Among the Internet’s hardcore golf fans, Zac Blair enjoys an uncommon level of notoriety. He is perhaps pro golf’s most famous “architecture nut,” and his repeated appearances on podcasts (and, most recently, No Laying Up’s “Wild World of Golf”) have made him, by at least one measure, Twitter’s most influential voice on golf-course architecture. But for most of 2019, Blair faced a challenge less glamorous than Internet popularity: re-securing his PGA Tour card. Blair finished 126th in the 2017 FedEx Cup rankings, just one spot short of full status on the following year’s schedule. After a full slate of PGA Tour events during the 2017-18 season (including a T18 finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship), Blair spent 2019 on the Korn Ferry Tour — and parlayed his time there into a win in August at the Ellie Mae Classic at TPC Stonebrae in San Francisco. The victory guaranteed Blair’s return to the PGA Tour for the 2019-20 season, including a trip back to Mississippi for the Sanderson.
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LYING FOUR: Coming off the Korn Ferry, is there an art to putting together a schedule, or do you just have to play every event that you can?
ZAC BLAIR: It just depends on where you are with the reshuffle. You’re typically gonna get a pretty full year if you play OK. You won’t get into some of the big event like Phoenix and L.A., or the WGCs and majors, but other than that, you typically get in wherever you want.
LYING FOUR: This is a really dumb, 101-level question. But when you’re coming off the Korn Ferry Tour and you’re looking at the fall events — and say you want to play all of them — how does that work? Is there somebody at the PGA Tour that you call and say, “Hey I want to play in the Sanderson, can you put me on the list?”
ZAC BLAIR: They have an app that gives you all that information. And you can use it to commit to the tournaments you want to play, and it slots you in where you fall in your category — and it’ll tell you, “You’re 135 out of 144,” or wherever you are on the reshuffle.
LYING FOUR: You played the Sanderson two years ago, right? Or was it three?
ZAC BLAIR: I played it two years ago — two or three times in all, I think.
LYING FOUR: What do you remember about that golf course?
ZAC BLAIR: It’s good. I always remember how good the greens are. They’re usually one of the best set of greens that we putt on all year, honestly. A couple of times that I’ve played, there’s been horrendous, crazy bad weather. But I think the last time we played it wasn’t too bad.
LYING FOUR: What was it like this year on the Web, after playing basically four years of PGA Tour golf? Was it sort of a culture shock?
ZAC BLAIR: It’s definitely a different set of circumstances. Not that the Web doesn’t take care of you, but it’s just a completely different…everything’s different. Everything on the PGA Tour is that much nicer; they take that much better care of you; you’re playing for 10 times the amount of money; you’ve got 10 times the amount of people out there watching. It’s just a much bigger production and a much bigger show. You definitely don’t ever want to go back to the Web once you’ve been there. And especially having been there for four years essentially — I played four full schedules — it was kind of like, “Whoa, you definitely need to get back up there.”
LYING FOUR: I’m not trying to play armchair psychologist here…but going week to week with a ton of cross-country travel without much of a chance to stop and take a break, playing in a lot of smaller cities — it seems like the sort of existence that could get kind of lonely.
ZAC BLAIR: Yeah, for sure. If you don’t travel with anybody, or have a wife or something like that who goes out there, you can definitely get out on this island by yourself. I did something a little weird this year: I literally went home every single week, except maybe one or two. I would fly home on Sunday night, spend Monday and Tuesday at home, then fly out Tuesday night and play in the pro-am. I don’t know how many events I played, but if I played 30 events, then I went home 17 or 18 times, I think.
LYING FOUR: How big a difference did that make for you?
ZAC BLAIR: People thought I was crazy, but I was like, “Look, I take Mondays off anyway, so if I go to the next event, then I’m literally going to be sitting in a hotel room doing nothing.” And then Tuesdays, if I was there, I was typically putting and chipping balls for maybe an hour, so that was basically a full day off too. And then I was playing in the pro-ams on Wednesday, which were either nine or 18 holes. For me, it was just nice to go live a normal life for a few days: you’re with your family, in your own house, sleeping in your own bed. The travel’s not bad at all out of Salt Lake — maybe a couple of connections. But I was able to get home on Sunday over 15 times, I bet. I just thought it was really nice to go home and be in a familiar place for a few days around people that I like to spend time with.
LYING FOUR: This is sort of a broad question, but is pro golf harder than you thought it’d be? You’ve seen it at every level now, and you’ve succeeded at every level. But is it harder than you thought it’d be when you got started?
ZAC BLAIR: In some aspects, yes. But at the same time, it is kind of exactly what I thought it would be. I didn’t go into it thinking, “I’m gonna win every tournament that I play.” But in some aspects — like, the traveling is just a different ballgame than 99 percent of people think. It really is a grind. If you’re not a top-25 player in the world, taking your jet everywhere, playing Wednesday pro-ams and only playing 15 or 16 times per year, it gets pretty tough out there. As far as the competition goes, I was well aware that there are a lot of really good golfers out there. It is what I thought it was.
LYING FOUR: Looking back at your results this year, it looks like something clicked around the Utah Championship [in June]. What happened?
ZAC BLAIR: I took a week off after the U.S. Open, which was nice to get refreshed. But honestly, I just went in with a mindset of just doing the same thing over and over. I knew that my game was good enough, and I had been doing a lot of things right basically all year but just making silly mistakes every week. I went into the final eight or nine events of the regular season after Utah saying, “If I can just minimize the mistakes the rest of the year, just keep doing all the things I’ve been doing good but just stop doing the silly stuff, then I really think I can get this worked out and we’ll be where we want to be next year.” And I just did that. Some weeks I would play well and hit my driver good, but I would struggle with my short game or my irons, and I would start worrying about what I needed to do to fix my irons and my short game. And then the next week, I would drive it poorly and then freak out and think, “What’ve I gotta do with my driver to fix it?” Around Utah, it was just the realization that I didn’t need to do anything or fix anything from week to week — I just needed to take what I had and keep doing it, and eventually it was gonna click. And it obviously happened in San Francisco, so that was good.
LYING FOUR: That Sunday, when you were coming down the stretch, how hard is it to stay in the moment from shot to shot and not let your mind drift to the implications that were at stake?
ZAC BLAIR: It was kind of weird. I was in an interesting situation. I’m a big leaderboard watcher. I knew going in that if I took third place of better, realistically I would get my card. So coming down the stretch, when I was that I was two or three up with four or five to play, I kinda had to fight this inner self-talk of, “Whatever happens coming in, you don’t even have to win really, just don’t screw up too bad.” Because there were only two or three guys in the hunt at that point. I had to fight the urge to settle for an OK finish and realize, “Winning for sure takes care of it all. You are for sure gonna get your card if you win.” So I had to talk that self-talk of, “Oh, just take a top three, and whatever happens happens.” I haven’t won in a really long time — since college, really. I didn’t win on the Web the one year that I played before this, and I had a couple of close calls on the PGA Tour but never won. So it is something that you’re always wondering; “Am I gonna be able to do this again?” But the instincts took over the last three or four holes. I wasn’t really nervous at all like I thought I would be. Even on the last few holes, I had to two-putt from 40 or 50 feet on a couple of them. And I thought I would be really nervous on some of those little tap-ins, but I really wasn’t. It was nice to see, because I’ve won a lot in my life, and I’ve always had this mindset that winners win — you just know how to win. And that’s kind of what happened those last few holes. It was kind of like instincts.
LYING FOUR: It’s interesting to hear you say that, because you always hear two different schools of thought on that. There are people who say that there’s something about winning, and that it’s a skill to win. And then there are other people who say that if you play yourself into the top 10 enough times, then just mathematically you’re going to fall into a certain amount of wins. What do you think?
ZAC BLAIR: I think it’s a little bit of both, honestly. I firmly believe that there’s definitely a set of people that just know how to win. A lot of people get in the hunt a lot, but there’s a lot of people who don't close it and don’t win. Some people just have a knack for making something happen when they need it to happen. But at the same time, if you just get yourself in those situations enough times — kind of what my mindset was for half the season was, “If I can just keep doing the same stuff and not change anything, I will have a week where it clicks, and everything will come together, and you’ll win.”
LYING FOUR: What was it like when the last putt dropped in San Francisco? Is it euphoria? Is it relief?
ZAC BLAIR: That was another weird thing [laughs]. Like I said, I hadn’t won in a really long time. Growing up, I used to win all the time, and it was just business as usual. So I didn't know what to expect. You see a lot of fist-pumps and people crying, and I was like, “Man, am I gonna cry? Am I just gonna fist-pump? What am I gonna do?” Then it was just kind of like, “OK cool, I won.” It wasn’t anything new; it wasn’t surprising. It was just kind of normal, which I think is good. I was definitely happy, but it didn’t really hit until the next few days when you realize you won a golf tournament on a big stage and got back to the Tour. It was really cool.
LYING FOUR: There’s gotta be a point where you have to step out of the euphoria and into the reality that when the Fall schedule starts, you’re gonna be in a dogfight for status. Is that daunting?
ZAC BLAIR: Not really. That second half of the season, I did a really good job of reminding myself that I’m good enough and I know I can compete. I’ve had good years out there, and I’ve made it into that second or third playoff event a few times. So I know that I’m good enough to go do it. Now I have a better game plan for how to manage it. That last half of the year, I just kept trying to do the same stuff. I wasn’t tweaking a lot of stuff. I had a couple of good weeks — two top-10s in Utah and New York, and then I went to Denver and did everything the same, and the putts just didn’t go in that week and I missed the cut on the number. And I didn’t freak out the next week and try to figure out what I needed to do to fix my putting; I just knew it was one of those weeks where the lipped out instead of lipping in. Then I went and had a couple of good weeks after that. And maybe those last couple of years I played out on the Tour, any week where I had a rough week or a missed cut, it was always, “What do I need to change to do better?” And you can’t be doing that every week, because you’re gonna have weeks where stuff doesn’t go your way. You just have to be able to handle it and move forward.
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LYING FOUR: I have to ask you a couple of questions about recreational golf. I know you’re sponsored by Dormie Network; I played at Dormie Club last summer for the first time and was crazy about it. What do you like about that place?
ZAC BLAIR: I’ve never been out there, actually!
LYING FOUR: Aw, that kills me!
ZAC BLAIR: I’m hosting an event out there in October, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it.
LYING FOUR: Oh God, it’s so good. You’re gonna love it. I went to Pinehurst for the first time last summer, and I had more fun on that course than I had on No. 2. You’ll have a blast.
ZAC BLAIR: Yeah, I’m excited.
LYING FOUR: Is there a difference between a course that you like to play for fun and a course where you think you can perform well in a competitive situation? Or are you looking for the same kind of things in both courses?
ZAC BLAIR: No. I mean, I’ve played well in tournaments on all different types of courses. I’ve played well on long courses, short courses, firm, soft, whatever. So I know that, any given course, I can go in and perform well. But at the same time, there are certain characteristics of setups that, when there’s some sort of penalty for offline shots or poor shots, that’s where I feel the most comfortable. I’m not one of the longest hitters out there, so when you get to some places where you can hit it wherever you want and wedge it onto the green, those are maybe my last favorite to play in a golf tournament. But at the same time, I know that I’ve played good on those types of setups. When I’m playing causal golf and just want to have fun, I’m definitely looking for a golf course that asks a lot of questions and requires a lot of different looks and shots. Stonebrae has a little bit of that: it requires a little bit of imagination, and you’re not always trying to hit it right at the flag. So I don’t mind playing tournaments on that type of course either.
LYING FOUR: What are your top five golf courses in the world?
ZAC BLAIR: I probably don’t have five. I have a big group of courses that fall into a bucket that’s like, “Would you drop everything to go play just that course?” That’s kind of how I stack courses up.
LYING FOUR: That’s fair.
ZAC BLAIR: It’s really hard to say that certain places are better than others, but Pine Valley and National Golf Links of America are my two favorite golf courses for very different reasons. Pine Valley obviously is extremely challenging; you can play very well, but if you go in with a sloppy game, you’re gonna get your face beat in. But I like that about that place. And it’s big enough — you don’t have to drive it long, but you have to keep it in play. Once you get out of play, you’re dead. But it’s not tight or anything like that. And then National is just one of the funnest places in the whole world. Go there with any type of player, and everyone’s gonna have a really good time. You’re gonna get a lot of different looks and see a lot of different shots. It’s just a really fun place to go play golf.
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All photos: credit Zac Blair on Twitter (@z_blair)
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