May 30, 2024 • 56 mins
Welcome to a special episode of the Accelerate Golf podcast that features the first husband-wife duo on the show, Liz Janangelo Caron and Jason Caron. Liz won more than 25 tournaments as an amateur and a professional and was inducted in the Connecticut Golf Hall of Fame in 2023, while Jason played over 9 years on the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours and recently tied for fourth at the 2024 Senior PGA Championship.
Jason and Liz share their unique experiences working together at The Mill River Club in Oyster Bay, New York, and delve into their early days on the PGA and LPGA Tours. They discuss the challenges and joys of balancing professional golf with family life, raising two young daughters, and managing a golf club.
Liz won 5 Connecticut Women’s Amateur titles, 4 Connecticut Open titles, 8 AJGA titles, then went on to win 7 individual titles as a Duke Blue Devil, and also led them to the 2005 and 2006 NCAA Championships. She won twice in 2007 as a professional on the Futures Tour, and is currently the Director of Golf Instruction at Mill River.
Jason is the Head Golf Professional at The Mill River Club and has won numerous Met Section events including the 2018 and 2020 MET PGA Championships.
Liz recounts her impressive journey, while Jason talks about his introduction to golf and the pivotal moments that shaped his career. They also share valuable insights into golf instruction, the importance of mental toughness, and the role of technology in modern golf training.
Get an inside look at Jason's fantastic performance at the Senior PGA Championship, including his preparation, mindset, and the support from his family. Liz and Jason also offer practical tips for golfers looking to improve their game, emphasizing the significance of short game skills and maintaining good tempo.
Don't miss this inspiring conversation with two highly accomplished golfers who exemplify the balance between professional success and personal fulfillment.
Liz and Jason can be contacted via the links below.
https://members.themillriverclub.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-caron-b6645225/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-caron-bab2a849/
Previous podcast episodes https://accelerategolf.com/podcast/
The podcast is presented by QSchool Sports https://qschoolsports.com/
Intro and outro music: “Silent Night” by Infraction Music.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Yeah, it was like 9.27, so it was the second-to-last group. Had a good warm-up.
Again, everything was, you know, ready to go.
And, you know, you get to, you know, walk over that tee. Just before I walked
to the tee, Ernie Ellis said, he looked over at me and said,
Hey, Jason, great playing so far this week. Keep it up.
And that kind of made me feel pretty good about, you know, the way things were
(00:20):
going. So, headed over to the first tee. I hit a nice, low-polling tee.
Music.
(00:40):
Welcome, everyone, to the Accelerate Golf Podcast, where we explore player improvement
and the business of golf through conversations.
I'm your host, Bikram Kapoor, and today I have the honor of speaking with the
first husband-wife duo on the show, Liz Giannangelo Caron is a legend in women's
(01:01):
golf, especially in Connecticut.
Jason Caron just came back from a tied fourth finish at the 2024 Senior PGA Championship.
So both of you, highly accomplished players. Currently, Jason,
you are the head pro at the Mill River Country Club in Oyster Bay, New York.
(01:21):
And Liz, you actually work with Jason. How does that work? How does that feel?
As being the husband and wife who were running the Mill River Country Club.
See, so this is perfect. We had our first fight on the air. We were pointing
at each other to see who would answer.
But no, it's been great. We never anticipated working together.
(01:45):
And when Jason got the head pro job, that's what comes with the territory.
So it was wonderful to be able to work with him.
And now having two little ones who are seven and 11, it's really been a blessing.
So we've enjoyed it and we don't talk too much golf at home,
but when we're at work, we definitely work as a team to get everything accomplished.
(02:08):
So the first question which pops to my mind is, how did you guys meet?
You know, you were obviously on the PGA Tour, the Nike Tour,
and Liz, you were on the LPGA.
How did your paths cross?
We happened to know a couple that was opening an art studio down in Jupiter, Florida.
And I went with some friends down there to the opening, and Liz came in a little
(02:32):
bit later because she knew the husband of the couple.
And we we just kind of crossed paths
exchanged numbers talked about you know what we're
doing in our lives at the time playing wise and then we
end up playing some rounds of golf together and just
kind of blossomed from there and this was when 2010
or so this was been 20 it
(02:55):
was a 2000 yeah maybe like 2008 or
9 yeah okay and at that time were you
still playing on the pga year tour i was playing the
what is called now the corn fairy tour and liz liz was
in between seasons from coming off the lpj
tour to play the symmetra now yeah epson
now which is like their corn fairy tour and then we dated that one year the
(03:20):
next year she got her tour card back again so she played the lpj tour that second
year so yeah it's you know we we got to watch each other to play golf in some
bigger events. We really just first started dating.
Great, great. So Liz, you spent quite a few years playing excellent golf in Connecticut.
Can you just take the listener through that golf journey?
(03:42):
You were one of the youngest women to actually win on the Connecticut amateur circuit.
What was that like? Can you just step us through that?
Sure. Growing up, I played all kinds of sports. You know, it's so important,
I think, to do that in order to become a better athlete.
So soccer, golf, tennis, baseball.
(04:02):
And all of a sudden my dad said, hey, I'm going to sign you up for the Connecticut Women's Amateur.
And I was 13 years old playing, you know, little league baseball.
And I'm like, all right, well, we'll play.
And played the first round, played well. And my brother caddied for me.
And the next day it was rain. It got rained out and started getting all these phone calls.
(04:23):
You won, you won. It was handled as one round event.
So from 13 years old, having that happen,
it kind of like everything took off from there and still played a lot of different sports growing up,
continued to play in the Connecticut State Amateurs and then was fortunate enough
to play golf at Duke University for four years there and played two years on the LPGA.
(04:46):
So that all stemmed from Connecticut and its golf It's Connecticut Golf Association and that one event.
So, you know, one day, kind of similar to Jason, it's almost like a one-day
thing can sort of change your life.
And you ended up winning the Connecticut Women's Amateur five times in a row,
if I'm not wrong, correct? Yes.
Yes. So when I played from 13 on and won the five years and then decided to
(05:13):
not play after that point forward,
the Connecticut Open was established and I would continue to play in that and college events.
And my first professional win was special because it was the Connecticut Women's Open.
So it was great to share that with the state and do it in Connecticut.
And you ended up winning the Connecticut Women's Open quite a few times as well.
(05:36):
Yeah, so similar to that, I won it a few times in college and then played in
it professionally. That was my first professional event.
And I'm not sure if since then I've been able to capture the title in Bad With
Dates, but it's fun to be able to go back every year.
Unfortunately, this year we had a conflict with the Met section event,
(05:57):
but it's just fun to support.
And regardless of how I play, it's fun to go back and see those faces of the CSGA.
That's awesome. And Jason, what was your introduction to golf like?
Yeah, when I was young, my dad, he was a plumber on Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, but he was more into hunting and fishing.
(06:17):
But I remember he played golf with some of his friends or something.
He had me out there like caddy and pulling his cart.
And I was probably like eight or nine years old and probably maybe hit a couple
little shots or whatnot. not.
And at the public golf course that I grew up at Bass River, which is in the
town of South Yarmouth, they would have these Thursday clinics as a kid.
(06:39):
And we started to go to those clinics.
And, you know, again, I was playing other sports.
I was really into baseball, into hockey, and just, I don't know what it is about
golf, but it just kind of gravitated towards me, I guess.
And then I had just a mad brother that wanted to play, he's a little bit younger than me.
And and another really good friend of mine, Mark Woods, that was just a neighbor.
(07:01):
And the three of us would play golf, I mean, almost every day it felt like during
the summers up to about like 13 when we started to, you know,
actually 14, maybe start working a little bit.
So, you know, I got to play a lot of golf when I was young.
Never thought that I would ever be where I am today at the time,
but just kind of kept working at it.
(07:23):
And next thing you know, you know, you go to college and then.
Everything kept getting better and better and better and, you know,
turned pro and started playing in some smaller events and then worked my way up to the big tour.
So were you part of the high school team and you got recruited into college?
Yeah. So back then, I mean, I'm 51. I hate to say my age, but,
(07:45):
you know, back then we really didn't have computers or, you know,
cell phones or anything like that. So it was hard for me to get my name out.
Unlike Liz, you know, she was winning everything that she played in,
whether it was junior golf in Connecticut or even, you know,
the, what's the other thing called?
The AJGA. AJGA. Couldn't come up with that one.
You know, so I just played local stuff. So I was unfortunately just local.
(08:08):
So no one really knew who I was. So I had to reach out to some schools.
And when I did, my resume kind of caught some people's eyes.
I was offered a scholarship at Charleston Southern University down in Charleston, South Carolina.
And, you know, I went down there for four years. I kind of dedicated myself
to golf and not school so much.
(08:28):
My brother said my face should have been next to the letter C because that's
all I got for grades and C's.
But I really worked hard on my game and I really wanted to be on the PGA Tour.
And it helped me kind of, you know, get going and try to figure out how good I could be.
And when I was playing in some of the bigger amateur events and and you know
finishing top 10 I was like wow maybe I could play golf on the PGA Tour or at
(08:52):
least the next level and a few years later there I was.
So which which year was that was it like the mid-90s? So 2000 was my first year
on tour 2003 was my second year and I played the Korn Ferry Tour 0102 I guess
what 04567 like seven and then eight,
(09:13):
I played like half a season. I had an injury.
I mean, then I played some more in nine, 10. Um, and then I kind of,
Looking to find my game again, never really got it fully back totally to be out there anymore.
So that's when I turned into the club pro business.
Okay. And that's right around the time you guys met.
(09:33):
And so I'm sure as you thought about as a future together, what was the path forward then?
Can you just step us through 2010 and forward?
Yeah. You know, so, you know, Liz really was the, she first said,
look, I'm kind of done playing.
I want to be like maybe into coaching or even teaching.
(09:56):
And, you know, we looked into some stuff and she, she has a lot of connections, but we got it.
We, she ended up getting herself a job over in Bonita Springs, Florida.
So we spent the winter over there
before she got hired up at Rock Rim and Country Club up in Connecticut.
So in Greenwich, Connecticut area. So we are Stanford. I mean,
we ended up traveling up there.
(10:17):
I was still trying to figure out if I'm going to play at all.
And I actually just kind of played a little bit more that summer.
And leaning into the fall, I kind of went to the Q school. I said,
if I don't make it, I'm done. I didn't make it through.
So Si, when I country club, which is dear, dear spot in my heart here,
(10:38):
because Grant Turner, you know, looked at me as like he was.
He was a player as well on the European Tour, and I came off the PGA Tour,
and he looked at me and said, you know what, I'm going to give you a whirl.
And he gave me a job there at Silanoy, and it was a great, great job, great platform for me.
So Liz and I both had jobs really not far from each other.
(10:59):
And then, you know, we blossomed up to got this gig at Mill River as the head
golf professional and the assistant.
And which year was that when you started at Mill River? 2015.
Okay, so about nine years ago, and obviously you're still there,
so that's great. There's some continuity going on.
(11:20):
And while you were at Mill River, you kept playing, and you won a few midsection
tournaments as well, right?
Yeah, so that nice thing about Mill River is they've always,
I think, through their past, they've always had a very good playing head golf professional.
Professional and in the med section the thing
(11:42):
that people don't realize that we have probably the best section in
the country when it comes to players our tournaments
are very very good we have you know good sponsors that that help us play in
these big events but really the the head golf professionals the assistants they
all want to be in the med section if they can i get phone calls from friends
(12:03):
that are still looking to get into our section and because they know it is it is the best.
So yeah, fortunate enough to, you know, actually Liz kind of helped me really click in 19, 2019.
We were talking actually over dinner, which we don't usually talk about golf.
And I was just, I just mentioned to her, like, look, I'm kind of tired,
(12:24):
but I feel like my hands are behind me too much. And she says,
well, I'll take a peek at you tomorrow.
So she walks, she was actually finishing the lesson. I brought one club with
me, a five iron, and I was hitting some shots on the range.
She walked over to me and she goes, just make believe your hands are like going
down your toe line on your backswing.
And I'm like, well, how is that? And she's like, just keep your hands like feeling
(12:47):
like not behind you, but out front of you on your backswing,
like it would be on a toe line.
And I was like, okay, the first shot I hit, it made a noise.
And I looked at it and I go, whoa, I haven't heard that in a long time.
And man, did it not just click? I mean, it was like an instant click too.
And next thing you know, a couple of weeks later, I qualified for a couple of things.
(13:08):
Then I got into like the New York State Open, played great.
And it just kept going. And I won. I think I won the I'm trying to remember
exactly which one I won that year.
I think it was the Met PGA Championship towards in September.
And then it just kept snowballing. I got into the PGA Cup.
I mean, it was just all sorts of cool things happened. And it was really just
(13:31):
her just giving me that one quick tip and it just instantly clicked for me.
And ever since then, I'm not kidding you. It's been really good. So I can't complain.
So hopefully you paid your coach pretty good for that lesson.
Yeah, I think I bought her dinner.
You're doing a good job with the laundry lately too. So yeah, he's good with that.
(13:55):
It's been kind of one of sort of like that same, you know, remark you just said.
It's like people have said that a lot, you know, because I said really it was
her just saying that one simple little, you know, tip to get my game to turn right around.
And what happens in golf, that once you get that, you find that one little click,
(14:17):
it instantly gives you that confidence.
And we know what that gives you. Your putting is going to be better.
Your driving is going to be better. Your chipping becomes better.
Your bunkers become instantly.
You have so much confidence in yourself that it doesn't matter where you hit it.
You just feel like, man, I can get it up and down or I can hit a good golf shot
over water or whatever it's got to be.
So it was pretty nice timing, that's for sure. Sure.
(14:40):
Just like step in, I would say, you know, you played so well and you worked
on your game and then with that confidence comes, but like, we kind of have this joke in the family.
Jason's always says, if I had your golf swing and you had my brain,
like we would be perfect golfers.
I think that's the thing, even looking at this Jason success in this past week,
(15:03):
like the mental toughness is unbelievable.
And it's so important that's built through, you know, hard work and working
on your swing, but that's what he excels at.
Wow. And Liz, did he ever reciprocate and give you a lesson to help you with your game?
He does. And he helps me more with the mental side.
He, you know, trying to go out there, react, you know, look at a target,
(15:27):
almost sort of, I feel like Jason plays more in that vision of 54 mindset of
seeing and doing and not really thinking about how you do it,
but just make that actual shot happened.
Like not necessarily. I think, I think.
Because we both have that athletic background and playing so many sports at
(15:47):
a young age, we all know how to throw a ball to our daughter and have her catch it.
We're not thinking about, okay, how far are we going to take it back?
I think sometimes people get so stuck in the how to do something in golf and
being so perfect that it's almost crippling.
So we just try to be athletes out there. We don't maybe necessarily teach that
way, but I mean, that's what works for us.
(16:10):
So as a couple you
know both of you have such high golf iqs you
you said initially that you don't really discuss golf at home
except for that one you know really fortunate time and really paid up for you
jason but i mean do you have any difference of opinions about the way to swing
(16:31):
about some technical aspects of of golf ever yeah i'm sure they're you know
I had to really think about that, but no,
there's definitely, listen, I've always said that every philosophy works.
It just doesn't work for you.
You know? And I think that if you think about it, that every teacher that teaches golf is right.
But then again, it has to fit for you. And I think that with Liz,
(16:56):
you know, I don't really get into listening to her teach much.
I just try to tell her again, mentally, like she's got, she's got the golf swing.
She's got the game. She's already, you know played at
the highest level most of these people that we play with
have never even thought about playing at that high level so it's
really just becomes between your ears and that's a lot of times and i'm giving
(17:16):
my lessons i i try to dig in a little bit i'll say look do you hit the ball
forward they'll go yeah then i go why do we drive by the short game area then
because that's where you're going to make you know your your handicap get lowers
by chipping it closer bunker closer.
And making more putts. And then, and then if it's, if they're okay with that
(17:37):
situation, they go, I'm pretty good in that area. I'll go, okay. And the long game.
Okay. Then what are you thinking when you, before you hit the shot,
you picture in your golf shot, are you picking a spot in front of your ball to line up?
If that's your problem, you know, is, are you playing the wind?
Are you, you know, are you trying to hit it through the tree or over the tree
or around the tree? Right. Cause through the tree doesn't usually work.
(18:00):
So, you know, there's a lot of, you know aspects of
everyone's game is so different but you
know i would say that for the most part no i'm
not going to pick on what you know what she does because again
we're all right in our own mind at least and
in into that one person it's just getting that person
to to see if it works for them really and the
(18:21):
funny thing is like you know if you were to say something negative
about our game like if we got divorced we both have to
find new jobs so you know husbands you want
to make sure to keep it light all the time but
you kind of going back to Jason talking about instruction
and making changes you know I noticed a
lot lately it's it's like think about think about golf and making a change like
(18:44):
if you were working out if you go to the gym once a week and you lift weights
are you going to see any noticeable difference no I mean same with your golf
game like in order to truly make a change and you look at these guys on court you need to eat it,
drink it, sleep on it.
It needs to consume you. It's so hard to make a change when you've done something your whole life.
(19:06):
So it's just important to know that it's going to take time in doing so.
We can't, you know, go on a diet one day a week. We can't lift weights one day
a week. We need to do golf a lot in order to be successful.
So this kind of brings an interesting thought into my mind.
You know, both of you have played golf at the highest level for multiple Looking
(19:27):
back, if you had to rewind and learn the game again.
What would you change from how you learned it, you know, before you had all this wisdom?
And now if you go back and you had that opportunity.
I know for me, you know, my dream, okay, I didn't dream big enough.
(19:47):
I always dreamt that I could be on the PGA Tour.
I just never dreamt that I could win on the PGA Tour.
And I, you know, it's funny. Someone mentioned this to me about five years ago.
And I told him that I said, I just wish I dreamt that I won on the tour.
And that's what I think a lot of these guys that are playing now,
the younger guys, they've been bred to grow up in the game, be ready to play
(20:11):
and ready to win right away. And I didn't have that.
That's one thing I definitely wish I did differently, but I wouldn't change
my game because I was a grinder.
I knew how to work hard, spend a lot of time practicing, and when it was my
turn, I won my fair share of events.
I played in some of the biggest events you could play in as a professional.
(20:35):
So I think just dreaming bigger would have been the thing that I wish I did better.
What about you, Liz? is. I feel similarly to Jason.
The best investment is the investment that you can make in yourself.
And I think if I look back, I didn't invest in myself enough.
I did not take the time or spend the extra money to... I always had an amazing
(21:03):
golf coach in Connecticut, Dave Pienke.
I just didn't take the time to, let's say, go back and fly to go see him.
We didn't have as much technology back then.
And that's kind of what I regret is not investing in myself enough.
I see. And, you know, you brought up a good point about technology and access
(21:23):
to information about life on tour.
Now, you can really build a picture, a mental picture of what a tour pro's life,
you know, kind of looks like because of YouTube and Instagram and people sharing on social media.
You know back in the 90s and maybe the early 2000s at least for me as a consumer
(21:44):
of professional golf it was the television broadcast and whatever you read in
in the golf digest right there wasn't that extra layer of access behind the
scenes would that have helped you in any way.
Probably not only because, you know, you're when you're in in that circle,
(22:04):
you know, you do have opportunities to work with some of the best coaches.
I work with Todd Anderson, who's worked with a gazillion guys on tour in T.A.
And I would work hard, you know, in the offseason, especially.
And then during the season, you come out and work with some of us.
And same with Bob Rotella.
Liz and I have become really good friends with Bob and his wife, Darlene.
(22:28):
So, you know, we go out for pizza with them in the wintertime,
even though we're still playing on tour, we still have dinner with them and
just hang out. So, you know, we've had access there. We've been in that circle.
But, you know, the technology part today, yeah, you can dissect like exactly
where you're missing your shot pattern, I guess you would say.
(22:50):
More now in today's world than was when I was playing and probably the same with Liz. is.
But I think, you know, we still had plenty of access to get the best instruction.
When you're at the top of the, you know, you meet top 200 players in the world,
you're going to get that opportunity.
It's just, you know, can you take it in and take it to that next level is really the key to it.
(23:14):
And now folks, I wanted to mention that this show is brought to you by QSchool
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(23:38):
And Liz, I remember watching one of your interviews from years ago,
and part of the reason you said you left the LPGA was because it was lonely
out there, if you remember.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit? I think this is good timing for that.
You saw today, Lexi Thompson just retired. I don't even know if Jason saw that.
(24:01):
You know, the LPGA is very different, I feel, than the PGA.
For me I didn't have you know
I didn't have a ton of other golfers
out there that kind of I mean like I hung out with Laura Diaz we had similar
interests we go work out and go for runs but you have different levels you have
(24:23):
your elite players and you know there weren't weren't too many people that I
found an interest with so it was hard and lowly I didn't really have a team
but you know I I have no regrets.
It was amazing to see all kinds of different places in the country.
And I always had a great family and support system out there,
but there's a lot of downtime.
(24:43):
Jason and I talk about that. I think even this past week, just having us out
there, you know, and have our girls distract him from his great play,
you know, whether it's helping them with their homework or, you know,
they need snacks and are doing cartwheels just to have those distractions.
I mean, that's huge and important because if you're teeing off at three,
o'clock and you wake up at eight in the morning, that's a lot of time.
(25:06):
I mean, you can only walk around a grocery store or Walmart for so long.
That's right. And I'm just kind of wondering, because, you know,
when you were at Duke, you were part of a team and a lot of college golf is
actually a team sport, you know, NCAA team championships and so on.
A lot of the more popular team events like the Ryder Cup are hugely,
(25:30):
you know, they attract a huge audience.
But there are very few team-oriented events on tour.
And it's only now that, you know, maybe Live Golf has that pod concept where
you have four or five golfers together or six golfers together as a team.
I don't fully understand how the mechanics of that work,
(25:50):
but conceptually, is that another layer of support which could make life better
for the individual pro on tour to be part of a pod or a group of golfers pulling together as a team?
I mean, maybe. I mean, you look at, like, I played on the Curtis Cup,
Jason played PGA Cup and different, you know, other teams.
(26:12):
Strong and you i mean i look back on what were my best memories and they were
always with the team i'm not saying i've been support not supporting live but
you know that could be an interesting.
Thing to think about yeah i i
would listen golf's always been an individual
sport the only problem is the ball sits there
(26:33):
on the ground doesn't it's not being hit back at you or
anything like that or being thrown at you so it's almost
i was telling someone too it's like it's almost like chess right you're
trying to think of that next next shot to set up the next shot to set up the
next shot right so a team aspect of it listen yeah would it be great to have
that yeah i guess you could say that but overall i still think it's an individual
(26:57):
sport i think today's world these guys do have,
trainers and nutritionists and they got all sorts of stuff coming out because
they're making so much money that they can afford to have these guys out there,
which does help to have that support system.
So yeah, they do definitely have it. I don't know if it's that necessarily, but you know.
(27:17):
Okay. So now just switching tracks to some of the more technical aspects of golf.
Liz, you're, I think, a certified track man instructor and, you know,
the data which comes out of track man, And I feel, you know,
I grew up as an engineer and I felt, wow, you know, this is great.
Now I can tell what I'm doing wrong, at least the results, which could suggest
(27:41):
certain changes I should be making in the golf swing.
How do you approach that with your students? It's nice to have data to back you up sometimes.
I know sometimes feel versus real and having technology and having numbers and
having video is so helpful.
(28:02):
Instant feedback is great because you could feel like you're swinging eight
degrees over the top and there you are. You're still coming,
you know, four degrees from the inside. side.
So it's neat to show people the video and then show them the numbers and then have them do it again.
And the biggest thing that I can give a student is for them to feel comfortable
(28:24):
enough to exaggerate a movement.
So once I can get them to feel comfortable enough to exaggerate and have them
exaggerate and actually show them that it wasn't an exaggeration on a video,
I mean, that's huge progress.
That's what I see. And I think the excitement, what do you mean?
Like I can, And, you know, think about it soon and saying, like, what do you mean?
I felt like I was swinging like Jim Furyk, but it doesn't look like that at all.
(28:46):
So it's kind of neat to have that technology to to back you up.
What's your take on it, Jason?
Yes, similar. Like I typically would use TrackMan if someone doesn't almost believe you.
One of my members, I still kid him to this day, he was hitting these wedges
and he was hitting them with these big, huge draws, big sweeping draws.
(29:11):
And I go, man, you're swinging that club so far from inside out.
It's crazy. And he's like, what do you mean? And I said, well, let me go get track, man.
So we get track, man, put it down and boom, first shot, 13 degrees out to the right.
And the next one, 13 to the right. Next one, 14.
I'm like, that thing should be, he goes, what should it be? I go,
I don't know, like maybe one.
(29:31):
And he's like, what do you mean one? I said, try to cut that thing in half.
So try to get a fade with a pitching wedge. And this first swing,
it did. It went right down to like seven.
I said, so remember, you just cut it in half.
Now you got to cut that one in half, right? So I think that,
listen, for me, I'm not a technical guy.
I definitely don't want to be technical. I think, in my opinion,
(29:54):
I may have changed 90 to 95% of the guys playing on the tour when I was playing was all fields.
Tiger talks about it. We might think, you know, you might feel like you're swinging
the club left, but chances are you're not, right?
So I think that your fields is what gets you around the golf course.
(30:16):
I just don't see technical guys playing that great all the time.
I just don't because they're constantly tinkering.
And I don't think that's what golf is. Larry Bird wouldn't be the best free
throw shooter you know, shooter or three-point shooter by going,
well, if I get my arm here and turn it this way and flip the ball this way with
this much spin, he's not going to do that.
(30:37):
So I feel like it's great to have some technology, but I don't think it's mandatory.
Yeah. And I think Liz made that point earlier about not thinking about how to
do certain things in golf, but rather than just be in the flow and just do it
without really thinking about how to do it.
So just a good segue into to what happened
(30:59):
last week you know your pressure for
tight fourth finish at the senior pga championship
against phenomenal players so
just talk us through that week like when did you fly out of new york just you
know as a family just take us through those five six seven days of really good
(31:20):
golf with a great outcome yeah so we've so my brother and i my brother's caddy
for me a bunch over the years and even when i played the tour in 2000.
So Nate and I flew up on Sunday. We got there in Benton Harbor and we get to
play nine holes to see the golf course.
And the greens were really tough. They were, they were not fast.
(31:40):
They were actually pretty slow. And I was like, Ooh, I have a feeling they're
going to crank these up pretty good.
But there was a ton of undulation. Let's give and tell you, I mean,
there was a lot of undulation.
And what he did was he would have like four like segments of the green.
So that's where they would put the pins a lot. You know, they would try to get
them in all those certain areas.
And then Monday was awesome because I got to play practice around the broad
(32:02):
Pampling and John send in both Australians.
Pamps and I go way back. We played a ton of golf together.
He's had a successful career on the PJ tour winning a few times.
And then on the senior tour, he's won a few times and send in,
you know, he won a, he won once on the PJ tour, but he's, he's young 50. He's like 50, 51.
(32:22):
So he's just getting going now, but he's already, he's already playing great.
I mean, the guys, Both those guys are great players.
Tuesday, we had the day off, so we just kind of practiced.
Wednesday, I got to play a practice round with Michael Wright.
He's a new player from Australia on the senior tour that qualified this year.
And then everybody flew in. So Liz, the kids, my parents, my cousins came up.
(32:45):
And then one of my really good friends from the club came up as well.
Jason was going to have dinner ready for us at 6.30,
but when we landed, we ended up driving an
hour the wrong way with technology you were
saying i was getting technology it wasn't false so it
ended up adding you know instead of an hour would end up being three hours so
(33:06):
i said to the group look here's the deal and i wasn't in charge i'm just letting
that be known it can only get better from this point forward because being in
the car and it wasn't that comfy with all those people and little kids for three
hours and there's no picnic So what time did you finally reach on Wednesday night?
I think it was like nine o'clock. We just did it by, we have two girls Taylor Swift songs.
(33:27):
So it was like, we went from having one Taylor Swift song left to then when
we found out it was the wrong way, we were visiting Michigan State monthly campus.
Not close to the tournament.
It turned into like 30 Taylor Swift songs.
And then once we reached there, it was about nine o'clock.
(33:48):
So it's the night before your first round. What do you feel at that point?
You've already been on the PGA Tour, so you already know some of these guys,
but you're not playing the tour.
I mean, do you have a certain level of nervousness?
For sure. I was definitely nervous the first two days, enough where I told my
(34:13):
family that I think my heart skipped a beat twice when I was playing once each day.
And it was just interesting, like the first day, I got paired with Philip Price, who's,
wales who's won a couple times over there in
europe now plays like their champions tour
over there and then a guy dave branston
(34:33):
he's another australian australia you can hear in this segment that that was
the key to my week i think and he's he was he's like 50 years old he could kill
it man he could hit it far but you know we got out there we had a nice group
dave didn't play quite you
know, perfect golf, obviously shot like maybe four over,
(34:54):
but he still had, he had, you could tell he's a great player and he,
he was just some, you know, the next day he could shoot who knows what.
And Phillip and I both played solid. I shot two under, I mean,
he shot, I think even, so, you know, the cut after the first day looked like
it was going to be around plus two.
And we came out there and it was, it was two, you know,
(35:15):
two great days, the first day and the the second day a great day weather-wise
and you know we kind of all started
playing a little bit better and i got to
the seventh hole and made it double and that
brought me back to i think even on the day
and then i i kind of kicked it back
into gear made some birdies anyways finished my round with one
(35:37):
under so three under was my total and three
over was the cut but we finished in the dead dark and
i mean dark dark dark it was 9 30 when
i made the last pot so it was black outside
and philip price ended up making he went bogey bogey
double to miss the cut and david ended
up having some some difficulties during the
(35:59):
round certain areas so he wasn't he wasn't really close
to the cut but you know that once i got
home that night and was late we had a
dinner ready for us which was very thankful by
my cousin and we had like
two beers and i was so relieved
i can't tell you how relieved i was so i make the cut you know now now we have
(36:24):
the weekend you know hopefully have a good weekend of course now the next day
with weather coming in they told us that the first seat time was gonna be 8
15 and i'm looking at my clock i'm like it's already 11 o'clock i mean i I get
to go to bed and get up in six hours.
So, you know, that was interesting. I woke up and I was not,
my body was feeling really tired.
(36:45):
Warming up didn't feel great. And then all of a sudden I got on the golf course
and birdied the first hole.
Kind of put a spark there. Next thing you know, I think I, I don't remember
if I birdied. No, I think I parred two. Birdied three.
I think I might have bogeyed four. Then five was a par five, knocked it on two.
Now all of a sudden I'm not tired anymore. And then I really started getting
(37:08):
going, but I felt way more relaxed.
And just kind of play golf and next thing you know i ran out of holes i was on 18.
I shot four under heading
into sunday and when i get done that day oh yeah i
had an eagle on seven that's right so seven i'll
back it up seven i hit not my best
(37:29):
drive it was straight and it was a funky hole kind of went
out straight out and then it went to the
right and then behind the green that was elevated with big dunes
and stuff behind the green was the the lake lake michigan
but you could see the wind was coming in pretty good
from up top so my brother we have 177 to
the pennies like a little five hybrid it goes like 200 i
(37:50):
said i'm gonna try to get a 195 and i tugged it
just a smidge hits the hill and it kicked back down onto the green and all the
people up by the green were going go go go and the ball just kept trickling
and they were like jumping up and down like the thinking that the earth would
move the thing down and it clicked into the cup for an eagle. Wow.
(38:12):
It was like electric. It was really cool. There was only one hole I missed.
It was the seventh hole. Two days in a row because the same daughter,
the oldest one, on the weekend, the first time during the eagle wanted sheaved ice.
The next day, he made a birdie on it as well and she wanted pretzels.
So apparently I need to not come to any tournaments with the girls.
(38:35):
I was going to ask you, Liz, whether you follow Jason around with the notebook
to kind of because, you know, with your golf IQ,
you could you could be on the outside, you know, you know, giving him a postmortem
after the round. No, I followed him around.
It was it was 10 mile walk. We had to the two girls with us.
They were great. Definitely didn't follow around with a notebook.
(38:58):
We followed him around with the Barbie dolls. else so before
we get into the final round jason just to level set
the listener how far do you hit your driver how
far do you hit your seven iron yeah i
probably hit my driver you know comfortably right around the 280 you know 280
yard mark if you will i'll probably carry it close to 255 260 and obviously
(39:23):
when i'm swinging really good i can get it out there a little bit further but
i would say right in that area.
My seven iron goes on a full swing right at 175.
So I'll, you know, I can back it up to 160. So, you know, I need to hit something
soft, but, you know, roughly it's about a 175 for a full shot.
(39:44):
And what aspect of your game would you rate the strongest? Is it your ball striking,
your short game, your putting?
You know, it varies, obviously, you know, for the last few years I've been in
the Met section, I feel like I've driven the ball extremely well.
But I would say my wedge game is probably my strongest part.
I feel like I can wedge it with anybody, especially when I'm on.
(40:06):
And then, you know, listen, when you, like I said before on the podcast,
that once you're playing well, everything kind of shows up.
And I feel like my putter has been very strong of late.
So, you know, it kind of goes with territory.
When things are going good, you just have to keep your mind from thinking about,
not thinking about what the outcome could be.
(40:27):
That's the whole key to it. I've had so many people ask me, you know,
my dad was like, I don't even know how you did it. He goes, I think I would
have, you know, just, just laid down the fairway because I couldn't handle it.
And I'm like, well, listen, I just don't think about the next shot.
I'm really just, after I hit it, I just kind of clear my brain,
talk about, you know, Boston sports with my brother or see the kids over in the corner,
(40:49):
you know, walking down the fairway and then get to the shot and go,
okay, what are we going to do now from this shot to where it's got to be placed?
And I think that's the key. and for a
early morning start like saturday what's your
breakfast like i mean do you carry food with you onto the course like how do
you sustain yourself throughout the round sure so i'm not a big breakfast guy
(41:11):
so i'm more of just like listen if i have a breakfast bar a cup and a half of
coffee and then i'll have when i'm warming up i'll definitely drink a water i've been drinking more.
Rehydrate stuff this year than i have in the past i feel like that kind of helped as well,
but you know when you're warming up it's it's it's more of
(41:31):
just kind of getting yourself ready to go and then on the golf course listen
i i'm definitely aware of when i need to eat i'm not one of those guys that
just says look i'm not going to eat till the ninth hole i'll eat when i'm ready
to eat so if i'm three holes in and they have stuff out there i'll grab something and started eating.
So I'm eating, you know, out there on the course, I've eaten granola bars.
(41:52):
I'll eat apples. I eat a lot of apples this week.
I like to chew gum when I play. I think that's another aspect of kind of controlling
your emotions a little bit.
I feel like it calms you down a little. And I do think that that's something
that, you know, I've picked up over the last couple of years.
I do like to chew gum when I'm playing.
(42:13):
Okay. So by the end of Saturday, you're in contention And now suddenly there's
demands on your time, right? There's a press conference.
You got to, how does that work? Like the PGA comes and tells you,
or because you're in contention, you have a press conference or it's,
is there going to be a press conference no matter what you do?
Yeah. So no, they, so obviously as a club professional, I think that's one of
(42:36):
the reasons why they wanted to talk to me as much as they did,
but they, you know, they'll, they'll tell you right.
As soon as you walk out of the scores tent, Hey, I need to take you over to here.
So they take you over there and then when you go in you just have your press
conference and you they ask you a zillion questions and there's about four or five reporters in there,
and you know it's and it's awesome to have that feeling to be able to go in
there because you know if you are that means you're doing something pretty good
(42:59):
and you know who would have known i would be playing the second to last group
that's the other thing i mean as the day went on both day saturday and sunday
you can see that as you get closer to the leaderboard the guys were making some
faults towards the end of the round.
So I'm going the other way. I'm going up the leaderboard. So it was kind of like, whoa.
So, yeah, it was really cool to be able to go in there and talk to them because
(43:23):
I knew I was playing well.
And, you know, when I'm done with those press conferences, we kind of had a
decent amount of time left to spend the day.
So we went over to Lake Michigan. The kids jumped in the water.
And I was a little nervous, to be honest.
But I kept trying to tell myself, look, you're only telling yourself,
again, like you're fast forwarding things. Don't fast forward. Just let it go.
(43:46):
It's just, you just got to play golf. And if you start thinking about it too
much, you're going to, you'll be more nervous. And that's when bad things can happen.
So Liz, at that point, you know, you won like multiple championships,
like many, many years in a row.
Do you have a word with Jason about, you know, just staying in the moment and
(44:06):
stuff like that, or you just leave him alone?
You know, it was interesting because I was like mic'd for play,
which is if anybody who knows me closely is probably not a good mic'd for play.
I haven't dealt too little on this, but they were like, are you going to go and like wish him luck?
And then they were like looking for me to do that. And I'm like,
I just like, we don't really, I'm like, okay, have fun.
(44:30):
And then I go and walk up and there's, there's really no interaction.
I actually made a point to not bring anything up all week.
He was doing so well. and I mean, nobody really needs to hear an I believe in
you speech because it has to come with it from within.
If I gave him some pep talk, like, oh, I'm so proud of you.
I did felt like that would put more, even though I know it's more proud than
(44:52):
I am and his parents and the kids.
I didn't want that to actually put more pressure on him. So I kept my mouth
shut. I tried to not talk about anything golf related.
So Saturday evening, you come back from Lake Michigan. What time do you go to bed?
Yeah. So we, you know, it's just, listen, the next day again,
it was another early one.
(45:13):
So we all went to bed probably 10 o'clock or so, had a nice dinner again at
the house, had, you know, my friends and cousins over there.
And we just had a really nice time.
Good friend of mine, Brett Quigley swung by and had a drink with us.
But, you know, that again, I slept almost perfect that night,
which I knew was a good sign. again.
(45:35):
That means my mind relaxed. It just kind of let things go.
Plus I was, I'm sure I was exhausted because we didn't sleep too well the night
before because we didn't get that much sleep. We had to be right back out there.
So yeah, so, you know, kind of was ready to go with that the next morning.
So the next morning, you know, you go through your routine. What time was your
tea time? Was it like nine something? Yeah, it was like 927.
(45:58):
So it was the second to last group. had a good warm up again everything was ready to go.
And, you know, you get to, you know, walk over that deer. And just before I
walked to the tee, Ernie Ellis said, you looked over at me and said,
Hey, Jason, great playing so far this week. Keep it up.
And that kind of made me feel pretty good about, you know, the way things were going.
So head over the first tee, I hit a nice low bullet right down the middle.
(46:22):
And someone said, I think it was DeMarco said to me, he was,
man, that thing really didn't even get in the air and, you know, went past my drive.
I said, I said, I was a little nervous on the first shot. I said,
I just needed to get that thing in play.
And so it was a nice shot to start the day. So was that the shot that kind of settled you down?
(46:42):
Because there's always that moment in the round where you say,
yeah, I got it. You know, I'm over the initial jiggers.
Yeah, I read off the bat. Boom. So I think that shot, I was like,
OK, now let's just go play golf.
Got down there. I had, again, like a 122 shot, I think was to the pin.
I said to my brother, I said, what do you think, 112, 115?
That's a gap wedge for me. And he said, yep. And we hit it.
(47:05):
It was right at the stick boom like four feet birdie
then the next hole hit it you know hit it
close again made made a part i missed the
putt then the next hole was a no no i
birdied the second hole i missed the putt on the third hole for
birdie and then i parred four parred
five i missed a close one
(47:27):
on six and then we got to seven which was
the eagle hole which is a it's a it's a it's
a nasty lucky hole when you're standing there because it's watered right just
dooms up you know in front of you and the whole dog legs right so then i go
birdie seven birdie eight birdie nine and birdie ten so i'm six under through
(47:49):
ten holes which was now i'm really relaxed.
So i mean at that point,
Are you fast forwarding to anything or are you thinking about mechanics?
Like what's the thought process at that point? Yeah. You know,
your thought process is just, you know, keep this thing going.
Don't stop. Don't slow it down.
(48:10):
I think one thing that I've learned is that, you know, again,
even though your mind wants to race, so does your body, right?
You want to get up and hit the next shot right away.
But it's really just kind of calm yourself down and do the same exact routine.
I know it sounds crazy, but if you could get yourself in the same routine,
maybe even the routine be so much to where it's almost how much time it takes
(48:34):
you to pull a club out and to hit the ball.
If that's the same amount of time or close to it, that'll help you as well.
When you just grab it because you're nervous and you just put the peg in the
ground and look out and whack it, you know, that's not very good.
And a lot of bad things can happen. And so I just kind of kept it going and
hit great shots on 11, 12. I didn't hit the best tee ball.
(48:57):
I had to lay it off. I hit a nice little pitch in there and made the puck apart.
13 had a good six iron on the par three. And then 14, I hit a great drive,
but it was just in the rough.
And we, and we hit, we thought we hit the right club just to get to the front
of the green and let it run down to towards the cup, but it stayed short.
Hit a nice putt, just missed, but it went by about six, eight feet.
(49:19):
And I hit the maybe the best part of the week and it
stopped on the front edge half the ball was hanging in
the hole and I'm like how in the world did I just leave that short I
couldn't believe it so 15's a
par five I didn't hit a I mean hit an okay chip but
I hit it and I hit a really good puppet just didn't go in now you got 16 17
18 now this is where you got to play good and 16 was a tough driving hole the
(49:43):
wind was out of the left all water left and it's a sliver a fairway heading
because it's almost like a 90 degree dog leg but the dog leg starts at like 250,
so you got to get a good t-ball there and i absolutely smoked it down the middle
and uh hit a great eight iron in there to like four feet and made birdie and
(50:03):
krista marco goes man that is a heck of a birdie today so i was like yeah i
guess that is you know that made me feel pretty good.
Unfortunately, I made a bogey on 17. Weather was coming in.
They were going to blow the horn. It was blowing. It was starting to rain, so you made your bogey.
Yeah, I made my bogey on 17 and the horn blew, and I had to come back out and
(50:26):
finish that last hole, which thankfully hit maybe the best drive of the week
down the right center and didn't hit a great pitching wedge onto the green,
but luckily the two putt.
Then I had to wait for Ernie to make his bogey on 18 to help my pocketbook a little bit.
Wow. So, a great week, great outcome for you, I mean, for the whole family. And,
(50:50):
Have has anything changed because of this high finish?
Like, have you started thinking about maybe playing the champions to or a bit bit more?
You know, listen, like I said in my press conferences, I have a great know where
it has been, you know, just a tremendous support to Liz and I and our family.
So, listen, no, I don't want to do it every every week. And one of the reasons
(51:14):
why I couldn't do it every week is I need to make sure the members have their
events and they're done right. And I want to make sure of that.
Now, if there's other weeks that are available and someone made a phone call
to me, yes, I definitely would love to play.
And I know the club would want me to play probably because they love it.
I mean, they're going to have a dinner for me tomorrow night for Liz and I and
(51:35):
the kids, which is, I mean, that's just the kind of club that shows you right there.
Right they're having a dinner for me which is
you know i just work there but it is it's
just tremendous opportunities are out there i just
don't know if some of the things will pop up and be in my schedule with the
club but we'll see you know we're just gonna have to see and but it was just
(51:55):
an amazing week having my family there and the kids there it's just my mom and
dad i mean that just was icing on the cake that's great and you know that liz
is going to be there at mill river
to back you up in case you're gone right so you know
many people don't have that so exactly and
Matt Lavolce is my first
(52:16):
assistant as well he does a great job so listen you
definitely need a support you know behind you and I
know I would have that playing but I just I just for me
my morals are that I want to be there for the members I
want them if there's a member guest I want to be there i don't want to not be
there so listen that's that's that comes first for me right now is to make sure
(52:38):
the job is done right if there's weeks out there that you know some of these
terms would like to have you know give me an invite i would definitely take
it up and definitely go play.
That's wonderful. So as we kind of wind down our conversation, I'll hand it back to Liz.
If you have anything we've missed, anything, you know, the average listener
(52:58):
could use to improve his or her game, and then I'll turn it back over to Jason.
Oh, I'm just going to touch on, I think, what Jason said about tempo and timing
for the average listener.
I mean, you look at these guys on tour what there was jason
this past week ernie ells and krista marco or
or bland like bland was the winner why did he
(53:20):
win maybe his tempo was the best that week so
if you can focus on having a good pre-shot routine and
having good tempo maybe looking at the target counting
one looking at the ball two your backswing
three and hitting the ball four thinking one two
three four with good tempo you're only
going to think about something positive you're not going to think oh i'm
(53:42):
gonna you know block this into the trees or
hit it into the hazard so let's keep with that good tempo target
ball backswing and that's going to help a lot you'll see
a lot more good shots that way what about you jason
anything we've missed which you would like to add you
know honestly i think that short game again is
where you want to help your scores the best
(54:03):
is going going to be where you're chipping and putting and bunker shots
i have a lot of people that come up to me for bunker play and i was telling
them look the goal would be to just make sure that when you in that bunker you're
going to get it out onto the green and then from there to putt and move on right
so you know like liz said on top of that you want to make sure you have a good pre-shot routine.
(54:26):
Tempo is key i think and just don't be so mechanical out there you got to be
able to to have some feels.
And when you get those feels and they work, write them down.
Make sure you do write them down, put them in your notes, do it.
Everybody's got a phone now. You can just talk into it for your notes so you can go back to it.
Maybe see your PGA professional, maybe take a lesson, get some video.
(54:48):
You can always store that. You can put it on your phone, right?
There's always those kind of little things you can always go back to when it
goes crooked because it seems like the game does go crooked more than it does go great.
So I think that one of the things you you want to do is just be prepared
that listen it's not you usually it usually
lasts a short period of time not a real long period of time the good
(55:08):
stuff but you will have something to fall back on thank you jason and thank
you liz you've been wonderful a champion couple clearly the love for the games
you know shines through best of luck to both of you and thank you so much for
making the time and that ladies and gentlemen is a wrap for today in audio.
(55:29):
Music.
Yeah, it was like 9.27, so it was the second-to-last group. Had a good warm-up.
Again, everything was, you know, ready to go.
And, you know, you get to, you know, walk over that tee. Just before I walked
to the tee, Ernie Ellis said, he looked over at me and said,
Hey, Jason, great playing so far this week. Keep it up.
And that kind of made me feel pretty good about, you know, the way things were
(00:20):
going. So, headed over to the first tee. I hit a nice, low-polling tee.
Music.
(00:40):
Welcome, everyone, to the Accelerate Golf Podcast, where we explore player improvement
and the business of golf through conversations.
I'm your host, Bikram Kapoor, and today I have the honor of speaking with the
first husband-wife duo on the show, Liz Giannangelo Caron is a legend in women's
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golf, especially in Connecticut.
Jason Caron just came back from a tied fourth finish at the 2024 Senior PGA Championship.
So both of you, highly accomplished players. Currently, Jason,
you are the head pro at the Mill River Country Club in Oyster Bay, New York.
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And Liz, you actually work with Jason. How does that work? How does that feel?
As being the husband and wife who were running the Mill River Country Club.
See, so this is perfect. We had our first fight on the air. We were pointing
at each other to see who would answer.
But no, it's been great. We never anticipated working together.
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And when Jason got the head pro job, that's what comes with the territory.
So it was wonderful to be able to work with him.
And now having two little ones who are seven and 11, it's really been a blessing.
So we've enjoyed it and we don't talk too much golf at home,
but when we're at work, we definitely work as a team to get everything accomplished.
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So the first question which pops to my mind is, how did you guys meet?
You know, you were obviously on the PGA Tour, the Nike Tour,
and Liz, you were on the LPGA.
How did your paths cross?
We happened to know a couple that was opening an art studio down in Jupiter, Florida.
And I went with some friends down there to the opening, and Liz came in a little
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bit later because she knew the husband of the couple.
And we we just kind of crossed paths
exchanged numbers talked about you know what we're
doing in our lives at the time playing wise and then we
end up playing some rounds of golf together and just
kind of blossomed from there and this was when 2010
or so this was been 20 it
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was a 2000 yeah maybe like 2008 or
9 yeah okay and at that time were you
still playing on the pga year tour i was playing the
what is called now the corn fairy tour and liz liz was
in between seasons from coming off the lpj
tour to play the symmetra now yeah epson
now which is like their corn fairy tour and then we dated that one year the
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next year she got her tour card back again so she played the lpj tour that second
year so yeah it's you know we we got to watch each other to play golf in some
bigger events. We really just first started dating.
Great, great. So Liz, you spent quite a few years playing excellent golf in Connecticut.
Can you just take the listener through that golf journey?
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You were one of the youngest women to actually win on the Connecticut amateur circuit.
What was that like? Can you just step us through that?
Sure. Growing up, I played all kinds of sports. You know, it's so important,
I think, to do that in order to become a better athlete.
So soccer, golf, tennis, baseball.
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And all of a sudden my dad said, hey, I'm going to sign you up for the Connecticut Women's Amateur.
And I was 13 years old playing, you know, little league baseball.
And I'm like, all right, well, we'll play.
And played the first round, played well. And my brother caddied for me.
And the next day it was rain. It got rained out and started getting all these phone calls.
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You won, you won. It was handled as one round event.
So from 13 years old, having that happen,
it kind of like everything took off from there and still played a lot of different sports growing up,
continued to play in the Connecticut State Amateurs and then was fortunate enough
to play golf at Duke University for four years there and played two years on the LPGA.
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So that all stemmed from Connecticut and its golf It's Connecticut Golf Association and that one event.
So, you know, one day, kind of similar to Jason, it's almost like a one-day
thing can sort of change your life.
And you ended up winning the Connecticut Women's Amateur five times in a row,
if I'm not wrong, correct? Yes.
Yes. So when I played from 13 on and won the five years and then decided to
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not play after that point forward,
the Connecticut Open was established and I would continue to play in that and college events.
And my first professional win was special because it was the Connecticut Women's Open.
So it was great to share that with the state and do it in Connecticut.
And you ended up winning the Connecticut Women's Open quite a few times as well.
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Yeah, so similar to that, I won it a few times in college and then played in
it professionally. That was my first professional event.
And I'm not sure if since then I've been able to capture the title in Bad With
Dates, but it's fun to be able to go back every year.
Unfortunately, this year we had a conflict with the Met section event,
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but it's just fun to support.
And regardless of how I play, it's fun to go back and see those faces of the CSGA.
That's awesome. And Jason, what was your introduction to golf like?
Yeah, when I was young, my dad, he was a plumber on Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, but he was more into hunting and fishing.
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But I remember he played golf with some of his friends or something.
He had me out there like caddy and pulling his cart.
And I was probably like eight or nine years old and probably maybe hit a couple
little shots or whatnot. not.
And at the public golf course that I grew up at Bass River, which is in the
town of South Yarmouth, they would have these Thursday clinics as a kid.
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And we started to go to those clinics.
And, you know, again, I was playing other sports.
I was really into baseball, into hockey, and just, I don't know what it is about
golf, but it just kind of gravitated towards me, I guess.
And then I had just a mad brother that wanted to play, he's a little bit younger than me.
And and another really good friend of mine, Mark Woods, that was just a neighbor.
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And the three of us would play golf, I mean, almost every day it felt like during
the summers up to about like 13 when we started to, you know,
actually 14, maybe start working a little bit.
So, you know, I got to play a lot of golf when I was young.
Never thought that I would ever be where I am today at the time,
but just kind of kept working at it.
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And next thing you know, you know, you go to college and then.
Everything kept getting better and better and better and, you know,
turned pro and started playing in some smaller events and then worked my way up to the big tour.
So were you part of the high school team and you got recruited into college?
Yeah. So back then, I mean, I'm 51. I hate to say my age, but,
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you know, back then we really didn't have computers or, you know,
cell phones or anything like that. So it was hard for me to get my name out.
Unlike Liz, you know, she was winning everything that she played in,
whether it was junior golf in Connecticut or even, you know,
the, what's the other thing called?
The AJGA. AJGA. Couldn't come up with that one.
You know, so I just played local stuff. So I was unfortunately just local.
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So no one really knew who I was. So I had to reach out to some schools.
And when I did, my resume kind of caught some people's eyes.
I was offered a scholarship at Charleston Southern University down in Charleston, South Carolina.
And, you know, I went down there for four years. I kind of dedicated myself
to golf and not school so much.
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My brother said my face should have been next to the letter C because that's
all I got for grades and C's.
But I really worked hard on my game and I really wanted to be on the PGA Tour.
And it helped me kind of, you know, get going and try to figure out how good I could be.
And when I was playing in some of the bigger amateur events and and you know
finishing top 10 I was like wow maybe I could play golf on the PGA Tour or at
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least the next level and a few years later there I was.
So which which year was that was it like the mid-90s? So 2000 was my first year
on tour 2003 was my second year and I played the Korn Ferry Tour 0102 I guess
what 04567 like seven and then eight,
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I played like half a season. I had an injury.
I mean, then I played some more in nine, 10. Um, and then I kind of,
Looking to find my game again, never really got it fully back totally to be out there anymore.
So that's when I turned into the club pro business.
Okay. And that's right around the time you guys met.
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And so I'm sure as you thought about as a future together, what was the path forward then?
Can you just step us through 2010 and forward?
Yeah. You know, so, you know, Liz really was the, she first said,
look, I'm kind of done playing.
I want to be like maybe into coaching or even teaching.
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And, you know, we looked into some stuff and she, she has a lot of connections, but we got it.
We, she ended up getting herself a job over in Bonita Springs, Florida.
So we spent the winter over there
before she got hired up at Rock Rim and Country Club up in Connecticut.
So in Greenwich, Connecticut area. So we are Stanford. I mean,
we ended up traveling up there.
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I was still trying to figure out if I'm going to play at all.
And I actually just kind of played a little bit more that summer.
And leaning into the fall, I kind of went to the Q school. I said,
if I don't make it, I'm done. I didn't make it through.
So Si, when I country club, which is dear, dear spot in my heart here,
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because Grant Turner, you know, looked at me as like he was.
He was a player as well on the European Tour, and I came off the PGA Tour,
and he looked at me and said, you know what, I'm going to give you a whirl.
And he gave me a job there at Silanoy, and it was a great, great job, great platform for me.
So Liz and I both had jobs really not far from each other.
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And then, you know, we blossomed up to got this gig at Mill River as the head
golf professional and the assistant.
And which year was that when you started at Mill River? 2015.
Okay, so about nine years ago, and obviously you're still there,
so that's great. There's some continuity going on.
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And while you were at Mill River, you kept playing, and you won a few midsection
tournaments as well, right?
Yeah, so that nice thing about Mill River is they've always,
I think, through their past, they've always had a very good playing head golf professional.
Professional and in the med section the thing
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that people don't realize that we have probably the best section in
the country when it comes to players our tournaments
are very very good we have you know good sponsors that that help us play in
these big events but really the the head golf professionals the assistants they
all want to be in the med section if they can i get phone calls from friends
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that are still looking to get into our section and because they know it is it is the best.
So yeah, fortunate enough to, you know, actually Liz kind of helped me really click in 19, 2019.
We were talking actually over dinner, which we don't usually talk about golf.
And I was just, I just mentioned to her, like, look, I'm kind of tired,
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but I feel like my hands are behind me too much. And she says,
well, I'll take a peek at you tomorrow.
So she walks, she was actually finishing the lesson. I brought one club with
me, a five iron, and I was hitting some shots on the range.
She walked over to me and she goes, just make believe your hands are like going
down your toe line on your backswing.
And I'm like, well, how is that? And she's like, just keep your hands like feeling
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like not behind you, but out front of you on your backswing,
like it would be on a toe line.
And I was like, okay, the first shot I hit, it made a noise.
And I looked at it and I go, whoa, I haven't heard that in a long time.
And man, did it not just click? I mean, it was like an instant click too.
And next thing you know, a couple of weeks later, I qualified for a couple of things.
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Then I got into like the New York State Open, played great.
And it just kept going. And I won. I think I won the I'm trying to remember
exactly which one I won that year.
I think it was the Met PGA Championship towards in September.
And then it just kept snowballing. I got into the PGA Cup.
I mean, it was just all sorts of cool things happened. And it was really just
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her just giving me that one quick tip and it just instantly clicked for me.
And ever since then, I'm not kidding you. It's been really good. So I can't complain.
So hopefully you paid your coach pretty good for that lesson.
Yeah, I think I bought her dinner.
You're doing a good job with the laundry lately too. So yeah, he's good with that.
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It's been kind of one of sort of like that same, you know, remark you just said.
It's like people have said that a lot, you know, because I said really it was
her just saying that one simple little, you know, tip to get my game to turn right around.
And what happens in golf, that once you get that, you find that one little click,
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it instantly gives you that confidence.
And we know what that gives you. Your putting is going to be better.
Your driving is going to be better. Your chipping becomes better.
Your bunkers become instantly.
You have so much confidence in yourself that it doesn't matter where you hit it.
You just feel like, man, I can get it up and down or I can hit a good golf shot
over water or whatever it's got to be.
So it was pretty nice timing, that's for sure. Sure.
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Just like step in, I would say, you know, you played so well and you worked
on your game and then with that confidence comes, but like, we kind of have this joke in the family.
Jason's always says, if I had your golf swing and you had my brain,
like we would be perfect golfers.
I think that's the thing, even looking at this Jason success in this past week,
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like the mental toughness is unbelievable.
And it's so important that's built through, you know, hard work and working
on your swing, but that's what he excels at.
Wow. And Liz, did he ever reciprocate and give you a lesson to help you with your game?
He does. And he helps me more with the mental side.
He, you know, trying to go out there, react, you know, look at a target,
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almost sort of, I feel like Jason plays more in that vision of 54 mindset of
seeing and doing and not really thinking about how you do it,
but just make that actual shot happened.
Like not necessarily. I think, I think.
Because we both have that athletic background and playing so many sports at
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a young age, we all know how to throw a ball to our daughter and have her catch it.
We're not thinking about, okay, how far are we going to take it back?
I think sometimes people get so stuck in the how to do something in golf and
being so perfect that it's almost crippling.
So we just try to be athletes out there. We don't maybe necessarily teach that
way, but I mean, that's what works for us.
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So as a couple you
know both of you have such high golf iqs you
you said initially that you don't really discuss golf at home
except for that one you know really fortunate time and really paid up for you
jason but i mean do you have any difference of opinions about the way to swing
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about some technical aspects of of golf ever yeah i'm sure they're you know
I had to really think about that, but no,
there's definitely, listen, I've always said that every philosophy works.
It just doesn't work for you.
You know? And I think that if you think about it, that every teacher that teaches golf is right.
But then again, it has to fit for you. And I think that with Liz,
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you know, I don't really get into listening to her teach much.
I just try to tell her again, mentally, like she's got, she's got the golf swing.
She's got the game. She's already, you know played at
the highest level most of these people that we play with
have never even thought about playing at that high level so it's
really just becomes between your ears and that's a lot of times and i'm giving
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my lessons i i try to dig in a little bit i'll say look do you hit the ball
forward they'll go yeah then i go why do we drive by the short game area then
because that's where you're going to make you know your your handicap get lowers
by chipping it closer bunker closer.
And making more putts. And then, and then if it's, if they're okay with that
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situation, they go, I'm pretty good in that area. I'll go, okay. And the long game.
Okay. Then what are you thinking when you, before you hit the shot,
you picture in your golf shot, are you picking a spot in front of your ball to line up?
If that's your problem, you know, is, are you playing the wind?
Are you, you know, are you trying to hit it through the tree or over the tree
or around the tree? Right. Cause through the tree doesn't usually work.
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So, you know, there's a lot of, you know aspects of
everyone's game is so different but you
know i would say that for the most part no i'm
not going to pick on what you know what she does because again
we're all right in our own mind at least and
in into that one person it's just getting that person
to to see if it works for them really and the
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funny thing is like you know if you were to say something negative
about our game like if we got divorced we both have to
find new jobs so you know husbands you want
to make sure to keep it light all the time but
you kind of going back to Jason talking about instruction
and making changes you know I noticed a
lot lately it's it's like think about think about golf and making a change like
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if you were working out if you go to the gym once a week and you lift weights
are you going to see any noticeable difference no I mean same with your golf
game like in order to truly make a change and you look at these guys on court you need to eat it,
drink it, sleep on it.
It needs to consume you. It's so hard to make a change when you've done something your whole life.
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So it's just important to know that it's going to take time in doing so.
We can't, you know, go on a diet one day a week. We can't lift weights one day
a week. We need to do golf a lot in order to be successful.
So this kind of brings an interesting thought into my mind.
You know, both of you have played golf at the highest level for multiple Looking
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back, if you had to rewind and learn the game again.
What would you change from how you learned it, you know, before you had all this wisdom?
And now if you go back and you had that opportunity.
I know for me, you know, my dream, okay, I didn't dream big enough.
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I always dreamt that I could be on the PGA Tour.
I just never dreamt that I could win on the PGA Tour.
And I, you know, it's funny. Someone mentioned this to me about five years ago.
And I told him that I said, I just wish I dreamt that I won on the tour.
And that's what I think a lot of these guys that are playing now,
the younger guys, they've been bred to grow up in the game, be ready to play
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and ready to win right away. And I didn't have that.
That's one thing I definitely wish I did differently, but I wouldn't change
my game because I was a grinder.
I knew how to work hard, spend a lot of time practicing, and when it was my
turn, I won my fair share of events.
I played in some of the biggest events you could play in as a professional.
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So I think just dreaming bigger would have been the thing that I wish I did better.
What about you, Liz? is. I feel similarly to Jason.
The best investment is the investment that you can make in yourself.
And I think if I look back, I didn't invest in myself enough.
I did not take the time or spend the extra money to... I always had an amazing
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golf coach in Connecticut, Dave Pienke.
I just didn't take the time to, let's say, go back and fly to go see him.
We didn't have as much technology back then.
And that's kind of what I regret is not investing in myself enough.
I see. And, you know, you brought up a good point about technology and access
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to information about life on tour.
Now, you can really build a picture, a mental picture of what a tour pro's life,
you know, kind of looks like because of YouTube and Instagram and people sharing on social media.
You know back in the 90s and maybe the early 2000s at least for me as a consumer
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of professional golf it was the television broadcast and whatever you read in
in the golf digest right there wasn't that extra layer of access behind the
scenes would that have helped you in any way.
Probably not only because, you know, you're when you're in in that circle,
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you know, you do have opportunities to work with some of the best coaches.
I work with Todd Anderson, who's worked with a gazillion guys on tour in T.A.
And I would work hard, you know, in the offseason, especially.
And then during the season, you come out and work with some of us.
And same with Bob Rotella.
Liz and I have become really good friends with Bob and his wife, Darlene.
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So, you know, we go out for pizza with them in the wintertime,
even though we're still playing on tour, we still have dinner with them and
just hang out. So, you know, we've had access there. We've been in that circle.
But, you know, the technology part today, yeah, you can dissect like exactly
where you're missing your shot pattern, I guess you would say.
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More now in today's world than was when I was playing and probably the same with Liz. is.
But I think, you know, we still had plenty of access to get the best instruction.
When you're at the top of the, you know, you meet top 200 players in the world,
you're going to get that opportunity.
It's just, you know, can you take it in and take it to that next level is really the key to it.
(23:14):
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(23:38):
And Liz, I remember watching one of your interviews from years ago,
and part of the reason you said you left the LPGA was because it was lonely
out there, if you remember.
Can you elaborate on that a little bit? I think this is good timing for that.
You saw today, Lexi Thompson just retired. I don't even know if Jason saw that.
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You know, the LPGA is very different, I feel, than the PGA.
For me I didn't have you know
I didn't have a ton of other golfers
out there that kind of I mean like I hung out with Laura Diaz we had similar
interests we go work out and go for runs but you have different levels you have
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your elite players and you know there weren't weren't too many people that I
found an interest with so it was hard and lowly I didn't really have a team
but you know I I have no regrets.
It was amazing to see all kinds of different places in the country.
And I always had a great family and support system out there,
but there's a lot of downtime.
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Jason and I talk about that. I think even this past week, just having us out
there, you know, and have our girls distract him from his great play,
you know, whether it's helping them with their homework or, you know,
they need snacks and are doing cartwheels just to have those distractions.
I mean, that's huge and important because if you're teeing off at three,
o'clock and you wake up at eight in the morning, that's a lot of time.
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I mean, you can only walk around a grocery store or Walmart for so long.
That's right. And I'm just kind of wondering, because, you know,
when you were at Duke, you were part of a team and a lot of college golf is
actually a team sport, you know, NCAA team championships and so on.
A lot of the more popular team events like the Ryder Cup are hugely,
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you know, they attract a huge audience.
But there are very few team-oriented events on tour.
And it's only now that, you know, maybe Live Golf has that pod concept where
you have four or five golfers together or six golfers together as a team.
I don't fully understand how the mechanics of that work,
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but conceptually, is that another layer of support which could make life better
for the individual pro on tour to be part of a pod or a group of golfers pulling together as a team?
I mean, maybe. I mean, you look at, like, I played on the Curtis Cup,
Jason played PGA Cup and different, you know, other teams.
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Strong and you i mean i look back on what were my best memories and they were
always with the team i'm not saying i've been support not supporting live but
you know that could be an interesting.
Thing to think about yeah i i
would listen golf's always been an individual
sport the only problem is the ball sits there
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on the ground doesn't it's not being hit back at you or
anything like that or being thrown at you so it's almost
i was telling someone too it's like it's almost like chess right you're
trying to think of that next next shot to set up the next shot to set up the
next shot right so a team aspect of it listen yeah would it be great to have
that yeah i guess you could say that but overall i still think it's an individual
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sport i think today's world these guys do have,
trainers and nutritionists and they got all sorts of stuff coming out because
they're making so much money that they can afford to have these guys out there,
which does help to have that support system.
So yeah, they do definitely have it. I don't know if it's that necessarily, but you know.
(27:17):
Okay. So now just switching tracks to some of the more technical aspects of golf.
Liz, you're, I think, a certified track man instructor and, you know,
the data which comes out of track man, And I feel, you know,
I grew up as an engineer and I felt, wow, you know, this is great.
Now I can tell what I'm doing wrong, at least the results, which could suggest
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certain changes I should be making in the golf swing.
How do you approach that with your students? It's nice to have data to back you up sometimes.
I know sometimes feel versus real and having technology and having numbers and
having video is so helpful.
(28:02):
Instant feedback is great because you could feel like you're swinging eight
degrees over the top and there you are. You're still coming,
you know, four degrees from the inside. side.
So it's neat to show people the video and then show them the numbers and then have them do it again.
And the biggest thing that I can give a student is for them to feel comfortable
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enough to exaggerate a movement.
So once I can get them to feel comfortable enough to exaggerate and have them
exaggerate and actually show them that it wasn't an exaggeration on a video,
I mean, that's huge progress.
That's what I see. And I think the excitement, what do you mean?
Like I can, And, you know, think about it soon and saying, like, what do you mean?
I felt like I was swinging like Jim Furyk, but it doesn't look like that at all.
(28:46):
So it's kind of neat to have that technology to to back you up.
What's your take on it, Jason?
Yes, similar. Like I typically would use TrackMan if someone doesn't almost believe you.
One of my members, I still kid him to this day, he was hitting these wedges
and he was hitting them with these big, huge draws, big sweeping draws.
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And I go, man, you're swinging that club so far from inside out.
It's crazy. And he's like, what do you mean? And I said, well, let me go get track, man.
So we get track, man, put it down and boom, first shot, 13 degrees out to the right.
And the next one, 13 to the right. Next one, 14.
I'm like, that thing should be, he goes, what should it be? I go,
I don't know, like maybe one.
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And he's like, what do you mean one? I said, try to cut that thing in half.
So try to get a fade with a pitching wedge. And this first swing,
it did. It went right down to like seven.
I said, so remember, you just cut it in half.
Now you got to cut that one in half, right? So I think that,
listen, for me, I'm not a technical guy.
I definitely don't want to be technical. I think, in my opinion,
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I may have changed 90 to 95% of the guys playing on the tour when I was playing was all fields.
Tiger talks about it. We might think, you know, you might feel like you're swinging
the club left, but chances are you're not, right?
So I think that your fields is what gets you around the golf course.
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I just don't see technical guys playing that great all the time.
I just don't because they're constantly tinkering.
And I don't think that's what golf is. Larry Bird wouldn't be the best free
throw shooter you know, shooter or three-point shooter by going,
well, if I get my arm here and turn it this way and flip the ball this way with
this much spin, he's not going to do that.
(30:37):
So I feel like it's great to have some technology, but I don't think it's mandatory.
Yeah. And I think Liz made that point earlier about not thinking about how to
do certain things in golf, but rather than just be in the flow and just do it
without really thinking about how to do it.
So just a good segue into to what happened
(30:59):
last week you know your pressure for
tight fourth finish at the senior pga championship
against phenomenal players so
just talk us through that week like when did you fly out of new york just you
know as a family just take us through those five six seven days of really good
(31:20):
golf with a great outcome yeah so we've so my brother and i my brother's caddy
for me a bunch over the years and even when i played the tour in 2000.
So Nate and I flew up on Sunday. We got there in Benton Harbor and we get to
play nine holes to see the golf course.
And the greens were really tough. They were, they were not fast.
(31:40):
They were actually pretty slow. And I was like, Ooh, I have a feeling they're
going to crank these up pretty good.
But there was a ton of undulation. Let's give and tell you, I mean,
there was a lot of undulation.
And what he did was he would have like four like segments of the green.
So that's where they would put the pins a lot. You know, they would try to get
them in all those certain areas.
And then Monday was awesome because I got to play practice around the broad
(32:02):
Pampling and John send in both Australians.
Pamps and I go way back. We played a ton of golf together.
He's had a successful career on the PJ tour winning a few times.
And then on the senior tour, he's won a few times and send in,
you know, he won a, he won once on the PJ tour, but he's, he's young 50. He's like 50, 51.
(32:22):
So he's just getting going now, but he's already, he's already playing great.
I mean, the guys, Both those guys are great players.
Tuesday, we had the day off, so we just kind of practiced.
Wednesday, I got to play a practice round with Michael Wright.
He's a new player from Australia on the senior tour that qualified this year.
And then everybody flew in. So Liz, the kids, my parents, my cousins came up.
(32:45):
And then one of my really good friends from the club came up as well.
Jason was going to have dinner ready for us at 6.30,
but when we landed, we ended up driving an
hour the wrong way with technology you were
saying i was getting technology it wasn't false so it
ended up adding you know instead of an hour would end up being three hours so
(33:06):
i said to the group look here's the deal and i wasn't in charge i'm just letting
that be known it can only get better from this point forward because being in
the car and it wasn't that comfy with all those people and little kids for three
hours and there's no picnic So what time did you finally reach on Wednesday night?
I think it was like nine o'clock. We just did it by, we have two girls Taylor Swift songs.
(33:27):
So it was like, we went from having one Taylor Swift song left to then when
we found out it was the wrong way, we were visiting Michigan State monthly campus.
Not close to the tournament.
It turned into like 30 Taylor Swift songs.
And then once we reached there, it was about nine o'clock.
(33:48):
So it's the night before your first round. What do you feel at that point?
You've already been on the PGA Tour, so you already know some of these guys,
but you're not playing the tour.
I mean, do you have a certain level of nervousness?
For sure. I was definitely nervous the first two days, enough where I told my
(34:13):
family that I think my heart skipped a beat twice when I was playing once each day.
And it was just interesting, like the first day, I got paired with Philip Price, who's,
wales who's won a couple times over there in
europe now plays like their champions tour
over there and then a guy dave branston
(34:33):
he's another australian australia you can hear in this segment that that was
the key to my week i think and he's he was he's like 50 years old he could kill
it man he could hit it far but you know we got out there we had a nice group
dave didn't play quite you
know, perfect golf, obviously shot like maybe four over,
(34:54):
but he still had, he had, you could tell he's a great player and he,
he was just some, you know, the next day he could shoot who knows what.
And Phillip and I both played solid. I shot two under, I mean,
he shot, I think even, so, you know, the cut after the first day looked like
it was going to be around plus two.
And we came out there and it was, it was two, you know,
(35:15):
two great days, the first day and the the second day a great day weather-wise
and you know we kind of all started
playing a little bit better and i got to
the seventh hole and made it double and that
brought me back to i think even on the day
and then i i kind of kicked it back
into gear made some birdies anyways finished my round with one
(35:37):
under so three under was my total and three
over was the cut but we finished in the dead dark and
i mean dark dark dark it was 9 30 when
i made the last pot so it was black outside
and philip price ended up making he went bogey bogey
double to miss the cut and david ended
up having some some difficulties during the
(35:59):
round certain areas so he wasn't he wasn't really close
to the cut but you know that once i got
home that night and was late we had a
dinner ready for us which was very thankful by
my cousin and we had like
two beers and i was so relieved
i can't tell you how relieved i was so i make the cut you know now now we have
(36:24):
the weekend you know hopefully have a good weekend of course now the next day
with weather coming in they told us that the first seat time was gonna be 8
15 and i'm looking at my clock i'm like it's already 11 o'clock i mean i I get
to go to bed and get up in six hours.
So, you know, that was interesting. I woke up and I was not,
my body was feeling really tired.
(36:45):
Warming up didn't feel great. And then all of a sudden I got on the golf course
and birdied the first hole.
Kind of put a spark there. Next thing you know, I think I, I don't remember
if I birdied. No, I think I parred two. Birdied three.
I think I might have bogeyed four. Then five was a par five, knocked it on two.
Now all of a sudden I'm not tired anymore. And then I really started getting
(37:08):
going, but I felt way more relaxed.
And just kind of play golf and next thing you know i ran out of holes i was on 18.
I shot four under heading
into sunday and when i get done that day oh yeah i
had an eagle on seven that's right so seven i'll
back it up seven i hit not my best
(37:29):
drive it was straight and it was a funky hole kind of went
out straight out and then it went to the
right and then behind the green that was elevated with big dunes
and stuff behind the green was the the lake lake michigan
but you could see the wind was coming in pretty good
from up top so my brother we have 177 to
the pennies like a little five hybrid it goes like 200 i
(37:50):
said i'm gonna try to get a 195 and i tugged it
just a smidge hits the hill and it kicked back down onto the green and all the
people up by the green were going go go go and the ball just kept trickling
and they were like jumping up and down like the thinking that the earth would
move the thing down and it clicked into the cup for an eagle. Wow.
(38:12):
It was like electric. It was really cool. There was only one hole I missed.
It was the seventh hole. Two days in a row because the same daughter,
the oldest one, on the weekend, the first time during the eagle wanted sheaved ice.
The next day, he made a birdie on it as well and she wanted pretzels.
So apparently I need to not come to any tournaments with the girls.
(38:35):
I was going to ask you, Liz, whether you follow Jason around with the notebook
to kind of because, you know, with your golf IQ,
you could you could be on the outside, you know, you know, giving him a postmortem
after the round. No, I followed him around.
It was it was 10 mile walk. We had to the two girls with us.
They were great. Definitely didn't follow around with a notebook.
(38:58):
We followed him around with the Barbie dolls. else so before
we get into the final round jason just to level set
the listener how far do you hit your driver how
far do you hit your seven iron yeah i
probably hit my driver you know comfortably right around the 280 you know 280
yard mark if you will i'll probably carry it close to 255 260 and obviously
(39:23):
when i'm swinging really good i can get it out there a little bit further but
i would say right in that area.
My seven iron goes on a full swing right at 175.
So I'll, you know, I can back it up to 160. So, you know, I need to hit something
soft, but, you know, roughly it's about a 175 for a full shot.
(39:44):
And what aspect of your game would you rate the strongest? Is it your ball striking,
your short game, your putting?
You know, it varies, obviously, you know, for the last few years I've been in
the Met section, I feel like I've driven the ball extremely well.
But I would say my wedge game is probably my strongest part.
I feel like I can wedge it with anybody, especially when I'm on.
(40:06):
And then, you know, listen, when you, like I said before on the podcast,
that once you're playing well, everything kind of shows up.
And I feel like my putter has been very strong of late.
So, you know, it kind of goes with territory.
When things are going good, you just have to keep your mind from thinking about,
not thinking about what the outcome could be.
(40:27):
That's the whole key to it. I've had so many people ask me, you know,
my dad was like, I don't even know how you did it. He goes, I think I would
have, you know, just, just laid down the fairway because I couldn't handle it.
And I'm like, well, listen, I just don't think about the next shot.
I'm really just, after I hit it, I just kind of clear my brain,
talk about, you know, Boston sports with my brother or see the kids over in the corner,
(40:49):
you know, walking down the fairway and then get to the shot and go,
okay, what are we going to do now from this shot to where it's got to be placed?
And I think that's the key. and for a
early morning start like saturday what's your
breakfast like i mean do you carry food with you onto the course like how do
you sustain yourself throughout the round sure so i'm not a big breakfast guy
(41:11):
so i'm more of just like listen if i have a breakfast bar a cup and a half of
coffee and then i'll have when i'm warming up i'll definitely drink a water i've been drinking more.
Rehydrate stuff this year than i have in the past i feel like that kind of helped as well,
but you know when you're warming up it's it's it's more of
(41:31):
just kind of getting yourself ready to go and then on the golf course listen
i i'm definitely aware of when i need to eat i'm not one of those guys that
just says look i'm not going to eat till the ninth hole i'll eat when i'm ready
to eat so if i'm three holes in and they have stuff out there i'll grab something and started eating.
So I'm eating, you know, out there on the course, I've eaten granola bars.
(41:52):
I'll eat apples. I eat a lot of apples this week.
I like to chew gum when I play. I think that's another aspect of kind of controlling
your emotions a little bit.
I feel like it calms you down a little. And I do think that that's something
that, you know, I've picked up over the last couple of years.
I do like to chew gum when I'm playing.
(42:13):
Okay. So by the end of Saturday, you're in contention And now suddenly there's
demands on your time, right? There's a press conference.
You got to, how does that work? Like the PGA comes and tells you,
or because you're in contention, you have a press conference or it's,
is there going to be a press conference no matter what you do?
Yeah. So no, they, so obviously as a club professional, I think that's one of
(42:36):
the reasons why they wanted to talk to me as much as they did,
but they, you know, they'll, they'll tell you right.
As soon as you walk out of the scores tent, Hey, I need to take you over to here.
So they take you over there and then when you go in you just have your press
conference and you they ask you a zillion questions and there's about four or five reporters in there,
and you know it's and it's awesome to have that feeling to be able to go in
there because you know if you are that means you're doing something pretty good
(42:59):
and you know who would have known i would be playing the second to last group
that's the other thing i mean as the day went on both day saturday and sunday
you can see that as you get closer to the leaderboard the guys were making some
faults towards the end of the round.
So I'm going the other way. I'm going up the leaderboard. So it was kind of like, whoa.
So, yeah, it was really cool to be able to go in there and talk to them because
(43:23):
I knew I was playing well.
And, you know, when I'm done with those press conferences, we kind of had a
decent amount of time left to spend the day.
So we went over to Lake Michigan. The kids jumped in the water.
And I was a little nervous, to be honest.
But I kept trying to tell myself, look, you're only telling yourself,
again, like you're fast forwarding things. Don't fast forward. Just let it go.
(43:46):
It's just, you just got to play golf. And if you start thinking about it too
much, you're going to, you'll be more nervous. And that's when bad things can happen.
So Liz, at that point, you know, you won like multiple championships,
like many, many years in a row.
Do you have a word with Jason about, you know, just staying in the moment and
(44:06):
stuff like that, or you just leave him alone?
You know, it was interesting because I was like mic'd for play,
which is if anybody who knows me closely is probably not a good mic'd for play.
I haven't dealt too little on this, but they were like, are you going to go and like wish him luck?
And then they were like looking for me to do that. And I'm like,
I just like, we don't really, I'm like, okay, have fun.
(44:30):
And then I go and walk up and there's, there's really no interaction.
I actually made a point to not bring anything up all week.
He was doing so well. and I mean, nobody really needs to hear an I believe in
you speech because it has to come with it from within.
If I gave him some pep talk, like, oh, I'm so proud of you.
I did felt like that would put more, even though I know it's more proud than
(44:52):
I am and his parents and the kids.
I didn't want that to actually put more pressure on him. So I kept my mouth
shut. I tried to not talk about anything golf related.
So Saturday evening, you come back from Lake Michigan. What time do you go to bed?
Yeah. So we, you know, it's just, listen, the next day again,
it was another early one.
(45:13):
So we all went to bed probably 10 o'clock or so, had a nice dinner again at
the house, had, you know, my friends and cousins over there.
And we just had a really nice time.
Good friend of mine, Brett Quigley swung by and had a drink with us.
But, you know, that again, I slept almost perfect that night,
which I knew was a good sign. again.
(45:35):
That means my mind relaxed. It just kind of let things go.
Plus I was, I'm sure I was exhausted because we didn't sleep too well the night
before because we didn't get that much sleep. We had to be right back out there.
So yeah, so, you know, kind of was ready to go with that the next morning.
So the next morning, you know, you go through your routine. What time was your
tea time? Was it like nine something? Yeah, it was like 927.
(45:58):
So it was the second to last group. had a good warm up again everything was ready to go.
And, you know, you get to, you know, walk over that deer. And just before I
walked to the tee, Ernie Ellis said, you looked over at me and said,
Hey, Jason, great playing so far this week. Keep it up.
And that kind of made me feel pretty good about, you know, the way things were going.
So head over the first tee, I hit a nice low bullet right down the middle.
(46:22):
And someone said, I think it was DeMarco said to me, he was,
man, that thing really didn't even get in the air and, you know, went past my drive.
I said, I said, I was a little nervous on the first shot. I said,
I just needed to get that thing in play.
And so it was a nice shot to start the day. So was that the shot that kind of settled you down?
(46:42):
Because there's always that moment in the round where you say,
yeah, I got it. You know, I'm over the initial jiggers.
Yeah, I read off the bat. Boom. So I think that shot, I was like,
OK, now let's just go play golf.
Got down there. I had, again, like a 122 shot, I think was to the pin.
I said to my brother, I said, what do you think, 112, 115?
That's a gap wedge for me. And he said, yep. And we hit it.
(47:05):
It was right at the stick boom like four feet birdie
then the next hole hit it you know hit it
close again made made a part i missed the
putt then the next hole was a no no i
birdied the second hole i missed the putt on the third hole for
birdie and then i parred four parred
five i missed a close one
(47:27):
on six and then we got to seven which was
the eagle hole which is a it's a it's a it's
a nasty lucky hole when you're standing there because it's watered right just
dooms up you know in front of you and the whole dog legs right so then i go
birdie seven birdie eight birdie nine and birdie ten so i'm six under through
(47:49):
ten holes which was now i'm really relaxed.
So i mean at that point,
Are you fast forwarding to anything or are you thinking about mechanics?
Like what's the thought process at that point? Yeah. You know,
your thought process is just, you know, keep this thing going.
Don't stop. Don't slow it down.
(48:10):
I think one thing that I've learned is that, you know, again,
even though your mind wants to race, so does your body, right?
You want to get up and hit the next shot right away.
But it's really just kind of calm yourself down and do the same exact routine.
I know it sounds crazy, but if you could get yourself in the same routine,
maybe even the routine be so much to where it's almost how much time it takes
(48:34):
you to pull a club out and to hit the ball.
If that's the same amount of time or close to it, that'll help you as well.
When you just grab it because you're nervous and you just put the peg in the
ground and look out and whack it, you know, that's not very good.
And a lot of bad things can happen. And so I just kind of kept it going and
hit great shots on 11, 12. I didn't hit the best tee ball.
(48:57):
I had to lay it off. I hit a nice little pitch in there and made the puck apart.
13 had a good six iron on the par three. And then 14, I hit a great drive,
but it was just in the rough.
And we, and we hit, we thought we hit the right club just to get to the front
of the green and let it run down to towards the cup, but it stayed short.
Hit a nice putt, just missed, but it went by about six, eight feet.
(49:19):
And I hit the maybe the best part of the week and it
stopped on the front edge half the ball was hanging in
the hole and I'm like how in the world did I just leave that short I
couldn't believe it so 15's a
par five I didn't hit a I mean hit an okay chip but
I hit it and I hit a really good puppet just didn't go in now you got 16 17
18 now this is where you got to play good and 16 was a tough driving hole the
(49:43):
wind was out of the left all water left and it's a sliver a fairway heading
because it's almost like a 90 degree dog leg but the dog leg starts at like 250,
so you got to get a good t-ball there and i absolutely smoked it down the middle
and uh hit a great eight iron in there to like four feet and made birdie and
(50:03):
krista marco goes man that is a heck of a birdie today so i was like yeah i
guess that is you know that made me feel pretty good.
Unfortunately, I made a bogey on 17. Weather was coming in.
They were going to blow the horn. It was blowing. It was starting to rain, so you made your bogey.
Yeah, I made my bogey on 17 and the horn blew, and I had to come back out and
(50:26):
finish that last hole, which thankfully hit maybe the best drive of the week
down the right center and didn't hit a great pitching wedge onto the green,
but luckily the two putt.
Then I had to wait for Ernie to make his bogey on 18 to help my pocketbook a little bit.
Wow. So, a great week, great outcome for you, I mean, for the whole family. And,
(50:50):
Have has anything changed because of this high finish?
Like, have you started thinking about maybe playing the champions to or a bit bit more?
You know, listen, like I said in my press conferences, I have a great know where
it has been, you know, just a tremendous support to Liz and I and our family.
So, listen, no, I don't want to do it every every week. And one of the reasons
(51:14):
why I couldn't do it every week is I need to make sure the members have their
events and they're done right. And I want to make sure of that.
Now, if there's other weeks that are available and someone made a phone call
to me, yes, I definitely would love to play.
And I know the club would want me to play probably because they love it.
I mean, they're going to have a dinner for me tomorrow night for Liz and I and
(51:35):
the kids, which is, I mean, that's just the kind of club that shows you right there.
Right they're having a dinner for me which is
you know i just work there but it is it's
just tremendous opportunities are out there i just
don't know if some of the things will pop up and be in my schedule with the
club but we'll see you know we're just gonna have to see and but it was just
(51:55):
an amazing week having my family there and the kids there it's just my mom and
dad i mean that just was icing on the cake that's great and you know that liz
is going to be there at mill river
to back you up in case you're gone right so you know
many people don't have that so exactly and
Matt Lavolce is my first
(52:16):
assistant as well he does a great job so listen you
definitely need a support you know behind you and I
know I would have that playing but I just I just for me
my morals are that I want to be there for the members I
want them if there's a member guest I want to be there i don't want to not be
there so listen that's that's that comes first for me right now is to make sure
(52:38):
the job is done right if there's weeks out there that you know some of these
terms would like to have you know give me an invite i would definitely take
it up and definitely go play.
That's wonderful. So as we kind of wind down our conversation, I'll hand it back to Liz.
If you have anything we've missed, anything, you know, the average listener
(52:58):
could use to improve his or her game, and then I'll turn it back over to Jason.
Oh, I'm just going to touch on, I think, what Jason said about tempo and timing
for the average listener.
I mean, you look at these guys on tour what there was jason
this past week ernie ells and krista marco or
or bland like bland was the winner why did he
(53:20):
win maybe his tempo was the best that week so
if you can focus on having a good pre-shot routine and
having good tempo maybe looking at the target counting
one looking at the ball two your backswing
three and hitting the ball four thinking one two
three four with good tempo you're only
going to think about something positive you're not going to think oh i'm
(53:42):
gonna you know block this into the trees or
hit it into the hazard so let's keep with that good tempo target
ball backswing and that's going to help a lot you'll see
a lot more good shots that way what about you jason
anything we've missed which you would like to add you
know honestly i think that short game again is
where you want to help your scores the best
(54:03):
is going going to be where you're chipping and putting and bunker shots
i have a lot of people that come up to me for bunker play and i was telling
them look the goal would be to just make sure that when you in that bunker you're
going to get it out onto the green and then from there to putt and move on right
so you know like liz said on top of that you want to make sure you have a good pre-shot routine.
(54:26):
Tempo is key i think and just don't be so mechanical out there you got to be
able to to have some feels.
And when you get those feels and they work, write them down.
Make sure you do write them down, put them in your notes, do it.
Everybody's got a phone now. You can just talk into it for your notes so you can go back to it.
Maybe see your PGA professional, maybe take a lesson, get some video.
(54:48):
You can always store that. You can put it on your phone, right?
There's always those kind of little things you can always go back to when it
goes crooked because it seems like the game does go crooked more than it does go great.
So I think that one of the things you you want to do is just be prepared
that listen it's not you usually it usually
lasts a short period of time not a real long period of time the good
(55:08):
stuff but you will have something to fall back on thank you jason and thank
you liz you've been wonderful a champion couple clearly the love for the games
you know shines through best of luck to both of you and thank you so much for
making the time and that ladies and gentlemen is a wrap for today in audio.
(55:29):
Music.
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