Join us as we sit down with Joel Dahmen for a candid and open conversation about his journey on the PGA Tour. From junior golf in Clarkston to winning in Punta Cana to becoming one of the most relatable figures in the game, Joel walks us through the highs, lows, setbacks, and breakthroughs that shaped his career. He shares what he’s learned about confidence, handling pressure, navigating tough stretches, and finding joy in competition—offering honest insight every player can learn from.
Check out our sponsor, Golfshot:
[Music] Welcome to the Earn Your Edge podcast. I’m Corey Lumbberg from Alters Performance and today our guest is Joel Damon, someone who you’ll definitely know as being one of the best and biggest personalities on the PGA tour. And in this conversation, we try to give you a little deeper look into the mindset and the actions that are behind that success. Uh it’s no accident that he has achieved what he has and he took a pretty unique pathway to get there. Uh he’s just a really sharp and thoughtful and self-aware guy. We’re excited for you to hear this very in-depth conversation on how he approaches golf and getting better uh life away from the course and who he surrounds himself with. Lots of really good wisdom from Joel. And as always, Cam and I are going to try to unpack the biggest takeaways and the debrief after the interview. So stay tuned for that. Before we do, a quick word from our partners, Golf Shot by Golf Genius. If you’re not familiar with Golf Shot, it is the number one mobile and wearable GPS app in golf, used by over 8 million golfers in more than 90 countries. Golf Shot’s been helping players improve since 2008. And it’s packed with features that basically make it a smart caddy in your pocket. Automated stat tracking, club recommendation based on distance, 3D flyover previews, swing analysis on the range, and access to over 47,000 courses around the world, including green reading maps on 15,000 courses. They’ve been named the best golf GPS app for Apple Watch, and it’s easy to see why. Earn your edge listeners can try golfshot champions for just $50 for the first year using promo code edge. Head to play.golfshot.com/by and enter promo code edge at the checkout. And now time to get into our conversation with Joel Damon. Enjoy. So we’re uh we’re interrupting your time off. You’ve got a week off here. Uh what is a week off typically look at the Damon household? What are we interrupting right now? We’re we’re thankful you’re here by the way. Yeah, thanks for having me guys. Uh, I’d say one uh soon to be legend coaching and maybe one in the future. Sure. Uh, but thanks for having me, guys. I am inter You guys are interrupting. Uh, probably the best time to interrupt me is uh trying to cook dinner for a 2-year-old slash my wife’s trying to bake some cookies and uh we also have a puppy in the house. So, between a 2-year-old and a puppy, I don’t know which one’s worse, but it’s complete chaos. And I’m happy to be sitting in a guest bedroom with you guys. Yeah, that’s always a good idea. Training both of them, right? There we go. We’re interrupting each other again. Yeah, you have a 2-year-old. It’s like, get a puppy. That’s a good idea. So, in defense of the puppy of my wife, I will say that we are now expecting our second child. And at the time when we got the dog, we were pretty sure we weren’t gonna have another one. Um, so a very great awesome blessing to have another one on the way. At the same time, diabolical to bring a puppy into the house when you’re trying to potty potty train 2-year-old and get ready for another one. Thankfully, we have six months to go. So, we’re going to figure it all out. We always do, but right now it’s a little chaos and it’s actually the most fun ever is just creating the biggest mess, having the most fun at home, and just kind of enjoying that time. Yeah, no doubt. And thank you very much for uh congratulations one, but also we know that the the time at home is really really important and we’re thankful that you spend a little time with us. We’re hopeful that the listeners are going to get a lot out of just hearing what your story is because we know it’s a unique one. And I want to start way back in the beginning. I want you to paint a picture for what junior golf looked like in in Clarkston, Washington. And I I had I looked it up on a Google map and no offense to the uh two high school state championships that you had there. I’m making the assumption that it wasn’t exactly a hotbed of talent of junior golf. So what did junior golf what was the junior golf scene looking like there in Clarkson, Washington and how did you get good there? That’s a great question. Uh correct and not a hot bet of golf. We’re two hours south of Spokane, five hours east of Seattle and five hours north of Boisey. So basically middle of nowhere. We’re on the Snake River, Clear Water Clu. It’s a gateway to Health Canyon. Incredible spot to raise a family. Small town. Uh cannot get away with anything. I’m a testament to that. I uh I was saying I was at Eric’s house and I was at Mike’s house and that was a big red flag in our house. But um I think that I had two amazing parents who uh pursued they love golf themselves. So, I grew up in a golf household and um they fortunately for me, golf was cheap. So, we had at Clarkson Country Club when we moved right there by the golf course in 1997, I’m going to say summer of 96 maybe. It was $125 for a family membership that included range balls, all excess pass, and included food. And so, what a great place to grow up. by incredible head professionals at my place who uh when I was 10 or 11, they gave me the keys to the gate so I could lock the gate when I left and I could open the gate if I got there early and I could just play and the membership was really cool to me. Um my my parents taught me respect of the golf course and members and all that stuff and I got invited to play in a lot of uh you know the members game and that was really fun but from a small town you you have that atmosphere right? So the the love of the game for me was developed through my family and that’s just my mom’s school teacher so she had summers off and my dad could get off by 3:00 from his mil work job and we just spent evenings playing golf and that’s just what we did. It was our family. It’s how we hung out and it’s how we spent so much time together and stuff I will always remember. And uh my dad’s almost 70 now and he loves the game more than he ever has. So it’s still something that we have in common. we still love and um I say like the love of the game cultivated there of just spending time and chipping and putting and spending evenings together as a family. Um, and as a three sport athlete, I’m going to say star. Uh, but in Clarkson, Washington, you can play all sports. And golf happened to be the one that a, uh, 6 foot, I’d say 5’9 at the time, 135 pound kid was probably going to be the best at versus being an NFL quarterback or an NBA point guard. Yeah. How far and wide did you have to travel to get some decent competition? Yeah, it’s very interesting. So, I had everything I ever wanted growing up. Uh my mom’s a school teacher, my dad’s a mill worker. I mean, like I said, we we’re a member of the country club. Means a lot different in Clarkston back in the 90s than it does in Dallas than it does in most major cities. Like that is that’s a tough thing these days. Um but um all of my junior tournaments are two hours away in Spokane, Washington. So it was a big sacrifice. My dad worked to pay for that. My mom traveled with me in the summers. And so most of my events when I was younger were were two hours away. And then as I got a little bit better, we drove to Seattle area, which is 5 hours. Um, people probably nowadays can’t quite imagine that of all the events they have now. But we also had no idea how good I was at golf until a freshman in high school and I won the state high school tournament. Uh, we were from a small town, but we were still 3A, which is a the biggest is 4A, so we were second biggest. Um, and there’s a bunch of big names and we were getting ready for that tournament and uh my my high school coach who’s still my great friend was like, “Hey, like you know, it’s okay to just to make the cut here and do this.” And um I was a very good freshman, like don’t get me wrong, but um also went out and happened to win that week. And at that point, that’s my dad was like, “Holy crap, you get like your college paid for maybe.” And that was like the biggest thing we could ever imagine. um we didn’t know how good I was or kind of level I was on and kind of until that moment. So um I was playing against a bunch of two to eight handicaps in the you know Saturday game at my club and that was really fun to play with them but when you’re beating them regularly you know the 50 to 70 year olds you have no idea how good you are against competition. Yeah. Um, what sort of scores did you shoot to win the state championship? And was it a transformative experience to the extent that you scored really low, like out of your comfort zone, or had you been scoring something similar in maybe the events that you were playing and it just it showed up on that larger stage? That’s a great question, Cam. Um, I had shown the ability to go kind of low when I was younger. Um but it was on like local munis, local country clubs, not on a you know not on a a bigger scale, a bigger tournament. And um regionals to qualify for state. I shot 63 uh made nine birdies, nine pars. And I remember high school coach Brian Frasier was like, I made I birded the first three holes. And he’s like, look, and I had done that before and I’ve always kind of come back to even par or like around par. I was afraid of going low, you know, like that. You got to cross that bridge of being uncomfortable making a bunch of birdies. And at that time, he’s like, “Look, good job. Put them in the bank. Like, those are gone. Make more.” And I went on to obviously make a bunch more. And um at state, I shot, I believe it was 7366. So, I was way I was decently behind the leaders. Um but it was kind of that same thing on the final day of state. It was like, “Hey, good job making birdies. Let’s go make a bunch more. Let’s go make more. Let’s go make more.” And I was far enough behind. There’s no leaderboards in, you know, high school state where we’re at. Uh things change a lot in 20 years. I assure you of that. So, we had no idea. It was one of those things you literally got around the leaderboard and you’re waiting for scores to come in. I remember Fraser turned me goes, “You just won.” And I was like, “What do you mean I just won?” So, I believe I was a par 73, I think. So I shot even par and then seven under um to win that. And at that point, you know, got got some people looking at me and um from there I had a blossoming summer of where I qualified junior worlds and qualified for other things and had done stuff on a larger scale. But that gave me an opportunity to to to definitely do those things. I have like a million questions that pop up from that just because that story just doesn’t sound like the stories that we are are used to hearing here. And so one like what is a what does a week look like? What does a normal period of time? You you we often associate like how we development to access. You’ve got access to coaching to world-class facilities to world-class competition all the stuff that we have say in Dallas, Texas, but what you’re describing is a lot different. So what is your typical day-to-day week look like as you’re developing and getting better during that time? Uh people will be blown away by this. So, um, I played I was a pretty good basketball player and I say pretty good for Clarkson Washington. Um, I could have, you know, I played a varsity level sophomore year and, uh, you know, was was a decent player, but when I played all sports growing up, um, and I literally would put the clubs away in October, maybe September, and wouldn’t touch me until the first day of high school golf in early March. And um that’s just I didn’t have I didn’t have a deep passion. I wouldn’t say deep passion for golf. I always love golf, but I’m saying like it was cold and the gym was warmer and I could go hang out with my buddies in the locker room and do those things. And um my dad and people around me, when I say people around me, I it’s like I had a team. I’m you know, other coach like, “Dude, come play another sport.” Because when you’re a big fish in a small pond, you can do those things. And so it was big on no injuries. Uh let’s not specialize in one thing. Also, burnout is a real thing for me. Um always has been and still is to this day. Um so I had to make sure that I got away from the game of golf. And I picked it up on the first day of high school golf, which is early March for us. And we, you know, we had a tournament a week later. But um golf came natural to me. I would say in that aspect, but also in the sense that I was so ready to play golf again because I literally had to go find my golf clubs out of the attic, pull them down and and start it up again. And so my week to week was was non-existent for legitimately six months. I would not hit a golf ball and I wouldn’t think about it. The other thing that I think is pretty cool about this is um like I said, we had everything we ever wanted. But affording the top level stuff at the time was just not real realistic. And there was a guy was a farmer about 20 minutes away and he built my golf clubs. I used knockoff Callaways. I used um random other clubs that I won off of like Pro Shop Credit. I remember like there was an Adams Wood in my bag and I think I had a decent driver at the time. might have been King Crow driver at the time and I used a putter that I like grabbed out of the garage that was whatever and I went and beat everyone and I didn’t know any different, right? But it just shows in that aspect there’s a point of having the want in the game and being energized to play the game and and enjoying that and not maybe you don’t need to have the greatest thing of all time and you’re 14 15 years old. you just got to have a love for the game and and want to kind of enjoy it and get better at it and hang out with your friends at it. So, winning with knockoff stuff and all that. And then, uh, at that point, my dad’s like, “Okay, we got to get you a real set of clubs.” So, I did, uh, graduate to a, uh, I believe they were pinging ping clubs, which is a big deal. Um, and I got kind of started getting some better equipment at that time. But, uh, it was just it was always just my dad made it very fun for me, very competitive for me. I was always uh we played games in the afternoon and evenings, you know, for chipping and putting um but I was also instructed by mostly my dad who read books that are completely false now that we know because of guys like you and Trackman and technology. So I was taught everything that’s wrong, but I’m old enough to be taught everything wrong. But I was taught uh how to play the game of golf which is don’t short, you know, don’t short size yourself, live in the middle of the green, play smarter than any other kids, and eventually you’re going to win. Beautiful. I was about to ask the question about the how integral a role coaching was in those early years. You mentioned at the front of the conversation, there was a great head professional, great professional staff at your at your club. um other than uh hanging around the golf shop and those guys maybe bit mentoring you on um the rounds of golf you might be playing. Was there other than dad um an active voice in instruction or when did the first really kind of official coach come on board and was that closely aligned when with when golf became an obsession to you when it wasn’t just a um an activity that um took the place of basketball as soon as golf season started? Right. So that’s a that’s a good one. So I believe I was 12 or 13. I played with a 10-finger grip with and most would think 10 finger grip is a baseball grip, but I gripped the golf club like a baseball grip. So the the left thumb is not even down the shaft until I was 12 years old and I hit a golf ball like that. It’s mindboggling that face control at all. Like it’s not even possible nowadays. Like I’m gripping my hands and I’m like this is not even feasible. So very homegrown in that. Um pretty comical. I played cross hand until I was like six or seven. My dad’s like, “All right, you’re good enough to change hands now.” Um or, you know, correct grip. But when I was 12, a guy named Trent Gats, who’s out of Moscow, Idaho, he’s still there. Um he gave me my first formal lesson. Now, still no Trackman. Still none of those things, but um still like got me on the right track of like here’s your setup, be a little more square, do a little more fundamentally correct things. Um, but my dad was a big short game guy and he read all the books and we it was just grinding out the short game. Um, which is kind of funny to try to turn a 69y old man now into saying that ball striking is more important. Um, this is how I made my career. Uh, being a good ball striker, but it’s kind of funny to look back on those things. But um, I you know I had in my club I had a small I had an unbelievable professional Doug Doug Ferris. I’m still friends with him today. He gave me access, like I said, keys to the lock. Like my grandparents gave me their golf cart. They lived nearby. Um, so I could drive in and out. I could do as I please. And the member, I treated the membership with respect. Um, but I had full access to everything. And I just spent my afternoons and, you know, whatever mornings all day out there as much as I could, find games, just hang out around the golf shop. I would I was at the point when I was 13, I was answering phones at Clarkson Country Club. If they were out doing something, I’d be like, “Hey, Clarkson Golf Shop. How can I help you?” Like, “Hey, do you have a tea time available on Saturday?” And I like look down the list and be like, “Uh, first one’s available at 10:45.” “Okay, what’s your last name?” Boom. Like that’s a small town thing I grew up in. But it I love the environment and I had great assistant pros. Um, everyone there was really welcoming to me and most junior players. Uh, I happen to be kind of obviously one of the better ones, but it was just the full access to run within the, you know, within the rules and within reason that I could just go. It was my playground. Love it. And I could do it all. And it was really, really cool. And that’s what generated and that’s what grew my my love for the game and just being around the golf course because half the time I’d sit in the golf shop in BS with whoever came in. um maybe go chip and putt with them, maybe go play nine and holes with them. Um and that was that was really cool to me and it’s really hard to find these days. Yeah, this I think it answers the next question that I had which I wanted to segue into college golf and normally when we’re having this conversation, we we talk about this really really critical period where college golf sets you up for the next stage of development. Yours was short, yours was one year at University of Washington. And so I I want to talk I think again I understand now when you talk about the transition from what you’re describing this like idealic place that sounds unbelievable to a much much different environment. I think I have a a pretty good guess at why that didn’t turn out quite as well. But if if you’re if we’ve got somebody that’s listening that is uh about to choose a school or going to a school you had some struggles. What would you want them to learn from the experience that you had with one year at University of Washington and then you end up going to play, you know, professional golf within a year, I guess. What would we learn from that experience? Um, we were pretty naive to the whole college process of what it was. We were I would there was only one maybe two other players in the last four years on any sport at Clarkson to go to D1. Uh we had Josh Highel went to Gonzaga to play basketball. incredible athlete, 611 stud. Uh, and we had a football player who went off and played somewhere. But, um, it was unknown to all of us like in the entire town that like like someone was going to play D1 athletics. I would, and the biggest mistake I made was, uh, one committing early. I think that is not um, it wasn’t great for me. Um, I went with a week in the best offer. Uh, I have no regrets because it created who I am today. But I would go to a situation that is more like what I grew up at home. So I went to 5 hours away to Seattle instate. That helped obviously with scholarship stuff. Um, but also Seattle is a massive city. Uh, I mean Spokane was a big city and I go to Seattle. I go to a massive campus, 40,000 kids. I’m swallowed up and I’m spit out pretty fast. Um, I had every teacher in my high school knew who I was, helped me out along the way. I was a good student. Um, that wasn’t the but it was like I had this community around me and I had people that supported me, supported my family, supported all my friends. Like it was awesome community and I went to a big big massive university and I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t um that wasn’t where I was. So in hindsight I would have went to a smaller college town. I would have went to a place where um I wouldn’t look around and see the city and the buildings and I um maybe you know don’t get like so wowed by all of it or so scared of all of it. Um I would have went to a smaller school. Um I was lucky enough to play right away at UDub but it just was in hindsight it’s easy to look back and see it’s not the place. I would just say don’t be in such a rush to make a decision and also find the spot that is closest or that will you know curate what you’re doing and and what you feel comfortable with and I think a lot of times everyone every kid in such a rush and all the parents are in such a rush to get them into the biggest and the best schools but unless you’re like one of the top dudes like it’s just not going to work out. You even see with some of the top, you know, juniors going somewhere, you know, transferring now and they doing things that kind of go back to their home. Go where you’re comfortable. Go with someone doesn’t promise you the world. Go somewhere where they’re going to take care of you and and care about you and you’re still going to get really good at golf. Like that is not the issue. Like you’re going to play against best competition. You’re gonna do all those things. Just go where you know that you’re cared about and you don’t have to worry about maybe so many things of like being in a big city. I mean, remember going to school and like trying to park as a freshman. I’m like, I can’t parallel park. We never parallel parked in Clarkson, Washington. I’m like trying to find a parking spot. I’m like, this is ridiculous. Like, what am I doing right now? Um, and then all of that kind of combines just like find a home. Find a place you’re going to be for four years that you can look around and and enjoy. And um that’s the one thing I probably I probably I really whiffed on. I would say the next step that you chose to take um entering the uh pro ranks versus trying to find uh something that was more of a match for where your game was at and what you begun to realize maybe um where you would fit better in college at. Did you feel like it was just I’m ready? You wanted to live that boyhood dream of of pro golf? Yeah, so it it actually was a three year. So, I I flunked out at UDub. That was uh it I could get by in Clarison doing whatever I wanted. I could get a teacher to give me the B and um everyone understood the whole process. Um I when I got swallowed up and spit out there, the option was to go back to um go to go to community college for a year, get my grades back up and go back. Uh school was not for me. And looking back, that’s like super dumb because I love now I’m just researching everything from World War II to anything I see. Like I love learning now. Uh I loved every It’s such a young dumb thing. Like I missed out on so much with that and it’s so frustrating. Um I still I so I lived at campus for for two more years. I was fortunate enough to live with Nick Taylor who was number one am in the world. Uh obviously having a great career on the PJ tour and he I watched what he did. He went to class, got great grades, and was number one in the world. And I’m like, “Okay, this is what it looks like to be good at life. Like, he’s obviously the best amateur in the world at the time, but he’s also getting pretty good grades and he’s doing everything correctly.” And that was kind of a a great uh I owe him a lot. I still owe him a lot. Uh we’re so close. Um but the the next step for me, I played amateur golf for a little bit, but it was kind of one of those things. I was just a man, I was just a a lost kid. So I knew I didn’t want a job. Um I I my dad worked at a mill for 38 years. My mom’s school teacher. I great human beings, blueco collar, but I thought there was more out there for me. I didn’t know it was pro golf, but I was very lucky to meet uh a man who after I won the Washington State amateur. Uh it was three years after I had left Udub, it was and he’s like, “Look, you’re pretty good at golf.” I was like, “I I don’t know if I’m good at golf. I haven’t played in a long time.” Um clearly talented individual, but at that point, I’m like, “All right, I’ll turn pro.” Uh I had no aspirations. I had no My dreams were not playing on the PJ tour. my dreams were delaying my life to be kind of a ding-dong for a little while and just like pushing off like the real world stuff. Um, and I slowly got better and I was surrounded myself with better players and I surrounded myself with great people and all of a sudden I started getting better and better to the point where I, you know, graduate off the Canadian tour and I graduate off Cornberry tour and now I’m in year nine on the PJ tour and I still kind of laugh at myself that how did this ding-dong from Clarkston who didn’t quite have it all figured out made it nine years on the tour and probably going to make it a few more uh you know if I start you know if I if I keep going what I’m doing. Yeah. And that that’s what I was most like eager to talk to you about. And I was talking to Harry. I was Harry Higgs who you’re good friends with and uh he was what should I talk to Joel about a little bit? And one of the things that he told me was Joel has an unbelievable way he surrounded himself with these people. this circle around him, whether it be Lana, your wife, Rob, your coach, Chris, performance coach, obviously Gino, and now hearing the influence that Nick Taylor has on you. And you say that you were you were pushing away real world stuff for as long as you could. I I think it’s underrated. We need to mention how much real world stuff that you had, man. You had some heavy happen. You had loss of a parent. You had a cancer diagnosis. If we snapshot you during that first year on the Canadian tour and we say, “What are the chances this guy makes it nine years on the PJ tour?” I don’t think like if we’re being honest, we’re saying probably not. How much of a role has that was that support system if if and I I I kind of want you to speak a little bit for the listener to to serve them is how important that circle is and then how are you selecting how do you make sure that you have the right people in that circle and I know I’m sure you’ll say you know maybe it was luck but there has to be some intentionality to finding those people around you that have been so helpful. Uh what a great question Corey. I have said exactly that. I’ve been man I even talked to my wife like how lucky am I to have these people around me. Well at some point it’s not luck anymore right like if you have this many people around you supporting you uh one I would say because of my upbringing I had great parents. So um I could smell when something wasn’t right. Um and that person was like hey I can help you. I can do this. I can do like I can do this for you. Like you know like if it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true. Um I was lucky enough to meet Gino, my caddyy who’s been with me, you know, since the corn fairy days. So we’ve known each other for 25 years now. I mean, since I was 12 years old. He was kind of a big brother to me the whole time. Um I would say marrying Smart. Uh what uh what a gift uh to not marry a tour wife, I say. um not marrying someone looking to marry a professional athlete. Like what a nightmare that can be. I know that works out for some people. Um but my wife supported me for a couple years paying rent and doing those things. So I think that’s really special in our relationship is she doesn’t care if I play golf or not. She wants to be a good human being, good husband, good dad, and we figure out the rest of the things. Um Robert Shell came in my life and was on the Cornferry tour. I I’ve known him for a lot longer. He played at Washington. He played on the PJ tour himself. We’d run into each other a little bit, but at some point I’m like, man, every all signs are pointing to this guy’s a good guy. And I actually hung out with Rob for multiple times before I even saw my lesson team. I played golf with him. Uh had a beer with him, did all these things. I’m like, man, I kind of want this guy in my life. And turns out he’s decent at coaching me at golf. Um uh those things I think are are more critical. I see too much right now that young kids show up on tour or even younger and they have a posi around them and they aren’t um they’re in it maybe for the wrong reasons. They’re in it because you’re going to be a star. Uh one of the greatest things Lana did was maybe separate some people in my life thinking I was going to be a pro. I when I was on the Canadian tour thinking I’m going to make it big and they were around. Um they’re not around any longer. Uh, and they were quickly gone when you meet someone uh like like my wife who’s special. Uh, Rob is like, “Hey, what are these people doing?” Like they’re kind of around often. Um, what is their purpose? Like what are they actually getting out of this type of thing? Um, I think that surrounding yourself with the people that actually care about you as a whole, not as a golfer. Uh, my group has an open dialogue. I know they talk behind my back all the time I say behind my back, but it’s like there’s a they’re all texting communicating all the time of hey, is Joel in a good headsp space right now? Like what’s going on at home? Um Chris Bertram is actually I’m in I’m in the middle of boot camp right now, guys. Uh Bertram’s down here. Uh right, we got we got three days of that. It’s full on, but it’s people that care about me. It’s I’m surround myself with people who love me and and they don’t they want me to do well. Clearly, they’re all on my team in that aspect, but they’re also I would I I go back to bumper bowling. I think it’s very important. You cannot send a strike every time, week to week, month to month, year to year. You got to let the human bounce off the off the bumpers. You cannot let them throw a gutterball. They’re there to if you throw a gutter ball now we’ve we’ve we’ve lost our our path. You’ve got to let them All right, Joel’s going this way. All right, who’s going to grab him on this one? It could be Lana. It could be all of them at once. You bank off this one and then you go kind of down the middle again for a while and then guess what? You bank off the other side for a while and then you come back down the middle and you play your best golf in the middle of all of it. But it’s never perfect. Um, but I think uh I’m really proud of the people I have around me and I owe a lot to them. I owe most of my career to them. But it’s also the coolest thing for me is I can have them all over dinner and not one single golf thing will really come up. It’s about life. It’s about how they’re doing. It’s about family. It’s about kids. It’s all of those things is so much fun. And Cory, I know you’ve been with me on the road a little bit with Harry. And we don’t really talk golf when we’re like we cook dinner, watch a sports game, play some cards, gamble, whatever you want to do. It’s so much fun to get away from golf and enjoy the people around you that and then the next day you get on the lesson te at 8 a.m. You get on the putting green and then you go to work and you go to work and then you can shut it off when you’re not with them. Harry told me at Myrtle you guys were talking golf and I was like, “You guys finally talk golf. I’m not there for a week at the house. I know I missed out. So, you can talk off some of that time. I would like to Oh, yeah. No, there’s it’s always there’s there’s time and place for that. And a lot of times it’s um I would say that week in in uh I’m not going to take too much credit, but uh I was uh slightly annoyed with Harry at a few things. And I let him know that I was frustrated with how good he can be and what he’s doing with his just strictly golf stuff. I’m like, Harry, you’re better than this. Let’s figure it out. I don’t know if I can help you, but let’s go. And that’s a cool thing. Nick Taylor. I found uh Chris Bertrram, my performance coach, through Nick Taylor. Uh I remember we were sitting in New Orleans three years ago now. I’m like, “Man, you’ve really turned it on. Like, you were the Nick I thought you would always be on the PJ tour. Like, what took you so long?” Basically, and he’s like, “Well, I started talking to a guy a little bit and he’s unlocked a few things and he’s kind of let me go, you know, or you know, figured out the path I should be on and and kind of guided me.” I’m saying the bumper things like, “Hey, kind of bump me back down this way and uh it’s one of those special things that relationships on tour have and um it’s just I’m so Bertram is coming over for dinner tonight and I’m very excited for that and he can hang out with my kid.” Like I’m like, “Hey, you’re probably on kid dig for 30 minutes.” He’s like, “Can’t wait. Can’t like” and Rob Michelle coach comes over. He is incredible. Like I love these human beings. If I quit golf tomorrow, I’d still be best friends with these people. Beautiful. Yeah, that’s beautiful, man. I love that. Can I Can I go back a little bit real quick? It’s one thing to have a a great crew of people around you, and you certainly have developed um um a tribe um a tribe that are the tide um lifting you up in many ways as you would lift them up. But it’s another thing to be um exposed to these truth tellers, these people that have a willingness to tell you what’s on their mind um even if from a professional standpoint it might risk their um relationship in many ways as a coach, right? Yes. Um or whatever capacity they work with you at like Gina was a caddy. Um but it’s another thing to also be um vulnerable in that conversation from your side and open to uh coaching. Is is that something you can trace back as a character trait that you inherited from your parents was cultured by your parents or is that is that is that something you had to learn over time that in order for me to get better I needed to trust other people and be vulnerable? I’m impressed with you two. Um, these are great questions. These are not the typical questions I’ve had. I’ve done some podcasts before, but these are these are great. I would Cam I I would trace this back to losing my mom. Um, so my mom passed away of cancer. I was a junior in high school and um I did not do that well. Um, part of the reason I flunked out at UDub. I was a young kid. I knew everything. I was good at golf. I was going on scholarship to a big university. Um, I could do it all. Like I was I was invincible, right? Bulletproof. Um, like most most kids are. Uh, nothing goes wrong. Uh, and after that, I didn’t really seek much help. Uh, I’m not going to put the blame on myself on like this 17-year-old kid like not searching out all the answers, but um, I learned as I came out of that that I needed help. I needed help from a lot of people around me um to climb out of the hole that I was in and just a a young kid in the world who had all the talent in the world, who had a lot of things. And at that point I um I I think my wife was was huge on that meeting this random gal uh who I had met many of them in in my in my young fun years. And this one was like dude you’re a pro golfer. Uh what are you doing? And I was like I don’t know. I’m free tomorrow. She’s like don’t you go to work? I’m like no. Like she’s like well if you’re a pro golfer like why don’t you stay pro golfer? there was accountability in my life um on those things and I I’ve met a lot of people along the way who have kept me accountable in that sense but I realized pretty early and I would also say this my my parents were great going back to that is like I could tell my parents anything we didn’t have it was you know I could talk to him if I was having talk to my mom if I was struggling with a girl in high school I could talk to my dad about whatever um it was a very open amazing family in that sense but at the same time I realized I needed if I wanted to go where I was going, where I thought I could be and where I wanted to go is I needed help in that aspect. And there’s so many people out there that are so much smarter, especially as a young kid. Um, and that’s so I started kind of seeking out uh ideas in that aspect of uh and I never always I didn’t neessy go with the flow. I always kind of found a guy on the edge who I thought was pretty good and I uh would go curate ideas in that and talk to him for a while and then you know if we all matched up we go that way but I realized very quickly uh coming out of my mom’s passing and you know it took me four or five years to kind of figure that out but I realized I needed help in every aspect and then um I’ve the people I have chosen and lucky enough that they have stuck with me along the way were people that cared about me as a human being first and then the golf side comes of all of it and they all have great ideas and I being open to that I think is number one because you have to like they’re gonna they’re going to tell you the truth like people now I feel like on higher stages bigger athletes you know the guys are making 40 50 million a year people yes man all the time That’s a problem. I had I had a great friend of mine who uh said yes to having fun all the time. Instead of, “Hey, maybe we can go chip and putt for a while.” I’m like, “Well, it’s over there’s kind of fun.” Well, quickly you found yourself with Nick Taylor. He’s like, “Hey, Nick, that’s kind of fun.” He goes, “Or we can go chip and putt for a while or we go hit balls or we go play golf.” And like those things make kind of figure out where the where the bowling alley is. Yeah. True. And I think the the the whole yes man thing doesn’t work in my life. I need people to tell me when I’m screwing up. And it’s amazing how often that is actually. Well, hey, Gino is like the ultimate guy. He’s there with you all the time. And I’ve been I’ve had the privilege of being around you guys in practice rounds and there’s just a lightness and like a joy to you guys. And I know you’re doing serious things. I know that there’s times when it’s not light and there’s not joy and you’re struggling and you may be pissed off at each other, but I think it just stands out the relationship that you guys have. Um, and it it doesn’t feel just like a personality trait of you two. It feels like like intentional, like it’s a strategy. Can you speak to the the role that maybe some of that lightness and that humor has as a strategy for dealing with the stuff that we encounter on the golf course because it doesn’t feel like an accident with you guys? Uh, correct. So, it maybe started as an accident. Um, I would say that if two dudes like living a dream out of a small town and like looking around be like, “Holy cow, we’re playing with Dustin Johnson or we’re playing the Rory J. Like, how cool is that?” It’s turned into uh I I think the biggest mistake I see is people surround is like maybe not enjoying it when they’re in the moment. And it goes all the way back to young kids. Like I’ll I went and uh Heather Far Classic is at AJA down here or I go watch a junior golf event that uh I’ve met through Rob, like a junior kid I’m trying to watch. I’m like they don’t look like they’re having any fun at all. Like golf is a game. It’s fun. Like if you’re putting so much pressure on yourself in those situations, it gets that just builds and builds and builds and you’re looking down and you’re not like looking around enjoying things or I think and also it takes hopefully 30 seconds to hit a golf shot. Like you’re there so you might and you’re out there for five hours. you might as well enjoy it and you might as well look around, tell some stories, uh chat, be friendly, and when it’s time to to hit a golf shot, you can lock in. You can choose what’s the wind doing, what’s my lie, what is my target? All right, how far does this go? All right, that is complete lock in. That is complete seriousness. You can even do it two minutes prior. Like, let’s get everything we need to make a great decision to hit a golf shot. Let’s do that. And then you accept the golf shot. You see where it goes. You know, however you want to decompress that situation. Guess what? You got another five to 10 minutes to hit another golf shot. You might as well enjoy it. Look around. You know, especially on tour, man. Like, there’s grandstands, there’s people watching, there’s so many cool things that you like as a kid would just blow your mind that you’re playing out there. like don’t forget those little things and like look around and um I think that’s that’s a is a huge thing and that’s why I have Gino on my bag still after 11 years. He’s my best friend and he never runs out of stories which thankfully he comes up with them all the time. uh his life is is very interesting uh with his wife and two kids, but I just see too many people just like not enjoying the moment or not looking around and uh just enjoying playing golf. Like golf is really really hard. So focus on that for the 30 seconds you need and then decompress, enjoy it all, and then go back into lock in again because no one on earth I’m in the middle of boot camp with my performance coach. Uh you cannot focus, you can’t be in flow state for five hours. You can only be in it for 15 to 30 seconds. So figure out when you need to be in that, unlock out of it, have a great person around you, enjoy it all. And um I think that also makes being on tour and being away and doing all the things I do is so much more fun with enjoying the things around me. Go out to dinner for goodness sakes. Go play mini putt. Go see something local. One of the greatest things on PJ tour and as juniors are traveling now so much more than I ever did. And that’s just an amateur golf. Go do something fun in the area like learn history. Like I remember going by myself to Abe Abe abe Lincoln’s like grave in in Lincolnland. I was on the cornfairy tour. I’m like, h I completely whiff this in my high school and college years. Might as well go see like where Abe Lincoln is and go like enjoy some aspect outside of golf. It’s not the more balls you’ve hit, the more putts you’ve hit is not necessarily going to be better for you have to detach yourself from a little bit and go look around like you get to do the coolest thing ever. You get to travel the country, travel the world, go enjoy all that cool stuff because golf is going to be there tomorrow and you the experiences are what you’re going to remember. Obviously, raising a trophy is really cool. Not many people get a raise a trophy all the time. You might as well enjoy the experiences and all of those things. And uh that’s one of my favorite things honestly is is and all the all the memories I’m going to have when I take away from being done with golf. There’s going to be a few cool golf moments we talk about. It’s mostly going to be like how we travel the world and all the cool things we did and the experiences in between all of the hard work because yeah, Gina will set up that putting plate. We’ll grind. We’ll set up the trackman. We’ll hit all those balls. At some point, you’re done doing those things. You got to detach yourself from it. You mentioned the physical piece there. We can see as coaches or spectators can see the physical pieces of practice like the putting plates, the trackmen, the uh sweat equity, the uh callous hands, etc. Yeah, a lot a lot’s made of that. But you’ve also touched on your work on the metal side of the game with Chris and I’d like to double tap on that to the extent that you’re willing to um share some more detail as to maybe the the tools that you’re looking to add to your toolbox or the um things that you’re looking to improve to sharpen the metal side of your game such that it’s uh complimentary, supportive, or maybe even elevates the physical pieces of your game. or that’s uh that could be really longwinded. As I said, I’m top secret. It’s not it’s uh it’s certainly not top secret. I um I think the tools that I have been provided from Chris the last few years is I was I was very late to the game of someone probably watched Netflix and saw me being a That’s really good editing by the way. I am not actually not that sad of a person, but I do say bad words after golf shots and I am frustrated golf at times, but um it is one of those things like you like how are you mentally ready on the first te on Thursday? So for me, I’m working on creating the environment that is a Saturday in near the lead and Sunday in comp, you know, late. How do I create that for myself on Thursday morning when there’s not a spectator in sight? It’s 7 a.m. 6:50 sometimes for me. How do I create that environment inside to get excited? And it’s easy. I say um it’s how are you not excited to be near the lead on the P2 tour? How are you excited, you know, to be leading an event? And that that’s an outside element that adds uh all you know all the adrenaline, all the focus that you need. Um, so how do I create that for me out, you know, before the before the lights are on? Um, and I think that’s a big thing for me. Is that a set of words you’re telling yourself or is that um a um particular heart rate you’re trying to reach? Is it Yeah, that’s it’s it’s all of those things. So, uh, I wear a Whoop most of the time and you can kind of tell like I, you know, you sleep at 50, you live at 70 and first he’s 90 and Sunday afternoon’s 120, right? Uh, how do we get, you know, 100 110 on Thursday morning at 7 o’clock? Like, so breathing exercises, you can elevate your heart rate by breathing. You can help help, you know, you can raise your heart rate by what you stare at. you can elevate your heart rate. Um, and most people talk about actually just like like lowering your heart rate, how you But sometimes you have to elevate that thing too, right? To get yourself in the moment and and feel I would say a stress level. I mean, I’m I’m not using probably the correct words here, but um No, I think you’re right. I think stress gets this connotation that’s always um anchored to negativity rather than stress always being um on a spectrum of bad stress and good stress which is ter I think and so your heart dictates your your brain and you can slow heart rate down slows your brain down if you can you can choose to elevate by so if in the simplest form if you exhale twice as long as you inhale that’s say lowering rate um of your heart rate. You can choose to stare at one tiny object. Like if I just stare at a like tiny little thing on the screen, it’s going to raise my heart rate. If I choose to take my entire So let’s say I’m playing an ocean course, I can just stare at the ocean. That’s going to lower heart rate. I can stare at like the the sky and it’ll lower heart rate the more that I focus. And uh recently for me about a month ago I struggled on Sunday at Punakana. Lost a lost a large lead come down and and really struggled there. One thing I took away is as I was coming down the back nine. I was forcing focus. I was forcing this like I got to hit this shot. I got to do this. I live better out there. I do better looking around, enjoying the moment, smiling, chatting with Gino. I didn’t hardly talk with Gino. I didn’t hardly look around. There was I was just like trapped in this like And the more you’re trapped in this little, you know, it goes back to fight orflight things, right? That’s a very common thing. You only need to be fight or flight for like 20 seconds to hit a great and you can actually take all of that adrenaline, all of that focus and make it into a golf shot. And that’s what makes people perform the best under pre pressure. And it’s been proven time and time again is when you actually focus all of that. That’s not a adrenaline all the things. It’s not a negative thing. That is a very positive thing. You put yourself in that moment. So let’s focus it correctly instead of focusing it wildly. So you decompress and you stare at clouds, you talk with your caddy, you whatever it is, and then you come back in to focus on a golf shot. That’s those are great things. Wow. Who knows whether Bryson’s doing that by accident or on purpose when he’s engaging the fans between holes and he’s Okay. Um Yeah, that’s a great one. I think Bryson is doing it on purpose because Bryson is smart enough and has studied everything. Um that is not by accident that he is doing those things and people like on Twitter and social media like man you’re high-fiving people and you’re doing those things and example like P the Masters. Oh, he didn’t talk to Rory. Rory decided his best course of winning was this. Now can’t argue with Rory because Rory’s arguably the best of our era. So you might as well just do whatever Rory does and that’s fine for him. Dshambo does it a different way. I’m more of a Dshambo character who needs environment and look around, enjoy the time, and then focus in a golf shot. Rory, apparently that Sunday needed to do what he needed to do, and he came out on top on that one. Um, there’s different guys that go about different ways. Uh, just recently, Ben Griffin, he’s going to look around a little more. He’s going to talk to his caddy. He’s going to smile. He is that personality. Matty Schmeid, he is a stone cold, but he’s that way on Thursday. Like, Matty’s that way on Thursday and Ben Griffin’s that way on Thursday. However you tee off on your casual round with your buddies is probably how you’re going to perform best. Yeah. So, quit, and this is mostly to me telling myself this is like quit trying to be the stone cold ice guy like on Sunday like locked in. That’s not me at all. And um I think it’s just better if you just stick to who you are. And if some people laugh through like hard times, right? Like it’s like uh I remember Danny Willlet laughed when he three puttered from like five feet of Napa and he laughed. That’s him. And that’s okay. and she’s like, “Oh, he doesn’t care.” Like, no, that’s just like who he is. He’s like, and that’s allowed. And um humanity just as much as breathing is a strateg for some people anger is a strategy just as much as for some people um that singular focus is a strategy. Right. It is. And I think the same thing um I think you’re allowed I think people like uh like Davis Love going back to kind of old school is uh super stoic, right? Like never did anything wrong. He did bring a a uh one of those things at Bay Hill a water mane and blew up on it. But that’s like the worst thing Davis Tiger Woods got mad, right? He showed emotion. He fist pumped when he did all the cool things. Like that’s his release and then he would focus back in. You can get mad. You can get all you can get happy. You can laugh. You can do whatever you want as long as you’re focused back in on the next one. Just don’t let the first one affect the next one. Right. And I see so many young people just get affected by it just builds and builds and builds and builds and instead of like, all right, I had my 15 seconds of fury or whatever I’m doing humor, but you got to focus back in. Um, and I think that’s a it’s just make sure you’re locked in on the next one, I think, is the biggest thing. And whoever you are is fine. You just know who you are and stick to who you are, right? Joel, I I we got like halfway through our questions, I think, and we got an hour here and I’m gonna let you go. But just to finish that on like just be who you are and stick to who you are. I think that was the fun part about prepping for this conversation with you is that you’re a lot different than most of the guys that we talked to. And I think that uh younger players that are listening feel the pressure to copy what they think all good players do. And you offer a little different model. And I’m I’m just so appreciative. It lived up. I knew this was going to be an awesome conversation and it and it lived up to it and more. And I’m just appreciative of you, who you are, and just your your uh willingness to share this stuff is is helpful us. We get to act like like we’re just doing it for someone else listening, but this is selfishly so beautiful to hear this and and I just I I really appreciate it, man. Thank you for sharing a little bit of time with us. Well, thank you guys. and you work with world class players and uh it’s uh always curious what Cam did, you know, back in the day with Jordan Speed and you know, kind of those funny things. But I I think number one if if we I would finish it with this is for parents is um let your kid go, man. Let the kid go. Let them be let them be kids. Let them enjoy the game. And if they’re good, they’re going to be good. And also like if they laugh something off or if something doesn’t go their way like it’s not the end of the world, man. I was a lost soul when I I was in no one. I had no chance. Like it doesn’t You don’t have to act like a true player when you’re 16. Let them go out on Saturdays and watch a movie with their friends. Let them not practice on a Saturday. It’s going to be okay. I promise. And just kind of en just enjoy the whole thing. like enjoy that your kids enjoying game of golf. Beautiful bow to put on it. Thank you so much for your time and look forward to seeing you down the road and um hope we can have a round two and um at a future date. Yeah, I need to figure out what boot camp is. I want to hear about it. Oh, you’re going to hear all about it, Cory. Okay, strong. See you. Thank you, everybody. Cheers. Thank you. Thanks so much. All right, let’s debrief. So, here’s what stood out to us from Joel’s journey and what every player and hopefully parent out there can learn from it. The first thing that I wanted to raise was the access, autonomy, and love of the game. I mean, gosh, if I could wind the clock back and start golf before age 16 when I dropped out of football. And I had been given the keys to the gate at the golf club at age 10 or 11. And that involved me spending endless evenings at the club chipping, putting family members or buddies. um it would be amazing just an amazing playground right and I think from that conversation there’s a couple of of super important uh pieces um I’ll raise that first and we’ve discussed this off off camera here but that first is um what’s called self-determination theory where um if we’re provided at a young age autonomy um an opportunity to decide for ourself what we want to be involved in the kind of rules of engagement and we are around a peer group. Whether that peer group is of the same age or not doesn’t really matter all that much and we’re able to do those things that we want to do, we have a joy or a love to do them and we build some level of competence, then the chance that if those three things exist, we’ll continue to be involved in whatever it is, in this case it’s golf in Joel’s case, um for a long period of time is uh strengthened almost guaranteed. Yeah, that that’s what my big takeaway what I would like parents to listen to, especially when they hear Joel’s story and that really unique path that he has had to high performance is that if that joy, that early joy isn’t baked into a kid’s experience in golf. Don’t be surprised when later on they’re really difficult to motivate. When they’re not the self-starters, when they’re not the kids who are like, I’m going to go practice. I don’t need to be reminded. And I know that all parents hope that their kid is that kind of kid that says, “I’m going to the golf course.” You know, I don’t need to be nudged by coaches or parents to do the really, really hard work. Well, I think that that our motivation is really fragile if it’s not first supported by this foundation of early joy. I love golf so much. And to me, when I listen to this very idealic upbringing that Joel had of this sounds like a whole lot of fun, and clearly uh it was not his job from an early age to get good at golf. He just loved doing it. and there was a lot of joy into it. In fact, there wasn’t even pressure to only do golf. There were breaks that that I think were also a part of it. So, I think that it’s a connected um theme that both of us picked out of there was not only was early joy really important and something that we needed to pay attention to, but also that there were some breaks. What’s the connection between those two, Cam? Yeah, I think that um when you’re afforded a chance to disconnect from what it is you are doing and start doing other things, there are many benefits that uh come from that. Uh the first benefit is you’re in burnout avoidance at that point, right? You’ve unplugged, you’re doing something else, and the what’s the expression? Absence makes the heart grow fonder. um an absence from something that gives you that joy and love um is certainly um pushing towards that. In addition to that, when you’re then doing other things and if those other things in like Joel’s experience are sampling other sports or even um competing at a high level as he was in basketball in other sports, then you’re developing these athletic skills that can transfer in parallel lacrosse into other sports. Um so I mean in the conversation with Ludvig when he was forced into winter time whether it was golf or not before he went to high school certainly echoed that sentiment that um there is this need for periodization. There’s this need for uh blocks of time that a golf activity and non-golf activity especially at the age that he was um um given the chance to do that. So, we’ve got um the motor toolbox expanding. We’ve got the um limitation or reduction in burnout and potentially injury there. Um and I think the the point that I want to underscore is there is that those things those breaks from game don’t hinder um later elite status. In fact, they enhance it. Yeah, that was my big takeaway there. The thing the note that I wrote down is that taking time off doesn’t mean that you’re falling behind. And I think that so many people feel this like really hyper pressurized environment, this pressure cooker of man, if I take a couple weeks off or if I go play this other sport, then now Timmy and Tommy are going to all pass me by. And we have all this proof that well, we have some conversations with players that you’re aspiring to be that didn’t feel the same way and their path doesn’t show that, doesn’t prove that out. So to to not feel the pressure and and I think you mentioned that was really important too is that might have been part of the love of the game, part of the joy that we talked about is that oh we missed this. Hey, I haven’t played golf in a little while. I took the winter off to play basketball and now I can’t wait to play golf again rather than you know the risk of burnout that so many kids feel like if if again if we skip that phase of I love golf so much. So I think that’s a really important piece. Uh, next up, uh, I think we both wanted to talk about his approach to mental performance. And I think you picked up on something that he said early on in his development that he found out about himself and his ability to go low. And then I’ll I’ll bring it back a little bit where he’s talking about the work that he’s doing now. But what did you pick up on from early in the conversation where he noticed that he might have some some uh mental skills that are important? Yeah, I’ll say a quick note and then let you pick up on the bulk of it. What stood out to me underscores so many conversations that you and I have and all coaches have that deal with or had the opportunity to coach kids, youth, and college players. It’s when you ultimately have that round where through nine holes or 15 holes, you’ve got it going low. Or maybe it’s the first six holes, you’ve got it going low. And Joel mentioned early on that he was afraid of going low. And he shared that with um his mentor, his college co sorry, his high school coach. And the advice that his high school coach him was just genius. It was absolutely gold. He says, “You got to think of the parsers that you make as you’re just putting them in the bank.” And uh golf is a sports conducted played over 18 holes or sometimes more than that, 36 holes like it his state championships. And if you have this mindset of um each hole being an individual contest and each success that you have birdie or par you’re just putting that in the bank then it prevents a person from falling victim to future thinking thinking about oh my gosh I’m three under par through six holes I hope I cross the finish line at three under par and uh you don’t fall victim to just trying to get it in the house but rather um you keep making those small deposits and those small deposits can occur prove to that five, six, seven underpar round as is was just the case. Yeah. And I like obviously that’s a huge uh piece of wisdom that came out of the conversation and like an exact uh example of something that a coach gave him and we’re going to talk about the other uh kind of people in Joel’s life that were really really important. Just before we leave the the mental performance part, at the very end of the conversation, he talked to us about the work that he was doing now and how he had done work with like the Navy Seals and that uh are a sports psychologist who had been with Navy Seals and he’s prioritizing and being really intentional with his mental performance. And I want to parents and coaches and players to get that out of the conversation is that we normalize that kind of mental work. uh if your if your kid is really serious about high performance, then that mental game and that mental performance deserves the same type of support and work that all the other areas of the game do. And we’ve uh heard that from a PGA tour that validates that, hey, this is really uh crucial part of me being at my best. Well, then the it can’t be uh it can’t be put on the back burner. It it has to be prioritized in a way that represents that. So, yeah, true. the elite performers that we’ve been honored to coach and also had conversations with um they shape their physiology. They ramp it up or ramp it down to match those moments, those moments of high stress, those moments that they need to get up for. And so I think just to echo or underscore your comments, parents and players need to run to fire, right? They need to put themselves in those uh spots of difficulty, spots that that create this um consequence around their successful execution of a shot or a hole or a round of golf. And then inside of that, um I think the takeaways also which is more like knowledge that we would share with players that we coach is that there are knobs and levers to um if you’re feeling low and not quite up to the task to elevate your psychological quote unquote state or if you’re feeling overwhelmed and overly anxious, there’s a there’s a there’s a set of psychological levers um that you can um pull on to let’s say downregulate. Um the two most prominent would be breath and um vision or concentration. Right? So if a person’s too amped up then um generally when the exhale is taking two times as long as the inhale that would be a releaser of tension. If if a person’s too amped up um then broadening one’s focus to something outside of the competition that you’re involved in. Whether that’s the scenery around you or that’s uh I’m disconnecting out of golf into something else that’s going on in your life that’s giving you some level of joy or relaxation would be a good way to kind of tone um the psychological state down. And then the inverse of that is true. if we need to get up, if we need to ramp up. Um certainly music is a big one that we talk about. Um but just as much um cyclical breathing that’s more kind of uptempo to raise your heart rate um is certainly a very effective um kind of psychological shift or state strategy shift. Um, and then the last piece on that would be like narrowing of focus to a very clear and specific intent for a given shot to um, let’s say channel the psychology and also your physical abilities into um, executing with uh, more success. Beautiful. Our next theme here that we wanted to chat about was my favorite one. It’s my favorite one to hear about. when we when Joel talked uh he talked about all these people that it seemed like you know like he got lucky that all these people came into his life. Nick Taylor was a mentor that kind of showed him hey this is what high performance really looks like. Gino a longtime caddy who you know obviously uh played a very important part for him on the bag and who he mentioned as being like a really important truth t teller. He had a sponsor that believed in him. um his wife obviously was a cornerstone to to his support system and then coaches and it sounds like it’s really lucky that he met all those people but I think that our takeaway was that that was discernment on his part that was his ability to sniff out you know bad characters or people just choosing relationships that were kind of built on some care and some honesty and I thought that was a beautiful part of the story that he had and I think a really important takeaway for players that are listening to hopefully understand how important that group that they surround them with themselves with is to their performance. And I I wrote down that I think that there are three kind of important pieces when auditing those people around them. You need people that believe in you, that can hype you up, that say you can do this. You need people that tell you the truth, that hold up that mirror and say, “Actually, you’re you’re not handling this the way that you should and can can be honest.” And then third is they don’t disappear when things go bad. So they’re not just the people, you know, I I think Joel may have mentioned this, but we hear from players all the time whenever after a good round, they hear from a lot of people. They get a lot of texts, they get a lot of DMs, but on those rounds that they miss the cut or they don’t play well, well, that’s when they find out who their people are. And so I I think that uh that’s just a really important takeaway is who do you have around you? It motivates me to hear him talk about his coaches. It motivates me that you know we talk about being transactional versus transformational to commit myself to being that kind of person that um a player says, “Man, I couldn’t do it without this person believing in me and supporting me in the way that they do.” So uh yeah, it it’s I’m sure you have some thoughts there, too. But I really enjoyed that part of the conversation. My thoughts would simply echo those same thoughts that you just conveyed. So, we’ll move on to that last piece which was the experience of Joel in college golf. And I think a pitfall that many fall victim to as well is making a choice to go to somewhere to play golf or play any um college sport. Um, and it’s a decision that’s maybe not filtered through the hierarchy of priorities that it necessarily should or uh could be filtered through. And often times it’s a choice based on prestige over best fit. And so I think that while Joe me Joel mentioned being swallowed by that um University of Washington campus given he came from such a small town where he knew all his teachers by first name and he knew where they lived their home addresses and um I think that paraphrasing he wishes he he picked a smaller school a school that fit more of his personality and so the notes that I made is that decision matrix needs to be prioritized by things such as like the coaching relationship, the internal team dynamics, um the pathway within a college roster that allows for the possibility that you might play your freshman year at number two, three, four, or five or one. Um but also if you’re not there yet, that there is a roster pathway that you would um make your way onto the traveling lineup. And then uh finally and probably most importantly from Joel’s conversation is that community or size fit. I think don’t overoptimize for brand but optimize for where you would be thriving in uh four years of college golf. Yeah. I I think about it there being like two groups of junior players and in one group you’ve got these really good players and these really good players have choices, right? they can go where, you know, wherever they want to go. And I think they’re at risk of what you said about the prestige, about the logo, or the first thing they look at or well, what are their rankings or what do their facilities look like? And then there’s a second group of players that they’re at risk of just give me the first offer. Anybody who says yes, I can be on the team, I want in just because they’re worried that that might be their last offer. And so Joel’s story, I think, tells you that if those are the reasons why you’re choosing a school, well, there’s a really good chance that you’re going to end up, it doesn’t end up good, right, with struggle or you don’t like your coach or you want to transfer or you didn’t feel like you fit in. And in Joel’s case, you know, use his cautionary tale of of what we learned from him. And I think what he said stood out to me. He said, “Go somewhere where you know you’re going to be cared about. I think that’s a pretty nice filter to be looking through is when you go on your campus visit, is it the kind of vibe that I feel like people are going to support me and and that uh these people kind of care for me. So, I I I really love that. I wanted to go back to one other thing that uh I wanted to mention that stood out to me that I skipped in my notes here that I want to come back to. Cam, there were several times in our conversation with Joel where he said, “My parents were great.” and he didn’t say anything about the tournament schedule that they put together for him, the technical help that he gave them, uh the that he was there with them that that they were there making sure he practiced. Everything that he said when my parents were great were in reference to character traits that they had instilled. And so I I just want to I I want to highlight that message that to Joel being great was a lot more than managing a junior golf career. And so I think our job first as parents is raising a really really good person. And I think that’s the best thing that we can do for a child’s golf. Uh and trying to raise someone who can thrive in doing hard things that if again if that’s the filter that as golf parent we’re looking through. Am I raising my kid to make sure that he can do hard stuff? then that’s a lot better than a lot of the minutiae that we kind of get stuck in when we feel like we’re trying to keep up with and the comparison game that’s easy to do in junior golf where you’re comparing yourself to others and and figuring out if you’re behind or on track uh with your peers. So, it just stood out and I I wanted to mention it. Yeah, undoubtedly. So, it’s a great place to close. So, I think we’ll wrap up uh this episode and again, this is one that we looked forward to a lot and we knew it was going to be really good and we came away with a lot of really awesome takeaways from Joel. Hopefully, we’ve highlighted a few. Hopefully, there’s some things to take action on, whether you’re a coach, player, or uh or family member of someone who’s striving to play really good golf uh and kind of pursuing high performance. So, we look forward to seeing you the next
