This episode of Stock Shot Secrets features an intriguing guest, Jermaine Kearse, former NFL player turned golf enthusiast and business owner. Join host Kyle Morris as they delve into Kearse’s transition from the high-paced world of professional football to the meticulous and strategic environment of golf. They discuss the challenges and lessons learned from sports and how these experiences shape Kearse’s current ventures in the golf industry.
Kearse’s Journey from Gridiron to Green
Jermaine Kearse’s career journey is one marked by significant transitions. From his days as a key player for the Seattle Seahawks, including winning a Super Bowl, to brief stints with the New York Jets and Detroit Lions, Kearse’s football legacy is notable. A pivotal moment came with his retirement in 2019 when he decided to pursue his passion for golf, leading to the opening of his golf facility, Evergreen, in Seattle.
During the episode, Kearse shares about the drawing power of golf that captivated him post-NFL. Connecting with PGA Tour player Andrew Putnam and subsequently meeting his business partner Greg Bodine catalyzed his dive into the golf business world. This new venture is fueled by his ongoing passion for the sport and a desire to challenge himself in new arenas.
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00:00 Intro
03:59 Similarities Between Football and Golf
07:01 Coaching and Past Experiences
12:23 Embracing golf
24:34 Conclusion
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Located in Dublin, Ohio, The Golf Room is your one stop shot for player development and game improvement. We understand that for you to perform your best, you need to strike the ball well, have a great short game, be physically capable to withstand an entire round and know how to use your mind on and off the course. Without all of these facets practiced (with purpose) it’s almost impossible for you to become your absolute 100% best. That’s why I, Kyle Morris, opened The Golf Room. So me and my team could help you become your best by providing you with instruction on The Skill, Body & Mind.
so the big question is this how do passionate golfers like you and I develop a stock shot day in and day out a stock shot that’s as reliable as the sun coming up in the morning that’s the question and this podcast is the answer welcome to stock shot [Music] Secrets hey everybody welcome back to another episode of stock shot Secrets I got my boy Germaine curse Mr Seattle Seahawk which makes it amazing um on the show today thanks so much for being here bro yeah happy to be on thanks for having me yeah so Germaine and I kind of connected um Germaine now owns he’s gone from dominating and winning Super Bowls at with the Seahawks being a basically is it a Washingtonian I should know that being from Washington is that what they call yeah yeah pretty pretty much what’s called Washingtonian High School in Washington College in Washington played for Seattle short stint with the is it the was it the Jets and Detroit I think right and then um but then decided Avid golfer and then opens a facility in Seattle called Evergreen right so um how’s so now you’ve had we’ll kind of talk a little bit of all we can talk about business we can talk about football we can talk about golf but what was the for you we’ll talk a little bit about golf to start like what was the calling for you after leaving football doing that and going you know what like I want to get into this golf space and really kind of like help players yeah so I mean once I I retired in 2019 and um I spent some time just trying to figure out kind of what I wanted to do um post football um I spent some time at the University of Washington my moer um you know seeing if I wanted to kind of get on the other side of football on the coaching aspect or somewhat involved on that side and yeah I spent some time uh doing that and um I enjoy enjoyed it uh it was very time consuming and uh I just kind of wanted to get into something that uh something new a little bit um something that was going to continue to challenge me and um I was super F passionate about the game of golf and um I was able to get connected with Andrew putam a PGA Tour player and kind of talk to him a little bit and then he introduced me to my now business partner uh Greg Bodin um who was at the time just finishing catting up with Tony fix yeah who is now currently on Bryson D shambo’s back right now and so uh that kind of just how it how it led up um I just kind of wanted to spend my time doing something I was passionate about um and something that I enjoy doing on a daily basis so how what’s your handicap these days I’m down to like a like a little below a five I think it’s like a 4.7 right now is that your lowest uh I think my lowest is maybe like 3 n like low fours uh so The Continuous you started playing didn’t you kind of start playing golf later yeah I started around like 2014 um 2016 when I went to New Jersey uh um when I was playing for the Jets is kind of when I really started um really getting into it kind of I I would say my addiction to the game of golf kind of started right I went to the Seattle Seahawks uh training camp what was this maybe like three years ago I think there’s actually a podcast on that on my observations from that but um I went to a training camp and there was the guys like in between they were hitting wedges you know towards like The Back Fence towards um towards like was it Lake Washington I guess but so in the Bo and classic they’ll bring out like a little floating green did yeah for sure there uh Fred Couples came out hit the green yeah it’s hard to hold the green that’s the problem I hit the green nice so kind of going a little bit in football right because you’ve got you’re at a training facility now um you know with Evergreen and kind of you know you guys got a lot of different things like lessons and fitness it’s um an academy or and building one and trying to do all that kind of stuff but more so like as a player what do you find to be and you know I don’t know how much thought you put into it but how much correlation do you find between the training and football and the training and golf like the similarities if you will because I kind of have an opinion that they’re actually all all sports are very very similar um but you know what are some of those attributes that that you had in in football as training and and reaching the highest level right like this week that we’re filming it we’re literally in in draft week so I mean there is guys like you know I like they’re highest high because it’s kind of like they made it right because once you get drafted and you’re on a team like you’re there well the journey is not over yet but you get what I’m saying so some of that training how is that correlated over into being as a player in golf because you’re playing tournament golf right you’re playing you’re trying to play some tournament golf yeah I just started playing tournament golf maybe like two years ago um and it’s very comparable I mean like you said it’s very similar in terms of just you know the time put in um you know whether it’s you know working on my my golf Fitness that’s a thing a lot of think now it is for sure it’s a huge thing golf stamina stamina is a huge thing yeah um just ultimately like working on your game and uh perfecting your Craft um type in regards to that Fitness it’s a different type of Fitness I mean I was teaching um Joey Galloway and like super fast right like at the time you know he it’s I think it’s been shattered now but it might not be like he had like the fastest 40 time you know for a wide receiver for for a while but the dude’s super fast but it’s like linear speed right it’s not like this horizontal rotational speed which is different the dude when you try to put him in position was like trying to bend a telephone pole but um it’s a different type of Fitness no 100% um and you’re just using different type of muscles and you know I think the the difference you know that I’ve learned with you know translating from football and into golf is just um with football you just naturally think overpower um and and more so like have control where like I’ve kind of learned with golf um is you kind of got to give up a little to get a little and in terms of like you know just like with Club head speed like I can try and swing like as fast as I can and it’s just like never not getting the results that I want but then as soon as I you know feel like you know the biggest thing is like you know if I take a bigger back swing you know I’m actually G to slow or swing it slower and you know to me I’m like okay like let me just try to feel like I’m taking the club back you know like a John ROM type height and next you know my club head speed jumps by 4 miles per hour and it’s just very counterintuitive it doesn’t make sense to me that’s why I love this game because it’s so frustrating yeah so with when because you did have a little are you still doing assistant are you still doing some some coaching at you dub because I know last time kind dropped that so but when you were when you were with the Hawks and you guys and you were do the what was kind of if you can kind of I’m dating a little memory here because it’s been I don’t know what three four years now but if you kind of look through the regimen because I think for the players and the people that are listening to the podcast or on YouTube like they’re passionate golfers right they literally L are you right so you are the Avatar if you will of The Listener besides the fact that you won a Super Bowl and you played in the NFL and an amazing human being and so on and so forth but as a golfer like they’re you right what were how were your practices at the Hawks scheduled right like not scheduled meaning like hey okay so when you walked out of the vmac like what was the first thing you guys did as wide receivers and then maybe the second thing the third thing and the fourth thing was there a schedule in which you guys went about your business that seemed like okay I know that it’s kind of this and then this and then this and then this in terms of practice yeah just like hey the first thing that you do was you you know like in golf it’s the first thing that we do is we program right so it’s like we’re going to go in a mirror and we’re going to check our grip and just make sure our fundamentals are good right and we’re it’s very slow reps like kind of like walkthroughs if you will and then we’d kind of go into block practice which is like doing the same pattern and making sure it’s perfect and then random and then compete but um yeah it’s it’s pretty similar in terms of just like our practice schedule you know when we get out there uh the first thing we do is get our bodies warm and then we go into a walkth through so we’re we’re going over our our game or install um in a slow like you said like in a slow manner like in terms of like checking your grip we’re checking checking our formations we’re checking um our routes um looks against certain defenses and then we go into uh would that be for you would that even be as as a wide receiver would that be like just making sure you’re doing your motion of running a route like you’re doing super slow almost like taiichi like making sure your your running form is good I mean it’s like two or three minutes I mean I remember seeing Gino Smith literally like going like this and like he’s just rehearsing slowly his pattern like five six times I was like oh my gosh that’s like what we do in golf yeah we’re rehearsing what you know are routes looking like compared to certain coverages um you know the the QB’s going through his reads slowly the offens line’s going through their checks yeah then we progress into like our routes on air which is I guess you would call like our block practice that’s when we’re actually running our routes um we’re getting our time no defense no defense it’s just us and the QBs um running our routes just getting that timing and that chemistry gone and then after that we start heading into you know like our competitive aspects where in terms of like one-on-one on seven and what would in regards to how long cuz I think there’s some stipulations with the NFL and all that stuff but how long are when we’re cuz I want to continue on this but how long is this practice this on field on field at vmac it’s probably you with Pete you know around two two hours some some some coaches are three hours so how long would you guys be doing like your block practice where you’re running like the same route over and over and over and over over again probably 10 minutes 10 minutes and then you go into and that would be our equivalent in the golf world of like you know your cone drill or like your noodle drill or like whatever right um obviously you’re a professional so a professional football player so that would be like even a professional would be the same way where I might do a block practice but I’m going to do it for 10 or 15 minutes I’m not going to do it for an hour because I don’t need to I have inventory I just need to recalibrate and make sure I’m reminding myself of what I did yesterday right sure and then after that you would go into your random practice and that would be what were you saying with the random was would be kind of like our seven on seven um kind of start start our one-on-one starting to kind of head into a little more competitive um where you know the environment is not as controlled where now there’s a lot of reactionary stuff yeah and then what would it end with and then we’ll end with Team periods so that’s be like game simulation would you would Pete have you guys play for anything it just were you guys all so competitive that just losing would piss you off enough yeah that we were very competitive so I mean we didn’t really need anything on the line to uh to kind of get us going um you know being practicing against the legion of boom every practice there you know you had enough motivation hey guys I hope you are enjoying this episode of the stock shot Secrets podcast if you are enjoying it be sure to like this episode be sure to subscribe so you can always see when they’re coming out and most importantly if you would be so kind to be able to share this podcast with other passionate golfers who are trying to get better and build stock shots because it grows through you sharing it thank you so much for tuning in and now back to stock shot Secrets right with that legion of boom and like some of those players who were some of the players that you have you kind of have you had any golf golf buddies that you’ve helped you know bring them into the game with now that you’ve got this new amazing facility uh cam Chancellor is uh has gotten into golf pretty heavy um he he started kind of getting out there the bug kind of has got him um you know Cliff ail has expressed has has gone out there to play a little bit golf Marcus truant one of the ogs of the Seahawks nice into the game so um I I T I took out you know cam uh KJ right you know a couple guys and you know it’s is which is pretty cool because you’re you’re starting to see a lot of football players um kind of get into the game of golf and and they’re starting to kind of see the the enjoyment that everyone else who’s already been playing golf has been Happ they’re late to the party yeah what about um so playing at a really really high level and playing in Super Bowls and so on and so forth um what about just some of the mental side right so like there’s the technical side of like how you’re practicing but then what are some of the mental things that you had on the football field that you feel like now on the golf course there it’s actually like eerily similar right like some some traits that you kind of were training for golf your whole life in a sense but on now but it was on a football on a football field but they’re the same yeah it’s just the you know the next play mentality really it’s kind of like the next play the next shot type of mentality um you know regardless of what just happened you kind of you have to you know be prepared and mentally in it to to perform the next next task and that’s the you know very similar with golf you know you hit a good drive you catch a good pass you know you got the next shot you got the next play that’s coming and so you always kind of got to stay in it um which I found very similar between Golf and and football and and you know honestly in sports in general there the mentality especially playing at a high level is you know very similar um you know now the difference the very the similarities between football and golf that I found you know is kind of like the in between periods you know with basketball is pretty continuous soccer is pretty continuous with football you know you run a play you you got some time period in between uh the next play you know with golf you you hit a shot you know you’re walking to your ball so there’s some time period in between um each you know player in each shot and so that’s where the game the mental game I feel like is is where you have to be the strongest is because the time in between you know each start and and and stop period um so there is because in golf if you play like the stats are essentially if you play a 5H hour round of golf you’re actually only hitting a ball like hitting a ball for 1 minute you’re doing the act of golfing for 24 to 27 minutes if you should even par meaning like your routine and so on so forth but then there’s four and a half hours of mindlessness like you know time in between shots so that’s interesting because while I am you know obsessed with football and it’s like my favorite viewing Sport and you know you know like my son and I are glued to the draft last night and just on Sundays and Saturdays I it’s interesting so you’re saying on the football field there is quite a bit of we’ll call mental chatter in between these plays yeah for sure I mean the average play the average football play is six seconds yeah um and so like you said we’re we’re playing a game for you know three three and a half hours so is it is it similar what about when running a route like is there mental chatter in regards to like a drop ball or is it or is it as reactionary as like the viewer would think I mean the football is very reactionary just you know if you drop a a pass you know from that point to the next play right you know there there is a mental chatter because you kind of got to let that you know play go and be prepared to perform the next play he’s gonna it’s always continuous and is always a continuous mental battle um even on the positives you know you know so you make a huge play you got to have the composure uh to come back you mean like like a big long pass down the right sideline like Super Bowl to kind of get your team to win a Super Bowl yeah like oh you would know that cool okay you just kind of have to have the mental composure and and Poise to be able to you know bring yourself back into the moment into the present to be able to perform again and that’s what I kind of found very similar with golf you know you hit a good drive um you know you got to mentally compose yourself and and bring yourself back uh to be able to perform the next shot so with um and not to kind of put you on the spot but a question like at Evergreen are you doing any I know not technical teaching like in in coaching but are you doing any coaching per se like um with any of the players at Evergreen maybe just in in the sport itself yeah for sure um a lot of our competitive Juniors is mostly uh I do just like a lot of support a lot of uh you know mental um you know support in terms of like how they’re thinking in terms of um prepping for a tournament how are they you know post round tournaments how are they feeling like what’s their mentality at um that’s kind of where I I usually you know hang yeah in that area is just more so building relationships with Juniors um I think that’s the the best area what are there do you find that there’s some some um carryover from what Pete Carroll or maybe because I think you played with for Steve starian right at you dub like are there any um any carryovers of principles where you’re doing it and you’re like this is is like you’re talking about him and you’re like this is kind of like a Pete Carol thing or like a Steve thing like every single time you know I just what are what are some of those what are some of those things that that those nuggets that like when you look back at your time with Pete you go these these you know two or three things really sum up my you know the a Peete Carol experience cuz he was a very sought after coach like at least from what you would read in the newspaper like a very sought after coach to play for like seemed very much like a players coach yeah I mean the biggest thing is always compete you know you know that’s just like the number one thing that we we kind of um instilled in our culture at everen is just the the culture of competition um the next thing would be just accountability um I think you know all the Juniors that I’ve built relationships with know that I’m going to hold them accountable um to their word to what they want to accomplish um and I think they really kind of enjoy that that love support of knowing that I’m going to be there to encourage them but also you know if I kind of got to get on them a little bit like I think they appreciate that too um so I think it’s just like a healthy balance of being able to um have the right amount of encouragement and support but you know hold them accountable to to what they want to achieve and what they tell me that they want to achieve you know if you tell me you want to do something you know then when you would when he I’m kind of asking this because as a coach and obviously a massive DieHard Hawks fan but when when those those things of accountability that the player would maybe misfire and they weren’t doing that was the was the reper not the repercussion was the reaction from Pete Caroll usually one of more encouragement or was it more of a I don’t know I’m making an I’m making a judgment I don’t really even I’ve never met Nick Sabin but more of a Nick Savin type like hey let me kind of get in your face a little bit uh you know I don’t I don’t think it’s I I I like to say with especially with some of our younger juniors um I would describe it as sometimes I might have to put my parent voice on I got that one too you know sometimes you got to give them the parent voice you know a little Stern it’s never uh you know it’s never over the over the top it’s it’s encouragement but it’s also you know getting them to understand the realities of the type of level they want to achieve and um what’s required is to get to it is is required to to tell them the truth um and how hard it is to get to that level and you know I think sometimes you know a lot of a lot of kids want to do certain things they want to reach certain levels um but sometimes they don’t always want to do what’s necessary to get there and sometimes you just kind of got to give them and they’re young you know they’re you know they they don’t know what we know you know as we get older and wiser you know I’m still continuing as I get older I’m still continuing to learn um a lot about myself and you know just growth and so just trying to be able to just have that be that person um that one that would tell them the truth but also help them and show them you know the path of what it takes to actually reach a high level in something absolutely and one final question just kind of reflecting back on your um well two questions actually we’ll do one pass one present what looking back at your gol your your playing football career what’s the what’s what’s one of the more defining moments or like highlight reels that like you know when you’re laying at bed and you’re like that’s the mo like that’s a moment where you go man that was sweet like just a like a cool story yeah I mean obviously winning the Super Bowl is kind of hard to beat just like you know the team that we had and just that whole experience and in the fashion that we did it um was super cool and then um how hard was the mental adversity the next year cuz I mean we had talked about that in regards to that like was that was that the highest of highs and the lowest of lows uh I mean yeah it’s probably the best you go from one winning a Super Bowl to possibly winning two to having it instantly just taken away yeah definitely be a dramatic feel for sure um but I I think the the Green Bay game the NFC championship game you know just the type of game that that was with all the adversity that came with it and then being able to you know overcome that and and have the perseverance to still come out on top yep absolutely and then what about just for you Germaine like in the future is there anything you have coming up on the horizon that you’re you know really looking forward to I mean you’re kind of you’re now with Evergreen what you’re in year two year too you’re sure you know what do you is there anything um in the future you’re looking forward to yeah uh we’re looking to expand a little bit um which is definitely on our plans and and being able to you know continue to to create more spaces and then uh just tournament golf you know I love competing and um you know I kind of got a whole list of tournaments that I’m that I’m that I got scheduled for this year and and just put myself out there and and try to get better and and and compete you know I have the goals to win you know that’s the that’s the always the goal and so you just continually to do the work to to try to achieve that how Alvin you get to practice these days being a business owner and a and a dad three three kids right three girls three kids um you know I always try to find some time to to practice on some sort of aspect of my game yeah each day mostly every day look at you you overachiever that’s awesome I got to get in got to get up early you know I hear you make time when you don’t have any time yeah so well that’s awesome Jermaine well thank you so much for sharing some stories um we wish you best of luck at Evergreen um and everything else if if if people want to you know follow you or more know about like know more about Evergreen how would you like them to to reach out and kind of just see Germain story a little bit more yeah I mean you can follow me on on Instagram and Twitter J kurur 15 and then you can follow Evergreen Golf Club on Instagram as well cool well best of luck in your tournaments and thank you so much uh for being a guest on stock shot Secrets I appreciate it see you buddy hey guys thank you so much for listening to the latest episode of stock shot Secrets now as a listener of stock shot Secrets I want to make sure that you have the opportunity to get better so if you are to go to stockshot club.com I’m going to give you 7 days free access where you can send us your video and we will give you personalized individual attention as to what you need to do so that you can start building stock shots so just go to stockshot club.com and register there we’ll give you s days free where you can try it and then if we like it you can stay inside the stock shot Club where we can become your coach and walk with you for your entire Journey thank you so much and be sure to go visit stockshot club.com
