A Day in the Life with Auburn University Golf!

A Day in the Life with Auburn University Golf!

Today we’re here at one of the top college golf schools in the nation. There are programs in college golf that set the standard. Auburn University is one of them. The facilities here aren’t just good. They’re built to create champions. Every detail from the short game areas to the technology. It’s designed to push players beyond what they thought was possible. Today, I’m taking you inside. We’ll walk through the spaces the public rarely sees. Meet the players who call this place home and get a real look at what it takes to be a part of one of the best teams in the country. This is Auburn Golf and what makes them so good. David Johnson is the assistant coach, brand new to the team, replacing Buddy Alexander. He’s been showing me around, told me where the coffee is. You know, I had to take that offer up. The coffee is the most important part of every day for me. What’s kind of expectations for this year for the I think when you come to a program like this, the expectations are a national championship. If you’re not winning championships, it’s almost kind of like a disappointment in a way. I like I’m a recruit today. So, let’s interview the head coach of Auburn University. So, here is the head coach. Hey. Hey. What’s up, War Eagle? War Eagle. You have two mascots. That’s just true. Well, War Eagle is like saying aloha. Okay. That’s how you meet and greet and say hello, say goodbye. It brings that connection. You see someone with an AU logo anywhere in the world. Okay. You become connected with War Eagle. Now we know the difference. I mean, I never knew the difference cuz you know, people always make fun of they got two mascots. They’re confused. Yeah. They just they’re just jealous. You’ve been here for 17 years. This is your 17th year now. Long time. Yeah. Seems like yesterday I was given this opportunity to come to this great institution and always wanted to see if I could coach at this level and coach at the SEC and uh it’s just been a privilege. Been very blessed. So like the culture that you have built here, I mean, speaks for itself. 2024 national champions. How do you shape these young players into who they become? Listen, culture is huge. Yeah, I don’t care whether it’s a team of eight players or if it’s a locker room in football or if it’s, you know, Home Depot that has thousands and thousands of employees that don’t have the right culture. The the system doesn’t work right. And a lot of it’s care. You know, I say that and I think those are magical words. I think there are words in all capitals. And when guys know that you love and care about them as much as a person off the golf course as much as you do on the golf course and they’re going to play at a high level and they’re going to play at a high level for their teammates. Right now you have the best amateur in golf. He’s pretty good at golf. Yeah, he’s pretty good at Jackson. a great young man, too. And so, how is it coaching someone like him? Wonderful to watch his maturation process, you know, how he goes about his business, how he practices. I think he’s learned a lot, you know, in his two years here so far. You know, he’s learned how to practice. He’s learned how to manage his time. He he’s learned how to take care of his body more in the weight room and and then, you know, take days off. He’s very difficult to get that kid to take a day off. He just his his motor runs so high for the game of golf. But he’s just fun to coach. I mean, he’s so mature. He does everything right. He’s a great student. He’s always on time. He’s matured a lot with dealing with other people, dealing with the media, you know, all the stuff that you have to learn if you want to be a pro. And um he’s going to be a great pro, too, whenever that day comes. So, Jackson, I mean, he came back for his third year. Yeah. So, I mean that we’re lucky. Maybe he may come back for that fourth year. And so, we don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see. You know, he has not made that decision yet. I’m not going to speak for him. Um I get it if he doesn’t. I totally get it. I’ve already told him that. Um I got a great relationship with him, as does our whole staff, and you know, he just wants to be a 20-year-old kid. All right. Well, you want to take us around this facility? Let’s check it out. Before we get to the crazy facilities later in this video, I couldn’t help myself checking out the trophy room. Word is they had to start expanding this trophy room. That’s what I heard. Yeah, they’re pretty lucky. Pretty lucky when it comes to that. We we actually redid this whole area and tried to make it a little more modern and um we did have to expand a little bit. We’ve won a lot of championships and uh we’ve had a lot of great players. I think we’ve won 59 tournaments since 2010, something like that. Holy smokes. 47 individual champions as well. Holy smokes. That’s a lot. And you got the crown jewel over there. That’s the one that you practice for every day. That’s what you compete for every day. And you know, we’re very upfront. We coach for May. Yeah. You know, that’s what matters. You hopefully, you know, that we’ll be blessed enough to have another opportunity. I won two tournaments in my college career. Good for you, huh? Not too bad. That’s pretty good. Not too bad. Hey, you know what they say? Most players don’t win any when they’re all throughout college. It’s hard. Is there a better feeling though? No. When you win? I still chase it. That’s why I still play every day. You work so hard and you play so much. You play these tournaments and you know you hardly ever win. Which one’s your most? Well, obviously besides the national championship. That’s a cool troph this is a cool trophy. The SEC match play championship. Just the way it was carved out of wood. I think that’s a really really cool trophy. Then you got to love the Fred Haskins award here. Jackson Povin. That’s pretty cool. I’m a sucker for the water for crystal too. Oh yeah. At least my wife likes it. Then you got the old SEC championship trophy before my time. Was that 1981? Yeah. But let’s see where the the real hard work goes in. These are pretty cool though. You got British amateur trophy. So Yvon Rabula won this the British Ham at Royal Aberdine 2018. And then you got Megan Scoful over here with the US Amateur Trophy. That’s one of the coolest trophies you’ve ever seen. Just the US intricate details of it. Yeah. Holy smokes. You got our kitchen back here. Got a sweet coffee maker. Yeah, I already used it. Oh, you already used it? All right. Keep everything kind of stocked. A little water and Yeah. Maybe a few Coke Zeros, too, actually. Except for you. Uh for Junk. Okay. And back in here, we got a little lounge where the guys can hang out and Okay. watch TV and and you get a little heated matches in here. Got some ping pong. Who’s the best at ping pong player right now? God, last year I’d say it was probably um Evan Vo or Brennan Valdez. They played pretty good. I got to see I got to see what kind of game the freshman had. Yeah, I’m not sure yet on the freshman. Speaking of freshman, you got three. Got three incoming freshman. Two from Virginia and one from Georgia. I saw one of the top ones coming this year. Logan. Yeah, great kid. Very mature. Yeah, very athletic. What do you uh look for in a recruit? Oh gosh, a little bit of everything. I mean, we’re looking for really high character kids, high integrity. Obviously got to have a certain skill set. You know, we look for some skill and some talent and and just guys that that love golf. What do you see like the future of Auburn golf? Oh gosh. Hopefully just continuing to to do well in a classroom, develop young people, graduate, you know, these guys get degrees in whatever they want to study and hopefully continue to win championships. Trying to develop the whole person, right? Not just a player. Not just the golf. No, it’s Chris Williams. Huh. Okay. Some new swag. Right on camera, baby. Chris Williams was a fourtime all-American at the University of Washington, winning the Ben Hogan Award in 2013. That’s given to the top NCAA male golfer of the year. So to have a coach like that speaks for itself. Those are the dad shoes. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I didn’t wear those ones. Club repair. We can grind wedges. We can reshaft. We can do it all. That’s cool. Locker rooms. Billies will be probably And coach’s offices all under one roof, which is huge. Let’s go. Uh let’s go this way. Best one yet. So we got three hitting bays. Pretty much identical except for this one has a simulator. Trackman simulator. This one also has pressure mats. Bells and whistles. Yeah, they got it all. That’s for sure. The warm-up stuff. We got foam rollers, warm-up stations over here. Golf forever. They can do some of that. Okay. Kind of get the blood pumping. The guys are really into kind of making sure they take care of themselves and get warmed up properly and get stretched out. We kind of preach that a lot, too. We have a putting studio here. We got a overhead camera, down the line camera. We got Sam putting lab. You Some kids like to look at it and some kids don’t. Some of it might just be for our reference to know what’s going on. And then we have virtual green right here. We can move it anywhere from 0 to 4% and left to right, right to left. It’s really cool for guys that need help with their vision. Yeah. You know, because we can have brake lines. We can have different distances they hit it and just trains their eyes to see like a cone or or shapes or curves. Bottle water, Gatorade, stuff like that. But we’ll have the TVs going like on Saturday. Oh yeah. Tomorrow the games will be on and stuff like that. So guys are practicing and you know they’re watching the game at the same time. pretty laidback on that. How is your practice? Like do you We do a lot of competition based stuff. Okay. You know, guys like to compete, right? Two man teams, threeman teams. Maybe it’s individual that day. We mix it up so it doesn’t become too monotonous, whether it be distance wedging or up and down games or putting drills, things of that. They get points and then they can win stuff. Okay. So, they well they they win anything out of equipment room. Okay. That you just saw. And then the losing team has to fill divots. All right. So, we’re here at the Short Game Facility, and this is it’s a massive facility. This is something right here. Yeah, it’s pretty cool. This facility is over 10 million in the making. Having a 30 acre practice complex with a 400yd range, targets everywhere, five Bermuda greens, 19 wedge stations for short game precision, all conditions covered. All right, I want to hit I got to hit a few. Yeah, let’s see it. We’ll go with the gray. Oh, you want the easy one? Yeah. Huh? How’d you know? How’d you know? Two-time winner right here, folks. Yeah. Now we see why. Look at this. That’s long. Come back off the slope. Look at this. Come on. Uh-huh. You might be the best wedge player on the team after that shot. There’s not a shot you can’t hit here, right? You know, uphill, downhill, right to left, left to right. You know, you can switch gears and do whatever you want to. Yeah. That’s awesome. Pretty sweet. Yep. Wish I’d had it when I was in school. I have for real. All right. So, now we’re going to get into a little bit of their practice. And it’s uh it’s a lot different than when I was in college. We kind of just did our own thing. But this is really cool. Coach is setting up track, man. I wish I had one of those. That’s the next level right there. Little bit of a team practice. Missing one guy today. So, no coin, unfortunately. Short course. Hopefully, we’re not stuck on there for too long. Even par, otherwise you don’t move. And then, uh some wedge pods over there. We’ll do 36 wedges. All different numbers. See how many you can make sand pods out there. I think they’re You know what those are, Tyler? Like 8 ft by 8 ft or something. It’s like a 4T or 3ft radius. Yeah. So 8 by8 diameter. I don’t know. That’s school, man. We do school. Starting my third. Yeah. So two and a little bit. Okay. Yeah. Best place on earth. Got just about everything you need to get better. So you can’t complain. That means you were on the national champ. I was. I was lucky enough to be a part of that. It was pretty cool. Really good experience, especially I mean freshman year. Kind of just getting thrown into it. Pretty fun. Ready for the first turning? Yeah. Yeah. We leave on Saturday, so hopefully catch a little bit of the game and then head out there. So, it’s fun though. I haven’t been out to on this course before going first. Where’s that at? Chattanooga, Tennessee. Okay. Do you know uh Jordan Dole? I do. Dude, how do you know D? Well, he went to Columbus State and Okay. Yeah. One of my friends went there and he was his roommate. That’s how easy. And so, yeah. So, D is like he’s obviously a bit older than me. Yeah. But yeah, I grew up playing with a bunch of the guys who know him pretty well, obviously. Shout out Christian Nicholls. He’ll know what I mean. So, when I came to school, I did not have a Wagger ranking. Oh, really? Nope. All of my freshman year I was 3,000 and um now I’m 12. When everyone asks it’s like place is pretty pretty sick. Pretty easy to get better. I mean you do the right things. You just got a lot of people who believe in you here. So it’s worth worth every minute of it. Logan. Yes, sir. You ready? I’m ready. Hey, you’re the freshman, man. Y coming class. Yeah. How you feeling coming in? I’m excited. It’s it’s a great spot to be freshman year for sure. Just getting used to everything so far, but it’s been great. Yeah, I’m excited for everything. This guy must be good because he already finished his his part. What’s your name again? Jack. What year are you? Freshman. Freshman. Uhoh. Got that young blood in here. You enjoying Auburn already? Yeah. I love it. Everything about it. Yeah. All right. So, this is their short game practice. Today specifically, it is got to get up and down four times in a row. Two of them are really hard. The other two are more simple. They’re really not that simple. These greens are so fast. Cadence’s got to make this to move on. [Music] So, he’s got to start over. That’s brutal. That’s brutal. How long do you think it would take me to do it on the on the easiest one, too? Oh my gosh. This is what I crave to do every day, day in, day out, and make content. Hey, you’re a Walker Cup, aren’t you? I was. Yeah. Long time ago. Who was on the team? Um, we had a good team. Kentley was on that team. Spe was on that team. Russell Henley was on that team. Dang, dude. Harris English was on that team. Uh, Patrick Rogers. Yeah. Um, Kelly Craft and Peter Uline. Did you guys win? No, we lost. What? Yeah, we lost. Well, the weather was terrible. It was blowing 25 both days. I don’t know what the final score was, but yeah, we lost. I think they’re now like 40 and nine overall. So, I was part of the nine. Go talk to all those guys. And then Blaine Barber. Blaine Barber. Yeah. Our most famous alum, Blaine Barber, was on that team. I said, Blaine, you know what’s sad is that you and I are the only two not on the PJ tour in that group, and we’re both here in Auburn. So, Oh my gosh. But what about coaching like so you got into it? So this is this is year seven now. Okay. Um started in 2019 was at Marquette for two years up in Milwaukee with Steve Bailey. Still talk to him all the time. We’re actually going to see him next week in Chattanooga the honors course. They’ll be there. I think we’re actually paired with them too and then started here in 21 and have loved every minute of it. So yeah, what’s not to love? I know. It doesn’t really feel like work to be honest. All right. Going back to my old glory days back in college. Two-time winner. We’ll see if I can do this in my first time. That was pretty easy. [Music] Oh, I got it. I’m going to start off with the easiest ones and then go to the hardest. These honestly aren’t even that hard. Oh, I didn’t see that one. Dang. Oh Now I like this. This might be the best play out of all here. Look at this. Oh my. Uhhuh. That is the only ball there. Just try out today. Try out. Well, we’re doing a little part three competition here. Feel like I’m one of the Auburn boys today as much as I am a Georgia fan. But stay tuned because I’m going to go to other universities during the series. Yeah. Best two combined scores. Very nice. Thank you. Very nice. Oh my. All right, boys. What a waggle. Oh, nice. Nice. Right in the horn. Great pot. Come on. Go hit the white tents for a couple hours. Do it. He wasn’t going to hit you. Four. Oh, that’s good. That’s really good. Get it. Whoa. Oh. Oh, wow. Oh, the slope. [Music] Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. Oh. Oh, yeah. That’s not good. chance. Wow. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes, sir. Why did you say something? Oh yeah. Wow. I always dreamed of playing at a place like this. However, I just wasn’t that good that early. Auburn University’s facility isn’t just a place to practice. It’s a system built to create champions. From worldclass technology to a championship course right outside the door, you see why this program stays at the top. This is where great players become elite. So, I’ll see you in the next video. And where do you think I should go next? Let’s go. [Music] Till I hiccup. I hit the stage and leave with money. That’s a sticker.

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Today I am getting an inside look at a top college golf program. I got to see their golf practice facilities and learn about the drills they use to train. This d1 sports college offers a golf scholarship to some of the best young golfers, and it’s easy to see why after seeing their golf instruction and facilities.

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0:00 Auburn Golf
0:59 Coach Clinard
6:55 Facilities
9:20 Meet Players
14:40 Par 3 Match