NORFOLK, Va. — Delusional confidence- it sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s a mindset Maury High School grad Carter Smith lives by.
“Its almost a blind belief in yourself when everything around you is telling you, you probably shouldn’t do it,” he explained.
Carter has used it to coin himself the DOD King, which stands for, ‘driver off the deck.’ He approaches his golf game without using any tees and his technique has gone viral.
“Since February we’ve kind of just been posting consistently and it’s blown up and kind of turned my life upside down.”
One video posted on Instagram of Carter driving off the deck quickly garnered nearly 140,000 followers to his page. But what’s most captivating about his videos is the delusional confidence he shows and shear belief in his abilities.
“I feel like I’m a little polarizing because some people either love me or they absolutely hate me. I’m doing something that’s never been done,” said Carter. “I’m kind of away from the traditional golf. It’s still a gentleman’s sport and I still absolutely have all the respect of the game but I’m talking smack to people and kind of showing them that the mental side of the game is just as important as the technical side of things.”
In the process, Carter also hopes to inspire.
“I want to grow the game of golf. I think bringing a lot of non-golfers into the game and kind of showing them the fun side of things drives me and building confidence in people that don’t really have it," he explained. "The coolest thing for me are the non-golfers who follow me who say they’d never watch golf if it wasn’t for me and that kind of keeps me going.”
But delusional confidence isn’t a new concept for Carter, its something he leaned on when he made the decision to drop out of college to pursue professional golf.
“I knew that I could make it and I had the potential of doing it. I just needed the time to pursue my goal, so it was a hard decision to make but I’ve never looked back.”
Carter immediately went from fulltime student to fulltime employee.
“I was working two jobs throughout the wintertime to save up money to then play in the summertime fulltime and so the last three years I would do that. I’d work in the wintertime, save up money and then play all summer.”
Playing the Vermont State Open last summer, Carter struggled from the tee box, so he decided to switch things up.
“The first round I decided to just not use any tees and I hit every single fairway, shot 67, and I haven’t used a tee since.”
And from there, his DOD King identity was born. With the support of his two best friends, who quit their jobs to create content with Carter, the trio is living the dream, traveling, and playing golf all around the country. But there’s only one dream Carter truly has his sights on.
“The only goal I have is to make it on the PGA tour. I want to put on for the city of Norfolk and the 757 and be the first guy to make it out of here to go to the tour.”