Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a fried egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 1: Egg Friday, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, fridagg Bride Egg Lie,
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Andy Johnson, and we are here. We are
Speaker 1: at the US Open week. It will be the one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty fifth US Open at Oakmond. It's the
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty fifth US Open, not the one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty fifth at Oakmont. This is I think
Speaker 1: one of the more probably probably the most anticipated event
Speaker 1: in golf post Masters win by Rory, which we didn't
Speaker 1: know he was going to win the Masters, So I
Speaker 1: would say this was the one you kind of circled
Speaker 1: on the calendar as they tossed around. The quintessential US
Speaker 1: Open course. I like the term that Garrett Morrison came
Speaker 1: up with that for the phrase. Oakmont created his own
Speaker 1: genre and it remains the only example of that type
Speaker 1: of golf course. So we've got a big week ahead
Speaker 1: today I'm I'm excited to be joined by Jeff Ogilvie,
Speaker 1: the six US Open champion. We're going to preview the
Speaker 1: championship ahead. You know, obviously Jeff won at wingfoot. He
Speaker 1: was actually in the seven US Open at Oakmont as
Speaker 1: the defending champion, so unique perspective, and he was a
Speaker 1: part of our Oakmont video that if you haven't watched,
Speaker 1: go check it out on YouTube. It's one of the
Speaker 1: best things that we've ever made. Big thanks to our
Speaker 1: team that put that together. Cameron heard us, Matt Rush's
Speaker 1: really put a lot of work into that. Go check
Speaker 1: that out. Week of for anybody in the area. I
Speaker 1: will I am Brendan Poorath the Shotgun start. PJ. Clark
Speaker 1: will be at Local Remedy as well as some other
Speaker 1: members of our team. Joseph Lamania will be there. We
Speaker 1: will be at Local Remedy Brewing, which is right down
Speaker 1: the road from Oakmont. We will be doing things on Wednesday, Thursday,
Speaker 1: and Friday and Saturday of the US Open, So if
Speaker 1: you're in, if you're going, if you're in the neighborhood,
Speaker 1: feel free to swing by. Those will mostly be nighttime
Speaker 1: after play. I think Wednesday night We're doing just a
Speaker 1: very casual thing, so come check us out, come meet,
Speaker 1: come meet there if you're in the neighborhood. But before
Speaker 1: we get to Jeff and the US Open, big thanks
Speaker 1: to our partner for the week of the US Open.
Speaker 1: They're sponsoring kind of the whole, the whole shebang of
Speaker 1: us of the US Open. It is Echo golf shoes,
Speaker 1: known for combining premium materials with comfort, durability, and performance.
Speaker 1: The brand is committed to innovative shoe technology and sustainable craftsmanship.
Speaker 1: Echo was established in Denmark in nineteen sixty three and
Speaker 1: is now a global family of shoemakers. From drawing the
Speaker 1: first sketches to presenting our finished shoes at in Echo
Speaker 1: stores around the world, we apply the utmost attention to
Speaker 1: detail and quality. Echo owns their own factories and leather tanneries,
Speaker 1: which allows for full control over quality and craftsmanship. The
Speaker 1: show shoe is so comfortable, I think that you know,
Speaker 1: I always go back. I tell this story a lot.
Speaker 1: But when I played us AM's those thirty six whole days,
Speaker 1: which they sadly have gone away from. But those thirty
Speaker 1: six whole days are the last of a state. AM
Speaker 1: always Echo days because the shoes are so comfortable, ideal
Speaker 1: for long rounds and walking golf courses. They have the
Speaker 1: best technology in it, whether it's the waterproof technology or
Speaker 1: the comfort, the way they approach the heels. These are great,
Speaker 1: great shoes. These are the shoes that I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: wearing around Oakmont. On top of that, they have some
Speaker 1: top global ambassadors including Lydia Coe, Hendrik Stenson, Eric Van Ryan,
Speaker 1: and Thomas Bjorn. That was the first player they actually signed.
Speaker 1: So yeah, big thanks to Echo. If you're interested in Echo,
Speaker 1: visit their website at Echo Ecco dot com. That's Echo
Speaker 1: Ecco dot com. I would look through their wide range
Speaker 1: of shoes. It's not just golf shoes as well as
Speaker 1: a tidbit, I'm gonna be wearing one of their just
Speaker 1: kind of casual shoes around Oakmont, So check it out
Speaker 1: at Echo dot com. Big thanks to Echo, and let's
Speaker 1: get to Jeff Ogilvie. All right for the one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty fifth US Open. I'm delighted to bring back
Speaker 1: the six US Open champ. Jeff Ogilvie. Uh, you played
Speaker 1: the seven Oakmont. I wasn't didn't even put this together
Speaker 1: when we when when I reached out, But you were
Speaker 1: the defending champion at the seven Oakmont US Open. What uh,
Speaker 1: what's it like being a defending champion? This is an
Speaker 1: hunter that you know I will never feel. What's it
Speaker 1: like being the defending champion at a major?
Speaker 2: It feels pretty good. I mean, obviously it's a little
Speaker 2: bit different than defending a normal tournament.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: Because it's such a big deal. It's just amplified. It's
Speaker 2: it's a big deal. And what made it better, I
Speaker 2: guess was better or more memorable as I played with
Speaker 2: Tiger first two rounds because he I think it was
Speaker 2: he'd won Hoylake six Open, and we played with Richie
Speaker 2: Ramsey who was the US Amateur champ, so it was
Speaker 2: it was a cool group. Any time you played with
Speaker 2: Tiger was memorable. I mean I remember all of those times.
Speaker 1: So one of my favorite things was, you know, before
Speaker 1: you guys did the or the Medina Project, the Redal,
Speaker 1: I was like, what do you remember of Medana And
Speaker 1: you're like, well, I couldn't really see the chorus because
Speaker 1: I played with Phil and Tiger, and it's pretty much
Speaker 1: when you're playing with them, it's the worst way to
Speaker 1: see the golf course.
Speaker 2: That was so many people. Yeah, that was a memorable
Speaker 2: one too. Like that was there was three hundred people
Speaker 2: inside the ropes at that one. Whenever you played with Tiger,
Speaker 2: there were so many people inside the ropes because it's
Speaker 2: the only time anyone in the media center actually left
Speaker 2: the buffet and went out and actually watched golf, and
Speaker 2: they walked inside the ropes with Tiger. I felt bad
Speaker 2: for the fans because they could never see past all
Speaker 2: these photographers and writers and stuff who were watching on
Speaker 2: the inside.
Speaker 3: Memorable.
Speaker 2: That was great play with talking, I mean like just
Speaker 2: a good I was. I was the right age to
Speaker 2: play with a guy like that in times like that
Speaker 2: at a place like Goakmont. It was fun and I
Speaker 2: don't think either of us played great, but I think
Speaker 2: he probably ended up finishing better than me, but we
Speaker 2: were both finished on.
Speaker 1: A second or third. He was like sneaky in the mix,
Speaker 1: but wasn't really in the mix.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were kind of doing okay. After the thirty
Speaker 2: six solls we played together. I was probably thirtieth or
Speaker 2: something and he was tenth or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the uh, the the O seven, you know, besides
Speaker 1: Zelpato was the coming out party of Bubba Watson. That's
Speaker 1: the thing that I forgot. We did rewatch a few
Speaker 1: years ago and I was like, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is like the this is Bubba Watson's like opening act
Speaker 1: where and it's funny because he played you know, it's
Speaker 1: this first major. They played really well, and then he
Speaker 1: never played well in the US Open after that. It's
Speaker 1: like and it made me actually think, like, you know,
Speaker 1: Okama gets this. I had this narrative of like, it's
Speaker 1: so hard after being there, and I wonder what you
Speaker 1: think about this. It feels like it's actually it's hard,
Speaker 1: but it does require some level of creativity.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I mean it's probably the hardest course if
Speaker 2: all the weather is neutral, if everyone has seventy if
Speaker 2: it's seventy degrees, then there's no wind. Oakland's the hardest
Speaker 2: course that we ever play in the US Hope. I mean,
Speaker 2: Wingfoot's close, but Wingfoot's more of about the greens. I
Speaker 2: think you can get out of Fairway bunkers a little
Speaker 2: bit at wing Foot. It feels I don't know, Winfot's
Speaker 2: really hard to but just on a just a basic
Speaker 2: like normal day, Oakmont is really hard, but it takes
Speaker 2: creativity because every hole is different.
Speaker 3: Most courses have a theme.
Speaker 2: I mean, wing foot is if you hit it to
Speaker 2: the front edge of the green all day, you're going
Speaker 2: to do okay because you're always under the hole. But
Speaker 2: that doesn't work because six or seven other greens go
Speaker 2: the other way. It's it takes all the shots. And
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it makes sense that Bubba would
Speaker 2: play well there. You wouldn't think at first that he
Speaker 2: would play well there because would think it would be
Speaker 2: awful for Bubba. But he was a really elite ball striker.
Speaker 2: Really even though he got the ball to the spot
Speaker 2: in a different way to everyone else, he was a
Speaker 2: great driver of the ball because he could hit that
Speaker 2: little chip cut three hundred yards and it was a
Speaker 2: very safe shot. Yeah, it's it's just you have to
Speaker 2: be creative because you see shots at Oakmont that you
Speaker 2: don't see anywhere else. You know, you get especially around
Speaker 2: the greens, you just get faced with stuff that you
Speaker 2: just don't see anywhere else, and so you kind of
Speaker 2: have to have that ability to adapt, you know, and
Speaker 2: that you if you sum up Bubba Watson, it's adaptability,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Also, like the the ability to hit chaps can
Speaker 1: counter some of the movement. The severity sure.
Speaker 2: I mean like if you think of a green like
Speaker 2: ten or a whole like twelve, twelve is sort of
Speaker 2: a right hand as nightmare, if you like, because it's
Speaker 2: all falling away to the right, like for six hundred
Speaker 2: yards and you have to sort of hug it up
Speaker 2: the left hand side the fairway and hopes it hangs
Speaker 2: on bubble. Can hit that big right to left slice
Speaker 2: if you like, and it's gonna bounce straight. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of tilt sideways tilt at Oakmont, and
Speaker 2: I guess shape He's shaped it more than anyone else,
Speaker 2: and when it lands on the green, it spins and
Speaker 2: so on ten. He's hitting a big drawer in there
Speaker 2: with a wedge and it's spinning against the hill and
Speaker 2: it probably helps it stop going over the back.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about just getting if I was getting
Speaker 1: ready for Oakmart and the stuff I would be thinking
Speaker 1: about in practice rounds. And I feel like if you
Speaker 1: go to like a tour stop, often you know, majors,
Speaker 1: even they somebody hits a bad drive, you don't see
Speaker 1: guys like hit approach shots into greens from broth right,
Speaker 1: like they pull it into the fairway or but to me,
Speaker 1: like I was thinking about, it's like maybe like the
Speaker 1: most important shot to practice is like the hitting into
Speaker 1: one green from the rough, just to see how a
Speaker 1: ball like scoots in there? Where approximately do I need
Speaker 1: to even land this because it's such a unique shot.
Speaker 2: It's funny you say that because most of the caddies.
Speaker 2: I always felt like my caddy, especially Squirrel, for the
Speaker 2: longest time through those majors. He's like what I'd always
Speaker 2: drive on in the rough and then just flick it
Speaker 2: out the fairway and hit it because I just wanted
Speaker 2: to hit it off the fairway because it's more fun.
Speaker 2: And he used to be mad because I wouldn't try
Speaker 2: any of these shots out of the raft. And I
Speaker 2: think there's some players who do hit shots out of
Speaker 2: the rough, but most of us just flip it out
Speaker 2: with the fairway and hit it. And you're right, you're
Speaker 2: not to wear yourself out and hurt yourself. I think
Speaker 2: it was O seven seven that Phil hurt his wrist.
Speaker 1: He said it was unsafe. The ruff was unsafe.
Speaker 2: The ruff was unsafe. Always won for a bold statement,
Speaker 2: but it was very long and falling over, falling over itself.
Speaker 3: But you should.
Speaker 2: You've definitely got to in a US, especially the US Open,
Speaker 2: hit some that you hit out of the raff like
Speaker 2: that you hit into the roff, to work out what
Speaker 2: you can and can't achieve out of the raf, because
Speaker 2: sometimes ruff looks tough, but you can actually move it
Speaker 2: a long way. Sometimes ruff doesn't look that bad and
Speaker 2: you can't move it. You've got to have a sense
Speaker 2: for what you can get away with and how much
Speaker 2: you can take it on. But like you said, the
Speaker 2: first hole, if you're coming out of the rough, you
Speaker 2: can't hit.
Speaker 3: The green, can you? I don't know. I mean maybe
Speaker 3: if you're.
Speaker 2: In the left rouff, maybe and you sort of have
Speaker 2: one tumbling up the right ruff.
Speaker 3: And it dribbles on the front of the green.
Speaker 2: Maybe, But you definitely should sort of assess how aggressive
Speaker 2: or conservative you should be out of the rough, because
Speaker 2: the number one thing is to just get it out
Speaker 2: of the rough. You don't want to be you don't
Speaker 2: want to drive it in the rough and then have
Speaker 2: your next one in the rouff. You know.
Speaker 1: It is one of the things that I think that
Speaker 1: particularly in US opens, that the adage of if you
Speaker 1: hit a poor drive, the next shot has to be
Speaker 1: like it's a different calculus in golf typically, especially at
Speaker 1: one at Oakmont, where you're you're kind of thinking about
Speaker 1: getting the ball back into a position to possibly make
Speaker 1: par as opposed to you know, this week in Canada,
Speaker 1: it's going to be like, oh, a hit and the rough,
Speaker 1: Like can I still make birdie? Possibly? Can I still
Speaker 1: you know, can I still hit it? Hit the green
Speaker 1: and have a putt at birdie? And when you get
Speaker 1: in this type of golf, it does feel like it
Speaker 1: becomes like a you know, it's like a decision tree,
Speaker 1: where like if this happens, then this becomes like and
Speaker 1: and so much of it is taking medicine and getting
Speaker 1: into back into a position where you can take a
Speaker 1: big number out of play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think more than anything at a place like Gokmont,
Speaker 2: you've got to play every single shot on its merits
Speaker 2: and not have like a score that you're supposed to
Speaker 2: make in your head, Like you say on too, you
Speaker 2: just hit it as far as we can basically and
Speaker 2: work it out as we go, And like this is
Speaker 2: a birdie hole. Even if you're in the rough, you
Speaker 2: can make birdies. But if you drive in the ruff
Speaker 2: at Oakmont, you've got to all of a sudden you're
Speaker 2: sort of looking at the Okay, now it's I want
Speaker 2: to average four and a half from here, as opposed.
Speaker 3: To you know, you don't want to make six. You know,
Speaker 3: you drive it the first raff.
Speaker 2: It's like the rouff on the first the decision is, okay,
Speaker 2: I just have to make sure I don't make six.
Speaker 2: So how do I make my decision from there? That Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to make four. But let's take sick, Let's
Speaker 2: take double bog out of the equation. And that's the
Speaker 2: same on every shot at Oakmont. I mean putting. You're
Speaker 2: going to have some parts, some long parts and some
Speaker 2: really not long parts on some holes where Okay, I
Speaker 2: want to make this, But how do I hit this
Speaker 2: pot to make sure if I don't make it, I
Speaker 2: make the next one.
Speaker 1: You know, it is like you know, the analytics say
Speaker 1: like there they get to and you obviously have worked
Speaker 1: with analytics with your experience with the President's Cup, and
Speaker 1: they make these defiant statements about you should hit driver
Speaker 1: every time here, or it is better to be closer
Speaker 1: and above the hole than the below the hole. But
Speaker 1: I think when you get to a golf course as
Speaker 1: severely punishing as Oakmont, analytics and the severity on the greens,
Speaker 1: for example, like that five footer downhill is not better
Speaker 1: than the eight footer uphill, even though the analytics say
Speaker 1: is better everywhere else, like because of the way you
Speaker 1: just can't confidently stroke the putt. One thing I was
Speaker 1: thinking about off the team, particular at Oakmont is if
Speaker 1: they say driver but it just doesn't look right. You
Speaker 1: have to approach every shot at Oakmont with like a
Speaker 1: very aggressively confident swing. Otherwise that's when it can go
Speaker 1: off the reels and then it can go off the
Speaker 1: reels quick. So there's like almost a strokes gained of
Speaker 1: comfort and ability to play with some aggression that bucks
Speaker 1: the a lot of the modern analytical trends in my mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I think analytics they
Speaker 2: would disagree with me, but you've got to throw it
Speaker 2: out at Oakmont. I think it is definitely more about
Speaker 2: a headspace than a freedom. I mean, Augusta does the
Speaker 2: same thing to you. It makes you hit shots that
Speaker 2: you don't want to hit. But the only way you
Speaker 2: can hit it well is if you're swinging it with freedom.
Speaker 2: You know, like Oakmont's going to have some shots that
Speaker 2: you would never normally take on in a seventy two hole,
Speaker 2: but you have to take it on. Is If you
Speaker 2: don't take it on, the alternative is worse. So you
Speaker 2: have to be confident doing something you don't want to do.
Speaker 2: And that's probably why it's such a great tournament course.
Speaker 2: I don't think you could analyze. I don't think you
Speaker 2: could use I mean all these guys will have analytics
Speaker 2: from O seven, they'll have analytics from sixteen where players
Speaker 2: had success from around the course. Do you want to
Speaker 2: be back left edge on the first? You want to
Speaker 2: be the front edge on the second? You where to
Speaker 2: miss it and where not to miss it? That's over
Speaker 2: a hole, But the analytics takes in every player in
Speaker 2: the field over seventy two holes, and it's just sort
Speaker 2: of giving you an insight into where players had the
Speaker 2: success from on the course and where the bad spots were.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that's true for you, because everybody puts
Speaker 2: different and it hits different shots. And some guys might
Speaker 2: like fifty yard pitch shots when they lay it up.
Speaker 2: If they drive it, they're rough on the first they
Speaker 2: might be better to lay it up. Then they added
Speaker 2: to hit it over the back and try to get
Speaker 2: it up and down. But like over a collective one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty people, then maybe over the backs better,
Speaker 2: but over what for one individual case, it might be
Speaker 2: better to lay it up.
Speaker 3: So I think you're right, Hope.
Speaker 2: Month's about trying to find yourself, get yourself comfortable on
Speaker 2: a very uncomfortable golf course.
Speaker 1: That's that's what I felt, you know, my one time
Speaker 1: playing it was like, I do feel like the thing
Speaker 1: that makes it makes it great and not gimmicky, is
Speaker 1: that I do feel like if you like get going,
Speaker 1: you can go like there's no you don't like, there's
Speaker 1: no reason you can't make birdies there because if you
Speaker 1: hit it into the right spots, you're like, okay, And
Speaker 1: there's now with the expansions on some of these holes,
Speaker 1: like there's enough space to like, oh, if I hit
Speaker 1: a good T shot here, I can you know, but
Speaker 1: the second that you get off is very bad. So
Speaker 1: it's where that calm, aggressive swing really works out there.
Speaker 2: Sounds like you're describing Scott Scheffler a little bit. At
Speaker 2: the moment. It it definitely doable I think that's why
Speaker 2: it gets away with it somehow. It Most courses this
Speaker 2: hard are just players don't want to go back and
Speaker 2: play again. But Oakmont somehow because you know that the
Speaker 2: good score is there. I'm sure we won't see it.
Speaker 2: We might see another sixty three or something like that.
Speaker 2: But if you can hit most fairways and most greens
Speaker 2: at Oakmont, if you hit every shot great, and you
Speaker 2: can leave yourself puts straight up the hill and every hole,
Speaker 2: you know, and if you do that like you can
Speaker 2: be pretty aggressive. We've seen some low scores around Oakmont
Speaker 2: over the years. But if you miss one shot in
Speaker 2: the wrong spot, like it's it's just carnage, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's sort of the pressure it puts on you
Speaker 2: all days. And there's no let up really, every even
Speaker 2: the simple holes can go really wrong with a bad shot.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this about let up like where,
Speaker 1: and I think this is like so many people are
Speaker 1: going to talk about the eighth being three hundred plus
Speaker 1: yards in a way, it's maybe the most docile surrounds.
Speaker 1: I think that might actually be like the hole that
Speaker 1: you take a deep breath and you say, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: and we've seen it it's actually like the hole with
Speaker 1: the least amount of variability in it. It's you kind
Speaker 1: of stand on the tee and you know, if I
Speaker 1: hit a good shot, it'll probably going to make a three.
Speaker 1: If I had a bad shot and probably gonna make
Speaker 1: a four. In a way, playing it, did it feel
Speaker 1: like actually one of the more compared to the other
Speaker 1: par threes where I think like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: chaos potential where you could make a big number. Does
Speaker 1: that feel like a place you could take a deep breath?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean I think when we talked about it a
Speaker 2: few like a few weeks ago, I thought eight was
Speaker 2: a letup hole if I run through them in my head.
Speaker 2: I mean, four is a little bit of a let up,
Speaker 2: but it's only a let up if you hit the fairway,
Speaker 2: Like eight is a relaxed hole. I mean then not.
Speaker 3: Oh seven.
Speaker 2: They had the three hundred tea, but they only played
Speaker 2: at once. Maybe so we probably played two fifty a
Speaker 2: couple of times. Maybe you're two to twenty and a
Speaker 2: three hundred eight is like you say, it's a three
Speaker 2: or four. I mean, maybe you make a two with
Speaker 2: an amazing shot, but you're not really like focused on
Speaker 2: a two, but yeah, it's a three or four.
Speaker 3: If you miss the.
Speaker 2: Green, you hit it out, you're going to have a
Speaker 2: reasonable chance to make it, and if you miss, you
Speaker 2: just tap it in. Like there's not many other lead
Speaker 2: up holes out there. And it's funny that it's the
Speaker 2: three hundred yard path three that might seem to seem
Speaker 2: that way. I mean, they might play at three hundred
Speaker 2: every time. Three hundreds are long part three. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think they'll probably go on the next one up
Speaker 2: a couple of times. But yeah, it is. There's no
Speaker 2: other letups. Really, seventeen kind of feels like a let
Speaker 2: up maybe, but the job is seventeen is it's a
Speaker 2: narrow iron shot to hit the fairway and that's one
Speaker 2: of the scariest wedges in the world with no water.
Speaker 2: That wed shot into seventeen. So you can go really
Speaker 2: wrong on seventeen. You can make seven or eight on
Speaker 2: seventeen if you get it wrong.
Speaker 1: You know that's to my own herd. But I just
Speaker 1: drove the green. You know, it's easy. You hit it
Speaker 1: on the green, then you two pot and you get
Speaker 1: out of there.
Speaker 3: You know, simple way to let the scorecard. As USG
Speaker 3: I written on the top of it.
Speaker 1: I'll never go back, just so I can hold on
Speaker 1: to that up easy, easiest you know hole though out there,
Speaker 1: what were the scariest What did you feel like? We're
Speaker 1: the you know, one to three scariest shots out there,
Speaker 1: like the particular nitty gritty this shot I still think about.
Speaker 2: Well, the first green, the second shot of the first
Speaker 2: is a little I was. It's not scary because it's
Speaker 2: not that long a shot, but it's just how am
Speaker 2: I going to make this? How am I going to
Speaker 2: hit this green? Because it's just so severe sort of
Speaker 2: front right to back left, How am I going to
Speaker 2: do this? It wasn't that scary because if you just
Speaker 2: miss it over the back, you've you've got some You
Speaker 2: can chip it reasonably close as you're coming back up
Speaker 2: the hill. The third I found a very scary hole
Speaker 2: in I think there's rough over the back of the
Speaker 2: green this year, but when in seven, definitely it was
Speaker 2: shaved all the way down on the back. So it
Speaker 2: was either it felt like you're either short and running
Speaker 2: off the front or long and running over the back.
Speaker 2: Like it didn't you didn't see a whole lot of
Speaker 2: green there. You can't see a lot of that green
Speaker 2: from the fairway anyway, it's.
Speaker 1: Kind of a shinnercock shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very repellent, it's very sort of pinehursty. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a shinnecock hole exactly.
Speaker 1: You're just playing straight up from a noun even lie
Speaker 1: to something that just sheds in all directions, right. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's shinnakock in that middle stretch of halls.
Speaker 2: And it felt like it feels like you don't You
Speaker 2: can land it and hit it on the green, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like you've got a very big area
Speaker 2: to have it end up in a good spot, and
Speaker 2: if you missed that spot, it's going to be in
Speaker 2: a really really bad spot. Four or five, seven, eight, nine.
Speaker 2: Nine's a pretty scary tea shot. I think totally blind,
Speaker 2: you can't see anything, and you want to go left
Speaker 2: because you don't want to be in.
Speaker 3: The fairy bunkers.
Speaker 2: But left has got one of those ditches that's just
Speaker 2: you might never get out of and you're never really
Speaker 2: sure or even though you've got your lines in your
Speaker 2: book and you kind of know. I found nine are
Speaker 2: really scary te shot.
Speaker 1: The ditches are such a unique aspect because I feel
Speaker 1: like they're in. They're always in the places that you
Speaker 1: kind of want to bail a side, and then you're like, oh, wait,
Speaker 1: that's actually worse than the bunker.
Speaker 2: Well it could be. It's definitely worse than a bunker.
Speaker 2: I mean you could you could have ten swings, you
Speaker 2: could hurt your risk getting out of that.
Speaker 3: Stuff could be unsafe for rough in there.
Speaker 2: Nine. I think sixteens are really tough shot. Sixteens are
Speaker 2: really scary. Part three. It's even longer this time than
Speaker 2: when I played it. I think it's back to two
Speaker 2: fifty or something now, which is these past three? Is
Speaker 2: it getting pretty long? Insane? Yeah, Aan's a scary TA
Speaker 2: shot to atane is a tough TAA shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would echo those. Those are like it's kind
Speaker 1: of where you it comes and go, like you feel
Speaker 1: like you kind of have to take advantage of, like
Speaker 1: in that like four or five six area of the
Speaker 1: golf course. Then seven, eight, nine is really hard, and
Speaker 1: then you kind of go on the back and it's
Speaker 1: like can I get something going early or at the
Speaker 1: end of the back nine? Can I get a sneak
Speaker 1: one at seventeen? It's a it's it kind of comes
Speaker 1: and goes in waves.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: One of the things I like about the golf course,
Speaker 1: and we'll get somewhere else other than the golf course soon,
Speaker 1: is that it does have like it's really hard, but
Speaker 1: there are they have the scorable there's a lot of
Speaker 1: short par fours, like sub four hundred. When you start
Speaker 1: to add them up.
Speaker 2: It's very doable. I mean, like I said, I think
Speaker 2: that's why somehow, somehow we all we tolerate it, because
Speaker 2: it's very doable. Like there's birdies everywhere in Oakmont. It's
Speaker 2: just the fear is the carnage if you get it wrong,
Speaker 2: I think. I mean, there's a lot of hard holes
Speaker 2: that are just really hard to make in the world
Speaker 2: of golf, that are just really hard to make a
Speaker 2: birdie or a par. But if you don't, you just
Speaker 2: make a five and you're bogie or something, and you
Speaker 2: just go on Oakmont. You could be there all day
Speaker 2: on some of those greens. If you get it wrong
Speaker 2: and you get the wrong spot, I mean, you're just
Speaker 2: across the other side and now you're in rough on
Speaker 2: the other side, and now you could like it can
Speaker 2: be your mistakes are magnified so much that that's the
Speaker 2: fear like you say, I mean two two is a
Speaker 2: pretty straightforward four iron pitch, but if you get it
Speaker 2: wrong on that green, like you could be there for
Speaker 2: a while. You know, Like four is a pretty easy
Speaker 2: part five if you drive it on the fairway. But
Speaker 2: if you drive it in the church pews. Now you're
Speaker 2: third shots from three thirty, you know, because you've got
Speaker 2: to go sideways and then you're going to go for
Speaker 2: it too much and you're going to hit. You could
Speaker 2: hit it in one of the ditches or like it's
Speaker 2: it's the miss. It's the penalty when you miss at Ogmont,
Speaker 2: that's the hard part. If you hit great shots, you
Speaker 2: can bury every hale. Probably I would.
Speaker 1: Say that, you know, it's like even like what you're saying.
Speaker 1: When I played twelve, I hit a great drive and
Speaker 1: I had a hybrid in and I hit like I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, you look at everything is just screaming left
Speaker 1: to right, and I'm just like, okay, just get this,
Speaker 1: like just land it short left. It's gonna hum down there.
Speaker 1: And I just pulled it five yards and then I'm
Speaker 1: in this like thick ruff and the green. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at this green, I'm like, I don't think I can
Speaker 1: hold the green, Like, I'm not going to hit it
Speaker 1: in two. I just hit two really good shots, and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to hit the green in regulation on
Speaker 1: this par five because I'm in the worst spot possible.
Speaker 1: Because to hit the good shot, to hit the great shot,
Speaker 1: the might yield and eagle, I also have to contend
Speaker 1: the line is so narrow. It's your adage of like
Speaker 1: would tennis be interesting if you just hit the ball
Speaker 1: down the middle? Like one of the things about Oakbant
Speaker 1: Lake tennis is like where you need to get to
Speaker 1: on certain holes to really have a chance to score
Speaker 1: is on the line. And like twelve is a perfect example.
Speaker 1: You have to deal with that left rough on the
Speaker 1: second shot in order to get the reward of an
Speaker 1: eagle put on it. And then if you get hung
Speaker 1: up in the left rough, you're like, Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I can hold this green.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean twelve is the best example.
Speaker 2: Like you to make eagle, you have to land it
Speaker 2: in the left edge of the fairway, very short of
Speaker 2: the green. Yes, to hope it hangs on in a
Speaker 2: good spot. But if you like you say, you miss
Speaker 2: it two yards to the left. Now you can't get
Speaker 2: your third shot on the green, and now you start thinking, well,
Speaker 2: how do I get my third shot to a place
Speaker 2: where I can hopefully make PA. So you've gone from
Speaker 2: pulling at a yard or two maybe making an eagle,
Speaker 2: to like, how do I make PA? That's just that
Speaker 2: sums up Okemond, Like that's like you said you went
Speaker 2: to the seventeenth green. You go for the seventeenth green.
Speaker 2: That's great if you pull it too through or three yards.
Speaker 2: Now it's hard to get it on the green from
Speaker 2: ten yards away because the rough is so long and thick,
Speaker 2: and it's the opportunities are there, but the only way.
Speaker 2: And it's so that's why it's so interesting. I guess,
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it's sort of it hallmarks to
Speaker 2: like the great courses. Is that the great lines like
Speaker 2: third end at the Masters. It's like you've just got
Speaker 2: to hug the creek to really maximize your chance to
Speaker 2: do it. You've got to hug the trouble, like you've
Speaker 2: got to take on the risk to get the reward.
Speaker 3: But if you fail, like you just get annihilated.
Speaker 1: What do you I think a big topic of the
Speaker 1: beginning of the week is going to be score, and
Speaker 1: I think it's so conditioned dependent. I looked at the
Speaker 1: weather today. I didn't like what I saw I saw.
Speaker 1: I saw a decent amount of rain in the forecast.
Speaker 1: I think as of yesterday there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: rain in the forecast. So these things change. What would
Speaker 1: you say if we get it? We'll say a soft
Speaker 1: Oakmont versus a firm Oakmont? What would be your your
Speaker 1: just general gas un score?
Speaker 3: So O seven was what five over? Sixteen was? Under right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean DJ was? I think six under right with
Speaker 1: a penalty with which I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, i'd probably say soft. A few under,
Speaker 2: you know, single digits, single digits under. I think soft.
Speaker 2: It's still crazy hard, but you can fly it on greens.
Speaker 2: You can fly it on the first and hold it.
Speaker 2: You can fly it on ten and hold it. Like
Speaker 2: shots into the third are going to be easier because
Speaker 2: you're going to be able to hold it. It's not
Speaker 2: going to get crazy soft Oakmond. I mean those greens
Speaker 2: are pretty firm. It's gonna take a lot of rain
Speaker 2: to make them soft. But if it's firm, way over
Speaker 2: par I would say, I mean, it's just too hard
Speaker 2: to hit it. On greens when it's firm, because you
Speaker 2: have to be landing them short. And then the firmer
Speaker 2: it is, the more the slope, the whole general pitch
Speaker 2: of the place comes into play, and like gravity just wins.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't beat it. When it's firm out there,
Speaker 2: you can't hit some of the greens. You just can't hit.
Speaker 1: That's I got a message from a couple players who
Speaker 1: played it recently, and they I sat on a podcast,
Speaker 1: I thought, like the new par for US opens is
Speaker 1: four under, and it's like, that's the level par. It's
Speaker 1: four under. And they said that I was crazy and
Speaker 1: that it's going to be over par if it plays
Speaker 1: the way it's been playing recently. But I also believe
Speaker 1: that they all don't realize how good they are, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you never know, people follow the leader to
Speaker 2: a little bit. Like I think sometimes in these tournaments
Speaker 2: if the leaderboard, if someone gets off to a good
Speaker 2: start makes a few birdies, it makes everybody else think
Speaker 2: they can do the same thing, and everyone kind of follows,
Speaker 2: you know. I think sometimes the score under par is
Speaker 2: almost a reflection of like the best players in the field,
Speaker 2: and people just follow a little bit you know, like
Speaker 2: if Thursday morning, if everyone's watching who's playing in the
Speaker 2: afternoon and it's carnage and not everybody's over par and
Speaker 2: there's triples and doubles, everyone gets scared going out there.
Speaker 2: They play the course differently than if someone's going out
Speaker 2: and shot six under, you know, Like so it's the
Speaker 2: most impossible. It's a fun game to pick to play,
Speaker 2: like who's going to what the score is going to be,
Speaker 2: but you can never get it right.
Speaker 1: The other thing that happens is like if a player
Speaker 1: goes out and they get deep, there's like then like
Speaker 1: a restrict plate that goes on you. Whether it's like
Speaker 1: there's like a mental thing, you know, you can't just
Speaker 1: keep going. Uh, It's like you get kind of stuck
Speaker 1: and then people catch up to you. You know, it
Speaker 1: becomes more about like not losing the lead then continuing
Speaker 1: to add to the lead. And it's like one of
Speaker 1: those weird things with golf where it's just like really
Speaker 1: hard to stay in the moment and keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean that's it's also unique about Tiger
Speaker 2: and guys who go and win by fifteen shots. It's
Speaker 2: like he's not the rest of the field he isn't relevant,
Speaker 2: you know, he's just scoring the score that he would
Speaker 2: shoot whether anyone was there or not. You definitely get
Speaker 2: influenced by what other people are doing, you know, Like
Speaker 2: I mean, even just in your own group. If the
Speaker 2: guy you're playing with lands a ball where you wanted
Speaker 2: to land and it bounces over into a bunker that
Speaker 2: looks dead, you're going to hit a different shot.
Speaker 3: You know, you just are.
Speaker 2: You know. So maybe you end up scoring better because
Speaker 2: the go in front of you showed you that you
Speaker 2: can't do that, you know, But maybe you go worse
Speaker 2: because now you're scared and now you put it a
Speaker 2: bad swing on it. Mean, I don't know. Everything gets
Speaker 2: affected by everything else. Right, It's look, if it's firm,
Speaker 2: I can't see anyone breaking part. But if it's soft,
Speaker 2: someone will. I would say, these guys that like you say,
Speaker 2: they're really good.
Speaker 1: It's funny you bring this up. I never thought about that.
Speaker 1: With golf, is like the idea of like what other
Speaker 1: people do in your group, your fellow competitors, how they influence,
Speaker 1: like how you make decisions, like even like club time
Speaker 1: par threes, Right, it's like, oh, he hit that and
Speaker 1: it went over but it's like you could be thinking
Speaker 1: of a completely different shot in your head and then
Speaker 1: you go down a club and then you end up short.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it all like you play with better
Speaker 2: players and you end up hitting better shots because you
Speaker 2: see a shot that maybe you didn't see, you know,
Speaker 2: and you can definitely get dragged down like we've seen it.
Speaker 2: You see it forever.
Speaker 1: Like bad vibe groups.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get bad vibe groups and everyone gets dragged down.
Speaker 2: I mean you see the match plays the most obvious.
Speaker 2: I mean, match plays a different sort of game, but
Speaker 2: the scores that people shoot relative to power match players
Speaker 2: just outrageous. I mean people go nine, ten, eleven, twelve under.
Speaker 2: They chip in from everywhere because they have to. You know,
Speaker 2: the guy they're playing against just birdying the hole. I
Speaker 2: just have to find a way to make a burdie.
Speaker 2: I mean, people definitely get affected by everyone else, and
Speaker 2: they're going to be affected at Oakmont just by the
Speaker 2: history of it. They're all going to be scared before
Speaker 2: they start. The practice rounds are going to beat them up.
Speaker 2: They're all going to be on the first two going,
Speaker 2: how am I going to get round here for four rounds?
Speaker 2: Like it's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you get affected by everything.
Speaker 1: It's a that's a great point you brought up. And
Speaker 1: it's like the Masters. There is an extra weight when
Speaker 1: you make the turn on Sunday or you have t
Speaker 1: off on Thursday. There's an extra weight of winning the
Speaker 1: Masters because of the history of Masters. When you look
Speaker 1: at when you look at Oakmont and people that have
Speaker 1: won championships there, Jean Saraz and Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan,
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholas, Johnny Miller, Ernie Els. You know, DJ, winning
Speaker 1: a winning a US Open at Oakmont is a different
Speaker 1: pelt than winning a US Open at a lot of
Speaker 1: other places, you know, in a lot of great places.
Speaker 1: You could, you know, compare it to I'm a huge
Speaker 1: LA c C fan, but like winning a US Open
Speaker 1: at Oakmont is not winning a US Open at L
Speaker 1: A c C or even Pineer's number two at this
Speaker 1: point for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a bit like Mialfield in the Open Road.
Speaker 2: I mean that's just produced like number one in Nicholas
Speaker 2: and number one in the world Ernie Els and Nick
Speaker 2: Faldo and I just you're right. I mean, it's it
Speaker 2: shouldn't be US Open to US Open. I mean, luckily
Speaker 2: wingfoot is places. I got a pretty good one. You
Speaker 2: didn't get cheam Er Spey, No, you take any us open.
Speaker 3: But you're right.
Speaker 2: It looks different, and it's different because you feel the history,
Speaker 2: especially at Okenmand. I'm sure you went in the locker room.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a pretty amazing clubhouse and it's a
Speaker 2: cool locker room, one of those original locker rooms with
Speaker 2: spike marks on the seats, and you feel it when
Speaker 2: you're at a place like that. It definitely adds to it.
Speaker 1: Did you see in the lockers how they have the
Speaker 1: little booze compartment from the prohibition where there's like a
Speaker 1: little compartment that you can fit two bottles of booze
Speaker 1: in the lockers and when they build new ones they
Speaker 1: build it into it.
Speaker 2: Like the more you learn about this prohibition is that
Speaker 2: booze was banned, but everyone still was drinking, right like
Speaker 2: in the golf court with little stash, a little stash
Speaker 2: in your luck at a KP. Bow's like no, that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff's s amizing.
Speaker 1: This tournament, I think is the dominant headline beyond the
Speaker 1: course is going to be the big players in golf.
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's an interesting time. Obviously, we
Speaker 1: always have like our big whatever number, and this is
Speaker 1: always the story. But it feels like we've got like
Speaker 1: a class a player that's starting to separate itself with
Speaker 1: Scotty obviously, who's playing some of the best golf we've
Speaker 1: ever seen, Rory McElroy, Xanderschoffley Bryson, and John Rahm in
Speaker 1: the last kind of two years of major championships. What
Speaker 1: I think is actually fascinating is you start to look
Speaker 1: at it and there's like a question of who's the
Speaker 1: best US Open player of this era. So you have Bryson,
Speaker 1: who has two wins, but outside of his two wins,
Speaker 1: he has no top tens. Outside of those two wins,
Speaker 1: you have Scotty, who you know, obviously since he's term
Speaker 1: pro when he's been in his like formative three years,
Speaker 1: he's got he's got a second, a third, and a seventh,
Speaker 1: and then last year's US Opening wasn't very good. Rory
Speaker 1: has one US Open win, but since twenty nineteen he's
Speaker 1: gone T nine, T eight, T seven, T five, second second.
Speaker 1: Xander has three top fives, seven top tens, and eight starts.
Speaker 1: His worst finish is fourteenth, which is absolutely mind boggling
Speaker 1: eight US Opens and you finished no worth worse than fourteenth.
Speaker 1: It's a crazy stat. And then you've got You've got
Speaker 1: Brooks with his two wins. It's an amazing run. And
Speaker 1: the question is is it over? Are we passed it?
Speaker 1: You know, we like to, we like to, you like
Speaker 1: to go early on putting forks in people here. But
Speaker 1: and then you got rom first of Tory, t third
Speaker 1: third at Pebble, t ten at LA no worse than
Speaker 1: twenty third place finished since twenty nineteen. So it's like
Speaker 1: the guys like they are the best players in the world.
Speaker 1: And it feels like in the last five years of
Speaker 1: the u US Open, these have these are the guys
Speaker 1: that have been the main actors and that's pretty much it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well those stats are pretty telling. I mean, what
Speaker 2: do you say, They're just good players, like you're right,
Speaker 2: Like we you the Targer era, we had Targer and
Speaker 2: there was a few others, you know, feel out he's
Speaker 2: run and he had his run. A few others would
Speaker 2: pop up here and there. But there does seem to
Speaker 2: be five or six that seem to be that always
Speaker 2: show up in these big tournaments. I mean, Xander always
Speaker 2: shows up I mean, I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 2: Marco's US Open record is, but like he's sort of
Speaker 2: he's had an amazing major record the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: I think that's the one other player that you could
Speaker 1: put into this group that like you could be like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's another player in this group. But it's interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, he has one to ternament in three years,
Speaker 1: you know, basically.
Speaker 2: Which is interesting. Yeah, I mean, I think j T
Speaker 2: will probably do well too. But like, these guys are
Speaker 2: just good. I mean, the level that Chefler's playing is
Speaker 2: a level almost that we haven't seen. I mean, Tiger
Speaker 2: was Tiger, and it's a they're a different sort of
Speaker 2: great player. But Shecheffler just it's so peaceful and calm
Speaker 2: and stress free. How he wins tournaments. It's like even
Speaker 2: Tigers seemed to be there was more drama. That doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to be drama when Chefler plays. You know, his
Speaker 2: ball striking is just beyond deleite, and his headspace is
Speaker 2: like I've never seen anything like.
Speaker 3: I mean, maybe Jack.
Speaker 2: I never saw Jack in his prime, but it seems
Speaker 2: like very Jack, like very workman like not getting carried away,
Speaker 2: just hitting good shots and just wearing the field out,
Speaker 2: you know, and then all of a sudden on Saturday,
Speaker 2: whether Chefler's been on the leader board or not, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden Saturday afternoon, all of a sudden, there
Speaker 2: he is.
Speaker 3: You know, Xander.
Speaker 2: We haven't seen Xander play this year like he did
Speaker 2: last year, but it can't be far away, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's he's just that one one roundaway, almost from saying,
Speaker 2: oh okay, I remember, this is it.
Speaker 3: You know it's going to take. It's going to take.
Speaker 2: You would expect out of that list, you would would
Speaker 2: you take the field or that list?
Speaker 1: And this is where I feel like I've started to
Speaker 1: get and I felt this way at at the PGA,
Speaker 1: is that I've started to get to the point where
Speaker 1: I don't look at the leader board. I look to
Speaker 1: see where one of those names is at after round
Speaker 1: one and the first one I hit, I'm like that
Speaker 1: that's the leader in the golf tournament right now. And
Speaker 1: it's it's a wild I hadn't. I don't think we've
Speaker 1: been at this type of place in golf where it
Speaker 1: feels like one of those names is going to win.
Speaker 1: I would be almost shocked if if it doesn't come
Speaker 1: from one of those names, So I would take those names.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Kyile Hollowe very like that one.
Speaker 1: Like that.
Speaker 2: The lady board didn't really it was kind of a
Speaker 2: bit odd, and we didn't it didn't take shape, and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, Scottie berties what for the
Speaker 2: last five on Saturday and it's like, okay, this later
Speaker 2: would makes sense now, you know. But it took until
Speaker 2: the end of the day Saturday for it to look
Speaker 2: like what it was going to look like.
Speaker 1: And the only other person on Saturday and Sunday that
Speaker 1: you felt like we're going to win was like You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: Bryson might win. And then on Sunday it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: John Rom's gonna steal in this tournament. And it's like,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of weird situation. And after round one
Speaker 1: on our other podcast, I said, Sky Scheffler's leading at too.
Speaker 1: That's the leader of the golf tournament right now. And
Speaker 1: it's become this like leaderboard where you look at the
Speaker 1: leaderboard and you kind of find the functional leader, not
Speaker 1: the one that's actually at the top of the board.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look, these hot these tournaments are really hard.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's more of a belief thing, and I
Speaker 2: mean you look, it's a it's a headspace belief thing
Speaker 2: that they know they're going to be there at the
Speaker 2: end because they always do it. They just it's almost
Speaker 2: an expectation. It's like, well, I'll be top ten this
Speaker 2: week because that's what I do when I play a major,
Speaker 2: you know, so it almost doesn't matter how it's like
Speaker 2: Rory how much how often does Rory not be in
Speaker 2: a major? And then at the end you look and
Speaker 2: he was fourth, you know, like it's he does it
Speaker 2: all the time because it's just in his head. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm a guy who finishes top five in majors, like
Speaker 2: it's a at some point, I mean, look, windhom Clark
Speaker 2: wins like people win for the first time, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, Xander was that guy and then he hadn't won,
Speaker 2: and now he's won two and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: he's like, well, for sure, Xander can win. But before
Speaker 2: that we were thinking, was Anda cant when someone's going
Speaker 2: to win for the first time?
Speaker 3: You know, maybe at Oakmont. But you're right, it's a very.
Speaker 2: Sunday the Sunday, the finishing results feel very predictable at
Speaker 2: the moment necessarily exact winner. But like you say, like
Speaker 2: six of the top ten seems to be like, well
Speaker 2: they were always six, those six are always in the
Speaker 2: top ten. Like it does seem like that a lot
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, And.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. I think I think
Speaker 1: it might be just like how all around talented these
Speaker 1: players are. Where you start to look at like, I
Speaker 1: mean you just at this point with Scotty, it's like
Speaker 1: if you're playing against Scotty, it's like I think you
Speaker 1: have to like pray for poor putting, pray that he
Speaker 1: just doesn't make putts in a day because everything else
Speaker 1: is such a high level, you know, Rory, it's I
Speaker 1: hope he doesn't have his a game with his driver,
Speaker 1: you know. But like you start to look at the
Speaker 1: well roundedness as Xander last year when he was cooking
Speaker 1: was effectively same recipe as Scotty. Exceptional at everything in
Speaker 1: the game. You know, rom when he's going, he's exceptional
Speaker 1: at everything. And it's when you think about, like how
Speaker 1: does someone else win, It's, well, he has an above
Speaker 1: average week with one of his slightly deficient clubs, and
Speaker 1: everything else is cooking, you know, where these guys, they're
Speaker 1: so good at everything that they can have slightly below
Speaker 1: average weeks and still be in the mix and have
Speaker 1: a good week and win.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, I don't know, Like you
Speaker 2: just it comes down to belief, I think, more than
Speaker 2: anything else, and you've got to kind of do it
Speaker 2: to get the belief. But it's a leap of faith
Speaker 2: there between where you're at and the result, where you've
Speaker 2: got to sort of think I can do it. I
Speaker 2: don't know. These torments are hard, they're very mentally challenging,
Speaker 2: these tournaments from the first two onwards, not just the
Speaker 2: physical test, but mentally. A lot of people can't see
Speaker 2: their name on the top of a on a major
Speaker 2: trophy before they've got it there.
Speaker 1: You know, what's it like when you think back to
Speaker 1: like coming down the stretch when you haven't done it,
Speaker 1: trying to get it done in a meter.
Speaker 2: Well, mine was kind of weird. Mine was kind of
Speaker 2: weird the way it finished. There was lots of guys
Speaker 2: with a chance, and I just ended up. I ended
Speaker 2: up the good one in the end. But I just
Speaker 2: I think it's I mean, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a headspace It's one of those intangibles that you
Speaker 2: can tell when you the first time I ever played
Speaker 2: with Brooks, I don't know, first year on tour or
Speaker 2: something back in somewhere or wherever we were, are you
Speaker 2: just like, yeah, this guy knows he can do it.
Speaker 2: You could just tell whatever that is. You know, first
Speaker 2: time you play with Speeth, it's like, yeah, there's something
Speaker 2: about this kid, like he knows, you know, Whereas there's
Speaker 2: others who don't miss a shot. Lots of others who
Speaker 2: don't miss a shot and do everything really well, and
Speaker 2: you just look at them and go, yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: really believe, do you. I don't know what it is,
Speaker 2: and I don't know where it comes from, and I
Speaker 2: don't know whether you can can you get it if
Speaker 2: you don't have it, I don't know. Maybe it's winning
Speaker 2: a lot when you're a kid, you know. Maybe it's
Speaker 2: getting thrown into the right group, you know, having the
Speaker 2: right week and getting to play with Tiger at the
Speaker 2: right time, or playing with Chefler at the right time,
Speaker 2: or remember, like Mike, we're at Madonna in ninety nine,
Speaker 2: played with Tiger and went for a lot on Sunday
Speaker 2: and then a couple of years later, he wins the Masters,
Speaker 2: you know, because he gets belief out he didn't have
Speaker 2: very good day, but he gets belief out of that.
Speaker 2: We've seen that story a lot, Like maybe you can
Speaker 2: learn it, or maybe it's just what these guys have
Speaker 2: sort of cultivated over their junior career. I know, you
Speaker 2: play with j T. The first time you play with
Speaker 2: JT's like j or this guy knows he can do it,
Speaker 2: you know, Like, I don't know, it's just it's in
Speaker 2: some guys and it's not in other guys, and I
Speaker 2: don't I don't know what that is. It's a bit
Speaker 2: of an intangible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I felt that way with you know, unfortunately, like
Speaker 1: the back's been a huge problem. But Zella Taurus was
Speaker 1: that like you you know, and when you listen to
Speaker 1: him talk, it was like, Oh, this guy thinks he's
Speaker 1: the best of everyone, you know, And I think that's
Speaker 1: a good I think that idea looking at like who's
Speaker 1: won a lot, because if you finish, if you finish
Speaker 1: tenth a lot, there's a reason you finished tenth a lot,
Speaker 1: but not you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's also there's like, I mean, Brooks is
Speaker 2: the interest Like you mentioned Brooks Brooks and Ram especially,
Speaker 2: they win against great fields. It's almost like they need
Speaker 2: that rise. They need what Okay, now all the studs
Speaker 2: are here. Now I'm going to show you that I'm
Speaker 2: the alpha, you know. Like It's whereas if it's just
Speaker 2: in a middling tournament in the middle of the year,
Speaker 2: they're just a normal golfer. But you get into the
Speaker 2: US Open, and all of a sudden, they're the best
Speaker 2: golf from the field.
Speaker 3: Like I think, and Tiger just won everything. He just
Speaker 3: wanted to win absolutely everything.
Speaker 2: I think everybody's got a different competitive sort of fuel,
Speaker 2: you know, and some guys need need it to be
Speaker 2: the US Open, you know. I think this group that
Speaker 2: you're talking about, Sheffler seems to be able to do
Speaker 2: it every single week.
Speaker 3: But this group you're talking.
Speaker 2: About, the bigger the field and the bigger the event,
Speaker 2: the more they feel like I'm the one who's going
Speaker 2: to be up there at the end.
Speaker 1: You know, how would you rank those their six names,
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's Scottie Bryson, Rory Xander, Ram, Brooks.
Speaker 2: How would you Scotty's got to be number one at
Speaker 2: the moment, right Like.
Speaker 1: In terms of this coming this week for the Oakmart
Speaker 1: So for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Scotty, for sure one.
Speaker 2: Rory is hard to rank because his best is probably
Speaker 2: the best. His best is probably better than Jeffler's best,
Speaker 2: But Chefler's the same every week, like he's just nuts
Speaker 2: every week. Rory kind of gives us some sort of
Speaker 2: strange ones. So I don't know, Xander, I'd probably have
Speaker 2: to put Bryson two, Rory three, Xander four. Who we
Speaker 2: got left?
Speaker 1: Ram and Brooks?
Speaker 2: Ram and then Brooks probably Now like the I think
Speaker 2: it's is it what we think they're going to play
Speaker 2: or their ceiling? I mean, because I think rams ceiling
Speaker 2: is clearly really high. I think it's higher than most.
Speaker 2: Brooks a ceiling is clearly higher than most, but we
Speaker 2: haven't seen that for four or five years, so you
Speaker 2: can probably almost Brooks has to be down the bottom
Speaker 2: of that list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, but if.
Speaker 2: Every one of them, if every one of them plays
Speaker 2: their best, who wins? You know?
Speaker 1: So I think that's like it's interesting, It's like the
Speaker 1: most fascinated question in golf. I think Rory's probably got
Speaker 1: the most, Like he's got an explosiveness about him that
Speaker 1: but like the thing that Scotty does is he just
Speaker 1: he's relentless. I couldn't imagine playing Scotty Shuffler in a
Speaker 1: match in like a match play situation, like just dealing
Speaker 1: with the constant stress that he inflicts on you hall
Speaker 1: after hall, where it feels like you probably can never
Speaker 1: hit a shot that's better than his, you know.
Speaker 2: Well, and he just won Quail Hollow playing decidedly average
Speaker 2: for him, you know, like it was a long way
Speaker 2: below his best. He played an amazing last five holes
Speaker 2: on Saturday, and that was kind of it, you know,
Speaker 2: like that's that won him the tournament. Like I don't
Speaker 2: think any of that other list could do that, could
Speaker 2: play below the level and still win a major by
Speaker 2: four shots. I just don't Rory wins a major by
Speaker 2: four shots if he plays to his level, you know,
Speaker 2: and so does Xander and.
Speaker 3: Brooks and Rahm. But Scotty found a way.
Speaker 2: It was a Nicholas like performance, like he just made
Speaker 2: him got himself into the right position with twenty five
Speaker 2: or twenty four holes to play, and then just said, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to win this now, you know. And then
Speaker 2: he played awful on the front nine. Really on Sunday.
Speaker 2: Awful is relative term, but relative to how he normally.
Speaker 1: Plays, it was like categorically awful.
Speaker 2: If any of those other if the five other guys
Speaker 2: played a front nine like that, then they probably don't
Speaker 2: win the tournament.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So you kind of have to say Cheff is going
Speaker 2: to win because it just feels like he's going to
Speaker 2: have one less than all of the others, you know,
Speaker 2: like it doesn't matter what they shoot, He's going to
Speaker 2: find a way to have one less because he's gone
Speaker 2: really low, like we saw him at Dallas. He's clearly
Speaker 2: happy to go crazy low. It feels like he just
Speaker 2: does what he needs to do to win. Just tell
Speaker 2: me where I have to shoot to win, and I'll
Speaker 2: just work out how to do that. You know, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: The ram piece I think is, you know, he got
Speaker 1: he got a taste of something he hasn't had in
Speaker 1: a while with the PGA, and I saw that. Brandle
Speaker 1: afterwards was like, this is what happens when you go
Speaker 1: to a non competitive league. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's truth to that, you know, where like he got
Speaker 1: into a situation he hasn't bet end. But I think
Speaker 1: this is just general golf, Like golf is, like you
Speaker 1: put yourself into these positions and you get a little
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and then your your level of play just tweaks
Speaker 1: down just to touch right because you're not in that
Speaker 1: same calm space. And Rom, like all of a sudden
Speaker 1: is the leader, and all of a sudden it kind
Speaker 1: of fell apart and he hit a pot that should
Speaker 1: have probably gone in. And if that putt goes in,
Speaker 1: you know, everything could be differently. And we're talking about
Speaker 1: John Rom winning the PGA. The other aspect of Rom
Speaker 1: I think is worth pointing out is that when John
Speaker 1: Ram made the leap to Live, Scotty had a great year.
Speaker 1: Rom had a great year, and those were like the
Speaker 1: two guys going back and forth, trading blows with wins.
Speaker 1: You know, like if you think about the lead up
Speaker 1: to that Masters, it was like these guys won everything.
Speaker 1: I I think John rom the decision to go to
Speaker 1: Live took him out completely out. It has made him
Speaker 1: fairly irrelevant outside of four weeks of the year. And
Speaker 1: the simple fact is that he's very undervalued in terms
Speaker 1: of like we're not very far removed from him being
Speaker 1: what everybody said was the best player in the world
Speaker 1: without a doubt, you know, and I do think John
Speaker 1: Rahm coming off of the PGA, I think he's maybe
Speaker 1: the most intriguing of these names, where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy is is I think he you know, I
Speaker 1: think the thing with all these guys is that they
Speaker 1: think they're better than everyone, as you said, and I
Speaker 1: think John Rahm thinks he's the best player in the
Speaker 1: world still.
Speaker 3: Yeah, true.
Speaker 2: I mean I look, I see him in Scott style
Speaker 2: all the time. He plays a lot like he's very
Speaker 2: good at golf, like he is next next level better
Speaker 2: than everyone else here, like and there's some good players
Speaker 2: hanging around in Scot style, he is amazing and still
Speaker 2: wants it, you know, he definitely wants it, and the
Speaker 2: majores are he's outlet. I mean, maybe he is outlet
Speaker 2: to sort of that's what he wants. I mean, he
Speaker 2: wants to be the alpha in the room and you
Speaker 2: can only really do that now, like you say, four
Speaker 2: times for him coming off the PGA, where he got
Speaker 2: a bit of a taste, like it might be a
Speaker 2: bit of a sign. You very often see the next
Speaker 2: major when somebody has a good one, pop up at
Speaker 2: the next one, So he might be the second best
Speaker 2: of that list, like to challenge Scotty. But look, they're
Speaker 2: all so good. I just the way Scheffler gets it done.
Speaker 2: Like he's not going to win every major for the
Speaker 2: next that he's not going to win every tournament. I mean,
Speaker 2: as many times as he's winning, he's still losing sixty
Speaker 2: seventy percent of them, you know, like he's not winning
Speaker 2: every week. But as far as favorite, he has to
Speaker 2: be beyond favorite Scheffler because he just finds a way
Speaker 2: to get it around. I mean, but at an Oakmont
Speaker 2: Rahm he's got some weapons and his short game is
Speaker 2: miraki and you're going to need to come up with
Speaker 2: a few redicular shots around the greens. You're just going
Speaker 2: to have to because and shots that not everybody has.
Speaker 2: Ram has those shots. Scheffler might not have to because
Speaker 2: he might just hit every green. But Ram has got
Speaker 2: that and it's called it an extra gear. He's got
Speaker 2: that flare, that sort of the incredible stuff around the
Speaker 2: greens that will come in handy at Oakmon. If it
Speaker 2: starts going a bit wrong, the patients will be tested
Speaker 2: though for Ram it's a patients testing course if it's
Speaker 2: if it's anything, you know, and I don't know if
Speaker 2: historically he's been a bit up and down on that respect.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask if outside of just like
Speaker 1: outside of a flusher, you know, just a pure great
Speaker 1: ball striker, what's the other skill set at that Oakmont
Speaker 1: can really reward? Is it the guy the short game.
Speaker 3: Short game and putting.
Speaker 2: I mean, clearly puttings are important because that's one of
Speaker 2: the hardest places to partner the world. But it's very
Speaker 2: dependent on where you're putting from. And it's more of
Speaker 2: a like you were talking about angles on twelve before,
Speaker 2: Like it's angles, it's where you miss it. Like you
Speaker 2: know you're going to miss some greens and maybe you're
Speaker 2: in a spot where you can't really hit it on
Speaker 2: the green. It's having the ball striking to miss it
Speaker 2: in a spot where you can get it up and down,
Speaker 2: because there's just spots that open you just can't get
Speaker 2: it up and down. You just can't. It's like Augusta.
Speaker 3: If you're in the wrong spot.
Speaker 2: You just can't. It's the whole package, Like everything is
Speaker 2: rewarded pretty like proportionately. I think the better you ball
Speaker 2: strike it, even though you're going to miss greens, you're
Speaker 2: going to miss it in spots where you can get
Speaker 2: it up and down, and you can have some pretty
Speaker 2: simple up and downs. But if you get off track
Speaker 2: a little bit, which you will over seventy two holes,
Speaker 2: you're going to get off track. You have to have
Speaker 2: a pretty crazy short game. You have to be good
Speaker 2: out of long rough and good out of bunkers around
Speaker 2: the greens, and all of those guys really are m
Speaker 2: might be the best of that group. I would say, you.
Speaker 1: Know, I think Bryson's probably the one.
Speaker 2: He's pretty crazy around the greens two these days with
Speaker 2: a thirty eight degree wage. I don't know how he
Speaker 2: does it, but a thirty eight inch long or whatever
Speaker 2: it is, seven one long sixty, I don't know how.
Speaker 2: I don't know how he does it, but he's amazing.
Speaker 1: He's gotten so good around the greens. It's, you know,
Speaker 1: the what's fending the irons have been the thing that
Speaker 1: has let him down in the last two Majors, and
Speaker 1: he's on I mean, he's on maybe the best run
Speaker 1: in Majors of all these guys. Obviously he missed the
Speaker 1: cut at the at the the Open last year, but
Speaker 1: he's finished in the top ten of every other one,
Speaker 1: like really in the mix in every other one. Him
Speaker 1: sneaky of all these guys, has the best course history too.
Speaker 1: He was he had a chance to win on Sunday
Speaker 1: at the last US Opening. I used under part going
Speaker 1: into the final round.
Speaker 2: So all right, yeah, I mean, look, I think if
Speaker 2: you can play Augusta, you can play this place. I
Speaker 2: think it's similar test around the greens and a similar
Speaker 2: sort of philosophy of like under the hole is premium
Speaker 2: and you've got to have flight control and move the
Speaker 2: ball both ways. And if he can do it there,
Speaker 2: which he clearly can. He hasn't won there, but he's
Speaker 2: clearly plays really well there, I think he can do
Speaker 2: it at Hope Pont he can. Also he has that
Speaker 2: advantage of how long he is. He can iron off
Speaker 2: some t's that other guys maybe can't, which I think
Speaker 2: is an advantage. I think that's where length is going
Speaker 2: to come in, where you can prioritize fairway with an
Speaker 2: iron or a three wood or something. And it's going
Speaker 2: to challenge his It's the scientist in him is going
Speaker 2: to be pretty intrigued because it's an amazing test and
Speaker 2: his analysis and plan because he loves coming up with
Speaker 2: a plan. Whatever plan he comes up with. It's going
Speaker 2: to be interesting to watch because it's it's a place
Speaker 2: where I don't know what sort of plan you would
Speaker 2: come up with, but he's gonna come up with one,
Speaker 2: and it would it'll it'll engage his interest level on
Speaker 2: that front, I think because it's such a unique test.
Speaker 1: He seemed enamorated with it in in his YouTube video
Speaker 1: he just put up, so you know, if you want
Speaker 1: to glean from from his YouTube content, he seems he
Speaker 1: seemed very into it, by the way, putting a nod
Speaker 1: on a more kwa good good record as you imagine,
Speaker 1: because he's very good at golf T four, T five
Speaker 1: and then T fourteen the last two years. So last
Speaker 1: four open opens no worse than fourteenth, which pretty uh
Speaker 1: pretty stout. There are a lot of you know, obviously
Speaker 1: we've seen this week at Canada we have three college
Speaker 1: kids that are are have their full PGA Tour cards
Speaker 1: making their first start. This is the first major of
Speaker 1: two of four that is actually open to you know,
Speaker 1: potentially some of the better players in the game that
Speaker 1: aren't professionals being in it. We've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: youth success, uh in the in the in the game
Speaker 1: of golf. Do you think we could get like because
Speaker 1: of the just general trends in in pro golf, a
Speaker 1: an amateur late or is Oakmont just not the place
Speaker 1: for it? An amateur winning late just contending?
Speaker 2: Eh, maybe. I mean they'd have to be really good.
Speaker 1: Like there's some good good like they got Jackson in.
Speaker 3: A like just the very pony end of good.
Speaker 1: So you got like Jackson Coven who has his card
Speaker 1: as a sophomore, has his card, is going back to
Speaker 1: school for a junior year, has AARA earned it. You've
Speaker 1: got Ben James, the Virginia kid that's that's competed, contended.
Speaker 1: I think in in a in a PGA Tour event
Speaker 1: or two. You've got some some very good amateur names.
Speaker 1: But we haven't had like anybody, you know, like I
Speaker 1: think a perfect example is Scotti shot I think sixty
Speaker 1: eight as a as an amateur in twenty sixteen and
Speaker 1: then kind of bombed out at Oakmand over the period
Speaker 1: of time.
Speaker 2: I think, look, physically, they clearly would have the skill.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no shot that oak One's going to
Speaker 2: ask that those kids can't hit. I just think there's
Speaker 2: an experience, if any course that we ever play in
Speaker 2: a major maybe outside of Augusta. But even so, even
Speaker 2: including that, that experience is like a fifteenth club. It's Oakmond,
Speaker 2: I would say. I mean, it's look at like you said,
Speaker 2: you the list of winners and Nicholas and Hogan and
Speaker 2: Jones and Miller and Ernie El's. I mean, these are
Speaker 2: pretty well seasoned, traveled around the world experience. Guys, You're
Speaker 2: just going to come across things at Oakmont that you
Speaker 2: haven't seen before. If you've only played college golf and
Speaker 2: a smattering of two events, you know, you just don't.
Speaker 2: I mean, you played there a few weeks ago. You
Speaker 2: just don't see stuff like that anywhere else. And I
Speaker 2: think the more golf you've got under your belt, the
Speaker 2: more chance you've got at Oakmont. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying they can't do it because they can hit all
Speaker 2: the shots. I mean they're so good these kids. There's
Speaker 2: no shot that they're going to be asked that they
Speaker 2: can't hit. But the experienced level of understanding that, right,
Speaker 2: as soon as you've hit your t shot in the RAF, right,
Speaker 2: I've made bogey. Now let's just make bogie, you know,
Speaker 2: not try to take on the shot. I know, I
Speaker 2: can hit, but take on, let's play this whole sensibly
Speaker 2: and like Bogey doesn't cust me with you as open
Speaker 2: here and all those little decisions that scottis Cheffler will
Speaker 2: be making and Xander will be making and Rory will
Speaker 2: be making. That's hard to do when you're twenty one
Speaker 2: twenty two years old. It's just hard to do because
Speaker 2: you think you can do everything, which is why they're
Speaker 2: so good. And I remember being like that. But I
Speaker 2: think Oakmont will reward experience, so it would be hard
Speaker 2: to see. But they're better now than we ever were
Speaker 2: at that age or anyone any era. We haven't seen
Speaker 2: the number of young kids be this good before, so maybe,
Speaker 2: but what's a tough place for it to happen?
Speaker 1: I think like it's one of the biggest things. Probably
Speaker 1: advantage of experience is the ability to get over stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: When you feel like you hit two good shots and
Speaker 1: you make a bogie or you three put you go
Speaker 1: to the next tee and like seemingly always it is
Speaker 1: like a bad t shot next. And that's where Oakmont
Speaker 1: just gets you more than anywhere else, is like you
Speaker 1: feel like you can't hit consecutive shots poorly, and what
Speaker 1: happens is often you have that like four whole stretch
Speaker 1: of bad golf, and at a course that doesn't punish
Speaker 1: bad that much, you might get through it even par
Speaker 1: or one over and be fine. But you can't afford
Speaker 1: to let things dwell there because that will lead you
Speaker 1: doubles and triples.
Speaker 2: You can't compound your errors here because it's just going
Speaker 2: to get worse. I mean the morning I when either
Speaker 2: the morning I woke up or I was going out
Speaker 2: to the golf course for Wingfoot for my last round.
Speaker 2: Judy Rankin, who's a family friend, put a little note
Speaker 2: in my locker or sent me a text or so.
Speaker 2: I can't remember how it was, but she said, everyone
Speaker 2: always opens the paper on Monday morning after the US
Speaker 2: Open is surprised at how high the winning score was,
Speaker 2: So just hang in there. You never know. And it
Speaker 2: turned out to be very prophetic because I thought I
Speaker 2: was gone with four holes to play, and I just
Speaker 2: part of the last four holes in one.
Speaker 3: That's a hard headspace.
Speaker 2: If you've never if you haven't played a bunch of
Speaker 2: US Opens to get like, if you're yeah, like you say,
Speaker 2: you have a bad couple of holes, and you're three
Speaker 2: over after five on Thursday. You kind of any other
Speaker 2: week that's a disaster. But I mean the guy who
Speaker 2: wins the tournament might very well be three over after
Speaker 2: five on Thursday, you know, and having that sort of
Speaker 2: experience level to realize that this is not that bad,
Speaker 2: you know, like I don't have to get these three
Speaker 2: shots back. Now, I've got sixty holes to get these
Speaker 2: sixty seventy holes to get these shots back.
Speaker 3: I can do this like.
Speaker 2: That. I don't think can be taught. That has to
Speaker 2: be learned, you know. I Mean we've seen some amazingly
Speaker 2: mature young kids along the way, but even Jordan had
Speaker 2: that the US Open that they're sorry the masters that
Speaker 2: first one was in contention and didn't win, and any
Speaker 2: won the next one. Like there's just experience to be
Speaker 2: had and lessons to be learned, and I think the
Speaker 2: US Open lessons can only be learned in US Opens.
Speaker 1: Rory Is I think he was talking recently about how
Speaker 1: he's like mentality shift to being a great US Open player,
Speaker 1: and he was talking about how it's so hard to
Speaker 1: get to the state, but like where he's gotten to
Speaker 1: is I'm playing seventy two holes and I'm playing every
Speaker 1: hole and I'm not worried about where i am, but
Speaker 1: I'm just playing. I'm playing the same through seventy two holes,
Speaker 1: like the idea of like I'm just going to keep
Speaker 1: trying and not like allow what's happening to disrupt, like
Speaker 1: my next shot in the seventy two hole sequence of
Speaker 1: me playing seventy two holes, like not thinking about like
Speaker 1: hole by hole like it's it's it's what makes golf
Speaker 1: such a challenging game. It's like that mental gymnastics of it.
Speaker 2: And you can't in the US Open, you cannot use
Speaker 2: your score as a barometer to how you're playing.
Speaker 3: You just can't.
Speaker 2: Like every other tournament, you get a pretty good feel
Speaker 2: after halfway through Thursday morning, all right, this is going
Speaker 2: to be four hundred day is gonna be good, sixty.
Speaker 3: Nine is gonna win the toll. You never know in years,
Speaker 3: you have no idea how you're playing.
Speaker 2: You can be playing well and be whyever power you
Speaker 2: can be playing it. It's it's it's an unusable sort
Speaker 2: of metric how you're scoring. You just have to that
Speaker 2: seventy two whole mindset that Rory says is exactly is
Speaker 2: the only way. You just hit every single shot on
Speaker 2: its merits. Every shot is so hard and there's a
Speaker 2: train wreck after every shot of you hit it poorly.
Speaker 2: It's just every shot of its merits, and make decisions
Speaker 2: based on I want to be at the lowest I
Speaker 2: can be on Sunday night. It's not about shooting a
Speaker 2: good score today. It's not about having a good score
Speaker 2: on this hole. It's about how do I get to
Speaker 2: Sunday night in a decent spot? And every decision has
Speaker 2: to be framed like that. And we never play like that.
Speaker 2: We play like just I want to have a good
Speaker 2: score on this hole. You know, it's a different way
Speaker 2: to think.
Speaker 1: Do you think golf would be easier if there were
Speaker 1: no scoreboards for players? Do you think the scores would
Speaker 1: go down?
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like we kind of hinted on that before,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think they'd go up or down.
Speaker 2: Do you think they would shoot thirty seven under par
Speaker 2: or whatever they do at Capellura if they didn't know
Speaker 2: everyone else was doing it? Or do you think they
Speaker 2: go lower because they know everyone else is doing it?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's an interesting that's an interesting question.
Speaker 1: I think for different people, it would be different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: results do you have any We've just talked about big names.
Speaker 1: Are there any other names that you particularly are might
Speaker 1: be keen on that type of player rising up?
Speaker 2: I mentioned JT. I think JT is playing well this year.
Speaker 2: I think he loves this occasion. I think he'd be
Speaker 2: very interesting, you know. I think what the Rasmus. I
Speaker 2: like Rasmus Hoyguard's game. I think he's long and he
Speaker 2: seems to have something special about Hi. Nikolai too obviously,
Speaker 2: but Rasmus is on a better run this year and
Speaker 2: he sort of got himself sort of in the on
Speaker 2: the fringes of the mix at kail Alo for a
Speaker 2: little bit there.
Speaker 1: Rasmus, how do you feel about Corey Conners?
Speaker 2: Look, I think Corey Connors will have a good week.
Speaker 2: I mean, he has a lot of good weeks. If
Speaker 2: he has a weakness, and I'm sure he'd be happy
Speaker 2: to admit this too, would be his putting.
Speaker 3: And I think Oakmont, You're.
Speaker 2: Gonna have to be really brave to hold a lot
Speaker 2: of pots at Oakmont because they why outside the whole
Speaker 2: pots and how we saw him on the weekend of
Speaker 2: the Masters, He's going to have to improve on that
Speaker 2: performance on the grains at least. But he's he's certainly
Speaker 2: got the ball striking chops.
Speaker 1: That's what I just think he could just be around
Speaker 1: because like when you think about I, he's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the way Scotty drives the ball is where
Speaker 1: it's not flashy, but the accuracy is at such a
Speaker 1: high level with enough distance, and Scotty's pretty plus distance,
Speaker 1: you know, He's. Scotty's like a souped up Corey Connor's
Speaker 1: with with with a better short game and better better putting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but like Corey Connor's like kind of machine
Speaker 1: like te degree you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he's going to bull struck it.
Speaker 2: I mean he hits it so well and that's sort
Speaker 2: of one hundred and fifty to two hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: yard sort of id on through four and I mean
Speaker 2: he's as good as anyone, you know, Corey, and he
Speaker 2: does it every week, you know, so you'd think.
Speaker 3: He's going to be in the mix. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I loved his I'd love.
Speaker 2: To see Corey.
Speaker 3: He's a he's a great guy and.
Speaker 2: Presence of our team. Yeah, like.
Speaker 1: You should just pick all Presidents, International Presidence.
Speaker 2: International Presidence Cup players. Look, I mean Sung Jay at
Speaker 2: some point surely is going to get there in the
Speaker 2: mix at the end of one of these things. He's
Speaker 2: talk about machines, I mean he is. He's been a
Speaker 2: little bit off for his standard, but he's so good,
Speaker 2: Sung Jim. It's incredible. He has every shot, there's nothing
Speaker 2: he's missing.
Speaker 1: I've floated this crazy theory. I'm curious your your thoughts
Speaker 1: on this. Uh. One of my colleagues ask me why
Speaker 1: I think that Patrick Cantley hasn't played well at major
Speaker 1: championships and I this was just off the top. I
Speaker 1: just got me thinking. I was curious. He's so efficient
Speaker 1: with his golf swing where he doesn't have a high
Speaker 1: end swing speed, but he produces like very great distance results.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's a thing where when when the
Speaker 1: rough just gets a little bit ticked up, that the speed,
Speaker 1: this lack of speed hurts him hitting shots out of
Speaker 1: the rough And that's just the marginal difference.
Speaker 2: You don't have rough in every major, maybe specifically to
Speaker 2: US Open. You would think he's like he's been built
Speaker 2: in a lab to play US Open. You would Patrick Kenley,
Speaker 2: you would the US Open player. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe he tries too hard, Like it's
Speaker 2: a very big it's a very regular thing that we
Speaker 2: we I say we now, but like golfers can try
Speaker 2: too hard in these things, you know, or you know,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, the swing coaches out and like
Speaker 2: you're trying different things, and you're practicing differently, and you're
Speaker 2: preparing differently, and you're playing more, you know, your whole
Speaker 2: families in town, and I don't I don't know. He's
Speaker 2: an enigma. Like I couldn't come up with a reason.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's a lack of speed thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: Salatoris doesn't have the speed that probably doesn't have the
Speaker 2: rough ability that the big guys do, and he was
Speaker 2: producing it in the majors, like you said, not injured,
Speaker 2: you would think he's one of the favorites. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't think. So he's got enough speed,
Speaker 2: is it fair enough?
Speaker 1: One of the one of the other things I love
Speaker 1: about the group that we just talked about, the big names,
Speaker 1: is there you don't see like swing coaches lingering around
Speaker 1: a ton, you know, like they're pretty self reliant players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that would be my h I think that's
Speaker 2: a better way to approach it. I mean, at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, you have to hit the shots,
Speaker 2: and golf fundamentally isn't a game that you can teach someone.
Speaker 2: It's a game that the player has to learn themselves, right.
Speaker 2: Coaches are just great at like helping players learn. I
Speaker 2: never loved having a coach there at a at a major,
Speaker 2: like great, maybe a month before if you want to
Speaker 2: have a few things, but like you can come to
Speaker 2: the Major and stand on the range, but don't tell
Speaker 2: me anything, which is clearly what Randy does, you know, And.
Speaker 1: They only work it seems like they only work on
Speaker 1: like three things. Just set up, set.
Speaker 2: Up, swing play, Yeah, whatever it is, alignment or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's just aim further right or whatever it was. I
Speaker 2: think that's especially in the big tournaments.
Speaker 3: You've got to.
Speaker 2: You've got a sort of dance with the girl that
Speaker 2: you brought with you. You can't find it on the range
Speaker 2: on Wednesday afternoon at the US Open, you know. I
Speaker 2: mean maybe like maybe it's like happened, but really your
Speaker 2: game is at the level that it's at, or it's
Speaker 2: in the state that it's in, and it's always it's
Speaker 2: an up and down situation. Just work out how to
Speaker 2: get the best score out of what you bring to
Speaker 2: the tournament. And I don't think that's a coach thing.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes that's just a you thing, you know.
Speaker 2: So I like how that the gurus are less prevalent.
Speaker 2: It's quite a probably a lesson for the guys who
Speaker 2: are down further downalys struggling to break into this group.
Speaker 2: If they've always got their coach there at a major,
Speaker 2: like well, doing a lot of stuff. Maybe the best
Speaker 2: players aren't doing that. Maybe you should look at it.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's almost like the final thing to
Speaker 1: unlock is like you work with someone to get to
Speaker 1: that top level, and then at the top level it
Speaker 1: becomes about your ability because that's when things are going
Speaker 1: sideways on the golf course. The only way you're getting
Speaker 1: out of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, you can't probably do it without
Speaker 2: help along the way. You know, you need wisdom and teaching.
Speaker 2: It's just the week of a major is it should
Speaker 2: be done. That's not the week for it, you know.
Speaker 2: And ultimately it's about adjusting along the way golf, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just every shot is different forever. Like I mean,
Speaker 2: like you make a swing off the first it feels
Speaker 2: a little bit funny. You can't just like go over
Speaker 2: to the ropes and say, hey, what did I do there?
Speaker 2: What should I do on the next one. You've got
Speaker 2: to kind of work out how to get the next
Speaker 2: one going where you want it to go on the
Speaker 2: next one go. It's a never ending work in progress.
Speaker 2: And I think when you're doing that yourself, you learn
Speaker 2: your swing better, You'll know your little fixes. You know
Speaker 2: you how to do it. I mean Jack used to
Speaker 2: talk about, hey, what do he went and getting to
Speaker 2: sew Jack grout like in January, like once or twice
Speaker 2: a year, and that was it, Like I'll see you
Speaker 2: in twelve months. You know that is probably the model.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I mean he's see somebody long enough.
Speaker 1: You're just working on the same things too, over and
Speaker 1: over again.
Speaker 3: You have to know your own game.
Speaker 2: You have to know how to fix your game on
Speaker 2: the fly because any given day you're going to wake
Speaker 2: up and it's going to feel different. You've got to
Speaker 2: know how to fix.
Speaker 3: It for you, you know, which is probably hard for someone
Speaker 3: else to do.
Speaker 1: All right, who's are you taking? Scartia I assume.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that's the boring answer, but I
Speaker 2: have to. I think, like, how do you not take him?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he's a hyper competitive He's not
Speaker 2: a list like.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's a lifetime list guy, like goal list.
Speaker 2: Like a Tiger. But he's such a hyper competitive guy.
Speaker 2: He just wants to win so bad. And I think
Speaker 2: Rory winning the Career Grand Slam probably added a little
Speaker 2: bit of fuel to that. You know, like, I know
Speaker 2: I'm actually the guy, So I think he's on a
Speaker 2: I think he's on a run of motivation and competitiveness
Speaker 2: at the moment, and it's gonna be hard to go
Speaker 2: past him.
Speaker 1: Where would you put if you were gonna put career majors?
Speaker 1: What do you think is like if you just threw
Speaker 1: a number out for suffer?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's he got? Three?
Speaker 1: He's got three?
Speaker 2: Seven? Like something always happens, right Like at the moment
Speaker 2: he would think he's going to win seventeen, but like
Speaker 2: there's always something that happens. You know, we didn't have
Speaker 2: like they're hard to win, you know, and look at Rory.
Speaker 2: When Rory a decade ago, it was like this guy's
Speaker 2: gonna win twelve. You know, seven, I think he's. I
Speaker 2: think he's and seven is would be like in the
Speaker 2: elite of the elite of the elite. You know, that's
Speaker 2: an unbelievable amount of majors and this day and age, the.
Speaker 1: That Sunday turnaround, because I think like that career just
Speaker 1: like he's now like still like scar tissue free. If
Speaker 1: that Sunday he hadn't won, I think, like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's like real damage that can do mentally. But the
Speaker 1: fact that he played so bad and then just one
Speaker 1: by like skating down the last three holes like stress free,
Speaker 1: I think that almost helped him. It's like the complete
Speaker 1: It's crazy, like how that tournament goes opposite ways. It
Speaker 1: could have like a a completely different such a different
Speaker 1: impact on where his career trajectory goes. That's the thing
Speaker 1: that to me, you know it it's like one of
Speaker 1: those like sometimes like you it's like a couple of
Speaker 1: good breaks and and nobody and then John Rahm just
Speaker 1: like that lipout being lipout and not making birdie on
Speaker 1: the next two holes. It's like that's the difference in
Speaker 1: him having like a heartbreak loss and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden it's now like, oh, like could he do?
Speaker 1: He got away with like very poor plane won a
Speaker 1: major by a lot of shots.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know where do you have him?
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it's just hot.
Speaker 1: I mean I think the appropriate over under his six
Speaker 1: and a half. I saw that there was a line
Speaker 1: that was like nine point five. I think it was
Speaker 1: no laying up called fan duel, and they said it
Speaker 1: would be nine point five, which I think is like
Speaker 1: crazy because, like you said, stuff happens.
Speaker 2: I think that happens, and other golfers come along, like yes,
Speaker 2: look at Jordan. I mean he was winning him for fun.
Speaker 2: You know, Rory was winning him for fun at the start,
Speaker 2: Like life happens. You know, he's had a kid. Now
Speaker 2: he might have.
Speaker 3: More like school drop offs.
Speaker 2: Maybe doesn't it ball, I don't know, like just life
Speaker 2: just comes along, you know, and then you Luke Clinton's
Speaker 2: and all these sort of kids come along and they
Speaker 2: might even be better again, you know, like the level
Speaker 2: keeps going up. I mean, who would have thought Greg Norman.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're going way out of the thing. But
Speaker 2: Greg nominal only won too. I mean, if Bob Twy
Speaker 2: had to hold that bunker shot, Larry Miies having to
Speaker 2: hold that chip shot nor than one of one ten.
Speaker 2: You know, things happen.
Speaker 1: You know, that's it's it's very very rare for a
Speaker 1: player to sustain like elite elite player play for more
Speaker 1: than ten years and he still.
Speaker 2: Has to do it against Bryce and Rory, Xander Marikaua,
Speaker 2: like he still has to beat these guys, and these
Speaker 2: guys that group's only going to get better, you know,
Speaker 2: not specifically those names, but the five, six, seven, eight,
Speaker 2: the top ten in the world, the level they're going
Speaker 2: to play is just going to get better and better
Speaker 2: and better. So it's going to be harder and harder
Speaker 2: to keep winning them.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated to see if we could get you know,
Speaker 1: Xander had two majors last year, which I mean like
Speaker 1: winning multiple majors in the years is the crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's a separator of like all
Speaker 1: time greats is like they usually get to a couple
Speaker 1: of years of two majors, you know, like three Big
Speaker 1: Tiger had four or five years of two majors. You know,
Speaker 1: Rory obviously had one, Speith had one, Like will Scheffler
Speaker 1: get a is this the year he gets two majors
Speaker 1: in a year, and because when you start doing the
Speaker 1: multiples of years, that's how you go up really quick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to pick one off per year because then
Speaker 1: you have years where you know, you got a bad
Speaker 1: bounce here, or you know, somebody gets hot and finishes
Speaker 1: with three birdies there, and you know, so I'm taking
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna take Bryson.
Speaker 3: Defending her.
Speaker 1: I just I didn't even think about that. It probably
Speaker 1: makes it harder. But uh, he's been rattling around so
Speaker 1: much people will say, oh, he's not getting it done.
Speaker 1: Does he have a closing I saw somebody ask if
Speaker 1: he has a closing tournament problem? Well, like people, you
Speaker 1: you make up that storyline because somebody's available and has
Speaker 1: an opportunity to win a lot, and I do. I
Speaker 1: think this golf course fits him really well in terms
Speaker 1: of like if he's if he hits in the rough,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I would put him and Rory
Speaker 1: is probably the two best rough players in the world,
Speaker 1: just because of how far up they're playing from and
Speaker 1: their sheer speed, and uh, yeah, I think it. The
Speaker 1: guy's built to play really well everywhere, I feel like
Speaker 1: except for the Open right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be a challenge. Yeah, I mean I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a pretty good goal. Rom's got to get an honorable.
Speaker 1: Mention though, I think, yeah, I think I'm saving Rom
Speaker 1: for the Open. I'm doing my I'm I one and done.
Speaker 1: I got to stick with my You know, I can
Speaker 1: only pick somebody one time, so you know, I'm interested
Speaker 1: to see what Rory does the most. I think he's
Speaker 1: the most intriguing player because obviously Quail Hollow was such
Speaker 1: a disappointing finish and it's like, you know, can he
Speaker 1: get back up there because him and Scottie or you know,
Speaker 1: they're both having like sensational years and it's you know,
Speaker 1: there's half the Major year left to determine who was
Speaker 1: the best player this year.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you got that, you got the hangover
Speaker 2: out of the way, if you like. The next Major
Speaker 2: was always going to be on the one or the
Speaker 2: other for Rory one after Augusta. So maybe you got
Speaker 2: it out of the way. Maybe he's free now, you know,
Speaker 2: expectations are go on, everyone's talking about someone else.
Speaker 1: You know, thank you for coming on and chatting about this.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being a part of that US Open video.
Speaker 1: You were great in that. Uh and Uh, congrats. We
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about well, have to talk President's Cup
Speaker 1: another time. Congrats on your appointment than you. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very invested in the Chicago President's Cup as a
Speaker 1: Chicagoan and uh, I'm excited to uh for that tournament
Speaker 1: and glad that you're going to be running the show.
Speaker 1: And of course you, uh, you helped renovating and I
Speaker 1: think brought back a lot of the uh. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a championship course that Chicago is going
Speaker 1: to be very proud of. So I'm excited about that tournament.
Speaker 2: Well, you just have to rally all your international fans
Speaker 2: and get more to go out of the tournament.
Speaker 1: I got I should I should have wore my my internet,
Speaker 1: I got the international gear.
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm an international team guy.
Speaker 3: You'll be in trouble in your town. But like we
Speaker 3: lock it.
Speaker 1: Well. You know, the last time I was at Medina
Speaker 1: for a team competition, I was I was watching the
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup, which you know, at the time I was
Speaker 1: I was an American fan through and through, and you know,
Speaker 1: since I've kind of I've departed my American roots in
Speaker 1: in the golf space. So I'm more of an international
Speaker 1: and European team.
Speaker 3: If you need any more gear, just ask.
Speaker 1: Some more geary. You know, I like busting it out
Speaker 1: every once in a while. I think I wore I
Speaker 1: wore one of my hoodies with with the Davis Love.
Speaker 1: He was disappointed to see that if this was a
Speaker 1: president it was just a stock President's cup now that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of that, but uh, but yeah, we'll be Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll be in touch. And thanks so much for for covenant.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, thank you for.
Speaker 1: Listening to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Big
Speaker 1: thanks to p J Clark for editing and producing. If
Speaker 1: you haven't yet, check out our our pro shop. We
Speaker 1: cooked up some really neat merch We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of limited edition Oakmont themed merchandise, really creative
Speaker 1: T shirts and hats. I would go check that out
Speaker 1: at proshop dot Thefridagg dot com. As a reminder, if
Speaker 1: you're a Fridagg Golf Club member, you do get a discount,
Speaker 1: just check your email you'll have a discount code in there.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everybody for listening. We'll look forward to breaking
Speaker 1: down the US Open with Trevor Immelman on Monday or
Speaker 1: Tuesday after they'll be out midweek next week, so hopefully
Speaker 1: we got a great tournament. Can't wait. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the pod.