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 1: And when I find my.
Speaker 2: Ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg,
Speaker 2: Friday Frida Egg, Brian Egg, fridagg Bride egg Lie.
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host,
Speaker 3: Andy Johnson, and today I am.
Speaker 1: Joined by Henry Shimp.
Speaker 3: Henry is one of the co founders of the Tie Podcast,
Speaker 3: a podcast that talks about golf, specifically competition and golf
Speaker 3: course architecture, as well as he talks a lot about
Speaker 3: food too. He's a He's a big foodie. Henry was
Speaker 3: on the Stanford men's golf team. He was a co
Speaker 3: captain on the twenty nineteen twenty twenty team, and he
Speaker 3: was on the five man Stanford team that won the
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen NCAA National Championship. So Henry's quite the player.
Speaker 3: I apologize I lost my voice. I don't know if
Speaker 3: I have a cold or not, but I've been I've
Speaker 3: been voiceless for a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I want to get this episode done apologies for the voice.
Speaker 3: It definitely sounded better, I hope. Anyways, Henry played in
Speaker 3: our event last week at Brambles. We hosted an event,
Speaker 3: well the Brambles hosted the event, but it was a
Speaker 3: event where we had teams from Tree Farm, Brambles, Friday
Speaker 3: Golf Club and the and we competed in a match
Speaker 3: play event using equipment that was made before two thousand
Speaker 3: and four. So Henry I found a very interesting discussion
Speaker 3: with Henry as he is somebody who had never played
Speaker 3: the equipment that he played in the event, and is
Speaker 3: a player that is a I would say an elite
Speaker 3: am still at this stage, but you know, someone who
Speaker 3: competed against and had the game to play in a
Speaker 3: national championship at Stanford. So he's competed against some of
Speaker 3: the best players in the world and still can really
Speaker 3: get it around. So I thought it would be an
Speaker 3: interesting conversation to talk about playing really for the first
Speaker 3: time with significantly less forgiving equipment than he has played
Speaker 3: his entire life, and the things that he noticed from that.
Speaker 3: On top of that, we get into a couple other
Speaker 3: topics that he had some thoughts. So before we get
Speaker 3: to Henry, let's take a quick moment to talk about
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Speaker 3: I really should have fired this up before we play
Speaker 3: the retro clubs. I could have been really dialed in.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: I went to this golf course and to start hitting
Speaker 3: them and try to figure out the distances on the fly.
Speaker 1: It was tough.
Speaker 3: My first t shot was at par three, just thinking
Speaker 3: I hope this nine to iron goes the right number.
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Speaker 3: golf this winter. All right, let's get to Henry shim
Speaker 3: All right, Henry shimp I, guess founder, co founder the
Speaker 3: Taie Podcast, a fellow takesman of golf Internet.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you on. It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1: I spent this week or last week with you.
Speaker 3: At Brambles for our event, and I thought it'd be
Speaker 3: fun to just check golf for a little bit. We
Speaker 3: played an event called the Vintage, which was fun. It
Speaker 3: was like an expansion of an event we had last
Speaker 3: year where we did a hickory match. This year it
Speaker 3: was pre two thousand and four equipment and we had
Speaker 3: four clubs and we played a match and you competed.
Speaker 3: You played golf at Stanford and you were playing equipment.
Speaker 3: You're dating, you know, I'm dating myself. I played this
Speaker 3: equipment when I was in high scho cool. You had
Speaker 3: never played this equipment, this type of equipment, smaller heads,
Speaker 3: a little bit, smaller sweet spots. I would love, you know.
Speaker 3: I thought this was fascinating. We played our first match
Speaker 3: against each other. The idea of somebody playing equipment that
Speaker 3: they had never played before in a match. What what
Speaker 3: was it? What were your grant takeaways of playing the
Speaker 3: equipment you played? You had a nine to seventy five
Speaker 3: j driver and then you had some some seventies played irons,
Speaker 3: which which seemed like they were a struggle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's correct. For first of all, Andy, I appreciate
Speaker 2: you having me on. It's fun being together last week
Speaker 2: and fun to break it down now. And yeah, so
Speaker 2: the the equipment definitely quite a bit older than I was.
Speaker 2: The driver actually was from a I guess a teammate.
Speaker 2: You know, we were each representing clubs there. I rolled
Speaker 2: in with a putter, a sand wedge that I swear
Speaker 2: this sand wedge was six inches shorter than a standard
Speaker 2: sand wedge. I had to like get on my knees
Speaker 2: to hit with this thing. A pitching wedge through two iron.
Speaker 2: The two iron like you know people use the term
Speaker 2: butter knife. I mean genuinely, the ball was six times
Speaker 2: larger than the head of this two iron. And then
Speaker 2: I originally had this it was like a per Simin
Speaker 2: sort of situation. And I got out there and looked
Speaker 2: at this thing, and I was like, I actually don't
Speaker 2: know if I'm gonna have a club that I think
Speaker 2: might go halfway straight that flies over two hundred yards.
Speaker 2: And so fortunately that nine to seventy five j came in,
Speaker 2: which was really that was not that difficult to hit.
Speaker 2: I mean, certainly if you miss it, it's you're gonna
Speaker 2: lose some yards and it goes a bit offline, but
Speaker 2: it's not nearly like a Percimon where the ball might
Speaker 2: just go backwards if you don't hit the center of
Speaker 2: the club face. You know, one thing that comes to mind,
Speaker 2: I had a fleeting thought midway through the first round.
Speaker 2: I hit an iron shot that was, you know, not
Speaker 2: the greatest, and I was like, man, I wonder what
Speaker 2: the I wonder what the li ankle is on these things.
Speaker 2: And I was just like, you know, sometimes ignorance is
Speaker 2: and things that are in your mind are going to
Speaker 2: hurt you more, so I decided to just throw that away.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was. It was quite an interesting experience,
Speaker 2: but a ton of fun. I think Friday Golf Club, Well,
Speaker 2: he got the match, and I'll get it on the
Speaker 2: record now because you know, I'd rather say it myself
Speaker 2: than you. You, you know, with your partner getting some
Speaker 2: some generous help from the pencil. Let's say, you guys
Speaker 2: did in fact take the match, so I'll give you
Speaker 2: the nod there. Uh, but you know, you guys picked
Speaker 2: a great golf course to do it on.
Speaker 3: So you guys, you guys were you guys were talking
Speaker 3: about your visit at the Oval office, getting your with
Speaker 3: your your national championship rings from your years at Stanford,
Speaker 3: while while my partner was collecting as his dots and
Speaker 3: exactly destroying it, destroying it with six foot bar putts
Speaker 3: for verdie.
Speaker 2: Which I have to say those. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: there's kind of a way that people are supposed to
Speaker 2: look based on what they're handicap is over a six
Speaker 2: foot or to win a to win a hole, and
Speaker 2: I feel as if a five, a four or five handicap,
Speaker 2: you're supposed to see a couple of dicey strokes, and
Speaker 2: I mean your boy Kevin like dead center every single
Speaker 2: he looked like John Rahm with a putt to win
Speaker 2: each of those holes. So it really had me questioning
Speaker 2: the stroke situation. But it's water under the bridge. It
Speaker 2: was a fun match, and uh, and here we are.
Speaker 3: Well, I got to say after you left, I had
Speaker 3: I had a group of my college friends come play
Speaker 3: and we played, and I was I was dolling out
Speaker 3: a shot a hole and it was excruciating A shot
Speaker 3: a hole like it. It is so hard even against
Speaker 3: like they, you know, they just managed to make you know,
Speaker 3: like you're just always having to make better than par
Speaker 3: to win a hole like and oftentimes you're making birdies
Speaker 3: to have like that. That is an exhausting format. When
Speaker 3: you're giving up so many dots, you know, you're when
Speaker 3: you're double dotting a lot of holes. That was that
Speaker 3: was challenging.
Speaker 2: What is the worst number of strokes? Let's say that
Speaker 2: it's between one and eighteen. What's the worst number of
Speaker 2: strokes to give up? I have you know that? You said,
Speaker 2: fellow take Smith takes mean I have a take here.
Speaker 2: What do you think the worst number is to give up.
Speaker 3: I mean, like eighteen is bad. I do feel like
Speaker 3: it depends what type of match.
Speaker 1: It is, right.
Speaker 3: I do think like if you play a singles match
Speaker 3: against a high handicap, I feel like you are immediately
Speaker 3: as a lower handicap, you are immediately going to just
Speaker 3: there's a real chance that they are just going to
Speaker 3: be completely overwhelmed by the moment and it's over before
Speaker 3: you even Like, as long as you hit a really
Speaker 3: good T shot off of one, it's over, Like you
Speaker 3: can end the match on the first T. I would
Speaker 3: I would say that I think like eight is a
Speaker 3: dangerous spot because that means that the player is like
Speaker 3: pretty good.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's where I'm at. I think it's like,
Speaker 2: let's call it, you know, ten with plus or minus
Speaker 2: two basically because what I where I go there is
Speaker 2: it because I agree with you there on the someone
Speaker 2: might be overwhelmed by the moment, you know, if it's
Speaker 2: one or two or three, it's like you're just kind
Speaker 2: of not that far apart. But what I don't like
Speaker 2: coming at it from the other side, if you were
Speaker 2: the person that's giving the strokes, which I think you
Speaker 2: and I are probably in that situation more often than not.
Speaker 2: I don't like not knowing where the strokes are coming,
Speaker 2: because I'm not one that's really like looking at the
Speaker 2: card and all that stuff. And you know, typically you
Speaker 2: also find cagy competitors. I will say your partner was
Speaker 2: one of them.
Speaker 1: They'll cut they'll kind of just drag them through the
Speaker 1: mud here.
Speaker 2: They'll let you know when they have, like you know,
Speaker 2: when you have a ten footer for birdie and they
Speaker 2: have twenty feet for par they're like, oh, by the way,
Speaker 2: I'm popping here, and you're like, you gotta be kidding me.
Speaker 2: So what you're telling me is now I don't even
Speaker 2: have a putt to win this thing. And so I
Speaker 2: like that if it's like two, you know, it just
Speaker 2: comes in a couple times. If it's eighteen, you just
Speaker 2: know where you're at. You're just giving a shot every
Speaker 2: single time. But it's when you're like, oh god, now
Speaker 2: I have to give one. Oh now we're square. I
Speaker 2: don't like the uncertainty of win or the strokes coming.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we're going to talk the whole time here
Speaker 2: about dotting cards.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean the other thing about this and match play.
Speaker 3: I think this is like a misnumber I think match
Speaker 3: play should be played at like sixty percent handicaps and
Speaker 3: this and now high handicappers are going to come at
Speaker 3: me and say, this is just low handicap, you know, professing.
Speaker 3: But what makes a low handicap a low handicap is
Speaker 3: they don't make big numbers. What makes a high handicap
Speaker 3: a high handicap is that you make triples and quads
Speaker 3: in tens, and those things just destroy your rounds, destroy,
Speaker 3: just like mass destruction in stroke play and in match play.
Speaker 1: That only counts for one.
Speaker 2: One of the takes that I've had on handicapping. And
Speaker 2: tell me if you feel differently here, but if you
Speaker 2: play with someone who, let's say you're giving fewer than
Speaker 2: about six strokes, something that I've come to realize over
Speaker 2: the years is that what the handicapping is doing there.
Speaker 2: I've always had this take, you know, you say sixty
Speaker 2: percent of handicap. I've always had this take that there
Speaker 2: should be a bunch of half shots given rather than
Speaker 2: full shots, which I know is kind of ticky tacky,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't really work within the way the game is.
Speaker 2: But if I'm playing someone who is up a two
Speaker 2: or three handicap and they're not getting a ton of shots,
Speaker 2: but they are getting some. Basically what those call it
Speaker 2: five six however many shots are going to do is
Speaker 2: say you're that person's supposed to win certain holes, and
Speaker 2: then I'm supposed to win certain holes because handicapping is
Speaker 2: a bit convoluted where it has so much to do
Speaker 2: with the yardage. So they happen to get them on
Speaker 2: par fives, and then they don't get them on two
Speaker 2: four par threes. And so what happens there is someone
Speaker 2: who's you know, a two or three, They're going to
Speaker 2: be in the hole for the most part on a
Speaker 2: par five, and all of a sudden, they're hitting the
Speaker 2: equivalent shot that I'm hitting from two to seventy from
Speaker 2: seventy yards. They're just supposed to get that hole. But
Speaker 2: then the script flips when we go into a long
Speaker 2: par three and we're both inting a three iron and
Speaker 2: they're not getting a stroke. And so realistically, when they're
Speaker 2: only a small number of shots given, it feels like, hey,
Speaker 2: I just need to get those like hard par threes.
Speaker 2: They need to get those par fives, and then the
Speaker 2: match kind of washes in between. But it does feel
Speaker 2: like tight, like if it's sub five. It would honestly
Speaker 2: be a lot more fun to just give a half
Speaker 2: shot on like every other hole or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can see that. I do like I like
Speaker 3: small spreads. I feel good if I'm giving two or
Speaker 3: three shots, Like I feel like there's so much pressure
Speaker 3: on the person that if you're giving two or three shots.
Speaker 3: And I didn't anticipate talking about this for this length,
Speaker 3: but I feel like when you only get a couple pops,
Speaker 3: the gravity of the pop holes then often make them
Speaker 3: crumble on the popoles correct, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: They know they have to be de Yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: a huge deal.
Speaker 3: And if you if you happen to sneak out and
Speaker 3: win one of the pop holes, it is like extra devastating.
Speaker 1: It counts as two holes.
Speaker 3: Almost psychologically, where they're like, I can't believe I just
Speaker 3: lost the hole that happened with me in one of
Speaker 3: our matches, the singles match, was I won two of
Speaker 3: the five pop poles and or maybe three of the
Speaker 3: five popoles. And when you do that, it's just like,
Speaker 3: well like I don't know if I could beat I
Speaker 3: can win you know, five or six of the non
Speaker 3: stroke hooles against somebody you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: The matchplay psychology though, is like what makes the game
Speaker 3: special so much so and why there should be like
Speaker 3: way more match play in golf. Uh with Let's get
Speaker 3: back to the equipment. This is what I wanted to
Speaker 3: talk about. You you obviously you played at Stanford, you played,
Speaker 3: You've played in multiple usams, You've made match play at
Speaker 3: the US AM.
Speaker 1: You know, you've played a very high level of golf.
Speaker 3: What do you feel like when you were playing, particularly
Speaker 3: the Irons, How was your mindset different with this older
Speaker 3: equipment than the equipment that you've played the rest of
Speaker 3: your whole life.
Speaker 2: Have you heard the term chaffua before for short game? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like schaffua soft hands been an FU attitude
Speaker 2: applies to like, especially when you talk about like really
Speaker 2: legitimate golfers, actually legitimate golfers, Rory macelroy, guys like that.
Speaker 2: It applies to every part of the game. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think about, you know, some of the best shots
Speaker 2: that I've ever witnessed on TV or non TV, but
Speaker 2: like you know, Rory shot on fifteen or AUGUSTA this year,
Speaker 2: obviously that comes to mind. You know, DJ's drive on
Speaker 2: the eighteenth and the twenty sixteen us open to me
Speaker 2: and at a much much, much lesser level. Kind of
Speaker 2: feel like I can relate to that in terms of
Speaker 2: how I've thought about different shots I've had, Like there
Speaker 2: is that just like Okay, I'm I'm going to take
Speaker 2: that f you mentality, stare down the flag and just swing,
Speaker 2: because I feel that anyone who's really a single digit
Speaker 2: or better sort of golfer, it's amazing with where equipment
Speaker 2: has gone that contact take away, like a soft handed
Speaker 2: pitch shot where you're thinking about hitting a spinner or
Speaker 2: a lie out of the rough. Contact is not a
Speaker 2: variable in the game of golf anymore. No, Like I
Speaker 2: think if you asked Rory McElroy how many times out
Speaker 2: of the fairway with a seven iron in his hand
Speaker 2: in the last ten years, has he actually thought about contact,
Speaker 2: I feel pretty confident in saying he would say, it's
Speaker 2: just not something I'm thinking about at all, unless it's
Speaker 2: in a divid or hitting a backfoot drat. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I just do not think people consider contact. Whereas
Speaker 2: you take an iron from the sixties that you know
Speaker 2: has a li angle that who knows what we're looking
Speaker 2: at here, and you just simply can't say, you know what,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to turn the shoulders extra hard here
Speaker 2: because I'm a little bit nervous, and the way to
Speaker 2: handle nerves is to just be an athlete and actually
Speaker 2: be even more aggressive and swing harder at the ball.
Speaker 2: It's like, it's quite the opposite. Your mind really does
Speaker 2: first go to contact and just making a good clean
Speaker 2: move at it and trying to hit the ball out
Speaker 2: of the center because everything is just multiplied so massively.
Speaker 2: Where with a modern seven iron for a scratch golfer,
Speaker 2: let's say, you know, if they hit a not a
Speaker 2: terrible shot, but like a bottom coure tile shot somewhere
Speaker 2: in there, you know, instead of landing the ball within
Speaker 2: twenty feet of the whole, they probably land it within
Speaker 2: fifty or sixty feet of the hole. Whereas with this
Speaker 2: old equipment, I mean, you can miss it by not
Speaker 2: all that much, and all of a sudden, like one
Speaker 2: seventy eight can become one p fifty two. And you know, Brambles,
Speaker 2: the course that we played was very generous to this,
Speaker 2: and that not that it's not a difficult golf course
Speaker 2: for it, because around the greens and sort of getting
Speaker 2: your ball to stop near the hole was certainly a difficulty,
Speaker 2: but there weren't all that many penalty shots to be taken.
Speaker 2: I mean, imagine going out to a golf course where
Speaker 2: there are a lot of forced carries, you're hitting over water,
Speaker 2: they're creaks, there's o b all over the place. Then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden it's just magnified by God knows
Speaker 2: how much, because then you're just taking penalty shots left
Speaker 2: and right. So I think from a psychological standpoint, that's
Speaker 2: the biggest thing I'd call out is rather than like
Speaker 2: being more athletic, being more aggressive anytime you're extra nervous
Speaker 2: or have you know, a longer shot in hand, whatever
Speaker 2: the case may be, it certainly goes the opposite way
Speaker 2: where you just focus on being smooth trying to make
Speaker 2: a contact. And you know, people people talk about the
Speaker 2: values of swinging a person and driver or something like
Speaker 2: that here and there, and when you do it, you
Speaker 2: understand what that means. When when your mind goes back
Speaker 2: to just the let's make a clean move and try
Speaker 2: to hit the center of the face.
Speaker 1: I just I notice it, like when you're looking down.
Speaker 3: At the club, you your mentality with a modern driver,
Speaker 3: it's just like I'm gonna move my body in a
Speaker 3: manner to create the most explosion, and with it, with
Speaker 3: the smaller head, it starts to become like I'm going
Speaker 3: to move my body to ensure that I have the
Speaker 3: best chance to hit the center of the club face.
Speaker 3: And those are two very different thoughts, and there's like
Speaker 3: way more care. Ironically, I think swinging the smaller, smaller
Speaker 3: headed clubs with some regularity, even if it's like once
Speaker 3: every couple months, dramatically helps the other one.
Speaker 1: But what I've what I've seen and I think you
Speaker 1: hit on this.
Speaker 3: Is that what with the modern clubs now, it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like you miss distance wise, it's never been easier
Speaker 3: to hit the same distance because that sweet spot's just
Speaker 3: gotten so big and the the the off center hits
Speaker 3: have gotten so for the forgiveness is just through the
Speaker 3: roofs where where it's never been easier to hit shots
Speaker 3: pin high, and it's never been easier to hit drives
Speaker 3: like a similar distance no matter where you hit it
Speaker 3: on the face. But when you introduce like older equipment,
Speaker 3: what it does is that forgiveness goes away and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, like you have distance variability, which I
Speaker 3: mean that's how you get really far away from targets
Speaker 3: because you might miss. You know what you said, it
Speaker 3: might be fifty feet if you're but you're fifty feet
Speaker 3: pin high right as opposed to fifty feet right and
Speaker 3: fifteen yards short. You know, like that that compounding effect.
Speaker 3: And I think you something you said it was like
Speaker 3: very illuminating, like in.
Speaker 1: A way.
Speaker 3: The best test of solid contact and the sport that
Speaker 3: remains is pitching.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, I mean going off of that, but also
Speaker 2: some of what you're saying there, like it shows you
Speaker 2: very quickly that I feel what manufacturers have really solved
Speaker 2: in the last fifty years or perhaps just come up
Speaker 2: with altogether, is a concept of gearing the number of
Speaker 2: shots that I hit, where you know, we've all hit
Speaker 2: plenty of golf balls in your life, and you sort
Speaker 2: of have an expectation at contact of what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: You know, if you hit a four iron and you
Speaker 2: catch it on the toe basically the way it works
Speaker 2: these days that probably has to do with the club
Speaker 2: face being a little bit open at strike and therefore
Speaker 2: it's gonna start a little bit right and you caught
Speaker 2: it on the toe, and the concept of gearing is
Speaker 2: such that the fore ironm is gonna start a bit right,
Speaker 2: and it's gonna draw back, and maybe it flies seven
Speaker 2: yards shorter, but it spins a little bit less and
Speaker 2: then it chases out and all things being equal, the
Speaker 2: shot turns out not too dissimilar, whereas back in the
Speaker 2: day these clubs, actually it was quite the opposite, where
Speaker 2: the fact that toe hits actually they start writing and
Speaker 2: go right is such a crazy concept, and it really is.
Speaker 2: It is illuminating on the way that people used to
Speaker 2: swing the club and what that meant for delivery. We
Speaker 2: talked about this, and you joke about this here and
Speaker 2: there on pods. It's wild that not only is there
Speaker 2: less of a premium place these days on center contact,
Speaker 2: there are actually times when you're not even look looking
Speaker 2: for center contact. You know, you like to joke about
Speaker 2: Bob McIntyre, how he talks about towing his driver, and
Speaker 2: you know, we all know that a high toe is like,
Speaker 2: maybe I don't bet I'm nearly good enough to be
Speaker 2: trying to high toe the ball, but we know that
Speaker 2: that's like the best hit in the game. It takes
Speaker 2: spin off of it. It launches a bit higher, it's
Speaker 2: going to turn over and it's going to go forever,
Speaker 2: Like that's the best t ball you can hit. I
Speaker 2: also feel like, like when I feel like I'm really
Speaker 2: really hitting my wedges properly, if I'm able to hit
Speaker 2: a seventy five yarder that's bouncy, not a super deep
Speaker 2: divot and off the toe, that's like the best shot
Speaker 2: you can hit, because it's that sort of low, tight
Speaker 2: draw that skips in there and then spins really nicely.
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to I had this ridiculous theory
Speaker 2: in college. I used to joke with my teammates about that.
Speaker 2: I just I truly don't think I can go there
Speaker 2: on this podcast. But basically what the theory was is
Speaker 2: that you actually don't want to hit a wedge shot
Speaker 2: out of the center of the face because you fly
Speaker 2: it the right distance and it spins too much, Whereas
Speaker 2: if you fin it a little bit, it spins less
Speaker 2: than it flies shorter you chunk it a little bit,
Speaker 2: it also flies shorter, spins less like center contact is
Speaker 2: actually these days, it's like too good to hit it
Speaker 2: out of the center, and it can actually be convenient
Speaker 2: to miss.
Speaker 3: It well it's where if you can get really shallow
Speaker 3: with the wedges, it's like you know where your contact
Speaker 3: is coming in really shallow. It's so beneficial because you
Speaker 3: it's not going to spin that much. But then also
Speaker 3: and it comes out lower. But also if you catch
Speaker 3: it just a little thin, there's no repercussion, right, It
Speaker 3: just it's going to come out of a similar window
Speaker 3: the margin for error. It's like a different swing that
Speaker 3: maximizes it. And like, yeah, like a lot of cases
Speaker 3: you don't want it, especially tough pins that if you
Speaker 3: miss it just a little bit and you get a
Speaker 3: little bit less spin, you can get up onto shelves
Speaker 3: a little bit easier.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. What do you think about This is something
Speaker 2: that I spoke with a few guys with at the event,
Speaker 2: and I think you and I might touched on it briefly.
Speaker 2: But what do you think about how newer equipment has
Speaker 2: informed pace of play? Obviously a big topic of conversation
Speaker 2: in the game today. Do you think it slowed things
Speaker 2: down sped it up?
Speaker 3: This is this isn't a very I think this would
Speaker 3: be most people would say it increases the pace of
Speaker 3: play because of it helps players. I think it's done
Speaker 3: the opposite, because one of the things that I notice
Speaker 3: when I play older equipment is my missus just like
Speaker 3: get on the ground faster. They don't just like fly
Speaker 3: into oblivion. And when balls fly into oblivion, that's when
Speaker 3: you have really long searches for golf balls. And you know,
Speaker 3: the other aspect of it is that the equipment has
Speaker 3: made modern golfers better. And what the what the knee
Speaker 3: jerk reaction of, Like, Okay, golfers have gotten better, agronomy
Speaker 3: has gotten so much.
Speaker 1: Better in order to challenge golfers.
Speaker 3: And I think like the biggest thing that slows down
Speaker 3: pace of play is green speeds and the effort to
Speaker 3: push green speeds. You know, if you I you know
Speaker 3: when I played growing up, like green speeds like you
Speaker 3: if you played on a ten, it was like fast,
Speaker 3: you know eleven. I remember there's a junior tournament in
Speaker 3: Illinois when I was like, you know, thirteen that everybody
Speaker 3: used to talk about they got their green stone eleven.
Speaker 3: Like now you play like a junior tournament and it's
Speaker 3: like a big junior tournament. If they're going to talk
Speaker 3: about green speeds, it's gonna be a fifteen, you know.
Speaker 3: So that is all centered around combating technology in my opinion,
Speaker 3: and obviously there's there's advances in in agronomy, but like
Speaker 3: when your greens are ten or eleven, you can leave
Speaker 3: putts dead. When they're fourteen or fifteen, you there is
Speaker 3: no such thing as just like leaving a thirty foot
Speaker 3: or two feet away, like they just run run away
Speaker 3: from you, and that those two footers turn into three
Speaker 3: or four footers all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: Those take a lot more time. And so I think,
Speaker 1: like technology, like the misses.
Speaker 3: When when the ball doesn't go as far, the misses
Speaker 3: aren't as big, so you don't look for as many
Speaker 3: golf balls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the word that I had in my
Speaker 2: head all week playing this equipment, I'll dress it a
Speaker 2: little bit more, just directly on the equipment itself, because
Speaker 2: you're exactly right on how it's informed setups. But the
Speaker 2: word I had in my head all week was just analog,
Speaker 2: like you grab these putters. They didn't have lines, they
Speaker 2: didn't have dots, And I'll a lot of this stuff
Speaker 2: like like linear versus non linear putting, You kind of
Speaker 2: can't split the difference. You either have a line on
Speaker 2: your potter, you have a line on your ball, you're
Speaker 2: seeing things with generally straight lines and trying to put
Speaker 2: that way or you're not. But if you don't have
Speaker 2: a line on the putter, but you do line the
Speaker 2: ball and you're trying to see linear but it doesn't
Speaker 2: really you can't really do it that way. And so
Speaker 2: with this old school equipment there's a little bit more
Speaker 2: of a sense of just like, hey, you got to
Speaker 2: throw it down, take a look and feel it out,
Speaker 2: you know. Now, speaking on like iron play back in
Speaker 2: the day when it was more about just like hey,
Speaker 2: can you hit the center of the club or not,
Speaker 2: it just it felt for me like I wasn't thinking
Speaker 2: quite as much about like is a is it a
Speaker 2: three quarter seven iron with like a little cut that
Speaker 2: maybe takes a little off and spins a little extra
Speaker 2: and holds up into the wind? Or do I hit
Speaker 2: like a tight draw with less club or do I
Speaker 2: do this? It was more of I could kind of
Speaker 2: hit any of these three clubs that are somewhere in
Speaker 2: the ballpark, but ultimately if I don't hit it, well,
Speaker 2: it's just not even close. So I found myself hitting
Speaker 2: a lot more where I was like the last shot
Speaker 2: went a little bit shorter, so I'll take extra here
Speaker 2: and swing a little easier shots don't. There are no
Speaker 2: nuclear shots. You don't just happen to hit one forever.
Speaker 2: It's just not really how the old equipment worked. And
Speaker 2: so again, it's like, you know, when you take away
Speaker 2: the variable of contact as has been done today, it
Speaker 2: introduces like eleven different variables. And so that's why you
Speaker 2: see these guys. I mean, I think people can pace
Speaker 2: the play. I understand it, but I why people don't
Speaker 2: like it. But I also understand it from the other side.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're Scotty Scheffler like, and I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think Scotty is a particularly slow player, but
Speaker 2: I was going to say, when he's sitting there, when
Speaker 2: he's calculating eleven different things on an eight iron, it's
Speaker 2: because he's optimizing for like eleven different variables. These guys
Speaker 2: actually are that tuned. But you know, if they're just
Speaker 2: focused a little bit more on I just got to
Speaker 2: like fundamentally like hit this ball pretty well, as opposed
Speaker 2: to knowing that that's the case. I personally felt like
Speaker 2: it took away a lot of the decision making and
Speaker 2: just made you say, line target club swing.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I hear.
Speaker 3: What you're saying is because your focus becomes more singular
Speaker 3: on just making solid contact rather than all the other
Speaker 3: things you do. Become more singularly focused on just solid contact.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: One of the aspects of the game that never gets
Speaker 3: brought up in the technology debate that you brought up
Speaker 3: is the putter. Putters aren't so much easier to hit
Speaker 3: today than they were years ago. There's so much more forgiveness.
Speaker 3: You were using a very old blade putter and what
Speaker 3: you know, like if you don't hit that dead in
Speaker 3: the sweet spot on a lag putt, you're looking, you know,
Speaker 3: it's an embarrassing putt. I think like today's putters are always,
Speaker 3: you know, fly under the radar of like how have
Speaker 3: we de skilled the game putters?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to that point, like there's there's basically
Speaker 2: no one that I can think of, hardly that putts
Speaker 2: with something even close to take away the exact putter itself,
Speaker 2: but putts in the style of of what it was
Speaker 2: like to put forty years ago. I mean, so like
Speaker 2: at the the Cameron Studio, I'm blanking on the guy's name.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been there before Andy to get fit
Speaker 2: and go through the whole deal.
Speaker 1: I have not. I have not.
Speaker 3: I've gone through a Putter fitting. I know how it
Speaker 3: works generally. Yeah, you know, it's it's wild. I think
Speaker 3: I think there's an important conversation point here.
Speaker 1: A lot of of this.
Speaker 3: Technology I think has been really good for like average players,
Speaker 3: but I don't think it's necessarily been good for the
Speaker 3: elite level of players in the the elite game and
Speaker 3: showcasing how talented players are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think I think that's right. I mean,
Speaker 2: I was gonna say briefly on the like the fitting
Speaker 2: studio that they do, the guy who does it there,
Speaker 2: it's like it's like almost a one man operation when
Speaker 2: it comes to the fitting, and you know, he's seen
Speaker 2: every great stroke in the game, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: cool that the four if I'm not mistaken that he
Speaker 2: calls out or like Tiger Ricky Anthony Kim and can't
Speaker 2: lay are the four strokes that he looks at. And
Speaker 2: it's just like these guys simply do it differently. And
Speaker 2: you know this has changed a little bit. Ricky's done
Speaker 2: some different stuff and AKA, I guess he is technically
Speaker 2: doing something these days, Andy, I'd be lying if I
Speaker 2: said I know what.
Speaker 1: He's doing hutting incredibly too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, we just don't know. I wouldn't know the stats.
Speaker 2: I you know, I haven't seen I can't say I
Speaker 2: have seen what he's what he's game in these days.
Speaker 2: But anyway, let's let's go back to you know, when
Speaker 2: these guys were, like early twenty is when you know,
Speaker 2: these strokes are on camera that he likes to use,
Speaker 2: and those guys use you know, basic blade putters that
Speaker 2: are more modern, but they stroke it in such a
Speaker 2: way that they didn't necessarily need all of this new technology.
Speaker 2: But you know, kind of hearkening back to the pace
Speaker 2: of play. It's like, you know, I think about the
Speaker 2: way I putt and I can't say I do all
Speaker 2: this stuff anymore. Andy. I kind of I'm a little
Speaker 2: bit more of a just throw it down and let
Speaker 2: it rip these days sort of guy. But I mean,
Speaker 2: I've got the superstroke with a claw. I like, I'm
Speaker 2: a linear guy. I like to put the line on
Speaker 2: it and all of that stuff. Regardless of how quickly
Speaker 2: you go through it, it just simply slows the game down.
Speaker 2: The ultimate version of this is and it's like, he's
Speaker 2: my favorite guy to watch putt and slowly but surely
Speaker 2: becoming maybe my favorite guy to watch play golf in general.
Speaker 2: Bryson Shambell, he does like the full thing, and I
Speaker 2: think he is the one that like, I just watch
Speaker 2: him and what comes to mind is just simply the
Speaker 2: standard deviation feels. And it's not that he's a fantastic putter.
Speaker 2: It's not that he's necessarily the best putter out there,
Speaker 2: but it feels like he has eliminated the most variables,
Speaker 2: and it really does feel like it's just simply a
Speaker 2: product of how well did he go through his calculations,
Speaker 2: because I just don't see him miss putts that are,
Speaker 2: oh god, he just hit that way too hard, or
Speaker 2: he just missed the line by a mile, or I
Speaker 2: guess even more so, oh he just made a bad stroke.
Speaker 2: It's much more of a sense of, hey, he just
Speaker 2: like he misread that by a ball and the pace
Speaker 2: was right and he just happened to miss the putt
Speaker 2: by a bit. But it has become such a calculated thing,
Speaker 2: and that goes all the way down to the equipment,
Speaker 2: where if you're just giving a little stick in a
Speaker 2: ball which is what it feels like using that old stuff.
Speaker 2: Like I immediately grab that putter you're referring to, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I can't claw this thing. I can't
Speaker 2: put a line down. I can't I can't hardly read putts,
Speaker 2: like I'm gonna throw the ball down. I'm gonna look
Speaker 2: at the hole and not. I wasn't doing the heads
Speaker 2: up putting thing, but I'm gonna a look or two
Speaker 2: and just kind of let it fly. And I am
Speaker 2: not at all one that's going to advocate for Oh,
Speaker 2: that's how it should be, you know, like that's our
Speaker 2: soft to pace a play, because that's just simply not
Speaker 2: realistic with where the game is gone and all the
Speaker 2: R and D and all those things. That just wouldn't
Speaker 2: be something realistic to say in my mind. But it
Speaker 2: is illuminating to play with that stuff and see what
Speaker 2: it looks like. It would be absolutely fascinating to see
Speaker 2: a match, like I mean, if we wanted to go
Speaker 2: down a PGA Tour rabbit hole on the product and
Speaker 2: just trying things in this new format of the PGA Tour,
Speaker 2: like do a match, do one of these one off
Speaker 2: Scotty Rory things and have them have them play. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, sponsored by the Fried Egg Andy play with
Speaker 2: old stuff and let's see how but let's see what
Speaker 2: those gets what it looks like out there. I don't
Speaker 2: think that they would have the yardage books out, you know,
Speaker 2: with the pencil and like writing down every single number.
Speaker 2: And maybe that's a product of it being just some
Speaker 2: little silly match, but I just can't imagine that it
Speaker 2: would look quite the same as someone.
Speaker 3: You know, you played against a lot of the younger
Speaker 3: players on tour. You know, with this equipment. Do you
Speaker 3: think there are certain players that you know of that
Speaker 3: would would be better, be more rewarded, and then certain
Speaker 3: players that you know, maybe I wouldn't be thought of
Speaker 3: the way they are thought of now if if you know,
Speaker 3: I think for the most part, what we've talked about,
Speaker 3: if if clean contact was the ultimate reward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good question. I hadn't really thought
Speaker 2: about that. But for whatever reason, Colin wore Cow does
Speaker 2: seem to come to mind of a guy that it
Speaker 2: feels like he just he hits the ball and he
Speaker 2: just plays the game. You know, he's not been on
Speaker 2: his best form the last year or so, but everything
Speaker 2: with him is just like very proper. I feel like
Speaker 2: more Cow is a guy that would probably be moderately
Speaker 2: elevated with the game. You know, you and I had
Speaker 2: this conversation when we were out at Brambles. I think
Speaker 2: it's easy to say, like, oh, you know, you give
Speaker 2: this driver to Rory and like, you know, the superpower's
Speaker 2: taken away. I think that's complete BS. I think he'd
Speaker 2: blow your mind with any any golf club you give him.
Speaker 2: And that's not just because there's a poster you can't
Speaker 2: quite see on my wall of Rory. Here's a funny one.
Speaker 3: I think that's the It would have the opposite effect
Speaker 3: of Rory in terms of I think his superpower grows.
Speaker 3: I think so too, Yeah, because if you look at
Speaker 3: how much he used to gain early part of his career,
Speaker 3: drivers have gotten more forgiving over time. There are more
Speaker 3: high speed players than early in his career. But the
Speaker 3: other factor is, like he's gone from a one point
Speaker 3: four off the T to like a point six off
Speaker 3: the T over the last ten years. And you think
Speaker 3: about that, the tense of a shot per round or
Speaker 3: so you know, and he he's diminished there, but he's
Speaker 3: still like a top fight player. But like a lot
Speaker 3: of that I think is the forgiveness of the driver's
Speaker 3: gotten so insane from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: that you can swing harder with reckless abandon more reckless
Speaker 3: abandoned than you could in twenty fourteen. Now there are,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, a lot more players that could
Speaker 3: swing at a high speed, which would you know, But
Speaker 3: I think that number would be a lot higher if
Speaker 3: the drivers were less forgiving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say this is kind of going just
Speaker 2: a little bit deeper perhaps on swing mechanics and like physics.
Speaker 2: I do believe that particularly with the driver, the older
Speaker 2: stuff gives rise to a hitting up on the ball,
Speaker 2: not down and be cutting the ball as opposed to drawing.
Speaker 2: I found that the draws it just gets like much
Speaker 2: much more dicey quickly. I think JT would be really
Speaker 2: nice with the old equipment. I think the finesse in
Speaker 2: his game also, like you can't really hit those sort
Speaker 2: of finesse shots if you're not really consistently out of
Speaker 2: the middle the way that he's able to hit his wedges,
Speaker 2: and he seems to use tempo as a variable in
Speaker 2: his golf game that not a lot of guys do,
Speaker 2: and I think that the older equipment probably works better
Speaker 2: with that stuff the one that I had in my
Speaker 2: head that I really, I truly don't know what to
Speaker 2: do with this. On one hand, I think Scotty finds
Speaker 2: the center of the face better than anybody in the game.
Speaker 2: I sometimes feel as if the way in which he
Speaker 2: does it, the way he finds the center, you don't
Speaker 2: know how it's going to happen, and I simply have
Speaker 2: no clue what to make of it. I think I
Speaker 2: would probably like, if you, if you maybe bet on it,
Speaker 2: I'd say good is good, and he'd probably beat people
Speaker 2: by even more with the old equipment. But there's a
Speaker 2: possibility because I at least felt like, you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: say you get a little bit too steep with a
Speaker 2: seven iron or something like that, but you know, you
Speaker 2: still deliver the club pretty well and you're able to
Speaker 2: just like be a little bit steeper, take a bigger it,
Speaker 2: and you still had a really nice shot. Scotty seems
Speaker 2: to do stuff like that a lot. It doesn't seem
Speaker 2: like it works very well with the old equipment, So
Speaker 2: that makes me think maybe that it could be a
Speaker 2: little strange to see him play with old stuff. But again,
Speaker 2: if I had to bet on, I would say that,
Speaker 2: you know, good just becomes better and he probably beats
Speaker 2: people by even more.
Speaker 3: I mean, it seems like people are trying to spin
Speaker 3: up golf content ideas left and right.
Speaker 1: The best ones are not.
Speaker 3: Being explored, which is have these guys play with different
Speaker 3: eras of equipments. The most fascinating, you know, question in
Speaker 3: golf that remains unanswered is what would these different players
Speaker 3: look like?
Speaker 1: Could we do a tournament that was that.
Speaker 3: Obviously there's a lot of money and equipment and that's
Speaker 3: probably what's prohibiting all of this from happening, but it
Speaker 3: remains like.
Speaker 1: A huge question.
Speaker 3: All right, let's take a quick break and talk about
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Speaker 1: And continued education for.
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Speaker 3: dot com slash Frida Egg. All right, let's get back
Speaker 3: to Henry Shimp. I had I had you prepare a
Speaker 3: couple other takes. I know you're you've got your golf takes.
Speaker 3: I had to prepare three takes to go with this conversation.
Speaker 1: What let's hear of the three takes?
Speaker 2: He's rapid succession or conversation?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, okay, okay, so we can let's unpack each one.
Speaker 2: I fear that this first one could we might take
Speaker 2: this thing to the two hour mark or something. But okay, okay,
Speaker 2: first one architecture.
Speaker 1: I don't know if my voice can handle two hours.
Speaker 2: Architecture oriented, So Andy, you are truly ground zero when
Speaker 2: it comes to the development of golf these days, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of cool stuff going on. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of cool stuff that's been done in the last
Speaker 2: five to ten years. There's a lot of cool stuff
Speaker 2: that's going to happen in the next five to ten.
Speaker 2: This is partially wishful thinking, or perhaps where I just
Speaker 2: want to see the game go, the game of golf
Speaker 2: course development, partially where I think it will go, and
Speaker 2: what we're already seeing to some degree. But the model
Speaker 2: for that was basically informed by sand hills and band
Speaker 2: and dunes. You could say the model for the last
Speaker 2: fifteen twenty years has been fine, sand doesn't matter how
Speaker 2: remote it is, find unbelievable property, tons of acres. If
Speaker 2: you build it, they will come. And there's been a
Speaker 2: lot of cool stuff that's come of that. Now. I
Speaker 2: don't know if we're in the sixth inning. This is
Speaker 2: not financial advice for anybody. I don't know if we're
Speaker 2: in the sixth inning, eighth inning, or midway through the
Speaker 2: ninth on the state of the market. But I do
Speaker 2: not think we're in the second inning of a bull market.
Speaker 2: And so you're already starting to see some really neat
Speaker 2: projects come more urban, not purely urban, but closer to
Speaker 2: city centers. And I think that's contingency planning on if
Speaker 2: a project doesn't do well. You know, the game in
Speaker 2: the last ten or so years has been, hey, just
Speaker 2: go deeper into super deep pockets and keep it afloat,
Speaker 2: because all of a sudden, if you have a really
Speaker 2: remote project that people can't travel to and they're not
Speaker 2: interested in because of the golf course, you don't really
Speaker 2: get to solve that by going half public or something
Speaker 2: of that nature, especially if it's super remote. But if
Speaker 2: you keep it closer to the city centers, then you
Speaker 2: know you have a better opportunity there. So I think
Speaker 2: that we're going to continue to see more of that.
Speaker 2: A project like Rodeo Dunes that's only forty five minutes
Speaker 2: outside of Denver. You know, there's some things in Texas.
Speaker 2: I don't know how much of these projects are being
Speaker 2: shared yet, so I'll just leave them incognito. But some
Speaker 2: things that are pretty close to the city centers as
Speaker 2: opposed to super far away, and you know, it gives
Speaker 2: me hope that maybe more of that will happen. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the architects that are starting to
Speaker 2: become much more in vogue the ocms of the world,
Speaker 2: Kyle Franz. You know OCM for example, like being on
Speaker 2: Australian guys those Melbourne sand Belt courses. They get a
Speaker 2: golf course in a range one hundred and twenty acres
Speaker 2: and a lot of the stuff that's been in the
Speaker 2: game the last ten years plus is it's built on
Speaker 2: thousands of acres. And so anyway, I'll close this one
Speaker 2: out by saying, I would love to see a push
Speaker 2: to you know, the first line item. I've done a
Speaker 2: little bit of real estate development in my days. If
Speaker 2: the first line item on the budget is more so
Speaker 2: allocated to the land, a little bit more expensive land
Speaker 2: closer to the city centers, something that's a bit more
Speaker 2: accessible on smaller acreage, is where I think the development
Speaker 2: world could be going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is well.
Speaker 3: I think we have to look at the whole market
Speaker 3: as a you know, kind of a it's a bell curve,
Speaker 3: right and you have the most courses in the middle,
Speaker 3: and if you use like just Tom Doaks scale of
Speaker 3: zero through ten, the most courses are like threes and fours.
Speaker 3: And right now, with the way like land costs and
Speaker 3: where great sites are for the most part, they're remote.
Speaker 3: Where sites are great sites are available, and I think
Speaker 3: people are like gung ho, I'm building. You know, if
Speaker 3: you're going to spend the amount of capital to build
Speaker 3: a golf course, you want to build a nine or ten,
Speaker 3: or at least believe you have the opportunity to build
Speaker 3: a nine or a ten. And I think like a
Speaker 3: lot of that comes down to, like a great site,
Speaker 3: but great sites for the most part, and there are
Speaker 3: there are absolutely exceptions to this rule. Great sites for
Speaker 3: the most part are far away. You know, that's where
Speaker 3: you're going to be able to find one thousand acres
Speaker 3: of land, sand dunes, and and you know, sometimes they're closer.
Speaker 3: I think what's interesting is that there's a hole in
Speaker 3: the market for America in general, could use like American
Speaker 3: golf would be so out of this world if you
Speaker 3: could just wave your magic wand and add three hundred
Speaker 3: sixes or sevens to within market major metro markets, and
Speaker 3: that's totally feasible with the golf courses that exist right now.
Speaker 3: So to me, one of the things I think about
Speaker 3: is like people have become so die hard devoted to
Speaker 3: like finding the greatest site in the world, and they're
Speaker 3: building like exceptional golf courses. I think I was talking
Speaker 3: with somebody recently about a new golf course, Hey, where
Speaker 3: do you think this is? And they were talking about
Speaker 3: the world or the US Top one hundred, and I
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, But like in the last ten years,
Speaker 3: there's probably been thirty golf courses built that are American
Speaker 3: Top one hundred contenders. So the bar for the top
Speaker 3: one hundred in America has gone up significantly because of
Speaker 3: all the new development. And I think like it goes
Speaker 3: a little under the radar, like how good some of
Speaker 3: these golf courses are. You know, We've almost become numb
Speaker 3: to it. And it's you have these Sacred Cows, which
Speaker 3: are historically the the you know, the greatest golf courses
Speaker 3: in America. Everybody knows them. They aren't moving out of
Speaker 3: their spots, if you like the rankings, They are not
Speaker 3: going anywhere, right, Like, nobody's gonna say that there are
Speaker 3: better baseball stadiums than Fenway and Wrigley.
Speaker 1: Nobody's going to say.
Speaker 3: That they're just you know, pts shrugging. He believes otherwise,
Speaker 3: But nobody's going after the Sacred Cows. And it's the
Speaker 3: same with golf. And I think like the reality is
Speaker 3: is it's going to be exceptionally hard, exceptionally hard to
Speaker 3: build a top thirty golf course in America because of
Speaker 3: the competition, right, like you're starting to knock out, like
Speaker 3: the places you're knocking out. Is like not like you
Speaker 3: have to build a golf course that's better than Garden City,
Speaker 3: but you also have to eclipse the history, Like the
Speaker 3: golf course has to be so much better to eclipse
Speaker 3: the golf course plus.
Speaker 1: The history of these places.
Speaker 3: So I think like where there's like a genuine hole
Speaker 3: in the market is like, well, there's like a huge,
Speaker 3: huge need for really good golf and really good golf architecture,
Speaker 3: but not exceptional can be built on any type of site.
Speaker 1: Like all you need is.
Speaker 3: Clever golf architecture, which you know, the modern architect at
Speaker 3: this point, like we've never seen such educated and talent
Speaker 3: as many talented golf architects as now. And I think
Speaker 3: that to me is what you know, a lot of
Speaker 3: the projects I'm most interested in. I think they'm interested
Speaker 3: in some of the far flowing destinations like and how
Speaker 3: great they could be. But to me, what's more interesting
Speaker 3: is like, how how do we get more good golf
Speaker 3: because the vast majority of the golf in America is
Speaker 3: not good?
Speaker 1: Like from a golf architecture standpoint, how.
Speaker 3: Do we get more good golf that's readily accessible to
Speaker 3: the general public in major metro markets. Yeah, like people
Speaker 3: poo poo like sixes on based off of Tom Dooks scale.
Speaker 1: But if you outside of.
Speaker 3: If you took out New York and maybe Philadelphia, in
Speaker 3: almost every other city, a top ten golf course in
Speaker 3: that city is a six.
Speaker 2: I really like the way you're putting it with like
Speaker 2: putting them on the bell curve. What you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 2: Everyone obviously is trying to They're trying to do a ten.
Speaker 2: They want a nine or a ten. And that's why
Speaker 2: I think we we pursue these far flung destinations. It's
Speaker 2: a really interesting concept to say. So I'll go two
Speaker 2: really specific sites. I think you'll know both of them.
Speaker 2: I've always had in my mind like you could do
Speaker 2: and you could absolutely do an eight, not as like
Speaker 2: a restoration, not as a renovation, but like a full
Speaker 2: blown by the land redo the golf course at now
Speaker 2: I'm blanking on my two sites, the one in Charleston
Speaker 2: that's very low Patriots Point. You can do an unbelievable
Speaker 2: in town golf course there. And have you ever seen
Speaker 2: Crystal Springs, Like halfway between San Francisco and Palo Alto area,
Speaker 2: Crystal Springs like this unbelievable site. It's a it's a
Speaker 2: twenty seven dollars or something municipal that like sits right
Speaker 2: up above the bay. It's it's unbelievable. It's sort of
Speaker 2: across the way from Halfman Bay. Two very specific but
Speaker 2: random sites. But you know, it'd be really interesting to say, hey,
Speaker 2: let's do some great stuff urban and try to print
Speaker 2: some sevens and eights, like really really good stuff. And
Speaker 2: you know, rather than having to allocate so much towards
Speaker 2: all the new stuff and buildings and all of those things,
Speaker 2: take the same or possibly less capital and simply apply
Speaker 2: it to other things with a little bit different, you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit different agenda. Now, Andy, you and I,
Speaker 2: if we had nine figures to go through at golf course,
Speaker 2: you and I could just go do this. But here
Speaker 2: we are. So that's why we're on a podcast talking
Speaker 2: about takes.
Speaker 1: That's why we get to talk about it.
Speaker 2: And not do it exactly. Now, should that take us
Speaker 2: to take number two?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Take numbers, take number two. This is like seventy five
Speaker 2: percent serious, maybe even more. To be honest with you,
Speaker 2: I've only watched one break fifty. It was the most recent.
Speaker 2: I think we're going to see We're going to see
Speaker 2: Steph get more than ten PGA Tour starts, and I'm
Speaker 2: here for it if he does. And well, I want
Speaker 2: to say I was extremely impressed with Steph's game, Like
Speaker 2: it's just good. He's one of the few guys that
Speaker 2: and you know you're in the barrier, you've probably seen
Speaker 2: him swing live before I've gotten the chance of time
Speaker 2: or two, and it's like he's one of those guys
Speaker 2: that I would say a lot of professional athletes. Tom
Speaker 2: Brady is one that comes to mind. Swing's actually pretty
Speaker 2: good and the product is like really really horrific. Steph.
Speaker 2: The swing doesn't blow you away, but he hit some shots.
Speaker 2: But I think, particularly with the PGA Tour being a
Speaker 2: for profit entity, like when he first started getting those
Speaker 2: sponsors exemptions to the Stonebray thing, the Cornferry event, I
Speaker 2: was like, what on earth are we doing here? I
Speaker 2: was kind of a like, hey, there's a guy out
Speaker 2: fighting for his job, which is still the case. But
Speaker 2: when we're when we're talking dollars and cents, it makes
Speaker 2: a lot of sense spelled another way. And with the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour being for profit, if he continues to do
Speaker 2: stuff like break fifties on YouTube, it does probably make
Speaker 2: sense to happen. And unless he goes out and starts
Speaker 2: shooting nineties, which he certainly could, but I think that
Speaker 2: that would be realistic. So again, seventy five eighty percent serious,
Speaker 2: We're going to see some stuff.
Speaker 3: I don't disagree. I'm old enough to remember the Tony
Speaker 3: Romo era.
Speaker 2: Oh goodness that came to mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and they came hard and fast, and
Speaker 3: like you know, I know Tony Romo is a great
Speaker 3: Cowboys starter. Maybe not great, but like, you know, a
Speaker 3: beloved starter for the you're talking with Steph Curry, like
Speaker 3: all time superstar pantheon of NBA players, you know, which
Speaker 3: is you know, the most recognizable super star driven league
Speaker 3: and like genuinely like beloved by everybody that's ever encountered
Speaker 3: the man. I don't I don't disagree. I think ten's
Speaker 3: on the table. I wouldn't be surprised if he made
Speaker 3: cuts like you think about the Stonebrak thing he did
Speaker 3: this in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Four, Like that is like that's really it's really really good.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll say this that there's a you know,
Speaker 2: some people probably watched that video and said, I don't
Speaker 2: know that that Bryson played any better than Steph. If
Speaker 2: you right now, if Steph and Bryson both pegged it
Speaker 2: together first round of the US Open at Shnnacock and
Speaker 2: and Bryson lay's thirteen shots out no fifteen shots, I'm
Speaker 2: hammering Bryson like in a US Open setting on a
Speaker 2: real like it's it's gonna be. This is This is
Speaker 2: true regardless of the level of the game. Like if
Speaker 2: if a scratch and a ten or scratching a five,
Speaker 2: go play a muni, who knows what might happen If
Speaker 2: a scratch in a five go play Shinnecock. The scratch
Speaker 2: with giving ten is going to hammer them.
Speaker 1: But yes, you know.
Speaker 2: The Black Desert, which I know people have taken to
Speaker 2: and I think it's cool event as well, But an
Speaker 2: event like that or there, you know, there are a
Speaker 2: million examples we can go with here, Like they Craig
Speaker 2: Ranch like they can they can use the boost. I mean, shoot,
Speaker 2: even even though the I don't know what they're calling
Speaker 2: it these days, but whatever's played at Kuaile Hollow, even
Speaker 2: though that's always been the truest I guess, even though
Speaker 2: that's the you know, even an elevated event, which I
Speaker 2: guess that that probably goes a little too far here,
Speaker 2: but that's always been let's just call it like a
Speaker 2: you know, upper level PGA Tour event. Like Steph's a
Speaker 2: Charlotte guy. Put him in. I mean, you're gonna sell
Speaker 2: the tickets.
Speaker 3: The the issue with this from a competitive standpoint is
Speaker 3: that Steph's going to get all these starts when he's
Speaker 3: forty years old. Yeah, and I would have been interested,
Speaker 3: and you know, you can't do this because he was
Speaker 3: one of the greatest basketball players ever.
Speaker 1: He did the right thing.
Speaker 3: I would I would genuinely be interested in. Like you know,
Speaker 3: it's the divergent path. Like everybody talks about if Lebron
Speaker 3: played football, what would you have been? You know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if Lebron would have liked to getten hit
Speaker 3: So that's like a big, you know, question mark in
Speaker 3: the Lebron football camp, But like, what would Steph's career
Speaker 3: in golf look like if you legitimately tried. I don't,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think he I'm interested to see.
Speaker 3: I could see him playing amateur stuff? Would he can
Speaker 3: he become a midam menace? Is he good enough to
Speaker 3: be a mid aam menace?
Speaker 2: So we'll close it out here. That's exactly where I
Speaker 2: was going to go, kind of zagging from the whole
Speaker 2: PGA tour starts thing like when I watch stuff, I'll
Speaker 2: go back to the whole upset that he's he'll.
Speaker 1: Get his a.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now we're going into status stuff. But like I'll
Speaker 2: go back to the whole Hey, like if he's playing
Speaker 2: Rory and Bryce in big events, like they're they're going
Speaker 2: to run nine circles around the guy and there are
Speaker 2: no two ways about that. I don't care how much
Speaker 2: time he puts into it. That's just that's just the
Speaker 2: fact of the matter. But I watch him and say, like,
Speaker 2: could he, you know, make a us am and mid
Speaker 2: am and like maybe you know, maybe do some stuff
Speaker 2: I could. I could be convinced of that, So I
Speaker 2: would I would rather see him do that than you know,
Speaker 2: kind of go because I mean, could he make a cut,
Speaker 2: Like you said, that's that's within the realm of possibilities,
Speaker 2: but it's still very unlikely. I think it would be
Speaker 2: more fun, and I mean, shoot, it would be more
Speaker 2: fun for like amateur players. You know, it'd be pretty
Speaker 2: darnk cool if he's out there pegging in the Western
Speaker 2: amateur like, because Romo used to do that, which is
Speaker 2: like cool, but it's not. It's just not Steph. And
Speaker 2: I know that there's some like there's some cowboys fans
Speaker 2: that are gonna think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: But you know, dude, I used to play the will
Speaker 3: County Am in Chicago South South Side of Chicago in
Speaker 3: April and Tony Romo would play in it.
Speaker 1: It was wild.
Speaker 3: You're talking about County Am and Tony Romo would play
Speaker 3: and there'd be like hordes of cowboy fans out watching him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like this was I'm in my like mid twenties.
Speaker 2: Charlie Woods anyway, So Steph, I think it's uh, I
Speaker 2: guess it's just like it has me. It has me
Speaker 2: curious after seeing him put like real stuff on tape
Speaker 2: because that was like, uh, no two ways about it. It
Speaker 2: was YouTube golf. The guy hit some shots and it
Speaker 2: you know, it made me. He's talked about the whole Hey,
Speaker 2: I want to go lean into it when I'm done
Speaker 2: playing basketball. And I've known that, like the guy can
Speaker 2: play a bit. But I was like, ah, you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's cute. But this is this is something I'm monitoring.
Speaker 2: I'm monitoring the stuff situation.
Speaker 3: Also, the the Corn Faery Tour start was super incredible,
Speaker 3: like like in the seventy four to seventy.
Speaker 2: Four middle career. Yeah, this is not like Jordan rides
Speaker 2: the bus, went and took a sabbatical to focus on golf.
Speaker 2: This is like middle of winning NBA championships, shooting real
Speaker 2: scores out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like not not embarrassing, and I think, like that's
Speaker 3: that's the thing like made And it wasn't like sixteen parts,
Speaker 3: Like he made birdies every round. That's like I think
Speaker 3: one of the barometers of like you know, like he
Speaker 3: created scoring opportunities for himself. And I'd be I'll be
Speaker 3: really curious. I My question is does he carve out.
Speaker 1: The time to do the amateur stuff.
Speaker 3: I think he might just like have too many obligations
Speaker 3: in life to really give it a go, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's what's your last one?
Speaker 2: All right, final thing here, Andy, I'm going to double
Speaker 2: preface this one and say, A. I really want to
Speaker 2: be wrong about this take and b. Tiger Woods has
Speaker 2: made me cry more in my adult life than anything.
Speaker 2: And this is globally, this is not just sports. But
Speaker 2: we sit here and talk about the Ryder Cup conundrum
Speaker 2: and how the US we just have this like, oh,
Speaker 2: he was a major champion, so he's captain. You know,
Speaker 2: he's a great players, he's a captain. And then we
Speaker 2: just completely own goal ourselves and say, well, the savior
Speaker 2: to this all is for Tiger to be the captain. Like,
Speaker 2: in the same sentence, someone says, what are we doing
Speaker 2: just because he won two majors? ZJ was the captain?
Speaker 2: He was the worst captain of all time. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: we've got to get this straight. We've got to get
Speaker 2: Tiger to do twenty seven. And I'm like that it
Speaker 2: doesn't quite compute in my mind. So, like I said,
Speaker 2: I want to be wrong. I love Tiger Woods, but
Speaker 2: I just don't know if that is quite making sense
Speaker 2: in my mind that just because he was the greatest
Speaker 2: player of all time that he's going to be it.
Speaker 2: I guess if you look at the Luke model, which
Speaker 2: feels like it has become a model, this doesn't exactly
Speaker 2: feel completely analogous.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think Luke Donald is like a unicorn. People
Speaker 3: are like, use the Luke model. He was number one
Speaker 3: in the world, but he was a thoughtful number one
Speaker 3: because how he had to get to number one was
Speaker 3: different than everybody else, which is like just relying on
Speaker 3: like pure physical traits. And Luke Donald was an exceptionally
Speaker 3: talented player, but he got there by using his using
Speaker 3: analytics to realize, like I have to maximize my approach
Speaker 3: short game and putting, and he did it over a
Speaker 3: two year window where he became just out of this world.
Speaker 3: If you go back and look at the data on
Speaker 3: his approach play, short game, and putting, like out of
Speaker 3: this world. You know, he was basically like every year
Speaker 3: for a couple of years, it was like four to
Speaker 3: third second, you know, in those categories. And he's the
Speaker 3: unicorn in this and you know, Tiger is going to
Speaker 3: get it because people are, oh, he's a tactician, you
Speaker 3: know Call of Duty, like he loves playing Call.
Speaker 1: Of Duty strategy.
Speaker 3: He obviously was an exceptionally smart player on top of
Speaker 3: how talented he was with moving targets and all of that.
Speaker 3: I will say something I noticed in his return to golf.
Speaker 3: For a period of return to golf, he was ultra
Speaker 3: conservative off the tee, Like, you know, he was someone
Speaker 3: that did not like I don't I think he probably
Speaker 3: like laughed at people that were like, hey, hit driver,
Speaker 3: you have like such an advantage if you hit driver here.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, we hit iron here, you know. And
Speaker 1: I could see him looking at data.
Speaker 3: That somebody gave him of optimal pairings and he's just like, no,
Speaker 3: this doesn't work. The other aspect of Tiger as a
Speaker 3: right like he was never a great Ryder Cup player. No,
Speaker 3: you know, my entire life lifetime was marred with like Tiger,
Speaker 3: who could that we can't figure out who to pair
Speaker 3: with Tiger? Like Tiger's disappointing at the Ryder Cup. And
Speaker 3: I'm I'm just I don't know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: if he's always cracked up to be. I'm a big
Speaker 3: believer in you know, the better coaches in almost every
Speaker 3: sport were not uber successful players exactly the oftentimes the
Speaker 3: best analysts, like look at Brandal Randall agree, disagree. I
Speaker 3: know there's a lot of people that dislike him. I
Speaker 3: mean Brandal, and I don't see ey'd eye on a
Speaker 3: lot of things, But damn I respect Brandal. I mean
Speaker 3: the guys maasball tape, that's sure for twenty plus years now,
Speaker 3: and he was a nothing burger PGA tour player, and
Speaker 3: I don't think it's disrespectful to say that he made
Speaker 3: it to the mountaintop. He was a great college player,
Speaker 3: he won the Beef, the Open. But you know what
Speaker 3: he does, he puts in the fricking work. And the
Speaker 3: problem with Tiger as your captain is Tiger has a
Speaker 3: lot go even though he's not playing. Tiger's got a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff going on in his life. And you
Speaker 3: know that's foundation stuff, design stuff, Like you need somebody
Speaker 3: who can devote their life for two years to the
Speaker 3: process of being a Ryder Cup captain and all that
Speaker 3: goes into it, and thinking about the championship, talking to
Speaker 3: a lot of smart people, not using those people as
Speaker 3: like the Bible for various things, but rather like taking
Speaker 3: things from all of them. Is kind of similar to
Speaker 3: go to golf architecture as the way Crump put together
Speaker 3: Pine Valley. He brought in all the smartest minds on
Speaker 3: golf course design, had him come out, talked to all
Speaker 3: of them and used little pieces of everybody's work. And
Speaker 3: that's what you need to do if you're the Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup captain is you need to assemble a very talented team
Speaker 3: of people and consultants or whatever you want to call them.
Speaker 3: Consultants probably the wrong term because then they're probably.
Speaker 1: Just stealing from you. Sorry, consultants everywhere.
Speaker 3: But you you bring, you enlist a lot of smart
Speaker 3: people and you listen and you take the time to
Speaker 3: hypothesize and come up with your own strategy. But like
Speaker 3: it requires a thoughtful person with a lot of time
Speaker 3: to have that super success. And it ain't Kegan Bradley
Speaker 3: who spent two years trying to make the team. It's
Speaker 3: not Zach Johnson who lacked the super thought fullness part
Speaker 3: of it, and as Zach Tiger was. Because I think
Speaker 3: Tiger's thoughtful enough, I just don't think he has the
Speaker 3: time available to devote to make really thoughtful decisions that
Speaker 3: the other side's are doing.
Speaker 2: The way I see, you know a ton of great
Speaker 2: points there, the way I would see it working working
Speaker 2: as in The way that it could work out positively
Speaker 2: is if someone said to Tiger, you're the captain. You
Speaker 2: know that you already have all the respect of the players.
Speaker 2: They want to run through a wall for you, et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. What we want you to do is think about, Okay,
Speaker 2: what separated you in your career from a preparation standpoint.
Speaker 2: Are what are the behind the scenes things no bad
Speaker 2: jokes here, that you were doing that helped you be
Speaker 2: better than everybody else at the game of golf. The
Speaker 2: way that Zach has seemingly thought excuse me not Zach,
Speaker 2: the way that Luke has thought about every aspect of
Speaker 2: what it takes to perform and go lean into that stuff,
Speaker 2: and then when it comes to everything else, just you
Speaker 2: can sign it if you'd like, but let other people
Speaker 2: focus on it. And I actually I think Tiger I
Speaker 2: have heard some things. I'm sure you've heard a lot
Speaker 2: more Andy, but when it comes to how he's been
Speaker 2: involved with I don't know what they're calling it, but
Speaker 2: the board, you know, these negotiations, I've heard really positive
Speaker 2: things on. He is a guy that wants to say, hey,
Speaker 2: like you understand the business of sport at a deeper
Speaker 2: level than I do, help me understand it better. And
Speaker 2: he is a question asker. He's someone that he by
Speaker 2: definition has a massive ego, but I think he equally
Speaker 2: can let the ego down in the right settings to
Speaker 2: you know, try to be a great captain. So it
Speaker 2: could work, But I don't I don't have faith. Maybe
Speaker 2: where I would go is then I don't have any
Speaker 2: faith whatsoever in the US Ryder Cup team system. To
Speaker 2: approach it that way, they would say, Tiger, the rains
Speaker 2: are yours, you're the magic man, Go go wave the
Speaker 2: wand in which case I think we're just as well
Speaker 2: off with don right just captaining the ships.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be crazy.
Speaker 2: That might mean it's Uh, it's been a it's been
Speaker 2: a good chat.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, Henry.
Speaker 3: People can find you in your podcast, the Tai podcast. Uh,
Speaker 3: it's on wherever you get your podcasts. Big thanks for
Speaker 3: coming chatting. It was fun, fun spend some time with
Speaker 3: you this week at Brambles And Uh, I'm excited to
Speaker 3: give my my voice a rest here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Thanks Andy, And uh we'll be back for the Vintage
Speaker 2: next year. Look forward to pegging it again with those clubs.
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know if we said it
Speaker 2: Team Frida Egg did, did you know? Take They took
Speaker 2: the crown, So.
Speaker 3: Of course, Correer, you guys can work on your roster,
Speaker 3: you know, and maybe Enlissa captain next year and start
Speaker 3: to start to plan, plan, plan, now.
Speaker 2: That's the goal. Thanks Andy, cheers.
Speaker 3: All right, big thanks for listening to another episode of
Speaker 3: the Friday Golf Podcast. I am once again very sorry
Speaker 3: for my voice which was causing me some problems during
Speaker 3: this episode.
Speaker 1: Big thanks for PJA. That was a bigger lift than usual.
Speaker 3: I had to cut out a lot of coughing and there,
Speaker 3: and I'm gonna stop talking now because it hurts, and
Speaker 3: we'll talk to you next week. Thanks again for listening
Speaker 3: to the show.