It's the Son of a Butcher Podcast, Happy New Year, first part of the New Year, But everybody had a good holiday season starting off this year. This week's guest Lily Avo. I mean, what an amazing year she had on the LPGA Tour, Rolex Player of the Year, four wins, wins two majors, the Chevron, the Open Championship, and just gets to number one in the world. And this is one of the more dominant and impressive seasons that anyone
has had on any tour anywhere. I mean, if this is I mean, if this is one of the guys on the PGA, I mean, if Rory McElroy wins four times in a year and wins two majors, Scottie Scheffler wins four times two majors, I mean, it is front page news. And if I'm honest, I think a lot of the golf media really didn't pick up on, you know, how great Lily's year was. Maybe it's because all the other stuff that was going on, you know, with the PGA Tour and Live and who was going and stuff.
But I got to sit down and talk to her a couple of weeks ago and just really really impressed with how she played this year and twenty twenty four, I mean, I think the sky's the limit. I mean the hardest majors to win, I mean the hardest major to win is Brooks kept always says is your first one. She's won two in one year. I've got to think she's going to get in the hunt in majors in twenty twenty four and having won two already. It's a little bit like playing with house money and she can
free it up. So really really cool interview. Glad I got to sit down and talk to her. I think everyone's gonna like to hear what she has said. I think she's got an interesting journey. I mean, things didn't come easy for her, and she talks about that, and I think that's part of the struggle, is why she is having so much success now. So sit back and
enjoy listening to Lilya Booth Lilya twenty twenty three. I think if Rory McElroy or Scotti Scheffler had the kind of year you've had in twenty twenty three, winning four times, winning two majors, I mean, they'd be erecting statues and they maybe Time Magazine's People of the year. It's been
an amazing year. Can have you had a chance to process everything that's happened over the last twelve months, because this has got I mean, this is one of the best years we've seen in professional golf in a lot, really since the Tiger days.
Yeah, thank you for saying that. I've not had a lot of time to kind of reflect on the season I've had. I think just being go, go go all the time and just playing one tournament at of time, I think I'm very just what's in front of me. I think that's how I tend to do so well occasionally. But yeah, I just take it one shot out of time, just playing the golf course in front of me, playing that whole even just I was telling a pro partner today,
she's a d one golfer. She's basically asking me for advice about not getting too far ahead of yourself, like thinking about the next soul. I also have that problem as well, and so I think once I got to college, I learned how to just kind of narrow it down. Narrow it down. Basically, there's eighteen matches between you and the golf course. So at eighteen holes each hols a match, I'm going to try and burdiye this hole. If I don't move on, try again the next hole, and just
very just simple stuff like that really helps me. So I don't think about other players playing in my group, just me in this hole. How do I beat the hole.
I think it's interesting because obviously you make the jump from junior golf to college golf, from college golf to the Cemetri Tour Symetra to the LPGA Tour, and I think the stage gets bigger, the stakes maybe get bigger, but you're right, at the end of the day, it's just golf, right Yea's just regardless of where you're playing, whether you're playing a junior golf tournament or you're playing on the LPGA, the course might be longer, there might be more people out, but the object of the game
is still the same. The rules of the game are still the same, and the goal of the game is still the same. What do you notice now you're two time major champion, you're a proven winner on the LPGA, but you're still very early in your career and it's not too long ago, you know, two three years ago, to where your status is kind of up in the air. What have you noticed, is the difference between amateur junior golf, college golf, SEMETRA and the LPGA. What is the difference?
Because I think everybody that's trying to play is trying to crack the code, right What can they do at that next to get to that next level? What do you think it is.
There's a lot that goes into a big difference. For me, I felt like I really grew as a person in the past couple of years. Just like amateur golf, you junior golf you have like your parents, booking your flights, doing all your tournament stuff. College same thing. I had a great college experience. I wouldn't be here without UCLA coach and Alicia did everything for us. It just had
fun all the time. And then thought I was ready for the tour when I was a twenty nineteen rookie, was not made one cut, miss the rest of all the tournaments and just didn't have it. I felt so much pressure out there, even though I had achieved my dream of being on the LPGA, but it just didn't feel that way. It felt like every single shot was life or death. Put too much pressure on making money and trying to just come out of the gate really hot, but it just didn't happen that way.
I was saying. I had Joe Scarbn on my podcast recently Caddy for Ricky Forever and now Caddy's for Tom Kim. But we were talking about Tom as a rookie, and it's a theme that I see because I've been on tour, you know, working on tour for twenty years. As a rookie, I think you can get lost. You can kind of all of a sudden. The manufacturers are there, you can change your equipment every single week. Try you're putting bad. There's fifty different putterns you can try. You're driving it bad.
You can try driver chefts and change coaches, caddies, all of that. And I keep saying this, no one tells you how to be a professional athlete, professional golfer, and be a professional in the sport. They just throw you out there. If you're talented enough, you get on tour. There's no training. Okay, some of the tours do some media training and some kind of but it's it's not real and no one can really prepare you for what it's like to be a professional athlete.
Yeah, I absolutely agree, there's really no perfect formula for that. You kind of have to figure that out for yourself. So twenty nineteen was a hard year for me. Lost my card, went back to the EPSOM Tour for two years, and just kind of had to find my way back. I had to find just kind of re emulate what I had in college, just constantly having fun, having a
good team around me to handle all that stuff. So naturally I was going to figure out how to create my own team on tour, and slowly I did that and then started finding finalizing the final pieces into the team, and then now we're here.
I think that is one thing that I've noticed that when you're in when when players are in college, there is an enormous amount of structure and a lot of times I'll work with college golfers when they're home, the coach makes them practice. They don't like when they practice, they don't like when what you know, there's a lot of things that they don't like, right, but that is all there and made for them. Once you turn pro, you have to find a course to play out, you
have to find a place to practice. You've got to find a gym, You've got to plan your schedule. Whereas college and like you said, junior golf, all of that is basically done for you. And I have seen a lot of players kind of struggle for a couple of years that post college because they don't find their way, they don't find the right setup. Why do you think it took you a couple of years to find that.
I think it's just maturity, growing and knowing what I like. I like being told when to practice, when to work out, and now I have people on my team that kind of just overall just look at my schedule and figure out what we're doing during the off weeks and all that stuff. I think it just makes my life easier that we have a routine and everybody has their certain tasks to make my life easier so that I can go out there and do what I do best.
You mentioned going to UCLA, you're a first team All American, you won eight times. Do you feel that there's a difference in winning in college versus now winning majors and winning big tournaments on the LPGA. Did you notice a difference.
Big difference. I think in college I was just having fun and then I happened to win. Out here, it's a grind, like you really have to not think too far ahead. My first win this year, and yeah, I shot eight under on the last day, and I didn't even know what I was shooting. I didn't look at any.
Scoreboard or not a scoreboard watcher.
I used to not be. But and then one day I decided I can look at it.
Yeah, Lily, you start winning two majors, look.
At the score It's okay. I just you want to.
Look at scoreboards when you were in the hunt to win major championships. I get the hey, I'm just going to play today. Yeah, but if you're on the back nine on Sunday and you're in one of the last two groups, look at the scoreboard.
I definitely looked at the open on sixteen. That's when I finally I knew I was there. I just didn't know how much way I have won.
Six should sixty six?
I have no idea.
But an again, that's amazing. You have no idea what you shot. I don't know how you're second major this year on Sunday.
Yeah, I have no idea. I think I just made a switch one day and I said, I'm not going to let the score scoreboard control me. With the fear that I have for it. So I'm like, I'm just going to look, what.
Was that Open Championship? Like, I mean, you start that Sunday, you're playing with Charlie Holl I mean, obviously Charlie being from the UK, huge fan favorite, You're kind of the underdog, You're kind of the the person that they're not rooting for, and you basically just light it up. Shoot a great round,
win by a ton. But that experience to where you're on the golf course on Sunday trying to win, well, you was it something that you were conscious of, Lily, that you're in your head going, Okay, I've got a chance to win another major this year.
I didn't think about it that way, but I knew that I was really excited to play in the final group with Charlie, with the crowd she had. I knew on Saturday she played behind me and I heard all the roaring and the cheers, and I turned to my caddy, Cole, and I said, I want to play with her tomorrow. I think it would be so fun. Like the crowd that she has going on, we don't see that a lot. She pulled a really big crowd in London, She's from there. So it was really cool to see she's super fun
to play with. So I got my wish. I wanted to play with her, and a person on my team told me, don't be nervous that they're rooting for Charlie. They're not rooting against you. They're good fans too, And I think that kind of flipped my mindset, and I was super excited to play Sunday, super nervous, But I don't know, I just stuck to it. I didn't try to pay attention too much to what she was doing
on the course. I was just trying to do my thing, make as many birdies as possible, even though in major tough conditions, and so, I mean, it was tough to not look at her eagle bunker shot on one of the crazy It was so good. I got goosebumps. And then I just kept doing my thing, just trying to play one shot at a time.
I was listening to a podcast the other day and someone was saying that it's okay to take things professional, don't take them personal. It was like, if you're going to be a professional, if you're going to work in any sort of professional environment, things are going to happen to you that in your personal life you could take personally, but in the profession that you want to be in, it's not personal. It's just part of being a professional.
So you know that going to the UK, you're trying to win a major, but someone in that group that you're playing with is from the UK. It's not a personal thing against you, it's professional. They're going to root for her because she is kind of the hometown favorite.
Yeah, it makes sense, and I was really excited for her. And like us, I always get excited when I go to either Scotland or England. I feel like they have true golf fans and they know what a good shot is. So I was just over the moon to be there.
Honestly, when did it sink in that you were a two time major champion, Because I mean, here's the thing. Justin Thomas has one two majors. John Rahm is one two majors. You have one two majors. It's hard to think of yourself in that vein. But the majors, both on the men's side and the women's side, that is the benchmark, That is where careers are validated, right Brooks kept who I work with. Brooks has always held. He's always thought if you were a major, you were a
great player. If you haven't won a major, no matter how many tournaments you've won, his mindset is always like, to me, it's always been about the greatest players in golf, both on the men's and the women's side, are the ones that win majors. Now that you're a two time major champion, has it sunk into what you've actually done, because it is an enormous accomplishment, and it's an enormous
accomplishment in one year. I mean, we don't see that, right, We don't see Brooks has done it, Tiger's done it, but there are some great players that have never come close to winning two majors in a year. Yeah, you are a rarefied rarefied air. I mean, there are not a lot of people at this kind of height on the mountain that you're on, and I think sometimes when you're doing it, you don't realize it, right, It doesn't
come across that way. But you are in a category now of people that are all time legends that have the same amount of major champions, both on the men's and the women's side.
Did you do thank you for saying that I didn't really realize it until you mentioned it. I haven't thought about that I'm a two time major champion, because I think if you look at the majors in between, we got KPMG, US Open, and eavy On I didn't do so great. I was kind of sure you missed.
The cut at the US Opening and went on a cut streak kind of in that US Open time where you'd missed four cuts in a row after winning a major. Again, that is an anomaly as well. Normally you win a major and you go okay, playing with house money now, Yeah, I'm just gonna light it up.
Yeah, it didn't feel that way for me. I felt I feel pressure, felt a lot of pressure, and kind of just had an internal battle with myself just putting myself too high of a standard, and I was kind of being a perfectionist, getting really upset not pulling off every single shot I hit on the golf course and that was really tough for me. And then someone on my team on Wednesday at the Open just said, all we need to do is get in contention by this weekend and would be a good spot to win. And
that's what we did. We just took it day by day, tried to hit the best shot from wherever we ended up and then just went from there.
I've had Adam Scott on my podcast. Scott He's a good friend of mine. I've worked with him. But I remember in two thousand and one Adam was he was rookie. He was still playing on the European Tour, but because of his world ranking he was able to come off. He'd won one big turn. I think he had won a tournament in South Africa. Nothing really really crazy, and that is kind of a one the height of Tiger Mania, right when Tiger is at like full full Tiger Tiger Tiger.
He played a practice round in Atlanta, and I'll never forget this, he said. Tiger said to Scutty, I've been watching you play, yeah, and Adam's like, he's watching me my tournaments on TV. It's unbelievable. Yeah, but he said, you just have to learn how to hang around more. And he said and Adam was like, well, what do you mean. He's like, well, you you're leading or one behind. After Friday, you shoot sixty six, sixty eight, you're in
one of the last groups. And on lately on Saturday you've been shooting seventy two, seventy three, and then on Sunday, the only way you can win the golf tournament is to go out and shoot sixty three. So that's a tough ask. And he said, if you can find a way just to hang around and be one of those players on Sunday, there's probably gonna be you know, five to eight of them on the back nine. You kind
of look at the leaderboard. He said, if you can just put yourself in position every week, you're gonna have weeks where you play great and lose and you don't really play that great win and somebody else messes it up. Yeah, and I'll always remember this. Tiger Woods, at the height of his kind of power, said to Adam Scott, he said,
can I be honest with you? He said, you know what's the most fun for me When I've got a one shot lead and I shoot one under and I let everybody else mess it up because they feel the pressure. He said, I take care of the par fives and I just go out and I just say, hey, I've done this before, I've been in this situation before. I'm gonna let everybody else said, hasn't been in this situation
before mess it up. So if you think about the Masters in twenty nineteen that Tiger won on Sunday, he made one birdy, he made one birdy on Sunday and aimed. There's a great picture that I sent to Brooks because Brooks rinstant in the water made double Frankie Molinari Rinston in the water made double Tony Fenaw Rinstant. I mean everybody pulled, they all kind of hit it in the water,
and there was this great picture right behind Tiger. You know, the pins over on the right hand side where it always is, and he's starting the golf ball left of the green and cutting it back into the middle because he's hit that shot so many times. Yeah, he's not overawed, he's not freaked out by that situation. And Brooks couldn't handle it at that time. You know, the wind came up, but still you got to execute. So I think what you said there is really important that someone on your
team said, hey, just put yourself in contention. And then I also read that after you missed those four cuts, your caddy Gole, said hey, let's just go out and have fun on the golf course. And I have talked to a lot of players, and when they do struggle, they talk about that conflict on the golf course where it's not fun. Yeah, and when you're a junior golfer, it's a blast. You can't wait to get to the golf course. You can't wait to play. College golf is fun.
How do you What is that feeling like when you're on the course and it's not fun? What are you feeling as a player and as a person.
I think just very tight overall. I feel like I'm not free to play golf the way I want.
To try not to miss it as opposed to trying.
Yeah, just kind of defense golf. It's not fun. I'm not having a good time. It's just I'm seeing a shot, but it's not doing that. It's not starting online. And I think just for me, I play my best golf when I have fun first, and then it turns out well, you can't rely on Okay, I'm gonna have fun if I'm playing well, because that tends to not work.
It's a moving target.
Yeah, So I mean I just try I have fun the best way I can, just very relax and seeing shots. And I remember saying this when I want Onnica a couple of weeks ago that it was just really fun to be out there. It was fun to even just small things like read the break and like have that putt go in the way you see it. Little stuff like that, seeing shots, creating shots, And that's my version of fun. I know it's very like golf nerdy, but that's just how it works.
And uh, you won kind of the last tournament of the year on the on the regular, the regular, on the regular schedule, and I thought Texas Roadhouse, I mean talking through it. I mean, if your agent doesn't have a Texas Roadhouse logo on your sleep, I mean you said on Saturday night you played, you played good on Saturday, and they asked you you said, well, went to Texas Roadhouse for steak the night before. Where did that come from?
Oh? I have this ongoing theory that if I eat steak the night before around I just play really well. I love that and it's shown true quite a bit. I did go to Texas Roadhouse again that Saturday night and then ended up winning the next day.
I mean, so it's science right at this point that those are data points that you can kind of touch and field.
Yeah, definitely. Texas Roadhouse got a lot of pr from that. Though.
Let's go back to the beginning. You started playing golf when you were seven. Do you remember what you liked about golf growing up? What was it that took you to golf? Did someone else take you to golf? I'm always interested in players kind of journeys.
Yeah, So my older brother started golf with my dad, and my would just bring me just to watch and sit, and I think I was trying to be funny imitating my brother's golf swing. Mom gave me a club, and then now I'm better than him and I'm playing professionally. Yeah, so that's how it started. My brother ended up playing D one golf at UC Riverside, and then I went to UCLA and then yeah, and then had a good college career.
What kind of junior golfer were you?
My mom says I was really good, but I don't think I was that great. I think just I felt like people were winning left and right in junior golf and I just didn't have that. And then once I went to UCLA, I learned a lot from my teammates, from my coaches, and I think that's when I really
fell in love with golf. I think learning how to win, learning how to even take notes on a yardage book, like what I need to write down during practice rounds, just having fun and then not being too hard on yourself. It was just like, hey, I'm with a bunch of my best friends at skill play and have a good time.
So how do you crack the code from junior golf where you're not a prolific winner to going and playing at UCLA first team All America? But you win eight times in were there for four years?
Three and a half?
Yeah, you win eight times in three and a half years. I mean that's a lot of golf, and that is a again, that is maybe you don't realize it, but that is not normal, right, That is not a normal resume where people are just like, yeah, I mean I've got close to double digit wins in college. The people that do that are superstars, right, And so how what did you learn in college that maybe you didn't know in junior golf?
Biggest thing for me in college was learning how to read the break. When I first got to UCLA, my assistant coach, Alicia, taught me how to read aim point point you. So from there, on. I just knew how to read rereads. I was kind of playing around figuring out calibrating my fingers and how far away I need to put my arm, and that just made it easy for me. I think I had problems reading the green when I was a junior golfer, and then I came
to UCLA and learned how to do that. And then also just looking up to my older teammates had I followed Bronti Laws pretty close with her and just listening to and seeing what she would write down on her gyardage books. She said, write down everything you see out there, things that you might need, things you don't want to be at, where's a good place to miss it, and just little things like that. And I think in my mind and I figured out how to play the most
simple golf. Okay, this is I know this is going to be kind of difficult to understand, I think, but my assistant coach made pin locations with two zero lines. There's a green one for uphill, a red one for downhill, and I would hit to those lines to have a straight putt, and it would just make my life easier. Okay, it's just downhill, straight putt.
Hit it to the straight putt down the slope or hit it to the straight put up the slope. Those you better be a striker to do that.
But yeah, I mean I would try to do that. If not, then we'll figure it out from there. But I remember actively trying to do that, and I think that helped me a lot, to be honest. And then you get out here and no more Green's book, no more of this, and I'm like, oh, shoot, I hope I'm still good at golf and can make birdies that way. But yeah, I think that was a big just learning how to see the green Con tour, knowing where the zero lines are and then the ninety degrees is when
it breaks the most. So just little stuff like that and just understanding putting.
One of the things I think that ain point helps players with because Green reading, like you said, either you either have that skill or you don't. And I think one of the great things about a point is it has helped, you know. I look at the work that DJ and his brother AJ did on that run where DJ won the Masters and won the FedEx. AJ started doing a point and started reading all the putts for DJ,
and it really really did help. But I think one of the things that am point helps professionals do is you go through the process, you go through the read, and if you miss it, you can almost let it go the fact that you missed it because you went through a process that you chose, and so you either have to let yourself off the hook immediately and go, Okay, it just didn't go in because I thought it was going to do this and I read it to do this and it didn't, And you can then go, Okay,
are going to try and do that on the next hole. Yeah, Pecause I think if you're constantly in and out of it and you don't know what's going on, I think sticking with that process can somewhat help you let go of a failure.
Absolutely, I one hundred percent stand by my system. I think I've done it for years. I know it works, So when I miss a putt, I'm not too bent up about it. I know that, Okay, Like, there's only two things that can happen. You either make the plot or you miss it. It's not that deep. And I was telling my Caddie today, I was like, that's my mindset with putting. I think that's why it helps so much, because Hey, I did what I needed to do. I
did my system. If it works, then it works, and if it doesn't, then you move on and you try again.
If you were a player on the LPJ and got paired with you for the first time, what do you think you would think about your game and the way that you play? What would you if you had to describe your game? What do you do well? What are the attributes that you have? What are some of the idiosyncrasies that you have as a player.
I think my strength is definitely putting. I think if I'm hitting it, driving it pretty well, and I get it on the green, I have a pretty good chance of making that berdie. I don't know why I have that feeling, but if I'm on a putting surface, I have a good feeling it's getting in. So I think just pretty simple, just going driver to Do.
You like to work the golf ball? Do you like to hit it one direction?
Yeah? I just like a push straw. If it's not a push straw, it's probably a mess, to be honest. Yeah, I'm very just simple. I like to see that right to left. I love playing with players that can bring it right to left, like I love playing with Charlie. I love playing with Lynn Grant. I just think that.
You played with Rory McElroy. No, you really like that?
Yeah, I think I'll love that.
You talk about the absolute blueprint, very high bomb nuke draw with the driver. Have you ever seen it up close?
No?
I mean, if you ever, I mean, if you ever get a chance to watch Worry mclroy hit golf balls up close. By the time he gets the driver where he starts hitting drivers, you're just gonna be standing there just your mouth is just gonna be open because it just the way he drives the golf ball, and he's never off balance. He hits he's you know, he carries at three thirty in the air. They're high bomb neutraws right. He never looked. It's like I keep saying this, it's
like he's a gymnast. He sticks the landing. Yeah, and it just looks so natural.
Yeah, it looks normal. Just nothing.
What would your caddy, coll say you're like to work for?
I don't know.
And what do you need and want from a caddy.
That's a good question.
Because you've said in college you like structure, you like someone to tell you what to do. So are you a player that wants the caddy to give you the yardage and go it's a seven iron, and you go, cool, it's a seven iron. Is there a collaboration? Do you want the back and forth or what kind of info and what interaction do you like?
I kind of like to just be on auto pilot. He'll tell me the number. I say, oh, is it a soft six. He'll be like yeah, just let's say one seventy stock draw and then I'll be like okay, yeah, just right up the pin, maybe four yards, or we'll find a specific target. I'm very specific target oriented. It can't just be like right center the fairway. It has to be something.
So are you picking out things on the horizon? Trees, grandstands, antennas as to where your.
Trylist started, Yeah, it could be palm trees. He'll well, we'll do landing points because I have leeway of where I want to start my ball. So he'll tell me, okay, we want to land on the Grant Thornton logo or something else like that.
So something behind the red that is a visual for you. So you can look at the flag and say, okay, I see the logo. Yeah, five yards right, Okay, that's where I'm going to.
Try and land. Yeah, and then he could say, oh, it's a little off the left, so you want to land on the Grant Thornton logo, so maybe start a little left of that so that it could help with pushing the ball off the face and little stuff like that. I think I kind of just try and go wherever he tells me to go, unless I really need to voice of my opinion and I'm like, hey, I really don't think it's an eight year I think it's seven. Then we'll kind of just go from there.
It's but much more of a soldier mentality. I know what to do. Just give me the information, tell me where we're going, and I'll go. Yeah.
I kind of just take order, not take orders like that, but like pretty good. It just helps me because then I can just focus on hitting that shot instead of okay, like me going to go get that yardage and double checking if he's right. I know he's right, so then we don't have to go like there's no lack of confidence there.
One of the generalizations that I noticed between the LPGA and the PGA tour is at times when I'm out on the LPG or I'm watching, it seems like the interaction between the player and the caddy there can be a lot of information going back and forth. And yes, there are players on the PGA tour that do that. Guys you know, Michael Greller and Jordan Spieth. I mean they're they're writing a novel sometimes on the shots. But a lot of the interaction between the guys and their
caddies is it's not as much information. And I think at times it seems to me that at times the LPGA, the players maybe can get overloaded with too much information. So you're not reacting as an athlete, you're not reacting as a player. You're almost you've taken on so much information that you're like, oh gosh, there's a lot to hit a seven iron from a buck fifty.
Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty particular. I want to know how far it is, how far it's playing with the wind, so I'll know like where the wind's coming from, how much it's affecting the ball, and then I'll want to know how far is it based on like how far is it to the front or how far is it to the back. If it's like closer to one side or the other or how much room I have. But once I kind of once I hear the number, I kind of know what I'm hitting.
Yeah, are you a big practicer? What's your practice routine like? What are off weeks like for you? What are tournament weeks like? There are It runs the gamut right There are people that spend four or five six hours on the range. They want to be there, they need to be there. Their identity is in practicing. And then there are other players that are like you know, I'm not gonna really practice much. I'm trying. If you had a choice between practicing and playing, which one are you choosing?
Playing every single day? Now? Just kidding. I love playing practice. I'm not much of a practicer. I will maybe two three times a week during my off weeks. But I love playing. I love playing with friends, anyone that's back home, just people from my club. And yeah, I'm much more of a player even out here. I don't really go and find something on the range post round. I think I was telling another girl in my group today the four winds I've had. I've never went to a range
of practice afterwards. I care more about just managing my body and how my body feels and just maintaining rest.
And that is very much the Dustin Johnson, the DJ model. DJA. He doesn't hit a lot of golf balls after the round, regardless of whether he plays well, and even if he plays poorly. You know, I've said this a million times on the pod, but there are loads of times where I'm standing and scoring. He you know, DJ, with all of his firepower, all the par fives he can reach, he'll make a double on one of them, and he'll
come in. He'll shoot you know, one two over and his brother will be shaking his head and I'll say, hey, do you want to go hit balls? And he'll go nah, and really hit that bad today. And AJ's sitting there looking at me, going, bro, it was awful, but he just he's like, I'll figure it out tomorrow. I know what I need to do. I'll be fine. Brooks And I've said this a lot too. Brooks likes to go to the range, whether he shut sixty three or whether
he shot seventy five. Yeah, the range, and half the time he just wants to go there and kind of talk download and go through the round. He needs that, he needs that kind of downtime to kind of go okay, and we know now to do that. But one of the and I've said this before a well, but I think it's something it's important for people to hear, like yourself. We were at the Tour Championship. Once Brooks had played pretty good, he hit a couple bad drives, he said,
let's get the launchmonner out. We got the launchmoner out, and then we're starting to dissect everything, and Ricky said, hey, can we go home. You shot sixty six today and you're leading by whatever. Yeah, we can find stuff to work on if you want to work on it. But it's working pretty good. Let's go home and let's get off the range.
Yeah, that's the opposite of me. I think I'm down more of DJ's path. Just if I play good, I'm not practicing. If I play bad, I need to forget my swing and then figure it out the next day. I don't know why I got into that mindset, but I think it just helps me because I'm not going to find anything on the range.
I think, are you warming up on the range or you is the range warm up? In a tournament? Tournament day Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. How important is your warm up to you? How important is it to your psyche as to what you've seen in the warm up going to the course.
Usually, if I have a bad warm up, that's a good sign. I'll go play like the best golf I've ever played. For some reason, it tends to be like that all the time. So I think I don't take into heart a bad warm up too much because somehow it just turns out well. And then, yeah, I think it's just very simple for me.
So how going into twenty twenty four do you manage the expectations that you have? Do you manage the expectations that your team has, and then obviously managing the expectations that the wider golf world has. I mean next year twenty twenty four, you play good next year and win once and don't win a major and don't win four times, it's easy to see that as a down year based off of the year that you've had. Yeah, and we saw this. I think Jordan Speith when he came out
on tour. Jordan had a career year when two majors and he had a rear year in one year, and it's hard to sustain that. What are you looking to do next year, and how are you trying to in your own head say, Okay, how am I going to manage expectations?
Yeah, So during the off season, I think my team will kind of reevaluate what needs to be better. I know there's a lot in my game that can be better. For some reason, I just feel like this is not the limit. Like I feel like I can be so much better short game wise, ball striking, off the tee, everything, And so I think usually during off season I write down a series of my goals and put it away and see by the end of the year, see if
I've achieved it all. So I haven't looked at my goals that I wrote down for this past year.
Were they to win two majors?
I don't really so I don't remember.
Were they to win four times?
Maybe? I think after this event I'll relook at it and see if I did touch all of them. But I think I'll be pretty close to what I wrote down. So I'm excited to just sit down, think about what I want to do next year and see if I achieve it again.
Lastly, I was looking you toured pro in nineteen, you played nine events, you made one cut, you made three thousand, eight hundred and thirty dollars this year. You won four times, two majors, and you made three point five million dollars in nineteen when you were at that stage of missing you know, basically all the cuts. We're not that far
removed from that. I mean, if someone had told you, hey, I know it's tough right now, but in twenty twenty three, you're gonna win four times, win two majors, be Rolex Player of the Year. I heard from someone on your team that when you were junior golfer you always wore a white Rolex hat, and now you are the Rolex Player of the Year. I mean that's just crazy.
Yeah, to come full circle like this is kind of crazy. I think twenty nineteen, Lilia would never have thought that I'd be in this position. I think I've just had a phenomenal year, and I haven't had much time to think about it. Definitely during the off season, I will. I think just played so many tournaments in between, and it's been a busy season. But I'm very grateful to be here. I'm actually super grateful that the twenty nineteen
season happened because I learned so much failure. Yeah, hot to fail, that's the best way to learn.
And I think junior golfers, and I think you know this now, junior golfers are so afraid to fail. Even in college. If you're not winning, it's easy to go Okay, I'm no good, I'm no good. I'm going good. But the failure that you went through in nineteen to where you reach your dream, you get on the LPGA Tour for the first time, and then you just don't. You don't have it, you don't play good. It's easy to
let that affect you. But I think what I'm hearing you say is without that, this year doesn't happen exactly.
If I didn't hit rock bottom, I wouldn't be able to step back and see what I needed to change in order to be here. And then I slowly worked my way, learn new things, took things from other people that I saw, and then also tried to create a full team around me to help me with everything. And then that allowed me to just focus on golf. There's nothing I needed to add this year. I just needed to play golf, and that's what happened.
Well, if you haven't you said you hadn't thought about it. This is a hell of a year and you've got to be incredibly proud of yourself, and I think everybody is excited to see what you do in the future. My advice stay on the stake, stay all mistake.
Okay, definitely stay wins. Yes, steak wins. Thank you so much for having.
I have a good off season.
Yeah, thank you.
So that was the world number one liliavou What a cool story, and like I said at the beginning, a huge, huge year, a breakout year, and a year I think could have gotten a little bit more following and had people talking about it because it is one of the breakout, standout career years that anyone's had. We haven't seen someone step up and win two majors. I mean, that just doesn't happen. So really really impressed with her as a player, Excited to see what she does in twenty twenty four,
and I am definitely a fan. I want to thank everyone for listening twenty twenty four. The pod is going to be bringing in some good guests, excited to bring some new stuff and just try and help everybody get better with their golf and enjoy their golf more. Son of a Butch comes to you every Wednesday. We will see you next week.