Performing under pressure with professional golfer Shannon Tan

Welcome to Beyond the Benchmark, the EFG podcast with Moz Afzal.

Moz Afzal:
Hi everyone. So we have a very special guest on the podcast today, so something slightly different to what you're normally used to. So today we have Shannon Tan, who is actually one of the EFG Ambassadors for Singapore and Sports Ambassador for golf. So Shannon, welcome.

Shannon Tan:
Thanks for having me.

Moz Afzal:
So when I was preparing for this, we were just thinking about when you started playing golf. I think you said you started at five years old and obviously your career excelled and excelled and I think probably one of the most important developments, I guess is you turning professional last year. So congratulations on doing that.

Shannon Tan:
Thank you.

Moz Afzal:
It's all down to you now. And then of course, being the first Singaporean golfer to participate in the Olympic Games, so congratulations. That's amazing achievements.

Shannon Tan:
Yes, thank you.

Moz Afzal:
So obviously you're on the European Ladies tour at the moment, so what are you preparing for at the moment?

Shannon Tan:
So I'm currently in Germany this week and then I've got sort of the big stretch coming up. So I've got the Evian Championship and then the Scottish Open, the British AIG Women’s Open and the PIF London Championship. So kind of four big events in a five week stretch. So that's what I've got coming up until mid-August.

Moz Afzal:
Wow, you're going to be very, very busy in Europe, that's for sure. And we'll certainly watch out for your exploits and obviously wish you the very best, the best of luck. So I want to go into understand you a little bit more and understand in terms of how you got into golf. So tell us, you started five years old, how on earth did you get into playing golf and what drove you or what motivated you to do that?

Shannon Tan:
So my dad played golf himself, so he brought me up to the range with him and then he just gave me a golf club and then I just started to hit balls and I just felt, it was just really satisfying to hit balls and just see the ball fly. So that's kind of how I found out that I fell in love with golf. And then probably after a month or so he brought me out to the different areas of the game, putting in short game and then gone out to the golf course when I was about probably seven years old. Had my first round of 18 holes when I was eight years old and then got into competitive golf when I was about nine. Played a couple events locally in Singapore and started playing internationally when I was about ten.

And then fast forward to when I was about 16, I just wanted to do college golf in America. So I've committed to go to Texas Tech, which would've been in the fall of 2022. So I went there for about a year and a half and then tried out Q-School at the Ladies European Tour. So basically it's like two stages. There's a first stage, then you advance the final stage and if you finish top 20, you get your tour cut, your full tour cut. So that's what I've basically done and then I then faced a really hard decision on whether I should professional or stay in college. I still got two and a half more years, so made the decision to go professional. And then I've been on the Ladies European Tour for a year and a half now, so that's kind of a long story cut short.

Moz Afzal:
No, that's amazing. So you obviously talked about the early parts of hitting that ball and seeing that ball fly with satisfaction, obviously that's great, but making I guess a life choice around golf. How hard was that decision?

Shannon Tan:
I think when I was about 11 or 12, I think I figured that I wanted to play professional golf as a career. I would watch a lot of the LPGA events on TV when I was younger and I was like, I want to be there where they are just playing golf, week in, week out in front of spectators and fans. And I just thought that'd be really nice to do almost every week. So I kind of wanted to work towards it and just set my mind to it. Still at that point I still thought getting a degree and academics was still really important, but I think golf was kind of always my top priority.

Moz Afzal:
So obviously at that age, and I also had a daughter who used to play tennis, so she used to play a lot. And actually what you found is by the time you get to the teen years, so 13, 14, quite a high dropout rate from professional sports or sports in general because there's other activities that they find more interesting. From your perspective, how do you manage to just keep it going when there's distractions around you elsewhere?

Shannon Tan:
Yeah, there were definitely some distractions. You want to hang out with friends after school and stuff, but I think at the same time, golf was my outlet whenever I was having a bad day, I was like, if I want to go hit balls. So I think I just really like being out there on the golf course and just being out in the open. You've got nature all around you on the golf course as well. So I think it's something that I really enjoy. I think someone could describe me as an introvert at times, so I think that basically is perfect for me. I just look forward to going out on the golf course and just hitting balls. And so I think that was kind of my outlet, which worked out perfect.

Moz Afzal:
Which I guess helped you and your personality, but also quite frankly, being outside in usually most golf courses, usually in very beautiful, very well-manicured and they weren’t the worst places to be. So what was your inspiration both inside of golf and were there any other sports that you had inspiration from?

Shannon Tan:
So yeah, from in golf, I think it was Lydia Ko was one of my idols. She's basically been on tour for 13 years and she's done so much. She won the gold medal at the Olympics last year and then went on to go in the Hall of Fame. And I think one thing about her is that she's a great golfer, but she's also a great person. She's one of the nicest person that I've ever met. She'd say hi to you and she'd talk to you and she'd help you out if you ever had questions. So I think that's something that I've always looked up to, her attitude towards the game and her attitude and personality outside of the game as well. And for me, actually, I've done track and field 800 metres when I was a kid, so I've done quite a bit of running, but I probably only ran competitively until I was about 12 and then just put my full focus into golf. Yeah, I mean I still run casually, but not as much. I feel like it just, it's good to keep your stamina, but at the same time there are other things I'm focusing on physically right now, so that just being in the gym and I've got a programme that I follow. So I think I do most of that right now.

Moz Afzal:
Yeah. So I was going to ask you in terms of your regime now obviously you said you do some running, but are you on a special diet? Obviously you're spending time in the gym. How much, I guess time are you spending in, I guess in practice, exercise and then obviously in the golf course you are out there very often?

Shannon Tan:
Yeah, I think with diet, the thing is that I really love to eat specifically local Singaporean food. So whenever I'm home, I will admit, I kind of struggle on trying to discipline myself on what I can eat and what I can't eat. And I'm quite a big eater, so I kind of put a limit on myself. I can't eat more than three meals plus a snack when I'm in Singapore, especially because food there is really addictive. But usually I find that when I'm in Europe or in the UK, I think I do pretty well with eating what I'm supposed to eat and not overeating. And I feel like I usually go for carbs, especially before tournament. I usually go for pasta because carbs just gives you energy. And whilst I'm on the golf course, I usually go for bananas or beef jerky as in on course snacks. So that's more of the diet side of things.

Moz Afzal:
And in terms of exercise regime, what sort of exercise you're doing? Because obviously you're still young, everything's probably very good, but being consistent is a challenge and some of the great golfers I guess suffer injuries later on in their life.

Shannon Tan:
Yeah, I would say my regime off season and during season is quite different. So I think off season I hit the gym, more weights. Once I'm in season, I do more elastic band stuff and body weight stuff. And also based on taking care of my own body, I see a physio. So we've got a physio on tour, the same physio that goes to every event, so I usually see her about three to four times a week. So that keeps me in quite good shape. And I go on the normal tech boots for my legs and massage gun. So I think, yeah, that's more in season, but I think overall making sure that you don't burn out is quite important as well. I've played 29 events last year and I was definitely really burnt out towards the end of the year, but at the same time, it's your rookie year, so you kind of need to go through that to I guess to figure out your own limit and to learn what works best for you. Because there are some people out there who plays six events in a row and they think that works best for them, but I think for me, three events in a row is like what works best for me. So it's quite personal. But yeah, just figuring out what works best for you and then sticking with it.

Moz Afzal:
Absolutely. So what are your long-term goals then? What's your ambition? Maybe three years or five years from now?

Shannon Tan:
I mean, definitely want to be on the LPGA tour. That's something I've always dreamed of since I was like 12. So I'm still currently working towards it, one of the pathways that I'm looking at. So if you finish top 10 on the order of merit in the days you have been on tour, you get to go straight to final stage of Q-school for the LPGA. So I think I'm currently sitting at fifth or sixth right now on the order of merit. So yeah, I'm working towards finishing top 10 this year and then playing Q-school and then hopefully would go through that and then get my card on the LPGA tour. But I guess I didn't really set a time limit on it. I feel like the way I developed over the past, well maybe the past three years, I wouldn't really expect to be playing on tour now. I wouldn't expect to leave college. So I think when you just keep trusting the process and then when it's time it will happen. So yeah.

Moz Afzal:
I don't think you necessarily need to force it. You need to let it come naturally and achieve your best. And then beyond that, ultimate goal?

Shannon Tan:
To be honest, I haven't actually gotten that far, haven't thought that far yet. I just think if I keep focusing on my little projects, so I've got some things in mind that I need to work on in my game. Short game has the biggest room of improvement, I think. And my conversion rate was 35% last year, and that's probably be fair. I think you've got to be above 50, 60%. I'm at 45 or 46% as of this year, so I've seen an improvement in there. And I think that also translates towards the bigger result. And I'm also trying to focus on five to 15 feet for putting, and I feel like that's somewhere that I can pick up a lot of shots on. So yeah, I think if I just focus on getting 1% better every day and trying to pick out things that I can really improve on maybe in a year, in two years, then I'll reevaluate my goals on that. And then I feel like most of the things would just happen naturally, like results would just come when you achieve your little goals.

Moz Afzal:
Yeah, I think that's sometimes in life, in generally, either in the investment profession or indeed any other athletic profession, we tend to go for the big ones, the big wins, but actually lots and lots of small ones are actually the most important thing, and you incrementally better. But then you look back a few years later and you think, wow, okay, I improved ten or 15 small things that actually led to three or four very big things that otherwise would've missed. And I think being goal orientated with small steps keeps your motivation because if you go for something that is so big that you just never achieve or it's hard to achieve immediately, you then tend to lose focus and indeed get disheartened very quickly and it kind of all falls apart. So it's important I guess to make sure you've got those incremental wins that is absolutely important. So staying on with this topic, what do you think are the biggest challenges you've faced over your career so far? Obviously you're going to have many more challenges in the future, but what have you found so difficult in the short term to get over? Maybe it's a hurdle that you needed to get through and it wasn't working. How did you overcome that?

Shannon Tan:
I mean, yeah, to be fair, there has been a couple challenges whilst being on tour the past year and a half. I think on the golf side of things, I had a bad stretch last year from probably May, in May and June, but then I found that after that bad stretch I've actually gotten a lot better. So it's kind of like I've learned that you had to take one step back to take two steps forward if you're currently working on things in your game that it might not be great right now whilst you're working on it, but then it get better once you've perfected it basically. So I think for me, I have to understand that we're all human and we all go through little bad stretches, but you know that if you just stick to the process and just keep doing what you've been working on, it'll get better. So I think that was one of the things that I really had to go through last year.

I guess it's more just the on course stuff and then the off course stuff. I think the travel gets a bit, trying to plan your own schedule. I mean, I've played way too many events last year. I've played 29 events and sound, just that stretch. I think it was nine weeks on a row or something that did not really work out for me. So I think that's all you got to learn those lessons, I think you have to go through it to then learn your lesson. So yeah, first year is always going to be the hardest one, I think. But yeah, I learned from that. And then this year I've basically only done two events in a row so far. That's the most I've done. And then went back to basics on that week in between events.

Moz Afzal:
So obviously when you're going through those tougher periods, because a lot of it is psychology, physicality is the same pretty much all the way through is very much psychology. So what sort of tricks do you use to get your brain in the right shape, shape of mind? Do you do meditation or any tricks you use?

Shannon Tan:
To be fair, I've actually been told that I'm a really calm person. So yeah, I mean, I feel like if I need a break from whatever I'm going through mentally, I actually just take a few days off from golf. And then I realised that I actually play better after I take a break. So yeah, so that's what I usually do, take maybe two, three days off golf. And then once I get back to it, I know I'm mentally fresher and it's actually, I feel like it's quite normal to take time off and it's something that I didn't really know about before this year to be fair. And then I spoke to Hannah Green and Minjee Lee, we've got the same coach. So we spent the off season in January this year training together, and they've actually said they go probably two weeks, stop touching a club. So I'm like, wow, okay, that's actually quite necessary. And Hannah said that she's done, last year was her best year in her career and she's taken the most time off. So I think it also hits me pretty hard to know that time off is essential and necessary.

Moz Afzal:
And why do you think that? Is it because you get into bad habits that you can't get out of and taking a break takes you out of bad habits? What's the trick?

Shannon Tan:
I guess that could be one. I guess also it prevents you from snowballing, I guess. I think once you take your break, then I guess you just mentally reset. I guess that's what happens. But to be fair, I'm actually not sure why, but I think maybe you just get a reset and you feel better about it. And I think once you feel great, you actually play great.

Moz Afzal:
Yeah. Well that certainly makes sense. I think we find that, and certainly what I do, taking a break to one week or two week break from time to time, you actually do need so you can refresh and recharge and get your head straight, particularly when financial markets are very unpredictable, a bit like the weather you might have when you're going on a golf course. So just turning then to obviously mentioned that I have a daughter and a son and they used to play sports, less now, but they still, they're still very active. How much of an influence have your parents been on your career? You talked about your father just a little bit earlier, but how much of an have they been and maybe some experience you can give a parent about your experience?

Shannon Tan:
So my dad's quite into golf, well into my golf development as well. I would say my mom, she's more into my academics and well, she doesn't play golf herself. She's tried, but she's not a big fan of just going under the sun. I mean, it's really hot in Singapore, so she wasn't a big fan of that. So yeah, I think it's quite good to have one, in my opinion. My dad for golf, my mom for academics. So I've got a good mix of both. I would say my parents have done a lot for my career. When I was 14, we moved to Australia, do high school there. And I think there were more opportunities in Australia, like golf wise and more competitions. And I think the academic, the school system in Singapore, it's really good, but it's also really stressful. You start school at maybe half seven in the morning, you're done at 3 or 4PM and then you've got extra classes and homework. So we just thought that would be quite tough to juggle both school and academics. So we made a family decision to move to Australia mostly for my career aspect of it. So they've definitely done a lot in that part.

Moz Afzal:
Yeah. Well, that's super important. So what can you tell your parents to ease up on or any advice you can give to them? Maybe you can send them the podcast afterwards.

Shannon Tan:
Yeah, I see now they're actually, well, I've just turned 21, 2 months ago, and I think once I've turned 21, they got quite chill with things and they let me do what I think is best for me. But I think at the same time, it's like they've told me that I'm the CEO of my own career, essentially. I'm the one playing, so I should make my own decisions and do what I think is best for me. So I think they probably respect my decision whether to play an event, whether to skip an event and how I plan my schedule whilst I'm at home or whilst I'm on tour. So yeah.

Moz Afzal:
So just moving then on, you're coming up to various different tournaments now, and I guess the most important one, what would you consider the Evian in France or Women's Open in Wales?

Shannon Tan:
Well, I would say the AIG Women's Open has always been my favourite event. I played both of them last year, the Evian was my major debut, but I've made the cut at the AIG Women's Open last year, and it was at St. Andrew's last year, so it was the home of golf. So I think that also made it really special for me. We've played at the Evian course this year for the Jabra Ladies Open, and I came in second for that event. So I think I like the course now. I think that's a golf course that you have to play a couple of times and just keep seeing it.

And the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl, which can be quite different depending on the weather conditions. It could be windy and raining and could play really tough, or it could be sunny and hot and play relatively easier. So I think just depending on which side of the draw you get as well, you could play in the morning and the weather be really nice, which typically is the case. I think the wind usually picks up in the afternoon and then it gets pretty tough. But then I think that's going to be an event where I have to keep reminding myself that it's going to be the same for everyone. We are all playing the same golf course in the same conditions. So yeah, that's something I've got to keep in mind.

Moz Afzal:
So what's your goal? What's your goal for this one?

Shannon Tan:
I think a goal that I would set for myself, it's going to be more of a me versus the golf course than me versus everyone else. I feel like you can't control what everyone else does, and the only thing you can really control is what you do and how you approach things. And so I think if I beat the course and I do my best and I give it my best, and I think I call it a win for me.

Moz Afzal:
Mentally, is that how you feel when you're playing any tournament? It's all about yourself, don't really care about what others are doing?

Shannon Tan:
Yep, mostly. Yeah, I feel like, I think when I won in Kenya in my debut last year, I was definitely nervous in that final round, but I think I told myself I could have the best day of my life and my opponent could have her best day of her life and she could beat me, but then I feel like I just can't control what she does. So I just spend that final round just focusing on what I did and just sticking to my own game plan. And my game plan would be just put myself in a good position off the tee to then have a better angle in for my second shot, for example. So yeah, I've just stuck that game plan that whole round and it worked out great. So I think that's pretty much my game plan. Moving on from that, just being in position on the golf course and just set yourself up well at the target you're going for. And just thinking back, so how would you play the hole backwards? It's something that I've done that I felt worked great for me as well.

Moz Afzal:
Interesting. So we're drawing to an end. So obviously we wish you all the very best of luck in your tournaments. I'm sure you’ll do very well. But last question, what advice would you give for budding golfers, like when you were 13, 14 years old? What would you tell yourself at 13, 14 years old?

Shannon Tan:
I think the most important thing is to have fun. You have to enjoy being out there. And I mean, for me personally, I've always looked forward to going out on the range and out on the golf course. So yeah, definitely you have to have fun and enjoy it. And I think another piece of advice would just to know that it's all right to take one step back, to take two step forward. And it's normal to have bad days, and I think a lot of the time we're always thought to be perfect. If you're professional, you're perfect, but actually no one out there is perfect. And it's normal to have a bad day out on the golf course, and it's completely normal.

Moz Afzal:
So thank you very much for coming on to the podcast. We are very proud that EFG has sponsored you and you are our golf ambassador, and we will obviously keep watching your progress over the coming tournaments. We wish you the absolute best of luck, although hopefully you don't need too much luck. It's just pure talent. So again, congratulations what you've achieved so far, and good luck for the future.

Shannon Tan:
Perfect. Yeah, thanks for having me, and thank you for your support.

Moz Afzal:
Not at all. Thank you very much. So that wraps us up for the podcast today, and we'll be back again soon.

 

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