Paul Azinger - "The Edge" SHORT TRACK

Mike Gonzalez 0:15

That's a great story. And I'm sure both of you guys agree that back uh as you got your careers going, any little edge you could find, or at least something that you felt gave you an edge was important. And so, Paul, as you got into something you call progressive relaxation, and you thought you know, not everybody's doing this. Maybe this gives me a bit of an edge over the guys I'm competing against.

Paul Azinger 0:40

I think that everybody looks for something they think they're doing that no one else is. You know, our Ryder Cup team in 2008 was bonded with a secret. You know, we had the pod system and we thought that was something they weren't doing, and that helped their mindset. It changed their brain. And, you know, when I did the progressive relaxation, all I could think was I'm playing the course in my head all night long. I can relax my body from head to toe. I'm falling asleep thinking about the course and how I'm gonna play every shot. You know, I'm there's nobody doing this. That's what I thought. Might not have been the truth. I think they were probably a lot of them were doing it. But I, you know, I I was so inquizzical because I couldn't really, I wasn't consistent early. And I remember thinking one day I would just fill out a questionnaire for the great players and put it in Floyd's locker and Lanny's locker and Bruce Dallin's locker, put it in, you know, Nicholas's and Trevino's locker. Do you sleep on your right side? Do you sleep on your left side? Do you sleep on your back? Do you sleep on your stomach? Do you eat the same thing every day? Do you have a beer at night? Do you I was out of control? And I think what I ended up doing, in my this is in '82. And I I started in my brain to eliminate what I considered to be variables, and I didn't know if anyone else was doing that. So in my mind, if I saw a guy grab a couple beers and walk out of the locker room, I felt like, well, I'm not introducing alcohol into my system tonight. That's a variable I've eliminated. And I said, I'm better than that guy. That's that's just in my brain. I just decided I was better than him because he was gonna drink and I wasn't. And it was all I believed it and it made it true in that respect. And it that's just how I felt.

Mike Gonzalez 2:28

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Intro Music 2:47

But it went straight down the middle, like they say. Whack down the fairway. It went smack down the fairway. And it started to slice, just smitch off line. It headed for two, but it bounced off nine. My caddy says long as you're still in the state, you're okay. It went straight down the middle, quite away.