Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 3: In a bright egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 3: Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg brid Egg Lie, I'm about
Speaker 3: ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Andy Johnson, and today it's the end of the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour regular season, is the start of the playoffs, one
Speaker 2: of the last playoffs of this format. It has been
Speaker 2: a minute since I reconvene with Kevin van Valkenberg and
Speaker 2: Joseph Leamanya from Frida Egg. So we did one of
Speaker 2: our kind of chats about golf and pro golf and
Speaker 2: kind of the PGA Tour right now and the big
Speaker 2: stories from the regular season and for the playoffs. So
Speaker 2: that's our conversation today. I am up at Traverse City.
Speaker 2: I will have a new batch of Tom Doak pods.
Speaker 2: It'll probably just be one pod. We did one pod
Speaker 2: last time for next week and just generally excited to
Speaker 2: head into the time of year where we get to
Speaker 2: explore a lot of different alleys of golf, and I
Speaker 2: personally get to play more golf. So excited for this
Speaker 2: time of year here as we had, you know, superintendent
Speaker 2: in Detroit one time told me, Aaron McMaster said, if
Speaker 2: I get to August fifteenth, I breathe a sigh of
Speaker 2: relief because that means that if I haven't killed the
Speaker 2: grass by now, it won't die, which means for us
Speaker 2: in the northern part of the United States, this is
Speaker 2: the best time to play golf. So Aaron mcmas that
Speaker 2: was a podcast from maybe like five or six years ago.
Speaker 2: I always think about that date now, August fifteenth. Can
Speaker 2: we get to August fifteenth? And we're nearing that date.
Speaker 2: So before we get to Kevin and Joseph, let's talk
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Speaker 2: Kevin van Valkenberg and Joseph Leamania Kevin and Joseph. Welcome on.
Speaker 2: Spend a minute.
Speaker 3: How are you guys, Andy, I had a lovely major season,
Speaker 3: a lovely playoff in pre playoff season. I'm ready to talk.
Speaker 3: I'm ready to dish some takes. I know Joseph is too.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having us back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the Dutch time of the year, playoff season,
Speaker 1: playoff golf. I know we all love the FedEx Cup playoffs,
Speaker 1: so excited to get into this.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll just start. I'm being a rude host. I
Speaker 2: usually dish the ball out, but since you opened the door, Joseph,
Speaker 2: the prop was one thing. And you know, whenever we
Speaker 2: talk one thing sponsored to a bunch of things. But Hi,
Speaker 2: one thing is that we're on the doorstep, we're effectively two.
Speaker 2: So this is this year and next year, this is
Speaker 2: our playoff format, and then here it seems to be
Speaker 2: running to blow this thing up. So as we head
Speaker 2: into one of these two years of a dead man
Speaker 2: walking playoff format, I am fascinated just to see how players,
Speaker 2: media and the PGA tour themselves goes about talking about
Speaker 2: this year's playoffs in next year's playoffs because they have
Speaker 2: they have already told us that this playoff format sucks
Speaker 2: like they did, so brack roll up like sat up there.
Speaker 2: I think one of his main thesis is, if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly, from his talk in at the Players this year,
Speaker 2: when he addressed the entire media, the entire golf world.
Speaker 2: One of his main themes of his talk was like,
Speaker 2: we need to create an engaging playoff format, and here
Speaker 2: we are. We've got two more years of this. What
Speaker 2: I would I would infer he would refer to as
Speaker 2: an unengaging playoff format. But we're here. So one of
Speaker 2: the things that I've just maybe this is just my amusement.
Speaker 2: Maybe sometimes I like to watch the world burn, but
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see how everybody tiptoes, broadcasters, everybody
Speaker 2: tiptoes or not, does it tiptoe around the fact that
Speaker 2: this playoff format is extremely broken.
Speaker 1: And this isn't one of my main things, Andy, but
Speaker 1: just in doing some prep for this, one thing that
Speaker 1: always astounds me. You know, how much money is being
Speaker 1: distributed over the next three weeks on the PGA tour.
Speaker 2: How much?
Speaker 1: So it's a twenty million dollar pers at the Saint Jude,
Speaker 1: a twenty million dollar person at the BMW, and then
Speaker 1: at the end of that, one hundred million gets distributed
Speaker 1: at the season long like payouts or one hundred million,
Speaker 1: and it's a forty million dollar pers at the tour championship.
Speaker 1: So over the next three weeks on the PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: we're going to have one hundred and eighty million dollars
Speaker 1: distributed in prize money. Is absolutely same.
Speaker 3: You know what makes me laugh too, Joseph thinking about
Speaker 3: that is like both Rory and like Shane Lowry just
Speaker 3: completely shitting on FedEx. The FedEx got playoffs in general,
Speaker 3: like the Open Championship, Like, yeah, what do I care
Speaker 3: about like the playoffs?
Speaker 4: Well, like I'm not like trying to get like if.
Speaker 3: You imagine if your roll up and you're trying to
Speaker 3: figure out the financial sort of tetris that this all
Speaker 3: requires for the next few years, How do I get
Speaker 3: a better playoff format but also get a sponsor to
Speaker 3: pony up all this money for this and you have
Speaker 3: like two of your bigger name like European players.
Speaker 4: Just absolutely like just detonating it right left.
Speaker 3: If I'm FedEx, I'm sitting here being like why am
Speaker 3: I kicking in like all this money for this?
Speaker 4: Like why do I want to reup for this. I
Speaker 4: don't think I do.
Speaker 2: I think it's insane golf. I think we've been on
Speaker 2: a really great run here. We had a great major season,
Speaker 2: a wonderful major season, and then rolling into this we
Speaker 2: have like these excited young winners, which I think we're
Speaker 2: like the best case scenario for the three M, Rocket
Speaker 2: Mortgage and Windham Swing. So you have twenty one year
Speaker 2: old Jackson Coyven win the three M. Very exciting and
Speaker 2: it was his third PGA to start as a professional.
Speaker 2: You have Michael Thorpe Jordson finally breaking through with a
Speaker 2: win at twenty four, former PGA Tour U number one player,
Speaker 2: great player in Stanford, had been sniffing around a lot
Speaker 2: of contending in a lot of tournaments. He finally gets
Speaker 2: it done. Then you have Michael Brennan win for the
Speaker 2: second time in a calendar year. Twenty four year old
Speaker 2: Michael Brennan win for the second time in a calendar year.
Speaker 2: Really exciting, like kind of like ascending player who seems
Speaker 2: to be really figuring it out based off the last
Speaker 2: six weeks of his PGA Tour career. So you have
Speaker 2: this really exciting run in and then you have like
Speaker 2: the at the Windom. The relegation aspect, the you know,
Speaker 2: this is the end of the season. Okay, if you're
Speaker 2: it's never really true relegation. I feel like in golf
Speaker 2: there's always like one last chance. But whatever we'll say,
Speaker 2: there is true relegation here. You have the playoff cut line,
Speaker 2: which is seventy, you have the card cut line which
Speaker 2: is one hundred, and you know, you have this excitement.
Speaker 2: What's insane is somehow they've put they they're distributing one
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty million dollars of money, and it gets
Speaker 2: less interesting, Like it feels like we're going to Memphis
Speaker 2: and it's like a dead weight because it's gonna be
Speaker 2: one hundred degrees every day in Memphis this week, and
Speaker 2: we're going Memphis to Saint Louis to Atlanta on a
Speaker 2: stretch of golf that is supposed to be the most
Speaker 2: the most important stretch of golf for the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: based off of what they tell us. So it's just
Speaker 2: a fascinating situation. Obviously, all this is going to change
Speaker 2: in two years, but these next two years are I
Speaker 2: just as someone who enjoys watching people try and wrap
Speaker 2: themselves into a pretzel and tell us how important things are.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for this.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's any chance to change the Tour
Speaker 1: Championship for next year?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I mean, this is the thing too, right,
Speaker 2: is like, if we get like number twenty nine winning,
Speaker 2: it's just people are gonna just be more negative about it,
Speaker 2: so they change just for context. They changed the format
Speaker 2: last year to where whoever of the top thirty makes
Speaker 2: the FedEx Cup Final at east like it's a straight
Speaker 2: tournament because everybody hated the stagger start. I hated the
Speaker 2: stagger start. I think this is way better personally, way better,
Speaker 2: But like you know, it's it's just it so they
Speaker 2: anybody can win now, and I yeah, I think if they,
Speaker 2: I don't think they're gonna change it. The whole point
Speaker 2: of this, though, is it's just a money distribution ploy.
Speaker 2: It's a way to distribute money to the biggest players
Speaker 2: in the sport. And if number twenty nine or number
Speaker 2: Chris rightand wins wins at east Lake, it's gonna ruin
Speaker 2: the whole ploy.
Speaker 3: I think Alex Smalley would be the funniest winner of
Speaker 3: the entire first.
Speaker 2: I mean, it would be amazing if if someone like
Speaker 2: Jordan Speith or or Madick McNeely Maverick mcneeley's best finish
Speaker 2: is tenth this year, Jorge Speed hasn't had a top
Speaker 2: ten all year, it'd be amazing if somehow they could
Speaker 2: get there without you know, like finishing higher than tenth.
Speaker 2: Like if bad McNeely finished tent tents and then go
Speaker 2: and wins, that would be a funny outcome. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's all kinds of humorous outcomes.
Speaker 1: Now, would do you want to talk about Speed?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go on. That's my big thing.
Speaker 1: So as negative as we've been off of the top,
Speaker 1: and I think for good reason, given our enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: the playoffs, I do think there's an argument that this
Speaker 1: is the most interesting playoffs in a while with player
Speaker 1: specific storylines. I won't step on other ones in case, OK, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys might have some. I think there's some good ones.
Speaker 1: speF is a genuinely, really interesting one. He's fifty fourth
Speaker 1: in the FedEx Cup standings and being exempt for all
Speaker 1: the signature events next year is a huge deal. If
Speaker 1: you're in the top fifty, you have to play pretty
Speaker 1: bad golf to not stay like in the top fifty
Speaker 1: to maybe ninety, Like that's a question mark for next year,
Speaker 1: is with the changes that are coming in twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 1: where are you going to need to be in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty seven to be exempt into all the events? And
Speaker 1: it seems like it'll probably probably be something like top
Speaker 1: ninety if you get to play all the signature events
Speaker 1: next year. It's kind of hard to not finish inside
Speaker 1: the top ninety with how many FedEx Cup points they
Speaker 1: give out at these events. So it is a huge
Speaker 1: deal to get into the top fifty this year. And
Speaker 1: Speed sitting at fifty four TVD exactly where he'll need
Speaker 1: to finish in Memphis to make it into the top fifty,
Speaker 1: but it'll be somewhere in the top fifteen. Probably needs
Speaker 1: like a twelfth place or so, depending on where everybody
Speaker 1: else finishes. And Andy, as you mentioned, no top tens
Speaker 1: this year. I was looking at it. There are five
Speaker 1: golfers who played at least twenty one who played more
Speaker 1: than twenty times this year and didn't finish with the
Speaker 1: top ten. It's Billy Horschel, Brian Campbell, Max McGreevy, Ricohoey
Speaker 1: and Jordan Speed. So you know, respectfully like not necessarily
Speaker 1: the list of names that you want to associate with
Speaker 1: with Jordan Spief and some of those guys like Billy's
Speaker 1: coming off an injury. Some of these guys are more
Speaker 1: up and comers, like Brian Campbell's kind of one of
Speaker 1: the had a little bit of a fluky season last years,
Speaker 1: Like these are not necessarily the names you associate with
Speaker 1: Jordan Spied. So I think this is a pretty pivotal
Speaker 1: week for speed If he does crack the top fifty,
Speaker 1: it's very different. Then Okay, he needs sponsor exemptions or
Speaker 1: he has to play his way into the signature events
Speaker 1: next year, Like Jordan Spied's long term status on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour is somewhat determined by how he plays in Memphis.
Speaker 3: Would you say this season has been a disappointment, a
Speaker 3: disaster holding serve for speedf Like relative to how would
Speaker 3: you categorize it? Justin because obviously he's been worse in
Speaker 3: recent years. Injury contributed to some of that, but and
Speaker 3: he's been a lot better when he's younger. But if
Speaker 3: you've been a speed skeptic, I've been a speF sort
Speaker 3: of optimist. But I'm coming around to your side. I'm
Speaker 3: kind of curious to what you think. How would you
Speaker 3: categorize this season in general? I mean not you know,
Speaker 3: there's no top fends for sure, nine top twenty fives.
Speaker 3: That's not that big of a deal. But it isn't
Speaker 3: like garbage. He's not a terrible player right now in
Speaker 3: the universe of golf. He's just not a threat to
Speaker 3: put it all together and win any week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say somewhere between disappointing and a disaster
Speaker 1: in that relative to expectations, it's not a disaster. But
Speaker 1: I think every year that goes by now and speeds
Speaker 1: thirty three, what is going to be a catalyst for
Speaker 1: him actually getting back into contention and getting his game
Speaker 1: into a place where he is a threat to win tournaments.
Speaker 1: Every year that goes by and he doesn't do that,
Speaker 1: it gets less likely. So I think this if you
Speaker 1: were just to look at the results this year, you'd
Speaker 1: probably just categorize it as a serious disappointment. No top
Speaker 1: tens in twenty one starts like that's plenty of golf
Speaker 1: when you're healthy that you should at least crack a
Speaker 1: top ten, hopefully contending a couple of times. If you're
Speaker 1: somebody that has aspirations of winning a major championship again.
Speaker 1: But yeah, relative to expectations of disappointment. But in terms
Speaker 1: of the long term outlook, if you were somebody that
Speaker 1: came into this year saying I think Jordan Speed will
Speaker 1: win a major again, or I think he'll win some
Speaker 1: big tournaments again, you have to feel like that is
Speaker 1: less likely after this year. So I mean somewhere between
Speaker 1: a disappointment and a pretty significant I won't use the
Speaker 1: disaster word, but it's a very big disappointment this year.
Speaker 3: He keeps citing that stat about me Michelson didn't win
Speaker 3: a single major until he was thirty four years old.
Speaker 3: What would you say in sort of response to that
Speaker 3: about the way the game is different now than it was,
Speaker 3: say in two thousand and four, Well.
Speaker 1: I think if you're Jordan's Speed, that's the way you
Speaker 1: should look at it. That players' primes tend to be
Speaker 1: between you know, we're seeing twenty seven twenty eight to
Speaker 1: thirty seven thirty eight. So yeah, if I was going
Speaker 1: to bed every night and trying to talk myself into
Speaker 1: why I was going to be a major threat again
Speaker 1: some day, which you have to be able to put
Speaker 1: yourself in that headspace, then I think that's the right
Speaker 1: message to be telling yourself. But from just a golf
Speaker 1: standpoint and abstracting Speed from this situation, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: you got to be getting better every year, Like JJ
Speaker 1: Spahn won a major for the first time last year
Speaker 1: at what was he thirty four if I remember correctly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was thirty four last year and he won. But
Speaker 1: he's been thirty eight. He's been getting better and better,
Speaker 1: Like Speed's kind of trending in the other direction. So sure,
Speaker 1: that's a good message for Speed to tell himself. But
Speaker 1: the game gets more competitive every and every year. I
Speaker 1: think even if you're somebody like Scotty and you didn't
Speaker 1: win this year, like there's some level of concern that, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to do something to elevate my game to
Speaker 1: the next level. Let alone, if you're Speed, who's been
Speaker 1: trending not necessarily in the wrong direction, but if he's stalling,
Speaker 1: then he's still pretty far from contending again at the
Speaker 1: highest level. I mean, you'd at least want to see
Speaker 1: like a final pairing in a non signature event this year,
Speaker 1: and for him to be pretty much irrelevant all season. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think you can feel very good about it.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, one of the things I always
Speaker 2: think about is if you go through the greatest players
Speaker 2: of all time, there are very very few that had
Speaker 2: great careers for ten plus years. It's like a number.
Speaker 2: And if you look at Spieth, his ten year mark
Speaker 2: hit at like twenty nine thirty, and like, I just
Speaker 2: wonder was that it, you know, I mean, you could
Speaker 2: go down the history of golf. There's so many cases
Speaker 2: of players that have had similar like not in the
Speaker 2: sense of how young the start was, but how long
Speaker 2: and how how how bright it burned for how long
Speaker 2: it burned. It just falls in line with so many careers.
Speaker 2: And I don't think that's like a crazy thing. Now,
Speaker 2: like if you wanted to take a positive approach, he's
Speaker 2: positive in every category the PGA Tour, so he you know,
Speaker 2: every statistical category he's positive. Now can he make And
Speaker 2: it's just that there's not like just some like gaping
Speaker 2: hole in the bucket. And actually the weakest part of
Speaker 2: the game is the is around the green statistically, which
Speaker 2: you would think is probably should be one of the
Speaker 2: strongest parts. So I think, you know, I think that
Speaker 2: the for me, the thing with with Jordan Speeth is
Speaker 2: by you know, some players have been able to change
Speaker 2: and evolve and and in their game, but when you
Speaker 2: do that, you risk losing your golf DNA. And to me,
Speaker 2: Jordan Speith lost his golf DNA in the in the
Speaker 2: Chase for perfection from t degree and and I think
Speaker 2: that's that's the kind of like the tail here, Joseph,
Speaker 2: I think you bring up actually a huge point that
Speaker 2: I had overlooked is how important this year is in
Speaker 2: setting up next year because next year's where where the
Speaker 2: hard cut comes. And you're either on the Challenge I'm
Speaker 2: just going to call it the Challenge Tour. I think
Speaker 2: it's better than the Challengers. You're either on the Challenge
Speaker 2: Tour playing in in Moline and uh, you know the
Speaker 2: barbersol and where wherever you want to you know, Kentucky
Speaker 2: and all these places, or you're on the Big Tour
Speaker 2: playing playing for a lot of body and a lot
Speaker 2: of points and getting into the top fifty, like almost
Speaker 2: assured this year, almost assures that you make the big
Speaker 2: cut next year. Now, like the sad thing, they should
Speaker 2: do away with all sponsors exemptions next year. They should
Speaker 2: That should be because of how important. The cut is
Speaker 2: going to be next year, they should just do that.
Speaker 2: Uh they won't, So Jordan Smith will get a ton
Speaker 2: of sponsor exemption. Another name that miss completely missed the
Speaker 2: playoffs that will be eligible for sponsors exemptions next year
Speaker 2: because he's done his time is Brooks Kopka. So he
Speaker 2: missed you know, he completely missed the playoffs. Obviously. If
Speaker 2: I think he finished like something like ninety four in
Speaker 2: the FedEx Cup, he you know, he had a great,
Speaker 2: great stand of Like I'm I suck, like this is
Speaker 2: really sad that I missed missed this like it's pathetic.
Speaker 2: I think he used the word pathetic. But he will
Speaker 2: be getting a lot of sponsors exemptions. I it. I
Speaker 2: think that the success of that Challenge tour is actually
Speaker 2: and and if I was Brian Rollapp, I actually want
Speaker 2: players like Jordan Spieth or Brooks Kopka or Max Homa
Speaker 2: or big time player you know, Ricky Fowlers in the
Speaker 2: top thirty. He's you know, he's had a great, great year.
Speaker 2: But like you want players with name brand appeal playing
Speaker 2: in that tour on that tour because then it gives
Speaker 2: it automatic storylines of can this guy get back to
Speaker 2: the to the to where he once was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you, as you mentioned, like you have to
Speaker 1: play if you play a full schedule of signature events
Speaker 1: next year, like Tony Fina had a really rough year.
Speaker 1: He finished ninety eighth in the FedEx Cup standings playing
Speaker 1: a lot of signature events, and that's playing really poor
Speaker 1: golf by his standards. We we think, right, it's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be like ninety that you got to finish in
Speaker 1: the top you know, ninety or so next year to
Speaker 1: be exempt for all the Championship Series events in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight when that new model goes into effect, if
Speaker 1: you're playing in the top fifty, you're probably going to
Speaker 1: make that. So yeah, I do think every year is
Speaker 1: important to be in the signature events, but there's an
Speaker 1: argument to be made that next year it's like the
Speaker 1: most important year to be in the top fifty and
Speaker 1: playing that full schedule.
Speaker 3: The one thing I think was Speeth that probably just
Speaker 3: doesn't get enough discussion is how unwilling he has been
Speaker 3: to change anything, whether it's changed, you know, his coach changes,
Speaker 3: Caddie like, he kind of keeps working on the same stuff.
Speaker 3: And I know there's people in golf who remain baffled
Speaker 3: by his loyalty to camer McCormick and why he doesn't
Speaker 3: go see someone else who could just tighten up dispersion
Speaker 3: or make him more consistent, or just give him a
Speaker 3: new set of eyes. And I kind of wonder, like,
Speaker 3: is there some stubbornness there, some loyalty there? I think
Speaker 3: like it'd be hard pressed to find a better caddie
Speaker 3: who was willing to deal with his verbal processing than
Speaker 3: Michael Greller. So I don't think that like making a
Speaker 3: switch there would be particularly effective. But who knows? I
Speaker 3: just I do wonder, like, you know, McCormick doesn't have
Speaker 3: like a big stable of players. He doesn't have like
Speaker 3: a long history of you know, coaching guys back from
Speaker 3: the brink. You know, why not go see if Butcharmon
Speaker 3: will take a look at you, or you know, Pete
Speaker 3: Cowen or you know, any of the top instructors and
Speaker 3: just see, like what do you see?
Speaker 4: And what what could you help me with?
Speaker 1: Is? How does that conflict with? You know? For example,
Speaker 1: we admire that Scotty Scheffler has stuck with Randy Smith
Speaker 1: for so long, and Andy's mentioning, you know, Jordan Speed
Speaker 1: not losing his golfing DNA working with somebody who's always
Speaker 1: worked with Yeah, how Kevin, how does that conflict with
Speaker 1: that idea?
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess Randy has a longer history of
Speaker 3: like coaching PG Tour players. You know, he had Justin Leonard, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, I can't remember who the other one he had,
Speaker 3: you know, he had cult nost I think like there
Speaker 3: was some sort of history there built into like, hey,
Speaker 3: I know, how to get guys to Jortan might have
Speaker 3: just been that Jordan Spieth was always going to be
Speaker 3: good enough to make it to the PGA Tour, and
Speaker 3: he happened to end up with, you know, camer McCormick.
Speaker 3: And I just sort of wonder like at some point,
Speaker 3: like if Scotty was had been terrible all of a
Speaker 3: sudden for five years, I don't know that he would
Speaker 3: you know, maybe he would stick with Rannie Smith. But
Speaker 3: I think most players go seek out some other knowledge
Speaker 3: when they've lost kind of who they were, and that
Speaker 3: there's you know, there is a decent history of like
Speaker 3: guys finding some just like it almost refreshes your brain
Speaker 3: in some ways. And let's find a new way to
Speaker 3: think about this. Let's find it just a new ear
Speaker 3: to you know, to attack this. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: good coaches out there, Like I.
Speaker 4: Mean, look at what Sean Foley has done with Michael Kim.
Speaker 3: You know, Michael Kim was the number one amateur in
Speaker 3: the world and kind of lost his golf d and
Speaker 3: a and then Sean Folly got with him and was like,
Speaker 3: I just saw a video the other day. It's like, look, dude,
Speaker 3: like you used to play a draw and you used
Speaker 3: to like, you know, he We're going to hit freakin'
Speaker 3: rope hooks for an hour every single day until we
Speaker 3: get back that pattern.
Speaker 4: That you used to have.
Speaker 3: And he's made Michael Kim from you know, the two
Speaker 3: hundred best golfer in the world to you know, the
Speaker 3: fortieth best golfer in the world or whatever. And that's
Speaker 3: that's a pretty dramatic shift and a dramatic change.
Speaker 4: Like I Jean.
Speaker 3: Felly got a lot of grief for what he did
Speaker 3: with Tiger Woods or whatever, but that you know, Jehan
Speaker 3: Filly is a good golf coach, Like I would be
Speaker 3: fascinated to see what he would think and say about
Speaker 3: you know, what what he could do for Jordan Speed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess if you explored it like in the
Speaker 2: vein of almost anything else. You know, if we took
Speaker 2: like the you know, we'll just it's baseball season. We'll
Speaker 2: use baseball if you're if your baseball team, if you
Speaker 2: took Speeth like and you won, you know, we'll just
Speaker 2: say three World Series is early, you know, and you're
Speaker 2: you know, now almost ten years removed from the last
Speaker 2: World Series and you're just kind of instantly missing the playoffs. Uh,
Speaker 2: with your manager, you make a change, right, ye? I
Speaker 2: guess like it's continuity I think is like the most
Speaker 2: underrated thing in golf. But at a certain point you
Speaker 2: have to be able to pull the plug and say
Speaker 2: we're going to try something new, because even trying something
Speaker 2: new could be beneficial if you later decide to go
Speaker 2: back to camera, say, in Speech's case, go back to
Speaker 2: Cameron McCormick, like getting a voice that just explains something
Speaker 2: differently or looks at something differently. I think, like one
Speaker 2: of my big questions with Speeth, he just doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to be able to put four rounds together anymore like that,
Speaker 2: That to me is like the bigger issue here is
Speaker 2: that I think, like when you look at what makes
Speaker 2: every When you look at what makes the great players great,
Speaker 2: it's the way they manufacture scores on days they don't
Speaker 2: have it. It's our arguably, like you know, you anytime
Speaker 2: you look at the best player in the world. That's
Speaker 2: but Scotty personifies this like better than almost anybody. It's
Speaker 2: like turned seventy fours into seventies like nobody's business. And
Speaker 2: that's what Speeth used to do. He used to be.
Speaker 2: It used to be like a marvel to watch him.
Speaker 2: And I think he's been so so focused on on
Speaker 2: the long game that like he actually lost his ability
Speaker 2: to just like score the ball. And I just I
Speaker 2: don't know. I think there is like the other piece
Speaker 2: of this is like maybe he's just a mediocre golfer
Speaker 2: and that's what he is.
Speaker 1: I think we were hitting on Andy. I would be
Speaker 1: fascinated to hear a lot of instructors weigh in on this.
Speaker 1: But if somebody comes to you, who's making a ton
Speaker 1: of twenty five footers scrambling their hail off and there
Speaker 1: are some deficiencies in the long game, how much do
Speaker 1: you prioritize trying to become a better driver of the
Speaker 1: golf ball, which is one of the most sustainable skills
Speaker 1: versus just embracing that you're going to try and be
Speaker 1: one of the best scramblers and scorers on tour for
Speaker 1: the next ten to fifteen years. And I think that
Speaker 1: this is a case study in what happens when you
Speaker 1: do try to correct the driving, and there are successful studies.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I don't know that I can pull one
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, but I think that's
Speaker 1: a good question for an instructor if somebody comes to
Speaker 1: you at age twenty one to twenty two and that's
Speaker 1: their profile making putts that are probably not sustainable, almost
Speaker 1: definitely not sustainable by far the best long range cutter
Speaker 1: on tour. Clear deficiencies off the tee in an era
Speaker 1: where I think an underrated part of the speed story
Speaker 1: that we've talked about on this pod before is that
Speaker 1: you know, guys are hitting the ball a lot better
Speaker 1: than ten years ago. It's not just that speed's sitting
Speaker 1: the ball worse. These guys have gotten really optimized. So
Speaker 1: do you try to correct that or do you just
Speaker 1: embrace that DNA as a world class scrambler. But you
Speaker 1: might be if you go that route and just say
Speaker 1: we're not going to really touch a lot of the
Speaker 1: long game. You might be accepting that your world ranking
Speaker 1: is just going to fall because you're going to you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to stack up tea degreen with
Speaker 1: some of the top guys. I mean, it's a pretty
Speaker 1: difficult question to maneuver if you were working with a
Speaker 1: guy whose profile looks like that.
Speaker 3: I Mean, we talk a lot about Sevy being a legend,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of evidence that Seve kind of
Speaker 3: ruined the back half of his career, like trying to
Speaker 3: fix his terrible driving, Like he was a horrendous driver,
Speaker 3: but he you know, had scoring DNA as Andy talked about,
Speaker 3: and then you know he got with like you know,
Speaker 3: Michael Grady and like he was like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 3: to make I want to fix this and you're gonna
Speaker 3: be got much better, and he just he kind of
Speaker 3: lost who he was, Like Sevy' is the last you know,
Speaker 3: five years of Seve's forties were kind of miserable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I this is the thing. Sev's career was
Speaker 2: like ten years. The other asked act of when you like,
Speaker 2: improvement is hard to do with golf. There's you know,
Speaker 2: we'll just call it, we'll call it four fastests of golf,
Speaker 2: short game, iron play, driving, putting, and then if you
Speaker 2: wanted to put a fifth. Is a mental game, and
Speaker 2: mental game ways into all these things, and when you
Speaker 2: work on things, they have balances other ways. Like I
Speaker 2: think one of the hardest things to do with golf
Speaker 2: is like if you really focus on something and focus
Speaker 2: on improving a skill, you naturally are spending less times
Speaker 2: on other skills. And the the PGA Tour level is
Speaker 2: such thin margins, such thin margins. I mean you're talking
Speaker 2: about like you know, we talk about strokes gain. It
Speaker 2: doesn't like actually show reve skill like your personal skill.
Speaker 2: You theoretic be theoretically could be a better player right
Speaker 2: now than he was ten years ago, but actually be
Speaker 2: worse on the PGA Tour. The metric that we use
Speaker 2: is strokes game, which compares speed to the field. Right
Speaker 2: we don't have like a so it's compared to his
Speaker 2: peers at all times. But when you spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time on improving one skill, you're naturally not spending
Speaker 2: as much time elsewhere. And little change is like how
Speaker 2: you might be striking an iron shot can bleed into
Speaker 2: your short game. Also like movements that you're doing with
Speaker 2: your body. It's just body movement. The thing I would
Speaker 2: always like hesitate with, like anybody who's a short game magician,
Speaker 2: is the everybody else will underrate the freedom that it
Speaker 2: provides you to play more aggressive than your peers. If
Speaker 2: you can get up and down from everywhere, you will
Speaker 2: generate more birdy chances because you're less afraid of leaving
Speaker 2: yourself in certain places than the rest of the field. Thus,
Speaker 2: your targets in certain instances will be tighter. You will
Speaker 2: hit more shots close because of that, and you will
Speaker 2: get up and down more often. It like I think,
Speaker 2: like the statistical uh of a revolution in the sport
Speaker 2: completely dismisses just how mental and momentum driven the playing
Speaker 2: tournament golf is. Having a great short game is like
Speaker 2: a cheat code, because when you're standing six or seven
Speaker 2: holes into the round and you know you've hit it
Speaker 2: like crap and you're like, huh, I'm one under, it's
Speaker 2: like the best feeling in the world. And then you know,
Speaker 2: like in the course of eighteen holes, these guys are
Speaker 2: going to hit a string together, a series of really
Speaker 2: great shots, and that's how you shoot sixty eight sixty
Speaker 2: seven without your best stuff. Is that like you play
Speaker 2: the holes where you're hit in it all over the place,
Speaker 2: even par under par even like Scotty does this all
Speaker 2: the time. He takes care of the par fives. He's
Speaker 2: two under and you're like, he hasn't a good shot,
Speaker 2: But this is what having a short game does. And
Speaker 2: I think, like, I think that's like probably the most
Speaker 2: glaring thing with Speed is like you know, they still
Speaker 2: talk about him on the on the telcast like he's
Speaker 2: you know, like he's you know what Scottie Scheffler is today,
Speaker 2: even what Rory McElroy is, you know, from a sense
Speaker 2: of like the short game prowess, but he's not that anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get over my skis with with
Speaker 1: short game technique. But I also, from what I understand
Speaker 1: spif the way that he hits iron shots is a
Speaker 1: little close, sorry, when he hits short game shots is
Speaker 1: a little more technique wise close to the way that
Speaker 1: he hits an iron shot with like the real forward
Speaker 1: shaft leen he hits kind of similar technique to Scheffler.
Speaker 1: So I would think with Speed, if you are trying
Speaker 1: to change the long game, it's a little more impactful
Speaker 1: to the short game then some other guys techniques like
Speaker 1: Victor Hobland kind of has the same thing, like the
Speaker 1: real forward shaft, Leen picking the ball Queen doesn't use
Speaker 1: the ground as much. I wonder if speaks long, if
Speaker 1: his short game is more sensitive to changes with his
Speaker 1: long game than other guys, and if that was part
Speaker 1: of the calculation when mccormicker whoever else he's worked with
Speaker 1: was going through like some of the long game stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know that they maybe fully appreciated how that
Speaker 1: could impact a short game, because you're right, Andy, statistically
Speaker 1: spe short game. He had the worst season he's had
Speaker 1: in a while.
Speaker 2: You know, I like how cautiously you waited in there.
Speaker 2: I you know, the short game short game world is
Speaker 2: a cruel world. That that's right right to show her
Speaker 2: receipts and flame each other at at the at the
Speaker 2: drop of a hat. So I liked how you you waited,
Speaker 2: You tiptoed in there.
Speaker 1: You use the wrong word or something with short game
Speaker 1: and your mentions get lit up. So yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: need to get into those.
Speaker 2: Worse Kevin any more on speak or I guess final
Speaker 2: question on speed do you think he plays his way
Speaker 2: into the top fifty this week at Saint Jude, at
Speaker 2: the first stop on the sweat Swing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think it plays.
Speaker 3: I think what I looks he needs like a T
Speaker 3: twenty three or something to get into the top fifty
Speaker 3: or something. I can't remember, just glanced at it last night.
Speaker 3: Joseph probably fact check me here as I fill the
Speaker 3: buster for a moment.
Speaker 1: But he needs that is okay? If he gets a
Speaker 1: solo twenty third, that's enough to get to the fiftieth spot.
Speaker 1: It's going to have to be better than that because
Speaker 1: other guys are going to jump. So I was hard
Speaker 1: to guess, but I would assume it's going to be
Speaker 1: closer to fifteenth to the seventeen.
Speaker 4: I might say that I might withdraw. Then.
Speaker 3: I don't know that he can finished top fifteen, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, Speth, he knows the stakes.
Speaker 4: That's good.
Speaker 3: I would like to see it happen for his sake.
Speaker 3: I think it's whatever you think about speed and like,
Speaker 3: you know, old heads like me who are like, oh man,
Speaker 3: why do you get off speed? Like it's a great quote,
Speaker 3: and speak's a great person to have around talking about
Speaker 3: golf and I think that's good overall for the health
Speaker 3: of golf and golf media, and so I'm rooting for
Speaker 3: him to be involved, just in some ancillary way. And
Speaker 3: I think the most likely outcome for me with Speath
Speaker 3: over the next five years is probably that he continues
Speaker 3: to sort of a slow fade and he drops out
Speaker 3: of like being an everyday elite golfer.
Speaker 4: But then at one moment in.
Speaker 3: His forties, like forty one or something, he has a
Speaker 3: flash of a weekend where he gets into contention at
Speaker 3: the Masters of the Open Championship and reminds us of
Speaker 3: like who used to be Like there's some you know,
Speaker 3: historical sort of like a Darren Clark situation, like your
Speaker 3: prime has passed and all of a sudden you kind
Speaker 3: of are in the mix suddenly again. He just I
Speaker 3: think he still has a really good golf brain. I
Speaker 3: don't think that consistently. Probably going forward he can be
Speaker 3: great again, But I do think like he'll remind us
Speaker 3: one more time of like, Hey, I used to be
Speaker 3: that guy. I can think my way around Augusta when
Speaker 3: the winning score is six under and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: I'm in the mix for this.
Speaker 2: Seeky think about Spieth that you just remind me of
Speaker 2: his tenure US Open exceptions. Gone, he's fifty seventh of
Speaker 2: the world. There's like a real chance he's doing golf's
Speaker 2: longest day next year.
Speaker 4: Man, I just didn't think about that.
Speaker 1: Well, he doesn't have another exemption category, right.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I don't think so. If he
Speaker 2: gets like Eastlake, he's it, right, Yeah, but I ad
Speaker 2: I don't think he's gonna finish top fifteen. I could
Speaker 2: be wrong at at like a fairly demanding Te de
Speaker 2: Green golf course in FedEx Saint Jude so I. And
Speaker 2: then the question is like how much he's never been
Speaker 2: somebody that's gonna just go soldier into fall.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he might have to rethink that, I mean, might
Speaker 3: really need to go play in the fall.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, that's unbelievable that that's how we're talking about him.
Speaker 1: But yeah, probably the biggest way.
Speaker 4: I can't do anymore Speed talk.
Speaker 3: This is unfair to any audience to just continue to
Speaker 3: talk to speed for twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: All right, Kevin, what's what's your what's your kind of
Speaker 2: big thing?
Speaker 4: I want to talk about three guys?
Speaker 3: Actually here is sort of feel like are much better
Speaker 3: than Jordan.
Speaker 2: You're doing what I did. Crow.
Speaker 3: Three guys who are are obviously much better players than
Speaker 3: Jordan Speith, who are not in danger of losing their
Speaker 3: card in any sense. But Victor Hobland, Tommy Fleetwood, Sanders
Speaker 3: Shoffley uh two FedEx Cup champions one Tour Championship winner
Speaker 3: in Xander. In the past, obviously we all were sort
Speaker 3: of hoping for a little bit more amongst the three
Speaker 3: of them. This year, you know, Tommy seemed like he
Speaker 3: was on the cusp of really taking the next step.
Speaker 3: Victor is the only one of those three who has
Speaker 3: a win this year, has the fewest top tens of them.
Speaker 3: I just I find myself wondering again, Like I mean,
Speaker 3: fleet was a little older, so we could sort of say,
Speaker 3: like maybe I think I said on the last time
Speaker 3: we convened, like maybe Tommy's time has come and gone.
Speaker 4: But with Xander, that's not the case.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to I want to see something from
Speaker 3: Xander that sort of reminds me of like, man, this
Speaker 3: is one of the three best players in the world
Speaker 3: or five best players in the world. How do we
Speaker 3: sort of get back a little bit of that magic
Speaker 3: that Xander had, you know, is the putting, which was
Speaker 3: so good, it's regressed a little bit. Is that what's
Speaker 3: holding him back? Like with Victor, you know, he missed
Speaker 3: three cuts in Majors this year. That's just a pretty
Speaker 3: poor season after like an okay Masters at the start.
Speaker 3: I just feel like these are three legitimate stars in
Speaker 3: the world of golf, and we got kind of a
Speaker 3: nothing burger season out of the three of them in
Speaker 3: terms of like real impact. And I would just I
Speaker 3: would love to see one of them kind of grab
Speaker 3: the reins again and do something in this playoffs to
Speaker 3: remind me of like how good they are.
Speaker 1: I think, of the three of them, Xander's probably the
Speaker 1: one that I'd the least worried about. But it's easy
Speaker 1: to just give. It's easy to give the excuse of injuries.
Speaker 1: Xander has been dealing with an injury that rib cartilage
Speaker 1: that I do think has been lingering and.
Speaker 4: A year removed from that, I know.
Speaker 1: But he's been wincing on the range, Like at the
Speaker 1: US Open, he did not load comfortable hitting on the range.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give him the pass indefinitely, but
Speaker 1: he finished a runner up at the Rocket. Not the
Speaker 1: strongest field, but I mean at least it was a
Speaker 1: runner up. He finished third at the Players this year.
Speaker 1: I think it's a clear step back and we would
Speaker 1: expect better things from Xander. But this is still a
Speaker 1: guy that's been consistently in major championships his entire career.
Speaker 1: Still played well in the majors this year Top eighteen,
Speaker 1: top twenty and all four of them. I'm not that
Speaker 1: worried about Xander going into next year. I think with
Speaker 1: Tommy that's a bigger concern that on the heels of
Speaker 1: the best golf he's played in his career, this year
Speaker 1: has been very underwhelming. And with Victor, I mean that
Speaker 1: I never know what to expect from Victor. Always going
Speaker 1: to be concerns about the short game. The driver has
Speaker 1: been all over the place. You could tell me that
Speaker 1: Victor's the number three player in the world at the
Speaker 1: end of next year and a huge part of the
Speaker 1: reason that Europe wins the Ryder Cup, or that like,
Speaker 1: he's kind of a liability on the Ryder Cup team
Speaker 1: and they play him two matches, so I guess to
Speaker 1: put him, I don't know how to put Fleetwood in
Speaker 1: Hobland in order. I'd probably put Fleetwood ahead of Hobland
Speaker 1: at least for next year. But I think Xander is
Speaker 1: pretty clearly the best of the three.
Speaker 4: What's crazy about is sorry and it just was going
Speaker 4: to play real.
Speaker 3: Quick that like the Driver is much bigger concern for
Speaker 3: Victor now than around the Green, Like he was a
Speaker 3: disaster of a player around the Green, but now the
Speaker 3: driver is like a real liability and he's actually like
Speaker 3: a pretty darn good short game player around the Green.
Speaker 2: I think I was fascinating he I think, by his
Speaker 2: own admission, would say he's been like basically lost since
Speaker 2: the Toy three FedEx Cup, where at the time or
Speaker 2: like maybe he's the best player in the world.
Speaker 4: And I think he's metachorically.
Speaker 2: Lost, which what's amazing though, is he's I think after
Speaker 2: he won the vals Bar in twenty five he was like,
Speaker 2: I did not see this coming. And I think the
Speaker 2: same goes for his win at Travelers, because he was
Speaker 2: like he was on the range of the US Open
Speaker 2: for hours after he missed the cut on Saturday and Sunday,
Speaker 2: grinding away and I think again it was like a
Speaker 2: like out of nowhere win and he's had two of
Speaker 2: these and like basically I would say three years of
Speaker 2: being like out to sea, he's managed to like put
Speaker 2: it together for short stints of time. I think it's
Speaker 2: another example is what we talked about with Speeth, a
Speaker 2: little bit of like there's it's so hard to get
Speaker 2: better when you're one of the ten best players.
Speaker 4: In the world.
Speaker 2: It's so freaking hard, and you sometimes do and there's
Speaker 2: like the history of golf has so many cases of this.
Speaker 2: You do crazy things and you convince yourself you need
Speaker 2: to do things in order to become better. And I
Speaker 2: think hovelin Hobland categorically when he came on tour was
Speaker 2: like basically a driving machine. He drove the crap out
Speaker 2: of the golf ball. It wasn't the longest, but he
Speaker 2: was so accurate, and he was very He was adequately long.
Speaker 2: He was a great iron player. He made putts when
Speaker 2: he needed to make putts. He just had to clean
Speaker 2: up the short game, like legitimately, and we saw it
Speaker 2: at the twenty three FedEx Cup. We saw the version
Speaker 2: of golfer that everybody was like, Oh, once he figures
Speaker 2: out how to wedge the ball around the greens, how
Speaker 2: to hit short game shots, this guy is just going
Speaker 2: to be a superstar, and we saw it and then
Speaker 2: he you know, because of the curious person he is,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of crazy in the sense of like
Speaker 2: how he likes to untone any type of stone. He
Speaker 2: likes to unturn every stone in the world, seemingly, and
Speaker 2: no matter what the topic is, he likes to turn
Speaker 2: the stone over and figure out what the beating of
Speaker 2: everything is. He did it with his golf swing and
Speaker 2: now it's like, well, now he can't hit the ball.
Speaker 1: I think I'd be remiss not to bring up Andy
Speaker 1: you're saying, like he found it for these couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: I think Victor's a pretty good testament to the difference
Speaker 1: between major championship golf and weekend and week out golf.
Speaker 1: Where the two wins he's had over the last two
Speaker 1: years of bals Bar and Travelers, those are golf courses
Speaker 1: where you don't have to hit driver very much. And
Speaker 1: you saw this, like justin Thomas's one win of the
Speaker 1: last two years, was it hard where you don't have
Speaker 1: to hit driver very much.
Speaker 2: Victor plays great at valspar He always plays great at vals.
Speaker 1: Far exactly, Like there's a big difference between those types
Speaker 1: of setups where you're not hitting driver a lot, and
Speaker 1: then at a major where you do have to hit
Speaker 1: driver a lot, and when you don't hit it well,
Speaker 1: generally depending on the setup, you get kind of crushed.
Speaker 1: So Victor missed the cut at three of the four
Speaker 1: Majors this year. So I do think it's a testament
Speaker 1: to the difference between weekend and week out golf, especially
Speaker 1: on some of those softer setups that masks some of
Speaker 1: those bigger issues. But the most fascinating part of Kevin,
Speaker 1: I know, you love getting into Victor Howland. I still
Speaker 1: think he's given one of the best quotes of the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, and it didn't end up getting
Speaker 1: transcribed for whatever reason. But when I was talking to
Speaker 1: him at the Open at Port Rush, he said about
Speaker 1: his twenty twenty three season that he beat Scotty Scheffler
Speaker 1: all the time. Because I'd asked him like, does this
Speaker 1: see you know a little bit of a disappointing finish
Speaker 1: this week, Like does this give you more motivation seeing
Speaker 1: what Scotty's doing that you need to get back to
Speaker 1: that level? And Victor said, like, look, no one's pushing
Speaker 1: Scotty right now, Like it's not that he's doing anything special,
Speaker 1: it's that no one's pushing him. And when I was
Speaker 1: playing well, I beat him all the time. He said
Speaker 1: that verbatim, that he was beating him all the time,
Speaker 1: which was true. So I think Victor looks at himself
Speaker 1: as the best player in the world when everything's clicking,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of other guys don't necessarily
Speaker 1: see that, like they think that Scotty's on a little
Speaker 1: bit of a different stratosphere. So I'm with you, Kevin,
Speaker 1: that he's one of the most fascinating golfers in the
Speaker 1: world and one of those that actually does have the
Speaker 1: potential to get back to world number one. I don't
Speaker 1: think he ever touched world number one, but he was close,
Speaker 1: and he was playing like the best golfer in the world.
Speaker 1: He is somebody who could conceivably get to world number one,
Speaker 1: but it does feel pretty far right now.
Speaker 3: My favorite part about Victor is, like Andy, you point out,
Speaker 3: like what a good driver he was, what a good
Speaker 3: ball striker he was, And my favorite thing about it,
Speaker 3: and when I did that story about him a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago, is that he was basically like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, the statistics were really good, but I just
Speaker 3: looked at my swing and I didn't like it, and
Speaker 3: I just knew that I had to change it. And
Speaker 3: I think that that's a fascinating part of like artists
Speaker 3: in some ways. And I think what makes Victor interesting
Speaker 3: to write about is he almost views things like as
Speaker 3: an artist where it's like, yeah, it might be what
Speaker 3: your standards are, but my standards are more important, and
Speaker 3: so I'm going to do all this crazy stuff to
Speaker 3: meet my own standard. The statistics to me are just
Speaker 3: not telling of like how I feel when I like
Speaker 3: look over that. You know, he would hit great shots
Speaker 3: and he's just like, yeah, that that's not what my
Speaker 3: eye wants it to see. And you know, there's it's
Speaker 3: possible that Victor, I don't know if wrecked his golf DNA,
Speaker 3: but like went away from what actually made him great
Speaker 3: in pursuit of something else. And Tiger was sort of
Speaker 3: a similar way, Like the gulf of between talent between
Speaker 3: Tiger and Victor is pretty vast, but Tiger was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it didn't look the way I wanted it to look,
Speaker 3: so I changed it. I just went on this pursuit.
Speaker 3: I got worse in order to get better, and Victor
Speaker 3: got worse, thinking like I can get better in the
Speaker 3: long run, and maybe you never come out of it
Speaker 3: on the other side better. But that just makes him fascinating.
Speaker 3: He'll always be super fascinating to me. We could be
Speaker 3: talking about him ten years from now and be like, man,
Speaker 3: remember Victor Hoblin. He was a killer, and he was like, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it just doesn't suit my eye. And so I had
Speaker 3: to tear it all down and begin again. And that's
Speaker 3: that's a fun part of golf, is that it draws
Speaker 3: in centric weirdos sometimes who need that kind of pursuit.
Speaker 2: The thing too. Nobody likes the way their golf swing looks, That's.
Speaker 5: True, No one, nobody likes it. Like I guarantee, if
Speaker 5: you got moments of honesty from Scottie Scheffler and he
Speaker 5: showed him, he'd be like, I just I just hate
Speaker 5: how that looks.
Speaker 2: You know, like when he comes through cirtin position. Like
Speaker 2: I put a video yesterday on Instagram and by swing
Speaker 2: up and I would categorically I got it going. I
Speaker 2: played it, hit the ball as good as I've hit
Speaker 2: it in a long time yesterday and I'm looking at
Speaker 2: this swing and I'm like, God, I just hate it,
Speaker 2: but it's the same thing it's always been. I hate it,
Speaker 2: but there's only like the crazy thing about Victor and
Speaker 2: Tiger and certain people, and you get to the level
Speaker 2: like it speak is in the same bucket, but like
Speaker 2: you get you're literally one of the three best players
Speaker 2: in the world with that swing, and you can't get
Speaker 2: over how it looks, so you want it to look different.
Speaker 2: And I think, like what is inevitably happens is like
Speaker 2: if you're if you're flat, you always envy swings that
Speaker 2: are steep. If you're steep, and in your Tennessee is
Speaker 2: to get across the line, across the line at the
Speaker 2: top of the swing, you always envy those that are
Speaker 2: a little laid off. And it's just like the natural
Speaker 2: way it works with golf. I'd be curious if Adam,
Speaker 2: I bet, if you talk to Adam Scott and said,
Speaker 2: what do you hate about your golf swing? You'd have
Speaker 2: like a really long, eloquent answer about that.
Speaker 4: Might have to track Amscott down and get that on
Speaker 4: the record. All right, what's yours? What's what?
Speaker 2: I already gave him mine?
Speaker 4: Oh that's right, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: We can I think with the kind of time putting
Speaker 2: a bow on yours, I think Xander to me and
Speaker 2: maybe I'm maybe I'm just this is because what we
Speaker 2: saw out of him in twenty twenty four. To me,
Speaker 2: I've seen enough really high level performances from him this
Speaker 2: year to feel like where you're like, oh wow, like
Speaker 2: he's like pretty close to putting this all back together.
Speaker 2: To feel bullish about him. I just have, like I think,
Speaker 2: like Fleetwood last year, that was the best golf he's
Speaker 2: played in his career, and I just don't think he's
Speaker 2: ever been like a truly elite player in golf, like
Speaker 2: in the vein of like, I've never thought of him
Speaker 2: as one of the three or four back players in
Speaker 2: the world, and so I think that's like, that's my
Speaker 2: kind of two cents on Fleetwood is like he's actually
Speaker 2: just regressed to the mean of what he is, which
Speaker 2: is like a bona fide top fifteen player in the world,
Speaker 2: but not a top five player in the world, and
Speaker 2: that was just a kind of actually a blip on
Speaker 2: the radar last year.
Speaker 1: I think that's totally fair if we're doing any kind
Speaker 1: of honorable mention, I think reviewing this year and looking
Speaker 1: through things within the Fleetwood conversation. Somebody that could be
Speaker 1: a top five player in the world. I think we
Speaker 1: at least have to shout out Chris Gottrup, who won
Speaker 1: three times on tour this year, and as you're looking three,
Speaker 1: I bet I kept standings. Chris Goddup's the only player
Speaker 1: under twenty eight in the top ten in the standings
Speaker 1: this year. There's a hand I love big. I believe's
Speaker 1: tenth and he's twenty six, But so only person the
Speaker 1: top nine set up pretty well I would imagine for
Speaker 1: a big, potential breakout season in twenty twenty seven. Breakout's
Speaker 1: probably the wrong word, because this was a breakout season,
Speaker 1: and even you could probably consider twenty twenty five somewhat
Speaker 1: of a breakout season, winning the Scottish and contending late
Speaker 1: in the Open Championship. But I think looking ahead to
Speaker 1: as you survey the twenty twenty six season, who sets
Speaker 1: up well for twenty twenty seven, you gotta imagine that
Speaker 1: Chris Goddrup is pretty much at the top of that list.
Speaker 1: Outside of the top top you know, Scottie and maybe
Speaker 1: Cam Young, maybe Fitzpatrick. I don't think it's crazy to
Speaker 1: think that Chris Gottrup's a potential top five player in
Speaker 1: the world, and he's already hit that in the OWGR
Speaker 1: but not over a consistent period of time. Three wins
Speaker 1: this year made the cutting off four majors. Maybe wasn't
Speaker 1: his best major season it'll ever have, but I think
Speaker 1: you got to be looking ahead. As Chris Goddrup's a
Speaker 1: by candidate for the next twenty four months.
Speaker 2: That's a great call out. An honorable mention to someone
Speaker 2: I'd pull up would be, uh, would be Kalam Morikawa.
Speaker 2: I think like he's just a good reminder of like
Speaker 2: golf is, as we talked about a lot of these players,
Speaker 2: Golf is an ebs and flows sport where sometimes you're
Speaker 2: just you know, I think, like I always think back
Speaker 2: to Kyle Mark Howo's quote about like how he was like,
Speaker 2: for some reason, I'm just hitting a draw this year
Speaker 2: and where I usually see a fade, and and like
Speaker 2: that dropped him from a top five player to like
Speaker 2: a the twenty fifth player in the world, and then
Speaker 2: the ball started to fade again for you know, like
Speaker 2: if finally worked it out where I could start to
Speaker 2: hit the fade again, and he ascended back up, and
Speaker 2: you know, I think he had if had I think
Speaker 2: one of those like sliding doors moments of the season
Speaker 2: has had the back injury not happened at the players,
Speaker 2: what would the would the year look like? And he
Speaker 2: put together like such an impressive year despite having this
Speaker 2: back issue that like really I he he has said
Speaker 2: like I couldn't, I can't really trust going at it,
Speaker 2: and he played through the injury and put together like
Speaker 2: a really really good year to me. Calum mori kaala,
Speaker 2: just like embodying the ebbs and flows of golf, where
Speaker 2: you can have a down eighteen months and you know
Speaker 2: if you if you stay the course and continue to
Speaker 2: work at like it could just everything could fall right
Speaker 2: back into place.
Speaker 3: Who wins the FedEx Cup, guys, Alex Smalley.
Speaker 1: We should mention Scheffler right, like that's a that is
Speaker 1: a big story that if he doesn't win any of
Speaker 1: the next three events, he's going to go basically twelve
Speaker 1: months at least twelve months between wins. That he'll go
Speaker 1: into next year AMX or whatever he starts the season
Speaker 1: with with a full twelve months between wins, which would
Speaker 1: be a pretty big year out. Yeah here here that
Speaker 1: doesn't win.
Speaker 4: The Presence Cup, Who's who can say.
Speaker 1: I don't know that he'll win the FedEx Cup, Kevin
Speaker 1: or Player of the Year. I don't know that anyone
Speaker 1: puts a ton of stock in that award, at least
Speaker 1: on this podcast. But I do think Scotty's the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the five most important storylines going into He
Speaker 1: really does need to win a playoff event, Like it
Speaker 1: would be a pretty big deal to go twelve months
Speaker 1: between wins for who we all consider the world number one.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that I want to pick him
Speaker 1: to win the FedEx Cup playoffs necessarily, he definitely has
Speaker 1: the best chance, but I mean it's a huge upcoming
Speaker 1: three weeks for Scotty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess my pick to win. I think, like
Speaker 2: I think we're gonna get it. I'll take got her
Speaker 2: up to win the FedEx Cup. I mean, Xander's the
Speaker 2: best pick because well, yeah, I think if Scotty, if
Speaker 2: Scotty doesn't win this year, like the reality is that
Speaker 2: he doesn't win, in the next three weeks, he'll probably
Speaker 2: rack up like three more top fives. It'll be one
Speaker 2: of the crazier years in the history of golf in
Speaker 2: terms of like the number of close calls without getting
Speaker 2: across the line. I mean, it's just one of those
Speaker 2: things where winning seems so easy, and I think like
Speaker 2: the one of the undertones of this whole conversation that
Speaker 2: we didn't say, winning on the PGA Tour is so
Speaker 2: freaking hard, you know, And it's like all these all
Speaker 2: all these conversations about down this down that is like
Speaker 2: predicated on you beating one hundred and fifty six guys
Speaker 2: a couple times who are all at the top of
Speaker 2: the you know, at the top of the sport. Like
Speaker 2: that's the hard thing. And with the way they have
Speaker 2: it set up with signature events, it's just harder to
Speaker 2: win because you're playing against the top competition more often.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go cameon, I think, Yeah, even though the
Speaker 3: when Hi was not great, I think like over the
Speaker 3: course of three events, like he he will win one
Speaker 3: of those and at least one of those and it'll
Speaker 3: probably be the tour championship.
Speaker 4: He's going to track down Xander at the at Xander's Park.
Speaker 1: I like that call. We should also mention Jackson Coyven
Speaker 1: has a huge week coming this week. That's another honorable
Speaker 1: mention story that he has to finish. I think like
Speaker 1: top five essentially to get to the next round, but
Speaker 1: if he wants any chance of making the President's Cup,
Speaker 1: he probably does need to do that, so that at
Speaker 1: least I want want to include him in this episode.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you, guys, non Coven, who
Speaker 2: obviously won in his third start, Non Coven, who which
Speaker 2: young player in pro golf have you been most impressed
Speaker 2: by this year?
Speaker 3: Mile's Russell pro Golf most impressed? Non COAVIDU Uh? I
Speaker 3: mean Michael Brennan. I think is the the right answer.
Speaker 3: It's not the sexiest answer since he just won. I
Speaker 3: don't know, Joseph, you have someone better.
Speaker 1: I mean as tempted as I am to because I
Speaker 1: loved what I saw from Thorby Weren'tson this year and
Speaker 1: how often he was in contention. I do think the
Speaker 1: right answer is probably Blades Brown because.
Speaker 2: That was one of mine.
Speaker 1: He's nineteen, so I think a few years from now
Speaker 1: we're going to look back and be like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: Blades Brown finished third in Puerto Rico, and it was
Speaker 1: in the final group at the AMX, Like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was staring you directly in the face, that Blades Brown
Speaker 1: was going to be a great player. So yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: not the flashiest season from you know, he's not He's
Speaker 1: not making any noise in the FedEx Cup standing It's
Speaker 1: like he's eleventh in the Corn Fairy Tours standings. But
Speaker 1: I think you gotta look at Blades Brown's year and say,
Speaker 1: all right, this is somebody who's very likely going to
Speaker 1: be a top ten to fifteen player in the world
Speaker 1: at some points he'll still be young three years from now,
Speaker 1: like very young three years from now. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I at least shout out Blades Brown.
Speaker 2: I think it's crazy. The Corn Ferry Tour is such
Speaker 2: like a uncovered portion of golf. I'm convinced if Blades
Speaker 2: was playing the way he's playing just in amateur golf,
Speaker 2: in racking up wins, yeah, he'd have more hyph than
Speaker 2: because then he's playing on the PGA Tour and the
Speaker 2: Corn Fairy Tour split and like playing exceptionally well on
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour when he plays on the PGA Tour,
Speaker 2: like somehow he has Like it's it's crazy to be that,
Speaker 2: Like people aren't talking about him more. And I say
Speaker 2: this as someone who probably hasn't talked about him enough
Speaker 2: over the last year it's been I think like his
Speaker 2: approach to it has been super impressive, Like he knows,
Speaker 2: like I get better status through corn Ferry if I
Speaker 2: if I rank high on corn Ferry, then if I'm
Speaker 2: just like get my points on like special temporary PGA
Speaker 2: Tour members, so I'm gonna keep playing corn Ferry like
Speaker 2: so many guys that would have bolted from the corn
Speaker 2: Ferry Tour as soon as possible. I'm I'm so impressed
Speaker 2: with just how Blade has handled this transition from basically
Speaker 2: junior golf to pro golf to the PGA Tour so quickly,
Speaker 2: Like he has just gotten up basically as quickly as
Speaker 2: you could without like any real handouts.
Speaker 1: Point is season up. It's it's even honestly a little
Speaker 1: better than I remembered. It is so consistently solid. Like
Speaker 1: T nine at Myrtle, T fourteen at Byron Nelson, like T.
Speaker 1: Twelve at John Deere. Those are three successive PGA Tour starts.
Speaker 1: He had Corn Ferry Tour starts in there in the middle,
Speaker 1: but those are also like a lot of T twenties
Speaker 1: in a row. To be playing mat cansistently a good
Speaker 1: golf at close to the highest level. I mean the
Speaker 1: Myrtle Beach Classics not the strongest field. The John Deer
Speaker 1: Classics not the strongest field. But he's still doing some
Speaker 1: damage in those events at nineteen when he's twenty one,
Speaker 1: as long as nothing goes seriously wrong, like this is
Speaker 1: a really really good golfer.
Speaker 4: All right, next five years, I give you, I give
Speaker 4: you five.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a choice, Coyven, Russell or Brown over
Speaker 3: the next five years.
Speaker 1: Coyn. But that's five years is Miles Russell's that's a
Speaker 1: big ask for him when he's going to be that young.
Speaker 1: I'm taking coin.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say, like there's all this Miles
Speaker 2: Russell hype and rightfully so, you know, he became the
Speaker 2: first player to be the medalist of the Junior AM
Speaker 2: and the Western AM. I just want to like two
Speaker 2: years ago, Blades Brown was the medalist of the JUNIORAM
Speaker 2: and the USAM like true, like this is I don't
Speaker 2: think we were like hyping juniors as much as we
Speaker 2: are now. When Blade's round did it like just two
Speaker 2: years ago? It just but I don't, I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's like a complete crapshoot. I would lean toward Jackson
Speaker 2: Coyven just because we've already seen it.
Speaker 1: I think if you said fifteen years, I honestly would
Speaker 1: be inclined to maybe go Miles Russell. But five years,
Speaker 1: I think because you're just getting into the beginning of
Speaker 1: Coyven's prime and these other guys when have hit their prime.
Speaker 1: So I think it's I think it's pretty clearly cool
Speaker 1: they are. I mean, Kevin's who you're taking.
Speaker 4: I think I might take Russell.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just like watching some of that stuff,
Speaker 3: like he just has like a serious knack for scoring
Speaker 3: and just seems to be unfazed by any kind of
Speaker 3: pressure at all. I mean, obviously Coven's just the more
Speaker 3: prominent in our eyes. I having done it, I am excited.
Speaker 3: I do think we've waited a long time for that
Speaker 3: next generation to emerge, and it clearly seems like the
Speaker 3: three of them have a chance to be really pretty
Speaker 3: darn and so I think sometimes, in having been in
Speaker 3: journalism for a long time, journalists tend to hang on
Speaker 3: to the previous generation of stars for a little bit
Speaker 3: too long without paying enough attention to what's coming. And maybe,
Speaker 3: like us talking about speed for thirty minutes as like
Speaker 3: an example of that, but like, I think the next
Speaker 3: generation of kids is kind of here and it's almost like, man,
Speaker 3: we should really pay attention to what's happening to to
Speaker 3: Blades and to Miles.
Speaker 4: You know, have already kind of given Jackson his his shine.
Speaker 4: In a lot of way, there's equivin has shine.
Speaker 3: So I just feel like it's fun, it's exciting when
Speaker 3: there's a great unknown of like great talent is about
Speaker 3: to emerge'.
Speaker 2: Why people pay more attention to like free agency and
Speaker 2: drafts now than the actual games because of hope and promise.
Speaker 2: My last honorable mention for for most impressive young player
Speaker 2: Ben James. What I like about him He got He's
Speaker 2: made his pro debut at the RBC Canada. I would
Speaker 2: count that he got in the mix on the weekend
Speaker 2: at RBC Canada Travelers Isco. He was in the mix
Speaker 2: at the Rocket and then he was also in the
Speaker 2: mix at the Window this week and like to me,
Speaker 2: he got in the mix and was in contention. He
Speaker 2: had some disasters in there, like some bad weekend rounds
Speaker 2: in there, I want to preface, but just getting in
Speaker 2: the mix is half the battle. I think he's gonna
Speaker 2: I would like almost put this as a lock he
Speaker 2: will win a tournament next year, maybe more than one.
Speaker 1: Next year, I think where where the only plays some
Speaker 1: throwing the challenge flag. Andy from all accounts, really struggles
Speaker 1: with the putter. I know his strokes aren't that bad
Speaker 1: so far this year and his professional starts, but we
Speaker 1: have seen, like on the weekends, I think it was
Speaker 1: Saturday of the window, putt really poorly. I think that's
Speaker 1: what largely kept him from winning more in college. And
Speaker 1: I think you see with a lot of these really
Speaker 1: really good guys who are unbelievable ball strikers, really struggle
Speaker 1: with the putting. A lot of T fours, a lot
Speaker 1: of T sixes, and I think you should be bullish
Speaker 1: on Ben James's future, but to actually win. I don't
Speaker 1: want to compare him to Davis Thompson because he's better
Speaker 1: than Davis Thompson, but that's another guy who like blushes
Speaker 1: the ball. And Cam Young's kind of an example too,
Speaker 1: where it took him a while to win until he
Speaker 1: conquered the putter. I think with Ben James that's just
Speaker 1: something fascinating. You really got to watch his putting because
Speaker 1: if he doesn't fix it or at least get a
Speaker 1: little better, he might struggle to get across the finish line.
Speaker 2: All right, challenge flags down. We'll see what the official
Speaker 2: say next year. This time.
Speaker 1: He could wow.
Speaker 2: All right, that does it. Thank you guys for joining.
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