Michael Weaver

I was really into it. It was. It was a lot of fun. I mean, you can imagine. It was racing go karts that probably went about like fifty five or sixty and it's a bunch of like second third kids. Yeah, so it was. It was pretty serious. I think some of my parents' friends probably thought my dad was out of his mind, and but no, I was really competitive. But that I did that until I was about twelve. I started playing golf when I was tense. I had

a little bit of overlap. I was racing and playing golf, and eventually kind of my dad pointed out to me that I hadn't raced at one point in like six months or a year I think it was, and that I kind of needed to pick one or the other because if we were going to keep racing, I needed to be committed to that, and if not, like that stuff was he wanted to get rid of the racing stuff, and if I wasn't going to do it, because it seemed at that point I was pretty pretty set on

playing golf. I started starting I was ten, just played for like a year, then started playing tournaments, and think when I was eleven and summer, summertime became, you know, three tournaments a week, like a one day or here, a two day or there, all throughout northern California. So racing kind of took a back seat, and I stopped doing that, yeah, when I was twelve, and since then just been playing golf. But I'm still still pretty interested

in racing in general, like the Formula one. My dad still races as like a hobby, as an open wheale race car. I've driven a few times. It's it's a blast. It's way more fun than golf. I'm not gonna idea.

golf for more than really at all. There's been maybe something here there that's kind of bothered me, But I don't think I could directly attribute that to playing golf or working out related to golf. So I've been been pretty fortunate to been playing for I guess sixteen years now. You hear about guys periodically, you know, their backs, bothering them, risked whatever. I have been pretty fortunate. I have to deal with that.

Little League, dad. But I don't think you see that as much in golf, just because it's more you know, you're competing against everyone else, but less so than in racing, I guess. And you can kind of directly attribute your bad play to yourself and golf wers. If someone makes a bonehead move. Racing, you could point the finger at them, you know, with some certainty, so you'd see it occasionally. You know, people get pretty pissed, but not you don't see that in golf.

was was kind of a big age difference then. I wasn't real close with them, but no, we've I don't know what to attribute that to. It's kind of strange because Kevin Chappel and I grew up playing the same golf course. Bryson and Derek grew up playing the same a different course, but the same one as each other. Obviously, Watney has had a good career. I don't I don't

know if it's just like a fluky thing. That's kind of When I was talking to a friend about this, I said, it just seems like a like a fluke deal. Like my high school team, even we had four or five guys played Division one golf as well at you know various you know, myself and one other guy both went to cal Pace Johnson, and then a couple other guys played like Cal Pauly Soccramento State. I guess that'd be it, But no, it's just kind of one of

maybe one of those things. It's more coincidence than anything. I can't say, Oh, it's because we have all these great courses or facilities or whatever we can play with golf year around. But that's true for anywhere in California.

all wanted to be each other. So I'm sure that that counts for something. But you know, beyond that, you know, and professional golf to have, I guess it'd be five or six guys. You know, Watney's from Sacramento but went to President State and then myself, Bryce and Derek and Kevin, all four of us either you know right or kind on the web. The two others on the PGA tourrets. Yeah, it just kind of got an anomaly more than anything.

And there would be days where like nobody really wanted to go practice, but like Michael Kim and I for example, would say play for you know, trying to beat each other. And that was that was that happened literally every day. Get It's like we'd go hit balls for like an hour and then have a two or three hour up and down contest. There are several contests within a two

or three hour period. I think that's just kind of that element where we were everyone wanted to beat each other, we all hated to lose to each other, and that that I think that was worth a lot because I know, say, like my recruiting class was myself, Max and Brandon, and I think that I for each of us, Cal wasn't

necessarily our first choice going into the recruiting process. You know, you have all these schools you're looking at, Like it wasn't like it was Cal or then the other things everything else to be settling, like we I know, I was interested in saying the UCLA, Stanford like all the big schools in California, And I know Haye was kind of the same way with I think USC and Max's

kind of the same boat as us. There's both of us as well, Like Cal was on the list, but it wasn't like with all those other programs at that time were higher ranked than us. So it was kind of common. You know, we all heard it, Max, Brandon and I that from other coaches in the Pac twelve, like they kind of overlooked our class. And then that was kind of a common thing with even with like Michael Kim as well. It was all these guys who might have been a little bit overlooked, Say Michael Kim

was overlood because he hit it short thin. Max brand and I had not really like hit our stride yet I guess you could say we had good junior careers but not great, and then you know they certainly weren't up to par with our collegiate careers. So I think it was just, you know, we had a great group of guys. We all got along really well, and we were all really competitive, and everyone was willing to work

really hard. I mean we never had to. There was never anybody on the team that, like you kind of had to light a fire under him, Like everybody knew where they wanted to be and believe that, you know, we were working, we were doing all the right things to you know, be a top ten or top five team or the number one team in the country.

And then my buddy, one of my friend of mine from cal who's a few years older, said well, I played twenty five or twenty six professional events a year, and I kind of looked at that, like, that's only like a couple more, that's not that big of a difference. But what you what I kind of overlooked was in college, your events are four days at most, and you have a travel day, practice around day thirty six, and then eighteen whole day, and then you go home that night.

Whereas professional event it's uh, you know, you say, you fly on Sunday or Monday, you play practice on Monday. Tuesday, you're either in the program or you're practicing on Wednesday, and then you play four rounds and you do that's like last year, I played thirty tournaments and that's thirty weeks essentially, it's not you know, it's not thirty half

college tournaments, half amateur events where it's they're shorter. So that was something that I think that's something that's overlooked is people look at oh, it's you play pro golf, like you get to go and go to all these cool places. Which that's true. Sometimes I think if you took an honest look at like the web dot Com schedule, you wouldn't say like, I'm dying to go to Wichita, Kansas and Omaha and Springfield and is or I mean I've played. Yeah, it's like courses are good, the tournaments

are well run. But that's like people think that professional golf you're going to all these cool destinations, you get to do cool stuff. Well, like the reality is like I'm I'm going to try to make time to go to the Panama Canal this week because I've never been. But most weeks like I'm not doing anything touristy. Maybe

I'm just lazy about that or not. It's not that important to me, I guess, but most weeks like there's just not there's just not a whole lot of time because you got to play your practice rounds and then your practice and your workout and whatever else you have to do to get ready to go on Thursday. I think that's something that's so easily overlooked is the tournament.

It's four days, but you know, being ready to play tournam involves a week, and you have to at the level that if you're not, if you haven't won on the PGA Tour. I guess the way I look at it is you need to play pretty much every chance you get because you can't really you can't really like be complacent because it's so easy to if you're like a rookie on tour, so it's not easy, it's so

difficult to get into events. You're kind of forced in your rookie year to play the events you get into, rather than you know, picking your schedule, which you kind of have to take advantage of that then saying your second or third year, once you move up in the world ranking or if you win a tournament, then you're then you can have that luxury. But I think that's something that is probably the most overlooked, even for guys

who played golf necessarily in college. That says I'm saying, oh, I don't want to play more than two events in a row in a row, and for an amateur schedule, it's like during the summer, it's like you guys need to kind of get used to playing four or five in a row because you might have no status. Monday into a Web event and top twenty five a few of them, and then all of a sudden, like I

had to stretch this summer. I was planning on playing a couple of weeks on, a couple of weeks off to that, and then like six six tournaments over like a nine week stretch, and the week said off, I'm did into a Web event and combined them into nine straight weeks, and that you know, after nine weeks, I was sick of playing golf. But that's kind of the nature of it. You know, you you get you have to you kind of have to go and you're hot and keep going.

I went home and practiced a lot. It's like I hadn't really done anything to redeeming that summer, I felt like. So I feared out hopefully and I'd qualify for the AM. That was really the only highlight, I guess, and I think that was. That was my second us M. I played at Aaron Hills the year before. I missed the Cup by one there, missed the playoff I won, so I kind of like fired up to go to the AM. I didn't know anything about Cherry Ells in particular, rather

than it was at altitude in Denver. I mean I knew about, you know, the like Arnold Palmer playing there and that I'm not like not a huge like golf like history junkie. So that was that was about it. And yeah, I uh so I played common played Cherry Hills first, then played common Ground and I made like a double or a triple on my tenth hole at common Ground. I remember, and it was kind of I knew that I was probably outside of the cut line.

And I want to say Birdie, like three of my last seven or eight got into the playoff, which was seventeen for fourteen bogie the first playoff. All went on the next one and then part of that and Birdie the twelfth hole at Cherry El's like a part three over water. It's about two hundred or so to ten. Yeah. Then I had quite the draw and matchplay. I felt like I played a lot of guys who are doing really well right now, so I was now looking back, it's kind of a cool, kind of a cool thing

to think about. I played Zach Blair in the first round. I think I won two and one. Played Albin No no No, played Patrick Rodgers in the second round, beat him and two up. I played Alvin Troy in the third round, and I never led that. I was trailing all day one to eighteen to get to a playoff, and then got up and down in a bunker. I was from a bunker on one for Berdie to win, so I was kind of dirty. I felt like I stole that one and then quarters I played Ricardo Govea plays on

European Tour now semis. I played Justin Thomas and then lost to Stephen Box on the thirty seventh hole. But all in all, in that it was like a it was a sick week. I mean, I had my dad caddy for me. We had a blast. It was obviously a really cool experience for my dad and I have shared together. He he'd carry from me periodically and just for me. And knowing that I was in the Masters in the US Open the following year was a pretty incredible feeling.

Ricky Fowler was there one day, so I got to play eighteen holes with them, which that was actually pretty helpful because I kind of got the like the wow factor or whatever you want to call it, like shock and awe of playing with a big name player out of the way before the practice rounds or the tournament started. So uh. And then yeah, I played some played practice on some pretty good guys. Played with Wattney and Luke Donald one day, put up Duffner. Another day I played

with Fuzzy Zeller for ninals, which was a hilarious. And then I played the Part three contests with him as well and Hubert Green, which was pretty cool. We got put like I'll put on the clock. We got told to stop signing stuff because we well fell about two holes behind because Fuzzy did as a single person. And then I played with McElroy that day as well for nine holes and Robert Garagus. So no, I was, it was it was incredible. Then the US Open that was

pretty cool. I was, it doesn't quite compare to the Masters, I don't think. I think part of that just because it's so difficult to get into the Masters. Where was the US Open? You can qualify for it every year. It's obviously difficult, but it's much more attainable and uh that was that was pretty cool experience there. Though I made the cut there, I didn't play great on Saturday, but I had my dad caddy for me there as well, so that was also like another really cool experience like

finishing on Father's Day. Have my dad caddy for me was definitely a something pretty cool that we could share together. So no, I was Fortunately we got to play mary Into, which was I thought a really cool course and it was interesting playing the practice rounds there. Guys are saying or sorry, TV was saying, this course will be easy, it's short, whatever. I remember playing with Bill Haas and Nick Watney and I was worried because I didn't think

the course was that easy. I asked Bill Haass, like, what do you think about this course? And I was gonna be really concerned if he said, oh, I think this is gonna be pretty easy. And he goes, I don't know what the hell TV's talking about. You guys haven't been out. I haven't played it, And sure enough that proved me right. I mean one over one and the cut was eight over par. It was it was like a early two thousands the US Open.

you get way below the level of the greens. That's like that's the hardest to tip out of rather than if I'm in four inch rough like a foot off the green or five feet off the green, even as long as I'm not like really short sighted, it's not it doesn't usually get away from me too much there. You don't get like you don't chip it up and to roll back to you. That's I think that's something that like a long rough that's like the difference between like what amateurs like that just scares the heck out

of them because they can't put out of it. Whereas if it's like you got a collection ay that's six people below the edge of the green and it's really firm, like that's just really tough, Like you can't hard to get hard to hit high with spin. You can put

it up, I guess, but I've never really liked doing that. Yeah, I mean, I think there is kind of kind of narrow off, too long rough that seems to be the uh, the thing that keeps guys from getting too low, because you know, if you just bring the faraways in narrow enough. That's pretty much what they did at Marion. The rough

was long around the greens as well. But you know, say if they had a bunch of runoffs, say like a it was like a pinehurs around the greens, I think it might have been tougher than just if you run one through the green, ball stops pretty close to the pin, you can kind of hack it out to ten or fifteen feet hopefully and be fine.

nearly as nervous. That was something that you just with anything, the more you do it, the more comfortable you get. So I think that was that was a big takeaway. And obviously playing with I wanted to play with big name guys just more curiosity than anything, see what their game was like. And yeah, I mean I know that guys hit bad shots and all that, but when you watch on TV. You don't see that. So it was kind of cool to play practice around and see it.

Talk to some guys that I played with, see what they did, and you realize that it's not it's not like way different than what you're doing. They're just like they're bad. It's just a little bit just better. Like everyone can play. It's everyone can play really good golf. It's just these guys aren't as bad when they're bad.

But that's something I've been pretty diligent about because I don't know, had it really far, but I hit above average, i'd say, and you know, I have more more of those opportunities, And you watch guys who and i'd play with guys in mini tour events who like poof it, hit it like two sixty five, two seventy, and we play these sixty seven hundred yard courses and they would just like rip it up. And that was something that

just like drove me freaking nuts. And because I felt like I would take an advantage I had was being taken away and being replaced was something I wasn't very good at. So that was That's something that I I'm probably the most diligent about practicing right now that my coach and I are working on.

It's called it's kind of like Posit Tiampa but really narrow.

up when I get back sick. Thanks, because in Argentina, like you go to the bars like midnight or one. You stay till the sun comes up, pretty much. And I was teen off at like eight, so I leave for the course. My roommate's not there, and you know, I don't think anything of it, and he went out with my friend who had like thirty They got even thirty or eight o'clock in the morning and he had to like grab his stuff and bolt to the course, no warm up, nothing goes out. He and plays in

the wind, shoots like one over. I think that's probably one of the best rounds I've ever seen. I didn't see it, but like that, I heard about it. I mean he was I'm pretty sure he was. He probably wasn't hungover because he was probably still drunk when he teed off. Right, he did that again, I can't remember where. Oh the Argentina Open, uh.

Let's see. Then, I don't know, it was just stuff like that, and then there was always there was always like some hustle, like some caddy was wanting more money, and there I think kind of the stuff, the stuff of all players was just usually more interesting because you got a bunch of guys like running around kind of wild West. I mean, these are you kind of forget

their third world countries, and yeah, it's there was. I was never I never felt like concerned, like safety wise, but it was just something you had to be aware of.

the Bahamas the last couple of weeks were outrageous. I mean, I uh, the first round at Avoco, the second event, my group, this the roles official came up to us on the twelve hole off on ten and it's none of you guys made a whole in one on ten right as part three the walking score, the walking scorer put us all down for once and I made a triple on the next toll should come down for a thirty I wish but they.

Like my parents would follow along and you know, my dad would say, oh, they had you for a bogie on this hole, but you made a par or vice versa like maybe following my around every they do three hole scoring kind of like college, and that seemed to work good enough, Like it was never you never had anything too wild. But I mean the Bahamas is just like I'm not really sure what the strategy is, but it's clearly not working. I mean, they kind of doubled

down on it this year too. I remember last year it was the same way.

under right now. It's like how, I just don't know how I could get that far off, and like, yeah, they're blowing it on par three's which it's just so simple, like there's not even that much to keep track of. Everybody shot ball, but yeah, it's it really made you question, like what what was happening in these people's minds?

You'd play at seven thirty in the morning and restaurants opening like eight or nine km So probably yeah, Lima, Colombia, those are good. You kind of got to stay in the city. We're in Central America. You stay out in these resorts you have, you're like stranded. It's you kind of just you're stuck. You can't really go out and check anything out. I mean I was, I kind of cared.

I was more intertured like the other stuff, like at least kind of see I looked at, you know, playing in Latin America, going to I was going to a bunch of places that I kind of figured I never would. So it's kind of interesting to check it out. Especially the first year round in twenty fifteen, like every every week was kind of a like a new adventure, like go check this place out, just see what it's like. And the courses were just really hit and miss their

Central America. You'd have all these like huge resort courses with lots of lakes and huge fairways and nothing special. And then Argentina did have some good courses, but I kind of Argentina was just kind of blowed to me.

They did a decent job of policing NFL, Like, I mean, you know, there's some guys who are just like a human rein delay that you knew going in, Like if you have to look for a ball or something, you're probably gonna get put on the clock. But I don't know, I mean, I get the pace of play thing in the pace of play down here or sorry. In Latin America it was fine. I mean, they they put you on the clock. But the way they police it in general, I just think is it doesn't really they're not solving

any problems. They're you get put on the clock and everyone just speeds up. So if you get put on the clock, I think it's ten times in a year on whatever tour it is, you started to find the fine start to find start at ten timings, whether you're you get a bad time or not. If you get put on the clock enough, you'll get fine. But the fine at each level is like kind of it's kind of a joke, like say it's not worth it's worth

paying the fine and not. And if it doesn't affect you playing faster, you know, if you have to try to speed up and it affects you, know you it costs you a shot or two, like that's worth way more because like I think in Latin they find you like two hundred and fifty bucks. Web. I'm not sure what it is on the web, but I know like PGA tour, I think it's like ten grand, but you know that ten comes what's that?

don't know the answer to this. But you know, I got put on the clock in the Bahamas, and I know I'm not a really slow player, and everyone sped up, so like even if I was playing with guys who were slow, everybody sped up, Like the rules of visual didn't witness anyone playing slow. It's kind of like it just it's a total waste of time. It seems like that the way the way they're going about it. I

don't know how. I don't know how you improve it, but I know that finding guys cash is not the It's probably not the best incentive disincentive to make them play faster, you know. I think we look at how

well AJGA did timing. I mean you were like they had still like the fear of God and the kids, like if you got to got one red card, you were you were hauling the next three or four holes like you never saw anybody got to get a penalty and obviously couldn't find the kids, and penalty structure seemed to work. I mean, we'd played a J. G Avins in four hours and ten minutes, and now we play you know, I consider a four and a half hour round in a tournament be pretty quick.

part of it. To me, It's it's cool, but like I don't have the greatest appreciation for it, I guess, and I think it would have been I would have I might have felt differently. Like when I was there, the only guy that was staying there was the fourteen year old kid, uh gone, and he was like doing homework the whole time we're there. So I was like I was just like laid up on the couch watching watching TV and like the thirteen inch TV they have in there, like hanging out, my man and how we're there.

I was texting my friends like what do you guys up to see? I was kind of bored. And I was supposed to have for three nights. I ended up staying for two because like Stephen Box and TJ. Vogel and Nathan Smith were all staying there different nights, so kind of like the camaraderie wasn't there, I guess you could say, but I mean it was cool. Like don't get me wrong, I I'm really good. You have to do it. It's just that's part if you play as an amateur, like that's you gotta do it. And I'm

glad I did. But I have a lot of people asking about it, and I always tell him like, yeah, it was cool, but I could say I did it, but that's about.

But if we should watch it grounds a game on TV and then think, after what you saw, would you pay money to go watch the Browns? Because the picture was, you know, with all the political stuff for the NFL stadium's empty, but the Browns at this point are like oh and nine or oh to ten at least? Is would you go and pay to watch it? After watching it on TV? It's like that one. That was probably one of his best. I see it in a while. I I got to kick out some of the stuff he puts on there.