Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a fried Egg
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida fridagg Bride.
Speaker 1: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast.
Speaker 2: I am your host, Andy Johnson, and we're here final
Speaker 2: major of the year, The Open, a lot I think
Speaker 2: from a golf romantic standpoint, probably the most romantic major
Speaker 2: of the year. It is is a special major, returning
Speaker 2: to you know where golf started. And this year we've
Speaker 2: got a great tournament on on deck for Royal Troon.
Speaker 2: It is a It's hosted a lot of opens, a
Speaker 2: lot of great opens, and uh it's gonna be I'm
Speaker 2: pretty excited to watch. The storylines are incredible. So it
Speaker 2: is uh is Sunday before the Open. I was lucky
Speaker 2: to be joined by a Trouon native, Andrew Cotter. Andrew Cotter,
Speaker 2: for those in America probably aren't familiar, he has a
Speaker 2: prominent broadcaster uh in in the UK. He works primarily
Speaker 2: for the BBC. He was he was kind enough to
Speaker 2: join me from Wimbledon, his brother's caddie and a number
Speaker 2: of opens. He was a a scratch player there growing up.
Speaker 2: Uh so, a lot of knowledge of truon and you know,
Speaker 2: he has his own golf podcast called The Chipping Forecast,
Speaker 2: which he hosts with Eddie Pepperrell. It is a great
Speaker 2: listen as well, so well was checking that out. And
Speaker 2: of course he's the owner of Olivia Mabel for those
Speaker 2: that remember that book during COVID they he wrote and
Speaker 2: the fun he had there. So I was a big
Speaker 2: thanks to Andrew for joining on a busy week of
Speaker 2: his And we'll get to the five things, but first
Speaker 2: let's talk about our partner, good Walk Coffee.
Speaker 1: It is coffee golf season.
Speaker 2: It is the best time of year and good Walk
Speaker 2: Coffee is the official coffee partner of Frida Egg Golf.
Speaker 2: We partner so much that we have our own collaborative blends.
Speaker 2: We have the Shotgun Start Blend, which is a dark roast,
Speaker 2: and we have the Frida Egg Blend, which is a
Speaker 2: light roast. It's a medium light roast, so all of
Speaker 2: your needs are there. They are great people, golf lovers
Speaker 2: and focused on kind of like creating coffee for golfers.
Speaker 2: So if you use the code Friday I get checkout,
Speaker 2: you'll save twenty percent on your entire order. I mean
Speaker 2: if you start a coffee subscription, so this is the
Speaker 2: way I do it. I get a couple bags a month,
Speaker 2: I never have to worry about running out. You'll save
Speaker 2: thirty percent on your first order and then ten percent
Speaker 2: on all future shipments. So sign up and never run
Speaker 2: out of your Frida Egg or Shotgun Start Blend. That
Speaker 2: really helps us. That's, you know, something we do collaboratively
Speaker 2: and it supports us. So if you want to check
Speaker 2: it out, go to Goodwalkcoffee dot com slash frieda Egg
Speaker 2: to learn more and use that promo code fried Egg
Speaker 2: no spaces at checkout to save thirty percent on your
Speaker 2: subscription or twenty percent on your entire order. Get some
Speaker 2: good coffee for for this week. Treat yourself and check
Speaker 2: out the Friedagg Blend or the Shotgun Start Blind. All right, thanks,
Speaker 2: now let's get to Andrew Cotter. All right, I am
Speaker 2: excited here to welcome in Andrew Cotter, a truon native,
Speaker 2: a you know, a legendary broadcaster in his own right.
Speaker 2: For this five things episode about the Open Championship. We're
Speaker 2: heading to Royal Truon. This will be the tenth time
Speaker 2: that Truon hosts the Open. The last time we saw
Speaker 2: it was actually the Women's Open Sophia pop off when
Speaker 2: the Women's Open that year. It will always hold a
Speaker 2: special place in my heart. Truon will because it was
Speaker 2: I was in a hospital room during COVID with my
Speaker 2: one to two day year old daughter watching Royal Truon
Speaker 2: at the wee hours with her sleeping on my chest.
Speaker 2: I will never forget Royal True because of that. I
Speaker 2: have warm and fuzzies even though I've never been there
Speaker 2: for Royal Truon because of the pop off Women's Open.
Speaker 2: But a pretty solid list of winners when you roll
Speaker 2: through there, even underrated ones like weiss Cough. I think
Speaker 2: Stenson in twenty years will be an underrated winner at
Speaker 2: Truon to go along with some big big name winners
Speaker 2: at Truon such as Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer. And
Speaker 2: I mean Bobby Locke was a was a big time
Speaker 2: player as well, so I think Andrew starting off, I'd
Speaker 2: love to hear a little bit about the dynamic of
Speaker 2: growing up in Troon and and and what it's like there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so roll troun. I just call it true, I can't,
Speaker 3: you know, Yeah, it's it's where I grew up. And
Speaker 3: I grew up just a couple hundred yarms from the
Speaker 3: first tea, and so I was a junior member there.
Speaker 3: The junior section when I was a junior was absolutely terrible.
Speaker 3: I mean it was They had no time for juniors
Speaker 3: at all. Colman Gummery's father was the secretary at the time,
Speaker 3: and I got on famously with him. Now he's, you know,
Speaker 3: a really nice guy, but as a secretary, he was
Speaker 3: just he was he was. He didn't like I don't
Speaker 3: think anyone liked juniors. It's like quite a lot of clubs.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it's like in the US, but
Speaker 3: they frown upon juniors. And so I was a decent player,
Speaker 3: not you know. I was playing off about one or
Speaker 3: two when I was sixteen seventeen, and I never got
Speaker 3: to play the Old Course. We weren't allowed to play
Speaker 3: the Old Course. So we used to play the Portland Course,
Speaker 3: which is you like this, And it was originally well
Speaker 3: it was Redone by Aston Mackenzie, so it was and
Speaker 3: then it kind of got lost in the Second World
Speaker 3: War a little bit and became a bit of a
Speaker 3: corruption of that. But it's a really good course. But anyway,
Speaker 3: we weren't allowed to play the old course, so I
Speaker 3: went and joined clemar at Brassey, which had amazed. It's
Speaker 3: the other side of true an amazing junior section like
Speaker 3: Gordon Sherry. Do you remember Gordon Sherry won the Amateur
Speaker 3: to huge guy six foot eight ginger hair. He won
Speaker 3: the Amateur Championship and playing the Masters, and Alan Reid
Speaker 3: won the Scottish Amateur. Anyway, I'm digressing a little bit.
Speaker 3: So all tune was it's kind of where I grew
Speaker 3: up and where I started the game, and so I've
Speaker 3: been a member pretty much for since the age of
Speaker 3: three or four. I think my parents joined me up
Speaker 3: when I was three or four. That's when I started playing.
Speaker 3: And I've never really got any better than when I
Speaker 3: was five or six anyway, so I've plateaued at that
Speaker 3: that age. But Truon is, yeah, Trouon's home. I don't
Speaker 3: live in Scotland anymore. I've lived in England for twenty years,
Speaker 3: but I'll for the Open. I was staying in the
Speaker 3: house I grew up in two hundred yomps in the
Speaker 3: media center. It's just a dream.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Do you have any good Colin Montgomery father stories? But
Speaker 2: to your point, I think there was like a seismic
Speaker 2: change in the way juniors were treated in American golf
Speaker 2: after Tiger Woods. But like there was, like I think
Speaker 2: that was one of the hurdles for the game. It's
Speaker 2: so funny when you think about like the evolution of
Speaker 2: the game of golf in America, because I think it
Speaker 2: was it was super welcoming early on, like it it
Speaker 2: became this people were worried it was gonna be America's
Speaker 2: pastime over baseball. But then I think the World War,
Speaker 2: the Great Depression, everything stalled it and it came out.
Speaker 2: I think that's where American golf went wrong in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty or whatever. It came out of this like hibernation,
Speaker 2: and it was a game that is so far away
Speaker 2: from I'll just call it your game, the Scots game.
Speaker 2: And that's where we got this warped as a Scottish,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yes, sports a big, big business and sponsorship, and that's
Speaker 3: when it became in America and certainly. You know, that's
Speaker 3: aside to it in Scotland. In the UK as well,
Speaker 3: it's for a lot of people. It's at aspirational sport,
Speaker 3: not as much as it would be in lots of
Speaker 3: other countries around the world. Like in Troun, for example,
Speaker 3: there are six golf courses. You know, it's a town
Speaker 3: still of only about fifteen thousand people, but there are
Speaker 3: six golf courses and three of those are munis. You know,
Speaker 3: there's a there's a Darley Locker and Fullerton. So I
Speaker 3: grew up playing those courses as well. So golf is
Speaker 3: as much for the people playing in jeans and T
Speaker 3: shirt and just car you know, heading out to play
Speaker 3: in the muni as it is for the people who
Speaker 3: want to be the members of Royal Troon or whatever
Speaker 3: it might be as a sort of aspirational thing. You know,
Speaker 3: having been to Scotland, if you go to the East
Speaker 3: Coast as well, Sam Andrews, it's a sport for all.
Speaker 3: It's very different to sort of down around London the
Speaker 3: Home Counties as we call them in the UK. Well,
Speaker 3: it is quite an aspirational sport. It's about being a
Speaker 3: member of a club as much as playing the sport.
Speaker 3: But I'd like to think that still in Scotland, it's
Speaker 3: about just people going knocking a ball around the field,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's what that's what I like about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, to be honest, I've never really been into
Speaker 3: being a member of a club. So I'll just go
Speaker 3: and change my shoes in the car park and head
Speaker 3: out and hit some balls or whatever. I don't think
Speaker 3: you know how to change your shoes in the car park,
Speaker 3: but I do it away from the clubhouse. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what I think. That's probably what golf is for you.
Speaker 3: Isn't it just about the joy of hitting a golf ball?
Speaker 1: It is?
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: I think that's when you think back to the roots
Speaker 2: of the game. I have a friend Kevin Moore, who
Speaker 2: says that he said this once and it sticks.
Speaker 1: It sticks with me.
Speaker 2: Is like when you think about the origins of golf,
Speaker 2: it was the whole point of golf was here are
Speaker 2: your sticks, here's the ball, that's where you're going go
Speaker 2: get there right Like there was none of this pomp
Speaker 2: and circumstance that a circumstances that we've we've filled the
Speaker 2: game with and all these like I just think, like
Speaker 2: It's interesting when I you know, this is.
Speaker 1: An Open Championship preview and here we are discussing, uh,
Speaker 1: the origins of golf.
Speaker 2: But you know, when I think about like where America
Speaker 2: golf is going, it's like every every day, seemingly every
Speaker 2: day it's about like the next new high end, lux
Speaker 2: private club in America golf. And it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: the vast majority of people grow up playing golf. Like
Speaker 2: I I just visited my the course.
Speaker 1: I grew up playing.
Speaker 2: I've been at home, and you know it is it's
Speaker 2: just so it's amazing to me, Like what what I
Speaker 2: I like, my memories are are amazing. From there, there's
Speaker 2: like a number of golf entrepreneurs that all that I
Speaker 2: played high school golf with that are all that all
Speaker 2: grew up playing this golf course. And what what what
Speaker 2: sticks with me is like, Wow, this place of provided
Speaker 2: me with a golf course to play for one hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety dollars every year. It was one hundred and
Speaker 2: ninety dollars for a junior past and I could play
Speaker 2: all summer long.
Speaker 1: And like I mean, like the.
Speaker 2: One of my best friends growing up, he grew up
Speaker 2: up the street from me. He owns a golf bag company,
Speaker 2: and I you know, started this and we grew up
Speaker 2: riding our bikes to this public golf course every day
Speaker 2: in the summer and just shipping and putting and then
Speaker 2: waiting till three o'clock when we could go play golf.
Speaker 2: And and that was like my summer is like just
Speaker 2: and it's like would either of us be in golf
Speaker 2: without that? That is the version of golf like to
Speaker 2: me is like where Yeah, That's what golf is to me.
Speaker 2: And I think everything else around it is a little
Speaker 2: bit trivial to a certain extents. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh, And I mean in the last couple of years,
Speaker 3: it's gone so far away from what to what we
Speaker 3: think of as golf, you know. And but and again
Speaker 3: we've talked about this on own golf podcast and it's
Speaker 3: quite a lot. Is that is that, you know, whatever
Speaker 3: happens in the professional game with living, the separation and
Speaker 3: the nonsense that goes on. And you know, I was
Speaker 3: listening to the Shotguns Start today and what was Xander
Speaker 3: Schoffley talking about could we get you know, just a
Speaker 3: couple fewer dinners at the Rider Cup? And I'm thinking
Speaker 3: this is so far from what I think of as golf.
Speaker 3: If you ask about me what golf means to me,
Speaker 3: it means the memories of summer evening playing just hitting
Speaker 3: the balls until dark, or playing with my uncle, whatever
Speaker 3: it is. So I think everybody's got that association with
Speaker 3: golf that is really detached from what the professional game
Speaker 3: has become. But you're right here, we are previewing the
Speaker 3: Open Championship and how great the professional game is and
Speaker 3: how you know, just waxing lyrical about what golf means
Speaker 3: to us. But then when I go to Troun, I'll
Speaker 3: see where I was hitting. You know, we had a
Speaker 3: tiny patch of tough to hit balls on as juniors
Speaker 3: at Troun, and it's pretty much underneath where the where
Speaker 3: the practice ground will be for the Open Championship. And
Speaker 3: I'll see these guys pounding balls three hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: yards and I think that's where I just spent ages
Speaker 3: trying to hit a you know, just a nine arm
Speaker 3: or something like that. But when you see how big
Speaker 3: the Open Championship is now as well, it's become it's
Speaker 3: become so vast, and I noticed it really for the
Speaker 3: first time properly at Hoylake last year. Which I didn't.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm actually a big fan of the RNA,
Speaker 3: But I think the Open has become can something be
Speaker 3: too big or too commercial or something. I just think
Speaker 3: it's interesting because you know, you can't go back to
Speaker 3: the past and you can't get stranded in nostalgia. But
Speaker 3: I look at all the Open Championship I've been to
Speaker 3: as a fan and then as a broadcaster, and it
Speaker 3: seems quite a different beast now. It seems to be
Speaker 3: a sort of almost almost sort of a money making
Speaker 3: thing with golf attached to it, you know. But I'm
Speaker 3: and again, my memory goes back a long way. My
Speaker 3: first opening I can really remember wasn't the first one
Speaker 3: that I was at. The first one I can really
Speaker 3: remember properly was the nineteen eighty two Open at Troon
Speaker 3: when I was eight nine years old, and I just
Speaker 3: remember running here and there, and we used to have
Speaker 3: think called the Exhibition, and it was all these local
Speaker 3: golf traders, not local small golf traders would come and
Speaker 3: you know, they'd be people who'd sell headcovers, or people
Speaker 3: that would sell golf snacks, or people would sell a
Speaker 3: thing they'd invented themselves in a Garnet or that, but
Speaker 3: it was just such good fun and then running out here,
Speaker 3: there and everywhere and watching Tom Tom Watson, Nick Price
Speaker 3: blow it with a dodgy mustache. But yeah, I hope
Speaker 3: that for youngsters watching it now it's still maintains that
Speaker 3: charm because it's a huge event and the machinery around
Speaker 3: it now and the infrastructure that's built. But I hope
Speaker 3: it still maintains that sort of charm that can drag
Speaker 3: in youngsters watching it to say, you know, this is
Speaker 3: quite special.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you hit on some interesting points
Speaker 2: and this wasn't you know, we traditionally do five things.
Speaker 2: But like, I think one of the most compelling aspects
Speaker 2: of the Open in general is like where it's going.
Speaker 2: And obviously in America, I think we have the opposite
Speaker 2: problem of like knowing exactly where the US Open's going
Speaker 2: for the next fifty years.
Speaker 3: What was it Pinehurst in the year thirty three, twenty
Speaker 3: seven or something like that.
Speaker 2: But meanwhile in the Open, it seems like we're at
Speaker 2: this stage where it's like how many venues can conceivably
Speaker 2: whole host this tournament? This becomes so big its size.
Speaker 3: Well, Lithm's gone that's Lithm's gone for that reason. Turnbury,
Speaker 3: irrespective of the Trump thing, Turnberry had gone really before
Speaker 3: Trump took over because it wasn't getting the spectator numbers
Speaker 3: and it didn't have the accommodation around apart from the
Speaker 3: hotel there at Turnbery there's nothing. And it's the best course.
Speaker 3: It's in port Russia, probably the two best courses, but
Speaker 3: it won't host another Open Championship. And you're right, it's
Speaker 3: become a thing where you've just got it right. What
Speaker 3: course has got the best roads coming in, the best rail,
Speaker 3: the best air access, and what has got the most
Speaker 3: space that we can put all these things on? So yeah,
Speaker 3: that those are the determining factors for venues.
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, and I think you hit an an awesome
Speaker 2: thing with the the idea of like just like a uh,
Speaker 2: someone who who has a gadget coming in like an
Speaker 2: exhibitor's tent, Like you know, they have all these tents,
Speaker 2: but they're all for very high purchase amounts. Right, it
Speaker 2: has conceivably lost, it has without a doubt, lost some
Speaker 2: of that charm. I think, you know, I you know,
Speaker 2: I hope I I I just when I think about
Speaker 2: the Open, I think about being a kid on summer
Speaker 2: break in America and waking up way earlier than I
Speaker 2: ever would conceive in in the summer to run down
Speaker 2: and turn on golf and just laying on the couch
Speaker 2: all morning watching golf, and I think, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: you see, you see like kind of that charm. Like
Speaker 2: I think about like the Saint Andrews Open, where while
Speaker 2: while the finish is happening, people are jumping over the
Speaker 2: over the burn, maybe breaking legs doing trying to do it.
Speaker 1: But run up that.
Speaker 2: I think there are moments of it, but it does,
Speaker 2: you know, And this is this is true about every major.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is one of the US
Speaker 2: opened conundrums. It's like they're you know, Pineher's a great
Speaker 2: venue because we can put tons of people out there,
Speaker 2: right and you know, other places maybe don't have the
Speaker 2: infrastructure space. The Ryder Cup would be a perfect example
Speaker 2: of this where they have gone from you know, you
Speaker 2: look at the early Ryder Cup golf course hosts to
Speaker 2: what they where they host now and it's like what happened?
Speaker 3: Oh no, The Ryder Cup is just extraordinary and they've
Speaker 3: got too many Dennos for the.
Speaker 1: Players, right it's just you know, I've been in one
Speaker 1: of those.
Speaker 3: I've been in one of those crushes, in one of
Speaker 3: these challenges down in the eighteenth I mean in a
Speaker 3: couple of them actually, but the one I really remember
Speaker 3: was eighty six at Tunbrey, which is obviously just you know,
Speaker 3: half an hour forty minutes south of trun And when
Speaker 3: when Greg Norman won and he was caught in that crush,
Speaker 3: and I remember seeing him. He was just a sort
Speaker 3: of coming up just beside me in this us trying
Speaker 3: to push his way through to merge with his hands
Speaker 3: held up in his shock of white blonde hair and everything,
Speaker 3: and I just I just been so excited by it.
Speaker 3: It was incredible. Yeah, they don't really, I think so Andrews.
Speaker 3: You can get it, but you'd struggle to get the
Speaker 3: because everything's so barricaded off in the seventy second hole.
Speaker 3: Now they have barricades, I mean pretty much down the
Speaker 3: length of the hole.
Speaker 1: It's like you don't have the right media credentials.
Speaker 3: Seventy second whole accreditation in your armband that has done
Speaker 3: you for the whole tournament won't do you for the
Speaker 3: seventy second hole. So that's another thing. As well. That
Speaker 3: true because Trune is actually the course on the open
Speaker 3: Rota where you see the sea the most. It's the
Speaker 3: most you know, if you think of all the other
Speaker 3: courses in the Rota, you know, because Turnberry is not
Speaker 3: on anymore. Where you really are right by the sea,
Speaker 3: you don't you hardly see the one. You buy the sea,
Speaker 3: but you don't see it, whereas in True in the
Speaker 3: first few holes you're right beside the beat. I mean,
Speaker 3: the first tier True now is is fantastic. It's right
Speaker 3: on top of the beach almost. But they have to
Speaker 3: build a fence all the way along the first six
Speaker 3: holes because otherwise people just wandering off the beach and say,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna pay, I'm just gonna I'm just going
Speaker 3: to wander in and see if i can see some golf.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it just becomes I think all courses that
Speaker 3: host big tournaments become so different to the courses you know,
Speaker 3: they become almost unrecognizable. I mean, I've been up there
Speaker 3: quite a lot over the last three months, and you've
Speaker 3: seen the stands going up and everything getting ready, and yeah,
Speaker 3: when I go back this week, it's going to be
Speaker 3: it's going to be quite something, But it's are you going,
Speaker 3: You're going over there that I'm not gone? You know,
Speaker 3: is Brendan going? Is anyone going from the now?
Speaker 2: We are? We are now?
Speaker 1: You know we're dropping the ball. It's been a busy year.
Speaker 3: I had to get some well exactly, I suppose that
Speaker 3: is the case. But they usually get a house sponsored
Speaker 3: by someone. So I'm just filling the shoes.
Speaker 2: Could you're remember, uh there's good a good little spots
Speaker 2: for plug there. But uh, the I think, like, you know,
Speaker 2: what's funny about what you said, getting at the core
Speaker 2: of this is that, ironically, like when I think about
Speaker 2: like my youth, I stuck my way into a fair
Speaker 2: amount of tournaments, like you find you find like there's
Speaker 2: a housing, a cult to sack and they don't fence there.
Speaker 1: We can sneak in over here. You know.
Speaker 2: What I think is is the people that are sneaking
Speaker 2: in on the beach or the exact people that you
Speaker 2: want at the tournament to invoke that local charm. You know,
Speaker 2: nobody's nobody's coming up from London, you know, or flying
Speaker 2: over from America without the tick and say it's okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to sneak in from the beach.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's like there's a couple.
Speaker 3: Of weeks the railway line. That's the thing. Triuns protected
Speaker 3: on one side by the rule end, but other side
Speaker 3: by the sea. So you've got to be pretty committed
Speaker 3: to your felony. So oh, it's a shame you're not
Speaker 3: gonna be there. I was waiting for you to say,
Speaker 3: you know, describe how you're beside the Pacific Ocean or
Speaker 3: something like that, and just to say it's all one sea.
Speaker 3: It's all it's all the same sea. What what? What
Speaker 3: is the froth of Clyde? What are you talking about? This?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that not a good take though? That that all
Speaker 2: these seas don't really matter. They're they're just all one
Speaker 2: big ocean.
Speaker 3: It is all one big ocean. Technically, yeah, it's all
Speaker 3: it's all joined up, I suppose. So just it's a
Speaker 3: sort of pangae or ocean that Yeah, No, absolutely, I
Speaker 3: think I think we should start that. It's just I
Speaker 3: have super ocean one, let's call it that.
Speaker 1: My Pacific Ocean is the same as whatever sea truance
Speaker 1: next to.
Speaker 3: We're all swimming in the same sea. He said, philosophically.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so well, yeah, no, it's what's your favorite childhood
Speaker 2: memory from true.
Speaker 3: I think it would be that eight to two open,
Speaker 3: just because it was such such good fun, you know,
Speaker 3: and again through the sort of haze of nostalgia, it
Speaker 3: was it was sort of always sunny. Well, I think
Speaker 3: it was quite sunny open seventy three y Skull was not.
Speaker 3: I think I was born on the day after Wi
Speaker 3: Scoff won that open, and that rained quite a lot.
Speaker 3: But at eighty nine as well, I had quite good
Speaker 3: met I worked in the pro shop. Troon's Pro had
Speaker 3: a pro shop set up, and I remember I remember
Speaker 3: selling I was sixteen years old. I remember the excitement
Speaker 3: at selling a sweatshirt, a Troons sweatshirt to Brad Faxon.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, how exciting it was that I recognized,
Speaker 3: because you know when you saw American golfers come over.
Speaker 3: I remember seeing Bill Rogers in eighty two. He was
Speaker 3: a defending champion and you were just a very exotic
Speaker 3: species Americans to us in the UK. And so I
Speaker 3: saw Bill Rogers, I thought, my god, he looks amazing.
Speaker 3: It did actually look amazing, Bill Rogers. That wasn't my
Speaker 3: thought when I saw Brad Faxon, but it was still nonetheless,
Speaker 3: I thought I was Brad Faxon. I think it was
Speaker 3: like his rookie year or something. He was quite a
Speaker 3: young gun on two at the time. Brad Faxon and
Speaker 3: the playoff because it was the first four whole playoff
Speaker 3: with Calcavecia, Wayne Grady and Greg Norman, and I remember
Speaker 3: I remember in particular in that playoff they used to
Speaker 3: have in the tented village to the right of the
Speaker 3: seventeenth and eighteenth there was a huge screen playing out
Speaker 3: coverage for people who were in the tented village and
Speaker 3: Greg Norman when he went into the bunker and the
Speaker 3: playoff on the eighteenth and his chances were going he
Speaker 3: had no shot at all, but the volume was turned
Speaker 3: up full on the screen and Peter Alice, the great
Speaker 3: BBC commentator, was saying, well, what he's going to try
Speaker 3: and do here is just getting his weight onto his
Speaker 3: back foot and popping up. But this was booming out
Speaker 3: across the eighteenth fairway and Greg Norman's got and he's
Speaker 3: trying to tell me how to apply the bloody's shot
Speaker 3: and he that sounds nothing like Greg Norman, but it's
Speaker 3: my best attempt at Australian accent and then he just
Speaker 3: I think he ended up knifing it over the back
Speaker 3: or something like that after from a second bunk or so.
Speaker 3: It's had some unlikely winners as well, cal Quebec with
Speaker 3: these ping eye twos, and Todd Hamilton most of all
Speaker 3: just high redding.
Speaker 1: His way around Tech Hybrid. Remember that I must that
Speaker 1: must have sold a lot for I mean, but I don't.
Speaker 2: This was no Todd Hamilton gimmick, I will, I will hear,
Speaker 2: no Sonar Tech slander, Sarah Tech made the greatest three
Speaker 2: would maybe ever made, ever made?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never I never used it. Guy he well
Speaker 3: he he just basically took the premise that it was
Speaker 3: a little bit like Tiger Woods a Hoylake or live
Speaker 3: him when he tried to just stay short of the
Speaker 3: bunkers and so you know, the truon has a pretty
Speaker 3: well bunkered course and he was in one bunker and
Speaker 3: seventy two holes. Todd Hamilton, and everyone says, Todd Hamilton,
Speaker 3: well you know what a duff winner. If you look
Speaker 3: at the leaderboard behind him, it was VJ saying it
Speaker 3: was Ratif whus, and it was Phil Micholson and obviously
Speaker 3: it was Ernie els In the playoffs, so he beat
Speaker 3: some Titans. That was the first year that that Phil
Speaker 3: Mickelson actually worked out that he could play links golf.
Speaker 3: Rick Smith was his coach at the time, and he
Speaker 3: got him to tighten up his swing a little bit.
Speaker 3: And and Michelson said, even he didn't win that year,
Speaker 3: he realized that he could win the Open championship after that.
Speaker 3: So I enjoyed that that Open was good. I wasn't
Speaker 3: enamored by the Michelson Stenson. I thought it was fantastic
Speaker 3: from those two. But the weather wasn't great. It had
Speaker 3: been great on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then it kind
Speaker 3: of get soft and rainy. But you know, even in
Speaker 3: the even in the soft wet conditions, you know, yes,
Speaker 3: Stenson was twenty under, Michaelson was seventeen under. But then
Speaker 3: you go back to third place, six under. Remember who's
Speaker 3: third place and that Open?
Speaker 1: Oh god, we were.
Speaker 2: Talking about this the other day and the team meeting
Speaker 2: pace Car Yeah, JB. I mean what was his more
Speaker 2: famous finish the third at Troon or when he was
Speaker 2: standing on the first tea at Port Rush can decide
Speaker 2: what what club to hit taking Remember the.
Speaker 3: Famous one where they where they where they showed him.
Speaker 3: They cut him off in some big tournament and he
Speaker 3: was waggling and waggling and was backing off and back in,
Speaker 3: but eventually just cut away from went to another call enough.
Speaker 1: They went to the they went to the flowers.
Speaker 3: They went, let's just show some as alias instead of
Speaker 3: to be homes.
Speaker 1: Oh god.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, true, Charlie and Trune is special to me
Speaker 3: because it's my hometown as much as anything else, and
Speaker 3: I just want it to be a good open because
Speaker 3: of that. It will always be my hometown always, you know,
Speaker 3: wherever I left. As I said, I've lived in England
Speaker 3: for twenty years, but trun is always home to me,
Speaker 3: and so I just wanted to be seen in the
Speaker 3: best light. And when you stand on the first team
Speaker 3: on a nice day and you're looking across the Isle
Speaker 3: of Harden and across the alls of Craig and you know,
Speaker 3: the seas sparkling, I hope they have. The forecast isn't
Speaker 3: too bad. As far as I can see from this
Speaker 3: distance out, I think it's going to be breezy as well,
Speaker 3: which that's what you want in links golf, because that's
Speaker 3: the only defense links courses have is a bit of breeze.
Speaker 1: Firmness and breeze, those are the only two things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's firm enough I think at the moment,
Speaker 3: even though it's very very green. I've been talking to
Speaker 3: my brother about it. Who's ended up he's carrying and
Speaker 3: again he's carrying in every open at Troon since eighty nine,
Speaker 3: I think amazing. And he always ends up steering a
Speaker 3: journeyman through, you know, to make the weekend. There's an
Speaker 3: American called John Kernan in nineteen ninety seven who played
Speaker 3: four rounds. Spike McRoy, Spike.
Speaker 2: Spike, I don't know if you're a shatat start that's
Speaker 2: at that point. Spike mccroy is a is a big
Speaker 2: time shatas start.
Speaker 3: He works in the city in New York. He works
Speaker 3: in finances.
Speaker 2: No, I think he's a real estate real estate guy
Speaker 2: in Alabama or something.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Okay, that.
Speaker 1: He was playing the barbersol a few years ago.
Speaker 3: Of course he was. Everybody gets to play the barbersol.
Speaker 3: I've nearly played the barbersol, me and Jimmy Roy.
Speaker 1: I can't believe he carried for Spike, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then a guy, a Korean suman Lee and he's
Speaker 3: got a Kazumi Kobori who is the outstanding amateur his
Speaker 3: bag this year. So he's on his bag. He's turned
Speaker 3: pro and he's he's finding it I think a bit
Speaker 3: more difficult. You know, it's amazing how great amateurs who
Speaker 3: don't necessarily find that transition to or suddenly applying for
Speaker 3: your living. So he's on his bag and he got
Speaker 3: asked he I'll tell you. He got asked, I don't
Speaker 3: know if it's happened yet, A contact him. He said,
Speaker 3: he's just waiting for I don't think it will happen
Speaker 3: because these things seldom do. But you get contacted by
Speaker 3: someone who had been spoken to by Bryson De Shambo's
Speaker 3: team said would you walk the course with him to
Speaker 3: to get him used to So still Bryson and his caddy,
Speaker 3: but they asked my brother to walk of course and
Speaker 3: point out various things and say do the mathematics and everything,
Speaker 3: and so that's interesting. I think, you know, I that's
Speaker 3: you know, have you come around to Bryson? Are you?
Speaker 3: Are you A don't know?
Speaker 2: I think I think the latest Mike Shi drama has
Speaker 2: pushed me back back to you know this is this
Speaker 2: might have just been a good PR school from it.
Speaker 3: Listen, I think he is a I haven't First of all,
Speaker 3: I haven't heard about the Mike shy things, so I've
Speaker 3: been lost in a world of tennis. So you're going
Speaker 3: to tell me about that in a minute. But he,
Speaker 3: you know, when you see him, you know, doing everything
Speaker 3: with the crowds and winning them over. Of course it's
Speaker 3: a pr thing, I suppose to the crowd. It doesn't
Speaker 3: really matter because it's a bit like Michelson. Michelson, you know,
Speaker 3: one over the crowd, but you know Micholson's not really
Speaker 3: like that. But the crowd don't care because if they
Speaker 3: get a handshake from Micholson, a high five, a little
Speaker 3: thumbs up, thumbs up in a smile, then they go
Speaker 3: home happy. So but the thing about Bryce and the
Speaker 3: Shambo is, at least you know he is. He is interesting,
Speaker 3: he's he's fascinating to watch, and you need that. You
Speaker 3: need someone who's a bit different. You need someone who
Speaker 3: might people might think oh he's a bit of a tool,
Speaker 3: or he might think he's great. But at least people
Speaker 3: are thinking about them. So that's what they you know,
Speaker 3: that people engaging with.
Speaker 2: Them well, we're going to get into the five things now.
Speaker 2: I got Bryson as one of mine. He obviously, I
Speaker 2: think he's one of the most fascinating UH players in
Speaker 2: the sport, maybe the most fascinating in terms of everything.
Speaker 2: The way he's changed, the way he you know, the
Speaker 2: way his game has changed from when he was an
Speaker 2: amateur to now to the the YouTube presence, I think
Speaker 2: is a legitimate thing in today's era and with where
Speaker 2: the game of golf is going. I think the so
Speaker 2: the Mike Schid trauma is that Bryson allegedly was supposed
Speaker 2: to fund this, uh, this golf tour for junior golf
Speaker 2: in the Central Valley of California that's called that was
Speaker 2: named after his father through Mike Shi's as his longtime
Speaker 2: his coach from childhood coach, and uh, Bryson didn't didn't
Speaker 2: write the check apparently, and then Mike Sha Mike Schaid
Speaker 2: took to Instagram with some very you know, he inflammatory
Speaker 2: comments and then and then furthermore, Adam Shuepack from golf
Speaker 2: Leek called him up and he just let it rip.
Speaker 1: And then Bryce is Bryce and let it rip back. So,
Speaker 1: now that we've got this big squabble between so.
Speaker 3: Much on social media because there's some no I'm on it.
Speaker 3: But trouble is, when you stop doing tennis, you just
Speaker 3: get recommended. They'll go to them on Instagram just says,
Speaker 3: oh you like tennis, don't you, because you've clicked on
Speaker 3: one thing to watch it. So it's just been sending
Speaker 3: me endless things. Look at this Janick cinefourhan so no,
Speaker 3: I want to see Mike Shay and shut Bach and
Speaker 3: then Deshamble having a spot.
Speaker 1: So it's a huge article. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: There's all these quotes, you know, they you know, Mike
Speaker 2: schi has said something along the lines of you know, uh,
Speaker 2: he always says that I'm his second father and it's
Speaker 2: it's it's he treated his real father like shit and
Speaker 2: he treats me like shit. That's paraphrasing the quote, but
Speaker 2: effectively effectively that So anyways, there's that that that that
Speaker 2: going on. But with Bryson, I think we saw at
Speaker 2: Pinehurst we saw him conquer a type of setup that
Speaker 2: we never thought he would set up. Well, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: the firm fast rolling off all direction. You know, when
Speaker 2: the ball hit the ground, it was a little bit
Speaker 2: you know, dicey as to what's going to happen. And
Speaker 2: I think when you look at his Open Championship record,
Speaker 2: it's not good. T thirty three, cut cut T thirty three,
Speaker 2: T eight at the Old Course.
Speaker 3: And T Canst where he was having his meltdown on
Speaker 3: the range. Those were the days that handletaining. Maybe it's
Speaker 3: the wind, Maybe it's windy conditions. So that is the
Speaker 3: variable that in the computations I'd love to I think
Speaker 3: that because Pinehurst wasn't you know, there wasn't really there.
Speaker 1: Was a bit of snow, not real wind. It's no exactly.
Speaker 3: So that's the thing because you've got you've got firm,
Speaker 3: linxy style conditions of Pinehurst, but you didn't have the
Speaker 3: wind and not that that's to me what it will
Speaker 3: be watching him trying to cope with if the wind
Speaker 3: gets up to twenty miles an now or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is I think this is the last
Speaker 2: frontier for Bryson. We saw him like have some success
Speaker 2: at Augusta this year. That's always been a big question mark.
Speaker 2: And he played Augussa. He entered Sunday with a chance
Speaker 2: to win Pinehurst.
Speaker 1: He winned.
Speaker 2: You know, he nearly wins the PGA, and now this
Speaker 2: is the kind of the are we seeing. You know,
Speaker 2: Like I think if Bryson plays well, say he won this,
Speaker 2: Like there's a real question of like is he the
Speaker 2: best player in the world. Actually, even with all that
Speaker 2: Scott He's done this year, I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of doubt as to who the best player in the
Speaker 2: world would be. So Bryson to be is just He's
Speaker 2: such a fascinating character. I think, like we we don't
Speaker 2: have enough polarizing characters. We were talking before we started
Speaker 2: this recording about you know, tennis and men's tennis and
Speaker 2: what Novak Djokovic is. You know, the interest in him
Speaker 2: is that people feel very differently about him, and there's
Speaker 2: no many people in the middle.
Speaker 1: You know, you better love them or you either hate them.
Speaker 2: And and I think you need that, Yeah, you have
Speaker 2: to have that in sport, and I think Bryson fills
Speaker 2: that bucket so well for golf.
Speaker 3: Well, the worst thing, yeah, because you cannot have in sport.
Speaker 3: The worst thing is people just going I don't care, really,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, well, yeah exactly. And you know
Speaker 3: it feels like I don't slight from quite a few
Speaker 3: golfers and it's not a slight really against them as people.
Speaker 3: It's not saying they're bad people. But all sport is
Speaker 3: entertainment and engagement. That's what it is. Really. You've got
Speaker 3: to invest in the players and want to want them
Speaker 3: to win or want them to do badly or want it.
Speaker 3: But you can't have just and there are a few
Speaker 3: players who are just met. But the trouble is golf
Speaker 3: lends itself to me because being met and being on
Speaker 3: an even keel and being quiet and calm, that is
Speaker 3: that makes good golf quite often. But where what you
Speaker 3: really want is someone who's having history onics and just
Speaker 3: meltdowns or chatting to the crowd or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you just described Bryson.
Speaker 3: Let's describe Bryson exactly. So now I might look at
Speaker 3: Bryson and go, this is one hundred percent phony, but
Speaker 3: it's good phony if it is because people are people care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's what's something you're looking for or watching for?
Speaker 3: I mean, I you know, it's a bit of a
Speaker 3: cliche to say Maceilroy, but he's fascinating in the majors
Speaker 3: because he one hundred percent and one hundred percent has
Speaker 3: a mental block on the majors, because you know he
Speaker 3: would not in the positions he has been at sin Andrew's,
Speaker 3: at LACC, at Pinehurst one hundred percent. If those were
Speaker 3: Travelers Championships or Quailhull or whatever it might be, of
Speaker 3: course he would have finished those off. So that that's
Speaker 3: the fascinating thing for me is watching a guy Apple,
Speaker 3: the most talented physical player of a generation or the
Speaker 3: generation coming after Tiger Woods, unable to quite do it
Speaker 3: mentally and he'll go sail along happily for sixty five
Speaker 3: holes mentally. But then that's what sport is about. It's
Speaker 3: about people who sail through in tennis, sail through that
Speaker 3: every set and then come to serving it out and
Speaker 3: can't quite do it. That's that sports sport is is
Speaker 3: the closure moments and the pressure moments. So I'm really
Speaker 3: looking for because he's obviously playing you know, he's often
Speaker 3: a good start, as we record at the Scottish Open,
Speaker 3: so he's obviously after his break is playing well again,
Speaker 3: so I'm very interesting to see how he goes it's
Speaker 3: and there's all there are always stories at the Open
Speaker 3: because it's such a big feel that it goes on
Speaker 3: all all day and the weather changes and just all
Speaker 3: the little stories developing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, who is the kid from Liverpool that played
Speaker 1: well last year? The younger matt Jordan George.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Matthew Jordan, Yeah exactly, imagine. I mean there isn't
Speaker 3: a local member unfortunately he was qualified for But yeah,
Speaker 3: stories like that. I think Jack McDonald, the guy from
Speaker 3: Brassier Jr. He was a very good amateur and he's
Speaker 3: I think he's qualified. So there are lots of little
Speaker 3: stories that you just follow and see how they get
Speaker 3: on this guy. So there's a guy that so I
Speaker 3: commented at Wimbledon with I do a bit of commentary
Speaker 3: with Liz Smiley, who is a very good doubles player
Speaker 3: from Australia, mixed doubles. She won the mixed doubles title.
Speaker 1: Does she spell it like Smiley Coffin?
Speaker 3: She's spelled exactly like Smiley Kaufman. So Liz Smiley, So,
Speaker 3: but her son has been coming to Wimbledon since he
Speaker 3: was about ten years old. And she would introduce me
Speaker 3: to him and say, oh, this is his Name's Elvis,
Speaker 3: Elvis Smiley and says, oh he's yeah, so exactly, and
Speaker 3: she said, oh, this is Elvis. You know when he's
Speaker 3: ten years old and he loves his golf. And I
Speaker 3: was a golf commentator with the BBC, and so he
Speaker 3: was he was excited to meet me, well, he said
Speaker 3: he was, and I was going, oh, you play golf
Speaker 3: to your little young fella, A lad, all, well done
Speaker 3: to you, sort of ruffling his hair or whatever. And
Speaker 3: then he just kept getting better and better, and every
Speaker 3: year he would come back and say, what are you
Speaker 3: playing on a play three? Now scratch? What you playing
Speaker 3: around plus four or five? Whatever? And then suddenly he
Speaker 3: turned and he was he was winning stuff. He was
Speaker 3: winning alat events and he's he's winning as a young pro.
Speaker 3: And he qualified down at Deal, which is really near
Speaker 3: Saint George's. He qualified, so when he was hanging on,
Speaker 3: he was hanging on into second place behind Matthew Southgate.
Speaker 3: It was in six hundred and he was three under
Speaker 3: and then there was a group I think he was
Speaker 3: four under and there was a group and and like
Speaker 3: he was being chased down by Brandon Grace and you
Speaker 3: know that, you know when they have the club. So
Speaker 3: Matthew Southgate from Southport and Elvis Smiley, I can't remember
Speaker 3: what called he plays out all now but and it
Speaker 3: says it says Brandon Grace stinger. He's a stinger. It's
Speaker 3: just ridiculous. There was a ridiculous things you've ever seen.
Speaker 3: It's a proper golf club, a proper ancient golf club.
Speaker 3: And I thought Brandon Grece will come through and to
Speaker 3: be again. But he didn't even have to go into
Speaker 3: the playoff. He came through his second place there. And
Speaker 3: you imagine that. Imagine you know, qualifying just to you know,
Speaker 3: be a dream for you to qualify for the US
Speaker 3: Open and you're younger and me to qualify for the
Speaker 3: Open Chop. It's just it's the stuff of dreams just
Speaker 3: to get your badge to play in the Open Championship.
Speaker 3: And then he's got to find accommodation, and because you
Speaker 3: qualify so late, it's almost impossible to find anything. So
Speaker 3: you've been given a really sort of monkey hotel somewhere
Speaker 3: for about four hundred fifty dollars a night or something
Speaker 3: like that. And so they've got an Airbnb. They're doing
Speaker 3: that old risky game of airbnb. But then you get
Speaker 3: a nice Mercedes Curtsey car to take in. Imagine that,
Speaker 3: Imagine playing the Open.
Speaker 2: It's just one of my favorite stories from the Open
Speaker 2: Championship at St. Andrews was we found out that that
Speaker 2: Sahiz Sigala, who you know at the time, was it
Speaker 2: oh yea, the student you're staying in the student dorms
Speaker 2: like you meine you even volunteer, you're in the student dorms.
Speaker 2: And you see at the gala carry lug in his
Speaker 2: tour bag up the up the stepster's door, like, I mean,
Speaker 2: this amazing stuff with these these events.
Speaker 3: And that's all. And I presume the US so well,
Speaker 3: when you go to a small town, it'll be similar,
Speaker 3: Like Augusta is entirely different. And you know in the
Speaker 3: USPGA obviously is different because it's it's it's the pros,
Speaker 3: but it's you have to really not rough it at
Speaker 3: an Open Championship. But you know, you're not going to
Speaker 3: have luxurious hotels ten or fifteen of them and everything's
Speaker 3: going to be perfect. You're going to you say, being
Speaker 3: if you go to Carnousti, my god, you know, Carnusti
Speaker 3: is a week place and Tune's a little bit bigger,
Speaker 3: but you know you're going to have to not sleep
Speaker 3: in a tent. But yeah, you might end up sleeping
Speaker 3: in student accommodation. But it's just that's part of the
Speaker 3: charm of it. And it comes back to that thing
Speaker 3: that there is charm and in sporting events, that it
Speaker 3: doesn't have to be this enormous, slick, corporate professional machine,
Speaker 3: that there is still these sort of smaller stories and
Speaker 3: all these quirky stories. It's all the little diary stories
Speaker 3: that I like throughout the week. You know, that's when
Speaker 3: I'm listening to the shotguns starting there saying he's a
Speaker 3: bit of scuttle buck for you. It's usually about Toasty
Speaker 3: in these higher cars. He's rental cars scattered throughout America.
Speaker 3: I love that one.
Speaker 1: That's just.
Speaker 3: Stories from the open.
Speaker 1: I had to sit on that one. Came across my
Speaker 1: desk a long time before it was able to be released.
Speaker 3: It was a great one. I can absolutely believe it.
Speaker 3: With him, he just yeah, we like well. But that's
Speaker 3: but that's another thing. So if you're watching someone and
Speaker 3: someone said I'm going to this tournament, who should I
Speaker 3: go and watch? And Alejandro Toasty is playing, and I'll say,
Speaker 3: go watch this guy because he's going to go absolutely
Speaker 3: ape shit at something.
Speaker 2: He's going to have highs and lows all packed within
Speaker 2: probably like an hour span.
Speaker 3: And then that's why. So if you said who should
Speaker 3: I watch or this guy's highpened the rankings, should have
Speaker 3: go and watch him, and I'll say, no, that's Patrick Cantley.
Speaker 3: Don't what's the point and going to watch him, You'll
Speaker 3: see some really good efficient golf, but you're not going
Speaker 3: to be entertained. And it goes back to you know who.
Speaker 3: That's why Jordan Speth, you know, is not the player
Speaker 3: he was, but you know you're always going to be
Speaker 3: You're going to get something from him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're to get a roller coaster. I think
Speaker 1: that I mean to tie this back to Rory what
Speaker 1: you talked about. I think this is a you.
Speaker 2: Rory has been a fascinating basically for the last eight years.
Speaker 2: You know, once that major drought hit two years, it
Speaker 2: became a big storyline, when it became a thing when's
Speaker 2: he going to get the next one? And there have
Speaker 2: been some close calls, there have been some incontention moments,
Speaker 2: and there have.
Speaker 3: Been some Wikipedia Top tens as.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot lots of Wikipedia Top tens first round struggles.
Speaker 2: I think he he's like kind of gotten over the
Speaker 2: first round struggles he's gotten, you know, and now it's
Speaker 2: this is the most fascinating Major championships start for him
Speaker 2: since you know, can he go back to back from
Speaker 2: his last one? You know, this is you you've entered
Speaker 2: a position of you know it, it's it's going to
Speaker 2: be interesting how it goes from the first tea. But
Speaker 2: like golf, I mean, we invest so much time in
Speaker 2: these golf tournaments from Thursday to Sunday. When you think
Speaker 2: about the ridiculousness of the sport that you invest, how
Speaker 2: much time you invest.
Speaker 3: But but you know, here's the thing about maclroy is that,
Speaker 3: I mean the first time I really noticed how much
Speaker 3: pressure he felt at major championships was when he was
Speaker 3: playing at Port Rush because this was his you know,
Speaker 3: a major back in Northern Ireland and he then with
Speaker 3: an eye on in the first t puts it over
Speaker 3: bes first T shot and I thought, card that is
Speaker 3: a guy who who who feels it and true Ambout
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven Darren Clark was had his first real
Speaker 3: chance to win a major and the crowds that came
Speaker 3: over in the ferry from Northern Ireland, because you come
Speaker 3: over in the ferry, you get it to strand Ark
Speaker 3: and Ryan, which is just again it's just sort of
Speaker 3: forty five minutes an hour down down the road from Truon.
Speaker 3: He had huge crowds and huge support and then he
Speaker 3: shanked it onto the beach with an iron off the
Speaker 3: second tee and but the crowds that come over from
Speaker 3: Northern Island to support him were enormous and for a
Speaker 3: lot of people in Northern Ireland, you'll see macarroy com
Speaker 3: beating a major, You've got port Rush, but the next
Speaker 3: closest thing will be, oh, do you know what, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get the ferry over. I'm going to go
Speaker 3: and watch maclroy play at Troon. So he's going to
Speaker 3: have you know, he gets big, big support in the
Speaker 3: States because he's so popular, but over at Troon it's
Speaker 3: going to be getting close Hall Rush levels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting little undercard that you wouldn't even
Speaker 2: think of.
Speaker 1: I think, like the thing about it is like.
Speaker 2: If he plays well and he gets the whole story
Speaker 2: is going to just get more and more interesting as
Speaker 2: the tournament goes on because of the because of the
Speaker 2: way things unfolded at Pinehurst, you know, with the you know,
Speaker 2: he talked you probably business.
Speaker 1: He talked this week at the Genesis about it.
Speaker 3: Oh I saw it. I saw the qu I saw
Speaker 3: sort of quotes. And the other interesting thing is how
Speaker 3: he because he's always been the most open guy, honest guy,
Speaker 3: and you know, he just doesn't want to do media anymore,
Speaker 3: but he's still torn between. I mean, I thought it
Speaker 3: was at the end of Pinehurst, you know, And I
Speaker 3: know he said a renaissance. I know he said that
Speaker 3: the Scottish you know. The last thing in my mind
Speaker 3: was worrying about upsetting you guys, I either media. I
Speaker 3: thought he could have taken the sting out of things
Speaker 3: a little bit. And I also wanted him to come
Speaker 3: out and just whatever he thinks of Bryce in the way.
Speaker 3: For yes, he'll been absolutely devastated. Of course he'll have been.
Speaker 3: That's that would have been the worst loss of his career.
Speaker 3: But I kind of wanted to see him just saying
Speaker 3: to the Shambo, well done, because you can only you
Speaker 3: only go up in people's estimations and people just want
Speaker 3: to I just I kind of you know, I understand
Speaker 3: or I don't understand how he feels, but I understand
Speaker 3: how he must have felt after that but I just
Speaker 3: wish he'd he'd said, you know, frontier. I remember Norman
Speaker 3: after the ninety six Masters doing the press conference and
Speaker 3: you know, the ultimate choke and saying, you know, nobody
Speaker 3: died here, life goes on kind of thing. And I,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not never been a sort of Greg
Speaker 3: Norman fan, especially in recent years, but I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: I thought that that was pretty good at least, just
Speaker 3: the front up and say, you know what, it's just
Speaker 3: it's just it's just a game. So I I hope
Speaker 3: the mclroy carries on being as good with the media
Speaker 3: as he has been or historically has been. In recent years,
Speaker 3: he's got a little bit, you know, I don't really
Speaker 3: need to do that. I'm only going to do a
Speaker 3: ten minute preview press conference. I understand it's a pain,
Speaker 3: but I think you've got to understand it. We play
Speaker 3: for the rewards. We do because you know, we we
Speaker 3: I think the issue is as well, though, that they
Speaker 3: can all do their own media now, though, can't they?
Speaker 3: So the need for the media, the medium between the
Speaker 3: players and the public isn't really there anymore because if
Speaker 3: I want.
Speaker 2: To social media, yeah, and you have arguably more distribution
Speaker 2: than any of the media people you're talking to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: I think the other aspect of his media hesitanty has
Speaker 2: been the live stuff where he felt like, you know what,
Speaker 2: everybody's just going to ask me about this stuff, and
Speaker 2: it's time that other people get asked this and it's
Speaker 2: not just like we'll just save all the live questions
Speaker 2: for Rory, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because he's the guy who give up honest answers
Speaker 3: on it exactly.
Speaker 2: And I think that's part of it, is that like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know what, like I'm going to come I think
Speaker 2: if I think if the questions were about golf, he'd
Speaker 2: probably answer, you know, thirty minutes of questions in a
Speaker 2: presser before. But he knows that if he goes up
Speaker 2: there at the Open, there's gonna be half the half
Speaker 2: or more of the questions is gonna be about the
Speaker 2: Transaction subcommittee, you know, And it's a I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's an interesting aspect. I think, like, I think there
Speaker 2: are two ways that an athlete can come out of
Speaker 2: this right, and I think it is it is an
Speaker 2: interesting dynamic in the sense of a short, short miss
Speaker 2: where you know, he admitted like he effectively got out
Speaker 2: of his mental process where he started thinking about other things.
Speaker 2: And and I think that anybody that's played competitive golf
Speaker 2: understands exactly how that happens. You start thinking about a
Speaker 2: short put too much. And I think there's two ways
Speaker 2: this goes. Is that you start thinking about high leverage
Speaker 2: short short puts a lot in the future, or it
Speaker 2: becomes an event in your career where you go to
Speaker 2: a different level. There's almost a an fu aspect of this,
Speaker 2: and for me, I think that's the fascinating thing to
Speaker 2: watch with Rory going forward, is is which of these
Speaker 2: two paths is going to happen, because you know, without
Speaker 2: a doubt this is that that was a moment that
Speaker 2: he will remember.
Speaker 1: For the rest of his golfing career and life.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, no, I mean, yeah, exactly, no. He well,
Speaker 3: he's always interesting to watch the majors, but I think
Speaker 3: this one in particular because that this is it again,
Speaker 3: you know, the major season and the men's majors. It's
Speaker 3: so short now, it's it's insane. It's just I can't
Speaker 3: I can't cope with the fact that you know, after
Speaker 3: next week, that's it until Augusta. I mean, I wish
Speaker 3: they'd flip it back a little bit, or do something
Speaker 3: with a calendar like.
Speaker 2: A great broadcaster. You just led me right into my
Speaker 2: next thing, which is which is John Ram.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, yeah, there's another guy who is is great
Speaker 3: to watch because he's so combustible, so talented, so combustible,
Speaker 3: and just seems to me so utterly bored with life
Speaker 3: on a frustrated with life on live. But there you go.
Speaker 3: You take the money, John, So you know, what do
Speaker 3: you want from us?
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like if there's ever been someone where
Speaker 2: we would like I can't think like of a So
Speaker 2: say he finishes like a non competitive thirtieth, we're gonna say,
Speaker 2: we're gonna say, hey, this is the worst major career
Speaker 2: or major year of his career. And it's right after
Speaker 2: he got this giant bag of money.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, if he went if he went out and win one,
Speaker 2: which is completely conceivable, if he goes out and wins
Speaker 2: this tournament, then we're sitting at he's one way away
Speaker 2: from the Grand Slam.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It is a wild juxtaposition of in terms of like
Speaker 2: the way we could we we will think of this
Speaker 2: athlete for the next eight months based off of this tournament.
Speaker 3: I just don't think Live prepared well. Bryson the shambug
Speaker 3: was against this well.
Speaker 1: I think Bryson's the outlier here, is the.
Speaker 3: Outlier totally because otherwise, you know, you think of so
Speaker 3: many players on live who it's just such a comfort
Speaker 3: zone and where is the real where are the real
Speaker 3: competitive juicies flowing? Now you might argue that that that
Speaker 3: they don't really flow on the PGA Tour anymore either,
Speaker 3: But I just think regular competition against bigger fields is
Speaker 3: a huge thing. You know, if you're John Ram was
Speaker 3: saying ahead of the US Open at Piners, well, look
Speaker 3: at my look at my finishes, I've not done too badly.
Speaker 3: And against you know, you're finishing, what's what percentage of
Speaker 3: the field are you how many people are you beating?
Speaker 3: It's not Yeah, I just think it's it's a real
Speaker 3: shame because I mean, I think one of the great
Speaker 3: the greatest shame in professional golf of late was was
Speaker 3: John Ram going. You know, that was such a the
Speaker 3: o the day the music died, when he was sitting
Speaker 3: there in his black bomber jacket. Who live on just
Speaker 3: or end of saying whatever they wanted them to say,
Speaker 3: for a huge bag of money. But again, that's another
Speaker 3: interesting story. It's you know, it's a very divisive time
Speaker 3: in golf, but it's also a very very interesting time
Speaker 3: in men's golf because you've got all these little subplots
Speaker 3: coming together at the majors. The majors are these amazing
Speaker 3: outcrops now in golf, but everything else you might go about, well,
Speaker 3: not interested in that, not interest in that, and then
Speaker 3: suddenly the majors come on and go right, Okay, here
Speaker 3: are all these threads, all these narrative threads coming back
Speaker 3: together for this one week. And that's why it's just
Speaker 3: there's nothing like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, if the golf world comes back together,
Speaker 2: I think there's an argument that the majors get less interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is an argument different they have got more interesting.
Speaker 3: Not that they weren't interesting before, but they've become even
Speaker 3: more firmed up in there in their importance since the division,
Speaker 3: because you know, everyone wants to see the best players
Speaker 3: play against the best players, and it just doesn't it
Speaker 3: just doesn't happen anymore. You know, the PGA Tour has
Speaker 3: been denuded by live and Live is just the most
Speaker 3: nonsensical piece of rubbish. It's just as a competition, you
Speaker 3: just think because you don't care. And I don't think
Speaker 3: the players really care. Because you want to win the
Speaker 3: great titles in the game, and whether you win three
Speaker 3: or four million for winning, or whether you win one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty thousand or whatever it is for finishing last,
Speaker 3: I don't think they really I'm sure they do care
Speaker 3: a bit about the extra money they can earn, but
Speaker 3: you know they've all they're also vastly wealthy now anyway,
Speaker 3: the top twenty players, certainly.
Speaker 2: I think the thing too about Live is that all
Speaker 2: the for the most part I brought this up on
Speaker 2: our podcast last week with Joseph Lamania, is that of
Speaker 2: all the player to me, it seems like Bryson why
Speaker 2: he might be the outlier is he has taken the
Speaker 2: money and he's invested it back into itself, like he's
Speaker 2: he's producing one of one clubs, you know, he's developed.
Speaker 2: Like that comes with a cost to me. Everybody else
Speaker 2: is taking the money and buying a bigger house, you know,
Speaker 2: buying a bigger boat in one player's case, And and
Speaker 2: for the most part, like that that takes away that
Speaker 2: that leads to more time and said house, more time
Speaker 2: on said boat, maybe a lot, maybe more time on
Speaker 2: said boat than the golf course. And and when you
Speaker 2: do that, you're you're at this. This bag of money
Speaker 2: has deterred. I think Bryson is the only one that's
Speaker 2: taking the money and maybe gotten better, you know, and
Speaker 2: used it like a company would use an infusion of
Speaker 2: cash where they aren't, you know, they aren't taking it
Speaker 2: out and putting in their pockets. They're putting it back
Speaker 2: in the business and developing something. So I think that's
Speaker 2: the difference. Is that. I for for from what I've
Speaker 2: heard is that john rom kind of like went away
Speaker 2: and came up for air and was like, you know,
Speaker 2: it was like, oh man, the Masters is coming up.
Speaker 1: I first start working.
Speaker 3: But the other thing about Bryce and the Shambo is
Speaker 3: he's a he's a he's a zealot. His enthusiasm for everything,
Speaker 3: whether it's you know, three D printing his clubs or
Speaker 3: YouTube or whatever, he is for you know, better or worse.
Speaker 3: He is enthusiastic about everything. He's got a real energy,
Speaker 3: and so that will drive him to you know, I
Speaker 3: think you contrast Bryce and de Shambo with Dustin Johnson
Speaker 3: and Dustin Johnson has always just wanted a nice, comfortable life,
Speaker 3: and it's just wanted the nice things. And I actually,
Speaker 3: actually quite I applaud him for that. He's never pretended
Speaker 3: as anything else. Dustin Johnson so and I I kind
Speaker 3: of warmed him for that. It's just well, I just
Speaker 3: want to. I just want to. I don't even want
Speaker 3: to play golf anymore. I've got I think.
Speaker 1: I think the thing is he saw this and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be done playing golf. I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: dad and fit, you know, yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, and fair play to him, whereas Bryce and
Speaker 3: de Shambo has I can't work out if Bryce another
Speaker 3: matters either way, but I can't work out how really
Speaker 3: sort of bright he is or otherwise, because you know,
Speaker 3: we're pretending. We're told he's this great physician not physician
Speaker 3: physics major, which.
Speaker 1: The biggest question.
Speaker 3: Well, but it interests me. I don't know why. But anyway,
Speaker 3: he's got an it. I think he's got an inquiring mind.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much that mind answers those inquiries,
Speaker 3: but he's got something which he wants to try different
Speaker 3: things and do different things. And again that all adds
Speaker 3: to the engagement and the YouTube thing is interesting because
Speaker 3: that is the way that golf media is going. Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know what that you you're in the States,
Speaker 3: I don't know what it's like. But in the UK,
Speaker 3: certainly sponsorship is going to are golfing YouTubers now rather
Speaker 3: than professionals, rather than touring players, because if you want
Speaker 3: eyes on a product, where are you going to go?
Speaker 3: You're going to the the guy with three million subscribers
Speaker 3: and YouTube rather than the person who's finishing fiftieth in
Speaker 3: a tournament, even though they are at a totally different
Speaker 3: level of as a goal for the two players, they're
Speaker 3: just not getting the exposure. So I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: we were talking about it on the regional qualifying and
Speaker 3: again you can tell me if they did this at
Speaker 3: the US Open, but the amounts of YouTube are saying
Speaker 3: I'm going to try qualifying for the Open and making
Speaker 3: content out of it, knowing knowing that they're never going
Speaker 3: to qualify, but then then sort of sitting down after
Speaker 3: they've shot eighty four and going wow, the heart regnestly
Speaker 3: I didn't quite didn't quite have it today. Put that
Speaker 3: out on YouTube and get the views.
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of bullshit to do that.
Speaker 2: As someone who performerly played amateur golf, I think it's
Speaker 2: bullshit that you're playing partners to do that, Like you're
Speaker 2: playing with guys and you're going to be running around
Speaker 2: with your with your cameras camera guys.
Speaker 1: Like, I think that's a raw deal.
Speaker 3: That's one thing that Yeah, that is one thing that
Speaker 3: I thought about it when I was watching it, because
Speaker 3: you know, god, they were really professionally filmed. There's sort
Speaker 3: of three in particular, and I thought, you know, these
Speaker 3: guys who are playing with you probably weren't entering genuinely
Speaker 3: hoping to make it through the final qualifying.
Speaker 1: What's your next thing? Let's get let's what's what's your
Speaker 1: next thing? About that Open? What are you mostly looking
Speaker 1: forward to?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 1: Scotti Chef?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was Scotti Scheffler. I find very interesting because again,
Speaker 3: the thing I love about the Open is it is
Speaker 3: it because it throws something different into the mixed doors
Speaker 3: of these variables into the mixing. He saw a Pinehurst.
Speaker 3: He was not you know, how could you have someone
Speaker 3: coming in in that sort of form who suddenly wasn't
Speaker 3: really there at the US Open? And it was just
Speaker 3: because it was different. You know, it's not it's not
Speaker 3: just splashing out the greenside rough and this needs a
Speaker 3: phenomenal player, but I like players to be sort of
Speaker 3: tested a little bit more in there. And he's got
Speaker 3: a fantastic short game. It's a great picture of the ball.
Speaker 3: But I don't know, it's just, yeah, I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: Pinehurst because it's it's created as that sort of lynx
Speaker 3: you feel to it and just that it's just something different.
Speaker 3: And you know, a lot of the players will complain
Speaker 3: and say, oh, I mean scottis Cheffer, I just had
Speaker 3: it in his head that it wasn't really fair if
Speaker 3: he hit it offline, that you know that you might
Speaker 3: get a good lie, you might get a bad lie. Well,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what. Some of the kicks you might
Speaker 3: get off the fairway at Troon. You can hit a
Speaker 3: D you know, you can hit a T shot down
Speaker 3: in the middle and you might get a kick off.
Speaker 3: So it's actually a reasonably fair Links course. But in
Speaker 3: Links golf you are going to get some You're going
Speaker 3: to get some funky bouncies. So that's what golf is.
Speaker 3: It's not, you know, it's not in a sort of
Speaker 3: a perfect sterile environment. It's it's got the variables and
Speaker 3: there's a lot to deal with in the draw because
Speaker 3: people are teeing off at six thirteen finishing teeing off
Speaker 3: at four thirty. You know, the weather can entirely change,
Speaker 3: so you've got to have a bit of fortune as well.
Speaker 2: At the Open Championship, I think, yeah, I think that's
Speaker 2: the thing is like there are there is some doubt
Speaker 2: with Scheffler going into this week, despite having one of
Speaker 2: the most dominant seasons we've ever seen, you know, in
Speaker 2: the in the modern era. He's been extraordinary, and he's
Speaker 2: been extraordinary against the best players in the world. But
Speaker 2: there is this question about the style of golf and
Speaker 2: the Open Championship.
Speaker 1: He hasn't been great.
Speaker 2: I mean by his standards, now, by anybody else's standards.
Speaker 2: If you went ta T twenty one, T twenty three
Speaker 2: in the Open, you'd be like, he's a great Open player.
Speaker 2: But it's not not that for Skyty Scheffler with the
Speaker 2: bar he set in major championships, and I think there
Speaker 2: is like this thing is, as you alluded to earlier,
Speaker 2: it's crazy that we're it's over that were you know,
Speaker 2: this is the last one I mean, if he doesn't
Speaker 2: win two majors with this year, like it it kind
Speaker 2: of like, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, it seems like he needs relatively Yeah, he seems
Speaker 3: like he.
Speaker 2: Needs two majors with everything else he's done. And I
Speaker 2: hate to say to say that, but like for it
Speaker 2: to rank in the in the upper upper echelons of
Speaker 2: outstanding seasons in the history of golf. If you look
Speaker 2: at it beyond you know, the data, people will say
Speaker 2: this is this is one of the great seasons data wise,
Speaker 2: but from the majors are what matters in getting to
Speaker 2: knocking too often in a year is such a small list,
Speaker 2: and and when you put two in a year plus
Speaker 2: everything else, it becomes a historic year. And you know,
Speaker 2: like and and again it's similar to the Bryson thing.
Speaker 2: Can he conquer an effective playing service? I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Like I've been you know, you've been covering Wimbledon, but
Speaker 2: like I heard some of some analysts on the tennis
Speaker 2: channel I was watching the other night and they were
Speaker 2: talking about how, you know, a young player just like
Speaker 2: you know what, he didn't have the.
Speaker 1: Reps on this surface to win that match. You know
Speaker 1: he might have.
Speaker 2: He he was the better player but he lost because
Speaker 2: the other guy had more reps on the surface. And
Speaker 2: I apologize, I can't remember who they were talking about
Speaker 2: or who was talking, but like that's one of my
Speaker 2: questions with Scheffler, is is this just a he needs
Speaker 2: more reps on this surface?
Speaker 3: So al Phil exactly. So all you think of the
Speaker 3: sort of so many of the great American players who
Speaker 3: have won Open Championships apros, but and Tom Watson springs
Speaker 3: to mind in that, you know, after well, one of
Speaker 3: the quirky things with Tom Watson is that he won
Speaker 3: seventy five and seventy seven Kenersti and Tunbury and still
Speaker 3: didn't appreciate links golf. And he really sort of clicked
Speaker 3: after that and he got it, understood it, and then
Speaker 3: he would come over and he'd always play Dornoch or
Speaker 3: Bali Bunyan or something like that before the Open Championship.
Speaker 3: You know, Marcomedro is the saying they love links golf,
Speaker 3: Tiger Woods would awas play a bit of links golf.
Speaker 3: You've got to you can't just come into the Open
Speaker 3: Championship and that week and get into it is as
Speaker 3: you say, well, the grass court season, you know, you
Speaker 3: can't come into Wimbledon. You know, having a last player
Speaker 3: on clay or last player on hard courts, you've got
Speaker 3: to have a proper build up when you've also got
Speaker 3: to embrace the surface and the and the vagaries and
Speaker 3: the difference of it. So Scottie Scheffler, I you know,
Speaker 3: I know we're supposed to on podcasts have hot takes.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's going to win this this Open Championship.
Speaker 3: I think he might struggle to the Open Championship. Might
Speaker 3: be a mystery to him forever. I don't know. But
Speaker 3: I think he's too good a player to never challenge
Speaker 3: at an Open Championship. I wonder if it might take
Speaker 3: a calm, soft course at an Open Championship for him
Speaker 3: to sort of get into it and then you can,
Speaker 3: like you said from Micholson, it took a while, it
Speaker 3: took a long time. I mean I mentioned the opening
Speaker 3: true in two thousand and four where he first sort
Speaker 3: of understood how to how to do it, and he's
Speaker 3: been around a long time before that, so you know,
Speaker 3: I think it'll take some time for Scottish Scheffler. But
Speaker 3: but he's too good of all striker with a swing
Speaker 3: that I just can't watch but he's too good of
Speaker 3: all striker to to not challenge it Open championships in
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, like what you just think about it,
Speaker 2: this might be one of the impacts of the youth
Speaker 2: era that we're in with golf. Is like, this is
Speaker 2: a kid that grew up in Dallas, Texas and the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour plays two weeks a year and in links
Speaker 2: like it's the Genesis, which the Scottish Open, which is
Speaker 2: like quasi links in the Open Championship.
Speaker 3: Exactly that I mean, Renaissance. Isn't you have enough? You know,
Speaker 3: I watched the Renaissance in the Scottish Open. It doesn't
Speaker 3: It doesn't really strike me as a proper links course anyway.
Speaker 3: It's you know, it's pretty soft. It's just that little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't. I mean, it's a listen, it's a lovely place,
Speaker 3: but it's not kind of links golf as I as
Speaker 3: I know it. But yeah, you're right, it's just it
Speaker 3: doesn't give They don't play enough links golf. There's no
Speaker 3: doubt about apple. Why would you You don't you don't
Speaker 3: need it, you don't need you don't need to.
Speaker 2: Like and I think this this ties into Like, one
Speaker 2: of the things that I love about this major championship
Speaker 2: is when you look down the list of winners over
Speaker 2: the last decade, it's the Major for the olds. This
Speaker 2: is the major where really like you can throw out
Speaker 2: I think you can kind of throw out the the
Speaker 2: the predictions a little bit because you you get a
Speaker 2: wide range of players, you get people that you know.
Speaker 1: Brian Harmon won a major.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's conceivable for Brian Harmon to win
Speaker 2: any other major other than the Open. You know, like
Speaker 2: that's he wasn't gonna win a PGA, he wasn't gonna
Speaker 2: win a US Open, he wasn't gonna win the Masters, right,
Speaker 2: he wasn't.
Speaker 3: Any distance of an Open championship. You're getting forty fifty
Speaker 3: yards a run. There's a bit of an equalization in
Speaker 3: terms of yes, Macroy is still if he has the fair,
Speaker 3: we're going to be twenty yards past. But it's not
Speaker 3: a big dispersal. And it's about it's about so many
Speaker 3: differ from things, and it's.
Speaker 1: About a shot. It's about who has shots.
Speaker 2: You have to go deep in your bag because you're
Speaker 2: gonna have to hit that punch floor iron cut from
Speaker 2: one seventy that you you never hit in America and
Speaker 2: you need to just have the shots in the bag.
Speaker 2: And I think, like to a certain extent, this is
Speaker 2: this tournament. I think in this era of golf, it's
Speaker 2: so figured out. It's track Man, it's it's a modern,
Speaker 2: modern technology, and I'll never forget. I used to host
Speaker 2: a podcast regularly with Jeff Ogilvie and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: the thing about before track Man is everybody walked around
Speaker 2: the range saying, you know, I think I figured it out.
Speaker 2: And after track Man, everybody knew the answer. Nobody was
Speaker 2: trying to figure it out. And I think with Links
Speaker 2: Golf we recapture a little bit of that old soul
Speaker 2: of golf, where you know what, it takes a long
Speaker 2: time to figure this out.
Speaker 1: In some years you haven't figured out. In some years
Speaker 1: you don't.
Speaker 2: And there's certain venues out here that are going to
Speaker 2: appeal to certain players and not to others. And I
Speaker 2: think for that this is the last This is maybe
Speaker 2: the last event where you know, outside of maybe the
Speaker 2: Masters with the greens and you know, the the quirks
Speaker 2: about about figuring out and getting comfortable with Augusta, this
Speaker 2: event experience matters.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing.
Speaker 2: There's that great Padrick Harrington quote from a few years
Speaker 2: ago where he talked about experiences and all cracked up
Speaker 2: to be you know, this is the event where experience matters.
Speaker 2: And you could see one of the older guys who
Speaker 2: you you're looking at and saying, God, it would be
Speaker 2: great if that guy could get another major jumping to mind,
Speaker 2: Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Jason Day, those types of players.
Speaker 1: This this, this is the event that they should have
Speaker 1: circled on their calendar every year.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent, absolutely, And it's dealing with the whole
Speaker 3: thing as to say, of you know things. You know,
Speaker 3: everyone's looking for this perfection in terms of the numbers
Speaker 3: and on the track man or whatever, and everyone's looking
Speaker 3: for on the PGA too. Well, you're not just sort
Speaker 3: of going to the same courses. You're going to the
Speaker 3: same hotels every week. You're going to say everything's the same.
Speaker 3: Whereas you go to the Open Championship. It's not just
Speaker 3: the course that it's so different, but it's the whole
Speaker 3: experience and ambience and as to say, the combination, you know,
Speaker 3: so you've really got to embrace it and sort of
Speaker 3: warmt it now, I don't. I'm sure that. Yeah, everything
Speaker 3: is is pretty comfortable for the players at the Open
Speaker 3: Championship anyway. But it's just different. It's a different thing.
Speaker 3: And if you go in thinking, whoa, this is different.
Speaker 3: I'm a bit spooked by it, then you're never going
Speaker 3: to even have a chance, no matter how good a
Speaker 3: player you are. But if you're going to just feeling, oh,
Speaker 3: this is different, this is novel, this is exciting, this
Speaker 3: is great, you know, this is fantastic. The crowds are big,
Speaker 3: the crowds are different, the crowd or whatever it is,
Speaker 3: then you know you're you're automatically going to be doing
Speaker 3: better than eighty percent of the field. It's I mean,
Speaker 3: that's what we want in sport, isn't it That variety.
Speaker 3: I think if you ask me to say what the
Speaker 3: unique selling point of the the Open Championship is is
Speaker 3: that it is different to everything else, even you know,
Speaker 3: people say all the Scottish Open, Scottish Opens, different the
Speaker 3: Open Championship is the courses are Yeah, you don't just
Speaker 3: don't get it. You don't get it anywhere anyone else.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's the thing too.
Speaker 2: It's like it's kind of a it's a it's probably
Speaker 2: an American take to say, you get this guy, like
Speaker 2: the Open Championship so drastically different, and I think like
Speaker 2: if you if you hosted, if you hosted the Open
Speaker 2: exclusively in Ireland, it would have a completely different feel,
Speaker 2: you know, if it was just iri. Irish golfs different
Speaker 2: than Scottish golf, which is different than English golf. Right there,
Speaker 2: they are drastically different. Royal Saint George's is so different
Speaker 2: than true.
Speaker 3: You know or the Old course, right yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: It's different culture, it's a different philosophy. And I think
Speaker 2: that's one of the unique things that I appreciate about
Speaker 2: the Open, especially with the you know re the you know,
Speaker 2: Royal Port Rush coming back in the fold is another
Speaker 2: almost wrinkle of diversity in the style, the and the
Speaker 2: culture of golf. I think that's the thing that the
Speaker 2: Open nails more so than anything. Is that I mean,
Speaker 2: and this is what makes an impression of me as
Speaker 2: an American when I go over over to Ireland or
Speaker 2: Scotland or England, is the idea of of this golf
Speaker 2: culture that's so drastically different than America and the you know,
Speaker 2: just the way that the towns are intertwined in the
Speaker 2: golf and that to me it seems like that's what
Speaker 2: Troon has in space. I mean it's fifteen thousand people
Speaker 2: on what six courses you said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, six, well six and a half courses, so yeah,
Speaker 3: seven ghostes pretty much. So it's yeah, it's it's not
Speaker 3: quite it's it's similar to the Airshore coast is quite
Speaker 3: similar as suppose to the to the Fifth Coast or
Speaker 3: to the East Lothian Coast. We have this. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: a it's a golf has never really been sort of
Speaker 3: detached from the the people. It's a it's you know,
Speaker 3: behind the country club wall, it's it's kind of just there.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just on the land between the beach
Speaker 3: and the and the town you have a bit of
Speaker 3: a golf course as well. So yeah, it's it is
Speaker 3: unique and that's what that's what I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 1: What who's your pick? Who's your pick to win?
Speaker 3: My pick is terrible at this, I really am.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Actually the only bet I've ever had that worked was
Speaker 3: and I don't bet now on sport, but I did
Speaker 3: have money on Calcaveca in nineteen eighty nine and it
Speaker 3: should have started him on a road to too serious
Speaker 3: gambling throughout my adult career because it's a sixteen year
Speaker 3: old winning in Calcaveca. I think it was like sixty
Speaker 3: six to one at the start of the week. I
Speaker 3: don't know why I put money at Calcaveca. It's an
Speaker 3: exotic name, but I I don't know as Shane Lowry
Speaker 3: maybe is as a decent pick, you know, because again
Speaker 3: he is just very very comfortable in order, almost a
Speaker 3: home environment for him. Again, he'll have lots and lots
Speaker 3: and lots of support. And if it is a little
Speaker 3: bit blow, you know, there's there's a shot maker, and
Speaker 3: there's a guy with a great short game and the
Speaker 3: guy who more than embraces the links challenge. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I think he's good as good a chance
Speaker 3: and he you know, he hasn't he hasn't really really
Speaker 3: challenged it major since that Port rushwin. But you know,
Speaker 3: I think if he if he puts away, he's putting
Speaker 3: deserted him for a wee bit. But I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: there have been signs from Lowry, so why not Shane Lowry.
Speaker 3: I'm just throwing out any old name here.
Speaker 1: I'll go with Tabby Fleetwood.
Speaker 3: Tell me I do love Tommy Fleetwood and again as
Speaker 3: sort of ball strikers going, I'd love to have Tommy
Speaker 3: Fleetwood swing. But and he's here obviously, but actually no,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't. If I had the ability to have that hair,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have that hair. But I yeah, I'm just
Speaker 3: not convinced by his putting. Although the thing is about
Speaker 3: the Open Championship business. If you're playing in a nine
Speaker 3: to nine and a half in a stintmeter ten at
Speaker 3: the fastest really green, that sometimes helps out the lesser putters.
Speaker 2: And that like they aren't super intricate greens like I
Speaker 2: think Port Rush was the course that stood out to
Speaker 2: me so much because of how they almost have like
Speaker 2: a you know, they have like a very refined green.
Speaker 2: I think, you know a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: Lynx golf is old in the greens or just in
Speaker 2: these great places and they're just on the ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's what true. Yeah, true is just flat smart.
Speaker 3: The smallest greens on the open roads are very very
Speaker 3: small greens. They've extended Martinie but did a bit of work.
Speaker 3: Obviously Martini But did a bit of work, and so
Speaker 3: they extended the greens a little bit, but some of
Speaker 3: the greens, but they're still just really tiny greens. But
Speaker 3: also there's not much in them. They're quite flat greens.
Speaker 3: They're not that interesting the greens at trun but also
Speaker 3: links greens, you know, they don't have like I didn't
Speaker 3: know what you know, I didn't know what grain was
Speaker 3: growing up. We didn't. We just everything's just uniform home
Speaker 3: on a link screen. Really, you don't you don't get
Speaker 3: really grainy greens. So maybe that was a feeling on
Speaker 3: my part of it, but we didn't. We didn't study
Speaker 3: the green. It's not like you know your Bermuda grass
Speaker 3: where you can see it all. It's links. Screens are
Speaker 3: fairly much as you see them, and the ones that
Speaker 3: true are so they're so obvious. It's just there's nothing,
Speaker 3: there's nothing really to them. So yeah, you're right, Tommy
Speaker 3: Fleetwand now I'm coming around to your pick, are you wonder?
Speaker 1: You know, I hadn't much started doing.
Speaker 2: I just pulled up the O W g R and
Speaker 2: you know, I was looking around and and it just
Speaker 2: kind of stuck out to me as as someone you know,
Speaker 2: he said, so.
Speaker 1: Many close calls.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't necessarily this is almost a bet
Speaker 2: for a top five, not better to win, but but.
Speaker 3: I can give people top five bits. Yeah, storming through
Speaker 3: the field.
Speaker 2: Everybody should check out your podcast, The Chipping Forecast.
Speaker 1: It is a it's a great Listen.
Speaker 3: We got Eddie Pepple, so we have Eddie on it.
Speaker 3: And you know, Eddie, this is what golf is, you know,
Speaker 3: Eddie was Eddie was third at the Players Championship back
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen. He finished sixth the Carnoustie in the Open,
Speaker 3: and you know the ups and downs that all golfers
Speaker 3: in their career have ups and downs. And Eddie's been
Speaker 3: grappling with his golf this season and grappling with you know.
Speaker 3: I think he thinks too much, Eddie about life in general, which.
Speaker 1: Makes you he's too smart, too smart for you.
Speaker 3: You're too honest to you know, just in all sports,
Speaker 3: not just golf, you just want to be simple minded.
Speaker 3: And sometimes that doesn't mean lack of intelligence, it just
Speaker 3: means lack of lateral thinking. You don't want to be
Speaker 3: a lateral thinker in golf, and Eddie is a lateral thinker.
Speaker 3: But he's too talented to be away for too long
Speaker 3: but he's quite engaging as well. So I say quite engaging.
Speaker 3: He's very engaging. We love them.
Speaker 2: So thank you so much for coverat. This was a
Speaker 2: joy and hopefully will have you on again. But look
Speaker 2: forward to you seeing your hometown shine next week at
Speaker 2: the Open Championship.
Speaker 3: Well, I hope it does. I'm sorry you're not going
Speaker 3: to be in a tiny little a tiny little bedsitting trough.
Speaker 2: Well, you know this is what happens when when you
Speaker 2: get stuffed in the radio radio box your first open
Speaker 2: and then then shook down for a couple thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, it's a it's a pricey old business traveling.
Speaker 3: So I used to do it on the BBC ticket
Speaker 3: all the time, see do us opens, uspgs and Masters,
Speaker 3: and then the BBC stopped stop doing them so that
Speaker 3: the Masters this year. I saw you over there. It
Speaker 3: was my first time in like twenty three years where
Speaker 3: I was there on my own. My god, it it's
Speaker 3: an expensive business. I'll tell you I was. I was
Speaker 3: stealing as many free sandwiches as I could take home
Speaker 3: from a dinner.
Speaker 1: You heard one of those guys.
Speaker 3: I wasn't one of those guys. I just heard you
Speaker 3: talking about it today.
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I was not.
Speaker 3: I'm absolutely not a hoarder from the grab and go. No,
Speaker 3: I might have taken a salad one night.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Yeah, Well we're gonna keep an eye out
Speaker 1: next year when you're.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Jeers, thank you for listening to
Speaker 2: another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. Today's episode was
Speaker 2: edited by PJ Clark. Big thanks to PJ. We had
Speaker 2: a few technical issues in this one and he was
Speaker 2: able to piece it all together. So big thanks to PJ.
Speaker 2: And as a reminder, one of the things we got
Speaker 2: going is events. We have a few great events in
Speaker 2: the fall that have some spots in them. One of
Speaker 2: which that I would call out is our event at Kingsley.
Speaker 2: Kingsley is one of the best modern golf courses in
Speaker 2: the country. It is an awesome, awesome golf course. We're
Speaker 2: playing it at the end of September and Traverse City,
Speaker 2: Michigan at Kingsley, Michigan, right next to Traverse City. What
Speaker 2: a delightful time of year to go to northern Michigan.
Speaker 2: So check that out if you're if you're looking to
Speaker 2: have a little fall excursion. Uh that is one that
Speaker 2: should be high on everybody's list. The golf course plays
Speaker 2: awesome that time of year, and it should be really
Speaker 2: great weather up there.
Speaker 1: Sweater weather.
Speaker 2: Maybe last year it was like E three when we
Speaker 2: hosted there this time of year. Uh So, anyway, that
Speaker 2: that time of year, so hopefully you can. We'll see
Speaker 2: you there, but check that out at proshop dot theffride
Speaker 2: egg dot com and.
Speaker 1: We will be back later this week with another episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys, and I hope everybody enjoys the Open