Jason Dufner joins Garrett to discuss Scottie Scheffler, the Ryder Cup, Politics and Pros & more.
All right, Garrett Johnson here with Jason Duffner and we’re at Politics and Pro event out here in DC. What What is it like being out here? The vibe, but what do you make of this event? Yeah, it’s a nice event. Um, obviously everything we’re raising today goes to the first TE program um here in this uh greater Washington DC area. I’m sure they have some programs in Virginia and DC and and Maryland. Um so it’s always nice to see um communities support you know local golf at the junior level. So, um, you know, PJ Tour has done a good job with with partnering with the first TE program and there’s tons of junior programs all over. Um, so it’s nice to get out here and support the next generation and getting people interested and involved in the game. Absolutely. Well, curious, a lot of golf fans would would wonder like what is overall your schedule these days? Like how often should we expect to see you playing competing? Yeah, I’m not a competitive golfer anymore really. Um, I’ll turn 50 in a couple years, so I’ll get back into it. So, I’ve been pretty detached from the golf space and playing competitively. Um, people don’t realize I’m almost 50. Um, I had some success later in my career. Um, I had a nice 10 years, but the last couple years and next couple years I’m not doing much of competitive golf. Do you do you like that people don’t think that you’re almost 50 yet? I mean, it’s got to be I got a baby face. It works for me. I guess it’s nice on that type of level. Um, but you know, I’m just kind of waiting till I turn 50. And um, I think I’ll have some interest to get back and be competitive and and do some of that later. Speaking of getting competitive at that age, have you talked to many guys? Are there a few guys are texting going, “Man, I can’t wait to get out there on that Champions Tour.” I know Tiger’s been talking about with other guys. If Tiger plays, um, that would be nice. Um, be fun to have him in involved in it. We’ll see how his health goes and what his plans are for that. But no, I haven’t really talked to many people in the golf space the last couple years. I’ve kind of been involved with it for, you know, 20 plus years and just been doing some other things with my life. I play here and there um when I get in, but it’s not not near enough to put a schedule together. Sure. Well, I’m just curious like when you watch the Open Championship, I’m not expecting that you were watching seven or eight hours of it, but when when you do see that Scotty runs away with that or you hear that Scotty runs away with it, like what makes you think, you know, at that level, you played in a bunch of these open championships, like how hard is it to play that well? Yeah, he’s obviously had a really nice run. Um, you know, he’s one of the guys, uh, I think there’s a couple other guys that are really good players, but he’s kind of figured out that special secret here for the last couple years that gives him a little bit of an edge and, uh, he seems to be the guy at the top right now. Well, as we close here, speaking of special secrets, like you were just mentioning that, uh, pros dealing with adversity so important as you were over a bunker shot, right? What would be your advice to to golfers at home when we face adversity on the golf course? A lot of times we get shooken up right away and we just don’t deal with it. So what’s the best way to deal with it? I think embracing the challenge. Um embracing the uncomfortableness. I think um a lot of the guys on the tour that seem to have a lot of success are really comfortable being uncomfortable. It seems like um a lot of what we do is uncomfortable. It’s in front of people. There’s a lot of pressure. It’s challenging. The elements are always changing. Um all those things make us uncomfortable at times. And I think embracing that and trying to figure out how to be comfortable when you’re uncomfortable is a real art to the game. 100% 100%. That’s a great sign about life as well. The very last question I had, inner dialogue. You know, it’s a lot of things in our life is what we tell ourselves, right? What’s a good way to improve for us at home with our inner dialogue? Yeah, selft talk is a real big thing. Um I’ve never been great at that. Um I think um growing up as a child, you’re either optimistic or you’re pessimistic. And unfortunately, I fell into the pessimistic side of things. So, I was always beating myself up. I was real good at that. Even when I was playing good or bad, um, you know, that kind of motivated me, but, um, I think positive selft talk can help some of those people if you’re on the optimistic side of things. Um, but yeah, the selft talk can go either way. Sometimes I’d talk bad to myself and it would fire me up and motivate me. So, whatever works for you, right? Yeah, we’re all wired a little different. Ryder Cup is coming up. I know that you’re not going to be a part of it, but from afar, it’s it’s got to be cool to see this challenge. You’ve played Beth Paige in the past. like it’s got to be pretty amazing what they’re up against, huh? Yeah, I think Beth Paige will be a great venue. Obviously, New York sports fans are serious about their sports. Um I don’t know, you know, that event seems to be very corporate to me, so I’m not sure how many locals will really be involved. I don’t know the breakdown of that. Um obviously that event’s become huge, huge golf event. Um the corporate side of thing has taken off with that, but um I’m sure there’ll be a lot of local New York fans supporting the United States. Um we’ll see how it goes. cuz I think the matches, you know, they’re generally pretty even. I know the the scores indicate otherwise, but it, you know, two matches swing one way or another. That’s a total of four points. So, these matches are really important um all of them. So, we’ll see how it goes. Um that’s one of the few golf events that I’ll probably tune in and casually watch um here in the future. I guess that’s what in about six weeks or so. Yeah, six weeks, seven weeks. Yep. So, I’ll be tuning in maybe. We’ll see. We’ll see how it turns out after the first couple days. Well, Jason, appreciate the time and great to see you out here this week. All right. Thank you.
