Smylie Kaufman's Memories with Mentor Graham McDowell

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00:00And you were a mentor to me and brought me down over to Orlando as you, if you're watching

00:04on YouTube now, you see this photo, this is like a sophomore college LSU, Smiley Kaufman.

00:10And then we got a seasoned veteran, Graham McDowell.

00:13What do you remember about this day, man?

00:15Besides the fact that this camera or this photo was taken with a toaster?

00:19Yeah, I, I mean, you were always taller than me, even when you were like 12 years old.

00:23I mean, look at that.

00:24I mean, I guess I'm, I guess I'm a little short there, but I just remember, I just remember

00:28like, you know, you, you've got that infectious kind of smile and enthusiasm about the game.

00:33And I just remember you coming down and we played golf.

00:35I think you came back to the house and I for a little bit and yeah, you were just so great

00:40and so enthusiastic about the game and listen, your family's meant a huge amount to me and

00:44my career.

00:45You know, I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for, for your family.

00:48So, you know, obviously getting an opportunity to, to be able to give back to the family and

00:52kind of help steer you a little bit was, was obviously sometimes I was, I was pretty, pretty

00:56proud of.

00:57Oh, Graham, I learned a lot that day because I was not a very good driver of the golf ball

01:01at the time.

01:02And you actually gave me one of your backup drivers and I used it for, let's see, probably

01:07the next four years until it cracked.

01:09And I actually have it right here.

01:11Do you want to take a peek at this bad boy?

01:13All right.

01:13We got the Cleveland classic.

01:14If anybody remembers this beauty and if we get the right lighting, this is where you

01:19can see this thing went off.

01:21Can you see the crack in the face about right, right there in the top half?

01:24Yeah, see, I was never fast enough to crack anything, but there you go.

01:28I mean, you, you're always, you're always pretty fast.

01:30Those, those hips were, you see the tape?

01:35I mean, this is a heel tape.

01:36So what, what, what did this do?

01:39I don't even, I still don't know why I had led tape on the heel of my driver, but I did

01:43because you did like, this is the driver you gave me as your backup.

01:46And I, I eventually started driving the absolute, you know what, out of the golf ball, but why,

01:51why the heel tape, why did this thing work for me?

01:54So, uh, you know, uh, interesting.

01:57And I mean, I could go get my Tatlas driver out of the, out of the garage right now.

02:00I know we'll have a piece of heel tape on it.

02:02And it's just, you know, it's became one of those weird little habits, right?

02:06I mean, going back to, you know, winning the U S open in 10 with an F three Callaway.

02:11And I had a piece of heel tape on there and my coach had written with a tee box and with

02:17a T on the lead tape, he had written, come like, as in keep your transition, come.

02:23So he wrote this little message to me on the piece of lead tape.

02:26And, you know, I had that piece of lead tape on there forever.

02:29And pretty much every driver I've ever had subsequently, I've always put that little

02:34bit of heel.

02:35It's one of those little weird, kind of like, you know, uh, little things that we do.

02:40There's obviously probably zero reason to it anymore.

02:43I mean, to be honest with you, I like to try and hit my driver the other way.

02:46So a piece of heel tape may, may, you know, makes absolutely zero sense.

02:50You want to hit Fates, you should probably put it on the toe, but, uh, you know, just one

02:55of those weird idiosyncrasies, but that Cleveland classic, that was, that was a driver's

02:59out thing for years.

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