Served in the Military, Nurse Practioner, and, Oh Yea...She Plays Golf - Liz Breza

This is definitely an episode that defines the Professional At Anything BUT Golf category!

Elizabeth Breza is a healthcare professional specializing as an Adult Health Nurse Practitioner in Jacksonville, Florida. Prior to being in the civilian healthcare industry, she served our country proudly for many years.  

Liz doesn't just play for recreation, she also enjoys competing.  As a Veteran of our Armed Forces, she competes as part of the Veteran's Golf Association.  It's a great for our Veteran's to compete and followship with their peers.  If you are a veteran that is listening and would like to compete, we will make sure you have contact information by clicking right here!  

Enjoy the conversation!

Transcript

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Jesse Stakes: Hey, everybody! Welcome to this week's episode of making sense of it all as part of our professional at anything but golf series. I am pleased to bring you Liz Breza. She is a nurse practitioner, and she's got a pretty unique job. She's going to tell us about here really soon. But, Liz, thank you so much for joining us.

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Liz: Thank you. It's an honor truly, an honor.

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Jesse Stakes: So before we jump into the golf stuff all the fun stuff. Tell tell my audience what you do for a living cause. I thought it was pretty unique.

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Liz: Well, I've I've been in nursing since 1986,

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Liz: and for about the past

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Liz: 1011 years

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Liz: I've been working as a nurse practic with millennium physician group. I do primary care. Home visits for our 30 offices here in northeast Florida, ranging from St. John's County to Baker and Nassau, and do all the all the counties here. And I drive to people's houses. And I

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Liz: I basically do office visits at their house for people who, for a variety of reasons, can't travel

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Liz: to the office.

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Jesse Stakes: I think it's fantastic. It's like it's almost, you know, kind of the way things used to be, as far as bringing bringing the Medical Medical office to the patients.

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Liz: It's a great service that the Company provides.

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Liz: Everybody is very appreciative of what of what the company offers, and and having the ability to have, you know.

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Liz: to be able to have somebody go to their house and and see patients. And and it it really takes the burden off of the caregivers and the family members.

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Liz: Who often are challenged by getting their family members out of the house.

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Jesse Stakes: I think it's fantastic.

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Jesse Stakes: So before you did this, you were you were in the United States military, correct.

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Liz: I was. I was in the navy for over 23 years. I joined the Navy right out of Nursing School in 1986,

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Liz: and I retired in early 2,010,

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Liz: and my duty stations ranged from all over the United States. I started at Bethesda. I did a fair amount of time in the West Coast.

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Liz: I went overseas to row to Spain.

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Liz: and did a lot of trips and some deployments out to the Middle East in the Horn of Africa

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Liz: and worked in big hospitals and little hospitals. I worked

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Liz: with the Marine Corps for 8 years with a medical battalion, and did train ran a training group

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Liz: and traveled, and we did some humanitarian missions.

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Liz: I went to command and Staff College for a year and served on the Marine Corps staff out in Hawaii, and I finished my career here in Jacksonville, Florida, from 2,007 to 2,009

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Liz: working at the family Practice clinic.

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Jesse Stakes: All I have to say is, wow! That's a big life, my friend.

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Liz: It's been busy. It was busy. It was very rewarding. Wouldn't trade it for anything.

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Jesse Stakes: Well, I speak on behalf of my whole audience. We thank you very much for your service.

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Liz: It was an honor. Thank you.

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Jesse Stakes: So let's get into it. So you know, through through all of that you have you, you

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Jesse Stakes: for the game of golf, and I'd love to kind of. Hear your story as to how did golf come into your life? How was it that you even found the found the game? And and what was it about it that hooked you.

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Liz: My original sport growing up was softball my dad used to hit balls to us, and I played in leagues and everything.

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Liz: and it wasn't until 1980,

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Liz: I think, 1989. I was stationed at Bethesda Bethesda Naval Hospital, and came home

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Liz: to for a long weekend at my parents house, and my brother was there, and my brother was in the marines at the time.

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Liz: and I remember sitting at the dinner table.

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Liz: and my father told my brother, you should play golf. It's a good businessman sport, and I thought I could do that.

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Liz: went back home to my apartment, and my roommate had just happened to buy a set of clubs.

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Jesse Stakes: Okay.

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Liz: And and I went to the sporting goods store. I

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Liz: bat I'm left handed, so I bat left handed, I throw left handed, so I found a set of left handed clubs.

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Liz: and my 1st round was in Fort Meade, Maryland.

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Liz: with another military member, and I feel really bad for the people who are behind us. Because I didn't practice. I went straight out the gate to the course

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Liz: and fell in love with it. And it's the rest is history.

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Jesse Stakes: All right. So this is gonna kind of put you on the spot, probably. But what was it about it like? What was it about that 1st day where you, where you fell in love with it. What was it that that kind of was that hook for you.

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Liz: It was the challenge

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Liz: it was. The challenge of this is not as certainly not as easy as it looked on TV,

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Liz: and I just wanted to get better at it.

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Jesse Stakes: I think it's

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Jesse Stakes: a lot of people would probably not say the challenge of it. That's usually the what discourages a lot of people. So I think that's that's pretty cool, that it was actually the the thing that's the negative for a lot of people. And the thing that makes people run away from it sometimes is what drew you to it.

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Liz: I do like to challenge myself. I do like to push myself.

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Liz: I think that's pretty evident in my daily schedule, and that's part of the attraction to golf is that it is challenging. And it's almost like this little carrot that's kind of sitting out there in front of you going.

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Liz: You can do this, you can nail that 50 yard shot. You can hit it a little closer. You can make that 10 foot putt.

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Jesse Stakes: So what about it? So now do you use golf more for recreation? Do you use it? For you know the travel? Do you use it for competitive purposes. Now, what is? What's the kind of the main driver behind golf now in your life?

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Liz: The answer to all those questions is, is, it's definitely a recreation the recreation component. We belong to St. John's Golf and Country club here. So

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Liz: I do play in the women's groups on Saturday my husband and I play in the Sunday couples game. It's a 9 hole, either scramble or best ball. We recently won the Couples Club championship here a few weeks ago. So that was a lot of fun.

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Liz: It does

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Liz: satisfy my competitive edge. Florida in general has a very competitive

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Liz: women's Amateur and Women's Senior amateur group. So

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Liz: the Florida State Golf Association hosts

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Liz: a lot of events, and that satisfies my competitive part along with the veterans golf. And there's some other local

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Liz: groups here where you can compete, and you can.

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Liz: You can add and subtract as as much as

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Liz: as much as you want

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Liz: vacations. We we have taken some golf vacations in the past. We've I've so every once in a while we'll do like a a girl's golf weekend

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Liz: More recently, my husband. Our vacations have tended to circle around. We went to Australia last year. This past year we did go to the open. We didn't play golf, but we were there for 2 days, and

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Liz: and then went over to France.

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Liz: So we have taken some golf vacations, and those are a blast, and I've got a few, a few places that I still want to go in the next year or 2.

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Jesse Stakes: That's fantastic. Do you have? Do you have a favorite place, or do you have a most memorable place that you have seen? That's that's, you know, just kind of sticks out in your mind right now.

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Liz: We did our honeymoon. We went to Pebble Beach, and we played pebble beach, and we played spyglass, and that that was a wonderful experience

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Liz: a really funny story. We played with a gal and her college roommate at Pebble Beach, and this was in 2,000 2,005,

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Liz: and the following year

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Liz: we were living. My husband and I were living in San Diego. We went to Pinehurst.

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Jesse Stakes: Okay.

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Liz: And

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Liz: we're we're getting ready to tee off. And we're looking at this gal, and we're like, you look really familiar. But we can't. And I said.

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Liz: and it was one of the gals she was there with her husband playing at Pinehurst, who, we.

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Jesse Stakes: Played with.

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Liz: The year before.

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Jesse Stakes: Who was that?

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Liz: Paired together. It was a blast. We ended up

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Liz: by chance getting paired together and and played. That's the day we played Number 2 at Pinehurst. It was a blast.

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Jesse Stakes: That's funny. You couldn't even ask for 2 different pieces of land, either. I mean Pinehurst versus Pebble Beach. It's a totally different experience.

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Liz: Exactly the question the caddies were going. Who's stalking? Who so.

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Jesse Stakes: That was.

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Liz: A lot of fun.

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Jesse Stakes: Do you ever use it for your business? Is it something that that you know through the years? Has it been something that has aided you as far as developing relationships within within being a nurse, practitioner.

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Liz: Not so much for business in the military. My

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Liz: Some previous commanding officers would say, Okay, we're going to play golf this afternoon. Make sure you have your sticks in your car

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Liz: with this current job.

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Liz: If the seat, the

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Liz: CEO would come up to the area and I would be asked to play, you know, a couple of us would be asked to play with him, so not so much from a promoting business perspective. But if if the boss was in town and wanted to play golf. I generally get asked

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Liz: to play.

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Jesse Stakes: Nice, I'd say that counts. I mean it there, it's developing relationships. It's it's 1 of those things to where I.

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Liz: Oh, yeah.

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Jesse Stakes: Or you know, you have something in common with people. It makes it a lot easier.

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Liz: Oh, yeah, yes, definitely.

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Liz: And one of the women's group, the Lpga amateurs most of us are are still working. So

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Liz: we they have some outings on the weekend. So I've definitely established a lot of relationships and have met a great number of friends through through the game of golf.

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Jesse Stakes: Very cool. How do you, as far as the the work that you put into your personal game and kind of the way that you have structured, you know, deciding to get better at the game.

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Jesse Stakes: I'd like to kind of talk through that. If that's okay with you.

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Liz: Sure, sure.

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Liz: so.

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Jesse Stakes: So at what point? At what point in your life did you decide? You know. All right. Yes, I play golf, but I I really want to put effort into this. Now, it's something that you know. I really want to put a lot of, I actually want to, you know, try to get better at this.

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Jesse Stakes: But from the beginning, or was it something that happened a little bit later.

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Liz: It's something that definitely happened later, when I I was stationed in Hawaii from

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Liz: 1999 to 2,002, and that's where I

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Liz: kind of, I guess you could say broke the ceiling. My coach at the time, Marcus Doublefield.

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Liz: I went from about a 17 handicap. I went down to a 7 while I was out while I was out there.

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Liz: and most of that was mostly just around practice and and playing a lot.

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Liz: Most recently

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Liz: things evolved. Where then, you had Tpi.

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Liz: you know, coming in, and the golf fitness, and

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Liz: and I would say, the last few years

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Liz: I've taken more of a holistic approach.

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Liz: I work with a company a group called par for success. Everything is virtual. They're based out of Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Liz: and I have a coach. We meet virtually once a month, and she prescribes exercises. We they have a standard like a fitness and mobility test and based on how you're performing. They'll modify your program and also based on things that we're talking about.

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Liz: So I think the fitness component has definitely been drilled down a lot more in the last few years compared to well, let's just go to the gym, and let's do arms or legs, or go to crossfit, and and all that is great. But this has become a little bit more golf specific for me, especially as I get a little bit older. You have to really focus on mobility and the right type of strength training. Because now the body starts to tell you, my back hurts my knees, hurt my shoulders so.

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Liz: And that's and that's where dr. Greg comes in where I see him here, you know.

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Liz: probably once every 3 weeks, and we work on the areas that need a little bit more tender, loving care, like shoulders and and back, and and

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Liz: and that helps a lot. So.

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Jesse Stakes: Well, let's talk.

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Liz: About that few years.

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Jesse Stakes: Because you actually, you actually had some injuries, some shoulder injuries that we talked about off camera. That have led you to kind of focus on. You know that Tpi and that physical, the physical therapy part of of this whole journey. So can you share with my audience, because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that have pre existing injuries, things that affect the way they play golf.

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Liz: Yeah. So I I had

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Liz: in 2,010. I had. Well, I actually had my surgery in 1,993, which I think resulted from just poor throwing technique when I was playing softball.

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Liz: and I had a slap repair in my left shoulder, and then in 14,01110 was the initial rotator cuff

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Liz: clean out the area sort of everything surgery

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Liz: here and

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Liz: during rehab. I felt something tear, and we thought it was scar tissue, because there was no pain, but the but my range of motion never.

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Liz: never improved.

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Liz: so the initial thought was they were going to go in, you know. Just do a manipulation under anesthesia. And they I ended up re tearing the rotator cuff, and so I had to go through all the rehab again and and

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Liz: rehabbed successfully. But that was a couple of years where

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Liz: probably good year and a half, almost 2 years where

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Liz: I really wasn't able to play much, and and I just had to focus on the rehab portion. So

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Liz: I still have a little residual range of motion issues. But we're we've been working on that, and I'm pretty diligent with, you know.

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Liz: on my mobility on my shoulder and my upper body to make sure that I'm I'm getting it as as good as it can get.

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Jesse Stakes: That's fantastic. I think that that's 1 of those things that you know. Everybody has something, you know. It's wear and tear on the body. And it's. And it's, I think sometimes I think sometimes people think, Oh, well, this is this is what I got, and they kind of say, I gotta work with what I got, and the truth of the matter is is that may be true sometimes, but we can improve it. And you know, Dr. Greg

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Jesse Stakes: Goldberger. Here in Jacksonville, Florida is a Tpi certified physical therapist. His business is movement matters. He's been on this show before he does a fantastic job of it, and I'm sure that you know, no matter where people are listening to this, there are fantastic Tpi certified physical therapists out there that can at least show you what's possible. So I think that that's that's great. What about? From a coaching perspective, when you're, you know, trying to organize your own personal game. Do you have somebody that you talk to? Do? You have somebody that you kind of.

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Jesse Stakes: rely on to give you, you know, some some, you know, 3rd party feedback or independent feedback.

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Liz: Well, I my, I do work with coach mo. We really don't have a set we we do. You know, we we schedule a lesson depending on my schedule. You know my work schedule really drives

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Liz: the amount of time that I have to practice.

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Liz: My husband

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Liz: is a wonderful year and wonderful support. He

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Liz: he is able to amplify what

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Liz: what Mo is talking about.

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Liz: and try to keep and try to keep me on track. We have a hitting bay in our garage. So on the days where you know, you can't get out into the range. That's where A good deal of my practice goes.

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Liz: you know, goes. It's just hitting into this.

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Liz: you know. It's it's not even a net. It's almost like a rubber backboard with

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Liz: parachute cord.

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Liz: I don't think they sell it anymore. But that's that's the majority of I would say. That's probably the majority of my.

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Liz: you know practice, which is block practice which is not ideal, but

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Liz: it's the best. Some days it's the best that I can do. So.

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Jesse Stakes: Well, and that's for for the audience that's listening to this you've got. I mean, most of them are, you know, 20 something to 60, something year old. Professionals, people who are doing something else other than golf to make a living. And so that's what a lot of people get is that up. You know. You gotta do it when you can. So I think that that's you know. I think it's fantastic that you do it.

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Jesse Stakes: Talk to me a little bit about equipment. Is that something that has ever been like? Is it? Is it something that you feel is important? Do you feel like it's important to get it right. Or do you feel like it's like, you know what. Just put something in your hand.

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Liz: Equipment is May is is key.

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Liz: I get fitted for pretty much every club in my bag down to my wed, down to my putter.

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Liz: my putter. I was fitted for several years ago at club champion.

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Liz: and

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Liz: my wedges like wedges and fairway woods I got last year. Irons are a couple of years old, and drivers about a year old, so find a fitter whether it's

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Liz: club champion or the folks. You know. There's a lot of opportunity. There's a lot of different options here in Jacksonville, whether it's PGA superstore, or Pxg or titleist, and and I

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Liz: I don't play with the club

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Liz: off the rack. Really, it's very rare. If I do, it would be very rare. If I do, I'd probably have to break something and go out and buy something in a pinch. So fitting is fitting is very, very important. It's like you're going to wear the right. You're gonna wear shoes that fit. You. You're gonna wear clothes that fit you. I think clubs are the same way.

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Jesse Stakes: Yeah, I I agree. And I and I would. I, I think at 1 point in my journey I would have disagreed just thinking, okay, you know, it's it's it doesn't make that much difference. But the truth of the matter is is like you said, if you're gonna wear a pair of shoes, or if you're gonna wear a pair of pants or anything, you don't wear something that doesn't fit you. So you might as well remove that variable from the equation and play something that's fit to you that way. It's not something that's ever in your mind. It's not something that you're thinking of as a potential problem. It's that way. You're always, you know, it's the.

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Jesse Stakes: it's the user, not the tool.

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Jesse Stakes: Is there one thing that you would say to the people that are listening to this, that you think that they should maybe attack or look at like as a way to get better like is something something that if you had to address one thing, what would it be.

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Liz: I think the biggest thing is to find is to find an instructor. Find a coach who, you feel is a great communicator who

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Liz: is going to help you

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Liz: in your journey with your golf swing.

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Liz: and I think that's that's the biggest key we say that we can. We say that we can figure it out ourselves. Some. There are some people who are self taught and have had a lot of great success.

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Liz: Sorry.

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Liz: and I would. I would strongly urge people to find a teacher

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Liz: in their in their local area.

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Jesse Stakes: Fantastic. So I'd like to talk about some of the amateur events you that you do, and and namely, you. You just did a veterans event up in the Carolinas. I thought that was very interesting. Can you tell the audience about the event, what it was and and kind of who put it on.

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Liz: The organization is the Veteran Golfers Association.

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Liz: They are

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Liz: nationwide.

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Liz: They have regions and and states, and they have State directors, and they

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Liz: each State

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Liz: provides regular play days throughout the year. The season starts.

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Liz: It goes from September to August.

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Liz: So you.

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Liz: after you play in the State events you have your. There's a minimum that you have to play. They host the State Championship.

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Liz: and if you qualify so

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Liz: there's so many.

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Liz: I I can't remember the number for the men, but for the women. It's usually the for one or 2 in each flight

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Liz: you qualify to the regional championship, and our regional championship. This year was held at the Legends, golfer legends, golf resort in Myrtle Beach.

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Jesse Stakes: Nice.

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Liz: Mid-august.

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Liz: and so

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Liz: I I won the female veteran B. Flight.

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Liz: and that got me to the National Championship, which just concluded this past Wednesday at grand over resort in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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Liz: and I came, in second place, congratulations.

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Jesse Stakes: Since.

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Liz: We'll take.

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Liz: Thank you. Thank you. We had some very interesting weather, I guess. The weather pattern that was on the coast of the Carolinas decided to pass through

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Liz: before, during, and a little bit after a little bit after when we played. So

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Liz: we had we had to deal with quite a bit of rain and soggy conditions, and despite that

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Liz: it was a great, it was a great success. The golf course is wonderful. The staff did a amazing job in setting up the course and

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Liz: and making it, putting it in the best conditions as much as possible.

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Jesse Stakes: That's fantastic. How was the atmosphere? As far as you know you've got? You've got a group of veterans out there. You've got. You've got these. You know the the tournament of these events that they put on for people. Can you? Can you tell the audience about the atmosphere? Because if we do have other veterans that would potentially be interested in getting involved if they've never been involved.

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Jesse Stakes: Just tell them what it's like.

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Liz: It's a great, it's a great environment.

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Liz: We

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Liz: we continue our membership with the group because of the people who you meet.

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Liz: Yeah,

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Liz: every. Every community probably has its little nuances and humor things, and and the veterans are no excuse where

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Liz: there are things that we say that

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Liz: maybe to the civilian population. I get a little bit of of head, turns, and eyebrow raises

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Liz: nothing, nothing rude or anything, but

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Liz: you say it to a veteran, and they kind of look at you and laugh.

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Liz: You know just little things, and and little, you know, just the culture.

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Liz: So it's great. It's great to connect everybody is is

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Liz: everybody's just in a great mood, being there.

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Liz: And it's just it's just fun to cavort and talk with fellow veterans, and and

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Liz: you know, some of the some of the folks that belong to this organization have have really seen some very challenging conditions when they were in the military, and this organization offers.

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Liz: you know, offers an outlet for a lot of folks.

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Liz: Who take who use golf to help them

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Liz: deal with deal with certain things.

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Liz: but they do a great job, and and

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Liz: the organization has done an outstanding job in getting sponsorships with a lot of companies who really support us better in.

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Liz: and I would encourage. I would encourage any, if not all, veterans and their families to look into the organization and give it a shot.

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Jesse Stakes: Yeah, we'll make sure that there are links to the organization. And you know, just so that people can view their website. People can view information attached to this interview. So I appreciate you sharing that. And I think it's I think it's valuable. I think it's you know, anytime that you can feel community, feel connected, feel, feel, connection there, and enjoy doing it, doing something that's fun. I think it's fantastic.

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Jesse Stakes: I wanted to ask you something, because I think that like it's kind of a loaded question. But I do want to ask, you know, when, when you've got, you know, for yourself and for just your own opinion of it. What do you believe that success should look like for people that are playing the game from an like, you know from an amateur's perspective what is success to you?

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Liz: Success to me is

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Liz: is knowing that when I go out to

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Liz: whether sometimes it's data driven because I do look at at data to see what aspects of the game are are good and what can be better.

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Liz: So.

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Liz: for example, a couple of weeks ago I think I hit 13 greens, and around which I was ecstatic about. But.

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Liz: some other aspects

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Liz: could have been a little bit better.

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Liz: Sometimes

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Liz: it's going into a tournament, and just knowing that if you.

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Liz: if your mental game was

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Liz: sharp and you, you gave it your best

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Liz: that success.

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Liz: success for people is success is really a very broad thing, because it can be anything to anybody

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Liz: for some who were just starting. It'd be, Hey, I'm here at my 1st outing, or I've signed up

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Liz: to play.

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Liz: I may, you know, for some people I made a par on a par 3. So it's a very broad

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Liz: It can be mean a lot of things to a lot of different people.

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Liz: For me

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Liz: it tends to be a little more

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Liz: a majority of the time goal orientated and

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Liz: in terms of some of the data.

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Liz: or or some of the out or or the outcome of of a specific tournament.

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Jesse Stakes: I I think that's fantastic. And I also I mean to me what I get out of that. And really, you know, you kind of you answered it

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Jesse Stakes: perfectly to me, because I think people need to find their own success. They need to find what is success to them, and not allow other people to dictate it for them, because I think a lot of the times, especially when people are starting the game.

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Jesse Stakes: or if they're or they don't even have to just be starting. They can. They could be right in the middle of their journey with it, but it's but they allow you know what they see on television, or the way that their partners play, or the way that somebody else plays the game, or, you know, something external, to dictate what success looks like for them. And I think it's really important to define success for yourself and to and to be able to set achievements or set things that are. You know

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Jesse Stakes: that that fit you, not someone else's definition of it before we wrap up. I know that you wanted to kind of give some recognition and some acknowledgment to some people that you believe have helped you tremendously along your journey. I just wanted to allow you to do that before we before we wrapped up here.

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Liz: Okay. Well, 1st and foremost, I I've mentioned my husband Pat, he's just.

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Liz: He's just so wonderful

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Liz: and supporting me, and knowing that my schedule is really tight, and if I say, Hey, I'm I got I'm going to go practice for an hour or so after work.

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Liz: He's like, go for it.

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Liz: And again he supports me. He comes out and and helps and helps me just

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Liz: emphasize what coach you know, what we are working on, and and

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Liz: and he's got a very, very good eye. He was a former baseball player himself, and he plays so he's got an exceptionally good eye and is able to help me, and in some tournaments he's also caddied for me in the past. So kudos to him.

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Liz: He's just he's been awesome

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Liz: coach. Mo. And her team

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Liz: have really helped me in the last year in terms of looking at golf from a holistic perspective.

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Liz: In terms of what what coach mo does her? Her energy is infectious.

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Liz: How busy she stays, and the things that she does for all of her students!

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Liz: And it's awesome to see the record. See her get the recognition that she definitely deserves.

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Liz: I've spoken with Don Woodard

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Liz: and we've had a great talk. I work with Sindel on the nutrition part, and Dr. Greg in terms of getting.

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Liz: you know, getting my body in in optimum form, and also par for success coach Cassidy

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Liz: is is my coach, and she's been awesome in terms of communicating and making sure that we've got

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Liz: a good plan in terms of workouts and things like that.

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Jesse Stakes: I think that's great. I think that it's I mean, you sound like you have a wonderful team around you. You sound like you've had. You know you're there's a book that I always think about when and it's I was introduced to it through a business professional friend of mine, but it's called who, not how. And it's essentially talking about. Instead of trying to figure out how to do everything it's finding who's that could actually help you with what you need to do. So I think that you do, and it sounds like you do a tremendous job of that.

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Liz: Yeah.

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Jesse Stakes: Liz Liz, I want to thank you very much. I've I've enjoyed this conversation, and I think your journey is probably, you know, maybe not unlike everybody's. But it definitely sounds like you are trying to, you know, basically ring the rag out and and take everything you can can from the game and enjoy it to its fullest. So I appreciate your time.

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Liz: Well, thank you for having me on. It's it's it's been a pleasure to share hopefully, share some things, and hopefully give some folks some some good ideas and some encouragement to

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Liz: to just get out there and do it.

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Jesse Stakes: Alright! Thank you so much again.

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Liz: Okay. Thanks. Jesse.