Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition on the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today we are joined for the second time by Golf
Speaker 1: Channel analyst and former PGA Tour winner Aaron Oberholzer. The
Speaker 1: pre podcast conversation was a fascinating one, so I decided
Speaker 1: to roll without the usual intro, so we'll jump right
Speaker 1: into it. Thanks for listening, and as always, subscribe, rate
Speaker 1: and review the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher without further ado,
Speaker 1: here's Erin Oberholzer.
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 2: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in Arid Egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday, Frida Bride Egg Lie, I'm
Speaker 2: about ready to run off the golf course wanted more
Speaker 2: of a restoration. They wanted to bring it back. They
Speaker 2: wanted to bring back the mackenzie bunkering because because Alistair
Speaker 2: had done the original bunkering at cal McCann did the
Speaker 2: routing and the greens, and then Mackenzie did the bunkering.
Speaker 2: So the bunkering is all, especially on the back nine,
Speaker 2: is all like right where it was supposed to be
Speaker 2: in the in the twenties and the teens when he
Speaker 2: built it. It's that's The back nine is a full restoration.
Speaker 2: The front nine because of eminent domain, he had to
Speaker 2: create new holes, so he tried to get it back
Speaker 2: to kind of sort of what it was like. But
Speaker 2: the front nine is kind of a new nine. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have that.
Speaker 1: What six, seven, eight or all new holes.
Speaker 2: Yes, seven's new hole, eight new hole. See two, three, two, three, four,
Speaker 2: seven and eight are all new holes. Three seven, two,
Speaker 2: They're all good holes. They're all great holes. He did
Speaker 2: a great job.
Speaker 1: The great thing is the fescue and how it plays
Speaker 1: firm and fast.
Speaker 2: Isn't that unreal? I mean, we got guys, We got
Speaker 2: guys now who really know golf coming out of there
Speaker 2: and like quietly whispering to all of our membership when
Speaker 2: they see us it plays better than San Francisco Club.
Speaker 2: But you didn't hear it from me. It's pretty funny
Speaker 2: to hear that. I love I love hearing that because
Speaker 2: it just whenever it gets back to an SF Club member,
Speaker 2: they just go, oh, they get all pissed off.
Speaker 1: That's uh. I like I love the I love the
Speaker 1: way col Club plays like from a pure architecture standpoint, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I give I give San Francisco a little bit of
Speaker 1: a nod.
Speaker 2: Well, it's but the only reason San Francisco, I think
Speaker 2: gets the nod is from the is because of the
Speaker 2: blue blood history. That's it, and it's you know, but honestly,
Speaker 2: the I can't remember the guy's name, but the president
Speaker 2: at the time I went out and I've played San Francisco,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty times, maybe a little more, maybe a
Speaker 2: couple more times than that, and it's great, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's awesome. But when he made the decision and it
Speaker 2: was split on the board and it just barely passed
Speaker 2: to take it back to tilling Hass original design from
Speaker 2: in my opinion, it actually took away from the golf course.
Speaker 2: I liked the golf course the other way. They like
Speaker 2: changed holes like I don't know, twelve, like thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 2: fifteen or something like that, and took it back to
Speaker 2: the original tilling Ass design, and I didn't like it
Speaker 2: at all. I liked the course the old way when
Speaker 2: the way I played it in college, and just after.
Speaker 1: College, Zach's caddy, Andy Martinez said that too, legendary caddy, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't. I don't like what they did. And
Speaker 2: the guy came up to me and asked, asked me
Speaker 2: right after I finished my round there the last I
Speaker 2: think it was either the last time or the time
Speaker 2: before last that I played, And I said, quite honestly,
Speaker 2: I said, I said, you want my honest answer, and
Speaker 2: he goes absolutely, I go, I don't like it, I
Speaker 2: told him right to his face. Probably why I haven't
Speaker 2: been inviting back there, you know, in a long time.
Speaker 2: But I just, yeah, I didn't like it at all.
Speaker 2: Didn't like it at all. I liked the old golf
Speaker 2: I like the old golf course better.
Speaker 1: I didn't play the old course. I really like fourteen.
Speaker 1: I think that's a I think I like fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.
Speaker 1: I love those people Like a lot of people said
Speaker 1: stuff about those holes, like and how they didn't like
Speaker 1: him to me and Zach and both of us kind
Speaker 1: of were like, those are like some of our favorite
Speaker 1: holes on the course, which is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know you, but you guys didn't play
Speaker 2: the play the design.
Speaker 1: Previous exactly like thirteen.
Speaker 2: You might change your mind if you would have played
Speaker 2: the old design.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think twelve might be one of the best
Speaker 1: holes ever.
Speaker 2: Twell, let's say ten eleven, the par three, oh phenomenal,
Speaker 2: part four absolutely, And I think what's lost on that
Speaker 2: golf course is just how good the bunkering is and
Speaker 2: where Tilling has to put the bunkers, and the shaping
Speaker 2: of the bunkers and the visuals of the bunkers. Funny
Speaker 2: thing is I like the back nine there, I do,
Speaker 2: but because of the way they change it, I'm not
Speaker 2: as big a fan of the back nine anymore. The
Speaker 2: front nine is like a lesson in golf work architecture.
Speaker 2: In my opinion, the front nine at SF Club is
Speaker 2: some of the is some of the greatest nine. Is
Speaker 2: one of the greatest nine holes of golf I've ever played.
Speaker 2: There's no doubt for shot values, for every shot value
Speaker 2: around that front nine, it is awesome. One of my
Speaker 2: favorite nine holes in all of golf. Two the two
Speaker 2: par three just incredible. You know, it's just a special,
Speaker 2: special nine holes. The back nine, like I said, for
Speaker 2: me my money, I'll take the older nine. It's just okay. Ten,
Speaker 2: ten and eleven are great. Twelve is great, but then
Speaker 2: you start at thirteen and go thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and
Speaker 2: then I think sixteen it gets back to normal again.
Speaker 2: I think if I remember quickly, that's still an original hole. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then seven seventeen and seventeen's one of the best
Speaker 2: part fours in California.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2: Great, eighteen's a good and eighteen's a good solid, you know,
Speaker 2: fun eagle opportunity finishing hole on the back.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, Walking down like the eighteenth on
Speaker 1: an afternoon out there because like there's nobody out there
Speaker 1: is like kind of like a one of like the
Speaker 1: coolest but also like eerily eerie feeling you'll ever have
Speaker 1: in golf. Like I mean, the sun's going down and
Speaker 1: there's just nobody out there, and you're just like you
Speaker 1: just had like a great golf experience too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh it is, and see and that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's what that's. That's I think where where SF gets
Speaker 2: the nod for most for that because because there's so
Speaker 2: few members and so few of those members play on
Speaker 2: a regular basis, they're able to have that kind of
Speaker 2: experience for everybody out there. Everybody gets to kind of
Speaker 2: have that experience out of SF, whereas you don't get
Speaker 2: that same experience at Olympic Club. You don't get it
Speaker 2: at or said, and to a certain extent, you don't
Speaker 2: get it at Cal. You know, Col's probably, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: the closest. SF's really the only course that produces that
Speaker 2: that feeling you're talking about. I know exactly what the
Speaker 2: feeling you're talking about. I just I'm always at places
Speaker 2: I walk it, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells.
Speaker 2: I just I don't. I don't. I don't like that feeling.
Speaker 2: So I just that feeling of kind of that up
Speaker 2: at ease, staunchness that give that's a minus to the
Speaker 2: club in my opinion, and SF kind of gives that air.
Speaker 2: Cyprus gives that air. So they're always they're they're not.
Speaker 2: That's why those two aren't in my top five of
Speaker 2: all time. I don't, you know, That's why I don't
Speaker 2: put those guys. So it's just a it's a feeling
Speaker 2: for me that I get on these deals that I
Speaker 2: just don't that that air.
Speaker 1: I don't like the col club vibe, and just like
Speaker 1: everything about like how the golf course is presented, how
Speaker 1: you know the club works. Everything there is like top notch.
Speaker 2: Like well, when when out did you meet Al Jamison?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've met him a couple of times now.
Speaker 2: So Al's like a father to me, another dad to me.
Speaker 2: And I've known Al since I was fourteen. And when
Speaker 2: he came to me with the vision of cal and
Speaker 2: what he wanted to do to it, I was probably
Speaker 2: in my let's see, I had come to think of it.
Speaker 2: I think I just won at and T. So he
Speaker 2: came to me and he says, here, this is what
Speaker 2: we want to do. This is what we won't want
Speaker 2: to do. And he was the president at the time
Speaker 2: of the changes and the change of the way the
Speaker 2: changes got voted in. He's really the catalyst for why
Speaker 2: the club is the way it is right now. That's
Speaker 2: his legacy. He turned this club around single handedly practically
Speaker 2: turned the club around. And I said to him, I said, Al,
Speaker 2: your goal, in my humble opinion, your goal is to
Speaker 2: should be to make this the Whisper Rock or Plantation
Speaker 2: in the desert plantation of northern California, the players club,
Speaker 2: the club the guys want to come to to play. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously we allow women not to be members, but they
Speaker 2: can play at those other two places. They don't even
Speaker 2: want them to play half the time. But I said
Speaker 2: that should be the goal. Of the California Golf Club
Speaker 2: is to be the players club, not a staunch jopardy
Speaker 2: club that you have to be a blue blood to
Speaker 2: get into, like SF. But not Olympic Club where you
Speaker 2: know the masses play and they have fifteen hundred members,
Speaker 2: and not a country club. It's a golf club for
Speaker 2: people who love golf, no golf, love to compete and
Speaker 2: are good players, and that should be the goal, only
Speaker 2: with old school design principles versus new school stuff, and
Speaker 2: that I think he I think the guys did a
Speaker 2: good job accomplishing that.
Speaker 1: Andy, I would wholeheartedly agree. I've started to think this
Speaker 1: a new theory about tour golf, and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer that part doesn't really matter. And something
Speaker 1: I would rather have people judge a golf course on
Speaker 1: is how many different types of shots does it require
Speaker 1: the world's best players to hit? Because that's you know,
Speaker 1: why they're the greatest players in the world. So like
Speaker 1: CAL Club was one that jumped to mind, like, what
Speaker 1: do you think a swinning score would be at Cal
Speaker 1: Club if they hosted a PGA Tour event? But would
Speaker 1: it be a more well rounded test of golf?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question. I think the guys would
Speaker 2: tear cal apart quite honestly, I really do, if you,
Speaker 2: because it would play so short, because cal Is is
Speaker 2: now fine fescue and bent everywhere, and we've sand capped
Speaker 2: the whole golf course. And we are we are, we're,
Speaker 2: as we like to say on the club every once
Speaker 2: in a while, we're down with brown, meaning it's cool
Speaker 2: if the golf course browns out a little bit, We're
Speaker 2: not going to freak out. We don't need to quote
Speaker 2: unquote as I call it, augustify it and not everything
Speaker 2: has to be sparkling green, emerald green everywhere. We don't
Speaker 2: believe in that. At California Golf Club. We want to
Speaker 2: see the ball run. We want to see it run hard.
Speaker 2: We turned the sprinklers off. We handwater a lot, which
Speaker 2: is in my opinion, What did they do in the twenties, Well,
Speaker 2: what they did in the twenties they didn't have triplex
Speaker 2: mowers and they didn't have Norelko's. Basically that shaved the
Speaker 2: greens down to nothing, that's for sure. So the grass
Speaker 2: grew a little longer, it played slower, there's no doubt,
Speaker 2: but in the winter time. But they didn't have the
Speaker 2: fancy watering systems they have now too, So in the
Speaker 2: wintertime when it rained in the Bay area, which was
Speaker 2: obviously fairly frequent, they did play soft and slow. But
Speaker 2: in the summertime, when the rain stopped in late May
Speaker 2: and wouldn't come back until early to mid October, that
Speaker 2: place was racetrack, an absolute racetrack as racetracks go back
Speaker 2: in the twenties and thirties, And that's how we want
Speaker 2: it to play now. We want that sucker to play
Speaker 2: like a racetrack from June first to as long as
Speaker 2: we can get it take to stay dry, and then
Speaker 2: handwater as needed, throw on a sprinkler here or there,
Speaker 2: just to you know, just to give it a little
Speaker 2: moisture so the grass doesn't completely freak out. But stressing fescue,
Speaker 2: from what I've talked to Thomas Bastus, who is our
Speaker 2: old superintendent, who's schooled me on a lot of this stuff,
Speaker 2: stressing fescue is good. And it also helps keep the
Speaker 2: polana out because polana likes moisture and we don't want
Speaker 2: the polana in there. So the dryer we keep it,
Speaker 2: the more I believe it is. This I can't remember
Speaker 2: is it alkaline or acidic that Polana doesn't like. I
Speaker 2: think I can't remember one of those two we want
Speaker 2: more of, and I can't remember which one it is
Speaker 2: Thomas told me and I just forgot. But we want
Speaker 2: to keep the grass one of those two more so
Speaker 2: it keeps helps keep the poan out. So whatever keeps
Speaker 2: the poan out, because that's kind of when the guys
Speaker 2: told me about how they were going to rebuild cal
Speaker 2: when we rebuilt it, that's that's how we did it.
Speaker 2: And now to get to your original question, because it
Speaker 2: plays so firm and fast, guys are going to be
Speaker 2: hitting flip wedges in everywhere, Andy, So we'd have to
Speaker 2: turn one into a par four, and we'd probably have
Speaker 2: to turn seventeen into a par four. So one in
Speaker 2: seventeen would have to be par four, as we'd have
Speaker 2: to play it as a par seventy. And even then,
Speaker 2: I believe the winning score would be somewhere around let's see,
Speaker 2: that's two eighty as a par for four rounds, so
Speaker 2: I'd have to say the winning score would probably be
Speaker 2: in the mid to low two sixties in my opinion,
Speaker 2: so it'd be somewhere between fourteen and twenty under I
Speaker 2: think would win at CAL. And that's if you got
Speaker 2: the greens to twelve and you you put proper pins
Speaker 2: out there, so proper.
Speaker 1: My whole theory goes around removing the idea of removing
Speaker 1: the idea of score. But would would Cal club require
Speaker 1: a player to hit more types of shots and be
Speaker 1: a better test than say like last week's course PGA
Speaker 1: and National where everything's through the air and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of tells you.
Speaker 2: No doubt, no doubt because you can you can use
Speaker 2: the ground at Cal. They're the one thing that Kyle
Speaker 2: Phillips built in when he when he redid Cow, the
Speaker 2: one thing he built in was he built in options.
Speaker 2: So it's shaved everywhere. There's very little rough. And what
Speaker 2: rough we have is what you would could what would
Speaker 2: Augusta or what would you would call a first cut
Speaker 2: down like two inches tops, maybe an inch and a
Speaker 2: half in spots. And so you know, when you misagree
Speaker 2: and it rolls down, you ship there and you go, okay,
Speaker 2: do you want what do I want to do? Like
Speaker 2: especially the front aprons of greens, Okay, do I want
Speaker 2: to bump this in? Because you have that option with
Speaker 2: fine fescue. Do I want to fly it on? Do
Speaker 2: I want to take that opportunity off this tight fescue
Speaker 2: and fly it on? Do I want? You know, you
Speaker 2: have options? Can I can put it? I can take
Speaker 2: a hybrid, I can take a seven iron, I can
Speaker 2: take a four iron. The one thing that Kyle wanted,
Speaker 2: he wanted options, because that's what Mackenzie gave you. If
Speaker 2: you really looked at the way he designed golf courses
Speaker 2: back in the day, he gave you angles and then
Speaker 2: he gave you options. And if you missed an angle
Speaker 2: or you missed the proper playoff the tee, now your
Speaker 2: options are limited. So it really actually funny enough starts
Speaker 2: with the t ball, even though you would think, well
Speaker 2: that's the more the thinking of a US Open style
Speaker 2: golf course, not so much. In my opinion. You have
Speaker 2: to create angles on a Mackenzie golf course in order
Speaker 2: to give yourself more options, and if you don't, your
Speaker 2: options become drastically limited as you move along with poorer
Speaker 2: and poorer angles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of goes to the thinking of like,
Speaker 1: what are what are the everybody's favorite golf courses to watch?
Speaker 1: Championships played on Augusta. Yeah, the old course. These are
Speaker 1: places with the old course doesn't care what you shoot,
Speaker 1: but what it is about is having all the shots
Speaker 1: in your arsenal to win. And and that's what so
Speaker 1: many PGA tour courses don't do anymore. And and everybody's
Speaker 1: become so fascinated with par and difficulty that I think
Speaker 1: that's been lost is like, how many golf shots does
Speaker 1: this require? The difficult types.
Speaker 2: I call it. I've called it forever, even on TV.
Speaker 2: I think when I when we get in discussions about this,
Speaker 2: which is rare, but I've done. I think I've I've
Speaker 2: had a few discussions on this in the past with guys.
Speaker 2: It's shot values. What kind of shot values does the
Speaker 2: course present itself. I think Cal presents itself with a
Speaker 2: lot of great values, not only off the tee, but
Speaker 2: as far as second shots. I think the par threes
Speaker 2: are very underrated at Cal. I think that our our
Speaker 2: old seventh hole now sixth hole, might be the toughest.
Speaker 2: It's a part three, but we call it the toughest
Speaker 2: part four in the.
Speaker 1: Area you've got to hit it on like a blanket there.
Speaker 2: On Andy, You're trying to literally hit it on the
Speaker 2: hood of a freaking Volkswagen when with it blowing down
Speaker 2: wind off the left, which is the prevailing wind at
Speaker 2: you know, ten to twenty miles an hour some of
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: So the first time I played it, I hit it
Speaker 1: to like six inches and I was like.
Speaker 2: Oh, this tells not that hard.
Speaker 1: And then and then the next time I played it,
Speaker 1: I think I like struggled to make bogeye.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's it's that's why we call it the
Speaker 2: toughest par four in the in the Bay Area, so
Speaker 2: for a reason. So that's been there all the time.
Speaker 2: But but Kyle built we had to build a few
Speaker 2: new holes on the front nine just to to try
Speaker 2: to bring back some of the old holes before Eminent
Speaker 2: Domain built Westboro Boulevard right there and took away some
Speaker 2: of our original holes. So so he did a good job.
Speaker 2: Number two, three, four all new holes, and then seven
Speaker 2: and eight are new holes, and eight is the other
Speaker 2: next is the next par three two hundred and forty
Speaker 2: yards probably plays about twelve downhill and then again down
Speaker 2: and off the left, same direction. That's the only thing
Speaker 2: I don't like about eight is it runs the same
Speaker 2: direction as number six, so you don't get a different wind,
Speaker 2: but it's a different challenge with a different club and elevation.
Speaker 1: Chair and that green nasty that Green runs are front
Speaker 1: to back.
Speaker 2: Too, even exactly even though it's pitched from back to front,
Speaker 2: it's fast going from front to back. Man, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean it really is. It's really weird. That's the way
Speaker 2: the way that Land sits at col I think that
Speaker 2: that has a lot to do with how difficult those
Speaker 2: Greens play and put and even on the old golf
Speaker 2: course that was bastard eyes for years by Greens committees
Speaker 2: who thought they knew what they were doing. You always
Speaker 2: look to You always ask yourself, where's the airport, where's SFO?
Speaker 2: Because everything's going to SFO, especially on that back nine,
Speaker 2: everything's going to SFO. And it's not that much different
Speaker 2: now that Land still kind of everything wants to go
Speaker 2: to SFO, except for a couple of holes that you
Speaker 2: really have to have some local knowledge on. But I
Speaker 2: think the guys they'd still take it low there. But
Speaker 2: if you're in relation to par, which I know you're
Speaker 2: not a huge fan of, but as people understand it,
Speaker 2: in relation to Par, I think guys would take it low.
Speaker 2: But they would have a blast playing it for four days.
Speaker 2: They would have an absolute blast because they would have
Speaker 2: so many different shot values to look at wedges, long irons,
Speaker 2: mid iron, short irons. You got to hit all the shots.
Speaker 2: You got to hit cuts, you gotta hit draws, high, low,
Speaker 2: You got to play a lot of different shots around
Speaker 2: that golf course to be successful, especially if they get
Speaker 2: that twenty mile an hour northwest wind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you'd also see like you'd see that
Speaker 1: Riviera variety where you have all different types of players.
Speaker 1: It's not just a pure ball striker's course, like you know,
Speaker 1: you'll see flushers up there at the top, but you'll
Speaker 1: also see guys that just have like a knack of
Speaker 1: getting it done inside one twenty five of their kind
Speaker 1: of magicians and are able to pull off these you know,
Speaker 1: these cool shots from being short sighted on short short grass.
Speaker 2: You know who I think it would would play really well.
Speaker 2: There are the guys like Kevin Naw, Kevin Naw's of
Speaker 2: the world, the grinders at cal especially when the wind blows,
Speaker 2: because the great equalizer on that golf course is the wind.
Speaker 2: And the funny thing is that, you know, people would
Speaker 2: say to me that no the course would go Aaron,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't you change fifteen into a par forwar instead
Speaker 2: of seventeen? Well, number one, seventeen even though it's like
Speaker 2: five hundred and forty yards, it's straight downhill, down wind,
Speaker 2: so and you can run it onto that green and
Speaker 2: that green kind of goes from front to back to
Speaker 2: a certain extent towards the SFO.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The reason I wouldn't say that about fifteen, even though
Speaker 2: fifteen is only four hundred and ninety five yards or
Speaker 2: four hundred and ninety yards straight up hill and it's
Speaker 2: head into a twenty twenty mile an hour breathe. There
Speaker 2: have been plenty of days I've hit driver, driver and
Speaker 2: have come up short of that course. And that was
Speaker 2: when I was healthy. Yeah, and I still had speed
Speaker 2: and I could I could still pop it out there
Speaker 2: decent ways, you know. I mean only on a calm
Speaker 2: day can I get a driver and a hybrid there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in these these days that.
Speaker 1: Beast for four ninety it's I mean, especially in the
Speaker 1: afternoon when that that damp air comes in.
Speaker 2: Oh oh god. Yeah, it's brutal. It's brutal. And you know,
Speaker 2: depending on what time of year you played the tournament there.
Speaker 2: I mean, it could. It's much like Tubble Beach, you know,
Speaker 2: that whole area that the micro climates that stretched throughout
Speaker 2: the Bay Area to the Moneray to the Central coast
Speaker 2: where I grew up. You could, it could be. It could.
Speaker 2: You could be dying of heat out there, you know,
Speaker 2: like you can in August and September or like you said,
Speaker 2: your fingertips are going numb this time of year. You know,
Speaker 2: when that even on a sunny day, when that northwest
Speaker 2: wind comes in and nature's air conditioner kicks on your
Speaker 2: your your fingertips are literally going nune. You lose your touch,
Speaker 2: you lose your feel, and it becomes a lot a
Speaker 2: lot harder a golf course. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so that's kind of I was getting ready
Speaker 1: for this podcast and I just was was thinking about
Speaker 1: golf courses. I started thinking about cal Club and I
Speaker 1: just started, as you know, I think it's more about
Speaker 1: hitting shots than score.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think obviously score, and yeah, that's kind
Speaker 2: of how I judge a golf course. That's why I
Speaker 2: look at That's why I think I look at pasa
Speaker 2: tiempo the way I do Oh pasa tempo is sixty
Speaker 2: six hundred yards with one foot in the back rough
Speaker 2: off of every tea. That awesome, and it's all you want.
Speaker 2: It's all you want. If they if they get those
Speaker 2: greens to they don't even need to get him to twelve.
Speaker 2: They get him to eleven, it's all you want.
Speaker 1: There aren't many pin positions on a few of those greens,
Speaker 1: with greens with green speeds at eleven.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's true. I mean, you lose so many pins
Speaker 2: on those greens even getting into eleven. I agree, you're
Speaker 2: limited for sure.
Speaker 1: Did you watched the golf yesterday? Is JT the best
Speaker 1: player in the world right now?
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I think that I've seen the
Speaker 2: arguments on Twitter about how he should be the best
Speaker 2: player in the world. You know, wins is how everybody's judged.
Speaker 2: And over the last what is it, sixteen months, he's
Speaker 2: got is it seven wins or eight wins? Seven wins
Speaker 2: over the last sixteen months, and no one has that
Speaker 2: many wins over the last sixteen months, it's hard to
Speaker 2: say he's not if that's If that's your measure, there
Speaker 2: are there are definite things that are wrong with the
Speaker 2: official World Golf ranking, but when you look at what
Speaker 2: he's done and you go down his OWGR finishes. Okay,
Speaker 2: he hasn't been as consistent as Rom, even though he
Speaker 2: hasn't even though Rom hasn't won as much, he hasn't
Speaker 2: been as consistent as ROM. Number over the last year
Speaker 2: and a half, he hasn't been Rom's had more Top
Speaker 2: five D da da da da all that. But I don't,
Speaker 2: I'm not, I can't. I compared him in ROM, I
Speaker 2: didn't compare him in speed. But there's a reason why
Speaker 2: he's still third, uh and not number one. And I
Speaker 2: believe that that. You can go ahead and make arguments
Speaker 2: for the against the O WGR all you want, and
Speaker 2: they would probably some of them would be valid. But
Speaker 2: for the most part, it's it's consistency, uh and divisor.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if you keep your divisor low,
Speaker 2: you can kind of game the system to a certain extent.
Speaker 2: Quite honestly, that's got of the biggest flaw in the
Speaker 2: whole system is a guy who plays more is penalized
Speaker 2: for the most part. And so until they fix that,
Speaker 2: until they truly fix that, I don't think they've fixed
Speaker 2: it completely, then guys are still going to be getting
Speaker 2: penalized for playing more golf versus playing less golf. So
Speaker 2: to answer your question fully, right now, he's playing the
Speaker 2: best golf I believe over the last I'm going to
Speaker 2: go this way, over the last Over the last year,
Speaker 2: he's playing the best golf of anybody in the world.
Speaker 2: There's no doubt if you take the last year, better
Speaker 2: than DJ, better than Jordan, even though Jordan they both
Speaker 2: have a major. But he's playing the best golf when
Speaker 2: he gets it going. There's not a lot of people
Speaker 2: that can stay with him. Actually, DJ can stay with him.
Speaker 2: Speef needs his A game to stay with him. Rory
Speaker 2: def Rory, in my opinion, needs his A game to
Speaker 2: stay with him. But there's not a lot of guys
Speaker 2: that can that. There's not No one can beat him
Speaker 2: without their A game. Yeah, no one can beat Uh.
Speaker 2: No one can beat Justin without their A game. There's
Speaker 2: no doubt when when Justin has his A game, it's
Speaker 2: proven to be as good as anybody's in the world.
Speaker 1: I watched him at riv Uh for those first two
Speaker 1: rounds with Tiger, and I just forgot how good he
Speaker 1: was and the thing and he did it last night
Speaker 1: was like the thing that it's the the wedge play
Speaker 1: with everything else, he's you know, he's a great driver
Speaker 1: of the golf ball. He's a great iron player, he's
Speaker 1: a great wedge player now, and he's a great putter.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean, everybody's got their defined, like great skill.
Speaker 1: It's like you you bring up John rom, Dustin Johnson
Speaker 1: or Rory, you're going to talk about their driving ability.
Speaker 1: But with with Justin, it's everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got a he's got a very well rounded game,
Speaker 2: and he's worked extremely hard to get there, and him
Speaker 2: and his dad have addressed the right areas at the
Speaker 2: right time, in the right way. And he hasn't done
Speaker 2: it overnight. It's taken a lot of work because when
Speaker 2: he first came on tour as a young guy, I
Speaker 2: remember looking at the stats going, oh my god, this
Speaker 2: kid can hit it off the planet at any given
Speaker 2: time and he doesn't know which direction it's going off
Speaker 2: the tee. But if he ever learns how to dial
Speaker 2: it in, he's going to be really hard to beat.
Speaker 2: And then I remember looking at him going, Jesus, if
Speaker 2: this kid could make a putt inside of ten feet,
Speaker 2: he's going to be tough to beat. And then I
Speaker 2: looked at him and went, then he figured that out,
Speaker 2: and I go, Jesus, if this kid could could could
Speaker 2: hit a wedge close to the hole, he's going to
Speaker 2: be a world beater. And then he figured that out.
Speaker 2: So he's figured everything out step by step, you know.
Speaker 2: And and then then finally I finally said, now, if
Speaker 2: this kid can play with a lead, he's going to
Speaker 2: be he's gonna he's gonna be right there with speed
Speaker 2: DJ and those guys. And he's learned how to do
Speaker 2: that as well. So it's it's it's it's a step
Speaker 2: by step process that he and he's followed every step
Speaker 2: that he's needed to it, and he's addressed every issue
Speaker 2: that he's had within his game, and he's done it
Speaker 2: in a manner pretty much better than everybody else. And
Speaker 2: I'd put him right up there with DJ as far
Speaker 2: as the way he's systematically kind of changed his game
Speaker 2: to what he needed to do to be one of
Speaker 2: the best in the world. Jordan is close there too.
Speaker 2: But the issue I have with Jordan and I and
Speaker 2: I love Jordan's game, but he's never going to have
Speaker 2: ridiculous speed and distance like like DJ and Rory and
Speaker 2: Justin or Rom, he's not going to He's never going
Speaker 2: to be there, and quite honestly, in the era we
Speaker 2: live in, that is going to be a detriment. And
Speaker 2: I said it three years ago at the Masters when
Speaker 2: he won by four shots and shot eighteen under and
Speaker 2: everybody was like, he he's going to dominate. And I said, no,
Speaker 2: he's not going to dominate. And I got killed for it,
Speaker 2: got killed for it on social media when I said
Speaker 2: that on air, I said, no, he's not going to dominate.
Speaker 2: And Ryan Burr, who's my host, He's looking at me
Speaker 2: like I'm crazy. I'm like no, because putters go cold.
Speaker 2: Number one. We've seen that putters go cold, and distance
Speaker 2: dominates in this day and age, and Justin has that
Speaker 2: and he does he's not going to have to. He's
Speaker 2: not going to wake up and automatically lose twenty yards
Speaker 2: off the tee. So that's a massive advantage that he
Speaker 2: has along with Rom. But he's been quicker to refine
Speaker 2: his game. Rom still got a ways to go. He's
Speaker 2: still a lot. He's still younger, obviously, and has more time,
Speaker 2: has a little has more time than just Even though
Speaker 2: they're both young, Rom still has more time to get
Speaker 2: that done. And when Rom does the same things as
Speaker 2: Justin does, because Rom's not there yet with his wedges,
Speaker 2: with his short game, with his playlf, with his with
Speaker 2: his refining the little things that that JT has, when
Speaker 2: Rom does it, oh my gosh, then we're we're in
Speaker 2: for a treat. Because dj is already there, he could
Speaker 2: probably refine his putting even more. In my opinion, I
Speaker 2: think that's always something he can do better. But Rom's
Speaker 2: a good putter. Rom just needs to refine as some
Speaker 2: of his iron plays, some of his wedge play. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and his putting's pretty good. There's no doubt he's an
Speaker 2: excellent putter now. But when those that iron game from
Speaker 2: one twenty five to one seventy five and some little
Speaker 2: wedge stuff gets fixed on Rom, Holy mackerel, he's going
Speaker 2: to be him and JT are going to give Justin
Speaker 2: or excuse me, Dustin it run at number one. There's
Speaker 2: no doubt. There's no doubt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then we'll be talking about like guys like
Speaker 1: Sam Burns and Cameron Champ like the are talking about
Speaker 1: j T. It's the young the youth explosion is is
Speaker 1: just insane out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy, and uh uh, you know,
Speaker 2: and there are some there are some theories behind why
Speaker 2: that is. And you can name you can name probably
Speaker 2: five different theories and why that is, and you'd be
Speaker 2: correct on all of them. Probably.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, this is a question
Speaker 1: I had written down. Would you contribute the youth movement
Speaker 1: more to technology, training or Tiger?
Speaker 2: I put Tiger last on that list. I would say,
Speaker 2: I'd say the youth movement would be more towards technology,
Speaker 2: and one in particular, track Man. Track Man's been the
Speaker 2: single most single biggest technological advanced in golf in my
Speaker 2: humble opinion, since since the golf ball change in two
Speaker 2: thousand and three and the drivers now, the drivers in
Speaker 2: two thousand and three weren't up to the ball. The
Speaker 2: ball hasn't changed since two thousand and three when Titles
Speaker 2: came out with the prov one that changed everything, changed
Speaker 2: everything without a doubt. Okay, but the drivers weren't up
Speaker 2: to snuff. The drivers couldn't couldn't unload what that ball
Speaker 2: could really do. Now the technology and the drivers are
Speaker 2: are such probably within the last two three years, to
Speaker 2: where they it can really take advantage of that of
Speaker 2: that ball. Then you talk about now, then you you
Speaker 2: throw in there on top of that, you throw in training,
Speaker 2: proper training, proper diet. And these guys train like athletes
Speaker 2: and live like proper athletes now and do the things
Speaker 2: for their bodies like proper athletes. Then now you've got
Speaker 2: Now you've got young stud athletes who could have played
Speaker 2: a lot of different sports and been good at them,
Speaker 2: like baseball or basketball or tennis in uh in some guys,
Speaker 2: in some people's cases. And now you've got lots of
Speaker 2: speed combined with phenomenal equipment, combined with now the coup
Speaker 2: de gras in my opinion, which is TrackMan on top
Speaker 2: of all this, to be able to self diagnose and
Speaker 2: optimize to the nth degree, to the nth degree. And
Speaker 2: then after that, it's it's a it's a weapon for
Speaker 2: these guys like no other in the fact that it
Speaker 2: gives you confidence knowing you're doing the right thing because
Speaker 2: a number equates to something you can, you can, everything's measurable,
Speaker 2: and you know what good is based on a number.
Speaker 2: This is how these guys are learning these days. And
Speaker 2: I have a very good uh a good friend whose
Speaker 2: son who's like a who's like a younger brother to me,
Speaker 2: who just signed with the University of Alabama and he's
Speaker 2: gonna go play for Alabama. Frankie Sappin, who they just
Speaker 2: got a track Man, And the amount, the amount of
Speaker 2: how much better he's gotten with his wedge play in
Speaker 2: the last two months since he got that track Man
Speaker 2: is astounding when we go play, astounding because he just
Speaker 2: works on his wedges constantly. He went from being a
Speaker 2: not very good wedge player even by top junior standards,
Speaker 2: to a phenomenal wedge player by junior standards, collegiate standards,
Speaker 2: and maybe even low level professional standards, you know, Web
Speaker 2: dot Com Tour, Canadian Tour standards, like within two months
Speaker 2: because of TrackMan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like JT is like the ultimate like
Speaker 1: track Man test case where you've got this one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty pound guy, but he swings it so efficiently
Speaker 1: and like optimizes the launch so he hits it so
Speaker 1: high and so far. But I mean, like what you
Speaker 1: just said about the wedge play, that's what the game
Speaker 1: has turned into. Is if if you're a high level player,
Speaker 1: if you drive it well and wedge it well and
Speaker 1: putt well, you're going to be a great player.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that. I think that I don't even
Speaker 2: know that you need to drive it that well. In
Speaker 2: my humble opinion, Anomar, I honestly think that the biggest
Speaker 2: stat for me for guys that drive it over three
Speaker 2: hundred yards is distance from the edge of the fairway.
Speaker 2: You know, how house can you keep it between the
Speaker 2: white line, the white stakes, can you keep it between
Speaker 2: the tree lines? If you can do that and you
Speaker 2: hit it three hundred plus on every T shot, you're
Speaker 2: going to have a lot of short iron opportunities. So
Speaker 2: at that point it becomes about basically your iron play,
Speaker 2: your one hundred and seventy five yards in play, one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty yards and in play, and how good
Speaker 2: are you from that? From that, from every different scenario
Speaker 2: in the rough out of the fairway in the first cut,
Speaker 2: how well can you control your ball? JT does a
Speaker 2: phenomenal job of that. Tiger does a phenomenal job of that,
Speaker 2: and always has throughout his career. And so the game's changed,
Speaker 2: and I believe that that the single most important factor
Speaker 2: on the PGA Tour, quite honestly in my opinion, is
Speaker 2: iron play. Yep, his second shot performance is approach performance.
Speaker 2: I think that that's one of the biggest determining factors
Speaker 2: of giving yourself a chance to win week in and
Speaker 2: week out. You know, as long as you keep the
Speaker 2: ball within the uprights, so to speak. It's all about
Speaker 2: the iron play. Quite honestly, you don't have to hit
Speaker 2: every fairway now. Obviously, as you get shorter, you know,
Speaker 2: you start driving it in that two eighty five to
Speaker 2: two ninety five range. In my humble opinion, you got
Speaker 2: to hit more fairways, and the shorter you get, the
Speaker 2: more fairways you got to hit because it gets increasingly
Speaker 2: more and more difficult the further back you get out
Speaker 2: of the rough's. That's that's a fact. So so the
Speaker 2: longer hitters have a massive advantage as long as they can,
Speaker 2: like I said, keep it between the uprights. Somewhat.
Speaker 1: You parlayed perfect into a discussion with Tiger, who led
Speaker 1: the field and iron proximity approach proximity last week, and
Speaker 1: that was obviously like the thing that got lost with
Speaker 1: Tiger is he's probably the greatest iron player of all time.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on Tiger's play and moving forward.
Speaker 2: I think he's right where he needs to be he
Speaker 2: just needs more reps. Quite honestly, the fact that in
Speaker 2: his third tournament back in real competition, I'm not really
Speaker 2: going to use the hero as as test for him,
Speaker 2: I'd have to say, in his third tournament back, to
Speaker 2: lead the field and proximity to the hole on that
Speaker 2: golf course in those kind of blustery conditions is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: Goes to show you how much talent the man has.
Speaker 2: But it also goes to show you how much he
Speaker 2: understands what he needs to do with his body when
Speaker 2: it's healthy, to get the club in the position he
Speaker 2: needs to get it into to hit the shots and
Speaker 2: create shots. He's a creative genius. And the fact that
Speaker 2: he's not using anybody for lessons except for himself right now,
Speaker 2: I love, love, love, love love. He is the highest
Speaker 2: level of savant and creative genius that the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: maybe has ever seen, quite honestly, with his ability to create,
Speaker 2: create shots, to visualize create shots, he has blended the
Speaker 2: technical and the artistic better than anybody in the history
Speaker 2: of the game. Again, in my opinion, and I think
Speaker 2: that if he's allowed to do that continually, and he
Speaker 2: allows himself to do that, he's going to be right
Speaker 2: where he needs to be, and he's going to give
Speaker 2: himself opportunities doing tournaments again. The putter looks good the
Speaker 2: short game. I walked with him for all four days
Speaker 2: at Tory Pines. It was flat out amazing because any
Speaker 2: other normal human being on the PGA tour would have
Speaker 2: missed that cut. Tiger finishes like T. Twenty something, which
Speaker 2: was again amazing and considering where he was hitting that driver,
Speaker 2: and so the prospects for him are looking up again.
Speaker 2: Just reps. It's the competitive flow, caden routine, process, reps.
Speaker 2: Everything he talks about that, people go blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and the writers just want to pull their hair out. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: to the writers, that's all true. Tiger's speaking the truth.
Speaker 2: It's all about cadence, process routine, cadence, process routine. Every
Speaker 2: professional golfer has a cadence of process and a routine,
Speaker 2: and it's getting back into that competitively that makes you
Speaker 2: who you are. He just needs to get back to that,
Speaker 2: and once he does, I think the stuff's going to
Speaker 2: start falling. I think everything's going to start falling into place,
Speaker 2: and he's going to give himself opportunities on the back
Speaker 2: nine to win golf tournaments. He was really close this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I completely agree with the reps thing,
Speaker 1: Like I'm nowhere near Tiger, but as a mid am,
Speaker 1: like I play competitively and every year, like my first
Speaker 1: tournament out, I shoot like mid to upper seventies, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, how did I just shoot seventy seven? I
Speaker 1: hit the ball so good, like but like sure enough,
Speaker 1: like the next time out it's dramatically better, and it's
Speaker 1: just like you're like almost like an idiot with scoring.
Speaker 1: You know, like you hit it well, but like it's
Speaker 1: just so you're you're not in that mode. So so
Speaker 1: like at a high PGA tour level, you've got to
Speaker 1: imagine that the amount of reps to get back into
Speaker 1: that form has got to be so high.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean that without health, he can't put
Speaker 2: the reps in, So that that's the biggest thing for Tiger.
Speaker 2: But since he basically missed a year, he's got he's
Speaker 2: got it. He said it best, and I agree with
Speaker 2: him one hundred percent, is that he's got to find
Speaker 2: out what his body is going to allow him to
Speaker 2: do because he didn't know. He's an uncharted territory. You know,
Speaker 2: for himself, he doesn't know what that fusion is going
Speaker 2: to do and what it's going to allow him to
Speaker 2: do and not allow him to do. But if he
Speaker 2: can create a pretty good sign that he can create
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty four mile an hour club ed speed,
Speaker 2: that he's healthy and that he could do what he
Speaker 2: needs to do and he can put the work in.
Speaker 2: You know, he told me about as we were talking
Speaker 2: on the fairway in San Diego one hole, and he's
Speaker 2: got a pretty extensive regimen after every round to get
Speaker 2: his body recovered. And that's no different than you know,
Speaker 2: quite honestly me. Now, I understand were he and I
Speaker 2: have the same age. I understand what my body feels
Speaker 2: like after a round of golf, and I don't swing
Speaker 2: at one hundred and twenty four miles an hour, and
Speaker 2: I don't have a fuse back, So I know exactly
Speaker 2: what he's talking about there. I mean, my hand hurts
Speaker 2: from all the surgeries, my low back's little sore, no doubt.
Speaker 2: But he's going to be diligent. He's going to do
Speaker 2: what he needs to do because this is what he
Speaker 2: loves to do, and he loves to compete and there's
Speaker 2: no doubt that if he's able to put the reps in,
Speaker 2: healthy reps in, that he's going to give him self
Speaker 2: opportunities to win golf tournaments this year. Whether he gets
Speaker 2: one or not, Boy, it'd be hard for me to
Speaker 2: bet against him. Quite honestly, from what I've seen, you know,
Speaker 2: I think the biggest thing was health. Was he going
Speaker 2: to be able for me? Was he going to be
Speaker 2: able to do it healthy? Was the back going to
Speaker 2: be his new one hundred percent, which might be you know,
Speaker 2: his old seventy you know, his he might be seventy
Speaker 2: five percent of what he used to be or eighty
Speaker 2: percent of what he used to be, okay health wise,
Speaker 2: but but it's his new one hundred percent. As long
Speaker 2: as he can swing a golf club without pain, that's
Speaker 2: all I was concerned about. Now he can put the
Speaker 2: work in to get back if he has the desire
Speaker 2: to get it, and I think he has the desire
Speaker 2: to get it back, and that's you know, that's the
Speaker 2: other big thing, is the desire. So now he can
Speaker 2: start taking proper steps and getting himself into the hunt
Speaker 2: on Sunday, and then it's basically now then it gets
Speaker 2: to the point was two. Does he still have the
Speaker 2: killer instinct? Because we haven't seen him right right there?
Speaker 2: But yet? Does he have that old killer instinct? Now
Speaker 2: some people are gonna say, oh, come on, Aaron, of
Speaker 2: course he does not, so fast. This is a different Tiger.
Speaker 2: This is a different guy than it was in two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, seven, eight, you know, and nine, and
Speaker 2: then he had the personal problems and so on and
Speaker 2: so forth, and that changes guys in a way. And
Speaker 2: so you know, does he have that same killer instinct
Speaker 2: that he once had or is he going to have
Speaker 2: to find a kind of a different way to get
Speaker 2: that killer instinct to win. I think that's a question
Speaker 2: that still has to be answered because he hasn't put
Speaker 2: himself in that in that crucial position yet with a
Speaker 2: with a serious opportunity to win with a backdown on Sunday,
Speaker 2: we're talking like one back to Tide too, in the
Speaker 2: lead with nine holes to go.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. My cousin asked me this yesterday and I
Speaker 1: was like, WHOA, I don't know, over or under point
Speaker 1: five wins this year for Tiger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll go over because I do believe he's I do,
Speaker 2: I really do believe he can get one. I really do.
Speaker 2: I think he can get one. Uh you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to go out and say it's gonna be
Speaker 2: a major. I'm not there yet. But you got to
Speaker 2: also look at the fact that and I got to
Speaker 2: temper myself a little bit because I'm excited for what
Speaker 2: I see for him too. But he also still playing
Speaker 2: a very difficult schedule where he's playing against the best players,
Speaker 2: like his old schedule where he was the best playing
Speaker 2: against the best week in week out, Tory, riv Honda.
Speaker 2: He's not in the WGCs yet, but Bayhill don't know
Speaker 2: what that feels going to live as of now. Then
Speaker 2: you got the Masters and Memorial, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: the players, So I mean he's playing kind of is
Speaker 2: still of his old type schedule that are very difficult
Speaker 2: golf courses, very demanding golf courses against the best players.
Speaker 2: Were most of the best players there where there are
Speaker 2: a lot of top fifty players playing. You know, we
Speaker 2: called it back in the day. There seems like that
Speaker 2: then there still is to a certain extent. But when
Speaker 2: Tiger was playing his best, there was the Tiger Tour,
Speaker 2: as I called it, and then the other the regular Tour,
Speaker 2: and the Tiger Tour was all the events that he
Speaker 2: was at and he was always playing the best events
Speaker 2: against the best fields on the hardest venues for the
Speaker 2: most part. And so and he's kind of doing the
Speaker 2: same thing now, so that might that might be, it
Speaker 2: might be a little tougher for him, but I think
Speaker 2: he can get one.
Speaker 1: So I've got an article that is probably going to
Speaker 1: come out the day we release this podcast, and it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of about the wgc's. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: best events in the world. Like, I'm kind of just
Speaker 1: let down by the WGCs, And I'm curious what your
Speaker 1: thoughts are because of the golf courses they play and
Speaker 1: the fact that it's not really a World Golf Championships
Speaker 1: because they don't really visit any other parts of the
Speaker 1: world other than the US and China and Mexico.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you gotta go with the sponsorship dollars.
Speaker 2: So you got to go, man, I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: to be quite frank, you know, money, money talks, and
Speaker 2: in this in this world, to be quite honest, you know,
Speaker 2: if if you had control over where you could go,
Speaker 2: you know, and money was and and the guy with
Speaker 2: the money said here's all the money for the if
Speaker 2: any guy, any guy who cares who it is, goes,
Speaker 2: you know what, I wanted to go to one of
Speaker 2: the greatest old golf courses, a twenties gem. You know,
Speaker 2: Let's go play at the Monacito Club. Let's go play
Speaker 2: at WGC at the Monacito Club. Or let's go play
Speaker 2: a WGC at riv in the summertime where it would
Speaker 2: play firm and fast, it'd be phenomenal, you know. Or
Speaker 2: a WGC god Forbid at Pebble Beach in the summertime.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, in August or September. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a scheduling issue, it's a money issue. There are
Speaker 2: so many things that go into that.
Speaker 1: Andy, Yeah, I'm obviously cognizant of this, of the sponsorship thing.
Speaker 2: You are. Yeah, but like i've but it does. It
Speaker 2: is a little bit of it. It is a little
Speaker 2: bit of a downer that they don't play as good
Speaker 2: as golf courses and that you know, Austin Country Club
Speaker 2: is cute and it's and it's fun and it's a
Speaker 2: you know, I think it's a peat die, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pete die. It's a good match play.
Speaker 2: Course, it's a it's a great match play place. I'd
Speaker 2: never want to play a stroke play tournament there, but
Speaker 2: it's a pretty cool match play place. But the biggest thing,
Speaker 2: that the biggest issue that I have with with WGCs.
Speaker 2: I used to have a big issue with the fact
Speaker 2: that there's there, there's it's it's not at least one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty two man field like Phoenix, where there's
Speaker 2: a I mean, if you're going to play against the best,
Speaker 2: you know what, make it the top one hundred in
Speaker 2: the world. Throw in thirty two guys from their respective
Speaker 2: money lists. You know, South African Tour, Australasia Tour, Asian Tour,
Speaker 2: Japan Tour, you know, do that for sure, European Tour
Speaker 2: do all that for sure. But I always thought, have
Speaker 2: a cut man, make it legit, have a cut. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But and then there's something to think about. But you know,
Speaker 2: again made for TV. They want the stars there all
Speaker 2: four days, so on and so forth. It's you know,
Speaker 2: I could sit here and talk about this till I'm
Speaker 2: blue in the face. But I would like to see
Speaker 2: it travel more around the world. But yeah, again, a
Speaker 2: lot of guys around the world are home based here,
Speaker 2: they don't want to travel.
Speaker 1: My my thing with the like the sponsorship thing is
Speaker 1: all right if I'm if I'm going to go to
Speaker 1: a sponsor and I used to sell sponsorships for a living,
Speaker 1: Like if I was going to say, hey, like, this
Speaker 1: event's gonna draw like major championship eyes because we've got
Speaker 1: the best one hundred players in the world playing at
Speaker 1: Royal Melbourne in Australia during prime time television like awesome.
Speaker 1: The the effects of the increased exposure as opposed to like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna do it on Sunday after Sunday
Speaker 1: afternoon at Firestone, which is probably one of the most
Speaker 1: boring golf courses to watch golf be played at. Like
Speaker 1: the increased in ratings and digital exposure. Like in today's world,
Speaker 1: they are so great for playing at a great golf
Speaker 1: course like Riviera gets great ratings and gets a ton
Speaker 1: of buzz exactly.
Speaker 2: Best people want to see the best players in the
Speaker 2: world play the most story best golf courses in the world.
Speaker 2: If you, like I said, if you put a WGC
Speaker 2: at Pebble, oh my gosh, it might blow doors. Because
Speaker 2: first of all, there's not one guy that's gonna say,
Speaker 2: I don't want to show up. Everybody's showing up in
Speaker 2: the top fifty unless they're injured, Okay, and I bet
Speaker 2: you some guys try to play injured. So you Firestone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I need the gift whenever I hear Firestone and play
Speaker 2: in Firestone and you talk about it that way, I
Speaker 2: need the gift of the cartoon character continually hitting himself
Speaker 2: in the head with a hammer, you know, over and
Speaker 2: over and over again, because that's what it's like to
Speaker 2: play Firestone. It's just it's it's boring and it and
Speaker 2: it beats you up on a regular basis. But more
Speaker 2: so that's just boring. It's just the same thing over
Speaker 2: and over and over again. I would like to see
Speaker 2: it change venues. I'd like to see I'd like to
Speaker 2: s s the wgc's change countries more often and play
Speaker 2: more great of the great golf courses around the world.
Speaker 2: And the reason they could do that if they wanted to, is,
Speaker 2: if you're going to maintain seventy five to seventy eight
Speaker 2: player fields, it's not an issue of infrastructure because or
Speaker 2: at least practice facilities, I would think, because most even hell,
Speaker 2: even San Francisco golf club's range could practically fit a
Speaker 2: you know, a WGC field on it. Yeah, you know so,
Speaker 2: and so I would say that, I would say that
Speaker 2: that that could be possible. But there, you know as
Speaker 2: well as I do, there are so many more moving
Speaker 2: parts to that that we don't have time to discuss here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I go into a lot of detail, but
Speaker 1: it's I just think it would be such a cool,
Speaker 1: cool thing if if the WGCs you keep it, keep
Speaker 1: an event in Asia, you have a rotating event in
Speaker 1: the British Islands, and then you have an event that
Speaker 1: kind of you know, maybe it's the British Isles, South
Speaker 1: Africa and Australia rotate every year, and you keep an
Speaker 1: event in in uh, in Mexico and South America, and
Speaker 1: then the US has one event? Like how cool would
Speaker 1: that be?
Speaker 2: I think it'd be awesome. The only issue is, obviously,
Speaker 2: well here's the issue that I see. I see the
Speaker 2: scheduling and then the golf course scheduling Southern Hemisphere wintertime,
Speaker 2: summertime sort of thing with southern the southern Northern Hemisphere
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Ye uh, you know, I think more
Speaker 2: than an even more so than sponsorship money I think
Speaker 2: it's a scheduling thing. Andy, quite honestly, is where are
Speaker 2: you going to put those events?
Speaker 1: The other Yeah, it kind of screws over the event before.
Speaker 2: And after, especially because if guys have got to go
Speaker 2: to South Africa. I talked to Trevor Immleman. He does
Speaker 2: that trip a lot, you knows. He said. It's brutal,
Speaker 2: you know. And obviously I've been the man on the
Speaker 2: ground in Asia for the Asian events the last three
Speaker 2: years and for Golf Channel, and I can tell you
Speaker 2: what the travel is like to go over there. It sucks.
Speaker 2: It's fun when you get there, but it's it's hell
Speaker 2: getting there. And then Australia is no different than South
Speaker 2: Africa from what my friends tell me. I've never been
Speaker 2: down there, but it's a long trip to British Isles
Speaker 2: wouldn't be too bad. Guys on the West Coast had
Speaker 2: struggled a little more than the guys on the East
Speaker 2: coast of the United States that is. But yeah, we
Speaker 2: used to play at the Grove, which was funny enough.
Speaker 2: Kyle Phillips design for the WGCMX back in the day.
Speaker 2: Last year it was there, I think it was six
Speaker 2: was the last year. It was there when AMEX had
Speaker 2: the sponsorship, and it was it was an okay golf course.
Speaker 2: Tiger ran roughshot over the field, shocking, but at least
Speaker 2: they took it to someplace different. And but the reason
Speaker 2: they don't is for that reason alone. I think right there,
Speaker 2: if you could pinpoint on one thing, Andy, it's the
Speaker 2: field before would get killed and the field after would
Speaker 2: get killed. And these tournament directors just don't want that
Speaker 2: to happen. And I don't blame them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean it would be the
Speaker 1: scheduling side of things is the most difficult aspect of it.
Speaker 1: So with uh, since you've moved from playing to the booth, like,
Speaker 1: how's your perspective of golf changed?
Speaker 2: Oh, it looks a lot easier. It looks a lot
Speaker 2: These guys are so good, and it's it's, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't remember it being this easy or looking this
Speaker 2: easy the way the guys make it look. And there
Speaker 2: are times I'm sure that I made it look easy myself.
Speaker 2: I think we all do as professionals at some point
Speaker 2: in our careers. But I find myself for at times,
Speaker 2: admittedly forgetting how hard it is and maybe at times
Speaker 2: being I don't think I'm overly critical of guys. At
Speaker 2: times I think I think I I think I balance
Speaker 2: it out fairly well. But there's sometimes where I think
Speaker 2: about I go, ah, you know what, I say something
Speaker 2: that I think about it, and then you know, on
Speaker 2: the commercial breakout, sit there and go, you know what,
Speaker 2: that was a lot harder than it than than then
Speaker 2: I made it sound. And I need to I need
Speaker 2: to respect how hard it is to hit some of
Speaker 2: the shots that these guys hit, and they pull off
Speaker 2: and you lose perspective, I think, to a certain extent
Speaker 2: when you've been away from playing at the highest level
Speaker 2: amount of time. But it's something that's going to happen
Speaker 2: to all of us because you can't play at the
Speaker 2: highest level for forever. So it's it's an interesting it's
Speaker 2: an interesting balance that Golf Channel has to has to
Speaker 2: deal with with players because no player comes right off
Speaker 2: the golf course. They've got the knowledge and the understanding
Speaker 2: and so on and so forth, but they're so raw
Speaker 2: on TV. They don't understand the and the mechanics of television.
Speaker 2: So they're usually not very good on TV until they
Speaker 2: learn the mechanics and when and how to say things
Speaker 2: and so on and so forth, but they've got fantastic information.
Speaker 2: That's the that's the double edged sword, you know, that's
Speaker 2: the that's the thing where you're like, oh, this guy's
Speaker 2: he understands perfectly because he was just there. But as
Speaker 2: you grow into this end of the role, you start
Speaker 2: understanding mechanics and when to say things and when not
Speaker 2: to say things, and how to put things and how
Speaker 2: to do highlights properly, and the mechanics become easier. But
Speaker 2: then you you tend to forget how freaking hard the
Speaker 2: game is at times, and and you can tend to
Speaker 2: be a little harsher than you should be with some
Speaker 2: of the guys. So that striking that balance is important
Speaker 2: for me as an analyst, whether I'm doing live golf
Speaker 2: or I'm doing studio golf, and making sure doing live
Speaker 2: golf is huge for me because it helps me understand
Speaker 2: on a weekly basis what these guys go through on
Speaker 2: a regular basis because I'm out there and I see
Speaker 2: the shots and I see the lies, and I'm right
Speaker 2: there on the ground. I hear the conversations between the
Speaker 2: caddies and the players. I see the looks on their
Speaker 2: faces when the cameras aren't there, and you can't see
Speaker 2: him on television, you know, I I and and that
Speaker 2: brings me back and helps me to understand what these
Speaker 2: guys are going through on a regular basis, because as players,
Speaker 2: we've all been there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I perspective. So what what shot do you
Speaker 1: think is like the most underappreciated shot that pros like
Speaker 1: make look so easy?
Speaker 2: Great question, Golly. I think it's all dependent upon kind
Speaker 2: of from from a player's perspective. I was never a
Speaker 2: good fader of the golf ball. I was always a
Speaker 2: you know, my my fade was a two yard fall
Speaker 2: to the left. So so I think that I think
Speaker 2: that for me whenever I stand up and watch a
Speaker 2: guy hit an effortless bomb fade like rom or Dustin
Speaker 2: and it just doesn't come down and it's the sweetest
Speaker 2: little ten yard fall to the right with the driver,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh God, that looks so easy. Why can't
Speaker 2: I do that? For? You know, from my perspective, I
Speaker 2: look at that and I'm in awe because I could
Speaker 2: never do that all that well. But for the average
Speaker 2: Joe sitting at home ten handicap five to well, let's
Speaker 2: say five to fifteen handicap, and the guys that I
Speaker 2: play with, that I played with in pro ams, I'd
Speaker 2: have to say the most underrated shot. Golly, you know,
Speaker 2: the medium trajectory. This is gonna get real golfy. The
Speaker 2: medium trajectory, mid mid yarded spinner with.
Speaker 1: The wedge kind of like JT hit last night.
Speaker 2: Exactly kind of like that. But I see that a
Speaker 2: guy hit a pat bad drive. He's got to play now,
Speaker 2: he's got to make a US Open style par. He
Speaker 2: pitches out from the rough a La Toy pines and
Speaker 2: he's got seventy five eighty five yards and the pins
Speaker 2: tucked the front over a bunker, and he throws this
Speaker 2: gorgeous medium trajectory spinny little floater in there that just
Speaker 2: comes down like a butterfly with sore feet. One hot stop,
Speaker 2: comes back maybe three or four feet to inside ten
Speaker 2: feet and make it for park. That is an underrated
Speaker 2: skill on the PGA tour. Underrated.
Speaker 1: Those are just underrated pars too, because those are the
Speaker 1: pars that just keep your round going and that always
Speaker 1: get lost.
Speaker 2: I call them round savers, and they are absolute roundsavers,
Speaker 2: those that that eight to fifteen footer you got to
Speaker 2: make for park because you've hit it a a in
Speaker 2: a dog awful spot. So you know they're all round savers,
Speaker 2: but that shot in particular, I watch amateurs struggle with
Speaker 2: that time and time and time again. They just can't
Speaker 2: they can't hit it. They can't hit it. It's a
Speaker 2: very underrated shot. Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen ten
Speaker 2: handicaps hit the most beautiful lob shots and I go, WHOA,
Speaker 2: that's pretty cool, you know, from a ten handicap, But
Speaker 2: none of them can hit that float, that medium spinny floater,
Speaker 2: that's a seventy five yards.
Speaker 1: That's that shot. And then I feel like when I
Speaker 1: see a guy another shot I love. I always look
Speaker 1: at like with younger kids when I play in these
Speaker 1: amateur events, is like, I know, I'm playing with a
Speaker 1: kid that, like I say, is a high schooler that
Speaker 1: really knows how to play when he takes two extra
Speaker 1: clubs into the wind and hits like a choke a
Speaker 1: little choke flighter as opposed to just trying to taking
Speaker 1: extra club and hitting it hard and spinning it up.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and guys, and you know it's funny you
Speaker 2: come back to now, we come back to the young
Speaker 2: kids on tour and how their games evolve totally. That's
Speaker 2: how I can tell Jason Day what did he what
Speaker 2: did he do when he came out on tour? Andy,
Speaker 2: everything was nuke. Take one lesson nuked, didn't matter what
Speaker 2: the win was doing. Take one lesson nuked. Jt same thing,
Speaker 2: Take one lesson nuked. Now, both those guys have developed
Speaker 2: soft arm shots, you know, and that's you have to
Speaker 2: have those shots if you want to win major championships period.
Speaker 2: Tiger talks about it. You watch. All you need to
Speaker 2: do is just go back and look at any of
Speaker 2: the fourteen majors Tiger won, and just fast forward through
Speaker 2: all the days and just have them cut out all
Speaker 2: of the shots of everybody else and just watch Tiger
Speaker 2: shots and watch how many half swings that or three
Speaker 2: quarter swings that guy makes a ton, a ton. You
Speaker 2: gotta have them. Three quarter cut shots, three quarter draw shots.
Speaker 1: You gotta have them, yeah, especially in bad conditions like
Speaker 1: what wind. I mean if you if you don't have
Speaker 1: that shot, you're dead. All right, We've already you know,
Speaker 1: we've covered like half of what I wanted to get through.
Speaker 1: So I want to get into some overrated underrated and
Speaker 1: so overrated, underrated the idea of master's prep, oh prep
Speaker 1: in what regard like you know, well, he's prepping for
Speaker 1: Augusta by playing here, or he's prepping for Augusta doing that.
Speaker 2: Like, dude, that's overrated. You can't prep for a gust
Speaker 2: of my playing a certain golf course, no way, that's
Speaker 2: bs no chance. Nothing prepares you for what that golf
Speaker 2: course is going to throw at you. Geez. Nothing prepares
Speaker 2: you for the way the golf course changes from Wednesday
Speaker 2: to Thursday in the span of eight hours. I mean,
Speaker 2: they can turn the screws on that thing at any time.
Speaker 2: It's just forget about it, kids, never moving on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. I talked to Stuart hagasaid he said,
Speaker 1: he said, he said the same thing about how much
Speaker 1: of the golf course changes from Wednesday to Thursday.
Speaker 2: It all of us do. It did when I played it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was just like all of us Tuesday
Speaker 2: or Tuesday and Wednesday. You go out for you go
Speaker 2: out for a Tuesday practice round, You're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: hitting the shots, hitting the shots, seeing the ball, the
Speaker 2: way the ball reacts, Okay, I got this Wednesday kind
Speaker 2: of the same deal. You play nine holes because they
Speaker 2: close the golf course down early, you go play the
Speaker 2: par three. You wake up the next morning, you hit
Speaker 2: your first shot into one, and you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 2: what happened. Honestly, that's exactly your reaction. What happened?
Speaker 1: That's uh, that's all right, so overrated masters prep? So
Speaker 1: what about eighteen hole playoffs timely?
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, for our Nations Championship. I'm going to
Speaker 2: say they're they're underrated, and I'm going to get totally
Speaker 2: outvoted on this one. But it was something spec. There
Speaker 2: was something special about an eighteen hole Monday playoff for
Speaker 2: the toughest test in golf. And I'm hoping the USGA
Speaker 2: gets back to that the toughest test in golf, because
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, I was a player. I bitched about
Speaker 2: how difficult Oakmont was in seven and complained and and
Speaker 2: you know what, that's just part of it. And I
Speaker 2: want to hear players do that again because I don't
Speaker 2: hear I don't hear enough complaining. And when I hear,
Speaker 2: when I start hearing more complaining, that's when I know
Speaker 2: we've gotten back to the toughest test in golf. But
Speaker 2: I think that an eighteen hole playoff on Monday is
Speaker 2: worthy of the toughest test in golf for our nation's championship.
Speaker 2: Quite honestly, some people would say, ah, no, it's not
Speaker 2: you're not going to get the you know, and now
Speaker 2: they probably obviously you know the news. They changed it
Speaker 2: and it's going to be a two hole aggregate. And
Speaker 2: I understand why they did that, and I'm sure it'll
Speaker 2: be great, it'll be fine. They'll finish it on Sunday,
Speaker 2: which there's positives to that, but I will miss the
Speaker 2: eighteen hole. I will miss the eighteen hole waking up
Speaker 2: the next morning and you know, turning on the TV
Speaker 2: and sitting down, or guys in the office watching it
Speaker 2: on there, you know, no eight watching on their computers
Speaker 2: or wherever they could turn on the TV and watching it.
Speaker 2: There's something special about that too, in my opinion, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just I don't like the two hole, Like how
Speaker 1: did you get too?
Speaker 2: I honestly think they wanted to be different, Andy, because
Speaker 2: you got a three hole aggregate in the PGA, you
Speaker 2: got a four hole aggregate in the open. I think
Speaker 2: they wanted to be different. That's my humble opinion. If
Speaker 2: they come up, they give me an If they give
Speaker 2: me an answer that I can that I can believe,
Speaker 2: and they're not just selling me something, I'll buy it.
Speaker 2: But in my humble opinion, I just think they needed
Speaker 2: something different. They just wanted to be different than the other,
Speaker 2: than the other two majors.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, they probably did some some big study
Speaker 1: that nobody ever saw the results of except for a
Speaker 1: few people.
Speaker 2: That's a good point at the point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm I think everyone every golf fan secretly
Speaker 1: wishes for Monday playoff eighteen holler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I think all the all of
Speaker 2: us golf nerds who are who are two golf nerds
Speaker 2: like myself? I mean I did that. I mean I
Speaker 2: I loved it. I loved I loved watching the one,
Speaker 2: you know, Scott Simpson and Payne Stewart. I remember that one,
Speaker 2: Hayler when Mike Donald these are one when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, loved it. So Rocco, Obviously this is going
Speaker 2: to be the last one, so I'll miss that'll it'll
Speaker 2: be we're losing some nostalgia, you know. Well, well we'll
Speaker 2: have nostalgia now for that, but we're losing a little
Speaker 2: bit that I think we're losing a little bit not
Speaker 2: having an eighteen hole Monday playoff.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, it's just an odd thing that like
Speaker 1: there's so much about tradition and history and like this
Speaker 1: is one of like the staples and like one differentiator
Speaker 1: of the championship, and they're just like, yeah, we'll get
Speaker 1: rid of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the way the USGA is going, it's they're
Speaker 2: there and they're listening finally, which I give them so
Speaker 2: much credit for, because they're listening to the pros, they're
Speaker 2: listening to the people. They're listening, and they're they're modernizing
Speaker 2: to a certain extent. They are, and and I appreciate
Speaker 2: them for that. I just don't want them to modernize
Speaker 2: themselves to where the championship itself is unrecognizable. Like no
Speaker 2: offense to the great people at Aaron Hills. I don't
Speaker 2: want to see another US Open at Aaron Hills. I
Speaker 2: really don't. It's not a US Open golf course. Great
Speaker 2: PGA course, maybe even a Ryder Cup course, but it's
Speaker 2: a that's a PGA Championship style golf course, not a
Speaker 2: US Open style golf course. We need to stick to
Speaker 2: US Open nineteen twenties greats. We need to stick to
Speaker 2: riv Pebble, shinnecock Bethpage Black, even though I don't think
Speaker 2: they're going to go back there now because I think
Speaker 2: that's more of a PGA type course, Marion, you know, Marion, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we need to stick to the old guard in my opinion,
Speaker 2: and not trick them up so like the way they
Speaker 2: were meant to be played.
Speaker 1: So like a there should be a US Open Rota,
Speaker 1: just like the Open Roda.
Speaker 2: Absolutely there should be a US Open Rota. Don't don't
Speaker 2: just take some dudes, you know, cash if that's the
Speaker 2: way it's happening, and go to some place just because
Speaker 2: you want to be different. Stick to the Olympic Club,
Speaker 2: stick to stick to the greats, stick to the greats,
Speaker 2: the ones that have stood the test of time.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing other thing that does is
Speaker 1: that it adds value to the viewer because like two
Speaker 1: of the most popular events on TV are the Players
Speaker 1: and the Masters, and that because they're played at the
Speaker 1: same course, you're in, you're out, big events and they
Speaker 1: have like like people remember the finishes at those places
Speaker 1: in the.
Speaker 2: Holes exactly so so so how cool is it that
Speaker 2: every five years you know you're going back to St. Andrews.
Speaker 2: For the most part, it doesn't stink. It doesn't stink.
Speaker 2: You look forward to every five years we're going to
Speaker 2: be at St Andrews or for me this year Carnousti.
Speaker 2: I love Carnousti. Some people might have an affinity with Mirfield.
Speaker 2: You know you're going back to Merefield. Well I don't
Speaker 2: know anymore, but but but maybe hopefully we're going back
Speaker 2: to Meerfield, or maybe some guys are. You're a lit
Speaker 2: them in Saint Anne's guy, so you know, you know
Speaker 2: you can count on certain ones in that open ROTA.
Speaker 2: And I'd love for the USGA to do that with
Speaker 2: the great old golf courses in the United States, And
Speaker 2: quite honestly, I would love, my humble opinion, I would
Speaker 2: love East Coast, West Coast, East Coast, West Coast bounce
Speaker 2: back and forth each year.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's enough courses for that though
Speaker 1: on the West Coast.
Speaker 2: Well, but remember, if it's a RODA, you're fine, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you do if you do Tory, Tory riv La
Speaker 2: Club or I don't know if you could do both
Speaker 2: those you probably have to do one or the other.
Speaker 2: Pebble Olympic. So you've got what is that, four or
Speaker 2: five courses just on the West coast. Yeah, now you
Speaker 2: do four or five on the East coast, and now
Speaker 2: you have eight to ten. Maybe you can add a
Speaker 2: couple more. There's more on the East coast, Yeah, waymore.
Speaker 2: You can get up to twelve golf courses. But if
Speaker 2: you bounce back and forth or every every two years
Speaker 2: instead of every other year or every three years, every
Speaker 2: third year, you come back to a West coast course,
Speaker 2: I think that'd be cool.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to say, you're just diss in
Speaker 1: the Midwest just because I'm a Midwestern If I didn't,
Speaker 1: if I didn't say something, I was going to hear
Speaker 1: some heat from that.
Speaker 2: You're right, and I don't mean to diss the Midwest,
Speaker 2: but I but we don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we really have a great golf
Speaker 1: course for that in the Midwest. I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: in Chicago Inverness with the redesign could be one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is that too short? Though? Still I don't.
Speaker 1: I think it's seventy four to seventy five hundred yards.
Speaker 2: Work for sure, Yeah, no doubt. I didn't realize they
Speaker 2: added that much link to it.
Speaker 1: I'm not positive though it might only be seventy. I
Speaker 1: haven't I haven't been out there yet, so but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously there's lots of great ones in Chicago, but
Speaker 2: you know, but I mean Olympia Fields. I was there
Speaker 2: for the Ladies KPMG PGA Championship last year, and the
Speaker 2: guys would turn that into a pitching putt.
Speaker 1: Now, yeah, in.
Speaker 2: The back, even from the back teeth, they're just they
Speaker 2: ran out of real estate. And that that's obviously leads
Speaker 2: to another discussion about the ball, but in technology, but.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a future pod. I had it on
Speaker 1: my list of topics and that's not going to wear
Speaker 1: getting into that.
Speaker 2: We're not going to get there today. No, but that's that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But I agree, I think there needs to be a rotation.
Speaker 2: I think that the USGA said in a rotation, I
Speaker 2: think that that that would be that would be fantastic.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, and it would be good weather and all
Speaker 1: those places for it.
Speaker 2: Like for the most part, you can still get the
Speaker 2: occasional stoppage of play on the East coast, yeah, the
Speaker 2: West coast smooth sailing. You might have to worry about
Speaker 2: a fog delay here and there, but nothing major.
Speaker 1: The West Coast would be so great with it finishing
Speaker 1: at like nine o'clock.
Speaker 2: That that's what I might argument all the time for
Speaker 2: West Coast events is hey guys, TV people on prime
Speaker 2: prime time on the on the East coast, you know,
Speaker 2: for a West Coast event, and I think TV digs
Speaker 2: West Coast events. But the one thing you don't have
Speaker 2: to worry about, like I said, other than fog, and
Speaker 2: you can get the fall I'll get at Olympic or
Speaker 2: at Pebble or Tory in June.
Speaker 1: June gloom, it's no doubt.
Speaker 2: June gloom, there's no doubt. But other than the fog,
Speaker 2: you're not getting lightning and you're not getting rain, so
Speaker 2: you know, and the fog is somewhat rare to a
Speaker 2: certain extent, so weather delays would be few and far
Speaker 2: between in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so last overrated, underrated, And this was going to
Speaker 1: be a topic, but we're just gonna throw it in here.
Speaker 1: The resurgent Phil Mickelson.
Speaker 2: Oh God, I always think Phil's underrated. He's just he's
Speaker 2: so good. I mean, the guy astounds me. He's amazing.
Speaker 2: Definitely underrated. I think that at forty seven, almost forty
Speaker 2: eight years old. To be able to still swing it
Speaker 2: between one hundred and sixteen and one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: miles an hour is incredible. In my opinion. It's a
Speaker 2: testament to his It's a testament to his desire to
Speaker 2: continue to work and find things to get better at,
Speaker 2: which is hard to do it forty seven, forty eight,
Speaker 2: because I know there are plenty of guys in there
Speaker 2: early to mid forties that are having a hard time
Speaker 2: doing that, but and maybe even late thirties having a
Speaker 2: hard time trying to figure out, you know, motivation to
Speaker 2: go out there and work on things. But you know,
Speaker 2: his hernia surgeries really set him back speed wise, and
Speaker 2: I didn't know if he was able to ever able
Speaker 2: to get to be able to get all that speedback
Speaker 2: from those hernia surgeries. And lo and behold, he's been
Speaker 2: able to get a lot of it back.
Speaker 1: And that hadn't hitting it longer than he ever hit
Speaker 1: it before in his career.
Speaker 2: I know, yeah, I mean a lot of it's a
Speaker 2: lot of it's you know, listen, you can't discount technology
Speaker 2: for both him and Tiger. Technology is helping both those boys.
Speaker 2: There's no doubt the optimization of the ball in the
Speaker 2: club and the shaft, clubhead and the shaft, without a doubt.
Speaker 2: Track man helping those boys big time. But but they
Speaker 2: still got to get in the gym and get it
Speaker 2: done and put put in hours and hours of work
Speaker 2: on their bodies at forty you know, forty two and
Speaker 2: forty seven years old in Phil's case. And so you know,
Speaker 2: I'm all in on a Phil resurgence. It's just a
Speaker 2: matter of can he put it all together? You know,
Speaker 2: it's all it's been. It's one thing each week. So far,
Speaker 2: he's so close, but it's one thing each week. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's either as and luckily a short game. And
Speaker 2: his putting has been there pretty much every week, which
Speaker 2: in your forties, that's usually the first thing that goes
Speaker 2: you get a little you know, YIPPIEI doda around the
Speaker 2: greens with the with the putter and the wedges. At times,
Speaker 2: Phil not not even showing zero signs of that. And
Speaker 2: but he's just either struggled a little bit off the
Speaker 2: tea or he struggled with the irons. So if he can,
Speaker 2: if he can find a week where he puts those
Speaker 2: two things together, he can win. Yeah, no doubt he
Speaker 2: can win.
Speaker 1: Kind of feeling this week is that altitude. He's always
Speaker 1: played really well at altitude.
Speaker 2: Because he doesn't have to hit a lot of drivers in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the ball goes straight in altitude, Well.
Speaker 2: That might not be a good thing for him. Actually,
Speaker 2: he likes he likes to see it curve. So one
Speaker 2: thing about altitude that I think that that that is
Speaker 2: actually if we're doing underrated or overrated, is underrated. The
Speaker 2: one thing about altitude, it's hard to curve the ball. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at altitude because there's less guys who really like to
Speaker 2: curve it, like Bubba and those guys and like to
Speaker 2: work the ball. Those guys might struggle a little bit
Speaker 2: in Mexico. We'll see, We'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of one of my you know, hypothesis
Speaker 2: is with the hypotheses, if you will, or theories that
Speaker 2: I have with guys. So if Phil can adjust to that, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's no doubt he can. He can win Mexico.
Speaker 1: I think he won that. Like what international that you
Speaker 1: used to get played at?
Speaker 2: Uh? He did, Yeah he did, but that was how
Speaker 2: long agot.
Speaker 1: But he was in contention last year too, there, so
Speaker 1: he was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it's working for him. He understands exactly what
Speaker 2: he needs to do, So maybe maybe altitude is straightening
Speaker 2: his ball out for him.
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's one of the things, like you know,
Speaker 1: he's like he thinks about all those different factors of
Speaker 1: a shadowy and it's perfect for him.
Speaker 2: Can you. I wish there was a thought bubble on
Speaker 2: television above Phil's head filled with all the stuff that's
Speaker 2: going through it went as he's trying to calculate yardages.
Speaker 2: That would be classic, that'd be fantastic because the permutations
Speaker 2: of the algorithms that have to be going through his
Speaker 2: head to get it, to get all this stuff done.
Speaker 2: And I honestly, I think it's going to be less
Speaker 2: with his brother with Tim on the bag than it
Speaker 2: was with Bones. I almost think Bones gave him too
Speaker 2: much information, even though Phil wanted it. I don't think
Speaker 2: he needed it all. I think that he I don't
Speaker 2: think Tim gives him all of that quite honestly. Maybe
Speaker 2: Phil does, maybe Phil doesn't want it, but it sure
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like it. I don't hear the same conversations
Speaker 2: with Tim and Phil as I did with Bones.
Speaker 1: And philm Bones was an enabler.
Speaker 2: Bones was an enabler. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: So all right, last question and then we'll get you
Speaker 1: out of here. All you need to give four names
Speaker 1: who are major champions this year.
Speaker 2: Oh well, let's see, I'm gonna go. Gosh, it's hard
Speaker 2: for me to go against statistics at the Masters, So
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go based on what Justin Ray sent me.
Speaker 2: And I'm not gonna name him off, but I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go with I'm gonna go with Justin Rose at the Masters. God,
Speaker 2: I hope he putts well because that's pretty much all
Speaker 2: he needs to do there. And let's see, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go a US Open, Shinnycock, I'm gonna go with. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go with Spieth at the US Open, all right,
Speaker 2: I think he gets his second US Open. I think
Speaker 2: that's gonna be a great golf course for him, very
Speaker 2: creative and gonna move the ball around a lot, and
Speaker 2: short game is gonna be required, and grinding is gonna
Speaker 2: be required. I think the usg is going to get
Speaker 2: back to a more traditional US Open setup. But so
Speaker 2: I think they're gonna allow you some angles they're not
Speaker 2: gonna allow you all the angles usually get a chinnacock,
Speaker 2: but they're gonna allow you a few more. See Carnoustie.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, you need a ball striker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta bring you better, bring your.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta bring the you gotta bring up. It's
Speaker 2: gotta be a big boy at CARNOUSTI I think, oh,
Speaker 2: let's see Sergia. No, you know, that's the obvious choice,
Speaker 2: obviously for what happened in O seven, But oh gosh,
Speaker 2: this is hard. I'm gonna go with John Rahm.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a good peck.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with John Rahm. He's still he's still,
Speaker 2: he's still rang and he's got a little ways to go.
Speaker 2: But on a golf course like that where ball striking
Speaker 2: is paramount, I mean, you got a nut at around
Speaker 2: that place. I like John Rong, especially when the weather
Speaker 2: can turn on a dime like it did in O
Speaker 2: seven when I was there. Uh, let's see, so it's
Speaker 2: you got faler gets off the schneid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it would be a good place for him.
Speaker 1: It's uh, that'll be a soft, soft and slow golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And my my other choice after him was going
Speaker 2: to be Rory because it is going to be soft
Speaker 2: and slow, and Rory's won all his majors on soft,
Speaker 2: slow golf courses. Yeah, so so I I but I
Speaker 2: but I like I like Ricky to get off the
Speaker 2: schneid there and and get the get get his get
Speaker 2: his first major.
Speaker 1: He's kind of hey, he's gotta he's got to get
Speaker 1: one eventually.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's got to happen. I mean it, it'd
Speaker 2: be it'd be a shame if it if it never did.
Speaker 2: I think he's got the talent to do it, and
Speaker 2: he's got the game to do it. He's just got
Speaker 2: to do it. Yeah, And I think Belle Reeve Is
Speaker 2: is just as good as any place for him. But
Speaker 2: I think it gives him an opportunity. The fairways are
Speaker 2: a little wider, As you said, it's gonna play a
Speaker 2: little softer, and so I think a lot. I think
Speaker 2: the firm, fast, bouncy rollie stuff is is uh isn't
Speaker 2: going to be there, and it's going to protect some
Speaker 2: of maybe the occasional wild shot that he's bullet hitting well,
Speaker 2: even though he's been very, very good with staying away
Speaker 2: from big numbers of late, which has always been kind
Speaker 2: of his Achilles heel in the past.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on. We really appreciate it. And what
Speaker 1: do you got up next? For Golf Channel so our
Speaker 1: listeners can tune in and catch you on TV.
Speaker 2: I'll be with I'll be with the champions for guys
Speaker 2: PJ Tour Champions Guys at Tucson this week. I leave
Speaker 2: on Thursday morning for which will be tomorrow morning if
Speaker 2: everybody's listening to it, Thursday morning with down there for
Speaker 2: our production meeting, and then which is nicest about an
Speaker 2: hour and a half drive or so for me from Phoenix,
Speaker 2: and then I'll go the following week to Tshiba over
Speaker 2: Newport Beach for the PGA Tour champions as well. So
Speaker 2: next two weeks PGA tourch Champions. I like that tour.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun. Love working with Lanny and
Speaker 2: John and John Cook and Billy Ray. They're just just
Speaker 2: a great group of guys to work with and be around.
Speaker 1: And Tucson and Newport Beach are too bad spots to
Speaker 1: have to hang out at.
Speaker 2: I'll get great Mexican food one week and great seafood
Speaker 2: the next week.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks a lot for coming on again
Speaker 1: and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 2: Thanks for good calculator, Randy, you've been listening to the
Speaker 2: Fried Egg podcast. We do the digging for you.