Speaker 1: It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. You guys know
Speaker 1: the drill. We come to you every Wednesday, but this
Speaker 1: week it's a special occasion for the pod. We just
Speaker 1: went over two million downloads and I can't thank all
Speaker 1: of you who listen each and every week for making
Speaker 1: that happened. I'm still blown away that I do a
Speaker 1: podcast and we've got two million downloads. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just it's mind boggling to me. But the support and
Speaker 1: when I'm on the road and when I see people
Speaker 1: at tournaments, they'll come up and say, hey, big fan
Speaker 1: of the pod. So thank each and every one of
Speaker 1: you for listening. And given that it's a big week
Speaker 1: for the pod, I figured we'd get a big guest on.
Speaker 1: Victor Hovelin is our guest this week. World number four,
Speaker 1: the reigning FedEx Cup champion, and I think Vics easily
Speaker 1: one of the top five best players in the game
Speaker 1: of golf. He has big time game. I think there
Speaker 1: are majors in his future, and I think there were
Speaker 1: multiple majors possibly in his future. I think he is
Speaker 1: going to be around for a very very long time.
Speaker 1: And it was incredibly cool for me to be able
Speaker 1: to sit down and talk to him and kind of
Speaker 1: pick his brain about the way he plays, about how
Speaker 1: he goes about playing. I love Vic's attitude. He's always smiling,
Speaker 1: he's always laughing. We talk about the Ryder Cup, we
Speaker 1: talk about you know, where golf is, professional golf is
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. But really, I think if you
Speaker 1: get an opportunity to sit down and talk to a
Speaker 1: player who, like I said, I think he's one of
Speaker 1: the best players in the game, and I think he
Speaker 1: can beat anybody on any kind of golf course, that's
Speaker 1: how good he is. So a very very cool interview
Speaker 1: with Vic that's coming up. But before we get to
Speaker 1: that interview, let's take a moment to thank our friends
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Speaker 1: it out. So now let's get to a very very
Speaker 1: cool interview with Like I said, he's one of the
Speaker 1: best players in the game, he's a fan favorite, and
Speaker 1: big things are going to continue to happen to Victor Hovlin.
Speaker 1: Take a listen, Vick, you had a unbelievable year in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. I think the stat that jumps out
Speaker 1: no missed cuts. How have you managed since you've turned pro.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've really become one of the most consistent
Speaker 1: golfers in the sport. Is it something that you're conscious of,
Speaker 1: is it something that you're trying to do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean obviously I value consistency a lot. Obviously
Speaker 2: you want to win tournaments, and I think professional golf
Speaker 2: really tailors to the times you play your best and
Speaker 2: that's when you got to make the most out of it.
Speaker 2: But I think it's just a lot more, a lot
Speaker 2: less stressful if I show up every week just knowing that, Okay,
Speaker 2: my game's in a good spot. And I think the
Speaker 2: fact that my short game improved so much last year,
Speaker 2: Now I didn't even have to hit it my best
Speaker 2: and I could still kind of make nice up and
Speaker 2: downs and just keep momentum going. Before I would not
Speaker 2: miss very many cuts just because my ball striking was
Speaker 2: so consistent. But I still kind of had a little
Speaker 2: asterix there with the short game. But now I feel
Speaker 2: like my ball striking hasn't been quite as good, but
Speaker 2: my short game is kind of made up for that
Speaker 2: and then some. So yeah, I just think making better decisions,
Speaker 2: not playing maybe as risky as I did when I
Speaker 2: first came out on tour, just knowing when to push
Speaker 2: and when to not push. I think I'm making a
Speaker 2: lot less mistakes, you know, just simple mistakes, short sighting,
Speaker 2: miss yeah, missing long on a green where you can't,
Speaker 2: stuff like that. So I really value not missing cuts
Speaker 2: and playing for four rounds. I do prefer.
Speaker 1: That that it's an art to learning on tour when
Speaker 1: to play offense when you need to play offense, and
Speaker 1: when to play defense when you need to play defense.
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned you came out as a rookie.
Speaker 1: You can get into that trap of saying, Okay, maybe
Speaker 1: i've made a double, I've made a couple of buggies. Okay,
Speaker 1: now I need to go on offense. But sometimes the
Speaker 1: golf course that you're playing doesn't allow you, or isn't
Speaker 1: really it's not the right play. So you said you
Speaker 1: learned that. You know, you've been on tour now three
Speaker 1: four years, you're learning how to play. But when you
Speaker 1: come out on tour, how do you when did you
Speaker 1: kind of figure out, Okay, what I could get away
Speaker 1: with maybe in the past and making some dicey decisions
Speaker 1: or maybe making some really really aggressive decisions. At the
Speaker 1: level that I'm playing at right now professional golf, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't allow me to do that. When was that
Speaker 1: kind of kind of light bulb moment where you went, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I can start maybe just being a little bit
Speaker 1: more conservative, because I think the opposite is what everyone thinks.
Speaker 1: Everyone watching professional golf and everyone trying to get to
Speaker 1: the level that you're at, thinks that you all are
Speaker 1: getting there by just being firing at every flag, going
Speaker 1: for every pin, going for every power into And there
Speaker 1: really is an art to playing professional golf. It's just
Speaker 1: not your golf swing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I definitely had to learn it in the
Speaker 2: hard way. I think some of it is sometimes I'll
Speaker 2: still play offensive or aggressive just because, like I want to,
Speaker 2: I think it's fun. But there is like I've gotten
Speaker 2: into poker a little bit, so knowing the numbers and
Speaker 2: the and the just.
Speaker 1: A likely and the percentages the game is because the
Speaker 1: game poker. It's interesting that I'd heard that you had
Speaker 1: gotten really big into poker. I used to teach when
Speaker 1: I lived in Vegas back in the day. I used
Speaker 1: to teach Huckleberry Seed. Huck Seed won the World Poker Championship,
Speaker 1: and he was like a savant. He was trying to
Speaker 1: play golf and stuff like that. So the idea of
Speaker 1: playing poker. How do you think playing poker helps you
Speaker 1: on the golf course? Do you think that's been one
Speaker 1: of the things where you've gone, Okay, do I really
Speaker 1: need to make this play right now or I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get my par five chances? With my lane? There are
Speaker 1: some pins that I can attack maybe on the back night.
Speaker 1: But that's a hard thing to learn, and it's a
Speaker 1: hard thing to learn in the timeframe that you've learned it.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I'd say it's kind of a double
Speaker 2: edged sword, because sometimes there is a value to being
Speaker 2: kind of young and dumb, having no scar tissue, and
Speaker 2: just I'm just gonna hit driver everywhere. I hit it straight,
Speaker 2: so why not just hit it here, even though mathematically
Speaker 2: it might not be a great play in the long term.
Speaker 2: But sometimes just not even being aware of that or
Speaker 2: putting those thoughts into your head, you have this just
Speaker 2: overconfidence and you you know that, Okay, I'm a straight
Speaker 2: I'm a straight hitter with the driver, so I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna hit it everywhere, and most of the time it works.
Speaker 2: But then when you start delving deeper into the stats
Speaker 2: and Eduardo Molinari that I work with, he's my stats guy,
Speaker 2: He's really helped me just kind of put things into
Speaker 2: perspective a little bit more. And uh, but I did
Speaker 2: kind of struggle a little bit when I didn't feel
Speaker 2: like my swing was quite where it should should be
Speaker 2: at the time when you start thinking about the percentages
Speaker 2: and you're like, okay, it's kind of a fifty to
Speaker 2: fifty play. I could hit driver or three would, and
Speaker 2: then you maybe kind of start to second guess things
Speaker 2: a little bit. There's a little bit of doubt that
Speaker 2: creeps into the decision making, and that is something that
Speaker 2: you don't really take into account when you're just purely
Speaker 2: looking at the mathematics. So it's like, if it's a
Speaker 2: really close decision, I try to just let my emotions
Speaker 2: and my feels trumph the decision. But if it's like
Speaker 2: a sixty or if it's like a seventy thirty or
Speaker 2: sixty five thirty five, then you know, things are pretty
Speaker 2: clear cut as what you're supposed to do. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think just in the whole, it's the more information
Speaker 2: you have, the better a decision you can make. And
Speaker 2: I think that's just good to know and see.
Speaker 1: Obviously, I work with two guys, you know, Brooks and
Speaker 1: DJ to where they're the opposite. They want as little
Speaker 1: information as possible so that they can kind of react
Speaker 1: and be an athlete. You're you're Caddie Shane Knight, who
Speaker 1: I think is one of the best guys on tour.
Speaker 1: He's someone that you know, I've always enjoyed you know,
Speaker 1: spending time with it. I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: the story, but he came up to me at Memorial
Speaker 1: when you were getting ready to turn pro, and he said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: can I talk to you? Because I used to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time with Shae because he caddied for
Speaker 1: Sean O'Hare and and Jimmy Walker. I used to work
Speaker 1: with my dad and I they played a ton of practice,
Speaker 1: so I spent a lot of time around Shaye. And
Speaker 1: she said, listen, can I talk to you. We're at Memorial, man.
Speaker 1: He said, Victor Hovelin is going to turn pro. He's
Speaker 1: asked me if I want to work with him. I
Speaker 1: worked with him at, you know, in a couple of
Speaker 1: the majors, and he said, you know, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you think? And I was just like, dude, it's
Speaker 1: the kid's stud It's a huge opportunity. And he was like,
Speaker 1: do you really think he's going to be You're a
Speaker 1: great player. I said, listen, he's top five in the world. Good.
Speaker 1: And so that partnership with Shay when you guys are
Speaker 1: looking at golf courses, because we get asked that so
Speaker 1: much vic from players trying to play. When you guys
Speaker 1: are going into practice rounds and you're looking at golf
Speaker 1: tournaments and the majors, it becomes more heightened. But what
Speaker 1: are the things that you and Shae are looking at?
Speaker 1: What are the things that you're looking at when you
Speaker 1: look at a golf course and you say, okay, even
Speaker 1: if you played that golf course before, you're going out
Speaker 1: there in the practice ones and the conversations between you
Speaker 1: and Shae are okay, obviously, what we're gonna hit off
Speaker 1: the tee, what we're doing. But how do you all
Speaker 1: approach kind of charting around to golf. Do you do
Speaker 1: that as much as he does? Or does he kind
Speaker 1: of shepherd you around? He does the work and say hey,
Speaker 1: I think this is the play and then you kind of,
Speaker 1: as the player, either listen or don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He he's a very like I consider him a
Speaker 2: really good friend of mine. But he's also very very professional.
Speaker 2: He goes out there early and walks the walks, the chorus,
Speaker 2: and he does a very just puts a lot of
Speaker 2: work in to prepare. So when I play my first
Speaker 2: practice round, he's already seen the course and he knows
Speaker 2: kind of where I need to be, what clubs to hit,
Speaker 2: and then it just becomes a discussion of Okay, I
Speaker 2: think the conditions are gonna be this in a tournament,
Speaker 2: They're maybe gonna get a little firmer, or it might
Speaker 2: get wetter because of the rain that's coming. Wind might switch,
Speaker 2: and then certain pin placements, like it might be a
Speaker 2: short part four where we're gonna hit a driver, but
Speaker 2: if the wind switches it goes to down wind, they
Speaker 2: put a front pin. Now we can't get the wedge
Speaker 2: to stop, so we need to hit less off the tea,
Speaker 2: you know, just simple things like that, and then I
Speaker 2: might have some stats from Eduardo if we've played the
Speaker 2: course before. Okay, these pimplacements generally play a little bit
Speaker 2: easier if you're if you hit driver or three wood
Speaker 2: off the tee. It just yeah, it all depends. So
Speaker 2: having a lot of that information even before you go
Speaker 2: into a practice round is really valuable, I think. And
Speaker 2: then he might say, hey, I think this is the
Speaker 2: better play, but whatever I feel at the time, then
Speaker 2: that's sort of going to trumpet. But we're we're always
Speaker 2: having a discussion and trying to manage the game plan
Speaker 2: accordingly to what's what's the best player.
Speaker 1: When you look at golf courses fit on tour. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you play a bunch of golf courses over the course
Speaker 1: of the year. There's going to be courses that you like.
Speaker 1: But for a golf course that you play that you like,
Speaker 1: what does that mean from when you look at a
Speaker 1: golf course you say, Okay, I've played this golf I
Speaker 1: really like that golf course. Give me an example of
Speaker 1: a golf course on tour that you really really like,
Speaker 1: and give me some reasons and examples as to why
Speaker 1: you like that golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just got back from Riviera. I really like that
Speaker 2: golf course. And I tend to play pretty well in Florida,
Speaker 2: So Florida golf courses tend to fit me very well.
Speaker 2: And I think generally that's because I'm a good ball striker.
Speaker 2: Off the tee, I hit my driver pretty straight, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to gain an advantage. Because now I do
Speaker 2: think I have an advantage Riviera because you still got
Speaker 2: to hit it pretty well out there, but there's not
Speaker 2: there aren't any penalty shots out there now no water.
Speaker 1: And you've got to hit it mirleles offline on the
Speaker 1: hit stretched. Yeah, on the back nine, there's that stretch
Speaker 1: where you get hit out of bounds left and on
Speaker 1: the front nine, if you really rinse on to the right,
Speaker 1: I mean you've got to hit really you're right. I've
Speaker 1: never thought about that. There is there aren't any there's
Speaker 1: no hazards now Riviera, which is very very rare. The
Speaker 1: only time you really see that nowadays is if we
Speaker 1: go to the Open Championship and you play one of
Speaker 1: the inland you know, where there's just no water. There
Speaker 1: might be a couple of streams, you know St Andrews
Speaker 1: has the stream that goes across the first but a
Speaker 1: lot of the Open Championship golf goes. You're right, there's
Speaker 1: no hazards. So a golf course with no hazards, it's
Speaker 1: a different kind of look and feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. And that's why I think like Riviera
Speaker 2: is just a it's one plot of land that they
Speaker 2: can't really expend it anymore. And it's been around for
Speaker 2: so long and you still make that golf coursus as
Speaker 2: it is with no penalty shots. That's impressive and it's
Speaker 2: not stupid. You know, it's fair. If you play well,
Speaker 2: you're going to shoot a good score. If you're if
Speaker 2: you're missing fairways and missing greens, you're gonna have a
Speaker 2: hard time. So I'll like just straightforward fair golf courses.
Speaker 2: Now Florida golf courses are a little bit different because
Speaker 2: you have some water. You generally have some ob kind
Speaker 2: of closer to the course. But that's where I think
Speaker 2: I have an advantage because if I'm hitting fairway more
Speaker 2: often than the other guys that I'm playing against, They're
Speaker 2: going to be more heavily penalized by missing the fairway,
Speaker 2: So I have an advantage there. And generally when the
Speaker 2: greens get firm, I can, you know, just the value
Speaker 2: of hitting greens go up, and yeah, especially if I'm
Speaker 2: hitting it nicely, I'm gonna be able to separate myself there.
Speaker 2: But I think that's generally the case for the bigger tournaments,
Speaker 2: you know, majors. If you go to Memorial, for example,
Speaker 2: they're gonna have kind of that style of golf. It's
Speaker 2: going to be long, it's gonna be narrow ish fairways
Speaker 2: and thick rough So if you can hit it longest,
Speaker 2: straight and head greens, that's that's usually a pretty good recipe.
Speaker 1: So Vic, the obvious question for everyone listening is what's
Speaker 1: it like to be able to stand up and have
Speaker 1: the confidence because that is one of the strengths of
Speaker 1: your game is the ability to drive it as well
Speaker 1: as you drive it to not really you don't really
Speaker 1: curve your golf ball enough. I mean a lot. So
Speaker 1: that must the look of a hole for someone like
Speaker 1: yourself that has so much confidence with the driver has
Speaker 1: got to be very different from someone that doesn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence, because there's you know, there's parts
Speaker 1: of you know, if you think of you want it
Speaker 1: at east Lake, but there's some holes there to where
Speaker 1: you know, like that, like what is it after the
Speaker 1: par three on the back was at fifteen fifteen? You
Speaker 1: know that if it kind of that dog leg up
Speaker 1: there in the corner. But if you've got the confidence
Speaker 1: to say, listen, okay, I'm gonna fly the bunkers and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get it up up into that neck and
Speaker 1: it's maybe a little bit flatter there. When you have
Speaker 1: the confidence that you have in the driver, you're able
Speaker 1: to say, okay, I know if I can get it
Speaker 1: in that area, maybe it's a little bit flatter than
Speaker 1: it is here. If I don't hit it as far,
Speaker 1: it must mentally it must give you a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of confidence going into tournaments because the driver is is
Speaker 1: a weapon and you, as the player know it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I will say the last few months, I haven't
Speaker 2: swung it as well as I would like, and the
Speaker 2: ball has been going two ways a little bit. And
Speaker 2: just from experience, it's a lot more stressful playing golf
Speaker 2: when you don't know exactly where the ball's gonna go. Now,
Speaker 2: nobody knows exactly where the ball's gonna go, but I
Speaker 2: would say when I would play my best golfer on
Speaker 2: a string, Yeah, and it's so liberating, especially when he
Speaker 2: gets to those tighter holes, like let's say there's water
Speaker 2: down the left side, and I can just aim it
Speaker 2: kind of down the left side and just pump one
Speaker 2: and fade it off of it, and it's not like
Speaker 2: I'm hitting a week's lice over there. It's still a
Speaker 2: powerful just cut off the water, and I know when
Speaker 2: I hit that shot. When I get nervous, I just
Speaker 2: play a slightly bigger cut. The ball's almost never going
Speaker 2: to go left. Now. It might be in the right
Speaker 2: side of the fairway, might be in the middle of
Speaker 2: the fairway right rough, but it's never going left. As
Speaker 2: I'm getting ready to play a bay Hill now in
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks, I just think of, for example,
Speaker 2: number eleven out there. If you remember that hole, you've
Speaker 2: got water down the left.
Speaker 1: Side, and you can just stand up and know that, okay,
Speaker 1: left is out of play.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it also I think it allows you to then
Speaker 1: And it's the same thing we're always trying to tell
Speaker 1: people that play to make a conservative, aggressive swing, not reckless.
Speaker 1: There's a difference between being reckless with the driver and saying, listen,
Speaker 1: I drive it well, so I can be aggressive. I
Speaker 1: can still be a conservative off the tee, but I
Speaker 1: can make a conservative, committed swing here, so that that'll
Speaker 1: eleventh hole at Bayhill water all the way down the
Speaker 1: left hand side. You've got the confidence just stand up
Speaker 1: and say, listen, I know it's not going to go left.
Speaker 1: I can make a really committed swing and just stand
Speaker 1: up and rip it.
Speaker 2: Yep. Whereas a lot of guys I've seen it hit
Speaker 2: four irons, three irons, hybrids, three woods, yeah, and then
Speaker 2: they have Yeah, you got more rooms, so you're probably
Speaker 2: gonna hit it in the water less. But now you've
Speaker 2: got seven six iron, maybe even five iron into that green,
Speaker 2: and those pins on the left side are I mean,
Speaker 2: it's almost impossible to get to it when you're hitting
Speaker 2: that long of a club. Whereas if I'm really confident
Speaker 2: with my driver, and I think most of the time,
Speaker 2: i think I've hit driver, hit that fairway a lot,
Speaker 2: and then I have a fifty degree maybe a pitching
Speaker 2: wedge of max into that green, and now you turn
Speaker 2: a hard hole into a birdie hole. So just doing
Speaker 2: that consistently, especially around a place like that, you turn
Speaker 2: a beast of a course into a place where, Okay,
Speaker 2: if I make a few putts and and play nicely,
Speaker 2: I can shoot five six under and yeah, that place
Speaker 2: is treating me pretty nicely.
Speaker 1: Over the years, there are players that dominate through power,
Speaker 1: physical speed. You're not someone that people look at and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's a killer. He's dominant. But do you feel like
Speaker 1: the ability to hit the driver the way you have
Speaker 1: pretty much your your whole career is also kind of
Speaker 1: a differentiator down the stretch. When you're playing with someone.
Speaker 1: You guys are in a big tournament, you guys are
Speaker 1: kind of tied for the lead and stuff. There get
Speaker 1: to be tight holes where you have the confidence to say, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm pulling I'm pulling the chief, I'm taking the head
Speaker 1: cover off, I'm pulling driver. If you're hitting first and
Speaker 1: it's back nine on Sunday, that's also kind of a differentiator,
Speaker 1: kind of a separator to say to the guy you're
Speaker 1: playing with, Listen, we might be tied, but you've got
Speaker 1: the iron out and I'm just gonna go ahead here
Speaker 1: and hit driver. Do you feel that's a way to
Speaker 1: quietly intimidate the other players by saying, listen, you know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hit driver here. I'm a good driver of
Speaker 1: the golf ball. If you're gonna give up forty fifty
Speaker 1: yards here because you don't feel like you can drive
Speaker 1: it down there. Another one seventeen at the Tour Championship.
Speaker 1: If you've got the confidence to just start it over
Speaker 1: the bunkers, now hammer the driver down there, you get
Speaker 1: it much much closer. Because if you don't have the
Speaker 1: confidence on that whole and you're gonna take three wood
Speaker 1: or an iron off the tee, you miss it a little.
Speaker 1: You'd be on a little bit of an upslope and
Speaker 1: not But if you've got the confidence, like you said,
Speaker 1: to just take it over the bunkers on seventeen at
Speaker 1: East like and get it down there down the stretch.
Speaker 1: That's gotta be a differentiator to where you're saying somebody
Speaker 1: that you're playing with, Hey, you're gonna have to come
Speaker 1: get me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, until you double cross it and you're behind a tree.
Speaker 2: But yeah, most of the time, it's like I'm pulling
Speaker 2: the driver because I feel confident and I know it's
Speaker 2: the right play, and more often than not, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: hit you know, my missus arn is bad to where
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make a huge mistake now might end up
Speaker 2: in the right rof, But how much am I really
Speaker 2: losing compared to the guy that's pulling iron or three
Speaker 2: wood and he's sixty yards behind me, It's like, there's
Speaker 2: not that big of a difference. I stole might be
Speaker 2: ahead from the right rough because I'm hitting a gap
Speaker 2: play shin there. So I feel like that's you know,
Speaker 2: if I've driven it really well generally, and that week,
Speaker 2: I think the other player knows that, Okay, he's hitting
Speaker 2: driver and he's probably not gonna give it away. If
Speaker 2: I was playing against the guy that does a sprayer, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and he pulls driver, I might go, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: let's let's see where this one ends up, you know,
Speaker 2: and then I might hit three wood or something less
Speaker 2: to depending on where he hits his shot. But i'd
Speaker 2: i'd least like to think that when I pull driver,
Speaker 2: the other guy's thinking, Okay, he's probably gonna hit a
Speaker 2: pretty nice shot and he's going to set up a
Speaker 2: birdie or at least a par So I now need
Speaker 2: to make a birdie to beat him or to tie him.
Speaker 2: It's not like, oh, he's gonna give it away now,
Speaker 2: So I might do it somewhere else, but not off
Speaker 2: the tee.
Speaker 1: You mentioned we've been talking about something that you have
Speaker 1: tremendous confidence in your driver. By your own admission, when
Speaker 1: you turned pro, the short game was I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a liability and it wasn't it was something that
Speaker 1: everybody could see. You could see it. You had even
Speaker 1: when you won in Puerto Rico you laid the sawd
Speaker 1: over one a pretty easy one too. How nervous when
Speaker 1: you before you last year the work you did with
Speaker 1: Joe Mayo, the chipping and stuff. But before that, how
Speaker 1: how nervous is as one of the best players in
Speaker 1: the world, would you get over a chip shot. And
Speaker 1: what were the ones that made you the most? Were
Speaker 1: they the easy ones that made you the most nervous,
Speaker 1: or they were they were the tough ones.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like I never I knew I didn't have
Speaker 2: a great short game, but in college I thought it
Speaker 2: was it was O K.
Speaker 1: You realize how bad you're Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 2: But I never had like the yips or I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I don't know how this is gonna go.
Speaker 2: It's just like, ah, this is a hard shot. It's
Speaker 2: into the grain. So usually when I was into the
Speaker 2: grain and and I had to elevated and stop it quickly,
Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, this is impossible, you.
Speaker 1: Know, unless you hit the flop. Yeah, exactly, and then
Speaker 1: you're bringing danger and double body into play.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I'd be like, okay, well my reasoning was,
Speaker 2: and I would tell the guys on the team It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a bad chip, but it was bad that
Speaker 2: I even ended up here. So I'm just gonna go
Speaker 2: to the range instead of figuring this out, you know.
Speaker 1: And so you your your mentality was a lot like
Speaker 1: a lot of junior golfers, and I'll I'll just basically
Speaker 1: I'm bad at this, so I'll just go make what
Speaker 1: I'm good at even better.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The problem is, I think that works up until a
Speaker 1: certain level, until you get on tour and then you
Speaker 1: see the short games of the guys like Patrick Reid,
Speaker 1: of the guys of the wedge players, guys like Jason Day,
Speaker 1: the really really classy, I mean jordan' spiece's short games
Speaker 1: feel pretty filthy around the greens. JT's become a great
Speaker 1: wedge player. So what did you learn and what has
Speaker 1: been the fix that that has really helped you? Because
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm watching you on the second group out
Speaker 1: at the Ryder Cup. You chip one in from fifty feet.
Speaker 1: I'm down on the first hole. We hear the roar.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, I guarantee you VIX chipped this in, Garrett,
Speaker 1: and then they showed it on the screen. You chipped
Speaker 1: in fifty but that was a shot two years ago.
Speaker 1: You didn't know how to hit from that position. So everybody,
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, you can go back. But okay,
Speaker 1: you've missed the green. You're just off the green on
Speaker 1: the first hole at Marcos Simoni, it's like fifty feet.
Speaker 1: You've got to go over some rough and then you've
Speaker 1: got it's a little bit down the slope. You've got
Speaker 1: to stop it. I said two three years ago, you
Speaker 1: you didn't have that start. So before in that situation,
Speaker 1: what would you have been trying to do? And I
Speaker 1: guarantee you in the situation that you're in, you're like,
Speaker 1: I can make this. Yeah, So what would you have
Speaker 1: been thinking before over a chip shot like the one
Speaker 1: in the first hole at the Ryder cop you and
Speaker 1: Ludwig you first, your second group out. It's early. You
Speaker 1: guys know you can set the tone in the past.
Speaker 1: What type of shot would you have hit? And what
Speaker 1: type of shot did you hit when you hooped it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I would have grabbed the putter right away,
Speaker 2: And to be honest, I think most guys would have
Speaker 2: pulled putter there. I don't think it's a bad play
Speaker 2: because I think consistently you're probably gonna hit it to
Speaker 2: ten feet and I would have just given loving the
Speaker 2: ten footer for par there. But I just I just
Speaker 2: saw it, Okay, if I can chip this, hit a
Speaker 2: low kind of bump into the slope that I had
Speaker 2: in front of me, and then check it was gonna
Speaker 2: have less speed going down the hill than it would
Speaker 2: if I putted it. So I figured, okay, if I
Speaker 2: chip it and hit a good shot, now I can
Speaker 2: suddenly hit it, you know, I can maybe stop it
Speaker 2: close to the hole. And as it came off the face,
Speaker 2: it did exactly what I wanted it to do, came
Speaker 2: out a little well skipped and checked.
Speaker 1: When did you know it was? When did you think
Speaker 1: you'd made it?
Speaker 2: Well, as it was going down the hill, I thought
Speaker 2: it was a pretty nice shot. I'm like, okay, this
Speaker 2: this couldn be good. And then it's just started. It
Speaker 2: kept breaking and kept breaking and kept breaking, and I
Speaker 2: wasn't even thinking. I just reacted to it and I
Speaker 2: started walking when it was probably the six seven eight
Speaker 2: nine feet out, and when it went in, it was,
Speaker 2: uh yeah, it was just like wow, what just happened?
Speaker 1: As there were roars in golf. There are roars at majors,
Speaker 1: you know the type of there's a Tiger roar. You know,
Speaker 1: when Tiger's doing something, you can you kind of know
Speaker 1: when Rory's on the course and he's starting to go,
Speaker 1: you can hear it. But then there are roars in
Speaker 1: the Ryder Cup, and then there are the noise the
Speaker 1: crowd makes when you're playing in Europe as a European
Speaker 1: the sound was unbelievable. And then the sound from the
Speaker 1: first t where everybody went nuts too. Now the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 1: your first one was it whistling straights. It wasn't great
Speaker 1: for the European side. You didn't win any your matches.
Speaker 1: You go three to one and one at at marcos Amoni.
Speaker 1: What was the difference and how were those experiences different
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously being a rookie and with a whistling straits,
Speaker 2: it was tough. We didn't have any European fans there
Speaker 2: because of COVID and uh being in the United States.
Speaker 2: It was It was definitely a daunting task. And I
Speaker 2: think because I had some holes in my game, meaning
Speaker 2: a short game. My ball striking was very good that week.
Speaker 2: But you're just not gonna win miss greens. Yeah, you're
Speaker 2: gonna miss greens. And you're just not gonna win matches
Speaker 2: in four balls or even for sums if you're not
Speaker 2: making putts and making easy up and downs. And I
Speaker 2: think when you're just in that setting where your anxiety
Speaker 2: or you're super nervous in that moment and you have
Speaker 2: holes in your game. They there's nowhere to hide. And
Speaker 2: I think you're just going into an event like that
Speaker 2: not as confident, or you're not the best version of yourself.
Speaker 2: And I think at Marcus Simone, I just won the
Speaker 2: FedEx Cup, I know three times.
Speaker 1: You had an unbelievable year. So the confidence level going in,
Speaker 1: you know a little bit more what to expect for
Speaker 1: everyone listening. Everybody talks about the Ryder Cup the pressure.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 1: Just as a coach, it's heightened. You can feel it.
Speaker 1: You can you can feel that it's different you as
Speaker 1: a player. When you got into the first Ryder Cup
Speaker 1: at Whistling Straight, when did you kind of go, okay, wow,
Speaker 1: this is this is different, I mean the and it
Speaker 1: is a different type of pressure too, because normally you're
Speaker 1: just playing for yourself. All of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 1: for the first couple of days, You've got a partner
Speaker 1: now and you've got to think about I don't want
Speaker 1: to leave this guy ten feet and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So the first year versus the second year, you're it
Speaker 1: is a little bit more, okay, I know a little
Speaker 1: bit more of what to expect. I thought that that
Speaker 1: Hazel team was going to be the breakout for you.
Speaker 1: I just thought everything you've done up to that point,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is going to be kind of
Speaker 1: the coming out for you, because we see that every
Speaker 1: two years there's someone in a Ryder Cup that steps
Speaker 1: up and everybody goes, wow, we look at him differently. Now.
Speaker 1: I think the performance you had at at in Rome
Speaker 1: this this year has been that moment for you. You
Speaker 1: were one of the guys that were It was you,
Speaker 1: It was Rory, it was Tommy, but you were one
Speaker 1: of the guys that they John Rahm was one. You were.
Speaker 1: Every team has those four to three guys that everybody
Speaker 1: on the team knows that they expect points from, you know,
Speaker 1: the media of the press. I mean, was it somewhat
Speaker 1: liberating and freeing you going into Marcus Simoni going okay,
Speaker 1: I'm top three in the world right now. There are
Speaker 1: no real better players in the world than me. We're
Speaker 1: playing in Europe now, now I can kind of almost
Speaker 1: kind of show off how good I am, as opposed
Speaker 1: to go, okay, let me just kind of see how
Speaker 1: this week goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was more as you explained, like because of
Speaker 2: that confidence, I'm stepping up on that first d and
Speaker 2: thinking instead of oh, I better not mess up or
Speaker 2: just try to make a decent swing at it, don't
Speaker 2: do this, don't do that, It's more like, Okay, let's
Speaker 2: enjoy this and let's show off kind of the things
Speaker 2: that I've been working on this year, and let me
Speaker 2: prove myself the level of play that I can show
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna do it right now. So it was
Speaker 2: more just like I was so much more at ease.
Speaker 2: I was confident, I was enjoying the moment a lot more,
Speaker 2: whereas as Whistling Straits, I knew I had some holes
Speaker 2: in there and all the people that are there are
Speaker 2: rooting for you to mess up. So it's like it's
Speaker 2: it's just tough to get over that. It's not impossible,
Speaker 2: because I think some guys really like that pressure. But
Speaker 2: you've got to have the foundations to back that up.
Speaker 2: You can't just be Okay, I'm gonna show you and
Speaker 2: really believe it if you don't have the skill sets
Speaker 2: to back it up. And I just didn't think I
Speaker 2: had it at the time. So that was really nice
Speaker 2: to to kind of prove that.
Speaker 1: In Roam this summer, you played two of the matches
Speaker 1: with ludvig Olberg. How good do you think this kid
Speaker 1: can be? Because I mean, I he I watched a
Speaker 1: lot of his match I was doing some TV and
Speaker 1: then he played Brooks on Sunday. And even though Brooks,
Speaker 1: you know, beat him, he he has a he has
Speaker 1: a toolbox that looks fairly full in what he can
Speaker 1: and can't do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We I mean we talked about driving earlier on
Speaker 2: in the in the in the in the talk here,
Speaker 2: and yeah, he he's like he hits it pretty far,
Speaker 2: hits it pretty high, and just does the same thing
Speaker 2: on repeat. It seemed like I haven't played with him
Speaker 2: that much since, but in Rome it was Yeah, even
Speaker 2: in the practice round, No, he didn't. And that's what's Uh,
Speaker 2: It's pretty impressive and pretty cool to watch. But at
Speaker 2: the same time you can still see that there's and
Speaker 2: I don't mean this disrespective, but like he's got clear
Speaker 2: improvements in his game.
Speaker 1: Peter Hanson, who's his coach, who played on the European
Speaker 1: Tour for a long time, played in a Ryder Cup.
Speaker 1: He was at the Ryder Cup the Miracle at Medina.
Speaker 1: He was walking the eighteen the last round where Brooks
Speaker 1: was playing Ludwig and we were talking, we were walking
Speaker 1: inside the ropes and he was like, listen, man, this
Speaker 1: kid has a lot to learn. Yeh, you're watching him
Speaker 1: and you're seeing how much success he's had that week.
Speaker 1: But I think that just goes to show that for
Speaker 1: someone like you, you know how good you have to be,
Speaker 1: you know how consistent you have to be, and you
Speaker 1: yourself have turned pro knowing that you had some holes
Speaker 1: in your game which you fixed, and you know what
Speaker 1: are the I guess how does he go about getting better?
Speaker 1: And I think everybody's trying to get better? How do
Speaker 1: you go about getting better as a player and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got to try and improve this part, but it
Speaker 1: can't take away from things that have made me get
Speaker 1: here and made me a dominant player.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's hard for me to kind of
Speaker 2: evaluate his game when I haven't seen it. You need
Speaker 2: a bigger sample size to really read into this year.
Speaker 1: I think we'll get a better idea of where we
Speaker 1: think he's going to be in three to five years.
Speaker 2: But I'd say playing with him in the Ryder Cup, now,
Speaker 2: the greens were a little bit slower in Marcus Simone,
Speaker 2: but I'd say, you know, when you were a little
Speaker 2: bit nervous and those lag puts. The speed probably needs
Speaker 2: to get a little bit better, and there's probably some
Speaker 2: like decision making stuff kind of like what I did
Speaker 2: when I first came out on tour. I'm firing at
Speaker 2: some pins and not don't really know what side to
Speaker 2: miss it on, and I would miss it on some
Speaker 2: sides that are just death.
Speaker 1: You can't make it. You just you're getting over to
Speaker 1: that situation and you're like, I cannot make.
Speaker 2: Bubb from here, yeah exactly. And we're all like, we're
Speaker 2: all gonna hit bad shots. Were hitting bad shots is fine,
Speaker 2: but there are some some places where you can't hit
Speaker 2: a bad shot and miss it there, you know.
Speaker 1: So because you're gonna struggle to make a bogey.
Speaker 2: Exactly, Whereas like there's some And that's one of the
Speaker 2: things that I think I improved on a lot last year.
Speaker 2: I would have nice tournaments where for nine holes straight,
Speaker 2: I didn't feel like I hit a single good shot,
Speaker 2: but I would still get around and even par one
Speaker 2: under par because I just missed into right spots. I
Speaker 2: would make it easy up and down, and then maybe
Speaker 2: on a par five I would wedge it close and
Speaker 2: make the.
Speaker 1: Pot with your type of game, bick with the weapon
Speaker 1: you have with the driver, how straight you can hit
Speaker 1: the how far you can hit the driver? And ball
Speaker 1: striking is one of your calling cards. You know now
Speaker 1: that Okay, I don't necessarily have to play that. I mean,
Speaker 1: is it that you realize now, I don't have to
Speaker 1: play that great all the time. If I can just
Speaker 1: tread water, I've got my par fives that I can
Speaker 1: take advantage of. And over four days, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have a day where if my ball striking is the
Speaker 1: way it normally is, I'm gonna have that day. And
Speaker 1: you do that. That's one of the things I love
Speaker 1: about your game is you are every single week you're
Speaker 1: gonna have that round where it's like it's almost like
Speaker 1: you can bank on it. You're gonna shoot sixty five
Speaker 1: one of the days of the three days. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I really like about your game, Vic,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the reasons why you've been
Speaker 1: so consistent is you have that Saturday round where you're
Speaker 1: not afraid to go, Okay, let me go shoot sixty
Speaker 1: four on Saturday now and get myself into one of
Speaker 1: these life that is you do it a lot, and
Speaker 1: I don't think you that is not normal for rookies
Speaker 1: and guys that are this new you have that knack
Speaker 1: on Saturday to be one of those guys that just
Speaker 1: goes okay, you know, I'm gonna shoot sixty four sixty
Speaker 1: six on the weekend and see where it goes. That's
Speaker 1: an art and that's something that not a lot of
Speaker 1: players can do all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a that's a good thing you're
Speaker 2: touching on there, because I definitely would psych myself out
Speaker 2: a little bit when I first came out. Is that
Speaker 2: you have an afternoon tea time and then you see
Speaker 2: Thursday morning, some guy posts sixty four and now the
Speaker 2: wind starts blowing in the afternoon and you're like, man,
Speaker 2: I'm one under part. I'm kind of playing nice. I'm
Speaker 2: not making too many putts, but I'm seven shots back.
Speaker 2: So instead of before then you can press yeah, and
Speaker 2: then your shirtsire yourself and you make it a dumb
Speaker 2: bogie you would never make, and now you're eight shots back,
Speaker 2: and it's like, this is a seventy two whole tournament.
Speaker 2: The chance of this guy shooting sixty four to the
Speaker 2: first round the chances of him winning maybe on Sunday
Speaker 2: is you know, not as high as you would think.
Speaker 2: And if he.
Speaker 1: Shoots four rounds in the sixties, you say, yeah, it
Speaker 1: was your week. You shoot four rounds in the sixties
Speaker 1: round here, you're probably gonna win.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. But I think the mindset then turn into
Speaker 2: especially when I was playing better and just getting more experience,
Speaker 2: It's funny how you think better when you play better.
Speaker 1: It helps, it helps, But isn't that interesting thing that
Speaker 1: when you're playing and you're not the first player that
Speaker 1: has ever said that when you're playing bad, your decision
Speaker 1: making process is always terrible, right, It's very rarely when
Speaker 1: you're playing bad or you making really good, smart, clear
Speaker 1: focused decisions on the golf course, and when you are
Speaker 1: playing great and you have a chance to win tournaments,
Speaker 1: when the pressure is the most. It seems to me,
Speaker 1: as an outsider looking in, that's when I've watched some
Speaker 1: of the players I've been lucky enough to work with.
Speaker 1: It's like when the when the when the mindset is
Speaker 1: the clearest and the decision making process is the best,
Speaker 1: and you would think that it would just be so yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, obviously, let me just think good when I'm
Speaker 1: playing bad, and it'll just solve everything. But it's hard
Speaker 1: to do that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's just I think a lot of
Speaker 2: it comes back to just the confidence that you have inside.
Speaker 2: It's like you know that, oh, I just double cross
Speaker 2: this driver and I'm making a double bogie here. That's
Speaker 2: gonna piss you off more than if you're playing sweet,
Speaker 2: because you know you can. You can make that ground up.
Speaker 2: So you're gonna handle the bad shot a lot better
Speaker 2: and you're gonna make better decisions because you know it's
Speaker 2: the right play and you know that, Okay, I'm playing nice,
Speaker 2: the right play to this hole is not to go
Speaker 2: at the pen. I need to hit it to thirty
Speaker 2: feet and then par is a good score and I
Speaker 2: can actually make that thirty flitter. Sometimes if you're if
Speaker 2: you have momentum, you feel good, you have good speed
Speaker 2: on the greens, you can make that thirty flitter. You
Speaker 2: turn night into a birdie and now it's just game on.
Speaker 2: Whereas you make that double bogie, now you're pissed off.
Speaker 2: The next hole, you know it's middle of the green,
Speaker 2: you go for it, You short side yourself, and now
Speaker 2: you're even more pissed. So it's like, I think it
Speaker 2: comes down to just a confidence in your game if
Speaker 2: you know that. Okay, I'm yeah, this was one bad
Speaker 2: hole out of the seventy two holes. It's gonna sting.
Speaker 2: You can't get that, you can't get those shots back.
Speaker 2: But at least let's get right on track on the
Speaker 2: next shot, and let's make a good swing and a
Speaker 2: good decision, and let's just get this roundback on track,
Speaker 2: and then maybe on Sunday at the end, maybe you
Speaker 2: have a chance to win. And I mean, I just
Speaker 2: think back to when we played the WGC in where
Speaker 2: was it in in Florida? That one COVID year we're
Speaker 2: calling one concession is a concession. Yeah, And I made
Speaker 2: a quad on the last hole on on Saturday. I
Speaker 2: think I was in like fourth or fifth place and
Speaker 2: made a quad the last hole, and yeah, it was
Speaker 2: way way out of it. But then I played really
Speaker 2: nice on Saturday and even Sunday and finished second. So
Speaker 2: it's like you could easily just let that whole ruin
Speaker 2: your whole week and that was that was that term.
Speaker 2: And I did so well for so long and then
Speaker 2: you make a couple of bad decisions and you're out
Speaker 2: of it. But because that felt good with my game,
Speaker 2: I kept on pushing and just made a lot of
Speaker 2: berties and then on Sunday, actually I think I was
Speaker 2: ty for the lead there with a few holes to go.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's hard to think that way in
Speaker 2: the moment, but when you look back on it, you're like, man,
Speaker 2: I had a good chance to win even with that quad.
Speaker 2: So it's like you're never completely out of it, if
Speaker 2: you know, if you keep playing well and make good decisions.
Speaker 1: The other thing I love about the way you approach golf,
Speaker 1: but also the way you approach life. You're always smiling
Speaker 1: on the golf course. You seem to have a very
Speaker 1: very positive attitude, seem to be able to let things
Speaker 1: kind of not outwardly like I've never seen you throw
Speaker 1: a club or break a club or kick your bag
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I know that bad shots affect you,
Speaker 1: but the mental ass the attitude that you have on
Speaker 1: the golf course, how did you have You always had
Speaker 1: that because you always seem to be one that you're
Speaker 1: always smiling on the driving range, You're always smiling after
Speaker 1: the rounds. It doesn't really regardless of what you shoot.
Speaker 1: You always seem outwardly to be in a good mood.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing I love most about your
Speaker 1: attitude on the golf course is when you make bad swings, stuff,
Speaker 1: you laugh a lot. You're kind of like, there's a
Speaker 1: bad shot, You're you're human and stuff. Have you always
Speaker 1: been able to kind of have that type of attitude
Speaker 1: on the golf course?
Speaker 2: Uh, well, I'd say I probably got you fooled a
Speaker 2: little bit, but well it's just like, yeah.
Speaker 1: But I think that's a huge thing, Victor. You have
Speaker 1: people fooled. So that listen, if you're playing with somebody
Speaker 1: and you're you're in a you're you're coming down to
Speaker 1: stretch and you can see them getting more and more agitated,
Speaker 1: and you can see, you know, we've all seen, you know,
Speaker 1: last week was you know, a great example in LA
Speaker 1: At one point right around that when the leaders made
Speaker 1: the tour, there were five guys sided for the lead,
Speaker 1: right everybody was all of a sudden tied for the lead.
Speaker 1: And three holes later, three of the guys that were
Speaker 1: tied for the lead look like they're shooting ninety and
Speaker 1: their heads down and they're throwing clubs and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and so I think it's a positive that outwardly your
Speaker 1: opponents don't see that you're getting down on yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it just I guess I'm not super
Speaker 2: proud of how I reacted in kind of recent tournaments
Speaker 2: because my swing hasn't kind of been where I wanted,
Speaker 2: and it's it's so frustrating for me because like competing
Speaker 2: and playing and winning, that's fun, but I think it's
Speaker 2: more fun actually hitting the shots that I want to
Speaker 2: just the mastery of the game itself. And it pisses
Speaker 2: me off when I try to hit a certain shot
Speaker 2: and I'm not accomplishing it, So that really just makes
Speaker 2: me mad. So I could be really mad at home
Speaker 2: practicing just out on the golf course, and if I'm
Speaker 2: trying to hit a certain shot and I can't hit it,
Speaker 2: that just irks me. So that will get me really
Speaker 2: really mad. And sometimes I'm in that situation out of
Speaker 2: the tournament, and I'll react that way. I'll react in
Speaker 2: a poor way. But I think it's easier for me
Speaker 2: to like And I've told multiple people to explain kind
Speaker 2: of how my mind works, and I know it doesn't
Speaker 2: maybe make that much sense, but when I'm in a tournament.
Speaker 2: Obviously the score is what matters. But I would much
Speaker 2: rather shoot seventy three and make two double bogies. And
Speaker 2: the two double bogies that I made were perfect swings.
Speaker 2: It was the shot that I wanted to hit, but
Speaker 2: it was the wrong club where I got a bad bounce,
Speaker 2: went over the green or hit or sprinkler head. And
Speaker 2: when ob or whatever it might be, I'd rather take
Speaker 2: the seventy three or seventy four doing that than shooting
Speaker 2: sixty nine and not hit a single good shot and
Speaker 2: just really hacked it around, because that doesn't give me
Speaker 2: a lot of confidence even though.
Speaker 1: You know, the sixty nine still counts, right, it does
Speaker 1: at the end of the week, I know you still
Speaker 1: got you even if you shoot sixty nine of the
Speaker 1: bass truck's bad back, you still get to take the score.
Speaker 2: I know. But it's like, that's just kind of how
Speaker 2: my mind works, and i'd like to that's why you're good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so then when I'm playing well and I'm making
Speaker 2: a mistake, Yeah, it pisses me off in the moment
Speaker 2: because I know how valuable those shots are. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, I can I can look back and Okay,
Speaker 2: that was just a bad club I miss, I misjudged
Speaker 2: the wind or whatever it might be. It was just
Speaker 2: a bad, bad swing at the wrong time. But I
Speaker 2: know that my fundamentals and what I'm doing right now
Speaker 2: is good, and I'm probably gonna play good tomorrow because
Speaker 2: i know the fundamentals are good. But it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I shot even last LA. Last week, I finished nineteenth
Speaker 2: and I shot under par every single round, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't good. Like I didn't hit it very good. So
Speaker 2: that doesn't give me a lot of confidence. Now I'll
Speaker 2: turn that into a positive thing that, Okay, I hit
Speaker 2: it awful the whole week. I didn't play well at all,
Speaker 2: but I still finished top twenty at a hard golf
Speaker 2: course among some of the best players in the world.
Speaker 2: So I'll turn that into a positive. But I'm not
Speaker 2: going to trick myself into thinking, oh, I'm playing well,
Speaker 2: It's all good. No, I got to get to home
Speaker 2: and get back to work.
Speaker 1: Second it the PGA last year, you were in the
Speaker 1: last group with Brooks Majors. Obviously, when you get to
Speaker 1: a stage that you're at, you've been on a winning
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup team, you've won the FedEx, you've won PGA
Speaker 1: Tour events, You've won on the DP World Tour, You've
Speaker 1: won on an iconic golf courses. You won in Dubai,
Speaker 1: you won Jack's Place. What'd you learn from the final
Speaker 1: round of Sunday at Oakhill Because you didn't play that's
Speaker 1: one of those rounds you didn't shoot. You didn't go
Speaker 1: out and shoot seventy five seventy seven and lose it.
Speaker 1: You shot in the sixties, didn't get it done. Did
Speaker 1: you learn anything that day from that experience?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a good segue as to what I
Speaker 2: was talking about. Yeah, because just before, because I was
Speaker 2: really proud of myself how I handled going up against
Speaker 2: now a five time major champion Brooks and on Sunday.
Speaker 2: You know, he he's got the intimidation factor and.
Speaker 1: What is the intimidation factor that he has the fact
Speaker 1: that he's you know, he's won four majors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he's been in that situation before and he
Speaker 2: doesn't really back out. You know, he's gonna show up
Speaker 2: and play well. Obviously, his demeanor a big guy, doesn't
Speaker 2: talk too much. He's not going to be out Sir Miles. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it hits so far. So you just like you know
Speaker 2: that he's not gonna he's pulling.
Speaker 1: On the golf course. The way he plays golf is
Speaker 1: very much he's gonna beat the golf course down. Like
Speaker 1: you said, he doesn't talk to anybody, and I respect that.
Speaker 2: I think that's cool. And I really enjoyed just going
Speaker 2: up against him and playing against him, and I knew
Speaker 2: that my game's good enough to beat him, and I
Speaker 2: really felt like I did a good job. Now, the
Speaker 2: bunker situation on sixteen, that's one of those things where okay,
Speaker 2: I made a double bogie there, but yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 2: the best drive, but it was just one of those moments.
Speaker 2: It was the wrong shot at the wrong time, and
Speaker 2: I got, what were you saying?
Speaker 1: So in that moment, give me the yardage that you had.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't remember all the specifics, but you probably guys.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's probably in the one.
Speaker 2: I think it was one one sixty yards. Ye, it
Speaker 2: was on the downs right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 1: Did it look like you could clear the lip? And
Speaker 1: what club did you did you were you in between
Speaker 1: clubs or did the first club you pulled in that
Speaker 1: situation you went, okay, this is the one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might have been closer one sixty five because
Speaker 2: I was in between a nine and eight, but I
Speaker 2: figured the pins slightly further back. I'm just gonna hit
Speaker 2: the nine, keep it a little bit short, and that's
Speaker 2: obviously gonna help me clear the lip. Now it's on
Speaker 2: a downslope. The lie wasn't all that great, so my
Speaker 2: thoughts are, okay, well, I got to make sure I
Speaker 2: hit the ball first, so I just guarantee contact or
Speaker 2: else the nine is just not going to get there.
Speaker 2: And obviously it's on the downslope. So when I catch
Speaker 2: ball first, I catch it slightly thin and it just
Speaker 2: doesn't come out. And you know that that happens most
Speaker 2: of the time. It either hits the lip of the
Speaker 2: bunker and comes out, or worst case, it stays in
Speaker 2: the bunker. But now hopefully I have a better lie.
Speaker 2: But it ended up being plugged in there, and now
Speaker 2: I got to take an unplayable and now I still
Speaker 2: got a layup from there. So it was just a
Speaker 2: bad break. And yeah, you don't like hindsight.
Speaker 1: Do you take wedge and just chip it up?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No, it was just so if you had it to
Speaker 1: do over again, you choose the same club, which I listen.
Speaker 1: I love the fact that it's always easy to second
Speaker 1: guess it, right, it's always easy to go that. But
Speaker 1: I love the fact that you're saying, hey, I do
Speaker 1: it again, and I just execute better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, I mean I just still think back
Speaker 2: to how I played before that. Now, I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: I if I would have made a couple more putts
Speaker 2: like Brooks had has putter going really nicely.
Speaker 1: Thirteen from far from twelve feet, it was big down
Speaker 1: the hill on a par five. The last thing you
Speaker 1: want to do is make bogie there, go on the
Speaker 1: driveable par four on the next one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: When you play a golf course like that, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a hard, kind of old school Northeast golf course.
Speaker 1: You know, the golf course isn't going to give you
Speaker 1: a lot. So when you're going out on a Sunday
Speaker 1: in the last group in a major on a hard
Speaker 1: golf course like that, the mindset is, Okay, these are
Speaker 1: the holes that I feel like I have to take
Speaker 1: advantage of. These are the holes or the stretch of
Speaker 1: holes where hey, if I can just get through these
Speaker 1: with pars hang on, is that what you're thinking?
Speaker 2: Kind of? But it's also because when you don't make
Speaker 2: birdie on the easier holes out there, that could kind
Speaker 2: of stress you out a little bit. And that's where
Speaker 2: I think the confidence comes in with your ball striking
Speaker 2: that okay, I can hit the shots, and even on
Speaker 2: the hardest shot, hardest holes on the golf course, you can.
Speaker 2: You can hit two nice shots and give yourself a
Speaker 2: birdie look and maybe sneak in a birdie where most
Speaker 2: guys are making bogies, and that's when you could really
Speaker 2: that's how you're going to win tournaments. You know you're
Speaker 2: not going to do that consistently, but you make birdie
Speaker 2: on the easier holes and make a lot of pars
Speaker 2: on the tougher ones. That's kind of how you want
Speaker 2: it to set up. But if you want to separate
Speaker 2: yourself and win the major champions ships, sometimes you have
Speaker 2: to birdy the hard holes as well, and that that
Speaker 2: entails you know, having a four RN into part three
Speaker 2: even to stand up and hit and just stuff that.
Speaker 2: I think every.
Speaker 1: Tournament, especially the bigger the tournament, the bigger the golf course,
Speaker 1: there's always that moment to where it if you're watching,
Speaker 1: but for you, for us, for all of us on
Speaker 1: the inner workings of it. You're like, Okay, you just
Speaker 1: got to stand up and hit a good shot here.
Speaker 1: I had Matthew Bavon on the Pody. He was talking
Speaker 1: about that at Tory Pines. You go to toy there's
Speaker 1: no bail out there. You know that if you want
Speaker 1: to win the golf tournament, you got to stand up
Speaker 1: and you just got to hit really good shots, and
Speaker 1: really good shots, like you said, sometimes are really good shots.
Speaker 1: It's a four iron from your over two hundred yards
Speaker 1: to twenty five thirty feet and that's a good shot.
Speaker 1: It's not the it's not the seven iron to three
Speaker 1: feet and everybody claps. Sometimes the great shots when you
Speaker 1: win these tournaments, or the ones that nobody really other
Speaker 1: than the people that you were playing with, or the
Speaker 1: really the people that are watching that are playing that
Speaker 1: are going he won the tournament by making par there,
Speaker 1: and everybody thinks he won the tournament by the two birdies.
Speaker 1: You're like, no, no, it was it was standing up
Speaker 1: hitting a really good drive here. Yeah, really get you
Speaker 1: had a chance. It's seventh at the Masters last year. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's the first major of the year. It's at the
Speaker 1: same golf course every year. What do you like about
Speaker 1: Augusta's course, and how do you think Augusta plays well
Speaker 1: for your guys, Because I think it's a really good
Speaker 1: golf course for the way that you play with as
Speaker 1: high as you can hit the golf ball with as
Speaker 1: high as you can hit your irons. I just think
Speaker 1: Augusta is one of those places where you're going to
Speaker 1: be one of those players Vic that's always going to
Speaker 1: be a guy that is a threat around that golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to think so.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you were low am there as an
Speaker 1: amateur when you were the Usam champion, so obviously I
Speaker 1: also think it's the type of golf course if you
Speaker 1: play well there as an amateur and you turn pro
Speaker 1: and you know that you're going to continue to play there,
Speaker 1: you've got to say, Okay, I got here and I
Speaker 1: really didn't know anything, and my game when I came
Speaker 1: here in twenty eighteen was much raw than it is now.
Speaker 1: So going into the first major of the year, when
Speaker 1: you get to a what do you like about that
Speaker 1: golf course and what do you think having played there
Speaker 1: and having had a top ten last year, what do
Speaker 1: you feel like you have to do well there for
Speaker 1: the week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think it's really cool every time I
Speaker 2: show up there and you learn something new. There's so
Speaker 2: many slopes and undulations and where to miss it, where
Speaker 2: not to miss it. You always learn something and I
Speaker 2: think that's really cool. I think that's why it's so
Speaker 2: hard for first timers out there to do really really well,
Speaker 2: because there's so much experience that that leads to a
Speaker 2: huge advantage. And it is really really tough, especially certain
Speaker 2: pin locations and when the conditions, if there's win around there,
Speaker 2: it becomes very very difficult. But it's one of those
Speaker 2: places you don't have to be perfect. It's really hard,
Speaker 2: but you don't have to be perfect if you know
Speaker 2: where to miss it.
Speaker 1: And I think so many players there vic they do
Speaker 1: the Jedi mind trick on themselves there because they're trying
Speaker 1: to be so perfect that because you know that to
Speaker 1: win around there it does take historically some element of
Speaker 1: perfection or knowledge or something like that. But I think
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing you say is sometimes you can get
Speaker 1: into trying to be so perfect, trying to you know,
Speaker 1: everybody knows, you know the seventh Green. There's places where
Speaker 1: they put that pin where you've got five yards a
Speaker 1: five yard square to land it, to get it close. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when they put that pin back right on six, you know,
Speaker 1: to get it close there there's a very small landing spot.
Speaker 1: But you're saying that maybe sometimes you try and become
Speaker 1: too perfect and you don't hit the right shot that
Speaker 1: you need to hit, and you didn't maybe need to
Speaker 1: be that perfect around Augusta.
Speaker 2: That was kind of the week. Joe Mayo was out
Speaker 2: there watching me, and he had watched me play all
Speaker 2: the termins that I played up to that point earlier
Speaker 2: in the year, and he kind of said it middle
Speaker 2: of the week that there's something wrong, like the strategy
Speaker 2: is wrong, and that was kind of the impetus to
Speaker 2: us talking deeper to Eduardo and figuring some more stats out.
Speaker 2: And it showed in the aftermath that with seven irons
Speaker 2: an inn, I was way too aggressive and I was
Speaker 2: short sighted myself over two times as much as a
Speaker 2: normal or the average iron player on tour, which I'm
Speaker 2: above average with my irons, so you would think I
Speaker 2: would short side myself less, but I short sighted myself
Speaker 2: two and a half times more, which that's that's hard
Speaker 2: to make up for, and especially at Masters or Augusta very.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of play system. There's no real stretches
Speaker 1: of that golf course other than the par fives where
Speaker 1: I would imagine as a player mentally, you're like, this
Speaker 1: is a birdie hole. Yeah, And once you get to
Speaker 1: the weekend, it feels like because of the weekend and Augusta,
Speaker 1: if you're kind of around the lead, I would imagine
Speaker 1: you feel like, Okay, I got a birdie two and
Speaker 1: then I've got a birdie sixteen, I've got a birdie thirteen,
Speaker 1: and I've got a birdie eight. Other than that, I'm
Speaker 1: basically just trying to hang on. But you are going
Speaker 1: to get days vic where the weather's good, where maybe
Speaker 1: it's a little bit soft, and there is going to
Speaker 1: be that player that goes out under really good conditions
Speaker 1: and shoots six under seven under. But I think that
Speaker 1: golf course more than any because it's the same. There's
Speaker 1: it mind tricks you into going because you know where
Speaker 1: all the problems are. You've seen where everybody you know,
Speaker 1: I mean nineteen, you know you got three groups, two groups,
Speaker 1: three players in a row, rinse it in the water
Speaker 1: and all make double bogin tiger hits. It left the
Speaker 1: aims left of the green, hits twenty feet and gets out.
Speaker 1: Do you think sometimes Augusta the way it's designed and
Speaker 1: the design of it. I mean Alistair McKenzie, the great designer.
Speaker 1: You know what his job was in the military, right
Speaker 1: I camouflage? Oh, camouflage the military. Somebody told me that
Speaker 1: once and I was living in Scotland. They're like, he
Speaker 1: he was an expert in camouflage. So if you think
Speaker 1: about if you look at most Alistair McKenzie, you go
Speaker 1: to the first hole at Augusta and stand and look back,
Speaker 1: you can never see any of the bunkers. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: when you're on the green and look back, you can't
Speaker 1: see where any of the bunkers are because of the
Speaker 1: way they're designed. So does Augusta mentally? Can it mentally
Speaker 1: get in your head because you're like, Okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: supposed to be under par because the golf course is
Speaker 1: so hard. If you make the turn in three four
Speaker 1: under and you get a good look at ten, you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: I can go to four or five under here, but
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to be four or five under because
Speaker 1: the golf course is so hard.
Speaker 2: Uh. Not so much that way but it's more like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm just for example of the first round last year,
Speaker 2: I was seven hundred part through thirteen and I ended
Speaker 2: up shooting seven under par that first round. But I
Speaker 2: was doing things like number nine. The pen was all
Speaker 2: the way left, back left, and I'm on a slope
Speaker 2: that's you know, the ball's below my feet. And I
Speaker 2: also like to hit a cut. SHA's telling me it
Speaker 2: was a full nine iron. SHA's like I would just
Speaker 2: just hit it thirty feet right of the pin, and
Speaker 2: I'm just like, no, no, no, I got this one. I
Speaker 2: hit a cut off the bunker, land it left of
Speaker 2: the pen and hit it to like two feet and
Speaker 2: Shash's laughing because like it was nice. I got to
Speaker 2: five under par after nine. But my point that it's
Speaker 2: no stupid.
Speaker 1: Nobody is thinking from that lie ball below your feet
Speaker 1: the back left pin because you put it in that bunker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's bogey every time you could still be
Speaker 2: in there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then you're in that bunker and you're trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, if I can get this inside of
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty feet, this is an unbelievable shot. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: that's I know. Shay's walking to the green looking at
Speaker 1: you going, and all of the veterans that would watch
Speaker 1: you hit that shot would just go, yeah, but is
Speaker 1: that a situation where the percentages your caddy sent but
Speaker 1: you just see the shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean that was like that was kind of
Speaker 2: the impetus to that changing of strategy because I think
Speaker 2: it's like his borderline, right, Oh, it's it's way beyond
Speaker 2: reckless because I played with Tiger in that round and
Speaker 2: I remember I was, no.
Speaker 1: He's looking at you going, just put this ink twenty
Speaker 1: feet because there's never been a player and you've gotten
Speaker 1: to play with him a lot. And one of the
Speaker 1: other things that I wanted to ask you, I marvel
Speaker 1: at this and I asked Shay about this as well
Speaker 1: after the Ryder Cup. Very similar to Tiger. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a player hit the ball pin high or past
Speaker 1: the pin as much as you do, for as an
Speaker 1: elite of a player as you are. Tiger always you
Speaker 1: played a lot the guy don't sit the pin high
Speaker 1: all the time. And it's an art form, but at
Speaker 1: I noticed it a lot because I was doing TV
Speaker 1: at the Ryder Cup. You hit it pin high or
Speaker 1: one or two yards past the pin, so many times
Speaker 1: during the course of a round. It is that by design?
Speaker 1: Is that something that you're even conscious of.
Speaker 2: I'd say when I when I play my best golf
Speaker 2: with my irons, I have like because on the range
Speaker 2: you always just hit a full swing, just a normal
Speaker 2: full swing. But on the course you never have a
Speaker 2: perfect number. You always got to take a little bit
Speaker 2: off or hit it slightly harder. And when I play
Speaker 2: my best golf, I I have taken more club unless
Speaker 2: it's like a short pin and you got to stop
Speaker 2: the ball quickly. I take more club and hit like
Speaker 2: a three quarter punch shot, but it has enough spin
Speaker 2: on the ball to where it just launches slightly lower,
Speaker 2: it spins up in the air and I just have
Speaker 2: a lot of control with it that way. So to
Speaker 2: those back pin I can hit like a low six
Speaker 2: siron that lands twenty five feet short of it skips
Speaker 2: up and just releases slightly instead of oh I got
Speaker 2: to hit a perfect seven iron to maybe get it
Speaker 2: within twenty feet and then the bad swing or when
Speaker 2: it comes up it's probably thirty forty feet short and
Speaker 2: you're just always lag putting from there. So that's kind
Speaker 2: of a place where I would just take slightly more
Speaker 2: club and I would just be very comfortable with those
Speaker 2: three quarter shots and you can squeeze that into a
Speaker 2: lot of corners on the green instead of just Okay,
Speaker 2: well I don't have a perfect number, so I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna hit the full swing middle of the green. You
Speaker 2: kind of handcuff yourself that way.
Speaker 1: Tiger, you've won the hero twice. He's gotten to give
Speaker 1: you the trophy. That's the Tiger. But I would imagine,
Speaker 1: out of all the places, if you're gonna get paired
Speaker 1: with Tiger Woods, if you get paired with Tiger at Augusta,
Speaker 1: it's got to be really hard during the round to
Speaker 1: not be trying to like figure out, Okay, what's he doing?
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the strategy? Or because I mean, he
Speaker 1: is such a savant genius, he's won so many times
Speaker 1: around that golf course. Is it hard when you when
Speaker 1: you're playing with Tiger and Augusta, did not watch him
Speaker 1: and not watch what he's doing.
Speaker 2: I'd say, Now, I've only played with him two times,
Speaker 2: but when I played with him there, obviously it was
Speaker 2: really cool. It was a cool place to play with
Speaker 2: him at. But I'm still a competitor and he's he's
Speaker 2: playing against me, so I'm gonna try to beat him,
Speaker 2: and so I don't pay too much attention. And I
Speaker 2: didn't want to be the guy that he does up
Speaker 2: and just like, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's Tony tried to talk. You've heard that story, right,
Speaker 1: I haven't. So Tony played a bunch of practice rounds
Speaker 1: with him and played a lot of rounds with him,
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean, obviously they're boys and stuff.
Speaker 1: But nineteen t Dove's in the last group, a chance
Speaker 1: to win, and Tony's trying to talk to him, like
Speaker 1: through a couple of rounds, and I've got to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, He's lucky. Tony's lucky that Stevie wasn't
Speaker 1: on about Kastevia would have ran him out earlier. But
Speaker 1: the difference between all of the sudden Tiger when he's
Speaker 1: in the hunt, like you said, you're a competitor, so
Speaker 1: you're not gonna fanboy and watch whatever. I mean, he
Speaker 1: is the ultimate. I mean, he not gonna watch what
Speaker 1: anybody else is doing. And you were born when in
Speaker 1: the year that he won the Masters for the first
Speaker 1: time in ninety seven, was he your idol growing up?
Speaker 1: Was was I mean, everybody I think of your age
Speaker 1: group idolizes him. But was he kind of the catalyst
Speaker 1: as to one of the reasons why you chose golf
Speaker 1: as a path for basically your entire life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say so.
Speaker 1: I mean did he get play in Norway? I mean
Speaker 1: Norway not a huge golf country. I mean Henrik Bjornstad
Speaker 1: one of the all time best European tour bear Town
Speaker 1: love him if you haven't watched he who's the other
Speaker 1: guy that does the commentary when you're winning golf tournaments?
Speaker 1: I mean, there should be an all alternative live feed
Speaker 1: every time you play competitive golf with the two Norwegian
Speaker 1: commentators because their enthusiasm for it. But was Tiger a
Speaker 1: big deal growing up in Norway?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean people in Norway didn't really watch golf
Speaker 2: too much. There's a few people that would watch Henry
Speaker 2: dorn Stat as you mentioned when he was playing a
Speaker 2: few years ago. And you know the people that played
Speaker 2: and knew, they knew. But I'd say most other people,
Speaker 2: they were like, oh, you play golf, I only know
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods. So everyone knew who Tiger Woods was. And
Speaker 2: I just remember in high school and even before that,
Speaker 2: I would just when we had computers in class. I
Speaker 2: would just watch on YouTube, just Tiger Woods highlight reels
Speaker 2: and yeah, just getting like hairs on my back and just.
Speaker 1: Someone that watched that. I was lucky enough. You know,
Speaker 1: my dad started coaching him in ninety three. I took
Speaker 1: the first the video. You'll see some video of my
Speaker 1: dad with the straw hat on. Yeah, I took the
Speaker 1: I was running the video that day, so I was
Speaker 1: there that first day. Yeah. So you're of that generation
Speaker 1: that never really got to see him play play. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you watch it on YouTube. I say this to everybody.
Speaker 1: You're it, I promise you as good as you think
Speaker 1: it was, it was so much better. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: so much better than we remember now. He just was amazing.
Speaker 1: Is it crazy to you to think now that when
Speaker 1: you go back to Norway, surely you must get recognized
Speaker 1: now as an athlete, as someone who is doing great things.
Speaker 1: When you were growing up, you told people what you did,
Speaker 1: you were playing golf, and they're like, I don't know
Speaker 1: any golfers are just no tiger Woods. Now you are
Speaker 1: going to be someone that someone thirteen fourteen years old
Speaker 1: that wants to play golf is going to go I
Speaker 1: know Victor Hovlin, I mean does that I mean, and
Speaker 1: are you getting when you just got back? I know
Speaker 1: you went home over over Christmas and over the holidays.
Speaker 1: Do you get recognized now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say so, especially if I go to a
Speaker 2: golf course. That's that's really cool. Obviously the pandemic helped
Speaker 2: people kind of get into golf a little bit more
Speaker 2: because it was a sport you can be outside and
Speaker 2: still be social and have fun. But definitely seems to
Speaker 2: like us Norwegian says people, we're kinda we're very patriotic
Speaker 2: when our countrymen do something good, like Magnus Carlson when
Speaker 2: he's I mean, when he beats everyone in chess, everyone
Speaker 2: just starts playing chess. And I remember Torre who's sold
Speaker 2: he was in Tour de France and then suddenly everyone
Speaker 2: starts cycling. And so Norwegians are very much like that.
Speaker 2: And now it seems like, oh, now people people that
Speaker 2: don't play golf, they watch golf because they want to
Speaker 2: support me or whoever it might be. So that's that's
Speaker 2: really cool that I can kind of play a part
Speaker 2: of inspiring other people from Norway, as I was inspired
Speaker 2: by Tiger and other guys when I once watched them
Speaker 2: when I was younger.
Speaker 1: Crazy times in golf in twenty twenty four, VIC twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, what would you like to see? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there's it seems like there's so much upheaval
Speaker 1: Live SSG coming in for the tour now, Like a
Speaker 1: lot of players, I know, the Live guys made you
Speaker 1: an offer. You chose to stay. Some of your Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup teammates and Terrell Hatton and Gen Ram chose to go.
Speaker 1: But for you as a player and you as a
Speaker 1: person and as a professional golfer. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: what direction would you like to see the game go
Speaker 1: in as a way to maybe try and change things
Speaker 1: from what it has been. Yeah, because I think I
Speaker 1: think I've gotten to know you over the last you know,
Speaker 1: career four years. I think you're a really bright thinker.
Speaker 1: You're smart, You're inquisitive, You're a curious person. You ask
Speaker 1: questions as one of the things I like talking to
Speaker 1: you because you ask questions. Sometimes people don't really ask.
Speaker 1: So what are the questions you still have and what
Speaker 1: would you like to see maybe this look like one day?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I like to ask questions because
Speaker 2: I don't know a whole lot myself. So if I
Speaker 2: ask more questions and I get more information, then I
Speaker 2: can make a better decision. And that's I think that's
Speaker 2: the frustrating part from my standpoint is that us as players,
Speaker 2: things haven't been very transparent for us, So it's hard
Speaker 2: for us to when you're asking me a question here
Speaker 2: and I want to be truthful and give you a
Speaker 2: straight kind of answer. Yeah, So I just don't know,
Speaker 2: but I would like to see. Obviously, the Live is
Speaker 2: bringing in a lot of money to the sport and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of competition, which I think is good,
Speaker 2: but it seems to have been a response from the
Speaker 2: PGA tourist side that Okay, we're gonna it's just more
Speaker 2: talk about the money, and I think that's a little
Speaker 2: bit sad. Now, money is important and everyone needs to
Speaker 2: get paid accordingly in a fair way, but I don't
Speaker 2: think that needs to be like the driving force behind
Speaker 2: this or the story every single week. It's like not
Speaker 2: to dog on a tournament here or there, but like
Speaker 2: you could put the price or the the purse for
Speaker 2: John Deer to six million bucks to first first place,
Speaker 2: but I'd much rather win a Memorial or a tournament like.
Speaker 1: Because of the history and the golf course, Yeah, Jack
Speaker 1: and something like that. Listen, I think that every player
Speaker 1: on tour wants to win a golf tournament on an
Speaker 1: iconic golf course. I mean last week DJ was up
Speaker 1: here over the weekend hitting some golf balls and he's
Speaker 1: on his phone watching the early coverage of Riviera, and
Speaker 1: I was like, what you doing. He's like, it's my
Speaker 1: favorite golf course. It's like, I was so lucky to
Speaker 1: win there. I just cool love it. He named his
Speaker 1: son River after Riviera, so it is a golf course
Speaker 1: after River. So DJ loves that golf course, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: he just loves it. And so for you, winning at
Speaker 1: a place like Memorial, obviously your first win in Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico is huge, but when you win a tournament at
Speaker 1: Jack's place, all the people that have won there before,
Speaker 1: it's an iconic PGA Tour golf course. Yeah, for you,
Speaker 1: it means something winning on those type of winning those
Speaker 1: type of tournaments, in winning on those type of golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the thing. You're gonna have those memories
Speaker 2: of winning that event, seeing kind of your name on
Speaker 2: that trophy and the history.
Speaker 1: Of all the standing there we walk off.
Speaker 2: That's that's pretty cool. Obviously the paycheck is nice as well,
Speaker 2: but that's if that's what you're remembering by the end
Speaker 2: of the week. I kinda that feels a little bit
Speaker 2: soulless in my opinion, So you know, it's, uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know what the path forward is. To be honest,
Speaker 2: it's been, uh it's been a little sad, but I
Speaker 2: try not to think about it too much. It's a
Speaker 2: little comical, to be honest, to see what's going on
Speaker 2: in the game of golf. But I hope there's a
Speaker 2: resolution in the future because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: I just want to compete at the best golf courses,
Speaker 2: the best tournament. I guess the best players, and it's
Speaker 2: the simplest that. However that's going to happen. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but that's what I would like to see.
Speaker 1: I think there are supposed to be smarter people than
Speaker 1: usick trying to figure that out. Lastly, your love of
Speaker 1: death metal, where did it? Where did it come from?
Speaker 1: That genre of music? The people like yourself that are
Speaker 1: big into death metal. You're big into death metal. I
Speaker 1: mean it's big, and give me some bands that are
Speaker 1: your favorite. But when did you start listening to death metal?
Speaker 2: Well, I've always been a linking park kind of guy,
Speaker 2: so I liked rock, but I didn't really I was
Speaker 2: too young to really know that, oh, this is rock
Speaker 2: or hard rock or alternative, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 2: And my Swedish coach at the time, when I was
Speaker 2: kind of twelve thirteen years old, we because it was
Speaker 2: winter in Norway, snow everywhere, so we decided to take
Speaker 2: a road trip to Sweden for the weekend and because
Speaker 2: we could practice her a little bit. And he's kind
Speaker 2: of an old school hard rocker, heavy metal guy, so
Speaker 2: Iron Maiden, Romstein and and kind of those those bigger bands,
Speaker 2: Guns and Roses all that stuff. So as he's playing
Speaker 2: that in the car, I'm thinking this is pretty good.
Speaker 2: I like this stuff. And after the trip I went
Speaker 2: home just google on YouTube or search on YouTube best
Speaker 2: metal songs, and the first thing that pops up is
Speaker 2: a system of a down chop Suey and I start
Speaker 2: playing it. It's super melodic. In the beginning, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is pretty cool, and then they just start screaming yeah,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, wow, this is this is a lot,
Speaker 2: this is aggressive, and I listened to it. I didn't
Speaker 2: really like it. I turned it off, and then a
Speaker 2: couple of days after I came back to it, I
Speaker 2: listened to it again, and then I listened to it again,
Speaker 2: and then I just realized, Okay, I kind of I
Speaker 2: kind of get it now. It's just something clicked to
Speaker 2: where I understood the message, or it just instead.
Speaker 1: Some of those songs gonna be like quite melodic and stuff,
Speaker 1: and then it turns into the you know, the guitar
Speaker 1: and all the drums and that kind of yeah.
Speaker 2: And then instead of being like whoa backing off and
Speaker 2: what is this? This is aggressive? I just kind of
Speaker 2: accepted it and understood it, and then from then on
Speaker 2: it was just okay, how extreme can I get?
Speaker 1: So you there's there's death metal, and then there's Scandinavian,
Speaker 1: Swedish Norwegian death metal, which is like, I mean that's
Speaker 1: like someone being yeah, he's a scratch golfer, and then
Speaker 1: there's like a plus five. I mean, if if we're
Speaker 1: going for death metal, I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm not like because in Norway we're very
Speaker 2: known for black metal, and I just haven't delved into
Speaker 2: that at all. That's not really my style. Because what's
Speaker 2: cool the more you get into metal, metal as a
Speaker 2: as a genre is so big. You have so many
Speaker 2: subgenres within metal, and I've gravitated. Like in Sweden they
Speaker 2: have a lot of melodic death metal is what they call,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of bands like in Flames that's
Speaker 2: old school and and like that that I just like
Speaker 2: their their sound and their style. And then now in
Speaker 2: recent years, I've listened to a lot to a band
Speaker 2: called Vildiarta and that's like, are they from They're from
Speaker 2: Sweden as well, but it's not like I mean, they
Speaker 2: could they say that there's their genres kind of fall
Speaker 2: that's what they call, and it's just like they've kind
Speaker 2: of created their own genre because it's so it's so
Speaker 2: out there, and I just think it's, Uh, it's not
Speaker 2: something that I listened to all the time because it's
Speaker 2: pretty intense and it's just you kind of have to
Speaker 2: sit down and pay attention to it. But I think
Speaker 2: it's h I just remember listening to the recent album
Speaker 2: they posted a couple of years ago, and it had
Speaker 2: taken them over ten years from their first album, uh
Speaker 2: to make the newest one, and I could just as
Speaker 2: I'm listening to it, you can hear like a lot
Speaker 2: of what do they call it easter eggs in this
Speaker 2: new album, Like riffs and sounds and melodies that they
Speaker 2: had in the first album incorporated into the newer album.
Speaker 2: So it was just like, as I'm listening to it,
Speaker 2: the beats are awesome, or the the rifts are off awesome,
Speaker 2: and it's just the sound is great, and then you
Speaker 2: hear the old sounds that you've heard before into a
Speaker 2: new song. It was just it was unbelievable. So ever
Speaker 2: since then, I've just kind of considered that band as
Speaker 2: my favorite band. Go to shows, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 2: I much prefer just put the headphones on and just
Speaker 2: be in my bedroom and just chilling out.
Speaker 1: Lastly, lastly, goals for this year. You know, obviously coming
Speaker 1: off of a monster I mean there are years and
Speaker 1: then there are monster years. I mean, the way you
Speaker 1: played last year, you win the tournaments that you want,
Speaker 1: you you you win late in the and then win
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to back that up, right, But
Speaker 1: obviously you're one of the players that every single major
Speaker 1: that's going to be played for the next ten years,
Speaker 1: your name is going to be penciled in as one
Speaker 1: of the favorites. So what are the goals this year
Speaker 1: and how do you go about trying to back up,
Speaker 1: like I said, a breakthrough, monster career year for you
Speaker 1: in really you know, you've had one of the you've
Speaker 1: had a career year really before you're thirty. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean been on two or five years now and you've
Speaker 1: had that monster like Jordan Speed. Jordan Speed had a
Speaker 1: just a wins two majors. I mean, where do you
Speaker 1: go from there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely would like to win a major and
Speaker 2: win a lot of tournaments, keep winning tournaments. But I'm
Speaker 2: not a guy that sets schools like that. I know
Speaker 2: what I need to work on in my golfspeling or
Speaker 2: on the greens during the short game just or outside
Speaker 2: of golf, and I'd like to just keep improving on
Speaker 2: that and just get a little better all the time.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, I can't really I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: I'm in somewhat of a control, but I can't control
Speaker 2: if I'm gonna win that PGA at O Kill this
Speaker 2: or last year. It's one of those things that at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, yes, I finished second, and
Speaker 2: it was brutaled away that I finished second, but I
Speaker 2: was very happy with the way that I played, how
Speaker 2: much I had improved in just a short span of time.
Speaker 2: And if I continue to do the right things and
Speaker 2: I see things improving, I'm gonna win tournaments and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have good results. So that's kind of just how
Speaker 2: I think about it, just constantly trying to get a
Speaker 2: little bit better.
Speaker 1: Well, I've been around professional golfick my whole life, and
Speaker 1: you know, rarely do we see a player like you
Speaker 1: that has not only all the tools that you have,
Speaker 1: but I think the way that you think, in the
Speaker 1: way that your brain works, and kind of your approach
Speaker 1: to golf, I just think is so refreshing. And it's
Speaker 1: been really fun to watch all the success you've had.
Speaker 1: And I will be shocked in two three years now
Speaker 1: if you don't have multiple major championships, because you're sure no,
Speaker 1: But Vic, your game is so good and you are
Speaker 1: such a kind of breath of fresh air to competitive golf.
Speaker 1: Like I said, the way you're always smiling, but the
Speaker 1: game that you have is just it is so so
Speaker 1: fun to watch, and I just I just think this
Speaker 1: guy's the limit for you, man, I I and I
Speaker 1: think if you're not, even though the world rankings are
Speaker 1: kind of a little bit weird now, but I don't
Speaker 1: see any reason why you're not number one in the
Speaker 1: world in the next three years, because that's how good
Speaker 1: you are.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to watch. And I can't thank you
Speaker 1: enough for taking time to talk to us.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the Chack Claude.
Speaker 1: So that was Victor Hoblin and it's easily one of
Speaker 1: my favorite pods. Like I said, I'm a fanboy, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was fan boeing the entire time I'm
Speaker 1: talking to Vic because I really like him as a person.
Speaker 1: I really like him as a player, and I just
Speaker 1: I love his game and I love his approach, the
Speaker 1: way he plays golf. I love the fact that, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about the fact that he was a terrible
Speaker 1: chipper when he came out onto her, and you know,
Speaker 1: he fixed that, and you know, a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: I think Vick is kind of fearless. He's a fun guy.
Speaker 1: He's like, he's joined my club, the Floridian. So I
Speaker 1: get to kind of get to talk to him when
Speaker 1: he's home and get to kind of watch him work
Speaker 1: and watch him hit balls and watch how he goes
Speaker 1: about doing things, and I'm a fan, so to be
Speaker 1: able to sit down and talk to him was a
Speaker 1: really really cool experience for me. Like I said at
Speaker 1: the top of the show, two million downloads, that is
Speaker 1: just it's mind boggling to me, and I'm incredibly humbled
Speaker 1: that everyone listens on a weekly basis, and we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to try and get you more guests. But
Speaker 1: the main thing we're going to try and get you
Speaker 1: to do is help you with your game so that
Speaker 1: when you go out and play, you've got things you
Speaker 1: can work on, ideas ways to play golf, and hopefully
Speaker 1: by listening to the podcast, you take away something not
Speaker 1: only from something that I've said or one of the players,
Speaker 1: or the other coaches or the other guests we've had
Speaker 1: on that can maybe help you shoot lower scores and
Speaker 1: enjoy your golf more. So, thank everybody for listening. Son
Speaker 1: of A which comes to you every Wednesday, and we
Speaker 1: will see you next week.