Subpar - Michael Thorbjornsen talks finishing 4th at the Travelers as an amateur and how he would’ve spent the 400k in prize money

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

On this week's episode of GOLF's Subpar, Stanford standout Michael Thorbjornsen joins former PGA Tour pro Colt Knost and jicky jack legend Drew Stoltz for an exclusive interview. The 'Thunder Cub' talks his nerves finishing 4th at the 2022 Travelers Championship, what he would have done with the $400K in prize money and making the cut at the U.S. Open at just 17 years old.   -- Thanks to our official sponsor Dewar's. Make sure to check out their Reserve Bar listings today: https://www.reservebar.com/collections/house-of-dewars    As we always say, Rokform is the #1 speaker in the game today.   Visit http://rokform.com and use promo code SUBROK25 at checkout for 25% off your entire order.

Hello world. Welcome back to golf subpar. Colt Nost and Drew Stoltz coming at you. And we got another dominating victory on the PGA Tour sleeves. Russell Henley down at Myakoba, your old stomping grounds. He made me proud. He made me proud down there. It's fun watching him. I was like, that's what I would have done with the right clubs. That's what I would have done. Vote race 63, 63, 65. That's what I would have done, I feel like. For those that don't know, your one PGA tour event was Myacoba. You decided to take $5,000 from a club company to switch just driver?

Driver three wood hybrid just anything with graphite all the shit you need to hit really straight out there I was like five grand might as well be a million you got it I didn't even play I played my practice around with you I believe I played my practice around with you and Dre that week and then the club company came afterwards and I wasn't playing the next day or maybe it was Wednesday already I only hit the thing on the range I was like I am it's pretty good I mean I'm talking no track man no nothing it was the dumbish I mean I'm an idiot that was the dumbest shit I've done in my life and I proceeded to blow it into the mangroves there's no way that I didn't lead the field in penalty strokes. And I had a Sevee like first day out there to shoot like 74.

I mean, it was just scrambling from everywhere. Someone actually sent me a screenshot on Instagram this week. Like, was digging into your Maya Cobra run. Look who you beat. And down like a few spots lower than me was Joel Damon, actually. So I clipped Joel. I didn't think I beat hardly anyone. Well, you didn't this week.

And Joel's figured the place out a little bit more sensitive. A little T3 for Joel this week. Yeah. But man, what an interesting decision that was for you. I mean, after the practice, I was like, God, this guy might win. Then you switch your driver three wouldn't hybrid. Never mind. I was just hitting low knuckle balls with my driver. I was like, yeah, that's not only, that's perfect out there in February, by the way. Well, a little different ball game this time of year. Well, Russell Henry,

Russell Henley led the field in driving accuracy. He is one of the best iron players on the planet and he had a hot putter this week. So therefore it leads to a pretty dominating performance. Had a six shot lead going into the final round. Helpful. Claims, you know, he's like, I slept terrible, obviously, because all you can sit there and think about is, okay, how do I not fuck this one up? What if I lose? What if I gag or if somebody can't, because there was low numbers being fired around that. I mean, shit, he shot 63, 63. There was 62 from Will Gordon earlier in the week.

It's like, it's out. Somebody could do it. There's only a couple guys that could even possibly catch me. But if one of them catches fire, shoots a 63, like it ain't done. I might have to go play around to golf. But, yeah, six-shot lead going into Sunday better than not a six-shot lead. Write that down. It's good advice.

Okay, perfect. Well, and I would say probably more importantly, your TCU Hornfrogs remain. undefeated, still have a chance for the college football playoffs. Can you believe it? Just the shocker of the millennium. The boys just keep doing it. They keep doubting us. We keep doing it.

We've got big game, large game this week down in Austin. Six and a half point dogs, by the way. Quinn Ewers, boy, look out. Yeah, we got game day coming down. The lights will be on. The lights will be bright. Just how we like it. The world keeps doubting us.

Even the little podunk committee couldn't pimp us this week because three of the top six lost. What are you going to do? Not move us up. They had to. We got to win all 13. I don't know that we're going to, but it's already been a better year. Sunny Dykes, what, didn't love the hire, admittedly, when it happened, but just goes to show you, get the guy, the talent he deserves, TCU type talent, he can turn that thing around.

Jesus. Big week. What a weekend it was. We had Tennessee, Georgia, with Georgia, putting on our very convincing. I thought it was going to be this shootout. It was going to be a lot of fun to watch, and it just, luckily I was in Nashville, so I didn't really care what the football was like. I was having a great time. But it definitely didn't live up to the hype of the game, in my opinion.

Now, LSU Bama That made up for it a bit. And I'll be totally honest because we're in the trust tree. I don't remember all of it, but I know they lost in overtime to a two-point conversion. On a two-point conversion. It was a good one. And the overhit on that, by the way, another greasy dub. Other good thing about the Tennessee Bama or Georgia game, they underhit, which was the pick of the week, hit by a million.

By the way, but you missed, I'm sure you watched it. You just don't recall it. You missed a hell of a game. You were with Smiley down there at the nuptials for JT. I texted Smiley like two seconds after the. two-pointer. I was like, oh my God. He writes back like 10 seconds later, we've lost contain. I was like, all right, go get them, but. Well, before we get to the Doers moment of the week, this is actually a special moment in whiskey history because Doers is releasing the all-new Doers'

12-year-old whiskey. Doers has really invested the time to make a truly special Scotch whiskey. Like all the time you put in at the range to perfect your swing. The new Doer's 12-year-old whiskey is double-aged and finished in first-filled bourbon cast for a flavor profile full of fruit, vanilla, floral notes, and spice. Earned a 90, $19. a 84 point rating from whiskey cast and a 93 point rating from whiskey advocate. Give it a swing and please enjoy responsibly. Now the doers moment of the week and I got to give a huge shout out to the new Justin and Jillian Thomas.

I was lucky enough to be in attendance in Nashville this past weekend at their wedding. So please, it was a time. Set the table for me. Who boy. Dig in. I'm here. I'm here to ask questions. You can ask all the questions you want. MVP of the week goes to who.

Boy, there was a lot of people that put their name in the running, including myself. Kevin Kisner, Gary Woodland. Smiley was okay. He was on fire at the wedding, but I don't think he brought it for 48 hours. Okay, Smiley, we're gonna have to, we're gonna tighten that up. Steven Speeth, solid performance. He's tough.

He's the one seed going in. He's Duke. He's Duke heading into that thing. Yeah, there was a lot of people having a great time at an incredible event out at Trubodore Golf Club. Got to play some golf, had a welcome party. Obviously, the wedding. The house I stayed at, my buddy Ryan Johansson gave me.

consisted of myself, Gary Woodland, Kevin Kisner, and then we adopted Daniel Berger. Good. It's always nice to have a little hospitality. Bring in a lost puppy. Every single minute of the day was just nonstop comedy. Just abusing each other, making fun of each other nonstop. It was so much fun. And then we topped it all off by heading to downtown Nashville on Saturday for college football.

After my three weeks, buddy, Vegas, Thailand, Nashville. I'm glad to be home. Rest the bod, son. It's time. The bod. You got to treat the bod right. Get you some Zs. Get you some vitamin C, those little emergencies or whatever they are.

Those are helpful. I've had a lot of IVs in the last few weeks. Get back right. Those are game changers. Aren't they? Those are ones you get. You're like, I'm dead. I can't go today.

There's nothing happening. Get that thing? It's like a light switch. Oh, yeah. I'm actually good. The girl that came to my house to do it after Thailand, she's like, what all do you want? I was like, everything you got.

Just put everything. that bag. You know when you're a kid and you go up to the soda pot machine, Coke machine, and you just hit a little bit of everyone. We used to call it the suicide. I don't know what y'all call it. Uh, I want that's what I want. Just make me feel good. I want the energy. I want the nutrition. I want the caffeine. I want everything you got. You got a little crack, sprinkle that in. I'll make it work. Just I need it all. There's nothing you could put my body to make me worse right now. But it's say that. It seriously, it was a beautiful wedding, star studded event. I mean, Jordan Speeth was the best man.

Roy McEloy was in attendance. Morgan Wallen was there. Heard of him. Um, it, it, it was was an honor to be there and I had so much fun. I hope I don't want you to have another wedding, but can we just go back to Nashville again? Yeah. We can celebrate anything we want. Yeah. Anything we want. Names for days out there at that thing.

It looked like, or I've heard from people that were in attendance. It was fun. I'm sure that's a week. You got to take a little time, decompress. You know, it's nice too because, you know, Justin's obviously a rather big deal. And so he made it where you had to check your cell phones. And so I feel like when you, the cell phones are away, everyone can play. And you get to be yourself.

I know, like, oh, is that going to show up? If you got people like that at that thing, that's the only way to go. You can't have some like oopsies. That affects lives. It was cool. So congratulations or cheers, just an issue. Cheers moment of the week. I'll give you a quick one on me.

It's not as good as that, but I'm officially a NASCAR guy. I went to a NASCAR race this week. Don't ask me why. Went with some people. They needed to go to it. And oh my God. It is a production. We showed up to this thing.

It's out in like Avondale, like West Phoenix. Someone told us right now at this moment, This is the, I believe they said, the third largest city in Arizona. I mean, there were trailers and RVs and stuff for days. You go in there, 80,000 jam packed into this thing. We get there, drink a lot of cold beer. You just drink a lot of cold beer and sit and watch people go in circles. I was trying to figure out the whole thing.

I pretty much, I was like, how you pass anybody? All the cars go the same speed. Everyone goes on the same track, how you get around. It's a different base, but I'm officially an NASCAR guy now. Joey Legano is your champagne. Like a number 22 car. 22 car was running good. cold 22 was running good bad day to be a cold bear bad day to be cold beer 22 run good

so i'm an ass car guy i'm just gonna take your word for it i'm not the biggest nascar guy but i'm i've been to one and i know one racer and now i'm an askar guy officially all right well this week we sit down with a young up-and-coming superstar michael thor biornson still in college over at stanford this man finished fourth at the travelers championship on the pga tour made the cut at 17 years old at the U.S. Open. He's won the U.S. junior, the Western Amateur. I mean, the kid is a future superstar in the game of golf. Here he is. Michael Thorbiornson on golf subpar. All right, folks, we got a star in the making joining us here today. He's the fifth ranked amateur in the world. He won the Western Amateur. He damn near won a PGA tour event this past

summer, and he's only a junior at Stanford on a pretty decent trajectory, I would say, thus far. Michael Thor Biornson joins us. What's up, Michael? How are you, bud? doing well guys thanks for having me yeah thanks sir thanks for joining us congrats on all the success but before we get into that I want to go back to when you first had a golf club in your hand because I heard this story is rather

interesting yeah um I think well this is what my parents told me at least because I don't have any memory of this but I think I might have been close to like eight months old or something just wow it's good sitting down in my home in Cleveland with a couple plastic clubs

and yeah, I have no memory at all. But just sitting down, couldn't even stand up at the time, just lacking my plastic clubs around. And I guess that's where it all started. That's incredible. Take us through, though, like your early start into golf. Like, were y'all members at a club? Did you, were you just a range rat?

Like, how did you get into the game? Right. So I'd probably have to say through my parents, they picked up the game before I was born. and they both fell in love with it. So I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, lived there for four years. My first round of golf was when I was two years old. Played 18 holes.

I can't tell you that. I can't remember. I'm not sure if my parents know or not, but they probably do. Then we moved over to Massachusetts when I was four or five years old. played in my first tournament. I think it was a U.S. kids event when I was five years old and kind of been playing tournament golf ever since. We belonged to the Harmon Golf Club in Rockland, Massachusetts,

probably from when I was six, seven years old, up until I was 12. It's like 45 minutes from my house. So it was kind of a commute to get there, but I spent numerous hours throughout the summer, on half days when we had them during school. And I'd say that's where I probably developed into a pretty decent golfer and really knew from there that golf is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. Yeah, and you're doing it now.

Before we get too deep into your background and your story and all that, like the media likes to call you Thunder Cup. That's kind of like the nickname they're giving you. What are your boys call you? Like, what are the guys on the team call you? I mean, it's kind of up to them. They call me Michael. They call me Mike.

My friends, like my close friends have, like, given me, like, a nickname, like, Mao, like, M-A-A-L. Just like, it's kind of short for Michael. Just abbreviated, I guess. No Thor, though? No one calls you Thunder Cub? Like, hey, Thunder Cubs. Not my close, close friends, but people do call me Thor. A lot of people do.

My Thunder Cove actually started at IMG. academy where one of our coaches he told me is like you know your last name translates to the son of a thunder bear like oh i've actually never really thought about it but yeah that that adds up that's awesome i would go by thunder i would call you i'm gonna do you mind if we call you thundercup because it's too good to not call you that okay you mentioned i mg though because for the people that don't know i mean that's that's basically high school where it's just all sports i mean you go there for golf. What was it like for you there compared to going to, I know you went back to your senior year to Massachusetts to go to high school. What was it like going to IMG versus a regular high school?

Oh, it was quite different, I'd say. I mean, it was almost, it's pretty similar to college. You don't really have much supervision from like your parents. So you really got a, I guess just focus. Yeah. In a way, um, focus on yourself, just like really make sure you got a schedule going. because no one's going to be telling you to do your homework. We did have scheduled practice, but I thought it was a good preparation for college at least so you know what you need to get done and when you need to do it.

So we had a pretty set schedule throughout the whole year where I had school in the afternoon and practice in the morning. So from probably 7.30 to 11.30, we were practicing either playing the golf course and workouts are included there as well. And then probably like an hour and a half break to get some lunch, shower up, finished a little bit of schoolwork before school started at like 130 or so and then from 1.30 to 6 when we had class. Class stuff gets in the way.

I feel like the world kind of first heard your name when you won the Drive Chip and Put at Augusta National. Take us through that. I mean, were you 14 or 15 at the time? I know that's the division you're in. I'm not sure if I was 13 or 14, but it was around there. I was probably 14th. Okay.

Yeah. But as a 14 year old kid, going down Magnolia, you know, being at Augusta National, what was that experience like? It was unreal. I can still remember now my mom. I was sitting next to my mom in the van. And her, she loves taking pictures and videos all the time. And this is probably the one time where I didn't scold at her saying, mom put the phone

away, this, that, because I really wanted to remember it as well. But yeah, I remember driving down in the van. And we got out right in front of the clubhouse. And you have that, what is it, the flower display of the master's logo. And I'm not really sure if people understand, like, how big that facility really is. They have a few driving ranges. They obviously have the par three course and then the course itself out there. But, yeah, I mean, being a 14-year-old going to the place that you see on TV every single year,

the master is probably my favorite tournament. to watch each and every year and just being able to be there with the players hitting balls on the same range that they do at such a young age was really cool now you you play it you have a pretty sick facility there at stanford but how about that the tournament driving range at augustin national is there anything better uh probably not no i mean everything is here there like a single blade of grass is out of place and everything's the same color too so a lot of places have a lot of to learn from that from Augusta yeah that's that's the that's the mecca without question do you remember your stats from drive pitch putt do you remember how far your drive went how close you hit the chip

and the put i think my first drive went maybe like 252 or something 251 like with one yard within the margin on the left side second drive miles right uh pitches were maybe like four and three feet or something and then my first put blasted it by second put hit it maybe like a foot by something like that you know what the putt's going to be right because they do it like the same one virtually every year are you just sitting on is everyone just sitting on the putting green trying to find that exact putt basically and fighting over the same hole because it mimics of the put that it's going to be like move my turn yeah i mean i was watching for three hours before i i teed off um just looking on tv trying to figure out the

break um i mean it's completely different when you step up there that is so cool such an incredible experience. You end up going to Stanford. I believe Tiger Woods is your idol like he has a lot of ours. But was there ever at another school that crossed your mind or was it Stanford all the way? It was basically Sanford all the way. I mean, I was telling people when I was like seven years old that I was going to be going to Sanford. I mean, I did visit Clemson, I was talking to numerous coaches at Bandi and then Duke as well. But it was never really a doubt that I was coming here. When did you commit to Stanford? Because like Colt said, you spent three years at IMG,

then you went back to Massachusetts to go to school there for your senior year. Had you already committed to Stanford at that time when you decided to go back? Yeah, I committed in the fall of my junior year, so like around November. So I had one more year. Yeah, finished off my junior year at IMG and then decided to head back, I guess, take a year off maybe, just to like recharge my batteries because college can be quite grueling, especially with all the tournaments that we're playing. Yeah, and you're a long ways from home, too, going from Massachusetts all the way out to northern California.

But you mentioned Tiger Woods. I mean, we all, I mean, that's the reason I got into the game. Pretty sure that's the reason. Slee's got into the game, and obviously he's your idol. Being at Stanford, he's obviously a huge supporter of the team. Have you got to spend much time around him? Not so much. I haven't seen him out here in the two and a half years or so that I've been here.

But I have, I saw him a few times, Junior Rider Cup, that league golf national, saw him at Junior President's Cup at Royal Melbourne. And then actually saw him a couple weeks ago, actually, at the tailor-made shoot that they do yearly. And I'm not sure if I should be saying this or not, but like, I don't know. I don't know. We'll leave it at that. But yeah, I saw him a couple of weeks ago.

And I think up until, I don't know, maybe that, he shook my hand. And I was like, hi, I'm Michael Thorpe Bjornson. It's like the fourth time I've introduced myself to him over the past four years. And this is the first time he says, like, hi, like, yeah, good to see you, nice playing. And then he was busy. He had to go and do something else. But I'll definitely take that short conversation. You're on the radar.

I guarantee. First off, you play at Stanford. He knows you are. He also watches more golf than probably anyone. So he definitely knows all about your results. So that's cool. How nervous were you going up to him? Quite nervous.

He didn't mean. It's crazy. I mean, Rory was to my left and Tiger. I was, we were talking to Rory a little bit with Stiney. And then Tiger was putting in an outfit change or something. And then just like jumped in for a second, shook all of our hands and then left. But like I, you almost forget like, what your name is or like how to introduce itself, stuff like that.

You can just feel your heart racing. But you, I mean, on the table, did you hit any shots down there? Like, were you hitting shots in front of Rory and Tiger and all that stuff? Or was it just like photos? No, not in front of them. I, we kind of, we're doing our own thing. It was just mostly to see, like, what a photo shoot is like or just like what these guys are doing, like media wise.

Just, I guess, prepare us so we're not so. I guess shocked when we go in to win in a few years. That's really cool. You get to experience that. But I mean, your guy, you've played a couple of U.S. opens. You obviously contended at a PGA tournament. Do you still get, like, in awe when you see these guys hit the golf ball?

Like a Roy McElroy? Yeah, of course. I mean, Rory bombs it. Definitely hits it past me. I mean, just for anyone, if anyone's hitting a good shot, I mean, you envy that. you want to be hitting good shots all the time yourself. But yeah, it's gone to the point where now it's, like, I see that I'm going to, I think to

myself, okay, that's nothing really that I can't do myself. But, yeah, I mean, it's still awesome. I hit Rory, I mean, see Rory and Tiger and all those other guys, stripe it. So, yeah. All right, before we get back to Michael Thor Bjornson, got to tell you, you need to head over to the golf.com pro shop right now and pick you up some bird. Birdie Juice merch. We got the Gravy Bird Hat here. We got the Get Amongst Advisor here, among a lot of other things. And the best news is you don't even need a code. Just go check out. We're automatically going to give you 20% off.

Now back to Michael Thorbiornson. You played a number of tour events, couple of major championships and stuff now. Have you developed a relationship with any of the tour guys, anybody that you can, you know, you text on a regular basis or ask for advice? Like, hey, I'm going through this. What do you do? You got anyone like that on tour right now? A little bit. I'd probably say Mav's the closest guy. He's hung out with us a couple of times on campus. I try not to text away or say too much to them because they have so much more on their plate than me. But, yeah, Mav's been a good resource. Colin the past at the U.S. played a practice round with him at the U.S. Open at Brookline and then had dinner with. with him post Taylor-made Media Day. So I've gotten to know him a little better. He's given me a lot of great advice.

Can credit him partially for the good finish at the Travelers after his advice that he gave me at the US Open. Yeah, I mean, all these guys are really nice and they're always looking to give us advice and try to make us comfortable out there. Just try to be a little nicer than Colin. Okay, he's a little edgy. He'll be a little bit of a prick sometimes.

A bit of a polarizing guy. We'll give you some advice. Be nicer than Colin Morikow and things will be okay. Okay. Always running off at the mouth. Tell us a little about Stanford. Like, obviously, you're there to play golf, but I know you're going to school as well. What kind of classes is Michael Thorbjornson taking?

I'm a communications major. So currently right now, I'm only enrolled in two units. I'm not two units, two courses. I'm taking a virtual reality class, which is really cool. And then another complex. class, American journalism. Not really sure. I mean, virtual reality sounds interesting.

I'm guessing. I'm a big virtual reality guy myself. Yeah. You know, I was, you got them? Throw the shades on? So what goes on in that? How does that work? I don't think a lot of schools have this.

All right. Well, the class for the VR itself. Yeah, both. Like, what do you do? You put that on and you go to class? Yeah, how do you take a test over that? What is that? We go at the dumb schools.

So basically, like, it's its own computer, so you don't need to, like, put your phone in there or anything. Just connected to the Wi-Fi. And so we have class Wednesdays, Fridays for this. Wednesdays, we have lecture in person. So we go learn about VR, what, like, how it can help us, like, medically, like, educationally. And then, I guess, like, the technological parts to it as well, like, how it's improving. And then on Fridays we have our discussion sections where we have some sort of a task that we need to do on VR with three of your groupmates. And we basically, there's this app that we go to is called Engage where we all log in and we can see like our classmates.

So we're in a group of four. I see my three classmates every Friday and we are trying to like build like a meditation room or whatever it may be. Yeah. All right. We're officially in the future. Yes. We've arrived in the, we're technically now in the future. Give me this because, like, your fifth in the world or amateur golf rankings,

you're a big deal in the golf world. You got Roe-Jang who's there right now. She's dominates. It seems like everything she does there. You also got a ton of people at that school that are going to be, they're going to invent Uber or something like that. Who's the big man on campus at Stanford? Like when they walk around, like, oh, it doesn't even have to be an athlete.

I assume with all the people that are there, I assume. Is there one? There are definitely a lot. I'm trying to think. Because the football's not thumping like it was. I would assume Christian McCaffrey in his day was probably like, that's the dude. Right. Or Michelle Wee was probably like that.

I remember my freshman year. We had Zaire Williams who went straight to the league after one year. He's on the Grizzlies right now. I guess Rose would probably be. I don't think people here at school realize that, yeah, Stanford Women's Basketball is great but the woman's golf team is probably the best team here at Stanford I mean Rose being number one in the world for three years in a row is quite an accomplishment and she's younger than me so that kind of makes me feel old

and I try and learn I'm I learned so much from her that I think it's really cool I'm really excited to see how she does yeah she's incredible looks good yeah actually I did a little Q&A for PJ Junior League with her a few weeks ago here in Scottsdale Got to meet her for the first time. Yeah. She is very much more mature than her age. That is for sure. She's got it all together.

Yeah. So it's really, really cool to see. By that stock. But with how great everything is going, I mean, you're contending in PGA tour events, playing majors. You know, you've won the Western Am the junior. Like, is there any hurry to turn pro at all, or are you wanting to stick around and get your degree? Um, I mean, I'm going to start with saying PGA tour you. that's definitely a very huge incentive to stay before.

I think especially with the new rules or what they're proposing having the top one guy or now the top five guys going straight to the tour or whatever it may be. So, I mean, I'm just trying to focus on how can I get better today, tomorrow, play the best that I can at this next tournament. and it'll be pretty clear to myself. I mean, most importantly to myself, but and to others when that time will be for me to turn pro. So I'm just taking it day by day and we'll see.

I like this PGA tour. You're the talk of them possibly giving out five PGA tour cards. I think that's great. You get kids to stay in school, get their degree. But also, I mean, you go out and have a great year. You get straight to the PGA tour. That's huge. Yeah.

Yeah, keep the best talent on the PGA tour. So like you said that, the PJ Tour, for you, for you, that could potentially change things, right? That and same, but that's only for people listening. Like, that's only for fourth year guys, right? So if you go have a monster junior, you can be the number one kid in college, but you ain't getting out there if you're a junior. There's only for seniors. Do you think that's the same attitude that a lot of these top players have that you have? Like, yeah, maybe I do stay another year and wait for this and maybe go straight to the show. Yeah. I mean, one thing, though, is that the PJ Tour

rankings, they start the summer before your junior year. So junior golf, I mean, junior year and senior year go into it. So how you play junior year, if you play really well junior year, you're going to be on the top of the leaderboard there for BJTORU. But yeah, I mean, with Lyftor out now too, I think, you had a year last year. I think he turned pro. He was supposed to play Palmer Cup turned pro and is on Lyft Tour now. He's won the Lyft Tour, which is really cool to see.

You have David Pooge as well, who foregoed his senior year at Arizona State. And I think he's doing well now there too. But, I mean, everyone has a different plan and what works best for them. So I think for me, at least, what works best is just, I mean, I've been doing well here. I still have another year and a half, two years to soak up all the knowledge that I can for my teammates. from coach and all the resources that this place has. So my plan is to stay. Yeah, tell us a little bit about your dad because I heard he's your swing coach,

a lot like, you know, Zander Shafley and Justin Thomas. They use their dads as their coach. Yeah, my dad has been my swing coach for my whole life, basically. Even when I was at IMG, everyone's like assigned the coach or you're paid up with the coach. My coach, they're Robbie Sherone, great guy, knew a lot about the swing, very knowledgeable. and my dad and him would still collaborate together. So my dad's always been involved.

He's probably one of the smartest guys that I know. And so he actually recently just moved over to the States because he's been away. He's been living in Abu Dhabi for the past, what is it now? I think it was like seven years or so. So kind of hard to work on the swing together when we're just sending videos back and forth. So the last time he got to SOMI play was, I think, the summer of my first U.S. Open in 2019.

Where did he get his golf knowledge from? Just the internet, I believe. He's just such a golf nerd. He's always looking at videos. I mean, that's how he's learned everything, yeah. Does he get to get out and see you play collegiate events now that he's back? Like, we really come on the road and work with you on your swing while you're at events? He hasn't yet, but we've discussed it saying like, okay, if he's in the U.S. now,

like he might as well just come to all these tournaments. But he traveled with me the whole summer, starting with the U.S. Open up until the Western Am. He left just before the U.S. NAM. Beautiful. I want to go to Travelers real quick because you end up finishing fourth there, which is one of the best finishes by an amateur ever, and definitely within most. recently but you had a chance there i mean you you got really hot on sunday i know you made a couple bogeys there early on the back nine but at one point did you look up to leaderboard and be like

damn i might win this thing um yeah i mean it was kind of a blur a little bit after uh yeah eagle seven it was kind of a slow start to the round um hit hit every green like the first six seven holes couldn't make anything. Eagle 7, Tap in Eagle, Part 8, and then Bertie, part 7, birdied 8, 9, 10, 11. And I kind of forgot how many holes I had just played. And then saw on the leaderboard, that was maybe like one or two back or I even looked on nine too. I mean, it was maybe in like third or what I knew I was up there. I knew exactly where I was. But yeah, I mean, thinking about it, I wasn't really thinking about it at the time.

Just trying to focus on, okay, like, wow, there's a lot of people here now. I didn't really realize it until I made my put on 11 for Bertie. And the huge roar from the crowd kind of like shook me like a little bit. It kind of came out of nowhere. Looked up and there was just 10 times more people there were 20 minutes ago. So I was just, I think it was a really good learning experience because personally for me, I probably wasn't ready to win a PGA tournament. I think I was talking to my dad afterward too.

I mean, I personally, I believe that I have the game to be able to finish it off, but just at the time is probably not, it just wasn't due. And what a cool tournament to do it at. I mean, the Travelers Championship is one of the best stops on the PGA tour. They get incredible crowds. I mean, the players are treated unbelievably there. But that's got to be, that had to be incredible. Coming up 18 with all those people, except for this one asshole that's in the crowd every year when I was there,

they likes to heckle me. But other than him, that place is incredible. They get great crowds. Yeah, it was unbelievable. I think I remember at registration, I can't remember who said it, but this one lady who was checking me in, said, yeah, the players love this week. Like, you should really try and come again next year. I'm like, oh, I really hope so.

like I get invited again. But yeah, I mean, there was breakfast, lunch and dinner basically every single day. The caddies had their own dining area, which I think they normally don't get at other tournaments. Just everything about everyone's asking, oh, what can I do for you to make this whole week easier? Like the guys in the locker room at just everything. It's the best tournament that I've played in when it comes to player hospitality. That's awesome. And I know you couldn't win any money clearly because you were playing as an amateur,

but what you would have won was about 406 large. So let's just say hypothetically that would have come into your bank account the following day, direct deposit style. What's the first thing you do with it? You got anything on the wish list? Probably just buy a car. I don't own a car. But I mean, I honestly don't even need a car.

Probably just sit on it. maybe go out with some friends one night. I think... Just sit on at a campus. Sorry? I like it. Yeah. Well, I think that would work.

You're going to have plenty of those very high finishes with massive paychecks. You're going to be just fine. Should we get to the $406,000 car? Just parking on campus and sit on it. Here's some more advice. If that doesn't work, dude, then I don't know what it does. Hold on. Here's some more advice.

Be nicer than Colin Moore Cowell and don't spend all 406 on a car. Okay. Just don't do that. Yeah. Get a watch, too. I can do that. Be like, Be like Kyradek offer Bonride.

If you make 400, spend 800. Yeah, put your back against the wall. It makes you want. It makes you hungry again. That's good advice. All right. Well, Michael, we do this with everyone. We do the emergency nine, some nine fun questions to get to know a little bit more about you.

And we ask this to everyone. And I have a feeling I already know the answer to this one. You can be anyone. Dead or alive for a day. You get to experience their life for one day. Who would it be? I thought for sure you'd say Tiger. I thought it was coming.

Yeah, I mean, that's an easy one. I have to switch it up a little bit. Probably like Stefan Curry, like LeBron. Go with Steph. Yeah, go with Steph. I think he's more likable. Go with Steph. Just go through his warmups.

That would be fun. Yeah. Just to do that one time. It'd be a good little 20-minute stretch there. I thought you'd say Rojang. Maybe I'll go lose a couple tournaments. So the bar isn't so damn high. All right, I give you this because, actually, I'll give you this one

because it relates to what we were just talking. about you didn't like I said you couldn't get the four and six thousand that you would have wanted the traveler so it went to Chesson Hadley did you ever get a thank you note or any sort of gift from Chess and saying thank you for being an amateur? No I have not actually I'll look out for that I'll see him next time I play a tour event I'll ask him about it yeah that's worth something don't you think I think we should bring that up to Chess that's like a that's the standard operating procedure I feel like yeah Michael Michael something yeah Michael's an amort he made

You can raise you an extra 100 grand minimum. Exactly. God. Share the wealth. We're going to have to talk to chess, and you should be expecting something shortly. Great. Thank you.

All right. Next one. You mentioned Rose Zang. I know you are very good friends. Spend a lot of time together there at Stanford. Y'all go out, play best of seven rounds of golf. Who wins?

Me. Good answer. Me. Four. Love that. Do you all play against each other very much? Not really. We normally play with each other,

actually, Oh, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah, that's a good. That's good. Who wants to play? Straight up. Yeah, good luck. Getting some games in that one.

That's a tough one. Good choice, though. You're learning it at a very young age to take one of the best players in the world as your partner. That is smart. Yeah. I mean, you can get two of them on the same team. All right. Massachusetts guy, I know you're a Patriots fan.

Mack Jones or Bailey Zappie. Mac Jones. Oh, wow. That was definitive, too. I just like saying Zappy. Zappie. I still have hope. What he did at Bama was really cool.

So I'm still waiting to see what he does. Yeah. All right. You've been mediocre. Yeah, Bailey's right there, too. Zapster. Just waiting. Waiting in the wings.

All right, next one. You mentioned you don't have a car. So how do you get around campus, Michael? Yeah. I have a scooter or had a scooter. Do you have a scooter? I had a little. A little incident recently.

Yeah, last Wednesday I was at the gym, you know, just trying to better myself. And then I come outside and my scooter's no longer there. So they got stolen. So I've just been walking places and borrowing my friend's scooter who is currently in Florida, or my teammate who's in Florida. And then Ethan, our fifth year, he has a car. So I've just been catching rides with him. Have we had any leads onto who possibly this could have been?

Yeah. Oh. Well, first 48th is for you. I can keep in my eye out, though. Is rampant crime a problem at Stanford? Oh, yeah. It's something. Like, for some reason, there's, I get an email every single week about a stolen bike or a stolen scooter.

So is this like one of those like like bird scooters or what kind of scooter was this? Yeah, it was like a high boy scooter. And electric scooter. I mean, or does it look like all the other way? Like, there are a bunch of these floating around camera. Yeah, I probably got the most basic model. so I won't be able to locate mine if I did. Can you lock these things up or how does this work?

Yeah, I mean, you can lock it up. I mean, I did not lock it up this time. So I guess it's on me. But I've kind of hide it in like the corner of the bike rack and like, I don't know. God. Just Stanford. Can't trust the streets of Palo Alto. I knew it.

Where do the Stanford police department fall in this case right now? Any serious leads? Sorry? Where's the Stanford Police Department on this? They got anybody in mind? No, the perpetrator. I don't know. Maybe something's how.

I don't know. It's going to be kind of hard since there's so many of these scooters around. Be like, that's mine. Be like, no. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. They probably still because it's yours, knowing it'll be worse something coming up.

All right, this is for me, more for me and Colt than anything. But do you know of any, like, tech wizards currently at Stanford or in the middle of some sort of startup that's going to be like the next Facebook or Uber or anything? that we can get on the front end of the IPO? No, I do not know. My roommate, so Carl and I, we shared a suite with one junior, so he's one year above me. His name is Calvin Acker. He started a company or started like a dating app.

I can't remember exactly what it's called, but he's been doing well for himself. Very, very smart guy. I think he's a mechanical engineer. And Carl and I, one time, we're just taking a look at one of his engineering books and close it right away because we just can't understand how someone can learn something like that. These app people, man, it's just unbelievable. Text us the name or message us the name of this app when you figure it out because I would like to be, you can't lose with a dating app. I feel like there's going to be desperate people out there for until the end of time, you know? Yeah, I'll get back to you guys on that.

Done. All right. Well, I don't know if you recently saw. they are announcing, they announced that there's another match coming out. It's going to be Justin Thomas, Jordan Speeth, versus Tiger Woods, and Gordon McRoy. We're putting you in there. You get to pick the other three guys, who you pick him? Or girls?

So am I picking my teammates here, or am I just picking three other? You get to pick your teammate and who you're going up against. Okay. Remember it's for charity, so it doesn't matter if you win or lose. Yeah, it's for the kids. Okay, how about this? I'll take rows of my team. and then we'll put Rory on the other team and then Nellie Korda as his partner.

Okay. Ooh, made for TV. Be good. Be a juicy one. See what that's good. That actually could probably happen in a couple of years. Sit on that for a while. I would like to be on the broadcast for that.

Yeah, sit on that. We own the rights to that now officially. Perfect. All right, last one from me, because we had Michelle Wee on the show here not too long ago. And I believe she told us that at Stanford, her exams were on the, the honor system. Is that still the case? Yes. I don't really take classes to, um, that have exams, but I mean, so my freshman year was the COVID year. So everything was online. Um, so the honor system was definitely in play. Uh, sophomore year. That's kind of when I

started taking classes at like there aren't really exams or I guess weekly quizzes and then like just like big papers. But yeah, this. It's on the honor system here. I thought this was supposed to be a high-level academic institution. We're on the honor system. We got stolen scooters all over the place. It's no damn honor. If you don't get straight A's on the honor system,

I got a question of your position at Stanford. I remember I made a 44 on my first exam. Yeah, mom, I'm doing great. Another 100. But if it would have been on the honor system, it would have been 82. Yeah, don't make it too good. Just get like a 90. Yeah.

91. No questions asked on a 91. Yeah. My freshman year, I remember taking a psych class and definitely could have got a better score, but honor system, you know. Honorable man, except for the scooter thieves. Yeah. All right. Last one, we'll let you get out of here.

Do you think you'd be virtually unbeatable if that every tournament you stopped that you played at, there was a music festival like Lollapalooza going along? Probably. I mean, whether there's a music festival or not, I'm always trying to win. Rumor has that you had a Lala Pluza bracelet on when you won the Western Am. I did, yes. I know where you're getting at with this.

I did not go to Lala until after winning. The story would have been way better if you were going every day. I know. I know what the story probably said. Who'd you go see? So the day we were supposed to see the baby and young thug, but that's when the baby got canceled. So we saw it.

young thug. I went with my caddy Drew and then he actually has like 10 of his boys from his fraternity. He goes to Wisconsin. They live in the area. So we'd be, I think it was the 12 of us went down together the following day. I've never been. Is it just absolutely incredible and wild? Yeah. It's really cool. And it's like Coachella in Chicago. Are you, are you, are you a hip-hop guy? Is that what you mostly listen to? Yeah. Awesome. You're a big to baby. guy, aren't you? What's your favorite, DaBaby? Be my baby tonight. There you go. You and

talk and converse about the baby albums. Awesome. Well, Michael, man, we really appreciate you joining us. Best of luck to you, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you guys so much for having me. This is a lot of fun. All right, well, that was Michael Thor Bjornson, joining us on golf subpar. This kid's going to be a superstar, man. I'll tell you what.

When you idolize Tiger Woods, you go to Stanford, you do everything like him. You're making cuts in majors at 17. Winning the Western Am, huge. U.S. Junior, huge, contending in a PGA tour event. I mean, look out. This kid seems like I can't miss kid. If you're buying stock, you think you're buying that stock right now. It goes to Stanford. I've invested in worse. He speaks like he's CEO of a large corporation. He seems to get it all. Swings it not terribly. Almost won his first PJ tour event before he won his first collegiate

tour event. I don't know that's ever been done. Very few Ms have ever done it. And I'm pretty sure Phil had knocked off a few collegiate titles before. Kids, the kid's moving. He's impressive. I mean, just this flock of young kids. Like the fact that you can be a couple of years into Stanford, damn near win the travelers. You've already played a couple U.S. opens. It's like they're ready. Yep. You win one of the biggest amateur events in the world, the Western Am, going to Lollapalooza.

Love that, by the way. I'm not going to let this tournament get in the way of a good time. I respect that about the young man. And we like some music. I love some music. You know what I like to listen to it on, Cole? I have a feeling I do. It's called Rock Form.

It's called Rock Form. Exactly. And it is the holiday season. What better way to take care of loved ones, friends, golfers, non-golfers, whatever. Rockform. We talk about it all the time. It's the best speaker in golf.

It's the best speaker period. Things unbreakable, waterproof, cocktail proof. You know, we've run through the whole deal. I use mine literally every single time. I step onto the golf course and off the golf course as well. And I am bad, as you know, about charging the thing or occasionally dropping it. You know how it goes? Still ticking after all these years.

Love the thing. And you can love it too. All you got to do is go to rockform.com. Use code subrock, S-U-B-R-O-K-25. That's for 25% off your entire order. get one for you, get one for your friends. Like I said, holiday season, golfers got everything they can want. Get them one of these.

This is one of those can't miss, can't miss gifts for a golfer. The amount of people that come up to me and tell me how much they love Rockform, it is unbelievable. So make sure you go get yours now. It's R-O-K-F-R-M dot com, rockform.com code sub-rock 25. That's it. That's it. You'll be the favorite auntie, favorite uncle, favorite everything. All right.

Well, let's get to some picks. And once again, your football heater continues. Oh, my God. You have the under and the 10. Tennessee, Georgia game, which hit. Layupville, by the way, on that one. Layupsville. I took Texas Tech out of spite.

I was feeling very good through three quarters. I was getting points, and they were winning the game. I was like, all right, we're going to be good. You got to buy out if you bet against TCU before, at halftime. It always looks good at halftime, and then we show up in a big way. Okay. Well, that's good advice for maybe leading into this week against Texas. I'm going to start off with a team coming off a massive win, and I think they're

really starting to play some nice football. Obviously, they beat Alabama, but they're heading into Arkansas. They're only three-point favorites. I think Arkansas just got clipped by Liberty. Yeah, so I don't understand why that line's so long. So I'm going all in on the taggist. It gives me a little, like when I saw that line, that was my first one.

I was like circle, 100% smash. Gives me a little, like what's going on? What do I not know about that they know about? Typically Vegas doesn't mess up. But that seems like that's it. LSU making a charge right now.

I mean, they got a lot ahead of them still. And Arkansas going the opposite way right now. I love that, but I'm going to smash that too unless I hear some weird news coming out. LSU controls their own destiny in the West. Yeah, they can still win the SEC.

And then, I mean, what are they going to do? Leave the SEC champ out? No, probably not. They could get in there with two L's, which I think they're the only team ever to make college football playoffs with two L's right now. That one jumped off the page at me. So Arkansas will probably win my L. Stay tight. Probably most likely.

I'm going with the team coming off a bad L, and they typically respond after bad L's. That was the one that I loved the most. I was kind of searching the slate for another one. Bama's given 11 and a half to Ole Miss. I'm not positive on Ole Miss right now. They look good at times. look not great at times. I just, Sabin after a loss and all the rat poison and all that stuff, they either completely lay down and die because we can't win a Natty anymore. Like, what's

the point of being at Bama if that's off the table? Or they come back and they're like, we've lost twice. We damn sure ain't losing again. And it's a week after I got to feel, I feel like Sabin is going to be all up in that ass this week in practice. And 11 and a hook, I just take them. In Ole Miss, no offense to our wonderful CBS producer, Sellers Shy, whose son plays for Ole Miss. But there's a lot of talk. Auburn going hard after laying Kiffin. be a lot outside noise they're heading into a really big game. Auburn making a lot of noise right now. Dion Sanders potentially rumored for that gig as well.

But I mean, I just watched the entire Ole Miss game. I had them against A&M. I was like, when are you going to start doing what you do, which is score all the time? Didn't happen. It's less about Ole Miss and more just pissed off Bama. Hopefully that's what you get on 11 and a hook. Well, the PGA tour is heading into H-town, Houston, Texas.

Pretty good field. Scotty Shephephyl, Sam Burns, Hedeky Matsuyama, teeing it up this week scotty sheffler a huge favorite like five and a half to one here switch back to the old putter by coming off of 62 yeah put put her on the bench for a few days brought her back she responded sometimes you got to do that all right well he's a huge favorite i don't obviously i don't like that number gambling wise five and a half to one i'm going with a guy a little farther down the board ball striking machine which that's what's required around memorial park in my opinion and this guy can absolutely hit it erin wise going off at 18 to one love that it's it good gets that

little flat stick going like he does more often like it's coming around more often than it isn't right now with that little broomstick in there i'm going to go with another guy like like you said teeter green golf course tough golf course longer greens are tiny kind of old school got a guy hits it pretty good hadecie going off at 19 to 1 i feel like that's pretty long like scotty at 5 and a half to 1 it's like i'm i might think he's going to win but i ain't been at 5 and a half to 1 19-1 like that a little bit more especially from a major champ all right for my long shot i'm going with your guy. See if he can get it done without you. He's going off at 50 to 1.

He drives the shit out of it. He puts it really nice. I think it's about time for him to contend. Wyndham Clark's 50 to 1. I don't know if he can get it done without me. If I'm being honest. You know? Well, if he does, it just proves you mean nothing. When I can't, if I'm not there to hold his hand to do literally everything, he's got

a little bit of stress. But truth be told, it is time for him to start contending winning some golf terms because physically, talent-wise, you've seen it, I've seen it. It's crazy the way that ball comes off the club face and he does the other things good too it's just like these little mental things that go on with him that prevent him from from winning but talent wise he's got it all he needs that big brain he needs that massive nog in mind to get him around the place i'm gonna go with another guy same type

of deal as headke i'm just going ball strikers don't love his putting all that much but he hits it straight and he has a flush ameliano grillo 42 to one same kind of deal the angry argentine he could get going he can get going just put it or excuse me just hit it around that place like you do it that little baby fade it's just over and over and just be decent with the putter because he hits it great So I'll go Emiliano at 42 to 1. Get paid. I love it. Yeah.

Very nice pay. Might as well. And ride that football train you got going right now. I think that's nine and one. I'm going back. Nine and one. The only team screws me was Baylor against West Virginia. I'll let it happen.

I can live with it. And TCU's got them in a couple weeks. We do. We go Texas, Baylor. I don't know what's going to happen. We haven't got Iowa State. It's already all gravy at this point. It's better season than we thought.

Just to be in the discussion, I would have never. I mean, it's already surpassed everything. But come on, Froggies. Just go get them horn. There'll be a lot of texts going out if they get that game. Everyone have a great week. We'll talk to you on next week's golf subpar.