From Yale to Q School: James Nicholas's Journey of Dedication

Let's talk about your development at Yale. So you're now full-time sophomore at Yale. You're playing one of the best golf courses you can play in college golf. Let's talk about sophomore, junior, and senior year. Was it a steady incline as far as your improvement? And was it immediate? Were you playing in the lineup straight away right in that sophomore year? Yeah. I guess I'll start there. I was, so my sophomore season started the first event and started every event until I graduated. Um, that has a lot to do with the team not being very strong. You know, we're not like in Alabama. We're not going to go, we're not going to go nitpick this. That's pretty impressive. Coming off the football team straight into the starting lineup. Sure. That's D one, man. It is exactly. Um, but I told myself when I pursued golf, I was My motto is how I do anything is how I do everything. Whether it's how I make my bed, if I'm walking the golf course and I see a piece of trash, I'm going to go pick it up. Those are the words I try to live by. So when I dedicated myself to golf, it wasn't going to be Oh, I'm at Yale. I am going to just be on the golf team. It's good for my resume and then pursue a job out of school. It's going to be, I'm going to give this absolutely everything that I have, blood, sweat, and tears, like grind through it and see how good I can get. Never in my wildest dreams was I going to go to Q school. I didn't know what Q school was at that point, but my sophomore season probably averaged 74. And then my junior year that summer, my dad told me, he goes, well, are you going to get a job this summer? Or, or what are you going to do? And I told him, I said, I'm going to see how good I can get at golf. And his big thing was, you never have to get a job, we are fortunate enough to not have to, you know, do that, if you're working towards something. And that was sort of the deal that we had all my siblings had with my dad, my mom, for the summer times, when we were back, you don't have to do an internship if you're working towards something. And for all of us, it became sport. And I dedicated myself, I ended up coming back to college my junior year, and I won three times that year. Then that summer made the U.S. Amateur, then I won three more times my senior year, made the U.S. Amateur again that year. And my senior year, I led Division I in scoring in the fall. So it was funny, I have a screenshot on my phone, it was James Nicholas, then Colin Morikawa, Victor Hovland, Matthew Wolfe. Steven Fisk, and the list goes down. And I was like, that was the first time where I was like, I can kind of play with these guys. And then you fast forward to the end of the year where I went to regionals and I finished near the bottom of the pack again. And I realized, well, I have a lot getting better to do. So it was like this constant, like, I can do it, then I'm humbled. Then I can do it, then I'm humbled. And I signed up for QSchool that year and got my Korn Ferry Tour card right out of college. And, like, it was like a whoa. I guess I can do this, but to answer your question, there was a big, big jump from sophomore year going to junior year, and that year at Yale, I made an accountability system where I had my buddies who I said, okay, guys, I want to be the best person that I can be. Let's wake up at 4 a.m. every single morning, get to the indoor team room at 4.30 and practice before class until 9 a.m., then we'll come back to the course at 2 p.m. after class, and then we'll practice till dark. And the first morning, I'll never forget it. There was like five or six, four or five of the kids said that I'll be there. And I was the only one that showed up at 4 a.m. And I knew at that point, I was like, you know, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to do this on my own. And I just became my own like motivational speaker. Listen to Eric Thomas and Googled like every single thing I made. And I made an accountability board on my college dorm room where I had LeBron James quotes, Michael Jordan quotes, Tiger Woods quotes. I had a picture of Tiger. I think he was at the Presidents Cup. At, um, in California, one where he's like, yeah, when he was like, yeah, the club twirl and had that, I was like, you know, low draw that he hit that exactly because it looks like he set up for almost like a fade. And this thing starts out so far, right? It's that like low draw on there. It's like one of the coolest shots I remember Tiger hit ever. So I just made this board and it just motivated me every time, every day looking at it. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. I learned a lot at Yale and I'm grateful for that time.