Episode 14: Viktor Hovland

The guys from paying They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.

I just love that I can hit any shot I kind of want.

We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.

Welcome back to the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bacon. That is Marty Jertsen. We're here in the tour truck with a guy coming off a real heater. Victor Hoblin is with us coming off a win, and I would say one of the best rounds of golf I've seen in quite some time. Where does it rank in your lifetime? Those last nine holes at the BMW, Yeah, that was.

That was pretty special.

I think is as far as playing a tournament round with the amount of pressure, what's on the line, that's got to be the best best round I've ever played, by far, the best nine holes I've ever played. It felt like every shot that I hit was was like I envisioned it. And when you start making putts on top of that as well, that's that's when you get some pretty special.

So that was that was fun.

Victor, how did things build up to like Sunday where it was it. Were you feeling good early in the week, did you were you working on any things in your swing that kind of culminated. Did you feel awesome on the range Sunday before you went out, like, tell us kind of how that week progressed.

Yeah, I'd say I'm a pretty tough critic on myself, so I'd never, rarely, never really feel like, Man.

I am absolutely playing lights out.

I'm gonna go and shoot sixty four, especially over the weekend, Like my bad shots were just so good. I missed the center of face a lot actually over the course of the last thirty six holes. But when my missus are going very very straight, even when I'm you know, I'm not hitting the center of the face and the bad swings are going pretty straight, and I'm still giving myself fairway hits and short looks for birdie even when I'm not hitting in the center. That's that's when you

So I don't have like one particular shot that stands out.

But the draw on eighteen, I mean that has to be a t shot that can't be the most comfortable for somebody like you, obviously moving the ball left or right, it looked like you kind of win the bag and got a little bit more for that T shot as well. And it was just directly over that tree, I mean, middle of the fair way. It watching on TV watching the whole process of that round, and it went from Victor's in the hunt to Victor's taf for the lead to oh my god, he's gonna win this thing out right,

No, that that was pretty cool when you when you mentioned it again, I was like, yeah, that was pretty cool.

Got that in the middle.

That one was not a miss, No, it was not. It helped that the wind was a little bit off the left and down wind.

So I could really just feel like, Okay, I can send this ball up in the air. I don't because a couple of the other days it was into the wind. And it's one of those T shots, especially for me, because I don't really draw it off the T I can sometimes. Uh So it's either on one of those you have to start right of the tree and just draw it, or you just hit it straight over it. But if it's into the wind and you decide to hit it straight over it, the wind's gonna hurt it more.

So.

It's one of those you kind of have to commit to one. If you try to do both, it's hard to put a good swing on it. But it just made it very easy. When it was down wind and off the left. I can almost aim at left, hit it high and feel like I'm almost hitting just as hard as I can up against that wall of wind left to right, and I just hit an absolutely ten out of ten.

When you're playing with Rory, is it also that you like a rub off on Rory lines a little bit? And you go, you know what, I'll just take the Rory line on this and I'll just hit it directly over the tree with no movement. He was hopefully you were rubbing off on.

Well, the more I play with him, I just I just realized there's no point even trying to look at where he's trying to hit his drives, because I mean just on the first hole, Like the first hole is long par five, and it's one of those you don't really feel comfortable because it's a pretty hard T shot. You're not just teeing it high and sending one and

I'm like, oh boy, I gotta just I just got a black that I don't watch. It's not even gonna watch.

It, yeah, Victor. When when there's a hot round like that, I mean, I think usually there's like one point where you get maybe a lucky break or a lucky bounce or some fortunate happens right to kind of keep the momentum going. What what was that on the back nine there yesterday?

Well, I'd say I got unlucky on number seven.

I made a bogie there after I just pulled my T shot a little bit in the uh to the left and land in the bunker and bounced up in the lip of the rough, like just caught a really bad lie. Yeah, Versus if it was in the bunker, it would have been a lot easier. So I got unlucky there.

Unlucky on seven should have been sixty have been sixty.

Exactly been fifty nine.

That's the attitude that shoots twenty eight.

But but it going back to your question, it was I definitely had things going my way. For example, on fourteen was just ye, I pulled my t shot left in the rough and didn't have the greatest lie, and I told Shay, hey, I you know, if this was a better lie, it's a perfect nine iron, but it was sitting down.

So if the nine iron comes out a.

Little bit dead, it's gonna be short of the green and rolls all the way down. I'm like, the only way I can get this closest if I hit this eight iron and it comes off hot and rolling and just lands on the upslope and rolls up, And that's that's exactly what It didn't end up to one foot.

Yeah, that's it's what you see in your head.

But to actually pull that off, that's you know, that doesn't happen very often. So that definitely, you know, it was definitely my Sunday.

Yeah, that was amazing. Now, when you have your iron game like on point like it was yesterday, do you are you purposely And I think you talked about it on your interviews last night, playing like way more aggressive like seventeen, None of the other players in the field hit it back there behind that pin. It looked like it was kind of crowned. I mean, Rory hit his put back there. Give you a little read, right, but you were the only one to get it past that pin.

Are you?

Are you playing way more aggressive when.

You're on It's a good question.

I mean, obviously, when you hit a lot of good iron shots, you feel that. Man, I've last five iron shots I've hit, I've hit exactly where I've looked, So okay, why not hit the sixth one in there clothes?

You know. So it's just it's kind of gets into that mindset.

But at the same time, when especially when I'm playing well, I almost never hit the full iron shot.

It's almost like that Tommy Fleet would kind of abbreviated finish.

I just focus on a number and I feel exactly just okay, I gotta just stop right here, hit or a ninety shot as opposed to ninety five percent shot. Yeah,

Yeah, Yeah, Victor. The last year, I mean, you haven't missed a cut since before the Open. Last year, you played in the final period at Saint Andrew's, played in the final period at the PGA. The consistency has been quite incredible and remarkable, and obviously the wins have come as well. What is shifted? Has it been mental? Has

Yeah, I would say my golf swing has changed a little bit, but I wouldn't say like my ball strianking is better than it used to be I'd say it's maybe a little bit more consistent, But I think for the most part it's been I've had the shots, but I've picked the wrong spots to go after certain pens. So a lot of it is strategy. I'd say, part of it is just attitude in general. And I'd say just the short game, So.

Kind of combining all those three things together.

If I'm a little bit off, I have more tools to help me instead of it, you know, a couple of.

Time ballooning or getting Yeah.

I'd say, like a couple of times when I've hit you know, been in a flunk or whatever, hit some bad shots, and I've allowed the bad shots to bother me more, and then I'm focusing more on those bad shots and where they can go instead of kind of relying on my skill set. And and Okay, I don't have to hit this drive perfect. I just have to not miss it over there. And I've actually got shock because my short game can get out of this trouble. And then if I catch fire on the back nine,

The rails, if you will.

When you say not being so hard on yourself mentally, I mean, if people watch you and you've got a lot of young fans, I think a lot of the reason you have a lot of young fans is your demeanor on the golf course. You come off as a very chill dude. You're you don't really get up and down. You don't hear much out of you in terms of frustration or even positivity. I mean, it seems like you're kind of a five out of ten out on the

Well, Yeah, I would say I'm as I said earlier, I'm I'm a very harsh critic of myself, and sometimes I put more emphasis on how.

I play versus what the score is. Okay, And that's just.

How I've been wired, because I've never really thought I've been good enough. You know, even in college when I was playing good golf and I had never really had any experience playing against the pros, I'm like, okay, well I won this college tournament or I played really well in this qualifier, but those guys on tour are just so much better, So I need to hit this shot better. Even though I made birdie on this hole, it was not struck in this in the center.

It flew a little bit too low. I wanted it to be a little higher. You know.

Just crazy shit, frankly, because now it's part of that is still in there. When I'm playing golf. It's like, you know, I like perfect example number one last week on the par five, I hit in the middle of fairway and the pin is short ride in the last day and I'm just going to try to hit a low bullet three wood down the left side. And what's

So like it's the process over the result, and you're you're trying to get more about the result. Hey, I shot sixty seven today. Yeah, even without my best step.

Because it gets to a point where I think it's I think I will say I think that attitude has helped me get to where.

I am right now, because I've seen a lot of people that are really, really good.

But if you if you just think that everything you do is so perfect and so good, and you just get screwed or you get bad balances all the time, how are you going to get better from that? But if but if you see, Okay, I got away with us here, but if the scenario was a little different, I don't think I would have gotten away with it. So I need to do better to make sure that if I'm in that scenario that doesn't happen.

But it gets to a point.

Where, Okay, if I'm putting myself in the right places all the time, if I hit it a little off the toe, a little bit off the heel, it's not that big.

Of a deal, or.

It shouldn't be as big of a deal as it is. Because if me thinking about, oh, it wasn't perfect, it's taking away my.

If that is making it harder for me to perform and produce results. That's that's not good. So it's just kind of teeter tottering on that balance there.

Victor. I think the listener is gonna be surprised here and you talk about missing your golf shots. I think we watch you on TV and we think you're hitting flushing every single one of them in the center of the face. So I want to talk a little bit about your driver. You led the field last week in

I mean I remember it was a couple of years ago and I was getting into a little bit more speed training, yep, Because I'd say when I got out of school, I probably had a one sixty eight, one sixty nine ball speed, but I was very, very accurate, and I thought there's definitely some equity there if I could, if I could hit a little bit further, And my driver length was something that I'd never really.

Thought much about, hmm.

But I was like, okay, well, you know, when I already have a forty four and a half or whatever the length was with the driver, it's it's hard to get that much physically stronger or faster in the gym or with the.

Stack system for example. Nice, but you know that that's gonna take time.

But if I just get a driver that's longer, I you know, which I did a couple of years ago, and I was like, man, I gained four miles an hour ball speed just by doing that. Yeah, And then your brain realizes, man, I've got a longer club, and you can kind of take off the governor that you have.

On yourself a little bit.

Yep, when you've been swinging a shorter driver, so when your body's used to going faster, it kind of you open up that growth. And then suddenly, you know, instead of just gaining four miles an hour ball speed, it got to five six, seven eight, and now I'm kind of cruising at one seventy seven one seventy eight ball speed, which is ten miles an hour more than I had when I first came out for school.

Yeah, that's incredible. I think you and Matt Fitzpatrick or the two players have gained the most in ball speed from twenty one till now. Right, So it's kind of compounding some of the stuff you've been doing on the speed side with going to that longer lank driver.

Yeah.

I think this is a really good lesson because we fit a lot of folks at the proving grounds and we give them a longer length driver. We have a really cool tool to evaluate their strokes gain driving. Like sometimes a player will come in, they'll hit it super straight like you, and to get more strokes gained, you want to help them, like hit it further and go

Yeah. The problem is if.

You have a golf swing that you know, let's say, the harder you hit it, the more it just spins, so your numbers.

Just get all out of whack.

Yeah, So when you start adding on length on top of that now longer driver, that's it's going to make it spin even more, it's going to be even more inefficient. So your swing has to be in a certain way where it makes sense to add.

That extra length.

Yeah, because it's definitely a fitting process that has to go into it as well.

Yeah, we see that with like Joaquin plays a forty six inch driver, right, does it really as similar to you? Well, you got a lot of handling at impact, did a lot of side bends. So those kind of traits kind of stack up as a commonality.

We see who.

Is your pro athlete comp who when you look out at professional sport, do you feel like that guy is kind of how I am on the golf course. Is there somebody that comes to mind?

Ah, I don't watch sports enough to really have a good comparison, to be honest.

Okay, it's funny because I mean, this is a very big compliment, but I was watching this Steph Curry doc okay, and Steph is the way he goes about his business

Yeah, no, I definitely think it helps. That's that's a cool compliment. I don't watch in the NBA at all.

But what do you watch?

What sports do you want? It's nothing?

Nothing, not no golf?

Do you watch golf?

Harley?

So what do you watch at home? What do you get into when you're when you're on the road or you're at home, you're watching an iPad? What do you do?

I just listened to podcasts like this one Big Deal? Yeah that one to the list. Uh No, I listened to a lot of podcasts.

I faced on my buddies and read. I've started to read a little bit.

It's embarrassing, but I've probably only read about five books from cover to cover in my whole life. But I do really want to start reading and and and just start learning more.

Have you noticed the type of book that you get interested in beaus anything kind of like piqued your interest as of later, even like a genre of book that you're like, I could get into this, I could read a few of these.

Yeah, I've been I mean just kind of I've always had a very I've always been.

Interested in science and math and stuff.

I've never been good in math in school or anything, but ever since I got out of school, I've just kind of found a way just a more appreciation of it and getting to talk to you and and and Joe Mayo, my coach, just explaining how, for example, I mean, in golf is a perfect example that the golf doesn't or the golf ball doesn't know how much you slept, or how you're feeling, or what your P two looks like.

It just it just knows the physics.

So if you want to have a better understanding of what actually goes on, you got to understand.

Physics, physics and math exactly.

So if you want to, you know, improve your life or make better decisions, it's it's physics and math. And I don't know, I've just kind of it's really interested in to listen to people that understands this and and know what they're talking about. So I'd like to educate myself in that way a little bit better myself.

Yeah, I think it's I've been impressed by you. Victor is one of the ones on our staff that calls us, you know, so we can talk about some of the physics and help the eye a little bit. I was going to ask you a similar question when you were when you were driving from tournament to tournament during COVID, what were you doing in the car? You know, was it podcast music alone with your thoughts.

Yeah.

At that time I was more kind of into the music realm uh so, I was just banging out music for fifteen hours straight.

I mean it was it was a.

Grind a whole album or was it like shuffle It was it was shuffled, but like new music, or Okay, I'm I've listened to that album.

Now this this band just released a new album.

I'll listen to that and and then yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't wish it upon my worst endmy in that car, I had a lot of fun. But now I've just kind of I still listen to music, but not as much anymore. Now I've basically just I mean I listened to some days. I mean I might listen to three or four podcasts a day, just spend like literally six hours just keeping in the background and and you know, do whatever. So I'm just constantly listening and trying to learn some stuff.

So you grew up in Norway, you go to college and Stillwater, Oklahoma. What was that two week stretch like when you got there for your freshman year, You're like, this is where I live? Now? What was that?

Like?

How is that kind of a smack in a real world phase?

Yeah, well it is very different.

Yeah, But I think what would really help me was that I went for a visit about a year and a half before I started and visited four schools.

Oklahoma State was the last school I visited, and one of my high school.

I shouldn't call it teammates because we didn't have a golf team, but we went to the same school in high school where we had a golf program. Christopher Ventura went there, and when I just visited and he explained his schedule, He's like, yeah, I go to school a couple hours and then we're just at the golf course all day.

I'm like, sign me up. Sweet. So when I committed and came back there.

In uh, what year would have been, twenty sixteen, I guess it was just it was awesome from the from the get go because it was very simple. Even though I'm I'm from Oslo, the biggest city in Norway, I'm a I'm a city boy. But when I come over here, you know, moving all the way from Norway to come here, and let's say I would have gone to Georgia Tech, I'm I'm in Atlanta, right middle of Atlanta, a huge city.

I would have been so lost. So for me, it was perfect that I.

Just the college town made the cost sense to you.

Yeah, college town was awesome, and everyone on the golf team just had a vision that Okay, we're here to play golf and get better and win the national championship. And just that environment was was awesome to be in.

Victor tell us about just like the golf season in Norway, where did you play their sports growing up? Was it like summertime only golfing? What'd you do in the winter and what did your childhood of playing golf look like?

Yeah? I started pretty early.

My dad worked in Saint Louis for a year, uh and just brought a golf set back home. So I was about four or five years old when I started playing.

Uh. But when I was around eleven or twelve. That's when I said, okay that I I.

Kind of want to play golf in indoors in the winter because I would just play in the summer and then for the you know, last five six months, I just wouldn't touch a club. But I also played soccer and I did take one no as well, so martial arts, and so I kept pretty busy. But when I was when I was about twelve or thirteen, I was like, okay, I want to pursue this golf thing a little bit.

And you, I mean, you'd get you'd get six months of golf. Would you get seven months of golf? Like how long with the season?

I'd say seven months. It's very comparable to you know, someplace in the Northeast or something like, yeah, or in Canada or you know, it gets it gets cold. But what's what's different is, you know, even though there's snow and there's a it's a short season in some places in the States as well, at least when the golf courses opened they're in pristine shape.

But that's not the case.

In normal take a couple of months to get it.

Never get there.

You've made a trek back the last couple of years. I feel like, like around the Open where you've go on back and played some golf, what is it like being a twenty five year old going back to where you grew up and you're now this like, you know, national superstar. People are wanting to come out and watch you play as you're out there with buddies and family and things like that.

Yeah, because that's surreal. It is a little bit wild. Yeah. I just remembered a couple of years ago.

I was just gonna play with a couple of buddies of mine and we have this, uh the software online that everyone has to register U to put down.

The tea time. Okay, so my buddy just put it all downlands Yeah. Yeah, and then you know the night before.

It wasn't like this was planned a week in advance, so it was just the night before and then we show up the next morning and you know, there's a couple of hundred people on the first tea.

What is going on? So, I mean, that's.

Pretty cool to see what that that a lot of people are paying attention and they have gotten into the sport because they're watching me play on the on the PGA tour.

It's that's pretty that's pretty cool.

But it is it is a little bit weird as well, because sometimes I just want to go out there on a Friday night and just play with my buddies, and it's it always feels like, you know, it's it's a show kind of but it's you know, that's just how it is.

And are we talking like top five most popular people in Norway right now? Is that fair to say?

I'm not gonna answer it, but we will.

You know what we'll say.

You'll say, you guys there through the research.

Victor, I want to I want to ask you a question about like just improving your game. You know, I've heard you have you have the interview you did where you talking about kind of compound interest and in making those little improvements day after day. How do you evaluate you know, from my standpoint, you've done some things like you know you're playing great and you switch coaches, or you tink with your clubs, you try longer driver we see with the double pump on the driver back in the day.

Like about that? How so cool?

How do you evaluate maybe taking a risk, uh, in order to get better?

Right?

Because we've seen a lot of players in the history game, make a change like that and maybe not you know, regress. You know, so what is your calculus there? How much courage does that take? Like what is that process for you?

Yeah?

I would say some of it is is maybe not always calculated. Some of it is just kind of for the chaos of it, and then just see.

You know, what's going to happen is kind of exciting.

Yeah, and if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.

Most of the time, I'm not going to try.

Something completely new at the biggest events.

You know.

But if I'm playing, you know, just a regular tour event and I want to try something, I'm going to try it out. Yeah, and it might not work, but that's fine if I can learn from it and and kind of okay, why did not why did it not work?

Okay?

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, across that all the list and it's like, okay, well it didn't work because of this, Well what if we change it.

And try this instead? And you know, so it's it's easy to go down rabbit holes that way.

But you know, I think it goes back to the question that Joe and I talk a lot about, and we like to play poker a lot. So a lot of the discussion is in terms of, Okay, where's the equity going to come from? Like the way that I drove it last week, There's probably not so much tinkering that we need to do with the driver, because the driver is you know, if I need a game more shots off the tee, well I probably need to hit it further. That's kind of where my my equity, if

And then it just kind of goes on like that.

That's kind of like this a scientific process, you know, he just asked, asked why at least five times. Yeah, you see where alitsa what's the story of how the double pump started? Was that something you tried or coach or how it was?

I kind of wish, why don't you? You're playing way too good right now, Like the first t at the Ryder count just double pumps one, three, seventy.

Well at the time, I remember, like when I first came out, I was in quote marks, I was battling this slice you can call it, which was a good thing in a way because I could just aim it down in the left roof on every single hole because I knew it was cutting back, And in one way, that's pretty It's it's pretty nice to have that feeling of Okay, I could just aim at there, it's never going left, you know.

That's that's a pretty nice feeling. But at the same time, it would always.

Be a certain hole where okay, it's a dog leg right to left, the fairway slopes left to right, and the wind is off the left, So it's like, how am I gonna fit this cut into that T shot? I just can't and that would bother me a lot. So I would kind of constantly try to even out the left to right shot off the tee, which now it's a lot straighter, but at the time I didn't

But if I needed a ball to go straighter, I had.

To kind of get that pause in there to feel my left arm coming a little bit more from the inside, and at the time it actually gave me a little bit more speed. Uh So it was like, okay, if you know on the on certain holes, I'll like, okay, this is a this is a double pumphole, you know.

And then yeah.

I ended up playing I think, uh the pole the playoff three years ago. So in twenty twenty, I think I played one or two whole events. Literally every single drive was a double pump, which wasn't a good thing, but I at least made it work that week.

So Marty.

This is a you know, you guys have talked about tinkering, and I think something that pro golfers floor me by all the time is their willingness to tinker.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, you think about like Phil Michelson back the day placed two drivers, right, I mean, you know, Adam Scott a few years ago at the PGA Championship used two putters. The will willingess to use it into tournament round is I feel like something that amateur golfers aren't willing to do as much. That's okay, I'm making I'm missing it here, I'm not making this swing, I'm not doing the right thing here. But they don't change

Yeah.

Yeah, That's one of the things I admire aboute Victor is just that that that willingness to take that little bit of risk.

You know, Yeah, and the risk is fun. But at the same time, it's like.

There's there's got to be a reasoning behind the risk or or the willingness to change, because I do see a lot of I don't think the message would be go out there and change stuff every single day. That's that's stupid, right, Like, and honestly, I'm I'm surprised when I see world class players out here. It's like, oh, I putted it back, Give me a different putt, right, It's like, what, okay, why did you put it bad?

Did you? Are you not starting to ball online? Or is your being it wrong?

Right?

Yeah?

It's like, I I'm pretty confident with my putter. I start the ball online almost every single time. Like, if I have a bad putting day, it's not because I'm not starting the ball online. And okay, if it's a speed issue, well we've got to deal with that. It might be just the greens or is the putter not allowing me to have good speed control? Well, generally my speed is pretty good, So why would I ever try

Give me a different putter. Well what if it's a completely different makeup, because you know it's going to change your stroke and.

Now you don't have any idea how fast, you know, how hard you have to hit certain putts. So that's that's just changing stuff just to change stuff, and hopefully it works out. There needs to at least be a good theory and and and prediction of how the change is gonna work.

Victor, I was gonna bring up your putter, because you've used the same putter I think since we played and the Phoenix Open together and what was that in twenty twenty?

Okay?

But is that is that?

Has it been in the back three years longer?

Yeah? Four years?

Yeah, four years, same exact putter, right, And so it's DS seventy two. And you have a line in the on the flange and on the top and on your iping data, which you're on our lead aboard at the proving grounds there on our ipin consistency score. You we see a lot of folks aim to even the best players in the world aim a little bit left, aim a little bit right. You were you were perfectly zeroed out. Is that something you work on and try to do

I think it's just for me. I cannot putt without a line on the golf ball. So the line on the ball is very important for me. And again, as you mentioned, with the putter, I have that double line or dual line, and number one, it helps me with li angle when I'm looking down at the at the putter, yep, because I have it tendency of kind of letting my wrists get a little flatter. Uh So that will throw

Yeah, yeah, I want to go to Pebble Beach real quick before we let you go.

One.

How many times have you watched the ice plant shot? And at what point when you climbed down on the ice plant in enameter, did you think, oh, I can actually hit this thing.

Yeah, watching it quite a few times.

I mean, just looking at the some of the USM coverage from last week, it it popped up.

I saw aple occasions.

I'm like, oh, that that was a sweet shot. Uh no, I remember, because like I almost hit driver on that whole every single day. And I hit it down there was.

That was doing four? Is that four four?

Yeah? And that was in the first round of the final. And I just looked down there. I'm like, I know, the ice plant is a bat, you know, it's very hard to hit at.

Yeah, but I just looked at the lion. I'm like, it's sitting up perfectly. Now, he's completely blind. And I had to go down there thirty five feet But it's match play and.

As well give it a rip.

Yeah, might as well give it a go, and and yeah, it just worked out and it was It was a lot of fun.

Yeah, it's wild. Twenty nineteen the US Open. Obviously, after you win the Amateur you played excellent golf. I believe you're Silena Ametery turn pro That next week. You were talking to a few OEMs kind of looking at some different club companies out there. What made you land on Ping?

I just thought the you know, I've been around some of the guys before, just seeing him in college and stuff like that, and I've always really just respected the brand and the clubs that they produce, and I actually did have.

Because I played.

Tailor made my whole college career and the year basically before I went to college. But I remember one time I started swinging it.

So poorly and I actually.

Got fitted for some ping irons and I had a pin driver, and I'm like, this, this.

Stuff is pretty easy to hit.

So it was always in the back of my mind, like when I swung it the worst, I switched to pink clubs.

I'm like, yeah, this is better.

But I ended up going back to the tailment clubs because that's what I had played with. And then obviously when it was time to decide what brand I was gonna go with for Turning Pro, I really, you know, just delved into the stuff a little bit deeper and I'm like, you know, I love the driver. Putter's great and the irons were awesome. So I'm like, all right, this this sounds like a great fit.

Yeah, easy switch.

Yeah, that that US opening night was quite impressive. You're driving then.

Yeah, And the following week, I remember I think I gained maybe fourteen shots or something stupid and two tournaments.

Yeah, it was awesome.

Now your driver, you play that little cut down there with your irons. Are you shaping them a lot or are you just trying to hit them literally with not much curve on them, not trying to curve it a lot. Ye, I would say, I'm hitting a lot of really straight shots.

Yeah, but when that's when I'm hitting the normal full swing. So when I'm hitting that full swing iron shot, it will go very straight, sometimes even draw a little bit. But when I'm absolutely dialed in and I'm trying to just hit my yardages and hitting those kind of three quarter shots all take off distance by just trying to cut it a little bit more. So when I'm really swinging it, well, I'm like, okay, a perfect shot goes this far, I need to take four yards off of it.

We use that curve to control your distance a little bit. Yeah, were there any of those shots yesterday? I would say I hit a really nice one onto number twelve.

I hit a nice five iron down there, positioned myself well and I had like one hundred and fifty five yards, and going back to earlier, I was hitting its really far and it was down wind to front right pin, and I'm like, this is a perfect kind of cut, hold off pitching wedge, and I just you know, aimed it left, aimed the middle of the green and just hit a nice cut in there, probably five six seven yards.

Yeahs are pretty close. So I hit numerous of those shots in there.

People are gonna like playing with you at the Ryder Cup, I believe, especially the way you're swinging at it right now. When does the mentality switch, I'm assuming it's some of it's already there, i mean, Tour Championship this week, But when does the mind go Okay, it's Ryder Cup time. I'm dialed in, no hats, you know, I'm gonna hit my haircut and get it all dialed so I can I can go euro hatless, you know, I mean it

Yeah.

I don't think you can fully be in Ryder Cup mode until you get there.

Okay, but like like week of get to Italy and you're.

Yeah, I think that's when it just hits. There we go and here we go, see the bag. Yeah, it's on. But we're constantly you know, we have a group that thread and constantly in talks with Luke the captain. And you know, if I'm playing with like for example, I played with Rory yesterday and and anytime I'm just playing with guys that are gonna be on the team, it's like, man, that's gonna be so much fun.

I mean, like if you talk about it with Rory when you guys are playing like yesterday, I mean there chatter about the Ryder Cup.

I said after after I made the plot on eighteen and we walked off and I said, man, Ron's gonna be fun. And yeah, and he played he played well as well. So I feel like our team is really starting to shape up, and I think it's going to be a blast. In terms of the partners. I got to play with a few different guys last time. I I haven't played too much with Turrell, but you know, ping guy and and I just really love hanging out with Turrell, So I think it'd be cool that.

I think that would be a good pairing. But I feel like what's so cool.

With our team is that we could literally just put anyone together and I think we're gonna have just a strong lineup no matter what.

Yeah, I mean, it's uh. I feel like golf people just when it's Ryder Cup year, you get through the Open Championship, you start to get to the playoffs, and like the focus just all turns to it and it's three days. I mean. That's also a crazy thing about the Ryder Cup is it's this enormous thing every two years and you get three days of it and then it's you know, wait two more years and you get to go at it again. So it's so very exciting.

Man.

That was so cool to see. I know, I was living to breathe on every swinge. I mean literally, like my son was yelling at me about the TV. My kids were I want he wanted something else on. My son's a little young for it. He's four, he's not quite into the golf mode yet. But uh, congrats on the victory.

You can go. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.

Yeah, awesome victor.