TOUR Pro vs Public Golf Course (TOO EASY?)

What happens when a PGA TOUR pro tees it up on a regular public golf course, just like the ones we play every week? Let’s see…

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🙏🏼 Brandon Wu ► https://www.instagram.com/bwu97/
🙏🏼 Spook Rock GC ► https://www.spookrockgolfcourse.com/

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What happens when a PGA TOUR professional takes on a regular public golf course — the same kind of track we all play on the weekends? In this video we put TOUR pro Brandon Woo, who has competed in over 100 PGA TOUR events, up against Spook Rock Golf Course to see how his game stacks up outside of the pristine conditions of the PGA TOUR. This is the ultimate tour pro vs public golf course challenge.

Throughout the round, Brandon walks us through every shot, sharing his thought process, course management strategies, and insights on how he approaches different lies, greens, and club selections. You’ll see first-hand how a TOUR pro adapts to a public golf course layout, avoids big mistakes, and still finds ways to score when the pressure is on. From recovery shots out of bunkers to smart decisions off the tee, there are plenty of takeaways for everyday golfers who want to lower their scores.

So how low can a TOUR pro really go on a course that you and I could book a tee time at tomorrow? Watch along as we find out.

#golf #golfswing #golfer #golflife #golfcourse

Tour pro Brandon Woo has played in over 100 PGA Tour events. So clearly he has what it takes to compete against the world’s best golfers on some of the country’s toughest golf courses. But the question we have is what would a tour pro like Brandon shoot on a regular public golf course just like the ones you and I play every week? Today we’re going to put him on our T- box to find out. Most importantly though, we’re going to be talking through every shot with Brandon to better understand his strategy and see what we can learn to make our own game even better. Now, let’s head over to the first TE and kick this off. All right, first hole, dog leg left. Notice you don’t have the driver. So, what’s the play here? Yeah, so I was looking that first bunker to reach on the right is about 245. I hit this 5wood probably 240. So, you know, it’s not super long of a hole. Uh, I was thinking just put something in the fairway. Wind’s a little bit off the left. Dog leg left. I don’t really turn it to the left that well. So, um, yeah. Think put something in the fairway. I should have a scoring club then. Love it. Right. Here we go. Cut it off a little bit. So, last time we shot this challenge here at Spook Rock, we did it with James Nicholas. Um, he started out rough, but he ended up six under. Oh, really? You were six under at Mansion Ridge last time you did this challenge. So, I see you there in the bunker. At least we see it. So, see what happens. I got 123 the flag. So, I pulled a pitching wedge and a 52. The lie looks pretty good. So, probably I think I’ll hit the pitching wedge. Looks like I’m in someone’s divot. So, great. I’ll be on it. Let’s go, baby. Yeah, dude. Nice shot. Thank you. What a recovery there. I mean, we all know it. One of the hardest shots in the game is those long fairway bunker shots. And I don’t know how he still managed to stop it dead where it landed. Um, so he’s got a birdie putt on the first hole. Let’s go. Brandon, you’re playing all over the world. Like greens are obviously wildly different. It’s your first time playing this course. So, the first time playing a course, what are you looking for in the greens? Um, I think obviously probably two most important things are the speed, just getting used to the speed, but also the grain. Um, you know, grasses have lots of grain or very little grain. So, I think that can affect the break and it can affect the speed quite a bit. So, I think that’s something to pay close attention to. My first reaction is these are not super grainy. I think in the Northeast these tend to be uh some of the least grain we’ll see, which I actually really prefer. Um, but these look really nice. They look pretty pure and uh I can tell there’s quite a bit of pitch on this one. So, I’m glad I’m putting uphill on this. That’s right. All right. Didn’t quite fall down as much as we thought there. All right. Missed the birdie, but he made the par there. Uh, and I tell you, I know I know we’re also asking a lot. We’ve got cameras in his face. We’ve got uh drones hovering over his head, but it’s kind of funny like some of these guys like you never know what you’re going to face out there playing competitively. and they like to practice like this where you have distractions, where you have things like that because you never know what you’re going to run into with crowds and things like that when you’re playing out on the tour. So, it’s actually, you know, at least what I’ve been told is that it’s a good mental practice to do this. I think today with good drives, almost all the par fives I think, yeah, definitely all the par fives are getable in two. So, what’s the play here? How much you have left? Yep. So, I have 183 to the pin. We took a brief look. It’s pretty much in the middle of the green. Um, I think it’s playing a little bit uphill and I’m on a slight ups slope. So, I’m going to take a little bit more club. I’m going to try and hit a soft sixiron and pretty much get to take it right at it cuz I think it’s in the middle there. Love it. All right. You missed the green. Uh, it’s like left center of the green. Nice. Okay, sweet. [Music] Oh. Oh, he had the idea. Should I hit a little bit more? Good bird. Thank you. All right, one under. Third hole here at Spook Rock. Growing up playing this course, third hole is the one that we always tried to go for the green. It’s a drivable short par4, but this is where the pros are so smart. This is why they score so well. He saw that it was feastable, but he saw the water that was 290 on the right. So, he said it instead. He’s got the he’s got a long club with him. So, I don’t know if he’s going to switch it to the 3-wood at the end, but he initially he said four iron, just give him a 100 yards in. And that’s the way these guys think. I love it. So brilliant. He should be in great shape. What a shot. Great shot. Thanks. Do you find it’s difficult to play without your caddy or do you just go into your zone when you’re like on the road or a home game, buddies? Is it like a different feel for you or Yeah, I think um it’s probably actually a good exercise. It’s like you really have to on a course like this where I don’t really know where we’re going and on that specific T-shot you couldn’t really see the fairway. Uh you got to just pick a target and be really committed to it cuz you know you could be thinking oh what if I go right what if I go left but I think that’s where you run into trouble. So this is a great exercise and picking a target and sticking with it and just trying to hit it at it. Yeah. Yep. Snapped. Okay. Yardage and club. What do you got? So, I have it 170. Playing 174 with the slope. So, I think I’m a little bit between my seven and eight. I think I’m going to go with a soft seven. Um, just gives me slightly more room to work with if I miss it a little bit. [Music] Good looking ball there. Okay. You said something interesting earlier. You said you’re not really turning the ball well right now. Like is that would you consider a weakness of your game or Yeah, I think it’s it’s mostly with the longer clubs. Like I can work it both ways with the irons. Um but the woods I usually am hitting a cut and uh just you just run with it. Are you trying to correct that? It’s always something you’re working on on the range cuz let’s say I’m hitting cuts on the golf course and then all I’m working on are hitting cuts. I’m just going to get really steeped and swing far to the left. So, you know, it’s nice to balance it out. And uh there’s nothing wrong with having both in your bag. All right, I’m going to give you a look of the green here because the fifth hole at Spook Rock is like everyone’s favorite blowup hole. They all try to hit driver through this field goalpost. Yes. And I have buddies, they do it all the time. They put it to where that guy is. That’s all great and good, but you know, but you’re you’re the caliber who could do that, but I doubt that’s your game. So, you see the green over there? Yeah. I mean, I might take a look at the from Well, we’ll see how far it is from back, but Okay. We just talked about not being able to draw it. So, So, you’re thinking about it, huh? Yeah. I’m just curious how far it is. It’s like two probably 87 front, which I think I could get to. Uh I think I’ll bring the driver and just see what kind of angle I have at the green. And uh Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Okay. You see that right there? See where it opens up? That’s kind of the hole over there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not a big window, but I think it’s a little good height. We’ll get there. I don’t know. What? What would people rather see? I I’m happy to hit driver. What do you You know what I say? If you’re happy to hit driver, let’s do it. All right, let’s hit. [Laughter] That could be perfect. I mean, I just hope that you didn’t go over the green, but just looked too good. [Music] Oh, what a shot. What a shot. Well done. Stop it, man. I thought that was in. There you go. Well done. I noticed you didn’t even bring your uh rangefinder out there. 49, 56, 55. You didn’t care. You just you were just dialed in out there. Yeah. I felt like like I think anything inside of 60ish yards I’m just it feels like a pitch, you know? So, I’m trying to I try to go up and take a look, get a sense of how far it was and then uh kind of just a feel shot. So, feel shot. Yeah. Glad I hit a good one. Oh, easy. [Music] Okay. Yep. I didn’t even see it. Uh just in the right rough. So, this being another one of those par fives, this is going to be another scoring opportunity, of course, that he has to take advantage of. However, this hole does have a tricky green that is super protected. So, depending on how long this shot is going to be for a second shot into the green, he’s going to have to consider that because you don’t want to end up with one in the drink here. I mean, I’m digging the clubs. Let’s do a quick what’s in the bag. What are you rocking here? Yeah, so driver is a GT3 by Tylist. I have the 280 by Graphite Design in my driver. Um, 3-wood and 5wood. I use Tylus. They’re the GT1. Um, which I think is a fairly new head, but I really like them. Um, I’ve got a two iron in the bag. I’m not using it today, but that is the new 250 head, T250. Um, that’s been great. Put a graphite shaft in there and, uh, gives me a little extra speed and a little extra height. The irons, I use the T100’s. Um, use the Nipon Motus 130s. Um, I like a little heavier shaft. I think it feels the club a little bit better. The wedges I use the Vokei SM10s. Uh I do 46, 52, turned down to 51, a 56, and then a 60 bumped up to 61. I think the 60 you’re mostly just chipping with instead of hitting full swing wedge shots. So I like to have just a little bit more loft around the greens, and that helps me. And then uh my putter is a 009 prototype by Scotty Cameron. Um I’ve used something very similar to this for a long time. And uh this one has seven degrees of loft. I like to press my hands a little bit forward when I putt. So, we thought maybe give myself a little bit more loft and uh yeah, so that’s been working decent. How many Scotties do you have in your arsenal? You know, I actually counted maybe a little while ago. I think around 15 or so, and I think 11 or 12 of them look exactly the same. So, everybody’s favorite. Yeah. Good stuff, man. Did that get up? I couldn’t tell. Me neither. I didn’t see any big major splashes. We shall see. So, I found my ball. It was plugged in the mud, so unplayable. And I’ll have to take it uh from behind the hazard. So, a little greedy. Probably should have just tried to hit my forearm a little harder and get it over the green. I’ll tell you, I got to give a shout though. I mean, Spook Rock, this is a place that gets a lot of rounds of golf, especially right now, peak summer. There’s people here playing every day, and this place is in great shape. I mean, you look at the fairways, the greens. I think that can be one of the trickiest things for some of these Torros. They come from playing the world’s best golf courses that roll true, they get these uh very predictable lies in the fairway, and then they go play a public course, and conditionally, it might be a big change for them. But here so far, I mean, this place it we we’ve played here before and I’ve actually never even seen it look this good. It it is it’s pretty dialed. So, uh, no excuses. So, first real mistake of the day. I know you probably wanted to hit that 4hour iron back, but what do you do as a golfer, as a professional golfer when that happens? Is it real short memory? Just forget about it and move on. Are you thinking about it or Yeah, I think you have to. It’s easy to think about it. It’s easy to lammit yourself and be like, well, I should have done this or should have done that. And uh but yeah, I mean here’s we’re already on the next hole. Like we got to keep going and you got to keep hitting good shots and trying to score as best you can. So you got to just do your best to forget about it. Thinking enough room to get it up? Yeah, I think I’m shooting the back. Jeez. Yeah, I pretty much have a perfect window here. So I think I got pretty lucky. [Music] Stop it. [Music] Great shot. These guys are just built differently. It’s insane. You know, I’m hitting every tree limb, every branch, everything. It’s nuts. Ah, so close. All right, another par. How would you rate the round so far for you gamewise? Uh, you know, I actually quite like how I’m hitting it. Uh, I don’t think I’ve made as many putts as I would like. I feel like I’m rolling it decent, but uh, a few of them have just haven’t gone in. I think it’s good to be able to distinguish if you’re hitting good putts and they’re not going in versus you’re hitting bad putts and they’re not going in. So, yeah, I feel like if I can That’s a good point. dial in a couple good reads, uh, I’ll make a couple putts. Might have to get some food at the turn. Don’t know what the play’s going to be today, but had a hot dog yesterday. You can’t have two hot dogs two days in a row. Just doesn’t it’s not good for the old body. So, maybe a protein bar, chicken sandwich. I’m probably going to get a hot dog. [Music] Good shot there. Let’s [Music] go. Get in. Let’s go. Let’s go. Big birdie there. I see you just like running things through your mind here. Brandon, what’s up? Yeah, I was wanting to hit driver, but I think it’s this tree kind of blocks my angle to the green out a little bit. Uh, I was just shooting some stuff like how far to go through, how far to cover the water and into the fairway on this right side and ended up with threewood in my hand. I think that’s kind of a should leave me, I don’t know, some sort of short wedge if I can hit the fairway. So, I think this is a good play. Oh, yeah. I’ll tell you, it’s something totally different seeing it in person, whether it’s like this or if you like attend a PJ tour event versus on TV. You just can’t quite get a perspective unless you’re there of just how low these guys flight their wedges. Just trusting the amount of spin that they get to stop them. Something about on the TV cameras, you never quite can judge that height, but when you see it in person like this, it really uh it shows you something that you’re not used to seeing. When you’re out there playing on tour, how much of the read is you and the and the caddy? So, I pretty much read them myself. I think I honestly think the trickiest ones are some of the straighter putts because that’s when you’re like, “Ah, is it going right? Is it going left?” I think that’s when I would need some help. And sometimes I’ll call my caddy and I’m just curious what he’s seeing. You know, if I’m leaning one way or the other, if he sees, I think it’s going right, then I’ll probably put that into account. But I also think it’s important before you hit the putt to trust your read and what you feel because if you don’t want to be not committed, you might as well hit something that you believe in, even if it’s wrong. Oh, good shot. You got it. That looked good from here. All right, sitting down, water in front. What’s the game plan? Yeah, I think uh here’s a great chance to learn from my mistake earlier in the round. Uh going to try not to hit it in the water. I think should be able to just take a slightly more conservative line out to the right. Um then I’ll have plenty of green to work with. I know it’s going to launch a little bit low off the down slope and out of the rough. Um, so yeah, try to aim out to the right and get a little height under there. Get up. Up and out. Got up. All right. Just off the right side in the rough. A lot of green to work with. I like it. Even on these hot, sweaty, steamy like 90 plus days, he still, you know, walks his he paces it off. He goes through the same routine no matter what. You heard him before. One foot putter, 300 yard drive. It’s all counts towards the same score. So, that’s like the best tip I’ve learned so far out here. I’m definitely going to put that into play during my next round. Playing partners might kill me, but whatever. I like that a lot. And settle there. All right. Good shot, Brandon. If that sand patch wasn’t there, are you still hitting it that high? I think so. So I it actually framed the shot a little bit where I was like, well, I know I have to cover this little bunker. Reminded me of Riviera. Yeah, Riviera. That’s great. Nice. All day. Short par4. What are you looking for? So there’s a bunker about 215ish out there. So I need to hit something that definitely covers that. I just have five wood. I hit this about 240, 245. So should comfortably cover that. Leave me 70 80 yards hopefully. Oh, way right. Okay. A little tree trouble or what? Yeah, this tree is definitely in the way. Um, thinking of getting a little spooky and trying to go over it and around, but I know this green is quite severe back to front. So, I just don’t want to be past it. That makes me not want to go under this tree cuz it’s harder to control your distance that way. So, I’m thinking of hitting something just towards the front of the green. And if I cover the trees and it gets on the front, great. And if not, it’s just a little bit short and can pitch up. Okay. Okay. Oh, little tag, little heavy. This is where, like I said, Brandon really shined last time we played is that where is if it was me in that green side bunker, I would be getting out of here with bogey at best. It’s where he saves it. So, let’s see if he can save it. Get up and down. Get out of here at no worse than par and stay on track to hopefully get to that minus six number. Go in. Oh, what a shot. Oh, I thought he was going to drop it in. I told you guys. What a shot. Take that shot 10 times. How many times you doing that? Impressive from where he was. Great save. All right, Brandon. This is the shortest part three we’re going to see today. What do you what you fired at and what’s the play? I see that back pin. I have 160 of the pin. I think it’s a little bit downwind and I have my nine iron. It’s pretty similar to one of the previous par three yardages. So, I think if I just hit a full nine, there shouldn’t be too much of a threat to go long where it could be a quick putt. So, I think this is a perfect club. [Music] Okay. flared it out a little bit. Now, did I see Did Did you go no tea? Yeah, I just I didn’t te it up. I want to talk about So, wait. So, yeah. Is that always on par threes or just um I would say most par threes if I need a little bit extra, I’ll tee it up, but I was trying not to go long there, so I didn’t tee it up, but uh Yeah. So, I just put it on the ground. Just on the ground. Yeah. I mean, most of our iron shots are off the ground anyway, so it’s not crazy. And you can pick yourself a perfect lie. So, true. True. And I know sometimes you end up tee a little too high. You get a little too high on the face. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I I just don’t like the idea that I could catch it really good. The spin comes down and it fly forever. So, right. But, um, yeah. So, I like just giving myself a good line in the fairway. Okay. This one where you’d almost rather it went in the bunker cuz of your stance or how do you how you going to get a stance on this? I think it’s actually all right. I can just kind of put it in the back of my stance, but uh yeah, I think I got fortunate. I think the bunker might have been a little bit easier, but this is not too bad. Oh. All right. Now he’s got a testy one coming back. So you’re you’re getting a lot of education just off that too with the for your putt now, right? Yeah. Yeah. I saw it move pretty good to the left. So I know this will go pretty good to the right on my way back. All right. We gave one back. So but so pretty straight away par4. I I don’t know if you can see the flag from where you’re at. Maybe a little bit. the tip. Yeah. Okay. Just straight. It’s just it it’s just narrow. It’s straight. There are some bunkers. You may want to get the number on GPS. Okay. I don’t know what what’s in play for him there. [Music] That should be great. Okay. Perfect. All right, pin high. Birdie look. I think the biggest challenge here obviously has been the putting. Um, no shortage of birdie looks for Brandon out here today. But, uh, at the end of the day, I mean, even on the tour, I think the make percentage from 10 ft is, you know, less than I mean, certainly less than uh 20%. All right, final par five of the day seems pretty wide open, right? Yeah, I think uh yeah, just driver straightaways for the most part and then uh hopefully get on in two and have a good look at birdie. Let’s go. Oh yeah. Yep. That’s going to set him up nice. That’s going to set him up real nice. Carries the bunker. Getting some good roll out. Uh-huh. Oh yeah. Go zone. I mean, you don’t always go after pins, right? You you are a middle of the fairway guy sometimes when you have to be when you see things like that. I actually think one one of the biggest differences playing casual golf versus tournament golf is how close the pins are um to the sides of the greens. Like we’ll rarely see more than four steps off the side. Um like today I feel like most of the pins have been fairly center which you know then you can be pretty aggressive towards the pin but uh when we’re playing pro tournaments it’s usually three, four, five off the edge. So you then you got to really think about which side you want to miss on and hopefully not on the short side. So this putts I would guess just under 40 ft. Pretty much uphill the entire way and breaking right to left. Uh just kind of walked around to get a general sense of the lay of the putt and maybe around the hole. I think it’s good to just know like if I hit it 5 ft by, is there a ridge that’s going to make it run away or anything crazy like that? But on this putt, not really. So should be pretty straightforward. And at this distance, you’re just trying to get the right speed going and get it close. Go. You left it below it. Nice. Good birdie. Second at Pebble. Man, do you like that course? You You must love that course. Pebble is my favorite. I’ve had so many good memories there. Um must have played there a lot in college, right? We actually didn’t really play there in college, but we did play there USM. Um I think the year before I graduated, but then I played the US Open there right after Oh, wow. Well, actually during graduation. So I I uh what was the story like? Graduation is on US Open Sunday and uh playing the US Open down at Pebble Beach. I made the cut and I missed graduation for US Open on that Sunday. Yeah. So that was pretty cool. Did they just mail you the diploma? No, they actually did um they kind of made a little graduation ceremony for me. They had um Stuart Francis who was a Stanford GSB alum present me my diploma right after I walked off the 18th green. Um so that was a pretty memorable graduation experience. Get out of here. That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That is super cool. You mentioned you played with Dustin Johnson at that US Open. Yeah. When you’re kind of fresh just kind of coming on to the tour and stuff like that, how much do you kind of pick up and learn from some of the veterans? Like DJ has been on tour for 10 years now. Are you like learning stuff or is it just you’re playing your own game? Yeah, I think the the most beneficial days at a tournament like that when I was that age are definitely the practice rounds. Like getting to play with some of those guys where they’re a little bit looser and seeing what they’re doing during the practice rounds. Like I think I played that week with uh Sergio in one of the practice rounds and he was kind of hitting it um not great. I think not as good as he can and then he actually played pretty well that week. So, it was interesting to see, you know, like, all right, he’s not playing his best in the practice round, but he’s able to turn it on for the tournament, knows exactly where to hit it, has a really great knowledge of what he’s got that day and able to just score. So, I think that was a pretty cool learning experience. All right, just a quick little scoring update. We have two holes to go. Brandon is three under. So, we have a par three and then a par4. Both pretty tricky holes. You’ve got an uphill par three here that’ll play probably, it says 164, but it’s probably 185 with the slope. Um, for us, you know, you know, six iron, maybe five iron for some of us, but Brandon was hitting nine irons, like 160. Okay. All right. So, he’s about pin high, about 10 12 ft left. Very similar to the putt we had on the last hole. Um, let’s see if he can get this one in. I’m not I’m not worried about him giving one back. I know he’s not three putting from there, that’s for sure. Uh, it’s just a matter of this one drops or not. So, uh, he may be able to pick up another stroke here. burned in. So close. All right, one to play. All right, as we approach the 18th, a fun little game I like to play. We didn’t do this last time, but and I probably know the answer to this. I’m actually going to guess the answer before you tell it to me. There’s a shot you can get back today. I’m going to guess the four four iron on the sixth hole. Yeah, I think that’s that’s a great one. So when I play tournaments, I try to follow I think Tiger’s got these five rules. So no bogeies on par fives, no bogeies with scoring clubs, which he calls wedges and nine iron. No double chips, no three putts, and no double bogeies. So bogey, no par five, hitting in the water there. That’s breaking one rule. And the other bogey was a bogey with nine iron. So you know, it’s goes to show like you just got to do some of these simple things right and you can score a lot better. So, that’s something I like to focus on. That’s pretty cool. All right, driver went back in. So, what’s your thought process? I’ve got 3-wood out. Laser a tree kind of through the fairway where I’m looking at 292. So, 3-wood should keep me a little bit short of that. And the hole’s not too long. So, I think I’ll have another scoring club bin. Yeah, it’s going to be in a great spot. Oh, yeah. [Music] Okay. So, yeah, kept it below. Saucy one right there. Mine actually had uh too much spin on it. Came back a little bit further. Also, this like most of the greens out here is pitched pretty heavily from back to front. But once again, same story. We’ve got another 10 12 foot makeable birdie putt. And actually, because this one pulled back a bit, it’s going to be more uphill. So, I think he’s got a good chance here. [Music] Curl in there. He thought you had that, too. I thought he had it. Ah, tough break at the end, but three under. Brandon, awesome job. Appreciate you, man. Thanks. Thanks. Good luck the rest of the way this year, man.