00:00Well, man, that's it sounds like an incredible weekend. Anytime you go to Cyprus, it's a it's a fun week. But so you grew up. I want to know, when did you start playing golf? And was it a family activity growing up for you?
00:14Yeah, I started young, like probably around 10 years old. My dad, he grew up in and near Harrisonburg, Virginia. He was kind of, you know, hunter, fisherman, didn't really know about golf growing up. And when he got into the NBA, he needed a summer hobby and kind of started to pick it up. And, you know, in his off seasons and to me and my brother and even my sister, we just watch him, you know, tinkering with stuff in the garage.
00:41He's having a new set like every other week. It was kind of like, what is what is what is this golf thing? And we used to drive the golf cart and run around with like a little, you know, cut down putter and mess around the greens.
00:54And I fell in love with it from there and and took lessons for two weeks to kind of understand the fundamentals and get a good foundation and just kept playing.
01:03So, you know, high school or middle school, high school, I was a kid that obviously loved basketball. You know, when I started high school, the basketball was the only sport I played.
01:12But once the off season, like you play high school basketball and it ends in March, you know, in between, I was trying to go out for the golf team.
01:20And I was a kid that my parents would drop me off at Charlotte Golf Links a couple of minutes down the street from my house, 8 a.m.
01:29Come pick me up 6 p.m. I'm gonna be out there all day type vibe. So I was obsessed from from the jump for sure.
01:36I love it, man. You're a grinder. And you talked about you put so much time into basketball.
01:42But so when you got to college and kind of the early part of the NBA, did you kind of have to put the clubs away or were you always still, you know, bringing the clubs out when you could?
01:52Well, first, when I got to college, I said I played three years on my high school golf team and I wasn't great, but I could compete.
02:01And I also in the back of my head was like, well, I don't really practice either.
02:04So maybe, you know, if I could spend a little bit more time and the NBA was always on my radar in terms of, you know, that was a goal and I was working tirelessly to make that happen.
02:16But you need a little break. So I thought I was so naive.
02:20I thought, you know, I signed up to go to Davidson College and the small division one school.
02:26I was like, hmm, maybe I can walk on their golf team, you know, in our basketball offseason and try to hang out with, you know, hang with those guys.
02:34Little did I know that about a week after our, sorry, right after our NCAA tournament game my freshman year, we lost to Maryland and, you know, everybody's upset and down that the season's over with.
02:51And in the back of my mind, I was like, oh, maybe I got to go to the golf coach's office and, you know, see if there's any walk-home spots.
03:00And Coach McKillop, who's our head coach in the basketball team, he looks at our whole team and he's like, all right, guys, you know, tough loss, but, you know, take 10 days off and we're back in the gym getting ready for next year.
03:10I was like, oh.
03:12Right back, man.
03:13So, you know, I had to sleep away in college for sure.
03:16But now in the NBA, I get probably two, hopefully two or three rounds a month in.
03:23Coach Kerr kind of encourages if we do have a break in the schedule to go play, you know, it's how good it is for the mind, body, and the soul.
