Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 3: In a bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg
Speaker 3: Frida egg, Frida egg egg Frida egg, bride egg.
Speaker 4: Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to the Friday E Golf Podcast Today. I
Speaker 4: am excited to be joined by Joseph Lamanya and Kevin
Speaker 4: van Valkenberg to just.
Speaker 2: Do our monthly check in.
Speaker 4: We've got the US Open Hurdling Down Memorial coming up
Speaker 4: as well as the US Women's Open at Riviera, so
Speaker 4: that should be actually a super fun event for the
Speaker 4: Women's Open.
Speaker 2: I think one of the.
Speaker 4: Neat things about that is that golf fans general familiarity
Speaker 4: with Riviera from their hosting of every year's LA Open,
Speaker 4: but seeing a completely different style of golf being played
Speaker 4: on a very familiar course. I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 4: locking in on that this week for the US Women's Open.
Speaker 4: Lots of coverage of that on Golf Channel. So I
Speaker 4: am joined by Joseph and Kevin. We're going to kind
Speaker 4: of break down three storylines that we have enjoyed and
Speaker 4: hope keep going. One thing that we're going we would
Speaker 4: love to change if we were the golf Szar. This
Speaker 4: goes back to I think that Kevin and I did
Speaker 4: probably about five years ago, six years ago, a golf
Speaker 4: Zar episode where it was a super popular episode where
Speaker 4: are the golfs are?
Speaker 2: What are we doing?
Speaker 4: As well as one thing to watch for the US
Speaker 4: Women's Open, One thing each us are going to watch
Speaker 4: for the US Women's Open Before we get to them,
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Speaker 4: get to Joseph and Kevin uh boys, Welcome on.
Speaker 2: How are you guys.
Speaker 1: Doing, Eddy, I'm doing great. It's you know, it's June.
Speaker 5: It's in that sweet spot in Baltimore where the humidity
Speaker 5: hasn't arrived to sort of just absolutely murder you.
Speaker 1: And it's it's lovely. The pollen is fine.
Speaker 5: I played golf yesterday, played really bad, but the lovely
Speaker 5: walk around Falls Road down there in Montgomery County with
Speaker 5: some friends.
Speaker 6: That's great.
Speaker 3: That's great, doing great, Andy. This is one of my
Speaker 3: favorite times of the year. You know, we've got NBA
Speaker 3: Finals and playoffs kind of wrapping up. I think the
Speaker 3: golf calendar. I love the little Colonial into Memorial stretch
Speaker 3: and then the US Open also right. I don't want
Speaker 3: to be disrespectful to the Canadian Open that's in there too,
Speaker 3: but this is a nice little run of golf, and
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, the women playing at Riviera this week,
Speaker 3: so I think the golf tank is full as we
Speaker 3: record this podcast.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's anyone, including Jack Nicholas, that loves
Speaker 4: the Memorial more than you.
Speaker 2: So I am.
Speaker 4: You know, I've got I've been on a little golf hiatus.
Speaker 4: I have some golf coming back into my life soon.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I'm excited. I'm going to Abandon Dunes.
Speaker 4: I've decided I'm going to play Hickory the whole time there.
Speaker 4: So I've decided that I am I'm kind of done
Speaker 4: with modern technology for a while, Uh, which I tend
Speaker 4: to do. So I'm gonna play real golf with with
Speaker 4: the Hickory's.
Speaker 1: Will you play it? Like all the way back? What was?
Speaker 1: How do you choose what tea is there?
Speaker 4: Part of the reason I've wanted to do the Hickory
Speaker 4: is so we're doing a Friday golf trip so that
Speaker 4: I just can play with everybody there at the same
Speaker 4: roughly the same tea box and and not be just
Speaker 4: hitting wedges into every green.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited.
Speaker 4: I you know, I played, Uh, I played a couple
Speaker 4: of months ago when we were in Scotland with Hickory's
Speaker 4: on the old course, and it's just so much more fun.
Speaker 4: I mean, the hazards have so much more impact. You're
Speaker 4: actually thinking about like, Okay, I'm need to get this
Speaker 4: over here because I won't have a wedge with the
Speaker 4: supreme stopping power in my hands to just make the
Speaker 4: hazard irrelevant. So I'm excited about that. I'm uh I
Speaker 4: and that'll carry us right into the US Open.
Speaker 5: So i'd have I might have seen you hit one
Speaker 5: of the greatest shots that I've ever seen hit with
Speaker 5: a hickory club, which was and into that eatinghole. Was like,
Speaker 5: and you hit a click, like just just a beautiful
Speaker 5: baby draw two about four feet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forgot about that shot.
Speaker 1: I might have.
Speaker 5: I might have texted a professional golfer that we both know,
Speaker 5: and it was like, Andie will not brag about this,
Speaker 5: so I want you to give him some ship next
Speaker 5: time you see HI about how freaking good this was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was one of the better shots in my life.
Speaker 4: Honestly it was. Yeah, it was like the four iron
Speaker 4: I think was. Yeah, I'm glad I remembered it since
Speaker 4: you apparently forgot it. So I don't remember really any shots.
Speaker 4: It's you know, I mostly I'm you know, probably what
Speaker 4: you could say is my issue on the golf courses.
Speaker 4: I remember all the bad ones. I don't remember any
Speaker 4: of the good ones. I remember heading good drive into
Speaker 4: the Admiral Bunker on the reverse course and then having
Speaker 4: to like shovel a ball out because I was so
Speaker 4: far up on the web.
Speaker 2: That's really the only shot I remember from that, Right.
Speaker 6: You're kind of like Paul Aisinger.
Speaker 3: How Paul Asinger would always talk about pressure, and sometimes
Speaker 3: you'd make the point I think appropriately on the pod
Speaker 3: like that seems to be a little bit of a
Speaker 3: window into the way Paul Aisinger thinks that, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe he was always dealing with pressure, and you always
Speaker 3: talk a scar tissue and the spots that guys don't
Speaker 3: want to go on golf courses. It sounds like that
Speaker 3: might just be a reflection of the way you experienced
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, yeah, I would say that negative self talk
Speaker 4: is an issue on the golf course as well as
Speaker 4: life for me. So I always am amazed at I've
Speaker 4: always I've told this story before. I was at the
Speaker 4: John Deere one year and d eight Points came off
Speaker 4: the golf course after shooting seventy six, and we had
Speaker 4: a mutual friend and I was with that that person
Speaker 4: and Da Points comes up, I mean, everybody shooting sixty seven,
Speaker 4: you know, and Da comes up and he's you know,
Speaker 4: obviously with someone he's really comfortable with and he's like,
Speaker 4: can you believe all the bad breaks I got? I
Speaker 4: mean a sprinkler out here, this there, And I just
Speaker 4: like watched in Marvel as this guy explained away like
Speaker 4: how he shot seventy six, And I thought to myself,
Speaker 4: if I would have walked off that golf course and
Speaker 4: been like just like so disappointed with myself. But he
Speaker 4: had literally like a misgiving for every shot and he,
Speaker 4: you know, he in his mind, should have shot sixty eight.
Speaker 4: And I was like, that's the difference between you know,
Speaker 4: many there are many things that are different, but that's
Speaker 4: one of the biggest differences, is like I just can't
Speaker 4: get rid of It's it's interesting you tell you like
Speaker 4: the sports psychologist KVB. You just did a Q and
Speaker 4: A with Julie Alion, a famous sports psychologist. But you
Speaker 4: know they talk about staying in the present, and honestly,
Speaker 4: like I've said this to some people recently, I am
Speaker 4: a better golfer today than I was, but I'm worse
Speaker 4: at everything, every skill of golf. I'm a worst potter
Speaker 4: of worst short game. I might be a better short
Speaker 4: game player, I have a worst iron player or worst
Speaker 4: driver of the golf ball. But literally the only thing
Speaker 4: I'm better at, and I think it's because of kids,
Speaker 4: is like just like not getting bent out of shape
Speaker 4: about a mistake. And it's because like you literally just
Speaker 4: you know, with a young child, just sit and you know,
Speaker 4: have to clean up shit all the time. Like things
Speaker 4: never go the way you wanted to go.
Speaker 3: I didn't think Da Points mentioned ten minutes into this
Speaker 3: episode of the Frida Egg Pod, We're already off to
Speaker 3: a hot start.
Speaker 2: The Da Points thing like it's burned. I'll never forget it.
Speaker 4: It's like, I mean he got lapped by the field
Speaker 4: and it came off the golf course and it was
Speaker 4: like he acted like he played the round of the day,
Speaker 4: but he just got bad breaks all day.
Speaker 2: And it's like this is just this guy.
Speaker 4: Lives in a completely different universe than me on the
Speaker 4: golf course. And that's probably why I'm not very good.
Speaker 5: Listen, I would love to I've gotten a little better,
Speaker 5: I would say negative self talking the last year or so,
Speaker 5: I finally just realized, like, yeah, you're just bad at golf,
Speaker 5: like but that's okay, Like enjoy it and like you
Speaker 5: don't have to throw a tantrum about you know, not
Speaker 5: being whatever.
Speaker 1: So I'm handing up wet up yesterday and I was.
Speaker 5: Like, that's good, Like I kind of you know, I'm
Speaker 5: i gonna get a for more strokes when I go
Speaker 5: play a member guest somewhere. It's you know what, I'd
Speaker 5: say this to people that struggle. Everybody sucks, you know it,
Speaker 5: And I think it's part.
Speaker 4: Of like what we did one of the things that's
Speaker 4: nice if you can, you know, keep the perspective as
Speaker 4: a as a journalist when you interact with these PGA
Speaker 4: tour players, Like some of them will come off the
Speaker 4: course and be like, I just suck right now. I'm
Speaker 4: not good, and you're like in your head, you're like, well,
Speaker 4: you're like the fifteenth best player in the world and
Speaker 4: you're saying this and it's like twenty five handicaps. They'll
Speaker 4: be like, I'm not very good, and it's like, well,
Speaker 4: news flash, like nobody thinks they're actually good.
Speaker 1: That's a good chipping there you go.
Speaker 5: It's good segue in a couple of my guys that
Speaker 5: we're going to discuss today about.
Speaker 2: Let's start with the limits open.
Speaker 4: Let's give it a shine riviera, let's do let's each
Speaker 4: knock out one thing.
Speaker 2: We're looking forward to in particular at Riviera.
Speaker 6: Go ahead, Kevin, I'm just.
Speaker 5: Really looking forward to to seeing Nelly Corda like on
Speaker 5: another classic American golf course, like the best driver of
Speaker 5: the golf ball in the game sort of maybe figured
Speaker 5: out US opened a little bit at Aaron Hill's last
Speaker 5: year was has been particularly bad in US opens for
Speaker 5: as talented as she is, And to me, that's just
Speaker 5: like the lead story. If Nelly could come in and
Speaker 5: win this major, I think it would mean such a
Speaker 5: huge thing for like her personal legacy and career already
Speaker 5: and you know whatever, I'm getting a little bit bored
Speaker 5: of like the grow the game, boost the game.
Speaker 1: What does Nelly need to do.
Speaker 5: For this and that I think that's all kind of
Speaker 5: sort of a little bit of nonsense in some ways,
Speaker 5: but just for her own like, hey, I'm I'm the
Speaker 5: real deal, Like I'm one of the great players of
Speaker 5: this era or maybe any era.
Speaker 1: I think that would be be huge.
Speaker 4: Just for casual women's golf fans or people that haven't
Speaker 4: tuned in to women's golf. This year, Nelly Korda is
Speaker 4: having a absolutely sensational year. Her finishes in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: six and her star Star first, second, second, second, first, first.
Speaker 1: And T eight.
Speaker 4: So T eight is her worst start of the year.
Speaker 4: Pretty incredible, obviously. I yeah, Joseph, I'd.
Speaker 2: Love to hear yours and then I can go into mind.
Speaker 3: I'm kind of switching mind in real time here because
Speaker 3: I think Nelly Korda is the most interesting story. And
Speaker 3: part of what I'm excited to watch about her play
Speaker 3: is that Riviera is a weird golf course. I love Riviera,
Speaker 3: but it for a lot of the best players in
Speaker 3: the world, they have trouble with it, and I think
Speaker 3: it's hard to capture exactly why, Like I have some theories,
Speaker 3: but I think it's just a funky golf course that
Speaker 3: even some of the best players in the world, they
Speaker 3: get there, everything looks fine, but then they just struggle.
Speaker 3: And you see it was Scottie Shaffler. Tigers struggles there
Speaker 3: are well documented, I think maybe overstated at times because
Speaker 3: he didn't always play there that often. But I'm just
Speaker 3: excited to see if the best player in the world,
Speaker 3: Nelly Korda, can get it done, or does she similarly
Speaker 3: kind of get spooked by a golf course that just
Speaker 3: challenges people in different ways than they're used to, like
Speaker 3: part of what I think happens at Riviera, and I
Speaker 3: need to I would need to look into this a
Speaker 3: little bit more, but I feel like, yes, the greens
Speaker 3: are bunky and a little bit different than people are
Speaker 3: accustomed to putting on, and they can get a little rough.
Speaker 6: By the end of the day, they break a lot.
Speaker 6: But I also think there's a lot of.
Speaker 3: Shots for being pin high isn't good enough, and that
Speaker 3: if you're just a little off you're so used to
Speaker 3: on the PGA Tour and presumably on the LPGA Tour too,
Speaker 3: that shot being okay, and it's not at Riviera. I mean,
Speaker 3: ten's obviously an example example that quirkiness kind of turned
Speaker 3: up all the way to the max. But there's a
Speaker 3: number of other holes where you can hit something pin
Speaker 3: high in eighteen feet left of the flag, towards the
Speaker 3: fat side of the green and it's not in a
Speaker 3: good spot. And I just don't think that's something that
Speaker 3: a lot of professional golfers are used to. So I'm
Speaker 3: interested to watch Nellie navigate that puzzle.
Speaker 4: You know, what I think it is is that older
Speaker 4: golf courses have a lot more slope in the greens,
Speaker 4: and what you end up oftentimes when you're pin high.
Speaker 2: Is that you end up with that twenty foot putt
Speaker 2: and it's just.
Speaker 4: That one that you're afraid of ripping away from you
Speaker 4: as it gets past the hole where it's like you
Speaker 4: have to play so much break that the putt then
Speaker 4: turns into this downhill ripping away putt when it's going
Speaker 4: to the hole. So then it what you end up
Speaker 4: doing is you end up being afraid of like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is gonna roll five feet by, but it's like
Speaker 4: five feet straight up the hill, but you're still anxious
Speaker 4: about It's the only time when there's a lot of
Speaker 4: slope in the greens, it's the time, especially with pros,
Speaker 4: where you get psychologically. What I think what pro golfers
Speaker 4: are so great at when I watch them putt is
Speaker 4: the pace and the authority that they hit it with
Speaker 4: is so clearly I'm not even thinking about the next putt.
Speaker 4: But when there's slope on the greens and they start
Speaker 4: to see, okay, this can run away from me six
Speaker 4: seven feet, that's the time it psychologically gets in their
Speaker 4: head that creates doubt and then it leads to I
Speaker 4: didn't hit it hard enough, and now I have the
Speaker 4: three and a half footer that I have a cup
Speaker 4: of break on. So it's like that combination of like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this result's bad, but actually the not committing to it
Speaker 4: result could be worse. And now, like every statistician is
Speaker 4: gonna be like, oh, you make X number of putts
Speaker 4: more from three feet than from five and a half feet.
Speaker 4: But I think if you talk to like almost every pro,
Speaker 4: if you gave them just a dead street five and
Speaker 4: a half footer up the hill versus a heavily breaking
Speaker 4: three and a half footer, they're taking the five footer
Speaker 4: up the hill. I mean that's like sitting on a
Speaker 4: practice mat or your perfect practice mat in your house
Speaker 4: just knocking down putt after putt, you know, versus a
Speaker 4: putt where you're like, okay, I have to marry break
Speaker 4: and speed. So I think that's the thing. It's like
Speaker 4: most I would say golf courses that the LPGA and
Speaker 4: the PGA Tour plays play on is in the kind
Speaker 4: of in the era of green speed, you know, outside
Speaker 4: the classics. It's like this era of like green speeds
Speaker 4: are this so we can't have this much break but
Speaker 4: all the classic golf courses have that much break that
Speaker 4: they don't allow architects to build with. You know, modern
Speaker 4: society has caused this, but that's the difference I think.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think Nelly's very much going back to her
Speaker 5: just for at quick sec like a vibes putter in
Speaker 5: a lot of ways too. If she misses a couple early,
Speaker 5: that's starts to kort of frustrate her and get in
Speaker 5: her head. But if she just you know, makes a
Speaker 5: few shorties like early, it starts to kind of build
Speaker 5: confidence and she is much less like sort of tentative
Speaker 5: around stuff. So we'll be watching, you know, Thursday, just
Speaker 5: to see, like, can she just get off to a
Speaker 5: good start and shoot, you know, seventy sixty nine somewhere
Speaker 5: in there and kind of make the beginning part of
Speaker 5: the tournament and be like, all right, I'm already ahead.
Speaker 1: Of like where things are. I don't have to kind
Speaker 1: of make some furious rally to make the cut.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean getting off, getting off on your front foot.
Speaker 4: As Paul McGinley would say, it's just such an important thing,
Speaker 4: you see it with every major.
Speaker 1: Showing tremendous metal out there. Nuddie carter I.
Speaker 2: The thing I'm most excited about is.
Speaker 4: I think we is we always talk about Riviera with
Speaker 4: the men and like what an architectural wonder, what a
Speaker 4: strategic golf course, and you know when it's when it's
Speaker 4: playing firm for the men, it has a lot of
Speaker 4: implications of like if you're out of position, it's hard
Speaker 4: to hit it close, it's hard to score. I think
Speaker 4: like we're actually gonna see how the strategy was played,
Speaker 4: it was designed to play this week. In some regards,
Speaker 4: I think the Kakuia approaches are going to be a
Speaker 4: huge problem. I'm just gonna put that out there now.
Speaker 4: They're they're gonna there's gonna be complaints. The greens are firm,
Speaker 4: the approaches don't release or don't like allow the ball
Speaker 4: to bounce in, So that's gonna be an issue. But
Speaker 4: that being said, like we're gonna actually get to see
Speaker 4: decision making and strategy on the tenth hole. It's not
Speaker 4: just a uniform strategy of like blasted left the green
Speaker 4: and figure it out. Some of the longer hitters, uh
Speaker 4: and the women's game will be able to do that,
Speaker 4: but most players are gonna have to hit the approach
Speaker 4: shot and thread it between the bunkers, avoid the right side,
Speaker 4: and it's gonna be really fun to watch a lot
Speaker 4: of the holes play out. Mech Alway and Meg Atkins
Speaker 4: from our team did a wonderful video which I would
Speaker 4: implore everybody to go watch on our YouTube page that
Speaker 4: broke down a few of the holes at Riviera. And
Speaker 4: and what's the neat about it is it's like kind
Speaker 4: of actually more how the normal golfer plays rivi Era.
Speaker 2: It's not just bashlor driver up there.
Speaker 4: Like particularly the eighth hole, the split fairway hole, we're
Speaker 4: gonna see people go right and left. You know, modern
Speaker 4: men's game is all left right and and it's a
Speaker 4: really it'll be a neat dynamic in the sense of
Speaker 4: like we're going to see these holes played wildly different
Speaker 4: than we're used to.
Speaker 2: So I'm I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 4: Like the fifth hole, to me, would be one that
Speaker 4: I would park myself on just because you know, you're
Speaker 4: gonna have like a that missing right off the tee,
Speaker 4: not missing, but hitting it up the right side and
Speaker 4: having to play over the mound with a longer club
Speaker 4: is going to have a lot more more implication than
Speaker 4: in the men's game where it's a wedge, it should
Speaker 4: be super fun to watch. I think, like I think,
Speaker 4: given everybody's familiarity, Like you know, Riviera is a great
Speaker 4: venue for the for for this kind of tournament. Another
Speaker 4: it made me think, like another venue i'd love to
Speaker 4: see the women play a huge event at is TPC
Speaker 4: saw Grass. That would be so fun because like what
Speaker 4: you're tapping into is familiarity, Like everybody always goes, Oh,
Speaker 4: Women's Major should be at Augusta National. Why don't we
Speaker 4: have a women's Major at TPC Sawgrass.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a great idea, like a Solheim Cup.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Well the PG Tour probably would charge too
Speaker 4: much rent for their strategic partner.
Speaker 6: That would be incredible.
Speaker 5: If you're listening, Brian roll Up, this would be huge,
Speaker 5: be huge for ratings, huge for the for the overall game.
Speaker 5: You could get it sponsored by some AI bullshit like
Speaker 5: be awesome.
Speaker 2: Uh, let's get to storylines.
Speaker 4: So these are like, yeah, the premise of this is
Speaker 4: these are three kind of like drawn out stories or
Speaker 4: stories that are happening in golf that we'd love to
Speaker 4: see continue on the path for a given period of time,
Speaker 4: and and and we could kind of dive into each
Speaker 4: one that we picked out and and why we want
Speaker 4: to see it continue.
Speaker 2: Who wants to go first here?
Speaker 6: Kevin?
Speaker 1: Go ahead? Oh all right.
Speaker 5: Look I The Tommy Fleetwood thing has has been such
Speaker 5: a kind of running storyline throughout the last like four
Speaker 5: or five years of like, oh, Tommy's such a big
Speaker 5: loved player. Tommy's like finally going to make the leap.
Speaker 5: Tommy's like the nicest guy in golf, the best guy
Speaker 5: without a major. We're coming back to Birkedale now, coming up.
Speaker 5: Tommy grew up in the area. You know, we used
Speaker 5: to play sneak Over and play Birkedale a little bit
Speaker 5: from Southport. If you look at the results this year,
Speaker 5: Tommy's kind of regressed just a hair. He's about half
Speaker 5: a stroke worse than he was last year when it
Speaker 5: seemed like he was kind of making the leap. I
Speaker 5: really wonder if the clock is sort of ticking on
Speaker 5: that moment where we ask ourselves like what can Tommy be?
Speaker 5: And we asked shifted to what could of Tommy have been?
Speaker 5: Like is Tommy sort of the you know, he's not
Speaker 5: as good as Monty, but like the manty like guy
Speaker 5: who just never quite won a major, the guy who
Speaker 5: never really made the leap, And I think it's going
Speaker 5: to be like the results in the Majors earlier this year,
Speaker 5: not great miss cut, the PGA was not a factor
Speaker 5: in the Masters. What is Tommy Fleetwood at this point
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty six. I think it's a really interesting question,
Speaker 5: And there's going to be obviously like a lot of
Speaker 5: you know, hometown model buzz, like when he returns to
Speaker 5: Birkdale and if it doesn't happen there, like, is that
Speaker 5: the point where the inflection point goes the other direction?
Speaker 5: Like man, Tommy, he could sure hit the ball, but
Speaker 5: he never quite did it.
Speaker 3: I think again, Tommy's season has not been a disaster.
Speaker 3: He had some decent finishes, some top tens. I still
Speaker 3: think Fleetwood has probably been one of the biggest disappointments
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty six. And if you were to I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know him off the top of
Speaker 3: my head. If you're to rank the top five disappointers
Speaker 3: this year, I think Tommy Fleetwood deserves a.
Speaker 6: Spot in that top five.
Speaker 3: He was playing really, really good golf at the end
Speaker 3: of last year. You can make a case whatever second
Speaker 3: best player in the world, third best player in the world.
Speaker 3: But the putting, it just hasn't been as good this year.
Speaker 3: He was a great, great putter last year. And if
Speaker 3: you're going to give up some distance to the field
Speaker 3: and struggle with the putter a little bit, then he
Speaker 3: can compete like I think Shinnecock, Kevin, you're talking about Birkdale,
Speaker 3: but you know Shinnecock is another golf course that Tommy
Speaker 3: played really well last time. He does have two pretty
Speaker 3: good cracks coming up over the summer. I think you're
Speaker 3: right that if he doesn't get it, if he does
Speaker 3: not even in the mix in either of those two,
Speaker 3: then I don't think you can take Tommy seriously as
Speaker 3: one of the top players in the world looking ahead
Speaker 3: to the next couple of years. Great player, sure, staple
Speaker 3: of a Ryder Cup team, sure, but as somebody that
Speaker 3: you think about as one of the five to seven
Speaker 3: real real threats at a major championship. I do think
Speaker 3: that's sort of being taken to task over the summer.
Speaker 4: The last time he finished in the top ten at
Speaker 4: a major was the twenty twenty four Masters, so he's
Speaker 4: been relatively not a factor at the last nine major championships. Now,
Speaker 4: I think, Joseph, you make some good points, but I
Speaker 4: would like for normal people, and this is kind of
Speaker 4: like non Rory rom Scheffler with Stan. I think for
Speaker 4: normal PGA Tour players, your game comes and goes in waves,
Speaker 4: and you have hot streaks and cold streaks, and you
Speaker 4: know there are just like everything just doesn't click together
Speaker 4: all the time, and you're for you know, for most people,
Speaker 4: these shortcomings, they're shortcomings. And what you illuminated Joseph giving
Speaker 4: up distance off the tee and if you have a
Speaker 4: cold putter, you're just not going to play that high
Speaker 4: level golf, right, So you're just more susceptible when you
Speaker 4: have you know, like I think outside, you know, you
Speaker 4: go down the list of players and outside of probably
Speaker 4: three players, four players in the game, everybody has weaknesses
Speaker 4: and when in the what makes those players so great
Speaker 4: is that they can two aspects of their game can
Speaker 4: be below average, below their normal standard, and still they
Speaker 4: can still play well, you know, because they have some
Speaker 4: overwhelming skills that are just you know, transcendent. And with Tommy,
Speaker 4: you know, the iron play is the only thing I
Speaker 4: would say that is like a overwhelming skill driving accuracy,
Speaker 4: but that driving accuracy matched with below average distance, it
Speaker 4: makes him a good driver of the golf ball, not
Speaker 4: a great driver of the golf ball. Whereas you look
Speaker 4: at somebody like, you know, Scottie matches more distance with
Speaker 4: similar accuracy. He has a transcendent iron player, transcendent around
Speaker 4: the greens, and it's like, oh, he putted bad, but
Speaker 4: he's still finished second. It's like, well that, yeah, that
Speaker 4: makes sense. He had an off week putting and iron
Speaker 4: play and he's still finished sixth, like because his other
Speaker 4: skills are so overwhelming, you know, And I think that's
Speaker 4: like the thing. It's it's funny with like the Russ
Speaker 4: Henley when this week, Joseph, you're a big Russ fan.
Speaker 4: I actually like the more I dove in. I'm kind
Speaker 4: of bullish on Russ in majors. Like you said, I
Speaker 4: I was just giving you a lot of grief in
Speaker 4: a group text.
Speaker 2: But one of the things with Russ is like everything
Speaker 2: has to click.
Speaker 4: Like his overwhelming his attributes that are like really plus
Speaker 4: are obviously accuracy, iron play, and then like the putter
Speaker 4: can get really hot. But it's just everything has to work,
Speaker 4: and so rarely in golf, everything is clicking, and that's
Speaker 4: like the the I think, like we have these like
Speaker 4: peaks and valleys with so many players and that's just
Speaker 4: golf in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: And we've said this before, but it mirrors life right
Speaker 4: where like you're very rarely it's you know, the exceptional
Speaker 4: talent of the game. I think make make look at
Speaker 4: contending so much easier than it actually is.
Speaker 3: But I think, isn't that the point that Tommy. I
Speaker 3: think we maybe this is where Kevin's coming from. I
Speaker 3: don't want to put ones in his mouth, but we
Speaker 3: might have thought Tommy could have a year to eighteenth
Speaker 3: month stretch where you're saying, take out the greats of
Speaker 3: the game Scotti, Ram and Rory, and I think, at
Speaker 3: least for me, it's like, well, I thought Tommy could
Speaker 3: have a short stretch where he is one of the
Speaker 3: greats and he is winning. He's not as good as
Speaker 3: Scotty and Rory and Ram, but I thought maybe we
Speaker 3: could see a two year stretch where Tommy plays like
Speaker 3: a top five player in the world. I hear your point,
Speaker 3: and I agree with it, but I think I'm still
Speaker 3: disappointed that on the heels of a really hot season,
Speaker 3: where he was in form.
Speaker 6: We haven't seen much of that carry into this year.
Speaker 6: He hasn't been terrible, but go ahead, Kevin.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I just think it's like a little bit of expectations.
Speaker 5: Right once you play great, those expectations come. I mean,
Speaker 5: I was just looking up as we're chatting, like a
Speaker 5: story that I wrote from Chinnakok the last time the
Speaker 5: US Open was there and he finished, you know, shot
Speaker 5: sixty three and he had three hours essentially to sit
Speaker 5: around and see like whether that mattered, and the whole
Speaker 5: story is framed is like is this Tommy's like coming
Speaker 5: out party? Like has he finally arrived as being the
Speaker 5: next you know, like great European player, And all those
Speaker 5: questions still sort of exist like eight years later, which
Speaker 5: just kind of makes you laugh and think about like
Speaker 5: the narrative has been here all this time.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, this dude hits the ball so good.
Speaker 5: It seems like we're always just on the cusp of
Speaker 5: like getting over and having that you know, transcendent, you know,
Speaker 5: career defining victory. And I don't know, I just I
Speaker 5: feel I think we all like Tommy as a player,
Speaker 5: Like everybody loves him as a person. He's such a
Speaker 5: warm kind of like fun most Like we talked about
Speaker 5: Aaron Raye being one of the most liked guys in
Speaker 5: the game. Tommy Fleetwood's like probably right there. I don't know,
Speaker 5: I mean it just are we ever going to experience
Speaker 5: majors again where the old guy kind of breaks through
Speaker 5: after never having done it before, The Marko era, the
Speaker 5: Darren Clark, like that era might be kind of gone
Speaker 5: from golf in some ways because it's been a long
Speaker 5: time since one of those guys broke through.
Speaker 3: What JJ spon, I mean, Russell, you're Fleewood's thirty five
Speaker 3: spawn was thirty four last year when he won.
Speaker 5: I think that's a little different in that, Like Markomra
Speaker 5: was one of the best players in the game, like
Speaker 5: in his prime, so was Darren Clark.
Speaker 1: Certainly we all expected Monty to do it.
Speaker 5: Jj'spond was like a guy who's that's more in the
Speaker 5: line of like the Ben Curtis, the White Yang, like, oh,
Speaker 5: like this guy won wow. Like I just don't know,
Speaker 5: Like there comes a point when you're in your forties
Speaker 5: where it's like, yeah, that guy's not going to win
Speaker 5: a major.
Speaker 4: I think I wonder that's one of my favorite stories
Speaker 4: is the guy that like, you know, has these expectations
Speaker 4: early and it's like, oh, you know, so and so
Speaker 4: is going to win, it's not when it's how many
Speaker 4: and then they they're close for so many years and
Speaker 4: then you get to the the arc in the story
Speaker 4: where it's like, I don't think it's ever going to happen,
Speaker 4: and I think you've I think this is what resonated
Speaker 4: with the Rory Masters, when so much is that we
Speaker 4: had this exact arc and so like to your point
Speaker 4: of like are we ever going to get one? I
Speaker 4: think we just got one with Rory because it got
Speaker 4: to the point where like is he ever going to
Speaker 4: do this again? Was very similar to how you felt
Speaker 4: about Sergio how you felt about Adam Scott, like I
Speaker 4: don't know if he's ever going to put this together,
Speaker 4: like given how many, how many heartbreaks they've been But yeah, Tommy,
Speaker 4: I don't think Tommy gets there for me. I think
Speaker 4: Tommy's always been a nice player, and I just think
Speaker 4: that his his if last year was his magnum opus
Speaker 4: of where there was a real point in the fall
Speaker 4: where we're like, is he the best player in the
Speaker 4: world even with Scotty what he's doing. I just I
Speaker 4: don't think we're personally. I've never thought of Tommy Fleetwood
Speaker 4: in the bucket of like this guy is has a
Speaker 4: chance to be like a generational player. I think he's
Speaker 4: always been in the he's a really good player bucket,
Speaker 4: but never one that's gonna be like lasting legacy player
Speaker 4: in the game of golf. And so maybe I don't know,
Speaker 4: that's maybe we just have different expectations of Tommy because like,
Speaker 4: you know, you look at Tommy's career, it's like it
Speaker 4: hasn't been this just like rose pedal, like sidewalk filled career,
Speaker 4: where like there have been ups, ups and downs. He
Speaker 4: had like a lot of struggles early in his in
Speaker 4: his European tour career. And to me, I, I, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know the what what the
Speaker 4: you know? I you know, major I.
Speaker 2: Think would be like the cherry on top of a
Speaker 2: really good career.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm already looking forward to Tommy Fluwood Ryder Cup captain.
Speaker 1: I thought that, uh is fun.
Speaker 5: And there's been so many European guys who I'm looking
Speaker 5: forward to their Ryder Cup tenure, which is why I
Speaker 5: don't love that Luke Donald got three bites of the
Speaker 5: Apple because I want more guys to sort of get
Speaker 5: there or swing at it just for the narrative's sake
Speaker 5: of it.
Speaker 2: I wish we would have gotten Westi's because I'm sure
Speaker 2: he would have read like he read, would have read
Speaker 2: his first book of his life, The Art of War.
Speaker 1: Did you see zing? Does it? Westy? A little bit?
Speaker 5: He was talking about golf digests the other day about Oh,
Speaker 5: golf digist is reporting out stories about where a pee
Speaker 5: on the golf course used to publish the great so
Speaker 5: like Jenkins and Tom Callahan. And I was like, Wesley,
Speaker 5: I'd love to sit and talk with you about you know,
Speaker 5: what are your favorite of your favorite Jenkins pieces are.
Speaker 1: He did not respond to that esfirsionally.
Speaker 4: Oh, Joseph, what's your first one? We're off the blistering
Speaker 4: pace here too.
Speaker 3: Kevin almost made me change mine in real time. And
Speaker 3: maybe I'll come back to that one, uh, because I
Speaker 3: think there's another player that's similar to Tommy, But I'm
Speaker 3: going to go with We've talked about this top before
Speaker 3: on this pod. I think the most interesting story in
Speaker 3: golf right now is that Scotty Scheffler is the clear
Speaker 3: cut world number one, and we are five full months
Speaker 3: into the season. He has one win and it's the
Speaker 3: American Express, and I I just am fascinated by Scotty.
Speaker 3: The discourse I'm not gonna victory Lap, the take familiar
Speaker 3: in the year that he hasn't been as good as
Speaker 3: last year, because that is not settled, Like we have
Speaker 3: a long time to see how good Scotty is throughout
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six. I think a win memorial this week.
Speaker 3: I think he could very well win at Shinnacock and
Speaker 3: or Brickdale. But I mean, his year isn't that different
Speaker 3: than last year at this time. He had seven top
Speaker 3: fives last year through twelve starts through June first, but
Speaker 3: he had three wins, including a major championship. This year
Speaker 3: it's seven top fives through eleven starts, so similar, but
Speaker 3: one win and it's an American Express. And we're talking
Speaker 3: about the golfer that everyone would agree as the best
Speaker 3: player in the world. He's thirty years old, he's squarely
Speaker 3: square in his prime and we're halfway through the season,
Speaker 3: halfway through major championship season. It doesn't get easier to
Speaker 3: win majors like that the standard gets raised every year.
Speaker 3: We have some really good young talent that's over the
Speaker 3: next two to four years going to make its way
Speaker 3: on to tour. I think the most important story in
Speaker 3: golf is do Scotti Schefler win a major over the
Speaker 3: next two tries?
Speaker 5: You know, Joseph, I think a lot about something that
Speaker 5: you said at some point on this podcast of like, hey,
Speaker 5: did have we seen the best that Scotti Scheffler will
Speaker 5: ever be? And that doesn't mean like going forward, will
Speaker 5: he be bad. It's so easy to sort of, I think,
Speaker 5: dishonestly frame that when people are talking about it. But
Speaker 5: I kind of think that makes a really interesting point.
Speaker 5: People used to talk about this with Tiger Woods all
Speaker 5: the time, when like, oh man, he'll never get better
Speaker 5: than he was in two thousand and that was true,
Speaker 5: but didn't mean the Tiger was going to be less than.
Speaker 5: It just meant that, like when you're a great athlete,
Speaker 5: sometimes you have that peak year when everything's great. That
Speaker 5: was last year for Scotty, like got you majors out
Speaker 5: of it, incredible, Like it all might be like just
Speaker 5: slightly less than going forward, and we have so much
Speaker 5: It's so easy in sports to be like no, no, no,
Speaker 5: like he's gonna peak again, He's gonna maybe it doesn't
Speaker 5: come and happen that way, And so I think it
Speaker 5: is an interesting argument of like, man, it would do
Speaker 5: a lot for my feeling of like, oh, yeah, Scotty's
Speaker 5: gonna win double digit majors if he picked off another
Speaker 5: one this year, and I just don't know, Like it's
Speaker 5: obviously the don't knowing is part of why we watch sports,
Speaker 5: but I thought it was smart they sort of frame
Speaker 5: it that way of like, hey, man, like this is great,
Speaker 5: but don't think that this kind of run is.
Speaker 2: Forever well, that that's the you're always the prisoner.
Speaker 4: Like if you think about, you know, the NBA right now,
Speaker 4: discourse last year was like, oh my god, the Thunder
Speaker 4: are going to be this dominant team for the next
Speaker 4: ten years, Like look at what they have. There's nobody
Speaker 4: that's gonna be able to stand in the way of
Speaker 4: this team. And then sure enough one year later it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: like the Spurs or the team, you know, and what
Speaker 4: are the Thunder going to do? I think golf has
Speaker 4: this happened so often we're almost like immune to it
Speaker 4: because you know, it's just like what we just talked
Speaker 4: about with Tommy Fleetwood, right like at the end of
Speaker 4: last year is like, oh, Tommy is in this top
Speaker 4: tier class of players, and now it's like, I don't
Speaker 4: know about that, right, And you just think, you naturally
Speaker 4: think everything's going to continue the way it is continuing.
Speaker 4: Scotty was one of my storylines. And what I think is,
Speaker 4: you know, like, I think struggles are make for more
Speaker 4: compelling characters, and I actually, like this is going to
Speaker 4: sound insane, but I think Scotty not winning a major
Speaker 4: this year is actually like one of the better things
Speaker 4: for the sport that can happen, because it actually takes
Speaker 4: this transcendent superstar talent that like everybody looks at and
Speaker 4: is like not everybody, but the vast majority are like, God,
Speaker 4: this guy.
Speaker 2: Gives me nothing. He makes me feel nothing.
Speaker 4: I cannot tell you how many conversations I have with
Speaker 4: people just over the last couple of years that are like,
Speaker 4: is there anything that asked me like, is there any
Speaker 4: reason that.
Speaker 2: I should like Scotti Scheffler and that I should like
Speaker 2: root for him?
Speaker 4: And to me, one of the better things for his
Speaker 4: likability long term if you're gonna say he's going to
Speaker 4: be a superstar and at the top of the sport
Speaker 4: for the next five to eight years. One of the
Speaker 4: best things for his broader appeal, you know, the most,
Speaker 4: The thing that's broadened his appeal the most is he
Speaker 4: got arrested at the PGA. That was the best thing
Speaker 4: he could have ever happened for his popularity. Like the
Speaker 4: next thing is like him going through some sort of
Speaker 4: struggles on course that make people feel more to him.
Speaker 2: Something that is interesting.
Speaker 4: Since he's become this dominant player, he had another bad
Speaker 4: stretch of golf by his standards, and I'm just saying
Speaker 4: by his standards where Winsden didn't come just flow in
Speaker 4: and it was his hand injury after the twenty twenty
Speaker 4: five start. Interestingly enough, that was like basically if you yeah,
Speaker 4: he won obviously the Tour Championship and then his next
Speaker 4: win was the CJ Cup, But like if you look
Speaker 4: at it based off the hand injury, it was like
Speaker 4: a four month drought right now from the Amax till
Speaker 4: today June first, when we're recording this, that drought is
Speaker 4: roughly the same amount of time. It's about four months.
Speaker 4: And this is like competitive peak competitive golf, no injuries
Speaker 4: no step backs that we know of, and he is
Speaker 4: just struggling like we haven't seen since he's been on
Speaker 4: this dominant run. And by struggling, it's like he's just
Speaker 4: not getting it over the line. But this is like
Speaker 4: what happens with golf is like you know, the ball
Speaker 4: bounces the wrong way, you get a bad lie, and
Speaker 4: you know the bad lie costs you a shot. And
Speaker 4: you know, maybe when you're winning and everything's turning up Scotty,
Speaker 4: you're getting good lies that you're able to make things
Speaker 4: happen from. But you know, like this is how you
Speaker 4: start to develop some sort of scar tissue. I don't
Speaker 4: think it's like, you know, when I think about Tiger,
Speaker 4: I don't think it's a coincidence that like WAYI Yang
Speaker 4: staring him down and beating them in their arita like
Speaker 4: precipitated his like whole life unraveling. And for for high,
Speaker 4: high level golfers, I think when you fall short numerous times,
Speaker 4: that is when the doubt starts to creep in. And
Speaker 4: I don't think Scotty has had doubt in his career,
Speaker 4: and I don't like I think like a drought is
Speaker 4: actually honestly a good thing for the sport in his
Speaker 4: long term, like fan interest.
Speaker 3: I just have to push back on one thing, Andy,
Speaker 3: you said the best thing that Scotty could do for
Speaker 3: his popularity is to go through a drought.
Speaker 6: I think him getting arrested again.
Speaker 2: Clearly clearly Gills comes back.
Speaker 5: Way that or like arrested for like real crimes or
Speaker 5: like what kind of crimes are we talking about here?
Speaker 1: Financial crimes? Like petty crimes?
Speaker 3: What's u I think like armed robbery would be okay,
Speaker 3: would take him to a different level.
Speaker 2: Come on, I ask a question.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play the role of Andy here. Can I
Speaker 1: ask the question?
Speaker 5: All these clips all the time of Scotty like swinging
Speaker 5: wildly out of his shoes and the ball is going
Speaker 5: over the club's flying this in that way, It's always
Speaker 5: presented and framed. It's like, isn't this cute? Like isn't
Speaker 5: oh my god, this is the number one player in
Speaker 5: the world, Like isn't this wild?
Speaker 1: Ha ha haha?
Speaker 5: Is there ever any like I think, like push from
Speaker 5: Randy Smith to be like, hey, what if we swung
Speaker 5: a little bit more in balance? What if we like
Speaker 5: didn't try to have to save it with like the
Speaker 5: best set of hands, you know of this era maybe
Speaker 5: any era.
Speaker 1: I can't. You can't tell me that.
Speaker 5: Like Scotty like falling over sometimes when he swings at
Speaker 5: the ball is like a good thing because you know
Speaker 5: that he doesn't have to swing like Adam.
Speaker 1: Scott and obviously like the results are what the results are.
Speaker 5: But is there ever any like thought of like, hey, Scotty,
Speaker 5: like we could still you know, you don't have to
Speaker 5: essentially like swing like a complete, you know, twenty five
Speaker 5: handicapper sometimes and just save it with your hands. What
Speaker 5: if we developed a little bit more consistency in this
Speaker 5: holy cow, maybe you'd go back to being like a
Speaker 5: three strokes gained around person if you were.
Speaker 1: Just like a little bit more in control. I disagree.
Speaker 2: I think the question I think the golf swing.
Speaker 4: What what I think bothers me is that And this
Speaker 4: goes back to like Jim Furick, like the swing your swing,
Speaker 4: and it's like, well, if you look at like the
Speaker 4: most important points in the golf swing and where the
Speaker 4: club head, the body like everything is, it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: this is perfect, this is what But people then just
Speaker 4: use the feet for social engagement. It is just it
Speaker 4: is just a pure social engagement play and like the
Speaker 4: actual like, uh, the actual intelligent discourse would be around
Speaker 4: like how what he does with the feet give him
Speaker 4: supreme face control through the impact zone because like the
Speaker 4: way he uses his feet actually are like he's creating
Speaker 4: like the most like a very stable situation at at impact,
Speaker 4: and then the feet go everywhere after impact.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 5: I think a driver it's a little different, Like he
Speaker 5: makes some wild swings with driver that some ball's going
Speaker 5: way right. That remind me of like when Tiger was
Speaker 5: hitting the ball like a mile right sometimes and had
Speaker 5: to save himself, I mean to me, and honestly sometimes
Speaker 5: makes him more interesting and more compelling because then he
Speaker 5: has to manufacture saving things. Honestly, when Scotty's his most boring,
Speaker 5: it's when he's playing like just the best golf of
Speaker 5: like hey, driving it down like yeah, hitting hitting these
Speaker 5: gentle cuts, hitting it to twenty feet, making three out
Speaker 5: of every ten of those, you know, and then all
Speaker 5: of a sudden it's like, well I'm twenty under, you know.
Speaker 2: It's you know, what might help Scotty break the windless drout?
Speaker 1: Tell me more?
Speaker 2: I think he might need to examine.
Speaker 4: He's got two kids now, might need to examine how
Speaker 4: him and Meredith are sleeping, and I'll tell you what
Speaker 4: could really help his sleep is the eight Sleeps product.
Speaker 2: The Pod five eight sleep is a partner of ours.
Speaker 4: And the difference they say between dragging through your second
Speaker 4: round and actually playing well comes down to how you
Speaker 4: recovered overnight. I would agree with this. Good night's sleep
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Speaker 4: constantly are are are struggling with temperature. You know, anybody
Speaker 4: that's been gotten into a relationship, you generally fight over
Speaker 4: the thermostat, like early in your relationship some people, you know,
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Speaker 2: My wife always liked the warmer. With the Pod five,
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Speaker 4: Our next major is upon us coming up. That means
Speaker 4: we're gonna have a merch drop.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 4: This is a New York themed merch drop for Shinnecock Hills. Uh,
Speaker 4: it'll it'll be You know that the logo matches Pj's
Speaker 4: favorite baseball team.
Speaker 2: We wanted to throw him a bone there.
Speaker 4: On top of that, we have like our routing map shirts,
Speaker 4: lots of cool stuff. Go visit proshop dot the Friday
Speaker 4: dot com to check that out. Before we get back
Speaker 4: to Joseph and Kevin, here's a couple more uh stops
Speaker 4: from our sponsors. All right, let's get back to it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: We got to pick up the pace here. We're slacking.
Speaker 4: I have I fear that the Golf Star is not
Speaker 4: gonna happen today. We'll maybe make the golf Star a new,
Speaker 4: a new another episode. We've got two more things here.
Speaker 1: We well, let's move us along. Be the traffic cop.
Speaker 3: Let's go everyone five topics off the top and started
Speaker 3: talking about da points.
Speaker 6: I was already worried.
Speaker 2: All right, well, who's what's up next?
Speaker 1: I'll go next, you please go?
Speaker 4: All right, We've got one of my favorite stories is
Speaker 4: the uh the Fitzpatrick brothers ascension in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: I think brothers are compelling. Obviously we have the hoy
Speaker 4: Guards the Fitzpatricks, though, like doing both taking their game
Speaker 4: to like a whole new stratosphere at the exact same
Speaker 4: time to me is super super interesting. You know you
Speaker 4: had FITZI basically both of them. A year ago we
Speaker 4: were wandering a bit in the wilderness. Alex was a
Speaker 4: middling European tour player at this point and Fitzi was
Speaker 4: playing arguably the worst golf of his professtional career. And
Speaker 4: in the matter of a year, it looks like there's
Speaker 4: like that. You know, Fitzi is one of the without
Speaker 4: a doubt, you know, seven best players in the sport,
Speaker 4: and now it looks like Alex could be like a
Speaker 4: high end PGA tour player. I think, what's what's fascinating
Speaker 4: to me. I think brothers are good for the sport.
Speaker 4: It's good talking points. Obviously Alex, like you're gonna see
Speaker 4: all the pictures all the time of him carrying the
Speaker 4: bag for for Matt at at the UH, at the
Speaker 4: at the US A M that Matt won at the
Speaker 4: brook at Brookline. But you know, Alex brings like a
Speaker 4: whole different dynamic, uh different game. He's longer than than Matt,
Speaker 4: He's he's been like a really good iron player, and like,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't think it's inconceivable that you can
Speaker 4: see these guys duke it out in like tour events
Speaker 4: against each other, Like it's not inconceivable that these guys
Speaker 4: would be in final group and a tournament and you know,
Speaker 4: obviously you have the hoyguards, but they have not yet like,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of taken off. I think the way
Speaker 4: that people expected I did not have on my bingo card,
Speaker 4: that the Fitzpatricks would be the brothers of the PGA
Speaker 4: of of pro golf that everybody would be clamoring for.
Speaker 4: And it's just been kind of fun to see it
Speaker 4: happen for both of them at the same time.
Speaker 5: You know, it reminds me any of is like exclibit
Speaker 5: of high school vibes where there would be like two
Speaker 5: brothers who are coming up through the you know, your
Speaker 5: class whatever be like, oh, well, you know, Matt's pretty good,
Speaker 5: but like Alex, he's the dude who's gonna like dominate,
Speaker 5: and then they both end up kind of playing a
Speaker 5: little varsity at the same time.
Speaker 1: Like it's just that is remember reminis of that little
Speaker 1: vibe that doesn't.
Speaker 5: Exist in professional sports very much, where hey, a family
Speaker 5: of dudes is going to be uh is going to
Speaker 5: be contributing to this whole deal.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm I have a very close relationship with my
Speaker 3: brother and I think a lot of my most fun
Speaker 3: experiences in life are competing in sports together with my brother,
Speaker 3: whether it's on the same team, whether it's against each other,
Speaker 3: like growing up playing basketball against each other or golf.
Speaker 3: And to see the Fitzpatricks now, the way they talk
Speaker 3: about each other, there's zero jealousy. They give awesome quotes
Speaker 3: about one another. It's pure motivation and they take so
Speaker 3: much joy in each other's successes that that strikes a
Speaker 3: certain chord for me. And what I think would be
Speaker 3: incredible is if they could both end up on the
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup team next year. And it's a little far fetched,
Speaker 3: but at least at this point for Alex to sustain
Speaker 3: that and be one of the twelve best Europeans going
Speaker 3: into next year. However, I think Europeans are sort of
Speaker 3: on the record believing that you'd be more likely to
Speaker 3: take a rookie to the Ryder Cup at home versus away,
Speaker 3: So that's at least something in Alex's favor, and that
Speaker 3: legitimate chance that they could get paired together at the
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup. I know we've seen it before, the Mullinari
Speaker 3: brothers in twenty ten were paired together, but I think
Speaker 3: the opportunity to watch brothers, one being one of the
Speaker 3: best players in the world, one being an up and
Speaker 3: comer paired together at a Ryder Cup, the most pressure
Speaker 3: packed intense. Again, even the Ryder Cup now compared to
Speaker 3: twenty ten is so much bigger and so much more
Speaker 3: pressure packed. I think that would be one of the
Speaker 3: coolest things we could possibly see in twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 5: Joseph, if you had a choice between Aaron Raye, Alex Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 5: or Shane Lowry on the European Ryder Cup team, who
Speaker 5: you picking right now?
Speaker 6: God, that's hard. I would I would go with Alex Fitzpatrick.
Speaker 4: I think you know you don't make that better if
Speaker 4: it was Matt and Alex playing together and they were
Speaker 4: playing against somebody playing with Cam Young obviously the Alex
Speaker 4: cam Young college teammate angle too.
Speaker 6: Look, if Kim Young had a brother that I can
Speaker 6: guarantee that guy would be on tour.
Speaker 2: All right, what's up next? That's enough for the Fitzpatrick
Speaker 2: all right, I'll throw.
Speaker 1: One out there.
Speaker 5: I Look, this is maybe a little bit unfair, but
Speaker 5: I think I've I've mentioned some of this. When is
Speaker 5: the next great American player going to emerge. I think
Speaker 5: one thing that has been true throughout history is Americans
Speaker 5: have continually produced like a generationally great player, like every
Speaker 5: ten to fifteen years, and so it's maybe a little
Speaker 5: bit early for that, just like another one to merge.
Speaker 5: Maybe it's like someone you know, much younger, Miles Russell,
Speaker 5: Blades Brown, whatever. But so far, I think this season
Speaker 5: has lent a little bit evidence too, like it might
Speaker 5: not be one of these guys who we sort of
Speaker 5: thought were great. Look, there's still plenty of time not
Speaker 5: burying any of these guys, but like you know, Luke
Speaker 5: Clinton hadn't been very good, Like he has not quite
Speaker 5: been the dude who was looked like he was going
Speaker 5: to finish, you know, when he when he was getting
Speaker 5: all these sponsors exemptions, when he was in college, he
Speaker 5: was playing on tour occasionally and being awesome. He has
Speaker 5: won top twenty five this year in Puerto Rico. Neil Shipley,
Speaker 5: I don't know if anyone thought he was a phenom,
Speaker 5: but it was a very very good player made only
Speaker 5: three of thirteen cuts. Nick Dunlap like obviously kind of
Speaker 5: lost right now, made only four cuts this year. Pearson
Speaker 5: Cooty's probably been the most consistent player of all the munch,
Speaker 5: Like obviously Michael Thorburnson just finished in the top ten
Speaker 5: this week, but Michael, you know, I would say Michael
Speaker 5: is probably the best of its Cooty's probably the most consistent.
Speaker 5: But which one of these, Like almost all these guys
Speaker 5: are older than Akshay, Like, are any of these guys
Speaker 5: going to sort of have Akshay's career at this point? Like,
Speaker 5: Okhay is not a superstar, actually is a good, solid
Speaker 5: PGA Tour player. Ken Winn hasn't shown he's contending in majors.
Speaker 5: Who is the next great like American player that's going
Speaker 5: to emerge? I don't know that it's gonna be one
Speaker 5: of these guys of this generation because they're all getting
Speaker 5: to be twenty. Like by that time, Tiger had won
Speaker 5: a bunch, Speith had won a bunch, like Rory had
Speaker 5: won a ton obviously not an American, but like it's
Speaker 5: I don't know, and you go ahead.
Speaker 4: And I just, you know, I want to get this
Speaker 4: out there before Joseph that what if we're just watching
Speaker 4: it happen with Cameron Young right now?
Speaker 6: Wow, didn't expect that.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to go there before you do it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think this is actually like one of
Speaker 4: the more you know, nobody's really talking about it, but fascinating,
Speaker 4: like we have heard for years, and I think like
Speaker 4: part of it is.
Speaker 2: Actually some of it.
Speaker 4: I I don't think it's insane to think that social
Speaker 4: media has had an impact on this. Like these kids
Speaker 4: before they've even turned professional, are are having these expectations
Speaker 4: of being the next great thing heaped on them, and it,
Speaker 4: you know, it inevitably sets them up for failure. It
Speaker 4: makes you appreciate, honestly, it makes you appreciate the people
Speaker 4: like Rory and Tiger who you know, justin Thomas Speith,
Speaker 4: who were able to do what they did with all
Speaker 4: the heaping.
Speaker 2: Praise and everything.
Speaker 4: And you know, I think PGA Tour U has been
Speaker 4: fantastic at getting people up to the tour and up
Speaker 4: to the tour.
Speaker 2: Faster than they usually do. I think it's actually been detrimental.
Speaker 4: You brought up akshay Okha at age twenty three, like
Speaker 4: almost every super duper star turns pro at a young age.
Speaker 4: You know, Tiger was twenty, uh obviously, Rory was seventeen, Speith.
Speaker 1: Was what nineteen nineteen or twenty eight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, justin Thomas.
Speaker 4: If you even go to there was was twenty the
Speaker 4: idea of like keeping these kids in school, I think,
Speaker 4: like the really great ones. I think there is a
Speaker 4: stunting of development, and I you know, when you start
Speaker 4: to say, like I this is I used to do
Speaker 4: this exercise with Joaquin Nieman all the time, too, is
Speaker 4: like it's like Joaquin Nema turned pro at eighteen, and
Speaker 4: it's like okay, like he's been around forever, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: he's only twenty two. So it's like, Okay, this person
Speaker 4: that you think is going to be the next world beater,
Speaker 4: do you know how much work they have to do
Speaker 4: when they turn pro at twenty three just to equal
Speaker 4: what Joaquin Neman's done from eighteen to twenty three, or
Speaker 4: what Akhay's done from seventeen to twenty three or twenty
Speaker 4: four whatever he is now there are, you know, and
Speaker 4: we've had the you know, this is this is the
Speaker 4: whole kind of like thing with like I think there's
Speaker 4: been frustration with uh Ludwig. I mean, Ludwig's you know,
Speaker 4: twenty six years old, and you know, I think we've
Speaker 4: entered an era where like the stars might emerge a
Speaker 4: little bit later. But at the same time, to your point,
Speaker 4: there's always been transcended players. Who knows, maybe it's Jackson Coivin,
Speaker 4: it's maybe it's present Stout. But the longer they stay
Speaker 4: in college, I believe for the transcendent players, I think
Speaker 4: for most players, it's good to stay in college. For
Speaker 4: the transcendent players, what you're doing is your stunting development.
Speaker 4: You're staying in a state of of of comfort. You
Speaker 4: look at like Cooper Flag in the NBA. Cooper Flag
Speaker 4: reclassified at age seventeen. He got out of Maine because,
Speaker 4: like he was in Maine, he was the best player
Speaker 4: as a young high schooler, and they left.
Speaker 2: They left.
Speaker 4: They haven't leave Maine to continue to progress, continue to
Speaker 4: test yourself. And I do think PGA two ur you
Speaker 4: is actually having a harmful effect. I mean, the best
Speaker 4: young players, I think generally are coming from abroad where
Speaker 4: they have these development programs, and these kids are like
Speaker 4: thrown out into the ocean much more than college golf
Speaker 4: and AGGA. And you know, the amateur circuit is kind
Speaker 4: of I believe, coddling them a bit.
Speaker 6: There's a lot there.
Speaker 3: This is actually one of mine, so we can just
Speaker 3: count it within the interest of time watching these young
Speaker 3: golfers try to develop between basically age twenty one and
Speaker 3: twenty seven. Andy, you talked about it on the Shotgun
Speaker 3: Start this week. This is also a conversation we've had
Speaker 3: on the Frida Egg Pod. I do believe that the
Speaker 3: with technology changing, you often get a shifting landscape of
Speaker 3: who the best golfers in the world are, and that
Speaker 3: with driver technology and the prevalence of track man, we
Speaker 3: saw some really good young golfers emerge in that twenty
Speaker 3: thirteen to twenty eighteen era. Speak justin Thomas, those guys
Speaker 3: who had a lot of success young, and I don't
Speaker 3: think we're going to se as much of that going
Speaker 3: forward unless there's some kind of technological shift again, because
Speaker 3: of how hard it is to play good golf consistently,
Speaker 3: and that the difference between a twenty two year old
Speaker 3: and a twenty six year old is very significant, not
Speaker 3: just physically, but all these little skills that they pick up.
Speaker 3: And I think with guys like Ludbiggs an example, Kevin,
Speaker 3: you mentioned Michael thorbe Jornson. I think Michael thorpe Jornson
Speaker 3: is on a wonderful trajectory, and people are way way
Speaker 3: too quick to nitpick these guys when they haven't even
Speaker 3: gotten to twenty seven or twenty eight, in part because
Speaker 3: probably some recent experience with Justin Thomas and with Jordan Speed,
Speaker 3: those guys getting wins really early. But that said, the
Speaker 3: true transcendent players, as both of you have mentioned, they
Speaker 3: announce that they are great, great players pretty quickly. And
Speaker 3: to most directly answer your question Kevin that you started with,
Speaker 3: when are we going to see the next great American
Speaker 3: young player? I do strongly believe that Jackson Coyven is
Speaker 3: our best chance at seeing that in a very very
Speaker 3: long time, and he's twenty one. I don't know if
Speaker 3: I fully agree with you Andy that PJ tour you
Speaker 3: is holding guys back. I hear what you're saying on
Speaker 3: the g I just don't know.
Speaker 2: If you're great, do not hold your don't do not
Speaker 2: stay at the same level.
Speaker 3: Agree, but you need to get you need to have
Speaker 3: some support under you. And now that Jackson has a
Speaker 3: full PGA tour status, it's really hard life out on
Speaker 3: the corn Faery tour. Blaze Brown's doing it, so that's
Speaker 3: another name that should be mentioned. But yes, going back
Speaker 3: to it. I think Jackson Coyven, by all accounts, everything
Speaker 3: I'm seeing from him indicates that that's one of the
Speaker 3: best players that we've seen in a very, very long time.
Speaker 3: And I think what I'm most encouraged by is that
Speaker 3: some of these guys who we really like but then
Speaker 3: aren't quite materializing. I don't want to be hard on
Speaker 3: him again, but like Luke Clanton is somebody that we
Speaker 3: need to give some grace too. But he's a really
Speaker 3: long driver of the golf ball, and I think you
Speaker 3: get away with that a little bit more in college
Speaker 3: than at the professional level. Jackson Coyven's more of like
Speaker 3: he'll be middle on the on the PGA tour, like
Speaker 3: one seventy five ball speed guy, one of the best
Speaker 3: putters a lot of people have ever seen in college,
Speaker 3: and a great great iron player.
Speaker 6: Kevin.
Speaker 3: I think that's the answer is, Hey, this is going
Speaker 3: to be the best litmus test. Does Jackson Quaven over
Speaker 3: the next two years, make a statement in a major championship,
Speaker 3: finish top five, and then you got like a ten
Speaker 3: year runway where you're looking at the great next young
Speaker 3: American player.
Speaker 1: I certainly hope.
Speaker 5: So I just think like if you think back of history,
Speaker 5: like Rory was great at twenty one. Yes, Tiger was
Speaker 5: great at twenty one, Ernie Els was great at twenty.
Speaker 5: Phil Mickelson was great at twenty one, twenty two. It
Speaker 5: didn't win major for many other years. Jack was like
Speaker 5: maybe the best player in the world at twenty one,
Speaker 5: Like there there always is every generation. Scotty Scheffers like
Speaker 5: the one player who for whom it took twenty five
Speaker 5: twenty six.
Speaker 1: Maybe Brooks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so maybe Brooks and Scottie are are the start
Speaker 5: of a trend of like, hey, you can emerge a
Speaker 5: little bit later, but usually that's I think that's why
Speaker 5: we thought Speed at the time was going to be
Speaker 5: really good, in part because it was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 5: like if you're doing this at twenty one, it means
Speaker 5: something big, and you know obviously that hasn't sustained.
Speaker 1: But it just it's just thinking about it and looking
Speaker 1: at it.
Speaker 5: It's easier to be like I I agree Michael Thorburnson
Speaker 5: is on a great path and like we are, we
Speaker 5: should absolutely think that he is still going to be
Speaker 5: a great player. He's older than ox Shabatia, Like it's
Speaker 5: at some point you're like, oh, man, like, did you
Speaker 5: you miss your window for being like a great player
Speaker 5: because the great ones emerge very early.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think like it's it's important to like
Speaker 4: preface here, Like I mean, Michael Thorbjornsen could go have
Speaker 4: like a great career, but I don't. I think that
Speaker 4: the idea of him being like a game changer for
Speaker 4: the sport of golf is his past right for sure.
Speaker 4: And I think you know this, it's it's it outside
Speaker 4: of Scottie and Brooks. Really, what are the the guys
Speaker 4: that are you know, top you know, say the top
Speaker 4: ten to fifteen players of this generation or not this
Speaker 4: generation of the you know, modern game. We'll say from
Speaker 4: the nineties on. Who haven't been you know, great players
Speaker 4: at a young age, Like someone that would like fill
Speaker 4: in here that I think like probably could have had
Speaker 4: that if he hadn't a state in school so long,
Speaker 4: would have had you know, similar successfully turned pro was
Speaker 4: Calin mor Kawa.
Speaker 2: You know, look at Calin mor Kawa.
Speaker 4: Probably slaton into like the top twenty players you know
Speaker 4: of the last thirty years given his resume and and
Speaker 4: he I think, I mean he his career is going
Speaker 4: to be like why didn't he win as much as
Speaker 4: he won early.
Speaker 3: I think to Andy, you're sent you're correctly qualifying. What
Speaker 3: are we talking about in terms of how great they are?
Speaker 3: Truly transcendent? I don't think we have anybody who's professional
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 4: But honestly, Blake's is like super I'm actually I don't
Speaker 4: think that that stories. Honestly, I don't think Blakes Brown's
Speaker 4: getting enough play fair lady, you talk about like going
Speaker 4: out with no support. He went out with no support
Speaker 4: and he's figured it out fair. I was thinking tour
Speaker 4: I think like something like that. There's like a misconception.
Speaker 2: I have to have a tour card.
Speaker 4: I have to before I turn pro guess what like,
Speaker 4: if you are truly great, it does not matter because
Speaker 4: you are going to go get your tour card and
Speaker 4: nothing is going to hold you down, like the tour system.
Speaker 4: I believe that people who have like vested interest in
Speaker 4: certain players will always be like the Well, the system
Speaker 4: is just not fair. The system has ever held back
Speaker 4: a great player from being great.
Speaker 6: Ever, Yeah, that's true. Blades is a fair shoutout, But
Speaker 6: in general, I agree with you.
Speaker 3: Kevin the time and Rory announce their presence really early,
Speaker 3: and to go back to the Scotty. If you're referencing
Speaker 3: Scotty as like him being an exception, I think the
Speaker 3: other side of that is that it might be some
Speaker 3: level of evidence that he probably won't be one of
Speaker 3: those players ten years from now, because that's what he
Speaker 3: would have to do, is ultimately be a great, great
Speaker 3: player when he's thirty nine forty. So I think that's
Speaker 3: part of where I come from on them. Maybe I've
Speaker 3: seen the most dominant Scotti show.
Speaker 5: I mean the just watching the NBA, like Victor revegnanm
Speaker 5: is twenty two years old, like and this is sort
Speaker 5: of like he's arrived as like the best player in
Speaker 5: the game, and it makes you think like Lebron had
Speaker 5: kind of arrived by the time he was twenty one
Speaker 5: twenty two.
Speaker 1: It is the best player in the game for sure,
Speaker 1: and so.
Speaker 5: I you know, you want that as a sports fan,
Speaker 5: for that next thing to arrive, and it's not arriving
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 6: In golf, Jackson Cobbn turned twenty one a week ago.
Speaker 5: I think we need to wait and see, like, let's
Speaker 5: have Jackson. The potential is there for sure, and I
Speaker 5: want it to happen. But now it is like okay,
Speaker 5: like in the next two years, you probably got to
Speaker 5: show that you are to that next next thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think like the early evidence is great. I
Speaker 4: would just say I thought he should have turned pro
Speaker 4: last year. I just don't know what this year did
Speaker 4: for him, like going and just dominating something that you've
Speaker 4: already dominated is by kind of like this is I
Speaker 4: just you know, he had his card and I would
Speaker 4: just go I think, like the Blades brown thing, It's
Speaker 4: not like these guys like they can go back to
Speaker 4: college whenever they want, you know, arguably, I think ro
Speaker 4: jank should have turned pro at a younger age, and
Speaker 4: you know, she was the I think like there is
Speaker 4: like real like if you don't constantly I'd be fascinated
Speaker 4: to hear.
Speaker 2: What Rory maceleroy would say about about like what the.
Speaker 4: Early days in you know, in reading Allen's book, you know,
Speaker 4: it was like a nice memory of like the early
Speaker 4: days of Rory and there was a lot of like
Speaker 4: there were a lot of like learning experiences against you know,
Speaker 4: where he fell short against great forty year olds who
Speaker 4: have been doing it forever.
Speaker 2: Like that is a better.
Speaker 4: I think back to, like when you're a young player.
Speaker 4: Like one of the the best things is when you
Speaker 4: get paired with somebody who's like thirty five and you
Speaker 4: watch them play and you're like, wow, I don't have
Speaker 4: that shot. Jackson Coyven does not go out and play
Speaker 4: college golf and see any shot that it's like, wow,
Speaker 4: I should think about developing that, Like I don't like,
Speaker 4: I don't have that wedge that wedg like Jackson Coyvin.
Speaker 4: If he goes in place with Zach Johnson is going
Speaker 4: to be like wow, like I really like the way
Speaker 4: that guy wedges the ball. And this is a guy,
Speaker 4: Like we make fun of Zach all the time, but
Speaker 4: this is a guy that's won two majors and is
Speaker 4: probably going he's gonna be a Hall of Famer, you know,
Speaker 4: And it's like you pick up more from that than
Speaker 4: playing an entire season. Probably maybe not an entire season,
Speaker 4: but at least like two months of college golf, you'll
Speaker 4: pick up more from a round playing with Zach Johnson.
Speaker 4: I think that's the thing people don't realize is like
Speaker 4: just being around those guys and watching them work and
Speaker 4: watching what goes into Like there's this PGA Tour commercial
Speaker 4: where Rory like there are all these quotes about getting
Speaker 4: to the top of the game, and Rory's quote is
Speaker 4: something like, you know all the work that goes to
Speaker 4: getting to the top, it's almost more work to stay
Speaker 4: at the top. And like I think about that is
Speaker 4: like just being around the craft. The professionalism is it's
Speaker 4: so so important for young.
Speaker 5: Player and you make me think put on my father
Speaker 5: hat here of Like there's a lot of kids today,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of evidence to support this, don't want
Speaker 5: to get their driver's license. They're not drinking, they're not
Speaker 5: like having sex with the first time. They're they're sort
Speaker 5: of traditional markers towards adulthood that they're.
Speaker 1: Like kind of putting off whatever.
Speaker 5: I wonder if there's any like if I was a
Speaker 5: college kid and I was twenty one, and I was
Speaker 5: the best college player in the world, and I thought like, man,
Speaker 5: I'll have plenty of time for that, Like I can
Speaker 5: make I can stay here and make four million in
Speaker 5: nil money, and there's all kind of fun people around
Speaker 5: campus and beautiful women, and I can stay with my
Speaker 5: buddies and like never going to get this time back.
Speaker 5: I could see being tempted to be like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: going to run it back in college one more year,
Speaker 5: Like this sounds fun, man, I I'll be I'll have
Speaker 5: plenty of time to be a professional in the grind
Speaker 5: and to live in lonely hotel rooms for the next
Speaker 5: you know, however, many years. Maybe that sort of like
Speaker 5: lack of nudging the kids out the nest is do
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't think we have a real long
Speaker 5: term evidence to support this, but for athletes, but is
Speaker 5: like stunting some of that, like, hey, like you're missing
Speaker 5: what a huge development year that could have pushed you
Speaker 5: towards greatness.
Speaker 3: I could also just throw in I do believe that
Speaker 3: the gap between the standard that's required on the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour it's a little bit of a different landscape than
Speaker 3: twenty five to thirty years ago, and how cutthroat and
Speaker 3: grueling and polished that these PGA Tour players are. So
Speaker 3: I do think that is at least a notch in
Speaker 3: the category of like, let's it makes a little more.
Speaker 3: He's twenty one, like Jackson Quiban is still twenty one.
Speaker 3: I understand the point that he probably would be a
Speaker 3: little bit farther ahead if you turned pro a year ago.
Speaker 3: I think that is correct. I don't think it's crazy
Speaker 3: to stay in school for your junior year, turn pro
Speaker 3: at twenty one with full status, and then have like
Speaker 3: a five six year runway before you're expected to hit
Speaker 3: your prime.
Speaker 4: I would just sub up my thoughts of if you
Speaker 4: want to be, you know, one of the greatest to
Speaker 4: do anything, comfort is the ultimate enemy of development. And
Speaker 4: so you know, like I would say for most people,
Speaker 4: like stay in school, but if you want to be
Speaker 4: truly exceptional, the worst thing you can ever ever do
Speaker 4: is feel comfort.
Speaker 1: Oka deep thoughts.
Speaker 2: All right, my last my last one.
Speaker 4: This can be really brief a story that I continue,
Speaker 4: I hope just continues for the rest of the golf season,
Speaker 4: maybe for the rest of eternity. Is briceon to Shambeau
Speaker 4: using Gemini as a swing instructor.
Speaker 2: This, this to me is just amazing.
Speaker 4: You know how like JT holds up his phone and
Speaker 4: shows everybody his goals for the year, and that became
Speaker 4: at net. I just like to see a lens into
Speaker 4: into Bryson's Jebedi chat history.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I don't know that you would.
Speaker 5: But why does Bryson have a deal with Google Gemini?
Speaker 5: First of all, because.
Speaker 6: Sportsbox AI he did. He did purchase that company.
Speaker 1: Joseph, what do you think about this? Like, what what
Speaker 1: prompts would you have to put into uh.
Speaker 5: You know, an l LAM or whatever to get swing
Speaker 5: thoughts that would sort of fix your swing?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, I just I cannot fathom this.
Speaker 3: I mean to be fair to Bryson, which is the
Speaker 3: start of a sentence. I didn't know that that I
Speaker 3: would find myself saying I don't think Bryson was using
Speaker 3: it as a swing instructor. He was trying to get
Speaker 3: some physics principles out of it, like what generates torque?
Speaker 3: And he was he was prompting it with physics based questions.
Speaker 3: Whether or not that's effective or a good use of
Speaker 3: his time, totally separate question. I think AI is very,
Speaker 3: very far from where they could look at a golf
Speaker 3: swing and determine what's going wrong, especially considering that I
Speaker 3: think there's a lot of descent among swing instructors on
Speaker 3: what could be going wrong and how you should handle it.
Speaker 3: And AI is not advanced past complicated issues among experts
Speaker 3: like it has to be trained on something. So no,
Speaker 3: I think I think Bryson is super far from being
Speaker 3: able to leverage AI for his swing and to get
Speaker 3: swing thoughts. But I think he was trying to understand
Speaker 3: torque and whatever he was talking about. I'm sure that
Speaker 3: Gemini can answer some of those questions. But what a
Speaker 3: natural pairing. Like how obvious was it that Bryson's going
Speaker 3: to be the AI golfer And over the next four
Speaker 3: to five years we're going to hear so much about
Speaker 3: course management and AI from Bryson, and when he wins,
Speaker 3: he's going to credit AI. This was the most obvious
Speaker 3: development in golf.
Speaker 5: I thought it was pretty hilarious when you know, the
Speaker 5: live media always makes me laugh because it's it's like
Speaker 5: North Korean propaganda stuff, these people who sit in these
Speaker 5: press conferences, like you know, over in Korea. And so
Speaker 5: somebody asked him, you know, boy, people really hang on
Speaker 5: every word that you say, like does it ever.
Speaker 1: Just like shock you?
Speaker 5: And right it's like, oh yeah, yeah, like obviously, like
Speaker 5: guess you know, but I just love the game so much.
Speaker 5: I love it more than my life, you know, and
Speaker 5: it's it felt a little bit like some direct you
Speaker 5: know response it to like what you know, me among
Speaker 5: other people were writing about some of this crazy interview
Speaker 5: that he gave with with Katie Miller and her podcast
Speaker 5: or whatever, and just you know, the idea that he
Speaker 5: lives a little bit of a lonely existence. Like, it
Speaker 5: doesn't surprise me that Bryson would get invested in the
Speaker 5: AI world because it's like someone immediately giving you feedback,
Speaker 5: giving you the exact thing that you are searching for
Speaker 5: and craving.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's funny. I was thinking a lot
Speaker 1: about my third one.
Speaker 5: We don't really have to spend time in it, but
Speaker 5: was Victor Hoblind And just you know, is Victor like
Speaker 5: Yesper Parnovic, like someone who's super talented and had this
Speaker 5: moment where he was like one of the best players
Speaker 5: in the world, but then his idiosyncrasies and his crazy
Speaker 5: like kind of slowly eroded that until he sort of
Speaker 5: became like a cautionary tale. It's actually probably Bryson. It's
Speaker 5: more likely to be this generation's yes Per Parnovic, like someone.
Speaker 1: Who's just so.
Speaker 5: Diving into yet another weird rabbit hole that's so different
Speaker 5: from the rest of the thing and thinks keeps telling himself,
Speaker 5: this is the way to change the world, change golf,
Speaker 5: and really like it's kind of pushing you further and
Speaker 5: further from what made you great.
Speaker 4: I think there's just a genuine with Bryson interest thing.
Speaker 4: I think Victor's going down rabbit holes and like for me,
Speaker 4: Bryson's kind of peaks and valleys are like when is
Speaker 4: tournament golf his main focus?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I also I think in the be interesting to see
Speaker 3: how Bryson reflects on this when his career is over.
Speaker 3: I do think some people in this speed revolution lost
Speaker 3: a little bit of sight of some of the trade offs,
Speaker 3: and that when you pick up a lot of speed,
Speaker 3: if you can do it through just optimizing your driver
Speaker 3: and your launch conditions and not really changing your swing,
Speaker 3: then that's a pretty effective way to pick up some shots.
Speaker 3: If you do it by really aggressively speed training and
Speaker 3: picking up speed with your swing, the impact that that's
Speaker 3: going to have on your iron play, I don't think
Speaker 3: is something to dismiss. And I think for a lot
Speaker 3: of guys, and Bryson included, it was this is like
Speaker 3: risk free, there's no cost. I'm picking up shots on
Speaker 3: the field. I'm picking up shots on the field. Won
Speaker 3: the US Open, got validation out of that, and I
Speaker 3: think now that he's basically five years removed from that
Speaker 3: and still struggling with his iron play. And it's even
Speaker 3: gone downhill, you're gapping gets bigger, he continues to struggle
Speaker 3: with his irons. I think there's a little bit of
Speaker 3: a story in there that maybe some of this distance
Speaker 3: gain wasn't as cost free as some of these people thought.
Speaker 3: And I would put Bryson in that.
Speaker 6: Camp my last one.
Speaker 3: And I know we're running a little long here, so
Speaker 3: I'll be quick. I think the dynamic of Brian Rollapp
Speaker 3: trying facing pressure on both sides from the sports media
Speaker 3: market and also from his contingency of PGA Tour players
Speaker 3: one of the most fascinating dynamics in sports. Having an
Speaker 3: executive come in from outside of golf. Who I mean,
Speaker 3: he's probably one on the very short list of most
Speaker 3: equipped people to handle what the PGA Tour is facing
Speaker 3: with an NFL rights deal coming up, and potentially he's
Speaker 3: going to have to go back to his players and
Speaker 3: say pursues are shrinking if some of these companies don't
Speaker 3: have enough money to pay for professional golf after the
Speaker 3: NFL renegotiates it's deal. Guys like Patrick Cantlay telling Brian
Speaker 3: Rollapp we don't want things to change and wanting to
Speaker 3: have a full event schedule. I think watching Brian rollapp
Speaker 3: navigate this puzzle is probably going to be one of
Speaker 3: the most fascinating parts Gulf over the next five years.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I the role up thing is you know he he
Speaker 4: laid out in his presser and obviously you know, this
Speaker 4: is a huge story to watch, just the rights landscape,
Speaker 4: how much money is available and what the NBA. The
Speaker 4: NBA got this crazy deal that took up a lot
Speaker 4: of the share of the rights, the sports rights, you
Speaker 4: know kind of pot and the NFL jumping up to
Speaker 4: say we're renegotiating, and you know they're expected to basically
Speaker 4: take what's left.
Speaker 2: What does that leave the PGA tour.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would think that getting some of the streamer
Speaker 5: people involved, whether it's Netflix or Amazon or Apple like
Speaker 5: that might be the we might you know, remember you
Speaker 5: got you guys probably not be like old enough to
Speaker 5: remember this, Andy, maybe you. But when the NFL likes
Speaker 5: to deal with Fox Sports would reflect is Fox TV.
Speaker 5: It was a huge deal because not everyone in America
Speaker 5: had Fox and it was like, oh that what has
Speaker 5: changed here that the NFL will no longer be on
Speaker 5: the two three big broadcast networks or whatever. We might
Speaker 5: be trending towards a moment where like the PGA Tours
Speaker 5: on Apple TV and everybody not. You're not able to
Speaker 5: see the PGA Tour week to week basis because Apple
Speaker 5: has put up so much money that they're willing to
Speaker 5: be sort of like they have with soccer, like the
Speaker 5: place to go to find professional golf. I don't know
Speaker 5: that those things seem kind of realistic to me. If
Speaker 5: you're going to have to find the money somewhere, you're
Speaker 5: going to go somewhere else to get it than the
Speaker 5: main broadcast networks.
Speaker 3: And Brian willapped trying to negotiate that without owning a
Speaker 3: major championship like this is in him Trump making the
Speaker 3: push for to call on the players a major like
Speaker 3: this is a very real dynamic that I think reflects
Speaker 3: the pressure that he's feeling.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's going to be that whole dynamic is
Speaker 4: is a like a fascinating story, Wow, like what do
Speaker 4: you what do you do.
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: And how does this all shake out? And I think
Speaker 4: I think generally like he's not going to be able
Speaker 4: to please everybody, like the something has to give the players,
Speaker 4: the players in their attitude towards how they interact with
Speaker 4: the tour and the tours you know, kind of financial future.
Speaker 2: And set up.
Speaker 4: There has to be a meeting for everything to work
Speaker 4: out and live in the issue. The The other thing
Speaker 4: here is live dying is not going to help Brian
Speaker 4: roll up achieve what he probably needs to do in
Speaker 4: order to to make the tour the most successful it
Speaker 4: can be.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned, all.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, thank you guys for joining Big. Thanks to PJ.
Speaker 4: Clark for editing and producing. Everybody can read all of
Speaker 4: Joseph and Kevin's thoughts every week in the newsletter. They're
Speaker 4: doing an exceptional job. Other big news, we launched an
Speaker 4: app Friday Golf Club. Everybody should go check that out.
Speaker 4: I've got a lot of texts about how.
Speaker 1: Fun it is.
Speaker 2: I've really enjoyed personally being in there. It's free.
Speaker 4: If you're a member, you get added benefits in there.
Speaker 4: But if you're a member you should absolutely get in
Speaker 4: there without a doubt. But it is a really neat
Speaker 4: little app, and maybe not so little. It will probably
Speaker 4: be bigger as it gets going. But lots of local
Speaker 4: groups and special interest groups within there, so join the community,
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Speaker 4: PJ for editing and producing this show and we will
Speaker 4: be back next week.