Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Frida Egg Podcast. I am excited
Speaker 1: to announce a new podcast series for the Frida Egg
Speaker 1: with former US Open champion Jeff Ogilvie. Really excited to
Speaker 1: kick this thing off today here, and we'll be talking
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. We haven't really figured out exactly
Speaker 1: how often. We've got two parts to this podcast, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit of pro golf, we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit of travel, a little bit of architecture,
Speaker 1: kind of wherever the conversation goes. Jeff's obviously one of
Speaker 1: the great minds in golf, and really thank him for
Speaker 1: his time and wanting to do this. So we're looking
Speaker 1: for a name for this series, so if you have
Speaker 1: any ideas, feel free to shoot them off on Twitter
Speaker 1: or shoot us an email contact at thefridagg dot com.
Speaker 1: But hope you guys enjoy this series and really fun
Speaker 1: always to talk with Jeff. He's a thoughtful guy. Here
Speaker 1: here's episode one, I miss a green for example, I'm
Speaker 1: already upset when I find my ball in the bunker,
Speaker 1: I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 1: In a bright egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida egg egg egg Frid egg brid egg Lie.
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Hey, what do you think about WILEI.
Speaker 2: I like it, Wow, I love it. Grains. I think
Speaker 2: grains are really good. It's an awful pace of land,
Speaker 2: Like there's nothing to the land at all. You've been there, right,
Speaker 2: I haven't been there. It's dead. I mean it's dead
Speaker 2: flat and you know that kind of lat lines of
Speaker 2: arm trees. I mean that looks kind of awful. But
Speaker 2: the greens are great, really great. I mean I haven't
Speaker 2: seen the New seventeenth. I don't think they did a
Speaker 2: very good job with that one. But it's too small
Speaker 2: than a crap piece of land. But it's got good grains,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of enjoyable. That's how I sum it up.
Speaker 1: Really, this year was like I don't know if you
Speaker 1: watched it. I really enjoyed watching it. It was firm
Speaker 1: and fast and I felt like it. It kind of
Speaker 1: like allowed everybody to play it.
Speaker 2: Definitely does. It's an angle. It's not that there's enough
Speaker 2: with for angles, but it's a position course rather than
Speaker 2: a flog it course. Definitely. I mean everybody can get
Speaker 2: to the part five, so I mean the whole field
Speaker 2: gets to like nine and eighteen, so it and eighteen
Speaker 2: is a shithole, but it gives everyone a chance because
Speaker 2: the longer you are you've got an advantage, but not
Speaker 2: necessarily still have to hit a great shot, no't matter
Speaker 2: how long you hit it because of the dog leg.
Speaker 2: So I think it's everybody can play there. I mean
Speaker 2: Zach can win there either of these, and Brooks can
Speaker 2: win there. You know everyone and everyone has I mean
Speaker 2: long hit is short hitters. Everyone's won there. So I
Speaker 2: think it's not going in my top fifty or under it,
Speaker 2: but it's a good course to play a tournament, and
Speaker 2: it's a good it's a nice place to play, I'd
Speaker 2: say it.
Speaker 1: How would What do you think about like tournament golf courses,
Speaker 1: like what are good tournament courses that are bad or
Speaker 1: average golf courses like Wiley.
Speaker 2: Good tournament courses or venues, Because I think they're two
Speaker 2: different questions.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm kind of curious about.
Speaker 2: It's like, I think there's great courses and there's great venues.
Speaker 2: Riviera is a great course, and it's decent from a
Speaker 2: playing perspective. It's great from a playing perspective, it's a venue.
Speaker 2: It's pretty restricted, right, no parking in the middle of law.
Speaker 2: How does anybody get there? More property, He doesn't handle
Speaker 2: big crowds. But from a player, it's great, right, But
Speaker 2: it's got a crappy range and you're going to walk
Speaker 2: up and down that hill five times in a day,
Speaker 2: and like there's some things about it that just slightly annoying. Right,
Speaker 2: it's good, and that might be the highest ranked course
Speaker 2: we play, that or Pebble, but doesn't necessarily make it's
Speaker 2: the best tournament course for some of the tournament courses,
Speaker 2: especially the tPCS. Not necessarily the tPCS, but some of
Speaker 2: them are so logistically well organized that it's such an
Speaker 2: easy week, yet architecturally or the course doesn't inspire you
Speaker 2: very much. So I guess there's both ways. I love
Speaker 2: Riven Pebble. I think of the two best courses we
Speaker 2: play on a regular schedule, but they're not necessarily logistically.
Speaker 2: Pebble's a nightmen have played to Dornamentite, right, because you
Speaker 2: park at the polo fields and you get shuttles everywhere,
Speaker 2: and the guy half the field's heading off ten and
Speaker 2: ten at Pebble at seven o'clock in the morning. It's
Speaker 2: not a level playing field with the guy who gets
Speaker 2: the two off at twelve on the first, you know,
Speaker 2: playing the different question they're getting asked for the day,
Speaker 2: Like if you tear off at seven o'clock on the
Speaker 2: tenth at Pebble Beach, you're going to be over par
Speaker 2: after one hole. It's just the way it is, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: when he gets the guy tees for twelve off the first,
Speaker 2: he gets to ten, he's all warmed up and he's
Speaker 2: ready to play. So I think some situations are that
Speaker 2: kind of mess tournaments up, if that makes sense. Yeah, huh,
Speaker 2: I'm getting overthinking it.
Speaker 1: But what about what about the like so the three
Speaker 1: three course weeks, like like the Desert and Pebble where
Speaker 1: you got to play, Like, is it weird when when
Speaker 1: you play like the hard course first and you're you
Speaker 1: see even par and somebody shoots sixty two on one
Speaker 1: of the other courses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird that I always found that weird, Like
Speaker 2: because your first when I first played, the start of
Speaker 2: the tour was January, right, was the West Coast Swing,
Speaker 2: and you would have people has three courses. Tori has
Speaker 2: two courses, The Hope had four courses, at that point,
Speaker 2: So you had three tournaments, you had eight courses or something,
Speaker 2: and it was just nine courses. It was crazy. The
Speaker 2: hope and the hope generally, the original hope was great
Speaker 2: because all the courses were right next to each other,
Speaker 2: you know, Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells, Lakinta, and you kind
Speaker 2: of get the same weather in the desert. But there
Speaker 2: was that one cup. There was a couple of years
Speaker 2: they moved to the Classic Club. There was one course
Speaker 2: out near the freeways and that was blowing thirty now
Speaker 2: near all those windmills, and so that one was blowing
Speaker 2: thirty miles an hour every day, and the other three
Speaker 2: courses were dead still. So you'd have guys shooting even
Speaker 2: par on that course and guy's shooting ten under and
Speaker 2: all the other courses. That wasn't right. That was kind
Speaker 2: of done, ah, because then the next day of the
Speaker 2: Classic Club it is still it only blew every second
Speaker 2: day out there. So if you kind of got unlucky
Speaker 2: in your rotation, you were kind of taken out of
Speaker 2: the tournament. But the above hope now is pretty good.
Speaker 2: I mean they're all at PGA West look into that's
Speaker 2: around the corner I've always really enjoyed it. It's a
Speaker 2: great early in the year tournament, be terrible in the summer,
Speaker 2: I think when you were kind of in the middle
Speaker 2: of the season, but it was a great early year.
Speaker 2: Tory is tough because toy there was different. Now there
Speaker 2: was always such a discrepancy between South and North that
Speaker 2: if you could manage to everyone would have five or
Speaker 2: six hounder on the north and two or three over
Speaker 2: on the south. And now it's a bit more similar
Speaker 2: because they've made the North so hard. So it's an
Speaker 2: acquiet the multiple course tournament. But after you get used
Speaker 2: to it, it's fun. But it takes a while to
Speaker 2: get used to, especially when you're young, because you don't
Speaker 2: know any of these courses and you're playing these guys
Speaker 2: have been playing for ten years. And I eventually hardly
Speaker 2: even played a practice around at Pebble the last few
Speaker 2: years because I know the courses so well on the
Speaker 2: and everyone wants to play pebble, the amateurs, and so
Speaker 2: the practice around out there at six and a half
Speaker 2: hours because they're all playing it, and that's fair enough.
Speaker 2: So I might go play six hours at Spyglass or something,
Speaker 2: but that's about it, and go up on the Tuesday
Speaker 2: and just play quick because there's such a long week anyway,
Speaker 2: but you've year, you've got to play three practice runs Monday, Tuesday,
Speaker 2: Wednesday and rush them all around and say everything at
Speaker 2: three outage books and like it's scrambling.
Speaker 1: Yeah crazy, Yeah, yeah, it's it would be. I mean,
Speaker 1: like it's hard playing like you know usg event. It
Speaker 1: was funny I played this U I played the mid
Speaker 1: Am in Philly and you know, we played each course
Speaker 1: once and like then you start to look through the
Speaker 1: scores and also like almost every guy in the field
Speaker 1: that was from Philly got through because he knew the courses.
Speaker 2: So well, yeah, it's it's like that golfinent a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's very I mean local knowledge is very underrated, all
Speaker 2: very powerful.
Speaker 1: Have you played Have you ever played like an Australia
Speaker 1: Open at Victoria?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we played one in two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: Uh is it hard to play at your home course?
Speaker 2: I found it difficult. I mean i'd be kind of
Speaker 2: like there was some state opens. The Victorian Open was
Speaker 2: a state Open, which has turned into a pretty big
Speaker 2: tournament now, but back then it was just a state open,
Speaker 2: like a two hundred thousand dollars prize money or something
Speaker 2: total purse. And I played it when I was younger,
Speaker 2: and I kind of played really well, And it was
Speaker 2: at Victoria two or three times, and I played quite well,
Speaker 2: So I'd kind of laid tournaments at Victoria before by
Speaker 2: the time the US at the Strain Open turned up
Speaker 2: to it. But it's still weird. You've got all the
Speaker 2: members saying, oh, you're going to win this week. You're
Speaker 2: going to win this week. Why wouldn't you win this week?
Speaker 2: I think I finished about ten or twelve or something,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it was. It's tough. Yeah, it's just put
Speaker 2: too much pressure on yourself. I mean the hardest part
Speaker 2: about golf expectation and living up to your own expectations.
Speaker 2: When you don't, you beat yourself up really fast. And
Speaker 2: I found local golf hard. I always found anonymous too.
Speaker 2: I find anonymous to a golf the easiest. You know,
Speaker 2: when you turn up in China and nobody's watching you
Speaker 2: play the or watching the local hero or something, and
Speaker 2: you just get to do your own thing, you know.
Speaker 2: I find golf easiest that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should go play, you know, the Dakotas Tours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's some cool stuff you hear about around.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, local stuff is difficult. I've always liked
Speaker 2: guys like Larry Miis winning the Masters from Augusta. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's an unbelievable effort. I can that must be something
Speaker 2: he was feeling that week. Yeah. Can you imagine being
Speaker 2: from Augusta and having all your school friends and that
Speaker 2: knowing that you were doing that would be incredible. Charles
Speaker 2: How's from Augusta too, You must feel it a little
Speaker 2: bit there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Patrick Reid was wonder but his family
Speaker 1: was at home, so that's crazy. That's great.
Speaker 2: Just there's that element of but knowing the course. It's
Speaker 2: funny when I first played Victoria and they're straight open
Speaker 2: or in tournaments, I didn't know whether to carry Yardist
Speaker 2: Book or not because I didn't use the Yardist Book
Speaker 2: every day. I know I knew what it like from
Speaker 2: from that bunk. From here, it's a seven isrom today,
Speaker 2: it's a six on tomorrow. It's like, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: all the clubs and the yadders book didn't match with
Speaker 2: what I thought the club was. That's why I would
Speaker 2: get to the fourth and the spot what I'd always
Speaker 2: hit seven on and I'd get there and it's like,
Speaker 2: it's actually measures this should be a six on, but
Speaker 2: I've always hit seven from here, so you know, it
Speaker 2: confused me a little bit. And there was one the
Speaker 2: other way around, long and short. It was interesting. So
Speaker 2: I got confused about whether actually to play at how
Speaker 2: I would normally just on a Saturday camp, or to
Speaker 2: play it how I would in the tournament, in a
Speaker 2: normal tournament. It was interesting.
Speaker 1: It's I played a couple events at courses like I played,
Speaker 1: you know, as a home course, and I struggled at
Speaker 1: like two of them. But then like my childhood MUNI
Speaker 1: would have like a State Am every year qualifier and
Speaker 1: I'd go there and I'd always it's like you I
Speaker 1: knew I could shoot a good score, you know, like
Speaker 1: the back of my hand there, but like at the
Speaker 1: other courses, I don't know, for some reason, I struggled.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird. But like that childhood Muni, which I
Speaker 1: would only play in the Steve Am qualifier once a year,
Speaker 1: was like it was like a cake walk. But the
Speaker 1: course that I play regularly, it would be a struggle.
Speaker 1: It was. It's an interesting thing playing at home.
Speaker 2: It's funny too, like if we just talk about Hawaii,
Speaker 2: Like when I first went to Capelloua, I thought it
Speaker 2: was an unplayable golf course. I just think that it was.
Speaker 2: You couldn't play. It was ridiculous. It's like you're standing
Speaker 2: on the side of a hill everywhere, and if half
Speaker 2: the holes are five point fifty and they play three
Speaker 2: hundred and ten and the other holes of three hundred
Speaker 2: and ten and they play five fifty, the ones up
Speaker 2: the hill into the wind, I just couldn't understand it.
Speaker 2: And your puts break thirty feet. You're got to land
Speaker 2: your wedges twenty yards short of some greens and have
Speaker 2: them roll break a long way. But after two years
Speaker 2: it became my favorite, the easiest cause on the tour
Speaker 2: for me, Like my second or third year, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, I'm like, how easy this is a joke?
Speaker 2: How did I never understand this? And the Sony, which
Speaker 2: at first seems so simple. I missed my first six
Speaker 2: or seven cuts at the Sony. It just didn't even
Speaker 2: though I quite enjoyed it and I thought it looked
Speaker 2: quite easy. I just couldn't make the cup there, whereas
Speaker 2: Capelleu or I hate it first and then after a
Speaker 2: few years that was my favorite. So you never know
Speaker 2: what you're going to where you're gonna play well, right,
Speaker 2: you just have there's no rhyme or reason. Sometimes you
Speaker 2: just play well at places. Sometimes you just can't play
Speaker 2: out of the places.
Speaker 1: The Wiley seems like a course where it could just
Speaker 1: make you look stupid.
Speaker 2: You know, you just feel it's tricky. It's like, just
Speaker 2: got enough of that bermuda ruff that takes all the
Speaker 2: control off your second shot, And it's narrow enough, and
Speaker 2: it's cross winds everywhere because Hawaii's never still, and it's
Speaker 2: it's that fifty sixties length course, right, so the dog
Speaker 2: legs are all too early for modern golf. So you're
Speaker 2: running it through all the time. You're kind of having
Speaker 2: to cut the corners and running it through, and you've
Speaker 2: got these shots from behind palm trees out of fly
Speaker 2: a rough which and you can't bend the ball out
Speaker 2: of and so it frustrates you because you can see
Speaker 2: it like it seems so simple in front of you,
Speaker 2: but it does. It's very tricky and very frustrating can be.
Speaker 2: But then on the week when it doesn't blow too much,
Speaker 2: those weeks where they just burdy every hole. Those guys
Speaker 2: out there, that's kind of fun too, But it's a tricky.
Speaker 1: Course with Capua. It's got uneven lies. Like I feel like,
Speaker 1: there aren't a lot of courses with lies like that,
Speaker 1: but Augusta is one of them, and I always have
Speaker 1: I've always looked in the last couple of years when
Speaker 1: I'm looking at Augusta, I kind of look at a Cappellua.
Speaker 1: Guys that play well a Cappellua to play well Augusta
Speaker 1: because of those uneven lies. Do you do you think
Speaker 1: that is kind of true out there?
Speaker 2: I do is an odd course. At first it seems
Speaker 2: to suit long hitters, but I actually think it's it's
Speaker 2: a wedge course Capellua. Certainly. The side hill lies are
Speaker 2: very obvious when you first get there. They're crazy. The
Speaker 2: first thing you notice about is like the ball is
Speaker 2: never on the level of your feet. Are ah extra downslopes,
Speaker 2: extreme up soaps, And that's what you find at the Masters.
Speaker 2: Like you say, it's like and that's we don't get
Speaker 2: that every day. We don't get that as much as
Speaker 2: we used to, like or as maybe they did in
Speaker 2: the old days. And sidehill lies a same sort of
Speaker 2: golf would do well at both for sure, especially the imagination.
Speaker 2: So Capellaua takes so much imagination. There are so many
Speaker 2: shots there where you could be fifty yards from the
Speaker 2: hole and you legitimately have to land the ball thirty
Speaker 2: yards short and twenty yards left of the pin to
Speaker 2: get it to go to the hole on like five,
Speaker 2: that par five or six, the short one on the
Speaker 2: front nine, eleven, Like there's a lot of holes eighteen.
Speaker 2: I mean you're hitting your shot fifty yards away from
Speaker 2: where the pin is to get it to go to
Speaker 2: the pin. That takes imagination. It takes a lot of
Speaker 2: thought and imagination, and Augusta takes that all over the
Speaker 2: place too, and some of those shots, you know, so
Speaker 2: I think they are very similar. Yeah, sidehill lies and
Speaker 2: imagination would do ball at both. That's actually a pretty
Speaker 2: good form guy who plays well at capellau So just
Speaker 2: put some money on Zander the Masters maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's that's I think like kind of what
Speaker 1: I've started to think with the modern tour pro. It's
Speaker 1: like sidehill lies and interesting greens are kind of the
Speaker 1: recipe for testing today because it's really hard to hit
Speaker 1: good wedges from awkward lives.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, we don't practice them anymore because
Speaker 2: elite level golf has become a range thing, right. We
Speaker 2: work on the range. We go the range to work
Speaker 2: on our techniques and get our numbers on track man,
Speaker 2: and ranges are flat, so we do a majority of
Speaker 2: our swinging, and we work on our driver a lot,
Speaker 2: and we never work on our driver of anything other
Speaker 2: than a flat light, you know, so we I think
Speaker 2: we're losing that ability to adapt a little bit from
Speaker 2: how like the golfers who grew up just playing golf
Speaker 2: every single day. Certainly uneven lies, but that's what I think.
Speaker 2: Fairways need to be cut, maybe a little bit longer
Speaker 2: and sometimes and the same with grains too. I think
Speaker 2: if we could slow them down just a tiny bit,
Speaker 2: where you would get balls holding on slopes, not a lot,
Speaker 2: just a little bit, And it's always more interesting when
Speaker 2: the ball's in a slope, right, And with putting just
Speaker 2: a little bit. It's hard to hit puts when the
Speaker 2: balls above your feet are below your feet without kind
Speaker 2: of feeling weird about it, you know. And it only
Speaker 2: needs to be half a percent.
Speaker 1: I forgot what hole was a kapaloo? I saw a
Speaker 1: ton of guys missing and then like the center. I
Speaker 1: feel like architecture in the seventies, eighties, sixties became obsessed
Speaker 1: with the spines, the front tier, back tier, and I
Speaker 1: think the better is the middle tier, the center spine
Speaker 1: that goes left right.
Speaker 2: Because it's certainly interesting.
Speaker 1: Because you guys don't miss numbers as much as you
Speaker 1: miss left right, mm hmm right.
Speaker 2: From certain distances. Remember Pelts did that studies, Like there
Speaker 2: was a from short range we get we hit it
Speaker 2: straight but the wrong distance, and from long range but
Speaker 2: at the right distance but not straight. There's like a
Speaker 2: formula there, you know, like a three iye we miss
Speaker 2: pinheivet wide and then wedge we miss straight deep or short,
Speaker 2: but you're right. So like that, that kind of short
Speaker 2: on the bottom tier, back tier, like that straight tier
Speaker 2: across the green isn't as interesting as like angle right
Speaker 2: or like yeah, left and right stuff like seven at
Speaker 2: the Masters. You get high on the right and you
Speaker 2: get low, then you get high in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: Like there's sideways targets like twelve AUGUSTA two. It's it's
Speaker 2: not a it's a sideways target, right, rather than a
Speaker 2: accuracy target. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's and then it amplifies the angle too, because
Speaker 1: if you're hitting across, it makes the target so much smaller.
Speaker 1: And then if you're on the right side, you've got
Speaker 1: almost a backboard in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A sixteen, the Masters too, five six. Yeah, a
Speaker 2: lot of them are that way, right that if you
Speaker 2: miss your line, it rolls off a lot lot further
Speaker 2: that way, which is interesting definitely, Like if you miss
Speaker 2: your line at Cappelora on though some of these shi
Speaker 2: you can be one hundred feet really and you can
Speaker 2: miss it by two feet, like that front right pin
Speaker 2: on eighteen, which everyone who's there watched the ornament has seen.
Speaker 2: If you get six inches past the hole or wherever
Speaker 2: it's eighty feet, you don't have to miss it by march.
Speaker 2: It's and the Masters does that to you as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: scares you, it is.
Speaker 1: That's the thing is. That's what when you're when you're scared,
Speaker 1: It was when your fear, when you're got, when you're
Speaker 1: really thinking about stuff, is when the course is doing
Speaker 1: a good job.
Speaker 2: For sure, it seems that way. Yeah, like the ones
Speaker 2: that make you nervous, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I think that's like it's now the design
Speaker 1: has to be. That's why I thought Shinnakock, you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: and we could talk about that. You know, Mike Davis
Speaker 1: is out the last Last Hurrah as uh, But Shinnikock,
Speaker 1: it was fascinating to watch the best players in the
Speaker 1: world just get absolutely ejected hitting wedges into these greens.
Speaker 1: You know. But like that's a place where when you
Speaker 1: play it, you're literally terrified to the hit a wedge.
Speaker 2: You are. It's got that same Pinehurst Oakmont kind of thing.
Speaker 2: It's just like, I know I'm going to miss this,
Speaker 2: and I don't know how I missed this and not
Speaker 2: be dead. Like where do I hit this? I've got
Speaker 2: like a tabletop to land this way, John, And if
Speaker 2: I don't, where do? I kind of want to miss it?
Speaker 2: Because I all seem like bad choices, right, But it
Speaker 2: isn't as bad as it seems, you know, like these
Speaker 2: places that make you nervous if you just kind of
Speaker 2: like a famous shot, we'll talk. Shinnakock is right, but
Speaker 2: like a famous shoveryone knows, like fifteen of the Masters
Speaker 2: is not really that hard a boor iron for us, really.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's difficult, but it's a relatively big target.
Speaker 2: If it lands anywhere on the right and cethegreend and
Speaker 2: it always stops right. We always see it stop, but
Speaker 2: it looks like you're trying to hit a four on
Speaker 2: under the top of a Volkswagen with the wind and
Speaker 2: you don't know where it is where. If it's short,
Speaker 2: it's in the water. Long it's in the water, and
Speaker 2: anywhere else it's going to be in the water after that. Right,
Speaker 2: it's a relatively easy shot if you're confident in the
Speaker 2: practice ram. As soon as you get there in the tournament,
Speaker 2: you're so nervous and you're so it's so hard to
Speaker 2: put that solid swing on it, just because of all
Speaker 2: the bad things that can happen, so you end up
Speaker 2: putting a bad swing on it. That's the interesting way
Speaker 2: to test us, not with obvious hazards, but with that
Speaker 2: mental turmoil. That's my favorite, and it's the hardest to
Speaker 2: play for sure. Is it drives your nuts.
Speaker 1: What'd you I read your article about shinne Khak after
Speaker 1: the US Open. I was it's interesting, Like I had
Speaker 1: Roberto Castro on a couple like last week or two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and he said it, you know, the setup
Speaker 1: was was great, The first two days and they kept
Speaker 1: the greens were really slow in comparison to week to week.
Speaker 1: But then obviously they got a little out of hand
Speaker 1: and they got a couple of bad pins. But I mean,
Speaker 1: do you do you think those are the types of greens?
Speaker 1: And I think I actually think slower greens rewards better
Speaker 1: putters more.
Speaker 2: I think so too. I mean, people kind of disagree
Speaker 2: with me. I don't think you will, because it sounds
Speaker 2: like you know where you're on the same kind of
Speaker 2: page as me. I kind of would like to see
Speaker 2: firm and slightly slower greens than what you would product.
Speaker 2: I mean, not I'm much slow greens, but slower than
Speaker 2: the US open I think again slow. I think firmness
Speaker 2: is the real test of a ball striker speed, because
Speaker 2: the firmness that when the ball lands, the angles matters,
Speaker 2: and the heart that it's coming matters, and the spin matters,
Speaker 2: and everything just matters so much more when the ball
Speaker 2: bounces when it lands. But greens speed, when they're so
Speaker 2: fast and so perfect, it's actually easier to part in
Speaker 2: some ways if he talk to like someone like bransoneca
Speaker 2: like the best part an two it probably especially the
Speaker 2: best part on slower bad greens. He makes everything on
Speaker 2: the West Coast whins Pebble holds everything at Tory. He
Speaker 2: likes bad greens because he slower greens. He thinks he
Speaker 2: has an advantage, a bigger advantage on slower greens than
Speaker 2: everyone else. The best, one of the best, maybe the
Speaker 2: best part on tour, or one of the best putters anyway, Sinoka,
Speaker 2: he completely agrees with you. It says slower greens are
Speaker 2: harder to part, so he likes them better.
Speaker 1: You think about the tournaments that had greens like that,
Speaker 1: like Pebble every year, and you look, Jason Day and
Speaker 1: Speeth play well at Pebble seemingly every single year. They're
Speaker 1: two of the best putters. H And then you think
Speaker 1: about Chambers Bay, who was in the hunt there where
Speaker 1: everybody was complaining about the greens, like DJ turned himself
Speaker 1: into a good putter. And then you've got You've got
Speaker 1: Speeth Jason Day on that leader board. Like those greens
Speaker 1: were bumpy. They took like half the field out of
Speaker 1: it before it even started because they convinced themselves they
Speaker 1: couldn't put on them.
Speaker 2: See I didn't mind. I mean, it's not what we
Speaker 2: used to Chambers Bay having the I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: absolutely abominable surfaces. Right, They weren't even remotely close to greens.
Speaker 2: But instantly after on like Tuesday practice round. On Monday,
Speaker 2: whenever I've made my first practice round, you could tell
Speaker 2: straightaway that the best putters are going to do well
Speaker 2: here and the best part of the world's going to
Speaker 2: win this tournament. It was just obvious because you had
Speaker 2: to have every aspect of your game and only people
Speaker 2: who were really really playing well would have putted well
Speaker 2: on those greens. You just had to be a good
Speaker 2: putter and you had to have a good head. And
Speaker 2: so it didn't surprise me, well when it didn't surprise
Speaker 2: me that someon mister Shortbart for it to be weird
Speaker 2: at the end, but two, because that was probably going
Speaker 2: to happen on greens like that unfortunately. And you're right,
Speaker 2: dozen's a great pattern now, But Jordan, good putters win
Speaker 2: on bad greens, and so I don't necessarily think bad
Speaker 2: greens ruined a tournament per se. It actually it actually
Speaker 2: adds and it's not as fun to play. From a
Speaker 2: players perspective, you've got to rather perfect green. But from
Speaker 2: a from a result of the tournament and finding the
Speaker 2: best player. It's not the worst thing ever sometimes to
Speaker 2: have some bumpy, dodgy greens because it finds the better putter.
Speaker 2: You know, it's no idea, but it just shows you
Speaker 2: there's more white. There's more than one more than It's
Speaker 2: not only fifteen on the stimp meter that challenges people.
Speaker 2: There's other ways to challenge great golfers.
Speaker 1: It's way harder when you've got a four footer that
Speaker 1: you have to aim outside the whole than one that's
Speaker 1: really fast.
Speaker 2: I think I think slow definitely. Yeah, that's because you
Speaker 2: can't put depends on slopes once it gets to certain speeds.
Speaker 2: If you're getting your pins down on one and two
Speaker 2: percent slopes, and the good old days were probably on
Speaker 2: three or four and that balls is breaking a lot more.
Speaker 2: And that's just a more challenging three foot than one
Speaker 2: that's inside right than one that's outside right right, I
Speaker 2: would think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, way more. It's the I had. I've got in
Speaker 1: a spreadsheet all the variance data, so like the scoring
Speaker 1: variants of every tournament in the last like fifteen years,
Speaker 1: and Chambers Bay was number two in scoring variants of
Speaker 1: any tournament outside of scoring, so.
Speaker 2: Low in the field to the high in the field.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so essentially how it's variant in You know, I
Speaker 1: might be wrong, but I would look at variants saying
Speaker 1: this is this is a statistic that shows how well
Speaker 1: players separate from the field that are playing well.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So Chambers Bay and Shinnecock was number one from last year,
Speaker 1: but then number two was Chambers Bay. And actually what
Speaker 1: I was surprised by was Whistling Straights had really high
Speaker 1: high variance data. Interesting and and then like you could
Speaker 1: tell whenever something rained, like the lowest Augusta numbers were
Speaker 1: the ones that were the wettest. So like firm conditions
Speaker 1: because like I think about Chambers Bay that year, and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget the guys like bouncing balls on the
Speaker 1: on the ground and that you know, you had to
Speaker 1: hit great shots, and it's like that firm conditions seems
Speaker 1: to be the key to really testing people.
Speaker 2: I think certainly it makes it more interesting. It's a
Speaker 2: it's a broader test, there's more nuances, there's more to
Speaker 2: the test. It's not as it's a little bit more
Speaker 2: black and white when it's soft, because if it's soft,
Speaker 2: the ball just lands and it stops where it lands,
Speaker 2: so that the shape it was coming in on and
Speaker 2: the spin that it had and the flight, the height
Speaker 2: that it was at. It doesn't matter really if it
Speaker 2: just hits and stops, But if it hits and reacts
Speaker 2: and bounces, it really matters. How the ball got to
Speaker 2: where it landed, like, really matters, And the firmer it is,
Speaker 2: the more it matters. So and then you actually have
Speaker 2: to start planning out where that ball has to land
Speaker 2: because it's not actually just going to stop there. So
Speaker 2: the one sixty five for the pin might turn into
Speaker 2: one forty six, and it has to be slightly left
Speaker 2: of the pin because there's a slope and it has
Speaker 2: to have a fade. So it doesn't mean there's just
Speaker 2: so much more to it that every extra bit of
Speaker 2: bounce on the course that you have, you're just going
Speaker 2: to challenge the player a little bit more, and probably
Speaker 2: in a more interesting way than just pure length or
Speaker 2: pure speed of green or pure length of rough. For
Speaker 2: it's a more nuanced test, I guess, so you get
Speaker 2: more interesting golf to watch that way I would see
Speaker 2: it anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And then and then your t shot becomes
Speaker 1: more important.
Speaker 2: What's That's the thing about the everyone's been Everyone is
Speaker 2: pointing fingers at why we're why the ball's going so
Speaker 2: far and all that. But really, if we played firmer fairways,
Speaker 2: ironically firmer fairways where the ball would actually go further,
Speaker 2: we would have chased length a little bit less, and
Speaker 2: we would have chased shape a little bit more. You know,
Speaker 2: the Bubba Watson style who it's a really long but
Speaker 2: generally never tries to flog it as far as he can.
Speaker 2: He tries to fit the ball on the course. More
Speaker 2: players would play like that if the ball hit the
Speaker 2: fairway and rolled, because a thirty yard wide fairway effectively
Speaker 2: plays twenty yards wide when the ball hits and rolls
Speaker 2: a bit, you know, so or it plays narrower. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But the trouble is, initially it plays shorter, right, So
Speaker 2: we all kind of got reactive, everybody did by making
Speaker 2: stuff longer and softer, so it seemed longer. So we
Speaker 2: recreate the three irons and four irons that people had
Speaker 2: into the greens in the old days. But yeah, it
Speaker 2: plays soft, it plays wide, and when it plays wide,
Speaker 2: you can hit it as hard as you want. When
Speaker 2: you can hit us out as you want. The talented
Speaker 2: people in the world are going to find a way
Speaker 2: to hit it a long way because they're allowed to,
Speaker 2: because the game is actually encouraging us to do that.
Speaker 2: It was a little bit firmer because I think length
Speaker 2: is great, that the Brooks and Rory and they have
Speaker 2: an advantage, and they should be able to show their advantage.
Speaker 2: But it should be relative and it should be a
Speaker 2: real skill to hit the ball three hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: up the fairway and actually hit the fairway, like that
Speaker 2: should be a real skill, and it is, but maybe
Speaker 2: it should be more of a skill, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the It's amazing Bubba where where he's had
Speaker 1: success in his career, Like he's won three or three
Speaker 1: times now at RIV, two times at Augusta, and it's like,
Speaker 1: but he shapes it. He moves it more than everybody else,
Speaker 1: So it kind of makes sense that he would play
Speaker 1: best at RIV.
Speaker 2: It does. It's a shaping course, especially off the tee.
Speaker 2: But him back to kind of how we were talking
Speaker 2: about the like the range time and the unleveled lie thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, Bubba, he does not go to the range.
Speaker 2: His perspective on the range it's the best answer ever.
Speaker 2: Like it's it's so simple, it's almost annoying. It's like, Bubba,
Speaker 2: why don't you go hit balls? He goes, well, if
Speaker 2: I'm hitting it, well, why would I want to hit balls?
Speaker 2: I don't need to. And if I'm hitting it badly,
Speaker 2: well I would I want to watch myself hit it badly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: I can't argue with that. How do you argue with that?
Speaker 2: It's like so simple, yet we don't want it to
Speaker 2: be true because it's too simple. But it's right and
Speaker 2: it so He's always just played golf. He'll play golf
Speaker 2: in the morning on tour and you'll get teddy he's
Speaker 2: caddy and they'll go play a local course somewhere and
Speaker 2: play nine holes. That's his practice. He's playing golf holes.
Speaker 2: And I think when you do that all the time,
Speaker 2: you don't end up like Bubba completely, but you get
Speaker 2: more that way, more of a golfer rather than a hitter.
Speaker 2: Shape being and stuff like that. It's just it's vitt practice.
Speaker 2: It is right.
Speaker 1: David Duvall was that way too. I remember reading about that.
Speaker 1: He like didn't didn't go to the range when he
Speaker 1: was hitting it. Bad and didn't go when he was
Speaker 1: hitting it good because he didn't want to lose it.
Speaker 2: That funny, and then when he actually started hitting a
Speaker 2: lot of balls, he might have lost it a bit.
Speaker 2: It's a funny game golf to chase it, but it
Speaker 2: goes away. It's elusive.
Speaker 1: But Bubba, my favorite thing was how he how everybody
Speaker 1: was worried that he was going to play in that
Speaker 1: All Star Game, that Celebrity All Star Game last year.
Speaker 1: It is like my favorite, one of my favorite golf
Speaker 1: stories of all time.
Speaker 2: You know, what was the breakdown on the story he played?
Speaker 1: You know, it was All Star weekend for the NBA
Speaker 1: last year and during RIV week and he and so
Speaker 1: he's in the lead and he played in the Celebrity
Speaker 1: All Star Game the night of and and golf analysts
Speaker 1: were like, well, he's gonna his legs are going to
Speaker 1: be shot tomorrow. He's not gonna be able to play.
Speaker 1: Like it's just funny. It's hey, do you what do
Speaker 1: you think about the new rules?
Speaker 2: Look, I think a lot of them. I don't completely
Speaker 2: have my head around them yet because I haven't played
Speaker 2: a tournament yet and had any rulings and experienced it.
Speaker 2: I think I never read the rule book growing up.
Speaker 2: I don't think anybody ever did. You just learned the
Speaker 2: rules along the way. Right, every time you hit it
Speaker 2: next to a hazard, and you take that drop enough times,
Speaker 2: it just becomes this is what you do when you
Speaker 2: hit it in a red or a yellow hazard or
Speaker 2: a plug lie or anything. But what I've seen that
Speaker 2: drop thing that was going on with Drys in a capaluris.
Speaker 2: I never understood the drop. What was wrong with dropping
Speaker 2: it from the shoulder. I thought that was there's nothing
Speaker 2: wrong with that, right. I get that they don't want
Speaker 2: the balls to like the situations for proceed there's two
Speaker 2: so there's two things for me. There's there's golf and
Speaker 2: then there's tournament golf, and they're completely different. And there's
Speaker 2: two different There should be too sets of rules and
Speaker 2: the rules for gold the ninety nine point nine percent
Speaker 2: golfers should basically we can go back to the ten
Speaker 2: original rules at Sandia is basically, you know, play the balls,
Speaker 2: it lies too up behind the markers, you know, like
Speaker 2: just basic simple stuff. Yeah, tournament golf is different, like
Speaker 2: we're dropping from temporary stuff all the time, and there's
Speaker 2: there's all sorts of craziness, and there's there's an absolute
Speaker 2: necessity to create a level playing field, right really, where
Speaker 2: there's too much at stake for too many people and
Speaker 2: too many entities for it to not be like completely level.
Speaker 2: But the average guys just want to go out and
Speaker 2: play golf. I mean, how many of your friends actually
Speaker 2: played by the rules anyway? Two balls off the two
Speaker 2: balls off the first and we're rolling it in the
Speaker 2: like we're rolling it in the fairway today and all
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. And as long as everyone in
Speaker 2: that group is playing by the same rules, it's fine, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the spirit of it should be goes play whatever,
Speaker 2: whatever golf you want to play, and then in tournaments
Speaker 2: we do this. But anyway, that's that's me. But the
Speaker 2: drop thing, I think is completely bizarre. It's like, I
Speaker 2: see that you should be allowed to drop it from
Speaker 2: your knees, that's fine, But why can't you drop it
Speaker 2: from higher than that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why can't you drop it from your waist?
Speaker 2: You drop it from from above your head? What's the
Speaker 2: difference like that? One? I think is strange. I just
Speaker 2: think there's it's smacks of overthinking. It's like the the
Speaker 2: groove thing with the wedges the part of thing, and
Speaker 2: then these ones. It just it's smacks of committees sitting
Speaker 2: around tables and just overthinking simple stuff, just finding more
Speaker 2: complicated and like the intention was simplicity with these rules,
Speaker 2: and they generally are simpler with an overview, so they
Speaker 2: kind of succeeded there, I think, But some of the
Speaker 2: things inside the smack of like, seriously, how did we
Speaker 2: end up there. It's like the cut rule on too,
Speaker 2: you know, the Saturday cut the NBA that was overthought. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was on the pack when we came up with that,
Speaker 2: and it was just we just ended up talking ourselves
Speaker 2: in circles and ending up coming out with really kind
Speaker 2: of an awkward situation because we overthought it too much.
Speaker 2: We tried to make it too fair, you know. And
Speaker 2: the rules are a bit like that. I think they'll evolve.
Speaker 2: I think we'll work it out. We can't have one
Speaker 2: of The Bryson situation was so bizarre that.
Speaker 1: What about the pin in putting with it.
Speaker 2: In look the spirit of that. I love to see
Speaker 2: the especially for the average guy. And again, by the rules,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of average guys have just like
Speaker 2: when their buddy's off raking the bunker and their other
Speaker 2: friends like getting the sandwich out of their bag and
Speaker 2: you've got a sixty foot you just hit the part right.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't have to walk up and grab the pin
Speaker 2: or wait for someone. It makes complete sense in that situation,
Speaker 2: don't you think like this the completely Like if no
Speaker 2: one can grab a pin, let me just put yeah.
Speaker 1: And like if I'm playing by myself, I'm putting with
Speaker 1: the pin in all the time anyways. Like it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: myself exactly. So it's like that makes the last sense
Speaker 1: for it is everything what you said about the rule
Speaker 1: for everyday play rules for tournament play makes complete sense.
Speaker 2: I think if we're struggling to like, I don't think
Speaker 2: we're struggling in golf as much as some of the
Speaker 2: media wants to say. I know, participation numbers aren't high,
Speaker 2: but I think across the board a lot of things
Speaker 2: that's probably true, you know, because from what I see,
Speaker 2: people are looking at screens a lot more than they're
Speaker 2: doing anything else. You know, participation on screen time, it's
Speaker 2: probably going up. But outside of that, with golf, we
Speaker 2: just want people to play. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: eighteen holes of stroke play under the thirty nine rules
Speaker 2: of golf, whatever there is. Every time you play golf,
Speaker 2: you can go play six holes like with any rules
Speaker 2: you want. I don't care, just go play golf. Like
Speaker 2: that should be the encouragement. You can play whatever rules
Speaker 2: you want. Just go play. We just want you to play.
Speaker 2: If you want to play tournaments, yeah, this is how
Speaker 2: we do it. You know. But if you go for
Speaker 2: a pickup game of basketball with your friends, you don't
Speaker 2: feel like you have to play like full rules. You know,
Speaker 2: you travel a little bit and like you're allowed to
Speaker 2: charge your friend a little bit. Like that's just kind
Speaker 2: of because that's how you like to play. Like golf,
Speaker 2: it should be encouraged that people can play whatever game
Speaker 2: you want. If you want to get into big tournament stuff,
Speaker 2: then if you do that, then this is the way
Speaker 2: we're going to go.
Speaker 1: I think it's so I've been deep in the weeds
Speaker 1: this whole year on this architects Langford Moreau, right, and
Speaker 1: they built a ton of courses in the rural in
Speaker 1: rural towns in the Midwest, like small town Indiana, small
Speaker 1: town Illinois, Wisconsin. And like what I started to realize was,
Speaker 1: like there are all these places with nine holes of
Speaker 1: Langford Moreau and it makes sense, like these guys only
Speaker 1: built nine holes for this small town. They shouldn't have
Speaker 1: eighteen holes, they should just have nine goodes.
Speaker 2: Great, nine holl is great. I mean, who says like
Speaker 2: I think golf has been just it's just caught itself
Speaker 2: up a little bit in this like it has to
Speaker 2: be golf is only golf if it's eighteen holes and
Speaker 2: it's seven thousand yards and there's like all that that
Speaker 2: comes with it. But that's not true. Mate. My favorite
Speaker 2: three or four golfing experiences in my life one the
Speaker 2: beach at s and Andrews with a wedge and two balls,
Speaker 2: just playing in and out of the tide pools up
Speaker 2: and down the night of the Cherios, the fire beach
Speaker 2: Like that to me is golf? Does that make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like I used to play at this part at this
Speaker 2: park where I grew up. It's kind of right next
Speaker 2: to Royal Melbourne. It's actually a high school. It's a
Speaker 2: public high school. And when I was growing up, there's
Speaker 2: two big ovals like Australian rules football ovals, so they're
Speaker 2: massive joined with trees and three balls and a nine
Speaker 2: nine that was me for years from probably twelve to
Speaker 2: sixteen or seventeen. Every night after school, if I didn't
Speaker 2: get to the golf course, I was hitting balls around there.
Speaker 2: That was and I would make little holes around the
Speaker 2: trees and there was the rubbish bin across the other side,
Speaker 2: or take three shops with a nine nine to get
Speaker 2: there around these trees. To me, that was as much
Speaker 2: golf as anything else, as adding holes at s Andrews.
Speaker 2: That it really is. I think that's the message that
Speaker 2: needs to get across.
Speaker 1: I think kid I grew up one of my best
Speaker 1: friends growing up, he ended up being All state golfer,
Speaker 1: great golfer, you know, And we grew up playing wiffleball
Speaker 1: golf all through the front yards of our neighbors, hitting
Speaker 1: wiffleballs to trees and that was golf. If you hit
Speaker 1: it under the road, it was a water hazard.
Speaker 2: So good. How much fun is that too? Right?
Speaker 1: Unbelievable fun.
Speaker 2: And we're golf tragics, right, so that's our thing. But
Speaker 2: and not everybody is going to do that. But I
Speaker 2: just think this, I would love to If you want
Speaker 2: to play golf and you only want to play for
Speaker 2: an hour every day, then three holes and you're allowed
Speaker 2: to do that. You know, if you want to just
Speaker 2: go to the drum range and just hit seven Fuji
Speaker 2: buckets of driver, that's golf for you. That's fine, that's golf,
Speaker 2: right Like I don't. You're still a golfer if you
Speaker 2: ask me. I think the rule I think the opportunity
Speaker 2: with the rules changed was the idea to put that
Speaker 2: idea out there. You know. I think the rules changes
Speaker 2: are kind of fine, and they simplify it, and there's
Speaker 2: a couple of weird ones in there, but they'll all
Speaker 2: shape out. It'll work out in the wash, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's spirit of you know what, guys, No one plays
Speaker 2: by the rules anyway. As long as you don't trash
Speaker 2: the course and you use the etiquettes of golf, you
Speaker 2: find any game you want.
Speaker 1: You know, I think, all right, so let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: wrap this up. We've got stuff to do. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this more often?
Speaker 2: Yes, sure, I like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah maybe maybe monthly, maybe once every couple months, maybe more.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see. But uh, you're not social media. Nobody
Speaker 1: can get a hold of you.
Speaker 2: You know what I was, I was a Twitter fend
Speaker 2: there for a little bit. And then I think Twitter
Speaker 2: is a beautiful, a great news feed to get information,
Speaker 2: but I think it's dangerous toe to put your ocean
Speaker 2: in when you're the ocean, to put your toe in
Speaker 2: when you're a public figure A little bit. Ah, it's tough,
Speaker 2: and I got a frustrated. I got really frustrated with
Speaker 2: the negativity of your followers. You're a nice part on
Speaker 2: fifteen Today Jeff and all that, and I know it
Speaker 2: doesn't really mean anything that you should really listen to it,
Speaker 2: but it's just like I don't need that in my life.
Speaker 2: So I just just did. I kind of got off Twitter.
Speaker 2: I was an early I was early on Twitter. Then
Speaker 2: I go off. But I look at Instagram, but I
Speaker 2: don't really I should probably get a little bit more active,
Speaker 2: but they have it. I'm at school.
Speaker 1: Take some pictures of Royal Melbourne. I'm sure that people
Speaker 1: would like that, you know, you.
Speaker 2: Know what, I think that really I should do that
Speaker 2: because it's out of the back fence now and it
Speaker 2: looks pretty good at sunset. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you got you got. You could take pictures
Speaker 1: of coffee. You got your back to uh where coffee
Speaker 1: is like a cherished pastime.
Speaker 2: They take coffee very seriously here in Melbourne. It's a
Speaker 2: coffee very good here. Yeah, six scups to day is
Speaker 2: probably too many, but it is very good.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we'll talk soon and uh look forward
Speaker 1: to doing more.
Speaker 2: Of these good stuff. That was fun. I enjoy it.