Speaker 1: It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Claude Harmon. This week the second major of the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five season, the PGA Championship, which will be held
Speaker 1: at Quail Hollow, And this week on the podcast, Jason
Speaker 1: Duffner the twenty thirteen PGA champion. He won that at
Speaker 1: Oak Hill, lost in a playoff in twenty eleven. A
Speaker 1: King in Bradley in Atlanta, got his high at six
Speaker 1: in the world rankings back in twenty twelve, was on
Speaker 1: the Ryder Cup team in twelve, President's Cup team in thirteen,
Speaker 1: And Jason Duffner back in the day was an elite
Speaker 1: ball striker. He had a beautiful golf swing. He's a
Speaker 1: thinker about the game of golf. He's a student about
Speaker 1: the game of golf. So really cool to have him
Speaker 1: on to talk about what it takes to win and
Speaker 1: his career. But before that, our friends at Cober Golf
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Speaker 1: driver models. It went straight in my bag. Love it,
Speaker 1: love the way it looks. Go check it out. But
Speaker 1: it's a major week and getting an opportunity to talk
Speaker 1: to a major champion like Jason Duffer really really cool
Speaker 1: and like I said, he's a student of the game
Speaker 1: and he talks a lot about kind of how he
Speaker 1: thinks about golf. And this is a good one. So
Speaker 1: sit back and enjoy listening to Jason Duffner. Doff, you
Speaker 1: turned pro in twenty four twenty year career on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour. When you look back at when you started,
Speaker 1: excluding all of the noise off the golf course, now
Speaker 1: with professional golf and all the live stuff, what do
Speaker 1: you think has changed about the game since you turn pro?
Speaker 1: Back and oh, for the.
Speaker 2: Most yeah, I think the thing that comes to the
Speaker 2: front of my mind is the speed.
Speaker 3: Right, It's crazy.
Speaker 2: So speed to me was never a skill when I
Speaker 2: first started.
Speaker 1: So you had it or did Yeah?
Speaker 2: I turned prone two thousand, so twenty four years. I
Speaker 2: played nineteen years on the tour of fifteen or more events,
Speaker 2: and speed wasn't a skill. Now guys had speed, but
Speaker 2: nobody trained for it. Nobody thought about it.
Speaker 1: You're either guys like DJ would come out Roy and
Speaker 1: you just go, where is this coming?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And now speed has become a skill, and I would
Speaker 2: say it's become probably the most dominant skill in the game.
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is you.
Speaker 2: Can train for speed, you can gain it quickly. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're in a certain age group, you can pick
Speaker 2: up ten miles an hour club at speed pretty quick,
Speaker 2: and that can propel you to being able to play
Speaker 2: at a high level. As long as you know how
Speaker 2: to play the game a little bit, you're competitive. But
Speaker 2: I also think it's taken away from a little bit
Speaker 2: of the game and the skill set in the game.
Speaker 2: So I would say I see guys that have speed,
Speaker 2: but as an all around player, maybe not as polished
Speaker 2: as what maybe I needed when I first started. And
Speaker 2: the other thing is is the skills that I needed
Speaker 2: to play on tour and to play well on tour,
Speaker 2: they took me a long time to acquire. I had
Speaker 2: to do a lot of my own practice. I had
Speaker 2: to do a lot of research, trial and error. Right,
Speaker 2: That's another thing that's changed. When I first started playing golf,
Speaker 2: and when I first got on tour, it was a
Speaker 2: lot of trial and error. You didn't have track Man's
Speaker 2: you didn't have the three D technology that we have now.
Speaker 2: In teaching, nobody really explored strength and conditioning as it
Speaker 2: related to.
Speaker 3: Golf right or golf specific.
Speaker 2: Tiger came along around the same time, and he was training,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't golf it.
Speaker 1: Right, so he just got jacked and big and I
Speaker 1: would argue.
Speaker 2: To a point and we could go back and forth
Speaker 2: that the game's a little bit easier now than it was.
Speaker 1: My dad says that. My dad always says. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: He said when he played the tour, he said, every
Speaker 1: poor five, my dad played with a weak rip and
Speaker 1: need a fade. But he said, every single par five
Speaker 1: he played when he played on the PG or he'd
Speaker 1: strengthened his grip, try and hit a big sling hook.
Speaker 1: I think one of the other things stuff that I've
Speaker 1: noticed that's changed, Like you said, you can just kind
Speaker 1: of have one shot now, and I think, really, to me,
Speaker 1: it was Jordan's speed. When Jordan came out, everybody was like,
Speaker 1: he's gonna have to change the grip, He's gonna have
Speaker 1: to change a lot of the stuff, you know, the
Speaker 1: finger off. When Jordan started to have the success he had,
Speaker 1: I thought one of the main reasons he had that
Speaker 1: success is he was one of these new breed of
Speaker 1: players that said, no, no, this is what I do.
Speaker 1: I did this in college, and I am just going
Speaker 1: to keep doing what I do and not maybe make
Speaker 1: a lot of the changes you mentioned launch monitor technology.
Speaker 1: How much do you think the change from four when
Speaker 1: you came on tour technology across the board threw everything
Speaker 1: from club fitting launch moner technology. I think you you're
Speaker 1: a student of the game, and I think you were
Speaker 1: one of the first players that I was really around
Speaker 1: that kind of got the track man numbers and it
Speaker 1: worked in your head. When I was working with Ricky,
Speaker 1: you'd come up and you guys would play and you'd say, hey,
Speaker 1: can I just rather than go out and work on
Speaker 1: your golf swing, you would say, hey, can I get
Speaker 1: on a launch monitor? Because you were looking at the numbers?
Speaker 1: And do you now have you in the past stuff
Speaker 1: used the numbers is a guide for what you're trying
Speaker 1: to feel.
Speaker 2: I think I use the track Man more than anything
Speaker 2: now for equipment fit. Right, So I look at a
Speaker 2: lot of the ball data, the club data, I can
Speaker 2: easily manipulate, and that doesn't mean I'm doing it the
Speaker 2: right way.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: As you know in the teaching industry, tour players have
Speaker 2: this special ability to put the sweet spot on the
Speaker 2: ball some way, somehow. That's their special talent. That's what
Speaker 2: makes tour players two players. Right, So we see all
Speaker 2: these different swings you mentioned Jordan Speeth. We could go
Speaker 2: down the list, Like if you looked at the top
Speaker 2: fifty guys in the world, not all of them have
Speaker 2: like mechanically fununctional swings like that, you would say that's ideal.
Speaker 2: But they can put the sweet spot on the golf ball, right.
Speaker 2: So you know, I can change the numbers of the
Speaker 2: club data, but I use the track man and the
Speaker 2: information mainly for equipment fits and then to practice. So
Speaker 2: set up practice routines, especially inside one hundred and fifty yards,
Speaker 2: to understand how far I'm hitting the ball at what
Speaker 2: speeds and then translate into that what that feels. That's
Speaker 2: the other thing tour players are really good at is
Speaker 2: understanding feels and speeds. What is seventy miles an hour
Speaker 2: of a club had speed feel like?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And trying to ingrain those So that technology has really
Speaker 2: helped accelerate the learning curve, and I think you can
Speaker 2: get better faster by using the technology that's available. When
Speaker 2: I was in college, we used to have this old
Speaker 2: kind of shaggreen and we had a t box that
Speaker 2: would go up to one hundred and forty yards and
Speaker 2: you would walk off from a stick that you stuck
Speaker 2: in the ground and you'd walk back to eighty yards
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna work on eighty yards for these fifty balls.
Speaker 2: Then you'd walk back ten yards and that's how we practice.
Speaker 2: But now it's just instant, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I always look at when I started working
Speaker 1: with tour players back in the early two thousands, I
Speaker 1: was on the European tour. I had a Dell Daylight
Speaker 1: readable laptop, which people thought they were seeing fire for
Speaker 1: the first time because I could plug out all these
Speaker 1: chords and I could plug it in. I could take
Speaker 1: it on the range and you could see the laptop
Speaker 1: had the V one system. I could see it outside,
Speaker 1: put it side by side, put on a tripod. But technology, now,
Speaker 1: do you think it is helping younger players more than
Speaker 1: it's hurting younger players?
Speaker 3: It's a good question.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes with the technology, you're chasing perfect, and
Speaker 2: the game isn't a game of perfect, right, It's more
Speaker 2: of a game of missus. To be honest with you,
Speaker 2: it is how good is your miss? Is your missing play?
Speaker 2: Can we carry on to the next shot from our miss?
Speaker 2: Or are we dropping? Or are we routine? And these things.
Speaker 2: So I think I'm trying to manage that can be
Speaker 2: complicated between students and teachers because you want to give
Speaker 2: the students the best information possible to help them be
Speaker 2: successful at what they do. So managing that, I think
Speaker 2: is very important. I think it's probably way overboard for
Speaker 2: your everyday golfer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like too much information.
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of things that you look at
Speaker 2: tour players and you think you can do, but you
Speaker 2: really never will have a chance. But we're definitely trying
Speaker 2: to make the game easier to some point for those
Speaker 2: people and trying to find ways for them to improve.
Speaker 2: So I enjoy certain aspects of the tech, but I
Speaker 2: also see the disadvantage at times because you're chasing perfect,
Speaker 2: and I've been guilty of that at times in my career.
Speaker 1: I gave a presentation a couple of weeks ago for
Speaker 1: the Titleist Performance Institute at the World Golf Fitness Summit,
Speaker 1: and I found a video on social It was the top.
Speaker 1: It was all the swings with a driver, back to
Speaker 1: back of everybody starting from thirty to one that made
Speaker 1: it to the Tour Championship. You know, very different golf swings.
Speaker 1: And I said in my presentation, if you watch this,
Speaker 1: if you have as an instructor, if you have a
Speaker 1: model in your head of the way you want everybody
Speaker 1: to swing the golf club, you will lose. My dad
Speaker 1: is famous, obviously for the work that he did with
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods, and part of my presentation was I watched
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods and when I went to the European Tourist
Speaker 1: I helped my dad work with Adam Scott and then
Speaker 1: I worked with Trevor Ullman. It was Tiger one oh one.
Speaker 1: Right now, there are so many different styles of golf swings,
Speaker 1: Whereas in the early two thousands, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of before that, it was a quest to be
Speaker 1: perfect the work that Led did with with Nick Faldo,
Speaker 1: you know, to try and create that kind of almost
Speaker 1: robotic machine like golf swing. But now we see so
Speaker 1: many different body styles, types of golf swings. Have you
Speaker 1: seen in your career kind of it go from a
Speaker 1: quest for perfect between now with technology. You know. I
Speaker 1: talked to Greg Rose and Dave Phillips a TPI about
Speaker 1: this all the time. They're like, listen, we get your
Speaker 1: own three D. We don't really care what it looks like.
Speaker 1: It's functional. We know what your body can do. Have
Speaker 1: you seen kind of a shift in maybe golf swings
Speaker 1: becoming less about aesthetics and has maybe the tech helped
Speaker 1: it be more about function?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 2: I think you're seeing more guys have their own swing
Speaker 2: style and as a coach or even as a fan
Speaker 2: of the game, understanding the differences in those things. For
Speaker 2: an example, you worked with Dustin Johnson. You could never
Speaker 2: teach how Dustin Johnson swings the golf club. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, you would never want to take him
Speaker 2: and change what he does.
Speaker 3: Right. That's unique.
Speaker 2: It's like a fingerprint, that's his DNA. But I'm sure
Speaker 2: when you were working with him you understood his tendencies
Speaker 2: of what worked and when things were going well and
Speaker 2: where he got off. So you're always trying to drive
Speaker 2: him back to those tendencies. That worked for him. So
Speaker 2: I think that's what you're seeing more of now. And
Speaker 2: with the three D technology and the capturing and all
Speaker 2: these things that are happening, people can see the uniqueness
Speaker 2: and these fingerprints of golf swings and understand like, these
Speaker 2: are the parameters this player needs to work in, and
Speaker 2: then when they're off, you can understand where you need
Speaker 2: to go a lot sooner and a lot quicker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think everybody kind of has their
Speaker 1: own signature in their own DNA. I've always thought of
Speaker 1: you as kind of a student of the game and
Speaker 1: a student of golf swings. When you look at golf swings,
Speaker 1: give me golf swings that you Jason Duffer look at
Speaker 1: and go, I like that golfing.
Speaker 2: I mean obviously Tiger early two thousands, right, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Like right now, who's golf swing on tour that you
Speaker 1: look at in the last three or four years? I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously Rory. Everybody looks at Roy. But are there any
Speaker 1: others that you gotta go? And I really like that move.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've liked fleet man.
Speaker 1: In my head, I'm thinking Tommy Fleet because I love
Speaker 1: his action, right.
Speaker 2: I got great action, good, good playing good face control.
Speaker 2: Who else Adam Scott I think has done a really
Speaker 2: good I.
Speaker 1: Just saw Scotty in last week and I was watching
Speaker 1: him hit golf balls, and he's it was like growing
Speaker 1: up watching Freddie Couples hit golf balls. You just went
Speaker 1: it looks so good the way the tempo and the rhythm.
Speaker 1: When you what do you like about Adam Scott's golfing.
Speaker 2: Obviously, the tempo and the rhythm are good. I'm a
Speaker 2: little envious of his draw capability because I've never been
Speaker 2: a big right to left ball flight type of guy.
Speaker 2: So I'm all the guys that I like swings all
Speaker 2: sling hook it and they probably hate hitting sling hooks, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Scotty was like, it's a little off the toe.
Speaker 1: I need to try and feel like it gets a
Speaker 1: little bit more.
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of favorable towards those guys. I think
Speaker 2: Justin Thomas has done a great job with his golf swing.
Speaker 1: And that's a very kind of an old school throwback
Speaker 1: to where kind of that Davis love high everything kind
Speaker 1: of in the last I think we haven't seen a
Speaker 1: lot of that being taked.
Speaker 2: Now you've got a lot of hands deeper yep, a
Speaker 2: lot more stronger face. These guys are sitting back on
Speaker 2: the right foot spinning side bending. My body doesn't side
Speaker 2: bend anymore. Sidebind in rotation equals get a back surgeon
Speaker 2: on speed dial.
Speaker 3: At some point, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Said this in the TPI conference. My uncle Billy came
Speaker 1: into Vegas. He candies for Jay Haas on the PGA
Speaker 1: tour for thirty years. He was a great instructor, I
Speaker 1: think one of the best in the game. And it
Speaker 1: was that year that Tiger and Duvall were hanging out
Speaker 1: together and Tiger's number one in the world and Duvall's
Speaker 1: number one in the world, and two side by side
Speaker 1: golf swings couldn't be any more different, right, and both
Speaker 1: unbelievable champions, majors and stuff like that. My uncle Billy said,
Speaker 1: you know, the amazing thing is when you look at
Speaker 1: Duval's swing, nobody is teaching that. He said, everybody, what
Speaker 1: we do now is try to teach everybody to swing
Speaker 1: the golf club like Tiger Adam Scott wide with minimize
Speaker 1: the movement. And he said, you know, if you look
Speaker 1: at two of the greatest ball strikers of all time, Hiller,
Speaker 1: when shut take it inside, come over it fade Trevino
Speaker 1: wide open, take it outside, drop it on, and he said,
Speaker 1: we're not teaching anybody to try and do that. I've
Speaker 1: heard that one of the things that drives Jack Nicholas
Speaker 1: crazy is for everything that everybody asks Jack about, nobody
Speaker 1: would ever try and putt like Jack. He's one of
Speaker 1: the greatest, if not the greatest, pressure putter of all time,
Speaker 1: with a very non conventional method. Everybody wants to putt
Speaker 1: like Slick Rick and Tiger, right, but Jack was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest with a method nobody would use. How
Speaker 1: much do you think technique has played a role And
Speaker 1: were those guys just able to execute? Because you talked
Speaker 1: about the game maybe not being what it is now.
Speaker 1: And if you look at I played tennis growing up,
Speaker 1: tennis now is there's no serve in volley anymore. Nobody
Speaker 1: serves in volleys anymore because why would you. You don't
Speaker 1: have to, right, But if you look at the greatest
Speaker 1: tennis players of all time, Novak, Rafa, Roger, they could
Speaker 1: do it all. And the greatest golfers, the great great champions,
Speaker 1: the icons, they can do it all as well. They
Speaker 1: have everything, so that jump from professional golf to college golf.
Speaker 1: I think everybody that's coming out of amateur golf and
Speaker 1: college golf is trying so hard to have all of
Speaker 1: the shots. But I do think that we live in
Speaker 1: an era with technology. My dad always says, you guys
Speaker 1: never had to get the ball in the air. You
Speaker 1: never played with with a wooden golf club. In a competition,
Speaker 1: the ball is always launched high. If anything. At the
Speaker 1: elite tour level that you're at, you guys are trying
Speaker 1: to bring the spin down, whereas back in the day,
Speaker 1: the only way you could get it up was and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of my dad believes that a
Speaker 1: lot of the old golf swings that knee drive, that
Speaker 1: kind of crenchaw drive with the knee hang back. He
Speaker 1: thought that a lot of that was equipment dependent, based
Speaker 1: off of the equipment they were playing the equipment. Now
Speaker 1: the drivers don't curve as much right now.
Speaker 3: The ball inherently used to be the hardest club to hit.
Speaker 1: Now now he's one of the easiest. Would you like
Speaker 1: to see that change? You think that technology?
Speaker 3: I think the technology makes it too easy. I do.
Speaker 3: I think learning to.
Speaker 2: Hit shots is a lost art. I think the ball
Speaker 2: doesn't spin enough. So spin is spin, Yeah, either back spin,
Speaker 2: side spin, it's hard to spin it. So you know,
Speaker 2: guys play this power game. They beat up the par
Speaker 2: fives and they get comfortable doing that. And the guys
Speaker 2: that are still in the top thirty, that are top
Speaker 2: fifty are still great.
Speaker 3: They still have a high skill level.
Speaker 2: But outside of that, I think guys are very one
Speaker 2: dimensional on how they play.
Speaker 1: But the problem now, Duff, is you can you can
Speaker 1: get one shot and if you if you look at
Speaker 1: guys like Brooks and DJ, if you've got speed, now
Speaker 1: you can basically say, okay, I just do what I
Speaker 1: do now, I hit the golf ball. I've got a
Speaker 1: ton of speed. And Brooks and DJ, I think are
Speaker 1: the prototype guys to where they just go, I just
Speaker 1: hit one shot pretty much all the time. Brooks can
Speaker 1: draw it a little bit more than.
Speaker 2: DK, and you can't argue with them because they play well,
Speaker 2: they win tournaments, and they make a lot of money.
Speaker 3: So who's to argue with that?
Speaker 1: The jump from college golf to professional golf, what do
Speaker 1: you think is the biggest part of that jump? And
Speaker 1: what if you could go back and tell yourself when
Speaker 1: you were coming out of Auburn, Hey, the tour really
Speaker 1: you need this? What do you know now that you
Speaker 1: didn't know when you came out about what it takes
Speaker 1: to have a long term career as you've had on.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of it doesn't have to do
Speaker 2: with the physical aspects. A lot of the kids get
Speaker 2: into the golf swing and the scoring and how do
Speaker 2: I putt? And I think the biggest thing I think
Speaker 2: for kids making that jump is getting involved and being
Speaker 2: a professional golfer and seeing what else there is about that. Right, So,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of travel, there's a lot of time
Speaker 2: that you're accountable for now. Nobody is telling you to
Speaker 2: get up and practice.
Speaker 1: All the things you hated as a college golfer. I
Speaker 1: hear this all the time. The coach tells you when
Speaker 1: to practice, they tell you when to work out. You
Speaker 1: have a place to practice, you have a place to play,
Speaker 1: you have a travel schedule. When you turn pros, all
Speaker 1: of that goes away.
Speaker 2: So managing that, managing expectations, I think is a big
Speaker 2: thing for the guys coming out now because they're with
Speaker 2: the social media and all the things the tour has
Speaker 2: done to promote these guys to get these guys on
Speaker 2: tour quicker. They expect to have quick results. So so
Speaker 2: how do you manage that if it doesn't happen, not
Speaker 2: everybody's going to be right on tour? You know, how
Speaker 2: do you deal with playing for a paycheck? Right, you know,
Speaker 2: making cuts, making.
Speaker 1: And you're going to make any.
Speaker 2: Money providing, you know, for your livelihood. And then I
Speaker 2: don't think college kids really understand how competitive professional golf
Speaker 2: is because when they play a college event, there might
Speaker 2: be say fifteen teams and that equals eighty or ninety guys,
Speaker 2: and there might be only ten twelve guys that can
Speaker 2: really play that are in that field. Well, when you
Speaker 2: go to any corn Fairy event, DP World Tour event,
Speaker 2: PGA Tour event, even like whatever's below corn Fairy Tour, like,
Speaker 2: these dudes are the best of the best, and as
Speaker 2: you're progressing, it's getting better and better. So trying to
Speaker 2: be one of the best in the world at what
Speaker 2: you do is extremely, extremely difficult, if that makes sense,
Speaker 2: in the whole world. So it's not for everybody, That's
Speaker 2: what I tell them. And there's a lot of sacrifice.
Speaker 2: I've made a lot of sacrifice in twenty four years
Speaker 2: to do what I did, and at times I wish
Speaker 2: that I would have had other things in my life,
Speaker 2: but I'm also grateful for the opportunities that I had
Speaker 2: in golf, and I know that I had to make
Speaker 2: that sacrifice to live that dream for as long as
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: And I also think, you know, when you're a college golfer,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you don't know, but because you
Speaker 1: can play this, I think golf is one of these
Speaker 1: sports where you can play the same. You can be
Speaker 1: a college golfer and go play at the Medalist and
Speaker 1: play with some of the guys down here, and he
Speaker 1: can make a birdie on a bog in a hole,
Speaker 1: and you can make a birdie and maybe you clip
Speaker 1: them by one. And I don't think a lot of
Speaker 1: college golfers, but also a lot of the fans realize
Speaker 1: that the guys that play on the PGA Tour Justin
Speaker 1: Thomas is James Harden, right, John Raum is Kevin Durant.
Speaker 1: They don't realize that the best players in competitive golf,
Speaker 1: or the greatest athletes that they watch day in and
Speaker 1: day out in other sports, they don't realize that Rory
Speaker 1: McElroy is Patrick mahomes, but they think, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: can go and do that, and you get out there
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, because once you get to the NFL,
Speaker 1: or I use the NFL all the time. Once you
Speaker 1: get to the NFL, everybody that is playing and starting
Speaker 1: in the NFL was probably the best player in their
Speaker 1: high school's history, their talent history, maybe the state. And
Speaker 1: I think it sometimes gets skewed into thinking, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I played good in college and stuff. Junior golf.
Speaker 1: I love working with juniors. What do you think is
Speaker 1: important for junior golfers from a development standpoint? If you
Speaker 1: could sit a bunch of juniors down that are trying
Speaker 1: to play, you know, junior golf to that high school golf,
Speaker 1: would you tell them to focus on things differently now
Speaker 1: than you would have told them when you turn pro.
Speaker 2: I think playing tournaments and being competitive for that age
Speaker 2: is probably the most important thing because you learn so
Speaker 2: much about the game playing tournaments, and you learn so
Speaker 2: much about yourself. And they're in that kind of age
Speaker 2: range where information and being able to cognitively develop and
Speaker 2: do these things is so important. So being in tournaments
Speaker 2: and understanding how to compete, how to shoot scores, how
Speaker 2: to manage when things aren't going well, how to manage
Speaker 2: when things are going well. So those are all things,
Speaker 2: And this is one thing I tell a lot of people,
Speaker 2: like playing junior golf, college golf, professional golf is uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of uncomfortable things about that. And the
Speaker 2: guys that are really good seem to be very comfortable
Speaker 2: in uncomfortable environments. Right when things are on the line,
Speaker 2: or the elements are at their worst, or the crowds
Speaker 2: are at their highest level. You know, we're playing in
Speaker 2: front of people, all these things that could be uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: that's where they find to be the most comfortable. Right,
Speaker 2: That's where I see the difference between guys, you know,
Speaker 2: everyday tour players that maybe win here and there and
Speaker 2: guys like Jordan Speeth and DJ and Dustin Brooks and
Speaker 2: Justin Thomas. Right, being comfortable in uncomfortable environments, I think
Speaker 2: is a real key to the development of golfers. Because
Speaker 2: everybody can swing a golf club. You see junior years
Speaker 2: that have amazing information is out there to do that.
Speaker 2: So those are easy things for everybody. But it's these intangibles,
Speaker 2: it's these cognitive skills that needed to be developed, and
Speaker 2: I think you can develop those at that are early
Speaker 2: age by playing tournaments.
Speaker 1: And the most uncomfortable I think you're ever going to
Speaker 1: feel is on the back nine on Sunday in a
Speaker 1: major championship. You were lucky enough and got through that
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen it o'kill. What is major championship pressure?
Speaker 1: Trying to win one of those? How is it different
Speaker 1: than trying to win? The thing I love about your career,
Speaker 1: Duff is you've won on really good, iconic, tough golf courses. Memorial,
Speaker 1: you want to major ad o' kill, which is one
Speaker 1: of the major major tournaments. But what's it like on
Speaker 1: the back nine on Sunday trying to win a major?
Speaker 1: How's that pressure different?
Speaker 2: So for me, I don't want to say I didn't
Speaker 2: feel pressure. I knew it was that take, But I
Speaker 2: was always very comfortable when I was playing well because
Speaker 2: I was playing well right, And I think another great
Speaker 2: quality that I had I maybe wasn't as comfortable as
Speaker 2: I thought I would like to be in uncomfortable situations.
Speaker 3: But one.
Speaker 2: Great quality that I felt like I had through my
Speaker 2: career is that I was willing to take chances and
Speaker 2: take risks to get what I wanted, accepting that failure
Speaker 2: might be part of that, and that I was okay
Speaker 2: to fail in situations if it meant giving me an
Speaker 2: opportunity to get what I wanted, right.
Speaker 3: To risk it all.
Speaker 2: So a couple of years before that, I was in
Speaker 2: contention in Atlanta and I was trying to win the
Speaker 2: golf tournament and it didn't work.
Speaker 3: But I was okay with it because I was.
Speaker 2: Willing to do what I needed to do. I didn't
Speaker 2: shy away from it. It just didn't happen for me then.
Speaker 2: So just knowing, like when I'm playing good and I'm
Speaker 2: not worried about that failure component, I always felt a
Speaker 2: lot of comfort and peace when I was playing and
Speaker 2: I was just okilled. Just kind of was the right
Speaker 2: type of thing for me. It was a good golf
Speaker 2: course for me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't when you say it was a good golf
Speaker 1: course for you. It's an incredibly hard golf course. It's
Speaker 1: very much an old school golf course. So when you
Speaker 1: say you liked the golf course and it you felt
Speaker 1: like it set up well for you, what about it?
Speaker 3: So no distance advantage?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 3: It okay?
Speaker 2: I haven't played it since they've changed it, but when
Speaker 2: we played it, everybody was playing from the same spot.
Speaker 2: Some guys might hit three woods where I was hitting
Speaker 2: a lot of drivers that week, but we were still
Speaker 2: playing from the same spot. So that got me into
Speaker 2: an iron competition. I had played well the week before
Speaker 2: at Firestone, which is another golf course. I've played very well,
Speaker 2: long hard, so I'm comfortable and I'm confident with my game.
Speaker 2: And you know, it wasn't a putting contest. It was
Speaker 2: going to be somewhere in that eight to ten under range,
Speaker 2: which I was very comfortable with.
Speaker 1: You're not someone that likes thirty under.
Speaker 2: No, but I did win in Palm Spring I could
Speaker 2: like that. But you know, when tournaments were in that
Speaker 2: like six to ten to twelve range, that's when I
Speaker 2: felt comfortable. So that was that type of major. And
Speaker 2: I shot sixty three in the second round. And I
Speaker 2: tell people this all the time. Tour pros shoot really
Speaker 2: low rounds frequently. Sometimes they're at home on Thursday with
Speaker 2: your buddies. But that week I happened to have a
Speaker 2: really good way. I see a lot of sixty threes
Speaker 2: in majors where everything went right that day, right I
Speaker 2: had just recently had a day two weeks ago at
Speaker 2: home where everything rent right and I shot sixty two,
Speaker 2: and I was like, that's great. I wish I would
Speaker 2: have done them the Monday qualify next week, but it
Speaker 2: didn't happen. So I had one of those days and
Speaker 2: I shot a sixty three. So that gave me a
Speaker 2: huge advantage for the week of the tournament. And I
Speaker 2: was playing well, and I had a great pairing on Sunday,
Speaker 2: which in Furich was very easy to play with. And
Speaker 2: I wasn't leading. I kind of had slipped back to
Speaker 2: one shot and I got off to a good start.
Speaker 2: So all these things kind of manifested itself into that
Speaker 2: week and then I, you know, I'm kind of head
Speaker 2: down doing my thing, and when I get to the
Speaker 2: tenth hole, I've got a four shot lead with nine
Speaker 2: holes to play. So now it's about managing, you know,
Speaker 2: let's hit the fairways, let's one shot at the time,
Speaker 2: manage the game, get it on the green, and you know,
Speaker 2: make pars.
Speaker 3: And so it just kind of worked out that way.
Speaker 2: But it's hard to describe because you would think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of internal pressure. This is something I've been
Speaker 2: working for my whole life. But in that moment, the
Speaker 2: really good players can kind of filter all that out
Speaker 2: and really focus on what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1: Would it be safe to say that part of becoming
Speaker 1: a great great player there's acceptance. You have to accept
Speaker 1: that you're going to make bad swings, you have to
Speaker 1: accept that you're going to get bad breaks, because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of players don't expect there to be adversity.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of the great players that
Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough to be around, you guys know
Speaker 1: you're going to make bad swings. You know you might
Speaker 1: not have it all the time. And I think everybody
Speaker 1: that is trying to get to the level that that
Speaker 1: you've gotten to in your game win a major beyond
Speaker 1: President's Cop Wrider cops win multiple times. They think you've
Speaker 1: always got it. There's you're never going to hit it bad.
Speaker 1: But what I hear you saying is, listen, you have to.
Speaker 2: Accept that failure is a big party. Failure is a
Speaker 2: big part of it, huge part of the game. And
Speaker 2: how do you manage that? How does that affect you?
Speaker 2: Does that discourage you? Does that linger does it manifest
Speaker 2: itself into other things? I had that later in my career.
Speaker 2: I really struggled with my putting and that manifested itself
Speaker 2: into the yips for me for a period of time.
Speaker 1: What's that like when you're on because I think everybody listening,
Speaker 1: but everybody listening putting. I've talked to a lot of
Speaker 1: good players about it. I mean, you know, one of
Speaker 1: your good friends, Ricky Fowler, Slicksick's one of the best
Speaker 1: pure putters on the planet, right and he just says, listen,
Speaker 1: Seaball hit Ball, sea Line, hit Line, doesn't think about anything,
Speaker 1: you know, pure natural, but when you do struggle, And
Speaker 1: I think this is really powerful for everyone listening, for
Speaker 1: people that are struggling with putting and struggling with the yips,
Speaker 1: your struggle with that, what's it feel like on the
Speaker 1: golf course, because.
Speaker 3: I mean awful, It's it's uncontrolled.
Speaker 1: We've all seen the videos of you and Ernie L's
Speaker 1: when guys are struggling missing it from two feet. You're
Speaker 1: not You're not trying to do that. You're trying.
Speaker 2: It's it's uh, unless you've been through it, you don't
Speaker 2: understand it. For one, and you know it's a subconscious thing.
Speaker 2: It's it's I grew up on public golf courses in Cleveland,
Speaker 2: Ohio that we're rolling about a seven on the stamp,
Speaker 2: and I never saw a putt that broke more than
Speaker 2: outside left or outside right for a long time. So
Speaker 2: the art of putting I never really learned. If I
Speaker 2: have one regret in my career, is that I didn't
Speaker 2: do better understanding putting.
Speaker 1: And how I like you've understood the golf right, and.
Speaker 2: How I could have been a more consistent putter, because
Speaker 2: as time went on and as I got older, the
Speaker 2: putting got worse and worse, and the misses became more frequent,
Speaker 2: and that manifested itself into the yips by a subconscious feeling. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm feeling some type of emotional pain, mental anguish, anxiety
Speaker 2: with these misses, right, that's embarrassing, that's X, Y or CD.
Speaker 2: I'm labeling it, however, in my mind subconsciously. So what
Speaker 2: happens is you get in that situation again and your
Speaker 2: subconscious goes, hey, remember last time you had this thirty
Speaker 2: incher and you missed it.
Speaker 1: That hurt.
Speaker 2: Don't do it again, right, And it becomes a fight
Speaker 2: or flight situation, And I would go to flight, and
Speaker 2: I had a hard time pulling the trigger. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot of work that I've done in the last
Speaker 2: two years to try to undo that because I'll be
Speaker 2: forty eight next year and I want to play Champions
Speaker 2: Tour and I know I need to putt well. So
Speaker 2: there's things that happened. So it's a very natural thing
Speaker 2: that happens. It's your subconscious warning you that this situation
Speaker 2: is dangerous. It has caused distress and pain and anguish
Speaker 2: in the past, and it's a natural response. And there's
Speaker 2: certain people people that are very self aware and you know,
Speaker 2: care about what other people think or say or do,
Speaker 2: usually are the ones that get the yips that bother
Speaker 2: him the most. So it's it's something that I battled
Speaker 2: late in my career. I've been better lately and understanding it.
Speaker 2: But it's definitely a subconscious, natural response to things, and
Speaker 2: there's ways to manage it. Breathing is one thing understanding that, Hey,
Speaker 2: thanks for warning me, but this isn't that dangerous of
Speaker 2: a situation, right.
Speaker 1: I remember my dad telling me after Greg Norman's had
Speaker 1: the big collapse at Augusta in ninety six. But Greg
Speaker 1: was always a huge visualizer, writing, visualized all the shot.
Speaker 1: Greg wasn't by any means fast, and if you remember
Speaker 1: the worst he played on Sunday, the slower he got.
Speaker 1: And I remember my dad telling me that. My dad
Speaker 1: asked him about it, and he said, my entire career,
Speaker 1: I could visualize the shot, and I was in a
Speaker 1: mental state to where I didn't see anything. So I
Speaker 1: was standing behind it for so long trying to visualize
Speaker 1: a shot, trying to see a shot. I also think
Speaker 1: that part of it, like you said, going back to
Speaker 1: acceptance is saying, Okay, I'm in a bad place right now.
Speaker 1: And I think everyone listening can take that from it. Said, listen,
Speaker 1: when you get into that spell on the golf course,
Speaker 1: it's like a giant rainstorm has just come in and
Speaker 1: it's just for like fifteen minutes. Like here in Florida
Speaker 1: every summer, around three o'clock, a storm blows in, it
Speaker 1: rains for like thirty minutes. It looks like the world's
Speaker 1: gonna end, and then it's sunny. Breathing. You talked about breathing,
Speaker 1: and so is that something that you've tried to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of different things I do to reset
Speaker 2: to try to get out of that frame of mind
Speaker 2: because we're just like all the other golf We get
Speaker 2: in those those spaces. You just don't see them very
Speaker 2: often because usually when we're doing that, we're not playing.
Speaker 3: Well and we're on TV.
Speaker 2: So we go through all these different emotions and different
Speaker 2: techniques to try and reset and clear. And you know,
Speaker 2: the thing is is golf is very score driven, like
Speaker 2: outcome oriented, outcome orients everything. And you know, you have
Speaker 2: a rough six holes, it can it can ruin your
Speaker 2: whole tournament.
Speaker 1: And you lose the process.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you.
Speaker 2: Lose the process. And so just trying to manage those
Speaker 2: types of situations I think is difficult. Golf is really
Speaker 2: easy for pros when they're playing well, and it's really hard,
Speaker 2: Like you feel like there might be a light at
Speaker 2: the end of the tunnel, but I think it could
Speaker 2: be a train that's about to hit me when it's
Speaker 2: going bad.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, I remember early in Tiger's career, my dad said, listen,
Speaker 1: anybody can play good on tour when they're playing good.
Speaker 1: He's like, that's why they call it playing good. He's like,
Speaker 1: the great ones can manage their games where they don't
Speaker 1: have their best stuff. They can still compete now. I
Speaker 1: think Tiger took that, yeah, but he also took it
Speaker 1: in the early on in his career. He's winning tournaments
Speaker 1: by seven shots, and he's like, yeah, my B game,
Speaker 1: and everybody's going, dude, come on, man, you just smoked
Speaker 1: us by eight You're hitting one hundred passes, and you
Speaker 1: tell us you get your D game right when you
Speaker 1: have your A game? What's that feel like? For everyone listening,
Speaker 1: it's just what's it feel like when you have your
Speaker 1: A game? I mean, are you conscious of it? Are
Speaker 1: you like, Yeah, I've got it today, I've got a
Speaker 1: low scool, Like that's sixty three that you said you
Speaker 1: shot in a major championship at Okill Iconic Old School
Speaker 1: golf course. It had to feel pretty good, pretty easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But what is that? Is it you getting the right numbers?
Speaker 1: Are you getting the right clubs? Does everything just kind
Speaker 1: of snowball in a positive way? In the way it's
Speaker 1: snowballs in a bad way when you're not playing good.
Speaker 1: Then you have that one go out of bounce hit
Speaker 1: the cart path goes out of bounds, right.
Speaker 2: I think it's a couple of things. A lot of
Speaker 2: it is you have really good control of your swing.
Speaker 2: You've been around guys, you've worked with guys, and you know,
Speaker 2: weeks when guys have control of their swing, their body
Speaker 2: feels a certain way, they're able to, you know, be
Speaker 2: on plane and control of the face however they might
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: And then some of.
Speaker 2: It has to do with course fit, course conditions. A
Speaker 2: lot of it has to do with getting the right
Speaker 2: yardage in the right situation. People don't realize we're constantly
Speaker 2: trying to fit clubs to numbers that don't always fit
Speaker 2: to those numbers, right.
Speaker 1: And I think days that you struggle, the caddies will also.
Speaker 1: You know, I've had players like player will shoot seventy
Speaker 1: five and not really play that good, and you know
Speaker 1: they're talking about their golf swing, and then you talk
Speaker 1: to the caddies like, we're in between clubs on every
Speaker 1: single shot today, we didn't have one good number.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you get that.
Speaker 2: And you know, we're playing a sport that's on the
Speaker 2: biggest field in all the sports, with the smallest target
Speaker 2: in all of sports, with the smallest object that we're
Speaker 2: trying to move wherever on the field in the elements.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of things that can go wrong.
Speaker 2: But you know, when we're playing well, the game is easy.
Speaker 2: It seems like our good shots are really good. We've
Speaker 2: all hit great shots that haven't gone the right distance
Speaker 2: or going a bunker or going a water hazard. You know,
Speaker 2: that never happens when you're playing well. You know, if
Speaker 2: you looked at the probability of what it takes to
Speaker 2: make a forty footer that breaks four feet, like, it's
Speaker 2: like zero to nine, zero to none, and you might
Speaker 2: make two of those in one day. So those are
Speaker 2: those are the types of things that happen, and I
Speaker 2: guess that's what attracts people to the game.
Speaker 3: They love that type of stuff.
Speaker 2: And when things aren't going well, the opposite is happening, right.
Speaker 2: I hit it in the bunker, then it plugged. It
Speaker 2: was unplayable. I lifted out three putts from eight feet.
Speaker 3: I you know, X, Y and Z, we all have
Speaker 3: the list.
Speaker 2: So but when you're playing well, things seem very easy.
Speaker 2: Your mind is very uncluttered.
Speaker 1: When it's clear, it's.
Speaker 2: Clear, the pictures are clear, the feelings are clear. Some
Speaker 2: guys run with that for a long period of time,
Speaker 2: but I really believe that, you know, there's always exceptions
Speaker 2: to the rule. But for most guys, you have a
Speaker 2: really good ten years, and somewhere in that ten years
Speaker 2: you have a two or three year peak of really
Speaker 2: exceptional play. And that's kind of what happened with me.
Speaker 2: Starting in two thousand and nine, I played really really
Speaker 2: good golf for about ten years.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like you were on like a trajectory
Speaker 1: where you were one of those guys stuff back in
Speaker 1: the day to where every single week you were in
Speaker 1: the hunt on back nine you were.
Speaker 2: I could make a lot of cut and have a
Speaker 2: lot of conn.
Speaker 1: We're always one of the guys that shot that going
Speaker 1: in the weekend were good, and then you'd make that
Speaker 1: move on and then it just seemed like you had
Speaker 1: a run for three, four or five years where you
Speaker 1: were one of the guys that were on the leader
Speaker 1: board every time.
Speaker 2: You turned on twenty eleven, twelve, and thirteen.
Speaker 1: I mean, think of how many times you had chances
Speaker 1: to win tournaments in that.
Speaker 2: Stretch A ton and one of the things that I
Speaker 2: take a lot of pride in. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: things to take brought in, but to me, like that
Speaker 2: top thirty in the FedEx Cup is always kind of
Speaker 2: like benchmark a benchmark, and I was able to do
Speaker 2: that seven times in eight years, starting in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine.
Speaker 3: So that's something I was really proud of.
Speaker 1: Like all professional athletes, you don't get there by yourself
Speaker 1: who have been some of the big influences on your life,
Speaker 1: but your career as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my grandfather and my father both played golf.
Speaker 2: They introduced me to the game. I was a bit
Speaker 2: of a late bloomer. I didn't play a lot, did
Speaker 2: you your golf? I played some, but my grandfather was
Speaker 2: a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox before the World
Speaker 2: War Two, so baseball was always a big thing in
Speaker 2: my family, and I played a lot of baseball growing up.
Speaker 2: I was doing travel ball and all those you know,
Speaker 2: summer league and as much baseball as I could do.
Speaker 2: And then, uh, kind of around thirteen fourteen, I kind
Speaker 2: of transitioned into golf. We moved to South Florida and
Speaker 2: PGA Tour event hount A Classic was at.
Speaker 3: Weston Hills, and I was familiar with golf.
Speaker 2: Family members played golf, but moving there in high school
Speaker 2: and not having friends, Golf's the game you can play
Speaker 2: by yourself, and I kind of transitioned to golf, and
Speaker 2: it's one of those sports that you don't really realize
Speaker 2: why you fall in love with it, but you do
Speaker 2: for some reason. So those were big influences to get
Speaker 2: me started. You know, back when I played high school
Speaker 2: and college, you didn't have coaches and instructors and people
Speaker 2: you worked with, like I watched the guys on tour,
Speaker 2: you know, I was fortunate to watch those guys play.
Speaker 2: So like guys like VJ. Singh would come through and
Speaker 2: I used to play with him tons and tons when
Speaker 2: I was young, and Fred Couples, and I'd go watch
Speaker 2: these guys play.
Speaker 1: I learned from playing a lot with a guy like VJ.
Speaker 1: Because he's just I don't think VJ gets nearly the
Speaker 1: credit that he deserves. Obviously, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: guys in that Tiger era, you know, when Tiger was
Speaker 1: at his powers, but I don't think people remember just
Speaker 1: how dominated a golfer.
Speaker 2: Time he was a man, and I would watch a
Speaker 2: lot of golf. I'd tape golf, that's how you know.
Speaker 2: So so all these guys that are on tour were
Speaker 2: big parts of my golf life. And then as I
Speaker 2: started turning pro, you know, you start coming across people,
Speaker 2: and I came across Chuck Cook, who really helped me,
Speaker 2: I think, understand what it meant to be on tour
Speaker 2: and how to practice and how to prepare and what
Speaker 2: I needed to be a good tour player. He helped
Speaker 2: me with the mechanics of the golf swing to an extent.
Speaker 2: But I think what he provided me more than anything
Speaker 2: was understanding and a blueprint of, you know, how to practice,
Speaker 2: how to prepare, how to be a PGA tour player,
Speaker 2: and what I needed to be successful.
Speaker 3: So he helped me a lot.
Speaker 1: And Chuck is such an old school guy, right, you know.
Speaker 1: I look at guys like my dad, guys like Randy Smith,
Speaker 1: guys like they're kind of throwbacks right there. They were
Speaker 1: old school. They grew up in an era to where
Speaker 1: you know, golf wasn't what it was and is now today.
Speaker 1: You talk about the technical side, how much of the
Speaker 1: influence on your career did Chuck have both, you know,
Speaker 1: from a technique standpoint and then from a execution management standpoint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think execution and management was big for me
Speaker 2: and what I learned from him. He had worked with
Speaker 2: Payne Stewart and he had worked with Tom Kite, so
Speaker 2: he was familiar with pretty good players. Yeah, being with
Speaker 2: those guys winning majors, playing at.
Speaker 3: A high level.
Speaker 2: So he probably shared with me how those guys did
Speaker 2: it in whatever way without saying it's invaluable. Yeah, without
Speaker 2: saying like Tom Kaite did it this way right, and this.
Speaker 1: Was what good players do. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that helped me a lot, and the technique helped me.
Speaker 2: I think for me, I had to be smart about
Speaker 2: my golf, if that makes sense. I didn't feel like
Speaker 2: I had a lot of I had physical skill and ability,
Speaker 2: but maybe not to what some of these peers did.
Speaker 2: So I had to be smart in how I knew
Speaker 2: what worked for me, and I had to work hard,
Speaker 2: Like I had to put in sixty seventy hour weeks.
Speaker 2: That's what I had to do, and I did that
Speaker 2: for a long time, which I don't do as much anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the body as we get older doesn't
Speaker 1: allow us. Yes, switching to the equipment side. You've been
Speaker 1: with Cobra Golf for a while. They've got their new
Speaker 1: ds adapt drivers coming out. The new driver, what do
Speaker 1: you like about it? You know, when you get a
Speaker 1: new driver, first thing I think for me, is the
Speaker 1: way it looks? Are you? Are you more of a
Speaker 1: look guy or more of a feel guy when it
Speaker 1: comes to kind of the way a driver looks.
Speaker 2: I can get by the looks if it feels and
Speaker 2: performs right.
Speaker 3: But it's not a non starter.
Speaker 2: But I would say this one, they've taken some things
Speaker 2: that we've talked to them about, like what tour players prefer.
Speaker 2: So they've kind of taken the crown and there's a
Speaker 2: separation between the crown and the face angle. Now they
Speaker 2: put some scoring lines on the face angle, so we
Speaker 2: can just distinguish where the face angle is.
Speaker 1: Do you like to see when you look down at
Speaker 1: the driver? Do you like to see it sit a
Speaker 1: little bit kind of toe open? Do you want to
Speaker 1: see a little bit less loft? What do you like
Speaker 1: when you.
Speaker 3: Like toe open?
Speaker 2: And I like seeing off because I like to lean
Speaker 2: the shaft than so often. Yeah, so I like offset
Speaker 2: on irons. A lot of people don't like offset on it.
Speaker 1: Really, I would have never thought, given kind of your
Speaker 1: kind of old school kind of the way that you
Speaker 1: kind of push, you would like offset.
Speaker 2: Offset looks like loft, and it looks like hook, and
Speaker 2: it looks like I can lean the shaft, So you.
Speaker 1: Know, my grandfather used to say that at impact, you
Speaker 1: want your wrist to be like Bethlehem steel, not a
Speaker 1: Linguini with clam saucety. So he was very weak grip,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: told you that my grandfather interlocked with the left thumb
Speaker 1: off because he hooked it as a kid. So he
Speaker 1: would basically just try and fold that angle. If you've
Speaker 1: never hit one like that, take take interlock and the
Speaker 1: left thumb is over here, you can just basically hold
Speaker 1: that champions. The other thing I think that's really cool
Speaker 1: about the new drivers from Cobra is the adjustable hostle
Speaker 1: to be able to adjust not only the lie and
Speaker 1: I mean the loft, but the lie everybody working on
Speaker 1: but now we can just a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: How do you think that's going to help the average golf.
Speaker 3: I think it can help.
Speaker 2: I know it's going to help us on tour because
Speaker 2: we've been wanting the flatter, flatter, flatter, right.
Speaker 1: Why do you tour players want the driver flatter.
Speaker 2: Because we swing it on plane because.
Speaker 1: We're not coming over the top of that, I mean,
Speaker 1: because we're not ten left in it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, trick.
Speaker 2: The trick that the equipment companies have is they're trying
Speaker 2: to build stuff for consumers that buy, and generally speaking,
Speaker 2: consumers aren't the best golfers.
Speaker 1: And you want a Formula one race card, you don't
Speaker 1: want to and.
Speaker 2: They're usually over the top, and they usually slice, and
Speaker 2: they usually have a ton of spin. They usually hit
Speaker 2: down on it. So all these things they change is
Speaker 2: great for them. But then you get to somebody that's
Speaker 2: on plane doesn't work as much.
Speaker 3: So that's the trick.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, having the adjustability now we'll
Speaker 2: be able to really dial in the drivers and get
Speaker 2: them to where we can play them just as well.
Speaker 1: Hobbies off the golf course. And if you weren't a golfer, Duff,
Speaker 1: what would you be doing.
Speaker 3: I've never thought about what Rick says.
Speaker 1: Your your your kitchen game is pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so hobbies, I would say cooking. I enjoy cooking
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: What do you like about it? The process?
Speaker 2: Probably the process, like the I'm into the process and
Speaker 2: just the that's just like my mind works that way,
Speaker 2: Like you do this, then you do this so and
Speaker 2: then you get this result.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this result that's usually pretty good.
Speaker 2: I like offshore fishing, which I've been doing some this
Speaker 2: past year since I haven't been playing much. I've got
Speaker 2: an eighteen month old, so he keeps me on my toes,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And if I wasn't playing golf, I
Speaker 2: really have no idea because I've never even thought about it.
Speaker 1: Well, the good thing is you've never had to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would not be a golf instructor like yourself.
Speaker 1: With someone obviously, because everybody kind of sees you as
Speaker 1: a student of the swing. Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1: You please tell everybody what you said when somebody else
Speaker 1: if you wanted to be a golf instructor.
Speaker 3: I don't want to deal with these guys.
Speaker 1: You guys, you tour players are all absolutely lunatics.
Speaker 3: Lunatics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why are you guys so close?
Speaker 3: I don't I never tried to be that way, but.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to get texts at nine
Speaker 2: thirty at night about a golf swing and have forty
Speaker 2: five minute conversation like hey, it's golf, Like hey.
Speaker 1: My favorite is take a look at the swing on dude,
Speaker 1: I'm not there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't matter, like it's in the camera angle.
Speaker 3: Everybody's the camera. It's in two dimensions.
Speaker 1: Like I get so many people say you do one
Speaker 1: of the things I've never done that that I could
Speaker 1: probably make a pretty decent, you know, amount of money
Speaker 1: out the online golf instruction because for me, if I can't,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I can look at golf swings and
Speaker 1: stuff and with the players that I see all the time, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I know the guys I work with golf swings.
Speaker 1: You know they're in slow motion because I've seen so
Speaker 1: many of them. But when people say, hey, I really
Speaker 1: I'm living I live in Australia and I really love
Speaker 1: to work with you, I'm like, dude, how's that going
Speaker 1: to work. I'd happily take your money, but I couldn't
Speaker 1: do it because for me, I need to be there to.
Speaker 3: Kind of you need to see how the body man.
Speaker 1: I need to see what you're doing in all of
Speaker 1: those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Lastly, dolh forty eight years old, two years to the
Speaker 1: Champs Tour, you said you wanted to play, So that
Speaker 1: two year I don't want to say limbo, but it
Speaker 1: is somewhat limbo because you're waiting to play on a tour,
Speaker 1: which as a past major champion, you're gonna go out.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine you're not gonna go out and play well.
Speaker 1: So what's the next couple of years look like for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think I'm fortunate that I don't really need to
Speaker 2: play golf right now, and I'm able to take some
Speaker 2: time away. I turned pro in two thousand and I
Speaker 2: put a lot of time and effort for twenty three
Speaker 2: years into that. So this year has been kind of
Speaker 2: a rest and recovery year. Some people take rest and
Speaker 2: recovery days or weeks, but I've been doing that for
Speaker 2: a year. I've been doing some research.
Speaker 3: On my game.
Speaker 2: I've been working with a guy in New York, a
Speaker 2: little bit called Mike Jacobs, who does a lot of
Speaker 2: three D stuff, connecting work.
Speaker 1: What have you seen in the three D that maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't know? More just a better understanding as to
Speaker 1: how your body works.
Speaker 2: It's more about how my body works, how I function.
Speaker 1: How your body works today, this is the way your
Speaker 1: body works.
Speaker 2: And understanding that I'm not going to swing like I
Speaker 2: did ten years ago, but understanding where I'm at now
Speaker 2: and what I can do better. I think that gives
Speaker 2: you a good blueprint of where you're at.
Speaker 3: And what you could do and maybe what you could
Speaker 3: do a little bit better.
Speaker 2: I also have a lot of freedom right now because
Speaker 2: I'm not playing competitively, so I can play with stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can try stuff and say, hey, listen, let
Speaker 1: me really push the rabbit hole of changing this, because
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about Okay, I can work
Speaker 1: on this for two weeks, but then I got to
Speaker 1: go to Memorial and try and make the cotton, try
Speaker 1: and get them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's given me a lot of freedom in
Speaker 2: that aspect. I think this year, you know, and I
Speaker 2: keep my toe in the water. I played eight events.
Speaker 2: I think it's important to play some you got to
Speaker 2: keep I don't want to keep playing twenty five weeks
Speaker 2: year right now, but I practice some like I kind
Speaker 2: of do golf on my terms right now.
Speaker 1: This is what I call as supposed to because when
Speaker 1: you're when you're a professional golfer trying to play at
Speaker 1: the highest level, you're not playing golf on your time.
Speaker 1: You're playing golf in a very structured environment and if
Speaker 1: you are struggling, and I don't think people realize this.
Speaker 1: I think one of the negative effects of the only
Speaker 1: negative effect of tiger woods is he made it fashionable
Speaker 1: for everybody to try and change their golf swings. But
Speaker 1: when you're playing on tour, you don't have four months
Speaker 1: to go. Let me go down the rabbit hole of
Speaker 1: really trying to change.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's been nice, and I think as I get closer,
Speaker 2: I'll look at some opportunities. I may play that twenty
Speaker 2: six year on the corn Ferry Tour because I'll be
Speaker 2: able to have status. So I may look at playing
Speaker 2: like twelve fifteen events just to get back into that
Speaker 2: routine and hopefully, you know, I'll be ready to play.
Speaker 2: I think it's important to play and practice and stay
Speaker 2: with it to an extent. I think take three years
Speaker 2: away from golf and just being at home probably wouldn't
Speaker 2: be conducive to great play on the Champions Tour. So
Speaker 2: I'm kind of staying with it. And as I get closer,
Speaker 2: I can see myself ramping up. But right now I'm
Speaker 2: enjoying lots of other things in my life other than golf.
Speaker 1: Well, you deserve it enough. Can't thank you enough for
Speaker 1: talking to me. And the biggest compliment, Duff, that I
Speaker 1: can give you is you know you and I didn't
Speaker 1: really spend a lot of time together when you were
Speaker 1: on tour. But if you were hitting golf balls and
Speaker 1: I was waiting, I would go kind of stand back
Speaker 1: far enough away and I would just watch you hit
Speaker 1: golf balls, and I just marveled it the way you
Speaker 1: swung the golf club, the way that kind of your
Speaker 1: body moved through it, in the way that you really
Speaker 1: did simplify things. So I can't wait to see you
Speaker 1: playing on the Champs Tour. I have no doubt you
Speaker 1: will be a success.
Speaker 3: Thanks for selling. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1: So that was Jason Dufner, And like I said, it's
Speaker 1: the second major of the week this week at Quail Hollow,
Speaker 1: the PGA Championship, and if the first major of the
Speaker 1: year with Roy McElroy dueling with Rose Bryson d Chambeau,
Speaker 1: I think we're in for a really good major season.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to have a season where the
Speaker 1: best players in the world are going to contend for
Speaker 1: major championships. There's always going to be surprises. But excited
Speaker 1: about Quail Hollow. It's a great golf course, it's a
Speaker 1: great venue, and the second major of the year is
Speaker 1: upon us sono it butch comes to you most every week,
Speaker 1: great review. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.