Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over
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Speaker 1: faxon I.
Speaker 3: Miss the Green. For example, I'm already upset when I
Speaker 3: find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And
Speaker 3: when I find my ball in a fried egg Friday
Speaker 3: egg and dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg egg
Speaker 3: Frida egg, bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 3: off of the So you said just the facts. It's funny.
Speaker 3: When I was looking at titles for my show, I
Speaker 3: had done a charity event a few years ago and
Speaker 3: called it Fax and Friends. You know, there's a show
Speaker 3: on Fox called Fox and Friends, the Morning show. I
Speaker 3: worked for Fox Sports. My wife wakes up every morning
Speaker 3: turns on Fox and Friends. So I thought Fax and
Speaker 3: Friends would be pretty good name. And then but just
Speaker 3: the facts spelled Fax instead facts kind of I thought
Speaker 3: that was a better way to go. And I like
Speaker 3: how you just started in because the guys that I
Speaker 3: like on radio, especially the guys I listened to in
Speaker 3: New England when I was living in Rhode Island, that
Speaker 3: there was a show on wee I in the morning,
Speaker 3: The Dennis and Callahan Show was a pretty big show,
Speaker 3: syndicated show, and they just started talking. They didn't and
Speaker 3: everybody on Serious XM on PGA Tour Radio, you know,
Speaker 3: Michael bad, whether it's tailor's ours are they start off talking, Hey,
Speaker 3: it's name of the show station we're on. I mean,
Speaker 3: people know that, you know. I just I think, like
Speaker 3: you just let's have a conversation.
Speaker 2: Well, so I think about it.
Speaker 1: I had this epiphany when I interview a lot of
Speaker 1: architects and they talk about constraints like if you put
Speaker 1: a clubhouse here, you got to start here right and
Speaker 1: you got to end here versus.
Speaker 2: And I thought about it.
Speaker 1: I was like, if I do an intro and I
Speaker 1: introduce somebody, I have to start right there. I don't
Speaker 1: get the ability to, like, if we have a conversation,
Speaker 1: like I could cut this out if I wanted to
Speaker 1: start our conversation fifteen minutes in, because that's where I
Speaker 1: think it really kicks off. Well, I can't move things
Speaker 1: around as easily if we do an intro exactly.
Speaker 3: No, that makes a lot of sense to me. And
Speaker 3: if you have something you want to talk about, just
Speaker 3: start talking about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, there's too many rules sometimes on
Speaker 3: the radio for my liking, where I have to reintroduce
Speaker 3: the person I been talking to, Like, it just doesn't
Speaker 3: feel right. It's not something we would do sitting on
Speaker 3: this chair and couch together talking to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, how's hosting and doing interviews?
Speaker 2: Ben? After being on the other side.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. I went to when I first
Speaker 3: got my card in nineteen eighty four, the PGA tour
Speaker 3: offered some media in PR counseling from a woman named
Speaker 3: Andrea Kirby, and I thought it was a great idea.
Speaker 3: She had been at ESPN for a long time and
Speaker 3: she was Her topic was to help you answer tough questions,
Speaker 3: how to stay on point, how to move the conversation
Speaker 3: in a direction that would benefit you, and ultimately how
Speaker 3: to look good. And she talked about body language and
Speaker 3: how important body language was when you were getting interviewed,
Speaker 3: and she showed us an incredible example of a hockey
Speaker 3: player after he had a game was over. She turned
Speaker 3: a sound down guy had a towel over, and you
Speaker 3: knew it was the end of the game, and you
Speaker 3: just watched him answer this question that took about forty
Speaker 3: five seconds. And then she paused the video and said,
Speaker 3: what do you think just happened to this guy or
Speaker 3: his team? And we all said, well, he got the
Speaker 3: news that somebody's family died. They must have lost, he
Speaker 3: must have given up the winning goal or whatever it was.
Speaker 3: And he had just scored the winning goal in triple
Speaker 3: overtime to win the Stanley Cup. And I'm looking at
Speaker 3: this going she's right, because I never thought body language
Speaker 3: could make such a difference. And smiling is important. People
Speaker 3: like to see people that are happy. And even Michael Breed,
Speaker 3: who has been a great friend to me and you know,
Speaker 3: an advisor, really going on the radio, he says, the
Speaker 3: more you can stand up when you do your show,
Speaker 3: and the more you can smile when you talk, people
Speaker 3: can hear your smile. And I'm going, that's ridiculous, but
Speaker 3: it makes a lot of sense to me. They can
Speaker 3: hear your happiness, your excitement. So I started the JUSTI
Speaker 3: Fact Show almost exactly a year ago. Here at the
Speaker 3: show I signed my contract and I think I learned
Speaker 3: from this woman Andrew Kirby nineteen eighty four. That's a
Speaker 3: long time ago. Yeah, how to speak better, how to
Speaker 3: end a sentence a lot of times. You know. The
Speaker 3: one thing I learned then was you keep talking sometimes
Speaker 3: and you never stop talking. And if you were lucky
Speaker 3: enough to watch Jim Nansen kind of Lisa Rice yesterday
Speaker 3: at the titleist opening, Jim nantz is he's so in control.
Speaker 3: He's never rushed, he's never hurried. He pauses and it
Speaker 3: doesn't feel like you're waiting for him to say the
Speaker 3: next thing, and it's just it's regular, it's normal. So
Speaker 3: long answer to your question.
Speaker 2: Well, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Like people that are very good at asking questions. It's
Speaker 1: a real art because it's their brief but they're like
Speaker 1: they get their point across so quickly.
Speaker 2: I'm still it's funny.
Speaker 1: I listened to myself self when I'm editing, and I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: just stop talking.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that you know we're talking about my interview
Speaker 3: coming up. Scottie Cameron, and you've got to ask a short,
Speaker 3: open ended question because people want to hear the person
Speaker 3: you're talking to, and you know, you always got to
Speaker 3: the conversation is going to drag in a direction and
Speaker 3: then you got to break it back and you know,
Speaker 3: get a few points across. But I think so your
Speaker 3: original question for me being the host of a show,
Speaker 3: I mean, I've had some friends tell me, Look, people
Speaker 3: just want to hear what you have to think about
Speaker 3: golf and golfing in the world. You don't need a
Speaker 3: lot of guests. When I'm doing a show by myself
Speaker 3: and not sitting in front of somebody, it's hard to
Speaker 3: talk by yourself. I'm not looking at anybody. I'm looking
Speaker 3: at four walls, so that's more difficult than having somebody
Speaker 3: on the show. I'm lucky because my show's on Monday,
Speaker 3: so there's always something to talk about after a weekend
Speaker 3: of golf on all the tours, but everybody does that.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to get guests that people don't have
Speaker 3: all the time, or thoughts people don't hear all the times,
Speaker 3: so that show can be a little bit more unique.
Speaker 3: And I'll throw my opinion in there. I'll get on that,
Speaker 3: and I've enjoyed it. But I'm in a really interesting
Speaker 3: part of my career as I've won't winded down from
Speaker 3: playing golf to work in more in media, working for
Speaker 3: Fox at the USGA so and then have my feet
Speaker 3: in the game as an instructor with some top players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a few famous ones.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, but I mean it's it's odd because I
Speaker 3: don't know that I've seen a TV announcer that's really
Speaker 3: involved in players games. And it can be I.
Speaker 1: Guess costas a little bit with Paul like and it
Speaker 1: was always when Paul Casey's coming down the stretch, he's
Speaker 1: talking about like very intimate knowledge of the swing and
Speaker 1: what happens to Paul when their pressure gets a little
Speaker 1: you know, I.
Speaker 3: Know in one of my I don't know if you'd
Speaker 3: call this a stick or not. But when I first
Speaker 3: met Rory McElroy, which is almost two years ago, he
Speaker 3: was under contract with another putting and instructor, and I
Speaker 3: was one of those that took a lot of lessons
Speaker 3: and I knew what it was like to cheat on
Speaker 3: an instructor. I wouldn't say cheat, but cheat. I told Roy.
Speaker 3: The first thing I said to him as I said, Roy,
Speaker 3: I'm not looking for any publicity here. I will never
Speaker 3: say anything to anybody about you and I speaking. If
Speaker 3: you go to the press and say something and then
Speaker 3: somebody asks me, I'll just kind of repeat what you said.
Speaker 3: But our stuff is sacred to me and you. And
Speaker 3: I think that gave him pause to exhale and say
Speaker 3: thank you. And it was uncomfortable because Kenyan, Phil Kenyon,
Speaker 3: who's one of the most noted putting instructors, teaches I
Speaker 3: mean justin Rose, Hendrick Stintson, Western Fleetwood. I'm missing other
Speaker 3: good players Fitzpatrick and and Rory and you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's hard, but and maybe even the stuff that they
Speaker 3: worked on was correct helped his stroke get better. But
Speaker 3: you know, maybe unlocking the door is what I helped him.
Speaker 2: I've taught.
Speaker 1: I talked with some pros yesterday, some club pros about
Speaker 1: the idea, and I think this is so true with
Speaker 1: teaching golf, is two teachers can be teaching the same thing,
Speaker 1: but one it's conveying the message in a in a
Speaker 1: in a way that the pupil understands it. Like you
Speaker 1: could be teaching the same exact thing, but just the
Speaker 1: way you convey the information, something clicks with one way
Speaker 1: versus the other, and that feel or that thought really
Speaker 1: resonates and all of a sudden it works.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating to me to scheme how players' minds work,
Speaker 3: sometimes in pictures, words or phrases. And I can give
Speaker 3: you a great example of some time I spent with
Speaker 3: Gary Woodland, who is another student now of Phil Kenyon,
Speaker 3: but I spent a little time with him four or
Speaker 3: five years ago. And as talented as Gary Woodland was
Speaker 3: and is, he was a young golfer when I first
Speaker 3: to talking to him. You know, he didn't plague golf
Speaker 3: as a kid like most players on the tour do now.
Speaker 3: And we were just having a conversation about putting, and
Speaker 3: we were on a putting green at Old marsh Down
Speaker 3: where I live, a beautiful old Pete Die course, and
Speaker 3: I made a comment to him that when I was
Speaker 3: putting my best, I always had to mark a putt
Speaker 3: when I missed, because it ran far enough by the
Speaker 3: hole that it wasn't a tap him. When I was
Speaker 3: putting my best, I mean, when I'm not putting my best,
Speaker 3: I'm a little more cautious, and then the speed's closer
Speaker 3: to the hole, and people kind of assume that, oh,
Speaker 3: he's got great touch when it ends up right by
Speaker 3: the cop I think the most the most prolific putters
Speaker 3: hit the ball with a little bit of authority. So
Speaker 3: I just had that conversation. I never really said anything
Speaker 3: more than that to Gary. And then the next week
Speaker 3: he had a great first round and his pressroom comments
Speaker 3: where I talked to Brad Paxton last week he told
Speaker 3: me to hit it harder. Never said that. I didn't
Speaker 3: say hit it harder, Gary, I said just that my
Speaker 3: putts always went by the hole a little bit. But
Speaker 3: how he interpreted my little phrase or my comment was
Speaker 3: I need to hit it harder to make more putts.
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think, like I grew up caddy in and played,
Speaker 1: but when pressure comes putting, you start worrying about the
Speaker 1: next putt instead of it seems like and it's always
Speaker 1: pace oriented, right. It's just like whenever anybody has a
Speaker 1: big putty, it's very rare to see somebody like, you know,
Speaker 1: hit it with that pace that in most putts like
Speaker 1: they go in when they go in there, you know
Speaker 1: they've got pace to them.
Speaker 3: I see that most of all, and look, I'm new
Speaker 3: from the instructor side. I was a player, and because
Speaker 3: you were a good player or a good putter doesn't
Speaker 3: mean you're going to be a good instructor, does it.
Speaker 3: You know, does Jack Nicholas because he was the best
Speaker 3: player that ever lived or Tiger Woods, does that mean
Speaker 3: they're going to be great instructors. You know, you have
Speaker 3: to have a way about having a conversation or or
Speaker 3: talking to them to help them. And you need to
Speaker 3: learn about the person, the personality, how they think. And
Speaker 3: you know, I did this for a long time. Well
Speaker 3: I got better as I got older, and I've learned
Speaker 3: a lot now from some of these putting instructors of
Speaker 3: what they look at on the technical side of it.
Speaker 3: And I've yet to have any player, whether they're a
Speaker 3: great player or an aspiring player, come to me and
Speaker 3: say I need more thoughts, I need to take more time,
Speaker 3: and I need to try harder. I've never had any
Speaker 3: great player, talented players say that to me. Now, beginner golfers,
Speaker 3: they need a lot of instruction. And when people ask me,
Speaker 3: is there a secret to this? And I say, it's time.
Speaker 3: You know, there's not a shortcut to this. You know,
Speaker 3: You're not going to be a great putter by taking
Speaker 3: two lessons. You know, you've got to spend endless hours.
Speaker 3: And I think later today when I talked to Cameron
Speaker 3: to Scottie about putting, I get insulted when somebody says, well,
Speaker 3: you're just lucky were born that way. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: let's go back to when I was five or six
Speaker 3: years old and first starting and how many hours and
Speaker 3: how many times did I spend hitting putts from all
Speaker 3: distances on all kinds of courses throughout a year. So yeah,
Speaker 3: get me going that way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I was talking to Billy Hurly last time
Speaker 1: and he was talking about like people that he's played
Speaker 1: golf with all different walks of life, but success they
Speaker 1: and he was talking about himself, and he said, you
Speaker 1: know the thing is anybody that has, you know, that
Speaker 1: reaches a high level of success in a field, they've
Speaker 1: made a sacrifice that other people didn't want to make,
Speaker 1: whether it was moving somewhere early in their career to
Speaker 1: get ahead, like moving to Asia if you're you know,
Speaker 1: in business and getting head that way, or in his case,
Speaker 1: he's like the amount of time I've spent hitting three
Speaker 1: foot Putts is something that nobody else would do, like
Speaker 1: very few people would do.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, so I can go back. Reminds me of
Speaker 3: in my college days. One of my college roommates was
Speaker 3: on the baseball team. He was a picture for the
Speaker 3: baseball team, and he was a good pitcher, but he
Speaker 3: wasn't an aspiring professional. And the school, Furman University, had
Speaker 3: a decent baseball program for a small Division one Double
Speaker 3: A school. But I was so devoted to the game
Speaker 3: that every class I took at Furman was between nine
Speaker 3: and twelve, so I was always done at twelve, and
Speaker 3: many of the days I'd go hit balls before my
Speaker 3: nine o'clock class, so I didn't go out as late
Speaker 3: as a lot of my friends. I wasn't crazy. I
Speaker 3: mean I had fun certain times, but he didn't say
Speaker 3: an He never said anything about it. And after our
Speaker 3: first full year's room and he was I'm so impressed
Speaker 3: with how disciplined you are, because he says I would
Speaker 3: never be able to do that. And I never thought
Speaker 3: of that as a sacrifice, you know. I thought like
Speaker 3: when my eyes opened, I wanted to be outside hitting
Speaker 3: golf balls. And most of the great players I don't
Speaker 3: see these great players as today getting up at eleven
Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning and trying to figure out what
Speaker 3: their day is going to be, like most of them
Speaker 3: have a little bit of a plan going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, that's the thing is all
Speaker 1: the hours that go into it. So you you've talked
Speaker 1: last night a lot about you know, getting thoughts out
Speaker 1: of your head. And I'm a big proponent of this
Speaker 1: with putting, how do you how do you get people
Speaker 1: to get stuff out of their head in the first place?
Speaker 2: Like what?
Speaker 3: Okay? So there's I found there's two really good ways
Speaker 3: to do it. First of all, I've played a lot
Speaker 3: of golf with a lot of thoughts on my head swinging.
Speaker 3: You know, I went to more teachers than anybody. I
Speaker 3: can guarantee you I would probably lead the tour in
Speaker 3: two categories one and maybe Ben Crenshaw would be ahead
Speaker 3: of me. But I think I've played more of the
Speaker 3: top one hundred courses than anybody. I think so. And
Speaker 3: I think I've worked. I know I've worked and paid
Speaker 3: for more instructors than anybody alive over eighty that's a
Speaker 3: lot written checks to eighty different instructors. And I have
Speaker 3: a list somewhere that's pretty funny to see. And I
Speaker 3: get my balls busted all the time about it. So
Speaker 3: I know what it's like to play with no thoughts,
Speaker 3: one thought or fifty thoughts, and in putting, I don't
Speaker 3: know why I was able to separate that and play
Speaker 3: with zero to one, you know, or somewhere in between
Speaker 3: zero and one is the right amount in my opinion.
Speaker 3: So if I have somebody that comes to see me
Speaker 3: and they have multiple thoughts, I kind of look at
Speaker 3: it like if you're a big guy, if you're an
Speaker 3: overweight guy and you're trying to lose weight, you don't
Speaker 3: go from a bacon double cheeseburger to a turkey burger
Speaker 3: or an impossible burger. You just take the bacon off first, right.
Speaker 3: You got to go in layers. And somebody that has
Speaker 3: one hundred thoughts you got to win down. So I
Speaker 3: actually add thoughts to them so they could get rid
Speaker 3: of all the other ones something to hold on to,
Speaker 3: and finding that magic is will take time to do it.
Speaker 3: And then when I have somebody like Patrick Cantley who
Speaker 3: had been to a bunch of instructors and every instructor
Speaker 3: tells him you have a great stroke. Why aren't you
Speaker 3: making putts? You know, that's the hardest thing to figure out,
Speaker 3: because now it's more let's sit down, because every time
Speaker 3: he hits a putt, people say, well, your stroke's perfect.
Speaker 3: All the machines, all the technology tells you face some
Speaker 3: path or square, temple's good, grip looks good. Pat you
Speaker 3: know everything, and you're like, holy smokes, this this is
Speaker 3: going to take some time too. So that's the two
Speaker 3: ends of the spectrums. And I rarely see it. And
Speaker 3: I'm friendly with I know Phil Keny a little bit.
Speaker 3: David Orro is a bit of big help to me
Speaker 3: and learning about biomechanics of the putting stroke, the weight
Speaker 3: shifts and everything that happen, wrist angles changes, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh when he starts talking about this stuff.
Speaker 3: He can look at a player in one stroke and
Speaker 3: pick apart the mechanical side of that. But if you
Speaker 3: start trying to change a player's older or radial deviation,
Speaker 3: you know, words that I hate hearing an instructor talk
Speaker 3: about to a player. It can scare somebody. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: players don't want to make big changes. They and they
Speaker 3: want to keep their feels and with all the technology now,
Speaker 3: I'm fascinated with all the informations out there and how
Speaker 3: some of that's transferred to a player, and no wonder
Speaker 3: so many guys are getting afraid of chipping and putting,
Speaker 3: and chipping's become an epidemic. It used to be just
Speaker 3: hit a chip shot, never thought about now like there's
Speaker 3: ten ways to hit one shot.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what it is a you know, a comment
Speaker 1: from last year with the rules changed with the pin,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget, you know, Adam Scott had a
Speaker 1: great year actually statistically on and around the green and
Speaker 1: he talked about with putting with a pin and how
Speaker 1: it you know, the pin being in reminded him of
Speaker 1: a kid when he would just go to the practice
Speaker 1: screen and just hit putts and everything would hit the
Speaker 1: pin and go in. And it's like almost like you
Speaker 1: could tell it from that comment. It almost freed his mind.
Speaker 1: That like liberated him and brought back like a much
Speaker 1: simpler time, because every every professional remembers when they're a kid.
Speaker 1: Somehow golf can get more difficult the more you work
Speaker 1: at it.
Speaker 3: I think every one of us played on a course
Speaker 3: that had a short, little flagstick on a putting green.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you'd call it a flag stick.
Speaker 3: Whatever that thing was where you had the handle, you
Speaker 3: could pull it up and it was metal, and you
Speaker 3: could hit the ball hard and you could make it
Speaker 3: make a loud noise. And we challenge ourselves, how hard
Speaker 3: can you hit this in and make the ball go in?
Speaker 3: And you know, maybe we're too lazy to pull it
Speaker 3: out of there to hit practice putts, or maybe you
Speaker 3: wanted to hit all three of your balls in there
Speaker 3: and scoop it up and catch all three balls at once.
Speaker 3: You know when you did that, And I understand the
Speaker 3: mindset from Adam Scott and how hey, if that brings
Speaker 3: me back to that childlike memories enthusiasm that I had
Speaker 3: or I didn't worry about missing, I think that's cool.
Speaker 3: I hate the rule. I hate the rule. I think
Speaker 3: it's degrading to the game. I can't imagine at the
Speaker 3: Masters this year somebody having a five foot or to
Speaker 3: win and leaving the flagstick in. It's like, what are
Speaker 3: we doing playing a late nine holes? I mean, take
Speaker 3: the flagstick out? Is it really speeding up the game? No?
Speaker 3: As a matter a lot of caddies tell me, you know,
Speaker 3: some guys wanted in, some guys wanted out. We're asking
Speaker 3: questions and it certainly is not growing the game. Do
Speaker 3: you think somebody's ever driven by, you know, a public
Speaker 3: course and said, oh, they leave the flagsticks in, let's
Speaker 3: go play golf today. You know, So why why are
Speaker 3: we doing this? Well?
Speaker 2: And I think this is I get rules.
Speaker 1: Like one of the things that drives me nuts is
Speaker 1: like interpretation of them.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: This is a rule that was created for when me
Speaker 1: and my buddy are playing trying to cram in nine
Speaker 1: holes at the end of the day, we're chasing the sun.
Speaker 1: I'm one hundred feet away and I'm putting too a pin.
Speaker 1: I could putt with it in. You know that that
Speaker 1: was I think, I assume is the attention intention of
Speaker 1: the rule, Like I don't have to go pull the
Speaker 1: flag out, And because I and but professional golfers their
Speaker 1: job is to look for ways to get tiny incremental advantages, right,
Speaker 1: And this is a method of you know, hey, I
Speaker 1: can get a little advantage here if I if I
Speaker 1: some people think I personally believe like I've made putts
Speaker 1: with it out my whole life. I can't look at
Speaker 1: it and make a putt with it in, because like
Speaker 1: it's just a foreign thing to me.
Speaker 3: That's so I have so many responses to this. As
Speaker 3: a kid, I was a caddy, My dad was a golfer.
Speaker 3: I grew up with the game. I learned rules, the
Speaker 3: number one rule, play it as it lies. That's the
Speaker 3: first thing we learned about the king. I'm Patrick Reid,
Speaker 3: so that's one thing. And then you know, the flagstick
Speaker 3: was to be removed. I remember playing with a member
Speaker 3: at my club. I was young, and this guy's name
Speaker 3: was Ralph Gunderson. His wife was my gym teacher in
Speaker 3: elementary school, and Ralph was a good player. I caddied
Speaker 3: forim a lot, and it just so happened that he said,
Speaker 3: you want to come play a few holes with me.
Speaker 3: We were in a cart and I'll never forget this.
Speaker 3: I was on the twelfth hole. We were playing like
Speaker 3: an emergency nine, and I had like a thirty footer
Speaker 3: and the flagstick was in and he's just kind of
Speaker 3: standing on the fringe waiting for me to putt, and
Speaker 3: I said, mister Gunderson, can you grab the flag for me?
Speaker 3: And I would have never considered even putty. Even this
Speaker 3: was meaningless nine holes with the flagstick in, and he
Speaker 3: kind of was like, oh, and he walked over and
Speaker 3: took the flag. It was, you know, it's one of
Speaker 3: those things. I followed that rule, and now that it's changed,
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's I think it's cheap the game. There's
Speaker 3: no sense in it. And now there's debates about You
Speaker 3: can listen to Mark Brody, you can listen to Dave Pells.
Speaker 3: You can listen to the professor at Berkeley that said
Speaker 3: keeping the flag stick in helps most of the time,
Speaker 3: unless you're going to miss it. Hit the flagstick on
Speaker 3: the low side of a breaking putt has more chances
Speaker 3: to go out than go in. So I'm so confused.
Speaker 3: I don't know what's right. But what I do know
Speaker 3: I was in a conversation with Bob Rotella and Dave Pells.
Speaker 3: Now Pells would have been the first guy that studied
Speaker 3: I don't know if you'd call this science. He likes
Speaker 3: to call himself a scientist, but his opinion was it
Speaker 3: was better to keep the flag stick in when you
Speaker 3: were off the green. I remember that, Remember that I
Speaker 3: had more chances of the ball going in than not
Speaker 3: going in. And Rotella said to him Dave, I just
Speaker 3: tell my players, whatever makes you more confident, and Pell's
Speaker 3: got no, it has nothing to do with confidence because
Speaker 3: the ball's rolling. It doesn't know if you're confident or not.
Speaker 3: And Roteller says no, but you have to get the
Speaker 3: ball rolling. And if the flag stick in makes you
Speaker 3: more confident, you have a better chance of making it.
Speaker 3: If the flagstick out makes you more confident, you have
Speaker 3: a better chance of making So I'm a big Rotella guy,
Speaker 3: and I Pels was kind of speechless and get got angry.
Speaker 3: It was funny, And I think.
Speaker 1: This is like one of the most compelling things with
Speaker 1: golf is hitting on. This is like there's a constant
Speaker 1: tussle between like the science and the the just the
Speaker 1: mental aspect of golf, Like is it art or is
Speaker 1: it science?
Speaker 2: And is it like there?
Speaker 1: And I feel and I'm interested to hear your perspective.
Speaker 1: Working with tour players and being on tour for years,
Speaker 1: tour players typically fall and there are really analytical ones
Speaker 1: and really just field based players, right, And there's not
Speaker 1: a ton in the middle ground.
Speaker 3: You're saying, there's not a ton in the middle ground. Yeah,
Speaker 3: to me, it's it's so individualistic on an how a
Speaker 3: player plays and how they think. And the greatest two
Speaker 3: players we said it earlier, Jack and Tiger. You can
Speaker 3: see them behind the ball, painting a picture, an image
Speaker 3: in their mind, and very deliberate, both of them. Tiger
Speaker 3: takes three or four practice swings almost every shot. Jack
Speaker 3: seemed to stand behind that ball all the time. And
Speaker 3: the image of Jack on the eighteenth hole in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six at the Masters, he was hitting threewood off
Speaker 3: that tee. I don't know if you remember it, but
Speaker 3: he would always picture a shot and he hit this
Speaker 3: beautiful little almost like a pull cut fade all the time.
Speaker 3: And he had teed the ball up fairly high for
Speaker 3: a threewood back then with persimmon, and he always kind
Speaker 3: of walked up with the club dangling in his right
Speaker 3: hand and his left hand kind of shaking as he
Speaker 3: circled into his path to get to address the ball.
Speaker 3: And in this particular shot, he got up over, he
Speaker 3: went through his waggles and he stepped away and he
Speaker 3: started looking at his glove like something was wrong with
Speaker 3: his glove, when he clearly wasn't able to make this
Speaker 3: swing because he didn't have the picture and ready, and
Speaker 3: one of the announcers said, oh, Jack's nervous here, you know,
Speaker 3: and people would get concerned when somebody stepped away from
Speaker 3: a shot, And to me, it's like, no, he's gathering
Speaker 3: his thoughts here. And then he piped his three would
Speaker 3: write down the middle, and I'm like, that's a guy
Speaker 3: that is committed. And if you watch Justin Thomas this
Speaker 3: year in the playoff at Kapolua, where both Shoffley and
Speaker 3: Reed had missed putts that they said they got gusted,
Speaker 3: Justin Thomas had about a three foot putt to win
Speaker 3: and you saw him step away And I texted him
Speaker 3: afterwards because he texted he said, hey, look the wind
Speaker 3: was blowing. It was gusted. I wasn't going to let
Speaker 3: augusta wind make me blow this put or blow this tournament.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what the great players have always
Speaker 3: been able to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like when the second something that takes you
Speaker 1: out of that moment, or you think about something other
Speaker 1: than just what's at hand, you got it to step
Speaker 1: off because it.
Speaker 2: Breaks the train of thought.
Speaker 1: It's like nothing ever goes well when you start thinking
Speaker 1: about something else.
Speaker 3: No, And for Rory McElroy, last year at the Players Championship.
Speaker 3: I mean it was to me a monumental occasion. On
Speaker 3: the twelfth hole the final round, it's the driveable par
Speaker 3: four water on the left. It's a newer hole that
Speaker 3: was renovated two years ago. Maybe players can easily reach
Speaker 3: the hole. Rory could do it with the three when
Speaker 3: he left the ball a little bit to the right
Speaker 3: and short of the green off the took perfect t
Speaker 3: shot and the flagstick was left towards the water and
Speaker 3: he chipped it a little bit by maybe ten or
Speaker 3: twelve feet close to the fringe, and he had now
Speaker 3: a kind of an uphill left to right breaking putt
Speaker 3: and it was a pivotal putt. It was critical there
Speaker 3: and maybe a cup's worth of break. And he got
Speaker 3: up over the putt and is we worked a lot
Speaker 3: on routine and then he stepped away and he readjusted
Speaker 3: his line because a lot of times, you know, like
Speaker 3: most players, he had an underread going. And he said, look,
Speaker 3: I knew I needed to play a little bit more break.
Speaker 3: So he went through his routine again and made it,
Speaker 3: and maybe a year before that he wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 3: So as a player myself, that did situational stuff is
Speaker 3: a lot of the things we talk about. So it's
Speaker 3: that wouldn't be mechanics, right, but it's like, how are
Speaker 3: you going to respond to something like that? How are
Speaker 3: you going to respond when you've had a series of
Speaker 3: putts that you've hit perfectly that go over the edge
Speaker 3: of the hole and don't go in. How do you
Speaker 3: talk to yourself?
Speaker 1: And I feel like that is like it was like
Speaker 1: kind of for Rory with what he went through the
Speaker 1: last few years with putter, Like that's a monumental putt
Speaker 1: because if you're not putting, if you're not putting well
Speaker 1: and uphill ten foot good breaking left to right putt
Speaker 1: as a righty is you know, that's so such a
Speaker 1: hard put to it because to hit it the pace
Speaker 1: to get that ball to go in because you know
Speaker 1: the Tennessee has missed it short and right, like we
Speaker 1: talked about and coming down the stretch and pressure. Do
Speaker 1: you have a moment from your career that like stands
Speaker 1: out where you were really working on something and coming
Speaker 1: down the stretch, you know it clicked and that just
Speaker 1: set off a really great run of golf.
Speaker 3: I have two putts that I think have helped me
Speaker 3: to understand how good the human body can work and
Speaker 3: the mind works. One of them was in Australia. I
Speaker 3: had a two shot lead at the Australian Open. I
Speaker 3: played the first two rounds of Greg Norman when he
Speaker 3: was number one in the world. It was a Metropolitan,
Speaker 3: a great Mackenzie course, and I had been going down
Speaker 3: to Australia for the past few years and had just
Speaker 3: learned about all these sand belt courses and I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 3: the best greens, hard conditions, firm, windy, and this eighteenth toll.
Speaker 3: If I made five, I was going to win. Part four.
Speaker 3: Hit a three foot off the tee to be saved,
Speaker 3: hit it down the middle, hit it just on the
Speaker 3: right fringe. Most of the trouble in that hole was
Speaker 3: on the left. And I putted it up to about
Speaker 3: four or five feet fast greens. And I didn't care
Speaker 3: if I made this put or not. I really didn't.
Speaker 3: All I knew is if I got it to the lip,
Speaker 3: I could make the next putt. So my thought was
Speaker 3: I want this to get to the front edge and
Speaker 3: trickle in or I'll be There was no ego in
Speaker 3: this putt. I didn't have to make this to win,
Speaker 3: and I hit this putt and it got to the
Speaker 3: edge and it sat there like Tiger's chip on sixteen
Speaker 3: in Augusta, and it fell in. And it's just like
Speaker 3: when you tell your brain when you have that picture
Speaker 3: that's so clear about what you want to do. It's
Speaker 3: amazing how good you can you can feel things. And
Speaker 3: the best golf I ever played in my career was
Speaker 3: the two thousand and one Sony Open at Wili, and
Speaker 3: I shot twenty under par in the last hole I had.
Speaker 3: You know, I played with L's and Layman, so I
Speaker 3: was playing with top players the last couple of rounds
Speaker 3: and it was just a flall ass around. I eagled.
Speaker 3: There were two part fives. I made an eagle every
Speaker 3: day and I finished it with an eagle on my
Speaker 3: round three times. And the eighteenth hold, the seventy second hole,
Speaker 3: I hit a five or two about eight to ten
Speaker 3: feet under the hole with a left to right break,
Speaker 3: a good amount, you know, a cup's worth of break,
Speaker 3: and another putt that I had no concern about whether
Speaker 3: I made this put or not. You know, all I
Speaker 3: saw was a perfect line. And I remember the feeling
Speaker 3: and all of us have felt it when you hit
Speaker 3: a pot in the exact middle of the sweet spot
Speaker 3: and it leaves, it melts onto the face of the
Speaker 3: putter and it goes off and you're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: that felt good. Everything was perfect and the ball rolled
Speaker 3: in a perfect speed, perfect line. And I think you
Speaker 3: can I think you can teach people to feel that
Speaker 3: in practice. You can tell them that they need to
Speaker 3: get there in petition. But I think I've figured out
Speaker 3: a few different ways where I can help people understand
Speaker 3: those feels in their practice, where they can translate that
Speaker 3: to the golf course. And that's I think that's what
Speaker 3: the goal is of everybody is can you play, you know,
Speaker 3: rounds of golf playing in that state of mind where
Speaker 3: there's no concern for the result. I mean, I never
Speaker 3: walk down the street thinking I'm the best putter in
Speaker 3: the world. But I was a confident putter, and I
Speaker 3: think for a long time I was able to put
Speaker 3: most putts, taking away the importance down and play the
Speaker 3: importance of the putt, the result, and just really falling
Speaker 3: in love with hitting putts.
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot of it.
Speaker 2: I I've always.
Speaker 1: Been like a player that struggled on the greens, but
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years, I've learned to like
Speaker 1: love putting.
Speaker 2: And it's amazing how like it changed, like all of
Speaker 2: a sudden.
Speaker 1: People are like, ah, you're a really great potter, and
Speaker 1: it's just like it was like a mindset switch and
Speaker 1: now I can't hit the ball.
Speaker 2: But that's golf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And people say that all the time. You know,
Speaker 3: when they're when they're hitting it well, they tend to
Speaker 3: not put as well. When they're putting well, they're not
Speaker 3: hitting it as well. And sometimes it's desperation you make
Speaker 3: these putts. And it's interesting to see, like statistics on
Speaker 3: the tour from five eight ten feet, how tour players
Speaker 3: make more of those for par than they do for birdie.
Speaker 3: I mean, so is that technical?
Speaker 2: No, it's a loss of version.
Speaker 1: It's what I did a podcast with an economist.
Speaker 2: It's a loss of version.
Speaker 3: So tell me what loss of version?
Speaker 1: So people people remember their losses. They did a whole
Speaker 1: study on this. They remember their losses more than they
Speaker 1: remember They fear losing a shot more than they they
Speaker 1: want to gain a shot loss of birdie. Okay, So
Speaker 1: they did a study at Oakmont and Pebble with the
Speaker 1: ninth hole at Oakmont, in the second hole at Pebble,
Speaker 1: when they switched it from a five to four. Oh so,
Speaker 1: by simply switching the par to par four, players scored
Speaker 1: point two shots better on the hole, same.
Speaker 3: Hole, but par four, same distance.
Speaker 1: Same distance, And I mean they did the whole control,
Speaker 1: like they looked at it all over the years, historically
Speaker 1: pretty much the same scoring average. When it switched to
Speaker 1: par four, the scoring average went down point two. They said,
Speaker 1: if you switched par five, every par five on tour,
Speaker 1: I say, par fives don't exist, because you know, when
Speaker 1: you think about par five, is expert player reaches it
Speaker 1: in three shots? Those outside of maybe fourteen of Pebble,
Speaker 1: you know, and a few other handful examples, they're all
Speaker 1: part four. So if a player could convince themselves that
Speaker 1: it's a par sixty eight.
Speaker 3: Whoever this was that you talk to, would if he
Speaker 3: told every player you got to play it as a
Speaker 3: par sixty eight, you're going to shoot a lower score.
Speaker 1: He said, they shoot one shot lower per round point point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's since she so another row tell his story.
Speaker 3: He was at Jack Nicholas was speaking to a group
Speaker 3: of people, and Jack Nicholas was finishing the conversation, the talk,
Speaker 3: and he said, I never three putted the last hole
Speaker 3: of any tournament I ever played in. Never, he said. So.
Speaker 3: There was some questions afterwards, and then Jack and Rotella
Speaker 3: were together and this player came up and said to Jack, Jack,
Speaker 3: I remember the eighteenth hole on Sunday at SO and
Speaker 3: so tournament in Ohio. You definitely three putted the last hole,
Speaker 3: and Jackson, no, I never three putted the last hole.
Speaker 3: And and this conversation went back and forth, and this
Speaker 3: guy got very angry and wrote, I said, let me
Speaker 3: ask you something. Let's call him Bob. Bob, what's your handicap?
Speaker 3: Because I'm sixteen? He goes, do you remember three putting
Speaker 3: year holes? Last holes a lot? He goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I remember it all the time. He goes, okay, so
Speaker 3: you're sixteen handicap and remember all those and Jack Nicholas
Speaker 3: is the best player that ever lived and he doesn't
Speaker 3: remember that. Which way of thinking is correct? The guy
Speaker 3: walked away angry, So you know, create your own reality.
Speaker 3: You have to do that to be great at this game.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I love that story, and I love when people walk
Speaker 3: away all angry. That's something that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: You know, last last I I asked about you know,
Speaker 1: playing an environment of like an urban environment, if it
Speaker 1: was different then But in your response was you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't really care as long as it was a.
Speaker 2: Great golf course. To you what is what is the
Speaker 2: golf experience?
Speaker 1: You know at a great golf course, from like an
Speaker 1: architectural standpoint, how does it enhance the professional golf product?
Speaker 3: So, being a Rhode Islander native Rhode Islander, I was
Speaker 3: around older golf courses compared to the rest of the
Speaker 3: country is Let's say Donald Ross's home was it Rhode
Speaker 3: Island in the summers, a little town called Little Compton,
Speaker 3: and he built a cool little par sixty nine course
Speaker 3: called Siconic country Club. The course where I grew up,
Speaker 3: Rhode Island country Club, was Donald Ross. There's Wana Moist
Speaker 3: probably the most well known course in the state, Newport
Speaker 3: country Club that Char's US Senior Open host had Donald
Speaker 3: Ross holes on it. So William Flynn was there, Tillinghasse
Speaker 3: was there, Willie Park was in Rhode Island. Rayner was
Speaker 3: there with Wana Moye Billy ANDREI grew up on a
Speaker 3: Rainner of course, and didn't know who seth Rayner was
Speaker 3: Lee Jansen finally told him that. So some of the
Speaker 3: best architects in the world were in Rhode Island, so
Speaker 3: I learned their names, read a lot about architecture. Then, obviously,
Speaker 3: being near Massachusetts, played a lot of courses. The Country
Speaker 3: Club was one of the original five courses. William Flynn,
Speaker 3: who you know, did Shinnecock Hills as well. So I
Speaker 3: started learning and tying all these things together and learning
Speaker 3: what great architecture was by playing them, not by you know,
Speaker 3: trying to become a landscape architect. You know, I just
Speaker 3: saw great golf and how the best holes looked and
Speaker 3: felt and courses were. And then when I got on
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour, you know, having watched PGA Tour golf,
Speaker 3: you always knew listen to players comments how I loved Riviera,
Speaker 3: how I loved Harbortown, how I loved west Chester. And
Speaker 3: they were always the older colonial, the older courses people
Speaker 3: seemed to players seemed to like. And then as the
Speaker 3: game started to grow in popularity and we had to
Speaker 3: be concerned about where are we going to put spectators.
Speaker 3: Let's create more drama. That's that's the balance. And I
Speaker 3: was surprised at how few of the courses we played
Speaker 3: on the PG Tour were great. You know, we didn't
Speaker 3: play top ranked, top one hundred courses very often, so
Speaker 3: that was always that made that made a difference, and
Speaker 3: but it made less of a difference to players than
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, then I thought it should have.
Speaker 3: You do you.
Speaker 1: Think that the great golf courses create a different leaderboard
Speaker 1: than say, you're run of the mill built for PGA
Speaker 1: to our golf say it, We'll just say like TPC
Speaker 1: New Orleans, you know, Louisiana, but like not not I
Speaker 1: don't want to. But do you feel like the Riviera
Speaker 1: Riviera created a different, different type of success from the player,
Speaker 1: like asked different questions than you know, that modern course
Speaker 1: that you talked about that wasn't like you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. That there were so many
Speaker 3: factors that would influence a field. A lot of it
Speaker 3: was tradition, like Riviera had been there for one hundred years,
Speaker 3: Hogan his history there, schedule, where it is the schedule,
Speaker 3: is it a run up to something that was important?
Speaker 3: Perse that was something title, sponsor, where you lived. All
Speaker 3: those things were factors. If you think about the US Open,
Speaker 3: the first one Fox did at Chambers Bay. Of course,
Speaker 3: nobody really knew anything about they didn't have any history,
Speaker 3: had a great leaderboard and a compelling finish, didn't it
Speaker 3: ye to watch what happened? It was sensational. So will
Speaker 3: Chambers Bay be another US Open course? Maybe? If the
Speaker 3: US Open were held at TPC at Louisiana, like you said,
Speaker 3: would the leaderboard be better than it is as a
Speaker 3: regular tour of one hundred to get the top players there?
Speaker 3: Would they have to change the the golf course with
Speaker 3: firmer conditions and more rough. Absolutely, But you know, every course,
Speaker 3: every tournament doesn't have to have a fantastic leaderboard to
Speaker 3: still be a great tournament. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: I think it's better that every tournament's not a nine
Speaker 3: or ten on the scale.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. So Riviera one of my favorite staffs.
Speaker 1: I think the last player to win Riviera that was
Speaker 1: under the age of twenty eight is Adam Scott. And like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like maybe thirteen or fourteen years ago now,
Speaker 1: and it's like something about that place it favor, you know.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is statistically just an anomaly,
Speaker 1: but older players seem to thrive there. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's something about the game at Riviera that
Speaker 1: you know requires a little bit of thought.
Speaker 2: The more times you go around it, you learn more
Speaker 2: and more.
Speaker 1: At great courses, that seems to be one of the
Speaker 1: common threads is like every time you play you kind
Speaker 1: of reveals itself a little bit more.
Speaker 3: You know, I have a fun spark spot at Riviera.
Speaker 3: My greatest round ever played was there in the PGA
Speaker 3: in ninety five, and Bob Roteller wrote a story about
Speaker 3: my round. I don't know if I ever saw it
Speaker 3: in golf as game of confidence and I read it
Speaker 3: or I show players that I've tough or talk to
Speaker 3: I don't want to brag and say, hey, read this
Speaker 3: because it's about me. But what goes through a player's
Speaker 3: mind when they're playing great is not unique, you know.
Speaker 3: It's you still get bad thoughts, you don't hit every
Speaker 3: shot perfectly. You have to manage the emotions of playing
Speaker 3: a great round of golf when you need to. But
Speaker 3: Riviera there's subtleties to the course. And if one cour
Speaker 3: one hole at Rivia plays easy, like number one, the
Speaker 3: short par five down the hill, number two will play
Speaker 3: more difficult, depending on the winds, time of day, temperature.
Speaker 3: You know, you can play there sometimes when it's cold
Speaker 3: and wet and the ball doesn't go anywhere. Uphill shots
Speaker 3: play so long. No course makes you turn the ball
Speaker 3: in both directions more than Riviera Rivia does. Those big
Speaker 3: yucalyptus trees, the stadium, look of the eighteenth Toll, that's
Speaker 3: just natural. It's hard. I've never met anybody that goes
Speaker 3: from Riverer and goes this isn't one of the coolest
Speaker 3: places I've ever played. That's the look of the bunkering,
Speaker 3: the green complexes and George Thomas. I mean, what a combination.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 1: George Thomas's might be the most underrated architect.
Speaker 2: You look at it.
Speaker 1: Every single he didn't do that many projects, but every
Speaker 1: single one home run.
Speaker 3: So being a New England guy. There's a great course
Speaker 3: in Massachusetts by the Cape called Katans and Katans It
Speaker 3: is hard to get, too hard to find, and you
Speaker 3: got to go through these windy little roads and as
Speaker 3: you're driving out towards the peninsula where it is, you
Speaker 3: pass this little course called Marion M A R I
Speaker 3: O N. Have you been there? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And you know there's a little shack or shed whatever,
Speaker 3: and you know, like a gravel pit sort of parking
Speaker 3: lot and stone wall in front of a green and
Speaker 3: you know, I just used to laugh at that. You know,
Speaker 3: you saw pull carts out there so you could go
Speaker 3: pay twelve bucks and pay play your eight or nine holes.
Speaker 3: George Thomas's first course ever and incredible. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 3: got great views when you go. Did you you so
Speaker 3: you've been out there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I played.
Speaker 1: I played it with a with another with a with
Speaker 1: a architect, young architect.
Speaker 2: It was so fun.
Speaker 1: We went out there on our box like if there's
Speaker 1: nobody working there, you check your money in and you
Speaker 1: know that was That's a really, I think an interesting
Speaker 1: course for people to go see because it's like a
Speaker 1: glimpse into the first iteration of golf architecture. Yes, because
Speaker 1: that was in the rock walls were the hazards, because
Speaker 1: it was it was easier to build a rock wall
Speaker 1: than dig a bunker.
Speaker 3: Totally, and there were a lot of rocks around there.
Speaker 3: The Philadelphia Quakers kind of that was a vacation spot
Speaker 3: for them. They would come to Jamestown, Rhode Island, they
Speaker 3: would come to Cape Cod Thomas never got paid a
Speaker 3: feed to design a golf course. It's fabulous a wealthy guy,
Speaker 3: but that's where he learned his craft. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if he took some of that schooling from maybe
Speaker 3: North Barrack that had some rock walls around it. Uh
Speaker 3: and and those walls, you know, part of what farmers
Speaker 3: laid down to divide properties. And then you just put
Speaker 3: him up and make the guy hit it over the fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it's a neat play. That's like one of
Speaker 2: the hidden gems. It's in terms of.
Speaker 1: An authentic, unique golf experience, there are a few that
Speaker 1: have more kind of character. Like it's not going to
Speaker 1: wow you with conditions, but just a neat little spot.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't drive by it, you should stop.
Speaker 3: And so if you were going there, you had to
Speaker 3: have gone to Catansit.
Speaker 2: I didn't go. Oh, I just went to Marian You did.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, I was flying into Boston to get to Yale
Speaker 1: and I had time for one stop, so I stopped.
Speaker 3: That was your one stop. Now, that's great story. Marion
Speaker 3: Golf Club.
Speaker 2: I have a thing for you know.
Speaker 3: Well, if you're making me jealous, because I want to
Speaker 3: go back there. My dad was a good player, and
Speaker 3: he was a member when I was a little kid
Speaker 3: at Rhode Island Country Club, where I learned to caddy
Speaker 3: and learned the game. But he also was a member
Speaker 3: of a place in the Cape called Eastward ho which
Speaker 3: has now moved way up in the rankings. Keith Foster
Speaker 3: did a renovation there, cleared thousands and thousands of trees.
Speaker 3: So that is one of the great places in America
Speaker 3: that many people don't know about. But there's a town
Speaker 3: called Fall River, Massachusetts. Fall River was a mill town.
Speaker 3: My father was worked at the Far River Gas Company.
Speaker 3: And there's an eighteen hole course called Fall River Country Club.
Speaker 3: But the original nine holes there is a sensational nine
Speaker 3: holes of golf. I brought Gil Hans there. They had
Speaker 3: punch bowl greens, they had dance style green. He goes,
Speaker 3: this is one of the greatest places I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: So those little nine hole tracks can be really, really fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could talk I wanted to talk more
Speaker 1: about golf course. We've bet we ended up on to
Speaker 1: talk about you know, the mind and golf, and but
Speaker 1: like I mean, that's I think one of the neatest
Speaker 1: things about golf is just the exploration and and a
Speaker 1: lot of times the golf courses that you've never heard of,
Speaker 1: Like it's so worth just stopping and getting out of
Speaker 1: your car and seeing, like what's going on here, because
Speaker 1: like there are cool, little quirky nine hole courses all
Speaker 1: over the place, especially in the northeast, you know. And
Speaker 1: uh so it's it's been a pleasure of having you
Speaker 1: on and we'll have to do it again. Maybe uh
Speaker 1: if we get closer to uh, you know, may do
Speaker 1: something about wing foot.
Speaker 3: Or definitely, yeah, let's do something coming up there. Because
Speaker 3: I my feeling on this US Open is the usj
Speaker 3: would never admit this, but I think they want to
Speaker 3: really make guys sweat. I think they want to see
Speaker 3: some scores, some traditional US Open golf, I know Curtis
Speaker 3: Strange and Paul As. I want to see guys bloody
Speaker 3: when they finish around.
Speaker 2: And those greens are.
Speaker 1: Real quick talk about so you know, wing footscreens on
Speaker 1: on a like they would fall if somebody built them today.
Speaker 1: They'd be like these greens they're unfair, but like because
Speaker 1: of the tradition, they you know, they are they are
Speaker 1: intimidating as a great putter going to place with with
Speaker 1: very undulating greens, do you feel just like when you
Speaker 1: stepped on a course like that where you're at a
Speaker 1: bigger advantage.
Speaker 3: Definitely. And I think the best putters, the better putters
Speaker 3: like that where it's difficult, challenging on every putt. I
Speaker 3: always put in my best at a place like Augusta
Speaker 3: because it made you be more creative. You know you
Speaker 3: were you were nervous because putts were so fast. But
Speaker 3: I think the the opposite is true too, Like at
Speaker 3: death Page, everybody said he's the best conditioned. Greens are
Speaker 3: all flat, you're gonna put great. I put it horribly there.
Speaker 3: I couldn't see a picture.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Straighter putts are harder for me than breaking putts.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because, like I think, one of the things
Speaker 1: that's happened with this green speed's getting so highah is
Speaker 1: that you know, tour doesn't like to put pins on
Speaker 1: much slope because they never want the course to be
Speaker 1: part of the conversation. Yes, And what's happened is like
Speaker 1: I was watching even Kapalua down the stretch, I'm like, God,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a putt that anybody's played outside the
Speaker 1: hole from inside seven feet.
Speaker 2: And losing losing slope.
Speaker 1: Slope is the best, you know, having a five footer
Speaker 1: that you're looking at, it's like, well, I could play
Speaker 1: it a ball out and put some paste on it,
Speaker 1: or I could play it a cup out and die
Speaker 1: in the top edge. Like that's where putting ads. There's
Speaker 1: almost an added dimension to it.
Speaker 3: So I learned that at a British Open, which traditionally
Speaker 3: are flattered greens because of the wins out there when
Speaker 3: the weekends came around the RNA who set up the
Speaker 3: golf course where they were always able to find more slope.
Speaker 3: So you can make the course play more difficult with
Speaker 3: your whole locations. Obviously tucking them behind a bunker or
Speaker 3: by the edges of the green, but put in them
Speaker 3: where there's a lot of slope really is underrated and
Speaker 3: make it much more difficult.
Speaker 1: I agree, yeah, I mean, and it adds a dimension
Speaker 1: to the pro shop when there's more slope because you
Speaker 1: can't get above it all of a sudden, then your
Speaker 1: target line is aiming right at it, and having five
Speaker 1: feet all around it becomes oh, I got to stay
Speaker 1: below it, and that bottom part of the circle is
Speaker 1: going to be twenty five feet.
Speaker 3: And that's where, of course, knowledge is really important, you know,
Speaker 3: that's a big part of it. Well, thank you. I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk soon, and good luck talking to Scotti later.
Speaker 3: I can't wait. I got to get a little bit
Speaker 3: more organized. There's a lot of things you can An
Speaker 3: hour is not long enough to talk to Scotti, Cameron, that's.
Speaker 2: For sure, all right. Thanks Bratt, har Dannie. You've been
Speaker 2: listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do the digging
Speaker 2: for you.