00:00Let's talk about your development at Yale. So you're now a full-time sophomore at Yale.
00:04You're playing one of the best golf courses you can play in college golf. Let's talk about
00:09sophomore, junior, and senior year. Was it a steady incline as far as your improvement?
00:15And was it immediate? Were you playing in the lineup straight away right in that sophomore year?
00:20Yeah, I guess I'll start there. So my sophomore season started the first event and started every
00:25event until I graduated. That has a lot to do with the team not being very strong. We're not like
00:33in Alabama. We're not going to go nitpick this. That's pretty impressive coming off the football
00:39team straight into the starting lineup. Sure. We'll take it. That's D1, man. It's D1.
00:43It is. Exactly. But I told myself when I pursued golf, I was like,
00:50my motto is how I do anything is how I do everything. Whether it's how I make my bed,
00:55if I'm walking the golf course and I see a piece of trash, I'm going to go pick it up.
00:59Those are the words I try to live by. So when I dedicated myself to golf, it wasn't going to
01:03be
01:04this, oh, I'm at Yale. I am going to just be on the golf team. It's good for my resume
01:08and then
01:09pursue a job out of school. It's going to be, I'm going to give this absolutely everything that I
01:15have, blood, sweat, and tears, grind through it and see how good I can get. Never in my wildest dreams
01:21was I going to go to Q school. I didn't know what Q school was at that point.
01:25But my sophomore season, I probably averaged 74. And then my junior year, that summer,
01:30my dad told me, he goes, well, are you going to get a job this summer or what are you
01:34going to do?
01:35And I told him, I said, I'm going to see how good I can get at golf. And his big
01:38thing was
01:39you never have to get a job. We were fortunate enough to not have to do that if you're working
01:44towards something. And that was sort of the deal that we had. All my siblings had with my dad and
01:48my mom
01:50for the summer times when we were back. You don't have to do an internship if you're working
01:53towards something. And for all of us, it became sport. And I dedicated myself. I ended up coming
01:59back to college my junior year and I won three times that year. Then that summer made the U.S.
02:04Amateur. Then I won three more times my senior year, made the U.S. Amateur again that year.
02:09And my senior year, I led Division I in scoring in the fall. So it was funny. I have a
02:16screenshot on my
02:17phone. It was James Nicholas, then Colin Morikawa, Victor Hovland, Matthew Wolfe, Stephen Fisk.
02:22And the list goes down. And I was like, that was the first time where I was like, I can
02:25kind of play
02:26with these guys. And then you fast forward to the end of the year where I went to regionals and
02:30I
02:30finished near the bottom of the pack again. And I realized, well, I have a lot more. I have a
02:35lot
02:35better getting better to do. So it was like this constant, like I can do it. Then I'm humbled.
02:40Then I can do it. Then I'm humbled. And I signed up for Q School that year and got my
02:44Corn Fairy tour card right out of college. And like, it was like a, whoa, like, I guess I can
02:51do
02:51this. But to answer your question, there was a big, big jump from sophomore year going to junior
02:57year. And that year at Yale, I made a accountability system where I had my buddies who I said, okay,
03:05guys, I want to be the best person that I can be. Let's wake up at 4 a.m. every
03:09single morning,
03:09get to the indoor team room at 4.30 and practice before class until 9 a.m.
03:13Then we'll come back to the course at 2 p.m. after class. And then we'll practice till dark.
03:18And the first morning, I'll never forget it. There was like five or six, four or five of the
03:21kids said that I'll be there. And I was the only one that showed up at 4 a.m. And
03:25I knew at that
03:26point, I was like, you know what, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to do this
03:27on my own.
03:28And I just became my own like motivational speaker. I listened to Eric Thomas and Googled like
03:33every single thing. I made an accountability board in my college dorm room where I had LeBron James
03:39quotes, Michael Jordan quotes, Tiger Woods quotes. I had a picture of Tiger. I think he was at the
03:45President's Cup at in California. One where he's like, yeah, when he was like, yeah, the club twirl
03:52and had that. I was like, you know what?
03:54It's that low draw that he hit that kind of came through too.
03:57Exactly.
03:57Because it looks like he's set up for almost like a fade and this thing starts out so far
04:01right. It's that like low draw on there. It's like one of the coolest shots I remember Tiger
04:05hitting. Ever. So I just made this board and it just motivated me every day looking at
04:09it. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot at Yale and I'm grateful for that
04:13time.
