WEBVTT
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Hi, this is Ray Brown from Owings, Maryland, and I
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play golf at swan Point Country Club. Welcome to Golf Smarter.
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Hi.
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This is Joe A. Spinoza from Austin, Texas and I
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play at Mill Creek in.
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Toledo, Texas.
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It's a Golf Smarter number one thousand, nineteen. During the
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pre shot routine, when you're choosing your spot, there is
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a course management part of playing where you absolutely want
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to hit it or miss it in a certain area.
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There's incredible amounts of strokes that can be shaved off
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your game simply by picking the right place to go. However,
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there's a moment at which you're thinking has to change
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from where the ball is going to end up to
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the task at hand, which is the only thing you
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can affect, which is the ball that's in front of you.
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So your target is actually the ball. All of the
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pre shot routine part is you deciding where you want
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to try to hit that ball, but you can't affect
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where it's going to go. You can't affect what's going
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to happen over there. You can get it started, but
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you can only get it started in the two feet
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on either side.
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That matters. But is the ball the target?
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Absolutely it is. By the time you're hitting the ball
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is the target.
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It's time to make golf fun again, starting at the
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ball and moving backwards with David Buck.
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This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from
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great golf minds to help you lower your score and
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raise your golf IQ. There's your host, Fred Green.
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Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
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David, thank you very much.
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It's great to have you on this show. This is
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going to be a silly conversation. I have a feeling
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just for our three minutes of prap.
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Well, I have two languages. I've got English and I've
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got sarcasms. So that's that's really all I got to work.
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With, Bill, Well, I have just by listening to your
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voice a little bit, I censor your Canadian.
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I am Canadian, I can Leona. I can put on
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the Canadian accident real sharp if you want to e
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but I need a bit of able to do that.
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Well, so the English and sarcasm is actually speaking Canadian.
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It's just natural. We don't even hold a candle towards
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the Australians. They're just a level higher.
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So it's so true it's so true. Let's get a
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little bit of your background in golf so that we
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can establish the craziness that we're going to learn about
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from you in a little bit.
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Sure. So, basically, I used to play baseball, and my
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brother broke his knee playing baseball, and I really didn't
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want to do what my brother did. You know, you
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try to learn from your elders. And I didn't want
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to play a sport like football or hockey or baseball.
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I was going to get hurt, so I quit the
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baseball and a buddy of mine this in the seventh grade,
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when I was thirteen years old, said well, I got
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a junior membership the course of summer. It's three hundred bucks.
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My mom's driving me out anyways, why don't you come
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join me. I never played golf before. I mean, this
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is going back a few years. This is in the
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early nineties, and a golf at that point was a
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you know, it was the nerd game. It's like, nobody
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plays golf unless you got.
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Just before Tiger Both at the scene it was.
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Greg Norman era, right, and it was it was uh yeah,
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and I mean titleist was was on the forefront. They
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were just I started still using bellattas and DT wounds.
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So when the prov came out that was that was
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quite a thing. But we played all summer, and then
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we played all summer next summer, and then we thought, hey,
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well maybe I should, you know, get a coach and
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start doing this more seriously. And we made some really
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good decisions in there. And I'm sure I don't know
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about you. I'm only five seven, and I mean, especially
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back in the day, we didn't have distance, we didn't
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have distance clinics teaching you how to hit it further.
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You had what you had, and you played it. And
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I hit the ball about two hundred and sixty yards
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and hit driver everywhere. And my my parents sat down
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and said, you know what, I you know, I think
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you've got something here, But don't play tournaments yet, don't
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don't get in with the guys who are physically bigger
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than you. And so we took an entire year there
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at sixteen and played no tournaments and did nothing but
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practiced some drills and short game and putting and playing.
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And by the time I was seventeen started playing tournaments.
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I was I jumped right up into the Canadian junior
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rankings and was playing the Canadian Juniors and then qualified
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for the World Juniors for two years or he's going
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back for you two or three years, played Overseas a
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little bit over and over in Asia as a junior,
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even got some invites to some things over there. Went
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to school in California and had a very short stay
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at the school due to some disagreements between the coach
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and I and turn Pro. From there my brother. My
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brother was out playing chasing mini tours and Monday qualifiers
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at that point, so I went out and joined him
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and turn Pro ended up playing for three years and
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it was absolutely wonderful and learned all sorts of stuff
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and had incredible heartbreak and incredible triumph and all the
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things that golf golf gives to you. Uh. Then then
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I I I left it. I left it and and uh,
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you know, as I say, I left it in a
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way that I wasn't, you know, I was. I made
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the choice. It was my choice, but it was you know,
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you look back on it and say, ah, what if
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you could have thin done things differently? And I gave
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up the game completely for a number of years, and
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then you know, you get to a point where you're
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not able to do what you used to be able
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to do. And so that's just it's just it's just frustration.
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And so it took me a few years to learn
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to enjoy the game again, and I did, And long
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story short, now, I mean there's no place I would
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rather be than on the first T, not the eighteenth green,
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because then the rounds over the first T, you know,
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the with the with the upcoming ground of go. But
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you know, through my through my teaching, through my experience,
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you know, I think the things a little bit differently
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maybe than some. And I've had I had a few
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instans is in my career where I got you know,
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I got a five minute lesson from somebody that changed
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my golfing life. And well it's not it's not a
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matter of complicated. It's a matter of being able to
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understand what has to happen here and allowing our bodies
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to actually do it. So now I play golf. I
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raised my kids up there are nine and twelve, and
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learn how to play pretty well if you ask me.
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But I am biased, and I coach others and help people,
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and my main, my main goal is to help people
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enjoy the game more so if that means enjoying the
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game more through lower strokes, fantastic. If it means enjoying
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the game by stopping the shanks or curing the yips,
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then great, fantastic. If it means that we were talking
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about before we start, you're the mental hurdle of getting through.
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You know, Hey, this thing's got to get to there somehow,
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and I want to do it more joyfully. It's the
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best place in the world when you have contentment and
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joy also, but it can also be the worst place
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when you're frustrated and shanking it into the woods. Of course, anyways,
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that gives you, That gives little synopsis.
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Yeah, so like I, you know, not the eighteenth green.
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I've always felt like seventeenth t is like, to me,
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the most depressing thing. We're almost I don't want to
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I don't want to go home. I like it here.
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Let me play another eighteen?
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Yeah exactly, No, not anymore. Cannot do thirty six in
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a day? What Wait, what happened to you? You went
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on and became a competitive and good golfer. But what
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happened to that first friend who invited you out? He
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got the three hundred dollars and his mom was driving.
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Yeah, parted ways. We parted ways as at about eighteen.
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And it's funny. I've reached out to him a couple
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of times but haven't heard back. He's now a lawyer,
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and even if you go to his website, he's like, yeah,
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I do you know, I do laf for for big
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corporation litigation and in my off time, I'm working on
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my golf game.
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Still he's still working on it.
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The most entertaining thing about the whole thing is it
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does not matter what level of golf you're at. If
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you're a beginner junior year in two, three, four, or
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you're a seasoned pro or you know, I've had a
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lifetime of golf. You hear something and you're like, I
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gotta go try it out. And I remember one time
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this guy, this guy, we were seventeen years old, and
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we were on the first tea and he had read
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somewhere in Golf Digest or something that you should have
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your your feet open a little bit more. And he's like, guys,
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I finally figured out how to cure my hook. I've
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got it. I've figured it out. And he stands up
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on the first tee and his feet were splayed almost
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fully open right down.
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Balat position, ballets first position.
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I mean, we're laughing before he's even started, just kind
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of chuckling underneath our breath. And he stands up on
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the tee there and he rope hooks one like sixty
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yards to the left, out of bounds into the driving right.
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He's like, oh, maybe i'n't fixed it yet.
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You talked about the lows and the highs, but you
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said in edible triumphs, share that.
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I got to share the first one with you. And
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the first one happened when I was sixteen years old
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and I was playing shally they paid played the ninety
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seven PGA Championship there there was I was. This was
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nineteen ninety eight and we were playing a pro am
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there and I was an am obviously, I was a
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junior at the time, and I double bogie the first
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hole after hitting just a beautiful shot right over the flagstick,
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pried in the back bunker, and you know, didn't get
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a long story, short part of the second hole, bogie
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the third hole, I'm three over part. From then on
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went on to make seven birdies in an albatross, won
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the tournament by four strokes.
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And that which hole.
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Part It was fifteen number number fifteen, Part five. I
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went driver, Driver, Driver into the cup.
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Driver driver. You had driver into the cup from how
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far away.
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I'm I'm gonna say it was probably two sixty five
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low off hill, front left pin pulass placement. I watched
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it go in, and you know, I watched it go
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in and it's like your eyes, you don't believe it.
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And so the guys are back there in the fairway,
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you know, hit, I said, guys, I think that went in.
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I just start running up to the.
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Hole and driver off the deck right.
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I'm playing. I found one online. I found on an
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eBay an old driver, the one that I had, and
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it was called a speed slot and it was.
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Great driver.
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It was fantastic.
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I had a little bit heard about it.
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Yeah, I had this little like low point on it. It
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was really easy to hit off the deck. I watched
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it go in, ran up there, I'm by myself, there's
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nobody around, looked down into the cup there and is
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sitting right there the next hole. And my dad was
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in the same group that because it was a pro
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am thing. So it was a group of us from
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one club coming up to play, and so in the
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sixteenth hole is a downhill dog leg right. I had
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one hundred and sixty five yards left, which was a
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six iron for me at that point, and pen was
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back right on the next hole, and my dad whispered, assuming,
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let's see what you really made of now, And I
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remember standing over that ball still is one of the
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best shots I've ever hit. Yeah, I just made albatrosses hole.
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But that next I piped it down the middle. I
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had one hundred and sixty five left. I had a
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little choke down punch cut six iron. Just it was
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I knew it. I mean even when he was said it,
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he's like, I said, no, it's this is going to
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be perfect. I'm not going to miss this. This is
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and those moments, those moments when you're on the course
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and everything's just easy. Oh so anyways, that was my
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first professional win, even though I wasn't professional at the time,
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and I had Yeah, I had twelve professional wins over
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the time, usually small events. But the you know, the
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joy of winning never never ceases. Where there's whether there's
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three hundred people in the field or ten.