May 14, 2025 • 52 mins
Claude and former PGA Championship winner Jason Dufner connect to discuss his career, what it takes to win, and being a student of the game of golf.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. I'm your host
Claude Harmon. This week the second major of the twenty
twenty five season, the PGA Championship, which will be held
at Quail Hollow, And this week on the podcast, Jason
Duffner the twenty thirteen PGA champion. He won that at
Oak Hill, lost in a playoff in twenty eleven. A
King in Bradley in Atlanta, got his high at six
(00:23):
in the world rankings back in twenty twelve, was on
the Ryder Cup team in twelve, President's Cup team in thirteen,
And Jason Duffner back in the day was an elite
ball striker. He had a beautiful golf swing. He's a
thinker about the game of golf. He's a student about
the game of golf. So really cool to have him
on to talk about what it takes to win and
his career. But before that, our friends at Cober Golf
(00:45):
have their four new drivers out, the DS Adapt Drivers,
four models to fit every golfer, paired with future Fit
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your distance and dial in your game. You can head
over to cobragolf dot com to check out their new
(01:07):
driver models. It went straight in my bag. Love it,
love the way it looks. Go check it out. But
it's a major week and getting an opportunity to talk
to a major champion like Jason Duffer really really cool
and like I said, he's a student of the game
and he talks a lot about kind of how he
thinks about golf. And this is a good one. So
sit back and enjoy listening to Jason Duffner. Doff, you
(01:28):
turned pro in twenty four twenty year career on the
PGA Tour. When you look back at when you started,
excluding all of the noise off the golf course, now
with professional golf and all the live stuff, what do
you think has changed about the game since you turn pro?
Back and oh, for the.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Most yeah, I think the thing that comes to the
front of my mind is the speed.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Right, It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So speed to me was never a skill when I
first started.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So you had it or did Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I turned prone two thousand, so twenty four years. I
played nineteen years on the tour of fifteen or more events,
and speed wasn't a skill. Now guys had speed, but
nobody trained for it. Nobody thought about it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You're either guys like DJ would come out Roy and
you just go, where is this coming?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
And now speed has become a skill, and I would
say it's become probably the most dominant skill in the game.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
And what I mean by that is you.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Can train for speed, you can gain it quickly. You know,
if you're in a certain age group, you can pick
up ten miles an hour club at speed pretty quick,
and that can propel you to being able to play
at a high level. As long as you know how
to play the game a little bit, you're competitive. But
I also think it's taken away from a little bit
of the game and the skill set in the game.
(02:51):
So I would say I see guys that have speed,
but as an all around player, maybe not as polished
as what maybe I needed when I first started. And
the other thing is is the skills that I needed
to play on tour and to play well on tour,
they took me a long time to acquire. I had
to do a lot of my own practice. I had
(03:12):
to do a lot of research, trial and error. Right,
That's another thing that's changed. When I first started playing golf,
and when I first got on tour, it was a
lot of trial and error. You didn't have track Man's
you didn't have the three D technology that we have now.
In teaching, nobody really explored strength and conditioning as it
related to.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Golf right or golf specific.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Tiger came along around the same time, and he was training,
but it wasn't golf it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Right, so he just got jacked and big and I
would argue.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
To a point and we could go back and forth
that the game's a little bit easier now than it was.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
My dad says that. My dad always says. It's interesting.
He said when he played the tour, he said, every
poor five, my dad played with a weak rip and
need a fade. But he said, every single par five
he played when he played on the PG or he'd
strengthened his grip, try and hit a big sling hook.
I think one of the other things stuff that I've
noticed that's changed, Like you said, you can just kind
(04:09):
of have one shot now, and I think, really, to me,
it was Jordan's speed. When Jordan came out, everybody was like,
he's gonna have to change the grip, He's gonna have
to change a lot of the stuff, you know, the
finger off. When Jordan started to have the success he had,
I thought one of the main reasons he had that
success is he was one of these new breed of
players that said, no, no, this is what I do.
(04:30):
I did this in college, and I am just going
to keep doing what I do and not maybe make
a lot of the changes you mentioned launch monitor technology.
How much do you think the change from four when
you came on tour technology across the board threw everything
from club fitting launch moner technology. I think you you're
(04:52):
a student of the game, and I think you were
one of the first players that I was really around
that kind of got the track man numbers and it
worked in your head. When I was working with Ricky,
you'd come up and you guys would play and you'd say, hey,
can I just rather than go out and work on
your golf swing, you would say, hey, can I get
on a launch monitor? Because you were looking at the numbers?
(05:12):
And do you now have you in the past stuff
used the numbers is a guide for what you're trying
to feel.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I think I use the track Man more than anything
now for equipment fit. Right, So I look at a
lot of the ball data, the club data, I can
easily manipulate, and that doesn't mean I'm doing it the
right way.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
As you know in the teaching industry, tour players have
this special ability to put the sweet spot on the
ball some way, somehow. That's their special talent. That's what
makes tour players two players. Right, So we see all
these different swings you mentioned Jordan Speeth. We could go
down the list, Like if you looked at the top
fifty guys in the world, not all of them have
(05:58):
like mechanically fununctional swings like that, you would say that's ideal.
But they can put the sweet spot on the golf ball, right.
So you know, I can change the numbers of the
club data, but I use the track man and the
information mainly for equipment fits and then to practice. So
set up practice routines, especially inside one hundred and fifty yards,
(06:23):
to understand how far I'm hitting the ball at what
speeds and then translate into that what that feels. That's
the other thing tour players are really good at is
understanding feels and speeds. What is seventy miles an hour
of a club had speed feel like?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And trying to ingrain those So that technology has really
helped accelerate the learning curve, and I think you can
get better faster by using the technology that's available. When
I was in college, we used to have this old
kind of shaggreen and we had a t box that
would go up to one hundred and forty yards and
you would walk off from a stick that you stuck
(07:00):
in the ground and you'd walk back to eighty yards
and I'm gonna work on eighty yards for these fifty balls.
Then you'd walk back ten yards and that's how we practice.
But now it's just instant, right.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
I mean, I always look at when I started working
with tour players back in the early two thousands, I
was on the European tour. I had a Dell Daylight
readable laptop, which people thought they were seeing fire for
the first time because I could plug out all these
chords and I could plug it in. I could take
it on the range and you could see the laptop
had the V one system. I could see it outside,
put it side by side, put on a tripod. But technology, now,
(07:32):
do you think it is helping younger players more than
it's hurting younger players?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I think sometimes with the technology, you're chasing perfect, and
the game isn't a game of perfect, right, It's more
of a game of missus. To be honest with you,
it is how good is your miss? Is your missing play?
Can we carry on to the next shot from our miss?
Or are we dropping? Or are we routine? And these things.
So I think I'm trying to manage that can be
(08:03):
complicated between students and teachers because you want to give
the students the best information possible to help them be
successful at what they do. So managing that, I think
is very important. I think it's probably way overboard for
your everyday golfer.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, like too much information.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Like there's a lot of things that you look at
tour players and you think you can do, but you
really never will have a chance. But we're definitely trying
to make the game easier to some point for those
people and trying to find ways for them to improve.
So I enjoy certain aspects of the tech, but I
also see the disadvantage at times because you're chasing perfect,
(08:43):
and I've been guilty of that at times in my career.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I gave a presentation a couple of weeks ago for
the Titleist Performance Institute at the World Golf Fitness Summit,
and I found a video on social It was the top.
It was all the swings with a driver, back to
back of everybody starting from thirty to one that made
it to the Tour Championship. You know, very different golf swings.
And I said in my presentation, if you watch this,
if you have as an instructor, if you have a
(09:07):
model in your head of the way you want everybody
to swing the golf club, you will lose. My dad
is famous, obviously for the work that he did with
Tiger Woods, and part of my presentation was I watched
Tiger Woods and when I went to the European Tourist
I helped my dad work with Adam Scott and then
I worked with Trevor Ullman. It was Tiger one oh one.
Right now, there are so many different styles of golf swings,
(09:29):
Whereas in the early two thousands, and I think a
lot of before that, it was a quest to be
perfect the work that Led did with with Nick Faldo,
you know, to try and create that kind of almost
robotic machine like golf swing. But now we see so
many different body styles, types of golf swings. Have you
(09:49):
seen in your career kind of it go from a
quest for perfect between now with technology. You know. I
talked to Greg Rose and Dave Phillips a TPI about
this all the time. They're like, listen, we get your
own three D. We don't really care what it looks like.
It's functional. We know what your body can do. Have
you seen kind of a shift in maybe golf swings
becoming less about aesthetics and has maybe the tech helped
(10:14):
it be more about function?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I think you're seeing more guys have their own swing
style and as a coach or even as a fan
of the game, understanding the differences in those things. For
an example, you worked with Dustin Johnson. You could never
teach how Dustin Johnson swings the golf club. But at
the same time, you would never want to take him
(10:38):
and change what he does.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Right. That's unique.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's like a fingerprint, that's his DNA. But I'm sure
when you were working with him you understood his tendencies
of what worked and when things were going well and
where he got off. So you're always trying to drive
him back to those tendencies. That worked for him. So
I think that's what you're seeing more of now. And
with the three D technology and the capturing and all
(11:02):
these things that are happening, people can see the uniqueness
and these fingerprints of golf swings and understand like, these
are the parameters this player needs to work in, and
then when they're off, you can understand where you need
to go a lot sooner and a lot quicker.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think everybody kind of has their
own signature in their own DNA. I've always thought of
you as kind of a student of the game and
a student of golf swings. When you look at golf swings,
give me golf swings that you Jason Duffer look at
and go, I like that golfing.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
I mean obviously Tiger early two thousands, right, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Like right now, who's golf swing on tour that you
look at in the last three or four years? I mean,
obviously Rory. Everybody looks at Roy. But are there any
others that you gotta go? And I really like that move.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, I've liked fleet man.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
In my head, I'm thinking Tommy Fleet because I love
his action, right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I got great action, good, good playing good face control.
Who else Adam Scott I think has done a really
good I.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Just saw Scotty in last week and I was watching
him hit golf balls, and he's it was like growing
up watching Freddie Couples hit golf balls. You just went
it looks so good the way the tempo and the rhythm.
When you what do you like about Adam Scott's golfing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Obviously, the tempo and the rhythm are good. I'm a
little envious of his draw capability because I've never been
a big right to left ball flight type of guy.
So I'm all the guys that I like swings all
sling hook it and they probably hate hitting sling hooks, right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, Scotty was like, it's a little off the toe.
I need to try and feel like it gets a
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So I'm kind of favorable towards those guys. I think
Justin Thomas has done a great job with his golf swing.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
And that's a very kind of an old school throwback
to where kind of that Davis love high everything kind
of in the last I think we haven't seen a
lot of that being taked.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Now you've got a lot of hands deeper yep, a
lot more stronger face. These guys are sitting back on
the right foot spinning side bending. My body doesn't side
bend anymore. Sidebind in rotation equals get a back surgeon
on speed dial.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
At some point, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Said this in the TPI conference. My uncle Billy came
into Vegas. He candies for Jay Haas on the PGA
tour for thirty years. He was a great instructor, I
think one of the best in the game. And it
was that year that Tiger and Duvall were hanging out
together and Tiger's number one in the world and Duvall's
number one in the world, and two side by side
golf swings couldn't be any more different, right, and both
(13:31):
unbelievable champions, majors and stuff like that. My uncle Billy said,
you know, the amazing thing is when you look at
Duval's swing, nobody is teaching that. He said, everybody, what
we do now is try to teach everybody to swing
the golf club like Tiger Adam Scott wide with minimize
the movement. And he said, you know, if you look
at two of the greatest ball strikers of all time, Hiller,
(13:53):
when shut take it inside, come over it fade Trevino
wide open, take it outside, drop it on, and he said,
we're not teaching anybody to try and do that. I've
heard that one of the things that drives Jack Nicholas
crazy is for everything that everybody asks Jack about, nobody
would ever try and putt like Jack. He's one of
(14:14):
the greatest, if not the greatest, pressure putter of all time,
with a very non conventional method. Everybody wants to putt
like Slick Rick and Tiger, right, but Jack was one
of the greatest with a method nobody would use. How
much do you think technique has played a role And
(14:35):
were those guys just able to execute? Because you talked
about the game maybe not being what it is now.
And if you look at I played tennis growing up,
tennis now is there's no serve in volley anymore. Nobody
serves in volleys anymore because why would you. You don't
have to, right, But if you look at the greatest
tennis players of all time, Novak, Rafa, Roger, they could
(14:55):
do it all. And the greatest golfers, the great great champions,
the icons, they can do it all as well. They
have everything, so that jump from professional golf to college golf.
I think everybody that's coming out of amateur golf and
college golf is trying so hard to have all of
(15:16):
the shots. But I do think that we live in
an era with technology. My dad always says, you guys
never had to get the ball in the air. You
never played with with a wooden golf club. In a competition,
the ball is always launched high. If anything. At the
elite tour level that you're at, you guys are trying
to bring the spin down, whereas back in the day,
the only way you could get it up was and
(15:38):
I think a lot of my dad believes that a
lot of the old golf swings that knee drive, that
kind of crenchaw drive with the knee hang back. He
thought that a lot of that was equipment dependent, based
off of the equipment they were playing the equipment. Now
the drivers don't curve as much right now.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
The ball inherently used to be the hardest club to hit.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Now now he's one of the easiest. Would you like
to see that change? You think that technology?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I think the technology makes it too easy. I do.
I think learning to.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Hit shots is a lost art. I think the ball
doesn't spin enough. So spin is spin, Yeah, either back spin,
side spin, it's hard to spin it. So you know,
guys play this power game. They beat up the par
fives and they get comfortable doing that. And the guys
that are still in the top thirty, that are top
fifty are still great.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
They still have a high skill level.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
But outside of that, I think guys are very one
dimensional on how they play.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
But the problem now, Duff, is you can you can
get one shot and if you if you look at
guys like Brooks and DJ, if you've got speed, now
you can basically say, okay, I just do what I
do now, I hit the golf ball. I've got a
ton of speed. And Brooks and DJ, I think are
the prototype guys to where they just go, I just
hit one shot pretty much all the time. Brooks can
(16:58):
draw it a little bit more than.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
DK, and you can't argue with them because they play well,
they win tournaments, and they make a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So who's to argue with that?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The jump from college golf to professional golf, what do
you think is the biggest part of that jump? And
what if you could go back and tell yourself when
you were coming out of Auburn, Hey, the tour really
you need this? What do you know now that you
didn't know when you came out about what it takes
to have a long term career as you've had on.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I think a lot of it doesn't have to do
with the physical aspects. A lot of the kids get
into the golf swing and the scoring and how do
I putt? And I think the biggest thing I think
for kids making that jump is getting involved and being
a professional golfer and seeing what else there is about that. Right, So,
(17:53):
there's a lot of travel, there's a lot of time
that you're accountable for now. Nobody is telling you to
get up and practice.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
All the things you hated as a college golfer. I
hear this all the time. The coach tells you when
to practice, they tell you when to work out. You
have a place to practice, you have a place to play,
you have a travel schedule. When you turn pros, all
of that goes away.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So managing that, managing expectations, I think is a big
thing for the guys coming out now because they're with
the social media and all the things the tour has
done to promote these guys to get these guys on
tour quicker. They expect to have quick results. So so
how do you manage that if it doesn't happen, not
everybody's going to be right on tour? You know, how
(18:40):
do you deal with playing for a paycheck? Right, you know,
making cuts, making.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And you're going to make any.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Money providing, you know, for your livelihood. And then I
don't think college kids really understand how competitive professional golf
is because when they play a college event, there might
be say fifteen teams and that equals eighty or ninety guys,
and there might be only ten twelve guys that can
really play that are in that field. Well, when you
(19:08):
go to any corn Fairy event, DP World Tour event,
PGA Tour event, even like whatever's below corn Fairy Tour, like,
these dudes are the best of the best, and as
you're progressing, it's getting better and better. So trying to
be one of the best in the world at what
you do is extremely, extremely difficult, if that makes sense,
(19:34):
in the whole world. So it's not for everybody, That's
what I tell them. And there's a lot of sacrifice.
I've made a lot of sacrifice in twenty four years
to do what I did, and at times I wish
that I would have had other things in my life,
but I'm also grateful for the opportunities that I had
in golf, and I know that I had to make
(19:55):
that sacrifice to live that dream for as long as
I did.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And I also think, you know, when you're a college golfer,
you don't know what you don't know, but because you
can play this, I think golf is one of these
sports where you can play the same. You can be
a college golfer and go play at the Medalist and
play with some of the guys down here, and he
can make a birdie on a bog in a hole,
and you can make a birdie and maybe you clip
them by one. And I don't think a lot of
(20:20):
college golfers, but also a lot of the fans realize
that the guys that play on the PGA Tour Justin
Thomas is James Harden, right, John Raum is Kevin Durant.
They don't realize that the best players in competitive golf,
or the greatest athletes that they watch day in and
day out in other sports, they don't realize that Rory
McElroy is Patrick mahomes, but they think, oh yeah, I
(20:43):
can go and do that, and you get out there
and you're like, well, because once you get to the NFL,
or I use the NFL all the time. Once you
get to the NFL, everybody that is playing and starting
in the NFL was probably the best player in their
high school's history, their talent history, maybe the state. And
I think it sometimes gets skewed into thinking, oh yeah,
(21:06):
I mean I played good in college and stuff. Junior golf.
I love working with juniors. What do you think is
important for junior golfers from a development standpoint? If you
could sit a bunch of juniors down that are trying
to play, you know, junior golf to that high school golf,
would you tell them to focus on things differently now
than you would have told them when you turn pro.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think playing tournaments and being competitive for that age
is probably the most important thing because you learn so
much about the game playing tournaments, and you learn so
much about yourself. And they're in that kind of age
range where information and being able to cognitively develop and
(21:49):
do these things is so important. So being in tournaments
and understanding how to compete, how to shoot scores, how
to manage when things aren't going well, how to manage
when things are going well. So those are all things,
And this is one thing I tell a lot of people,
like playing junior golf, college golf, professional golf is uncomfortable.
(22:12):
There's a lot of uncomfortable things about that. And the
guys that are really good seem to be very comfortable
in uncomfortable environments. Right when things are on the line,
or the elements are at their worst, or the crowds
are at their highest level. You know, we're playing in
front of people, all these things that could be uncomfortable,
(22:34):
that's where they find to be the most comfortable. Right,
That's where I see the difference between guys, you know,
everyday tour players that maybe win here and there and
guys like Jordan Speeth and DJ and Dustin Brooks and
Justin Thomas. Right, being comfortable in uncomfortable environments, I think
is a real key to the development of golfers. Because
(22:57):
everybody can swing a golf club. You see junior years
that have amazing information is out there to do that.
So those are easy things for everybody. But it's these intangibles,
it's these cognitive skills that needed to be developed, and
I think you can develop those at that are early
age by playing tournaments.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
And the most uncomfortable I think you're ever going to
feel is on the back nine on Sunday in a
major championship. You were lucky enough and got through that
in twenty thirteen it o'kill. What is major championship pressure?
Trying to win one of those? How is it different
than trying to win? The thing I love about your career,
Duff is you've won on really good, iconic, tough golf courses. Memorial,
(23:44):
you want to major ad o' kill, which is one
of the major major tournaments. But what's it like on
the back nine on Sunday trying to win a major?
How's that pressure different?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
So for me, I don't want to say I didn't
feel pressure. I knew it was that take, But I
was always very comfortable when I was playing well because
I was playing well right, And I think another great
quality that I had I maybe wasn't as comfortable as
(24:14):
I thought I would like to be in uncomfortable situations.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
But one.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Great quality that I felt like I had through my
career is that I was willing to take chances and
take risks to get what I wanted, accepting that failure
might be part of that, and that I was okay
to fail in situations if it meant giving me an
opportunity to get what I wanted, right.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
To risk it all.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So a couple of years before that, I was in
contention in Atlanta and I was trying to win the
golf tournament and it didn't work.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
But I was okay with it because I was.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Willing to do what I needed to do. I didn't
shy away from it. It just didn't happen for me then.
So just knowing, like when I'm playing good and I'm
not worried about that failure component, I always felt a
lot of comfort and peace when I was playing and
I was just okilled. Just kind of was the right
type of thing for me. It was a good golf
(25:11):
course for me.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It wasn't when you say it was a good golf
course for you. It's an incredibly hard golf course. It's
very much an old school golf course. So when you
say you liked the golf course and it you felt
like it set up well for you, what about it?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So no distance advantage?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Really?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
It okay?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I haven't played it since they've changed it, but when
we played it, everybody was playing from the same spot.
Some guys might hit three woods where I was hitting
a lot of drivers that week, but we were still
playing from the same spot. So that got me into
an iron competition. I had played well the week before
at Firestone, which is another golf course. I've played very well,
long hard, so I'm comfortable and I'm confident with my game.
(25:54):
And you know, it wasn't a putting contest. It was
going to be somewhere in that eight to ten under range,
which I was very comfortable with.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
You're not someone that likes thirty under.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
No, but I did win in Palm Spring I could
like that. But you know, when tournaments were in that
like six to ten to twelve range, that's when I
felt comfortable. So that was that type of major. And
I shot sixty three in the second round. And I
tell people this all the time. Tour pros shoot really
low rounds frequently. Sometimes they're at home on Thursday with
(26:25):
your buddies. But that week I happened to have a
really good way. I see a lot of sixty threes
in majors where everything went right that day, right I
had just recently had a day two weeks ago at
home where everything rent right and I shot sixty two,
and I was like, that's great. I wish I would
have done them the Monday qualify next week, but it
didn't happen. So I had one of those days and
I shot a sixty three. So that gave me a
(26:46):
huge advantage for the week of the tournament. And I
was playing well, and I had a great pairing on Sunday,
which in Furich was very easy to play with. And
I wasn't leading. I kind of had slipped back to
one shot and I got off to a good start.
So all these things kind of manifested itself into that
week and then I, you know, I'm kind of head
(27:08):
down doing my thing, and when I get to the
tenth hole, I've got a four shot lead with nine
holes to play. So now it's about managing, you know,
let's hit the fairways, let's one shot at the time,
manage the game, get it on the green, and you know,
make pars.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
And so it just kind of worked out that way.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
But it's hard to describe because you would think there's
a lot of internal pressure. This is something I've been
working for my whole life. But in that moment, the
really good players can kind of filter all that out
and really focus on what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Would it be safe to say that part of becoming
a great great player there's acceptance. You have to accept
that you're going to make bad swings, you have to
accept that you're going to get bad breaks, because I
think a lot of players don't expect there to be adversity.
And I think a lot of the great players that
I've been lucky enough to be around, you guys know
you're going to make bad swings. You know you might
(28:02):
not have it all the time. And I think everybody
that is trying to get to the level that that
you've gotten to in your game win a major beyond
President's Cop Wrider cops win multiple times. They think you've
always got it. There's you're never going to hit it bad.
But what I hear you saying is, listen, you have to.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Accept that failure is a big party. Failure is a
big part of it, huge part of the game. And
how do you manage that? How does that affect you?
Does that discourage you? Does that linger does it manifest
itself into other things? I had that later in my career.
I really struggled with my putting and that manifested itself
into the yips for me for a period of time.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
What's that like when you're on because I think everybody listening,
but everybody listening putting. I've talked to a lot of
good players about it. I mean, you know, one of
your good friends, Ricky Fowler, Slicksick's one of the best
pure putters on the planet, right and he just says, listen,
Seaball hit Ball, sea Line, hit Line, doesn't think about anything,
you know, pure natural, but when you do struggle, And
(29:02):
I think this is really powerful for everyone listening, for
people that are struggling with putting and struggling with the yips,
your struggle with that, what's it feel like on the
golf course, because.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
I mean awful, It's it's uncontrolled.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
We've all seen the videos of you and Ernie L's
when guys are struggling missing it from two feet. You're
not You're not trying to do that. You're trying.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
It's it's uh, unless you've been through it, you don't
understand it. For one, and you know it's a subconscious thing.
It's it's I grew up on public golf courses in Cleveland,
Ohio that we're rolling about a seven on the stamp,
and I never saw a putt that broke more than
(29:44):
outside left or outside right for a long time. So
the art of putting I never really learned. If I
have one regret in my career, is that I didn't
do better understanding putting.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And how I like you've understood the golf right, and.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
How I could have been a more consistent putter, because
as time went on and as I got older, the
putting got worse and worse, and the misses became more frequent,
and that manifested itself into the yips by a subconscious feeling. Right,
I'm feeling some type of emotional pain, mental anguish, anxiety
with these misses, right, that's embarrassing, that's X, Y or CD.
(30:22):
I'm labeling it, however, in my mind subconsciously. So what
happens is you get in that situation again and your
subconscious goes, hey, remember last time you had this thirty
incher and you missed it.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
That hurt.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Don't do it again, right, And it becomes a fight
or flight situation, And I would go to flight, and
I had a hard time pulling the trigger. So there's
a lot of work that I've done in the last
two years to try to undo that because I'll be
forty eight next year and I want to play Champions
Tour and I know I need to putt well. So
(30:56):
there's things that happened. So it's a very natural thing
that happens. It's your subconscious warning you that this situation
is dangerous. It has caused distress and pain and anguish
in the past, and it's a natural response. And there's
certain people people that are very self aware and you know,
(31:17):
care about what other people think or say or do,
usually are the ones that get the yips that bother
him the most. So it's it's something that I battled
late in my career. I've been better lately and understanding it.
But it's definitely a subconscious, natural response to things, and
there's ways to manage it. Breathing is one thing understanding that, Hey,
(31:40):
thanks for warning me, but this isn't that dangerous of
a situation, right.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I remember my dad telling me after Greg Norman's had
the big collapse at Augusta in ninety six. But Greg
was always a huge visualizer, writing, visualized all the shot.
Greg wasn't by any means fast, and if you remember
the worst he played on Sunday, the slower he got.
And I remember my dad telling me that. My dad
(32:06):
asked him about it, and he said, my entire career,
I could visualize the shot, and I was in a
mental state to where I didn't see anything. So I
was standing behind it for so long trying to visualize
a shot, trying to see a shot. I also think
that part of it, like you said, going back to
acceptance is saying, Okay, I'm in a bad place right now.
(32:29):
And I think everyone listening can take that from it. Said, listen,
when you get into that spell on the golf course,
it's like a giant rainstorm has just come in and
it's just for like fifteen minutes. Like here in Florida
every summer, around three o'clock, a storm blows in, it
rains for like thirty minutes. It looks like the world's
gonna end, and then it's sunny. Breathing. You talked about breathing,
(32:49):
and so is that something that you've tried to.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
There's a couple of different things I do to reset
to try to get out of that frame of mind
because we're just like all the other golf We get
in those those spaces. You just don't see them very
often because usually when we're doing that, we're not playing.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Well and we're on TV.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
So we go through all these different emotions and different
techniques to try and reset and clear. And you know,
the thing is is golf is very score driven, like
outcome oriented, outcome orients everything. And you know, you have
a rough six holes, it can it can ruin your
(33:29):
whole tournament.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And you lose the process.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, and you.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Lose the process. And so just trying to manage those
types of situations I think is difficult. Golf is really
easy for pros when they're playing well, and it's really hard,
Like you feel like there might be a light at
the end of the tunnel, but I think it could
be a train that's about to hit me when it's
going bad.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Right. Well, I remember early in Tiger's career, my dad said, listen,
anybody can play good on tour when they're playing good.
He's like, that's why they call it playing good. He's like,
the great ones can manage their games where they don't
have their best stuff. They can still compete now. I
think Tiger took that, yeah, but he also took it
in the early on in his career. He's winning tournaments
(34:13):
by seven shots, and he's like, yeah, my B game,
and everybody's going, dude, come on, man, you just smoked
us by eight You're hitting one hundred passes, and you
tell us you get your D game right when you
have your A game? What's that feel like? For everyone listening,
it's just what's it feel like when you have your
A game? I mean, are you conscious of it? Are
you like, Yeah, I've got it today, I've got a
(34:34):
low scool, Like that's sixty three that you said you
shot in a major championship at Okill Iconic Old School
golf course. It had to feel pretty good, pretty easy. Yeah,
But what is that? Is it you getting the right numbers?
Are you getting the right clubs? Does everything just kind
of snowball in a positive way? In the way it's
snowballs in a bad way when you're not playing good.
(34:55):
Then you have that one go out of bounce hit
the cart path goes out of bounds, right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I think it's a couple of things. A lot of
it is you have really good control of your swing.
You've been around guys, you've worked with guys, and you know,
weeks when guys have control of their swing, their body
feels a certain way, they're able to, you know, be
on plane and control of the face however they might
(35:20):
do it.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And then some of.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It has to do with course fit, course conditions. A
lot of it has to do with getting the right
yardage in the right situation. People don't realize we're constantly
trying to fit clubs to numbers that don't always fit
to those numbers, right.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
And I think days that you struggle, the caddies will also.
You know, I've had players like player will shoot seventy
five and not really play that good, and you know
they're talking about their golf swing, and then you talk
to the caddies like, we're in between clubs on every
single shot today, we didn't have one good number.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah, you get that.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
And you know, we're playing a sport that's on the
biggest field in all the sports, with the smallest target
in all of sports, with the smallest object that we're
trying to move wherever on the field in the elements.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
So there's a lot of things that can go wrong.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
But you know, when we're playing well, the game is easy.
It seems like our good shots are really good. We've
all hit great shots that haven't gone the right distance
or going a bunker or going a water hazard. You know,
that never happens when you're playing well. You know, if
you looked at the probability of what it takes to
(36:36):
make a forty footer that breaks four feet, like, it's
like zero to nine, zero to none, and you might
make two of those in one day. So those are
those are the types of things that happen, and I
guess that's what attracts people to the game.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
They love that type of stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And when things aren't going well, the opposite is happening, right.
I hit it in the bunker, then it plugged. It
was unplayable. I lifted out three putts from eight feet.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I you know, X, Y and Z, we all have
the list.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
So but when you're playing well, things seem very easy.
Your mind is very uncluttered.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
When it's clear, it's.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Clear, the pictures are clear, the feelings are clear. Some
guys run with that for a long period of time,
but I really believe that, you know, there's always exceptions
to the rule. But for most guys, you have a
really good ten years, and somewhere in that ten years
you have a two or three year peak of really
(37:40):
exceptional play. And that's kind of what happened with me.
Starting in two thousand and nine, I played really really
good golf for about ten years.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
It just seemed like you were on like a trajectory
where you were one of those guys stuff back in
the day to where every single week you were in
the hunt on back nine you were.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I could make a lot of cut and have a
lot of conn.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
We're always one of the guys that shot that going
in the weekend were good, and then you'd make that
move on and then it just seemed like you had
a run for three, four or five years where you
were one of the guys that were on the leader
board every time.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
You turned on twenty eleven, twelve, and thirteen.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I mean, think of how many times you had chances
to win tournaments in that.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Stretch A ton and one of the things that I
take a lot of pride in. There's a lot of
things to take brought in, but to me, like that
top thirty in the FedEx Cup is always kind of
like benchmark a benchmark, and I was able to do
that seven times in eight years, starting in two thousand
and nine.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
So that's something I was really proud of.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Like all professional athletes, you don't get there by yourself
who have been some of the big influences on your life,
but your career as well.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Yeah, so my grandfather and my father both played golf.
They introduced me to the game. I was a bit
of a late bloomer. I didn't play a lot, did
you your golf? I played some, but my grandfather was
a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox before the World
War Two, so baseball was always a big thing in
my family, and I played a lot of baseball growing up.
(39:12):
I was doing travel ball and all those you know,
summer league and as much baseball as I could do.
And then, uh, kind of around thirteen fourteen, I kind
of transitioned into golf. We moved to South Florida and
PGA Tour event hount A Classic was at.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Weston Hills, and I was familiar with golf.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Family members played golf, but moving there in high school
and not having friends, Golf's the game you can play
by yourself, and I kind of transitioned to golf, and
it's one of those sports that you don't really realize
why you fall in love with it, but you do
for some reason. So those were big influences to get
me started. You know, back when I played high school
and college, you didn't have coaches and instructors and people
(39:54):
you worked with, like I watched the guys on tour,
you know, I was fortunate to watch those guys play.
So like guys like VJ. Singh would come through and
I used to play with him tons and tons when
I was young, and Fred Couples, and I'd go watch
these guys play.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I learned from playing a lot with a guy like VJ.
Because he's just I don't think VJ gets nearly the
credit that he deserves. Obviously, there are a lot of
guys in that Tiger era, you know, when Tiger was
at his powers, but I don't think people remember just
how dominated a golfer.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Time he was a man, and I would watch a
lot of golf. I'd tape golf, that's how you know.
So so all these guys that are on tour were
big parts of my golf life. And then as I
started turning pro, you know, you start coming across people,
and I came across Chuck Cook, who really helped me,
(40:47):
I think, understand what it meant to be on tour
and how to practice and how to prepare and what
I needed to be a good tour player. He helped
me with the mechanics of the golf swing to an extent.
But I think what he provided me more than anything
was understanding and a blueprint of, you know, how to practice,
(41:08):
how to prepare, how to be a PGA tour player,
and what I needed to be successful.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
So he helped me a lot.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
And Chuck is such an old school guy, right, you know.
I look at guys like my dad, guys like Randy Smith,
guys like they're kind of throwbacks right there. They were
old school. They grew up in an era to where
you know, golf wasn't what it was and is now today.
You talk about the technical side, how much of the
(41:35):
influence on your career did Chuck have both, you know,
from a technique standpoint and then from a execution management standpoint.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, I think execution and management was big for me
and what I learned from him. He had worked with
Payne Stewart and he had worked with Tom Kite, so
he was familiar with pretty good players. Yeah, being with
those guys winning majors, playing at.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
A high level.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
So he probably shared with me how those guys did
it in whatever way without saying it's invaluable. Yeah, without
saying like Tom Kaite did it this way right, and this.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Was what good players do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
So that helped me a lot, and the technique helped me.
I think for me, I had to be smart about
my golf, if that makes sense. I didn't feel like
I had a lot of I had physical skill and ability,
but maybe not to what some of these peers did.
So I had to be smart in how I knew
(42:32):
what worked for me, and I had to work hard,
Like I had to put in sixty seventy hour weeks.
That's what I had to do, and I did that
for a long time, which I don't do as much anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Well, you know, the body as we get older doesn't
allow us. Yes, switching to the equipment side. You've been
with Cobra Golf for a while. They've got their new
ds adapt drivers coming out. The new driver, what do
you like about it? You know, when you get a
new driver, first thing I think for me, is the
way it looks? Are you? Are you more of a
look guy or more of a feel guy when it
(43:05):
comes to kind of the way a driver looks.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I can get by the looks if it feels and
performs right.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
But it's not a non starter.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
But I would say this one, they've taken some things
that we've talked to them about, like what tour players prefer.
So they've kind of taken the crown and there's a
separation between the crown and the face angle. Now they
put some scoring lines on the face angle, so we
can just distinguish where the face angle is.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Do you like to see when you look down at
the driver? Do you like to see it sit a
little bit kind of toe open? Do you want to
see a little bit less loft? What do you like
when you.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Like toe open?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
And I like seeing off because I like to lean
the shaft than so often. Yeah, so I like offset
on irons. A lot of people don't like offset on it.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Really, I would have never thought, given kind of your
kind of old school kind of the way that you
kind of push, you would like offset.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Offset looks like loft, and it looks like hook, and
it looks like I can lean the shaft, So you.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Know, my grandfather used to say that at impact, you
want your wrist to be like Bethlehem steel, not a
Linguini with clam saucety. So he was very weak grip,
and believe it or not, I don't know if I've
told you that my grandfather interlocked with the left thumb
off because he hooked it as a kid. So he
would basically just try and fold that angle. If you've
(44:25):
never hit one like that, take take interlock and the
left thumb is over here, you can just basically hold
that champions. The other thing I think that's really cool
about the new drivers from Cobra is the adjustable hostle
to be able to adjust not only the lie and
I mean the loft, but the lie everybody working on
(44:47):
but now we can just a lot of different things.
How do you think that's going to help the average golf.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
I think it can help.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I know it's going to help us on tour because
we've been wanting the flatter, flatter, flatter, right.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Why do you tour players want the driver flatter.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Because we swing it on plane because.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
We're not coming over the top of that, I mean,
because we're not ten left in it.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah, trick.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
The trick that the equipment companies have is they're trying
to build stuff for consumers that buy, and generally speaking,
consumers aren't the best golfers.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
And you want a Formula one race card, you don't
want to and.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
They're usually over the top, and they usually slice, and
they usually have a ton of spin. They usually hit
down on it. So all these things they change is
great for them. But then you get to somebody that's
on plane doesn't work as much.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
So that's the trick.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
And I think, you know, having the adjustability now we'll
be able to really dial in the drivers and get
them to where we can play them just as well.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Hobbies off the golf course. And if you weren't a golfer, Duff,
what would you be doing.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
I've never thought about what Rick says.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Your your your kitchen game is pretty good.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, so hobbies, I would say cooking. I enjoy cooking
a lot.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
What do you like about it? The process?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Probably the process, like the I'm into the process and
just the that's just like my mind works that way,
Like you do this, then you do this so and
then you get this result.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yeah, this result that's usually pretty good.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I like offshore fishing, which I've been doing some this
past year since I haven't been playing much. I've got
an eighteen month old, so he keeps me on my toes,
so to speak. And if I wasn't playing golf, I
really have no idea because I've never even thought about it.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Well, the good thing is you've never had to.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, I would not be a golf instructor like yourself.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
With someone obviously, because everybody kind of sees you as
a student of the swing. Thank you for saying that.
You please tell everybody what you said when somebody else
if you wanted to be a golf instructor.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
I don't want to deal with these guys.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
You guys, you tour players are all absolutely lunatics.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Lunatics.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Yeah, why are you guys so close?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
I don't I never tried to be that way, but.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
You know, I don't want to get texts at nine
thirty at night about a golf swing and have forty
five minute conversation like hey, it's golf, Like hey.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
My favorite is take a look at the swing on dude,
I'm not there.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah, it doesn't matter, like it's in the camera angle.
Everybody's the camera. It's in two dimensions.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Like I get so many people say you do one
of the things I've never done that that I could
probably make a pretty decent, you know, amount of money
out the online golf instruction because for me, if I can't,
I mean, yeah, I can look at golf swings and
stuff and with the players that I see all the time, right,
you know, I know the guys I work with golf swings.
(47:46):
You know they're in slow motion because I've seen so
many of them. But when people say, hey, I really
I'm living I live in Australia and I really love
to work with you, I'm like, dude, how's that going
to work. I'd happily take your money, but I couldn't
do it because for me, I need to be there to.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Kind of you need to see how the body man.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
I need to see what you're doing in all of
those things.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Lastly, dolh forty eight years old, two years to the
Champs Tour, you said you wanted to play, So that
two year I don't want to say limbo, but it
is somewhat limbo because you're waiting to play on a tour,
which as a past major champion, you're gonna go out.
I can't imagine you're not gonna go out and play well.
(48:27):
So what's the next couple of years look like for you?
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I think I'm fortunate that I don't really need to
play golf right now, and I'm able to take some
time away. I turned pro in two thousand and I
put a lot of time and effort for twenty three
years into that. So this year has been kind of
a rest and recovery year. Some people take rest and
recovery days or weeks, but I've been doing that for
(48:52):
a year. I've been doing some research.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
On my game.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I've been working with a guy in New York, a
little bit called Mike Jacobs, who does a lot of
three D stuff, connecting work.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
What have you seen in the three D that maybe
you didn't know? More just a better understanding as to
how your body works.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
It's more about how my body works, how I function.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
How your body works today, this is the way your
body works.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
And understanding that I'm not going to swing like I
did ten years ago, but understanding where I'm at now
and what I can do better. I think that gives
you a good blueprint of where you're at.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
And what you could do and maybe what you could
do a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I also have a lot of freedom right now because
I'm not playing competitively, so I can play with stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yeah, you can try stuff and say, hey, listen, let
me really push the rabbit hole of changing this, because
I don't have to worry about Okay, I can work
on this for two weeks, but then I got to
go to Memorial and try and make the cotton, try
and get them.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah, So that's given me a lot of freedom in
that aspect. I think this year, you know, and I
keep my toe in the water. I played eight events.
I think it's important to play some you got to
keep I don't want to keep playing twenty five weeks
year right now, but I practice some like I kind
of do golf on my terms right now.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
This is what I call as supposed to because when
you're when you're a professional golfer trying to play at
the highest level, you're not playing golf on your time.
You're playing golf in a very structured environment and if
you are struggling, and I don't think people realize this.
I think one of the negative effects of the only
negative effect of tiger woods is he made it fashionable
for everybody to try and change their golf swings. But
(50:26):
when you're playing on tour, you don't have four months
to go. Let me go down the rabbit hole of
really trying to change.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
So that's been nice, and I think as I get closer,
I'll look at some opportunities. I may play that twenty
six year on the corn Ferry Tour because I'll be
able to have status. So I may look at playing
like twelve fifteen events just to get back into that
routine and hopefully, you know, I'll be ready to play.
(50:54):
I think it's important to play and practice and stay
with it to an extent. I think take three years
away from golf and just being at home probably wouldn't
be conducive to great play on the Champions Tour. So
I'm kind of staying with it. And as I get closer,
I can see myself ramping up. But right now I'm
enjoying lots of other things in my life other than golf.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Well, you deserve it enough. Can't thank you enough for
talking to me. And the biggest compliment, Duff, that I
can give you is you know you and I didn't
really spend a lot of time together when you were
on tour. But if you were hitting golf balls and
I was waiting, I would go kind of stand back
far enough away and I would just watch you hit
golf balls, and I just marveled it the way you
swung the golf club, the way that kind of your
(51:37):
body moved through it, in the way that you really
did simplify things. So I can't wait to see you
playing on the Champs Tour. I have no doubt you
will be a success.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Thanks for selling. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
So that was Jason Dufner, And like I said, it's
the second major of the week this week at Quail Hollow,
the PGA Championship, and if the first major of the
year with Roy McElroy dueling with Rose Bryson d Chambeau,
I think we're in for a really good major season.
I think we're going to have a season where the
best players in the world are going to contend for
major championships. There's always going to be surprises. But excited
(52:12):
about Quail Hollow. It's a great golf course, it's a
great venue, and the second major of the year is
upon us sono it butch comes to you most every week,
great review. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. I'm your host
Claude Harmon. This week the second major of the twenty
twenty five season, the PGA Championship, which will be held
at Quail Hollow, And this week on the podcast, Jason
Duffner the twenty thirteen PGA champion. He won that at
Oak Hill, lost in a playoff in twenty eleven. A
King in Bradley in Atlanta, got his high at six
(00:23):
in the world rankings back in twenty twelve, was on
the Ryder Cup team in twelve, President's Cup team in thirteen,
And Jason Duffner back in the day was an elite
ball striker. He had a beautiful golf swing. He's a
thinker about the game of golf. He's a student about
the game of golf. So really cool to have him
on to talk about what it takes to win and
his career. But before that, our friends at Cober Golf
(00:45):
have their four new drivers out, the DS Adapt Drivers,
four models to fit every golfer, paired with future Fit
thirty three which offers thirty three unique lie and lost
settings to find your ideal ballflight, minimize your man maximize
your distance and dial in your game. You can head
over to cobragolf dot com to check out their new
(01:07):
driver models. It went straight in my bag. Love it,
love the way it looks. Go check it out. But
it's a major week and getting an opportunity to talk
to a major champion like Jason Duffer really really cool
and like I said, he's a student of the game
and he talks a lot about kind of how he
thinks about golf. And this is a good one. So
sit back and enjoy listening to Jason Duffner. Doff, you
(01:28):
turned pro in twenty four twenty year career on the
PGA Tour. When you look back at when you started,
excluding all of the noise off the golf course, now
with professional golf and all the live stuff, what do
you think has changed about the game since you turn pro?
Back and oh, for the.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Most yeah, I think the thing that comes to the
front of my mind is the speed.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Right, It's crazy.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So speed to me was never a skill when I
first started.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
So you had it or did Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I turned prone two thousand, so twenty four years. I
played nineteen years on the tour of fifteen or more events,
and speed wasn't a skill. Now guys had speed, but
nobody trained for it. Nobody thought about it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
You're either guys like DJ would come out Roy and
you just go, where is this coming?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Right?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
And now speed has become a skill, and I would
say it's become probably the most dominant skill in the game.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
And what I mean by that is you.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Can train for speed, you can gain it quickly. You know,
if you're in a certain age group, you can pick
up ten miles an hour club at speed pretty quick,
and that can propel you to being able to play
at a high level. As long as you know how
to play the game a little bit, you're competitive. But
I also think it's taken away from a little bit
of the game and the skill set in the game.
(02:51):
So I would say I see guys that have speed,
but as an all around player, maybe not as polished
as what maybe I needed when I first started. And
the other thing is is the skills that I needed
to play on tour and to play well on tour,
they took me a long time to acquire. I had
to do a lot of my own practice. I had
(03:12):
to do a lot of research, trial and error. Right,
That's another thing that's changed. When I first started playing golf,
and when I first got on tour, it was a
lot of trial and error. You didn't have track Man's
you didn't have the three D technology that we have now.
In teaching, nobody really explored strength and conditioning as it
related to.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Golf right or golf specific.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Tiger came along around the same time, and he was training,
but it wasn't golf it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Right, so he just got jacked and big and I
would argue.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
To a point and we could go back and forth
that the game's a little bit easier now than it was.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
My dad says that. My dad always says. It's interesting.
He said when he played the tour, he said, every
poor five, my dad played with a weak rip and
need a fade. But he said, every single par five
he played when he played on the PG or he'd
strengthened his grip, try and hit a big sling hook.
I think one of the other things stuff that I've
noticed that's changed, Like you said, you can just kind
(04:09):
of have one shot now, and I think, really, to me,
it was Jordan's speed. When Jordan came out, everybody was like,
he's gonna have to change the grip, He's gonna have
to change a lot of the stuff, you know, the
finger off. When Jordan started to have the success he had,
I thought one of the main reasons he had that
success is he was one of these new breed of
players that said, no, no, this is what I do.
(04:30):
I did this in college, and I am just going
to keep doing what I do and not maybe make
a lot of the changes you mentioned launch monitor technology.
How much do you think the change from four when
you came on tour technology across the board threw everything
from club fitting launch moner technology. I think you you're
(04:52):
a student of the game, and I think you were
one of the first players that I was really around
that kind of got the track man numbers and it
worked in your head. When I was working with Ricky,
you'd come up and you guys would play and you'd say, hey,
can I just rather than go out and work on
your golf swing, you would say, hey, can I get
on a launch monitor? Because you were looking at the numbers?
(05:12):
And do you now have you in the past stuff
used the numbers is a guide for what you're trying
to feel.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I think I use the track Man more than anything
now for equipment fit. Right, So I look at a
lot of the ball data, the club data, I can
easily manipulate, and that doesn't mean I'm doing it the
right way.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
As you know in the teaching industry, tour players have
this special ability to put the sweet spot on the
ball some way, somehow. That's their special talent. That's what
makes tour players two players. Right, So we see all
these different swings you mentioned Jordan Speeth. We could go
down the list, Like if you looked at the top
fifty guys in the world, not all of them have
(05:58):
like mechanically fununctional swings like that, you would say that's ideal.
But they can put the sweet spot on the golf ball, right.
So you know, I can change the numbers of the
club data, but I use the track man and the
information mainly for equipment fits and then to practice. So
set up practice routines, especially inside one hundred and fifty yards,
(06:23):
to understand how far I'm hitting the ball at what
speeds and then translate into that what that feels. That's
the other thing tour players are really good at is
understanding feels and speeds. What is seventy miles an hour
of a club had speed feel like?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Right?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And trying to ingrain those So that technology has really
helped accelerate the learning curve, and I think you can
get better faster by using the technology that's available. When
I was in college, we used to have this old
kind of shaggreen and we had a t box that
would go up to one hundred and forty yards and
you would walk off from a stick that you stuck
(07:00):
in the ground and you'd walk back to eighty yards
and I'm gonna work on eighty yards for these fifty balls.
Then you'd walk back ten yards and that's how we practice.
But now it's just instant, right.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
I mean, I always look at when I started working
with tour players back in the early two thousands, I
was on the European tour. I had a Dell Daylight
readable laptop, which people thought they were seeing fire for
the first time because I could plug out all these
chords and I could plug it in. I could take
it on the range and you could see the laptop
had the V one system. I could see it outside,
put it side by side, put on a tripod. But technology, now,
(07:32):
do you think it is helping younger players more than
it's hurting younger players?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I think sometimes with the technology, you're chasing perfect, and
the game isn't a game of perfect, right, It's more
of a game of missus. To be honest with you,
it is how good is your miss? Is your missing play?
Can we carry on to the next shot from our miss?
Or are we dropping? Or are we routine? And these things.
So I think I'm trying to manage that can be
(08:03):
complicated between students and teachers because you want to give
the students the best information possible to help them be
successful at what they do. So managing that, I think
is very important. I think it's probably way overboard for
your everyday golfer.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, like too much information.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Like there's a lot of things that you look at
tour players and you think you can do, but you
really never will have a chance. But we're definitely trying
to make the game easier to some point for those
people and trying to find ways for them to improve.
So I enjoy certain aspects of the tech, but I
also see the disadvantage at times because you're chasing perfect,
(08:43):
and I've been guilty of that at times in my career.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
I gave a presentation a couple of weeks ago for
the Titleist Performance Institute at the World Golf Fitness Summit,
and I found a video on social It was the top.
It was all the swings with a driver, back to
back of everybody starting from thirty to one that made
it to the Tour Championship. You know, very different golf swings.
And I said in my presentation, if you watch this,
if you have as an instructor, if you have a
(09:07):
model in your head of the way you want everybody
to swing the golf club, you will lose. My dad
is famous, obviously for the work that he did with
Tiger Woods, and part of my presentation was I watched
Tiger Woods and when I went to the European Tourist
I helped my dad work with Adam Scott and then
I worked with Trevor Ullman. It was Tiger one oh one.
Right now, there are so many different styles of golf swings,
(09:29):
Whereas in the early two thousands, and I think a
lot of before that, it was a quest to be
perfect the work that Led did with with Nick Faldo,
you know, to try and create that kind of almost
robotic machine like golf swing. But now we see so
many different body styles, types of golf swings. Have you
(09:49):
seen in your career kind of it go from a
quest for perfect between now with technology. You know. I
talked to Greg Rose and Dave Phillips a TPI about
this all the time. They're like, listen, we get your
own three D. We don't really care what it looks like.
It's functional. We know what your body can do. Have
you seen kind of a shift in maybe golf swings
becoming less about aesthetics and has maybe the tech helped
(10:14):
it be more about function?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I think you're seeing more guys have their own swing
style and as a coach or even as a fan
of the game, understanding the differences in those things. For
an example, you worked with Dustin Johnson. You could never
teach how Dustin Johnson swings the golf club. But at
the same time, you would never want to take him
(10:38):
and change what he does.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Right. That's unique.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
It's like a fingerprint, that's his DNA. But I'm sure
when you were working with him you understood his tendencies
of what worked and when things were going well and
where he got off. So you're always trying to drive
him back to those tendencies. That worked for him. So
I think that's what you're seeing more of now. And
with the three D technology and the capturing and all
(11:02):
these things that are happening, people can see the uniqueness
and these fingerprints of golf swings and understand like, these
are the parameters this player needs to work in, and
then when they're off, you can understand where you need
to go a lot sooner and a lot quicker.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think everybody kind of has their
own signature in their own DNA. I've always thought of
you as kind of a student of the game and
a student of golf swings. When you look at golf swings,
give me golf swings that you Jason Duffer look at
and go, I like that golfing.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
I mean obviously Tiger early two thousands, right, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Like right now, who's golf swing on tour that you
look at in the last three or four years? I mean,
obviously Rory. Everybody looks at Roy. But are there any
others that you gotta go? And I really like that move.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Yeah, I've liked fleet man.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
In my head, I'm thinking Tommy Fleet because I love
his action, right.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I got great action, good, good playing good face control.
Who else Adam Scott I think has done a really
good I.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Just saw Scotty in last week and I was watching
him hit golf balls, and he's it was like growing
up watching Freddie Couples hit golf balls. You just went
it looks so good the way the tempo and the rhythm.
When you what do you like about Adam Scott's golfing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Obviously, the tempo and the rhythm are good. I'm a
little envious of his draw capability because I've never been
a big right to left ball flight type of guy.
So I'm all the guys that I like swings all
sling hook it and they probably hate hitting sling hooks, right.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, Scotty was like, it's a little off the toe.
I need to try and feel like it gets a
little bit more.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
So I'm kind of favorable towards those guys. I think
Justin Thomas has done a great job with his golf swing.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
And that's a very kind of an old school throwback
to where kind of that Davis love high everything kind
of in the last I think we haven't seen a
lot of that being taked.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Now you've got a lot of hands deeper yep, a
lot more stronger face. These guys are sitting back on
the right foot spinning side bending. My body doesn't side
bend anymore. Sidebind in rotation equals get a back surgeon
on speed dial.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
At some point, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Said this in the TPI conference. My uncle Billy came
into Vegas. He candies for Jay Haas on the PGA
tour for thirty years. He was a great instructor, I
think one of the best in the game. And it
was that year that Tiger and Duvall were hanging out
together and Tiger's number one in the world and Duvall's
number one in the world, and two side by side
golf swings couldn't be any more different, right, and both
(13:31):
unbelievable champions, majors and stuff like that. My uncle Billy said,
you know, the amazing thing is when you look at
Duval's swing, nobody is teaching that. He said, everybody, what
we do now is try to teach everybody to swing
the golf club like Tiger Adam Scott wide with minimize
the movement. And he said, you know, if you look
at two of the greatest ball strikers of all time, Hiller,
(13:53):
when shut take it inside, come over it fade Trevino
wide open, take it outside, drop it on, and he said,
we're not teaching anybody to try and do that. I've
heard that one of the things that drives Jack Nicholas
crazy is for everything that everybody asks Jack about, nobody
would ever try and putt like Jack. He's one of
(14:14):
the greatest, if not the greatest, pressure putter of all time,
with a very non conventional method. Everybody wants to putt
like Slick Rick and Tiger, right, but Jack was one
of the greatest with a method nobody would use. How
much do you think technique has played a role And
(14:35):
were those guys just able to execute? Because you talked
about the game maybe not being what it is now.
And if you look at I played tennis growing up,
tennis now is there's no serve in volley anymore. Nobody
serves in volleys anymore because why would you. You don't
have to, right, But if you look at the greatest
tennis players of all time, Novak, Rafa, Roger, they could
(14:55):
do it all. And the greatest golfers, the great great champions,
the icons, they can do it all as well. They
have everything, so that jump from professional golf to college golf.
I think everybody that's coming out of amateur golf and
college golf is trying so hard to have all of
(15:16):
the shots. But I do think that we live in
an era with technology. My dad always says, you guys
never had to get the ball in the air. You
never played with with a wooden golf club. In a competition,
the ball is always launched high. If anything. At the
elite tour level that you're at, you guys are trying
to bring the spin down, whereas back in the day,
the only way you could get it up was and
(15:38):
I think a lot of my dad believes that a
lot of the old golf swings that knee drive, that
kind of crenchaw drive with the knee hang back. He
thought that a lot of that was equipment dependent, based
off of the equipment they were playing the equipment. Now
the drivers don't curve as much right now.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
The ball inherently used to be the hardest club to hit.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Now now he's one of the easiest. Would you like
to see that change? You think that technology?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
I think the technology makes it too easy. I do.
I think learning to.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Hit shots is a lost art. I think the ball
doesn't spin enough. So spin is spin, Yeah, either back spin,
side spin, it's hard to spin it. So you know,
guys play this power game. They beat up the par
fives and they get comfortable doing that. And the guys
that are still in the top thirty, that are top
fifty are still great.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
They still have a high skill level.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
But outside of that, I think guys are very one
dimensional on how they play.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
But the problem now, Duff, is you can you can
get one shot and if you if you look at
guys like Brooks and DJ, if you've got speed, now
you can basically say, okay, I just do what I
do now, I hit the golf ball. I've got a
ton of speed. And Brooks and DJ, I think are
the prototype guys to where they just go, I just
hit one shot pretty much all the time. Brooks can
(16:58):
draw it a little bit more than.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
DK, and you can't argue with them because they play well,
they win tournaments, and they make a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
So who's to argue with that?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
The jump from college golf to professional golf, what do
you think is the biggest part of that jump? And
what if you could go back and tell yourself when
you were coming out of Auburn, Hey, the tour really
you need this? What do you know now that you
didn't know when you came out about what it takes
to have a long term career as you've had on.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I think a lot of it doesn't have to do
with the physical aspects. A lot of the kids get
into the golf swing and the scoring and how do
I putt? And I think the biggest thing I think
for kids making that jump is getting involved and being
a professional golfer and seeing what else there is about that. Right, So,
(17:53):
there's a lot of travel, there's a lot of time
that you're accountable for now. Nobody is telling you to
get up and practice.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
All the things you hated as a college golfer. I
hear this all the time. The coach tells you when
to practice, they tell you when to work out. You
have a place to practice, you have a place to play,
you have a travel schedule. When you turn pros, all
of that goes away.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So managing that, managing expectations, I think is a big
thing for the guys coming out now because they're with
the social media and all the things the tour has
done to promote these guys to get these guys on
tour quicker. They expect to have quick results. So so
how do you manage that if it doesn't happen, not
everybody's going to be right on tour? You know, how
(18:40):
do you deal with playing for a paycheck? Right, you know,
making cuts, making.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And you're going to make any.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Money providing, you know, for your livelihood. And then I
don't think college kids really understand how competitive professional golf
is because when they play a college event, there might
be say fifteen teams and that equals eighty or ninety guys,
and there might be only ten twelve guys that can
really play that are in that field. Well, when you
(19:08):
go to any corn Fairy event, DP World Tour event,
PGA Tour event, even like whatever's below corn Fairy Tour, like,
these dudes are the best of the best, and as
you're progressing, it's getting better and better. So trying to
be one of the best in the world at what
you do is extremely, extremely difficult, if that makes sense,
(19:34):
in the whole world. So it's not for everybody, That's
what I tell them. And there's a lot of sacrifice.
I've made a lot of sacrifice in twenty four years
to do what I did, and at times I wish
that I would have had other things in my life,
but I'm also grateful for the opportunities that I had
in golf, and I know that I had to make
(19:55):
that sacrifice to live that dream for as long as
I did.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
And I also think, you know, when you're a college golfer,
you don't know what you don't know, but because you
can play this, I think golf is one of these
sports where you can play the same. You can be
a college golfer and go play at the Medalist and
play with some of the guys down here, and he
can make a birdie on a bog in a hole,
and you can make a birdie and maybe you clip
them by one. And I don't think a lot of
(20:20):
college golfers, but also a lot of the fans realize
that the guys that play on the PGA Tour Justin
Thomas is James Harden, right, John Raum is Kevin Durant.
They don't realize that the best players in competitive golf,
or the greatest athletes that they watch day in and
day out in other sports, they don't realize that Rory
McElroy is Patrick mahomes, but they think, oh yeah, I
(20:43):
can go and do that, and you get out there
and you're like, well, because once you get to the NFL,
or I use the NFL all the time. Once you
get to the NFL, everybody that is playing and starting
in the NFL was probably the best player in their
high school's history, their talent history, maybe the state. And
I think it sometimes gets skewed into thinking, oh yeah,
(21:06):
I mean I played good in college and stuff. Junior golf.
I love working with juniors. What do you think is
important for junior golfers from a development standpoint? If you
could sit a bunch of juniors down that are trying
to play, you know, junior golf to that high school golf,
would you tell them to focus on things differently now
than you would have told them when you turn pro.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think playing tournaments and being competitive for that age
is probably the most important thing because you learn so
much about the game playing tournaments, and you learn so
much about yourself. And they're in that kind of age
range where information and being able to cognitively develop and
(21:49):
do these things is so important. So being in tournaments
and understanding how to compete, how to shoot scores, how
to manage when things aren't going well, how to manage
when things are going well. So those are all things,
And this is one thing I tell a lot of people,
like playing junior golf, college golf, professional golf is uncomfortable.
(22:12):
There's a lot of uncomfortable things about that. And the
guys that are really good seem to be very comfortable
in uncomfortable environments. Right when things are on the line,
or the elements are at their worst, or the crowds
are at their highest level. You know, we're playing in
front of people, all these things that could be uncomfortable,
(22:34):
that's where they find to be the most comfortable. Right,
That's where I see the difference between guys, you know,
everyday tour players that maybe win here and there and
guys like Jordan Speeth and DJ and Dustin Brooks and
Justin Thomas. Right, being comfortable in uncomfortable environments, I think
is a real key to the development of golfers. Because
(22:57):
everybody can swing a golf club. You see junior years
that have amazing information is out there to do that.
So those are easy things for everybody. But it's these intangibles,
it's these cognitive skills that needed to be developed, and
I think you can develop those at that are early
age by playing tournaments.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
And the most uncomfortable I think you're ever going to
feel is on the back nine on Sunday in a
major championship. You were lucky enough and got through that
in twenty thirteen it o'kill. What is major championship pressure?
Trying to win one of those? How is it different
than trying to win? The thing I love about your career,
Duff is you've won on really good, iconic, tough golf courses. Memorial,
(23:44):
you want to major ad o' kill, which is one
of the major major tournaments. But what's it like on
the back nine on Sunday trying to win a major?
How's that pressure different?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
So for me, I don't want to say I didn't
feel pressure. I knew it was that take, But I
was always very comfortable when I was playing well because
I was playing well right, And I think another great
quality that I had I maybe wasn't as comfortable as
(24:14):
I thought I would like to be in uncomfortable situations.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
But one.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Great quality that I felt like I had through my
career is that I was willing to take chances and
take risks to get what I wanted, accepting that failure
might be part of that, and that I was okay
to fail in situations if it meant giving me an
opportunity to get what I wanted, right.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
To risk it all.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
So a couple of years before that, I was in
contention in Atlanta and I was trying to win the
golf tournament and it didn't work.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
But I was okay with it because I was.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Willing to do what I needed to do. I didn't
shy away from it. It just didn't happen for me then.
So just knowing, like when I'm playing good and I'm
not worried about that failure component, I always felt a
lot of comfort and peace when I was playing and
I was just okilled. Just kind of was the right
type of thing for me. It was a good golf
(25:11):
course for me.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
It wasn't when you say it was a good golf
course for you. It's an incredibly hard golf course. It's
very much an old school golf course. So when you
say you liked the golf course and it you felt
like it set up well for you, what about it?
Speaker 3 (25:25):
So no distance advantage?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Really?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
It okay?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I haven't played it since they've changed it, but when
we played it, everybody was playing from the same spot.
Some guys might hit three woods where I was hitting
a lot of drivers that week, but we were still
playing from the same spot. So that got me into
an iron competition. I had played well the week before
at Firestone, which is another golf course. I've played very well,
long hard, so I'm comfortable and I'm confident with my game.
(25:54):
And you know, it wasn't a putting contest. It was
going to be somewhere in that eight to ten under range,
which I was very comfortable with.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
You're not someone that likes thirty under.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
No, but I did win in Palm Spring I could
like that. But you know, when tournaments were in that
like six to ten to twelve range, that's when I
felt comfortable. So that was that type of major. And
I shot sixty three in the second round. And I
tell people this all the time. Tour pros shoot really
low rounds frequently. Sometimes they're at home on Thursday with
(26:25):
your buddies. But that week I happened to have a
really good way. I see a lot of sixty threes
in majors where everything went right that day, right I
had just recently had a day two weeks ago at
home where everything rent right and I shot sixty two,
and I was like, that's great. I wish I would
have done them the Monday qualify next week, but it
didn't happen. So I had one of those days and
I shot a sixty three. So that gave me a
(26:46):
huge advantage for the week of the tournament. And I
was playing well, and I had a great pairing on Sunday,
which in Furich was very easy to play with. And
I wasn't leading. I kind of had slipped back to
one shot and I got off to a good start.
So all these things kind of manifested itself into that
week and then I, you know, I'm kind of head
(27:08):
down doing my thing, and when I get to the
tenth hole, I've got a four shot lead with nine
holes to play. So now it's about managing, you know,
let's hit the fairways, let's one shot at the time,
manage the game, get it on the green, and you know,
make pars.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
And so it just kind of worked out that way.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
But it's hard to describe because you would think there's
a lot of internal pressure. This is something I've been
working for my whole life. But in that moment, the
really good players can kind of filter all that out
and really focus on what you're trying to do.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Would it be safe to say that part of becoming
a great great player there's acceptance. You have to accept
that you're going to make bad swings, you have to
accept that you're going to get bad breaks, because I
think a lot of players don't expect there to be adversity.
And I think a lot of the great players that
I've been lucky enough to be around, you guys know
you're going to make bad swings. You know you might
(28:02):
not have it all the time. And I think everybody
that is trying to get to the level that that
you've gotten to in your game win a major beyond
President's Cop Wrider cops win multiple times. They think you've
always got it. There's you're never going to hit it bad.
But what I hear you saying is, listen, you have to.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Accept that failure is a big party. Failure is a
big part of it, huge part of the game. And
how do you manage that? How does that affect you?
Does that discourage you? Does that linger does it manifest
itself into other things? I had that later in my career.
I really struggled with my putting and that manifested itself
into the yips for me for a period of time.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
What's that like when you're on because I think everybody listening,
but everybody listening putting. I've talked to a lot of
good players about it. I mean, you know, one of
your good friends, Ricky Fowler, Slicksick's one of the best
pure putters on the planet, right and he just says, listen,
Seaball hit Ball, sea Line, hit Line, doesn't think about anything,
you know, pure natural, but when you do struggle, And
(29:02):
I think this is really powerful for everyone listening, for
people that are struggling with putting and struggling with the yips,
your struggle with that, what's it feel like on the
golf course, because.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
I mean awful, It's it's uncontrolled.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
We've all seen the videos of you and Ernie L's
when guys are struggling missing it from two feet. You're
not You're not trying to do that. You're trying.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
It's it's uh, unless you've been through it, you don't
understand it. For one, and you know it's a subconscious thing.
It's it's I grew up on public golf courses in Cleveland,
Ohio that we're rolling about a seven on the stamp,
and I never saw a putt that broke more than
(29:44):
outside left or outside right for a long time. So
the art of putting I never really learned. If I
have one regret in my career, is that I didn't
do better understanding putting.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
And how I like you've understood the golf right, and.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
How I could have been a more consistent putter, because
as time went on and as I got older, the
putting got worse and worse, and the misses became more frequent,
and that manifested itself into the yips by a subconscious feeling. Right,
I'm feeling some type of emotional pain, mental anguish, anxiety
with these misses, right, that's embarrassing, that's X, Y or CD.
(30:22):
I'm labeling it, however, in my mind subconsciously. So what
happens is you get in that situation again and your
subconscious goes, hey, remember last time you had this thirty
incher and you missed it.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
That hurt.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Don't do it again, right, And it becomes a fight
or flight situation, And I would go to flight, and
I had a hard time pulling the trigger. So there's
a lot of work that I've done in the last
two years to try to undo that because I'll be
forty eight next year and I want to play Champions
Tour and I know I need to putt well. So
(30:56):
there's things that happened. So it's a very natural thing
that happens. It's your subconscious warning you that this situation
is dangerous. It has caused distress and pain and anguish
in the past, and it's a natural response. And there's
certain people people that are very self aware and you know,
(31:17):
care about what other people think or say or do,
usually are the ones that get the yips that bother
him the most. So it's it's something that I battled
late in my career. I've been better lately and understanding it.
But it's definitely a subconscious, natural response to things, and
there's ways to manage it. Breathing is one thing understanding that, Hey,
(31:40):
thanks for warning me, but this isn't that dangerous of
a situation, right.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I remember my dad telling me after Greg Norman's had
the big collapse at Augusta in ninety six. But Greg
was always a huge visualizer, writing, visualized all the shot.
Greg wasn't by any means fast, and if you remember
the worst he played on Sunday, the slower he got.
And I remember my dad telling me that. My dad
(32:06):
asked him about it, and he said, my entire career,
I could visualize the shot, and I was in a
mental state to where I didn't see anything. So I
was standing behind it for so long trying to visualize
a shot, trying to see a shot. I also think
that part of it, like you said, going back to
acceptance is saying, Okay, I'm in a bad place right now.
(32:29):
And I think everyone listening can take that from it. Said, listen,
when you get into that spell on the golf course,
it's like a giant rainstorm has just come in and
it's just for like fifteen minutes. Like here in Florida
every summer, around three o'clock, a storm blows in, it
rains for like thirty minutes. It looks like the world's
gonna end, and then it's sunny. Breathing. You talked about breathing,
(32:49):
and so is that something that you've tried to.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
There's a couple of different things I do to reset
to try to get out of that frame of mind
because we're just like all the other golf We get
in those those spaces. You just don't see them very
often because usually when we're doing that, we're not playing.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Well and we're on TV.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
So we go through all these different emotions and different
techniques to try and reset and clear. And you know,
the thing is is golf is very score driven, like
outcome oriented, outcome orients everything. And you know, you have
a rough six holes, it can it can ruin your
(33:29):
whole tournament.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And you lose the process.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, and you.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Lose the process. And so just trying to manage those
types of situations I think is difficult. Golf is really
easy for pros when they're playing well, and it's really hard,
Like you feel like there might be a light at
the end of the tunnel, but I think it could
be a train that's about to hit me when it's
going bad.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Right. Well, I remember early in Tiger's career, my dad said, listen,
anybody can play good on tour when they're playing good.
He's like, that's why they call it playing good. He's like,
the great ones can manage their games where they don't
have their best stuff. They can still compete now. I
think Tiger took that, yeah, but he also took it
in the early on in his career. He's winning tournaments
(34:13):
by seven shots, and he's like, yeah, my B game,
and everybody's going, dude, come on, man, you just smoked
us by eight You're hitting one hundred passes, and you
tell us you get your D game right when you
have your A game? What's that feel like? For everyone listening,
it's just what's it feel like when you have your
A game? I mean, are you conscious of it? Are
you like, Yeah, I've got it today, I've got a
(34:34):
low scool, Like that's sixty three that you said you
shot in a major championship at Okill Iconic Old School
golf course. It had to feel pretty good, pretty easy. Yeah,
But what is that? Is it you getting the right numbers?
Are you getting the right clubs? Does everything just kind
of snowball in a positive way? In the way it's
snowballs in a bad way when you're not playing good.
(34:55):
Then you have that one go out of bounce hit
the cart path goes out of bounds, right.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I think it's a couple of things. A lot of
it is you have really good control of your swing.
You've been around guys, you've worked with guys, and you know,
weeks when guys have control of their swing, their body
feels a certain way, they're able to, you know, be
on plane and control of the face however they might
(35:20):
do it.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
And then some of.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
It has to do with course fit, course conditions. A
lot of it has to do with getting the right
yardage in the right situation. People don't realize we're constantly
trying to fit clubs to numbers that don't always fit
to those numbers, right.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
And I think days that you struggle, the caddies will also.
You know, I've had players like player will shoot seventy
five and not really play that good, and you know
they're talking about their golf swing, and then you talk
to the caddies like, we're in between clubs on every
single shot today, we didn't have one good number.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Yeah, you get that.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
And you know, we're playing a sport that's on the
biggest field in all the sports, with the smallest target
in all of sports, with the smallest object that we're
trying to move wherever on the field in the elements.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
So there's a lot of things that can go wrong.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
But you know, when we're playing well, the game is easy.
It seems like our good shots are really good. We've
all hit great shots that haven't gone the right distance
or going a bunker or going a water hazard. You know,
that never happens when you're playing well. You know, if
you looked at the probability of what it takes to
(36:36):
make a forty footer that breaks four feet, like, it's
like zero to nine, zero to none, and you might
make two of those in one day. So those are
those are the types of things that happen, and I
guess that's what attracts people to the game.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
They love that type of stuff.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And when things aren't going well, the opposite is happening, right.
I hit it in the bunker, then it plugged. It
was unplayable. I lifted out three putts from eight feet.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
I you know, X, Y and Z, we all have
the list.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
So but when you're playing well, things seem very easy.
Your mind is very uncluttered.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
When it's clear, it's.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Clear, the pictures are clear, the feelings are clear. Some
guys run with that for a long period of time,
but I really believe that, you know, there's always exceptions
to the rule. But for most guys, you have a
really good ten years, and somewhere in that ten years
you have a two or three year peak of really
(37:40):
exceptional play. And that's kind of what happened with me.
Starting in two thousand and nine, I played really really
good golf for about ten years.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
It just seemed like you were on like a trajectory
where you were one of those guys stuff back in
the day to where every single week you were in
the hunt on back nine you were.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I could make a lot of cut and have a
lot of conn.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
We're always one of the guys that shot that going
in the weekend were good, and then you'd make that
move on and then it just seemed like you had
a run for three, four or five years where you
were one of the guys that were on the leader
board every time.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
You turned on twenty eleven, twelve, and thirteen.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I mean, think of how many times you had chances
to win tournaments in that.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Stretch A ton and one of the things that I
take a lot of pride in. There's a lot of
things to take brought in, but to me, like that
top thirty in the FedEx Cup is always kind of
like benchmark a benchmark, and I was able to do
that seven times in eight years, starting in two thousand
and nine.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
So that's something I was really proud of.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Like all professional athletes, you don't get there by yourself
who have been some of the big influences on your life,
but your career as well.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Yeah, so my grandfather and my father both played golf.
They introduced me to the game. I was a bit
of a late bloomer. I didn't play a lot, did
you your golf? I played some, but my grandfather was
a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox before the World
War Two, so baseball was always a big thing in
my family, and I played a lot of baseball growing up.
(39:12):
I was doing travel ball and all those you know,
summer league and as much baseball as I could do.
And then, uh, kind of around thirteen fourteen, I kind
of transitioned into golf. We moved to South Florida and
PGA Tour event hount A Classic was at.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Weston Hills, and I was familiar with golf.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Family members played golf, but moving there in high school
and not having friends, Golf's the game you can play
by yourself, and I kind of transitioned to golf, and
it's one of those sports that you don't really realize
why you fall in love with it, but you do
for some reason. So those were big influences to get
me started. You know, back when I played high school
and college, you didn't have coaches and instructors and people
(39:54):
you worked with, like I watched the guys on tour,
you know, I was fortunate to watch those guys play.
So like guys like VJ. Singh would come through and
I used to play with him tons and tons when
I was young, and Fred Couples, and I'd go watch
these guys play.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
I learned from playing a lot with a guy like VJ.
Because he's just I don't think VJ gets nearly the
credit that he deserves. Obviously, there are a lot of
guys in that Tiger era, you know, when Tiger was
at his powers, but I don't think people remember just
how dominated a golfer.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Time he was a man, and I would watch a
lot of golf. I'd tape golf, that's how you know.
So so all these guys that are on tour were
big parts of my golf life. And then as I
started turning pro, you know, you start coming across people,
and I came across Chuck Cook, who really helped me,
(40:47):
I think, understand what it meant to be on tour
and how to practice and how to prepare and what
I needed to be a good tour player. He helped
me with the mechanics of the golf swing to an extent.
But I think what he provided me more than anything
was understanding and a blueprint of, you know, how to practice,
(41:08):
how to prepare, how to be a PGA tour player,
and what I needed to be successful.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
So he helped me a lot.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
And Chuck is such an old school guy, right, you know.
I look at guys like my dad, guys like Randy Smith,
guys like they're kind of throwbacks right there. They were
old school. They grew up in an era to where
you know, golf wasn't what it was and is now today.
You talk about the technical side, how much of the
(41:35):
influence on your career did Chuck have both, you know,
from a technique standpoint and then from a execution management standpoint.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah, I think execution and management was big for me
and what I learned from him. He had worked with
Payne Stewart and he had worked with Tom Kite, so
he was familiar with pretty good players. Yeah, being with
those guys winning majors, playing at.
Speaker 3 (41:57):
A high level.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
So he probably shared with me how those guys did
it in whatever way without saying it's invaluable. Yeah, without
saying like Tom Kaite did it this way right, and this.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
Was what good players do. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
So that helped me a lot, and the technique helped me.
I think for me, I had to be smart about
my golf, if that makes sense. I didn't feel like
I had a lot of I had physical skill and ability,
but maybe not to what some of these peers did.
So I had to be smart in how I knew
(42:32):
what worked for me, and I had to work hard,
Like I had to put in sixty seventy hour weeks.
That's what I had to do, and I did that
for a long time, which I don't do as much anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Well, you know, the body as we get older doesn't
allow us. Yes, switching to the equipment side. You've been
with Cobra Golf for a while. They've got their new
ds adapt drivers coming out. The new driver, what do
you like about it? You know, when you get a
new driver, first thing I think for me, is the
way it looks? Are you? Are you more of a
look guy or more of a feel guy when it
(43:05):
comes to kind of the way a driver looks.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I can get by the looks if it feels and
performs right.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
But it's not a non starter.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
But I would say this one, they've taken some things
that we've talked to them about, like what tour players prefer.
So they've kind of taken the crown and there's a
separation between the crown and the face angle. Now they
put some scoring lines on the face angle, so we
can just distinguish where the face angle is.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Do you like to see when you look down at
the driver? Do you like to see it sit a
little bit kind of toe open? Do you want to
see a little bit less loft? What do you like
when you.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Like toe open?
Speaker 2 (43:43):
And I like seeing off because I like to lean
the shaft than so often. Yeah, so I like offset
on irons. A lot of people don't like offset on it.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Really, I would have never thought, given kind of your
kind of old school kind of the way that you
kind of push, you would like offset.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Offset looks like loft, and it looks like hook, and
it looks like I can lean the shaft, So you.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Know, my grandfather used to say that at impact, you
want your wrist to be like Bethlehem steel, not a
Linguini with clam saucety. So he was very weak grip,
and believe it or not, I don't know if I've
told you that my grandfather interlocked with the left thumb
off because he hooked it as a kid. So he
would basically just try and fold that angle. If you've
(44:25):
never hit one like that, take take interlock and the
left thumb is over here, you can just basically hold
that champions. The other thing I think that's really cool
about the new drivers from Cobra is the adjustable hostle
to be able to adjust not only the lie and
I mean the loft, but the lie everybody working on
(44:47):
but now we can just a lot of different things.
How do you think that's going to help the average golf.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
I think it can help.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
I know it's going to help us on tour because
we've been wanting the flatter, flatter, flatter, right.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Why do you tour players want the driver flatter.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Because we swing it on plane because.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
We're not coming over the top of that, I mean,
because we're not ten left in it.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah, trick.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
The trick that the equipment companies have is they're trying
to build stuff for consumers that buy, and generally speaking,
consumers aren't the best golfers.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
And you want a Formula one race card, you don't
want to and.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
They're usually over the top, and they usually slice, and
they usually have a ton of spin. They usually hit
down on it. So all these things they change is
great for them. But then you get to somebody that's
on plane doesn't work as much.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
So that's the trick.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
And I think, you know, having the adjustability now we'll
be able to really dial in the drivers and get
them to where we can play them just as well.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
Hobbies off the golf course. And if you weren't a golfer, Duff,
what would you be doing.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
I've never thought about what Rick says.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Your your your kitchen game is pretty good.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, so hobbies, I would say cooking. I enjoy cooking
a lot.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
What do you like about it? The process?
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Probably the process, like the I'm into the process and
just the that's just like my mind works that way,
Like you do this, then you do this so and
then you get this result.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Yeah, this result that's usually pretty good.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
I like offshore fishing, which I've been doing some this
past year since I haven't been playing much. I've got
an eighteen month old, so he keeps me on my toes,
so to speak. And if I wasn't playing golf, I
really have no idea because I've never even thought about it.
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Well, the good thing is you've never had to.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Yeah, I would not be a golf instructor like yourself.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
With someone obviously, because everybody kind of sees you as
a student of the swing. Thank you for saying that.
You please tell everybody what you said when somebody else
if you wanted to be a golf instructor.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
I don't want to deal with these guys.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
You guys, you tour players are all absolutely lunatics.
Speaker 3 (47:03):
Lunatics.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Yeah, why are you guys so close?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
I don't I never tried to be that way, but.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
You know, I don't want to get texts at nine
thirty at night about a golf swing and have forty
five minute conversation like hey, it's golf, Like hey.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
My favorite is take a look at the swing on dude,
I'm not there.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah, it doesn't matter, like it's in the camera angle.
Everybody's the camera. It's in two dimensions.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Like I get so many people say you do one
of the things I've never done that that I could
probably make a pretty decent, you know, amount of money
out the online golf instruction because for me, if I can't,
I mean, yeah, I can look at golf swings and
stuff and with the players that I see all the time, right,
you know, I know the guys I work with golf swings.
(47:46):
You know they're in slow motion because I've seen so
many of them. But when people say, hey, I really
I'm living I live in Australia and I really love
to work with you, I'm like, dude, how's that going
to work. I'd happily take your money, but I couldn't
do it because for me, I need to be there to.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Kind of you need to see how the body man.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
I need to see what you're doing in all of
those things.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
Lastly, dolh forty eight years old, two years to the
Champs Tour, you said you wanted to play, So that
two year I don't want to say limbo, but it
is somewhat limbo because you're waiting to play on a tour,
which as a past major champion, you're gonna go out.
I can't imagine you're not gonna go out and play well.
(48:27):
So what's the next couple of years look like for you?
Speaker 3 (48:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I think I'm fortunate that I don't really need to
play golf right now, and I'm able to take some
time away. I turned pro in two thousand and I
put a lot of time and effort for twenty three
years into that. So this year has been kind of
a rest and recovery year. Some people take rest and
recovery days or weeks, but I've been doing that for
(48:52):
a year. I've been doing some research.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
On my game.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I've been working with a guy in New York, a
little bit called Mike Jacobs, who does a lot of
three D stuff, connecting work.
Speaker 1 (49:02):
What have you seen in the three D that maybe
you didn't know? More just a better understanding as to
how your body works.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
It's more about how my body works, how I function.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
How your body works today, this is the way your
body works.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
And understanding that I'm not going to swing like I
did ten years ago, but understanding where I'm at now
and what I can do better. I think that gives
you a good blueprint of where you're at.
Speaker 3 (49:27):
And what you could do and maybe what you could
do a little bit better.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I also have a lot of freedom right now because
I'm not playing competitively, so I can play with stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yeah, you can try stuff and say, hey, listen, let
me really push the rabbit hole of changing this, because
I don't have to worry about Okay, I can work
on this for two weeks, but then I got to
go to Memorial and try and make the cotton, try
and get them.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah, So that's given me a lot of freedom in
that aspect. I think this year, you know, and I
keep my toe in the water. I played eight events.
I think it's important to play some you got to
keep I don't want to keep playing twenty five weeks
year right now, but I practice some like I kind
of do golf on my terms right now.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
This is what I call as supposed to because when
you're when you're a professional golfer trying to play at
the highest level, you're not playing golf on your time.
You're playing golf in a very structured environment and if
you are struggling, and I don't think people realize this.
I think one of the negative effects of the only
negative effect of tiger woods is he made it fashionable
for everybody to try and change their golf swings. But
(50:26):
when you're playing on tour, you don't have four months
to go. Let me go down the rabbit hole of
really trying to change.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
So that's been nice, and I think as I get closer,
I'll look at some opportunities. I may play that twenty
six year on the corn Ferry Tour because I'll be
able to have status. So I may look at playing
like twelve fifteen events just to get back into that
routine and hopefully, you know, I'll be ready to play.
(50:54):
I think it's important to play and practice and stay
with it to an extent. I think take three years
away from golf and just being at home probably wouldn't
be conducive to great play on the Champions Tour. So
I'm kind of staying with it. And as I get closer,
I can see myself ramping up. But right now I'm
enjoying lots of other things in my life other than golf.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Well, you deserve it enough. Can't thank you enough for
talking to me. And the biggest compliment, Duff, that I
can give you is you know you and I didn't
really spend a lot of time together when you were
on tour. But if you were hitting golf balls and
I was waiting, I would go kind of stand back
far enough away and I would just watch you hit
golf balls, and I just marveled it the way you
swung the golf club, the way that kind of your
(51:37):
body moved through it, in the way that you really
did simplify things. So I can't wait to see you
playing on the Champs Tour. I have no doubt you
will be a success.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Thanks for selling. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
So that was Jason Dufner, And like I said, it's
the second major of the week this week at Quail Hollow,
the PGA Championship, and if the first major of the
year with Roy McElroy dueling with Rose Bryson d Chambeau,
I think we're in for a really good major season.
I think we're going to have a season where the
best players in the world are going to contend for
major championships. There's always going to be surprises. But excited
(52:12):
about Quail Hollow. It's a great golf course, it's a
great venue, and the second major of the year is
upon us sono it butch comes to you most every week,
great review. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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