Twice a Hong Kong Open winner, Wade Ormsby is one of those golfers who has flown mostly under the radar for much of his career.
It would be fair to say he was a bit of a late bloomer in terms of his golf but as you will hear in this conversation, he has no regrets about learning his craft on the job, so to speak.
Hailing from Adelaide – where his father, Peter, also a PGA professional, owns one of the most successful off course retail golf shops in the country – we caught up with Wade in his home town where he was into day eight of his 14 day quarantine after returning from the UK.
From his multiple successful trips to Q-School to a life-long friendship with Adam Scott to the business realities of playing golf for a living, Ormsby is open, honest and reflective in this interview which we hope you enjoy.
[Music] hello and welcome to the thing about golf the podcast series from golf Australia magazine that seeks to shed light on that unanswerable question just what is it about golf that gets so deep under people’s skin my name’s rod muray and in a few moments we’ll be chatting with Wade Ormsby but before we meet the two time Hong Kong Open winner I have some quick news to share with you all for the past year and a bit it’s been my enormous privilege as host of this show to chat at length with some of the game’s most interesting people from administrators and players to writers and entrepreneurs it’s been one of my favorite projects to be a part of but as I hited at in closing in our last episode there are some changes of foot here at the thing about Golf and to be honest I’m even more excited about what we’re going to be doing moving forward as they say there was air quotes there for those who couldn’t tell if you’re a reader of golf Australia magazine and if you’re not you should be or even if you’re just a keen follower of the game you’ll be familiar with the name John huggan Huggy is one of the very best writers in the business and his monthly musings in the magazine have earned him several Awards in fact he’s so good we even had him on this very show as a guest back on episode 9 but in this new digital age even old dogs have to learn new tricks and I’m extremely pleased to say that after much cing with various treats Huggy has learned how to use a microphone and drum roll please will be joining us as a host from episode 32 Huggy say hello to the people your people hello to the people fantastic to have you along mate lovely to be uh having a chat this is all pretty exciting stuff we’ll share the hosting duties you and I on a rotating basis so people will get one of us each month in their ears every two weeks the show comes out so that’s going to be some exciting stuff and I think it’s going to add something really uh really good to the show as a the person doing all of the organizing and all of the interviews there can be a bit of samess so it’s going to be fantastic to have someone to help out and you would be the best person for the job you’ve been a guest on countless podcasts Huggy and I’ve shared commentary with you on radio the Australian Open radio out here I’m going to guess though that you never really thought in your wildest dreams when you started that you’d end up doing something like this sitting and doing lengthy interviews with subjects well I’m looking forward to it um you know one of my favorite things to do in print is to to sit down and do a long Q&A with um you know usually a top player and that’s the the time when you can really get under their skin a little bit I mean that usually we’re you’re doing 5 10 minutes but if you get people to sit down for 45 minutes to an hour say um you really get to know them so much better and you can move around subjectwise I mean it’s not just the you know the usual generic you know what did you hit to the 14th green stuff it’s it’s actually um much more in depth than that so I’m looking forward to this uh this new experience if you like now Huggy it’s a whole new digital world for us so you’re going to have to learn some new saying and the first one is in the can your first interview is in the can uh one of the best sports riters in the business Tom Callahan a mentor of yours and a friend uh I’ve had a listen it’s a terrific chat what was that like though for you to sit down with somebody you have sort of so much respect for it’s a different sort of an experience isn’t it yeah I’m be interested to to listen to it back I haven’t done that yet um unique experience for me to talk to somebody I know so well and I’m so close to I mean he and I talk on the phone two or three times a week so it was it was it felt weird actually to talked to him you know in an interview setting but um with Tom when people listen to it I think they they’ll gather that Tom Tom likes to talk and he tells and he tells great stories so there’s not a lot of me I don’t think in this interview there’s just a lot of listening on my end the perfect introduction well of course he is one of the very best storytellers and he has a whole bunch of great stories to tell isn’t it hasn’t he so it’s the perfect combination although Huggy as I did when I interviewed you completely missed sevy and had to turn the tape back on so that we could capture all that you missed one of Tom’s great stories well so I want you to share that now before wrap this up and get on with wide well I I think I missed more than one I mean there are so many with Tom but I mean he’s he’s he’s known and talked to just about every great Sportsman not just golfers of the last sort of half century but one of my favorites was one and is pretty topical at the moment and as I say I do regret that I didn’t remember but this was um back to a Time years ago long before Donald Trump was uh president of the United States he turned up at a boxing match where Tom was was sitting ringside and the pair of them were in introduced after the the the bo the boxing was finished and and uh Trump goes well you know well Tom you’re you’re a great writer and would you be would you have any interest in writing my next book to which Tom replied I wouldn’t have any interest in reading your next book so and and I think the relationship went downhill from there there you go I think we know which way Tom might have voted in the uh the recent elections there fantastic stuff of course huggi Tom’s just the beginning I know that you’ve got a contact book that’s bulging with famous names and a lot of them will probably appear here in the coming months but I also know and this is one of the things that we wanted to do with think about golf there are many many people that a lot of fans will either never have heard of because they were from a previous generation or that just have a remarkable golf story to tell and it never gets told because they’re not famous and I know that you know plenty of them as well and I’m hoping that we’ll hear some of those from you too yeah I’m hoping that uh you know we we don’t just do top golfers I mean you’ve done a great job of that already with uh some of the people that I I’d never heard of but there were great stories and that that’s really what we hope to do on this I think yeah the idea with this one is to sort of build trust with the audience that when they see the new episode even if they’ve never heard the name they trust our judgment there’s a good story to tell and they trust our ability to help the guest tell it well that’s what we’re trying to do here so we’ll do our very best and Huggy uh you will undoubtedly contribute an awful lot to that I’m really looking forward to uh to editing your stuff each month Huggy won’t be doing the intros and the outros he just does the proper work and I’ll do trimmings for each of his episodes who knows few you’re doing them because you’re the only one of the two of us who can do this I’ll get some more treats Huggy maybe we can teach you you’ve done remarkably well with the microphone and the recording process so uh well done can I just say on behalf of the listeners and for me personally hugy I really am pleased that you’ve agreed to be part of the show really looking forward to seeing where we can take it mate welcome aboard yeah yeah me too thanks very much yes absolutely fantastic to have Huggy on board and I do hope that you’re as excited about that Prospect as I am however I can tell you if there’s one thing Huggy hates it’s self-indulgence and we’ve already had far too much of it on this episode so let’s move on to what is important for episode 31 and that is the life and career of Wade Ormsby twice a Hong Kong Open winner Ormsby is one of those golfers who’s flown mostly under the radar for most of his career it’ be fair to say he was a bit of a late bloomer in terms of his golf but as you’ll hear in this conversation he has no regrets about learning his Craft on the job hailing from a where his father Peter also a professional owns one of the most successful offcourse retail shops in the country we caught up with Wade in his hometown where he was into day eight of a 14-day quarantine after returning from the UK from his multiple successful trips to Q School to a lifelong friendship with Adam Scott to the business realities of playing golf for a living Ormsby is open honest and reflective in this interview which I do hope that you enjoy wait ORS we appreciate you taking some time time although you’ve got plenty on your hands you’re in quarantine this is your first go at it we know that golf is being regular International Travelers is probably going to be a part of life for a while but you just told me you’re not too keen on it so you’re going to try and not do too much of it yeah exactly so obviously with the pandemic we’re faced with um with this quarantine aspect of it so um yeah I’ve just we’ve had to kind of make our um tournament schedules in massive blocks cuz that’s the only way you can do it cuz you just got to try and avoid this quarantine as as much as you can but anyway I’ve got through my first stint of it and halfway through my quarantine back here in Oz and ready for the Aussie summer yeah as we just discussed you got a nice view from your hotel room there in Adelaide but it’s the same view all day every day never changes a gilded cage is still a cage isn’t it so even though you’re in a nice room it’s not like being on holidays so I do feel for you and uh we appreciate you taking the time under the circumstances the podcast is called the thing about golf Wade so that’s our jumping off point what’s the thing about golf for Wade Ormsby that’s an interesting one feel like it put on the spot a bit for that but um I think it’s an individual sport it’s you kind of versus a golf course with your with your clubs I love that there’s no judges or anyone controlling your destiny it’s all about it’s all up to you you know and that’s the thing I I love about you know I could never play a sport where someone’s controlling me or selectors or whatever else you know and especially at a professional level but even back at an Amed level it’s great you can just grab your clubs and go out there and play the course at any time a day and feel like you’re getting something out of and you’ve got that kind of level of competition against the golf course so I’ve always loved that obviously Probably sounds like I’m a competitive person and I guess I am you know I think sport does that to you and um I’ve always loved golf for that aspect of it it’s a unique type of competition golf though isn’t it in particular I suppose for us recreational golfers especially I’ll take up in the Wednesday comp and if my mate’s playing well I’m genuinely happy for him and I want to see him go on with it and do well but equally at the same time if he starts hitting him in the water and racking up sevens and eights I think that’s hilarious the competition’s not direct is it it’s this weird camaraderie that we’ve all got even though we’re all playing against each other yeah exactly it’s probably the same out there on tour you know you’ve got um you enjoy well the well the competition’s always competition it doesn’t matter what level it is whether it’s club or on tour you know you’re always you’re always pushing and like I said it’s not always a big tournament like we’re playing in or whatever it can be Club golf whatever you know it’s always nice getting the club out of the boot of the car and going trying each day to put a around together and you don’t know what you’re going to get some days you’re warm up bad and it feels good other days you warm up great and it feels and it turns out terribly on the golf course and that’s just a wonderful game of golf you know there’s so many things that come into it and it’s just a massive Battle of the head so um that’s all part of it from the outside Wade it would be easy for us to assume that golf was always going to be in your future your dad is one of Australia’s best known well Club PR as we call him but really he’s a he’s a fantastic golf businessman inventor of the Swing guide owner of one of the biggest retail golf shops in Australia there in I’m not sure whether that’s sort of still going have we got that right was golf always going to be in your future or was there a time when you kind of rejected it no absolutely it’s it’s it’s been in the family the whole way through and still is um I think it probably goes back to my grandmother she Mary ORS be um she was a lawn bowler and won a huge amount of titles and represented Australia um thinking for a record amount of time so no Gran was I guess she’s got the competitor in her with the individual sport don’t know if that has something to do with it but I kind of come from there and then my dad and and Uncle Dave they both got into golf both their appren ship around the similar time down at glenell golf club so that was the kind of history of it and then for myself it was more my brother Jordan Jordan is only 16 months older than me but he was a much better player player than me and he was always destined for the professional game a lot more than me and I was always into cricket and footy and mainly cricket and um then it then I started to want to try to not catch my brother but I wanted to do what my brother was doing and I was always well I was Never As Good As Jordan so I had to work and work and work and he was always a lot Talent a lot more talented than me so um I guess that work ethic got driven into me quite early by myself more than anything just because that’s what I had to do to try and keep up with my brother so then I got to around that 14 15 year age time kind of um Zone and um yeah I just really put my head down a couple of guys from Adela had gone to college in the states and I kind of I didn’t hate school but I kind of knew I was going to finish school over here and that would have led to having the college door open for me so just kind of a natural progression from there from just working away at my game and kind of keeping my options open but really I guess it was my brother more than anything was that carrot in front of me that made me drive to be better and then a byproduct of that was just being a decent player and then the then the lure of professional golfers in front of me so I hope that makes sense a it does a gift that continues to give today I never even knew you had a brother what became of Jordan um yeah Jordan was one of these guys that was good at everything he touched so he was great Trigg good footy and whatever else and sometime it’s those guys that don’t go on with it because maybe I’m not sure we we’ve had a chat about it since you know it’s because maybe you don’t have to work as hard and I’m not sure I’m not saying he’s lazy by any means but he was just always good enough to um to be good you know so um you didn’t have to work that much harder but he played the Aussie junior team with Adam Scott and I think ogy was in that team and a couple of other guys I can’t remember who was in that six-man team he so he had a really good Junior career but um he just didn’t really like the travel and I think that started to hit home pretty hard early on so I think he just got sidetracked away from the game around the 18 19 20 year old bracket and um now he’s gone on to have a successful business he um does um he’s in the in the golf cart business here in South Australia sales service and hire business and um also does um Jacobson Turf Equipment which is obviously um like green key keeping equipment MERS and um and sporting fields and all that so he runs a runs a decent sized business here in ide and does well so I guess he’s still in the sporting somewhere or another but um yeah it’s it’s kind of funny where how life turns out and he’d never think he’d be kind of selling golf carts and and mes but um no he’s um he’s doing well so I’m really happy for him and he never has to quarantine it it begs a qu he just stays just stays in Adelaide and makes his living and everything’s uh everything’s fine thank you very much it does beg the question though and it’s it’s one I guess probably for all golfers about what when you get to a certain level what’s the most important it sounds like really what the only thing lacking there for Jordan is drive when you get that sort of Supernatural Talent Plus a drive which I think it really takes to get to the level that you’ve got Eng golf you get Tiger Woods don’t you and Jordan spe that’s the sort of player that you get without that I wonder whether you can get there have you come across anybody who’s just naturally good enough that without being driven can have a career in professional golf um I think this has been spoken about quite a bit in the last 20 years but um you definitely see guys come through which have a natural gift to hold the golf club and move well and and whatever else but you but you still need that thing between your ears every day when you wake up you want to be good and you want to get better at this and you and you want to achieve things and like that guy that just won in Europe Callum Shin he a he’s a different makeup of a good player if that makes sense in a way like ever since he’s come out he’s had an amazing um Talent you know and he should have won three or four times already and now he’s won and let’s see you know they can go both ways for these guys he should kick on and be a rer cup team player if he gets everything right and other and some things that can be the Pinnacle of their career they can just push to they win their first tournament and they just plate out so it’s so difficult because you need it’s not just that natural Talent you know there’s another one Thomas Peters is a huge Talent you know like um but these are the guys in that top 3% of talent as I see it you know everyone sees Talent differently but um yeah I think the drive and the want to succeed and want to get that 100% out of yourself for me that’s the way I’ve tried to operate and I put a lot of emphasis on that because that’s um that’s the only way I know to be honest if I don’t push myself hard I’m not good so I need to push myself hard otherwise I don’t have a job so it’s difficult for me to see it from other people’s perspective but you’re right you know you get Talent you get drive you work ethic you get a good a good brain working between your ears on the golf course and you get Tiger Woods and um that’s as simple as it is I think and and it’s also that it’s that rare to get all of that together that’s uh that’s what that does US Thomas Peters not only one of the most naturally gifted and beautiful players to watch play the game one of the Great Club Snappers breaks clubs around his neck which takes both strength uh courage and form so he’s a joy to watch he he can pop club’s a big fell but he is a great guy you know he’s been a mate ever since he come on to I actually played with him when I went back to Q school I can’t remember my last time going back there but I played with him in the last round there an Australian guy was catting for him Roger and I remember um my current Cy he was on my bag then we’ve been together a long time and looking at Thomas hit some shots and go this guy is so good he’s we had all these bets on tour kind of thing internally saying he’s going to be top 50 in the world within 5 years or whatever but he was that good and he is that good he just needs to yeah depends how high he wants to go in the game you knows but um he is good it’s funny I follow him at the World Cup down here at Kingston Heath when he played with C just phenomenal to watch just a magnificent player as you say which is interesting and it’s a bit of a by the way but John huggan tells a great story about caddying from Mike Clayton many years ago at a think at a HCK and classic down here and they were paired with a very young Nicholas karts and you would know Nicholas hits the ball mag is an incredible Talent himself fantastic player and they walked off the course and Huggy said to clayes he’s a magnificent hitter of the ball that Kart isn’t if he ever learns how to play golf he’ll be quite dangerous from outside golf it doesn’t make any sense but they’re almost two different skills aren’t they the ability to physically hit the ball and then the ability to actually play golf AB absolutely um I’ve never been a good ball hitter if that makes sense you know I look at kids and amers and everything else funny I could hit it like that but then people watch me hit it and they think that I hit it perfect but um yeah I know I know what you’re saying um yeah Niko is another amazing talent you know but he’s just got a different type of persona about him Niko you know I don’t to sit and talk about all different players but Niko’s he’s been out on tour a long time and he’s a great player massively gifted again and um almost won Italian Open last week finished second or lost by a shot so no all these guys have had great careers it’s so kind of fickle this game out on tour to what determines getting the most out of yourself and not getting the most out of yourself and everyone having their opinion on how your career should go but I think most of us you know you always put all the put all aspects of your game on the table to try and work out the best way to go all the time and consistently doing that to try to maximize your performance and you don’t always get those decisions right you get them right for you at the time time but everyone’s got their opinion on which way you should have gone he should have had a coach or’s career he shouldn’t have or all this kind of stuff and um yeah we’re like any other business you know you kind of you keep fac with all these decisions you change coach you change caddy should you have a mental coach should you not should you play this schedule that schedule and and all these little Crossroads and forks you know determine your career and you got to and there’s no perfect playbook for everyone you got to work it out as you go along and that’s um that’s part of life it’s part of business and it’s no different in professional sport yeah golf very much so isn’t it what works for you won’t work for Adam Scott what works for Adam Scott won’t work for Laura Davies what works for Laura Davies won’t work for Carrie web there really is no textbook is there and trying to copy somebody else or find that textbook that can be a rabbit hole that can cost years of a professional career yeah exactly right you know we’re faced with golf tuition at all different levels you know whether it’s looking at track numbers getting slammed up on Instagram every day or or five minute videos from renowned golf coaches or you coach down your local club or your mate telling you what to do they’re all different ways information is presented to these or to us these days and you and you got to kind of siphon through it or to work out what’s relevant for you you know everyone’s got their pie and what makes them good and and what aspects of the game you need to work on to get better and I think if you’re really honest with yourself and you put it on the table you can kind of work out what’s right for you you’re right and it’s not it’s it’s different for everyone and um and um yeah we’re in right in the middle of this this phase where everyone’s smashing it and Bryson’s kind of done that to us and it’s probably been around for 25 years since 96 when tiger came out and he was hitting a mile back then so relative to the field so it’s not it’s nothing new we just got to um you just got to absorb the information the way and get your most out of it and um go from there when do you play your best golf weight and what I mean by that is it a physical thing or is it a mental emotional thing I would imagine the physical doesn’t change enormously once you get you I’m sure it changes and there are days when you hit it better than others but is that the final does that have the final say on how well you play or are there other things is it happiness and calmness and are there are there other factors yeah I think there’s um it’s kind of you probably divide it into three little areas you know I think you can put it into the where you’re happy expectations everything else in your life but you expect to get roll into that kind of mental part of it then you’ve got your got your long game and your short game will so you’re scrambling and you’re putting then your ball striking know it’s so easy to focus on just how the club feel how the ball feels coming off the club which is your ball striking aspect and any one week on two you’re going to get 60% of the guys playing that are got going to hit it good enough to win a golf tournament so then it gets down to the other two elements I said which is um kind of your mental and your wellbeing and all that and life in general so again you’re going to get probably a third of the guys out of that 60% I just said hitting it good that are in a really good place there and thinking well and got their expectations and checking everything else so now you’re down to probably 20 or 30 guys and then whoever putts and scrambles good is going to win the golf tournament or be there on Sunday so um I saw an interesting stat pop up on Instagram again um a renowned putting coach he circled the last nine tournaments on tour PGA Tour I think it was only with the shots gained and it was all putting even Bryson you know the guys that the number one area of their game that excelled the week that they won was their putting so um I would agree with that you know you there’s no way you can out ball Striker field but you can definitely out putter field so um I think that’s a huge part of winning of having good weeks week in week out on tour well I think you need to have your game in all three of those areas in in a nice position so um but yeah winning you definitely got to hold part it’s you can’t you can’t get away with missing five and six and seven footage you got to make all of them pretty much all of them all week to be the guys out there these days you can cover a lot of not great ball striking with good putting but you can’t cover poor putting with good ball striking can you it just doesn’t work that other way around can’t can’t get in the hole from inside four feet doesn’t matter how good you hit it you know and then the game just becomes so frustrating it’s I think it’s more frustrating hitting it good and putting bad than it is hitting it bad and putting good you know you kind of always got that fight in you if you’re holding putts and scrambling well you know you can always stay alive if you’re not holding putts you’re gone yeah indeed it’s enough to drive you enough to drive you mad is it you mentioned Bryson and sort of everything old is new again sne before Woods daily before Woods Nicholas in his time all were super long relative to the field what there does seem to have been in the last 20 years is a real shift towards this scientific breakdown of the game and you would see this on Twitter and Instagram this notion of the the decade system that Scott foret promotes where we take all of the the artistic sort of thinking out of game which is the way I always see the game why I think it’s such a beautiful game and we just break it down to almost ACC Counting what where do you sort of standing as a professional you want to compete if that’s true then that’s what you need to do to compete then you have to take that way or the game attracts artists and engineers in almost equal numbers doesn’t it yeah it’s but it’s definitely going towards the engineer side of it that’s sport that’s 2020 and you can try to unlearn it or whatever you want to do or forget about it but you can’t you know it’s it’s information information’s key like I said so you look at any sport that the listeners like outside of golf you know you look at AFL football everyone say oh it’s better back in the 70s it’s better back in the 80s and maybe aspects of it was but that’s not what we’re faced with now we’ve got computers we’ve got sensors we’ve got video replay we’ve got everything now and to be good you got to use it and and it’s I always use the analogy with Motorsport because I love Motorsport you know it’s like going back in the in the 70s everyone loves that era but now you’ve got you got hundreds of sensors over the race cars and you’ve got 100 Engineers sitting back in London while guys are racing in Italy analyzing what’s going on to get the best outcome for the day and that’s what we deal with that’s what we’re dealt with and we need to you got to embrace that because that’s where we are we’re not we aren’t in 1970 so we’ve got track man we’ve got stats we’ve got video we’ve got great coaches we’ve got amazing equipment so why not use it to be good and it’s just natural progression in sport it’s natural prog in life so um guys are just decoding the game in a different way and um whether you like it or not that’s the way it’s going so we just got to keep pushing do you like it does it make the game less interesting in some ways that’s a very good question I I like it because you’ve got more not control it’s not the right word but you’ve got everything more in front of you so if you can be more diligent of coming through all the information you can get somewhere with it so kind of don’t mind that aspect of it I like I think like any golfer you know you love to play with your natural flare whatever that is and move the ball around and scramble and spin the ball and all that I like that kind of golf and um yeah i’ no I’d say probably no i’ probably go a little bit back towards the old way but I think a lot of that comes back to the golf course setup if you set the golf courses up properly which you can never always control because you’ve got weather component of it but if you get firm golf course you don’t even need that much rough you know you’re just enough rough that you’re going to get unpredictable fly fly um Scrappy lies and all that which makes it more difficult to control the spin on the ball which in turn makes it more difficult to control the distance and the direction of your ball if you can get that component of it right I think it lends itself back more to that creative um style of play like we saw at the President’s Cup you know the way Roy Mel was set up was mear and I think everyone will Everyone likes that type of golf it’s just that we don’t have the venues week in week out and the huge amount of preparation to go into that to to pump out those style of golf courses week in week out because we are pushed and pulled around the world for a number of different reasons to play on venues new venues old venues for a number of different reasons and a lot of them are commercial there’s of course you’re right I’ve not yet met a golfer professional amate or anyone with interest in the game who didn’t think that the President’s Cup last year was the absolute Pinnacle of golf and I think there was probably a couple of factors one it’s match play which is always entertaining it was Tiger at his best on a golf course that allowed him to show what golf can be when you get the great instrument and the great musician together and playing but I wonder whether there’s a and you would you might have some thoughts on this I don’t want to get you in any trouble but it seems that those who run professional golf have a different view about the product they’re trying to sell that professional golf is just entertainment of course but there seems to be a view particularly in America that the ball that goes a long way in the air and stops where it lands and leads to lots of birdies is what will attract the biggest crowds have they got am I right in that do you think that that’s true I think they’re 100% focused on that’s what they want it’s just what gets pumped out from what gets Pres presented to them like a venue and all that kind of stuff and weather conditions and I don’t know I guess you want green on TV that makes sense but there’s so many aspects that go into choosing a venue and and um sponsors being happy where they’re putting on the show and all that because there are a number of different things that go into putting golf tournaments on you know we are in the entertainment industry first and foremost you know and golf is is is secondary to that which I think if we did it purely the other way around and put golf as a Sport and like golf as a game how would we present it you know you put it around all your old bouncy courses and we all walk inside the ropes and like the old days and like the shells a Wonderful World of Golf you know that kind of look and I think a lot there’s a lot of people that would love it but then a lot of people love that Phoenix Open type deal where you can have Bears on grandstand line Fairways and watch guys just stuff it in there all day so it’s it’s a different It’s Entertainment so uh I can see both sides of it but I wouldn’t say that they’ve got it wrong you know the people running our sport are still golf enthusiasts and love the game and whatever else so it’s it’s yeah I think money is a massive driver but we have to be to be viable as businesses as tours and everything else so you still got to look at every component of you just can’t have 35 tournaments around golf courses like Walton Heath or Roy Melbourne every year it wouldn’t it wouldn’t TI everyone’s boxes as viewers and every else um but kind of going back to the point you mentioned earlier in that question it’s like the Bryson type thing and all that but it gets clicks it’s what people are are kind of um clicking on on um Instagram and what everyone wants to talk about and all these numbers are blown up because they’re at attitude or downwind or it’s a one hit scream or or whatever it is you know that’s just you don’t get people talking about how many foot someone hold for the day or how many putts someone hold coming down the stretch it’s just not what we’re drawn to as as people in the game Everyone likes a big hit Everyone likes birdies that’s just the way it is you’re sitting at the wrong table in the club come and sit with us mate when you finish you’ll get all of that stuff about who hold them Mage there’s plenty of golf nerds in the world as you uh as you well know I wonder that the question then becomes Wade is the current trajectory of the game at the professional level particularly sustainable distance has become to some of us there’s a lot of us think that distance has become too important that it’s become such a focus and we know that the equipment allows and has allow that to happen and continues to allow that to happen so I wonder whether it’s sustainable it’s in the interests of all of us to think about this professional administrators amiter bodies and Club golfers uh is it sustainable in a world of finite resources where golf courses can’t continue to grow their footprint because forces from outside of golf will stop that is it uh do we allow the game to become pitch and punt or will the market sort it out will if that happens and people turn away from the game will we change the game so that it goes back to something that we’re talking about that we think is more entertaining I I wonder about the longterm the Here and Now is bar straightforward but the long-term sustainability I think there’s two parts to that that come straight to mind I think the first part is yes we have got great golf courses on certain size pieces of land and we can’t keep on pushing T’s back and and um making these courses kind of fit the length that we are hitting it today you know I sit there and hit t- shots of Roy Adelaide I’m going this is a long hole has been a long hole ever since I’ve growing up and I know how far guys are past me on two of the long guys and I stand down there after I crank a drive and I’m like guys are 40 50 yards past this you know they’re kind of flicking a shot into these alltime brute holes you know I’ve play growing up so yeah it is that one aspect of it um but I guess it’s so quick to point the finger at the golf ball or the equipment but it’s everything you know you can’t it gets back to that engineered type analysis point we spoke about before you know and it’s so many things you know guys are lifting more more relevant for sport now people we got so many great trainers out there our coach are not better than they’ve ever been that’s the wrong way to put it but they just they’ve got a lot more answers a lot more information than they’ve ever had you know you’ve got you’ve got trackman which is allowing us to optimize our equipment and our actions and the way we attack the ball we’ve got all those answers in that little machine you know it’s you can try different things and you can speak to other guys at night hang on if you hit up on it more you te it there are you getting more out of it are you launching it there and we and everyone talks about it so you’re forever putting these things out there and you’re coming up with your perfect little um combination you know so you’ve got coachings improved trackman and other devices which are allowing us to optimize our our combinations golf swings bodies speeds equipment you know you’ve got obviously equipment hasn’t been you know the driver has been capped for a few years there and the speed of the ball can come off the face so they’re obviously just making them look pretty to look at and maybe Distributing the weight in such a way that’s making the sweet spot bigger and more stable so it’s not like they’re technically coming off faster they can’t you know but you’re going to get a larger area and a more stable um area to hit it so the drivers are definitely getting better there’s no question everyone that comes out is better um and then you’ve got the golf ball you know the golf Ball’s it’s the golf Ball’s getting a lot of the blame because it’s it’s right at the end of all those things that I’ve just said that are that are combining to the bull going further ultimately you’re right about all that and I think all sensible people accept that yes the in the information from coaches is better the ability to to tailor the body for the golf swing to move more efficiently is better the equipment certainly a part of it there may be some Agronomy things that are a part of it also but if at the end of it all is is the general trajectory the right one because if it’s not to come back to the ball then surely the ball is the simplest way to control it it’s the one ubiquitous piece of equipment everybody has to use a ball yeah you still get the same yeah and there’s I didn’t answer part of your first question but yeah I guess the ball is an easy way to roll it back and I yeah and what I was going to say in the first part is um I don’t think the amateurs are enjoying the game any less now because of where equipment launch monitors and body and coaches have sent us you know it’s a difficult game to play so any help that we can give to Golfers to play the game in a in a better way I think is good you know I think I think the only question’s got to be at a professional level and do we want to alter that at a professional level cuz I think the am level can keep on going as far and as hard as you can possibly push it because um yeah it’s it’s tough out there and you want guys to enjoy the game as much as possible but professional level yeah things are probably going to happen in the future I don’t know whether they are I haven’t heard anything but I’m sure they’re working a way a different ways to do it but the same guys are going to be good you know Bryson course whether they bring him back 40 50 yards he’ll he’ll work it out and we’ll still work out a way to crank it out there you know I’ve hit wooden wooden drivers with Prov v1s and if you te it up and hit up on it they still go and and and I’ve done it the other way around you know you can you quickly find out whether hitting down or hitting up on a certain ball will make it go to what level is I guess you kind of um restricted with different components whatever you’re testing but guys work it out pretty quick which is and yeah which is always the the argument about ruining the game if you roll it back I tend to agree good players figure it out it doesn’t matter what you give them it doesn’t take them long to figure out what works with like I said i’ give you a set of left-handed clubs you’d beat me inside a two days because you’d figure it out that that’s the that’s the truth of it back to something you said earlier you mentioned playing roite so you’ve played their your whole life I imagine your whole golfing Life Golf the last 20 years but yeah those two of I’ve grown up on here so those brute holes where you stand on the team you can remember as a kid that if you swapped your two best Woodard still be pitching there and now you hit a driver in maybe a 6 iron or a seven iron and you think about the long guys on tour who are 40 yards ahead of you flicking a lob wedge or a sand wedge in there in a broader sense does the ability to hit at 40 yards past where you are now does that identify the best allaround golfer is it more impressive for Greg Norman to threat a to fa to cut a six iron into that long green and hit it to 8 ft all the putt with the old equipment or Thomas Peters to flick a lob wedge in it’s it’s probably not an there’s probably not a definitive answer to that but do you see the point of what I’m asking yeah I understand what you’re saying but you got you forget that Norman was the sure the longest or or one of the longest in his time and where Norman’s cutting a six on in other guys are cutting in 3ws and forwards so um yeah it is where we’re at you know you can go to every other Sport and go well that type of footballer was better in that area cuz he played it all down on the ground and did that or up in the air or however football is and Formula 1 you know it was all the different manufacturers and now there’s only one engine and Chassis combination to have and if you got that you’re good and so it’s you can’t always just turn back to what we think was good because everyone always thinks the era before or two before them is better than where we are now but um it’s it is where it is and I it’s in the hands of the um professional administrators and the and the two bodies that govern our game or two plus a couple of others that are going to um pave the road going forward but I think the game’s like is good you know they got a I think core setup is a little bit of what a lot of us talk on to you know you get to places and they soft and the and there’s not enough penalty out there and it doesn’t play kind of fiddly enough you know I don’t I know I’d like that type of golf a lot more but there’s a lot of guys that do like it even the power guys still like that style of play so um but you can set a golf course up perfect a week out and all of a sudden it it rains for three days and that’s the end of that isn’t itain get back to where you started y you started throwing throwing darts so you haven’t always got control of these things so um but yeah I’m sure there’s things that they can try and the way they’re going to the game going forward yeah I don’t throw my head into it too much I just deal with what’s chucked in front of me and I um keep on altering my little equation to try to get the most out of myself and try and win golf tournaments you’ve got a day job to figure out haven’t you so let’s go back to talking a bit about that as a one of the things I’ve always known about you Wade is that you went to Q school about a million times but unlike most plugs who go to Q School a million times you got through 990,000 what do you remember about I think you did six trips to Q school maybe and I re you got through on five of them is that right am I remembering that right I think it’s right I think I’ve got my own locker there in what’s that about do we make every week Q school and way ORS will be the most successful golfer on the planet I always play my best I got my back against the wall I think that’s probably one thing to take it but um well it’s it’s funny when I come out of am golf I was I guess I was never that good in in that top bracket so I had to do a lot of my learning I kind of get guess out on tour so I got my card on my first attempt in Europe I had a great little stint there of playing where think I won first stage and finished third I reckon at stage two of European q and finished second at finals so what like my point is I got on tour in a rush in my own mind and all of a sudden I’m there in the desert playing divide Desert Classic against guys I’d been watching on TV so so I was had I had to do my learning out on T so it difficult out there and um I managed to scrape through and keep my card the first year and the second year I had a good year and then I went through a turbulent time for probably I don’t know probably that six or eight year period after that where um yeah I had to go through the the seasons where I hit it terrible and then you’d find a way to get your card back at Q school so you went go through all that learning phase out on tour and a result of that is losing your card and then I guess um the determination and the little guy inside we didn’t want to stop playing professional golf so you find a way to get through Q school and and go again the next season so um no I don’t really I don’t really know how to put my finger on it apart from that I just used to dig as deep as I possibly could on those Q School weeks to make sure I had a job to fall in you there’s always been standout golfers in every generation going back as you know young Tom Morris if you like you want to go back that far we’ve seen the speeds and the the woods and whatnot it feels like your journey is more old school this was the golf career that most professional golfers had you had your standouts obviously but most professional golfers had we feel like we’re in an era that’s different now we’ve got kids stepping out of college winning in their first year morar was already a major Champion wolf has won on tour hland has one on tour um you would see young guys in Europe Bob McIntyre he’s not as young as those guys but young guys has the game has the game changed in that way do you think have you seen that that change I mean we all age and information I think guys have presented with a lot more good information if they get their head around a a method not just swing everything you know if they get their head around thinking correctly pumping out the right numbers on track man knowing how to pump out a golf score knowing that they’re fit and fast and everything else they’ve got more pieces of this pie to be successful a lot sooner because all the stuff is measurable you know the only bit that’s probably not measurable is what’s between the years you know like but there’s a lot more guys out there giving that information out or you can get access to it whether it’s the best performance coaches or psychologist or whatever it is you know so you can probably get 80% of the piece of the pie pretty good early on you know you don’t have to go out there and watch these old guys hit it and play with them and listen to what they’re talking about and how they attacking golf courses and and and really listening to their caddies and all that kind of stuff you know you don’t need so much of that anymore because guys come out with this nice little equation of how to get the ball around that golf course and they are locked onto it you know then there’s heaps of guys coming through that are good at it straight out of the box but I think you can still go back and see signs of guys that were good straight away you know like gr mcdow’s won straight away Rory come out and went bang Adam Scott Trevor imman these guys come out and they were and Sergio was another one you know and tiger obviously but these are all guys that came out and went bang and I think you’ll find that going back in history we did have a lot of guys that come straight out of college in the US and were successful pretty quickly but um you know I guess we as older well myself as an older person too you know you watch these guys come out now and and you are watching them intently because there is stuff to learn from them all you know where maybe in the years gone past it takes you a while to not respect I have respect for all players out there way they go out the game but it takes a while to be able to read a player and see what they’ve got good to bring to the game as far as the way that they approach the game and now you know your eyes open all the time because you can never stop learning and it’s happening your learning is happening faster than ever out there what part does come you mentioned yourself you had sort of early success in as much as you got your card first time out and you kept it that first year had a good little patch there what role does confidence play in there and how does that fit into that because you go from Big Fish Little Pond as an Amer to huge Pond tiny fish or in your case I don’t think you’re saying you weren’t even a big fish in the Little Pond here in Australia and you have this early success is that always a good thing um that was a great thing for me I’ve got out on tour um no it’s it’s yeah I was add on Two And I was 23 when a lot of guys weren’t getting out there early and people struggled for 10 years to get out there so no it was a great thing I would never change it for anything but you’re doing your learning out on tour you’re trying to you’re trying to improve your golf swing on the driving ranges on Monday Tuesdays and Wednesdays and all these kind of things but learning out there is is great still you know it hurts a lot more when you make mistakes out there but no I wouldn’t change it it’s better than working Wade I am working um I was having a a bit of a I really feel like we’re getting some terrific insights here into what life is like on the road for a professional golfer and I can assure you there is plenty more to come after this short break but first some admin starting with a reminder that if you’re new here and you’re liking what you hear there’s also a whole back catalog of episodes from the last year and a bit that you can delve into now there’s two ways to do that the first is to subscribe and that’s got two advantages not only do you get access to the whole archive but you also never miss a future episode as they download automatically whenever they’re released it’s free which is the most important thing the most popular ways to do it are via Apple podcasts if you’re an iPhone or iPad User any of the other types of phones or tablets Spotify or Google podcasts are probably your best bet if you’re having any trouble feel free to send me an email Rod talking golf.com just oneg in talk andolf I’ll personally guide you through the process if that’s what you require now if all that’s still a bit too technical for you head to the golf Australia website Golf australia.com and click the podcast tab at the top of the page you’ll find all the episodes there and you can listen to them at your leisure either way make sure to tell a friend or a fellow golfer if you think that this is the sort of content that they might enjoy the more the Mary is our motto here at the thing about Golf and all are welcome and finally if you’ve got feedback don’t hesitate to get in touch you can find me on Twitter at rodor or by email at the above address Rod talking golf.com or you can contact the magazine uh email is golfgolf australia.com or on all the usual social channels Twitter Instagram and Facebook now let’s get back to way Ormsby because it is work isn’t it and people don’t realize that there’s much more to it than turning up on Thursday playing for four days and grabbing a huge check and jetting out Sunday night there’s a lot of professional golf that we don’t see and there’s a lot of professional golfers that we don’t sort of realize out there just what a grind it is you can make a lot of money playing golf but you can spend a lot as a professional too can’t you what role does business sense play in there we talked about your dad being a very successful businessman I imagine some of those lessons must have been helpful to you because Financial pressure is an added pressure you don’t need when you’re trying to play professional golf absolutely um I grew up in my family and I didn’t know any different but as I’m getting older I can’t thank Mom and Dad enough for all the little lessons that I’d learned um from a young age sitting at home with Dad doing the invoices on the ottoman in front of me learning about money coming in money coming out and all that kind of stuff and um I still I’m still learning off Dad and and all these things are still part of my everyday thinking of at the end of the day we’re playing golf trying to win trophies at the same time it is your livelihood and it is a business and just because we’re playing for um big purses every week doesn’t take the business aspect out of getting on airplane spending five or eight grand a week to trying to make money and to try to make sure that it’s doable to keep on going around the world and doing what we’re doing because expenses are getting higher and um your team’s getting bigger and everyone’s getting more of a cut of what you’re doing so yeah you need that bigger pot in the middle to keep drawing on to keep on trying to achieve what you want to achieve but um yeah I’m forever grateful to mom and dad and my family for the for the lessons and the way I think about the business or business or whatever way you’re looking at or sorry whatever business you’re in is um has been invaluable for the way that I get my way through my life I guess we we spoke to Scott h on this very show just a couple of months ago who I know you’ve been in his wallet more than once in practice rounds and he’s no doubt been in yours and you you both understand the value of a dollar and he sort of said that that’s one thing he does feel that a lot of the young players particularly in the states Who come out of college golf don’t understand it’s not their fault but they’ve they’ve not ever been responsible necessarily for their own money and money has never been any sort of issue there’s just always been plenty so he said he’ll say to a b where are you staying this week and they’ll say what’s that costing and they look at him I don’t know it’s all taken care of is that a good thing yeah no in my in in my mind no but there’s there’s more there’s more than one way to approach it um like I said like any business you want to keep your expenses down but you want to keep your comfort levels to a level where you can perform and and um yeah it’s not all about making money out there for us but it is a big part of the equation too you know you need to be viable you need some reward for the stuff you’re doing so what’s a year on two a cost for just roughly not to pry but I’ve always said it’s between five and six grand a week on tour okay at a minimum so by the time you’re rolling a caddy your airfare is over a stint you know sometimes you got long haul at the start and end of that you know and you got probably six long hauls a year so um yeah so if you’re probably around this six yeah six or seven Grand a week so six grand by 30 events a year scw 180 to 200 Grand a year and that’s not doing it that flush that’s just that’s just what it costs you know you got a lot of little expenses on top of that so I reckon couple hundred grand probably see most guys through at a level where I’m not saying the big boys CU they chew through that like really quickly but I think you can play at that level but it’s different that’s the European tour and you know there I I remember when I used to do it for less than 800 bucks a week you know playing playing other tours so um it’s all relative to where you’re traveling and um and whatever else but I reckon that 5 to 7,000 Aussie a weeks about the mar there balance in there somewhere too isn’t it because if you want to play your best you can’t keep doing it at less than 800 bucks a week the body at 40 can’t do an $800 week year round to and play good golf you need to you need to H have you know you need to have some level of sort of comfort just for your own health don’t you as much as anything so yeah it’s it’s it’s having a good caddy on the bag you know they are I wouldn’t say they’re they’re not cheap but you know that that’s a huge expense for us you know the air travel the the hotels the they’re almost unnegotiable in your in your um expenses you know and they whether you’re traveling the back of the bus or the front of the bus it’s over a year if you want to average it all out it’s not a huge discrepancy but for what you can potentially make out the other side so yeah you still got to make those decisions some guys are comfortable other guys are not like I different points of my career things weren’t that important and you’re just happy to sit wherever on the or stay wherever venue just so happy to be in the golf T but yeah your comfort levels change and you get accustomed to other things but all of a sudden you can flip back the other way and if you’re not making the money you’re more than happy to go down a couple of Road you keep doing what you have to do yeah it’s easier to do that if you’ve done it before too I guess it’s probably a part of that lesson I like you think that those who don’t have any idea have never experienced it there’s a potential there for problems later in life if things stop going so well much harder to go back and do that if you’ve never done it before a lat age like any business I suppose way you you’d be probably reluctant to open the front door if you thought about all that before you open the door I remember my dad had a tire shop and I worked there for some years and I just did the rough calculation one day just on the back of of what it cost to open the front door each day and it was terrifying you you never would have started if you if you had know what you in the hole for before you could turn a dollar it’s uh you got to have a certain mindset it can’t be about the money can particularly in golf because it will affect your performance and not in a good way if that’s what you’re worried about yeah that’s what old saying isn’t it kind of um do something you love and you’ll never work another day in your life type thing and that’s so important for so many aspects of life for people and um um yeah I still love competing you know and and um you need to make sure like it’s not hard for me to go to the airport and go on an airplane I always still want to go and compete and whether that tournament’s in Scotland the following week and I got to do 24 hours to get there you know you still there’s a little guy inside it’s still bubbling away and wants to succeed so it’s not like it’s I can’t believe I’m leaving home again it’s never like that for me and maybe it’s going to come for me and that in the next 10 years but it’s not like that at the moment you know I love what I do and I there are downtime when you miss a few Cuts in a row on the other end of the world and you’re sitting there talking to your friends on a Friday or Saturday and they’re having a hoop back home working their N9 to FS out at a Wier or whatever and you’re like what am I doing but you know it’s not always like that there’s other times when you walk through an airport on a Sunday night and you’ve you’ve had a great week and like this is the greatest job in the world so you just got to keep all your stuff in check and working the numbers and it’s a numbers game you know you got to keep on presenting yourself as good as you can each week and it evens itself out out and um um yeah but there it’s like any business it costs a lot to keep the doors open and you kind of got to back yourself that you know what I’ve been doing it for 20 odd years and every every every year we we find a way to kind of come out on top so things are in your favor so you got to keep on going the the day you don’t want to go to the airport or you’re going to the airport to go to Scotland and you’re hating it is the day you probably know it’s time to think about giving it away because you just can’t do it if you don’t have that drive d and I have so much respect for the guys that do walk you know because there always is this carrot at the end and the game can kind of break you at the end and there’s been a handful of guys that have walked in the last few years and I have and you still see those guys when we go back to those venues or wherever the countries are from and you see them you’re like that’s really cool that he has been able to walk and I have a lot of respect you know like Anthony wall was one of them um Robert Jan duron’s another one you know was a great Dutch player and he just kind of sprung it all on us at about 4 41 that he’s done I’m like that’s and we see him every year at the Dutch open it’s like I’m really happy for him and it’s kind of I think a lot of us would kind of like to walk at our prime or not far past our Prime but it’s so difficult because there’s always that carrot in this game we’re all competitive hungry people that compete in professional sport and it’s hard to turn the tap off but I think it’d be nice to walk at a point where you not broken it’s not the right way to put it but before you go down the other side further than what you want to well how how do you know Wade when when Palmer walked off that last screen after he won his last major he didn’t believe it would be his last and neither did anybody watching you know in 2008 when Woods won the US Open everybody believed that he would just come back in 2009 and win another four and of course it took 11 years so you can’t know can you that’s part of the difficulty that is yeah I read something this morning from um Daren Clark you know he won Champions tour in a playoff well the night before last that’s his first win since the 2011 open you like Darren Clark I always thought he was one of the most talented players ever growing up through the 90s and 2000s and he’s a guy that’s been for nine years without winning anywhere and so it it is difficult like winning is difficult anywhere in any individual game but um yeah you like you don’t know but I guess Darren still loves his mates around him his camaraderie all that kind of stuff and um maybe has a hoood out there so luck to and keep on playing whether you get results or not if you’re enjoying your life we go for it you know if he’s good enough to still have eligibility on all those tools for whatever he’s done or whatever he’s still doing M just go for it that’s that’s life do saw him on Twitter having a long drive competition with VJ sing a couple of weeks ago one of the tournaments like a couple of 10year old kids they were it was beautiful to see yeah yeah indeed winning you mentioned it it’s tough to do you’ve done it three times twice on the European tour once on the Asian tour to Hong Kong opens and I can’t remember what you won on the Asian tour I want to go to the Asian tour Victory first because if I’m not mistaken it was either the week before or the week after Adam Scott won the Masters um I think yeah it was yeah Panasonic India open it was I think it was week before I believe yeah and I did you not because you’re very good mates with that and we’ll ask how that sort of came about and what that means for a professional War um I think you send him a tech did you not now it’s your turn was that right yeah I remember something like that or one way or around yeah I do remember something about that but um yeah well that was when I had lost my European tour car had very minimal status in Europe and um my manager at the time well wasn’t really his decision but it was the only car we had really left to play was to go out and play in the Asian tour so I went and got my I went to Asian tour school and finished about 13th and got my Asian tour status and then I was I was lucky enough to still be playing four round golf tournaments and put together a schedule and played a year out there kept my card and then I won in India and it kind of goes back to a little bit what I said before you know I I got on tour really young or for for where I thought my game was so I had to do a lot of my learning on tour I had to learn how to win I had to learn how to make Cuts I had to do all that learning on tour so for some guys that come out and that won more in more Junior tours if you can say it like that um you’ve got that winning mentality already installed in you but I had to do it all out on tour and so it did take me a long time to win and India was my first and that definitely it it definitely gives you confidence and gives you the belief that you can do it and get the job done under that kind of pressure and all that kind of stuff but um yeah India was big for me cuz it got me into a lot of big events in Asia and and that paved a little stepping stone for me to get back to Europe which I did the end of that year and I was back in Europe in 2014 so that little side step to Asia was good and I still hold an Asian tour card and it’s an important part of my schedule the Asian tour I like it out there and I it’s um it’s a nice balance to the schedule that I play yeah it’s an important part of the European tour too isn’t it the Asian swing that they have down through there and um of helps to grow the game in and actually want it is there a standout memory from that week in India was your first professional win after as you said a number of years uh being at it and I’m sure there were times in there where you wondered whether it would happen I think every professional golfer must go through that until they get that first win was there a stand out do you remember what that feeling was when you finally CU it’s not easy to win anywhere so Garcia said this a couple of years ago it’s no easier to win on the Asian tour than it is to win on the PGA tour um winning is hard y 20f footer on 17 that stand there as a pretty good memory I remember having a right to left of there and I made that so um no I tried to I’m kind of trying to think exactly if anyone’s play Delhi Golf Club it’s one of the tightest most penal golf courses on the planet claustrophobic I think is the word isn’t it exactly and 18 is probably one of the tightest most penal holes in the golf course and it’s all all t-shot you know you can hit anything from a I think David gleon hit five on off the 18th T power 5 when1 there and I hit a two on rescue from memory and then I hit a five on then H A sandwi or something and could you just if you missed it it was a Reload or penalty and there’s nowhere to drop it Etc so anyway so I amum yeah I’m bir 17 to go one ahead and and um pretty much had to make par up the last so I just poked it down the phway with a pretty poor strike off the te but it was straight and then a five ir and a sandwich and then that was good enough to get the job done but yeah it’s um that was a huge for me at the time and um yeah I guess winning is winning and to stand there and yeah won your first event a big thing in anyone’s professional career yeah get your hands on the on the trophy not just looking at it actually holding it and knowing that you’re Nam going on there wonderful stuff am I mistaken or are there cobras in those bushes either side of the fairways there at Delhi I hit a pretty straight I don’t I would believe it there’s plenty of peacocks there’s all kinds of stuff course it’s like a wildlife sanctury that Golf Course is beautiful place and um um yeah it’s um one that I always remember fantastic now of course we mentioned that so you you sent off the text to Adam Scott and said now it’s your turn and of course he repayed the favor by win the Masters on behalf of all of us Australians who’ suffer for so long uh the following week how did you come to we know we know from the Epic playoff that you dropped out of early unfortunately that year with Chas and Adam Scott they went for about three days I think you went two or three holes should have been yours we’ll come to that later but we know that you stayed at his house that week you got this relationship with him what’s that like because a guy like Adam Scott lives on a different level doesn’t he I remember at the Masters in 2015 down at huntingdale obviously he was the biggest name in the field and all the crowds are drawn to him but even amongst the other players there’s a certain there’s a certain something isn’t there there’s a natural respect there obviously and he was different to everyone else in the field how long have you known him for how does that relationship I get the sense that away from the golf course Adam Scott’s just a good W yeah absolutely that’s probably the first thing before I forget saying that you know Scotty is everything you see he is down to earth he’s balanced guy he’s he’s he’s a fantastic guy and he’s um and that’s echoed all around the world on every tour you know you won’t hear a bad thing about Adam’s SC he’s like the Roger feder of golf you know maybe his obviously his career Stacks up very well um to Roger but if you know what I mean he’s just that guy that just is well likeed he’s in every locker room Everyone likes him and that’s just the way it is so Scotty is a jet from every angle um but how did I get to know Adam well I think it goes back to our dads you know Phil Scott Adams father and my dad Peter they similar ages and Adams from South Australia which a lot of people wouldn’t probably know but um Phil was that Blackwood Golf Club DB was down at Riverside think in the similar eras and they were just Club Pros so a well before I guess the children come along so they knew each other and um so there’s that part in the start so once I got to probably 13 14 around that era when we’re starting to spring up on um junior golf um kind of tournament that’s when I really started bumping to Adam a lot and he was obviously a standout back then and I was kind of good for my age here in South Australia so then you just gravitate towards each other and we had that common thing with Dad and golf Professionals in in um um going on so so we used to travel together and stay together and try to beat each other’s brains out too in the golf course but he got mine my number more than I got his so but no I like I’ve always liked the way Adam’s going about I think he’s married a lot of his stuff on the way Norman G about his career and and Norman was my idol growing up you know like anyone in Australia through that era through that 80s and 90s you know Norman was the mans and so I like the way Adam went about what he did and and we always kind of kept in contact all the way through to early to mid 2000s and then Adam kind of he left Europe pretty quickly obviously because um he kind of jetted off to America because he was achieving such great things in the game so we haven’t had the contact as far as spending a lot of time with each other over our careers that much just because we’re playing such different schedules but it’s one of those friendships you form in your teams that um it’s kind of ir replacable but you kind of you don’t really it’s one of those ones where you don’t really have to be on the phone all the time when you catch up you catch up and you have a laugh about the good old days and that’s just the way it’s been with Scotty H how important are those relationships those friendships for any professional golfer but then I suppose you get to a level where Adam Scott is where there’s an awful lot of people want something from you not always necessarily easy to tell who has pure motivations and who doesn’t and I would imagine that for him you’d be a fairly important friend in that way and some others no doubt not suggesting you’re his only friend but that becomes more important doesn’t it the more success you have Adam’s got an amazing support work around him which doesn’t involve me I’m sure you know so um Scotty’s got a lot of good friends around him I know that are not necessarily from golf so he’s got his own support network which I’m sure he draws on like any of us do during good times and bad times and yeah he’s a balanced guy and you know he’s without naming who those guys are I know that he’s he’s got that Core Group around him and they haven’t changed they haven’t changed for 20 years and a lot of people wouldn’t know them they might have seen them here and there but I think that’s what keeps someone like Adam Scott Adam Scott because he’s got everything in check he he’s just he just does it in a world in a balanced professional way you know and that’s don’t know how any other way to put it than that he’ll be a great President’s Cup captain one won’t he he’ll be amazing president Cup captain everyone want to play for him hope unfortunately I’ll probably be too old might my pick you as a Vice Captain you might get to to go I’ll drive his golf buggy around for him that’s right he does appear to be the one who’s heavily invested in in the president cup I think he’s of the right generation where he was kind of 98 was competitive around 2000 he turn professional that seems to have been the issue for the international team it it it hasn’t it just needs time that President’s Cup doesn’t it I think he’ll play a really important role as a captain one day for that reason absolutely absolutely I hope I haven’t missed anyone out but I think Ernie yeah was an amazing Captain Scotty I know really looks up to Ernie in a way and respects the way he goes had a lot of his stuff so there just a natural progression there that will be the next one that’s going to be amazing as who’s going to be amazing president Cup captain like Tomo was Peter Thompson and so um yep there was um we’ve definitely got that to look forward to yep indeed enough about others back to you two Hong Kong open wins as I said the second one earlier this year so you win nothing for all those years in the space of seven years you go bang bang bang and win three what’s the difference between Wade Ormsby 2020 when he wins the Hong Kong open Wade Ormsby 2017 when he wins at the first time and way or be 2013 when he has the first win um yeah definitely the last one was the best I’d played there’s no question about that um 17 I’d played a lot of good golf in 17 and got myself there and fell away and yeah I had had a strong season 17 it’s just um i’ been home i’ done a lot of gardening and um I was I remember getting on the plane was it was a funny one you know I hadn’t probably done the work I always prepare myself to the N of degree to go away and compete and I probably hadn’t done as much as I thought I could have done just because I was at the end of a season I’d spent some time home after European season then I remember getting on the Range that week and speaking to Richard like um caddy who’s from the UK and I said Rich you know probably haven’t done enough last week let’s put our heads down and bums up next two days and try and fast track this preparation to get ready and 4 days 5 days later I’m standing there with the trophy in my hand so I guess that got my expectations in check and um that’s the way that one turned out but um yeah that first win in Europe you know it’s one of those things that everyone always asks you have you play with Tiger Woods and have you one on tour so that was one of those ones that I was able to say yes to both those questions so when didd you play with tiger what was that like we’ll come to the second win in a minute and a bit of other stuff but um yeah that’s an interesting one tiger J WGC at Firestone round up Firestone the last time we’ll be there in a two Bowl on Sunday that doesn’t get much better than that so wow um yeah that was that that was amazing tiger was great to play with so that was um something that I will always remember you be able to tell your your kids and your grandkids exactly forever did you ever meet tiger dad they’ll say you played a bit of golf didn’t you did you ever meet tiger you said well funny you should ask son pull up a chair exactly I’ll tell you all uh all about it the second one in 2017 feel uh 2020 sorry feels like this is what happens to a golf isn’t it you’ve now won twice as a professional so the expectation changes doesn’t certainly from without much less of a surprise when Wade Orby wins in 2020 does it change from within uh and is that part of what learning to deal with those situations is about I think there’s a couple of components to that 2020 win you know like I know Hong Kong Golf Club fing as it’s called is a great venue for me it always has been it’s it’s it’s tight it’s wouldn’t yeah it’s kind of fiddly in a way but you got to hit everyone’s got to hit the golf ball in the same spot and it’s just becomes kind of shootouts from those areas so I know the golf course is good for me so I always go there with a level of expectation because it’s one of those weeks where I should perform better than other venues so that’s one thing that I always know I’ve got in my pocket when I go to Hong Kong Golf Club secondly it’s um somewhere i’ had success before so you always get good feelings when you when you walk in Hong Kong Golf Club your names on the board that’s another part of it but that can quickly throw your expectations in the wrong in the wrong um kind of way but um the big thing about 2020 win was what happened in December at the Australian PGA I can flat out admit I ditch that golf tournament and that one losing that hurt me more than any other Sunday afternoon in my career it’s not who I was competing against you know it’s not about Adam Scott and all that it was about the way that I didn’t get the job done internally and that irritated me massively so um I I just um yeah I just made so many mistakes interally so I had a crappy Christmas we had a good Christmas with the family but that period over Christmas for two or three weeks it was a real quick turnaround I I took a few days off it was the worst Drive I had to an airport on a Sunday afternoon by myself cuz the family went home earlier and um I’m not sure if many people know this but I sat on the couch about 3 days before going to home Kong and my wife says to me if you don’t do something about it as far as getting a psychologist to help you out um I’m going to make sure I sort it out type thing so I sat there reluctantly on um Google one night and started Googling a few different options of who I think could help me and put a few feelers out that night about 11:00 on the couch and started working with n blondel the next day I think and did about three quick crash courses before I went up there and all of a sudden he put the wheels in motion to get my head in order in those key moments and um I 100% locked into that that week and I had one thing in my mind was to win that golf tournament because I knew I was playing well and I needed that last piece of the pie at that point in order to win and um I was able to implement what no was given me and um I played great and that golf tournament so that is the one I’m most proud of for sure because um irrespective of who was chasing me down had a couple of good guys chased me down but I felt like I had control of what I was doing out there which is a cool feeling to have as a professional athlete try to help people understand a little bit and I’m fascinated to hear you talk about that disappointment professional golf is a life full of not winning the very very very very best don’t approach double figures percent wise of tournaments played versus tournaments won so you spend most of your time not winning that’s just a given so why does the disappointment from that event in 2019 why is that bite so hard you’ve had some close calls and I’m sure they all hurt the Vic open I think last year is one that you you don’t probably look back on fondly that one that we mentioned in 2014 I think it was it 2014 with Charmers and Scott plenty of them plenty of them you probably should have should have won that one guys you know like it’s easy to look back on them but you just gotta look forwards you know and think hang on I made those mistakes coming down the stretch or and and that’s the ones you focus on you know you don’t focus on the Thursday where you missed that three-footer or that left the shot in the bunker on Friday afternoon or whatever you know you always focus on that last 12 holes of a golf tourn or whatever what you could have done different to win by two instead of lose by one or whatever but yeah there always going to be disappointments doesn’t matter what sport you’re in it’s it’s dog it’s it’s it’s competition isn’t it so um um yeah it’s it’s what drives you to keep coming back you keep learning from that but yeah I don’t I don’t sit there and you try and take the positives of those weeks where you get close because you you are close for a reason because you’re playing bloody good golf and that’s the way it is you look at Nicholas it’s been always well documented how many times he finished second not all the majors he just won so yeah it’s just I I just remember the Australian PGA last year that just I remember driving the airport I turn my phone around or sitting in the cup holder or wherever it sits and I just like I can’t even look at it I don’t even want to look at the messages pinging through because it just it just made me angry I just I just I was I was annoyed of myself is that a turning point of some sort will you look back in 10 years and say that week that tournament that Sunday afternoon was some sort of a turning point something big happened there for you do you think yeah I think so and I think I wish I think all of us that kind of get out ducks in a road later in our career wish we were younger and we could do it earlier but gets back to where I said really early you want to be able to you know I I’m so honest with the way I put everything on the table and I um critique myself you know I’m I’m always trying to put everything out there how we can get better and I never try to mask anything in my game it is what it is put on the table which way can we go you know and I’m always doing that my rich M he’s been great with that we always we have more coffees talking about which Fork to take next then people would believe you know it’s not like oh we just run this system for three years and we go with it and try to win golf tour we’re always mass in the process and it’s like any business you got to do that got to keep evolving you got to keep on making little changes not kind of fiddling with it you know you’re making logical decision based on performance to try and get better but um yeah I think yeah I could think the fact that I made quite a big play by saying no and implementing some mental um tools I should probably is probably the best way to put it and that I got a instant kind of um feedback and win not feedback I got instant uh like result from what I put in it doesn’t always happen like that and so yeah I think it’s opened up a whole new um way to deal with situations I guess for me and um coping mechanisms out there or performance performing mechanism so yeah it’s good it’s exciting but I’m still under No Illusion it’s not the golden the Golden answer no there isn’t one is it 20 gold in golf yeah that’s exactly and and and this week’s answer is not the same as next week’s answer same answer will get you a different result that’s the thing will drive you in some ways Wade is the picking up the phone and calling n Blondell more important than anything no blondel has done with you since does that make sense that question that that acceptance of right actually a lot of guys are skeptical about sports psychology you would know that other guys on tour uh lots of them would be skeptical about seeing somebody is that maybe the biggest breakthrough I think a lot more people have got people in their Corner than what they would let on if if that makes sense too you know like you can always visually see guys out there walking around with guys helping them out there’s a lot of guys on telephones at night there’s a lot of people in people’s corner at home before they travel so you don’t always get a true cross-section of who’s working with who you know it’s it’s a little bit more of the silent guy in the corner is the psychologist or the mentor or the whoever else you know it’s just not as visual as a golf coach I could tell you who’s working with everyone from a golf coach point of view out there but the mental side you know can be done over a telephone it can be done on weeks off and it’s building blocks from a long time ago so it’s just that it’s not as easily measurable I should say so um so I think a lot of guys do work with them had some kind of um education from Sports psychologists along the way where it’s in through our national bodies and all that you know there’s a lot more emphasis put on that but um you’d be pretty silly to say that um the mental part and what you can get from these guys isn’t that important because it is it’s that simple it is so what sorts of things Wade I don’t need to go into completely but it’s things like expectations things like routines things like making yourself calm down or keeping yourself in an operating window where you can operate your best whether it’s getting too not anxious or too up and about or getting too low that’s probably the best way to summarize you you know where you want to keep yourself at your Optimum levels to perform your best that’s what you’re trying to do and one shot at a time all those old cliches are more important than what people think they are and that’s and um that’s what gets the job done out there well that’s what I understand anyway me other I imagine awareness as much as anything else way being aware of what you’re feeling and how just being aware of that so that you can be in control of it rather than letting it be in control of you some simple sort of ideas there aren’t there that yeah like I said I’ve always been massively honest you know if I feel like stuff’s got in my head and out give and screwed up the outcome of a shot I’ll put on the table I’m not going to say oh that was a bad golf swing well that golf swing could have been cooked way before the where I was the way I was thinking about that shot and I’ve always been so honest with that I would come back to the bag after hitting a shot Water left and hitting it way right and people go how can you hit it there and I’ll go back to the bag and say my Cy that was never going in the water just completely screwed my head before I hit the shot you know and I’ve always been like that I’ve always put on the table I’m not going to shy away from trying to blame things that it wasn’t otherwise you you can go down the wrong fork in the road trying to trying to fix stuff if you’re not honest with yourself once you get to your level and you’ve been playing the game as long as you have the physical range of skills on any given days it’s probably not a huge amount of variance your your very worst physical golf is still probably going to be good enough most weeks to certainly see you get near the cut make the cut for the most part it’s the mental side that can be really different can’t it and particularly those weeks when the golf swing is not where you want it or you’re not hitting it the way you want yeah well I think that are two easy areas to put that kind of gets back to the little like analogy I gave before you your ball striking got your short game and your putting you got your mental part of it you know and they all play a kind of equal role in your different areas of the game each week so yeah the margins are getting Tighter and Tighter until you know you can’t have all three of them at mediocre and make Cuts you know you need to have something going okay to get going you need to probably have two to two and a half of those things going nicely to be in the top 10 and you probably need to have 2.7 of those three things going well to content on the back night on Sunday so it’s just the way it is before if you there’s guys that were just hitting the ball well and they could be there every weekend but yeah you’re forever working at all three of those areas to try to make sure that you can go there and deliver the goods inde which brings us neatly Wade to what’s the future hold for Wade oy where are you now with your career your golf what’s your when you look forward what do you see I think you’re probably approaching 40 yeah just off turn 40 earlier this year so I’m actually day I’m day eight in quarantine that’s where my future is right now day 9 10 11 12 13 and 14 to go and you’ll be golden yeah oh God it’s brutal it’s brutal so no it’s this whole pandemic’s been been crazy for everyone you know it’s put a lot of things in perspective it’s it kind of you start thinking you start putting a different spin on your life and thinking well like the world’s like we don’t want it to be different because I don’t like people saying it’s a new Norm because hopefully we can we can come out the other side of this as quick as what we went into but I think it’s going to be a little bit longer road on the way out than what it was on the way in with this pandemic um what we can do is I don’t know I guess than what a lucky country we live in here in Australia and um possibly the Envy of the world at the moment being in Ireland but but how it really affects myself and lot of other people playing International professional sports it’s it’s bloody tough you know and it’s and I want people to take that in the right way you know I’m not tough from like forget about the financial part of it it’s that the way I used to operate the way I operated last year was I was doing anywhere between two and four weeks St back and forwards to Europe and I was lucky enough that Emirates and qar fly out of Adela every Sunday night and I can bum it into anywhere in Europe overnight and Sunday night and be there at lunch time on Monday and that gave me a a way to operate on the European to a living in Adelaide which is my dream so to feel like some of that’s being taken away from me it’s it’s it’s hard because I have a family I have a young daughter that’s just only 6 months old and so it’s not going to make that any easier in the next 12 months at least the next six months until different measures come in place so that stuff annoys me but it is what it is a lot of people worst situation so I’m forever trying to juggle my schedule and form a schedule that’s going to maximize my ability to work my way out the tools and world rankings and everything else so um you just got a whole different set of not issues but just things that are making you um change the way you go about your your business you know because I don’t want to be quarantining and that’s the biggest issue for all of us at the moment you know I I speak to all Aussies the last few days that are in quarantine there’s minwoo in Perth there’s Jake ml so so minwoo and Jake McLoud are in Brisbane because the only place men could get back to and you got Zach Murray up there Lucas Herbert’s just done it Steven lean is coming in next Monday you know so we’re all like no one’s immune to it we’re all doing this quarantining and and it’s hard because it’s affecting our schedules you know we all had to kiss goodbye the South African component and that race the lucrative race at a B tournament at the end you know we can’t play that otherwise you’re missing Christmas and whatever else like that so it’s making it challenging but in answer your question I should get back to is what 2021 um ho for me well yeah I’ll form the best schedule I possibly can and through work my way up to the top of the tour I’ve never finished top 30 or 40 on the European Tour by year end and that’s the kind of goals I want you know I want to play more Majors more wgc’s and and um I want to massage them into a already strong European schedule so that’s what I want to do and um the body’s holding up well and probably not as fast and as powerful as some guys but there’s always work to be done there so hopefully I can keep this old frame fast enough young fellas feet they get younger they get faster they get bigger they get stronger every year way the older you get the younger they look too I find guys that you know when guys were 20 when I was 30 didn’t look that young now I look at guys that are 20 they look really young like they shouldn’t be allowed to drive so that’s what you got to look forward to mate for the next sort of decade or so this forced introspection of quarantine and this whole pandemic as you say and you you already get lots of time to sit around by yourself as a professional golfer internationally has there been any are there upsides to that or there potential downsides that is a golfer left sitting alone with his own mind for 14 days a healthy thing could be could go either way couldn’t it yeah I’ve got a nice view here I’m looking outside here at Adelaide and it’s perfect Blue Sky day and these are the days that hurt you just want to be outside but um yeah it’s it’s tough on the head there’s no question golf yeah like like you said you spend a lot of time away and a lot of time by yourself but it comes back to having good family good support network I’ve got amazing family we got FaceTime I’ll probably make a lot of my friends unproductive because I’m always on the phone ringing people what groups and Viber groups you know I’m like everyone else you know I love group chat because it keeps me in touch with everyone and you wake up in the morning and in Europe or Australia and you get a lot of messages from the other side of the world so that keeps me entertained and um yeah my wife’s amazing she gets what I do and supports me 100% and my parents equally so um and your friends on tour you know I’ve got a couple of good mates out there which as you get older you gravitate to the same couple of guys and you’re kind of um and that’s what keeps you going I guess so um so it’s pry similar to most people’s life you have your support network and your mates that that you never a laugh with and keep everything pretty normal the last thing I was going to ask you about was that sort of fraternity onto it who do you sort of run with and and why you got access to people from all over the world it’s a wonderful education in life isn’t it to play a tour like the European tour where people come from all over the world to be a part of it um you certainly Got No Mono culture there have you you you learn stuff about yourself and how lucky we are here in Australia as you said and lots of other stuff D you who do you who do you hang with on tour yeah it’s um well James Morrison is an English plue he um similar age to me or a couple years younger actually probably won’t like me saying that but um he married a um well his wife Jess she’s from Melbourne um Nicholas kularts he’s his wife’s from from uh from Sydney so you find this Common Ground there you know and a lot of it is kind of I guess determined by what sport like what group of sports your countries follow like the South Africans and the English and all that and the Irish we all have kind of common Sports and the same type of humor so it’s easy to kind of kind of um click with those guys Scott gerson’s another good friend from Scotland he’s um he’s a great guy but the wonderful thing about golf is you go out in the golf course and you can you kind of walk around with guys four or five hours at a time and you kind of get to know them all pretty quick and when you you get guys that just kind of fresh on tour like Maverick ancliffe I played a practice round with the young Australian he’s a great guy Jason scrier spent a lot of time with so so all these guys you know you can age isn’t always a a thing for friendship out there because you just have the same things in common or you like following Formula 1 or Motorsports or whatever else for me and so um yeah that that would be the main kind of um group that I kind of knock around with there but um it’s good it’s good to it’s just been difficult during this pandemic they’re only able to eat with one other person on tour inside the bubble and that’s being your um Cy because he’s your main contact so I think that aspect is kind of kind of um hurt a lot of guys out there just because you’re just operating in this tiny bubble with inside of bubble so um we’ll be very happy when it can go back to normal who was the uh who was the player who just he he just said that’s C he had to pulled the pin after I think he played Johnson Andrew Johnson just just couldn’t do it mentally and you kind of get it if you really think about it doesn’t matter what all the trappings are you’re trapped uh and it’s uh that’s a horrible feeling my cousin’s a bit she’s in Melbourne and she’s she’s not one for going out much anyway and I was talking to her I said well this would suit you right down to the ground this lockdown she said well you know the funny thing when you don’t sort of want to go out it’s okay but when you’re told you can’t it’s a whole different ball game that’s that Chang a lot of people that have been in isolation way before this this started but um yeah no it’s it’s it’s difficult you know it’s it’s it’s just different for all of us and you’re right you know when you get told you can’t do something at like well into your 30s or 40s it’s it’s it’s not a good feeling feel like you’re back at school exactly whether you wanted to do it or not now that you’ve been told you can’t do it you absolutely want to do it because you’ve been told you can’t yeah exactly it’s been great to catch up yeah just just just kind of I’m sorry just touching on that if I can quickly I think the European tour has done a fantastic job in making events go you know they’ worked extensively with the government and when I first rocked up over there I was like I don’t want to have to do this I don’t want to have to deal with all these rules and but they’ve done a great job in in getting these bubbles up and running and um it’s to just be out there playing golf again you realize how much you love the game and um actually the happy place was out in the golf course because that’s where we had the freedom and no masks and all that kind of stuff so it just shows you what a wonderful game we play and we’re pretty pretty grateful as as members of the European toour that they’ve been able to get us back going again so I think it’s um hats off to them and um even though we’ve had tough times out there but um hopefully the better times ahead you’re 100% right of course way and we’re always quick to criticize and certainly Us in the media we like to give the authorities a kicking be they professional or amateur or whoever it might be but you’re absolutely right the European tour have done a magnificent job to get any sort of golf played uh in the last couple of months and uh from for fans as well for fans of the game absolutely cuz there’s not a whole lot else to not a whole lot else to follow as you know most most sports have just been completely disrupted and it’s different out there and as members of the two you know we’ve all put our two buls worth in and we’ve all criticized and reluctantly followed rules and we’ve arked up at different things but that’s just natural you know when you got such a big change to the way that we normally approach our weeks on tour and what we can and can’t do there’s there’s just a mediate backlash and that’s just normal but if you actually boil it down to how they could have done it better it’s very difficult to see how they could have done it better and to have 20 or 25 events that they’ve played since they started up again is amazing and it’s cool to have golf back and us going again doing what we want to do absolutely so that’s it’s good thanks thank you cheers yeah a big and heartfelt thanks to Wade olsby there for giving us so much of his time to be a part of the show I know that he was in lockdown there in Adelaide but still extremely generous to subject himself to more than an hour of my frivolous questions I thought there were some terrific insights there into the realities of traveling the world and playing golf for a living I think most of us who play the game recreationally forget that there’s something more than just passion at stake for these guys there’s a business money goes out and money needs to come in and that certainly changes the realities of golf for them as opposed to us now as we mentioned at the top of the show John Huggin has officially joined the thing about golf rotation and his first interview will be our next when he catches up with legendary Sports Rider and his own Mentor Tom Callahan I kept going to the to the Open Championship long after I stopped the others so I could hang around with Dan Jenkins I was his I was his driver that’s next time on the thing about golf [Music]
