Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a fried.
Speaker 2: Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Fridagg Fridagg, Brian
Speaker 2: egg Lie, I'm about ready to run.
Speaker 1: Off of the course. Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Andy Johnson, and today I'm excited. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a little more Ryder Cup debrief. This
Speaker 1: is mostly about just golf courses, batch play, set up,
Speaker 1: that type of stuff. I'm talking with Joseph Leamania and
Speaker 1: Garrett Morrison of Friday Golf. And then in the back
Speaker 1: half I am joined by US Midam champ Brandon Holtz
Speaker 1: from Bloomington, Illinois, who was nice enough to join right
Speaker 1: after winning the Midam a couple of weeks ago. So
Speaker 1: we had a lively discussion about his path, which is
Speaker 1: a pretty incredible one playing college basketball and now and
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Speaker 1: So we talk about that, also talk a little read
Speaker 1: stated AM's a hot topic in the amateur golf world.
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Speaker 1: Garrett and Joseph. All right, you know the Ryder Cup
Speaker 1: discourse has continued. I wanted to do one more thing.
Speaker 1: I thought, one aspect of the Ryder Cup, which I
Speaker 1: think I could make some giant takeaways from. I think
Speaker 1: it was actually very revealing. Of a few things was
Speaker 1: the setup. So to talk about the venue set up
Speaker 1: and in future venues and future venues we might like
Speaker 1: to see. We're going to bring in Joseph Lamannia from
Speaker 1: Friday Golf, who was on the grounds, and of course
Speaker 1: our our architecture expert, Garrett Morrison, who was watching from home.
Speaker 1: So guys, welcome on. How are you?
Speaker 3: How are you? Joseph?
Speaker 2: I'm great, this is an interesting week. Good to be
Speaker 2: on site as for part of his my second Ryder Cup,
Speaker 2: one as a fan, now one as a member of media.
Speaker 2: So it was an illuminating experience. What was it like
Speaker 2: for you, Garrett.
Speaker 3: It was not nearly as strenuous as it was for
Speaker 3: you guys. I got to just watch from home and
Speaker 3: fire off some tweets, So good week for me overall.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into it. I think like I'd love
Speaker 1: to chat with you guys a little bit, and obviously
Speaker 1: you both bring a little bit different perspective. But setup
Speaker 1: was a big chatter. Obviously, Keithan Bradley made the decision
Speaker 1: to cut the rough, make a very short rough, very
Speaker 1: unpenalizing off the fairway, and that combined with a Wednesday
Speaker 1: or Thursday rain, really created a soft setup and something
Speaker 1: I guess I've kind of crystallized on off with high
Speaker 1: level professionals men, particularly Bethpage Blacks. Probably biggest weakness as
Speaker 1: a golf course is it's greens. They are very boring,
Speaker 1: very dull, flat. They sometimes rely on tilt, but nothing
Speaker 1: very extreme. They kind of are situated on a lot
Speaker 1: of times ridges but then very flat and there their
Speaker 1: surrounds are very benign in the sense of like if
Speaker 1: you miss the green, it's a pretty simple chip shot.
Speaker 1: With how soft they were, I have kind of crystallized
Speaker 1: around the setup that that boring, mundane, featureless greens render
Speaker 1: really bad tests of golf for professional golfers, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious what your guys' thoughts are.
Speaker 2: Well, I agree with you, and I think most of
Speaker 2: where intrigue comes from in professional golf is when the
Speaker 2: ball is on the ground, and there's no better example
Speaker 2: of that than around the greens. So, especially when it rained,
Speaker 2: especially when they chopped the rough down, getting up and
Speaker 2: down was very easy. I think that did backfire on
Speaker 2: the United States. I don't know how much you want
Speaker 2: to get into the captaining decisions there, but not a
Speaker 2: huge effect. I feel like people are getting a little
Speaker 2: bit carried away with some of the core setup stuff
Speaker 2: and how that disadvantaged the United States. I think we
Speaker 2: need to keep that in perspective. But I completely agree
Speaker 2: with you that you said it very well of Valhalla
Speaker 2: that a golf course like that is asking a question
Speaker 2: that was answered a decade ago of how high and
Speaker 2: straight can you hit the ball off the tea. If
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of intrigue off of the tea,
Speaker 2: like there isn't at beth Page, then there better be
Speaker 2: some defense in the greens. Otherwise it's just robotic golf,
Speaker 2: so I do kind of I'm somewhat sympathetic to the
Speaker 2: idea that Ryder Cup venues probably matter a little bit
Speaker 2: less the test that is presented than major championships, for example,
Speaker 2: because people aren't as focused on the score and the
Speaker 2: shots that people are hitting. But I still think Beth
Speaker 2: Page was quite underwhelming from a shot value standpoint.
Speaker 1: Real quick follow up, how would you have set it
Speaker 1: up if you were Keigan Bradley.
Speaker 2: Well, on paper, those teams were very bounced, So I
Speaker 2: think Keegan's talking about how he regrets it and how
Speaker 2: he wished he had gone with his intuition. I don't
Speaker 2: think people should kill him too much for the course setup,
Speaker 2: but I do think of a more accuracy geared course
Speaker 2: and a more demanding course from tee to green would
Speaker 2: have been beneficial for the United States a little bit
Speaker 2: more of a talented team. On paper that it was close,
Speaker 2: But I think the biggest thing is he was muting
Speaker 2: the strength of his best player, Scotti Scheffler, who I
Speaker 2: would cater a golf course towards. You know he's going
Speaker 2: to play four or five matches. You know Rory's going
Speaker 2: to play four or five matches, and you know, Scotty
Speaker 2: hits the ball appreciably shorter and straighter than Rory does,
Speaker 2: so I think it makes a lot of sense to
Speaker 2: build this and geared a little bit more towards accuracy.
Speaker 2: At the same time, Cameron Young went out and played
Speaker 2: unbelievable golf predominantly from the rough, and Bryson de Shambo's
Speaker 2: not the most accurate driver of the golf ball, so
Speaker 2: I think it should be kept in check a little bit,
Speaker 2: like they're accurate drivers of the golf ball on Europe too.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't have fundamentally changed the outcome of the competition,
Speaker 2: but if I were Keygan, yes, I would have set
Speaker 2: it up to be more of an accuracy test.
Speaker 1: I think also when you combined Scottie and then some
Speaker 1: other auto qualifiers Russell Henley, JJ Spahn, another one that
Speaker 1: would jump to mind that was on the team was
Speaker 1: Calm Morikawa. Right, those are all accuracy driven, accuracy slash
Speaker 1: precision driven players, and I think that's where the setup
Speaker 1: kind of let them down was that, you know, especially
Speaker 1: in Henley and Spawns case, those are two of your
Speaker 1: best players coming in into the event. You could even
Speaker 1: throw maybe Harris English into that bucket, but he can
Speaker 1: play kind of anywhere. I'd say he's kind of all
Speaker 1: around player.
Speaker 2: Tom Berriot was a very accurate driver of the golf
Speaker 2: ball too, though, like just just to be clear, there
Speaker 2: was accuracy on the European side as well.
Speaker 1: Garrett, I'd like to hear from you kind of watching
Speaker 1: ot TV, you know, and understanding the architecture of beth
Speaker 1: Page what did you think? I you know, if it
Speaker 1: had been firm, would we have enjoyed the short rough setup.
Speaker 3: If it had been firm, it would have been very different,
Speaker 3: I think, and that was to me the biggest factor.
Speaker 3: The rof got all the attention and that was a
Speaker 3: big difference. It changed the off the t characteristics of
Speaker 3: the golf course quite a bit. When we see PGA
Speaker 3: Championships at Bethpage Black, basically those tournaments are all about
Speaker 3: the rough and that factor wasn't there this time, and
Speaker 3: that was notable. But I think from an entertainment perspective,
Speaker 3: the main thing, the main limiting factor for this Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup was the softness of the greens and the way
Speaker 3: that the ball just wasn't going anywhere, either landing in
Speaker 3: the fairway or landing on the green. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: they could have done much about the fairways. Listen, this
Speaker 3: is an old golf course. They probably don't have the
Speaker 3: single most up to date state of the art drainage
Speaker 3: and irrigation system at this course, though they do a
Speaker 3: really good job. The greens though, oh my gosh, I mean,
Speaker 3: they were just it was a non factor. It was
Speaker 3: truly a non factor in approach play. Wherever players were
Speaker 3: playing from. It didn't matter if they were in whatever
Speaker 3: rough was there or in the fairway. The ball was
Speaker 3: landing on the green and doing pretty much the same
Speaker 3: thing every single time. And it really took the air
Speaker 3: out of the gall component of the telecast for me.
Speaker 3: And that was a real shame. And it's something that
Speaker 3: I wonder if is even on the PGA of America's
Speaker 3: or Team USA's mind, or on the mind of the
Speaker 3: European Tour or Team Europe when the Ryder Cup is
Speaker 3: over there, do they think about setting up golf courses
Speaker 3: for an entertainment value. I don't think they really do.
Speaker 3: I think they think about setting it up to advantage
Speaker 3: their team. Now, I'm not sure exactly what Team USA
Speaker 3: was thinking in this case, how they were what they're
Speaker 3: working theory of how this setup would advantage their team
Speaker 3: was But certainly it didn't have any entertainment value about it,
Speaker 3: and I think that should be something. Why not make
Speaker 3: the product as entertaining as possible and try to marry
Speaker 3: that with some kind of benefit to your team. I
Speaker 3: would hope that some kind of service to the fans
Speaker 3: would be a consideration here, But it didn't. Certainly didn't
Speaker 3: seem to be the case this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm shocked, honestly, and I think KEIEA Bradley was too.
Speaker 1: It didn't rain after Thursday, and I was shocking.
Speaker 3: Dry out What were they doing? Were they putting water
Speaker 3: on the course?
Speaker 1: They had to have been to a certain extent, because
Speaker 1: those greens just never dried out. I couldn't believe how
Speaker 1: soft they were, you know. And it became it became
Speaker 1: a situation where it was beneficial to be in the
Speaker 1: rough versus the fairway because of.
Speaker 3: Because of spin, yeah, because the ball was sucking back
Speaker 3: so much on the approaches from the fairway.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it was I you know, I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: and you know, kind of the thesims I brought up
Speaker 1: over at the top. You know, I don't think you know,
Speaker 1: beth Bage's greatest asset is this topography, and it's got
Speaker 1: some mundane pieces of the property, but it also has
Speaker 1: some stunning landforms where you're playing up and in around.
Speaker 3: And I think that variety is good.
Speaker 1: I like that about the property and where this I
Speaker 1: think the setup was kind of I kind of liked
Speaker 1: the short rough from the sense of like what it did,
Speaker 1: but then with the greens just having nothing where you know,
Speaker 1: there was no contours that reinforced good or bad. You know,
Speaker 1: where you have this beautiful land, but then the greens
Speaker 1: don't reinforce any semblance of strategy on it. And I think, like,
Speaker 1: I think, if they had a set of greens, and
Speaker 1: I know that like just wave your wand and put
Speaker 1: one of the best sets of greens in the world there.
Speaker 1: But if they had a set of greens, let's just
Speaker 1: use Augustin National set that everybody knows on that property.
Speaker 1: With the way it was set up, it would have
Speaker 1: been enthralling. And that's I guess my biggest takeaway. And
Speaker 1: I started to think through major championships and where they
Speaker 1: fall into buckets for me of like intrigue, and it's
Speaker 1: why beth Page comes in solo. It's why Valhalla comes
Speaker 1: in solo. You have to have great greens to test
Speaker 1: the modern player. And this week you just could see
Speaker 1: these guys hit it, you know, and it was amazing
Speaker 1: to watch them make these twenty footers after twenty footer
Speaker 1: and seemingly like make fifteen footers like eight footer normally.
Speaker 1: But then you start to zoom out and you start
Speaker 1: to think about it, It's like, well, there was not
Speaker 1: a lot. There's not a luck going on with the greens,
Speaker 1: so you could hit it to fifteen feet and be
Speaker 1: okay and not be have a difficult putt. That's something
Speaker 1: I think that like amplified.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I do think that it was harder if you were
Speaker 1: out of position than if you were in position. You know,
Speaker 1: you saw people struggle when they were out of position
Speaker 1: to hit it close. But I just don't think the
Speaker 1: value of hitting it close was as high as it
Speaker 1: normally is because of the greens. Would you agree with that, Joseph?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think especially to backpins, you saw golfers really
Speaker 2: struggling to take spin off with some of their wedges,
Speaker 2: Like the eighteenth hole is an example. We're hitting that
Speaker 2: way uphill hard with a wedge and taking spin off
Speaker 2: to a back pin from the fairway was very difficult
Speaker 2: and tripping a lot of those golfers off. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you saw it in the data. I know Data Golf
Speaker 2: put some stuff out there about how there was virtually
Speaker 2: no penalty. I don't know what the final number ended
Speaker 2: up being, but it should be somewhere around like between
Speaker 2: a tenth of a shot and two tenths of a shot,
Speaker 2: which is a very small penalty if you didn't have
Speaker 2: some kind of tree in your way. There was almost
Speaker 2: no penalty to being in the rough. And not to
Speaker 2: derail the conversation at all, but I think one part
Speaker 2: of all of this that is probably missing from the
Speaker 2: conversation a little bit into Garrett's point about entertainment value
Speaker 2: should be part of how you set the golf course up.
Speaker 2: They just hosted a huge event at Bethpage Black whose
Speaker 2: identity is being a difficult golf course, and it was
Speaker 2: as easy as it could possibly be presented. I think
Speaker 2: that would be my question to both of you, did
Speaker 2: Bethpage lose some of its identity this past weekend? Because
Speaker 2: I think I could make a pretty serious argument that
Speaker 2: it did, and there were fans all throughout the property,
Speaker 2: saying something to that effect that I've never seen it
Speaker 2: play this easy. It's way harder for me. Didn't we
Speaker 2: lose some thing this past weekend by setting up the
Speaker 2: golf course that way?
Speaker 3: PJ said it before the tournament. He was on top
Speaker 3: of this. He's familiar with a Long Island guy who
Speaker 3: wrote a good piece for the newsletter about how this
Speaker 3: was sort of a disgraceful set up for Beth Page Black.
Speaker 3: I think it absolutely hurt Bethpage Black's reputation this week
Speaker 3: that it was set up in this way and it
Speaker 3: was so obviously easy. And it's kind of funny that
Speaker 3: that came through so clearly in a match play event,
Speaker 3: because normally we would have to use the scoreboard for reference,
Speaker 3: the leaderboard for reference as to how easy a course
Speaker 3: is playing. But this week it was just so obvious
Speaker 3: that it was a pillow out there and it was
Speaker 3: target practice for these guys, And I don't know. I
Speaker 3: think what I take away from it is that Bethpage
Speaker 3: Black is no longer big enough to challenge these players.
Speaker 3: For a long time. For decades, part of the challenge
Speaker 3: of Bethpage Black was its scale, its length, the size
Speaker 3: of its topography. Even back in two thousand and two,
Speaker 3: this was a challenging course in terms of its size
Speaker 3: for the US Open field. It's not that way anymore.
Speaker 3: The course is really reliant on setup to uphold its
Speaker 3: reputation as an extremely difficult golf course for pros. So
Speaker 3: when you bring the pros to this course, in order
Speaker 3: to make the course seem difficult, you have to narrow
Speaker 3: the fairways. You have to grow up the rough, you
Speaker 3: have to make the greens firm. You have to do
Speaker 3: these things because the scale of the pro's game now
Speaker 3: dwarfs the scale of Bethpage Black, and that wasn't the
Speaker 3: case until fifteen to twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: I mean you had guys playing alternate shot, which is
Speaker 1: a challenging forma head of golf, and being seven eight
Speaker 1: hunder par. You know, people going out in thirty on.
Speaker 3: The front nine, and it wasn't Fleetwood and Rory, I
Speaker 3: think who went out.
Speaker 1: I mean they made a boxery course of I would say,
Speaker 1: like if I had to point to one hole, and
Speaker 1: I know it's different with thicker rough, but to me,
Speaker 1: what was alarming is just the clubs that people were
Speaker 1: hitting into fifteen, which is widely regarded as one of
Speaker 1: the hardest holes in the world, and you see players
Speaker 1: even with soft conditions, getting short irons in their hands.
Speaker 1: And that that hole, if you go back to two
Speaker 1: thousand and two, people were hitting long irons into it,
Speaker 1: and it's just a drastically different proposition and challenge. You
Speaker 1: know that that whole closing stretch, you know, when you
Speaker 1: zoom out to fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen was considered one
Speaker 1: of the hardest closing stretches in golf. And I know
Speaker 1: that seventeenteen didn't play all the way back, but if
Speaker 1: you look at that stretch, eighteen people could just bypass
Speaker 1: the bunkers. Seventeen was a scoring opportunity, the same with sixteen.
Speaker 1: You know, sixteen was just a driver in a wedge,
Speaker 1: and fifteen we saw way more low numbers than big numbers.
Speaker 1: And I think from that sense, what you're saying about
Speaker 1: the identity of best page Black is absolutely true. The
Speaker 1: you know, and I think the setup is obviously one thing.
Speaker 1: I think like what's interesting is when you go forward,
Speaker 1: people always say match play, Oh, it doesn't matter, the
Speaker 1: venue doesn't matter. But we saw this year that the
Speaker 1: venue did matter in terms of how it was set
Speaker 1: up and how it recovered from from a rain event,
Speaker 1: a relatively small rain event, and how it had a
Speaker 1: lasting impact. You know, without a doubt, those greens being
Speaker 1: so soft were created a huge, you know, an advantage
Speaker 1: to be in the rough. If the greens weren't soft,
Speaker 1: I think that advantage would have gone away. You would
Speaker 1: have seen more reward from the from the fairways. So
Speaker 1: I'm interested as we move forward, you know, is there
Speaker 1: here's here's the lineup of of upcoming Ryder Cup venues.
Speaker 1: We've got a dere Manor Max and twenty seven hazel
Speaker 1: Teine National who has hired Davis Love's architecture group. But
Speaker 1: from what I've gathered, they they there cannot be work
Speaker 1: done on the golf course before the Ryder Cup because
Speaker 1: of the contract with the PGA had it had the
Speaker 1: course as is written into the language, so that will
Speaker 1: not be renovated until after.
Speaker 2: It's so weird.
Speaker 3: I mean, when they sc scheduled that Ryder Cup at
Speaker 3: Hazelteene and the club soon after hired Love Golf Design
Speaker 3: as it's consulting firm. I thought, Okay, they're going to
Speaker 3: create a new Ryder Cup course at hazelteen, and they've
Speaker 3: hired a pretty talented architecture firm to do the work.
Speaker 3: I was excited about that, but then it comes out
Speaker 3: that they're why wouldn't they? I mean it just it's
Speaker 3: so confusing. I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're hosted the KPMG Women's next year, and so
Speaker 1: if you look at it, twenty six to twenty nine,
Speaker 1: plenty of time to turn around a.
Speaker 3: Golf Yeah, you could do it, and you could do
Speaker 3: it in two years. You could do the thing that
Speaker 3: you need to do at Hazelteine in two years.
Speaker 1: But so we will get the Hazelteine you saw in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, the hazelteen you'll see next year at the
Speaker 1: KPMG Women's, the hazelteen you saw at the USM. Then
Speaker 1: we go to Spain, we go to coast of Brava.
Speaker 1: I don't know much about that golf course.
Speaker 3: Camera roll. It's called or I might be pronouncing that wrong.
Speaker 3: C am I R A L And yeah, it's on
Speaker 3: the it's it's in Cataloonia. It's a kind of an
Speaker 3: hour outside of Barcelona. I did a little bit of
Speaker 3: research on this course. There's some interesting stuff about it.
Speaker 3: I do not think it's a good golf course.
Speaker 1: Though, sounds like one that might be a nice one
Speaker 1: to go with the wife.
Speaker 2: Though, too.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, great great wine region, just like it would be.
Speaker 3: That would be an amazing trip.
Speaker 1: Sounds like one to go to the place, not for
Speaker 1: the golf, but.
Speaker 3: For like the food, for the restaurants and the line. Yeah,
Speaker 3: go to Barcelona.
Speaker 1: And then twenty thirty three Olympic Club, which you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm an Olympic Club member, after all, I just
Speaker 1: saw at at Bethpage, I'm on full alert. Like I am,
Speaker 1: I'm not allowing what just happened to happen at my course.
Speaker 2: You're talking set up? Are you talking up?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because the Olympic Club members are so proud of
Speaker 3: the difficulty of the late course. So if they get
Speaker 3: if they get Bethpage blacked, they're not going to be
Speaker 3: They're not going to be happy about that.
Speaker 1: And then and then Congressional in twenty thirty seven, which
Speaker 1: is a very long time away. It's eleven years. None
Speaker 1: of the players, I mean, it'd be amazing if any
Speaker 1: of the players are still playing at that point, but
Speaker 1: I find that doubtful. Twelve years. Who would be the
Speaker 1: best contender to be still playing.
Speaker 2: Joseph blud Big.
Speaker 1: I mean he'd be thirty eight.
Speaker 3: Maybe the boy Guards.
Speaker 2: I think there's a better chance Ludviig's playing than the Hoyguards, respectfully.
Speaker 1: So with that, uh, what stands out to you about
Speaker 1: about the future venues? And is there one that you're
Speaker 1: you're keen to.
Speaker 3: See, Joseph if you want me to jump in here, sure.
Speaker 3: The thing that I think is interesting about these venues
Speaker 3: is the different tactics that the European Tour and the
Speaker 3: PGA of America have taken in selecting venues. It looks
Speaker 3: to me like the PGA of America is basically establishing
Speaker 3: a roda, which I would call a kind of USGB roda. Right,
Speaker 3: the USGA has its RODA with Oakmont and Shinnecock Hills
Speaker 3: and really the elite golf courses of the United States,
Speaker 3: and the PGA of America has sort of gathered up
Speaker 3: all the leftovers. And there are some really good golf courses.
Speaker 3: But listen, I mean, Baltis Ral is not Shinnecock Hills.
Speaker 3: I really like Baltisral. I think the renovation work there
Speaker 3: is great but I think no one's going to argue
Speaker 3: that it's anything like the level of golf course or
Speaker 3: level of championship venue that Oakmont or Marion or even
Speaker 3: Pinehurst would be. And so the USGA has really commanded
Speaker 3: the greatest, most prestigious championship venues in America for its championships,
Speaker 3: and the PGA of America has been left basically taking
Speaker 3: the courses that have been passed over by the USGA.
Speaker 3: And so the PGA Rhoda is kind of aernomic. The
Speaker 3: Olympic Club, Baltus Rawl Congressional, Kiawa, Southern Hills, oak Hill, well,
Speaker 3: there are some really good golf courses there, but it's
Speaker 3: not the US Open.
Speaker 1: And for the Ryder Cup, what happens is that list
Speaker 1: gets even smaller because a lot of those places you
Speaker 1: just listed are not big enough to host a modern
Speaker 1: day Ryder Cup, which is because the root of the
Speaker 1: issue of venues with this tournament.
Speaker 3: I don't think you can take it to Southern Hill Pills, right.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: Be a delightful time a year for it.
Speaker 3: There a really good and a really good golf course,
Speaker 3: but it's not big enough. You kind of need at
Speaker 3: the six All facility.
Speaker 1: Kia was too small for a Ryder Cup, which you
Speaker 1: know I brought. I you know, Joseph, would you be
Speaker 1: in favor of a smaller on site footprint and a
Speaker 1: greater emphasis on the overarching product?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but doesn't that mean that they have to sell
Speaker 2: way more commercials if they're significantly reducing the on site footprint,
Speaker 2: in which case than the television product might suffer. But yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: I think watching the Walker Cup at Cyper's point was
Speaker 2: illuminating that with a really when the when the focus
Speaker 2: is actually on the golf and the visuals, it was
Speaker 2: an incredible viewing experience. It probably wasn't the most commercially successful,
Speaker 2: but I guess that's the trade off that the PGA
Speaker 2: of America isn't willing to make. But yes, Andy, I
Speaker 2: would be in fase from so many different standpoints of
Speaker 2: reducing the on site footprint. I just don't think that's
Speaker 2: ever going to happen. And we've talked about it so
Speaker 2: many times on this pot of why there's a void
Speaker 2: in the market potentially for new venues, and I think
Speaker 2: if they're forward thinking, they would build one or two awesome,
Speaker 2: awesome venues with some of this revenue so that you
Speaker 2: could have a decent on site footprint and not put
Speaker 2: you know, PJ called out like they're putting grand stands
Speaker 2: in places on the golf course at beth Page that
Speaker 2: normally shots could end up. So I think it is
Speaker 2: compromising the golf courses.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is there, you know, they're so booked out
Speaker 1: with both championships and the USCA likewise, and they've kind
Speaker 1: of booked everything under a preconceived or a conceived model
Speaker 1: of sorts of how how the business works. And I
Speaker 1: think like what's fascinating right now with with everything going
Speaker 1: on with with sports is that, you know, cable subscriptions
Speaker 1: are only continuing to dwindle, and the way we consider
Speaker 1: a broadcast in ten years is likely going to be very, very,
Speaker 1: very different than what we see today. It could be
Speaker 1: a situation where you're looking at a streaming platform that
Speaker 1: comes in and scoops up these things, and how the
Speaker 1: streaming platform is probably looking at it is mostly subscription based, right,
Speaker 1: which would completely change kind of the objectives and or
Speaker 1: goals of set broadcast on what we're trying to achieve
Speaker 1: with this.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: You know, you see Peacock that still has ads and
Speaker 1: you know, Netflix has introduced some ads, but like that
Speaker 1: primary reason for atting these these events is for subscriptions,
Speaker 1: which completely changes kind of the paradigm of I think
Speaker 1: how we would look at one of these broadcasts. So,
Speaker 1: what's what's a little you know, I guess, like, what's
Speaker 1: what's kind of something to watch? Is is there twelve
Speaker 1: years out with some of these things, we're twenty years
Speaker 1: out and they don't really know what the business, the
Speaker 1: economics of their of their their TV product is going
Speaker 1: to be at that point.
Speaker 2: Are you are you throwing that out there from the
Speaker 2: standpoint of which venues they should be scheduling?
Speaker 3: Yeah, how would that change what venues they schedule? Do
Speaker 3: you think they could go smaller? Basically?
Speaker 1: I think that's that would be my big and that
Speaker 1: you know, you heard seth Wah describe the you know,
Speaker 1: booking of venues way out as irresponsible And maybe this
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons is like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to project what a business is going to
Speaker 1: look like in five years, let alone twenty, and here
Speaker 1: we are locked up with venues for the foreseeable future,
Speaker 1: but we don't necessarily have certainty of what the business
Speaker 1: is going to look like what could VR introduce? Could
Speaker 1: VR introduce something that dramatically changes you know, us wanting
Speaker 1: to go on site for an experience anyways?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the idea of you guys gathering in
Speaker 3: a b dratty house in twenty thirty seven and putting
Speaker 3: on your VR headsets too.
Speaker 1: I this is these are all things that like need
Speaker 1: to be Like. My question is like, you know what
Speaker 1: we where do we strip away a lot of it?
Speaker 1: And I think the USGA so there they are booked out,
Speaker 1: but they have like the best venue booked out.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Now, if I was on the other side, I would
Speaker 1: be thinking like, hey, let's see where this technology thing goes,
Speaker 1: because we might have the ability to do something small
Speaker 1: or like a small on site footprint, but then deliver
Speaker 1: a really premium VR product or something along those lines.
Speaker 1: If technology gets to where you might think it could
Speaker 1: in ten.
Speaker 2: Years, would you get a point?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think the PGA is getting into Cypress.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's the USGAUSGA only site.
Speaker 3: I don't think the club is. Was looking at the
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup, this last Ryder Cup and thinking, oh, we
Speaker 3: definitely want that to happen at our club. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that does open up some interesting possibilities. I
Speaker 3: think it's notable that the Masters has not gone all
Speaker 3: in on making its event the biggest event, right They've
Speaker 3: they've intentionally kept it at a manageable size, and they've
Speaker 3: expanded their digital footprint massively over the past ten years
Speaker 3: or so. And so that's that's how the Masters is moving,
Speaker 3: and it'll be interesting to see if other major championships
Speaker 3: move in that direction as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I it's it's fascinating. Like of these venues, I
Speaker 1: would say that, like Congressional is the one that I'm
Speaker 1: most interested in. I agree with that, Yeah, And unfortunately
Speaker 1: that's twelve years away.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, listen, there's only a US Ryder Cup
Speaker 3: every four years, and that's that's part of the unique
Speaker 3: dynamic here. We haven't really talked about the European side
Speaker 3: of this yet. Obviously, the PGA of America is wanting
Speaker 3: to go to prestigious traditional venues with its championships. Congressional
Speaker 3: is that, the Olympic Club is that, and and the
Speaker 3: PGA Championship is starting to go to classic venues as well.
Speaker 3: It's not going to PGA National anymore, right, And so
Speaker 3: that has been the direction that the PGA of America
Speaker 3: has moved in the European tour with the Ryder Cup.
Speaker 3: I mean, they're basically going to modern courses that they've
Speaker 3: been able in some way or another to purpose build
Speaker 3: for the Ryder Cup. Their in house design firm, European
Speaker 3: Golf Design, made major changes at Marco Simone before the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three Ryder Cup, major changes at the Golf
Speaker 3: Nacional before twenty eighteen. They're probably going to make some
Speaker 3: big changes at Cameron or whatever this place is called
Speaker 3: in Spain. And indeed the Cameral that the whole development
Speaker 3: was a European tour idea that had its roots back
Speaker 3: in the late eighties. It was the European chairman and
Speaker 3: co chairman who designed the course along with the European
Speaker 3: Tours consulting architect. So this has been a European tour
Speaker 3: spot that just for some reason or another, they haven't
Speaker 3: utilized much for championships. But it looks like they're reinvesting
Speaker 3: in that. A dere manner is sort of the outlier here,
Speaker 3: but I guess just the fact that J. P. McManus
Speaker 3: is the owner of it is the explanation that the
Speaker 3: Writer Cup is there. Otherwise, it seems like the European
Speaker 3: tour strategy is we are going to basically build our
Speaker 3: own Rider Cup venues to an extent, or we're going
Speaker 3: to take existing facilities and retrofit them for this purpose.
Speaker 3: And I like that idea. I don't like the execution.
Speaker 3: I don't think the architecture is good, and I think
Speaker 3: that's a big miss. But it would be interesting if
Speaker 3: the PGA of America or whoever is running the Writer
Speaker 3: Cup in a few years. Who knows, maybe the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour is going to have more influence in it eventually.
Speaker 3: It would be interesting if the American Ryder Cup were
Speaker 3: taken to some venues that we're in some way or
Speaker 3: another purpose built for the Ryder Cup. I would love
Speaker 3: to see some you know, talented architect try to build
Speaker 3: a stadium course in this day and age that hasn't
Speaker 3: been done for a while, and I think some really
Speaker 3: interesting things could be created with that brief. Build me
Speaker 3: a stadium course. Be like Dean Beaman in the late
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies just plucking Pete dye out of semi obscurity
Speaker 3: because Beaman thought that die was an interesting architect and saying, hey,
Speaker 3: just take this ball and run with it, build me
Speaker 3: a stadium course for a great championship. And somehow we've
Speaker 3: lost that vision. Obviously, it's very expensive to build these courses.
Speaker 3: You don't know that. The business is tough.
Speaker 1: I would say the organization running the American side just
Speaker 1: wants to take all the money and put it back
Speaker 1: in his pocket.
Speaker 3: That's right. So, and that's the issue is that they
Speaker 3: do not have of the vision for this kind of thing,
Speaker 3: but possibilities arealyzing if they did. Wait, that's not what
Speaker 3: he's thinking about right now.
Speaker 2: I get I couldn't agree with more with you, and
Speaker 2: I think that should be a huge focus of professional
Speaker 2: golf over the next ten to fifteen years. But isn't
Speaker 2: that what pg Frisco is supposed to represent.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, and I was going to get to that.
Speaker 3: It seems like they fumbled that opportunity. I don't know
Speaker 3: what happened with Gil Hans's course at PGA Frisco. It
Speaker 3: seems like a good golf course. It seems like maybe
Speaker 3: he was told just to go out and build a
Speaker 3: good golf course, and there are some interesting strategic concepts
Speaker 3: and you know, it's the turf is firm and fast.
Speaker 3: I think I would enjoy playing PGA Frisco sort of.
Speaker 3: But why didn't they ask him to build a stadium
Speaker 3: golf course. Why wasn't that course optimized for galleries? Why
Speaker 3: does it seem to be a bad course to host
Speaker 3: championships at?
Speaker 1: Why do you have to little scuttle butt? Okay, so
Speaker 1: there was when they were building that golf course. It
Speaker 1: was during COVID, Yeah, and the PGA they had There
Speaker 1: was apparently multiple attempts to get the PGA down to
Speaker 1: consult on where they would want grand stands, and nobody
Speaker 1: showed up. What So everybody was pointing the finger at
Speaker 1: whether it was Gil or Omni about the setup, you know,
Speaker 1: issues with grand stands and how they had to rejigger
Speaker 1: the routing for flow. But you know, they were building
Speaker 1: this in partnership with the PGA, and nobody on the
Speaker 1: PGA side of the coin came down to help advise
Speaker 1: them or you know, lend assistance in how that could
Speaker 1: be laid out.
Speaker 3: So there was no vision. That's and the vision is
Speaker 3: what made TPC Sawgrass what it was because Dean Beeman
Speaker 3: had an idea for a stadium golf course, and he
Speaker 3: theorized it to the point where he was saying, I
Speaker 3: want gathering points, I want holes converging so that people
Speaker 3: can watch action on multiple holes. At one time he
Speaker 3: was saying, I want high points around the holes so
Speaker 3: that spectators are looking down at players. He had an
Speaker 3: idea of what this course would be, and that's part
Speaker 3: of what made it really remarkable. And so it sounds
Speaker 3: like there was no similar impetus behind the PGA, at
Speaker 3: least the gil Hants course at PGA Frisco. And really
Speaker 3: they shouldn't have been designing the course and then saying
Speaker 3: where do we put the grand stands or how do
Speaker 3: we get spectators around it? It should have been baked
Speaker 3: into the concept from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's what you would think you would do.
Speaker 1: I will say one thing, and I'm curious, Joseph. One
Speaker 1: of the advantages, you know, Garret, you you're not a
Speaker 1: fan of the architecture that these this firm, the European
Speaker 1: design firm is is I.
Speaker 3: Think I think the bad I think the guys. I
Speaker 3: think that I've talked to the architects there and they're smart,
Speaker 3: but it's not.
Speaker 1: I will say, one of the things about the golf
Speaker 1: courses that they're choosing is they are unique and different.
Speaker 1: They are you could call them quirky. You know, anybody
Speaker 1: that's watched any bit of golf Golf Nationale knows this.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the other aspects of these
Speaker 1: these builds that they're doing is they are different golf
Speaker 1: courses than American PGA Tour style golf courses. And then
Speaker 1: it almost lends itself right into the European's hands in
Speaker 1: the sense that they have really created a way to
Speaker 1: set up their team and build their team with advantages
Speaker 1: in how they relate to the golf course, particularly on
Speaker 1: their home soil. Would you agree with that, Joseph, I.
Speaker 2: Agree with it. I think it underscores that there probably
Speaker 2: should be a neutral party setting up the golf course.
Speaker 2: And Eduardo Molinari, who's, you know, the brainchild of a
Speaker 2: lot of what happens on the European side, set on
Speaker 2: our podcast a year ago that he would be in
Speaker 2: favor of that that he thinks a neutral setup would
Speaker 2: probably be beneficial because of the advantages we've seen on
Speaker 2: each side. So yeah, Andy, you could tell me, you
Speaker 2: could convince me that if you're going to build a
Speaker 2: golf course from scratch, you'd make it as quirky, strategic,
Speaker 2: funky as possible and then get your side really dialed
Speaker 2: on the course management and just turn it all the
Speaker 2: way up, like have blind shots that your team's prepared for.
Speaker 2: Maybe you'd mow the rough and really bizarre ways, knowing
Speaker 2: that the left side is fine here the right you
Speaker 2: could do crazy stuff to the golf course. But that
Speaker 2: I do think that we've we've come too far on
Speaker 2: letting the home team set things up and it should
Speaker 2: kind of go to a more neutral setup.
Speaker 1: In a way. They did this at La Golf National.
Speaker 1: You know, if you look at the Golf National and
Speaker 1: you replay that Ryder Cup, Europe had so many more
Speaker 1: accurate players on a golf course that demanded accuracy, and
Speaker 1: the United States rolled in with a completely out of
Speaker 1: form and wild Phil Mickelson, Bryson De'shamba Bubba Watson, Tiger,
Speaker 1: who was like who knows what was going on that
Speaker 1: way Cup, Like you think about it, and it was
Speaker 1: like this perfect storm for a blowout because it was
Speaker 1: one team fit the golf course extraordinarily well, and all
Speaker 1: had experience on it the other team. You know, it
Speaker 1: was wildly different than anything you see in America. The
Speaker 1: other team rolls in after the Tour championship, you know,
Speaker 1: flind and you know they play this golf course that
Speaker 1: doesn't fit any of their games.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the funny thing is that these courses
Speaker 3: that the European Tour has a lot of control over,
Speaker 3: the the Golf Nacional Cameron what was the other one,
Speaker 3: Marcus Simone. They are kind of like knockoff versions of tPCS, yes, right,
Speaker 3: but they are peculiar golf courses. They're they're a little
Speaker 3: bit weird, and so they might require some degree of familiarity,
Speaker 3: you know, Marcus Simone has has a lot of quirk
Speaker 3: to it, maybe not really good quirk, but it's it
Speaker 3: helps to have seen the course before. And this is
Speaker 3: all sort of part and parcel of Team Europe's approach
Speaker 3: where they actually have control of these venues from the
Speaker 3: ground up, from the design side. They are involved with
Speaker 3: the details of these golf courses, whereas the PGA of
Speaker 3: America is basically outsourcing all of that, kind of like
Speaker 3: they've outsourced their data operation to Scouts consulting instead of
Speaker 3: integrating it into the team they have gone to. The
Speaker 3: PGA of America has gone to courses that operate their
Speaker 3: own golf courses and have their own ideas about what
Speaker 3: their golf courses should be in a good way, right.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that the Olympic Club has control over what
Speaker 3: it's doing with its architecture and that the PGA of
Speaker 3: America doesn't have say in that. But there's a reason
Speaker 3: that Team Europe is approaching venue selection in the way
Speaker 3: it does. It's going to golf courses where it's really
Speaker 3: involved already.
Speaker 2: I think one thing, Garrett, you're going through that explanation
Speaker 2: talking about some of those European work courses, there's illuminating
Speaker 2: for me, not just being at the Golf National, but
Speaker 2: also walking beth Page. Elevation change is essential to a
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup venue. From the perspective of spectating it is enormous,
Speaker 2: and from the perspective of Europe. Like at the Golf National,
Speaker 2: it also created a significant penalty for being offline because
Speaker 2: you weren't just in thick ruff. You were standing with
Speaker 2: the ball way above or below your feet, with those
Speaker 2: moguls on each side of the golf course, which I
Speaker 2: know was an emphasis of Europe. I don't know that
Speaker 2: how much driving accuracy is tested is something that we
Speaker 2: should be thinking about for future venue selection, especially since
Speaker 2: these teams are a little bit more homogenized now. But
Speaker 2: I do think from the standpoint of venue selection, elevation
Speaker 2: change should be a massive consideration in the way that
Speaker 2: it informs viewers and spectating different vantage points throughout the
Speaker 2: golf course where you can set up hospitality and not
Speaker 2: to go right back and beat a dead horse, but
Speaker 2: I mean PJ Frisco is like the flattest piece of
Speaker 2: property that you're going to find, and I do think
Speaker 2: that should be a much bigger can iteration. Then clearly
Speaker 2: the PGA is prioritizing.
Speaker 3: Not yet on the list of future venues, not yet,
Speaker 3: but it's it's coming. I think it's probably coming, all right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna make you guys, each of the czar.
Speaker 1: The golfs are the greatest role, greatest figurative role there
Speaker 1: is in the world. You can wave your wand and
Speaker 1: and and change where the next Ryder Cups are contested,
Speaker 1: the next two Ryder Cups are contested. I'm assuming that
Speaker 1: we're not sticking with Hazeltine in its current form, and
Speaker 1: I you know, I think at Dare Banner will be
Speaker 1: a wonderful, wonderful week. I'm sure all the players will
Speaker 1: be quite happy with their accommodations. But you're you're getting
Speaker 1: kind of like an Inland Parkland uh Fasio golf course,
Speaker 1: which I hears is great, wonderful place to be, but
Speaker 1: like probably not the most you know, fascinating, enthralling strategy
Speaker 1: golf course. If you could wave your wand the next
Speaker 1: two so you get a US and A at a
Speaker 1: broad venue? What two are you picking? No concerns for anything, no.
Speaker 3: Concerns for anything, like I kind of factor factored concerns in.
Speaker 3: Well you could yeah a little fine.
Speaker 1: But at least your concerns keep your concerns in. But
Speaker 1: you get you get any any two? What are you doing?
Speaker 3: So for a European venue, would love to see Walton Heath.
Speaker 3: I think that would be cool. It probably wouldn't be
Speaker 3: able to accommodate a full scale Rider Cup, but it
Speaker 3: is a thirty six hole facility, so at least it
Speaker 3: does have that going for it. It's hosted sizeable championships before.
Speaker 3: It doesn't have much elevation change actually to Joseph's previous point,
Speaker 3: but what it does.
Speaker 1: Happen hosted the eighty one Ryder Cup also.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, it's got a little bit of tradition.
Speaker 2: Did did you do?
Speaker 3: You know what the the host of the very first
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup was back in nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: Seven, Glenn Eagles Country Club, Worcester.
Speaker 3: A right which has recently undergone. What I've heard, I've
Speaker 3: heard is a very very good renovation by Gil Hans.
Speaker 3: I've heard that's a terrific golf course. But don't think
Speaker 3: that that's in the in the car.
Speaker 1: Some people will look that up and think it's Worcester,
Speaker 1: but it's Worcester.
Speaker 3: It's Worcester. Yes, yeah, it does look like Worcester, but
Speaker 3: that is not how you pronounce it. Yeah, Walton Heath,
Speaker 3: I'd love to see. I think that's such a cool
Speaker 3: golf course and it does interesting things to modern pros games.
Speaker 3: It would be tough to hold any kind of stroke
Speaker 3: play major championship there, but for a Ryder Cup it
Speaker 3: would be fascinating. And it's so so bouncy, you know,
Speaker 3: like it's that's just that that course is as a
Speaker 3: trampoline and so I would have a lot of fun
Speaker 3: with that. For an American Ryder Cup, I mean a
Speaker 3: few different options. At Chambers Bay is sort of the
Speaker 3: cliched one. Of course, I would love to see it
Speaker 3: at Chambers Bay. They're not going to go there. It's
Speaker 3: just too hard to get in and out of the course,
Speaker 3: and the spectator experience seems to be occasionally treacherous. But
Speaker 3: for a Ryder Cup, people more stay in place, I guess,
Speaker 3: so it might be well suited to that. Crooked Stick
Speaker 3: is another one that that I'd love to see. And
Speaker 3: Joseph has just perked up at that because this is, uh,
Speaker 3: this is close to his heart. But those are those
Speaker 3: are two names that come to mind for me. Ryder
Speaker 3: Cup venues that that I think would actually be interesting
Speaker 3: to watch.
Speaker 1: All right, Joseph, what are yours? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think on crookeetsick on. One issue they've had is
Speaker 2: the driving range was never big enough to have a
Speaker 2: full field, so you know, there you go, you only
Speaker 2: have twenty four golfers. They think they still need to
Speaker 2: extend it a little bit or put up a higher net,
Speaker 2: but at least you have that problem solved.
Speaker 3: I think they can. I think they can warm up
Speaker 3: at a a at a screen you know by.
Speaker 1: The time who knows? Yeah, yeah, all track man ranges, right.
Speaker 2: I think the legit answer here is that they need
Speaker 2: to build something new because this exercise is always so
Speaker 2: difficult to find something that's practical and would be exciting.
Speaker 2: You guys are going to hate this one. But if
Speaker 2: we're doing one that's four years from now, while Jack
Speaker 2: Nicholas is still live, you could do worse than Mierfield Village.
Speaker 2: And I don't like picking a course that's a PGA
Speaker 2: Tour course.
Speaker 1: You just love that course field so much.
Speaker 3: I love that golf course. It's TPC San Antonio, Mirfield Village.
Speaker 3: I mean those are you just have those posters on
Speaker 3: your wall and you go to sleep.
Speaker 1: Honestly, we I think next year we have to send
Speaker 1: send Joseph to you this Mirfield Village love letter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll write a moving, a poignant newsletter piece after it.
Speaker 2: Well, what other golf courses are we even talking about?
Speaker 2: Like to go through something that can actually host an
Speaker 2: event and be a good test of golf and potentially
Speaker 2: have the fan infrastructure. Like the list is so small,
Speaker 2: but I think it would be cool while Jack Nicholas
Speaker 2: is still live to have an event there, and it
Speaker 2: would be a golf course that legitimately has shot value.
Speaker 2: So I'll throw that out there. In terms of one
Speaker 2: in Europe, I'm scratching my head trying to think of
Speaker 2: anything that would work. This is another USGA venue, so
Speaker 2: I don't think they would ever go there. But if
Speaker 2: you want to max out the quirkiness, what about Lahinch?
Speaker 2: That would be fun, be fun, probably get their their
Speaker 2: box office numbers that they're looking for.
Speaker 3: They wanted to be within an hour of a major city, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's kind of then that looks to be the logic.
Speaker 3: You know, Barcelona is pretty close to cameral dere Manner
Speaker 3: is the one that's it's like two hours from Dublin,
Speaker 3: but it's still listen. I mean, no, no place in
Speaker 3: Ireland is I guess not far from uh any other
Speaker 3: place in the end. So they're they're looking to kind
Speaker 3: of be generally in urban areas.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, these are not realistic. I don't think that
Speaker 2: they're going to Lahinch anytime soon. If you want to
Speaker 2: the soft star, yeah, if you want to see a
Speaker 2: course where part doesn't matter and you've got funky stuff
Speaker 2: that's upsetting pros throw some of those blind shots at them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, i'd really like to. I mean a realistic place,
Speaker 3: a place that might actually get a Ryder Cup sometime
Speaker 3: in the near future because it's in the PGA of America.
Speaker 3: Roda is Baltis Roll. I think that would be a
Speaker 3: very good Ryder Cup host. Would it be the most
Speaker 3: scintillating possible host. Would it be as fun as the Hinch?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. But it's a good golf course where good
Speaker 3: renovation work has been done. Cool greens, right, actually interesting greens,
Speaker 3: and you can set that place up to be very entertaining.
Speaker 3: And it's a thirty six hole facility, so you'd have
Speaker 3: the room. The driving range situation is a little bit
Speaker 3: touch and go, but I think they have a plan there.
Speaker 1: So the other course into the driving range.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, they can. They can just have them t
Speaker 3: off from wherever.
Speaker 2: I know you said that this one is. It doesn't
Speaker 2: have the infrastructure. I think Kioa would be a cool
Speaker 2: one to have a run. You could. Yeah, you could
Speaker 2: never do a lot of the stuff that they want
Speaker 2: to do. But if you want to dial one back
Speaker 2: a little bit and make it hard to access, I
Speaker 2: think you could do a lot worse. Than Kia.
Speaker 4: What.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I'm surprised, you know, like they touched
Speaker 1: the thousand dollars ticket thing. I mean, honestly, it's an
Speaker 1: awful spectator experience. It's horrendous. I like actively advise people.
Speaker 3: Not to go to the oh, the Ryder Cup in general, Yeah, terrible.
Speaker 3: Well you don't see any golf shots, right, There's just
Speaker 3: not that many golf shots being played.
Speaker 1: And so what if they just went like the secondary
Speaker 1: market crazy markup and reduce the tickets by you know,
Speaker 1: they already are outpricing people with their current setup. Why
Speaker 1: not just go extreme? I have super expensive tickets and
Speaker 1: like way less fans.
Speaker 3: This would be your fantasy, right, Andy, Well.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be an elitist or anything.
Speaker 3: Why I would act like I no golf tournaments?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: I went to a a Ryder Cup when I was
Speaker 1: twenty six years old, and I was so mad at
Speaker 1: the amount of money I wasted, and at that time
Speaker 1: it was way cheaper than yeah, yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: I was so upset leaving Me and my buddy were
Speaker 1: We just talked the whole way home about haul how
Speaker 1: awful of a spectating experience. It was so like at
Speaker 1: that point, like you're delivering something that costs an insane
Speaker 1: amount of money. That's bad, that's not a good business.
Speaker 1: So why not dial it back, go like ultra lux,
Speaker 1: you know, save people from spending a lot of substantial
Speaker 1: amount of their money on something that's not good, because
Speaker 1: that's the worst thing you can do to be completely
Speaker 1: honest as a as a business. But anyway, I got
Speaker 1: a couple of venues. That's just a whole another thought
Speaker 1: that could lead to twenty minutes discussion. What about the
Speaker 1: old course?
Speaker 2: I mean, are we waving a wand about logistical considerations?
Speaker 1: They host an open which is like insanely big.
Speaker 3: Every five years. I mean I kind of avoided road
Speaker 3: of venues in my own imaginings.
Speaker 1: Is there a better matchplay course in the world.
Speaker 3: Oh, of course not. And and a lot of a
Speaker 3: lot of the problems that people have right now with
Speaker 3: the old course is the idea of par yes right,
Speaker 3: and the stroke play score. And so it'll be fun
Speaker 3: to be liberated from that for a week at the
Speaker 3: old course. I mean obviously, like that would be that
Speaker 3: would be fantastic. I'd love it.
Speaker 1: Has it? God?
Speaker 3: Has the Ryder Cup ever been at the old course.
Speaker 1: I don't think it has.
Speaker 3: I don't think it has.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been at some other places. It's just an
Speaker 1: amazing dale. It's been.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been. They went to consistently went to ROATA
Speaker 3: courses before the nineteen eight when they just started going
Speaker 3: to the Belfry over and over and over again, like
Speaker 3: you went from literally Walton Heath and I think eighty
Speaker 3: one and then it was the Belfry in eighty three
Speaker 3: and ever since then, the European venues have just been
Speaker 3: you know, but yeah, I would love the Ryder Cup
Speaker 3: of the old course would be sensational.
Speaker 1: And then American venue brand new just opened for preview
Speaker 1: play on the day of this recording yesterday, Rodeo Dunes.
Speaker 3: Rodeo Dunes.
Speaker 1: It's an hour from Denver, forty five minutes from the airport,
Speaker 1: tons of space for logistics in terms of grand stands, everything,
Speaker 1: and a golf course, like if you're hosting a tour event,
Speaker 1: you might worry about scored apart. For a Ryder Cup,
Speaker 1: don't worry about score apart. They just bastardized one of
Speaker 1: the great championship courses in America with with low scores,
Speaker 1: So why not go somewhere where you don't have to
Speaker 1: do anything. It's firm and fast with bounty, and it's
Speaker 1: a great time of year to be in that look location.
Speaker 3: Do you think it would be done a disservice on TV?
Speaker 3: Rodeo Dens Current TV. You mean likes going like they
Speaker 3: wouldn't know, but I mean just in general on TV.
Speaker 3: It's one of those courses that that I think in
Speaker 3: person I'm thinking of, you know, if you held a
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup at sand Hills or something like that, it's
Speaker 3: obviously such a gorgeous place. If you photographic correctly, then
Speaker 3: it comes across really well. When you're in person, it's
Speaker 3: it just bowls you over. I don't know if sand
Speaker 3: Hills would translate on TV.
Speaker 1: I think it would. I think I'm like fairly convinced
Speaker 1: that it would do well. Like that golf course has
Speaker 1: a lot of big features. It's more of like a
Speaker 1: I would say, like Rodeo has like Irish Links features
Speaker 1: where you have those big dunes, a dramatic, very dramatic
Speaker 1: vistas and and like you know, towering dunes that you
Speaker 1: play up like you get that elevation change and those
Speaker 1: spectating areas that Joseph was talking about, so that would
Speaker 1: be those would be by two. I also I had
Speaker 1: Chambers Bay on my list, but you mentioned it, so
Speaker 1: Chambers May it's it's so good. Yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 1: the PGA head to the sand for not trying to
Speaker 1: do it because you'd get like the Ryder Cup. I
Speaker 1: know this would be awful for European viewers. Disclaimer for
Speaker 1: the European audience, I know how awful it would be
Speaker 1: for you, But for the American TV audience, like, could
Speaker 1: you imagine a Ryder Cup coming down on Onday night
Speaker 1: You're watching on the East Coast Ryder Cup at nine pm?
Speaker 2: Be incredible?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there are any West Coast options really right now, A.
Speaker 1: Lot more at Chambers It would be a lot more
Speaker 1: interesting than than Olympic, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think what I love about Rodeo Dunes,
Speaker 2: I'm all in on that. And I think the story
Speaker 2: that would come out is the Europeans practicing at altitude
Speaker 2: before the Ryder Cup and the Americans not practicing at
Speaker 2: altitude one time, Europeans winning and that it would be
Speaker 2: the whole like that's exactly what would happen.
Speaker 5: I'm so in on that.
Speaker 3: Would the Europeans like get a hotel and aspen and
Speaker 3: go and runs together as a team. Yeah, absolute training.
Speaker 1: My favorite is this rumor that the that the US
Speaker 1: didn't practice enough at Bethpage, where there was literally a
Speaker 1: golf course you did not have to think around, no
Speaker 1: and practically practically, like you know, things get the knives
Speaker 1: come out and people are looking to blame everything. But
Speaker 1: like the idea that somebody didn't practice enough at beth
Speaker 1: Pages preposterous because there was literally no thinking to be done.
Speaker 1: It was take out the drivers. It hit it as
Speaker 1: hard as you can.
Speaker 3: The reason the Europeans made all those putts is that
Speaker 3: they knew all that, all the breaks and the nuances
Speaker 3: of the Bethpage black greens.
Speaker 1: So anyways, this was a great chat. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: for coming. On Joseph's work. You could read a lot
Speaker 1: in the newsletter as well as on these pods that
Speaker 1: he is a guest. Garrit's work you can find in
Speaker 1: our membership Friday Golf Club. His writing on golf courses
Speaker 1: golf Courses is featured there weekly as well as his
Speaker 1: bi weekly Designing Golf podcast that everybody should go check out.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for coming on and talking about things
Speaker 1: that we would hope that to change that will probably
Speaker 1: never change.
Speaker 3: Thanks Anna.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get to Brandon, let's talk about
Speaker 1: our friends over at golf Genius. If you've been to
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Speaker 1: Let's get back to Brandon Holtz and talk to the
Speaker 1: US Midham champ. All right, Brandon, congrats on the Midham win.
Speaker 1: Pretty incredible to do it in your first USGA event.
Speaker 1: I got to ask, I think the thing part of
Speaker 1: your story that I'm most interested in is you played
Speaker 1: college basketball. He played at Illinois State, Right, Who's the
Speaker 1: best hooper that you played against, that you played against
Speaker 1: at any level of basketball? And you know over the years, you.
Speaker 4: Know, honestly, Sean Livingston out of Peoria, you know, had
Speaker 4: a heck of a career win in the NBA. I'm
Speaker 4: telling you, if that guy didn't completely tear up his knee,
Speaker 4: I think top fifty all time.
Speaker 5: He was a blast to watch. He was a blast
Speaker 5: to play with.
Speaker 4: Fortunately enough for us, we were uh and this, and
Speaker 4: you're an Illinois guys, so you'd remember some of these names.
Speaker 4: But Andre Igi Dalas, Shawn Livingston, Richard McBride, Brian Randall.
Speaker 4: They would come down. Their AA team would play our
Speaker 4: AAU team just about once a week over the summer,
Speaker 4: So we got to play with those guys quite a bit,
Speaker 4: and it was there. They were special and Sean was
Speaker 4: just on a different levels as we all know, right,
Speaker 4: but definitely him, and then real quick at iu Osyrus Eldridge,
Speaker 4: that guy when he would jump, you could feel the
Speaker 4: force in the floor if you were next team. And
Speaker 4: unfortunately for me, I had the privilege or not so much,
Speaker 4: the privilege to guard him every day in practice and
Speaker 4: talk about a humbling experience to get your butt kicked
Speaker 4: every day in practice.
Speaker 5: So it was cool. I played with a lot of
Speaker 5: good players and had a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I was I lived at the Bay and I was
Speaker 1: talking to somebody that's like a little younger, uh than
Speaker 1: than me, late thirties. I'm in the late thirties, that
Speaker 1: someone in their like twenties, and we were talking about
Speaker 1: the Warriors, and Sean Livingston came up, and I vividly
Speaker 1: remember watching Sean Livingston when you know how this state
Speaker 1: tournament was televised, and I remember watching him in the
Speaker 1: state tournament and I was like, holy like that it
Speaker 1: was like just like mass destruction of high school teams.
Speaker 5: Different.
Speaker 1: And I said to this guy, I was like, before
Speaker 1: the d injury or the leg injury, that guy was
Speaker 1: unbelievable and it's it's it's it. He was, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was actually a rental car center that I said
Speaker 1: this to somebody. I remember there was the guy because
Speaker 1: he was at the rental car center. But uh, but yeah,
Speaker 1: Sean Livingston, it's as a as a basketball player, I
Speaker 1: you know, there there's this trended youth sports about like
Speaker 1: specialization where where like you know, it's like effectively like
Speaker 1: at age ten, these kids have to figure out what
Speaker 1: sports they played. Right for you, what do you think
Speaker 1: about your basketball career has helped you as a golfer?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: A lot of different ways.
Speaker 4: The competitiveness, the drive, I'd say, like golf is, golf
Speaker 4: is hard, like to practice everyday golf, right, I mean
Speaker 4: there's no defense, there's no plays, there's no like you know,
Speaker 4: I can't I can't talk trash to a guy that's
Speaker 4: guarded me. Right, there's there's just not a It's just
Speaker 4: you and the golf ball and the green in the
Speaker 4: in the hole.
Speaker 5: And so playing.
Speaker 4: Basketball those years you learn and you and you just
Speaker 4: I guess develop a work ethic and and it and
Speaker 4: to transition it to golf.
Speaker 5: You know, even a quick hour out on the golf
Speaker 5: course is better than no hour, right.
Speaker 4: So for me, you know, having a job, having two kids.
Speaker 4: You know, having a life outside of of just a
Speaker 4: game of golf. Running to that range for thirty minutes
Speaker 4: hitting a few balls is super important and that's all,
Speaker 4: you know, stems into the work ethic, and.
Speaker 5: I guess just the.
Speaker 4: The structure of your day, you know, being able to
Speaker 4: be accountable to yourself to to go play when.
Speaker 5: You when you have a little bit of time.
Speaker 1: I've said this numerous times of the podcast, but it's
Speaker 1: it's funny. I think, like the the specialization is I
Speaker 1: think golf at other sports help golf. And I always
Speaker 1: use this example as I you know, maybe maybe the
Speaker 1: best summer I had in my amateur career post college
Speaker 1: was playing. Yeah, I played basketball all winter, played like
Speaker 1: probably three three four times a week my gym in
Speaker 1: the city, and I didn't play basically I played no golf.
Speaker 1: I didn't really practice. But I came back and what
Speaker 1: I had gained was explosiveness, right Like my legs were
Speaker 1: were just twitchier and that basketball I'll never forget. I
Speaker 1: came back and I was hitting the ball ten fifteen
Speaker 1: yards further and it was all because of just the
Speaker 1: you know, the quick twitch nature of basketball. And it's
Speaker 1: like you think about some golf exercises like box jumps
Speaker 1: are great for golf, you know, and it's like that's
Speaker 1: effectively basketball. It's something I find silly about about you know, kids,
Speaker 1: and it's like you look at Scottie Shuffler, he played
Speaker 1: sport all different sports growing up. You know, he played
Speaker 1: a lot of basketball. It's like there are sports, particularly
Speaker 1: basketball I think that relate really well to golf because
Speaker 1: of as you said with the ISU player I forgot
Speaker 1: his name, Ri, But the ground force, Yeah, the ground
Speaker 1: force is effectively how you generate power from what I
Speaker 1: gather you move the ball.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually now you say that it's funny when
Speaker 4: I hit balls on the range. I can't say in
Speaker 4: the same spot very long because obviously we all takedivots.
Speaker 4: But you should see like my foot pattern. I mean,
Speaker 4: I am dug into that ground. And I'm a bigger
Speaker 4: guy as it is, but I'm dug into that ground.
Speaker 4: And you kind of look at it if you're at
Speaker 4: like a sand based range and you're like, oh shit,
Speaker 4: you know, like I got to move my foot is
Speaker 4: in the ground over here. So yeah, and then along
Speaker 4: with the same lines as all these different sports are
Speaker 4: using different kinds of muscles. That's why I feel like
Speaker 4: a lot of these kids are getting hurt because you know,
Speaker 4: they only play basketball, they only play football, they only
Speaker 4: play golf, and over a time, you just wear those
Speaker 4: muscles out. When if you're playing all the sports all
Speaker 4: year round, you're using all, you know, your whole body
Speaker 4: instead of just those select muscles.
Speaker 5: For that sport.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. And it trains
Speaker 1: different things, and you don't you don't know what what's
Speaker 1: going to help you the most, Like some something on
Speaker 1: the basketball court could click for your golf game, just
Speaker 1: the way you move or something something you think about.
Speaker 1: It's a you know, golf is such a kind of
Speaker 1: mercurial game in the sense of like you have to
Speaker 1: be cerebral and the way you think about stuff is
Speaker 1: is it just like so important with with the week
Speaker 1: at at Troon, I read some stuff that you know,
Speaker 1: obviously your long player desert golf is is is known
Speaker 1: of being very penal, but I read that you were
Speaker 1: you played quite aggressive throughout the week. What was kind
Speaker 1: of the mentality around the week and your strategy going
Speaker 1: into a desert golf course and that you know, effectively
Speaker 1: you miss fair way, you're kind of in a questionable spot.
Speaker 4: You know that the driver again, the driver got me there, right.
Speaker 4: The driver is the strongest club in my bag. I
Speaker 4: hit it every chance I can and don't even think
Speaker 4: about it. You know, if you start thinking in golf,
Speaker 4: you start failing in golf, right, So turn the brain off,
Speaker 4: trust your shot, and go with it.
Speaker 5: As far as the desert's concerned.
Speaker 4: Yet so so true country Club was for me, I think,
Speaker 4: just perfectly set up, just because I'm not scared to
Speaker 4: hit the driver. And I'm not saying those guys weren't
Speaker 4: scared too or I'm not saying they were scared to
Speaker 4: hit the driver. But you know, matching match out these
Speaker 4: guys are pulling off irons and hybrids and three woods
Speaker 4: and I'm I'm hitting driver, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 4: one of the guys out there said it perfectly. You
Speaker 4: know a lot of these guys are out here playing
Speaker 4: the golf course how it's supposed to be played, and
Speaker 4: I was just out there trying to make birdies. And
Speaker 4: you know, in match play, you know, I'm not a
Speaker 4: rocket science by any means, but isn't that isn't that
Speaker 4: what you're supposed to do, you know, make as many
Speaker 4: birdies as you can.
Speaker 1: I think that's you know, it's a great point because
Speaker 1: stroke play ward words that like you're building like a foundation.
Speaker 1: If you think about I think this is this is
Speaker 1: what Jeff Shat, Jeff Ogilvy said to me once about
Speaker 1: a stroke play Tournament's like building a house. You lay
Speaker 1: the foundation in ground one in round one, and you're
Speaker 1: just you're just trying not to screw up effectively, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to like build a soundhouse and not make
Speaker 1: many mistakes, and that's going to keep you on time.
Speaker 1: You know, the house analogy kind of works well, but
Speaker 1: when you get into match play, it it is so
Speaker 1: much about getting bit creating unique advantages on holes and
Speaker 1: putting applying pressure to your opponent. It's much more I mean,
Speaker 1: it's much more like other sports where where you're squaring off.
Speaker 1: Like I think it works really well with like a
Speaker 1: tennis analogy where you know, if you know, you watch
Speaker 1: tennis and they go for big first serves and obviously
Speaker 1: there's a there's a repercussion if you miss it, then
Speaker 1: then you're you're playing the second serve and the returner
Speaker 1: as advantage with golf you know, if you can get
Speaker 1: the if you can keep the driver in play. I mean,
Speaker 1: and somebody's hanging iron all of a sudden, You've just
Speaker 1: put a ton of pressure on their you know, mid
Speaker 1: iron player into green, right.
Speaker 4: And I mean my thought the whole week is if
Speaker 4: I'm hitting second in the fairway, you know, I choose
Speaker 4: to basically what I want to do each hole right,
Speaker 4: so to keep you know, to keep the basketball analogy
Speaker 4: of some sort in the golf.
Speaker 5: You know, me going second was my defense, right, and again,
Speaker 5: like a little bit part of the gamemanship.
Speaker 4: They'd be back there one hundred and sixty to two
Speaker 4: hundred yards away, and I'm up there, you know, eighty
Speaker 4: to one hundred and twenty yards away. I'm not in
Speaker 4: their way, but I've made sure they saw me up there, right,
Speaker 4: And that's just that's that's just the fun. Like, that's
Speaker 4: that's how I keep going. That's how I keep golf
Speaker 4: you know, active in my mind. How I keep going,
Speaker 4: how I I mean, that's how I play with all
Speaker 4: my buddies at home. I Mean, what a lot of
Speaker 4: people don't understand realize is the group of guys that
Speaker 4: I play with twelve to fifteen guys. They are all
Speaker 4: scratch at least scratch, if not a little better, maybe
Speaker 4: a little worse. But these guys can. They're damn good players,
Speaker 4: you know. And to be able to play with those guys,
Speaker 4: you know, two times a week, three times a week,
Speaker 4: I'm not saying, you know, my guys could go out
Speaker 4: there and you know, compete at the US mid N level,
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't bet against them, you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: they can play, so that helps me throughout the year.
Speaker 4: But I'm playing against these guys and I'm pushing them,
Speaker 4: They're pushing me. So it's it's just fun. And I
Speaker 4: learned all those things from those guys because we like to,
Speaker 4: you know, talk a little trash back and forth and
Speaker 4: keep it somewhat fun. Definitely don't need a camera following us,
Speaker 4: but we have some fun out there.
Speaker 1: I've got another podcast and I said that we were
Speaker 1: talking about the I said, I said something along the
Speaker 1: lines of like, you'd be surprised at how many good
Speaker 1: golfers there are in the Bloomington area. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, anybody that played Illinois amateur golf is a
Speaker 1: Bloomington is kind of like a hotbed for golf. It's
Speaker 1: I imagine, you know, there are a lot of games
Speaker 1: at the various clubs, but you know, it's uh I
Speaker 1: to me, to me, the best thing to get your
Speaker 1: game in a better place is playing with good players regularly.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like I think back to when I
Speaker 1: was a member at a club. We had I don't know,
Speaker 1: probably about twenty five guys that were two handicaps or
Speaker 1: three handicaps or less, and we had like basically a
Speaker 1: bi weekly scratch game and everybody brings some cash and
Speaker 1: we would play, you know, play all straight up, and
Speaker 1: there's like you know, low, low, gross and skinned and
Speaker 1: and it was like I think, like from from my perspective,
Speaker 1: like everybody there took their game at a different level
Speaker 1: because of just the constant competition level. And I think
Speaker 1: that's like something that is hard with golf. It's hard
Speaker 1: to find groups like that, right right.
Speaker 4: And on top of that, you know, a lot of
Speaker 4: the guys I play with, we all work for ourselves,
Speaker 4: you know, we have our own businesses or you know,
Speaker 4: in my case, I'm in real estate, so I can
Speaker 4: kind of you know, change my schedule as needed to
Speaker 4: you know, hey, let's we got afternoon tea time.
Speaker 5: Let's make it happen. Okay, let's go. So yeah, that
Speaker 5: definitely helps.
Speaker 1: This was your first USGA. Evet how many how many
Speaker 1: tries had you had at various events? And I think
Speaker 1: you should. I saw you shot sixty three to get
Speaker 1: through the qualifier. Tell us a little bit about getting there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So to clear all the stories, I've been reading
Speaker 4: social media and there's a lot of stories out there,
Speaker 4: and I'm.
Speaker 5: Like, where did they even find all this stuff?
Speaker 4: Because about ninety percent of it isn't true, right, But
Speaker 4: just a quick rundown. I played full time from about
Speaker 4: ten thousand, twenty ten to two thousand and four teen
Speaker 4: fifteen maybe, and then I kept my pro cards and
Speaker 4: I didn't play at any big events like as a
Speaker 4: mini tour.
Speaker 1: Events as Illinois Opened.
Speaker 4: Illinois Open is literally the only tournament I played in,
Speaker 4: you know, from fifteen to like twenty and had had
Speaker 4: some success there.
Speaker 5: That's why I kept it.
Speaker 4: But then after that, you know, having kids, just didn't
Speaker 4: practice enough, didn't play enough, and keeping my pro card
Speaker 4: made no sense. You know, I played one event a year.
Speaker 4: I get jacked up for that one event, and I
Speaker 4: just have to play good that week and if I don't,
Speaker 4: I lose what I was trying to do all year,
Speaker 4: you know. So my buddies finally convinced me to get
Speaker 4: my amateur status back. I applied in twenty three the
Speaker 4: end of twenty three maybe, and got it back last year,
Speaker 4: and they, you know, they backdated all and I mean
Speaker 4: it's I did exactly what they were supposed to know,
Speaker 4: what the USGA wanted me to do, and we were
Speaker 4: good to go. And then the this was my first
Speaker 4: like legit usc it was the size of four ball.
Speaker 4: I played in the four ball, but we didn't do
Speaker 4: very good, so moving on. But then the the US
Speaker 4: made it and qualifiers at Cresler Country Club where I'm
Speaker 4: a member, and I'm like, this is this is just
Speaker 4: set up perfect, you know. So I go out there,
Speaker 4: played pretty well, shoot sixty three, get out and then
Speaker 4: you know I would I wouldn't say that I didn't
Speaker 4: think I could do this. I mean, if I didn't
Speaker 4: think I could do it, I wouldn't play it, you know.
Speaker 5: But it was it was, it was, it was fun.
Speaker 5: It was a good week. I was glad to play
Speaker 5: well while I was out there.
Speaker 4: Because I mean, it's it's amateur golf, right, we don't.
Speaker 4: We're not playing every day. We're not practicing every day,
Speaker 4: and you.
Speaker 5: Just got to play. You got to play good at
Speaker 5: you know, at the right opportunity and the right time.
Speaker 5: And that's what happened. And here we are today, right.
Speaker 1: It's I played in twenty sixteen and I was kind
Speaker 1: of cruising in the stroke play and then I started
Speaker 1: thinking about match play on my back nine of second round.
Speaker 1: And that's when, you know, anybody that played any any
Speaker 1: level of golf knows that's when implosions happened. And sure
Speaker 1: enough it happened. But you know, like that's the thing
Speaker 1: about that midam is is you if you play well
Speaker 1: in that in that stroke play portion and you get
Speaker 1: into match play, it it's you. Everybody in that match
Speaker 1: play feels like they have a chance because it becomes
Speaker 1: I gotta be one guy for you know, six days
Speaker 1: or six rounds in a row, which is not a
Speaker 1: crazy proposition, you know, in terms of in terms of
Speaker 1: the stroke play and getting kind of ready, uh in
Speaker 1: in there, what did your did your strategy shift it
Speaker 1: all from stroke play to match play?
Speaker 5: Yes, So.
Speaker 4: For stroke play, I mean the whole goal is kind
Speaker 4: of stay out of your own way, stay away from
Speaker 4: the big numbers, which I didn't unfortunately, but I was
Speaker 4: able to to kind of recoup and find some birdies
Speaker 4: out there. But the good I mean again True Country Club,
Speaker 4: I felt like said perfect perfectly up for me, and
Speaker 4: I hit in the stroke play.
Speaker 5: I hit driver at True Country Club all you know,
Speaker 5: the whole round too.
Speaker 4: True North was kind of more of a blessing in
Speaker 4: disguise because it totally took.
Speaker 5: The driver out of my back, so it kept me safe.
Speaker 4: But I think the first two rounds, I think True
Speaker 4: True Country Club I played first. I think I hit
Speaker 4: seventeen greens, had a four putt, you know, putt it
Speaker 4: off the green on number three, so I started off
Speaker 4: number three my third hole of the whole week, have
Speaker 4: a four putt for seven, So that was that was
Speaker 4: a real fun, you know start. And then True North
Speaker 4: I hit it. I hit it in the desert on
Speaker 4: number ten and hit a provision and didn't even look
Speaker 4: for it, just because I knew it was just just
Speaker 4: what we weren't going to find it and then ended
Speaker 4: up taking.
Speaker 5: A seven there.
Speaker 4: But it just kept battling stay out of your own
Speaker 4: way once I hit the Once I had the big numbers,
Speaker 4: I'm like, okay, well you just gotta you gotta buck
Speaker 4: up and make some stuff happen. But once I had,
Speaker 4: once I finished the first round at even parr, I'm like,
Speaker 4: you know what, just get it in the house, keep
Speaker 4: it around.
Speaker 5: Par and let's get on the match play. And that's
Speaker 5: that's exactly what I did. So I was happy.
Speaker 4: And then yeah, when I hit the match play, let's
Speaker 4: let's go grab as many birdies as you can.
Speaker 1: Was there was there a particular match or moment where
Speaker 1: you know, it felt like something was going the wrong way,
Speaker 1: and and there was a moment that really flipped a
Speaker 1: flipped my match on his head.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the I think it was a quarter of my
Speaker 5: it'd have been my second match.
Speaker 4: Maybe that Justin Huber, who I've you know, I don't
Speaker 4: I didn't personally know him, but I've.
Speaker 5: Seen his name around and I knew he was a
Speaker 5: good player.
Speaker 4: Obviously looked up everyone I played against and knew I
Speaker 4: had I had to bring my stuff.
Speaker 5: In that particular match.
Speaker 4: I just I just was not hitting the ball good,
Speaker 4: battling the swing a little bit, and honestly, mentally, I
Speaker 4: was just I was tired. I was beat you know,
Speaker 4: but then I think I was like three down through
Speaker 4: thirteen and just you know, had that long get your
Speaker 4: butt up and start doing something talk and just caught fire.
Speaker 4: And I think from like fourteen to so fourteen, I
Speaker 4: think I burdied fourteen through eighteen. Then I birdied the
Speaker 4: nineteenth holl to beat him, and then I birdied the
Speaker 4: first four holes of the next match. So I just
Speaker 4: I mean I had like seven or seven, eight or
Speaker 4: nine birdies in a row, and just from from there,
Speaker 4: you know that that just that little bit of confidence,
Speaker 4: you know, I told my dad and I'm like, Dad,
Speaker 4: work on, We're going to make a run of this,
Speaker 4: just because you always got to. You always got to
Speaker 4: get past that match where you just don't play the
Speaker 4: best that you can. And for me, I think that
Speaker 4: that was that match that was a turning.
Speaker 1: Point for us. Uh, you had your dad on the bag.
Speaker 1: I'm sure your dad has had a lot of sports
Speaker 1: experiences with you through your life. What was that experience
Speaker 1: like being able to get the get the whole thing
Speaker 1: done with with your dad on the back.
Speaker 4: It was fun. You know, we've we've played a lot
Speaker 4: of golf together. He knows my game just as good
Speaker 4: as anybody else. And he's I mean, he's just a
Speaker 4: he's a comforting presence, right uh. And he's just he's
Speaker 4: just a big bear, right if he got his long hair,
Speaker 4: big solid, strong dude. And it's just it's more of,
Speaker 4: you know, some reassurance, some confirmation. He's not out there
Speaker 4: telling me what to do, where to hit it, how
Speaker 4: to hit it. He's just there for the conversation and
Speaker 4: the reassurance is off. And when it was all said
Speaker 4: and done, it was that My wife said the best
Speaker 4: one because honestly, I don't remember the last t ball.
Speaker 4: I don't remember hitting it, and I don't remember making
Speaker 4: that last putt.
Speaker 5: I think I just blacked out in the moment, right,
Speaker 5: But she.
Speaker 4: Said when I made the putt, and I went and
Speaker 4: hugged my dad because my dad he's a big fellow too,
Speaker 4: and she's like, man, I wouldn't I would not want
Speaker 4: to be in the middle of that hug.
Speaker 5: I bet that things tight.
Speaker 4: But that, yeah, we that was that was just I
Speaker 4: think we finally because for the longest time, you know,
Speaker 4: I tried the professional route. He was supporting me through that,
Speaker 4: and then we just figured out that that just wasn't
Speaker 4: the way to go. So I stopped, and then I
Speaker 4: started talking about playing, you know, back some competitive uh
Speaker 4: you know, amateur stuff, and he's like, yeah, go for it,
Speaker 4: and then it all we all just finally were able
Speaker 4: to just let it go once once we got the
Speaker 4: job done out there.
Speaker 5: So super fun to have him on the bag. I
Speaker 5: can't wait.
Speaker 4: And then, honestly, in some of the reports, I said
Speaker 4: that he won the Masters badges in twenty ten, and
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't even know what I was saying on half
Speaker 4: of those deals. But he actually won the badges in
Speaker 4: two thousand and four. So we have been going out
Speaker 4: to the Masters. He gets two badges per day for
Speaker 4: the week or for the for the tournament rounds, and
Speaker 4: he gets them for his life. So he's been going
Speaker 4: out there for twenty years. He usually takes day. I
Speaker 4: take a day, my brother takes a day, and then
Speaker 4: his sister, my dad's sister, my aunt and uncle they
Speaker 4: take a day, and we kind of rotate.
Speaker 5: It, you know, every year. But we understand how special.
Speaker 4: It is out there and how different it is out there,
Speaker 4: and some of the conversation is, you know, we had
Speaker 4: on our on our way home, We're like, Dad, you.
Speaker 5: Know all those.
Speaker 4: Ropes that we can't go behind, and all those buildings
Speaker 4: that we keep asking ourselves, Oh, I wonder what's in there?
Speaker 5: I wonder what's back there.
Speaker 4: We're gonna be able to find out what all that
Speaker 4: is now, so it makes it even more special just
Speaker 4: because of, you know, the experience we've already had out there,
Speaker 4: so we're excited.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's tradition that the mid Am gets
Speaker 1: the invitation to the to the Masters. It's also you
Speaker 1: get into the US Open next year, which is at
Speaker 1: Shitakak Hills. That's a pretty pretty great golf course. I
Speaker 1: would just finished a week where I was out there
Speaker 1: last week. It's uh, you know what I would consider
Speaker 1: the very best golf courses in the world.
Speaker 5: And the Hampton's in the in the middle of summer,
Speaker 5: it's going to be real cheap to be out there,
Speaker 5: right my.
Speaker 1: My one piece of advice having covered a US Open
Speaker 1: there is if you can stay stay east of the
Speaker 1: golf course. You don't want to be in the in
Speaker 1: the west or the west to east traffic, because if
Speaker 1: you get on the other side, then you're going it's
Speaker 1: even if you're thirty minutes, it's gonna be thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: If you're going the other way, you could be ten
Speaker 1: minutes away and take an hour. Sure, But the with
Speaker 1: the masters, that's incredible that you've been going for effectively
Speaker 1: twenty one years of your life. What are you know?
Speaker 4: What are you?
Speaker 1: I would say, what's your ben your where's your favorite
Speaker 1: spot to sit as a patron? And you know you
Speaker 1: talked about like wondering what's behind the ropes assuming you
Speaker 1: get the chance to play where?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 1: What are you? What shot are you most excited ahead.
Speaker 4: The I mean, i'd like to say number one, but
Speaker 4: that's going to be I'm gonna have to tell the
Speaker 4: patrons to move that.
Speaker 6: I think if you blacked out on at the very
Speaker 6: probably if on one, Yeah right, just telling move that
Speaker 6: left a little further left because I'm like a pole
Speaker 6: cut kind of guy, and that sucker might be coming
Speaker 6: low left real quick at you.
Speaker 1: I'm just praying for a little heel, a little heel
Speaker 1: modern technology ball.
Speaker 4: No, So personally my favorite spot to sit, I really
Speaker 4: like sitting at number two on a day where they
Speaker 4: can go for the green just because yeah, behind the
Speaker 4: green I want to sit so.
Speaker 5: You can watch the ball come in.
Speaker 4: It's it is fantastic. And then I've always had a
Speaker 4: lot of fun on number six T. It's a kind
Speaker 4: of a downhill par three and the winds always circling,
Speaker 4: and no one's ever up there.
Speaker 5: So you go up there, and I swear to you
Speaker 5: you have the most caddy player interaction up.
Speaker 4: There on six T that you'll find anywhere, because one
Speaker 4: nobody's up there and you are literally like right next
Speaker 4: to these guys, you know. So those two spots are
Speaker 4: gold and number nine. I like watching them because again,
Speaker 4: no one's ever at the ninety and they all hit driver,
Speaker 4: so you get to see, you know, really take off
Speaker 4: how you know, what it looks like, how far they
Speaker 4: hit it.
Speaker 5: And so those three spots are definitely where I'm going
Speaker 5: to go watch if I want to hit that second
Speaker 5: that second tea. I do not like hitting the ball
Speaker 5: right to left.
Speaker 1: That ain't for me.
Speaker 5: So they needed they need to get they need to.
Speaker 1: Clearly get a three wood out there.
Speaker 5: You can probably turn over yep, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's the thing. You could hit that three
Speaker 1: wood and and just get it to the bunker. And
Speaker 1: then you got flat line and you just got playing horse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thats right, it is it is you know, I think
Speaker 1: I think the thing I got to play the media
Speaker 1: day or not the media day, the media lottery. And like,
Speaker 1: to me, the thing about that golf course is it
Speaker 1: it kind of like it's the golf course that's best
Speaker 1: of praying on your insecurities as a player, right where
Speaker 1: like you have like all these memories in nostalgia and
Speaker 1: you remember like what other people have done out there,
Speaker 1: but then the margin for error is so small and
Speaker 1: the shots are so challenging that like it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a weird thing with with golf. It's like where
Speaker 1: you have to be the key the game is so complex,
Speaker 1: but like the key to the game is is having
Speaker 1: nothing rolling around your head when you're making the move,
Speaker 1: you know, right, it's uh uh with uh with those
Speaker 1: those those tournaments are there. I saw that you you
Speaker 1: said something along the lines of like, you know, I
Speaker 1: just want to play with some guys that are that
Speaker 1: are open to having a little game on the side
Speaker 1: and practice rounds. Is there anybody that you've got, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly you would love to play with.
Speaker 5: I mean, again, the list goes.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a long list of guys I like
Speaker 4: to play with, but the one I think the Tony
Speaker 4: Fena would be great just because I have played with
Speaker 4: him before and you know, some of the early on
Speaker 4: mini tour things. So it would be good to like
Speaker 4: kind of catch up on with him. I'm sure he
Speaker 4: you know, he remembers me, right. They all remember me, right,
Speaker 4: So I'm hoping he maybe maybe gets a little a
Speaker 4: little spin of this and and here's the story, and
Speaker 4: you know, maybe he does remember me.
Speaker 5: I don't mean I'll never forget where you're in Chicago.
Speaker 5: We played at.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know, I just told you I'm never gonna forget.
Speaker 4: But we played at They just had oh they just
Speaker 4: had to play. Oh shoot, oh I can't remember.
Speaker 6: Darn it.
Speaker 5: That's gonna make me mad now. But we had we
Speaker 5: said my wife sat down and had dinner with Tony
Speaker 5: and his his family Gipper. He has brother Hippers out
Speaker 5: there playing.
Speaker 1: A great star.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, big time.
Speaker 4: So I don't know if that would be kind of cool.
Speaker 4: But obviously I would be happy to play with anybody
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 5: You know, I just want to have a little fun.
Speaker 5: I'm not your I obviously play golf, right.
Speaker 4: I'm not too bad at it some days, but I'm
Speaker 4: not like, I don't know really a whole lot about
Speaker 4: the technicality of the golf swing. You know.
Speaker 5: I get up there and I hit it and go
Speaker 5: find it. The ball doesn't move, hit it, go find it,
Speaker 5: you know. That was the other thing.
Speaker 4: A lot of guys were like, man, he just he
Speaker 4: takes a rip at it and then he starts walking.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, that's the more I think, the worst
Speaker 4: it's going to get. So just and that's another story.
Speaker 5: I don't remember.
Speaker 4: It was like our twenty third hole or something and
Speaker 4: the sapar five and I hit a bad t shot.
Speaker 4: So we laid up and I'm sitting there. We got
Speaker 4: a little like fifty yard pitch right up the hill,
Speaker 4: and my dad and I were talking and we're like
Speaker 4: pointing out these you know, spots on the green, and
Speaker 4: my dad starts talking about, you know, this light piece
Speaker 4: of grass, this dark piece of grass, and.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm all in with them. I'm like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna hit it right there.
Speaker 4: And I just cold shanked it. I just shanked the
Speaker 4: shit out of it, you know. And I'm like I
Speaker 4: get up there, I mark my ball. I'm like, Dan,
Speaker 4: what are we doing? We don't This isn't how we
Speaker 4: play golf. Let's just stop talking, right, We're not talking
Speaker 4: about this anymore. So, Yeah, I mean, the less you
Speaker 4: think about it, the easier it's going to be in
Speaker 4: my opinion. But as far as golfers, Tony would be
Speaker 4: cool just because I've you know, I've met him personally before.
Speaker 4: My wife follows him on I follows his wife on
Speaker 4: Instagram and she's in love with her or whatever that
Speaker 4: social media stuff is TikTok Instagram all that. I'm not
Speaker 4: the best of it, but he'd be fun. And then
Speaker 4: really just anybody and everybody out there. Obviously, you know
Speaker 4: your dream to be playing with Tiger and Rory and
Speaker 4: all those guys, But that I mean, I'm also a
Speaker 4: realistic guy, like that ain't happening.
Speaker 5: You know, maybe if it doesn't be great.
Speaker 1: But it was a couple of years ago at the
Speaker 1: Open at the Old Course, Adrian Mrunk had just like
Speaker 1: he was. I think he was like one of the
Speaker 1: first people. He was teen off ten, which is like
Speaker 1: way the hell out there, and at the time he
Speaker 1: was this was before he became you know, a like
Speaker 1: a big time winner on the DP World Tour and
Speaker 1: then he went to live you know, but he's a
Speaker 1: relatively unknown golfer and like he's got like I think
Speaker 1: it was six thirty on the old course. He was
Speaker 1: teen off or seven and who shows up just shows
Speaker 1: up at his tea time. Never met the guy Tiger Woods. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he plays practice round with Tiger Woods, So you never know, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of the beauty of those practice routes.
Speaker 4: Exactly, And that's the the unknowing is kind of you know,
Speaker 4: even more of the excitement, right I did see that
Speaker 4: Evan Be won last year in the Midham and he
Speaker 4: played with Bubba Watson at the Masters last year, so
Speaker 4: I was like, well, I think I'd be.
Speaker 5: All right with that. That'd be kind of fun.
Speaker 1: I think that's like one of the coolest about the
Speaker 1: Masters is the field is so small, like it and
Speaker 1: it's so elite and like you're either playing yeah, and
Speaker 1: you're either playing like you're gonna play with some legend
Speaker 1: of the game from like you know, it's like if
Speaker 1: you played with Marie Jose Mariolabolod Be probably like it's
Speaker 1: like holy shit, like I'm playing with this guy. I
Speaker 1: watched win Masters and it's like, you know, got one
Speaker 1: of the best short games ever, right, Like that would
Speaker 1: be cool in itself, and then you're playing with somebody else.
Speaker 1: A hot topic of the week is is the you know,
Speaker 1: seven of the eight quarterfinalists were reinstated professionals. You yourself
Speaker 1: are reinstated professional obviously, as you kind of laid out,
Speaker 1: you played full time from twenty ten to twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and then you were playing about like one two three
Speaker 1: events a year for the you know, the next almost decade. Sure,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on on the reinstage state of
Speaker 1: am versus just amateur? Uh, you know, staying amateur debate
Speaker 1: when it comes to the mid am.
Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, what what's the difference? You know, if
Speaker 4: you follow the rules and you and you are what
Speaker 4: you are. I mean, every one of those guys out
Speaker 4: there have full time jobs, have kids. You know, sure
Speaker 4: that some of them I had, you know, pretty good
Speaker 4: success on it. But what you're gonna knock a guy
Speaker 4: because he went and tried something and now he just
Speaker 4: can't play as much as he'd liked, but he'd still
Speaker 4: like to be competitive. I mean to me, if you
Speaker 4: really wanted to shut down the argument, then you then
Speaker 4: you change the rules. But the rules are what the
Speaker 4: rules are, and if you're following them, I mean, what
Speaker 4: is it matter, you know? And for me to clear
Speaker 4: the air, I was never on anybody's staff. Nobody ever
Speaker 4: gave me a golf club. I think eBay. I'm probably
Speaker 4: one of eBay's best customers because I buy and sell
Speaker 4: golf clubs. If if I want to try, I buy
Speaker 4: it and I don't like it, I put it back
Speaker 4: on there to try to sell it, you know. Like,
Speaker 4: So so really, let's let's break down what a what
Speaker 4: a professional golfer is on the mini tour, right, or
Speaker 4: let's break down what's what's what's the true definition of
Speaker 4: an amateur anymore? With this nil stuff, with you know,
Speaker 4: all that stuff. And I don't want to get into
Speaker 4: that conversation because you could go for days, right, But
Speaker 4: I don't have a problem with it. If you follow
Speaker 4: the rules, you follow the rules, and it's it should
Speaker 4: be a shut door, right. I think a lot of
Speaker 4: these people one obviously it's reading some of the articles
Speaker 4: that are being written about me, don't know what the
Speaker 4: hell they're talking about because you know I've played on
Speaker 4: the corn Fairy one hundred and fifty times, I have half.
Speaker 5: A million dollars. Well, that's all false. You know, none
Speaker 5: of that is true.
Speaker 4: I've never played on a corn Fery event, I've tried,
Speaker 4: never made it. You know, I'm from Indiana, I played
Speaker 4: basketball at Drake and none of this stuff is true.
Speaker 5: So let's let's get the.
Speaker 4: Facts right before you know, people start spurting out what's
Speaker 4: going on. But as far as following the rule, follow rules,
Speaker 4: and there again should be a shut door.
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a super complex situation, like
Speaker 1: many hotly debated topics are. I think like I think
Speaker 1: where I don't. I think it's like anybody that has
Speaker 1: a problem with anybody in the field, you shouldn't have
Speaker 1: a problem with anybody personally that followed the rules. As
Speaker 1: you said, now, like where you could have issue is
Speaker 1: where you what what the rules are. And I think
Speaker 1: that's where the discussion should be had. You know, in
Speaker 1: your case, to me, like turning pro shouldn't be a
Speaker 1: death sentence on your your amateur career. The idea of
Speaker 1: trying something should not be like you're you're done, right,
Speaker 1: I think that where I would down as someone who
Speaker 1: like never played professionally, you know, worked from age twenty
Speaker 1: three and like, you know, played golf sparingly and tried
Speaker 1: to compete right over the course of my life. Where
Speaker 1: I would say, like in a completely different situation is
Speaker 1: like the way I feel about it is that it
Speaker 1: should be tiered based off of where you get to
Speaker 1: right sure, and if you've played ten years or you know,
Speaker 1: five years on the corn Ferry Tour, or you've made
Speaker 1: it to the PGA Tour, you know, in that sense,
Speaker 1: like there has to be a different reinstated station process
Speaker 1: for that person than somebody that played, you know, five
Speaker 1: years of mini tour golf and then has just basically
Speaker 1: kept there in your situation where you had your your
Speaker 1: professional status but didn't really play, like and it was
Speaker 1: working a full time job. Like to me, there's different barriers.
Speaker 1: But like the idea, I think the idea, the spirit
Speaker 1: of the event is that these are people that work
Speaker 1: for a living and do something other than golf for
Speaker 1: a living. Now, there's like all sorts of caveats in here,
Speaker 1: Like people are quick to point like, well, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of guys that don't have to work that are
Speaker 1: in this event, and that's true, right, like, but like
Speaker 1: for for the rules sake, Like to me, there has
Speaker 1: to be just like a process like in a set
Speaker 1: number is like okay, Like if you if you play
Speaker 1: on a credited PGA tour, whether it's you know, Canada,
Speaker 1: you know, corn Ferry or the PGA Tour, there has
Speaker 1: to be just like lengths of period of time because
Speaker 1: like to me, if you played corn Firy Tour golf
Speaker 1: three years ago and you played for you know, three years,
Speaker 1: four years on the corn Fairy Tour, if you take
Speaker 1: ten years off you you are not anywhere near I'm
Speaker 1: nowhere near you because you've you've devoted your life to
Speaker 1: that craft. And I'm never going to have experiences of
Speaker 1: playing twenty events a year with a four round you
Speaker 1: know four round like eighty tournament rounds a year like that.
Speaker 1: There's no way for a working person to simulate that.
Speaker 1: There's not even enough mid am events to do that,
Speaker 1: you know, sure, So I don't know, it's complex. I
Speaker 1: think that there has to be just a little bit
Speaker 1: more Like to me, it seems like it's become kind
Speaker 1: of the wild West where it's just like, oh, you
Speaker 1: want to get reinstated, here you go, and there has
Speaker 1: to be some sort.
Speaker 4: Of a.
Speaker 1: Sliding scale based off of where you got in the
Speaker 1: game of golf.
Speaker 5: Sure, And yeah, I mean I don't necessarily disagree with that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not going to speak for those guys
Speaker 4: who have been on the corn for it, because I
Speaker 4: haven't been on there, so I you know, for speaking
Speaker 4: for myself. Honestly, basically, all I did was to become
Speaker 4: a pro. I just paid the you know, higher entry fee,
Speaker 4: and I went and played for a check, right, which.
Speaker 5: I thought was fun.
Speaker 4: But I mean when it's all said and done and
Speaker 4: you're spending you know, thirty forty fifty dollars a year
Speaker 4: and you're only getting back about twenty, then you're then
Speaker 4: you turn around and look at it and like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you paid for a little.
Speaker 5: Bit of that chase of that dream, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean you said it perfect.
Speaker 4: It can get complex, but yeah, I mean I I
Speaker 4: don't necessarily have a problem with it if you follow
Speaker 4: the rules, and the USGA has come out with you know, hey,
Speaker 4: these are our rules. That we're fine with it, and
Speaker 4: you know, if it needs to change, they'll they'll change it.
Speaker 4: But I mean it's the US miden. I means, all
Speaker 4: these guys over twenty five, if you're still playing at
Speaker 4: a high competitive level at you know, my age there,
Speaker 4: I was the oldest the oldest player in the in
Speaker 4: the in the or the finalist. Actually I was the
Speaker 4: oldest player in the match play. Yeah, I'm thirty eight
Speaker 4: years old. You're gonna be thirty nine here in a
Speaker 4: couple of days. But what what besides like the city events,
Speaker 4: what other competitive.
Speaker 5: Tournament do you have?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: I think that's the thing. I've like gone like a
Speaker 1: lot of different and I've thought about this a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's like if we're talking about like
Speaker 1: a basketball league, like a if somebody played like in
Speaker 1: Europe for ten years and they're thirty five and they're
Speaker 1: playing on somebody's team, nobody's running and being like this
Speaker 1: isn't fair. This guy played in Europe, correct, And like
Speaker 1: I see that side of it where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: like one of the great things in golf, like always
Speaker 1: play better. I think where golf's like unique is like
Speaker 1: this the way they prop up amateurism, you know, and
Speaker 1: this mystique of amateurism in golf, which by the day
Speaker 1: with nil and everything, as you alluded to, is kind
Speaker 1: of eroding, and I think, like this is this weird.
Speaker 1: There's a weird kind of element to golf with this
Speaker 1: like amateurism and the properness of the amateur game, but
Speaker 1: like modern society is eroding away at that and that's
Speaker 1: one of the tricky things. But it's made this this
Speaker 1: whole topic way more complex, and so I you know,
Speaker 1: I think like where I've like been frustrated on on
Speaker 1: both sides of it. I'm like I'm frustrated with I
Speaker 1: think the USGAS hasn't done a good job of like
Speaker 1: laying out and being clear of like this is how
Speaker 1: we reinstate people and this is like what each people
Speaker 1: each like you know, each level. But then the the
Speaker 1: other side of it is like people being like personally
Speaker 1: mad at somebody because they're playing well, it's it's like
Speaker 1: wait a second, like they've they're just following the rules
Speaker 1: and they're getting to play in this tournament. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like where the blame should go if you're upset
Speaker 1: about them playing in the tournament? Is the USGA not
Speaker 1: at all directed at the individual they're just trying to
Speaker 1: like there's nothing better than playing competitive golf, especially if
Speaker 1: you grew up playing athletics, Like what other sports can
Speaker 1: you play at like a at a high competitive level
Speaker 1: into your sixties in seventies, right, like you see like
Speaker 1: Dave Ryan from Springfield, like when the US or the
Speaker 1: US or the Senior Am and like I saw you
Speaker 1: just won the state Senior Am again, Like it's like
Speaker 1: that's so cool of like you know, being able to
Speaker 1: play and compete at something at a high level and
Speaker 1: is something that no other sport offers, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you Lebron or MJ MJ all day?
Speaker 5: Not close? No, I mean that's that was my era too,
Speaker 5: Like it's not I don't want to get in it
Speaker 5: a bit about that because I could go all day.
Speaker 5: That's a whole other show, man.
Speaker 1: I just uh, you know, I got a one of
Speaker 1: my colleagues is a big, big guy. He's a Cleveland
Speaker 1: or he's the same age as us. Basically he's a
Speaker 1: big Lebron Lebron guy. So just like you know, a
Speaker 1: little the flame a little there, Lebron, big golf guy. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll get play with them.
Speaker 4: I see that.
Speaker 5: He shout out to him. I'd love to have it
Speaker 5: around with him too.
Speaker 1: That's it's amazing how into it he is. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's been cool seeing all these guys catch
Speaker 1: catch the golf bug. Brandon. Congrats on on the mid Am.
Speaker 1: Look forward to meeting you in person at uh at
Speaker 1: the Masters of the US Open, if not before then.
Speaker 1: But thanks for coming on and congratulations on incredible achievement.
Speaker 4: I appreciate Andy, thanks for having me and feel free
Speaker 4: to reach out anytime, buddy.
Speaker 1: All right, big thanks to p J. Clark for editing,
Speaker 1: producing the show, all the hard work the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks with the Ryder Cup, and thank you to
Speaker 1: everybody also that ordered our book. That was that was
Speaker 1: really great and uh, you know the coffee table book
Speaker 1: we're really excited about. So if you're if you're looking
Speaker 1: for folk gear and other things, head over to proshop
Speaker 1: dot Thefrida Egg dot com. Meg's done an awesome job
Speaker 1: stocking that.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: It's I can feel in there starting to get to
Speaker 1: be that time of year where you need some layers.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks, We'll be back with a new episode
Speaker 1: next week