From Yale Football to the U.S. Open: James Nicholas on His First Win, Two Majors, and Q-School

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This is the Smiley Show. >> All right, happy to welcome in, James Nicholas coming off the corn free tour, coming up pain stakingly close, but James was a heck of a season, man, I'm sure a lot, that you can reflect on and be proud of for the way you played this year, getting, of course, a win down in Bogotá, Colombia, getting that first win is always special, but I know just through a lot of, a little bit of meat left on that bone, I know what it feels like as a professional golfer, but I'm sure you've had some time to reflect, especially as you had in this off season, how would you kind of describe the year that was so close for you? >> Man, I would have described the year, I feel like I've done a lot of reflecting over the past couple of weeks, having had a chance, I knew once I won in Bogotá that I was going to have a chance, no matter what, to give my PGA tour card in Virginia, right? I was going to be within a win's, you know, shot away of getting that tour card, so. >> Colombia was like what, fourth week of the year? >> Fourth week, it was great, I'm going to be great spot. >> It's great, it's a little bit. >> A dream start, right? You know you've got a place to play next year no matter what, and then the goal kind of shifts only onto getting your PGA tour card, you know, looking back at the year as a whole, qualified for two major championships, had a weird little miss out with the injury, but if I, you know, look back at the year, and without all the drama coming down the stretch of being so close, and I looked at it and I was like, I finished 30th on the points list, I got a win, played in two major championships, this is the best year that I've had as a pro golfer, and I think that's more so the view I'm trying to take, rather than the half-glass empty, like, oh, it could have been this, it could have been that, but it just makes me so much more eager and so much, it makes me wanted that much more to join the PGA tour and get out there and play with the best in the world like you have. I mean, that's where you want to play. 100%, 100%, and James, I want to kind of just document your journey. It's a bit unique when I look at where you played your collegiate golf course playing at Yale, playing multi-sports in high school growing up, be very successful in football, hockey, and golf, actually winning 11 letters, which I don't even know was possible in high school combined with all the three different sports you played. So why don't you just talk a little bit about your upbringing and how, really, just sports, whether it be football, hockey, and golf, and how you ultimately ended up sticking to golf and making it a professional career? Yeah, it's a very, very long story, but I'll kind of give you that back. That's why it's a podcast. We're here for it. Yeah, so growing up, I always played everything. I was on the swim and dive team as a kid, I played football, basketball, tennis, hockey, lacrosse, soccer. My parents loved sports and they introduced us to everything. I'm one of five kids, and all four of my siblings are incredible athletes and people in their own rights, and I am extremely proud of them. So that also helped pushing each other, playing in the backyard together, and being on the same teams as my brothers, and even my sisters, we played on the same hockey team, my sister played high school hockey. So where were you in the age with all of your brothers and sisters? Okay, so the oldest. So everybody, you're going to definitely try to win all of the games that you're setting forth for all of you. Yeah, exactly, blood sweat and tears, and there's a lot of blood shed for sure. We would get gritty with it, but yeah, growing up, I was playing everything, and then I got to high school, and my plan was to play football on the fall, hockey in the winter, and then lacrosse in the spring. I ended up breaking my collarbone and football, and then I broke it again in hockey, and then I went to get cleared for lacrosse, and essentially, my dad's an orthopedic surgeon, and the nurse at the school who clears you for the sport, she was like, "I don't think it's a great idea to free you to play lacrosse. Why don't you play golf? I know you're good at it. Why don't you just have a nice leisurely springtime sport?" And I was like, "What? Okay. It's 14." So 14, okay. So you haven't played a ton of golf to this point? No, but in the summertime, where I grew up in New York, and I was fortunate enough to be member-- my football coach called me Country Club Kid, and my parents were members at a club, and I had the opportunity to play at a great club growing up, and you'd always make fun of me, Country Club Kid, or whatever. So I ended up playing golf. I ended up qualifying for the State Championship, which was the first time a freshman had qualified in a lot of years, and I think I shall like 87, 88 at States, so it wasn't like this heroic story, but it gave me this drive to, wow, like golf is a lot of fun. I like competing, and from that on out, I played football, hockey, and golf. There was my three sports, and then when it came time to apply to colleges, I applied to 40 something, I think 47 colleges, for some for hockey, some for football, and none for just golf. I was not good enough to play golf in college, but I got the opportunity to play football and golf at Yale, and I took it right when I got it. I was like, you know what, I can set my future up, I can go to a great university, I can learn a lot, I can grow as a person, and I get to play on the number one college golf course in the country, or in the world, whatever it is, it's number one. And so I took that opportunity, I went to play football at Yale, hated football after a year, committed to golf, and that long story I guess includes, we did a spring break trip to Cypress Point, Pebble Beach, NPCC, Spyglass, SFGC, using the connections of the Yale alumni very well, and I told my coach, sold, like, I'm in, whatever, and then I got much better when I was there, went to Q school, and you know, fast forward six years, and now we're here. Okay, what about that freshman year playing for the Yale football team, made you not like it as much? Was it just golf? Was this kind of wave match you over there in the corner, and just that golf pitch, or was it more about, man, playing cohesionally, there's a lot different than high school football, and it was way more, maybe than you anticipated. I think maybe a little bit all the above. I was a big fish in a small pond in high school, I felt like I was the guy, I played every position, didn't get off the field, and college. Well, yeah, at high school, right? Yeah, high school version, and then in New York too, and then you get to college where it's the best players from each high school, and I was, so the death chart went foyer, Louis Cohn, who was the captain in the starting, I think he's playing linebacker now for the Jaguars, and then me. I was never going to surpass foyer, foyer was an absolute beast, and was it deep in point DB? Where'd you play it? Yep, he was strong safety, so we were both strong safeties, and it was also like this love for the game. I kind of was dwindling. I didn't love as much hockey was my pure love, like that was the sport where once I quit football, I was going to walk onto the hockey team at Yale, and then just continue playing hockey and probably pursue hockey after school. That was my best sport by far, but then we went on that spring break trip, and I was like, I am, I am in. Wow, this is it. This wasn't that long ago when I'm thinking in my head of like you making these decisions, like freshman year, what are you close to 30 years old now? Yeah, this is only eight years ago, seven years ago. Yeah, I mean, that's why you had so many different life choices that happened to you just in your freshman year at Yale. And back to the hockey too, so you said it was your favorite sport, it was your best sport. I actually read too that you played junior hockey with Charlie McAvoy, who I've met a couple different times, who of course is a defenseman for the Boston Bruins great guy. Yeah, junior hockey is also, I've seen and watch how much effort and how much time you have to put into that, all the traveling that junior hockey players have to do at an early age. Did that, you know, all the different sports kind of take you out of the hockey lane because of the lack of, or I should say, just the amount of time that you weren't able to give it versus the other guys who were fully devoted and going to travel and playing all these places. Yeah, it's interesting. I was, I don't mean it took anything, I was pretty good at hockey. I played with a lot of players who were now playing in the NHL. I made dev camps for USA, USA, you know, Team USA never made the national team, but I was pretty good at hockey and I love it. Charlie actually came to Caddy for me in a corn fray event a couple of years ago. I read that. I'm great with that. We're still, we're still tight. And I love all those guys and it's funny because I tell them like I live by kerosene through you guys. I want to, like I want to now go at Przuhaki and they look at me and they're like, dude, I would trade places in a second. It's amazing. I want to be grinding on the corn fray tour, right? No, you don't, man. Oh, gosh. I mean, there's something cool about team sports, right? You know, being with your guys in the locker room, being able to, to have those magical runs that you go on and win championships, but golf, man, to be able to, to do it yourself, you own every single thing about it. And you also are the reason why you can make it to the highest of highs. So let's talk about your development at Yale. So you're now. Now full time sophomore at Yale, you're playing one of the best golf courses you can play in college golf. Let's talk about sophomore junior and senior year. Was it a steady incline as far as your improvement? And was it immediate, were you playing in the lineup straight away right in that sophomore year? Yeah. I was going to start there. So my sophomore season started the first event and started every event until I graduated. That has a lot to do with the team not being very strong. You know, we're not like we're in Alabama, we're not going to go, we're not going to go nitpick this. That's really impressive. Coming off the football team straight into the starting lineup. Sure. Okay. That's D1, man. D1. It is. Exactly. But I told myself when I pursued golf, I was like, my motto is how I do anything is how I do everything, whether it's how I make my bed. If I'm walking the golf course and see a piece of trash, I'm going to go pick it up. Like those are the words I try to live by. So when I dedicated myself to golf, it wasn't going to be this, oh, I'm at Yale, I am going to just be on the golf team. It's good for my resume and then pursue a job out of school. It's going to be, I'm going to give this absolutely everything that I have, blood sweat and tears, like crying through it and see how good I can get. Never in my, my wildest dreams was like going to go to Q school. I didn't know what Q school was at that point. So my sophomore season probably averaged 74 and then my junior year, that summer, my dad told me, he goes, well, are you going to get a job this summer or what are you going to do? And I told him, I said, I'm going to see how good I can get it golf. And his big thing was, you never have to get a job. We are fortunate enough to not have to do that if you're working towards something. And that was sort of the deal that we had. All my siblings had with my dad, my mom, for the summer times when we were back. You don't have to do an internship if you're working towards something. And for all of us it became sport. And I dedicated myself, I ended up coming back to college, my junior year, and I won three times that year. Then that summer made the U.S. amateur, then I won three more times my senior year, made the U.S. amateur again that year. And my senior year, I led Division 1 in scoring in the fall. So it was fun to have a screenshot on my phone. It was James Nicholas, Dan Colmore, Kawa, Victor Hava, Matthew Wolf, Stephen Fisk, the list goes down. And I was like, that was the first time where I was like, I can kind of play with these guys. And then you fast forward to the end of the year where I went to Regionals and I finished near the bottom of the pack again. And I realized, well, I have a lot better getting better to do. So it was like this constant, like I can do it, then I'm humbled. Then I can do it, then I'm humbled. And I signed up for Q School that year and got my corporate tour card right out of college. And it was like a, whoa, I guess I can do this. So we can answer your question. There was a big, big jump from sophomore year going to junior year. And that year at Yale, I made a accountability system where I had my buddies who I said, okay, guys, I want to be the best person that I can be. Well, let's wake up at 4 a.m. every single morning, get to the indoor team room at 430 and practice before class until 9 a.m. Then we'll come back to the course at 2 p.m. after class. And then we'll practice till dark. And the first morning I'll never forget it. There was like 4 or 5 of the kids said that I'll be there. And I was the only one that showed up at 4 a.m. And I knew at that point, I was like, you know what, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do so on my own. And I just became my own motivational speaker, listened to Eric Thomas and Googled like every single thing I made an accountability board on my college dorm room where I had LeBron James quotes, Michael Jordan quotes, Tiger Woods quotes, I had a picture of Tiger. I think you was at the president's cup at in California at one where he's like, you know, when he was like the club twirl and had that, I was like, you know, it's a low draw that he hit that exactly because it looks like he set up for almost like a fade and this thing starts out so far right hits that like low draw in there. It's like one of the cool shots I remember Tiger hit. Ever. So I just made this board and just motivated me every time, every day looking at it. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot at Yale and I'm grateful for that time. Yeah, we're going to get into YouTube channel here in a little bit. But one of the takeaways I really just took from that channel was that you're somebody that really does have a gift of not only motivating yourself, but kind of like you're motivating other people without doing it. I myself was just like taken back thinking, man, I need to work harder when I'm doing whether it's a podcast or doing stuff at home and just like you're attention to detail, it doesn't go unnoticed. And so hearing that story about getting up at four in the morning and trying to bring people along with you, man, I would have been right there by your side day one, that after that, I don't know about for you, I'm like getting my beauty sleep. But the other question I have about Yale before we kind of continue on in your journey on the corn fairy tour, Yale's on an easy school, right? Like Yale is a very challenging school from an academic standpoint and based off of our conversation so far that wouldn't be something that I would think that would hold you back. And also read that your degree was you were at least chasing the possibility of getting into, are we studying biology and getting into medicine just like your dad and just like your grandfather who I didn't know had a, had a, did a bunch of knee surgeries on Joe Namath and potentially kind of, I don't know if revived or saved his, his career from injuries. I mean, you had that, I'm not saying like a fallback is going in the orthopedic world is not necessarily something that is just handed to you. There's a lot of hard work that goes into that. But is that, what did you study at Yale and was medicine something was, was that always in the back of your mind? Or was it just sports and then find a way to just kind of get through Yale with whatever you could and from a degree to just keep chasing your dreams? I think if I was trying to just get through Yale, I would have probably chosen a different major. I won't name names, but there's a few easier routes to get through Yale. Okay. Okay. I definitely took some guts. That's for sure. I was an ecology and evolutionary biology major major. So you did do it? Yeah. That was pre-med. So took all the pre-wex, pre-gerex from pre-med and I was going to go to med school. And I was named after my grandfather, Dr. James A. Nicholas. And he took care of, as you said, Joe Namath, but also, you know, President Kennedy and Nixon and Reagan and he was like the guy and I looked up, I looked up to him like God essentially. And this man who held this incredible presence in a room and there would always be athletes coming in and out of his house and we would see them. He was the team doctor for the New York Jets and the New York Rangers and the Islanders. And there's like the story after story that I could tell about him and then my grandfather followed and his footsteps was also the team doctor for the Jets. And they're both like role models to me. And I looked up to their idols of mine and when I said I'm going to go to Q school instead of med school, my dad had this huge smile on his face and he was like that's literally the only thing else that I could think about in the doctor that I would want you to be. And I think my grandfather passed away. I was only nine when he passed away so he never got to see me become who I am today. But it's, I know he's looking down with the biggest smile on his face because he was a huge golfer too and they're both golfer nuts. That's awesome. And yeah, I mean, you know, I always tell people I chose the route that probably cost me a lot more money and the salary isn't there yet. You know, we're still chasing that PJ tour payday, but it's, it's so fulfilling. I know, you know, being a doctor, you're saving lives, you're touching people. But for me, like you said, I'm trying to use my craft to motivate other people to chase their dreams as well. So it's been fun. I really enjoyed it. But James, I hope you play a professional golfer the next, you know, four decades and never have to worry about playing golf. But if let's just say, you know, 10 years from now, you have a great career on the PGA tour. So you know what? I'm ready to hang it up. I want to spend time with my family, some time with my kids. You know what? I'm going to go back and, and I'm going to try to practice medicine and become a similar to what my dad and granddad was. Is that something that you could ever use again or is that, is that like, is there too many steps in the latter few at that point to try to, to try to get to where they're at? I think unfortunately, if I wanted to spend more time with my family and my kids, that's the last two. That's not it. That's a great point. My sister's, she's in med school right now at University of Michigan in year two. She doesn't have time to breathe. I got married last year, my sister's getting married this year. And we're planning wedding dates around my schedule. And her schedule. So it's hard to do, very, very challenging. My brother and I currently is in, I believe he's a fourth year currently and just listening to all of his stories about how challenging it is from day to day, but also just, it takes a certain type of person to be able to get through what they go through in the first four or five years as a resident and throw in a fellowship. Next thing you know, you're finally making some real money, but like that's also the process of being a professional in anything that you do. And golf is, there's no difference in golf or any other sport. And so when we look at the corn fairy tour and getting your corn fairy tour card that first year, what did you learn about yourself in that year and how much you needed to improve? And then COVID kind of comes along. So just kind of talk about that period of time and how challenging it was and just the lessons that you learned about yourself. It was an interesting first year. So I got through Q School, but it was conditional. So I had a conditional card. When I went to final stage, I thought, I've got my corn fairy tour card. I'm going to play a bunch of events. This is great. Ended up finishing like 60, you know, 48th, I think it was. So one shot out of getting a full card. That's right. That was the same spot, but you get into a bunch of events early. You should. Sure. So COVID happened right in like the third week. So then what happened is when they restarted, everybody was fresh and wanted to play. So that number never actually hit, but I Monday qualified into the first event back. Shout 11 under my first ever Monday qualifier to get in. I was like, I don't know what I was doing with my first ever Monday. I'm like, I would just go out there and play. Shout 11 under. It was at Valencia in Jacksonville. The tournament was at TPC Diwali because they had to have all the tournaments at TPC courses. It was the only course they were going to have an event during COVID. So I got through, got in, made the cut, reshuffle, and then played the rest of the season. And it was a super season because of the, there was no cue school that year. So I essentially got two years of experience for one because I was going to lose my card. Like I just was not mentally, physically, emotionally, prepared enough for ProGolf to go out there and perform with the level needed to keep your card in the corner for a tour. So getting those extra, what, 20 events at the end of the second season was huge for me just to learn. I went back to cue school, got my card back, and that year didn't even worse. I didn't think I made like five cuts. Went back to the drawing board, but gained on that experience. And then the next year, I went play cue school over in Europe, got my full DP World Tour Card, and that was an unbelievable year of growth for me, being on my own for the first time really, being in different places, speaking different languages, learning how to play golf on different courses, whether I'm in Kenya or Korea or South Africa or Italy. Like that was the biggest year of growth for me. So yeah, to answer your question, that first year was huge and getting that extra double season was big for me. But again, like every year you learn something of this game, like whether you drive it well one year, and you work on your putting all year, the next year you're going to be driving it poorly and then putting it great, like it's this constant mind about it. The yo-yo, man, professional golf, isn't it? Yeah. The ups and downs are just so difficult. It's so hard to just kind of stay even keeled. We all, of course, all just want to be, you know, the Scotty Chef or his Andrew Shoffley type where there's no weaknesses in your game. That'd be great. It's frustrating, right? You know, what I think I noticed the most, and probably the least talked about thing about a guy like Scotty Shoffley is the ability to do it every day, and to have your worst, and somehow be able to scrap out a 70, just kind of talk a little bit about how challenging that is for not only yourself, but like I experienced it, you see it all the time in professional golf, just to be able to bring it every single day along with all the travel that it takes and a huge team that's trying to push you along. Yeah, I think, so when I first termed pro, I talked to Morgan Hoffman a lot. I knew him through Grayson, and Morgan told me there's going to be everybody telling you to change this or change that or focus on this, focus on that, and he told me, I don't care yet, but your blinders on just do you and continue to continue to do you better. Spoke to Luke Donald a couple of years ago, he said the exact same thing. I asked him, how did you get to world number one? He said, at first I was chasing distance, I broke my wrist, and that stopped me from chasing distance, I went back, and I focused on my driver, I mean my wedges and my putting. And that was my best part of my game, but I got even better, and that brought me to world number one. So, as I'm going through this process of pro golf, call it, I've learned to try to manage the comments and the chatter from the outside world about your game, right? You're going to have coaches sending you messages about your swing, you're going to have people telling you from all aspects of life, whether it's social media trolls telling you to do this and that, to even your own family asking you, oh, what about this and that. So, I think it's been really fun just learning about the entire game as a whole, and then making my own little bubble around it, and then growing, and I'm trying to, I mean we're still learning, right? It's like this game of golf is like a constant battle, we're going to random places, we are traveling on jet lag, we are not flying first class, we're in the back of the bus, you know, like just back spasms, this and that, and I think the outside world, they don't see all the hard work dedication that comes in with trying to figure out golf swing on Monday Tuesday Wednesday, because you have absolutely nothing, and then figuring out on the Thursday and having due to get all again next week after a miss cut. So, you know, I might have gotten a little bit off track there, but I think like this sport is just, it's fascinating to me, honestly. Yeah, nobody will ever understand when you've spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, with your brain completely turned on. I mean, you are have, like, it could be 90 degrees, 95 degrees, you could be sweating all day, you know, you've got programs, you've got workouts you need to get, you need to get the golf course, you've got to play a program, but then also like in that time as well, like when you're still at the course, your brain is turned on completely on the, let's say it's the range and that particular week you're working on your golf swing, and you cannot hit it well, like something about your swing is not right, it's your takeaway, it's impact, this is the miss you're seeing, it's a two way miss, and then you get to the golf course and you're still not seeing it right. I don't think people understand what professional golf and like how managing your golf ball, and when you don't have that little bit of control, just how the margins are so small as far as just the ability to play the weekend in professional golf. I always watch you watching when you're YouTube videos, and I didn't get to the very end, but the comments, you know, everybody's just hyping you up in there and they said, I can't believe how well this guy just played over 36 holes and still didn't make the cut. And just people don't realize like how good these guys are now and how like what the level it takes and really to make it out of the corn fairy and then onto the PGA tour. There's just so many things that it takes. I think like going back to what you said about Xander and Scotty, it's remarkable what they do. You check the leaderboard and Scotty has a chance to win on Sunday. It does not matter what tournament it is, where he's playing the conditions, what he's done the last couple weeks, like he has a chance to win. And I remember playing the Oakmont last year, and I beat Scotty in the first round, and I was like, you know, feeling myself. I'm like, you know, first time playing a major. I'm like, you know, obviously a little G.T. 69, you were like in six plays or 60? Yeah. I was like, this is great. I'm going to part 05. That's great. 78, like barely made the cut. And I'm like, oh, I'm only 12 back of Scotty now. Like, okay, let's find out last. But it is, like the line is razor thin, but those top guys, day in and day out, figure out a way to get the ball in the hole. When some weeks, I'm, yeah, on the range, being like, I have absolutely no clue whether it's walls going left or right. And then when I get on the golf course, it is really hard to just look down a fairway and be like, if I am down the middle, like, could be in the right trees, could be in the left trees. But you know what? That's like just, I guess hit hope. You got to play something. So when it comes down to these guys, like, you see Scotty having a bad day and he fires what four under par and you're like, he looks pissed. I mean, it's like, yeah, well, he's, he's the best in the world. Like, he's not like, there's an article going off to, I just think it was called like a five tool player or four tool player, whatever it was called. And there's only one five tool player in the world. And a couple of four tools and a couple of three, two, one meaning, like off the tee approach, short game, putting. And I think there's, I think there might be five. And then like you talk, I talked to, I got to hang out with Joseph Bramlet a lot this year and he was, I think like the only three or even four tool player on the corn fray tour. Like he's, I think it was like top 50 in the world in Stroke's game or over a stroke game per category. And that's still not good enough. Like these guys are so well rounded in every aspect of their game that there's no, like, there's nothing that they, I once I can't do because then again, when I go and play a major championship and I play with a guy like Brian Harmon or, you know, Lori Cantor. And who else I played with this year? Angel Hidalgo. So like all these guys, I'm like, well, like I can play with these guys, you know, for one round. But my whole offseason plan is, okay, how do I make that four rounds times four or times 20, you know, for an entire season to be up there on the points list. And I strung together a couple of good rounds there and Bogoton got the win. But I mean, as you know, it's, you know, a win's great. But if you, you don't have a good rest of the year, then you're not going to your PJ tour card. And if you're on the PJ tour and you get a win, it's like, if you struggle, then you don't keep getting wins every year. Like that status runs out. And it's, it's a really hard thing to manage. I think mentally, mentally, you had no left feeling. It's, it's, it's crazy too. Because then you start second guessing yourself, right? Like I don't know from experience like, yeah, I can kind of draw from this season of getting the win and then having a couple of bad weeks in around me and like, Oh, I need to throw everything out the window and rebuild my golf swing. That's not necessarily the case, you know, all the time. But I think you can be your own worst enemy sometimes. So we talked about how good an athlete you are. And I imagine you're somebody too that's got great hand eye coordination. And somebody that might be able to make a motor pattern change, maybe a little bit easier than somebody else. But what I want to get into at this part is, you know, talking about, you know, you, you said you wanted to make some swing changes. First, I want to know kind of what they are. And they also want to hear just about the process that you've kind of gone through over the last, let's say, month, as you kind of lead up into the final stage of Q school, trying to get that PJ to work hard. What have you noticed in just like your practice and your prep and being able to take it to the golf course, knowing that, Hey, this is a time where I want to be able to think about it. but then try to go to the golf course and just try to play and just be an athlete. Is that something that is challenging for you or is it something that kind of comes natural to you making a quote-unquote swing change? I think it's a blessing and it comes naturally, but it's a blessing and a curse because I can overdo things very, very quickly and I also have trust issues when it comes to listening to coaches and or myself. Information, is it more just like making sure that like the matchups are going to be in the right place for like how you deliver the golf club? Yeah, I think it's like if somebody tells me like right now I'm working on my wrist and I was on top of my swing, like if I'm laid off and the club base is wide open, then that weight of my hand is going to kick that club steep, come down and it's all time at the bottom. So right now I'm working on getting my hands, you know Jeff Smith actually posted a really cool Instagram about a screwdriver technique where if you bow your wrist now that club lays directly off, but if you bow the wrist and rotate in, I think it's, I don't know, it's prone to issues, supination, you should probably know that with my medical background, but then it's not laid off. So I think it's getting myself into a position where then I can make an athletic move. I was reading a book by, it's right over there and I forget about Dr. Bogartella. I think it's like every shot. Oh, it's a golf sound. I get a perfect. Yeah, it's been a while. I have read it. Pete talks about the three stages of making a swing change or golf when you start off at unconscious incompetent, then you go to conscious competent and then you need to get to unconscious competent. So right now I'm in this, I'm in this conscious competent stage where I'm making a swing change. It looks great. It's producing the right flight. But when I get on the golf course, you can't be consciously thinking about swing. You need to let it happen and let that unconscious mind control the competent shots. So that's sort of the next phase for me. Right now it's more get reps, trust your coach, trust your swing change. Make it look pretty or whatever, you know, make all the Instagram people happy that your swing looks pretty. And then I've never missed shot on Instagram. I don't know about you James. It's impossible. I've seen you on TV. You get a couple shots. I miss go shots on TV. I can tell you that. But I think getting to that unconscious part where you can go out and play golf is the tricky part. And that's where like the disconnect comes from some people, most people I'd say. But I am a believer if I do enough reps, it'll just bleed in and I can go out there and just play golf. Can you trick the brain? Can you trick the brain to becoming in this unconscious mode? Or do you think it literally takes rep after rep after rep? Like do you think there's a rep amount for you to get into that unconscious mode? I think we all think about Tiger Woods and the amount of time he would spend. I mean, this is a guy that didn't swing the golf club the same over the course of his career made multiple swing changes and became number one in the world and with about every single motion, which I think is what a professional golfer like myself and you might be able to say, I don't know how he did it because when I go from one field to another that especially feels kind of dramatically different, it takes a while for me to get on the golf course. First off, like knowing where to aim, because aiming and the adjustments that you make sometimes of what you might manipulate in your golf swing, whether you're a right aimer and you're going to get the face looking at the ball early or you're somebody that in all of a sudden now you're holding it with your wrist angles and rotating. You're thinking like, okay, am I in my drawer? Am I fader? What shots do I have? And I think in that practice mode that we're talking about now when you get out there, can you trick the brain? Like are you finding ways to kind of turn the brain off in this? I guess it's kind of exploring mode for you out there. Yeah, I think, so I talked to my mental coach, Dr. Joe Pairn. We talked about one learning the physical skill more quickly. And if you sit there and you consciously make these swing changes for five hours of five hours of a day, you might think that you're putting in all this work but your brain goes into autopilot and there's a lot of studies showing this. So you become just like this robot and then you wake up the next day and it's not like you actually put in five hours. So what we've started to do with my swing change method is that we practice for 20 minutes or so and then I do something that is so unconscious. So that means cleaning my clubs or organizing my golf bag or just kind of doing a quick little walk around and then I come back to it do another 20 minutes. And this cycle of going from consciously focused to unconscious actually makes the brain learn a lot faster. So then this move actually happens unconsciously. So there's been plenty of studies of this and there's something that I've been working on and my mental coach actually sent me all the articles because I like reading them and I read them and I'm because this is fascinating to me. I'll send you I'll send you to tell you how how many times I've put a plan in place especially when especially when I was still playing professionally. I would go work on these things just the things that my coach told me to do. I would get the ball doing what it needed to do. I would even get to the golf course and like just right after doing that work find like a little bit of success. But then the next day it feels like I have to go and spend an additional like three to four hours to like become in that auto pilot mode and then I'm kind of still in that auto pilot mode when I go play but if I didn't have that time before the round if I let's say we play the following day my brain goes into like wait how do we do this again and exactly it's exactly that's the thing I've never understood about the how I feel like I leave the golf course getting better and then the next day feeling like did we did we even do the work like what happened for the first half hour you're like getting back to the point at the end of the session the other day be like okay what was that feel again but if you try this method I mean it's worked for me and I've done this for 20s now and I really feel like it's like okay like because I've gone through this constant switch then you get and it can't be like going and chipping it can't be it can go be putting because chipping so close to like making a swing yeah you're consciously not focused on the same movements but if you change the consciousness at least this is what's worked for me again like I don't I didn't do this research this is just my mental coach saying hey try this and I feel like you know this is actually I'm making this change a lot quicker fascinating man that is really really cool I'm gonna report back to um I don't really get to practice a whole lot these days yeah how about how would speak to those folks like clear like your professional golfer and if you go watch your youtube channel you could see how much time and effort especially with the your plan that you set forth every day but yeah what advice would you give an amateur a junior golfer what's they they have school they have go to and they have you know this is their window from three to six or if you're a dad like me who can just barely get out and play as little as I can how how would you best structure because like this game of golf is not easy to play consistently well especially when you're not touching it every day what advice would you give an amateur or somebody who wants to continue to get better but don't have the time yeah so I time management was the biggest piece of advice that I can time management is the biggest piece of advice I can give to anybody so what I did when I got to Yale is a player football team and I got to be coached by this guy named Brian Kane he's a mental and performance coach and Brian's big thing is time blocking so you might remember the book atomic habits very very similar concept there's also another book that I read called well one the obstacles the way Tom management from your mortals there's a there's a ton out there right yeah I've seen that one yeah there's a ton of next on the list for me yeah and like the obstacles the way is not more about time management but it is about like how you overcome these challenges and for me I was like we don't if I can tell myself I have four hours of class two hours to hang out with friends and pledge of fraternity and whatever I need to do that will easily with how many extra hours sleep with some of them but then I have these these core block of hours where I can get whatever I want done in whether that's studying practicing whatever my priorities are at the time I think that that's what the everyday human whether you're a dad a student a junior needs to put into their routine like if I go into my phone and I pull up my notes app I've got the next three days organized you know by the minute and it's been raining here in South Florida for the past three days oh my gosh what is going on down there inches of rain so I've had to cancel all those plans but then I take a step back and I don't get overwhelmed you know I'm going to go downstairs and I'm going to go paint this room because I'm trying to make a wellness room in my house I'm gonna do this then I'm gonna do this then I'm gonna do this and at the end of the day I'm gonna look back and I'm gonna have ticked off these boxes so to go back to like the golf specific if I'm talking to a junior golfer you're gonna want to hang out with your friends you're gonna want to do your homework you're gonna want to sleep a lot you're gonna want to go to a party but there's gonna be a lot of time in there where you either doom scroll or land your bed do nothing and if you're able to the night before schedule out your day so 7 a.m wake up 7 30 breakfast eight o'clock school till 3 p.m from three to five I'm gonna go to the course and I have two hours of golf practice I want to work on a hundred yards and in for an hour and then range work for an hour that'd be a great way to structure your day and then it's like I go back at five o'clock I'm gonna go hang out my friends from 5 30 to 7 7 is dinner with my family and then after that I'm gonna go bang out my schoolwork and then go to bed at 10 I just planned out the perfect day while you got in practice hung out with friends and you didn't give yourself time to make excuses where I was like well after school I went home had some Oreos and then I wanted to try on TV and watch you know that's the smile the smiley podcast with you necklace it's like you know oh you know if I want to listen that why don't I throw through my headphones in and I can go practice while I do it and I can make it work but it's really hard to do that sort of planning in the moment so I think you got to do that then I before and that's why I always say plan tomorrow today and that's kind of the mind. That's great advice and I guess the only follow-up question would have to just planning your day and just the the element of time and and just being able to make adjustments sometimes. So for instance like if you're playing a professional golf tournament and you have a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday where you plan your entire week. At what point for you when things kind of like your brain is telling you something's off and you need to go work on something a little bit longer. Are you are you something that's able to make those adjustments and spend more time or do you feel like or is it almost like your brain craves just the ability just to stay on schedule and just doing that and just accepting where you end up at the end of the week. Yeah that's why I talked about like the rain when I have a plan and you like punch in the face everybody's gonna plan to like punch in the face right. So I think it's really important to be flexible and be able to roll the punches. So say I'm playing a tournament like Tulsa. Yeah. Being like 23 in the points list trying to get my PJ tour card and I'm thinking to myself okay I need to have a perfect week. Monday's gotta be perfect, Tuesday's gotta be perfect, Wednesday's gotta be perfect and then I get to Monday and I'm like I don't have to go football. Like I'm going the range I'm like it's going like this. So I think to me I'm like okay I had to like 830 to 930 warm up 9 to 11 practice in the range but I told myself you know I'm going to take a sit back readjust my schedule and then roll with what feels comfortable for me. So to answer your question like yes I love being in my routine but you need to be okay with being uncomfortable and that's why the obstacle is the way it was about me to read. That's probably because I'm professional golf like you just have to eventually just be okay being uncomfortable and that's one of the hardest things and it probably one of the biggest learning curves that I think a lot of young professionals have. Dude I thinking back to this year the amount of times that I was uncomfortable whether it was the injury with my foot and being like this ruined my chance at a PJ tour card or looking back at my win and making bogey because I missed a fairway with the six iron and I hit it like 150 Rs offline snap hook and then any up winning the tournament like in the book it talks about how these obstacles are what makes you it's what makes you who you are and if you don't go through these challenges through these obstacles you end up not being this version of yourself that you end up coming to love and there's always going to be this version of you so Matthew McConaughey has this speech where he says you know who's your hero and he answers a question my hero is me 10 years from now and 10 years from now the guy comes back goes oh are you here or are you are you your hero yet and he goes no my hero is me five years from now and it's just a story of constantly chasing the next version of you and constantly going through these obstacles and these struggles to get there and without them you never really grow so I yeah I finished 30th on the points this I don't want my PJ tour card right now but I got Q school in about a month and I am so pumped and ready to go and going through these changes to hopefully get out on the other side and achieve that dream of mine of play on the best one world we're always chasing something right chasing the next for myself I've seen that clip so many times and maybe it's just so good Matthew McConaughey delivers things you're just like man yeah yeah I'm chasing anything he could say anything and I'd be like I'm in I'm in well James as we kind of close this interview there's been a lot of changes to the PJ tour and I think a lot of playing avenues right to corn fairy tour of course we'll continue to exist and and also like more potential opportunities right so maybe a little bit less cards going to that championship series but we have a whole another challenger series that's that's gonna have to be you know they're gonna have to get players from somewhere a lot of it's gonna come to the corn fairy also come from the PJ tour kind of just talk about like your lens like currently where you sit on the corn fairy but also like seeing like all the money flooding in to this championship series the PJ tour but also a pretty dang good live and two on the challenger I know that's not where you want to end up but still I mean we're looking at purse is kind of in that four to eight million range or even could be higher in some of them that's a pretty great spot to be with your thinking especially with the where you sit currently on the on the corn fairy tour just opportunities ahead yeah I was actually had the opportunity to be on the pack the player pack this year for the corn fairy tour sat on the subcommittee with some of your buddies with Ricky and JT and a couple of the guys so got to talk to them a little bit this year about the future of the PJ tour and I mean I'm actually viewing it completely as a positive like the PJ tour right now let's let's face it it is two tours you have the signature very long time it has been all my buddies who got their PJ tour guards last year are now playing the fall series which is essentially their mini tour to keep their jobs and if they don't get into the signatures and the majors it gets very hard and that's why winning is so important because it just gets you right into those events right away and I'm actually really excited for the opportunity next year whether it's the PJ tour through Q school and in a month which is my goal or the corn fairy tour it's corn fairy tour if you finish on the top 50 you essentially have a PJ tour card next year I know it's top 10 then next 30 but the next 30 is also we're they're trying to figure out if some guys are you know dual there's a lot of there's a lot going on yeah there's yes and we want to be a model keep tuning into the spine show we'll keep you before there's a lot going on but but that that being said it's like okay there's only 20 cards this year and if you essentially double that to say 40 you know I'd be on the PJ tour next year if this was the year called the challenger or the championship I don't really like yes I'd love to be in the championship but if I go from the corn fairy to the challenger I am 6xing at a minimum my my purse and my points and my you know reach and the goal is to be world number one like that that is my goal right so in order to get there you got to go through these stages you're not going to just jump there like Sky Shuffler's pretty dang good I've seen stats where it's like the difference between him and Rory's difference in Rory in the last ranked pro golfer in the world like have you seen that set yes it's it's mind blowing mind he's unbelievable so you know when you think about it that way it's like well I got a lot of getting better to do and to get there you got to go through these obstacles and if the challenger is one of the obstacles I am I am happy man so like you know I think it's it's great but when you do get a taste of it you never want to go back like I played two majors a year and I was it was the coolest experience like it was a pinch me kind of moment and I think back to my younger self I'm like if I was playing in the open champ hitting the first t-shot at the US open and then playing the open championship I'd be like dude I have I have it this is the life and I actually still view that even on the corn fray tour we're we're playing for a million dollars and I think there's a lot of mindsets on the corn fray tour where they feel like I'm on the corn fray tour I'm slowing it out like I made like $300,000 in the course this year that that's awesome what I'd rather be making $200,000 in an office with less expenses than traveling on corn fray and not doing what I love or what I love waking up every single day in the pursuit of perfection knowing far like far well that I'll never go and achieve it right that's that's what golf is in the nutshell or you can fall I mean you can fall in the journey of you James on your YouTube channel make sure you go and subscribe to it it is unbelievable content for somebody who's not like a YouTube watcher dude I was like just clicking like video after video earlier just like well I haven't been watching this every week who does your like filming and who does the editing with with all of this James yeah so Gary Cohen has been my videographer my editor and he's absolutely crushed it he made this I don't know if you watch the us open series but oh well I mean I'm going to get there on subscribe the Friday there we go but on Friday the us open it was a very emotional day my dad was out there my mom was out there my entire family's out there watching me I had friends from scars on New York where I grew up out there watching me try to make the cut at essentially a home major championship in in the New York area and my wife is leaning on my dad's shoulders on hole number eight on hole number nine at Chinatown and my dad looks at her and goes this is what sports is all about and she like looks him like a tear in her eye and I end up to putting to make the cut and they all just start jumping up and down and I'm like that's what it's all about I saw a video Bryson today and he was talking about the us open win when he won and he said he woke up the next morning he looked to his left and he said like now what like he didn't have anybody to celebrate with and these are just his words and I was like yeah the reason why this journey is so fulfilling is because I've got so many people to share with on my social media channels but more importantly my wife my friends my family the people who I really care about they wake up every single day and they want the best for me and I think that's truly special so I'm grateful for that I'm also grateful to all my fans on those channels like you said rooting me on in the comments and even the trolls too I know you secretly you want me to succeed so I appreciate I know all about the trolls in my journey they they brought me down at times as much for them wrong yeah and all the time to James I people asked he's like when you get to play professional golf game when you get to tee it up again and then I watch some of your stuff and I see your schedule and your plans and I'm like I was like a 'Cause sometimes I don't have like a birdie the last hole or I have a good day and I tell my wife's like, "Tell you what, Fran." (laughing) And after seeing all this and just like how hard it is, like I have so much respect for you, man, you're absolutely putting in the work. I think any professional golfer, any really young athlete should aspire to have the attitude and really just the mental side to be able to go and just try to tackle it every day. So hopefully a lot of people listening, watching will be a new fan of James Nicholas and then we'll all try to have that good energy you have every day. We all need this wellness room. Tell me the wellness room, that sounds kind of nice. - Oh man, dude, I am so pumped. So I got a little, there's a little guest room in our house and I took the bed frame out. Chuck, I was like, this is, no, this is gonna be my wellness routine. I got to play Praxon with Justin Rose at Shinacock this year and I saw it and I talked to him about his wellness trailer and he was like-- - Insane dude. - Insane. - So, and he's, how old is Justin? I'm not gonna, like, he's four. - I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna guess 45, but I don't know if I'm right or not. - And he was one looking almost younger than I was and striping the ball and playing some of the best golf his entire career. And I was like, that is the recipe right there. I'm going to invest every single ounce of everything into my health and wellness. I actually did a whole thing today. VO2 max text, Texas scan, blood draw, grip strength test, CIMT, crotted artery test. So I'm like all in on the longevity stuff but in the room downstairs, we're gonna get a heavenly heat sauna, a hopefully chilly goat cold plunge. And then I got a red light panel on the wall and we're gonna do a little morning routine where I kind of go through the three and then have a workout routine as well. So it's gonna be epic. - Are you offering subscriptions to the wellness room? Like, am I able to, like, kind of get a monthly plan? Like I'm through a four to swing lunch. - We can chat about that. - My house is, usually empty 'cause I'm on the road a lot. So usually my friends are the ones taking advantage of it more than I am, but we can make a deal. - How about us? Yesterday, you're working, you know, you're doing all these health tests. I got a colonoscopy yesterday. We're in a great spot heading into 2027. We still have work left to do. James Nicholas, he's got a PJ tour card. He's gonna be chasing a queue school. Keep following his journey. Subscribe to all of his channels and James. Maybe a 1v1 down there. I don't know who's talking. - Dude, not me. - No, no, Salt, we're in. You're next. Come on. - I'll take, I'll take two of a side. (laughs) - All right, buddy, thanks. - Appreciate you. - Well, I gotta have one bonus. I just have one bonus. - Oh, there you go. - Because James actually knows my niece. She's about six years old. She's about two feet high. She's covered in yellow hair. Her name is Pongo. James, I had to ask this so self-serving. I had to ask this question. Do you remember being in the back of the Deepdale range? My brother's showing you the Pongo retrieve trick on the back of the range with a little 70 yard wedge. That was my brother David. - No way. - The yellow lab that he was doing with. Yes, all right. - And he had a little trampoline. He looked like a trampoline that there was this place. And he could go and get the ball and come back. - No way. - Do you all have dogs? - My family has a dog, yeah. - Okay, all right, cool. - Pongo, but not me. I travel too much. - Pongo's a great dog name. I told David I chime in with that one, dude. But I was like, what a small world. - I know he knows your brother. He's like, doesn't, you know what I think? James, I showed James my Pongo 70 yard wedge fetch trick. You'd ask me about that. - Perfect. - I was saying when he said knees, I'm like, I mean, I, like, I vividly remember that 'cause I was grinding. And this is the most well-behaved dog I've ever seen on a driving range. It was, yeah. - Yeah, it threw me off the knees, the dog. - I was like, what on? - Yeah, that's right. - Let's go down here. - That's got, it's got, it's got, it's got a little setup here, boys, in the bit. - It's a world dog. - It's a world dog. (laughing) - We'll see you next week on the golf channel. This has been The Smiley Show. - You know, I listened to this podcast. It's really cool. - Oh, really, a lot of ads and subscribers, but make sure you like it from scratch. - It's cool to see what you guys are doing. I know golf fans appreciate it, but we do, too. So please keep it up. We're all good people on YouTube. Like and subscribe. - You guys have some good takes, so I'm happy to come on and shoot the--