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 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 3: Ball in a bride egg, Frida egg, the dread and
Speaker 3: Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg, Brian Egg, fridagg.
Speaker 1: Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 1: the hump. Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Garrett Morrison and my guest today is Coach John Fields.
Speaker 1: Coach Fields is a legend in college golf. He's been
Speaker 1: the head men's golf coach at the University of Texas
Speaker 1: since nineteen ninety seven, and he's coached players like Cody Gribble,
Speaker 1: Dylan for Telly, Jordan Speith, Scottie Scheffler, Cole Hammer, the
Speaker 1: Cootie Brothers, and many more. He was also involved in
Speaker 1: relocating the Division one NCAA Championships to a gil Hant's
Speaker 1: redesigned course at Omni LaCosta. The University of Texas is
Speaker 1: actually the host of that championship this year, and the
Speaker 1: women's tournament is wrapping up as I record this with
Speaker 1: a match between Stanford and UCLA. The men's event will
Speaker 1: be played from May twenty fourth through the twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: in other words, coming right up. So Coach Fields was
Speaker 1: very busy on the day that I talked to him,
Speaker 1: and I was really grateful that he spent about forty
Speaker 1: five minutes of his day just talking to me. A
Speaker 1: lot to talk about with Coach Fields, He's got a
Speaker 1: ton of great stories, So I'm really excited about this conversation.
Speaker 1: But first a word about USGA memberships. Are you a
Speaker 1: USGA member, Well, when you become one, you join a
Speaker 1: like minded community of golfers advocating for the good of
Speaker 1: the game. USGA memberships keep golf thriving today and support
Speaker 1: the USGA's mission to make the game more accessible, sustainable,
Speaker 1: and ensure that it continues to grow for years to come.
Speaker 1: As thanks for their support, USGA members receive great benefits
Speaker 1: like the personalized USGA bag tag, a subscription to the
Speaker 1: USGA's Golf Journal, discounts at USGA shop, exclusive offers, and more.
Speaker 1: Give back to golf and get back great benefits by
Speaker 1: visiting USGA dot org, slash Frida Egg and becoming a
Speaker 1: USGA member today. All right, let's get to my conversation
Speaker 1: with John Fields. Coach Fields Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me.
Speaker 2: How are you doing today, I'm doing wonderful. Thank you
Speaker 2: for having me on.
Speaker 3: You guys have done a great job for golf in general,
Speaker 3: so I'm excited to be on with you today.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, and of course I very
Speaker 1: much appreciate you taking some time out of what is
Speaker 1: a very busy day for you because the NCAA D
Speaker 1: one Men's Golf Championships are coming up very very quickly here,
Speaker 1: So let's get right into it. What has the story
Speaker 1: of the Longhorns men's golf season been so far? How
Speaker 1: would you summarize that?
Speaker 2: Well, it started off fairly solid in September.
Speaker 3: We had a couple of finishes that were okay, and
Speaker 3: then we won a couple match play tournaments, the Big
Speaker 3: Twelve match Play in October, and then we actually tied
Speaker 3: Arizona State for points at Cypress Point, which is a
Speaker 3: phenomenal golf course. By the way, our kids get to
Speaker 3: play great golf courses so throughout the year, whether it's
Speaker 3: Olympia Field, Cypress Point and others, exceptional golf courses, so
Speaker 3: we try to do that. And college golf is kind
Speaker 3: of generally at least at a high level in that regard,
Speaker 3: but we finished off with a runner up finish to
Speaker 3: Arizona State just by points. Actually we tied, but the
Speaker 3: way they did it, we finished runner up.
Speaker 2: We didn't get the trophy. And then we started in
Speaker 2: January and had.
Speaker 3: A bump in the road at Hawaii and that right
Speaker 3: that was really a turning point for us. We kind
Speaker 3: of started doing things a little bit differently. Like all
Speaker 3: coaches do, you make adjustments and you try to do
Speaker 3: some things that would be protective for your team. Fortunately,
Speaker 3: some of those things kicked in and did a kind
Speaker 3: of did a one eight for our team. We have town,
Speaker 3: we have five guys that can really play, but everybody
Speaker 3: needs to be on the same page and everybody needs
Speaker 3: to be doing the same things, and so made a
Speaker 3: few adjustments.
Speaker 2: We finished third in UH.
Speaker 3: Late February at Las Vegas at at the Southern high
Speaker 3: Collegiate Masters, Southern Highlands being another great course that we play.
Speaker 3: And that third place was done without Christian Moss, who
Speaker 3: was simultaneously playing in the African Amateur.
Speaker 2: And he lost it a playoff there.
Speaker 3: So you would think, as one of our best players
Speaker 3: is not there, we wouldn't have had that third place finished,
Speaker 3: but for some reason we did, and really that kind
Speaker 3: of kick started our entire season from there. We had
Speaker 3: one bump in the road at Sea Island, or actually
Speaker 3: at the Floridian, another great golf course, but we've been
Speaker 3: gaining momentum ever since. And we won our conference championship
Speaker 3: by eighteen shots over Oklahoma and twenty three shots over
Speaker 3: Oklahoma State, and those were the three teams that were
Speaker 3: under part for the week. And then we finally felt
Speaker 3: finished the year getting to the national Championship by winning
Speaker 3: the regional at the University of Texas Golf Club, won
Speaker 3: by sixteen of a really good Tennessee team. Had no
Speaker 3: idea that we would be hosting the national championship at
Speaker 3: this moment, but here we are, and I guess the
Speaker 3: Good Lord smiled on us because we had an opportunity
Speaker 3: to play at home in a regional and obviously that
Speaker 3: gives you a little bit of a foothold and a
Speaker 3: little bit of home course advantage, and we utilize that
Speaker 3: and to a great extent and played really good golf.
Speaker 1: Who are going to be some of your key players
Speaker 1: this coming week in the tournament.
Speaker 2: I would say they all are.
Speaker 3: Whether it's Kristin Moss who won the NCAA regional. You
Speaker 3: have Brian Stark, who is a graduate transfer from Oklahoma
Speaker 3: State that has really started to play super solid. Another
Speaker 3: graduate transfer from SMU, Nathan Petronzio, has closed out the
Speaker 3: season in great fashion. And then you've got six foot
Speaker 3: nine Tommy Morrison from Dallas. Kind of an anomaly in
Speaker 3: golf still, but the athletes that are coming out, we
Speaker 3: may have more like him that size, strength and ability,
Speaker 3: great hands around the greens. But Tommy's an exceptional golfer
Speaker 3: and has had a really nice spring. And then Keaton
Speaker 3: Vote is from Austin, Texas. Pound for pound, maybe one
Speaker 3: of the longest guys in golf. If he turns sideways,
Speaker 3: you might miss him, but he's pretty thin, weighs a.
Speaker 2: Little under one hundred and forty pounds.
Speaker 3: I would love to be able to eat like he
Speaker 3: does and not put on any weight, but that's not
Speaker 3: possible for me. But Keaton's done a great job and
Speaker 3: he's a young person that's a great player. And right
Speaker 3: there from Austin, Texas. And then our substitute is a
Speaker 3: freshman named Jack Gilbert, just a wonderful guy that knows
Speaker 3: what his role is right now, and that's to help
Speaker 3: us anyway.
Speaker 2: That he can.
Speaker 3: He's doing that and couldn't be more appreciative of Jack Gilbert.
Speaker 3: He's a wonderful kid and just won our Inner Squad tournament,
Speaker 3: so he can play as well.
Speaker 1: If you put Keaton and Tommy side by side with
Speaker 1: each other, there would be a little bit of a difference.
Speaker 3: Well, Keaton could probably fit in one leg of his pants.
Speaker 2: That's how Stan Keaton.
Speaker 1: Is so beyond your own players. For the viewers at home,
Speaker 1: who are some players at this tournament that you think
Speaker 1: people should keep an eye on.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, You've got Gordon's Sargeant from Vanderbilt.
Speaker 2: You've got.
Speaker 3: Christo Lampprig from Georgia Tech. You've got Austin Greezer from
Speaker 3: North Carolina. You've got multiple players in this field that
Speaker 3: played in the Masters, and they'll be recognizable. One thing
Speaker 3: that we're doing this evening, we're having a Fred Haskins
Speaker 3: Award evening with Ben Crenshaw. Ben won the Fred Haskins
Speaker 3: Award nineteen seventy one, seventy two and seventy three. That's
Speaker 3: when it started that award. That's our Heisman Trophy of Golf.
Speaker 3: We'll have ten individuals and their coaches in that room
Speaker 3: this evening. Steve Wils sponsors it, and we're all looking
Speaker 3: forward to that because you have kind of the beginning
Speaker 3: of college golf at that seventy one, seventy two, seventy three,
Speaker 3: and now you're going to get these ten individuals that
Speaker 3: are going to get a chance to meet Ben. And
Speaker 3: he's met some of them just simply because they've played
Speaker 3: in the Masters, and he has the presence there as
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, and of course the Longhorns
Speaker 1: team with Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kaide. What has been
Speaker 1: the presence of those players in your program.
Speaker 3: Well, Texas Golf, just so you know, is ninety eight
Speaker 3: years old. It has one hundred and two victories on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour by sixteen individuals. It has ten major championships,
Speaker 3: with six major champions we have four national championships and
Speaker 3: a multitude of regionals and conference championships over time. So
Speaker 3: there's been a lot of great players play at Texas.
Speaker 3: It certainly is not John Field. I can tell you
Speaker 3: that right now. I'm one of five coaches that have
Speaker 3: coached at Texas. Tom Penick nineteen twenty seven through nineteen thirty,
Speaker 3: Harvey Penick, who wrote the Little Red Book.
Speaker 2: And was the world renowned.
Speaker 3: World Golf Hall of Famer that wrote the Little Red Book,
Speaker 3: and he was our coach from nineteen thirty to nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty one, and then George Hannen took over an unbelievable
Speaker 3: coach from sixty one to just about nineteen eighty, and
Speaker 3: he was Ben and Tom's coach in college and they
Speaker 3: won the nineteen seventy one and seventy two national championship.
Speaker 3: Ben won the nineteen seventy one, seventy two, seventy three
Speaker 3: individual National Championship and then turned pro and then won
Speaker 3: the Texas Open right after that, his first professional event.
Speaker 3: And then as we've gone along, we've acquired a lot
Speaker 3: of great players. And so now you've got two number
Speaker 3: ones in the world that have played in a recent
Speaker 3: time frame in Jeordia Speed and Scottie Scheffler, and we've
Speaker 3: got more than ten individuals on the PGA Tour right now.
Speaker 3: We're really proud of our program. And I'm going to
Speaker 3: tell you again, I don't have anything hardly to do
Speaker 3: with me. It's Central Texas it's our ud golf club
Speaker 3: that was built in two thousand and three.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and three, our golf course was unveiled.
Speaker 3: Since then, we've had twenty seven victories on the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour and players that have played there and five major championships.
Speaker 3: So you can tell golf has changed. In college golf,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of great facilities. But Austin, Texas, there
Speaker 3: must be something in the water, because something's happening right here.
Speaker 1: So coach Fields, this will be the first men's NCAA
Speaker 1: Championship hosted at the refreshed Omni La Costa. You were
Speaker 1: involved in making this switch away from the former venue
Speaker 1: for this tournament, which was Greyhawk in Arizona. So could
Speaker 1: you tell me that story. Why did that all happen?
Speaker 3: Well, there's a lot to it, not just do the
Speaker 3: short version. But in twenty sixteen, we played the National
Speaker 3: Championship in Eugene, Oregon at Eugene Country Club, Oregon's home
Speaker 3: golf course, and we lost to them in the final.
Speaker 3: Part of the reason we lost and who knows how
Speaker 3: it would come out anyway, but Bohostler, who's now on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, tore up his shoulder on the fifteenth
Speaker 3: toll in the semifinals and was not able to compete.
Speaker 3: He was able to finish out.
Speaker 2: His round and win. We beat usc that particular.
Speaker 3: Round and he was able to finish, but he was
Speaker 3: not able to go the next day, so we had
Speaker 3: to give a point to Oregon. And you only got
Speaker 3: to win three matches to win the national championships, so
Speaker 3: given a point, it's pretty difficult. But we lost to
Speaker 3: him in a playoff, but Bo won the Fred Haskins Award.
Speaker 3: What we're going to do this evening and they had
Speaker 3: us down to the Golf Channel in Orlando and they
Speaker 3: told me that viewership had been up one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty percent over the year before because we had the
Speaker 3: East Coast time slot. So I just kind of tucked
Speaker 3: that away and never forgot about that. But then fast
Speaker 3: forward to twenty eighteen, we went to the Walker Cup
Speaker 3: that gil Hents had just redone the La Country Club
Speaker 3: golf course La North where they played the.
Speaker 2: US Open this last year. So I was out there
Speaker 2: to watch the.
Speaker 3: I was out there to watch Scotti, Scheffler and Dug
Speaker 3: Kgim playing the Walker Cup on this really refined golf
Speaker 3: course by Gil.
Speaker 2: And I was enamored by that.
Speaker 3: And I was talking with Jeff Shackelford, who is kind
Speaker 3: of a golf dignitary here in California and did some
Speaker 3: work for the Golf Channel.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I told him, wouldn't it be.
Speaker 3: Great to have a national championship in southern California where
Speaker 3: the weather's perfect and you got the East Coast time slot?
Speaker 3: And he said, yeah, but where would you do it?
Speaker 3: Because most of the golf courses are dated. There's not
Speaker 3: really a great place to host a championship like that.
Speaker 3: And the courses like a Riviera or La North, they're
Speaker 3: not going to give you their golf course for three
Speaker 3: weeks because it's not just the men, it's the women.
Speaker 3: And we love that now that we're combined with the
Speaker 3: women and the men, but it's really a kind of
Speaker 3: a three week commitment for the for the golf course,
Speaker 3: and this time of year, pretty much in any place
Speaker 3: in the USA, it's going to be hard to get
Speaker 3: a golf course for three years and give up three
Speaker 3: weeks annually. So I knew Bob Rowling and I told Jeff,
Speaker 3: I said, well, what about LaCosta? And he said, you
Speaker 3: know what, coach, great great hotel, great venue, but the
Speaker 3: golf course is dated. And I said, well, how about
Speaker 3: if we had gil Hants do it? And he said, well,
Speaker 3: if you did that, that could be a going concern.
Speaker 3: And so I one of our philanthropists, great donors alumni
Speaker 3: is Bob Rowling. He owns all the omnis in America
Speaker 3: along with his son Blake Rolling, and they have fifty
Speaker 3: two properties in their portfolio and twenty nine golf courses,
Speaker 3: and so they loved the idea. I brought Mike Holder
Speaker 3: from Oklahoma State, kind of the tzar of collegiate golf,
Speaker 3: and Chris del Conte to meet them and to sell
Speaker 3: them on this idea.
Speaker 2: They loved it.
Speaker 3: They loved the idea, and we convinced them that this
Speaker 3: could be the permanent site and the home collegiate golf
Speaker 3: going forward. So they invested thirty million dollars in the
Speaker 3: golf course with Gil Hants, with this refined new golf
Speaker 3: course that's now seven five hundred yards for men. The
Speaker 3: women played it right at sixty three hundred yards and
Speaker 3: they finished over par. So it's obviously a really good
Speaker 3: golf course as a team twelve under one individually, but
Speaker 3: They liked the idea. The Golf channel loved the idea.
Speaker 3: The only problem was is that we're going to have
Speaker 3: San Diego State hosted. And the only problem there was
Speaker 3: is that the golf committee, the NCAA Golf Committee, came
Speaker 3: back and said, you have to make this a neutral site,
Speaker 3: meaning nobody can play it, including the host team. So
Speaker 3: that ain't no sense to San Diego State. So they
Speaker 3: pulled out and we asked UCLA, USC Pepperdine, UCSD. Nobody
Speaker 3: wanted to do it because there is a financial commitment,
Speaker 3: time commitment, staff commitment, and energy commitment to do this.
Speaker 3: So bottom line, nobody wanted to do it. But because
Speaker 3: the neutral site and the permanent site might be great,
Speaker 3: college golf our athletic director Chris del Conte decided that
Speaker 3: we would host it. So I had no idea we
Speaker 3: were going to do this, but here we are.
Speaker 1: So that's how the University of Texas came to host
Speaker 1: a tournament taking place in southern California. That kind of
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense now. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: the course and the redesign that was done there, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how much you were privy to that process,
Speaker 1: but could you give me a basic idea of how
Speaker 1: Gil went about renovating this course, what he did well.
Speaker 3: When Gill signed up that he was going to do it,
Speaker 3: because that was a higher level meeting than coach fields,
Speaker 3: that was with the rollings. But he decided that he
Speaker 3: wanted to do it and he came up with an
Speaker 3: initial design and then we had about twenty coaches from
Speaker 3: around the nation, both men and women, walk around the
Speaker 3: golf course with him, and he kind of gave his vision,
Speaker 3: but he listened to feedback from the women's and the
Speaker 3: men's coaches. We knew full well that he had done
Speaker 3: the real course for the Olympics with both men and
Speaker 3: women in mind and match play, and so we were
Speaker 3: all very comfortable with him. But he listened to us
Speaker 3: and we went around it and he designed it and
Speaker 3: it's the same routing initially, but it has so much
Speaker 3: more today. Multiple bunkers that were added, cross bunkers that
Speaker 3: are illusionary out there on the golf course, green structures
Speaker 3: that are full on gil Hans green structures, new tea boxes,
Speaker 3: new opportunities to walk the golf course, added barankas, added
Speaker 3: fescue and native areas on the golf course, It truly
Speaker 3: is spectacular and everybody out here who has seen it
Speaker 3: because women have already played their championship although the women
Speaker 3: play the championship round today Stanford against UCLA, and of
Speaker 3: course everybody's saying, well, that's because it's a West coasting
Speaker 3: and has nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: It has everything to do with that. Those are the
Speaker 2: two best teams playing right now. That's all there is
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 3: We won the national championship at Riviera and we're certainly
Speaker 3: not from California, So how do we do that?
Speaker 2: If you've got home field advantage just because.
Speaker 3: Of the fact that the you're in Sullner, California, makes
Speaker 3: no difference.
Speaker 2: You got to play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Stanford probably would have gotten there even
Speaker 1: if they were I don't know, playing as far away
Speaker 1: from California as possible. That's that kind of team.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Ann Walker has done a great job. She's the women's
Speaker 3: golf coach there. Alison Brown has done a great job.
Speaker 3: She's the head rules official for women set up golf course.
Speaker 3: Flying blind and two over wins the medal for the team,
Speaker 3: twelve under wins the medal for the women individual and
Speaker 3: twenty over made the match play the elite eight teams.
Speaker 3: We didn't embarrass anybody, but you had to come to play.
Speaker 1: So with all of this happening, obviously there has to
Speaker 1: be some amount of money involved. A lot of this
Speaker 1: takes funding. So tell me about the role that the
Speaker 1: College World Golf Championships Foundation plays in all this.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for asking that.
Speaker 3: So I knew once we secured the event that most
Speaker 3: likely Omni La Costa and the University of Texas would
Speaker 3: not want to be the benevolent godparents or grandparents of
Speaker 3: college golf going forward. And so what we did was
Speaker 3: we connected with the College World Series to kind of
Speaker 3: figure out how they had done things because they're a
Speaker 3: permanent site, and really College World Series, the men's College
Speaker 3: World Series is the goal standard for a standalone permanent
Speaker 3: side and that's simply because they've been in existence for
Speaker 3: seventy four years and the College World Series Foundation was
Speaker 3: founded in nineteen fifty, so they have funded and operated
Speaker 3: the championship for men's baseball for seventy four years, including
Speaker 3: this year. So we connected with Amy Hornicker, who is
Speaker 3: the executive director of the College World Series Foundation, and
Speaker 3: she shared with us along with their twenty board members
Speaker 3: all of their financials, how they do their business, the
Speaker 3: things that they're able to compete with and do, and
Speaker 3: how their infrastructure works. So what myself, my wife, and
Speaker 3: my daughter, April Workman, who's now the executive director of
Speaker 3: the College World Golf Championships Foundation, we all developed this
Speaker 3: idea that we could possibly be the funding arm going
Speaker 3: forward for collegiate golf. We want to start with Division
Speaker 3: one golf, obviously because I'm still coaching, I'm at Texas,
Speaker 3: and this is the vehicle to do it. But what
Speaker 3: we're going to do is eventually we're going to help
Speaker 3: division two, division three, both men and women. We're going
Speaker 3: to help a NEI, and we're going to help junior college.
Speaker 3: And we've partnered with the Folds of Honor and the
Speaker 3: First Tea, and we're working hard to get the United
Speaker 3: States Golf Association to help us and work with us.
Speaker 3: They're already doing that from an agronomic point of view,
Speaker 3: so we're.
Speaker 2: Really thrilled about that.
Speaker 3: The PGA Tour, the PGA of America, and the LPGA,
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of entities that really focus around
Speaker 3: collegiate golf. And if you will, I would tell you
Speaker 3: that I believe that we've never been able to market
Speaker 3: ourselves just simply because the NCAA will not allow you
Speaker 3: to compete with their eighteen partners, So even on site,
Speaker 3: you can't sell sponsorship and give people the kind of
Speaker 3: value for their dollars, so they don't do it. But
Speaker 3: we're going to be able to work around that a
Speaker 3: little bit here at Omni La Costa, and we're going
Speaker 3: to be able to do things a little bit offsite
Speaker 3: that have never been done for college golf, including the
Speaker 3: Fred Haskins Award by Stevel this evening.
Speaker 2: So we're going to do all those.
Speaker 3: Things, and essentially what we're going to try to do
Speaker 3: is put rocket fuel in college golf and then give
Speaker 3: the twelve thousand kids who annually play college golf at
Speaker 3: those different levels Division one, two, three men and women,
Speaker 3: NEI men and women, Junior college men and women, Division
Speaker 3: one and two an.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable opportunity to grow.
Speaker 3: So I believe that college golf is kind of the
Speaker 3: center of the sun, and nobody even knows it because we've.
Speaker 2: Never marketed ourselves.
Speaker 3: But if you think about it, the junior golfers and
Speaker 3: high school golfers in America want to play college golf,
Speaker 3: and their parents want them to play college golf, and
Speaker 3: they want them to go to college. And so from there,
Speaker 3: out of that son comes your golf professionals, your golf instructors.
Speaker 3: You're you're agronomous, You're there's just so many of them,
Speaker 3: the ones, the guys and gals that come out and
Speaker 3: work for the golf companies. On the other side of
Speaker 3: the equation, you have a lot of individuals that become doctors, lawyers,
Speaker 3: and insurance agents, real estate agents, entrepreneurs, investors, bankers, you
Speaker 3: name it. And they're the members at the club or
Speaker 3: they're the members that play at the public golf courses,
Speaker 3: and they're the individuals really that aspire up to presidents
Speaker 3: of clubs. And then on top of everything else, those
Speaker 3: are the people that really give back.
Speaker 2: To collegiate golf and junior golf for that matter.
Speaker 3: And then there are those individuals that matriculatea like a
Speaker 3: Tiger Woods who played at Stanford, or an Onnica sorn
Speaker 3: Stam who played at Arizona, or a Jordan Speed or
Speaker 3: a Scottie Scheffler that rise to number one in the world.
Speaker 3: So there are those individuals as well, and all those
Speaker 3: individuals have had so much success because of college Golf,
Speaker 3: so we're hoping that they'll come back and help us
Speaker 3: continue to fund this at a super high level. Looking
Speaker 3: at two to three million dollars annually, we're just going
Speaker 3: to bust it and we're going to give it our
Speaker 3: best job to add rocket fuel to college golf.
Speaker 1: Hey, I wanted to take a quick break here to
Speaker 1: talk about some videos Friday Golf did for this week's
Speaker 1: Charles Schwab Challenge on the PGA Tour. As you probably know,
Speaker 1: the Charles Schwab Challenge takes place at Colonial Country Club
Speaker 1: in Fort Worth, Texas. Now, over the past year, Gil
Speaker 1: Hans's renovated Colonial, restoring some of the features that it
Speaker 1: had in its early days. The great Perry Maxwell had
Speaker 1: a hand in Colonial's initial design, so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of cool stuff out there, and so with the help
Speaker 1: of Charles Schwab, Friday Golf was able to document some
Speaker 1: of Hans's work. We have a couple of videos on
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel that you should check out. One is
Speaker 1: a general overview of Hans's renovation and the other focuses
Speaker 1: on Colonial's greens. Lots of beautiful footage in there and
Speaker 1: lots of great insights from not only gil Hants, but
Speaker 1: also Colonial's director of agronomy, Rich Macintosh. So you can
Speaker 1: find those videos on our YouTube channel and on our
Speaker 1: various social accounts X, Instagram, etc. I think you'll enjoy them.
Speaker 1: That's it. Let's get back to John Fields. So getting
Speaker 1: back to the course real quick, Omni la costa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what are just a couple of holes maybe on the
Speaker 1: back nine that viewers should watch out for if they'd
Speaker 1: like to understand what this new course offers well.
Speaker 3: First of all, gil Hans wanted to create a golf
Speaker 3: course that would be challenging for both the men's and
Speaker 3: women's teams. He also wanted to give us an opportunity
Speaker 3: to help us identify the best college golf teams in
Speaker 3: America on an annual basis and the best individual players
Speaker 3: on an annual basis. So he created length. He added
Speaker 3: a lot of different opportunities for trouble, but also a
Speaker 3: very fair test. The greens are phenomenal, but I love
Speaker 3: in particular the fifteenth and sixteenth told the fifteenth, sixteenth,
Speaker 3: seventeenth and eighteenth are viewable from the clubhouse, so people
Speaker 3: don't even have to leave their perch to be able
Speaker 3: to watch this, but it's the fifteenth is a three
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty yard part four with a bunker in
Speaker 3: the middle about two hundred in the middle of the fairway.
Speaker 3: It's a raised green with two bunkers in front, and
Speaker 3: then a forty five degree angle hill that goes right
Speaker 3: into a water hazard. So it's very similar to the
Speaker 3: front of fifteen at Augusta National and it is shaved down,
Speaker 3: so if you hit it over the green, it's going
Speaker 3: in the water. Sixteen is virtually the same. Sixteen has
Speaker 3: a reminiscent of number twelve at Augusta water hazard in
Speaker 3: front or water feature in front, a bunker in front
Speaker 3: of the green, shaved grass right in front of the
Speaker 3: of the green, and then a wonderful green, two bunkers
Speaker 3: in the back. That's probably going to be our signature hole.
Speaker 3: And that's the most iconic shot that's ever been hit
Speaker 3: at omnio A Costa was Tiger Woods early in the
Speaker 3: morning in nineteen ninety seven on a Monday, Tom Layman
Speaker 3: hits it over the back of the green and tigers
Speaker 3: dix as seven iron to about six inches and wins.
Speaker 2: The golf tournament.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the Mercedes Championship as it was not act and.
Speaker 3: So those two holes in particular are going to be exciting.
Speaker 3: The eighteenth is going to be exciting. It's a six
Speaker 3: hundred yard part five and the seventeenth is.
Speaker 2: A five hundred yard part four.
Speaker 3: So this what we did want to do is we
Speaker 3: want to make sure the guys got a chance to
Speaker 3: hit drivers.
Speaker 2: Nothing against Greyhawk. They did a great job for three years.
Speaker 3: They overseated their golf course, They created a championship value.
Speaker 3: But the kids can only hit two or three drivers
Speaker 3: around here. Bring that driver out almost every home.
Speaker 1: All right, Coach Fields, let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: your own career. After you played college golf, which you
Speaker 1: did in New Mexico, you spent a year, i believe
Speaker 1: on the European Tour, and I'm curious whether there was
Speaker 1: a particular event or anything that made you DECI I
Speaker 1: had to end your playing career and pursue another line
Speaker 1: of work in the golf industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That was financial reasons for continuing, because I couldn't continue
Speaker 3: to fund it. My wife and I were already married
Speaker 3: at that time. She was my caddie, so I saved
Speaker 3: money there.
Speaker 2: But I did go to.
Speaker 3: La Manga, Spain and played the tour school there and
Speaker 3: made it finished seventh. If you saw me play golf
Speaker 3: right now, you would say you're a liar. You can't
Speaker 3: play golf at all. But I haven't played in the
Speaker 3: last twenty years. But a long story short. At that time,
Speaker 3: Sebi bi Asteros, Greg Norman, Nick Faldo, Jose Maria a
Speaker 3: Lot the Ball, Bernard Langer, Ian Woosnam, they were all
Speaker 3: full time on that tour. So these are some of
Speaker 3: the greatest players that have ever lived, in Masters champions
Speaker 3: and Major champions. I just didn't measure up to those guys.
Speaker 3: That's just all there is to it. I gave it
Speaker 3: my best for a year, so I decided when we
Speaker 3: got home that we would go into the business of golf.
Speaker 3: So I became a golf professional in southern Arizona. I
Speaker 3: had a friend that I had grown up around in
Speaker 3: southern New Mexico where I grew up and ask him
Speaker 3: for a job. I was going to be there for
Speaker 3: six months and then I was going to actually go
Speaker 3: try to play again.
Speaker 2: So we decided to start a family.
Speaker 3: At that time, my wife and I got pregnant and
Speaker 3: she delivered a baby boy, and my career was pretty
Speaker 3: much over. I didn't want to be one of those
Speaker 3: golf professionals that you know, went through two or three
Speaker 3: wives and maybe wasn't the kind of family man that
Speaker 3: you could be. So I decided I'm done with playing.
Speaker 3: I'll be a golf professional teaching instructor, and so I
Speaker 3: worked really hard to.
Speaker 2: Get my class A in the PGA.
Speaker 3: Did that over a three year period and was a
Speaker 3: head pro at a small club in northern Arizona, Control
Speaker 3: Valley Country Club for a moment in time, and then
Speaker 3: Dwayne Knight, my coach at New Mexico, decided to leave
Speaker 3: and go to UNLV. That left the job open at
Speaker 3: New Mexico, and lo and behold, the Good Lord smiled
Speaker 3: on us, and I took that job August first of
Speaker 3: actually December first of nineteen ninety seven, eighty seven December first,
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven. Was there for ten years, had some
Speaker 3: great players, including Tim Herron, who went on to win
Speaker 3: four times on the PGA Tour and won twenty three
Speaker 3: million dollars playing. I was hired by Delos Dodds in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven. August first, ninety seven in Texas, and
Speaker 3: I've been there ever since.
Speaker 1: I've heard you speak before about how important Cody Gribble
Speaker 1: was to the golf program at Texas. And this is
Speaker 1: fast forwarding a little bit from nineteen ninety seven, obviously,
Speaker 1: but for people who don't know, Cody is now a
Speaker 1: veteran player on the PGA Tour and Cornferry Tour. Why
Speaker 1: was he such a key figure for you and the university.
Speaker 3: Well, in ninety seven when I came in, we recruited
Speaker 3: extremely well. In fact, the five guys that we got
Speaker 3: were David Goss at number one junior in America, John
Speaker 3: Cloud number two junior in America, Russell Server was number
Speaker 3: seven junior in America, and Matt Rose was eleven and
Speaker 3: Kulli Bragon was top fifteen. So the golf we called
Speaker 3: them the Fab five and we went on to do
Speaker 3: really well with those teams. We finished second, third and
Speaker 3: fourth in the national or third, fourth and fifth in
Speaker 3: the National Championship and won three Big twelve championships two
Speaker 3: thousand and two, three and four. The problem was is
Speaker 3: that when we got into the bill of the golf course,
Speaker 3: which was open in two thousand and three, I kind
Speaker 3: of took my off the recruiting ball, and as a result,
Speaker 3: our teams weren't as good two thousand and five, six,
Speaker 3: seven and eight. And really the fortunate part of that
Speaker 3: was at that time our football team was magnificent. They
Speaker 3: won the national championship in two thousand and five. In
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine they played Ford again against Alabama,
Speaker 3: and then our basketball team had been to the final
Speaker 3: four and algi Garito.
Speaker 2: At baseball had won two times in the National championship.
Speaker 3: So de Los Dodds, my boss, was kind of bulletproof
Speaker 3: at the time. So there was people for calling from
Speaker 3: my head because we were between fifteen and twenty five,
Speaker 3: and we weren't a terrible golf team, but we weren't
Speaker 3: the kind of golf team that we'd like to be,
Speaker 3: and so there were people calling from my head. And
Speaker 3: then Cody Gribble came along. Man's man, great young man,
Speaker 3: fantastic player. I could back up everything he talked about
Speaker 3: and was just super visible and everybody wanted to be
Speaker 3: around him. So he's the best recruiter I've ever seen
Speaker 3: or heard about with as far as a player. And
Speaker 3: Rick Barnes, our basketball coach, told me, your players are
Speaker 3: a either your best recruiters.
Speaker 2: Or they're not. It's just one or the other. There's
Speaker 2: no in between.
Speaker 3: And so, long story short, we were very fortunate to
Speaker 3: get these guys to be our kind of the base
Speaker 3: of our game again and that was started with Cody Gribble,
Speaker 3: and then Jordan Spif came along. After Jordan Spieth, it
Speaker 3: was Bochastler and from there Doug gim and it's just
Speaker 3: been a change since then with Kramer, Hiccock and others
Speaker 3: and Dylan for Telly and my goodness, its just it's
Speaker 3: just manifested itself. But really, my center of the sun
Speaker 3: really is uh his code Gribble.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you first saw Jordan Speith play call? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what your first impressions were.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was on a Perry Maxwell golf course Dorna Kills.
Speaker 1: It's it's been renovated. We actually held an event there,
Speaker 1: our company held an event there.
Speaker 3: Terrific golf course, it really is, and Perry Maxwell is
Speaker 3: actually buried on that golf course.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I saw Jordan.
Speaker 3: I was a little late to the first tee, so
Speaker 3: he'd already played in the first hole.
Speaker 2: Number one.
Speaker 3: Number two is a part three over water and he
Speaker 3: missed it, short sighted himself, right, and then he hit
Speaker 3: this magnificent chip. He was in ninth grade at the time,
Speaker 3: hit this incredible chip shot and the ball just spun
Speaker 3: right down to the hole to about six inches, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I want that guy on my golf Hm.
Speaker 3: That's the first time I ever saw him play.
Speaker 1: Wow. And then, obviously, as you got to know him
Speaker 1: over the years he was in ninth grade, you said
Speaker 1: during that tournament, he was by the time he was sixteen,
Speaker 1: sort of a widely acknowledged prodigy in golf. How did
Speaker 1: you go about convincing him to go to college and
Speaker 1: specifically to go to the University of Texas.
Speaker 3: Well, you have to be relentless in recruiting, and so
Speaker 3: we did everything could. He probably got a letter from
Speaker 3: me every day for two years. And you have to
Speaker 3: be relentless. You've gotta communicate, and we did that. But
Speaker 3: I will tell you a funny thing about Jordan, and
Speaker 3: it's apropos for Scotty because neither one of them use
Speaker 3: their phones hardly at all. Scotty's not even on any
Speaker 3: kind of social media, so neither one of them use
Speaker 3: their phone very much.
Speaker 2: And I called up Sean Speith.
Speaker 3: Really kind of in the middle of Jordan's junior year,
Speaker 3: and I said, is Jordan interested in Texas?
Speaker 2: He goes, yeah, Coach, why would you ask?
Speaker 3: And I said, well, I'll email him and I might
Speaker 3: not hear back from him for ten days, or I'll
Speaker 3: text him and I might not hear back from him
Speaker 3: for seven days. And if I call him, I really
Speaker 3: can talk to him on the phone. I said, He's
Speaker 3: just it's just really hard to communicate with him. He goes, Coach,
Speaker 3: don't worry about that. He does that to his parents.
Speaker 3: He just doesn't use his phone. And I would say
Speaker 3: Scotty's in the same boat. And what that's done, that's
Speaker 3: created calmness in their minds. Our phones and the things
Speaker 3: that we utilize today to communicate are just a natural
Speaker 3: part of our world, but it adds another dimension in
Speaker 3: terms of energy that's extended an emotion. And if you
Speaker 3: eliminate those two things by not using your phone very much,
Speaker 3: you're in a better place. And those guys live there.
Speaker 1: Talking about Scotty Scheffler, what is something that you think
Speaker 1: people don't yet understand very well about him? Because I
Speaker 1: think in a way golf fans, golf media even are
Speaker 1: just getting to know Scotty Scheffler. Yeah, we're just starting
Speaker 1: to come to grips with who he is as a
Speaker 1: person from what you saw as his coach. What do
Speaker 1: people not yet understand about him?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, he's got great parents, Scott and
Speaker 3: Dienergy is absolutely wonderful and raised a wonderful son and
Speaker 3: three great daughters. They did a fantastic job, and they
Speaker 3: did it their way. Scotty Scheffler is a six foot
Speaker 3: three and a half great athlete, but he's also blessed
Speaker 3: with the opportunity to be an unbelievably great person.
Speaker 2: So he was always those things.
Speaker 3: At Texas, he grew significantly when I recruited him. I
Speaker 3: started recruiting him with his eighth grade he was one
Speaker 3: hundred pounds and he was five foot zero in eighth grade.
Speaker 3: When he turned up on campus five years later, he
Speaker 3: was six foot three and a half over two hundred pounds,
Speaker 3: and his little tiny hen had gone from tiny han
Speaker 3: to XL on the group on the globe side. So
Speaker 3: he groups dramatically, and that put a lot of pressure
Speaker 3: on his bones and it manifested itself on a kind
Speaker 3: of an upper back issue that he had for four years.
Speaker 2: So he played great for US.
Speaker 3: He was the NCAA Freshman of the Years, three time
Speaker 3: All American.
Speaker 2: He played in two US Opens. He played he was.
Speaker 3: A low am you're at Aaron Hills in the US
Speaker 3: Open and he played in the Walker Cup team.
Speaker 2: And people ask me all the time, why do you
Speaker 2: play better for you? We don't understand. I'm like, guy
Speaker 2: won multiple times. What do you want? You know?
Speaker 3: Well, they were comparing him to Jordan's me. Everybody did
Speaker 3: at the time. But now look at what's happened. I mean,
Speaker 3: everybody compares himself to Scotty Scheffler now, so everybody takes
Speaker 3: their own path. But the way he arrives he's just
Speaker 3: such a great person, cares about people. Jordan does two
Speaker 3: and that's the bottom line. They just they really enjoy
Speaker 3: people and they care about people. It's not all about them,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Jordan and Scotty are both extremely well behaved individuals, polite
Speaker 1: and genuinely so right, this is not an act that
Speaker 1: they put it, Yeah, exactly, and they you know, this
Speaker 1: is who they are. I think everybody who has interacted
Speaker 1: with them acknowledges that at the same time, they are
Speaker 1: both extremely competitive, right, do you have any examples that
Speaker 1: come to mind for either of them of the extent
Speaker 1: of their competitiveness.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're both probably have an extra gene of competitiveness,
Speaker 3: if that's possible. There's been five guys in my career,
Speaker 3: those two, Scotti Scheffler and George Jordan Speed, Tim Herron
Speaker 3: in New Mexico, Bohastler, and Cody Gribble that basically have
Speaker 3: a volcano in them. And they all had their instances
Speaker 3: where maybe something came out of their mouth that wasn't
Speaker 3: very good. But that's what College of Golf is all about.
Speaker 3: We're taking eighteen to twenty two year olds and helping
Speaker 3: build their egos but also refining them as individuals, to
Speaker 3: give them an opportunity to really, really really treat people
Speaker 3: special and understand it's not all about them. And I
Speaker 3: would say that. I mean, if we had two hours,
Speaker 3: I'd probably go through a bunch of stories. But the
Speaker 3: bottom line is they care about people. That's all there
Speaker 3: is to it. And they both are giving back to
Speaker 3: their communities right now, they're giving back Texas Golf not
Speaker 3: going to be more appreciated.
Speaker 1: Well, can you tell me any of those stories with
Speaker 1: the with the caveat that these are good guys. We
Speaker 1: know they're good guys and being competitive doesn't make you
Speaker 1: a bad guy at all. But you know, I'm curious
Speaker 1: about this because you know, Jordan Spieth and Scotty Scheffler
Speaker 1: both have a great and well earned image as really
Speaker 1: nice guys. But I think it's important to remember that
Speaker 1: they're as great as they are, partly because they really
Speaker 1: really want to win.
Speaker 3: Right In twenty fifteen, when we played the regional championship
Speaker 3: at Lubbock and Texas Tech golf Course, the Roles Golf
Speaker 3: Course by Tom Doak, we were invited to play a
Speaker 3: match play event about six weeks before the regional was
Speaker 3: going to be played there, and the way they did it.
Speaker 3: We were playing Texas Tech. In the final round of
Speaker 3: that match play event. Scottish Scheffler and Bo Hostler were
Speaker 3: in the same group and they were playing each a
Speaker 3: different individual from Texas Tech. We got to the eleventh hole,
Speaker 3: par five, and they both hit quality drives right down
Speaker 3: the middle of the fairway. So Bo Hostler and Scotty
Speaker 3: and I was walking with bow. I was not walking
Speaker 3: with Scotty. Can only I was staying focused on Bo
Speaker 3: Hostler in his round, and we got up to the
Speaker 3: first ball and Bo looked down at it, and then
Speaker 3: we continue to.
Speaker 2: Work to the next ball.
Speaker 3: So I figured, well, that's that's Scotty's ball, and of
Speaker 3: course Bo was happy because he had out driven him
Speaker 3: by fifteen yards.
Speaker 2: So Scotty hits his shot.
Speaker 3: We're getting ready to hit or Bo's getting ready to
Speaker 3: hit his shot, and he looks down he goes, that's
Speaker 3: not my ball, and you would have thought Mount Vesuvius
Speaker 3: had just gone off about fifteen yards behind us, because
Speaker 3: Scotty recognized at that moment that he hit the wrong
Speaker 3: ball and he had just lost a hole by hitting
Speaker 3: the wrong ball. So rather than just go with it,
Speaker 3: he took off, running two hundred and fifty yards to
Speaker 3: the front of the green to retrieve that ball, and
Speaker 3: then sprinted back and put that ball right at the
Speaker 3: base of Bohastler's feet. He was so mad at Bo
Speaker 3: Hoostler for doing what he did because he felt like, well,
Speaker 3: you kind of tricked me because you looked at that
Speaker 3: ball and then you stand by the other one.
Speaker 2: He didn't check it.
Speaker 3: Bo says to this day that that's Scotty's fault, and
Speaker 3: maybe it is, and Scotty ultimately took.
Speaker 2: Responsibility for it. He lost the hole.
Speaker 3: But we got to the next tea box, which was
Speaker 3: a par three, and Scotty was just so mad he
Speaker 3: couldn't see straight. And I said, bow, we are not
Speaker 3: going to go another step forward until you apologize to Scotty.
Speaker 3: And he goes, what do I got to apologize to
Speaker 3: him for? He wanted to hit the wrong ball and
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, we walked right past it. You looked
Speaker 3: at it. He goes, Coach, he hit the wrong ball
Speaker 3: and it's his fault. And I'm like, we're not going
Speaker 3: another step forward until you apologize to him. So Scotty
Speaker 3: was coming right behind us and he turns around and goes,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, and then we kept going. And so to
Speaker 3: this day it's a funny story, but it shows you
Speaker 3: how I mean, Scotty Scheffler did five hundred yards and
Speaker 3: I don't know what the time was, but he could
Speaker 3: have been on the Olympic team at that time.
Speaker 2: He was so angry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, speaking of things that people might not
Speaker 1: totally understand about Scotty Scheffler right now, just from seeing
Speaker 1: him on TV. Is that, as you've mentioned a couple
Speaker 1: of times, he's a big dude. This is he's bilk foot.
Speaker 3: Three and a half pushing six foot four and over
Speaker 3: two hundred pounds, but a delightful guy. And he's got
Speaker 3: Ted Scott on his bag, he's got Grandy Smith teaching him.
Speaker 3: He's got the most wonderful wife in the world other
Speaker 3: than Pearl Fields, and that's Meredith Scheffler.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, you know, you've seen a lot of players
Speaker 1: when they're young, when they're up and coming, when maybe
Speaker 1: they haven't fully formed into the players that they eventually become.
Speaker 1: Is there some thing that you see in the ones
Speaker 1: who really end up being special? Because I'm sure you
Speaker 1: see a lot of great ball strikers, a lot of
Speaker 1: great ball strikers out there. Is there something different about
Speaker 1: the players who actually kind of rise to the top
Speaker 1: at the next level.
Speaker 2: There is, and it's called it.
Speaker 3: That coach Daryl Royal, that was our legendary football coach
Speaker 3: who won three national championships is in the sixties and
Speaker 3: seventies called it it. And when somebody would ask that,
Speaker 3: they would say, what is it that makes someone.
Speaker 2: So so special?
Speaker 3: And coach Row would say he's got it, and then
Speaker 3: that person would say, well, what is it? And he
Speaker 3: would say, I don't know what it is, but he's
Speaker 3: got And what that means is is that they are
Speaker 3: just absolutely exceptional in certain things. But I think the
Speaker 3: number one qualifying thing for them is that their minds
Speaker 3: are not limited to what they might be able to do.
Speaker 2: A lot of players are.
Speaker 3: Capable of winning the Masters, but your mind has to
Speaker 3: say it's okay to win the Masters or the US
Speaker 3: Open and the British or the PGA. So there's probably
Speaker 3: been many many players over the years that could have done.
Speaker 2: It but didn't do it.
Speaker 3: The reason they didn't do it was simply because their
Speaker 3: mindset is, no, you're not that good. These guys they're
Speaker 3: that good and they believe it. And how that got there,
Speaker 3: have no idea, but they have it.
Speaker 1: That's such an interesting observation because it's not just confidence,
Speaker 1: it's almost like believing that you're good enough or that
Speaker 1: you deserve you truly deserve something. Absolutely well, Coach Fields,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time. It's been a
Speaker 1: really interesting conversation and best of luck in the tournament
Speaker 1: this coming week.
Speaker 3: Garrett, God bless you and lookolm horns. We are thrilled
Speaker 3: to be Omni La Costa. Our team is going to
Speaker 3: rise to the occasion. We're gonna have a great time
Speaker 3: and I hope you can come visitors sometimes.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. This episode of the Friday Golf podcast
Speaker 1: was produced by Matt Rusius. Thank you, Matt. If you'd
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Speaker 1: again soon with another episode.
Speaker 2: U