Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a fried.
Speaker 2: Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Friday Frida Egg Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida egg bride egg.
Speaker 3: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Friday E Golf Podcast. I am
Speaker 3: your host, Andy Johnson. I'm really excited. This week we
Speaker 3: are joined by Stuart Sinc. This has been years in
Speaker 3: the making. I don't really know why I delayed so
Speaker 3: long on having stew on. We've been talking about him
Speaker 3: coming on since the Open at the Old Course a
Speaker 3: couple of years ago, a topic we we get into
Speaker 3: a little bit on this podcast, but it was really
Speaker 3: great chatting with someone who has played golf at a
Speaker 3: extraordinarily high level for a very very long time.
Speaker 1: So we get into all.
Speaker 3: Sorts of topics about his career and golf as a whole,
Speaker 3: and super fun. Big thanks to ste for giving us
Speaker 3: so much time. And before we get to Stuart, let's
Speaker 3: talk about a new sponsor, Cobalt Rangefinders. Ironically, we talked
Speaker 3: about rangefinders in this episode. I just got my new Cobalt.
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Speaker 3: off your order. Let's get to Stewart Sync. Now, all right, Stuart,
Speaker 3: this has been years in the making. Glad to have
Speaker 3: you on. I got to ask as I was kind
Speaker 3: of just scrolling through and thinking about your career. I
Speaker 3: think one of your great accomplishments that is maybe goes
Speaker 3: under the radar. You were the first pro golfer on Twitter.
Speaker 3: You were the og. Well was it like, how did
Speaker 3: you become the early adopter back in I think it
Speaker 3: was maybe like nine.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, yeah, I don't know if I was the
Speaker 2: first one to get on there, but I was the
Speaker 2: first one to really gain a lot of followers and
Speaker 2: create these connections, like a one on one connection with
Speaker 2: each follower. That's the way I did it back then,
Speaker 2: and it was a new thing and the way it
Speaker 2: got started. My kids were I have to do some math.
Speaker 2: My kids were like in their early teenage years and
Speaker 2: they played ice hockey. And so remember the show PTI, Right,
Speaker 2: So I was watching PTI and they were talking about
Speaker 2: an NBA player who was asking for a trade, but
Speaker 2: he didn't use the traditional route, like he didn't go
Speaker 2: to the front office and sort of like submit it
Speaker 2: in writing and all that. He went on social media
Speaker 2: and said I want out. I don't remember the player.
Speaker 2: And so the conversation between Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser was
Speaker 2: not about the player in the NBA. It quickly shifted
Speaker 2: over to like, is this going to be like a
Speaker 2: new way for athletes to talk to their front offices
Speaker 2: and to their fans and like this social media thing,
Speaker 2: Like what is it? What's going on? And so it
Speaker 2: got me thinking, like, as a golfer, I it's hard
Speaker 2: to get your personality across through the television lens and
Speaker 2: through the into the living room of the fans if
Speaker 2: you're not Tiger Woods or somebody that has like this
Speaker 2: unique sort of look or you know, a trade like
Speaker 2: Camilla was that at the time was like the guy
Speaker 2: who's just you know, a great looking dude, And come on,
Speaker 2: I mean, how's a guy like me competing against that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can hit my eight iron, you know,
Speaker 2: pretty accurately, and I can shoot decent scores, But come on, Millo,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not giving anybody a chance. So I
Speaker 2: thought well, maybe, like it's hard for me to do that,
Speaker 2: so maybe this is a way for me to sort
Speaker 2: of like interact with some fans and get a few
Speaker 2: fans or find out that there's some out there. And
Speaker 2: I asked my son, Connor, who was, like, I said,
Speaker 2: about thirteen or fourteen. I said, what is this? What
Speaker 2: is Twitter? What is this? And he said, it's kind
Speaker 2: of like a bare bones Facebook. And the way it
Speaker 2: works is you like put a statement out there and
Speaker 2: then people like either like it or they don't like it,
Speaker 2: and they might follow you and become like your friend
Speaker 2: or fan. And I understood a little bit about Facebook
Speaker 2: because it was already existing. Twitter was just getting on
Speaker 2: the scene and and so I said, I don't see
Speaker 2: why I wouldn't try this, and he said, yeah, what'll
Speaker 2: probably happen is you'll probably find out like that you
Speaker 2: have like two or three hundred people out there that
Speaker 2: like want to know what you're talking about. I'm like
Speaker 2: two or three hundred. That sounds incredible, Like that's awesome.
Speaker 2: So I tweeted one day, I just opened up a
Speaker 2: Twitter account and I tweeted taking my son to hockey practice. Period.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like, okay, it's not I demand a trade,
Speaker 2: but it's like something about me in my life. And
Speaker 2: so as I found out there were people out there
Speaker 2: that were kind of just waiting for you know, sports
Speaker 2: figures or whatever to start putting messages on Twitter. And
Speaker 2: I got several hundred responses to just that one message,
Speaker 2: and every one of them followed me. And I wasn't
Speaker 2: ever a big follower back. That's probably there was quite
Speaker 2: a huge ambalance in that.
Speaker 3: And that's part of Twitter is cultivating your feet. You know,
Speaker 3: you got to you gotta be spartan with with uh
Speaker 3: you know who gets into that feed?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and I used it like a one on
Speaker 2: one connection with every like I would answer their questions
Speaker 2: and talk to them about their day and tell them
Speaker 2: about my day. I would tell everybody at once, but
Speaker 2: I would interact with them one on one, and it
Speaker 2: was time consuming a little bit, And of course as
Speaker 2: it grew, as the followership grew, I learned a little
Speaker 2: bit about what they wanted to hear and about what
Speaker 2: I had fun talking about. Not that much golf, by
Speaker 2: the way, and the one on one thing just started
Speaker 2: to lessen just by the sheer number of people. But
Speaker 2: it grew and grew, and I had a lot of
Speaker 2: fun doing it, and it lasted until probably it lasts
Speaker 2: about eight years where they continued to grow and that culture,
Speaker 2: you know that the culture out there kind of changed
Speaker 2: to a little bit.
Speaker 3: And then, oh yeah, I miss what you're describing the
Speaker 3: idea of tweeting I'm taking my kid to hockey practice.
Speaker 1: I missed that Twitter.
Speaker 3: I missed the version of like, you know what, I
Speaker 3: liked the world whereas like I'm eating a croissant, you know, that's.
Speaker 2: My exactly a simple world. And then nowadays I feel
Speaker 2: like if you, if you whatever they call it anymore.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know it's called X, but it's still
Speaker 2: called tweeting. If you post on X now I'm taking
Speaker 2: my hit kid to hockey practice, There'll be fifty people
Speaker 2: in my inbox that say, like, why don't you go
Speaker 2: f yourself?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's a different energy out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a world and it's energy on Twitter. Now.
Speaker 2: X is what kind of drove me to sort of
Speaker 2: be like, all right, I think I'm going to join
Speaker 2: the ranks and first use it as a megaphone, which
Speaker 2: I didn't really want to do at first, and then
Speaker 2: eventually just kind of just got out of it, and
Speaker 2: I'm still on there. I don't really do much posting
Speaker 2: that much, really, but anyway, that's sort of the backstory.
Speaker 1: You hit on something.
Speaker 3: The difficulty as a pro caall for to get your
Speaker 3: personality across. You hit shots, you're inside the ropes, you're
Speaker 3: far away. You know, the only times you get interviewed
Speaker 3: are if you're near the lead, which you know there's
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty people trying to be near the lead.
Speaker 3: In your opinion, what are some ways And this is obviously,
Speaker 3: you know, a prescient topic and golf, that golf can
Speaker 3: do a better job of highlighting personalities and about and
Speaker 3: stories about players.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a two way thing. First of all,
Speaker 2: I think golf, especially the golf media, can do a
Speaker 2: little bit better job. It's perfect timing. Right now, we
Speaker 2: got the Olympics going, and I've always thought that well,
Speaker 2: and think in my lifetime, NBC has been the majority.
Speaker 2: You know, they're the carrier for the Olympics, and they
Speaker 2: do a good job packaging those little little, uh like
Speaker 2: three or four minute promos for a sport and an
Speaker 2: athlete that you would probably never watch other than Olympics.
Speaker 2: You know, some obscure athlete from another country and telling
Speaker 2: the backstory and when that sport comes on, now you're like,
Speaker 2: that is my athlete. I want that guy or that
Speaker 2: gal to win, and you know a little bit about him.
Speaker 2: They create a connection, and I think we could do
Speaker 2: a little bit better job of that in golf. Let's
Speaker 2: have some of these little I don't know what you
Speaker 2: call you guys probably know, but a little two or
Speaker 2: three minutes, just a little segment about a player in
Speaker 2: the cain waiting for that player to be in contention
Speaker 2: for the weekend, and let's run that, you know, let's
Speaker 2: let's get that player out there. And that's one thing
Speaker 2: I think, But the other thing is the player. I mean,
Speaker 2: we also we can benefit by just showing a little
Speaker 2: bit more emotion. The problem with that is that, you know, Tiger,
Speaker 2: there's a select few people that thrive on it, but
Speaker 2: most of us have figured out that we play better
Speaker 2: golf and we're more consistent when we kind of keep
Speaker 2: the heart rate down and try to like suppress the
Speaker 2: adrenaline a little bit. And that comes off as being
Speaker 2: boring and robotic and emotionless and unengageable. That's that's a problem.
Speaker 2: It's a conflict. So personally, I like to try to
Speaker 2: just smile and remember like my gratitude for me being
Speaker 2: grateful out there is a great way for the personality
Speaker 2: just to come oozing out. And it doesn't mean I
Speaker 2: fist plump, It doesn't mean I'm like you know, jumping
Speaker 2: up and down and like getting excited. But it makes
Speaker 2: you knowable when you smile and when you look excited
Speaker 2: and happy about something, and when you look upset and
Speaker 2: disappointed about something, people can see it on your face.
Speaker 2: It matters. And and so I think that's one thing
Speaker 2: that we all need to do too, just to let
Speaker 2: that let the personality come through a little bit and
Speaker 2: maybe some creative ways. And our partners out there in
Speaker 2: the media I think could do a little bit better
Speaker 2: job promoting us too.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's definitely a two way street.
Speaker 3: Something like it's really clear, you know, especially in the
Speaker 3: I would say the last twenty five thirty years, like
Speaker 3: the sports psychology, it's like stay in the present, you know,
Speaker 3: keep your keep your emotions at a certain level that
Speaker 3: like that equal where you.
Speaker 1: Were most common table and you.
Speaker 3: See outside of like team competitions. I think you don't
Speaker 3: see those huge reactions very often. And I think like
Speaker 3: it's just kind of like the push and pull of
Speaker 3: how the sport plays out. It's not like a massive
Speaker 3: adrenaline sport like basketball or you know any any real
Speaker 3: you know, football, where you know, you make a play,
Speaker 3: you've got this time to you know, you're operating on
Speaker 3: adrenaline and these other sports, and in golf it's like
Speaker 3: it's kind of like adrenaline could be a bad thing.
Speaker 3: You know, it can lead to you not hanging your
Speaker 3: numbers and all these things. I completely agree with the
Speaker 3: vignette thing. I think like as a whole golf and
Speaker 3: this is like totally you know, it kind of ties
Speaker 3: back to what we were talking about earlier with Twitter,
Speaker 3: Like you know, there's this you know, rash of people
Speaker 3: that show more shots, show more shots, show more shots,
Speaker 3: and that's all the networks here now show more shots
Speaker 3: and what's gotten cut at the expense. So that is
Speaker 3: any sort of storytelling where you know, they feel they're
Speaker 3: like afraid to take the camera off you know, the
Speaker 3: players and the shots and show these vignettes. But I
Speaker 3: think they're missing the point, Like you know, I was
Speaker 3: on Golf Week yesterday and they aggregate stories from all
Speaker 3: over the country, you know, on their website with their
Speaker 3: I think it's like the USA Today or whatever network
Speaker 3: of newspapers. And there was an article written by the
Speaker 3: Patosky like the Patoski Free Press or whatever it's called,
Speaker 3: and it was about Joey Garber.
Speaker 1: And I didn't realize Joey Garber grew.
Speaker 3: Up in Pataski, Michigan, which is like way at the
Speaker 3: very top of Michigan.
Speaker 1: And I found that fascinating.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, like this is not a place that
Speaker 3: pro golfers typically come from, like you know, it's covered
Speaker 3: in snow six months of the year, Like how did
Speaker 3: this happen? And I was enthralled reading the story about
Speaker 3: you know, Joey Garber and how he moved to Florida
Speaker 3: and he came back. That could be a great little
Speaker 3: short video in like you said, if Joey Garber ever
Speaker 3: got in the mix, it's like here, here's that you know,
Speaker 3: and pardon me wonders if like that's partly on the tour,
Speaker 3: Like how can the tour create these assets that that
Speaker 3: then can be used when players get in the hunt
Speaker 3: but you know, it is hard. Golf is a I
Speaker 3: think that's like the tricky thing with golf as you
Speaker 3: talk about the next you know, twenty years, is like,
Speaker 3: you know, how do you how do you get people
Speaker 3: to care about number seventy in the world. And these
Speaker 3: are extraordinarily high achievers and but like outside of you know,
Speaker 3: these mega moments where Joel Damon takes a shirt off,
Speaker 3: it doesn't it seems very hard for players of that
Speaker 3: ilk to break through.
Speaker 2: That's true. And I like to compare this to like
Speaker 2: a team in the NBA, where teams are generally categorized
Speaker 2: either in win now or rebuilding for the future, right
Speaker 2: unless I feel like the PGA Tour exceptables, yeah, bull.
Speaker 3: Team.
Speaker 2: Same with the Hawks. It seems like it's Hawks bulled
Speaker 2: every year and we're but we're it feels like the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour. We're always in a win now mode. We
Speaker 2: were writing our superstars and we're asking a lot of them.
Speaker 2: That's you know, it's part of the nature of our business.
Speaker 2: But it's also not really that fair. But the greatest
Speaker 2: example is when Tiger went down for his massive uh disappearance,
Speaker 2: you know, back in two thousand and nine and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, we're all like, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2: There's a void. Tiger is like the greatest athlete on
Speaker 2: the planet right now, and all of a sudden he's
Speaker 2: not here. Well, golf does a great job of backfilling
Speaker 2: it's stars. Jordan Speech comes on board, Justin Thomas, Ricky Fowler.
Speaker 2: Guys like that are really popular, and they still are.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying anybody will ever fill the Tiger void,
Speaker 2: because Tiger's his own thing. But the thing is, it
Speaker 2: takes time for that backfield to happen, and if we're
Speaker 2: writing the superstars, we're never gonna have any immediate backfill.
Speaker 2: With guys like the Joey Garber story, that's a great example.
Speaker 2: These vignettes I think can educate the fans, and I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure that the I know the focus groups,
Speaker 2: I'll say, show more shots, show more shots. But all
Speaker 2: my friends that I talked to that watch golf say
Speaker 2: I don't know who anybody is, And my response is always,
Speaker 2: I don't care if you know who they are. Their
Speaker 2: shots are amazing, and if you want to watch shots,
Speaker 2: you want to watch amazing shots. It does shouldn't matter
Speaker 2: who hit the shot. But the people that watch golf
Speaker 2: will tell you that I don't know who the names are,
Speaker 2: and if there's big names on the leaderboard, they'll watch.
Speaker 2: If there's not, they probably won't watch. And the march
Speaker 2: madness proves it out too. Everybody wants the underdogs to win.
Speaker 2: It's great, you know the five beats that are five
Speaker 2: losers to the twelve and everybody's brackets get torn up.
Speaker 2: Well at the final four when you have a bunch
Speaker 2: of middle seed teams, the ratings are in the toilet
Speaker 2: because no one was to watch.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants the underdog story until the final four.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, that's right, it's.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I think that's a good I think the
Speaker 3: thing that maybe golf needs to do is like where
Speaker 3: the telecast needs to be shook up is on Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Speaker 3: That's the moments in time for the storytelling and then
Speaker 3: it's you know, the last two hours of the telecast
Speaker 3: sits lock in and watch what happens in the tournament.
Speaker 3: It's a I I you know, the storytelling aspect is
Speaker 3: the thing I think that's missed by the show more shots,
Speaker 3: show more shots, and I think there is like we
Speaker 3: people get obsessed with like, you know, what are what
Speaker 3: are the fans saying?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And I agree that the fans are a big constituent
Speaker 3: that you want to listen to. You don't want to
Speaker 3: not listen to them. But there is like a certain
Speaker 3: degree of like the experts in there rita are the
Speaker 3: media executives that should be determining some of the things,
Speaker 3: Like some people don't know what they want until they
Speaker 3: see it or experience it. And I think that's like
Speaker 3: another aspect of this that gets, you know, kind of changed.
Speaker 1: I think you're a unique you know, when you talk about.
Speaker 3: Golf and and people becoming fans of people, you are
Speaker 3: kind of like a person that I point to you
Speaker 3: like you a lot of your peers Jim Furick, Steve Stricker.
Speaker 3: One of the aspects of golf that is super important
Speaker 3: that I wonder about over the next twenty years is
Speaker 3: you know, your your era of players. There were a
Speaker 3: lot of twenty thirty year careers, you know, twenty your
Speaker 3: your career spanned. You know, you won basically in three decades,
Speaker 3: which is insane. But in that time, you think about
Speaker 3: like how golf fans get to know you over the years,
Speaker 3: and you go from in the early two thousands being
Speaker 3: a young player to then, you know, in the mid
Speaker 3: two thousand, in the mid two thousands, you're this established
Speaker 3: top ten player in the world, and then your tail
Speaker 3: of your career continues into the twenty twenties where you're
Speaker 3: a household name. And that's kind of I think, like
Speaker 3: I always think about like how golf really works. Well,
Speaker 3: it's like when you have this crew of household names,
Speaker 3: do you think part of this, like building fandom is
Speaker 3: more important because do you see the world of golf
Speaker 3: changing in terms of like your types of careers are
Speaker 3: maybe less likely in the future.
Speaker 2: I do think it's less like in the future because
Speaker 2: as it sounds like the tour shrinking, that's just gonna
Speaker 2: be less players starting. We've already seen this, and with
Speaker 2: less players starting, there's just there's the door. It just
Speaker 2: we reach capacity quicker and so there's gonna be more
Speaker 2: people leaving. So just a math doesn't work for longer
Speaker 2: careers anymore. And when you add the typical golfer, you know,
Speaker 2: client around like early forties, you can play a long
Speaker 2: time and still be very effective, but it's not really
Speaker 2: the distance anymore. It's not the you know, the physical
Speaker 2: tools anymore. It's more like the physiology and the chemicals
Speaker 2: the brain produces when you're fifty as opposed to when
Speaker 2: you're twenty five. It just doesn't let me that well,
Speaker 2: your brain shifts from a sort of like I just
Speaker 2: want to like bust through every wall and get everything
Speaker 2: I can get when you're in their twenties to when
Speaker 2: you're in the fifties. It's kind of like, let's just
Speaker 2: gather these acorns and put them in the little basket
Speaker 2: and we'll just walk away quietly and conserve. That's the
Speaker 2: way that human beings' brains develop, and that fifty year
Speaker 2: old conservative mentality, and I'm not talking politically conservative, I
Speaker 2: mean conservational. That doesn't equate to like rip your heart out,
Speaker 2: go for broke golf, and when you're playing against guys
Speaker 2: that have that kind of chemical physiology, well, that's the
Speaker 2: reason that we decline. It's not because we can't hit
Speaker 2: it far. Most of the guys that are turning fifty
Speaker 2: now hit it just as far as they did when
Speaker 2: they were, you know, thirty six. So technology and what
Speaker 2: we know about biomechanics and all that has made that possible.
Speaker 2: But you can't turn off that chemical falset in your brain.
Speaker 2: It just it changes because that's the way the human
Speaker 2: beings were created. And that's that's a fact. So long
Speaker 2: answer anyway, Yes, I do feel like because of that
Speaker 2: natural decline in the forties that more players are going
Speaker 2: to leave earlier than they have over the course of
Speaker 2: history because the pool is just smaller. There's not as
Speaker 2: much room in there.
Speaker 1: That mental shift.
Speaker 3: I you know, I there's a great Padrick Harrington quote
Speaker 3: from a couple of years ago at the Open. It was, like,
Speaker 3: I think it was along the lines of like experiences
Speaker 3: is all it's cracked up to be. With experience, you
Speaker 3: lose innocence, and that seems to be what you're kind
Speaker 3: of hitting on. Is like almost like that night naive
Speaker 3: mindset where you rip through and you're thinking of anything
Speaker 3: versus you get older, you start to think about more
Speaker 3: stuff do you have? Do you think that kind of
Speaker 3: struggle with your brain manifests itself in particular areas of
Speaker 3: the game more than others.
Speaker 2: Probably in you know, you you look at the artist book,
Speaker 2: you plan your shot, you know, when we're all like
Speaker 2: into the data stuff, so you kind of know it's
Speaker 2: not that hard to figure out what the best play is.
Speaker 2: But somewhere in the downswing is where I think that
Speaker 2: switch happens, where you decide like I don't really want
Speaker 2: to be right on this whole, and that's when you
Speaker 2: bail left. And that's I think where it affects you
Speaker 2: is that when the rubber meets the road, that's that's
Speaker 2: what you know. That's what happens. You bail on a
Speaker 2: shot where you back in your twenties, you'd be going
Speaker 2: for everything and like there are no consequences. And now
Speaker 2: over time Padrick is right. We experience teaches us the
Speaker 2: consequences just like it teaches just the successes, and you
Speaker 2: hang on to both. In fact, the brain hangs on
Speaker 2: to them more the negative stuff than it does the
Speaker 2: positive stuff, because it doesn't see the positive stuff as
Speaker 2: a threat. It's the subconscious busy picking up threats and
Speaker 2: when it has when it sees something in its environment
Speaker 2: that matches, like a threat, like a three putt on
Speaker 2: a hole that really mattered, like the seventy second hold
Speaker 2: of a tournament, and it sees that possibility, it's like threat,
Speaker 2: we got like a red alert here. But it doesn't
Speaker 2: see like holding the trophy as a threat, so it
Speaker 2: just discards that memory. I'm sure it's a memory, but
Speaker 2: it's not like a physiological response type of memory. That's
Speaker 2: why I think Pasrik was telling you and or telling
Speaker 2: that when he meant That's what he meant when he
Speaker 2: used that quote about the innocence is that you're battle scars.
Speaker 2: It's just another way to describe it. And yeah, you
Speaker 2: flinch at the bottom of that swing to avoid trouble,
Speaker 2: when when you're twenty five you just there are There
Speaker 2: is no trouble. You just take dead aid.
Speaker 3: You're just about thirty years from your first PGA tour one.
Speaker 3: I guess you're thirty years from your first Nike tour wins. Now,
Speaker 3: what would you if you could go back to your
Speaker 3: younger self, what would what would be the piece of
Speaker 3: advice you would tell, you know, twenty three year old
Speaker 3: Stuart sink At, you know, what would you tell them
Speaker 3: about golf for life?
Speaker 2: Now? Well, two things. First. The biggest thing I would
Speaker 2: say is get to work on making sure this doesn't
Speaker 2: become your identity right now, because I started doing that
Speaker 2: about ten years later, and that ten years I feel
Speaker 2: like got wasted a little bit and the reason is
Speaker 2: because I just and this is number two thing I
Speaker 2: would say is that don't sweat. Don't sweat it. Just
Speaker 2: let's I spend a lot of time I feel like
Speaker 2: looking back on, especially my first ten years on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, really sweating it and living and dying by
Speaker 2: the results of every day and every shot, and I
Speaker 2: probably cost myself years of my life. It just was
Speaker 2: not a good way to live. You know, there's only
Speaker 2: so much you can control in golf, and where that
Speaker 2: golf ball goes and where it lands, and what that
Speaker 2: score says on your card, those things are not in
Speaker 2: the pile of stuff you can control. Ben It's really
Speaker 2: hard to detach yourself from that. But those are the
Speaker 2: things I would tell myself as a twenty three year old.
Speaker 2: What you called it thirty years ago, is to not
Speaker 2: sweat it and unweave your identity from what that scorecard
Speaker 2: and what that money list and all those victories and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. Unweave it from who you are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fascinating part of golf.
Speaker 3: I kicked around the idea of trying to play in
Speaker 3: my early twenties, and I went down to Florida and
Speaker 3: I worked, but I would play tournaments as an amateur,
Speaker 3: and what I found during that period of time was
Speaker 3: that golf got way harder for me, like way harder.
Speaker 3: And the second I, you know, I decided this wasn't
Speaker 3: for me. I'm not cut out for this. I don't
Speaker 3: think I'm a good enough but be like, I don't
Speaker 3: know if I want to do this for ten years
Speaker 3: to like have a maybe a shot. And I went
Speaker 3: back home and I feel like when I started to
Speaker 3: work then like weekend golf, I started shooting like really
Speaker 3: great scores again, and it was like, oh, like this
Speaker 3: is because it's such a smaller part of my life
Speaker 3: where I'm not I'm not wrapped up in like, oh,
Speaker 3: I hooked one on the range today and I'm worried
Speaker 3: about like is this going to happen?
Speaker 1: Like it's so hard.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine trying like trying to compartmentalize golf when
Speaker 3: you're on the road by yourself in a hotel and
Speaker 3: this is what you're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, And it's almost unfair to try to
Speaker 2: put golf in that kind of a little corner in
Speaker 2: your life because you know, the fact is it matters
Speaker 2: to somebody who's had a long career playing and it
Speaker 2: does matter, but in a performance kind of sense, you
Speaker 2: know you're better off the less it matters. And your
Speaker 2: example is perfect because as soon as it didn't matter
Speaker 2: to you as much anymore, you became a lot better
Speaker 2: at golf. And the stories I hear from players who
Speaker 2: are now former players who go to work and get
Speaker 2: their eminer status back and they kill it out there
Speaker 2: in the stadium. Most of them don't even play because
Speaker 2: it's not fair. It's the same exact thing. You know,
Speaker 2: I've never played better golf. I've never played better. And
Speaker 2: it's true. They don't play. They'll practice, they play every
Speaker 2: two weeks and they average about sixty seven. And they
Speaker 2: never did that when they played in the pros. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, the golf course is a little bit different
Speaker 2: and the setups, you know, a little kinder, but still
Speaker 2: you have to hit the shots, and it's just a
Speaker 2: it's a level of you know, you got a ratchet
Speaker 2: down the importance of the results in your life and
Speaker 2: the way it affects who you are and the way
Speaker 2: it affects the rest of your life. And that's really
Speaker 2: tricky thing to do when all you want on that
Speaker 2: eight footer is to make that put All you want
Speaker 2: is to make it. It's the most important thing in
Speaker 2: the world at that moment, and you have to dial
Speaker 2: it back and say, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 2: put ten thousand of these. My goal is to make
Speaker 2: one percent more than I should not make this very
Speaker 2: one What.
Speaker 3: Were the best ways that you found to, you know,
Speaker 3: make your life more than just results oriented.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I probably should write this up down
Speaker 2: because I've forgotten most of it. Uh, the biggest thing
Speaker 2: for me, like in actual performing, like playing, it was
Speaker 2: just first of all, recognition and understanding, like let's look around,
Speaker 2: like let's let's be grateful, and let's remember that. You
Speaker 2: know what my wife always says, She so on my
Speaker 2: nerves so bad that she says this, but she says,
Speaker 2: you know, you've already done probably as bad as you're
Speaker 2: ever gonna do in this game and most embarrassing in
Speaker 2: the most epic failure, and you're probably already done the
Speaker 2: best you're ever gonna do. So nothing you do from
Speaker 2: here on out is ever going to fall outside those boundaries.
Speaker 2: And you've survived both, so why are you worried? And
Speaker 2: it's so true and it's actually just helps quite a bit,
Speaker 2: you know, to realize that, like, all right, yeah, I
Speaker 2: had a three shot lead three holes ago, and now
Speaker 2: I'm down by one because I just hit a couple
Speaker 2: of balls in the desert. You know, the heart rate's going.
Speaker 2: I feel like the biggest loser on the planet. Everybody's
Speaker 2: gonna be asking me questions. And I remember what she said,
Speaker 2: You're probably never gonna do worse than you already did,
Speaker 2: and you're probably never gonna do better than you've already done.
Speaker 2: And so keeping that perspective is an important thing. So recognition,
Speaker 2: but then also like as an operational kind of thing,
Speaker 2: I just really try to just bury myself in the process.
Speaker 2: The most boring old adage that everybody says in every interview,
Speaker 2: in every sport, stick to the process. But it's so true.
Speaker 2: Try to control the things you can control. I can
Speaker 2: control my preshot routine. And I hate the word routine.
Speaker 2: It's so not the right word for what it is.
Speaker 2: The operational process that happens before impact should not be
Speaker 2: called a routine because it is anything but routine. It
Speaker 2: is a constructed and executed.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like it's a real process. That I try to
Speaker 2: hit before impact and after impact. I'm like, oh, now
Speaker 2: I'm a spectator. So I hate the word routine. I've
Speaker 2: always hated that, but that's the way I use my
Speaker 2: routine is to keep me focused on something before the shot,
Speaker 2: so I don't have to be focused on where the
Speaker 2: ball is going to go and what that scorecard.
Speaker 1: Is going to look like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that I'm forgetful. I lose range fighters
Speaker 3: a lot. It's just like a silly thing. But like
Speaker 3: I noticed, I play so much better when I go
Speaker 3: through the process of walking off yardages off of sprinkler
Speaker 3: heads and like with a pin sheet than I do
Speaker 3: with a rangefinder. And it's what you're saying. The process
Speaker 3: isn't just like your preshot routine. It's everything you do
Speaker 3: in how you interact. When you get up to the ball,
Speaker 3: like you're twenty yards away, you're thinking about the yardage.
Speaker 3: That's all like the process, right, And I think what
Speaker 3: you're hitting on is if you're deep in the process,
Speaker 3: you actually have less time to have those intrusive or
Speaker 3: look ahead thoughts that come in and wreck golf, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's not just that you have less time,
Speaker 2: although that is important. And I would say that you
Speaker 2: using a yardist look in a pinsheet takes probably like
Speaker 2: eight or ten seconds longer, and that gives you time
Speaker 2: for your brain to sort of switch into that mode
Speaker 2: of being an athlete. Whereas if you're using a range
Speaker 2: finder like we all do, and heck we use among
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour champions, in turns a play. But how
Speaker 2: easy is it just to be talking and laughing and
Speaker 2: get your ball and go that and then that's a
Speaker 2: seven iron to hit your shot. You don't even plan anything. No,
Speaker 2: it's not all that healthy. But no, I think it's
Speaker 2: the time that you spend doing the artist book and
Speaker 2: then the other thing you mentioned. It's not just the
Speaker 2: time where you don't have time to you know, for
Speaker 2: those thoughts to creep in, those negative thoughts. I think
Speaker 2: we also are Multitasking is not doesn't exist. We can't
Speaker 2: think about more than one thing at a time consciously.
Speaker 2: So if you're going back to that process I was
Speaker 2: talking about, if I'm fully engaged with the process all
Speaker 2: the way until impact, my brain can't switch over and
Speaker 2: think about the result. It just can't. It doesn't have
Speaker 2: the ability to. So I'm locked in on something else
Speaker 2: in order to keep the mind occupied so that it
Speaker 2: can't wander to the current most important thing in my life,
Speaker 2: which is where that dagum golf ball goes.
Speaker 3: Just while we're on the subject of your like long
Speaker 3: spanning career, what would you say in your time as
Speaker 3: a pro golfer has been the biggest change to the
Speaker 3: pro golf landscape.
Speaker 2: There's just been so many big changes that are it's
Speaker 2: hard to say, but I'll just name a couple that
Speaker 2: I think are the largest ones. I don't think it's
Speaker 2: the driver. I think it's the ball that the distance is.
Speaker 2: I think it's a ball thing, not a driver thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, remember back in the you know, before two thousand,
Speaker 2: we all had a choice. We could use a pinnacle
Speaker 2: and hit it really far and have no control on
Speaker 2: the approach shots. Or we could use a blot of
Speaker 2: golf ball that was wound that didn't go as far.
Speaker 2: We had tons of control. Pick your poison, right. Prov
Speaker 2: one comes out and I know the bridge Stone ball,
Speaker 2: and there's a few others at the same time, but
Speaker 2: really the program one was the one that just knocked
Speaker 2: over the industry. It comes out and now no one
Speaker 2: has to make a choice anymore. Now we have a
Speaker 2: pinnacle off the tee and a blot of ball everywhere else,
Speaker 2: except it's durable. So to me, the golf ball was
Speaker 2: the biggest change in distance and the driver. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: driver's more forgiving, but we would hit the old drivers
Speaker 2: pretty far with this ball too, So the golf ball
Speaker 2: was probably the number one most consequential piece of equipment.
Speaker 2: And then after that, I'm going to have to say
Speaker 2: the track man, probably because the TrackMan has just taught
Speaker 2: us so much about how to optimize what's available with
Speaker 2: the golf ball and the technology. You know, hitting up
Speaker 2: on it four or five degrees with your driver, launching
Speaker 2: it higher and faster with less spind just maximize as
Speaker 2: you're carry and back then before the launch monitors were existing,
Speaker 2: the way the only way you knew that is by
Speaker 2: hitting drivers side by side on a course and then
Speaker 2: driving or walking out to the landing area and looking
Speaker 2: at the balls, and you didn't really know which one,
Speaker 2: which one landed and hit a soft spot and stopped,
Speaker 2: and which one landed way back there enrolled and you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: that driver number two is a a lot longer. Look
Speaker 2: that balls out there. But it might have carried fifteen
Speaker 2: yards shorter, but we did not. So the track man
Speaker 2: has given us like a real definitive picture of what's
Speaker 2: going on with the ball all the way down range,
Speaker 2: from impact to landing. And it's taught us a lot
Speaker 2: about what the wind does to the ball, what altitude
Speaker 2: does to the ball, what our club dynamics are doing.
Speaker 2: It's just it's an enormous educational tool that I think
Speaker 2: has helped so much. And it's to me that's really
Speaker 2: what has you know, back in my earlier years, the
Speaker 2: PGA tour was really top heavy, and then as you
Speaker 2: got down towards the bottom of the field, the level
Speaker 2: of skill really trailed off. Nowadays the fields are top
Speaker 2: heavy and bottom heavy because there's so many players that
Speaker 2: are so close together that the players at the bottom
Speaker 2: are capable of winning. And I think it's because of
Speaker 2: the track man and how everybody's just so optimized.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the best way I've had it, I've heard it
Speaker 3: phrase that it said. Jeff Ogilvey told me. He said
Speaker 3: the tour before track man, you'd walk down the range
Speaker 3: and everybody would be like, I think I found it,
Speaker 3: and like that was the idea of like I think
Speaker 3: I got it, and then after track Man, everybody knew
Speaker 3: the answer and there was no Do you have any
Speaker 3: like funny stories or memories of like where you thought
Speaker 3: you had it and it just was gone, you know?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Well I remember hearing a funny antecdote
Speaker 2: about another player who this is really having for you
Speaker 2: to launch monitor. But it's a funny story anyway, so
Speaker 2: we'll tell it. And I don't think Gary Holberg would
Speaker 2: mind if he if I told you. But this got
Speaker 2: passed down to me, so there's a chance that it
Speaker 2: wasn't even Gary Halberg, but the person that told me
Speaker 2: he said, this is what Gary Halberg did. So he's
Speaker 2: on the putting green before a tournament, I think it
Speaker 2: was Canadian Open, and on the practice screen with his caddy.
Speaker 2: He's just holding everything. I mean, he's like, look at this,
Speaker 2: look look at this little change I made, holding everything.
Speaker 2: And they get to the first green and he hits
Speaker 2: it in there about eight feet and calls his caddy over,
Speaker 2: and his caddie thinks are going to come over read
Speaker 2: the putt, and Gary Holberg says, hey, remember that I
Speaker 2: was doing on the putting green. He goes, yes, sir,
Speaker 2: he goes, what was it? So that's like when you
Speaker 2: think you found it. I mean, how many times you've
Speaker 2: been on the range and you're like, you leave the
Speaker 2: range like you're the best golfer in the world, and
Speaker 2: the next day you're like, what was I doing? I
Speaker 2: can't remember, But yeah, I don't remember any specific stories
Speaker 2: like that. I remember re launch monitor when the only
Speaker 2: thing you had going was your eyes, and you know,
Speaker 2: we on the PGA tour had reps out there that
Speaker 2: you know, were pretty good. They were excellent at like
Speaker 2: watching a driver and saying like not too much spin,
Speaker 2: not enough spin, and it was just an eyeball thing.
Speaker 2: But I certainly remember thinking I had it on the
Speaker 2: drive with the driver, especially on the range, and then
Speaker 2: going to the golf course and being like, isn't this
Speaker 2: doesn't work? Is the work? I'm going back to the
Speaker 2: old original. So but yeah, that's that's a different story today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just like think about like beyond just like
Speaker 3: your golf swing, the club, optimization of the track. Man,
Speaker 3: I'm curious when you when you describe pre pro v
Speaker 3: one interestingly, like you had this choice, you know, you
Speaker 3: could you know, you had the ballattas you had the
Speaker 3: tour professionals, you had the pinnacles if you wanted to
Speaker 3: go no spind How do you think that revealed itself
Speaker 3: with like players? Was there more ability to play different
Speaker 3: ways because of the different you know, shortcomings of different
Speaker 3: balls and technology.
Speaker 2: Probably so I would probably point to the the club
Speaker 2: side of the equipment more because it didn't have the
Speaker 2: forgiveness that we have now. So nowadays, I think a
Speaker 2: kid in college, if they're on a really tight hole
Speaker 2: and they need to hit the fairway, I think the
Speaker 2: go to clubs to drive them. And twenty five years
Speaker 2: ag that was too iron. You know, you're like, I'm
Speaker 2: just getting this in play now. The driver, I think
Speaker 2: is the club that most kids feel like they can
Speaker 2: hit the straightest. That's really a different fundamental shift in golf.
Speaker 2: But before I think, to get the most out of
Speaker 2: the ball that's spun a lot, and the club the
Speaker 2: driver that maybe even the irons that were just a
Speaker 2: little bit less on the technology, less on the forgiveness,
Speaker 2: you had to probably do something with the ball a
Speaker 2: little bit more like I'm gonna squeeze a cut or
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kind of hit down on this and and
Speaker 2: hit it low and it's gonna come out with more
Speaker 2: spin or there was just less uniformity to golf than
Speaker 2: there is now. And the answer or the the goal
Speaker 2: in the game is still to shoot the lowest score
Speaker 2: and to beat all the other players, So it doesn't
Speaker 2: matter how you do it. But there's way less uniformity
Speaker 2: now than there used to be. I'm not saying that's
Speaker 2: really a bad thing. I don't think. I think it
Speaker 2: takes a lot of skill to be very uniform in golf,
Speaker 2: and that's one of the things I strive toward is
Speaker 2: to be very uniform. But I wouldn't have said that
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five. I would have said, like, if
Speaker 2: I need to hit a fairway, I'm team this suckered
Speaker 2: down and I'm going to hit a low cut. It's
Speaker 2: probably gonna carry you two thirty five and if it
Speaker 2: rolls twenty five yards, that make me happy.
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit about, uh, the
Speaker 3: nine Open obviously a huge moment in your career winning
Speaker 3: a major championship. Outside of like the obvious winning moment
Speaker 3: the putt on eighteen, are there is there a shot
Speaker 3: or an exchange or like an underlying like small moment
Speaker 3: that you find yourself replaying in your head all these
Speaker 3: years later.
Speaker 2: The things I remember most, I mean, I obviously I
Speaker 2: can tell you like pretty much every moment for four
Speaker 2: straight days there. But the things I remember most about
Speaker 2: that week are that Tom Watson was involved and it
Speaker 2: kept me very distracted, which was a great thing. Kept
Speaker 2: me kind of not focused on my own stuff because
Speaker 2: I get nervous. I'm a nervous player, and having Tom
Speaker 2: involved just kept me focused on like, wow, look, let's
Speaker 2: I was a sports fan too, so I would hit
Speaker 2: a shot and then look at the leaderboard and think like, gosh, Tom,
Speaker 2: look at this. It's amazing. Is such an inspiration. So
Speaker 2: that was a big deal for me. And around maybe
Speaker 2: twelve or thirteen on Sunday, I was I was in
Speaker 2: the hunt all week, but on twelve or thirteen Sunday
Speaker 2: I kind of switched out of that mode and got it.
Speaker 2: I made about a twelve foot early in the back
Speaker 2: nine to kind of get either tied or right near
Speaker 2: maybe one back, and I got out of the Tom
Speaker 2: Watson mode and I got into like my own mode.
Speaker 2: And but I remember that distraction and that just like
Speaker 2: I just feel like it was a huge help for
Speaker 2: me to be like focused on something else besides what
Speaker 2: I'm going to do. And then the eighteenth hold, the
Speaker 2: way it played out there. Frank Williams was my caddy,
Speaker 2: and we had just such a great game plan for
Speaker 2: that whole We were landing the ball because it was
Speaker 2: down wind and it was a brick out there. We
Speaker 2: were landing the ball in the gap. We said five
Speaker 2: to fifteen yard shore of the green was our landing spot.
Speaker 2: It was a nice flat area like so many Links
Speaker 2: courses have. And every day we just did the same thing,
Speaker 2: just flew it right in that little spot and just
Speaker 2: like dropping a grenade and let's see what happens. Right,
Speaker 2: The ball always just kind of like trundled up onto
Speaker 2: the green and rolled somewhere near the middle of the green.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just classic Links play. And on Sunday's round,
Speaker 2: the pen happened to be kind of close to where
Speaker 2: the ball kept trundling, and so I ended up making
Speaker 2: birdie there and then in the playoff did the same thing.
Speaker 2: But that was my game plan, and I just love
Speaker 2: I love that aspect of golf, like having the game plan,
Speaker 2: executing it and having the game plan work out. It
Speaker 2: takes three things you know, to have a good shot,
Speaker 2: and links golf is one of the things I love
Speaker 2: most about it is it gives you that opportunity to
Speaker 2: game plan and you never really know how it's going
Speaker 2: to work out because there's so much vagary. But in
Speaker 2: that case, there the conditions set up pretty similar the
Speaker 2: last three days, like just the same direction to win
Speaker 2: and a similar amount of win a lot of it,
Speaker 2: and it enabled us to just have work that game
Speaker 2: plan out every day exactly the same way. And it
Speaker 2: was really just a cool uh for somebody who loves
Speaker 2: links golf to see that play out into a major
Speaker 2: win was like something dreams are made of.
Speaker 3: What is it about links golf that like lends itself
Speaker 3: more to game planning than normal tour golf.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you a normal tour golf ball's not
Speaker 2: rolling as far, and we're really good at hitting it
Speaker 2: in the air the right distance, in the height and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. So your game planning is just a
Speaker 2: little less complex. There's just a little less options because
Speaker 2: you kind of know, like, well, this hole is going
Speaker 2: to be a I want to hit it somewhere between
Speaker 2: two sixty and two ninety and then my second shots
Speaker 2: probably going to be, you know, somewhere between the seven
Speaker 2: iron and nine iron, and then the whole location is
Speaker 2: determined your strategy on the hole over there, the firmness
Speaker 2: of the ground and the wind dictate more than I
Speaker 2: think the whole locations do, and so you got to
Speaker 2: look at a lot more area of where you might
Speaker 2: land the ball based on different kind of conditions. And
Speaker 2: that's why you look at a course map or you
Speaker 2: play a links course and you see bunkers just kind
Speaker 2: of all over the place in the most random areas,
Speaker 2: like why would that even be there? Of course, you
Speaker 2: know the old adage. You hear this the guy who says, like,
Speaker 2: why is that munker there? And the next day you
Speaker 2: couldn't even reach it because the wind direction and the
Speaker 2: course changes so much every day. But you've got just
Speaker 2: a lot bigger, you know, area with which to play
Speaker 2: and you need to kind of be ready for it all.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of game planning that just happens
Speaker 2: kind of on the fly over there too, because it's
Speaker 2: impossible to foresee every possible scenario. And I just think
Speaker 2: that that's why I like about it, because it's just
Speaker 2: so much more possibilities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what you hit on I think about
Speaker 3: like the most the shots that I take the most
Speaker 3: satisfaction on in golf are like when you hit you know,
Speaker 3: the chip that has like maybe a little check in
Speaker 3: trundles then over a ridge like and rolls out perfectly.
Speaker 3: Or the approach shot that you know you have to
Speaker 3: land five yards short of a green and it runs in.
Speaker 3: There's some satisfaction with golf when the ball hits the
Speaker 3: ground and you judge that correctly. I think what you said, like,
Speaker 3: you know, hitting a golf ball in the air roughly
Speaker 3: the right yardage is like for a tour pro, especially
Speaker 3: like a pretty like it's just a skill. You have
Speaker 3: to have to have a moniker of success to get there.
Speaker 3: But then all the other things in the understanding of
Speaker 3: what the ball is going to do once it hits
Speaker 3: the ground.
Speaker 1: That's like the PhD of golf.
Speaker 3: With you getting to play now opens, I mean, it's
Speaker 3: got to be the most amazing thing. You get to
Speaker 3: go to Scotland for a couple of weeks every year,
Speaker 3: or or the you know, or Northern Ireland or you know,
Speaker 3: wherever the open is. You got to go for a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks for you know, foreseeable part of your
Speaker 3: life in terms of you played basically every single open
Speaker 3: venue that there is. If you were in charge of
Speaker 3: making the road, oh what what courses would be on it?
Speaker 2: It would be Saint Andrew's. And that's all. I have
Speaker 2: this love affair with St Andrews. I just I love
Speaker 2: the Old Course so much. I just can't get enough
Speaker 2: Old Course, and I just think it's so much fun
Speaker 2: to play, and it's just like a it's a wonder
Speaker 2: being there and knowing how old it is, actually not
Speaker 2: knowing how old it is, and then the way the
Speaker 2: course can be set up for public play and for
Speaker 2: a major, and yeah, if the wind's not blowing that hard,
Speaker 2: the players tear it apart, of course, but I don't care.
Speaker 2: The shots that you hit there and the way that
Speaker 2: course presents itself to you are just it's it's just
Speaker 2: remarkable how great it is and how cool some of
Speaker 2: those shots are. So I would just have a one
Speaker 2: course rotation there. It would be like the Players Championship
Speaker 2: of the Major RODA, just.
Speaker 3: One, which is you're only one year away from the
Speaker 3: next and open at the Old Course.
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true.
Speaker 1: Do you have a particular favorite whole or feature of
Speaker 1: the old course that every time you see it you're
Speaker 1: just like wow.
Speaker 2: I kind of like the huge mound in front of four.
Speaker 1: That's one I always think of too.
Speaker 2: It looks like a Hershey's kiss that someone put in
Speaker 2: like a growth ray or something, and it grew up
Speaker 2: about five hundred times, and it's just sitting there for
Speaker 2: no reason except to screw with your brain. That's exactly
Speaker 2: where you want to land the ball for almost every
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so obvious that a couple of dudes
Speaker 2: went out there with a shovel and just built it,
Speaker 2: and it's been there forever and no one says about it.
Speaker 2: But it's exactly where you would have land your ball,
Speaker 2: and you got to put some kind of curve on
Speaker 2: it and land it right or left of that thing,
Speaker 2: and it's always in your mind, and it's right there
Speaker 2: in the front of the yards book. It's probably the
Speaker 2: first time anyone's ever singled that feature out as their
Speaker 2: most notable feature on the On the of.
Speaker 3: Course, I think one of my favorite stories in recent
Speaker 3: years was was Reagan your son got got on the
Speaker 3: bag at the end of your PGA tour career and
Speaker 3: you you guys banged out a couple of wins, like
Speaker 3: kind of felt as as a close observer, felt kind
Speaker 3: of out of nowhere all of a sudden ste' sink
Speaker 3: is just you know, on a rampage.
Speaker 1: And I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: You've you've had, you know, professional caddies your whole life.
Speaker 3: And I think Reagan, you know, became a professional caddy
Speaker 3: in the year plus that he was on your bag,
Speaker 3: But what was the difference in having your kid caddy
Speaker 3: for you for a long time, and like the dynamic
Speaker 3: of how you did talk to each other and what
Speaker 3: he saw in your game versus a you know, a
Speaker 3: pro jock, like just you know, a caddy that's like
Speaker 3: a professional that might not have that tight, that close
Speaker 3: personal connection.
Speaker 2: I think the one word that would sum most of
Speaker 2: it up would be conflict and in parentheses a lack
Speaker 2: thereof with Reagan, the any little conflict I had with
Speaker 2: caddies in the past, like uh, strategic plan or you know,
Speaker 2: how how close to aim towards a flag there's water,
Speaker 2: you know, stuff like that is the kind of decisions
Speaker 2: you have to be like comfortably at home with when
Speaker 2: you choose your strategy in pro golf. Those conflicts disappeared
Speaker 2: with Reagan because he had He's grown up playing golf
Speaker 2: with me. We've played played a thousand rounds. Every time
Speaker 2: we played golf with each other, we caddy for each
Speaker 2: other basically, you know, we're like talking through every shot.
Speaker 2: And he's a big offer, so he understands golf. Like
Speaker 2: his golf iques off the charts high way higher than
Speaker 2: his zero handicap or whatever it is. So the conflict
Speaker 2: was just gone. I knew he believed in me. We
Speaker 2: had a really good system we were using to you know,
Speaker 2: to kind of determine like how much risk to take on.
Speaker 2: It was very calculated and data driven. He believed in that.
Speaker 2: And I mean also the motivation, Like he wasn't motivated
Speaker 2: to pay his mortgage or anything like that. He just
Speaker 2: wanted to go out there and have fun. And he was.
Speaker 2: He had just accepted a job with Delta Airlines, but
Speaker 2: COVID apparently it was pretty big with the airlines big thing,
Speaker 2: so his job Starfly, his jobs starting date kept getting
Speaker 2: pushed back, and he was at home. Yeah, I probably
Speaker 2: told you his story because you walked around with us
Speaker 2: at St. Andrews that one day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he.
Speaker 2: The first tournament back. I was coming back off an injury.
Speaker 2: I'd had a little time off. COVID gave me a
Speaker 2: little time off and we were about to go to
Speaker 2: NAPA and Napa is a pretty expensive place for the caddies,
Speaker 2: and my caddy was like, are you going to get in?
Speaker 2: Do you think I should make a flight? And I
Speaker 2: mean a lot of this is kind of non refundable,
Speaker 2: kind of like you know, commitment for the caddy. And
Speaker 2: Reagan could was overhearing some of the conversation. He's like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing anything right now. If it would help,
Speaker 2: I'll caddy. That's how it started, and we got there
Speaker 2: and win, And so it was supposed to be one
Speaker 2: week just to kind of give my caddy, Kip a
Speaker 2: kind of repriet from having to commit and maybe not
Speaker 2: even get in the field. But I got in and
Speaker 2: we won the tournament, and that's how it all started.
Speaker 2: So bad news for Kip, great news for the Sint household,
Speaker 2: and it turned into two years with just like it
Speaker 2: was the most special time in my career for sure.
Speaker 2: Having him caddy was just so fun.
Speaker 3: I can only imagine you know, I think it's something
Speaker 3: as you're as you you know, I'm in the stage
Speaker 3: of having a young kid and watching but like, you know,
Speaker 3: do you just think about like the precious amount of
Speaker 3: time you know, you see it kind of dwindling away.
Speaker 1: Like I look at at like my kids.
Speaker 3: She's almost six, and it's like, well, I you know,
Speaker 3: how many more years?
Speaker 1: And like it had to feel like a bonus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And a lot of things had to come together
Speaker 2: for us. So we had our kids really young. So
Speaker 2: as a forty six year old, I had two children
Speaker 2: who were well into the age where they could caddy
Speaker 2: full time.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Reagan's a younger one. So we had our kids young,
Speaker 2: and then my career lasted a long time. So not
Speaker 2: many people span that time where they have kids old
Speaker 2: enough where they can still you know, caddy. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's there's plenty of guest appearances by teenagers out there
Speaker 2: that caddy for their dad a couple of tournaments. But
Speaker 2: and Reagan and Connor both did that too. But as
Speaker 2: far as is, why don't you come on and caddy
Speaker 2: for a little while, you know, and let that let's
Speaker 2: see how it goes. And we went. We went first
Speaker 2: twelfth fourth in our first three tournaments, and it was
Speaker 2: kind of like, all right, this is gonna be something
Speaker 2: that lasts a little while.
Speaker 1: I mean it goes.
Speaker 3: It goes though to a lot of things you said about,
Speaker 3: like your career, like you're you're you're someone who gets nervous, right,
Speaker 3: Having someone or your son like has to take your
Speaker 3: mind away a little bit, Like you talked about the
Speaker 3: Tom Tom Watson distraction, Like having your kid, Like there's
Speaker 3: so much stuff to talk about, even if it's just
Speaker 3: your kid's life, Like just listening to him talk about
Speaker 3: what's going on in his life, it had to be amazing.
Speaker 3: Changing gears here. You've played, you played in five Ryder Cups,
Speaker 3: nine total team competitions. You've been an assistant captain for
Speaker 3: both the President's Cup and the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 1: In your career.
Speaker 3: How would you say that the you know, the culture
Speaker 3: of the Ryder Cup has changed or evolved.
Speaker 2: The culture of the Ryder Cup. I think the players
Speaker 2: just have a lot more power than they used to have.
Speaker 2: It's a lot bigger business out there playing golf as
Speaker 2: a professional on the PGA Tour than it used to be.
Speaker 2: So it's you know, recovery well, we know more about
Speaker 2: all this stuff. It takes more time. I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to say anything bad about the players, because I do
Speaker 2: all this stuff too, but there's just way less hang,
Speaker 2: way more businesslike approach. You know, there's pre and post
Speaker 2: round physio stuff, and the days just take a lot
Speaker 2: longer than they used to. That's just the way it
Speaker 2: is on the PGA tour, and so it makes the
Speaker 2: team aspect. It lessens the team aspect, especially with regard
Speaker 2: to like the wives and this significant others and caddies.
Speaker 2: It used to be all one big team affair and
Speaker 2: now it's a lot more like individual things. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying that's some reason that the US team has
Speaker 2: not been succeeding, because the European team does the same stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, they That's just the way it is. But
Speaker 2: that's the like, the personality of the team room is
Speaker 2: way different than it used to be. The players control
Speaker 2: a lot more. There's a lot more power that has
Speaker 2: shifted from the captain and the PG of America to
Speaker 2: the players. And that's what it seems like to me,
Speaker 2: after being an assistant for one of each team the
Speaker 2: last couple of years, that the players are just way
Speaker 2: more in power.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tricky, right, you like want it to be,
Speaker 3: you know, like the old adage of like treat it
Speaker 3: like any other week, Right, But then you have the
Speaker 3: other thing, like the other elephant in the room is like,
Speaker 3: what's Europe doing that the US isn't doing like? Or
Speaker 3: is it just they're playing better? Like in your estimation
Speaker 3: intimately evolve? What what would you say to the frustrated
Speaker 3: US Ryder Cup fan.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing I haven't ever been is intimately involved
Speaker 2: with the European team, So I can't say what it
Speaker 2: is they're doing. I mean, we have kind of an
Speaker 2: idea of what they do, but they, I believe, have
Speaker 2: a very deep, long standing plan that's been in place
Speaker 2: for a long time, and they don't waver from their plan.
Speaker 2: It doesn't always lead to winning, but I think their
Speaker 2: players are groomed from an early age to be Ryder cuppers,
Speaker 2: and they have past captains and players and future captains
Speaker 2: that are their assistants. They aren't they're they're not very
Speaker 2: they don't waver on their system, their plan, and you
Speaker 2: can kind of see from the outside their pairings too,
Speaker 2: you know who they put together now they have in
Speaker 2: a way a little bit of a benefit when you
Speaker 2: have like let's say two Scandinava players who can play together,
Speaker 2: and you have two Spanish players who can play together. Well,
Speaker 2: we have like two guys from California and two guys
Speaker 2: from you know, New York. Well, that's not really quite
Speaker 2: the same like nationality. You know, we don't see people,
Speaker 2: you know, waving the California flag out there, you know,
Speaker 2: but we do see Spanish and Swedish and English flags.
Speaker 2: So they have a little bit of an edge I
Speaker 2: think in that national sort of like bond with within
Speaker 2: countries that they can just make some natural pairings with
Speaker 2: I don't think that explains anything on the overall record,
Speaker 2: but that's part of their system, I believe. And we
Speaker 2: don't really have necessarily that. We have more like social
Speaker 2: uh you know, sidelos where players sort of reside, they
Speaker 2: have their dinners, they stay together. But the European team
Speaker 2: def you can see in their choices of their captains
Speaker 2: and assistance that they have like a strong plan. They
Speaker 2: have leadership that's not captains. They have a good leadership
Speaker 2: that's sort of overseeing the whole thing, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's leading to a good bit of success and the
Speaker 2: players buy into it.
Speaker 3: If you were, if you were to be a captain,
Speaker 3: how would you approach maybe in your own unique way,
Speaker 3: What would be a unique thing that you would bring
Speaker 3: to the table.
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Man, if we're first of all, I think if we're
Speaker 2: playing overseas, I think we got to go over earlier.
Speaker 2: We got to get there. We can't just show up
Speaker 2: on Monday and expect to be ready to go by
Speaker 2: the time the opening ceremonies are over. It's just the
Speaker 2: body doesn't work like that, not when things are this
Speaker 2: close together. You know, you got the top well it's
Speaker 2: not fair to say the top twenty four players in
Speaker 2: the world, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like basically like twenty four of the top
Speaker 3: thirty five players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about right. So you got players that are
Speaker 2: this good and this close together going at it in
Speaker 2: a team. You gotta just like the margins have to
Speaker 2: be one. We have to win the margins and we
Speaker 2: can't let jet lag be part of it. And I
Speaker 2: think that that's happening when we go over there. Would
Speaker 2: definitely want my players to be here a lot earlier
Speaker 2: and probably not making the families happy, but It's just
Speaker 2: part of the deal. If you want to compete and
Speaker 2: win at be at your best.
Speaker 1: Well, Manner is a beautiful hotel, so.
Speaker 2: Deri Maner is beautiful. I'm sure it is, and Ireland's lovely.
Speaker 2: So like the European guys came over this year early
Speaker 2: and just played a lot of golf in Long Island,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean that was fun and I'm sure
Speaker 2: they probably had the conversation with their wives that were
Speaker 2: kind of like, yeah, yeah, Luke. Once it's come over
Speaker 2: quite a bit earlier this year. It probably didn't go well,
Speaker 2: but as far as I know, I think they all
Speaker 2: did it, the ones that were able to. I think
Speaker 2: Seth had some issues at home. He might not have
Speaker 2: been able to do it, but you know, the we
Speaker 2: just have to be ready to play. And uh I
Speaker 2: was part of that team in Italy as an assistant
Speaker 2: for Zach, and Zach did a great job, and I
Speaker 2: Zach's one of my best friends. I hate the fact
Speaker 2: that he's getting so much negativity about the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 2: I mean he did he did the best job he
Speaker 2: could have done. I mean you could go back and say, yeah,
Speaker 2: in hindsight, you probably would have changed some things, but
Speaker 2: we didn't have the benefit of hindsight at the time,
Speaker 2: and we thought we were doing everything as well as
Speaker 2: we could.
Speaker 3: And the thing with captain, see is if you win,
Speaker 3: you're this hero like that, don't I've never heard of
Speaker 3: a losing Ryder Cup captain getting a good like like
Speaker 3: being like, you know what, they did a great job,
Speaker 3: even if they lost by half a point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's because they all do a great job. They all.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had the wholar opposites of the spectrum
Speaker 2: for personalities with my Ryder Cup captains. I had Singer,
Speaker 2: I had Corey, I had hal I had Curtis and
Speaker 2: Tom Layman. And those guys are all like basically peppered
Speaker 2: across the spectrum and guess what, they all did fabulous,
Speaker 2: all of them. We only won one time, and I
Speaker 2: don't know that it's because of the way that Zinger captains.
Speaker 2: The other guys did great. It was up to us
Speaker 2: to win or lose.
Speaker 1: We didn't.
Speaker 2: We didn't. We didn't win except for once, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: I've always thought that the captain gets way too much
Speaker 2: credit for winning, a way too much crap for losing.
Speaker 2: It's just a it's a Willi's in the Joe's it's.
Speaker 1: You know, they're just jogging.
Speaker 3: Who's a player from your era, like at any point
Speaker 3: of your career that you feel like didn't get the
Speaker 3: respect of, like how good they were? Like you watch them,
Speaker 3: it was like, God, this guy is good. But like
Speaker 3: no national pub on how good he was.
Speaker 2: David Thoms, he'd be the one. He won to like
Speaker 2: I don't even know how many tournaments, fourteen and the PGA,
Speaker 2: it was like consistently up there. He was good in
Speaker 2: every fast of the game. He was a nice dude.
Speaker 2: He's really popular. He won the PGA championship and never
Speaker 2: even been considered for an assistant position or a right
Speaker 2: captain c never had his name mentioned one time?
Speaker 1: Isn't he coaching too in Louisiana? Doesn't he have like
Speaker 1: a like he's got an academy.
Speaker 2: I don't think he does any coaching, but he's got
Speaker 2: an academy. He's got coaches there. Yeah, he's good for
Speaker 2: the game. Well, I shouldn't say. I believe Sam Burns
Speaker 2: might have come out of his academy Barbary.
Speaker 3: Barbary and Burns, I feel like we're both both came
Speaker 3: out of there. It was a story at like either
Speaker 3: a USAM or something years ago. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, and he's one of my great friends too, So
Speaker 2: I know a lot about his academy down there, and
Speaker 2: and he would never say it. He would never be
Speaker 2: the one to say, like, you know, my name never
Speaker 2: came up, But he's the one I would pick, and
Speaker 2: and just a great guy, and he played so good
Speaker 2: for a long time. And he's also my partner for
Speaker 2: the American Family and the team event we have out
Speaker 2: on the Champions Tour. So I got to raw raw
Speaker 2: him up and get him some confidence.
Speaker 3: Up in Wisconsin and you know, the the great northern Midwest.
Speaker 3: What are your you know, as someone who's who's been
Speaker 3: involved with the tour for so many years, what do
Speaker 3: you think about the direction of the tour and the
Speaker 3: idea I think like a popular thought is scarcity would be.
Speaker 1: Good for the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: What are your kind of thoughts about that potential direction change?
Speaker 2: Well, I mentioned this before, how the bottom of the
Speaker 2: field is way more capable than they used to be
Speaker 2: and there's not that big a spread from top to
Speaker 2: bottom anymore, and so the parodying off is increasing and
Speaker 2: the skill level overall has just like vastly increased, but
Speaker 2: yet we're talking about shrinking the tour. To me, those
Speaker 2: things are at odds with each other, and I hate that.
Speaker 2: I hate that. I wish we could be opening up
Speaker 2: the game to more players. I think it would be
Speaker 2: good for us, but business wise, I understand that it doesn't.
Speaker 2: There's just only so much room and then eventually more
Speaker 2: players in the field become more of a cost than
Speaker 2: they do a benefit. And it's it's a sad thing,
Speaker 2: but it's kind of true in the nature of the sport.
Speaker 2: So the fact that we have this new company called
Speaker 2: PGA Tour Enterprises that is a for profit and we
Speaker 2: have a heavy investor, you know, that's invested a lot
Speaker 2: of money in the PGA Tour expecting the return. It's
Speaker 2: not just a sponsorship now. This is a new kind
Speaker 2: of a relationship we have that is expecting return, and
Speaker 2: so we have a responsibility of that. And I'm not
Speaker 2: a business expert, but I trust our leaders, and I
Speaker 2: believe that Brian, our new CEO, probably he probably has
Speaker 2: it right that in order for us to make a
Speaker 2: profit we probably or increase our profits, we need to
Speaker 2: probably go that direction. And he's got a lot of
Speaker 2: experience in the world of sports and dealing with media
Speaker 2: and TV especially, so I hate to say it, but
Speaker 2: I think he's probably right. I wish it was not
Speaker 2: that way, though, because I just believe that there's more
Speaker 2: players than ever before that deserve a shot.
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about it a lot, and I think
Speaker 3: if you got to a state of like true true relegation,
Speaker 3: where like, hey, if Jordan Spieth finishes seventy two, he's
Speaker 3: he's off.
Speaker 1: He's off, like or whatever the number is.
Speaker 3: It's a hundred, maybe it's one hundred and one hundred
Speaker 3: and ten, it's you know, if if they're.
Speaker 1: Out of that, they're out.
Speaker 3: But then if that bottom group is like three hundred
Speaker 3: players and there's true relegation and promotion, I think you
Speaker 3: might get into a spot. And I you know, you
Speaker 3: don't know how this would play out until it plays
Speaker 3: out in practice, like you can put this on board,
Speaker 3: but like to me, like it's it's fascinating, Like what's
Speaker 3: going on with Patrick Reed right now in Europe is crazy,
Speaker 3: you know, but there are a lot of capable players
Speaker 3: in Europe. There's so much talent on the corn Ferry Tour,
Speaker 3: there's so much talent in the bottom part of the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour, and you think about, like, being a rookie
Speaker 3: on tour is really hard these days because it's like, hey,
Speaker 3: you got like ten tournaments, the first ten tournaments that
Speaker 3: you can play to start the year. If you don't
Speaker 3: play well, like you might want to just start playing
Speaker 3: the corn Fairy Tour again. You know, it is It
Speaker 3: is a such a difficult you know thought. But like
Speaker 3: I think about like the juice of a event that's
Speaker 3: basically the bottom half of the tour, top half of
Speaker 3: corn Fairy and some European tour players, the juice of
Speaker 3: that event if one of the big names falls out
Speaker 3: for a year, would be huge. And then it also
Speaker 3: adds like a whole story and redemption arc to that
Speaker 3: player's career where it's almost like their second you know
Speaker 3: they're coming, they're coming back, and it like makes them
Speaker 3: more marketable. I think there is like a world where
Speaker 3: in practice it works out really well, where it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, you have these like really rich stories that
Speaker 3: come from up coming up you know, I don't know, though,
Speaker 3: you know, it could go the other way.
Speaker 2: Just to be Devil's advocate. If you have a full
Speaker 2: relegation set up, you just risk losing some of your
Speaker 2: top names. And Jordan SPE's a great example. You risk
Speaker 2: losing that and that's something that our sponsors say, hey, on,
Speaker 2: we want to have the top name. So there's this
Speaker 2: tug of war between name recognition and absolute quality of
Speaker 2: play and skill. Right. We face the same thing on
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour champions The sponsors in the tournament offices
Speaker 2: want the Hall of Fame guys, and so do we
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, but there's a pretty strong core
Speaker 2: of us. They're like, we want this to be the
Speaker 2: best players over fifty in the world every week that's possible,
Speaker 2: the best players, and the model doesn't work. So if
Speaker 2: you use that example as a way to apply to
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour going forward and you have like a
Speaker 2: full relegation, we only want the best players every week,
Speaker 2: then you're gonna end up with a lot of players
Speaker 2: going back and playing in the next tour. We probably
Speaker 2: need a third tier, is what we need. We probably
Speaker 2: need these whatever they're going to be called in the future,
Speaker 2: these top fifty signature event no cut type things, and
Speaker 2: then we need the rest of the PGA Tour and
Speaker 2: maybe some new tournaments, and then we need the corn
Speaker 2: Ferry Tour maybe a few less and have this tier
Speaker 2: of up and down and all that stuff like you
Speaker 2: were talking about. I love the idea. I'm just not
Speaker 2: sure that our sponsors would stand for it.
Speaker 3: Speaking of the Champions Tour, you know, I expected that
Speaker 3: you were going to go up there and just you know,
Speaker 3: with the Lake career on the PGA Tour wins is
Speaker 3: the Champions Tour harder than the normal golf fan things
Speaker 3: like to win on the Champions Tour?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's harder to win because the players that are
Speaker 2: playing out there, they may have lost some of their
Speaker 2: absolute skill like distance, and they haven't forgotten how to
Speaker 2: win tournaments and how to hang in there and grind
Speaker 2: it out. And it's harder than people think to win.
Speaker 2: And I learned that myself. I thought I was gonna
Speaker 2: waltz out there and knock them dead, and it took me.
Speaker 2: Let's see, it took me a year and a half
Speaker 2: before I got a first win. So and I lost
Speaker 2: some tournaments in dramatic fashion along the way too. So
Speaker 2: there's a comfort level of moving to a new chapter
Speaker 2: and seeing new courses and you know they're new old faces,
Speaker 2: new faces that I've known for years that I haven't
Speaker 2: played against in a long time. And so the level
Speaker 2: play out there is really good. It's really good, and
Speaker 2: it's hard to win. You got to play really good
Speaker 2: golf to win. I have won in different fashions, and
Speaker 2: I've been really proud of every single one the way
Speaker 2: I've done it, because they've all been different.
Speaker 3: Went up there, obviously, like anyway, the Fellas Golf, it
Speaker 3: was like Steu six going up there, He's going to
Speaker 3: clean up. Was there a guy that you played with it,
Speaker 3: You're like, whoa, I was unfamiliar with this, with what
Speaker 3: I'm seeing here, But this guy's really good.
Speaker 2: I mean no, because I've seen these guys for years
Speaker 2: and I know what they can do, and nothing surprises
Speaker 2: me out there. I knew going into it that it
Speaker 2: was going to be like a dog fight, but I
Speaker 2: just thought that my dog was going to fight a
Speaker 2: little bit better. And I played pretty well. I finished
Speaker 2: high a lot, but I didn't get the job done
Speaker 2: at the end. You know, I let a few leads go.
Speaker 2: I hit the ball and some you know, I made
Speaker 2: some doubles and triples here and there, and just kind
Speaker 2: of threw away some tournaments. I got a little sloppy,
Speaker 2: but I think that that was mostly happening when I
Speaker 2: was still trying. I had one foot on the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour and one foot on PGA Tour Champions, and I
Speaker 2: was going back and forth, and I was really doing
Speaker 2: kind of a crappy job on both. And so when
Speaker 2: I committed to play the PG two Champions and I
Speaker 2: realized I had this window of you know, you can
Speaker 2: really reap some pretty good rewards out there in this
Speaker 2: certain window if you keep yourself in decent shape. And
Speaker 2: I was lett this window slide by, and I started
Speaker 2: feeling like, you know, I kind of wish I was
Speaker 2: playing Champions Tour because it's really fun getting a contention,
Speaker 2: and I'm in contention a lot. So when I committed
Speaker 2: to just play out there full time and leave the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour behind, I won the first one, and I
Speaker 2: think that change in mindset was like huge for me
Speaker 2: because it was like, this is my tour now, and
Speaker 2: I got to win that first week, and it's been
Speaker 2: pretty consistent since then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just had your fifth one oh season opener.
Speaker 3: You can't win them all unless you win the first.
Speaker 2: One, right, that's right.
Speaker 3: Sure, Well, I have to have you back on This
Speaker 3: was so fun. I got through like a tenth of
Speaker 3: the things I wanted to get through.
Speaker 2: But anytime, I love talking to you guys.
Speaker 1: This was awesome. Thanks so much, and we'll talk to
Speaker 1: you soon.
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 3: Big thanks to Stuart for the time. I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: that chat. A lot of fun topics there. We will
Speaker 3: be back next week. Big thanks to PJ Clark for
Speaker 3: editing and producing this podcast. I will be I'm on
Speaker 3: vacation this week, but I will be back next week.
Speaker 3: We'll probably do some sort of catch up on the
Speaker 3: last two weeks of pro golf. But thanks so much
Speaker 3: and we'll talk to you soon.