I wish I could put a number on it. For me, it’s just the enjoyment of being out there. Tournaments are Thursday through Sunday but aren’t just the five hour rounds. You show up two hours early, you’re there for an hour after so that’s 32 hours in four days. Add Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and you’re touching 50 hours a week at least. It never feels a lot, it feels like I’m doing the right thing.
Do you ever play a round just for fun with your mates?
It’s very hard for me to play recreationally. I’m too competitive. So when I play with buddies, I always want to put something on the line. I want to create a challenge.
What else do you do in your spare time?
Me and my wife [Katherine] have our dog, Koa. He’s a tiny little golden doodle. We travel with him, honestly, probably 80% of the time, which is awesome, and he is essentially our life. It’s all about being outdoors so we go on walks and if my wife wants to run, I might end up hopping on the bike.
Do you like going out for dinner together?
[laughs] Since we started dating like eight years ago, we’ve kept a list of every restaurant we’ve ever been to. Honestly, we just have it in a Notes app. We’ve had McDonald’s together all the way to fine dining and super nice restaurants.
How long is the list?
[Check his phone]. So we’re at 11,167.
That’s a lot!
We were in Asia two years ago for a three week vacation and I think we ate at over 100 spots, which is insane because one of the weeks was a tournament.
Would you be able to agree on your favourites?
I think we would be pretty good at our top 10 – we’d have a lot of similarities but I’m sure there’s a few that we would debate upon.
Back on the course, how important is what you wear to you?
You know the cliche, look good, play good, right? When I started out, I loved wearing all black. That was my go-to. That’s what I won with. There truly is something to when you feel good about what you’re wearing, it gives you confidence when all the eyeballs are on you, right? For all the majors I sit down with my Adidas team, and we pick out looks for years in advance – we go through different patterns and shirts and colours and whatever’s in season. I remember very vividly for my 2021 Open, the pebble-looking print I was wearing. I was so excited to wear that. You get it in your package at the beginning of the week, you open it up, it just makes it exciting. It happened to work out that week – there’s something to it.
