Laurie Canter

Claude sits down with English pro Laurie Canter, who’s on the brink of earning his PGA Tour card at the DP World Tour Championship, to talk career milestones, preparation, and what’s next.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Laurie, Welcome to the Son of a Butch podcast. We're
here in Dubai. You were on the cusp of getting
a PGA Tour card off the dp World one tournament left,
and I don't think anybody can jump you, But I
mean the holy grail. I think for everybody that plays,

(00:21):
you know, wants to be a professional golfers to get
an opportunity to play on the PGA Tour, has that
been a dream of yours? And tell me kind of
how you're feeling about it going into this kind of
last tournament here in Dubai, the race for Dubai all
to play for. But I think you're safe mathematically. But
what would it mean to you to get a PGA

(00:41):
Tour card?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well, I think I think you've summed out well.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
I think it's I grew up in the UK, so
we always watched the PGA Tour in the evenings, So
a lot of my memories of it, and I guess
a lot of the kind of esteem that comes of
the tour for us in the UK's you know, it's
so much primetime viewing. You watch it every evening the
Saturdays and the Sundays, and watching Tiger and Phille and

(01:06):
whoever it was playing and contend of these massive events. Yeah,
I think that the kind of history that's involved with
them makes the events and makes the tour clearly the
top place in terms of the standard and level and
history in terms of a tour that there is. So yeah,

(01:27):
I guess I've got a great opportunity this week to
kind of I'm going to say, keep myself in the
top ten of a card. I mean, I'd obviously like
to reframe that and try and push on and have
a great week and have a really good finish on
the race Dubui. But yeah, I mean to get a
card and what that would mean the potentially my career
and all that stuff. It is exciting and it is

(01:51):
the place that I think every professional golfer would want
to go and test themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
We'll get to kind of what's going on present day
in a minute. But you didn't start playing golf until
you were thirteen that I mean, there are a lot
of people that will be listening to this. I mean,
we've got our junior program here in Dubai. I've got
you know, juniors that I work with in the US
and stuff like that. That's kind of a late start
as a thirteen year old. What kind of took you

(02:17):
to golf and why? From most people that are going
to I mean, you're going to be playing on the
PGA Tour next year. There aren't a lot of people
that are going to be playing on the PGA Tour
next year that started golf when they were thirteen. I mean,
most people are starting much much younger. Why the late
start and do you feel like starting late has helped
you in any way?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
I think.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's like an interesting question because my background was tennis,
so I was played national tennis basically from the age
of you know, I was. I started tennis at three
or four and was in national British squads kind of
when I stopped. And I think that grounding that star
was a massive help because I saw the time it takes,

(03:01):
the effort it takes. I think tennis as well physically
is a tough sport. We had to do conditioning, we
had to do long days. I would do basically two
hours at tenths for four school, two hours after school.
I'd have you know, kind of like FLEXIBILITYO classes, conditioning session,
all that kind of stuff. At ten, eleven, twelve years old,

(03:22):
so I think that background maybe athletically helped me, but
also knowing what perhaps it took I think was really important.
So when I started at thirteen, I got to kind
of scratch within basically two and a half three years
of playing, and that I think was because for me,
going and practicing six or eight hours a day didn't

(03:43):
feel like work, didn't feel like a big deal. I
wanted to do it, and I guess feeling like I
was trying to catch people up was a good mindset
for me. And you know, I also think potentially, especially
now with a sport like golf, just my observations would
be it's obviously a precision sport and it requires a

(04:06):
lot of kind of closed loop practice if you like
block block practice to get your swing, get your mechanics correct.
But if you don't have the athletic base, I think
more and more of you don't have the ability to
swing the club. I'm going to say a kind of
producing bull speed of mid in the mid one seventies,
Let's say then there's sort of people who are coming

(04:27):
out on tour. Now it's getting harder and harder and harder,
and I think actually not specializing early in the sport is,
you know, is important. I think it's important to have
a kind of a wide base of athleticism. And I
think tennis, in my respect, gave me that, you know,
i'd kind of moved and always run after balls and
then you know, mastered a technical thing with a racket.

(04:51):
It's not not the same as a golf club. But
actually movement is there are lots of as you'll know
better than better than most, there's there's a lot of
things across over and having that awareness within your body
outside of just the spare of golf, I think it's
really I think it's a really I think it's a
big advantage and I think more kids should potentially not

(05:11):
specialize as early in school.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
I think that is something so important for the listeners
to hear. I think I see so many kids that,
I mean, the hardest kids for me to work with
are like yourself. They're thirteen, fourteen years old, They've been
playing nothing else but golf since they were seven, eight,
nine years old. They're not very athletic. And one of

(05:34):
the things I think that has changed over the last
the Tiger Woods effect made people realize, Okay, listen, golf,
golfers can be athletes. And I think the work that
Greg Rose and Dave Phillips have done at the Titleist
Performance Institute to where their whole kind of junior golf
ethos is train players to be athletes first, and then
it's much easier to make an athlete a golfer than

(05:56):
a non athlete a golfer. You mentioned because I played
ten growing up, I didn't play a lot of golf
growing up. I mean we were kind of told golf
was a very very specific sport, right, It was very unique.
It wasn't like everything else. And I do think that
it's important to realize that a lot of the athletic

(06:17):
motions that you're making are going to be very similar
to a ford. So the golf swing will wind up
the way that you're transferring your way, the way that
you're moving, the way that the sequence of events. I
always say to people that golf should be the easiest
of the sports because the ball isn't moving, it's always

(06:37):
in the right place. Tennis, you don't know where the
ball is going to be coming from you. It's kind
of random. The movement of a forehand and the movement
of your golf swing. If you ever find yourself thinking
in tennis terms about the movement pattern you're trying to
make from a golf standpoint, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
I mean I've gone into it probably deferent than I shared. Obviously,
we're golf as we overthink everything. Well, some of us do,
and I guess some of us are on the other
end of the spectrum. I'm someone who likes to think
deeply about things that I kind of have to go
through that process to create clarity in my own mind.
But yeah, for example, my back swinging golf, I get

(07:16):
extremely along with my right arm and then I kind
of have like a in my transition, I'll kind of
have a tendency for the club to kind of almost
fall and pull in transition, and that that is effectively
a tennis four. And the more I think about it,
if you're teaching someone to play a tennis four, and
it would be kind of hot, like high right elbow

(07:37):
and then load to hide through the ball, you get
your right elbow out in front of your ribcage or
kind of furt the out in front of your hip,
I should say. And there's so many things across over
with it. So it's yeah, to your point, I agree.
I agree with that totally. And if you look to
my swing, and actually I play some golf with people

(07:58):
who used to play ten a professionally, they all do
very similar things, don't they Like they're very like I
think they're very very wide bit wooden almost in the
back swing perhaps, But then I think you kind of
see that athleticism in the down swing. It's almost like
they're preparing their body and then the kind of the
DNA or they remember, if you like, how how to move,

(08:19):
how to put pressure on the ball. So and that's
that's kind of interesting what you're saying about. You were
taught a very specific way to play golf and that
you know, it was there were kind of boxes you
had to tick, and I do see that with potentially
people who've played golf for a long time. The backswing
looks it doesn't look like they're preparing to hit the
ball with a down swing. It looks like they're jumping
through a series of hoops to put the club in

(08:41):
the correct position at iwan or E two or wherever
it might be versus you know, effectively of the ball
is the target like it is in tennis, and your
body will organize itself around that and letting it do
that is probably a pretty underrated thing in golf and
certainly golf coaching, And that's why I do think coaching

(09:03):
golf is a very hard thing to do well because
you have to tap into a lot of different systems
within players. And I've never taught anyone, but I've observed
lessons and had a lot of lessons myself, and it's
it is a very it's a very tricky thing to
get the language right, and a lot of time, I
think as the player, we're going to feel more than

(09:25):
the coach sees, so our feedback is important. So golf
coach and the guys who do it well, like yourself,
I think there's you know, you must have pulled it
here at times with asking people to do something and
they maybe just interpret it the wrong way and do
the complete opposite. So yeah, it's it's a fascinating sport
in that respect.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Well when I look, because I follow a lot of
tennis sites because growing up I played high school tennis
and didn't play a lot of golf. So I'm fascinated
by tennis. It's a sport that I follow. If you
think about some of the things that we're trying to
do in golf and the way that they kind of
mirror a tennis forehand. You know, the the best forehands,
the contact point is always way way out in front.

(10:04):
You don't want to let the ball get to you
because then your arm gets short. So when I look
at kind of slow motions of modern forehands, there's that
contact point which is way out in front, and then
you kind of do the windshell wiper to get the
top spin. To me, that translates a lot into what
we look at with the difference between players like you
self that play professionally low point something that we can

(10:28):
test now with launch monitors. The average golfer that low
point is behind the golf ball, causes them to hit
it thin, causes them to hit it fat. Where the
best players in the world that contact the low point,
that shaft lien is way out in front. So when
I'm looking at golf swings, I think in my own brain,

(10:49):
when I'm looking at a player's golf swing, I look
at it a lot of tennis ideas. The way the
weight transfers, the way the sequence, the way the body works.
It's rare that we see golfers that played other sports
to a fairly high level, and I think not specializing

(11:10):
in something really really early for all the parents listening
or for junior golfers, I think that is hugely important.
That's something that we are trying to talk to parents
and kids about now. If you're playing other sports, play
them as long as possible. What do you think playing
another sport can bring to you as a golfer when

(11:33):
you're younger.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
I mean, I think just having a really wide athletic
basis number one. Like if we're going to pay a
big breakfast bort cross country running to tennis, to hockey,
to American football or football or whatever it might be,
you're going to have a lot of different stuff. I mean,
another skill that you really pick up, especially in team sports,
is learning to speak and interact with other people in

(11:55):
a team environment under pressure, which I think again is
if you look at golfers, the best golfers tend to
be able to operate and be their best in that environment,
be themselves in that environment, And I think that comes
from so like basic social interaction, learning to get on
with their caddy, having systems that work, and that's really

(12:19):
hard to do, by the way, like that as people,
that's I'm saying that like it's easy, but it's actually
very hard because you get very small windows to really
find out what you do well under pressure, and then inevitably,
when you mess that up a few times, you've then
got You've got to have the level of reflection to say,
how do we improve that? And I think you learn
a lot of those skills through other sports. I think again,

(12:41):
if you just look at golf, you know, you can
analyze a round a bits, doesn't matter best player in
the world or a thirty handicap. We all analyze our
rounds at the end of it. But it's doing that
in a way where you can get a kind of
tangible benefit to your next round. And I grew up
playing a lot of team sports where you would have

(13:03):
review sessions with coaches. They would highlight on video or
from their own notes about specific parts of the game
that went wrong, and then you'd ask questions and they wouldn't.
You know, you're trying and remove the kind of blame
culture from that. And you think, how right, gay all
on the table. That's a mistake. You know, why did
it happen and how can we make it not happen again?
That's basically, I would suggest what the best golfers do

(13:25):
in the world, either directly or intuitively, they would be
very analytical of themselves, of their team, of their caddy
to continually try and improve, because it's a very hard
sport to improve at over the years. Like so I'd
say that you know those two things, the athleticism that
you're going to get from playing a lot of different sports,
but then you know, for me, the ability to interact

(13:48):
with people in a pressure environment to try and improve.
I think.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I think one of the things, and I've said this before,
I think one of the big things team sports does
for junior golfers. So they're playing golf, but they're also
playing team sports. I think a really important lesson is
in team sports you can play really well in your
position and the team can lose, and then you can

(14:17):
play poorly and the team can win. And I think
those are really valuable lessons for not only golfers but
athletes mentally. To have that idea that, okay, I do
need to go out and do my job every single time.
I find it fascinating Lori that in team sports, when

(14:37):
you mess up in practice, there are massive consequences, right,
Like if you're in a team environment and you've got
a role to play on the team and in practice,
if you mess that up three four times in a row,
the coaches will kick you out and they'll bring other
people in. And if they take you out of the

(14:57):
game and practice, you don't go to another practice squad
and do what we do in golf to where we
go through all of this kind of mimic and run.
You basically just go sit on the sideline or sit
on the bench. Nobody really talks to you, nobody really
explains anything to you. And a lot of times in
team sports, the more you mess up in practice, they'll

(15:17):
make you go run. There's consequences, and I've always found
it really interesting that in golf there doesn't seem to
be this consequence for getting it wrong in practice, whereas
in team sports it's vital that if you're part of
a team, you've got to do your job on this play.
You've got to you've got to you got to get

(15:38):
back on defense, You've got to do all of this
other stuff. I've always tried to try and bring that
team practice environment to the individual sport practice environment to
say to players, listen, you just hit four snap hooks
in a row in practice, and you're not really you
don't seem to be really bothered by it. You're really
trying to get out and that team sports that just

(16:01):
doesn't happen. Do you feel like playing not only multi
sports but also team sports helped you when you then decided, Okay,
now I'm going to focus full time on golf. Now
this is going to be the only sport I play,
and I'm going to kind of go down this route
with golf.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Firstly, that's a really interesting take what you've said, though.
I think that's a really interesting way of looking at
all that I'm just thinking about that moment. I think
that's very smart that I guess within for me, within
team golf, within well, sorry, so reframe the question for
me whether the team sports are How.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Does being on a team and working with other people
help you in an individual sport when you're out there
by yourself. I mean, yes, for you, you've got your caddy,
but ultimately the caddie can't hit the shot, the coaches
can't hit the shots. You are the sole person in
the competition. So I'm always trying to figure out how

(17:05):
teams get better and how everybody on a team has
a specific job to then help the team, and I
think there are a lot of things in team sports
that help individuals and individual sports. And I'm just wondering
if you noticed anything that you learned by being part
of a team and having to do your job within

(17:27):
a team framework that helps you in an individual sport.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Right, Okay, So I guess, as like a tour pro,
this is we're effectively the chief executive of a company, right.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
I think that's what we're getting at.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
So, but actually the kind of organizational stress of trying
to potentially manage that yourself and do that if you're
really trying to improve and get I guess to the
top level of golf, you have to delegate to a sense.
That doesn't mean you're outsourcing responsibility because it will always
be my golf, you know. But you have to I think,

(18:03):
allow coaches and caddies a window into your mindset. You
have to be vulnerable about things. There is no point
on a Wednesday or Thursday of a tour event if
you feel like you're you're really struggling with your chipping
or you're driving or your putting. There isn't any point
sugarcoating that you need to take your coaching team and
say I'm having a nightmare with this area of my game.

(18:26):
And that's something that again I think to your point
that was my mind was worrying about consequence when which
is a really interesting point, because I think there's an
element where people in golf always want to protect confidence,
and I think that's a really important thing to protect,
but it's I'd say I'd probably change the word protect

(18:48):
to sort of foster confidence, like try and do things
which bring out belief, and then off the back of that,
maybe your language around it changes, attaching less importance to
it internally, which means I mean as Kooky's as sounds,
it does mean you'll sleep better, you'll recover better, all
those things. And because yeah, I think to take on

(19:14):
the fields that there are in professional golf and to
do it for four straight days and win a tallament
is so incredibly hard on your body and your mind
when you haven't done it, when you don't know what
it takes. You know, I've seen that in my own game,
and now how hard I found it to win for
the first time. I messed up a lot of tolerance
that you know, I feel like I would have won,

(19:34):
and it took that knowing and that slow fostering and
confidence to have that belief, and even then you need
a big bit of luck in my opinion. So I
think your consequence question and the idea of that is
something that probably in golf no one's or very few
people have really leaned into that. I've heard about stuff,

(19:54):
I've read books on it. As a book I read
a few years ago that it was about the Great
British Rowing Squad and it was called Will It Make
the Boat Go Faster? And it's effectively just trying to
look at all the little things that the team does
to your point about how you can still win the
race with someone operating less than optimally if you like,
and vice versa. And then there's obviously been the Dave

(20:18):
Owd books recently, who I've got a bit of a
soft spot for the kind of Dave or and stuff.
He's got a rugby background. I'm a big rugby guy
where I grew up in England and in Bath. So
the book that he read that I picked up and
was the Pressure Principle, and that talks a lot about
introducing consequence and constrain with your practice, and I'd openly
say I don't think all of that would be for everyone.

(20:40):
There'd be a certain personality type that just would never
click and would say, do you know what, I can't
I don't have the buy in that this eight foot
on the practice s green on a Tuesday in the
off season in Dubai means the same to me as
it will when I'm trying to win a tournament. But
from the as my understanding of the brain is, actually

(21:01):
you can trick it. You can introduce constraints and consequence
and pressure into your practice. And I'd openly say it's
something that I do bits of it now because it's
so spoon fed to us. There's amazing technology like track
Man where we can set up strokes gained practice and
I do that very regularly, and we we chart the

(21:22):
results of that and check on going in the right
direction with it. But ultimately, I think you almost need
someone to come in as an extra person within your
team who's the bad guy, you know what I mean,
And like, no one really likes that person him or
her who comes in and maybe introduces that, but it's
it probably is necessary, and I think it has worked
for certain personality types in golf, people who've really leaned

(21:43):
into that.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
It's been good.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Every professional athlete, every golfer has a story. You worked
at a nine hole golf course to save up money
to go on a South African trip to play in
an amateur event.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, I mean that kind of makes me sound like
I was out out out of my last I was.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
I was very lucky with my with my upbringing.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
I you know, my parents are very supportive of me
with tennis and golf, and they gave me a year
after I finished school to kind of give golf a crack.
But as part of that I had to effectively save
the money for the ticket to go and then play.
I played for two and a half months in South Africa,
played their national amateur events and ended up winning the
national Amateur, which basically got me into England squads and

(22:27):
begun to get me moving, I guess, in a direction
where I could think about playing golf for a living.
So yeah, it was kind of relatively small sacrifice in
that I had three shifts a week working working, taking
one pound fifteen for nine holes as it was at
the time on the path three course. But it worked
and it was you know, it got me some dough

(22:48):
to go down there and start up, and that I
actually go down to so Afrika all the time. Since
I made from that trip, I've made a couple of
amazing friends and then one of them just gone on
to be a talker on the Sunshine too, And I've
just I've just I guess, as you know, in golf,
you meet so many amazing people through the ball and
that country especially is I love the country and I

(23:11):
like a lot of the people there, and it's it's
a very cool place to go and play golf. We
get to do it on the on the Deep World Tour,
which is which is fun.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
You lost your card three years in a row, fifteen
to seventeen on the DP World. That's that's hard to
come back from. A lot of players, Laurie never come
back from that, right, I mean, you get on that
bad run. Everybody knows the Justin Rowe story where you know,
early on his career he missed cut after cut after cut,
that three year stretched where you're losing your card three

(23:41):
years in a row. Did you ever think about, you know,
just packing it in. Did you ever think, Okay, maybe
I'm not cut out for this and what did you
learn from that experience that helps you in twenty twenty
five as you're on the cusp of really the holy
grail as a professional golfer getting full status on the
PGA tour.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
I mean, I never thought about packing it in because,
iron large, I enjoyed it so much. You know, it
was even the results being poor, the being on tour,
traveling effectively the world, playing some brilliant events. You know,
I loved it and I probably a certainly the first

(24:24):
year was a bit of a deer and headlights situation,
had acoustical card, and then that the subsequent two years
that if you kind of looked at my stats and
my results, they got slightly better. They were getting better.
So they were still pretty rubbish, we can say, but
they were if you looked at it objectively, you'd say, okay,
as straight coverage is nudged down a bit, his finishing
positions got slightly better, and for me it felt like

(24:45):
the idea of keeping a card felt like a bit
of a behemoth. And it wasn't really until I got
kind of a bit more settled on the tour in
twenty twenty and had had a bit more opportunity and
then got those couple of results and then and I think,
I think, just internally, you again, whether it's your belief
system or whatever it was, I probably relaxed a bit

(25:06):
and thought, Okay, I don't actually don't have to play
my best to necessarily finish top ten as I had
because I'd never done it. I think I had eighty
starts for I had a top ten. I mean, that's
mad really when you think about it. So but I
think but in the last sort of I mean, yeah,
my career from those first eighty starts that wasn't really

(25:27):
a career, and then in the last one hundred starts,
I think I've won in every three events, I'm maveraging
the top five. So it's a very different kind of career.
And and I struggle to put my finger on why
other than it's you get that realization. You realize you
doesn't necessarily need the A game the whole time. You
cut yourself some slack when things aren't going well, you know,

(25:49):
you learn a bit more about yourself. So yeah, that
would probably be my kind of my musings on that.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Really, twenty twenty was kind of a breakout year for you.
Five top tens, you shot sixty at the Italian Open.
What did you learn from that experience to where, Okay,
you lose your card three years in a row, and
then a couple of years later you have a bunch
of top tens, you shoot sixty in a professional tournament

(26:19):
and stuff like that. The change from losing your card
three years in a row to kind of finding your
feet and having that year to where you're like, Okay,
I've got some top tens, I'm in the mix, I'm
starting to shoot low scores on tour. What made you
a better player in twenty than you were when you're
losing your card in fifteen sixteen seventeen.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
I think.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
I developed some bet of shots from the tea from
a kind of technical ability point of view. I became
fifteen sixty and seventeen. I was kind of relatively long
on the tour at that stage, but I didn't have
a kind of a whole breadth of shots. I was
quite like optimized with the driver and then hopefully find it.

(27:06):
I developed probably three or four different tea shots which
kind of still use. And actually, you know, I had
a golf coach, Alan Thompson, who's kind of retired but
used to come out here. I used to coach myself
and Tommy Fleetwood for a bit and he was kind
of instrumental technically in helping me in helping me do
that understand my swing a bit more. But then also

(27:27):
I worked with a guy called Carl Morris who was
a psychologist, great psychologist, and he he was very much
about trying to find, you know, shots. He was like,
you know, forget about your swings. What shots have you
got today? What can you do today with it? And
I guess over time built some confidence, especially in my
stuff off the tee and in professional golf. Statistically, I
think approach plays the thing that people say is important,

(27:50):
but actually, have you hit a decent percentage of fairways
and you drive the ball consistently well, you're never really
out of a golf tournament, in my opinion. And I
think the top kind of ten twenty in the world,
if you look at them, they're all pretty strong drivers.
Now you don't get away with not hitting a decent
percentage of fairways and hitting it pretty long. So that
was definitely something I feel like I've begun. And that

(28:11):
year was a big stepping soone in kind of becoming
a really good driver of the ball and then from
there it's just been trying to tick other boxes. And
like I said, for me twenty twenty, it was a
belief thing. I think I stole a ninth position in
one of the kind of COVID events let's talk, and
I remember thinking, wow, that's the first top ten, and

(28:32):
then next week I came third, and it you know, like, yeah,
like every golfer, you go through these little things and
then something seems like a big deal, doesn't seem not
such a big deal, and yeah, and I probably had
a chance to win two events that later that year,
but at that point in time, the thing that replaced
potentially establishing myself on tour was winning and then and

(28:53):
that became a massive hurdle. So it's you've always got
this kind of moving target as a goal from kind
of what you're trying to achieve and what you're trying
to do.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
You got your first win on DEP World in twenty
twenty four at the European Open in Germany. But you're
one of the few players that have gone to live
then DP and now you're going to play on the
PGA Tour. A lot of people listening to the podcast
either don't like live like live or whatever, but the
decision to go because I think it's easy, Lurie. When
we look at kind of I mean, we're going into

(29:25):
year five on Live. A lot of people, the fans,
everybody listening to this pub there are a lot of
people that became scary rich off of going to Live right,
and the money was a huge part of it. You're
one of these guys, very similar to like Richard Bland.
It was just a choice that you made. You were
trying to get better the chapter of your life that

(29:46):
was Live as a reserve and then going to the
live qualifying not getting through. How did the live experience
help because I think it's easy to it's easy to
beat Live up right there. For a lot of people,
it's just easy. But there are players that I think
have really benefited from the experience in a non financial way.

(30:12):
It's helped them become a better player. What did you
learn in that brief period that you played on Live?
Because I'm always trying to figure out how players keep
improving and keep getting to the next level. Your experience
on Live, what do you think you'd learned from it
that has helped you as a player today?

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Well, I guess me, the headlines would would be I
think lives potentially a great thing for golf. I still
think that from my personal standpoint, the financial stuff as
a as a golfer. You've outlined kind of my career
getting to the tour, trying to establish myself.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
It took years and years and years and years.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
And I kind of always consider myself as a just
very pro pro golfers. I think we've always buy and
large what we kill. It's one of the cool things
about the sport. And I think when you get chances
to play for that level of person money, that's like

(31:09):
I think, I don't know why people necessarily shy away
from saying what an opportunity to go and play for.
And that was really at that point in time my mindset.
It wasn't I wasn't getting a long term commitment. I
was getting the chance to place the events. In twenty
twenty two, first event was an hour from my house
and it was twenty five million dollars, which is you know,

(31:30):
the persons that we would typically play for between maybe
two and five so it's a huge amount of money.
And I never, to be honest with you, I always thought, Wow,
the financial do that, and as it evolved and I
got to play more beyond teams of your Westwardship Polters, Stenson's, Cimers,
McDowell's great like European heroes really and good people, you know,

(31:54):
like nice, nice people. I enjoyed being around them. I
learned a lot from them. It was sive benefit, you know.
I think in the I played twenty twenty two twenty
twenty three, I played a ten or eleven events. I
played a couple events beginning of twenty four because that
I kind of was a reserving for live. I didn't
get through the playoff in twenty three, so ended up

(32:15):
doing a bit of reserving.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
And I think in that time I played with Mickelson
four times. I played with Cam Smith five times. You
learned a lot from Babel Watson.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Ost hasn't and I don't think you can't underestimate that,
because it's having a nine holes with someone in practice
is one thing, but actually going out seeing how they
play golf in a wide variety of ways, it's huge
for a player to see that. And I also think
it's I had that similar experience a few weeks ago.
I played with Adam Scott in career. I mean, what

(32:44):
an amazing golfer, What an amazing golfer?

Speaker 1 (32:47):
And how good is that guy? I always think. I
said this to Brooks when he was in the last
group at bell Reeve when he won the PGA. Tigers
is in the group in front of him, Tiger's hero
Adam Scott. He's got the biggest man crush of all
time on Adam Scott. How could you not?

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Right?

Speaker 1 (33:03):
And so I was trying to figure out something to
say to him, and I said to him, listen, don't
get caught up and watching Adam Scott today, because when
you play with Scotty one, Scotty's the best, right. I mean,
there isn't anybody that doesn't like Adam Scott in professional golf.
I'm talking player, Caddy, everybody. But when when you play
with them, it's it hard to not watch his golf swing.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
I mean I did, I did. I played with them
at Wentworth this year, and I've played with him in
career the first two rounds. And but you know this
is going to sound ridiculous, I feel like I got
better watching him. I mean I really do. One thing
that strikes about him he hits a lot of shots
pretty flat out. You know, he doesn't hit many kind
of off speed I've shot, so he hits his irons
extraordinarily far. It's incredible. But his level of commitments so high.

(33:46):
He's off the charts, you know, like there's a couple
of career was a quite a tricky, smelly kind of
golf course few and he's just so committed to his
move and his swing, and even when he hits bad shots,
it was kind of you know, he they weren't.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
They were kind of committed flush bad shots.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
And so I think, yeah, if you get an opportunity
to play like I had on on liv in that
period every event I seem to play with major champions,
and then on the deep world when we have our
road ex events and stuff, you get a little windows
into these people and they're just like us in a
lot of ways, but they will be doing things that
are slightly different. They'd have thought processes that are slightly different,

(34:25):
and you're posilling not to try and learn from that.
And someone like me who I'd like to climb, I'd
like to become a top twenty player in the world.
That would be something I'd love to do. I think
anytime you get to kind of sponge off those people
go and like go and do it. So that was,
you know, just bringing it back to the kind of
live question that you asked me. That was, I guess
an unintended consequence for me was I wasn't expecting that.

(34:47):
I wasn't expecting that level of access, if you like,
to the world class players there. You know, Brooks and
Dustin played play with those guys and the younger guys, Nieman, whoever,
whoever it is that they're all playing in that period,
I played with all of them. That's uh, it's a
great It's great exposure for someone of any age trying

(35:08):
to get better. And actually Blandy I would suggest if
we had him on here, I bet he would say
it's benefit his game matter.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
I had him on the podcast a couple of years
ago and he talked about a similar experience to you.
The access not only you know, in practice rounds and
the ability to go to dinner with major champions and
stuff like that in that kind of team environment. But
I think you do learn a lot by playing with
other players. We tell juniors that all the time, listen,

(35:34):
play with players that are better than you. You'll learn
a lot So cutting back now to twenty twenty four,
you get your first win on the DP World, when
you win Lloyde, your first tournament, how dos it changed
you as a player, and how does it change your mindset?

Speaker 3 (35:51):
I think it probably didn't change me as much as
I thought. I didn't feel necessarily how I thought i'd feel.
I was, you're related, You're happy about getting the win,
and that's great, But there is definitely within within me,
and I think within everyone this this Probably you have

(36:12):
an idea of it. If you've reached utopia and then
Monday comes round and you get up and you've still
got to go and pay them all with due council
tax and drop your kids a school, whatever it might be,
and life basically goes on.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Well. Scotti Scheffler talked about this at the Open Championship
this right. He mentioned that, and everybody kind of lost
it and was like he doesn't care or anything like that.
But I think that's actually kind of a healthy way
to think you're going to win a tournament. It's going
to be really, really huge, But the following day, I
mean we tell our juniors this all the time. Listen,

(36:44):
nobody cares if you want a tournament last year. Nobody
cares what you did last week or six months ago,
or the only thing that matters is what you continue
to do forward. Do you think when you win a
tournament people look at you differently on.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
I think one thing after I won was I was
so keen to go and do it again, and I
had a period where I didn't really play any good.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Off the back of it.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
And I attribute that to because I was so desperate
to have a chance to win another tournament, and I
kind of forgot about the the processes and the stuff
that got you with a chance to win the tournament.
But I think it certainly changed me the next time
I had a chance to win, because the next when
I've had chances to win earlier this year, because I'd

(37:34):
already won, I was like a dog with a bone.
I was like, I'm going to go and win this tournament.
I'm going to go win the tournament. And that was
a different mindset, like not in a I'm telling myself
that on the bat nine, I'm I'm trying to win
this tournament.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
I'm not bailing out. I'm going to hit.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
I'm going to hit the shot that needs to be
hit because I'm trying to win the tournament. Basically, I'm
not trying to have other people fall away or get
a bit lucky. It was like trying to hit the
shots and win. So, for example, when the playoff in
that I won this year, I felt very calm and
I was I was going to hit the fairway and
then I was going to go straight at the flag
with nine on that that was what I was going
to do, and that's what That's kind of how it

(38:09):
panned out. That doesn't always pan out like that, but
I the way I felt there was very different to
the year before, where I was.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Just trying not to fuck it out basically.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
But what is the difference, because I think there is
a very big difference. I think most golfers that are
listening to this podcast spend the majority of their golf
career trying to not hit bad shots, trying to do
everything they can possibly do in their preparation, in their
information gathering, they're trying to not hit bad shots. What

(38:46):
is the difference between the mindset of trying to not
mess it up as opposed to what you said, getting
in the mindset on the back nine in Bahrain, we say, okay,
I am going to try and win this tournament, and
how can everyone listening access that train of thought more
than the other part where you're just trying not to

(39:07):
hit a.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Bad shot while there in lies are very very in time,
we could.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Do another three hour partonst on that.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
For me personally, I think everyone has a level of
psychology that would be and it would be how they've
grown up, or their parents or their own belief system.
And I don't really know enough about it. I know
about it within myself. I think because of the career
I've had and losing my card, there is definitely periods
where I agonize about things that could go wrong. So

(39:41):
my own psyche, I have to have things and thoughts
and feelings. I go towards them. I don't run away
from anything. So it would be in my golf swing
under pressure, there's I believe a couple of things that
can really go wrong for it. So I try and
have feelings and thoughts that I'm going towards doing this
because that will create the shots I want to hit

(40:02):
versus don't do this with my left hip or right
shoulder or whatever. I'm very much like this is the
feeling I need this, I need to go towards that,
and I think psychologically you need that. Like in my
own mantra is, I really don't think anything ever changes
in your life winning a golf tournament. I think it's
a great narrative, like and it's said a lot on

(40:24):
the TELEI and pedaled it's going to be life changing,
and I've probably even said it in this interview about
maybe I've.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Got a PGA TALKRD.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
But the reality is, I really don't think it would
change that much in your life. And winning a load
of extra money would be fantastic, like everyone you know,
it's some of the prize pots you can win and
golf for bonkers, But.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
What does that do?

Speaker 3 (40:43):
It means maybe you can retire a couple of years earlier,
but we are literally I am living the best days
of my life, so why would I want to accelerate
my retirement Like that would be my mindset. I think
we always humans want certainty and they want things that
they know to be true and have that kind of

(41:04):
stuff in their life. But if you want to be
a golfer, you don't. You can't have that a you
are modified professional gamblers and you do it because you
love the ups and the downs of it. So in
my own case, when I find myself protecting and I
find myself worrying and that kind of stuff, I have
to go towards things that I want and and be

(41:27):
honest with myself that I want that, you know, I
want to do that. I want to go and play
the Masters, or I want to go you know, playing
playing teams and all that kind of stuff. But for
a long time I haven't accepted that, and that hasn't
necessarily helped me. So it's it's a constant battle and
a constant evolution, and for me, that's why I enjoyed
the Masters this year. Was so enjoyable to watch Rory

(41:49):
because that is the only tournament in the world where
I think you'd see him like he is there because
even the other Majors and everything, is that specific tournament.
And the torment he went through and some of the
shots that that guy hit good and bad down the
stretch was incredible.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Was one.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
It was the best tournament I've ever watched. I think
it's the best tall I'll ever watch because it was
you don't you don't get to see I mean, it's
like a once in a lifetime scenario. I think as
a as a player and as a fan to see
someone with that kind of playing record doesn't obviously doesn't
need the money, but it's the internal battle and struggle
for him to win that tournament should be like a

(42:26):
lesson to everyone and and I think that's what makes
both that it is the best.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
It's the best game, it's the hardest.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
I think it's one of the hardest games, and it's
certainly the mental baggage to accumulate over the years.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
We talked about this before we started today, and you've
basically right now, you're in position to get your PGA
Tour card if you just take care of business this week.
Is it going to be hard for you going into
this last tournament knowing that, Okay, if I just put
four solid rounds of golf together, I can't really fall out.

(43:03):
Is it going to be hard for you not to
think ahead of Okay, I've got all this stuff. If
I just play good this week, I've got next to
your full status on the PGA Tour. It's been a dream.
It's everybody's stream to play on the PGA Tour, right
It's where everybody wants to play. How do you focus
this week and take care of the things that you

(43:24):
need to take care of as opposed to looking kind
of forward.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Well, I would just basically follow your advice in that question.
I think when you talk about four solid rounds, that
feels really hard to do personally. I'm like, God, four
four solid rounds were what we were at Monday today,
so Sunday, so I've got seven days just thinking just
four solid rounds. So no, I think what I mean
your question was would lead me to the answer. Really,
it's the it's the process is the things you do.

(43:52):
You know, after this goes to the gym, nail my
warm up for the week. I've got a couple of
hours of short game work that I've got planned this afternoon.
Like try and live your life via little little chunks
of time. Tick them off, accumulate it. See where you
net out. Probably underlying know that I'm still going to
wake up on Monday with or without a PGA talk God,

(44:14):
my life will be more or less the same.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
One will involve more transatlantic travel.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
But I think I kind of having that overarching thing.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
In my own little world. You know, I have a wife,
I have two daughters.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Now that that definitely grounds you in a way that
was more difficult for me ten years ago because you
just have to be But but I think for me
it'll just be like, yeah, ticking off, having a trying
to have a good Monday, and then I think stacking
and having those good days over time puts you in
a in a good spot.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Lastly, I think you're gonna play on the PGA Tour
next year, any courses or tournaments that you're excited to
get the opportunity to play on time. I mean, there's
so many great courses that they play on the PGA Tour.
There's some iconic ones that they go to every year
that are, you know, some of the best golf courses
in the game. Really, anything that you've kind of penciled

(45:10):
when you look at a possible PJ Tour schedule for
twenty six that you're thinking, Man, I'm really excited to
play that tournament on that golf course because I've seen
that before.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
I think the whole West Coast swimming looks pretty awesome,
and all the Europeans talk about that with a bit
of the glint in their eyes, So I think that's
I don't know if the feel of it is quite
what we're used to. I know the grass is mainly powers.
It's kind of that's We've grown up with a lot
of that, so that would make sense. It's a bit colder,
so probably suits us as well. I think outside of that,

(45:43):
I've always I noticed a kind of riviera that's a
golf course I've loved love to kind of watch. Shall
I say, Memorial looks an amazing course visually looks amazing.
There's amazing contrast of grass there.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Bay Hill.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
I've played that a few times. That would be great.
I mean those all signature events. I'd have to really
play great early season to do that. But I think, yeah,
having that as a bit of a carrot and a
runway to try and get in I mean even waste management.
We're just even talking now, but that the tournament in
Phoenix looks I think to experience that, some of the

(46:19):
stories I've heard from other players would be that would
be a pretty wild ride. And yeah, I guess going
out and hitting that T shirt on the stadium hole
would be. Yeah, it would be interesting to see.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
You got to you got to bring a bath rugby
shirt and put it on. He exactly.

Speaker 4 (46:33):
YEAHS and Laurie, you've had a hell of a year
this year, and I think you're a very You're in
a unique position because you're one of the few people,
I mean, I can't think of anybody else really over
the last five years of this crazy kind of professional
golf landscape that we're in that is going to be
able to say, listen, I played on live, I played

(46:54):
on DP, and you're going to get an opportunity to
play on the PJ Tour.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
The best way for you to end this would just
be to go win this week.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Right, Yeah, it would that would be You're a bit
bit of a grandstand finish, so yeah, that would be.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Uh, that would be something.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Best to luck this week. I think you're gonna do
great next year playing in the States, and I think
we're going to really look forward to seeing how you
play in twenty twenty six. Thanks for talking to us.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
No, thanks a lot, and thanks for having me down
at your academy and Dubai. I love coming in. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
It's a good spot, great reviews. Subscribe wherever you get
your podcasts. Thanks everyone for listening. It's the Son of
a Butch podcast