Secret Golf Podcast

KNOXY: On this episode of "Secret Golf," we're talking Pat Perez and looking at the incredible performance he put in in Malaysia to be crowned the CIMB Classic Champion. Find out why Elk likes to make Pat angry. And also, we talk about the infamous Air Jordans that get him around the course. That's all coming up.

THEME SONG: Secret Golf, that's what I'm looking for. It's why I get up every morning, call my good-timing friends, keeps me coming back for more. Secret Golf, we're headed down the road. We just load it up, the big show, go and looking for the heart and soul, rolling till the wheels fall off, it's Secret Golf. (WHISPERING) Shh, it's a secret.

KNOXY: This is "Secret Golf" with Elk and Knoxy. And we are back with another podcast. I'm Diane, or Knoxy. And Elk is-- well, you're out on location right now. How are you?

ELK (ON PHONE): Good Morning, Diane. I am indeed at the famous Bluejack National Golf Club, which is just north of Houston. Do you remember when Tiger Woods opened this course, and he was playing with these little kids. And the kid on the first tee holed that shot on the par 3 course? Do you remember that? It went for like 10 million views on YouTube.

KNOXY: Aw, I'm going to go find that now, though.

ELK (ON PHONE): Well, I'm standing right where that-- that young man made the shot. Sam and I, we're here for the opening. Of course, Tiger built this course. It's been rated the number one new, public/private course in America.

KNOXY: Wow.

ELK (ON PHONE): And what makes Bluejack so unreal is they-- it's a new concept. They don't have any rough. Tiger made it almost like Augusta National used to be, where there's just no rough at all. And it's just all fairway. And then he's made the greens really-- really bottleneck, really difficult pitch shots, and stuff. It's just an awesome place to play.

KNOXY: So you're playing there today. Who are you playing with? Have you got like a fun day out? Or--

ELK (ON PHONE): Yeah, I've got a-- no, I've got a group of guys that are big Secret Golf guys that have-- that have improved their game immensely. One of them is one of our big investors, Julius [INAUDIBLE]. He's also a member-- he's been on one of our shows-- he's also a member of Bluejack.

KNOXY: I met Julius, remember? When we were in Lake Charles at the Golden Nugget, Julius took part in our 3-Hole Smackdown. He is one of the nicest men in the world.

ELK (ON PHONE): Yep, South African, great guy. You got to watch him, though, 'cause he's got a hollow leg. If he takes to drinking, you-- it's hard to survive being with him.

KNOXY: [LAUGHS] Aw, Julius.

ELK (ON PHONE): [CHUCKLES]

KNOXY: Well, tell him I say hi. Right, well, first of all, one thing I want to talk about in this podcast, after you mentioning the man himself there, is Tiger Woods. Is he making another return to golf this week? He put this video on Twitter over the weekend. And it's basically just a video of him swinging a driver. What do you think about it, Elk?

ELK (ON PHONE): Well, it's good that he's up there. He had-- it was on a Sunday, right? He even had his red shirt on. That was nice. You know, I think it's good for him to get back out and play.

I really-- you know, everybody, you know, talks about his swing, all the Golf Channel broke down every-- everything. You know, to me, is it's really not about how you swing, you know. It's what did the ball say? Where-- [CHUCKLES] where is the ball going? I mean, there are so many different swings. I mean, Jim Furyk has his own swing, I mean Justin Thomas, Pat Perez, me. I mean, what does the ball say? That's all that really matters.

KNOXY: I actually saw someone had taken the video that Tiger put on Twitter. And they'd almost put like a shot tracer on it. And the ball was going off to the right.

ELK (ON PHONE): [CHUCKLES] Well, you know, he-- I don't know, [CHUCKLES] it was probably fake news. He probably hit it right down the middle.

KNOXY: [LAUGHS]

ELK (ON PHONE): Fake news.

KNOXY: It always happens. Right, well, this weekend, especially on Sunday, you know, Twitter and whatever was going crazy with Tiger Woods. But we weren't. We were going crazy because of another golfer and what he achieved over the weekend, Secret Golf's very own Pat Perez.

ELK (ON PHONE): Well, Pat won, of course, in, uh-- where was it, Indonesia?

KNOXY: Malaysia

ELK (ON PHONE): Malaysia.

KNOXY: Yes.

ELK (ON PHONE): Yeah, close enough. He was in Malaysia. And, of course, Pat was a-- the first Secret Golf guy that we had. He's actually an investor in our company. He saw the value of having digital content five years ago with me. But you know, the thing about Pat is-- and a lot of these tour players, Diane-- physically, you know, they're all very good players and all that. But to me, it's always about what you can't see.

And what I mean by that is, you know, Perez has this superior attitude right now. It's not always, but right now, he has a superior attitude. Last year, at this particular time, he was coming off an injury. All these club manufacturers and sponsors had left him, because they thought he was done. And he just all of a sudden got so angry with everything.

And since this 12-month period that he got a special invitation to play in that event in Malaysia last year, he's gone on a roll. He's won twice. He won in Mexico. He won this last week. He's won like $6,500,000 million in that time frame. And he even said it in his press conference, that he hit it terrible on, uh, Sunday. But he putted so well.

So what does that tell you, you know? You know, they-- they look at all of these tour players' swings. They do all this stuff. But at the end of the day, it's almost always what you can't see.

KNOXY: So going back to Pat, a year ago, it was actually this time a year ago, we met up with Pat in San Diego at Madeiras Golf Club. And we shot his player channel. And we shot a show with him. And just at that point, he was kind of coming off-- actually, he just won in Mayakoba. So it was like the week after he had that win in Mayakoba which was kind of a-- a bit of a comeback for him, I guess. And you guys spoke in depth about his injury, about the fact that he, you know, had gone through this kind of rehabilitation, that he was close to losing his card.

ELK (ON PHONE): Yeah, I mean, nothing motivates a player more than potentially losing their job, right? So if you go back and Google Pat Perez, he won like the Junior World Championship when he was-- in 19-- I don't know-- 95 or something.

His swing was longer than John Daly's. It was almost touching the ground on the other side of his swing. And him and "H," Michael Hartford, his caddy, when I used to go play in what-- back in the day, Diane, [CHUCKLES] 'cause I'm a lot older than you too, the Tournament of Champions, if you weren't on the tour, you went to the Tournament of Champions. It was in La Costa California.

And so all the winners went there. Now they go to Kapalua. But they also had the Senior tour back then. All the senior guys went there as well. So you had this nice group of juniors and seniors there. So I'm out there playing, and I've got these two kids that are following me. And they're watching my swing. They're taping it, and they're looking at it. I'm throwing balls at them, and they're throwing-- and I'm letting them hit and all that. Guess who it was. Pat Perez--

KNOXY: No way.

ELK (ON PHONE): --and Mike Hartford. When they were kids, they worked the driving range at the-- at the TFC. So that's how far I go back with those two characters. Now here we are, whatever, 25 years later, Pat's married, and he's got a nice home he's just bought up in Scottsdale. And now here he is back out on the tour.

It's always the same thing, always plays half angry. He's got to be pissed off at someone or something to really-- you know, we see this in football. We see it in other sports. But we rarely see it in golf. Like, you don't think of Jordan Spieth as being angry, you know, or Justin Thomas.

But Pat-- Pat is, um, you know, they say-- the press say, oh, I just-- we just love it when Pat talks to us because he's so real. Well, that also gets him in trouble, because the angry mob has run him off Twitter, right? He-- he tells you what he actually thinks. . And then they just crucify him on Twitter, and now he's-- he's done with that.

So the thing about Pat is he-- he will tell you the truth. But he understands. He sort of understands. He feels like, in his own mind, that everyone's trying to take him down. And that's what gives him his fuel. So that's-- that's his deal.

KNOXY: Well, after-- it was at the second or the third round of the CIMB Classic that he won at the weekend. And he was leading the whole way. He said-- he's like, I'm not like these tall, athletic guys that walk around the course, like Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth and DJ whoever. He said, you know, I'm-- I don't work out, and I just waddle around there. But he's getting the job done right now.

ELK (ON PHONE): Yeah, I mean, if you go out on the tour right now, and you stand next to these guys, like you know, Dustin Johnson and, you know, Brooks Koepka, they're so fit and strong and all that. But basically, look, if that was the name of the game to be a male model-looking, then all the-- all the male model guys would be playing-- winning all the tournaments.

They're still-- we talked about this a couple of podcasts ago. Out of the top 30 money winners this year on the tour, we figured-- you and I figured there's about 15 out of the top 30 that were just average length players. There is so much room on the tour for guys with precision.

Now Pat said-- I mean, he was a four-- or five-shot lead after 54 holes last week. He is absolutely was one of the worst putters that ever played a tour putt, cross-handed putted, you know, barely putted [INAUDIBLE] for every stroke.

Finally, we realized-- he realized something with his eyes, which eye was dominant. And he fixed that. And I'm not even going to tell you what it is. They can go to Secret Golf to his player channel and find out how he became the 150th ranked putter in the tour to almost the number 1 with one move.

And by the way, over there, when you go to Malaysia for three weeks in October, after you've played 30 weeks on the tour, I'm just telling you, your attitude is not superior.

KNOXY: OK.

ELK (ON PHONE): So how do they do it? But how does-- how does, uh-- how do these guys go over there and do it? They-- like, Pat's-- Pat-- Pat's attitude last week, he was given a spot last year. The guy who's the tournament director from over there said, Pat, we want you. We know you've come back from injury. Nobody else wants him. All of his sponsors said, we don't want you anymore. This guy said, I'm going to give you a spot.

So Pat, last week, went back over and sort of felt like, hey, man, this guy kicked off my year last year. I'm going to reward him. His attitude was good. He went out to all the local places. He hung out with all those guys. And boom, he wins it. And I think superior attitude, different mindset, beats everyone, because he said, I'm not playing any good. I'm not-- I'm not even hitting it any good. I'm just making everything.

So I think there's-- Diane, I think the lesson to be learned is that it's not always what you-- you see. You can't just look at a guy's swing and say, this is going to make-- you know, this is going to make all the magic happen. And nobody is more relevant than having a Jordan Spieth. Jordan's swing, Jordan's everything, OK, it doesn't look awesome. But he's the best player out there, probably.

KNOXY: Yeah. And after Pat won in Mayakoba last year-- and of course, that tournament is coming up again in a few weeks. So he's going to be going in as defending champ, feeling pretty brilliant right now. But you had said that you'd been texting him. And on a Sunday, you were texting him, like, you know, just keep doing what you're doing. Go out there and beat them all. What were you texting him this week? Or were you in touch with him?

ELK (ON PHONE): Yes, I was in touch with him every day. He, um-- I don't even want to tell you what he-- what he's-- I don't even-- I'm not-- I can't even repeat what he was saying he was going to do to them on Sunday.

KNOXY: Oh. [CHUCKLES]

ELK (ON PHONE): But I left it with, just cut them. Just take a knife and cut them. Just make them bleed. See, he wanted to win by 15. That's what he-- that's what he wanted. So it's very hard to play with the lead. He asked me what-- what-- you know, and not that I'm any great model either for playing with the lead. But I told him, I said, look, man, you're winning the A flight. They're all winning for the-- they're all going for the B flight. So, you know, don't let them near you, you know.

And he was just-- Diane, if I could tell you how pissed off he was, how angry, how much he wanted to see someone bleed-- I mean, this is-- we're getting graphic here. But I'm just telling you, that's where he was. And now, you know, he's with PXG. And I think Bob Parsons, who is something of an outsider of the golf industry who's made a lot of money in a different industry. And he's kind of like a don't give a shit about anything kind of guy, I think that's the perfect match for Pat.

KNOXY: Yeah And well, you're talking about PXG, you're playing with PXG now, are you?

ELK (ON PHONE): I am. I love them. There's so, um-- there's so much technology inside of PXG. They haven't really done a good job of telling you why their technology is so good. All you hear is they're just really expensive. But no one hardly knows why.

On another podcast, I'm going to tell you why PXG has superior technology. They're so good that everyone else is trying to copy them. And Mr. Parsons has a-- has a lawsuit right now with TaylorMade.

KNOXY: And the other thing we were talking about is, eh, so Pat's obviously not on Twitter now. He just, eh, as you said, the angry mob just ran him off. I'm sure now the, uh-- now that he's doing so well, they would love to have him back on. But he's like, no, I'm not doing it. But he does do--

ELK (ON PHONE): Oh, he's not coming.

KNOXY: He does Instagram. And he does Instagram very well, 'cause he puts up little funny movie videos and rock songs all the time.

ELK (ON PHONE): Pat [SIGHS], you know, Pat's a rocker. You know, he grew up in San Diego. He wears-- he wears football, uh-- I mean, he wears basketball Nike Jordans to play golf in. And I said, what are you-- what are you wearing? What are you, some kind of an idiot? He goes, Elk, these are the greatest shoes. They're basketball shoes that Michael Jordan would wear with golf spikes. I mean, you got to be kidding me.

I said, Pat, how are these going to look with my $800 slacks I'm wearing here? He goes, aw, these-- Elk, you've got to get a-- I'm sending you a pair. What's your size? I said, I'm not even-- I said, I'm not even giving you my address. Get away from me. You're an idiot.

KNOXY: [LAUGHS]

ELK (ON PHONE): I said, do they-- do they come in brown alligator? That's what I asked him.

KNOXY: I was going to say--

ELK (ON PHONE): He said no.

KNOXY: --you with the most classic golf shoes in the world, you wearing Air Jordans, let's just say that's never going to happen.

ELK (ON PHONE): It's not happening.

KNOXY: No.

ELK (ON PHONE): But, uh-- he's over in, uh-- he's over in Korea this week. It looks to me like the golf course is superb out on some little island. So, you know, I'm happy for those guys being over there playing. You know, it's just a matter-- it seems that-- it seems very odd that they're playing in a 2019 season, Diane, considering 2017 just finished five minutes ago.

KNOXY: Yeah.

ELK (ON PHONE): But hey, it is what it is. And Pat's $1.6 million that he won last week is going to look nice on the FedEx Cup for '18.

KNOXY: Yeah, I was going to say, 'cause brilliant for Pat who, at the start of the brand new season, not even in 2018, but he's already got one win under his belt. And the way he's playing right now is probably not going to be the last.

ELK (ON PHONE): No, that's correct. It's not going to be the last. Yeah Pat's already said last week that he's already got his schedule set. You know, he's set. He's set right now. But the biggest goal for me with Pat-- and I'm by no-- by no means a mentor. One of the guys that's really helped him is Drew Steckel, who's his coach-- and, um, is to keep Pat angry. That's my-- that's my job. I got to keep Pat angry.

KNOXY: Drew also coaches Justin Timberlake.

ELK (ON PHONE): Oh, yeah, I knew you were going to say that, because that pisses Pat off so much that--

KNOXY: Really?

ELK (ON PHONE): --yeah, have sort of a private coaching session with you and Justin Timberlake with Steckel?

KNOXY: Eh, I would like that. Last time I saw Pat, he actually said to me, Diane, I've got Justin Timberlake's number in my phone. I was like, oh, my gosh, he's my fave.

ELK (ON PHONE): You didn't hear what I just said? Did you want me to get you set up with Justin Timberlake, a private interview or something?

KNOXY: Like in a private interview, we could get Justin Timberlake on the podcast. Can we do that? We could talk about Pat.

ELK (ON PHONE): No, I don't think he'd do that. It's not really, uh-- no, I think-- I was thinking more for you to meet Justin Timberlake. Although he's married, right?

KNOXY: Yeah, he's married, with a baby. I would love to meet him, though. I'd love to.

ELK (ON PHONE): Yeah, sure, sure you would.

KNOXY: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

ELK (ON PHONE): I'm going to go play golf.

KNOXY: OK. Well, you have a great day at Bluejack today. Enjoy it.

ELK (ON PHONE): I am. The weather is like 60 degrees outside. There's no rough on the course. The greens are perfect. Everything's perfect. My Houston Cougars play tomorrow night against Memphis. Everything's perfect.

KNOXY: Living the dream, Elk, living the dream.

ELK (ON PHONE): Living the dream. See you later.

KNOXY: Honestly, a man who is just loving life, isn't he? Always loving life. So another Secret Golf podcast. Don't forget you can find us online at secretgolf.com. Also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes. And get involved on Twitter as well. It's @SecretGolf, nice and easy.

Congratulations to Pat Perez winning the CIMB Classic last week. And good luck to him and all of our Secret Golf players in South Korea this week.

You can find all of our player channels on the website, secretgolf.com. And I think, you know, the way Elk was talking about Pat is a pure example of what we do a little bit differently here. These guys, they see Elk as their peer. They know exactly what to tell him. He knows exactly what to ask them. And they will tell him stuff that they probably don't tell a lot of other people. That's what makes Secret Golf and our player channels so unique. You can really get into the game.

So go and find out what Elk was talking about with Pat's putting and everything else. You can play it like Pat Perez with the help of Secret Golf. We'll be back with another podcast next week.

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