A big week in golf with Kurt Kitayama winning a shootout at 3M, Joaquin Niemann winning again on LIV, Padraig Harrington winning the Senior Open and Lottie Woad winning her first professional start. We also dive deep into neuroscience with Dr. Izzy Justice to help you all play better golf.
Presented by @Knockaround.
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SEGMENTS:
Intro – 00:00 – 3:44
Kurt Kitayama Interview – 3:45 – 7:28
The Knockaround – 7:29 – 17:20
Happy Gilmore 2 – 17:21 – 22:10
State of the LPGA, Feat. Beth Ann Nichols – 22:11 – 39:00
State of LIV Golf – 39:01 – 50:05
DOG of the Week – 50:06 – 52:22
Rank ‘Em Blind: 3-Hole Stretches – 52:23 – 1:00:55
The State of Dan’s Game, Feat. Dr. Izzy Justice – 1:00:56 – 1:34:45
Chirps from the Gallery – 1:34:46 – 1:38:00
Clip of the Week – 1:38:01 – 1:39:08
[Music] What’s up, golf sickos? Welcome to another edition of Dan on Golf presented by Knockaround. I am joined as always by my trusty right-hand man, Ben Buskovich. I realized like one or two minutes before we came on that I didn’t have a fun term for you this week. The default. Take that all day. You like that one? Yeah. Yeah. We got a an unexpectedly big show. You know, sometimes you’re a little bit nervous about these shows the week after a major, but a lot happened in golf this week. We had Kurt Kyama won the 3M open. We’ve got him on the show. We had Walking Neman won. He’s won five out of 11 live events this year, which is crazy. We had Patrick Harrington, Lahi Wde making a lot of uh noise on the LPGA. There’s a lot a lot that went down this week. You know, sometimes you’re you’re a little concerned that it might be a little bit quiet after a major, but absolutely not. This week, we’re going to get into all of that. We’re going to talk about the state of Live Golf. We’re going to talk about the state of the LPGA tour. We also have uh probably one of my favorite interviews that we’ve done so far with uh a neuroscientist who I think is people are going to are really dig and and kind of um find his work very interesting. Um before we start uh it was a little bit of a heavy week on a on a personal note uh on Wednesday. Uh I I hosted along with some other uh members at Brown Country Club, the Tyler Zaynes Invitational ProAm, which was uh really a beautiful afternoon honoring uh my friend who passed away suddenly at the age of 26 in 2020 who I grew up playing golf with. Uh one of my best closest pals, one of my first trip overseas playing golf with him. Ben was there. It was a really really special day. Um we were we were playing and honoring my friend and and I want to give a quick shout out to Yeah, there I was. Jake Knap uh called in which was so nice. Uh right right before the tournament, this was on Wednesday before he played in the 3M, almost won the tournament. Uh we just had a gorgeous day and and it was really special to feel all the love in that room. We had a a silent auction and I want to give a a quick thank you to all the people who donated in the golf world. Shane Lowry, Colin Morawa, Billy Horchel, Matt Fitzpatrick, Bri Bryson Dashambo, Maverick McNeely, Matthew Pavone, Max Graaserman, Nick Taylor, Parker Mclacklin, Mark Blackburn, George Genis, Sean Foley, Steven Sweeney, Will Wilcox, and Jake Knap. Uh, you guys helped make this a really, really special day. Uh, it’s hard, it’s always hard in year one with one of these events. There I am on the 17th hole with Big Lo in the background. Lo, Lo the the goat. um you you never know how these things are going to go and I I just felt an outpouring of love from everybody. And so I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who played or supported and you know hopefully next year we might we might open the the donations to to some of our community members who who might be able to help us um for a really really good cause. So just wanted to say thank you to everybody and thank you to you for coming. Thank you. A great event. The energy was palpable. The energy was really special. Tyler was a really special kid. Um, and we lost him way too soon. And nothing uh my heart is still still broken that he’s gone, but it’s also full um with all the love that was in that room. And and and Jake Knap, uh, you know, I’m just I I was overwhelmed that he did that and and he was in the mix this week. I thought he was going to win the tournament at Hard not to root for him after that. It was really hard not to root for him after that. I was wearing the the nap uh the the caddy biz that I had from when we did the on the bag shoot. Um, and he was right there. It was it was sort of him and Sam Stevens and and Kurt Kittyama, but but Kittyama just kept making birdies. He just made he just made so many birdies over the weekend. Uh he entered the week 110th in the points. He’s now up to 53rd, so he’s in the playoffs with which is huge. Absolutely massive for his career. It was another Looper Island uh week. We’re going to talk a little bit about that. Kurt, uh I guess Tim Tucker, who was Kurt Kyama’s caddy. Sounds like Tim dumped Kurt. That’s what he told me in this clip that you’re about to watch. but he wins with his brother on the bag. Walking Neiman also split with his caddy. We’re going to talk about that. But but first, let’s uh let’s watch me talking with the newest champ on the PGA tour, Kurt Kittyama. All right, we are joined by the newest winner on the PGA Tour, Kurt Kittyama. What a weekend you just played. Can you I was looking at your results. It was a real struggle in the first half of the year. Uh how were you able to stay patient and believe that something like this was around the corner? I mean, this is a long season. kind of just have to keep trucking along. I’ve been starting to see some good form as of recent and uh just got to trust that what I’m working on is is the right thing. And um you know with John Deere finish final round in Barracuda just kind of building off that to you know to this. So you had a you had a different different caddy on the bag. Your your your guy you were working with a while Tim Tucker he worked for Bryson this week. How did that go down and how did your guy do this week? Obviously, you did pretty well. You’re you’re leaving with the trophy. Yeah. Um he decided to make a change and left me um to do so he left you. Yeah, he did. He gave me a call after John Deere um to take that opportunity. And so, you know, with short ties figured my brother was going to be the best fit. He’s got it for me before and just kind of trust him for that. So is it like is he going to text you now be like maybe that was all the difference man I you know I we should have done this we should have done this months ago. No Tim we’re still good friends like no hard feelings at all. Um yeah he’s been very he’s helped my brother out. They’re good friends and so very thankful that he’s he’s helping him out to help me. So coming down 18. So you hit it in the middle of the fairway and then I I I assume you were trying to hit that five iron just kind of long of the green there but it ended up in kind of a dicey spot. Can you walk me through your experience there on 18? Yeah, I mean I was more on sixiron with how downwind it was. Um he he didn’t want to take foot put water in play at all. So decided on the five iron and I just fanned it. I you know I was trying to be Did you think did you think it would were you were you sure it was going to cover or were you like a little bit like oh my goodness? I mean I was pretty sure but you know in the air you just got you’re looking at it. You’re waiting for it to come down. How how how freeing is that? I mean, you know, winning on the PGA Tour, you know, is is massive. You’re good for two years now. Like, I’m sure it changes basically everything about the rest of the year of your year. Yeah. I mean, I think luckily with Bee win, I was exempt through next year, right? Which, you know, what helped me not kind of be so stressed out this year, I could kind of trust what I was working on. Um, but yeah, this gave me another year, which is which is awesome. Um, so and and to get into the playoffs, that’s that’s big, you know, that’s what I’ve been missed out last year. Um, was trying to get get back there and this this helped it. Well, awesome, man. It was it was really fun watching it. And, uh, you know, your brother hopefully he gets he gets the normal caddy rate. Are we are we committing to that? You know, it was a big check. Yeah, I take care of him. He’s family. He’s family. Amazing. Good stuff, man. Good good stuff. Really congratulations. Appreciate it. So yeah, only one event left in the regular season. We got the Windham Championship coming up this week and then and then it’s playoff time and it’s uh season’s ending soon. The Looper Island stuff with Kurt is a new twist on Looper Island because they’re helping each other. He’s like, “Tim, help my brother.” They you know, it’s there’s like a there’s no drama. It’s all love. Yeah. It’s it’s a it’s an amicable, you know, they it just didn’t work. Sometimes in Looper Island, it just doesn’t work out. You know, you owe it to yourself to test connections and sometimes the connections aren’t right. And then and then you have to you have to split off. We’re going to hop into now a little segment. It’s actually not so little today. It’s qu beefy today. The Knockaround presented by Knockaround. These are the panoramas, guys. I’ve been talking about Knockaround all year. It’s because I mean it. These sunglasses for for the price, even not for the price, but for the price especially, are as good as you can get. Stop spending ridiculous money on sunglasses. You’re just going to lose them and you’re going to be nervous about losing them the whole time. These have been with me the whole year. They’ve they’ve they’re terrific quality. We have a promo code. So, if you go to dan ongolf or if you go to knockaround.com and use the promo code danongolf 20, you get 20% off your first order, which brings these sunglasses into like the $20 $28 range, which is just a joke for how good they are. They’re they’re as good as it gets. We’ve had some comments recently being like, I’ve got knockarounds. They’re they’re fantastic. Bang for your buck. It is hard to beat these. Lahi W. So, if you don’t know this name, you better get used to hearing it. She’s 21 years old uh from England. And in her last three starts, all in professional events, she won the Irish Open. She finished tied for third uh in the Evian, which is a major championship. She was one shot out of that playoff which Grace Kim won in in fantastic fashion. And then she won this week at the Scottish Open in her pro debut. This was her first start as a professional. So she she was at Florida State uh and she decided to turn professional after her junior year. So she would have been a rising senior going to this year at Florida State. Interestingly, she wasn’t even the best player in Florida State this year. They had the number one player, Mirabel Ting. Oh yeah. Uh but but Lahi was super consistent. Won the 2024 Augusta National Women’s Amateur. people probably know her from that. Um, taking the women’s game by storm and we’re going to talk about her in detail in just a second here. Walken Neman won live golf UK. I made the mistake of calling this live London. It is not London. It is north of the Midlands which is very far from London and I actually pride myself on my knowledge of the UK. So, that was a big mistake on my end. In my defense, it wasn’t London initially and then they moved it. But that’s also not, you know, that’s not in my defense. That’s I should I should be better. But walking Neiman won, it’s his fifth win in there’s only been 11 live tournaments this year and he’s won five of them. So that’s $20 million alone just there from winning those five tournaments. He’s very wealthy and he’s very good at golf. I don’t think anyone is denying that he’s very good at golf. But anytime this guy wins now because of how his major year has gone or his major career has gone, that’s all anyone talks about. So this year he went tied for 29th in the Masters, tied for eighth in the PGA, which was his first top 15 finish in a major. and he missed the cut in the US Open and missed the cut in the Open Championship. It’s an interesting week because he’s no longer with his swing coach. Um, from what I gather, his swing coach actually parted with him. So, sort of a similar situation to the Tim Tucker Kurt Kyama thing. Um, but also is no longer with his caddy who he was with for a long time who he almost broke his hand. We were talking about that in that Yeah. when he stomped on his clubs at the Open Championship. But look, I I you know, we’re going to talk about Liv a lot, but I want to talk specifically about Walking Nean. You know, two things can sort of be true at once. I don’t think that live golf is like the most amazing. The the fields aren’t that deep. I agree with a lot of the things people are saying online. I also don’t think that the that like walking Neman winning all these live events and not winning major championships is like a live problem. Bryson Dashambo won a major playing on live. Tier Hatton’s been in the mix all the time. Brooks won. It’s a it’s a Neman problem. It’s not necessarily a live problem. Is it also not even that unique to live in that like throughout the years of the PJ tour existing, there’ve probably guys that have won like two events or three events? Yeah. I mean this is this is definitely like a extreme example because he’s won half of the tournaments but there only 11 but there’s only 11 but yeah I mean look we talked a lot about Patrick Kentlay and Septrock I mean separ twice in the PJ tour this year didn’t do anything in the majors Justin Thomas won on the PJ tour this year didn’t do anything I mean there’s only four of them a year and they’re very very hard to win there’s clearly like a mental block with Nean I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that he makes all of these changes after major season you know he he’s not making the changes because of the way he’s playing in live golf he’s making the changes because the He’s playing in the major. So obviously the majors like matter a great deal to him and which is good. There’s clearly like a mental block here. But I don’t think that’s just like oh this is evidence that Liv is like unserious competition or anything like that. It’s just Neman clearly has a very different energy when he’s playing in live golf events than when he’s playing in majors. We can’t even entertain that argument on the other side of Bryson having won the US Open. It’s it killed it. How about Brooks? Brooks the year before at Oill. I mean 2023 was like that. Well, that went up. I mean, I remember the first major after Liv existed was the 2020 some Masters or I don’t remember, but like I remember Patrick Gre was in the top five and Brooks was in the top five and it was like, okay, so these guys can still play. It’s just it’s not they they don’t just lose all their powers. It’s a it’s a Neman problem. It’s not necessarily a live problem. But, you know, again, there’s not a lot of room for nuance on the internet. But, I think what Rom said, I asked him at maybe it was the US Open when he came in on all those top 10 streaks and I was like, “What do you make of this?” and he said, “Look, not all of them would be top 10 if I was playing on the PGA Tour, but also a lot of them would be, right? There’s there’s there’s room. There’s gray area here.” Um, moving over across the pond, the ISPS hand Honda. It’s Honda. Honda Honda ISPS Honda Senior Open at Sunningale, which looked sweet. That’s a Heathland Golf Course. There’s a lot of Pine Valley comparisons high up for for for me in the list of courses that I want to play. Uh, it was won by Paric Harrington. Uh he became just the fifth player ever to do the double to win. That’s is that a mini clar jug. That’s cute. It’s like the clar juget. I didn’t realize that that was the trophy for uh the senior open champion. The dazzle, but maybe that’s just the names. They can only fit any more name. Yeah, it’s just it’s clearly a mini clar jug. It’s got the same, you know, the same mouth, sameout same sort of spout. Yeah, good answer there. Say you you’ve been really good today with the words. The words have been flowing up sometimes. You know, blind. I don’t know if you slept well last night or something. I did sleep well. Yeah, maybe that’s what it was. But uh Shane Lowry was loving it. He he uh on social media posted some man uh some man which is just a I can you can so hear him saying that. Yeah. Some man Patrick Harrington is his third uh senior major that he has won and uh stay tuned. I think we have some we’ve got some Py Harrington stuff coming later this year. Yeah, which is exciting. Uh the NV5 Invitational on the Cord and Fairy Tour was won by Johnny Kefir. And I’m going to hit the honesty button here, Andy. So I just want you to be ready for it. Here it is. I made a mistake earlier today. Uh I I made a mistake that I won’t make again. I trusted the chat in the during the stream. The stream said that Johnny Kefir and Austin Smotherman and Neil Shipley all had two wins on the Cornferry tour. So then I thought, okay, well, if Johnny Kefir wins today, two plus one carry the one, three wins, and that would be a battlefield promotion straight to the PJ tour. It was his second win. He he had one win coming in today, not two wins. I put out a Instagram post saying that he had a Battlefield promotion. That is incorrect. We were just excited about the return of the Battlefield promotion. We’re bringing it back. So that word Yeah. So Battlefield promote, it’s no longer called the Battlefield promotion. It used to be called the Battlefield Promotion. We’re talking about when you win three times on the Cornfury Tour, you immediately go to the PGA Tour. And they started calling it the three- win promotion. And I’m going to hit the other button that I have here because you want to know what I think about the term free promotion, Andy? Smash that [ __ ] Utter woke nonsense. That’s woke nonsense. It’s the Battlefield promotion. I don’t get I don’t get the issue. It’s a PC principal thing. We’re bringing it back. The Battlefield promotion. Johnny Kefir didn’t get it, but if he wins another tournament, then he does get it. But Johnny Kefir is locked up. Uh he won the NV5 Invitational at the Glen Club, which is the uh all that event will always have a soft spot in my heart because that’s the one we broadcasted when I was at Barcel. We did the NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank. I don’t know if it’s still presented by Old N. Is it still presented by Old National Bank? We got Bush in the building. Well, yeah. Alex Bush is here by the way. Our producer is here for the first time. He might make an appearance on the show. Stay tuned. Hamilton Coleman uh won the US Jr. US Junior was this week. Huge tournament. Uh this guy is from Augusta, Georgia, which is a pretty significant place in our sport. That’s uh Patrick Reed’s hometown. That’s Patrick Reed’s hometown. Yep. It’s uh right next to the South Carolina border. Augusta Country Club is located there. Yeah. Um so yeah, that’s probably why you know that place. Um this was kind of random, but I wanted to bring it into the show. We did a video before we had the show and it would have been a you would have been a great blind ranking. Tigerisms, like all the things that he says. Can still do it. But we made a little social video talking about like Tiger just has his own language. He’s got his own language for golf. You know, he created trash. Tra, but like that’s But he also has one about like hot ones and tomahawk and and spinning and kiss your cuts. There was a great one this week from a tailor made video. Can we play this clip? This lie. I’m looking off the lip of that bunker to the fringe and I’m hitting a little hold handle and sticking it in the ground and just holding it off that bunker and just letting the hill and the winds be my friend and have a as a backboard. Okay. Hold handle. A little hold handle. A little hold handle sticking in the ground. Yeah. A little hold handle sticking in the ground. She was like, “What?” Okay. Yeah. He just I I don’t know if he makes these things up in the moment or if he just has their in his bra. I mean, I understand what he’s saying. Showed us. We’d be like, “Okay, I get it.” I understand what he’s saying. He’s thinking about like, you know, kind of a backfooter. Kind of like gets steep on it. But hold handle. I’m going to hit a hold handle. I’m going to say that to Alex Bush tomorrow. Look how quickly you understood that, though. He’s got it. He speaks his own language. I thought that was fantastic. Victor Havlin was doing Victor Havlin stuff this week. Uh, open ch. He was working on that golfer tan over there in the in the Norwegian mountains. First of all, I got to get my ass to Norway because that looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Um, and he’s working on the golfer tan. And you know, Victor likes to go see things, which I appreciate. You know, I I he went to the I don’t remember what turn it was, but he would always go to the set of like Shashank Redemption or something like that. He’s like his favorite movie. And I during the during the open at Royal Port Rush, he was going to Giants Causeway and posting photos. You know, a lot of these guys Scotty Sheffller said he was, you know, it was a business week. He was in the in the hotel and then he was at the golf course. Victor Victor likes to see the world. Is Victor Havlin golf’s most curious man? I think he is. I think I think he is. you know, he’s he’s definitely doing his own research out there. You know, he wants to know everything that’s going on. Um, and I want to bring on Alex Bush right now. Alex, you got to come come on to the show because so it’s a big week for golf content. So, it’s actually a hot period for golf content. You can go sit down right there. Uh, so Stick, the Apple TV show, was renewed for a second season, which is great. And Happy Gilmore. I don’t have uh strong feelings on Happy Gilmore because I haven’t seen the end of it, but you do have strong feelings. Yeah. a lot of chatter about people not liking it. I loved it. You loved it. I loved it. And I think one of the reasons that you loved it was because of all the cameos and I wanted you to run me through your top five cameos because if you weren’t in if you’re a professional golfer and you weren’t asked to be in Happy, you might be a loser saying something. It’s Charles How the third was in that movie. Like there were like 74 I think 74. I saw 74 total. Yeah. Saw some TikTok where they ran down every single It’s it’s I mean I guess Chad was like a big part of that. The amount of cameos in that movie. So, Alex, and Taylor Swift posted about it, so I’m sure that didn’t hurt ratings at all, but Alex, run me through your top five. All right, so let’s go number five. This guy’s been cameo in John Wick before. It’s Boon. Boon Boon. I saw Bob at a bar. What’s the bar in West Hollywood? I don’t know. I saw Bob. You can’t miss him. Yeah. Well, he walks in 75. So, he Oh, he plays the guy. So, I haven’t seen the second of the movie. He plays his on his on his show on his sho. Yeah. His son. What do you mean his? Oh, he plays happy son. Oh, no. Mr. Larson’s son. Oh, okay. Oh, the guy lost with the nail. Oh, that’s And he was good. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, that’s number five. So, number five was Bob. Number four, Eminem. What was Eminem’s role? Eminem was the heckler’s son. So, they just went with the son, I guess. So, I guess it’s a theme. Yeah. Okay. But Eminem was was funny. He got in a little tussle and he was fighting alligators in the lake and yelling Detroit while he’s doing it. Pretty funny. Okay, that’s good. That is good. Okay, so we got we got Bon and then I thought we were going to be like Will Torres. I like it. We’re we’re all over the place. Uh number three going to the golfers. Will El Torres. Okay, there he was. As everyone knew, he’d be Happy’s Caddy. So he’s grown up. So he’s grown. So Happyy’s Caddyy is Will’s El Torus. Yeah. One of one of the best parts is the beginning when he pretty much says like, “Oh, I need a caddy.” He’s like, “I’m play. I’m playing this week.” He’s like, “I’ll make you.” And the whole time he’s like, “Wow, you can hit the ball.” It’s pretty funny. That is good. Will’s like Will’s like, “That’s I thought they were going to just make him the Caddyy, but I like it better now that the Caddyy Caddyy made good.” You know, Catty’s Caddy. He’s got a grudge with uh with Sandler. He’s like Yeah. Yeah. He’sing me out. He’s like he’s like still he’s like, “Oh, yeah. No, it’s fine.” And he’s like still pissed about it. Okay, there’s three. I like it. Uh, two is Travis Kelce. Okay. Great. How do you feel about because you’re you’re a massive Taylor Swift fan, but you’re also a massive uh Buffalo Bills fan. So, when you see that guy’s face, like what what you have he just he was great. He can just do that. He doesn’t have to play football, you know. Okay. So, that’s the angle here. He was so good. He was so good that he can retire early. What was his role? He looks like serving drinks. Yeah, he was at the the champions dinner. He made a good joke with Jack or not really joke. Jack Jack Nicholas didn’t understand that he was asking if he wants an Arnold Palmer and he’s like he’s like oh I get that all the time Jack Nicholas and he’s like it was pretty good. I missed all I guess I always saw the first he gets in a little fight with the bus boy who’s Bad Bunny who becomes Happy as Cat. So they just like basically they had a movie where like in any movie you need a bunch of extras but I guess they just had so much like cultural cache that they could just be like hey instead of this being some random actor like let’s you want to just like some were themselves and some like this were just an actual character. Okay. And and the last one, number one, the last one is honestly it’s from one part of the movie that like I was crying laughing was Scotty Sheffler. It’s all Scotty these days. Well, he gets arrested and he goes, “Oh, not again.” It’s just I don’t know why it’s the dumbest littlest thing, but it was funny. Um they show him like in the in the cell watching golf, which is going on kind of similar. So interesting. So they they they did a lot. They really broke the fourth wall here with the with the Zurus stuff with the It was a very self-aware kind of film. The golfers were very personable. Xander Xander had a few lines at the Champions Dinner that were he was he was weren’t really hitting. Rory was in it. Bryson. So they they really emptied the clip. Yeah. JT JT was like a big fanboy. No Tub though. No Tiger. No. No. No Tub. But he’s referenced a bunch of course as like cuz Happy is like in the same time as like Tiger’s early M like 9798. Okay. Yeah. Cuz Happy Gamer I think came out right before Tiger like start when the first song like ’95 or something like that 964. Yeah. So it was right right before Tiger cuz the tour does look a little different. You could tell it’s like a pre in the first movie. It’s like a pre-Tiger tour. It you know what I mean? Doesn’t have that same energy. What a debut. What a debut on the show. Uh we’re going to keep you right here cuz when we’re going to run an interview and then when we do the interview then you can works out perfectly. So uh yeah, I just felt like a good time to check in on the LPGA tour. I I you know I’m I’m up to my eyeballs in PGA Tour uh and and all men’s golf and it’s difficult to to be completely locked in. Um but I felt like a good chance especially with Lotty W and especially with a new a new commissioner coming on with Craig Kesler uh to kind of just do a 30,000 foot uh view of the LPGA tour. And uh when I want to do that I I uh I call in my friend Bethanne Nichols from Golf Week. She’s she’s the go-to for LPGA uh coverage. And here I am catching up with Bethanne. All right. And I’m joined by Bethanne Nichols. I wanted to bring Beth Anne on uh to talk about I actually reached out earlier this week to talk about all things LPGA and then you know sometimes these things work perfectly and and and Lahi Wins her first start. So yeah, I guess let’s let’s start with Lahi. So 21 years old uh English by way of Florida State. Um can you just explain how how much of a of a meteoric rise this has been? I mean, obviously people will know this name from when she won the the Anwa last year, but uh you know, and I think there were high hopes for her going into her professional career, but probably not this fast. Yeah, I don’t I don’t know that anyone expects this for anyone, not even Rose Zang. You know, two years ago, no one expected her to win in her her pro debut. But as far as Lahi goes, I think for most people, the Augusta National Women’s Amitter, last year was the first time that they got to know her. And she has an extremely complete game. Uh, and and she’s she just has this level head about her, an old head on a young body. So, I think when you put her in these these pressure situations, she tends to rise to the occasion. And the nice thing about winning the Augusta National Women’s Amter is all the major championship uh starts that you get. And so Lahia has actually played in seven majors coming into uh her pro debut. Next week will be her eighth major, which is just incredible. She’s played in more majors than than regular professional events. So, um, you know, but what she’s done just recently in the last few weeks, winning on the le in Ireland and then of course finishing one stroke shy of a of a playoff at the Evian to finish in a share of third and then winning her pro debut at the Scottish. It’s remarkable given the fact that she quite frankly wasn’t the best player on her team this year at Florida. Right. Mirabel Mirabel was better than her. Right. Right. She was the college player of the year and it had the low scoring average. But but the thing about Lahi is, you know, she has the most top 10s in Florida State program history. She’s just incredibly consistent and she’s right there. She’s not finishing outside of the top three. Uh and so I think when you look at the fact that she only had three bogeies, uh for her entire, you know, week in Scotland, uh you know, that as she said, that was that was key, especially around around Lynx golf. You know, she just had such a a great a levelness about her. So, I feel like in the men’s game, which I obviously focus way more on, um, we’ve seen a a a sort of lessening of the gap between the top college players or the top amateurs and the top pros, right? You see guys like Luke Clinton who come in and have instant success, you know, guys like Jackson Kovven, I, you know, Michael Assasso is having a great week this week. Is the same thing happening in the women’s game? Actually, it’s it’s weird what’s happening in the women’s game. When I first started covering the LPGA, you’d see a lot of teenagers winning, right? I remember that. like when when they were like 18 or 19. Yeah. Yeah. Or or 15 in the case of Lydia Co 16, Lexi Thompson, Brooke Henderson, area. The list of teen winners is long, but we haven’t seen that in recent years. Instead, what we’ve seen is the really good players go to college and stay for a while, such as Rose Zang, such as Rachel Hec, of course, who’s not going to turn professional. Uh, but you know, you you look at Lahi, a player coming from England, obviously a strong player, but she was ranked outside the top 1000 in Wagger when she was recruited. And so for her to rise to number one in the world, she’s been number one for over a year now. I I really think a lot of that for her has to come down to to year round practice, the amazing facilities at Florida State to just take everything to another level, having that opportunity to really hone things in. That’s the thing that her coach for at Florida State Amy Bond has said, I’ve never seen someone get so detailed about what they’re trying to accomplish in their game. Usually, it’s more of a broad thing. Um, and so when I when I look at Lahi and and just the way she’s been able to to to take things up a notch at at big events, I really think that college helped get her to that to that next stage. But it’s just interesting cuz we’re just not seeing that the teenagers, you know, do what we’ve seen before. uh win, you know, to come out of high school and win right away. Well, the I mean, the facilities have gotten so much better in college golf and I guess, you know, those facilities are are for both the men and the women, right? I mean, a lot of these schools, like I’m sure Florida, you know, I haven’t been to Florida State. We’ve done this college series and I went to Florida and I went to Texas and I went to Auburn and you know, the men and the women are practicing right next to each other. So, I guess this sort of boon in in men’s college golf has has carried over to the women’s game 100%. And I mean it it used to be that there was this feeling that if you went to college you’d get worse and so you know like a Morgan Prele really wanted to go to Duke right and and instead you know she nearly won the OS women’s open and she won the women’s amitter shortly after that and turned professional but you know I think you know now there’s not that stigma anymore. You can go to college and you can get better. The coaches are are better prepared. Obviously you can make NIL money now. that’s more attractive, especially for for American players, um where you don’t feel like you’re you’re losing out on some earning potential. Uh and so, you know, I I I I think it’s great for their growth in terms of being able to come out on the LPGA and have staying power because we’re seeing, you know, the curve on the LPGA in terms of the lifespan of a player on tour is so much shorter. You know, they’re they’re retiring before the age of 35 now. That that’s pretty common. very rare to see a player even over the age of 40 competing regularly on the LPGA. So, um it’s just gotten shorter and shorter as the teens came out. And so now when you see somebody like Lahi W, you know, maybe she’ll play a little bit longer since she’s 21 coming out a little bit later than we saw, you know, some of the the 18-year-old. Yeah, it’s a little bit less risk of burnout maybe or at least a little bit later going on. I wanted to talk to you about the new LPGA commissioner Craig Kesler. So big changes at the helms of both the PGA tour obviously with Brian Rolap coming in and the LPGA with with Craig Kesler. I watched his uh his interview with Clare Rogers. I thought he he speaks very well. He seems very passionate. What do you know about Craig and sort of I know he had a quick little little victory today that I want you to tell us about. But but I guess what would be sort of the top of his agenda? Well, I think he’s already doing what’s at the top of his agenda, which is relationships. And I think that was an area that um Molly Marusaman, the previous commissioner, she struggled at. She came in from really way outside of of the professional golf world. And so she had a lot to learn and was slow at getting She was she was the AD at Princeton. Is that right before? Yes. A lot of people looked at that as a as a strange fit. And so, you know, Craig on the other hand comes in, you know, obviously um from Topgolf, the the PG of America COO most recently. uh he knows all the big players already. He knows a lot about um how to make things work and and who to call if you don’t know the answer to something in the golf world. And so that’s a tremendous leg up. But he is I think first and foremost a relationships guy. He’s he’s he’s already talked to a lot of the key stakeholders in terms of title sponsors, players, you know, people on the fringes that we might not most people might not know who those key people are, but but he’s I think he’s doing a great job of establishing that so that as he sees areas that he needs to tackle because quite frankly there there are so many areas that he could choose from. I think um you know obviously the LPGA, you know, need needs more revenue. We’ll start there. they they need more uh folks investing in the tour uh and and and they they need more exposure. So, you know, reaching out to to their partners at the Golf Channel and beyond to try to increase media exposure so that they have household names. I mean, we look at Lahi W right now. Still, a lot of people don’t know who Lahi is despite what she’s been doing. And so when one of the tasks that he’s going to have is, you know, how do I take this rising star and and and make her well known, you know, throughout the world. But it’s so interesting because wh because women golfers have this sort of uh burden, right? Like with Nelly where it’s like everyone expects them to be like the savior of the sport. And I feel like this this woman, you know, this young woman was an amateur a couple weeks ago and she plays amazing golf and now there’s going to be all this weight on her shoulders. What what is she what’s her person I don’t I mean obviously you’ve spent what’s her personality like? Is she more in the sort of Rory mold of like I like to do these fun things and grow the game? Is she more in the Scotty mold of like I just play golf because I like competing and I have other things in my life like where where do you think she’ll stand on that continuum? Because we’ve heard Nelly, you know, kind of speak her mind about feeling kind of ambiguous about it, right? I I I so to know that Lahi Wde is obsessed with golf. Her her coach says she’s never had a player who loved the game more than Lahi. just a pure love, golf IQ off the charts. So, she really just definitely cares about winning and what’s going on inside the ropes. And winning the Augusta National Women’s Amter was the first time she was really thrust in front of the media. Not her favorite thing. And so, but she’s she’s learning, you know, the importance of it. It’s something that she knows she has to do. She’s definitely getting better at it, more comfortable at it. Uh she’s she’s a humble kid. uh she’s not someone who, you know, is yearning for the spotlight, but yet she wants to have that moment, you know, on the 18th green for sure. She she wants that pressure situation. She wants to feel those nerves under the gun. So, you know, I think but she’s not going to be, you know, here I am, look at me. That’s not, you know, outside the ropes. That’s definitely not Lahi Wde. But, um, but I definitely think she will want to grow the game and want to do, you know, what she can do to to help move the needle. But, you’re right, there is a burden there. And the burden is because you know you have stars like area who are massive in in Thailand. Same thing with Genoticon massive you know areas on the on a Gatorade bottle you know the kind of stuff that we’d only see with like a Serena Williams here in the United States and and we’re like a Caitlyn Clark more recently. Correct. Yes. So, you know, you have stars like that in in Korea, in Japan, you know, in Hanako Shabuno is bigger than any male golfer in Japan, which is hard to believe. She’s only won once, but she was the first, you know, she won a major and and it was her first time playing an LPGA event and and playing outside of of Japan. And she won the AIG Women’s British Open. And so, she became an absolute rock star in Japan. But but the LPJ doesn’t have that in in the United States. And Michelle Wi West is the closest player that you know that the LPJ has had you know in my time in terms of really seeing media come out and flock to this player. Um you know that that did not happen. Even when Nelly Cord won seven times, it’s not like we saw a lot of people media start showing up at events and it getting building and getting bigger and bigger toward the end of the season. That’s not the way it was. people came out to the Anukica to watch Caitlyn Clark play in the proam, not Nelly Ellie Cordov who played alongside her. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s a it’s a fascinating and interesting question. You know, I wanted to kind of jump back to to Kesler because, you know, we heard Scott O’Neal, who is the the head of Liv, say that they’re they got plans to to enter the women’s game. Are we going to see uh almost like a live PGA Tour battle part two or or is there a different attitude after seeing how it went with the PGA Tour and and knowing you know that this kind of Saudi money could be really transformational to the women’s game? Like what is sort of the attitude in the locker room of this sort of it feels like impending Saudi investment or incursion, whatever word you want to use into women’s golf? Well, a couple of years it was talked about a lot in the locker room, I can tell you. and and almost every player on tour was willing to go where the money is. And so it it it completely would have gutted the LPGA. No question. Every star would have left. So now you don’t hear it as much. Uh you know, I think Liv had so many issues going on that the women were kind of whatever was potentially in play was put on the back burner. Um and you know, the interim commissioner, Liz Moore, she went over to Saudi Arabia, first time an LPJ commissioner has gone over there uh to meet with officials. uh you know I definitely I know Craig Kesler has said that he will have those conversations. So I definitely think feel like there’s a more proactive approach that’s going to be in play here so to see how you know these the two entities can can work together because obviously there’s already a huge Saudi presence on the le which is you know a partner of the LPGA’s um you know they they’ve infused a ton of money uh with the Aramco series events. So, and some of those events, I remember, are in or at least the one in at um Fairy Point. Like, there’s some in the United States. Yes, there’s one in the United States that travels around. It’s been in Florida. It’s going to be in in Texas this year. And the stars all play, you know, Nelly’s played played in them. You know, Lexi Lexi obviously won one. Um Nelly as well, you know, so so you’ve seen um there already is uh an establishment. you already have LPGA players who are sponsored by PIFF. So, you know, they’ve got the logos all over their hats and bags and shirts. So, you know, I definitely think it will take um some kind of of uh of compromise here because the LPGA can exist if its star players leave that that that it just there aren’t enough. Looking ahead to uh the women’s open, Royal Porf call. Uh we’re going to Wales, right? I think what do we know about this is a new venue. Uh what are we looking forward to next week? And then and then as far as like the odds, the favorites go, where do you expect to see Lahi in that mix at this point? I mean, she’s got to be at the top of the list. She’s, you know, the hottest player in golf at the minute, right? So, you know, I definitely think she’s, you know, in in the the top five of of players people will be watching. I think Miy Lee is up there as well. You know, recent winner at the KPMG. Excellent in the majors. Yes. Uh had finished right there with Lahi one stroke out of the playoff at the Ebian. You know, looking to achieve the career grand slam. She thinks she needs to win all five to to to achieve it. As does Lydia Co. The LPGA actually designates it as once you’ve won four different uh LPGA majors that you you are considered a career grand slam winner. Mi of course has three different ones at this point. Um, but yeah, and then Gino Tedun keeps putting herself right there in the mix. Uh, still waiting to win her first major championship title. Uh, you know, you’ve you’ve you’ve got to look at her as well. But for most players, this is the first time that they will have ever seen uh this this golf course or ever been to Wales. Uh, it was funny. I asked Lah, I said, “Have you have you been to Wales?” She’s like, “Yeah, played some European tournaments.” Oh, wait. I actually won the stroke play there one year. The Wales stroke play. It was like the bag of stuck it. Yeah. Very cool. That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much. That was that was really I learned a lot and uh we’ll we’ll definitely do this again uh throughout the throughout the season kind of checking out on LPGA stuff. So, thank you so much for joining us, Bethan. Sounds great. Thanks for having me, Dan. Great interview. It was a great conversation. Great conversation. Learned a lot. I got to The LPGA gives career grand slams when he only won four out of the five. When did they add? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I have a button that I need to hit. Andy, utter woke nonsense. How? There’s five majors, but you only need to win four to win the career grand slam. Who decided that was a good idea? If there’s five majors, which there shouldn’t be five majors, but if there’s five majors, but there are. Yeah, you got to win all five. But yeah, know it’s it’s uh I I do kind of feel bad like for like a that any woman golfer, especially like you a young like they’re just now expected to be like the savior of the sport. It’s just a like no one’s asking Chris God up like how he’s going to change men’s golf. Well, you heard what Beth Anne said like she had a couple great weeks and now she’s expected to be one of the top five competitors at the next major. Yeah, it happens that quick for them because of the the depth and they’re just they’re just they’re starving for it. They’re starving for it. Um all right, let’s uh that was sort of the state of of the PGA Tour. We’re going to move into the state of Live Golf. There’s three events left for the year. So, we’re going to start this with a conversation about the walking Neman situation which we’ve talked about. I think our our our view on that is clear. We walk is is a I think a I mean if there was a world ranking which there isn’t really but data golf rankings has him as a top you know 10 player in the world. He he beats all these players and they’re trying their hardest in these tournaments and you can say what you want but I don’t think Neman not being able to carry it into majors is a live problem. I I think it’s a a Neman problem. So, that’s sort of aside here, but I want to highlight some of the bigger name players that uh that they paid all a lot of money for to to join their tour. Brooks Keepa, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Matt Wolf, Cameron Smith. A lot of the big names that they’ve signed, their form has torpedoed, gone like this. Boom. A few of those names we don’t even hear anymore. You don’t even hear Wolf. You don’t hear about You don’t hear about Wolf. Cameron Smith you don’t hear about. GTO Pereira you don’t hear about. I mean there’s a lot of guys who were you know and and they paid money a lot of money for these guys to join and they’re coming and they’re playing in these live events and they’ve almost like disappeared from the conversation. Um you know Bryson is really Bryson Hatton and Rahm are really putting a lot on their shoulders. Those three guys are going to be in the Ryder Cup and they’re going to be the only three guys from Liv that are going to be in the RDER Cup. And so, you know, they the PGA Tour has an ability to coin new stars that live just doesn’t. They just don’t. They just don’t. The the the closest sort of thing that to a star that they’ve created is walking Neiman. And all the discourses about how he doesn’t do [ __ ] in the majors. It’s not like, oh, he’s a new star in the game. It’s like, well, he hasn’t proven it in the majors. Whereas, you know, since Liv has started, you know, Ludvig Oberg has emerged. Like, even recently, you know, like a Chris Goddarup has emerged. And you know, the tour just has this pipeline with the PG tour and they’ve got Luke Clinton coming up and they’ve got Kovven coming up the next time and it’s just like, you know, I think it we’ve seen this long enough now to know that like we know what this looks like and and and a lot of the of the the sort of worst possible outcome scenario that the tour tried to make these guys be fearful of going to live. You’re not going to be able to play in major. You’re not going to be able to cup. It hasn’t come to pass. It’s not true. I think there were 18 live guys in the open. There was a lot in the M. This is four years in. So, it’s not like that that this thing is is not gaining traction because of the PGA tour or because of like all of these like bands. It’s just what works in a on a PowerPoint doesn’t necessarily work in real life. and this and they they have and I’ve seen the events I’ve been I haven’t been this year to a live event but from what I gather it’s a really nice experience and it’s different and there’s energy and I’m not debating any of that but it just doesn’t have juice and I don’t know if that’s because their guys didn’t win a major this year because of whatever the demon situation was but you know it’s like the tour made sort of like had these these threats or or or painted this picture hasn’t come to pass and they’ve still not developed I I don’t want to interrupt you. No, you’re good. I was I was time for you to weigh in. But like when we judge this thing against the merits of how we always judged the merits of professional golf, the majors, we can make that just ju position. If we analyze both of these things apppropo of each other, right? Liv went exactly as planned. To your point, Liv has gone exactly as they can still play in the major. They’ve they’ve got their players. They’ve got they got the only people that are washed are were like kind of already on their way there for DJ. They got the guys that they want. I mean, if you look at that first um player impact program list, five of the 10 went. It was like Phil and Rom and DJ and Brooks and I think Bubba was on that list and they they signed their guys. Their guys are still able to play in the RDER Cup. They’re still able to play in majors. They’re not necessarily winning the majors, but are the major winners over the past three years any different than you think they might have been? Like maybe you maybe Ron’s more in the mix? I just I what I’m what I guess what I’m trying to say with the tour thing is like Liv has done what Liv wanted to do. Yeah. And it still doesn’t feel like it’s making much of a mark if that makes sense. It’s Well, yeah. That’s the one thing they haven’t accomplished is they haven’t like turned over into people like all right this thing is great. Like let’s tune in. Let’s let’s become fans of a team. And I thought that this Fox deal would be a gamecher for them, but it hasn’t been. And a lot of it is because they’re so international. The time zones are all like screwed up. But even when they were in the US, they were, you know, there was like some car racing on F. They were on FS2 the other week. I couldn’t believe it. It’s tough to watch. I mean, there’s there’s also a lot going on with like a shotgun start and a team competition and an individual competition. And I tried to I reached out to Live Golf and I said, “Can we have someone like an executive to ask them some of these questions?” And it didn’t happen. Um, but yeah, just it feels like there’s no footprint here in the United States and and again, I live in the United States, so that’s kind of my my judgment. But, you know, that being said, the the sponsorship dollars are way up. You see way more logos, sales, like big companies that are doing these partnerships with Live Golf, so they’re they’re commercializing it. Um, which is how how Bryson put it. we could be sleeping on the long game that like actually because of our uh nationalism and how we’re looking at it like maybe internationally it it is growing at like the right clip, right? And like we’re going to wake up one day and be like, “Oh, shoot.” Like I just It’s on a soccer track. I I I just I don’t It doesn’t seem to be that way. I don’t know. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be that way. But um and interesting that came out with LiveW and we have they’re going to stop paying fines for the for the DP World Tour. So this was news on Nuclear Golf. Live golf has informed his players that they will stop paying DP World Tour fines on their behalf beginning next year, casting doubt about whether some live golfers will be able to maintain their membership on the European circuit and keep RDR Cup eligibility. John Rom’s agent has reportedly communicated to the tour that the Spaniard has no intention of paying any fines because and this is kind of goes with what what we’ve talked about also with Liv where it’s you know we had Allen on the show talking about you know all these guys were still on their first contract and Liv overpaid big time for a lot of players because they had to they were making these guys take a risk and that first contract you know these 200 million figures you know we saw last offseason the biggest guy they signed was Tom McKib those that the the money is not as free flowing as it was at one point. And this is another like step toward that where it’s like, oh, you know, we we’ve paid you. We we paid these fines for a couple. We’re just going to pay these in eternity. Well, now you have this whole new dynamic here with a player calling their bluff and being like, I’m not going to pay any fines. And the DP World Tour, they need John Rom to show up at a tournament a lot more than Well, they need him in the Ryder Cup. And they need him in the RDER Cup. And you have to be a DP World Tour member to play in the Ryder Cup. So it’s it’s just I I I I’m you know there’s been some turnover with Liv obviously Greg Norman’s not really so much in the picture Scott O’Neal and and again this is it’s been 25 months since the framework agreement and all of this you know sort of we’re not paying the fines anymore the money it would seem to be like there’s going to be this merger but everything that we keep hearing about is that the merger is like further apart than it’s ever been or you know at any point since since the framework agreement and so I just don’t really understand what’s going I don’t see I don’t understand the future. It feels like it’s just as long as they want to fund it. Well, with the leadership change at the tour, you have to imagine that puts a bit of a speed bump on things. Oh, it changes every It’s a totally new negotiation. Yeah. And and you know, Bubba Watson this week, he actually played really well this week. He finished second. But you know, he was saying, do we have this clip, Andy? I think we do. Let’s roll this clip of Bubba that people have their game faces on. They’re like maybe a lot more serious because there’s open zone, there’s drop zone, there’s relegation, there’s top. There’s a lot more stress. 100%. There’s more stress. There’s people not knowing the number. I do know the number, but not knowing the number. How many guys are are without a contract next year? So, there’s people that are stressed. They’re trying to get top 24. They’re trying to stay in the top 48. You know, there’s a lot of movement. There’s a lot of having to step up and hit great golf shots because they know what’s on the line uh to be to be in an elite league like this. They want a contract. They want to be able to play here next year. So, um there’s a lot of stress out there for sure. They want they want to cont it just it’s like they want it’s just incubated in that situation over there. You know what I mean? Like that’s the other thing like I can’t even think about like it just feels so separate now. Well, also it’s so ironic that Bubba’s the one saying that because Bubba was in the relegation zone after last year and then he didn’t get relegated. They were like, “Oh, actually you’re fine.” You know, so I they got to relegate guys. Like I want to see like a It’s going to be fascinating to see what they do this offseason. Yeah. How long do you want to spend on the Asian tour versus the cornfairy tour if you if you didn’t leave? Yeah, exactly. You know, and and and there’s only three events left and then it’s another offseason and and you know, we’ve seen how this goes where you know, Liv doesn’t sign players during their season because they’ve got this locked field and that’s a whole part of their pitch to their sponsors is we you know, you know what exactly what you’re going to get and all these major champions and um yeah, it’ll just be, you know, and then and then the the offseason and then you start to the rumor mill starts going. Tony Feno was definitely gone. Oh, yeah. Right. Right. And then Tony Fo didn’t go and then their main signing last year next year was Tom McKibben last year. So can you actually see like any I I think that’s done like that big like this big name is moving over to live. I mean well what’s been happening is like they’ve been signing some younger guys with the with the with the lure of guaranteed money like by a stair you know he had a top 10 this week and so maybe they keep going the the younger route but but if I’m a young guy I mean it’s just such a risk going over there. You can you can fade into oblivion bluffs. You’re not John Ron. No you can’t you can’t. It’s a Yeah, I just I I I feel like Liv is in a a really almost like stuck in neutral, you know? It’s like they they’re do they’re doing what they what they set out to do in the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint if there’s like little boxes on the PowerPoint, they’ve checked them. They’ve signed all these top players. They’ve got all these events all around the world. They’ve got a lot of sponsors. I just have a hard time believing that the that the end product like just because it works in a PowerPoint doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to work in real life. It’s, you know, seems to be in a in a bit of a in a bit of a weird spot. Well, like Walmart does a lot of revenue, but like are you dying to go there to buy certain things or is that like, you know, they make the most money, but are they the coolest store in Yeah. And it’s not and and you know, money is just not No one’s ever, you know, watched a football game cuz they’re like, “Oh, this they’re playing for so much money.” Business plan. Oh my god. Yeah. Like you know, Patrick Mahomes, man, like how much money this guy’s making. It almost turns people off. You’re like, “Fuck these guys. I don’t know how much money they’re making. I want to see them like win the tournament.” And like Bubba was saying, these guys want a contract. Uh, it’s just like, yeah, they want a contract because they want they want to get the money. It’s not like, oh, I want to play for these like big titles and Right. It’s like I want a contract. I Anyways, that kind of made me feel because they’re on a lifeboat. Yeah. And they if they they want to contract cuz the other option is is Oblivion is Oblivion. Yeah. We have not seen a guy I mean uh what’s his name? Um Lorie Caner, I feel like is the only guy who’s gone through a suspension come back and has like earned his way back and Yeah. They don’t want they don’t want to have to do that. They don’t want to have to do that. So that kind of made me feel a little weird. But you know what didn’t make me feel weird? Our dog of the week. We have a fantastic dog of the week. This might be our dog of the week. This might be our best ever dog of the week. Our dog of the week this week is Jonathan Keane from Ireland. So Jonathan Keane is a member at La Hinch and he’s also a caddyy at Lhinch. And we talked on the show how caddies are members of the clubs very often. He cattied in my group when I played at La Hinch and he was so one of the best caddies that I’ve ever had. My boys who came on me, they still talk about how amazing he was. He won the South of Ireland championship this week at La Hinch at home and it was like the first amateur event he’d ever play. I looked at his wagger. He didn’t even have a wagger ranking. He talked about his dream was to just play in the South of Ireland Championship and he won it at La Hinch at home a couple weeks after he looped for us. It was unbelievable. Do we have do we have the video Andy of um of him c? Yeah, there he is showing us his place. There’s Jimmy and my buddies and there’s Jonathan Keane the South of Ireland championship. be eagled this hole, by the way, in the final round. What a beast. What an absolute beast. Jonathan Keane, our dog of the week, winning the South of Ireland Championship. Cracks me up that they have the the West of Ireland, the South of Ireland. They can’t just call it West Ireland. We got to put the the of in there. It’s a very sort of anacronistic kind of an Irish sort of British thing. We’ll take it. I We’ll take it. Jonathan Keane wins the South of Ireland Championship at his home course at La Hinch. It was like a It was almost like a um the greatest game ever played scene where everyone came on the green afterward and you know we lifted him up. We wanted to have him on the show, but I think he’s probably drinking about a zillion Guinnesses right now. This is as good as it gets. And you said he doesn’t even like have an ambition in in amateur golf outside of just like I want to win this one. I’m sure he’d love to play in the Walker Cup and all that stuff, but he’s not like trying to be like a professional, but he just had one goal, one dream. His dream was to play in this tournament, just to play in the South of Ireland. And I think this was his first time playing and he won it at home at La Hinch. First guy from that area to win since the 50s. This is this segment. This is what it’s all about, man. This is what it’s about. This is what it’s all about. This is why we love golf. The people who win dog of the week emulate why we love this game so much. And none more than than our It’s a heartwarming. So Jonathan Keane, you absolute beauty. What a what an incredible experience you gave us at La Hinch. And then what an you know, good things happen to good people sometimes. So, our dog of the week is Jonathan Keane, the South of Ireland champion. All right, that was really good. Really loved that one. All right, we got our uh zone rank blind. And before we do the rank of them blind, I wanted to give uh another zone top three uh flavors rank blind. They make seven flavors and all their flavors come in six and 9 milligs. Last week, our winner was citrus. What do we have this week, Ben? All right. Going to be tough to top citrus, but we’re going to go with the flavors of mint, peppermint, which is a different kind of mint. I I’m very Yeah, I’m very You have pepper in it. Is that what it is? Or a little bit of pepper? I don’t think so. What? Well, yeah. I’d like a little bit of a of a clarification on the difference between mint and peppermint. Well, you’ll have to try. Okay. And then winter green, which I imagine is like a a frosty pine. Wintergreen. Wintergreen is number one for me. I’m a big I’m a wintergreen guy. I’m going to go with uh peppermint number two and then the OG mint number three. But I’m going to You’re blind ranking peppermint. Yeah. Yeah. I’m blind ranking it. That’s what the blind ranking is. Um yes, my go-to is the 6 milligram uh wintergreen. Okay, let’s do uh the blind ranking, the zone rank on blind. Ben, run us through our category. All right, so this one actually bush in the building came from our friend Alex Bush. Bush in the building. Begging me to do this one for weeks, so we we threw it in the mix. Uh this is threehole stretches in professional. Oh, all with the nicknames and stuff. Some of them got nicknames, some of them don’t, but I think you’ll know which you know what I’m talking about. That’s right. All right, let’s start off at uh you know, one of our three pro shop locations is down at Paneavidra Beach, TPC Sawrass number 16, 17, 18. It’s it’s high up there for me. I I am a Sawrass defender. I tell Alex Bush all the time that the players is probably my favorite week uh to cover as a as just cuz I love Pontita Feature Beach. That golf course is awesome. And there’s a word in that golf course. It’s the stadium course. And this feels like a stadium. And you’ve been there. You see the 16th green. You see that? You start to look at where the pin is on 17. You can hear the crowd. That walk from 16 to 17 on that little just kind of thin thin patch of grass. You’re you’re looking at the island green and then and then you walk through a tunnel to get to 18. I’m putting that as a solid number two. Do it. I I really like and and I feel like, you know, a lot of the kind of architecture wants like Sress can often be a little bit of a punching bag cuz it’s like the tourists home. I think Sus is awesome. I’ve never played it. It’s probably the golf course that I’ve walked the most without ever playing. I’ve been to every player since 2018. I’ve never played the golf course. Hopefully, we can change that. But I’m putting SRA 16 to 18 number two. And I’m saying it with my chest. I don’t feel embarrassed about that. I like it. Those three holes do feel like they’re in They’re awesome. Par three. Sorry. Par five, par three, par four. You’ve got a scorable par five, then you got a par three where anything can happen. You got a beast of a hole with 18. 18 so hard. 18 so hard. I haven’t played it, but that’s what I see with my eyes. I’m putting that number two. All right, we’re headed down south for number for our second uh option here to Quail Hollow. The green mile they call it. Yeah, green mile. I’m putting this number five. We’re going to do green mile because I think it’s really cool and we talked about this when they had the major win at the PGA there. It’s very rare that the 16th hole is the third hardest hole on the golf course. The 17th hole is the second hardest hole in the golf course. And the 18th hole is the first hardest hole in the golf course. Usually if you have like a hard finishing stretch, it’s like the fifth hardest hole, then the seventh hardest hole and the second to go 321 crescendoing like that. Pretty damn cool. Number five. Quo doesn’t really get me going. So that’s why it’s not higher up. But I’m putting the green Mile at Quail Hollow at number five. As far as Quail Hollow goes, I mean, that’s that’s the good stuff. Okay. I’ll say this. Yeah. Without the Green Mile, Quail Hollow’s struggling a little tough. Yeah. All right. So, the next course probably has a couple three-hole stretches that we could throw in there, but we went with Pebble Beach number 678. You’re starting with some bangers. You’re starting with some absolute bangers. I mean, the eighth might be the the most stunning hole in all of world golf. you know that second shot and then six with I feel like Tiger made that hole so so iconic with that shot out of the cabbage. There’s no cabbage anymore down that right rough. It’s all fairway now that goes straight into the ocean. Uh seven, one of the five most famous par threes in the world. I’m putting that I’m putting that number one. I I haven’t gone number one this quickly, but Pebble Beach is the greatest meeting of Land and Sea. It’s also in California, so I’ve got a little bit of California pride. I’m putting pel beach number. We got number one, number two, number five. So hopefully you don’t even care what comes next. I don’t even care what comes next. I do care what comes next. And there we have seven spots open, but I that’s a strong start. Well, next up is the bear trap at PJ National. Yeah. 15 to 17. Yeah, I’m putting at seven. You know, it’s really hard. Um but I don’t, you know, when people play PJ National, I think a lot of what they say is it’s really hard and the bear trap’s really hard and the wind swirls and hard doesn’t necessarily mean great. Um so I’m putting bear trap number seven. All right. What about the snake pit? another animal inbrook at Inisbrook 168. I’m putting that number nine. I feel like it’s that’s that’s marketing, you know. It’s it’s marketing play. I don’t know. I don’t know that the holes themselves look to be that they’re hard. They’re they’re difficult. Um but I’m putting that number nine. So, what it’s called? It’s the snake pit at what’s it? What is it? Inisbrook. Inisbrook. Yeah. Is are the final three holes? 16 17 18. Yeah. 16 17 18. Yeah. Good marketing. So, that’s why they’re not number two. Copper head course is that? Yeah, the copper head course. We got number nine, Snake Pit. Number eight, seven bear trap. Number five, Green Mile. Number two, Sawrass. Number one, Pebble 6 through8. Let’s keep it rolling. So, where you going to fit a man Corner into this? Number three. Okay. Yeah. I mean, look, I love Augusta Nationals just as much as the next guy. But, you know, I I I 11. I mean, the It’s hard to It’s hard. It’s hard. It is Augusta. It’s It’s Amen corner. It’s It’s probably the most famous three stretch. You got 11, which is a really difficult par4 that I actually think they made a little bit easier by clearing out those trees on the right. Then you’ve got 12, which is just really cool because they go back into that corner where no one else is. It’s like one of the only moments of solitude you get in major championship golf. And then 13, you know, I’m actually going to put it number three at three because I don’t like what they did to 13. I wish I I missed the old 13 when they added all that. Yeah, they added all that length. A lot of more guys lay up now. Same thing on 15. I liked the old 13 better. I blame the guys for that. They’re just not They don’t have the balls anymore. They Yeah. Well, they’re playing smart golf, but I’m putting in corner number three. All right. This next one might be a little tougher for you. Cypress Point 15 through 17. Yeah. Uh, I just I don’t I mean 15 is a par three, the short par three. 16 is the famous par three. 17 I don’t even I think it’s a par4. I don’t even really know. I mean Yeah. It’s not I don’t know it that well. I don’t know it that well either, but I just I know 16. Yeah. And 15 might even be better than than 16. I’m putting that number six. Cypress cuz also I mean 18 even though that’s not there. I know 18’s like a really funky hole. kind of a weird finisher, but I’m putting Cypress Point 15 through 17 just because maybe maybe this is a lack of ball knowledge, but I don’t know the 17th hole all that well, so I’ll put a number six. That could have been operator error there on my part. I don’t there might be more famous holes at Cypress. No, I mean 15 and 16 are special, but I don’t know much about 17. Anyways, how about uh which I didn’t know they called this the horrible horseshoe. It’s the number 345 at Colonial. Yeah, I didn’t know that either. I didn’t know either. Horrible. Sounds like some some uh some hard golf holes. Again, I don’t know if I I don’t know if a hor anything that’s called horrible for me sounds super super appetizing. So, I’m putting that at number eight because again, difficulty is not doesn’t necessarily mean great. So, I’m putting colonial three through five. So, we only have number eight and number four left. So, uh where do you put Oakmont? Uh 7 through 9. 7 8 9. It’s you know the church pew area of the Yeah, it’s it’s a it’s I mean the church pews are pretty pretty iconic. Uh, we were just there. So that it feels but again, you know, kind of 79. I feel like with these great three-hole stretches, I kind of want them to be even though I said Pebble number one, so I’m a huge hypocrite. What do I do here? I’ll put Oakmont number eight. Oakmont because I feel like you got a banger coming with the last Oakmont 7 through9. I actually feel pretty good about this list. Um, so number four, right, that’s what you got left is going to be Shinikok Hills number 12, 13, 14. Okay, you’re asking that with like a question mark. Is that is that Are you sure? Question for your reaction, I guess. Yeah, I Yeah, I mean I feel good about this list. I actually feel very very good about this list. We got number 10, Colonial 3 through 5, Snake Pit at Inisbrook, Oakmont. Number eight, 7 through9. Number seven, The Bear Trap at PJ National. Number six, Cypress Point 15 through 17. Number five, The Green Mile at Quail Hollow. Number four, Shinikok 12 through 14. Number three, Amen Corner. Number two, TBC Sagrass 16 through 18. And Pebble Beach, the greatest meeting of land and sea, number 6 through 8. That is our number one three-hole stretch on this week’s Zone rank blind. And thank you to Zone for sponsoring rank and blind. I feel like this is this is one of the segments that people like in the wild say I really I really enjoy the rank of blind segment on the watch along. They were saying yeah they were liking they were liking the rank of blind. So so fantastic there. Um I’m looking forward to tomorrow. There’s tomorrow tomorrow today whatever it might be the midm qualifier. I’m looking forward to it. Um, so last week I spoke to L stagner about grinding uh with Arcos trying to get better for the midm qualifier and I started using Arcros. I told you guys about the smart sensors, these ones right here that screw into the top of my grips. It takes a couple of minutes and then you pair them to the Arcros app on your phone and you can track every shot automatically. Now, when they first approached me and they’re like, “We want to do this. We want you to track your track your shots.” The one my one uh sort of hiccup here is I don’t want to have to have my phone out the whole round because I want to be present when I’m out there. They said, “You don’t. You don’t.” I said, “What do you mean you don’t?” They said, “Screw these things in and try us.” And it works perfectly. You put the golf course that you’re playing, you put these things in, it automatically knows when you hit a certain club, and then all you have to do, they have this link pro right here. So, you take this thing out, you charge it, lasts like 10 rounds, you put it on your hip. All you do is you go next to the pin, you click this button here for where the pin is, and you’re good to go. And you play your round of golf. It knows where the pin is. It knows how far the putts that you hold are. And I’ve got a bunch of information that we’re going to show on the screen here, and this app does the rest. And it shows you the data. You got your driver distance. You’ve got your strokes gain information. I’ve played since last week. So, I wanted to check in a little bit on my stats this week. Playing a little bit better now that I’m back, you know, in my friendly confines. I talked about how much I struggled on the turf. You can see I’m I’m a little too many penalties off the off the tea. So, we’re going to have to limit that. Alex Bush is going to be on the bag for me. So, hopefully we’re going to be in in a great mental state. Uh my approach play has been has been solid. According to Arcos, the best part of my game is 125 to 149 yards, which you know, Lou said one thing that stuck with me, which is numbers don’t lie, but they surprise often. And I, now that I think of it, I’m like, you know what, I actually am pretty solid from that distance. Um, so if you guys are serious about getting better, uh, this is an absolute no-brainer. Honestly, it it’s I feel like a tour pro. I have all the information. I have all the information, and information is your friend. Arcros is giving you a free set of these smart sensors, plus a 45day trial of the app. And you can try the link pro for free, so you can see your own numbers just like this. Click the link in the bio to get started today. I’ve had a lot of fun diving through my Arcos data. So, last week we had help from L. Stagner. This week we have help from Dr. Izzy Justice. I’m excited for this. So, Dr. Izzy Justice is a sports neuroscientist whose name I keep I keep hearing keep hearing. It’s like there are certain names that you hear in golf and you’re like, I want to talk to that guy. And one of them is Dr. Izzy Justice. This guy scans players brains and helps them play better golf with these things called neuro hacks. And I think you guys are really going to enjoy it. It’s a little bit of a beefy interview, but I think you’re really going to enjoy it. I think it’s going to help you guys play better golf. I think it’s going to help me play better in my midm qualifier. Here I am with Dr. Izzy Justice. All right. I’m joined by I’ve this is going to be a really interesting one. I’m joined by Dr. Izzy Justice. Um I guess I’ll let you sort of um describe your journey to golf and and your work in the game. Yeah. Well, first of all, Dan, thanks for thanks for having me. And you know, I say this all the time, but you know, I think my journey to golf is very forestian. Like, you know, one random thing led to another random thing and led to another random thing. in the timing of both my past experience on in consulting and human performance and then this advent of technology that allowed us to look into the human brain wirelessly like I tell people all the time uh from a human experience perspective understanding how we work how we think how we behave how we act how we perform I I think 2015 was a gamecher in the history of sort of mankind and I know that’s a crazy thing to say but what Dan And what really changed is that from that periodish onwards, we could for the first time look directly into the human brain as it was trying to do something of value and in golf terms like making a putt, hitting a golf shot. For regular people, it’s being creative, those kind. So before that, it was like to look into the brain you’d have to like go into an MRI machine and like it wasn’t practical. Yeah. Not just that. So that is true. Not just that, but typically the only reason we would even look into the brain was what we call clinical. Something was broken. And so you went to go and and specifically like where it was it was broken gave you a target to go see why it was broken. How can we fix it? Trauma, brain injury, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, these are all neurological conditions where something is broken. It never occurred to us, at least not to most of us, to say, “What if you’re just a regular person and you just want to be the best version of yourself when it matters. So, it doesn’t matter that you’re a good putter on the driving range, on the on the practice screen, or in a practice round. It matters that you can take your skills to a tournament round, whatever that tournament round is for you, and make that putt. Like, do what you’re capable of doing.” Okay. So, so basically a a golfer would come to you and they would say, “I’m struggling with X, Y, or Z. How do you go about helping them?” Yeah. So, great question. So, first of all, confession. When people call me, uh, nobody calls me when they’re playing well. And it’s not just a golfers, right? Usually, not only are they not playing well, but they’re rock bottom. And I would say 9.8 eight out of 10 times like I haven’t countered but that high the one thing Dan guess what that they all have in common right is they all say I have so much noise in my head like I have so many thoughts or technical thoughts or this or I’m thinking about this or you know I my hands shake or like it’s that kind of stuff so there are three sort of premises let me go through these very quickly and then I’ll and then I’ll answer the question because then it’ll make sense So electricity is the language of the human brain. Not just that, but electricity is also the language of motor movement. But if you think about it, Dan, it has to be electricity. It can’t be anything else. It can’t be gravity. It can’t be light. We need something so fast that we can protect ourselves. So for example, if I’m walking in the corner of my eye, I see a snake. Like that input, that visual input needs to go into the corner of my eye and boom, in like micros secondsonds, I need to say danger, bad, I could get killed and not just do that evaluation, that analysis, but then get my body to jump and run the other way. That’s fast. And the only mechanism that can make that processing of danger fast and get your mode of movement is electricity. So what I do when people come to see me is and this is kind of key and and and and groundbreaking is I put a machine and I stand about 12 feet away from them. So I’m behind them or not in their line of sight. So I try to eliminate as many variables and I look to see what is generally the electricity in their brain in the moments before let’s just take putting before they hit a putt while they’re hitting a putt and then after they hit a putt. And then is there a pattern? Is there a pattern when they make putts versus not making putts? I didn’t know the answers to this question to be honest. And I found that lo and behold, not only is there a pattern, like it’s very clear. So if we were to simplify this, Dan, and let’s just imagine that electricity is 0 to 100 hertz. 100 is very high. Like the best, like if I were to ask you, Dan, let me ask you when you’re putting your best, give me three words that you’re thinking, feeling, or doing when you’re putting your best. I would say comfortable. I would say comfortable. Loose. And I would say um fearless. You’re you’re thinking, you know, I always talk about like when I’m playing my best golf. And this is actually good timing because I’m playing in a qualifier tomorrow. So, we’ve talked, we did a little pre-insele hacks that you have. But, you know, I always talk about playing offense versus playing defense when you’re playing golf. It’s a totally different mindset, right? when you’re thinking about you see the right shot in your head, you you’re thinking positive thoughts as opposed to, you know, I don’t play my best when I’m thinking about the OB or or you know, the ridge past the hole where I really don’t want to hit. You know what I’m saying? Exactly. So those words that you use, comfort, fearless, and loose, I can give you 10 other words like that. Calm, relax, confident. All these these these are English language words. They’re not real. They’re just words, but they’re all describing 10 hertz in the brain. So that’s the frequency with you’ve got and that’s consistent from person to person. That’s where you want to be. Yes. And I tell you why. At 10 hertz, two magical things happen. Now, think of traffic. When there’s a lot of traffic and you want to get somewhere, well, it takes forever, right? But when there’s no traffic, you just fly wherever you want to go. You’re there in like 2 or 3 minutes. So when we have lots of thoughts, you add 80, 90, 100 hertz, there’s a lot of traffic in your brain. But the magic of 10 herz is two things. And one of them you actually just said, ironically, maybe you weren’t aware of it. But the first magic of 10 herz is that because the traffic is low, the sensory input is amplified. So you see the line, you feel your grip, you can even feel the weight of the of the of the putter head. Sensory input is always there, by the way. You’re always seeing, feeling, feeling something. You know what I mean? I gave you the example when we did the pre-call like imagine you’ve had a very stressful day and you got 30 minute drive home at the end of your day and you put music on, but when you get home and if your wife said or whoever said, “Hey, what did you listen to?” you wouldn’t be able to tell them. The input was there but it was clogged because there was traffic in your brain. So the magic of 10 hertz in golf is that it gets the traffic down and suddenly when you look at the target and you look back down, you remember it. You know exactly where the ball’s going to go. You know exactly what tree you want to fade it off or draw it off or the spot on the green that you want to land it on. You’re feeling the grip pressure. Your your entire body as you’re making that that back swing, you know, without thinking how far you need to go, you’re seeing the the pattern that you want to shape the ball or or the or the trajectory you have. All of that is sensory input. And the sensory input can only be registered in the brain when the traffic is low at 10 hertz. Now the other magical thing that happens at 10 hertz is remember all golf swings putting chipping it’s a motor movement like muscles have no memory they get their command from the brain and that command has to travel using electricity right so a quadripollegic for example then their brain works fine their body their muscles work fine but they have a spinal injury so there’s no electricity going so they can’t move their their their lower body so The the second magical thing that happens at 10 hertz is that the motor movement is exactly how you want it. You’re magically applying the right sequencing for whatever shot you want to hit. You’re magically applying the right force on that ball the way that you want to hit it. So I go back when guys come to see me or whoever comes to see me, I look at their brain, and this is what I think your viewers are going to love in my opinion. the moment that you need to master. If you have a 60-second pre-shot uh routine, when in that 60 seconds, Dan, do you think you got to be at 10? When is it most important that you got to be at 10 hertz? I would think right before you hit the shot, but I maybe that’s wrong. No, that’s right. That’s exactly right. So, if you’re at 10 hertz while you’re walking between shots, you know, it doesn’t matter. Or if you’re at 100 hertz, like, you know what I mean? But so the task of a golfer is in because it’s not a reactionary sport. Nobody’s moving in front of you that you got to move along with them like basketball. So the it’s a so much of an easier ask of a golfer to say, “Hey, in my 60-second pre-shot routine, it’s the last 10 seconds that I need to get to 10 hertz.” Right? And that’s where the neurohacks come in. The neurohex allow you to get to that 10 hertz in the moments that matter because in those last 10 seconds when you take that last look at the target whether you’re putting chipping at that moment when you look back down cuz the hardest thing about golf is that your eyes are not on the target. Golf is a target sport. There’s no other target sport in the world where your eyes are not directly at the target. Right. If you’re you’re you’re like I’m thinking about the guy who went super viral, the guy with the gun with the in the Olympics. He’s just like eyeballing it. Yes. Exactly. But golf makes target hard because your eyes are down at the ball and they have to be, you know, because you got to strike the ball. So the brain’s ability to remember what it just saw three or four seconds ago is critical. And I I I’ll do a So you’re in LA right now, Dan? I’m in LA right now. Y I’m going to ask you two two questions. Okay. How far are you from? From what? Exactly. Okay. Let me ask you another question. How far Okay. All right, good. How far are you from New York? 2500 miles. There you go. Now, look at the difference between those two questions. The only difference was I gave you a destination in the other one. And as soon as I said New York, did your brain not draw a line going east and kind of up. Yeah, I’ve I’ve done that on maps before. I’ve, you know, I lived in New York at times. I wanted to see how far I was from home. And I’ve done that before. Yeah, exactly. That’s the same thing that your golf brain needs over a ball when looking down. It needs to know where New York is. Where do I want the putt to enter the hole? Where what is that tree that I want to fade it off or dirt off? What is that landing position for my chip shot or or or my bunker shot without the destination? And the person that discovered these neurons in the brain, they’re called grid neurons. The grid neuron is your destination. It’s a target. The woman that discovered it won a Nobel Prize for them because it’s the destination, the target that gives your reference from how far you are from it, which creates scale, which creates force, which creates muscle sequencing. So, that is best at 10 hertz. How do you get someone to 10 hertz? All right, there you go. So, let’s do So, I uh as a courtesy to you, I’m going to give you five neuro hacks and let’s do them together. Let’s go. Perfect for perfect for the qualifier tomorrow. Yeah. And and these are things that you can do in those 60 seconds. If if at at 60 60 seconds before you hit the shot, your brain is saying, “Don’t go left. My hands are shaking. Don’t leave it short.” Or, you know, gosh, I’m just coming off two straight burgers. I better hit a good shot. Well, you know, you’re nowhere near 10. So, that would be a good example. Oh, let me do a quick neurohack. So, let’s do um the one that I did with you, if you don’t mind. I love that one cuz I’m let me tell you something. I I I went to dinner with some friends last night and I was telling them about this and they were like, “Oh my god, that actually worked.” So, let’s do it. I got to get a golf club. Right. Get a putter or just anything. I’ll grab a putter. Yep. Yeah. And again, while you’re grabbing that, let me just tell everybody neuro hacks take somewhere between 5 to 10 seconds. And what they do is not permanently but temporarily it gets your brain to that magical 10 hertz where your sensory input is amplified and you can really see the target that you have picked and which then allows you to have the right mode of sequencing to the shot that you want to hit. Right? So that’s what is all right. So grab the grip. So please you have you have you have like a hundred of these that you give your players or something. I have several hundred and and I can measure them so I can make sure which ones work best for each one. But the ones that I’m going to give you, they work for 80% of of all people, right? So don’t start. And if if your people watching also don’t start until I say go very loudly because I I need to explain to you. So not now, Dan. But when I say go very loudly on a scale from 1 to 10, I want you to create grip pressure that is maximum 10. Not now. Maximum 10. So go as fast as you can. Squeeze it really tight. Squeeze your shoulders. Squeeze your jaw. Squeeze your leg. Like I want maximum tension in your body. I will only have you be in that position for like 3 to 5 seconds. But here’s the key, Dan. When you’re in that position, I’m then going to say go to two, but I want you to go to two as slow as you can. You can even do a countdown like a nine and eight. And with each one, let go of a little bit of tension until there’s just two left. When you get to two, it’s called this neurack is called 10 two. Ready? I’m ready. All right. And go. Squeeze. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. Tight. All right. Go to too slow. Go to slow. Okay. So, what did Ken feel like to you? Two or three words. Can’t hear you, Dan. I press the I always do that. Andy’s really mad at me. Uh I said hot, squeeze, and tight. Okay. And what did going to two feel like? Uh I would say clarity. Uh slow and chill. I mean, I’m going to say something that’s a little bit um not PG-13. It it felt like after you do something really fun. Yes. So the words that you use at the beginning of this session, you said comfort. You said comfort, fearless, and loose. Yeah. Those are the exact words that are similar to what you just said going to two. It really works, guys. If you didn’t do that, like do rewind and do it again because I you I if I mean it’s almost like you just worked out. Yeah. All right. So So that’s one. Now, that is that something that you can do 60 seconds before you make a putt? Definitely. Is that something that you can do after you’ve made a triple bogey and you’re walking up to the T- box to hit the next T-OT? Yes. Exactly. You don’t need someone’s permission. It’s perfectly legal. You’re using your hands. So, I got to think that sports psychologists don’t like you very much. No, they don’t. Because Well, because because and I want to ask you about this. Well, it’s interesting because sports psychology is not a new discipline, right? Like people, you know, be the ball like all that, you know, it’s it’s been around since Happy War. What is what how is what you’re doing different? I mean, it’s obviously different, but you know, it almost feels like there’s almost like a morality argument like should there be these hacks? Should there be these like shortcuts? And you’re just basically saying like there are. Yeah. Exactly. And look, we don’t need to be perfect the whole round of golf. We we can’t even be perfect as human beings one whole day. But you know what we can do, Dan? We can be perfect when we need to be. Like one of the discoveries that I’ve made is that every higher human experience like enjoying a meal with your friends, painting something like something euphoric, laughing, they’re all happening at around 10 hertz. And what why this is different than psychology is I don’t view I think we’re siblings of of the same family but I just view that you know we just have newer information about the human brain. I gave you the analogy of using you know a road atlas back in the day to navigate where you want to go. Well now we have GPS. The road atlas is not wrong but technology is allowing us to do simpler, faster and more efficient ways. And that’s what all this is. It’s just a newer way because we have access to understanding the human experience better in a way that maybe 20 years ago, 100 years ago, we did not. I’m going to be squeezing the crap out of that driver on the first tier tomorrow. Okay, let me get let me get a few more for tomorrow. Let’s do a few more. Okay, so this is very similar to the other one, but this is but this is kind of a low grade. Again, don’t start until I say go very fast. Okay, now don’t don’t start doing it. I literally want you to count from 1 through 10 like logically but as fast as you can. Like 1 5 10 like count. All right. Then I want you to count down from 10 to back to zero as slow as you can. Ready? I’m ready. And go. Wait. Am I supposed to do it out loud? Yes. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. We’ll do it again. Okay. And go. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. And am I supposed to go down? Yes. Okay. Okay. Down to two. Yeah. So, so it No, no. Down to zero. So, it’s called 10 10. So, go to go to 10 super fast and go back to zero super slow. Okay. You tell me when go. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Okay. It’s it’s the same process of you you almost put everything you put all the stress into something. Exactly. So what what we’re actually doing just to go nerd on you just a little bit and I apologize for that is I love the nerd. Don’t apologize. Okay, good. So we have a system in in our body, it’s called the Vegas nerve. It’s a basically our military system. It’s all the organs that are designed to protect us when a lion is coming to eat us or there’s a fire. When you do something aggressively intentionally like the squeeze or like and then you intentionally slow slow down after that, you’re basically telling your brain, I’m not in real danger because there’s a big difference between making a six-foot putt that you got to make and a lion coming to eat you. They’re not the same things, but your brain processes them feel the same. Exactly. But by doing these neuro hacks, you’re telling the brain, “No, no, no. One is an existential threat and one is a is is I just got to get to 10 hertz for the next minute or two long enough for me to hit this shot. All right. You want to do one more? Uh let’s do one more and then I have a few more questions before I let you go. Okay. All right. So, this one is um take the palm of your hand like that. So, take uh no uh look at the palm of your hand inside. Yeah. There you go. Now, not now. Look at me if you don’t mind. Okay. So when I say go, I want you to look at the palm of your hand and I want you to find six unique lines in the palm of your hand and see if you can just trace them like two or three seconds each. Ready and go. Okay. Okay. Never done never really paid attention to that before. So, I promise you if I was measuring you right now, you’d be somewhere in the teens, right? And is this something that you can do if you’re waiting on the T- box to hear your shot? Yes. Is this something you can do when you’re waiting for your turn to make a a three-foot or 4 foot birdie putt? Absolutely. Absolutely. So all you So there are so there are top so you’re telling me there are top players you know on the tours whatever who are who are using these hacks in competition and it’s making a difference in their games on every tour. Yes. And and all of these not all of them a lot of them are in my new book uh which I told you about the brain swings every club. So now you understand the title of the book. The brain really does swing every club right? And so to to to sort of ignore it doesn’t really make sense. I wanted to ask you doctor because you’ve studied so many different disciplines. There’s a bit of a trend in our game and I’m I’m not this is not new information here. Golf D just wrote an article about this micro doing or or not even micro doing hallucinogens mushrooms. Are a lot of people doing it? Is it to try to get to 10 hertz and does it work? Yeah. Yeah. So to the best of my knowledge the answer is yes. And this is all anecdotal uh data that I have. So I agree with the with the data that you’re getting. There are two reasons that I think people are doing this. So one is just being human today is mentally very expensive. So I tell people all the time it has never been easier especially in the game of golf to be technically good. Like there’s so much technology now that is so easy to diagnose even self diagnos and information and information. I mean what you were saying about how we know about the brain is the same thing we know about golf swing and about you know the force plates and all this stuff. Exactly. You know uh videos all those kinds of things. So it’s never been easier to be technically good at golf but it’s never been harder to be mentally good at golf. And the reason is like the average EEG. So EEG is the measure of the electricity in a human brain. And there’s a doctor amen. He’s done 80,000 brain scans. I’ve done about 18,000 brain scans. So he’s done a lot more. and he’s done it on the on on on the clinical side, but all neuroscientists around the world have the same data. So the average EEG, Dan, of a normal human being like you and me is the equivalent of a schizophrenic patient from the 1950s. Come on. Yes, sir. If I blindfolded you and put you in my Delorean and took you to 1950, you know, you would be clinically diagnosed as being schizophrenic. And that’s because of these little suckers over here. We’re just consuming constant stimulation. So these drugs that people are taking, it’s just to get the noise down in their brains. It’s just like there’s so much pressure and tension and input and negativity that we’re consuming on a constant basis that their brain just wants a break. And so as professional athletes, there are many, you know, drugs that you cannot take, but there’s some that you can. So people to me those drugs are a shortcut. You don’t need those drugs if you learn how to use neurax and there’s a downside to the drugs. Absolutely. So the brain if you take Hey Dan, take your hands and kind of join them like this. Okay. Yep. So if you look at that and from your wrist up is the size of your brain. So from the wrist up, if you join your hands like that, that’s the size of it’s that small and it’s caged in your skull. So you can’t touch one thing in the human brain and not touch like a whole bunch of other stuff. That’s why medication unless you’re a harm to yourself and to others should be taken very seriously. Like you should only take medication that impacts the human brain if you’re, you know, harmful to yourself or to others because you can’t fix one thing and and not screw up a whole bunch of other stuff. And at the end of the day, we want sensory input. We want to taste the food that we’re eating. We want to pay attention to someone that’s talking to us and listen to their story and be present. We want to laugh. We want to cry. We want to feel sadness. We want to feel joy. We want to feel sorrow. We want to be creative. These are all cognitive conditions and that’s what creates a rich human experience. That’s what makes us feel good each day is when you know you you you think of many things, you feel many things. I we could do this all day. I know. Are there any players that you can tell me that you work with? Um, there are a few out there and and maybe I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll tell you who they are, but uh you can see them if you watch the guys that I work with and I work with many on the PG on all all the tours frankly. Uh and some of them were kind enough to give me their name for the book. like on the Cornferry tour, it’s Cole Hammer and Kyle West Mland and Kyle Stanley and like just a bunch of guys and you know uh you should have them on your show and and and and ask them how how uh how they use it. There are other guys that I I I don’t feel comfortable sharing with you uh right now, but um um at some point I will. I’m sure. And I think you’ll be surprised. Well, I I’m gonna I’m gonna be neuro is it neural hack or neurohack? Neurohack. Neuro. N E U R O hack. Yes. Let’s do one more just to wrap up. Let’s do it. Okay. Grab that putter again. Okay. So, all I want you to do is take your right hand. Are you right-handed, by the way? Yes. Okay. Good. So, just hold the putter with your left hand anywhere you want. Like maybe in the in the middle of the shaft somewhere. Okay. Now, take your right hand and just kind of close your eyes and feel the shaft all the way to the putter with your right hand. Like take your right hand on. Yeah, exactly. Just go all the way down to the putter head. Feel the grooves and the shape of the putter head. Yeah, it’s nice. Yeah. Okay. Right. So again, what you’re doing is you’re giving your brain sensory input. Sensory input is 10 hertz because there’s no judgment. It’s happening right now. And all sensory input goes to the same bedroom in in the brain called the phalamus. So by activating one, you’re acting activating all of them. So when you go when you do go over the ball, I want you to feel comfortable, fearless, and loose. That means when you use those terms, I want you to understand that when you say comfort, fearless, and loose, you are basically saying that my senses are super active. I am present. I see my target. I feel my club head. I’m going to send this ball where I want it to go. Interesting. So, use the neuraxs in the last 60 seconds. Gauge where your thoughts are. If they’re negative in nature, do a neuro hack. But if you’re good, like a baseball pitcher throwing a no hitter, you’re fine. You don’t have to do anything. Right. Right. Yeah. So, it’s not like if I watch your guys, they’re not going to be doing it on every single shot. Exactly. It’s when they notice, it’s when they notice, oh god, I got some negative thoughts creeping in or I, you know, I don’t like this T- shot or whatever it might be. If you miss a two-foot putt, you better be doing a neuro hack on your way to the next shoe box, right? I’ll keep that. I will not forget that. Yeah. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, doctor. Uh, I really appreciate it. This has been fascinating. Everyone, go check out his book, uh, The Brain Swings Every Club. Uh, I I actually do feel great right now, which I know you’re probably just thinking, “Oh, he’s just saying this.” Do that. Do those hacks we were talking about and notice how everything just seems to slow down and and it’s kind of amazing. So, I really appreciate you hopping on and and hopefully we’ll talk to you soon. All right. Cheers. Cheers. I’ve noticed that there’s more and more golf clubs that are coming onto the set as we’re as we’re all starting to do these neural activity. It blew my mind. I’ve like learned about some of this stuff before. Like I’ve I’ve tried these things where like you close your eyes and you rub your two fingers together and the thought you have is like feel the ridges of your fingertips. Well, it’s like it’s like what he was saying about noise, right? And like and and I’ve done, you know, did you watch um what was that? What was you might know what was the the documentary on Netflix about social media? Oh, social dilemma. Yeah, social dilemma. And one of those things was like the human brain is just not designed for this much feedback, right? Like back in the 1950s, you might get like once a quarter, you know, your boss would call you in or once a year and be like, “Here’s how you’re doing in your job.” I I every video I post, I get told that I’m the worst person that’s ever lived, you know, like there’s just way more input. And when you’re doing these sensory things, you move that like judgment piece from it’s just like it’s it’s what’s happening. It’s like it’s it’s a complete distraction that you then put in a certain place. You know what I mean? Like Yeah. And within the last 60 seconds, that’s like the key part, right? Cuz you’re like, I have 60 seconds to just be in the zone, right? And it’s not it’s not going to make you there the whole time, but I thought it was super interesting. And and also and also like the the mush like the hallucinogen stuff is really interesting cuz it’s a it’s a real thing. Well, it’s a real thing on tour and it makes sense cuz golf is like that’s like a huge thing in mental health right now, right? Like these like how can all this stuff help you and or not help you and there’s and it makes sense that golf being like like you said it’s not you’re not reacting to someone you pull the trigger when you’re ready. It makes sense that golfers are like going to pretty significant lengths to to try to figure out their brains. I mean that’s clearing the swing thoughts, right? Like we could have come up with that without talking to the doctor, right? Like if I had no swing thoughts. But how do you actually do it? How do you actually do it? And it’s oh it’s so simple, but I remember like do you remember CBD got really popular like six years ago and everyone was taking it. I remember we first like we got some at the office and we all tried some like the what I described the feeling as was like it swept the cobwebs out of the back of my brain. It just made it a little bit more clear. It’s the same feeling when you release the tension of that grip neuro. It’s the neuro hack when you squeeze that grip. Guys, if you haven’t do it, do it. you you you feel really calm cuz it it’s it’s almost like you have these these things in your head and instead of trying to like fight them, you just like put them all into one thing and then you get rid of them. It’s like 10 seconds of learning the grass is greener on the other side when when you’re not squeezing as hard as you can. Life is good. And what he said of like, you know, I’m in this qualifier like if I, you know, uh uh out of bounds down the right is not the same as you know someone in my family is is sick or something like but it feels the same. That’s just your brain playing tricks on you. So this guy, Dr. Izzy Justice, just remember that name. Remember that name. I feel like we’re going to be talking about him a lot over the next couple years. Dr. Easy Justice, man. And it’s not a name that you’re going to forget. No. So check out his book. Uh we’re going to we’re going to move into Chirps. Chirps from the gallery. One of my favorite uh segments that we always do. We got English Harris English. Can we show this up there? Aussie Osborne was arrested. So Aussie Osborne passed away. And that does look a lot like Harris English. Especially it’s one from the side, the profile. Oh, I think both. I see it. You see it in both. I see it especially in the profile. Speaking of weird look alikes, how about our next one? Hulk Hogan. Also, RIP. That’s Scotty Sheffler. That is Oh my god. Hulk Hogan in Heist. You know, you see the resemblance that looks just like Scotty Sheffler. I want to see this haircut on Scotty. That would be a sick They should have brought that back. Um, this was one about Neman on Liv. Uh, walking Nean is a top five player in the world when Da Punk is playing in the background. That one gave me a good laugh. Just need to be a bit This one’s a little bit sad. Uh the Augusta Hooters. Oh, this was a a mainstay on Washington Road. You know, like I always people a lot of people who are don’t know golf, what what is Augusta like? I’m like, well, Augusta is incredible. If you walk outside, Washington Road is a totally different country and Hooters on the side of there’s no more Hooters anymore. And this is where uh John Daly used to set up shop and sign autographs. And Rick Geon, our guy, miss him. I miss him. Rick Gaiman uh wrote, “Jould buy it and rename it Clarit Jugs.” Clar Jugs. J D has the opportunity to do the funniest thing. Do it JD. Come on, bro. And our last one. This is a bit of a trend. It feels like a violation. So, this is Michael Bloomberg and I saw this and and you can go on the Jin app and you can search and you can see where someone is member. Where’s where they’re a member? They’ve been playing. No, where they’re a me. Well, you can see. Yeah, but you can see where they’re a member. Michael Bloomer is a member of National Golf Links, Shinock, Century Country Club, Atlantic Golf Club, the Golf Club of Purchase, Glenn Arbor Golf Club, MacArthur Golf Club, Emerald Dunes Golf Club, Seminal Golf Club, Cypress Point Club, and Monterey Peninsula Country Club. He’s a 22 index, which is tough to see, but this feels like a little bit of a violation, you know what I mean? He’s a public figure, you know, but but it’s for everybody. It’s public records, I guess. Yeah, people look okay with just anyone being able to You guys want to know what I shot at Brentwood last week? Yeah, you can go look it up. Someone actually doxed me and posted my scores from uh saw that they weren’t pretty. Uh I just I don’t know. I didn’t that that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I feel like something should remain sacred. I I you can see what I what the scores of to see where a guy’s a me. You can go look up a Tom Brady. You can go look up Patrick M. You can see where these guys are members. That’s a politician though. You know what I mean? In fact, he’s going to run for president again. I want to know like where his priorities are. Well, his priorities are at Seminal National Perches. Got my vote. It’s quite a roster that that guy’s. Uh before we go into our clip of the week, just a quick special thanks to Zone for all they do. I always carry a can in my bag. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Underage shell prohibited. I’ve told you this before, but when I need to dial things in on the course, I go with Zone nicotine pouches. They have a stronger nicotine intensity. The others really aren’t even close. They have better flavors. They last longer, and they’re more comfortable than any other pouch out there. My go-to is the 6 milligram Wintergreen. As we talked about earlier, they make seven flavors in both 6 and 9 milligs. The big game changer, they have 20 pouches per can versus the other guys have 15. I mean, if you want more, I won’t play 18 without at least one can of zone in my bag. If you want zone pouches at a discount and mailed right to your door, head to nicokick.com, nico kic.com and enter code danongolf 20 at checkout for an additional 20% off. our clip of the week. I remember when Rory won the Masters and I said it was pretty amazing that no clips from his celebration came out. This was the clip that I was expecting and it makes me very very happy to see Rory and maybe it took a couple months. Whatever it is, it makes me very happy that he’s on this victory tour. This is Rory, I assume, somewhere in the south of France or something just living at large. What a great show you guys. Give us a like and a subscribe. I love you golf sickos. We’ll see you next week right here on Dan Golf presented by Knockaround. For now, enjoy our clip of the week. Rory. Rory, where’s the green jacket? Yeah. Where is it? Where is it? It’s only Yeah. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hey. [Music]
17 Comments
Oh captain my captain! Keegs def grabs the putter head for that one hack and i love it. great interview
Church pews are on the 3rd hole at Oakmont lads, not 7-9.
LIV is growing the game outside of the US. You nailed it on the head; you guys are very US centric. LIV has only been around 3 years and the progress that they have made is completely fine. I understand not liking the format and that not being your cup of tea but it's definitely taking steps in the right direction. They need to fix their relegation system and feeder system, but those things take time. PGA took decades to change & adjust their formats, and LIV has made tons of progress in less than half a decade.
My reinterest in PGA and golf was fueled by LIV. LIV allows me at various times of the year to watch the best golfers without having to stay up all night or get up at 3am.
What I have never understood is why some players, form example Rory, Ludvig, are allowed to be part of two tours, PGA T and DPWT, but not LIV players. That just seems anticompetitive. You could argue that it is because they are located in different countries, however, some KFT players play in pga tour events and viceversa…in the end, when and if LIV gets owgr, a higher number of quality players would consider playing liv for a couple of seasons.
Just a heads up that micro-dosing isn't for everybody. Specifically, people with anxiety (who might be tempted with help to slow down their thinking) can have a quite unpleasant time with micro doses of psychedelics. It's called out in the research but rarely mentioned in pop-psychology discussions.
The LIV thing is playing out exactly as I thought. They took a bunch of stars from the Tour, paid them insane amounts of money to play what amounts to exhibition golf for them, since they already have their generational money. Those top players stopped putting the time and energy into the game and therefore have fallen off.
There are three guys who still compete with the best: Rahm, Hatton, and Bryson.
Rahm left most recently, so his form is still there.
Then, Hatton is just a hardcore competitor.
Bryson is an insane golf nut. He just loves the game so much that he is obsessed with improving.
DJ, Brooks, and the others? They lost the edge.
The Saudis are not likely to give another PGA Tour star hundreds of millions of dollars after seeing how the other guys just pocketed the dough and stopped being committed to the game.
I was the one during the watch party that thought Johnny Keefer had won twice before the NV5 Invitional. He only won the Veritex Bank Championship. He became #TourBound after the win last week. He is in the field at Utah this week. He could have a battlefield promotion with the win.
15,16,17 WM Open
Dr Izzy for president
Nerd Non-Apology Zone. Amazing stuff.
I had the unfortunate situation of finishing this epic episode, and seeing that there were exactly 69 likes on this video. Torn between two realities of leaving it "nice" or actively supporting the pod, I begrudgingly tapped the precise spot of the thumbs up icon to do my duty, but I'm dearly heartbroken all the same…
Pour one out for me sickos, I'm really going through it today. 😩
55:20 if you're not interested in the LIV convo
The section with Dr. Izzy Justice was NEXT LEVEL!! Can’t wait to try a couple of those fixes out this weekend!! ((If needed!😉😂))
What makes Keanes win even better is he had to give up golf for 3 years due to injury and his goal was just to get back golfing let alone at an elite amateur level. Has only been back playing since June 2023 with motivation to just play in South of Ireland. Unbelievable win and absolute scenes on final green!
I love Liv it’s so entertaining and I watch every event. It’s definitely growing more so over seas but it takes time the nfl wasn’t big in 3 years but everyone just needs to know that all sports is just entertainment nothing more nothing less but the media is the only ones with hate
Still pleading for us open venues to be ranked!!!!😢😢😢