1-on-1 with PGA Tour's Andrew Novak: Golf Analytics, Golf Strategy, and Fantasy Football (Episode 998 with Adam Levitan)

**Adam Levitan** (0:15)
Hello, and welcome to episode 998 of the official establishtherun.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan. I am one of the co-founders here at ETR, and today we have a very, very special guest.
This is a young man who, unlike the rest of us, is an actual talent. He is currently on the PGA Tour, where he is a top 70 golfer on the entire planet, was 19th on the money list for 2025 season, and he is one of us, a true fantasy football grinder. It is of course PGA Tour player, Andrew Novak. Andrew, I really appreciate the time. How's it going?

**Andrew Novak** (0:56)
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. I'm getting that Kenneth Gainwell money, baby.

**Adam Levitan** (1:01)
All right. On today's show, we're going to talk to Andrew about all things golf, data, strategy, the tour, more. And then we'll also get into his true passion, not golf, the fantasy football world.
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All right, let's get into it here. I want to start with your journey, Andrew. I'm always fascinated by how people get to the top of various sports or really any profession at all. From what I could tell, you weren't some like child prodigy junior. Like a lot of these guys seem like it clicked later for you. How did you end up on tour or even not even on tour as a prospect in the junior ranks?

**Andrew Novak** (3:01)
Yeah, I got into golf late. I was playing all the other sports. So I really did go pretty under recruited. I would say by my senior year.
I mean, I was playing in top junior events. I played against Scotty. I've known Scotty, Sam Burns. Like I've known these guys since they were like 15, 16 years old because I used to compete against them in junior golf. But at that point in time, all the other schools had their recruiting classes filled up basically.
College coaches recruit two years out. There's not a ton of scholarships available for the golf teams. So if they got their two commits for that year, then you're just out of luck and that happened to me. So I only ended up having one offer, but it worked out for me. Going to Wofford was great. You got Wofford stuff over here, you got Wofford stuff over here. I show a little love for the one school that actually offered me. It gave me a platform to play. I think I improved a ton at Wofford and it really set me up for my pro career.

**Adam Levitan** (4:05)
Yeah, that's amazing. So people always talk about how hard it is to actually get your PGA Tour card. Oh, don't even try Q School. It's the hardest thing in the world. One out of a thousand guys that are incredible golfers come through Q School. How did you actually get on tour? What was the turning point to get your card?

**Andrew Novak** (4:26)
Yeah.
Q School, I don't want to say it's crazy hard because the competition level, while good, is not as deep as when you're playing actually on Corn Fairy Tour and stuff, but I can comfortably say it's the most stressful thing I've ever done. I mean, your entire year is pretty much relying on how you perform over three or four days. Whether or not you have a job for the whole year, it's not like a job interview like, oh, well, I can line up another interview with somebody else in a few days. You're cooked for the year if you don't perform. It is incredibly stressful. I had to go through Q School twice. Luckily, I was able to get through first and second stage pretty comfortably both times. Never really had to sweat it out too bad. Then at final stage, I played all right both years, but never actually guaranteed myself any starts. But thankfully, I was able to first year, Monday qualify a few times and earn my way. Then the second year, I did end up getting in some early events and played well enough to have a consistent role on the Corn Fairy Tour. That ended up setting me up. I was on the Corn Fairy Tour for four years, three seasons because the COVID season was put into two-year cycle.