From Tour Wins to Barely Holding a Club

Scott Stallings1:12

I can use northern words with a southern accent and like really confuse some people.

Scott Stallings1:20

Far as, you know, growing up in that and the dynamic of just all the parts of speech that don't exist in New England, and then using my southern accent and then saying those words, everyone's like, "What is going on here?"

Scott Stallings1:36

Went to high school in Oak Ridge, so just outside of Knoxville.

Scott Stallings1:43

Golf was something that we always did kind of as a family. My dad played.

Scott Stallings1:47

He was a good player, but I mean, not like a aspiring to like play at any level, but that was something we always kind of did in between seasons. Golf was what you did between baseball and soccer or whatever sport was kind of what you were whatever you're playing that time and then lo and behold Tiger came and changed everything. And so I was a 12 13 year old kid. Tiger won the Masters. My birthday is always it's at the end of March always around Augusta.

And I kind of had that perfect scenario of getting my first hole-in-one of my life the day before my 13th birthday. A week or so later young kid that a lot of people heard of goes and just wins the Masters by 12 shots and next thing you know you're like man and golf's maybe what I want to do and I sucked. Yeah. I just got really lucky. I bladed a nine iron and two hop hit the flag goes in and I'm like I've got golf figured out.

So and that kind of transitioned everything. I was on a baseball team that you know we'd kind of to say you play travel baseball compared to the way that youth sports are now like we barely even practice compared to what kids do now playing year round. But we were on a baseball team and I remember calling the coach and I was like hey I think I'm going to try to play golf. And I was terrible.

Scott Stallings3:05

Pretty terrible. I was definitely the best at baseball of all the sports that I played and that was still my first love. All my major league buddies are like you know all they want to do is play golf. I'm like y'all don't want to go take BP or or something like that. And I think that's kind of the beauty of the game too. It's the ultimate common ground sport. You know I play on tour. You have guys you know and that's kind of where the pro-am dynamic comes in as far as you know it'd be fun to go throw passes with Tom Brady but when those linemen and linebackers start coming over the middle like I'm going to [snorts] go to the sidelines and cheer them on.

You know same thing all of the sports but we can get out there and play and so I've kind of always enjoyed that part of the the job that kind of comes along with it.

Scott Stallings3:58

You need to do the running golf. Have you seen that?

Scott Stallings4:04

Yeah, you wouldn't have to be that much better at the game because you're such a good runner. Like where it's like a an average of your score and your running time combined. But we actually talked with some guys they're trying to do an event up in New England and these guys [snorts] are playing 18 holes shooting around even par in like 45 minutes with three clubs.

Scott Stallings4:28

That's one of the they were talking about, you know, hey, you know, the the fittest guys in golf like I could run.

Scott Stallings4:35

I'm not confident that I could run that many miles up and down that hill let alone try to play in that amount of time and I guarantee there's not a PGA tour player that could do that.

Scott Stallings4:51

You guess based off of the way the golf course is. You have something, you know, to kind of hit it down there. You know, some type of shorter club and then something to putt with. Some guys don't even carry a putter and man, you're just booking it.

Scott Stallings5:03

But impressive to see some of the times these guys I did a interview with them and there's some like I didn't realize how fast I mean they're running like five minute mile pace.

Scott Stallings5:15

And yeah, the guy that won the championship last year did like 42 minutes.

Scott Stallings5:27

It's less than that. Sometimes you hit it a 100 yards, but the biggest thing is sprinting in between the holes.

Scott Stallings5:33

And then having like the ability to breathe, slow down, hit and go from there. Maybe it's something

Scott Stallings6:07

Yeah, that's what my afternoon looks like today. We, you know, throughout Tennessee um the Tennessee Golf Foundation, we do a bunch of stuff within the game for start, you know, no matter what way, shape, or form your access to the game is, we try to provide some, you know, way to intervene in some way to give you access to play age, demographic, ability, whatever. And today we have our some of our best juniors in the state that will be over at West Haven with this afternoon, trying to get them ready to play the be the biggest event in the state for them, so kind of come alongside them and see and try to shape them a little bit like, man, it's not always how far, you know, at some point how many matters.

And you know, trying to be able to, you know, come alongside the next generation of player, and so that's I do a lot of that stuff right now.

Scott Stallings7:47

I don't know if you ever have that I can do anything I want. I think you have the moment when there's probably I don't know one day a week where you know in a good run where your caddy's like watching you warm up and like all right, we're about to take the brake pedal and throw it out and the gas is on the right. Everyone's ceiling especially in professional golf is super high. It's just like how low's the floor.

Scott Stallings8:08

And being able to bring it up and then like how can you compete with your off days and like you know what like how bad is your bad and how good is your good? Your good's obviously really good, but it's just being able to make up the difference when it's not all clicking on you know, the way it's supposed to be. But I mean I was a pretty late bloomer. I mean really late in the recruiting cycle of college. I mean that's nowhere near what it is now with all the NIL era and social media and stuff like that, but I put my hopes and dreams into going to University of Tennessee.

I told every person that I got interviewed by or whatever that I was playing for the Vols and lo and behold uh I was given an opportunity to walk on. No, a couple buddies of mine were given kind of scholarship, you know, preferred scholarships over me and I just I hitched my wagon to someone that there was no horse attached to it and I was uh you know, pretty devastated at the time and um ended up going to Tennessee Tech right down the road and I had was very fortunate to have some really good friends there and uh I had a a coach that had played on tour back in the late 70s early 80s and that was the first time I'd been around someone that believed in me more than I believed in myself and you know, kind of gave the idea of like man, a little bit of time and effort and you you might be able to do this.

And you know, that was kind of the first thing that you know, if as far as someone paying attention to it and I just progressively got better and was able to utilize some of the opportunities that playing in college gave me from relationships with equipment companies and then access to being able to you know turn pro right out of school and you know kind of that was it and then just progress from one to the next.

Scott Stallings9:54

Not necessarily but it was truly at the end of the day you look back on that was the best thing that that could have happened to me.

Scott Stallings10:02

Yeah.

Scott Stallings10:04

We made a joke that I made it to NCAA's before they did.

Scott Stallings10:08

I made it to NCAA's my junior year and I showed up and they I mean I never knew a team could fly private. I never knew I took like 38 airplanes to get to Bend Oregon you know from from Nashville and it was like man it felt like it took five days to get out there and then you see teams like oh yeah we got here in two hours. I'm like huh?

Scott Stallings10:32

Yeah especially

Scott Stallings10:34

Yeah especially some of the like the world of all the NIL stuff too. Like it's pretty pretty wild. It was definitely the best thing that could have happened to me definitely put a little bit of a chip on my shoulder made me want to kind of you know prove them wrong and but at the end of the day like if I could redo a scenario in my life that would probably be it cuz I was doing it all based off the external. Once I started to realize the internal was you know what was going to get the the most out of my potential.

Like instead of trying to prove someone wrong I was trying to prove myself was probably when I you know my game kind of went to the the next level. I had a that same coach I was looking at Tennessee scores every week. This guy played this like you know I could be in this lineup and then he's like man you need to had a few times in my life where I need to be reminded to be where I'm at. Um and that was definitely one of them.

He said if you sit here and look you know we get done with every tournament and you look at how Tennessee did instead of how you and your teammates did. Like you're just going to waste your 4 years and you know, go on and try to figure out what what else you're going to do. But, if you really pay attention to where you're at, utilize the circumstances around you to push you to get better. Like, you know, there's no telling what opportunities you're going to have after you leave here.

Scott Stallings11:53

Well, there's about 175 roughly full PGA tour cards

Mhm.

Scott Stallings12:06

So, it'd be like exempt PGA tour players like that would be

Scott Stallings12:11

Theoretically. I mean, there's some tiers now with the way the schedule is, world golf ranking in terms of how they do the rest of the world in terms of how they fill events, majors. Like, the US Open's the week after next. You know, some of those higher up echelon have a different threshold as far as how you fill the field, smaller fields, different things like that. But, for easy math and easy understanding, there's 100 guys that qualify through the FedEx Cup. And then there's some accessory players based off of exemptions, you know, guys that won previously majors, and so on and so forth.

But, to answer your question, not a lot. The best collegiate player I ever played with is now the coach at Oklahoma, Jonathan Moore. And he never held status on any major tour.

Scott Stallings12:54

And he was not even a question the best college player I have ever played with. Like, one of those guys you get down playing with and you're like, I've never seen the game played like that.

Scott Stallings13:14

No, I think it's the product of their environment. Um, especially like coming from a from a school he played at Oklahoma State. And

Scott Stallings13:23

Yeah, 100%. And you see, you know, they have people that come out of that program and and thrive and you have people come out of that program and really struggle in terms of understanding that you know, you step out of something where your every decision that you have throughout the day is already decided for you. You're just kind of following the plan to then removing yourself from that and now you're you're the one that decides when do I train? When do I practice? When do I eat?

When do I sleep? When do I do all these things and it can be pretty overwhelming, especially when you go into a world where you're traveling I mean, my rookie year I did 337 days on the road.

Scott Stallings13:58

Yeah.

Scott Stallings14:01

Uh yes, I had our my rookie year on tour. I remember 337 and then we had you know, 30 days at or so at our house and we were never there. We lived in a house that we moved into that we never actually moved into just cuz our it was like bags, laundry, pack, repeat, couple nights sleep, back on the road. And that's a combination of playing horrible and getting on a stone cold heater. And my mentor when I first got on tour was a guy named Kenny Perry and he's like, you never get off a heater.

And I didn't really understand what that until it happened. And I ended up playing 11 events in a row.

Scott Stallings14:49

Pretty much and I did the same thing. He basically convinced me to keep playing my rookie year cuz I was playing great and I back door top 10. So that means you make the cut on the number. Like I barely made it to the weekend and then I played good uh Saturday and Sunday and I finished sixth in Canada and we're in Vancouver and way over there. And the next event was in the Greenbrier in West Virginia. So logistically

Scott Stallings15:15

A disaster.

Scott Stallings15:16

They had a charter and all this and that and I was like, man KP like I'm like I'm this is my eighth week in a row. I've just finished six like I'm you know, feel like I need some time. He's like nope, you're you got to go. So he convinced me to go to West Virginia. I didn't do anything for a couple days, played the Pro-Am, show up and I'm like man, I still got it.

Scott Stallings15:39

On Wednesday before.

Scott Stallings15:44

What's I mean it's the closest thing to live action like you know, you can throw out the first pitch of a major league game but like the sidelines are there for a reason.

Scott Stallings15:53

Same thing so uh literally show up, play the Pro-Am. I just my house is calling me.

Scott Stallings16:00

He just staying on me. He's like you're playing great, you're playing great, you're playing great. Like just stick with it. Wound up winning that week.

Scott Stallings16:07

My first and then so I go from thinking I'm going to play one more week cuz I'm not in the WGC or the PGA Championship the following week to now I think I'm going to play my ninth event and then go home to end up playing my first World Golf Championship. I get paired with Luke Donald who's number one in the world the first day and then the following week my first major in Atlanta and so my first major ever in my life was my 11th event in a row.

Scott Stallings16:37

Every professional golfer's had some like

Scott Stallings16:41

Marathon golf like hey, I've just played you know, 13 out of 15 weeks or something crazy but to know like I was running on fumes and I

Scott Stallings16:54

Well now with all the major schedule and the way that it's all spaced out it's a lot different back then. I mean that was 2010, 2011. So the way that they're spaced out like it'd be rare to see a guy play more than two or three weeks in a row now.

Scott Stallings17:06

Especially with the way that the schedule is, it would be really really hard to be able to maximize like that many playing opportunities because of way the schedule is. It doesn't necessarily allow itself to like the guys that would be in the situation to play like 6 7 8 weeks in a row. Now with the major schedule, it's a little bit different because it kind of builds in some off weeks for sort of the you know, the grinders of the tour as it was where before it would be like man, if you wanted to to play, it was there.

I mean, there's 44 events in a year.

Scott Stallings17:51

Definitely something that as my career progressed, like I definitely became you know, it was easier to do on the road cuz I knew like I would I would show up at tournaments and I always thought it was amazing you'll get in a car with a veteran that didn't use GPS and I'm like

Scott Stallings18:06

Even know what town we're in.

Scott Stallings18:07

Next thing you know, like I'm driving around, you know, you drop me in Hartford, Connecticut like I probably make it happen or where they just played in Muirfield in Columbus, like I wouldn't need GPS. I would just know exactly kind of where to go around and you know, I definitely kind of fell in that routine later in my career of like hey, this is what this is what the best version of me playing look like and this is sort of the things I need to make sure I have control of and if I kind of have all that stuff sorted out, I'm going to be in a pretty good spot to be able to go out there and compete.

Scott Stallings18:41

No, that was a very different version of the guy that's sitting in front of you. Uh that was one that hey, just cuz I could I I I did. You know, one of those just cuz you can doesn't mean you should. I did the complete opposite and it wasn't necessarily like drugs, alcohol, anything like that. It was just there was so much excess in terms of the idea of recovery or hey man, the gas is on the right. I had it hammered down. You know, I'd play 6 weeks in a row, take half a day off.

I mean, I was just in love with it. I finally I had a achieved a dream to make the PGA Tour and no one was going to take that away.

Scott Stallings19:19

So, I turned pro. I graduated '07. So, I played mini tours for about 18 months. And then the Korn Ferry Tour, which is like AAA. It was the Nationwide Tour when I played. And then I got my PGA Tour card in 2010.

Scott Stallings19:35

Yes. I've had a couple heaters, but that one was most specific cuz everyone's like, "Oh, what was your first major? What was your first major?" I was like, "My first major was my 11th week in a row. It was 8 million degrees in Atlanta. And the second hole or the third hole I started on the back nine in Atlanta Athletic Club. And I always kept asking Kenny. I was like, "When am I going to get like how am I going to know the heater's over?" He's like, "Oh, you'll know." So, the very first hole I hit some rip hook into the trees and it bounced back into the fairway.

And I'm like, "God, the heater's still here."

Lo and behold, two holes later I lay up on this par five and perfect wedge into the you know, good number everything. I fly in the bottom of the hole and it comes out of the hole and goes in the water. And I looked at my caddy and I was like, "Heater's over." And I shot like 74 75 missed the cut and it was just for like the first time I was like,

Scott Stallings20:25

"Okay, I just completely changed my life. Uh these last two months changed everything like the trajectory of my career, trajectory of my opportunity on tour, all this stuff looks completely different than it looked, you know, six eight weeks ago.

Scott Stallings20:38

Let me just take a breath and figure out what this looks like and you know, sort of a new reality.

Scott Stallings21:58

Uh

Scott Stallings22:03

On the Korn Ferry so that was Nationwide 2009 2009 to the It's probably max like 250.

Scott Stallings22:16

I don't know. I don't know what I made my rookie year. Call it two and a half or something like that.

Scott Stallings22:23

Yeah.

Scott Stallings22:28

I don't think you ever really think about that because like obviously there's an economic component to playing for a living but that was never If guys are out there playing like thinking about like nickels and dimes and stuff like that, it's going to be really difficult to pull the trigger when it matters.

Scott Stallings22:44

A matter of like all those like the greatest players in the world never stood over a four footer thinking about what it was worth.

Scott Stallings22:54

No, the number of people like god I made birdie made you know, you know, 400 grand extra on on 18 is like I mean I I made a birdie and that moved me up and the financial part just sort of comes along with it.

Scott Stallings23:42

Yeah, I think, you know, sort of how you do anything is how you do everything and I'm not saying that it's just, man, just blow money out like Of course. But in the fact you do have to spend a little bit in terms of you definitely see And I mean, we we did everything traveling but a bus. We kind of missed that window with our kids that that was an option, but I mean, I knew a lot of people that did that and I mean, it is ultimately a traveling circus.

Everything that kind of goes along with it and everything that kind of I mean, 44 events all across the country, you know, sometimes I played basically everywhere but the Middle East. I never played the Middle East events just because that was on a West Coast run from us on the PGA Tour and that was always a a part of the year I really enjoyed. You know, had some nice runs, you know, San Diego, was fortunate to win. We lived in Phoenix for a long time, so that was just never a a part of the year that allowed me to be able to go and play in that part of the world, but if you can pretty much name somewhere else in the world that they play golf, I've probably played there.

Scott Stallings25:05

Beautiful place out there and

Scott Stallings25:08

But yeah, very much so but Alex has got a good set up out there. I knew a bunch of guys over at Hualalai and Nanalei right across the street.

Scott Stallings25:39

Yeah.

Scott Stallings25:52

I think it's you know, you never really know what that when that moment's going to come. Like I had a couple of events that I sort of was around the lead but just like anything like you know, think about the first marathon you did compared to the second. Like how much more prepared for you cuz you just knew what it was going to feel like. Understanding that I think that's as my career continued to progress is just not I was honest enough with myself to understand what I wasn't the best at and then not necessarily that I played around it but I understand how to kind of reverse engineer, you know, maybe bad habits or things that happen when I got nervous or you know, kind of understanding who who made me the the best version of myself when I was competing and I think that I had a couple times earlier in that year when I was around the lead that you know, maybe

I kind of ran out of holes or I hit a bad shot at a bad time. But I actually bogeyed the 71st hole which was a par five and I had to wait on the tee for a really, really long time. It's a reachable par five, go for it, and I hit it in the water and ended up making six uh to to get one behind the lead. And I remember just talking through myself, you know, 18's pretty unique in West Virginia cuz it's a par three.

It's not very many courses, not very many tour events end on par threes.

Scott Stallings27:14

And I had to make birdie to get into a playoff. And I remember talking myself through like all the things that I knew I did wrong on the tee before, you know, not visualizing, not kind of getting myself in it, especially in big moments when there's a tremendous amount of not only weight, like the the weight of the moment, but also like just the physical wait time to sit around. It's not like, you know, hey, point and shoot, ready to go. And, you know, that was something I probably got better at later in my career, just understanding the moment when those kind of feelings come, but I basically hit the same shot back-to-back.

I hit a good shot in regulation to to make birdie and get into a playoff, and then we went right back to that same hole, and my two balls were 6 inches apart.

Scott Stallings27:57

And basically hit the same shot in a matter of about 15 minutes and was fortunate enough to make birdie twice and move on, and, you know, kind of changed my life forever.

Scott Stallings28:09

Yeah, it's very surreal. I remember hugging my wife, and I was like, I have no idea what just happened. Like, everyone's, you know, everyone makes that joke, oh, I blacked out or whatever. I was like, that's kind of real, but it's also kind of you just get wrapped up into something that you dreamt about your whole life, and then it actually comes to fruition, and you're like, I I do not know how I feel. I like, every, you know, just the the weight and the emotion of the moment kind of comes into one, and we have this picture in our house, and it's my wife's head's kind of right here, and I'm hugging her, and she's like, don't let me go.

I have no idea what to do. And I'm like, same.

Scott Stallings28:51

It's at the Greenbrier in West Virginia and they there's a big I don't know if I'm going to call that right. It's almost reminds me of like inside one of the parts of the Opryland Hotel.

Scott Stallings29:04

Like the glass structure and they basically

Scott Stallings29:07

Yeah, that's the right word. So like they basically mimic the one of the looks of that and they built it into a trophy. So

Scott Stallings29:17

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Um to be honest, a lot of people come to over to our house and I don't really display that stuff. We have it in kind of a back office and and everything and I kind of want it to be like it's fun to look at, but it's also like I understood that everything that went into those kind of things and I never did it for that.

Scott Stallings29:36

I 100% did it for for me and to chase the the idea of how good can I possibly be and go and compete cuz you definitely have that time and place where like imposter syndrome is a thing.

Scott Stallings29:50

It was like, oh, I did it once, I just get lucky.

Scott Stallings29:53

And then you kind of battle the ups and downs and the good and bad of golf and sports and everything is always more, always something else to chase and you know, you definitely realize, you know, the long road of a long career in front of you, especially you know, I don't think I probably enjoyed that as much as I should have cuz it was head down right into the next, like how can I make sure this happens so to validate that I actually can do this.

Scott Stallings30:22

And I don't know what what point in my career I stopped caring about that kind of stuff cuz I definitely got to the point it was like I'm going to come out here, put my head down and just continue to try to be one of the best players in the world and you know, until I can't.

Scott Stallings30:35

But it's kind of a odd transition of going from winning and compet- and competing at the highest level, achieving a dream, and then waking up is like I hope no one I just listened to a Glue Guys podcast and Shane Battier was joking. He's like, "When he retired, he's like, I got I got you. I I I played 13 years. I got two championships and no one found out that I had no idea what I was doing."

I was like, "Well, you probably were doing a pretty good job." But, I think you know, any high achiever, any athlete doesn't they any person that says that they don't have that like in some way, shape, or form, I think that's what drives you to want to get better.

Scott Stallings31:14

And just something that little voice in the back of your head, "Hey, someone's working harder, you know, someone's doing something that I'm not. Like, are you still willing to do that?" And he made a quote and I'm definitely living that in real life now. The desire to compete never goes away. The desire to prepare to compete dwindles.

Scott Stallings31:35

Cuz everyone understands the preparation of all that it takes. Like, to put your head down and go compete is not difficult. That's something that does not go away.

Scott Stallings31:44

Like, we don't come with off switches. It's just figuring out how to find a new purpose to of where that kind of gets desired and, you know, wherever the destination of whatever I'm going to point that intensity to. Like, that's just how we're made. It's It's not like you just decide to retire from a a sport and wake up the next day and like you have no ambition. Like, I don't know any high achiever that that has the ability to do that. You just figure out how to repurpose it.

Scott Stallings33:24

Yeah, it was funny one of the things that the first time you and I met in New York. And you know, I knew you ran every day and I just told Alex when I was like, "Ken's going to be here." At some point I'm going to figure that and we ended up on the Westside Highway just going through talking about life and all the different things like that. But you made one comment about, you know, that high achiever this and obviously we were running down the road and we were, you know, training whatever you want to look at it.

And I had just finished the Boston Marathon, you know, a few months prior and I just talked about like the how to not dive into that thought of, "Hey, I did my training." and understanding that's enough, especially when you see a a beautiful day knowing that you the work is done and then you see other people like, "That person's getting better than me."

Yeah. I may never [clears throat] see that person again. That may be the first day that person has ran in their life. But in my mind they're better than I am because I'm driving this car down the road and they're out there training.

And I was terrible. I mean, a terrible runner. Like I'm still very average at best, but it's something that I enjoy doing because as I got hurt, I wanted to embrace something that I was awful at, never had any experience, but I knew that there was there's a lot of payoff early because just as you do anything, you get way better, way faster. But then it was like golf, like the nuance and minute details that really make a massive difference is uh is pretty crazy. But I I feel like any person that has ever entered into the running world in any way, shape, or form has gotten that where you finish a run or a training session or whatever and you're driving out of there and you see a a run club or whatever is like I should be out there.

I should be And I I don't [clears throat] I don't know what that is internally that makes that happen, but the amount of time that we were We were just in Charlotte at a lacrosse event and there was a run club that actually ran through the all the fields that my son was playing at this weekend and my wife's like, "You about to go join?"

I was like, "If he was not playing right now, I would just join the back end and and kind of go." So, I don't know how that is, but I just remember you and I having that conversation. It's like, "Does that ever go away?" And I can imagine it doesn't.

Scott Stallings37:06

Yeah, we started um So, I got hurt in 24.

Scott Stallings37:12

I hit a lip of fairway bunker at the Players Championship in March of 24. And uh tore completely tore my labrum, bicep tendon, uh broke my cubital tunnel in my elbow. Which basically your elbow hyperextends and uh the bundle that basically holds all the nerves inside your elbow breaks. Um and it was [snorts] a mess.

Scott Stallings37:37

It honestly didn't hurt that bad because it was so numb cuz there's so many nerves related to my elbow that they just thought I had a stinger in my neck. Like I couldn't really feel it. Like it was uncomfortable, to say the least, but it was not like overly painful.

Scott Stallings38:36

Yeah, it it sort of manifested after I had my first surgery um at my first surgery in June. I tried to rehab, you know, hey I'm going to get this fixed and you know, long story short I ended up having three surgeries in 14 months.

Scott Stallings38:53

No, it was all related to I mean it's my lead arm. That's the one that hits the ground. So my shoulder's doing great, but when you you break your cubital tunnel in your elbow, it's basically imagine like conduit for like wiring. And when you break that and the conduit's like part of the structure, they actually don't repair the conduit. They actually run the wiring on the outside. So it follows the same path, but I'm probably describing this wrong medically, but essentially they're putting a what they call a fascial sling on the inside of the elbow and they basically hold it in place.

Scott Stallings39:27

Well, the goal was to try to give me, you know, some time to be able to go out there and play and compete and see, but it was never going to be a long-term solution. The only long-term solution is to fold it into the muscle, but in you have a a short window of being able to do that because just like anyone understands, there's a reason you don't heavy squat every day. At some point that hypertrophy causes so much tightness in that muscle that forearm gets tight, the nerves compress and then my hands goes numb.

So it's definitely a a give and take. But to get back, you know, I I knew it was going to be a long road. Anytime you show up at uh MRI or whatever and an orthopedic surgeon walks in or calls you immediately right after your MRI, like I'm like walking out of the MRI place and I see this phone number and I immediately know it was bad. And so I go and my shoulder's in my ear. Uh I I it's just that it was a mess.

And I'm trying to get my shoulder reset just cuz of all the everything that [clears throat] happened from the injury. And an MRI this a week or two later cuz I kept playing cuz I they thought it was just a stinger in my neck.

Scott Stallings40:37

And it it was not.

Um but through the whole process, you know, I I knew I needed some type of distraction, something that would be able to you know, where I could take the the focus of whatever it took to be able to play and compete at a high level and just, you know, reallocate that somewhere else. So, guy gave me Steve Magness's book Do Hard Things. And I was like, man, and I basically told my wife, like I'm going to run the Boston Marathon. That's basically like you telling me on this like, you know what?

It's June and April, I'm going to play the Masters. But not like just play Augusta National, but like you're going to play in the Masters and you shoot a 100. Yeah, that essentially was my running. I knew nothing about

Scott Stallings41:20

Had to qualify, whatever. And this was in November.

Scott Stallings41:24

So, I basically four or five months and I was like So, thank thank God the guys from Golf Fights Cancer were fortunate enough to give me a bib. And just the process of of how to go from I'd never run really ever in my life. I never had a plan, never had anything. So, it was nice to kind of follow along something that was very similar to golf. The only way to get better at it is to do it.

Scott Stallings41:45

And so I enjoyed that process a lot. And so now trying to, you know, on the other side of my career is, you know, figuring out different things to kind of reallocate that, you know, time cuz it doesn't go away. That back of your mind's like, what could I be doing today to get better and figure out just figure out a way to repurpose it.

Scott Stallings42:35

Yeah. You can You can definitely look at it, too, from the perspective of like You got to do it when the lights come on.

Scott Stallings42:42

And I I was probably pretty good like poster child for that.

Scott Stallings42:48

Cuz I could look very average like leading up to it, but it was like for whatever reason I always think uh forget the name of the show where they go in the elevator and they like snap into it cuz they have the thing in their brain. One of the Apple TV shows. Uh but essentially they would call my name on the first tee, and it was like, "Oh, I'm ready."

Scott Stallings43:09

But it was like it took a while for me to you know, if you and I just went and played a casual round, like I'd hit some good shots, but it's like, "Man, I don't know about this." But then it was like, "Hey, do you want to gamble?" And I was like "Oh." Something to kind of like kick me into that next gear. So, figuring out different things to to be able to kind of repurpose that kind of mindset, and especially something that I was horrible at.

But all the experiences I had in sports within the game, I've never had an experience like the Boston Marathon to being in the fact of being so exceptionally average and having more people cheer for you for 26 miles. I remember calling my wife at the 13-mile mark as like, "Hey, don't worry about my tracker. Like I do not want to miss anything of these next 13 miles."

Scott Stallings43:59

I mean

Scott Stallings44:02

But your perspective is totally different. Like you actually understand what you're doing. I've never done anything like this in my life.

Scott Stallings44:08

Like if I put you on the first tee at Augusta National, you would be like, "I want to remember every bit of this cuz I have no idea if I'm going to get to do this again."

Scott Stallings44:15

And the same like you're a competitive runner, like this is just part of what you do. Same thing.

Scott Stallings44:28

Yeah, I had I had no if you looked at my Garmin, it looked like I was having like a panic at the spaz cuz it was like left and right. I tell everyone the sorest part of my my arm was my hand. I high-fived the entire state of Massachusetts.

Scott Stallings44:41

I think I ran

Scott Stallings44:43

It was weird. It happened in a couple weird spots because they did that, you know, the celebrity or notable runner thing and I was in that which was cool.

Scott Stallings44:53

But I ended up running 27.4 miles.

Scott Stallings44:58

I did every activity that you could do from basically the halfway point in, I did. You know, the the rowing for for meters with the fire department. I did obstacle course with like a elementary school, you know,

Scott Stallings45:18

I just remember I got through halfway and I ran like 1:48 half which was great for me.

Scott Stallings45:25

Which was great and I was bummed. Like I was like, "Crap, it's halfway over." And

Scott Stallings45:31

And I just had the moment, you know, there was a you know, little s- stop station or whatever and I was it was kind of strolling along, had like a sip of water. I was like, "Man, I don't know if I'm ever going to get to do this again. Like I'm taking it all in." And um everything that you could imagine from the halfway point all the way into, you know, Kenmore Fenway, it was one of the most enjoyable sporting experience of my life and I'm horrible at it.

And I I would do it again in a heartbeat. But running into Kenmore with six BPD officers and just watching them have the worst day of their life. So apparently that's the hazing. So if you make BPD out of like police academy, they keep you up all night doing it lord knows what to you. And then you have to So those guys started with the like the pros.

Scott Stallings46:26

And I'm I'm like DFL. Like the guy was done before I even started. You know, I teed off that's what I call it. But um my start time was 11:30. And the pros started at 9:00.

Scott Stallings46:46

Okay. So imagine you start with the pros and I start at 11:30 and I meet you at Kenmore and you got basically a mile and a half left. Think about how miserable of a time you've had. And these guys These guys look like they have been run over by a truck. And they're in their you know, BPD stuff. And man, right like the city of Boston just revitalized that. And these guys just turned into big gate and you know, right when you run through Kenmore and then you drop down before you come up to Wilson.

These guys like So I ended up you know, coming in down Wilson with that was incredible. I mean I knew that they were definitely not cheering for me. But it just the the city of and make it what it is. It was I could talk about that whole experience forever. But you know, it's the thing that I've never been so average at something in my life, especially coming from the PGA tour side and felt like man, they were cheering for us as loud as they were cheering for the guy that finished two and a half hours before I even started.

Scott Stallings47:54

Mhm.

Scott Stallings48:53

Yeah, that was a I had a buddy that had run a couple times before. So he ended up taking me out and so you know, the the longest long run I had done was 20 miles and I I still in my brain never understood why you never run the full thing. Um but I I followed along and you know, felt super prepared and and everything. But I remember him picking me up at my hotel. I did had a hotel right off Boylston. He picked me up and on his GPS was like to where we were meeting for the start line and it was an hour and 15 minutes and I'm like in a car.

And that was like the reality of like we're driving and I was like man, we're pretty far out here.

And like you know, when you get to basically trace the the path of like I got to come back here.

Scott Stallings49:42

I wasn't necessarily nervous but just like the reality of like this is a lot more than than what I thought it was. But I I had I've never really experienced anything like that else in sports and so um it'd be pretty cool. So

Scott Stallings50:04

I had so June of 24 I had my shoulder repaired. They basically when they were going through what do you fix first? You fix shoulder elbow cuz you don't do them at the same time because of the brace you have to wear.

Scott Stallings50:18

So the idea was hey I'm going to do the shoulder and you know you have four to six months rehab and then we're going to see cuz sometimes the elbow could realign

Scott Stallings50:28

And I hit about 12 balls and knew very quickly that it was not and ended up basically the second day of trying to hit ended up back in Cincinnati with the surgeon that did my first one and he they scanned it and he was like man this the nerve is actually further away from where it's supposed to be. That's why every time you hit it's bothering you. And so they repaired it. They call what they fascial sling transposition where they actually move it completely out of the groove.

They'll run it on the inside of the elbow and you know after time you know it'll kind of you know embed and and be ready to go. And to be honest it was it was very successful. Right at the start you know no pain everything and as I started trying to build up so this was November of 24 and they said it would be about four to six months again before I could start hitting and then I would have these big ramp up and they basically use like the Tommy John approach to how you start throwing how you start you know all the different things basically just but they kind of adapted it to golf.

And so about six months after I started hitting playing and man to say it came back like you never know who am I am I still going to be able to do this this and that and to say it came back was like an understatement. Like my speed was was where it was you know you know the shots were coming out of the right windows and I kept pushing the doctors more and more cuz I I had originally said that I was going to come back in January of 26.

Scott Stallings51:59

And that's when I [clears throat] was going to, you know, try to start back at Palm Springs. And so this was August, right before, you know, we got 4 months, you know, leading up to that. I said, "Man, I'm playing great." And so they started doing these tournament simulations where I would build like the the number of hours practice playing. You know, cuz the competition's the easiest part cuz it's 18 holes right in front of you. It's all the prep.

Scott Stallings52:23

You know, when you go run a race, like, "Is all I got to do?"

Scott Stallings52:38

Yeah.

Scott Stallings52:42

Yeah. And that was kind of part of it. So the doctors were very adamant like, "Man, you have got to start doing these simulations. Like you All right, you do, you know, 2 days in a row, you do great. How you do 4 days in a row? All right, so after you do 4 days in a row, like, how you do 2 weeks in a row? How you do 3 weeks in a row?" And just by saying this out loud, like, I I can feel it in my elbow.

It's just like getting mad at me. Uh so I I started pushing cuz I wanted to play some events in the fall.

Scott Stallings53:49

Yeah, I think but in the same you're going and competing against the best players in the world. Like there's a time element that like I was physically gifted enough to be in that, you know, criteria of best player in in the world. You know, there's 150 guys that have a tour card and I was one of them. So, I mean, you're doing something right.

Scott Stallings54:11

Um but knowing what it took to do that from a a prepa- I mean, I was not the most physically gifted person. I had to work. And I think that was a part of like "Well, if I had to work that hard to be where I was at, then scaling back is probably not the the recipe that's going to make me be able to play play better, especially trying to overcome an injury."

Scott Stallings54:50

Yeah, the cause-effect and hypothetical situation of anything to do related to my arm in the game of golf, there's not been one thing that I haven't rethought, overthought, wish I redid, all the different scenario. I basically tell everyone, other than cut my arm off and try to sew it back on, I've pretty much tried it.

Scott Stallings55:10

So, that was in the fall. I was pushing and I was in the process of doing like a 3-week simulation cuz that was part of it. Man, if you're going to be able to come back like you got to be able to to do it at the level you need to be able to do it. Especially the rinse and repeat, the late earlies, early lates as far as tee times and things like that. And we were playing around. We were in Chattanooga. And I was playing great.

I was 11 under through 13 holes.

Scott Stallings55:36

And I I texting the doctor like, "Hey, this tournament's in 3 weeks. Like, I wanted to play Jackson, Mississippi, where I had won, and I wanted to play RSM, which is in Sea Island, which is the last event of the regular season in the at the end of the fall, right before Thanksgiving. And then I was going to have like 6 weeks off, you know, kind of build up through the the winter, and then start back in January. And I was 11 under through 13, and the 13th hole is a is a par 3.

And I hit a 9-iron into the green, and it felt super awkward when the club hit the ground. And by the time I got to the green, my hand was completely white.

Scott Stallings56:14

Like,

Scott Stallings56:17

To my doctor, and he's like, "Automatically phone call." Like, not like a text. Like, "Hey, you you stop play immediately. You need to come We need to scan, see what's going on." So, I scanned it, and it was so gnarled up there, it was kind of hard to tell what's what. So, we did 4 weeks of just light rehab and everything, and try to let the to really be able to scan it without just opening me up and figuring out what was going on. And ultimately found out that the nerve had completely torn out of where it was set.

Which that was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever had, by far.

Scott Stallings56:53

The pain.

Scott Stallings56:54

I've never experienced anything like that. You talk about

Scott Stallings56:58

Oh my gosh. Like, right up against the inside of your funny bone in your elbow, and then your arm just takes the beating.

Scott Stallings57:07

And uh so, man, that was a it was a pretty trying time. So, that was the end of August, early September. And so, I went through a matter of, you know, the next 3 4 months of really trying to evaluate what my options are. Think every every scenario you could possibly think of, I was thinking about it.

Scott Stallings57:25

I even joked around I was going to be the first guy to ever play on the PGA Tour left and right-handed.

Scott Stallings57:29

Cuz it didn't hurt my arm if I swung left-handed, cuz it's my arm instead of my lead arm.

I mean, you talk about going down a rabbit hole, I did. And ended up having two doctors in on the, you know, eastern part of the United States tell me my options for my elbow, and ended up with the basically TPI is the kind of the tip of the spear in terms of like biomechanics in golf and movement and do a lot of baseball, football, different things, but they started in golf.

Scott Stallings58:00

Yeah, it's Titleist Performance Institute.

Scott Stallings58:02

Yeah, Greg Rose and Dave Phillips, and they were great. So, Greg was the first person in golf, other than my crew, like my team, that I had reached out to knowing that my injury, based off the way that I swung, was it was it was going to be something, because I'm a, you know, I'm a leaner. So, the left arm is very important to the way that I play. Um and so, he was very understanding of of my situation. I had seen him before and everything, and so, I was like, "Man, we're going to go out here to California." This was in December, and I said, "We're going to figure out if I do have an option to be able to have a a any type of viability for the remainder of my professional career, to figure this out."

Scott Stallings58:44

I'm 41.

Scott Stallings58:46

And so, I I played 14 years and seven events.

Scott Stallings58:49

Um and

Scott Stallings58:52

Spent 2 days out there with them, and they got me with the number one hand and elbow specialist in the United States in LA, and he looked at me and said, "I've done this procedure for 30 years, dealt with pitchers, tennis, golf, every kind of people." He's like, "I don't you're not going to make it a year." He said, "I bet my entire practice on it." He said, "There's just no way that you can practice and hit the way you need to be able to do it and not have a chance of this happening again." And so, I had three doctors in three different practices tell me the exact same thing, and you know just well as I do, that is very rare to have

Scott Stallings59:30

Basically two options. You can sling it again and try keep it on the outside and the first one lasted about 6 months.

Scott Stallings59:37

But the you know kind of the the future viability of that involves another you're one swing away from having it tear.

Scott Stallings59:43

And you know you're looking at about another 6 to 8 months after each time it gets fixed. Yeah. It may be less, maybe more, but essentially like you're starting over after every time it comes out and they got to just figure out a way to re-patch it.

Yeah. That's no way to live, man.

Scott Stallings59:57

And I I asked him I said, "What would you do if you were me?" He's like, "Man, if you're 25, you played on tour for a year or two." He said, "I'd try it a couple more times." He said, "But the problem is when they do it, they trim the bottom of your tricep every single time they do it." So, I mean there's only so much tricep in there. Yeah. Um and he said, "Man, for you you probably have two more times max just the way that they had to go clean it out the first time." He said, "My my expertise is you fold it in the muscle and you know, you enjoy the opportunities the game gave you and and move on." And I was like, "So, you're telling me I'm I'm done?" And he's like He said, "The version of golf that you know to be able to play at the highest level and you know what it takes to be able to

Do that." He said, "I do not feel like your arm is in a position to be able to handle that."

Scott Stallings1:00:56

I I went down that road. It was like, "Well, you know, if it tears again, it tears it tears again and whatever." And then cuz I was having a really hard time like with control of my hand with the nerve cuz the nerve controls this back part of your hand. And like I couldn't hold anything. And he he looked at me. He's like And granted super emotional situation of him basically telling me that he thinks my career is over or he would recommend that I choose the procedure that would essentially end my career.

Mhm. It's like you want to hold your daughter's hand going down the aisle. And I was like, I never in my brain it's like, well, I have a right hand. But he's like, if you continue to push this, he said, you will get to the point where you lose control of your hand. And your arm. And I'm like, so

Scott Stallings1:01:55

Yeah, and I think you know, there it was it was a lot more emotional than I thought in terms of like not like, you know, crying like wailing out.

Scott Stallings1:02:05

It was more just like someone just having a very real honest conversation. It was like, hey man, the game's been really good to you. Like let's remember the game for for what it was instead of, you know, going and continuing to beat your head against the wall in something that you're just a ticking time bomb on your elbow.

Scott Stallings1:02:26

It was just one of those like understanding of of knowing what it takes and to be able to do at that level and to know that you're one swing away from a starting over again.

Scott Stallings1:02:37

And you don't have to watch too much golf on TV to watch a guy hack it out of the rough. And like I would see a guy hack it out of the I watched some of the Memorial yesterday.

Scott Stallings1:02:46

And I watched a guy dig it out of the rough on 17 and my whole arm was like,

I don't I don't think I could do that.

Scott Stallings1:02:54

So, uh this January I had it. They folded it in the muscle. Basically, they cut your forearm uh in half. You know, it's kind of split it open and they run the nerve on the inside of the bone and they fold it over and scar it down. So, I'm about 5 months post that now and started being able to like doing occupational therapy for 3 or 4 months. You know, talk about humbling.

Scott Stallings1:03:17

I had a lady uh that helped me from all that and you want to talk about some of the like the fine motor of being able to do that and just feel helpless cuz it's just like relearning how to use your hand and everything. So, but thankfully we had good results from that and started being able to lift a little bit which been super interesting how weak my arm is. But yeah, it's been a a good transition kind of figuring out what what's next. Hopefully being able to try to play some.

I don't really know what that looks like.

Scott Stallings1:03:44

I go hit every now and then and realize I'm still really bad at this, but you know, who who knows what what the next you know chapter holds, but you know, I feel like I'm in a good place now as far as understanding you know, the just what golf looks like in my life kind of moving forward.

Scott Stallings1:04:07

Well, I mean when it tore, it was I was off a tee box on a par three.

Scott Stallings1:04:23

The the nerve is in a muscle. So now like the the like now if this tore out again like something traumatic happened. Like you know, it would be very very very difficult for it to come out where before it was sort of just patched on the the outside of your arm.

Scott Stallings1:04:42

Didn't if it tore out now I have really done something. I don't think I could do it.

Scott Stallings1:04:49

I hope so. Okay, I hope so. I've tried to play a little bit. I tried to hit some around last week and it's still a little tender like going down into the ball, but I'm still I'm 5 months out. But it's nice to be able to lift like be able to you know, try to do some I've lived on that wheel like trying to get my forearm strength back and going into occupational therapy with an 80-year-old stroke patient on the table beside you and she's talking trash about how she's whipping me in this like key thing we were doing.

Scott Stallings1:05:17

Like that's humbling. Like I play with the best players in the world and this 80-year-old lady is whipping me. I'm trying to put this key in this thing and then I have to do it in a certain way, so uh but it was I learned a lot of lessons through that and you know, you talk about identity and like what I identify as like there's probably a time in my life I didn't know how to describe myself anywhere other than a PGA Tour player.

Scott Stallings1:05:40

I think perspective changes and understanding like I felt super fortunate to be able to play and compete at a super high level on tour and I think that in some way, shape or form like my family dynamic with my wife and my kids got me to a spot of realizing I I identify way more as the husband of Jennifer and the father of Finn and Millie than I would ever do of playing the game. And I would say that that probably wasn't always the case, but as perspective changes and understanding of you know, what have the opportunity to do and really truly feel called for as a husband and a father.

I mean, that's kind of right there in front of me.

Scott Stallings1:06:22

So people ask what I'm doing now is like obviously rehab my arm, you know, do the things I need to do to take care of that kind of stuff, but I'm a lacrosse driver.

Scott Stallings1:06:34

I'm a you know, whatever I could possibly do to you know, to to be around them and and you know, kind of cuz they gave up so much in me pursuit of my career and and all the different things. So now to come alongside of their schedule and figure out exactly what that looks like is something I get excited about and uh you know, kind of the the next version of life for us.

Scott Stallings1:07:01

Um probably one of my I play play Tiger. Uh I want to say it's 2018, 2019. I played with him back-to-back days. Um And he was he was the reason that made me want to go, you know, try to pursue a career. But my son had just broken his arm and my wife had made his cast look like Iron Man. Like it was sick. We still have it to this day.

Scott Stallings1:07:27

And I Finn was asking, he's like, I would like Tiger to sign my cast. And him not knowing that Tiger is a die-hard like superhero fan. Okay. And think about how many times Tiger Woods has signed his name in his life, but the moment that he took, we were in a scoring tent and he brought Finn in and he traced his signature with a pencil on this cast and he's like, I'm not messing this up. Like your your mom spent a lot of time on this.

And just to see the the human side of people, like not just the you know, super competitive, but just like being a guy and understand that the game made that possible. Like that was as a dad and a competitor, that was kind of like a full circle moment for me. You know, but also like you know, being in there, man. Like being in the the midst of, you know, coming down the stretch, you know, I played 450 PGA Tour events in my life and won three of them.

So did I have a failure of a career? Do you view how you view success, how you view this? Like I was able to do something at the highest level you could possibly do it at for almost 15 years. Like I'm pretty pumped about that.

Scott Stallings1:09:18

Uh 20th.

Scott Stallings1:09:22

20th, I think was my highest. So, I played I think I played 15 or 18 majors in my career. Uh maybe more, maybe less, but whatever, but uh 20th at the Masters is my best major finish. So, it was kind of a weird deal as far as I only had one year where I knew I could plan to prepare for majors, like where you could, you know, a lot of times, especially like my first Masters, I knew in 2011, my 2012 was my first Masters, I had 8 months to prepare.

Scott Stallings1:10:00

Cuz I won in August, and then I had, you know, the remainder, so I knew I was playing. Where my second Masters, I had about 4 weeks.

Scott Stallings1:10:11

And stuff like that. So, you know, there's definitely a a rhyme and reason to guys that really play well, especially when they can prepare their schedule instead of, "Hey, you know, I I won the week before, and next thing I'm at the US Open." Same thing like I was telling you about my first major is like I don't think many guys go in their first major playing 11 weeks in a row.

Scott Stallings1:10:29

That's not necessarily a recipe for success, cuz it's I mean, the courses are difficult, and there's just so much more focus because it's a major week, and kind of just being prepared for that. And that was something that, looking back on it, probably could have done a little bit better job, but I mean, in the moment, you're doing the best you possibly can, you know, for for whatever that is.

Scott Stallings1:11:56

It's all more everything. And you know, a normal event is 156 players. Like this year at the Masters, 88.

Scott Stallings1:12:05

So, it's half the field and 10x the attention. Um you know, golf course tend to be a little bit more difficult, but Augusta is the only place we play the same place every year in the major schedule. Now, you'll have repeat venues.

Scott Stallings1:12:19

And I think like Shinnecock, we played the last time we played Shinnecock where the US Open is next week, was 2018. So, it's been in the rotation for a long time, but there's been a bunch of guys that have never been there.

Scott Stallings1:12:31

So, there's a lot of nuance in terms of how you practice. Like I mean, I played you know, Torrey Pines 14 times. Yeah. Not a whole lot of practice and prep goes into that. You know, your your lead up to the week of of a place you've been at a lot is very minimal in terms of just being ready for Thursday compared to showing up at a a that no one's ever seen. So, the time and effort that goes into the prep side can definitely make for a pretty long week, especially when you feel like you're kind of scrambling it for the test and maybe you find out you got in the test the week before and then you're even more.

Scott Stallings1:13:10

Hopefully, you would make a scouting trip. You know, the the like the Open Championship over in Europe.

Scott Stallings1:13:18

Man, you're We just don't play over there very often, so you're just not like, "Hey, I can bang over for a a day or two and then figure it out." You know, where it's some guys that play both tours have a little bit more opportunity to be able to do that. But, I remember Shinnecock I qualified for the week before, so I I just got there and and played played the week of and tried to do the best I possibly can. Um but, as I a couple years in my career where I could prepare, you know, for major events and stuff, if I can make it over a day like prior to the week or something, make a scouting trip, you definitely would because practice rounds are super long.

You know, there's so much attention to detail going into it and it's just a a big like you know, you play nine holes and take take you 4 hours.

Scott Stallings1:14:03

Oh, it's just people trying to learn a place that no one's ever been to. And

Scott Stallings1:14:19

That happens.

Scott Stallings1:14:22

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like I'm doing everything I possibly can to be prepared to play at the highest level.

Scott Stallings1:14:32

And you know, what? You know, sometimes a good thing too much of a good thing is not always a good thing. You know, you see guys practicing shots who are like, "Man, if you're there, you probably don't need to be here."

Scott Stallings1:14:51

Yeah, like if you make a scouting trip prior, like obviously during the event, the course is just us out there. But like if you make a scouting trip and you see a guy going around a green with like four or five balls, it's kind of known like hey, this this guy's you know, here for a reason.

Scott Stallings1:15:10

And for the most part it's pretty well received. They know a guy's getting ready to prepare for to play a major championship and you know, you might get one day at a facility, you know, prior to the week, so you need to try to maximize it.

Scott Stallings1:15:25

Well, you get you get a guy that'll get real animated, especially like a par three and you're playing from a multiple tee boxes and next thing you know, it's like oh, this guy plays for a living. Like next thing they become real friendly real fast. Like hey, what what are you doing there? What do you Why are you doing this? And so, just people trying to understand the nuance of what you do to try to prepare to play the level like that.

Scott Stallings1:15:57

I don't think the the next version of my golf career involves fighting at public facilities.

I'll probably just laugh and say

Scott Stallings1:16:34

Yeah, I have.

Scott Stallings1:17:28

Yeah.

Scott Stallings1:17:50

I had a a really good buddy of mine that had 12 years in the UFC and s- seeing like that level is like, man, you never judge a book by its cover.

Scott Stallings1:18:01

And look at a guy's ears automatically. If I see

Scott Stallings1:18:06

That's like the first tail sign and then if you see a guy like really calm in like controversial situations, he knows that this is not the first time he's been in this.

Scott Stallings1:18:15

And it's maybe time to back back away.

Scott Stallings1:18:31

Yeah, very much so. I was you know, probably had you know, 20, 30 lbs on him. He fought He's a 155 guy.

Scott Stallings1:18:40

Uh Scott Holtzman.

Scott Stallings1:18:42

And he probably walked around at 185 or so, but still, you know, even like

Scott Stallings1:18:52

Yeah. Uh but just the experience of like he would we'd kind of like play around and obviously he could murder me if he wanted to, but just in the fact of like how much that it didn't matter how big I was. Like I knew nothing and he knew how to do everything and he made that very well known. It was like, well, if you do this, I'm going to do this. You can do this. And you just sit there and you're like, uh I'm not the effort that I could put forth to this and just understand that he's just going to own me in any way I try to do.

So, seeing situations like that where people try to put themselves in just to try to be a tough guy like, hey man, there's levels to this.

Scott Stallings1:20:20

For the most part, guys are pretty well reserved. And but everyone has kind of that moment of like, man, I got to get this out. Like there's more room on the outside than the inside, but like moments of frustration, some way, shape, or form has sort of that like release effect where you kind of let it go but instead of people like acting like it's not bothering them or whatever and then they have like the explosion out of nowhere.

Scott Stallings1:20:42

That's sort of like I was pretty expressive in terms of like you know, keep it pretty well together and then I just have to have like my guy get this out and then I'm going to put my head down. I actually probably did the best in my career in bad weather just cuz I would just sort of out attitude everybody.

Scott Stallings1:20:59

And you know, that was sort of like I I knew that everyone had an adversity that they had to deal with that day and I was just going to figure out a way to use it as an advantage instead of something to blame and

Scott Stallings1:21:35

Yeah, I think that some of that stuff is you know, you see bad weather and it was almost like I was licking my chops like these guys maybe coming down a little bit more to like I don't have the you know, the superpower that Rory McIlroy has as far as a driver but he's got to deal with some of this weather like I do I do like I can kind of use what I feel like I made my best. I think probably what was able to make me play as long as I did is just understanding what what was the best part of my game and how to do that as much as I possibly could instead of trying to play the other things cuz I just knew I wasn't physically capable of being able to do those kind of things.

I think that's made a big difference and think younger guys as they start to develop they really understand what makes them them and how to just be the best version of that instead of trying to be someone else that they either they think they they understand that they'll never be that and just constantly striving and like man I'm just going to be this and understand that if and when I'm I manage that, I'm going to be able to go and compete with the best in the world.

Scott Stallings1:22:39

Uh on tour?

Scott Stallings1:22:40

Uh Memorial where they would just played Muirfield. Jack uh Jack Nicklaus's like home event and his my rookie year he was super nice to me in a moment that he probably didn't have to be and that was just something that uh I'll definitely never forget. Um and a place that I I had a couple of nice runs there. That was the first time I ever played Tiger.

Scott Stallings1:23:02

Um that was my second year on tour and um that was just some really really cool memories in a place that uh was real special. So I don't watch a ton of golf, but I will watch there just cuz I I think the golf course is awesome and uh it you definitely got to have it all together around that place.

Scott Stallings1:23:30

He could he could definitely use it more to his advantage than possible. So I played on tour in 2013 when he was player of the year. Yeah. People forget that. Obviously that's a long time ago now, but you know that like fear level of playing with Tiger now was way more of an excitement of like man it's awesome he's out here.

Scott Stallings1:23:49

And that's definitely changed as all the injuries and different things has happened in his career, but the first time I played with him was at Memorial. And the very first hole um I got like a two-footer for par and he's got like a four-footer. Like he's clearly away and he said you should putt. I'm like dude there's no way you're about to make

Scott Stallings1:24:10

Like in the etiquette side the person that's furthest away goes first. And in my mind of being a young dumb idiot that's never been in the the before is like I'm you're going to put your chest out, I'm going to put my chest out. And like, I'm you're you're putting first. Like, I know how this day is going to go. And like, I just was not going to back down. And so he's like, "Okay." So, he putts. And as his ball is going in the hole, I just look at my caddy.

I was like, "Oh my gosh." He was trying to help me. Cuz as soon as he putts out, all those people that are there in my brain, they're like, "Oh, this cool. They're going to be here to watch us." They could have cared less that I was in that group, and they were out of there.

Scott Stallings1:24:55

He was He was trying to be a good dude.

Scott Stallings1:24:57

And

Scott Stallings1:25:02

No, he just started laughing. And we're walking over it. And he was like, I said, "I see what you're doing there. And I appreciate that. And I will take you up on that the next 17 holes."

So, we joked about it. We had one hole where he had like uh 20 ft.

Scott Stallings1:25:20

And I had like eight. And I was like, "I'll go." Like, the rest I just put it first the rest of the day.

Scott Stallings1:25:31

No, for him in the situation is just the related to the crowd.

Scott Stallings1:25:34

Cuz I mean, as soon as he taps in or the ball goes in the hole, they're out of there. And then trying to manage that chaos, especially in some of the events where the people are so close to the green, it can be distracting.

Scott Stallings1:25:49

Very much so. But in my mind, he was trying to like big time me. Which at the end of the day was just a fallacy in my brain. He was just trying to He was And so, that was in June. And then I played with him later in August. And we got on the first hole, and we almost had the exact same thing happen. You know, I got 2 ft for par, he's got, you know, 3 or 4 ft for par. And I before he even asked, I was like, "I'll go."

So, you know, sometimes in that situation, you know, guys that big followings and stuff can, you know, can be a blessing and a curse, but he he never did anything with that situation to try to create advantage. He knew that his play was going to be enough.

Scott Stallings1:26:33

No, it's always the guy furthest away that gets to decide.

Scott Stallings1:26:37

No question.

Scott Stallings1:26:42

Uh a little bit more of um

Scott Stallings1:26:49

You You take a 25-year-old kid that is playing the first time in the second to last group on a Saturday

Scott Stallings1:26:56

On a golf course that a guy's won 10 times that and he's the currently the best player in the world. Think about the range of emotions and like it's pretty hard to have rational thoughts

Scott Stallings1:27:06

In that I just sort of got wrapped up in the moment. I'm like, "You don't tell me when to putt." And I was like, "You can't come out here and tell me what to do." And then the time of like, man, just looking back I was like, "Man, I'm such an idiot."

Scott Stallings1:27:19

But he was he wore me out about it, too.

Scott Stallings1:27:23

He's like, "You You You sure?" And I was like, "Yeah, have at it." And sure enough and he's walking after he putts and he's walking to the back of the green going to the second hole. He's like, "I tried I tried to tell you, man." Cuz I'm like, "Oh my gosh, these people are like they're going."

Scott Stallings1:27:43

They could completely care less that this you know, guy from Tennessee's out here trying to make a living, too. And but it was it was really funny. You obviously never forget your first time playing with a you know, golf hero or something like that, but you know, that was definitely uh every time around Memorial I get excited and bring up stories like that. And so later that day, you know, I played with seven guys in my career when they were number one in the world. And I remember this vividly.

We're walking up 18 and we're both our balls are on the green. I said, "Hey, man, from one guy to the next, like, just thank you for what you did for the game. You've inspired, you know, made it come out here and and have a chance to do that cuz a lot of guys get inspired by athletes, but they never have a chance to compete with guy anyway, shape or form that made them want to do it, especially from an age perspective. Um just as far That's kind of the one thing about golf is you can play for so long.

And he said, "Thanks." Um could not have been nicer. And we're walking up and I just said, "Man, like, you know, good luck tomorrow." You know, we may or may not, you know, play together, whatever, but, you know, best of luck. And he said, "67." I I Excuse me? And he said, "67." And he said, "If you want to get in a playoff with me tomorrow, that's what you're going to need to shoot cuz that's what I'm going to shoot." And I said, "Excuse me?" So, we both shoot 73 on Saturday.

We both shoot one over. And we kind of scraped it around to be able to do that. So, we entered the the Saturday in the second-to-last group, so we're close to the lead. We both shoot one over and we're in like 12th or 15th. So, we're like an hour before the leaders on Sunday. And I'm playing in the group in front of him. We don't get paired together the next day. Well, he makes about a 40 35 40-footer on 18 to make birdie and shoot 66 and win by two.

And I sign my card and I'm up on the hill and I can see my like I see him make this putt. And I mean, he was an hour in front of the leaders and it was over. Like, the tournament was over. And he ended up winning by two shots. And I see him, he, you know, says hi to Jack and walks up the hill to sign his card and I'm standing there. I shot 72 and finished 12th. And I was like, man, he's like, "Yeah, I kind of got lucky.

Snuck that last one in there." He said, "That should That should be good enough." I'm like, "Should be good enough? They're They're engraving your name in the trophy. Like this is over.

Scott Stallings1:30:11

And so you just seeing the the mental obviously had crazy crazy crazy you know physical talent and everything but just the mental awareness to be like man I don't I don't care that I I struggled to to you know get the ball around today but if I go out here and tell myself and then he did it.

Scott Stallings1:30:29

Was like So I would tell myself I'm like 65. And then go out the next day and shoot 71 or something like that. But that was

Scott Stallings1:31:00

Well yeah that was that was a one of those like they're they're there were some like internal trash like in the group or whatever but you were never like going to single a guy out. You know maybe now with some social media and stuff like that but

Scott Stallings1:31:19

Oh Brooks.

Scott Stallings1:31:20

Yeah they're they're buddies now but Brooks is back on tour and you know that whole situation is what it is but Yeah I mean it's hard to know what's real and especially when you have two guys like that that are pretty unique personalities.

Scott Stallings1:31:41

No that was kind of the blessing of LIV. All the guys that tended to be a little bit controversial in terms of their you know personality tended to kind of go towards LIV. There's a bunch of great guys that went to LIV some really good friends of mine that you know they they made the decision that was best for them in their career.

Scott Stallings1:31:59

But in the in the situation of the guys that probably people had the most problems with ended up going over there. So there's a couple of them that would be all right if we never saw them again.

Scott Stallings1:32:10

Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to see how that all trans like

Scott Stallings1:32:17

Yeah, I don't I have no idea what the future of golf looks like in 2028. Um you know, the PGA Tour is going to make a pretty dramatic shift in their schedule. Uh sort of the you know, the hierarchy of tiers and and the way the tournaments are positioned and scheduled and the things like that. I think 2027 will be very similar to what 2026 does in terms of you know, kind of the abs and flows, but 2028 will be a pretty drastic shift. Um the inevitability of LIV and how the sustainability of their program and what that looks like in terms of professional golf and how you know, good, bad, or indifferent it's pushed professional golf to make dramatic shifts.

Probably for the positive of the player side. Um I was a direct benefit of that. I made the Tour Championship in '22, the year of LIV.

Scott Stallings1:33:05

You know, talk about a year to play good. That was it.

Scott Stallings1:33:08

Um changed my life. And it'll be very interesting to kind of see what that looks like now on the kind of the other side of the of the ropes a little bit and kind of seeing it from the outside looking in.

Scott Stallings1:33:26

Yeah, I I we made that same cuz we can practice in shorts now. That's kind of a It's kind of a It's kind of a weird thing, but

Scott Stallings1:33:38

I think that was one of the things when I first started running though. Uh I was a Garmin guy for quite a bit and right when Garmin was getting into golf and they did their athlete review at the end of all just think all the Garmin athletes across the world. And it was like total miles that you know, base off the you know, the steps by the end of the year. You know, everyone does that year-end review stuff. And it was an ultra guy and he had like 4,500 miles.

And number two was a PGA Tour player.

Scott Stallings1:34:10

And did 3,900 miles in a year.

Scott Stallings1:34:16

Yeah, that's

Scott Stallings1:34:18

That's a lot of miles.

Scott Stallings1:34:23

Yeah, so just think of the number of just time on your feet. So, when I started doing the marathon stuff and everything, I grew up with John Kelly. We grew up on the same street. Um, we grew up on the same street. Only guy ever do it three times.

Scott Stallings1:34:23

Dude, what a what a great dude. And he's like, man, I think you're an ultra guy. He's like, you're kind of built you're bigger, like He said, you need to go just do like 10-minute miles for like a really long time.

Scott Stallings1:34:55

So, we're going out, we're doing one of the 29029s in September. We're going to Park City.

Scott Stallings1:35:11

Yeah, so Jesse has that you know, the you know, pick one hard thing to do with your buddies a year. So, my coach, I just started working with him for we've been buddies for a long time. And he started coaching me for about 4 months before I got hurt. And started getting into training and this and that. So, we never got a chance to like really do like the PGA Tour thing together as like player coach. And so, I sent this to him and I was like, man, let's go do this together.

Scott Stallings1:35:41

That's a trail. That's so 78 miles in 3 days.

Scott Stallings1:35:55

The the trail marathon?

Scott Stallings1:36:02

Okay.

Scott Stallings1:36:17

Never heard of that ever, and we went to Aspen for fall break.

Scott Stallings1:36:23

We were eating lunch, and I saw these people walk around with these red hats on.

Scott Stallings1:36:27

And I finally stopped. I was like, "What What are these hats on?" They were like, "Oh, we just finished the 29029." And I'm like, and one guy was like, "Yeah, I just climbed Mount Everest." I'm like,

Scott Stallings1:36:37

"Dude, we're in Colorado. We're not anywhere close to Nepal." And he's like, "No, go check it out." And we I went over there the last day, and I watched a guy who's 78 years old finish on like the 35th hour.

Scott Stallings1:36:51

And I immediately come back to this little place we rented with my family, and my wife's like, "You're definitely going to do one of these." I was like, "I already signed up."

Scott Stallings1:37:00

I got the packet and everything, and you know, just like we were saying earlier, man, you don't you don't really turn off that part of your brain. You just figure out how to reallocate the purpose in in front of it. So, it's been cool. It's been really interesting to train for that cuz it's just there's not like a good way to do it other than just to be on your feet a bunch of different ways. How can I do incline? Can I ruck? Can I run?

Can I

Scott Stallings1:37:23

And so, it's just a um if you looked at my activities on my watch, you'd be like, "This guy cannot figure out which one he's going to" And he's trying to do it all.

Scott Stallings1:38:21

Yeah.

Scott Stallings1:38:28

Yeah, we got I think we have five guys, a buddy of ours is going to do it together in Park City. So, you know, that been the hardest thing for us being in Tennessee is to, you know, get used to the elevation.

Scott Stallings1:38:45

Yeah, but you go I mean, you get up to almost 10,000.

Scott Stallings1:38:49

Yeah, you start about 6,500.

Scott Stallings1:38:51

I'm going to go see our buddy Big Jeff out there. We're going to You ever done the stairs with him on the ski jump place?

Scott Stallings1:39:06

Yeah, when we I first signed with my minutes, we went out there and picks me up at like it was very dark in the morning. Flying like 11:30 at night. He's like, "I'm going to pick you up and so we're going to work out in the morning."

Scott Stallings1:39:22

Like, I'm kind of down for whatever. He's like, "We're going to do the stairs on the ski jump." And it was up there. And you're probably at 6,000 ft and I live in Tennessee. I'm probably 800 maybe.

Scott Stallings1:39:34

And I'm just breathing through like a wet rag getting up there.

Scott Stallings1:39:39

And strapped those rucksacks on and we get up and down the stairs, and uh we have this videographer guy following us, and man, he's having the worst day of his life. It's just like two guys that just not going to quit.

Scott Stallings1:39:51

We finally get up to the third one, and just like, man, I get it. You can do this. And I was like, yeah, man, like I'm not really great at anything, but I can do a lot, and more just tell myself that I'm just not going to stop. I might not be the fastest, but I'm not going to quit.

Scott Stallings1:40:07

And but we got some guys that we're going to go out there. We're going out there early in the week, and we're going to go see those guys, and kind of recreate that a little bit, try to get acclimated a little bit for a couple days.

Scott Stallings1:40:20

Uh yeah, NOBULL still in there, Johnnie-O on the course, uh doing some kind of, you know, mid uh you know, between the PGA Tour and, you know, content side, kind of being a happy medium for them. Uh Nobull's a big part, Titleist obviously, um I'm in this.

Scott Stallings1:40:40

Yeah. I mean, they they've been with me my whole career. Um and you're now kind of seeing a different side of golf, especially, you know, the not necessarily that I have aspirations to be a content creator, but to kind of come alongside of of people that are trying to be in that space to, you know, cuz the influencer world is dangerous in the fact of a lot of these people don't know what they're talking about.

Scott Stallings1:41:04

And, you know, just because someone puts a camera in front of them doesn't automatically make automatically make them an expert.

Scott Stallings1:41:12

Some words and experience of people that have done it at the highest level, especially be able to, you know, create relevance to, you know, the average amateur and what they need for their game, compared to so much stuff is just driven to the people that are the best in the world.

Scott Stallings1:41:27

And I think, you know, that part's super interesting. And then developing different parts of of the game, just access here in Tennessee, do a lot with the Golf Foundation, and um all the different programs that we offer all across the state. So, you know, kind of getting in the other side of the game and I took over hosting the Korn Ferry event in Knoxville. And so, we had our first

So, that was 3 weeks ago. So, that was first of year for year one of of 5 years. So, that was interesting to kind of see golf from the other side of the ropes and

Scott Stallings1:41:58

Uh, man, that's

Scott Stallings1:42:01

No, just if you if I had to write down 10 things that I thought were going to happen in terms of good, bad, and indifferent in a week by 11:00 Monday morning, um, none of those 10 things have happened. And just uh, fully being aware and available to do anything cuz and and and to be honest, none of it's bad. It's just a lot of moving parts when you move a traveling circus into a town for a week and just deal with all the logistic stuff and but I think it really makes like the game gave me more than I ever deserve.

I'm super thankful for the opportunity I had to play and compete at the highest level and, you know, I don't really know what the next version of golf looks like for me, uh, but just to be able to be in and around it in some way, uh, would be great. But, you know, see how it the rehab process looks like this next, you know, few months and, you know, be able to kind of evaluate from there.

Scott Stallings1:43:28

Yeah, I appreciate the message. Appreciate the time. Uh, I enjoyed your book. It's very insightful. Going from our run on the Westside Highway and hearing some of the backstory of that went into some of the stories in the book which

Was pretty fun.