Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - What Tiger Woods’ Caddie Learned From 13 Majors

Episode Date: May 26, 2025

Steve Williams spent over a decade alongside Tiger Woods, witnessing the most dominant era in golf history. In this powerful conversation, Steve breaks down the mindset behind greatness, the intensity of preparation, and why winning 13 majors with Tiger was just the beginning. Whether you're an athlete, entrepreneur, or anyone chasing excellence, this episode will change how you train, lead, and live. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded, so you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you. Like T-time U. Or this T-time U. Or even this T-time U. Said you hear about Dave?

Or even T-time, T-time, T-time, T-time U. Mmm. So update on Dave. It's up to you. We'll take the laundry. Rinse. It's time to be great. A lot of guys in sport, they just practice and they practice and practice. But like a guy like Tiger, every single time he practiced, every single shot he hit had some purpose to it.

By continually putting yourself under pressure during practice, it just became second nature. That's the key. For the audience listening, whatever you're doing in your life, right? You have to do with intention and purpose. You can go to work and you can just be there. You can go to practice and just be there. But are you really doing everything with a purpose? Sure.

French, what else? Let the pain inspire me. I put my all and everything I'm doing. Up until it's done, I meet for the entirety. I'm putting an over time. I'll be working. Just know I'm a go for mine because I earned it. They watch and I know it's time.

I confirmed. A whole society determined. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of The Determined Society. I am here with an amazing guest. He's an author of a brand new book called Together Reward. You may have seen him on TV, PGA tours, winning major championships. with none other than Tiger was.

I have Steve Williams here with me. His book Chronicles and actually memoirs, a history from 1999 to the year 2011 as Tiger Woods caddy, but winning 13 majors in that time frame, which is the most dominant time in the history of golf. So I have with me today, none other Steve Williams. What's up, buddy? Yeah, good, Sean.

How you doing today? Hey, man, I'm great. You say today it's Friday for you and it's Thursday for me. You're on the other side of the world, living in the future. I'm envious. How does it work? Yeah, you're a bit of a time, different zone between Florida and New Zealand and also a long way to travel as well if you're traveling from Florida and New Zealand. So the other side of the world for us.

Yeah, man, I do. I've never been to New Zealand, but I've always have been intrigued. It's a beautiful country and hopefully one down we know. Yeah, look, I mean, I've had numerous people come here from the United States that have never been here before and, you know, they fall in love for the place. It's a small country, but it's got so much beauty to it. And, yeah, people just love it here. It's a great place. So you left to get here one day.

Hey, man, I don't tend to you with a good time. It sounds like a blast. I'm like, you said, I know many people that have been from there. And like, hey, my country is just so beautiful. It's just so much beauty in, you know, in that area. So maybe one day, maybe when the kids will and be my wife will come out there, be able to enjoy herself. Yeah.

Cool. Well, listen, so very happy to have me on the show. Very decorated career, obviously, you know, in the mix, during, in many people's opinion, in the most dominant time in football. Like that 13 major championship run in 12 years with Tiger Woods was epic, right? But your relationship was much more than just professionally. And we'll get into all the things with your book. But I just, well, the audience that is it familiar with you, can you give them a brief,

just quick, you know, overview of. who you are, what you've done, and where you're at now. Yeah, well, Sean, I've been a caddy my whole life. So unlike a lot of people that have only maybe had several jobs, several positions, whatever. I've actually been a caddy in my whole life. The day I left school, I started cadding and carried right till I retired. I'm 62 years old now. I retired about four years ago from cadding.

So I spent 42 years cadding, nothing else. And in that time, I pretty much had four full-time gigs along with, you know, You can't carry for other people occasionally. But pretty much my full-time gigs were Greg Norman and then American Ray Floyd, then Tiger Woods, then Australia and Adam Scott. So, yeah, I've just carried my whole life. Big Speedway fans.

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It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at WhatsApp.com. Speedway, it's competed in Speedway for a lot of years. I run my own foundation here in New Zealand. And I'm a big fan of rugby, national sport in New Zealand and golf, of course. So, yeah, but yeah, it's been a caddy of my whole entire life.

That's awesome. You said, you mentioned And there's people that worked about, you know, find a 10 job shot at their full life. You know, you were less than a lot to find what you loved from the beginning and stick with it and have an illustrious career. Now, I don't want to overlook the speedway. I know you're a big racer. You know, talk to me about that because to me, I don't know if I want to get in a car going over 80. That's just me.

But, you know, you love the speed. You love all that stuff. And I'm not mistaken, you did have a prash that hospitalized you too, didn't you? Yeah. I compete. We call them saloons, super saloons here New Zealand. In America, they call them late models. It's a dirt track, oval dirt track racing. A very high horsepower cars that race on dirt tracks. Yeah, and it's a sport that I dearly love. I follow it today probably closer than I follow any sport. I just love the racing. And I still race a little bit myself, not as often as I used to. Getting a little bit long in the tooth sometimes with racing, but still this past season I've done about half a dozen meetings. things. Yeah, it's just a sport that I really love. And I'm very fortunate to have won two national championships and only one of a handful of drivers who've won national championship in two separate division. So quite proud of that achievement. But yeah, and when you race, it's not when you're going to wreck. It's not if you're going to wreck. It's when you're going to wreck. It's when you're going to wreck. So, yeah, I had a, well, I've only ever had one real major crash. And it was quite funny because it happened on a Saturday night. and I was due to be going to Hawaii on the Monday to carry the Tiger at the Seizing Opening

back then, I think it was called the tournament of champions. It was a seasoning opening tournament at Capulah for all the winners from the previous year. I broke a few ribs and I what they called de-gloved my hand. I pretty much sliced my hand and half, lost a finger in that. And the surgeon said, well, there's two things you can't do.

One is swim and two is fly. and that was on Saturday night, early Sunday morning in the hospital and the first thing I did on Monday was fly to Honolulu and then on to Capulah, then the first thing I did when to get there had to swim. And went on to have a good week. So, yeah, when you race speedway at high speed and there's always going to be accidents and that.

But, yeah, no, it's a sport that I dearly love. And like I said, I follow it, you know, to this day, I really follow it a lot. So two national championships and two different divisions. You said the only one to ever do that. Like, dude, you win wherever you go, man. What's that? You win in everything you do.

Yeah, well, you know, you put a lot of effort, a lot of determination, a lot of the desire. Yeah, every time when you set out to do something, you've got to have a goal in mind. And when I set out to do Speedway, I actually had a goal in mine. I wanted to win three separate championships and three separate divisions, but I actually never got out of racing the two divisions that I race because I love them so much. I had a third one in mind, but I never actually made the transition to that class. That's fair. But I said that joking me, but a lot of times when we look at people that not only just chase greatness, but achieve it,

there's some certain characteristics and traits, right, that go along with those individuals, that transcend different verticals, right? Sports, you know, you have golf, and then you also have racing. Like, you know, there are two to completely different things, but the mindset has to be one of this name. Can you walk the audience through what you feel those traits are for you and how you apply them and everything you do?

Yeah, look, I mean, whenever you do something, you just got to start out and you've got to have goals and that would start out with being a weekly goal, monthly goal, a yearly goal and a career goal. And that's what you do. You've got to make those clear to yourself what you want to do

and how you're going to go about and achieve them. And it gives you something to focus towards every day, to work hard towards. And then when you, you know, every time you have a little mini goal and you get some kind of a successful achievement, you've got to celebrate that and then go on to the next one and that.

It just gives you something to look forward to, to work to. Tiger was absolutely no different to that When I first went to talk with Tiger about taking the jobs, and we talked about his goals and what he was wanting to succeed with. And his goal was to break Jack's record of Jack. Jack had 18 major championships, and he wanted to break that record. And that's what drove him every day to greatness. You know, obviously a fantastic player, hugely talented, got everything gone.

But, you know, he had a goal and nothing was going to get in his way of trying to succeed and break that goal. So, you know, and nothing's important. possible without getting, if you get the right people around you, in my case, it would be the crew of a race car. In Tiger's case, it would be his manager, as caddy, his trainer, and personnel in his office, get the right people around you that believe in you and support you, you know, you can do anything. But it's very, I believe it's very important to have goals, not just sort of ambit along and

hope to do something. If you write something down and see it in front of you every single day, it makes you want to work hard and strive towards it. And whether you achieve your goals, you don't achieve. your goals. If you can honestly say to yourself, you know, I worked as hard as I could, I believed to myself, I did everything I could to achieve those goals. Well, you've achieved something anyway. And as long as you have fun along the way, that's the key. Whatever you do, you've got to have fun. If you've got, you know, sometimes you might have too lofty. The goals

you set might be too lofty and it's going on dragging you down because you might not get there or the cake, then you can readjust. But as long as you enjoy the journey, that's what counts. I love that, see, there's so many amazing things you said there, right? You know, one of the big things that I want to lash on to you for the audience listening and watching right now. Really, really pay attention to this one. You said, have goals, work towards them every day. When you hit that goal, you go and chase another goal. A lot of people think once they hit that goal, that's the finish line.

And what we have to understand in life and in sports and whatever profession or career or thing that we're chasing, those are benchmarks, right? And as long as you're still active, there's other goals to achieve, right? as somebody, and you mentioned Tiger, obviously, that was driven to beat Jack's record, right? Was there ever any moment, we'll probably already know the answer, but for the audience, was there ever any moment that you saw him get comfortable, you had to redirect him back to his original? No, 100% not. Look, he, you know, he was just, you know, when you set your, you know, you like I said,

you have a, you know, weekly goal, monthly goal, yearly goal, and your ultimate goal, you know, that ultimate goal is going to be something that, you know, for a professional golf, it's probably, you know, getting the number one player in the world or something like that. And only a very certain handful of guys can do that. But, you know, so ultimately the very final goal is probably something that you may never actually reach, you know, something that's going to keep you going all the time in the entire case. That was the, Jack's major championship record. And he never took his foot off his gas.

He never looked sideways. He just kept his, you know, every, and like, you know, when he would play, I give you an example of the sort of intensity around that. When Tiger won the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2000 by 15 shots, arguably one of the greatest performances we'd ever seen in the modern game to win a major championship. You know, he was three under par and the next guy was 12 over. Sorry, wrong way around.

He was 12 under and the next guy was three over. the first thing that Tiger said to me after he signed a scorecard before he went to the trophy presentation he said Steve I want you to get your ass over to St. Andrews Scotland that was the next major championship the Open Championship and said I'm going to play better so you know so that's the intensity it was around that there was no sort of big celebration of winning the US open with this record margin

his focus at the moment he had signed a scorecard and signed off his focus went to the next major championship at St Andrews, of course, he'd be loved and he wanted to win that championship. And of course, that, you know, when he did win that championship, that was the grand, you know, that was winning all four of the major championships, you know, the Grand Slam.

So, you know, that was the kind of focus that he had. It was, you know, the drive to beat Jack's record took precedent to everything he did. And of course, you know, for him and anybody else later in life, when children come along, you get a bit older and he's more responsive. and, you know, you've got more things to do because of who you've become and so forth. But he was always able to separate that and never took his foot off the gas as far as the practice,

the preparation, that even that went into winning major championships, getting themselves, you know, ready for those tournaments. You know, for major championships, you've got to win those, you've got to peep for that week. That's the key. And he was able to do that better than anybody that when he played in a major championship, he was always fresh. he was always ready and he hadn't coming off playing too many weeks or he wasn't tired or whatever it might be, he was ready to go. And, yeah, you know, like, even for myself watching a guy like that, you know, even though I was working alongside somebody to actually work alongside and watch and follow

a guy with that much determination and drive to succeed, was very, very impressive to watch. So you're about to make a trade based on a friend's text. But which you do you listen to? is it we could buy a house in Tulum get optioning those options we could lose everything or let's do a little research get your head in the trade and make the investment decision

that's right for you learn more at finra.org slash trade smart you know it's one of those things where you mentioned he won that tournament by 15 by 15 trucks right It says, see, get your ass to Scotland, I'm going to play better. A lot of people would say, right, because when I, again, on a level of what I do, right, I hit a benchmark, I say, okay, what's next right away?

And people will tell me, we enjoy this a little bit and then move on. For high performers, like Tiger, you, like me in this space, right? We enjoyed it in our own way, right? That chase and that pursuit for the next one, is that's the celebration and the work that goes into it, right? I mean, have you guys ever, like, sat there, like, identified that? Or is it just second nature to you guys? Because for me, it's just I move on.

I'm like, okay, this is cool. We did this. Well, let's do this next month. And that's the celebration for me, man. Yeah, look, I mean, everybody, you know, Sean, everyone has a different way they go about things. And I would have to say that Tiger Woods would be very unique in the way that he went about things. And, you know, some guys win a golf tournament, particularly a major championship. You know, they might go on a two or three day bender.

You know, Tiger would maybe have one drink, a quiet cigar, and his focus would be to the next major championship. I mean, he, he, so when you, you know, every time towards the later part of the years, when I was coming from, you know, and each time it was another step up the ladder, the ultimate goal became clearer. And when that ultimate goal becomes clearer and it doesn't seem too far away, then the actual work ethic

and the desire gets further and further ahead. You know, you work even harder because now it's thing, you know, it starts off as a goal and is it a realistic goal? Well, you know, who knows? But then when it actually becomes a reality that you can get there,

then the focus becomes even more intense and the chase becomes greater. And like you mentioned, that's your kind of satisfaction. It's okay, I'm one step. closer now, you know, if I can get the next one or one of the next two or whatever it might be, you know, so there's a, you know, but like then there's the opposite side of that, you know, some people, you know, they celebrate in other ways, you know, I know some of the golfers

and that, they finish on Sunday win a major championship and they're still hung over on Thursday before they teed up in the next tournament. So everyone goes about things different ways, but when you have a, when you're chasing a goal that's at the level that was Tiger was trying to chase, I mean, you know, there was just no, no time for anything else but, you know, chasing that goal and putting every single effort you could into it. Yeah, I mean, I love that, right? I agree with that. And you look, from what you're telling me that I hear, I remember Kobe Bryant, right?

He's one of the grades. It's like, it was a world championship. He's in the gym at 4-And. He wants to say, practice it. Because now, right, that's over. He did that. But then the next year, still going to come. The rest is to say, sharp.

That's the difference between being a real. really good golfer or really good basketball player and be one of the greatest ever. Here's a difference. Yeah, look, there's a mindset. You know, if you take all the great athletes, you know, one thing that makes an athlete so good, if you look at Michael Jordan, a Wayne Gretsky, you know, a Tiger Woods, ultimately what makes those guys so good is that, yes, they're incredible athletes. Yes, they work hard, but so do they all.

But what makes them superficial is they have their... ability to perform their best when it means the most. And that's where it comes into the mental side of things and that, that you can perform your best under the utmost pressure. You know, look at Michael Jordan and all those extraordinary playoff games and that. Look at the guy like Roger Federer under the most intense pressure in tennis major championships, Tiger and the golf things. So those guys that have reached the absolute pinnacle of their sport, you know, they're fantastic players. They have, you know, they work incredibly hard and that. But they just have that little bit of extra mental edge.

And that's something you can't teach. That's something you've got. You know, you've got that mental capacity to be able to thrive under pressure, you know, that you play. And, you know, you can't teach someone that,

but how do you do that? Like, you know, a lot of guys in sport, they just practice and they practice and practice and practice. But like a guy like Tiger, every single time he practiced, every single shot he hit, had some purpose to it.

You know, he'd go to the range, you know, and I don't want to develop too much here, because the book is like a backstage pass to how it all goes about. You know, how did Tiger become so good? What made him so good? What were these major championships like?

And, you know, Evan, who I co-wrote the book with, we tried to give the reader a backstage pass. But, you know, so when Tiger would go to practice, he'd hit the first few shots just to get loose, get a feel, and then every single shot had a purpose. And he'd visualised what that shot was going to be and often put himself in a position, Okay, here I am, Tiger Woods, Sunday, the 12th hole, Augusta, with 9-9 on my hand, here's the flag of that.

And, excuse me, and, you know, hit the shots in that. So by continually putting yourself under pressure during practice, when you became, when you're playing and you're under pressure, it just became second nature. See, that's the key. For the audience listening, wherever you're doing in your life, right, you have to do with intention and purpose. You can go to work and you can just be there. You can go to practice and just be there. But are you really doing everything with a purpose? And see, so grades like Tiger Woods, they go through those moments and visualize where they're at.

They put themselves in that pressure-filled situation to where this just isn't practice. This is the real deal. And they follow a process every single day without field, no matter how they feel, they have discipline, they go through it and they run their play every day. So that way, when it does get time, you've already done it a thousand times. 100%. Now, I would frequently, in my time, counting to Tiger, get to a shot. It's a high-pressure shot.

A lot of at stake. It's the end of the tournament. And I'd just say, Tiger, it's just another 7-9 like you've hit on the range 10,000 times. It's just another 7-9. So you just make, you know, make the picture as clear as you can, and you just go ahead and do it. You know, like you said, or like a lot of people just go through the motion. and they think that because I've done this, done that and do that, well, you know, I've ticked that off maybe that, you know, might lead to some, you know, greatness on that.

But, you know, there's more to, you just can't go through the motions to risk to get greatness. No, absolutely. And that's a gift, right? That's, that's something that's developed. Some people have it naturally, you know, I think, you know, for me growing up and playing baseball, well, I, every time I, like, it's up a bad or everything. every time I did something on a baseball field, it was with a purpose. I was always putting more pressure on myself when no one was watching. So that way, when someone was actually watching, I was ready.

And it's at a very undervalued skill or a process, right? To put yourself in those positions to visualize, like I said earlier, you visualizing something in a major and the final hole, the final shot to win it, anybody that is in sports or actors or anything like that, visualizing it is one thing. But feeling the attainment, I feel, is so important where you, when you visualize it, feeling the feelings of what it would feel like when you do do it,

I think it's just as important as visualizing. Yeah, 100%. So, you know, all that stuff is possible and you can do it when you practice. So like you said, you just can't go through the motions. You've got to put yourself mentally into that position that you know you might ultimately be in, whether that's, you know, shooting a three-pointer to end the game, being the last man on deck to hit a home run,

to win the game in golf, hitting the ultimate shot or holding the putt. I mean, you know, you hear professional golfers talk about all the time when they're practicing on the putting green and they visualize himself having this putt to win this tournament, this tournament, that you've got to do that frequently and you've got to build that up for a very climatic situation in your own mind and then apply the focus in practice and keep continually making you do it and make it happen under the pressure that you put yourself under. There's a lot to be said for all that kind of thing and everything you do.

You just continually build that pressure up into inside you and to the point where you can handle all that pressure. And even when you're doing it, you know, just on your own or with a small amount of people around you, however it might be, ultimately, if you can continue to succeed in that, and then you put yourself in that position in the golf tournament, it'll become more natural to you to be able to do it under the situation. But then, look, golf is such a different sport to so many other sports, because it, you know, most sports are a reactive sport. You know, you play baseball. The pitcher throws the ball. You hit it. It's a reaction. from a delivery of a pitch, the basketball, you receive that from somebody else.

But golf, you're hitting a stationary object. It's a mind game probably more than any other sports. So, you know, a lot of sports, there isn't time for pressure because everything's a reactive thing, whereas golf is not a reactive sport. It's a stationary object. You're on your own. So, you know, there's probably, as far as pressure goes in golf, there might be more mental pressure in golf than most sports.

I never thought him it that way, man. That's impactful, right? Because I always think sports, you know, pressure is pressure, right? We break it down like that. You know, in baseball, yeah, you might get anxious on the on deck circle or in the dugout. But once you're up in the box, like you're just reacting. Hopefully you're not leaking too much. The breaklands don't, right?

Anybody productive is just going to see ball, hitball, have a plan and approach. You go with it. But golf, you're right, a stationary object, man. There's nothing to go off of, right? There's nothing to play off of. other than when you say it's time, right? You knock? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you think about a quarterback, you know,

the receiver, he takes the catch off a fantastic throw from the quarterback. That's a reactive thing in that, you know, like golfs are so different because the object is stationary and you're, you know, so there's so much pressure in yourself because you're standing over there, over a stafening object, where every other sport, most other sports, you receive the ball or you give the ball. It's a reaction from somebody else. So, you know, you've heard over and over, Sean.

These are saying in golf, you know, it's a game of six inches and that six inches is between the two ears and that. You know, there's, you know, I think golf has, you know, an extraordinary amount of pressure compared to a lot of other sports, you know, like, it's just, you know, okay, if you look at tennis and that, okay, there's some pressure when you're serving because, you know, you're serving. But when you, every other shot outside of a serve,

you're hitting off a return from somebody else. You know, so a lot of times, and a lot of other sports that are reactive sports, there isn't time to think about the pressure because everything happens instantly, and sometimes it happens when you know they're expected to happen and you receive the ball when you weren't expecting to receive the ball,

but in golf, you know, you know everything. You know, you tear it up, you hit it there, you hit it there, you know, so a completely different sport. But, yeah, in the book, look, we take a good look at, you know, how a tiger was able to, compartmentalise everything and spend so much time focusing on these major championships.

And yeah, so like, for me, as a caddy to walk alongside a guy that's played arguably, you know, like who's the greatest golfer that ever played? Well, we're never going to win that debate. You know,

is Jack, is it Tiger? We all know Tiger played golf at a level like nobody else has played. And of course, even Jack would agree to that. But Jack has 18 majors and Tiger has 15 majors. So,

um, but to, you know, for like to walk alongside a guy that's played golf, uh, unlike anybody else for a sustained period of time. It's pretty special. No,

absolutely. But look, man, like that's part of it, right? But you guys also had a personal relationship. What was it like watching Tiger from the point where you met him as an amateur and watching him grow and watching him grow and watching your actual friendship?

What was that like? Yeah. Yeah. Like, When you carry a professional golfer, and it's something I learned way back in my early time, carrying for Greg Norman, is that, you know, to work for somebody,

you've got to, you have to become, well, you not have to, you become friends because when you, when you carry for somebody, you spend more time with that person than anybody in their lives. I mean, you know, it's an intense relationship. And, you know, if a guy plays 30 tournaments a year, That's, you know, and every tournament is, you know, is a six-day, you know, you're together for six days, Tuesday, Wednesday,

practice. The tournament's Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then outside of that, there's a lot of the weeks you spend with the player where they're practicing just, you know, at their local golf course or their home or whatever. So you become friends, but you've got to be able to separate that when you go to the golf course and that. You're the caddy and you're working for this guy and he's the boss and you go to separate that. So it's a very fickle sign of kind of thing to break down how that works. But ultimately, you can't get too close to the player because you've got to make some very big decisions and you've got to make some big calls and say some things at times that if you become too friendly,

perhaps you won't say that sort of thing. So the caddy player-caddy relationship is a very unique one in sport. you know, you're part of the game, you're in the game, you're on the field of play, you're up close, and you, you know, you provide a lot of information, give it a lot of advice, and ultimately provide some advice that can be very beneficial to the player. Can you give an example of sometimes a time maybe that you had to say something that you may not wouldn't have if you've got too free? You know, it's funny.

I c the tiger for 13 years and that. And, you know, we only ever had one dust up in that 13 years. And only one, which is probably pretty unique. Yeah. And the reason for being is because you've got two guys here that are ultimately chasing one ultimate goal and two people that have the utmost respect for each other. And, you know, I got to the point where, you know, I could read Tiger like a book as they say

and he was the same with me he would know what's coming next and sort of thing but anyway one particular golf tournament that was at the Masters and Tiger was in contention

for the tournament and in the morning with prior to every round you go out and have a look there's a few holes at Augustia you need to know where the tea is located where the hole's located

and I would relay that information on the practice tea just say hey Tiger the par three tea on the fourth hole you need to know he likes to know where that is and the third hole.

Anyway, the path four, the short third hole, on this particular year, they put the T down close to the front of the T, which made it very possible to drive the green. And when we got to the hole, Tiger had the first hole, birded the second hole, is right in contention.

And the third hole, you've just got to hit a driver. There's a chance you could possibly, difficult to actually put it on the green, but you can get it very, very close around the green. And there is a chance you could hit it on the green, make two, maybe a three, and that and he didn't want to hit driver

I just couldn't understand that and I kept you know saying you've got to hit driver here did a little bit of you know he had a terrible shot absolute shit shot made bogey in the costume of the tournament and he was absolutely livid and you know saying that we say down under here

as he carried on like a pork chop you know for the next five or six so it's just you know uncharacterial behavior childish behavior this is that the other and then going up the ninth hole I actually let it rip just gave an absolute drew a complete mouthful and

I didn't realize the ninth hole at Augusta there's no spectators you know can hear you because the first hole was over to your left hand side there so there's no one in between but somehow some reporter must have heard what was going on or I don't know how

but it got into the media and it was a bit of a circus when we finished but ultimately Tiger absolutely respected that and that was the only sort of dressing I ever gave Tiger so yeah And I've talked a little bit of that in the book as well. Yeah, I don't want to ruin it from people that, you know, are going to pick up.

But that's funny. Those are the things that are interesting to me, right? Because here you have two big compilators, right? And, you know, when you're in something together and you're chasing that common goal, people don't realize they don't understand athletes, coaches. I don't say everybody does understand. But a lot of people don't understand that aggression part of it, right? like we can be on the same side, we can be on the same team,

we can be going for the same goal, have the same thoughts in mind, but there could be massive, as you would call it, dust-ups from time to time because of the competitive nature. And there's passion there, right? There's a lot of passion.

Yeah, Sean, you can't achieve greatness without passion. I mean, they go hand in hand and that. And when there's passion, you know, these adrenaline, and when there's an adrenaline going, you know,

the things sometimes can get a little sideways than that. But, you know, ultimately, ultimately, you know, you know, the guys that have the most care, that care of what they're doing,

they have the passion. And they, you know, I've carried for 40-something years, and I've never seen a player take so much pride in what they do, as Tiger did.

You know, every day he walked off the golf course, he'd shot the best score that he could possibly shot, I'd never ever threw a shot away or didn't, never ever gave up. There's so much money in professional sport or sports, and golf's no different to that. And some players get going along and there's things aren't going good.

It's all right. I go home for the weekend, come back next week, you know, sort of thing. There's just, they never would ever enter Tigers head in that, no matter how good or how bad of his plan, but if he was playing poorly, he would somehow make a way to survive the cut. I mean, you know, he just took so much pride in what he does. And, you know, that was something It was, you know, I took immense value out of watching

just how much pride he took. And players often get to play an appearance fee to go and play golf overseas off there, you know, they play on the PJ Tour, they can go and play in the European Tour, the Japanese Tour, the Australasian Tour, Asian Tour, and, you know, they get an appearance fee. And Tiger, whilst it was, you know,

very greatly talked about how high his appearance fee would be whenever he went to an overseas tournament. I mean, he never just sort of went there and took it as a holiday. I mean, he, every tournament he played and he wanted to win, but he took so much pride in how he played in tournament where he was the guest player,

the player getting paid in the parents' fee. So his whole mindset was probably a little different to some of the other players, or most of the other players. But, yeah, you know, whereas we're just talking, And the passion, if you want to be successful, you've got to have some passion, you know, it's just part of it. Yeah, I mean, that's what I want the audience really take out of what you just said, right? Because you could just show up or you can make every rep like it's your last.

Like, this is the winning shot. You know, this is the winning phone call. If you're a salesperson, right? Or whatever it is. Like the most important thing that we can do every day. And this is for every professionalist. Even student, your students and you're in band or wherever it is, listen to this very carefully. No matter what you do, every single day, do not leave anything on the table.

Do not go home. Wishy you would have done more. Do not go home unless she would have acted differently. Never regret your effort because you can control two things in this life. See, this is why you believe you're out in the TV move. Yeah, I mean, that's just a great, it's not a listen online. lesson on sport, this is a lesson on life. You know, we all know you only get one chance in life, one chance at it.

And, you know, if you can live every day to the fullest, you know, and do everything that you set out to do every day and that, you'll always be successful. You know, like there's a lot of, I've watched a lot of players over the years that play on this PJ tour. You've got some guys that have got an unbelievable amount of talent that are incredibly good players. Their work ethic is not what the top of the players at the top of the tree are. Then you've got players that don't have a lot of ability, natural ability, and they work at it incredibly hard and they work to compete against the best players in the world. Now, you take your hat off to those guys, but, you know, in sport, these become so much money

in sport. And golf has, you know, quickly caught up to the other sports here in the last couple the years as far as what the, you know, the prize purses are and things that the money's, you know, getting right up there. And ultimately, you know, I know there are a lot of players that are incredibly good players, but because of the money they make, they just don't have that work ethic that they probably should have because it becomes natural to them. They make great money. And that's where another thing with Tiger separated himself and that. You know, here's a guy that's playing golf. He's the greatest player that's ever played the game.

He's made more money than any other athlete playing, or any other athlete, not just golf, but any other athlete. And he's just, that didn't take anything away from that sole goal of trying to, you know, equal, or

if not past checks, you know, record that, nothing, you know, and, you know, money can do that to a lot of people with that. But, yeah, so, you know, like Tygo, he's earned everything that he's, you know, that he's achieved and that's hard work and graft. That to me is just having a standard, you know, it's a standard. Like, you have to have standards. And if your standard is that, then like you said, like it can't change you.

Like the money is just, you know, a root cause of your greatness and everything you're putting in, right? that's cool to have, but what legacy do you want to live, right? You want to leave a legacy of like, that guy or that grilled everything we could, every single day, and there was nothing that they tipped your brand. Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's where you question yourself, you ask yourself, what is your ultimate goal and what is your legacy? And, you know, of course, you're fully on to everybody's,

there's been so much debate here in the last couple of years over the live tour and that, you know, is it good, is it not good? Everybody's got their own opinion on that. But ultimately, if you're a professional golfer and you go and play on your live tour, on the live tour, you're probably not worrying too much about your legacy, it would be my belief. Because if I said to anybody, who's won the most lived tour events or who won this live tour event, people don't remember that.

You know, the PGA tour, that's the tour that everybody aspires to play on, whether you grow up playing golf and, you know, whatever part of the world you grow up playing golf on, you want to play on the PJ Tour, compete against the best players in the world on the PJ Tour, and that's where you're going to leave an incredible legacy. And, you know, you look at the likes of, you know, the greatest players who have played the game,

you know, Jack Nicholas, your lead Trevino, you're Arnold Palmer, you're Gary players, your Byron Nelson's, who Ben Hogan's, and look at their legacy and look what it means. so and Tiger you know he you know when he had such a lofty goal that he was trying to achieve you know his legacy just gets built along the way as he's trying to do that you know ultimately it becomes an incredible legacy but what while he's doing and he probably doesn't realize the legacy he's building because he's so focused on one thing and one thing only and

yeah there did so that's what that right there right, that's what I want people to take out it as well. Like when you are intent in your purpose and you're in the work, you're doing the work, you're not worried about building the legacy. You're worried about working on your stills, performing on the golf course, and everything else comes as a product of that. And so if it will reverse, right? Because I think at some point in life, most people can work the other way around.

I know I have, right? before my show started really grow I was focused on a bunch of other things and not worry about all the intricate details of becoming a better listener, being a better communicator and all those things that would make my show really good I wanted this.

I had it mixed up, man. But the moment I started working on the other things, the foundational things that were going to build me, that's when everything started to take off. So that's what you start getting the results. So we focus on, I always always call.

call it that journey, right? The journey in between, that that's the failure, that's the heart rate, that's the tears, that's the frustration, that's the anger. And if we harness all of those emotions and continue to stay steadfast in the discipline in our work, that goal ends up being hit because you are focused on the little things. Yeah, like 100% that year. If you continue on the track that you set yourself and don't go off the track and that and your legacy will just follow behind you. You know, it's not something you have to try and build, something you have to do, something you have to put in place.

It's a foundation that you're building because you're ultimately the way that you're competing and your desire and everything to get to where you want to go. Look, I mean, in sport and particularly professional golf and that, if you look at, there's so many great players in that. but to achieve greatness, you've got to work hard. Nothing is given to you, and there are so many great players that play the game of golf, and there's so many great players on the fringes

that are looking to get onto the PGA tour and that. So, you know, it's the ultimate, you know, a guy like Tiger, you know, he was just the ultimate warrior, the ultimate competitor, and there's so many traits that you've got to admire him. When you look at when a guy wins a tournament, you know, the next week, often the guy that's won the tournament and he's playing the next week,

his performance would be subpar, you know, of what you'd expect. You know, Tiger ultimately so many times win a tournament and then win the next tournament and even when the next tournament, you know, every time that the week was finished, you know, it's a new week, new goal. You know, that's finished, that's done.

I'm going to get better next week, you know, like just the continued drive to get better and whatever you do ultimately can lead you to being a very, very successful, whether it be a business person, sports person, whatever it could be. It's just, you know, that continual work ethic. You can't replace hard work and dedication for anything, and you can't go out and buy that. You can only do it. So true, man. So it's like having an equivalent of a short memory, right?

It's like you want to forget the win as quickly as possible, right? Because you want to move forward and continue to get better. And if there's a loss or adversity, you know, especially in sports and even in line, I mean, obviously like that you don't want to as well on that pass. You want to have a short memory and move on and understand these two moments here are not connected. So we've got to stay disciplined in between those moments. So then we can go perform. And that's what the grades do. That's what Tiger days all right.

You know, that's what you're doing. Yeah, all the events that you didn't do well at, like every week, at the end of every week or start of the next week and that, we would go over the week's performance before. You know, okay, what was missing from last week? You know, I was huge on statistics, kept every possible note that you could possibly take. This is even before statistics were available.

And I would compile my own statistics a little differently to how natural statistic would be taken. and I talk about that of the book as well but you know you take you just take a lot of notes and everything that but it's also very important to you know like when you don't do well why didn't I do well you know what was

what were the reasons and then you take that and so you prevent poor performances is there a common thing when I have a poor week what is it's made a poor week in that so over a period of time you can avoid having very very poor performance is because you actually identify what it is that causes those performances and that. So, you know, in golf, the players that play at the highest level, ultimately they're trying

to win major championships. And to be able to do that, you've got to peak for those tournaments and that. And that's a very hard thing to do because some guys, you know, might pick the week before, the week after, you know, by peaking, it's playing at your absolute best. And Tiger found a recipe doing that just based upon torments that we'd play leading up to it, how much rest he needed up to it, the practice that would go and leading into the major champions. You know, he put that recipe together better than anybody else has done.

So each time he played in majors, he was a contender for most of the time and ultimately won more than anybody else in his era. So, you know, along with all the hard work and dedication and practice go, it's also going to be a lot of, you know, sitting down and identifying a lot of things in that, you know, when it's going really well, you know, how is it that I'm going really well?

what am I doing? What am I feeling? How's my body working? And when I'm not going well, why aren't I playing well? Is my body not feeling good? You know, what am I doing differently? And then you keep all these kind of things there. So you can get on a, you know, in sport, you can get on a role and keep going

because you've got a, you know, you've actually got a package that tells you, okay, this is what I do when I, and yeah, that's, yeah. So when I was working for Tiger, I just kept comprehensive notes, even to the point where I was writing down and that, you know, what mood he was in when he got to the golf course, what sort of pace was he walking at? You know, if he's on edge in that, he'd be walking very quickly.

If he's very comfortable in his own shoes, he's arriving at the golf course, knowing he's probably going to have a good day, feels good about everything, he's walking on a slow pace, all this kind of thing. So, you know, in the end, you have so much information that you can,

you know, you can put it all together. I love that. That's feedback, right? This mathematical equation almost, right? If he shows up like this, he's scaling like this. Then you can rewind, okay, if you're feeling, you know, now your element, you're walking fast or your high stress, whatever, what happened, you know, you can boil down to, are you hydrated? What did you eat last night? How well did you sleep? Was there anything else that happened, right? So that you can get rid of those other

components that may contribute to that mental stay. I think it's super important because I think everybody should be looking at that. You don't have to be a professional athlete to look at that. I had a really bad meeting this morning. Okay, well, walk me through your morning, right? Let's identify where the breakdown was. Maybe you and your kids had a rough day, getting married for school, but you're a bad mindset.

You didn't flush it. This feedback we have in our life is there for a reason. So those moments where you and tire sit down and talk about the week, the things that wouldn't well, the things that went bad? In order to be great at anything, you have to be willing to look at the things that didn't go well under a bigger microscope. You have to pay more attention to that because if we alleviate those things and keep these other things the same, then we progress at a greater rate. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter.

You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at good to know facts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit good to know facts.org. Yeah, 100%. You've got to work out, you know, how you can accelerate at the quickest rate. And, you know, you've got a graph and you want to go, you know, there's always going to be, you know, the graph's never going to keep.

going straight up, it's always going to have dips, highs and lows in it. But as long as you can identify when those lows were and when, you know, that's so forth, and, you know, in sport, you know, like it's only possible to win so many torments that. So, you know, like a guy like Tiger, a week for him, a successful week is only a win and nothing else. So some guys are happy with a top five, top 10, top 20, just making the cut. Some guys are happy to make the cut and get a check and get on the road to the next tournament. Tiger, the only success measure of a success for him was a win. And, you know, you work alongside a guy like that.

It's incredible, you know, like I, you know, when I look back now, particularly when I wrote the book and spent a lot of time sitting down writing the book and thinking about it, and I didn't probably understand how much pressure I was under myself in that because this is a guy that only wants to win. And, you know, if he finished a second, well, that's not a good week. And only a win is a successful week. And you can only, you know, like some years you might win three tournaments. And in his case, you know, there's years that he won over 10 torments.

So, but for him, you know, it was all about winning and winning major championships. So a couple of those years there where he didn't win a major championship, they were incredibly stressful times. And each time, you know, when it went to one major on to the next one, next one not winning, you know, there's a lot of pressure. there and, you know, I sort of talk about that in a book as well. So that the reader will get a, you know, very, like I said, a very backstage pass to, arguably that we would think was probably the best, you know, the best sustained period of golf played by anybody.

1,000% in Zep it, right? I don't think it was any denying that, you know, listening to that. It's funny because, you know, I suddenly feel bad for my wife and my team, right? Because, you know, we have statistics. we have rankings, categories and in podcasting and all that kind of stuff, right? And I can be number six,

number five, number three. I'm pissed. I'm not winning. Right. And I think it takes special persons to understand that, right? It's like for me, it's like,

that's not number one. Like, we are not done. We are not finished until we get there and we stay there, right? I know I'm a momentary, momentary dip. But we need to get that. We need to stay there from a long period of time.

And that, to me, is winning. But it also gets the level of everybody else to rise up to understand, okay, everything's great. We love what we're doing. But at the same time, we are not done. We are not able to continue pushing to get to that spot. And again, we're talking about greatness here. Is it a safe thing you on?

Yeah. You know, one of the things I get asked the most about and people, one of the things that are intrigued the most about Tiger is during his time playing at the highest level, he went through numerous coaches, you know, which surprised a lot of people that, you know,

you'd play so well with, you know, with one coach, and then you'd move on to another coach and then on to another coach. Why would you do that sort of thing? Well, Tiger just absolutely was always searching perfection. You know,

no matter how good he was, and, you know, throughout 95% of the time I was getting from, he's number one player in the world. So he was a dominant player, but you can always get better. No matter how good you play,

how good you are, you can always get better. And Tiger was always open to listening to, you know, different theories on the golf swing, different theories on how you can play. And ultimately, he always believed he could get better.

And that was incredibly unique to watch that somebody, as great as he was playing, as dominant as he was. and he still believed that he could get better. And in that time that it came from, he worked under three different coaches. And ultimately, each time he changed coaches,

he might have had a little bit of a downward spiral for a little bit, but ultimately he knew through hard work and everything that he believed in that this coach brought to the table that he was going to get better. You know, incredible mindset to do that. You know, when you're very, very, very few athletes when they get to the very pinnacle of their sport would think, you know what, I can get better.

And to do that, I've got to take a step backwards. I've got to rebuild my swing. And when you introduce some new swing changes in golf, you know, they don't happen overnight. It might be, you know, three weeks, three months or even longer. You know, it takes a long time to introduce some new swing thoughts and that. And, you know, he did that. I mean, incredible.

So he was never, ever going to get complacent. And, you know, a lot of people in the end, they get complacent. And there's many reasons why you get complacent that, but he never ever got complacent. He never took a foot off the gas. He just kept working, and he ultimately always believed you can improve. And how good you are,

you can always get better. And that's, you know, that's like you say, you know, you get to number one. You can't get complacent because somebody else is going to tip you off the scale. And if you're at the top of the tree, you've got to stay at the top of tree and you've got to, you can't be complacent. You've got to get better and better and better.

And no matter what you do in life, How you go about it, you can always get better. It's funny. As we, you know, wind, you know, land the playing here. Like, this, this last part of this conversation is so valuable from the audience that made the agency because I don't care who you are. Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Barry Bonds, Roger Federer, doesn't matter. You can always get better.

So you're sitting there right now thinking you're comfortable, you're doing well at your job, we're dealing well with certain things. you are the greatest husband ever, greatest father ever, or wife or mother, everything can be improved. There's always another level of you that you can achieve by becoming greater and greater. The job's never done. We're never done developing, right? We're growing constantly. I just think it's super important.

Remember you realize that the people that you are watching on TV like Tiger Woods was never satisfied. I'm not saying he wasn't grateful. There's a big misconception there with people that are quick. Why can't they just be great with where they're at? They are. But they're also not satisfied. There's more for them to do. And it keeps giving them purpose to reinvent themselves constant,

even with a golf swing or a new strategy. It's super important because we're proving to ourselves constantly that we can start over from scratch and still do it again. And I think that right there is the message to greatness. It's the message to anything that. is spectacularly or light. You're never done. You must get back.

Yeah, 100%. If you just write down, you know, 10 of your core values, what, you know, your things that you'd like, you know, say your happiness, your fitness, your diet, you know, your work, you know, all the different things, your work ethic, the time you're putting the things. And at the end of the day, can you go through and give yourself a 10 out of 10, 10 out of 10? You'll never be able to do whatever, however you want to rate yourself and all the different things that you want to rate yourself on. Is there ever a day you can say, you know, did I eat exactly what I should have eaten

today? Was I happy all day today? Did I work as hard as I could today? You know, all the different things. There's never a day that you can, you'll be able to never have a day where you did everything to 100%. So you can always improve. And that's where in professional sports and that, you know, like the guys that get good,

you know, they always can, they always strive to get better and better and better. And that in itself, the journey of working hard and trying to get better, no matter what you do, if you enjoy that journey, enjoy that process, you may not get there, but certainly if you enjoy it, it's a great journey and you put yourself in a great position to do better. Well said, man. Well said. See, thank you so much for spending your morning with me. I really enjoyed speaking with you.

And you gave a ton of values in the audience. We talk a lot about the book, the greatness of Tiger Wood, the mindset, the pursuit of greatness, the discipline and determination, all the things that no matter who you are or what you do in this world on this planet, you can implement it to your life and be great as well. So I appreciate you. My friend, it was an amazing conversation. and, you know, just thanks, man, that that was awesome. Yeah, oh, good, great, Sean. Yeah, like I said, I hope the reader enjoys the book. Evan and I, who I did the book with,

we were extremely pleased how it came out, and we think the reader will get a, you know, like a really true understanding of what made such a great champion in Tiger Woods and arguably the greatest player that we're ever going to see. Thanks for having us on your show. He's the greatest. I don't care, 15 to 18.

I don't care. Tiger Woods. There's a go. So for you guys listening and watching, I want to thank you so much. Share this with somebody you know, love and trust. And tell us everything we love about the episode. Keep coming back every Monday, every Friday. And so next time, stay determined.

French, whatever. Everything I'm doing up until it's done. I meet for the entirety. I put it in overtime. I'll be working. Just know I'm a go for mine. Because I earned it. They watch and I know it's time.

I confirmed it. A whole society determined. The term is a show. Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way. You want to sell those wheels. You want to get a CarMax instant offer. So fast.

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