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Speaker 2: Today I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 3: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball in a.
Speaker 2: Bright egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, Egg, Frida Egg Bride Egg Lie, I'm about
Speaker 2: ready to run off the the hump.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Friday Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today
Speaker 1: we have a little something different for you. We're telling
Speaker 1: the story of the GCSAA Golf Championships. GCSAA stands for
Speaker 1: Golf Course Superintendent's Association of America, and the GCSAA Golf
Speaker 1: Championships is the biggest tournament of the year for competitive
Speaker 1: golf course superintendents. I went to last year's edition of
Speaker 1: the event at Torrey Pines. It was really cool. I
Speaker 1: think it's an event that not many people know about
Speaker 1: but is really worth kind of looking into. This episode
Speaker 1: will be not only about that event, but also about
Speaker 1: what makes this tournament special. So I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: to three different people. Scott Hollister, the editor of Golf
Speaker 1: Course Management, which is the gcsaa's monthly publication. Then I'll
Speaker 1: talk to two players who contended for last year's championship.
Speaker 1: It really actually came down to the two of them
Speaker 1: in the end, Tanner Westbrook from Dallas, Texas and Seth
Speaker 1: Strickland from South Florida. First, you'll hear from Scott about
Speaker 1: the history of the tournament and what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Then you'll hear from Tanner and Seth about their backgrounds
Speaker 1: and their careers in the game. And finally, I'll bring
Speaker 1: back all three voices to tell the story of last
Speaker 1: year's GCSAA National Championship, so slightly different structure to this episode.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy it, and let's just get right
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: I'm My name is Scott Hollister. I'm the editor in
Speaker 4: chief of Golf Course Management Magazine, which is the official
Speaker 4: publication of the Golf Course Superintendent's Association of America.
Speaker 1: All right, so Scott, we're here to talk about the
Speaker 1: GCSAA Golf Championships, which occur annually, and specifically we're going
Speaker 1: to get into last year's tournament at Torrey Pines. But
Speaker 1: first of all, for people who don't know about this,
Speaker 1: what is this tournament? What are kind of the basics?
Speaker 4: Well, the GCSA Golf Championships are an annual event. It's
Speaker 4: been annual since nineteen sixty eight, largely annual before that.
Speaker 4: It's San Diego marked the seventy second plane of the event.
Speaker 4: And it is a golf tournament for members of GCSAA,
Speaker 4: primarily working golf course superintendents, whether they are head superintendent's
Speaker 4: assistant superintendents. We have some flights for what we call
Speaker 4: affiliate members, so maybe folks that work for industry companies
Speaker 4: who want to participate in the event. There are multiple time,
Speaker 4: multiple portions to the event. We do a four ball
Speaker 4: championship to start things off, so a little four ball
Speaker 4: fun event that always attracts a good crowd. And then
Speaker 4: there are two days basically quote unquote championship play. And
Speaker 4: so we have a Golf Classic, which is a flighted
Speaker 4: play where the point quota system is used to score
Speaker 4: those and that ranges from we you know, first flight
Speaker 4: competitors are pretty good players down to you know, once
Speaker 4: you get into the fifth and sixth flights would fit
Speaker 4: much more my game, a little higher handicap players. And
Speaker 4: then we have an annual National Championship, and that is
Speaker 4: the top event that we offer. These are folks typically
Speaker 4: with very low handicaps from you know, we're talking scratched, one, two,
Speaker 4: three handicaps in this field. And these are accomplished players
Speaker 4: who just happen to be working golf course superintendents. It's
Speaker 4: a great event, We have a great time. It's typically
Speaker 4: leads into our annual conference and trade show. So it's
Speaker 4: a great way to start what for most of these
Speaker 4: guys and myself and my fellow staff members is a
Speaker 4: pretty long week in whatever city we happen to be
Speaker 4: in or that event, right.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into the twenty twenty two National Championship
Speaker 1: later in the podcast by talking with two of the
Speaker 1: players who contended for it. But before we get there,
Speaker 1: maybe you could just tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the history of this tournament. How did it start, why
Speaker 1: did it start, any of that kind of stuff that you.
Speaker 4: Know, well, when it first started, what was behind the
Speaker 4: founder's decision to start That was obviously GCSAA and its
Speaker 4: predecessor organizations has had various names over the years as
Speaker 4: the title of the profession has largely shifted in the
Speaker 4: public's mind from greenkeeper at least here in the States,
Speaker 4: to superintendent. I know, you get into Europe and everyone
Speaker 4: is still a greenkeeper there. But back in the thirties,
Speaker 4: the organizers of the association wanted a way to connect
Speaker 4: with the game of golf. The golf course superintendents are
Speaker 4: maintaining the playing fields for our game, and it seemed
Speaker 4: only natural that we would have some form of event
Speaker 4: for these folks to display their golf skills. And as
Speaker 4: I mentioned earlier, there's a wide variety of skill levels involved.
Speaker 4: It happened largely annually, but off and on. Obviously took
Speaker 4: a break for World War Two and various times such
Speaker 4: as that, but as I mentioned, starting in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 4: it became an annual event. As time went on, it
Speaker 4: became attached to our conference and trade show, so it's
Speaker 4: a vital part of that. And every year we've had
Speaker 4: anywhere from I've worked events in my twenty plus years
Speaker 4: with GCSAA where we've had as many as seven hundred participants,
Speaker 4: and now the event typically pulls in between four hundred
Speaker 4: and five hundred participants every year, so it ranks among
Speaker 4: the largest amateur golf events in the US every year,
Speaker 4: especially back in those days when we were getting seven
Speaker 4: hundred to seven hundred and fifty competitors. We're using six
Speaker 4: different golf facilities, and you know in San Diego we
Speaker 4: used three different ones, but a lot of multi course
Speaker 4: facilities as well, so we could utilize that. So we
Speaker 4: have a really loyal crew of participants in the event
Speaker 4: who just would not miss it for the world. There's
Speaker 4: an amazing amount in addition to the great golf, it's
Speaker 4: time of year when a lot of people want to
Speaker 4: play golf. Special if you're living in the northern part
Speaker 4: of the country getting too San Diego in February. It's
Speaker 4: not such a bad deal. But it's an amazing networking
Speaker 4: event as well, where superintend's from all over the country
Speaker 4: get together, meet friends, trade war stories, things of that nature.
Speaker 4: And so it's got a lot of loyalty among a
Speaker 4: lot of GCSA members.
Speaker 1: So for you, Scott, as a writer who covers this event,
Speaker 1: goes to this event looking for stories, what makes it
Speaker 1: special to you? What makes it like different from covering
Speaker 1: say a PGA Tour tournament or another kind of golf championship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've had an interesting kind of view of that.
Speaker 4: Prior to my days at GCSA, I spent about a
Speaker 4: decade in newspapers and I was a sports writer and
Speaker 4: had an opportunity to cover professional football, baseball, and some
Speaker 4: professional golf as well. When I took this job and
Speaker 4: I got the opportunity, I was that people looked at
Speaker 4: my resume and they said, hey, you you've covered golf
Speaker 4: before the actual playing of the game as opposed to turf,
Speaker 4: grass management and things of that nature. Why don't you
Speaker 4: go to this event? So I did, and what struck
Speaker 4: me at first is how many high quality players there
Speaker 4: are among those that participate in the tournament, and really
Speaker 4: among the GCSA membership as a whole, there are there are.
Speaker 4: There are certainly superintendents who are not low handicapped players
Speaker 4: or who play very infrequently yet do an excellent job
Speaker 4: of maintaining their golf courses. But there are also a
Speaker 4: number of very low handicapp player who have great stories
Speaker 4: behind their games and how they made the decision to
Speaker 4: These are guys that perhaps that played at a high
Speaker 4: level in college, entertained a professional career, whether that was
Speaker 4: as a touring professional or even a PGA professional, but
Speaker 4: at some point made the decision, hey, I wanted the
Speaker 4: side of this business, The turf crast management side of
Speaker 4: this business appeals to me. So this event kind of
Speaker 4: for them is a way to still demonstrate, Hey, I'm
Speaker 4: a stick I can still play this game at a
Speaker 4: very high level. So what I've enjoyed is is learning
Speaker 4: some of these stories we've had past champions. I'll mention
Speaker 4: like Steve Gilly for example, Steve Gilly one I believe in.
Speaker 3: I'm going to check my.
Speaker 4: Notes here because I do have this officially in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen, Steve Gilly one. Steve is a superintendent in
Speaker 4: the Dallas area. He just this last year made it
Speaker 4: to the final round of Q School for the Champions
Speaker 4: Tour and had a chance to get on to get
Speaker 4: onto the Champions Tour. He's been twice. He in his
Speaker 4: younger days led after the first day of Q school
Speaker 4: for the regular tour. And he also has the awesome
Speaker 4: distinction of apparently karting the lowest verified round of golf
Speaker 4: in history, a fifty five that he played shot at
Speaker 4: Lynnwood Country Club. He had like like three eagles and
Speaker 4: you know, a nine or ten bird. It was insane,
Speaker 4: but it.
Speaker 1: Is That is where I heard his name. I was
Speaker 1: trying to think, where have I heard this guy's name.
Speaker 1: I know I've heard of Steve Gilly.
Speaker 4: But yes, he is a legitimate champion. We had a
Speaker 4: champion in four, Tommy Robinson, and Tommy was a longtime
Speaker 4: superintendent in the Chicago era. He went on to qualify
Speaker 4: for the two thousand and nine Senior Open at Sahali.
Speaker 4: Going back even further, and I'm not sure if this
Speaker 4: is the name some of the listeners may be familiar with.
Speaker 4: His name is Paul Jet and Paul was super tenant
Speaker 4: at Pinehurst number two for a long time prior to
Speaker 4: the renovations at number two, so he was the superintendent
Speaker 4: in ninety nine when they hosted the US Open. Paul
Speaker 4: was an unbelievable player. Never won the GCFA event, but
Speaker 4: was a four time runner up, and the stories of
Speaker 4: the touring professionals that would seek him out in advance
Speaker 4: of those big events that were contested at Pinehurst to
Speaker 4: play with them. Phil Mickelson was one in particular. I
Speaker 4: think he's played with Tiger, but these touring pros that
Speaker 4: we all know trusted Paul enough to get out there.
Speaker 4: As I said, hey, listen, you'll be able to teach
Speaker 4: me something about this golf course because you're the person
Speaker 4: who maintains it every day. But you're also going to
Speaker 4: be able to keep up with me. You're going to
Speaker 4: be able to play the game the same way I
Speaker 4: do see things that I'm going to potentially see on
Speaker 4: the golf course. And Paul's not the only one. There's
Speaker 4: other stories like that, but those are the kind of
Speaker 4: things that always jump out to me that this membership
Speaker 4: has some really talented players and whether they decided they
Speaker 4: were going to come up just shy of having a
Speaker 4: successful tour career, or they didn't want to work in
Speaker 4: the golf shop they preferred to be outdoors. Whatever the
Speaker 4: case is, they've made the move into this business, but
Speaker 4: they still love the game and they still played at
Speaker 4: a very high level.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what's impressive to me about what I
Speaker 1: saw at the twenty twenty two Championship. I was out
Speaker 1: there at torry Pine's. You were as well, looking at
Speaker 1: these guys play. I was just thinking the whole time.
Speaker 1: I kind of know what goes into a superintendent's job,
Speaker 1: and it is not easy, right. They are long hours,
Speaker 1: you get up really early. It's just not the easiest
Speaker 1: job in the world. It's a very satisfying job for
Speaker 1: many people. It's a wonderful job, but it's not easy,
Speaker 1: and it's not sort of like light on a time commitment.
Speaker 1: And yet somehow these players have found a way to
Speaker 1: keep their games really, really sharp. And I also sort
Speaker 1: of know what goes into that, right, and that's another
Speaker 1: thing that takes a lot of time. So I just
Speaker 1: don't know how these guys do it right, how they
Speaker 1: stay so good at golf while also you know, succeeding
Speaker 1: at the job of superintendent, which itself is pretty overwhelming.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're exactly right. And the other complicating factor at
Speaker 4: that time of year. We traditionally play this event in
Speaker 4: early February, So depending on where you are, where you reside,
Speaker 4: your game will be in a totally different state. For
Speaker 4: the folks, say in South Florida or even Texas, Arizona,
Speaker 4: southern California, they may still they may have an opportunity
Speaker 4: to play. The weather may offer them the ability to
Speaker 4: get out practice play. Now, if you're in South Florida,
Speaker 4: it's also your high season, so you probably have far
Speaker 4: more job demands than you might in the middle of
Speaker 4: the summer. But then you look at superintendents in the Northeaster,
Speaker 4: you know, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, anywhere in the upper Midwest
Speaker 4: and into the Dakota's, it's you've got snow on the ground.
Speaker 4: So your only opportunity to get yourself, you know, get
Speaker 4: your game up up to snuff for this event is
Speaker 4: to basically bang balls out of a you know, enclosed
Speaker 4: driving you know, driving bay somewhere maybe when the snow melts,
Speaker 4: getting out and put a little bit on a green
Speaker 4: that hasn't been mode and god knows how long, and
Speaker 4: so there's just a whole different variety and everyone comes
Speaker 4: in facing you know, different challenges and you hear folks.
Speaker 4: I heard comment slash in San Diego early in the
Speaker 4: week about the weather there.
Speaker 3: It was cool.
Speaker 4: There was kind of a heavy marine layer that folks
Speaker 4: were playing, especially when they were playing the Tory Pines
Speaker 4: courses and if they were coming from Texas, where there was,
Speaker 4: you know, just a totally different atmosphere. They were finding
Speaker 4: they were having to adjust what clubs they were using
Speaker 4: for what shots because the ball wasn't either wasn't carrying
Speaker 4: as far. They were just they weren't quite as limber
Speaker 4: as they might have normally been because they're used to
Speaker 4: different conditions. So I know that for all golfers, we
Speaker 4: all deal with with this for one way or the
Speaker 4: other depending on what time of year we're playing. But
Speaker 4: when you're going out to compete for a national championship,
Speaker 4: which is what this is, those are those are those
Speaker 4: are real factors for these guys. So it's just kind
Speaker 4: of another added layer as you as you look at
Speaker 4: the at the competition that takes place at this event.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk a little bit about the two players
Speaker 1: slash superintendents who contended for last year's national championship. They
Speaker 1: were Seth Strickland and Tanner Westbrook. So, without giving anything
Speaker 1: away about how the tournament ended up, because we'll kind
Speaker 1: of save that for a little bit later in the podcast,
Speaker 1: could you just tell me a bit first of all
Speaker 1: about Seth Strickland.
Speaker 4: So, Seth is one of the most decorated UH players
Speaker 4: in the i'll say modern modern era, but he's he's
Speaker 4: now climbing the list in terms of the overall his
Speaker 4: three of the event coming into twenty twenty two in
Speaker 4: San Diego, he had won four previous national championships. He
Speaker 4: won back in five, he won back to back in
Speaker 4: eight and nine, and then he had a bit of
Speaker 4: a gap and he was definitely a contender in those
Speaker 4: intervening years, but he didn't win his fourth title until
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, which was in Palm Springs. And I
Speaker 4: mentioned earlier that our event is traditionally in February. Because
Speaker 4: of the pandemic, our annual conference and trade show in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one went virtual, so we had an event
Speaker 4: in October as things started to kind of open back
Speaker 4: up in Palm Springs and he won that event. So
Speaker 4: Seth is a superintendent at Miami Shores Country Club down
Speaker 4: in Miami, so he's one of those players who gets
Speaker 4: an opportunity to actually play the game in advance of
Speaker 4: the tournament, although he's also very very busy with his
Speaker 4: golf course in the intervening time. Also, he and his
Speaker 4: wife had two children, so his life changed a little bit,
Speaker 4: but he is still he is still a thoughtful, focused
Speaker 4: player when you follow him over the course of typically
Speaker 4: I will see the contenders play anywhere from nine to
Speaker 4: twelve thirteen holes on the final day of the event.
Speaker 4: I've seen a lot of Seth playing golf and he's
Speaker 4: a focused, thoughtful, really sticks to his routine, doesn't make
Speaker 4: too many If he makes a mistake, it's not because
Speaker 4: he hasn't thought through what he wants to do on
Speaker 4: that next shot. So he's a really, really talented player. Still,
Speaker 4: he's in his mid forties now, still has enough length
Speaker 4: to contend with some of the younger competitors in the
Speaker 4: field and has really just has really been just a
Speaker 4: great champion. To see that him able to stretch over
Speaker 4: the course of more than a decade between events and
Speaker 4: still be a factor is something else.
Speaker 1: So the other player who really had a shot at
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty two Championship was Tanner Westbrook. What should
Speaker 1: we know about him?
Speaker 4: Tanner's a younger player in fact, as well as I
Speaker 4: know Seth, and I've known him obviously since he first
Speaker 4: won to know five San Diego's first time I had
Speaker 4: an opportunity to meet Tanner. Tanner's at Merida Golf Club
Speaker 4: in Texas, Carrollton, Texas. And fun fact, I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's a fun fact for me. I don't know it's
Speaker 4: a fun fact for anyone else. But a previous superintendent
Speaker 4: at Merida Golf Club won the GCSA Championship in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 4: that is Sean Westcott, and Shawn moved on still plays
Speaker 4: in the event, but Tanner was his assistant at that time,
Speaker 4: so when Shawn left, Tanner was promoted. What I know
Speaker 4: about Meredo is that it was built in designed for
Speaker 4: very accomplished players. Those were the people that were in
Speaker 4: mind when that course was designed, built and opened. And
Speaker 4: I can't speak to whether they specifically look for superintendents
Speaker 4: who also had a high level of playing ability or not,
Speaker 4: But obviously Sean and Tanner both fit that. Bill Tanner
Speaker 4: from what I saw and my conversations with him during
Speaker 4: and following the event, He's a lot like Seth, very thoughtful,
Speaker 4: hits the ball a mile, really thinks his way around
Speaker 4: the golf course. Had a background playing some college golf,
Speaker 4: much like a lot of the others I talked about.
Speaker 4: He kind of got to that crossroads in his professional
Speaker 4: life and had to make a decision and ended up
Speaker 4: on the turf management side, but still plays regularly. His
Speaker 4: length gives him an advantage over typically someone like Seth.
Speaker 4: As I said, Cetel hits the ball a long way,
Speaker 4: but Tanner was going to have an advantage off the
Speaker 4: tee against someone like Seth. And boy, he's he you
Speaker 4: know from what I saw that week. You know, he
Speaker 4: fits the mold of what a GCSA, a golf champion
Speaker 4: looks like.
Speaker 1: All right, So now we're going to toss it to
Speaker 1: Seth and Tanner. I talked to them separately, but we're
Speaker 1: going to basically weave the interviews together. Will also bring
Speaker 1: Scott back in for a couple of things. And the
Speaker 1: idea here is not just to tell the story of
Speaker 1: the tournament, which ended up being really exciting, but also
Speaker 1: just to find out how two people with such a
Speaker 1: demanding job can be so good at golf. This episode
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Speaker 5: Okay, my name's Tanner Westbrook. I'm a director of Agronomy
Speaker 5: at Marrido Golf Club in Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 1: All Right, so how did you start playing golf?
Speaker 5: So my dad's a golf course superintendent, so I've been
Speaker 5: around golf my whole life. Had the Plastic golf club
Speaker 5: since I was a baby, the whole deal. He would
Speaker 5: hook up a car seat and his golf cart and
Speaker 5: take me out there when I was a baby. It
Speaker 5: was It's just been in my blood forever. And started
Speaker 5: playing more competitively probably twelve ish years old, started playing
Speaker 5: in a lot of junior tournaments and just fell in
Speaker 5: love with it. So just wanted to play as much
Speaker 5: golf as I could, And that's kind of how it
Speaker 5: all started.
Speaker 1: At what point, if at any point, did you realize
Speaker 1: that you were good at golf, like that you were
Speaker 1: skilled at this particular game.
Speaker 5: Oh, it took a long time. Actually. In my head,
Speaker 5: I always knew I should be better. I played a
Speaker 5: lot of junior tournaments and it like the scoring just
Speaker 5: didn't ever come. I was the My golf coach always
Speaker 5: told me, you could put me on the range at
Speaker 5: any PGA Tour event and you would think I was
Speaker 5: supposed to be there. But when I went out on
Speaker 5: the golf course, it just would never click, and I
Speaker 5: would make little mistakes and it would just kind of
Speaker 5: snowball into a bad score. And then when I got
Speaker 5: done with school high school, I didn't take the conventional
Speaker 5: college route. I went and worked at a country club
Speaker 5: in southern California for a general manager that my dad
Speaker 5: knew at the time, with the goal to try to
Speaker 5: pursue a golf career, and essentially my dogs essentially went
Speaker 5: down there with the goal. It was actually my golf
Speaker 5: coach that took me kind of and said, you got
Speaker 5: to move down to southern California where there's some more competition.
Speaker 5: You'll play with higher competitors. So took the leap, moved
Speaker 5: down there right out of high school, like a month
Speaker 5: after high school, moved down to southern California, Orange County,
Speaker 5: and just they pretty much gave me the one of
Speaker 5: the best deals ever, which was you can play golf
Speaker 5: as much as you want as long as you work
Speaker 5: on the crew. So I'd work from six to two thirty,
Speaker 5: I'd go play golf until it got dark every day
Speaker 5: for a year and then kind of had my breakthrough moment.
Speaker 5: So the goal was my old goalways had a goal
Speaker 5: of shooting under seventy and until this point I had
Speaker 5: never shot seventy or better. And one day it just
Speaker 5: clicked and I went out and shot sixty four and
Speaker 5: it was pretty much off to the races after that,
Speaker 5: and it was kind of like, Okay, I think I
Speaker 5: could do this as a career. And that's kind of
Speaker 5: how it snowballed.
Speaker 1: So when you broke through, you shattered it.
Speaker 3: Yeah I shattered it. I didn't.
Speaker 5: I didn't, you know, scrape the surface of shooting sixty nine, like,
Speaker 5: I don't know. I I've never had that feeling again.
Speaker 5: But it was like I could throw the ball in
Speaker 5: the green, close my eyes and put it and it
Speaker 5: was going to go in the hole that day, particularly
Speaker 5: out of any other day I played golf, And yeah,
Speaker 5: I shot like seven eight under par the first time
Speaker 5: I broke seventy, and I probably went on a run
Speaker 5: for months after that of not shooting above par. And
Speaker 5: that was when I knew I could actually try to
Speaker 5: play in a high level of amateur golf before I
Speaker 5: try to turn professional.
Speaker 1: And did you try to turn professional? Was that a
Speaker 1: possibility for you at some point?
Speaker 5: So I think I could have had a good run
Speaker 5: of it when I was in that golf shape that
Speaker 5: I was in, but what happened was I was kind
Speaker 5: of leading up to I qualified for the California Amateur,
Speaker 5: like the season was starting for all those high end
Speaker 5: amateur events. Calim I was going to do the US
Speaker 5: Amateur Qualifier all that stuff, and qualified for the US
Speaker 5: or the California Amateur, played really good, shot a couple
Speaker 5: under par, and then I was getting just practicing, getting ready,
Speaker 5: and our course had mats at the back of it,
Speaker 5: and I was hitting balls off the mat. And the
Speaker 5: next day I woke up and I injured my ribs
Speaker 5: really bad.
Speaker 3: And they did X rays.
Speaker 5: Essentially what they said was there's like intercostal muscles that
Speaker 5: make your ribs function and they think I strained one
Speaker 5: of those, and I probably didn't play.
Speaker 3: Golf for a year after that.
Speaker 5: And all the work leading up to that point, how
Speaker 5: long it took to get to that point. I knew
Speaker 5: that for me to get back there after that rib
Speaker 5: injury was it was pretty pretty slim. And that's when
Speaker 5: the general manager that I was working for kind of
Speaker 5: sat me down at the time and it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: I really know you really want to do this golf thing,
Speaker 5: but you could have a really good career as a superintendent,
Speaker 5: so you still have that in your back pocket if
Speaker 5: this doesn't work out.
Speaker 3: And here we are.
Speaker 1: So what action did you take after that conversation? Did
Speaker 1: you decide fairly soon that you wanted to commit fully
Speaker 1: to the superintendent path.
Speaker 5: So it kind of like I was back and forth
Speaker 5: for a while and kind of started. I took started
Speaker 5: taking classes at UC Riverside for turf, just to kind
Speaker 5: of get that ball rolling. But in the back of
Speaker 5: my head, I was like, oh, I really want to
Speaker 5: I want to play golf, That's the ultimate goal. And
Speaker 5: then it kind of just started happening for the turf career.
Speaker 5: Like when I always had the kind of my dad
Speaker 5: in my back pocket, I could always go work for
Speaker 5: him play golf, you know, kind of keep it going.
Speaker 5: But my game never quite got the same level. Like
Speaker 5: I could still go out and play really good, but
Speaker 5: the amount of practice it takes to be especially a
Speaker 5: professional golfer now is such a different level than when
Speaker 5: even I was trying to do it. I just my
Speaker 5: body can't take it. Like even if I hit balls
Speaker 5: for too long now, like that rib will still get sore.
Speaker 5: So there's always that limitation for that. And then with
Speaker 5: the turf career side just kind of worked for him.
Speaker 5: I got like my pesticide license when I was eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 5: and then I moved back down to southern California after
Speaker 5: the injury to work for the same golf course that
Speaker 5: I had worked for, and I just kind of wanted
Speaker 5: to change and put a bunch of my applications out.
Speaker 5: I did Riviera, LACC Olympic Club. You know, I went
Speaker 5: for all the internships and I got callbacks on all
Speaker 5: of them, and I was good to work at LACC,
Speaker 5: and I went and interviewed, loved the course, but I
Speaker 5: was stuck in traffic for like an hour and twenty
Speaker 5: minutes and four miles off the one oh one Freeway
Speaker 5: in California. So a couple of weeks go by, getting
Speaker 5: ready to start, and then I get a call from
Speaker 5: the Olympic Club and they're like, hey, sorry, it took
Speaker 5: so long to get back to you. We'd love to
Speaker 5: interview you. And went up to San Francisco and it
Speaker 5: was no traffic, nice coastal air, no smug and I'm like, oh, man,
Speaker 5: I think I want to do this instead. So went
Speaker 5: up there for hired me on as an intern and
Speaker 5: worked for them. We did a USGA event up there.
Speaker 5: I was the first USGA men's fore ball they had
Speaker 5: up there, which was televised. So I had like the
Speaker 5: USGA prep of the agronomy side. And this was like
Speaker 5: right at the beginning of the career. I'd always worked
Speaker 5: on the golf course for my dad, but this was
Speaker 5: like that next level, and I was like, this is
Speaker 5: really cool, and they hired I worked really hard. They
Speaker 5: hired me on as a second assistant, but it was
Speaker 5: so expensive to live in San Francisco. It was getting
Speaker 5: hard to do, so I had to move back home
Speaker 5: with my parents and then just kind of worked for
Speaker 5: my dad and just kind of the whole thing kind
Speaker 5: of took place, and I got to where I am now.
Speaker 1: So tell me about where you work now.
Speaker 5: So I work at Marrito Golf Club now in Dallas.
Speaker 5: And Sean Westcott, who's a really good golfers, won the
Speaker 5: GCSAA tournament before I played with him. My dad enrolled
Speaker 5: me in like a second assistant assistant, like sweepstakes for
Speaker 5: the golf course tournament, and I won the sweepstakes. So
Speaker 5: it was like the free state at the hotel. The
Speaker 5: enrollment fee in the tournament, and that was when they
Speaker 5: played at LaCosta in San Diego a few years ago.
Speaker 5: It was probably six years ago now, and I played
Speaker 5: with Sean and I just kind of my girlfriend at
Speaker 5: the time, who's my wife now, was with me, she
Speaker 5: wrote in the cart, and I just kind of I
Speaker 5: told her, like, the whole reason I wanted to go
Speaker 5: down there was to try to meet somebody to get
Speaker 5: a future job opportunity. And I happened to play with him,
Speaker 5: and I told him I was interested in moving out
Speaker 5: of California, and he's like, hey, we might have a
Speaker 5: spot for you. So they flew me out, checked out
Speaker 5: the golf course. The golf course was awesome, like it's
Speaker 5: just such a spectacle in Dallas, it's crazy, and told
Speaker 5: him I was interested. So we uprooted our whole lives
Speaker 5: and moved to Dallas and worked for him for two years,
Speaker 5: and he decided to take another job, and I had
Speaker 5: spent some time with the owner and they just hired
Speaker 5: me on right there, right after he left as the superintendent.
Speaker 5: And it's been no stopping since.
Speaker 1: I bet now there's there are a lot of good
Speaker 1: players at Merido, right, Oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, there's I got we got Wills, Ala Torres, Davis, Riley,
Speaker 5: Taylor Moore, like we got Tony Romo, Jordan's b Like
Speaker 5: you can name drop all the Scottie Scheffler, all the
Speaker 5: guys here in Dallas are out there pretty frequently.
Speaker 3: So it's I mean.
Speaker 5: The golf course itself is it's built for high end
Speaker 5: competitive golf. Like if you want to be a good
Speaker 5: golfer and you want to challenge, you.
Speaker 3: Play at Marydell.
Speaker 5: It's tough, I mean from the normal Red team markers.
Speaker 5: It plays at seventy three hundred yards pretty much force
Speaker 5: carries on every green. It's a test slopes like seventy
Speaker 5: it's ratings like seventy seven point.
Speaker 3: Six from the reds. So it's it's a challenge.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could just take me through a brief version
Speaker 1: of your normal daily schedule. What does that look like?
Speaker 3: Normal day?
Speaker 5: Wake up at five am, get into the shop around
Speaker 5: five thirty six o'clock. The guys start at six, so
Speaker 5: I try to get in there as much as I can.
Speaker 5: It's just me and my assistant right now, so I
Speaker 5: get in there and make sure we get them going,
Speaker 5: get some coffee, do some emails, do invoices, whatever paperwork
Speaker 5: I have to do when it's still dark outside. I
Speaker 5: try to get all my admin work done in the
Speaker 5: morning time before I could see what's going on on
Speaker 5: the course, and then kind of once the sun comes up,
Speaker 5: I can see what's going on week and I go
Speaker 5: out and try to start looking at how much grasps
Speaker 5: we're getting off the mowers, that kind of stuff, setting
Speaker 5: up afternoon jobs for the guys, kind of around that
Speaker 5: time with my assistance, seeing what else needs to be
Speaker 5: done mowing wise or clean up wise around the clubhouse,
Speaker 5: stuff like that, and then around ten o'clock the guys
Speaker 5: take lunch. I try to do a little bit more
Speaker 5: admin stuff. I take lunch a little bit later in
Speaker 5: the day, get those guys kind of all lined up,
Speaker 5: and then if I'm lucky, I'll try to break away
Speaker 5: and hit some balls in the afternoon, maybe go play
Speaker 5: a couple holes. I try to get out there as
Speaker 5: much as I can playing golf to see it from
Speaker 5: that perspective, because I think that's a really important thing
Speaker 5: that we.
Speaker 3: Get to We get the ability to do.
Speaker 5: With a superintendent, you can kind of get out there
Speaker 5: and if you play golf, see it from that perspective,
Speaker 5: So try to get out there, roll some putts, hit
Speaker 5: some chip shots. I'll take a scorecard with me and
Speaker 5: it's just all notes for the next day, you know,
Speaker 5: wet areas. I'm trying to do kind of all that
Speaker 5: stuff while I play a couple holes to get some
Speaker 5: practice and to get some work in as well. Just
Speaker 5: really trying to stay three steps ahead of what the
Speaker 5: guys are doing. Is kind of like how I try
Speaker 5: to make it work. So that way I'm already ahead
Speaker 5: of what's going on the next day, and then I
Speaker 5: could just funnel it down to chain of command on
Speaker 5: my side to make sure everything's getting done. And I'm
Speaker 5: just trying to stay ahead of what's going on on
Speaker 5: a day to day basis out there.
Speaker 1: So hearing that schedule, I wonder how it is that
Speaker 1: you keep your golf game as sharp as it is.
Speaker 5: I mean, if you ask some of the professional like
Speaker 5: the he pros and you know, people at the club,
Speaker 5: they'll tell you it's just talent. But when I was
Speaker 5: trying to play professionally, I mean I'd hit balls for
Speaker 5: hours and it's just all muscle memory. So like I
Speaker 5: kind of have the ability to I won't play golf
Speaker 5: for a little while, and I'll pick it up and
Speaker 5: just go play good somehow. But sometimes when I play
Speaker 5: practice too much, the game goes backwards. If I can
Speaker 5: just kind of get out of my way and go
Speaker 5: care free play golf, I'll play really good. And if
Speaker 5: I start working on the game, it can kind of
Speaker 5: kind of go backwards. So that's kind of the real
Speaker 5: answer if you want to know the truth.
Speaker 2: My name is Seth Strickland, and I'm the golf course
Speaker 2: superintendent at Miami Beach.
Speaker 1: Did you recently change jobs?
Speaker 2: I did, Yeah, So let me rephrase that. I'm actually
Speaker 2: the director of agronomy over Miami Beach in Normandy. I
Speaker 2: was at Miami Shores for twenty years and recently, I
Speaker 2: would say seven months ago, I got moved. I still
Speaker 2: worked for the same company, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So going way back, how did you start playing golf?
Speaker 2: Oh, man, that's a long time ago. So my brother
Speaker 2: played golf whenever I was a kid, and I remember
Speaker 2: him taking me to the golf course every once in
Speaker 2: a while whenever I was growing up. And then it
Speaker 2: was one year I think I was twelve years old,
Speaker 2: it might have been eleven. My friend and I signed
Speaker 2: up for a summer camp at Rogers Park golf course
Speaker 2: in Tampa, and you know, we had a great time.
Speaker 2: My mom would drop us off every day, we'd play
Speaker 2: golf all day long. It wasn't like the camps nowadays.
Speaker 2: It was more like, you know, the moms would drop
Speaker 2: you off and then you would just play golf all day.
Speaker 2: So really that's really what the camp was. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that's kind of how I started, and I fell in
Speaker 2: love with it and I've been playing ever since.
Speaker 1: At what point did you realize you were good or
Speaker 1: was it a gradual kind of realization.
Speaker 2: It was very gradual, I'll say that, Yeah, I was decent,
Speaker 2: I would say, I mean, I never really looked at
Speaker 2: myself as a great player. First of all, I don't
Speaker 2: think really anyone that is other than maybe Tiger Woods,
Speaker 2: really looks at themselves as great players. But you know,
Speaker 2: I've always thought of myself as a person that plays well.
Speaker 2: I can hang with people for the most part, but
Speaker 2: I know my role in the golf world, and I
Speaker 2: know I'll probably never be on TV. I know I'm
Speaker 2: not that good. So I do feel like my game
Speaker 2: improved dramatically, I would say probably over the last like
Speaker 2: fifty or twenty years, twenty five years. Whenever I was
Speaker 2: in my mid twenties, I really started putting more time
Speaker 2: into it and trying to focus on it and get
Speaker 2: better at it. But I was a good player when
Speaker 2: I was younger, but I didn't get good at golf
Speaker 2: until I was playing in my mid twenties.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, that's not the usual story. Did you play
Speaker 1: competitively in high school or college? Was golf your sport?
Speaker 2: I played high school golf and I played I played
Speaker 2: junior tournaments whenever I was a kid. I was a
Speaker 2: good high school player, I would say, but I was
Speaker 2: never really competitive in junior golf. With that being said,
Speaker 2: you know, I enjoyed it. I always loved it, you know.
Speaker 2: But it seemed like something clicked around the age of
Speaker 2: like twenty four twenty five, and I started playing much better.
Speaker 2: To this day, I still feel like I'm improving.
Speaker 1: How did you decide to go into greenkeeping as your profession.
Speaker 2: First of all, whenever I get out of high school,
Speaker 2: I was going to community college and I was working
Speaker 2: at Timble Terra's golf course. That's where I started. That's
Speaker 2: where I was playing high school golf, and that's where
Speaker 2: I started working on the golf course maintenance crew. So
Speaker 2: throughout community college, I actually stopped working on the golf
Speaker 2: course in college for a little while to go become
Speaker 2: an electrician. I went to a technical school and I
Speaker 2: ended up working as an electrician for a year. But
Speaker 2: I absolutely couldn't stand it. I hated it, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to go back to work on a golf course.
Speaker 2: That's what I love, That's what I really wanted to do.
Speaker 2: So I stopped working at a as an electrician and
Speaker 2: I went to work for Jim torba Usf golf Course.
Speaker 2: I remember going to the golf course every morning. I
Speaker 2: would pass by there on my way to my job
Speaker 2: as electrician, and I would always say, I need a job,
Speaker 2: you know, I want to come back, and I don't
Speaker 2: have anything available. I don't have anything available. Eventually, he
Speaker 2: had something available and we hit it off. We played
Speaker 2: golf together. We ended up becoming really good friends. So
Speaker 2: I guess there was a turning point. Whenever I was
Speaker 2: at a golf course called Plant City Golf Course, I
Speaker 2: had a choice. I felt like I could have gone
Speaker 2: the route of becoming a pro or a golf course superintendent,
Speaker 2: and I was actually giving lessons on the side in
Speaker 2: the afternoons, just to some friends and some local members,
Speaker 2: and the pro left. And there was a choice. I
Speaker 2: had a choice. I could have asked the general manager
Speaker 2: to become the pro or staying doing what I was doing.
Speaker 2: I was the assistant superintendent, and I thought about it
Speaker 2: for a little while, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: I just really love what I'm doing. I don't want
Speaker 2: to jeopardize my career. This is what I want to do.
Speaker 2: And that's all she wrote.
Speaker 1: And so am I right that by the time you
Speaker 1: started to buy your own estimation get better at golf,
Speaker 1: or take the game more seriously, you were already working
Speaker 1: in the golf industry.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I was at USF golf course whenever I
Speaker 2: was twenty years old with Jim Torbo, and he really
Speaker 2: pushed me to get better at golf. Also, we practiced,
Speaker 2: we played, and he was kind of like an inspiration
Speaker 2: in that way. And I would say then I definitely
Speaker 2: was getting better, there's no doubt. And then whenever I
Speaker 2: moved to Miami Shores, I lived near the golf course
Speaker 2: at Miami Shores, and I practiced almost every single day,
Speaker 2: and it almost became as part like a ritual of
Speaker 2: my life where this is what I do, and I
Speaker 2: guess this is probably what I should have been doing
Speaker 2: from the beginning whenever I first started playing. But yeah,
Speaker 2: so I started. I started practicing a lot more whenever
Speaker 2: I was in the industry.
Speaker 1: Actually, and some people say the opposite sometimes. You know,
Speaker 1: I've never played less golf after joining the golf industry.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like I completely get that too.
Speaker 2: It sounds kind of insane to be there all day
Speaker 2: and then want to stay there in the afternoon of practice,
Speaker 2: but it's something I really enjoy.
Speaker 1: So so I wonder if if you have any kind
Speaker 1: of tips or tricks for keeping your game sharp even
Speaker 1: when you have a serious, full time job. You know,
Speaker 1: when you don't have like a huge amount of time
Speaker 1: to work on your game, What do you think the
Speaker 1: key is to like staying as sharp as you have
Speaker 1: obviously stayed.
Speaker 2: First of all, don't beat yourself up. You know, whenever
Speaker 2: you have bad days, you just have bad days. I
Speaker 2: think that we beat ourselves up sometimes and end up
Speaker 2: making it worse for ourselves. You know, whenever you're out there,
Speaker 2: you hit a bad shot and you kind of give up.
Speaker 2: So you know, just try to take each shot one
Speaker 2: by one and do the best you can on every
Speaker 2: single shot. Each shot is its own entity. It's not
Speaker 2: like the score doesn't matter. Really, the outcome doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: It's all about this one moment and it's one shot
Speaker 2: and then the If I can say anything about practicing,
Speaker 2: if I could practice anything that would improve my game
Speaker 2: the most, it would be short iron play, short iron play,
Speaker 2: proximity to the whole. That would be the number one
Speaker 2: thing I would practice. That's probably that's probably fifty percent
Speaker 2: of my practice.
Speaker 1: It's such a big differentiator between a good player and
Speaker 1: a great player.
Speaker 2: Anything inside of like anything inside of one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty yards. If you're not thinking I'm gonna stick it
Speaker 2: inside of twenty feet, then you need to go work
Speaker 2: on your swing because that's like, right then you got
Speaker 2: those shots. I'm thinking inside of twenty feet every time.
Speaker 2: If I don't go inside of twenty feet, it's some
Speaker 2: I haven't been practisant enough.
Speaker 1: Well, I've got some work to do on my game.
Speaker 1: So when did you start playing in the GCSAA Championships.
Speaker 1: When did that become part of your kind of annual routine.
Speaker 2: I know the first one that I won was two
Speaker 2: thousand and five. I think I played in two before that.
Speaker 1: You know, you've played this tournament for a while, then
Speaker 1: you know this is this is about twenty years just generally.
Speaker 1: I know it might be hard to say, but what
Speaker 1: has this tournament started to mean to you?
Speaker 2: It's been a lot to me actually getting people to
Speaker 2: know me and notoriety. I mean, there was no way
Speaker 2: anyone would to know my name if I hadn't won
Speaker 2: this tournament so many, you know, so many times, and
Speaker 2: people that I don't even know are coming out to
Speaker 2: me and talking to me about the tournament. For me,
Speaker 2: it's a big deal. It feels like it's part of
Speaker 2: my career. I think it's a big deal for quite
Speaker 2: a few guys that play in it every year, especially
Speaker 2: the guys that have won it. The guys that have
Speaker 2: won it are on the cover of the magazine. It
Speaker 2: goes all over the country. I mean, it's it's like
Speaker 2: our Masters. I feel like it's a major championship for
Speaker 2: golf court superintendents. It sounds kind of like silly in
Speaker 2: a way. Whenever you look at the big picture and see, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we're just golf court superintendent's getting together to
Speaker 2: play in a golf tournament, you know. But I think
Speaker 2: for quite a few of us, it's a big deal,
Speaker 2: and some of us put a lot of preparation in
Speaker 2: for it, you know. And I'm sure there are a
Speaker 2: lot of guys that go and play and enjoy it
Speaker 2: for the camaraderie and the fellowship. I feel like I
Speaker 2: learn more at the tournament that I do at the show.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you should say that or not.
Speaker 2: I don't know if this should be in the podcast
Speaker 2: or not, but that was actually one of the one
Speaker 2: of the ways I talked to my GM in the beginning,
Speaker 2: and I said, you know, I really feel like I
Speaker 2: learned more at these golf tournaments than I do at
Speaker 2: the conferences. And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just
Speaker 2: go play golf and have fun. You don't have to
Speaker 2: blow smoke at my button, you know. So, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like it's been a huge part of my
Speaker 2: career and I love it and I'm going to play
Speaker 2: in it as long as I can.
Speaker 1: So going back to last year's GCSAA Championships, the venue
Speaker 1: was obviously the South Course at Torrey Pines. How demanding
Speaker 1: was the course from your perspective.
Speaker 2: Those were the fastest screens I've ever played on my
Speaker 2: whole entire life period. I I've never experienced anything like that.
Speaker 2: They had to have been rolling fourteen thirteen. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 2: It was so hard, and we played the tease up.
Speaker 2: We didn't play it far back on the back teas,
Speaker 2: so I can only imagine playing from back there. It
Speaker 2: would be like unplayable.
Speaker 5: You know, you got to hit it in the fairway.
Speaker 5: I mean, luckily it was cut down. You could tell
Speaker 5: they cut the rough, but it still was really long.
Speaker 5: Like there was a couple of guys in my group
Speaker 5: that lost their ball because they hit it in the rough.
Speaker 5: We all watched where it went and we just went
Speaker 5: up there and couldn't find it. So it was really
Speaker 5: demanding off the tee. I mean, the golf course is stout,
Speaker 5: it's tough, and the first round I played was really good.
Speaker 5: I was very surprised with how good I played. I
Speaker 5: had a five shot lead going into the last round.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the last day at Torrey Pines. You know,
Speaker 1: early on, do you remember how things were going for you.
Speaker 2: I remember that I just couldn't seem to get it
Speaker 2: going the whole tournament. It felt like I was, I
Speaker 2: don't want to say struggling, but it just wasn't there.
Speaker 5: I couldn't hit my driver in the fairway.
Speaker 1: That hurt.
Speaker 5: That hurt a big time because the front nine is
Speaker 5: very If you hit in the fairway, you have a
Speaker 5: lot of short irons in you can hit a couple close,
Speaker 5: get some chances to make birdie. So I don't play
Speaker 5: in a lot of tournaments now, and you know theirs.
Speaker 5: The second day, you know, I had the lead in
Speaker 5: the tournament, and I just got super nervous, you know,
Speaker 5: everything off the tee the first few holes, I was
Speaker 5: hitting it in the rough. I was I was still
Speaker 5: scoring okay, but I was making it harder on myself
Speaker 5: to just care freely play golf.
Speaker 3: And maybe it's fourth, the long part.
Speaker 5: Four along the ocean with the hazard on the left,
Speaker 5: I pulled my drive left in the hazard and it
Speaker 5: was just kind of like a sail out of your
Speaker 5: you know, wind out of your sales kind of moment
Speaker 5: where I'm like, oh no, here we go, Like I
Speaker 5: got to try to scrap this together and started hitting
Speaker 5: it better, kind of started loosening it up.
Speaker 3: In about whole nine.
Speaker 5: I started hitting some really good shots and it started
Speaker 5: to kind of loosen me up a little bit. But
Speaker 5: I started just hitting really good shots on the back nine,
Speaker 5: like I was, started playing really good. I think I
Speaker 5: birdied fourteen. I hit a three wood to the middle
Speaker 5: of the green from like two seventy, just launched a
Speaker 5: three wood way up there. I made birdie on that hole.
Speaker 2: I three foot of the fourteenth hole, and I had
Speaker 2: to make bertie. I had to make bertie.
Speaker 4: You know. As we entered the back nine, it sure
Speaker 4: looked like Seth had had kind of his tournament was over.
Speaker 2: I was kind of like, I don't want to say
Speaker 2: giving up, but I was basically throwing in the towel.
Speaker 2: It was over. It was pretty I would have to
Speaker 2: burdy out to win.
Speaker 4: He was hanging in there, but he was several shots
Speaker 4: off the lead. I knew from talking with him earlier
Speaker 4: in the week that he had kind of been struck.
Speaker 4: He said he'd been struggling with the weather. As we mentioned,
Speaker 4: he's not as young as he was when he first
Speaker 4: won in five uh. He admitted to kind of having
Speaker 4: a stiff back and that, and because we were playing
Speaker 4: in the morning, he was having admitted to it's just
Speaker 4: taking me forever to get loose.
Speaker 2: From the beginning of a round all the way up
Speaker 2: to especially that fourteenth hole. I just didn't feel like
Speaker 2: I had the firepower to pull it off.
Speaker 4: And then he birdied that hole.
Speaker 2: I made a good birdie on fifteen. I hit the
Speaker 2: drive right on the middle of the fairway, hit the
Speaker 2: green and made a nice pott. The greens were so slick.
Speaker 4: And then he had a few pars coming in and
Speaker 4: Tanner tripped up a few times, and suddenly this four
Speaker 4: or five shot lead was down to a shot.
Speaker 5: I hit a couple really close on the back nine,
Speaker 5: and I just kept burning edges. I burned like three
Speaker 5: edges with birdie putts that were right there. Hit really
Speaker 5: good putts. I thought I made him, and it just
Speaker 5: hit the lip and kind of roll away, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: oh man, And.
Speaker 2: Then I get to seventeen and seventeen t shot just
Speaker 2: doesn't fit my eye. I don't see how it fits
Speaker 2: anyone's eye. And I build out to the right and
Speaker 2: I was in the thick rough and I had an
Speaker 2: impossible shot. I think I had one thirty or one
Speaker 2: thirty five to the flag. And I had no chance
Speaker 2: to holding the green.
Speaker 3: I knew it.
Speaker 2: So my goal is just to try to hit it
Speaker 2: and then bounce it and end up in the back
Speaker 2: of the green somewhere and have a chance to get
Speaker 2: up and down. So I hit a great shot and
Speaker 2: hits the green and rolls down to probably like fifty
Speaker 2: feet or so. I hit a great first part and
Speaker 2: I hit it to about ten feet and I made
Speaker 2: the ten footer, and it was just it was clutch
Speaker 2: at the moment because Tanner was struggling a little bit.
Speaker 5: I made a bad bogie on seventeen and just kind
Speaker 5: of I don't know, I think I hit it in
Speaker 5: a bunker or wanted something like that around the green,
Speaker 5: just didn't get up and down and kind of left
Speaker 5: myself like a twelve footer and missed it for bogie.
Speaker 2: You know. I figured then I might actually have a
Speaker 2: chance walking eighteen t I had to make birdie. I
Speaker 2: knew it. So I hit a great drive. It curves
Speaker 2: a little bit to the right, it ends up in
Speaker 2: the right fairway bunker. So for a second I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of relieved because now I'll have to go
Speaker 2: for it. So I laid up out of the bunker
Speaker 2: to one hundred and ten yards something like that. One
Speaker 2: hundred and seven yards I think it was. And it
Speaker 2: was like the storyline Finish Tory Pines eighteen front left
Speaker 2: pin location, and I knew I had about one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty yards to get on top. Well, I couldn't
Speaker 2: hit it that far because it get stuck up there.
Speaker 2: So I hit a full gap wedge It's about my
Speaker 2: one p fifteen club and it hit perfectly and came
Speaker 2: back down to a foot and a half and it
Speaker 2: was like in slow motion how it was all happening.
Speaker 2: It was I'll never forget it for the rest of
Speaker 2: my life. It was one of the best shots I've
Speaker 2: ever hit.
Speaker 5: And then I knew I had a chance on eighteen
Speaker 5: and just kind of was a little frustrated with how
Speaker 5: seventeen went and just carried it on eighteen and I
Speaker 5: think I parved eighteen when if I made a birdie
Speaker 5: it would have kind of won me the golf tournament.
Speaker 5: So it was kind of, you know, frustrating the playoff.
Speaker 1: You guys played the eighteenth hole again, right, so just
Speaker 1: take me tee to green through that playoff.
Speaker 3: What happened there, so playoff hole. I knew.
Speaker 5: I just I needed to hit a good drive. Really
Speaker 5: is what it came down to. It was just like, Okay,
Speaker 5: hit a good drive. I think the first time we
Speaker 5: played eighteen, I kind of pulled it left and it
Speaker 5: rolled through one of the bunkers and I was on
Speaker 5: kind of a weird upslope in the rough. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 5: just hit in the fairway. The hole's not playing that
Speaker 5: long today, and I just bombed my drive way down there,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, okay, that's a good start.
Speaker 2: I hit a great drug down the middle of this time.
Speaker 2: Perfect Tanner is much longer than I am. Tanner hit
Speaker 2: the ball probably thirty or forty yards by me, so
Speaker 2: I knew Tanner was in the go zone. He was
Speaker 2: definitely going to go for it. He had a short
Speaker 2: probably a mid iron in his hand, seven or six iron.
Speaker 2: I had two of five to cover.
Speaker 4: He felt like he could reach the green. And I'm
Speaker 4: sure most listeners are familiar with the eighteenth The only
Speaker 4: body of water other than the giant ocean off the
Speaker 4: cliff is right in front of that eighteenth green, So
Speaker 4: that takes some gumption.
Speaker 2: I mean, I could definitely do it, but I was
Speaker 2: afraid I was going to end up in the water,
Speaker 2: so I took the extra hybrid and I hit it
Speaker 2: to the back of the green and it was basically
Speaker 2: where the John romputt was whenever he made that long putt,
Speaker 2: same exact spot. That's where I hit my second shot too.
Speaker 4: That was as fine a shot as I've ever seen,
Speaker 4: single shot as I've ever seen hit in that tournament,
Speaker 4: especially considering the circumstances.
Speaker 2: It was a great shot. Was just flush, perfectly straight.
Speaker 2: It was incredible, and.
Speaker 5: I'm like, Okay, he's up there in two. You know,
Speaker 5: he's probably got two put locked up. I need to
Speaker 5: make sure I make a birdie to keep it going.
Speaker 5: And I had a perfect six iron Number one eighty
Speaker 5: five was like perfect six iron, and I was super nervous,
Speaker 5: like really really nervous, and I'm like, okay, here you go.
Speaker 5: Go through my routine.
Speaker 3: I do this.
Speaker 5: It's an eight second count thing. Once my left foot
Speaker 5: starts walking towards the golf ball from me standing behind it,
Speaker 5: I count eight seconds until I hit the ball. So
Speaker 5: went through my whole thing and just flushed it. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: I just hit the best golf shot I've ever hit
Speaker 3: in my life.
Speaker 2: I thought he hit a perfect golf shot. I thought
Speaker 2: it was over. I thought he was gonna be.
Speaker 4: A foot it's just dead on the pin and.
Speaker 2: Kind of got held up in the air for a second,
Speaker 2: I don't know how.
Speaker 5: And it came up a couple of yards short in
Speaker 5: the water on eighteen at Tory Pines.
Speaker 2: I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. Whenever he first
Speaker 2: hit it, I was like, well, great shot. You know,
Speaker 2: kid deserves it. He did a great shot, but I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe whatever happened.
Speaker 5: It was a tough pill to swallow. Should I probably
Speaker 5: hit the five iron, yes, but I was going for
Speaker 5: the jugular. I wanted to hit it close. When it
Speaker 5: came up short, I was kind of shocked. I was like,
Speaker 5: oh man, I thought that was perfect.
Speaker 4: And at that point that was pretty much game, set
Speaker 4: and match.
Speaker 2: Whenever the ball in the water, it was like the
Speaker 2: only time I felt relief, like during the whole entire tournament,
Speaker 2: because I didn't feel like I was hitting them all
Speaker 2: very well. I felt like stressed. And then right then
Speaker 2: I was like, well, you know, I think I can
Speaker 2: kind of relax on a little bit. Winning number five
Speaker 2: it felt really good. I feel like out of all
Speaker 2: the national championships I won that, I feel like this
Speaker 2: one was. I don't know if I feel like I
Speaker 2: deserved it in a way or I just I felt
Speaker 2: like Tanner deserved it. I didn't feel like I played
Speaker 2: super well, but in the end, I mean, I look back,
Speaker 2: I birdied fifteen, eighteen and eighteen again, but I just
Speaker 2: didn't see it unfolding that way. I didn't see it happening.
Speaker 2: But you never know in golf.
Speaker 1: So are you planning to play in Orlando this year?
Speaker 1: I assume you are, since it's almost a home game
Speaker 1: for you, But are you planning to play? And how's
Speaker 1: your game feeling right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm playing. I'm definitely playing. The game feels good.
Speaker 2: So for me, this is what I look at it
Speaker 2: this way. I'm glad I don't do it for a living,
Speaker 2: because if I was playing golf for a living, it
Speaker 2: would probably drive me crazy. So I'm gonna go out
Speaker 2: there and play and do the best I can, and
Speaker 2: I look at whatever happens happened.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm I'm I'm going to Orlando. I need I
Speaker 5: need some redemption after last year.
Speaker 1: All Right, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 3: All Right, thank you absolutely, yep.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it. Garrett, thanks for the interest.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.