Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a fried.
Speaker 2: Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida fridagg Bride
Speaker 2: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm your host
Speaker 3: Andy Johnson. Today I am joined by the great Shane Bacon,
Speaker 3: obviously longtime friend of the pod, many many times on
Speaker 3: the pod, many times guests. Shane soon great work with
Speaker 3: broadcasting the Corn Ferry Tour as well as a show
Speaker 3: on CBS Sports Network with Patrick MacDonald and Johnson Wagner.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: It has been a while since I caught up and
Speaker 1: talked golf with Shane.
Speaker 3: Uh. It was It was delightful. It's always nice to
Speaker 3: have a real pro on like Shane. He knows how
Speaker 3: to how to talk, how to how to move conversations
Speaker 3: better than me, so it was fun to catch up.
Speaker 3: I we both were on vacation last week. I so
Speaker 3: much stuff has happened in the golf world. Obviously Anthony
Speaker 3: Kim winning and and then all the all I mean
Speaker 3: spent just a banging start to the PGA Tour season.
Speaker 3: So we had hadn't kind of talked about this on
Speaker 3: this pod, and I figured it would be a great
Speaker 3: week to catch up with Shane and kind of talk
Speaker 3: about the start of the year. So I hope you
Speaker 3: guys enjoy Before we get to the pod, Uh, let's
Speaker 3: talk about our friends at Cobaal. This is a company
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Speaker 3: have to say I've had a lot of rangefinders in
Speaker 3: my life. This is the first one that I've had
Speaker 3: that has optical zoom. So just like you can zoom
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Speaker 3: look far this far away look closer or almost like binoculars,
Speaker 3: this has adjustable optical zoom. I think it's super helpful.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's hard when you look in a rangefinder to
Speaker 3: find a flag. I'm color blind. I have a lot
Speaker 3: of trouble with this, especially red flags on green background,
Speaker 3: So that one is that's like a basically I'm just
Speaker 3: like searching for it. Oftentimes have to ask somebody where
Speaker 3: it is as a color blind fellow. But this thing
Speaker 3: with the zoom allows me. It makes it so much
Speaker 3: easier to find the flag and get the flag right.
Speaker 3: I've had a couple of moments in my competitive career
Speaker 3: years ago where I've I've used rangefinder and hit the
Speaker 3: wrong spot and airmail the green and that's not fun.
Speaker 1: That's not fun.
Speaker 3: A friend of mine DJ Pyehowski, I played with him
Speaker 3: at an event. He had a whole one next hole downhill,
Speaker 3: there's some trees behind it. He's still playing the ball
Speaker 3: he was playing. I shot it, thought I hit the flag,
Speaker 3: hit the trees behind. You know what happened, airmail the green,
Speaker 3: lost the hole one ball. That was a real bumber
Speaker 3: for DJ. I felt really bad about my mistake. But
Speaker 3: you know what wouldn't have happened. Wouldn't happened if I
Speaker 3: had a Cobalt because that optical zoom would have made
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Speaker 3: is this is a it has a lifetime warranty, It
Speaker 3: is sold only direct to consumer, and this is this
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Speaker 3: premium product. All right, let's get to Shane. All right,
Speaker 3: I'm joined by Shane Bacon. I'm excited to talk with Shane.
Speaker 3: We did our big deep dive on Anthony Kim, but
Speaker 3: I most importantly I want to check.
Speaker 1: In see how Shane's doing. You were you're a midst
Speaker 1: of blizzard.
Speaker 3: You're you're recording this, you know, during a during a
Speaker 3: you know, horrific snowstorm in the Northeast.
Speaker 1: How are you hanging in there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, we were. The fan was in the Bahamas
Speaker 2: last week and you fly home from seventy five on
Speaker 2: the beach every day to to kind of the dude,
Speaker 2: it's not just the snowstorm and PJ. I'd love to
Speaker 2: have you chime in as well. But it's not just
Speaker 2: the snowstorm. It's the anticipation of the snowstorm that I've
Speaker 2: learned is just as scary when you live in a
Speaker 2: cold area. Andy. I know, obviously you dealt with this
Speaker 2: a lot in Chicago, not so much where you live
Speaker 2: right now. But it's not just the weather. It's the
Speaker 2: four days leading up to it. It's the canceled school
Speaker 2: emails you get a day or two before. I mean,
Speaker 2: everything that exists in my town is canceled today. So
Speaker 2: this is actually a nice break because I was shoveling
Speaker 2: about forty five minutes ago.
Speaker 1: Are you are you?
Speaker 3: PJ can't talk on this, unfortunately, he's in the producer share,
Speaker 3: which doesn't allow him to join in like other podcasts
Speaker 3: we have.
Speaker 1: But the I would agree.
Speaker 3: I the thing I dislike the most is that the
Speaker 3: you can't like the rush to the grocery store like
Speaker 3: it's an apocalypse. Yep, And I get you don't want
Speaker 3: to go around, I understand, but the rush to the
Speaker 3: store starts four days ahead of time, and anybody that
Speaker 3: does grocery shopping if you shop four days ahead of
Speaker 3: time so you can get everything you want by the
Speaker 3: time the snow comes, you're running out of stuff again.
Speaker 2: All gone, especially with kids. Like fruit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like berries don't last, no, you know, very long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, one hundred. It was funny. It's like Hunger
Speaker 2: Games with the grocery stores. It feels like COVID with
Speaker 2: the paper towels. And I was just at a resort
Speaker 2: with the family and they would run out of beach
Speaker 2: towels around two pm. So I just went from like
Speaker 2: this hunger game beach towel situation where everybody would like
Speaker 2: take five to their rooms and just leave them there
Speaker 2: so they had some for later in the day to
Speaker 2: now I'm dealing that with groceries. But I think we
Speaker 2: went twice in the last day kind of preparing for this.
Speaker 2: But alas I know people love talking about cold weather.
Speaker 2: I will say I think there was a jealousy back
Speaker 2: in the day, like early into living in the Northeast
Speaker 2: of watching golf and beautiful areas, and now I just
Speaker 2: love getting to see at least people happy and nice
Speaker 2: weather like Riviera and Pebble Beach in places like that,
Speaker 2: even if it's windy and a little bit cold.
Speaker 3: I think that is you know, I think you know
Speaker 3: this could be wen we can move to talking about
Speaker 3: golf a little bit here. But I think this is
Speaker 3: one of the things I saw a release last week.
Speaker 3: I was on vacation also also in the Caribbean. I
Speaker 3: hadn't been in the Caribbean since my honeymoon. Incredible place
Speaker 3: for kids. Don't I don't think I'm I'm breaking any
Speaker 3: news here. It was like the most rewarding trip I've
Speaker 3: taken in a long time, in the sense of just
Speaker 3: seeing the joy of my daughter's face every day of
Speaker 3: like this the best you.
Speaker 2: Know, you know what we could have been banana boat boys.
Speaker 2: We should have chatted early about h where we're gonna
Speaker 2: be and maybe we could have jumped out of banana
Speaker 2: boat and gone like, you know, island to island or
Speaker 2: something mid trip.
Speaker 1: I do think you were in the Bahamas. I was
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3: They're sneakily far away, I think, like I think one
Speaker 3: of the misconceptions about Puerto Rico, and I think this
Speaker 3: is because it's you know, it's part of the United States.
Speaker 3: You think it's like right where, right where Cuba or
Speaker 3: the Bahamas is, but then you look at a map
Speaker 3: and you're like, holy cow, it is like, it's like
Speaker 3: basically South America.
Speaker 1: That being said, yeah, we could have.
Speaker 3: We could have we could have linked up, we could
Speaker 3: have figured out, we could have jointly discussed this and
Speaker 3: both settled on the same place. I was visiting family
Speaker 3: in Puerto Rico, so I wasn't going anywhere but Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2: Andy, let me let me ask you a family vacation question.
Speaker 2: As a person in the golf world, do you ever
Speaker 2: play golf on family trips.
Speaker 3: I did not even consider bringing my clubs to Puerto Rico. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was with it was a shorter vacation because of
Speaker 3: a couple reasons, and there was no way. I you know, like,
Speaker 3: I think this is like different though I think it'd
Speaker 3: be completely different if I wasn't in the golf industry.
Speaker 3: I think if I wasn't in the golf industry, you
Speaker 3: sneak in a round or two. But because I'm in
Speaker 3: the golf industry and I regularly visit warm places in
Speaker 3: winter by myself, where I play a lot of golf
Speaker 3: the thought of and I'm away from my family a
Speaker 3: decent chunk of time every year, a family vacation is
Speaker 3: an ultimate no fly golf zone for me, what about you.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean totally the same. I mean not even
Speaker 2: an ink clean of a thought. I actually emailed I know,
Speaker 2: the head pro at Albany and I was an a
Speaker 2: I saw, so I emailed him a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: ago just to see if he was around, And it
Speaker 2: was more a thought of midweek on the trip, if
Speaker 2: I want to get away from the family, we were
Speaker 2: thinking about doing kids club one day, could I sneak over.
Speaker 2: I don't really like playing golf alone, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll go play with somebody, but sneaking nine or eighteen
Speaker 2: holes in right now in my life is not something
Speaker 2: I'm that interested in. I'm also kind of losing the
Speaker 2: interest in like ticking the clubs off that was a
Speaker 2: big part of my life maybe five ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Is like, I gotta play golf where I go somewhere.
Speaker 2: I feel like my interest there's kind of waned a bit.
Speaker 2: I just want to play with, you know, my friends,
Speaker 2: or at my club or kind of a relaxing, exciting
Speaker 2: day or a good competition. So no, not a not
Speaker 2: a thought outside of an email where it was like
Speaker 2: I could use rentals, it's thirty minutes away. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna do that.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I think the best the best golf for
Speaker 3: me at this point in my life is when you
Speaker 3: get to do both where you see somewhere really cool
Speaker 3: with friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and obviously I think that for everyone
Speaker 1: is the peak golf.
Speaker 3: Yesterday I played a you know, great new course in
Speaker 3: Florida with a college buddy, and you know, the weather.
Speaker 1: Was complete shit. We got poured on like a couple
Speaker 1: of times. But I'll hold it. It was super windy.
Speaker 3: I'll hold it probably as one of my favorite rounds
Speaker 3: of the year, despite you know, getting like it was
Speaker 3: like it felt like I jumped in the ocean. I
Speaker 3: was illy prepared, didn't have a ranker. It was like
Speaker 3: I jumped in the ocean, fully clothed on the golf course.
Speaker 2: No matter how good the gear is, right at the
Speaker 2: zero station, I didn't have anything to knock me off
Speaker 2: the planet.
Speaker 3: I was completely unprepared, didn't have any was it a
Speaker 3: short stay T shirt. It just got caught in two
Speaker 3: months soons on the golf course. As soon as I
Speaker 3: was drying from the first month, soon a second month
Speaker 3: soon hit me.
Speaker 1: But anyways, the uh what I was.
Speaker 3: Just gonna say, your comment about the enjoying watching golf
Speaker 3: in nice places during winter. The PGA tour, it seems
Speaker 3: like is circling. I saw some headline and I was
Speaker 3: on vacation, so I did not like click into it,
Speaker 3: but I was just scrolling social media during a downturn, downtime.
Speaker 3: I saw the idea of like we want to own summer,
Speaker 3: and I do think there is a certain appeal. And
Speaker 3: when I think about, particularly to me outside the golf world,
Speaker 3: my life before I was in golf, before I did
Speaker 3: this for a living. One of the things that the
Speaker 3: times I watched the most golf was actually during winter
Speaker 3: when I had nothing to do and you know, there's
Speaker 3: a blizzard and I can't go anywhere, and oh I
Speaker 3: can watch beautiful riv Era or I can watch you know,
Speaker 3: Kapellou is obviously one that always stands out in my mind,
Speaker 3: and I do think that is like something they need
Speaker 3: to consider before they do something, do you know, is
Speaker 3: like do we want to give up because in the summer,
Speaker 3: your audience is golfers.
Speaker 1: They play golf right, especially on the weekend.
Speaker 2: I mean that's the key, Like their golf is played
Speaker 2: on Saturday and Sunday, afternoons, you know. I mean it's
Speaker 2: it's a big part of their lives, like right now,
Speaker 2: all my friends, and this has been a brutal winner
Speaker 2: in the Northeast. It's been the toughest one since I've
Speaker 2: lived up here. But this is the most golf I
Speaker 2: watch by far each each year. It's always been my
Speaker 2: favorite time of the year to watch golf when it's
Speaker 2: West Coast golf and you're living on the East Coast.
Speaker 2: And uh yeah, I mean it's I think it's the
Speaker 2: reason they're you know, I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: reasons football is successful, but the most impactful, important parts
Speaker 2: of the NFL and college football season happen as the
Speaker 2: weather starts to deteriorate, right yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think like the other thing about this, And
Speaker 3: we just talked about this as is tangential. I did
Speaker 3: not expect to be talking about this, especially at the
Speaker 3: top of the podcast. But the other aspect of this
Speaker 3: that I think, like a lot of people and this
Speaker 3: is a generational thing. I worked at a country club
Speaker 3: as a kid growing up. I saw the interaction. The
Speaker 3: role you know, I predominant golf fan is is male.
Speaker 3: It's middle aged males, and I will just say this
Speaker 3: as someone who witnessed this. I think the role of
Speaker 3: the father in the family has changed seismically in the
Speaker 3: last twenty five years. And I think it's a generational thing,
Speaker 3: are I you know, I'm speaking of our generation, which
Speaker 3: are like peak parents right now, but also like right
Speaker 3: in the demo of golf fans, like this is we
Speaker 3: are the peak golf fan. Also like the you know, thirties, forties,
Speaker 3: you know, male is just the primetime golf fan. I
Speaker 3: will say that we spend more time on the weekends
Speaker 3: with our children, significantly more time on the weekends with
Speaker 3: our children than the two generations before us. And I
Speaker 3: think that's also one of the tricky things about what
Speaker 3: they're doing. Also, the predominant golf fans are you know,
Speaker 3: you probably go southeast, Northeast and Midwest, and in the Midwest,
Speaker 3: in the northeast, the and obviously you have west coast too,
Speaker 3: But like in the Midwest and northeast, two huge swasps
Speaker 3: of populations of golf fans. One of the big things
Speaker 3: is the weekends in the summer are jammed with outdoor activities,
Speaker 3: and if you're living in this environment where parents are
Speaker 3: spending more times with their kids than ever on weekends. Also,
Speaker 3: that's when these this subset of fans can play golf.
Speaker 3: It is an interesting conundrum of you know, what is
Speaker 3: this the best decision, because like, I don't know, there's
Speaker 3: like if I'm gonna do it, if I was going
Speaker 3: to do it, if I was thinking about it from
Speaker 3: the sense of Brian Rollap or Tiger Woods, who's chairing
Speaker 3: this competition's committee. The way I would think I'd solve
Speaker 3: that is like can we just play all summer long
Speaker 3: on the West Coast in primetime? Because that's the solution.
Speaker 3: And I don't think they have.
Speaker 1: Enough venues.
Speaker 3: Or tournament sponsors that would be able to do that.
Speaker 3: But you know, you know, you think about the doldrums
Speaker 3: of the of the PGA tour schedule. It is like
Speaker 3: July and July in the Midwest, and it's like I
Speaker 3: don't want to be watching golf, but I have to
Speaker 3: because I do it for a living. I want to
Speaker 3: be outside with my kid doing stuff, and instead I'm
Speaker 3: watching golf. And it's that stretch of like Rocket Mortgage three,
Speaker 3: I'm John Deere where You're just like this just does
Speaker 3: not fit the modern.
Speaker 1: Parent schedule.
Speaker 2: At all.
Speaker 1: This is a wrench in the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's kind of that feeling. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're battling this right now. I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm battling it kind of in my current position is
Speaker 2: like where does my time go? Right? So I'm forty two,
Speaker 2: I've got two young kids, I've got a job, I travel,
Speaker 2: I've got a family. I also like to do stuff right.
Speaker 2: I like to occasionally play golf with my friends or
Speaker 2: go do whatever I do right. And then I've got
Speaker 2: these obligations as a parent, and I've noticed that you
Speaker 2: inevitably start to cut stuff out of your life, and
Speaker 2: I've lost Like Andy, you and I have been NBA
Speaker 2: fans for a long long time, and I've found myself
Speaker 2: watching way less NBA that I've ever watched in my
Speaker 2: life over the last couple of years. And that's kind
Speaker 2: of I felt like being the cutout because that's on
Speaker 2: at night, that's when I'm putting the kids down, or
Speaker 2: that's when I'm spending time with my wife watching something.
Speaker 2: And I think people are inevitably going to start to
Speaker 2: cut stuff out as they get in the positions you
Speaker 2: and I are talking about. The interesting thing you said
Speaker 2: about the West Coast deal about the summer. I think
Speaker 2: I've told you this story before, but you know, when
Speaker 2: Fox had the USGA contract, I was a part of
Speaker 2: the coverage at Pebble in twenty nineteen, and I remember
Speaker 2: it went really well. It was our best US Open
Speaker 2: by far. I mean, we'd had Shinnecock right before it,
Speaker 2: and I thought Shinacock went well. But Pebble, I feel
Speaker 2: like when was really really when we were running. You know,
Speaker 2: we kind of had the two teams and Gil Hans
Speaker 2: was a part of it, and like the whole team
Speaker 2: just felt like we were like great synergy. Everybody was
Speaker 2: rocking and rolling. And also we had Pebble Beach right
Speaker 2: which is one of the most beautiful places to present
Speaker 2: golf in the world. And I remember there was a
Speaker 2: really high executive. There was a I think we had
Speaker 2: like the beach club. On Saturday night, they had a
Speaker 2: party for some people and they asked some of the
Speaker 2: broadcasters to come by, and I went by and this
Speaker 2: executive was not a golfer. He had not been a
Speaker 2: golfer and knew very little about golf. He knew a
Speaker 2: lot about TV and business, and he asked me. He said,
Speaker 2: let me ask you a question. Why don't they have
Speaker 2: the US Open here every year?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And of course I kind of explain, you know, the
Speaker 2: US so Open travels around and it goes to these
Speaker 2: different venues. But his point, I think, was why wouldn't
Speaker 2: you have it at the most beautiful golf course in
Speaker 2: the world that presents this well, that's also on in
Speaker 2: primetime on the East Coast, And I think to your point,
Speaker 2: it makes a lot of sense. I guess if your
Speaker 2: roll aup in the team, the questions are what are
Speaker 2: we selling? Are we selling eyeballs? Are we selling TV contracts?
Speaker 2: Are we selling the product?
Speaker 3: Right? Like?
Speaker 2: What are we trying to sell to the masses? And
Speaker 2: also business venture people in the background, investors all that stuff,
Speaker 2: like what's the point of what are we trying to
Speaker 2: get to here? And if it's to get ten million
Speaker 2: people to watch golf, then maybe we do this thing.
Speaker 2: If it's just simply to make the product better, maybe
Speaker 2: we do this thing. And I do wonder. I feel
Speaker 2: like golf's kind of been kind of caught in between
Speaker 2: those two ideas over the last decade or so.
Speaker 3: It's it's extremely as you kind of just hit on.
Speaker 3: It's an extremely difficult dilemma because you know, and I
Speaker 3: want to be clear, you know, there's like I'm kind
Speaker 3: of both sides of this. I've for years been like
Speaker 3: this is insane that we don't have a regular event
Speaker 3: in Chicago, New York, right, Boston, Washington, d C. Philadelphia,
Speaker 3: like these peak golf cities that are also major metro markets,
Speaker 3: major television markets, major you know, huge, huge markets don't
Speaker 3: have regular events. So if you want those regular events,
Speaker 3: they also come with this this dilemma of like what
Speaker 3: time are we playing golf? And and it's a live
Speaker 3: sporting event, and it's so oh like well, like I'm
Speaker 3: not doing something on the weekend outside instead I'm sitting
Speaker 3: in and air conditioning watching pro golf like that it
Speaker 3: kind of like cuts against what you want to do
Speaker 3: at that time of year.
Speaker 2: Yet and then and then it's like it's like when
Speaker 2: you when you're when you're consuming TV in the summer,
Speaker 2: it's just tough for me. I mean, I have like
Speaker 2: the TV outside in the backyard. But to your point earlier,
Speaker 2: there's all these other things you not only feel obligated
Speaker 2: to do, whether it's play with your kids, or you know,
Speaker 2: go get away from the house, spend time outside. If
Speaker 2: you live in a cold weather area. You know, if
Speaker 2: you live in Wisconsin, the last thing you want to
Speaker 2: do on a seventy five degree summer day is to
Speaker 2: sit inside. Right, You're sitting inside six months out of
Speaker 2: the year because you have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, I feel it.
Speaker 3: And obviously this is my job, and generally my response
Speaker 3: to I gotta work is what I say. But you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's Sunday and it's eighty two degrees and my
Speaker 3: daughter wants to go to the park and I have
Speaker 3: to be like, I actually have to sit here and
Speaker 3: watch golf, and then I have to record a podcast,
Speaker 3: which like, hey, I'm blessed, I've I live.
Speaker 1: A great life.
Speaker 3: I've deeply fulfilled, energized and excited to do my job.
Speaker 3: But it just like I think it just I find
Speaker 3: the poll and this is I'm saying this as someone
Speaker 3: who has has to watch this for their livelihood, and
Speaker 3: like I just put myself in the yeah, and I
Speaker 3: put myself in the fan perspective of somebody that does
Speaker 3: not have the I have to watch this for my job,
Speaker 3: and I think I would be oh, I'm going to
Speaker 3: the park every single time.
Speaker 1: If I'm if I didn't have the this is my job.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the tricky thing, and it's you know,
Speaker 3: it goes to you know, the one of the other
Speaker 3: aspects of this is I during the week when I
Speaker 3: have a lot of work calls, when I on Saturday,
Speaker 3: you know, when I you know, Saturday is my family day.
Speaker 3: The way I watch golf is I put my kid
Speaker 3: goes to bed, and I zip through it. If I'm
Speaker 3: not doing something with my wife, I zip through it
Speaker 3: on DVR. So is that the golf that you want,
Speaker 3: you know, is that the precedent I only foresee with
Speaker 3: advances in technology doing that viewing type of viewing is
Speaker 3: going to get more popular, and that's really bad for
Speaker 3: the business model with ads, you know, the television business model,
Speaker 3: right is if you see a decline, you know, like
Speaker 3: I could see like truncated rounds becoming more and more popular.
Speaker 3: But I think the tricky thing and this is something
Speaker 3: that the NBA, you know, has had to deal with.
Speaker 3: And you know, the NBA has a lot of issues
Speaker 3: right now. But like people talk about the talk about
Speaker 3: the sport a lot, but the viewerships in decline, and
Speaker 3: it's because like carving out the time to sit through
Speaker 3: and watch it is like versus like I can watch
Speaker 3: the highlights. It's not a good trend for the state,
Speaker 3: the traditional model of business. And I just, you know,
Speaker 3: it's just something with our talk that that got brought
Speaker 3: up that yeah.
Speaker 2: It's and I'll and I'll say this, Andy, I mean,
Speaker 2: I know we're gonna talk about Anthony kimmin a bit.
Speaker 2: I think Live does a good job of the YouTube
Speaker 2: highlight packages they put together. I mean, they're they're a
Speaker 2: little longer than maybe I want them to be, but
Speaker 2: there are a lot of golf shots and inside those
Speaker 2: highlight packages. I do think they could probably you know,
Speaker 2: cut some of those individual player ones if they don't
Speaker 2: do that already. I haven't really seen those floating around,
Speaker 2: but I do think Live does a really nice job
Speaker 2: of that. And for somebody that's not going to sit
Speaker 2: around and watch Live when something substantial happens on the tour,
Speaker 2: kind of to your point about it being our job,
Speaker 2: I can go watch the twelve minute highlight package on
Speaker 2: YouTube and it kind of fills me on on everything
Speaker 2: I need to know.
Speaker 3: You know, one of My favorite, uh favorite things in
Speaker 3: all of sports is Major League Baseball's app and they
Speaker 3: do this like truncated game. It's like basically like a
Speaker 3: ten minute version of the game, and I feel like
Speaker 3: I know what happened because like I get to see, hey,
Speaker 3: there's two runners on with one out in the fifth inning,
Speaker 3: and this.
Speaker 1: Is how he got out of that jam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what you miss in the sports center,
Speaker 3: you know, thirty second highlight package for sure, but you
Speaker 3: get and it's like, Okay, I feel this and I
Speaker 3: think I'm not positive with this, but I think that's
Speaker 3: only available if you're a subscriber, and maybe that's the
Speaker 3: future of the business model is like hey, we're going
Speaker 3: to actually go like this is one hundred dollars a
Speaker 3: year and you get this package and that's how you
Speaker 3: make up for the declient. But like all, you know,
Speaker 3: all things, like I expect to get on here and
Speaker 3: talk about this, you know, the golf this year has
Speaker 3: been extraordinary. I was like kind of prepping for this podcast.
Speaker 3: I wanted to catch up on like the start of
Speaker 3: the year with you obviously talk about AK and Patrick Reid.
Speaker 3: But when I like started to plot out, like my
Speaker 3: stories of the of the West Coast Swing, which includes
Speaker 3: uh Hawaii through riv and you know, you have a
Speaker 3: K and P read which I think are stories one
Speaker 3: and two.
Speaker 1: But then you go down to like the list of stories,
Speaker 1: like number eight for me is.
Speaker 3: Justin Rose who dusted a good field at at Tory
Speaker 3: And in many years that might be story one, like
Speaker 3: the ageless Justin Rose can he get a major done?
Speaker 3: And this year the golf has been so freaking good.
Speaker 3: It feels like the ratings have been exceptional, and I
Speaker 3: think just the general interest in golf has never been higher.
Speaker 3: It's just a really interesting point in golf and where
Speaker 3: it goes from here. But you know, golf, you know,
Speaker 3: I think in our lifetime me and you, I don't
Speaker 3: think it's ever been so popular in pop culture and
Speaker 3: general population of the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's it's very interesting. I would say
Speaker 2: I'd go back to all the way to last year.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think golf really popped last year. I
Speaker 2: just felt like last season was incredible. You had these
Speaker 2: great stories kind of bookended really when you think about it,
Speaker 2: with Rory at Pebble, then Augusta and then you get
Speaker 2: the Tommy Fleetwood story to kind of wrap up the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour season. It felt big. I mean, obviously Scotty
Speaker 2: gets two majors, it was just kind of like a
Speaker 2: cool season. I know you and I love kind of
Speaker 2: the check marks in terms of history golf, right. I
Speaker 2: know that's something you and I have focused on a
Speaker 2: lot in our careers, is what does this mean historically?
Speaker 2: And I know you and I both root for kind
Speaker 2: of the historical moments in golf to happen. I mean,
Speaker 2: no nock to the no name winners, but I like
Speaker 2: to see guys kind of push their career forward, right,
Speaker 2: And it felt like last year was a big year
Speaker 2: for that, and then on to this year. It also
Speaker 2: feels like andy kind of the return of the old golfer,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, we love the idea of the
Speaker 2: young stud popping up and golf's getting younger and all
Speaker 2: these eighteen year olds are going to win majors and
Speaker 2: all that stuff, and it's just not really happened.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: We saw Jordan Speith get it kind of going early
Speaker 2: in his career. That's kind of been it. I mean,
Speaker 2: Scotty took a few years to get going and now
Speaker 2: he's been incredible. But it feels like golf's kind of
Speaker 2: gone back to what we used to see where guys
Speaker 2: got more comfortable and it seemed like got better in
Speaker 2: terms of understanding their own games. Right now. I mean
Speaker 2: you mentioned Aka, right, he's forty. You got Justin Rose,
Speaker 2: what's he forty five? Adam Scott just plays great at
Speaker 2: riv Like these guys are are thirty forty six. Patrick
Speaker 2: Reid is inching towards forty. It's like these guys are
Speaker 2: not young anymore, yet they seem to be playing their
Speaker 2: best golf because they're probably understanding their game better and
Speaker 2: understanding the practice and the time to put in on
Speaker 2: what they need to put it in. Not to mention Rory, right,
Speaker 2: I mean Rory's gotten better. I think over the last
Speaker 2: five years. He's probably played his best golf of his
Speaker 2: career over the last five years in terms of the consistency.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're.
Speaker 3: I think there's part of like there was a huge
Speaker 3: technological advance in the game between the clubs, the balls
Speaker 3: and track man and then fitness training what went into it.
Speaker 3: And I think that that if you you could call
Speaker 3: it disruption in a way has normalized and we're starting
Speaker 3: to see the return of the It might be slightly younger,
Speaker 3: but you know, we want we talk about young guys.
Speaker 3: It used to be Matt Wolfe and Victor Hovelin and
Speaker 3: Colin Morkwe justin Thomas Jordan Speeth at ages of twenty one,
Speaker 3: twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, coming in and having
Speaker 3: these herculean seasons and efforts. And now you see, you know,
Speaker 3: the emergence of Chris godd her Up, Jacob Bridgeman. These
Speaker 3: are twenty six year olds, twenty seven year olds where
Speaker 3: they're really starting to break through and become household names
Speaker 3: on tour. Scotty is at the peak of his powers,
Speaker 3: but it didn't happen in his early twenties. It happened
Speaker 3: in his late twenties. And that feels a lot more
Speaker 3: normal and a lot more like the.
Speaker 1: Golf that me and you grew up watching.
Speaker 2: Kind of going down the path, Andy, I mean, that's
Speaker 2: something I've really thought about in terms of pro golf. Obviously,
Speaker 2: I cover the corn Faery to and I love covering
Speaker 2: the Corn Faery Tour because I just find it interesting
Speaker 2: and exciting in terms of kind of watching those guys,
Speaker 2: the pock Eaters and the Bridgeman's play through a season
Speaker 2: on the corn Ferry Tour and then kind of get
Speaker 2: to the PGA Tour and you really start to understand
Speaker 2: the way they go about their business. It feels to
Speaker 2: me a little bit like in the old Fox days
Speaker 2: when I got to cover all the amateur golf and
Speaker 2: the junior golf and you saw the Aux Shays and
Speaker 2: the thorpe Jornsen's and the Wolves and stuff kind of
Speaker 2: play their way through junior ams and usams and then
Speaker 2: you got to see them kind of pop as professional golfers.
Speaker 2: But it feels like we've kind of gone back to
Speaker 2: the model of having to go through the process. I know,
Speaker 2: I heard you mentioned on the Shotgun start that feeling
Speaker 2: with Bridgman of you know, this is a guy that
Speaker 2: had to go through it, right, I mean went through
Speaker 2: PJ Tour you, which, by the way, I know you
Speaker 2: gave a shout out to it. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of the success of kind of that process goes back
Speaker 2: to the PGA Tour Lean and into PJ Tour you.
Speaker 2: I think it's the smartest program we've seen probably in
Speaker 2: golf in the last decade or so. It just feels
Speaker 2: like players stay in college longer because they understand the
Speaker 2: importance of it, and they know that they can go
Speaker 2: through if they don't get the PGA Tour card. They
Speaker 2: know they can go through a corn Faery Tour season
Speaker 2: and potentially earn a card if not get to the
Speaker 2: corn Fery Tour for a full season that next year.
Speaker 2: But I mean, Bridgeman's a guy that went through the process. Scott,
Speaker 2: He's a guy that went through the process, right, I
Speaker 2: mean Chris godder Up a guy that went through the process.
Speaker 2: It feels like guys are now doing that versus let's
Speaker 2: turn pro at eighteen or nineteen and roll the dice.
Speaker 2: It's worked out for some of those guys, but I
Speaker 2: mean there are plenty of guys that it hasn't worked
Speaker 2: out for, and all of a sudden they are back
Speaker 2: to the corn Ferry Tour now at twenty five or
Speaker 2: twenty six, when the guys that went through the process
Speaker 2: are advancing to the PGA Tour and are way more polished.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the thing that was crazy about the
Speaker 3: old setup, it's like, you know, you just threw these
Speaker 3: guys out there and you could do the outdoors moments
Speaker 3: in golf, right and Jordan Speth doesn't hit a bunker
Speaker 3: shot that goes in at Deer Deer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had nowhere to play.
Speaker 3: Like just done and is like the whole his entire
Speaker 3: career is different, but like now having some structure of like, okay,
Speaker 3: this is and one of the dirty secrets. Uh. And
Speaker 3: you probably you can't say this on air, obviously you
Speaker 3: cover the corn Ferry Tour, like you know, there are
Speaker 3: there are things when you you you work for this,
Speaker 3: but like college golf plays better golf courses that are
Speaker 3: more representative of PGA Tour golf than the corn Ferry
Speaker 3: Tour does. And this is just one of the difficult
Speaker 3: things about pro golf. It's it's hard to get really
Speaker 3: good golf courses to commit to basically giving up their
Speaker 3: course for two weeks. That's the commitment, right of a
Speaker 3: pro golf tournament, not to mention the decision.
Speaker 2: And I'd say we see it on the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: as well, Right. I mean, you think about the the
Speaker 2: love for Riviera and Pebble Beach and then you go
Speaker 2: to some of these golf courses that I don't necessarily
Speaker 2: think that they propel you to a bigger victory, right,
Speaker 2: they're just there because they can host the tournament.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so, but these college events they play, you
Speaker 3: look at like some of these top programs they schedule
Speaker 3: crazy man god like, and I wish I could just
Speaker 3: be a college golfer in this era where it's like
Speaker 3: I wonder if I have eligibility. I don't know if
Speaker 3: I have the game necessarily, I think I could probably
Speaker 3: like hack it on a on a on a on
Speaker 3: a roster maybe.
Speaker 1: But you know, you think about like their life. They
Speaker 1: fly private and play just great golf all the time,
Speaker 1: and it's like.
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's it's the midim circuit too, andy.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is why these guys like lean heavily
Speaker 2: into the mid am world. It's like the golf courses
Speaker 2: are sick.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you do it?
Speaker 2: Amateur golf, college golf. I mean they play top tier,
Speaker 2: top one hundred style golf courses throughout the season.
Speaker 3: And so you think about it and it's like it
Speaker 3: makes sense that these guys and you know, the big
Speaker 3: change and I think it maybe is five six years
Speaker 3: running now. The big change with this is that the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour, you is this ranking For those that don't
Speaker 3: know of college golfers, and if you finish in the
Speaker 3: top five, you know, if you're number one, you get
Speaker 3: a PGA Tour card.
Speaker 1: If you're in the top five, so two through five.
Speaker 3: You get a guaranteed status on the corn Ferry Tour,
Speaker 3: which didn't used to be the case. You you used
Speaker 3: to just be thrown out in the system and just
Speaker 3: go to Q School and try and get one of
Speaker 3: the spots, which like Q School's fickle. You have a
Speaker 3: bad week, which happens on the on tour, you know,
Speaker 3: it just happens, like that's the nature of golf. You
Speaker 3: have one bad week, maybe you could get food poisoning,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, then you don't have anywhere
Speaker 3: to play golf.
Speaker 2: And I think that's you're playing Mini tour golf in
Speaker 2: Monday qualifiers the whole next year. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: when you're not just talking, I mean, ay, you talk
Speaker 2: about Q School. It's like I've talked to, you know,
Speaker 2: some forty year old corn Fairy Tour players about Q School.
Speaker 2: I mean, Q School's expensive, but it's not just the
Speaker 2: final stage. I mean, these guys that have played pro
Speaker 2: golf for decades talk about second stage.
Speaker 1: A Q school.
Speaker 2: You know, they say it's the most stressful event they
Speaker 2: play in because if you can, if you can get
Speaker 2: the final stage, at least you have some level of
Speaker 2: corn Fairy Tour status the next year. But there are
Speaker 2: guys on the corn Ferry Tour that will skip second
Speaker 2: stage because it's a expensive and be as you mentioned, fickle,
Speaker 2: I think is the perfect word. If they don't play
Speaker 2: great or you know, like you said, they have a mistake,
Speaker 2: the alarm clock doesn't go off all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: you've got kind of nowhere to really play the next season,
Speaker 2: and you're having a lean on you know, invites or
Speaker 2: or kind of past win status to get an opportunity
Speaker 2: to just simply play golf at a place that could
Speaker 2: potentially propel you to the future of what your year
Speaker 2: is going to look like that next year.
Speaker 3: I mean you think about this from like a layman,
Speaker 3: like the real world example. Imagine if your career boiled
Speaker 3: down to like four days a random week, and like
Speaker 3: all the things that can go wrong, Your kid could
Speaker 3: be sick, your wife and kid gets sick, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden you have to take on all these
Speaker 3: like household things and it's like, well, I can't do
Speaker 3: this like my kid, I have to do child like
Speaker 3: I you know, like you think about all the things
Speaker 3: that could go wrong in.
Speaker 2: PJ has like a bad week in a year in review,
Speaker 2: you know, episode, and it's like, man, sorry, bro, like
Speaker 2: you're out. It was December. I know you were. You're
Speaker 2: a little tired. You know, you're out there watching your team,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, you have a job next year,
Speaker 2: and in.
Speaker 3: This profession, you you just tumble down to the ranks
Speaker 3: of nothingness. Like I think you could make the case
Speaker 3: that that PG tour you should be expanded in the
Speaker 3: sense of, like right now six through ten, I believe
Speaker 3: get is six maybe six through fifteen, six through ten,
Speaker 3: get conditional, and then eleven through fifteen get America's Tour status.
Speaker 3: You know. Bridgeman's like a really interesting example got her
Speaker 3: up to in the sense of, like these are guys
Speaker 3: that were flat out studs, I mean, First Team All Americans,
Speaker 3: Best Player Conference Players of the Year. I think both
Speaker 3: of them both didn't get number one status. I think
Speaker 3: Bridgeman was second. I can't remember what got her up
Speaker 3: it was he was probably two or three. They go
Speaker 3: down the corn Ferry Tour they're only there for a year,
Speaker 3: you know, just one year right up. But then you
Speaker 3: get to the tour and it takes like takes a
Speaker 3: while to work your way up the tour, get comfortable.
Speaker 3: You're playing golf courses the first time around. You know,
Speaker 3: Bridgman obviously wins at riv first time around. I don't
Speaker 3: think that happens if it's firm. Not to take anything
Speaker 3: away from Jacob Bridgman, but I think if it's firm
Speaker 3: and fast, I don't I think there's so much nuance
Speaker 3: there that you probably see one of the veterans around
Speaker 3: him win. But that being said, you know, this guy
Speaker 3: is a tour veteran at this point, he's year three,
Speaker 3: got her up. We're seeing this breakout, this ascension. He's
Speaker 3: ranked sixth in the world. Bridgeman's ranked twentieth in the world.
Speaker 3: You know, you see this ascension happen four years after
Speaker 3: they pro And I think that's the thing about about
Speaker 3: pro golf. There's a big transition point of understanding how
Speaker 3: to be a pro.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I mean it's very like a line.
Speaker 2: James Nitties loves to stay on the Corn Faery Tour broadcast,
Speaker 2: especially with these young players kind of like the right
Speaker 2: out of college guys. Is this is not a corn
Speaker 2: Fairy Tour golfer, you know. And I think the point
Speaker 2: is not to take away from the corn Faery Tour,
Speaker 2: but his point is this level of talent is meant
Speaker 2: to be playing on the PGA Tour. And I think
Speaker 2: Bridgman was a perfect example. I think he had fourteen
Speaker 2: top twenty fives and twenty five starts in his lone
Speaker 2: corn Faery Tour season. You know, I mean it's consistency
Speaker 2: that I love to look at, right, I mean it's
Speaker 2: Rory finishing second at riv without his best stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: these are the things that I think separates you. Winning
Speaker 2: is tough, and winning it takes skill, it takes luck,
Speaker 2: it takes chance. But the consistency does it right. That's
Speaker 2: just simply ken you ball or can you not? And
Speaker 2: you see these guys on the corn Ferry Tour especially
Speaker 2: that are just so consistent, and you know that that
Speaker 2: means their games are complete because, as you mentioned, with
Speaker 2: Corn Ferry Tour golf courses, some of them are sixty
Speaker 2: eight hundred yards right, some of them are hit driver
Speaker 2: all over the place and get it up close to
Speaker 2: the green like Utah, it comes to mind. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a very different golf course they're not going to
Speaker 2: see on the PGA Tour. But then you go to Columbus, right,
Speaker 2: and you play a very difficult golf course. You know
Speaker 2: that you've got a ball out. You've got to be
Speaker 2: able to put the ball in the right spots and
Speaker 2: the fairways and the greens, and they're tricky and they're tough.
Speaker 2: I think about the start of the season in the Bahamas,
Speaker 2: and when I see guys play well at all of
Speaker 2: those venues, you really understand that this guy can play
Speaker 2: on the West Coast on the PGA Tour, he can
Speaker 2: go to Florida and play, he can play the courses
Speaker 2: in the middle of the summer, and he can probably
Speaker 2: play late in the season in muggy conditions. And I
Speaker 2: think it's a good indication of what you're going to
Speaker 2: see because when you're consistent on the corn Ferry Tour,
Speaker 2: it's not easy to do that, and when you're consistent
Speaker 2: out there, to me, that's typically that's typically what translates
Speaker 2: to the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I think the thing about golf in general is we're
Speaker 3: all just trying to be more consistent. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: everybody talks about oh, low rounds, and you know you
Speaker 3: kind of celebrate a low round. But you know, me
Speaker 3: as a golfer, I just what I what I despise
Speaker 3: is the high rounds. You know. All I'm seeking is
Speaker 3: to be more like a metronome, where I know what
Speaker 3: I'm bringing to the golf course every day. And I
Speaker 3: think I was thinking about this the other day, and
Speaker 3: I wonder if you could compile a stat of like
Speaker 3: something along the lines. And it's hard because like all
Speaker 3: these events have different field sizes now and different strength
Speaker 3: of but I'd be curious to look at just like
Speaker 3: average finish data or median finished data, or like your
Speaker 3: middle ten finishes and wonder how like that what the
Speaker 3: rankings would be.
Speaker 1: And it might be something. But this was something I
Speaker 1: was pondering on vacation. I find it. I love you
Speaker 1: both off of vacation.
Speaker 3: One thing I love about vacation is I don't have
Speaker 3: to talk about golf, and I just find myself just
Speaker 3: thinking about random things, yeah about golf, And I was
Speaker 3: thinking about, like, what would what would the rankings look
Speaker 3: like if you if you had like middle ten finishes
Speaker 3: of a per year like that, that ranking of like
Speaker 3: what was your middle ten And obviously one of the
Speaker 3: things that golf has is like winning's hard, but there
Speaker 3: is this outside of the importance of winning, like winning
Speaker 3: gives you like crazy flowers. Yeah, Like I think it's
Speaker 3: super impressive when somebody just racks top twenties, like racks
Speaker 3: because like playing a playing a competitive it's just hard
Speaker 3: to put together, you know, a string of like really
Speaker 3: good finishes.
Speaker 1: On the PGA Tour, Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: I was doing CB like the we do like these
Speaker 2: h Q hits before the coverage gets going. And on
Speaker 2: Saturday at Riviera, I was doing one of those where
Speaker 2: you kind of talk about the leaders and you know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of generic golf talk, if you will, about
Speaker 2: what's going on in the tournament, kind of fill people in.
Speaker 2: And I was doing it with Patrick McDonald and I'm
Speaker 2: just kind of looking at the leaderboard. You know, we're
Speaker 2: talking about Bridgeman, and we're talking about Aaron Raye and
Speaker 2: you know, Scottie and all that stuff. And I got off.
Speaker 2: We're probably on for twenty minutes, and I got off
Speaker 2: and I called Patrick and I just said, man, Rory
Speaker 2: is so freaking impressive man. Like I was looking at
Speaker 2: his stats on the week, they weren't that good, you know,
Speaker 2: the putter. This putter stats were better than he was
Speaker 2: putting at the time. Obviously put a terrible on Sunday
Speaker 2: outside of the long win at the last, but just
Speaker 2: the fact that he can roll out of bed and
Speaker 2: finish second and third in these golf tournaments. I know
Speaker 2: winning is important, but I've been on this for a
Speaker 2: long time. Andy. It's like we used to do a
Speaker 2: segment of Golf Channel called Winners that didn't win, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was about the players that had a great
Speaker 2: week or a great final round to hop into the
Speaker 2: top top ten. Scotty's been doing it this year, obviously
Speaker 2: with a great weekend play, but just staying committed to
Speaker 2: golf tournaments too, Andy. I mean I think about that
Speaker 2: a lot myself. If I play in a big amateur
Speaker 2: event or a big man at minim event and I
Speaker 2: make the cut, then what's my goal? Right? Because my
Speaker 2: goal is always to make the cut. So what am
Speaker 2: I trying to do in that final round or final
Speaker 2: two rounds to push myself forward? We're not getting paid, right,
Speaker 2: top twenties not do It's not like I'm getting invited
Speaker 2: into some other golf tournament. So where's that level of motivation?
Speaker 2: And on the PGA Tour, maybe it's financial, but Rory
Speaker 2: doesn't need money, right, So the fact that he's still
Speaker 2: committed to keep pushing, Scotty's pushing for a top ten
Speaker 2: or top fifteen, it just shows their level of competition
Speaker 2: and competitiveness internally and probably why they're different than so
Speaker 2: many other players.
Speaker 3: I guess this is a moment I want to be.
Speaker 3: We both have vacation. People are gonna be but I
Speaker 3: plan to talk about layout and talk about athletic Kim.
Speaker 3: At the top of this podcast, we'll get to ak.
Speaker 2: I want to talk to p Read.
Speaker 3: Another another topic I wanted to bring up here was
Speaker 3: Scotty Shuffler, and I think we need not enough marvel
Speaker 3: is given to Rory and Scotty's consistency.
Speaker 1: As you're hitting on with Rory, like the idea like.
Speaker 3: Riv he played okay, putted bad, probably should have won
Speaker 3: the golf tournament when you think about like the way
Speaker 3: he putted and poa poa has this way, especially POA
Speaker 3: that you know isn't it has been rained on a
Speaker 3: lot has a way as someone who who spent some
Speaker 3: of their life playing Rancho Park late in the afternoon.
Speaker 3: There's a period of my life. God gets terrified in
Speaker 3: the late afternoons. But I've never I've never felt so
Speaker 3: shook and like bent over, like one and a half
Speaker 3: foot pot speaking like I don't.
Speaker 1: Know if I could make this pot.
Speaker 2: I mean the Rory putt on four on I like
Speaker 2: they had the worm gam and you see it come
Speaker 2: off the blade and you're just sitting there, going, well,
Speaker 2: there's no way that's not going dead center. And then
Speaker 2: it's just snaking, snake and snaked and misses right, and
Speaker 2: you can see it on Rory's face, like I don't
Speaker 2: know what to do in this situation to make a
Speaker 2: twelve footer.
Speaker 3: So, you know, the the consistency of these guys is extraordinary.
Speaker 3: But I think one of the big stories of this,
Speaker 3: this big story after after Palm Desert, after the Amex,
Speaker 3: is like, man, Scotty, Scotty might win ten times this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I think you know he he.
Speaker 3: Played he played pretty mediocre at at Amex and just
Speaker 3: ran away with it and and you you got to
Speaker 3: this level, and I think it might have been the
Speaker 3: peak because it's his first event of the year. After
Speaker 3: this dominant to your stretch, this peak the highest moment
Speaker 3: of like this guy is unstopped. And then sure enough
Speaker 3: we have this this thing the crazy thing about golf. Right,
Speaker 3: it's not, you know, nothing cataclysmic has happened to Scotty Shuffler,
Speaker 3: but all of a sudden we're seeing first round struggles. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's a weird thing about golf. Like you think
Speaker 3: these things are going to last forever. And I think
Speaker 3: the likely thing is Scotty's going to come out after
Speaker 3: a week or two off at Bayhill and probably play
Speaker 3: great first round and it's going to be right back
Speaker 3: to normal. But I will just say this is how
Speaker 3: weird things happen in the sport, and how what you
Speaker 3: think will never end sometimes just end.
Speaker 1: And it's random.
Speaker 3: But these are the things that can slow down a
Speaker 3: generational player. We never ever expected in twenty fourteen that
Speaker 3: Rory would just not win a major for eleven years, right,
Speaker 3: But like, you know, what Rory had struggles at one
Speaker 3: point in his career was specifically at majors, getting off
Speaker 3: the bus, getting off the bus and starting the round.
Speaker 3: And I brought this up on the Shotgun Start, but
Speaker 3: it originally aired on this podcast. Jeff Ogilvie talked about
Speaker 3: stroke play, and he talked about stroke play versus match play.
Speaker 3: He obviously had an exceptional record in the matchplay tournament
Speaker 3: when it existed, and he talked about the thing about
Speaker 3: stroke play. It's a different type of tournament. And we
Speaker 3: were just talking about this you're building he called. He
Speaker 3: compared it to building a house, which I thought was like,
Speaker 3: it's the best way to think about about a four round,
Speaker 3: seventy two hole stroke play tournament. The first two rounds
Speaker 3: you're laying the foundation, you're getting the frame of the
Speaker 3: house up, and if you screw that up, you're just
Speaker 3: not gonna win.
Speaker 1: And we've seen some herculean.
Speaker 3: Efforts from Scotty that, like you know, Pebble, where he
Speaker 3: almost wins the tournament despite just you know, a mediocre
Speaker 3: start to the tournament where he's spot in the field.
Speaker 1: This week at rip.
Speaker 3: He's ten, he's five over through ten and he almost
Speaker 3: he almost gets into the top ten of the field
Speaker 3: after being dfl through ten holes in the first round.
Speaker 1: So I think like.
Speaker 3: These little things, these little shreds of doubt, are the
Speaker 3: things that can derail a historic run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I've always thought, and you know, you've
Speaker 2: talked so much about the Sandy I think it's one
Speaker 2: of my favorite points you always bring up is kind
Speaker 2: of that five year window. And I don't think we're
Speaker 2: there yet with Scotty, but that five year window is
Speaker 2: a massive thing that you know, You've discussed a lot
Speaker 2: with a lot of pro golfers. They have that kind
Speaker 2: of dominant run, and then that dominant run starts to
Speaker 2: go away, and then all of a sudden, people are
Speaker 2: wondering what went wrong. And it's hard to be this
Speaker 2: great for the long, right. I mean, Scannie's been the
Speaker 2: best golfer in the world. I mean I kind of
Speaker 2: forgot that he's one Player of the Year, I think
Speaker 2: three straight years. You know, that's such an easy thing
Speaker 2: to sleep on. I mean, you know, nobody's done this right.
Speaker 2: It's just crazy to pull something like that off. But
Speaker 2: you know, I always I always went back to Tiger
Speaker 2: at the Masters, right when he would win those Masters,
Speaker 2: and he'd go out and shoot two under in the
Speaker 2: opening round, like he was just trying to shoot under
Speaker 2: par round level, right, And I think Tiger was the
Speaker 2: best of all time at building the house. To your point,
Speaker 2: in terms of stroke play golf, like Tiger would would
Speaker 2: would think of the golf tournament as seventy two holes, right.
Speaker 2: He didn't need to play great on Thursday. He didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily need to play great on Friday either. He just
Speaker 2: wanted to continue to set himself up and keep putting
Speaker 2: the bricks on top of the bricks so that when
Speaker 2: he got to Saturday and Sunday, when everybody got nervous
Speaker 2: and started to freak out, he would start to play
Speaker 2: his best golf. And I find that with Scotty as well.
Speaker 2: I go back to the PGA last year. He played
Speaker 2: pretty bad that first nine holes right on Sunday, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then it was like he got to ten, flipped
Speaker 2: it on and all of a sudden he was running,
Speaker 2: and you knew he's gonna win the golf tournament. Like
Speaker 2: it was inevitable that he was gonna win that golf tournament.
Speaker 2: And I know the slow starts have happened for Scotty,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure he will figure it out. But that
Speaker 2: doubt is such such an interesting thing in your head
Speaker 2: in terms of being a competitive golfer. Is the moment
Speaker 2: the doubt creeps in. When you're a couple over on
Speaker 2: the front nine on Thursday, all you can think of
Speaker 2: is here we go again. We saw it with Rory
Speaker 2: and the Majors, right, You saw it with I go
Speaker 2: back to St. Andrews a lot with Rory. You saw
Speaker 2: miss couple of putts early, and you just kind of
Speaker 2: saw it in his body language, Oh, here we go again.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna make any more puts on a Sunday
Speaker 2: again when I got a chance to win a major championship, right,
Speaker 2: And and that kind of led into lacc as well.
Speaker 2: A man, I guess I'm just not gonna make putts
Speaker 2: again when I have a chance to win a major.
Speaker 2: And finally he made some putts at Augustin. That was
Speaker 2: a big reason why he propelled himself to a point
Speaker 2: of potentially winning there.
Speaker 3: I think, where the where that that situation of the
Speaker 3: miss putts on Sunday, You know that it becomes just
Speaker 3: the theme. You know, he doesn't make the putts where
Speaker 3: he broke that was Pinehurst, and he made some on
Speaker 3: the middle of the back nine of Pinehurst, and then
Speaker 3: it comes down at the end and he misses a
Speaker 3: couple shorties and it's like it's so it's such a
Speaker 3: freaking hard game. And I think the thing that we
Speaker 3: don't talk enough about is how Scotty Shuffler's had this
Speaker 3: like kind of charmed existence and that's been a huge
Speaker 3: part of his you know run here, is that he's
Speaker 3: never had a moment of scar tissue. He's been he's
Speaker 3: kind of just like floated through here. And when you
Speaker 3: get these minimal these just like little shreds of doubt,
Speaker 3: they compile and I'm I'm really fascinated to watch this
Speaker 3: kind of next stretch of Scotty Shuffler in the sense
Speaker 3: of like last year, the slow start was very clear
Speaker 3: the hand. You know, this year, though you know he
Speaker 3: played Palm Springs, he wins, and I'm you know, he's
Speaker 3: just set this absurd standard, absurd standard where it's kind
Speaker 3: of surprising when he doesn't win or he's not like
Speaker 3: right in the mix and in this first round thing.
Speaker 3: These are things that can wear on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean you start to think about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I know you've done this in
Speaker 2: tournament golf. I've sure done it in tournament golf where
Speaker 2: you're in one of those rut runs of playing competitive golf,
Speaker 2: and all you're trying to do is get out of
Speaker 2: the gate. Right, You're playing a qualifier and all you're
Speaker 2: trying to do is be even par through four holes,
Speaker 2: and you bogie the first or you miss a four
Speaker 2: foot or on two, and you're just sitting there looking
Speaker 2: at yourself, going, I can't believe I'm doing this again.
Speaker 2: And then there are times where you're playing great golf
Speaker 2: and you're not even worried about the start. You know
Speaker 2: you're gonna get out running and play some solid golf,
Speaker 2: and that like, when you have it, you're never gonna
Speaker 2: lose it. When you don't have it, you feel like
Speaker 2: you're never gonna get it back again. I don't think God,
Speaker 2: he's right there. Obviously he's played some really good golf
Speaker 2: despite those bad starts. But I'll be very interested in
Speaker 2: the body language and the way he goes about his business.
Speaker 2: If he's won over through six at the Players on Thursday, right,
Speaker 2: or if he shoots thirty eight, you know, on the
Speaker 2: opening nine at Augusta on a Thursday, Like, where does
Speaker 2: he go from there? Because to your point, you start
Speaker 2: to think, is this who I am? Now? And golf
Speaker 2: does that man, even to the best in the world.
Speaker 2: It does it. It did it to Tiger, It's done
Speaker 2: to Phil, it did it to Ernie, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: all these guys that are great during our era of
Speaker 2: golf had moments where it wasn't as easy as it looked, right,
Speaker 2: and as easy as they made it look when they
Speaker 2: were rocking and rolling.
Speaker 3: I say this to my friends who are eighteen handicaps,
Speaker 3: twenty handicaps. Anybody I'm beat that tells me, well, I
Speaker 3: suck at golf, I say, well, good news. Everybody in
Speaker 3: the world, even the best player in the world, thinks
Speaker 3: they suck at golf. The freak beating of the sport.
Speaker 3: It's what it gets you to do. And that's the
Speaker 3: issue with like having a stretch of where you play
Speaker 3: bad first rounds, you begin to say to yourself, I suck, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And what's that keeps in.
Speaker 1: It's it leads to just issues.
Speaker 3: And I'm I think Bayhill, the players fascinating subtopic is
Speaker 3: just Scottie Shuffler in the first round is almost must
Speaker 3: see TV at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Andy, I just want to say on Scotty,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm very interested and I said this to
Speaker 2: start the year. I'm always interested in the guys year
Speaker 2: after the year. You know, Xander had a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago then obviously, I mean he battled a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff last year. What do you do the year
Speaker 2: after your year? You know Rory's year was fourteen, right,
Speaker 2: when when's two majors? Like, what are you going to
Speaker 2: do the next year? Because you had that year the
Speaker 2: Pinnacle season where you did all this crazy stuff and
Speaker 2: you you kind of won the events. She hadn't won yet.
Speaker 2: With Scotty's case, obviously wins two majors, this is the
Speaker 2: year after the year, you know where you going to
Speaker 2: pick up another two majors Because if you do that,
Speaker 2: now we're talking about top three, top four all time, right,
Speaker 2: And if you don't do that, now you've got to
Speaker 2: go another year where you got to start to think
Speaker 2: about the major championships and you start to think about
Speaker 2: the drought. So I'm very interested in Scotty in the
Speaker 2: big events this year, the majors and the players to
Speaker 2: see what he can do if he picks up another
Speaker 2: even just one this year, I think is huge for
Speaker 2: the progression of of If Scotty's going to get to seven, eight, ten,
Speaker 2: majors in his career, but it's always the year after
Speaker 2: the year.
Speaker 3: Expectation management sneaky killer with golf is how do you
Speaker 3: keep your expectations low when you've had immense success at
Speaker 3: any level, any level of golf? And this is so
Speaker 3: often I think you talk to so many just recreational players.
Speaker 3: They tell you about their best round ever, and then
Speaker 3: how they shoot their worst round in months the round
Speaker 3: after all this under like, how do you keep your
Speaker 3: expectations low when you've had a run of success. It's
Speaker 3: so challenging, But the key to golf is not to
Speaker 3: have expectations. All right, Let's take a quick break and
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Speaker 3: Anthony Kim discourse.
Speaker 1: I I think.
Speaker 3: I understand he's a polarizing figure if you follow his
Speaker 3: Twitter feed. Obviously a lot of his struggles in life
Speaker 3: have been self induced. But that's what we're all trying
Speaker 3: not to do, is get ourself in trouble. And we
Speaker 3: all all step in the mud in various ways, and
Speaker 3: and that is like kind of one of the challenges
Speaker 3: of life, like you're you're going to cause yourself problems.
Speaker 3: Anthony Kim had a wide rave problems and and you
Speaker 3: know it caused him to step away from the game
Speaker 3: for a long period of time, twelve years. Shane, me
Speaker 3: and you, we we are the age that we saw.
Speaker 3: We've seen the full arc of Anthony Kim. We saw
Speaker 3: him burst onto the scene, this charismatic, swashbuckling player who
Speaker 3: just had all the shots, this charisma, this energy, this
Speaker 3: excitement to the downward spiral, wondering where he was. You know,
Speaker 3: much of our professional career was fired and well if
Speaker 3: Anthony Kim ever came back, he comes back to Live.
Speaker 3: You can have a lot of opinions about Live. You
Speaker 3: can have a lot of opinions. I'm not saying any
Speaker 3: of these opinions are wrong, but I'm going to say
Speaker 3: that this is one of the most remarkable comeback stories
Speaker 3: in all sports. He takes twelve years away, he does,
Speaker 3: you know, things that just destroy your body, your mental capacity,
Speaker 3: and he comes back and he wins Live Adelaide, their
Speaker 3: kind of flagship event. And it's not like he beat
Speaker 3: Charles Schwartzel aged Charles Schwartzel or.
Speaker 2: Won and who was going to get the bullet there
Speaker 2: by the way.
Speaker 3: It's not like he outdueled Lee Westwood. Down the stretch
Speaker 3: he plays, he starts, He starts five shots back of
Speaker 3: John Rahm and Bryson de Shambeau, who unequivocally, if you
Speaker 3: ask somebody, ask people the rank golfers are top no
Speaker 3: worse than top seven, two top seven golfers in the world.
Speaker 1: I don't think you could get them lower than that,
Speaker 1: no worse than that.
Speaker 3: He starts five shots behind two top seven players in
Speaker 3: the world and absolutely dusts them, kind of like has
Speaker 3: a ceremonial procession to finish down the closing stretch of golf.
Speaker 3: Whereas like I, you know everything, you can say whatever
Speaker 3: you want about the broadcast. They we make a lot
Speaker 3: of fun of the live golf broadcasts. But I don't
Speaker 3: know how you don't almost get out over your seas
Speaker 3: with this story.
Speaker 2: This is I just.
Speaker 3: I can't. We did the pod when he came back,
Speaker 3: and we talked about how like this is going to
Speaker 3: take a lot of time. I did not have this
Speaker 3: anywhere in the realm of possibilities of happening in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty twenty twenty six. What were you thinking about with
Speaker 3: the Anthony Kim whin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think, you know, I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of young people that listened to the Shotgun
Speaker 2: Start and Fried Egg and they probably.
Speaker 1: Watched your show with Patrick McDonald.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they probably don't don't quite understand like
Speaker 2: who Anthony Kim was to people like you and me,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, he's two years younger than me.
Speaker 2: I just missed him in turn of the aj G
Speaker 2: A circuit, I was a little bit more like James
Speaker 2: Vargas Casey Wittenberg era of AJGA. But we all had
Speaker 2: heard of this guy, and he was so impressive and
Speaker 2: he was so good at golf. But I think the
Speaker 2: key here was so different, you know. I mean Tiger
Speaker 2: came on and made golf quote unquote cool. I think
Speaker 2: Anthony Kim pushed it even further along in terms of
Speaker 2: how cool golf could be. He was very different. The
Speaker 2: way he swung, the way he played, even the way
Speaker 2: he held the golf club looked different. And you know,
Speaker 2: Anthony Kim was the Rory before Rory. You know, Anthony
Speaker 2: Kim won, you know, he won it at Wells Fargo
Speaker 2: or Truest whatever you call it now. He won two
Speaker 2: years before Rory famously won there. You know, I mean
Speaker 2: this was our guy. Really when you think about our
Speaker 2: era's next up player, man, I think obviously that, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean the the the Ryder Cup, you know, was
Speaker 2: a big part of that as well. I've been lucky
Speaker 2: enough to talk to Paul Easinger a lot about that,
Speaker 2: that Ryder Cup, you know, where he kind of put
Speaker 2: him out there and he was an energy guy and
Speaker 2: you know, paired him up with the guys he paired
Speaker 2: him up with, and he just loved AK and he
Speaker 2: loved the energy. Famously ak walking off the green in
Speaker 2: his singles match, not really letting he'd even won the match, right,
Speaker 2: That's how kind of dialed in Anthony Kim was. But
Speaker 2: to see him go away and to come back, I
Speaker 2: think he nailed it. I mean, never in my wildest
Speaker 2: dreams that I think he's gonna win a year into
Speaker 2: this project. I mean, winning any professional event is tough.
Speaker 2: His finishes were very, very bad, right, I mean he
Speaker 2: didn't have a top twenty five. I don't think on
Speaker 2: liv to the point before he gets the victory. And
Speaker 2: I think you said it as well. The way he
Speaker 2: did it, shoots sixty three, makes putt after putt down
Speaker 2: the stretch, the reactions, you saw, the emotion. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is why we watched sports Man. We watched sports
Speaker 2: because we want to see greats or we want to
Speaker 2: see redemption stories, and we got to see one. And
Speaker 2: I think you called the broadcast out. I know it
Speaker 2: was easy to kind of laugh at at some of
Speaker 2: the Ben Hogan comps and things like that, But if
Speaker 2: I'd have been in the chair, you know, wrapped up
Speaker 2: in that moment, getting to call a moment like that,
Speaker 2: understanding what you were seeing in real time, I would
Speaker 2: have probably gone down those roads well, because that's how
Speaker 2: big it felt. And if you're a golf fan the
Speaker 2: last twenty years, Anthony Kim was like one B two
Speaker 2: way to be in terms of the most popular figures
Speaker 2: in golf for probably a five year stretch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean, I think like it.
Speaker 3: Just again, I want to like reiterate, I you know,
Speaker 3: I think I don't really agree with Anthony Kim's world
Speaker 3: views in a lot of sense just strategic from his
Speaker 3: Twitter page.
Speaker 1: I do, I do, just I think this the performance
Speaker 1: moved me.
Speaker 3: I was sitting in an Airbnb in Chicago by myself,
Speaker 3: glued to the TV late at night, and it made
Speaker 3: me just like think about.
Speaker 1: All the things, like.
Speaker 3: You know, the the idea of like not giving up,
Speaker 3: and I think they're there was such power to it,
Speaker 3: like where you get in certain points in life and
Speaker 3: different things, and this is where for me the moment
Speaker 3: kind of transcended golf and it was a life moment,
Speaker 3: a reminder of Hey, like so it's so easy to
Speaker 3: look back, regret and almost give up when you feel
Speaker 3: like you missed an opportunity. Anthony Kim, he he has
Speaker 3: to have these these thoughts and have had these thoughts
Speaker 3: of like I wasted my talent, I wasted.
Speaker 1: A something that people would kill for. And the fact
Speaker 1: that he clearly put the work in.
Speaker 3: You just can't. And we saw this like he took
Speaker 3: twelve years off, he came back, he was flat out
Speaker 3: awful at golf. But like that was not I'm not
Speaker 3: saying that as like I was expecting him to be good.
Speaker 3: I knew he was going to be bad, but the
Speaker 3: work he put in it just it just resonated me
Speaker 3: so much with a life level of Hey, we all
Speaker 3: look back and regret like missed opportunities, but that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that it's over. It doesn't mean that it's over.
Speaker 3: You just have to keep your mind on the present
Speaker 3: and working towards where you want to get to. And
Speaker 3: here Anthony Kim, who like flushed a good part portion
Speaker 3: of his life down the tubes. You know, I think
Speaker 3: he like drugs, obviously alcohol. He came out and has
Speaker 3: rededicated himself to golf, his family, living a sober lifestyle,
Speaker 3: which I think, you know obviously is big for him.
Speaker 3: And he has been able to overcome like all the
Speaker 3: things that would haunt so many people in terms of
Speaker 3: like the idea of wasting his talent and it's just
Speaker 3: I just can't It was extraordinary, extraordinary, feat extraordinary win.
Speaker 3: And if he misses, if he finishes fiftieth the rest
Speaker 3: at the rest of his career, at every event on LIV,
Speaker 3: I don't care. That was one of the greatest moments
Speaker 3: in golf in the last three decades, him winning that event,
Speaker 3: and I just I'll never forget it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, for people, I think sometimes
Speaker 2: you forget how long ago Anthony Kim was relevant as
Speaker 2: a professional golfer. Let me read you the players that
Speaker 2: finished the runner up to him and his wins back
Speaker 2: when he was like a PGA Tour player. He beat
Speaker 2: Ben Curtis, Freddie Yakubsen, who I called on the on
Speaker 2: the Champs Tour last year, Von Taylor, and Sean O'Hare.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, I mean, that's that generation, right, like
Speaker 2: that that's the generation before this generation. So I mean
Speaker 2: Hunter Mayhan as well beat him in a playoff like
Speaker 2: this was that era of golfer and the fact that
Speaker 2: now he's got to win over John Rahm and Bryce
Speaker 2: and the Shambo at this point in his life. To
Speaker 2: your point on all the obstacles he's overcome. It Like
Speaker 2: this stuff doesn't happen that often in sport. You know,
Speaker 2: you don't go away and come back and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden win. You know, you might come back and
Speaker 2: show up, you know. I think we get into this
Speaker 2: this idea of Tiger still winning a major championship, and
Speaker 2: I think you and I both understand physically he's probably
Speaker 2: never going to be able to play four days of
Speaker 2: competitive golf and be able to be physically, you know,
Speaker 2: sound enough to compete at that level. Plus obviously the
Speaker 2: rust with the golf game. I know there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people online that are like, oh, Tiger's come back
Speaker 2: to the Masters, maybe I'll win. I just don't think
Speaker 2: that that's feasible considering all this stuff he's gone through physically,
Speaker 2: not necessarily with the rust on the golf game, but
Speaker 2: the fact that this guy can depart from from the game.
Speaker 2: And I think one thing with Anthony Kim we forget
Speaker 2: about is it's not just to you went away from
Speaker 2: golf like he disappeared from life. You know, you'd hear
Speaker 2: these reports of people that had that had seen him
Speaker 2: in Dallas. I remember trying to get him on my
Speaker 2: first ever podcast for years, you know, just just hounding
Speaker 2: people that I knew, kind of knew somebody that knew him,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It was like radio silence
Speaker 2: anytime you'd bring that up. I mean, it was Anthony
Speaker 2: Kim and Ty Tryon for me, Like those were the
Speaker 2: two guys that I was always very interested in because
Speaker 2: those were our guys growing up. But the fact that
Speaker 2: he's now back in twenty six a winner in professional golf,
Speaker 2: to your point over the two names like this, it's
Speaker 2: it's astonishing, it's impressive, and I mean, you've got to
Speaker 2: love the story. Just to your point about resilience and
Speaker 2: a comeback story, we love that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know, there's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 3: like where does he go from here? Can you play
Speaker 3: his way into majors? And I just cares forever be
Speaker 3: amazed at the to climb the mountain again after dealing
Speaker 3: with so much and and it and everybody's gonna point
Speaker 3: out it was majority of it was self inflicted. But
Speaker 3: that's one of the challenges of life.
Speaker 2: Is that you probably the hardest challenge in life is
Speaker 2: if you do it to yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and like that that that's what life is.
Speaker 3: It's like trying to avoid doing it to yourself like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: yourself is often the thing that gets in your way
Speaker 3: the most often.
Speaker 1: And I just am it's it's amazing.
Speaker 3: It is is a truly unbelievable story. And you know,
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know what to expect going forward
Speaker 3: for him, but he will. I I just find it
Speaker 3: hard to believe that there will be a bigger story
Speaker 3: in golf this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: It was really cool, and he's overshadowing the other big
Speaker 3: story in golf, which I wanted to talk to our
Speaker 3: boy Patrick Reed.
Speaker 2: He all came, I'm gonna win the Masters. I'm just
Speaker 2: saying that right now. He's gonna be my pick if
Speaker 2: he didn't fall completely off in the next month and
Speaker 2: a half to be my pick.
Speaker 1: This is extraordinary.
Speaker 3: He you know the arc of this for those that
Speaker 3: haven't followed, He's he's playing that like opening kind of
Speaker 3: hit and giggle DP World Tour Event, European Tour event,
Speaker 3: and he just like points out that he doesn't have
Speaker 3: a signed contract for live and he doesn't know what's
Speaker 3: going to happen. Then he He's like, I'm not going
Speaker 3: back to live. I'm gonna play the DP World Tour
Speaker 3: in hopes of earning my card. Since he's done that,
Speaker 3: He's played three deep World Tour events. Uh, he's finished first,
Speaker 3: he lost in a playoff, and then he finished first again,
Speaker 3: so he's lost too.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 3: Another polarizing figure in golf, extremely polarizing I but I
Speaker 3: just sit back and I'm marvel at the competitive spirit here.
Speaker 2: Andy. I find myself rooting for Patrick Reid, which is
Speaker 2: a very strange feeling. I don't know if you feel
Speaker 2: the same sensation.
Speaker 1: But the exact same way.
Speaker 2: I'm waking up early, Like I always joked that Rory
Speaker 2: was the only guy that would make me wake up early.
Speaker 2: And Jordan's probably in there as well, but he obviously
Speaker 2: didn't play as much DEP World Golf. But I'd say
Speaker 2: I'd wake up to watch Rory play a European Tour event,
Speaker 2: like I'm always going to wake up to watch him play.
Speaker 2: And I'm like waking up earlier than my kids to
Speaker 2: watch these random European Tour events to watch pe do
Speaker 2: his thing.
Speaker 3: He the thing I think about Patrick Reid that he's done,
Speaker 3: He's had this like crazy career, yep. And he is
Speaker 3: like living in this era of power, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: great drivers of the golf ball, great iron players, and
Speaker 3: I think Patrick Reed is a is a very good
Speaker 3: iron player, but the way he gets it done is
Speaker 3: so anti that of every other top flight you know,
Speaker 3: and we're getting work. We're past ten years of Patrick Reid.
Speaker 3: Like again, we talked about the five year window, the
Speaker 3: ten year window. I mean, Patrick Reid is going to
Speaker 3: be a twenty year very good player when it's all
Speaker 3: said and done. I think he's going to get to
Speaker 3: twenty years of high level play. Now he's never he's
Speaker 3: some of the things is like his his traits, his tools,
Speaker 3: his you know, his inability to drive the golf ball
Speaker 3: exceptionally well, you know, prohibits him from winning at certain places.
Speaker 3: Although I point out he won at Bethpage Black. You know,
Speaker 3: now there's obviously even wild there's obviously the Bunker thing,
Speaker 3: you know that happened there along the way. He's had
Speaker 3: all these tribulations, but god, is this guy is not
Speaker 3: one of the most fascinating careers of our lifetime. It is.
Speaker 3: It is extraordinary and at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: like you got to like it. Just admire the sheer
Speaker 3: competitiveness of this guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean thirty five years old now, I mean
Speaker 2: you think about kind of it feels like right now,
Speaker 2: probably in the prime of his life. Wins his first event.
Speaker 2: You talk about staring players down, right, he wins for
Speaker 2: the first time on the PGA Tour over Jordan Speed,
Speaker 2: like jordan'spiece. The guy in golf right, beats him in
Speaker 2: a playoff, wins is his lone major alongside Rory, you know,
Speaker 2: which is like the figure that you don't want to
Speaker 2: play against. I mean he's taken down Bryceon and Ricky
Speaker 2: and these Xander, these big time players. I think there's
Speaker 2: an argument to be made that there might not be
Speaker 2: a more confident golfer in the world over the last
Speaker 2: decade than Patrick Reid. Like you talk about believing in
Speaker 2: your elf and believing in your game, and I mean,
Speaker 2: you nailed it. This is not the modern player that
Speaker 2: you expect to be this good. He's got nine wins
Speaker 2: right on the PGA Tour. Obviously, he's won the Masters
Speaker 2: you mentioned, you know, kind of these random events he's
Speaker 2: won at, but he's won all over the world, Like
Speaker 2: he's won on the DP World Tour. I mean he's one,
Speaker 2: you know in Dubai. I mean he's one on Live now,
Speaker 2: He's won in China. Like, this guy's kind of won
Speaker 2: all over and he feels more hungry now than he's
Speaker 2: ever felt to continue this push. Like he's gonna play Australia, right,
Speaker 2: He's gonna play the Australia Swing. He's gonna play all
Speaker 2: over the world, and like, almost like Rory, I feel
Speaker 2: like he's interested in taking down national opens and seeing
Speaker 2: how his game kind of stacks up in Japan and
Speaker 2: in Australia, in South Africa. Like he's kind of like
Speaker 2: what you want in a pro golfer in that sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And obviously, I mean controversy follows him, maybe not
Speaker 3: as much now, but early in his career there's the
Speaker 3: number of controversies surrounding him.
Speaker 1: But I think like that it's like a whole other
Speaker 1: podcast that has.
Speaker 3: Like kind of muddied the water, made it Ina unable
Speaker 3: to see at the core of this guy. He is
Speaker 3: very clearly a golf savant on like so many levels,
Speaker 3: like maybe one of the greatest golf mines. That's the
Speaker 3: only way to explain how he's been able to hack together,
Speaker 3: which he's he's bumping up on a Hall of Fame
Speaker 3: career in an era dominated by power and like the
Speaker 3: you have to be able to drive the ball far
Speaker 3: and straight to have success or at least far. This
Speaker 3: guy drives it short and crooked, and he's putting together.
Speaker 3: I think he's going to get to a Hall of
Speaker 3: Fame career.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean he's won right now on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: He's a win away from ten one at Augusta National.
Speaker 2: He's won two FedEx Cup playoff events, he won two wgc's,
Speaker 2: he's won at Tory, like ran away at Tory. You know,
Speaker 2: he's been very, very impressive at Augusta National. Maybe not
Speaker 2: so much outside of the Masters. He hasn't been great
Speaker 2: at US Opens in his career. I think he's got
Speaker 2: one top ten at an Open Championship as well. But
Speaker 2: I really think he's going to have a second Green
Speaker 2: jacket before his career's done. He's finished in the top
Speaker 2: ten at Augusta four of the last six years, obviously
Speaker 2: finished third alone last year. But the game, it just
Speaker 2: makes the most sense of that golf course. He can
Speaker 2: miss some fairways and get away with it, but the
Speaker 2: short game. The pitching, chipping is his strength and you
Speaker 2: got to do that as well as anybody around Augusta National.
Speaker 2: I'd be shocked if he doesn't win a second time
Speaker 2: there at some point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if I go that far.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say shocked, because just crazy things happen there
Speaker 3: and it's so freaking hard to win. But you're spot on.
Speaker 3: You think about the guys that have been just like that,
Speaker 3: maybe you say would like outperform. You know what your
Speaker 3: expectations are of them at Augusta, Patrick Red, Jordan Speith,
Speaker 3: you know, in the sense of like Scottie Scheffler, these
Speaker 3: guys all are just exceptional around the greens. It's the
Speaker 3: underrated skill of Augusta, Nashville.
Speaker 1: And Rory and Rory.
Speaker 2: I think it's the most underrated part of anybody's game
Speaker 2: and professional golf is the fact that we don't give
Speaker 2: Rory enough credit for how good he is around the greens.
Speaker 3: Decki, Sergio, all these guys, I think, the the ability
Speaker 3: to have the confidence to not take the bait at
Speaker 3: Augusta and just dump it to safe spots to chip
Speaker 3: and know, hey, I can get up and down from
Speaker 3: over here, even though it's like it's not a very
Speaker 3: challenging chip for somebody that is not, you know, really
Speaker 3: confident there. I mean that is the superpower of Augusta
Speaker 3: is like the ability to have the confidence to know
Speaker 3: that you don't have to take on shots that you
Speaker 3: don't want to take on. I am I'm so excited
Speaker 3: to see kind of the rest of the year for
Speaker 3: Patrick Reed. Is this just a hot run or is
Speaker 3: he really like top ten player? Is it? And I
Speaker 3: think he's going to be. You know, it's amazing you
Speaker 3: have Rory and Scottie. Is he story see at going
Speaker 3: into the Masters? Is that where he's at?
Speaker 2: That's wild? I mean my opinion, it's just yeah. I
Speaker 2: mean it's like it's because again, when you think about
Speaker 2: the other characters, right, Bryson's not been playing really great
Speaker 2: golf basically since his early run last season. I feel
Speaker 2: like Xander's still a question mark. Colin whatever we can
Speaker 2: get into. I mean, Collin's played well at Augusta National.
Speaker 2: Obviously getting the win is big, but I feel like
Speaker 2: the usual characters aren't quite there. And so to your point,
Speaker 2: I think Patrick, I think cap he might be right there, man,
Speaker 2: get him, get into the storyline. Does he get the
Speaker 2: press conference earlier in the week is the question. I
Speaker 2: think he does.
Speaker 3: I think he does too, because he hasn't been in
Speaker 3: front like he needs the press conference, because he hasn't
Speaker 3: been in front of you know, like the mainstream golf media,
Speaker 3: and you know, he's been kind of playing these small
Speaker 3: DP World Tour events and you know, the you know,
Speaker 3: the only thing that I would say that could magnify
Speaker 3: the hype going into this year's Masters, do we get
Speaker 3: a speak win? You know it seems like Tiger might
Speaker 3: come play. Is if we got a speath win in
Speaker 3: the lead up and we had Rory defending best player
Speaker 3: since Tiger, was Scottie best run we've seen since Tiger,
Speaker 3: and then we get a Speak win, you know, pe
Speaker 3: doing his thing, and then we get Tiger coming back.
Speaker 3: I mean all time Masters lead up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean you and we've talked about two
Speaker 2: earlier in the show. We talked about two guys in
Speaker 2: their forties. I mean, Rose already with the wins, play
Speaker 2: great at August and Adam Scott just had an awesome
Speaker 2: week of Riviera, which is kind of to me, you know,
Speaker 2: about as good a barometer as you can find in
Speaker 2: terms of pre Master's golf courses. I mean those guys,
Speaker 2: I mean Rose feels like he should at some point
Speaker 2: be a Master's champion. And then you got Adam Scott
Speaker 2: who has obviously played great there before. I feel like
Speaker 2: there are some interesting storylines outside of maybe the guys
Speaker 2: that haven't won at the Masters and kinda Xander call
Speaker 2: and JT though at that crew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's ramping up. Shane. Thank you for
Speaker 1: coming on. This was the most serious chat.
Speaker 2: We've ever done, but we typically are like laughing half
Speaker 2: the pod. We talked about real golf stuff. This time
Speaker 2: I'm in talk.
Speaker 1: About life stuff too.
Speaker 3: We talked about parenting and I didn't expect the start
Speaker 3: of that pod, but always great to chat with you.
Speaker 3: People can find your work. Obviously, you'll be on the
Speaker 3: d on the corn Ferry Tour broadcast again. I've been
Speaker 3: a banging start to the corn Fairy Tour. Actually, right man,
Speaker 3: I James Nicholas, great stories there. You also have a
Speaker 3: show on CBS Sports net Work. I know people that
Speaker 3: were recording the shot and start have been getting it.
Speaker 2: It's fat on your dvr. I told him a couple
Speaker 2: of times I'm hoping at some point they they switch
Speaker 2: it off. Yeah, we're on CBS Sports Network Tuesday's noon
Speaker 2: Eastern for an hour Johnson, Wagner, Patrick, myself, and that's
Speaker 2: also on YouTube. I'm still doing the Ping Proven Rounds
Speaker 2: podcast as well that I do with Marty Jertsen and
Speaker 2: we got some players coming up. Had a really good
Speaker 2: chat with Victor in Phoenix that I thought was interesting,
Speaker 2: just to kind of talk about the swing stuff he's
Speaker 2: going through and where his confidence levels at.
Speaker 1: Did you broach aliens are hot?
Speaker 2: I asked, I did ask I asked because I did
Speaker 2: it with him and his caddy, and I asked if
Speaker 2: his caddy is interested in that space as well, and yeah,
Speaker 2: he was like yeah, I kind of. I kind of
Speaker 2: like chatting with that with with with about Victor. But
Speaker 2: it's crazy. They were just such unsports fans.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 2: That was before the Super Bowl and neither knew who
Speaker 2: was playing in Super Bowl, Like they do not care
Speaker 2: about sports. Man, It's wild.
Speaker 1: That is nuts.
Speaker 3: That's nuts, Like the idea of a professional athlete that
Speaker 3: doesn't care about other sports.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the early we don't even know who's playing.
Speaker 2: I'm like, wow, man, that is crazy, like I'm I
Speaker 2: feel like I just am. You know, I'm getting up
Speaker 2: early to watch the hockey game on Sunday, and I
Speaker 2: don't you know, I don't care about hockey. I don't
Speaker 2: watch any hockey, but I mean I can't not watch
Speaker 2: the sporting event that matters, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all right, Shane, thank you so much. People
Speaker 3: go check out Shane's work. He's has always been been
Speaker 3: doing a great job for a very long time in
Speaker 3: the golf space.
Speaker 2: Thanks Shane, appreciated, Andy and PJ. I know we didn't
Speaker 2: get the chat, but I loved watching you on.
Speaker 3: You all right, big thanks for listening to another episode
Speaker 3: of the Friday Golf Podcast. I hope you enjoyed that
Speaker 3: kind of rambling conversation. It always is a rambling conversation.
Speaker 3: I don't know where it's ever going to go. I
Speaker 3: have a plan, and oftentimes I'm quickly deviating from the plan,
Speaker 3: like we did today. So big thanks to Shane for
Speaker 3: coming on. And we'll be back next week. I hope
Speaker 3: everybody has a wonderful week.