Nine Holes With Jason Stodell: A Tour PT’s Journey Inside the Ropes

0:03 All right, this episode is brought to you by Get the Message Out. If you've ever thought about launching a podcast to grow your healthcare brand, clinic, association, business, whatever, we can help. Drop me an email at jimmyatptpodcast.com to get started today. Episode we're going to dive into right now. You ever wonder who keeps the world's top golfers swinging at full speed? I always wondered. The ones walking in the air. Walking in eighteen holes a day, every day, under pressure, with millions on the line. I couldn't make a foot putt with a million. Yeah, they've got someone on the team who understands the movement, the performance, and what it takes to stay in peak form week after week after week, round after round after round. And that someone...

0:44 is a physical therapist. How cool is that? Today's guest has spent years traveling with the PGA Tour, keeping pro golfers strong, mobile, and injury-free. Before he was working elbow-to-elbow with the elite athletes, he was just like a lot of us, figuring out how to blend passion, clinical skill, and a little creativity into a meaningful career. We're going to get into how he broke into one of the coolest jobs in sports rehab. I think if you're even, I mean, I'm wearing my golf shirt today. If you're even remotely interested in golf and you're a PT, you had to have thought about it. right? Like how, how do you get into that? What it's really like behind the ropes of the PGA tour as cool as it is. I'm sure there's some tough stuff. You got to know that and how you can start carving out maybe a similar path, either in golf or a different sport.

1:25 There are some parallels there. Uh, Whether you're a student, new grad, or seasoned PT looking to shake things up a little bit, you're about to get the blueprint and maybe a few surprise stories from the road. I like those. Grab a beverage. Loosen up your thoracic spine. Warm it up a little bit. Get ready to walk the fairway with one of the PGA Tour's best-kept rehab secrets, Jason Stodell, on the show. Jason, welcome back to the program. Jason Stodell, PGA. You're off the tour, man, and you're not out of green. I am. I'm home for a couple of months. This is a slow time of the year for us travel wise. So happy to sleep in my own bed. I love it.

2:05 Last time we talked to you, you were in this ridiculous mobile practice facility at, uh, in Paris. I guess that's an all right place to do some, uh, wasn't Paris, Texas is Paris, France. And you were there for, uh, the U S Olympics. Yeah. The, the, I was there for the Olympics period, not just the U S team. So yeah, I retreated everybody there. Um, I think if I remember correctly, something like fifty two out of the sixty players on the men's side and something similar on the women's side. So, yeah, we saw we saw everybody all the time worldwide. I limited you to U.S. only. You're worldwide. Yeah. Yeah, we we travel all over. Yeah. So we just count, I think, between the three tours we saw we were at tournaments.

2:49 Our staff was at tournaments on five different continents this year. Wow. All right. Let's go backwards before we go forwards. So we know the end or kind of the end or like, you know, maybe the victory lap or the victory lap round or the round on Sunday is you get to do stuff like go to the Olympics and go to PGA tour events, but let's go way, way, way back. Let's start with this. How'd you get into PT early influences and what led you toward golf and performance work? Let's rewind that first. Yeah. So I had probably a fairly typical Intro to PT where I when I tore my own ACL in high school, I had to have surgery and and I thought that the PTs that I worked with were like the coolest guys ever.

3:31 So I was a sixteen year old kid working with PTs or probably twenty three, twenty four, you know, so I just found excuses to go hang out with them even after my rehab was done. I'd go back to the doctor and say, oh, you know, I still have a little bit of stiffness. Can we keep therapy going for once a week for the next ten weeks or whatever? And I'd go and hang out with the guys. A good friend of mine, Sam Hannaway, physical therapist at the time. He was a PT assistant. He became a pretty good friend of mine. And I just thought those guys were the coolest. So that was kind of my first intro in high school. And then from there, I kind of just did the PT thing and I was focused on it. I knew going into college that this is what I wanted to do.

4:11 So I was a pretty focused undergrad and kind of went from there. What was it about? We'll go back to that clinic. You were doing something not a lot of people do, which is volunteering to go do more PT. What was it about it? It's got to be a feeling or an emotion or a vibe. What did they do, probably simple but powerful, that made you feel like you wanted to do this thing? Yeah. You know, I, I think looking back on it, I think it was just like, I just, I just pictured myself in their shoes, you know, whatever, eight years from now or however long it was going to be. So there were, there were athletic guys. It was mostly guys. There's some female therapists there too, but you know, most of the guys I worked with were dudes and they were good guys. You know, the head guy, Moses was, he was a little bit older, but the rest of the PTs that were working under him were all in their mid twenties.

4:58 You know, they, you know, recently out of school, I imagine at the time, And I just, again, I kind of just like pictured myself being in their shoes. It was a pretty easy, it wasn't a big step to imagine that versus, you know, I got to know the doctor that did my knee surgery. And for whatever reason, you know, medical school was a lot less of an idea for me at the time. Just, I just felt like I could relate better or, or spent more time with the therapist that I work with. And, you know, that kind of laid the foundation for my interest and, Like I said, I keep in touch with a lot of those guys even still to this day, thirty years later. That's great. All right, we're going to play nine holes with Jason right now. That's the first hole. That's your backstory, right?

5:39 We're teed off. We're warmed up. So now you're in – well, I don't even know where to go next. Where are you that really was the stone or two before getting to work with the PGA Tour? Don't start with day one of the PGA Tour, right? What are the couple of steps or the path before that? I imagine somewhere in PT school or somewhere. Where does that – little deviation start. Yeah. So I, you know, I grew up here in Southern California and I ended up going to university of Miami in Florida for, for undergrad. And that's where I kind of got my foot wet feet wet in terms of, um, working with athletes. So I was on the varsity rowing team, my freshman year, um, my grades suffered terribly.

6:19 So I had to stop doing that. But through that process, I got to meet a good friend of mine that we'll probably talk more about here a little bit, but, um, he was an athletic trainer at U.M., And he's the one that got me into the training room as an undergrad. So as a, you know, as a sophomore undergrad, it was, you know, kind of trial by fire. Like there wasn't really a lot of structure to the program. It was like, here's a STEM unit, figure it out. Here's a roll of tape, you know, watch how we do it and kind of go, you know, back in the day when it was a lot less formal on the athletic training side. So I started working with athletes there at the University of Miami, the football team, baseball team, swim team, track and field, kind of got to see a little bit of everything there.

7:01 And then from there, going to physical therapy school. I went in St. Louis at Washington University. Shout out to Wash U. Still keeping close touch with a lot of professors there, Shirley and Tracy Spitznagel and Mary Kate McDonald and the crew, Marcy. So kind of kept it going there at Wash U. Got to know some of the local coaches trainers and professional sports there. So the St. Louis Blues and some of those guys. And then, you know, coming out of school, I talked to my previous boss at the University of Miami was at the time was with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And I had an internship lined up and then it kind of fell apart because they got rid of their coach.

7:44 And long story short, I ended up going into private practice instead of taking a job, you know, as an intern in the NFL. And who knows, it could have ended up differently. I could be talking to you from a training room you know, with the Rams or something, but yeah, it worked out all right. That's not bad. All right. So, so how did it lead to Pete, the PGA tour? Like what, what was the break there? So you haven't left PT school yet or was it after? Yeah. Yeah. So I, as we're getting close to graduating, I just sent a resume out to whoever would look at it. And, um, one of my now close friends on the, on the tour has been with the PGA tour for thirty seven years or something. Paul sure. And he actually reached back out to me You know, when he got my resume and said, you know, it was basically the conversation was, look, kid, we're not going to hire a new grad, but here's some stuff you can do.

8:31 And we spent, you know, probably a good forty five minutes, if I remember again, years ago, just talking about here's some stuff to work on. Here's some some things we look for in candidates, the people that do well, you know, treating the golfers. And I kind of put it in my back pocket, kind of thought about it, but didn't really fully pursue it. you know, went into the private practice first up in the Seattle area. Then we moved back down to California. Um, and literally, you know, I think seven years later, um, uh, the medical director from the tour said, you know, basically I have this resume. So my desk from, from seven years ago, like, yeah, yeah. Let me know what you've been doing since then.

9:11 And let's chat. And, and that was, you know, that was in November and they hired me in January, That's great. I mean, score one for paper resumes and not everything's got to be a PDF, right? That thing just lingered. Was it on special paper? Was it made of lead so they couldn't move it or anything like that? Yeah, gold embossed, stationary. All right. Wait a second. So let's go back, though. So you had that forty five minute conversation, right? You were reaching out. Listen, listen, bud, you're punching above your weight, but you're asking. Yeah. And that bought you forty five minutes with someone who gave you advice, but then you took and you did it. Yeah. Yeah.

9:51 So the the main the main takeaway from that conversation, looking back on it was you need to have really good manual skills to work with golfers on a PGA tour. And as a new grad, you know, you kind of feel like, you know, everything. But going into going into practice, I realized pretty quickly that my manual skills were nowhere near kind of where they needed to be. So I ended up doing a year long, um, manual orthopedic residency. Um, and you know, it was like a one weekend a month kind of thing for, um, the didactic work. And then we had mentors coming to my clinic and, and that was awesome. Like I, I would have been lost if I started with the tour without doing that, to be totally honest.

10:31 Um, and you, I always tell people like, if you came in and spent some time with us in the trailer on the PGA tour, um, There's a lot of overlap between what we do as PTs and we have a chiro on the trailer as well. And, you know, you'll see PTs manipulating joints and you'll see chiros doing exercise and you'll see PTs, you know, evaluating spines and you'll see chiros evaluating elbows. And there's a ton of overlap to the point where you might not recognize one or the other. And I think that's pretty common in this, especially in the professional sports setting where each clinician, whether you're a PT or chiro or trainer, They're so advanced in their skill level and skill set.

11:12 They've been working at it for years and years, kind of honing their craft. And it's to the point where the player doesn't necessarily care who you are as far as your credentials, but are you going to make me feel better? And that's kind of the approach we take with our staff. And that's sort of how I approached it, too. I was giving advice from he calls himself a sport PT, which Eric Mara, one of the first episodes I did many, you know, ten years ago. And he said, I was asking about sports PT. I thought that's the direction I wanted to go. And I said, you know, just really just bottom line, man, what do you need to be a good sports physical therapist? And he gave this he gave this these three A's. I'd love to hear your take on this. Because I've been regurgitating Eric's advice for years.

11:53 And he said, you need the three A's. You need to be available. He's like, in sports, it's not a nine to five, man. I mean, we've talked to you when you're around the world, right? So you got to be available. You got to be there. Athletes are all over the place. Travel. And all hours, right? So available. And he said affable, meaning people got to want to work with you. You know, you got to put this on your face. If you got an attitude, listen, they got options. Athletes have options to who they're going to work with. So available, affable. And then the third one blew my mind was adequate. He's like, listen, I know everybody thinks they want the thirty seven certifications after your name, but he's like, I need you to know the basics. I need you to be adequate where a lot of people would say, like, I need to be the most skilled in the world.

12:38 And that's so specialized. He's like, listen, I need you to do the basics at scale with a good attitude when the person needs you. So what are your thoughts on the three A's from Eric Mara? Yeah, I think that's great. I think it comes down to sort of the common theme there is relevancy. So For us, one of the biggest battles we fight year in and year out is staying relevant in the front of the golfer's mind. Like you said, they have options. These guys are making fifteen, twenty million dollars a year, some of them. It's nothing for them to drop money on on a private guy or bringing somebody out with them. And a lot of them do, but, but they still come to see us as well. And the reason they see us is because they know we're going to help them feel better, play better, et cetera. So yeah, I think the, the adequacy thing too, I think I look back on or kind of think back about just being a, just a good solid orthopedic physical therapist is a really good place to start.

13:29 And, you know, you can do as much of the content stuff as you want. And we encourage all of our guys do, you know, we're all doing, advanced things like needling and cupping and IASTM and all these other kind of tools of the trade or whatever. But like you mentioned with the three A's, like it comes back to just being a good manual therapist, be able to evaluate and treat dysfunctional movement. That's kind of in a sentence. I feel like what we do as PTs and there's really nobody better at it from a professional standpoint. Um, so being able to take a look at a golfer, see how he's moving or she's moving and then be able to correct whatever dysfunction you see, you know, anything beyond that is gravy.

14:11 And I think, you know, when you add the personality side of it and the availability side of it, I think it's right on the money. All right, this next question, we'll move to hole number three out of our, we'll play the front nine with Jason here. You must have been asked this a lot from therapists, from people you meet at dinner parties who find out what your job is, right? Walk us through the day-to-day, travel, prep, recovery, communication. What's this job really like? I mean, believe me, standing on the fairway and watch this, I'm sure is the victory lap, but that can't be all it is. So how do you walk people through with the day-to-day and what this job is really like? Yeah. You know, when I, when I talk to students, especially I tell them, I'm, I'm trying, I promise you, I'm not trying to talk you out of it, but it's not, it's not all roses and rainbows, you know?

14:57 So as you can imagine, there's a lot, a lot that goes into it. It's not just showing up and treating tiger and Scotty. Right. So, so for us, the tournament is a full week, right? So even though the competition is Thursday to Sunday and we show up, we usually travel on Monday. So we'll, we'll fly in Monday afternoon to wherever the tournament is. I think you've seen that the semi-truck trailers that we use is one's a PT clinic and one's a therapy trailer, we call it, and one's a fitness trailer. So at every event, we have two physical therapists and a chiropractor on the therapy trailer, and we have two athletic trainers in the fitness truck, and then we have another trainer in what we call the recovery center. So those are three facilities, three options that the players have to use, and all three of them have to be manned, they have to be set up and everything.

15:40 So we do that on Monday night or Monday afternoon. And then Tuesday morning at seven a.m. I'm showing up and there's usually two or three players waiting for me. So we're up and running seven a.m. Tuesday. So Tuesday is a practice day. So we're there seven a.m. to six or seven p.m. Wednesday is usually a pro-am day for most tournaments. So that means we're there an hour and a half before the first tee time. So five or five thirty in the morning sometimes until seven o'clock at night. And then competition starts Thursday. So a couple hours before. So again, five a.m. to seven p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday is kind of when the circus starts back up where we're there two hours before so we get the guys out and then for us as soon as the last group's tee off.

16:24 we pack up so that the trailers have to get towed to the next tournament, which means we're not around to watch the final putt drop typically. Oh, get out of here, man. Yeah. Which is kind of crazy. Like in seven years, I don't think I've ever been at a tournament on site when, except maybe like in a rider cover somewhere where we're staying through Monday, but usually we're out, like I'm on an airplane flying home or flying to the next tournament when whoever's winning the tournament. Checking your phone and see who won. Yeah. Yeah. We do. And sometimes if it's a Masters or a U.S. Open, like, you know, you're in the air without coverage. So I'm like, dang, like, trying to figure out who won. As a golf fan, it's got to be brutal. That's like, I mean, that's awful.

17:06 Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I've been around long enough to where it's, most weeks it's not a huge deal, like, whether I find out right now or when I land. But, yeah, certainly the bigger tournaments for sure. It's like, and especially if it's a player that, like, Say he's been hurt all week and he's in contention. You really want to pull for those guys. You probably shouldn't, but try to remain neutral. But there's definitely – we have our favorites too. That's great. All right. So that's what the week is like. It's a lot more than I mean, it's not at all standing and watching at the eighteenth grade. You can't do that. But let's go inside the person who might be listening, who's like, yeah, I'm still in, even though it sounds pretty grueling. It sounds like I need to improve my skills and I still think I want to do this.

17:48 What would you talk about in terms of the skills and DNA? of a great pgapt what talents maybe matter most talents are what you're born with what skills though those are the things you can learn and what maybe separates the good from the great yeah so we talked a little bit about the manual side of it and and just being a good manual orthopedic physical therapist not just manual but you know we spent a lot of time exercise as well um maybe just as much um so from a skill standpoint i think that can be learned and taught Um, so spending a lot of time again, post-professionally, you know, when you graduate PT school for the new grads are listening, you're not done learning. Right. So, so continue to expand your skillset.

18:30 Sometimes, you know, early in your career, you sort of don't know what you don't know. So once you're out practicing, you know, in your clinic or wherever, um, you'll realize, man, like I've seen three or four of these shoulder patients in a row that they just don't seem to be getting better. Like I need to tighten up my skillset on, whatever on shoulder exercises or scap strengthening or whatever the case might be. So once you're out practicing, kind of figure out what you're not good at and make that, you know, turn that into a strength if possible. And then beyond that, you know, specifically guys on our staff, you kind of have to be a self-starter. You know, there's a ton of independence with what we do. We don't, we have a medical director, but you know, we're pretty much on our own as long as we get the job done.

19:14 So, for example, things like booking travel, right? So we were responsible for booking our own travel and, you know, our guys are professionals, so they're not going to, you know, guys have made the mistake of booking the last possible flight in on Monday night and then it gets canceled or delayed. And like, all of a sudden you're showing up at noon on Tuesday and guys are standing around waiting for you kind of thing. So that's one example of, if, you know, if you're not a self-starter, you know, you might be kind of cut corners or whatever. So, We try to encourage our guys to be independent thinkers and independent operators, functioning within the team, but also being motivated and sharp enough to handle your business from a professional side.

19:56 We don't have a general manager or head coach kind of breathing down our neck day in and day out. Obviously, there are officials with the tour that are keeping an eye on us and stuff, but for the most part, we try to kind of govern ourselves within our staff. Like I said, there's six of us in every tournament. So whoever gets there first, maybe they're grabbing the parking passes for everybody. Or, you know, if a guy has a delayed flight, you know, we're covering for him. Maybe I'm setting up the fitness truck because a trainer couldn't make it in because of traffic, you know, whatever. So, you know, we function as a team, but within the team, you know, we have a bunch of highly functional, highly independent, super competent PTs and athletic trainers and chiros on our staff that really kind of keep the ball rolling. Sounds like act like you've been there before.

20:38 Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. And I mean, all of our guys are, I think probably our newest guy probably has been a PT for seven or eight years, you know? So all the way up to, you know, I've been a PT for twenty four years. We have other PTs on the champions tour that have been around. Like I mentioned, Paul, he's been on the tour for thirty something years. So, I mean, if you had it all up, we're talking literally like hundreds of years of experience. So, yeah, that kind of that kind of comes to fruition when a player comes in and wants to get better. So let's call, let's talk about on the fifth hole tools, training and education, just anything people. I'm sure PTs want to talk shop and say, Hey, what are the courses that you think were worth it? What are the certifications where the juice is worth the squeeze or a mentor?

21:21 People are always valuable. Anything that genuinely mattered that you typically bring up to someone who's like, Hey, how do I get the edge? What are the things that are worth paying attention to? Yeah. You know, I think I saw your list here. One thing that came to mind, you know, I'll, be unabashedly biased here as a WashU guy. I think for PTs to go back and take a look at Shirley Sarman's work with the movement system, it is perfectly aligned with what we see in golf, right? So repetitive movements create these dysfunctional syndromes or patterns that we see over and over and over again. So whether you're a new PT or you've been out for a while, going back and reading Shirley's book, taking a course in the movement system, again, I'm super biased with that, but that's sort of where I start when a golfer comes in.

22:11 We kind of think about what's moving too much versus what's not moving enough. And the idea that there's these relative, I'm trying to blank on what she calls it, but some things move more than they should. They're hypermobile. Some things don't move enough. And so how do we, how do we correct that? And it's, it's a challenge to do, right? So if you're a professional golfer and you're swinging a golf club, I mean, literally a hundred thousand times a year, um, the, the one, the one hour of exercise we do in the, in the therapy trailer is probably not going to offset all that, but starting to look at that and think about, or getting guys to think about, you know, maybe we're not changing the golf swing, but how are you sitting in your hotel room when you're watching TV or what does it look like when you're on an airplane or what are you doing when you get off the plane before you hit balls?

22:56 And, things like that. Like, what are we doing outside of just swinging a golf club? And I think if you go back and take a look, you know, Shirley's stuff with the movement system is kind of perfectly aligned with that. It might not be golf specific, but it's not a huge jump to apply that to a high level golfer. So, sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say that you just made me think of another question. We'll call this a sand trap question, but these guys are shooting and you know, They're shooting what's called par, which is a place I've never been. I've heard it's this mystical place that you can apparently go and actually hit. These guys are doing four rounds of golf, but they're doing other training rounds, and they're taking practice. Are they, number one, tracking how many swings? Because you just mentioned that. There are hundreds of thousands of swings a year. Are they tracking it?

23:36 And ballpark, how many swings are they doing in a week? Because as someone described to me before, golf is a unilateral, one-direction, plyometric sport. explosion and that is not a necessarily easy thing in the body so are they tracking things just like other athletes might mileage or reps or things like that and if so what's a ballpark number of swings for a professional golfer in a week yeah so i don't think they're as good at tracking full swings the the number i threw out the hundred thousand was based on some research there's very anecdotal he's asking players and kind of seeing what a typical week would look like And then a typical like tournament versus not a practice week. Sure. You know, obviously you're playing, maybe you're not playing well and you're playing eight tournaments in a row sometimes, which isn't unheard of, eight weeks in a row.

24:22 But I think in general, like a thousand swings a week in a tournament week is probably pretty fair. That's one round of golf for me, though, just so we're in context. Maybe that's two rounds of golf. I can hit five times. Right. And you know, we kind of half jokingly, we talk about like professional golfers are the only athletes that practice after they compete. So you never see Tom Brady throw passes or Patrick Mahomes, or you don't see Shohei going out and taking batting practice after the game's over. Maybe, maybe they do, but definitely not as, as, as many swings as our golfers take, but it's not uncommon for our guys to go out and play a four hour, five hour round. And they go to the range for two hours.

25:03 They go putt after that. So, you know, some guys are at the golf course for twelve hours plus. And obviously that repetitive movement, like you kind of alluded to earlier, that leads to some pain patterns that are pretty consistent and common that we see over and over again. So, you know, part of our job is sometimes kind of trying to pull the reins on their practice schedule, especially, you know, we try to periodize it where maybe the Masters is coming up and they're playing three weeks in a row going into the Masters. Well, My back's bothering me and I still have two weeks to go. Maybe we skip the Friday afternoon session or maybe if you miss the cut, maybe we shut it down Saturday and Sunday before you fly to the next course or something like that.

25:45 So we know the goal is not to play great at this tournament. The goal is to play great at the Masters. So giving our guys that kind of advice is a big part of our job, too. And, and, and just, we reviewed this last time we spoke, but in the structure, you know, these are all independent athletes, like, right. You work for the tour, you're a resource available to them. They could use their own if they wanted to or not use you, but you're just, you're really, they're just like a, a, a physical therapist, patient relationship. Is that right? Like you're suggesting you make suggestions, but they make decisions because this is their livelihood, their job. Right. So, yeah, like I mentioned, we don't have a general manager or head coach that makes the playing time decision. Right. So, as an independent contractor, all I can do is suggest to the player.

26:28 And I don't think they'd come to see me if they didn't respect what I had to say. So, and it's, I would say it's generally pretty rare. Like if they're at the tournament, you know, we're going to do everything we can to help them play, but there's definitely times when a guy that, you know, had picked up my luggage off the conveyor belt at the airport and I tweaked my back and I can't stand up straight. And, you know, maybe they pull out on Tuesday. Okay. But usually what happens is they come in, they're not feeling great because of travel or whatever. We treat them all day Tuesday. We treat them all day Wednesday. And then we kind of make a decision either Wednesday night or even sometimes it's Thursday morning. And as you know, at a PGA tour event, there's an alternate list. So there's a hundred and twenty spots and then there's ten alternates.

27:08 And of those ten, you know, maybe three or four of them were on site. And it happened. I've seen it happen before where five or six guys just go down to the draw, go down for whatever reason and And very, very rarely, sometimes there's not even enough alternates on site to fill out the field, so they play a couple guys short. That's pretty rare, but it happens maybe once or twice a year. But, yeah, so to your point, my suggestion is just that. It's the suggestion. It's let's treat the heck out of it. Let's see where we can go. Now, if it's something where they have a hot disc that's with radicular pain and every time they try to bend over to get the ball out of the hole, their foot goes numb, we're definitely – suggesting again suggesting that but highly recommended they pull the plug on the tournament because you're not going to do anybody any good and something that something that could you know be a week or two long now all of a sudden you try to blast through it and now six months later it's still bothering you that's what we want to avoid so and definitely within that there's some you know we're a little more lenient with allowing guys to or suggesting guys can go ahead and continue to play with pain if you're trying to win a masters or u.s open there's a little more leeway if If we're at an opposite field event in Puerto Rico or something, then maybe it's like that's not the best thing to do, given that the goal is to make it to the FedEx Cup playoffs at the end of the season.

28:26 What we don't want is for you to try to blast through it. And now, again, it's bothering you six months from now. Yeah. All right. Sixth hole here. It's par three, Jason. It's rapid fire. Three. This is person, place, and thing. So I want you to give me a PT or mentor. This is your chance to give a shout out. Someone every golf PT should know. Right. So I already gave Shirley a shout out. So that'd be probably top of my list. Shirley's become a pretty good friend of mine over the years. Good mentor. Um, another one that for me personally, there was a great, um, mentor for me early on was, uh, a gentleman named Jim Wayland who, uh, if you're a football fan, Jim's kind of a legend in the athletic training circles.

29:08 He's been a head trainer for the Patriots for pretty much their entire run, but he's the one I mentioned earlier that, that helped me kind of, he introduced me to the athletic training profession early on, got me working with athletes. So he's not a PT, he's an athletic trainer, but shout out to Jim Whalen. I don't know if he'll watch this, but yeah, he's, he's a legend for sure. He's again, kind of my first like real sort of intro to what it's like to be a professional and, and, and working with professional athletes in that type of setting. So that'd be my second guy. Paul Shuren, I mentioned. So he's basically the one that was responsible for bringing me out, him and our medical director, Tom Oswald.

29:48 So Paul, again, Paul's a legend in professional golf circles. There's not a professional golfer out here that hasn't come across Paul at some point in the last thirty seven years or so. Um, so that'd probably be my, my three there, I guess. All right. So that's your person. How about a place? I mean, you, we just, before we hit record, you were like, well, it's, you know, um, it's a Cozumel wrapping up the season, but how's it, how about a place that you just love working? Maybe it's even one of those places we wouldn't assume. Yeah, I think, um, I mean the, the annual pilgrimage to Augusta is pretty special. You know, I've done it this, this, I think was my. Twelfth or thirteenth trip to the masters.

30:28 which I will never take that for granted. It's such a cool place. That's probably the easy answer. A couple of years ago, I got to bring my dad, which was incredible. He was like a kid at Disneyland, you know, so it was fun to walk, you know, walk to Amen Corner with my dad. That was a, that'll be a pretty special place for me. After Augusta, I think Pebble Beach is probably a very close second. Another magical place, you know, sitting out there on, on the, you know, by the eighth green or eighth tee box and seventh green there. Um, cool little spot. Uh, there's some grandstands that we spend time up there sitting in and, and, and solving the world's problems as a staff. Um, so, so Pebble and Augusta are probably the, the big two on that list.

31:11 Um, and then some of the one-offs like, um, like Beth page for the Ryder cup was a really cool spot, you know, a couple months or last month. Um, we had a good time there just from a kind of different, you know, like, like if, if, augusta is like church beth page is like i don't know it's like you're at yankee stadium listening to the fans and stuff so um i'd put that up there um and then you know the three olympic venues so rio was awesome i had never been there before um tokyo i didn't get to see too much of just because of covid stuff but uh that was fun and then paris was incredible last year as you saw Love it. All right, and finally is a thing, person, place, and a thing.

31:51 Is there a book, a podcast, resource? What would you say? Is there a textbook? Like if someone were you after that first long conversation, listen, kid, we're not going to hire you right now. Is there something they could just go to the library? Kids, a library is a building filled with, okay, yeah, or download, watch. What are the resources? Is there a thing you'd suggest to someone? Yeah, you know, I've kind of like, not necessarily physical therapy related, but I've been on this kind of leadership decision-making kick as far as my reading goes. Um, so I mean, some of those books, like, um, I read one now called, um, profiles and audacity. So it kind of goes through like a bunch of anecdotes over human history from, from Cleopatra to Truman and, uh, Elon Musk and, and, and guys like that, like what goes into some of these kind of, um, society changing, uh, decisions that they've made over the, over the years.

32:48 And that's maybe not quite the same scope that we're talking about, but beyond that, I listened to a ton of podcasts, you know, PT podcasts included. If I feel like learning, I'll listen to Huberman or maybe Lex Friedman. If I feel like laughing, maybe it's Rogan or Theo Vaughn. I listened to some history podcasts, so definitely not PT related there, but That's my own personal interest. That's kind of what I'm looking at right now. All right. Three holes left on this nine hole on the front nine with Jason. Let's go down to the future. Now we get to sort of switch to the future. Where's golf performance PT heading? What should a young PT right now or somebody in school be doing now if they want to follow in your footsteps?

33:33 What's the future of the profession really? I guess let's go with that big question. It's a pretty big question. Yeah, you know, I think at the upper, upper levels in professional sports, whether you're in football, baseball, golf, hockey, whatever, there's this kind of fusion that's taken place between linking like bio data and statistics and things like that with performance, right? So that's sort of where we're at now. We have partnerships with Whoop, for example. So we have a lot of golfers wearing Whoop bands. Um, we're about to announce, I can't say it yet, but we're about to announce another big partnership with a, a national level, um, uh, company that's going to, I think, help us with, you know, for, as an example, looking at HRV, for example, heart rate variance and how it relates to, to, uh, scoring average, for example.

34:21 So maybe, yeah, maybe a golfer has, uh, as a tournament wears on, maybe the HRV gets worse and the scoring average goes down. I'm not saying that's the case, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was. Yeah, so that's one example. Like how can we link some of the wearable technology with how golfers are performing? And then is it even, you know, so here's the data. Is it even correctable? You know, for example, maybe the golfer has a weekly tradition of going out drinking Saturday night and then they try to go play golf on Sunday. And again, that's becoming fewer and further between. I bet, I bet. as the purses have gone up, the, the golfers are taking things a lot more seriously in terms of their recovery and whatnot. But, you know, it's not an easy, it's not a difficult step to take.

35:04 I don't think to think that what we do after a round will affect how we feel and how we perform the next day. So I think that's probably kind of where, where some of our program is going. You know, like people ask me about AI. I don't know. I'm kind of, I'm forty eight. You're like, I'm an old, old rooster when it comes to that kind of stuff. So I think there is a place, I guess, probably, you know, some AI data can kind of pour through some of the things we just talked about. I had a really interesting conversation. This is probably a couple of years ago now with one of our golfers, Adam Scott, who, as you know, he's been really good for a really long time. He takes really good care of his body. But we were talking about the idea that.

35:46 PGA tour golfers seem to be getting younger and younger. There's some stats that prove or kind of bear that out. Like guys are winning faster. They're, they're keeping their cards quicker. You know, there's, there's obviously a lot of turnover and whatnot, but you would see guys winning, you know, Michael Brennan one is I think the second or third start a couple of weeks ago in Utah on a sponsor invite. And that, that was pretty rare before. And my conversation with Adam was basically, we were talking about statistics and, and, he said when he started back in the late nineties, early two thousands, they didn't have nearly as many statistics available. So it took him, you know, the better part of his first season to realize he was a really bad long iron player at the time.

36:26 Right. So, you know, say eight months into the season, it's like, man, I, I can't hit a five iron compared to the other guys. There was nothing statistically that he could look at to bear that out. So he said, then it took another six months to really work on over the off season and stuff. And, work on his long irons to where all of a sudden they weren't a weakness and maybe not a strength, but like at least it was a push. He said that the whole process, you know, at the time was, it took him a year and a half. He goes now three or four tournaments into your rookie year, you can look at every statistic on the PGA tours website and you can see I'm ranked one eighty fifth on one seventy five to two hundred yards out. And so within three or four tournaments, yeah, everything club at speed, you know, whatever.

37:08 And so now you can identify those weaknesses very early in the process and kind of arrange your, whether it's your fitness program or your practice sessions or whatever to address those weaknesses. Now, instead of a year and a half, now it might be two or three months. And so that's one way. And I think probably in college, college level guys are already doing that. You know, they can, they can track, you know, club head speed and things like that with their track man. And maybe the statistics aren't quite the same as they are on the tour, but the point is, using statistics to kind of objectively identify weaknesses and then address those weaknesses. Again, whether it's in the gym or on the range or whatever, the process, um, is a lot, I think a lot faster than it used to be.

37:49 Wow. Things are just speeding up. All right. Two holes left. Uh, eighth hole here. Anything I didn't ask, but should have anything you usually say, but I didn't, I didn't tee you up. See what I did there. Tee you up to answer it. Man. I don't know. We've talked a lot about a lot of different stuff. Um, Gosh, I think advice to young PTs, if you want to throw it out there, you got to go get it. You know, nobody's going to, nobody's going to knock on your door. I think maybe naively or arrogantly, I thought like, I'm just going to show up and athletes are gonna be banging on my door to come see me, but nobody cares. Like in the real world, you got to go out there and get it, you know? So that's what I'd tell.

38:30 Yeah. Young, young, young PTs. And maybe if you're looking at an older PT looking to make a change, like, You can't just expect someone to pick up the phone and call you. Hey, you want to come work for the LA Rams? You want to come work for the tour? You got to reach out. You got to network. You got to do your Con Ed stuff. And that's a great way to meet PTs and other decision makers is doing a local Con Ed course or whatever and going out there and get it. And then you know, the kind of the balance between being ambitious, but also being patient, you know, I think you got to have to have a little bit of both. You know, if you're too ambitious, you can kind of rub people the wrong way. If you're too patient, then maybe you're not motivated enough to get it.

39:12 So finding that balance, there's a big deal. Yeah. Love it. All right. Ninth hole is something we do on every episode. We call it the parting shot. What do you, what's the last thing, the idea, concept, quote, whatever, what do you want to leave with the audience? Here's your, here's your flop shot and your gimme, what's your parting shot? Yeah, I would say maybe shout out to our staff. You know, we have a really good crew right now. You said there's six of you. Yeah, so we have more than six. There's just six at every event, and we obviously don't work every event. So we have a good group of PTs right now. So Corey Hugg has been out there the second longest after me. So Corey's been out for, I think, gosh, probably – years now, or fourteen years. Digby Watt, PT, South African PT, lives in North Carolina, so shout out to Digby.

39:56 He and I started at the same time, and he kind of left and came back. And we have some newer guys, Chris O'Neill, Jason Waddles, Johnny Eichner, Kyle Yamashiro, Frank Wang. Those are all the guys on our staff, and I didn't mention, I should have mentioned, so we cover, our staff covers the Corn Fairy Tour, the PGA Tour, and the Champions Tour. Wow, that's a lot of events, man. Yeah, last I counted, I think we had forty-four, I think, on the PGA Tour, and then with the Champions Tour and Corn Fairy Tour together, it's almost a hundred events, pretty close to it, so... pretty much every week from January one to, to this week is, is our last tournament. Um, there's at least probably two tournaments going on.

40:36 Sometimes there's three, sometimes there might be four cause we have maybe an opposite field event. So, you know, one group of guys is in Orlando. The other group is in Puerto Rico, um, champions tours going corn prairie tours going. So, I mean, it's sort of all hands on deck at that point, but shout out to our staff. Um, great, great group of guys. Those are just the PTs that name we have trainers and Kairos as well. Um, so, um, Yeah, definitely love working with our guys, and it's been a long time, but they keep me coming back. Love it. Jason, appreciate the insight. Thanks for playing Nine Holes with us. If this was useful, drop it in the comments. Maybe we'll look into some other pros, and we're looking forward to having Jason back on the show when you hit the tour. Take some time off, work on your own game, get some downtime, get relaxed.

41:20 We'll talk to you again soon, Jason. Appreciate it. Yeah, sounds good, man. Thanks.