Subpar - Mark Blackburn Interview: From sleeping in a maintenance shed to being named 2020 PGA Teacher & Coach of the Year

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

On this week's episode of GOLF's Subpar, PGA Tour instructor Mark Blackburn joins former PGA Tour pro Colt Knost and his close friend and on course rival Drew Stoltz for an exclusive, in-studio interview. The 2020 PGA Teacher and Coach of the Year talks how working with Tour pros like Charley Hoffman, Kevin Chappell, and Chez Reavie differs from working with the everyday golfer, his stance on the distance debate, and what the average player can pick up from studying the swings of the best players in the world.

Hello world. Welcome to this week's episode of Golf Subpar, Colt Nost and Drew Stoltz. One of us is here in studio, obviously the other one's out, living the high life in Bandon Dunes out in Oregon Sleeze. How are we doing, fella? Man, I'm hanging in there, Coltie. I miss being with you this week, dude, and I'm just moments away from making my debut here on the hollowed grounds of Bandon Dunes. It's going to go out and play a little abandoned trails a little later today. The Kourn-Krenshaw design tucked in through the trees, a little less wind, no ocean. So looking forward. I'm looking outside right now. It's blowing about 20, 25. Should shoot an absolute gris load out there.

So looking forward to it. Well, here's hoping so. But we've got to talk about this past week's event on the PGA tour, the second leg of the PGA tour of FedEx Cup playoffs. And John Rom wins in a playoff over world number one, Dustin Johnson. How exciting was that? Dude, not just the fact that we got the world number one and two battling each other at the end,

but the way it went down with those putts back to back, Dustin Johnson, making the 40-footer. I mean, God knows what the percent make chance was with that. And then Rahm, I thought, like, once Dustin made that, I was like, man, he's got all the mo. Ron probably thought he had this thing locked up, and he gets out there and makes an even better put in the playoff bowl.

It was wild, man. And the best news about it is the two best players in the world right now are one and two going into Eastlake, and it's going to be a beast. But I also thought, Colt, TPC Boston took a lot of shit for how low those scores were and how much those guys got after it. What a change of one week makes. And I thought that golf course setup, about Olympia Fields was unbelievable, dude.

Yeah, I think it's so unfair when people blame the golf courses, just because you can't control Mother Nature. I mean, TBC Boston's a great golf course. They got a lot of rain, and the greens were soft. You saw what happens when greens become firm, and guys actually have to be in the fairway to control their iron shots, and Olympia Fields definitely shine this week. They got a lot of flack back in the day in 2003 when they had the U.S. open there, that it was too easy.

It didn't represent a real U.S. Open, and then you go to a PJ Tour FedEx Cup playoff event where the weather is perfect for them to control the golf course the way they want it to, and four under par ends up getting in a playoff. It was awesome to watch. It just shows that you don't have to make golf courses 8,000 yards on the PJ Tour to give the best players in the world a lot of problems. Just make firm, fast conditions, and you'll see these guys really struggle. When you have to hit the ball in the fairway, you see the best players shine,

and I thought it was absolutely awesome to watch this week. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I don't think we'd want to see that every week. I know the players probably wouldn't want to see a setup like that every single week, but once every so often, Muirfield Village had it with Jack's tournament where that played really tough, really difficult. Now you got the BMW Championship this week. It's nice to get a little bit of these, you know, U.S. Open-type setups

sprinkled in once in a while on the BGA tour. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And congratulations to you. You did have the winner this week in the pool. We are lewing very, very good as a team. I'll be honest. The numbers are getting very close. We'll get into that a little bit later.

But Sleaze, we've got to congratulate. our first ever guest on golf subpar, John Rom, getting another title for the team. Absolutely. For the brand, shout out to John Rom. That was massive. And due to do it, especially after you had that little hiccup, little incident there where he just went ahead and picked up his ball on the green without marking it, that'll happen. Although I can't believe it would happen in the PGA tour, and I'm not sure John Rom's

ever done that in his life. But I was really glad to see that it didn't come down to like a one shot loss for him or losing in a play. That would have been a tough pill to swallow. But by the way, we got to give him a little shit. He uses a poker chip to mark his ball, which I think is a big foul in the first place. But how do you not realize your massive poker chip is not down there before you pick your golf ball out? That's a good question.

He's the only guy to ever reach world number one. I bet that marks his ball with a poker chip. The thing is obnoxious. It should be banned from if you're world number one, you can't mark you with that. That's reserved for like four man scrambles. I hope he's the first and the last to ever be world number one with the poker chip. I don't think there's any question about that. I think he will be the first and the last.

All right, Sleaze. Well, now it's time to get to our guest this week. and that is PGA teacher and coach of the year for 2020, Mr. Mark Blackburn. How about that, Colty? We've got the best in the business coming in here. If you're a golf nerd and you like golf information and want to know what the best teacher in the world, as voted on by his peers, thinks this is a really, really cool interview. We dive deep into some of the golf, you know, philosophies of one of the best coaches in the world.

And Slees, I've known Mark for a very long time, had the pleasure of working with him. But this episode, I tell you what, I even learned a lot sitting there and listen to him. So let's get right to it. Here is Mark Blackburn on golf subpar. Well, we are in the presence of greatness right now. Our next guest was recently announced as the 2020 PGA teacher and coach of the year, the architect behind many of the great golf swings on the PGA tour. The great, Mr. Mark Blackburn, thank you so much for being here.

Yeah, thanks for being here. First off, congratulations, by the way. That's my first time I've been able to tell you this in person, I feel like. I appreciate it. I've did a little Instagram post, texted you a couple times. Yeah, that was very kind of here. It's a big honor. You know, it's kind of not a coincidence, though.

Like, you know, Travis Matthew, before they signed me, was trying to sell for around 80 million, and they sold for 125 after they signed me. You know, you were a nominee for several years, and then we started working together, and bam! Teacher, coach of the year. I think there's a common thread here. You connect the dots there. Yeah.

There could be something there. Just saying. Coates the catalyst. They could be the guy before the guy. That's what he does. And now I no longer work, Travis Matthew, and I no longer play professional golf. Exactly. Now every brand that he's affiliated with is blowing up.

Perfect. Congratulations on that, though. That's a huge, how does that vote it on? How do you, like, how are they to determine who wins that? So your section, so the PJ section you're in, I'm in the Alabama, Northwest Florida section, they nominate you. Every section, I think it's 50 sections. They nominate someone for every national award if they feel like they're worthy.

And then it goes to a bunch of votes and then committee and you fill out a big application. And then you make the finals and then you fill out more applications. and then your peers or a nominating committee then kind of go through everyone's resumes and they compare them and see who's the most fitting for the award. So I guess they ran out of people to give it to so they go to me this year. You are the most. It's the best part of winning the award now when your students play bad. You can look at them and be like, dude, don't look at me.

I'm the best teacher in the world. You got to look yourself in the mirror, bro. I'm teaching you perfect. I haven't used that yet, but I am going to keep that in my back pocket. Do you get a phone call? What's that phone call like? So I kept getting this fun. call from this number that I didn't recognize and I don't answer my phone if you're not in my

phone book. So finally one morning I'm walking down to the basement to go work out. This number just keeps calling me. So I'm like, hello? Mark, this is Susie Whaley and I'm like, oh no. I said, you've been you've been calling me, haven't you? And she goes, I have. Anyway, so anyway, so she called me and she said, you know, congratulations. I wanted to personally let you know that you've won the National Teacher of the Year. We're super excited for you to represent the PGA, but you can't tell anybody other than your close family. So I really didn't tell anybody. I told my wife, I told Chappie and Ches because they both wrote me a really nice letter. I had no idea they actually like me that much. It's quite amazing. But other than that, I really didn't tell

anybody. I did tell my mom and my brother, but it didn't say anything. And then the announcement came out and then my club were obviously really excited, Greystone in Birmingham. So it's kind of cool. I like the way they do that. It's just kind of a surprise and when they make the announcement, you already know, but you see, you're kind of prepared for what goes with it. How long do you have to sit on it? About a month, five weeks. I would have blown it. Twitter. Don't tell it. Don't tell it. Don't worry, Mrs. Whaley, I will not tell anyone. Twitter. Guys, you'll never be pleased to announce I'm the best coach in the world. Let's go back to the beginning. How did you get involved in golf? So when I first started, my dad played a lot of golf and I grew up in England.

People say you're Australian, no, I'm English. I've just lived in the South for a long time. And golf was really one of those things. I played every other sport, loved sports. I spent more time outside playing sports than I did doing anything else. And I kind of got into golf later. My dad and my grandfather played. And then at one point my grandfather, who my son's named after, Rex, said to me,

He goes, well, you should really take golf seriously. You should, you know, enjoy playing. You could probably be pretty good at it. And then I kind of never thought of it that way. And then I did. And I just kept getting better and better. And then I ended up coming to the States on a golf scholarship. And I was never great, but I always aspired to be better.

And was one of the guys that at the last on the range would outwork, people, not necessarily the most gifted in the talent department, but would just keep plugging away. And so I kind of got into teaching because I was a, spent too much time at the weekends on the driving range on the mini tours getting beat by chad campbell and such a lot of people get beat by chad campbell yeah you ain't the only dude let's talk about that trip from london you come over from london you recruited a play offer to scholarship at southern miss you get off the plane from heathrow you land in hadesburg mississippi what is that culture shock like okay well so there has a twist to it so i actually got recruited to go to school

in mobile so i went to school in mobile for a couple of years to do a baptist school and i thought although this isn't necessarily for me. And then a friend of mine was playing golf at Southern Miss and they had college football, big school. The school I went to in Mobile had like 3,000 students. You couldn't. It was like separate guys, girls. It was a great school.

It just doesn't necessarily for me. And then there was opportunity and the coach at Southern Miss was like, hey, we got a spot. And then my buddy Phil, who I grew up playing golf with in the UK at my club, he was there and I ended up long story short, they recruited me and I ended up. That's how I got to Hattisburg. So I'd had Hattisburg via Mobile, Haddesburg. Either way, it's a long way from London. What's that like when you get off the plane and here's Mobile Alabama? Yeah, it's a different world. Very different. Yeah, 100%.

I mean, but it's cool. I mean, it was the weather in England sucks. So my goal was come to America, play golf. I wanted to go back, try and play on the European tour. So I needed to go somewhere where I could play year round. Mobile, Alabama was really warm, hot, climate was great. The coach, Terry Hopper, I still talk to him now. He's a great dude. I think he just had his 80th birthday or 79. But anyway, he was a, I loved the coach. The school, the environment wasn't quite more the college experience I wanted. So that's why I ended up in the south because of the weather. Had you visited anywhere in the States before he made the decision when you committed to go to Mobile, had you taken a trip and I came to a golf tournament in Pine Needles, North Carolina.

And there was a bunch of college coaches there. And that's how I ended up getting the scholarship. I ended up with a few offers. And one of them was Old Dominion. And I was like, no, the weather. I looked where that was in the weather. And I was like, no, not doing that. Where is Old Dominion?

I actually don't know. It's like. The older part of Dominion. Virginia, like north, the north. So anyway, I was like, I'm not going to do that. It gets cold. So that's how I ended up in Mobile. And then the South.

And I'm a big fan of the South. So there you go. So you had to blend in nicely. Yeah, it was very different culture shock. And I found myself most of the time, people would say, could you say that again? And I'd have to talk in American accent, which I'm really bad at. But I've got a good country accent now. I like it.

We might have to hear that. You play professionally for a little bit. Yep. How many years until you decided this isn't for me? About two years. And I got injured. Like, I had a wrist injury. And I'd always gravitated towards teaching.

And I'd always been pretty good at the goal. golf swing and looking at it and I had books and books and books and I'd spend all my time looking. Ledbetter was a big influence when I was a kid because obviously he was going to spend a lot of time in England. So I'd read a lot of books and I was more familiar with that and I'd always, that's what I would try and do when I was playing golf. And it got to the point where it was much easier for me to see what other people were doing versus figure out what the heck I was doing.

And that's kind of what transition. I got injured and then I had to fund what I was doing. I was living in a carp on. it's an interesting store. Wow. And so I was trying to fund buying groceries, blah, blah, blah, and teaching was just easy, and I'd go out for a 30-minute golf lesson.

I'd come back two hours later, and the head pro just be laughing at me and shaking his head. But I loved it, still love it, and that's kind of how it, and it blossomed into that, and then lots of the players that I played with, obviously knew that I was into the golf swing because they'd see me practicing with all these trinkets

and different things on the range and that kind of. That's how it snowballed and I just got into it. I enjoyed it. I was good at it. It was really relatively pretty easy. Who was the first PJ tour player you worked with? Heath Slocum. So DJ Nelson, one of the best man in my wedding with my brother. He and I played mini tours. We traveled. In fact, I need to probably thank DJ sponsors because he funded most of my mini tours. He had a really nice Tahoe paid for by his. sponsors. He stayed at nice hotels and he was gracious enough to let me stay with him a lot of times while I was still living in a cartmine. So it wasn't for him. I would not really have played

mini tours, but I also realistically would not have had a choice, a chance to work with Heath. And DJ basically said to Heath, look, Mark's teaching a bunch. Heath and I knew each other. He was at School in Mobile at South Alabama when I was at University of Mobile and basically Heath asked me in 2004, I believe, or maybe 05 to come to New Orleans, helping with his golf game. And then he won that year and it kind of snowballed from there. So both Heath and DJ Io, a huge debt of gratitude to. They were the first guys that kind of took a chance on me. And typically, you know how it is in our world of golf.

Everybody wants to work with the renowned teacher. Not many people are willing to take a chance on, hey, this is a young guy, he's ambitious. I can still remember it, looking back at it, I took all my stuff to New Orleans. I'm the geek swing kid on the range. It's like unbelievable. But you know, you're naive at the time and you don't know any difference. And so it worked out great. And he's, you know, taking a bit of a break from golf.

He's still playing a little bit. But we had a great run. And that led me into lots of other relationships. So I've one of my best friends along with DJ, love them to bits. And I owe them a lot. Get back quickly because I want to hear just a little bit more about this. How did living in the cartbone come about and how long did you live there? Okay, so when I finished, well, college, my sponsors were from North Alabama.

I'd met them through a girl I was dating at the time, and essentially they said to me, we'll give you a place to practice and play there on a golf course, and then I was up there and I needed to find somewhere to live, and then one of the superintendents at the time said, well, we've got this big open room above the maintenance shed. it's really the maintenance shit is not even as nice as the carp bump there this is open room but if you want to paint it's got a bathroom in there it's got a sink you can fix it up so anyway yours truly painted it up fixed it up and i lived there probably for about i had it for about a year and when i was playing i was transient the only bad thing was if you went out on a friday or a saturday night

and consumed a little too much they still have to mow greens really early in the morning so they tend to roll those doors up at about five o'clock and you're not very good so thankfully i graduated out of there after about a year but yeah i had a year of it was great was the girlfriend impressed with your digs no because no no no no good thing you had a girlfriend it'd be hard to pull it but no no but this this is funny so that girlfriend i played golf too much and i traveled too much and i was out but one of her best friends growing up is now my wife Melissa, who Colt knows very well, and I would never let Melissa go to the maintenance yet. So she never saw, oh, she did see it one time, but it was, yeah.

At least you had a girlfriend, dude, pulling a different, going to the bar and be like, want to come back to my place? Sure, where is it? It's the cart barn over there. We should probably go back to yours. There's a couple chickens that live downstairs, but don't worry. Oh, that's hilarious. That's good.

I had no idea. Let's get into some of your teaching, though. I mean, obviously you teach a lot of PGA tour players. you've worked anywhere from obviously Heath Slocum, Boo Weekly, Chez, Revy, Kevin Chappel, Friends of the program, The Seagull, Charlie Hoffman. But one of the things that's always impressed me with great golf instructors is the range they have.

Like how you can go work with the Ches Revy and then the next hour go over to someone that's just picked up the game. Can you explain to me how the hell you trick your mind into going from one of the best players in the world to someone that can't break 100? Yeah, well, I tell everybody, if you want to coach golf, you need to coach a lot of really, bad golfers because there's no substitute for being in the trenches. So if you think about it,

we all play golf and we all want our golf ball to go pretty straight. The golf ball, the golf club, all you're ever really trying to do is put the club on the golf ball and have a pretty predictable shot. So when you work with bad golfers, you generally have to have a quick fix really quickly. You get really good at the club face, what they need to do to make the ball go straight. That skill set is really important working with you guys on the PGA tour because when someone's struggling, you need to be able to get control of their golf ball for them really quickly. So the principles are the same. I look at it, okay, what's the golf club doing? What's the person doing? How does the person move? But I really, I try and separate and take out the

personality and the person because a lot of club golfers, you know, can be very challenging, a lot of successful professionals in the business world are just as egotistically driven as tour players. So I try and separate that and just look at what's the golf club doing? What's the golf ball doing, what's their body doing, how is that matching up? And I enjoy teaching, the challenge of teaching golfers that are really bad is you want to make them good really quickly. And the challenge of teaching tour players is you need to be able to help them get control of their golf balls and then go play and they can be confident. So they're both challenging and they kind of work your mind. So I enjoy bad golfers and good golfers because they're,

they're always a challenge and a critical thinking exercise. I just enjoy that problem solving part of it. How does your teaching differ from like with different personalities? Like for instance, take two guys you work with right now. You got Ches Revy, you got Charlie Hoffman, right? Let's say they both come to you. Nice, not nice. You got the nicest two on the planet and then you got the dull who's just flying around shitting on people.

Let's say they both come to you. They both have the exact same issue with their golf swing. How does it, how does your teaching differ based on like their personalities? Like do you have to explain things differently? Yeah. So I tell, I create a vernacular with every single player I work with. Like so some people, they, want things very factually. They want things, you know, pretty specific. Some people like

analogies. They like stories. They like metaphors. So you have to figure out how does that person process the information. I also look at, or how do you move? Because everybody's body's different. And so if two people want to fade the golf ball, there's different ways for them to do it based on how they move. Now, Charlie and Chess are completely different. Ches wants to hit nice, high push drawers that generally go very, very straight, as we all know. And Charlie likes to hit fades, but hits every shot. So they're both shaped differently as well. So you're trying to build all those things.

So I always look at what does the person want the golf ball to do and then how do they move and then how do they process information. Some people like technical and some people is the worst thing you can possibly do. So, you know, some of the vernacular I use is not suitable for the show, but different people gravitate to the way you convey information differently. And some people like crude toilet humor, Charlie, Chappie. Some people like things a little bit more where I would say traditional where they want what's going on They kind of chairs. They're still a mic weird. They're just a little bit different. So but it's all about how do you push the person's buttons?

Colts probably in the middle of the road. He posts information pretty good, but everybody's different. You're always trying to figure out how do you push that player's buttons and how do you make the connection? I tell everyone connecting to the player is the most important thing because it's their livelihood, especially at a high level. You're trying to get their trust so that they will do what you ask them to do. What about feedback? Like do you, some guy react better to like positive reinforcement, hey, you're getting close and that sort of thing and some guys react better when you like kick them in the nuts a little bit. Yeah. So I would say a lot of times I could probably have done a bad job.

So we learn from things of being probably too much Bobby Knight at times. And you ask players what they want and they tell you. And generally when the player tells you that they want this is they actually want the complete opposite. So I try and figure out you've got to be a chameleon. I tell everybody to be a great coach, you've got to change. I've been to strip clubs with some players, and I've been to church with others. Who? The first one.

We don't really care about it. No names mention. I need to focus right now, Mark. I love it. But one of your players, Ches Revy, who we talked about a lot, I feel like the average listener at home can probably relate to a lot more than, say, a Dustin Johnson or Gary Woodland. When your average business guy at home that's a 15 handicap, not going to be able to do the things Dustin Johnson does.

But Chez Revy's a guy who's had an unbelievable career, multiple winner on the PGA tour, but yet he doesn't overpower golf courses. He doesn't have that wow factor, but yet he keeps getting it done year after year. What is something the guys at home could learn from a guy like Chez Revy? Yeah, I think you just have to embrace what you do. So every player has a personality. So I tell Chez, Chez is like Floyd Mayweather. Chez doesn't going to knock anyone out with a big punch, but he's going to...

Hold on real quick. That's not what the... Floyd Mayweather spends... his money a lot quicker than Ches Revy does. Chaz and Floyd are not too guys I thought would be in the same sentence in this podcast. Okay, sorry to interrupt you can spit that. Chess if you're watching over. That's not me, that's them.

Okay, so I use the analogy. Floyd Mayweather doesn't knock people over. He just jabs people to death and he wins and he makes people basically wins on technical knockout, right? That's Chess on a golf course. He's precision. Like he's going to put the ball in play. sneaky longer than you'd think, and then he's just an incredible iron player. And he's aggressive.

Sometimes he's like a little too aggressive, too many jabs, right? But it's like, we try and build a score. Every player's different. And so for him, he's got control of what he's doing. He puts the ball in play and leaves the ball in the right position. And he's very disciplined. I would say the most important thing for most golfers is they're reckless. If you want to be a good player, there's a lot of discipline that's involved.

And you watch Dustin Johnson or Brooks Kepker, Rory, Macquaroy, Tiger Woods and the stuff they do, well, they're physically just, they're the top 1% of the 1% on the planet. So when you see them being aggressive, that's just not what the average golfers needs to do. The average golfer, good scoring is the compounding of small gains over every single hole. Just put the ball on the green and two puck. If you put the ball on the green from 180 yards and two putt, you're going to be strokes gained positive on the PJ tour. Not a lot, but a little bit, you do that over 18 holes. That's how you shoot low scores. And Chess is just masterful at doing that. Chappie's really good, very disciplined at that as well. So that's one of the

things that everyone should figure out is what's your strength and how do you play golf and you should just go after that. Isn't it? But like, I mean, you see the guys, all they talk about on TV is Bryce and DeChambo, how far he's hitting it, how far Rory hits it and stuff like that. I think what Chez does is even more impressive because he's the anomaly in this game and he's making it work where, you know, he doesn't do it the way everyone else does it. Yeah, no, and your recipe for success is going to be different. He knows that he has to put the ball in play, and then he's going to hit really, really good iron shots. And his, I'd argue, his five, four, and six iron are probably as good as some players, wedges or nine-eyes. And you guys play more golf with him than I do, but I

watch him play a lot. So he's really proficient at that. And that's just what he has to do, make sure he puts the ball in the right position so he can attack based on his strength. And golf's definitely changing. It's like tennis changed, right? Tennis evolved golf's the same thing. It's either further you smash it. Bryson's just exemplifying that now. And Tygo when he first came out on tour, there's a massive distance bias. We've talked about that plenty of times. Yeah, but I think everyone at home wants to hear that. Like, I mean, in my opinion, I don't think you'll see too many young kids coming from college onto the PGA tour that plague off the way Ches Rievy does. No, there'll always be an anomaly because there's going to be people who are just gifted at playing the

game and great ball strikers. But there's such a distance bias now. People smashing it is just 180 plus ball speed. The kids in college. So you go watch a college event. They're all smashing it. The really good ones are all over 180 ball speed. Colin Moracow might be, and he's faster than you think. They're absolutely smashing it. I mean, Matt Wolfe is kind of, yes, his swing is different, but his bull speeds, what he does, there's plenty of college golfers that do that. So that's what's coming. We know more now about generating speed.

Don't worry about where it goes when you're a kid. Our junior programs hit it as hard as you possibly can't. Smash it. Just absolutely kill it because the correlation to earnings and world rankings is far more indicative with driving distance than any other staff. Because you're having a shorter club into the hole you're going to be able to attack the hole

and golf courses, the typical golf course you play, so they played Boston, they're playing Olympia this year, and major championships. Hitting the ball a long way is hugely, hugely beneficial because that's what's going to give you a shorter club in, which is going to allow you to have a higher angle of descent, which is allowed you get more control, keep the ball below the hole, easier pups.

Like it's a very much of a knock-on domino effect. People don't necessarily think of that, but smashing it until they, they roll the ball back or do something else, which they shouldn't, because the great thing about golf is it, you can go into your pro shop and buy a tightless pro v, the same golf ball that Chez Revy's playing or that Jordan Spee's playing or Adam Scott's playing. And you can play the same golf courses, which is what makes golf unique and why we all love it so much. But with that push for like distance right now, which we're seeing more than ever, you got

Bryson doing what he's doing, all the DJ just what he did this past week, you know, 30 under, are you seeing more of your students coming to you? Like, I need some. more ball speed? Like is that is that an emphasis for the guys that are already on the PJ tour and do hit it a long ways but they're like I need more. Yeah definitely and some people have the speed but they're not scared but they're apprehensive to use it because we all grew up in a culture of you have to hit the ball pretty straight. Hitting it in the rough doesn't matter if you've got a short club where you can create spin like a wedge out the rough assuming the rough is not like hey is it going to be a lot easier to get it closer to the hole than it is going to be with

the four-iron that's 200 yards, 225, 30 yards back. And so I think that the more of that, you're going to see more and more of that, and everybody wants to hit it further. Charlie is a good example of that, right? The Seagull, not to give him a compliment, but Charlie's like being playing golf with a V6, but he's really got a V8 or a V12 under the hood. So now he realizes, hey, I got to open it up,

and I do a lot of work at TPI and they're part of Charlie's team. and we were there a couple of weeks ago and like, Greg, all the stats, we're showing Charlie driving distance is the correlator, right? And Charlie can get it up to 126, 127, no problem. Oh my God, really? So, yeah, so... What needs to do that?

100%. But again, it's that, in your mind, it's like, oh, is that going to make it go sideways? Well, actually, Charlie's 3D numbers, his track man delivery, everything is better when he goes faster. It's more dynamic. So, yes, everybody's... That's what people want.

Colts seen all the technology we have, 3D, force blades. People want to hit it further. Hitting it further, the physics of that is not that hard. The tough part is whether people can trust it and be willing to do it. So you say Charlie can get to 126. Obviously, that's going full bore all out. Like what before you started doing this? What would he be at in tournament competition?

What he was 115 and then he sent me a screenshot this week of, and when Charlie, he came on tour he was one of the longest hitters that's a lot that's 10 11 miles an hour yeah so then he um sent me a screenshot saturday morning before he played at boston and he goes we're getting it and he showed me the radar numbers and i think one was 119 and maybe one was 120 and he guys i still got more so again it's like he we talk about he's got like a cruising speed at the moment so he played on a wednesday evening in a you know there's a little four-man scrambly things they do for charity.

And Cameron Champ was playing. And Champ, the thing is the 12th or 13th, 12th hole that down hit one where they had the stupid fairway bunk because they got rid of him. So him and champ, I'm sure Cameron probably ate it off the bottom. Sorry, Charlie.

But they were neck and neck. Charlie, Cameron was about 3.11. Barnsey shot with a laser and he was about 313. So Charlie claims he won. But he was up there with. him and the others were back. So he's got it in there. So that's, it's seeing yourself do it, right? We, you know, you want to create a fact in practice so that you believe that you can do it. And once you've done it, now you have the confidence you can stand up there and do it again.

And so I tell all my members, swing really hard. Golf clubs now are really golf balls and golf club technology make it really easy to hit it pretty straight. So a 10 year old golfer that shows up at one of your academies and has never played golf or just beginning in golf. You're teaching that kid. Let's learn to hit it as far as you can. and foremost, we'll learn to hit it straight later. 100%. And it's completely different with different things. Like I like doing martial arts,

and that's slow to learn something. Golf is, and then you get the speed as you get more proficient. Whereas golf is, I'm all about, let's get it going a long way, let's learn to create speed and energy, and then I'll teach you how to make it go straight afterwards. But do you think that's good for the game? Because earlier you said, like, obviously you can hit it closer with a wedge out of the rough than you can, a five or six.

iron out of the fairway. Do you think the way this is going, this is good for the game of golf? I just think athletes evolve. I mean, if you look at Roger Bannister in the four-minute mile, and then you look at what people do now, if you look at Usain Bolt, and then you look at other things. It's just like it's evolution, right? And we get better. I would like to think us that are on the, we're not the ones that hit the shots, so by no means that coaches can take the credit. It's all the player. They're the one in the battle doing the stuff. But you'd like to think that the ancillary people behind, we're better at coaching, we're better at conditioning, we're better at creating athletes and golfers are becoming more athletic.

I mean, look at Dustin Johnson. He's a full on athlete. And when golfers look like that, and I think they're going to from a younger age, and they look more like baseball players, those guys are going to look relatively, the 200-mile an hour ball speed thing will not be anything that's unnormal. I think it will be what 180 is now 185. I think it's just a matter of time unless there is a rollback, which I don't think they necessarily should be. I mean, I just think everyone should just get on with it.

Just another reason I'm happy I'm sitting right here. It's changed. Like you said, when I grew up, when you grew up, it was like, you got to hit it straight. You can't do anything unless you, that's all I learned to do as a kid was hit it straight. And now it's like opposite. Just hit as hard as you can. We'll figure out how to hit it straight. And Mark Brody, you're like, the further forward you are, there's a, and I don't know exactly the math on this,

but there's a correlation to like offline relative to how far you go, assuming it's inside the out of bounds stakes, right? So if it's in a hazard or it's out of bounds, it's irrelevant. It's not useful. But rough is the further down there it is, the rough becomes really, they tried to change the grooves to sort of offset that. But players are too good. I mean, imagine if you knew that you're going to hit it like Bryson,

you'd figure out, okay, well, maybe I need to put in a 70-degree wedge. Like there's ways around it, like just, simple math and physics to be like, okay, well, I can offset that. I might be in the rough, but if I'm delivering enough loft, now I'm going to get the ball coming in soft enough. Yeah. And when you're out of a PJ tour event, you walk up and down the range and there's tons of teachers there working with a bunch of different students and all this.

Do you all ever say, like, say you have a player that's struggling and you can't get through to him, do you ever reach out to say another teacher and be like, can you maybe take a look at my guy or maybe bounce ideas off other coaches? Yeah, I think there's a lot more sharing that goes on than you, would think and you're always asking questions to try and help your people. So the players that you've got, your goal is you want them to play better. Like we're all pay, well, I'm paid on commission. So if my guys don't play very well, I'm not making any money. So I don't think it's, sorry. I don't, I don't, but you're investing in the player. Like you take players on because

you believe they're like a stock. You think they're underperforming and then you think that you can get them to perform better if you're competent or what you do. So I have no problem with that. But at the same time, you're asking other instructors if some certain coaches are good at certain problems, I think, they're good with certain types of personalities. So if you have somebody that might be slightly out of your wheelhouse that you've kind of ended up coaching, it'd be foolish not to ask those people. And if you look at surgeons in the medical world, they consult each other all the time. But the trouble in golf, there's a lot of egos involved, so people will get better out of shape. And I try and be relatively objective about it. Certain coaches are really

good at some things, and I think they're not good at others. I think I've got some strengths. I know I have some weaknesses. So there's certain players and personalities that you're going to do well with. You're really silly not to ask other people. And we spend a lot of time waiting around for our players that are going to, he's very good about being on time. Others aren't. Others aren't. So there's time to interact and ask questions and these phones are fantastic. You put it up, hey, what do you think of that? And I think that that's a good and a healthy thing because that helps everyone play better. That's interesting, though.

I'm glad you asked that question because I was going to ask that too, but there's no, like, the PJ Tour is extremely competitive. I would assume that it's somewhat the same in the teaching level, the teaching world, because there's only a certain amount of you guys that players will trust with their golf swing. So if you had a player that wasn't playing well, you would walk over to so-and-so, John Doe, coach, and like, hey, can you take a little? at my guy, I'm not sure what he's doing, I'm not really getting through to him. And you would be willing to do that? Yeah. And I think the good thing for me is I have a team of really good instructors

in Birmingham too. So we look at video a lot. Like I'll be, what do you think of that? And I spend a lot of time dealing with folks in the science world. And I run it, I try and check, double check, do my due diligence. Does it hold up to scientific principle? Can they physically do it? So there's a lot of people that I'm always consulting before I might give a player a really simple cue like, hey, we need to move the ball back or you need to try and get a little flatter. I'm not going to come to those decisions by just saying it and throwing something up on the wall. It's always going to be based on, okay, everything is, there's no absolutes, right?

They call it practicing medicine. We're practicing golf instruction. Some other instructors might say otherwise, but that's the reality. It's a best-guest scenario based on all the information we have. So at some point, you're, okay, I've done my due diligence. Here I'm going to go. And sometimes you play as cool and they want to work with you. And you go, I'm not the right guy, but you should see this person because they're really good at this.

That's interesting. I wouldn't have a thought that. I have a question. Are you a guy that when you go home after the day's work, can you turn the brain off away from golf? Are you always constantly thinking of ideas? Yeah, I'm probably pretty bad about. I'm probably pretty bad about. Like, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and be like, oh, Chez should do this?

Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, and I'll always go grab something. I'll be in the kitchen and I like to cook, right? Because you can actually create something and finish it. Golf games are never finished. But I'll be picking up a knife and I'll be cutting something and then I'll be doing something and Melissa will look at me and go, what are you doing? Anyway, so yes, I'm always thinking about it.

But I think that that's, if you're into helping people and problem solving, your brain's always racing. Like you're always trying to figure out and you may be the, I might be out on a run and then I might think of something, that would really help jazz, yeah. Just how it goes, your brain's always running. And obviously technology has really, really started to take a big part of instruction in the last decade or so. 100%.

Do you think it's almost too much now? Like players get too much information? Yeah, so that's a great point. So, like, the point of golf is to score. So I think we've lost that in some respects. The person that gets the ball in the hole the quickest is the best player. So as a golf coach, there's teaching and coaching, but as a coach, my goal is to help you build something that will allow you collectively your whole game to score better. Technology has been really good at analyzing what we do to the smallest amount.

But sometimes it's like paralysis by over analysis. So technology is great. I'm a massive fan of it, especially with a club golfer because the feedback is huge. Most good players can tell you what their theme. and their fields are pretty accurate. They're pretty spot-on. Not always, but generally pretty good. The club golfer couldn't find their ass with a banjo. Like they're just... Never heard that. I like it though. I'm going to write that down. So for them, technology is really useful because it's a great feedback tool for them, for them to be able to see field do. So technology

gets a bash and that's not for technology expedites the learning curve for everybody if it's used in the right way. solely reliant on technology and you're standing behind it and you're not even looking at the student because remember teaching is a human interaction but you're not watching it and you're looking down at a screen and you don't even see the ball and you go oh yeah well you did this and the reality no it didn't because the machines have error that's no good but technology is a really useful tool I think it gets bashed by the old guard a little too much I think it gets bashed by some media too much but it's really a tool and I sell everyone,

would you rather go have surgery now with a doctor? I make the analogy with medicine all the time because the medicine is always evolving, but would you rather have surgery now or 10 years ago? I'd certainly rather have it now because there are advances. It's just the same in our world of technology. And I think it's one of those things, it's all about the person that is delivering the information.

If you go have surgery or one of your family members do and it's a really serious surgery, the doctor doesn't come out and start to, talking to you in anatomical terms and what happened. They just make it really simple and they that's what the job is. A good teacher can take the information or coach and make it very simple so somebody can go play golf and execute golf shots and be empowered to believe that they can accomplish what they need to do. Let me ask you this about your teaching philosophy. Like there are guys that are teachers that I've worked with that are Butch Harmon disciples or Mac O'Grady disciples,

right, guys that they pull from their philosophies and they use a lot in their own teachings. Do you have a guy that you look at, like maybe a former teacher or a current teacher even, that you say, that's the guy and I pull a lot of what I teach from that guy? It's a great question. So I would say I am like a musical mutt, somebody that likes rap, country, folk music. They have lots of influences, right? That's me. I never had one mentor. I had lots of people that were very instrumental to me.

But I kind of have gone from everywhere. I haven't had one person. So my original background was kind of in the golfing machine, very technical. Then I kind of spent some time with Mac O'Grady. Everybody gets out with Maco Grady. I did leave on my own terms. And then I spent a lot of time my degree in college was exercise science. So kind of had that.

And then I met Greg Rose and Dave Phillips at TPI. So kind of had the body part. So before matchups were matchups and all these other things, that's kind of, I was looking at, well, if you do this physically, you're going to likely to do this with the golf swing. And so I would say I'm pretty agnostic. When I present, I put up a big slide of, of like a mosque, a Catholic church, a Baptist place.

Like I'm like a mix. I'm very agnostic. I wouldn't say I've had one. I've had lots of people who've been wonderfully generous with their time and have been a big influences, but it's be unfair to say there's one person. The problem with that is I got too many people to mention. Where is Michael Grady? Do you know?

He's probably in Palm Springs or maybe in Japan. I don't know. I learned a lot from Mac and I think he's a, he has. such a big influence on so many things we still see today. But technology has evolved the game and style and what looks pretty isn't necessarily what's the most efficient. And it's all about how do you generate speed and energy? Look at long drivers.

Do they look graceful? Do they look pretty? No, we learn a lot that population. Until there's a change, hitting the ball a long way is very beneficial. Look at the long drive population. The average golfer at a club should just look at the long drive population to see, okay, well, if I want to hit it further, I need to swing further, I need to let my body turn, I need to do these other things.

Done. I'm going to do it. I think Mac O'Grady and Anthony Kim are playing the greatest game of hide and seek in the golf world, any two humans on the point. Every dude is like, well, I heard he was here, but he might be over here. No one knows. Nobody knows what everybody wants to know. All right.

So is it time for emergency nine? Are you got... Yeah, we can fire that? Yeah. I'm absolutely ready. All right. Is it my lead or your lead? Well, we'll start out the one.

We do this with every guest. Nine fun questions. Yeah. Not too serious. We got rid of all the serious stuff. We learned a lot. I learned a shitload. I'm probably pretty boring versus most of your guests.

I learned a shitload today. No, I like this. I feel like I got better. I'm going to start swinging like a long drive dude. That's all I took away from today. You want to hit further? Do that. All right.

Start us off, so least. Number one. All right, number one. We ask this to everybody. If a movie were to be made about your life, what after would you want to play? you. You can pick anyone dead alive. We've had a wide range. Wow. That's a great question. I think our last guest, Sean O'Hare, picked Old Yeller.

That's what the most, actually what he said. He was like, I don't know. I hate myself. I'll be Old Yeller. Oh, man. We've had John Daly say Matt Damon, Gary Woodland, say Denzell, Washington. So there's no right or wrong answer here. You, yeah. And we both give our opinion, too. Yeah, I got a good one for you, I think. You do? Yeah. I want to hear you. Anthony Hopkins. Oh, all right. Class app. Anthony Hoppy.

You want to go or you want me to go? Yeah, this is where I give you a huge compliment, by the way. I have no idea why. Couldn't figure it out. Daniel Craig. Mm. Yeah. Double O.

Yeah, yeah. Got the accent? You want to have to learn how to do that. I did go, yeah, I went British and all that. Yeah, you got to go British. Yeah. That's good. I'll take that as a compliment.

That is quite nice for me. I heard what I think he's handsome. Yeah, there you go. I'm in a similar vein to that one. I'm going to go Jason Statham. And I would like to preface that by saying, Either one of these guys that plays you, you're going to need to get in gym a little bit. And that's not to you.

You obviously take care of yourself, but you've got some work to do, some HGH or something needs to be in play. All right. Number two, right now on the PJ Tour, you got Chez Revy, Kevin Chappell, the Seagull, Charlie Hoffman. I need you to rank them in order of most high maintenance. One, two, three. Oh, no. Yep, you got to. I think I know.

They're all tied first. They're all queens. Okay, who's the easiest? they're all easy in their own way. And they're all difficult in their own way. Correct. This is a very political, political answer. But I will say this, right?

Like the players you end up working with, just like Cole, they be, you don't start their business relationships, but you end up developing and you think of them, I think of them a bit like my kids. So the things that you don't necessarily initially like about them, you end up, man, it's kind of their nuances and how they are. And everybody is different to how you perceive them. And they're all very, all those three guys are super generous, super fun to be around. But they're all equally as high maintenance in their own way.

But Charlie's a disaster. Yes. I'll end that. No. All right. Kidding for it. All right. Next question.

Give me one American slang word you use all the time and one English slang word that you still use to this day. Oh, no. Are you a y'all guy? Y'all. I use y'all along. I like y'all in an English accent. Y'all and thick slang.

fixing. Fixing two, yeah. I can't. There's plenty English ones I use, but they're not suitable for here. No, they're all suitable. I heard a good one the other day that I'd never heard before when someone's like under the gun, under pressure, guys called it under the pump. Is that a common thing or did he make that up? Under the cosh would be another one. Under the cosh. What is the cost exactly? Just it's an expression under the cosh. I would say, no, under the cosh is fine. I'm not, I'm not going to use any. There's some words, okay, that they're used in the US. Like, you're just saying something that's pretty non.

It's not offensive. Wanker would be one that gets said a lot. That's not a word that you should really say very much. Wanker bad if you say it to someone in London. How offensive is that on a 10 scale? Yeah, it's not. Yeah, I mean, it's not. If you call someone a wanker.

I'm going to start saying it. If you call someone a wanker, that's not great. But people say all the time, they'll just make... Oh, there's so many good words. Yeah. Yeah, not suitable for this. Wanka. No, no.

Yeah, we'll work that into our next one. Sean O'Hare was a little bit of a wanker. In a literal thing. Yeah. Figuratively and literally, oh, there we go. Which ranking system is more inaccurate? The official world golf rankings or the top 100 teachers list? I'm going to be really careful here.

I think they could probably, they're both the best we have right now. What an answer. All right, whatever. Next question. The top 100 teachers are fantastic and the top 100 players are fantastic. That's well said.

Can't argue that. They should be mixed up a little bit. Maybe juggle that around a little bit. That's probably up for debate. I'm sure some people would say the same thing. Okay. Fair enough. All right.

This is a little philosophy I want to, I'm willing to give to you to use your pupil. So the big thing that's tough to simulate in golf practice is being under the gun, under the pump, under the Kosh or the pump. With adrenaline and all that. Do you think it is a good idea when practicing to drink three Red Bulls right before you go out there and then start practicing putting? Is that a good way to simulate what it's like under the Kosh? Because I did it and I think it's a pretty good method that nobody's utilizing. And I want to give it to you being that you're the teacher. of the year and I think it could add to what you do.

Well, if you're someone that doesn't get amped up, then it's probably a bad thing. If you're someone that gets highly amped up, it's probably a very effective training tool, yes. I think you're spot on. Maybe use that with some of your boys. Maybe the sequel would like to try that out one time. Next time he's under the gun. All right, well, staying on the topic of the sleaze, you've seen him play some golf. Yeah, yeah, I have.

Which current or former tour player does his swing, or just golf game in general remind you of? Oh, dude, I called it one time. time. We played golf. I said it's... I believe you said Troy Merritt. Yes! I was looking for Rory McElroy. That's incorrect. That's the one I get a lot. Are you still sticking with Troy Merritt? You almost won a couple weeks ago. I was world number one for a week, dude.

You did, I heard, I did hear a rumor that you beat the world number one player. Let's not make it a big deal. If you want to talk about for a while, then that's fine. The 17 hole was not 18, but I heard it. It was 18. It was full and I didn't even warm up. No big deal. Troy Merritt, is that the answer? Yeah, true, very similar, similar move. I don't know if he hits big enough bombs. I want to be a bomber. You're not a bomber.

I was looking for. But you know what, though? Now you have the long drive tip. I'm expecting a metamorphosis of your golf swing. Good call. My left heel is going to be up. Now there is a great idea. Respect.

You've got these long levers. I have huge levers. You should have this big, long golf swing. Lift that front foot up. You might end up with a back fusion, but don't worry. If I had gotten to you a few years earlier, my career could have been a lot different. but there's a guy in town here that ruined me and I want to bring up his name,

but I think we all know who I'm talking about. Could have been something special. Could have been something special. All right. All right, next question. Is your biggest accomplishment as a teacher getting Derek Anderson to become a legit scratch handicap? Because I think you deserve like a medal of honor for that. Oh, D.A. is the best.

Nice as human on the planet. Yeah. Is golf games trending for sure? We've got to get him to a plus golver then and I'll have accomplished something. Please, get shooting some numbers right now. Legitimate, like I've seen Paul. posted. That's probably because I haven't messed with him recently, but no, he's, the chap, he's probably got him under control, but no, DA's the best.

Is there anyone that wants to be better at golf more than Derek Anderson? Yeah, that's a good question. That's not one of the questions. That's just a... No, I don't think so. He's... He loves it. He's awesome. Practices it all the time. All right, number eight, since you have moved to America, are you now a real football fan, or do you still like that game where everybody chases each other around and plays keep away? I'm a massive, massive football fan. You know, I'm a big Saints fan.

I'm an Auburn fan, Southern Miss fan. I do like English football too. My team Liverpool did win, just win the Premiership for the first time ever. But no, I'm a Sundays, Saturdays. I am a big college football fan. One of the first times we really hung out was in New Orleans, Saints Cowboys. Absolutely. We have a time.

We did have a time, especially because of the same school. Hello, I bet you had a good time. he's a lot of fun to do those sort of things with yeah he's good you just have to tell him about it the next yeah that's true no no he was good he was on his best behavior i remember that one actually okay saints fan that's a good team to be rooting for right now all right last question when you're working with the seagull who we referenced mr charley hopper do you find he responds better when you reward him with special treats like a piece of bread or bird feed good swing good swing here's a piece of bread do it again no he does better if you reward him with probably

cigars and wine. He'd be very good with that. You've got to get good rewards. Yeah, throw some nuts at him next time. Hey, good swing. Awesome. Well, Mark Blackburn, the 2020 PGA teacher of the year. Thank you so much. That was an absolute pleasure. Glad to be on here. Thanks for your time. You'll do a great job. Everybody check out the subpar podcast.

That's the man. Appreciate you. Boom. That was great, dude. Awesome work. And that was PGA of America, teacher and coach of the year. Mark Blackburn joining us on golf subpar and sleighs. I'll be honest. My favorite question of the whole thing was when you asked him, how are you rewarded Charlie Hoffman? You got to know how to incentivize your guys. And when you're working with a guy like the Seagull, you got to know what he likes. And shout out to Mark Blackmun for dealing with the Seagull on a day-in-day-out basis. I wish that on no man. He's an absolute trooper. I love it. He was great. And I hope everyone learned a lot from him. First of all, I learned that he actually slept in the maintenance shed back in the day, which absolutely blew my mind. I was like, Mark, I didn't know times were that rough.

you sleeping in a metal shed. How about that? That's some mini tour stuff right there. That's the real deal of Holyfield. Hard enough to pull chicks when you're playing on the mini tour because you got no money, you got no nothing. It's even harder when you try to get one back. And you're like, oh, here I live in this maintenance shed.

Don't mind the range balls and the dudes working downstairs. It's totally fine. So, something that wasn't so fantastic was the results of the gambling contest last week. When you stole my number one pick. But I'll give it to you. Congratulations. you do have the honor this week. But this week, we're going to do it a little different.

The standings are very close. I believe you're down $483,000. But producer, Mark, can you explain how we're going to do it this week with a different format in the Tour Championship? Yeah, so we didn't really think ahead to how this would end on the Tour Championship. So we're on the fly here. So we're going to have a group A of numbers 1 through 5, which I've randomized. So Colton Drew will give me a number, and that will be their pick.

Same with 6 through 10, and then they'll each get an individual pick from out inside the top 10. Drew has $483,000 to catch up. And next week we'll have a winner. All right. Well, I like the way we're doing this. And producer Mark, blink how many ever times what spot you have Dustin Johnson at. This is this is so suspect, dude. It's the ultimate week. Everything on the line. You guys are in the same room and we're doing random picks. I'm getting jobbed on this deal. No question. Slees, you take a vacation during work week. This is what happens. You get punished. Fair enough. I know there's some shitty stuff going on in there. So I will, I will appeal this to the hilt if I happen to lose, but I'll go with it right now.

Well, just go ahead and mail in your appeal from Bandon Dunes. We'll see you when we get it. It'll be there in about a month. You won last week, so you get to pick first. All right. I get my first random number. All right, my random number in honor of the great Lidaney and Thomason, TCU, San Diego Charger, great. I'm going with number five. Number five has just earned you Justin Thomas. Oh, could be worse. Okay, could be a lot worse. Let's go. Oh, boy. All right, Mark. some signals here. I need something good. All right. Well, I feel like I'm gonna be number one at the end of this. So I'm just gonna go with number one and see where, see if he

left DJ up there. Well, uh, all conspiracy theories out the windows because number one gets you Webb Simpson. Oh, that's fine. Damn. All right. Pretty even, dude. Coming off, coming off week should be rested up and ready to go. All right. Even split there. So now we go to six through 10 and because I love Billy Bob because he's a 10, I'm going to go number 10. Arguably one of the most consistent players throughout this year, Daniel Berger. I'll take it. I'll take it. That's a nice scoop.

All right, I'm going to stay with my trend of all-time favorite football players. I'm going to go number seven for the great Jonathan Elway. Who we got? Hedekhi Matsuyama. He's going to shoot a million this week. Did you see how he hit it on the weekend? Would have been the guy I would have picked, so that's a little sticky. Okay.

All right. All right. Now we're going to go to the bottom part. Number is 20 through 30, and we actually get to pick our guys there. So this is where I believe we can overlap. So it doesn't matter you or I go first. From 20 to 25. I will go ahead and start it out with a man who went to school.

Not too far from there. He's a bulldog. I look for him to make a big push this week. Kevin Kisner. is my number three pick this week. All right, Kevin Kisner, that's a good pick. That is hard to argue with, actually, that would have been my pick, but I'm sticking with my theme of never overlapping with you.

So I'm going to go with the next best option, I believe, starting at minus one. And that's Abe Answer. Great Iron Player hasn't been quite as nails as he was earlier in the season, but I can't have the same guy as you, so I got to go somewhere. And I think the next specs off. Next best option is Abe Answer out of that category. Wow, absolutely. No love for Tony Fino.

I thought for sure you would go that direction. That's shocking to me. All right, but it's on to 26 to 30. The guy's coming in at even par. They have 10 shots to make up, so they're going to have to really press the gas pedal. I'm going to let you do the honors on the 26 to 30 guys. Okay, 26 to 30.

I really like this guy. He just snuck in on the number. He's got nothing to lose whatsoever and got a pretty damn good track history around here, Coltie, if you remember. But Mr. Billy Horshaw, the Florida Gator, got to go with Billy Boy. Yep.

He's been known to make some good runs in the FedEx Cup play. I like that pick was also a guest of Gravy in the Sleas on SiriusXM, PGA Tour Radio this past week. Correct. All right. For my final pick, I'm going with the man who's battling it out for rookie of the year with Scottie Sheffler, the man who loves himself some hobby metal, Victor Hovlin. He's going to have a big week around East Lake and hopefully make me some cash so you have to

carry my bag here soon at Whistbarock Golf Club. Take that thing light, brother. Hobby was the right pick out of there on the side going, you know what I'm shocked by? Neither of us took Mark Leashman and as good a form as he's in right now. I really liked what I saw there at the BMW, gutted it out to a plus 30 finish. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And there's nothing worse than a no cut event when you got to play four rounds and you just have no sense of form whatsoever. First off, neither of us should ever shit on guys' performances.

We're the ones talking about them. So don't ever hate on Mark Gleashman. He's a fantastic player. He's just a little funk right now. Dude, if anyone can relate to plus 30 and hating every single second of being out there, it's a sleaze man right here. I've done it before. All righty.

Well, that was a lot of fun. Best of luck to you at the Tour Championship Sleeves and also out at Bandon Dunes. Hope everyone has a great week and we'll talk to you on next week's golf subpar.