Speaker 1: All right, we're back for another episode of the Friday Podcast.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since we last recorded one, but
Speaker 1: we are excited today to talk a little bit off
Speaker 1: the beaten mainstream PGA tour talk path and get into
Speaker 1: some college golf. And with us, we've got Justin Silverstein,
Speaker 1: the associate head coach of the Southern California Trojans so
Speaker 1: USC is one of the top teams in the country,
Speaker 1: and Justin's been with the program. He started with the
Speaker 1: program as a women's associates coach and has moved over
Speaker 1: to the men's side this year.
Speaker 2: So we're excited to have Justin on and thanks for coming.
Speaker 3: On, Justin, no prop many thanks for having me. Excited
Speaker 3: to get on here and talk some college golf and
Speaker 3: hopefully get people fired up for the spring season that
Speaker 3: I'll be here before we know it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, we're excited. With the national championship here in Chicago,
Speaker 1: we're going to be doing a lot of coverage on
Speaker 1: the Frida Egg and we're happy to have you on
Speaker 1: as the first college.
Speaker 3: You know guests, So you.
Speaker 1: Know, first off, we'd love to hear a little bit
Speaker 1: about you, you know, to give a quick background. Justin
Speaker 1: was a great junior player down in San Diego, won
Speaker 1: a couple of state championships at Torrey Pines, playing with
Speaker 1: Jamie Lovemark for a couple of years there, and then
Speaker 1: he went on to Arizona to play there. So I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear about kind of your playing days and
Speaker 1: then how you got into coaching, and we'll take it
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, So I started playing junior golf in San Diego.
Speaker 3: Was really lucky to be on a great high school team.
Speaker 3: We had I think six guys on my junior year
Speaker 3: team ended up going to play Division one golf, one
Speaker 3: of which is Jamie Lovemark, who's making a big pilot
Speaker 3: dough playing on with the big boys out on tour.
Speaker 3: And from there went and played at the University of Arizona.
Speaker 3: I used to turn play very loosely. I practiced a
Speaker 3: lot and spent a lot of time in the training room.
Speaker 3: I ended up having five wrist surgeries when I was
Speaker 3: at Universe Arizona, which was good and bad. Kind of
Speaker 3: let me see a whole different side of golf. Where
Speaker 3: about my junior year, my redshirt junior year, I was
Speaker 3: no longer cleared to play golf because of an injury
Speaker 3: I had, so I kind of make a decision of
Speaker 3: what I want to do with my life, whether it's
Speaker 3: hit the books a little harder or maybe try to
Speaker 3: do something else in golf. And luckily I had a
Speaker 3: great college coach, Rick Larrose, who was at Universe Arizona
Speaker 3: for over thirty years, and a really good assistant coach
Speaker 3: in John Knauer who was there for ten and I
Speaker 3: really admired the work they did and kind of the
Speaker 3: difference they made in our lives. So at that point
Speaker 3: I kind of decided that I wanted to turn my
Speaker 3: attention to getting into college coaching and kind of learned
Speaker 3: the business and I tried my hand at that. So
Speaker 3: I helped out with the team while I was still
Speaker 3: in school, went to practice every day, traveled to tournaments,
Speaker 3: kind of shadowed coach Larrose, and he was great and
Speaker 3: let me do that. And that turned into a volunteer
Speaker 3: assistant job with the men's golf team at Arizona the
Speaker 3: year after I graduated, and then just by sheer luck,
Speaker 3: the women's assistant job opened up that next year, so
Speaker 3: as a twenty three year old, I kind of fell
Speaker 3: into the women's assistant coaching job at Arizona, which had
Speaker 3: just come off a PAC ten championship and was a
Speaker 3: top five program, and that kind of got me going.
Speaker 3: And it was quite an eye opening experience being a
Speaker 3: twenty three year old coaching women's college golf and coaching
Speaker 3: kids that were about the same age I was, So
Speaker 3: I had to learn pretty quick on that job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine that's that's kind of one of
Speaker 1: those things where you had bad luck with the wrist.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've never even it is kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: Five surgeries in less than three years. So you have
Speaker 1: the bad luck there and then you have you know,
Speaker 1: kind of design intervention and you get the great walk
Speaker 1: of coming up on a job right in your backyard.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I kind of look it back at it like
Speaker 3: it probably. I know, it saved me a bunch of
Speaker 3: money from going to try to play professionally because I
Speaker 3: know I've I've definitely was not good enough to compete
Speaker 3: with guys like Jamie and especially these guys we have
Speaker 3: on our roster now. So it's saved me money in
Speaker 3: that regard, and they kind of got me kickstarted on
Speaker 3: a career path that's turned out to be, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of fun and I love it, wake up
Speaker 3: every day and get to come in and coach these
Speaker 3: eighteen to twenty two year olds. It's really good stuff.
Speaker 3: So can you play.
Speaker 1: Golf now or are you you know?
Speaker 3: Do you do you get?
Speaker 1: Do you play with the team much as do you
Speaker 1: have limitations with the wrists?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've still got pretty big time limitations. I need
Speaker 3: one more surgery and it's kind of a major one,
Speaker 3: so I'm really hesitant to do it and don't want
Speaker 3: to really go through the rehab, and I don't really
Speaker 3: know if it's worth it, so I don't play much
Speaker 3: at all, to be honest with you. The last time
Speaker 3: I played was I believe it'll be three years ago
Speaker 3: this January, and I played at Augusta National with our
Speaker 3: women's golf team. We just come off a national championship
Speaker 3: and our athletics director Pat Hayden surprised us and took
Speaker 3: us down to Augusta for three days. So I ramped
Speaker 3: up all winter, practiced every day, taking a bunch of
Speaker 3: pain medication, fighting through it. Figured getting to walk the
Speaker 3: fairways of the gust it was probably worth it, and
Speaker 3: went down there and played in thirty six a day
Speaker 3: in about thirty two degree weather and it was maybe
Speaker 3: the three greatest days of my life. So since then,
Speaker 3: my clubs are still in the travel case in a
Speaker 3: closet in my house, and I have not been on
Speaker 3: a golf course to play since.
Speaker 1: You know, I guess that's probably one of the best
Speaker 1: ways that, you know, you could go out for a
Speaker 1: long period of time. Yeah, nothing, I'll compete with that.
Speaker 3: No, I tell the team all the time because I
Speaker 3: always try to get me to play, and Coach Ambury
Speaker 3: plays with them all the time. I mean, Coach Ambrey
Speaker 3: was a phenomenal player. He played a Nike tour for
Speaker 3: I think over ten years. It was really really good player.
Speaker 3: So he plays with them all the time. The kids
Speaker 3: are always trying to get me to play, and I'm like, guys,
Speaker 3: it's one it wouldn't be very impressive right now, and
Speaker 3: two it would hurt too much. Is probably not even
Speaker 3: worth it. So I let Coach Dembury deal with all
Speaker 3: the playing and kind of beating our guys into the
Speaker 3: ground when he has to.
Speaker 1: So, you know, how does coaching at a college level.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of these kids have you know, strings,
Speaker 1: the swing instructors that they work with. You know what,
Speaker 1: what do you guys do in terms of coaching, is
Speaker 1: it is a lot of you know, course management stuff,
Speaker 1: practice thrills, you know, practicing the right way. How does
Speaker 1: it how does it kind of differ from that traditional teaching.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is kind of a It took me a
Speaker 3: long time to learn this. So when I got into coaching,
Speaker 3: I was really fired out to get you know, hands
Speaker 3: on with the kids, get to work with some really
Speaker 3: good players because I've always had a crazy interest in teaching.
Speaker 3: And I got there and I tried to dive in
Speaker 3: with all these kids, and in about two months they
Speaker 3: were all fed up with me, and I was like, what,
Speaker 3: you know, what is going on here? And it took
Speaker 3: me some time to realize that they've all got their
Speaker 3: own theories on how things should be done. And not
Speaker 3: only do they have their theories, whether it swing theories
Speaker 3: or just how to play golf, their instructor has one,
Speaker 3: and their parents have one, and you know they're sports
Speaker 3: psychologists that they have has one. So when I got
Speaker 3: to know Chris Dambury, who's our men's that coach really well,
Speaker 3: when I came over to USC five years ago to
Speaker 3: work on the women's side, he had this whole system
Speaker 3: of how to practice that he developed, and it's about
Speaker 3: and it's become now eleven tests that we do every
Speaker 3: Tuesday and Thursday when we practice on campus, and these
Speaker 3: tests are to find out where your strengths and weaknesses
Speaker 3: are in your game. And what the tests do is
Speaker 3: they protect the players from us as coaches, the players
Speaker 3: from themselves, and the players from their instructors. Because what
Speaker 3: we found out after dealing with hundreds of really good
Speaker 3: college golfers is a lot of them don't know where
Speaker 3: they need work to get to the next level, and
Speaker 3: they kind of just go off of opinion and how
Speaker 3: they feel, and that's a really dangerous way to go
Speaker 3: about it. And we've been lucky enough to have some
Speaker 3: advanced analytics coming to golf lately, which I'm sure you've
Speaker 3: you know all about, you know, with Mark Brody's book
Speaker 3: and Strokes Gain, and we've really dove into Strokes Gain
Speaker 3: and kind of now it's we do we take a
Speaker 3: different approach with every player. Some players need more help,
Speaker 3: more hands on help, some players need more course management stuff,
Speaker 3: and some players just need to be pointed in the
Speaker 3: right direction as to what to approve. And they're pretty
Speaker 3: bright and they work with really good instructors and they
Speaker 3: can figure out a way to improve it. So I
Speaker 3: would tell you it's a lot more hands off than
Speaker 3: I originally thought it was. But we are constantly evaluating
Speaker 3: and re evaluating ranking their games based against each other
Speaker 3: to find out where everybody needs to improve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that makes a ton of sense because you
Speaker 1: can essentially take the strokes gained, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: for people a little less known. Strokes gained isn't a
Speaker 1: statistic that a common golfer can really use because you
Speaker 1: need a field to have the strokes gained against statistic work.
Speaker 1: So do you guys use the team as the field
Speaker 1: or is it historical data as to create the field
Speaker 1: score so you can see who's for warming above.
Speaker 3: So we've been doing strokes gain putting based on tour
Speaker 3: average for the year for about three or four years now.
Speaker 3: I was doing it with our women's team, and coach
Speaker 3: Samery's been doing it with our men's team. So we've
Speaker 3: been keeping just a constant log of that for our players,
Speaker 3: and our incoming recruits are sending us data because they're
Speaker 3: kind of get diving into it, and we've really found
Speaker 3: that that's the one measurement in the strokeskin capacity to
Speaker 3: see if stroke skin driving, strokeskin approach, strokeskin short game,
Speaker 3: and strokes skin putting. We figured out that if we
Speaker 3: can get the putting number, we can kind of we
Speaker 3: can pretty much figure out how you played that day.
Speaker 3: You know, if you shot seventy two, shot even par
Speaker 3: and you gained two and a half, well, you hit
Speaker 3: it like a dog. I mean, it's pretty obvious that
Speaker 3: you just didn't hit it very well. Well. If you
Speaker 3: lost you know, three and shot even par, you know,
Speaker 3: we can then figure out how you hit it. So
Speaker 3: that was the big metric that we started collecting where
Speaker 3: we really thought we had an advantage because we could
Speaker 3: then kind of cipher what was going on with the
Speaker 3: rest of your game. So we're starting to dabble in
Speaker 3: strokes gain driving. That's another one that's becoming easier to collect,
Speaker 3: as long as you have the whole distance in your
Speaker 3: second shot distance and where you hit it from. It's
Speaker 3: been a little more difficult than we thought to collect,
Speaker 3: and we've got a couple guys doing it. We're really
Speaker 3: trying to We're gonna try to ramp that up in
Speaker 3: the spring. I know, there's a couple big time programs
Speaker 3: that are doing it full time, so we've got a
Speaker 3: little bit of catching up to do, but we feel
Speaker 3: like we're at the leading edge of our strokes gain
Speaker 3: putting data, and we've got some tests in our practice
Speaker 3: that can coincide with that data that have hopefully given
Speaker 3: us a way to improve our players putting, because what
Speaker 3: we've seen from the data we've collected is our kids
Speaker 3: are not quite tour average putters. We've got a couple
Speaker 3: of players that are right on the edge, but right
Speaker 3: now we have no positive strokes gain putters on our roster.
Speaker 3: Sean Crocker was for most of the season, but we're
Speaker 3: hoving right around zero and losing strokes. So that's really
Speaker 3: a place where the tour players have a big advantage
Speaker 3: over really good college players.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting.
Speaker 2: So would Crocker be the guy that you would want
Speaker 2: with a ten foot pot on the eighteenth hole at
Speaker 2: Rich Harvest to win this year's national championship based off.
Speaker 3: Of stats, Based off of the numbers so far, actually,
Speaker 3: he I probably have to go right now with Andrew Levitt,
Speaker 3: who's been in our lineup all semester. He's a fifth
Speaker 3: year senior, he's been our best putter. I'm actually looking
Speaker 3: our data right now he's losing about point three round
Speaker 3: trokes gain sean wo gaining most of the semester, and
Speaker 3: then kind of had a rough couple last tournaments. We've
Speaker 3: played some places with some gnarly greens. I mean, Cyprus
Speaker 3: was otherworldly how difficult those greens were. But all of
Speaker 3: our guys I feel pretty confident with. And if you
Speaker 3: give me any of our guys with a ten footer
Speaker 3: win national championship, I'd be really happy because that means
Speaker 3: we've got a pretty good chance to win the national championship.
Speaker 3: But right now I'm probably gonna have to go with
Speaker 3: Andrew Levitt. And you can see from our match play
Speaker 3: lineups in the past couple of tournaments, he's been our anchor,
Speaker 3: and that's as he's Uh, he's one of, if not
Speaker 3: our best putter.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we've gotten a little bit into the team,
Speaker 1: but UH love to jump in a little further. So
Speaker 1: USC you guys this year entered uh with the you
Speaker 1: know you had the that preseason number one ranking from
Speaker 1: Golf Week.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: The last two years been really close to the National championship.
Speaker 1: Last year they uh, they lost in the semi finals
Speaker 1: to Texas and then the year before they lost in
Speaker 1: the finals to LSU. You guys took down my Aliini
Speaker 1: from the semis, which you know makes me a little bitter,
Speaker 1: but but.
Speaker 3: They're doing just fine. I'm not worried about him. They're
Speaker 3: doing just fine.
Speaker 1: So with that, you guys started this season a little
Speaker 1: bit slow, but you know, it really came on at
Speaker 1: the end. You guys won probably the.
Speaker 4: Coolest event of the year, the Cyprus Point Classic, and
Speaker 4: that it was a match play tournament where these kids
Speaker 4: got to play three straight days at.
Speaker 1: Cypress Point and then won the Gifford Correct as your
Speaker 1: last season event of the season. And then I saw
Speaker 1: that justin Sue, one of your players finished second in
Speaker 1: the Sun Bowl last week. So really strong finish to
Speaker 1: the year for USC. I'd love it here kind of
Speaker 1: about the team. You know, what you guys are looking
Speaker 1: to improve on. You know, some highlights from the season,
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think anybody, based off of
Speaker 1: the courses that you guys have to play this year,
Speaker 1: would you know, wouldn't want to be a college golfer.
Speaker 3: Nowadays It's gotten pretty good, hasn't it. I mean the
Speaker 3: courses we got to play this fall. I don't know
Speaker 3: if we'll ever go through a stretch of playing that,
Speaker 3: starting an Olympia Fields and then go into Colonial and
Speaker 3: then Golf Club at George is a fantastic track, and
Speaker 3: then Cyprus and then Silver Or where they just hosted
Speaker 3: the Fries was that was better than we expected. That
Speaker 3: was a really really cool golf course. I think every
Speaker 3: hole we stepped out in the practice on, Coach Denby's like, wow,
Speaker 3: this whole, this one are cool, slow as I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: So if you get a chance to go up there
Speaker 3: and play that track, I definitely would recommend it. But
Speaker 3: as far as the season goes, we got to a
Speaker 3: really slow start. No sugar coating it. Finishing eighth at
Speaker 3: the align I Invite and then six at the the
Speaker 3: Nike NCI event was a little rough. It's interesting our
Speaker 3: scheduling worked out. I don't know most people probably don't
Speaker 3: know this, but the NCAA limits how many practice days
Speaker 3: were allowed in our playing season, and because Justin and
Speaker 3: Rico played in the All American, it extended our playing
Speaker 3: season about another week into the into the fall. Because
Speaker 3: it just ended the other day so we weren't really
Speaker 3: able to practice as a team and probably started I
Speaker 3: think seven or eight days before our first event, so
Speaker 3: we had to jump right into qualifying with no practice time.
Speaker 3: So it was a really interesting deal. We could do
Speaker 3: some individual stuff with our guys for two hours a week,
Speaker 3: but we hadn't had a full week of practice before
Speaker 3: our first event, so I think that might have played
Speaker 3: a little part, and our guys maybe being a little rusty,
Speaker 3: not quite as sharp as they normally are. And also
Speaker 3: we just went to a golf course where we got
Speaker 3: a lot of wind and it was really hard and
Speaker 3: just didn't play great. And then coming off that go
Speaker 3: go ahead.
Speaker 1: I played out there the day before you guys did.
Speaker 1: It was a course was set up. I mean, that
Speaker 1: place is just such a bear if you're not right
Speaker 1: on your game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, our guys were. It's kind of the pros
Speaker 3: and cons of having most kids from southern California. We
Speaker 3: don't see a ton of wind. We practice in the mornings,
Speaker 3: practice seven in the morning Monday to Friday, so we're
Speaker 3: not getting nearly any wind in southern California. So we're
Speaker 3: getting twenty to twenty five mile hour gusts you know,
Speaker 3: first tournament out. It really affected a lot of our guys,
Speaker 3: especially a guy like Chang Jin who was playing in
Speaker 3: his first collegian event, so he had some nerves, and
Speaker 3: Rico and Sean I think struggled a little bit with
Speaker 3: the wind. All those show ended up finishing seventh. He
Speaker 3: put it great that week, so that really helped him.
Speaker 3: But we thought we'd rebound, you know, really well at Colonial,
Speaker 3: that to a golf course that stresses good driving. But
Speaker 3: we got there and it was windy again, the greens
Speaker 3: were soft, and kind of had an interesting deal. We
Speaker 3: didn't have two of our top six players at that event.
Speaker 3: Cheng Jin was where was Ching he was at the
Speaker 3: World or the Asian Amateur who was defending his Asian
Speaker 3: amer title in Korea that week, so we didn't have him,
Speaker 3: And then we didn't have Jonah Tascher in our lineup,
Speaker 3: who was a semi finals at the USAM this past summer.
Speaker 3: So we had just you know, Daniel Choa started for
Speaker 3: US and he's done some good things for US in
Speaker 3: the past, and we just really didn't play well that
Speaker 3: week either. So after that event, we kind of came
Speaker 3: back home and coach Amory and I took a couple
Speaker 3: of days and kind of tried to figure out what
Speaker 3: we needed to do and got back to work, and
Speaker 3: then things really started to pick up. After that event.
Speaker 3: We had a couple of individuals play in an event
Speaker 3: in Northward's event, and Jonah Tachero was able to play
Speaker 3: in that event and got a win. And he shot
Speaker 3: sixty six, sixty eight, sixty eight, shot fourteen under that
Speaker 3: week and got a win, so that really kind of
Speaker 3: boosted his efforts for the fall season. And then right
Speaker 3: off of that, we went into the Georgia at the
Speaker 3: Golf Club at Georgia in that event, and we played
Speaker 3: really well that week. We finished third. We actually had
Speaker 3: a two or three shot lead going on the eighteenth hole.
Speaker 3: I think we had a one shot lead in the
Speaker 3: eighteenth fairly, which is a reachable part five, and we
Speaker 3: had two guys with five irons in their hand into
Speaker 3: the green and another guy with a two iron and
Speaker 3: ended up playing the whole one over and losing that
Speaker 3: tournament by one. So that was a little painful, but
Speaker 3: we really were starting to show our good stuff then,
Speaker 3: and I think that kind of proof.
Speaker 1: That tournament somebody made it just a ridiculous comeback on
Speaker 1: the last day.
Speaker 3: Right, Virginia played great the last day and we shot
Speaker 3: two seventy nine the last day we shot. We had
Speaker 3: sixty six sixty nine, seventy two seventy two as our counters,
Speaker 3: so we we played really really well that last day.
Speaker 3: The last two days. Actually we shot two seventy nine
Speaker 3: the last two days. And for people who don't know,
Speaker 3: we play, five guys count the low four scores, so
Speaker 3: two seventy nine are really good score. If you shot
Speaker 3: that every round, you'd win every tournament by a lot.
Speaker 3: But that was a good event for our guys. That
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, settled them down. I think there
Speaker 3: was a little bit of kind of looking around after
Speaker 3: the Nike event, kind of thinking what's going on here.
Speaker 3: We thought we were supposed to be the best team
Speaker 3: in the country type deal, so that kind of sells
Speaker 3: everyone down, and then going into two matchplay events, we
Speaker 3: really wanted to make an impression kind on the rest
Speaker 3: of the country. It even proved ourselves that, you know,
Speaker 3: we're a really good match play team because I think
Speaker 3: are the best part of our rosters are depth. We
Speaker 3: are we are at least six deep, and we might
Speaker 3: be seven or eight deep of really good players. I mean,
Speaker 3: we have a guy sitting at home who's a freshman,
Speaker 3: Kyle Supa, who's from Honolulu, Hawaii, who's made a cut
Speaker 3: in a PGA tour eament. I mean, he's a really,
Speaker 3: really good player. He's going to do a lot of
Speaker 3: good things for us, but he hasn't even been able
Speaker 3: to sniff our lineup yet. And he'll get in there eventually,
Speaker 3: but not yet. So our depth is really really key.
Speaker 3: So we paid play back to back six person match
Speaker 3: play events, so that really helped us.
Speaker 1: That's I was gonna ask is that you know, you
Speaker 1: guys return to all five guys from your team that
Speaker 1: made it to the Semis last year, and then you
Speaker 1: added in Cheng Jin, who was you know, the Asian
Speaker 1: All American uh Asian Amateur Champion played in this year's Masters,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the highest profile recruits. What what's
Speaker 1: qualifying like and how what's your qualifying process like? How
Speaker 1: you know, do certain guys like your veterans like Sean
Speaker 1: Crocker and Rico Joe and Jonahs Shara have like you know,
Speaker 1: is it how does it work?
Speaker 3: So we wet asked this question a lot by every
Speaker 3: recruit that comes in asked us this question, and every
Speaker 3: place has a different system. The answer we give is
Speaker 3: our system fluctuates based on the group we have, So
Speaker 3: we're not a team that always qualifies for two spots
Speaker 3: and has three coaches picks. And there's a lot of
Speaker 3: programs that do that. That's a really really good system
Speaker 3: that's been used for a while, and actually we have
Speaker 3: used it twice this year, but we don't use it
Speaker 3: all the time. So based on how guys are playing
Speaker 3: and kind of the pattern we've seen of play and
Speaker 3: how guys are doing in our tests in practice, we
Speaker 3: we develop a qualifying system for every tournament. And one
Speaker 3: thing Coach Zambria always kind of pounds on is, you know,
Speaker 3: we we're really the only sport that that qualifies. You know,
Speaker 3: our football team is not on the practice field with
Speaker 3: Sam Darnold, who's you know, come to be, you know,
Speaker 3: a great quarterback for us the past few weeks. He's
Speaker 3: not on the field throwing a football to retire against
Speaker 3: our second and third string quarterbacks to see who gets
Speaker 3: to play. You know, he's he's proven over the past
Speaker 3: few weeks that he's gonna be our starter. So to
Speaker 3: answer your question, we we have guys that we are
Speaker 3: probably never going to go to tournaments without. Guys like
Speaker 3: Rico who's been a three time All American, is going
Speaker 3: to be a four time All American, and Sean Crocker
Speaker 3: who's ranked fifteenth in the world, and even Chang who's
Speaker 3: got chan Jin, who's got en up to a rough start.
Speaker 3: If you ask him, he would say it's been, you know,
Speaker 3: pretty bad for his standards, but he's ranked ninth in
Speaker 3: the world. You know, he's proven for two years on
Speaker 3: the Wagger's system, which is a two year cycle, that
Speaker 3: he's one of the ten best players in the world.
Speaker 3: So we take all that stuff into account to figure
Speaker 3: out our qualifying system. But one thing that we are
Speaker 3: dead set on doing is giving our guys who are
Speaker 3: at home working hard a chance to make the lineup.
Speaker 3: So we got back from the Golf Club of Georgia
Speaker 3: where we played great, and we needed to add another
Speaker 3: guy to the lineup because we have to play six
Speaker 3: in this next event, and Jonah had just won the
Speaker 3: Northward event the week before, so we you know our mind,
Speaker 3: Jonah is probably going to be the one we plug in,
Speaker 3: and everybody played really well at Georgia, But we gave
Speaker 3: our guys a chance to go out and shoot a number,
Speaker 3: and if they shot a certain number at our course,
Speaker 3: Hillcrest out here that we play on Wednesdays, they would
Speaker 3: have a chance to get into qualifier against a couple
Speaker 3: of the guys who maybe hadn't performed up to their expectations.
Speaker 3: So we're always trying to find ways to keep guys
Speaker 3: at the bottom of the roster or who are just
Speaker 3: outside of our lineup engage, because, like I said, those
Speaker 3: guys are going to play a big part in this program.
Speaker 3: Guys like Kyle Supa and guys like Danie Ochoa, who
Speaker 3: are I've been our you know seven and eight guys.
Speaker 3: You know, if a guy goes down, guy gets hurt,
Speaker 3: those guys are next up and we got to keep
Speaker 3: them ready. So we're always trying to find ways to
Speaker 3: keep those guys engaged.
Speaker 1: See so you mentioned Hillcraft. Obviously La has got a
Speaker 1: you know, earth of great golf courses. It's with lacc Riviera,
Speaker 1: bel Air, Surewood, what is it Lakeside? Also, where where
Speaker 1: do you guys play and practice? Do you have your
Speaker 1: own practice facility? How what's the day to day and
Speaker 1: week to week kind of look like for some of
Speaker 1: your players.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is always kind of an interesting one because
Speaker 3: I feel like recruits and even just people kind of
Speaker 3: who are golf fans think that when you go to
Speaker 3: play college golf, you're supposed to just you know, wake
Speaker 3: up in your dorm, you roll out of your bed,
Speaker 3: you walk like thirteen feet and you're on like this
Speaker 3: super insane driving range with like five track men and
Speaker 3: you know, hitting pro vs and there's nobody else there. Well,
Speaker 3: no place is really like that. You've got to kind
Speaker 3: of manage your schedule to get these golf courses. And
Speaker 3: most people know USC is located, you know, right in
Speaker 3: the middle of downtown LA, so it'd be pretty hard
Speaker 3: for us to have an on course campus. Luckily for us,
Speaker 3: we're able to use our UC football practice field in
Speaker 3: USC Baseball Field to hit balls outdoors on campus, so
Speaker 3: that's huge for our kids, and we typically practice on
Speaker 3: campus on Tuesday and Thursday. And then along with that,
Speaker 3: three years ago we opened an indoor facility which is
Speaker 3: located in the basement of Heritage Hall. We have two
Speaker 3: Foresight golf simulators, which quite honestly have been program changers.
Speaker 3: They've been maybe the best thing to happen to this
Speaker 3: program in the last decade. These things are getting so
Speaker 3: much use, and they've enabled us to get so dialed
Speaker 3: in with our yardages, and like I said before, we
Speaker 3: are so big on iron play here, especially since Mark
Speaker 3: Brody's book Every Shot Counts came out and just stressed
Speaker 3: that if you want to be a great tour player,
Speaker 3: you better be good at strokes gain approach, and that's
Speaker 3: iron play, and that's something coach Danberry's always tried to
Speaker 3: kind of pound into a kid's head, and that's what
Speaker 3: I've always tried to pound into my kid's head. And
Speaker 3: those simulators have given us the ability to get a
Speaker 3: lot done in a short time and given our kids
Speaker 3: the ability to go somewhere in between class or in
Speaker 3: between studying when we're not officially practicing, and get a
Speaker 3: great hour working in some yardage drills and line drills
Speaker 3: and do different things. So it's really been great for us.
Speaker 3: And then as far as country clubs go, this I
Speaker 3: think is probably our best best benefit of coming to
Speaker 3: play golf at usc IS. We have three full memberships
Speaker 3: at Riviera Country Club, which means three of our guys
Speaker 3: every year are full members at riv So we kind
Speaker 3: of divide those up as however we see fit, and
Speaker 3: those kids for the semester or the year, or some
Speaker 3: kids for their four years are full blown Riviera members,
Speaker 3: which is I'm at Jordan's Beef brought it up when
Speaker 3: he was playing the Northern Trust last year. That is
Speaker 3: part of the deal at USC. If you play golf here,
Speaker 3: you get one. If you're one of our good you know,
Speaker 3: one of our highest recruited players, you definitely get one.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a benefit that maybe not a
Speaker 3: lot of other programs can can match because that place
Speaker 3: is the tour has been there forever. The range is awesome,
Speaker 3: and just the name itself, you know, gives us a
Speaker 3: lot of it's spectacular.
Speaker 1: I I played in the summer out there, and I
Speaker 1: mean there isn't a week golf hole on.
Speaker 3: That golf course. No, it's so good, And come tournament
Speaker 3: time it gets so firm, the rough gets so gnarly,
Speaker 3: and it's so good. It's such a good test. So,
Speaker 3: you know, we have three kids who are there. And
Speaker 3: then our closest course to campus is Wilshire Country Club,
Speaker 3: which is a great, very high end country Club. We
Speaker 3: have full privileges there so our guys can show up
Speaker 3: whenever they want practice chip checking, when the starter go play.
Speaker 3: So that's been a great addition for us, and we
Speaker 3: got full time usage there I think two years ago.
Speaker 3: Coach Demry negotiated a great deal for us there so
Speaker 3: our kids can show up on the weekend in the morning,
Speaker 3: go hit balls there, chip putt, hang around, try to
Speaker 3: sneak out and go play some holes. And that that's
Speaker 3: about fifteen minutes from campus and you don't have to
Speaker 3: get on a freeway, which if anyone's ever been to
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, that is a huge, huge plus. If you
Speaker 3: don't ever have to get on a freeway, that's a
Speaker 3: life changer. So that those are kind of Wheelshairs are
Speaker 3: pretty much our home course, that's what I would say.
Speaker 3: But we use Hillcrest Country Club, which is another fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes from campus. On Friday mornings, we play at Annadale
Speaker 3: Country Club, which is a great club in Pasadena, and
Speaker 3: we use Trump National in Palace Verde is quite a
Speaker 3: bit and the good thing about Trump is it's right
Speaker 3: on the water. It's one of the most beautiful golf
Speaker 3: courses you've ever seen. In your entire life. But it
Speaker 3: is a megabeast. It is long, it is mean. If
Speaker 3: you missed the fairway, it's like off a cliff, you
Speaker 3: can't even find it. And I think using Trump's really
Speaker 3: made us a great driving golf team. And that's something
Speaker 3: that coach Sanry myself is I've always I've always really
Speaker 3: been attracted to those guys who can drive the golf
Speaker 3: ball long and straight, and that's kind of where the
Speaker 3: game's gone almost almost you know, laughable now how far
Speaker 3: these guys hit it. But it's been a great golf
Speaker 3: course for us to kind of stress the importance of
Speaker 3: that part of the game.
Speaker 1: That's perfect lead in where I wanted to know kind
Speaker 1: of you know, what you guys look for beyond obviously
Speaker 1: you know looking at scores, is what do you what
Speaker 1: do you guys look for in kids? When you're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we want this kid at USC.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 3: Scores are the most important thing. Rankings are also really
Speaker 3: important to us. I know people probably don't want to
Speaker 3: hear that, and we say to parents all the time
Speaker 3: and they're like, well the rankings. I'm like, well, the
Speaker 3: rankings are a good comparison of you against your peers.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of what it is. But apart
Speaker 3: from those two things, we love ball strikers or sucker
Speaker 3: for really really good ball strikers, and the more specifically
Speaker 3: we both Coach Amry myself love unique ball strikers, kind
Speaker 3: of funky looking golf swings, weird grips. I mean, Coach
Speaker 3: Ambury likes nothing more than a kid with a super
Speaker 3: weird grip who just absolutely stripes it. Kind of homemade stuff,
Speaker 3: not super manufactured. But our biggest deal is ball striking well,
Speaker 3: guys that hit it high and long, and then kind
Speaker 3: of in our mind, if you hit it solidly, we
Speaker 3: can kind of fill in the rest you need to
Speaker 3: put decently to some level and then it kind of
Speaker 3: goes back in the strokes gain conversation. But if you
Speaker 3: put decently enough and you hit it long and solid
Speaker 3: and high and play well against your peers, you know
Speaker 3: we're we're going to focus in on you and we're
Speaker 3: gonna really want you, and we really have put a
Speaker 3: preference on guys who hit it long and high.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the Tiger generation, nobody hit it longer
Speaker 1: or higher than him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, especially some of these courses we played, I mean,
Speaker 3: going to Bradenton, a concession two years ago. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you were not a big boy with a ton
Speaker 3: of speed, it was really hard to get around that place.
Speaker 3: If you look at those teams who played in the
Speaker 3: you know, in the match play and the guys who
Speaker 3: finished high up on the individual leader board, and when
Speaker 3: it was a big boys game. That's kind of what
Speaker 3: it's turned into. And all these postseason events are kind
Speaker 3: of trending howards really good high end, long hard golf courses,
Speaker 3: and we just think guys with speed have a big advantage.
Speaker 3: Now that being said, we do have we do have
Speaker 3: guys that don't have a ton of speed and they
Speaker 3: have to kind of manage their games differently, and that's
Speaker 3: that presents, you know, presents a different challenge for coach,
Speaker 3: the memory myself when we get them in. But you know,
Speaker 3: it's a great mix to have, you know, three or
Speaker 3: four guys in your line up to kill it and
Speaker 3: then you've got you know another two or three guys
Speaker 3: who are you know, good good iron players, very accurate
Speaker 3: off the tee, and great chippers and putters. So you know,
Speaker 3: a mix is great. But I will tell you, first off,
Speaker 3: we're attracted to guys who hit it high and hard nice.
Speaker 1: So you know, parlaying off that outside, you know, outside
Speaker 1: of your guys, what guys have you seen this year
Speaker 1: on other teams that you know have kind of major
Speaker 1: jaw drop in terms of the way they hit the
Speaker 1: ball and you know, could be the next Brooks kept
Speaker 1: guys of the of the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. I mean there's the two guys
Speaker 3: kind of that have led our team, or Shaw, Crocker
Speaker 3: and Ricohoe, And it's hard to find guys that hit
Speaker 3: it harder and more solid than those two them, and
Speaker 3: they really really advanced ball strikers. But at the Gifford this,
Speaker 3: uh was it two weeks ago? Uh, Sean played Maverick
Speaker 3: McNeely in match play and I walked with that group
Speaker 3: and I was helping Sean and that was a good
Speaker 3: chance to get to see Maverick up close. And it
Speaker 3: is It is more impressive than the resume up close,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you that much. There's enough speed, there's enough height,
Speaker 3: but the way he can get himself around the golf
Speaker 3: course is otherworldly. I mean, there there's no Fluke that
Speaker 3: he's won as many times as he has and has
Speaker 3: had the success at Stanford that he has, So I
Speaker 3: think the list starts with him. After him, Will's Alaturus
Speaker 3: at wake Forest. We spent a bunch of them playing
Speaker 3: with wake this year. Crazy impressive ball striker. Kid's got
Speaker 3: a ton of pop, long, lanky, but he pounds it
Speaker 3: and he's a lot of fun to watch. Gavin Hall
Speaker 3: at Texas has a crazy amount of speed. I think
Speaker 3: Tron Carter would be all in on on Gavin the
Speaker 3: length he hits it. He's not a big dude, but
Speaker 3: it's moving. It's like it takes a lot for Sean
Speaker 3: and even Rico to admit that someone's got crazy, crazy
Speaker 3: speed compared to them. And I think Gavin might be
Speaker 3: the guy that they're like, he might. He might have us.
Speaker 3: So he's had a great year. And then I think, Uh,
Speaker 3: Wyndham Clark at Oregon, who was formerly at Oklahoma State
Speaker 3: is the number one ranked player in golf sat right now.
Speaker 3: Wyndham's and very very impressive bass striker, really really good player, and.
Speaker 1: That Eastlake it was incredible how far he was been
Speaker 1: met and just you know, he's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Golfling, beautiful golf swing. I know he's I think he
Speaker 3: just switched instructors. He's working with Jeff Smith out in
Speaker 3: Vegas now Radar Golf Pro on Twitter, who's done great
Speaker 3: work with a bunch of tour players and a bunch
Speaker 3: of young guys. Teach's Aaron Wise, who if you don't
Speaker 3: know that name yet, you will soon for all the
Speaker 3: golf fans. But Wyndhams made some good changes there. And
Speaker 3: we saw him at the NIKE and he played with
Speaker 3: Sean as well, and I was with that group and
Speaker 3: boy was impressive. He looks really really good right now
Speaker 3: and he's gonna be a tough one. And then Sam
Speaker 3: Burns from LSU just won the All American this past week.
Speaker 3: So there's another name. I know, it's a lot of
Speaker 3: names to give you, but now there's so.
Speaker 1: Many good players, all really impressive players. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: I think the depth of talent and is just insane
Speaker 1: and it's only getting.
Speaker 3: You know, deeper.
Speaker 1: I mean you look at the PGA Tour, I mean
Speaker 1: there's there's just not enough spots for how many talented
Speaker 1: players there are now, and the professional ranks on lower
Speaker 1: tours that you know, that can't get a crack onto
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour and you're like, how's this guy not
Speaker 1: there yet? Well, it's because there's just more and more
Speaker 1: great college kids and every year there's you know, a
Speaker 1: bigger flood of them heading to the bros.
Speaker 3: These guys are so polished now, I mean I didn't
Speaker 3: even mention Colin Morikawa, who almost want to, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: a professional event this summer. I mean, you guys, guy
Speaker 3: had a crazy, crazy good summer and I mean he's
Speaker 3: he's as good as they come too. So, like I said,
Speaker 3: you can't even get to all these guys. I mean
Speaker 3: there's another ten guys I could rattle off that I'm
Speaker 3: so impressed with it, and they don't even play for me,
Speaker 3: but I you know, when I watch them play and
Speaker 3: even watch them on the range, it's it's crazy impressive.
Speaker 3: And these guys are getting so much more polished. They're
Speaker 3: playing golf all year round. I mean they're playing every
Speaker 3: week in the summer. They're just they're so skilled and
Speaker 3: it's really cool to see. And they're all those players
Speaker 3: are listed are on really really good college teams. I
Speaker 3: mean those teams are all top ten twelve teams. So
Speaker 3: it makes the college game so much more attractive to
Speaker 3: outsiders when these really really good players like mav And
Speaker 3: win them and guys like that are on college teams
Speaker 3: that they're gonna see on TV, whether it be at
Speaker 3: EASTA Cup or at the National Championship.
Speaker 1: So how much you know? And I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from your perspective having played I you know, I see
Speaker 1: it at the amateur level where I think back to
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and when I was like
Speaker 1: a high school senior, I hit it like you know,
Speaker 1: two forty right, and now these kids are hitting at
Speaker 1: you know, three hundred and twenty three thirty, three hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty yards as you know, seventeen sixteen, fifteen year old.
Speaker 2: You know what, what have you noticed is the you know, real.
Speaker 1: Game changers in terms of what's changed in just the
Speaker 1: last ten years that slied to this explosion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a distance. I mean, it's nothing other than
Speaker 3: the distance and the speed, and both those things give
Speaker 3: my higher flight and more spin, which is enabled these
Speaker 3: players to do things from the fairway from you know,
Speaker 3: two hundred and out that we would have never even
Speaker 3: thought of. But this the speed that these guys have
Speaker 3: and not even the big guys. I mean Justin See
Speaker 3: was on our team, like you said, just finished second
Speaker 3: in the All American and I'll pass the last week
Speaker 3: he's five eight, one fifty five, one sixty and he
Speaker 3: won the long drive contest and he'll pass them. He
Speaker 3: hit three thirty eight or something like that. I mean,
Speaker 3: the speed these guys have and like a Gavin Hall,
Speaker 3: not that big of a guy, but just murders it.
Speaker 3: And it's across the board. It's a big boys game.
Speaker 3: And we're seeing with recruits that are coming up and
Speaker 3: you know, thirteen fourteen year old fifteen year olds that
Speaker 3: we're watching. I mean, it's an over six foot game
Speaker 3: and all these guys have speed. And I don't know
Speaker 3: what the answer is because there's some people that don't
Speaker 3: like it. You know, they're probably gonna have to address
Speaker 3: the ball at some point because it's just getting to
Speaker 3: a point where golf courses aren't going to be able
Speaker 3: to be big enough for these boys. I know we
Speaker 3: fight that problem in LA and that's why we're lucky.
Speaker 3: We have riv and Trump which are well over seven
Speaker 3: thousand yards and you know, huge golf courses. But we're
Speaker 3: losing the greatness of a lot of these smaller golf
Speaker 3: courses because the speed's just gotten to such an astronomical level.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I'm four rolling. That's the ball. But I
Speaker 1: think you've got to roll it back for everybody. If
Speaker 1: you're going to roll it back.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, I don't think you can do it
Speaker 3: for one section and not for the other. And I
Speaker 3: don't know if that's you know, everyone wants to grow
Speaker 3: the game now, and you know, I would love to,
Speaker 3: but I don't know if that's going to help or
Speaker 3: hurt grow in the game. I don't even know if
Speaker 3: it'll affect it. But seeing what these boys can do,
Speaker 3: and I mean these three woods these guys have now
Speaker 3: are just I mean, you can't even describe what these
Speaker 3: guys are doing with their three wood. They're hitting the
Speaker 3: three woods three hundred and ten, three fifteen, and a
Speaker 3: lot of guys won't. They can't hit their three wood
Speaker 3: because it goes too far. The technology has gotten so good,
Speaker 3: it's kind of gone from the driver now down to
Speaker 3: the three wood that it's a really weird deal. And
Speaker 3: I'm kind of interested to see where it goes with
Speaker 3: the club manufacturers from now on, because the technology's gone
Speaker 3: down to that three wood and you know what's next
Speaker 3: and what is he going to get into the hybrids
Speaker 3: and the utility irons And it would be interesting to
Speaker 3: see where it goes. So I'm curious, you know.
Speaker 1: I'm just doing some research on a piece that I
Speaker 1: never wrote, but I was looking at driver lengths and
Speaker 1: how for the common golfer they've gone up every year,
Speaker 1: you know, right, forty six drivers. You know, I personally
Speaker 1: use like forty four and a half. And then I
Speaker 1: saw that tour average in the last ten years went
Speaker 1: from forty three and a half just to forty four
Speaker 1: and a half. Right, what are what are the most
Speaker 1: of the year guys usings for you know lengths?
Speaker 3: I would assume that they're all in forty four and
Speaker 3: a half if that's what the tour is that I'm
Speaker 3: assuming that that's what my guys are. I spent some
Speaker 3: time down at Taylor Made I think it was last
Speaker 3: year when I was I went down with one of
Speaker 3: my girls was coaching at the time, and I met
Speaker 3: I was talking to one of their engineers was hanging
Speaker 3: out on the range and they've experimented going back shorter.
Speaker 3: I guess he was heading a project of thinking maybe
Speaker 3: that short of the club that a high handicapper would
Speaker 3: actually pick up some speed. So I know there's some
Speaker 3: some research being done on that now, which would I
Speaker 3: think would be good? I think it's gotten too long,
Speaker 3: and but you're not seeing any of the college players,
Speaker 3: I don't think really going over forty five maybe forty
Speaker 3: five and a half. But I think that's kind of
Speaker 3: hit a wall there at some point. You gotta you're
Speaker 3: losing control and the golf courses were playing with the
Speaker 3: rough we're playing on and it's going to come back
Speaker 3: to bite you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the number one thing you got to
Speaker 1: be in a fair way to score, you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: make bogus from the rough. You know, it's hard to
Speaker 1: make bogus from the fairway.
Speaker 3: For those guys. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So, uh, you know, let's let's jump a little off
Speaker 1: topic here. I played in the US mid Am and
Speaker 1: uh it was won by USB grad Stuart hagis dad,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious if he's been back around campus.
Speaker 3: You know what what?
Speaker 1: Uh? I know, coach Danbury, coach Tammu's you know, only
Speaker 1: twenty five, so he's a recent grad of the program.
Speaker 1: Rare one not to turn pro, but what the if
Speaker 1: he's been back around and uh if any of the
Speaker 1: guys from your team know him.
Speaker 3: And you know, uh yeah, so our guys know him
Speaker 3: pretty well from amateur golf. This summer. We hung out
Speaker 3: with him, uh for a bunch of time, a lot
Speaker 3: of time at the am UH this summer, and so
Speaker 3: he's been in kind of constant contact with a lot
Speaker 3: of our guys, especially Sean and Rico, because I know
Speaker 3: there's some Walker Cup hopes for the three of them.
Speaker 3: It sounds to me like Stui's gonna have a really,
Speaker 3: really good chance to get on that Walker Cup team
Speaker 3: because they have to pick the two midams and him
Speaker 3: being twenty five and having the summer that he had,
Speaker 3: especially with that Midam title, I got to think he's
Speaker 3: almost a shoeing for that team. So I know Sean
Speaker 3: Rico have been in contact with him about that. But
Speaker 3: Stuie's a legend here at USC. He's got a bunch
Speaker 3: of nicknames, Van Wilder, the Thin Beast. But with all
Speaker 3: the testing that we've done, Coach Zambri will always harp
Speaker 3: on the fact that stu might be his best iron
Speaker 3: player he's ever had, and that puts him in the
Speaker 3: category with love Mark and Tim Sluter, played the European Tour,
Speaker 3: and Rico Ho. He's been a three time American. So
Speaker 3: Stu's kind of a legend around here and all different
Speaker 3: walks of life, whether it be on in his fraternity
Speaker 3: or in the athletic department or even in our standards
Speaker 3: of testing here. But he's a really good guy. He's
Speaker 3: got a really good family. His families all Trojans. I
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time around our fleg department, so
Speaker 3: we couldn't be happier for him. We were watching the
Speaker 3: playoffs on our phone on Coach Amby's phone during the
Speaker 3: practice round at Olympia Fields, and when he made that
Speaker 3: put to win, we went crazy and I think the
Speaker 3: whole golf course heard his scream, so it was we
Speaker 3: were so happy for him. And he was telling Coach
Speaker 3: Amry and if the us An that he had aspirations
Speaker 3: of making this Walker Cup team and that's that's where
Speaker 3: his mind was, and he was gonna do everything he
Speaker 3: could to make that team. And winning that mid Am
Speaker 3: and getting in the Masters, that's that's definitely gonna help them.
Speaker 3: We're real for him.
Speaker 1: I mean the two guys that got to the you know,
Speaker 1: and I mean has Dad Wang you know with yeah,
Speaker 1: that that kind of locked it up. I feel like,
Speaker 1: so it's Harvey is a great player too. They're still
Speaker 1: keeping two guys on the walk cup in two.
Speaker 3: Mid AM's right too, Midam, that's that's as far as
Speaker 3: I know, that's what they're still doing and kind of
Speaker 3: going back to Stue and getting into the Masters. Our
Speaker 3: men's team took a trip to Augustus, Stue's senior year,
Speaker 3: I believe, and I think Rumor has to stew put
Speaker 3: up a pretty good round from the tournament teas his
Speaker 3: last run in Augusta, so it's a place he's comfortable.
Speaker 3: So I'm uh, we're really excited to see what he
Speaker 3: can do there if you gets the invite. I know,
Speaker 3: I guess has given that out.
Speaker 1: Yet, if he can bottle up that the game he
Speaker 1: had the last five or six holes of that, Midham,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was unbelievable, all those birdies.
Speaker 3: That was such good stuff, and like like kind of
Speaker 3: coach every said, he has some great iron shots down
Speaker 3: the stretch show to give him ten to fifteen footers
Speaker 3: to keep that thing alive and then to win it
Speaker 3: and it was good to see, you know, the testing
Speaker 3: it paid off, so it's good for us to see too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. So let's jump into a couple reader
Speaker 1: questions and Twitter questions here. So in the in your
Speaker 1: college career, you know who, who's the best player that
Speaker 1: you've seen through come through the college ranks? This is
Speaker 1: from Ghosts of Hogan.
Speaker 3: Oh, Ghost Love Ghosts This. I'm kind of torn on
Speaker 3: this one because both the guys I'm thinking of, I'm
Speaker 3: really good friends best friends with one of them, and
Speaker 3: I'm really good friends with the other one, Jamie love Mark.
Speaker 3: So first of one I'll give you is Jamie. What
Speaker 3: he did his freshman year was so dominant, and we
Speaker 3: previously talked about this him and Patrick Cantley. It was
Speaker 3: kind of back and forth of Southern California battle of
Speaker 3: who could do more on the amateur circuit. So Jamie's
Speaker 3: stuff might be as good as I've ever seen. The
Speaker 3: way he hit his long irons and the way he
Speaker 3: drove the golf ball, and his hands. He's got very
Speaker 3: very underrated hands around the green. His high chipping game
Speaker 3: is world class. I adventure to say one of the
Speaker 3: best on tour. Going high from around the greens and
Speaker 3: he could always put. So I'm giving you two incredibly
Speaker 3: biased answers, by the way, so I've apologize for that.
Speaker 3: And the other one would be Chris Nalen, who's now
Speaker 3: the assistant men's coach at Arizona. And I got to
Speaker 3: know Chris really well because I committed really early to Arizona,
Speaker 3: So I started hanging around the probe and going to
Speaker 3: some tournaments and when they were around the area that
Speaker 3: I was at, and got to know Chris really well
Speaker 3: and ended up living with him for three years towards
Speaker 3: the end of college and then into my coaching career.
Speaker 3: Chris's amateur record was stuff was like legend just I
Speaker 3: think it was a semifinalist in the am He won
Speaker 3: the Northeastern and he won the Dogwood. He went on
Speaker 3: one of those crazy summer stretches, and he was such
Speaker 3: a good ball striker that it made up for I
Speaker 3: think what he would tell you was kind of his
Speaker 3: lower end putting skill, and he was good enough putter,
Speaker 3: he was serviceable, but his iron play was so good.
Speaker 3: It was something that always stuck out to me. Stuck
Speaker 3: out to me even as a young kid. It was
Speaker 3: something that I would just watch on the range and
Speaker 3: I would just my jaw would hit the floor. It
Speaker 3: was so good. And I kind of spent all practice
Speaker 3: rounds of college tournaments when we see him trying to
Speaker 3: tell my kids how good he was, and they're like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, guys, this guy was so good. He
Speaker 3: shot sixty five, sixty four, sixty three, sixty two with
Speaker 3: the Dogwood one summer, and then they were like, what actually,
Speaker 3: And unfortunately he had a has a really bad back
Speaker 3: injury and it's not able to play anymore, which is
Speaker 3: kind of similar to what Jamie had. Jamie broke his
Speaker 3: back and had surgery, but luckily he's kind of regained
Speaker 3: his health. But those two guys, in my eyes, guys,
Speaker 3: I spent a lot of time around kind of there's
Speaker 3: stuff with something that always stuck out to me, and
Speaker 3: I always admired.
Speaker 1: That's that's great. I mean, it's love Mark. I always
Speaker 1: wonder what would have happened had that first back injury
Speaker 1: not happened, because it's you know, he was on like
Speaker 1: an unbelievable trajectory from you know, college to pro to
Speaker 1: dominating the web dot com and then he got.
Speaker 3: Hurt, yeah, exactly, and he started, you know, he got
Speaker 3: hurt in college. Toward the end of his career, he
Speaker 3: had a rib issue that kind of held him out
Speaker 3: of a couple events. But you know what, he's done
Speaker 3: great work with Chris Como the past couple of years,
Speaker 3: and he's really driving the golf ball well, which was
Speaker 3: a problem coming off his back injury. So I think
Speaker 3: now he's kind of focusing on tightening up his iron game,
Speaker 3: and if he can get his iron game a little better,
Speaker 3: I would look for him to do some big things,
Speaker 3: because he got himself in contention quite a bit last year,
Speaker 3: and that was pretty much on the back of his
Speaker 3: chipping ability. He's a good putter, and then you know,
Speaker 3: I think he was third or fourth all year of
Speaker 3: strokes game driving. He's just so far and so high
Speaker 3: that Chris Como really tightened up his accuracy and he
Speaker 3: kept his distance in doing so. And he said he's
Speaker 3: been working hard on his iron game and he's he's
Speaker 3: come in a couple of times since I've been here
Speaker 3: to work with coach and on the testing, and you know,
Speaker 3: we're expecting big things from Jamie this year. And he
Speaker 3: just got married so he's you know, his life's in
Speaker 3: a good play. So hopefully he can get off to
Speaker 3: a good start and do some big things this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think what gets lost and you
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head, It is like he's
Speaker 1: like a top fifteen player in the world around the greens.
Speaker 1: It gets lost because of how far he hits it.
Speaker 1: But when he hit it that far and you're that
Speaker 1: good around the greens, it's it's really hard not to
Speaker 1: be successful.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean we watched, you know, we're we're in
Speaker 3: the office all the time watching you know, the guys
Speaker 3: on shot Link and it's like Jamie love Mark three
Speaker 3: twenty three to right fairway and it's like Jamie Lovemark
Speaker 3: one eighty three to right rough forty seven inches, you know,
Speaker 3: forty seven ft from the hole. And then we're like, oh,
Speaker 3: he'll chip it to a foot and it's like Jamie
Speaker 3: Lovemark third shot to six inches and it's just like
Speaker 3: he's such a good shipper, but it totally gets lost
Speaker 3: because he he was dominating that Strokes game driving stat
Speaker 3: But like I said, if he can get that iron
Speaker 3: game just a little bit better and a little bit sharper,
Speaker 3: he's he's gonna do some great things, all right.
Speaker 1: So the next two are from Tyler Goulding.
Speaker 3: Our former assistant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what you know the big controversy it actually
Speaker 1: happened when you guys played Texas is that you know?
Speaker 1: Bo Hostler hurt his shoulder, had to get surgery later
Speaker 1: on it, but he was unable to play in the finals.
Speaker 1: He heard his shoulder while playing the semi final match.
Speaker 1: Was he playing against Rico right?
Speaker 3: Uh? Bo was playing against Andrew Levitt.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he heard his shoulder. Unable to play then,
Speaker 1: and the NCAA doesn't allow substitutions, so Texas had to
Speaker 1: just forfeit one of the final match play matches in
Speaker 1: the finals of the NCAA Championship. So what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on them upholding no substitutions rule.
Speaker 3: It's if you ask one hundred people, you probab get
Speaker 3: one hundre different answers on this. So even coach Zamber,
Speaker 3: I think, might have a slightly different opinion of mine.
Speaker 3: I love substitutions for match play circumstances. I do not
Speaker 3: like substitutions for stroke play circumstances. And that's because the
Speaker 3: individual rankings are a big deal to these guys. I mean,
Speaker 3: they really care about the rankings. It's how you know,
Speaker 3: companies make decisions on guys when they're turning pro and
Speaker 3: even agencies, you know, look at guys' rankings when they're
Speaker 3: trying to figure out who they want to represent. So
Speaker 3: it's a big deal to these guys. It's a big
Speaker 3: deal to us. We want guys that are highly ranked,
Speaker 3: and I just feel like if you have substitutions in
Speaker 3: stroke play scenarios, we're gonna have guys. You know, if
Speaker 3: you pull a guy out to the finished last in
Speaker 3: the tournament, or did you just not get a ranking
Speaker 3: for the tournament so you'll have you could have you know,
Speaker 3: some room for some some funky stuff going on as
Speaker 3: far as pulling a guy out or when do you
Speaker 3: know if you get a highly ranked guy who's playing
Speaker 3: bad and you pull him out, you know, are you
Speaker 3: pulling him out really to make your team better? You're
Speaker 3: pulling him out, you know, maybe to save his ranking,
Speaker 3: to make him feel a little bit better. So I
Speaker 3: just feel like there's a lot of scenarios there, But
Speaker 3: as far as match play is concerned, I think it's
Speaker 3: a great idea. I think it gives more guys a
Speaker 3: chance to travel, which also presents another problem for smaller programs.
Speaker 3: For bigger Power five programs, the expense is not that
Speaker 3: big of a deal. It's another, you know, thousand dollars
Speaker 3: fifteen hundred dollars a trip, which just added on your budget.
Speaker 3: And you know, the bigger football schools can kind of
Speaker 3: kind of deal with it, but the mid majors, that's
Speaker 3: a lot of money that they probably have the fundraise.
Speaker 3: So you know, there's a there's something that a lot
Speaker 3: of people don't think about when they talk about substitutions,
Speaker 3: is to added expense. But as far as match play,
Speaker 3: I think it works, and the Bohasler situation just shined
Speaker 3: the light on it. It's kind of been talked about
Speaker 3: for a long time. Actually, remember Tochal Rose bringing this
Speaker 3: up when I was playing back in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: I think even brought it up with the Coaches convention then.
Speaker 3: But it's kind of a funny story. At at Eugene
Speaker 3: obviously had the Bow situation, but our women's team at
Speaker 3: USC played Duke in the first round of match play
Speaker 3: and Leon Maguire played with early stage of vertigo. It
Speaker 3: kind of wasn't really talked about because it was a
Speaker 3: quarterfinal match, but you know, trust me, they would have
Speaker 3: liked the substitution. They would have had to pull the
Speaker 3: number one amateur in the country, in the world to
Speaker 3: rest that day because k early stage vertigo. Now she
Speaker 3: fought through it and played and you know, actually actually
Speaker 3: played decently well that day. But it's something that presented
Speaker 3: itself twice that week, and obviously the bow One being
Speaker 3: in the situation it was, and you know, the talent
Speaker 3: he is, you know, always being in the spotlight as
Speaker 3: good as his record was got more people to talk
Speaker 3: about it. But it's something that's been discussed for a
Speaker 3: while now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's at that stage. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just a shame. I mean that, Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: have to give away a point when it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like they're faking an injury or they're trying
Speaker 1: to get somebody out of there. I think if I
Speaker 1: think if there's a legitimate excuse, there should be you know,
Speaker 1: you should be allowed to switch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially in the match plays. You know that was
Speaker 3: in a match play deal where it's you know, there
Speaker 3: are you get one head to head ranking win if
Speaker 3: you beat someone, it doesn't really affect the rankings much
Speaker 3: like it would in a regular season event. If you're
Speaker 3: pulling a guy from a stroke play event, that changes
Speaker 3: the rankings a lot of It also changes who everybody
Speaker 3: else is playing. But in a matchplay situation, I love it.
Speaker 3: You know, bring bring seven guys if you want, you
Speaker 3: know who cares, bring the whole team, figure out who
Speaker 3: you want to play in the match play. I think
Speaker 3: it's a great way to get more guys involved, and
Speaker 3: it gets more strategy involved for the coaches, which which
Speaker 3: I think is great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, So it just you know what you
Speaker 1: guys are expecting. Obviously, you still got to get through
Speaker 1: regionals to.
Speaker 3: Get to.
Speaker 1: Rich Harvest in the in the championship. But you know,
Speaker 1: where do you guys qualify for a regionals? And you
Speaker 1: know what? What are you guys looking forward to about
Speaker 1: rich Harvest as a course.
Speaker 3: To be honest with you, I don't even know where
Speaker 3: the NCAA regionals are located this year, so I cannot
Speaker 3: answer that question. But as far as Riss Harvest is concerned,
Speaker 3: we are really excited to get there. Assuming we get there.
Speaker 3: I've never personally been there. Rico played there his freshman year.
Speaker 3: In regionals in twenty fourteen, US got through there. I
Speaker 3: believe they finished tied for fourth as a team. In
Speaker 3: the reviews we got back from those guys in coach
Speaker 3: Ambry on that golf course, where they loved it. Kind
Speaker 3: of the words we I kept hearing are big, mean, long,
Speaker 3: a lot of marsh I guess from what I hear,
Speaker 3: But it's gonna be a really, really tough test. I
Speaker 3: think it's going to put a big mark on driving
Speaker 3: ability and long iron play, which our entire roster gets
Speaker 3: excited about when they hear that, probably from getting it
Speaker 3: pounded into their heads by coaching my self. But it's
Speaker 3: something we're really looking forward to. And then all I
Speaker 3: keep hearing about it are these different team grounds and
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of hundred different ways to play
Speaker 3: the golf course. So when we get into match play,
Speaker 3: it could be a very interesting setup where they could
Speaker 3: change some stuff coming down the stretch, makes them holes drivable,
Speaker 3: makes some par fives reachable, where hopefully we can give
Speaker 3: the TV audience some some exciting stuff.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's yeah, it's it's gonna be. Is it
Speaker 1: definitely a big golf course, definitely tough. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you if you don't bring your ball striking game, it's
Speaker 1: gonna kick your ass. So but anyways, Hey, thanks for
Speaker 1: spending you know, an hour with us. I can't say enough.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the time.
Speaker 3: And you know, for.
Speaker 1: Everybody that's looking to follow Justin, he's on Twitter, it's
Speaker 1: Justin s Underscore USC. So at Justin s Underscore USC.
Speaker 1: And Hey, thanks again for coming on and uh wishing
Speaker 1: you guys the best of block here in the spring season.
Speaker 3: No proud Manny, Thanks for having me on. Appreciate the
Speaker 3: coverage you're giving college golf and look forward to seeing
Speaker 3: you out Rich Harvers Farms.
Speaker 1: Definitely man looking forward to meet there.
Speaker 3: Thanks again, it's awesome. Thanks Anny,