Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
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Speaker 1: com slash Fried Egg member SIPC. Today we welcome on
Speaker 1: Aeron Oberholzer. Aaron played on the PGA Tour for a
Speaker 1: number of years and is now an analyst on the
Speaker 1: Golf Channel. Kind of a jack of all trades, covering
Speaker 1: everything from NCAA Golf to the PGA Tour. This week
Speaker 1: he's out at the Senior Players and we just kind
Speaker 1: of pick up our conversation here talking about Matt Wolf's
Speaker 1: win last week, the Young Guns on tour, kind of
Speaker 1: what's changed in the game, and then we close with
Speaker 1: a little bit of talk about the Open.
Speaker 2: So here's Aeron Oberholzer. I miss a green, for example,
Speaker 2: I'm already a set.
Speaker 3: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 1: In a brid Egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida egg egg Frida, egg.
Speaker 3: Bride egg Lie.
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of them.
Speaker 1: The distance thing is gonna just be with the young guys.
Speaker 1: It's it's just crazy because everybody was like, oh, Champson anomaly.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, he's just the start.
Speaker 3: No, he's just him and him and Wolf at the beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 3: him and Wolf at the beginning. I played with a kid.
Speaker 3: I'm good friends with the kid. He's like a little
Speaker 3: brother to me. Frankie Sappan who plays for Alabama, he's
Speaker 3: one toy when he wants it all day, all day.
Speaker 3: We went and played his home club, North Oaks UH
Speaker 3: in Minnesota a couple of nights, two nights ago, just
Speaker 3: played nine holes for fun. Had my boys out there
Speaker 3: and they were whacking it around and Frankie was coming
Speaker 3: off the lake like he was wake surfing all week
Speaker 3: up in there. Uh just had a week off. He
Speaker 3: was up there with the family and no warm up swings,
Speaker 3: no practice. Gets on the first tee. There's a bunker
Speaker 3: down there on the right side, downhill t shot bunker
Speaker 3: on the right side. It's got to be a solid
Speaker 3: to ninety carry probably yeah, probably three bills to carry
Speaker 3: it to play in about two two ninety downhill and
Speaker 3: flushes it over the bunker by fifteen twenty yards and
Speaker 3: hit a hit an eight iron into the into the
Speaker 3: first hole was a par five. I hit a five wood.
Speaker 3: I necked mine a little bit down, but I was
Speaker 3: in the middle of the fairway and literally hit five wood.
Speaker 3: He hit eight iron.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 3: So this is just the start. You're right. He was
Speaker 3: twenty five to thirty yards by me easily, sometimes forty
Speaker 3: when he wanted to be all the whole nine holes
Speaker 3: we played, it was unbelievable the speed.
Speaker 2: I was talking to this kid.
Speaker 1: Could I know his coach at the US Open? He was, Uh,
Speaker 1: he was an altar. He was the first alternate.
Speaker 2: And the guy we were.
Speaker 1: Just talking he teaches all the you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the young kids in Chicago that are like really good.
Speaker 2: He's got a few guys.
Speaker 1: That are probably going to be on tour soon. But
Speaker 1: he was telling me, he is like all I teach
Speaker 1: now is all we work on is speed and putting.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's all it is speed and putting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just you hit it far and then you make putts.
Speaker 1: And you're gonna be good. Yeah, because you'll learn how
Speaker 1: to eventually.
Speaker 3: Exactly a pro approach play comes into play. I mean,
Speaker 3: you look this last week, and approach play was really important.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Morikawa was won. He's not long,
Speaker 3: but his proproach play has to be good because he's
Speaker 3: not long, he's an average length guy. But but Wolf
Speaker 3: Wolfe's approach play was stellar. So there is some there.
Speaker 3: When you get to the highest level, it does become
Speaker 3: about proper control and approach play. But it's so much easier,
Speaker 3: made so much easier if you've got one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy five or lesson on every hole. You know, so
Speaker 3: if you're not playing outside of one hundred and seventy
Speaker 3: five yards, the game's pretty simple.
Speaker 1: That's I think that is what kind of makes Wolf
Speaker 1: and Morikawa a little bit different than say like a
Speaker 1: Cameron Champ or you know, some of the other young
Speaker 1: guys that we've seen recently. As they you know, like Markaua.
Speaker 2: Put on one of the best press performance of the
Speaker 2: whole season of the.
Speaker 3: Year, without a doubt. He he. Here's the funny thing.
Speaker 3: Lavener and I were talking about this and early in
Speaker 3: the year or during nty double A's and then and
Speaker 3: I after I saw Marikawa for the first time play
Speaker 3: up close at Pasa Tieno at the Western, I really
Speaker 3: looked at his game and I said, and then I've
Speaker 3: seen Wolf, and I knew I was gonna see Wolf
Speaker 3: again at nty Double A's and I knew what he's
Speaker 3: He's done this year. But I'm sitting there looking at
Speaker 3: Marikawa and I'm going, this is the most tour ready
Speaker 3: dude of the four guys. I mean, like, if you
Speaker 3: look at the complete game, you know there's just he
Speaker 3: doesn't have any weaknesses. Is he's not long, but you
Speaker 3: know which is which might be his only weakness quite honestly, Colin,
Speaker 3: because every other part of his game I watched him
Speaker 3: and I'm like, not good swing, controls his distances really well,
Speaker 3: flights his ball, can hit it both directions, cuts it,
Speaker 3: fades it, he's not scared, drives it really well, his
Speaker 3: good touch around the greens and puts it great. And
Speaker 3: I'm sitting there going, well, you know whereas Wolf, you know,
Speaker 3: I saw some holes in his game quite honestly that
Speaker 3: could I thought could be cleaned up. Hoblin, I've felt
Speaker 3: had some holes. He's not a he's not a great
Speaker 3: putter Hoblin isn't he's I think him and Wolf are
Speaker 3: going to be streaky to start with. And you saw
Speaker 3: it where Wolf got hot and used his distance to
Speaker 3: his advantage. But Moro Cow is going to be that
Speaker 3: like real plotter, consistent, just not make any mistakes. And uh,
Speaker 3: I just I just I see I saw Colin of
Speaker 3: the four and you know, throwing cell in there. I
Speaker 3: thought that I thought that Colin had the most tour
Speaker 3: ready aim from driver through the putter as far as
Speaker 3: two are ready to win, you know, obviously with the distance,
Speaker 3: like you just said, the guy with the distance stuff,
Speaker 3: it was it was it was I thought it was
Speaker 3: Wolf who had who who could win right away. It
Speaker 3: was definitely Matt Wolfe, especially when you look at the
Speaker 3: courses he's coming through in the Midwest. I thought he
Speaker 3: might give himself a shot and he did. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: and then and then took advantage of it.
Speaker 1: See you've covered you know, you did a lot of
Speaker 1: college stuff this this spring. It's a I mean, so
Speaker 1: did you foresee all of them having as much success
Speaker 1: as they did?
Speaker 2: When you know, you saw Colin at at the.
Speaker 1: Western and then n C a As and then he
Speaker 1: saw you know, Victor and Uh and Matt Wolfe at
Speaker 1: UH at the NCAA's.
Speaker 2: Did you expect him all to play so well so quick?
Speaker 3: Uh? Uh? I actually, you know what's quite quite honestly,
Speaker 3: I didn't expect I thought there. I thought it'd be
Speaker 3: a little bumpier for Matt. I expected Hoblin to play
Speaker 3: well he has, And I expected Colin Morikawa to play
Speaker 3: well he has. After watching Justin's Justin's Got Justin. I
Speaker 3: watched Justin for eighteen holes at Passing and he didn't
Speaker 3: have his best day, didn't have his best stuff by
Speaker 3: any stretch, and pass he beat him up a little bit.
Speaker 3: But there are some I see. I see Justin needing.
Speaker 3: I see Justin quite honestly needing a year on the
Speaker 3: web or on the corn Ferry Tour. He he's he
Speaker 3: of the four, he's the least ready to to to
Speaker 3: to play at this level based on what I saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean, obviously everybody's gonna compare this class.
Speaker 1: I mean, and the you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: is like Will Gordon hasn't even really you know that
Speaker 1: that he hasn't gotten the tour sponsor, but he's been
Speaker 1: playing on Canada, and he's been he's been lighting it
Speaker 1: up up there. I mean, he's another Yeah, just unbelievable talent,
Speaker 1: so that everybody's this class to that and.
Speaker 3: Will and Will's stand Yeah, Will's fantastic. Cameron Young if
Speaker 3: he could, if as long as his back stays healthy
Speaker 3: from from Wake Forest, he's a stud. He could do it. There.
Speaker 3: There's a this class is going to be when it's
Speaker 3: all said and done, the class that's either graduated or
Speaker 3: come out this year twenty nineteen out of college, they're
Speaker 3: gonna they're all really really strong players. And and and
Speaker 3: I can see I can see all the aforementioned guys
Speaker 3: being on tour at some point with full full status
Speaker 3: at some point, probably within the next two to three years.
Speaker 3: Quite honestly, Justin's got to work on his wedge play.
Speaker 3: So he's got to work on his wedge play as
Speaker 3: flighting his irons. He hits the ball. He hits the
Speaker 3: ball in my opinion, too high.
Speaker 4: And uh, even though people say, oh, you like that,
Speaker 4: you don't like that to a certain extent, But I
Speaker 4: think trajectory control is really important when you get to
Speaker 4: the highest level and being able to control the distances
Speaker 4: with your irons, and I really it really kind of
Speaker 4: he was exposed.
Speaker 3: I thought at Pasa Tiempo on his wedge play and
Speaker 3: Passa Tiempo is a golf course that requires you know,
Speaker 3: really really crazy good iron control and good approach play,
Speaker 3: I mean exquisite approach play because of how the greens
Speaker 3: are and yeah, you're hitting shorter irons in there, but
Speaker 3: that should give you even more control of your ball.
Speaker 3: And I just didn't see it out of justin that
Speaker 3: that day that I watched him again, he didn't have
Speaker 3: his best step by any stretch.
Speaker 2: But I agree with that they make the ball flight.
Speaker 3: I think the ball flight's a little too high.
Speaker 1: It's the when the tour, you know, with the tour
Speaker 1: is you know the pins are tucked and getting at those,
Speaker 1: you know, just being able to hit it into the
Speaker 1: right spots. And I mean it's like what Tiger says is,
Speaker 1: you know he's always worried about missing at the right distance,
Speaker 1: and I feel like, you know, going really good. These
Speaker 1: guys are just hitting it within you know, a yard
Speaker 1: of the number every time and that ties perfectly into trajectory.
Speaker 3: Oh, without a doubt, That's why Jason did. I watched
Speaker 3: Jason Dayer for eighteen holes out out at three a m.
Speaker 3: And he was I had it was first round of golf.
Speaker 3: I've ever watched Jason on the ground where he didn't
Speaker 3: take a full swing at an iron, first round of
Speaker 3: golf I've ever seen him play. I'm like, he's serious
Speaker 3: about this. Tiger's you know, William Steve has convinced him,
Speaker 3: and maybe he's talked to Tiger and he's taking it
Speaker 3: to heart because you know, in college, Tigers swung hard
Speaker 3: at irons. But that was college. But when he turned
Speaker 3: pro and started working with Butch on his game, that
Speaker 3: guy hardly ever took aunt. He never took a hundred
Speaker 3: percent swinging an iron and still does it. It's all
Speaker 3: seven the full swings for him with an iron, seventy
Speaker 3: five to eighty five percent. And every time I saw
Speaker 3: Jason the first a well eight years on tour, even
Speaker 3: when he won the PGA, it was if it was
Speaker 3: in between two clubs, it was in between a nine
Speaker 3: and eight, it was a full blown nine. I mean,
Speaker 3: just back it up the ball in the stands and
Speaker 3: just launch it if I have to, versus playing at
Speaker 3: a ball, you know, in the middle of your stance
Speaker 3: or a ball up in your stands and just feathering
Speaker 3: a little fade in there with an eight if you
Speaker 3: have to just take him little off. And I saw
Speaker 3: a lot of that this week from from Jason, which
Speaker 3: I thought was really cool. I mean, he was really
Speaker 3: flighting the ball. Never seen him hit it as low
Speaker 3: as he did this week. It was. It was really
Speaker 3: cool to watch.
Speaker 1: Actually, Day, is that the Steevie Day thing is something
Speaker 1: to watch. I think like it would be it'd be
Speaker 1: really fascinating to see if Day can kind of remake
Speaker 1: you know, he had his like run, that eighteen month
Speaker 1: run where maybe you know, best run for eighteen months
Speaker 1: we've seen since Tiger, you know, and and then you
Speaker 1: know he's kind of struggled last couple of years.
Speaker 2: But like if he was able to.
Speaker 1: You know, fall down on you know, where he's spending
Speaker 1: the teams and then get back up into that top
Speaker 1: three four players in the world, you know, by you know, reinvent.
Speaker 1: So few guys I feel like, once you get to
Speaker 1: that elite level, are able to kind of reinvent their game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard, It's really hard, and I think Jason's
Speaker 3: going to find it very difficult, and he is going
Speaker 3: to go He's going to go through some serious growing
Speaker 3: pains with this, with this, with learning how to do
Speaker 3: this at at you know what, I guess you'd consider
Speaker 3: a later age learning how to play this way even
Speaker 3: though he's still what does he he's still in his twenties, right,
Speaker 3: late twenties, maybe he's thirty. I think he's twenty eight
Speaker 3: or twenty nine, And you know, it's I don't know,
Speaker 3: I think I think he can do it. It's just
Speaker 3: how how much patience does he have to play like
Speaker 3: the kind of the way he did at three m
Speaker 3: this last week on a golf course Seemingly you would
Speaker 3: think he would destroy with his game and just you know,
Speaker 3: barely makes the cut and then plays, you know, okay
Speaker 3: on the weekend, not great by any stretch. You know,
Speaker 3: how how much how much patience does he have for
Speaker 3: that kind of golf and for how long? So you know,
Speaker 3: if he has the wherewithal to stick with it, it's
Speaker 3: I think it could pay great dividends, especially in the majors,
Speaker 3: especially in the majors.
Speaker 1: So with all these young guys and yeah, the success
Speaker 1: I mean this this week was at at Minneso Minneapolis
Speaker 1: was crazy with how young the leader board was. I mean,
Speaker 1: you were is it Jason Day? So he's thirty one?
Speaker 1: Is Jason Day thirty one?
Speaker 3: There you go?
Speaker 1: Is Jason Day a like what we would used to
Speaker 1: consider like a thirty eight year old.
Speaker 3: That's a good point. Yeah, it's like you, I guess
Speaker 3: you could start looking at don't know and dog years
Speaker 3: kind of compared to Yeah, I guys are learning at
Speaker 3: at a younger earlier e clip because of you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think for all the things that we've
Speaker 3: all talked about on airic Golf Channel, you know, I
Speaker 3: think you know, track Man plays a role in that
Speaker 3: you're not sitting there hunting for something over the period
Speaker 3: of two hundred or three hundred balls in four or
Speaker 3: five hours. You're literally looking at a screen going, oh,
Speaker 3: that's why I'm hitting it this way. You know, if
Speaker 3: you understand track Man and you understand all the numbers
Speaker 3: and permutations, I mean, you can figure it out swing
Speaker 3: to swing. This is how I need what I need
Speaker 3: to do to create a you know, you can turn
Speaker 3: a number into a field, and that's what these guys
Speaker 3: are so good at. They can turn that number into
Speaker 3: a field and then just change their golf swing to
Speaker 3: match up to what they want to see the ball flight,
Speaker 3: and then double check okay, that's right. And literally you
Speaker 3: can check your you can change it. You can fixcuse
Speaker 3: me fix and change your golf swing or change your
Speaker 3: golf sling in one or two swings now and then
Speaker 3: and get confirmed, get it confirmed that you're doing what
Speaker 3: you want to do. And then the other I think
Speaker 3: a bigger factor than anything. I go back to my
Speaker 3: junior day first play a cut off hand me down
Speaker 3: set for my grandfather that didn't even fit me, and
Speaker 3: I was trying to crnagle it and figure out how
Speaker 3: to use it and say on and so forth. At thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 3: fifteen years old, so I finally got a decent set
Speaker 3: of clubs that I still again weren't fit for me.
Speaker 3: They just right off the rack. These junior kids nowadays
Speaker 3: are getting are they have access to the same thing
Speaker 3: that we do as professionals. They have the same access
Speaker 3: to the fitting and to the TrackMan numbers and getting
Speaker 3: a skin rates right and the launch right and optimizing
Speaker 3: their drivers and optimizing their irons and oh this is
Speaker 3: the descent angle you need and your irons and this
Speaker 3: is the apex you need at your speed to stop
Speaker 3: the ball. I mean, they have all this at their
Speaker 3: disposal and before you know it's boom, it's just plug
Speaker 3: and play, man. And I think that's I think, in
Speaker 3: all honesty, between those two things, those are the two
Speaker 3: biggest things of why kids are so ready on the
Speaker 3: PGA tour nowadays. You know, they just they they've got
Speaker 3: the metrics. They know the metrics that they have to
Speaker 3: have because they're out there and the data is there.
Speaker 3: We didn't have this kind of data when I was
Speaker 3: growing up. You know, you literally dug it out of
Speaker 3: the dirt, and you you you played the game with
Speaker 3: more feel, without a doubt, it's way more field than
Speaker 3: you do. Now. There's a lot more science in the game.
Speaker 3: But it's that science that's allowing younger kids who don't
Speaker 3: have the experience of digging it out of the dirt
Speaker 3: to get to the levels they are so quickly. The
Speaker 3: science is helping them massively.
Speaker 1: That's as I was thinking about this the other day,
Speaker 1: and I think, like we're we're seeing like these way
Speaker 1: people those like the young guns kind of common waves
Speaker 1: like we had that J. T. Speathberger kind of run right,
Speaker 1: and I think those are the guys that never hit.
Speaker 1: They never hit so like Ricky was the guy. Ricky
Speaker 1: in that group was the guys that had never hit
Speaker 1: anything but a solid core ball. JT and Speith, those
Speaker 1: guys are the guys that never hit a driver head
Speaker 1: that wasn't four hundred and sixty ccs. And then now
Speaker 1: these guys are the guys that never you know, never
Speaker 1: took a lesson without track man.
Speaker 3: Without track man. Exactly right, exactly right. That's a great
Speaker 3: way to look at it. It's just it's the progression
Speaker 3: of the science of the game there, I don't I mean,
Speaker 3: how many years did it take to go from wood
Speaker 3: to steal and then how many years were we in
Speaker 3: steel until we hit graphite? And then how many years
Speaker 3: that wood shafts to steal shafts? And then how many
Speaker 3: years were we in just steal shafts before the first
Speaker 3: raphite chaff of invented? Yeah, and then how many years
Speaker 3: were we with wooden heads for drivers and woods? I
Speaker 3: think it was the metal head.
Speaker 2: I think it was ninety three to ninety seven.
Speaker 1: Was the transition for the wood to metal is from
Speaker 1: what I can tell, Like the last per Simmons were
Speaker 1: gone in ninety seven exactly.
Speaker 3: But the first metal head early eighties, the original one
Speaker 3: from Taylor made uh huh, So that was when it
Speaker 3: first came out, when they when it was widely adopted.
Speaker 3: You're right, it was probably the mid to late nineties
Speaker 3: when everybody said, I've got to get rid of the wood.
Speaker 3: It's just it's the per simon is it's a dinosaur.
Speaker 3: It's it's you know, it's archaic now. So it so
Speaker 3: in the last call it, geez, call it. Twenty five years,
Speaker 3: we've seen the biggest technology jump, the biggest technology jump
Speaker 3: in the history of the games, from graphite chafts to
Speaker 3: head I mean look at I mean graphite chafts to heads,
Speaker 3: to balls to everything, versus from ninth let's call let's
Speaker 3: let's use nineteen ninety six or ninety seven as the
Speaker 3: delineations of the mark. You know, the the that's the
Speaker 3: market in years, going back all the way to Bobby
Speaker 3: Jones era. You know, when they were using hickory shafts,
Speaker 3: the golf ball and everything hadn't changed as much as
Speaker 3: it has changed, and everything the game hasn't changed in
Speaker 3: that period of time as much as it's changed in
Speaker 3: the last twenty five years, you know it or twenty
Speaker 3: that's what that twenty two years, right, I mean, that's
Speaker 3: that's insanity. I mean, when you're really stopping that, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's crazy in twenty two years. Look what has changed. Hell,
Speaker 3: My driving distance in two thousand and three was I
Speaker 3: want to say, two hundred and eighty five yards, which
Speaker 3: was dead average on tour, dead average on tour average
Speaker 3: last year on tour was two ninety six. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: that's with a PROV one X. That was the first
Speaker 3: year three of the PROV one X. And now you
Speaker 3: know now, guy, now it's two ninety six with virtually
Speaker 3: the same ball. So what's that tell you? Shafts have
Speaker 3: gotten better, drivers have gotten bet driver heads have gotten
Speaker 3: massively better since that two thousand and three shit, since
Speaker 3: twenty and ten, they've gotten massively, massively better. And yeah,
Speaker 3: and guys have gotten stronger. Period. Those are the three
Speaker 3: factors that I look at when I look at distance.
Speaker 3: You know, I remember playing rock hard golf courses in
Speaker 3: two thousand and three, So you can't sit there and
Speaker 3: tell you, well, the courses are faster now, that's bs
Speaker 3: courses were fast back when I played on tour in
Speaker 3: two thousand and three, my rookie year. It's just that
Speaker 3: the technology has gotten so crazy advanced in the last
Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty five years that, you know, that's what
Speaker 3: That's what I believe has allowed these young guys to
Speaker 3: really flourish. Quite honestly, Yeah, you're good place, don't get
Speaker 3: me wrong. But I would love to see. You know
Speaker 3: what I would love to see. I'd love to see
Speaker 3: a tournament with Ballotta everybody plays the same Ballota golf ball,
Speaker 3: because pretty much that's what it was back in the
Speaker 3: early to mid nineties. Everybody was playing relatively the same ball.
Speaker 3: They're all wound liquid core balls. And then I want
Speaker 3: to see everybody got to play a blade, got to
Speaker 3: play a blade, everybody's got to carry two iron And
Speaker 3: quite honestly, I don't care what woods you put in
Speaker 3: your bag. Seriously, you can go ahead and take the
Speaker 3: woods right now. But with a Ballota golf ball and
Speaker 3: blade irons, even with even using today's driver, the ball's
Speaker 3: not going that's a marshmallow. The ball's not going anywhere,
Speaker 3: ye going anywhere.
Speaker 1: I think that, Like, so I've messed around with this stuff,
Speaker 1: and I think like the Ballada When I hit it,
Speaker 1: I hit at about three hundred and that Ballada when
Speaker 1: I hit the Ballata, it's like two seventy five.
Speaker 2: It's nuts. Yeah, it's twenty five yards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's going Yeah. Which was which was like back
Speaker 3: in the nineties, was like that was that was above
Speaker 3: average driving distance. I want to say what Davis led
Speaker 3: the tour in driving distance before Daily came along in
Speaker 3: the late eighties early nineties when he was and he
Speaker 3: was using per Semon, and I think he was averaging
Speaker 3: like two eighty four to eighty five. Yeah, and that
Speaker 3: was what was leading the driving distance. If my memory
Speaker 3: serves me correct. That might be off on that number,
Speaker 3: but I don't think it was much. It wasn't two
Speaker 3: ninety I know that. And yeah, it's just it's a
Speaker 3: different ballgame, you know. I would love to see a
Speaker 3: tournament like that. The best players are still probably going
Speaker 3: to be the best players, but you would bring a
Speaker 3: lot more guys into the fray, quite honestly, because because
Speaker 3: you'd put a you'd put a you'd put a like
Speaker 3: rivol said, you put an onus on driving the golf
Speaker 3: ball straight. Think that's what you had to do back then.
Speaker 1: I think the thing that that gets lost too is
Speaker 1: like the guys that weren't the long that had all
Speaker 1: the skills, like the guy I I think's like the
Speaker 1: poster child for everything that kind of happened as justin Leonard.
Speaker 3: Oh, him and Kavin, Yeah, him and Corey. Without a
Speaker 3: doubt you could you could take either him or Corey.
Speaker 3: They both and and actually to a certain extent, Lee
Speaker 3: Jansen because he was right on that cusp. And so
Speaker 3: I would say that those three guys, those three guys
Speaker 3: with what they accomplished winning majors, they all won majors
Speaker 3: with either ballattas or a wound golf ball. As soon
Speaker 3: as that wound golf ball went away and they went
Speaker 3: to solid coret golf balls, those guys were basically done.
Speaker 3: They were done because now all the longer hitters could
Speaker 3: just stand up there and swing away freely, and they
Speaker 3: weren't getting the same dispersion rate, so it just didn't
Speaker 3: matter miss and fairways stopped mattering two and and and
Speaker 3: put those guys, you know, put, those those guys went
Speaker 3: the way the Dodo. Yeah, those those guys. That's why
Speaker 3: it's why Brian gave in my opinion Yard for the
Speaker 3: best player on tour, best player on tour, Yard for yours.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a he's I think he's the only
Speaker 1: four time first team All SEC player ever.
Speaker 3: SEC. Yeah, I'd have to check that, but that I
Speaker 3: believe you, But I believe you. You probably you're probably
Speaker 3: right because he's off the top of my head. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: the guy's amazing. Yep. A lot of respect for chess,
Speaker 3: all those guys who who hit it, you know who
Speaker 3: literally I can play out of their bags. In fact,
Speaker 3: I'm longer than Brian game. Uh and I'm probably a
Speaker 3: little bit longer than Chez and you know, and those guys.
Speaker 3: The fact that those guys are still out there competing
Speaker 3: and winning, you know, chess winning. I mean sure, there
Speaker 3: are certain golf courses that he's only about a handful
Speaker 3: to maybe ten courses a year. He's got a chance
Speaker 3: to truly a decent chance to win on with his game.
Speaker 3: Otherwise he's got to do crazy good stuff outside the
Speaker 3: box that his skill set doesn't usually set up for.
Speaker 3: So much respect for those guys, because that puts a
Speaker 3: lot of pressure on you to sit there and go
Speaker 3: to literally look at the schedule and go, well, shoot,
Speaker 3: I've only got ten tournaments a year that I really
Speaker 3: have a good chance to win.
Speaker 1: I go, so, you know, yeah, I gotta make I
Speaker 1: gotta make one point five million and ten tournaments, exactly.
Speaker 3: I got to make one and a half million and
Speaker 3: ten tournaments. That's basically the way they got to look
Speaker 3: at things, which is that's pretty good. That's pretty good numbers.
Speaker 3: If you could make one hundred and fifty grand a tournament,
Speaker 3: that's what I'm pretty good.
Speaker 1: What do you think there's any psychological thing for these
Speaker 1: young guys playing really well because of all the other
Speaker 1: because the other young guys playing well early. I mean,
Speaker 1: how was that for you when you were coming out
Speaker 1: and like playing on tour as a young guy.
Speaker 3: Oh as far as motivation.
Speaker 2: Like intimidation, like were you you.
Speaker 3: Know, I think it depends on the player to a
Speaker 3: certain extent. I think certain players are going to be
Speaker 3: a little more intimidated than others. But I've never seen
Speaker 3: a group of young guys since the since Speak, since
Speaker 3: the Speak Crew came out that were that were not
Speaker 3: intimidated by older, more established players my generation. Tiger, you know,
Speaker 3: Tiger helped us Tiger kind of helped us with that,
Speaker 3: but experience still mattered. Even when I came out, experience
Speaker 3: still mattered. We didn't have There was no truck man,
Speaker 3: there was no there was no one there to to
Speaker 3: reaffirm you're doing the right thing day in and day out.
Speaker 3: You know, even longer hitters like Hank Keeney who came
Speaker 3: out same age. I played college golf with him and Tiger.
Speaker 3: They were the too longest on the planet when they played.
Speaker 3: When we played in college, they were both longer than
Speaker 3: daily and and and I sat there and I just
Speaker 3: went and Hank, you know, couldn't do what we all
Speaker 3: thought he could do for whatever reason. But he had
Speaker 3: the formula you thought to be able to do some
Speaker 3: really cool things on in professional golf with as long
Speaker 3: as he hit it and with as athletic as he
Speaker 3: was and the speed he could create. He had holes
Speaker 3: in his game without a doubt. But but there was
Speaker 3: definitely there was definitely an experience gap that that doesn't
Speaker 3: exist or isn't as big of a gap now as
Speaker 3: it was when I came out on tour and even
Speaker 3: before me, where you had to learn the golf courses,
Speaker 3: whereas now, you know, because there isn't such. Most of
Speaker 3: the golf courses on tour, the yardage books are so
Speaker 3: good you can literally play. You could play. You could
Speaker 3: show up on Tuesday, go around PPC Twin Cities with
Speaker 3: a putter and a wedge and just chip and put
Speaker 3: around the greens and play that golf course from the
Speaker 3: yardage book, no problem, no problem.
Speaker 2: Green trading books, you don't even have to know.
Speaker 3: How to read a green exactly exactly right. So if
Speaker 3: you're confused about you can win it. Some guys, if
Speaker 3: you're that calm and you feel that good about it.
Speaker 3: Literally you can show up on Thursday morning never seeing
Speaker 3: the golf course and you could probably shoot a pretty
Speaker 3: good score. Whereas that was never the case. You always
Speaker 3: had to do your homework. You always had to do that. Now,
Speaker 3: obviously the guys who do more homework, they're gonna have
Speaker 3: a better chance to a certain extent, at least, that's
Speaker 3: what's got my theory. They're always gonna have a better
Speaker 3: chance because they know this or that or the other
Speaker 3: thing that maybe a guy who hasn't seen the golf course.
Speaker 3: But I've also shown up to golf tournaments and golf
Speaker 3: courses that I haven't seen before on lesser tours, not
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, but on lesser tours where I've shot
Speaker 3: sixty five and I didn't play a practice round, you know.
Speaker 3: So it so it's just it's a lot of it's
Speaker 3: a lot of it's having no fear, understanding your own game,
Speaker 3: playing the distances, not trying to do too much. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't think that these guys are intimidated at all
Speaker 3: because they've got all the information they need. There's there's
Speaker 3: no stone left unturnedned for the most part, they have
Speaker 3: everything they need to have to play well. All the
Speaker 3: It literally comes down to execution. There's no guessing involved.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't even catch Harley flyers anymore. There's
Speaker 3: no guessing in shots to a certain extent, less the roughs,
Speaker 3: you know, four or five inches deep and you bury
Speaker 3: one and you really don't know how it's going to
Speaker 3: come out, to a certain extent, or Bermuda. Still you
Speaker 3: do some guessing in but quite honestly, there's there's not
Speaker 3: a lot of guessing in golf anymore. There's not a
Speaker 3: lot of there's not a lot of there's not a
Speaker 3: lot of freedom in in uh in playing the old
Speaker 3: school way, which was in freedom and playing by feel. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know guys who played by feel and played with
Speaker 3: that kind of freedom because they had the experience on
Speaker 3: the golf course and had the experience of tournament rounds
Speaker 3: under their belt. That's all gone now. I mean, that's
Speaker 3: that's another reason why these young guys are able to
Speaker 3: come out and play the way they're able to play
Speaker 3: right off the bat. They they have the freedom already
Speaker 3: in knowing that they know what they need to know, period,
Speaker 3: and then they just go out and execute. Boom, this
Speaker 3: is what I need to do. I need to get
Speaker 3: my driver here. I need to have my spin right here.
Speaker 3: I need to have my launch angle here. I need
Speaker 3: what is track man say? Perfect? I got it all there? Boom,
Speaker 3: ready to go. I need to have my six iron
Speaker 3: fly this far. The the same angle's got to be here.
Speaker 3: Oh what is track man say? Boom perfect? Got that dial?
Speaker 3: All right, We're ready to play one one? What you know,
Speaker 3: there's a random random six iron for Matt Wolf. What's
Speaker 3: a two bills?
Speaker 2: Probably one.
Speaker 3: I don't know who the yardage is.
Speaker 1: I think he was hitting like seven irons from two
Speaker 1: hundred down the stretch. He had probably had a little
Speaker 1: adrenaline going, but I think i'd imagine he has the
Speaker 1: six iron at least two zero five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you feel comfortable with your technique, about
Speaker 3: the only thing that still exists is pressure coming down
Speaker 3: the stretch and maybe not trusting technique, but if you
Speaker 3: trust your technique, it's literally execution, just seeing the shot,
Speaker 3: committing to the shot and hitting the shot, because everything
Speaker 3: else is you can't screw it up, quite honestly, other
Speaker 3: than letting pressure get you. That's the one thing that
Speaker 3: that's still it's still it's getting easier for the guys
Speaker 3: hand dealing with pressure because of all these things, but
Speaker 3: that's still existing, will always exist, you know. And technique
Speaker 3: I saw Wyndham Clark struggled with. I could see he
Speaker 3: struggling down the back nine last this last week with
Speaker 3: his technique, so I could see that maybe the pressure
Speaker 3: was getting to him to a certain extent. So each
Speaker 3: individual is going to handle it a little differently in
Speaker 3: that case, But veterans aren't coming out like in my
Speaker 3: day now. I remember my first Saturday on tour, making
Speaker 3: the cut in my first event at Sony and getting
Speaker 3: to play with Stuart Appleby like this is cool. He's
Speaker 3: won four or five times on tour. You know, here's
Speaker 3: a guy that you know, played on President's Cup teams
Speaker 3: and knows his way around and a and known as
Speaker 3: the phenomenal ball striker. I would step to that first tee.
Speaker 3: I was a little intimidated by Stuart, by Stuart Appleby
Speaker 3: because I knew how you know, It's just that he's played.
Speaker 3: He's played. He's played Wildlife fifty times, probably five hundred times.
Speaker 3: Who knows, I mean a lot. He's played that golf
Speaker 3: course a lot. He knows it like the back of
Speaker 3: his hand. He knows what to do when he hits
Speaker 3: it over in the left roof the right rough. He
Speaker 3: knows what to do when he misses a green ear
Speaker 3: there everywhere. I've got to learn that stuff. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't have.
Speaker 1: And I don't think like Matt Wolf's step into the
Speaker 1: tea or Mari kala is stepping the tea. If they're
Speaker 1: paired with, say Louis Sayson, I don't think they're intimidated
Speaker 1: by that.
Speaker 3: No, they're not, absolutely not, No, because they know all
Speaker 3: the metrics because they if they don't, they're going to
Speaker 3: have them soon. But they probably still they probably still
Speaker 3: have staff guys that are saying and a lot of
Speaker 3: guys do have stack guys saying, this is what you
Speaker 3: have to do well this week if you want to
Speaker 3: have a chance to win on this particular golf course.
Speaker 3: So this is what you need to practice, you know,
Speaker 3: which is which has Back when I played, which wasn't
Speaker 3: that long ago, you didn't we had still had we
Speaker 3: had we didn't have the strokes, game stats, we didn't
Speaker 3: have all those all the metadata that you have now
Speaker 3: and all the data that they have now. So you're
Speaker 3: sitting there looking at it, going you had to play
Speaker 3: the golf course once or twice or one year, four
Speaker 3: rounds and then go back and then re and then
Speaker 3: re evaluate in your own mind, all right, this is
Speaker 3: what I need to work on for this golf course
Speaker 3: next year. Now it's like, no, this is what you
Speaker 3: need to work on before you've even seen the golf course.
Speaker 3: This is what you need to work on to go
Speaker 3: win here. It's crazy, Yeah, it's really. It's actually pretty cool,
Speaker 3: but it's but it's it takes some of the romanticism
Speaker 3: out of the game, in my opinion, you know, some
Speaker 3: of the I mean, the guess work, and the romantic
Speaker 3: side of the game is kind of lost because there's
Speaker 3: just I think there's a little too much science in
Speaker 3: the game right now in my opinion.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Well, what would you do if you could,
Speaker 1: you know, say you could, you're a golf star, what
Speaker 1: would you do to get a little romanticism back in
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh gosh, that's a great question. Andy, Uh, I'd
Speaker 3: go back. I don't know. I'd probably be one of
Speaker 3: these old fuddy duddies that would go back to older tech.
Speaker 3: You know, get rid of get rid of uh, get
Speaker 3: get rid of these big drivers, get rid of them.
Speaker 3: I mean the same thing Nicholas talks about, the same
Speaker 3: thing Jack talks about. I I, you know, I to
Speaker 3: get some of the romanticism back of the game and
Speaker 3: to really to really see who the best players are,
Speaker 3: who's going to do the do their homework and work
Speaker 3: the hardest, to do their homework, to understand what they
Speaker 3: need to do to win week in and week out
Speaker 3: at every golf course. You know, get rid of the
Speaker 3: get rid of the greens books. You can have yardage
Speaker 3: books because you know, even back way back in the day,
Speaker 3: the guys were making yardage books, or had yardage books
Speaker 3: when Gorgeous Georgia's out, you know, printing them up and
Speaker 3: writing it and making them by hand.
Speaker 2: The Greens books, I think would be my first thing.
Speaker 3: Gone Green's books, Greens books. I want the Greens books
Speaker 3: so gone, it's not even funny, Like you have.
Speaker 1: To be able to read a green like Johnny Miller
Speaker 1: didn't didn't win a couple of majors because he couldn't
Speaker 1: read Greens.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you what, Andy, You and I are on
Speaker 3: the same page, and I know we sound like get
Speaker 3: off my lawn, but I agree with the percent I
Speaker 3: think Greens books. I think Greens books are are right
Speaker 3: now or worse than the golf Ball and the Driver combined.
Speaker 3: Quite honestly, I'd get rid of Greens books. I'd get
Speaker 3: rid of the Driver. I'd go back to.
Speaker 2: Hey, here's here's a question I'd go back to.
Speaker 3: I'd go back to nineteen I'd go back to nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight tech. That's what I would do. Now, go
Speaker 3: back to nineteen ninety eight tech. You can't make and
Speaker 3: no Tiger. You can't make your own golf ball. You
Speaker 3: can't have rock Ishie make you a perfect ball for
Speaker 3: you that was solid core that no one else had
Speaker 3: access to. You can't do that, So you got to
Speaker 3: go back to the wound ball, which he was drumming
Speaker 3: everybody with anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered. So but
Speaker 3: I would I would say that you gotta go, you
Speaker 3: gotta go, you gotta go back to nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 3: pre that, you know, titleist professional wound ball or ballata.
Speaker 3: I don't mind. We need as long as we go
Speaker 3: back to a wound the characteristics of a wound ball.
Speaker 3: I think that that would bring some of the romanticism
Speaker 3: back in. And you know, some old school some old
Speaker 3: school golf, you know, I don't I don't mind. You
Speaker 3: you can play ping. I t pluses if you want.
Speaker 3: I don't have any problem with that, irons, but I
Speaker 3: just don't want to. I don't want to see I
Speaker 3: just like you know, no track man, you know, none
Speaker 3: of that stuff. I want to see you guys. I
Speaker 3: want to see you know. I want to see guys
Speaker 3: dig it out of the dirt. And I think, to
Speaker 3: a certain extent, a lot of guys still do that.
Speaker 3: I don't think guys are I don't think there's a
Speaker 3: lot of guys out there who are so in love
Speaker 3: with the track man that they that they the top
Speaker 3: guys at least, I don't think that there's too many
Speaker 3: of those guys. I still think a lot of the
Speaker 3: top guys dig it out of the dirt, really go
Speaker 3: find it and and and have and understand their feels
Speaker 3: like innately uh and and it serves them well, there's
Speaker 3: no doubt. But there's a certain amount of science that
Speaker 3: those guys use, for sure that are allowing them to
Speaker 3: do what they're doing, uh to the game right now,
Speaker 3: that maybe they wouldn't be allowed to do if we
Speaker 3: were to go hit the way back button and go
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five years in the time machine. Quite honestly,
Speaker 3: I don't think that would I think it would be uh,
Speaker 3: it would be a tougher game for everybody, and I
Speaker 3: think it would be more fun. You know, we could
Speaker 3: we could play sixty five hundred yard golf courses a game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you could play fast Tampa, but uh.
Speaker 3: We could we could play fasted Tampo again exactly the.
Speaker 1: Uh with uh something I think about a lot, uh
Speaker 1: you know, and this is kind of points to this
Speaker 1: whole conversation, is uh, what's the what's the tournament that
Speaker 1: experience matters most year in year out.
Speaker 3: Oh, Augusta.
Speaker 1: You know that's the only place they don't allow green
Speaker 1: reading books.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, and God bless them, and I hope they
Speaker 3: continue to do that. I'm pretty sure that that the
Speaker 3: chairman Ridley's gonna he is not going to allow them,
Speaker 3: and I hope that that continues to happen at Augusta.
Speaker 3: And quite honestly, I'd like to see all the major
Speaker 3: championships not allow them. And I just, yeah, I would,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, the guys who make them, the
Speaker 3: Straca guys, they I mean, I've said it on Twitter
Speaker 3: and I've gotten They've attacked me left and right. Oh
Speaker 3: you're killing my You know, I got to put my
Speaker 3: kids through college and this and that and the other thing,
Speaker 3: and you know, woe is me? What am I going
Speaker 3: to do without a job if they if they take
Speaker 3: away this and that? And I'm like, well, you know
Speaker 3: what if the guy who was building metal build whipping
Speaker 3: whipping woods do when metal woods came along, he figured
Speaker 3: out how to make metal woods and and and he
Speaker 3: worked on those, you know, So I mean, you just
Speaker 3: gotta you got to adjust. You got to adapt, you
Speaker 3: got to figure out things. And uh, I would love
Speaker 3: it to see him taking away, but I just I
Speaker 3: don't you know, if you're talking with Thomas Pagel, uh
Speaker 3: where we had a conversation this year, we were having
Speaker 3: a conversation because he was there for everybody that so
Speaker 3: just in case anybody had any freak outs on the rules,
Speaker 3: the new rules this year, he was there and he
Speaker 3: was great to talk to. And uh, that's going to
Speaker 3: be the hardest thing is getting rid of those greens books,
Speaker 3: because then he's like, well, then we probably have to
Speaker 3: get rid of yardage books. And I'm like, I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure you could probably put an addendum in there for
Speaker 3: green reading materials and then the yardage books. Basically, if
Speaker 3: a guy who's doing yardage books, basically he just draws
Speaker 3: the shape of the green and puts nothing on the green,
Speaker 3: and the players can do all that. That's that's the
Speaker 3: players do that.
Speaker 2: It should be like a great caddy and a great
Speaker 2: and a well a well prepared caddy would be out
Speaker 2: there doing that.
Speaker 3: Well, caddies do that. But I did that on my own,
Speaker 3: you know, before Mark Long did these gorgeous books that
Speaker 3: and these and you know, and then they're they're perfect.
Speaker 3: The numbers are perfect, I mean, right to the letter.
Speaker 3: Before Mark Long did the books, Gorgeous George did the books,
Speaker 3: and I was I'm old enough to know that I
Speaker 3: played my rookie maybe my first two years three and
Speaker 3: o four with Gorgeous George books. I still have them all,
Speaker 3: still have all my old Gorgeous George Yarde books back
Speaker 3: at home. They're cool. And I remember writing in stuff
Speaker 3: on the greens because George didn't put all the slopes
Speaker 3: in the lines, and that I put those in. Well,
Speaker 3: here's a big slope right here. You got to watch
Speaker 3: out here, and this is the slopes. There's all there's
Speaker 3: a little bump right here that George didn't write in
Speaker 3: and didn't see, but I see it. So that's gonna
Speaker 3: throw the putt a little bit further right or left
Speaker 3: than you normal that you think it would, just based
Speaker 3: on my own reconnaissance, you know, and prep. You know
Speaker 3: these things and you draw them in yourself. I'd love
Speaker 3: to get back to that. I just don't know if
Speaker 3: if it's ever going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I who knows. I thought they tried
Speaker 1: and then they kind of fell back, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I think, you know, there's
Speaker 3: there's a lot, there's there's probably more going on than
Speaker 3: I understand, and that maybe you understand as well. Behind
Speaker 3: closed doors, maybe there's not, but maybe there is that
Speaker 3: we don't know about, and uh may never know about.
Speaker 3: Even if I asked someone, I don't know if we'd
Speaker 3: get a straight answer. Quite honestly, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think they'd tell us anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know that they would tell us much. Yeah,
Speaker 3: which is fine. I look, the game. The game's fun
Speaker 3: right now, it really is. It's fun to watch, it's
Speaker 3: fun to broadcast, it's fun to still fun to play.
Speaker 3: It's just different. It's just different than what it used
Speaker 3: to be. I I miss you know, I miss you know.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of nostalgia and golf, and
Speaker 3: I feel a lot of nostalgia when I you know,
Speaker 3: when I went out with my with my uh my,
Speaker 3: my buddy Frankie seppened the other night as his club
Speaker 3: and we were and we were messing around. He had
Speaker 3: a bunch of old a lot of balls, who knows
Speaker 3: how good they were, but he had a bunch of
Speaker 3: old tour a lot of and professional balls, and we
Speaker 3: were out there with with a with a wood wood
Speaker 3: and presuming and having a great time just hitting shots.
Speaker 3: He had an old Wilson Staff one iron. This thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's probably the loss of a three iron now,
Speaker 3: but it's definitely. It was definitely from the early eighties
Speaker 3: to late seventies, and the Greens victory was was as
Speaker 3: slick as could be on that thing. It was, but
Speaker 3: I was I was hitting that thing from like one
Speaker 3: hundred and ninety yards, you know, and then I'd move
Speaker 3: up to one hundred and eighty and I'd hit these
Speaker 3: big slices and you know, open it up a little
Speaker 3: bit and play it with a with a ballot of
Speaker 3: ball and played this massive thirty yards slice from one
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty yards. It was so much fun. You know.
Speaker 3: That's the kind of there's a handful of guys playing
Speaker 3: those shots on tour nowadays, when you know, back in
Speaker 3: the day, I think a lot of guys had to
Speaker 3: play those shots and they're fun. They were fun. I
Speaker 3: loved playing shots like that. I love curving the ball,
Speaker 3: making the ball curve and you know it goes pretty straight. Now,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm watching guy out there and even when
Speaker 3: I go out and play, it's just like, you know,
Speaker 3: when I want to draw one in, I've got to like, well,
Speaker 3: I can't start it that far right. I got started
Speaker 3: like five yards five yards further left that I normally
Speaker 3: could because it's just not going to move as much.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest, biggest winner of the whole ball
Speaker 1: thing was was the big the big body guys that
Speaker 1: hit a cut.
Speaker 3: Yes, without a doubt. It's easier to.
Speaker 2: Control, which is why they went so far.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, without a doubt because you could hit it.
Speaker 3: You know. When Nicholas played, he taught himself how to
Speaker 3: hit a flat cut, how to hit a flat high bomb,
Speaker 3: you know, or a knuckle cut, which is what Brooks
Speaker 3: hits on every shot. But Nicholas had to teach himself
Speaker 3: how to do that and take the spin off of it.
Speaker 3: Tiger had. Tiger had a natural he was so naturally
Speaker 3: shallow through the ball that he kind of he kind
Speaker 3: of did that even he and he might not have
Speaker 3: been trying to do that. He just did it. But
Speaker 3: he Tiger hit a great flat high bomb cut with
Speaker 3: a with a wound ball. I mean I remember seeing
Speaker 3: it firsthand every time we played golf against each other
Speaker 3: when we were in college, and whereas everybody else was
Speaker 3: spinning the ball into the air, we all spun it
Speaker 3: into the air. You know, those guys learned how to
Speaker 3: top themselves, how to launch it into the air and
Speaker 3: take the spin off of it. And you know that's
Speaker 3: kind of lost on today's generation because all the equipment
Speaker 3: does it for you. I mean, it's set up to
Speaker 3: do it, so you don't have to teach yourself how
Speaker 3: to hit those shots. They're hit for you. Basically, you
Speaker 3: just have to You just have to have the guy
Speaker 3: with the track man, who's running the track man, give
Speaker 3: you the right numbers. Okay, we need to get two hundred.
Speaker 3: We even get two hundred more spin off your ball. Okay,
Speaker 3: that's take the wrench out. Okay, knock it down. I
Speaker 3: have to great boom. There you go, there's two hundred
Speaker 3: less RPMs. There's your little knuckle cut.
Speaker 2: So funny.
Speaker 1: My buddy Vince India gave me a driver a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. He plays on the web and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it was one of his old drivers. He
Speaker 1: built it up for me and and I'm hitting it
Speaker 1: and a couple I see him a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: later and he's like, hey, how's that driver. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little too spinny. You know, I
Speaker 1: just feel like I'm losing you know, ten yards because
Speaker 1: it's just spinning so much. He goes, oh, let me
Speaker 1: just flip the gravity corps flips this thing, and uh,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm hitting it twenty five yards further.
Speaker 2: It was nuts. Yeah, it's just like just like that,
Speaker 2: it just took all the spin off.
Speaker 3: That's listen, that's that's I got to hand it to
Speaker 3: guys like Marty Jerdson at King and all the and
Speaker 3: all the engineers at the at they they have done
Speaker 3: such a phenomenal job, you know, recreating the driver. Because
Speaker 3: the USGA finally, thank goodness, said okay, next enough, this
Speaker 3: is where we're stopping. We're stopping at this coefficient and
Speaker 3: restitution and we're stopping at this size head. So now
Speaker 3: now you got to us around with CG and and
Speaker 3: m O I, and you got to and and materials
Speaker 3: and put it all together and see what you can
Speaker 3: come up with. And and you know, everybody at all
Speaker 3: the manufacturers and engineers like Marty, they're doing such a
Speaker 3: good job reinventing the wheel and and creating you know,
Speaker 3: easier clubs to hit, even though they're they're they're cut
Speaker 3: off from A from A from a certain standpoint, from
Speaker 3: the U. S C A, from going forward and progressing
Speaker 3: the technology they have to find out. They have to
Speaker 3: find different ways to progress the technology with what they have,
Speaker 3: and they're doing a good good job of that through
Speaker 3: m o I and how they put the heads together
Speaker 3: and where they put the where they put the CG
Speaker 3: and and how you can change the CG around and
Speaker 3: it's it's really I find that fascinating. I think it's
Speaker 3: really cool, and uh, it's fun to tinker. I'll tell
Speaker 3: you what. The one thing I I don't miss. I
Speaker 3: don't miss having to test six different drivers alongside of
Speaker 3: one another and not liking any of them, and then
Speaker 3: then had being out there all day because they had
Speaker 3: to rebuild drivers and glue into every head Versus now
Speaker 3: you just grab a shaft and you lock it in
Speaker 3: and boom you go and you're literally fitting a driver
Speaker 3: in a half an hour.
Speaker 1: Honestly, you don't miss the days where the driver was
Speaker 1: the hardest club to hit in the bag and not
Speaker 1: the easiest.
Speaker 3: Well, I miss, I don't miss those testing days, yes, driver,
Speaker 3: that those testing days drove me des I'm like, I
Speaker 3: used to just sit there and cringe when I had
Speaker 3: to know titles have come out with the new driver
Speaker 3: when I was signed with Titleists, when I was playing,
Speaker 3: I'd just sit there and cringe that. I love testing wedges.
Speaker 3: I love testing irons because they were pretty easy for
Speaker 3: me to fit. As long as you got the loft
Speaker 3: and lies right. I know the window that my ball
Speaker 3: should be coming out of the window that I want
Speaker 3: to see. I know how it should spin. You know,
Speaker 3: I know the distance I should hit it into the
Speaker 3: wind house. She hit a down wind, cross wind, the soul,
Speaker 3: whole nine heads. As long as it's doing that boom,
Speaker 3: we're good. Throw them in the bag. Drivers were like, oh,
Speaker 3: I used to just an three Woods. Drivers in three
Speaker 3: Woods drove boomsane Andy, Oh, they drove me nets testing
Speaker 3: those things because they wear my ass out after half
Speaker 3: an hour hitting balls with a driver. I mean, I
Speaker 3: can only hit so many drivers back in the day,
Speaker 3: and I don't get tired. Drive me nets. Yeah. So
Speaker 3: now it's I said, Eve, and now it's pretty simple.
Speaker 3: This is where we're trying to get to twenty five
Speaker 3: or twenty two to or twenty. For me, I like
Speaker 3: it twenty three to twenty six hundred spin twenty three
Speaker 3: to twenty six hundred. I want launch it at about
Speaker 3: eleven eleven and a half tops twelve and uh you
Speaker 3: know the spin rate, Yeah, the spin rate should be
Speaker 3: that twenty two twenty three to twenty six twelve and
Speaker 3: a half. Yeah, twenty three to twenty six twelve and
Speaker 3: a half. That's what I want. Any lower and I
Speaker 3: can't control it any higher and I lose distance. But
Speaker 3: right in that little sweet spot, I'm golden, you know.
Speaker 3: And then the fall speed in the club, that speed,
Speaker 3: it is what it is with an old man with
Speaker 3: four hand surgeries. Yeah, so I'll take what I I'll
Speaker 3: take what I can get.
Speaker 1: I do now as a as a as a out
Speaker 1: of shape golf blocker and podcaster that sits in a
Speaker 1: chair most days.
Speaker 3: You know, just exactly sounds like you still create some
Speaker 3: good speed though at three hundred yards.
Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, my best days are might be behind me,
Speaker 1: is what I'm starting to But uh so what do
Speaker 1: you what do you think about this whole new schedule
Speaker 1: with openness.
Speaker 3: I like it, I really do. I like it. I
Speaker 3: think I listened from a coming now that I'm not playing,
Speaker 3: and and I and I have to look at it
Speaker 3: from a television perspective. I think it's great for the fans.
Speaker 3: I think you get you get a massive event every month,
Speaker 3: culminating in the FedEx Cup playoffs. You get the players,
Speaker 3: you get the Masters, you get the PGA, you get
Speaker 3: the US Open, you get the Open Championship, bang bang
Speaker 3: bang bank right right in a row every month, once
Speaker 3: a month, you got. You got a fantastic you got
Speaker 3: a basically a major championship. Okay, and then all culminates
Speaker 3: in in the UH, in the in the fedixs Cup playoffs,
Speaker 3: and it's all done before football. Okay, the fall season
Speaker 3: is great, and the fall season is becoming more and
Speaker 3: more important, There's no doubt. You look at the statistics.
Speaker 3: It behooves guys to go and play the fall season
Speaker 3: to get a great jump on FedEx Cup points so
Speaker 3: that you don't get too far behind. Now, the top,
Speaker 3: the top players, they don't have to you know, are
Speaker 3: going to play in those Asia that Asia slang free points,
Speaker 3: you know, for three three straight events, so they don't
Speaker 3: worry about They're gonna get points no matter what. But
Speaker 3: the guys who aren't in those events, the rank and file,
Speaker 3: it's really a big deal to play in that fall season.
Speaker 3: But you know, the PGA Tour, the real TGA Tour season.
Speaker 3: For I think the fan, the average fan is from
Speaker 3: when we're seeing Wales breach out of the water at
Speaker 3: Capol Little all the way until we hold the last
Speaker 3: putt at east Lake. That's the season, okay. And and
Speaker 3: I think that right now it's nice in compact, I
Speaker 3: think the stories flow a little bit easier. I think
Speaker 3: from a television scheduling standpoint, we've all been we've all
Speaker 3: had our hair on fire to a certain extent, especially
Speaker 3: a guy like me who does four different tours for
Speaker 3: Golf Channel. It's not like I'm just doing the PGS
Speaker 3: or just doing the Champs Tour. I'm nt double as
Speaker 3: I do a women's event here and there. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm all over the I'm all over the place. So
Speaker 3: my schedule's pretty hectic, especially from May first on and
Speaker 3: so or at least May through May through July. My
Speaker 3: my my schedule's nuts. Uh So, I think from a
Speaker 3: TV personnel standpoint, and Ana or a standpoint, we were
Speaker 3: all we were all kind of sitting there going, oh boy,
Speaker 3: what's our schedule, what are our schedules going to look like?
Speaker 3: And how you know in this compact season. And I
Speaker 3: think to a certain extent, I think we were all
Speaker 3: fairly crazy at the Golf channel of our schedules. But
Speaker 3: for I think that it's for the average fan. I
Speaker 3: like it. I think it's great. I mean I don't.
Speaker 3: I didn't like. I didn't like the players in May.
Speaker 3: Didn't like the players in May. It really didn't. I
Speaker 3: didn't like. I don't like the way that golf course
Speaker 3: plays in May. I played one players in May, the
Speaker 3: first one in seven, and then hurt myself and couldn't play,
Speaker 3: didn't play in another one, and I I just I
Speaker 3: preferred in March. I prefer in March. And now that
Speaker 3: we've got it back in March, I think that's a
Speaker 3: good thing. And then but obviously to have to go
Speaker 3: March April and one month increments pretty much except for
Speaker 3: maybe from Yeah, now in one month increments, literally one
Speaker 3: month increment, you've got a major championship. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's wild.
Speaker 1: From coverage standpoint, I feel like, right when I've gotten
Speaker 1: over the one, it's it's it's starts the next one started.
Speaker 3: I know, all of us in the all of us
Speaker 3: in the media and or in the golf media, golf
Speaker 3: bloggist sphere, anybody who's doing anything media oriented in golf.
Speaker 3: Our hair's on. Our hair has been on fire all year.
Speaker 3: There's no doubt. And you there's no I mean, there's
Speaker 3: there's busy, and then there's psycho busy. And I think
Speaker 3: that all of us were for the most part, if
Speaker 3: you had a full schedule, you know, that's that's site
Speaker 3: you were psycho busy this year. From a from a
Speaker 3: golf media standpoint, the thing is, and so.
Speaker 1: The thing that's interesting is how this new schedule is
Speaker 1: affected like tiger schedule where we're seeing him like now
Speaker 1: this we saw him play a lot in the lead
Speaker 1: up of the Masters, but now you know for the Open, no,
Speaker 1: no starts between the US Open and the Open.
Speaker 3: Well, I I but I also I also think that
Speaker 3: that has a lot to do with with forty three
Speaker 3: year old years old and you know, and eight surgeries
Speaker 3: between his knee and his back. Yeah, So I mean
Speaker 3: there's there's a lot going on there, Andy that I
Speaker 3: think that that I think that if we if Tiger,
Speaker 3: let's just pretend Tiger's never had a surgery and he's
Speaker 3: forty three years old. I think Tiger plays a couple
Speaker 3: of times, quite honestly, I think he does. I think
Speaker 3: he plays a couple of times between between the the
Speaker 3: between the Open and and uh, even though he didn't
Speaker 3: in the past, maybe he does now, you know, to
Speaker 3: get the reps in. Maybe he plays at least once.
Speaker 3: You know, he used to play what he played one
Speaker 3: event between He always played one event between the US
Speaker 3: Open and the Open Championship back in the day, just
Speaker 3: to see where he was at. And then he'd go
Speaker 3: over and play. You know, he get over there a
Speaker 3: week early, get adjusted practice, play on the golf course,
Speaker 3: and make sure that he had all his ducks in
Speaker 3: a row. But he's, you know, he's forty three. With
Speaker 3: all this stuff that he's had going on with him,
Speaker 3: I can't blame him. We're going to see more and
Speaker 3: more of a Hogan light schedule out of him, I
Speaker 3: think as the years go on, quite honestly, because the body,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know if he I don't know
Speaker 3: if his doctor said the same thing my doctor told
Speaker 3: me after my fourth hand surgery, which was basically, I
Speaker 3: don't know how many shots he got after my last surgery,
Speaker 3: I don't know how many shots he got left in
Speaker 3: his hand, but there's a number, and once you hit
Speaker 3: that number, you're done. He said that to me verbatim,
Speaker 3: and I said, WHOA, that's that's honesty for you. So
Speaker 3: maybe Tiger has that. He doesn't know about it. Maybe
Speaker 3: he doesn't. Maybe doctors have said, you're good, just take
Speaker 3: care of it. But he's definitely got to got to
Speaker 3: do things differently now and can't play the way that
Speaker 3: you know, can't play and practice the way he once did.
Speaker 3: So I don't blame him. I don't know in all, honestly, Andy,
Speaker 3: I don't know if it hasn't much to do with
Speaker 3: as much to do with the schedule as it does
Speaker 3: honestly his back in his body.
Speaker 2: Quite honestly, Yeah, I mean, it's just unbelievable. I'm still
Speaker 2: shocked that he won the Masters, you know.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think we're all in shock. I think we're
Speaker 3: all still in shock that he that he was, that
Speaker 3: he won the Masters. It was it was everything kind
Speaker 3: of fell into place. He hit the shot, and he
Speaker 3: hit the shots. Uh and and you know what, if
Speaker 3: his back's good, the temperatures are right, I wouldn't doubt
Speaker 3: it if he contended at Port Rush. Yeah, there's there's
Speaker 3: two tournaments that are kind to old people, and that's
Speaker 3: the guy and people who know what they're doing around him.
Speaker 3: That's the Masters and the Open Championship.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that dovetails well with what you
Speaker 1: were saying about romanticism and golf. I feel like the
Speaker 1: Open Open kind of brings it back a little bit.
Speaker 3: I think everybody I totally agree, because you know what,
Speaker 3: there's that's still the one place Augusta to a certain extent,
Speaker 3: but still Augusta. Augusta is still you can play modern
Speaker 3: golf in Augusta and not get penalized. Honestly, you don't
Speaker 3: have to. You still need to shape shots, but you
Speaker 3: can still stand up on teas at Augusta and just
Speaker 3: swing away. With today's equipment, you don't have to move
Speaker 3: the ball. You still kind of got to move the ball.
Speaker 3: On a links course. You gotta hit low, you gotta
Speaker 3: roll it out there, you gotta bullet sometimes, you gotta
Speaker 3: take spin off. You've got to do all kinds of
Speaker 3: funny stuff at an Open Championship with a golf ball.
Speaker 3: It's definitely the most old school, nostalgic, just romanticized tournament.
Speaker 3: And you know, honestly, it's probably my favorite to watch.
Speaker 3: It is. I'd have to say it is my favorite
Speaker 3: to watch, and I'd have to say after that, it's
Speaker 3: probably the Masters, but the Open Championship is my favorite
Speaker 3: to watch for that reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely. I think the last couple he opens
Speaker 1: have been just so good to it. Last year I
Speaker 1: had this moment, I'm like, Yep, this is my favorite major,
Speaker 1: and I think there's something I think Obviously, you're always
Speaker 1: going to get firm conditions, you know, which is which is?
Speaker 1: That's the number one thing I enjoy watching is like
Speaker 1: that hollow thud when the ball hits the ground is
Speaker 1: the best sound in golf. But then when you throw
Speaker 1: in wind, to me, that's when you get wind and firm.
Speaker 1: That's when you really separate, you know, the real players
Speaker 1: from the kind of the the good golfers.
Speaker 3: We were talking about this last week. It doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: it doesn't it doesn't matter. You can make a golf
Speaker 3: course if the golf course. If the golf course is soft,
Speaker 3: it can be fun to watch, but you're gonna have
Speaker 3: everybody in their grandmother right there with a chance to win.
Speaker 3: You really don't know who's hitting it well and who's
Speaker 3: not hitting it well. On a soft golf course, would
Speaker 3: you sue that golf course firms up and gets like
Speaker 3: a brick, The separation happens really quickly, and you know
Speaker 3: exactly who's hit it well, and who's hit who's not
Speaker 3: hitting it well, and and who's got control of their
Speaker 3: ball and their spin and their trajectory and who doesn't. Uh.
Speaker 3: Firmness is the absolute separator. The firmness of a golf
Speaker 3: course is the absolute separator of good ball strikers and
Speaker 3: even moderate to mediocre ball strikers, not even poor ball strikers,
Speaker 3: but just guys who are just kind of average ball strikers.
Speaker 3: That week, that potential week it'll separate, those guys will
Speaker 3: be gone. And the guys who are at the top
Speaker 3: of the board, the first twenty twenty five names, you know,
Speaker 3: those are the guys that are striking their ball. For
Speaker 3: the most part, the best I firm conditions, the best
Speaker 3: ball strikers are always going to come to the top,
Speaker 3: I think, and then and then if you.
Speaker 2: And then if you throw in the wind, that's when
Speaker 2: all the trajectory can control and the spin control all
Speaker 2: that just cut get so high. It just that's what's
Speaker 2: so cool. And there's no options taken away. It opens
Speaker 2: either you can hit all different.
Speaker 3: Exactly, which is why, to this day and for for
Speaker 3: history that I can that I can think of Phil
Speaker 3: Mickelson as the greatest Open champion of all time because
Speaker 3: I mean, he's a good iron player. He's always been
Speaker 3: a good iron player, but his calling card was not
Speaker 3: links golf never was. And he taught himself out of
Speaker 3: plate and pulled it off, and no one thought he
Speaker 3: could win that tournament. I don't think he even thought
Speaker 3: he could win that tournament. And for him to do
Speaker 3: it phenomenal.
Speaker 2: All right, you.
Speaker 1: Got you gotta get out of here. Erin always a
Speaker 1: pleasure having you on. But uh, all right, before you
Speaker 1: got to go, what real quick? Who's your pick to
Speaker 1: to win the Open?
Speaker 3: Uh? I haven't given it much thoughts. I'll be honest
Speaker 3: with you to uh to be to be honest, but
Speaker 3: you know I'm gonna go. Let me think about it
Speaker 3: really quick. I think it's going to be a top
Speaker 3: ten guy. And I honestly think that he. I think
Speaker 3: that he's done enough on links golf courses to to
Speaker 3: and and I, and he's coming in hot. It's hard
Speaker 3: for me to get away from a guy like John
Speaker 3: ram on a place like that. It really is. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's got that, He's got the control. I saw what
Speaker 3: he did at the Irish Open this last week. It's
Speaker 3: gonna be tougher obviously at Port Rush. Uh.
Speaker 2: He's been knocking on the major door too. He's had
Speaker 2: a couple ten fives in the last.
Speaker 3: He's starting to he's starting to figure it out. And
Speaker 3: I think that his game. You know, he plays a
Speaker 3: piercing flight. He's good in the wind, he's good in
Speaker 3: bad conditions. He drives it fantastic. If he just keeps
Speaker 3: his emotions in check, that's the biggest thing for If
Speaker 3: he can keep his emotions in check, I think John
Speaker 3: Rong can get it done. I really do. I think
Speaker 3: he can win his first major championship.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, hey, thanks for coming on and we'll watch for
Speaker 1: you this week at the Senior Players in Akron.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do
Speaker 2: the digging for you,