Golf, real estate, and planning the future: Behind the Visor with Juan Manuel Correa

Juan Manuel Correa is already widely known for what he can do in a race car, but there is more to the DAMS Lucas Oil driver than what we see from the cockpit.
So, we recently sat down with him to talk about what he does outside of a racetrack and the American talked about his love of golf, the businesses he is building with his girlfriend and his future plans.
“I think some people know but I’ve gotten really into golf recently, so my life consists off a lot of training that I have to do to be a driver, but then in my free time I spend a lot of time with my girlfriend. We actually live together in Miami, she’s very close with my family so we spend a lot of time with my family which is very nice and I took up golf, actually in Bahrain last year.
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“It was first time ever playing and now I have become completely addicted. So, every time that I have a free day, a free afternoon I go and play golf, so much so that I got my girlfriend into it, and now she’s addicted too so we play together which is quite sick.
“So, we do that, we train together, we also do business together my girlfriend and I, we are doing some real estate, some private equity, nothing too big because I don’t have too much time but she’s very smart so she sort of operates it and I am just kind of on the side giving her advice. So, I am quite active, I am never really free, I am always really busy.
“For golf, my handicap is 22, an honest 22. My best round ever I shot is a 90, no cheating, no mulligans, but I would say in my home course I could average mid 90s all day long, so I am getting better. I do some insane shots because I have a lot of power, so I can really play, but it’s just the consistency, I’ll go out there one day and just shoot a 105 or a 110 and then I’m like what did I just do and then the next day I am playing really well, so I am working on that.
“It’s such an addictive activity because it’s such a challenge. It’s so difficult to get it right, so when you do get it right, it’s like ‘Oh my God, I need to get this feeling again,’ so it keeps you coming back. But also, the mental side of it, it’s just you against yourself, which is a lot like racing, so I am quite attracted to that.
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“I am a very competitive guy and she’s competitive but if I get competitive with her it ends up in trouble. But we’ve actually found that the best way is we do a lot of scrambles, where her and I are teammates and we play against another duo.
“So, we have a bunch of friends in Miami that are around our same level, my brother plays as well, he is around my level too, so we do four-man scrambles, and it’s me and here against another team and I think that works better especially for the health of our relationship because if it’s us two against each other it usually ends up badly.
“On the business side, I like it. I come from a business family, my dad is a businessperson, my mum has her own business, so I grew up with that, that was the school of life that I was taught. Also, since I was very young, since I was in go karts, my dad did a very smart thing, he left me to deal with a lot of the grown up side of stuff, so I was already aware of the amount of money he had to spend, and the contracts we had to negotiate.
“Many people thought it was a bit weird that a 14-year-old kid was involved in that but that just gave me a perspective. Obviously, racing is a business, it’s an industry that moves around a lot of money and you meet a lot of very interesting people. I think my personality, I am kind of social, most people like me, I get along with everyone and that has enabled me to have some pretty good contacts in many different industries.
“So I am just starting to sort of use that leverage, those contacts for other things that have nothing to do with racing, so in this case my girlfriend she really loves real estate, so when I met her she told me she studied finance, she worked in private equity but my end goal is to work in real estate and I was like ‘I love real estate too’.
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“So, she had a few months before she started her job after just graduating from college and I said let’s do some real estate. We started a company and it’s been going quite well and now we are thinking about getting into little developments and building houses. One thing after another we are working on it, it’s a good challenge and you never have the same issue twice, I think it’s cool.
“This season I laid off a lot of the social media, I have so many people DMing me ‘Your Instagram is dead, you used to be so good.’ So, for the last three years I have had Frankie with me, who is one of my best friends and he was just coming with my everywhere, we were living together, we were doing content and honestly, we were just having fun.
“I am kind of like a private person, so this year I said I am going to take it easy, focus on myself, divert that energy into my prep, my relationship with the team, my wellbeing, because last year it became that at some points, I was way too busy, and I thought it was way too much, it was counterproductive now. It has been from one extreme to another, but I am quite happy, it’s been a good year for me.
“Right now, my priorities are see what I am going to do next year racing-wise because I have no idea so that’s a bit of a stress at the moment, but I am sure it’s going to sort itself out, I have a few good options that I am working on.
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“Then my second thing is keep working on this real estate stuff with my girlfriend, we want to build houses, there is this one project in particular I want to find the investors for because it’s quite interesting.
“Another goal of mine is to get better at golf. I want to start shooting low 80s by the end of next year, that’s ambitious but I think it can be done. Maybe I need to take a few lessons and then play consistently. My girlfriend and I are also thinking about moving to a new place, so we have to start looking at places in November in Miami, so just life stuff. I am growing up and I am just building my adult life as I go and it’s all quite nice.”