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 2: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 1: In a bride egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Brian Egg Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie,
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the humps. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and
Speaker 1: today we're doing takeaways from the twenty twenty four PGA
Speaker 1: Championship won by Xander Schaffle. This is Schaffle's first major
Speaker 1: win after many many yellow Wikipedia squares in the past
Speaker 1: seven years, and he did it in very impressive fashion,
Speaker 1: posting a sixty five at Valhalla Golf Club on Sunday
Speaker 1: to edge Bryson to Shamba by one stroke. We're going
Speaker 1: to get into all of that and what it meant,
Speaker 1: but first I want to talk about Echo Golf shoes.
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Speaker 1: give some higher level takeaways on the PGA Championship are
Speaker 1: two people. First of all, we've got Andy Johnson. How's
Speaker 1: it going, Andy, Oh, it's going great. Just excited to
Speaker 1: talk about another major. And also here with us is
Speaker 1: Joseph Lemania. What's up, Joseph?
Speaker 3: How you doing, Garrett? Andy, I'm excited to do this.
Speaker 3: It was fun, all right.
Speaker 1: So Joseph, when we start with your first takeaway from
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four PGA, what do you got sure?
Speaker 3: My overarching takeaway as I was reflecting on what we
Speaker 3: watched this past weekend, is kind of how quickly eras
Speaker 3: change and Scotty Scheffler and Xander Schaffley are pretty clearly,
Speaker 3: at a minimum, the two best Americans in the world
Speaker 3: right now and arguably the two best golfers in the
Speaker 3: world right now. I was just looking through some numbers.
Speaker 3: At the end of twenty seventeen, Jordan Speith and Justin
Speaker 3: Thomas were the second and third ranked players in the world,
Speaker 3: and since the start of twenty eighteen, they have six
Speaker 3: top fives between the two of them in majors. Scotty
Speaker 3: Scheffler and Xander Schaffley have six top fives in major
Speaker 3: champions in major championships each since the start of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: They've both been incredible players in majors. And Xander Schoffley.
Speaker 3: I know he hasn't won, and he's had a reputation
Speaker 3: for not closing, but this shouldn't it really shouldn't sneak
Speaker 3: up on anybody that he won. He's been an unbelievable
Speaker 3: golfer and now it's kind of solidified himself is arguably
Speaker 3: the second best player in the world. It's pretty remarkable
Speaker 3: how quickly things can change from six years ago when
Speaker 3: guys like Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth were young and
Speaker 3: at the top of the world rankings.
Speaker 2: I think this is just like the way golf works, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: At least in the modern era, at least in the
Speaker 1: twenty first century, right, this is how it's been.
Speaker 2: Well. I think it's the idea of like you have
Speaker 2: these these groups of players that are roughly the same
Speaker 2: age like they are they are roughly you know, Scottie's
Speaker 2: a little bit younger, but Xander Speed jt are all
Speaker 2: in the same age range, and different people mature and
Speaker 2: hit their peak and golf at different ages. This is
Speaker 2: because it's not such an at it's not like a
Speaker 2: supreme athleticism sport like the NFL. You know, the you
Speaker 2: are going to age out of the NFL. Some players
Speaker 2: are their best selves at age thirty five, Some are
Speaker 2: the best at twenty two, Some are the best they'll
Speaker 2: ever be at twenty eight. And I I think what
Speaker 2: we're seeing is this group of players. You know, when
Speaker 2: it's all said and done and they're maybe all forty,
Speaker 2: we'll be able to sit back and say who was
Speaker 2: the best of them? But right now I would agree
Speaker 2: with that. I mean, I think the thing that's amazing
Speaker 2: with Xander he qualified into his first major. He qualified
Speaker 2: into the US Open at Aaron Hills, finished T. Five,
Speaker 2: and has since played twenty eight major championships and has
Speaker 2: finished in the top five and a quarter of them.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was a nobody at that US Open
Speaker 2: at Aaron Hills. That's when he burst onto the scene.
Speaker 2: He was struggling on the PGA Tour in his rookie year.
Speaker 2: He burst on the scene. And now we look back
Speaker 2: and it's like, Wow, this guy is one of the
Speaker 2: best major championship players you know that we have. And
Speaker 2: one of the reasons is like, if you think about Scottie,
Speaker 2: if you think about Xander, if you think about the
Speaker 2: players that play great at a lot of different major championships.
Speaker 2: You know, there's one constant major championship post site, so
Speaker 2: that means you're playing three new courses every year in
Speaker 2: these four majors. What translates at every golf course in
Speaker 2: the world is if you are very good at everything,
Speaker 2: every skill in golf. And Xander Schoffley, for his career,
Speaker 2: has been really good at everything, and he hasn't seen
Speaker 2: you know, like we see people have these performance dips.
Speaker 2: He hasn't really had these performance dips. He's sneaky, been
Speaker 2: like one of the most consistent players that we have
Speaker 2: in the game of golf. Like he's always been rock
Speaker 2: solid driver the golf ball, always been a rock solid
Speaker 2: approach player, always been a good good round and on
Speaker 2: the greens. And now he's taken that off the t
Speaker 2: game to a whole new level. And that's what's pushed
Speaker 2: him into what, as Joseph eloquently said, this elite company
Speaker 2: in golf.
Speaker 1: I've got an analogy for Xander. So when I was
Speaker 1: in college, I worked in the admissions office at my college.
Speaker 1: This was kind of like my job. When I was
Speaker 1: a student.
Speaker 2: You were saying yes and no. You were the guy.
Speaker 1: No, no, no. I did not have that responsibility though.
Speaker 1: Those are the admissions officers. I was just astudent. I
Speaker 1: was given tours, I was making spreadsheets, I was doing
Speaker 1: stuff in the office. Those are my.
Speaker 3: Roles doing the backwards walk and talk exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I got really good at walking backwards through you know,
Speaker 1: city streets and stuff. But I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time around admissions officers and got used to how they
Speaker 1: talked about applicants. And there were kind of two or
Speaker 1: maybe a few more, but two major categories of applicants
Speaker 1: that would get talked about. One would be the applicants
Speaker 1: who had like one extraordinary skill, like this person is
Speaker 1: a violin prodigy. This person is a you know, a
Speaker 1: four star linebacker recruit. This person does one thing really
Speaker 1: really well, like won the national debate competition or something
Speaker 1: like that, and that gives them kind of a unique
Speaker 1: profile in the applicant pool. The other type of applicant
Speaker 1: that could be successful would just be the well rounded applicant.
Speaker 1: Somebody who did everything really well, had pretty high SAT scores,
Speaker 1: pretty high grades, was involved in a nice array of activities,
Speaker 1: did some sports, just just had everything and you got
Speaker 1: a sense that this person would come to that college
Speaker 1: and provide some of that same steadiness, and I think
Speaker 1: that's Xander Schaffle. He is the well rounded applicant. He
Speaker 1: is I think, probably at this point, going to be
Speaker 1: top fifty just about every strokes gained category for his
Speaker 1: entire career. But the thing is, and this is why
Speaker 1: I think it's hard for me to get invested in
Speaker 1: Xander Schaffley, and I wonder if you guys feel the
Speaker 1: same way. He's not like the best in any given
Speaker 1: skill set. Aside from being well rounded, he's not he's
Speaker 1: a great driver of the golf ball. He's not as
Speaker 1: great a driver of the golf ball as Rory and Bryson.
Speaker 1: He is a really really good approach player, a great
Speaker 1: approach player, but he's not Colin Morikawa or Scotti Scheffler
Speaker 1: in that respect. And by the same token, he doesn't
Speaker 1: have any notable weakness. There's no vulnerability that helps you
Speaker 1: to kind of relate with him or or feel that
Speaker 1: there could be something unpredictable or exciting in the way
Speaker 1: that he plays golf. He's just gonna kind of bludgeon
Speaker 1: courses into submission with his well roundedness. And that's that's
Speaker 1: how I've come to understand Xanderschoffle.
Speaker 2: At this point, well, the best, the best golfers are
Speaker 2: the most boring, right.
Speaker 1: Well, Scotty Scheffler is the best golfer in the world.
Speaker 1: But to me and a lot of people might not
Speaker 1: agree with this, and people's reactions to Scotty Scheffler have
Speaker 1: been kind of funny in the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: But obviously he took on a new identity during during
Speaker 1: this tournament. Now he's now he's the felon, but or
Speaker 1: the alleged felon. But you know, Scotty I find really
Speaker 1: compelling to watch because he is prodigious in his approach
Speaker 1: play and short game. He if he's not the best
Speaker 1: in the world at those things, he might be one
Speaker 1: of the two or three best in the world. So
Speaker 1: you're seeing something truly virtuosic when you see Scotty Scheffler
Speaker 1: hit an iron or hit a chip around the greens.
Speaker 1: His putting is a vulnerability. You know, sometimes he's really good,
Speaker 1: but we've seen him truly struggle in that area, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we've seen anything similar from Xander where
Speaker 1: we have this, you know, kind of separation or divergence
Speaker 1: between different skill areas, which to me, makes a golfer
Speaker 1: fun to watch, you know, I think of Jordan Speed,
Speaker 1: think of Rory, I think, you know, think of the
Speaker 1: golfers that are really fun to watch. It's they're great
Speaker 1: in a couple of things, and maybe they have a
Speaker 1: vulnerability or two.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess the only the only area where I'd
Speaker 3: push back a little bit, Garrett, is that Xander's become
Speaker 3: a really good driver of the golf ball.
Speaker 1: Well, is he the best? Is he? Now? Do you
Speaker 1: think he's like as good as Rory or Bryson?
Speaker 3: He hits it straighter than those guys do. And I
Speaker 3: think a huge part of the Xander story that Andy
Speaker 3: kind of alluded to. He had one of the most
Speaker 3: consistent best years of any golfer in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: He was very good, rock solid all year. He then
Speaker 3: started working with Chris Como late near the end of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three and picked up a lot of ball speed.
Speaker 3: He's now top ten in ball speed on the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour this year. He's gone from being a good driver
Speaker 3: of the golf ball to a great driver of the
Speaker 3: golf ball. Why I agree with you, Garrett, He's not
Speaker 3: the best driver of the golf ball in the world.
Speaker 3: Scotty Scheffler is a better driver of the golf ball
Speaker 3: than Sander Shoffley is. He's now on that top tier
Speaker 3: and that's the most reliable skill in golf. So agree,
Speaker 3: he's not the best in the world at driving the
Speaker 3: golf ball, but he's right up there. Now.
Speaker 2: I think that you're onto something, Garrett, and I think
Speaker 2: this plays into my big takeaway. One of my big takeaways.
Speaker 2: This has been the problem with Scotty Scheffler is like
Speaker 2: and I think people think he's boring. I think he
Speaker 2: you know, he kind of chuckles and shrugs off everything.
Speaker 2: But I think what happened to him on Friday, we
Speaker 2: now have a new superstar, a super duperstar in golf
Speaker 2: because he got arrested.
Speaker 1: The crowds on Friday were unbelievable with him right.
Speaker 2: Yes, there is an all new human interest in Scottie
Speaker 2: Scheffler because of what happened, the craziness of Friday morning
Speaker 2: in him being arrested. It sounds like reports by KVV
Speaker 2: at No Laying Up are that the charges are likely
Speaker 2: going to be dropped. But this was the moment he needed.
Speaker 2: It provided some relatability it gave I think the thing
Speaker 2: with golf people glomb on to people that give them
Speaker 2: something that they can say, I'm a fan of this
Speaker 2: guy because of this. For Scottie Scheffler, the Friday round,
Speaker 2: like everything that went into it, him talking about stretching
Speaker 2: in the jail cell and then going out and shooting
Speaker 2: sixty six after being arrested, unsure of whether he was
Speaker 2: going to make the tea time, being the lead story
Speaker 2: of the morning Sports Center that came on early. Sports
Speaker 2: Center came on early because of this story. Like think
Speaker 2: about that. It was a preposterous story and for anybody
Speaker 2: listening that doesn't know what happened, he got arrested on
Speaker 2: the way to the golf course and it was unsure
Speaker 2: of whether or not he was going to make his
Speaker 2: tea time. There was a delay because of the tragic
Speaker 2: death of a volunteer, John Mills. Very sad in that regard,
Speaker 2: but he made it. He ends up getting released from jail,
Speaker 2: makes it to the tea time, he got charged with
Speaker 2: a felony, makes it to the golf course and then
Speaker 2: goes out and shoots sixty six. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: this is the moment I think, like everybody's been like,
Speaker 2: we have this like supremely talented, dominant star player, but
Speaker 2: nobody likes, nobody cares about him. Nobody cared about him.
Speaker 2: Now people have reason to care about him, and Xander
Speaker 2: in that regard has not had anything near a moment like,
Speaker 2: if anything, Xander's had opposite moments where he's been contentious
Speaker 2: with media or he he was allegedly requesting money to
Speaker 2: play in the Ryder Cup, like he's had the opposite
Speaker 2: type of moments. You would think getting arrested would be
Speaker 2: a negative, but in this case it ended up being
Speaker 2: a positive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really worked out for Scotty Scheffler. And by
Speaker 1: the way, if you are somebody who didn't know about
Speaker 1: Scotty Scheffler's arrest and are still listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: send me an email Garrett at the Frida Egg dot
Speaker 1: com and I want to I want to hear about
Speaker 1: how that happens. I know.
Speaker 2: Who I'm envious of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I know you've got like a proper media diet,
Speaker 1: I guess, but yeah, I completely agree you know this,
Speaker 1: And I think that Scotti Scheffler's vulnerability with putting over
Speaker 1: the past year and a half or so registered less
Speaker 1: as an appealing vulnerability because he was kind of unwilling
Speaker 1: to talk about it in a real way, right, he
Speaker 1: wasn't He didn't want to go there when he was
Speaker 1: asked about it, And so I think that that's maybe
Speaker 1: one reason why it took this incident on Friday for
Speaker 1: people to kind of see Scotty in a new light.
Speaker 1: And it was genuinely shocking. On Friday morning, I'm on
Speaker 1: the West coast, right, so I'm getting to stuff usually
Speaker 1: later than most people are getting to it. But to
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning and to open up my
Speaker 1: Twitter app and the first thing I see is a
Speaker 1: mug shot of Scotti Scheffler. That was unbelievable. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just a complete shock. And then everything that
Speaker 1: happened after that was like as if it was in
Speaker 1: a dream. It was truly an incredible day.
Speaker 3: I think it was crazy to me. I was out
Speaker 3: Saturday night in Austin. I didn't realize maybe this is
Speaker 3: night everyone knew about Scotty Scheffler, and including people who
Speaker 3: didn't follow golf at all. I know it was on
Speaker 3: CNN and on major news outlets. I didn't realize the
Speaker 3: extent to which it had broken out of the golf
Speaker 3: world and even out of the sports world, Like people
Speaker 3: who pay no attention to golf were texting me about
Speaker 3: Scotty Scheffler. A moment like this doesn't feel like it's
Speaker 3: happened in a long time. Maybe since Tiger winning the Masters,
Speaker 3: where where golf really breaks out into the public consciousness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or or I mean Tiger's Tiger's car crash, but
Speaker 1: that that obviously was of a very different nature.
Speaker 2: Partnering with the Saudis broke them out or allegedly allegedly.
Speaker 1: We've had a few moments when golf has broken into
Speaker 1: the public consciousness recently, and weirdly, Scotty Scheffler getting getting
Speaker 1: arrested is almost the most uh, the most wholesome of
Speaker 1: of some of the ones that we've named.
Speaker 2: Well we're talking Xander and Scottie. I do want to
Speaker 2: say I think that, like the discourse when we zoom
Speaker 2: out on the year is going to be Scotty would
Speaker 2: have won at Valhalla if if if he hadn't got arrested,
Speaker 2: And I like just really dislike that take. I think
Speaker 2: he played really bad on Saturday. Now, could it have
Speaker 2: been partially because he was emotionally and mentally exhausted from
Speaker 2: the day before. Absolutely, but like we don't get to
Speaker 2: like we don't get to live in this world right out.
Speaker 2: He got out of jail, and I don't want to
Speaker 2: be harsh. He got out of jail. He played a
Speaker 2: great round on Friday, and he played like crap on Saturday,
Speaker 2: and like maybe something would have been different, but like
Speaker 2: a lot of other things could have happened differently too,
Speaker 2: Like you cannot play that game. I think golfers are
Speaker 2: more susceptible than anybody to this where they love to
Speaker 2: be like, well, I shot seventy five, but let me
Speaker 2: tell you about the lipouts, let me tell you about
Speaker 2: that bad bounce, And they don't look at like any
Speaker 2: of like the good things that could have that happened
Speaker 2: from it, Like you know, Scotty could have missed his
Speaker 2: tea time, you know, and not to mention like Xander Schoffley,
Speaker 2: I mean, he played outstanding golf. He shot a sixty five,
Speaker 2: a sixty five on Sunday. As the leader, that is
Speaker 2: extraordinarily hard to do. I feel like we've become so
Speaker 2: conditioned to seeing leaders shoot sixty eight, sixty nine, seventy
Speaker 2: and I know we'll get to probably Valhalla, but like
Speaker 2: to go out and shoot sixty sixty five as the
Speaker 2: leader on Sunday extraordinary and none of the discourse should
Speaker 2: be Scottie one would have won if because it's just
Speaker 2: he was too far back. I could get a little
Speaker 2: behind it. If it was like he finished two shots back,
Speaker 2: he finished eight freaking shots back behind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well instead of seventy three on Saturday, he would
Speaker 1: have had to shoot sixty five right in order to
Speaker 1: be tied with Xander Schoffle. And you know, although Scott
Speaker 1: he played really well on Thursday, my perception of his
Speaker 1: game is that it was a little bit ragged in
Speaker 1: some respects, and so when he shot seventy three on Saturday,
Speaker 1: it didn't really come as a surprise, and not just
Speaker 1: because he had had kind of a harrowing experience the
Speaker 1: day before. It was because, you know, certain aspects of
Speaker 1: his game just didn't totally seem sharp, which is the
Speaker 1: first that we've seen that from him in a while.
Speaker 1: But was always going to be coming. You know, he
Speaker 1: can't keep up what he's been doing for the first
Speaker 1: few months of this year forever, all right, why don't
Speaker 1: I do my takeaway here it is related to Valhalla,
Speaker 1: so we can get into that.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 1: Now, most of what I'm going to do here actually
Speaker 1: is I'm going to try to play Devil's advocate with Valhalla,
Speaker 1: because I think the three of us broadly agree about
Speaker 1: this golf course and its status as a major championship test.
Speaker 2: I don't think we need to worry. I don't think
Speaker 2: anything is coming back to Valhalla anytimes.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, exactly, it's there. Isn't like it's almost like
Speaker 1: punching down at this point. It almost feels too easy.
Speaker 1: But we have to be real about what we saw
Speaker 1: this this this past week because it was you know,
Speaker 1: it it affected the competition that took place. But in
Speaker 1: any case, my my broad takeaway about Valhalla is that
Speaker 1: this course is exactly what we thought it was. This
Speaker 1: is this is what we were saying all week. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think that there's maybe this perception out
Speaker 1: there that were Valhalla haters, and that the fact that
Speaker 1: there were some compelling moments on Sunday at this championship
Speaker 1: is proof that we were wrong about Valhalla. But look
Speaker 1: at what we were actually saying about this course and
Speaker 1: the Rona run up. We were saying, this is not
Speaker 1: a super serious Major championship test, but it's going to
Speaker 1: produce a stacked leader board, a bunched leader board, and
Speaker 1: probably an exciting Sunday. So yeah, this course is exactly
Speaker 1: what we thought it was and I do appreciate that,
Speaker 1: but I wish people would understand where that comes from
Speaker 1: and what that costs, because you know, the Thursday, Friday
Speaker 1: and Saturday weren't nearly as interesting, at least to me.
Speaker 3: I mean my other takeaway and this isn't even changing.
Speaker 3: This is just playing off of what you're saying, Garrett.
Speaker 3: One of my big takeaways from watching this week, which
Speaker 3: is not a new thought. No golf course in the
Speaker 3: world can really test the best golfers in the world
Speaker 3: under the conditions that Valhalla was in this past week,
Speaker 3: where it's soft and there's no wind. So I do
Speaker 3: think that that is a relevant part of the conversation.
Speaker 3: You can have tests that are more interesting than what
Speaker 3: we watched, but there's not a good test for professional
Speaker 3: golfers when there's no wind in greens or that receptive.
Speaker 3: Even the Masters in twenty twenty, the COVID year where
Speaker 3: Dustin Johnson ran away with it like that wasn't anywhere
Speaker 3: near the most compelling version of Augusta National when it
Speaker 3: was wet like that and soft. So I don't want
Speaker 3: to offer too strong of a defensive Valhalla because I
Speaker 3: was disappointed in what we saw this past weekend, even
Speaker 3: though it's kind of what we expected going in. But
Speaker 3: I do think that is a relevant part of the
Speaker 3: conversation that if it had been firmer and faster, the
Speaker 3: course would have been much more demanding. Would it have
Speaker 3: been a good golf course? No, Like, I don't think
Speaker 3: it fundamentally changes shot value in a way that makes
Speaker 3: it a great Major championship test. But I do think
Speaker 3: it is at least relevant to call out that it
Speaker 3: rained all week and there was no wind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like you look at at Valhalla and
Speaker 2: it was a golf course devoid of any redeeming architectural features.
Speaker 2: There's not one thing that I looked at and I
Speaker 2: was like, huh, well that's pretty cool, And that's like
Speaker 2: a very low bar right where you're like you're struggling
Speaker 2: to find one neat aspect of the golf course. I think,
Speaker 2: like what I like the most about it is the
Speaker 2: big property. To me, there is a golf There could
Speaker 2: be a good golf course there, and that to me
Speaker 2: is like the redeeming quality of Valhalla. There could be
Speaker 2: a good golf course and it's big enough to host championships,
Speaker 2: but no wind what And let's be clear, like I
Speaker 2: don't think you can take a major to Kentucky and
Speaker 2: expect anything to play firm and fast, like I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think that in that part of the country,
Speaker 2: if you go in the summer it's too hot, you
Speaker 2: have to back off because it you know, it gets
Speaker 2: so hot and then it still rains a lot in
Speaker 2: the summer. I don't think it ever gets windy there.
Speaker 2: So it's a it's a golf course. Like when I
Speaker 2: think about what bothers modern tour players, what tests modern
Speaker 2: tour player, it's the ball rolling on the grounds. So
Speaker 2: it's gonna be soft regardless of the time of year.
Speaker 2: You go to Kentucky and and wind and I don't
Speaker 2: think like I might. I'm not a meteorologists, but I
Speaker 2: think that Kentucky is relatively like not one of the
Speaker 2: windy It's not like it's on the ocean. It's not
Speaker 2: not a windy place. So you have those two things
Speaker 2: working against it. So if you don't have natural conditions
Speaker 2: that can test players, then what's left. It's architectural features,
Speaker 2: and there are none none there the greens. The greens
Speaker 2: are I think the greens are are the fact that
Speaker 2: the golf course doesn't use the features, Like there aren't
Speaker 2: greens that are pushed up on on creeks very often.
Speaker 2: You know, the back nine you have a couple, but
Speaker 2: the fairways never. It's never like hit it near the creek,
Speaker 2: like it it actually is twenty five yards away, and
Speaker 2: there's a bunch of rough that stops balls along the way.
Speaker 2: And then I think the biggest indictments around the greens
Speaker 2: where like I just I can't remember watching a golf
Speaker 2: course where there was like less I I mean, like
Speaker 2: any miss around the green seemed like it was a
Speaker 2: really easy up and down, Like the announcer would be like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a really really tough spot, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: the guy hit it to a foot and a half.
Speaker 2: Like it seemed to me that around the Greens was
Speaker 2: maybe one of the most docile golf courses that I've
Speaker 2: seen the world's best players play at in my life.
Speaker 3: I think on that Andy like a good example and
Speaker 3: kind of why you get some of the bunched leaderboard.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of talk of well, it makes
Speaker 3: everyone hit into the same spots with some of these
Speaker 3: forced labs. I think that point was way overblown as
Speaker 3: to why this actually produces a bunched leaderboard. A great
Speaker 3: example like Justin Rose, one of the final pairings on
Speaker 3: Sunday Flares a t shot out right on number one,
Speaker 3: five hundred yard part four into the rough lie is
Speaker 3: not good enough to get to the green, so he
Speaker 3: just hits like a seven or eight iron and leaves
Speaker 3: himself about sixty yards in from the fairway. That shot
Speaker 3: at Valhalla is so easy. Where you have a sixty
Speaker 3: yard shot off the fairway into a green with very
Speaker 3: little going on, with soft conditions, no wind, he makes
Speaker 3: an easy par. And unless you hit some kind of
Speaker 3: two hundred yard shot to like twelve feet and made
Speaker 3: the putt, that you're making par there. So that's that's
Speaker 3: kind of why it became such a putting contest, and
Speaker 3: you get a lot of bunched up long hitters at
Speaker 3: the top. That's the problem. The greens like you're hitting
Speaker 3: on there weren't bad places to miss and it kind
Speaker 3: of made it almost felt like everything within within one
Speaker 3: hundred yards of the green was makeable. Like I feel
Speaker 3: like every time on between Thursday and Saturday that the
Speaker 3: telecast cut to a player, you knew that the shot
Speaker 3: was gonna be hit to like five feet or go in.
Speaker 3: If they were showing the golfer and they were like, tif, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was a a bird, he was coming, and it
Speaker 3: kind of doles down the tele cast.
Speaker 1: What if everything that you guys are saying is bad
Speaker 1: at Valhalla is actually good. What if all of these
Speaker 1: things are exactly what we want out of Championship golf
Speaker 1: because it gives us the Sunday that we got yesterday
Speaker 1: and the Sunday that we got in twenty fourteen and
Speaker 1: what we got in two thousand. What if all of
Speaker 1: these complaints about the architecture of Valhalla are misdirected because
Speaker 1: everything that we're talking about is exactly what produces the
Speaker 1: exciting finish.
Speaker 2: I don't you know, listen, I appreciate that perspective, and
Speaker 2: I do think if you if you if you limit
Speaker 2: the ability for players to separate, which this golf course did, like,
Speaker 2: if you limit if you've produced, you can create a setup.
Speaker 2: And I think the PGA that's this better than I
Speaker 2: is like stifle skill. How do we stifle skill and
Speaker 2: create a bunch leader board to produce an entertainment product
Speaker 2: on Sunday? Now, Like, I want to be clear with
Speaker 2: the words I'm using. This tournament was an entertainment product.
Speaker 2: It was not proper championship golf. The point I think
Speaker 2: the ethos of championship golf is to identify the best
Speaker 2: player in the world. Championship golf is you play against
Speaker 2: the golf course. You go out there and you are
Speaker 2: waging war on the golf course, and the golf course
Speaker 2: is punching back against you. If the golf course has
Speaker 2: no defense, if the golf course doesn't punch back, then
Speaker 2: it's not championship golf, right, And that's why when they
Speaker 2: when they as a kid, if you play tournament golf,
Speaker 2: it's beaten into your brain. You don't play the field,
Speaker 2: you play the play the golf course. To me, this
Speaker 2: this was a week that you almost played the field,
Speaker 2: like Xander talked about in his post round. So I like,
Speaker 2: never look at leaderboards today. I was just I was.
Speaker 2: I was all over the leaderboard. I saw like and
Speaker 2: it wasn't he said, like I saw Victor, Victor jumped
Speaker 2: in front. I'm paraphrasing here. He's like, I had to
Speaker 2: hit the gas pedal. It's like, well, the golf course
Speaker 2: provided no resistance back to hitting the gas pedal. Right,
Speaker 2: it wasn't like I was really afraid of that shot
Speaker 2: so I couldn't hit the gas pedal after I fell
Speaker 2: one down, Like, I just hit the gas pedal and
Speaker 2: I got going again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, I agree in the idea as an entertainment
Speaker 3: product that Championship Sunday with a bunch of people in
Speaker 3: the mix is a good thing. Like it's hard to
Speaker 3: argue against that. But I do think what Andy's saying
Speaker 3: about how it wasn't a proper championship level test like
Speaker 3: one ingredient that was missing, in my opinion from the
Speaker 3: entire Sunday, despite it being close, was the major championship
Speaker 3: level stress over shots. There just weren't many opportunities when
Speaker 3: a golfer was standing over a ball that much, many
Speaker 3: bad things could really happen. And some of those weak
Speaker 3: shots that Xander did hit on Sunday, which he did,
Speaker 3: he hit some he was able to get away with
Speaker 3: making parr or Birdie, And I just think such a
Speaker 3: at least for hardcore golf fans, which is not everyone, right,
Speaker 3: it's a small subset of the population that watches golf.
Speaker 3: You want to see those really demanding, stressful situations, and
Speaker 3: that was completely missing. So it's not like when you
Speaker 3: get a bunched up leaderboard on Sunday, it's all positives.
Speaker 3: Like I do, think you're missing a core part of
Speaker 3: what makes major championship golf compelling.
Speaker 2: I think the only way they could have made it
Speaker 2: stressful was if they forced players to go for thirteen.
Speaker 2: It was a mandatory. It was banned. Oh you have
Speaker 2: to go.
Speaker 1: Internal out of bounds the whole fair way. So that's
Speaker 1: something I haven't heard before.
Speaker 2: I just I think that, Like I don't want to
Speaker 2: I want to expand on this a little bit, but
Speaker 2: like the push and pull of golf is the golf
Speaker 2: course against the player. That is what it is. It is.
Speaker 2: That is what when you know it's between game five
Speaker 2: and game six, and you know in the in the
Speaker 2: NBA playoffs and Minnesota decides to tweak the way they're
Speaker 2: guarding the Nicola Jokic pick and roll with Jamal Murray,
Speaker 2: the golf course, like having a wrinkle, changing a t
Speaker 2: box that is going to you know, and moving a
Speaker 2: whole location to a different place that requires you to
Speaker 2: you want to be over here versus over here. That
Speaker 2: is golf's version of defense. That is what like if
Speaker 2: if we watched the NFL and there was no defense
Speaker 2: and they could just it was just oh, drop back
Speaker 2: and complete a pass, it'd be extraordinarily boring. And I agree,
Speaker 2: like there was no variance. Their double bogies were not
Speaker 2: were not really available, Like you had to hit you
Speaker 2: had to do like a you had to have a
Speaker 2: catastrophic mistake to make a double bogie at this golf course.
Speaker 2: And when you're talking about the best player, the best
Speaker 2: players in the world who are playing the best at
Speaker 2: a major championship, what you want to see is you
Speaker 2: want to see minor mistakes lead to stress, and minor
Speaker 2: mistakes led to easy two putts or up and downs.
Speaker 2: Xander shot like Xander on seventeen is a perfect example.
Speaker 2: He's like, I thought there was mud. I thought there
Speaker 2: was mud on my ball, and I misjudged it. I
Speaker 2: misjudged that there was mud on the ball and it
Speaker 2: hung out right because he thought the mud would pull
Speaker 2: it left that that led to one of the most
Speaker 2: basic up and downs I've ever seen in my life life.
Speaker 2: And you know, I I I sympathize with the telecast.
Speaker 2: I thought Trevor and Nance were great, but they were like,
Speaker 2: that was a great up and down. Like it's like
Speaker 2: that's like where you throw your balls down when you're
Speaker 2: warming up hitting pitch shots. Like it's like the most
Speaker 2: basic chip you could have, Like there was no there
Speaker 2: was no and I and I'm curious what you guys think,
Speaker 2: but like, is there is it possible to challenge the
Speaker 2: modern tour pro if there's no fear on or around
Speaker 2: the greens at this point?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and no, I don't think there is. And I
Speaker 1: agree with the article that you wrote on for the
Speaker 1: Saturday newsletter I guess it was or the Sunday Newsletter
Speaker 1: that that this is the main differentiating factor for of
Speaker 1: course like Augusta National, that even if it's soft out there,
Speaker 1: obviously it's it's a little bit less exciting and a
Speaker 1: little bit less competitive if it's soft. But even if
Speaker 1: it is, Augusta's got those greens. And so there's still
Speaker 1: some fear about bailing out away from a pen. I
Speaker 1: think that's a key point, and that's something that Valhalla
Speaker 1: doesn't have. But here is the difficulty for our side
Speaker 1: of this argument here, because I'm in agreement with you
Speaker 1: guys about Valhalla. I watched the tournament all week this
Speaker 1: week and really didn't see an interesting shot out there,
Speaker 1: at least as far as the golfer versus the golf
Speaker 1: course is concerned. I did see bryceon Deshamba playing defense
Speaker 1: on Sunday, and that was exciting, but the golf course
Speaker 1: didn't put up much resistance in and of itself. The
Speaker 1: difficulty for this argument, though, is that a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there will really emphasize watching major championships on
Speaker 1: Sunday alone. And this is what I would do if
Speaker 1: I were still teaching, right because I'd be teaching Thursday
Speaker 1: and Friday, I'd probably be spending time with family on Saturday,
Speaker 1: and then I would watch the PGA Championship on Sunday.
Speaker 1: And what I would see is stacked leaderboard, a bunch
Speaker 1: of names that I'm familiar with, close competition, exciting final
Speaker 1: nine holes, and then I hear that the course is
Speaker 1: no good. That might not make that much sense to
Speaker 1: me because I'd be like, how can the course not
Speaker 1: be good if this is what happened on it? And
Speaker 1: then I remember the twenty fourteen US Open at Pinehurst
Speaker 1: number two, a golf course that I am supposed to
Speaker 1: regard is really good, and that was just the most
Speaker 1: boring Sunday imaginable. Is Martin Kimer running away with it?
Speaker 1: Or you know, how about how about Hoylake that was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a really good championship test. Brian Harmon
Speaker 1: just dominating on Sunday. That's what I supposed to think
Speaker 1: is a great championship golf course. That's what we're supposed
Speaker 1: to want. That's the true test of skill. Brian Harmon
Speaker 1: versus you know, Valhalla, Xander Bryson, Victor Hovland duking it out.
Speaker 1: Isn't that an indication that this course was a true
Speaker 1: test of skill, whereas Hoylake was just a Mickey mouse
Speaker 1: course that Brian Harmon was able to run away on.
Speaker 1: I feel like that that's that's a perspective that I
Speaker 1: can kind of relate with if I were really just
Speaker 1: kind of watching these tournaments on Sunday and then so
Speaker 1: I can kind of get where people are coming from.
Speaker 2: And that's I like I enjoyed watching Sunday I listen.
Speaker 2: I I think that's the thing. But I also I
Speaker 2: think we're at the state of golf where golf's gotten
Speaker 2: super homogenized in the way in the types of courses,
Speaker 2: Like there's like only certain types of courses can host
Speaker 2: these guys on a regular basis. If there was more
Speaker 2: variety in golf courses and golf course set up, I
Speaker 2: think the top ten in the world would look a
Speaker 2: lot different. And that and Brian Harmon at Hoylake is
Speaker 2: a perfect example of that. That golf course really rewarded accuracy.
Speaker 2: It was you couldn't just bomb it up there and
Speaker 2: hid it in the rough and be okay. And when
Speaker 2: when you reward accuracy and Brian Harmon has a really
Speaker 2: strong putting week, you know what, Brian Harmon is going
Speaker 2: to be a factor, right, Like I think that's the
Speaker 2: thing is that I think people need to start to understand,
Speaker 2: like this is very similar to tracks in the way
Speaker 2: f one works, right, Like different tracks produce different results
Speaker 2: and different drivers have different skill sets. And with with
Speaker 2: golf courses, there's just a lot of golf courses. There
Speaker 2: are a lot more golf courses that the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: players that are like Valhalla than are like Hoylake. And
Speaker 2: that's that's the thing. That's one of the things that's
Speaker 2: missing from the sport is the variety and the discourse about, Okay,
Speaker 2: this type of golf course like next week, this week
Speaker 2: coming up Colonials like a great example. Colonial favors like
Speaker 2: a different skill set than most golf courses on tour,
Speaker 2: and it's a unique week where hitting fairways is super
Speaker 2: important and like hitting it two eighty, isn't it as
Speaker 2: big of a disadvantage?
Speaker 3: Agree with what you said, Andy, I also think it
Speaker 3: is fair to call out like some of the principles
Speaker 3: that we'd be advocating for that allow separation are going
Speaker 3: to result in some sleepier Sundays than what we just
Speaker 3: watched of Ahalla. Like recent editions of the Masters have
Speaker 3: not been super exciting coming down this stretch. But I
Speaker 3: think a distinction that's worth making is that when they
Speaker 3: are exciting coming down this stretch, those tournaments that have
Speaker 3: setups like Augusta National have such a higher ceiling for
Speaker 3: the entertainment value that you can have when there's a
Speaker 3: lot of shots that are stressful and trouble can happen,
Speaker 3: Like if a golfer has a two shot lead, it's
Speaker 3: still stressful to get it in the house because there's
Speaker 3: trouble out there and there's demanding green complexes. We got
Speaker 3: a really exciting tournament at Valhalla, but if a golfer
Speaker 3: had been ahead by three going into the back nine
Speaker 3: or something like that, which would have been possible, it
Speaker 3: could have been really sleepy. Like we are just evaluating
Speaker 3: what we saw, and yes, this type of setup makes
Speaker 3: it more likely that you're going to get a bunched
Speaker 3: up leaderboard, but it doesn't guarantee it. And I think
Speaker 3: that that is an important point with all of this
Speaker 3: discourse that if we easily could have had a sleepy Sunday.
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Speaker 1: All right, let's get to some other takeaways. I've got
Speaker 1: one that I that I want to throw into the mix,
Speaker 1: and that's the Bryson de Shambo thrives. This is mind
Speaker 1: in this current divided ecosystem, as as all of this
Speaker 1: is for golf, as bad as it is for us fans,
Speaker 1: for you know, all these different players to be on
Speaker 1: different tours on a week to week basis, I think
Speaker 1: Bryson to Shambo has really come into himself now that
Speaker 1: you know, for most of the year, frankly, the guy's
Speaker 1: on the CW and even if you are avidly following live,
Speaker 1: there aren't nearly as many live tournaments as there are
Speaker 1: PGA Tour tournaments. All in all, Bryson to Shamba is
Speaker 1: not in the crosshairs of media and fan attention nearly
Speaker 1: as much as he was a few years ago. And
Speaker 1: I think that that has been enormously beneficial to him
Speaker 1: because now he can kind of control and craft his
Speaker 1: public persona through his YouTube channel, which he really seems
Speaker 1: to enjoy, and then he can show up to these
Speaker 1: majors four times a year and he can play the hero,
Speaker 1: which is always what he wanted to do. He was
Speaker 1: never comfortable being the villain. We wanted him to be
Speaker 1: the villain. We liked him as the villain. That is
Speaker 1: not what Bryson De'shamba wanted. He wanted to be the big,
Speaker 1: burly superhero. And you know what, he's kind of pulling
Speaker 1: it off, right showing up to these majors after we
Speaker 1: haven't seen him for a while. People kind of seemed
Speaker 1: to be hungering for a little bit of Bryson in
Speaker 1: their lives, and when he plays well, obviously it works
Speaker 1: all the better for him. But there was this video
Speaker 1: that came out yesterday afternoon, Sunday afternoon of him tossing
Speaker 1: a ball toward a kid on the other side of
Speaker 1: the ropes and some you know, some malicious adult reached
Speaker 1: over and took the ball from the kid and started
Speaker 1: to walk off, and Bryson stopped and called the guy
Speaker 1: back and had him give the ball back to the kid.
Speaker 1: I mean it's all just kind of an incredible show.
Speaker 1: And his play was really exciting, his celebrations were exciting,
Speaker 1: his interview were funny and kind of charming. But I
Speaker 1: think all this works for us and for him in
Speaker 1: low doses this where every week it would be annoying,
Speaker 1: we would start to see some of the less appealing
Speaker 1: parts of his personality and the way that he thinks
Speaker 1: and the way that he acts coming through. But in
Speaker 1: these low doses, I think it works for fans, it
Speaker 1: works for me, and I think it also is manageable
Speaker 1: for Bryson mentally, energy wise and all that. What do
Speaker 1: you guys think of that?
Speaker 3: Scott van Pelt after the NBA All Star Game this year,
Speaker 3: where there was no defense and teams were putting up
Speaker 3: a million points, he tweeted something like, it's simple. If
Speaker 3: you don't care, then neither do we, basically saying if
Speaker 3: the athletes don't care, like the fans aren't going to care.
Speaker 3: And I think in this era of golf, there's been
Speaker 3: a message from a lot of players that they're not
Speaker 3: defined by their result, right, Like all this process driven
Speaker 3: Xander Schaffley saying winning a major is just just a
Speaker 3: result Scottie Scheffler's the same way, Like winning doesn't define me.
Speaker 3: I think something that defines Bryson to Shambeau is that
Speaker 3: he cares, and he cares about everything that he's doing.
Speaker 3: He cares about the YouTube content that he's creating, like
Speaker 3: he cared about winning this golf tournament. He was ripping
Speaker 3: drivers on the driving range as Xander Schaffley finished up,
Speaker 3: like because he was just excited to get back out
Speaker 3: there and do the playoff whole apparently like bashing driver
Speaker 3: over and over again. The guy cares about everything he does,
Speaker 3: and I think it's extremely captivating as a golf fan.
Speaker 3: So I don't know if I one hundred percent agree
Speaker 3: with you that I need him in small doses, like
Speaker 3: I'd be fine he.
Speaker 1: Loved this every week. To me, that'd be completely overbearing
Speaker 1: every week, and I think that was the problem in
Speaker 1: the past.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure the extent to which he's he would
Speaker 3: be overbearing. Like maybe he's changed as a person. I
Speaker 3: think he probably has changed in some ways from his
Speaker 3: PGA tour days when his cat he was hiding the
Speaker 3: camera from him at Memorial and some of those antics.
Speaker 3: Maybe Bryson has changed a little bit. But I think
Speaker 3: what I gravitate towards is that there are fewer and
Speaker 3: fewer athletes who professional golfers who really seem to care
Speaker 3: about everything that they're doing and care about the result.
Speaker 3: And I think Bryson is about as passionate in what
Speaker 3: he's doing as any other golfer.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say one of my takeaways was that
Speaker 2: Bryson is one of the three most interesting professional golfers.
Speaker 1: Okay, who are the other two?
Speaker 2: Probably Rory and Speith.
Speaker 1: We're we're not considering Tigers as one of these.
Speaker 2: I mean that could be another take that I don't
Speaker 2: think Tiger's like a real golfer anymore.
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly didn't seem like it this week.
Speaker 3: Is Speed more interesting than Scheffler.
Speaker 2: I think Scheffler has a chance now with this the
Speaker 2: situation to get up in there.
Speaker 1: But he's getting up in there. But I think speF
Speaker 1: what we're hanging on to with speif is is five
Speaker 1: or six years ago, but right that's still there for me.
Speaker 1: That's still feel like recent history to me.
Speaker 2: To expand on what Joseph said about Scott van Pelt,
Speaker 2: which I think is if you don't care, we don't care.
Speaker 2: I think like I spend a lot of time at
Speaker 2: the Master's following Bryson. I think he genuinely cares about
Speaker 2: his fans, Like you wouldn't put the dedication that he's
Speaker 2: put into YouTube if you didn't. I think like I
Speaker 2: think there's I think he struggled early in his career
Speaker 2: with genuineness in general. I think a lot of that
Speaker 2: had to do with, like turn being twenty three years old,
Speaker 2: turning professional and having basically your entire life sponsored and
Speaker 2: the sponsorships all centered around him being different. It forced
Speaker 2: him into this, this role of being the innovator, which
Speaker 2: wasn't This wasn't him and he was young. He is
Speaker 2: in like I couldn't imagine having to try and be
Speaker 2: like a brand's like five brands spokesperson for golf at
Speaker 2: age twenty three, and like under the context of like
Speaker 2: you need to be weird and different, like that was
Speaker 2: what was like tasks, tasks, but like the Scott van
Speaker 2: Pelt if if you don't care, we don't care. Here's
Speaker 2: the thing about Bryson. He engages with the fans. I
Speaker 2: think this is so underrated. He talks, He does press conferences,
Speaker 2: he talks He tells you what he thinks about things,
Speaker 2: Like he steps in mud a lot when he does it.
Speaker 2: He gets you know, Twitter screenshotted with his response a lot.
Speaker 2: But he tells you what he thinks. He is somebody
Speaker 2: that is I wouldn't say a complete open book, but
Speaker 2: he he cares and you can see that he cares
Speaker 2: and fans respect that, and he cares about the fans.
Speaker 2: Like what you said the story about the golf ball
Speaker 2: right after Xander, after he congratulated Xander, he put his
Speaker 2: glove back on, signed it, gave it to another fan.
Speaker 2: Like this guy talks to fans when he's in the
Speaker 2: heat of the moment. He said, he reacts back everybody
Speaker 2: else on tour, especially the ones that, if you consider them,
Speaker 2: are a little bit boring. Xander Schoffley wouldn't interact with
Speaker 2: a fan if like he would never He just stares
Speaker 2: straight ahead, acts like he doesn't hear him. Bryson turns
Speaker 2: and answers questions. Some guy at the Masters asked him
Speaker 2: what was in his snack back on the eighth t
Speaker 2: He's near maybe in the lead, near the lead, and
Speaker 2: he goes and you could tell Bryson was thinking about
Speaker 2: what to say, and he goes the good stuff like
Speaker 2: he's he responded back to this guy, and I was
Speaker 2: sitting right there and I just was like, how many
Speaker 2: golfers would have responded to some yo yo being like,
Speaker 2: what's in the bag? Right soon?
Speaker 1: That's that's Bryson and and he's he's a bit of
Speaker 1: a goofball, And when we get that side of his personality,
Speaker 1: it's great. I think the issue with Bryson is that
Speaker 1: he doesn't deal as well as some players do with scrutiny,
Speaker 1: and that's a consequence of caring. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that I'm better than Bryson in this respect. I think
Speaker 1: I would react the same way to being held up
Speaker 1: for scrutiny and criticism in the public eye in the
Speaker 1: way that he is. I could definitely relate with those
Speaker 1: reactions that he has to negative feedback from media and
Speaker 1: from fans, but I just don't think he's going to
Speaker 1: get as much of that. With the current state of
Speaker 1: the golf schedule. Being on live, he's not going to
Speaker 1: be challenged in the way that he would be if
Speaker 1: he were playing week in, week out on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: He can come to these majors. He can be the
Speaker 1: hero for a bit and the scrutiny is limited, and
Speaker 1: that seems to be really good for him because he
Speaker 1: likes the attention, he likes being liked. But as soon
Speaker 1: as that turns around a little bit, and it inevitably
Speaker 1: does for just about everybody, right, even for the most
Speaker 1: likable public figures, there's gonna be something that somebody picks
Speaker 1: up on and uses as a way to criticize you.
Speaker 1: And people who are who deal with this stuff, well,
Speaker 1: don't react poorly to that, just let it pass and
Speaker 1: proceed with their lives in the public eye. I don't
Speaker 1: think Bryson is built that way. I still don't think
Speaker 1: he's built that way.
Speaker 3: I agree to an extent Garrett, and I think he
Speaker 3: does probably struggle a little bit dealing with criticism. But
Speaker 3: I still think a huge craving Bryson had was to
Speaker 3: be able to craft his own image. And there was
Speaker 3: an incident maybe at Memorial, where he slammed a club
Speaker 3: and it was caught on camera, and he got mad
Speaker 3: at the cameraman and he was like saying something about
Speaker 3: there's a sposed to be building his image and not
Speaker 3: tearing it down. So I agree like that he might
Speaker 3: deal with negative press in not the best way, but
Speaker 3: I do think like the media rights issue. Some people
Speaker 3: may roll their eyes at that, but how the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour didn't really let golfers create content around the events
Speaker 3: that they were at, and now Bryson gets to create
Speaker 3: all this YouTube content and he's very active with his
Speaker 3: snapchat content. Like, I think that's the craving that deep
Speaker 3: down Bryson had was to be able to curate that
Speaker 3: image for himself and tell the story to his fans.
Speaker 3: So I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I think
Speaker 3: that there's a certain comfort level that Bryson now has
Speaker 3: since he has those platforms that he's built for himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he has the time to do that. He
Speaker 1: has the freedom to do that, sure, because he's not,
Speaker 1: to be frank about it, being subjected to journalism. And
Speaker 1: as somebody who likes journalism and values journalism, I am
Speaker 1: a little bit uncomfortable with that. I think that it's
Speaker 1: a lot more interesting for fans if players, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of work within some traditional modes of journalism. But
Speaker 1: but certainly not everybody out there, not every fan out there,
Speaker 1: agrees with that. And Bryson's control over his image certainly
Speaker 1: has done a great deal of good for that image,
Speaker 1: which we saw on fully on display this week. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to let's get to another takeaway, a last takeaway,
Speaker 1: or maybe a last two takeaways here, let's try to
Speaker 1: get to them quickly. Either of you have something that
Speaker 1: you want to jump to.
Speaker 2: I just gave you too. Yeah, okay, I've already done.
Speaker 1: You've done the assignment.
Speaker 2: We don't need We don't need to dive into Tiger
Speaker 2: not being a real professional golfer anymore.
Speaker 1: Any other takeaways, Joseph? Or do we cover years as well?
Speaker 3: I think we mostly covered mind Garrett, like the softness
Speaker 3: and it's hard to test golfers. I think I had
Speaker 3: as a backup, like there are just so few venues
Speaker 3: where you can have reliable firmness and infrastruate, and like
Speaker 3: it is hard when in being critical of Valhalla, it's
Speaker 3: also considerable what the alternatives are. There aren't that many
Speaker 3: of them, and maybe if you expand it outside of
Speaker 3: the United States a little bit, there'd be more of them.
Speaker 3: But I do think that's relevant to the discussion. Not
Speaker 3: we don't need to spend a ton of time on it,
Speaker 3: but there aren't that many venues that hold up to
Speaker 3: the modern game at modern distances, with space to have fans, hotel,
Speaker 3: accommodations like practice facilities that are big enough to have
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty golfers. It's a difficult problem set.
Speaker 2: I mean to be that's a great topic. I One
Speaker 2: of the things about the PGA is they aren't locked in.
Speaker 2: I mean they're locked in till twenty thirty. So just
Speaker 2: for the record, next year is at Quail Hollow, Charlotte,
Speaker 2: North Carolina. I think we're gonna have It's gonna be
Speaker 2: similar to Valhalla in terms of it's probably a little
Speaker 2: bit better. It's a better golf course, more of more
Speaker 2: of a I would say, more of a test. There's
Speaker 2: more penalty around there. But great, great market for golf,
Speaker 2: great place to go in May for golf. Then they've
Speaker 2: got ironom Inc. In twenty twenty six. I'm a little
Speaker 2: worried about that. One.
Speaker 1: Hope it's firm, That's that's all. I'm hoping. We've gotten
Speaker 1: a couple of a couple of tournaments at aronom Inc.
Speaker 1: A couple of PGA tour or tournaments or at least
Speaker 1: one at the renovated Ironom and Gil Hans did a
Speaker 1: kind of neoclassical renovation there.
Speaker 2: I think it was like it was very restoration base like,
Speaker 2: it was very put the bunkers, put the bunkers back
Speaker 2: where they are. And I think the issue with that
Speaker 2: is that if you hit it, if you carry it
Speaker 2: three hundred yards, yeah, three hundred and ten yards, you're
Speaker 2: not going to be looking at a lot of bunkers.
Speaker 2: And we saw Bryson carry a three hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: yard bunker this week on seventeen Uphill, and that is
Speaker 2: that's two years away. So where are we going to
Speaker 2: be at two years before the rollback?
Speaker 1: It might get shelled, but if it's firm, I mean,
Speaker 1: we we got a couple of really wet aronomic tournaments,
Speaker 1: that's my recollection. The one that Keegan won was just
Speaker 1: kind of soggy, and so let's hope it's it's different
Speaker 1: from that because it is obviously a very good golf.
Speaker 2: Course, Major in Philly, that's awesome. Frisco. Then we go
Speaker 2: to Frisco. First look at Frisco, which I think is
Speaker 2: really an interesting uh could.
Speaker 1: To a little more potential for firmness there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and uh, by then a lot of houses
Speaker 2: will be built up around around it, which is kind
Speaker 2: of a bummer. Uh. Then you got the Olympic Club,
Speaker 2: which is like an artificial rollback because you're gonna be
Speaker 2: playing in cold fog. So that's that's interesting, just from
Speaker 2: that sense that the ball won't be going three hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yards maybe maybe by then it will. Then
Speaker 2: then Balta Stral, new bal To Stral and Congressional, And
Speaker 2: I think Congressional, when you talk about val Congressional is
Speaker 2: a great example of a golf course that just completely
Speaker 2: blew it up and it is a completely different I
Speaker 2: think it Congressional had a lot of the the aspects
Speaker 2: of it were similar to what we just discussed with Valhalla,
Speaker 2: and that's a golf course that is now. I'm excited
Speaker 2: about major championship golf being played at Congressional because I
Speaker 2: think it is an interesting golf course with some interesting features,
Speaker 2: some thought provoking features, and some things that wouldn't just
Speaker 2: be characterized as fair.
Speaker 1: It's also going to be a kind of familiar PGA
Speaker 1: Championship set up at Congressional. I believe we're going to
Speaker 1: get a lot of rough. The emphasis is going to
Speaker 1: be on rough as a hazard. The bunkers are gnarly there.
Speaker 1: I think that's maybe one big difference, along with the
Speaker 1: greens being more heavily contoured. This isn't Valhalla that we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, but they took out a lot of
Speaker 1: trees at Congressional and so I just want again, you know,
Speaker 1: we're projecting some years into the future here. Players are
Speaker 1: going to be longer at a course that's pretty open
Speaker 1: like that, and where rough is such a significant penalty.
Speaker 1: Not significant in terms of it's thick rough, it might
Speaker 1: be thick rough, but significant in terms of what the
Speaker 1: golf course is trying to do. One of the golf
Speaker 1: course's primary defenses is rough. I'm not sure how well
Speaker 1: it's going to work, but if it's firm, it should
Speaker 1: be a really.
Speaker 2: Rolled back golf ball.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll be even more rolled back than we expect.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we'll get a bigger roll back than the
Speaker 1: one that has been proposed. That that would be. That
Speaker 1: would be lovely.
Speaker 2: And then twenty thirty one is Kiwa Island and the
Speaker 2: Ocean Course, which I think like for we just did
Speaker 2: this big segment on golf course on like you know,
Speaker 2: you know this type of That was an example of
Speaker 2: a great golf course, separated the field and a great finish.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was an example of windy a really
Speaker 2: good tournament from both an entertainment standpoint, and it was
Speaker 2: entertaining Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 1: That's the thing is it can happen. It can still
Speaker 1: happen that you have a great golf course in great
Speaker 1: conditions that tend to separate the field and that reward
Speaker 1: the players who are really on it. It can happen
Speaker 1: that those are exciting finishes. You just have the possibility
Speaker 1: or even probability of a winner who runs away. But
Speaker 1: when you get those tournaments where it's not just one
Speaker 1: player who's running away, but two or three who have
Speaker 1: separated themselves and battle it out on Sunday, those are
Speaker 1: the most transcendent major championships. That's the good stuff, right
Speaker 1: Valhalla yesterday, I'm sorry, but if do you think that's
Speaker 1: the good stuff. I mean, it was entertaining, It was fine.
Speaker 1: I don't want to poopoo it. If you enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I'm with you. But Kiwoh is
Speaker 1: the good stuff, right, trouon Phil versus Stenson. That was
Speaker 1: the good stuff. That's what we're looking for. And we
Speaker 1: might get a few duds along the way, but at
Speaker 1: least you would have a good test of golf. You
Speaker 1: would know that the winner really earned it against a
Speaker 1: real golf course. And occasionally you get those tournaments that
Speaker 1: just blow your mind and are so great and that
Speaker 1: you'll remember forever. And that's the goal. We don't want
Speaker 1: just these kind of middling tournaments with a bunched leader board.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, we get a fun back nine. No,
Speaker 1: we want the whole thing. Let's go after the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Let's be ambitious here, and let's be willing to take
Speaker 1: a few runaways along the way.
Speaker 3: I think it's an important point, Grett, because good architecture
Speaker 3: and exciting tournaments are not necessarily opposing forces. Like I
Speaker 3: think TPC Sawgrass is a good example of that. It
Speaker 3: might be kind of a high variance golf course and
Speaker 3: it might not be the most predictable, but you can
Speaker 3: get really exciting golf tournaments there with you know, interesting
Speaker 3: strategic decisions and danger on the seventeenth hole. On the
Speaker 3: eighteenth hole, like there are a lot of examples out
Speaker 3: there of good architecture that also produce exciting golf tournaments.
Speaker 3: One little question I had for you, guys, Garrett, and
Speaker 3: you're saying that Valhalla was a major that you're not
Speaker 3: going to look back on fondly when you're looking at
Speaker 3: Wikipedia top tens or you know, thinking about this major
Speaker 3: a couple of years from now, are you gonna kind
Speaker 3: of penalize in your head some of the oh, this
Speaker 3: player finished tied for eighth, but it was at Valhalla, Like,
Speaker 3: is kind of do that mental math in your head
Speaker 3: as you're looking at reflecting on these results.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think I'm going to do that. And
Speaker 1: it's not that I don't want to do that or
Speaker 1: that I don't think that that would be a proper
Speaker 1: way to view history, But I just know that I
Speaker 1: don't do that with players past majors. A major is
Speaker 1: a major is a major. When I when I look
Speaker 1: at those Wikipedia squares or consider the number of a
Speaker 1: player's career majors, I don't really factor that much nuance
Speaker 1: into it. For me. It's kind of it's kind of
Speaker 1: a you know, a one or a zero, and and
Speaker 1: that's just the way I think memory flattens things a
Speaker 1: little bit. I'm not saying that's the right thing. I
Speaker 1: just think that's the way it's going to be. Xanderschoffle
Speaker 1: definitely deserved a major title for what he did this
Speaker 1: past weekend. I don't want to minimize that at all.
Speaker 1: But you know, if he if he had, if he
Speaker 1: had won a major at a really firm, tough golf course,
Speaker 1: it might have felt a little bit more significant, for sure.
Speaker 2: I think the way that I will look at it
Speaker 2: a little bit differently is like when it comes to
Speaker 2: like kind of like fits in the sense of like
Speaker 2: the Bryson Deshambo thing right where it's like, Okay, let's
Speaker 2: look at the top fives that he's had in majors,
Speaker 2: and it's wing Foot, Valhalla, Harding Park. I think there's
Speaker 2: one other one, Okill, And it's like, okay, what are
Speaker 2: the ingredients for all four of those?
Speaker 1: Place picture starts to emerge.
Speaker 2: You know, And I think that's the context. I think
Speaker 2: like finishing top ten in a major, you're especially this one,
Speaker 2: there's one hundred and fifty six players. I was thinking
Speaker 2: about this on Fridays, just like how many people get
Speaker 2: cut from this event when you cut down to sixty
Speaker 2: five and ties, huge number of people get cut versus
Speaker 2: the Masters, where it's like a mad cut in the
Speaker 2: PGA versus may cut and the Masters completely different realm
Speaker 2: of accomplishments seventy ti.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, like when you start to like
Speaker 2: look at that type of stuff, I think, like a
Speaker 2: top ten in a PGA, now, like I think it
Speaker 2: tells a story. Who finished in the top ten is like,
Speaker 2: you know, Calum mor Kawa played a really good tournament
Speaker 2: to finish in the top ten at a golf course that
Speaker 2: doesn't really fit his skill set. I think the same
Speaker 2: probably for you know, Justin Rose and Billy Horschel. Like
Speaker 2: you know, I think so I don't really think like
Speaker 2: I will look back like you you're when you do
Speaker 2: the top five's top ten things, it's like an you're
Speaker 2: aggregating the career versus diving into really the minutia of
Speaker 2: the career. And I think a lot of analysis, sadly
Speaker 2: with golf and popular analysis with golf at this point,
Speaker 2: is all done in the aggregate and not in the minutia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we can play the role of providing some
Speaker 1: of that perspective that is that is partly the role
Speaker 1: of media to craft those stories. But I think that
Speaker 1: one thing to bring this back to the PGA Championship
Speaker 1: and its identity and the venues that it's choosing the
Speaker 1: setups that it's going for. I think one thing related
Speaker 1: to this discussion that's a risk for the PGA of
Speaker 1: America is that the PGA Championship more and more might
Speaker 1: feel like a less significant major than the other three
Speaker 1: if they keep kind of going to water down golf
Speaker 1: courses with a watered down setup and we get a
Speaker 1: tournament that feels like a PGA Tour event. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to put too much emphasis on score to par
Speaker 1: here because it's an unreliable metric of the success of
Speaker 1: a tournament, but just look at it. Look at that.
Speaker 1: Look at the top of that leaderboard. It's twenty one under,
Speaker 1: it's twenty under, it's eighteen under. It's you know, guys
Speaker 1: were shelling this golf course, and it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a major if you do that over and over year
Speaker 1: after year. And so I think that something that the
Speaker 1: PGA of America is going to think about that the
Speaker 1: setup czars at the PGA of America will think about
Speaker 1: need to think about is how do we do a
Speaker 1: version of this PGA Championship test that just feels a
Speaker 1: little bit fiercer. I think that's a big deal for
Speaker 1: the PGA Championship retaining its status and its.
Speaker 3: Prestige without the answer just being adding rough in more
Speaker 3: places to.
Speaker 1: Raise this right, And I'm afraid that that's kind of
Speaker 1: the direction they go. But I hope that eventually they
Speaker 1: realize that that is sort of wrongheaded and is really
Speaker 1: not going to scare these guys in the least. They
Speaker 1: they have they have answered that question, they have solved
Speaker 1: that problem, and we need to look for other ways
Speaker 1: to challenge them. All right, why don't we Why don't
Speaker 1: we wrap up there? Thank you guys for coming on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Delightful, It was great.
Speaker 2: It was fun to chat Scar.
Speaker 1: This episode of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast was produced
Speaker 1: by Meg Atkins. Thank you Meg. If you like deep
Speaker 1: dives into golf courses and golf course architecture, if you
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