U.S. Open Favorites, Turf in L.A. with Lauren Lasocha, and KFT Life with Logan McAllister

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: Ball in a brid egg, Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, fridagg Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.

00:00:34
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is uh, We're doing another big podcast.

00:00:42
Speaker 1: We got a couple of guests.

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Speaker 3: We've got Assistant Superintendent at bel Air, Lauren Lesoka. She comes on to talk about the prep for the US Women's am at bel Air. She's also worked at LACC, so we talk a lot about l A c. C And bel Air and and kind of what makes those places unique, as well as her career in turf.

00:01:04
Speaker 1: She's been all over the world.

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Speaker 3: It's a it's a fascinating, you know, group of experiences.

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Speaker 1: So that was really a fun chat.

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Speaker 3: And then Logan McAllister, a former All American at Oklahoma, joins us. He's in his I guess it's his first year on the corn Faery Tour. It's his first full year he had He got through PGA Tour U last year and had eight starts on the corn Fairy Tour and it's playing some really great golf in recent weeks on the corn Faery Tour. A definitely a name to watch and was was fun chatting with him about his career his experiences on the Corn Faery Tour to date. So before we get into that, we've got we've got the US Open coming up, so I figured I would do my ten favorites as I've done in earlier podcasts ahead of the US Open, So we'll run through these quick l a CC as we did our preview podcasts on the course last episode, So that was Tuesday's episode with Garrett. We talked a lot about the course in detail. The things I'm looking at for this golf course are going to be obviously major championships. You got to do everything well. That's you know, power is always going to be a big advantage. I think that LACC is going to profile similar to Augusta National, so my list is kind of looking at that. I think short game is super super important at LACC. I think you're going to find yourself in tough positions and you need to get up and downs. You got to keep the momentum going, keep those par par saving rounds going, and the short game is going to be really important there. Unlike Okill, there's a lot of short grass at LACC, so you're gonna have to have guys that could hit shots from the rough. There's there's that tall fescue around the around the bunkers. That's going to be one type of shot. You're gonna have to hit shots from Bermuda rough, which is a completely different different techniques. And then there's a lot of short grass, so you're gonna need some people with wide array. Like short game talent should be on display. It's not a singular shot like at Oak Hill. Also lots of long par fours, so I'm going to value mid to long iron play a lot as well as well as just approach play in general, you're gonna want to hit the ball close at LACC as anywhere you're going to see approach play, and I think like one of the nice things there's there's space there you can actually see somebody drive the ball well and get rewarded for it. It's not just a game of chance, right Like if I drive it well, I might hit seventy eighty percent of fairways at LACC. That's not the case at a lot of major venues where you're just crossing your fingers and hoping for a good lie in the rough.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the times like if you drive.

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Speaker 3: It well, you're gonna get rewarded with fairway lies, fairway lines you have a chance to make birdies and those approach players are going to be reward it. So let's get into the top ten. It was hard, you know, this is a hard list. It was hard to leave Michael Block off. It's just a joke. But number ten I got Victor Howland. Obviously, he's been phenomenal at Majors. He's been in the final group on Sunday too the last three Majors. He's played well at the Old Course, he's played well at Augusta Nationally, he played well at oak Hill, three really different setups. The one thing I don't love about is fit, as I alluded to, is the wide array of short game shots. We saw it get a little dicey at Augusta. We saw it get dicey at the Old Course. When it really ramped up with the short game at Oakhill he was saved by the rough. It was just one singular shot. He ended up in bunkers a lot. Like you know, he didn't have like his short game really tested. So that's what I'm worried about here. I have him tenth just because I mean, he's such a phenomenal, really off the team approach player, and you know, it's been really fun to watch him. I kind of take his game to the next level. I just think that the short game is going to be too much of a test here for him.

00:05:08
Speaker 1: Number nine Cameron Young.

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Speaker 3: Obviously, he was very disappointing at Okill missing the hut and missing the cut.

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Speaker 1: I thought that would set up really well for him.

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Speaker 3: But you know, as is with really great players, they fit a lot of places. Here is distance should be really a huge advantage. But if you look into the stats, he is a great mid to long iron player, like one hundred and seventy five plus he's one of the best players on the PGA Tour. So I really really love that about his game.

00:05:36
Speaker 1: Here.

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Speaker 3: Number eight Xander Schoffley. This should not surprise anyone. He is all around excellent player and from southern California. I think he's played LACC a few times. This should be a good golf course for Xander. As a lot of golf courses are when you're good at everything. So I like Xander a lot. I might be convinced to move him up a little bit, but I like him right where he is. He just hasn't He hasn't done much in majors recently.

00:06:04
Speaker 1: That's my concern.

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Speaker 3: Tony f now at seven, just waiting for him to break out at major He obviously had a lot of success in the last couple of years, but this year he's been kind of not there again. Great short game player, I think that gets missed a lot with his power. He's a great iron player. He's powerful and he's got a spectacular short game. So you know, you look at that, he should play well here especially you know that added space. If he can have a good week with the driver, that's where he's going to find a lot more fairways than he does in a normal week. Klin More Cow is number six, super accurate driver. I think if you look at him and he drives it well, like, there's a case he could hit eighty percent of fairways over the course of a tournament. If it becomes a contest of who can hit the best iron shots from a fairway, there's not many people that are better with irons than cal Moore Kawer. Maybe nobody in the world right now that's better than Colin morekaw with irons. I think he's first in strokes gained approach really narrowly over Scottie Scheffler. He's been first or second basically every year of his career in that statistic. I love Colin morecow here. I think people are a little bit down on him. He hasn't had the best year, but he hasn't been bad. I mean he's down to like seventeenth or eighteenth in the world. I think it's a little bit misleading, and that's a good value play if you're looking for value. Like he's got two major championships in like twelve attempts. It's kind of nutty that he's that far down in the world rankings.

00:07:37
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of depth in golf. Number five Cam.

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Speaker 3: Smith, as I mentioned, I think there's some similarities to Gusta National when it's not just strictly a driving execution test. I think there's some southern hills here. And one of the things that got lost last year with the majors is that Cam Smith was first in t to green at Southern Hills Bismol with the putter, if he had an average putting week, he would have been right in the mix for the tournament and that would have been, you know, a guy that nobody would have seen. So I think Southern Hills that's another comp here to lacc and I think cam Smith's game fits it really well. There's enough space for that driver that can be a little bit shaky. And really, if you think about players from the fairway in who would you want more than Cam Smith? I don't know if there is a player maybe John Rahm, that you would want more from, say two hundred yards and in his struggles usually are off the tee. Here, I think there's enough space where it's not going to kill him. And then his recovery game it's just so phenomenal and here where you know that you're going to get in some trouble. He's a guy that can get balls up and down that and from spots that other people can't. Number four Rory just I have a hard time, you know, I had him outside I think the top five last it's just hard to drop him outside of the top five. What reminded me of that at Oakhill is like he can play pretty mediocre golf and basically walk his way into top ten.

00:09:14
Speaker 1: I don't think this is the best.

00:09:16
Speaker 3: Course fit for Rory, but as he saw it showed to Oak Hill, he can play pretty bad and finish seventh and have an outside shot at contending. If he plays great, he can win anywhere, and he can win here waiting. I think, like again, he's going to play well at one of the four Majors this year. This would be one that maybe he plays great at any stags like it's easy to understand to foresee that happening with a world class player like Rory McElroy. Number three, John Rahm, I can't believe he's number three for the Masters. I would never say, how can you not put him at number one? But you know with how you know the people ahead of him have just been so astoundingly great eight this year. Brooks in a small sample size at Majors, Scotty over the over the course of the season has just been unbelievable. I've got John rom three. I just I know I'm gonna regret that. Obviously. I think people might be a little bit down on him. From Oak Hill. I wouldn't read anything into that. I think one of the things the difference between John rahm and and Scotty right now, if you were gonna you know, they've both been so impressive. John's obviously won five times, which is which is wild. But you know, one of the things is John's bottom is a little bit lower than Scotty Sky. Scheffler hasn't finished outside the top twenty in the last I think fourteen starts, which is astoundingly great. So anyways, Rom's at three. This is just because of what two and one have done. Brooks going second and first to the majors this year, as we've seen every major championship type of course, it fits his game. He's been fantastic. I don't see any reason why he's not to play well here. He's probably who I'm picking in my one and done league. I've already taken Rom and Scottie in that league, so I'm probably taking Brooks for my pick, and then number one, I've got Scotty Scheffler.

00:11:13
Speaker 1: He's he's done this this year.

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Speaker 3: He's putting below tour average and he hasn't finished outside the top twenty in an event. It's unbelievable. The tee to green stuff is just at a different level. The short game's great, the iron play is great. Off the tea, he's great. He's number one. Every golf course works for him. This is a golf course that should be really, really great for him. So he's my number one guy. I can't wait for LACC. And let's get to Lauren Lesuca and we'll talk a little bit more about LACC and Southern California golf in this interview. But first, this podcast was brought to you by our friends over at Toro. For more than a century, with cutting edge turf equipment and irrigation solutions, Toro has had your front nine covered and your back nine two. In fact, Toro's always had your back period. Toro is as committed to your long term success as tour pros are committed to their shot. That's down to top notch customer support from Toro and it's dedicated local distributors, both of whom are passionate about delivering terf equipment and irrigation solutions that solve real world problems. Follow at Toro Golf on Twitter and reach out to your local Toro distributor today. All right, So, I, for a long time have always wanted to, like live in Vancouver, even though I've never been there. It's just the like looking at Vancouver and reading about it has been like extremely intrigued. I'd say, it's not like the five places I most want to visit. Is it as good as I've built it up in my.

00:12:57
Speaker 4: Bind even better.

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Speaker 5: It's fun to hear you say you've never been and you just keep hearing these amazing things, because I feel the same way. I almost feel like a tourist when I visit home in the last few years, because the city itself is expanding, but I've had so many new connections and people that have visited that when I say Vancouver, the eyes just kind of pop out of their head and it's such a nice compliment and feedback. And yeah, I was certainly spoiled. I was born and raised in North Vancouver, which is only about, you know, ten fifteen minutes from the downtown city center area. But as you know, if you've seen photos of the Barrard Inlet Pacific Ocean, everything's right there within reach. And then Mount Seymour Grouse Mountain Cyprus right behind where I grew up. So I was constantly either in the ocean or up on top of the hill most of the time I was growing up. But absolutely it's beautiful. Definitely keep it on your bucket list.

00:13:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:13:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was funny during COVID, I was like contemplating, maybe that's where we move and just you know, yeah, what's one you know, being from there, what's the one thing you have to do if you go to Vancouver If.

00:14:08
Speaker 5: You can, depending on the season, I would say you can go boating or swimming and then go up to the mountain and ski at the same day. And that's a lot of the time of the year you're able to safely do that and have a lot of fun. And I would say if you're able to get down to Deep Cove, that's a really special just little brard inlet that we have that leads up to Indian Arm. It just dead ends at the end of the inlet of the ocean and it's absolutely beautiful. Just you feel like you're serene and miles away from everything when you're in that area. But likewise, if you're able to get up to the top of one of the local mountains, even making the road trip two hours north towards Whistler, you just feel like you're totally out of this world on your own, and from all of those mountain peaks you're able to still see the ocean and still mostly see the city or these vistas everything, and it just it really does take your mind away from whatever else you have going on. It can be really serene and relaxing.

00:15:04
Speaker 1: How'd you get it in a turf growing up at Vancouver.

00:15:07
Speaker 4: Great question.

00:15:08
Speaker 5: I did not work at a golf club or a golf course anything like that until I was twenty years old. I know, I hear a lot of people say, you know, they either started in the backroom or in the house sides of things in the clubhouse area, you know, helping out little things like that that lead into turf. I had been in college and attending university in Vancouver and working indoors all the time, just in sort of local stores, retail, and then I decided one summer, I was like, gosh, I you know.

00:15:40
Speaker 4: I love the outdoors. I played sports growing up.

00:15:42
Speaker 5: I loved being outside, especially during the summer months, which are limited being from Vancouver. Just with the warm weather we get mixed in with a lot of rain, and it just dawned on me. I was like, Okay, this is it, I'd like to work outside. My sister ended up working inside at the clubhouse at Capilano Golfing country Club one summer. So the following summer, after I'd done a bit of traveling, she just threw it up there, she why don't you just work at the golf course, see if they're hiring.

00:16:06
Speaker 4: So I did that. I got in touch with Jamie Robb, who at.

00:16:09
Speaker 5: The time was the assistant superintendent to Adam Zubeck, and same thing, just set up the interview really light and talked about golf, talked about have you ever worked outside vice versa, and just the golf course itself. Just seeing a little bit of the property entering on, I was like, oh wow, Like you realize you're in a whole another world on some of.

00:16:29
Speaker 4: These properties that you enter onto.

00:16:30
Speaker 5: So it was definitely fate that led me there and it's kind of been a great ride ever since.

00:16:37
Speaker 1: Had you played golf before?

00:16:39
Speaker 5: No, So I'd hit balls at the driving range growing up. We went to a couple of Part three courses locally. I never really sought out and had even my own club set at that point, and I, like many other people maybe that weren't super invested in playing the game. I watched a lot of golf, so that was one thing that in the interview, it was sort of talking about, well, do you stand the rules, do you understand the game? You know, the heights of cut, the grass lines, like all of those things. And I had watched definitely a fair share of mostly major championships, but also on the local level level Canadian opens growing up that I understood the game of golf, and I at the time watching of course as well. The Tiger Woods dominate in the nineties and just before I started working, of course, it was that got me hooked instantly. I love the game. I always enjoyed watching just the courses. I thought it was awesome that basically, you know, the tours and the championships, they're constantly traveling around the world, and it was always interesting to watch on television all of these different properties, lakes, golf courses on oceans.

00:17:39
Speaker 4: Et cetera.

00:17:40
Speaker 5: And the Catalanta where I worked. It was the backdrop is basically Grouse mountains, so you're looking up at the mountain half the time you're working, and they can turn around and see the ocean and the vistas of the city. From the other direction, and I thought that was just so unique, and it opened up this whole world of again properties that are set all over the world that are unique. So it was definitely learning as I went. I you know, had operated a rotary mower before, but never really done any other mowing or sort of detail work light gardening here and there, But it was definitely just a brand new skill set that I was walking into.

00:18:15
Speaker 3: It's a fascinating background. I'm curious in terms of if when you look back now, do you think your limited golf experience was actually beneficial in some way?

00:18:30
Speaker 5: Yes, And it's it's kind of funny how you put it, because I've thought about that more recently in my career, because as I've progressed, I've been able to be at a lot of these championships and had amazing volunteer experiences, and I think that always has kept with me just kind of you take a step back and go, wow, like someone comes to work here every day, and or someone gets to play golf here. Someone traveled, you know, however, across the country, across the world to be at this property. Maybe it's even is it the property, how special that can be? So I think like you said, I've always had in the back of my mind of that I take a step back. I always like to say where I'm at, the surroundings. Just taking it all in, I think is really important. And I think from a golfer perspective and just from what we do on the turf industry side, I think it's always important to do that, and I think you're right. I think that makes me maybe appreciate it a little more when I get to be on some of these places and top courses.

00:19:27
Speaker 3: When do you think back to those early days, like was there was there like a first month real or was it like, man, this is tough work.

00:19:39
Speaker 5: I definitely, you know, I'd played some sports growing up, but it was sort of I was twenty twenty one years old the first summer I worked.

00:19:47
Speaker 4: And we were going through a little bit of.

00:19:49
Speaker 5: A recession in the rainfall that year, so we almost went into a drought that summer. So it was one of the hotter summers to start working in. But we went from starting in the month of March seasonally in Vancouver typically it can be anywhere from February October November, given our weather, went from starting in malch beds and frost delays in March to you know, extremely warm weather in August. Just like you said, laborous intensive work mowing grass, you know, raking the bunkers, trimming the bunkers, detailing work, maintaining everything through the summer. But yeah, absolutely, I definitely had some soredes coming home. If there was ever any expansion work or some sort of detailed job that we were doing that first summer, I mean laying slide. If anyone could affiliate with that, you're good to go. You're good to go, and maybe that night when you go to sit down or the next morning, you go, oh wow, that was a lot of love your intensive work.

00:20:45
Speaker 4: But it always just flew.

00:20:47
Speaker 5: By, and we had we had a great crew that first summer that I worked at Capilano. Ended up being there for six seasons, so I got to know the crew and the seasonal employees that myself included, that came back every year. We really looked forward to those summers. We always knew we'd be layered up those first month or two that we were there. But all of a sudden, you snap your fingers and it's July August, this prime golf weather, prime, you know, time for all the grass to be growing and kind of maintaining it at that point detail levels.

00:21:16
Speaker 3: You talked a little bit about being being into traveling and one of the questions I had down here, and I think it kind of answered it, but I you know, I'm still going to ask it. You know, you've worked all over the world, Pacific, Northwest Australia, New England, Southern California most recently. Was this was this, you know, variety of locales, a concerted effort or decision and effort on your part or was it just the way it happened?

00:21:46
Speaker 5: I would say definitely, just the way it happened. I would say the concerted effort definitely involved Australia. I was able to spend seven and a half eight nearly eight months abroad in Sydney, Australia that for summer working at Capellano met an intern. His position was an intern. His name is Alistair. He was originally from New Zealand, came to work a summer abroad which happened to be at Capilano in Canada, and he kind of threw it out there like, hey, if you ever are looking to come to Australia at the time, where he was working, you know, let me know. And that was something growing up that area of the world just seemed so far away from the Pacific Northwest. It was always a concerted effort of mine to try and think, well, how could I ever get there? And it was on my bucket list I stud mentioned, so when that happened, I thought, why not, why not take advantage of, you know, someone's generosity and kindness of in the industry to try and make it happen. And at the time, I don't think I ever would have known I would be actually working at a golf club, let alone roal Sydney, in Sydney to be able to spend as much time as I could getting the full lifestyle sort of expectation of Sydney, Australia, and it was a blast.

00:22:58
Speaker 4: I definitely think that was.

00:23:00
Speaker 5: Once I did that, I remember coming home thinking, Wow, this is definitely a job and a career that I really see myself getting into. And the experience I had in Sydney was awesome the first time I was on warm season grasses. Now that I'm back in southern California, I definitely understand more of what that meant as far as perception and why thing looked a certain way, and how we mobed the grass right up to the greens, you know that was different with certain bigger machinery. And then yeah, from there, when I attended school, we had to complete our internship like a lot of church grass schools require. And a couple of former classmates that were year ahead of me had just done summers at baltastral One had traveled out to lacc where at the North Court specifically, they spoke very highly of their experience working in the United States, and when I heard that they were able to obtain visas and able to you know, have that different experience, just get out of your comfort zone, similar to I do it in Australia, it just sounded right out my alley and ended up landing at Catanset in New England. It was great, just off a job posting that was just really well described by the director it was still there. His name's John Kelly, and just the way he laid out everything about the golf course, the property, the uniqueness of it. It really drew me to look it up and do more sort of research on it, and I was instantly.

00:24:18
Speaker 4: Hooked that, oh wow, I really love.

00:24:20
Speaker 5: The opportunity to be there, even if it was just for those short months of the internship, I.

00:24:25
Speaker 3: Think, yeah, especially if you could avoid winter in that part of the country.

00:24:29
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely.

00:24:31
Speaker 1: What was your favorite part of living and working in Sydney?

00:24:36
Speaker 5: So I really sployed myself. I lived on a place called North Bondai which is Bondai Beach, and the golf club is located in Rose Bay. So if you look at the map, you're just really tucked around the corner from North Bondai Bondai Beach. You walk around the sort of the next little inlet, you're at Rose Bay. So I lived on the floor apartment building with two people that were from France, so the three of us were just there for that, you know. I think they ended up staying for a year. But I was able to have an apartment right on the beach and walk to work every day, which about a twenty five minute walk, and to be at work all day outside right in Rose Bay, and then to turn around and walk straight back home and come home to the beach every day. That was really ideal, Like it was really awesome to be able to do that.

00:25:28
Speaker 3: Sounds quite wonderful. It was with all these locales that you've worked, do you find it easier in one place or is it or more challenging in one place or is it is it just different across the board.

00:25:44
Speaker 5: I think it's different now that you got me thinking. I'm just thinking back to every property is very unique and every season, it seems like, is changing for everyone to like, no matter what part of the country or world you're in, and I think it always has its difficulties. In Sydney that year that was an all time thirty year high in rainfall. So here we are maintaining warm season grass as we all know. You know you'd like your certain growing medium temperature, you're at least expecting it at a certain point in the spring or heading into summer, and we would get these massive rainfalls, which you know ten years later. Now I'm in on like Los Angeles and we just had the same thing happened this past winter. So it definitely challenges and every property has some sort of planning or short term prin laning or long term planning that can be affected by we all are the weather. I think that is ever changing. And being able to utilize all of our teamwork and resources and people that we have on staff just to be flexible and be able to shift gears a little bit. And I'm sure architects alike. With the pandemic happening, I know that shifted a lot of projects and all of these things that we thought were going to happen. I think that was just a good reminder for everyone just to take a step back and kind of revaluate sometimes the challenges that we all face. But I think it definitely varies per location, and I think every everyone at their designated golf courses or properties has their own sort of challenges season by season, for sure.

00:27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:27:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, Obviously this one in California I think was like good in ways, but also extremely challenging. Like you know, the I was just up at Metal Club, which doing some photography this morning, and it's like it's a golf course that's struggled with water, right and this year finally getting water. But it's like, you know, the golf course looks better than several looked now that we're months away from that those rain events. But you know, at the same time, you know, the trees and just the flooding is it's insane. What was happening in California this year.

00:27:44
Speaker 1: What do you think.

00:27:45
Speaker 3: About, you know, going from someone just on the crew to now your your assistant superintendent, but like really like you're running the day to day operation the organization. You know, what were the key moments in your career grow in terms of growth that have gotten you to where you are.

00:28:04
Speaker 4: I think doing a lot of observing.

00:28:06
Speaker 5: I was fortunate to be on the same golf club meetings team at Capilano for six seasons, so there was definitely a few transitional periods. We had internships, so we had people that would work for us for those four to five months in between going back to school or graduating from their programs. Speaking with them was always really interesting because here you've got people internationally. As I spoke about Alistairs from New Zealand. I've met two people that I ended up going university with in the University of Guelf in Ontario. I saw their transition from starting at the club, working their way through the summer, getting so much different experience, and then going back to school. And also one gentleman Morgan from Penn State. He was one of the first people that I'd met who had worked in the United States who was from the United States.

00:28:50
Speaker 4: Who chose to do his internship and Canada. So meeting all these.

00:28:54
Speaker 5: Different folks from different areas and you know, had never been to Vancouver, like my never been to University gualf.

00:29:02
Speaker 4: I've did no Ontario, but never that area.

00:29:03
Speaker 5: So learning about all of their experiences and what they were doing from school and translating it to the field really had me thinking ahead of this is what I want to do. I knew I wanted to do it. I had had a lot of traveling under my belt. I was kind of waiting for that next step in my career and what to do. And I remember just observing specifically the interns, kind of learning everything they were doing. And fortunately Jamie Rob at the time would put me, you know, alongside them because he you know, I expressed my interests and he said, okay, let's test this out here, so he'd you know, I'd get to do various just fertilizer applications with interns. I'd never calculated fertilizer application before. And it wasn't one of those oh my gosh moments. It was okay, cool, how do we do it? Or okay, yeah, let's work together. And there was all these various small projects that the interns would get a part of that I would be able to help them with or assist with. And I really got my you know, my feet wet in all aspects of the operation, so to speak. And I think that really opened my ey to okay, great.

00:30:01
Speaker 4: Like what's next.

00:30:02
Speaker 5: And I always enjoyed working alongside all of these different people and working as a team to get certain things done at that course. At the time, we hosted a Pacific Coast Amateur, which was kind of the biggest tournament you could say that we put on. Even as a club, we hosted a pre Canadian Open event when it was held at Shaughnessy Golf Club.

00:30:22
Speaker 3: Because you're.

00:30:24
Speaker 1: Watching these did Charles Schwarzel in that tournament feel?

00:30:28
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:30:30
Speaker 5: So it was seeing you know, Paul Casey, all of these big, big time players that you're used to seeing on television for the first time up close playing our golf course. It's sort of an exhibition open, and it was It was awesome. It was kind of like my first taste of oh wow, these are big time players. They're at our cold club, Like this is a big deal. So even just the day to day prep and theme work of the office side. I call it the office side, but it's really just you know, how does the data to get put together? You know, how do you from eight people in the winter to at the time we had upwards we topped out of forty people on staff for those seasonal kind of really busy shotgun days or golf course prep days, and how do you translate that many people into what we need to do looking at the whole golf course as a whole and identifying specific areas. I feel like I got a lot of experience just being able to be a part of that operation, but also just observing just a great staff and a great kind of program there that really opened my eyes to a Wow, I'd love to be a part of that in my career.

00:31:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've been a part of a ton of championships. You've volunteered a bunch, obviously.

00:31:38
Speaker 1: You've got the you're out loud.

00:31:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got the women Zam coming to bel Air this year. You're I believe I've I heard that you're volunteering at the lacc Us Open of course that you used to work at. What is it about the tournament experiences of from the turf side that you like the most?

00:32:00
Speaker 5: It's definitely seeing it from beginning to finish. You know how much the group, the team that is on the golf course you're in and euro out has put in It could be years in advance, and a lot of these championships you realize they get announced, you know, four or five years prior perhaps even longer, and there's been so much preparation leading up to it. So if you're able to go in to the operation and just it's like a kid in a candy store. Sometimes when we get to see the maintenance facilities, we get to see the golf courses sometimes for the first time. I know I had that wow factor, specifically at the Olympic Club when I stepp foot there. It was just an overwhelming feeling of Wow. They've put in so much time and effort to get this club ready, and we're here to kind of help them just bring it home. But the day to day, I mean, especially just all the background stuff that we do, just being able to almost get out there ahead of everyone, prepare the golf course just so get off just in time, and then we go back and do it all over again in the evening typically to do prep work for the next morning and just to see how the players react. I love how the week progresses from Okay, the players are arriving, We've got the golf course, you know, in this category of shape. We want to take it to this level tomorrow, this level sort of translating into those championship conditions leading.

00:33:17
Speaker 4: Up to Sunday.

00:33:18
Speaker 5: I feel like it is always just observationally and being part of it is always great, and it's it is a lot of background making decision. A lot of things are made the day of, the morning of, and we just say, okay, let's go do it, and we just execute. So I love that part of tournaments for sure.

00:33:34
Speaker 3: Is there a do you have a favorite moment from from tournament golf, you know on the crew, Like, is there a moment that stands out, like a story or anything that really sticks with you in terms of any of the tournaments that you've worked.

00:33:49
Speaker 5: I think what's fun about the tournaments is there is some downtime, and the downtime is usually spent on the golf course in some fashion. And I recall taking part in an advanced suite for the memorial, which I was actually happening this week, and I remember just sitting, you know, we were waiting out of thunderstorm and all of us ended up. A lot of them were locals from the golf course crew that was on and it was myself, three other volunteers that were there just for the advance week, and all of the sort of guys that have been on the crew for multiple seasons and just sitting around round tabling, just telling stories just about life, and like, you know, we're waiting for the rainstorm to pass, but that leads us all to just not really go our separate ways and you know, go on our phones and listen to music or whatever it may be. We all kind of just hung out there and just had fun conversations and some of them aren't even about golf, right, So I just those are the memories that I always think I take from those. You always meet someone new at a tournament, someone that you know. Myself personally, I've never really worked in some of the states that some other people have, so you get to meet people from all over and just talk about golf, for sure, but we always get on some other topics that you know, those conversations last the life time for sure.

00:35:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's uh, it's funny.

00:35:03
Speaker 3: I uh, we spent a pretty good amount of time in in Nebraska and we were doing the this uh this Turf internship video on sand Hills and bally Neil and like the moment it's not like, you know, we would play sand Hills and bally Neil in the afternoons and you know those are this is gonna sound blasphemous and you know, but the moment I'll remember the most from those trips was, you know, after a long day of shooting interviews we played was standing at a motel in Mola, Nebraska, eating pizza off the hood of a car with like a six pack of beers with Cameron and Garrett from from our team and just talking like you know, it's like that moment more so. You know, the golf obviously is great and everything, but it's just it's funny how like though there are certain moments like sitting in and waiting out of rein delay, like I can just like see that in my head, like sitting around having a chat.

00:35:59
Speaker 5: It's on the golf course side too, when we have some downtime and you know you're waiting for play or you're waiting for this. It's it's just a downtime moment that I think sparks sort of enthusiasm and stuff too.

00:36:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we got LA, we got a big LA Championship golf year.

00:36:16
Speaker 1: This year.

00:36:17
Speaker 3: You're gonna be out at LACC. You know, what's what's the energy level like in the golf community community in Los Angeles right now?

00:36:27
Speaker 1: Is it? Is it people? Is it the talk of the town?

00:36:30
Speaker 4: Absolutely?

00:36:31
Speaker 5: I Again, it feels like yesterday the Open was announced and then you know, you find out the US Woman's opens announced. Okay, there's the West Coast swing. The US Woman's amitateers announced, like, wow, it's a really West coast swing for USCA this summer. Yeah, we've been buzzing ever since the rain stopped sort of finally it tailed off at the end of March. It's okay, let's put this into fifth year. And I feel like it's been the same at our course. I've been fortunate to be at LA recently. I was blown away just to build out the incredible amount of work that I know they've all had to put in just these last three months, outside of all the winter weather that we had. It's going to be an incredible tournament. I can definitely sense the you know, the vibe everything about Los Angeles right now is golf centric.

00:37:19
Speaker 4: They're starting to advertise it on the news. That's just new.

00:37:23
Speaker 5: We know that, you know, Riviera hosts an annual tournament, so that's always sort of in the LA sort of calendar for that, you know, January February area. But this is something larger than life, and I feel it definitely in the last month, but even the last few months, and you keep counting down the days and weeks and I I think we just spoke it's June first. I can't believe that it's right around the corner now. So I can't wait.

00:37:47
Speaker 4: The whole golf community is definitely buzzy.

00:37:50
Speaker 3: How do you think Los Angeles Country Club will play in June? You know, for US Open versus how it would play for like a membership what like when you work there just a regular June day.

00:38:03
Speaker 5: I think it's going to be very challenging around the greens. And I think that because I know the rough is extremely tough. I know they're going to have the rough extremely tough. I know the fairways and the sale swales and the slopes those are going to play. You know your ball is going to roll and have just a certain trajectory exactly where they pinpoint it. I keep reminding myself, these are professionals, right, so they're gonna It's just I keep thinking of all the landing areas in certain holes, but I think green surrounds and just the greens themselves, I think they're going to be rocking. I say that in an awesome fun way, but I think they're going to be rocking, and I think everything about that is going to challenge your mind.

00:38:41
Speaker 4: So it might not be the.

00:38:43
Speaker 5: T shot, approach shot, but when you're approaching the green, I think that's where the wheels are going to start turning. For all these players and their caddies alike, it's going to be sort of a challenge. And depending on when where you know, where the USGA tucks the pins is going to be super unique. I working there day to day, I think anyone that's worked at LACC on the North Course and cut cups there you can imagine where the pin locations are and how those greens roll in at those speeds, et cetera.

00:39:09
Speaker 4: So I can't wait.

00:39:10
Speaker 5: I think the greens are going to be a huge factor basically from Thursday all the way to Sunday and just the shortcut swales and all the George C. Thomas features that make all of his golf clubs so special. Just that precise thinking that you have as a player to lay up or do I, you know, do I put around this area, et cetera.

00:39:29
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be really fun to watch.

00:39:31
Speaker 3: From your time working there, is there a part of that property that sticks out that, like, you know, kind of always whatever you got there, you just kind of looked around and thought like this is I always find these parts of properties where I like looked around, I'm like, it's a pretty cool place. And I imagine that happens when you spend a lot of time on a property. Is there one place at LACC on the north course that sticks out to you?

00:39:54
Speaker 5: For me personally, it's either driving down thirteen, which is one section core, or the property and when you look up, you feel like, again you're kind.

00:40:03
Speaker 4: Of on your own.

00:40:04
Speaker 5: The whole goad ends at the opposite side of the property and you're looking up toward the Hollywood Hills. I always imagine myself being there either first thing in the morning or last thing at night, and you've just got that pink orange sky and then as soon as you leave thirteen and you're kind of coming back towards twelve Green and eleven t that's where you get the vista of downtown. You can see Dodger Stadium on the perfect night. I've always cherished we call it the high side, but I always cherish being able to drive up that direction first thing in the morning or sort of the last thing in the evening. It was always just a really nice moment of you know, look at where we are, and it still to this day sticks out in my mind for sure.

00:40:43
Speaker 3: So that's called the high side. What are the other parts of the property called.

00:40:47
Speaker 5: We kind of called the high side. Basically, I could call it just thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, nine Green, ten to sixteen, and then we'll call the low side. Would be after you leave whole number one, we call it the low side. You're just sitting lower on the property line basically, so holes two through five you're kind of getting up to that same level, and then you drop that down to number six, seven, eight, nine before you make that more uphill gradual on the back nine from whole number ten.

00:41:18
Speaker 1: Gotcha, all right?

00:41:19
Speaker 3: So with with bel Air, you're you're hosting a women's am and you're obviously I'm guessing full prep into that. How does that different than a normal year. What are the different things that you guys are doing.

00:41:34
Speaker 5: It's awesome to have the ability to host it in August. For us, it's great to have a little more of a countdown towards building the golf course up for that week. We usually do have a few events that we're preparing for in the month of June and August, but this one being the big one in the middle of August, we're just getting grass lines everything tightened up, ready to kind of have you know, the heights of cut where we want them, certain grass areas grown in, maybe more, maybe bringing in some lines of fairways as well a hair just getting all the mow lines and grass lines kind of sort of set perfectly now, just so they have the availability to heal in and have everything sort of precisely drawn out for how we're going to have it playing for.

00:42:20
Speaker 3: That week going into the tournament, like a month out, do you do anything different like I've you know, I've played I played, you know, Shinnacock right before the the Open, the Open years ago, and then I've been hearing that you know, LA's is very soft right now. Is there a certain way that you kind of like set up a course in order to I assume, is it kind of like a swimmer trying to peak for a week? Like is there like is there a theory behind that? And what is the theory?

00:42:51
Speaker 5: I think that's a great way you put it. It's having the finish line in mind, but not getting too far ahead of yourself. So fortunately for us in Los Angeles, especially heading into the summer months, we don't really have to think about weather. So I know a lot of major championships, you know, they do have to pay attention to the forecast, the rain forecast, and that kind of it's almost like a reset button perhaps for the greens or approaches or how the times are going to work for sort of how the ball will play. I think for us, always keeping the finish line in mind, but just details and having everything set out kind of planned, you know, a week, if not two weeks in advance, and if we're talking a month out, we kind of have still those countdown moments on our calendar of certain details we want to attack this week and then as well as just maintaining the golf course, you're trying to Like you said, you're trying to get to the finish line and peak right in that moment in the last week. But I think all our preparation leading up to it and just having that thirty day outlook in mind, I can say we have that outlook now we're almost three months away, So it's it's it's definitely on our momentum and it's just never losing focus. But it's it's interesting and it's awesome to see the golf course sort of transform. We've had a lot of overcast days in Los Angeles. We call it May Gray June gloom. We're definitely in the full swing of that. But I think just keeping your eye on it and just pushing towards it. Like you said that analogy with the swim or peaking couldn't be more spot on.

00:44:17
Speaker 3: Do you get big June and gloom all the way out at LACC. I know, like it's more prevalent closer to the coast, But how far does it extend out into Los Angeles?

00:44:27
Speaker 5: It does this particular year, especially May Gray June gloom. Now we're in June bloom. It will extend just to the base of the hills. So Hollywood Hills Malibu area. Obviously in the mountains, if you're luckily be high enough, we're sort of observing downwards, you'll kind of just see it. We call it you're being socked in. But yeah, we will be affected on our property as well as Los Angeles Country Club will be affected as well. There's certain times where the sun may peak out at say noon or one o'clock, but then it may disappear right after that. And that we're set a little bit farther away from the coastline, we may only get two to three hours four hours max of summer.

00:45:06
Speaker 3: What part of bel Air are you most excited to see the best women amateurs play? Is there like a certain thing that you're looking forward to watching.

00:45:17
Speaker 5: I love I've been able to thankfully see some woman's competitive golf now in person, but I just can't get over how they strike the ball. It's kind of jaw dropping to me. And we were talking earlier. I didn't grow up golfing, and I've started taking a little more seriously now, so I'm competitive with myself and I think golf is I get it, like, I definitely get the drive and the willpower, and I playing golf myself now a little bit I get, you know, and you hit one good shot and then the next one, and that just puts in my mind how dedicated these young women are and they can just crush the ball.

00:45:53
Speaker 4: I love.

00:45:53
Speaker 5: I'm really looking forward just to seeing how far they're able to hit it and kind of their angle of the whole. And you know they're going to attack it straight on, but is there an advantage to hitting it? Maybe you know they're going to have practice rounds here, so will they want to hit it sort of to the right of number twelve fairway example, just to try and get a better angle, and just observing the challenges sort of of the natural swales we have on the property, I think sort of after their drive shot, what happens next. I'm really looking forward to seeing, because I know these ladies are going to crush the distance too. As a person that's getting more into golf, I'm really looking forward just to watching their techniques and you know, what they think and how they're going to approach some of these tight green surrounds we have with the.

00:46:34
Speaker 3: Two properties with La and bel Air obviously same architect same general area. I mean, it's only a couple miles apart. How much different are the environments that From a turf maintenance perspective.

00:46:48
Speaker 5: They're very similar. I would say lacc on certain holes they feel a lot more open. So as far as temperatures go, you can have a slight variation with some warmer weather as well as some lower weather. There elevational changes are similar to this property.

00:47:06
Speaker 4: We have tight canyons.

00:47:07
Speaker 5: We have holes that in the winter time specifically may only see you know, two to three hours of sunlight. In the summer months, of course with daylight savings and everything, it's a lot more heading into August September, but yes, we do have definitely both properties have challenges. There's definitely shade casts from lower elevation higher elevation. There's definitely almost microclimates between the two. I say low and high based on shade cast as well as just temperature and growing environments. But yes, very similar properties with different areas of holes that are challenging.

00:47:41
Speaker 1: It's wild.

00:47:42
Speaker 3: You know, obviously do the photography. You know, you get a sense early mornings places, but like at bel Air or like you walk down the hill on one and it feels like the temperature drops like ten degrees.

00:47:54
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I feel that and likewise, when you drive up to what will be completely it's in our clubhouse area and the ten D and firsty, it feels like you'll increase it by ten degrees sometimes mid midday when you're driving up to that area.

00:48:09
Speaker 4: So it's no different.

00:48:10
Speaker 5: On the backside of our property, Pulls eleven through sixteen.

00:48:14
Speaker 4: They have the same thing.

00:48:16
Speaker 5: You drop down from the eleventh fee down into the canyon, the natural canyons that are now surrounded by homes, a lot of open airflow and it just feels kind of like a refresher And as you make your way back up to seventeen, of course on the opposite side of the street, you're back at that high elevation ready to drop down. And like you said, you're constantly changing just how it feels walking around the property.

00:48:38
Speaker 1: How hard is it?

00:48:39
Speaker 3: Obviously everybody marvels at bel Air with the canyons. You know that golf even exists. I mean there are these small tunnels that take you from one part of the course to the other part of the course. What's it like with maintenance equipment, Like, how do you guys get the stuff around?

00:48:54
Speaker 1: Is it? You know, it's a.

00:48:55
Speaker 4: Lot of planning yeah, I know.

00:48:58
Speaker 5: When I started here, it was January of twenty nineteen, so the project had just completed. They had opened the golf club in July of twenty eighteen, and there was a lot of planning and a lot of things that they figured out once the course was open again. And I felt likewise, once I joined the team, we were still just trying to get it just right, like what makes the most sense, what's most efficient. I you know, we do need this moll over here, But and then they got to drive all the way around this way, so it's a lot of shortcuts and planning and pre planning, and even for these big events. I think of LACC and bel Air were relocated in the heart of Los Angeles, you know, now, you know, when the courses were first designed, they were really on their own. They were really unique properties designed with nothing around them. And now it's hard to put your mind in that because now we're just surrounded by you know, a lot of different major streets, major arteries for Los Angeles, as well as all of these homes and neighboring properties that now we're kind of backed into a corner.

00:50:00
Speaker 4: It feels like in some of the holes and it's just unique.

00:50:03
Speaker 5: It's it's present challenges and always just thinking creatively. Okay, well how can we get this person here? Like you said, the size of the machines, we can't get a faraway mower from five to six because there's a tunnel. So it's just backtracking and being able to weave around the canyons as officially as possible.

00:50:21
Speaker 1: It's funny.

00:50:21
Speaker 3: It's one of the things that not every course has to deal with with with the shade is do different greens have different inputs then because of the way where they sit? Is that is that something like do you have variable kind of inputs in ways you maintain things based off where they are?

00:50:41
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's a great thing you brought up. We've it's kind of just based on the season. I mean, as you know, in Los Angeles we can experience a above average eighty degree week in the month of January and that can happen multiple times during the winter. This previous winter was actually very similar to my first winter here in twenty nineteen. We saw, you know, exceeding record amounts of rain and no real warm up. So for us, our inputs definitely were accelerated in between the rainfalls, just trying to maintain, you know, to help that grass sort of stay healthy and be able to be resilient. Still with our heavy play that we experience in the winter months here, it still is a destination for golf.

00:51:24
Speaker 4: Thankfully. We're part of the world and part of.

00:51:27
Speaker 5: The United States that is three sixty golf, and I know a lot of people make sort of plans to golf here in the winter. So for us maintaining our greens specifically, yes, we have owned in on certain fertilizer requirements that we may shift here and there, but it's all about walking the surfaces daily, kind of observing what we think might work. The weather's going to change here, let's just wait and see. Thankfully, with our staff and a really you know, flexible and great team, we're able to kind of own in on sort of making those decisions sort of weekly and bi weekly, just changing things as needed. But yes, definitely observing different growing environments and just kind of keeping an eye on things and changing inputs when we can when the sunlight doesn't want to come out.

00:52:12
Speaker 3: A similar question to the question I had about lacc favorite part of the property at bel Air, like, is there where's the spot where you kind of just sit and always take a second to look around.

00:52:26
Speaker 5: It's ironic and I don't know if maybe George C. Thomas is in my head about it, but whole number thirteen here is a really special part three similar, you're making your turn, you're about to head back up. You know, you're almost finishing around. You've got a par five fourteenth coming up. But thirteen has this natural, just little canyon at the back that you just feel like you're in between the hills and same scenario first thing in the morning for sunrise and last in the evening coming from that property. It's just really quiet, just feels like you could be anywhere really, but it's a really special part of the property. Just that whole back area is just really peaceful.

00:53:07
Speaker 3: That is an amazing property. I'm super excited for the Women's am to see it, Yeah on TV. Like what it's going to look like on television.

00:53:15
Speaker 4: Hard to imagine.

00:53:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.

00:53:17
Speaker 5: I'm actually really intrigued about it. I keep imagining and we've seen a little bit of the renderings of you know, how they're going to stage and what they're looking for, but just to actually see it come together, I couldn't agree more and I likewise, for lacc I, the Walker Cup was a great warm up and kind of how you know, at the time they wanted to air and sort of view things and put it on the huge scale of the US Open having every kind of output and input they want and what to articulate. Bellair is no different. We're gonna I think the features and from going from even a golf perspective of the players on our fairways to them having the camera have to zoom out so that people can see, oh wow, they're shooting uphill. So I think maybe people don't expect all the elevational changes that come along with the rounds here. I think it's going to be really fun to see.

00:54:05
Speaker 3: So obviously, turf has a big labor shortage, and something everybody always points to is the lack of women in the workplace. I think it's one of the professions that has the smallest percentage of women in the workforce. As a woman in turf. You know, what is what do you think golf can do in order to get more women interested in pursuing a career like you've pursued.

00:54:36
Speaker 5: I think just getting the word out and that's from inside the turf grass industry, sort of my background coming up, not really knowing that this could be a career path to kind of falling into it. I know, I'm echoing a lot of other female stories that are in the industry right now, but we kind of all fell into it one way or another, and like you said, a lot of it is male dominated. Fortunately, there was always another female on staff actually all of the golf clubs that I have worked on, and that always made it kind of special knowing that they had the same like mindedness that I did. You know, you're working a month's male dominated industry. But it didn't really phase us. It didn't really affect us wanting to be a part of the team, and I always felt like it.

00:55:18
Speaker 4: Didn't really ender my abilities at all.

00:55:20
Speaker 5: I always felt like I had equal opportunities and I had a lot of fun. So I feel like if I can translate that as much as I can to women that maybe are thinking about even if it's a part time job to start on a grounds maintenance team or something to do with a golf course, in any sort of facet, it can grow the game. Absolutely, It can grow our industry, It can grow possibilities and even just hosting a US Women's amter. It was funny when I first started in the career path, it was the same thing. The events that we would cater to were mostly male dominated, and to see women's events and attending now the US Women's Open and now hosting a Women's ameter just shows you how much they mean to the game and how important it is to deliver just the exact same results top notch to these players as well. So I think as a career goes just sort of broadcasting it out there, showing that it is possible, and you're not happy with what you're doing in your current situation, and you're thinking about sort of changing something.

00:56:20
Speaker 4: And even if you enjoy the game of.

00:56:22
Speaker 5: Golf, if you don't, like I really at the time, wasn't after it for the golf aspect. It's a really rewarding career and you meet so many great people. I've always I've always enjoyed meeting everyone, and like I've been able to say, I've kind of translated my passion for traveling into now sort of making it a way around the golf community. And I've met so many people still to this day that I rely on and count on and just have really good memory, core memories with all.

00:56:49
Speaker 3: Right, last question, as a traveler and you've worked all over the place, you haven't worked everywhere, but is there a part of the world that you would like to work or like, you know, just have like thought about, like it would be it would have been really cool if I got there.

00:57:05
Speaker 1: I don't you know if you were you know, if.

00:57:07
Speaker 3: You're set at l like a general area, like, is there a part of the world where you wish you would have gone or that you might go at some point.

00:57:17
Speaker 5: There's two areas that I think I caught myself never thinking about that I kind of have in my mind. I say that just because I've never worked in them, but the desert being one of them. I growing up again because up the Northwest, I never came to Vegas growing up, I never had been to Arizona. Just never crossed my mind. And I catch myself now just seeing those properties. They just look so unique and they're just so different. And obviously as a golfer, same thing three sixty five golf community where they you know, they do get a lot more play.

00:57:49
Speaker 4: In the winter.

00:57:50
Speaker 5: I just think some of those properties look so visually stunning another one. It's funny because I ran away from the rain, it seems like as much as I could from the Pacific Northwest. I was happy and it was awesome trip. I made it to London, England and the surrounding area, as well as Edinburgh in Scotland, so I was, you know, this close to Saint Andrew's and at the time in my life I just didn't get over that way. But I've always thought that style of golf, the link style. I watching me open on television last year was so awesome and I love that style and I think it's just way different. I predominantly have not worked on links courses, link style holes perhaps, but never a true link style course. But the coast of England or the coast of Scotland, I honestly I'd pack a rain jacket and be prepared to wear it every day. But I think that would just be awesome to try to try and grow grass and just you know, accelerate the game out that way. I know they have a huge passion in following for the game of golf, so I think it would be awesome to be a part of something like that too.

00:58:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, that the culture of golf there is just so fascinating. It's just like it's it's so ingrained in the towns, which is so different. Like obviously you you work at a place where there's literally like a community on top of a golf course. Very few of that community actually like is evolved with golf, right you know, Versus you go to Scotland and it's like everybody in the in the community place golf.

00:59:23
Speaker 5: You know, absolutely, I And that's a great way to put it. It's just like yourself when you're traveling around towns, you kind of get the feel for what the community is about or if they have an industry that they're predominantly focused on in the town.

00:59:37
Speaker 4: And like you said, golf is ingrained, and.

00:59:39
Speaker 5: I love what you just like, as soon as you step on a golf property. In all of these networks that we have, it is all about the golf. And I think bel Air is really special that way. Our members and everyone take pride in the golf course and it is it's our own best kept secret in the middle of Los Angeles. So I think that's always fun about the property.

00:59:57
Speaker 4: It's awesome.

00:59:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an amazing place, and it's and you know, one of my friends from college was actually an intern at bel Air and I was working in La years ago, I mean like ten plus years ago. And it's funny because like we would get to go out there on Mondays and this was so you know, it's amazing to see how that property has evolved since the time I've known it as a twenty six year old, you know. And yeah, it's cool to see and keep up the good work where I'm excited. I hopefully will get out there before during the women's am And congratulations on everything you've achieved in your career.

01:00:37
Speaker 4: Awesome. Thank you, Eddie. I hope you make it out this absolutely. Thank you.

01:00:52
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01:01:41
Speaker 1: All right, so we're one.

01:01:42
Speaker 3: You're removed from Scaas for you, I got to ask what do you miss most about college golf and what are you happiest is out of your life.

01:01:52
Speaker 1: From college golf.

01:01:54
Speaker 2: I probably miss being around like people that I could make fun of because I was the oldest person that was so I was the one that was able to push people around. And now I think I'm probably more of the guy that's on the chopping block out here. So I missed that a lot, being able to be able to make fun of the eighteen and nineteen year olds on the team, not in a bad way, in a friendly, helpful teammate way. The thing that I don't miss I probably don't miss having specific times for workouts that all of us got to do the punishment. Anyone that's listening that has been to ou understands what I mean when I say I don't miss the circuits that we did, like it seemed like twice a week every every week last year. But yeah, I mean it's there is there's pros and cons to college golf, but there's there's more than a few things that I miss, and there's probably more than a few things that I don't miss.

01:02:47
Speaker 3: So I mean, speaking of that, I imagine when you turn professional, you go from like a highly structured environment to like the world's you're a oyster. Is is that allergy?

01:03:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is. It's no matter how many people that you have. Me and I have a lot of people around me that kind of helped me out with that transition, and it was still it was still very difficult. I mean, this is what I always tell people when they ask me kind of that similar question, is that there isn't really a playbook for what we're doing. I mean, what works for the next guy doesn't necessarily work for me, and what works for me might not work for the next guy. So it's just trying to figure out from all these people giving you advice. You know, there's a lot of people from ou that I know out here, buddies from college that I know out here, and they might all have ways to do things that they've shared with me, and I try those things and they might not work the same for me as it works for them. So it's just figuring out bits and pieces from different people that have been successful and kind of forming my own puzzle and putting all the pieces together to what works for me. So I think that part of it is is pretty difficult. Something that I don't think people necessarily tell you is that, well, there's going to be all this stuff that you learn, but it's not necessarily gonna work for you. It's more of do this, you're gonna be successful. So just managing that kind of road and figuring out what to do has been probably the toughest thing, but definitely the most rewarding thing too, because when you figure that puzzle out, it kind of clicks pretty pretty well at the end of it.

01:04:23
Speaker 3: That's I think that's like a fascinating thing about golf, right, is that everybody is always like quick to give advice, but really, like the best advice usually is like to figure out what works for you, because like it's such a personal game, like the introspection, the you know, the journey, Like I mean, you could go to the same to ten different teachers that tell you the exact same thing, but one of them might say it in just the right way that it clicks with you. And it's it's not that the other guys or girls were bad teachers. It's just that, like it's so personal, you know, yeah.

01:05:00
Speaker 2: For sure, I mean I think you hit that nail around on the head. Stuff is so. I mean with golf even more so than probably a lot of other sports, Like you get thrown them in the fire and you're expected to know exactly what to do. But you know, in basketball or football or whatever it is, there's people that kind of guide you where you need to be. And again, I mean it's still personal in that too, But in golf specifically, you know, you're you're by yourself. You know, you have I have buddies out here that that we're rooting for each other, but at the end of the day, like we want to beat each other. Like you know, if I was if I had was on a basketball team and and you know, I have these teammates whatever, it's fourteen, that we're all looking at the same goal of winning the game that we have that night. If you're on the Lakers, you're trying to beat the warriors, whatever it is. And in golf there is a little bit of that, like we're on the same type of road map. I mean, there's thirty guys that get their PGA to her card and me and my four best friends. I'd love for that to be the five of the thirty or whatever, but in reality, that's not necessarily how it goes. And if it's between me and my best friend that's you know, standing right beside me, I would still rather be me because that's just how golf is. So I think that part of it is definitely interesting. I don't think people quite understand how that works, because it does get a little bit lonely. Like that statement that I just made would probably be considered by some to be maybe I don't know, it's not selfish, but some might think that's kind of like a selfish sport. But that's just what golf is. I mean, that's what your mindset has to be.

01:06:37
Speaker 3: The ironic thing is, like you probably have experienced this, but like you get in a match play tournament and you go up against one of your friends, like you almost want to win that more than a match against some guy that you might not even like.

01:06:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean one hundred percent. I actually played with I played with Chris, who I played with though you obviously last year the final round in Florida whatever, three or four weeks ago. And then I got to play with Jacob Bridgman, who was one of my best buddies out here the very next week. And then I got to play with Kuwaid One are your burly boys in the final round?

01:07:13
Speaker 1: A couple of them? They listed a couple of burly boys.

01:07:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris isn't a part of that og burly boys group, but I think he could be considered burly, so playing with those guys. Like like you said, I mean, that wasn't match play, but it's still like I'm playing beside him, and and like when me and Chris played together, we both had a chance to win, and I knew that I wanted to beat him more than even if I was playing with a guy that I don't even know. So like you said, that wasn't a match play situation, but in a sense, it was, like I do want to beat him more than almost anyone else in that whole field, even though they are some of my best friends.

01:07:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is a it's an aspect of golf, right, you don't have teammates, you don't have anybody else, and and then like your friends, there is like a friendly rivalry like I I you know, you always like you're always rooted, Like it's it's kind of like this weird if it's not me, I want them to do it, but I don't want them to beat me.

01:08:05
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly, That's what I always say. I'm like, you know, I root for you, I want you to win golf tournaments, but if it's between me and you winning a golf tournament, I would still rather be me.

01:08:15
Speaker 3: So get back to kind of the transition and what was the Do you have any examples of what we were talking about where you tried doing something one way and it wasn't working and you switched it up to and started doing a different way and found success.

01:08:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that. I always tell people again that like Monday, Tuesday Wednesdays are the hardest part of being out here because we're in the third the third week of a seven in a row stretch, Like there's a lot of Monday, Tuesday Wednesdays in there that you're it can go one of two ways. You can use those to kind of prepare yourself to be as ready as you can on a Thursday, or you can use those to just go deeper into this hole. And so for me, like last summer, I had almost success out here in whatever eight events, and then for the first half of the season I didn't really have much success either. So I think the biggest thing that changed for me was that I figured out how my schedule should look on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So now I go out, I try to play nine holes Monday. If I can, I go play eighteen Tuesday, and then I play a pro and Wednesday, which most guys are. You know, a lot of guys will go only play eighteen holes before you know they teed it up on Thursday. But I think for me, it's more beneficial to go see a golf course and play a golf course as much as I possibly can. And you know, like the last two weeks in practice rounds, I haven't made a birdie in any of the practice round stuff, and people are like, well, why would you go play holes You're not going to see yourself making you birdies. But I've always been under the impression that the more that I play a golf course, the more comfortable I am. No matter whether I shoot ninety or whether I shoot sixty, it doesn't really matter. So that was something that I think I kind of went off what other people's roadmap kind of is of and to arrest my body, not play very much golf before Thursday and then go all in for seventy two holes and then redo it again the next week. So I think for me, that's been how I've found a little bit more success is just being able to see golf shots and see different lines and see different lines off tease and understand where missus are. And I think I do that by playing as many holes as possible before I teed up on Thursday.

01:10:22
Speaker 3: Do you do you have a specific example this just used last week? Is there like a hole that got that just you know, you played Holston Hills Obviously, I think it's a pretty cool course.

01:10:31
Speaker 1: I'm curious.

01:10:32
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to you about that golf course, but just in general, is there like a t shot out there that got easier or a green that got that you understood more because you got one extra round around it.

01:10:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was like I think of number four, is this little short kind of short ish part three one hundred and sixty yards or so, pretty small green. There's a big false front and false edge like front right of the green. And I played that whole, uh two or three times before I teed it up on Thursday, and you know, I talked to my cat and be like, ah, this is kind of tricky, like I don't really like the look of this. And by the time that like Thursday Friday roll around, I ended up playing that whole I think two or three under. And I don't think I would have played that whole even par if I wouldn't have played it, you know a few times before I actually got out there. So it's just little stuff like that where whether it's just me psyching myself into thinking that, oh I've played this a few times, I know what I'm doing, or if it's actually something that's helping. Either way, I know that a hole like that I walked into thinking I wasn't going to play that well and ended up playing really well. And if that's due to me playing that whole two or three times before I teed it up on Thursday, then it's definitely worth it to get out there and play as much as possible.

01:11:49
Speaker 3: You know you spoke about like that make a birdies of practice rounds, But like I whenever I think about my competitive days, I think about like staate am, so the practice round day before stayed am, and I always wanted to feel like I just like I hit it so good and got nothing out of the round. That was like always my ideal practice round where I felt like so good, but oh, you know, nothing went in, Like I just have to clean up a couple things, like I find when you're not going gagbusters, that's the best thing ever before a tournament.

01:12:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree. Like I'm almost I could be wrong on this, but I'm almost positive I didn't make a birdie Monday or Tuesday in Kansas City. I might might have made one in the twenty seven holes that I played Monday or Tuesday. And then like I went out on the proram and made like four or five birdies on nine holes, and then Holston Hill's same deal went out played eighteen holes on Tuesday, and you know we always play a game, just get absolutely hammered in the game, make zero birdies, everyone else making a ton of birdies, and the same thing on like Wednesday, I go make a few birdies in the pro am kind of get it going. And then this week was the same thing. I went out and played nine holes on Monday and eighteen holes on Tuesday and did not make a birdie in any of this. And then I went out on the problem that hit a little bit better. So it's just like I'm trying to start down here at the bottom and slowly work my way up, and I think I think it's worked so far, so hopefully I can keep the nobodies of pactice rounds going.

01:13:13
Speaker 3: What had you been to Holston Hills before? Was that the first time you bet out there?

01:13:17
Speaker 2: No, that was the first time. That was my favorite course that we played out here, just because part of was the fact that they have had really good weather and it hasn't rained that much, but it's rain enough for everything to be green looking kind of. But the fairways played really fast and firm, and the greens were they can't get them that fast because they have so much slope, but they were firm and skippy. So hitting fairways was important, and hitting fairways was hard because all those fairways slope away from you, and you know, the rough is that perfect flyer length that's an inch, an inch and a half, two inches or whatever. So you're trying to play flyers into kind of elevated greens back to front and just trying to figure out these equations that on corn Fairy, to be honest with you, we just don't really have to figure out much. On most golf courses is kind of just point and shoot. So playing a course like that, I felt like I can play better on that type of golf course because I think I think my way around a golf course a little bit better versus a lot of golf we play. Quite frankly, is it's not mindless golf, but it's close to it.

01:14:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's It's fascinating because like I think like it. You know, there is like a skill to like the you know, hit it here, hit it there aspect of a lot of corn Faery golf, but it you know, I think that there's probably been some discourse in very inner circles of golf, not you know, not your common fan about like, you know, does the golf courses that the corn Faery Tour plays are they representative of of PGA Tour courses and like should they be? Like if you change the golf courses with the thirty people that come out be different.

01:14:54
Speaker 1: But you know, it's hard.

01:14:55
Speaker 3: It's hard enough to get golf courses to host you know, the Western am or the US SAM let alone. You know, a corn Ferry Tour event.

01:15:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's which I completely understand, like you give up your course for a week. You you know, most the average member at the average club has no idea what's going on with the corn Ferry Tour. They don't know that there's thirty They know maybe just by the definition of it, but they don't understand that like Scotty Scheffler was playing on the corn Ferry Tour three years ago or whatever, like you know that that there's gonna be five guys that play in their event that are superstars in golf come twenty years from now and.

01:15:33
Speaker 1: Not either it seems like five years now.

01:15:35
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm just saying if you if you look at like a guy's career that was playing at Holston Hills last week, if you look at a twenty years from now, there could be a guy that's won six majors or something. I mean, the odds of maybe six majors isn't very likely, but there's gonna be guys that are top ten players in the world very very soon, like you're saying, I mean Scotty was literally on the corn ferry three or four years ago whatever, and now he's basically a world beater, to be honest with you. So it's examples like that that. That's what I've been telling people about this event that's coming to Norman. They're like, well, like, what even is it. I'm like, well, just let me just throw a couple examples out there of like guys that were playing in this not very long ago. They're like, oh, that's you know, that's pretty cool, and like, yeah, people don't quite understand that. But I think I would like to think that people are starting to understand a little bit more and we've been able to get some some better venues because of that, and I hope that continues in the future too, because it's definitely it's definitely for a club. Like I said, they might not think much of it, but I think they're starting to think a little bit more of it as years go by.

01:16:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean the competition now there is it's insane how even in the last couple of years, how much better it's gotten in it.

01:16:47
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes sense.

01:16:48
Speaker 3: It's it's the way you get to the big tour, right, And you know, I think about when you know, fifteen years ago or whatever, when there was still a Q school, how much more like variable the talent was. Like you'd have guys that got hot weeks, you know, and get onto the PGA Tour and then bomb out. It's like that doesn't really exist anymore because you know, like you can win on the corn Ferry Tour and not get up there. Hey, how'd you play the sixteenth hole there? It's that the driveable volcano PR four.

01:17:16
Speaker 1: What what'd you do? What was your thought process a that hall?

01:17:19
Speaker 2: So you know, the those two little cross bunkers are at like two seventy or something, and I'm just not a bomber. And it was into the wind pretty much all week, which I from what I understand, was kind of a weird win for that hole. And so it was never really like a thought for me. It was just a three iron and then hit a seventy five yard wedb shot because I didn't want to worry about spin too much. So it was never a thought for me. But I mean I played with a couple of guys that went for in the area that you could hit that in when the fairways are firm, is just so small because like most guys can't get a three wood there, so they're trying to like squeeze a driver and it was so firm that it needed to literally land three yards over the bunker and somehow stay short of the back bunker, which the back bunker is no good. So I mean for me, for me, it was a no brainer because it was like, if I hit driver, I'm bringing like six into play and I'm not really gonna make it two. And I think I played it. I think I made one birdie on in three cars, which I was which I was happy with because there were some numbers on that whole.

01:18:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I hope that you have a long gap from Holston Hills. That was like the third course I wrote about ever for the frieda Egg, and I haven't been back. I like, I'm dying to go back, but I just haven't gotten to Knoxville. So I you know, from your standpoint at this point, I hope you're not going back to Knoxville next year.

01:18:41
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's when you meet people in these towns It's kind of funny because they're like, oh, you know, I hope to see you back here next year, and you're like, well, I hope I don't see you. But you're a nice person, but I hope I don't see you back here next year.

01:18:55
Speaker 3: What what stood out to you about the level of competition on the corn fitry versus college golf.

01:19:02
Speaker 2: It's funny because people had always told me another one of these things, like people tell you things, and they always tell you they're like top level of college golf is the same as professional golf, which there is a little bit of truth in that, but in college golf, like you play most of the year minus a national championship in seventy two man fields or eighty eight man fields, whatever it is. And I'm gonna sound like Brooks a little bit here, but it's like, no, I kind of figured there's seventy two guys and like the reality of it is. And I was the same way when I was a freshman sophomore, like I wasn't gonna go out and win any of those tournaments. So like my junior and senior year, you kind of look at it and you're like, well, you know, there's ten guys in the field that have a chance to win out of seventy, so call it whatever, twelve percent or something. And on corn Ferry there's one hundred and fifty six player fields for the majority of the year, and you know, there's one hundred and forty guys that are capable of winning, and you can still do some math down to less people because the guys aren't playing well or whatever. But it's double the field size and double probably the amount of heavyweight talent a little bit. So just you know, winning on the corn Ferry Tour winning a PJ Tour event would be more difficult, but winning on the corn Fairy Tour is right up there with PJ Tour. And these are the guys that will be on the PGA Tour because you basically have to go through corn Fairy now minus a few guys that'll get special temp. So it is similar to college because you hit a ball into a hole and try to do it fast. But there's a lot of stuff that like you kind of look back on after being in it, for you know, I've only been in it for a year and I look back on it like man that it doesn't even feel close to what college golf was, just because whether that was you know, just confidence and being on a good team and knowing that our team was going to do well so it freed me up individually or what. But it definitely feels a lot different and a lot a lot more difficult to win, you don't, you know, you see guys in college like Ludvy, I mean, he finished top ten every even he played in for two years, basically the last two years. I mean, as good as he is, he's probably not going to do that in professional golf. He might rattle off a couple wins in a great year, but he won four times this year or whatever. And there's guys that do that every single year, and that just doesn't happen in professional golf.

01:21:21
Speaker 3: Well, it's like I think Cala Marcaua went like a couple of years without finishing outside of the top ten, maybe it might have been two years, and it's like that's what Scottie Scheffler is doing right now.

01:21:32
Speaker 1: In professional golf.

01:21:34
Speaker 3: I think it's like I think fourteen or fifteenth straight top tens, which is like a college season, and that's insane. That just doesn't happen in professional golf. I think like a great attestament of the Cord Fairry is like, yeah, sure, Like the top end of college golf is just as good, is I think the top end really the entire court Ferry. But you have like guys on the Corn Ferry Tour like Rico Hoe, who were just like five or six years from being a first team All American and have been playing professional golf for six years. It's not like, you know, and it's like they just haven't had, you know, their best stuff when they needed it and they've gone through struggles. But it's like that's all one hundred and fifty guys. It's pretty wild.

01:22:16
Speaker 1: You know.

01:22:16
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, you start to look down the cvs of these of the players and it's like if you're not like you know, for the most part, everybody's been like an All American.

01:22:26
Speaker 2: It feels yeah, yeah, I mean I think Rico Jo he's a perfect example of like like you said, he's been pro for five years or whatever. Great in college, no one had heard of him for professional golf until this year, and before you know it, he's you know, he's already locked up his car, he's won, he's got four top threes or whatever it is, and you're like, well, I kind of forgot about this guy even though he was one of the best players in college. That's just what pro golf does. I mean, he was grinding mini tours last year, not knowing if he's gonna play golf, and suddenly he could go out and be a top fifty player in the world within a matter of six months. Literally. I think I saw something that they posted this week that he was like three thousand in the world at the start of the year. He's all the way up to like one sixty after last week. So it's stories like that that are, like, man, professional golf is hard, and that is a perfect example. There's a lot of guys that have that talent level that never make it, and that's just part of what golf is. But it also proves that, like there is very very high level golf even on even call it on many tours. There's guys like that are playing mini tours right now that whether they make it or not, they're very very talented and very very capable of making it, and it's just a matter of kind of who gets the right breaks. Obviously, you know, you work hard, you have talent, whatever but you do have to get a little bit of some good breaks and good fortune and all that, and unfortunately some guys don't get it. But that's just a testament to how hard professional golf actually is.

01:23:52
Speaker 3: You gotta be a little crazy to play professional golf.

01:23:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yeah, I figured that out over the last twelve months or so. You there's there's and there's definitely some crazy people out here too. Not just it's not just crazy to be playing professional golf, but there's also just some flat out crazy dudes out here too.

01:24:10
Speaker 1: What do you turn pro?

01:24:11
Speaker 2: Like?

01:24:11
Speaker 3: I guess, like, you know, you didn't have a bdo success a great, great college career, and you know you you were in the top five of the PGA tour U so you got starts and then you kind of struggled. Where was expectations a tough thing to handle coming.

01:24:27
Speaker 1: Out of the gate or Yeah?

01:24:29
Speaker 2: I mean, expectations are funny because it's I think it's in a sense it's good to have expectations because you know they can be helpful. But at the same time, like for me, in my mind, you know, I got this basically eight event race and when I came out of college, you know, everyone's old, bright eyed, bushy tail thinking that they're gonna go take over the world. Basically, I'm gonna go win two events and somehow sneak a card in eight events. But like, looking back on it now, this is a twenty six events season. I think last year was similar to that, if not maybe two events less or something, and like the odds that you make anything out of your eight events of twenty four whatever are like pretty slim, and you know, as I got deeper into missing cuts, I mean I think I made three out of eight cuts last summer, and it was frustrating because I expected myself to do that, expected myself to play well and somehow make the Cornfray finals and get a tour card. But in reality, like I'm thankful for that system because it gave me that experience and it got me into final stage of Q School, which is obviously a huge, huge thing. But in reality, the way that our PG two or you was structured, it was hard to get much out of it. I mean, Pearson played great last summer and did not have a PGA Tour card. So just one of those things where I did have those expectations and they were completely unrealistic because in all reality, playing thirty three percent of the events that everyone else is playing, you're probably not going to be able to do much with besides just getting experience.

01:26:01
Speaker 3: It feels like these guys that are got PGA Tour this year, PGA Tour a you this year have a way better setup.

01:26:07
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean what And to be honest with you, it's good for PG two or you to have Ludwig be the first first guy because I think everyone, not just think everyone, I think you will too have immediate success, I would imagine. And so to see that as a as a kind of first guy to actually get pj's for assess I think will be beneficial and let them keep doing it because you know that nothing against certain players, but if they had a different player finished first and not play well, it's kind of a bad look for them. And then you get the people that are kind of naysayers of it and like, oh, well that's these guys should go through the system and do all this. But in reality, like there's normally one guy a year that is going to have just absolutely immediate access success, and Ludvig should not be out grinding on the corn ferry tour. If he was in if he was playing college basketball ball and had the career he had in college, he'd make a gajillion dollars right out of college and he would be a starter on an NBA team. So it's like something like that, Like golf deserves to have a system in place that allows you to do that, and I think they're shifting more and more towards that. Obviously we have one this year, and I think in the future, if it keeps going well, that they'll probably end up being more spots added, which is an overall net good for golf fans, for professional golfers, in my opinion, coming out of college, college golfers all that, and I think that'll be in that positive that some people probably can't see, the kind of you know, people don't understand why that's happening, and you know, there might be old tour veterans that are like, oh right, why is this guy getting spot And I'm not, Well, I hate to say it, but a twenty three year old is going to get more attention drawn to a Honda Classic than a forty six year old that's been on tour for twenty years.

01:27:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just depends on what forty six year old is I mean, if it's a silver medallist from Bratislava.

01:27:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I disagree, but you know, I got I got.

01:28:03
Speaker 2: A funny story real quick. My my brother and his wife were in We're in Bradislava like two weeks ago, and all I can think about every time they put an Instagram story up or something was the Frida Egg.

01:28:14
Speaker 3: It's uh something if they should have we should have contracted him to ask some man on the ground interviews about Rory Sabatini while.

01:28:23
Speaker 1: They were there.

01:28:25
Speaker 2: I'm sure he's the number one celebrity around Slovakia.

01:28:29
Speaker 4: You know.

01:28:29
Speaker 3: We we had that uh we had the Broadislava Athletic Department sweatshirt and somebody, uh somebody bought it for their like the Slovakian grandpa.

01:28:41
Speaker 2: Wow.

01:28:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's transcend.

01:28:44
Speaker 3: It got got beyond beyond golf.

01:28:47
Speaker 2: So that's the reason of the Frida Egg pro shop.

01:28:51
Speaker 3: I guess you're talking about lud big and care you played. Obviously there's you know, the Big twelve and your team your year. Eye obviously had a great college career. I'm curious junior golf through now, was there a moment where where you were like most in awe of a player that you played with, whether it be just one round performance, like what would what would be a moment that stands out?

01:29:18
Speaker 2: I actually we're talking about lovevig So. I played in the They used to have the sun Boll All American that they did in l pass So every single year and they've stopped doing it through COVID and whatever and it never came back. But I played with Somehow I got into it, and I was like a sophomore. I wasn't even All American. Somehow I got into this tournament and the first hole or the first day is thirty six holes and I played with love Big and I can't remember if he ended up shooting fifty nine or sixty, but he shot one of those two and like I watched him, I was like, he just hit shots that I don't have and probably will never have. So I that's the one that I can think of that. I was like, wow, that that was like a different round of golf. And I know we talked about Ludwig for the last fifteen minutes or whatever, but that question drew me straight to that round of golf. So I think that's something that golf fans will start to see too. If they already are starting to catch on, but in the next month or so, I think they'll catch on even more.

01:30:15
Speaker 3: I always wonder about programs like Texas Tech, like, you know, this is not a shot at Lubbock, Texas, but like Ludwig comes from Sweden, and it is like for entrance into America is through Lubbock, Texas.

01:30:28
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, it's definitely. You know, I'm from Oklahoma. I've never had you know, that kind of that kind of interest into the state. I've been in Ocahol in my whole life. But I can't imagine that that those guys understand what they're getting theirselves into and they go to Lubbock or they go to Waco, Texas or something like that, like from some foreign country. I can't imagine the thoughts that roll into your head when you roll into Lubbock, Texas from being in Sweden your whole life.

01:30:56
Speaker 3: That used to be a thing with Houston because they had like Manty went to some small school in Houston for a couple months. I know Faldo went to Houston for a little while, and there was just this like shock in ah.

01:31:09
Speaker 1: Of like Houston's a big city. But like going from England to Houston was like this culture shock. Yeah, so I can only imagine going to going to Loving.

01:31:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you and t North Texas has always gotten guys from from Latin American countries and it's the same idea. It's like you're going from from wherever in South America to Dnton, Texas is probably a bit of a culture shock.

01:31:33
Speaker 3: Are you Are you doing winter somewhere? Are you staying in Oklahoma?

01:31:38
Speaker 2: I'm staying in Oklahoma. I'm just our winners aren't that bad. I mean, we get we get bad stretches every once in a while, but I think it's kind of good to have a built in time where I just sit on the couch and do nothing at home. So I think I will. You know, maybe when I'm on tour it'll be a different story, but for now, it's it's easier for me to just have built in I'm off and be able to be at home. My whole family is from Oklahoma, so it's nice to be around them a little bit more in the winter.

01:32:06
Speaker 1: Anyways, I'm I think I'm in on that.

01:32:09
Speaker 3: My buddy Vince India, he stays in Chicago year round, like he'll do like a month or two in in you know, Florida. But he's like, I've always had a break in my life, and like, why would I change that now?

01:32:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's like exactly like you're talking about with him. I mean, it's just like I've always kind of done that. Like we will get a week of really cold weather and that's basically my week off that I take completely off and do nothing golf related at all.

01:32:34
Speaker 3: Are you you know you've you've obviously played tremendous golf recently. You had the playoff loss at Lee Calm, and then you've gone T twenty three, T ninety seven the last few starts, you're up to fourteenth in the points. What what do you think has like happened in the last you know month.

01:32:55
Speaker 2: In te So, I missed five cuts in a row. The last one that I missed was in Arlington, Texas, and I walked off the course after the sag round. I think I missed it by two or three, and just something in my mind, I was like, my game, golf game feels good. If you go look at my career so far, it's been terrible, Like I haven't played golf anywhere near the level that I know I'm capable of. But for some reason that week I walked off and I was like, something's gonna turn, and it's gonna turn sooner rather than later. And whatever that was, I can't really pinpoint what it was, but I know that at least it was something in my brain that just clicked on a little bit. And ever since then, I've just I don't know if it's the confidence that I kind of gained from just one week of like hitting the ball good at not scoring well or what, but it's been something where, especially out here, like you get on a run and it feels it feels like you are just going to do it for a long time. And I think that mental state that I've been in has just been very, very helpful. And it's a state that it's hard to get into. I mean, I've been trying to get into it for sixteen events before I got on a good stretch here. But you know, it's just the ebbs and flows of golf like I had it in college some too. Or you go play two bad events, finished outside the top thirty or something, and you think the world's crashing down, and then one little thing pops on, a little light bulb pops on, and suddenly you're kind of off to the races. So, you know, I always tell people it's just about especially out here, it's about stacking weeks, Like you just keep stacking good weeks, making a cut, doing something with the weekend, and you know, you do that for a full season, and you're gonna be in a good spot come come October or whatever when the Tour Championship is.

01:34:36
Speaker 3: How are you gonna approach the Corp Ferry Tour schedule? You mentioned you have seven straight weeks of golf like they go on these like runs. Are you gonna take time? Are you just gonna try and play through the weeks?

01:34:49
Speaker 2: Yeah? My plan is I'm gonna play these first six of this one, and the sixth one is in Norman, so I'll be forty five minutes. I'll be sleeping my own bed that week, and I'm gonna plan on taking the one after that off, and so I'll get that week off and then I'll have the built in week off with the schedule, and I haven't really I think we have seven in a row after that one week off too, so I'll have two weeks off and then, you know, depending on where I'm at, hopefully I'm still in a good spot and might take another you know, maybe the fourth week of those seven weeks off, just depending on what fits into my schedule. But I know that you can kind of play yourself into the ground a little bit and just wear yourself out, and I'm trying to stay away from that because again, everyone that I've talked to has just said, like, you know, at some point when you're young and you think you can go play twenty six e mins and play fourteen out of fifteen, which is literally what the schedules built for, and you kind of get to the end of you you're like, man, if I would have just taken one week off and been a little bit fresher one of those weeks, like that's the difference between getting a tour card and not a lot of times is just being fresher one week. So I'm gonna try to. I'm gonna try to. I'm for sure gonna take that last one of the seven weeks off and then see what happens in that next little stretch. Hopefully take another week or maybe even two off during that stretch.

01:36:03
Speaker 3: It's gotta be like the hardest thing too, because like you can like see I don't play, I fall in the standings, like why didn't I play?

01:36:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, Yeah, that's the tough part too, because I've thought about that. I'm like, man, I'm gonna I don't play this event, like I'm gonna move down at least two spots or something like like, well, it's not the end of the world, because you still got thirteen more events or whatever it is after that. So I'll try not to look at the h the points list after the week that I take off.

01:36:30
Speaker 1: I mean, it'd be amazing, But they give those they still give the different color bibs to the caddies, like, oh possible they got rid of that.

01:36:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got rid of it. I don't know if it was because they switched from twenty five to thirty and they haven't figured out their branding yet or what. But I haven't gotten one of the green bibs yet. Everyone's like, man, green bibs is the coolest part of it. I haven't even gotten more.

01:36:49
Speaker 3: Well, I think you could then completely ignore the standings somehow, you know, some people might be able to ignore the standings.

01:36:55
Speaker 1: Then you could say I don't even know where I'm at.

01:36:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna de leap the app and never look at the points again. That's that's that's what my plan is.

01:37:02
Speaker 3: Would be an amazing way to live, all right. So no US Open qualifying.

01:37:08
Speaker 2: No, so I wasn't exempt through locals because it's top five hundred in the world ranking, and I when the deadline was, I wasn't top five hundred, so I could have gone and played the locals. But again, it was like during a two week break, and I knew we were about to go on the seven week bender, if you will, and so I just decided to, like, I'll just take it off. Hopefully I have a lot more US Opens in my futures, so I know I'll at least have a lot more chances to qualify. So we'll have to wait for Pinehurst next year and skip LACC.

01:37:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they get the week. They get the week off next year. They finally made this scheduling tweak, which is nice.

01:37:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's the other thing too, Like you know, we I would go play final qualifying on Monday, play thirty six holes and then it's always during the Green Deal event, there's two golf courses, So like, you go play thirty six holes on Monday, and then you gotta go play practice rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then expect to play good Thursday through Sunday. Not saying it's not possible, but it's just it's a tough it's a tough it's a tough ass to go play seventy two holes in three days and then go play seventy two hole tournament for the actual tournament. So I decided that I'd give that one a rest and be able to kind of casually go into Greenville.

01:38:23
Speaker 3: I'm always like, the thing that most deby is about with whoever wins the Western Am every year is like that they just got through the whole tournament.

01:38:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Western Aam and USAM. The biggest the biggest feat is the fact that someone made it through and was like still playing good golf by the end of it, because that's hard to do. I've done that before and I have not fared very well. So I to say that that's a tall task is probably not saying enough about it.

01:38:52
Speaker 3: All Right, a couple quick questions before we get you out of here. What's your favorite golf course? That you've played.

01:38:58
Speaker 2: I'm gonna just of all time or tournament.

01:39:01
Speaker 1: Golf all time, anywhere you played.

01:39:04
Speaker 2: This is going to be like a seven flex. But we always played Cyprus before we started the year at Pebble, So we go play Cypress the day before the practice round and it's an other worldly I mean, you can't even, like to someone that hasn't played it, you can't really describe what like the last six holes feels like. When you're out walking, it just feels like you're on some sort of like some utopia seven days of utopia at Cypress Point Club.

01:39:28
Speaker 3: I feel like it's impossible, Like it wouldn't I think I could play like the worst round of golf of the year and I still wouldn't be at all upset.

01:39:37
Speaker 2: No, yeah, exactly, that's a perfect description. It's like, well, if you realize what you're playing on, how few people get to play there, and all the history that comes along with it, and you look to the side of every fairway and green and you're like, wow, this is there's a golf course on this property. There could be a million other things on there, and there's a golf course and there's still a golf course there and you kind of realize that, oh I might have shot ninety five, but I still have fun.

01:40:02
Speaker 1: All right, course you most want to see.

01:40:06
Speaker 2: I mean, Augusta's kind of a cop op, but I mean I would love to see Augusta.

01:40:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully you're played there soon.

01:40:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's the goal. I'm not going to pull the Patrick greed of I'm not going to step on those grounds ever until I'm actually in the event. I think I would take Master's tickets next year if I'm not playing.

01:40:23
Speaker 3: Is that is that a thing like not going there before you get in the event?

01:40:27
Speaker 1: Is that like a superstition thing?

01:40:29
Speaker 2: I don't. I mean I don't. I don't think so. I mean I've I've heard it before. But it's one of those things like if I was sixteen and someone said, hey, here's Master's tickets, I'm not going to sit there and be like, oh no, I want to play in the Masters for twenty five years. I'm not going to watch the Masters in person right now. If we got like, I know, there's a lot of college golf teams that get to go out there and play. Oh you unfortunately wasn't one of them. But I would one hundred percent take that opportunity obviously.

01:40:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're all out there right after that tournament.

01:40:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I guess it should. You know, certain schools have alums that are members there, and I think I want to say OU has a couple, but coach never was able to squeeze that out for us unfortunately.

01:41:10
Speaker 1: You know, the.

01:41:12
Speaker 3: Tears for you know, the college golfer that got to play Cypress every year.

01:41:16
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I just we couldn't get the Cypress augusta one two punch unfortunately.

01:41:22
Speaker 3: Right, final question, what's your favorite fruit? And then we're out of here.

01:41:28
Speaker 2: My favorite I like strawberries.

01:41:32
Speaker 1: Strawberries, all right, that's they're They're easy, you know, Yeah.

01:41:37
Speaker 2: It's something that I can always enjoy strawberry. You know, there's certain there's different types of apples, Like I like apples, but there's different types of them, and if it's the wrong type, I don't enjoy it.

01:41:45
Speaker 3: So I came across a website that rated every type of apple, Give.

01:41:52
Speaker 2: Me the give me the top two that on that website. I can't remember.

01:41:56
Speaker 3: I can't remember what it was, but I I somebody sent me the website. Let's see if I could pull it up.

01:42:04
Speaker 1: Real quick.

01:42:07
Speaker 3: It was it was a website all here. Let's see, I think it is. I think it's Apple Rankings dot Com making Apple rankings dot com. Is the website?

01:42:20
Speaker 2: Do they have ads on the front of that? Are they making money doing that?

01:42:24
Speaker 3: So the top one is one hundred points? He I mean, it's an unbelievable website. I don't know what it doesn't have, like the pure rankings though. You have to search it, so you could say, what's your favorite apple? I'll tell you what he gets.

01:42:38
Speaker 2: Honey honeycrisp.

01:42:39
Speaker 3: Honeycrisp is so solid. Let's see, honey crisp is it gets ninety five nearly perfect.

01:42:48
Speaker 2: That's that's a pretty good score. I might give it more like a ninety seven ninety eight.

01:42:51
Speaker 1: But I mean, you've never had a bad honey crisp.

01:42:54
Speaker 2: No, again, that's the same. That's like a strawberry, Like a honey crisp apple is always going.

01:42:58
Speaker 1: To be I've got the bad strawberry.

01:43:00
Speaker 2: You know, you can get a rotten strawberry.

01:43:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, different parts of the country strawberries are better.

01:43:07
Speaker 1: I guess.

01:43:07
Speaker 3: Strawberries if they're they're sweeter when they're warm, when it's when it's really hot in California.

01:43:14
Speaker 1: You get better strawberries.

01:43:17
Speaker 2: My mom always has. She'll like text me when she goes to the grocery store and she's like, oh, they have a good strawberries this week.

01:43:24
Speaker 1: It's important.

01:43:25
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. No, it is important. She's all in on it, Like if it's a good strawberry you or a good strawberry bud or whatever it is, there's always strawberries when I go.

01:43:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, Logan, thank you for coming on. People can you're on Instagram, they can follow you there, and uh, I hope everybody follows along on your professional journey here.

01:43:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you Andy, thanks for thanks for letting me talk a little golf, a little free with you.

01:44:00
Speaker 1: Today's episode was edited by Matt Rushes. Thank you, Matt.

01:44:04
Speaker 3: As a quick reminder, we have our membership club TFE. It gives you just more content. We've got tons of stuff cooking, obviously with LACC around the corner. We have a video I think it'll drop next week on every hole at Los Angeles Country Club. Next week we have two course profiles dropping because we didn't have one during the PGA. I believe they will be ravislow a public course in Chicago and Metal Club, a course in northern California Alistair McKenzie's first design, and then I think we have a southern California course going.

01:44:41
Speaker 1: Up for the week of the US Open.

01:44:44
Speaker 3: Obviously, we have a big la CC profile that's already on the website, so you get the whole back catalog. We're over I think we're over twenty course write ups now in reviews and it's just a fun community.

01:44:57
Speaker 1: Thank you for all that have.

01:44:58
Speaker 3: Signed up and supported us, and if you're looking to do so, go to fridagg dot com slash membership. So it's the fridagg dot com slash Membership. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year and you get everything that we've already done. So we will be back next week as we continue to march on towards the US Open. We'll have some some fun guests and thank you for listening to Fridagg Podcast.