. I think it was 21. holes, man. And it was dark and I think I made a long put on the last hole to get them. I think that was in the quarters. But at the time, I had set the record for the most holes played to win

a USGA championship. Every match I had went to 18 or extra holes. Yeah, your final was extra. The final was three extra holes with tying triple bogeys on one hole. That's what it was. I knew there was some weird shit. Hold on. Can you remember this? How did it go? Who messed up first? He messed up first from the right bunker. There's a lake in front of the green on 18, and he puts it right in the lake. I've got an eight iron, and I've got a hundred yards

behind over the water until the cart path, and I dead fat it from the middle of the fairway, right in the lake. Then we both chunk our chips and we both three putted or something like that to tie with seven. He sups that you got eight ironed and you lay the sod over. Pressure is a bitch.

That's unbelievable that you came after doing that. Normally the first guy that messes up, like they lose. Because the other guy plays it safe and it happens. But to him mess up, you both tie with triple. And you walk to the next hole, like a double. A double. A double.

A double cleans this thing up. And to get to that hole, he goes and runs in about a 35 footer on the par three, 17th. And I've got to make about a 20 footer to extend it. And I make the 20 footer. And then we go to 18. We tie with triples and we come back to the par three. And I hit it. I hit it.

It's like super clutch though before that. He hoops and you got a hoop to extend. Back and forth. And then, okay, and then we go back to 17, 150 yards down the hill. I hit a nine iron to like a foot. He hits it in there to like 12 feet and misses it. And then I was really hoping he was going to give me that. It might have been 18 inches, boy, but it seemed long at the time.

After a trip, be like, go ahead and kick that thing in. That's an incredible story. I never knew about the triples. Yeah, and what's even crazier is on the 18th hole, the second round, the last hole, I made like a 60 footer to get into match play. And then kind of just, yeah. From the back of the green on 18, the pin was front left, and I hooped it to get into match play.

Otherwise, you know, to be honest, if that putt doesn't go in, I was getting ready to go to MCC. And, you know, who knows? And then all of a sudden that putt goes in, that week happens. And I've kind of got my pick to go wherever I want. Yeah. That's wild.

I played behind Eduardo Molinari when he won the U.S. amateur at Marion. And he hooped a bunker shot on the last. hole of stroke play to get into match play. Crazy. It's crazy how it is. There's so many stories like that. Wasn't that to get into the playoff to then get it? That he then advanced out of the playoffs.

It was like, I mean, I just remember I was behind him and he hooped and he went crazy. And I was like, that must have meant something. I'll tell you, I got a from the U.S. junior, so I get exemptions into the to the U.S. AM. So I roll into Bloomfield Hills. What's the one up there? In Detroit. Oakland Hills.

Oakland Hills. And I'll never forget it. I go into a playoff. I make match play. I draw Anthony Kim, the first round. Yeah, let's go. I draw Anthony Kim. And we're on the T.

Just won the U.S. Jr. There's Jim A. Hearn, Philip James, the guys from Titleist, everybody right there. And he puts us peg in the ground and he turns around to all these guys and he goes,

I'm going to be the first one to beat the U.S. Junior Amateur champ. And then on 18, he gave me about a three-footer because all I had to do was two putt it to beat him. But let me tell you what. I made the record-setting amount of putts on him,

man. He was so discouraged for sure. But I'll never forget that man. I was like, this asshole is not going to beat me. That's too big. You were a monster, like junior golfer, college golfer too. But like to win the junior gym, A to even advance the match play at the USAM is a big deal. But then you draw AK.

Yeah, right out of the gate. Dude, that's a talent. Did you know him at the time? I didn't know him at the time. And then I beat him and then ended up playing my former roommate, Spencer. Wow. And Spencer drummed me. Yeah, I think he beat me like five.

four or four and three or something. But we just smoked cigarettes down the fairway, had a good laugh. And it was a lot of fun, man. You didn't know you'd be future teammates. Yeah. Future roommates. Yeah. As a matter of fact, that was one of the things that we had to do at New Mexico to get Spence

to come was I got, I begged my coach to let me out of the dorms after the first semester in my freshman year so I could live an apartment with him. And that because he didn't want to live in the dorms. And so, yeah, we ended up my girlfriend. I and Spencer live in an apartment together. And let me tell you what, it was, it was a great time. That's, yeah. That team, which will get to that.

I want to know how, like, what made you choose New Mexico of all the places? You're from Arizona. You're obviously World Beater. You were the guy. You're right. You're like to chose a lot of places. No, not at all. You know, I really wanted to be a Florida gator or a wildcat.

And I didn't like flying at the time. So a long flight kind of took me right out of it. And then Rick LaRose, who was the coach at you, comes over to my house for a dinner, and the guy calls me as hush puppy, like 30 times why we're sitting at dinner. His hush puppy. He's talking about Ricky Barnes. We're having this talk, but he keeps referring to me as his hush puppy.

And he walked out the door and I looked right at my mom. And I remember, I started crying because I said, this is where I've always wanted to go, but I'm not going to play for this guy that's calling me as hush puppy. I didn't even know what it meant. I didn't know what it would be. I don't know. He had a good friend of, screw it out of his name. Andrew Mather.

Exactly. He transferred from Ole Miss to that Arizona team. You would have been on the same team with him. Ricky Barnes was a senior and all this stuff. And LaRose for whatever reason called him veg. Okay. Isn't it? No one calls him that now.

No one ever else in the world called him that. But he has a great story at Carston Creek. I'll mess up this story. But basically it was coming, one guy was shooting a million so Medley's score was going to count. And they're on a whole water, part three. Like, you need to just don't butcher this thing and get to the house and we're going to advance. We're going to go to Insta Blaze or whatever it was. Good coaching there.

Yeah. Medley tells it like he never followed me around. He was with Rick 100% of the time. And all of a sudden here he is. I'm like, oh, Jesus. What's going on? Well, Medley, of course, like junk drag hooks one into the lake. Ends up making dub or trip.

They miss. Whatever it was they were trying to do, they didn't do it. And at the end of it, La Rose just goes and he was like, veg, you just don't have it. That's good. And he's like, yep, you're right. I quit. My first time, like, really seeing him and not just a bag on him.

I mean, he obviously had a great program. 100% of great. But I remember at NCAA's at Cave's Valley. We finished up one of the rounds and their van was like two down from us and he was just losing his shit screaming at his team and I'm like I just don't feel like that would make me play better I'm not a football player those that were like you saw him for the first time you're like scared like my holder when you first on my guy you just turned the other way he's just intimidated he's just scared up I saw I ran into Jeff queen and I ran into him at the Aria high limit room this was a couple years ago and I mean he's still intimidating but we played blackjack with him until about four in the morning there you go really and had a good time to like you want me to hit here Should I hit?

I just, I got to tell these two quick stories about LaRose. And like you said, he had a killer program, won a lot of championships, but he was just known for these stories. So we're in Hawaii, and I'm playing with Nate Lashley.

And we're on the 10th hole, and Nate hits it to like a foot, man. And LaRose is over in his cart, reading the paper, and we get up there, and Nate puts down his bag, and he goes and he misses the putt, man, and he flips out.

Sounds right. Sounds about right, right? And La Rose comes out, you know, puts his paper down, walks up and he goes, Nate, he goes, you can't get that upset. He goes, you're not good enough to make all those. And I thought the steam that was going to come out in eight years is going to make his head explode. And, uh, but there was just so many. And then one time, first tournament of the year, we're in Japan and Henry Lau. Remember? Oh, yeah. Speaking of world beater.

World beater. Now he's teaching over at the Rancho Kukumanga where they had the Q school. And he's done really well for himself. Yeah, yeah. He's over in Southern Cowell teachers. Bellevue or not Belmont or something, one of those anyway. He was a monster. Henry Lau and I were on the first tee in Japan, very first shot of the year, and Henry hits it out of bounds left, and here comes LaRose up when his golf cart gets out and walks up and he looks right at Henry, and he goes, Henry, how's it feel to ruin your All-American season on the first swing of the year?

And I was just like, oh my gosh, man, it was just so funny. And those stories just stuck with me for so long because they're just such great one-liners that he had. I have to get coached y'all, just to hear some of these piss out of some of these stories. So who'd you shit on the most, nerds, coach? Madly, but I never expected much from him. These other guys were pretty good. And he used the food nicknames.

I didn't know about the hush puppy. That's a weird, like just me to make first time. And I dig hush puppies, man. And you were ready to ink, too. I was ready to go. 100%. So why New Mexico then? So I went over to New Mexico and their practice facilities were top-notch.

I mean, they got their own golf course. They had their own practice facility down there with like a 300-yard driving range in like 10 or 12 different greens. you could hit to. And they showed me a really good time on my recruiting trip. There you go. And their facilities were great. And it was a five-hour drive. And I said, this is where I'm going. So I remember he picked me up that morning to take me to the airport. And I had to peel myself off the bathroom floor and put myself together to go to the airport. But I told them at the airport.

I said, coach, this is where I'm coming, man. And never looked back. And it was the best decision of my life because Coach Milliken, he took care of me in a way that I don't think any other coach could have. I had bad back problems. He did above and beyond what I think anybody else would have done. But to leave here and go play in the cold on a different grass and then some wind in the spring made all the difference for my game. There's a lot of guys here that were better to me and they, you know, they went to ASU, they went to UA and they kind of, when you play up on this overseed all the time, man and it's pretty easy. You get spoiled.

You get spoiled for sure. You go somewhere where there's wind or bad lies. Like how am I supposed to? Exactly. And that's why like, you know, when I play a couple tournaments around here when I'm bored or something, boy, I want a little 10 mile an hour breeze because nobody knows how to play in it.

They don't even show up. Exactly. It's not. There weren't too many dudes. It's sunny and 75, but there's like an eight mile an hour breeze. So they're like, no,

conditions aren't good. A practice tomorrow. Exactly. There weren't too many dudes beating you. You said there were dudes going to ASU that were better than you. I mean, you were a monster in this state. You went to state like multiple times.

Yeah. But like at the time, like guys like Jesse Mueller. Yeah, he's good. And those guys were good, man, no doubt. And then shoot, Mueller just won that club pro champion. Mueller's still good, bro. Yeah. And if he could hit it further in the air, he'd have been, he could have done it.

Yeah, because he could put it. Because he played Sony last week because he gets the five spots or whatever, but hopefully he does something. I heard in high school, you had to deal with little Ben Marsh a little occasionally too. Yeah, little Ben Marsh. He was a brodie. I play him in Charles. I need one more. question for Belgian for our E9.

He goes, ask him out, Phelp to get dummied by me all through high school. You don't even know what you're talking about? Who the hell's Ben Marsh? He's on the bottom of his shoe right now. He's about this tall. Yeah, that's him. Yeah. And his dad's still up at Whisperer Rock.

Oh, yeah. He's one of the best dudes of all time. So is Marsh, by the way. They're both the best. Really good. That New Mexico team, though, like they've had some guys come out. You can be good there. But y'all's team.

Because that was when we moved to Mountain West. T.C. And we played against you out the end. dude is you, Spence, Jay Choy, Jay Choy, Jay Reynolds. And then our, it was a squad. Yeah, and our fifth guy kind of rotated between that Matalizo Mutia. Yeah, Maddie was awesome. But boy, nicest kid of all time. Yeah, we didn't ever say a bad word out of his mouth, but boy, we listened to the nastiest rap music on the way of the tournaments that he was putting on. So it was, it was good, man. College was a great time. Anybody that's thinking about skipping college golf is, they're crazy.

Because that's the best time of your life. Just going there, dude. I mean, it's one of those things. Once you get out of it, you're like, damn, that was pretty good. I had a pretty good. Really good. But when you're there, you're like, can't wait. Well, what's hard about college now, and especially as the years have gone by, these kids are so spoiled. Like literally back, well, it was that 2000, 4, 5, 6, something like that. I mean, you were told what time to be at the airport.

You just parked for free. They shuttles you. You got there. Your coach handed you your boarding pass. You didn't have to worry about rooms. You didn't have to worry about anything. And then you leave college and you're like, wow. There's a lot more to just showing.

I know, who does this. I know, who does this. Book a plane ticket. Exactly. Yeah. So, shoot, I still have my Southwest Rapid Rewards deal that I started up in college, man. Miles for days. Yeah, 100%. That also, that New Mexico team, I would feel very confident saying this. No team in the history of college sports went through more darts in a round of golf than that New Mexico team.

No question. They were a fact. And I would say also some of the biggest personalities ever assembled on a golf. Dude, y'all ribbed darts. You know, our coach, he didn't care. but we unfortunately took advantage of the situation. And then one time we were getting ready to go down to U of A's tournament, had a practice round, Jay Choi, myself, and Spencer,

all decided to smoke some cigarettes, didn't really care. Coach finds out benches us. So it doesn't take us three best guys. They go down and they finish last or second to last. But, yeah, we took advantage of the situation for sure, and we paid the price. All right, boys, y'all want reds or lights? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

When you do their smoking. Spencer never had to share it because Spencer smoked the reds, man. And Jay Choi and I were on the ultra-lice. Spence on the darts was the best. So you could just see it coming up from the visors. From the visor. Take a picture of that. Exactly right.

And he's ready to freak out. We're playing Texas A&M's tournament. And I get paired with Spence and Tyler Leon. Okay. First T. Tyler's over there putting sunscreen on. He's like, Spence, you want some?

Spence goes, nah, I'll die from lung cancer way before I die from skin cancer. Exactly. Yeah. God. And now he's gone a whole bunch of years now without smoking. Yeah. Yeah. We had him on radio. He's like all the way off all that.

Putting like Happy Gilmore doing some weird shit putting him. Yeah, he qualified for booze, right? I qualified for Vegas, I think he's off all of that stuff. Game went to shit. Yeah. God, he was good. That was a helpless squad. I've never, I would just watch him practice.

The way he hit balls and did that Gary Pettler follow through. But when people ask me, who's the best putter that you've ever seen or whatever, I say hands down, day in and day out. And Aaron Badly's right there. but I haven't played as much with him. But Spencer, it was going to hit the hole from any distance, man. It was incredible. And that's what's so crazy, like, later on in his PJ tour career.

He went from one of the best putters to one of the most defensive putters. Like, if it went in, it dripped over the front edge. I'm like, Spencer, you've always made everything. Every thing. You scared of a three-footer coming back. But, man, he was one of my favorites to get paired with, not only because he would lose his shit, but he just knew how to play golf. Knew how to play golf.

Wasn't the prettiest thing. Wasn't the most beautiful golf swing. Didn't hit it nine miles. he got it he put a score on a scorecard that was better than a lot of people every time it seems like it didn't want to lose didn't want to lose that's what made him great man he did not want to lose and he yeah and he did not accept losing well but he didn't lose often the first hole in Tucson I'm gonna tell me this you probably remember this dude we're paired with y'all I don't remember who I was playing with from your team spitz was in the group in front of us so I'm talking to spence on the T's getting ready to y'all was a little two iron west or something yeah probably

no I think it was you of a's tournament at the time it could have been our conference but one you hit the little two aren't out there hit some sort of short iron. It's a nothing burger hole, right? He goes up there, hits a two iron. I see you later. He hits a two arm. Down the middle of favorite. I think it's good. He was playing with J.J. Kalina, actually. Okay. Gets up there. They hit their second shot into the greens. We tee off. We get up there. We're waiting by our balls and it's taking them a while.

Spence, plugs it in the front bunker. Night, you know, chops it out, goes back behind the green, chops it back to the front, misses, taps in, and his bag is still down by the bunker. He was the first to finish out, grabs the pin, takes the pin, takes the pin, javelins it at his bag, which hit his bag, which is unbelievable, because that's hard to do. Knocks his bag down. Whole fucking mayhem is going on.

Put the stick in. Takes his visor off. It's 36 whole day, by the way, and it's 96 degrees. Takes his visor off, crumples it, throws it with his ball into that little ravine that you walk over, going to the second tee. And they were like, look down here. Look down here. All Spinsor shit. He came back and shot like, he was like in second at the end of the day.

Sometimes that's what he needed was to get lit up on the first or second hole in. I was like, we're one hole in. And he's that. And he's doing that. I mean, normally, like, that's whole 31 and you're about enough, but it was one. One. That same term, we played out. He was in a fairway bunker, and he hit this beautiful fairway bunker shot, came up like 20 feet short of the hole.

And I was like, dude, great shots. He's fucking jablins his club, 60 yards, goes, don't ever fucking talk to my ball. And I go, I was like, what? And he goes, sorry, dude, I thought I stoned it. I was like, Jesus, this guy scares me. I'll never forget, too. We're playing the Mountain West Conference Championship of a crosswater. Yeah.

And Oregon, man. What a spot that is. We were so lucky to be able to go there all the time. So good. But I make like a 30-footer on the last hole to put our team into a playoff with BYU. So we all, you know, we finish. We go to number one T. There's, you know, their five players, our five players, the coaches, a few people around.

And I kid you not, Spencer, he's getting ready to hit it, man. And he backs off of it, and he rolls up his sleeves and he turns to the BYU team. He goes, boys, I'm going to make this quick because I'm hungry. And that was, and the guy goes out. And he birdies the first hole. Of course he did, dude. And he's the first one, man. He was just, he was awesome, man.

He was, yeah, he was a different, a different cat, but boy, he was good. I loved him, man. You would come with, like, I had a dream last night about putting, like, with my eyes, like I'm making something up, like, putting with my eyes closed and it worked. Or Hogan told me in a dream to do it. And I'd be like, okay, dude, yeah, good fucking luck. And then you'd look up 66, I think. Yeah.

Him and his dad's relationship was quite special as well. It was extremely special. Have you ever heard the one about Boston? TPC Boston playoffs he was like on the cut line on 15 with a few to play and he's struggling getting in he's going out of there

but I guess his dad's walking along the cart path and it's very vocal or you 100% yeah and Spencer hits this shot I guess much is the green and here's his dad say something he goes dad shut the fuck up I got this

he did not care he didn't care he didn't do it he was just he was great Don would occasionally caddy for them and they needed a camera on them at all times because I thought they were going to kill each other. He's one of those dudes that like needs to be like that though.

If he try if he like rains it in, he'll just implode. No question. He'd rather walk off the course. He had to have that intensity. I think that fired him up and shit like because he did it. He could be four under and have him melt down. But then he'd be seven under five holes later. Exactly.

My first tournament as a pro is San Antonio and I think I played with Spence on Saturday and Don's on the bag. And the 15th hole Spence blocks it way right. And his dad runs off the fucking tea throws his hat on the ground and looks at and goes, what are you doing? this is a great player catty relationship no question it's so good

priceless he's we can tell spent stories for four hours we should I called you we should we should we should just do a whole show with that we're gonna get him on too by the way we'll be in touch with you before that but you get out of you and him you go to I called you a jicky jack legend which there aren't many

there are very few actually you are one you didn't spend that long on the jicks how many did you think you want but the jicks were different back then when we came out we were just talking about it before It was like real tournament. I think I won like nine on the Gateway Tour. But when it was real, it was 150 dudes, two waves, two courses.

30 grand a week. It was the greatest gig ever. You showed up, you rode in carts, you played in threesomes under four hours. You had a money game the day before, and the same ten guys made a fortune. And then afterwards you'd go and have a bunch of beers and hang out and party. And then you'd wait two days and you'd do it again. You drive 25 minutes to the golf course. No question.

Back home for lunch. 30 grand a pop, that's nice. No, it was really. It was awesome, man. I think two years I made like almost two. 200 grand in 16 or 17 weeks living at my, I mean, if that came back, I'd be all about it for sure. 100%.

And they were all around here. All around here. Yeah, it was, yeah, I never had more than like a 30 or 40 minute drive from the house. It was. But you're still doing Q school every year. I was still doing Q school every year. Yeah. Five years.

Every year I got through first stage and every year I never showed up for my final round of second stage because I was so far out of it. I'm like, hell, I'm going home. This is, this is, yeah, I'm not going to waste an extra five hours of my time. Even if I shoot 59, it's not going to matter. What was that moment like when you finally made it through and you got your card? Oh, man. Back when you could.

Yeah, back when you could. Well, I think this year they're bringing that back, aren't they? Five spots, which is a good idea. But I'll never forget, Palm Springs, where they're playing right now, I had like 150 yards in, and it was little water on the right. and I probably hit it 30 yards left of the green playing the yellow golf ball at the time. I remember that.

And I go over there and I've got to make five to get my card at least for what I thought. And I'd chip it up there to about six feet and I make this putt and I remember just dropping my arms and putting my putter and putting my arms up in the air. And then, yeah, and the rest was history. It was incredible. I remember, you know, Mike Dunphy from Strickson was there

and Andy Dawson and we all went out that night and had a good one. And, you know, Dumpfee at the time, after I won the U.S. Junior, he was my first. When I played the U.S. Junior, dude, I only had 13 clubs in my bag. No, 12 clubs in my bag, because I had broken a five iron and a four iron, and I didn't have the money or didn't know the people to get them fixed right before. So I won the U.S. Jr. with 12 clubs with a one iron. That might be a record, too.

And then, yeah, it was just, it was an incredible time. Yeah, you were a dude that, like, it took you, like, you missed a second. like you said but everyone around here knew like you can tell you said the same 10 guys exactly and even some of the 10 like I would be like like he's good but he ain't to her he ain't gonna go win on tour he's not going to have a big career out there on tour there's you and a cut like phenow would have been another one I would have mentioned I've been like those dudes have that next gear yeah you like it's a it's just coming you were one of the guys like you're you're older than I am but you were one of the first guys that I was like holy shit he hits it far far as shit that's all

you know it's so funny because that's all anybody wants to wants to see me doing that and I don't hit it far now man I hit everyone does now everybody does now so I played an event on the outlaw tour Asher tour whatever it is a couple months ago and I kid you not I was lasering this kid with my laser because he was so far in front of me and I'm telling it was between 55 and 70 yards every time that I was it was his name was Caleb Ramirez from Ohio State and he came out here and he's playing I don't think I think I think He's just playing the mini tours around here. I don't think he's ever gotten through school or anything like that.

But all these kids hit. But the problem is is they don't understand the game. They don't understand the angles. They'll put a couple in the houses or the trees. And that's why I can still compete with these guys because I'm just smarter than they are when it comes to golf course management. But when you were getting going on tour, was there anyone that like when you got paired with him, you're like, damn, he really moves it. You were one of the longest guys out there.

Yeah. I mean, Bubba and I for two years went back and forth. constantly before one and two, yeah, before everybody started to really hit it. But yeah,

I used to bomb it and people wanted it. I used that Cleveland classic with the mahogany. I remember playing so many jicks with you and you're taking lines. I was like, oh,

the bunker is 315. I'd like, all right, I need to peel it around that and you just be like, I'm going left of it. It's like, Southern Dunes back in the day

was a chipping put for me because I could carry it 315 and take it all those bunkers. Now I go play it and I'm like, damn, this is a good golf course because you got to maneuver

between the you know if you can't carry it 300 it's a lot harder and welcome to my life yeah what did you hit when you almost won there when you lost in the playoff i don't am i misremembering you hit a dude was like a was it a gap wedge dude that's what do you hit in that hole not gap wedge not gap like that's sickening dumb dumb far it was uh yeah i mean there was a lot of adrenaline and i've smashed it but yeah it was a gap wedge into 18 at rib you lost in the playoff there yeah not on 18 on number 10 yeah so talking you want a quick fun story so I hate number 10 the very first time I show up at Rive I'm playing number 10 I'm playing with Reteef Gousin and Bo Van Pelt and we're in the

fairway all of us are in the fairway on 10 and I watch Reteef walk off with a seven Bo walk off with a seven I walked off with a four I couldn't have been happier but since that time and I watched these guys go back and forth between those bunkers it haunted me so after 18 in the first playoff hole Merrick hits it in the right trees then I guess the saying is true trees are 90% error because he just blast it through like eight trees, ends up on the green, we make par. So we go to 10 and I try to drive it. Terrible mistake. But I ended up missing like a five footer, which all I had on my mind at

that time was the Masters. I didn't care about the money. I didn't care about any of that. I just wanted to play in the Masters and my win at Disney didn't get me in. So they say, hey, you need to come to the media room. So I walked down the 10th fairway, I go to the media and they're asking me. And I said, I just don't understand why a golf course that has 17 of the best holes. We play this ridiculous hole that needs a windmill and a clown's mouth. And the room kind of went silent. So about four months goes by and I'm like, hey, guys, you want to have some buddies. They're like, let's go play rib. And I'm like, sure, I'll call him up. So I call up, I call up Rive, man. And I don't remember the head pro's name at the time. But I said, hey, you know, I'm going to be in

town. Can I bring a few buddies out? And he goes, well, he goes, we haven't got around to install in the clown's mouth or the windmill. So you're not welcome. And I'll just, That was like my first moment where I was like, I might actually have to pay a little bit of attention to what I say because it was like the first time something came back and kind of bit me, you know, but I laughed about it. But Rive was a cash cow for me, man. I think I had a first, a third, an eighth. I mean, it was just, it was perfect. I bombed it and. Well, I always laughed because I played terrible there, but you would look at the leaderboard and it was you, Dustin Johnson, J.B. Holmes, Bubba Watson.

Everybody that smashed. Yeah, they play a king and Bradley. Every year. I can tell you five guys are going to fish in the top ten this one before we start. It's like maybe the easiest ones like here they are, they'll be up there somewhere. Three of these four will be up there. Yeah. That and the Green Breyer, the Green Breyer was always good to me too.

Yeah. We didn't see many weekends together. Let's go back to that first win though that you mentioned your Disney 2012 because that's the one like to this day. Yeah. I'd say maybe the most fascinating, interesting, different win that I've seen on the PJ. When you think back to that week, like kind of walk us to it for maybe some of the listeners who aren't as familiar with what would all happen that week. Yeah, so I just had my son, like a month prior, and I'm going into Disney that week, and I need a solo third to keep my tour

card. And I teed off, and we played the hard course, the Magnolia course first. I think I shot three or four under. On Thursday, we go into Friday, and I'm sitting there on the range feeling good, and I'm smoking a cigarette, and then all of a sudden, man, something comes over me. I look at my catty, and I said, I'm just, I'm not feeling that good. Something's wrong, but I had to play, man. My whole job was on the line. So I quit hitting balls. I went and hit a few puts. And I'm like, man, I'm not feeling good. So he went and got a paramedic or somebody. They came over. And, you know, they said my blood pressure was a little bit high. And I said, well, what? Am I going to die? And they said, no. So then I said, all right, let's go. So I tee off and I hit it to

like a foot on the par five. I'm playing with Edward Lohr. And I don't even remember who else. Ed Lurie, yeah. And that guy just had triplets or something at that time. And, I make eagle on the first hole. I bury the second hole. Before I know it, I'm just in this, I don't even know what to call it, man. I shoot like seven under on the front nine, but the whole time I feel like I'm going to die. Like my, I can't feel my hands. Everything's kind of buzzing in my arms.

My heart's beaten, but I know I can't quit, man. So we make the turn. The paramedics come out, take my vitals. They do that, and they say, hey, have a Snickers bar and something, you know, maybe you need some sugar. but my blood pressure, my heart rate was out of control. They're like, maybe you shouldn't go play. And I'm like, well, that's not an option. So I started on the back nine at birdie like 10, 12, 13 or something like that.

And I'm just on a roll. And so then I decide, well, if I smoke more cigarettes, maybe that's going to make me feel better. That fixes everything. Fixing cigarettes at the time fixed everything. So I smoke one and then I instantly feel worse. Well, lo and behold, I get to 18. I miss the green. I make this crazy up and down for par.

I don't even know how I made it. And I finish and I just start crying. And I'm walking into the scoring tent. I remember there's Tommy Ganey and Jason Cochrak. And they're sitting there and they're like, hey, great playing. They see tears coming down my eyes. So I go in, we check my scorecard like 10 times because I'm just, I don't even know where I'm at, really. And they say, we're calling the paramedics.

And so this ambulance rolls up. There's people everywhere. They back it up to the scoring tent. They bring in a stretcher. I have all my clothes on. They strap me down. Meanwhile, the tour and the golf channels wanted to do some quotes,

because I'm leading the tournament at the time. And they take me to the Arnold Palmer hospital there, and they ran every test known to man. I spent the night there. I slept in my shoes. They let me go about seven or eight o'clock the next morning. Andy Dawson picked me up, took me in my hotel. I tried to get a couple hours of sleep, but I couldn't.

And then I went out and played. Saturday, I think I shot even par, maybe one under, and stayed in it. And then got done there and, you know, had everybody wanting to know a million questions. I went to dinner that night with Andy Dawson. I don't remember where, but we walked in and it's like one person recognized me. And then before I know it, I had everybody on top of me. And I was like, holy shit, man. Like, this is big time. And that's kind of like when I realized I got a chance to win a tour event. So actually my wife at the time, ex-wife now and my son flew in with my mom and her mom. And so they came and watched me for the final round.

And I made everything, man. I think I birdied six holes in a row or something like 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, doubled 13, birdied 14, and then we get to 18. And Handelbar was my caddy at the time. And he's like, we can make double and still win. this. So I pull five iron off the T and hit five iron out there in this right bunker. And I'm like, all right. So we got a seven iron in. I hit that up in the green side bunker. And I hadn't been hitting good bunker shots all week. Of course. That's how it always goes. Yeah, exactly. So I'm sitting

there and I'm on a little up slope and I'm like, all right, if anything, you can fat this. Because I've already viewed that there's grandstands and people and stuff behind if I blade it. It's crazy. It is. It is crazy. And so I literally fat it out to 20 feet and I roll it up there to about three feet, and I'm thinking to myself, you just can't screw this up, man. You can two putt from three feet. I must have taken my putter back a half an inch, and that ball just barely rolled over the edge, because if I missed it, man, I wasn't, you know, to have any work. And I think it was maybe Garrigus or I don't remember who I just clipped. No, it was. Chris Stroud, I feel like. I want to say it was Jerry Kelly. I actually looked at it. Yeah, it might have been Jerry Kelly.

It might have been Jerry Kelly or Jerry Kelly needed me to do something so he could keep his car. But But anyway, I finish, but I'll never forget it. I finish. And behind the green waiting for me were the only two guys. And it was Tommy Ganey and Jason Co-crack. And we had a drink together, got the trophy. But it just meant a lot that those two guys, they saw me there when I came off the course on Friday.

And then they were there after my win. And so I have nice relationships with both of those guys. I played that week. I mean, it was just, that was obviously the story. What in the hell is going on? What is going on? What is going on, man? was, so did it end up just being anxiety?

It was a panic attack, but I'd never even heard the word anxiety, so I didn't even, I had no idea what it was. I thought I was having a heart attack. And at the time, I was probably one of the most unhealthy individuals. So I'm like, maybe it's my time, you know. Maybe this is, I'm going to win a tournament and then go out, but it didn't happen. Yeah, you never, like I was going to say, you never battled that before. Did it continue after?

Terribly. Yeah. What's the, what's the, because exactly, like beta blockers was a thing for a while. They may outlock the outloaders. I can't take those. It's a performance enhancer for golf. So what are your options when you have anxiety, but you're trying to play tour events?

Eat Xanax. Oh, you can do Xanax. But that's got to be tough to play. And Zoloft and whatever else. But so that's what I did, man. And I suffered terrible anxiety to the point where I think it was like 2015. I'm at Houston.

And I couldn't turn the doorknob to leave my hotel room to go play. And I called Ricky Romano, my caddy at the time and said, dude, I said, I can't play today. And so he came over the room. We went to the parking lot there. We found the tour doctors kind of discussed, and I took a leave of absence in. And then I think I took about six months off, which it was high insight. It was the worst idea ever because now I was getting paid some disability.

I'm at home playing golf party in tenfold, and everything got worse, man. And I suffered terrible anxiety until 26 months ago when I gave up the booze. So with the anxiety, was it only on the golf course or was it all the time? You know what? It was only on the golf course. So was it just like result driven or fear of failure? Like what was it? You know, I think it could have been all. At the time, man, I did.

I did. I cared what everybody thought for sure. And I think that drove a lot of it. And then, you know, my career was always four or five good weeks a year and 20 terrible ones, you know, half the time I'd leave after Thursday. Because just like Hugh School, I was so far out of even making the cut, I'm like, well Rick, I'm not going to waste our time, buddy. We're out of here.

But I think, yeah, I think, you know, the fear-driven, what people were going to think, what I was going to shoot, what my peers were going to think. And then is it kept getting worse and worse, and my play got worse and worse. It just got even more intense to the point where I couldn't even handle it. But the nasty cycle was, is you would take the Xanax and smoke the pot and drink the booze

because then you'd feel good. But then those just made it so much worse the next day, man. and then that's how the vicious cycle just got rolling. I actually don't know that is Xanax a lot? Like will you fail a drug test? No, you won't. Yeah, you're allowed to take Xanax, yeah. When this was all going on, like this around the time, like you said, I was partying tenful.

Like you had a run there where you would go pretty hard. Is that when that was all starting to drink and the booze and all that? Yeah, I mean, from the time I got on tour to the time I left tour, man. It was unfortunately my priorities was wrong, but I had a great time. Yeah, I tore it off as often as I could. But you were, for you, like, I mean, I was out there the same time. You were, I didn't, I didn't know you extremely a lot. We got paired together, knew you, but like, who were you running around with other tour players?

Like, you know, who'd you hang out with? Well, I was, I had the rig. So I was parking with Daly and Sabatini. And, you know, occasionally Jason Day was there. Garrigas was there. So we had a nice group. But a lot of times I just invited guys over to the rig and would party. Or, you know, like if you went to Charlotte, Charlotte always had a good players party, Dallas.

But man, to be honest, I just, I made the party wherever I was or wherever I was at. I turned it up and rock and roll. It had been like that since the jickeys. I mean, even when I was with you, we'd go somewhere out of town by like, if y'all want to go, like there's a group right there. Like, they'll go. You know what I mean? They'll go every night and the other people would just kind of pop in and out.

Yep. And yeah, we just cranked until early hours of the night and it didn't matter what time the tea time was. And we had a great time. You and J.D. were, can't, like, that was kind of your running mate for a while, right? When you had the RV. Mainly, you know, him and I never went anywhere.

But, yeah, sitting out in the RVs, him and Sabatini and that. I mean, just, just fantastic times for sure, really good times. So obviously, things are really good right now, which we're going to get to in a little bit. But looking back, if you could do it all over again, would you have cleaned it up? Well, you know, I'm kind of in a spot where I'm thinking about doing it all over again because I feel like I owe it to my, myself. If I made it to the tour and won on the tour and was able to stay out there for five or six years doing that, what could I do doing it the way that you should do it? No, I wouldn't change it. I think I had a great time. I was, you know, I didn't grow up with money. I had money in my pocket.

I had every opportunity available, as you know, when you get out there, the things that you're presented, you can do anything. So I had experiences that I would have, You couldn't make up or dream up some of them, you know. And I got to live those because I was good at golf. And then I started mixing the party in. And boy, you could just, the day could get away from you quick. I mean, looking at you now, you've been clean for a long time. Congratulations on that.

You built like a shit house. Like when I saw you the other day, I was like, God damn, what are you been doing, bro? Like, you look like a tie it in now. Looking back on it, so that's been a while. Was there a, was there a rock bottom or a moment, like a one specific moment? Like, this got to stop, dude. Can't keep going. Yeah.

I mean, not when I was on tour, but, you know. Just like shut it all that. Yeah. So I went and played the Sedona Open, the outlaw tour 26 months ago now. And I was literally, I didn't really know anybody there. Sedona was a quiet place. So I'm literally drinking 20 or 30 beers in the room by myself watching TV. And I go out on Thursday or I play the first two days.

And then the final day I go out and I hit 18 greens and I have 15 three puts. Oh, my. Because my hands were shaking. That is a world record. My hands were shaking so bad. And then just the anxiety over me, man. Like it got to the point where I was just putting with one hand, just trying to get it near the hole and then be done with it.

And then I've been in the Bitcoin world since 2016. And that night I made a big mistake trading that the only reason I made it is because I was hammered. Went home. I woke up on October 26th. My wife and I had a little chat and I said, you know what? I'm never having a drink again. And here I am now. Just like that.

Just like that. I did the same thing. That's hard to do. I smoked two packs of cigarettes for many, many years. I'm at the Greenbrier in West Virginia. Ricky can vouch for this. We're hitting balls next to Tom Watson. He's giving me a hard time about smoking.

And I looked at Ricky and it was a Tuesday and I said, dude, I said, I'm never smoking again. He's like, yeah, right. And he always kept a pack of smokes because he knew that I'd always run out, especially if we got stressed. sometimes we'd smoke two, you know, two packs. And he's like, well, keep these in my pocket for in about 10 minutes. And sure enough, he never pulled them out and I've never had another one. So lucky for me, I've kind of got an on-off switch. Wow, that's impressive.

I'm either full bore or I'm all the way out, all the way out, man. Well, congrats to you because that ain't, there's a lot of people that battle with all that type of stuff. And it's not as easy as just like, I think I'll quit. I quit chewing 72 times. A hundred percent. I quit smoking 100 times. I quit drinking 100 times.

But then, you know, sometimes you just got to get to. to the point, a rock bottom point, where you have two choices. You can either turn it around or you know what's coming pretty soon. And it's what happened. It typically takes like a scare. A scare. A scare. 100%.

Because you keep beating it, being in, it's like, all right, keep going. Yeah. That day I had all those three puts, the feelings and the no control that I had over my body, that was what scared me the most. And I didn't mean to laugh at that. No, no. I never heard of such a thing as 15. It might have been 14 or so.

But it was ridiculous. I remember I hit like three of the four par fives and two and I didn't birdie any because I had three three putt and yeah it was but that was play good hit 18 green shot 84 yeah yeah got to tighten up the putter a little bit so you mentioned bitcoin which you did very well in but you're still playing some tournaments here and there still play I haven't played as much lately I've I play about four days a week in a money game with some buddies down at Altamacer Los Indus so I'm playing a lot I haven't played any tournaments I'm going to go try to Monday for San Diego and then I'm going to play they've got a three day event

the Asher tour, I think they just bought out the outlawed tour at McCormick Ranch. So I'm going to play those as kind of a warm up for the Phoenix Open qualifier. Give me a quick breakdown because I am not a Bitcoin. None of that. Yep. Kind of guy. Give me a quick break down. What made you want to get into it?

What did you see that you thought was going to do so well? And then obviously you got out at the right time. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you exactly. I was sitting there and I was flipping through Instagram and Philip Francis. Yeah. at the time was the number one player in the world maybe was at UCLA, left UCLA. But all of a sudden I'm looking at his Instagram, dude, and this guy's in some pretty

incredible places. The transportation is pretty incredible. Still is. Yeah, it still is. So I text him and I said, hey, man, I said, what are you doing now? And he goes, oh, I started buying, you know, Bitcoin. And that was actually when I took the leave of absence from the tour. And so I started reading about it and reading about it. And again, I'm an all in or nothing, man. And this was like November or something. I started buying Bitcoin at like $450. And by the next November, Bitcoin was at $20,000.

And I was doing really well. And that made everything worse because now I had a lot of money. And no rules and no care for anything other than how fucked up I was going to get and then how long we were going to roll for. And how high is Bitcoin going to go? Exactly. Dude, speaking of Philip, so it's probably around that time. He and I went up and played the John Deere Monday.

Okay. Came from here, went up there, both missed, we're flying home together. I'm telling you from the time we got to whatever airport that is, you fly out of. Molene. Is it Molene? Okay, we're in Moline. We're waiting for our air. We're getting food.

We're waiting. We get on the plane. We sit right next to each other, probably Southwest, whatever. From the time we land in Phoenix, it was him talking about Bitcoin. And I got off the plane. I was like, this dude is lost. I don't even know what Bitcoin. I've never heard of any of the cryptocurrency.

Like what is it sounds like some just. fantasy world or whatever and I was like this dude he ain't playing golf anymore because he's like all in on this shit and then all of a sudden later on I was like Philip might have known what he's talking about Philip did know what he was talking about he was really really early I think he was like double digits early 50 dollars early could have been even earlier man he was in like any new he was telling me why it was I think I think occasionally he got on like cnbc money I mean he was he was big time for sure and then now every time I see him and his wife or I think they live in Miami now or they're either in Switzerland or they're everywhere.

It's hard to tell where they are. Yeah, it is. But he's obviously doing well and everything's good. And yeah. Well, you're doing great, man. That's cool as shit. I got one, one, Philis,

one question for you last, like your story is pretty remarkable. I think there's a lot of people that will relate to it too, but it ain't done. Like you said, you're still playing. If you could write the perfect ending to the Charlie Belgian golf story, how does it end?

You know, I've, the perfect ending, was, well, I'm hoping and begging and trying for a sponsor exemption into Phoenix. But the ideal perfect ending, man, I've always cherished the last time my son got to come out on 18 when I won. I'll never forget that. I held him up like Lion King did Simba, man. I'll just, I'll never forget that. But he was, I mean, he was four months, man. He was tiny. So for him to get to experience in that, and then my wife, she didn't know anything about golf, and that is her favorite thing.

On Sunday, she'll just tune in sometimes to the last hole to watch the family run out. So I think to give them both that, and I can't even imagine the emotion that I would feel, but that would be to go win on tour again and be able to do it with my family and be able to be where I was and climb the mountain again to the pinnacle and golf. that would be the perfect story. So are you saying like you're going to go all in again? You know, that's the thing, man. My game's never been better.

I've never been mentally sharper. I've never enjoyed it more, man. Like I go play golf now and I enjoy the architecture and the breaks and greens. And it's weird, but I've never enjoyed it more. But as you know, man, I don't know if I could do the 25 weeks on a road. Being away from my boy, being away from my wife. Even people are like, oh, they could come with you. Well, not when you're in school and you've got sports and got all that shit going on.

And then I'm a homebody, man. I love home. I don't venture far away from my house. So to think about going, and especially in this crazy-ass world right now, I just, I don't know if I can make that commitment. But if I did, I haven't been on a range in two years. I play golf four or five days a week. I would do that, man.

I would not practice because I felt like when I got to the tour, the tour can be a black hole. You get out there. You were good enough to get yourself there. But then all of a sudden you've got to start thinking you're going to change your swing because you've got to do this or you've got to start switching clubs. And before you know it, you're so overwhelmed by all the extra shit that you lose your game and you lose yourself. And I think I could manage that a hundred times better. But I just don't know if I could do the travel.

I would love to have another RV and do it that way. I saw Spee's getting ready to do it. I think he's going to have a ball doing it because I can't believe 50 guys don't do it. Now the schedule and the tour sucks so the drives are long. I was one of the guys that loved driving my rig. Ricky would drive it at night so I could get hammered going to the next stop. And then he would sleep in in the morning. I'd get up and drive or whatever.

But a lot of guys like Day, he just had somebody drive it and do everything. I remember Garrigus one time didn't even know how to turn it on. So he was parked too close to a pond. So I had to go, you know, pull up all the levels, move it for him and his family. so but it's it's nice to have all your own shit right there your own bed your fridge if you're hungry it's normalcy not a different hotel a different so I don't know that's kind of my dilemma right now um I feel like I'm good enough my game's better but um I'm in a fortunate enough situation where I don't have to go do it for the money and so that's a good thing though because you might just let it go

you might just let it go 100%. You don't have to have it the only hurdle I have is the travel because Because most people, you know, they watch golf on the weekends. They hear about, oh, somebody, you know, got a jet to hear. They're obviously making all the puts. They see a big check. So that's kind of what they think it is. I wish they'd make a movie on the other half of the guys that missed the cut that might fly across the country to see their family for a night

and then fly back across the country. There's just so much more to it than what meets the eye on television. And the travel part is the only thing that kind of makes me wonder. You know, I've said for years, like I think Friday afternoon, And like you got your featured groups. Like when I'm out there doing golf channel, like you got a couple of groups in each wave and you follow them. Yeah. But just using the name, Jordan Spee.

Jordan Spee's in 40th on Friday. It's like, cool, yeah, he's going to be around, make the cut. Watching a guy that is living and dying by every hole trying to make a cut. No question. And whether he's a no name, a big name, and watch what it means to him. That is good TV. Yep. And I've begged.

I was like, can we please show some guys, at least on the last hole who have to make birdie or have to make par. Maybe they can make bogey and make the cut. and they're throwing up all up for themselves coming in. Like, that is entertaining. That is entertaining, 100%. And it means so much. It means way more to those guys than it does the guys that are showing on TV, 100%. Yeah, because, as, you know, once you start cranking down the points, man, all of a sudden, every putt starts matter.

And, you know, that four footer, you could go back to a million four footers that you miss that cost you your job. I mean, every year, you watch their window. And it's like projected. And it's all of a sudden, 1.26 is 0.8 or 1.2. 100%. Yeah. Oh, my God. I remember when I just slapped that one on Saturday when I was in 50.

When I gave up on Friday afternoon after I, you know, three putted, whatever could have made the cut. I remember one year I missed like a five-footer to miss the cut at the window, flew right home, and then I sat in the bar, K-O's up here with a good buddy at my time. His girlfriend owned the bar. And for Saturday and Sunday, I sat at the bar screaming and yelling at the TVs for certain guys to miss and make. And people are looking at me like, what is my job's on the line here, man? I'm like, what do you mean? Yeah. So that's a sweat.

That's tough for sure. sucks when you have you have zero control zero yeah zero yeah like if it's you coming down the back nine you're like okay if i shoot even part of this last nine i keep my job fine yeah but when you're sitting at a bar you're just like oh my god yeah you need a guy to make a boge he's like it's hard i remember i remember it was it was freddie jacobson at the time that i was rooting against more than ever man and i'm sitting in there you know hollering and how stupid his outfits look because he dressed you know kind of uh out there but um yeah i remember he was the guy that that I kept rooting for to hit it in houses, hit it anywhere.

And people say, oh, you shouldn't root against people. Well, I do. I'm going to. I'm about to for the next four hours. I don't remember who finished 126 this year, but this was probably like five years ago. My good buddy, Martin Flores. Okay.

Playing Windham makes a hole in one on 16, Bertie 17, they made a six foot order for Paul on 18 to get into the top 125. So he obviously knocked somebody out. So whoever finished 126 has got to be like, it took an act of kidney right now. Like a hole in one of birdie and a six footer for a part of him. As Sam Hadley did it recently.

He went 63 or something the last thing when he had to have it and like barely greased in. His whole and one was on his first nine. Like he was finishing on the other side. But like Martin's like was dead. He had to literally go three under his last three and he did it. Yeah. Yeah. 126 guys is like are you.

That's the worst. What have I done? You'd rather finish 200. What have I done? Well dude, you might be in the perfect spot. We'll get to the E9 here. But like you got past champion status. You're going to get, you know, you still get some right?

You're going to play the island tour? I'm getting. Say that again. Like the island tour. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of getting to the end there. Like last year I had a bad back,

so I had to miss John Deere, Barbisol, Tahoe, which really screwed me because I played well in Puerto Rico to move way up the list and then dropped down. So I need to be... You don't fall off the list, though. You don't fall off the list, but boy, you can get down there to where, you know,

like the only way that you can get in is if like a new tournament comes in and a lot of guys don't want to go, so they go 30 deep on the past champions. You know, like that's... I feel like Jonathan Kay is a guy that I always, you know, his last second flies in because he's way down, but he gets moved up there. But yeah, for the past champions category, getting out of, it is the island tour, you know,

Puerto Rico and Punta. Yeah, it's a good little, for what you want to do, it's like it feels perfect, dude. It's a, oh, Bermuda. You know? Some fun spots. You got to travel a handful of times a year. You get to play, scratch that itch. And if you go play great, like maybe different things open up.

100%. By the way, before we get to the E9, we got to touch on it real quick. I know this is going long. But this week is American Express out in Palm Springs. Your old caddy, Ricky Romano, is now on the back for Ricky Fowler. Correct. And his wand he used on Thursday is your old putter. Yeah.

Yeah, Ricky actually called me last night, says, hey, I got to talk to you tonight. And so I called them. We talked about a few things. And he's like, you're not going to believe this. He's like, you remember that putter you gave me 10 years ago? And I'm like, yeah, the one you're still using, the Odyssey jailbreak. And he said, yeah, he goes, well, the other day, Fowler and I are at Madison Club and we're messing around and and I'm making a bunch of putts man and Fowler kind of took notice and

he came over he said let me see that thing and and uh the next thing you know he's using it all day at Madison Club rolling it rolling it and then they put it into play for this week I think the putter is almost as tall as Ricky it's a long it's a long putter but uh I hope um Ricky Romano is my guy uh I wish nothing but the best for him and Fowler's a great human too so I hope they make a bunch of putts yeah I mean as close as you and Ricky Romano are. You had to be excited, not as excited as Ricky Romano, but pretty damn excited when he got the job. Probably the second most excited for him. Yeah, that's so awesome. You know, I, I always text him to enjoy the walk, have a great day. He just, he was,

he was always there for me, man. He was not only my caddy, but, I hate to say it, but he was the person that made sure I got home at night, you know. So Ricky and I will forever be best buds. Ricky Foward and Ricky both got a good guy to work with. That'll work out nice. Two, like, kind of positives, you know? 100%. When he was on the bag, is that back in the Bacardi Silver days?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I asked you about the Bacardi's seen some things. Ricky's been around. Yeah, Bacardi was my jam. Yeah. Oh, Ricky could play. Very good.

And the guy shot two or three fifty-nine's out in Mesa, the Painted Mountain. That guy can put it really good, too, for sure. But yeah. Great, like, money game guy to help on your team, you know what I mean? Yeah, he shows up. He's tiny. He's kind of got a funky move at it, but he'll kick your ass when it comes down to it. Then Q school shows up, maybe don't have their best or try to change their whole life before that.

But you want to get him in a little money game with some carts and some booze. Yep. He's your guy. That's a dude. There are guys like that. There's a shitload of them and there's some of the best. All right. Let's get to the E9.

Okay. We asked the first one to everyone. You can be anyone for a day, dead or alive. You get to walk in their shoes for a day. Who would it be? Who? Walk in their shoes for anybody? Mm-hmm.

Oh, man. I mean, the first. There's no wrong answers here. It's a big question, though. It can take a little thinking. The first person that comes to mine, and this is going to flip shit, I think Trump. Wow. Yeah.

Okay. You can have a day. What do you mean when? Or you get to like it would be a day of him, the day in his life. Right now? You want him right now? You want him on his next term. Okay.

Yeah. Next three. Next go around. Yeah. You can shape some policy. Yeah. There's a bunch of people for some reason. He came right to that. You know, I've idolized Tiger my entire life.

I was actually skipped sixth grade and was at the Phoenix Open when Tiger made that hole in one when he first came onto the scene. I was sliding on cardboard boxes down the dormant hills. And then he made that. And I was like, holy shit, this is incredible. People went nuts. And that was before 16 is what it is now. That kind of launched. goes and wins the masters in 97. I was like, that's when I, that's when I decided I want to play

golf. Same for all of us. Yeah, 100%. That was it. That's cool. You were there. That was it. Yeah. I'll never forget it. I like launch 16 being 16. Quick, quick, quick story. First time I met Tiger, Beth Page 2009 U.S. Open. He walks in and this was still when he was before everything happened. And he walks in and the room goes silent. I'm sitting there with my mom and my sister and they say, you've got to go up and you've got to introduce yourself. I'm like, I don't want to be that guy, you know. So I'm shaking. I finally get up the courage. I'm shaking.

I'm walking over to him. He's eating a bowl of cereal or oatmeal or something. I said, Mr. Woods. I said, my name's Charlie Belgian. I just wanted to tell you it's an honor to have my name on the trophy as you. And he puts his spoon down and he just looks up at me and he goes, which one? And I was like, you know, I won the U.S. Junior.

We're at, you know, Atlanta Athletic Club. He said, oh, the home of Bobby Jones. And I said, yep. And so I wished him good luck. But, yeah, Tiger's it, man. Which one? That's good. Which one?

I know. That's such a tiger. A little more specific, though. I got about 160 of them things. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. All right. Next one from me.

We talked about this a little bit before, too. But you're self-described adrenaline junkie. Give me the wildest thing that you've ever done. Where you look back now and you're like, what the fuck was I thinking? Boy, I used to ride with these guys from like the Fort McDowell Casino up to Payson. So it's about an hour drive in a car. And every Saturday morning, we would meet at the gas. station and then we'd ride up to the Paysson airport, have breakfast, and ride home. And it was an

hour in a car, speed limits like 65 miles an hour. We probably did it 10 or 15 times, and we averaged about 22 minutes. So rip into Pason doing over, you know, 130, 140, sometimes 150 miles an hour on those mountain roads doing that. A handful of times we blew by cops and they didn't even bother. You know, if they didn't have a somebody up further to radio two, they, they couldn't catch us. But when I was riding those crotch. On the Harley? Was that the Harley? No, these were crotch rockets. That was an R1 at the time. And I loved those bikes, man. I had three at one time. And I was, once my son came along, I had to sell them because I just, there was, I didn't have a go mo. Those things were built to go 100 miles an hour. So to go 45 or 55 was

not in, it wasn't in the cars. Doesn't move the needle. It doesn't move it. So I still ride Harleys. I still ride Harleys. I love it. I probably ride three days a week out to Sawaro Lake or something. Never through the traffic lights. People, I don't need to be taken out by a person, you know. So I can go right out the back of my neighborhood to

Swarrow Lake and back in about 35 minutes. And so I do that all the time. But the crotch rockets were that's where I could have really got. I mean, I was dressed in like full metal plates on my front on my back. I mean, just in case you went down. Yeah, you did a lot of weird shit. He just show up to the Jix Colt with the Harley.

It would be cold as hell. Tean off at 8 out in wherever the hell we were playing. 8.15 T time, try to roll up at 7.30. Bag like bungee. Moon bag strapped to the back of the Harley. Helmet on. I'm in my car with the heat on because it's free. I'm like, if this.

So it was 70. This freaking dude beats me. He beats me today. He's driving from Mesa. He just drove an hour on his bike. It's got to be minus 10 out there. The way he's driving. And then I upgraded from the bike to the smart car.

And there was nothing better. I couldn't even get the clubs in. I couldn't even get the clubs in. I take the clubs out and lay them in, but it was so fun because every time I'd park behind somebody to where they couldn't leave. But then nobody was ever going to do anything to me because I was either going to whip your ass on the golf course or I was twice as big as you. You can fit in a smart car?

I did. So Romano and I, Romano and I and I and Kimmelkitton at the time, dude, we'd always carpool. And the greatest thing about the smart car was your feet were at the front of the car and your back was at the back of the car so you could weave in and out and do whatever you wanted, man. I still remember that thing, dude. I was just getting out of it and getting his clubs out. I was like, it was either the Harley or the smart car.

Like, there's always some weird, whenever Charlie pulled up was like, watch this. There can be some weird shit. Yeah. That's incredible. I can't imagine you on a smart car. Yeah. All right.

Well, when you played, you probably still do, but you were a visor guy. Viser guy. Much like my man Sleez is over here. Give me your all visor team on tour. Because some people rock it and it's just not a good look. Well, you know. Current? Current past, whatever, doesn't matter.

Well, you got to. It was obviously old school, a lot people more, a lot more. Yeah, they had more style. You got to go right back to who we were talking about earlier, Spencer Levine. Spence. That dude rocked a visor better than anybody. Snetiker was a good visor guy.

Freddie was an OG guy. Freddie was one. VJ. Vijay. He liked the little one. Most of it's other. I don't like the little. Yeah, I don't care for the little.

No offense. Luke Donald. I like Luke Donald. I don't like that. I don't like the other one. I always had the big ones for sure. Yeah, you're a big visor guy. Yeah.

100%. Keith now. He gets Mitchell. He's back on it. He was off with Nike, but now he's back on. He's back home. Tommy Homer is back where he belongs. Rocked advisor.

That's the air flowing out the side. T.A. He was a New Mexico guy. Lumpy, how about? He was a visor guy. He was a New Mexico guy and he's the best. First time I meet Tommy Armour, we got the Lobo Day and, you know, raising money, Heron's there, Noda Baguiz there, a bunch of guys are there, Tommy Armour's there. I get paired. My coach is like, hey, you're going to play with Tommy Armour and Tim Heron. We're on the first tee. It's kind of cold. A handful of people show up with these, there's these two beautiful blondes off to the side. And I kid you not.

that heron pegs it hits it uh Tommy Armour puts it in the ground hits it picks up his tea walks over throws up goes over to the two girls says hey you want to go to Vegas they said yes and he fucking bounced right there didn't even play right after a puke didn't even play in the in the event I think I remember that and you're like this guy's my hero I'm like holy holy moly man they're like no you're sick no and he was out of there he was out of there. I think that's exactly how it happened. I hope that's how it happened. I don't doubt that that's true. Yeah. There's some TA stories. Some really good T.A. stories. For real, for real. He actually has told me he will come on and if he'll open up,

it would be all time. We'll sell it to HBO. Yeah. We can just do four hours on his parties. Get him and JJ together and just tee off. Okay, this is a, I'm going to, I skipped one here. No, actually, this is the one I want. All right. You're a jicky jack legend. I said that, right? Give me the best player you ever played with on the Jix who never got a tour card. The guy you're like, he's going to make it and then didn't. There was a handful of them, man. Yeah, there's some good ones. You know, I thought, I thought Mueller would do it.

I thought Mueller would do it. Mueller could go lower in this city than anybody. Yep. You know, at the time, there was like that Eric Myerkes. He got out of year. He's played good this week at Cornfield. I think. He got out for a year, by the way.

He made it through Q school, played a year. He didn't. He's teaching right now. Shout out to E. I still talked to once in a while. Who am I thinking of? Because somebody very similar to that name. He's in like Chicago teaching.

Right. Wherever he's from. Winneka. He was good. He was good. He was good. He had it about like that kind of distance. Oh, he's still going.

Daniel McNakeyke. He just finished fourth on the court. Oregon. I don't know who they were. I just heard Mirrodurks and the name sounded close. Myr-Derx was good. Mueller could go. But like, you're,

game looked like a tour game. Muehler's was just like I don't want to play you in a money game. Right. If you go play RIV like yeah, it's you versus him. Fair enough. Yeah, I don't, um, I'm trying to think of mine would be. I thought Brock McKenzie. Oh, there's a good one. That guy before pre-chipping yips. I was like you hit it better than anyone I've ever seen. You're a hundred percent more. More out of the middle and straight. It was like Chez with 30 more yards. You're a hundred percent right. He did. He played a lot of amateur. Joke striking it. Yeah. He was a good one. Brock McKenzie. Ellis was good.

John Ellis. Wyndham's Caddy was good. Won a ton of shit. He was just too calm and relaxed. He was just, didn't have enough emotion. Didn't have enough passion. I had spent should have got paired together. So I got a spot my first year as a pro at AT&T, Pebble Beach, and I get paired with this John Ellis guy.

And I had no idea of me. I'm not from Northern California. He really never played any jickeys. And I get these texts like, dude, this guy is a legend. He kills the jikis. He will probably lose his shit at some point, though. Without unequivocally. They described him perfectly.

Okay. It was great. A lot of talent, but yes, could lose his shit. I'm talking, same shit, like two under through four, hits it in a bunker, hits it to 12 feet, and then breaks the rank. Right. And I'm like, dude, you're fine. It's the four-fold dog and you're leading. Like, it's going to be okay.

Lost and shit. And now when he carries for Ellis, he's like, he just gets too worked up. I'm like, really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. But there's a lot of calm around the back. All right.

My next one. So, like, I feel like talking to Ricky. You're kind of a creature of habit. 100%. He told me like pretty much at one point you ate nothing but pizza and wings. Yeah. Pretty much every meal. Yeah.

Or subway. That's called a great life. Okay. So tell me this. What is one thing? Like someone could say, I'll give you a million dollars if you eat this and you wouldn't do it. I was offered five grand to eat a Rockefeller oyster and it didn't even cross my mind to think about it, dude. I will not try.

My wife is from Croatia. So she has definitely expanded my food. but I'm still to the point, dude, like my food cannot touch each other. Like, I'm funky about food. And I could literally, I could eat steak every day for the rest of my life and not feel like I was missing out on anything. The carnivore diet, a lot of people doing it. So is the oyster, is it just oysters or like fish in general?

No, I'll eat some fish. It's got to be white fish. I wouldn't touch salmon or anything like that, dude. But, and so, like, I won't, I wish I liked eggs, man. And I don't know how people eat them because they smell terrible. They look horrible and I would never touch an egg. I hate most good. I don't care about food at all.

I smash eggs. Do you? Yeah. I know. My son and my wife crush them. I could live the rest of my life and wouldn't care one bit. Yeah. My son and my wife crush them.

I won't touch them. Pizza wings and subline. I crush. I crush. And Bacardi and Coke. That's called fun. Yeah. That's called fun.

I crush pizza, but I won't touch spaghetti because I don't like the red sauce. Like none of my shit makes sense. That's not. It doesn't. None of my stuff makes any sense whatsoever. But yeah, I'm extreme. Go-to pizza. Ooh, right.

Thin crust at oreganoes. Pepperoni. If I'm doing my own pizza, I'm doing a pepperoni. I'm doing a jalapeno. I'm doing an onion. And then occasionally I'll throw a pineapple. But a pepperoni jalapeno onion is pretty much my standard jam. We're fine as long as I don't like the onion.

We're good other than that. Okay. We can chair. Yeah. Okay. Respect that. Man knows what he likes. Yeah.

Doesn't need much of that. I respect that. All right, here we go. You're safe. say you're a big conspiracy guy. Uh-huh. Okay. Give me the one conspiracy theory that you are most convinced is true.

Oh, man, I could think. Don't make us have to edit it either. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, this is probably my most recent one, but um, there is not a goddamn chance that we went to the moon. Oh my God. Not a, not a. Yes. Not the one I thought.

Well, I think COVID was the biggest scandemic. Oh, I figured that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we'll stay off that. You don't think we landed on the moon.

100%. Dude, I can't even get cell phone service sometimes in the valley here. And you're going to tell me that you sent a bunch of dudes 260,000 miles away in the fucking 60s that didn't even have the technology we have on our cell phones now. And we've never gone back. And it happened to happen at the same time that Russia was going to maybe beat us. So we just put together. And if you go back and look, there's so many things. Are you going to get into the visor and the reflection in the voice?

visor and all that. You could do that. You could do the fact that there's no stars in the picture. You could do the fact that how was there a camera to watch it come down? How can there be footprints underneath the shuttle or whatever landed because it has to come down and blow you know some dust or something? I mean there's there's my but my main thing is is that dude I can't even get fucking cell service at my house sometimes and you're going to say that argument. My neighborhood is like blacked out. I'm like, well, what Elon's launching civilians up there. I can't even get a freaking bar at my house no no way we in my opinion we've never even been in space we need a we need a Derek Anderson charlie belgian we won't even be here we'll just let y'all get in here and

mix it up on all the bullshit yeah i've got two tepacacic too ronick's a huge yeah i got the moon is my latest one but yeah i got a bunch and you know what i've yeah and how can you not believe them with the crazy ass world we live in now yeah that's beautiful prove it's yeah Until I land on it And nobody's been in that bitch And how come, dude, we went back in the 60s, how come we didn't in the 60s? How come we haven't been back?

And then we were supposed to be back. We were supposed to launch something three or four weeks ago. We had like 15 delays. It's because they had to put on a show that we were going to go, but they know they can't go. So let's just trick everybody.

Beautiful. The moon is a fucking scam. You know, the moon's up there, no question. But I can promise. Maybe that's just propped up there. Yeah. I think the moon is up. But there is no way that we landed on it.

No way that we went up there. And then you watch like when Buzz, Buzz Light Year. Armstrong and those guys, if you watch them, man, in some of the interviews that they do, you can just tell that they're like, man, I am just fucking telling a gigantic lie right now to all you people. And everybody's going to believe it, man.

It's good. I didn't know it would be the moon. No, that's good. Only the reason I brought that one up is because, that's my latest one. You're in on it right now? Yeah, you're diving in.

Well, I dove in, I did my thing. I don't dwell on them for long. I go in, I convince yourself. Convince myself. And I move on to the next one.

I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy. I get into some of them. Moon is not one that I... Don't edit this out. Mark, this needs to be our, just our one teaser for the week.

Just this entire conversation right there. The moon is bullshit. The landing of the moon is complete bullshit. You let them pull the wool over your eyes. All right. Oh, God. Next one. I go.

Would you say that Harburtown has the best porta potty's on tour? Harbor Town. That's Hilton Head, South Carolina. Yeah, but well, how can you beat Dallas? Well, I just meant you might have visited the ones at Harbletown a lot. I did. I got sick in the ones at Harbottown quite a bit in between shots because we're having such big nights before, yeah. When I think of a really great week on tour, Ricky and I brought Harbortown to its knees.

It is so good. I mean, that is one of my favorite weeks. Not only because of the golf course is incredible, but just the vibe. It's awesome. It's awesome. You can walk around. You rent houses. Everybody's friendly.

But yeah, we got, we got, we had a great time in Harvard Town, man. That's just a great. I love it down there. Just that part of the country. By the way, they just move slower. It's all great. The Dallas Port-a-Pottie is no longer. I did hear that.

Yeah. A complaint from one player. You know, and it's. Maybe don't use that one, sir. Maybe don't use it, dude. And the fact that one player can ruin it for everybody is what's sad. We won't get into that. No, no.

You know who you are. No fun. No fun allowed. All right. This feels like a letdown after the whole moon is fake bullshit. Why did you not have the conspiracy during that? I didn't know we were coming with that, dude. I thought it would be like Tupac or aliens or something.

No. Area 51. The moon landing is complete bullshit. I'll connect with you later. I got some other shit that needs your attention. I need another investigator on it that I got some questions about. Okay. get to that later. This one, this will also be good though. As you have told me, you have to answer

this question. Hypothetically, a person's trying to be to drug test on the PJ tour, how do they do it? That's a good one. I could tell you. Yeah, that's what I'd love to know. The way that you do that, and unfortunately I know, is that you just have to drink a bunch of water. So I, and now being sober in that and looking back at some of the shit that I did. So obviously you couldn't smoke pot, but then you kind of found out that there's levels. And if you stayed under the levels, you could smoke pot and still go about your day. But just to make sure, you know, there's drinks on every single hole when we play. And I would literally drink one of those 16 ounce bottles, at least every other hole,

if not every hole. and then you get in, the guys would be waiting for you, you know, in the scoring tent with their, and you knew right when you were walking in. If somebody had a clipboard, you're like, son of a bitch, somebody's getting poked, going to be me. And so the first time you drink that much water, obviously, and here's the other thing.

So I'm trying to play golf against the best players in the world, but meantime, I'm taking literally 10 leaks on the course because, you know, find it, and there's not enough porta-potties, so now I'm trying to dodge the crowd, take a leak, hit a shot, and what a pathetic waste of time it was for sure. But I'd always go in. My first test would be too diluted. And so you'd hang out.

And then you'd take you another one. And every single, I did get a few calls from the tour. I have been, I have failed a couple. But I failed them, got my warning. And then as a matter of fact, a few years ago, they changed the levels from like 18 nanograms to 180 nanograms, which then as long as you don't smoke the pens, you can pass those, you know, because the THC concentration is so much higher. the pins but it's it's sad that I know it it's not what I do anymore but it's what I did this is just piss water I thought it was gonna be a little whizanator Minnesota Viking no because you had those people watching you man they literally I didn't know how intimate

they get yeah they get intimate I don't think it's like NFL intimate but right but they're there even in college when we had to take him there's a dude right there I was like who's doing these fake things like I can get away with that so like I never knew that about you but I remember like we've been paired together many of times on tour and I was like holy shit this guy pisses a lot dude he's a lot of water sure did man I was always hydrated at least, but that is in, you know, I did five years and only failed two. Pretty good track record. Pretty good track record.

Model citizen. All right, my last one. You mentioned you used to run around in the RV or rig, as you call it. Okay. For people that don't know, like most of the tour places have a place for you to park your rig. 100%. So there's a whole group of you. Yeah.

You're pulling in. And they're telling you you're going to park here. Okay. Who's the one guy when you get parked next to him? you're like, oh shit. I don't want to be next to this guy. Bad neighbor? You know, at the time, man, it was Chris Couch.

Oh, wow. Because that's not the bitch. He could, he, in our little trailer park, he stirred up a lot of trouble, man. But he's a good dude now running to him. But for me, I didn't really want to park next to like Troy Madison, you know, because he was a lot more educated than me and made me feel stupid. time he opened his mouth because he talked about things that I couldn't relate to or that. Great dude.

But yeah. But on the side note, boy, there would be no better parking spot than between Daly and Sabatini because being in the middle and being able to sit there and watch both of the shit shows go on out your windows was just the best. Who needs a TV? He needs a TV. Yeah, they were the best, man. And those guys took me under their wing.

They were so fantastic to me. I still stay in touch with Sabatini. and his wife. And then daily whenever I get in the tournament and see him, we always have a nice time. He's the best, man. Just a great human. Madison probably thinks the moon landing is real.

Idiot. What a way, did it. Charlie, thank you so much. Thank you guys for having me. Congratulations on cleaning up. And we look forward to seeing it. Go mix it up out there, bro. It's been good.

Drink some water. Thanks for having me. All right, that was Charlie Belgian, joining us on Golf Subpar. What a beauty he is. You know, I've known. him for a long time. We were out there on tour together, but he was a guy, for the most part, kind of kept to himself. So he didn't really get to know Charlie. But like I said, met him in college. He was one of the first guys that I was like, holy shit, this guy can move it. He was a long

hitter. Obviously, probably used Stack before Stack was around. Yeah, he'd be dangerous. Dangerous with Stack. I mean, I grew up playing junior golf against Charlie, college golf against Charlie, and then jikis with Charlie. And he was one of those guys. There was like a couple, be like, dude, as soon as he figures it out, like he's got the stuff you can't teach. There was a period of time before like this huge jump to speed and all the kids you know every college kid now hitting bombs and things like that when we were playing on the mini tours we played a ton of like final rounds and stuff together there would just be bunkers they're like 310 in your book and like okay got a feeder he took it oh he would hit the ball through the air not with roll because

there's some guys that could hit the little low heaters and bounce it out there a bit he would hit it through the air further than anyone I've ever seen in my life and that was the same time like phenow was playing out there he hadn't quite figured it out yet but like those were the two guys I'm I'm like, dude, there's not many guys on tour. They can move it like that. They just got to tighten it up a little bit with everything else. And he did it. And then in his rookie year, add to the fact that, like that he was battling all that anxiety and stuff.

Like, he was outside the top 125 rookie, like playing for his job needed a, what do you say, top three, I believe to keep his card. I mean, that pressure, then to come through and do it with, it was cool to get an inside peek at what that week was like. Because it was gnarly. I mean, his ride has been just incredible. That's the one thing people don't realize that you never know what's going on behind the scenes. All you do is see him out there playing golf on TV or whatever. Might not be playing that great. You like, oh, that guy sucks.

You have no idea what they're battling. But it's really cool to see how, I mean, 26 months sober now, killed it in Bitcoin, killing it in the gym. The guy is a jacked right now. Truck. But I'm super happy for him. Said he might give it another go. And incredible story.

Seriously, one of my favorite episodes we've done. Yeah, it doesn't sound like he wants to do 25 events on the PJ. Even if he came out and won one of these off-field events or something like that. Like, all right, dude, you're back on. I don't know how much he would play. Doesn't sound like he has to play. But I mean, when he was out there, parking his RV next to daily every single.

He was always a guy on the jicks. Like, you want to go have a time? Like, Charlie would be around. Charlie's having a barbecue. Charlie's doing whatever. And like, his rookie year on tour, I was like, man, Charlie's like completely good enough. I've been around enough of these guys to know.

Is this like, can he figured out? And I get a behind the scenes peek at like what was all going on. Makes sense. And that ain't an easy thing to shut off either. He just made a decision one day. Like, oh, I'm done smoking. He smoked too past. I mean, he fired through him, you know.

Oh, I'm done drinking. Like, that's a thing that take people years. Good for him, man. That's hard. He's 26 months. Shout out to Charlie. And I knew when I asked him come on, I was like, anything you don't want to talk about? He's like, open book, anything.

So props to him for coming on and, I mean, talking about all that. Ain't the easiest in the world. Really cool. All right, let's get to some gambling. We got the Farmer's Insurance open this week. We got the AFC, the NFC, the NFC championship. These games are both going to be incredible. Eagles, San Fran.

Eagles are two and a half point favorites. Chiefs, Buffalo's, Chiefs are one and a half point. his favorites at home. Bengals, yeah. Oh, sorry. It's okay. I'm going, I'm obsessed with Joe Burrow, riding the hot hand. He's owned Kansas City.

Since he plus one app, probably going to money line him. I like the Bengals. I do too, actually. Oh, God. Which is scary. Just Mahomes, like, a healthy Mahomes, I don't know. I picked the Chiefs all year to win the Super Bowl. I'd still lean on the Chiefs.

That high ankle sprain is a different animal. I mean, he could barely move, you know, after that injury in that last game. I don't know what he's going to be. He moves around a lot. He could scramble. He adds time in the pocket. If he looks close to what he looked like last week, that's a tough team to go beat with Burrow firing on all cylinders.

They also feel like they have like bangles like a little chip on their shoulder. You know, the comments about better get those refunds when they're talking about the game potentially between Buffalo and Casey and Atlanta. It's just hard for me to bet against Joe Burrow running. He's one of those dudes that just like, I think you can put a team on his shoulder win a game by himself. This is one of those ones you just hope the game lives up to the hype. Yeah.

It is big time. I mean, two of the best teams in full. football, in my opinion, the two best quarterbacks in football going out. Without question. Oh, boy. Jim Nance, Tony Romo on the call, it is going to be awesome. I can't wait. Yeah, the Bengals, for whatever reason, have been the Chiefs' Cryptonite,

even when Mahomes has been healthy. If he's just, that's a tough team to beat with everything, if you got Mahomes at 60, 70%, something like that, tough task. All right, let's move over to the Farmers Insurance Open. See if we can pick some winners here. Pretty strong field teamed up at Torrey Pines. Your favorite, as we said, John Rom, plus 390. Four to one most place you look.

It's pretty crazy. As far as the value-wise, it's hard to bet on. But I can also see why you might like John Rom because he's undefeated this year. No one's beating him. Yeah, and he's 54 under. But I'm going to go just a little further down the board. One whole spot. 12 to 1.

Okay. Long shot. Grew up in San Diego, went to San Diego State, finally played well at Tori Pines last year, mostly because I found his golf ball on Friday, which allowed him to make the cut and lead to a runner-up finish. My man, Zander Shafle, going off at 12 to 1. Okay.

Coming off a little dub Eag or Albatross, whichever way you want to call it out there at the stadium course. That was a nice show. Dre on the call for PJ Tour Live, by the way, never hate Xander. I want to pick him every single week. I'm going to go to a guy that this golf course should be perfect for him. I mean, he lost in a playoff last year.

He battled injury last year, so he hasn't played a ton, but 36 last week. Shot 16 under. It wasn't like terrible golf, but that's like Rahma said, more of a putting contest. Give me Will Zalotaurus coming in there. If he's hitting it like you can,

this place should be perfect. Ball striker. And putting one of the places I would say it's the least important stat. That's fair. You just got to go Fairway Green, Fairway Green, do it over and over. Yeah, lost a Luke List in the playoff last year. Also the side of my incredible call of hammered down the middle. Hammered down the middle and plugged in the shit.

They must have moved that bunker. Yeah, dude, that was some sort of conspiracy. Don't make me call golf in the dark. It was a conspiracy, just like the moon landing, which is fake, obviously. Charlie told us. The moon is bullshit. All right, as far as a dark horse, this guy getting some nice value. I know he hadn't played his best golf in the last few years.

rumor has it. He's working with a new swing coach, which I'm very excited about. He's won here in the past. Justin Rose going off at 50 to 1. Okay. I like that. New teacher.

New beginnings for Jay Rose. Rumor. Rumored. I'm going to go with the past champion, too, with a lot of juice here. 70 to 1. Scott Stallings. He doesn't get a lot of love

for a guy that made Eastlake last year and had a hell of a second half to the season. Not a lot of love for Scott Stallings. He's one of those guys. I don't know if you necessarily like him to win, but made like a top 10, but he's played well here before, obviously. He's won. He's been close other times.

I just feel like he's under the radar guy that, for whatever reason, Tori agrees with him. And I think he's a guy that could have a really high finish very easily. Yeah, he's really turned his game around, making it all the way to East Lake. Like you said, past champion here, actually beat our guy Gary Woodland the year he won. That is factual. Sorry, Gary. We get bonus points for that.

It's true. It's two wins. All right. Well, it's going to be a lot of fun. I can't wait to get back to work. I got the next four weeks. We do Farmers Insurance. It's 18T at Pebble Beach.

We're right here at home for the WM Phoenix Open. Cap it off with the Genesis out of L.A. Not just the WM Phoenix Open, dude. The Lary is in the house. The Lary Monday, February 6th. It's all coming together. A lot of pros, a lot of celebrities going to be teeing it up with some lucky ones out there.

If you sign up, make sure you go to golf.com slash the Larry. Get your team going. Only a few spots remaining. A couple spots left. We got to have this thing full so we can have a party. We're doing a little fireside chat afterwards with Jordan Speath.

Possibly another major. champion still trying to lock that in but it's going to be a great time go to golf.com slash the larry sign up today yes do not delay this thing is going to be i'm already looking forward to that i'm already also waking up with cold sweats just about that week it's a big week i mean you go to larry you get to have cocktails with us yeah i get to drink a little bit i'll be nice oh great nice for the week yeah all right well everyone have a great week we'll talk to you on next week's golf subpar