00:00We're talking about the distance you've kind of picked up this year, all the way back to February when you when you hired, it was actually I met Derek, Derek Schmidt, trainer for Ricky Fowler, I've known him quite some time. And I wasn't aware that you hired him back in February and all of the work that you've done since then, until now, because you're starting to see where your game can get to and it just didn't happen overnight.
00:25So talk to me about the process that you went through and trying to take your your body physically to the next level to where, you know, you can hit it up there with some of the longer players now.
00:36And I just didn't see it quite right away. But now I'm like, wait, Colonial 183 ball speed.
00:43It's been like this thing's wrong because they get through me off because I knew you as like a low 170s ball speed guy.
00:49Yeah, totally. It's been a it's been an interesting little stretch. So I got to give Randy Myers, first of all, a ton of credit.
00:55I'm in Sea Island. I was working with him for six years. And the tough thing with him was kind of, you know, the recent move to Jupiter, Florida.
01:05And then also, he's not kind of traveling as much. And so what happened with me is I was starting to battle, weirdly enough, kind of start of the season, some quad tendonitis in my left knee,
01:14where basically anytime I'd have a funky lie or if I was in a bunker and had to put weight on my left side,
01:18I'd basically get tendinitis in my left knee, get shocks and shocks of pain and really hit them.
01:26Like I remember playing in events kind of leading up to Pebble and kind of not trying to hit it in a bunker.
01:33Every time I got in a bunker, I was kind of a little bit afraid to swing.
01:36And it wasn't until Pebble where I was like, and I obviously I play a lot on tour.
01:42I play pretty much every event. I was like, I think I need to see someone out here on tour pretty consistently.
01:48And so Ricky Fowler's trainer and PT, Derek Smith, I met him the week of waste management pretty much right away.
01:55I was like, I need someone to do some PT.
01:57Like I wasn't I was doing my same training programs I was doing with Randy at the time.
02:01And basically just going through our same motions.
02:04And what I learned from Derek is he's like, you know, I can do some stuff PT wise,
02:09but we got to we got to strengthen this left side.
02:11And I kind of want to work with you on it a little bit if you're willing.
02:13And so kind of hire I didn't really hire him right away, but I was just paying him by the week.
02:19And kind of over time, I was starting to alleviate some of the pain in left knee and was getting stronger.
02:24And then kind of what I learned is I was like, man, I'm starting to feel better out there.
02:30I feel like stronger, stable in the range.
02:32Like I kind of I started liking working out a lot more.
02:35I got never really did a full workout program kind of on the road.
02:40And with Derek being on the road, I was like, this is kind of this is really nice.
02:43And so we're starting to feel stronger.
02:46I was like, all right, let's see what happens.
02:47Let's push ourselves a little bit.
02:49And so I kind of added on more training, which initially was more PT and started realizing I was hitting a little bit further.
02:57Then I was coming up on kind of major championship season, getting closer to PGA and stuff.
03:02And I know Quail Hollow very well, just being from North Carolina.
03:05And I know how how much power influences playing well.
03:10They're taking out bunkers.
03:10And so me and Derek were kind of like, all right, let's keep getting stronger.
03:13And let's do the right things and try to get when is this when is this like what we're in the calendar.
03:19Are we now probably end of March?
03:21Okay, where I really started kicking it into gear.
03:24So we started beginning February, I wasn't really doing a ton initially.
03:28And then we started training pretty hard March.
03:32And yeah, just gaining power, slow and steady.
03:35I was basically, as you mentioned, a low 70s guy.
03:38And I'd been low 70s for a year, I'd have stretches where I was swinging it really well.
03:42And I in the summertime could get up to 78.
03:45But I was always pretty much low 70s.
03:49And so I started ticking kind of going into, you know, close to Zurich, really a couple weeks before then.
03:57I'm trying to think of probably the Texas swing at Houston and San Antonio.
04:00I started started hitting a little bit further.
04:02I'm like, all right, let's try to consciously, you know, Stephen Yeager's known for doing some of the speed work.
04:07But I wasn't necessarily doing speed training, but I was training way harder in the gym to try to get stronger.
04:13And when I go to the range, I would try to swing harder, make sure I was conscious of trying to swing a little bit harder.
