Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 2: A Friday Egg, Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida
Speaker 2: Egg Egg, Friday Bride Egg, Lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 2: run off of the hump.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast.
Speaker 3: I am Andy Johnson and I am back from Augusta.
Speaker 3: What a week? What a I mean, it's always a whirlwind.
Speaker 3: You get to Augusta and we get you know, we
Speaker 3: got in on Saturday, Saturday night, and then before you
Speaker 3: know it, it's like Saturday night the next week and
Speaker 3: you're you're looking at the final round right down the barrel.
Speaker 3: So what a win from skyt Scheffler. Unbelievable performance and
Speaker 3: really quite the run that he's been on. It's I mean,
Speaker 3: it's just been amazing. So I had Shane Bacon. Shane
Speaker 3: was working doing Future Groups coverage for Masters, and it
Speaker 3: was fun to just kind of we didn't talk a
Speaker 3: lot during the week. It's funny, you know, you got
Speaker 3: all your media friends there, and Shane's a good friend
Speaker 3: of mine, and you know, we We see each other
Speaker 3: in passing, but we don't really talk about what's going on.
Speaker 3: So it was fun to fun to chat with Shane
Speaker 3: and kind of unload each of our notebooks and stuff
Speaker 3: we wanted to get off our chests from this year's Masters.
Speaker 3: So before we get to Shane, today's podcast is brought
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Speaker 3: dot com. That's Bushnell Golf dot com. All right, I'm
Speaker 3: here with Shane Bak and Shane was on the featured
Speaker 3: groups calls this week. Great job with thanks, Thanks, you
Speaker 3: know a lot of fun. I miss covering the Masters
Speaker 3: from home a little bit because I miss out on
Speaker 3: all like the Master's coverage because I'm kind of running
Speaker 3: around and I'm not really connected to it that much.
Speaker 3: I'll like occasionally I'll sit inside for like half of
Speaker 3: day and and I'll get to, you know, watch and
Speaker 3: listen to it, but you know, a lot of days
Speaker 3: I'm out, so I didn't. I didn't hear a lot
Speaker 3: of your work. I heard a lot of your work
Speaker 3: was great though.
Speaker 2: Oh that that's that's nice. Who told you that was that?
Speaker 2: Like like friends of friends or did I text you.
Speaker 1: That it was great?
Speaker 3: Like three three three of your friends? It was an
Speaker 3: anonymous group chat chat. I got that. I didn't even
Speaker 3: have their numbers on my phone. They texted me Shane
Speaker 3: was really great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I passed.
Speaker 2: By the way, case your wondering, I always send your
Speaker 2: number of people anytime they were like any course recommendations,
Speaker 2: I'm like, text Andy.
Speaker 1: He loves giving those out. So I'm always just passing
Speaker 1: your number to people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's that's who told me that you were perfect?
Speaker 2: By the way, I know, I consumed a lot of
Speaker 2: your podcasts this past week, and I've read a lot
Speaker 2: of your stuff and I thought it was great. So
Speaker 2: that's actually that's a first person compliment right there.
Speaker 3: Well, I will say there's like I've imagined with boothe
Speaker 3: and working with people you've worked with Colton Kratz Hurt
Speaker 3: a couple of years now running I'm imagining that you
Speaker 3: get better every year.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, I mean I think uh, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the main things about covering the Masters that's
Speaker 2: different than covering ever of the golf tournament is constantly
Speaker 2: remind yourself that people are there to watch the golf
Speaker 2: course first, i'd say, is probably the most likely thing,
Speaker 2: and second is the golf tournament. And so we try
Speaker 2: as best we can to be minimalist in terms of
Speaker 2: the broadcast, and Kratz is the best at it, i'd
Speaker 2: say in the group. I mean, Kratz is so good
Speaker 2: at interjecting when he's got an amazing point to be made.
Speaker 2: Colton I can be a little sillier at times, I mean,
Speaker 2: as silly as you're going to be doing the Masters,
Speaker 2: but I feel like, yeah, I mean, I think this
Speaker 2: is our third or fourth year as a team doing it,
Speaker 2: and you know, we kind of jump in those seats
Speaker 2: in rock and roll.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean, it's the best week of
Speaker 1: the year. I mean, it really is.
Speaker 2: I Like, it's hard for me not to call the
Speaker 2: Open my favorite major championship just from my kind of
Speaker 2: roots across the pond, if you will, like growing up
Speaker 2: and caddy and things like that. But in terms of
Speaker 2: the most fun work week of the year, I think
Speaker 2: the Masters is easily number one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think. I think there's times where you
Speaker 3: can be really excited about a course on one of
Speaker 3: the other major championships because they rotate. Like this morning,
Speaker 3: the news that Kiowa got another PGA came out and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I'm really excited because last time
Speaker 3: Kia was awesome. It was awesome to cover. It was
Speaker 3: an awesome tournament, like one of the most memorable majors
Speaker 3: of the last ten years. And for my job, it
Speaker 3: was awesome to cover because like I was just at
Speaker 3: Kiwa Resort, could go home, I ride ride a bike
Speaker 3: to the golf course and be back and it was
Speaker 3: just like the life. Yeah life. So from that that standpoint,
Speaker 3: you know, there are majors in like last year's LACC.
Speaker 3: I was probably more excited for LACC last year than
Speaker 3: I was for the Masters, just because it was something
Speaker 3: that we don't get all the time. So I think
Speaker 3: that's kind of the push and pull. But especially this
Speaker 3: year with the weather, I mean, the the golf course
Speaker 3: was just we haven't seen it, we haven't seen it
Speaker 3: like that forever. I can't even recall going back when
Speaker 3: the last time we had really like four solid days
Speaker 3: of you know, Thursday was a little soft because of
Speaker 3: the rain, but I mean it dried out so quick
Speaker 3: with the wind.
Speaker 2: So you know, I was thinking about this during the
Speaker 2: week last week, Andy, to your point about Augusta Nastional.
Speaker 2: And I got a little out out of Brendan's article
Speaker 2: about this as well, when he obviously got a chance
Speaker 2: to play it, and then he wrote a great piece.
Speaker 1: If you haven't read it, by the way, absolutely go
Speaker 1: check that out. It was awesome.
Speaker 3: But we all know.
Speaker 2: And when I say we, I mean golf fans, right,
Speaker 2: diehard golf fans know Augusta National, and we learn more
Speaker 2: and more about it every single year. And when I'm
Speaker 2: calling the golf, I've never played Augusta National. I mean
Speaker 2: I've never been between the ropes, right, I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know what it's like to play the golf course
Speaker 2: and experience certain golf shots. But I know on every
Speaker 2: single hole where a guy's in trouble and if a
Speaker 2: guy's in a good spot. And I'd say that's pretty
Speaker 2: much across the board for anybody that's a golf fan
Speaker 2: that pays any amount of close attention to golf courses.
Speaker 2: I'd say people listening to this podcast probably understand, like
Speaker 2: you see a t shot with the tracer headed left
Speaker 2: on eight, and you know that guy's in trouble instantaneously.
Speaker 2: And I can't think of another golf course where you
Speaker 2: know right away if the person has a shot or
Speaker 2: does it. I was thinking thirteen. You'd see the second
Speaker 2: shots on thirteen, especially Friday and Saturday. You'd see those
Speaker 2: second shots creep over the back of thirteen in that
Speaker 2: little swale and you know, again without having played the
Speaker 2: golf course and having no real course knowledge, you know
Speaker 2: how hard that golf shot is. And there's no other
Speaker 2: course on the planet like that where people truly know
Speaker 2: the goods and the bads of where players can hit shots.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what makes it so cool is
Speaker 2: you almost have personal roots to it, even though almost
Speaker 2: everybody's never played it.
Speaker 3: I think you know you hit on something here, just
Speaker 3: overarching it. Just so people have the premise of the episode,
Speaker 3: We're just.
Speaker 1: We're dead beats right now, just so you know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 3: The premise of the episode is we're just gonna unload
Speaker 3: thoughts on the Masters. I was planning to write something,
Speaker 3: and I was writing it on my flight back. It
Speaker 3: was a late night flight back, and I was literally
Speaker 3: just like nodding off while I was writing. At one
Speaker 3: point my head hit the monitor of my commuter because
Speaker 3: I had fallen asleep. And it just seems like this
Speaker 3: is better served for the podcast. So so this is
Speaker 3: the ideas we're gonna kind of unload some thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: But what you were saying about the course, Like, I
Speaker 3: do want to point out pro golf, male pro golf especially,
Speaker 3: and I think women's pro golf is the same way. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: they don't play. They play like a handful of courses
Speaker 3: where there are good and bad spots every weekend, week out.
Speaker 3: You know, at TPC sod Farms, TPC Minnesota, it really
Speaker 3: doesn't matter if they hit it on the right side
Speaker 3: or the left side of the fairway or the rough, like,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter. And I think that's one of the
Speaker 3: big problems with professional golf and with the PGA Tours events,
Speaker 3: like they don't have a ton of an identity. They
Speaker 3: go back to the same place, but it's you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of them just aren't great golf courses. And
Speaker 3: one of the reasons that this has happened is like
Speaker 3: pro golf has outgrown a lot of the great golf
Speaker 3: courses in America. And I think, you know, one of
Speaker 3: the things I in the lead up, I in the
Speaker 3: lead up of the of the Masters, I looked at
Speaker 3: the work on six and I think Augustin National is
Speaker 3: in a really weird spot in terms of identity. I
Speaker 3: think Joel Beale hit on this in his article Great
Speaker 3: Golf Digest article last year. You know what what is
Speaker 3: Augusta National? Is it a great club? Is it a
Speaker 3: club or is it a tournament host?
Speaker 1: You know it?
Speaker 3: Does it run and host the biggest golf tournament in
Speaker 3: the world. And when you think about it through the
Speaker 3: lens of that, the golf course through the lens of that,
Speaker 3: I think they've been doing a lot of work and
Speaker 3: they're probably the only ones with the means to do
Speaker 3: this to keep their golf course relevant. And we saw
Speaker 3: it on full display this week. Like I have a
Speaker 3: hard time believing that there was a better test of
Speaker 3: golf in the world than what we saw this week.
Speaker 3: Like I couldn't you just looked at the golf course,
Speaker 3: you watched the shots that you had to hit and like.
Speaker 3: As the tournament went on, the leaderboard just separated more
Speaker 3: and more, and it was very, very clear who the
Speaker 3: best players in the world were at that time, who
Speaker 3: had all the shots, who had all the tools to
Speaker 3: play because it was demanding everything of everyone. And you
Speaker 3: look at that leaderboard and you go through the top
Speaker 3: ten and it's like every one of those guys in
Speaker 3: the top ten is a stud. Those were the only
Speaker 3: guys that could handle this golf course this week. And
Speaker 3: sure there were some great players who didn't have their
Speaker 3: best stuff and that got snuffed out. And at a
Speaker 3: lot of places that doesn't happen. But August is in
Speaker 3: this weird spot where if you were you know, I
Speaker 3: look at the work that they've been doing and you know,
Speaker 3: it's like some of it the six holes, the big
Speaker 3: one of the big things they did this year, or
Speaker 3: the second te I don't love the work, right, I
Speaker 3: don't love the idea of the work. If I'm looking
Speaker 3: at it through the lens of were great club, you're
Speaker 3: now you have an Alistair McKenzie course, and some of
Speaker 3: this work takes it further away from being an Alistair
Speaker 3: McKenzie course. And if you're looking at it through a
Speaker 3: club standpoint, I don't like the work now if you're
Speaker 3: looking at it through a tournament venue standpoint, like moving
Speaker 3: the tea back on two made a big difference in two.
Speaker 3: Adding that little like back runoff that dips down on
Speaker 3: six made that shot on six more difficult and there's
Speaker 3: more consequence to you when you missed. Is that change
Speaker 3: on six in the spirit of what Alisair McKenzie wanted
Speaker 3: and Bobby Jones wanted, No, like they don't want to
Speaker 3: have like a little shelf in these sharp edges. They
Speaker 3: were very it was very artistic, and that sharp edge
Speaker 3: is very anti mackenzie. But if you're looking at it
Speaker 3: through the lenses of a tournament venue and demanding the
Speaker 3: best out of the pro golfers, you know, maybe that
Speaker 3: change was good. So I think it's just like I
Speaker 3: kind of leave. I really believe, you know, more so
Speaker 3: than maybe in years past that listen, this is this
Speaker 3: is a this is a tournament venue and a golf
Speaker 3: tournament organization that operates as a club fifty three weeks
Speaker 3: of the year. But like the main reason for it
Speaker 3: is this tournament. And when you look at the changes
Speaker 3: through that lens, it does make a difference. I will
Speaker 3: say one parting thing. I the changes are one thing.
Speaker 3: The work is sloppy, and I don't think it's great
Speaker 3: work that they're been doing, Like from the technical, artful
Speaker 3: nature of the work, it could be done much better.
Speaker 3: And I would say that's my one big critique.
Speaker 2: Well, expand on that a little bit, because when you
Speaker 2: say it's sloppy, is that going back to what you
Speaker 2: said about the Alis McKenzie proto like layout if you
Speaker 2: will initially is that your point on the on either
Speaker 2: quote unquote sloppiness.
Speaker 3: I just think when you look at the this is
Speaker 3: stuff that a lot of people won't care about. Like
Speaker 3: the changes are the changes, and I understand that, but
Speaker 3: it's just like shoddy construction work. You know, there are
Speaker 3: they're just the way that the stuff ties in. There's
Speaker 3: ways that they could tie it into the landscape a
Speaker 3: little bit better. The way they are utilizing drains, the
Speaker 3: way you know, just the way the edges and everything
Speaker 3: flows together. It just it doesn't look great. I would
Speaker 3: compare it to like, you know, you could get a
Speaker 3: plus work on your house or you could go with
Speaker 3: a cheaper option. And if to me it feels and
Speaker 3: I'm not saying they're spending less money. In fact, I
Speaker 3: bet they're spending more money, but they're just getting less
Speaker 3: quality work than is out there with other options. So
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about a couple of things
Speaker 2: because I think the last two years you talked about
Speaker 2: changes to the golf course, and I think the big
Speaker 2: changes to the golf course over the last three years
Speaker 2: have been thirteen and fifteen. And I've seen a couple
Speaker 2: of articles and podcasts that have talked about how these
Speaker 2: changes have now made the second night on Sunday less exciting.
Speaker 2: And my pushback to that, Andy, and I wanted your
Speaker 2: thoughts on this. The guy that won, the guy that
Speaker 2: won the Masters the best player in the world by
Speaker 2: an enormous gap. And I'm going to get into that
Speaker 2: gap in a little bit because it's a point I
Speaker 2: want to throw your way. That guy hit thirteen and
Speaker 2: fifteen and two on Sunday when he went on to win,
Speaker 2: that guy easily hit thirteen and fifteen and two. And
Speaker 2: so if you're pushing those teas back to make it
Speaker 2: more challenging to hit those shots, the second shots into
Speaker 2: those par fives, not only does it make it obviously
Speaker 2: harder to hit the second shot in because you're hit
Speaker 2: more club. But it makes those tea shots more demanding.
Speaker 2: And I know you've been on this on the shotguns.
Speaker 2: Start about Max hitting three wood on thirteen. You have
Speaker 2: to stand on that team and hit a really good
Speaker 2: t shot and it's got to move a little bit
Speaker 2: right to left. Probably less than people think on thirteen,
Speaker 2: but it does need to move a little bit if
Speaker 2: you're a long hitter, and Scotty is an extremely long hitter.
Speaker 2: It's something Colin Moricowa talked a lot about playing alongside
Speaker 2: the guy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He easily hit it on the green in thirteen and
Speaker 2: fifteen easily. I mean, you know it's not like it
Speaker 2: wasn't he didn't need to do it, but he did
Speaker 2: it because it takes the serious trouble and the big
Speaker 2: numbers out of play. And so for people out there
Speaker 2: that say we've lost some of the roars because of
Speaker 2: the distance added to thirteen and fifteen, my only pushback
Speaker 2: at that is the dude that wins the golf tournament,
Speaker 2: the best golfer on the planet, the guy that's been
Speaker 2: on this crazy run over the last twenty five months,
Speaker 2: took on those par fives and pulled the golf shots off,
Speaker 2: and so that's more to me. The dude's chasing the
Speaker 2: guys that want to win the Masters that haven't won
Speaker 2: it yet, Colin Moricow and Max Homa and Ludvig who's
Speaker 2: playing in his first Masters. The guys that were closed
Speaker 2: didn't hit those golf shots that the holes are asking
Speaker 2: in modern times. And if you want to see the
Speaker 2: guys be able to hit mediocre T shots and hit
Speaker 2: seven irons in, then so you have more eagle putts,
Speaker 2: that's your distinction on the golf tournament. But to me,
Speaker 2: what we're seeing in the modern times with these second
Speaker 2: nine par fives forces the guys to hit awesome T
Speaker 2: shots and awesome second shots, and the best player in
Speaker 2: the world is pulling those shots off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you don't hit an awesome T shot,
Speaker 3: say you hit a good a mediocre T shot, then
Speaker 3: it just raises the bar on the next shot you
Speaker 3: have to hit if you'd want to get home in two, right,
Speaker 3: which I saw with what about Tiger when he pulled
Speaker 3: lumber was on Friday.
Speaker 2: On fifteen on Friday, when nobody was getting there, everybody
Speaker 2: was laid up. This dude's forty eight years old, and
Speaker 2: I know he still got speed, but he took on
Speaker 2: that golf shot. He probably had a good number, but
Speaker 2: he took on the shot and hit an awesome shot there.
Speaker 2: And again, this is what these holes have asked of
Speaker 2: past generations. You and I have talked a lot about
Speaker 2: eighty five with Curtis Strange over the years, when he
Speaker 2: had hit three wood into both those part fives and
Speaker 2: didn't pull the shots off. But he had to hit
Speaker 2: three wood, and that's a really hard shot with three
Speaker 2: but it's not that hard of a shot with an
Speaker 2: eight iron.
Speaker 3: I think we're in a little bit of an adjustment period.
Speaker 3: You know, These these changes happen and the holes change
Speaker 3: a little bit. And what we've gone from is, you know,
Speaker 3: we used to we used to be like what a shot?
Speaker 3: What an eagle? Then we moved to all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: everybody's hitting these shots. Everybody's got eagle putts, and it's
Speaker 3: like a little bit like it take away the specialness
Speaker 3: of getting home into and now we're restoring some of that.
Speaker 3: But there is like a trailing aspect of like, wait,
Speaker 3: what about all these eagles? You know, I, for one,
Speaker 3: like I was lucky to be in the grand stands
Speaker 3: when Shuffler made his eagle on thirteen. I'll tell you what,
Speaker 3: on Saturday, that was a massive moment. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to forget about that, with the way the ball just
Speaker 3: kind of like crawled up and in over the front
Speaker 3: edge of the cup. Like I'll I never forget that.
Speaker 3: The roar, the roar from people because this was like
Speaker 3: this monumental eagle. After it looked like he was kind
Speaker 3: of playing himself out of the tournament, he makes this
Speaker 3: eagle and then I think he burned fifteen as well,
Speaker 3: maybe one other hole coming in and it's like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, like this guy like as soon as you
Speaker 3: think he's out, he's back in and I think you
Speaker 3: look at Scheffler overall like ParvE. I think one of
Speaker 3: the things I took away this year is just how
Speaker 3: important it is to pick a part of the par fives.
Speaker 3: Scheffler played him nine hunder. Everybody since Sergio Garcia's played
Speaker 3: them at least eight under par. The golf course and
Speaker 3: the way they've been able to modernize it has the
Speaker 3: par three's in the par fours are just so difficult.
Speaker 3: They are they just wear on you like, there aren't
Speaker 3: many easy birdies out there. The par fives are where
Speaker 3: you have to get them, and I think par fives
Speaker 3: par five performance is just generally, especially with elite players,
Speaker 3: like a really good barometer of how where they're where
Speaker 3: players are at in their game because you have to
Speaker 3: hit good t shots to score on par fives. You're
Speaker 3: then hitting long second shots into par five. So if
Speaker 3: you're hitting great long irons, you're gonna have easy two putts, right,
Speaker 3: But if you're just a little off, then it becomes
Speaker 3: like how good is your short game. You're gonna have
Speaker 3: to get up and down to make a lot of
Speaker 3: birdies on par fives. It's just a really good, I think,
Speaker 3: all encompassing stat of like where your game is that
Speaker 3: and augusta where you have four reachable scorable par fives,
Speaker 3: it is the ultimate barometer. I would love if there
Speaker 3: was like a side by side leaderboard par five leader board,
Speaker 3: because I bet they would look so so so similar.
Speaker 2: Well, and you brought up the eagle from Scotty on Saturday,
Speaker 2: and how monumental it was because we hadn't seen a
Speaker 2: lot of eagles on these holes. I don't think it
Speaker 2: was the only eagle on thirteen.
Speaker 1: For the day. The basically what we've replaced.
Speaker 2: With the added distance on those par fives on the
Speaker 2: second nine is you've got to play the whole f
Speaker 2: in great to make an eagle, like you have to
Speaker 2: hit three unbelievable golf shots, but you've got to play
Speaker 2: it really well to make a birdie. And I think that,
Speaker 2: to me is the big difference, because one of the
Speaker 2: things I always felt of the Masters was when we
Speaker 2: had those guys going out early, like when Rory did
Speaker 2: it a couple two or three years ago, and Speed
Speaker 2: did it a few years ago when he messed up
Speaker 2: eighteen and shot whatever sixty four. You'd get those guys
Speaker 2: out early trying to post a number, and in the
Speaker 2: back of your head, as much fun as it was
Speaker 2: to watch it, in the back of your head you thought, well,
Speaker 2: the leaders still got to play thirteen and fifteen, and
Speaker 2: they're gonna make birdies on those holes. And nowadays they're
Speaker 2: not assumed birdies. You know. We saw it with Max
Speaker 2: on Sunday, where you get to thirteen and fifteen and
Speaker 2: if you lay up, you have to did an awesome
Speaker 2: wet shot to make birdie, and those wet shots. We
Speaker 2: weren't awesome. They were fine, and you don't make birdies.
Speaker 2: And what I like about it is eagles are incredible,
Speaker 2: but birdies are also really good. And I think that's
Speaker 2: been something I've enjoyed in terms of the length, restoring
Speaker 2: that feeling where if you make a birdie on thirteen,
Speaker 2: you play that hole awesome and you didn't have to
Speaker 2: hit an eight iron to the middle of green or
Speaker 2: a seven iron to the middle green and two putt.
Speaker 3: It feels like they've just made those two holes. They've
Speaker 3: kind of shifted and I'm going to say for thirteen,
Speaker 3: it had turned into a par four point twenty five, okay,
Speaker 3: And I feel like what they've done now is shifted
Speaker 3: it back to what they really wanted to be, a
Speaker 3: par four and a half. Like that's what that's why
Speaker 3: it's this great hole. It's a talent like you, you
Speaker 3: feel frustrated if you don't make a four, but it's
Speaker 3: still very hard to make a four. And then fifteen
Speaker 3: it feels like it had shifted to like maybe a
Speaker 3: four point five, and now it's back to like a
Speaker 3: four point seventy five. Right Like fifteen, especially they got
Speaker 3: that west wind a couple of days when that thing's
Speaker 3: barreling into the into your face. I don't that's about
Speaker 3: as hard of a part part five as you could get,
Speaker 3: because you know that great when you're hitting a wedge
Speaker 3: in the green's so shallow and you got the wind
Speaker 3: in front in your face, it's so easy, like you know,
Speaker 3: the first half of the green, you're just not hitting
Speaker 3: anything on this shallow ass green. You're not hitting anything
Speaker 3: that lands on the front half because you know that's
Speaker 3: gonna spin off into the water. So it just gives
Speaker 3: you this back part. I remember what, I can't remember
Speaker 3: which wedge it might have been. Right out of the
Speaker 3: out of the gates on Friday morning, Tiger hit a
Speaker 3: wedge and and he hit it to like the back edge,
Speaker 3: and it was howling in it was cold. He hit
Speaker 3: it to like the back edge, and he looked so
Speaker 3: content with where it ended up, like he was so
Speaker 3: content missing the green with a wedge, And I thought
Speaker 3: that was like that hole is just everything you could
Speaker 3: want when it's into a strong win well.
Speaker 2: And I mean, you know everybody's talked about it Andy
Speaker 2: for so long about fifteen is you know, if you
Speaker 2: lay up it's one of the hardest wedges in pro golf.
Speaker 2: And I think what we've seen with the additions at
Speaker 2: fifteen and thirteen is you're seeing so many more players
Speaker 2: have to hit one of the hardest shots in golf,
Speaker 2: and that should be fun for viewers. It should be
Speaker 2: fun for fans watching is seeing the best in the
Speaker 2: world have to manipulate an eighty yard shot. They've got
Speaker 2: to land on a you know, six by six square
Speaker 2: to be able to make a birdie. Like that's the
Speaker 2: great stuff about this golf course. And it's like Adeki's
Speaker 2: shot at fifteen and he won felt like an outlier
Speaker 2: at the time. Now it feels like a bit out
Speaker 2: we see more often. So I just those that was
Speaker 2: something I wanted to bring up to you was I
Speaker 2: thought there was some people that were not disgusted, but
Speaker 2: frustrated by the fact that we don't see as many
Speaker 2: eagle roars and cheers and things like that. And to me,
Speaker 2: it's just simply been replaced by a birdie cheer and
Speaker 2: if you do make an eagle, that's incredible. And I
Speaker 2: will give you another thing I love about this golf course, Ady,
Speaker 2: because when you're doing feature groups, obviously you're starting everybody
Speaker 2: out on one. One of my favorite things about Augusta National,
Speaker 2: my favorite parts of covering this golf tournament is the
Speaker 2: first holes. One of the hardest first holes in golf.
Speaker 2: Played a little easier this year. You saw little you
Speaker 2: saw a little bit more action there. But what I
Speaker 2: love about it, Andy, I know you've played a lot
Speaker 2: of tournament golf, is having scorable holes early in the
Speaker 2: round is such a mental hurdle. And I love the
Speaker 2: fact that you get through one and have literally the
Speaker 2: two most scorable holes you're likely to get to play
Speaker 2: for the week.
Speaker 1: Especially this year.
Speaker 2: Two was very easy and three was relatively easy depending
Speaker 2: on the whole location, right, But you feel like you
Speaker 2: absolutely have to start out four four three or five
Speaker 2: four three or four four four or something like that,
Speaker 2: because you know how difficult four through seven is. And
Speaker 2: I just think that's so cool to throw the curveball
Speaker 2: at those players right out of the gate. Or you know,
Speaker 2: I'm settling in the round. I just played the first hole,
Speaker 2: which is really hard, but I've got to be one
Speaker 2: under through three or it's probably gonna be a rough
Speaker 2: first nine. That's such a fun part of Augusta National.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you think about if you flip the part,
Speaker 3: flip the nines, where you'd hit the scorable stretch on
Speaker 3: the back nine. If that the back nine, the second
Speaker 3: nine became the first nine, you'd hit the scorable stretch.
Speaker 3: It's your fourth hole that would be thirteen. That's such
Speaker 3: a more comfortable place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, into it even if you're one over, you know,
Speaker 2: at least say ten, because that was the way you
Speaker 2: used to play, right, Andy was initially designed where ten
Speaker 2: was the first hole.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like ten, eleven, twelve. If you if I get
Speaker 3: through there are one or two over, I'm okay. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you're fine, like best fine. I averted the disaster I
Speaker 3: from there. If you change like the dynamic, it's like
Speaker 3: it's like getting that first three holes, that's kind of
Speaker 3: getting out of the blocks right right. You could get
Speaker 3: slow out of the blocks with those three holes and
Speaker 3: be just fine. You can't. You don't feel like you
Speaker 3: could be slow out of the blocks there with one, two,
Speaker 3: and three as it exists today, correct, because you're you
Speaker 3: get through with three and if if you're over part
Speaker 3: you're like, oh.
Speaker 1: No, I got no chance. You've got no chance.
Speaker 2: I mean four, five, six, and seven, and you mentioned
Speaker 2: six plans so tough this year, it was firm. Those
Speaker 2: whole locations are so hard to get.
Speaker 3: To three three back hole locations.
Speaker 2: Like that is that is such a stretch of golf,
Speaker 2: And like I was a member at Phoenix Counch Club
Speaker 2: and I used to live in Arizona, and I the
Speaker 2: first holes the easiest hole on the golf course. It's
Speaker 2: like five twenty par five away, which would be if
Speaker 2: it was in the middle of your round. You're kind
Speaker 2: of riding down Bertie. Right, I'll make Bertie. It's not
Speaker 2: a big deal, but the fact that it's the first hole.
Speaker 2: When you don't make Bertie on one or eagle at
Speaker 2: one and you get to two and three, you feel
Speaker 2: like you left a shot out there to start your day.
Speaker 2: And I just think since golf is such a middle game,
Speaker 2: it's such a cool underrated part of Augusta National is
Speaker 2: the way the first three holes can either jump start
Speaker 2: your round or can almost ruin your round as you
Speaker 2: get set for the hardest stretch of the golf course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a great assessment observation of a
Speaker 3: gust step. All right, let's take a quick break and
Speaker 3: talk about another partner of ours, ors An Alps. It
Speaker 3: it was refreshing in Augusta National to see the sun
Speaker 3: as often as we did it. It was very warm
Speaker 3: on the weekend. It was very sunny all week I
Speaker 3: mean it was that type of day, clouds for like
Speaker 3: three straight days, which was awesome for watching golf. You
Speaker 3: could see the ball, you know what.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: One thing, though, with all that sun that I had
Speaker 3: to worry about was my skin and protecting it. So
Speaker 3: skin cancer rates have risen fifty five percent among men
Speaker 3: for the past decade, and the way I protected against
Speaker 3: that was with Oars and Alps. They make an awesome
Speaker 3: easy sunscreen. I've got a couple of different sizes. Brendan
Speaker 3: brought the small size to the golf course and my
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Speaker 3: fourteen percent of men wear skin is sunscreen daily. This
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Speaker 2: And can I throw something at you here? I wanted
Speaker 2: to throw this at you and get your thoughts on it.
Speaker 2: I think you're probably going to disagree, which is fine
Speaker 2: with me. But I was thinking about Scotty and the
Speaker 2: comps that we've had over the last you know, three months,
Speaker 2: and really over the last year and a half two years.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about the guys that you and I
Speaker 2: would list and name as the other superstars in golf.
Speaker 2: And I think if you and I were going to
Speaker 2: do this right now, you'd mentioned Rory, and you'd mentioned Brooks,
Speaker 2: and you mentioned maybe you'd mentioned JT more of DJ
Speaker 2: that group, right, all of those players, I would say,
Speaker 2: are in either the second or third phases of their career, you.
Speaker 3: Know, you know, I mean maybe Mori cow is not
Speaker 3: it might be in the last.
Speaker 1: It's fine.
Speaker 2: DJ's DJ's on on seventeen, Like, I think, he's just
Speaker 2: good to be whatever.
Speaker 3: He's He's on his boat, he's on his boat.
Speaker 2: He's he's minds, his mind's fishing, and his body's swinging right, Like,
Speaker 2: that's where we're at with this guy. But I was
Speaker 2: thinking about the gap from Scotty to the next best
Speaker 2: peer of his. When I say peer, I mean guy
Speaker 2: in his realm, right, So that's not Rory, that's not Brooks,
Speaker 2: that's not Jordan, that's not justin it's gonna be more.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's more Kawa. And the gap from Scotty to
Speaker 2: the next best person currently in professional golf feels like
Speaker 2: a bigger gap than Tiger to anybody of his era
Speaker 2: when he was in his prime. And I think a
Speaker 2: lot of that is the players that were in Tiger's era.
Speaker 2: VJ wins nine times in Tigers. What about what about Ram?
Speaker 3: I think Ram, you could throw in the in the
Speaker 3: bucket of contemporary.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's fine, And maybe maybe Rom is the Maybe
Speaker 2: Ram is the guy, and Ram is similar age to
Speaker 2: him and his career is similar. But I was wondering
Speaker 2: your thoughts on the gap from Scotty to the next
Speaker 2: best guy currently. I'm talking about right now twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: mid April Postmasters headed into the rest of major season.
Speaker 2: The gap between Scotty and the next best player versus
Speaker 2: at any point in Tiger's career and the next best player,
Speaker 2: and that next best player was three names right. At
Speaker 2: one point, it was VJ, at one point, it was
Speaker 2: already at one point it was Phil right. But I'm
Speaker 2: just wondering, is that a crazy thing to say?
Speaker 3: I think right now I need a little bit more
Speaker 3: time because at this time last year, at the at
Speaker 3: the end of the FedEx Cup last year, we were
Speaker 3: operating in a world, in a world where Rom and
Speaker 3: Scheffler were equals, and Rom goes to live. Scheffler takes
Speaker 3: off this year, and I need I need a little
Speaker 3: bit bigger sample size to get there. That being said,
Speaker 3: if John Rom finishes twenty fifth in every major to
Speaker 3: the rest of the year and and Scheffler wins two
Speaker 3: and contends in another one, I'd probably be getting close
Speaker 3: to that. I mean, now he's got three wins of
Speaker 3: the year. What's what are you what do you think
Speaker 3: for Scheffler over under?
Speaker 1: On?
Speaker 3: Like if I said five and a half wins on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, I mean, nobody's winning five wins on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour now, is like crazy, Yeah, it's like
Speaker 3: the especially because you know, like Scheffler doesn't play many
Speaker 3: fields that are weak, if.
Speaker 2: At all, I mean he plays Houston, He'll play probably
Speaker 2: like one of the events, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, one
Speaker 2: of those events. I think that's dude, I think that's
Speaker 2: an amazing over under. I was thinking five as you
Speaker 2: were talking, feels like five wins is where he should
Speaker 2: be at by the end of this year if he
Speaker 2: continues to play even close to what he's been playing.
Speaker 2: I mean I I think that he played his B
Speaker 2: minus to C plus game in Houston and almost one right. Again,
Speaker 2: not the biggest field the world, but you know, Tiger
Speaker 2: beat not great fields in his area at times. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I would say he probed for me to really exclamation
Speaker 2: mark this point of mine. He's probably got to win
Speaker 2: five times at another major this year is probably the
Speaker 2: feeling i'd sit in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like to exclamation point at if he
Speaker 3: if he gets to something like seven wins this year,
Speaker 3: which I don't think is crazy. I don't think it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's crazy.
Speaker 3: But it's so many, it's so many.
Speaker 1: It's more, it's more than double what he's won at
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 3: Six seven wins. If he gets to something like that,
Speaker 3: I'm really on board with the like this is there's
Speaker 3: there's this huge gap. I think, like the other aspect
Speaker 3: of this is he's doing it in an era that's
Speaker 3: extraordinarily hard to separate yourself. The way that equipment is,
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's great for recreational golfers. It's great
Speaker 3: for people that want to get better the game. I
Speaker 3: think for professional golf, it's like Muddy the water, Like
Speaker 3: he's a great driver of the golf ball and a
Speaker 3: great long iron player. He rarely hits long irons on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, Like I think one of the things
Speaker 3: about Augusta was he was hitting long irons, and that's
Speaker 3: only going to separate his advantage. It's going to make
Speaker 3: the advantage bigger.
Speaker 2: So you feel like if the NBA was like, you
Speaker 2: know what, Steph shooting two many threes, let's make the
Speaker 2: line longer, and you'd be like, well, yeah, that helps
Speaker 2: Steph curry that thing.
Speaker 1: To anybody else?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think like, if we're talking about Scotty here,
Speaker 3: one of my big takeaways from the week is Scotty
Speaker 3: Scheffler's just processed. And I think it's it's so simple
Speaker 3: and and golf it's all these counter counterintuitive things. But
Speaker 3: when I think about Scotty Scheffler's process, the way he prepares,
Speaker 3: the way he treats his range sessions, it makes so
Speaker 3: much sense and it's so simple, and it's like, well,
Speaker 3: why doesn't everybody do this? So this was from his
Speaker 3: pre tournament press conference. I think Luke Kurdnien asked this question.
Speaker 3: When you're on the range using that molded grip and
Speaker 3: got your practice station sort of all set up, I'm
Speaker 3: wondering what exactly are you doing there and why is
Speaker 3: that such an important part of your kind of pre
Speaker 3: tournament prep. Here, Scotty really just checking my fundamentals. I
Speaker 3: feel like when my swing gets off, it's usually something
Speaker 3: very basic about what I'm doing. And so I have
Speaker 3: my grip club because I'm checking my grip. I have
Speaker 3: my alignment sticks down because I want my alignment to
Speaker 3: be good, and then and then also helps me with
Speaker 3: my ball position. Then usually Randy or Teddy is back
Speaker 3: there making sure I'm taking the club back online, and
Speaker 3: I'm just working on my form and hitting shots. Is
Speaker 3: pretty much my normal practice. That's exactly how I practice
Speaker 3: at home. So when I come to a tournament, it
Speaker 3: just makes it just is more of the same. So
Speaker 3: he then goes on to talk about like he doesn't
Speaker 3: have a lot of structure. He just wants to make
Speaker 3: sure he feels right, Like he doesn't spend more than
Speaker 3: an hour out there, and he doesn't make any rash decisions.
Speaker 3: Really right. So I have long contended a belief of
Speaker 3: mine is that if you simply like the hardest thing
Speaker 3: in golf, the actual hardest aspect of playing high level
Speaker 3: golf is consistently setting up to the golf ball correctly.
Speaker 3: This is like the most underrated hard thing to do
Speaker 3: in golf. Everybody talks about like swing playing all these things.
Speaker 3: Guess what if you set up well all the time,
Speaker 3: there's very little like that can go wrong. And I
Speaker 3: think like everybody's missing this boat, like the boat of
Speaker 3: like what Scotty's doing in terms of like you know,
Speaker 3: these tour pros, they have their track man's out. It's
Speaker 3: like this, like don't worry about setting up all your numbers,
Speaker 3: you know, And all Scotty's doing is like, hey, am
Speaker 3: I gripping the club right? Is my alignment? Good? Is
Speaker 3: the ball position good? Is my takeaway good? And if
Speaker 3: all those things are good, it is extraordinarily hard to
Speaker 3: hit a bad shot for a player of their calb,
Speaker 3: of a tour pros caliber. And I just like, maybe
Speaker 3: golf instructions gotten too too complicated, because this makes so
Speaker 3: much sense to me. I just like couldn't stop thinking
Speaker 3: about it once, he said this because it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: like if you take away like my setup's gonna vary,
Speaker 3: like I think this is in you. You probably could attell,
Speaker 3: like do you I find like why I play bad?
Speaker 3: Because I play so sporadically as like, oh, like I
Speaker 3: spent all day. I was aimed like ten yards left
Speaker 3: all day and I didn't know it, you know, And
Speaker 3: that's why I was hitting like poles and blocks, you know,
Speaker 3: because I was trying to like fade it back or
Speaker 3: I was you know, my body knew I was in
Speaker 3: a bad spot. But if you're in set up right,
Speaker 3: it's almost impossible to hit a bad shot.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's what I battled the most, Andy, I
Speaker 2: mean literally, the thing I battled the most is simply alignment.
Speaker 2: When I'm not playing a lot of golf, to your point,
Speaker 2: I'm almost always closed. I see a video myself and
Speaker 2: I'm saying, oh, well, of course I hit it bad.
Speaker 2: My feet are aimed, you know at ten o'clock, you know,
Speaker 2: as a lefty, I mean, I can't do that. It
Speaker 2: It's funny, you know. You you saying all of that
Speaker 2: about Scotty. All I could think about is you were
Speaker 2: saying that Andy was how many things we've talked about,
Speaker 2: and you guys have podcasted about this year of his
Speaker 2: contemporaries that if change caddies and change swing coaches and
Speaker 2: gone through this and gone through that. Guys like Victor
Speaker 2: Havin and Colin Moorekawa and even Rory at times who
Speaker 2: have kind of they're they're they're dabbling with this person
Speaker 2: and they're asking questions here, which I don't think there's
Speaker 2: anything wrong with that, But when you're looking at the
Speaker 2: guy that's the most consistent player in the world and
Speaker 2: the best player in the world, all of those things
Speaker 2: are stable. The instructor's stable, his caddie's stable. What he's
Speaker 2: trying to work on is stable. He's not trying to
Speaker 2: go find all these answers that he doesn't need, all
Speaker 2: these answers of questions that he doesn't need to ask himself,
Speaker 2: because he knows if X, Y and Z work, then
Speaker 2: my golf swing swing's gonna work. And I just mentioned
Speaker 2: Steph Curry. I don't I hate to go back to
Speaker 2: him again, but I remember Steph was on this SmartLess
Speaker 2: podcast a few months ago and one of the guys
Speaker 2: asked him a question, like a very simple question about shooting, said,
Speaker 2: you know, like, how do you make how do you
Speaker 2: shoot as well as you shoot? And he said, I've
Speaker 2: gotten to a point in my career where if my
Speaker 2: feed are set and I'm in balance, I feel like
Speaker 2: I'm going to make a three now again. Steph Curry
Speaker 2: never looks like he's in balance. It never looks like
Speaker 2: his feet are set right, he's coming off screens, he's
Speaker 2: shooting crazy shots. But to him, if you if you
Speaker 2: break it down to balance, Steph Curry feels like if
Speaker 2: he's in balance, he's gonna make a three pointer. And
Speaker 2: for Scottie Scheffler, he feels like, if my hands are
Speaker 2: on the club the right way and my feet are
Speaker 2: set up the way I want to set him up,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make a great golf swing. Like it's simplifying
Speaker 2: the complicated, which is what pro golfers are almost going
Speaker 2: against right now.
Speaker 3: Think about think about how easy it is for your
Speaker 3: grip for your left hand to maybe shift a centimeter
Speaker 3: one way, and how massive of an impact that has
Speaker 3: on everything that goes into the swing and face position
Speaker 3: of a club. I mean, it's crazy to me, like,
Speaker 3: as I think about my own golf game, why don't
Speaker 3: I use a grip club.
Speaker 1: I agree with you.
Speaker 3: Like that's like, since since like Sunday, that's all I've
Speaker 3: been thinking about, is like why don't I Just like
Speaker 3: I could spend ten minutes just setting up to a
Speaker 3: golf ball and not even hitting a golf ball, and
Speaker 3: I would be better for it. Like it is so
Speaker 3: insanely simple that it makes a ton of sense. I
Speaker 3: had a friend of mine texted me, He's like, isn't
Speaker 3: the comp And it's John and Zechowitz. I want to
Speaker 3: give him credit here, very smart guy, worked worked in basketball,
Speaker 3: now now does very high level financial things. But John
Speaker 3: John texted me on Sunday and he's like, isn't the
Speaker 3: comp for Scottie Tim Duncan the big fundamental Like he's boring,
Speaker 3: doesn't like give you a lot and and interviews? I
Speaker 3: think Boring's like I think he's he's fairly fairly interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say he's not exciting to really
Speaker 3: super exciting to watch. He doesn't jump off the off
Speaker 3: the page on impressed conferences, But damn is he good
Speaker 3: at everything? And he doesn't make mistakes.
Speaker 1: That's the best.
Speaker 2: That's the comp is is like a Duncan type mixed
Speaker 2: with Tiger as a golfer because to me, he plays
Speaker 2: golf like Tiger used to play golf. And I think
Speaker 2: that's probably the biggest compliment you can give anybody in
Speaker 2: this sport, is he's so smart, he's so dialed. He
Speaker 2: can hit his numbers, he can hit his spots, and
Speaker 2: that's what Tiger was so good at. And I do
Speaker 2: want to throw something else at you about Scotty because
Speaker 2: I was thinking about the gap that I mentioned to you,
Speaker 2: and I was watching on Sunday and I was thinking,
Speaker 2: is Ludvig the guy that we're gonna see? Because the
Speaker 2: biggest bummer about Rom going to live for golf fans
Speaker 2: was last year we kind of had Scotty versus Rom,
Speaker 2: especially early in the season, and we lost that. This year,
Speaker 2: we're gonna get him into Majors, which is the golf
Speaker 2: tournaments that matter, obviously, but I think the build up
Speaker 2: at other events helps the Majors storylines and leading into
Speaker 2: the week and you can go, you know, we had
Speaker 2: Scotty and Rahm go at it at riv and go
Speaker 2: at it here and at Bayhil YadA YadA, right, and
Speaker 2: we lost that. I wonder if Ludvig's the guy that
Speaker 2: Scotty's going to battle with over the next five years,
Speaker 2: because it sure seems like talent length maturity. I mean,
Speaker 2: his ability to just act like he's forty when he's
Speaker 2: twenty four is incredible, and how he doesn't get.
Speaker 3: Up in down his dispositions in golf is really unbelievable
Speaker 3: for such a young player.
Speaker 2: But Andy, don't you feel like they have similar dispositions.
Speaker 2: Don't you feel like when you watch Scotty you see
Speaker 2: a lot of Ludvig in them where it's just like,
Speaker 2: all right, man, if I hit it over there, I'll
Speaker 2: just go find it.
Speaker 3: Try to make par I think the other thing is
Speaker 3: just the golf swing. I mean, it's so simple. I
Speaker 3: just don't I don't see how it can go really
Speaker 3: wrong ever, right right, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: So I've been thinking we we've lost Rom and Scottie.
Speaker 2: Like golf is a golf major championship golf is the
Speaker 2: only bummer about major championship golf is we only get
Speaker 2: it four times a year. And when you look back
Speaker 2: over the history of golf, as many duel in the
Speaker 2: suns as we got and as many Tiger Phil pair
Speaker 2: together on Saturday and Sunday at the Masters, as we
Speaker 2: got more often than not, we never got those right,
Speaker 2: Like we don't get the matchups in professional golf. And
Speaker 2: this is what the signature events were supposed to be.
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, I think the signature events have fallen a
Speaker 2: bit flat after year one. Right, It just they're just
Speaker 2: not necessarily working. So we need.
Speaker 3: Harbortown this week.
Speaker 2: It's it's no knock to Harbor Town, it's no knock
Speaker 2: to anything. It's just simply put, you can't have an
Speaker 2: NFC championship game and expect people to care the week
Speaker 2: after the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: You know the home you know what this is.
Speaker 1: You know what it is.
Speaker 3: It's the Pro Bowl. We just we just played the
Speaker 3: Super Bowl, and it's like, oh, we got this Pro Bowl.
Speaker 2: But if you expected the players to play full out,
Speaker 2: all out of the Pro Bowl, you know, versus it
Speaker 2: being the silly event, That's what I'm saying is it's
Speaker 2: almost like going back to the NFC Championship game the
Speaker 2: week after the Super Bowl, right where you go, like,
Speaker 2: could you imagine asking Patrick Mahomes to go play the
Speaker 2: best football of his life four days after the super Bowl.
Speaker 2: That's not a real realistic thing to throw somebody's way.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're going to change, is I really hope so?
Speaker 2: Because having a vent after the majors anyway is a
Speaker 2: bit silly, but having a signature event seems crazy. That's
Speaker 2: neither here nor there. My point is we are we
Speaker 2: will be lucky if we get Scheffler versus Ram one
Speaker 2: out of eight majors over the next three years. We'll
Speaker 2: be lucky if we get that. But if we get
Speaker 2: Scheffler Ludwig, and then we get Ludwig Ram and then
Speaker 2: we get Scheffler Rom, like, that's there's potential for that,
Speaker 2: And I feel like there's an opportunity for us to
Speaker 2: create a little bit back and forth with Luddig because
Speaker 2: he's on the PGA tour versus Rom not being there anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean listen, like when the Chips Chips were
Speaker 3: down on Sunday, to me, you know, of the chasers,
Speaker 3: Mark Kaala and Max were No. I don't think like
Speaker 3: exposed is the right word, but I think they they were.
Speaker 3: It was kind of clear that they were in a
Speaker 3: little bit different situation than uh, Ludwig and Scottie, and
Speaker 3: I thought Ludwig was like I wasn't sure about Like
Speaker 3: I thought his approach play was a little bit you
Speaker 3: know of a worry coming in. His short game hasn't
Speaker 3: been the best, but I'll tell you what, Like when
Speaker 3: you watch him hit the golf shots, the like I
Speaker 3: came away like wow, Like there's this is a guy
Speaker 3: that's young, that could be in the same mold, like
Speaker 3: Scheffler has no holes. Like short putting is like the
Speaker 3: one thing that you can be like you know what,
Speaker 3: it's not great. Everything else is just like well, he
Speaker 3: could be the best at that, like one of the things,
Speaker 3: like Scheffler is not gonna lead strokes gained off the tee.
Speaker 3: He's but from a sense of I don't I don't
Speaker 3: know if any big hitter that has a better fairway
Speaker 3: finder than Scheffler, Like if you tell me, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I need a guy that to hit it three hundre
Speaker 3: in the fairway like Scotty's mic, Like he tees the
Speaker 3: ball down and he hits that little bleed cut and
Speaker 3: it's just like okay. And then when you pair that
Speaker 3: with his iron play, it's it's unstoppable. It's it's impossible
Speaker 3: because that stuff shows up week in, week out. Ludwig
Speaker 3: feels similar where you could get to a point where
Speaker 3: it's like because like the short game stuff, this is
Speaker 3: his technique, Like that's easy, super easy to get better
Speaker 3: at short game. I think like you could get to
Speaker 3: above average with just technique. I think Scotty's generational with
Speaker 3: short game because it's like what he grew up doing.
Speaker 3: And there's that famous stuff with like the Royal Oaks
Speaker 3: that was you know, the pros were out there and
Speaker 3: you know short game was the only place he could
Speaker 3: beat him. You know, like that's the stuff like the
Speaker 3: generational short game players, whether it's Sevy or whether it's
Speaker 3: Phil or whether it's it's you know, now Scotty and
Speaker 3: like cam Smith to me is another one that like
Speaker 3: I love watching him, like they just have something that
Speaker 3: even great technical short game players don't have. And it's
Speaker 3: this thing that like imagination mixed with perfect technique. But
Speaker 3: I could see Ludwig getting to a level of golf
Speaker 3: where he is really sounded everything and great, Like you
Speaker 3: know when you look at Ludwig versus Scotty off the tee,
Speaker 3: like that's where Ludwig can really do some things that
Speaker 3: Scotty can't do you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, you mentioned the I think this.
Speaker 2: I think this is worthy to mensh out to mention
Speaker 2: because we talk so much about Scotty and now we're
Speaker 2: talking a lot about Scotty, and that's followed by Tiger.
Speaker 2: Is Tiger wasn't a great driver of the golf ball.
Speaker 2: A lot of distance at his day, but he wasn't
Speaker 2: a great driver of the golf ball. He hit it
Speaker 2: wayward even in his prime. Jack wasn't a great chipper
Speaker 2: of the golf ball, right, I mean, there were slight
Speaker 2: holes in the greats games. And so for Scotty's hole
Speaker 2: to be five feet and in or whatever the case
Speaker 2: may be, whatever you want to call it. Everybody that's
Speaker 2: been great has had a little bit of a hole
Speaker 2: in something, right, So this isn't this isn't different for Scotty.
Speaker 1: That is un Yeah, exactly exactly. So I mean, I
Speaker 1: just I just.
Speaker 2: Wanted to point that out. And I think you're you're
Speaker 2: spot on the chipping, the pitch in the sand play.
Speaker 2: The shots that he can hit with his wedges are
Speaker 2: absolutely next level. Now my next point I wanted to
Speaker 2: throw at you, Andy, I don't and I'm not this
Speaker 2: isn't red meat for you, dude. I'm not doing this
Speaker 2: to get you riled up or to make you jump
Speaker 2: on a perch that you've sat on for a while.
Speaker 2: Is it realistic to say that the speech JT Era
Speaker 2: is we're past it? Is that realistic to say?
Speaker 3: It's a great question. I I think when you think
Speaker 3: about stars, you have to think about their windows, and
Speaker 3: I think, like, to me, the question is, is the
Speaker 3: really really great players are ten year windows generally?
Speaker 1: Right, You've been on this forever and it's great. I
Speaker 1: love when you do this.
Speaker 3: By the way, tigers like ten years to the to
Speaker 3: the t like ninety seven to two thousand and six,
Speaker 3: just like, and it's it's a different career after that.
Speaker 3: You know, Phil is an outlier where he's kind of
Speaker 3: spanned out, Nick Faldough. If you look at it ten years,
Speaker 3: then there's other guys like David Duval five years.
Speaker 1: So those guys are the good.
Speaker 2: Those are the good, not great, right, Those are the
Speaker 2: guys that were very good but maybe not generationally great.
Speaker 2: I mean, David Vall won one major championship one of players,
Speaker 2: but again not not to the level of the guys
Speaker 2: you mentioned.
Speaker 3: So you just I think like looking at it through
Speaker 3: the context of years, and it's very rare. It's extraordinarily
Speaker 3: rare to get a twenty year star like Phil like
Speaker 3: is trending towards like Rory is is trending towards somebody
Speaker 3: that seems like he's going to be effectively a top
Speaker 3: fifteen player in the world for twenty straight years. That
Speaker 3: is extremely rare. So if you think about it through
Speaker 3: that context, like JT and Speith have had five great
Speaker 3: years and in Speed's stamp for Speed, like when was
Speaker 3: his last great year? Twenty eighteen, it's a long time ago.
Speaker 3: See that's six years ago, and you think about it,
Speaker 3: it's like, okay, like he had five great years and
Speaker 3: now we're at ten years. We're almost at I think
Speaker 3: about ten years of Jordan Speith and it's okay, Like
Speaker 3: if he's not the same player, I think like the
Speaker 3: game has changed a lot that off the tee, like
Speaker 3: the game has changed tremendously since Speed came, but also
Speaker 3: like the fabric of Speed. One thing I've been thinking
Speaker 3: about a ton is just like how golfer's mindsets change
Speaker 3: when they're twenty one versus when they're thirty one, Right,
Speaker 3: just the idea of like who you are. When I
Speaker 3: noticed this, like I was on a hike in Sedona,
Speaker 3: and I was just like I was kind of nervous
Speaker 3: about like where I was and the heights, and I
Speaker 3: was a kid that was like scared of nothing. But
Speaker 3: it was just like this idea and it kind of
Speaker 3: like clicked with me. As like you get older in things,
Speaker 3: things change in your mind, the way you approach life,
Speaker 3: the way you think about life, the way you think
Speaker 3: about golf. Some people get better, some people get worse.
Speaker 3: But I think with regards to a lot of the
Speaker 3: players that are aging, that are in aging, I mean
Speaker 3: like at this point is like they're into their thirties,
Speaker 3: the relationship that themselves have with golf has changed significantly,
Speaker 3: And I think that that is a piece that's immeasurable
Speaker 3: in terms of there's no analytics, there's no strokes gain number,
Speaker 3: but like the what they're thinking about when they're standing
Speaker 3: over a shot, or what they used to never think
Speaker 3: about and now they do think about that, that has
Speaker 3: definitely changed for all these guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like with those two guys, I was
Speaker 2: thinking about Jordan and Justin because we talk about them
Speaker 2: at every major in some capacity. Right, we talk about
Speaker 2: Jordan the most and then we talk about Justin as well.
Speaker 2: Is they have to play absolutely perfect golf these days
Speaker 2: to win golf tournaments, and I'd say they almost have
Speaker 2: to play beyond perfect golf to win a major championship.
Speaker 1: I mean JT.
Speaker 2: Listen, he played great at the PGA Championship. Be one,
Speaker 2: not taking any away from he shot sixty seven in
Speaker 2: the final round, needed a little bit of help by
Speaker 2: a couple of guys, and he won the PGA. He
Speaker 2: was there and he won it, and that's a major,
Speaker 2: and that's a big deal. But this is a guy
Speaker 2: that has missed four of his last five cuts in
Speaker 2: major championships and he's won once in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: Now that's a players that he won, by the way,
Speaker 2: played great, shot sixty four on Saturday, near flawless golf,
Speaker 2: and he won once in twenty twenty two, and that
Speaker 2: was the PGA Championship. These are enormous wins from Justin Thomas.
Speaker 2: But when you talk about when were they last great,
Speaker 2: I think Jordan, you go back to twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 2: I think for Justin you go back to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Like this is this a lengthy gap between them being
Speaker 2: really monumentally great and in the conversation at multiple big
Speaker 2: events and then playing well for a week and winning
Speaker 2: and then kind of going away. And So I've been
Speaker 2: really thinking about the era we're in right now, and
Speaker 2: it feels like this year, more than ever, we have
Speaker 2: turned the page on a lot of the guys that
Speaker 2: you and I've covered for decade plus.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I you know, I think they still have the
Speaker 3: talent and the skills to knock one of these off.
Speaker 3: Totally agree, But to think of them as first page
Speaker 3: favorite is a bit silly at this point.
Speaker 2: It's hard to put them in that and it's hard
Speaker 2: to put those guys with where their games are and
Speaker 2: where they're This isn't recency, This isn't recently they've been
Speaker 2: playing bad golf. I mean this is now on years
Speaker 2: right for both of these guys. I mean the way
Speaker 2: they've played in the Ryder Cup and the way they've
Speaker 2: played when they've teamed up in these events. Like we
Speaker 2: laugh at this stuff and we joke with how they
Speaker 2: perform as a team because at one point in their prime,
Speaker 2: that team was unbeatable. That team had two guys that
Speaker 2: were top five talents in the world that had the
Speaker 2: game and the ability and to your point, the mindset
Speaker 2: to go out there and flush it and beat the
Speaker 2: hell out of anybody that stood in front of them.
Speaker 2: And they simply can't do that anymore on skill set alone.
Speaker 2: They've either got to find something that is absolutely clicking
Speaker 2: a bull for four days, or they've got to run
Speaker 2: into somebody that does something silly like Mito did or
Speaker 2: plays terrible in a match for them to win. And
Speaker 2: I just wonder, to your point about odds and first
Speaker 2: page and things like that, is are we flipping the
Speaker 2: page on that crew? And who is that next top
Speaker 2: five page? Is it Ludwig and Scottie and Rob?
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask you, like, if I gave you
Speaker 3: Xalatorus and Cam Young versus Speith and JT the rest
Speaker 3: of the majors, who are you taking?
Speaker 2: I mean Xalatorus and Cam Young, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: I mean I'd take Tom Kim as well, like I mean,
Speaker 2: I'd take these I'd take these younger guys that are
Speaker 2: extremely hungry right now. Over as I mentioned Justin Thomas,
Speaker 2: who has missed four of his last five cuts in
Speaker 2: major Championships and Jordan Speith, who in that first round
Speaker 2: look like a guy that had absolutely no idea what
Speaker 2: window the ball was going to come out of, had
Speaker 2: no idea what shot was going to come out of
Speaker 2: the face it was going to go left or right.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not close. This isn't shooting seventy four
Speaker 2: to seventy three and missing the cut. This is this
Speaker 2: is shooting nearly eighty on the same day that Bryson
Speaker 2: shoots sixty five. I mean, you're talking, what's that fourteen
Speaker 2: shot difference? I mean, you know that was the scorable
Speaker 2: day Andy is and Jordan goes out and shoots whatever,
Speaker 2: seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean like he's an augusta national specialist, is
Speaker 3: his reputation. But you know that's that was based off
Speaker 3: of his first five Masters, where he went T two win,
Speaker 3: T two, T eleven third. You know, if you go
Speaker 3: from twenty nineteen, six years.
Speaker 1: Ago, seven years ago, is that the last time? Yeah, six,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Twenty eighteen to the end, and now now twenty nineteen
Speaker 3: on T twenty one, T forty six, T three cut,
Speaker 3: T four cut. So like still some you know this
Speaker 3: is a great golf course for him to pop up
Speaker 3: and play well at, but it's a different player. And
Speaker 3: I think, like one of the other things with with
Speaker 3: majors is like, and what enthuses you about Scotti has
Speaker 3: to is the most challenging major mentally to win and
Speaker 3: the one that can kind of haunt you. The Masters
Speaker 3: he's now knocked off too very early, and he's he's
Speaker 3: with the list of two time Masters champions is like
Speaker 3: pretty pretty good, you know, Like I think the one
Speaker 3: player you could probably look at on that list and
Speaker 3: say is Bubba Watson. But that being said, like still
Speaker 3: it's it's such an impressive list of players.
Speaker 2: Winning multiple Masters. And going back to the Jordan thing,
Speaker 2: right the way Jordan started his career augusta National, we
Speaker 2: all said he was gonna win multiple Greens Jackets, and
Speaker 2: I would now be surprised if Jordan Speed wins at
Speaker 2: other Masters. I mean, the game's getting better and better
Speaker 2: by the second. Guys are getting longer and longer, They're
Speaker 2: coming out earlier, they're hitting it straighter as well. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's going to be tougher for him to win each
Speaker 2: and every year as we move forward. I feel the
Speaker 2: same way about Rory. Obviously, Rory is a completely different
Speaker 2: player in terms of skill set than Jordan Speed is.
Speaker 2: But it's not getting easier for Rory to do it. Really,
Speaker 2: Sergio's the outlier in terms of a guy that's when
Speaker 2: in this many starts at augustin n Ashvial, right.
Speaker 3: I think like one of the things that the rollbacks
Speaker 3: slated for twenty twenty nine, yep, could there be a
Speaker 3: potential like where we have twenty twenty nine come around
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, like long irons are
Speaker 3: hit more and short game matters more again, and we
Speaker 3: have like this era that then there's like a correction
Speaker 3: because when you put regulations in there are like unintended
Speaker 3: consequences that will happen, and it could push us back
Speaker 3: to where like some of the older players that are
Speaker 3: used to playing golf when the ball doesn't go a
Speaker 3: mile are actually you know, rewarded. And I think that
Speaker 3: is one thing to think about with Speed, okay, is
Speaker 3: that if the ball, if the game is scaled back
Speaker 3: a little, I think he is, you know, really going
Speaker 3: to be bumped up. I think, like, what's what's funny
Speaker 3: to me? Like, what's actually like comical to me with
Speaker 3: all the rollback talk is like a lot of the
Speaker 3: players who would benefit the most from a rollback are
Speaker 3: vociferous against it, you know, Like, you know, Justin Thomas
Speaker 3: is a great example. Like when he came on tour,
Speaker 3: he was like he was an elite driver of the
Speaker 3: ball because of the distance, Like he had pop in
Speaker 3: the bat that other people didn't have. Now you go
Speaker 3: down to driving range and Justin Thomas kind and just
Speaker 3: another guy on the range, but justin.
Speaker 1: Another just another guy for you. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: make new hats.
Speaker 3: But like you watch Justin Thomas around the greens, you
Speaker 3: watch him hit long irons, you watch him move the ball,
Speaker 3: and you're like, wow, this guy is something. Those skills
Speaker 3: have all been kind of diluted as players have gotten
Speaker 3: longer and longer, and courses fewer and fewer courses are
Speaker 3: able to hold up to it. All.
Speaker 2: Right, so we're talking a lot about Scotty, and every
Speaker 2: pod that's doing anything Postmasters is talking pretty much exclusively
Speaker 2: about Scotti Scheffler. Right, if you and I had done
Speaker 2: this podcast at the end of twenty fourteen, you and
Speaker 2: I would be talking about Rory and what's the future
Speaker 2: and how many majors is he gonna win? So let
Speaker 2: me ask you this, Andy, How is this different than
Speaker 2: Rory in twenty fourteen where he'd won three straight including
Speaker 2: two majors, and he was king of golf and he
Speaker 2: was gonna win ten majors And now we're sitting here
Speaker 2: still waiting for the next one. How is Scotty's run
Speaker 2: right now different than Rory in twenty fourteen, Jordan in
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, JT and twenty seventeen where he wins five
Speaker 2: times in a major championship.
Speaker 1: Why do you feel like this might feel different? If
Speaker 1: it feels different to you at all?
Speaker 2: And how does Scotty not, in theory, fall off a
Speaker 2: major cliff in the next six months or two years
Speaker 2: and never win another major again.
Speaker 3: Well, the beauty of sports, the beauty of covering this
Speaker 3: is we have no clue, but it might be the same.
Speaker 3: It feels different, but in the moment it's always hard
Speaker 3: to you know, you always tend to over inflight things. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think like to be like the approach of Scotty,
Speaker 3: of the fundamental stuff that I talked about. He doesn't
Speaker 3: seem to me to be a guy like we've seen
Speaker 3: with speed. Like speak's on top of the golf world
Speaker 3: and he's trying to change his golf swing. That should
Speaker 3: always be mentioned, like you know where he is now.
Speaker 3: The game got harder for him because he tried to
Speaker 3: make a big change. I read something about Victor Hovland
Speaker 3: changing his golf swing over the last you know, six months,
Speaker 3: since he was playing the best golf of his life,
Speaker 3: and it's like.
Speaker 2: He wanted to change it. He wanted to change it
Speaker 2: during during the playoffs. He was unhappy with the way
Speaker 2: he was swinging. When he shot twenty eight on the
Speaker 2: back at the BMW or whatever, and then wins the
Speaker 2: Tour Championship, he was talking about wanting to change things.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Rory's swing has changed dramatically from
Speaker 3: twenty fourteen. You know, it's not the same. He's got
Speaker 3: different equipment, Like there's all these things that go into it.
Speaker 3: I think one of the other difficult things when you
Speaker 3: become a superstar, super duperstar is the time commitment of
Speaker 3: all the other stuff and the clutter. Really, like, if
Speaker 3: you are the best play golfer on the planet for
Speaker 3: a couple of years running, you're gonna have more time
Speaker 3: commitments and and it goes to like, you know, I
Speaker 3: think like a thing is if you want to be
Speaker 3: truly great at anything, you have to put the time
Speaker 3: in and you have to continue to block out the
Speaker 3: time to do the stuff that you're great at. It's
Speaker 3: I think why you see so many bands be one
Speaker 3: hit wonders, like one album wonders. You get famous and
Speaker 3: then you stop putting in the work that may be famous.
Speaker 3: And with golfers, I think it's the same thing, Like
Speaker 3: you get you become great, and then you get all
Speaker 3: these like burdens like i'd you know, I'd love you
Speaker 3: love to hear Ricky Fowler sometime talk about what you know,
Speaker 3: his life looked like when he was peak endorsements and
Speaker 3: how that took maybe took a toll on his golf game.
Speaker 3: But I think that's that's uh. That's the thing with
Speaker 3: with Scotty is like can he keep his life simple?
Speaker 3: And I think he I think like, if you want
Speaker 3: to make a case for him being different, that that's
Speaker 3: the thing I would. I think I have a lot
Speaker 3: of faith in him not changing.
Speaker 2: Andy, I've never thought about this, and I'm asking you
Speaker 2: this question kind of blindly, but it's an incredible good,
Speaker 2: incredibly good point about Scotty Scheffler. But now that I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about it, so Scotty wears Nike with no other
Speaker 2: branding on him, right, he doesn't have branding.
Speaker 1: On the golf bag.
Speaker 3: I don't think Taylor Made.
Speaker 1: Taylor Made. I saw. I think Jonathan Wall said that
Speaker 1: the leaderboard.
Speaker 2: Now, like you know, Titleist will put their their mark
Speaker 2: next to players that play a Titles ball or Titleist
Speaker 2: Ambassador ball player that was not on the Master's leader board.
Speaker 2: So maybe he's moved away from that partnership. But I'm
Speaker 2: trying to think of brands that Scotty's aligned with away
Speaker 2: from those two companies Taylor Made and Nike. I don't
Speaker 2: know if there is one.
Speaker 1: Is that crazy?
Speaker 3: He's got that fitness company that you see them, what
Speaker 3: is it Forever Golf?
Speaker 1: Well, but I mean that. But all I'm saying is like.
Speaker 2: Marketing across the vat and on the sleeve and on
Speaker 2: the back and all of those things for people that
Speaker 2: don't know at home, every brand that you're signing onto
Speaker 2: is going to ask stuff out of you, whether that
Speaker 2: be a corporate day.
Speaker 3: Four maybe it's three days four days like.
Speaker 1: Something like that.
Speaker 2: But that stuff adds up and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: if you've got five sponsors on your shirt, that's fifteen
Speaker 2: or twenty days of your year. If Scotty eliminates that
Speaker 2: entirely to just be this normal dude in Texas, how
Speaker 2: amazing is that for your mental health and your mental.
Speaker 3: Health competit and it's a competitive advantage, huge advantage. I
Speaker 3: from what I gather, Nike hasn't used any of its
Speaker 3: player days in years, So the Nike deal has days,
Speaker 3: but they don't use them. So you have like all
Speaker 3: this only person that asks him for time is Tailor Bade.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that.
Speaker 2: Like again, so he's gaining let's say against then let's
Speaker 2: say against anybody else in the top ten in the world.
Speaker 2: Let's just say and again you and I don't know
Speaker 2: this for sure, so if this is if this is
Speaker 2: slightly wrong or wrong, that's on us. But I'm going
Speaker 2: to assume that the best golfer in the world gains
Speaker 2: fifteen free days over anybody else in the top ten
Speaker 2: in the world. And I think that's probably fair to say.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and think about even if you just
Speaker 3: spent the fifteen days at home with your family doing nothing.
Speaker 3: How big of an advantage that is overgoing flying somewhere
Speaker 3: to do a corporate thing.
Speaker 2: So same instructors since he was a kid, same community
Speaker 2: and great family wife that he's been with. I think
Speaker 2: maybe since high school or college or whatever the case
Speaker 2: may be. Right, He's not trying to kind of push
Speaker 2: himself out to different brands to make more money because
Speaker 2: he understands that if he plays great golf, he will
Speaker 2: make the money that in theory he would have made
Speaker 2: from the brands. And I mean, I can only imagine
Speaker 2: brands are calling his agent all the time, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: this is the number one golfer in the world that's
Speaker 2: getting people to come his way. So you're doing all
Speaker 2: of these things to make your life as simple as possible.
Speaker 2: And I would say, on top of that, and I
Speaker 2: know this was a big talking point Master's week, but
Speaker 2: this is a dude that is that has constantly said
Speaker 2: said golf does not define me.
Speaker 1: So if he doesn't win another major.
Speaker 2: Championship, I would say, if you look at Scotti Scheffler,
Speaker 2: he seems like a dude that would be completely content
Speaker 2: in that world.
Speaker 1: Man, I want two Masters.
Speaker 2: What a great life I've led And now I know
Speaker 2: he's competitive, and I know he talked on Sunday about
Speaker 2: telling his buddies on Sunday morning. I wish I didn't
Speaker 2: like winning this much, but that's what he does. That's
Speaker 2: who he is as a professional golfer, as an athlete,
Speaker 2: as a person. That's job is to be a golfer.
Speaker 2: But stepping away from that world, to not be burdened
Speaker 2: by all these other things has got to be unbelievably
Speaker 2: freeing to this guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I yeah, it's the simplicity. The simplicity
Speaker 3: is what makes you believe that this is sustainable.
Speaker 1: Amazing, just amazing.
Speaker 3: All right, Shane, it's been It's been a pleasure. Do
Speaker 3: you have any other loose ends that you want to do?
Speaker 1: I have absolute an idea.
Speaker 2: If we talked about anything, or if we talked about something,
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 3: I think we talked about talk about something. Yeah, do
Speaker 3: you have anything else you want to onload? Any any
Speaker 3: Bryson takes, any anything else?
Speaker 2: I know, but I know I gotta I've got a
Speaker 2: Bryson take. I wrote this on Twitter earlier in the
Speaker 2: week that I missed him a lot. He is. He
Speaker 2: is so awesome to watch compete at golf in every
Speaker 2: way that we to laugh at, to laugh with, to
Speaker 2: marvel at, to be impressed by, to scratch your head on.
Speaker 2: Everything the guy does is exactly what.
Speaker 1: We need in our sport.
Speaker 2: And the fact that we don't don't get to see
Speaker 2: him as much as I wish we got to see
Speaker 2: him as a bumber, because again, either either because of
Speaker 2: him or or or alongside him, he is an absolute treasure.
Speaker 3: I did thirty six Souls a Bryson in the middle.
Speaker 3: I did Friday and Saturday with bred. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: You're a Bryson. Stand there, you go, look at you.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, like, I think he's I think like
Speaker 3: one of the tough things with him is who he
Speaker 3: was at twenty three is what everybody like kind of
Speaker 3: like came away with totally, you know, and built opinions on.
Speaker 3: But so many people who you are at twenty three
Speaker 3: is like so different than who you are at thirty.
Speaker 3: And I'm not I don't think he's like, listen, dude,
Speaker 3: am I going to hang out with Bryson?
Speaker 1: Would I?
Speaker 3: Probably not? But I do think like he's gotten more
Speaker 3: self awareness and if he was doing what he's what
Speaker 3: he was, what he's doing with his YouTube page and
Speaker 3: playing on the PGA Tour. I mean, this guy would
Speaker 3: be the most talked about player in golf. Like his
Speaker 3: YouTube page is like legitimately pretty good. I don't like
Speaker 3: I in terms of like, and I think it's generating
Speaker 3: fan interest, like especially young fans. And the thing I
Speaker 3: saw with Bryce and that I loved was he just
Speaker 3: like engages with the he just wants to be loved.
Speaker 3: It's you know, it's Saturday and he's in the final
Speaker 3: group and he's like pounded fists with people and and
Speaker 3: you know he was he in the second to last group.
Speaker 3: He was in the second to last group with Max's.
Speaker 3: He's he's engaging with the fans. Like on Friday, there
Speaker 3: weren't a lot following them, and it was amazing, Like
Speaker 3: you could hear all the interactions with the fans, like
Speaker 3: he's he's opening up his snap bag and somebody's asking
Speaker 3: him what's in it, like whos and he's answering, and
Speaker 3: he's answering them.
Speaker 1: Okay, he like.
Speaker 3: Nobody else, Like the professional golfers get inside the ropes
Speaker 3: and they ignore everybody. He's actually engaging with people. I
Speaker 3: mean His response was great. He opened He's got the
Speaker 3: bag opens, big zip block bag. This guy, this bros
Speaker 3: like Bryson, what's in the bag?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: And he just you could tell he was like trying
Speaker 3: to think of what to say, and he was just
Speaker 3: like the good stuff, bro.
Speaker 2: I mean like like ridiculous and you roll your eyes
Speaker 2: at it, but you also enjoy it. You know, it's
Speaker 2: like yeah, also like it's kind of cute. Like he's
Speaker 2: kind of a cute guy now, you know, versus what
Speaker 2: he used to be, where he wasn't the most fun
Speaker 2: human to be around. I'll say this, you can impact
Speaker 2: so many people's opinion of you by one simple interaction,
Speaker 2: especially young people.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: You think about giving a golf ball to a kid,
Speaker 2: and that kid's forever gonna remember that, even when they're
Speaker 2: an adult. I remember when Bryson to Shamble gave me
Speaker 2: a golf ball at the Masters. I remember this was
Speaker 2: before the wayte management and closed sixteen.
Speaker 1: All the way around.
Speaker 2: See there was kind of a walkway between sixteen seventeen.
Speaker 2: I was in college, Okay, I was an idiot. Of
Speaker 2: course I was an idiot, right, I mean I'm an
Speaker 2: idiot now. For God's sake. You mentioned Bryson at twenty three.
Speaker 2: I mean I was twenty one and a complete dipshit.
Speaker 2: And I was there with some friends of mine and
Speaker 2: we were standing on seventeen t and there's always a
Speaker 2: weight on seventeen as you know. Short part four, one
Speaker 2: of my buddies was trying to get guys to bet
Speaker 2: twenty bucks they drive the green. Okay, twenty bucks, you
Speaker 2: don't drive the green as they're standing there. I'll never
Speaker 2: forget this. Nick Watney came over and was laughing about it,
Speaker 2: and it was into it and was like cracking.
Speaker 1: I always drive the screen. You don't want to take this.
Speaker 2: Bet, you know, like having fun with us, right, And
Speaker 2: I remember there was another guy a couple of groups
Speaker 2: later that was offended by the question that came over
Speaker 2: to us and was kind of getting into my buddy's
Speaker 2: grill about even asking or bringing up such a horrible
Speaker 2: thing at a pro golf tournament. And I will never
Speaker 2: forget a Nick Watney's approach to that and the guy
Speaker 2: that did it at the be guy that acted the
Speaker 2: way he acted. And if you're Bryson and you're out
Speaker 2: at the Masters and you're yeah, I cut it up
Speaker 2: with with fans and patrons and you're doing all that stuff.
Speaker 2: Those guys are going to be fans of you for life.
Speaker 2: And I feel like Bryson, as you said, is a
Speaker 2: guy that has just wanted to be loved and it
Speaker 2: feels like people that he's understanding how to do that,
Speaker 2: and also he's got the personality that allows that to happen.
Speaker 2: You know, he's a pretty fun loving, kind of goofy kid.
Speaker 2: But I like the Bryson we're seeing right now, and
Speaker 2: I think he might be the most interesting pro golfer
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I found myself fascinated by him. I asked him
Speaker 3: a question which I believe is so I asked him
Speaker 3: about the YouTube stuff, Like, you know, you talk about
Speaker 3: like the most regimented, rigid golfer in the world when
Speaker 3: he was when he was going full steam right right.
Speaker 3: Since then, he's done this YouTube stuff and he's done
Speaker 3: like a lot of different stuff. He played one club
Speaker 3: with Sergio Garcia for nine holes and you could see
Speaker 3: at the beginning of that round he had no clue
Speaker 3: what to do, but this is one of the most
Speaker 3: talented players in the world. They played for nine holes
Speaker 3: and by the end of the nine. You could see
Speaker 3: he really was starting to learn how to hit the shots. Sergio, like,
Speaker 3: I recommended this on a pod months ago to go
Speaker 3: watch this. Sergio was incredible, like utterly unbelievable to watch
Speaker 3: play golf with one club because he has all the shots,
Speaker 3: he has everything. But by the end of the round,
Speaker 3: Bryson got like a lot better. So he's done, Like
Speaker 3: forward t's break fifty, he's done. He played the old equipment,
Speaker 3: so he's done all these different weird things. And what
Speaker 3: I asked him was like, do you think you're a
Speaker 3: better player because of these YouTube formats you've done? And
Speaker 3: he's like, oh, definitely, I'm more versatile, Like I'm not
Speaker 3: locked in. I'm not locked into this is the way
Speaker 3: I play because these these other ways has Like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm paraphrasing what he said, but you know, I have
Speaker 3: to believe that he's getting better because of this experimentation.
Speaker 3: He's learning more shots. He's not as locked into like
Speaker 3: the science of like this swing, this, this spin, the
Speaker 3: all that, because he's doing things that require you to
Speaker 3: think differently. And I think, like it's a beautiful kind
Speaker 3: of evolution. Now I wish I wish that the world
Speaker 3: got to see him play. Instead, they're playing on you know,
Speaker 3: a platform that gets you know, one hundred thousand viewers
Speaker 3: instead of two million. I'm not going to acknowledge the caffeine,
Speaker 3: but like, I think he's a fascinating character. I can't
Speaker 3: wait to see him again at the PGA. I can't
Speaker 3: wait for the US Open. I can't you know, I
Speaker 3: would love to see And I think this is a
Speaker 3: reason why the game has to come back together, is
Speaker 3: because there are characters like it's too small of a
Speaker 3: game to be split and and only getting this for
Speaker 3: four weeks a year.
Speaker 2: By the way, last thing, he's not picked to win
Speaker 2: the PGA. Just want to throw that out there, Bryson's
Speaker 2: my I should pick. Put put it out there right
Speaker 2: now so that it's on the record now. If I
Speaker 2: picked four other people on podcasting on Twitter.
Speaker 3: That's on me, that's on our on our preview master's preview,
Speaker 3: I picked Scottie.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: That being said, later in the week, I changed my
Speaker 3: pick twice. So I went to Ram and then I
Speaker 3: went to Rory because I got to the point where
Speaker 3: nobody believed Rory was going to win. So I was like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, it would be a good moment to be
Speaker 3: on the other side of the fence.
Speaker 2: Well, at least you played the hits. At least you
Speaker 2: didn't go like totally off the board. But yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 2: that's interesting. I'm taking Bryson out the PGA.
Speaker 1: Andy.
Speaker 2: I love what you guys did throughout the week. It's
Speaker 2: must listens to Shotgun with you and poor Ath. It's
Speaker 2: very entertaining. I'm glad I got to kind of eat
Speaker 2: lunch next to you one day, even though the wouldn
Speaker 2: let us push, wouldn't let us push our tables together,
Speaker 2: but that was that was that was great, even though
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: No computers at the lunch room. The Master's week is
Speaker 1: the best week.
Speaker 2: And I want to give a shout out to this
Speaker 2: simply this, the Master's social team is. I worked a
Speaker 2: little bit with them, and it's a group of people
Speaker 2: that want to put out awesome stuff. Now they do
Speaker 2: put out awesome stuff, but they want to put out
Speaker 2: awesome stuff. And I feel like in an era where
Speaker 2: that's not always the case across a lot of media,
Speaker 2: not obviously not just golf, but across a lot of
Speaker 2: media where sometimes it can feel like a job that
Speaker 2: team and that crew makes an effort to put out
Speaker 2: in unbelievable awesome content for a week and you're left
Speaker 2: wishing that you got more of it. And that is
Speaker 2: an extreme compliment in this day and age. So shout
Speaker 2: out to that crew in that team, because they absolutely
Speaker 2: crush it.
Speaker 3: I mean they dominate Master's weeks. It's hard being creators
Speaker 3: in this in this space because they do such an
Speaker 3: awesome job that it's hard to have stuff that stands
Speaker 3: out because you know you just can't aren't going to
Speaker 3: be able to match the quality. You know, part of
Speaker 3: that act access, but you know the other part is
Speaker 3: the talent that they've amasked over there.
Speaker 2: And the interest and the interest to be great. I mean,
Speaker 2: you got It's like Scott, you gotta want to be great.
Speaker 2: But anyway, that's it's the best week.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm bummed it's over. I hate that
Speaker 1: we have to go a year till we get.
Speaker 2: It again, but I am happy that we still have
Speaker 2: some majors I feel I do feel, like, do you
Speaker 2: think you get more bummed out Postmasters or Post Open
Speaker 2: Post Open?
Speaker 3: Okay, me too, I agree, I mean like then it's
Speaker 3: just like, what what are we doing for eight months,
Speaker 3: and you got.
Speaker 2: To start thinking about the Bears too, which is probably
Speaker 2: probably catch kicks.
Speaker 3: This year we got the draft. There's a lot of optimism.
Speaker 3: I saw Sauce Gardner tweeting about how did the Bears
Speaker 3: pull this off? They got tons of talent and two
Speaker 3: picks in the top ten. I think the NFL is
Speaker 3: a little worried about about my bears.
Speaker 1: There you go, There you go. Always a pleasure, my friend.
Speaker 3: Talk to you soon, Shane. All Right, that does it
Speaker 3: for today's episode of the Friday Golf Podcast. Big thanks
Speaker 3: to Matt Russ for throwing this together, editing it all up,
Speaker 3: and all of his hard work. Last week he was
Speaker 3: doing a lot of those Masters reels that you might
Speaker 3: have seen on our Instagram as a quick reminder, you know,
Speaker 3: Masters is over, It's time time to get back into CLUBTF.
Speaker 3: We are going to be grinding. I know Garrett is
Speaker 3: planning to have a Harbor Town profile up and design
Speaker 3: Notebook will be kicking back off this week. So if
Speaker 3: you're interested in more content from us, I think I'm
Speaker 3: jumping on next week on a hangout on CLUBTF. But
Speaker 3: if you're interested in more content, just joined CLUBTF. It's
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty dollars for the entire year and
Speaker 3: it goes to support a lot of the stuff we
Speaker 3: do and I think you get a lot of great
Speaker 3: content for it. So join CLUBTFE. It's above fridagg dot
Speaker 3: com slash membership and you can sign up there. Thanks
Speaker 3: for all the support, and thanks for another great Masters
Speaker 3: a week. It's a true privilege to get to cover
Speaker 3: these events. It's it's unbelievable to get to go to
Speaker 3: Augusta National for a week and cover it and wouldn't
Speaker 3: be able to do it without all of your guys
Speaker 3: support over the years, So big thank you to you guys,
Speaker 3: and we'll be back next week with another podcast, maybe
Speaker 3: two podcasts.