Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a fried egg
Speaker 2: Friday egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday fridagg Bride Egg.
Speaker 3: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast.
Speaker 4: I am your host, Andy Johnson, and today I got
Speaker 4: a fun podcast for you guys. I think I am
Speaker 4: joined by a few different guests, and I pose the
Speaker 4: question to an assortment of people, what is the biggest
Speaker 4: question in golf that you're thinking about a lot?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: So, what is the big topic that you don't necessarily
Speaker 4: know the answer to, or just a general topic that
Speaker 4: you're thinking about a lot when it comes to regards
Speaker 4: to golf. So the guests for this podcast are Kyle Porter,
Speaker 4: who is the author of a great newsletter, The Normal Sporter.
Speaker 4: He writes on CBS Sports, also a co host of
Speaker 4: the First Cut podcast. Brian Schneider, a golf course architect.
Speaker 4: You know, He's built a lot of new courses that
Speaker 4: are getting a lot of claim, restored, a lot of
Speaker 4: great golf courses, worked with Tom Doak for years and
Speaker 4: then also Roberto Castro. Roberto is a co host of
Speaker 4: the Course Record podcast, a former PGA tour player, and
Speaker 4: I think, just in general, a deep thinker. So before
Speaker 4: we get into this podcast, let's talk a little bit
Speaker 4: about our sponsor, Red Rooster Golf. Red Rooster's great. They
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Speaker 4: out at redroostergolf dot com. All right, Kyle Porter, I
Speaker 4: gotta ask, what's your one big question for golf?
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm I'm super excited that you brought me on.
Speaker 1: I think about this stuff a lot, and I you know,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things I go to
Speaker 1: a lot, Andy is like putting things in historical context
Speaker 1: and perspective. And this is stuff that we all talk
Speaker 1: about when we're on the road together and just chopping
Speaker 1: it up and hanging out. And I think my one
Speaker 1: big question for golf right now, and I want to
Speaker 1: I want to frame it a couple of different ways,
Speaker 1: but is how do we how do we classify how
Speaker 1: much major championship? Winning major championships matters? Right? And that's
Speaker 1: probably always been a question for people like us who
Speaker 1: are trying to contextualize this stuff and and and make
Speaker 1: it relatable for fans or for or peers or whatever.
Speaker 1: But that is that's my one big question for golf
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 4: It's an interesting one because it's I think like when
Speaker 4: you look at I think there's like majors. If you
Speaker 4: look at the list of most major wins, it's pretty
Speaker 4: like you go down and it's not you know, there's
Speaker 4: a couple of people that you're like, maybe they should
Speaker 4: add more, maybe they should add less. But for the
Speaker 4: most part, I think it's pretty good. I think the
Speaker 4: one thing, I think we're definitely in an era where
Speaker 4: it's harder to win a major than ever before. M H.
Speaker 4: I think there are you know, there's a number of factors.
Speaker 4: I think there's more talent. I think there's you know,
Speaker 4: I think the equipment. The current equipment makes it a
Speaker 4: little bit harder for the talent to separate, which might
Speaker 4: make the run of Scottie Scheffler's on even more impressive.
Speaker 4: But I think, like my question to you would be,
Speaker 4: if you were going to make the argument that majors
Speaker 4: are a poor contextualization of a player, who who would
Speaker 4: you point to specifically.
Speaker 1: A poor contextualization. Well, I think somebody like Adam Scott
Speaker 1: comes to mind, right, Adam Scott is like you think
Speaker 1: about somebody like John Daly who has two major wins
Speaker 1: and Adam Scott has won, and you're like, well, that
Speaker 1: an't those guys are very like Adam Scott is just
Speaker 1: objectively a better golfer than John Daly. But if we
Speaker 1: go by majors, and this is what everybody runs to, right,
Speaker 1: it is like, oh well, and especially I think over
Speaker 1: the last two years, this has become even more heightened
Speaker 1: of like, oh, well, majors, it's the only thing that matters.
Speaker 1: None of this other stuff even matters, And even even
Speaker 1: those of us who are trying to be nuanced about it,
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I mean yeah, kind of, but like
Speaker 1: I don't know, though Western Open should still matter, and
Speaker 1: you if you study golf history at all, they weren't
Speaker 1: the only thing that matters. It mattered to win the
Speaker 1: North South, it mattered to win all these different opens
Speaker 1: and other countries. You know, Like, I just I get it,
Speaker 1: but I also hate that it's the case that sometimes
Speaker 1: we only run to majors to kind of judge guys
Speaker 1: careers by.
Speaker 4: I think you bring up a couple of points that
Speaker 4: have a lot to chew on, right, I think the
Speaker 4: one of the big things I think that you hit
Speaker 4: on was the idea of scaling the PGA Tour as
Speaker 4: a business. And when you think about scaling a business,
Speaker 4: you think about making efficiencies and making things repeatable. And
Speaker 4: one of the things that the PGA Tour did to
Speaker 4: scale their business is they've made their tournaments very repeatable.
Speaker 4: And there's a sameness to them, which is dominic, the
Speaker 4: individual charm of each one and maybe the significance of
Speaker 4: each one. And I think, like, what's what's fascinating to
Speaker 4: think about is like the majors in golf have evolved
Speaker 4: and changed over time. Right, the Western Open at one
Speaker 4: time was a major, you know, the Canadian Open was
Speaker 4: considered by many to be a major. Are we going
Speaker 4: to get to a point like is there a future
Speaker 4: where a different tournament's considered a major? I know, you know,
Speaker 4: and and what does that look like? But I agree
Speaker 4: to certain I think like when when you've one of
Speaker 4: the issues that pro golf faces is that that the
Speaker 4: tournaments that aren't majors, as you hit on, mean less
Speaker 4: than ever before. So how do you how do you
Speaker 4: make them mean more? And I think there has to
Speaker 4: be some individuality to them for them to mean something.
Speaker 1: Well, that's where you know, the idea of a global
Speaker 1: tour I think has some really bad business implications, but
Speaker 1: I think it has a ton of appeal if in
Speaker 1: that respect, because you're like, oh, the Australian Open has
Speaker 1: like a real identity, Like he might not have great players,
Speaker 1: but it has like a true identity, right, and something
Speaker 1: like the Scottish Open, if you take it to the
Speaker 1: right places it has it has a true identity. So
Speaker 1: I think that there are ways to kind of mold
Speaker 1: or shape a global tour around that idea. I've got
Speaker 1: a question for you. This is one that I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to use as a jumping off point into
Speaker 1: all this. But my question, and this is sort of
Speaker 1: meant to be provocative, but my question is, is Scottischeffer
Speaker 1: the best golfer in the world in twenty twenty four?
Speaker 1: I think absolutely right, I would agree, But he also
Speaker 1: hasn't been the best major championship.
Speaker 4: Golfer because of Bryson in his performance.
Speaker 1: Because Bryson has been Bryston's like like cut away from
Speaker 1: being like like winning two majors this year.
Speaker 4: Well, this is the tricky thing too with Scotty in
Speaker 4: Bryson specifically, like these two players, the fact that we're
Speaker 4: in this era where they play on different tours, where
Speaker 4: they don't go up against each other. I I generally
Speaker 4: don't like the argument of Scotty's doing this against the
Speaker 4: weakest PGA tour fields. And some time I don't agree
Speaker 4: generally like that because you look at the body of
Speaker 4: work and it's like, okay, so maybe one or two
Speaker 4: of these wins has gone away, and it's still uber
Speaker 4: impressive if you if you brought all the live players in,
Speaker 4: like maybe one or two he doesn't win. But I
Speaker 4: think that's like the tricky thing with just golf right
Speaker 4: now is that you're looking looking at a you know,
Speaker 4: his greatest rival, Scotty's greatest rival last year is gone
Speaker 4: mm hmm. He's played against him twice and and that
Speaker 4: player has been a shell of what he once was
Speaker 4: those two times. Now Bryson's brought come up and become
Speaker 4: this great player, but then you know he hasn't Like
Speaker 4: the requisite thing is he hasn't won a lot on live.
Speaker 4: It's just like it's a very difficult time to determine
Speaker 4: who the best player is. And I think this was
Speaker 4: where golf was going in general, whether the tour split
Speaker 4: or not, with the with the with the events that
Speaker 4: you know, there's only a handful. It's so hard to
Speaker 4: judge because there's only a handful of times where you
Speaker 4: see the best players in the world playing on the
Speaker 4: greatest venues. Like everybody golf is player versus course. The
Speaker 4: venue stuff is important, and we see that at the majors.
Speaker 4: And I think that's the other aspect of this is
Speaker 4: that there are so few events that these guys all
Speaker 4: play in together, and there's then so few other events
Speaker 4: where the majority of the top guys play together on
Speaker 4: really great golf courses.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with you about venues, but I also
Speaker 1: think that sort of makes the case for Bryson, right,
Speaker 1: Like Bryson was awesome at Pinehurst, he was really good
Speaker 1: at Gusta Nashal Intel like kind of kind of be
Speaker 1: in there. I wouldn't make I would not make the
Speaker 1: argument that Bryson's been the best golfer in the world
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. But I think you could if
Speaker 1: you sort of put a lot of weight on venue
Speaker 1: major like all those things now the like to combat
Speaker 1: that you would say, well, Scotty won. The players like,
Speaker 1: that's a big deal. That's a championship course, you know,
Speaker 1: And so I don't know. I just and this is
Speaker 1: sort of why I brought it up, is because I
Speaker 1: don't really know how to think properly about all this stuff.
Speaker 1: The other thing, I put this out on Twitter the
Speaker 1: other day, but I asked people to name the five
Speaker 1: best golfers from the last ten years. Pretty straightforward question,
Speaker 1: and it brought about a lot of debate because people
Speaker 1: value different things, right, Some people value strokes gained, some
Speaker 1: people value tournament wins, some people value major wins. You know.
Speaker 1: There's just a bunch of different directions that you can
Speaker 1: go with that. But the place that I landed is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you've got my five, where Brooks, DJ, Scottie, Rom and Rory. Okay,
Speaker 1: you start going down the list, Well, where's Jordan Speed.
Speaker 1: He's won thirteen times in the last ten years, including
Speaker 1: three majors, And honestly, the guy that you might replace
Speaker 1: on that list with Speed could be Rory. Even though
Speaker 1: Rory's been unequivocally like the best at golf, like getting
Speaker 1: the ball in the hole in a few strokes over
Speaker 1: the last ten years, because he doesn't have that major.
Speaker 1: And so I just I don't know how to think
Speaker 1: so and I mean I didn't I So I just
Speaker 1: I like Rory would one hundred percent trade his last
Speaker 1: ten years for speets, even though Rory's been a lot better,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I just I think some of
Speaker 1: that stuff is just And golf's weird, right because you
Speaker 1: you almost want to be at one end of the
Speaker 1: spectrum or the other. You don't care if you miss
Speaker 1: ting cuts in a row as long as you win
Speaker 1: ten times in a row. And that that to me,
Speaker 1: is a little different than maybe some other sports. The
Speaker 1: way that you're expected to perform.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is this is a lot here, there's a
Speaker 4: lot to unpackage. But I think this is like the
Speaker 4: crux of of golf. I think it's even like the
Speaker 4: crux of how we judge golf.
Speaker 1: YEP.
Speaker 4: I think if you're a if you're a great player.
Speaker 4: And I there's a great Tiger Woods quote about this.
Speaker 4: I wish I had a handy, but he basically said, like,
Speaker 4: all I'm trying to be is more consistent. And I
Speaker 4: think like what gets undervalued maybe and what gets winning
Speaker 4: maybe gets overvalued. And I think this is what you're saying.
Speaker 4: Majors are they overvalued? Consistency is what every great player
Speaker 4: is trying to do. How can I be at my
Speaker 4: top level as often as possible? Yeah, And if you
Speaker 4: think about golf like these majors, maybe I'm not going
Speaker 4: to say they're random occurrences, but there's the semi random
Speaker 4: aspect of majors and bounces, and you know, maybe there's
Speaker 4: just something in your life that happens a given week,
Speaker 4: or like you just you had your A game the
Speaker 4: week two weeks before, but not then if you look
Speaker 4: at that through the lens of just pure consistency, if
Speaker 4: that's your judge, then Jordan Speak's nowhere near that list
Speaker 4: because for the last five years he's been a shell
Speaker 4: of of what he was for the first five years
Speaker 4: of the period that you're looking at. But if you
Speaker 4: look at it just purely off of like my my
Speaker 4: highest ceiling, top accomplishments, I it's it's a it's kind
Speaker 4: of like a body of work versus like a a
Speaker 4: who comes in every week. And I think if you
Speaker 4: compared it to like something that everybody would relate to
Speaker 4: is like do you want to do you want somebody
Speaker 4: to work for you that has like really great moments
Speaker 4: and maybe some like moments where you're like where where
Speaker 4: did they go? Or the person that comes in and
Speaker 4: maybe doesn't deliver the high highest end moments all the time,
Speaker 4: but is there all the time giving you high level performances.
Speaker 4: It said, it's I think that probably every sport has
Speaker 4: a little bit of this, right yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think like I even as you're saying that,
Speaker 1: I'm coaching my son's ten year old baseball team, and
Speaker 1: the kids that I want on the team are not
Speaker 1: the high ceiling low floor guys. I don't want that
Speaker 1: because I don't know what I'm getting weak to week.
Speaker 1: I want the guys that are consistently even if they're
Speaker 1: not the higher ceiling, I want them at the same
Speaker 1: level all the time. This goes back to the Adam
Speaker 1: Scott John Daily thing, like if you there's a way
Speaker 1: to look at John Daly's resume, just his resume, like
Speaker 1: if you take his name out of it and whatever,
Speaker 1: you could say that's a that's a better resume than
Speaker 1: Adam Scott's resume. I probably wouldn't make that argument because
Speaker 1: Adam Scott's want a lot more, but John Daly has
Speaker 1: more majors, right, but Adam Scott, Like if you just
Speaker 1: like look at the twenty five years of Adam Scott,
Speaker 1: you're like, it's not even like a conversation, and so
Speaker 1: that's where Yeah, it's so I think you're right. It
Speaker 1: is so hard because of a little bit of randomness
Speaker 1: here and there. Think about Sergio Garcia, it's got like
Speaker 1: twenty five top tens at major's, and then Sean mckeel
Speaker 1: almost has more maj like he's like a shot away
Speaker 1: from having more majors than him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's it's even like Mark o'meira, where
Speaker 4: like barco'meira has two. They came at the end of
Speaker 4: his career. They came at a technological change like inflection
Speaker 4: point in the game. And at the time before he
Speaker 4: won those two majors, he was known as king King
Speaker 4: of the bees, right where he would he'd win all
Speaker 4: the bottom tier tour events versus you know, then he
Speaker 4: wins two majors and it completely changes the way they're
Speaker 4: thought about it. But also like you know, like Lee
Speaker 4: Janssen's a good comparison to like Lee Jansen wins two
Speaker 4: US opens in an era, a very specific era of
Speaker 4: US Open setup. How do we like he was not
Speaker 4: a prolific winner or a pro like he was a
Speaker 4: good player. I'm not trying to he was a very
Speaker 4: good player, but like he wasn't he didn't have longevity.
Speaker 4: He he was, you know, and he won majors at
Speaker 4: a time where like a specific type of setup was rewarded,
Speaker 4: you know. I it's it's a fascinating debate, and I
Speaker 4: don't I think like I did this points system years ago,
Speaker 4: a couple of years ago, where it was like I
Speaker 4: gave I think I want to say ten points for
Speaker 4: major wins maybe, Okay, yeah, I remember think five points
Speaker 4: for like a player's win, and then like three points
Speaker 4: for what I considered a great tour event, and then
Speaker 4: one point for all other like PGA Tour, European Tour wins,
Speaker 4: and then one point for major top fives. Yeah, was
Speaker 4: kind of how I tried to do it. I think
Speaker 4: that's there has to be a way too, because that
Speaker 4: to me rewarded consistency and longevity, right because like we're
Speaker 4: where Brooks would have a ton of points because of
Speaker 4: the maj the major wins where he got diminished on
Speaker 4: was like he didn't rack up. You know, we can
Speaker 4: week out PGA Tour wins. Yeah, and I think I
Speaker 4: think how it lives. You know, you'd have more. I
Speaker 4: think what you're describing, I'd get in trouble, I'd make
Speaker 4: live one pointers and it.
Speaker 1: Is yeah, for sure. What you're describing, though, is is
Speaker 1: a It is like who's good at golf over a
Speaker 1: long period of time. And I think sometimes people just
Speaker 1: run to like your resume of wins and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that stuff, it does matter, but it I think people
Speaker 1: do overvalue. I don't know this sounds dumb to say,
Speaker 1: but I think people have overvalue wins a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, like but then winning is so hard, so
Speaker 1: it's like, well, maybe maybe we don't. Did you read
Speaker 1: both Simmon's Book of Basketball?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, right, and just.
Speaker 1: Just the idea of like the pyramid. I think I
Speaker 1: think that would be such a fascinating thing to dive into,
Speaker 1: like it like really in detail and in depth like
Speaker 1: he did in golf history, because it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: you can you can kind of compare things maybe better
Speaker 1: in golf than any anywhere else, just because you're playing
Speaker 1: some of this, I mean the old courses. People you've
Speaker 1: always played it in in major championship history. It's it's
Speaker 1: I think that's a really interesting thing about golf, is
Speaker 1: you you can kind of compare eras not great, but
Speaker 1: a little bit better than maybe in some other sports.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's hard. It's it's it's hard with
Speaker 4: the eras because I just can't and I'm I respect
Speaker 4: the history of the game, I can't get to a
Speaker 4: point where I believe that the Jack, the era Jack
Speaker 4: was playing in where he won eighteen major championships is
Speaker 4: is like this era, I just have a hard time
Speaker 4: buying the competition level was was Apple's apples? No, I agree,
Speaker 4: I agree with you, But I do think the pyramid idea.
Speaker 4: I think what would happen if you dove in deep
Speaker 4: would be that it would you be able to figure
Speaker 4: out like a kind of like a coefficient for different eras. Right,
Speaker 4: what's what's golf like? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's an equivalent?
Speaker 4: And maybe it's a point seven you know factor where
Speaker 4: you just you know, it's seventy percent or something.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's there's a great post on Data Golf
Speaker 1: where they talk about how golf, how professional golf has
Speaker 1: gotten better, like they go back basically to I think
Speaker 1: the seventies or eighties kind of Jack Jack Nicholas's time,
Speaker 1: and they statistically show like, hey, here's how it's gotten better.
Speaker 1: The variance of scoring is getting tighter, and that means
Speaker 1: golf is getting deeper, and therefore it's more difficult to
Speaker 1: sort of separate yourself than it was fifty sixty years ago.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a yeah, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: real argument to be made there for that.
Speaker 4: Well, this was, uh, this was a fun chat. We're
Speaker 4: gonna have to die in three hours on that, I know. Well, uh,
Speaker 4: we got to work on the pyramid.
Speaker 2: I might.
Speaker 4: I was thinking the other day about rebooting the points
Speaker 4: thing because it needs an update. But it it'd be
Speaker 4: fascinating to look at like what Bryson is because Rice
Speaker 4: is a super interesting one with this, like where he
Speaker 4: would rank on that on that top players the last
Speaker 4: ten years, because he's he's sneakily won a lot.
Speaker 1: He did he won like five times or not five,
Speaker 1: I think he won three or four times in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Do you award points for YouTube victories or no YouTube challenges?
Speaker 4: Maybe? I mean Scott great like even with his master's troubles.
Speaker 4: He's got like a great majors record.
Speaker 1: I know he's he's he's been.
Speaker 4: I mean, he's twenty five of the time basically top ten.
Speaker 1: He's been in a bunch of US Opens. He was
Speaker 1: kind of he shot like forty seven in that Tory
Speaker 1: Pines US Open. On the back nine, he was like
Speaker 1: leading that one.
Speaker 4: I thought he was going to win that one. Another
Speaker 4: big boy victory. Ridiculous to look back at old photos.
Speaker 1: What's the over under for his major total?
Speaker 4: Like now three and a half?
Speaker 1: Three and a half, Okay, what do you think? Where
Speaker 1: would you go? I always go under. We talked about
Speaker 1: this after the Masters, you and I did. I think
Speaker 1: it's so easy after a guy wins to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: over for sure. But the arc of golf history is
Speaker 1: that it's just it never. I don't think guys ever
Speaker 1: win as many as it feels like they're going to
Speaker 1: after they've won a couple, and I would go under.
Speaker 1: But I but I go under on almost everybody.
Speaker 4: I uh, after the after the after Sergio and the Masters,
Speaker 4: I think I thought he was gonna win like three
Speaker 4: more majors. I thought the floodgates were going to open
Speaker 4: and he hasn't had a top ten since.
Speaker 1: Shane Bacon and I were literally texting about Sergio's major
Speaker 1: record this week and he missed like eleven of fifteen
Speaker 1: cuts after the after at Majors, after his master's lent.
Speaker 4: It's like the quite the opposite of the floodgates opening.
Speaker 1: The damn was like today shut it.
Speaker 4: Turns a drought.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So all right, Kyle, thank you for this, uh something
Speaker 4: to think about. I I'm not really sure we got anywhere,
Speaker 4: but we talked about it that I.
Speaker 1: Was not necessarily looking for answers. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: throw it out there as something for people to chew on.
Speaker 4: All right, let's take a quick break to talk about
Speaker 4: everything in our pro shop. Meg Atkins has done a
Speaker 4: wonderful job. We've got a bunch of Fourth of July
Speaker 4: gear and there are some some red, white and blue
Speaker 4: themed merchandise, headcovers, towels, tide towels, hats, you name it.
Speaker 4: If you need a bunch of If you need gear
Speaker 4: for the summer, it's more peak summer. If you need
Speaker 4: some new golf gear, check out our pro shop pro
Speaker 4: shop dot Thefridagg dot com. I personally am a big
Speaker 4: fan of that tie die towel. I'm gonna be stopping
Speaker 4: by our merch center this week and uh probably we'll
Speaker 4: pick one up for myself. So go to proshop dot
Speaker 4: the fried Egg dot com and check out all of
Speaker 4: our merchandise there. All right, Brian Schneider, big question? What's
Speaker 4: what's the big question for golf? That's been rattling around
Speaker 4: your brain lightly most.
Speaker 2: You know, there's recency bias at play here. But I
Speaker 2: just got back from a week long golf bender in Maine,
Speaker 2: a very last minute trip, you know, booked a flight
Speaker 2: on Sunday night, landed in Boston Monday night, and just
Speaker 2: figured out a week's worth of golf while I was
Speaker 2: up there, which is a trip trip I've wanted to
Speaker 2: make for a long time. You know, my impression of
Speaker 2: golf in Maine that is kind of old fashioned, unspoiled,
Speaker 2: you know, just cool little courses tucked away from the
Speaker 2: mainstream a bit. And you know that that's what I
Speaker 2: found everywhere I went. You know, I was up there
Speaker 2: for five days and got to see a lot of golf,
Speaker 2: and I was you know, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: nine hole courses in Maine, which is terrific. I love
Speaker 2: nine holes. I think it feels like the perfect amount
Speaker 2: of golf a lot of days, especially when it was
Speaker 2: ninety five degrees up there last week. But I was
Speaker 2: surprised how many of the courses I played are still unrrigated,
Speaker 2: you know, apart from greens and teas that are a
Speaker 2: bunch of places where the fairways weren't irrigated, and you know,
Speaker 2: you're very much at the whims of mother nature. But
Speaker 2: they played great, whether it's fescue or clover or moss
Speaker 2: or chickweed or all the other stuff you find in
Speaker 2: fairways that aren't pure, modestand of pdgrass, And you know,
Speaker 2: the game is still really fun playing on that sort
Speaker 2: of surface and bunkers that may not be raked to
Speaker 2: that day who cares. Just the simplicity of golf, and
Speaker 2: the understanding that golf doesn't necessarily get more fun just
Speaker 2: because you've thrown a bunch of money at it. Golf
Speaker 2: and Maine was a great reminder that golf is really fun.
Speaker 2: The sport is really great even when it's really simple
Speaker 2: and very afford and very accessible and very sustainable, very responsible.
Speaker 4: You know, what you're hitting on I think is you
Speaker 4: know what, what is important in the game of golf?
Speaker 4: Right when I think about my experiences over the last
Speaker 4: eight or nine years of this, like a lot of
Speaker 4: my favorite memories are playing golf courses that are a
Speaker 4: little bit scruffy. You feel like you're discovering the game.
Speaker 4: And there's also a a element of adventure that goes
Speaker 4: with it, right where you hit a t shot and
Speaker 4: you don't really know where what you're going to find,
Speaker 4: you know, versus I think modern agronomy. There have been
Speaker 4: some amazing amount of amazing advancements in it, but one
Speaker 4: of the things that's gotten lost is the the element
Speaker 4: of chance a little bit. It's a very hardline game, right,
Speaker 4: It's either this is good, this is okay, this is bad,
Speaker 4: and there's very there's there's diminishing aspects of gray in
Speaker 4: the game, and that's to me what it feels like
Speaker 4: sometimes what the game, the direction of the game is
Speaker 4: going in a broader sense is black or white, And
Speaker 4: to me, the game thrives in the gray, in the
Speaker 4: mystery of I don't know where my shot is, but
Speaker 4: I'm really excited to see it. I don't know what
Speaker 4: this situation is going to be, but I am, I
Speaker 4: can't wait to get there. That's you know, there's almost
Speaker 4: a a feeling of adventure with that, which which makes
Speaker 4: the game more more fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was certainly the case with the architecture of
Speaker 2: some of the courses I saw. It's just they weren't
Speaker 2: built at a time where you know, it's kind of
Speaker 2: so called rules of golf architecture had been established, so
Speaker 2: you know, you play yourself into a corner in the
Speaker 2: you know, without walking two hundred yards way out of
Speaker 2: that corner's just to smash when over that rock out
Speaker 2: cropping over there and see what's on the other side.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of that, which is a fun
Speaker 2: way to play golf, when you know, you get off
Speaker 2: a Rellian hole and just can't wait to get to
Speaker 2: the next team to see what weird surprises around the corner.
Speaker 2: But that, you know, that also does translate down to
Speaker 2: the golf course maintenance. You know, superintendents and the people
Speaker 2: that supply them with their tools and their grasses and
Speaker 2: their chemicals. You know, that whole industry has gotten so
Speaker 2: good at presenting perfect turf. But if you know, if
Speaker 2: the point is to challenge players and to you know,
Speaker 2: for the best players to really separate themselves from those
Speaker 2: who aren't quite as good. Isn't the ability to play
Speaker 2: a shot well off a kind of a dodgy lie
Speaker 2: and important part of that, you know, I think the
Speaker 2: the uniform condition is that the tour players play every
Speaker 2: week brings the field together. You know, if if they
Speaker 2: were getting three bad lies around, the guys that could
Speaker 2: hit that shot, that have that skill in their bag
Speaker 2: would be able to separate themselves even further. And I think,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of uniform conditioning both throw to golf
Speaker 2: course and then from week to week doesn't help the
Speaker 2: best players really separate themselves the way inferior kind of
Speaker 2: lesser conditioning might.
Speaker 4: It's you know, one of the things that I've on tour,
Speaker 4: if you're going to just talk about tour golf for
Speaker 4: a second, one of the things that I've grown to
Speaker 4: love is Bermuda rough because there is like that's the
Speaker 4: seems to be the one thing where these where I
Speaker 4: noticed that the best players in the world aren't able
Speaker 4: to exactly predict the lie all the time, and you
Speaker 4: see shots go that gets squirrely, and and that's what
Speaker 4: I think the thing that you want and what golf
Speaker 4: is like at the core. I've said this before. My
Speaker 4: friend Kevin Moore use this line once and it's always
Speaker 4: stuck with me. At the core of what golf is
Speaker 4: and what golf was when it found, when it was
Speaker 4: when it started. Here are the sticks that you use,
Speaker 4: here's the ball, and that is the challenge that you
Speaker 4: need to overcome to get there. And it was like
Speaker 4: a completely regular but like at the core, it's you know,
Speaker 4: the sticks, the ball, and then the challenge is presented
Speaker 4: to you along the way right. And I think when
Speaker 4: you think about it from that standpoint, irregularity is so
Speaker 4: important and the idea of not really knowing what you're
Speaker 4: going to get when you hit some shots certain places.
Speaker 4: I played Pine Valley for the first time this year,
Speaker 4: and you know, I think people take away a lot
Speaker 4: of things from Pine Valley, but one of the thing
Speaker 4: that I took away the most that I thought about
Speaker 4: is this is, you know, what many consider to be
Speaker 4: the greatest golf course in the world, and every bunker
Speaker 4: you go in is like completely different, Like some have
Speaker 4: very little sand, have quite a bit of sand, and
Speaker 4: you know there's no rakes, so you know, you get
Speaker 4: really dodgy lies, And I thought it was like a
Speaker 4: extraordinary determiner of skill because you went into bunkers and
Speaker 4: you needed to understand what type of shot you had
Speaker 4: to hit, because if you have if there's very little
Speaker 4: sand in a bunker, you need to play a bunker
Speaker 4: shot a lot differently than if there's a lot of
Speaker 4: sand in a bunker, Like you're going up to sand valley,
Speaker 4: like a sand valley bunker shot versus a bunker shot
Speaker 4: that's kind of hard pan, Like you have to have
Speaker 4: completely different technique. You might want to use different wedges
Speaker 4: in a golf course, like here's the number one golf
Speaker 4: course in the world by many and a golf course
Speaker 4: with unlimited budget, and here they present their bunkers unlike
Speaker 4: almost any other golf course in that stratosphere. And I've
Speaker 4: took away with that, Like why doesn't someone take that
Speaker 4: away from Pine Valley like they take away all the
Speaker 4: wrong things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's That's an important part of the challenge
Speaker 2: of golf is you know, assessing your lie, whether it's
Speaker 2: in a bunker and in the fair way and the rough,
Speaker 2: assessing your lie and then playing having the skill to
Speaker 2: play the shot well regardless of that lie. You know,
Speaker 2: you mentioned the challenge that lies between green or between
Speaker 2: tea and whole, and I think we've lost a lot
Speaker 2: of diversity of that challenge, you know, the challenges that
Speaker 2: are acceptable today. It's a much narrower band of hazards
Speaker 2: or you know, obstacles than it was one hundred years
Speaker 2: ago because things have just been so standardized, and I
Speaker 2: think something really valuable has been lost to that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: you never you know, people have a lot of feelings
Speaker 2: about Mirrfield, but you've never heard somebody say, man, that
Speaker 2: bunker shot. You know that the sand in the bunker
Speaker 2: on seventeen was so different than the bunker I was
Speaker 2: in on five. You know, like nobody complains about that
Speaker 2: in the UK, but you might hear that American Club
Speaker 2: Different You're all the time talks about that overseas. And
Speaker 2: it's another great example. I mean, the variety in the
Speaker 2: sands across the Royal Mulvern property. You're all over the
Speaker 2: map and you just you get in, you feel it
Speaker 2: with your feet and you play the shot you think
Speaker 2: you need to play based on what you're feeling.
Speaker 4: It's the it's the idea of fair you know, and
Speaker 4: that's what's been lost. Uh, the main trip. I'm super jealous. Honestly,
Speaker 4: for seven years I've wanted to do it. It's like
Speaker 4: a matter of getting there, you know. That's the big,
Speaker 4: the big challenge, just getting there. What what would be
Speaker 4: a couple of places you'd recommend beyond Cape Arundel, you know,
Speaker 4: I think that's the one people know the most that
Speaker 4: are accessible and available.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for good reason. Caper Rundle was. It had been
Speaker 2: a while since I've been there, and I forgot just
Speaker 2: how wonderful that set of greens is and and and
Speaker 2: the golf course is a little more spacious than that.
Speaker 2: And the first time I went there, I just had
Speaker 2: this kind of left feeling. It was a shooting gallery
Speaker 2: and there's a little more space out there than I'd realized.
Speaker 2: It was great to be back.
Speaker 4: There's a few back corridors where you got to have
Speaker 4: your hat on the swivel.
Speaker 2: But there was a really cool little nine hole or
Speaker 2: I saw called Blink Bonnie, which is a great name,
Speaker 2: and of course kind of starts off well and now
Speaker 2: you know a few short par fours, and then you
Speaker 2: get to the fifth hole, which is just like this
Speaker 2: phenomenal and really sophisticated. Part three that feels like Donald
Speaker 2: Ross just popped in for a couple of days and
Speaker 2: built a hole kind of out of nowhere. All of
Speaker 2: a sudden, it's wow, this is great. And you get
Speaker 2: to six te and you realize that the sixth t
Speaker 2: and the seventhe or sixth ferry and seventh faerry are shared.
Speaker 2: They're both playing to the same fairway and they're crossing over,
Speaker 2: so you know, if somebody's coming at you on seven,
Speaker 2: you're hitting to the same land here and then crossing
Speaker 2: above them. And then you come back in place seven
Speaker 2: in the opposite direction, and then eight goes straight across
Speaker 2: the seventh green up the hill, and it's just a
Speaker 2: tiny piece of property that somebody pretty clever figured out
Speaker 2: how to squeeze nine holes in and they've been playing
Speaker 2: that way for one hundred years. That was a cool experience.
Speaker 2: The anytime you run into just like clever solutions to
Speaker 2: oddball problems, that's fun to see. I saw a bunch
Speaker 2: of great places Portland Golf Club or Portland Country Club.
Speaker 2: I think it is a great old Ross course that
Speaker 2: they've got a magnificent set of greens and that's that's
Speaker 2: probably the most American golf course I saw of the trip.
Speaker 2: You know that that was well maintained and that it's
Speaker 2: a nice facility and the turf is really good, but
Speaker 2: it's a remarkable set of greens there.
Speaker 4: From Donald Ross, I think that that term that you
Speaker 4: just hit on American style golf, that that's like kind
Speaker 4: of the crux of of what you're what you're talking
Speaker 4: about and what you discovered. And you know what your
Speaker 4: takeaway from mainez is that is that why are we
Speaker 4: bound into this American style of golf?
Speaker 2: Yeah, ironically it's you. I was in an American state,
Speaker 2: but a lot of the golf I saw felt more
Speaker 2: like Scotland or Ireland than it did Chicago or Los Angeles.
Speaker 4: And the benefits of that are more affordable, more accessible, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and maybe for some more fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't have any less fun because all the
Speaker 2: fairways weren't perfect Bangress certainly, you know, there are a
Speaker 2: few places where the greens could have been a little
Speaker 2: faster and certainly mown out to their edges. You know,
Speaker 2: it was cool to see places that were suffering from
Speaker 2: neglect rather than too much input. You know, it's just
Speaker 2: like everything that might have been wrong with the places
Speaker 2: I saw was easily fixed just because they haven't gotten
Speaker 2: around to doing it. So it's neat to just need
Speaker 2: to see things that were kind of more neglected as
Speaker 2: opposed to overworked. You know, I had a few other favorites.
Speaker 2: Pop Scott Valley is a really a really beautiful piece
Speaker 2: of land that Donald Ross did eighteen holes on.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 2: There's just a bunch of great nine holers. Another one
Speaker 2: I don't even know how to pronounce it, Huawanak. I
Speaker 2: think w A W E N O c K A
Speaker 2: really neat nine holer by styles of man Click that
Speaker 2: has this, you know, it's almost a wing foot set
Speaker 2: of greens, wing foot styles set of greens. And of
Speaker 2: course all the greens are you know, little two thousand
Speaker 2: square foot circles in the middle of these six thousand
Speaker 2: square foot pads. But if you push those greens out
Speaker 2: to where you used to be, that would be a
Speaker 2: wonderful place to play. And there's another nine holer I
Speaker 2: stumbled across that I almost don't want to share the name.
Speaker 2: I'll share with you sometime when you go if you
Speaker 2: don't tell too many people. But it's It's just a
Speaker 2: magical little place with one of the quirkiest, coolest nine
Speaker 2: hole golf courses I've seen, and a magnificent open air
Speaker 2: timber clubhouse, and everything about it is.
Speaker 1: Just man magical.
Speaker 4: I'm just going to kill people here. Just no.
Speaker 2: People have to just go to Maine and go to
Speaker 2: every golf course they see until they stumble upon them
Speaker 2: they love.
Speaker 4: And years ago I read something McDonald's sent to Rayner
Speaker 4: about how he had built some of the greatest courses
Speaker 4: from from Saint Louis to Maine. And I've always believed
Speaker 4: that there is a Rainer that nobody knows about in
Speaker 4: Maine because of that letter, and it's just probably hiding
Speaker 4: in plain sight. That's a belief that I have. I
Speaker 4: have a belief that there is this SETH. Rayner golf
Speaker 4: course in Maine that hasn't been discovered.
Speaker 2: Go find it. I know, I'll let you know my place.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Another one that.
Speaker 2: I loved is Kebo Valley. Their golf goes back to
Speaker 2: I think eighteen eighty eight. The original I think six
Speaker 2: holes was laid out by Herbert Leeds and also did myopia.
Speaker 2: That's a wonderful old fashioned golf course with some really
Speaker 2: good holes. Again, the greens could be pushed out. There's
Speaker 2: a bunch of bunkers just like hidden in the trees,
Speaker 2: but beautiful, old fashioned, turn of the century golf in
Speaker 2: a really pretty place right by a Kadian national park.
Speaker 2: You know, half the golf course is actually in the
Speaker 2: national park.
Speaker 4: I guess available to the public too.
Speaker 2: Looks pretty nearly all of them were nearly all of
Speaker 2: them were people, were you other people that are just
Speaker 2: really kind and happy to share their places. And I
Speaker 2: paid a bunch of green fees, but none of them
Speaker 2: are in any way exorbament And yeah, very accessible, very
Speaker 2: affordable and just fun and lobster everywhere, which is terrific
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 4: All right, Brian, thanks for coming on and talking about
Speaker 4: what you've been thinking about. But enjoy. I know you're
Speaker 4: on the way to to lead out get I hope
Speaker 4: you get a lot of golf in today.
Speaker 2: I sure will. Thanks Andy, great to catch.
Speaker 4: Up, Roberto, Welcome on frequent podcast. Guess I got to
Speaker 4: ask you what's the big question that about golf that
Speaker 4: you've been thinking about a lot lately.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the biggest question is and this
Speaker 3: is a question I don't have answers, you'd give me.
Speaker 3: The answers is who is going to bring the big ideas? Like,
Speaker 3: who is going to be that person that brings the
Speaker 3: next big idea that twenty thirty years from now, we
Speaker 3: are so impressed with their career and their innovation and
Speaker 3: foresight and deal making or whatever it takes to bring
Speaker 3: it to fruition. So I've been reading the book about
Speaker 3: Dean Beaman recently and like big ideas, right, Sawgrass basically
Speaker 3: built it on his own stadium golf, Like the scene
Speaker 3: of the Travelers was incredible, and that is a Dean
Speaker 3: Beaman credit, Like it's really because he built a stadium
Speaker 3: where you could jam a few thousand people and get
Speaker 3: great visibility. I know you guys like to knock some
Speaker 3: of the TPC courses, but think about before they existed,
Speaker 3: you couldn't see great. They weren't spectator friendly, Like that's
Speaker 3: a big idea. And then you know the deferred comp
Speaker 3: plan that you know from a player's perspective was a
Speaker 3: huge idea. And there's a big boy, right, you got
Speaker 3: PGA is looking for a new CEO. SSG is new.
Speaker 3: We don't exactly know what that's going to be or
Speaker 3: the you know enterprises. You know, you read an article
Speaker 3: like theo Epstein came in and did a whole deal.
Speaker 3: Maybe theo Epstein's like the guy that has the next
Speaker 3: big idea in golf. I don't know. Seems like Mike
Speaker 3: wand Is wants to leave a legacy. He's got the
Speaker 3: Pinehurst deal, the club and ball regulation feels like a
Speaker 3: started with a small idea what they're doing. Who knows,
Speaker 3: maybe you know that turns into a bigger initiative. Uh live,
Speaker 3: very disruptive, not sure what the big ideas there are.
Speaker 3: And then you know, TGL a very big idea. We
Speaker 3: don't know what that's going to become. But maybe maybe
Speaker 3: that's you know, we're like, hey, Mike mccarly ten years
Speaker 3: from now, twenty years from now, that started a whole
Speaker 3: wave of a different sort of golf. So that's my
Speaker 3: big question. Where does it come from? Who does it
Speaker 3: come from?
Speaker 4: I agree with the Dean Beaman stuff obviously. I think
Speaker 4: like what his big idea completely changed professional golf and
Speaker 4: led to a boom in professional golf. It made professional
Speaker 4: golf what it is today. I think the issue with
Speaker 4: Dean Beeman's idea was it was the idea in the eighties,
Speaker 4: and the tour never evolved from the idea in the eighties,
Speaker 4: and that's where why the state of pro golf is
Speaker 4: what it is now. I'd ask you a question back,
Speaker 4: what do you think the last big idea in golf was?
Speaker 3: If I'd have to think about professional.
Speaker 4: Golf or any golf, any golf, I think.
Speaker 3: In golf, the destination is probably the last. The destination
Speaker 3: golf is probably the last big idea. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think people tie that back to Bandon Dunes, and
Speaker 3: maybe that's right, maybe it's wrong, but that whole world
Speaker 3: is a big part of the golf ecosystem now, right,
Speaker 3: taking that three four day trip and then people scale
Speaker 3: them down to one night ers or the lunch to
Speaker 3: lunch model. But just kind of destination golf I think
Speaker 3: was probably the last big idea that was well executed
Speaker 3: and is a huge part of golf now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the destination golf I think like it also was
Speaker 4: a market disruptor because up until COVID, I've always held
Speaker 4: the belief that, like the thing that nobody really realized
Speaker 4: was that, you know, the Kaisers effectively created a business
Speaker 4: that disrupted the private club model. I think like a
Speaker 4: lot of people my age were, you know, before COVID,
Speaker 4: before the the you know, the desire to have that
Speaker 4: local club came back, people were rather than joining a
Speaker 4: local club saying you know what, I could go. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't have necessarily the time to spend weekends at
Speaker 4: the club all day anymore. You know, anymore, there's all
Speaker 4: the parenting activities, school activities, and now I will just
Speaker 4: go on two of these trips here or one of
Speaker 4: these trips yere, I'll save up. I'll play golf once
Speaker 4: a month or something, and that'll be my relationship with
Speaker 4: golf that I think changed back with COVID. The only
Speaker 4: other idea I would throw out when you asked, When
Speaker 4: you said this question, I just started thinking about, like,
Speaker 4: what was the last big idea? Would you consider top
Speaker 4: golf one of the big ideas?
Speaker 3: For sure? That would be a big one. Yeah, top golf,
Speaker 3: even more so than the simulator, you know, Boom, which
Speaker 3: I think is probably an outgrowth from top golf. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I think if if top golf doesn't exist, then is
Speaker 3: not as successful as it is. I'm not sure you
Speaker 3: have all the five irons, and I mean there's a
Speaker 3: dozen different brands like in the sim space now, and
Speaker 3: I think Top Golf is definitely one, and there's some
Speaker 3: other ones that are probably still tvd Ian. PGA Frisco
Speaker 3: is a really big idea. You know that out Seth Waw.
Speaker 3: I don't know who gets credit for it, but Seth
Speaker 3: kind of oversaw the execution of it. We don't know
Speaker 3: in ten or twenty years, as they host more and
Speaker 3: more championships and you know, Dallas continues to grow. PJ
Speaker 3: Frisco could be a really big idea.
Speaker 4: That's one.
Speaker 3: And then I think Shotlink to give the tour some credit,
Speaker 3: like that was a big investment, and that's you know,
Speaker 3: I think we're twenty two. I think it rolled out
Speaker 3: in like two thousand and one and two thousand and two.
Speaker 3: That's created a ton of fan engagement. Like watching golf
Speaker 3: and following golf is materially different today than it was
Speaker 3: in two thousand, being able to follow just simple shot
Speaker 3: trails on your app and live scoring and then the
Speaker 3: data underneath that. So i'd give them credit on the
Speaker 3: shot Link being a really big idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting what you're these ideas, And I think
Speaker 4: like in most industries. Now big ideas are technology based,
Speaker 4: and some of them in golf are, but like destination
Speaker 4: golf not really technology based. I think top golf is
Speaker 4: like a small part of its technology, you know, it's
Speaker 4: the chip in the ball is but for the most part,
Speaker 4: it's golf with a bar right now, shot link that
Speaker 4: is yeah, shot link, that's all technology. It'll be fascinating
Speaker 4: to see what the next one is in terms of
Speaker 4: is it really technological base like where the world is
Speaker 4: going would kind of point towards that. What would be
Speaker 4: the big technological advancement in golf, whether it's professional or
Speaker 4: whether it's recreational that changed the game, And I'm not
Speaker 4: sure what that is. It could be. I think the
Speaker 4: continued virtual golf, the continued expansion of virtual golf is
Speaker 4: probably something that makes sense because you know, when you
Speaker 4: look at the constraints of golf, it costs and time
Speaker 4: are two of the biggest ones, and those can help
Speaker 4: mitigate that. Maybe it's that, Maybe it's the continued you know,
Speaker 4: growth of at home the ability to play some version
Speaker 4: of golf at home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think Golf plus VR. You know Ryan Engel,
Speaker 3: the company he started, I mean they have impressive numbers.
Speaker 3: I mean they get a lot of usage and as
Speaker 3: VR headsets, I think the new one is going to
Speaker 3: be like three hundred dollars. It's going to be better
Speaker 3: than the last one. I think that has potential for sure.
Speaker 3: And that ties back into a simple when you mentioned affordability, right,
Speaker 3: like who's going to have the big idea on making
Speaker 3: golf affordable and you have land constraints and you have
Speaker 3: cost constraints. You know, it might be a technology solution.
Speaker 3: But I agree with you a lot of I would
Speaker 3: you know, if you're going to bet on a business,
Speaker 3: either like being at the very very top of the
Speaker 3: market or something that everyone needs, I probably go the
Speaker 3: same way in golf, right, I would go with a
Speaker 3: very very simple human desire, which is to be with
Speaker 3: other people and travel like destination golf or drink. It's
Speaker 3: that simple. Like TOP, there were a lot of ideas
Speaker 3: put the bar eight feet behind where you hit golf
Speaker 3: balls and don't move it like top golf is social
Speaker 3: and drinking driven and good for them and it's worked.
Speaker 3: Or I want to go on the complete opposite side, right,
Speaker 3: VR golf, TGL some things that are really going to
Speaker 3: you know, use this whole new world we're entering into
Speaker 3: that becomes increasingly more digital. So I'd go one of
Speaker 3: those two high low you call it high low or
Speaker 3: simple versus tech, but I think it's going to be
Speaker 3: one of those two ends of the spectrum.
Speaker 4: See you don't think it's seventy two holes of stroke
Speaker 4: play at sponsored tournaments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the Team Golf could be a
Speaker 3: big idea, But LIV did not bring any innovation to
Speaker 3: Team golf. Fifty four hole shotguns is not innovation. That's
Speaker 3: like what a Monday charity outing is. You know, we've
Speaker 3: talked about that, and then the team aspect their take
Speaker 3: on it was a big idea and it's materially different
Speaker 3: for the player, but it's player focused. I one hundred
Speaker 3: percent buy into these guys that are on Live that
Speaker 3: are like, Hey, I'm having a blast. I got three
Speaker 3: guys I play practice rounds with, I practice, we travel together,
Speaker 3: Like I feel like I'm a part of something that
Speaker 3: sounds really cool. But you know how many players there are.
Speaker 3: There's forty eight players on live. Even if you did
Speaker 3: that on tour, it affects one hundred and fifty players.
Speaker 3: From a fans perspective. If you watch Live, it's it's
Speaker 3: not really team golf. They're playing individually, they add up
Speaker 3: to score, they're not playing together. They're not so you know, TGL,
Speaker 3: there's going to be more playing alongside these like you're
Speaker 3: playing more alternate shot more like in the same group,
Speaker 3: in the same room, and there's whatever else team golf becomes.
Speaker 3: But that big idea to not not materialize the way
Speaker 3: Live did it, And maybe they evolve and do something different.
Speaker 4: But I so many people hate on the team golf aspect,
Speaker 4: you know, like their team golf doesn't The statement because
Speaker 4: of Live is team golf doesn't work for golf, And
Speaker 4: I think that's actually inherently the false way to think
Speaker 4: about it, that version of team golf does not work
Speaker 4: for golf. And I think they're like the Olympics is
Speaker 4: an example of a huge failure of team golf. But
Speaker 4: then you have the Ryder Cup, which is arguably golf's
Speaker 4: most successful event, and what is it. It's team golf.
Speaker 4: So I agree with this, like I think team golf
Speaker 4: is the only way that you could lift golf into
Speaker 4: a higher visibility range as a sport. How you could
Speaker 4: begin to compete with some of the big sports in
Speaker 4: terms of viewership numbers. It's team golf, the Ryder Cups.
Speaker 4: The thing that pushes that way. The issue is like,
Speaker 4: how do you get somebody to care about the teams?
Speaker 4: And I don't think the TGL necessarily, And I know
Speaker 4: you have involvement with TGL, so you might not be
Speaker 4: able to speak to this in the current form. You know,
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody is going to be I'm a
Speaker 4: Jupiter Links fan or a La Golf Club fan, but
Speaker 4: at least they have the cities, you know, like, at
Speaker 4: least they have the potential. The problem with to me
Speaker 4: with live is like there was no basis for caring
Speaker 4: about It's very hard to be a fan of an
Speaker 4: individual golfer, right. I think that's the code to crack,
Speaker 4: is how do you get someone to care? Like a
Speaker 4: country in the Ryder Cup or the Olympics, that's where
Speaker 4: team sports really thrives, right.
Speaker 3: And there's probably like layers of passion or commitment, right,
Speaker 3: So like country would be first. Argentina played in Atlanta
Speaker 3: a week ago and I had a couple of friends
Speaker 3: that went and they were like, I thought it'd be
Speaker 3: like local people who liked MESSI no, Like there are
Speaker 3: Argentinian people from everywhere that just came to watch this,
Speaker 3: so that would be the top, right, and then like
Speaker 3: go down to your city. I agree with you. I
Speaker 3: think you're not playing TGL matches in LA. But I
Speaker 3: mean from a customer and fan acquisition strategy, it's better
Speaker 3: than naming your team after a place where fifteen million
Speaker 3: people live. That's a pretty good place to start, as
Speaker 3: opposed to naming your team the majestics. Like that's a
Speaker 3: really good place to start if you add up New York,
Speaker 3: San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston, you know, LA, Like you're grabbing
Speaker 3: eighty million people. Sure left Jupiter, Yeah, the ten thousand
Speaker 3: people that live in Jupiter. But let's say South Florida.
Speaker 3: That's a good place to start from a fan acquisition standpoint.
Speaker 3: But you know, and that's why it's a question you
Speaker 3: asked me for a question like I don't know what
Speaker 3: the big idea is. I don't know what it becomes.
Speaker 3: It's that's where innovation and big ideas. You know, there's
Speaker 3: the Steve Balmer clip where he says the iPhone is
Speaker 3: going to be a massive failure, Like we don't know
Speaker 3: what's going to work right, And the argument against the
Speaker 3: Crushers and the Majestics is it's honestly, it's not more
Speaker 3: ridiculous than the Cowboys, the Chiefs, and the Jets. The
Speaker 3: New York Jets is a dumb name. You know what's
Speaker 3: great about it? It's New York at the beginning. It
Speaker 3: goes back to a place. So that is really where
Speaker 3: that was the big miss on Live and the potential
Speaker 3: for future team golf.
Speaker 4: Like you're saying, yeah, I mean I'm a big, big
Speaker 4: book I'll bet and just piss off ten million Jets fans,
Speaker 4: Well you know that. I don't think there's Bears in Chicago.
Speaker 4: They're the Chicago Bears, so that's exactly. I mean, what
Speaker 4: about the Los Angeles Lakers, a place with very few lakes,
Speaker 4: but they moved from Mindeapolis and didn't change their name.
Speaker 4: So I think, like when you unpack, like the team,
Speaker 4: I think one thing that's important. If either of us
Speaker 4: had the next big idea, we wouldn't be we wouldn't
Speaker 4: be telling people we'd be doing building it right now.
Speaker 4: But correct the the thing about Team Golf that you know,
Speaker 4: I think, like, what's interesting about TJL is a combination
Speaker 4: of like two potential big ideas team golf and virtual golf, right,
Speaker 4: and what virtual golf can be. I would love to
Speaker 4: see the idea if you continue to build out the
Speaker 4: identity of these teams, Like is there a potential for
Speaker 4: an in person golf at a stadium, you know, combining
Speaker 4: the stadium golf that's in the city. And I think,
Speaker 4: like when you think about there's destination golf, but oh,
Speaker 4: I'm going to play golf like everybody. I remember, you know,
Speaker 4: one of the things one of the incentives of one
Speaker 4: of my basketball leagues I played in after college, like
Speaker 4: a you know, was that we got to go play
Speaker 4: a game at the United Center if you want. And
Speaker 4: like that's like epic, you know, like you can go
Speaker 4: play you go basketball at the United Center. That's that's
Speaker 4: cool for somebody that is into basketball. But like there's
Speaker 4: also this like idea of connecting the city to the
Speaker 4: golf team with a stadium in the city. Oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm going to play at Jupiter Links and it's you know,
Speaker 4: I'm going to play at their stadium today. Like that
Speaker 4: adds a whole nother element to the team golf model,
Speaker 4: and you could start to build teams around, just like
Speaker 4: in baseball they have you know, you have a pitcher's park,
Speaker 4: so you build a team around that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you already have two things. One, the cost
Speaker 3: of technology continues to go down, right, Like, if you
Speaker 3: assume that that's true, there's potential to play some sort
Speaker 3: of virtual indoor golf in stadiums across the country. Like,
Speaker 3: just because the first version is being built in Palm
Speaker 3: Beach doesn't mean that there's not a version five years
Speaker 3: from now when the cost comes lower, that you can
Speaker 3: spin it up in Sofi Stadium in LA and you
Speaker 3: could play team golf there, you know, in addition to Atlanta, Boston,
Speaker 3: all these places. The second is you already have a
Speaker 3: stadium in LA to play golf. You have eighty golf
Speaker 3: courses or one hundred golf you have Riviera, just pick
Speaker 3: the tour one. You could build teams around cities and
Speaker 3: locations and golf courses, and LA is probably if you're
Speaker 3: going to pick, you know, twelve legacy tournaments to be
Speaker 3: seventy two whole strokeplay events, LA is probably one of them.
Speaker 3: So let's take that one out right. But let's say
Speaker 3: you were going to turn the rocket Mortgage Classic, which
Speaker 3: maybe struggles to find an identity and right now is
Speaker 3: not one of the elevated events. Hey, maybe that's part
Speaker 3: of the team circuit. And there's a team that's Detroit
Speaker 3: and when you go play there, there's there's an identity
Speaker 3: and there's a home field advantage and everyone there is
Speaker 3: pulling for a certain team. And then there's also a
Speaker 3: team in h Like again, these are big ideas that
Speaker 3: someone out there is probably scheming up and who knows.
Speaker 3: I think what's cool, you know, the early you know,
Speaker 3: some of the early articles coming out about what the
Speaker 3: SSG and the PGA Tour Enterprises is looking at is
Speaker 3: like kind of everything is on the table right whether
Speaker 3: it's one hundred fully exempt players or maybe there's a
Speaker 3: B Tour and an a tour like that doesn't feel
Speaker 3: like it's a big idea. It feels like incremental change,
Speaker 3: But that's a start towards professional golf being very different
Speaker 3: twenty years from now, including maybe team golf, including maybe
Speaker 3: you know, stadium golf.
Speaker 1: Who knows.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'd love to see it go in that direction.
Speaker 4: And it's got to go in a new direction. I
Speaker 4: know that it has to go in some sort of
Speaker 4: new direction and there has to be some sort of
Speaker 4: you know, you can't keep banging your head against the
Speaker 4: wall in the same idea.
Speaker 3: Well, think about this, right, the market is more dynamic
Speaker 3: than like an entrenched ecosystem like professional golf. And what's
Speaker 3: happened in the market in golf. Top golf has had
Speaker 3: huge success, sim golf has had huge success. So that's
Speaker 3: basically saying, like this old model of joining a country club,
Speaker 3: we're investing six hours of my Saturday golf looks very
Speaker 3: different for a lot of people than it did ten
Speaker 3: years ago or fifteen years ago, because it's in a
Speaker 3: capitalist market. It's like, if there's a desire out there,
Speaker 3: someone will fill it and try to make money. And
Speaker 3: that is probably just coming to professional golf a little
Speaker 3: bit slower because it's just not as fluid and dynamic
Speaker 3: as an open market. And if that's the case, then
Speaker 3: you're going to see some different versions because that's what
Speaker 3: the fan and the consumer is going to demand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're spot on. I think you know,
Speaker 4: we've seen small tweaks to a lot of other sports
Speaker 4: and attempts to kind of modernize. Obviously, baseball has kind
Speaker 4: of been at the forefront of that, and it seems
Speaker 4: like golf is probably the next one. So Roberto, thank
Speaker 4: you so much for your time, your thoughtful response, your
Speaker 4: thoughtful question, and we'll talk.
Speaker 1: To you soon.
Speaker 3: All right, Andy, good chatting with.
Speaker 4: All Right, that does it for today's podcast. Big thanks
Speaker 4: to PJ Clark for editing producing this podcast. Thank you, PJ.
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