College Golf Connection-Nick Watney Exclusive

 

Exclusive Interview with Nick Watney

Dr. Morris Pickens and Lynn Northrup

 The Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines is where many of my players start their season. This gives us an opportunity to interview them and document their thoughts about their off season preparation. I started working with Nick Watney in June 2010. After the end of the 2010 season, I met with Nick, Butch Harmon (swing coach), and Chad Reynolds (caddie) to set goals for the 2011 season. 

We reviewed the stats for 2010 and determined that if Nick wanted to become a world class player he needed to improve his scrambling and putting.  Nick’s scrambling rating for 2010 was 146^th and he was 87^th in putting. A structured practice schedule was developed using specific short game and putting drills. Nick has moved up to 5^th in scrambling and 8^th in putting for the 2011 season. Here is what Nick had to say about the new practice schedule together with comments about transitioning from college to the PGA tour.

Lynn – What was it like transitioning from Fresno State to the Nationwide Tour?

NW – I was totally unprepared to make the jump from college to professional golf. I guess it’s a lot like baseball when you go from the minors to the big leagues. Everything is at a much higher level.

Lynn – What would you tell kids that want to turn pro on how to prepare for it?

NW– First, you get out of it what you put into it. There is no short cut or quick way. Play as much as you can because competition is where you learn about your weaknesses. For me it was the short game. If that is truly what you want to do, then you have to chase your dream. In my case, I didn’t have a backup plan and just kept after it.

Lynn – What were you practicing in college and how did you set it up?

NW– When I was in college I just tried to make a score. Some days I hit it great and some days I didn’t. My short game was better in college than when I turned pro. As a pro, I focused a lot on ball striking and it improved. I started hitting the ball real well and I started making scores in different ways. My short game slipped because I didn’t spend an equal amount of time working on it and that’s where I became different.

Lynn – You have made the transition to Butch and to Mo. How is that going?

NW – Well I feel like things are really on track. The putting and short game drills Mo provided are really helping me pull it together. Butch is great at what he does and he has helped me a lot from the physical standpoint of my long game.

Mo – He turned you into one of the top ball strikers in the game.

NW– As far as Mo, we have been working not yet a year, but I’m beginning to understand, not master it, regarding why I played well in the past and why I didn’t. I did not have structure in my routines or with the mental process. This is something I am just beginning to understand and develop. You can only get so good at hitting the ball and golf is so much more than just hitting it. I am now beginning to develop in the other areas of the game.

Lynn – So now you practice and work on your routine?

NW –   Yes, Mo and I worked on it yesterday for an hour and a half. This also helps my mechanics.  Without a routine you’re lost, especially under pressure.

Mo – Up until last year Nick got by primarily with a good attitude and being positive and upbeat in addition to good physical skills, but without much process as to how to go about it.

NW – Now I know how I go through the entire process, my mental routine, and decide what to do with each shot.

Lynn – Versus selecting a target, crossing the line, setting up, and then letting it go?

Mo – He was all feel and good enough to get away with it.

NW – I would agree with that.

Lynn – Are you doing all the drills?

NW – I am doing all the drills believe it or not. I really like structure. It’s my personality, so I feel like I am really working toward something. If I have a drill and I complete it, I feel like I have had a productive practice session. Mo provided the structure for practice so I now have a plan every day when I go to the golf course. There is a structured schedule for each day of the week in terms of the drills I work on and for how long. They include short game, putting, wedge drills, and on course practice.

Mo – You have a love hate relationship with the Z drill.

Lynn – You don’t like the Z drill?

NW – It sometimes takes me an hour to complete that drill.

Lynn – What about shafts, do you like that drill?

NW – I do like shafts. The shafts drill is way easier than the Z drill. But like I told Mo, I think I pick harder holes than Zach (Johnson) does.

Lynn – What about the Combo Drill?

NW – This is the drill with 27 balls using three different wedges. The goal is to get is to get 21 out of 27 within two club lengths. My best is 24. I sank some which counts for two shots. I really like this drill. Its funny when you are a foot outside of two club lengths, you think “what’s one foot?” But you’re only cheating yourself. Again, that’s structured practice that I love because it’s accomplishing something as opposed to just chipping.

Mo – Once you get it done you feel better about leaving. It represents better time management because you’re getting more out of your practice.

Lynn – Are you doing the string drill with forty foot putts or longer?

NW – I think I got up to eleven in a row.

Lynn – How do you practice driving and long game shots?

NW – Butch (Harmon) likes to go out on the course. We’ll work on the range in the morning and then in the afternoon we’ll go out on the golf course and see if it holds up. We think this is much more effective than just hitting balls on the range because you have realistic targets and situations.

Mo and Lynn – Nick thanks for your time and sharing the things necessary to become a world class golfer. Structured practice and time management are critical to success.

 NW – You are welcome and you’re absolutely right on target with structured practice techniques.

Jonathan Byrd on his Incredible Tournament Win with a Hole In One

JONATHAN BYRD: Well, it’s kind of hard to process because I’m still kind of in shock. I’ve got to go back to the putt before on 18. I hit a poor shot into the green and get kind of fortunate that it stays up in the rough and hit a chip and gave myself a chance to stay in the golf tournament and just made a great putt from about 12 feet, I guess, stayed in the tournament.

We’re sitting there on 18 green trying to decide whether we’re going to keep playing or not, and I wanted to — I felt like we could get one more hole in on 17, and the other guys did, too. We decided just one more hole, and if we get to the green and it’s too dark, we’ll stop.

So I’m up first, and I’ve played that hole well in regulation and in the playoff, hit good shots, and just went through my same process, and for me it was put a 6-iron kind of back in my stance and try to play more of kind of a sweeping draw into that left pin and curve it over to it. It started perfect, it turned perfect, and it was coming right down the flag. I thought I hit it too good. I thought I hit it too far, and I couldn’t see anything. But to hear the reaction as it went in, I was just in shock.

I was trying to be considerate of my playing partners because two more guys had a chance to keep playing, and I didn’t want to overreact. I’m numb pretty much.

Q. When were you sure it went in? I’m sure it wasn’t right away.

JONATHAN BYRD: Well, it was almost like I thought I heard somebody say it went in, and then I wasn’t sure, and then my caddie said, “I think it went in.” Then he said, “It went in, it went in.” I don’t know, it’s like any hole-in-one if you don’t see it. You’re not really sure until you can go down there and look in the bottom of the hole and you can see it. I didn’t have that luxury. But like I said, when everybody was just kind of yelling and screaming, then I knew.

Q. There’s a difference, isn’t there, between hearing a shot that’s close and a shot that goes in, right? You don’t need to see it; you can hear it?

JONATHAN BYRD: Yeah, they kind of roar and then they just kind of go nuts and then people just start yelling, I think it went in, I think it went in, it did go in, it did go in. It just kind of keeps going.

Q. I’ll take you back to 18, too. I’m sure you haven’t seen the shot yet, but were you just as surprised when you got up to the ball to see it didn’t go in the water?

JONATHAN BYRD: I really thought when I hit the shot I thought it was going to stay up on the green. It landed on the green, and I thought the wind was going to hold it up. I obviously wasn’t trying to hit it there. And then when I saw it go down the hill and I heard people going, aww, like that, I thought it was in the water, and I thought I was going to be done.

And then right at the last second I kind of heard somebody cheer. And they don’t cheer when it goes in the water unless they’ve really had too much to drink. So I figured, hey, it must be up. I might be standing in the water. You don’t know what you’re going to make of it. Fortunately it was good enough for me to get it on the green and have a chance to save par.

Q. Why was it so much tougher today for everybody to kind of get on a run? You know, everybody, yourself included, has been able to really make a nice run each day. What was going on out there today that made it so much tougher? Was it because it was Sunday? Was it the wind? Was it the greens were harder, or was it a whole lot of stuff?

JONATHAN BYRD: Well, I don’t think it was the golf course. I think it was Sunday. You had a lot of guys — you had one before me who hasn’t had a great year, so you’ve got a lot of things going on there. You’ve got guys in the mix who are still trying to keep their card, and just a lot of things going on mentally.

And then I think the hole locations were a little more difficult. I think they tucked them and had some good hole locations up against the edges to where if you got a little greedy you could make some mistakes. And I kept trying to fight that balance all day of not getting too greedy and force things but stay aggressive and try to hit some shots close. I wasn’t able to do that until the end. I started to kind of free things up coming in. I didn’t really have anything to lose at that point.

Q. What did your playing partners say to you when they learned the ball went in the hole?

JONATHAN BYRD: I mean, they were pretty excited, I think. I mean, it’s pretty hard to follow that. They came over and were very gracious and congratulated me and told me, “great shot.” Both of them did and the caddies. And everybody was smiling. I think when something like that happens that’s out of their control, there’s not much they can do about it. They’ve got to figure out a way to follow it up.

Q. What was the yardage?

JONATHAN BYRD: I don’t know what the actual yardage was. We were playing it downhill, but my caddie Adam told me it was 194 yards adjusted. That’s with the downhill and the percentage. We had a little cross help wind, and for me it was just about a 185-yard shot.

Q. Have you hit a hole-in-one at any level before?

JONATHAN BYRD: I’ve had one hole-in-one at a tournament, and that was at the Deutsche Bank on the 11th hole in the tournament. That was the only time I’ve ever had one in a tournament. I’ve had one in qualifier. I’ve had probably three other ones. And actually I’ve had a hole-in-one on a par-4, and it was actually the 15th hole in a practice round here one year. I one-hopped it in the hole playing with Phil Mickelson and Billy Mayfair in a practice round. That was probably five years ago.

Q. Have you ever heard of anything like somebody winning a golf tournament on the last shot from either the fairway or — not counting a chip-in, but with a shot like that?

JONATHAN BYRD: I mean, I saw Craig Parry do it — it was Craig Parry, right, at Doral on 18, holed out against Scott Verplank. I remember watching that. I’d like to say that was probably a little more difficult shot. But I had water, too. But it was just as hard a shot. Robert Gamez made it on 18 at Bay Hill, but I don’t remember anybody that hit a hole-in-one in a playoff.

The only thing in my mind is I kept thinking, you know what, I want to keep playing, I obviously want to win the golf tournament, but I haven’t seen my wife and my kids in two weeks and I’m going to miss the flight tonight and we’re going to be playing, so that doesn’t sound too good. It all worked out as good as it could have.

Q. Can you talk about what you had to do to get into the playoff? I think you birdied three of the last four holes.

JONATHAN BYRD: Yeah, I was three back standing on 15 tee, and fortunately this tournament, this golf course lends some eagle opportunities coming in, and if you get hot coming in, you can make up some ground, especially if somebody else makes a mistake. Unfortunately my buddy Webb Simpson got it to 22-under and hit it in the water on 17 and made a double. Obviously if he wouldn’t have done that I would have had to birdie the last hole to get into the playoff. So I’m sad for him because he played so well this week.

But I hit good shots coming down the stretch. My goal was to birdie the last four. I birdied the last three, and then I kind of wimped out in the last hole in regulation and just kind of hit it in the fat of the green.

Walking you through the playoff, I hit good shots in the playoff other than two poor tee shots on 18 and made a great save on 18 the second time and hit a great putt on 17 the first time. I don’t know how that putt didn’t go in.

Two of Dr Mo’s Players picked for 2010 US Ryder Cup Team

 

U.S. Ryder Cup team Captain Corey Pavin announced his four picks to complete team USA for the October matches in Wales.   The Captain picks include two of Dr Mo’s players- Stewart Cink (4-7-4) and Zach Johnson (1-2-1).  The two other selections include Tiger Woods making his sixth Ryder Cup appearance (10-13-2) and making his first Ryder Cup appearance, Rickie Fowler. 

Of Dr Mo’s two players picked for the 2010 US Ryder Cup Team, Stewart Cink is the 2009 British Open champ and has played in four Ryder Cups, four Presidents Cups and joked about having been selected for the third time as a captains pick rather than quailifing on his own.  Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion has the experiences of one previous Ryder Cup, two Presidents Cups and a 2010 victory at the Crown Plaza Colonial Championship. 

Corey Pavin said there were alot of people in the mix for his picks, he had of input into the selections from his assistant Captians and Team members.  Pavin selected who he thought could play well overseas and make up a well rounded team.   The blend of youth and experience gives alot of options, combinations and flexibility for pairings.