00:00You know, I just had was getting ready for the Sunday round.
00:04I was at the range kind of watching guys warm up and Jackson Coyven had just finished his round.
00:09I'd gotten over the putting green. He had played well on Sunday.
00:11I think he shot maybe a couple under par. I was like, is that going to be enough?
00:14He's like, I don't know. Ryder's still on the golf course.
00:16We'll see what he ends up doing this afternoon.
00:19So you guys end up tying and sharing that low amateur medalist honors, which is a huge accomplishment.
00:26It's been a big congrats to you. But so you knew what the number was of Jackson.
00:30You were trying to either beat it or post a similar number to it.
00:34What was that pressure like knowing that the tournament was out of reach, but you were playing for your own
00:38prize?
00:39A hundred percent. I'm going to be straight honest with you.
00:42Like I said earlier, I'm not a leaderboard checker, but when you get to 14 and you hit that tee
00:49shot,
00:49there's a leaderboard that looks literally straight at you.
00:51And I look up and I saw Coyven shot like three under for the day.
00:54And I was like, this, this guy, I mean, I have had to play Coyven my whole entire career and
01:00he has just smoked me.
01:02And like, I haven't really, I've got him a couple of times for sure, but I'm like, I cannot, this
01:08is his last tournament.
01:09He's turned pro. Like, I have to be able to like beat this guy.
01:14And then I ended up making a, honestly, a really good bogey on 17 or 16.
01:21And I was like, well, at least I have a chance.
01:24Like I knew if I made double, I was out.
01:27That tee shot was so hard for me.
01:29I just couldn't, couldn't carry that left bunker and hit in the crap.
01:33And I actually made a great bogey and ended up hitting a nice shot on 17, making birdie.
01:38I see birdie 17.
01:40How clutch.
01:41I did.
01:41I did.
01:43But, you know, it, Coyven's great.
01:46He's one of the best, best people in the world.
01:48And I love him to death, but man, I wanted to beat him so bad.
01:52There was definitely some added pressure, but no, it was good.
01:56You know, one of the other things that, that Ryan Hibble had mentioned to me when I was briefly exchanging
02:01texts with him, when I was watching you early in the week of the US Open, was that you were
02:05somebody that actually watched Jackson play.
02:09And instead of, instead of maybe being disappointed or, you know, by, by losing to him a time or two,
02:14you were like, how, what is he doing?
02:16You know, how, how can I learn from what Jackson is doing and potentially add some of the elements that
02:21he brings to his game over to mine?
02:23And so I have to ask you, what were some of those things that you learned from how Jackson either
02:28plays the game or approaches the game that helped you get the confidence to, of course, have such a great
02:33close to your year?
02:35Yeah.
02:37First thing I remember is I had a meeting with coach after SEC championship.
02:41I played good in the first round and I ended up playing with Coyven, I think, in the third round.
02:46And I wasn't playing very good.
02:48I think I was one over par.
02:51And I told coach, I was like, I really didn't care where I finished.
02:56Like I was playing golf, of course, I was still focused, but like, I really wanted to just watch him
03:00and watch what he was doing and like, figure out how he was doing this and how he was like,
03:05because he was, I mean, he's been number one in the world for a minute.
03:08And probably one of the best college golfers.
03:11I don't know.
03:13Yeah.
03:14So I was like, I just want to watch him.
03:15And I played with him quite a bit, but I never really like studied him and like how he kind
03:20of went about things.
03:21And I mean, the guy, like he, it's, it's underrated, but he hits it so well off the tee.
03:28Like he puts himself in so many good positions and he kind of never gets like up and down.
03:33Like, it's just like, it's a solid, it's always just like a solid round.
03:38And he's like never out of his round.
03:41Like he's just never out of it.
03:44And obviously he puts it so good.
03:46It's like, he can turn it around like, like no other.
03:49So I was like, that's kind of where I need to strive to get to.
03:54Um, uh, I've never been the greatest driver off the tee.
03:58And I feel like this last spring I got better off the tee, um, and definitely my putting, but I
04:04don't know.
04:05It's, it's just cool.
04:06I think it's really cool to just kind of learn and figure out what some of these guys do that
04:10are the best in the world.
04:12Um, that are, I don't know.
04:15Yeah.
