Hey everybody, this is Bobby Cool Daddy Slipperies, and tonight is a special episode with Bennett. Now, Bennett works at Dynamic Discs, he works in our Amazon fulfillment area, but most importantly, he's our MJ 18 World Champion. That's right.
He works at Dynamic Discs, lives in Emporia, KS, and it's an interesting story of how he went from losing the World Championship in 2019 and then coming back six years later and winning the World Championship. So let's learn a little bit more about Bennett. How you doing, Bennett? I'm doing great. How are you doing, Bobby? Doing pretty good. It's been a couple days since the big event. Has everything kind of sinked in? All the families probably said congratulations and all that. Stuff.
Yeah, I've gotten so many congratulations from so many people and it's it's sinked in a bit more now. It's really nice. Yeah, in fact, I know I missed it today. I'm working from home in Oklahoma. I missed your little celebration at work. I think they said ice cream cake was going to be there. Yep, it was ice cream cake. They had two cakes. One of them had a congratulations Bennett written on it and frosting stuff, you know, and the other one had like dinosaurs on it.
And it was, it was kind of strange. It was like a cake they had leftover or something that they gave them. It was kind of funny. Oh, that's hilarious. That's cool. All right, well, let's jump right into it real quick, just so everybody can get to know you. Well, first of all, just in case you hadn't heard the news or been following Dynamic Discs, you're talking to Bennett and he had won the MJ 18 World Champion. So you're talking to a world champ right now.
So I'm sure that feels good. But but just so we can know a little bit more about you, tell us your your disc golf story. How did you even discover disc golf and how'd you get started playing? Yeah, I think how I discovered disc golf was my dad has played for a long time and we always had a basket in our front yard. And I think really it started with my, I just kind of grabbed some discs from the basket and started messing around with it when I was outside one time.
And I just fell in love with it from there really just and started going out to the course a bit more and then that led into my playing 2019 Junior Worlds. Yeah. So like, you win, like a lot of people, they start playing and they fall in love with the sport and they want to play it more and more. But like, did you, how long did it take for you to initially say, you know what I want? I want to compete in disc golf instead of just playing casually.
Really, that came much later, like three years later because I started in 2019, but like I really wanted to get real competitive with it. When it came to like 2022 was when that kind of happened. Wait, so you competed in a world champion in 2019 but you didn't want to get serious competing until a few days a few years later? Tell me, Tell me A. Little bit more about that.
It's a little strange, yeah. So, yeah, I played junior worlds my first year ever playing disc golf and I had played it. I was, they just, they had spots left in the division, MJ 12, and I got one of those spots and I ended up getting dead last. But I still had a lot of fun. But after that, when it came to like the colder time of the year, I stopped playing disc
golf. And I pretty much didn't play for multiple years up until 20/22 when I had gotten grounded from playing video games at the time. And I had started playing disc golf again and I got hooked on it again. And that's when I wanted to compete and get better at the sport and push myself to. OK, so so you got what video games do you like to play? The only video game I had played really was Fortnite. That was that's the main one that I've played.
So you got grounded from video games and decided to go play more disc golf. That's good. Yeah. So OK, so that's interesting. You you got last place in 2019. How did that like, how did that feel? I mean obviously it didn't feel good but like what went through your mind after getting a last place? I don't think I really cared at
the time. You know, it was six years ago so I don't remember too well, but I don't think I cared too much about getting last because I didn't have, I wasn't as competitive about disc golf at the time. I still really enjoyed the sport. I still had so much fun playing. I don't. I don't think I really cared too much though. Yeah, yeah. All right. So a few years later, you decided to start really getting in the the competition side of things.
What what did you start doing? Like, did your practice routine start changing or what was kind of the mindset there? Yeah, I really all my practice would just be outside. I have a great space in my front yard and on my street to be able to throw in towards my yard. And I would just like go to different spots and I have like a whole like 6 hole course pretty much set up like different spots that I have
designated for different holes. And I would just throw and mostly just trying to throw in just throw in from the different spots. And that's mostly how that how my routine started. Yeah, so, so you started competing and you started getting a game plan together doing it. Did you play a lot of tournaments? Yeah, so 2022, I've got 2022. I played my first tournament back in Kansas City at Bad Rock Creek. I got 13th in that one out of I'm not sure how many. I didn't do a great job.
I think at the time I was like 6 something rated from my first tournament. It was 675 rated. After my first tournament I shot like 800, something like 850 rated. I think 870. I don't know, but that tournament in 2022 was my first tournament back and then I started playing again in 2020 or I continued to play in 2023 and four and yeah. Nice. So how do you feel it's different when you play in a tournament versus just kind of casual playing? Do you?
Do you shift anything in your mind or do you or how you play? It, it definitely changes from tournament to casual play. If we're like, if I'm going out, just like with a few friends to play, I'm not focusing too much on how I'm playing. I'm just, I'm just out having fun with my friends. I'll usually try some Dumber shots, sometimes try and go big turnover on some hole or something silly like that.
But in tournament I'm definitely focused up taking the most probable lines and focusing on those putts a lot more. Gotcha. So how long before the World Championship here in Emporia? How long? I mean, as soon as they announced it, we're like, I'm going to compete in it. Like 2019. Yeah, no for 20 the the this past year. This year, yeah, yeah. When I heard it was here in town, I was I right? Then I decided that I was going to play in it. Absolutely.
And then kind of what was your game plan there? Game plan for the tournament was pretty much to birdie every hole. I like just my gameplay. In all my tournaments I play, I play very aggressive and I'm trying to get most of the holes that I can. I definitely usually I can recognize the holes that are more difficult and then I need to play for par. But this one, there's only like a couple holes that I would usually do that on and lost my train of thought a little it's.
OK, so when you so, OK, so this is going to be it's going to be which worlds in your home course, right? So how did your like, practice change? How do you how does it change for you when you know you're practicing a a a course that you know is going to be played in
the World Championship? Yeah, after I knew that and like after my previous tournament before Junior Worlds, I was only was playing Jones East and Champions Landing and I was most of the time I was going out to play focused rounds and deciding what shots I was throwing where and trying different shots on different different discs on different lines. That's kind of how that went. Yeah. So take us through round one. I can't remember.
I'm looking up the scores. Where were you after round one? Round one I was at 3 under and that was I was 4 strokes back of the leader at that point and I think it was tied. I'm getting it up here. Yeah. I was tied 13th and four strokes back the lead. At that point I was feeling real confident in my game too. I didn't do great that first round. I ended up missing. I think I counted like 8 putts that I usually should make, but I did. I did have some good holes in there too.
I had a stretch of five parties in a row because my throwing finally warmed up and that's really what got me back into the tournament in that round. Yeah, so you say you didn't quite do quite as good as you wanted to. How does that mess with your your mindset at all? Yeah, In the past it would definitely mess with my mindset
a lot more than it does now. Bad holes, in the past, I would get down on myself about them and I dwell on the bad things that happened, a missed putt, a bad throw, tree hit, you know. But as my game has progressed, my mindset on it has definitely changed. I'm, I've gotten very good, I think, at focusing on one shot at a time.
If I have a bad throw or a bad hole, I pretty much completely forget about it right after and just focus up on the next throw and throwing that how I want it to be. Nice. OK. Then go going around to it, look like you jumped up about 11 spots, you're in second place. Do you think that was kind of a combination of maybe a different playing on a different course? Were you more comfortable at Jones East or was that more of like I've got to make up some ground?
What was kind of your thought there? Yeah, that was more about just being comfortable on Jones E I'd say I've gotten more practice in it East and I've always been better at East than I have Champions landing. The type of golf that it demands. I'm better at East than Champions Landing. Yeah. So let's see, like on you were four down round one at champions landing.
I think that seen that. No, you're a three down and then round three you went back to champions landing and you actually scored A7 down South improved on your score. Talk us through that. Like what? What was what were some of your? Walk us through some of the holes where you did a little bit better. Yeah. So really what happened there Mostly I think I comparing round one to round 3. Hole 2 I played actually the same. I did a lot of it pretty similar.
I didn't bogey 3 and 4. I did that first round I believe, I believe I booked both those holes and round around 1 I meant sorry. And then round three I went part birdie. My game was just feeling a lot better the third round. My backhand was I was missing a good bit of lines my first round. Third round I wasn't missing my lines as much and I had changed something in my putt after round one. That was what that was the main reason that I started to get higher up in my scores to better.
What did you change up in your putt? It's, it was mostly something with my off arm, like the first day I was like closing my off arm. I'm calling it because that's what it feels like versus what I should have been doing was like opening my hand. It's it's hard to explain. It's mostly a feeling thing, but changing that caused my putt to be much more powerful, direct and just released so much better than it was. What made you? What made you want to change
that? It just didn't feel right round one and really the having my hand open like that was just it felt a lot better then when it was closed. Yeah. Was there something that you'd heard or something that you would that you should try or just something you were thinking? Maybe I should try this? It was something that I've like, I've tried in the past, but really it was just feeling just whatever felt the most natural and that.
And it's something that actually I think Niklas uses his not off arm a lot. I really like Niklas's putt and it's cut. My putt is kind of modeled after his, but that's something that I think is why he has such a long range on his standstill putts and stuff is his off arm. He really uses his off arm and I think, I think it's definitely something people should try is focusing more on the off arm and
using that somehow. Yeah, so going back to round 3 back at Champs Landing, it looks like hole 9 was one of your gave you big trouble. You had a A7 on a par 4 and it and looking at the other scores of the top 1012 people playing, it looked like that hole gave a lot of people some challenges. What happened there? Yeah, that one was hole 9. If, for people who don't know, is a 600, it's a 700 foot crazy dog leg over to the right. You have to hit a tunnel shot
off the tee. There's tight OB on the left and right. And then the second shot is not easy either, over to the right and then into a pretty protected green. So yeah, my drive off the tee, I went OB just straight like I threw a fairway driver on Heiser. I expected it to flip a little more. Actually it was more. I wanted to throw it a little flatter, but I threw it a bit too much Heiser. It wouldn't be left over the sidewalk. My second shot I was in bounds.
My third I kind of ran the putt and it hit center cage like flopped down to the ground, stood up and barely roll started to roll and rolled down to some OB that was hiding around the to the right. And so I'll be like this much it was. It was. Yeah, my putt after that, I it was a bad putt. Hit band kicked to the to the right and then I tapped in for seven. OK. But even then you still were at, let's see, round three you had finished look like tied for second.
So there's a three-way tie for second. Then going into round four we're back at Jones E, the one that you said you're a little more comfortable with and you had a good run on for that round for sure. Yeah, a bunch of pars and birdies. So that's an excellent. So by then were you feeling pretty confident? I mean, was like the feeling of, Oh my gosh, I I could win. This was that starting to kick in. Absolutely, yeah.
That was, I mean, being on home courses, even after round two, I knew that if I just played my game and played the best that I could, that I could totally win. But especially after round 4 I had beat, I had shot the hot round by two strokes in round 4 and if you go back to round two, Round 2 I had done the same thing when we were at Jones EI shot the hot round by two strokes. Oh, sure enough. And I, yeah, I did that in Round 4 again.
And so at that point I was really confident going to the final round that I would be able to win it. Yeah, sounds like Jones E Definitely a course that you're comfortable on for sure, because yeah, you were. You and Caleb were tied for first after round four. And then we go into the finals and of course, you win it by 5 strokes. Yeah, you win it by 5 strokes. That's fantastic. So. But OK, so going into finals, so let's talk about the night before, right? You know, you've got another
eighteen holes by then. You were only. No, you were, you were tied. And then the guy behind them was 4 strokes. Noah, Like what? Walk us through a little bit of what's what what that evening was like. Yeah, that was very nervy. I was, I was very nervous for the day, for the next day and super excited too. I I love the competitiveness of being at the top of the leaderboard and I love being able to fight to the win. And that was super excited about the final round and. Yeah, yeah.
Any routines that you normally do or did you, did you do anything to kind of keep your mind off of it or did you study the course or like, like what was, what was, what were your activities that evening? Really, I didn't do much. We ended up, yeah, no, I don't think I do a whole lot of that stuff most of the time. There have been times where I've like really thought about the course before the final round,
but I didn't do that this time. I do remember we had sushi the night before, which was, yeah, that was pretty fun. I don't think I did a whole lot of focusing on disc golf, though. No any any any pep talk from your parents or your dad. No, no pep talks really. From what I remember at least. Yeah, yeah. OK, so final round, things are looking good. You're playing well, and of course you really like. All right, so we're going through the stretch. Let's go through the last couple of holes.
OK? Are you nervous? Are you excited or you know what? What's going on there? Yeah, at the point of hole 15 I I've been watching scores the whole round and whole 15. I had 10 strokes on 2nd place at the time. Wow. Yeah, that was pretty crazy. That was, I had 10 strokes on 2nd place and I was just super excited because I knew there was, unless I had an insane blow up, that there was no way that I could that I wouldn't win it at that point with 10 strokes and three to play.
So yeah, I see on hole 17, looks like you got a double bogey. Yeah. What was that nerves was that? Were you just feeling a little too comfortable? What happened there? I think it was that I was feeling too comfortable. I think I wasn't at that point. I wasn't even thinking about my shots. I was just thinking about getting the trophy.
Yeah, I was kind of thinking, I wasn't really thinking about my next shot and I had an early release off the drive there into a big cedar tree, had to pitch out. Not a great second shot, not a great third. And I missed a putt, but yeah. And that, that's what caused six. If I I wish I was focused up more on those shots, mostly just for my rating. I wanted to shoot a high right around. Yeah, but like you said, you're in the moment.
You've got a nice lead, so you know, you can't fault you for relaxing a little bit and and already in your mind picturing you getting that trophy and what it's going to be like. So, so that's cool. Well, that's good. All right. So I also had some other questions I wanted. So what? Well, I guess what's next for you in disc? Golf. Going pro pretty much is my next
my my next big step. I have one more amateur tournament before I'm going pro, which is Leadstone playing Leadstone in Illinois in MA One, I'm pretty excited for that. That's and I've heard a lot about that tournament, how it's like a super, super big amateur tournament. And so I really wanted to experience that in the courses before I went pro. But after that, I'm going to be playing in Oklahoma and I plan to take cash there and GoPro. What? What event are you going to play
in Oklahoma? I can't quite remember the name of it, do you? Remember what town it's good you're going to be in. Tulsa. It's Tulsa. Oh, you're going to be literally in my neighborhood where I'm I live. Yeah. I think I know which is it? The end of August? I think it's what? I'm looking at yeah, the Greater Tulsa Open August. Yeah, yeah, I'll probably be over there. I'll come over and say hi to you. Yeah, I'm gonna. Absolutely.
The place where I used to work Shields is, is helping them out with some discs. So I want to go up there and go over there and say hi to people. So that's cool. That's awesome. So that's going to be the first one. You are going to take cash if you get cash and then you're going to officially GoPro. Yep. OK. But then what's the big plan? Are we talking like getting on the road? Are we talking, you know, just playing events that are nearby or what?
What's the big, big plan? Yeah, big plan, overarching plan that's I'm currently going to Flathills Tech College for multimedia design. Oh. Yeah, yeah. And I plan to use all my knowledge with that for disc golf content on the road. I planned a tour and be one of the best in the game while also making a good content. I like that who some of the people you follow right now that you kind of want to that you're learning from as far as pro and content. Content Anthony Badanza makes a lot of.
I really enjoy his content. He's a great editor and he does a great job at pacing his videos, I think. And when it comes to the actual disc golf side of it, Gannon Burr. You like him? Yeah. Yeah, I love Gannon. His his dominance and skill is just really awesome. Yeah, I do like Bonanza. I like his style. I like his kind of how he just kind of seems like he's just walking and talking and just bringing you along for. Is that kind of the style you think you want to do with your
content or? Yeah, I think so. I think that's type of stuff. I want to do something that feels more genuine and like you're really getting to know the person. Yeah, yeah. So have you sat down and thought about the logistics of it all? Like as far as like driving there, flying the places or what? Not recently, I haven't a whole lot, but I think we plan to get AB class camper at some point in the future. A small B class and AC.
I can't remember one of those something and plan to travel with that for my first year on the road and I plan to tour with a buddy from Kansas City I think. Oh nice, that'll be good. As someone who travelled a lot for disc golf, having a buddy with you, it will be helpful, especially helping out with driving and and of course, just having someone to kind of go play around with and go and talk
to for sure. Well, man, it sounds like you got a lot of this planned out already in your head about what you want to do what, what's going to be the circuit as far as what you're going to play? You're just going to go discount pro tour events or or or just some local a tears or what? Yeah, I think the plan is the Pro Tour. I think that's the plan in a couple of years is to play all the Pro Tour events, or at least most of them.
Play some other A tears and B tears and stuff too, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Now, was this the plan all along, whether like, let's say you had come in like last again, was that still kind of the plan to kind of go on tour? Oh. Yeah, yeah, Junior Worlds doesn't make a difference much in my in my future. Like if I got last because I played a terrible tournament or something, that it wouldn't affect me too much. I mean, it would because I got last. Am I?
I care a lot about my rating. I'm trying to get to 1000 rated. That's my goal for this this year. So that would be that would hurt that of course, but I don't, I don't think that hurt my spirits or my goals too much. OK. That's good, that's good. I just didn't know if like you've been thinking about it and you're like, man, I won worlds now that I'm really going to do it, but it sounds like it was all a plan all along. This was just a nice icing on the cake to get things started
for you. Absolutely. And one thing we forgot to mention at the beginning is that you actually work at Dynamic Disks I do you work in the area where you pack boxes for Amazon? What's it like doing that? Yeah, it's it's fun. It's it's a lot of fun back there. We don't there's sometimes where I actually, I have a fairly new Co worker sitting across from me and so we actually we get to talk a whole lot and he's a lot of he's a lot of fun to talk to. He does.
He's doing disc golf content as well. Oh, really? Started. Yeah. Yeah. Kaden. Yeah. Oh yeah, Kaden. Yeah, yeah, I've talked to him. OK, cool. Yeah, yeah, he came and talked about cameras and stuff like that. So, so wow, this is kind of my world disc golf content. I know you have some YouTube videos out already. I've seen a couple of those YouTube videos. So I'll put it like a little link on the in the description where people can follow you and check things out.
And then of course on Instagram you do stuff. So let me ask you this though, so I can kind of learn a little bit more. What, what is what is disc golf look like to you as a young player, as someone that's getting ready to GoPro, what what is disc golf look like to you? What do you look to to learn more about disc golf? Where do you go?
I think the content side of it, yeah, for me is what I'm, I'm very interested in, you know, considering that I want to go into the content side of disc golf. I want to learn what gets the most views and what people want to see and some of the other things about that that I can't really think about at the moment. Like what? What did what not what? What's your strategy right now as far as content?
What, how do you, I mean, I know you, I've seen you do somewhere you kind of like practice around you, talk through what are you thinking as far as the kind of content you're going to put out? Yeah. So I think my content for like if I'm on the when I'm on the Pro Tour is going to be practice rounds and stuff kind of like what Ezra Aderhold does, similar
to that. And also testing out different discs, doing challenge videos like that, that I mean, challenge videos like that that are really fun and entertaining for the people watching. Yeah, yeah.
So how are you going to have you thought about the, Because I know there's some podcasts I listen to where they're kind of debating around the pro and the players that have to go out, they have to practice, then they have to play in the tournament, then they have to film and then they have to actually edit What is. Have you already thought that through as far as how much what the work you're going to have to
put in? I've definitely thought about how much work it'll be before and I, I don't really have a way to gauge how well I'll be able to handle it with trying to do disc golf content and editing it and filming and playing.
I think that's one thing about the practice rounds, is that filming a practice round, you get your practice in and you get some content and then the off time that you get where you're not really doing much waiting for a tee time, you know, I think that's where the video, I think at video editing kind of comes in and that that waste some time, you know? Yeah, takes your mind off. Things I would definitely if I had any advice. I would say keep your initial
stuff very simple. Simple cuts, simple edits, nothing you know. You don't need the big fast-paced Mr. B style stuff because that that stuff takes a lot of time to put together. And a lot. And you don't want it to become such a thing that it becomes a burden to you where you can't get out and practice. And so keeping it simple and just making stuff that brings value to people, I think it'd be great.
Cool. Well, Bennett, I appreciate you taking the time to kind of let us know a little bit more about you and your story. And then, of course, Congrats again on winning the World Championship. And I'm sure we'll see a lot more from you. I know that you and I are going to work on some projects while you're at Dynamic Discs. So I'm excited about that to get that started. And then of course Kaden work with him as well to get maybe see what he can do. So I'm excited. That's really awesome.
I think that's cool. So good job. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Thanks man. Thank you. Bye.