Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a bride egg, Friday Egg, the dread and Frida
Speaker 2: Egg Frida Egg, Frida egg Egg Frida Egg, Bride egg.
Speaker 1: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison
Speaker 2: and we are in a fun spot in the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour schedule. The Arnold Palmer Invitational at bay Hill just
Speaker 2: wrapped up with a dominant win by Scotti Scheffler finally,
Speaker 2: and we are now onto the Players Championship at TPC Sagras.
Speaker 2: These are two very different types of tournament golf venues,
Speaker 2: so we thought it would be a good time to
Speaker 2: talk about what we want and don't want out of
Speaker 2: a tour golf course, what makes a great test of golf,
Speaker 2: and how that's different from what makes a great golf
Speaker 2: course in general. Here to discuss that with me is
Speaker 2: Joseph Lamannia, And before getting into the meat of the pod,
Speaker 2: we're gonna do our usual in and out segment where
Speaker 2: we talk about what we're in on and what we're
Speaker 2: out on in the golf world this week. So Joseph,
Speaker 2: what are you in on?
Speaker 1: Garrett?
Speaker 3: I am in on the legacy of Arnold Palmer. And
Speaker 3: I know that this is something that sometimes we enjoy
Speaker 3: poking fun of a little bit, like when Justin Rose
Speaker 3: didn't make an equipment announcement because he did it out
Speaker 3: of respect for Arnold Palmer, and that can be all
Speaker 3: a little bit overblown. But last week was my first
Speaker 3: time in Orlando at this event. Seeing the pictures affixed
Speaker 3: to the exterior of people's houses of Arnold Paul Elmer,
Speaker 3: seeing the umbrella logos everywhere, not just on site, but
Speaker 3: throughout the city, you can tell that Arnold Palmer himself
Speaker 3: means a lot to a lot of people, especially in
Speaker 3: the Orlando area, and with what the PGA Tour is
Speaker 3: trying to do have legacy, have that lineage between some
Speaker 3: of their all time greats. As much fun as it
Speaker 3: is to kind of joke about, I gained a lot
Speaker 3: of respect for it a lot of people. He means
Speaker 3: a lot to a lot of people, and I think
Speaker 3: that it elevates the event in a unique way. So
Speaker 3: I'm in on what Arnold Palmer means to the golf
Speaker 3: world and specifically to that tournament. The umbrella got to
Speaker 3: you the umbrella. The umbrella didn't get to me to
Speaker 3: where I'm gonna be wearing it around, But I can
Speaker 3: appreciate that it means a lot to a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, obviously it's hard to describe how big
Speaker 2: of a deal, how big of a celebrity Arnold Palmer
Speaker 2: was in the late fifties and early sixties and really
Speaker 2: throughout his life. But if you talk to people who
Speaker 2: were young back then, who are golf fans back then,
Speaker 2: like my dad, you can just tell how much Arnold
Speaker 2: Palmer means. And so, yeah, that's a that's a very
Speaker 2: real thing. Do people get overly sentimental and mawkish about it? Sometimes?
Speaker 2: Do they?
Speaker 3: Do?
Speaker 2: They use the legacy of Arnold Palmer to justify poor
Speaker 2: design at bay Hill? Sometimes? Yeah, occasionally that happens, But
Speaker 2: all in all, it's it's probably for the best that
Speaker 2: we keep that legacy alive a bit, at least in
Speaker 2: the form of this event on the tour schedule.
Speaker 1: Agree, what are you in on? Garrett?
Speaker 2: All right? So I am in on saw him Figauless
Speaker 2: season so far? Okay, I really like what he's doing. Now,
Speaker 2: does he need to get to another level for me
Speaker 2: to be really really excited about him? Sure, but he
Speaker 2: was t six at Bayhill, three top tens so far
Speaker 2: this year, solo second at the Century, and solo fifth
Speaker 2: at the Phoenix Open. His problem historically, as far as
Speaker 2: I understand it, you can correct me here, has been
Speaker 2: wild driving, right, I mean, he just misses a lot
Speaker 2: of fairways. Typically he's he's long enough, but he just
Speaker 2: hasn't been accurate enough to be toward the top of
Speaker 2: the you know, ball striking strokes gained standings on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, he has been a little tighter with that
Speaker 2: this season. He's twenty ninth and strokes gained off the tee.
Speaker 2: I think his DNA is always going to be a
Speaker 2: players who's a little bit loose off the tee, but
Speaker 2: it seems like there's been some improvement there, at least
Speaker 2: based on the small sample size we have so far.
Speaker 2: And just you know, the reason I'm excited about Sahith
Speaker 2: is the reason that everybody is excited about Sahith. He's
Speaker 2: just a fun player to watch. He's charismatic, he's likable,
Speaker 2: cool swing, great touch, around the greens, has been a
Speaker 2: great putter for the past couple of seasons. The profile
Speaker 2: of his game is just fun to watch. For me.
Speaker 2: That's a player that you know, when when a player
Speaker 2: like that is on TV, I'm like, I'm not quite
Speaker 2: sure what's going to happen here. It's not super predictable
Speaker 2: how this player is going to score. He profiles. I
Speaker 2: think that's a pretty good fit for augusta National solo
Speaker 2: ninth last year at the Masters, that was his first
Speaker 2: Master's appearance, and so I'm going to be keeping an
Speaker 2: eye on what he's doing and the lead up to
Speaker 2: the Masters, what he does this coming week at TPC
Speaker 2: Sawgrass and you know, potentially maybe a contender this year
Speaker 2: at the Masters.
Speaker 1: I love it, Garrett.
Speaker 3: When we did our Master's kind of early preview pot,
Speaker 3: I had just thrown his name out as a mid
Speaker 3: you know, forty to fifty to one type odds. That's
Speaker 3: where he is on the odds she at least at
Speaker 3: the time, and I think he's somebody that has a
Speaker 3: lot of upside.
Speaker 1: Not the most.
Speaker 3: Consistent game, as you're alluding to with some of the
Speaker 3: sprang it off of the tea a little bit, but
Speaker 3: he has rained it in a little and he's exciting
Speaker 3: to watch. I completely agree with you. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of robot type Maybe we overuse the term robots
Speaker 3: when we're describing PJ Tour players and their swings and
Speaker 3: their demeanor, but I have quite different than that. He
Speaker 3: plays a different style. There's some flair with his personality
Speaker 3: and with his game. He's fun to watch in person.
Speaker 3: So I agree, somebody to look for. Maybe not at
Speaker 3: the players this week. I'm not sure if I love
Speaker 3: how his cloud for him, but yeah, yeah, as we
Speaker 3: get to Augusta, he's somebody to keep an eye on
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 1: So I like that call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just I just smile whenever he shows up
Speaker 2: on TV. And I don't have that reaction to every
Speaker 2: player of his you know, skill level of his ability.
Speaker 2: I light up a little bit. You know, the energy
Speaker 2: ticks up a bit when he's on the screen, and
Speaker 2: and you know, we we have to notice that when
Speaker 2: it comes along because we've been talking about the lack
Speaker 2: of juice so far in the PGA Tour season. It's
Speaker 2: players like this guy who are going to bring us
Speaker 2: out of that, out of those dol drums. So all right,
Speaker 2: what are you out on this week, Garrett?
Speaker 3: I am out on graphic hats, the kind of hat
Speaker 3: that it's almost.
Speaker 2: Like the graphic what do you mean by graphic images
Speaker 2: or like explicit content?
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no, not explicit content, like the images
Speaker 3: in the text, especially the ones where we're either flipping
Speaker 3: the text upside down, which I don't know why we
Speaker 3: do that, or the ones where we're removing the vowels.
Speaker 3: Like I saw some guy walking around at Bayhill. I
Speaker 3: mean I saw a ton of these hats at Bayhill.
Speaker 3: One guy walking around with one that must have been
Speaker 3: Eagle Creek, but a lot of the vowels had been removed,
Speaker 3: so it was just EGL space CRK. It's like, what
Speaker 3: are we doing with these hats? Another woman had this
Speaker 3: hat that said golf nerd. It was like a black
Speaker 3: hat with his gold cursive writing golf nerd. It's like
Speaker 3: it the don't talk to me until I've had my
Speaker 3: morning coffee shirts put onto a hat, and I don't
Speaker 3: know why we can't just have the simple, clean, sharp hats.
Speaker 3: I don't know what we're doing this hat phenomenon, especially
Speaker 3: they're removing the vowels and some of the funky messages
Speaker 3: that we're trying to use to express our personalities via
Speaker 3: our hats.
Speaker 1: I'm out on all of that.
Speaker 2: I live in a town called Happy Valley, and at
Speaker 2: the at the local food truck spot, they sell sweatshirts
Speaker 2: and hats and everything with Happy Valley on them, except
Speaker 2: that all the valels have been removed, and it doesn't
Speaker 2: make any sense, and it just it just delights me.
Speaker 1: Do they leave the why?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they leave the Why, but every other valelve is
Speaker 2: taken out. It is like you don't even know when
Speaker 2: you first look at it, You're like, what is even
Speaker 2: going on here? Yeah? It is, no doubt, it's an epidemic,
Speaker 2: all right. So as for what I am out on,
Speaker 2: I'm so tired of people misinterpreting what certain players say
Speaker 2: about the structure of the PGA Tour and the future
Speaker 2: of the PGA Tour. The latest example this past week
Speaker 2: was first Roy McElroy and then Wyndham Clark saying that
Speaker 2: they wanted to see the PGA Tour get a little
Speaker 2: smaller and more cutthroat. That's what they were saying, but
Speaker 2: people immediately jumped on them for being self interested protecting
Speaker 2: their position. Basically, people thought that Rory and Wyndham were saying,
Speaker 2: shrink the PGA Tour so that I can stay on
Speaker 2: it indefinitely and protect the guys who are on the tour,
Speaker 2: which is really what the is the opposite of what
Speaker 2: they were saying. They were saying, make it more competitive.
Speaker 2: Rory was saying, take away the exemption categories that are,
Speaker 2: you know, keeping guys on tour or in the big
Speaker 2: events from things that they did five or ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Wyndham was saying, let's have aggressive relegation. You know, twenty
Speaker 2: guys out of one hundred every season. Doesn't matter who
Speaker 2: you are, you're out if you're not playing well enough.
Speaker 2: And so that was their message, and you can disagree
Speaker 2: with it if you want or say that this is
Speaker 2: the wrong direction for the PGA Tour, but at least
Speaker 2: characterize what they're saying accurately. They were not saying saying
Speaker 2: protect the top players more. They were saying, make this
Speaker 2: more competitive, make it more brutal, And that was their message.
Speaker 2: But it just totally got lost because I think people
Speaker 2: were assuming that they had said something that they didn't say,
Speaker 2: and that was just a bummer.
Speaker 3: There was a prevailing sentiment, especially with Wyndham Clark's comments like,
Speaker 3: don't forget where you came from Windham two years ago,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't have been saying this and you wouldn't have
Speaker 3: been in these events, and I totally agree with you, Garrett,
Speaker 3: to be honest, it pissed me off because I feel
Speaker 3: like people were just trying to take a shot at
Speaker 3: Wyndham here and really dig out his character a little
Speaker 3: bit when he's not saying that fewer golfers should make
Speaker 3: a living playing professional golf.
Speaker 1: I think my.
Speaker 3: Interpretation of this model and I might not fully agree
Speaker 3: with exactly what they're talking about in the strict relegation
Speaker 3: and locking spots up for a full year, but directionally
Speaker 3: I'm kind of fine with it, and maybe we tweaked
Speaker 3: that a little bit. But Wyndham isn't saying fewer golfers
Speaker 3: should make a life. He's saying, if we elevate the
Speaker 3: product that should add value in more golfers should make
Speaker 3: a living. Maybe there are going to be fewer spots
Speaker 3: playing in some of the biggest events on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: But you're right, he also is subject to that same relegation,
Speaker 3: so it's not it was not a fair characterization of
Speaker 3: their comments. I completely agree with you. This is the
Speaker 3: direction that golf needs to go, and not everyone's going
Speaker 3: to be happy with it.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll get into Bayhill takeaways and a little
Speaker 2: bit of players talk in a minute, but first a
Speaker 2: quick word about golf in Ireland. Irish professional golf is
Speaker 2: in pretty good shape right now. Shane Lowry solo third
Speaker 2: at Bayhill, impressive performance obviously, Rory McElroy is a superstar
Speaker 2: and Shamous Power and Leona Maguire are both very exciting players.
Speaker 2: But beyond that, Ireland is a golfer's paradise with over
Speaker 2: four hundred courses one third of the world's true links courses,
Speaker 2: including a pair of legendary places in Northern Ireland, Royal
Speaker 2: County Down and Royal Port Rush. County Down is actually
Speaker 2: going to host the amjin Irish Open later this year.
Speaker 2: That's going to be premium coffee golf is that. That's
Speaker 2: the good stuff there, and of course Port Rush is
Speaker 2: going to host the Open Championship in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: so things to look forward to there. The Friday Golf Team,
Speaker 2: or at least four of us, are in Northern Ireland
Speaker 2: right now. Visiting these two great courses, along with a
Speaker 2: handful of other amazing spots and hidden gems in the area.
Speaker 2: You can hear more about that on the explorations feed.
Speaker 2: Highly recommend subscribing to that. It's been really good stuff
Speaker 2: so far. Just one of the best places in the
Speaker 2: world for golf. The definition of a bucket list destination.
Speaker 2: You have to go there before you die, So visit
Speaker 2: Ireland dot com slash golf to start planning your trip today.
Speaker 2: All right, Joseph, we wanted to talk about Bayhill and Tpcsagras.
Speaker 2: We just saw these, you know, these two weeks back
Speaker 2: to back. It raises the possibility of a comparison and
Speaker 2: contrast and a lot of discuss about what we want
Speaker 2: out of tournament golf venues. They represent two very different
Speaker 2: kinds of tests. You were in person on site at
Speaker 2: Bayhill this week, so let's do some takeaways from your
Speaker 2: experience there. Talk to me about your expectations for the
Speaker 2: course going in and then your reactions once you saw
Speaker 2: it in person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, big goal for me it was to see this
Speaker 3: course in person because I haven't, but I'm super familiar
Speaker 3: with it right obviously watching a ton of professional golf
Speaker 3: and looking at shot data like I've had a pretty
Speaker 3: good idea of what I was going to see. I
Speaker 3: will tell you, Garrett in person, like with my architecture
Speaker 3: hat on, it was a much worse golf course in
Speaker 3: person than I expected it to be.
Speaker 1: Within the same breadth.
Speaker 3: I have some more positive takeaways about Bayhill as a
Speaker 3: professional golf venue than I did entering the week, and
Speaker 3: I think the sept the two can sometimes be where
Speaker 3: people get upset, like when I had written for the
Speaker 3: Friday newsletter about how Bayhill is much worse in person.
Speaker 3: It always angers a certain subset of people, but we're
Speaker 3: not calling for Bayhill to be removed from the rotation
Speaker 3: as a professional golf venue. In fact, after this week,
Speaker 3: I'm more excited about it as a professional golf venue
Speaker 3: and we'll probably have more anticipation, you know, when the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five Arnold Palmer Invitational rolls around. Is it
Speaker 3: a great golf course?
Speaker 1: No thought.
Speaker 3: I think it's an eyesore and it's really flat. When
Speaker 3: you've seen one or two holes, you've seen them all.
Speaker 3: But there are much worse versions of professional golf than
Speaker 3: the Test. That's the questions that are asked by Bayhill,
Speaker 3: even if it is quite repetitive. So those are my
Speaker 3: overarching takeaways, but I kind of came away with some
Speaker 3: appreciation for it and how it identifies a certain type
Speaker 3: of talent.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's talk about it as a test. Two
Speaker 2: separate things you're talking about here. There's the there's the
Speaker 2: professional golf test, and then there is the golf course
Speaker 2: that you can assess with an eye to how it
Speaker 2: might be played by an amateur or any type of player.
Speaker 2: And so you know, first as a professional golf test,
Speaker 2: your reaction was positive. What did you see in it
Speaker 2: that you like out of a PGA Tour course.
Speaker 3: I'm always gonna appreciate when there's a lot of long
Speaker 3: irons because we just don't see that very often on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, and it's a great way to separate
Speaker 3: the guys who can really strike the ball. So probably
Speaker 3: first and foremost, the combination of long irons with big,
Speaker 3: firm greens. That is a strong recipe for identifying talent
Speaker 3: at the highest level, not just because there's you can
Speaker 3: actually hit the green with a long iron if it's
Speaker 3: big enough, and if there's a little bit of softness,
Speaker 3: like I think Bayhill gets too baked out sometimes to
Speaker 3: where you can't even hold the green, and that's not
Speaker 3: as good of a test. But this year it kind
Speaker 3: of had the right firmness level to where a lot
Speaker 3: of long irons were asked of players, but they could
Speaker 3: still hold some of the greens. And when you don't
Speaker 3: hit the green and it's a big firm green, it
Speaker 3: presents you with some interesting short game shots, whether it's
Speaker 3: from a bunker or some of the thick rough. Again,
Speaker 3: maybe prefer to see some shots off of tight lies
Speaker 3: versus this constant open up the face and hit an aggressive,
Speaker 3: smashed shot out of some thick rough. But it is
Speaker 3: interesting to watch. There's consequence to hitting shots in the
Speaker 3: bad locations, pretty demanding overall. You can't miss off the
Speaker 3: tee in certain spots like it does a good job
Speaker 3: of identifying some skill sets that are important. It's not
Speaker 3: a wedge pot in contest by any stretch.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right? And so then contrast that with your
Speaker 2: reaction to it as a golf course. What were you
Speaker 2: looking at when you looked at bay Hill through the
Speaker 2: lens of is it a good golf course or not?
Speaker 2: And how is that different from assessing it as a
Speaker 2: test of professional golf.
Speaker 3: It's shockingly flat, if that's If that's not an oxymoron.
Speaker 3: I was surprised at how flat the golf course is.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Sort of welcome to Florida in that way, like this
Speaker 2: is a lot of this is a lot of Florida golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: And the prevalence of water hazards everywhere. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think people know that, but to see thin, pretty thin
Speaker 3: fairways in a lot of spots where there's water on
Speaker 3: one side and just rough on the other and some trees,
Speaker 3: it lends itself to, hey, there's water on the left,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna favor the right side of the fairway and
Speaker 3: just blast driver and I'm gonna be kind of fine
Speaker 3: as long as it doesn't go left and into that water.
Speaker 3: People will counter with, no, you're not fine if you
Speaker 3: go right into the rough. That's super penal and you're
Speaker 3: gonna have to hack it out, which I agree with.
Speaker 3: But you can't really shift your target too much left
Speaker 3: of that because you're introducing too much water. So you're
Speaker 3: gonna be fine if you end up in the rough
Speaker 3: at a certain percentage of the time, like that's kind
Speaker 3: of the way viewing shots as a range of outcomes
Speaker 3: versus Bayhill doesn't really give you the opportunity to try
Speaker 3: and challenge certain hazards. It's basically water or bust, and
Speaker 3: a lot of it turns into water avoidance. So I
Speaker 3: just thought it was quite one dimensional out there. Flat
Speaker 3: water hazards, bunkers, thick rough You're gonna see a lot
Speaker 3: of mashing, right, a lot of aggressive moves at the
Speaker 3: ball out of a thick lie. You're not gonna see
Speaker 3: a lot of clever recovery shots where you have to
Speaker 3: control your ball flight and control where the ball ends up, spin,
Speaker 3: control that kind of stuff. Like, you're not going to
Speaker 3: see any of those clever recovery shots. It's pretty one dimensional.
Speaker 3: Aerial hit it as high and straight as possible, and
Speaker 3: then thrash it out of thick rough, which some people appreciate,
Speaker 3: but that might not be There's certainly not a lot
Speaker 3: of variety out there.
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of complex decision making. And yeah,
Speaker 2: as you say, in terms of variety, you're not making
Speaker 2: different kinds of decisions on different tees. And so that
Speaker 2: is a characteristic of Bayhill's design that you can certainly
Speaker 2: criticize from an architectural perspective, I believe it makes the
Speaker 2: course less fun to play. It would make any course
Speaker 2: less fun to play if you take the factor of
Speaker 2: decision making and the factor of variety away from it.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, these characteristics are exactly what
Speaker 2: make it an exacting test of elite golf, or at
Speaker 2: least the type of course where a Scotty Scheffler can
Speaker 2: really show what makes him different from everybody else. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, if somebody's kind of looking at this PGA
Speaker 2: Tour season and saying, if one of the problems with
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour this year so far has been that
Speaker 2: we haven't seen superstars able to differentiate themselves, whether that's
Speaker 2: because they just haven't been playing very well or because
Speaker 2: they've been playing courses that don't allow them to separate
Speaker 2: themselves properly from the pack, then it would seem that
Speaker 2: Bayhill would be the cure to that, because we saw
Speaker 2: Scotti Scheffler very clearly show why he is the best
Speaker 2: player on tour right now, and I guess, I guess
Speaker 2: we want courses that can do that. Would you I
Speaker 2: went through that logic, I'm not sure, I myself totally
Speaker 2: agree with it, But would you follow along with that basically?
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I do think it's the long irons and
Speaker 3: big greens, big firm greens that you have to control
Speaker 3: shots into. You'll get really good leaderboards if you have
Speaker 3: a lot of that. We haven't seen much of that
Speaker 3: on the PGA Tour so far this year, So I
Speaker 3: agree with you that venues are part of why the
Speaker 3: stars haven't shown out. You're not going to be able
Speaker 3: to at AMX. Even though that PGA West used to
Speaker 3: be a course that kind of kicked professional golfers butts
Speaker 3: a little bit, it's not anymore. It's driver wedge and
Speaker 3: that brings in a lot of putting variants. But when
Speaker 3: you have a golf course like bay Hill, where you
Speaker 3: can separate yourself more tea green, you're more likely to
Speaker 3: get that Scottie Scheffler clinical dominant performance and showing what
Speaker 3: makes him such a special player. Is there a place
Speaker 3: for that on the PGA Tour? Like, Yeah, I think so,
Speaker 3: and I feel even more that way after this week.
Speaker 3: So how redundant Some of the questions that are asked
Speaker 3: are like, I don't it doesn't matter to that many
Speaker 3: people out there. Do I think you can have great
Speaker 3: professional golf that doesn't compromise on that. Yeah, but what
Speaker 3: venues are those? Like a lot of them have been
Speaker 3: compromised by technology. It requires a lot of space to
Speaker 3: have a golf course that produces long irons and big
Speaker 3: demanding greens and has the infrastructure to host bunch of fans.
Speaker 3: So all these things work together.
Speaker 2: Technology is a big part of the equation, and I
Speaker 2: want to dig into that. But I also wanted to
Speaker 2: note that this is not a new thing on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, where there are these certain courses, including bay Hill,
Speaker 2: that tend to differentiate stars from merely very good PGA
Speaker 2: Tour players. Tiger Woods obviously won many many times at
Speaker 2: bay Hill, Firestone and Tory Pines, and they were all
Speaker 2: these kinds of courses, and there's a reason he thrived
Speaker 2: at those courses. They really suited that dominant style of
Speaker 2: ball striking that Tiger had mastered better than anyone. And
Speaker 2: this dominant, high straight ball striking is a shared characteristic
Speaker 2: among many of the greatest players who have played the game,
Speaker 2: and so courses like these they are going to stand out.
Speaker 2: And so this is this has been a discovery of
Speaker 2: mine recently. Maybe I should have realized it before, but
Speaker 2: the kind of architecture that I find myself most interested
Speaker 2: in as a player, there is a reverse correlation between
Speaker 2: that kind of architecture and the kind of architecture that
Speaker 2: allows a great ball striker like Tiger or Scottie to
Speaker 2: really separate themselves from the pack. And and that's that.
Speaker 2: You know, that's unfortunate, but maybe it just means we
Speaker 2: need a few of these courses on the schedule. Not
Speaker 2: every not every PGA Tour course should be this, but
Speaker 2: maybe we need a few.
Speaker 3: I would push back on that, not not to push
Speaker 3: back on your personal preferences, but I don't think that
Speaker 3: there's there has to be a reverse correlation with some
Speaker 3: of the things that you look for and what produces talent.
Speaker 3: Like Augusta National produces an exceptional leaderboard every year, and
Speaker 3: that adheres to many of the principles that you probably
Speaker 3: appreciate in architecture. I think what length is a big
Speaker 3: part of the equation here, and those golf courses you
Speaker 3: mentioned with Firestone, Tory Pines, Bayhill, those are.
Speaker 1: Long golf courses.
Speaker 3: Length it's not the narrowness and the thick rough and
Speaker 3: the trees that's producing that high quality like Tiger Woods
Speaker 3: like performances. Because even within your description and how you said,
Speaker 3: it's how high and straight like Torty Pines is not
Speaker 3: a golf course you have to hit the ball straight.
Speaker 3: So I think that there are better versions of architecture
Speaker 3: that can still produce an exceptional leader board. It doesn't
Speaker 3: have to be the thick rough thrash it out.
Speaker 1: But I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no doubt about that. I think that
Speaker 2: a lot of the elements that make Augusta National currently
Speaker 2: a great test of professional golf or kind of on
Speaker 2: this tier of golf courses where the superstars can show
Speaker 2: that they're superstars. A lot of those factors at Augusta
Speaker 2: National are things that are set up, factors that have
Speaker 2: emerged over the years and not necessarily inherent architectural characteristics
Speaker 2: of the course. The use of trees at Augusta National
Speaker 2: is something that has been added on to the course
Speaker 2: that wasn't really part of Alistair mackenzie and Bobby Jones's plan,
Speaker 2: but they're there primarily for that professional golf test. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, absolutely, you don't have to go the Bayhill
Speaker 2: or Tory Pines direction to create a great test of
Speaker 2: professional golf. I wouldn't want to imply that. I just
Speaker 2: think that, you know, what I see from these courses
Speaker 2: year after year is yeah, they allow the John Rams
Speaker 2: and the Scottie Shufflers and the Tiger Woods is to shine.
Speaker 2: And I find myself getting frustrated with stretches of the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour schedule where those guys are playing great golf
Speaker 2: but just struggling to get out of the pack. Right.
Speaker 2: I know they're better, they are better just about every
Speaker 2: week than almost everybody else, but it's only at a
Speaker 2: few courses where they can truly show that. And so
Speaker 2: these are two different sides of my desire as a
Speaker 2: viewer of professional golf. I want to see great architecture
Speaker 2: on the screen, but I also want to see great
Speaker 2: players be able to show what they can do. Does
Speaker 2: that make sense?
Speaker 1: It does?
Speaker 3: I think the only distinction I would draw is that
Speaker 3: I think you can get that with I'd focus on
Speaker 3: the long irons and the big firm greens being what
Speaker 3: produces that versus the thick rough and the narrowness being
Speaker 3: what produces that.
Speaker 1: Because you can have a.
Speaker 3: Narrow, a short, narrow, thick, rough golf course, and you're
Speaker 3: not going to see the Scottie Scheffler excel in the
Speaker 3: way that you would see him like bay Hill.
Speaker 1: So I would draw that distinction.
Speaker 2: You're preaching to the choir. I obviously agree with you there.
Speaker 2: So all right the technology piece of this, Let me
Speaker 2: lay out another questionable take for you and see what
Speaker 2: your response is. I think professional golf has a variance
Speaker 2: problem right now. I think the issue that we're having
Speaker 2: with professional golf is that equipment has made it so
Speaker 2: hard for great ball strikers to truly be identified. Equipment
Speaker 2: has made more people great ball strikers, and so a
Speaker 2: truly great ball striker like Scotti Scheffler has more difficulty
Speaker 2: standing out because of the nature of the equipment. Now,
Speaker 2: there are other factors at play here. I think there
Speaker 2: are probably more talented players out there than there were
Speaker 2: twenty five years ago. Maybe this is in part the
Speaker 2: Tiger effect. More talented athletes have come into the fold.
Speaker 2: I think that instruction has improved. Track Man has affected
Speaker 2: a revolution and instruction so that what's going on in
Speaker 2: the golf swing is no longer nearly as much of
Speaker 2: a mystery as it used to be. But the effect
Speaker 2: of all of it is that golf has a variance problem.
Speaker 2: Week to week. The people who are winning, the players
Speaker 2: who are winning, are the ones who happen to put well.
Speaker 2: And you know, when a sport starts to drift more
Speaker 2: towards randomness like this, it becomes a bit less compelling. Now,
Speaker 2: the luck factor and the dynamism of golf is part
Speaker 2: of its appeal, but if it is completely fluky and random,
Speaker 2: then it no longer becomes a fun game to watch,
Speaker 2: like it kind of becomes poker, where poker players. There
Speaker 2: are certain poker players who are very skilled, but you know,
Speaker 2: nobody's reeling off like five or six World Series of
Speaker 2: Poker's poker titles in a row, even if they're by
Speaker 2: far the greatest poker player, because of that element of
Speaker 2: variance in poker, right, if you just get good cards,
Speaker 2: then most of the time you're going to win. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, we want skill to be the thing that
Speaker 2: differentiates players, and we want a little element of randomness
Speaker 2: and luck, but we don't want too much randomness and luck.
Speaker 2: And my sense is right now, golf has an issue
Speaker 2: with too much variance and so in order to create
Speaker 2: tournaments where that element of variance is reduced, we have
Speaker 2: to start going to the Bay Hills so that great
Speaker 2: ball strikers can really differentiate themselves. We've been put into
Speaker 2: this position, in other words, by equipment.
Speaker 3: I agree with almost everything you said. I think, in particular,
Speaker 3: driver heads are a massive problem because you can swing
Speaker 3: with almost complete impunity and no concern that the ball
Speaker 3: is gonna fly way offline. And there's also an element
Speaker 3: of you're not having to you're pretty there's not like
Speaker 3: the what's the I don't know the right word that
Speaker 3: I'm looking for, but there's not the distance variance in
Speaker 3: your drives either. So if you can cover a hazard
Speaker 3: almost no matter where you hit it on the face,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be able to fly that hazard, and that
Speaker 3: finding the center of the club face. It's not just
Speaker 3: making players hit shots straighter, but it's also eliminating some
Speaker 3: of that variance and how far they're hitting the ball.
Speaker 3: It's just making it much easier to be a great
Speaker 3: driver of the golf ball. You also have some of
Speaker 3: the other advancements that you reference track Man, I think
Speaker 3: the experimentation with putting some players putting broomsticks in their
Speaker 3: bag like that's also contributing to more variants. But the
Speaker 3: main thing that I would harp on is the driver
Speaker 3: heads the ball. With things going farther, you then bring
Speaker 3: more putting variants into play because you're hitting it into
Speaker 3: ranges that players are hitting shots close to the hole,
Speaker 3: which is going to bring more putting variants into play
Speaker 3: in the outcome of tournaments. So that's the main thing
Speaker 3: I would hit on.
Speaker 2: The players are getting to all the same positions these days,
Speaker 2: and when they do that, it's just whoever manages to
Speaker 2: get the putts to fall, that's who's gonna be at
Speaker 2: the top of the leader board. And I think we
Speaker 2: want something more than that from professional golf, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I would always reference Augusta National as the
Speaker 3: indicator of what it looks like to preserve some of
Speaker 3: that shot value and the extents to which they've had
Speaker 3: to go to bring tea boxes back. It's not a
Speaker 3: complete coincidence. It's not a coincidence at all that they
Speaker 3: get some of the best leaderboards year in and year out,
Speaker 3: and it's not just because the field is good. That
Speaker 3: combination of hitting long shots into big demanding greens where
Speaker 3: there's tight runoffs, and even if you miss, you have
Speaker 3: a shot right. If you have great short game off
Speaker 3: of a tight line into a demanding green, you can
Speaker 3: still make up some shots. On the field, They're constantly
Speaker 3: asking questions of players that enable the most talented players
Speaker 3: in the field to separate themselves.
Speaker 1: And when you have.
Speaker 3: One thing I've been thinking about, Garrett is the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour's emphasis on legacy and keeping history at courses, combined
Speaker 3: with technology, those are opposing forces because if you're not
Speaker 3: going to lengthen them, they're just getting narrower for players drivers.
Speaker 3: While it's been easier to hit it straighter, I mean,
Speaker 3: you're just reducing that ability for a top player to
Speaker 3: separate themselves. So I agree a lot there, But what
Speaker 3: I would distill it down into is easier it is
Speaker 3: to swing really hard with driver and hit it anywhere
Speaker 3: on the face. You're hitting it closer to the hole. Right,
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty seven yard shot just became a
Speaker 3: one hundred and forty eight yard shot. You're going to
Speaker 3: hit it closer from one forty eight than you are
Speaker 3: from one fifty seven. That's going to bring more putting
Speaker 3: variants to determining the outcome versus your ability to hit
Speaker 3: a mid to long iron.
Speaker 1: So this stuff all works together.
Speaker 3: And maybe we're going a little overreacting a little to
Speaker 3: some flukiness in the results earlier this year, But this
Speaker 3: is the way professional golf is going to trend unless
Speaker 3: it's addressed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been going this way for years, where we're
Speaker 2: just seeing the players that we know to be the
Speaker 2: most talented winning less and doing less than the most
Speaker 2: talented players did back in the seventies, eighties and nineties,
Speaker 2: and I think that that's probably a dangerous direction for
Speaker 2: golf and it needs to be addressed by more than
Speaker 2: just golf courses.
Speaker 1: One other you didn't quite go this direction.
Speaker 3: But when you're talking about there being a variance problem,
Speaker 3: I think there's another side of that, which is there's
Speaker 3: less variance in scoring on holes. And I think a
Speaker 3: lot of that has to do with not only some
Speaker 3: of the equipment advances, but massive course management advances to
Speaker 3: where players are really taking hazards out and that does
Speaker 3: us reduce excitement. People like seeing the shots into the
Speaker 3: water that players are hitting, and by addressing the driver head,
Speaker 3: you might get more of that, right, you might see
Speaker 3: some shots that are hit a little bit more offline
Speaker 3: and don't travel the same distance as a stockyardage. What
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour needs to realize is that a pretty
Speaker 3: i would say significant rollback would elevate the product, even
Speaker 3: if it concerned some players who are worried that they
Speaker 3: might lose their tour cards because they're not sure how
Speaker 3: it would affect them. It's what's in the best interest
Speaker 3: of the product being more competitive and being more entertaining.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into some TPC Sawgrass discussion, unless
Speaker 2: there's anything else you wanted to mention about Bayhill, any
Speaker 2: other notes.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have some notes on some shots I
Speaker 3: saw out there, but I think maybe we can weave
Speaker 3: it into some of the TPC sawgrass discussion.
Speaker 1: Let's get into the players.
Speaker 2: Sure the Players is coming up this week. You have
Speaker 2: previously said that you consider TPC Sawgrass a top tier
Speaker 2: test of PGA Tour Golf. In fact, I think you've
Speaker 2: put it on a tier along with Augusta National previously,
Speaker 2: at least in this little Twitter graphic that gets used
Speaker 2: and some people have had interesting responses to that. But
Speaker 2: maybe we could start there. Why do you consider TPC
Speaker 2: Sawgrass a top tier test of golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's my favorite test of professional golf.
Speaker 3: If you remove i'd say on the PGA Tour right
Speaker 3: since Augusta is not a PGA Tour golf course, Riviera
Speaker 3: is the only course that I think really rivals it.
Speaker 3: And there are a couple holes at Riviera that with
Speaker 3: the grass in use in technology have compromised some of
Speaker 3: those holes out there to where I just put Sawgrass
Speaker 3: slightly ahead of it.
Speaker 1: I would prefer to watch.
Speaker 3: A professional golf tournament at Sawgrass than at Riviera, but
Speaker 3: not by a huge margin. I love TPC Sawgrass the
Speaker 3: penalty associated with wide misses. It's not quite the very
Speaker 3: top on the PGA Tour, but it's high. You can't
Speaker 3: spray the ball out there. The wind and the especially
Speaker 3: when conditions are firm, missing greens in the right spots
Speaker 3: is exciting about TPC Sawgrass. I think there's tremendous variety
Speaker 3: in the holes. I think the par fives are excellent,
Speaker 3: and I think especially nine, and I also love the
Speaker 3: eleventh hole. I think it's a sneaky, awesome par five.
Speaker 3: I just love watching professional golf at Sawgrass. It brings
Speaker 3: out shot makers you got to contend with the wind
Speaker 3: and keep the ball out of trouble. A lot of
Speaker 3: different styles can win, as has been harped on, that's
Speaker 3: one thing that always gets thrown around with TPC saw Grass. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the variety, the cadence, the excitement down the stretch with
Speaker 3: the tournament not being over because you still have to
Speaker 3: phase sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. I think it has a
Speaker 3: lot of ingredients of being arguably the best test on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: You mentioned nine and eleven I have in my notes
Speaker 2: right here nine and eleven. Love those golf holes, and
Speaker 2: I love the par five's at TPC Sawgrass. In general,
Speaker 2: I think it's the strongest part of the course. I
Speaker 2: think it's the most underrated part of the course. But two, nine, eleven, sixteen,
Speaker 2: I could watch a feed just of those holes during
Speaker 2: the Players Championship and be very very happy. Those are
Speaker 2: such interesting different golf holes, each of which poses a
Speaker 2: different question, a different problem to elite players, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: What do you love about watching those holes game?
Speaker 2: Well, each shot matters, Every shot matters on those holes.
Speaker 2: On two the drive basically you have to hit a
Speaker 2: great draw in order to get in position to go
Speaker 2: for that green, and two, if you manage to hit
Speaker 2: that shot, then the hole is very attackable. But if
Speaker 2: you end up on the right side of the fairway,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be blocked out and you're going to kind
Speaker 2: of be aiming at this really tricky landing zone, and
Speaker 2: you're having a hard time on that hole, and the
Speaker 2: green is intensely contoured and guarded, and so each shot matters.
Speaker 2: On nine, that water hazard the way it cuts in
Speaker 2: from the right and really makes playing aggressively off that
Speaker 2: tee in a tricky and dangerous proposition. And if you
Speaker 2: play conservatively, then all of a sudden, your next shot,
Speaker 2: especially if you play over to the left, then you're
Speaker 2: going to have a really hard time manufacturing a shot
Speaker 2: up the rest of that hole. Eleven and sixteen, similarly,
Speaker 2: each shot has high stakes, and if you don't execute,
Speaker 2: if you don't play with strategic intelligence, you're going to
Speaker 2: be out of position on those holes. And while you
Speaker 2: can make birdies even eagles on almost all of them,
Speaker 2: you can also make pretty big numbers if you compound
Speaker 2: your mistakes, and so just so fun to watch in general, though,
Speaker 2: like my understanding of TPC Sawgrass in the way that
Speaker 2: it influences dynamics of competition is that it introduces more
Speaker 2: chaos and more variants even than a venue like bay Hill.
Speaker 2: And so we've just said that the PGA Tour might
Speaker 2: have a variance problem. If TPC Sawgrass is a high
Speaker 2: variance course doesn't represent that problem.
Speaker 3: I would agree that it's a high variance golf course.
Speaker 3: And if your goal, as the PGA Tour was to
Speaker 3: produce standings at the end of the year that had
Speaker 3: the best players at the top, you wouldn't want just
Speaker 3: TPC Sawgrass over and over again. I don't think the
Speaker 3: goal of the standing should necessarily be to just elevate
Speaker 3: the absolutely best player week in and week out. Like
Speaker 3: I think having some variety and some compelling tests that
Speaker 3: don't all look the same is a better entertainment product. Obviously,
Speaker 3: you want the best players to end up at the
Speaker 3: top of the leaderboard each week, but I think there's
Speaker 3: room for a little bit more of a chaotic golf
Speaker 3: course like TPC Sawgrass worth calling out some of those
Speaker 3: dynamics that make it high variants. Right, A lot of
Speaker 3: wind and water and small greens can do that because
Speaker 3: it doesn't give you some of the landing areas to
Speaker 3: separate yourself. Always you're subjected to split waves in a
Speaker 3: massive way. Trying to cram that many golfers on the
Speaker 3: course at one time. In Florida wind that fluctuates quite
Speaker 3: a bit, you're going to see some massive disparities in
Speaker 3: the waves. You might get an early late tea time
Speaker 3: that ends up being a full shot and a half
Speaker 3: two shots two and a half shots easier than the
Speaker 3: other wave. So a lot of things kind of go
Speaker 3: into TPC sawgrass being high variants. But the wind, the water,
Speaker 3: the timing at which you play certain holes, those are
Speaker 3: all contributing factors. I don't think that makes it a
Speaker 3: bad golf tournament. I don't think it compromises the golf tournament,
Speaker 3: but it will inject some variants into the outcomes.
Speaker 2: So then when you see a player win the Players Championship,
Speaker 2: does that mean that they were just the luckiest player
Speaker 2: on the week. I assume no, because you consider TPC
Speaker 2: sawgrass a great test of golf. So what does it
Speaker 2: mean that they did well if they win the players.
Speaker 3: They kept it in playoff the tee, they missed shots
Speaker 3: in smart locations and they more than likely had exceptional
Speaker 3: short game. And when I think about a player who
Speaker 3: embodies that particular profile about as well as anybody on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, it's Seawu Kim, who is the youngest
Speaker 3: winner of this golf tournament. He won and was it
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. Twenty seventeen, I believe.
Speaker 2: Yes, ages ago now so long ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was twenty one one.
Speaker 3: Seawu Kim isn't the longest hitter on tour, hits it
Speaker 3: very straight off of the tea and has some of
Speaker 3: the best short game in the world. It's not an
Speaker 3: overstatement to call Seawoo Kim one of the best short
Speaker 3: game players in the world. And he's somebody that won here. Again,
Speaker 3: you wouldn't if you had TPC Sawgrass every week. You
Speaker 3: wouldn't see the Scottie Scheffler, Rory McElroy, John Rahm types,
Speaker 3: if John Ram are still on the PGA Tour necessarily
Speaker 3: winning as high of a clip as if you had.
Speaker 1: Bay Hill.
Speaker 3: But honestly, you could also have some really bad golf
Speaker 3: courses that are low variants too, that aren't good tests
Speaker 3: of professional golf, and we don't need to strive for
Speaker 3: those either, so I like variety. I think there's a
Speaker 3: place for tpawgrass, and if you had a smaller field,
Speaker 3: which I'm not advocating for, you could reduce some of
Speaker 3: that variance too, because the wave splits wouldn't be as big.
Speaker 3: So a lot goes into it being high variants. I
Speaker 3: don't think it's a problem.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you don't like about TPC sawgrass.
Speaker 3: I've sort of gotten some arguments about the timing of
Speaker 3: the year that it's played and whether it's better in
Speaker 3: March or May. All I'll I think they're trade offs
Speaker 3: to each and I think where I've landed is it's
Speaker 3: not necessarily better in one time slot or the other.
Speaker 3: Firmness is, in my opinion, crucial to the test at
Speaker 3: TPC sawgrass and making sure that you're missing shots in
Speaker 3: the right locations around the green so that the approach
Speaker 3: shots are more demanding and that the short game shots
Speaker 3: are demanding. You tend to get a little bit more
Speaker 3: rain in March than in May. I was just looking
Speaker 3: through weather reports this morning in preparation for the pot.
Speaker 3: It's not too different, but it's generally a little rainier,
Speaker 3: a little colder, and a little windier in March some
Speaker 3: of the I like the wind, but I think sometimes
Speaker 3: it being cold and wet, especially in the mornings, can
Speaker 3: reduce some of the strategic value of TPC saw grass.
Speaker 3: So if I had to nitpick anything about it, I'd
Speaker 3: probably say that they should strive to max out the
Speaker 3: firmness and by having it in March. Sometimes it's a
Speaker 3: little wet, especially in the mornings, but I don't have
Speaker 3: a huge problem with it, especially because in May it's
Speaker 3: often really hot and sticky, and I think you can
Speaker 3: make a case for it being better in either location.
Speaker 3: How about you anything you don't like any about TPC
Speaker 3: saw grass.
Speaker 2: Well, you're getting at some of the conditioning issues. Sure,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously I'd love for them to play on
Speaker 2: on dormant grass, but that's never going to happen. I mean,
Speaker 2: can you imagine how how cool that would be, But
Speaker 2: the visual aspect of it, the PGA tour would never accept.
Speaker 2: I think over the years, TPC saw grass has become
Speaker 2: more augustified, the presentation has become ultra manicured, ultra high end,
Speaker 2: and that's just not how it was at the beginning.
Speaker 2: That was not the intent of Pete dye. The intent
Speaker 2: was to make it a wild and rugged golf course
Speaker 2: where you might get attacked by an alligator. You don't know.
Speaker 2: You're out there in the swampy wilderness and you're fighting
Speaker 2: against a badass, tough golf course. And now it's just
Speaker 2: become more domesticated. And the more they take the conditioning
Speaker 2: in that direction, the less interested I am in the
Speaker 2: golf course. Now. The brilliant design does remain. The angles,
Speaker 2: the way the fairways move in the landing zones, the
Speaker 2: position of the hazards, the contouring of the greens, all
Speaker 2: of that stuff is still, in my opinion, really first rate,
Speaker 2: really brilliant tournament golf design. But I wish they backed
Speaker 2: off a little bit on the augustification. For one esthetic reasons,
Speaker 2: I think it looks a little more interesting when it's
Speaker 2: a bit rougher, and two for some playability reasons. Maybe
Speaker 2: if they were less devoted to absolute bright, verdant green,
Speaker 2: then they could get the golf course to play a
Speaker 2: bit firmer. And yeah, that might create some chaos on
Speaker 2: really windy days, but that would bring some danger back
Speaker 2: to TPC sawgrass, and there's just a bit less danger
Speaker 2: now than there used to be around this course like
Speaker 2: sagrass struck fear into pro's hearts, and I'm not sure
Speaker 2: that it totally does that anymore.
Speaker 3: That goes back a little bit to some of the
Speaker 3: equipment stuff too, right, and not being as concerned when
Speaker 3: you swing away because you know it's not gonna Those
Speaker 3: big misses are probably not as much within definitely not
Speaker 3: as much within the range of outcomes as they used
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I think the PGA Tours, when you talk about focusing
Speaker 3: on visual presentation, usually that's having thick, lush, green rough
Speaker 3: and that does seem to be a point of emphasis
Speaker 3: for the PGA Tour, as was echoed on the pod
Speaker 3: we did with Gary Young of the PGA Tour, who
Speaker 3: talks about setup, and I think sometimes focusing on that
Speaker 3: can be a little bit of a cell phone from
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour where it feels more demanding sometimes and
Speaker 3: having lush rough lining some of these fairways. But if
Speaker 3: the ball could actually bounce into more troubled areas, it
Speaker 3: would be more demanding in a lot of spots.
Speaker 1: So I agree.
Speaker 3: I think focusing on the visual presentation sometimes at the
Speaker 3: expense of shot value doesn't accomplish for the PGA Tour
Speaker 3: what they hope it would accomplish.
Speaker 2: Any holes we haven't talked about that you think are
Speaker 2: underrated that people should pay attention to on the telecast.
Speaker 3: I think the fourth hole at Augusta Sorry at TVC
Speaker 3: Sawgrasses among my favorite par fours and professional golf. I
Speaker 3: love the Yeah, it's a tight t shot bunker running
Speaker 3: down the right side. If you miss the bunker right,
Speaker 3: you can find yourself in a creek. That's pretty rare.
Speaker 3: Most golfers aren't hitting something that wild, but it happens.
Speaker 3: Keith Mitchell infamously in a clip that went viral last year.
Speaker 3: If you miss left though, too, you're in a pretty
Speaker 3: hairy spot where you're trying to control some kind of
Speaker 3: short iron shot into a demanding green with severe contouring.
Speaker 3: That kind of sections that green in a way that
Speaker 3: being in the fair way is extremely advantageous. So that
Speaker 3: might be it's target golf, right, Garrett. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: very much hit it here and then hit it here,
Speaker 3: but it does it in a way that's clever, and
Speaker 3: there's consequence to missing in the wrong spot. So it's
Speaker 3: a little bit different than Bayhill and that you're not
Speaker 3: just swinging away. There's more control required. I think the
Speaker 3: fourth hole is among the part fours and all professional golf,
Speaker 3: at least on the PGA Tour rotation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that whole too, And you know, is
Speaker 2: it target golf? I think laterally probably yes. The fairway
Speaker 2: is so narrow that you're not necessarily playing to one
Speaker 2: side of it or the other. I think probably the
Speaker 2: intention at the beginning was to give an advantage to
Speaker 2: players who played near the creek on the right side.
Speaker 2: There's a slightly friendlier looking angle from over there. But really,
Speaker 2: if you're on the left edge of the fairway versus
Speaker 2: the right edge of the fairway these days, especially now
Speaker 2: that the fairways have become narrower, I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: you're seeing that much of a difference, especially considering it's
Speaker 2: a wedge into the green. You're really trying to avoid
Speaker 2: both hazards, and that hazard along the left side is
Speaker 2: so cool because it's like a series of mounds right
Speaker 2: and so you're in the rough and you're probably hitting
Speaker 2: from a severe uphill, downhill or side hill lie and
Speaker 2: that just is a terrifying shot into that target. I
Speaker 2: think that the strategy for the hole and again, correct
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong. Is more about what club you
Speaker 2: select off the tee, right, depends on It's about how
Speaker 2: aggressive you are off the tea. It's about how far
Speaker 2: up the hole you want.
Speaker 3: To get, absolutely and these days like that's not that
Speaker 3: much of a decision point, Like it's generally pretty easy
Speaker 3: to land on a decision there. But for me, a
Speaker 3: lot of the appeal is you started the green. I
Speaker 3: know this can be controversial, but when you started the
Speaker 3: green and think your way backwards a little bit, like
Speaker 3: where that pin is, it's not necessarily going to dictate
Speaker 3: your target off of the tea. But I just find
Speaker 3: it very interesting to watch these guys attack. If you
Speaker 3: leave it in the wrong spot on your second shot,
Speaker 3: you might be three putting. Despite it being narrow, there's
Speaker 3: still a lot of strategic intrigue, at least in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Joseph, how dare you suggest that we think from the
Speaker 2: green backwards? I'm going to have your data boy license
Speaker 2: revoked for that.
Speaker 1: That that should not be controversial, Garrett.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, with again how far guys hit it, that doesn't
Speaker 3: matter as much. But it's it's absolutely valid to look
Speaker 3: at a golf course from the green backwards and to
Speaker 3: be thinking about strategy.
Speaker 2: Well, and the pin positions on for TPC sawgrass are
Speaker 2: so different too, you know, like that that left pin
Speaker 2: is way different from the right pin, and it's it
Speaker 2: just becomes a different hole. And I think that that's
Speaker 2: that's part of what's fun about it. So even if
Speaker 2: players aren't making a super complex decision about their club
Speaker 2: selection off the tee, you can just look at the
Speaker 2: at the shot plot on that shot Link produces and
Speaker 2: see that players end up in different spots on that hole.
Speaker 2: Different players are attacking it in a different way, Different
Speaker 2: players are playing the hole differently on different days. That's
Speaker 2: a lot of different but that's that's variety.
Speaker 3: But also shout out Garrett. The eleventh hole we've already
Speaker 3: talked on. We've already talked about, but the point about
Speaker 3: different pin locations playing differently, how close how aggressive you
Speaker 3: can be on that second shot into eleven. If you're
Speaker 3: having a green side bunker shot, that the difficulty changes
Speaker 3: a lot based on the pin location, Versus if you
Speaker 3: want to just play with something more conservative out left
Speaker 3: and have a shot from the fairway over there, pin
Speaker 3: position can pretty heavily dictate where you you know whether
Speaker 3: or not it's a good option to be out in
Speaker 3: that fairway to the lefter and the bunker that challenges
Speaker 3: the water a little bit. So sawgrass despite having small greens,
Speaker 3: I mean they're not tiny, but they're small. The pin
Speaker 3: locations can dictate strategy quite a bit.
Speaker 2: And since you mentioned eleven, the thing I really like
Speaker 2: about that hole is if you get out of position
Speaker 2: off the tee, then you know, watch from there right
Speaker 2: If you watch a if you see a player, you know,
Speaker 2: hit a wild drive off of eleven, then just make
Speaker 2: sure to watch the rest of the hole and see
Speaker 2: how they try to get back in the hole, because
Speaker 2: it's super interesting your options from after a miss off
Speaker 2: the tee on eleven. You know, you can play to
Speaker 2: the right, and then your third shot is across the
Speaker 2: water and over a really tricky set of contours and hazards.
Speaker 2: But if you get over to the left, that wedge
Speaker 2: is a bit easier. In any case, I just think
Speaker 2: it's really fun to see how players try to try
Speaker 2: to scramble on that hole. Basically, it poses a bunch
Speaker 2: of different really complex scenarios depending on where you end up.
Speaker 2: Off the tee and and so that's that's really what
Speaker 2: I like about that hole. All Right, who wins the
Speaker 2: Who wins the tournament this week? Are you? Are you
Speaker 2: going with see with Kim Well?
Speaker 3: Scottie Scheffler, especially coming off of what we just saw
Speaker 3: for him this past weekend. And I don't want to
Speaker 3: get I don't want to overreact to the putting, but
Speaker 3: he put a mallet putter in the bag this past
Speaker 3: weekend and putt much better, especially on Sunday where he
Speaker 3: was led the field in strokes, gained putting on Sunday,
Speaker 3: didn't miss a putt inside fifteen feet. Whether or not
Speaker 3: that putter is going to be a consistent weapon of
Speaker 3: his lot of unknowns there, but any week on the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour, you can predict Scotty Scheffler. Nobody has higher
Speaker 3: expectations Tito Green and if he's just I know everyone's
Speaker 3: saying this, but if he's just an average putter, he's
Speaker 3: extremely hard to beat. The main obstacle to Scotty Scheffler
Speaker 3: winning this week is the variance that the golf course produces.
Speaker 1: And if he gets the bad.
Speaker 3: End of a tea time or he hits a couple
Speaker 3: stray shots that find water hazards at the wrong time.
Speaker 3: He's really good at avoiding that, so I definitely give
Speaker 3: him the best chance of winning the golf tournament. But
Speaker 3: this isn't Augusta, where there's much lower variance, and I
Speaker 3: think you can you have more confidence in Scotty winning
Speaker 3: somewhere like Augusta than TPC Sawgrass right now, just from
Speaker 3: the variants alone, So I think Scotty Scheffler is most
Speaker 3: likely to win. The name I would throw out there
Speaker 3: is Heideki mount Suyama, who has some of the best
Speaker 3: history at TPC Sawgrass. He's been consistent there on a
Speaker 3: golf course that's hard to have consistent success. Hedeki's played
Speaker 3: I'm calling it nine times at Sagrass I'm including twenty
Speaker 3: twenty despite that event being canceled because in the opening
Speaker 3: round he posted he tied for the course record. He
Speaker 3: was one of the guys that finished his round. He
Speaker 3: shot sixty three dominant round. It's one round, but he
Speaker 3: played really well there. He's has six top twenty five
Speaker 3: finishes in the eight events he's played there that were
Speaker 3: actually completed. Solo fifth there last year, and Hadeki's kind
Speaker 3: of coming in with some form. He won Riviera in
Speaker 3: dominant fashion just a month ago, and then he was
Speaker 3: battling some back injury. As we know, Haideki kind of
Speaker 3: struggles with some back and neck injuries. Apparently when he
Speaker 3: was warming up on the range this past weekend at Bayhill,
Speaker 3: really showing some pain in his back and was pretty
Speaker 3: expressing a lot of discomfort. Still finished T twelve. So
Speaker 3: Hideki sneaky, had a maybe not sneaky, but he's had
Speaker 3: a good year this year, comes into a golf course
Speaker 3: that should fit him pretty well, and he's done well
Speaker 3: on some similar golf courses, so I think he's somebody
Speaker 3: to keep in mind.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. I wish you could see my
Speaker 2: notes right now, but literally, the two names that I
Speaker 2: have for this question are Scottie Scheffler and Hideki Matsuyama.
Speaker 2: You know, Scheffler obviously you got to ride Scotti Shuffler
Speaker 2: until he shows signs of slowing down. And you know,
Speaker 2: he's just clearly the best ball striker in the world
Speaker 2: right now by a mile, and so you can never
Speaker 2: bet against him. But yeah, Hideki has had a great year.
Speaker 2: I've noticed that he was terrific really last week until
Speaker 2: he shot seventy six on Sunday and he was still
Speaker 2: T twelve and so he was there, he was playing
Speaker 2: high level golf. It would be concerning if he were hurt,
Speaker 2: but it wouldn't be the first time that Headecki's reactions
Speaker 2: to swings have been unreliable, so who knows. Maybe he
Speaker 2: is fine, but he's obviously been playing really well this
Speaker 2: year and has a good history at TPC Sagress. So yeah,
Speaker 2: those are the two names I had as well. We're
Speaker 2: going to close out this episode with a recommendation segment,
Speaker 2: but first I wanted to quickly mention some of Friday
Speaker 2: Golf's recent content that people should keep an eye out for.
Speaker 2: One is the new Explorations podcast. The members of our
Speaker 2: team who are in Northern Ireland right now have been
Speaker 2: doing a great job filing these dispatches from Northern Ireland,
Speaker 2: really interesting stuff about their trip. Another podcast feed that
Speaker 2: Friday Golf has is Full Swing Thoughts. This is where
Speaker 2: our own Joseph Lamangna and Brendan Poraf discussed the most
Speaker 2: recent series of Full Swing, So really good stuff from
Speaker 2: Joseph and Brendan there, and then Finally, there's Club TFE.
Speaker 2: That's Friday Golf's membership. It is one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: dollars a year, and you can check out everything that
Speaker 2: comes with Club tf at the Frida egg dot com
Speaker 2: slash membership. All right, that's it for recent Frida Egg
Speaker 2: Golf content. So let's get to recommendations, Joseph this week,
Speaker 2: what are you recommending?
Speaker 3: We've had a nerdy discussion, Garrett, per usual, but the
Speaker 3: nerdiest thing that I might say is this recommendation. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna recommend Harry Potter World. I had one day last
Speaker 3: week that when I was in Orlando, I was able
Speaker 3: to take a one day hiatus from Bayhill and go
Speaker 3: to a place with a little more variety and swung
Speaker 3: by Harry Potter World in Universal Studios. I was a
Speaker 3: big Harry Potter kid, read all the books, went to
Speaker 3: the midnight premieres of the books in the movies. I
Speaker 3: think it's had a profound impact on my life. I'm
Speaker 3: saying that joking around, but I really it's It was
Speaker 3: a big part of my childhood and going to Harry
Speaker 3: Potter World was a fun experience. You could knock it
Speaker 3: out in half a day, maybe a little more than
Speaker 3: half a day. So if you're in the area for
Speaker 3: spring break or maybe for bay Hill next year, consider
Speaker 3: swinging by. And if not, I would urge you to
Speaker 3: at least consider reading Harry Potter to your kids or
Speaker 3: having them read it, because I think it's had a
Speaker 3: positive impact on my life. And I'm again joking about it,
Speaker 3: but I'm serious at the same time, So I'll recommend
Speaker 3: Harry Potter in case no one's heard of it before.
Speaker 2: In all seriousness. Recently, my son who's nine and I
Speaker 2: had a little kind of Harry Potter reading binge where
Speaker 2: he read the first three books himself, and he got
Speaker 2: fascinated by them, and he was really into them, and
Speaker 2: it was a lovely experience. He decided after the third
Speaker 2: book that he was going to stop because things were
Speaker 2: starting to get a little bit scary and he doesn't
Speaker 2: like scary, and so the fourth book is going to
Speaker 2: wait a bit as he gets older. But it was
Speaker 2: a wonderful few days there, a few weeks there where
Speaker 2: every night we would be on the couch reading different
Speaker 2: Harry Potter books. And so that's just one of those
Speaker 2: wonderful things that a really good book series that appeals
Speaker 2: to kids in the unique way that Harry Potter does
Speaker 2: can do. So yeah, second that one, all right, So
Speaker 2: my recommendation, it's gonna be a funny contrast for people.
Speaker 2: I've been getting into wine a little bit lately. I
Speaker 2: used to be a guy who would drink one beer
Speaker 2: a night. I wouldn't do any more than that, but
Speaker 2: I also wouldn't do any less than that. And after
Speaker 2: a while I just noticed that if I didn't drink
Speaker 2: at all during the week, like on weekdays, I would
Speaker 2: feel a little bit better. And so we've made, you know,
Speaker 2: our nightly drink more of a weekend thing, and have
Speaker 2: switched to wine. But I don't like spending a lot
Speaker 2: of money on alcohol, and so I've been looking for
Speaker 2: really good, cheap wines. And I don't still am not
Speaker 2: an expert by any means on wine, but I wanted
Speaker 2: to talk about it. Like a couple of ones that
Speaker 2: I've discovered that are generally very affordable and really really good.
Speaker 2: One is wins from the Southern Rhone so Coate Derone
Speaker 2: Wines and also Barbera Wine's made from the Great Barbera
Speaker 2: from Piedmont, specifically the parent family Coat Derone Reserve blanc
Speaker 2: a white wine twelve bucks or something and very very good.
Speaker 2: And the Vietti Barbera Deasti. I'm butchering these pronunciations. Trey Vigne,
Speaker 2: a very very good red barbera wine from Italy. I
Speaker 2: thought those were really terrific. So if anybody is a
Speaker 2: cheap wine person out there like me, those are two
Speaker 2: recommendations for you. All right, Joseph, thanks for coming on
Speaker 2: the pod. As always, very fun. Talk to you against soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks Garrett, this fun.
Speaker 2: This episode of the Friday Golf podcast was produced by
Speaker 2: Meg Atkins. Thank you Meg. If you have a moment,
Speaker 2: give us a quick rating and review wherever you happen
Speaker 2: to be listening to this podcast. We love hearing feedback
Speaker 2: from listeners. Thank you very much, and we'll be back
Speaker 2: again soon with another episode.