Speaker 1: The guys from Ping.
Speaker 2: They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 3: I just love that I can hit any.
Speaker 1: Shot I kind of want. We're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: tell some fun stories about what goes on here to
Speaker 1: help golfers play better golf.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Ping prooven Grounds podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Shane Bacon, joined as always by Marty Jerts and
Speaker 2: Marty we got one of the nice guys on tour
Speaker 2: joining us day Atckenzie Hughes. McKenzie a lot of podcast
Speaker 2: Have you had a lot of podcast spots in your life?
Speaker 3: I feel like since since COVID, I feel like podcasts
Speaker 3: have taken off, and I feel like since then, yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel like the podcast I've been on quite a
Speaker 3: few since then, and but like prior to that, I
Speaker 3: don't feel like there was as many, and I feel
Speaker 3: like now it's yeah, it's coming up more and more
Speaker 3: requests and first time beyond a ping podcast, I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Are you a podcast listener?
Speaker 3: If I have the right drive, I will, And if
Speaker 3: my kids aren't in the car, which is few and
Speaker 3: far between, usually it's the kids TV is going in
Speaker 3: the back, so you can't quite you know, intermix the audio,
Speaker 3: but uh, do you like a good podcast? And I
Speaker 3: feel like it can like if you've got on the
Speaker 3: right podcast on nice drive, that can make it make
Speaker 3: it go by quick.
Speaker 1: What type of podcasts are you into health and fitness stuff?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: I like those uh you know those self improvement ones
Speaker 3: or motivational ones. I mean like maybe like an ed
Speaker 3: my Leb podcast or I actually listened listened to a
Speaker 3: podcast Jason Bateman will our Net SmartLess. Yeah, so good,
Speaker 3: that's a good podcast. Those guys are funny. Uh So,
Speaker 3: it just kind of depends on what my mood is.
Speaker 2: You know, like a maple leaf steal. Do you do hockey?
Speaker 3: Yea sometimes you know hockey podcasts or like those guys
Speaker 3: are great. So yeah, just whatever you've been moved for.
Speaker 3: But there's tons of good podcasts out there now and
Speaker 3: and tons of great content.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think a lot of the ping proven Grounds
Speaker 1: podcast listeners they're very into the kind of we talk
Speaker 1: tech stuff, golf, product design, club fitting to our your interview,
Speaker 1: so this is gonna be a fun one, yeah, Mac
Speaker 1: to kind of go into some of the details your gear.
Speaker 1: I think how you train, get ready for tournaments. Y.
Speaker 1: I'm personally very interested in your journey going from and
Speaker 1: I've talked to Mike Carro, a little bit mutual friend
Speaker 1: of ours, your trainer there, on what you've done to
Speaker 1: kind of boost your ball speed in what you're doing
Speaker 1: on the fitness side over the last you know whatever
Speaker 1: five years or so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, he's been great, kind of changed the way
Speaker 3: I looked at the fitness side of things. I think
Speaker 3: I had a pretty good handle on it, but just
Speaker 3: a little bit different focus for what I'm doing in
Speaker 3: the gym. And yeah, it's it's nice to see it
Speaker 3: kind of come through on a golf course. Actually, I
Speaker 3: was just coming off the range where I was hitting
Speaker 3: some drivers and I try to do like you know,
Speaker 3: small groups two three times a week where I'll be
Speaker 3: hitting drivers like hard with the intent to hit them
Speaker 3: as hard as I can, and just a way to
Speaker 3: train that that speed. Like that speed is a skill.
Speaker 3: It's something you need to work at and constantly do.
Speaker 3: And I find the more I do that, if I
Speaker 3: can make sure I'm consistent with that, I can take
Speaker 3: to that I can take that to the golf course
Speaker 3: and you know, going from a one seventy seventy one
Speaker 3: guy to a one seventy eight guy, Like that's that's
Speaker 3: a big difference, and you know, a huge asset around
Speaker 3: course like this for sure.
Speaker 2: When you think about like speed, because speed's become such
Speaker 2: a big part of golf, and you think about over
Speaker 2: the last let's call it eight years, you know, it's
Speaker 2: really become like a main focus not just for professional golfers,
Speaker 2: but for the every day golfer as well. When do
Speaker 2: you feel comfortable when you pick up seven eight mile
Speaker 2: per hour ball speed and club at speed? When do
Speaker 2: you start to feel comfortable going out on the golf
Speaker 2: course in a tournament and feeling like, Okay, I can
Speaker 2: unleash this one. Maybe you're playing you know, you're playing
Speaker 2: Phoenix and you're on three, You're like, I'm gonna send one,
Speaker 2: you know, right of that bunker. Yeah. Does it take
Speaker 2: a level of commitment, you know, in terms of practice
Speaker 2: to feel that comfortable doing it in a tournament?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean, I think the good thing about as
Speaker 3: you're making speed games, you know, it's not as if
Speaker 3: you overnight go from seventy two to seventy nine, so
Speaker 3: that that gradual will step up where you know, one
Speaker 3: week I go, you know, averaging seventy five that week,
Speaker 3: and then the next week I'm averaging, you know, just
Speaker 3: over seventy five, and then in three months I'm averaging
Speaker 3: seventy seven point five or you know, and you just
Speaker 3: it's slowly creeping up. But like the idea with when
Speaker 3: I I'm doing it on the range, I like to
Speaker 3: swing the way I'll do on the course. So it's
Speaker 3: just I'm simply adding like a little bit of intent
Speaker 3: to hit it harder, but typically swing within the same
Speaker 3: framework of my swing. I'm not lifting up my left
Speaker 3: heel or trying to jump off the ground. I'm not
Speaker 3: doing anything like that. So I try to make it
Speaker 3: as similar as possible to I'm gonna do on the course,
Speaker 3: so I can at least bring that swing to the course.
Speaker 3: Now there is an element of trust too, because if
Speaker 3: you stand on a tee on let's say fifteen to
Speaker 3: part five, you know, and you're gonna get your back
Speaker 3: and one a little harder. Well, you can't miss it
Speaker 3: really anywhere, right, you know, like you need to right yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: So you need to hit it a really straight drive there,
Speaker 3: And honestly, distance isn't a huge priority there because you
Speaker 3: hit a three thirty down there, it gets pretty narrow
Speaker 3: and necky. So you hit a three tons off the tee,
Speaker 3: which is not too difficult to do here in Phoenix.
Speaker 3: You know you're in a nice spot hitting a foreign
Speaker 3: in there. So you kind of pick your spots right,
Speaker 3: Like you know, eleven T is a little squeeze cut
Speaker 3: for me, preferably a little bit off the heel, a little.
Speaker 2: Spinny, just get it in play, get in.
Speaker 3: Place, you know, I want that ball spinning left right.
Speaker 3: So there's there's your moments. You got to pick your
Speaker 3: moments where hey, this is a this is a full center.
Speaker 3: This is like a little you know, feeler. But I
Speaker 3: think you look at the list of winners here, uh
Speaker 3: you know, typically you know, length is a big advantage
Speaker 3: to have. I mean there's some bunkers that you know,
Speaker 3: like on eight. You know when Rory plays here, those
Speaker 3: bunkers aren't in play. You know, that's a huge advantage
Speaker 3: for that whole I mean, that whole right of the
Speaker 3: bunkers is tight. Over those bunkers, you got the world.
Speaker 3: So I think it's just something that's it's kind of
Speaker 3: opened my eyes to know how important it is. And
Speaker 3: look I know what's coming behind me, and it's it's fast.
Speaker 3: So I'm just trying to just trying to just trying
Speaker 3: to keep up. I just played a practice round with
Speaker 3: the two hoy Guards brothers and yes, PRIs Benson and
Speaker 3: I mean they had their quads out there all day,
Speaker 3: you know, eighty two at eighty five, all all morning,
Speaker 3: I mean it and it wasn't I mean it was morning.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, I was like, I'm not moving as good,
Speaker 3: and you know, I'm probably in the you know load
Speaker 3: of mid one seventies and they're already cruising in the
Speaker 3: you know, mid to lower one eighties, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: that's uh, that's different. So I know, you know, that's
Speaker 3: kind of the way that the game is going now,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't matter what they do to equipment, what
Speaker 3: they do to the ball, the golfer and the athlete
Speaker 3: will just get faster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you're seeing it. You're seeing it throughout
Speaker 2: every sport. I mean, think about how quick an athletic
Speaker 2: defensive linemen are right now. I mean it's so incredib
Speaker 2: They're running four threes, four fours, Marty. I wanted to
Speaker 2: ask you, I mean, obviously with stack and everything like that.
Speaker 2: I thought McKenzie said something very interesting about like not overswinging,
Speaker 2: just overswing like trying to kind of make a swing
Speaker 2: in practice that would be a swing on the golf course.
Speaker 2: How do you talk to people that are using stack
Speaker 2: in terms of that mentality where it's not just I'm
Speaker 2: swinging as hard as I can as I'm practicing, and
Speaker 2: then I got to go take that out on the
Speaker 2: golf course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where we have when in our training, we
Speaker 1: have different intents and Mac talked about that exactly. Is
Speaker 1: just is just there's a certain intent you need to
Speaker 1: take and if you can do it on the range, right.
Speaker 1: And then one big thing we like to do, which
Speaker 1: is the guys are doing in your practice around this morning,
Speaker 1: is measure your ball speed on the course. So whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, a little radar you take out there,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of the guys using
Speaker 1: quad are probably just looking at ball speed. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's like taking that ball.
Speaker 3: Speed to the court carry number, but really just a
Speaker 3: couple of numbers because they're not lying it up for
Speaker 3: runny club dat out there. Yeah, you know, they're just
Speaker 3: looking to carry speed. You know, stuff like that Actually
Speaker 3: the prg R that comes with stack it's actually really good.
Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not sure if you use it all,
Speaker 3: but like next to my track man the ball speed
Speaker 3: numbers are like they never miss.
Speaker 1: Yeah I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't look at club speed, but ball speed, which
Speaker 3: is really what I'm after. It's money. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: you just slid that thing in your bag pulled out.
Speaker 3: I mean I kind of get some looks sometimes we're like, oh,
Speaker 3: look at that little thing, like you know exactly I
Speaker 3: cut my quad out here, like I cut my little
Speaker 3: pr g R. But I've been a track man guy,
Speaker 3: so like that's not really you can't bring on the course.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Pr GR Like just to get a few practice round
Speaker 3: numbers is just great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's sweet. That's what I like to do, Shane,
Speaker 1: is just if I'm playing nine holes in the cart
Speaker 1: late late in the evening, put our stack radar. It's
Speaker 1: like the pr GR really good for ball speed. Just
Speaker 1: put in your cup holder. You can put it down
Speaker 1: in every single t box because ultimately you want to
Speaker 1: you want to bring that speed to the golf course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think the idea is that you you know,
Speaker 3: you get more comfortable doing it the more often you
Speaker 3: do it. So if you're doing it in practice and
Speaker 3: you're doing it when you play a match with your buddies,
Speaker 3: and then you go do it when you play a
Speaker 3: tour event, like it just it just gives you a
Speaker 3: confensate this is okay, Yeah, I can actually go this
Speaker 3: fast and it's still I actually like to use the
Speaker 3: mentality sometimes of like people say, like and then the
Speaker 3: old way of teaching was like slow and smooth, right,
Speaker 3: like we just want to hit a straight straight, But
Speaker 3: like if I asked a baseball player to throw a strike,
Speaker 3: he wouldn't throw it softer to make sure you threw
Speaker 3: a strike. You to throw a fastball, right, he's gonna
Speaker 3: throw it fast to throw it straight, you know. And
Speaker 3: I just think that sometimes, like we think that if
Speaker 3: you're gonna go faster, we're gonna be more crooked. But
Speaker 3: I've actually found that, like when I swing it hard,
Speaker 3: my dispersion is as good, if not better. So, but
Speaker 3: there's also whether there's a trust element to that.
Speaker 1: How About from a shot shaving standpoint, you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: hit a little control cuts out there when you're trying
Speaker 1: to hit a far when are you trying to hit
Speaker 1: it straight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when I when I'm hitting it further, I'm teeing
Speaker 3: it a little bit higher and drawing away the balls
Speaker 3: flying straight to maybe even fall on left. Okay, just
Speaker 3: kind of what happens when I swing it harder. Yea,
Speaker 3: I tend to get a little bit more up on
Speaker 3: it and a little bit more right. But I know
Speaker 3: that I know that. Well, that's that's kind of what happens.
Speaker 3: And then you know, my my stock or more you know,
Speaker 3: teed down swing is a little more on top of it,
Speaker 3: a little more cut biased. So but again it's nice
Speaker 3: just you guys gotta know you got no your tennessees
Speaker 3: know what happens as you're gonna hit it harder. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I think there's a st a little time and a place.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: There's like you got on certain holes out here and
Speaker 3: you know, being three hundred of mill of fairways just fine,
Speaker 3: you know, so just getting all and play find a
Speaker 3: way to get get out there.
Speaker 2: So how crazy was it last year having three players
Speaker 2: from Kent State on that President's Cup team? Like I
Speaker 2: was going through some of the teams this morning, it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, you get Bama and you get Texas and
Speaker 2: you get these teams you expected to see and then
Speaker 2: Kent State you got three players represented. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, that was a huge point
Speaker 3: of pride for our school. My golf coach, her page
Speaker 3: like that. That's just doesn't happen very often or ever really,
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm in American school, uh, and we're yeah,
Speaker 3: we're not. We're not in Texas, We're not on Alabama.
Speaker 3: But you know, we've we've held our own over the years,
Speaker 3: and I think, you know, we we're proud of that.
Speaker 3: We're proud of, you know, the talent that's gone through
Speaker 3: there and obviously a lot of Canadians going through that
Speaker 3: that pipeline. But yeah, it was such a thrill not
Speaker 3: only to be on that team, but to share it
Speaker 3: with you know, two really good friends of mine, Corey
Speaker 3: and Taylor, And yeah, I was that was a dream week.
Speaker 1: You guys. I noticed you also traveled to South Africa
Speaker 1: last fall to play that event. How'd that come to be?
Speaker 1: Why did you? Why'd you go down there? I saw
Speaker 1: you you had a great finish and Corey did as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think as I you know, I'm
Speaker 3: in year nine now, and I think it's cool to
Speaker 3: get those opportunities and to see other parts of the world.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've played on tour now for a
Speaker 3: while and I've seen lots of great places, but you know,
Speaker 3: I hadn't been down there, and I just had the
Speaker 3: opportunity to go. They have those spots available to the
Speaker 3: ten ten PG tour spots down there, and they got
Speaker 3: an invite to go down and it was kind of
Speaker 3: a no brainer. I just thought there would be a
Speaker 3: cool experience. I had heard nothing but great things. Uh,
Speaker 3: And we got treated awesome down there, Corey and our
Speaker 3: caddies and a couple others of the Safari, which was
Speaker 3: a really cool experience, and just everything about it was
Speaker 3: really fun. Uh. Animals all over the golf course. We
Speaker 3: were playing the one day and we're up on this
Speaker 3: par three l a t and this like herd, I
Speaker 3: don't even be called a herd or a pack of
Speaker 3: chimpanzees just started like coming across the hole.
Speaker 2: Are you like uncomfortable?
Speaker 3: And well they they I was like, I didn't think
Speaker 3: any of it, but they're like all those are those
Speaker 3: areas are vicious, Like you got to stay away from
Speaker 3: those guys because they're they're mean, and I mean, I
Speaker 3: had no idea, but like it looked it looked like
Speaker 3: they could be pretty aggressive. And then I was over
Speaker 3: a putt like ten minutes later on that same hole
Speaker 3: and I'm just about to hit my putt and I
Speaker 3: hear this like growling and screaming, and I'm like, what
Speaker 3: is that? And it was two chimpanzees like just like
Speaker 3: one hundred yards away, just scrapping, like just having a
Speaker 3: fight over something. And uh, I mean, that was probably
Speaker 3: the first time in my career I backed off for
Speaker 3: chimpanzee fight, so hopefully hopefully last. But it was really cool.
Speaker 3: I loved it down there. Gary Player was the host,
Speaker 3: got to meet him, and yeah, just a really fun week.
Speaker 2: It feels like there's a push right now from pros.
Speaker 2: I don't know who kind of started this, but there
Speaker 2: seems to be and you said it, you know, you've
Speaker 2: been doing this for a long time. There seems to
Speaker 2: be an appreciation or at least an interest in a
Speaker 2: little bit more global golf. You know, there's there's players
Speaker 2: that are more insted in going and play in Australia,
Speaker 2: around Australian Open and things like that go to Africa
Speaker 2: and play do you feel that amongst your peers that
Speaker 2: it's not just the localized tournaments that you play each
Speaker 2: and every year, but to try to expand the horizons
Speaker 2: a bit and play elsewhere that you haven't been before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think, you know, in this career, you
Speaker 3: don't really know how long it will ever last, right,
Speaker 3: You can get hurt and that and things can end abruptly.
Speaker 3: You know, you hope that ever happens. But when you
Speaker 3: have the opportunities and you get to a point like
Speaker 3: I am in my career, I just think that you
Speaker 3: take those chances, get the opportunities, and you don't you
Speaker 3: just don't look back. Like my next one I would
Speaker 3: love to do is Australia, Like you said, go do
Speaker 3: those two back to back. You know, I'd love them
Speaker 3: to be on like you know, like Royal.
Speaker 2: Melbourne and like you know, like the Big Boys.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so maybe I'll try and line up with
Speaker 3: one of those, you know, those venues. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: think just just it's just cool to go see those places, school,
Speaker 3: to travel the world, to do what we do, because
Speaker 3: like you said, you can kind of get very comfortable
Speaker 3: in the bubble of the PGA Tour where I mean
Speaker 3: we travel a little bit, but it we're very much
Speaker 3: within the US and it's cool to kind of expand
Speaker 3: your your experiences and you're in your horizons a little bit,
Speaker 3: and uh, we're so fortunate to do what we do,
Speaker 3: and now to have the lines with the DP World Tour,
Speaker 3: some of those opportunities open up a little bit easier,
Speaker 3: Like go play Wentworth next year. That would be something
Speaker 3: I'd love to do. I've heard nothing but amazing things
Speaker 3: about that. It's like the basically the players of the
Speaker 3: of the of the DP World Tours. So yeah, just
Speaker 3: it's fun to have those those opportunities, and I think,
Speaker 3: you know, getting to my stage of my career, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: I want to go do it now while I have
Speaker 3: the chance and they still want me down there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean like Rory, you know this winter, Rory,
Speaker 2: it's December and he goes on a golf trip, you know,
Speaker 2: to New Zealand because he's always wanted to do that.
Speaker 2: When's the last kind of casual golf trip you've been on.
Speaker 3: It's it's been it's been a minute.
Speaker 2: Do you have any interest in doing something or a
Speaker 2: place you haven't played that you've always wanted to play.
Speaker 3: I would like to do like abandon trip maybe one day.
Speaker 3: I've never done that. People ask me that though, It's like,
Speaker 3: I mean, you have kids. Yeah, I've got three kids.
Speaker 3: So I get to go home on your vacation's kind
Speaker 3: of going home. Yeah, Like I want to go home
Speaker 3: and be home.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 3: And then you get five weeks off in the off season.
Speaker 3: You want to be home and uh, you know, and
Speaker 3: I want to be also with my kids, but who
Speaker 3: aren't traveling with me right now. So like it's tough
Speaker 3: to just go home and then pick up and say, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go play.
Speaker 2: They're not gonna pay me for this.
Speaker 3: For it, it's a really tough sell to my wife.
Speaker 2: And Charlotte's Ban is not a quick trip.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also just like for me, you know, it's
Speaker 3: not the right time. But at some point that will
Speaker 3: there will be a time for that. You know, my
Speaker 3: kids will be in high school and they'll have their
Speaker 3: own activities and you know, maybe I'll be home a
Speaker 3: bit more and that opportunity opens up. One week, you know,
Speaker 3: I go for five days, six days, and but it's
Speaker 3: it's phase two. I think you know, right now we're
Speaker 3: so busy week to week, so many tournaments every year,
Speaker 3: but that will slow down and then they'll open up
Speaker 3: a time to do that.
Speaker 2: Marty. Do you have a place you haven't played that
Speaker 2: you want to play a golf course?
Speaker 1: I think Australia. I haven't been down to Australia. Australia
Speaker 1: sounds amazing a bit.
Speaker 3: That's a big golf trip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a big it's a big golf trip.
Speaker 2: But I mean it's now you're talking ten, twelve, fourteen days, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're spending time. I mean the obviously the Melbourne golf
Speaker 2: is so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're gonna fly that far, you're gonna be
Speaker 3: there for yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Speaking of kids, Mac, I heard your seven year old
Speaker 1: just got out of prodigies? Is that right? And how's
Speaker 1: this fitting? How's his bag? How's his game?
Speaker 3: So he's he's seven years old. The driver we actually
Speaker 3: had it was funny. Uh, he was in twenty three.
Speaker 3: He had his driver cut down at the Masters, so
Speaker 3: we brought it to the Masters. He had it worked
Speaker 3: on at Augusta.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 3: So he had his clubs worked on at Augusta and
Speaker 3: I did not. I had no clubs worked on that week.
Speaker 3: My son had his driver dialed in. So he loves it.
Speaker 3: He loves his driver. His irons, I feel like they're
Speaker 3: a little bit big for him at his age. So
Speaker 3: he's got a couple like shorter ones that are non
Speaker 3: non ping, but they're just like a little bit better
Speaker 3: sizing for him. He'll grow into the Brady ones. But
Speaker 3: the driver's awesome, The potter's great. He and he loves
Speaker 3: it like he loves playing now. And he's been to
Speaker 3: some pretty cool tournaments. He went to the President's Cup, walked,
Speaker 3: and he's actually walked some rounds now.
Speaker 1: So he's walked.
Speaker 3: He walked four full rounds last year in twenty for
Speaker 3: so that's pretty big at seven years old. Like you know,
Speaker 3: it's a big commitment to walker full round of golf.
Speaker 3: You know, include some treats. You know, you go, you
Speaker 3: have some treats along the way. Always got to keep
Speaker 3: the interest as you go along. But he's actually into
Speaker 3: it now. He does He does it twice a week
Speaker 3: in like a group setting, which I think is great
Speaker 3: because you you have fun doing it. It's not so structured,
Speaker 3: but there's you know, there's information, there's lessons learned, and
Speaker 3: then there's that element of I'm running around my buddies too,
Speaker 3: you know, and the winning team gets a little treat
Speaker 3: and uh so that's been a great, great thing for him.
Speaker 3: And you know, when I asked him, like, golf is
Speaker 3: number one. He's playing flag football, basketball, he's playing, uh baseball,
Speaker 3: but golf's number one. So that's that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: The balance too, I mean, Marty, I'm sure you went
Speaker 2: through this as well, but the balance of like being
Speaker 2: a golf or being in golf, not wanting to feel
Speaker 2: like you're pushing golf down their throat at the same
Speaker 2: time kind of wanting you know, like I'm dealing this
Speaker 2: with my son right now, it's like wanting them to
Speaker 2: play golf with you.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 2: So the balance is always kind of tough to to
Speaker 2: really refine. But it's cool that you're at a place
Speaker 2: now where it seems like there's a yeah, there's kind
Speaker 2: of good synergy there.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure. I mean, like I have no I don't,
Speaker 3: I don't care one way or the other. You know,
Speaker 3: like I just wanted to him to experience all those things,
Speaker 3: experience all those sports and then just let him decide
Speaker 3: he might not like golf, but he might love it,
Speaker 3: and if he does, that'd be a huge bonus, you know.
Speaker 2: Now the bandon trip's an easier sell to exact.
Speaker 1: Well, that's where my head, that's where this whole question started.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me get to sixteen. Then we're gonna go
Speaker 2: on a family trip Tobandon.
Speaker 3: And then you know, my wife she's got a set
Speaker 3: up things as well, so you know she's wanting to
Speaker 3: get into it as well. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: she has the three small kids right, you know, at
Speaker 3: home all the time, so like even that, it's like,
Speaker 3: when's the time for her to go? You know, But
Speaker 3: there will be a time and she will get into
Speaker 3: it at some point, and it'll be fun if we
Speaker 3: can do that in the family setting and just go
Speaker 3: to quail, play nine holes, have dinner, and even if
Speaker 3: it's just play three hold four holes, but just to
Speaker 3: do it together and make it a you know, a
Speaker 3: group effort and where were all together, that'd be that'd
Speaker 3: be cool.
Speaker 1: One day, super fun. Speak of sports, what were your sports?
Speaker 1: What what was your sports? And when'd you kind of
Speaker 1: go in on all in on golf growing up?
Speaker 3: So I think you know, I was kind of like
Speaker 3: my song where like, growing up, I played a little
Speaker 3: bit of baseball early, probably only like you know, let's
Speaker 3: say a three or four year window where I played baseball,
Speaker 3: played hockey growing up until I was like fourteen years old,
Speaker 3: which is kind of a right, a passage in Canada. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's see, I played I played a little bit of
Speaker 3: volleyball in high school, you know, in the winter months,
Speaker 3: and so I I really kind of I did soccer
Speaker 3: as well, but I was kind of doing a little
Speaker 3: bit of everything, tasted a little bit of everything. But
Speaker 3: I kind of found out, like around like the twelve
Speaker 3: thirteen year mark, that I didn't love team sports quite
Speaker 3: as much. And I was playing golf at that time.
Speaker 3: I loved what golf asked of you because I felt like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'd go to the course and I could
Speaker 3: spend five six hours by myself practicing and playing, and like,
Speaker 3: I like, I found enjoyment in that. I found like
Speaker 3: that the solitude was nice, and like I'm a social
Speaker 3: person with also you know a little bit of that
Speaker 3: intrinsic uh, you know, personality as well, where I can
Speaker 3: actually do quite well, like on my on my own
Speaker 3: for quite quite a while, and I found like golf
Speaker 3: just like you know, it was so peaceful, and I
Speaker 3: loved that golf was like just on you, you know,
Speaker 3: like you go, put the time in, you go, you
Speaker 3: go do some work, like but you know whether it's
Speaker 3: going great or going poorly, like it was on your shoulders.
Speaker 3: And like I felt like with team sports sometimes you
Speaker 3: get stuck with like teammates who didn't like or you know,
Speaker 3: these guys are putting in tons of affork these guys aren't.
Speaker 3: So I just I don't know that that was a
Speaker 3: big part about drew me to golf too. And but
Speaker 3: I did try quite a few sports growing up. When
Speaker 3: I was playing hockey at thirteen fourteen, I hadn't really
Speaker 3: hit a gross spurt yet and like, youth sports can
Speaker 3: be kind of tough. Like I'm trying to picture like
Speaker 3: well with comparison and be like football in the States,
Speaker 3: maybe yeah, but like you're eleven, twelve years old and
Speaker 3: you're playing football, Well, there's like twelve year olds that
Speaker 3: are six feet tall and one hundred and sixty five
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy pounds, and then there's twelve year olds
Speaker 3: that are five foot two and one hundred and twenty pounds,
Speaker 3: and I was that that kid, you know, I was
Speaker 3: the small, you know, twelve year old, thirteen year old
Speaker 3: and I found like I'm playing hockey and I'm just
Speaker 3: I'm getting pushed around here, and I'm like, eah, golf
Speaker 3: might be for me. Yeah, golf. Golf sounds a little better.
Speaker 3: And when I was like fourteen, I hit a big
Speaker 3: gross spurt and I was like, I basically grew like
Speaker 3: eight inches in a year. I went from like being
Speaker 3: five foot three to almost six feet tall in a year.
Speaker 3: And then playing golf, I was like, oh, this is great,
Speaker 3: Like I'm hit the ball way further, and I went,
Speaker 3: you know, from kind of poking it out there to
Speaker 3: hit in some pretty big drives at fifteen years old.
Speaker 3: And but I think it's like when I talk to
Speaker 3: people now, like I feel like I get that question
Speaker 3: a lot. Hey McKenzie, my youngest son's playing golf. He's
Speaker 3: eight or nine, Like, what do you what do you
Speaker 3: recommend for him? I'm like, don't don't specialize in golf now,
Speaker 3: don't don't limit him to just golf at eight or
Speaker 3: nine years old. Play let him play sports, let them
Speaker 3: let him be a kid, because you don't need to
Speaker 3: do golf twenty four to seven to be really good
Speaker 3: at golf at that age, and they're gonna become sick
Speaker 3: of it. You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna grow out
Speaker 3: of the sport.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I feel like if you're pushed into it or you're
Speaker 3: forced to basically only do golf at that age. And
Speaker 3: uh So I tell people all the time and tell parents, like,
Speaker 3: keep your kids in a lot of sports, like let
Speaker 3: them have the balance and let them decide a little
Speaker 3: later on, like what it is they want to do,
Speaker 3: because they might not want to do golf. But if
Speaker 3: you push them into golf, I don't think that's how
Speaker 3: you have success. Like if you don't want to play
Speaker 3: golf and your kid doesn't want anything, like they're not
Speaker 3: gonna like you have to want They have to want it.
Speaker 3: And I always wanted when I was a kid, my
Speaker 3: parents weren't taking me the course. I was like, hey, mom,
Speaker 3: like take me take me the course. I want to go, Yeah,
Speaker 3: pick me up a dark you know. But if your
Speaker 3: kids aren't telling you that, there's probably you know, there's
Speaker 3: probably a reason why. And so I encourage parents all
Speaker 3: the time, like, hey, let's let's let a lot your
Speaker 3: kids play sports. Let them play what they want to play,
Speaker 3: and at maybe thirteen fourteen years old, they go, hey,
Speaker 3: they'll fit that I really like golf, and maybe I
Speaker 3: want to play a little baseball or I want to
Speaker 3: play a little basketball. I'm going to like narrow it down.
Speaker 3: But they will tell you, you know, they're smart.
Speaker 2: Versus them being pushed in the corner. By the way,
Speaker 2: you mentioned football being like the hockey version, I was
Speaker 2: the same way. I was really small until like ninth
Speaker 2: grade and I grew, yeah, eighth grade, about five foot tall.
Speaker 2: And I went around the corner catching a pass and
Speaker 2: this guy that played safety at Baylor hit me helmet
Speaker 2: off fumble. That was the end of my football.
Speaker 1: That was it.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is I'm not doing this anymore.
Speaker 2: This is I you realize quickly, maybe golf is going
Speaker 2: to be my sport, or maybe ten it's going to
Speaker 2: be sport, but I'm sure not going to be this
Speaker 2: sport because it's not for me. Yeah it's a yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's I think that's a good message
Speaker 2: out there because I think we live in a society
Speaker 2: now where I want my kid to be this. They
Speaker 2: need to do this all the time. It's not really
Speaker 2: how we work. I mean, we change interests and you
Speaker 2: know as adults, right yea.
Speaker 3: And I feel like the the culture around sports is
Speaker 3: definitely different in the United States. I mean there's there's
Speaker 3: definite I definitely notice that coming from Canada, that the
Speaker 3: intensity and the focus around sports, especially at a young age,
Speaker 3: like it's ramped up quickly. Like my son was playing
Speaker 3: baseball this past fall, was barely seven years old, and
Speaker 3: the coaches out there arguing calls in the mound with
Speaker 3: the other and I'm like, I'm like, I can assure you,
Speaker 3: these kids don't care that much. Let's let's let it.
Speaker 3: Let's let it go right, right, and the parents, you
Speaker 3: care more than they care. The parents really don't care,
Speaker 3: so like let's let's move on. But yeah, I just
Speaker 3: think that that can kind of like take away from
Speaker 3: they can take a take away from the kids enjoyment
Speaker 3: of it if it becomes too serious too early. And uh,
Speaker 3: look at seven, eight, nine years old. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: we're not moving mountains like. These kids are just there
Speaker 3: to have fun, learn the game, you know, And god,
Speaker 3: I just think it gets it gets too serious. Too
Speaker 3: quickly in my opinion, looking at it from the outside,
Speaker 3: like I see parents, you know, working with their kids
Speaker 3: of the course and doing certain things, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: and I don't. I don't step in. It's not my place.
Speaker 3: But you know, I see it. I can see it
Speaker 3: from the outside a lot. And you know, I just
Speaker 3: think if if it was me giving advice, I'd say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, I think less is more at that age.
Speaker 3: Let them have fun, lumby kids and then they figured out.
Speaker 1: Mackenzie, I wanna we talked a little bit about your
Speaker 1: distance gains and how important that's been to you. I
Speaker 1: think it's been incredible. Looking at your short game stats
Speaker 1: over your entire career stroke uh strokes gained around the
Speaker 1: green strokes game putting, your stats have been incredible. What
Speaker 1: do you do to kind of maintain? Have you always
Speaker 1: been a good putter, even before you got on tour?
Speaker 1: And then what do you do to kind of maintain
Speaker 1: What do you think your strengths are from a putting standpoint.
Speaker 3: So I'd say, like, before I got on tour, I
Speaker 3: felt I was a good putter, but I would have
Speaker 3: been classified as a streaky putter, I think, but I
Speaker 3: got got hot at times, but you know, week to
Speaker 3: week it wasn't where I wanted to be playing corn
Speaker 3: Fery Tour. And then I felt like my rookie year
Speaker 3: on tour, I found I found something, And from that
Speaker 3: point on, I'd say, I've been, you know, one of
Speaker 3: the better partters out here for the last you know,
Speaker 3: six seven, eight years.
Speaker 2: You would you find.
Speaker 3: You know, I can't really pinpoint, to be honest, what
Speaker 3: I found uh that particular year, but I found a
Speaker 3: feeling my stroke, and I to be honest, I put
Speaker 3: differently now, but I found a feeling my stroke, and
Speaker 3: for whatever reason that it just felt really good. I
Speaker 3: was able to kind of ride that out for a
Speaker 3: long time. But I made a ton of putts and
Speaker 3: the hole started to look big to me.
Speaker 2: It started it wasn't a grip change or a stroke
Speaker 2: change anything necessarily.
Speaker 3: Just something click, a little feel, and then I started
Speaker 3: to like roll a few like weeks together where I
Speaker 3: was like, man, I'm making a lot of nice putts,
Speaker 3: a lot of mid range putts, and then it just
Speaker 3: kind of felt like that became a little more normal.
Speaker 3: It just felt like making putts was like a normal
Speaker 3: thing for me. And then I just kind of stumbled
Speaker 3: that confidence. And like, to be honest, when I look
Speaker 3: back at my stroke from my rookie year, I don't
Speaker 3: like it. But I was the eighth ranked plot around
Speaker 3: tour that year. I just I was aiming left when
Speaker 3: I was pushing it online, but I did every single time.
Speaker 3: And uh, I've kind of you know, straightened out since then.
Speaker 3: But like the confidence I built for my year like that,
Speaker 3: it's like still carried with me. Like I saw the
Speaker 3: blogging a whole lot, and i'd I'd have weeks where I,
Speaker 3: you know, gained three, four or five strokes putting and
Speaker 3: that was like a big jump up for me that
Speaker 3: that rookie year. And yeah, like I say, like now
Speaker 3: to like maintain where I'm at with my putting, I
Speaker 3: really feel like it's I do the same thing almost
Speaker 3: every single day, so and I don't do anything really fancy,
Speaker 3: but like I just I start my day with, you know,
Speaker 3: start line straight left to right, right to left. I'll
Speaker 3: do that for fifteen minutes. And I do the same
Speaker 3: like three or four drills every day, uh speed short
Speaker 3: putt drills. But I don't I don't really vary my
Speaker 3: routine hardly at all. And then as far as like
Speaker 3: what I focus on when I'm on the course, my like,
Speaker 3: my focus is really down to like what I can
Speaker 3: control in my box, So I call it like my
Speaker 3: my I'm in my playbox right over the ball, and
Speaker 3: like I'm really someone that's very process oriented with like, hey,
Speaker 3: if I like check those boxes off, I can accept
Speaker 3: the outcome over here. So I'm not like a guy
Speaker 3: that says, hey, like miss make good, put bad putt.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I missed this butt from eight feet.
Speaker 3: I had a great putt. I did what I was
Speaker 3: trying to do, great putt, you know. And I feel
Speaker 3: like that actually helps from a confidence standpoint, because if
Speaker 3: I was just based on my confidence on miss make well,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be very confident because you miss a lot
Speaker 3: more puts than you make. So I feel like you
Speaker 3: can gain confidence hitting a putt from ten feet that
Speaker 3: you feel like you rolled it well, did what you're
Speaker 3: trying to do. I miss, but I did what I
Speaker 3: was trying to do. So I think that's something that's
Speaker 3: helped me. And something I kind of try to tell
Speaker 3: amateurs sometimes is like, hey, you know, you missed that
Speaker 3: twelve foot putt, But like the odds are you were
Speaker 3: going to miss that putt? So like, I don't know
Speaker 3: why you're mad, Like you hit a good butt over
Speaker 3: the over the right edge, Like, oh I should have
Speaker 3: made that putt. No, you shouldn't have. You you're a
Speaker 3: twelve handicap. You know, it's the twelve foot put My
Speaker 3: odds are probably thirty percent or forty percent to make
Speaker 3: that putt. Your odds are fifteen percent.
Speaker 2: Maybe, Yeah, So I was gonna say. I mean that,
Speaker 2: like to your point, it feels like amateurs struggle with
Speaker 2: accepting like the percentages.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a big thing. Like if you
Speaker 3: could lay out ahead of time, Hey, before you hit
Speaker 3: this butt this fifteen foot, realize you are a one
Speaker 3: and twenty chance of making this putt for like a
Speaker 3: twelve handicap, right, Like if I lay that out to
Speaker 3: you right now, Like, that's gonna change the way you
Speaker 3: approach that butt.
Speaker 2: Probably, yeah, just trying to hit itid maybe it goes in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all with good speed, right, get on a
Speaker 3: reasonable line and you two butt. You've probably like exceeded
Speaker 3: the expectations, you know. But I think the mentality is,
Speaker 3: like I watch on TV, it's got they make them
Speaker 3: all the time. You know, all leaders make these puts
Speaker 3: all the time. But like again, you show the guys
Speaker 3: playing the best every week, and when you guys flipped
Speaker 3: it to a shot, you typically aren't going to like
Speaker 3: many misses.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, like you guys Saturday, you're not going
Speaker 2: to show an eight foot or miss.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we watched guys making putts all the time, and
Speaker 3: I think people are programmed to think, oh, ten foot putt.
Speaker 3: You just you make these like they're like free throws, right,
Speaker 3: they're not.
Speaker 1: And the greens were smoother on tour.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we put on better, We put it very good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's that's actually a sneaky good point too.
Speaker 3: It was like when their cars down, for sure going
Speaker 3: to go, but golf course go down.
Speaker 2: I want to hear the father in law cell phone
Speaker 2: bill story. Can you tell that for us if you
Speaker 2: don't mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was playing at corn Fair events in
Speaker 3: New York.
Speaker 2: It was at this this what years is like twenty.
Speaker 3: Sixteen, uh peak and peak and uh this actually the
Speaker 3: year I got my tour card. And this is actually
Speaker 3: a great story because so I'm like three or four out,
Speaker 3: I do the Monday qualifier, and I started the year
Speaker 3: with a full card, had the first eight eight starts
Speaker 3: or so, hadn't played great in the first like third
Speaker 3: of the year, was on the outside looking in. Monday
Speaker 3: qualified but missed. I got into my number.
Speaker 2: The next day.
Speaker 3: So Tuesday, I get in the tournament, don't have a
Speaker 3: cally lined up. My buddy Keith from Canada comes up,
Speaker 3: calls for me, and first day, just to kind of
Speaker 3: a prelude to the story, he puts his running shoes
Speaker 3: on top of the car, the car next to us,
Speaker 3: and we pulled out of our house that week, we're
Speaker 3: staying at my in laws and we pull out of
Speaker 3: the driveway and he's wearing his broking Stock sandals, but
Speaker 3: he leaves his shoes on the other car. So we
Speaker 3: get to the course morning tea time Thursday, and he's
Speaker 3: squeaking down the first hole is with his sandals on,
Speaker 3: barefoot and the sandals just adding for me run kind
Speaker 3: of walking through the rough feet are soaked. I'm like, sweet,
Speaker 3: nice job, dude, you had one in your shoes. Next time,
Speaker 3: So Friday, so I shoot even part of the first
Speaker 3: day and the cut is going to be low. It's
Speaker 3: probably going to be you know, five or six under.
Speaker 3: So I needed to go out there and shoot you know,
Speaker 3: a really low round on on Friday. And my father
Speaker 3: in law we're sitting there at the house on Thursday night,
Speaker 3: and at this point, my wife and I are still
Speaker 3: on the family Plan. So I'm I think I'm twenty
Speaker 3: five years old and I somehow manage to get my
Speaker 3: way onto the family plan. And so my father in
Speaker 3: law's playing paying the phone bill and he goes, all right,
Speaker 3: I'll make you a deal. You can stay on the
Speaker 3: stay on the on the family plan for another year
Speaker 3: if you shoot six hundred tomorrow. So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 3: that's a that's a fair deal. And we're going down
Speaker 3: the last hole. I finished on number nine. I hit
Speaker 3: the shot in there to like eight feet and at
Speaker 3: this point, I'm now I'm thinking about it, like I've
Speaker 3: now I'm like, oh, you thought up a frid with
Speaker 3: that bet. So yeah, now I've made I've made the cut.
Speaker 3: I've we got like I think a shot to spare
Speaker 3: got Birdie putt in the last hole and I just
Speaker 3: sent or cut it and I look over there, like
Speaker 3: one hundred yards down the fairway, and I was like
Speaker 3: doing one of these and uh, you know my wife's
Speaker 3: obviously each year and and uh it was it was
Speaker 3: super funny. But yeah, that's a that's a cool story.
Speaker 2: How how long did you get the bill? Paid for
Speaker 2: it for another year?
Speaker 3: Another year? Plan?
Speaker 2: So they kick you off? What what what happened to
Speaker 2: get you kicked off the bill?
Speaker 3: I think later that year got my tour card and
Speaker 3: I was like, you're like, yeah, you're good now, you know,
Speaker 3: you guys are fine. So but it was that's a
Speaker 3: cool story, that's.
Speaker 2: That's that's great, And you played well the rest of
Speaker 2: the week.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, I actually finished fifth that week, which
Speaker 3: like it was a big week for me, got me
Speaker 3: like in the next kind of wave of tournaments. And
Speaker 3: then a month and a half later I won and
Speaker 3: then got my tour card. So it was it's crazy
Speaker 3: how like you're on the outside looking in. Yeah, you're
Speaker 3: not sure if you're gonna get played that week, you
Speaker 3: play well, a month later, you win and you're on
Speaker 3: the tour and it's like it just like boom, it happens.
Speaker 3: And you feel like, you know, a month prior to that,
Speaker 3: like you kind of feel like you're in the woods
Speaker 3: and all of.
Speaker 2: A sudden, you're almost questioning, like what should I be doing?
Speaker 2: All of a sudden? Can I do this?
Speaker 3: Am I?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Am I at this level? Can I have that breakthrough?
Speaker 3: And then a month later I win, And then two
Speaker 3: months later I went on tour and you're just like, wait,
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure I was good enough.
Speaker 1: That little world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't have to work about eighteen and
Speaker 2: TV anymore.
Speaker 3: It's crazy what that little bit of belief and self
Speaker 3: confidence does like. But from actually doing it, it's one
Speaker 3: thing like to say, hey, I'm I am good enough,
Speaker 3: but like once you see it and it like you
Speaker 3: have that like that that peak and peak was the
Speaker 3: kind of a bit of a breakthrough performance for me
Speaker 3: where I'm like, hey, I was like on the outskirts
Speaker 3: of contention here and had a chance to somewhat win there,
Speaker 3: And that was like a big one for me where
Speaker 3: I'm like, I can't do this. And then I went
Speaker 3: on the corn Ferry and then when I was on
Speaker 3: the I had the lead at the RSM that year
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I just won two months ago. I
Speaker 3: mean I can do this, but like the guys say
Speaker 3: month ago, like you know it wasn't sure right right,
Speaker 3: So it's just it's crazy how it just like it
Speaker 3: clicks and it's like okay, I can't do this, and yeah,
Speaker 3: hello world, right.
Speaker 1: And you wanted a big playoff?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was that five five man playoff and it went
Speaker 3: in went to Monday morning.
Speaker 2: Do you guys play all five or did you split up?
Speaker 3: So we played all five awesome, played two holes on
Speaker 3: Sunday night, and then ran out of light. Had to
Speaker 3: come back Monday morning, but we lost one on the
Speaker 3: first playoff hole I think, and then came back the
Speaker 3: next morning to play one more hole. So but even that,
Speaker 3: like you know, I look back and I you know,
Speaker 3: the fact that I won that playoff, you know, the
Speaker 3: way it played out like was just it was just
Speaker 3: so like the stats would just be like there's no chance,
Speaker 3: like it just so I like, I hit it long
Speaker 3: left and I pitched up and I almost see the
Speaker 3: great shot. I left it just shore of the green
Speaker 3: and I had like a sixteen foot plot from the
Speaker 3: fringe and everyone I had missed the green. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is like one hundred and ninety five yards forty
Speaker 3: two degrees wins off the right, Like this is the
Speaker 3: first swing of the day and everyone misses the green
Speaker 3: and everyone gets inside me, so everyone's got a putt
Speaker 3: from inside me. I'm the first first to go, and
Speaker 3: I'm thinking to myself, well, like, you know, if I
Speaker 3: can make this, like I can put the heat on,
Speaker 3: and sure enough I make it. And I watched the
Speaker 3: three guys miss and but like, but at no point
Speaker 3: when I made the putt was I like I just won.
Speaker 3: I was like, maggot, I get to play one more, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, is it gonna be two guys one?
Speaker 3: But like one of these guys is gonna make it?
Speaker 3: And you know once once, like the first guy missed,
Speaker 3: but I'm like, Kayler's so two. And then it didn't
Speaker 3: hit me till the second guy missed. I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2: Shit, Like you know who the last guy was to putt?
Speaker 3: Camillo? Okay, so Camilla had like a six foot putt
Speaker 3: and he's above the whole kind of a little bit
Speaker 3: of like a soft left to righter and uh, that
Speaker 3: was the first moment I allowed myself to think, oh,
Speaker 3: if this ball doesn't go and I win, and I'm
Speaker 3: like no, no, no, he's gonna make it. We're gonna
Speaker 3: go at eighteen and then blinks and he misses it,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, wow, I was just like what just happened? Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, so crazy crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, you're probably we talked about your putting, how good
Speaker 1: that's been, and uh, what about your wedge setup? I
Speaker 1: find it's very unique. You're you play your law budge
Speaker 1: at sixty three degrees? Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So how long have you been doing that? And I'm
Speaker 1: always curious because I've hit a sixty four sixty three occasionally,
Speaker 1: like how far can you max that out if you
Speaker 1: hit it full? And do you hit it full shots
Speaker 1: with him much?
Speaker 3: I actually do, because I find that there's just there
Speaker 3: is a time when you want to hit something that's
Speaker 3: like ninety ninety five yards or even one hundred yards
Speaker 3: that like has a lot of spin on front pin
Speaker 3: with you know, a firm green Yeah, so I can
Speaker 3: max that out at about one hundred yards.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sixty three degree?
Speaker 1: Yeah, geez, I'd be like eighty maybe.
Speaker 2: I'm.
Speaker 3: You know, and obviously, like you know, you're putting it
Speaker 3: back in your stance, it's a bit's a bit more backfooted. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that ball cannot be foard of your stance at all,
Speaker 3: where it's it's going like this, so and I don't
Speaker 3: do it a ton, you know, where I'm ever like
Speaker 3: maxing that club up. But like again, like there will
Speaker 3: be a time this week where I will max that
Speaker 3: club out because it will get firm by the weekend
Speaker 3: all of a shot from one hundred yards the will
Speaker 3: maybe a little bit of helping win. And I'll want
Speaker 3: that ball to have as much spin as if it
Speaker 3: could possibly have it. Whereas if I hit that fifty
Speaker 3: six and I'm taking fifteen yards off it and trying
Speaker 3: to control a hit a three quarter shot, that ball
Speaker 3: could bounce, bounce, bounce to check and be thirty feet
Speaker 3: past the hole quickly. So you know, I think it's
Speaker 3: important to have that ability to stop it quick at times.
Speaker 3: And I always felt like around the greens, I wanted
Speaker 3: to have as much loft as possible with a particular
Speaker 3: club because I always know I can go down and
Speaker 3: loft if I need to hit a low a low shot,
Speaker 3: you know, I can go to fifty six, I can
Speaker 3: go to gap, or I can put the low wedge
Speaker 3: back in my stants. I can always decrease that loft.
Speaker 3: But like adding and creating excess loft. On tour, I
Speaker 3: feel like around the greens is a big advantage because
Speaker 3: we play a lot of four pinch, you know, four
Speaker 3: steps from the right, three from the right firm short
Speaker 3: sighted a lot. Like to me on tour, it became
Speaker 3: a huge advantage to have all that height, all that
Speaker 3: speed and spin because like you know, at sixty or
Speaker 3: fifty eight degrees, yeah, it's great, but like at sixty three.
Speaker 2: You look at that club and you go, hoole.
Speaker 3: Man, I can get basically any pin around these greens.
Speaker 3: And so I felt like I was playing with sixty
Speaker 3: two and I ended up adding a degree of loft.
Speaker 3: And I've never really regretted it, and I've just kind
Speaker 3: of gone with it. And like I said, you, when
Speaker 3: I'm pitching with that club, you wouldn't know it's sixty three,
Speaker 3: like you'd watching around the greens. Ah, you're just kind
Speaker 3: of pitching with it like a sixty or fifty eight.
Speaker 3: Put it back of my stance. I drive them. But
Speaker 3: then when I need to, you know, I can get
Speaker 3: that ball up in the air quick.
Speaker 1: When did when did the when did you go from
Speaker 1: did you grow up using a sixty? Like when did
Speaker 1: you go to.
Speaker 3: I was always like a pitching wedge. Fifty two, fifty six,
Speaker 3: sixty guys, sixty yeah, nice and clean, and then I just,
Speaker 3: you know, I was kind of messing around one time
Speaker 3: and I just feel like, I think it was my
Speaker 3: last Caddie was just like, hey, why don't you just
Speaker 3: like add them off to that long We're just like,
Speaker 3: we can always like take it down, but let's just
Speaker 3: see if we like it a little more. I think
Speaker 3: I started at sixty two and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 3: how far can we go with this? I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: sixty three, Like that's probably both as much as you
Speaker 3: want to go.
Speaker 2: And so it's gonna if you thought sixty four, sixty five?
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there? What's the legal limit? What's the legal
Speaker 3: is there?
Speaker 1: Oh? No, you can go to anything? Yeah right yeah,
Speaker 1: really ball just slip right up the face, but you
Speaker 1: can do it.
Speaker 3: What are you the most loft? But you could play
Speaker 3: with and like, actually, what would be reasonable? I think
Speaker 3: you had sixty eighth reason loft?
Speaker 1: Like, well, that's why I'm very curious of it, because
Speaker 1: it's rare to play. I've wanted sixty three. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot of guys out there doing it because the
Speaker 1: ball starts to like you get into the friction between
Speaker 1: the ball and the face, and the ball starts to
Speaker 1: just slip more than grip. Yeah, And in order to
Speaker 1: get spin, you need the ball to kind of stick
Speaker 1: on the face. That's the grip force. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: have to have a lot of speed to do it
Speaker 1: to get it to grip. This is why you see
Speaker 1: Phil and Bubba. Now you the high speed players of
Speaker 1: the world. You know, using the high lofted wedge, you
Speaker 1: get a little more spin around the greens. But I
Speaker 1: think you could you you know, I don't know. You
Speaker 1: hit a flop shot, you've got the face open to
Speaker 1: like eighty eighty five degrees, probably right, if you're really
Speaker 1: sending one up there. Yeah.
Speaker 3: How many guys do you think on tour have more
Speaker 3: than sixty?
Speaker 1: I think it's probably under ten percent, under ten percent. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wonder if it's going to go that way, just
Speaker 2: as as we get longer and longer and longer, I
Speaker 2: wonder if guys are going to creep into the sixty
Speaker 2: three sixty four to sixty five degree world.
Speaker 3: Well, and I think too, I mean, if I'm if
Speaker 3: you're if you're a guy that cruises at one eighty
Speaker 3: five ball speed. I would want to have an extra wedge. Yeah,
Speaker 3: not a not a not a three shirt, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? Ye Like, for a guy like that,
Speaker 3: it's more valuable to have tighter gaps at those wedges
Speaker 3: and all to a wedge that you could hit from
Speaker 3: one hundred and five yards or one hundred and ten
Speaker 3: yards but hit a full right and create tons of spin.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably the way it would It would
Speaker 3: creep because guys now just have so much speed and
Speaker 3: those opportunities to hit those wedges become more prevalent.
Speaker 2: Could be laying out a new trend. This could be
Speaker 2: the next trend of the professional golf problem. As we
Speaker 2: wind out, I wanted to ask how pumped you to
Speaker 2: have a major at home this year?
Speaker 3: Really pumps? That's uh. We talked about that being very
Speaker 3: unique just to have.
Speaker 2: I mean your home tournament.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, a tournament in your own backyard is one thing.
Speaker 3: A major at your home course that's a that's a
Speaker 3: weird one, but be super fun. Just to have the
Speaker 3: clumb club support, to be in your own bed, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's going to be really cool.
Speaker 2: Pressure Like, do you do you feel added amount of
Speaker 2: like I've got to play well, I've got to make
Speaker 2: the cut, like I've got to do those things.
Speaker 3: You definitely feel those things. But I think that's normal,
Speaker 3: and I think that as as that we comes closer,
Speaker 3: I'll you know, I'll talk to my guy and my
Speaker 3: team and and you know, and we'll we'll basically, you know,
Speaker 3: come to grips with like hey, yeah, you're gonna want
Speaker 3: to do well because it's your home course and everything
Speaker 3: like that, but like this is no different than the
Speaker 3: other week, and you you have to have the mentality
Speaker 3: I think of like embracing that, like, hey, I'm going
Speaker 3: to see a bunch of people that know me and
Speaker 3: everyone's gonna want me to do well. That's fun, you know,
Speaker 3: like look at it. Look at it like a positive Yeah,
Speaker 3: hey I'm not actually extra support and whether I play
Speaker 3: great or don't, like they're behind me, rather than viewing
Speaker 3: it like, oh man, I got to play well my
Speaker 3: home course. Like so if you if you can kind
Speaker 3: of frame it the right way, I think it's it's
Speaker 3: a it's rereally a positive thing. But there's definitely like, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's still an element of like, hey, I know I
Speaker 3: know that course really well. I know I've played it
Speaker 3: really well, but now can I play it really well
Speaker 3: on a major in my in my backyard? And uh yeah,
Speaker 3: hopefully that can. I mean I played played well there
Speaker 3: last year in the in the wells, and honestly, I
Speaker 3: don't feel like this stuff's gonna be a ton different.
Speaker 3: I mean it mean, quihol awake up when it's ready
Speaker 3: to go. You know, it's always it's ready to go.
Speaker 3: And uh, new tea on nine, that's going to be
Speaker 3: pretty pretty spicy. That hole is like five point fifteen now,
Speaker 3: it was like four eighty five before, so actually becomes
Speaker 3: tough to kind of get past the corner. I don't
Speaker 3: know if you can pitch that hole, but guys kind
Speaker 3: of driving it to the top of that hill bunkers
Speaker 3: and play on the right. I've yet to come close
Speaker 3: to that bunker from that back tee. Now it's been
Speaker 3: the winter in Charlotte, but it's it's a bit more
Speaker 3: demanding off the team because now it really needs to
Speaker 3: be kind of a center to right center. And uh
Speaker 3: but for a guy like Rory's not gonna think twice,
Speaker 3: He's still going to go up in that corner. I
Speaker 3: don't I don't think Johnny was too thrilled with the
Speaker 3: Bunker on sixteen still being flyable last year. We had
Speaker 3: a little bit of tailwin last year and it was
Speaker 3: three forty. But like, I mean, he's the only guy
Speaker 3: flying it, but like he's flying it with the lead
Speaker 3: on Sunday and you're like, God, I just put that
Speaker 3: bunker in new bunker, rand new bunker, brand new tea.
Speaker 2: This is supposed to be a right.
Speaker 3: We just got a parking lot behind the t so
Speaker 3: we can still room.
Speaker 1: Go back.
Speaker 2: Marty, we were talking before we got going about home
Speaker 2: games and you had a funny story about playing when
Speaker 2: you played the Phoenix Open. But what were you saying
Speaker 2: that The weirdest part of it was when you're driving
Speaker 2: back home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just driving into my neighborhood and all my neighbors
Speaker 1: and I got the courtesy car, and I'm like, what's
Speaker 1: this guy doing? You know, they don't know, they don't
Speaker 1: know I'm a golfer, you know, I'm just a neighbor
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll return this one on Sunday regular.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was so fun.
Speaker 3: What were you driving in F one fifty?
Speaker 1: It was the It was an SUV that CV suv.
Speaker 1: I think it was a Ford sev okay, but I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's it's plastered. You came, you know, they
Speaker 1: probably they probably thought I was hosting a player for
Speaker 1: the week.
Speaker 2: They're staying with me this week, Mackenzie. We appreciate the time,
Speaker 2: Good luck the rest of the season, and yeah, always
Speaker 2: fun to watch it play and good chat with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks Shane, Thanks mar Join it.
Speaker 2: This is the Pingk Proving Grounds Podcast.