369: BOBBY HOLLAND- Navy Seal “Breaches” the Golf World w/ Hoolie Golf Apparel

0:00:04 – Jeff Pelizzaro
The 18 Strong Podcast, episode Number 369 with Bobby Holland from Hoolie Golf. What’s up, guys? Welcome back to the 18 Strong Podcast, where we’re here to help you build a stronger game, because we believe every golfer deserves to play better, longer. In this episode we have Bobby Holland from Hoolie Golf. Bobby is a retired Navy SEAL that started a golf apparel company, so this episode we get to talk about all of his stories from overseas and his deployments, his training for buds and seals and how that has really impacted not only his golf game but also building a business in the world of golf. And we definitely dive into his addiction as a golfer so much of an addiction that he built his own driving range on one of his combat deployments, where he literally had to go out and shag golf balls in the moon dust to go pick up the range balls. So this episode is all about hard work, grit and resilience, which is what the Hoolie brand is all about and really what we’re all about here at 18 Strong. So you’re really going to enjoy this one with Bobby Holland.

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0:02:19 – Bobby Holland
There’s it, man. I think a lot why I created this brand was this kind of out of nowhere love that I found for the game. And there’s a lot of other people like me that you’re not all Hoolie’s pick up golf late, but there’s all folks like us, like me, that did pick it up late and fall in love, man, and it just triggered that. Being a seal, being an athlete, being a competitor and then finding this thing that you can’t do very well Kind of drove me nuts and got hooked and yeah, man, it’s been a fun journey and I mean so passionate about the game that I opened up my own golf apparel company, right.

0:03:00 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Crazy, that’s awesome. When I first saw, I saw a post about you when you were on Jaco’s podcast and I was like, oh my gosh, I got to get Bobby on the show because this is just. This is so cool to hear a guy that was in the seals, just like the rest of us. This game boggles our minds, completely right, and it’s so frustrating, it’s so hard and I could only imagine that you as an elite level operator coming into something. It’s just this little white ball sitting on a tee and all I got to do is hit it down there. That’s got to be easy, right. How frustrating was it coming into the game at that level, coming out from your background?

0:03:36 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, I mean you’re hitting the nail on the head. Two weeks back at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am I’m not sure if you caught the video of Tom Brady Duffin it off the tee, I mean that says it all You’re talking about arguably one of the best competitors of our generation picks up a golf club and having a hard time. And yeah, man, it’s one of those things that I still struggle with because I want to be so much better. Unfortunately, life and business and other things get in the way and I just do what I can. But I love the challenge. I mean, that’s really what drives me is, every time you show up to the golf course is a legit opportunity that you can have your best round, and it can happen like that. Both of my best rounds were exactly like that. Never saw them come in. It’s not like my swing was in super great shape, so there’s a little bit of that kind of gambler mentality. But the chase, the hunt, yeah, I love it, man.

0:04:38 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So for those of the listeners that don’t know your story, don’t know the story behind Hoolie and everything, give us just a little background on you, obviously Navy Seals, but kind of tell us a little. I know you played football, so give us a little bit of that. And about some of the tours, how many tours you went on, and then we’ll dive into where Hoolie came from and go from there.

0:04:58 – Bobby Holland
Sure, I’m a California kid, born and raised up in a place called Fresno, Actually lived in Clovis that’s the same hometown as Bryce and DeChambeau, by the way but yeah, just kind of a wiry kid, you know. You’d like to mix it up a little bit. I played football and in wrestling. Those were my two big sports up until high school and then I was all in on football and that was just a big part of my upbringing as an athlete and it’s where I got into fitness in general. So I mean, we started strength training, powerlifting back there in high school and I’ve been doing that ever since, so kind of grew love for that as well. Well, anyways, I found myself at the end of high school the big so what that most of us face. What am I doing now? And I didn’t quite have it figured out, I went, Peter, around in a community college for a couple of years and it was in that time that I, you know, the idea of becoming a SEAL came to be and I basically devoted the next 18 months of two years to train to be a SEAL and that was like the first time I had, you know, set a goal really, and it was quite a lofty goal, had to teach myself how to run, swim, all those things. I ended up joining the Navy in January 2000 and went straight in, went to boot camp, went to A school, which is like your specialty rating, and then I went to Buds, which is the SEAL selection course, and then got through 9-11, hit and then I graduated SEAL qualification training two months later and then went to my first SEAL team and from there I just did a bunch of deployments, was pretty active. I did I think 9 deployments total. Not all of them were combat sandbox deployments, but did a bunch. Did 5 to Iraq, did a really really short one to Afghanistan, bounced around some other parts of the world, but had a really good career. Like you know, good timing. Some people may disagree but I came in the SEAL teams to do that job and you know, right after 9-11, we were busy last two decades, pretty damn busy. And yeah, we were talking before the show started.

You know about picking up golf about 12, 13 years ago and kind of wasn’t meant to be. It was one of those things that I didn’t have an aversion to golf, I just didn’t get it. Yeah, you know what I mean. I mean that was it. I was cut from this cloth. I like hardcore music, I like punk rock, I like in the gym, I like doing things pushing myself. I just didn’t get it.

And we had an opportunity. We were actually waiting to deploy. One of the guys suggested hey, let’s take the boys out. We had some time like our deployment got delayed, so we went out and I mean it literally happened in the course of I’m sure it was a god-awful long round of a five-hour round. I fell in love with golf. I hit a couple of shots out there and it was just perplexed Like you know why can’t I do this every time Went, got clubs and then it just metastasized from there, you know.

So I was halfway into my career, being at SEAL, still operating, doing all the stuff. How do you make this work? But yeah, I traveled with my golf clubs everywhere, took them on some combat deployments. One deployment wasn’t in the combat zone but it was in the Middle East. We had this compound, this giant like moon dust compound, huge, open. Well, I ended up building myself a range there. So I got like a some plywood and I built a platform like in the middle of nowhere basically, and I brought 300 range balls with me that a golf course was nice enough to donate and I would just go. Anytime I had some off time I’d go hit in my range, you know. But yeah, so you know, fast forward.

Some some years later did another decade or so in the teams and then found myself you know, my time in the teams. It just basically expired. I was at the end of my career, you know, around the 15 year mark. I transitioned from what we call an operator, which is someone who’s in a SEAL platoon being deployed to do SEAL missions. I got pulled from that and basically was in various managerial leadership positions, running training et cetera. So did that for the latter part of my career and then was trying to find something to do. Really, I mean, that’s that’s where I found myself. I knew it was my time to get out and I ended up going to business school.

Ucla has a executive MBA program, so had some buddies who had gone through that and said really great things and I thought that would be a good kind of you know, runway out of the teams into real life. So went to that and or started that, I should say and near the start of that program I had the epiphany for what would become Hoolie, because it wasn’t exactly what it looks like now, but I had an idea and I brought it up. It was a concept that I brought up during a. Basically, they have an entrepreneurial pipeline, a series of classes that you take either you have to join a team or you have to build a team. So I said, to hell with it, man, let’s, let’s give it a go, see what I can do. So I had to recruit my team, had to pitch the idea to them, and then basically, we took it through a series of classes and kind of graduated from one class to the next, end up being our capstone.

And then, by the end of it and I should back up, this is where I met my partner, Kevin Lee. He’s got a background in apparel, garment, sourcing operations, so perfect fit for where we are. But yeah, we, we basically built Hoolie in business school, you know, out of a shared passion for golf and in wanting to do cool things and and to create fun stuff, man. So, you know, fast forward another year. We launched last April. And here we are, man, some ten months later, you know, first year in business. Yeah, man, kind of ran through that pretty fast but uh.

0:12:06 – Jeff Pelizzaro
No, there’s so many jumping off points that we’re gonna dive into. And you know most people they say like their golf addicted or they’re addicted to the game. But but you literally took your clubs on combat missions, you built it, you built your own personal driving range Overseas. You brought bucket, a bucket of balls. So like then I assumed you had to then go pick up, go shag those golf balls and bring them back and topple.

0:12:31 – Bobby Holland
Amazing moon dust dude. So like I would be wearing these combat boots Because that stuff was like all over. Yeah, it was. I did not come back with 300 balls.

0:12:41 – Jeff Pelizzaro
I probably came back with, you know, 30 by the end of it now Did other guys like start to catch on with you and like, hey, bobby, can I go hit hit balls at your range? Or like, was it just you, you?

0:12:51 – Bobby Holland
know it started that way. Well, when, when we first picked up golf, like a lot of us picked it up and it slowly, you know, they they kind of lost their interest, a lot of them. I continued that, but no, I was solo on that deployment. I was in a a staff position essentially, so I was. I was in staff hell some of the time. I would basically get out of the joint operation center and just to clear my mind and and, and, just you know, tried to stay in touch with golf because, you know, when I picked up golf, I ended up doing another Five deployments.

These deployments can range in time. Some are pretty short. Yeah, I did a couple that were two or three months, but I did some that were seven months. So it’s a long, long ways to, or long, long time to be away from the game, especially when you’re trying to pick it up and you’re trying to build that momentum and all that like. So, yeah, I had a decade worth of like, making progress, making progress and then losing all that and then starting Rebuilding and it wasn’t until I had some stability in my job Around 2017 that I was actually able to to practice and to play pretty regularly and, and and. Then I mean shocker. I got like a lot better yeah.

0:14:15 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, yeah. I want to go back a little bit to to when you Were kind of transitioning and decided to go into the seals. Is that something, what made you even Decide to pick that path? And when you do like, do you decide then like, as you’re going in, like I’m shooting for the seals, or is it once, once you get through like the initial initial boot camp, that you then decide to go that direction?

0:14:39 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, I think it’s true. I mean it’s basically true today, as it was back then. But essentially my path was well, there’s one slight difference. My path was directly to the teams or to seal selection training buds. I had a ticket that was written in my contract. I did have to go to a, a you know school to. Basically, back then they used to give you a regular and I don’t mean this like in a bad way a regular Navy job, like there’s plenty of Navy jobs out there. Back in the day you had to have a Navy job in case that you don’t make it through seal training, you’d have something to fall back on. That has since changed. So now people can go basically to boot camp and then go straight to selection training. But yeah, for me, you know I Was raised on action movies, you know I it sounds silly as hell.

You know a lot of people have this epiphany that, of course, like these, you know, wanting to serve, wanting to be on an, on the lead team. But I’m just, you know, a fan of action movies and just intrigued by the military in general. And you know I started looking into that. You know, obviously the military isn’t Isn’t 80s action movies, but nonetheless, you know that that took me down the path to start checking it out and looking into it, and the more I looked into it I was just really intrigued by it, you know.

So back then, post Vietnam, there had been a couple conflicts, but it was just kind of clandestine missions and and working with, you know, in elite group of highly trained individuals, you know, being on that type of team, especially playing team sports, was very attractive to me. And again, I’m a young man in my early 20s, like what else am I doing? I Didn’t have some other path that I was like weighing my options. I’m sure I would have figured something out, but it seemed intriguing, seemed exciting. I was looking for a little bit of action man.

0:16:52 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So there we go, yeah complete side note, but have you watched the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on Netflix by chance? Yeah, that, the second portion, when they go back to all the 80s action movies, it like just brings back such a good feeling of you know, just watching him. And Sylvester Stallone is like the movie Predator and you know Cobra and all those movies. So when you said that it just brought flashbacks of that, it made me feel so good to watch. Those dude brought me back to the childhood Dude that.

0:17:20 – Bobby Holland
That’s it, man. I mean, you know they used to say he view will rot your brain. Well, I mean, if this may be a case where rot in my brain, but hopefully in a good way, where I was a productive member of society, in the military, you know awesome.

0:17:35 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So Then, when you are getting ready to go to the seals, you said you trained for 18 months or beyond. How did you even know what to train for, how to train? I know these days I think there’s actually like training programs built for you know if you want to be a seal, but I’m assuming back then there probably weren’t no, it was still at the early I say the early stages of the internet.

0:17:57 – Bobby Holland
But, like my awareness of the internet, I guess it started, you know, 80s or early 90s, but People weren’t really using that like they do today until the early 2000s, you know late 90s. So late 90s is when I was starting to train and, no, there wasn’t a whole lot of information out there. So there were a couple books. I picked up a couple books and that was kind of it, you know. So I had an understanding they had published what the requirements were for buds training. So it’s like you know what the run times are, you know what the swim times are, you know what the pull-ups are, you know what the test gates are. To a certain degree, you know that there’s a 50 meter underwater swim, you know that there’s a drown proofing evolution. So it’s like, okay, I will just go do those things in abundance until I feel super, super confident about it. And so when I was saying before, this was my first time, you know, making a goal and achieving it, this was also my first time building a fitness plan, you know, because to this point I had done what was prescribed to me during training. You know football, wrestling, what you know, right, Whatever that is but being able to figure this out.

So I ended up doing, you know, I we were running close to 30 miles a week and we built up to it. So we started doing three miles at a time, three became four and then we were doing six miles a day, doing a lot of overtraining too as well, but I was also doing a lot of calisthenics, so a lot of push-ups, a lot of pull-ups, a lot of body weight stuff and then a lot of water stuff. You know we were doing just swimming, just god-awful swimming. One of the strokes that that they mandate for seal training is called the side stroke or the combat side stroke, and it’s, it’s super boring. Had to learn that and I would swim for two miles in a you know 50 meter pool, which, oh, it’s awful.

0:19:56 – Jeff Pelizzaro
What’s, what is that, sir like? Can you describe that stroke to us?

0:19:59 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, it’s uh. I mean, you know, basically you’re on your side and so what you’re doing is you’re Basically gliding through the water. It’s it’s meant for to be able to swim someone out, Like a bloody, like if there’s a.

You’re trying to swim out of a combat situation. You can, you can tow your buddy and basically swim one-handed, but essentially you’re you’re kind of swimming on your side and you’re just reaching, gliding through and basically trying to do it. You know, in a way, that your, your head is just barely Coming up, your mouth is just basically barely surfacing above the water, because the more that your head’s upright, the more drag that you’re creating. So you know you’re trying to glide through there. It’s a very effective stroke. I mean, I I Don’t swim that often but I could go, do you know I I could go crank out a long swim right now, just because that is a pretty efficient stroke that you can just do for a long time. But yeah, I had to teach myself that.

And then, you know, had to get into all the other stuff the breath holding stuff, the, the underwater swims, the not tying, all those things and really there wasn’t a whole. I mean, if there was YouTube this would have been so much easier, because it’s like now on YouTube there’s all this stuff about breath holding techniques. You know how to get that heart rate down. You could just watch free divers, watch what they do. Yeah, this guy’s got it made. They got all the information. But yeah, you know was one of those things that I Didn’t do it perfect, but I did a lot of what I did and I was in damn good shape and I was very, very much prepared for for buzz training. So mission accomplished there.

0:21:49 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah. So let me ask you this obviously, with YouTube, we can watch and learn anything on YouTube. Now, right, and there’s so much more information. Guys and girls can go and learn a lot more about what, what the techniques are. But then and I heard this on when you’re on Jaco’s podcast and talking about like, you can have all the information, you can have all the techniques. But going into buds is different. Like being able to get through buds, I guess it requires way more than just knowing techniques and stuff. So what would you say is the differentiator between the guys that make it through and the guys that don’t make it through?

0:22:28 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting. It’s not fitness level, I mean, it’s all. It’s all in between the years and it is. It’s a Grid and resilience. That’s what it is, you don’t know. There’s tall, skinny guys, there’s short, fat guys, there’s everything in between. There’s these stilly-eyed beast You’re like that that dudes for sure gonna make it through and equates day one one. So like you can’t tell just by looking at someone and really and you can’t tell by talking to someone, because I’ve also been on the instructor side you have to put them through this crucible and you know you have guys who had some troubled childhoods and then you have guys who are elite athletes and everything in between. But I think all bring a certain amount of grit and resilience that Is baked into them. Either they were born with it or they developed it, you know, prior to coming to the teams. But yeah, that’s it, man. I mean, if you can imagine Having the worst day of your life, every single day, I mean that that is what, that is what gets people, because that’s what buds is.

You were having the worst day your life and it’s even worse than the day was yesterday, and At the end of the day you get to go back to your, your barracks. You get to eat, you know dinner, and hang out for a little bit at least early on training, before you’re doing other tactical type stuff, and Then you just sit there in your bed thinking like I’m gonna have the worst day of my life tomorrow, you know, oh, my god, yeah, and that lasts for six, seven months of that. So I mean it’s kind of that mental torture of and you know, please don’t don’t focus on the word torture there. Buzz training is not tortured, but there is that mental component which is torturous, I should say of like man, how am I gonna get through this program? And the old adage how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? And that’s it, these things.

And one thing I hope that I get to do more of is talk about mindset. I think that’s one thing that we can contribute. We’re not the only ones who share this mindset, but that’s it, man. I mean it’s been able to have this relentless optimism that I’m going to get through whatever comes next. I just know I am, I know it’s going to suck, I know it’s going to hurt. I’m going to try to find a way to make it fun or do whatever I got to do to get through it.

Some people can’t do that, these people who are over-programmed they’re excellent runners, excellent swimmers, elite athletes coming into the program. They’ve never been pushed that far and they can’t get through that mental component of being able to reconcile like, oh my God, I’m having the worst day of my life and it’s just going to keep going like this. Not only the worst day of your life, but it gets progressively harder in terms of the things that you’re tasked to do. You’re constantly having to do more and more and more. Aside from the mindset part of it, going through seal training and career in the seal teams also taught me how to take on goals and other things In a similar manner of you can’t run a marathon overnight.

It’s not like I can just turn that on and all right, I’m going to run a marathon tomorrow. No, but you know what you can train today. There’s a methodical way to train to develop the strength, the endurance, the confidence and to get yourself there. That’s essentially what seal training is is. I mean, we start people would laugh man like for where we end up and we’re talking like tactical training, where we’re busting into rooms and firing off rounds within close proximity inches of each other, highly, extremely dangerous and making life and death decisions. All in a split second. We get there from training I mean this really progressive training pipeline to where you take off these little bites of the elephant and then one day you end up there and you look back and it’s like man, how did I get here?

0:27:11 – Jeff Pelizzaro
That’s unbelievable. I mean just hearing some of the stories that you guys talked about on the podcast that I listened to and, obviously, just watching different theatrical portrayments of what you guys do, and just to think about the training that you go through. Now, refresh my memory, were you in the documentary that they did? Did I hear you guys talking about that? So for those of you that haven’t seen anything about Bud’s training, there are videos and documentaries that you can go watch, and I heard that you were even kind of like a mis-portrait in one of the scenes. Is that right?

0:27:50 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, I definitely was and I make sure that every opportunity I can to clear my good name because I was very proud of in second phase. Second phase is the water competency phase and I believe it was two months back then. But there’s a series of grueling underwater challenges that you basically do where you’re threatening yourself to drown underwater. I mean, that’s basically just it. You’re doing things that are beyond your ability to without error. How long can you survive underwater, given this challenge here? So I was very proud that all those I think there were seven different tests that we did I passed all those the first time. So I was the first time. Every time guy. But yeah, you know it is what it is. They got someone else failing in evolution, but it’s all. Just man, I really don’t care. I think it’s funny, but I do give that guy shit every time I see him. That’s awesome.

0:28:58 – Jeff Pelizzaro
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So be sure to go over to 1stphorm.com forward slash 18 strong to get your 1st Phorm Formula One protein shake, and everyone that enters through that link is going to be put into a drawing every single month for free 1st Phorm products. So again, go over to 1stphorm.com forward slash 18 strong. So let’s talk about the name Hoolie and your role, and I mean I only know a little bit. So, from what I understand, you were a breacher, and that’s kind of where the name Hoolie came from, right.

0:30:13 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, that’s it. So you know, I’m getting ready to start business school and I had this epiphany. It actually started out as a golf bag, so it was this idea for a golf bag. Within that, basically, I had the idea. I spent a whole weekend ideating and drawing on it but within that like five hour period I had come up with the name already a variation of the name, but I like the way that Hoolie sounded and, yes, like to backup, Hoolie is. It’s a tool that we use.

I was a breacher. It was my job to basically gain access into enemy compounds. So using explosives, torches, mechanical tools, manual tools, Hoolie tools, basically this giant pry bar thing. Firemen use a halogen tool, Hoolie tools kind of a bastardized version of that, but it’s just normally looking crowbar thing and you know backing up before we even get to. You know the symbolism of that. It was just the name. I was like man, it just sounds kind of cool.

I wanted something that connected my prior background and then something that you know connected to golf and I didn’t imagine that there would be any connection there, but I liked how it sounded. You know, and in terms of the symbolism, it’s this tool that we’re using to break open doors, to break through something being disruptive. You know I like that. And then I ended up researching the word and, lo and behold, Hoolie is an obscure Scottish golf term that means blown a strong wind. So and I got to go to Scotland last spring and I was really nervous because you read things on the internet but I was able to confirm. I was like like hey, what does Hoolie mean to you? And sure enough, man, that’s, that’s a phrase that they use in the old country and that’s the symbolism. Is just it married? I thought it was perfect and that’s how Hoolie was born.

0:32:24 – Jeff Pelizzaro
So earlier you mentioned you know we were talking about getting through buds and you mentioned that getting through buds it’s grit, resilience, and that’s something that I wrote down from your website specifically is like the Hoolie golfer. It’s something that believes that hard work, grit and resilience will conquer all. So give us a little bit more about you know. Who is the Hoolie golfer? What, what is that ethos, what’s that mantra and who? Who is it?

0:32:49 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, so we are a golf brand for hardcore golfers, ok, you know, maybe folks that don’t fit into the cookie cutter mold of what you know a traditional golfer is, you know, although golf has changed a lot last couple of years so you have a lot of other different types of personalities out there. But, you know, I mean really Hoolie is for minibaction, growth minded folks who are competitive about life, who like to get after it off the course as much as they do on the course, you know. So, basically, guys, you know, I don’t, I don’t see like myself in that, like, ok, how many Navy SEAL golfers are there? But there’s a lot of guys like me out there, you know, whether they’re gym rats, athletes, former athletes, hunters, fighters, surfers, these guys who are passionate about, you know, conquering life and they’re equally passionate about conquering golf. So it’s people who are essentially in the hunt, trying to find the best versions of themselves, trying to try to find that on the golf course and trying to find that off the golf course.

And you know, one of the things that I love about golf, which is it’s sneaky, like you know, backing up to our earlier conversation, I didn’t get golf, you know, 20, 30 years ago. But when I got it it’s like, oh man, there’s so many parallels to all the things that I was doing, you know, as a SEAL in terms of being able to master your mind, your body, the environment, your strategy involved. Let’s talk about the golf swing. You know the intricacies there of the golf swing. You know kinematic sequence and all these fun things. But, yeah, man, that’s, you know, that’s really the spirit of the brand, and I also want to caution anytime I’m talking about who these now is. We have truly customers who are, you know, every walk of life. So I think it’s more of a shared mindset than it is a particular background. Yeah, people who have a certain spirit and, you know, just like to get after it, I guess.

0:35:08 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, that’s what really drew me to you guys is, first, just the idea and the mindset of you know this is about more than just lowering your handicap or you know, like, how far you can hit a ball although watching some of your videos looks like you can hit a ball quite far Never know. But you know it’s about the mentality of going out, having a great time with your buddies, telling to your best you want to be the best at whatever you do physically, mentally. I’m curious just from the mental side of things, because golf is such a mental game and we kind of can make ourselves crazy about it. But obviously you guys are known for your performance under pressure. What are there any techniques that you could relay to us that you go through when you’re out on the course and maybe something’s a little frustrating you hit a bad shot and you’re trying to get yourself focused and back in the game.

0:36:03 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, I think box breathing is huge. So being able to, you know, reduce your sympathetic response, and that literally just means getting your heart rate down. You know one thing I love all these fitness tracker tools and so you know I have a fitness watch and that’s a great indicator I could look down and I know what my resting heart rate is, I know what my, like, active heart rate is and you know, being able to breathe, being able to get that heart rate down and control that kind of at will is extremely helpful. Because, look man, this may surprise people, but I get nervous on the golf course, like when I’m on the first tee. You bet your ass I’m nervous. I got the little barflies. I don’t want to. You know, I’m just as likely to shank a ball as anyone, you know, as the next guy out there. It happens. So being able to do that, that’s key. I mean, breathing is really, really important there.

The other thing, from a mindset perspective, is just trying to approach it like like I don’t care what happens, I don’t care about the outcome, and that was something that I used, I mean, in, you know, being a seal all the time, right, so like we do things to where obviously, the more you do like like jumping out of an airplane, the more, the more you do that, the more you get comfortable with that.

But yeah, especially when you’re new to that, the thought of jumping out of an airplane can be quite a nerve in, right. Yeah, but finding these little kind of mental tools that you can dig into for, you know, a variety of things whether you’re on the golf course or off the golf course, are useful. That’s. That’s kind of one of the things that you know. Just trying to take the, you know, the result. Try to take don’t worry about the result because you can’t control the result. Control your controlables and whatever is going to happen is going to happen out there, right, and you know, I think having a positive mindset and not focusing about the negative outcomes would help out a lot of people and any major swing issues that folks have, such as myself.

0:38:24 – Jeff Pelizzaro
What about the physical side? Obviously you’re still very fit and that’s a big part of your life, I’m assuming. I would also imagine you’ve got some, some issues being banged up and injuries that you’ve, you know, gotten over the years, whether that be in football or combat or whatever it is. How big of a role does that still play in your everyday life and and for your golf?

0:38:48 – Bobby Holland
It’s huge, yeah, and I, you know, I’m starting to evolve how I train and a lot of that is a product of a. I think I’d mentioned to you I went through a program this last month to address some of those injuries and things that I’ve accumulated over two decades of not only being a seal which is a pretty damn hard job, especially carrying heavy loads, jumping out planes, injured landings, you know, running, gunning, falling down, whatever, but being an athlete for that long Fitness has been. I fell in love with fitness, you know, back in when I started sports and it just never stopped. So, absent my love for golf, I would still be doing that and it has proven to me time and time again to be extremely, you know, beneficial to you know, I mean just your mental state of mind and avoiding illness, injury, et cetera, but so extremely important.

I am having to evolve how I do things. But yeah, man, you know, in terms of how, how I think it benefits golf, I’m really excited about the program I’m starting right now, to be honest with you, because the last couple of years I’ve been training in a very linear way fitness, like basically doing straight up power lifting moves, squat, you know, pressing pulls basic stuff squat bench you know, very linear and I have been throwing in a little bit of golf things here or there, but you know, nonetheless, I think having having a natural ability to summon power right through power lifting, I think it’s helpful in all things and of course it is helpful in the golf swing if you know how to harness it. But you can look at some of the golfers out there who are skinny little beans, who do it a much different way.

So you know it’s more important to have the right technique and and to have the right mobility and flexibility, and that that’s an area where I’m just starting with this new program. So, to back up, I’ve dealt with a whole host of injuries and I won’t spend much time talking about them because I could go on and on. But you know my shoulders are jacked. You know my knees I’ve had multiple knee surgeries. My back looks like an S, like my spine, you know. So, despite all this stuff, fitness has allowed me to be extremely active and to keep pain at bay. Right, and I really attribute that because I’ve had periods like man, circa 2022, I couldn’t lift anything overhead. I could not lift a bar overhead. I could not bench press, which has been like my favorite exercise since, since youth, but I was able to build up all last year. I was. I really wanted to just fight through it. I was doing physical therapy, but I was determined to build strength. I ended up putting on some weight, so I’m a little bit heavier. When you say I’m, I’m a fit guy Thank you for the compliment. I’m relatively fit. I got some work to do. I got some goals. I’m on a good track now to get better, but mission accomplished last year. My strength like went like really you know really well, and I got through you know that issue I was having there. I went from like 20% to like 90% with shoulders, same with with me. So I’m in a good spot.

But what I’m really excited to be doing now, and where my fitness is evolving, is I’m doing a lot of rotational stuff, mobility stuff and trying to get more function, range, emotion out of my hips, out of my shoulders. So I’m really excited. My golf swing I golfed this morning. It’s kind of a mess because a lot of this work I did through this. The Warrior Fitness program is a month long program that I just went through. It’s a ran by the or sponsored by the Navy Seal Foundation, run by a group called Virginia High Performance. It’s an outstanding program for spec war veterans but basically it’s a holistic approach to diet, nutrition, mental health. It’s like full optimization there, went through that, was able to regain some mobility and function through that program and I’m going to keep working on that. I’m really excited Now, now that I’m able to rotate more and do some other things. I’ve got to figure out how how my new swing is going to work, you know.

0:43:45 – Jeff Pelizzaro
That’s interesting. So you actually have seen so much improvement in some of your mobility that you’re noticing that, hey, my golf swing is almost a little loosey-goosey now.

0:43:54 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a little bit. I have some things I’m trying to work out on my swing, but I’ve got some improvement with my hips and my kind of pelvic rotation. There and my right shoulder we made a lot of ground. It was, you know, again like I’ve been moving very linear, but you put, you know, certain parts of my body in awkward positions and I lack mobility. So I think some of the swing faults that I have right now are really really because of some of these deficiencies that I have. I’m unable to rotate in such a way that I have to compensate with my arms or whatever.

So, tbd, man, we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully it’s not a train wreck for too long. But you know, I look forward to starting that out. But, man, I just feel better. You know, you kind of don’t know, especially as you age, sometimes the decline or the lack of mobility, it just kind of slowly tapers off. And it wasn’t until, you know, we’ve been doing a lot of back and core work, manual therapy, cairo type stuff, and then mobility exercises, and it wasn’t until I did about two weeks of that that I’m moving around. What the? It feels good. You know, it’s not like I was walking around like the hunchback and Notre Dame. You know I didn’t feel that bad, but I didn’t know what good felt like either.

0:45:20 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. So you and I talked a couple of days ago and we were talking about the Rotex motion stuff. Were you introduced to them through Virginia High Performance or was that? Did you meet Dr Joe separate?

0:45:34 – Bobby Holland
I met Dr Joe separate, yeah. Yeah, one of the cool things I’ve been surprised by social media and one of the pleasant surprises has been I’ve been connected with some really, really neat people and people that just reached out, that found the brand and you know much like you did. And Joe was the same. You know he’s. He’s a old retired frogman so and we actually served in the same SEAL team not the same time, different times, but great guy, he reached out and fully support what he’s doing. He’s doing some really neat stuff there. I just started the Rotex program, really excited for that, to augment the program that I’m already working on. But, yeah, go check them out at, you know, rotexmotioncom Great products there.

0:46:16 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, so, and we love, we love Dr Joe and the Rotex. I’ve got one sitting right outside the door here was just using it with the client this morning. So just give us a little idea. How are you using it? What, what are you guys working on, or what did he kind of go through with you a little bit?

0:46:30 – Bobby Holland
You know, I’m just using their app, so you go through their app and they have. So what I’m working on? The there’s a shoulder mobility set of exercises there, and then also I don’t remember what the other one is called, but you know, basically the rotational stuff, the kind of hips, pelvic type stuff, so that that is the kind of floor, floor based stuff or the floor models and the. Yeah, there’s just some great exercise man, like I love the handheld one. There’s some really cool stretches being able to, you know, internal rotation, I guess it is.

0:47:14 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Well, yeah, getting getting an external rotation where you kind of like kind of going in up on the wall like that.

0:47:19 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, there’s some there’s some really good ones there. So the program that that I I got out of the Warrior Fitness program has some other stuff in there, you know, non-rotex type stuff, and I think it’s really good compliment. And again, man, I just just started this program but I’m, I’m like, really excited. You know, I have a garage gym which I’ve carefully, you know, built over the last 12, 13 years I guess. So I have everything that I need here.

But I’ve been working out with a new, renewed sense of purpose and energy of you know, doing doing something fun and new, and it just feels good, man, I can feel that I’m activating things that had been neglected for too long. And yeah, you know, it’s like I’m really strong at squats and bench and pressing. But these other things, you know, I think for longevity and just for all around fitness and mobility are pretty damn important and there’s huge crossover. So, aside from, obviously, the benefits I get from my daily life, I’m now doing things that I know are going to have an impact the rotational stuff, the core stuff. Yeah, pretty psyched on it.

0:48:32 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yeah, and to be able to do it for that’s the coolest thing about golf to do it for decades. Right Like this. This is a. This is a long gameplay.

0:48:41 – Bobby Holland
Well, there’s no doubt in my mind, like my best golf is is ahead of me, and I’ve there’s plenty of. You know, guys, that I’ve seen staying plenty fit into their fifties. So, and, and you know, look at Phil Mickelsand he’s been able to keep up speed. So you know, if you can keep up strength speed, you can play. You know, I’m not going to play at an elite level, but I can play with enough swing speed to play the type of golf that I enjoy playing, and fitness is the path to get there.

0:49:11 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Awesome. So what’s on the horizon for Hoolie as you’re moving, you know we’re getting into 2024 and moving forward. I mean, it sounds like things are cranking and you’re you’re busy, as can be. So what’s? What’s going on over there?

0:49:23 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, you know we are cranking man, but we are still a first year business. We’re still relatively new, um, you know we’re not a known entity nationally yet. So the goal is to just get the message out and, uh, get more people to fall in love with us. And you know our goal, aside from selling stuff, is to create this community of like-minded you know, golf obsessed, gross minded folks out there. I’d like to get after it and you know we’re looking to get the message out there more. You know doing, doing, uh, shows like yourself, um, continue to push the brand out there, um, get more traction where we can. And to continue to grow and to, you know, expand our, our product lines. Um, that’s it, man. You know just kind of doing what we’re doing, more of it. And again, like just very optimistic because you know we’ve reached a lot of people, um, a lot more than I thought we would in the first year, but we’re just getting started here. So, like so much room to go.

And, um, we have a new spring line that comes out here in a couple of weeks, excited to launch that. We got some really, really neat designs. I’m wearing one of them right now. Um, so really cool there and it’s a. You know, that’s one thing that I’m very passionate about is creating stuff. So, uh, we have a great designer, um, kevin give a quick shout out to to Kevin there who helps us out. Um, but you know, we we also I have a creative interest in in what we do and what we make, and so being able to think of these new things and and watch people fall in love with like it’s just a really neat thing to do, um kind of scratches my creative ish as well. Uh, so we got some fun stuff to launch here and I think people are going to love it and we’ll just see where it goes. Man, yeah.

0:51:17 – Jeff Pelizzaro
What would you say is something that you’ve taken from your your time as a CEO and just all of your training that has really helped you from the business aspect of things.

0:51:25 – Bobby Holland
I think what we were talking about earlier, that grit and resilience, is key. There’s a lot of parallels to my career as a special operator, to what I’m doing now. If you look at, I’m in a ambiguous environment, you know. Maybe Don’s are stacked against me. Um, you know, over task, under resourced. That’s what every startup, uh, you know, experiencing the same thing. Right, how do we figure out this problem? How do we get better from our mistakes? How do we develop capacity to do more? Um, I mean, they’re all parallels. It’s the same thing, it’s a different environment, it’s a different application.

That’s part of why I fell in love with this whole thing. I I didn’t see myself as being an entrepreneur, but I had this idea and I had this kind of creative itch. I started scratching that and then then I started recognizing like, oh man, this isn’t really that much different, you know. So, for, for the veterans listening out there, you know, I I think you’ll get a lot of entrepreneurship. It’s not easy, it’s very challenging, it’s very rewarding. Um, and then backing up, talking about the grit, resilience aspect of it is not every day is easy. You know it’s. Uh, there’s ups and downs. You know when, if you’re a new business, new business. You are going to make mistakes, things are going to happen. You’re going to have to overcome If. If you can’t get through that, you just won’t survive. So, yeah, it’s all about overcoming those mistakes, getting better, improving and then, you know, just kind of head down, chin up, get after it.

0:53:05 – Jeff Pelizzaro
You mentioned. You know, speaking to the veterans, I know you guys do a lot of work, or you personally do a lot of work with veterans with golf, and there’s a crossover there that and I’ve seen this with several different organizations that are utilizing golf to help veterans, whether they be wounded vets or just, you know, re-acclimating into society. What have you seen? What kind of positive benefits have you seen from golf that has really helped that population.

0:53:31 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, you know, and this is an area where I would continue to love to do more. I mean, like I’m very passionate about golf and very passionate about the veteran community. I think, you know, one of the things that I hope to do out of all this is to get more veterans into golf. You know, whether they’re, you know, veterans who moved on from service, who are looking for something to engage with, or they’re you know the wounded veteran population, there’s so much to get from the game.

I think one thing that veterans struggle with in general is finding purpose after service right, and purpose comes in many different forms, obviously in the form of a career, having some sort of purpose that you can connect. You know that’s. You serve your country and you do so for however many years you serve, and then you leave that some struggle with. You know what’s next. How do I replace that feeling that I had of service of purpose? And though I don’t have that answer in terms of career-wise, everyone’s different there I think golf serves this little niche here. You know, I’m not saying golf is a purpose, but it’s like a micro-purpose. You know what I mean.

0:54:54 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Like it’s a reason.

0:54:55 – Bobby Holland
it’s something that gets you excited to get out of bed. It’s something that gets you excited to go outdoors, to go hang out with your buddies, to have this very difficult goal that you want to work towards, that you can improve, and that it’s just it’s going to be there for the rest of your life. I didn’t golf with these two gentlemen this morning, but I often get paired with these older gentlemen that are in their 80s and 90s, you know. So there’s this just love and spear for the game that I think veterans, you know more than others, would really benefit from. And aside from that, I think the therapeutic benefits of just being outdoors I think I golf early in the morning, so that’s a whole different experience.

Like this morning we saw coyotes, you know. We saw deer, it’s beautiful. We saw the sunrise. Like it’s calming. I know saying calming and golf in the same phrase and get people riled up, but I mean for me it’s a. I never really thought about it, you know, over the years I was doing it until now, but it’s kind of like therapy out there, especially if you’re out there, you’re playing, walking on a course, you know, just squeezing it in out there. It’s good man. So, yeah, I would love to connect veterans to golf. Hopefully we can do that in the process and, as we grow the company definitely look forward to partnering with more of the folks that are, you know, doing that as well.

0:56:36 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Awesome. I just think that that’s such a neat objective and you see so many different organizations that are doing it and I’ve seen a couple of things that you guys have done and alluded to and, yeah, it’s just such a such an incredible game. There’s so many benefits. Like you said, it’s out in nature, You’re. You’re kind of fulfilling your competitive spirit, all these different pieces, and you’re constantly challenging yourself, you know, trying to get better. So that’s really cool. All right, my man, we’re going to close up with just a few of our traditional questions that we have here on the 18 strong podcast. Very curious to hear your answers. What’s in foremost? Caddy shack or happy Gilmore?

0:57:15 – Bobby Holland
Hey, both classics, but happy Gilmore. Oh, all right, All right, I was kind of expecting you to go the other way, tristan all right, what’s like, like, like if there was split with you know what percentage of people vote which way.

0:57:31 – Jeff Pelizzaro
I’m going to say it’s been. I don’t have an official tally. I would say it’s been mostly more caddy shack than happy Gilmore. I find that a lot of our guests who come from overseas across the pond are more happy Gilmore than a lot of the Americans and I typically find that if if anybody’s around my age and beyond, they’re usually usually cat caddy shack. So I’m 45. So it can be shot. But happy Gilmore, I love both of them. Love both of them All. Right, this one. I’m very curious to hear your answer. What would your walk up song be to the first T box?

0:58:09 – Bobby Holland
Domination Pantera, not even a question.

0:58:11 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Oh man, going hard, I like it. I like it. Is there a book that you like to recommend to people, or a book that has really meant something to you, that you’ve read or read multiple times and have even given as a gift?

0:58:23 – Bobby Holland
Absolutely it is. It’s called endurance and I think it’s a I’m not sure if there’s like a a different part shackled in is incredible voyage. I mean the book is endurance. It is my favorite book and I can’t believe they haven’t made a proper movie out of it. I think it’s the best, one of the best survival tales ever told. So those themes we were talking about, about grit, resides. It follows the 1915, shackleton expedition to Antarctica and I went to spoil it for your viewers, but some stuff goes down.

It’s a tale of survival. It’s amazing. I love it. I mean there’s, there’s a you know some stuff about leadership, teamwork, grit, resilience. So good, go read it.

0:59:13 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Awesome, awesome. All right, if you could pick a celebrity for some and by celebrity that’s a loose term, could be anybody past present could be dead alive. Who are you picking for your for some?

0:59:25 – Bobby Holland
All right, man, I’m a child of the eighties, right? So Arnie Sly Corussell.

0:59:34 – Jeff Pelizzaro
I love it. I mean straight action movies, yep, awesome. All right, exclude well, I won’t. I normally say excluding Augustine and St Andrews, but you’re welcome to pick one of those. But I’ll ask you for a second one. But if we had the 18 strong jet fueled up, ready to go and I said, bobby, we’re going anywhere you want, we’re taking your celebrity for some and you get to play any course in the world, where are you going?

1:00:02 – Bobby Holland
Well, you took my number one. It’s Augustine National man. That’s it. Number two would be Piners. Number two Awesome, I’ve been very fortunate. This last spring I got to play the old course, st Andrews.

1:00:16 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Did you really I?

1:00:17 – Bobby Holland
did yeah and would you shoot? I didn’t shoot very well. I think I shot like a. I think it was an 89. But I had a strong finish at 17 and 18. His darkness set in. Yeah, that’s good.

1:00:34 – Jeff Pelizzaro
I love it. Setting the scene I love it. Okay, what’s the best piece of golf advice you’ve ever been given?

1:00:42 – Bobby Holland
This is a Bob Rattella quote. So damn, I don’t even remember what book it is, but it is love the challenge of the day, whatever it may bring. I think that’s very, very sound advice, that if you’re going to be a golfer, you need to embrace that, because if you’re spinning out of control every bad shot, every bad round, I mean why would you spend so much time being miserable? Right, it doesn’t help.

1:01:14 – Jeff Pelizzaro
Yep Doesn’t help at all. Okay, is there a social media account that you like to follow that you think the 18 strong crew should check out? Could be golf related, could be anything.

1:01:23 – Bobby Holland
Yeah, I’m going to give you some random stuff, all right. So on YouTube, go check out. I know you’re going to like this, jeff Space Ice, and I expect you to text me back later because after five hours of binging that you’ll be like dude, so good. The other is there was a former Navy SEAL, was it John Allen? His handle is Mr Ballin and he does spooky, weird stories on YouTube. Really really good, mr Ballin, b-a-l-l-e-n. Really good. And I’ll give a shout out to my guy, the DoD King Carter. He got bounced off of his CBA golf handle from Meta for some reason. But he is that delusional confident. He got bounced off of that. Really he did. Yeah, Not sure why, but they booted his account, they shut him down. So go check out.

1:02:28 – Jeff Pelizzaro
No way that’s delusional, confident Yep.

Unreal. So, just for background, that’s exactly how I found out about Bobby and Hoolie Golf is because when Bobby was on the Jocko podcast you guys talked about, I think, Jocko brought up the DoD King and then I followed him for a little bit and I saw that online. So that’s crazy that that got booted. Okay, well, we’ll definitely put that in the show notes and give him a link there. For sure, bobby, this has been awesome. I can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. I’m really excited to see what’s to come with Hoolie in the next year, two years and beyond, but I love everything that you’re doing. Obviously, thank you so much for your service, first and foremost, you and everybody that you served with. But taking that into the golf world, I just think it’s such a cool crossover and it speaks so much to the 18 Strong crew and the mindset that we have here just about self-improvement and working hard, the grit, the resilience that you speak so, so greatly about. So really really appreciate your time coming on.

Yeah, jeff thanks for having me on, man, thanks for listening to the 18 Strong podcast and if you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to share it with your friends. And, of course, go follow us over on Instagram at 18strong. Thanks again. We’ll catch up with you next week. Train hard, practice smart and play better golf.