What if you had the power to take a peek into the life and journey of one of the most inspiring golfers? In this episode, we're thrilled to have Shaun Micheel, the 2003 PGA Champion at Oak Hill, shedding light on his exhilarating journey in the world of golf. From his childhood initiation into the sport by his father to the unforgettable victory at Oak Hill, Shaun walks us through his influential career, his triumphs, and challenges.
Join us as we explore the symbiotic relationship between golf and technology. Shaun speaks candidly about the significant influence of golf legend Ben Hogan on his playing style and his take on how technology has reshaped golf coaching. We also delve into the artistry of the game, with Shaun emphasizing the importance of understanding bodily movements and the necessity to adapt to a flexible swing approach. In this conversation, Shaun shares his reflections on golf's evolution over the years, the impact of technology, and the role of equipment in the game.
We also get a glimpse of Shaun’s vivid memories from his golfing career. He talks about his experiences traveling worldwide to participate in international championships and the lessons he learned from these cultural exchanges. As we discuss his major wins, Shaun has reflects on his journey, the effect of his monumental win at Oak Hill and the life lessons woven into these experiences. Tune in to this riveting conversation that offers valuable insights for both seasoned players and golf enthusiasts.
What if you had the power to take a peek into the life and journey of one of the most inspiring golfers? In this episode, we're thrilled to have Shaun Micheel, the 2003 PGA Champion at Oak Hill, shedding light on his exhilarating journey in the world of golf. From his childhood initiation into the sport by his father to the unforgettable victory at Oak Hill, Shaun walks us through his influential career, his triumphs, and challenges.
Join us as we explore the symbiotic relationship between golf and technology. Shaun speaks candidly about the significant influence of golf legend Ben Hogan on his playing style and his take on how technology has reshaped golf coaching. We also delve into the artistry of the game, with Shaun emphasizing the importance of understanding bodily movements and the necessity to adapt to a flexible swing approach. In this conversation, Shaun shares his reflections on golf's evolution over the years, the impact of technology, and the role of equipment in the game.
We also get a glimpse of Shaun’s vivid memories from his golfing career. He talks about his experiences traveling worldwide to participate in international championships and the lessons he learned from these cultural exchanges. As we discuss his major wins, Shaun has reflects on his journey, the effect of his monumental win at Oak Hill and the life lessons woven into these experiences. Tune in to this riveting conversation that offers valuable insights for both seasoned players and golf enthusiasts.
Hello, this is Jesse Perryman from the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. This one is a special one, folks. Both Justin and I had a gentleman on in every sense of the word. His name is Sean McKeel. Sean is as you know and those who are pretty well versed in golf history. He won the O3 PGA at Oak Hill. It was his first major, it was his only major and it was his only official PGA tour win. What a week that was for him.
Speaker 1:Everybody will remember the seven iron that he almost knocked in the whole kind of a walk-off shot, if you will on the 72nd hole of major on a very, very tough golf course which I am, I was, familiar with I know they've changed it up a little bit Oak Hill there in New York, but he went on to win that and, more importantly, he tells his story on here. He tells of his triumphs, he tells of his struggles and breaks it down to a very human level as being one of the top 1% of the 1% and one of the best players in the world. At one point he breaks it down to the struggles out there, the triumphs, the tragedies, the dealing with having golf just be an everyday, different type of sport and a lot of people don't know that. I would say that the assumption is that these guys and gals out there they hit it good every day and they make a boatload of money and they virtually have no golf problems. But nothing could be further from the truth. As you'll hear here, this episode, this recording, this interview that we had with Sean, is one of my favorites of a great player and still is a great player telling a very real story, a very real human story that, in my belief, we're all going to identify with.
Speaker 1:I certainly did in conversation and I know that you will too, and a big shout out to Sean for coming on and really just giving us and bearing us his truth with his heart wide open. It's a rare glimpse into a great athlete, into a great golfer that doesn't come around every day and Sean, as a bonus, has agreed to come back on and we're going to get more into in the next episode with Sean that we do more into what he's doing now, kind of divvying his time between playing and doing a little bit of teaching. But I come away from this conversation with a lot more gratitude and respect for the guys and gals out there that do play this for a living and do play it at the highest level possible. It's something that I'm not familiar with and I'm sure a lot of people can identify with that statement, but when you hear Sean's words, I hope that it provides hope and inspiration for you. And when you're looking at the guys and gals out there on TV or if you go see them live any tour around the world, you'll know that it's not always going to be great. It's not always going to be what you see in the final round on Sundays. It's going to be a lot of struggle, a lot of heartache and some missed shots, and that's why they are the best, because they can recover and endure some valleys out there and some dark times in their career, and Sean certainly has exemplified that. So a big shout out to Sean, thanks again for coming, and I was really glad that we were able to pull Justin off the lesson team for this one. Cheers everyone. Enjoy. It's been a great week and I hope that your golf game is trending upward.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to another edition of the Flag Hunters Golf Podcast. I am your host, jesse Perryman, along with my sometimes co-host, when I can yank him off the tee there in Singapore. His name is Justin Tang. He is one of the instructor extraordinaire in all of Asia and he is based at the Tan AmeriGolf Club in Singapore, where it's always summer, and here in North America we're coming into winter, which isn't always the best, but depending on where you're at.
Speaker 1:But we've got a very distinguished guest today, somebody that I'm a fan of. I'm very familiar with the story. I followed it the week of the 03 PGA. In fact, sean, a couple of guys that I was watching the tournament with were remarking on your golf swing and to this day I don't know if you ever got paired with them, brad Hughes, or if you ever came across John Erickson. We still talk about your move, my man, one of the great moves of all time, and I can just tell that dude hit it in the center of the face pretty much most of the time. But thanks, sean, for coming on. I appreciate it and I know Justin appreciates it. Justin, thank you, as always, my friend.
Speaker 2:Thanks Sean. Yeah, thanks Good to be on. Yeah, this is very special for me because I started learning the game of golf when Sean won the 1998 Singapore Open. So it's very special for us, I guess because it's the 25th anniversary of his win and the 25th anniversary of my involvement with golf.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty special.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so before we delve into that, Sean, could you just give us a little background about how you came into the game of golf?
Speaker 3:Sure, I think, like any other child that learns to play the game, it usually comes from their parents. My dad was a FedEx pilot and traveled a lot and loved the game of golf and I think he kind of used golf as a way to kind of spend time with me and I got introduced to the game in about, I think, 1979. So I was 10 at a club near my house and back in the day I didn't have a whole lot of friends that played. So I kind of played with my dad's group for a while until I got out there and started meeting some other juniors. But really at the start I grew up at Colonial Country Club.
Speaker 3:I lived on the back of the Fourth Green, which is where we used to have the what I always called the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic. Now it's the FedEx AG Classic where Al Geyberger shot us 59 in 1977. And I lived behind the Fourth Green, so a couple with my dad kind of teaching me the game at a place called Stonebridge Country Club and I spent a lot of nights just kind of chipping and putting on the green behind my house and those types of things.
Speaker 3:And then I got to where I could play a little bit and probably started playing my first tournament when I was about 12. So I guess in today's world there's probably a little bit of a late start. But I think about that, especially now that both of my parents have passed away. I think about kind of my history of being involved with the game and how I started as a junior player. I still see. I still see some junior trophies I've got scattered around my house and state father, sons and stuff and just all fantastic memories.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned, colonial Country Club Ben Hogan won five times at the Fort Worth. Was there any influence on you when you were growing up?
Speaker 3:Well, we're talking Colonial Country Club in Memphis, not Colonial Country Club in Dallas.
Speaker 2:My, bad, I thought you were the same.
Speaker 3:No, you know. You know Ben Hogan is. I know there's a lot of dissatisfaction Disciples. If you go back to my win in 2003,. You look at Chad Campbell and the way that he swung the golf club and being a Texan you know there was a lot made of Chad's swing and the way that it kind of emulated a little bit of what Ben Hogan did, I'm not sure that anybody could fairly replicate. You know what Mr Hogan did but you know of all the players that are thought of as a technical type player, the style, the way that he held the club, the way his thoughts about, you know, connecting his arms to his body and everything and really the dedication to practice Everybody thinks of Ben Hogan.
Speaker 3:They don't mention too many other players in the past. I mean Lee Trevino gets mentioned a lot. Of course Jack does, but in terms of really the technical side of things where Ben Hogan eliminated his hook that he had, and everybody's been trying to find this little secret and there are always little things I think that you can do in your golf swing once you understand your own swing. I'm not even sure he could really actually tell you how he did it. I know he's tried, but anyway it's a little bit of a side story. They're playing with Chad there in the last round at Oak Hill. That people really, you know, kind of thought that his game was in his swing, was kind of modeled after Mr Hogan.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned technical connection and stuff. Is there a big influence on how you teach golf these days?
Speaker 3:It sure seems to be. You know, I follow Joe Mayo, who's been working now with Victor Hogan for a while, and over the last month or so there's been this big debate on descent angle, angle of attack, on chipping, and I kind of read through some of the things and I feel like Joe is really trying to defend his position where he doesn't need to. If I go back again to 2003, about three weeks before I played at Oak Hill, I was chipping so poorly I just, I don't know, I just wasn't. I wasn't pitching the ball or hitting you know a little bump in the runs. I just couldn't. I was hitting them thin, I was hitting them fat. So I went up to my coach in college. I went to Bloomington Indiana, I went to Squid Indian University and I went up there he was still coaching at the time and he watched my chipping and he said Sean, I want you to hit down on the ball, I want you to try to take a divot with every chip that you do. And so I go back and I look at some of the things that are being taught now, some of the things that are going across on Instagram, and it's basically the same thing they want people to hit down on the ball, and so it's interesting to see that Technology has obviously improved tremendously.
Speaker 3:People are able to measure their swings, their swing speed. You know the cameras capture every frame. You know the science of the game with Trackman, whether it's launch angle or spin rate or smash factor or any of the other numbers that you want to involve yourself with. They're complicated and particularly if some of my age I mean our video camera was basically our teacher's eyes and and you know, of course, a lot of things we kind of misunderstood at the time. You know we think of like D plane, where you have face angle versus path. You know, if you hit a pull hook, back in the day people thought all your club face just had to be just dead close. You pull, hooked it, you know, and nobody really understood that. You know that a hook is really caused by swinging more to the right than your face is aimed. So I'm not wild about the science of the game, you know, and maybe that's that's, maybe that's why I hadn't played as well.
Speaker 3:I just don't have, I don't have the patience to sit there and try to analyze every single shot. Look, if I set up to the ball and I swing and I make center contact and it goes where I'm looking and it goes about where the out the window that my eyes see. I'm fine with it. I don't need to know that it launched twelve or thirteen with two thousand spin. I I don't know. I mean it's interesting, um, but I don't. You know, I don't own a track man, I don't know the quad I, I I just go out and I play, I grip the club.
Speaker 3:I think about the fundamentals of the game. It's more fun for me to do that and maybe it's just more fun for these young, younger players just to see something. You know maybe need to see that and get a validation. I'm not really sure, but they all have them. All the kids have these things and so really there's no turn it back and I don't fault anybody for having them. I just know that. You know I maybe I would have been a better player if we'd have had these types of things, but I like to go out and play the game. I love the play holes, I love the chip and putt. Um, I know what I can do. I know I know the shot shape that I want to play and those types of things. So um, as much as um, I enjoy kind of the scientific part of it. I just I don't think I could turn my game over to a to a computer what what you say said really resonates with us.
Speaker 2:I can't think of any player. In my limited experience with high level players who dabble a lot in technology, I've never seen anyone who goes hey, coach, got all my numbers all zeroed out here, my 10 majors. I've not seen that guy yet. Hopefully I will, but I doubt it. So there is.
Speaker 2:There is an issue that I see with modern coaching as it stands.
Speaker 2:A lot of these tools are meant to be diagnostic in nature, but I see a lot of coaches and players using it and taking a very prescriptive approach. So, for example, a modern maybe a modern coach who is not so sophisticated in the use of these tools might go to you and say, hey, sean, your launch angle is too high or too low, as the case may be, without really understanding. Hey, I like to, I like to hit down on a driver because this ball flight fits my eye, this ball flight fits the courses that are normally played. And then they take this very prescriptive approach. They basically um and do your entire golf swing. You shoot uh three strokes higher, and then they go like, oh, maybe we should go back to the previous uh swing model. And then they go I'm sorry, shan, and left a few screws on the floor. Now I can't find them. So now we're in a worse off position. We can't go forward. Neither can we go back, and I think a lot of good players are stuck in swing purgatory.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean because they don't understand the role of technology in their game well, you know, I think me growing up in the game our driver heads were so small, the t's, we didn't have those real long t's. So the ball essentially was is barely, as you see, that maybe just higher than the three wood is today. I mean a little bit more than that. And so I created a swing. Um, no one told me to hit down or nobody told me to hit up on it, they just told me to swing and hit the ball in the center of the face. And I know my numbers are pretty, are zero. Sometimes it's up a tent or sometimes it's down a tent, but it's not launching three or four. Now you want me to launch it through four. I gotta tee the ball up. I gotta put the ball way up. In my stance I have the aim way to the right to counteract, you know, the ball team up in the club swinging left. There's a lot of things that I have to do to change that and if I start trying to just chase these numbers, look, I I can get to them, but then I can't play on the golf course. You know, I'm throwing the club at the ball, I'm hanging way back. These types of things that that I wasn't taught to do like. I was taught to keep my right heel on the ground through the whole swing. So if you see my swing, my right heel actually drags. So I don't my right heel never comes off. So, consequently, I don't have a lot of hip rotation. I'm not real open when I swing, when I'm at impact. Well, I mean I, if I, if I go see a kind of a modern teacher, they might look at that like, oh, we got to get more rotation and I'm like, well, I don't know, I wasn't really taught to do that and I and I friendly believe that if, uh, that if tiger woods came in his prime and nobody knew who he was and he showed up at a, at a called a teacher episode how I need you to look at me somebody he could have won five tournaments a row, like you did in 2006. And some would say, not, I don't like that. Your head's dropping too much or you're swinging too hard, or your feet are your, your both heels are coming off the ground. Those types of things. I just feel like sometimes teachers, they, they want clients, um, and this is not really, I guess, a fair point. I'm not trying to say that teachers are only doing it for the money. But, um, you know, I do see some of the things that I that are posted and I'm like, how does this person do this? They don't have enough time to practice the, the things that they're being told to do.
Speaker 3:Now, you know, golf is definitely something that you're always trying to improve on every day. I'm habit playing the game for 40, you know, 45 years, you know, and, um, and there's still things that I'm trying to learn. But I think when you have, uh, when your eyes see something and I like the ball more forward of my stance, you know, somebody said well, you know, maybe you don't want to, I'm left, I dominant. I didn't find that out till about seven or eight years ago. So I like the ball more forward and I've always tried to get the ball back.
Speaker 3:And so, anyway, um, teaching, you just have to find the right person. You just it's, it's, you know, like finding the right pair of jeans. You know sometimes that you'll the size says 34 or 32, but you know, these, these are skinny jeans, I need something different, I mean. So sometimes you just have to, you just have to look, look around and find someone, um, that that understands you knows what you're trying to achieve. What are your goals? How much time do you have to work on your game? What are you capable of? What's your body body capable of? And I think biomechanics a lot of teachers are teaching that you know, you see tpi, and I think joe mayo is a bio and I think there's a lot of guys and ladies, too, that that teach that way. I mean, what can your body do? And I think that's the first thing that you have to figure out is what, how is my body built and what can I do?
Speaker 2:that's well said, well that that's a lot of stuff, let me. Let me unpack that a little bit. Shon, I like your thoughts on this. You mentioned right foot staying on the ground. So what? What I see a lot of teachers do is this hey, shon mckeele worn with his right foot on the ground, duffy wildoff and kenny perry of that same era did the same thing. Let's create a formula out of this, let's call it the right foot approach. And then they start peddling this. And I think one famous teacher that I know that I respect a lot I believe it's john sinclair. He said one third of golfers will fit into a certain model. So I go, I paddle this right foot approach. One third of my golfers do really well and the other two third suffer like mad. So is this issue with that? I have with a lot of coaches? They only have one model and god help you that you fall into that, that particular model.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of these guys don't take a holistic approach towards golf improvement. They don't try to understand why the golfer strings in a particular way, whether it's the time to do x, y and z. And interesting, you mentioned the skinny jeans. Uh, uh, it's like me getting a guy with skinny jeans and say, hey, you need to go under the squat right without understanding his physical makeup. Well, maybe he's going to blow on l4, l5. That's why he can't squat, that's why his legs are small, that's why he's wearing skinny jeans. And I think a lot of players don't take that time to go understand the whole, the whole, I guess, value chain, if you will. Is that an appropriate term?
Speaker 3:yeah, you know, what's interesting and I've seen this also is what mike adams has done with his screening. Um, you know, I've watched a lot of stuff. There's a lot of a lot of free content on on youtube and stuff that you can pull up and it's interesting on the measurements and obviously listening to mike and, I think, terry, that that also works alongside him yeah, they, they really understand and they really believe it.
Speaker 3:So there is an element of kind of understanding. First, what, where does your body fit into all this? And so they start with a base model there and then they can still, they can still tweak that. I mean, just because you know your, your arms are, you know, long from elbow to wrist and maybe shorter from from elbow to shoulder and joint. You know, maybe it says that, okay, you're going to be more upright or more flat, whichever one it is, but maybe the way your body rotates, maybe you're super flexible, and so there's things that maybe don't exactly fit into that model. But these guys are willing to like, they're okay with, uh, evolving a little bit some of this stuff and not just saying, okay, it has to be done this way.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think mac go grady maybe got into some of that stuff with morad. You know years ago that you know this is the only way to swing the club. You know, and I see videos where he's one one time he's got his hands up and then the next time he's got low hands and so he's swinging more around. You know, and this concept, I think, of the club staying outside the hands. You look at david ledbetter. He taught nick faldo. Nick faldo won what? Six or eight majors I might probably should know that. And now he's also teaching a swing called the a swing, and I looked at that and I'm like, well, how, how do I keep the club out and then have it fall under? I mean, I do think the club does kind of fall under a little bit, you know, as opposed to coming over, but anyway it's, it's all very interesting to me and I, I admittedly, have kind of gone in search sometimes of of okay, is there's something of these videos that that's going to help me, whether it's flaring my feet, something simple like that. I mean, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, maybe I need to tweak my grip a little bit. Those are the things that I do and those are the things that I did, I, I, I look at videos from my old swing when after, right after I won, you know, I was very upright, my left arm was really high, I had a little bit of a kind of a, not a reversey, but at the top my swing, my shoulders actually went towards the target and people tried to get me to turn more and that ultimately, that hurt me and I and I hurt my shoulder in 2008 and had major surgery, and now I can't swing that way, I can't get my arm up that high anymore because I've I got a six pin, six screws in there and so I can't.
Speaker 3:So now I'm more of a rotational backswing turner and I I hit the ball pretty well, but I don't hit it like I don't hit it like I used to. I mean, I I never missed the center of the face and there were things that I did that kept me from winning okay, but ball striking was not one of so you mentioned when you were growing up you spent lots of time chipping and button.
Speaker 2:Were you self taught?
Speaker 3:I mean, I think to a degree I was. I I've never felt this, this need to turn my game over to somebody else. Now I I went to the tennessee junior golf academy as 11, 12 year old. I went for three years. I learned kind of the basics, kind of the fundamentals of the game. You know the typical things.
Speaker 3:You think of the grip, the alignment, the rest of it was kind of what Arnold Palmer said swing your swing. You know. You look down at the ball, you know. Again, I reference the ball being more forward. Some people see the ball better when it's more forward. Some players, men or women, they like the ball a little bit further back. The bottom line is it's like putting If you put a line on the ball and you get a five footer and you line it up and you get behind the ball and you see there's no way that is dead center of the hole and you get up over it and it looks left or right. You're not going to make it, but you know that it's straight. You still have to figure out how to do it.
Speaker 3:There's an element of some artistry involved in playing the game and I always felt like you know, if I was on the range and I wasn't having a great session. It never really bothered me because there were always things that I could do for my ball striking. That could be putting the ball further back, but aiming left, I could trap the ball, I could hit knockdown shots, I could do all those types of things to make sure I got around the course, that I didn't shoot a high number and maybe I wasn't going to shoot a low number either, but I was going to keep myself around. And I think, ultimately, the goal is, you know, is to get out and play as free as you can. And that's the goal of every teacher to allow their players to understand their swing and get them to be repeatable, to be repeatable under pressure and find the consistency.
Speaker 3:And, like I said, the pros of today they get. You know, they have all the greatest tools, they have the greatest teachers, the greatest physios that understand and they understand their swing. And but you've seen it, you know, maybe I'm included in this you know Martin Kimer and different players over the years, steve Stricker and guys that have tried to change their ball flight because they felt like they needed to be longer. Oh, I got to hit a draw. Now, you know, martin Kimer tried to hit a draw. Well, he went back to his fate because he couldn't couldn't play it, and so there's a lot of evidence of players that have abandoned. They tried to get better and they got worse and they had to go back and kind of reverse engineer their golf swing.
Speaker 3:And some find it and some don't.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying is this a lot of players started off playing golf and then they kind of switched track and started playing golf swing. These are two very different things.
Speaker 3:Well, they are, and I think that's why I just that's why I talk about the artistry of the game, and I'm not saying that the players don't have, they don't have something in their mind a go to shot. I mean, that's talked about a lot. It's like, okay, this player needs to go to shot. You got to eliminate one side of the course and and that's where kind of the thinking and the trust and the feels and all of the time you spent practicing away from Turner MacGolf that the players are good and I'm not saying that they're, they're like plug and play. Okay, I'm going to go in this morning I'm going to stick up something in my in my arm and I'm going to input some codes and next thing you know I'm going to go out and swing and it's going to be like that for 18 holes. I mean, you, you, you practice and you prepare, you work on the things that you feel like need to be improved and you're always working on. You always work on the good things, because those things are the fun things to work on. But then you go to the course and you, you almost kind of hope that you have it and you know you could play great for a week or two you could win two tournaments in a row. Then you could miss five cuts in a row. It's just. That's just the way the game is.
Speaker 3:When I was at Indiana, there was a, an older person that hung around the golf team and I got frustrated because I like, why do I spend so much time practicing and working on my drills with my coach and yet I don't play that way? Today I played great. Tomorrow, or, yes, I didn't play great. And he says, sean, here's the deal. You don't wake up at the same time of the morning every day. You don't eat the same thing for breakfast every day. You don't put on the same clothes. You've got different things going on today. Your feels are different. You know, some days you eat, you have a heavy, you have too much salt, your fingers are thick. It's just. And it was just a really interesting concept for me to get as to why maybe I don't play well every day.
Speaker 3:The goal is you know you don't, you don't have your A game every day, but to be able to play and compete and to try to win tournaments. And you know, you just see numbers of players that go out there and they're just thinking about golf. So we have all been there and it is not fun. It's not fun when you get home to your hotel and the first thing you do is you open up YouTube and you're just typing in how do I stop swinging underneath? Oh well, 500 videos pop up and you're like, well, which one do I want to watch? And typically you see the one that's 20 minutes, like now, that's too long. I'm going to go the one that's two minutes because he's going to give me the secret in two minutes. I don't have 20. I have two, so I want to know what I can fix in two minutes.
Speaker 3:And I think that's it's a disease and we all fall prey to it and I've fallen prey to it. I mean, lord, you sit, you sit at home in your hotel room and you're you're looking at an Instagram and you're like, yep, that's the swing, that's the swing thought for tomorrow. I've got a journal. It's embarrassing to admit this. I have a journal and I don't keep it every day. I went back and looked at it one time on the flight and I'm like I would start laughing. I basically was like I hope the CIA is not like spying on me and they're going to see what I'm writing in my journal because they're going to think this guy is completely wacko.
Speaker 3:I mean I put stuff in there, like I need to aim more left today, right elbow softer, you know, right hand more on top, you know, because I'm getting too sh. I mean it is it's, it's sad, it really is sad, and I've gotten to the point now where it's comical and I'm fine to admit it. I think as an assistant coach now, I've done some assistant work for Butler University and these are the things that I tell the kids. I tell these young men some of the things that I did, and I hope that it resonates and that they don't make the same mistakes that I did. And it's easy, you know, for me because I'm pretty humble and I'm I can laugh at myself and and and things like that, and so I just hope that maybe I mean I wasn't the best player.
Speaker 3:I understand that I was a good player. I wasn't a great player. There were a lot of things that held me back. Most of it was between the ears, you know, and, and that's just my personality, but but that's okay and but I love to share these stuff, these things, with the kids, the mistakes that I made, and tell them why I was trying to do certain things, why I feel like it was a mistake and what are some of the things that they could do, completely opposite of what I did, to get the most out of it?
Speaker 2:So let's let's talk a little bit about swing models. Did you ever had a string model where you're growing it's? I know it's a very different era for you growing up, but for me it was always. David's love was always my man because he had fairly long arms and I have fairly long arms despite my height, so it was always that case. I always imagined myself stringing like David's love. Hopefully he's hearing this and willing to come on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, I um well, I don't know, I didn't really have one as as I, uh, when I grew up at, uh, the colonial country club and I, my dad would take me up behind the green when the term would come in. I'd sit there with a lawn chair and I'd just watch all the swings. But when I got really developing my gauze swing, it was more about taking the club a little bit more to the inside. You know, one of the things that my coach and college made me do is I always had a two by four or an old card box you know the box that held the clubs and I would lay it kind of just outside my ball line. That was my target line, but that was my. You know where I was trying to aim. And then I had a shaft that was about maybe maybe 18 inches behind the ball and just outside the ball line.
Speaker 3:I always had a tendency to take the club back outside. So I, I, I did this drill and I also paused my swings. Always been long, always been long. I, and, and even today I, just I can't fix that. So I did a, I did what he called the pause drill.
Speaker 3:I would take it up and stop, and I was mostly with my irons, but with my driver it was always the cardboard box and the shaft and I would take the club inside every time. I just I took it inside and came right back on the same path and so I didn't have any one particular swing model that I, that I I thought about. I just I had to figure it out my own way and, and I think that's kind of why I really haven't had a teacher in the long time, because the bottom line is, I understand the fundamentals of the game what's what, what are the important things? That's set up. And then it's like I've got to get the club behind the ball. You put the club behind the ball and then you just swing. I mean it's so simple but it's so complicated at the same time. It's it's kind of you know, um million dollar question on how do you, how do you find it and how do you get it repeatable.
Speaker 3:But again, a drill that I would do may not be right for somebody else. I mean there may be somebody that swings in up and over. Look at Hale Irwin or Bruce Litzke. I'm not sure that swing would ever be taught today. Everybody's, everybody's telling you hey, keep the clubs outside the hands, the club at the top, it falls away from your heads. You're swinging under, not necessarily too far under, but you want to be, you know, approaching the ball more from the inside, and that's what many have determined is the only way to get it done. And uh but I think the teachers are flexible uh, to be able to work with other players and and not just have this one kind of methodology.
Speaker 2:So can you contrast the PGA Tour range in the late nineties versus this year's PGA championship? What, what? What really stood out? That was drastically different.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, this is the difficulty and the length of the courses. I think the way they set the courses up, um, you know there weren't a whole lot of flags that were set three, four from the edges in the nineties and early 2000s. You know, the greens maybe weren't as fast, the, the, the bunkers weren't as deep. I mean, the golf courses are are pristine and they did the best they could in the nineties. But the technology with some of that equipment, um, the way they water, how they measure the temperatures of the greens, how much moisture is in the greens, you know what do we need to do to create an 18 hole environment where every green is the same speed, the same hardness. So that's all become a lot more consistent too. It's not just about the way the guys play. I mean you know again the technology, whether it's the length of clubs, the size of heads, the golf ball, the length of the teas, whether a guy's wearing soft spikes versus metal spikes, if you're using, like the old, seven, eight millimeter spikes. I mean, you know him and that still wears those. Um, you know there's, there's a lot. I mean, at the end of the day the goal is to get the ball in that hole and the least amount of strokes Guys have determined. Now that is, the closer I am to the hole, the better my scoring average is going to be. I never, very rarely, do I see a player hitting a three wood or off the tee to lay up from some bunkers. Usually it's a three wood because they'll they'll hit. They'll hit it over the green with a driver. You know we were always trying to play the numbers. It was a kind of a chess game. You know, if I got a bunker out there at 275 and and one at 245, well, a three wood, I can hear it 260, but I can't get into the far bunker. Those are the types of things you basically you played the golf course the way it was designed today.
Speaker 3:Some of the courses you look at, the colonial in Dallas for example, they're having to redo it. I mean, guys are taking it over corners. That they did, you couldn't do 20 years ago. So the game has just changed that way. They've tried to lengthen the courses. But again the argument of how much land do we have? Can we spend millions of dollars, like Augusta did, to lengthen 13? No, most courses can't do that. So that just leads into the argument of the technology of the golf ball and I don't know enough about it to even enter that debate. I just know that when I played and most of us played in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, you basically played the course how you saw it. You know there might be a few corners. You could take over If you could. You know if it was downwind.
Speaker 3:And length has always been something that people have strived for. That concept is not new. But but what was? There were so few of them back in the day I think of, like Hank Keeney we were talking about him earlier. You know Tiger, you know John Daly, of course.
Speaker 3:I played a qualifier in the in the 80s with a guy named Mike Dunnaway who was like one of the first long drivers. I was at a Monday qualifier for the tournament in Memphis and I see him and it was a dogway right and I hit it down the middle and Mike, the driving range is to the right and Mike lines up to the right and I look at my friend who was carrying former Richard, and so where's he aiming? And he literally took it. It was probably a 300 carry back then. And so there are. So again, distance has always been something that people have have strived for.
Speaker 3:Now there are just more players doing it and so the tour is conflicted, I think, in how difficult do we make these courses? Because they could make them really, really penal if they wanted to. So there's always this balance between challenging the best players and getting the best winner and making it to where it's still watchable for the fans, that the fans enjoy, that there are still birdies to be made and things like that. So I think it's an offensive-driven world. I love offense. I love when people score in football or basketball or baseball. I appreciate the defensive part of soccer. Both my kids play high-level soccer, so I appreciate that. But I think the fans they want to see length, they want to see birdies, they want to see eagles, and I think that's just one of the many reasons why the game maybe doesn't quite appeal to me anymore, because I know how it used to be played and that's OK. I mean, I'm still a fan of golf, but it has changed a lot.
Speaker 2:Jesse and I often joke about limiting the ball flight. The easiest way we can agree upon was to limit the height of the T's. If you restrict the height of the T's, to call it two inches, the game will. Courses won't play like they used to for all these power hitters, because you just can't get the launch angle from the driver. Yeah, yeah, that's what you need to know. You need to go about them.
Speaker 3:Probably. Well then that, just you know that makes you have to, you know, shrink the face side, the head size and those types of things. I mean I don't know. I mean I think they should do something, but the game seems to be fun for everybody, and isn't that what the game's about? I don't really necessarily agree that there should bifurcate the rules. I think the amateurs, if I play a Callaway paradigm and they're like, oh man, this driver looks great, how do I get? Well, you know what? These aren't production models. You can't get this as tour only I think people get frustrated.
Speaker 3:They want to play with the same equipment that their pros have access to, and so I don't know how you go back and slow things down, but every year I think, well, God Lee, how can they make the ball faster? And the kids are so strong, they're such great shape, they watch their diet. I mean, they just enjoy the game. They swing really fast and they play really aggressively. So it's fun to watch and I'm jealous a little bit, I'm envious a little bit, because I can't do what I used to do and that's frustrating.
Speaker 2:Well, but you do have a place in history that these guys don't have. So they look at you and they're like man. I wish I could be like Sean. So the 2003 PGA was also an incredible achievement for Cleveland, with the top three being Cleveland star first, Sean McKeel, of course, with Chad Campbell and Tim Klopp. So you mentioned 12 only equipment. What's the tangible difference? I think this would be of massive interest to our listeners. Is it worth paying for 12, only 12? Issue heads.
Speaker 3:I mean, first of all, I think club fitting is over the last five to seven years is a vital importance, versus just going to your regular, you know, a sporting goods store, whatever one you choose, and picking up a driver may be talking to somebody that knows a little bit about the game Shaft technology. Again, I look at behind me is my golf room. I don't know if you can't see it back there, but anyway, I mean I've got my clubs that I use in college and I have. My driver is a nine and a half degree Taylor Mae driver. That's 43 and a half inches.
Speaker 3:Back in the day we didn't have graphite and I'm a little bit frustrated by the technology and the advancements as well because, not being a fully exempt member of the champions tour or even a tour member, I don't have access to the vans really unless I go out and play, and what used to be one drawer of shafts is now takes up an entire truck. So I think, with, with, with trying to figure out what what club do you need? What shaft do you need? But I do think that the that the amateur player has more access now to tour level equipment than they ever have, whether it's club champion. I mean, they've got thousands of combinations is, I guess, what they advertise to, whatever it is. And so there's, there's ways to going about to be able to play the equipment that the pros play. The bottom line is most of them can't play the stuff that we play just because it's too much. In the driver, you know, the handles are pretty stiff. You might be using X 100s that are 130, 131 grams. You know most people just don't generate the speed and they don't have the time to practice or the strength to be able to do it. But I do think people are really interested in it.
Speaker 3:Scotty Cameron has done a great job of bringing his line of kind of tour product to to his website and allowing players, to amateur players, to get this, this German stainless that he makes his putters for all his best players. You know you could probably call him up and pay $5,000 and get the exact same putter that Tiger has. You know his new port or new port, I guess, is what it is with no lines on it, you know. So, anyway, you know, to answer your question, I think that the amateur players would love to have it. I think a lot of them try to get it, whether or not it's good for him, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Like I use a paradigm S head, which is the smaller paradigm. I don't know if that's in production or if that's tour, only you know, I don't know. But people look at my driver. I just showed someone yesterday like, oh well, how do you get this? I'm like, well, I don't. I don't know, I got it from you know, john Hove is a Callaway, so I don't know how you would go about getting it. I mean, the way that I shop for clubs is different than way somebody else that that doesn't play the game for a living shop for clubs.
Speaker 2:Well, be a major champion. You can have anything you want.
Speaker 3:Well, no.
Speaker 3:I mean actually actually I there's, I have to buy clubs, Callaway. Callaway doesn't make me buy them, but I've tried other other clubs and like, yeah, ok, we're going to give you a PUD. So I send him my credit card and they're still made in the tour department but I get, I get charge for him, so it's just OK.
Speaker 3:I mean, you know they want the best players using their product. They don't need an old kind of has been like me out there, you know, giving me free stuff, but that's changed. I mean you used to be able to call up and say, hey, can I get a driver with? You know, a Finwick Eagle which is a Finwick shaft is what I use when I want, or a pinly shaft in my three wood, but then I don't think they make those anymore and they would send me three or four of them in different lofts and now I can't do that. I mean that that part has changed. I think a lot of the manufacturers are kind of keeping their costs down and unless you're John Rom or Lori McAvoy or Tiger, you know you can get one set and then maybe next year we'll give you another set, and so that's just the way. That's just. That's the way it works now.
Speaker 2:Let's go back to the 25th anniversary of your Singapore Open win. What did that win do for you mentally?
Speaker 3:So I I joined the Asian. It was the Omega tour in the late 1997. I had had my tour card in 94, nike card 96. I lost my tour card again in 97. I was pretty dejected. A good friend of mine and we had the same managers named Charlie Wee and Charlie's done great things on the champions tour this last couple of weeks and we had the same manager out in Woodland Hills and Richard said hey, why don't Richard Rallet tour is my manager at the time. He says, why don't you try the Asian tour? I love traveling. I'd already played in South Africa. I played a few other places. I said why not?
Speaker 3:So I got on the airplane, flew to Kuala Lumpur. I had to go through two stages of qualifying and back back then the Omega tour. Now there was an Asian tour run by John Benda and then there was this Omega tour run by Sheila Han and I joined that one and at the time they only allowed 30 non Asians I hope that's not being disrespectful, but that's 30 non Asians to participate in every tournament because it was really to generate and boost the Asian golf and the young junior players and stuff like that. And so I qualified high enough in the Q school that I got in. I played some pretty good golf. If I remember right, singapore was in August and yeah it's always hot in Singapore.
Speaker 3:I remember and I was playing great golf I mean I really was I remember I was using Tyler at a titleist bag. I had titleist DCI irons. I had a bullseye putter which I have behind me that I won with. You know, it was a great week. I made two bogies, so in 72 holes I think I made. I came if I was 16 under or 14 under, I think I was 16 under, so maybe at 18 birdies and two bogies. There was another guy right there named Ed Fryat. Ed Fryat was a great player and now does something different.
Speaker 1:Now in Las Vegas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he was right there, I mean. So I do remember. I don't remember the entire golf course, but I do. I do remember Safer Resort and I guess it's still there. I hope it is.
Speaker 2:It is gone through massive changes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well, the last time was also yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, that was another thing too. Being a being the son of an aviator and I was flying, also being next to the airport, I love, I love, I love seeing all the big jumbo jets that were just traveling overseas, and maybe that was part of that helped me win. But I've not been back and I always wanted to go back. I I never got in, never really got an invitation to play over there after that and of course, I was pretty much on tour and and everything. I do know that there, that that I could play the Asian Tour International Series as a major winner. I think there's four of those events and they do have one in Singapore. So maybe I do it. I mean, I'm going to have to get a release from the tour. I don't know if they would do that, considering it's part of live. I don't know if they would let me do it or not, but I really want to come back to Singapore. I'll say this too.
Speaker 3:When I first started playing in Asia and really traveling the world in general, my dad gave me two pieces of advice. My dad flew DC 10,. We flew all sorts of planes with FedEx. My dad gave me two big pieces of advice when I started traveling internationally. The first was I want you to learn four to five words in every language of the country you're playing in. All it was was hello, good morning, please, thank you, goodbye, good evening. Whatever my dad said, if you learn just four or five words in that country's language, they're going to understand that. Maybe you don't speak the language, but they'll appreciate it. The second thing was under no circumstances are you to take your American ideology and take it around the world, because every country's rules and laws are completely different. I look at Singapore, for example. If I remember correctly, my dad told me you can't buy chewing gum in Singapore. I don't know if that's still true. People were apparently putting it into the subways or in the buses and you couldn't get chewing gum there in 98. Unfortunately it's still the case. So it's little things like that that culture differences.
Speaker 3:I always traveled with that in the back of my mind, that I'm not going to say, anything I'm going to respect I may not understand it or I may not even agree with it. I'm here to play golf, I'm here to learn, and I learned as much from the different cultures as I did learning about the golf course, and I always found that fascinating, and I've competed outside of North America. I've probably played in 32 or 33 countries I haven't counted it up in a while. So that's a lot of traveling and it's something I've always enjoyed doing.
Speaker 3:And the stigma of being the ugly American I learned about that even before I started traveling, and so nothing comes out of my mouth that would be found disrespectful to any place. I mean, there are things I don't understand, but I'm not, I don't need to. I'm there for a week to play golf. I enjoy my time there, I respect the fans, I respect the golf course and I play golf and I try to win and I try to provide some sort of entertainment for the fans that are watching. I mean, that's really as simple as it gets. And those are the two things that really my dad shared with me about traveling the world and I do them to today. Now I don't remember a lot of the Chinese and the Ni Hao and some of the things that I learned.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's not bad.
Speaker 3:You know Kamsamida. You know little things like that. You know that I learned from Korean there and I've forgotten almost all of it, but I can tell you that when I go to another country and I don't speak the language, there's those five words I learned Awesome.
Speaker 2:That's good. I remember that for myself. So in 2002 to 2003, there were five first time major winners Rich Beame, mike Weir, jim Furrier, ben Curtis and Sean McKeel. Was there any sense of vicarious experience on the last day of the 2003 PGA?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, of course. Yeah, there was a lot. I had really I'd been on tour a few years. There were several events that I probably should have won. I looked back at the year prior, the BC Open, which was the tournament that offset the Open Championship over in the UK, and I had a three-shot league going the last day and I lost. I was so nervous. But when I got to the last round of the PGA, there were several things there. I had my wife there. My wife was six months pregnant with my son who's now about to be 20. I was playing really well, I was putting really well, I was thinking really well, I really believed in what I was doing and I just felt like it was time for me to win.
Speaker 3:I didn't draw any inspiration really from the other players, First-time major winners, particularly Ben Curtis. Ben Curtis and I spent some time at St Jude actually it was the Ronald McDonald House where a lot of St Jude patients live while they're getting treatment here in Memphis. I got to know him. He was from Ohio. I went to school in Indiana. He was young. That was a month before he won and he wins as a rookie, so my situation was a little bit different than his.
Speaker 3:I was in the last group, tied with Chad Campbell, A lot of people around there, tough golf course. I'd never won. Chad had never won. There was just a lot of things.
Speaker 3:But I think the overriding factor was that I was sick of losing. I was tired of letting my nerves and kind of the self-doubt those types of things that creep in while you're playing affect the way I played. I knew that I had to do something different. I couldn't just hope and pray that I was going to survive. I had to go out there with some sort of game plan, serious game plan on how I was going to play the course.
Speaker 3:And I was lucky in the sense that the golf course was so difficult that I wasn't worried about somebody shooting six or seven under the last day to come out of nowhere to win. It just was too tough. Tim Clark had a great run on the front nine and he just couldn't keep it up. It was really more about survival and we got to 14. It was really about match play at that point. So long answer, I suppose. But I just was confident in the things that I was doing and I was tired of letting some of the mental. The worry and the stress of trying to win my first big tournament affect the way that I played and I just refused to kind of bow to that pressure. Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that still was. That's probably the last question that we have for our interview. You talked about entertaining fans. What were you feeling on the last shot of the USPGA, when you won? What was your mental process? The seven iron.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think it was the seven iron.
Speaker 3:With your TA3, I believe it was TA7. Yeah, again, I have a right behind me too.
Speaker 2:TA7, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a TA7. It became the TA2s. You know, funny enough, I had walked off that T-Box and Chad hit first and he walked off before I did and to my right there was a woman's voice that spoke up and she yelled. It was dead silent, it was pretty silent and a lady yelled it's nice to see some up in commerce. That's the first thing. That's one thing that has really stuck with me the fact that someone, a woman, would think enough about Chad and I that we had an opportunity, that there was somebody that really enjoyed our golf besides just watching Tiger and Phil and earning all those great players. It just it felt good.
Speaker 3:And so when I got up to the ball and Bob Ceznie was my caddy, he was from Erie, pennsylvania he gave me the yardage it was 161 and 13. And I said, just like Tuesday, right. And on Tuesday I was over where Chad was. Chad and I were about the same distance, but on the angle I was actually probably closer, the way it looks. So that's why I mean I was a little farther away because on the angle he was probably about the same distance, but it just I was on the outside of the triangle, so to speak. You know the long side. And Bob said, hey, you got 161 and 13. I said, just like Tuesday. Tuesday I had about the same yardage, it was a 175 or 173 or something.
Speaker 3:And I hit a seven iron and it came up right on the front of the green, had a little bit of wind in my face and I said, just like Tuesday, but we don't have any wind right now, do we? And he said, nope, I grabbed a seven iron. I kind of took a couple of deep breaths and kind of picked out my target and I got up and did a couple of waggles and I just swung and I just kind of drew upon really all of the great shots I had hit. I mean I was probably, you know, I'll be remembered for the seven iron, but there were a lot of great shots that I'd hit that week. You know, kind of leading up to that and it just the stars aligned to have the perfect yardage, a perfect lie. I didn't have to. I didn't have to worry about oh gosh, is the seven iron enough to get to the front? Yes, it was. Did I have to worry about going over it? No, because I had 82 long. So I had 161, front, 174, hole 182 over. So it was a perfect yardage and I could just swing.
Speaker 3:Now, as far as the direction goes, I mean I was aimed somewhat at the flag. I think I mean maybe I was aimed at more to the right, but any golfer and you guys know that when you're waggling and you look up and you see the flag, you see that yellow thing flapping in the breeze your mind immediately shifts to the flag and maybe that's what happens. So I think the way it ended for me was truly I was just, I mean obviously a dream come true. I mean, I'm not sure people, junior players and other players they sit on the practice screen and like, okay, this five footers to win the master, for it's to win the PGA or the open championship from the US Open. I don't think people go to the range and they think this seven iron is to hit it to three inches to win the PGA. You know, but you're always practicing for those things. It's always the putting and when I got up to the green and realized I couldn't miss a three inch putt, I felt, I felt pretty good about it and it was just a. It was an incredible moment to see my wife again, who was six months pregnant with my son Dave. And you know these, these, these things have stuck with me as I kind of reminisced a little bit about with the golf channel this past May.
Speaker 3:A lot I was focused certainly on winning, but the 20 years since I've won has have just been kind of tumultuous for me. I've gone through a lot of injuries, of heart surgeries, and I lost my parents, and life has happened to me. You know, when I was younger, all I thought about was playing golf. Where am I going to eat that night? You know, did I make enough money and did I get the top? I mean just all sorts of things. And then I really struggled afterwards and so when I reminisced this year, I thought more about my wife and more about my son, because she was pregnant with him. When I walked off the green I gave her a hug, I rubbed her belly, I gave it a little kiss and, like I said, now my son's 20.
Speaker 3:So I, I look at life, I look at golf, I look at my win, totally different than I did the week after. The week after was about hey, I just qualified for the, I got a five year exemption, I'm in the majors, something I've been dying to play in. I mean all of those things from a golf standpoint. And now I look at life a little bit more emotionally, a little bit more spiritually, philosophically. I kind of live these kind of give these sappy quotes every now and then. It's something I never would have done when I was really playing and really focused on playing great golf. And I think it's just unfortunate that obviously my best years are behind me and it's just life, it's just the way it happens. So that's why I said earlier that I'm a little envious and a little bit jealous of the younger players, because if I only knew then what I know now, you know, maybe I could have won a few more times.
Speaker 3:I'm kind of stuck in this rut of only one, any one tournament I won around the world and other tournaments and many tours and different things like that, but to win on the PJ Tour at the highest level, there's nothing that compares to that. And when you only have one, it just seems like I'm on constant defense about that and I don't know what is ever going to satisfy me. I don't know what would satisfy somebody else, but I just have kind of realized that nobody's satisfied, you know, if I won once, why didn't I win twice? If I won five times, why didn't I win 10? If I won 15, why didn't I win 20 to get the lifetime exemption? There's always something, there's always someone, that's disappointed or has a point to make about your career.
Speaker 3:And it wasn't the greatest career, but the things that I experienced with my travels overseas, all the countries that I've been fortunate enough to play in, all of the people that I've met, the memories that I have, I mean that's why I started playing golf. I didn't start playing golf so I could buy my own airplane. I didn't start playing golf so I could have a 200 foot yacht. I started playing the game because I love playing, I love competing. It was fun. Maybe my goals should have been towards some of those things and maybe I would have played better.
Speaker 3:But money and that stuff I mean I need money to pay the bills I got to support my kids, I got to put them in college. But I don't need those things like that to be happy. And when I was playing, sometimes it got caught up in the money thing because it was always about the money, because I had to make a certain amount of money to keep my card. I had to keep us make a certain amount of money to get into the invitations. So money is always there. It may not be the overriding factor of why you play the game, but the way the tour sets up the tour. You look at it now with the elevated events. If you're in those events, great. If you're not, how I mean, what do you have to do to get into them? So money is always a factor.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your very candid thoughts there, sean, that's right, and I got to say something, Justin, really quick because I've been so enthralled.
Speaker 1:I know we're a little bit behind the eight ball for time, but, Sean, I vote for you to write a book.
Speaker 3:My friend, if you knew some of the things that have happened to me in my life, you might be surprised. I've had people like Alan Shipnuck and I've talked about it. I've actually I've had a couple of working titles. I've started to write some things. I mean I don't know if I'm that big enough of a story. I think the things that I've learned, the experience that I've had and my ability to kind of be open and honest with myself and my life, I think it's important because I think people can really relate to that. I mean I went through my struggles at my job after I won and I couldn't duplicate it. I mean I told Rich Learner we were doing an interview and I looked across and I saw that trophy and I said you know, rich, that trophy over there is 28 pounds or 34 pounds. And I said at the end of the day it just it became too heavy for me to carry that trophy and what it meant went with me everywhere I went. It was always hanging over me. It sounds like a negative, it's not. It really just affected me because I was trying to replicate and duplicate. I wanted to justify and validate what I did in August, on August 17, 2003. It just became too heavy and I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 3:I had some great golf in 2010 at three top fives. My mom battled lung cancer. I had a double ego in the US Open at Pebble Beach on the final round with VJ number six. I've had some incredible things that have happened to me in this game. Unfortunately, most people care about the wins and it is sometimes they say, oh, how many times have you won? Well, how many won once? And then I always feel like I have to defend that. So I've had my own personal battles with those types of things, and you may have yours, and Justin you may have yours, and somebody that's an accountant may have theirs. Each of us has these battles that we fight every single day, and unfortunately, mine, because my life was so public and it was just easy for me. I was an easy target and consequently, I just kind of fell off the map. I just didn't want to be seen, I didn't want to play practice rounds with people and I just want to go out late today, and those are the things that you know. I look back on it, I just realized just how much it affected me and those are the things that made me kind of sad really. I mean I'm a little bit emotional talking about it now because I think about what I know now is like God, that really affected me. I never really thought about it, and so I think people can learn something by the struggles that people have.
Speaker 3:I mean, you see somebody out there that's really successful. I mean there's been a lot of hard work in whatever he or she does to get to that level, but they still battle because they still have to maintain that position. Whether it's a CEO of a company, you still have to produce. And you know, in my game it's just so public and there are so many players, it's the next man up mentality and that's just the way it is and it should act as a motivator and it did until I just started having these kind of unfortunate little surgeries and these little things that kind of affected me off there.
Speaker 3:No excuses, because everybody has those, but I just wasn't equipped to handle that and I would have gone back. If I go back, I would certainly have sought some advice from, you know, richard Coop or Dr Rotella or another kind of therapist in the sports world. I mean, I ventured into some of that stuff of trying to figure out how to find some enjoyment in my life in my golf, you know, and the lady that I was working with. I'd seen her five times. She died at Lillio Blastomo, which was the same thing my dad died of.
Speaker 3:So I have invested some time in trying to figure out some of the past and why I wasn't able to let go of some of these things while I was constantly battling this trophy that followed me around and I've learned a lot. But I mean I could talk about this forever because it's easy to talk about, I'm open about it and you know it hopefully provide a little bit of kind of inspiration to my young men that play a butler to like, wow, you know, they only see the wins or they see the dollars that you made. They don't see any of the other stuff and most of us, when we see a CEO making $25 million, we don't see what that person did growing up and the numbers of hours. So just a lot of hard work in there and a lot of happiness, a lot of sadness and, as I said earlier, life, and life comes at you hard sometimes.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for sharing your life with us, Sean. That's probably material for another interview.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say that I was going to say we need to get Sean back on.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't know, I don't know how your stuff goes out If people are interested, if people I mean, you know, there's a bit of sob story in it, it's not really meant to be make anyone feel that they need to feel a certain way. For me, I think it's just the way my life is gone. I'm very appreciative of the things that I've been able to accomplish. I did the best that I could. There were times I wasn't a great professional. I mean, you know, maybe I wasn't as fun to be around, maybe I wasn't as entertaining as I could have been. I mean, I've certainly had my faults, you know, but I always just wanted to play golf, I wanted to be a good golfer, and maybe I should have had the goal that I need to be a great golfer and I just didn't do that.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, sean. This means a lot to me. This is almost going full circle from the time I stopped at golf, so really appreciate your time with us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, just sit me in there. I'm happy to come back on. I know, I know I kind of speak, I kind of get going. You probably have a whole list of other questions to ask. But you know, I'm happy to come back.
Speaker 1:Thank you, boy, it's a blessing to have you on Sean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks, thanks. Well, where can I catch this, or where do you guys?
Speaker 2:just send it to you, sean on Spotify.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll make sure they tag you on Instagram. You're doing it. Okay, all right cool.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Awesome Thanks guys. I appreciate it Nice to be with you.
Speaker 2:Have a great week.
Speaker 3:Bye, thanks.