JEREMY FRIEDMAN: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to media day for LIV Golf Dallas presented by Aramco at Maridoe Golf Club. We're glad everybody is here. We've got an esteemed panel right here to my left. I'll introduce them shortly.
I wanted to recognize a few folks here in the audience. The city of Carrollton, first off, thank you for everything, for hosting this week. Albert, thank you and your staff at Maridoe for hosting us today and hosting this great championship next week. It's going to be a great week next week. You guys can see the build is active. It is almost ready. It is going to be loud next week. That's LIV. It's loud.
Also I want to recognize the Carrollton Farmers Branch Independent School District and the high school players that are here. Raise your hand if you're from there today. Thank you guys. Thank you for coming today.
Also Sebastian and Carlos will appreciate this, we've got the men's and women's golf team from University of North Texas that's here, Mean Green. I was asked to say that. Guys and gals, thank you all for being here today. We're going to have some fun with the clinic this afternoon and also in chatting with Sebastian and Carlos and UNT alums.
A couple of quick tidbits, the tournament June 27-29 next week, tickets are on sale at LIVGolf.com. Media credentials are still open, LIVGolfmediacredentials.com. Please sign up.
To my left here, our host and owner of Maridoe Golf Club; Carlos Ortiz and Sebastian Muñoz, Torque GC and proud UNT alums, so this is a kind of return home game for them. And then everybody knows the gentleman to my far left, Mr. David Feherty. He is one of the best in the business and one of the best voices in golf.
Thank you for being here. Before I turn it over to David and the crew, let's turn your attention to the TVs for a quick sizzle video.
[Video shown.]
That's LIV Golf in a nutshell. Team golf that LIV Golf is known for, it's unique, fast, thrilling, exciting. It's a new and innovative way of golf. These guys play it. David calls it each and every week all over the country.
It is awesome to see -- if you guys have not seen it, if you didn't see it last year you're going to be in for a treat next week.
As I turn it over to David and the panel, they will do a Q & A and then we will open it up for questions in the audience. David, when you wrap up the Q & A, just turn it over to the audience and we'll have the audience ask a few questions. Don't be shy. Feel free to ask away.
DAVID FEHERTY: Thanks, Jeremy. I used to have a show on The Golf Channel, a talk show. Some of you may be familiar with it, and it was always really nice to get players of this caliber. I'm sorry, I only get a few minutes with you guys. I would have loved to have had you on that show.
Albert, last year here at Maridoe, you really only had a couple of months' lead time to prepare the course and get this tournament into shape. It's very different -- the golf course was kind of incinerated last year by the weather. It looks totally different this year.
ALBERT HUDDLESTON: That's correct. I'm excited this year the course is going to reflect precisely the vision that I had anticipated that Maridoe was supposed to be a happy place, a sandbox of fellowship for the members but an exciting test, and my philosophy is that LIV has the cream of the crop of talent, and I want Maridoe to separate cream from rich cream, so more of a kind of U.S. Open mentality, and they're up to the task.
We're really excited. You're going to see the course this year exactly the way that we had hoped for it to be in. We feel if you don't come and bring your game and your brain to the course, then you'll be disadvantaged.
DAVID FEHERTY: What sort of impact does it have to the local community here?
ALBERT HUDDLESTON: Great. First of all, I think golf is one of the supremely wonderful sports in the world. I can play with a 30 handicapper and have a great time. I'm a low handicapper. You can travel, go all over the world. It is amazing what golf can do, not only when you're young, but also my grandfather used to play for 25 cents a hole nine holes when he was 90 years old.
Here in Carrollton, I'm hoping that this inspires people to understand that golf is a wonderful personal experience, but to watch people who are literally at the most rarefied air of talent like Carlos and Sebastian, it's just amazing, and being able to be a few feet away from that much talent is extraordinary.
DAVID FEHERTY: You've been really involved, hands on with this tournament, and I'm driving up and down the tollway here and I'm seeing enormous billboards. You've found some really creative ways to promote the event.
ALBERT HUDDLESTON: Well, if you have something that's fantastic and good news, you don't put it under a bushel basket. You share it with the community, let them know it's here.
The city of Carrollton, for example, has been extraordinary. They have been a very strong silent force, and that's been fantastic.
But it is wonderful to go out there and allow the rest of the community to know that this exists, and my philosophy, as I call it, understated elegance. If you have something special, you don't have to slap them in the face with it, but you do need to at least create some points of touch, and those billboards and having some fun supporting the Byron Nelson, The Colonial and the KPMG this week with some aerial, but it's all one big golf community in north Texas, and we're all angel investors in it, and it's a lot of fun.
DAVID FEHERTY: Turning to our two players here, you guys have got some roots here in north Texas. Both of you are University of North Texas alums. Sebastian, what brings a kid from Bogota, Columbia, to Denton, Texas?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: Yeah, that was a bit of fate. I was just excited with the possibility of coming to play college golf, and at that time Brad Stracke was the coach and he offered me a visit, and on that visit I met Carlos for the first time ever, and it just felt like the right place. I didn't even go to another visit. I really liked the courses that we played.
I don't know, I just kind of let it roll, and here we are. The same thing happened back in the day when I was in college, so it's been a great fun thrilling ride.
DAVID FEHERTY: You got off to a start in Bogota, kind of surrounded by golf, weren't you, your dad and your granddad both played?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: Yes, sir, my dad, he lived in the U.S. for a little bit and he started a service where he sold golf clubs to people down there in Colombia, kind of connecting the services back there, so my house was always surrounded with golf clubs, and we went on weekends to go play with my grandfather, so it's always been a family thing, the golf.
DAVID FEHERTY: You've got great history here in Texas, having won in Houston -- sorry, Carlos, I meant to go to you -- having won in Houston twice. What is it about Texas that kind of puts the tilt in your kilt?
CARLOS ORTIZ: I guess Texas is like my second home. I've said it for a long time, probably almost half of my life I've been here. I really feel comfortable. I feel like people are closer to what are at home. I feel like the family culture here in Texas is different than in the rest of the United States, and especially for us, it's a home for me. I like being in Texas.
Also Texas has treated me well, too. I've won twice in Texas, and hopefully I can keep accumulating more.
DAVID FEHERTY: I love it, too. I've been here over 30 years now.
The team golf and LIV, as Jeremy mentioned earlier, is so different from individual golf, and it's become kind of tribal. For us at LIV, we've got the Australians, we've got the South Africans, now we've got the Latin Americans, and Latin American golf has really come on in the last decade or so.
For you, Carlos, the last Mexican to win was 42 years ago on the PGA TOUR. Do you know who it was?
CARLOS ORTIZ: Antonio --
DAVID FEHERTY: You're off to a bad start. It was Victor Regalado. I played with Victor. He was a little fat Mexican. (Laughter.)
Now, you met your wife, was it at the University of North Texas you met Haley?
CARLOS ORTIZ: Yes.
DAVID FEHERTY: How is that going?
CARLOS ORTIZ: Still going. Four daughters later, still going strong. I also went to North Texas. Like Sebastian, I didn't really know where I was going to play. I came here; I didn't really go any other places; it worked out; it was close to home. Dallas is a great city, and it actually worked out.
We used to come here -- actually my first golf course I was a member at, it was here. It used to be call the Honor, before I ever turned to Maridoe. He allowed all the pros to come out here and he's always been really generous to us and supported people that were really trying to connect to golf. I've been here since then.
He's been really a great supporter to amateur kids and professionals that are really trying to make it, so I'm grateful for that, Albert.
DAVID FEHERTY: Would you consider Maridoe your home course? Is this where you play out of, do most of your practice?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: For me in Texas it's probably the place I play the most.
DAVID FEHERTY: Have you played the golf course yet this year?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: No, not this year yet. I've heard a lot, though.
DAVID FEHERTY: It looks amazing. It really does. I'm always interested -- this is getting off topic, but what did you major in at North Texas?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: My major was business and entrepreneurship.
CARLOS ORTIZ: Mine was international studies.
DAVID FEHERTY: I don't know what that means.
CARLOS ORTIZ: Me neither.
DAVID FEHERTY: What would you have done if you hadn't been a tour pro?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: Well, the plan was always to go back home to Colombia. My family runs a rubber tree plantation down there, so my idea was just to kind of pick up the business of it, trying to find a way where an entrepreneur could maybe, instead of selling raw materials, we could maybe make something more out of it and maybe add a little price to it.
But then Carlos went on a tear in 2014 on the Korn Ferry TOUR back then, and I was like, well, if he did it maybe I can, too, and that was the end of that.
DAVID FEHERTY: You had a serious plan B.
CARLOS ORTIZ: No, that's true because when we were in college he used to get mad, he was like, come on, try harder, we need more players. We had two, three good players, we needed the fourth or fifth. He's like, no, I'm just here for a little bit and then I'm going to go back home and work with my dad, and I was like, dude, come on, try a little bit harder. As soon as I left, he started winning tournaments, and I was like --
DAVID FEHERTY: Do you guys watch golf on television if you're not playing?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: Ish. Sometimes. I watched Carlos last week.
CARLOS ORTIZ: If a friend is playing or something interesting happening, I'll watch it. But with four kids it's not that easy to watch golf.
DAVID FEHERTY: You had a great week last week at the U.S. Open, Carlos. I mean, just a break here or there, you could easily have won that event. What was your feeling throughout the entire week there?
CARLOS ORTIZ: Honestly, survive. I was trying to do my best. There's no bail-outs. There's trouble everywhere. There's no safe spot there. You hit the fairway and you're like, okay, let's just hit the green. You get on the green, you're like, let's just two-putt. It's that kind of feeling from when you start to when you finish.
Honestly, what I did great last week is just trying to survive; don't crash the car. I crashed the car a couple times, especially the second round I crashed it, but I was able to put the wheels back on and keep going, and it was just surviving.
I think that's what it was also at the end. That's what J.J. Spaun did really well. He survived. He made several mistakes early but then he just hung in there, and the way the golf course is, if you hit good shots, especially when it got soft, you could hit it close, so he made some birdies, and how you said, it could happen to anybody. There were like six, seven players right there with maybe five, six holes to play.
DAVID FEHERTY: Well played. It was really wonderful to watch. We've got two Chileans, a Mexican and a Colombian here. You throw in a Catholic priest, it sounds like a joke. What is it that has kind of spurred the growth of professional golf in Latin America?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: I think for example in Mexico we had Lorena Ochoa that put golf on the map for Mexico. I don't even know if they knew what golf was before then, and she did an unbelievable job putting it there.
I was fortunate enough that I grew up in the same place as her, same golf course, and I saw her, and it's kind of like Sebastian, when you see somebody that's kind of close to you and you see, okay, she just went to college, became No. 1 in the world, it's doable. It just makes it reachable. For me that was an inspiration.
I think now we have that same job with the kids, the next generations. I think that's a responsibility we have to inspire those new generations to know that if they work hard they can do whatever they want, not only in golf but in life. If you work hard enough with certain goals, you can be whatever you imagine you can be.
I think that's what's happening lately. I think we've been out 10 years -- I've been over 10 years a professional, and I feel like there's also kids that were 12 year olds when I was 22, and now they're professionals. They've noticed that -- I was one of them. I just worked hard, and some things went my way, but it was doable.
I feel like that's what it's inspiring a lot of young kids now to play in South America, and that's why we've seen the growth in the game. In Colombia they had Camilo, in Argentina they had a few guys.
That's a goal at least for us, to keep inspiring new generations. Us as Latins, we have a big responsibility because golf is not huge in Latin America, so we're trying to make it more accessible and also show kids that there is ways to make it. Especially here in the U.S., it's all somehow -- I don't know if you guys value it because you guys live here, but here if you apply yourself to something they'll help you out, they'll give you scholarships, they'll give you means to get to where you want. You have people like Albert that help people that not always have the means to do it, and that's super nice. If you can come to this country and take advantage of those situations, you can do it.
I feel like that's what we're teaching a lot of the kids, and I think you see more and more kids coming to college and even to high school and trying to show themselves here and then people help them out and then you have people like us that eventually make it.
DAVID FEHERTY: You guys have done a great job and you're both in the top 10 of the money list here this year so far. Are there any questions from our audience out there? I know we've got a couple of microphones.
ALBERT HUDDLESTON: Could I say something? Do you mind if I say something? I want to say, first of all, the University of North Texas program, this is their home course, but I want to say something about Carlos and Sebastian. I have a professional program here at Maridoe, and I was playing with Jon Rahm in a pro-am in Mexico a few years ago and Adam his caddie. He asked me, what's your criteria for having people in your professional program, and they're members. They're not in some special -- if you're at Maridoe, you're a member.
I told him, there's two things that I definitely require. One, that a professional that becomes a member at Maridoe will always be in my mind a better person than a talent. If that box gets checked, it goes to No. 2. No. 2 is if that particular individual had a horrific accident and was confined to a wheelchair, would I be excited to come to Maridoe and have lunch with him every day, and if I check that box, that's my criteria. These two gentlemen meet that criteria. They're amazing individuals. They're amazing family people. They're great talents.
But they as individuals overshadow their talent in my opinion. I just want to say that golf is an amazing privilege, and it also, I think, should inspire all of us to do better. So I just want to share that.
Q. What went into your decision process to join the LIV league?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: I'll go. In my mind what it was, it was time. I felt like the Tour was taking a lot of my personal time, my family time, my time of me growing as a human, and I felt like if I just kept putting 30 weeks a year, I was going to wake up at 40 not really knowing who I was and what I was going to do, and I felt like me having my friends, which is Carlos and Joaco, Mito, as well, but we've been on Tour or like four or five years before we moved on to LIV, I was like, I could invest in this family I've kind of made and create something with them that would be a lot more -- feels like a lot more of mine, like I'm putting my touch, who I am into a team, who can we help each other, like we can build something together.
I feel like that's the main focus in our team, trying to make us better people and better professionals, better golfers, as well. I felt like it was a better use of my time being out there helping them, them helping me, and just kind of building on from that.
CARLOS ORTIZ: Yeah, I think it's similar to Sebastian. When I had the opportunity, it came down to, like, time and how I wanted to spend my time and who I wanted to spend my time with. We weren't really kind of a team on the Tour. Especially after COVID, we started traveling and staying in houses together and we were already doing everything, practice rounds, we shared coaches. We were doing pretty much everything together, and when this opportunity came, it's almost like it was made for us. It was like people here in college, just pick your best friends, you're going to be in a team like in college, you're going to travel the world, they're going to pay you well, they're going to take care of you, and you're going to have work intensively from February to August and then after that you're going to have time off to spend time with your family.
I have four daughters, so for me it was like, okay, where do I sign up; this is perfect. This is exactly what I asked for. It's been unbelievable. It hasn't all been easy and obviously there's been a lot of different opinions on how we're doing it, but us personally, we've pushed harder than we've ever done it. When you're in a team, when you start working, especially when just one guy takes that and starts working and everybody just starts, okay, he's doing great, I'm part of a team so I cannot let him down. I cannot let myself down, but I'm not going to let him down. It's kind of like you feed off each other.
We're fortunate enough to have Joaquín in our team that he's an unbelievable player, an unbelievable person and he pushes us hard to work hard. He has an unbelievable mind, the way he talks, the way he thinks. Mito has an unbelievable heart. We all have different things that we use each other to push each other to be better.
It's hard to find that let alone in life but let alone in the same team you work with. We're really fortunate to have the team we have, and when they asked me, was it a hard decision, it was not even a decision. It was made for me. How am I even going to think about this. When you have those kind of opportunities, they're once in a lifetime.
I'm having a blast with these people. I'm working harder than ever and we're traveling the world, we're showing -- I feel like we're doing a good job showing a different kind of golf.
It's the same sport, just a little bit tweaked, so obviously it's not perfect, we're still making it better, but we're trying to show that golf can be a little bit different. It can evolve. It can definitely change things, and it's been awesome doing it around people like them.
Q. This question is for Carlos. You mentioned about the grind that was the U.S. Open. From a mental standpoint what can you take away from that tournament that you think will help you for this upcoming tournament?
CARLOS ORTIZ: I mean, it helps you not only for the next round, it's just for life. I think my goal was simple, just do my best. Obviously I was trying to hit the best shot I could. I was trying to be brave. I was trying to just hit the shot that was required and don't care about the result, just trying to do my best because if you're just doing your best, whatever happened, it's what else could have happened, that's what was supposed to happen. Then you pick it up and do your best again.
Honestly, that was my whole goal that week. I feel like I did an unbelievable job doing that. But it's honestly that simple; just try to do your best. Obviously it goes without saying that you just have to be present.
To do your best, you have to be in that moment, not behind or not forward. You have to be just there and put your mind into, with what I have, how can I do the best result I can.
I just went in with that mentality all week. I feel like it sounds simple, but honestly, it takes a lot of concentration to just be there where your feet are every moment and really just don't care about what's going to happen or what happened, and just try to do your best each and every time you -- I don't know, I guess being present summarizes it. I don't know if I explained myself, but it made sense in my head.
Q. The fellow UNT men and women's golf teams are here today. They play team golf in college. You guys played team golf in college. You guys were just talking about how you're your teammates, you travel together, it's a family. When you played at UNT like when they're doing now, are there a lot of similarities for college team golf and your teams traveling the country together, like playing for each other as well as for yourselves?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's just the age. I feel like having a little bit more experience now, I do see there's more similarities than I realized back then. Back then, you kind of forget how lucky you are to be traveling with your team and not having to pay any expense and just playing great courses and competing all the time and coming here and there. And then when you turn pro and you realize now it's on your own and you have to do it all by yourself, it's kind of different. You were like, huh, I wish I would have taken better opportunity of that back then.
I feel like now looking at what we do and how focused which were, I felt like we could have done better in college, been a little bit more focused, more driven towards our goals, but yeah, there's plenty of similarities, and I feel like it's a great time. It's so cool to grow up with your fellow teammates or your family and kind of talking about the hard stuff, the good stuff, and kind of come to conclusions and kind of make you a better person.
I feel like that's something that is kind of magical, and I feel like that's what really creates the growth in the person. I'm really happy that they have the opportunity to do that, and hopefully they realize it's an important time and they should really take advantage of it.
CARLOS ORTIZ: Yeah, similar to Sebastian, I feel a big difference is I don't think you realize that anytime you have is time that you can be useful and use it to be better. I think college -- in myself and I saw it a lot with my teammates, too, that we didn't take it as seriously as we could have and used the advantage of having that extra time being able to play golf for free, practice for free. You have four years to get as good as you can, and I feel that we had everything there to do that, and I don't feel like we were as efficient as we could have been with the time and taken advantage of everything we had around us to be the best we can because in college you have everything. You have all the facilities as a professional golfer. You have workout, you have a coach, you have golf courses, you have tournaments that they're going to pay you to travel to, they pay for your food, they do everything for you. The only thing you have to do is show up and work as hard as you can.
I feel like knowing the opportunities we had, I feel like I could have worked even harder. I feel like I worked one of the hardest on the team, but I feel like some of my teammates, they didn't take advantage they could have at that time. And the only people they were hurting was themselves because eventually they're going to have to work hard on something.
That's the only thing I'd really see different between college and us. Now I really appreciate the opportunity and I work as hard as I can. Can I still do better, yes, but I'm trying to do that and getting pushed by other people.
Going back, I feel like if anything, I could see and I could take back from college, it's that I didn't take as much advantage as UNT gave me. I can definitely see how my teammates could have done better use of all the facilities they provided for us.
Saying that, I'm still so grateful with UNT for everything they did for us. We sure wouldn't be here without the support that the school gave us, and we'll be always thankful for them.
Q. Albert, when Maridoe opened in 2017, it also became the home for the UNT men's and women's programs, so this is their home course. Not only them but the high school players that are here, when they see the tournament next week and they see the team competition from your eyes as the owner of Maridoe and this is their practice facility, what kind of things do you think they will be able to see as far as the team golf from the professionals that they will be able to take with them in their high school and college years?
ALBERT HUDDLESTON: Well, when I was in high school, candidly, I didn't pay attention enough to the things that are important. What I would suggest is golf is a lifetime opportunity, but if you have talent and work hard like these gentlemen and actually listen to people who know and understand where you need to go, then all of a sudden you have a talent, then you can accelerate being special in a chosen field like golf.
What you're going to watch is, in my opinion, when you come to a tournament, watch each player. The great players reset their computer every shot, and the great players don't get emotional until at the end or whenever. But it's very thoughtful. Also, with your caddie, it's a collaboration.
I think when you're -- I always told me when I was young and stupid, now I'm older and less stupid, and every day I become less stupid, I never say I'm getting smarter because hubris sits in. Come out, have fun, observe it, and what's really neat about LIV for me personally is that -- I was a gold sponsor of the Byron Nelson, then I go to Colonial, and I love all these tournaments, but from 7:00 to 7:00 I'd run up to see Tiger hit balls, then I'd run back on the golf course to see somebody, then I'd run back at 1:00 to see Mickelson hitting balls, and I'd run back -- it's really neat to be able to be there and watch all of these talents lined up and you get to watch them.
What's amazing is each swing is different. Each stature, size, with a stance, and what you realize when you see all of these people, the privilege of seeing them all hit balls at the same time is that there is not one answer to being a great player. Everyone needs to decide what works for them and work hard.
I get really jazzed when I watch that, and it's great fun. So I do think that just come out, one, have a good time, but I think what you'll find is that LIV is highly compressed. Being highly compressed, you get to compare how everyone navigates their elite career.
I think that's pretty exciting. If it doesn't get you pumped, you need to go take up a sport where you won't lose a ball like bowling where it kind of comes back to you and you can sit down while you play. But if you love golf, this is a living laboratory to inspect amazing talent.
I tell people, Maridoe was designed to be a living laboratory of excellence. No matter how sharp your blade is, this place will make your blade sharper. One thing I will add, too, as far as lifestyle, the PGA TOUR used to have in the fall no tournaments and you'd have kind of the Shark Shootout and you'd have all these fun things. Now that they've made the fall the year-round 12-month deal on the PGA TOUR where everyone is having to generate FedEx points, the people who are trying to make the money want you to work all the time. It's like you're a hamster in a wheel and the wheel never gets to stop.
It used to be the PGA TOUR had time off, family, so forth in the fall, and that's no longer there, and it was interesting to hear them talk about the fact that there is a gap with the LIV process in which they can balance family, time, talent, expertise. That was interesting to me.
I admire people who try to get balance between family, profession and friendship.
Q. Maybe I'm stupid to not figure this out on my own, but I grew up in Tyler, I love the old beer-and-barbecue tournaments, the Calcuttas, the fun. I was blown away last year at how much excitement and fun there is on the LIV Tour. My question is I guess it was Greg Norman, but who was the brain child of all this activity? It's brilliant in my opinion.
DAVID FEHERTY: Yeah, it was Greg from -- I played with Greg. I've known him for 40 years. Back in the mid-'80s, Greg had this vision of a world Tour, a group of professional golfers that would travel the world, go to all four corners. We've been to four different continents. Hell, I think we've been in seven or eight different countries this year alone.
That was Greg's vision, and he has had it for a very long time. His fingerprints will always be all over this tour.
ALBERT HUDDLESTON: When LIV approached me about hosting a tournament, of course I've been involved with the USGA and R&A, PGA, Kerry Haigh, PGA of America, I love golf, and I think golf is a great way. But when they came to me, I thought to myself and Maridoe as being like an angel investor in Silicon Valley. Somebody has a new idea to elevate technology, for example, angel investors, they put their time and money up knowing it's probably going to go to zero or something ridiculously large.
I thought of ourselves at Maridoe as angel investors in a concept, and what really sold me to have this is that the PGA is primarily U.S.-centric, and LIV was talking about introducing golf internationally.
I think that it is an amazing opportunity to, quote-unquote, infect the world with golf because it creates fellowship, friendship, builds on economy and so forth. People always ask me, did you go chase LIV. I said, I didn't chase LIV, they found me.
But again, I like being an angel investor. I think people should have new ideas and have the privilege of rising and falling based on whether those ideas are great, and sometimes you morph them and you pivot.
In any respect, I just want to share that with everybody.
Q. You guys have both had really good consistent years, both in the top 10. I was wondering, is there something in your game that you attribute that to? Is there parts of your game that were weaknesses before that the last six months or so you've really worked hard at that have improved that you attribute your success to?
SEBASTIAN MUÑOZ: Yeah, sure, so finishing this tournament last year in September, I took a meeting with both my caddie and my coach, and we took decided to go a different route in my swing. I feel like we got a little fade to change what has been like consistent results over the last five, six years, so we just took on the challenge of trying to change a little bit of my technique, and it was three, four months of hard work, and by the time we got back to February, I was able to click it back and put it back to gear and started competing for these tournaments.
I feel like my ball-striking has improved a lot, and part of it was having an off-season where I was able to work on a new pattern that kind of gave me better results. In a way, having the time off helped me get better this year.
CARLOS ORTIZ: Similar to Sebastian, I feel that when I joined LIV, I changed coaches right when I was joining and have worked a lot on my swing to get more consistent patterns. It's definitely helped. I also have worked as hard as I ever have on all the aspects of my game, and that's also thanks that we have time off. It was hard to do that when you had a week to see your family, prepare, rest, recover. To do everything in one week it was almost impossible. I feel like now with a set schedule, you do have time to get ready.
Obviously with an off-season there's no excuse. If you're not ready it's because you did not work hard enough in your off-season, because with three, four months off now, you have time to be with family, rest, play tournaments and really get ready for the next season.
I feel that we've both become more consistent players because we have more time to really invest time with our families, in our game, in everything, because I feel like to be good at anything, you have to have a balance, and I feel like what this tour has given us is balance in our life. That is priceless, to have balance, to have everything at the same time. It's hard to do.
JEREMY FRIEDMAN: David, easy one for you. You mentioned at the top that you've lived in Dallas for 30 years. LIV Golf Dallas is basically going to conclude the golf season here in Dallas this year. For you as a Dallas resident and having it as a home game and having LIV Golf Dallas here in your hometown, how important is it for Dallas to have this event back here for a second consecutive year?
DAVID FEHERTY: I think after last year, we saw how exciting the team event was. Just concentrating on the team event, it was an incredibly close finish. Sebastian, you were like 64 the final round? Yeah.
The whole concept of team golf, there's a lot of individual golf, professional golf played here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with the ladies event coming next week up at the new PGA headquarters. There's a lot of it. But there's no professional team golf.
For me, it's going to be amazing to see these guys. Our Team Championship is, again, at the end of the year. I think it's in Michigan. But the buildup to it, especially from what we saw here last year at Maridoe, I'm just looking forward to that.
JEREMY FRIEDMAN: Gentlemen, thank you. Everybody, thank you for coming out to media day here at Maridoe Golf Club. We will do some individual one-on-ones out here. Sebastian and Carlos also will be doing a master class putting clinic for the UNT teams and the high school teams.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports