No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 911 - Thomas Bjørn and Boo Weekley

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Double barreled in-person interviews in today’s episode, as Soly spent the day at the Constellation Furyk and Friends interviewing a bunch of players in the field, First up is Thomas Bjørn on the Ryder Cup, the Ryder Cup, and then some more Ryder Cup. It should be no secret at all after this as to why Europe has the success that they do in this event. And up next is Boo Weekley (35:00) on Champions Tour life, how he got to be such a crazy good ball striker, never figuring out putting, how he adjusted to life on tour, and more. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Support Our Partners: Rhoback fanduel.com/nlu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. That's better than most. That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. better than most expect anything different ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the no laying up podcast soli here got an interesting little uh double feature today did a couple interviews out at the constellation furik and friends uh first one up is thomas bjorn you can probably guess what i talked to him about in great detail the second second one's gonna be Boo Weekly. I went for maybe the biggest contrast of accents

and styles, I guess, of interview that you could possibly have in these two episodes. But I wanna give a shout to all the people at the Champions Tour that helped organize all this. We banked a couple other interviews that are gonna come out at later dates as well that I think you guys are really gonna like. But always enjoy talking to some of the older guys,

not the old guys, older guys guys about their careers and then the experiences they've had. And I think you'll enjoy some of the perspectives on that, especially some of Bjorn's Ryder Cup stuff, man. It is really, really epic. So this will be coming very shortly. I want to give a shout out to our friends at Roeback. There's a reason we're wearing Roeback so much. I told you, I really want to get my hands on that hybrid jacket. I did it on the way. I found this little this vest. I mean look at this frickin vest. If you're watching on YouTube, nice navy blue. You know that the white zipper. I love the

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Code NLU gets you a generous 20% off your first order through the end of this week. R-H-O-B-A-C-K dot com, 20% off bottoms, Q-zips, hoodies and more with Code NLU. First up is Thomas Bjorn. After that, it's going to be Boo Weekly. Thanks for tuning in. All right. Eduardo has already come on and given all of the European secrets away.

So you don't need to worry about protecting any secrets here today. I've been tasked by the US team here to try to get to the bottom of some of this. But let's do it right now. Make me a foursomes pairing. How would you go about making a foursomes pairing for a team golf event?

Wow. There's a lot of things that play into it. I think first of all, the golf course is where you start. I think what kind of golf course are you dealing with? What demands does the golf course put on the player? And then you start, when you got that narrowed down, then you start looking at what players you got available in those categories and players that then would gel well, who's the good driver, who's the good iron player, who's the good putter, gets to put a lot on the golf course if you're playing well. So there's a lot of things, but in the end you also come down to,

you know, people have to function well together on the golf course. So there's a lot of things that play into it, but you build it that way and then it doesn't always work out very well for you in the sense of, you know, you'll have teams, Ryder Cup teams, Presidents Cup teams, Solheim Cup teams, where you have teams that look on paper as a great, where you'll have teams that look on paper as a great four balls team, and have teams that look like great foursums teams. Foursums is a very difficult format for the players to play because you never really feel like

you're hitting a lot of golf shots. So it is a difficult format to play, but it doesn't always pan out that it's easy for you to get your group together in one or the other format, but try and make do with what you have and with all the information you have. So let's just take the golf national then, for example.

And I want to contrast that a bit with Rome as well, Marco Simone, in terms of starting with the golf course. That was a narrow golf course, hazards that cut in fairly deep rough out there. I don't know if you guys had something to do with that. But kind of formulating that, are you saying, even tying it all back to course setup, are you treating the odds and even holes

a little bit differently in how you're setting that up, knowing you might have different guys teeing off in that kind of format? I'm curious about the level of detail with all that. Well, the level of detail is there. But I think you've got to understand that the preparation for the setup of a golf course starts close to a year out.

So you're starting building your golf course with what you think your team is going to look like. And it never looks the way you think it's going to look a year out. It always changes. So you can get caught out as well. You don't necessarily need to do too much and I'll say this, I mean I got a lot of, there's a lot of people that went after me for the way I set the golf course up in Paris. I'll tell you on my last site visit in Paris the only

thing I did was I widened one fairway and everybody says you made it so narrow. That's the golf course we play. That's the golf course we played the French Open on for 20 years. You know, that's not really different. The rough was thick, yeah, but it's always gonna be thick in September. You know, that's, if we'd played the Ryder Cup in July,

it wouldn't be so thick because it'll be burned out. So the golf course is what you are and you try and predict what your team is gonna look like and what they're gonna be good at, and then you gotta try and look at, do you try and restrict the other team? I think you more try and build something that fits your team and what you believe

is gonna be your qualities. But I look at that golf course and that was not a golf course, I mean Rory for instance, it's arguably one of the worst golf courses for him because you take the driver out of his hands and if you look at a guy like John Rahm as well, you took drivers out of their hands

and that's probably their strength. So it wasn't a golf course that I thought necessarily was going to fit us perfectly. But when you do your picks for the golf course, you might look at who's going to do well around here. And that's what it came down to for me was I was going to pick guys that I felt like had the game for that golf course and I could use in both formats. Yeah, there's a lot of thought and a lot of process that goes into all of these things,

but in the end, you know, you get dealt a team and then you gotta go with that. And you know, the problem you have is, yeah, you got a lot of picks and today they got six picks both sides, but your six that qualify are the guys that played the best. So they are expecting to play. So that's not, and you're getting given those.

You have no say over those, but you gotta treat them very respectfully for the season they had. So it's not an easy thing to juggle and it's not an easy thing to get to work, but you know, you gotta, you make some tough decisions along the way, I guess. I'm sure you've had a lot of influences in this.

And I'm using an old interview you did maybe nine or 10 years ago just talking about how you mentioned in that interview and there's been a lot of cups since then. But Paul McGinley was the best captain you had seen up to that point. And the famous story from the 2014 Ryder Cup, the last one that you played in, was how he managed Graham McDowell specifically in that.

I'm just curious as to, one, what made Paul McGinley's captaincy stand out for you as a player? And maybe that example or other examples of captains you played for, how that affected your captaincy? This will be your sixth time being vice captain, I think. Is that right? And then you captained it alone. I feel like I've been around a lot.

But I think one of the things for me with Paul was that Paul, a lot of people captain from the top down and Paul captain from the bottom up, I felt like. He made the guys at the bottom in his team feel very good. And we all go into Ryder Cup, he made the guys at the bottom in his team feel very good. And we all go into Ryder Copland, who's ranked pretty much where in the team. There's certainly two or three guys at the top of the team,

and then there's a few in the middle, and then there's a few guys that sneak in into the team at the end, and they could have been potentially anyone into any team. So, but I felt like Paul captained the team from the bottom up and made those guys feel very much part of it, very an integral part of his team. And he communicated well with those.

And that gave a whole, that worked very well for that week. But saying that, you know, there's guys that have been very successful capturing from the top down as well. But that's what made me feel going away from Glenn Eagles that there was a way of doing a captaincy here that was different and it worked for the team that he had there. And I certainly feel like I implemented a lot of those things

that he did in Gleneagles, I implemented a lot of those in France. But I cleared my lines with my top players very early, nine, 10 months out, I'd had my first conversation with my top players and then I pretty much left them alone till two or three weeks before the Ryder Cup. And that was kind of how I wanted to do it and

some of the things that I learned but I felt like I kept a very good relationship with the guys that were fighting to get in the team. And that gets stressful for a couple of those guys at the last two or three months in the qualification process. It's a tough period for them but they're trying hard and that's also why some of the conversations at the end of that becomes very difficult. I just think the way he dealt with Graham McDowell, you know, he he felt like he had some situation, especially with Victor Dubois-Hong, that was something that

he didn't really know how to deal with. And he kind of gave that obligation to Graham to make Victor his guy for the week. And he had put a lot of trust in Graham to deal with that well. But in doing that, he also then gave Graham the opportunity to be the first single, and made him an important part. So I think he played Graham into a position where Graham felt like he was a really important part of that team and played an important role

both in the pairings format, but then a huge important role in the singles, in that first singles match. So to kind of play him into that situation, make Graham, you know, stand up that week and be pretty special for Paul, but for the whole team as well. Oh, that's what, it's just very interesting.

So he only played in foursomes with him for that point. He did not even play his own ball until Sunday singles when he got, and it played out exactly, maybe Paul's written a little revisionist history on it, but played out perfectly. Spieth got tired and he went out to win that match. And I just love digging into these stories, because I'm not putting words in your mouth here

and making you comment on this. This is kind of stuff that I feel like has been missing from the American side for quite some time, that level of detail in terms of how guys are going to handle their roles in things. And you look like you may want to comment on that. No, but we don't comment on the American side. And I think sometimes when you lose, a lot of things

are made out of captaincies and the wrong side of captaincies when you lose. But you can take any captaincy apart if you're losing and find things that you could have done differently. And often when you do something, you do it from the right place and it doesn't work out. But that's often down to that the other team just played better golf in that moment. And so I think sometimes you, you know, we put a lot of emphasis on the decisions that are made. But it goes a little bit back to what I said to you before is that you're dealt a lot of the players,

it's not you that makes those decisions on some of those players, and those are the guys that have played the best. So you feel an obligation to those six players to use them. You know, they're difficult not to use because they've had a couple of really good years and they are the top of the tree in World Golf. So it can be sometimes be difficult for the captain

to navigate around those things. So it's not always just down to poor decisions. It's also down to that it's pretty difficult to get a team functioning if you're sitting your best guys on the bench. That's difficult to get a team to work from there. Well, I feel like I've heard that a lot in terms of the other team played better, obviously, when your team loses.

And I guess my assertion is that you guys do an incredible job of getting your team in the best possible situation to play their best golf. And I'm not going to sit here and explain to you how you do that. Like, I'm curious to ask you that. But it just always seems like, back to the Graham McDowell story going to sit here and explain to you how you do that. I'm curious to ask you that, but it just always seems like back to the Graham McDowell story going to that. And I guess I would defer to Justin Rose and Robert McIntyre in Rome as well in

terms of that to me, I don't know the story behind that one. But to me is clearly like Justin, we would like you, the experienced writer kept guy to usher this rookie through and he's your guy for this week, get him through this week and you play that role and like that kind of level of preparation for going into it help Justin play his best golf and get the most out of Robert in that scenario. And that to me is just always, I guess I hear the American press conferences after losing some of these and saying, yeah, they chipped in more, they just played better. And I want to shake them a little bit and say say, you're this talented, you are this talented, why aren't you playing better in this event?

And I'm just curious if you would agree that there is a lot that goes into getting even your best players, getting the best performance out of them specific for that week. Yeah, but we analyze our players a lot and we analyze our players, what capabilities they have and what players have the capability of being more than just a golfer that they are for the week.

And I think that's something that I feel certainly I put a lot of emphasis on. I know Luke put a lot of emphasis on who has that extra bit where they can be something for somebody else at the same time as they're concentrating on their own golf. And that's not for everyone. That's, you know, these guys are individual players and they go and play their game and they do things week in, week out. So they do their stuff. And it's not that everybody that has that extra energy to go and be something for somebody else.

So yeah, you analyze those things or we analyze them. We have a good idea about who can do that and we try and use it to our advantage and make those players feel good about that role. And, you know, I've experienced, in the Ryder Cup it's very important, you know, that those experienced players like Justin was in Rome, you know,

he can carry more on his shoulders than himself. And we used that in that situation and we got some really good stuff out of Bob and we got some really good stuff out of Justin by doing that. But you've got to find the right guys to do that job and in that instance we could do it with Justin. You guys talk a lot about the plan, the plan, the plan going into it and how I'm amazed kind of even you mentioned already how far that plan goes back in terms of the beginning of the year talking with those top players, but what

would cause you to deviate from a plan? Like, let's say the plan for the day is these two are going to go out in four ball and then the afternoon they're also going to go out and force them. But in four ball, so and so has an awful morning and maybe you would reconsider it. What would cause a deviation from the plan? Or do you have contingencies to things if one guy has a particularly bad session?

I'm curious your thoughts on that. Yeah, you have your plan. And I had a situation in Paris where I went 3-1 down the first morning, but I stuck to my plan. I stuck to what I wanted to do in the afternoon. I felt very comfortable about what was coming. I said that at the time. I felt we were an extremely good foursome group on that golf course.

So I stuck to my plan and that worked out well but you would change your plan a lot to do with obviously how people play. There can be a pairing that's not working and would you would you change that for the afternoon or for the next day if it's not working very well. Bad play and I think also who it is, you know, that certainly for me there's certainly a lot of that in my thought process of not changing my plan because you know and he will know this that the first morning and he said it himself the first morning Rory was probably the worst golfer on the golf course and but morning and he said it himself, the first morning Rory was probably at the worst golf on the golf course. But for me to sit him down, I put it enough trust into him to think

that it's not for me to sit him down, it's for him to prove that he's better than that. And he did. He went out and proved me that he's better than that. That afternoon it was a blip and maybe the situation was, he was not in the right frame of mind for the situation that morning, but he certainly was in the afternoon. So, you know, and you're also sometimes with your top players if they have a bad session, the better way is to play them, you know, to keep them going. But you got to, you know, take these things into account and make decisions from what you see and what your gut feeling tells you. And my gut feeling there was that as, you know,

a lot of people were called for him to be sat down, my gut feeling was that I get more out of him keeping him out there. But if he'd had a bad session in the afternoon, but then we might have changed plans with him for the next day, but we kept with him and that worked out pretty well for us. So he's one of those things where you change your plan and plans have been changed, but

I think for me it was important that everybody knew what they were doing and we stuck with that. But it comes a lot to the group of players you have. Some people react well to if you come in and you have an idea and then all of a sudden that idea, they react and go with it. They put their trust in you and then you've got players that simply can't deal with change. They need to know a long way in advance what they're doing and so

they know what their plan is and what the plan for them is. And it's difficult to change people like that. But if you don't understand your players and you don't know who they are, well, then that's where it goes wrong for you. You gotta put the effort and time into to understand what you're dealing with. It's fascinating, cuz it does seem like if you in that example, if you go when you go down three one, it can become it's very easy for us sitting on this side of the microphones to say, all right, well, if you go run the same thing back out there and don't make any

adjustments and you lose, then that's easy for criticism. And if you panic and change the plan and doesn't go well, that's also open for criticism. But if you win four to nothing, you're going to come out. That's a lot of being Ryder Cup captain, you know, and the thing about being Ryder Cup captain is that you, you know, I remember going to Paris on the, I went on a Friday before the Ryder Cup. I got on the train and I was sitting across from my wife and I looked at her and she's like, what are you thinking? And I said, well, you know, 10 days time, you know, you're either a villain or you're a hero, you know, and now it's gonna play out.

And all your thoughts and your ideas, you know, you've had, and I worked under captains, I played under captains, and some of Europe's absolute best golfers and people that have set the tone for what the Ryder Cup is on the European side. And I've been in the room with all of them and learned from all of them. And now my ideas have to live its own life over a week.

And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all the things that I have thought the Ryder Cup is is not the way to go about it. And then you might lose and then you become the villain of that Ryder Cup and if you win and everything works out well, you know, you become a hero for that Ryder Cup and that's a pretty, you know, you sit there and you kind of go, this is hitting you very fast and very hard and now it's just going to live and for me, obviously, I was fortunate that it turned out the way it did. Where does your particular passion for this event

come from? I mean, here we are. You're preparing to play a golf tournament this week. I've done nothing but ask you Ryder Cup questions. You have, like I said, this will be the seventh time you've been a captain in some capacity. You've played in so many of these. Why have you dedicated so much of your professional career

and your life towards this one event that's every every two years? No, but it's you know, I played my first one in 97 and I obviously was very fortunate to to play in that 97 rider cup without sevi as a captain but also the european greats of of the 80s and 90s in the team and and to get to To be in that group of people that had made the Ryder Cup from the early, mid-80s into what it is, or what it was at that time, and it's even bigger today. And then the camaraderie of Westwood, Clark, and both in that team, we grew a great relationship that lives to the day today.

And then a new group of players came in, in the Apoldis, you Garcia's, and lived the soul of what European Ryder Cup teams are all about. And to be in that team room, and that doesn't matter if you're there as a player, a captain or a vice captain, to be in that team room, be in that environment time and time again,

and see new players, new people come into the same room and take to what we are and what we stand for because in theory it shouldn't work. In theory the European team shouldn't work and the American team should be easy. It shouldn't work because we're different cultures. It shouldn't work because we have different ground values. We eat differently, we do things differently, we do things at different times.

There's so many things that shouldn't work. But I think for it to work, we leave everything at the door and we become one team in that team room. And that's why we do make it work because everybody makes an effort. Everybody goes into the Ryder Cup knowing they have to make an effort. And that's why we do make it work, because everybody makes an effort. Everybody goes into the Ryder Cup knowing they have to make an effort. And that's what we do. And I've said it before, people ask us, what is that team spirit?

What is that team room? What is it that, and you can't pinpoint it. It's not this or that. It is just what, you know, it's been built over a long period of time. It's something that comes by nature to the senior players that's in there and they pass it on to the next generation

and it's just there. And you've got guys like John Rahm walking into that room and he lives and breathes it from day one. And now he's the spine of the team and he will take it on to the next generation. And that's what it is. And know, and to be part of it, and I think that's why I probably keep saying yes when I get asked to do these vice captains,

is because it's just, it's a pleasure to be in it, and it's a pleasure to watch these guys, and it's a pleasure to watch the young guys, how excited they are, how they take to it, and how they wanna pass it on. You know, and now you played in one, and all of a sudden you want to play in the next one and then you realize, okay, now it's my turn to pass it on to the next guys. And that's how it keeps rolling.

And it obviously rolls a lot easier and a lot better when you're winning. But I still think the times that we lost, I still think we come out of those Ryder Cups probably better and stronger for it because our values have kept us together in what we are as a team and that's what we carry on into the next one. It's amazing. It's funny. I mean, I would consider myself to be an American fan and I don't want them to win as much as I want them to like talk about the Ryder Cup like that.

Like that is what I find super interesting about your guys whole story and how you've done it and I've been guilty of this and I'm done trying to figure out like how do they do it how do they do it it's like well listen to some of the story listen to the culture. Yeah I mean that's what I mean because none of us could tell you what it is. Right. You know it's just a it's just a thing and I've said it you walk through the door of European team room and you it, you walk through the door of a European team room, and you realize

once you're through that door, there's no place as a golfer you would rather be on this earth. You know, it is just a very, very special place to be. And it makes us all excited about being there. And you know, it's, and we're sad when we leave it. But then on the other hand, it's a pretty tough week. So I'm glad it's only every two years. That's what my question is.

It's going to be on my list of questions. Can we do it every year? But I think you've intimated this. And it's hard to tie it back to one person as being the figurehead of starting all this. But if there was one person, it does seem they would have to be Seve in terms of what he brought, not even necessarily captaincy-wise,

but what he, like the stories of when Europe got involved in the Ryder Cup instead of it just being GB and I and his passion for it and when they were super close to winning in 83, if I have that year right, saying we're going to go win it next year. We're going to go win it. Believe we will win it.

And then they did. And they went to Muirfield. Like that, he was the one that drove. If you kept tying things back, it seems like he is the one that changed all of this. Some of us can roll our eyes a little bit at some of the drama or some of how Seve is referred to, I guess. But then when you really dig into it,

it's like, man, there's probably a reason why guys talk about this guy the way that they have. Yeah, but that's, you know, I'll say this. And yeah, you get it as a European sometimes about Sevi that, oh, you talk about him this way. Yeah, but, you know, I'll put it that way and say, well, that's the way the Americans talk about Palmer. You know, that, you know, there's a lot of similarities in what that Palmer did for golf

in America and what Sevi did for golf in Europe. And both great men and I've been fortunate to be in a room with both of them and amazing people to be around. And the passion that comes from them to the game of golf is unique. Sevi's passion for team golf, for the Ryder Cup, but for team golf in general, the way he saw it was unique.

And we played in Sevi trophies and smaller events that he created, and it, you know, you, we played in, you know, Sevi trophies and, you know, smaller events that, that he created and, and it was the same, you know, he, he, he took it very seriously and he, he, the passion was in his eyes every time he, he had the ability to, to play in these events. And I think sometimes for individual sportsmen, the kind of locker room feel, you know, that's what, what you don't get, where we have locker rooms,

but we're not in a locker room, but we're teammates. Having that feeling of being in a room with people and you share the same goal, the same passion, I think that's unique. We tied a lot back to him. I will put Tony Jackling in there, as a captain, that we're really the one that him and Seve set it off and changed the European culture, the way of doing things in Europe

and made Europe competitive because before that, it was an exhibition and with the usual outcome every year. And that didn't really work. They made Europe competitive and they made them strong and they made Europe believe that they could win. But when we talk about passing it on, Sevi did that in the first Ryder Cups on his own but in 87 Olazabel arrives and the two of them together, the senior player and the young player do so much for the Ryder Cup and for the spirit of the senior players having that responsibility we talked about before,

but then also how do you pass it on to young players that can become so passionate? Because I would argue today that Olli is maybe more passionate about the Ryder Cup than Sevi was, and that's something that I've seen because Olli has obviously been a lot passionate about the Ryder Cup than Sevi was, you know, and that's something that I've seen because Olli has obviously been a lot more part of Ryder Cups in my era than Sevi was. I was fortunate to play in 97 under him, but after that, you know, I've seen Olli in action in many Ryder Cups and the passion he shows for it

and the importance he puts on the event, not just from the playing side of it, but what it brings to you as a golfer and as a person is something that's pretty special and that obviously culminated in Medina, where his passion was the thing that brought that team to play the way they did on Sunday. But that's, those three people, I would say, have been very, very special for what the Ryder Cup was and what it is, and probably also what it's going to be in the future. And then carrying it with obviously a lot of other great players and some of the best players in the world,

in your values, which is Lange, Montes, you know, they were great players of their time, Sandi Lyle, great players of their time. They were important and that group of players made Europe competitive against what we all say is the mighty USA because you have in America a lot of great players and you know, every Ryder Cup you go in, you know, American can put two teams on the field and they're equally as good, you know,

and that's a lot to be up against, but they certainly paved the way for those Europeans for that to be possible. Eduardo told us the story in Rome of Oli saying that he would give up one of his major championships to play in one more Ryder Cup. And it says, wait, what? He probably would.

What was that again? I would give up one of my majors to play in one more Ryder Cup. And I was just like, whoa, man, that is just. He probably would. I'm not sure he would want to play it the way he's playing today. Well, so truly aside from the one miraculous day at Medina in 2012, the US has dominated Ryder Cups

at home since 2004. You flipped that one on that day. Would you sign up to one to captain a road team on this? But what is, I guess, you know, we celebrate a lot of Europe success in the Ryder Cup. It's mostly tied to that day and doing it at home. What has to change for you to accomplish it on the road? Because the last several Ryder Cups in general

have not been close either side going back to 2012. What has to change for Team Europe at Bethpage? And is it that different? Do you have to treat it in a way Ryder Cup totally different? Yeah, you do because it has nothing to do with you, everything around it. You are the one that goes into the cathedral and being looked at and have to answer for all the questions that's been put in front of you and you have to stand up and be, you'll be tested with everything you have and that's, it's not gonna get any smaller, it's gonna get bigger and bigger

and it's gonna be big in New York and you have to have a special attitude to go in and do that. But I always believe great athletes, they have the ability to be even better when you are put to the toughest test. And it's gonna be a tough test, it's gonna play on a lot of emotions,

but you gotta be prepared for it and prepare as well as you can. In the end, you've got to play the golf and you've got to try and function as a team and stick together and do the best you can. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things out there that says an away team is never going to win. But, you know, that's just I think that's just on the back of how the last few Ryder Cuffs have been. You know, you kind of go, oh, well, that's never going to happen. Well, it is going to happen. Of course, it's going to happen.

And, you know, for us, we'd like it to start in New York. I'm sure the Americans would love it to start in Ireland. So, you know, that's that's the way it is. But, yeah, of course, every away teams are going to win, but it's a tough task, but that doesn't mean that, you know, we don't look forward to giving it a go. Do you find it at all, at all, weird or, or do you laugh a little bit of, I get 30 minutes to interview and I only ask you questions about the rider. You've had this long career and like, you know,

people only want to talk about the riders. But I think we were right at the time now. We've come out of a President's Cup, you know, and that's finished. And now you start looking forward to this event that's going to happen at best pace. And I think it's natural that that's what we do. And I think for me, yeah, we can sit and talk about all sorts of things in the game of golf that's either going on now or that's happened in the past. But, you know, in the end, you know That's either going on now or that's happened in the past.

But in the end, what we're looking forward to and what's on the horizon, that's gonna be great. The Ryder Cup in 2025 is gonna be great. And it's something that everybody that's involved with it and everybody that likes golf would look forward to that event happening because it's a shining beacon in the professional

game at the moment and that's what we want. We want our golf events to be about the sport and about what happens on the golf course and the Ryder Cup will still go above and beyond anything else that happens in the game. Well, this was one of my favorite interviews I've ever done. So, greatly appreciate your time. Best of luck this week. Thanks for spending some time with us. And good luck next year, but not too much luck. Cheers.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much to Thomas Bjorn. Next up is Boo Weekly. Before we get to that, you can line up your first win when you bet this week on FanDuel, America's number one sports book.

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receipt restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandual.com. Finally, here is Boo weekly. I don't need many notes to interview you. I've seen some of your interviews. Oh, yeah, the easiest one I should have. It's funny. I'm a city slickers, you could tell from the accent, but I'm originally born in West Virginia. So when I'm around people with accents, right over a period of time, by the end of it, I will sneak in some stuff that I'm like,

where did that come from? And I'm terrified I'm going to do that before the end of this interview. No, you'll be fine. How has Champions Tour Life treating you? Man, it's been awesome out here. I came out last year with my first tournament was in West Virginia.

Not West Virginia, I just said West Virginia. There you go. But no, it was in West Virginia and not West Virginia. I just said West Virginia, there you go. But no, it was in Washington, Seattle up there. And just trying to learn how to play again and just trying to figure out all the stuff, the kinks and this and that and the other. And now I started, came out and played. Now I'm starting to feel more comfortable

about what I'm doing and where I'm going with it, how I need to practice, where I need to work at, this and that and the other. And it's been a fun ride so far. Well, I was listening to an interview of yours from a couple of years ago, and it was before your Champions Tour days had started, and it kinda seemed like you were fine

to take a couple years off golf. I don't know how much time you kinda took off golf in that time period, but what's kinda your relationship been getting, this is around the COVID time, I think it was, and you were working on the farm, doing all kinds of stuff. I think it was and you were you were working on the farm doing all kinds of things. It was tour junkies pod to give a shot. Right. But what's kind of your relationship? How did you get back into the competitive golf spirit?

I mean, it was it was time, you know what I mean? It was like I had to have hip surgery. So I kind of you know, sitting at home and finally got that worked out and then went out and play a little bit on the corn fairy tour and then or, you know, and that kind of gave me some, you know, a push a little bit because it ain't that I could compete out there. It was just like, man, you know, these guys are beating me up and like, they ain't that good, you know, and not saying that they wasn't good. Sorry guys, if you, if you, if I played with you during that time, but it was just, you know, that kind of gave me the grind to come back and, you know, want to be

back out and play in and doing what I love to do. I mean, this is what the good Lord blessed me to do. You know, if not, I'd be still working at the Monsanto over there in Pensacola. You know, that's where I, that's just where I'd be. How did you get into golf? I just run out of sports, man. I played everything. I played baseball, football, basketball, soccer.

I mean, played everything and it was just kind of like one of them things. It just, I just run out of sports, got hurt and everything I played. And then I was like, all right, well, let's try this golf out, you know? And I just got into golf. There's gotta be more to this story. You know, you don't end up with a swing like that hitting the ball. Like you have for me to tell me about forming your golf swing. I know who it's kind of formed after, but I need to hear.

No, I mean, well, my mom, my mom got into golf golf because I mean she used to play softball and for our church and everything at the house and then then when she kind of quit playing softball she kind of fell into golf and she started playing with some buddies and then this and that and other and then by that time we just moved out of East Milton where I grew up at to Milton and then my mom and dad decided to build a house on the golf course and and that's kind of how that was 88. Yeah, 88. And that's how I when I started playing golf was in 88, 89, going into my freshman year of high school, and I actually hit the golf coach with a golf ball and I'm

left handed and I was playing left handed at the time a little bit. And I hit the golf coach of the high school that we grew up at. And he, you know, was kind of upset with me and then you know this and that and the other and found out that my who my dad was and they hunted together they ran dogs together up there chasing deer and I was like oh and he goes I'm gonna teach you how to play golf. I was like okay well like I said I've you know kind of swung from the left side and you know I played baseball batted on both sides and everything and so it was kind of like you know it was easy for me to transfer over.

And he was like, I can't teach from the left side, so I'm gonna teach you from the right. And then he actually, the high school golf coach, he was the auto mechanic teacher. And he was the golf coach of the high school and that's who taught me how to play. How did you end up becoming one of the best ball strikers in the world?

I mean, what- Cause he had every gadget you could think of. He's all gadgets? Oh, it was all gadgets. Like he had a stand that went in front of it. He had like, he took like this for AstroTurf or you know, outdoor carpet, like, you know, we hit off of now.

He had actual just regular carpet and he set it up and he had a stand that went up and made a 45 and another 45 and he took a hardhat ratchet. You know, that you, if you put a hard hat on, you got a little ratchet thing in the back, ties it up. Well, once you put your head in that thing, it kept your head still. Really? You couldn't move your head. So then he'd stand there and he's like, he put balls out there in front of me.

And he just raked, you know, you just rake a ball to you, you know, and then you hit it where you, all it was was just like half swings, half swings, half swings until I could actually swing it until I got to where I could make a full swing. Then he's like, all right, now let's step off of that. Let's hit some balls, you know, and then we'd hit balls and hit balls. And I mean, there was days that like he'd pick me up from my mom address. That's where I could drive, you know, like I was just going into high school and he'd pick me up and we'd over it. I think at the time the golf course was Monsanto golf course. It's called Cypress now, but that's where he gave lessons at. And he'd pick me up and he'd be like, all right, I'm gonna give like three or

four lessons. I want you to go over and just hit balls with that head thing, you know? And then, and that's crazy. Oh yeah. And then, so I'd hit balls. Well, you know, next time I know I didn't hit four or 500 balls while he's doing the lessons. Well, then we get done with that. And then so I'd hit balls. Well, you know, next thing I know, I didn't hit four or five hundred balls while he's doing the lessons. Well, then we get done with that and he's like, hey, let's look at it. Let me see what you got going on. Well, then next thing, you know, he took like a old kick ball and he like let some air out up and he stick it between my knees right here. He's like, all right, your knees, your legs, your hips ain't working fast enough or ain't working, you know, they're working too slow. Let's do this. And so he put a kick ball between my knees. So now I'm turning the ball, you know, turning myself, too slow. Let's do this. And so he put a kick ball between my knees. So now I'm turning the ball, you know, turning myself,

making my hips, my, everything started working together. And then he come up with another thing. He took the old, I think they call like their test tubes, like, you know, rubber tubes, like they used to tie your arm up when you give blood when you're kids. And he took that and he made like a loop with it and he tied my arms together.

Like them bands, like you see people do now. Or the ball goes between your arms but it's like he had all this back in you know 88, 89, 90 you know what I mean like back in the day I mean he's already done invented all this stuff in which if he could have patented it you know it'd been great but I mean it's all the stuff you could have bought at Walmart yeah you know what I mean or Kmart at the time Walmart wasn't there I don't think yeah I mean that's really how I got into where I, you know, hitting balls. I mean, he'd just stand there and hit,

you know what I mean, 500 to 1,500 balls a day. I mean, I'd hit balls and like I'd come home, my mom be like, well, your hands are bleeding. I'd say, yeah, I hit some balls a day. I'd have calluses, blood, you know, blisters. And when we'd just soak them, my dad was a pharmacist. So he'd tell me what to put on, put Epsom salt. It'd burn like crazy,

but it would seal it all up. And that's how, like I said, that's how I got into it. Yeah, see, I knew there was a little more detail there. I just ended up one of the best ball strikers in the world. But where does Hogan come in? I've heard you reference Hogan with your golf swing. Did you understand his golf swing? Was your coach more of a Hogan guy?

Where does that start now? I reckon Hogan just cause I, you know, watched a lot of his like swing, the tempo. I mean, that was my whole thing was if you can find a tempo that matches your swing and just emmick it, emmick it, you know, and just keep doing it over and over and let it repeat. Then you got you a swing that you can every day,

day in and day out. Now it might not be there every day and day out, you know, it might be a little fast, you know, you hitting it to the rider, you know, whatever. But you know, sooner or later, it's going to click in there. You know, it might be to where you go back to where you hit punch shots, you know, and then like Hogan said, you know, that's one of Hogan's things.

It was just kind of like, I'd slow my speed down just because I want to hit little off speed shots, you know, and you start hitting off-speed shots, then you start linking everything up. Your hips, your timing, because you got to have a timing right if you're going to hit an off-speed shot, you know, and that's kind of what, you know, I fall in behind Hogan and then I loved the irons. I used to play, you know, I played the PCs. I mean, I don't know how many sets of Hogan irons I got at the house that are just got his medallion face on them and like the old woods, the old persimmon woods and stuff. I mean, it's just, you know, I'd go to all like flea markets and I'd try to find them. Like I'd call, literally

would call up different flea markets in our area and see if they had, you know, just anything that had Hogan's clubs and then, you know, some of them were the old press wood they wasn't actual real you know persimmon woods they just old press woods together and you know I'd like look at my okay that was fake you know but I got a bunch like I said I don't know I don't tell them how many clubs I got the house that has Ben Hogan's on them. Well because I mean just looking at like your stat page I mean you again I'm amazed at how you hit the golf ball I mean it's your you're over above average distance on tour and above average accuracy. The list of guys that are like that is, is the do it for 10 years or

however long you did is crazy. Like your game, if I looked at a stat page, your, your, your page would look a lot like Hogan's. I'm saying I wouldn't go that far. Well, in terms of all green on the ball striking and maybe a little bit red on the putting maybe a little, a lot of red in that pudding. That's not like holding a rattlesnake down there. Sometimes what's your relationship been like with putting over the years? Oh, it's been, it's shaky. Like sometimes I got Lily wake up Miller, not having nightmares.

I mean, like I three putted the Honda at the Honda tournament. And I want to say it was 2007. You know what I mean? I just took the lead. I just made like a 12 or 13 footer on 17 to go one up, you know, and I drove it down there perfect. And then I hit a perfect second shot. And then I hit my third shot,

cause it's the par five there. And man, I hit it in there exactly where we wanted 20, like 20 something feet left of the hole. Winds a little bit into it. So I were putting across that pond, you know, and, you know, me and my cat at the time, Joe Piling, you know, I was like, look, dude, he says, he says, it's just, it's outside left,

it's about two cups out on the left, just hit it, you know, once it gets over that little ridge, it's gonna, you know, kind of roll out. Well, it left it short, like three foot, two inches, or something like that short, you know, and he's, and I got up there and I'm like, all right, what do you think here, you know, and he's like, it's just left, you know, it's left lip

and just roll it. Well, I hit it a little too firm. And like I said, when I hit it too firm, I hit it three foot eight inches coming back. So that's how much firmer I hit it, you know? And I was nervous, you know, first time winning, you know, and I made that putt coming back to get into a playoff. And it was like for three days, I'd have nightmares. Like I literally would wake up in the middle of night just like and now my hands would be like I had a cramps in my hand because I reckoned it I was just gripping so tight while sleeping. You know what I mean? It was crazy like I don't know how I didn't wake up with black eyes or a busted lip because we punching myself

saying you idiot. Did you go through I mean kind of just every every possible thing with putter all different kinds of putters coached? Oh, I've tried every putter. I've tried left handed, I've tried long putter, I've tried belly putter, you know, I mean, I've tried every kind of putter you can putt with. I mean, and just, and for somebody to have the hands that I have to be able to play the game,

you'd think I'd be able to putt. I mean, and I do putt pretty good. I mean, I just don't, I'm just not as consistent. You know, there's some days I might go four or five holes where I could see the line and I putt pretty good. I mean, I just don't, I'm just not as consistent. You know, there's some days I might go four or five holes where I could see the line and I putt the line. Then all of a sudden I might go to the next six holes and it's like Ray Charles is putting it now. You know what I mean?

Like you just like speed's gone or, you know, and then I'm like pushing it way right or pull hooking it. You know what I mean? I'm like every person that plays this game of golf is going to go through it sooner or later. Yeah, absolutely. It's a certainty. What you've said back in your book, I read the beginning of your book, I apologize.

I've not read the whole thing, but you mentioned in there that you said that you had trouble maybe fitting in on the PGA Tour when you got out of the PGA Tour. I'm wondering what you mean by that and where that kind of came from. My rookie year out, I, you know, I mean, I, I mean, I played the night, many tours. I mean, you know, I mean, I'd ever like, I've been in like, I think three airplanes or two airplanes in my whole life before then, and then all of a sudden now here, I am fitting to go play the PGA tour. And I'm fitting to be flying all over the world playing. Not knowing where I'm going, what I'm doing.

Never been in none of these places except for driving my own vehicle and playing golf in different states. Sure. It's a whole new world. That's the thing. I just couldn't comprehend all that at that time, you know? And then when I got out there, like where I thought, like you were saying earlier, one of the best ball strikers,

like I knew I was one of the best ball strikers, you know? And to get out there and all of a sudden, these guys are hitting it just as good as I am, if not better, you know what I mean? And never seeing the rough, like this is rough, like coming from the mini tours, ain't much rough. You know what I mean? I mean, it's just, they're're just not much rough and then all of a sudden now I'm playing in rough and greens are way harder, way firmer, way faster and I just I felt I felt out of sync.

Sure. You know what I mean? Just I felt like it wasn't the connection then and then I kind of told like the guy at the time I was working with I I told him, I was like, you know, I felt like I should have just went to the nationwide tour at the time, which I mean, I qualify for a couple of Bi.coms and a Nike tour and stuff like that. But, and I never did no good in none of them just making it, trying to get in there.

But it was just that I felt like I should have went there and learned how to play golf, how to travel, how to like manage my time, prepare myself for the tournament and you know and that was one thing I just didn't do because I always like I said we go to the range if there's something out of sync we go to the range we stand there and pound it out and if there's something wrong with the putter we stand there and pound it out you know and then you go home after you stand there putting for three or four hours, now your back, your back's all hurting

and you gotta go lay in the hot tub or you're trying to find a place where you can put ice in a bathtub. You know, you get in that dang thing and try to cool yourself off and get your back, get loosening your muscles back out. And it was crazy, you know? And that's what I said, I never felt like I fit in at first.

And then when, after I spent my four years out on a nationwide tour, I kind of played my way. I got healthy again. I kind of hurt my wrist my first year out on 2001 or two. And I just kind of like, now I'm like, all right, I'm back to feeling good. I'm beating these guys up. Some of these guys have been out there on tour

and came back to the nationwide tour and vice versa. So I was like, all right, I'm ready to try it, you know? And then next thing you know, I'm out there running around and I'm, you know, I'm putting it on them. Like they were putting it on me. Won three times on PGA tour. Yes, sir. He said Hilton head won a colonial. What is it about those golf courses are kind of somewhat similar golf courses, I think, but it's what, what, what was special about those courses? They just, the golf courses I kind of grew up on, like they just tighter fairways, you know, you can't, it ain't a bombers golf courses. One of these golf courses,

you got to hit it low, you can hit it high, but you can't hit it. But so far, because you got a dog leg or you got this, you know, there's little things, the greens are small. And that's to me, that's the, that's the thing about it. Like I like, you know, golf course with greens are small and you kind of got to about it. Like I like, you know, golf course with greens are small and you kind of got to maneuver the ball around. And which, you know, from then to now though, the balls changed, clubs have changed. I mean, it's a big difference now.

It is a big difference. Well, how does that affect you? It has affected me a lot in the way I don't, because now I hit the ball so much higher than I used to. I mean, I used to be able to just drive the ball and then if I want to hit it high, yeah, I can slide it up a little bit and tilt a little bit and then send it higher. But now it's like everything just goes high. I mean, it's just like all the clubs, the way they're built, you know, it's just, it just, that's

just what they do now. So what is, uh, where, where, where we find you on a week like this, what are you, what are you doing in Jacksonville this week off the golf course away from the tournament? A little bit. What do you do? What do you do with your time on the road? Where you hanging, where you going? We got a house, like this week we rented a house. Last year we rented a house here. I got my family coming over, stepdaughter, stepson.

They heard my stepdaughter's boyfriend's coming. My other son, unfortunately, ain't going to be able to make it. But they all going to come over, got some friends coming over, cause you know it's five hours from the house from Pensacola, right outside of Pensacola to here. So I get a little support maybe if it don't rain us out, they're watching the rain right now. But we rented a house down in Orange,

the Orange Park I think is where we're at. And we just sit around, we got a swimming pool. So I'll go jump in the swimming pool, you know, cause it's kind of hot outside, and hang around there, and just watch a little TV, eat, cook, whatever we're gonna do. Nothing too special. Do you try, you're a big fisherman.

Oh yes. When did you do that? On most tour weeks, do you travel with your own gear? How does that work? I do, like I said, I'm trying to learn everything. So I ain't been out here, this is my, weeks that I've been out and I knew there was fishing out, I brought my rods.

But like this week, it ain't really, I mean, only place I could really fish is like right here. Cause there ain't no ponds on the golf course. And I do got a Florida fishing license, but I know I can go out there and fish, but I ain't got nobody over here that can say, Hey, let's run around here and go try to catch some fish and stuff like that.

Did you have a, can you tell me about your relationship with Arnold Palmer? I got to play a little bit of golf with him here and there and there and here and got to go up to Latrobe with him and do a couple little outings with MasterCard with him and and his, the guy at the time was his head guy, or Corey was his head guy and became good friends with him and we got to do a little deer hunting, me and Corey did, you know, and he'd hook us up, let us kind of do a little certain things together and every time we played at Bay Hill I'd always, you know, and he'd hook us up, let us kind of do a little certain things together. And every time we played at Bay Hill, I'd always, you know, Mr. Palmer right across

the street was where the tennis courts were, you know, and he had his apartments over there. Well, he stayed on the third floor and he owned the bottom floor and his buddy, the doc, on the middle floor. We ended up somehow good with Doc and we started renting out every year that I played. So in other words, we'd sit on the back porch and every time Mr. Palmer would do all his stuff, he'd walk up the back stairs. If he was too tired, he'd take the elevator. But if he'd come up the back stairs, we might have some moonshine. We might have a little bit of... And he'd always want to share his moonshine and I'd always bring some moonshine from my buddies from back home with me down there. You know, we'd sit on the back porch and we'd just, you know, laugh and talk and just, you know, he'd tell us some stories and

then he'd ask about, you know, because fishing and this and that and the other. And like he got mad the first time that, you know, he didn't know I was renting behind him or it was underneath him. And I was out there fishing on the dock right behind him because they got like a bunch of little boat slips right there because it goes into the chain of lakes back there. And I'm out there fishing and he come walking up there, he was going upstairs and all of a sudden he seen me and he says, hey young man ain't no fishing in here. And he didn't know who I was and then I turned around I said, sir? And he says, ain't no fishing in here young man? And I said, all right, well I, you know, I put my stuff up. Well I started walking

over to him because I mean like literally we're like right there. And I walk over there to him and I start coming upstairs and he's about all his voices. What are you doing? I said, Mr. Palmer, it's boo. And he goes, oh, hey old boo. I didn't know that was you down there. What are you doing?

Are you catching any fish? I said, yes, sir, I'm catching them. He goes, you caught any good ones? I said, no, sir. I said, but I caught a bunch of medium two pounders, a pound and a half. And he's like, oh, go on back down there and fish. I was like, yes no sir. I said, but I caught a bunch of medium two pounders and pound and a half. And he's like, oh, go on back down there and fish son. I was like, yes sir.

I did, I just going to just being respectful. He goes, I didn't know it was you. I thought I was using one of them other little punks running around here. I said, yes sir. But yeah, I mean, that's some good stuff. That's great. What about, did you have a relationship with Tiger at all?

I mean, we talked a little bit here and there, but not nothing big. You have a go-to Tiger Woods story? I mean, I used a little bit here and there, but not nothing big, no serious. You have a go-to Tiger Woods story? I mean, I used to mess around with him. I'd put letters in his locker. I'd get some lady out there to kiss the envelope, and I'd put letters in there, can I be your pen pal?

You know what I mean? And just put them in his locker, and slide them in his locker, and I'd get out there on the putting green. We'd be out there putting, and be like, hey, have you found any pen pals yet? You know, and he's still like, he's like, and he finally called on to it

after about three or four weeks out there. He's like, is that you putting that stuff in my locker? Yeah, but. So you still own your farm? Are you still farming? How does that work? We ain't farming. We just got our little, well, we live at 460 acres.

Actually now it's 450. I've sold five and five, so 10, I've sold 10 acres out of it to some friends and family. But yeah, we still, we getting ready for deer season, getting ready to feed them up. Just went and bought four tons of corn and we finna start getting them ready, you know? Just batting them up where we can shoot them.

All right, well, that's great. Well, I'm gonna let you go, really appreciate your time. Yes with us. It's a great great visit I knew I knew I did I just had to ask a couple things and just let you get going so it's great well good luck this week it's good to see you here and uh and thanks so much for your time we'll have to do this again sometime. I appreciate it. All right thank you buddy. Take care. Yes sir. Be the right club today. Johnny that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most!

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