Ep 244: Pau Gasol

Erik Anders Lang (0:00)

The table is awkward. That was awesome.

Pau Gasol (0:04)

There you go.

Erik Anders Lang (0:06)

Welcome to The Erik Anders Lang Show, everybody. Very excited to announce that Random Golf Club and The Erik Anders Lang Show are proudly sponsored by our friends and partners at Precision Pro Golf, the original range finder of RGC. Play your best golf this season by adding equipment to your bag that you can trust.

So swing with confidence, hit more greens, Precision Pro Golf. And without further ado, Pau Gasol, are you folks ready? Cue the music, cue the video. Everybody's ready?

Pau Gasol (0:36)

We're ready.

Erik Anders Lang (0:36)

Oh my God, this is so exciting.

So I think we can do the intro at another time. Sure. But my first question to you to get things in perspective here, right? People think they know a lot about you, but what do you think people don't know about you?

Pau Gasol (0:54)

They definitely don't know how much golf I play.

Erik Anders Lang (0:58)

We actually just checked your handicap. You played five times this month already.

Pau Gasol (1:02)

Already, okay. And it's been what, 11 days? Probably more. That's one round that I didn't post, I guess.

It was kind of like an incomplete one. So that's why I probably didn't post it. But yeah, I play about every other day, maybe a little more at times.

Erik Anders Lang (1:20)

Why do you play so much golf?

Pau Gasol (1:22)

It's been good for my mind's sake in this period of time where I retired from professional basketball, even though I really started less about two years ago, literally.

And it's been through pandemic, I was rehabbing at the time. And now that I'm retired, it's been a good getaway, very, you know, therapeutical, refreshing, disconnecting, just being in touch with nature, which I loved before. And now having a challenging activity in sport that challenges me every day, every round.

Erik Anders Lang (1:55)

It was the stress fracture that caused you to retire?

Pau Gasol (1:58)

Well, the stress fracture caused me to be out for pretty much two years. Because I had surgery, and then when I was about to come back, I refractured it. So then I had to be out for another full year.

But I rehabbed and I was able to come back. And I played my last few months in Spain in the team that I played for before playing in the NBA, FC Barcelona, which was great. And then I played in the Olympics, which I wanted to kind of, that's kind of how what I intended to do from the beginning when I found out that I was hurt again.

So play my fifth Olympics and then just probably hang it up. And that's kind of how I envisioned it, what I worked hard for. And then it made it happen. And then once that happened, I called it, I called it the retirement.

Erik Anders Lang (2:43)

Did the foot injury, does it have any like prevalence?

Is it on the golf course? Do you feel it?

Pau Gasol (2:51)

No, I don't feel it at all. No, I actually, I think it helped me through my rehab to walk on grass, uneven surfaces, soft surface kind of thing as well, and just be out there. I was, for the most part, I wasn't walking the course entirely because we played mostly golf carts.

Erik Anders Lang (3:09)

Painful, right?

Pau Gasol (3:10)

Well, it was just, it would get tired. It would get a little sore. So I would have to kind of manage, manage that.

But to some degree, getting maybe three miles, four miles in instead of seven, eight, it really, it helped.

Erik Anders Lang (3:23)

Wait, eight miles of walking?

Pau Gasol (3:26)

Sometimes, yeah.

Erik Anders Lang (3:26)

That's a lot of walking.

Pau Gasol (3:27)

Yeah, it depends on how you hit it. You get that extra mile in.

Erik Anders Lang (3:30)

I wasn't gonna make that joke.

Pau Gasol (3:32)

No, it's not a joke, it's the truth.

So you get that extra, and there's car path only, too. You get that extra walk, too.

Erik Anders Lang (3:40)

So you start golf during the pandemic.

Pau Gasol (3:42)

That's right.

Erik Anders Lang (3:43)

Which I honestly, I had some version of Pau Gasol getting into golf.

It was much more extravagant in my head. Like it was like Phil Jackson was like Jordan wants to play, and then all of a sudden you're like driving down with the limo and no, you're just in the pandemic and you're like, I need to get outside.