Ep. 494: Golfing with Brian "The Butcher" Harman

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Did you tell him they were lily dicking around something like that? It sounds like so much fun.

It's Jimmy Dickon. I'm yelling and I'm yelling at the both of them over my right shoulder, whisper yelling. I'm like, well, come back, do you want to be here? Like I'm not up here for me all that dad stuff. And also my buddy goes Jesus is a big buck. It's like, coming up this draw one hundred yards away, he's kind of gotten this look on his face, like the buck's got to look at his face, like Dad this ain't good, and if I had not been yelling at him, I

Know, I mean like whatever you stop in your delivery there.

I was like, get him, Jimmy. And he started right the next so it's like he like, yeah, nice bock and dude. My daughter was up set because in her mind that was her deal.

How did you navigate that?

She still pissed, She's still I'm navigating that by planning more. I'm navigating that by playing a more deer hunting.

How did you initially determine who who's your shoots first?

Because I was I was toting my daughter's rifle. Okay, we had all kinds junk. I'm like carrying the rifle. Yeah, she was like, you carry her gun. You never carried my gun, you know. And I thought about whether that was true or not, and I think he might have had a point, but I'm just like, I don't know. I'm like, I'm nicer to my daughter than to my boy. I don't know why. That's all. Danny's daughter got her first book.

Yeah, she did great, like never shot anything of the rifle before, and had her practicing, and I had a little awesome stock on three bucks. And then we end up getting too a spot where they dipped into a nice little ravine and we couldn't see him anymore. So we kind of moved up on him and got to one eighty, got her set up on a tripod, which is perfect. From where I was standing, I could see him, but I realized from where I set the tripod at her height, there's still a lot of brush.

That's a good realization. When you're taking kids out there, it's like it's right there. What do you mean, what exactly a problem?

Yeah.

So it was good though, because it gave me a time, like I could squat down and tell her like, hey, okay, the thing's right there standing broadside. I'm gonna move up ten feet once I set this triplod down. It's all you, you know. And I really stressed with her to squeeze the trigger and don't rush it, and uh she we moved up and she took her time and took the shot. But then she was the thing. She hit it, and

But this is the time.

If this thing moves, you know you're not going to get a chance out of it.

Take your time relative to the amount of time.

We actually, yeah understand, but not really.

But she got it.

She's like, you know, I knew that thing was going to move, so I felt like I just had to shoot it right there in perfect shot.

Calibers were running for these daughters. I got a seven year old.

I'm trying to six or five creed.

Yeah. Can I give you a hot tip please? Okay, then I'm to introduce you. If you keep winning these golf tournaments and you got the money, I would get a six five creed more, get the sig Cross. Okay, it's just like a dream for kids. Perfect and get a suppressor.

I got cans. I got the cans. Just my is, can you get one perfect built? She's good with, like, gotta suppress twenty two shoots it without her? Yeah, I mean she's she's great, but she's itty bitty, and so I don't want to. I know, when we were coming up, it was like, all right, you're big enough. Now here's this two seventy that weighs nothing and kicks like a mule, and oh yeah, I shaved the trigger down. It's super scary, right, but everybody else had to deal with this exactly. Of

Yeah, it's got a collapsible stock. It's got a two stage trigger. First off, they're small, you can you can, you can. The stock's adjustable very easily. The cheap combs adjustable. And it's got a two stage trigger, which just makes sense to them. Yep, you're like pull through and it's gonna stop. And then when you go a little more, and man, they can drive tax perfect. Yeah, they can drive tax those things. But with a suppressor. And then it's got that arc rail deal on the bombs. You

Tell me their tip to Steve about the ear plugs and stuff.

Oh, even with the suppressor, I'll double ear plug them because they conflate, They conflate, recoiling noise, and it just becomes this package, do you know what I mean? The gifts that they don't like. And they think it's the kick, but it's like if you define them, you put foam ear plugs, put a headset on them, put a suppressor on it. They'll say it doesn't kick, but it's like because there's just no noise. I mean, it's like they to them, it's all this whole bundle of unpleasantness, right,

Harmon, happy to be here, Thanks for having me, Thanks for coming on.

The only other golfer I would entertain having on this show is Trump. Have you ever played golf that guy?

I have not really no Trump. No Trump, ye, really professional golfer.

I thought he kind of ran in those circles.

He does, he does. He went full. So I don't know if you followed the politics of golf.

And well, I know there's a lot of trouble right now.

Right so we had a big kind of split. You've got the Live Tour and the PGA tour, and Donald Trump aligned himself with the Live Tour and so.

And that's that's the place that took some investment from Saudi Arabia.

It's yeah, directly funded by.

But the Saudis, and people are mad at the Saudis because of the what was that guy's name, not progosion?

Yeah, I mean.

Mad at them for a whole host of reasons.

But yeah, yeah, it's very, very very convoluted kingdom and all yep, yeah, no personal freedoms type type stuff.

And then comprising astonishing number of the nine to eleven hijackers.

There's a lot to it. Stage. I was going to say, right age, because how old are you? Then you pick your topic?

Yeah, yeah, well no, I think he got back to the nineteen twenties. No one would have been mad.

No, then it's just a fire flunk kingdom.

It's just like it was oil and then people mad when the hell was that happened? It doesn't matter.

Talking about Yeah, yeah, only.

Golfer we'd ever have on what what count? Are you from?

What what county?

Yeah?

Don't they call you the something killer from something? The U that was the Yeah, So yeah, I'm over there. I'm doing doing interviews after the rounds, and they asked about hunting and.

Why did they ask you about hunting? So you tell me about what that You won the British Open.

One won the Open Championship and you guys just.

Call it the Open.

Crint was telling When I was a kid, it was the British Open. Now it's the Open. They just decided, I guess because there's no competition. Yeah, it's open competition.

Like know what I'm saying. No, no, when I say open, I'm sorry if you say the Open.

Well, yeah, I grew up. The Open was the US Open.

Okay, but.

They just they took it. They just took they do this. They just they invented the game. We'll start there.

That's fair.

So anyway they look up, they don't they don't like the They don't like hunters over there at all. I've gathered. I didn't realize that. Uh so they're asking me, oh you know, and I'm like, wow, these guys are super interested about honey. This is great. I could talk all day about this.

And so they just knew you won, and they already are prepared with the.

Face before I had won. This was like, okay, second round opposition did they were dig They're like, oh, this asshole has got pictures of animals on his Instagram. We're gonna get him. And I'm us up there like, yeah, a farm all summer for the deer. Deer hunt, then we duck hunt, then we turkey hunt, then we fish all summer and and uh, they're like, well, what do you do with all of the animals that you kill? Said? Well, I I butcher them. Like what else would I do

And then we had the baseball player Pete Alonza line because he won the home run derby and talked about the home run derby, and then people then I wind up getting like I have a big text message web around the you know, just people that are interested in stuff, and so anytime something were to happen, like with you and then them making that big deal out of that, I will like find out about it from multiple people. And if I hear about something from three or four people.

Yeah, I've heard, yeh, I've heard.

I should say we I'll point out Hunter Spencer's here. He I thought this meant a lot till Yanni pointed it out. It doesn't til Yanni invited me to think about it more clearly. It was described to me that Hunter almost played college, which I realized meant that he played high school, right, But in my head I had it built up more than that.

Like played golf in college almost. Yeah.

I was like just good enough and then realized maybe baseball is my thing.

Yeah. Yanni pointed out that's that's called a high school golfer.

That's great, But then you quickly realized there's a there's a massive difference between being good enough to beat everybody that you grew up with and then playing d one.

Oh, like beating the dudes down the road.

Yeah, several like larger populated. I like, oh, this population turns into this like and just keeps smaller and smaller until you get like to let like that the high school golfer's pretty that's that's pretty far up the up, the trickle down the food. You guys played high school football, I will tell you, I'm sure your fine golf. My

One track golf for work.

And uh yeah, quickly found out that I was like, oh, there's all these other people and then me it was it was I was it was a bad situation.

Yeah, yeah, I thought about this yesterday driving home. Here's here's the main reason I hate golf. When I was a kid, we lived, we grew up on a lake, and it was common to wap golf balls out in the lake and then you'd go dive for.

Him, right, So it sounds fun. Yeah, it's just real common. Do you guys use wap as a term often at your level of golf?

Uh?

Now, I think it's a northern.

Now. And then you'd set that ball on the tee and I'd get one of those you know, the driver, and you'd have in your head like I'm gonna cream this thing, dude, and you're picturing it like sailing across the lake, you know, and you cock back and just give it the whatfor and just could never. Oh yeah, it was just like so maddening. Man. You want you'd be like woam, you know, and there's nothing.

So you're your hatred golf is born from.

Just watch you one to sail across the lake.

General lack of skill is what led to your only one.

You already sailing across the lake and it winds up like halfway out your neighbors stop.

The first time the first time I shot a boat, there's no way I was any good at it. Just throw the boat down. Bow hunting stupid.

I've always hated painting and music for the same reason.

Uh tell me real quick too. You got two hold ones on a round. Yeah, but I don't official round, yeah.

Official round. So that was that work out twenty fifteen. It was an expensive bar tab. I'll tell you that. We were playing just outside of New York City. Uh So when the tradition says you make hold and run, you've got the bar tab for the night, for the night, for the night, just for your for your or the whole, the whole whole shebang. It's it's like a right of passage. You make hold one. All the drinks are on you all night.

Hopefully.

I don't know if you heard, but new York City, the drinks are not yeah, hopefully they're not fantastic. Yeah, oh it's twenty dollars beer night.

Sweet, you get like three cars. Sometimes in tournaments when you get a hold nothing.

No, how much was that bar to out, dude?

More than more than more than two grand, less than less than five Probably I would have confiscated everybody's cell phones. And here's the deal. There's no inviting other people into this. He definitely you definitely play it smart. It's like, ah, it's take a long shower in the hotel room, show up there. So at least you get the ride out some of it.

No one's ever done three No, and three people have done two.

Three people have done. It's just a freak for.

Who are the other guys that did too?

I don't know, So not like not like I don't know Greg Norman.

No, you like that. Let just pull that out, La.

Look at you to look at it when you hit that ball. Is there a point before the ball lands that you're like, oh, this thing's going in?

That's a good question.

I mean I've had three on tour total. They've all been good golf shots. But I mean, but there's no Yeah, there's probably there's.

Like it came off a tree or something.

No, no, it came off at I mean, you let it go and it's it's going and you know it's good. But you never you never know, You never really know. Like for me, it's like you try to get in this place where you're just you're in such like a mode of execution, and so it's just like you're just like ticking off like hit one, all right, I executed that one, and then you're just like, all right, what's the next one gonna be?

Like?

So it's not really anything specific. I don't remember. It's like, oh shit, it went in great. That makes I can take a break.

You're in that mode of execution. Uh, do you allow yourself to celebrate in that moment or do you have to you have to quickly tamper that down and go great, got it?

Try to say as even keel as possible. Any anytime you try to excute something you're too high or too low, it's it's it's bad.

I've been starting to relate that lot to bow hunting, because there's I often see promise about how how come you're not and it's not just to me but other people. You're not more excited when you kill something you know,

Yeah, certain parts of your body, certain things in your brain. Like you know, I'm no neuroscientists, but I think that in your brain is little vials of No one's discovered to me that, but little vials of emotions.

I'm sorry you said you're not a neuroscientice.

You're already far beyond Well, this is my theory. I don't think anybody knows about it. But I think there's these little vials of of emotion, and as you get older, you drain that the vile empties out, Like excitability, I think you just use it up over time. I think, like fear of grizzly bears, you use up over time. And I've kind of drained out my vial of getting of real excitability.

Yeah that's a thing.

Though.

You are adrenaline glands. Yeah, like they stopped putting. They're always over stimulated.

Unlet's I see a big buckle with kids.

I steal a quote from you. All the time, I thought you said, oh please, yeah, take a breath be a predator. Oh there you go so good?

Or wear out your little vial of uh like, take a breath for your predator.

Yeah.

I don't know if you're interested in Neanderthals or not.

Took a twenty three and Meion, apparently I'm in the ninety sixth percentile. You as soon as you walk, yeah, you felt you got that felt it.

He's got that vibe. That beard, I.

Think giant giant head.

Speaking a giant head man. I got a physiology thing I found out there. I've always prided myself on being able to, uh tell if someone's a snorer just looking at him.

Yeah, do you think do you think I'm a snore?

You might be like I look at like I think a guy like Bob Vier, Kenny Rogers, you know, I'd be like, this guy's got this nugget. Definitely a Well, the other day when I'm still dealing with this ear problem, I got, I got a ear probe.

The bad party is like the older people get the more right, you'll be, Well, here's what well just.

Wait, yeah, you'll be. I thought it was something to do with like a certain like like if you got a beard down to your sternum, uh huh that like I felt that that leads to snoring. But I was down at the E. N T Place and they start asked me all these questions about sleep, appning, snoring, and they measured my.

Neck you're down at the e MT place.

Nt you no throat?

Okay?

Yeah, so.

They measured that y emergency.

If you got a sixteen inch neck, that's a that's how they'll tell, like, you got a sixteen inch neck, you're probably a snore. Really wow, And dude, I never knew what I was looking at. I just knew I could tell I was looking at the next.

Hmmm, is it only sixteen or sixteen in above?

Sixteen in above?

I would think of skinny.

I had no idea about this more.

Uh it would be like less less, like a smaller straw.

But uh so you have a heavy duty load of Neanderthal. Yes, I was reading this art this morning, like I've really enjoyed over the years how they keep Nanothals keep getting smarter and smarter. You know, there used to be this perception that, you know, that they couldn't hunt. They were

Which means they had free time, which means they were doing enough things right to have free time. This like an onion, just keep peeling the l It's.

Just been kind of interesting to watch because, you know, we had this idea that like that the other other hominids were just really dumb, you know, and then Homo sapiens just ran over them, and look how great we are. But you get into the fact that, I mean, these these things were in These things were in Europe hundreds of thousands of years, you know, I mean they were

I thought you were gonna say they domesticated cave line.

Next year we found an old bicycle.

Yeah, we found cave lines with jewel. Yeah.

What else they have? It's cool is uh they have this cave remnants of a cave lion hide that had stuff wrapped, had cave lion bones wrapped up in a cave lion hide, like, and they were you know, you don't really who knows what was going on.

But then they found another hide that had red paint all over it. So it's first animal rights.

Or these researchers, These researchers. It's always a little embarrassing. I always feel embarrassed for the researchers when they lay out what they have right, and you know, and that winds up being it goes it's pure reviewed. You're like, well, here's the hide of the lion, and here's what's in it, and here's the marks on it. It's very you know,

Words to describe the way this hide.

He's like now and then they're like, grand buck, can you get stuff about the cave line? He's like, here, let me get my hide and I have my show and tell items in there. But the other thing is they just thought that even back then, they're suggesting that they thought it was bad ass to have a cave lion hide. You were tougher in hell hard to argue with that. Yeah, you think that whatever you got there? Uh, winning that British Open School ain't no cave line.

There's no cave line.

What did they what? What you know? The tradition of the green jacket? What is there? What's the tradition at the British Open.

That's a They give you a thing called a Claire Jug. It's one hundred and fifty year old trophy. It's got the names to edge to everyone that I've ever won it. It's pretty neat.

And you get it for one year, get for a year. Where's that right now?

The house and you drink out of it right.

Yeah.

They built it to supposed to hold an entire bottle of line, but turns out it holds about two and a half guinnesses. Now because didn't there was one part of one of those articles that was, you know, trying to be like this guy's could win the Claret jug what will he fill it with based off of your hunting back right, Yeah, the butcher, butcher, Hoylake, Yeah, baron bourbon about the only things that's been in it. Really,

I guess.

Oh yeah, smart move going.

Can We recently talked about if you were here, Yannie, We talked about hunting squirrels with Kevin Murphy and getting to a having a squirrel and a raccoon tree up in the same tree.

Was not here for this conversation.

Did I ever tell you the story.

Is that the pinnacle of small game hunting.

He I thought that this had to been the thing that has never happened in the history of the world, and Kevin Murphy assured me he's seen it before, where the dog bays up a squirrel and we get there and eighteen inches apart is a squirrel and a raccoon in the same tree. Coincidence, lots of ways to interpret it. A guy sent in, a guy that was listening sent in a picture he's got of a I mean, playing

Let's do it's hang tight, I'm there, bud By Hank tight. It means you're welcome to participate in anytime.

So there is a guy, so this guy took Since June we talked about this. There is a guy that that has established a website where you can track Sigwatara out by outbreaks and fish he has. He wrote a little tool for report well, he wrote a tool for reporting and finding sigwatara outbreaks around the world. So you people to eat a lot of fish. Sigwa ara dot info.

Spelled how it sounds c I g u A t e r as house.

Yeah, that's what the barracoota get in right.

Yeah, that's like the you know, the like the legend is uh and and uh, the legend is and I was taught this uh, even though I grew up nowhere near the ocean.

You're you're an ell of a spear fisherman.

Now though, if you put a barracuda in an ant like you put an ant on a barracuda, I won't eat it. He won't eat it if it has sigwatara. And some Bahamians tell me that that's ridiculous, But then they had some other equally ridiculous sounding way to find out if something has sigwatara. But they also have fish that you just don't eat. But what I didn't realize is in some places kudah have sigatary. In some places

Well, so in the in the Gulf, all of the people eat amberjack that come off the reefs, but East coast Atlantic Ocean like won't touch them. Full of worms. It looks like a mott petti clean them up. In the Gulf, the trout have worms Atlantic nothing like we eat trout non stop. Remember I put a picture up of a whole bunch of trout sea trout and guy's like, oh man, good luck with those worms. And I was like,

Sharks they didn't want it.

They didn't want it.

Yeah, a lot of the barracuda right like the it's the little fish they get the cigatara and then the bear cood er eating those little fish and it just sits a build up in their system. Yeah, And so that's why the predators have it real bad.

I just I've heard that that it comes from this reef fish. But then you think about the goliath grouper and I don't know that they have it. And all they do is, I mean they eat everything on the reef. Yeah, Like down in the Keys now, we just go down every for two weeks at the end of every summer, we go lobstering, and there were very few glath grouper.

Oh he's in there mopping up all the lost.

Everything, everything's gone. Well, I mean they get to be four or five hundred pounds. I mean they eat everything.

Can you eat? Can you catch those and eat those?

There's a you can get tags for them to right, yea, I went. We're on a dive in the rigs this year. We're in one that's only thirty feet of water. Like a lot of times they're just you know, unbelievably deep. This one's a thirty feet of water and I went down and and he's down there. Oh, like it looked like his head was like a five gallon bucket.

Good God.

And he's snapping his jaw at me. He's like coming out of this underneath this metal, blacking at me. And my first thing is like I was like, I wonder if you could kill this thing by hitting it in the brain. And I was like, oh my god, that's a goliath grooper. Like it's just like the first thought was how you would ever manage how you would ever manage like this?

Jonah wasn't swallowed by whale, He's swallowed by Oh.

And I came up and I'm like, there's a big They're like, don't shoot that, do not because you could have put I mean, they look like a school bus. You could fit. You could definitely fit your head in his mouth.

No doubt. Does it make sense to you that it's an outbreak?

Well, I only know about secretary just from why. I don't know like worldwide how because for and stuff. I don't think they deal with it. And but I do know that when we catch BRACU like offshore, the logic ones, there's not as big of a concern versus the ones that are eating the refish.

Yeah, I think that it is.

It's a bioaccumulation.

Yeah, but I think it's like I think it's cyclical and it gets heightened. It's like the way red tide. But I'll close it by saying this not clothed. I mean, you say whatever really want. But from my perspective, I used to think of trigonosis as like kind of magical, and then I eventually got where I really understand trigonosis. Uh with Sigwtara, I'm astonished how in my social circle, I'm astonished how little it's understood. Uh, Like I'd like

I've definitely had it and not even really paid attention to it, right like you just yeah, I've gotten sick. But like only looking back on it, I just felt odd and like the whole hot cold water thing, but I just didn't pay much attention to I was just like, oh.

Whatever'll, that's what the Behamians are telling me. The hot becomes hot, cold becomes cold.

Yeah. My buddy Mark Heely has I think a lot of bioaccumulation and so he's pretty sensitive to it.

Gets it.

He can be like, if I eat this giant TRIVALI I will get this. Yeah.

Some people want fish like the aluta wee caught. Yeah you know, did you eat some of that?

Oh?

Yeah, right, no problem.

And some people and certain fish will have it with in higher concentration than others. And you know, I've had friends get sick over just one fish, one filet that night they had and they really Yeah.

But as the the group that we were fishing with, the kill Kennies, they they're like, you can eat whatever you want because you don't have the history of eating these fish that accumulate secretera.

Yeah, it's like the mercury too.

Right now, why did you just do that little seque.

Because that's how it's spelled right.

No, No, I don't know. If it is, then the website's wrong. It reminds me. I think I've told this story before. I was in my doctor a long time ago.

Were they EMTs hangout?

Uh?

But yeah, but it was a regular doctor. But he said, and I always call it tonightas he said, And I said, is that how you say that? And he goes, I don't know, yeah, man, Krinn maybe a great seguitara expert for like thirty minutes.

And maybe somebody who's had it real bad too in the podcast.

Yeah yeah, or a survivor or a member of someone, like like a really tragic story where someone didn't make it, but then we have their next of kin, the hard to get the.

One that didn't make it. I definitely like to that's what guys all about.

We could get a medium talk to the mercury and the big.

Game fish is. It's an odd.

I had a friend struggle with it for like three four years and just sick and then eventually couldn't get out of bed and like hurt the ache and all his all his joints ached and didn't know what's wrong with him. Mercury poisoning. Had to go on some crazy diet, get all them stop eating fish. And he was eating it like a couple of times a week, right, and uh it was bad, Like he couldn't walk. He thought he was dying.

Yeah, so he's got mercury poisoning. Are you say he didn't but he did?

Do you believe that he did?

Now?

I do? Yeah, I believe that he got mercury. It all adds up. He construct the couple months of his life of eating big halibit and plagics five nights a week, and that him and his wife developed the same symptomology and had talked about it to other people before they talked about it to each other. Yeah, I love just too much. I love how they like the sore knuckle, the sore hands, and stiff joints, and.

They were in just like a cycle of eating fish where they always had some more and so they were like constant. That was the most hilarious part to me. It wasn't ever like we're gonna sit down and eat fish tonight. It was just like this, well, there's some halibit out, and then we had or whatever.

And so and so over and that's left over. And it's just like a cycle of a cycle of mercury intake. And then I read one time a dude they didn't even like fish. I had to get rescued off a cruise ship because he bought a cruise ship package which gave him all you could eat sushi, and they had to fly him off the cruise ship for mercury poisoning. Crazy, that's wild, because he was getting his money's worth.

Does it just accumulate in some fish or is it all fish?

Yeah, so like especially the bigger fish.

And they started finding it in Kobea Yeah, yeah, East Coast, which.

We all it's fish that eat fish, to eat fish that eat fish.

And to now they'll say, like anything under twenty pounds, like you're safer, especially for pregnant ladies and stuff. You're not really supposed to eat fish. But like if it's under twenty pounds, they say they're a little safer. Again, I don't know how that's like could be an old lives tale, but they say the bigger the fish, the worse off you are.

Well, no, I think the reason it makes sense, right is like they they grow super fast and then they hit like a plateau point. So when you're you're income to growth is in a certain range, right, that makes sense like mahi mahi, right, like mahi don't Yeah, but.

Like at ahi stay at one hundred pounds to pounds for a couple of years or whatever. Yeah, but that first you could go from zero to sixty pounds in one year. You know, Korean you can cancel that, expert, just wrap that up.

So this is this is the last thing, and then we're gonna talk about the formative years of of Brian Harmon. I like to I like to periodically revisit this because is one of my favorite quotes of all time. I grew up so my dad, like my dad one hundred and fished, both fished with other World War two guys and meaning I should not that they not that they were necessarily World War Two guys guys of that age. Okay. He was really good friends with this guy named Ron Spring.

That's beautiful in his eighties.

I was like, Ron, what's the difference now? Not going to do it? Would not let me go out with him catching bait for the bait story, which I respect him for a big time. Anyhow, this dude had been raised on Great Lakes fish. I mean not just the bait, but that's what he fished and ate fish. That's all this dude eight And University of Michigan went and found all these old timers that had grown up eating Great

So grubbing Georgia, yep, grubbing Savannah.

Just what came first?

Golfer hunting, hunting fishing. For sure. I played first. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I didn't start golf until I was probably eleven years old. I played baseball, football, basketball, played all stuff. Didn't find golf until like a little later in my childhood. But but fishing, grow up fishing with my dad is how.

Was he a golfer?

No, no, no golf in my family. He might eat, he might hate golf worse than you do.

Yeah, did you get it? It's like you didn't come from a family of golfers.

No.

No, my mom's a chemist, chemist, my dad is a dentist. No, no, no golf. So when you started taking off in golfing, was your dad like, great day to go fishing, Brian? He just, uh, it was all that I cared about once I found it, And so I spent a good portion of I mean, that's pretty much spent all my time dedicated to trying to see how good I could get as all I wanted to do.

Who got who? Some neighbor gives you a golf club or like what happens?

I had accumulated like just through sports. I had sort of like loose equipment for things like my dad owned like I had, I had small like clubs, just like all like maybe maybe he because we lived really close to a golf course, like maybe he'll like golf one day. And like just like I've accumulated all this nonsense for my kids, just like trying to throw whatever.

At him, Like, well, what got a hockey, baseball bat, a golf club?

Right?

I got got all the got all the essentials. So I I was home sick from school anyway, I'd skipped a Thursday of school. When I was home, I forget what the circumstances were, but I watched a golf terminal on television, and I was close enough to where I could ride my bike up to like where we could practice, like hit balls. And that's how it started.

Really yep, it spoke to you watching a golf tournament.

I found. I found a conviction very early in my life, and I'm very grateful for that. I mean, I love to just right off the rip. I played baseball, and I loved I pitched. I love to pitch, played shortstop. But and I loved being on a team. But I didn't I didn't like. I didn't like how I could have a great game and not I mean, I hate saying that, like not win the game like that. I liked having the like the almost the vulnerability of the moment on you right, yea, So.

Give me, give me the quick trajectory of how one goes from an eleven year old who discovers it to to pro like, like what are the you know?

Like, so I fell in love with the game. I was practicing every day. I was playing with some older kids and playing from like tea boxes. So the golf course I was playing was too long for my ability, Like I wasn't big enough to hit the ball far enough to compete with the kids I was starting to

Now, you're talking about playing at a place where it's not as far from where you first hit as it is to the hole.

No, no, no, so yeah, I'm yeah, yeah, yeah, So you start so you got individual holes, right, I mean I do have to, like, you know how golf is, like.

Yeah, there's there's the there's the part three what do you call them? Where the two there's you got the two.

Balls, that's tea box.

Yeah, and then you got the ladies one.

Right, So you've got several sets of those tee markers. Right, so you've got like, I'm familiar with two sets ladies teas, you know, senior tea's, men's tea's. Oh yeah, so it's okay, all the whole gambit. So I'm playing from a couple of tea boxes back with older kids, and I'm shooting these scores and I'm no and I'm no good.

Because that extra little bit of yard, I can't.

I can't reach the holes, you know, in time to make a good score. So I'm looking at the magazines looking at the scores like I think I can do this, So my mom drives me down. I win my first tournament and it was like just gone. So that that went. I was twelve. Did you feel like you were cheating when you moved up to that? For sure? You were like, oh my gosh, I did.

I did.

I was like, this is much easier from here. I should have been doing this this whole time.

So you did, but you did this, say. I always pictured that. It's such a common story in athletics, is the overbearing especially parent like golf and tennis, trying to like live there like they're you know, they're trying to live their dreams the children.

Yeah, you totally. I was super blessed, totally opposite, even like now, even like now, you know, we'll be at like a big PG or we'll be at the Masters, right and my dad's there watching begrudgingly of course he's like Brian rather to be fishing. Yeah's come. It's always like man, look atlways acorns right here, like man, look at like look at he's look at this track right, look at this deer track right here. So he's totally unengaged.

That baggage with your relationship to the sport.

Well, I don't know anyone. I mean there's one tour, now, there's tons of there's guys that had overbearing parents and guys who had not involved parents, but the ones who had overbearing dads don't talk to them like most of them have no Yeah, they have no. I mean how how could it stay together?

Like it?

Just like if a parent is so selfish to try and achieve a dream through their kid and eventually the kid is going to resent them in some form or fashion. In my opinion, I've got I've sucks the joy right out of it, right, Yeah, look.

At you know, like Darth Vader and Loose Skywalker.

Perfect exactly. But we just talked to Dave.

Off, uh when you did that and one of the tournament. Here's the part of the here's the other part of the parent thing that's hard to understand is you got to have someone driving you around and getting the gear and all that.

Yeah, my sweet mother she took me everything though she didn't care about it. I mean she cared, She cared way more than my dad does. But she never it was never she was always very supportive. She was never like, hey, you know, it's you know, nine in the morning, like you should be practicing. Like that never happened.

That did not happen. But if you pointed out that you wanted to go to some things. She was gonna was there.

I don't. There's no way I would have made it and been successful without that support. I would have had have gotten really creative.

But you could have gotten into like you could have been an aquarium enthusiasts. She would have driven you to the store. Correct, just whatever. She was just going to help you out.

Yeah, I was. She loved tennis, shouldn't play. She just loved tennis. And I played tennis early and played a few tournaments and stuff like that, and she really wanted me to be a tennis player. But when I decided that golf was what I wanted to do, and it's just what and she she never brought it up.

And like golf tennis like kissing cousins.

Yeah, pretty close, pretty close individual so except one of their arms gets freakishly bigger than the other. Gosh, and the Dow's left arm is three times the size of his right arm. Whoa really yeah, look it up.

Seriously?

Yeah huge.

Hey do you have a U Do you have like a really uh intimate relationship with a with a particular caddy?

Yeah?

Mine, that's what I mean. Yeah, that's the thing I did so so how many years?

How many years we've been together? Eleven years, probably the longest tenured guys out there. It's a really interesting Yeah, six hours a day together.

When I learned about that in golf, that surprised me that this is this is like a it's a it becomes a partnership.

Yeah, and those guys are they're really good at what they do. I mean, my guy's got to know how to read me and knowing I'm running hot and running cold, and you know, he's like not just being a caddy.

It's like a psychologist.

Oh yeah, somebody did. Oh, he probably knows me better than my wife does. Yeah, you know, any and I probably know him better than anybody.

Else on the you know, it's just is he just on a cut of winning? Like, how do you guys sort that whole deal out?

Yeah? He gets uh, he's on a salary every week and then he gets a percentage of all the en core stuff.

Do you guys do monthly reviews? And like.

Just over a beer? Does he usually over a beer. It's tough because when you're in the when you're in the moment and you've got these emotions running high, it's really easy to be like, well, shut up, like, I don't care what you think right now. So it's usually better just get past it and have a beer and just talk about it.

So is the caddie like, uh, did they want to be a professional golfer?

A lot of them did, my mind did not. He played college golf, but it was apparent to him very quickly that it was in his future.

So you when you're a caddy, you get you settle into that, like that's that's what you want to be.

Yeah, I don't think there are any caddies. I don't think there's any professional caddies now on tour that have aspirations of playing.

It's just just good at that.

That's their job.

Huh yep.

It's a real profession. It's it's it's hard work.

I'll tell you something about my personal business. Please do a book agent. Traditionally, a book agent is going to pull fifteen percent. Okay, okay, now you share.

Well, first off, thank you for sharing some intimate details of oul books work. I got yeah, I mean I got agent, taddy. They all get percentages.

That's some curious like, just now, I'm not asking about your relationship with your caddy. What's it like if you win, what do you guys call it a purse? Surprise?

Yeah, the tournament win, the trophy?

No, no, what is the cash amount called the purse? What do you guys use Yeah?

So yeah, just the I mean, the purse is usually considered the entire the entire thing we're playing for. So just be like the winner's cut, winter's check, winter's check. So you won't to know how much? How much does my caddy get? A caddy?

What generally is a caddy OH industry standard or high school golf professional industry standard hunter spencer.

Is AH industry standard six to eight percent of the weekly take and then ten percent of a win.

So they're pretty invested in this.

Yeah, they make good money, they do good. They make good money.

But that's funny too, because then it becomes real emotional. It's emotional for both of you guys, because when you're up there and you're close, he's he's licking his lips too, right, Well, what he's like, Hey, if my guy here can doesn't screw this up, I get like a good chunk of cash.

Well, there's two ways to look at that. Do you do all this for the money?

Uh?

No, But it makes it possible right right.

The money, it's like it becomes very complicated. The money. It's and I can speak for his name, Scott Toway. He's one of the most fantastic people on this plane. He's my caddie. The money is always like, oh oh wow, that that too. Oh you know what I mean. So he he works, he does what he loves to do it, and I love and I love to do what I do.

No, I could picture that. Like if you're up there and it's down to the wire, you're not like counting dollars, you're chasing the wind.

Well that's and it's like so I think it's it's a great exercise. And I swear someone came up with it to mess with people. But when you get done, so I'm going if you have to keep your keep someone else's score, Like this is sort of the pageantry of the whole thing. You have to keep the other person's score, and then you trade scorecards and you sign your own scorecards. So it's like a little bit of a I don't know, yeah, it's it's it's a little it's a little antiquated.

But so you get into the presumably someone else is also keeping score.

Right, right, So say you've got say there's two people playing, I keep their score, they keep my mind. Oh yeah, can you imagine, like Tom Brady, how many passes did you complete? Uh, but if you get the but if you get it wrong, if you sign the wrong scorecard, and you can get disqualified, whole things could put whole thing's gone.

A tournament.

At a tournament, I am still with pen and pencil or pencil and paper writing down right down some other score and then he I signed that one. So so every scorecard has to have all scores and two signatures for it to be legal and official.

I would have thought at this point they would have hired like a guy to watch.

I'm those people. Yeah, there also are are. Yeah, we could just be like hey, bro, like today like this and you're.

Doing it because he's telling you, or because you're counting.

Now, I'm counting, okay, yeah yeah, I mean they get it's like official, yeah, I know it's it's but anyway, so and so you go into this area where you trade your scorecard, sign turn it into the guy who checks him, and then that's that. But in that room they have the PGA tores this print out and it's like first place, this much, second place, this much, third place, and it's got.

It all the way down this much of the win.

And it's always fun to watch guys get in there and you know here, I'm I'm gonna finish twenty fifth and eight way time be right here. And I just especially when it's a young guy and I look at that and I'm like, I ain't got it. He ain't got it, Like if that's what you're caring about right now, like if he finished twenty Like when I finished twenty fifth, like twenty four, people beat me, Like what's the best way to get up there? Because the biggest checks that that top one.

Yeah one.

So he's you know, going down to x Y like oh okay, okay, I'm gonna be is he just trying to.

Make enough money? So you can play next week. I mean maybe, but or there are there not anybody in on the professional tour that's that starting.

There's nobody on the PGA Tour that's gonna lose money for a year now. But jumping back to the Caddy conversation, because of your guys bond and uh, your common goal of just getting better, you don't have to worry about like Scott throwing a little HG H in your iced tea or no, you know, like a thoroughbred race horse that maybe just needs an extra extra jump on the line. I wish. Now we get uh, we get drug tested like every three weeks every month. Really oh yeah, World Anti Doping m wow.

So what uh, first of are you thirty six?

Okay, what's the old golfer thirty seven? Uh, there's guys in their forties that are still doing it, doing it really really well. Yeah, Matt Kocher, Jack Johnson, these guys that they are just kind of timeless. But I mean, so there's a senior tour that starts at fifty. There's a lot of guys in limbo, you know, forty one to fifty years old.

Oh, where you're dragging ass before you get.

Well, you just you know, it's a it's a physical game. You hit the ground as hard as you can with a stick for thirty years. You know, shit wears out, what winds up.

So what's the thing that goes is it? Is it driving distance?

Yeah? And then I think it's the one too. You know, I've got three kids. We spend thirty some odd weeks on the road a year.

I do.

They probably travel with me. I don't know. It used to be sixty seventy percent of the time. Now it's twenty or thirty percent of the school and everything. Yeah, esus end up. You know, you're by yourself in a hotel room for thirty weeks a year, and at some point you get to an age and you're like, I don't want to do this anymore, Like this is Oh, it's like I'd just rather be run out of girl. Yeah, you run out of run out of heart. Run.

I want to does your caddy hunt fish?

Uh?

Yeah, he's coming with me A couple of times. He loves to his brother. His older brother is Bob Tway, famous golfer, and he just bought him a little place out in Colorado. So he's about the trailer his whole tractor and all his outfit up to Colorado. Try to help him out. What do you mean just doing ship cutting stuff down proving the land.

Oh, so he's doing helped do some wildlife management landscape work. That's cool.

So he loves the he loves the hunt. He fly fishes a little bit. He's been down to the Keys a few times fly fishing, but he uh mostly just hangs out with his boys and comes to work. Mm hmm. What uh? How do you rank your guys' uh performance in like the snappy dresser lineup and the clothing and golf is such a nuts deal. Now, I'm I'm a people is that could possibly get guy? I don't.

I don't like to you don't wear pink pants.

No, sir, no white belts, no pink pants. I don't dress up like an easter egg.

What colors?

The solid grays, white blacks?

So what uh? You know you don't have to tell me this with you specifically, but just in a norm do you guys lift every day? Like, like, what's what's the expectation on physical training for what you guys do?

Uh?

At home? I train uh three days a week in the gym. I do another day of like, uh, like body reassessment. And then most of us have these pets that travel, and so we're getting constant work on the road. I'm only one day a week training, but when I'm on the road, I'm at the course probably six days

What's the most common injury?

Backs, backs, hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, That's where it goes.

And then uh, like how does your hunting fishing calendar, Like summer's out, Yeah, what's the hunting fishing calendar for?

Well, you're just well, we just we switched the schedule around a little bit on the PGA Tours, where if you have a nice year, you can take most of the fall off.

What's a nice you mean you want some money.

You've want some money. You're finishing a certain echelone so that you can afford to take Because last eleven years, our seasons they've started in October and they've ended in mid September, and so it's a constant like what yeah, it's a constant year round like schedule. So like the most time I would have had off any given period would have been like three weeks of no golf, no tournament, nothing like important that I felt like I had to

So they'll play, right, But if you win a big tournament you get pulled out.

Of that, you end up with different exemptions and different like access. It's all about your access to these tournaments.

You don't have to chase it year round, right, So.

If you win a tournament, you're thinking, well, I'm gonna go take some time off.

Yeah?

Is that what you do that?

Yeah?

I do.

I haven't touched it. I've touched the club once since the Ryder Cup that was four weeks ago. What have you been doing farming unsuccessfully? Unsuccessfully?

Tell me about your farm program?

What do you what do you I bought a place last year, a big piece of hunting ground about an hour south of where I live, and it's just I've been just immersing myself and trying to manage it for the wildlife.

And what kind of ground is it?

Wet? Very very wet, a lot of upland a lot of upland ponds. You know, in Georgia we do the whole pine tree farm regeneration, you know, regenerating the land and stuff like that. So I've got when you say pines, what lob lolly pines like lob lolly slash? Very few long leaf anymore. But when they you know, they come and they clear cut and then they replant the pines and rows. So we've got probably half of it of my farms in that.

And that's like a forty year cycle or something.

Yeah, yeah, thirty to forty years. Yeah, So lots of burning down, a lot of burning. But it's tough because I'm right on the ocean and at every tide the wind switches, so you've got the time to burn up for It's like, oh, we want a perfect west wind. I'm like, yeah, but it's high tide in two hours and the winds switching.

Yeah.

And there's all these ye neighbors everywhere, right, So I mean this.

Is so this is embarrassing if this is a widely known thing. But the wind switches with the tide swing.

Yeah, because of the well, I mean, the the water that's in you know, the water waterfferent water temperature and the land temperature different. And it's not it's not like you'll have a twenty mins out and colder it'll flip it, you know, slack tide. You know, it'll change a little bit. So if you're planning on a west wind for a burn and all of a sudden you get an east one. Well, now you're running a head fire through something that you couldn't and you might be in some trouble.

You're you're hunting land is on the coast.

It's it's within Yeah, it's within half a quarter mile of like not open ocean, but like back river.

Brackish oce shot it got it, so we do.

I've got about twenty five acres worth of food plots that we tried.

And what'd you try for that we do this?

It's it's oats, wheat, rape, radishes. We tried to a lot of years. Will top seed it with these iron clay peas trying to stay away from like the rye grass that it's not native, and it'll seed out in just a nightmare.

Oh, it spreads, It spreads like a radish. Don't no one now?

Our turkey numbers are really good. We've tried to, like said burning and uh, but the water has been the big problem. We've too much of it, too much, too much water got beavers. Got so many beavers really.

But.

Yeah, they're they're not the pretty ones. They're not. I'm not sure they're fur is worth worth much of anything?

Is your is your dad. He likes his land. Heal probably loves it.

He loves it. He retired last year, and he's he's my man. He's my land manager right down there. He's doing great.

So what what's you guys, what's you guys goal with the place?

Well, that's that's where I struggle, because I've got, you know, some sorry. So for example, I've got I've got these trees that are ready to be cut, ready to be harvested. And you cut these trees down, and it's like, well, now, now what do I do?

You know?

Traditionally there you would replant it in rows, you know, with this mounded up with these pine trees, and in thirty years we'd cut it down again. And I just don't know if that's the way, Like, I don't, I don't know if that's. So I'm tempted to make it to try to restore, try to figure out what it was and maybe restore it that way.

Can I help you with this?

Of course you can't. Can I connect you with Robert Abernathy that'd be fantastic, Oh dude, we got yeah. I mean, if you just realize that trees didn't naturally grow like that, it could be no, the wildlife benefit.

No.

The reason I struggle with it is that so I bought this farm selfishly because I love to hunt and I love to I love everything that goes involved. I like it topped to bottom. I like the farm. I like killing them, I like eating them, I like butcher I like all of it. But I don't know what my kids are going to be into. Yeah, it's like and part of that, it's like if I replant these trees because it's a successful way to grow timber and to harvest it and it's sustainable.

So you're being torn. It's like, do you want to pull it out of commercial right?

Don't want to stop, you know, taking any sort of income off the land because I care about the landscape, or you know, do I kick the can down.

A little kids? You know? It was funny because we're gonna return to this and I want CAL talk about this long Leaf deal. Robert Abernathew, who I'm friends with, he used to be he was the CEO or president however they run it of the long Leaf Alliance. He's retired Cal who's in there now. But I met people with Robert down South Carolina who were showing us, and there they were literally showing us like my parents planted this for us kids, because the turnaround.

Oh for a long leaf is no no, the la blah yeah.

And for telephone poles and you plan it. And they were talking about that sixty years ago, whatever the hell it was, whenever the hell you get a phone pole. This woman, this elderly woman, remembered as a kid out planting these things. Yeah, and it was sort of like they were planning it for her to have money, you know well, like, like I said, a very slow but predictable turn you know well.

And that's the thing is that I'd like to find out if there were actually because a long so like a live lolly pond tree and a slash pond tree, they're mature twenty to thirty years old, and then at thirty they're almost I mean, I've got thirty year olds that are telephone pole stuff right now.

Okay, yeah, probably off on the U.

No no, no.

But so for a long leaf, which is what are traditionally our southern forests were consisted of, it's one hundred years before it's a mature tree, like it's a very slow growing, so it's not grandkids that's not a sustainable well. I mean you think about all the things we use, pone trees for cardboard boxes, all the stuff that is just constantly going like it's not feasible to plant long leaves if you have that tree farm. So, but it was traditionally what was there.

Yeah, and you get that like uh.

Don't what they call it savannah, but yeah, so it'd.

Be very big trees and all that shaded grass underneath, and they used to have the quail and all that.

Oh yeah, and our our turkeys we were way different. And I'm not so sure if our turkeys are if it's a because because we've got a turkey problem. I don't know what's I don't know what's causing it, but declining numbers. And I I thought the other day that maybe, I mean, I've listened to a bunch of different stuff about it, but I think it might be our I'm not sure if it's the actual type of tree like live lolly verse long leaf, because I don't think there's

But the guys that are just looking at it. For timber, well that's a no burning, no burning.

Uh, you got to go. It's very close to you. But tall timbers have you heard of that not? So they work with but they're like a kind of fire ecology. They work with state federal tons of NGOs, so Quail Forever NWTF. They do a ton of work with tall

It is it is.

But yeah, you want to have it set up to where your kids aren't going to like feel the pinch right away. And but you know, like using cattle as de foresters, oh man, and and doing cool stuff like that. Could that supplement the timber, you know, relatively hands off certainly what they used to do. There, there's these old they call them these lift stations where they they drilled

Interest, Now that I had a chance to think about this, here's what you ought to do. Put this whole thing in some kind of conservation easement. That way your kids. If your kids turn out to be lunatics, none they're gonna do about It'll be a little hamstring them. Get a forester in there and say, let's say I manage this for timber. What during my kids.

Hold your kids seven to five and one.

Okay, so I got a seven five and one year old. Let's say I manage this for timber. And I know no one has a crystal ball to understand timber markets and futures and all that, but let's just say, reasonably, what could they expect to pull off this timber harvest? Take that dollar figure, go out and win that much playing golf. Put that into some kind of little fund for your kids. So now you don't got to worry

Game plan the next eighties. Then just like that, you play for coffee.

Then you plant the whole thing, and Longley, this is why you came here, right right, everybody's away.

The reason I came this is the reason that you're not going to get a meat eater mug because you're getting all this like everybody else gets the mug, you get a whole life plan. Yes, right, yeah, fantastic.

Uh. My good friend Doug Darren, he always won. His thing about land management is he's always talks about, you know, there's what the farmer gets out of it. What's the hunter. Get out of it. He says, what's the land, get out of it?

Yeah, I agree with that because I just I want it. When you look at that old like pine forest savannah, look with the with the grass, it's just the most beautiful landscape. And I mean, I wish I could snap my fingers and make it happen. Yeah tomorrow, But I just I feel like we're missing an opportunity. We end up with these super dense, thick pine forest that you can't walk through. Provides eat cover for the deer, but for our for our upland birds, turkeys, they're they're struggling.

Yeah?

Yeah, we're my brother. My brother is the trapper. He's a he took over my dad's dentistry practice. But he's a very meticulous, very meticulous person, and trapping really really kind of lead and lends himself into him being really good.

He gets after the mid size predators.

Yeah, the coyotes, he's hard on them, really hard on them. Possums we could trap, We could trap raccoons. I have a healthy, healthy population of them for the upland birds. Yea, there that's what you needed. There. Their brutal and we've got hogs. Our hogs I think are almost as bad on our turkeys as anything else.

Do you hunt the hogs? Yes, yeah, you like to cook those up?

We do, We make make sausage. We don't. Uh, we don't fool with all of them, but I mean you're kind of assess them. Yeah, I mean we we put up we put up some good numbers on the pigs. And uh, there's a bunch of them. It's a it's it's trapping them to the trapping them nighttime by any means necessary. It's a constant battle, kind of a shoot on site if you're if you're if you're hunting there and your deer hunt does not become a pig hunt,

Do you remember? And maybe I'm wrong about how Georgia plays into this, but quail is just generally like way down.

Yeah, quail. The quail population in Georgia is almost non existent. You've got some some central Georgia. Guys that have got these giant tracts of land that they've managed for, you know, released birds essentially, and they've ended up being able to cultivate some smaller populations. But I just don't think that we possessed enough brooding habitat for it to be sustainable long term.

But do you remember are you old enough to remember back to good quail hunt?

I don't remember good So it was that long ago. Yeah, I don't remember it, and I still haven't heard of anyone. You know, in Texas they've still got some the decent wild quail, but in Georgia it's got to be several couple generations at least.

So when you're doing your when you're working on your land, that's not a that's not that's just kind of a fool's.

Errand if it comes to fruition, it'll be a result of us trying to manage it for turkeys, because it's a lot of the same sort of activities. But I can't imagine with our coyotes and our birds of prey that that a quail has got much of a chance. I don't know how they ever existed in Georgia in the first place, like there's so many birds of prey that I mean, a quail is just not very good

Right.

They have some really cool programs on on some of the state w m as where they have sustainable wild quail populations. It'd be like drawing a big game hunt where like you put in for a draw to go hunt, to go hunt it. Yeah really yeah, and then if you get drawn, you get you can bring people with you, but you're still held to like the one person limit of quail. Yeah.

I don't apply for this. I don't even care for I want to apply just here there's something to apply for.

There are these like test cases there, and then there's a bunch of private places as well. But there's these uh you know, state managed places too where they're like this is what you need to have these populations and that's that's why they exist. But yeah, it's there's it all always comes down to habitat. Yeah, I border, I have a wm A neighbors to my north and South and our Georgia D and R. They they need they need more funding and more help. It's just that's where

So yeah, there's the has on that ground. Well.

So so you know, in Georgia, we've got these great initiative, got the long Leaf Initiative where they'll basically come in and plant the trees for you, and they did that all over this wm A. But the seed bank of slash and live loolly is so heavy because that had been timbered before that. It just shoots up and it's like, well that's that, you know, and then you can It's like they try to do too much at once. It's like, okay, we're going to take you know, a thousand acres and

So they put them in the ground. Then they don't have the they don't have the funding and manpower to expept for the weather.

You know, if you don't get the if the weather's not right and you don't get it, I mean there's years to where there are places that you just won't be able to burn because it's too wet, the weather's not right, don't get a good day whatever. And if you don't do that, a live lolly is going to be three times the size as a one year old then, and a long leaf will be as a three or four year old. You see what I'm saying. So if they ever don't burn it, then it's pretty much that's that.

What's what's your kids? Inter? I mean, I know someone that you're young to really have much, But what's your kids interesting?

I've taken so I have a daughter, two sons, my daughter seven sons five. I've taken them down to the farm. They love it right around, they shoot that little twenty two. I'm just easing them into I'm easing them into everything. As much as I loved fishing with my dad and hunting with my dad, I mean there were days where we're fishing and it's pouring down rain and we're still out there and it's like, Dad, I'm not having fun. This is not fun. And it's like it almost took

Yeah. Can I ask you more financial questions about it? If you so? Throughout the uter is a huge job, massive variability. What you could earn playing throughout the year A good years, bad years?

Yep.

Uh, what do guys do? You know? You have an expectation to you whatever you figure out your what your house costs, family, everything, and you have an expectation that you need to turn that there's some dollar figure that you have to hit and everything else is gravy. But what are these guys doing that go through that thing and then they don't hit it?

There's a lot of stress.

I mean, do you then spin out and have to go get a job and then that job pulls you out of trying again the next.

Year's happened a lot. There's there's a lot of guys that I just I've always operated the work. I don't purchase things until until I feel like I did. I wouldn't have to finance them, like I just like I've got things that I want and those things haven't changed in size. Like I always wanted a farm, and like just because I was successful doesn't mean that the acres of that farm tripled. Right, So I've just never let

So do you always have to live where? Do you always have to live where you can where you have to anticipate that you might just have a shitty year?

Yeah? I mean that's that's real.

There's no base salary with your company, your card, Nope.

Zero.

How many Americans make a living on like, not in the golf industry, but how many Americans make a living playing golf? Probably not like you know, golf pros and coaches.

Yeah, touring touring pros that make a make it. I mean it depends on what probably one hundred and fifty.

And then auto all. How much out of your annual do you do? You do all kinds? You probably do endorsement deals and sponsorships and all that. Yeah, is that is that more important than the than the No, the wind, The winning money is more important.

It's about as pure of a meritocracy as you get, is that right?

Yep?

So make more money on the course than you do off the course for the most part. But the better that you do on the course leads the more off the course stuff. So it's all about like how.

You perform m.

But you should you should love that?

Why do you Why do you hate it so much?

Because I was telling its hard, not good at it.

I'm not good at fly fishing.

But I want to hit one of that. I want to I want to hit one of the ones that has that slow You want to get that slow curve.

To draw or fade. Learning about draws and faith.

Wow, and you can lean back and whistle as it goes.

Yeah, you know, I met Brian Gombel one time and uh he killed a seagull with a golf ball.

Yeah, it happens, almost killed a person. Yeah, we're playing up in the playoff event. Ridgewood Country Club's got this drive a par four, So it's part four. I'm hitting driver and I just I slice it over to the left and the guy's looking up, one of the guys, and the guy looking up hits him right and right on the side of the mouth, splits him all the way almost up to his temple, and so I walk up. No, it didn't blow his teeth. Out, just just split him

Is the blood.

Sure, there's this puddle of blood. And the first thing I think of, like, that's dead deer. This guy, this guy is such a great story. But yeah, that stuff happens a lot. People get hit by golf balls, and it is it's a dangerous I would never go. I would never take my kids go watch a golf tournament.

I mean because it's getting paid.

Oh man, guys get hit all the time. Your caddy reaches into his bag and pulls out the latex gloves and stitch him up.

Do you ever do you ever strike relationships where you get to where you get the fish on uh? Fish and hunting on golf course?

Man?

As much as much as you could leverage the ship out there, yeah I could. But I have to like compartmentalize it because if all I thought about was hunting and fishing when I'm working, then I would be horrible at what I do. So, like when I'm on the road and I've I've gotten invited to go do some cool stuff, like oh man, you gotta go fish here, you gotta do this, And I'm like I'm here, I gotta work, and it's yeah, it sucks, but.

You don't like run out for an evening, you know, evening.

We go like when we play in Honolu. We go to Honolu every year and there's this huge flat right behind where we stay and there's guys that are out there and they catch these giant bonefish and you just watch him out there all day long walking around like damn, it looks fun. Like no, because I would waste I would either waste time. I would either waste time where I should be in the gym, resting or working practicing at that time is budgeted, Like I get there, there's

Does your dad have Does your dad have like a travel ride that he brings along tournaments?

And I have to beg him to come to golf tournaments. It's usually just drinking a Budweiser and waiting for it to be over.

He does all.

No, not at all, not at all.

That's pretty surprising that you have to be. I guess guys like just the discipline man, right, Like.

Yes, I mean I feel like your success as a result of all the little bit of choices that you make, and I just try to make the right ones.

What's your diet, Like, it's pretty good.

A lot of meat, a lot of vegetables, trying not to eat a bunch of stuff. But I have trouble. Well, I got high cholesterol, so trying to avoid as much red meat as I was eating. But that's that's been a tough one. That's been a real tough one. Well, not to be biased against where you're from, but how are you cooking the red meat?

Are you sure it's the meat?

Yeah? Yeah, cast iron. Most of the time. I try to switch over to the olive oil from butter, but that hasn't been there as fun. Yeah No, I mean just like medium, rare salt pepper throat on the real, nice and easy. Yeah. No, I do only hardly any fried food. Yeah, I try to stay away from a bunch of ug Yeah. I just try to do the best I can get. Still, high cholesterol, hunt run your

We've gone through your diet.

Yeah, we've gone through your finances, relationships, relationship.

Happily, happily married, three kids, been married, coming up on nine years.

That's cool.

Yeah, yeah, nine years in December.

And is she golf?

No?

She liked the hunt?

No, sure doesn't you kids like the golf not. Yeah, they've got the like got little bitty clubs, just the odds and ends. My five year old he started going to the golf course a little bit, but he don't care. He just likes it because he gets candy with you when he goes home.

Oh, they're not they're not training like four hours a day, No, sir.

What's your what's your go to? Uh? What you go to? Venison preparations. How do you like to cook it? We do?

I do the backstraps and Erlin's uh pure style, the rest of it.

Uh.

We just started making our own burger. Would usually you know, take out the really nice parts, keep those, send the rest of the processor and get the burger back.

Oh so you do your own, Yeah, you do your own whole muscle stuff. Then just bring it down to get it ground right, gotch Yeah.

So most of the time we don't like so it's so warm and humid where we're usually hunting that the meat's almost always coming right off the bone. If we don't have a walk in we don't know how to access to a walk in freezer. So hang them meats all the way off the bone, right into a cooler, pick out all the good parts that that we don't need help with, and then the stuff that, you know, the time consuming, the grinding, and because you.

Got a hustle, usually can't just go hang at your garage for ten days.

No, we just can't like our environment. Just there's just no chance, no chance. So I mean, I'm a tender loin backstrap guy. And then if I've got time. I'm sure that you don't like when people make stuff into jerky, But I love making jerky. Yeah, it just seems like an anti purest thing to do with a piece of me.

I love them, man. I was walking around eating my own jerky yesterday. To make a ton of jerky there's nothing wrong with jerky Clay. Clay Nukeom talks about he talks about how he's always getting burger. Shame grinds. Shame, yeah, grind because he just grinds the whole deer out. Then he has to get burger.

He's got to make the Big three or the Big four taco.

I get.

I need, I need heart help. The heart has been a tough one. I get. Sometimes the heart comes out and it's like the best, like the best, the best piece, And the other times I'm like, I don't want to hate this.

How do you cook it?

I've cooked it the same way every time, just cast iron and butter. I mean yeah, it's it's like it's more of a heart to heart problem.

Like the flavor.

Yeah, just like some of them, some of them, and then like some it's just like this is like a gamey, organy taste, like a bad heart, like bad heart. Just yeah, trimming out best I can. You can put it in salt water, salt and that'll, you know, de ironize it a little bit.

Okay, I might cook you, dear heart tonight.

Okay, we're gonna have deer meat, great, damn, sure're gonna have deer meat perfect, perfect.

What everybody wants to know. Fixed blades or mechanicalix.

Blades, fixed blades.

I know, I knew.

We liked each other.

Yes, some more And this is this is my testimonial to the Meat Eater podcasts. Ready. Yeah, so I've been on four l hunts, uh, the first three of which I hunted with Matthew's boat. And I'm using an arrow that is around four hundred grains and I'm using rage hypodermics now three for three first three hunts. But it was very concerning because my arrow was not getting the penetration.

Yeah, I mean this isn't exactly like a lab Yeah. Well, I mean there's things that it hits and doesn't hit.

That's true. But I mean I shot an elk at twelve yards with inexpandable and my arrow goes in eight.

Hit the shoulder.

No, no, no, it was. It was very very dark. Hits a little back cording away kind of liver into the backside of one long, backside of one long.

I've been having I've been doing some broad head soul searching. Okay, and uh, I find that you are that, not you, but us humans. We're heavily influenced by the last arrow we shot.

Okay, lost the deer, lost the deer two years ago, which it was either because of the expandable or y'all mess much of that third acts of stuff, like with the sight you know.

Well, I mean, I make sure I'm dialed, because you don't. And when you sit there in your backyard and your shoot parallel to the ground, you never notice it.

And yeah, I'm straight down on this deer. I feel like I make a good shot. It misses, you know, the deer's facing left or right. I make a good when I feel likes a good deer's right up underneath me, and I make a good shot and hits him in the top of the shoulder. Air goes in this far. With the expandable, I feel like if I'd have hit if I'd have made that same shot with a fixed blade, he's dead because when you shooting you I.

Lost deer there to day and I hit it too far back, and I kept thinking that if I had had something that now it's and I had had something that opened up.

There is no there's no perfect answer. You're probably right, I mean, you're probably right.

Yeah, And we weren't in the south.

It was south Ish, south Ish.

And man, those deer, when you get up to them, you're like, oh man, that's not a very big deal.

You're not big at all, like what you're.

Normally thinking of that your aim where you're gonna give yourself five inches. They're twitchy too, It's like five inches put you like.

One hundred pounds dough thirty yards. I mean that's a twitchy, twitchy animal. And they're already tiny.

So when do you get what's on your your fall schedule? When when do things heat up for you? Guys? You're already getting after it probably now, aren't you.

No, we so I'll start back up. I got one more tournament.

No, I mean you're hunting playing?

Oh man, I'm we got to redo food plots. We did them two weeks ago, worked our hands in the bone, had this rain coming. It was dry. Like it's hard for me because I have to pick a dry spell to plant because I can't get in there otherwise, like where where our plots are, Like I don't want to run it up too bad. So the rain's coming, it's dry. I'm like, let's try it. So we go plant, work our hands and bone for two days and then we got five inches of rain supposed to get like half an inches.

Getting dry planting weather. Then some nice sprinkles and.

Right, and then that's it. So it didn't get that. I think we got to redo all that.

But when does hunting heat up for you? Guys?

Man, I'm just I'm so focused on trying to get this place.

Like ditched, and you're not even worried about it.

Not really. I mean I sat the other night and I was like, damn, this place is still wet. I guess like I just want to go buy an excavator and start moving water.

Yeah, you got that where you can't relax until you get unpacked kind of thing, right, right, wood duck situation.

We got piles and piles of woods. See that's so funny, Like where we are, we're like a wood duck, but someone kills the redhead somewhere like oh my right, oh yeah, ducks, great wood ducks.

I see, that was our duck.

We'll go kill you three wood ducks. Be a waffle alis at seven fifteen.

Man, that was our growing up. That was our duck. You know. That was like when in Michigan the opener you get some mallards. But you know, we would focus. We would hunt ducks heavily for a week, yep. And it was wood ducks, you know, right when the season open, so like right now basically and then now, man, I would just kill to go. Uh my buddy I had mentioned earlier, my buddy Doug. He gets wood ducks on his little pond and it'd be so fun to go in here.

Yeah, it's fine. So there's a there's a a wma duck hutting place and Darien. It's called Rhet's Alan, but it's a their old rice plant, their old rice fields. So it's diked up out of brackish water. So it's fresh ish, fresh ear water inside the impowerment. But in order to get into the powerment, you've got to take you know, we had a little duck boat. It's got a winch on the front. You gotta winch up the wooden pull over and then basically ride the boat down into it. So we're getting out.

There the movie. I have not put that on your list, Okay, Moat.

So Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays we're hunting rets every single time. So my point is like we would go to this effort, leaving it two in the morning, getting there, decoys out so that we could shoot like one buffalohead and like two ring necks as opposed to like going and sitting in any swamp and killing three wood ducks. So we would literally move heaven and earth to kill anything but a wood duck. That's amazing because they just don't have

That's when I got to come down.

Three wood ducks and this an invite I can't tell man whenever.

And it's three woodies a.

Day, three woodies per person, yes.

And we'd be getting drakes.

Yeah, you could probably pick out drakes. But it's it's hard because it's so dark, because you're in a swamp. They fly early and then it's done, like there is no like mid morning fly and.

You guys don't do an evening set because the.

Morning Yeah, pretty much impossible to do it legally.

Because they're just coming in after dark and you've kind of ruined the spot.

Right well, they they yeah, I mean you you've totally blown their roost up when you roost hunt. It's it's it's so what.

Are you going out into in the morning, Like, what are they coming into to feed in?

Just cypress swamps? Really, that'd be gorgeous, dud bad man, Come on, you shoot all the wood ducks you want?

Really?

Oh yeah, oh yeah, we can have that hemmed.

Up hunters down that neck of woods. Can he come with? We would?

We had we had a we were part of in high school. We were part of a cool duck hunting place down in Lake City, Florida, where it was a phosphate mine, and to mind the phosphate, they were always having to move the water around, so they would end up with different giant holding places and then flooded timber. So we'd go in the flooded timber and try and kill the gad wall and the teal, and then we'd hunt the big bodies of water for the canvas backs

I mean, I thought you had so much discipline. You don't notice that kind of stuff.

I notice it.

You don't go now I got the clubhouse has to make that.

Troy would be perfect because they all get up and leave every night too. It's like you got a late practice around or something, or you're finishing up late. They all just get up and go. That was always my favorite part of duck hunting. It's like like watching them all go to roost to the lift off.

Yeah yeah, So, uh, tell people how to find you on? Uh, what's the best way to track your doings?

I don't, I don't. You do have an Instagram? I have an Instagram. I don't care if people find a public or not public harm and Brian on Instagram? You want to see some Why do you not put? I haven't. Can you do that? Can you? You can't change it? We'll change it, yeah, but all we'll get this all fake out. Yeah, but it's great.

And then what's the next big what's the next tournament? You're except that that's like people should be watching.

Well, we got I got the R s M Classic in my hometown, Saint Simon's, And then I'm gonna go play Tiger's event in the Bahamas and then I'll make a spearfish after with him, maybe after. He's pretty good at it. Yeah, he's pretty good.

Hat a little bit.

I showed him some pictures, uh when he used to spearfish at bunch. He was like, do you do it with a tank? I was like, well, yeah, that time of day is well, doesn't count the Yeah, he's a purist.

Well you will you plug? You plugged this showed him and say he should come out and.

Talk probably watch it. I wouldn't be surprised he watched it.

Will you asked me, if you'll come on and talk about.

Spirit, that's gonna be hard to sell. I'll ask him.

You don't like to do that kind of stuff.

I don't know if you know this now, but Tiger was just pretty high de man.

No, that's why that's why I'm leaning on you.

That's why we're sending you.

I don't want to overlean on a you. That's why you're supposed to bring it up.

Okay, okay, and kind of wedget in there, like went nice nice nice pun there.

Yeah, it looks like it looks like a great day for great days. Shoot, you might want to think about doing and then you know something like that.

I think I love the spearfish, love trying to get better at it. But there's still like, in order to properly talk ship about somebody who spearfishes with a tank, you got to do it at least once, right, right. I would love to go down there and sit and just see, really see what what the difference, find out just how bad it is right the house, how siky I feel. It's kind of like the greatest thing about drinking black coffees that you get to make fun of

All right, So you got those coming up. Look for the guy with the pink and white straight.

Yeah, yeah, the one showing out, Look for the look.

For the guy look for the guy in the drabbish attire.

Now I just go to work, go to work and try to try to beat everybody.

That's it, all right, man, Well, thanks for coming on, appreciate.

You for having me. Sure I appreciate it now, Thank you, Thank you very much. Sweet ride on.

A seal gray shine like silver in the sun. Right right alone, sweet.

We done beat this damn course today taking a new right. We're done can beat this damn Prsiday. So take a new one and ride on

H