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Speaker 2: Miss a green?
Speaker 1: For example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 3: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a bride egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg, bride egg Lie,
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name is
Speaker 1: Garrett Morrison, and today we have takeaways from the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two PGA champ Chip. So it was a somewhat
Speaker 1: sleepy tournament at Southern Hills for the first three and
Speaker 1: a half days. Roy McElroy caught fire on Thursday, then
Speaker 1: fell back. Tiger Woods made an incredible effort to sneak
Speaker 1: under the cut line on Friday, but by Saturday evening
Speaker 1: he had withdrawn from the tournament because if body simply
Speaker 1: didn't hold up. And on Sunday the top of the
Speaker 1: leader board was occupied by names like Mito Pereira, will
Speaker 1: Zalatoris and Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick. It seemed like
Speaker 1: the stars of the game had pulled a no show.
Speaker 1: But then the leaders faltered and Justin Thomas took advantage.
Speaker 1: He closed with a sixty seven and ultimately beat Zalatoris
Speaker 1: in a playoff. It's Thomas's second major and second PGA Championship.
Speaker 1: To cover all of that and more, I have three
Speaker 1: shortish interviews for you. The first is with Bendan Quinn,
Speaker 1: a senior writer at The Athletic who was on site
Speaker 1: at Southern Hills this week. Next up is the Friday
Speaker 1: Zone Andy Johnson to talk about the course. And finally
Speaker 1: you'll hear from Stephen Brittain, a golf course superintendent, about
Speaker 1: the issue of sand. You may have heard that the
Speaker 1: pros were not big fans of the large, grained, somewhat
Speaker 1: heavily sand in Southern Hills bunkers, so I thought we'd
Speaker 1: get an experts perspective on that. All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Here are takeaways from the twenty twenty two PGA Championship.
Speaker 1: All right, I am here with Brendan Quinn. He is
Speaker 1: a senior writer at The Athletic. He covers college hoops
Speaker 1: as well as golf, so those are two excellent beats.
Speaker 1: But we are here to talk about golf. You can
Speaker 1: you can also talk about college hoops if you'd like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but you have been. You have been at
Speaker 1: the PGA Championship this week on site covering the tournament,
Speaker 1: and so for you when you're thinking about Big ten
Speaker 1: takeaways this week, what comes to mind?
Speaker 3: First, Well, it was so interesting because everyone here, they
Speaker 3: kind of the conversation that was just ongoing basically for
Speaker 3: the last like four days, was like, Hey, is anything
Speaker 3: kind of gonna happen? Like it just had this whole
Speaker 3: flat vibe for basically after Rory got through fifteen on Thursday.
Speaker 3: From then that point onward, this thing just I didn't
Speaker 3: think it had a lot of juice. It was just
Speaker 3: kind of waiting for something to happen. And then you know,
Speaker 3: Mito Perrero just comes out of nowhere, and everyone's kind
Speaker 3: of like, is this actually gonna go down this way?
Speaker 3: Where he basically if he had shot even parr, it
Speaker 3: would it's been fine today, and it would have kind
Speaker 3: of been a lifeless ending to a tournament that I
Speaker 3: thought kind of overall was a little flat. And then instead,
Speaker 3: you know, ninety minutes to go in the tournament itself,
Speaker 3: kind of doors start opening and things start happening, and
Speaker 3: now I'm running around on the back nine and it's mate, wait,
Speaker 3: maybe there's this is gonna get really interesting really quick.
Speaker 3: And that's kind of how it went down, obviously, with
Speaker 3: with JT making that move. You know when he when
Speaker 3: he buried that that long birdie put on eleven, the
Speaker 3: day really changed. And it was so early. I don't
Speaker 3: think anyone really realized in the moment what what that
Speaker 3: putt meant. But you know, he had shanked the shot
Speaker 3: what two holes earlier, and yeah, he came back with
Speaker 3: a with a beautiful five iron on ten that which
Speaker 3: was the same clubby shanked, but he missed that short
Speaker 3: BIRDI putt, and he was at that point still like
Speaker 3: kind of trying to just get going. But then you know,
Speaker 3: he dropped that whatever it was, sixty foot right off
Speaker 3: the front of eleven and off and running. He was
Speaker 3: four under on his last eight holes of the day.
Speaker 3: To you know, I think a lot of people will
Speaker 3: be able to say that Praira lost his tournament, and
Speaker 3: he did, but you can also say JT went and
Speaker 3: won the tournament. Both things I think can be true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he shot sixty seven on the day.
Speaker 1: That's what you need to do in order to win
Speaker 1: a tournament, but typically you need to do more than
Speaker 1: that to come from seven shots back, which is what
Speaker 1: he did. So there is that doubleness to it where, yeah,
Speaker 1: he certainly did well enough on the last day, but
Speaker 1: a few things needed to happen. There needed to be
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys who shot over par rounds, which
Speaker 1: is what happened to basically every guy who was ahead
Speaker 1: of him in order for him to have that opportunity.
Speaker 1: But to his credit, he seized it. So all that
Speaker 1: happened kind of you're describing this tournament that there was there.
Speaker 1: There was a sort of lethargic feel to it for
Speaker 1: a while. The weather was kind of weird and slow.
Speaker 1: The greens were a bit slow because the wind was high.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to get out of control. You know,
Speaker 1: everything about the tournament just didn't quite have that fire.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, in the last couple
Speaker 1: of hours of the tournament, it just came alive. And
Speaker 1: so I W I guess the big question is it
Speaker 1: a good tournament? Now? Do we remember this as a
Speaker 1: good tournament?
Speaker 3: Man, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: Like if there's a basketball game that has an amazing
Speaker 1: ending to it right, but it's really boring and horrible
Speaker 1: up until that point.
Speaker 3: And I've been to a number of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it was a good tournament at
Speaker 3: a at a good to great course. I will you
Speaker 3: ask ask five years from now, you know, I feel
Speaker 3: like j T will probably have a couple more majors
Speaker 3: at that point, you know nothing. I'm not sayingthing crazy like,
Speaker 3: you know, but I could five years from now he
Speaker 3: probably has two more something like that, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would be amazing for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think this will be remembered as you know,
Speaker 3: the one that you know, winning the second one so hard,
Speaker 3: so we'll have that piece to it. And then it
Speaker 3: was also a really interesting look in at Southern Hills
Speaker 3: I think, which you guys have covered, you know as
Speaker 3: well as anyone what what this course presented. It's gonna
Speaker 3: take a lot for me to say this was a
Speaker 3: great tournament, though, But I feel as I feel as
Speaker 3: bad for the guy that lost as I do for
Speaker 3: anything else in the tournament. That's like an empty, hollow
Speaker 3: feeling that comes with I guess being a compassionate human being.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean talk about the talk about the
Speaker 1: misery of Meadow a little bit. Something that Andy Johnson
Speaker 1: uh noticed on that last hole is that Medow was
Speaker 1: really quick between his shots. You know, he looked like
Speaker 1: everything was sped up.
Speaker 3: So here's something that I think it's gonna probably make
Speaker 3: its way into my story. But there was just hitting
Speaker 3: on that, like justin Thomas So on the so I
Speaker 3: think it was, yeah, eighteen T. It might not have
Speaker 3: been eighteen ten. Now I'm second guessing myself, of course,
Speaker 3: but it was one of the one of the closing holes.
Speaker 3: He's on the T box, he's addressing the ball. Back
Speaker 3: behind me. One of the women working the concession stands
Speaker 3: yelled last call one minute, and like, like JT was
Speaker 3: pretty far away, but like he definitely heard like a
Speaker 3: hair of it right, Like it was not close to him,
Speaker 3: but he heard it, and he backed away from his
Speaker 3: shot and he went all the way back through his
Speaker 3: preshot routine again. He went up and he stripped it. It
Speaker 3: was eighteen sorry, so it was definitely a teen and
Speaker 3: we know how that how that ends. He hit a
Speaker 3: great approach, you know, he could have made a birdie
Speaker 3: in one outright, but made a great part in a
Speaker 3: clutch spot. And then in the playoff on seventeen, as
Speaker 3: Xalatorus is standing over the ball, a siren went off
Speaker 3: in the distance and it was loud. It was legit loud,
Speaker 3: and there's in my mind, I didn't get chance to
Speaker 3: asking about it. I wasn't in his press conference, but I
Speaker 3: think there's zero chance he did not hear that siren
Speaker 3: and and he stayed put and he pulled the trigger
Speaker 3: and it was a poor T shot and that ended
Speaker 3: up being a birdie for j T, a par for
Speaker 3: xala Taurus. And you know, I'm not saying that, I'm
Speaker 3: not saying that siren costs him, you know, a major,
Speaker 3: But I think it was also a guy in in
Speaker 3: this position for one of the first times in his
Speaker 3: career versus a guy in JT who's done this more
Speaker 3: years and has you know, more reps and maybe just
Speaker 3: a little I don't know, competitive and emotional maturity in
Speaker 3: that moment that like he backed off zal Taurus didn't.
Speaker 3: And then you see a guy like Meido, who you know,
Speaker 3: he went up, rushed through his whole routine, took that
Speaker 3: swing and and lost the tournament. So, you know, three
Speaker 3: very different moments that I think kind of showed a
Speaker 3: guy who was ready to win the second major of
Speaker 3: his career, and that was Justin Thomas.
Speaker 1: So what did you see from Justin Thomas between when
Speaker 1: he finished on eighteen and when he started to play off?
Speaker 1: You mentioned that you kind of followed him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw a guy who just wanted a chance
Speaker 3: to like get back in the arena right Like he
Speaker 3: just wanting desperately to keep playing, because I think he
Speaker 3: felt like he was ready to go make the shots
Speaker 3: to win this thing. Like there was no there was
Speaker 3: no flinching in him. There was It wasn't a look
Speaker 3: of like concern or dread. It was just like drive,
Speaker 3: Like get me back on this freaking golf course right
Speaker 3: now so I can go win this thing. It was
Speaker 3: kind of that energy. When zal Torres came back onto
Speaker 3: the practice green as they were waiting for the finish,
Speaker 3: I am ninety nine percent sure I don't think JT
Speaker 3: looked at him at all. When he walked onto the
Speaker 3: practice green and they both went through their routines. They
Speaker 3: both went to you know, their bags were stacked or
Speaker 3: standing right next to each other. After they went through
Speaker 3: their their putting or their practice putts and JT did
Speaker 3: not look at him once and then got on the
Speaker 3: back of a golf cart and drove off like he
Speaker 3: was very much just kind of tunneled off, and I
Speaker 3: think like that tournament ended, his round ended, but for him,
Speaker 3: the tournament had not ended yet, right, Like he was
Speaker 3: just still kind of totally in that competitive mode that
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, that's that was some alpha stuff there,
Speaker 3: just the whole way that he carried himself. And then
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know if the broadcast picked up
Speaker 3: on it, but when he went back through the tunnel
Speaker 3: and got up toward eighteen Green to take a cart
Speaker 3: ride over to thirteen t for the first hole of
Speaker 3: the playoff, they drove by the fans and I mean
Speaker 3: it was like a parade, Like he's sitting on the
Speaker 3: back and people were just just going wild, and you know,
Speaker 3: he kind of flashed the thumbs up and it was
Speaker 3: like you could tell that the like this was sports,
Speaker 3: you know, like it was kind of one of those
Speaker 3: moments that it was very much a like just high
Speaker 3: energy and to be able to keep your composure. Now,
Speaker 3: obviously he pumped his right a little bit, but you
Speaker 3: could feel a guy who was very much present in
Speaker 3: the moment.
Speaker 1: That is that approach is so indicative of experience because
Speaker 1: it's so easy in those situations to speed up and
Speaker 1: do things too fast without even realizing it. And so
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit of experience to know, if
Speaker 1: I just take this at what I think is a
Speaker 1: normal pace, I'm gonna go too fast. So I've got
Speaker 1: to take a breath, I've got to slow down. And
Speaker 1: it seemed like that's what Justin Thomas was doing in
Speaker 1: that situation. And it's something that we've seen Tiger Woods
Speaker 1: do in many different scenarios in his career when he's
Speaker 1: trying to win majors. It's something that we saw Phil
Speaker 1: Mickelson do last year throughout the entire round. As Brendan
Speaker 1: Poorath chronicled for our site, he was so slow that
Speaker 1: it actually annoyed Brooks Koepka. And it seemed like today
Speaker 1: Justin Thomas was taking his time. He was very serious,
Speaker 1: very focused and intentional about what he was doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, if you talk to Bones about it,
Speaker 3: like Bones likes to say that he has every shot
Speaker 3: in the bag, you know, JT has every shot out
Speaker 3: there left right, low, high. He can do every the
Speaker 3: soft hands around the green. He has every shot you
Speaker 3: could want, and he just has to trust it and
Speaker 3: not be so hard on himself. And if they did
Speaker 3: like today was very much That back nine specifically, was
Speaker 3: I think kind of the culmination of like those types
Speaker 3: of thoughts where you can hit any shot in the book, man,
Speaker 3: like just kind of go out there and just just
Speaker 3: do your best and it'll it'll happen for you, right,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I mean talk about left, right, low high.
Speaker 3: I mean he hit all of those on on on
Speaker 3: the back nine, and some of the other shots that
Speaker 3: he just kind of casually executed were just just ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Those back to back bunker shots he hit were insane.
Speaker 3: And that that the the bunker shot he hit on
Speaker 3: uh on six. After he hit that, just the shank
Speaker 3: dead right, then put his second one off a tree.
Speaker 3: And now it's time where it's okay, other guys, that's
Speaker 3: the end of their tournament, right, They're gonna hit another
Speaker 3: poor shot they're gonna take They're gonna make a number
Speaker 3: that you can't make when you're trying to win a
Speaker 3: major in the fourth round. You can't take a double
Speaker 3: in that spot. It's over and it would have been
Speaker 3: over if he had taken a double, and instead he
Speaker 3: pulled pitching wedge from one hundred yards out in a
Speaker 3: bunker and hit this little cutty pitching wedge to eighteen feet.
Speaker 3: He went up and he makes the putt right. That's
Speaker 3: that's how you do it, and not a lot of
Speaker 3: people can. So you know, he's got he's got the
Speaker 3: stuff two certainly be you know, the right at the
Speaker 3: top of the world rankings and and be a multi
Speaker 3: time winner. And I'm kind of curious to see what
Speaker 3: this does for him in terms of some juice momentum.
Speaker 3: You get freed up after me, he waited a long time.
Speaker 3: This is not low key. We all talk about Spieth
Speaker 3: and Rory and them waiting to win their next major.
Speaker 3: Like he was getting into that conversation, like he was
Speaker 3: kind of there at that at this point, and now
Speaker 3: now it's off, and uh, you know, I think he's
Speaker 3: got the personality I think to be a real like
Speaker 3: fan favorite type of guy. You know, the way that
Speaker 3: he plays the Ryder Cup. He's by far the most
Speaker 3: fiery guy on the team. You know, he gets interacted
Speaker 3: with fans. He's fist pump and he's slamming beers. He's
Speaker 3: he's in it in that type of stuff, and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe he could he can kind of carve his his
Speaker 3: place as a I think maybe a bigger kind of personality.
Speaker 1: I agree, Yeah, the sport needs another kind of superstar
Speaker 1: to emerge. Yeah, someone who is going to kind of
Speaker 1: stay consistent at the top level of the game for sure. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the issues that I think JT's persona is
Speaker 1: is a whole different matter in this. You know, one
Speaker 1: of the issues with him so far as far as
Speaker 1: his the way he comes across in public is concerned,
Speaker 1: is that sometimes he does seem a little bit needy
Speaker 1: or a little bit thirsty, as as Andy and Brendan
Speaker 1: would put it on the Shotguns start. And maybe winning
Speaker 1: a second major will give him some more of that
Speaker 1: quiet confidence that tends to read a little bit better
Speaker 1: in public than this kind of eagerness that he's conveyed
Speaker 1: so far. But that's kind of a separate issue. What's
Speaker 1: really interesting about JT's playing career is that he has
Speaker 1: taken so much more of like a traditional route to success.
Speaker 1: You know, it took him a while to break out,
Speaker 1: really because Speith was obviously his same, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if they're exactly the same age, but they're
Speaker 1: around that, and Speith broke out way earlier and had
Speaker 1: success way earlier. It took Justin Thomas a while to
Speaker 1: get established on the PGA Tour, then to win his
Speaker 1: first major, and then it took him a while five years.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was twenty seventeen when he won the
Speaker 1: PGA at Quail Hollow, five years to win his second major.
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing from him is this kind of
Speaker 1: more traditional path to a great career that we've seen
Speaker 1: stars in the past take when careers were long, and
Speaker 1: they tended to peak in when players were in their thirds.
Speaker 1: What we've seen recently is players seeming to kind of
Speaker 1: peak in their twenties. Rory has done this, Speeth has
Speaker 1: done this, and then kind of drop off after that.
Speaker 1: It seems like the path that JT is on is
Speaker 1: a little bit more traditional, and maybe it'll turn out
Speaker 1: to be more sustainable, that he'll win another major when
Speaker 1: he's thirty three, and he'll win another one when he's
Speaker 1: thirty five, and he'll have more of that kind of
Speaker 1: like Phil Mickelson type career. I guess that's the hope
Speaker 1: is that, you know, you know how Phil Micholson won
Speaker 1: more on the PGA two or I think than j
Speaker 1: T has to this.
Speaker 3: Point, like eighteen wins, doesn't he something like that.
Speaker 1: He's got a lot of wins. Yeah, so he's got
Speaker 1: a lot of weird amount of wins and he could
Speaker 1: add it. But his game is going to age well.
Speaker 1: And just remember like Phil Mickelson didn't win his majors
Speaker 1: until he was mature, and so we could possibly see
Speaker 1: a really exciting next phase of JT's career. But the
Speaker 1: thing is we always get caught in this, right we
Speaker 1: see a player win a major and we say he's
Speaker 1: definitely gonna win three Moore, and so we don't know
Speaker 1: if that's what happened. In this case. It just seems
Speaker 1: like is different. It just seems like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a little more old school.
Speaker 3: There's the thing that really sticks out to me is
Speaker 3: he seems like there's like so little variance in his game,
Speaker 3: you know, like like there is the full package, a
Speaker 3: like his short game is there is everything else is there.
Speaker 3: It doesn't seem like he didn't win this major cause
Speaker 3: he's on a heater right now, like he just went
Speaker 3: out and won the Major. Like that's it, you know,
Speaker 3: when we go back and like think of h DJ
Speaker 3: winning the Masters in the fall a while ago, Like
Speaker 3: he won that in the window of being on just
Speaker 3: a ridiculous heater if you go back and look at
Speaker 3: like the FedEx playoffs on right, I mean, he was
Speaker 3: just killing it. He was the best player in the
Speaker 3: world for a six month window and then the other guys.
Speaker 1: And Scheffler was the same right where Shefflerfer.
Speaker 3: Was, John Rahm was. John Rahm was on a ridiculous year. Yes,
Speaker 3: last year when he wonted Tory Pines. Like I don't
Speaker 3: JT's been playing well and all that, but like he's
Speaker 3: not just crushing it coming into this thing, Like he
Speaker 3: was not a trendy pick on other than unless you
Speaker 3: read the Athletic, But uh, I do feel like his game,
Speaker 3: like he just won this tournament because he just shot,
Speaker 3: He just made shots and he won and he found
Speaker 3: a way to win it. And like you could make
Speaker 3: a case, I mean, this is just totally narrative nonsense,
Speaker 3: but like you can make a case that that's kind
Speaker 3: of like more impressive way to win a major than
Speaker 3: when you're just kind of you're just feeling it and
Speaker 3: you everything though timing works out in your favor.
Speaker 1: Well, he won this major from the bad side of
Speaker 1: the draw. He got a bad weather draw on Thursday
Speaker 1: and Friday. He played during the windy sessions on those days,
Speaker 1: played brilliantly, and then had a bad round on Saturday
Speaker 1: around that had everybody, I mean most everybody and myself included,
Speaker 1: saying JT has kind of blown this one. When is
Speaker 1: he going to finally close one of these out? And
Speaker 1: then he manages to just squeak out a sixty seven today.
Speaker 1: I don't quite know how he did that because for
Speaker 1: a lot of the round it didn't seem like he
Speaker 1: was playing that well. It seemed like there were a
Speaker 1: lot of missed opportunities. And so, yeah, as you're saying,
Speaker 1: this is a major win where he wasn't exactly lights
Speaker 1: out and he didn't get every good break going his way,
Speaker 1: and that is impressive. You know, we've heard Tiger Woods
Speaker 1: talk about this before, being able to win when you
Speaker 1: don't have your best stuff, or you know, a corollary
Speaker 1: to that is when you don't get the best breaks.
Speaker 1: Being able to win in those situations is an indicator
Speaker 1: of somebody who has a kind of sustainable version of
Speaker 1: success in them, and so maybe we'll see that from JT.
Speaker 1: Who knows.
Speaker 3: Do you think it's a what's your take on having
Speaker 3: his father still is his coach and this close to
Speaker 3: him all this time later. I've never seen Justin Thomas
Speaker 3: more than five feet away from his father, and he's
Speaker 3: now like, yeah.
Speaker 1: They're very close. Yeah, I mean, you know, it seems
Speaker 1: to work for him. Obviously, he hasn't made a big
Speaker 1: change to his swing technique since he has come on tour.
Speaker 1: He's had basically the same swing, and it seems to
Speaker 1: be a very kind of versatible, versatible, versatile and malleable.
Speaker 1: I can't find those two words, like a versatile and
Speaker 1: valuable swing that works in a number of different conditions
Speaker 1: and can hit a number of different types of shots.
Speaker 1: There's a kind of natural grace to it, and so
Speaker 1: it would be concerning if he suddenly went to another coach.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of players get caught up
Speaker 1: in the Tiger Woods model of I've got to make
Speaker 1: a big spectacular swing change, you know, go hire Butch
Speaker 1: Harmon or Hank Haney or you know, the next coach
Speaker 1: to rebuild my swing and get myself to the next level.
Speaker 1: When players who are not Tiger Woods try that, they
Speaker 1: don't tend to do very well. And so it seems
Speaker 1: like Justin Thomas is sticking with what he knows in
Speaker 1: a pretty radical way by literally sticking with the swing
Speaker 1: coach who raised him, and so who can question it
Speaker 1: at this point? I'm you know, I think for him
Speaker 1: it would be a concern if he went away from that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, there's no one formula. It's a
Speaker 1: different things work for different people. Obviously.
Speaker 3: It's one of the interesting aspects that there are in
Speaker 3: this hunt for a major that he's been on since seventeen.
Speaker 3: I do wonder, like how many other guys would have
Speaker 3: or three or four years of that been like we're
Speaker 3: changing this up here, you know, point you need to
Speaker 3: back off, maybe I'm bringing in a coach whatever. Like
Speaker 3: they obviously made the Caddy change, which has paid dividends,
Speaker 3: but they just stuck with it, which is hard. That's
Speaker 3: almost as hard as changing it is believing that what
Speaker 3: you're doing is the right move, because you know, even
Speaker 3: without the majors he finished all of those years since
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, still ranked in the top ten in the
Speaker 3: world at the end of every year. It was, uh,
Speaker 3: he finished third, fourth, fourth, third, seventh in the last
Speaker 3: at the at the year end since winning at Kuil Hollow,
Speaker 3: But he just forgot to raise a major championship, you know.
Speaker 3: So there's kind of been this like weird dicotomy there
Speaker 3: of like, yeah, Jordan, Justin Thomas is elite, But is
Speaker 3: he elite? You know, like where's the big payoff that
Speaker 3: we all measure these things by. But he's never really
Speaker 3: changed five years. He hasn't won one of these that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, he's stuck with it. And yeah, you're right
Speaker 1: that a less patient player might have might have changed
Speaker 1: course in the middle of it. And you know, Jordan
Speaker 1: Speed might be a good example of that, though those
Speaker 1: Beeth has stuck with the same swing, coach, he certainly
Speaker 1: hasn't stuck with the same swing. And yeah, and Justin
Speaker 1: Thomas is an example of how, you know, just kind
Speaker 1: of being committed to a style of play and knowing
Speaker 1: what's right for you will kind of pay off in
Speaker 1: the end, at least for now. Maybe he'll go into
Speaker 1: the wilderness for the next five years and we'll be
Speaker 1: having an entirely different discussion about this. That's that's kind
Speaker 1: of how golf goes. But today Justin Thomas is riding high,
Speaker 1: as is Mike Thomas. So all right, Brendan, I've kept
Speaker 1: you for longer than I said I would. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I'll let you get back to your real
Speaker 1: journalistic work. People can find your work at the Athletic
Speaker 1: of course, and work about call troops as well as golf.
Speaker 1: Excellent stuff about golf that you write. Brendan a true
Speaker 1: journalist and reporter out there, So keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Garrett. This was a pleasure and an honor,
Speaker 3: and I am a big fan and I look forward
Speaker 3: to Grand Rapids. If any listeners are out there, be
Speaker 3: sure to come by and say hi, because I am
Speaker 3: I'm playing. I will be there with my boys check
Speaker 3: everyone else. I can't wait.
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Speaker 1: tf E. Look good Golf, Gooder. All right, So what
Speaker 1: this podcast needs is some takeaways from Southern Hills Country
Speaker 1: Club itself, the venue of the PGA Championship. And who
Speaker 1: better to offer some of those takeaways than Andy Johnson himself. Andy,
Speaker 1: could you tell me some of your main takeaways from
Speaker 1: what you saw out of the course this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought, you know, when you look at the
Speaker 2: golf course, I was thinking this really all weekend. I
Speaker 2: can't think of a golf course that presents a better
Speaker 2: test for the modern game than Southern Hills At this point,
Speaker 2: I think it lacks a little pop on the screen
Speaker 2: just because it doesn't have an ocean and it doesn't
Speaker 2: have like jaw dropping features that really you can glom
Speaker 2: onto with TV and you can make an argument that's
Speaker 2: an essential part. But when you're talking about a pure
Speaker 2: championship test, this golf course is right there at the
Speaker 2: top of American venues in terms of you know it.
Speaker 2: I thought it was very democratic. I thought it allowed
Speaker 2: a lot of different styles of play to thrive. But
Speaker 2: it also did a wonderful job of testing all the
Speaker 2: fastest fastest of the golf game, and I think it
Speaker 2: exposed when players had weak points in their game. Really,
Speaker 2: what I thought was interesting was, you know, what we've
Speaker 2: seen recently is they obviously got great weather in terms
Speaker 2: of challenging weather with the wind, But I think that's
Speaker 2: kind of the norm in May and Tulsa, Like you're
Speaker 2: gonna get that kind of wind, unpredictable weather, So without
Speaker 2: narrowing fairways, without having the greens absurdly firm, without using
Speaker 2: the back tee on every single hole as far back
Speaker 2: as they could go. You know, they moved teas around,
Speaker 2: They made seventeen driveable when they was into the wind.
Speaker 2: They moved sixteen t up when they you know, they
Speaker 2: moved thirteen tea ups so people could get home in two.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 2: They did not try to curb scoring, They did not
Speaker 2: try to manipulate a number. And yet the golf course
Speaker 2: really held its own. I mean, it was a it
Speaker 2: was a stern test, and I think it doesn't have
Speaker 2: the pop on TV, but when you look at the
Speaker 2: substance of what it challenged, how it challenges players, I
Speaker 2: don't know if there's a better spot. I think like
Speaker 2: Shinnacock's the one that comes to mind. And you know,
Speaker 2: they obviously had pretty absurd conditions, like they pushed it
Speaker 2: to the brink at that US Open recently, but that
Speaker 2: this golf course really holds up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And I was struck by the cautiousness
Speaker 1: of the setup this week, you know, because they there
Speaker 1: was one day when they didn't even cut the greens
Speaker 1: and so the greens were running quite a bit slower
Speaker 1: than they normally are at major championships or even at
Speaker 1: regular PGA Tour events, and yet five under one, and
Speaker 1: so this course was still clearly challenging for players, even
Speaker 1: though the greens were not kept at really really high speeds.
Speaker 1: And that's usually how courses like this can defend themselves
Speaker 1: is through keeping the greens ultra firm, so that a
Speaker 1: lot of the challenge comes around there. But it seemed
Speaker 1: like throughout the week with the elements shifting around, the
Speaker 1: holes that were hard also shifted around, and so that
Speaker 1: was like a big thing where you know, on the weekend,
Speaker 1: for instance, sixteen, the part four was really really hard
Speaker 1: because it was all of a sudden kind of into
Speaker 1: the wind. You know, it's really a crosswind, but it
Speaker 1: was more or less into the wind. On the first
Speaker 1: couple of days, that hole wasn't nearly as difficult, but
Speaker 1: number eight, which travels in the other direction, was incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult on those days. And so because of the shifting
Speaker 1: elements and because the setup was kind of like smart
Speaker 1: enough to know where the edge was in terms of
Speaker 1: what was too challenging or what was too easy, we
Speaker 1: got to see different holes standing out as some of
Speaker 1: the more challenging on the course.
Speaker 2: Haven't done this, and i'd, you know, I'd be really
Speaker 2: curious to look at weekend scoring versus week weekday scoring,
Speaker 2: because I think what you saw was really two completely
Speaker 2: different golf courses. And there might have been players where
Speaker 2: that north wind really fit their game and they thrived
Speaker 2: maybe on the weekend, and then there were players that
Speaker 2: that south wind really fit their game. And and you know,
Speaker 2: everybody's been piling on Rory, but maybe he just the
Speaker 2: golf course fit his eye a little bit more with
Speaker 2: that south wind or you know, and obviously he played
Speaker 2: kind of a mediocre around at each of those wins.
Speaker 2: But that I think is one of the compelling things
Speaker 2: about the golf course was how how it changed and everything.
Speaker 2: And I think like if we go through every facet
Speaker 2: of the game, you could see why Southern Hills stood
Speaker 2: up and provided such a wonderful full examination. So on
Speaker 2: the green, it has very undulating green and it has
Speaker 2: small targets, you know, at the green, and that that
Speaker 2: makes approach play really challenging, but it also gives a
Speaker 2: huge you know, it tests you're putting, you have to
Speaker 2: play a significant about a break you have to be
Speaker 2: a really good lag putter. If you're if you have
Speaker 2: a forty footer it you know, it is a wonderful
Speaker 2: test at the green, you know, and you saw players
Speaker 2: like Cam Smith is one of the best putters in
Speaker 2: the world. He had an amazing ball striking week. He
Speaker 2: finished first in strokes game tee to green. I think
Speaker 2: he was second in strokes, gained approach, and his putter
Speaker 2: let him down and he finished like he putted really
Speaker 2: poorly and he finished fifteenth. He couldn't just get by
Speaker 2: with a with one club holding him back. Now, if
Speaker 2: you look around the green, that short grass and it's impact,
Speaker 2: you know it sent balls further away. But where I
Speaker 2: really like one of my big takeaways was Mito Pereira
Speaker 2: on the final day. He missed a lot of greens.
Speaker 2: He was pretty spotty with the chipping. What I noticed
Speaker 2: was when he was in the rough he was very good.
Speaker 2: You know that extra cushion, that's an easier shot, it's
Speaker 2: a more comfortable shot. He was really nervous. He talked
Speaker 2: about this in his press conference. He got more nervous
Speaker 2: every day, and you know where he was really really
Speaker 2: bad on Sunday all day on Sunday, chipping from short
Speaker 2: grass and having been nervous in golf situations when you
Speaker 2: have to hit that perfect, that short grass really separates
Speaker 2: mediocrity from greatness and insure like people will look at
Speaker 2: and be like, well, it makes that shot easier. It
Speaker 2: makes the shot easier if you hit it perfect. If
Speaker 2: you hit it perfect, you're going to end up two
Speaker 2: feet away. But what Mito Perreira was doing all day
Speaker 2: was hitting really clunky chips and he was leaving himself
Speaker 2: fifteen feet regularly for par or fifteen for birdie on seventeen,
Speaker 2: Like everybody's gonna talk, Oh, that putt finished a half
Speaker 2: revolution short Well, it was a really bad chip, you know,
Speaker 2: given the situation, given you're leading a major championship, like
Speaker 2: your everything's clicking on all cylinders. But that was a
Speaker 2: microcosm of the entire day. If he was on short grass,
Speaker 2: that chip, those chip shots were clunky all day and
Speaker 2: it started on the first hole, if I if I
Speaker 2: recall correctly, he ended up short of the bunker and
Speaker 2: he had a really bad chip to like fifteen feet.
Speaker 2: He might have been in the buck, but neither all
Speaker 2: those chips off of that short grass were really really
Speaker 2: shaky for Mito Pereira, and it's because the margin for
Speaker 2: error is so much smaller when it's short grass versus rough.
Speaker 1: And if you're nervous, that's when that comes to the four.
Speaker 1: You know, like, these guys are good enough so that
Speaker 1: most of the time, under normal circumstances, hitting a chip
Speaker 1: off his short grass is not going to go wrong
Speaker 1: very often.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go watch them, Go watch them around a practice screen.
Speaker 2: It's it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so this is not to say that these
Speaker 1: guys are like fifteen handicaps who can't properly execute any
Speaker 1: variety of chip off of short grass. It's just that
Speaker 1: when you get to Sunday at a major championship, funny
Speaker 1: things start to happen when you're on short grass because
Speaker 1: that is just a little bit uncomfortable. When you have
Speaker 1: that cushion of rough, or when you have that cushion
Speaker 1: of fluffy white sand, then you just feel like there's
Speaker 1: a little bit more that you can play with there.
Speaker 1: You can swing a little bit harder, you can put
Speaker 1: your club further under the ball and you're not gonna
Speaker 1: chunk it, and so you just have that margin to
Speaker 1: play with and we could see that with Mito Pereira
Speaker 1: on Sunday when he was just he seemed really uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with those chips on short grass and high pressure situations.
Speaker 1: And he that drive you you know, you mentioned seventeen,
Speaker 1: that poor chip you hit on seventeen. That was the
Speaker 1: decise moment of the tournament. I mean, we can't emphasize
Speaker 1: this enough. He had a great drive there. He put
Speaker 1: himself in an excellent position on that hole, but he
Speaker 1: kind of duffed the chip and he ended up missing
Speaker 1: the putt. But he shouldn't have been expected to make
Speaker 1: that putt because it was like a fifteen footer. He's
Speaker 1: not going to make that putt most of the time.
Speaker 1: And so then he goes to the eighteenth tee, he
Speaker 1: has a one shot lead instead of a two shot lead,
Speaker 1: and of course he double Bogie's eighteen. Super challenging closing hole.
Speaker 1: And so the short gass really played a significant role
Speaker 1: this week for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so further pushing back, right, you know, the
Speaker 2: other thing around the green was the bunker sand. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure I know you talked to Steve Britten.
Speaker 1: Probably there'll be a segment later in this podcast on
Speaker 1: the bunker sand. Yeah, but that not on this specific
Speaker 1: bunker sand, but on bunker sand in general.
Speaker 2: That bunker sand that wasn't to tour spec made it
Speaker 2: more difficult. It it challenged, it rewarded better bunker play.
Speaker 1: It made them, It.
Speaker 2: Made it a hazard, and it also had an impact
Speaker 2: when you pushed back to approach what tested you know,
Speaker 2: it made a more of an emphasis on approach play
Speaker 2: and driving the golf ball and getting the ball into
Speaker 2: play off the tee. And like that, that bunker sand
Speaker 2: had an impact all the way back to the tee
Speaker 2: because the bunkers weren't good spots to bail out. Like
Speaker 2: you see pros bail into bunkers because they know it's
Speaker 2: an easy up and down. It wasn't necessarily an easy
Speaker 2: up and down this week. The other thing was bunkers
Speaker 2: really captured a lot of balls. I felt like with
Speaker 2: the short grass and the bunkers, what you saw was
Speaker 2: balls rolling into the bunkers, which were and unadvantageous spots
Speaker 2: to play from. But then when you go back to approach,
Speaker 2: it was a challenging approach blay course because you're constantly
Speaker 2: hitting up or down from from side hill lies flat lies,
Speaker 2: different lies. I thought sixteen on Sunday was great. Everybody
Speaker 2: hitting to that long iron into a green from an upslope.
Speaker 2: It's a really hard shot not to hang right, and
Speaker 2: we saw so many players hang it right end up
Speaker 2: in that right bunker. That's where Cameron Young made his
Speaker 2: double bogie from. It was rarely stock shots with the wind,
Speaker 2: so it challenged the approach play very, very significantly whether
Speaker 2: you were in the fairway, and then when you were
Speaker 2: in the rough, it was very unpredictable. You saw a
Speaker 2: lot of flyer lies. You saw balls that came out
Speaker 2: dead when they thought they were flying. So the rough
Speaker 2: wasn't predictable and just hack it out rough it was
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how this ball is gonna come out again.
Speaker 2: A full examination of approach play. And then when you
Speaker 2: go back to the tee, thirty yard wide fairways allow
Speaker 2: people to hit good T shots and be rewarded for
Speaker 2: TE shots. When you get down to what we'll see
Speaker 2: in three weeks, twenty yard wide fairways at the country club,
Speaker 2: you can hit a great T shot and hit it
Speaker 2: in the rough, and that's kind of silly in my opinion.
Speaker 2: You want to see these guys be able to hit.
Speaker 2: You know, you go down those faraway statistics, you saw
Speaker 2: guys that hit twelve thirteen fairaways and if you're driving
Speaker 2: the ball great, if you're having a great week with
Speaker 2: a driver, that seems to me like something that should
Speaker 2: be achievable. You should be able to hit eighty percent
Speaker 2: of the fairways if you're driving the ball well. And
Speaker 2: that's I think one of the great things that this
Speaker 2: golf course did was it allowed people to excel. And
Speaker 2: that's why you saw some variety on the lead. Like
Speaker 2: you saw a B answer was in the mix because
Speaker 2: he's a very accurate driver the golf ball.
Speaker 1: Now if you take pay well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you take a B answer and you put
Speaker 2: them in those faraways are twenty yards wide. Instead of
Speaker 2: hitting like I think one day hit thirteen or fourteen fairaways,
Speaker 2: he might hit nine, and all of a sudden, those
Speaker 2: four fairways that he would have hit that he didn't
Speaker 2: hit turn probably into from birdie hole into bogie holes.
Speaker 2: And that was the thing that I thought as a whole,
Speaker 2: it was really hard to go around that golf course
Speaker 2: without making bogies. But it was feasible to go around
Speaker 2: that golf course and make five or six birdies because
Speaker 2: you were often approaching greens from short grass. It gave
Speaker 2: people the opportunity to hit great shots gate. It was
Speaker 2: achievable to score, but it was very, very very difficult
Speaker 2: to avoid mistakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and things can go sideways quickly. You know. We
Speaker 1: saw guys shoot sixty five one day and shoot seventy
Speaker 1: five the next day, and so if you were a
Speaker 1: little bit off, you could just kind of get rolling
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction at the course. Now, one thing
Speaker 1: I want to call out as well. You know, you
Speaker 1: talked about the with the fairways, you talked about the
Speaker 1: short grass, you talked about the challenge of the bunkers.
Speaker 1: I think of a piece with all of that is
Speaker 1: the way they have approached the trees at Southern Hills.
Speaker 1: They haven't gone for like whole a removal. They haven't
Speaker 1: gone with the Oakmont program or the Inverness program where
Speaker 1: most of the trees have been removed. Maybe most of
Speaker 1: them have been removed because there were a lot of
Speaker 1: them there before, but there are still a significant number
Speaker 1: of trees at Southern Hills along the fairways, but there
Speaker 1: are gaps between them. And so what this means is
Speaker 1: that when guys miss the fairway by a substantial amount.
Speaker 1: They often have a route to recovery, but that route
Speaker 1: to recovery is frequently over under around They have to
Speaker 1: manufacture some kind of great recovery shot, but they can
Speaker 1: do it, and they see that little space where they
Speaker 1: can get to the green and they're like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I think I can pull that off. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go for that. And what that means is we get
Speaker 1: to see exciting shots. We get to see guys fail
Speaker 1: to pull off those shots, and we get to see
Speaker 1: them success in pulling off those shots. Both of those
Speaker 1: are more exciting scenarios than just chipping out sideways from
Speaker 1: a forest, which is what happened at Southern Hills before.
Speaker 1: Now we heard Brandal Chamblie complaining about this dynamic on
Speaker 1: the telecast, not on the telecast, but on Life from
Speaker 1: and that baffles me, because why do you want to
Speaker 1: watch players chipping out sideways just because it's more difficult
Speaker 1: when you get to see this wonderful array of escape shots.
Speaker 1: And that's what we saw this week because of the
Speaker 1: way they've approached tree removal. They haven't taken out all
Speaker 1: of them, but they've taken out enough so that there
Speaker 1: are significant playing gaps between them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think like the eighteenth hole is a
Speaker 2: perfect example of tree removal and fairaway expansion, and we
Speaker 2: saw it play out so pivotally with the closing groups.
Speaker 2: All right, justin Thomas in regulation hits the perfect drive.
Speaker 2: You know, he puts himself into position and gives himself
Speaker 2: a legitimate chance at Bertie because he played the hole excellently.
Speaker 2: Will's Alataurus gets pretty lucky, hits a tree, kind of
Speaker 2: spits him out and ends up you know where he
Speaker 2: has a shot. You know, granted he's in the fairway,
Speaker 2: he's in the short grass, but he has trees in
Speaker 2: front of him. He had to hit a big cut.
Speaker 2: But by it being so many people would be like
Speaker 2: why is that short grass there? By it being short grass,
Speaker 2: it allowed him to try to hit a thirty yard cut.
Speaker 2: If he was in rough there, it would have been
Speaker 2: impossible to move the ball that much.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have been able to get the spin on it.
Speaker 2: Yes, you wouldn't have been able to manufacture the spin
Speaker 2: to get that cut to hit that cut shot. And
Speaker 2: it also by having a short grass there, it makes
Speaker 2: that creek so much more relevant and that was a
Speaker 2: spot where that creek had been kind of diminished, and
Speaker 2: sure enough, one group later we saw the impact of
Speaker 2: short grass not being trees. You know, if there were
Speaker 2: trees still there, there's a good chance that Mita Pereira's ball,
Speaker 2: if it's thick rough in trees, Mito Pereira's ball is
Speaker 2: stopped short of that creek, and he could still probably
Speaker 2: have a good chance at making four. But because of
Speaker 2: that short grass and bringing the creek and how many
Speaker 2: shots did we just see that creek and the short
Speaker 2: grass really play an impact on that hole and on
Speaker 2: other holes where you know, it's just accentuated when you
Speaker 2: bring the short grass to the hazards, just like the bunkers,
Speaker 2: just like the creeks, bringing that short grass to them
Speaker 2: so that balls can get to it and not have
Speaker 2: them stop on the way in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agreed, And I was really glad that the
Speaker 1: playoff highlighted thirteen, seventeen and eighteen because I think those
Speaker 1: holes show a lot of what Southern Hills has to offer.
Speaker 2: While we're talking, we've been talking about good things. I
Speaker 2: do want to touch on something that I also was
Speaker 2: thinking about, and I think you wrote a piece about
Speaker 2: the tea box on thirteen, and the complexity and the
Speaker 2: challenge and how awkward championship golf has become at historic
Speaker 2: venues because of distance and how far these guys are
Speaker 2: hitting it. And I thought Southern Hills did so many
Speaker 2: things well it. It was an astounding test, but it
Speaker 2: also illuminated just how awkward championship golf is at historic
Speaker 2: venues and the lengths that you have to go to
Speaker 2: make it relevant. You have to have, Like Southern Hills
Speaker 2: is a big ballpark, but they needed to make it bigger,
Speaker 2: and they found these places that made for really awkward
Speaker 2: green to tea transitions, awkward flow for spectators, all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And you also saw holes where there isn't an option
Speaker 2: to go back, like the twelfth at Southern Hills, which
Speaker 2: is one of the course's most dramatic, most you know,
Speaker 2: historically great golf holes. You saw reduced to driver wedge,
Speaker 2: a four hundred and seventy yard par four that just
Speaker 2: has this great topography that just you know, it just
Speaker 2: drapes over this hill and it was reduced to nothing.
Speaker 2: It was reduced to a nothing burger.
Speaker 1: It was driver lob wedge for Rory. It was a
Speaker 1: crazy slip wedge. He absolutely ate that hole up, and
Speaker 1: there's just no way, there's nothing, there's nothing you can.
Speaker 2: Do there there it's on the property line, the t
Speaker 2: box is on the property line, and and it just
Speaker 2: this is a historically great hole. It's a hole that
Speaker 2: Ben Hogan talked about. It's a whole like it is
Speaker 2: one of the golf court golf holes out there that
Speaker 2: has you know, you know Southern Hills. You know, that's
Speaker 2: a bonafide Southern Hills hole that was reduced to a
Speaker 2: nothing burger in the round, which I thought was alarming.
Speaker 2: You know, this these are things that like, you know,
Speaker 2: it did so so many things so well. Where they
Speaker 2: could add the distance, where they could make the you know,
Speaker 2: thirteen played great because they could add the back tea.
Speaker 2: Sixteen played great because they turned a par five into
Speaker 2: a par four, you know, and they were able to
Speaker 2: have flexibility. But the reality is that if the game
Speaker 2: keeps going in the direction that it's going, holes become irrelevant.
Speaker 2: More and more holes become irrelevant. It's really easy to
Speaker 2: go up, as we saw with sixteen and thirteen. When
Speaker 2: you have the hole built the way you need it
Speaker 2: to be, it's easy to move up, but it's impossible
Speaker 2: to move back in certain situations. And you see this
Speaker 2: with historic golf courses all over the place. And you know,
Speaker 2: I had my cousin who's a casual golf fan, who's
Speaker 2: a you know, he's coaches high school baseball. He's a
Speaker 2: baseball nut, and he texted me about how awkward that
Speaker 2: thirteenth Tea it was. He's like, it's just really strange.
Speaker 2: And I go, yeah, like, where would you have to
Speaker 2: put home plate at Wrigley if you were using aluminum bats?
Speaker 2: And he goes, that's a great point. He goes that,
Speaker 2: and he this is somebody that's not a golf course
Speaker 2: architecture person. He said, you know, it would be really
Speaker 2: cool to see pros play with wooden clubs.
Speaker 1: Again. You converted somebody. That's a That's a good sign
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah. I mean, it's it's clear that something
Speaker 1: needs to change because you know, this week, the places
Speaker 1: that I saw these players hitting the ball in these
Speaker 1: fair ways, it was inconceivable to me. And I think
Speaker 1: that there has been a change in the past five
Speaker 1: years in terms of the ceiling that players have, you know,
Speaker 1: the links that they can hit the ball, the you know,
Speaker 1: it seems like the governor has just been taken off,
Speaker 1: and in certain situations they can hit it almost as
Speaker 1: far as they want to, just hit a three hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy five yard drive in particular conditions without really
Speaker 1: breaking a sweat. And when you start to get to.
Speaker 2: That point plus yards drives were there this week.
Speaker 1: A ton And on the first hole when that was
Speaker 1: playing down wind, they turned that hole into mincemeat as well.
Speaker 1: That's another par four that's supposed to be somewhat brutish.
Speaker 1: That was, you know, taken down to a driver pitch
Speaker 1: hole on the first two days. Now when it played
Speaker 1: into the wind, it was a little bit closer to
Speaker 1: how it was intended to play. But it was stunning
Speaker 1: this week how far players were hitting the ball on
Speaker 1: certain holes. And and you know, when when you're hitting
Speaker 1: the ball four hundred yards a par four, what is
Speaker 1: a par four anymore? Is a par four seven hundred
Speaker 1: yards all of a sudden?
Speaker 2: So so here's the thing. What was what was sixteen
Speaker 2: playing like five point fifty five.
Speaker 1: Point forty Yeah, in that range five thirty okay.
Speaker 2: So sixteen and thirteen I think are like perfect examples.
Speaker 2: So if you want a par five to be a
Speaker 2: risk reward hole at this point six hundred and sixty yards.
Speaker 1: So five was six sixty from its back tee and
Speaker 1: thirteen was six thirty.
Speaker 2: Those holes presented risk reward holes, and it just shows
Speaker 2: like you have to have that space for it to
Speaker 2: play like a you know, somewhat of a par five
Speaker 2: that you have to think about, and then when the
Speaker 2: winds into it, you have the ability to move forward.
Speaker 2: So like if you start to think expand out on
Speaker 2: this footprint. Idea from this is that I think like
Speaker 2: you could take away the par fives played like par
Speaker 2: fives this week, and that was one thing that really
Speaker 2: helps curb scoring. They weren't auto birdies. You had to
Speaker 2: play them well. So you need six hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: issh yards and you can adjust up and back based
Speaker 2: off of weather. Now for par fours like a long
Speaker 2: par four. I thought sixteen played really well as a
Speaker 2: long part four, but it was adjusted from five thirty
Speaker 2: and up and you start to do the math, and
Speaker 2: it's just inconceivable for any historic course to keep up
Speaker 2: with this, because if you wanted to do the same
Speaker 2: exercise with one, your tea box would be on the
Speaker 2: other side of the clubhouse effectively.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes I think about what they'd have to do
Speaker 1: to Cyprus Point to make it play properly for a
Speaker 1: field like this, and yeah, it's just ridiculous to think
Speaker 1: about it. Something needs to be done because courses for
Speaker 1: pros right now need to be so much bigger than
Speaker 1: courses that are intended for members or amateurs that it's
Speaker 1: just going to be completely unreasonable for clubs to host championships.
Speaker 1: They're going to need to build new courses, a set
Speaker 1: of new courses that you only play professional tournaments on
Speaker 1: unless there's some kind of bifurcation. So you know, that's
Speaker 1: apparently what the USGA has its eye on right now,
Speaker 1: and let's hope they act quickly. All right, So we
Speaker 1: have gone twice as long as we intended to go. Andy,
Speaker 1: thank you for your course takeaways. This was really interesting.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Good luck with the move all right. I
Speaker 1: am here with Stephen Britton. Steven is the golf course
Speaker 1: superintendent at the Chevy Chase Club and he also used
Speaker 1: to work at TPC Potomac. He has been on the
Speaker 1: podcast before. A friend and supporter of the pod. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being here, Steven. We were going to talk about
Speaker 1: bunker sand today because it was a big topic of
Speaker 1: discussion during the PGA Championship. There were quite a few
Speaker 1: players who were unhappy with the state of the bunker
Speaker 1: sand at Southern Hills. Now, having played Southern Hills, I
Speaker 1: can tell you that the bunker sand is just fine.
Speaker 1: But I thought we would have a discussion about how
Speaker 1: superintendents go about choosing bunker sand, what goes into the
Speaker 1: preparation of bunkers for tournaments, and some of the expectations
Speaker 1: that players might bring to this when they come to
Speaker 1: play a course. So, first of all, Steven, what does
Speaker 1: go into choosing bunker stand, what different types are available,
Speaker 1: and how do you kind of come to a decision
Speaker 1: about what to use.
Speaker 4: Well, thanks for having me, Garrett. Absolutely, there is a
Speaker 4: lot of testing that goes into testing bunker sandes for superintendents.
Speaker 4: So when superintendents might be doing a bunker project where
Speaker 4: they're going to be purchasing a large quantity of bunker
Speaker 4: sand to rebuild their bunkers, say they will go through
Speaker 4: extensive testing to make sure they pick the right bunker sand. Cares.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're doing a million dollar plus project,
Speaker 4: you want to make sure you pick the right sand,
Speaker 4: because once it's in, that's challenging to remove and switch
Speaker 4: out and expensive. So there's several different tests without going
Speaker 4: into all of them, but some of the most important
Speaker 4: ones are obviously a particle science test. So in a nutshell,
Speaker 4: for bunker sands, you want angular sub angular sand. So
Speaker 4: the way to think of that is almost like broken glass,
Speaker 4: because that sand locks together and bridges and binds together
Speaker 4: really well, which will make the sand firmer, as opposed
Speaker 4: to sand that's rounded. That might be like having a
Speaker 4: gazillion marbles and a bunker and that's never going to
Speaker 4: lock up, never going to bind together, and that will
Speaker 4: produce soft bunkers and then subsequently result in lots of
Speaker 4: plug Friday g lies. Right, So sand tests are really important.
Speaker 4: Infiltration rate tests, so that's how much water the sand
Speaker 4: can take and drain away. So USGA guidelines are usually
Speaker 4: nothing lower than twenty inches an hour. It's kind of
Speaker 4: what they're looking for for a standard for bunker sands.
Speaker 4: But one of the most important one is the pentrometer test.
Speaker 4: So a pentrometer is a handheld instrument with a golf
Speaker 4: ball on the end, and what you would do is
Speaker 4: you would take a sample of a sceand that you
Speaker 4: were thinking of using, and you would put it in
Speaker 4: a container or a tube, and then you press down
Speaker 4: with the penttrometer and it will compress the scene and
Speaker 4: push into the sand and test how firm that sand
Speaker 4: can be. Right, And there's lots of labs that have
Speaker 4: come up with guidelines and specs on what the ideal
Speaker 4: results are to have the least amount of Frida egg
Speaker 4: lies as you can have. So that's measured in kilograms
Speaker 4: per centimeter squared. So for example, anything less than one
Speaker 4: point eight kilograms per centimeter squared fails, and anything kind
Speaker 4: of one point eight to two point four is acceptable,
Speaker 4: and then anything over two point four kilograms per centimeter
Speaker 4: squared that's desirable. That's that's a good scend, right, So
Speaker 4: that's going to be a firm stand that's going to
Speaker 4: give you the least amount of chance for plug balls
Speaker 4: in your bunkers. So that's always a hot topic, right
Speaker 4: for bunker sands. So that's one that guys will look
Speaker 4: at a lot, is that.
Speaker 1: The basic goal of these tests is to determine how
Speaker 1: likely it is that there will be a Frida egg
Speaker 1: lie is that the main goal of the tests.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's an important one because that's obviously one
Speaker 4: that rubs people the wrong way. So the last thing
Speaker 4: you'd want to do is a pride where you've spent
Speaker 4: million dollars plus to rebuild all your bunkers and then
Speaker 4: the members go out and play and there's plug balls
Speaker 4: in all the bunkers and every shot they're hitting in there, right,
Speaker 4: So obviously that's a sand that's failing and maybe you've
Speaker 4: chosen the wrong sand. So these are all the tests
Speaker 4: that you do to try to get the best sand
Speaker 4: that you can. And so you know, there's lots of
Speaker 4: other different ones that go into angle of repose, So
Speaker 4: that's where you have a flashed bunker face and the
Speaker 4: ability of the sand to stay up on the face
Speaker 4: and not slide down, and and so there's all kinds
Speaker 4: of different data and specs that labs are through lab
Speaker 4: testing that they've come up with that you need to
Speaker 4: meet to minimize sand sliding down a bunker face. So
Speaker 4: there's a lot that goes into it. When when you're
Speaker 4: picking a sand, it's not just the cheapest, most readily
Speaker 4: available sand in your area, and some of these tests
Speaker 4: you can even do. It's not just for new sands.
Speaker 4: If you're doing a project, you can do some of
Speaker 4: these tests on your existing sand and bunkers to kind
Speaker 4: of see where you're at today, right, because they evolve
Speaker 4: and sand gets dirty and organics get into sand as
Speaker 4: storms go through and destroy your bunkers, and different silts
Speaker 4: and fines get into the bunkers and so they change
Speaker 4: over time. So some of these tests you can also
Speaker 4: do to your existing sands to see what you need
Speaker 4: to do to maybe improve the bunkers that you currently have.
Speaker 1: So you have worked at a TPC course, a course
Speaker 1: that has hosted PGA Tour tournaments, and in fact hosted
Speaker 1: a PGA Tournament Tour tournament just a couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: TPC Potomac. So could you give me an idea of
Speaker 1: what goes into preparing the sand for a PGA Tour
Speaker 1: level event. That's that process like.
Speaker 4: A lot. I mean, obviously it varies from club to club, right,
Speaker 4: because some clubs have bigger staffs and they can just
Speaker 4: get more done, right, And other clubs at different parts
Speaker 4: of the country might have a smaller staff and they
Speaker 4: just can't do the same amount of detail. Work to
Speaker 4: a bunker that others can't. But at my club, when
Speaker 4: we were hosting tournaments, we did a lot. We were
Speaker 4: I mean, we were hand watering bunkers in the evening
Speaker 4: after play so that you would wet the bunker faces
Speaker 4: up and then they would kind of dry down through
Speaker 4: the night, and then in the morning they were almost
Speaker 4: that nice level of moisture or dampness where they raked
Speaker 4: up just not wet, but just not too dry and fluffy, right,
Speaker 4: And that's kind of when bunkers almost feel the best, right,
Speaker 4: everybody's played out of that kind of consistency of sand.
Speaker 4: But that's you know, that was seven or eight staff
Speaker 4: members hand watering bunkers in the evening. We were smoothing
Speaker 4: the faces. Some clubs go around with a whack a
Speaker 4: plate and they'll whack a plate their faces to get
Speaker 4: the sand firm to mitigate Friday lines. A heck of
Speaker 4: a lot goes into it. And again when you're hosting
Speaker 4: a tour event, especially when you work at a TPC
Speaker 4: and they're owned by the PGA Tour and they haven't
Speaker 4: a gronomy department. That sand testing that I was just
Speaker 4: talking about, they really analyze a lot, because if the
Speaker 4: bunkers aren't performing correctly and they get feedback from players
Speaker 4: that might be a little bit negative, they want to
Speaker 4: be able to have the data to go back and say, well, hey,
Speaker 4: look we've done our work. This is how the sand
Speaker 4: tested out. Here's the pentrometer meetings. They were within the guidelines,
Speaker 4: acceptable guidelines. Here's the infiltration rate, here's the particle size.
Speaker 4: So it's almost like a bit of an insurance policy
Speaker 4: that Okay, you know, we did everything we could to
Speaker 4: get the best bonker sand in the bunkers. So they
Speaker 4: really analyze that data a lot. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: lot of work to get them perfect, and it just
Speaker 4: depends on how much stuff you have available.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. And certainly this is not a realistic
Speaker 1: thing for every course out there, but at tour hosting
Speaker 1: courses this seems to be pretty common practice. Do you
Speaker 1: have a notion of what tour players are often looking
Speaker 1: for when they look at a bunker sand, What are
Speaker 1: the kinds of feedback that they give and what are
Speaker 1: the standards that you think they generally have for their
Speaker 1: experience and a bunker.
Speaker 4: Oh well, they want them perfect and I don't think
Speaker 4: they care about the data or the sands. They just
Speaker 4: want the bold and never plug and they want the
Speaker 4: ball to roll at the bottom of the bunker and
Speaker 4: the flatter spot so they can get up and down right. Everybody,
Speaker 4: we've heard about it before where they sometimes intentionally miss
Speaker 4: into a bunker because it's easier up and down. So
Speaker 4: I don't know how many of them get stuck into
Speaker 4: the data of the scene, but they want it as
Speaker 4: easy as possible. Everybody knows that, and it's it would
Speaker 4: bother me when I was at TPC, I'll be honest,
Speaker 4: because we would try to make every bunker the same,
Speaker 4: whether it was down in a hole in the shade
Speaker 4: all day next to a pond where it's always wet,
Speaker 4: or up on a hill in full sun in the wind.
Speaker 4: We tried to get every bunker playing the same, which
Speaker 4: I think is kind of nonsense, right, Like some bunkers,
Speaker 4: you know, like little inconsistencies are kind of cool and
Speaker 4: make golf cooler. And I use the last time I
Speaker 4: was on a podcast, I use this analogy. I won't
Speaker 4: go into it too much, but at the club I
Speaker 4: worked out Australia, there's a great path for there in
Speaker 4: the sixth West Hole, Melbourne, and the front bunker when
Speaker 4: I worked there in the nineties was always boggy and
Speaker 4: always really soft scened, and the back left bunker behind
Speaker 4: the green was always rock hard and you just knew
Speaker 4: and if you were playing in an event there, you
Speaker 4: would hope that a good caddy would say, we're in
Speaker 4: the middle of fair way, like, hey, if you hit
Speaker 4: it in the short left one, that is probably going
Speaker 4: to plug and it's going to be a really boggy shot.
Speaker 3: And if you hit it in the.
Speaker 4: Back left one, that's like hitting off cement on a downhill,
Speaker 4: rock hard, fast green that's the hardest up and down
Speaker 4: in Australia. So like, be cognizant of that when you're
Speaker 4: hitting your second shot in. But on a PG tour
Speaker 4: they don't want that. They want it. Hey, no matter
Speaker 4: what bunker you hit it in from the first hole
Speaker 4: of the eighteenth hole, they're all going to be exactly
Speaker 4: the same. You know, Mike Clayton hit the nail on
Speaker 4: the head, he tweeted out last week. You know, the
Speaker 4: game's never been easier for professional golfers right now. The
Speaker 4: equipment is the easiest it's ever been to hit ball.
Speaker 4: The easiest they've ever been to play play with. But
Speaker 4: the grass is always is also the best it's been
Speaker 4: in the history of the game. The grass is the
Speaker 4: best today it's ever been. And the same goes for bunkers.
Speaker 4: They're good probably almost everywhere they go and play. So
Speaker 4: for anyone to comment on bunker inconsistencies or them not
Speaker 4: being perfect in today's day and age, like, it's a
Speaker 4: it's a little far fett, right, It's.
Speaker 1: They're they're better than they ever have been. That that's
Speaker 1: for sure. But could you give me a sense of,
Speaker 1: like the the costs of keeping bunkers perfectly consistent? You
Speaker 1: know what? What what is that? What are the consequences
Speaker 1: of that in terms of the budget the maintenance budget
Speaker 1: of of course.
Speaker 4: Well all of that comes down to what different staff
Speaker 4: members are making per hour, and that varies all over
Speaker 4: the country, right, so hard to put a dollar figure
Speaker 4: on it. But I think every superintendent you would talk
Speaker 4: to if you said to them, what part of the
Speaker 4: golf course you spend the most amount of man hours
Speaker 4: on is the bunkers everywhere, because that's the place where
Speaker 4: they typically get the most negative comments. You know, bunkers
Speaker 4: get destroyed depending on what part of the country you're
Speaker 4: working in. We just got two inches of rain last night,
Speaker 4: and my bunkers are full of water and totally destroyed
Speaker 4: this morning, and there's twelve workers out trying to put
Speaker 4: them all together now. And we might get another th
Speaker 4: thunderstorm on Wednesday and it happens all over again. I've
Speaker 4: got to go and fix them all again. So hard
Speaker 4: to put a dollar amount on, but definitely the most
Speaker 4: amount of most superintendents would tell you the most amount
Speaker 4: of man hours are going in the bunkers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think this is something that people should
Speaker 1: keep in mind whenever they hear player complaints about bunkers
Speaker 1: at a major championship venue like Southern Hills, that you know,
Speaker 1: the costs of keeping bunkers perfectly consistent and the same
Speaker 1: at every single course, no matter where it is, and
Speaker 1: no matter what they're trying to achieve at that particular course,
Speaker 1: that the costs of that are are pretty profound. But
Speaker 1: in any case, thank you for this perspective, Steven. This
Speaker 1: was really informative. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: No problem anyti