Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my.
Speaker 3: Ball in a bright egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg,
Speaker 3: Frida egg, fridagg brid egg Lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 3: run off with the hump course.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to another Friday Golf podcast. I am your host,
Speaker 4: Andy Johnson. Uh, we are done with major season. And
Speaker 4: what a conclusion the Open Championship, the one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty third Open Championship at.
Speaker 1: Royal Port Rush.
Speaker 4: Scottie Scheffler with an absolutely dominating performance, just ran circles
Speaker 4: around the field. He wins by four shots. He gets
Speaker 4: to seventeen under, beats Harris English by four, Chris got
Speaker 4: her up by five, and a host of players at
Speaker 4: minus eleven by six shots.
Speaker 1: You know, Sunday was an interesting day. He obviously had.
Speaker 4: A big lead going in and kind of put his
Speaker 4: foot on the gas right away and and made it
Speaker 4: really tough for people to come back. I think we're
Speaker 4: going to talk with Trevor Immelman here, the great Trevor
Speaker 4: m one for a period about Scotty's dominance. But now
Speaker 4: he's on He's got his fourth major championship, obviously gets
Speaker 4: his second of the year, and is ascending the levels
Speaker 4: of greatness, ascending up the list of the greatest golfers ever,
Speaker 4: which you know, it's pretty crazy to think about. This
Speaker 4: is this run, This is kind of three year run
Speaker 4: that he's on. How long can it go? The level
Speaker 4: of play is as high as we've seen since Tiger Woods,
Speaker 4: and where he gets to is kind of going to
Speaker 4: be the pervasive question in golf. We obviously have a
Speaker 4: long time until the next major championship, but he will
Speaker 4: be going next year for the career Grand Slam at
Speaker 4: the US Open at Shinnecock, a venue that will surely
Speaker 4: set up quite well for his game. He has transformed
Speaker 4: himself from a bad putter on the PJ Tour by
Speaker 4: PGA Tour standards to a very good, bordering on elite putter.
Speaker 4: The putter was really exceptional at Royal Port Rush. It
Speaker 4: was it was what pushed him to just separating and
Speaker 4: lifting from the field with his usual exceptional tea degree
Speaker 4: in game. So Scotti Scheffler is your champion golfer. The
Speaker 4: year he secures his second major of the year, he's
Speaker 4: going to be kind of I would I would say
Speaker 4: most likely the player of the year. And then when
Speaker 4: you think about who the best player was in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five, I think, you know, when you look at
Speaker 4: the Majors in totality, we'll we'll probably do a podcast
Speaker 4: in the near future, you know, kind of talking debriefing
Speaker 4: the entire major seasons. That memory, the lasting memory will
Speaker 4: be Rory at the Masters, but a story kind of
Speaker 4: one bee will be Scottie Scheffler's ascension up, you know,
Speaker 4: going from two to four majors, this big time and
Speaker 4: what it sets up for for next year is fascinating.
Speaker 4: So we'll get into Scottie in great detail with Trevor here.
Speaker 4: But thank you guys for the major year coming joining
Speaker 4: us with for these these recap shows with Trevor. They've
Speaker 4: been really fun to do and and well we got
Speaker 4: our last one here. Maybe we'll have them come back
Speaker 4: for something else, maybe Ryder, a couple we'll see. But
Speaker 4: today's podcast and this week this Open Championship coverage is
Speaker 4: brought to you by Mercedes Benz. Mercedes Benz has been
Speaker 4: partnered with the Open since twenty eleven, and their partnership
Speaker 4: is rooted and shared values, commitment to the excellence, and
Speaker 4: bridging tradition with modern luxury. I think that modern luxury
Speaker 4: is so apparent with their automobiles. These are elegant machines.
Speaker 4: They catch your eye when you're driving down the street.
Speaker 4: One of the things as a dad that always catches
Speaker 4: my eye are Mercedes Benz SUVs. They are the perfect
Speaker 4: companion for golf enthusiasts seeking performance, style and space on
Speaker 4: the way to the course. I enviously often look at
Speaker 4: the GLS. It is their kind of flagship, their biggest suv,
Speaker 4: and it stands out as the pinnacle of the lineup,
Speaker 4: the suv lineup. Why I always look at the GLS.
Speaker 4: It's a little bit bigger than my car. I look
Speaker 4: at it. I'm like, man, all that space for if
Speaker 4: I was, you know, going with three buddies to a
Speaker 4: golf course would be really nice.
Speaker 1: All that space.
Speaker 4: As a dad of a kid, you know you're going
Speaker 4: going to various things. You're hitting the road, maybe a
Speaker 4: weekend away. That space is super nice to have, and
Speaker 4: you know it comes with that Mercedes Benz performance. The
Speaker 4: GLS combines power and finesse. It's backed by twelve drivers
Speaker 4: cy systems nimble handling and cutting edge AI technology as
Speaker 4: well as their superb craftsmanship. The GLS anticipates your needs,
Speaker 4: ensuring every journey is as strategic as a championship winning
Speaker 4: game plan. I think that's one of the things that
Speaker 4: stands out about Scottie Scheffler is his game plan. So
Speaker 4: if you are interested in learning more about the GLS
Speaker 4: or Mercedes Benz full lineup of SUVs or Sedant, go
Speaker 4: to MBUSA dot com. Big thanks to Mercedes Benz for
Speaker 4: coming in and uh and supporting us this week. It's
Speaker 4: been a big part of the coverage that we've been
Speaker 4: able to do. So go visit MBUSA dot com and
Speaker 4: thanks to Mercedes Benz.
Speaker 1: Let's get to Trevor a moment.
Speaker 3: You guys must have had some some weird hours this
Speaker 3: week recording the pods and stuff. Take us through that
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that you talked about that at the
Speaker 4: start of this. You want to know, you want to
Speaker 4: know what time we're recording podcasts. That's how you want
Speaker 4: to start this podcast.
Speaker 3: I'll find it interesting number one, but I also find
Speaker 3: it really cool and admirable because you know, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of fans out there that I want to listen
Speaker 3: to the fried egg and the shotgun start and don't
Speaker 3: always realize what it takes to get that in the inbox.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we thank you.
Speaker 4: Everybody should be you know, saluting us, because you know,
Speaker 4: it's really there's not many people. There's not many people
Speaker 4: that could do this work, right. I'm obviously joking it's
Speaker 4: like a frontline healthcare worker, you know.
Speaker 3: No, but I'm not comparing it to that, Andy, But still,
Speaker 3: you've got team members all over, You've got guys on site,
Speaker 3: and then you're in California and PJS in New York.
Speaker 3: I mean there's some moving pots to that. And as
Speaker 3: a hardcore golf band, I'm appreciative of it.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's it's early mornings. I actually have
Speaker 4: grown to love. People think I'm crazy. I've grown to
Speaker 4: like love covering the Open on the West Coast. I
Speaker 4: get up at two to three am and then I
Speaker 4: just I just lock in, and I think one of
Speaker 4: the great things about it versus other major championship weeks,
Speaker 4: like they become others all consumer.
Speaker 1: Weeks, like you're you're basically just you.
Speaker 4: Know, if you're at home or if you're on site,
Speaker 4: all you're doing is covering a major And I think
Speaker 4: the thing that I like about the Open in California
Speaker 4: is that when like two or three pm rolls around,
Speaker 4: I've worked a full day and then I get I
Speaker 4: get to like unplug and hang out with my family,
Speaker 4: do stuff around the house, and have like some normalcy
Speaker 4: in life, and then I go to bed really early.
Speaker 4: Usually when my my my five year old goes to bed,
Speaker 4: I basically just go to bed at the same time
Speaker 4: and then wake up and do it again. But you know,
Speaker 4: it's funny. I was thinking about this a little bit
Speaker 4: in the context of the week. My wife and my
Speaker 4: wife and kid left last night or yesterday, and you
Speaker 4: know it's funny. I'm you know, just by myself at
Speaker 4: my house and uh and I found myself.
Speaker 1: All I was doing was thinking about golf.
Speaker 3: Welcome to my world.
Speaker 4: And I think about like what Scott I think, like
Speaker 4: a lot of things came out with what Scotti said
Speaker 4: this week about like you know how he he he said,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm not doing this for other people.
Speaker 1: You know, I have this balance.
Speaker 4: I you know, I think like one of the things
Speaker 4: about golf at a high level and for anybody that
Speaker 4: becomes like a golf sicko is it's all consuming, and
Speaker 4: I think that's actually for a pro golfer. One of
Speaker 4: the most challenging aspects of pro golf is the consumption
Speaker 4: that it takes up in your mind and the I
Speaker 4: think it's challenging, you know, if you if you flip
Speaker 4: the question and ask people ask you know a bunch
Speaker 4: of pro golfers was one of the more challenging aspects
Speaker 4: of their job. Besides hitting shots under pressure and playing
Speaker 4: good golf, it's turning turning it off at night because
Speaker 4: it it does consume you. And I think like it's
Speaker 4: one of the things about you know, the commentary that
Speaker 4: Scotti made about the game that I think it got
Speaker 4: taken multiple ways, and I think you can interpret it
Speaker 4: a lot of different ways, but the the reality of.
Speaker 1: I think it's a way.
Speaker 4: For him to to kind of compartmentalize and get away
Speaker 4: from the sport a little bit. When this sport like
Speaker 4: the hardest ask. One of the hardest aspects of it
Speaker 4: is just what it can do to your mind when
Speaker 4: you're not playing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I was seriously impressed with with the comments that
Speaker 3: he gave those those nuggets that he threw out their
Speaker 3: pre tournament and it's so interesting on social media as
Speaker 3: as a wild play, and it's interesting to see how,
Speaker 3: you know, what side of the equation people fall on.
Speaker 3: But I thought there was so much nuanced, so many
Speaker 3: layers to that statement that he gave that that I
Speaker 3: thought was so cool for a minute for him to
Speaker 3: take us inside his mind and the way he goes
Speaker 3: about things, whether you like it or not. I mean,
Speaker 3: this guy is he's already great. He's already Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3: He's already you know. My son asked me last night,
Speaker 3: I think he's now top ten to ever live, and
Speaker 3: I was like, I mean, it's we're probably not quite
Speaker 3: there yet. I would say he's he's he's edging in
Speaker 3: on top twenty, but at this clip, he's going to
Speaker 3: be top ten to ever live at some point unless
Speaker 3: something crazy happens. And for him to pull back the
Speaker 3: curtain for a few minutes and just take us inside
Speaker 3: how he goes about things, I thought was so special.
Speaker 3: And to understand the different layers of how he goes
Speaker 3: to think about, how he goes about thinking about his
Speaker 3: job and his game, and how he wants to improve,
Speaker 3: how he manages his life, how he manages the pressure
Speaker 3: and stress of being in the spotlight every time he
Speaker 3: pitches up at a golf tournament. I rarely appreciated that
Speaker 3: as a fan, and I appreciated that as someone who
Speaker 3: you know, has touched some sort of popularity at different
Speaker 3: points in my life and figuring out how to deal
Speaker 3: with that. You know, I'm not quite sure that human
Speaker 3: beings are perfectly capable of handling such intense fame. I mean,
Speaker 3: you look at the megastar throughout the years. Gosh, it's
Speaker 3: tough to deal with that mentally. And you know, basically,
Speaker 3: to me, if you had to boil it down to
Speaker 3: one statement or one point on those few minutes that
Speaker 3: he gave us, the thing that I took from it
Speaker 3: was he doesn't his identity is not wrapped up in
Speaker 3: his golf score. And I can't even begin to tell
Speaker 3: you how incredibly healthy that is, because I've lived on
Speaker 3: the other side of that, where you do tie your
Speaker 3: identity to your golf score, and it's no way to live,
Speaker 3: I could promise you. Because this sport is so demanding,
Speaker 3: so hard. You're isolated and alone in so many different
Speaker 3: ways that when you start to run down that rabbit
Speaker 3: hole of tying your identity to your score and where
Speaker 3: you finished. It's not a fun way to live. And
Speaker 3: this guy has gone in the complete opposite direction. And
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the main reasons why he
Speaker 3: is just completely unshakable. I mean, this is a dude
Speaker 3: that was stretching in a jail cell in case he
Speaker 3: had an opportunity to tear it up in the third
Speaker 3: round of the PGA or the second round of the PGA,
Speaker 3: whichever round it was. My memory fails me now, but
Speaker 3: he is just becoming a flat out assassin. A flat
Speaker 3: out assassin. He's now four for four converting fifty four
Speaker 3: hole leads in major championships. He's won his last ten
Speaker 3: tournaments when he's had a fifty four hole lead. Goy, man,
Speaker 3: this dude. I actually put this tweet out yesterday. You know,
Speaker 3: wherever you sit on the scale of understanding those comments
Speaker 3: he made, at the very least, maybe we all should
Speaker 3: take some time trying to understand what he said, because
Speaker 3: it's it's absolutely working he and I'm not just isolating
Speaker 3: the success and the great golf, but I'm isolating the
Speaker 3: moments after he won with his family the way he's
Speaker 3: handling is his son, the relationship he seems to have
Speaker 3: with his parents, the time he takes with the volunteers,
Speaker 3: taking photos with them and shaking their hand and having
Speaker 3: a laugh with with all of them, the relationship he
Speaker 3: has with with Ted, all those kinds of things. It
Speaker 3: he looks like he's he's so peaceful. It's like that.
Speaker 3: It's like that book in that movie, The Peaceful Warrior.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you ever watched watch that or
Speaker 3: read that book, but I have not. We'll put that
Speaker 3: on your list. But this dude is he's figured it out, man.
Speaker 1: I think in a way.
Speaker 4: I was just talking with some friends about this this
Speaker 4: weekend is and this was like a different conversation. But
Speaker 4: one of the things he's done. When I started working
Speaker 4: in the job force, my first job out of college,
Speaker 4: I worked in an office and I only had access
Speaker 4: to my work email through a work computer, and at
Speaker 4: that time, I didn't have a work laptop. So every
Speaker 4: day I would go, i would leave the office and
Speaker 4: it was off.
Speaker 1: Like nobody could get a hold of me.
Speaker 4: Except when I'm in was in the office, And I
Speaker 4: think about, like how wonderful that was to just like
Speaker 4: you know, this is part of society, right where like
Speaker 4: you're constant connectivity and you're never off. And I used
Speaker 4: to like I had a couple of year window of
Speaker 4: my life, like very short period of my life where
Speaker 4: I just left everything at work. And it feels like
Speaker 4: that's kind of what he's trying to do with his
Speaker 4: golf game and with his his faith and his family.
Speaker 4: You know, that's kind of like, you know what he said,
Speaker 4: you know, golf comes third after family and faith, and
Speaker 4: you know, whether you you know, agree how you feel
Speaker 4: about the commentary. I think there's just such a power
Speaker 4: when you when you play golf from a place of
Speaker 4: it not as you said, your life and how you
Speaker 4: feel is not wrapped up in golf is best played
Speaker 4: when you when you.
Speaker 1: Aren't like.
Speaker 4: So tied to the outcome and when it falls down
Speaker 4: the rank in your in your you know, importance. I've
Speaker 4: always thought like as somebody who's just played, you know, competitively,
Speaker 4: as a as like an amateur, like post like kids,
Speaker 4: golf got easier for me because it's like I got
Speaker 4: like all these other problems like this is like me
Speaker 4: hitting an approach shot left. It's like the least of
Speaker 4: the things that is bothering me, like you know, and
Speaker 4: it's like what he's doing by lowering it down his
Speaker 4: his life priority list is he's getting a mental edge
Speaker 4: over a lot of competitors that that haven't been able
Speaker 4: to compartmentalize the sport.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, to me, he you mentioned those three things.
Speaker 3: You know, he's mentioned those things. You know, family, family
Speaker 3: and friends is one group. Let's call it social life.
Speaker 3: His faith is one bucket, and then his business and
Speaker 3: get the game of golf is the third bucket. And
Speaker 3: I think way he's really struck gold in all of
Speaker 3: that is whichever bucket he's playing in of those three,
Speaker 3: he's one hundred percent present, And that I think, I
Speaker 3: think that's part of the secret. You know, I'm not
Speaker 3: ashamed to say I've been so consumed by the game
Speaker 3: at times, particularly when I was playing, that there would
Speaker 3: be times where you know, I was with my family,
Speaker 3: but I was still thinking about the game. I was
Speaker 3: still thinking about how I'm not driving the ball well enough,
Speaker 3: Am I using the right putter? Should I switch the
Speaker 3: shaft in my irons? You know, stuff like that. But
Speaker 3: he he seems so secure in himself that when he's
Speaker 3: playing in whichever bucket he is there one hundred percent
Speaker 3: and he's giving it one hundred percent focus, and then
Speaker 3: when he moves into the next bucket, he's able to
Speaker 3: leave the previous side alone for a little while and
Speaker 3: just be one hundred percent invested in that current space.
Speaker 3: It's awesome. And to be twenty nine years old and
Speaker 3: have it figured out that will already is uh, you
Speaker 3: got to tip your captain, you really, you really really do.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think, like, you know, one of the other aspects
Speaker 4: of it is the consistency of his team, the like
Speaker 4: the steadiness of it, like same instructor his entire life.
Speaker 1: I think there's uh, you.
Speaker 4: Know, obviously Ted Scott coming coming on was a big
Speaker 4: part of it is you know, his parents are around
Speaker 4: all the time and you know wife, wife, and now
Speaker 4: kid Ted Scott coming in.
Speaker 1: But then you think also about like.
Speaker 4: The lack of ego in the team where Randy Smith's
Speaker 4: been his coach for his whole life, and it's it's
Speaker 4: like this putting is an issue. Let's bring in another
Speaker 4: set of eyes and we're going to work with Phil
Speaker 4: Kenyon and we're going to work there and there it's
Speaker 4: seemingly you know, no issue. I imagine that sometimes can
Speaker 4: cause problems when you have multiple voices in your in
Speaker 4: your you know, coaching room.
Speaker 1: Per se.
Speaker 4: But you know you can hear him talk about Teddy
Speaker 4: and and like the preparedness of both of them, like
Speaker 4: where you know, I think he said something yesterday where
Speaker 4: it was effectively like listen, I know Ted's done as much,
Speaker 4: if not more work than me preparing for this tournament.
Speaker 4: And you know, the consistency of messaging, the pro the
Speaker 4: long term approach. It's just the totality of how he's
Speaker 4: gotten to this peak place, at the absolute peak point
Speaker 4: of his athleticism and mindset in his career. Right he
Speaker 4: is like in the middle of his prime, playing as
Speaker 4: good of golf as we've seen since Tiger Woods.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally agree with you, and it sort of
Speaker 3: mirrors everything I was just talking about about those three buckets.
Speaker 3: You know, he's got these people, He's got Randy, Phil,
Speaker 3: ted he's got his agent Blake, and once again, just
Speaker 3: like his family life, it's wholesome. There doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: be any tension there. None of those guys seem to
Speaker 3: bring massive egos to the table. That's helpful. All of
Speaker 3: them understand that Sheeffler is the star. They're not trying
Speaker 3: to be the star. You know, many times over the
Speaker 3: years you've seen caddies or coaches, or psychologists or physios
Speaker 3: to try to take some of the limelight when a
Speaker 3: player has success that doesn't happen here. They understand, this
Speaker 3: guy is the boss, this guy is the stud and
Speaker 3: they just take care of what their job is. And
Speaker 3: you know, I can't give Randy enough credit kudo's respect.
Speaker 3: You know, the job that he's done with Scotty since
Speaker 3: he was a young boy, shepherding him through growth, getting stronger,
Speaker 3: changing equipment through all those phases, and still maintaining this
Speaker 3: human being's incredible natural gift, God given gift, and aligning
Speaker 3: that with the supreme work ethic and great mental ability
Speaker 3: that Scotty has. Randy has done an incredible job with that.
Speaker 3: And they made a great choice when they bought Phil
Speaker 3: Kenyan into the team. And Phil is somebody that I
Speaker 3: rarely trust. I've worked with him in the past. He
Speaker 3: has amazing knowledge of putting, and he has the ability
Speaker 3: to give you the answers to the questions that you have.
Speaker 3: And the other thing I love about what the two
Speaker 3: of them have done if we just zoom in on
Speaker 3: the putting for a second, because the guy just was
Speaker 3: second in strokes gained and putting at a major championship.
Speaker 4: I was thinking about this as like, if he had
Speaker 4: his C game from tee to green, he still would
Speaker 4: have contended because of the way he putted.
Speaker 3: Absolutely right.
Speaker 1: I mean this the way that two.
Speaker 4: Years ago you would have been like this is there's
Speaker 4: no way he would ever contender unless he brings his
Speaker 4: B plus a game to a game.
Speaker 1: The way he puts the ball.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is for sure become a weapon now
Speaker 3: and in twenty twenty five, it's undeniable that you know
Speaker 3: he's actually become one of the better putters, especially when
Speaker 3: you throw in the intangible. You know, data can take
Speaker 3: you so far. It doesn't always take you all the
Speaker 3: way from an understanding standpoint, but especially when you start
Speaker 3: to bake in the fact that he's always putting under
Speaker 3: pressure because he's always in the hunt. You know, you
Speaker 3: can kind of fake nice putting when you're hiding in
Speaker 3: the middle of the field or you're hiding in twentieth
Speaker 3: position at times and you don't have that real intense
Speaker 3: pressure where you know you're in the lead and all
Speaker 3: the focus is on you, and your whole body is
Speaker 3: shaking while you're hitting these putts. And you know, it's
Speaker 3: extremely impressive how well he's putted, being in contention pretty
Speaker 3: much every round that he plays, and the way they've
Speaker 3: gone about this with Phil, the patience they've shown. You know,
Speaker 3: a lot of people like to say it was Rory's
Speaker 3: idea when he went to the mallet. Actually, when you
Speaker 3: speak to Scotty and his team and you speak to
Speaker 3: the guys a tailor made, he had been playing around
Speaker 3: with that mallet for quite some time, but they just
Speaker 3: couldn't quite because he was used to putting with a blade.
Speaker 3: He was used to the cig being really far forward,
Speaker 3: like on the top line, and as soon as you
Speaker 3: start to go to a mallet, that cig starts to
Speaker 3: slide back a little bit and the putter behaves differently
Speaker 3: as it should. It's a totally different shape and look.
Speaker 3: And so they had been playing around with it for
Speaker 3: a little while, but the patients they showed between going
Speaker 3: to the mallet bleeding in the claw grip to a
Speaker 3: point now to where he's just so comfortable with all
Speaker 3: of it and the stroke and the tempo and the alignment.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's getting to a point now to where
Speaker 3: it kind of looks automatic when he puts. It doesn't
Speaker 3: look like he's getting over these putts and rarely trying hard,
Speaker 3: rarely thinking a lot, like just being burdened by thought of,
Speaker 3: you know, let me get the shaft up, let me
Speaker 3: make my shirt groups doing this and make sure the
Speaker 3: potter HiT's not going back inside what have you. He
Speaker 3: just seems to be into the pott, into the line,
Speaker 3: into the feel of it, and he's just rolling the
Speaker 3: ball beautifully. So once again there you know, that combination,
Speaker 3: that part of the team. They've done such a brilliant job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I you know, I hadn't thought about the idea
Speaker 4: of like the putting in the context of when he's
Speaker 4: putting every week, because it's so true. You see, it's
Speaker 4: so often like you see these great you have these
Speaker 4: great putting performances, or you have these great putters, and
Speaker 4: it comes Sunday and it just like they stop falling,
Speaker 4: you know, or it's you know, the putter goes cold
Speaker 4: and and it's totally a different feel, totally different mindset.
Speaker 4: I think, like just from like the eye test, right,
Speaker 4: I it's he's a guy that when he gets inside
Speaker 4: of fifteen feet now you kind of expect it to
Speaker 4: go in or it's going to scare the hole. And
Speaker 4: that that to me is like the it's like you
Speaker 4: always think about like different putters, is like, am I am?
Speaker 1: I scared?
Speaker 4: It's going in, like from almost anywhere. And I think
Speaker 4: that's like that ten to twenty foot er. I feel
Speaker 4: like he makes a couple of them around And obviously
Speaker 4: he gives himself so many looks.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing. But you know his ability to.
Speaker 4: People talk about his strategy a lot. Oh, he's like
Speaker 4: so smart. Look at the targets he hits.
Speaker 1: He plays too. I think what goes under the radar
Speaker 1: with his strategy and this is.
Speaker 4: I think it's showing in his putting now, which didn't before,
Speaker 4: probably because of confidence you know, in there, but his
Speaker 4: commitment to targets I think doesn't get talked about maybe enough.
Speaker 1: When you watch.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, I know that I should play there's
Speaker 4: this backpin on this narrow green, and I should play
Speaker 4: ten ten feet left of this pin that's tucked on
Speaker 4: the right side. I know I should play there. But
Speaker 4: it to me, what is fascinating. Is it feels like
Speaker 4: he is one hunder committed because so many people pick
Speaker 4: a target and then the next challenge you pick the
Speaker 4: right target becomes can I commit to hitting it to
Speaker 4: that target and not subconsciously knowing that I can bail
Speaker 4: out twenty five feet short left of this target? And
Speaker 4: that's like, you know, really like the safe place of miss.
Speaker 1: Like what what.
Speaker 4: Boggles my mind when I when I really think about it,
Speaker 4: is that, like how often he is able to not
Speaker 4: only pick the right target, but then one hundred percent
Speaker 4: commit to these extraordinarily difficult shots that he is hitting
Speaker 4: to the right target when there's like a very small
Speaker 4: margin of error right, And I think this is where putting,
Speaker 4: you know, so much of putting becomes Okay, I'm set
Speaker 4: up right, I've picked my line, and now I'm committing
Speaker 4: to it and not having this you know, golfers just
Speaker 4: know where they can bail out and where they they
Speaker 4: can play away and avoid risk. And with his show,
Speaker 4: but like he hits to these targets that are just
Speaker 4: in every time it's pin high. It's just unbelievable to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a couple things that you know, while we talk
Speaker 3: about the putting, and earlier you mentioned he seems to
Speaker 3: be making you know, two to three twenty thirty foot
Speaker 3: is around at least in twenty twenty five, I saw
Speaker 3: the stat he was fifty nine or sixty three from
Speaker 3: ten feeting in this week. You know, you get a
Speaker 3: guy that hits the ball that accurately with that amount
Speaker 3: of control, and then he's only missed four putts from
Speaker 3: ten feeting in the whole week. There's just no way
Speaker 3: you're going to get anywhere near him. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: going to blow the field away every single time that happens.
Speaker 3: And to me, what I'm really starting to see, and
Speaker 3: I've seen this from McElroy in the last maybe eighteen
Speaker 3: months or so as well, when you start to see
Speaker 3: a player that's really good at something. So both of
Speaker 3: those guys are really great ball strikers, and both of them,
Speaker 3: ironically at times have not been great putters. And you
Speaker 3: see the differences between how they go about putting and
Speaker 3: how they go about the long game, which is their
Speaker 3: ultimate strength. And in both those cases, with Macroy and Scheffler,
Speaker 3: you're starting to see now a similar routine, a similar
Speaker 3: timing standpoint, a similar clarity of thought, when they put
Speaker 3: as they do when they hit the ball, and so
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, those things are starting to meld
Speaker 3: together beautifully, and they're looking so comfortable on the greens.
Speaker 3: And you know, that's a tough spot for any of
Speaker 3: their competitors to have to deal with, because the both
Speaker 3: of them have turned what was their weakness into a strength.
Speaker 3: And when you talk about the commitment of the target
Speaker 3: picking and the strategy and that kind of stuff, you know,
Speaker 3: I've been really, really lucky throughout my career to spend
Speaker 3: quite a bit of time with Jack and with Tiger.
Speaker 3: And the one thing that those too greats and legends
Speaker 3: always talk about when you talk to them about the
Speaker 3: game of golf is discipline. And Scotty shows that discipline
Speaker 3: the same way that those two guys did, an uncanny
Speaker 3: ability to know when to play smart or safe, but
Speaker 3: also when it's time to put your foot on the
Speaker 3: gas and show how much better you are than the
Speaker 3: rest of the field. And that's a beautiful thing to me.
Speaker 3: And that's why I can see him slowly but surely.
Speaker 3: I know it's early. I know life happens, I know
Speaker 3: injuries happen. I know that better than anybody, I see
Speaker 3: him slowly but surely starting to edge his way to
Speaker 3: their level. I'm talking about Tiger and Jack, and the
Speaker 3: thing that really jumped out to me a perfect example
Speaker 3: of what we're talking about. Two holes two, part three.
Speaker 3: So it's six right where they play back away from
Speaker 3: the ocean on Saturday, a beautiful, beautiful little path three
Speaker 3: there with the green that has like this finger in
Speaker 3: the back right. And on Saturday, all the leaders were
Speaker 3: hitting a really nice shot to thirty eight or forty
Speaker 3: feet short where the fat part of the green is
Speaker 3: because it's got these fall offs on both sides, and
Speaker 3: you're really just trying to get it up on the deck.
Speaker 3: And if you get out there with a par you're
Speaker 3: doing good. You're perfectly happy. You've got seven, which is
Speaker 3: a reachable par five, and you've just had vibes. It's
Speaker 3: a drivable part four. And Shepler stands up and he's
Speaker 3: got the lead and he HiT's like an off pace
Speaker 3: ten yard fade into this back finger and you're just thinking, gosh,
Speaker 3: like no one else is really he either got that
Speaker 3: shot or has the guts in that moment to take
Speaker 3: on that shot because of the risk involved. But it
Speaker 3: was a moment to where he was like, yeah, I
Speaker 3: got the shot, and I have no problem hitting it
Speaker 3: right here. And it just made me think back to
Speaker 3: some of the things that Jack has said to me
Speaker 3: when when I spent time with him, was he would
Speaker 3: never take on a shot unless he felt like he
Speaker 3: could pull it off eight out of ten times. But
Speaker 3: if he did feel like he could pull it off
Speaker 3: eight out of ten times, he was going to go
Speaker 3: for it, and he was going to trust his ability
Speaker 3: and the work that he had put in. And that
Speaker 3: was a great moment there where where I just sat
Speaker 3: back in my chair at home and I was like, Gali,
Speaker 3: this guy is he's got something that the others don't have.
Speaker 3: And the other spot was on the other nine on sixteen,
Speaker 3: which is an extremely demanding Part three.
Speaker 1: The way you played that hole, oh week, go, it's silly.
Speaker 3: He played that hole under par. You know, it's a
Speaker 3: two three four one. You see some guys hitting hitting
Speaker 3: hybrids and lumber and seven woods in there, and he's
Speaker 3: hit it inside of twenty feet every single day.
Speaker 4: I mean, he effectively picked up five shots on the
Speaker 4: field on that hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all week, And I just I I think something
Speaker 1: that you've seen.
Speaker 4: I saw a graft that was going around from day
Speaker 4: to golf yesterday where it's just basically like at Major's,
Speaker 4: Scottie just elevates to a different level and it's like
Speaker 4: the thing about this whole situation, and this was so
Speaker 4: similar with Tiger. The harder of the golf course is
Speaker 4: or the heart of the shot, and the sixteenth was
Speaker 4: an encapsulation of this. That's the hardest shot on that
Speaker 4: golf course.
Speaker 1: Is the sixteenth hole.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the sixteenth t shot, the sixth the whole location
Speaker 4: on sixth that you talk about another like ten out
Speaker 4: of ten shot. Now, I will just put a caveat both.
Speaker 4: Those are like perfect stock go to Scottie shots. They're
Speaker 4: fades like but extraordinarily high difficulty shots.
Speaker 1: And those those are.
Speaker 4: Just the moments he's going to separate more than any
Speaker 4: other way.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: It's why actually, like the Craig Ranch win, that he
Speaker 4: blew out the field on a golf course that's like
Speaker 4: super unpenal might be his most impressive victory of the
Speaker 4: year because it was a golf course where he doesn't
Speaker 4: just like lift and separate. It's why Memorial seemingly every
Speaker 4: year he plays it, he's going to be in the
Speaker 4: mix because it's extremely demanding golf course. The more demanding
Speaker 4: that you the questions that are being asked the just
Speaker 4: the more he's going to separate because he is at
Speaker 4: such as I mean, it's just like the level of
Speaker 4: play is out of this world with irons.
Speaker 1: The iron play is just it's astounding.
Speaker 3: You know, well you you, you know, while we're on
Speaker 3: the comparison and we're talking about Rory at the same time,
Speaker 3: when you think about Rory's game, you know, where does
Speaker 3: he rarely step up and separate himself. It's off the
Speaker 3: tee and it's with long iron, so it's basically from
Speaker 3: two hundred yards out to three forty or whatever. He
Speaker 3: hits his driver right. What did he do on the weekend?
Speaker 3: At sixteen? He missed the green to the right both times.
Speaker 3: And this is either the best of the second best
Speaker 3: long iron player in the game. So just start to
Speaker 3: consider how much Scotty separated himself from Rory just at
Speaker 3: sixteen where he hits it inside of twenty feet both times,
Speaker 3: and Rory missed the green to the right. Two brilliant
Speaker 3: up and downs. But still when you miss the green
Speaker 3: to the right there. I mean, it's luck of the drawer.
Speaker 3: What's it a lie? You're going to get? How far
Speaker 3: down the bank that ball is going to roll? And
Speaker 3: Scotty's just flying these hot cuts in there, you know,
Speaker 3: landing the ball within a couple of yards of where
Speaker 3: he's picturing it. Ah, it's fun to watch, man, It's
Speaker 3: so much fun to watch. And the fact that he's
Speaker 3: just twenty nine and you know, hopefully we we got
Speaker 3: another decade of watching him. It's it's gonna be a
Speaker 3: real fun ride.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, I there's a lot there.
Speaker 4: I think, like we talked about after the Masters, I
Speaker 4: think what's interesting about the two of them and I hope,
Speaker 4: like you know, we've had some great major duels over
Speaker 4: the last few years, you know, Bryson and Rory at Pinehurst,
Speaker 4: you know Phil and and Stenson, Brooks and Phil at
Speaker 4: at Kiwa. Like I think one of the hopes would
Speaker 4: be for you know, I think Rory probably had his
Speaker 4: big game. I think he's like rounding into form into
Speaker 4: like like where if he had had a month more
Speaker 4: of playing at this level, you might have seen that
Speaker 4: duel happen.
Speaker 1: But like what I.
Speaker 4: Noted, what you note, like what was unmistakable about this event.
Speaker 4: When you watch Rory, who who had his probably be game,
Speaker 4: he would have been contending if Scotty's not there right,
Speaker 4: would have really been contending late on a Sunday. But
Speaker 4: like what you saw was just the looks that Rory
Speaker 4: was consistently having at Port Rush were ten feet further
Speaker 4: away than the looks that Scotty consistently got, you know,
Speaker 4: and and you know that that's the iron plays just
Speaker 4: at this incredible level. I think after the Masters we
Speaker 4: talked about like the shot on the shot on fifteen
Speaker 4: that Rory hit at the Masters is probably a shot
Speaker 4: that only he could hit because of his his his
Speaker 4: natural propensity to draw a golf ball, and that was
Speaker 4: a shot Scotty had a similar shot, couldn't hit it
Speaker 4: on Sunday at the Masters. But likewise, that shot on
Speaker 4: sixteen just it is one of the hardest shots in golf.
Speaker 1: But it's also that that.
Speaker 4: Shape is a perfect fade yeah shape, And that's a
Speaker 4: shot where you know, because his stock shot and this
Speaker 4: is like just one of those nerdy things about golf.
Speaker 4: What he sees is that shot and it makes it
Speaker 4: a little bit more comfortable. But what both of them
Speaker 4: can do. And it's like these two have separated themselves
Speaker 4: very extensively in the owgr I mean the distance between
Speaker 4: Rory and Xander, the distance between Scotty and Rory is huge.
Speaker 4: The distance between Rory and Xander is now huge. But Xander,
Speaker 4: you could throw in this bucket too. These three guys,
Speaker 4: they hit draws and fades with approach shots all the time.
Speaker 4: M hm, Paul McGinley on Live from Mask Scotty, you know,
Speaker 4: are you Are you hitting shots both ways like all
Speaker 4: the time. It just depends, you know, off the t
Speaker 4: I don't think Scotty really moves the ball both ways.
Speaker 4: I think that's probably like the one thing is that
Speaker 4: wind off the left gave him trouble all week, and
Speaker 4: he went on Sunday, you know, talk about adjustments, went
Speaker 4: to three wood so he could turn it a little
Speaker 4: bit more on.
Speaker 3: Those you'll draw the three wood.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so on those holes with that off the left,
Speaker 4: he seemed to hit threewood a lot yesterday. But with
Speaker 4: Scotty he said, yeah, I'm I'm Dick. The shot shape
Speaker 4: is dictated by the situation. I'm comfortable hitting both shapes.
Speaker 4: Rory comfortable hitting both shapes. Xander comfortable hitting both shapes.
Speaker 4: Where has Bryson gotten in trouble this year is when
Speaker 4: the draw is just drawing too much because that's his shape, right,
Speaker 4: Like you think about it, the pervasive thought in golf instruction,
Speaker 4: especially like with juniors and like how to maximize your
Speaker 4: best tomorrow is just play one shape and own it.
Speaker 4: Just play one shape and own it. One of the
Speaker 4: things that was resounding to me yesterday was the long
Speaker 4: term approach. I think if you try and play and
Speaker 4: try and learn how to hit both shapes, you are sacrificed,
Speaker 4: sacrificing how good you might be in a month or
Speaker 4: six months, you know, because you're gonna you're gonna own
Speaker 4: your one shape and that's I hit a fade. Well,
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna hit a fade every single time. But
Speaker 4: the thing that like players like Scotty and I, you know,
Speaker 4: their natural gifts and talent are undeniable. But by hitting
Speaker 4: all the shapes, hitting both ways, with with the with
Speaker 4: the approach shots, they've unlocked a ceiling that is in
Speaker 4: a different stratosphere because they can get to whole locations.
Speaker 4: And we saw this all weekend with Scotty just taking
Speaker 4: on whole location nobody else was taking on, as you
Speaker 4: alluded to, and that was just such a long term
Speaker 4: view of like where we're getting to. You know, we
Speaker 4: are trying, and I think that's the thing. One of
Speaker 4: the other things that I keep going back to is
Speaker 4: Scottie talking about what Randy Smith used to say to
Speaker 4: him as a kid, We're trying to build the best
Speaker 4: golfer at twenty five. We're not trying to be the
Speaker 4: best at seventeen. And I feel like this, like instant
Speaker 4: gratification and culture were in the idea of like maximizing
Speaker 4: who you are tomorrow you lose sight of where you
Speaker 4: want to be. And now you see Scotty Scheffler aged
Speaker 4: twenty nine as good as we've seen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it goes back to what we were
Speaker 3: talking about earlier, the patients and the intelligence and brilliance
Speaker 3: that that partnership has shown of the last I mean,
Speaker 3: what's it. What is he twenty nine? I don't know
Speaker 3: when he started with Randy. He's probably just a teenager
Speaker 3: or maybe even before that, So you know we're talking
Speaker 3: more than a decade. Just so smart the way they've
Speaker 3: gone about it, and I totally agree with you if
Speaker 3: you're wanting to improve your game. You know, anybody that's
Speaker 3: out there listening to this at whatever level, or even
Speaker 3: young pros trying to solidify their place on a tour somewhere. Yes,
Speaker 3: you need to own one shot and you can get
Speaker 3: to a particular place and have success if you own
Speaker 3: one shot. But with these two guys, I mean we're
Speaker 3: talking about elite, elite level, and it's the reason that
Speaker 3: they've been able to separate themselves. And you throw Xander
Speaker 3: into that bucket as well. You're right, Bryson. We don't
Speaker 3: see many fades from We see mainly draws, and then
Speaker 3: on the other side of the spectrum, with a guy
Speaker 3: like Moricauo, who's had a lot of success, you see
Speaker 3: only fades and you see hardly any draws. But these
Speaker 3: two or three guys, Xander to a slightly lesser extent
Speaker 3: because he has been bugged by this injury in twenty
Speaker 3: five so we haven't quite seen him at full stride yet,
Speaker 3: but those three, for sure, they have that ability. And
Speaker 3: it's not just the working of the ball with Scotty
Speaker 3: that I found so impressive. And you go back to
Speaker 3: the Scottish Open as we were finishing off that broadcast,
Speaker 3: and you know he turned out another top ten.
Speaker 1: Almost last in the field and putting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean just with like his d game. It
Speaker 3: felt like no disrespect to any of the others that
Speaker 3: played well, but he was just like in second gear
Speaker 3: and he hadn't really hadn't rarely put his foot on
Speaker 3: the gas at all. I actually said to Jim Nantz,
Speaker 3: I said to him, you know, this is going to
Speaker 3: be so interesting. You're observe him this week and you
Speaker 3: foreshaded to the Open. It's really the only question mark
Speaker 3: I still have left with Scheffler. Okay, his green side
Speaker 3: bunker play can be a little bit shaky at times.
Speaker 3: You know, we've seen him in a couple of shanks
Speaker 3: out of green side bunkers. I mean, you look at
Speaker 3: the stats. He's seventy fifth on tour, which is not
Speaker 3: terrible at all. He's still the road gaining strokes. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's middle of the road. But when you compared to
Speaker 3: the others where he's like number one or two in
Speaker 3: every category, the green side bunker play is something. But
Speaker 3: what I said was, you know, can he conquer links
Speaker 3: golf and can he figure that out? Because he has
Speaker 3: this mindset where and you guys have this this bit
Speaker 3: about it where you know he wants everything to be fair.
Speaker 3: You know, when he hits a ball down the middle,
Speaker 3: he wants it to finish down the middle. He doesn't
Speaker 3: like it if it lands on a knoll and kicks
Speaker 3: into the first cut on the left. Like to him,
Speaker 3: that's it's very hard to process that. And here is
Speaker 3: you know, he comes to a a famous golf course,
Speaker 3: an iconic golf course at Royal Port Rush, and he's
Speaker 3: moving the ball both ways, he's taking speed off, he's
Speaker 3: heating little chip shots with the irons. I mean, think
Speaker 3: about the shot he hit into number one yesterday. You know,
Speaker 3: you are in that moment, so so so nervous about
Speaker 3: the next four hours and what could possibly unfoldw and
Speaker 3: playing with a big lead is not easy because at
Speaker 3: that point it's yours to lose, and when you lose one,
Speaker 3: that's all everybody's going to talk about. It's much easier
Speaker 3: coming from behind because in a certain sense, it's just
Speaker 3: foot on the gas, hope to get on a run,
Speaker 3: Hope that the leader falls down and stumbles somehow. When
Speaker 3: you're going out there protecting a big lead or playing
Speaker 3: with a big lead. Gosh that the heat is even
Speaker 3: more intense. And he steps up on the first hole
Speaker 3: out of the first cut with the whole locations cut
Speaker 3: just off of a ridge, and he hits a little
Speaker 3: half chippy cut nine iron that gets the correct trajectory
Speaker 3: to skip up the ridge into that shoulder on the
Speaker 3: right and feed down to a foot. I mean, how
Speaker 3: do you play.
Speaker 4: Against this guy, especially he did that right after his
Speaker 4: playing partners nearest competitor stuffed it in there like four feet.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sitting you know, I wasn't quite like
Speaker 3: you on your schedule, waking up at two am to
Speaker 3: watch you. I was over at Port Rush Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Speaker 3: I got home Thursday night and so I was setting
Speaker 3: my alarm for seven am here on the East Coast
Speaker 3: and then I would watch from then. And you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sitting there watching this first hole of the day
Speaker 3: and he hits that shot. He manufactures that shot, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, gosh, these guys have got no chance, and
Speaker 3: it's quite quite funny, you know. I had a little
Speaker 3: fun on social media when he started to get things
Speaker 3: going on Friday. So I posted something on x at
Speaker 3: around around noon Eastern on Friday, where I was like
Speaker 3: the engravers already put the s on the cleric jug. Gosh,
Speaker 3: the comments were hilarious. I mean people were offended that
Speaker 3: I could have that take and have that opinion. But
Speaker 3: you could just start to see it. When he gets
Speaker 3: into this flow, in this zone, you're gonna need like
Speaker 3: something extremely untoward happened for him not to win, like
Speaker 3: food poisoning, like jamming his wrist on a root or
Speaker 3: something like that. His back's gonna have to go out
Speaker 3: something like that when he gets into that zone and
Speaker 3: that flow.
Speaker 1: Hard to well it.
Speaker 4: You know, it's if he has I think it's like
Speaker 4: boils down to at this point because of the level
Speaker 4: that the tee to Green game is effectively at every week.
Speaker 4: It boils down to does he have two good putting rounds?
Speaker 4: If he puts well twice, it's kind of curtains. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And you saw it on Saturday, you know, on the
Speaker 4: Shotgut Start. We were talking on Saturday night about this
Speaker 4: and you just aart like, you know, you're trying to
Speaker 4: make the case of like who could do something, and
Speaker 4: it's you know, you get to a point where I
Speaker 4: said to Brendan I said, if he shoots even par,
Speaker 4: does anybody get to fourteen?
Speaker 1: Because I think, like, what was crazy?
Speaker 4: One of the crazy things that happened this weekend was
Speaker 4: like people like got their knives out for the golf
Speaker 4: course because this was happening. There was no wind and
Speaker 4: this golf course like you're sitting at a point where
Speaker 4: you know there's no wind and on we're talking on
Speaker 4: Saturday night, is can anybody get to fourteen? And the
Speaker 4: resounding like the the the agreement was, no, nobody's going
Speaker 4: to get to fourteen, and they didn't and they didn't,
Speaker 4: And like the golf course was, it was such a
Speaker 4: good It was such a good fit whether it was
Speaker 4: windy or not windy. It was such a good fit
Speaker 4: for Scottie because of the demand that the Green Greens
Speaker 4: placed on the approach shots. I thought, I was curious
Speaker 4: you were that was Was that your first time out there?
Speaker 1: No? I worked.
Speaker 3: I worked the previous open there for Golf Channel, so
Speaker 3: that was the second time I've been there.
Speaker 4: You never played there in an open? But where where
Speaker 4: where do you kind of what do you think? What
Speaker 4: are your overall thoughts of the venue and where it
Speaker 4: kind of sits with it with other roto venues.
Speaker 3: I thoroughly enjoy it. I think it's awesome. I think
Speaker 3: it asks many different questions. You have holes moving in
Speaker 3: all directions, dog leg rights, dog leg lefts. You have
Speaker 3: straight holes.
Speaker 1: You have.
Speaker 3: Greens predominantly perched up with fall offs on the side.
Speaker 3: Not too many pot bunkers, but they are extremely well placed.
Speaker 3: You've got a couple times where out of bounds really
Speaker 3: comes into play. Think about one, you think about four,
Speaker 3: you think about eighteen. Not so much because you can
Speaker 3: just gear back and it doesn't really bring it into
Speaker 3: play over the back of five didn't really present itself
Speaker 3: as much of an issue for these guys this week.
Speaker 3: And you know, the holes in different directions all the time,
Speaker 3: and so the way the wind switches on you and
Speaker 3: how you have to deal with that is changing and
Speaker 3: keeping you on your toes. Now, did we have a
Speaker 3: lot of wind, No, but we had We had ten
Speaker 3: miles an hour for the most part throughout the week,
Speaker 3: which is enough to cause some havoc and create some doubt.
Speaker 3: I think it's a brilliant venue for spectators, a lot
Speaker 3: of great viewing spots. It's so picturesque and beautiful and
Speaker 3: the aerial shots are amazing, particularly when the sun peaks out,
Speaker 3: and I think it's a marvelous venue. I rarely do.
Speaker 3: I thoroughly enjoyed both times being there. The people, the
Speaker 3: people are so into it, you know, in that Port
Speaker 3: Rush Bush Mills area. It's it's great.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 4: It's a delightful area. It's beautiful, and uh yeah, the
Speaker 4: people are great too. It's it's it's a I think
Speaker 4: that it's it's funny because, like I think, people too often.
Speaker 4: I think there were some analytics that people fell in
Speaker 4: love with. But if you watch the golf and watch
Speaker 4: the shots, like the guy you think about Rory with
Speaker 4: his B game, he was effectively bunched in with other
Speaker 4: great players playing great. You know, your Harris English is
Speaker 4: your Fitzpatricks. And then you had Scotti Scheffler, the best
Speaker 4: player in the world, playing at an extremely high level,
Speaker 4: and he's able to just push up, get away. And
Speaker 4: I think a venue should allow you to get away
Speaker 4: from the field. I mean, that's what you want in
Speaker 4: terms of like if you're talking about a championship test, right,
Speaker 4: you want the ability to these players, you know, excel
Speaker 4: and I think you know that's I I'm curious when
Speaker 4: it'll go back there. But uh, if you get if
Speaker 4: you got that wind blown twenty five instead of fifteen,
Speaker 4: I mean that you get those middle stretch holes and
Speaker 4: that's all you can all you can ask for out
Speaker 4: of a golf course and what it can do to you,
Speaker 4: you know, it'll it'll be you know. I think the
Speaker 4: other thing that uh stood out is you know, obviously
Speaker 4: and I think this is going to be like kind
Speaker 4: of a something that all these guys have to deal
Speaker 4: with in the future, is they're going to have to
Speaker 4: answer questions about Scotty.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that's like one of the happening for your generation.
Speaker 4: It was answering questions about Tiger. And it's not only
Speaker 4: that you're getting your ass kicked by the guy all week,
Speaker 4: but then you get done with your week and you
Speaker 4: have to answer questions about him. And I thought, you know,
Speaker 4: we talked about this after the PGA, but Jordan Speith
Speaker 4: kind of hit the nail on the head. I'm sure
Speaker 4: you saw this. Yeah, I'll read this here. He doesn't
Speaker 4: care to be a superstar. He's not transcending the game
Speaker 4: like Tiger did. He's not bringing it to non golf audience. Necessarily.
Speaker 4: He doesn't want to go do the stuff that a
Speaker 4: lot of us go do corporately, anything like that. He
Speaker 4: just wants to get away from the game and separate
Speaker 4: the two because I know that he at one time
Speaker 4: he felt like it was too much and that he
Speaker 4: was taking it with him. And whenever he made that switch,
Speaker 4: I don't know what it was. But he has hobbies,
Speaker 4: he always he's always with his family, They're always doing stuff.
Speaker 4: I think it's more so the difference of personality from
Speaker 4: any other superstar that you've seen in the modern era.
Speaker 4: And I would say, yeah, and he says and maybe
Speaker 4: in any sport. I totally agree with this. I don't
Speaker 4: think anybody is like him.
Speaker 3: M yep. I mean, it's exactly what we spoke about earlier.
Speaker 3: He's just, you know, and let's be real, you know,
Speaker 3: he's a human being. And I can confident it confidently
Speaker 3: say that any human being is going to face adversity
Speaker 3: at some point in their life, you know, whether it
Speaker 3: be in your work, with your family, you know, nobody
Speaker 3: is exempt from that. But he just seems to have
Speaker 3: everything in such a good place right now. And I
Speaker 3: totally agree with what Jordan says there, He's not And
Speaker 3: Scotty tried to tell us this on Wednesday. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's not doing this for the fame. He's not doing
Speaker 3: this for the notoriety. He's doing this because he loves
Speaker 3: the game. It's a it's a way for him to
Speaker 3: provide for his family. And then most importantly in that
Speaker 3: zone is he loves to compete. He loves to compete.
Speaker 3: And the opportunity for him to play in the biggest championships,
Speaker 3: on the biggest stages, at the best venues and test
Speaker 3: himself and test the work that he has done throughout
Speaker 3: his life. He gets a serious kick out of that.
Speaker 3: And gosh, you know it's it must be awesome to
Speaker 3: have your life simplified to that extent. It must be
Speaker 3: quite freeing.
Speaker 4: I think, like everybody, every human deals with like the
Speaker 4: disease and more the disease of wanting more.
Speaker 1: For him.
Speaker 4: I'd love to know the the you know, potential dollar
Speaker 4: figure of money right now that he's leaving on the
Speaker 4: table by keeping his as as speech alluded to his
Speaker 4: corporate sponsor responsibility very low. I mean, you're talking about
Speaker 4: probably tens of millions of dollars a year that he
Speaker 4: is passing on for sure, to keep this simplicity. He
Speaker 4: understands what he needs to put in, what he needs
Speaker 4: to put in at home for this recipe, this, you know,
Speaker 4: this cocktail that he has created. I don't I don't
Speaker 4: think that people and I hope people talk about this more.
Speaker 4: He is leaving so much money on the table. And
Speaker 4: there you're gonna say, oh, he makes so much money
Speaker 4: on the golf course. Sure, but this is his peak
Speaker 4: earning window and he is bypassing know, tens of millions
Speaker 4: of dollars a year to have this sort of balance
Speaker 4: and that that's also it's disciplined in a different form.
Speaker 4: We've talked about his discipline on his golf on the
Speaker 4: golf course, discipline with his process of practicing. This is
Speaker 4: a this is a different This might be the hardest
Speaker 4: discipline that he's exercising is passing up heaps of money.
Speaker 1: In order to keep the balance.
Speaker 4: It's it's a It's an incredible long range view because
Speaker 4: if he keeps competing and playing at this level, he
Speaker 4: will make you know, as he ascends that list, he
Speaker 4: will his his earnings down the line of being a
Speaker 4: top eight player or top five player of all time
Speaker 4: will far surpass if he cashes in for the next
Speaker 4: three years and his game dips.
Speaker 3: Totally agree. It is great discipline and he's it's great clarity.
Speaker 3: You know, he's figured out that this is the formula
Speaker 3: that is going to help him play his best golf
Speaker 3: week in and week out, and he's not budgeting from that.
Speaker 3: You know, we do need to be honest though and
Speaker 3: state that players in this era now have that option
Speaker 3: because of the amount of money that they play for
Speaker 3: week in and week out, the bonus structures through the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour, wherever you play. Really they now have that
Speaker 3: option because if you have the ability that Scotty or
Speaker 3: Rory or Xander, any of these big dogs have, you
Speaker 3: know you're going to be making a lot, so you
Speaker 3: can start to cut down on some of the other stuff,
Speaker 3: Whereas previous generations weren't always afforded that or weren't afforded
Speaker 3: that same situation, so you had to think a little
Speaker 3: more outside the box from you know, ways to generate income.
Speaker 3: But it's like a it's like a perfect storm for him,
Speaker 3: where the way that professional golf is currently structured suits
Speaker 3: his personality and his idea to a tee where he
Speaker 3: can keep the main thing the main thing, and that
Speaker 3: is maintaining and improving this incredible level of play. And
Speaker 3: if he does that, the amount of money that he's
Speaker 3: going to make and has made is is it's unfathomable
Speaker 3: rarely for normal people. And I hope that doesn't sound bad,
Speaker 3: but it's just where he's at.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about Don Sky stuff. Now that we've hit
Speaker 4: the hour mark here.
Speaker 3: Hey, I thought he's a has to be boring And
Speaker 3: we just spoke about him for an hour and no problem,
Speaker 3: and we could probably do another hour and no problem.
Speaker 1: So I thought this.
Speaker 4: You know, it's actually similar like a couple of last
Speaker 4: year Nelly corn A discourse was like she needs to
Speaker 4: do more for the women's game off the course, and
Speaker 4: and I always used to say, you know, what she
Speaker 4: just needs to do is just keep winning. That's the
Speaker 4: best thing she can do. And you know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of talk and I I mean, I'm I'm someone
Speaker 4: that probably over the you know, I wish we got
Speaker 4: a little bit more. I think we're getting more from
Speaker 4: Scheffler every week. He's getting more comfortable, he's talking more,
Speaker 4: we're learning more about him. But like the best thing,
Speaker 4: you know, the if he just keeps winning, it just
Speaker 4: gets more and more interesting, you know, in terms of
Speaker 4: the historical context in the mountain he's climbing.
Speaker 3: I think the way people pose questions to him is
Speaker 3: very important. It's interesting what he decides to bite on
Speaker 3: and and and then dive in a couple more layers
Speaker 3: and give us a little bit more. But if you
Speaker 3: ask questions just on the top layer, he's just not
Speaker 3: going to give you much. I mean, you've got to
Speaker 3: find a way to dig in there a little bit.
Speaker 3: Otherwise he's just going to give you, you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of nothing.
Speaker 4: I think there's comfort with Like the other aspect of
Speaker 4: that long response he gave early in the week was
Speaker 4: the question came from Doug ferguson, who's you know, the
Speaker 4: AP Golf writer who's at almost every tournament, who is
Speaker 4: at almost every single press conference. These players give different
Speaker 4: answers to people that are comfortable with who are asking. Sometimes,
Speaker 4: like you can see a player light up because somebody
Speaker 4: is asking the person who's asking the question, they want
Speaker 4: to help out and give an answer to, you know,
Speaker 4: And I think like he laughed about like Dougs, you know,
Speaker 4: or later in the week he said something like Doug's
Speaker 4: always asking to make questions and dumb questions, you know,
Speaker 4: like it is saying that from like a spot of respect, right,
Speaker 4: Like there is part of that is the familiarity. And
Speaker 4: you know there's been so much about golf media and
Speaker 4: players this year. But you know it's a double edged sword, right.
Speaker 4: You build up comfort with players, relationships with players, and
Speaker 4: then you lose some of your objectivity. Right, It's just
Speaker 4: like a natural human nature thing. But building the relationship,
Speaker 4: as we saw with the question that Doug asked, you know,
Speaker 4: that got that great a great response, like a you know,
Speaker 4: whether you agreed with the response or disagreed with the response,
Speaker 4: that's what the response you want out of athletes. You
Speaker 4: want them to give you how they're really feeling is
Speaker 4: because of.
Speaker 1: A relationship, you know.
Speaker 4: So I think that's the other undercard, but transitioning. You know,
Speaker 4: Scotty Shuffler is on the Ryder Cup team, you tweeted
Speaker 4: one of the stars of the of the Link season,
Speaker 4: unexpected star of the Links season. Although he has a
Speaker 4: great golf pedigree, like this guy did not just come
Speaker 4: out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: The best player in college golf.
Speaker 4: Two years ago, Chris got her up wins the Scottish
Speaker 4: finished his third last.
Speaker 1: Week at the Open.
Speaker 4: He was not on anybody's Ryder Cup bingo card and
Speaker 4: you tweeted yesterday got her up to the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 3: I thought it had a nice ring to it.
Speaker 1: It does every now and then.
Speaker 3: I like to throw a wrench in there, just to
Speaker 3: see where from the waters, see what people's thought processes,
Speaker 3: where their minds are at.
Speaker 1: I talked to PJ a lot about this.
Speaker 4: There's nothing better than going online, dropping something in, leaving
Speaker 4: the app for a while and then coming back and
Speaker 4: just see what people said. I like to just drop
Speaker 4: in and acxit the situation.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what my comments are. Like a full
Speaker 3: contact sport, Andy, It's you know, I need to like
Speaker 3: put body armor on and just be ready wrap myself
Speaker 3: up in bubble wrap before I open that app up,
Speaker 3: because the responses are quite something. To be honest with you,
Speaker 3: I've kind of become immune to it, really really since
Speaker 3: the I was keptain of the international team for the
Speaker 3: President's Cup and things kicked off leading up to that.
Speaker 3: It's been a wild ride for a few years. But
Speaker 3: you know, it's such an interesting thing when you are
Speaker 3: in a position to try and put a team together
Speaker 3: leading up to one of these massive events and weighing
Speaker 3: up the data which has become a huge part of
Speaker 3: it with the eye test, and trying to figure out,
Speaker 3: you know, would you rather have a player with pet
Speaker 3: degree or would you rather have a player that's hot
Speaker 3: right now? And we still got a couple months to go,
Speaker 3: so it's a little bit of time. But like you say,
Speaker 3: he he has been a great player at every level
Speaker 3: that he's played at and he got that win on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour. Now it was an opposite event last
Speaker 3: year in Myrtle Beach. That's fine, but still he gets
Speaker 3: the win on tour, which is a huge stepping stone.
Speaker 3: And in the last really two and a half months,
Speaker 3: his results have been really solid and he's been playing
Speaker 3: he's been showing signs of really that he's found a
Speaker 3: little something. In the last two weeks he's just blown
Speaker 3: through that gate and played brilliant golf. You can't deny.
Speaker 3: I mean, he took down McElroy and an extremely strong
Speaker 3: field in Scotland and then he backed it up. It
Speaker 3: would have been easy for him to go to the
Speaker 3: Open and be like, Okay, you know, I just got
Speaker 3: this huge win. I'm going to have a few extra
Speaker 3: guinness every night and enjoy this week. I believe it
Speaker 3: was his first Open. We may need to check that
Speaker 3: was it, but no, he kept things rolling, man, and
Speaker 3: he was a part of the story through Sunday. And
Speaker 3: at that age you look at the gifts that he has.
Speaker 3: He's an incredible driver of the ball with immense power,
Speaker 3: and in the last few months he started to really
Speaker 3: putt well around Bethpage Black seems like a pretty decent
Speaker 3: fit to me. But the American team is as great
Speaker 3: as what they are. I mean, they kick out butts
Speaker 3: every time we play against him in the President's Cup.
Speaker 3: So I have a ton of respect for them and
Speaker 3: what they can do as great as what they are,
Speaker 3: and they they've got some they got some issues at
Speaker 3: this point trying to put this team together because they
Speaker 3: have a number of players knocking on the door, rookies
Speaker 3: and stalwarts. But then they've got a captain that is
Speaker 3: not sure if he's playing or not playing. And in
Speaker 3: my opinion, he is for sure one of the top
Speaker 3: eight American golfers in the world, and he should be playing.
Speaker 3: But I just know from my experience captaining one of
Speaker 3: those teams in the President's Cup, Guly it it would
Speaker 3: be so hard to be captain all of those responsibilities
Speaker 3: and then play at the same time. So they have
Speaker 3: an interesting next couple months ahead and a lot of
Speaker 3: decisions to make as to how they're going to put
Speaker 3: their squad of twelve together. They're going to be good regardless.
Speaker 3: They're going to be good regardless, and they're going to
Speaker 3: have the home crowd just going nuts being in their corner.
Speaker 3: But a lot of very very big decisions to make
Speaker 3: for Keegan and his backroom staff here over the next
Speaker 3: couple months.
Speaker 4: Yeah, obviously it's a major but like with the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 4: it becomes so much of the implications at this time
Speaker 4: of year of finishes and who who makes this team,
Speaker 4: and it's it's a you know, one of the more
Speaker 4: compelling aspects of a Ryder Cup year is that.
Speaker 1: Like who's playing on a team. I think like.
Speaker 4: Historically, if you want to just do some context, like
Speaker 4: one of the things I've I've learned over the years,
Speaker 4: Like one of the things I think that when you
Speaker 4: look at a player's career, you look at the international team,
Speaker 4: how many, how long the span of international team competitions
Speaker 4: they played in is is like a great marker of
Speaker 4: the player because you know they're in the top bucket
Speaker 4: of players if you're playing in these things and you
Speaker 4: start to see like, you know, I think like undertone
Speaker 4: for Keegan Bradley, he's going to go twenty twelve to
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five if he play, assuming he plays on
Speaker 4: this team, like it does show like the the the
Speaker 4: lengthy period of relevance the guy's had in the sport.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Like well he might know he's not gonna
Speaker 4: be like a first name Hall ballot Hall of Fame player,
Speaker 4: but like you when you zoom out and say, god,
Speaker 4: this guy played, you know you've played with effectively like
Speaker 4: two generations, three generations of golfers in Ryder Cups. He
Speaker 4: played with Phil Micholson and he's going to be playing
Speaker 4: this year with somebody who's twenty four to twenty five
Speaker 4: years old in a Ryder Cup.
Speaker 3: I don't know how he doesn't play.
Speaker 1: He has to play.
Speaker 3: If you're putting, if you're putting a team together for
Speaker 3: this venue, and you look at Keegan's skill set, he's
Speaker 3: one of the the When you combine distance and accuracy,
Speaker 3: he's one of the best drivers of the bull in
Speaker 3: the game. And you add his passion and how he
Speaker 3: gets up for moments like that, his ability to get
Speaker 3: the crowd going on home soil, how well he's played,
Speaker 3: the fact that he's won. You won a huge event
Speaker 3: just a few weeks ago at the Travelers. I don't
Speaker 3: know how he doesn't play. It's just it's such a
Speaker 3: difficult spot for him to be in. Ah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: gonna be fun for us to watch here over the
Speaker 3: next couple of months as things start to shake out.
Speaker 3: It's it's a much less turbulent over on the European side.
Speaker 4: The Europeans side, I think they effectively, especially with Maddy.
Speaker 1: Fits playing so well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they effectively have like one spot available.
Speaker 3: I just don't see the team changing much from It's.
Speaker 4: Like the one spot's like which hoy guard do you take?
Speaker 4: You know, which is not a bad spot, especially with
Speaker 4: their course fit. You illuminated to the like course fit
Speaker 4: and got her up and you're talking, I think you
Speaker 4: finished first and Strokes gained off the tee at Oakmont,
Speaker 4: did he Yeah, he was super impressive that week.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the analytics of.
Speaker 3: Familiar it was fifth at the Open off the team.
Speaker 1: Fifth of the Open.
Speaker 4: You know, you're talking about a guy who's like sat
Speaker 4: toe to toe in three tournaments in the last two
Speaker 4: months with Rory McElroy.
Speaker 1: And outperformed him off the tee.
Speaker 4: And I think when you start to get in these
Speaker 4: team competitions, and I'm really curious your perspective on this
Speaker 4: as someone who's captained the team seen the analytics, how
Speaker 4: do you weigh specific skill sets, particularly when you get
Speaker 4: in a team competition with where you're playing, you're not
Speaker 4: playing your individual ball I imagine for alternate shot and even
Speaker 4: best ball. When you have outlier players that can you know, Chris,
Speaker 4: he can dominate a golf course with his driver.
Speaker 1: Does that get bumped up?
Speaker 4: Is particularly in an alternate shot format where you know
Speaker 4: you compare like I think one of the things that
Speaker 4: with this team and the course fit, I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: Jeff Ogilvie was on.
Speaker 4: Before the PGA there a few years ago and he goes, Listen,
Speaker 4: this tournament is going to be won by one of
Speaker 4: the one of the unicorns of the sport that can
Speaker 4: just hit towering iron shots and hits the ball very far.
Speaker 4: He's like, I'm thinking Brooks, DJ, Rory, and he laid
Speaker 4: this out before and then you watch the event and
Speaker 4: it's Brooks and DJ and then Rory was playing with
Speaker 4: his sea Gabe and finished.
Speaker 1: The top ten that week.
Speaker 4: It was like, you know, you had this awful week
Speaker 4: and then you look at the leaderboard at that end
Speaker 4: of the tournament, it's like, oh, you finished eighth because
Speaker 4: of the golf courses. But you know the idea of
Speaker 4: like getting those shots off the tee that yield those
Speaker 4: short approaches to elevated targets.
Speaker 1: You know, got her up. You might not be a
Speaker 1: guy that you consider alternate shot, but it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know we could give Russell Henley the opportunity or
Speaker 1: someone of that ILK or Callum more Kaua or Jk's
Speaker 1: right on to play from from Chris gotterr Up's t
Speaker 1: shots on you know, nine holes, seven holes, probably eight holes, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's really what you do is you really
Speaker 3: start to understand the golf course and the challenge that
Speaker 3: that's going to present. How many part threes, how many
Speaker 3: par fives do they fall on the odds or the
Speaker 3: evens when you're talking about alternate shot, and then you
Speaker 3: start to dial in your pairings in that way to
Speaker 3: where they can compliment each other, and then that model
Speaker 3: fits into the golf course as perfectly as possible. And really,
Speaker 3: when it comes to match play, if you've got a
Speaker 3: guy that's a great driver, they're pretty much always going
Speaker 3: to be in the hole. And in match play I
Speaker 3: find that so important. You know, you just don't want
Speaker 3: to gift your opponent easy wins on a hole. And
Speaker 3: when you've got a group of great drivers of the
Speaker 3: ball on a course that is long and demanding, it's
Speaker 3: a huge advantage to have. And I think that's what
Speaker 3: he could provide. I think, you know, it's still touch
Speaker 3: and go whether he gets put on this team. You
Speaker 3: have to weigh up the rookie aspect as well. You
Speaker 3: know how much pressure he's played under in his short
Speaker 3: professional career so far, how he's handled those things. They'll
Speaker 3: be looking at all this type of stuff and then
Speaker 3: weighing that up amongst the players that are around him,
Speaker 3: and you know who's going to be able to team
Speaker 3: up well with who and managing the locker room and
Speaker 3: all those different kinds of things. But we're just performance
Speaker 3: in the last couple of weeks and his skills set
Speaker 3: matching with Beth Page from the tee, and the fact
Speaker 3: that you know, this is a new Jersey guy. He's
Speaker 3: going to be playing up in his part of the world,
Speaker 3: so to speak, could be could be quite fun and
Speaker 3: it's it's a nice option for them to have that
Speaker 3: they probably didn't think they were going to have four
Speaker 3: or five months ago.
Speaker 4: He's up to twenty second in points now after being
Speaker 4: you know, effectively nowhere near that two weeks ago. He
Speaker 4: moved up nineteen spots just signed the Open performance, so
Speaker 4: the Scottish probably moved him up about twenty spots too now,
Speaker 4: I mean before.
Speaker 3: The Scottish Open he was like I think I'm going
Speaker 3: to say, was between eighty five and ninetieth and the
Speaker 3: FedEx Cup, and all of a sudden in two weeks
Speaker 3: he's he's looking to go all the way to the
Speaker 3: Tour Championship.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's so he's moved itself way up. I think,
Speaker 4: like something to note just I always think about this.
Speaker 4: The last time the US had held a Ryder Cup,
Speaker 4: Whistling straight one of the somewhat surprised selections on the
Speaker 4: team was a rookie, a rookie Ryder Cupper who had never.
Speaker 1: Yet to win. Scotty Scotty Scheffler.
Speaker 3: Turns out, turns out that Steve Stricken knew what he
Speaker 3: was doing with that pick.
Speaker 4: I got brought up yesterday. Actually, I don't know if
Speaker 4: you saw this quote. I think I have this here,
Speaker 4: John Rahm, Uh, I don't.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't pull this out.
Speaker 4: But John ram got asked about Scottie and he brought
Speaker 4: up if everybody remembers Rob was Rob was the European
Speaker 4: star that Ryder cup.
Speaker 1: I think he was four and oh or three.
Speaker 4: Oh one going into Sunday singles and you know they
Speaker 4: they did the pairings. I remember this Rom was. I
Speaker 4: think he was third out. I remember because I went out.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is you know from can this
Speaker 4: is the way that the Euros come back, you know, Rom.
Speaker 1: They put a bunch of points on the board.
Speaker 4: So Rom it was thought that Scotty was like the
Speaker 4: sacrificial lamb, and I think he was five up through five.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, and John that that is still living
Speaker 3: renfree in John's mind. I mean he brought yesterday I
Speaker 3: saw that you know, you go, he still remembers that day,
Speaker 3: and they've had they've had great battles through the years
Speaker 3: at major championships, and but that moment still sticks out
Speaker 3: to John.
Speaker 2: I it maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, something I was I was watching. He effectively said like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like look what he did to me in
Speaker 1: the Ryder Cup a couple of years ago.
Speaker 4: But like something I was thinking about when Rom was
Speaker 4: finishing yesterday and Bryson was finishing around the same time.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a bummer that we only have the
Speaker 4: opportunity of these duels with Rom and Bryson right now,
Speaker 4: and you know, to a lesser extent Brooks, when they're
Speaker 4: at these four majors, you just don't have the chance
Speaker 4: to get a lot of duels. And I just think
Speaker 4: about this week I thought was the smallest chatter about
Speaker 4: Live PGA Tour reunification at a major since the whole split.
Speaker 4: It feels to be like they're very much kind of
Speaker 4: two ships operating with their own set of set of
Speaker 4: directions and plans. And it was it that was one
Speaker 4: of the things I have thought about with the Scotty ascension.
Speaker 4: It has occurred coincidentally when Rom like these are just
Speaker 4: guys that might have been, that could have moments where
Speaker 4: Scotty maybe doesn't close out a fifty four hole lead.
Speaker 4: I'm not saying this is not saying that he but
Speaker 4: these are players that could answer the bell, the top
Speaker 4: contenders to answer the bell and go take one to
Speaker 4: Scotty along with Rory and Xander and Colin Morrikawa and
Speaker 4: these other other elite players in the game. But it
Speaker 4: just sucks that we're just limited to four events a
Speaker 4: year for those those occurrences to happen because the probability
Speaker 4: of these guys playing at their best is just limited.
Speaker 3: At the same time, Yeah, yeah, but you know, it
Speaker 3: is what it is now it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, they got they got some paperwork to you.
Speaker 3: Those players, those players made a decision to go play
Speaker 3: on tour, and the way it's worked out, we only
Speaker 3: get to see him up against each other at the Majors,
Speaker 3: and in a certain respect, it's heightened the intensity of
Speaker 3: the Majors even more. Bryson has absolutely found a way
Speaker 3: to be in the hunt at pretty much all of them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it seems like he's raised the level of his game.
Speaker 3: Not quite so much for John. I mean, he showed
Speaker 3: signs this year, definitely playing better than what he did
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four, but still not quite at the
Speaker 3: point to where you feel like he's going to be
Speaker 3: challenging those top guys for the minute.
Speaker 4: I you know, everybody makes decisions, but we talked a
Speaker 4: lot about the mentality of Scheffler, the approach to the game,
Speaker 4: the long range, you know, kind of implications of the
Speaker 4: decisions he's made. Owning how you get to come into
Speaker 4: a major championship, I think is a very important thing.
Speaker 4: And I think that that's one of probably maybe the
Speaker 4: thing that that Rom didn't consider, was how a move
Speaker 4: and not being able to set up your schedule exactly
Speaker 4: how you want to prep for a major championship can reduce,
Speaker 4: you know, your ability and you never you don't know
Speaker 4: these things, like I think for Bryson, this schedule, the
Speaker 4: way that Live setup has been great for him, you know,
Speaker 4: but but for John I don't think it's clicked. And
Speaker 4: you look at you know, these guys were kind of
Speaker 4: running running in a dead heat when he left or Live,
Speaker 4: and at this point it is, you know, I think,
Speaker 4: you know, it's got to be tough for Rom to
Speaker 4: answer questions about about Scottie being and Skotty.
Speaker 1: Being at a different level, when when he left for
Speaker 1: Live he probably felt he was at at the same level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say that's fair. I would say that's fair.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I'm not dodging you at all.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not going to dive deep in. But yeah,
Speaker 3: we did did get some paperwork and we're rarely happy
Speaker 3: that we did at awgr So you know, we'll see
Speaker 3: how things unfold. But you go back to Rahm here
Speaker 3: Strokes gained off the tee. He was fifteenth on approach.
Speaker 3: He was pretty much even for the field at seventy third,
Speaker 3: so he was neutral on approach and then fifty first
Speaker 3: in putting. So just really middle of the pack in
Speaker 3: a couple of very important areas. And it just hasn't
Speaker 3: quite found it that special source over the last at
Speaker 3: the majors, over the last twelve months.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's probably across all of it
Speaker 4: he hasn't he has. It's not like he's been racking
Speaker 4: up wins. I think, like you know, when you look
Speaker 4: at lives, Joaquin Neeman's kind of been like the guy
Speaker 4: that you're like, oh, look at all the winds he's got,
Speaker 4: you know, and uh, but it's hard.
Speaker 1: Golf's hard. It's it.
Speaker 4: The other aspect of it is that the majors now
Speaker 4: for John rom carry way more weight than before he left,
Speaker 4: you know, because of the you know what, you can
Speaker 4: say like media should pay more attention to the live tour,
Speaker 4: but the reality is like it they operate in a
Speaker 4: state of semi irrerelevance for the rest of the year
Speaker 4: except for four majors. So it naturally just raises the expectation,
Speaker 4: the level and the importance of these events. And we
Speaker 4: just you know, I think like that's where for Scotty
Speaker 4: it feels like it's just another week.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's a very good point. And you know,
Speaker 3: it's tricky because when you get to the majors, everything
Speaker 3: is heightened. But for some of these players, like you
Speaker 3: mentioned Nieman, the pressure is is like exponentially more because
Speaker 3: in a certain way, he gets to these four big
Speaker 3: ones and it's like he's trying to prove to everybody
Speaker 3: that he is at that level of let's call it
Speaker 3: a top ten, top fifteen, top twenty player in the world,
Speaker 3: and major championships are on such an edge knife edge anyway,
Speaker 3: and when you start to heap extra pressure onto that,
Speaker 3: it's a tough world to live in. And so you
Speaker 3: can kind of see him battling that when he comes
Speaker 3: to the Major Championships and you know, then he finished
Speaker 3: two over and he walks up the green and you know,
Speaker 3: you can see the frustration. On eighteen ends up missing
Speaker 3: the cup by a shot. I can't believe the cut
Speaker 3: went to one. Oh. I mean, the wind is completely
Speaker 3: laid down, and guys all of a sudden made a
Speaker 3: few birdies and now he's sitting on the couch for
Speaker 3: the weekend. And you know, unfortunately for him, the unimpressive
Speaker 3: play at the Major Championships is is what people think
Speaker 3: about when when you bring his name up.
Speaker 4: And I just want to be uh, be clear here,
Speaker 4: that's that's what all the money was for. These are
Speaker 4: things that might not have been considered you when they
Speaker 4: made the decision, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: that's what the money is for. That's you sign you
Speaker 4: sign up for this, and you know, part of part
Speaker 4: of the ramifications for for going over there was that
Speaker 4: you know, you, all of a sudden, we're going to
Speaker 4: be evaluated and whether it's fair or unfair evaluated, and
Speaker 4: your career was going to be hinging on how you
Speaker 4: play four weeks a year and more so than any
Speaker 4: other player, than any player that's playing on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 4: And whether that's fair or unfair, that's what all the money,
Speaker 4: part of what all the money was for, you know, And.
Speaker 1: I don't know it'll be. It'll be as it keeps going.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Obviously contracts are are running up, but uh, and some
Speaker 4: players will be kind of who knows what they're doing
Speaker 4: next year as soon as that. But you know, other
Speaker 4: players like John you know he's got three more years
Speaker 4: over there at the Minuteum.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't really know, to be honest with you,
Speaker 3: not too many people know exactly what is in these
Speaker 3: guys contracts and how many years. I mean, you hear
Speaker 3: chatter about it, but I don't really know too much
Speaker 3: about that. So we'll have to see how things unfold.
Speaker 1: Any any other party thoughts from the open English? How
Speaker 1: about Harris English? What a year now?
Speaker 3: You talk talk about a guy that's on the Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup team. Harris will be there and he deserves to
Speaker 3: be there. He is extremely talented, beautiful game, classy, classy game,
Speaker 3: classy looking player and swing and love it everything about him.
Speaker 3: Great guy, and they are two runner ups in majors.
Speaker 3: I mean the PGA Championship was a little bit of
Speaker 3: a backdoor, but still we must.
Speaker 1: Come out of the door.
Speaker 4: To me, in my mind, I have that as a
Speaker 4: genre runner up. No matter what the results say. In
Speaker 4: my mind, I will always think of that as a
Speaker 4: genre runner runner up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hear you. I mean it was.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: It was a fun just thinking back to the PGA
Speaker 3: Championship was a really fun last hour or so, you know,
Speaker 3: once they got to fourteen and the driverball paw four
Speaker 3: and the way things played out between Rahm and Scheffler
Speaker 3: and a few other guys from you know, fourteen and fifteen,
Speaker 3: which are your two opportunities, and then you're sort of
Speaker 3: hanging on down sixteen seventeen eighteen. It was in my
Speaker 3: mind it was an exciting, brilliant last hour. And all
Speaker 3: the major championships this year I thought were just spectacular.
Speaker 3: You know, you think about the roller coaster at the
Speaker 3: Masters with all that history on the line, and then
Speaker 3: you think about that last hour of the PGA Championship.
Speaker 4: And with like Scotty, you know, the story of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four. Then he has the hand thing that wasn't
Speaker 4: really in form earlier in the year. It's like, oh,
Speaker 4: he's back, He's back to form.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean people people were wondering, you know. That
Speaker 3: was another another famous Twitter debate or ex debate I
Speaker 3: got into with a legend of the game, whether Scotty
Speaker 3: would win or not before the Ryder Cup. That's gotten
Speaker 3: a lot of play over the last few months.
Speaker 4: But no, one the receis didn't turn out good for
Speaker 4: that legend of the game.
Speaker 3: No it didn't. But you know, the PGA Championship was
Speaker 3: fun and exciting. The last hour of the US Open
Speaker 3: was just about as dramatic as it can get with
Speaker 3: the weather and then the standing water and the ball
Speaker 3: is just like squirting all over the place. And then
Speaker 3: you get JJ making a seventy something footer on the
Speaker 3: last hole that was quite something as the sun is setting, basically,
Speaker 3: and then we get Scotty putting an exclamation point on
Speaker 3: the season at the Open, and now three legs into
Speaker 3: the Grand Slam. And by the way, you know, he's
Speaker 3: clearly shown that he understands Augusta National and knows exactly
Speaker 3: how to play that golf course. But I would struggle
Speaker 3: to think of another major where he could separate himself
Speaker 3: more than the US.
Speaker 1: Open at Shinnecock.
Speaker 3: Well, look at all of their venues over the next decade. Yeah,
Speaker 3: when you have that sort of precision and discipline and
Speaker 3: control over your ball, the US Open is where it's at.
Speaker 3: And so that's gonna be a fun ride for us.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, my my overriding thought is I'm
Speaker 3: a little I'm a little sad. I'm a little sad
Speaker 3: the majors are over. I don't like it's been a
Speaker 3: great year for major championships.
Speaker 4: I liked the August and more than this, you know,
Speaker 4: where you have the Open end too, August. I think
Speaker 4: the PGA in August, the you know, like the idea
Speaker 4: of majors going.
Speaker 1: From April to August a little bit more.
Speaker 4: I think I've said this before, but like the fact
Speaker 4: that it's over, It's like, the nice thing is we've
Speaker 4: got some some great events.
Speaker 1: We've got the Walker Cup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be great at Cypress Point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, at Cypre's Point, We've got the We've got the
Speaker 4: Ryder Cup. I mean, we've got no more net Tour Championship.
Speaker 1: We got.
Speaker 3: That's a positive. What are you gonna make fun of now?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh, you guys are gonna have to cook something else
Speaker 3: up now.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 4: When you live in the content game, when you when
Speaker 4: you make content for a living, you're not always rooting
Speaker 4: for the the rational outcome. You know, sometimes you know
Speaker 4: it named things like uh like having a handicapped season
Speaker 4: and tournament or the best thing for the content business.
Speaker 3: You know. Now you're gonna have to dream something else up.
Speaker 4: But why you like it? I like, you haven't Patrick
Speaker 4: Reid around? You know I missed him a little bit.
Speaker 4: Is that he was good for the content game. He
Speaker 4: was good for my job.
Speaker 3: Yeah he is, he is. But this year, this year
Speaker 3: has gone so fast. I mean, I can't believe it.
Speaker 3: At CBS, we only have two events left, you know,
Speaker 3: we have the three M this weekend and then the
Speaker 3: window and we're golf season is done. It feels like
Speaker 3: it feels like yesterday we were starting at the Farmers
Speaker 3: and Tory Pines. It has gone so fast.
Speaker 4: Well, I you know I've said this before on this podcast.
Speaker 4: It's my belief is life gets faster every year of
Speaker 4: your life because it becomes less of a percentage of
Speaker 4: your life. So when you're ten, one year is ten
Speaker 4: percent of your life, so it feels very long. But
Speaker 4: when you're you know, thirty three, it's you know whatever,
Speaker 4: three percent of your life.
Speaker 1: Right, It's just.
Speaker 3: It's flown by, and we got some good golf. We've
Speaker 3: got some good golf. With the playoffs come in, I
Speaker 3: think it's going to be very interesting. You know. Now,
Speaker 3: it's quite cutthroat really when you think about you've gotta
Speaker 3: be top hundred, you gotta be top seventy seventy, get
Speaker 3: in the playoffs, and then you've got to be top five,
Speaker 3: which gives these guys the signature events next year. So
Speaker 3: it's that's a pretty tough gig and then right, awesome.
Speaker 4: I'd love what you know, it's the idea of I think,
Speaker 4: like if you made the tour even more cutthroat, slightly
Speaker 4: more cutthroat, what it's done for the John Deere's, the
Speaker 4: three Ms, the Rockets, the you know, the American Express,
Speaker 4: the the value. I mean, you just see more big
Speaker 4: names playing these events than ever before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you. The tour took a lot
Speaker 3: of heat when they made these changes. And it's really
Speaker 3: played out that they were. They were quite correct with
Speaker 3: the advent of the signature events and creating these cutoffs.
Speaker 3: All the other tournaments have had stronger fields, and you're right,
Speaker 3: John Deere had best field that's head in a long time.
Speaker 3: At Detroit had a great field. And then you look
Speaker 3: at the Scottish Chaupmin where you had nineteen of the
Speaker 3: top twenty five in the world playing the Scottish opin.
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the Detroit might go down as the term of
Speaker 4: the year with Pockater getting it done.
Speaker 3: You know, that's right. It was great, great for great
Speaker 3: for South Africa.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: So it's a shotgun start favorite there. All right, Well, hey,
Speaker 4: enjoy enjoy Plaine this weekend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going
Speaker 3: up Friday morning. And you know, we start to see,
Speaker 3: like we just touched on it different side of the
Speaker 3: spectrum because in the next two weeks you're going to
Speaker 3: see guys really jostling for those cutoffs.
Speaker 1: And I mean Max Holmeer was playing the Barracuda this week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, credit to him, man, he's playing. He's playing whenever
Speaker 3: he can play, and he's out there and fighting. I've
Speaker 3: been there. It's not easy, and you know, gives your
Speaker 3: ego a little bit of a knock. But I have
Speaker 3: a ton of respect for him getting out there and
Speaker 3: grinding it out. That's what you gotta do. And the
Speaker 3: beauty about our sport is we were just talking about
Speaker 3: Chris got her up. I mean, Chris got her up
Speaker 3: two weeks ago was thinking about how he's going to
Speaker 3: keep his card, and now he's thinking about getting into
Speaker 3: the Tour Championship and making the Ryder Cup team so
Speaker 3: it can turn on a dime and hopefully for Max
Speaker 3: that happens.
Speaker 1: I think he's playing Minnesota, got her up.
Speaker 3: That course suits him too.
Speaker 1: Good course to drive it well, good course to.
Speaker 3: Tee it high and let it fly.
Speaker 4: All right, Trevor, we'll talk again at some point. This
Speaker 4: has been delightful having you on for all the majors,
Speaker 4: so thank you for joining us. It's been been really
Speaker 4: fun chatting going deep on each of these majors, and
Speaker 4: we'll talk soon. But enjoy your time in Minneapolis and
Speaker 4: a little time off. I'm sure you're gonna be playing
Speaker 4: a lot of golf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm hoping to be playing a lot of golf
Speaker 3: right off to the window. I've got closed to five
Speaker 3: months off. So a few other things I'm involved in
Speaker 3: which take up some of my time.
Speaker 1: But get through some paperwork.
Speaker 3: Got to get through some paperwork and hopefully some time
Speaker 3: on the range and we can play golf soon together.
Speaker 4: Well we should, We got we gotta play. Yeah, go
Speaker 4: figure out when we're going to be in the same place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, love to all right, talk to you soon, Trevor.
Speaker 2: All right, Andy cheers, all right, that does it.
Speaker 4: Thanks again for coming along with these majors. I can't
Speaker 4: wait for twenty twenty six as majors. But we've got
Speaker 4: a lot of big events coming up. I was this week,
Speaker 4: actually I was at Walker Cup media day. That's going
Speaker 4: to be a spectacle. There's only twelve hours of television
Speaker 4: coverage for that event, but we will do some big
Speaker 4: stuff for that. We'll have a video about the golf course.
Speaker 4: That's Ciper's point this year and excited for that. You
Speaker 4: know you got the playoffs, you get the Race to Dubai,
Speaker 4: and you know you got the Women's Open coming up
Speaker 4: at Royal Force Call. Lots of good events coming up,
Speaker 4: and of course you have the Ryder Cup this fall
Speaker 4: that will kind of dominate the August into September discourse.
Speaker 4: So big thanks to Trevor for coming on giving us
Speaker 4: his time this major season, and also huge thanks to
Speaker 4: PJ for producing, editing, getting this podcast, keeping us on
Speaker 4: the rails. We will be back next week and thanks
Speaker 4: thanks for a great major season. I really appreciate you
Speaker 4: guys coming along with us.