Get to know Michael Thorbjornsen | Every Tuesday | PGA TOUR Studios

Two-time PGA TOUR Champion Matt Every spent some time with Michael Thorbjornsen to talk about the difference in his preparation between college and the PGA TOUR, goes through his short-game practice routine, and opens up about life away from the course.

SUBSCRIBE to PGA TOUR now: http://pgat.us/vBxcZSh

Welcome to the official YouTube channel of the PGA TOUR. Here you can find everything you need to stay up to date with the world’s foremost golf tour. Check in for highlights from every tournament along with player profiles, exclusive series, swing analysis and all the greatest shots and amazing moments.

Check out https://www.pgatour.com for complete coverage along with all the latest news, scoring, and stats!

Follow the PGA TOUR:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/pgatour/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PGATour
X: https://twitter.com/PGATOUR
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@pgatour
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/pgatour

Watch exclusive broadcasts – https://www.pgatour.com/live
PGA TOUR Superstore – http://www.pgatoursuperstore.com

Uh, what’s it like being 24 and good-looking and single on the PJ tour? It’s uh, it’s fine. Uh, I mean, every I you see all the girlfriends and the wives and the different players and I’m just eating lunch by myself sometimes. I’m like, damn, like this this sucks. But Oh, wow. Hear that ladies? You hear that? I’ve been hanging out with Luke Clay a lot more who is also single. So, we kind of just give each other a hard time. It’s almost like we’re in a relationship. Okay, perfect. Imagine being 24 years old, handsome as a devil, on the PGA Tour. Oh, yeah. And your nickname’s Thor. Today, I’m going to catch up with Michael Thor Bjornson to talk about life on the road with the boys, his first 40 events on the PGA Tour, and his prep every Tuesday. Good. Let’s go. Same thing. Let’s go a little bit higher for this one. What’s up, boys? Mikey, good to see you. Thanks for hanging, Derek. Good to see you. Always good to see you. Nice little team right here. Couple of studs. Welcome to Every Tuesday, dude. Almost 40 events under your belt out here on the PJ tour. 24 years old, absolute stud coming out of Stanford. How’s your prep changed from, you know, prepping for a college tournament to I mean, you I don’t want to call you uh a vet out here, but you know, you’re you’re certainly not a a newbie by any means. 40 events is a lot under your belt. What what’s changed for you? I feel like a lot has changed uh especially from college. Definitely doing a lot more short game college, I mean, we do kind of like our normal warm-up routine and prep for a tournament. But now, I mean, I’m working 2 and 1/2, 3 hours a day on the short game, green, punting green, driving range, just really making sure that I’m ready kind of for the week. Is that where this guy got involved? Derek here, Derek Deinsky. He he drives my my short game practice routine. I feel like it’s helped a lot. Feel like I have a lot more knowledge and kind of like what I need to work on. Sure. So, yeah, it’s definitely been good. Well, it’s interesting. You know, today is this a pretty normal Tuesday for you. Uh nine holes a little later, but your practice routine, you’re out here about 2 hours before you play. You’ve already puted for what, 30, 40 minutes, and now we’re on the chipping green. You haven’t even hit balls yet. I mean, this is you’re spending at least half of your like actual practice time on the short stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. That’s uh that’s again something I didn’t do in college or in amateur golf. Kind of just went with the flow and with my feels. But out here, I mean, everyone is you see all the guys out here chipping, practicing for hours on hours and just trying to keep up. Yeah, you’re doing fine, bro. Listen, uh, one of the things I really like about you, I pay a ton of attention to you doing the TV stuff, is your your rawness for a young kid. You do not look like he came out of the womb with a Trackman. I know you got one, but like it doesn’t it doesn’t look that way. And you don’t see many guys out here that look like and I don’t I don’t want to say homemade either cuz it’s pure. It is very pure, but you can tell it’s yours. Where did that come from? Who who was kind of your guidance coming up? Yeah, that’s definitely my dad. Uh he’s been my swing coach my whole life. Is it really? Yeah, dude. That’s awesome. Since we were five, six years old. I mean, that’s when I really started to take it seriously. It’s kind of weird looking back like damn like I’m 5 years old practicing that much. But I mean that’s just kind of what it takes. I mean Derek is I think my first actual coach really that I’ve seen. Yeah. His dad’s done a great job. It literally is homemade. I mean his dad’s a swing guy. 10 finger grip. 10 finger grip. Dude, I’m obsessed with that. Like that is when you watch him hit it, you’re going to try it, dude. Well, listen. We all learn the game that way and at some point it gets coached out of you. Yeah. And that that to me is is very interesting that it has stuck with you and you are at the peak of this game, dude. I mean it’s there’s no need to change now. It’s it clearly works. It’s it’s what makes this kid unique, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he hit what 500 balls a day growing up with your dad. So, they really honed in some awesome fundamentals. Again, I think Ted has done as good of a job coaching as I’ve seen from like a a student teacher relationship. So, fundamentally, you know, we’ll spend time here because they’re just working on the same things in the swing. They’re not really trying to find anything. So, it’s just dialing in greens and and learning more shots around here that in college he hit it so good, he didn’t need to have all these skills. But then out here, you know, playing with the world’s best, you just got to add some add some shots and skills. All right, so it’s Tuesday. We’re prepping for the tournament. you’re here on site with with Michael. What are you guys working on in the short stuff? Are you just kind of following him around? If anything jumps out at you, you say something. Are there times where you’re out here with him and you’re like, “Dude, it looks sick. I don’t uh you don’t need me this week.” Yeah. So, for this week, you know, there’s not a lot of rough here that we’ll see on the course. So, we’re trying to spend a lot of our time on the golf course in the rough. Okay. Same thing. This this green side bunker has got a lot of sand. There’s not as much sand in the bunkers out there. So, we’ll do a lot of the fairway work here. We’ll talk through shots, some situations that we’ll see. And he’s doing a really great job of, you know, just talking through what he sees. We’re just adding some shots and skills. Really trying to run the same game plan here, full routine, trying to make it as tournament ready as we can so that when he goes and chips in the event, it doesn’t feel like practice was one thing and then tournament chipping, it’s something. So, Michael, this by no means is just drop balls around the green and rapid fire. There’s a purpose with every one of these. You guys are actually Let’s Let’s run through one of these. You guys are actually talking through this shot here, right? All right. Let’s see it. Yeah. Let’s hit one to this this left pin and I’ll have him just talk through what he sees where he wants to land it. So, it’s a very clear picture. He’ll do kind of his his tournament routine here and we’ll talk about the result. You know, a lot of times you can hit a great chip to where you want, maybe gets a bad bounce. So, it’s it’s it’s just making sure the technique’s good, which it has been for a while, and then just honing in shots we’ll need for that week. Okay. kind of looking at uh medium height. Lands on the green. Don’t want to land it short. Ball first. Mhm. H what pressure? What pressure? This kid’s built for this, dude. Let’s go. So, now let’s go front right pin and we’ll hit the shot a couple different ways. We know we can land it short. We just got to barely get it on. D is giving me the toughest. I know that was a brutal lie, too. I went out and uh worked with Derek out in Phoenix one time and it was great, man. It was awesome. So, then this one kind of ground first, I’m thinking, not much dig, get it high, lands somewhat soft. As long as something kind of lands on that flat tier up there and it just barely gets on the green, I think is a good shot. When you said not much dig, are you is that something you’re paying attention to on all your shots? Is it like certain shots there has to be dig, right? But is it is it important to you? Um I guess it is. I mean, if we’re talking about it before Yeah. And that’s something that I’ll teach is there’s situations where you got to get the ball first. Sure. And then there are certain situations in certain terrains where, hey, I can use the ground to hit this a little bit higher and softer, get some stopping power. Okay. So, when you’re not trying to get it to dig, what are you doing through impact to not get it to dig? Are you using your body a little more on the way through? Like, what are your feels here? Obviously, if we’re going ball first, it’s a little further back, weights forward, a little more forward left with the the forward press, but kind of less open face, ball a little bit further up. Okay. And then we’ll let the shaft swing out. Exactly. Yeah. So, we’ll let the the club head swing out. Yeah. So, let the club head pass. Let let the shaft line up a little bit. So, put loft on the club. So, not a lot of tension in the arms probably. This is the softest grip pressure generally of any shot you’ll hit in golf. Okay. Kind of decide that shot style as I’m taking my practice swings cuz I see that I’m not really digging or it’s not into the green. So, kind of allows me to play it this way. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Super shock. How much physio work are you doing out here? I I saw some pictures of you in college. You’ve put on some you you your your figure is changing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I’ve I’ve been doing a good good bit. The summer before my senior year, I had a spine fracture. So, that put me out for the whole fall season. That’s when I started to work with UGP, kind of my physio team. And that’s treatment, kind of morning activation before I even go out and chip or putt or play golf. And then afterwards, it’s more treatment and then kind of like a reset uh regimen that we kind of implemented every day. How’s it back now? It’s good. I haven’t No issues, not knock on wood somewhere, but no issues since then. I mean, us golfers, since we’re a one directional sport, like we’re always going to have some things that pop up here and there, but as long as it’s consistent, you kind of at this point, I kind of know how to solve certain issues or kind of treat certain things. Uh, what about this guy behind me? We don’t have them miked up, but you know, I know for a young kid out here, a veteran with some experience on the back can go a long ways. JJ’s you’re starting to see it a lot with Caddy’s out here. They’re they’re pretty good players themselves. He was a an all-American in college, played on the Palmer Cup with me. Yes. What’s that been like? I know you came out with a buddy at first, which I also don’t think is a bad idea. Um, but where you’re heading in your career, uh, talk about this move you’ve made with with JJ. Yeah, it’s been it’s been great. JJ and I have been working together now for it’s maybe like our what fifth I think so tournament. Sixth tournament. Yeah. Our first tournament together was the Rocket this past summer. Oh yeah. Played well there. Felt good. Knocked on the door there. Yeah. We one shot out of a playoff. Three bogeies in the last round. One shot out of the playoff. Yeah. We’reware. I think I missed a punt like this long too. Oh dear. But uh you’ll get more chances. Yeah. Yeah. With JJ in the bag definitely. Um they I mean he worked with Colin ever since Colin came out of college. Yeah. Ryan Moore. Ryan Moore as well. Yeah. Before that. And I mean you see the success that those guys have had and you’re in good hands. Definitely played a part in that. So it definitely feels good knowing that I have someone with me every step of the way out there. Sure. Like JJ. All right. So when you’re in college, you know, a lot of downtime, but you also had school to work on, projects, tests, things in the back of your mind out here. It’s a little different. Uh it’s it’s a real easy trap to fall into. You know, your your life is your golf game basically. What are you doing to to not fall into that trap off the course? Probably just hanging out with some of the guys out here. Carl and I obviously very close, went to school together. Luke as well. We I mean last night Luke came over. Carl and I are staying together at one of my friends’s houses and we’re just playing F1 and MLB the show. Oh, nice. So that’s kind of how we kind of pass time and kind of get our minds off of the golfing part of things cuz I mean four or five weeks in a row can just really take a mental toll on you and you sometimes really just want to go home and just sit on the couch and do nothing. But yeah, that’s kind of what we do. Just spend time with each other and don’t really talk about golf outside of golf. Mhm. Yeah. I mean, it’s nothing special, but I definitely think it’s important to kind of have something at least. Yeah. Some good, clean fun. That’s what it sounds like to me. You know, video games at night with the boys. Mhm. Come on. Well, dude, thanks for hanging out so much with us today. That was killer. Yeah, of course. And uh massive, massive fan here, dude. Appreciate it. All right, Mikey, thanks for coming, bro. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thanks. Good to see you, brother. Enjoyed it.