WEBVTT - Fried Egg Stories: The Hickory Open 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.040 This episode of Frida Egg Stories is brought to you 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.720 by Precision Pro Golf Rangefinders. As I'm sure you're aware, 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:11.720 the holidays are approaching and Precision Pro is getting in 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.120 on the spirit of the season. If you go to 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.880 precisionprogolf dot com right now, you will find a holiday 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.000 sale that can get you up to thirty dollars off 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.600 on a rangefinder for yourself or for a golfer in 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.800 your life. Precision Pro stuff is absolutely top of the 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.640 line and very affordable even when it's not on sale. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:34.919 So go to precisionpro golf dot com and check out 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.879 their holiday sale. Swing with confidence, hit more greens with 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:40.200 Precision Pro Golf. 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.199 The fried Egg requires a different technique. What you need 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.400 to do is actually square the face so it'll dig 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.080 down underneath that bad lie and propel that ball right 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:54.800 out onto the green. 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:56.279 Here's the thing. 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:58.880 Playing out of a buried lion of bunker is completely 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.280 different than playing out of a night and clean. 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:02.360 Live a greenside buker. 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:05.520 You need to be aggressive on any show, whether it's 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.680 sitting cleanly or it's Friday Egg. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.720 Well, we've all faiked that the dreaded Frida Egg not 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:13.920 to be feared, though it's actually a pretty easy shot 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:27.840 to hit. It is September fourteenth, twenty twenty one. I'm 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.000 at Gearhart Golf Links in Gearhart, Oregon. That's the northern 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:37.679 Oregon coast, and I'm at the US Hickory Open. It 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:44.840 is beautiful morning. You can hear the ocean nearby. Hear that, 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.640 but you can't see it from here. And I'm just 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.840 gonna follow some folks around and see if there are 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:56.680 any stories here. Maybe you can hear that note of 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.760 doubt in my voice. I'm at the US Hickory Open, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.960 the second and final round, pretty much on a whim. 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.240 I live about two hours from gearharten figured I had 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.040 no excuse, but I arrived, looked around and realized I 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.640 was kind of a stranger in a strange land. So 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.440 if you don't know much about Hickory golf, first of all, 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.079 that makes two of us. But the main thing you 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.840 should be aware of upfront is the rule about equipment 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:24.680 in the US Hickory Open, which is put on by 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.520 the Society of Hickory Golfers. You need to play with 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.960 wooden shafted clubs from nineteen thirty five or before, or 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.840 you can use replicas of those models. Simple enough, But 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.160 as I walk around the practice screen recording, I find 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.840 myself just a little puzzled by it all. Most of 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.639 the women are in long skirts and blouses, and most 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:45.880 of the men have plus fours or plus twos on, 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.040 you know, the pants that kind of hang below the 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.520 knee and billow out a bit. And I try to 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.480 imagine myself taking part in this world, and they can't 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:54.079 quite do it. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:59.240 There's finally Madeland after fourteen hours. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.079 It's not just the fashion, which honestly some people pull 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:04.880 off really well. It's the idea of giving up the 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.480 comforts of modern golf. Look, I love the history of 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:10.840 the game, but I think I'd have a hard time 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.799 actually living it, giving up the big drivers, the big putters, 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:17.560 the space age materials, all the things that are supposed 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:20.840 to make golf more manageable and make me a better player. 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.920 I mean, this is a hard game. Why would you 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:36.000 choose to make it harder. I'm Garrett Morrison, and this 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:42.800 is Friday Stories Today, a collection of conversations from the 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.800 US Hickory Open, or really I should call it a 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.680 series of efforts to understand twenty first century Hickory golf, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.360 where it came from, how it's played, and why some 0:03:53.400 --> 0:04:00.600 people get absolutely hooked by it. When I get to 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.560 Gearheart Golf Links, some players are already out on the course, 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.200 but it'll be a couple of hours before the leaders 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.120 in the open division t off. I'm trying to get 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:11.680 my bearings, so I look through the t sheet and 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.440 right there in the final group, I see a familiar name, 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:15.960 Colin McNamara. 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.560 I'm a writer. I write poems, and I teach at 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:21.360 Washington State University. 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.320 He's also written a few things for the Frida Egg website, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.040 which is how I know him. And you're here at 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.400 the US Hickory Open. Is this the first time you've 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:30.240 been in an event like this? 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.680 It's the first time I've been in an event this big. 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.920 I have played in several Hickory tournaments, but this is 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.359 a this is another animal. 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.880 Apparently Colin was ready, though he posted a good score 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:45.640 in the first round seventy six. 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.279 I hit it pretty well. A couple bad shots. You 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:54.159 know that. That's where Hickory golf really diverges from modern golf. 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:58.080 It's much less forgiving. So I had a couple terrible shots, 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:03.000 but thankfully no television cameras caught those, and then I 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:04.839 made a lot of putts, so I ended up with 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:06.040 a really good score. 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.760 So he was going into the second and final round 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:16.680 in fourth place, two shots back. Colin McNamara is younger 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.600 than your typical Hickory player. He's in his late twenties now, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.600 and he's been playing exclusively with vintage clubs for about 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:23.360 five years. 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.080 It started I think I saw something online at first, 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.360 and you know, I bought a club in an antique store, 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.760 fixed it up, you know, played with it, bought another 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.360 couple of clubs. Pretty soon I'm traveling around to play 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.320 in tournaments and dressing in my homemade knickers. 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.640 So wait, homemade knickers. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:47.279 Yeah, I'd say they're effectively plus fours. I sewed a 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.040 little band of elastic into a pair of good will pants, 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.800 and you know, I put the elastic up around my 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:54.839 knee and draped the rest over the sock, and it 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.320 looks authentic enough to get by with this crowd. 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.960 I find that Colin has a nice way of explaining things. 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.599 He doesn't take himself too seriously, but he knows his stuff, 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.560 and he's incredibly passionate about Hickory golf. It occurs to 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.480 me that he could serve as a kind of guide 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.760 for me today, and who knows, he could very well 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:17.440 win the tournament. So I make a mental note to 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.279 keep checking in with Colin throughout the day. Okay, perfect, 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.920 that's good. I'll let you prepare yourself mentally for battle 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:27.120 and good luck. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:28.159 Thank you so much. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:37.800 Here Chapter one, John Henry versus the Industry. I'm starting 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:39.200 to get the lay of the land at the US 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:42.200 Hickory Open, and what I see is a few main 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.719 hubs of activity. There's the practice screen and the first tee. 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.839 There's the area around the scoreboard, which is just a 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.960 big dry erase board on wheels, and then between the 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.880 parking lot and the clubhouse there's an outdoor workshop staffed 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.080 by a man named John Henry Williams. 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:02.680 John Henry Williams pesfessionally I'm retired, but as a hobby 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:04.040 I repair golf clubs. 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.080 Specifically, John Henry repairs and restores the types of clubs 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.640 being used today. In fact, he's one of the very 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.280 best at it. His workshop has a mixture of things, 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:16.520 some of you could find at most hardware stores. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.440 Cordless drill files are probably the biggest thing I use 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:21.200 a lot of. 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.600 Others you've probably never seen before. 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:28.680 Well, I have a shaft straightening machine. It's a woodplank 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.560 with some round knobs on it that a gentleman in 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.840 Vermont invented to straighten wooden shafting clubs. 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.280 Now, John Henry would prefer to be playing today, but. 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:46.920 Three weeks ago I was diagnosed with a subbural hematoma, 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:49.760 and so the doctor said no golf for at least 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.480 a month, which killed me. I've been waiting for this 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.720 event for two years. So the second best thing for 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.440 me to do was to bring my temporary I roll 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.440 in cart and do golf club repair for people down 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.840 here that needed something done. You know, these are old 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.920 clubs and they just sometimes need a little tender living care. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.720 Yeah, it looks like you have a customer right here. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.600 In fact, come on it. It's all right, very very 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.800 casual interview here face inserts it. 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:23.840 I can do that. 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:34.440 Yes, people keep approaching John Henry throughout the morning. Some 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.480 have questions about a particular club. Others need this or 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.839 that small repair, like re whipping the black thread around 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:41.560 the neck of a wood. 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:43.679 Yeah, this is fairly simple to do. 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.240 Curly here, I thought he would just explain to him 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.800 why the whipping is there? Glue it on, but you 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:50.520 don't glue it on. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:51.360 You have to whip it. 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.240 You can glue it on, but it doesn't stay very well. 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:56.400 And what I'm picking up on is that the builder 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.800 like John Henry, is a key fulcrum in the hickory 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.840 world world like everything relies on these old clubs being playable, 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.840 and he keeps them that way. To do that, he 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.200 has to maintain a highly specific skill set, one that 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.400 frankly doesn't have much market value these days. So how 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.600 and why does someone become a master of this particular craft. 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.160 Well, I grew up playing golf. I was I had asthma, 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.240 so the the biggest thing I could do was play golf. 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.800 My dad introduced me to golf when I was eight 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:31.960 and gave me some plastic clubs and a ball, and 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:33.679 I just went and hit them. And grew up on 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:35.720 a farm in Virginia, so I had lots of room 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:37.680 to go hit golf balls everywhere. 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.000 John Henry went on to play in high school, in 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.600 college and ended up working as a club. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.280 Pro and then got out of the business because I 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.800 realized as a country club professional you have to walk 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:52.480 the line, and you can't be somebody that gives your 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:54.800 opinion and if you ask me what I think, I 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:56.280 tell you, and that's never going to be. 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:57.480 A good thing, you know. 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.679 So so I realized I needed to do something y else, 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:07.040 and I loved golf clubs and started collecting clubs, go 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.080 to flea markets, go to garage sales and pick them 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:10.559 up and then take them back to the garage and 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.439 kind of tear them apart and see how they were 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.840 put back together. More of a hobby, just messing around, 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.520 and then there were people said, well, you got skills 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:21.679 to do this, so well, okay. 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.120 So around nineteen seventy six, John Henry went into business 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:30.960 as a club repair guy, but around him the industry 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.359 was changing. Metal headed woods came out in the late seventies, 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:36.599 and at first they didn't make too much of a 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.679 dent in John Henry's per Simon wood business, but then 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.160 they started to show up on the PGA Tour. In 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.600 nineteen eighty four, Lee Trevino became the first player to 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:48.200 win a major with a metal headed driver, a. 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.079 New PGA record of fifteen under par, and the first 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.440 champion to ever shoot four rounds under seventy in a 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.160 PGA championship and win, and you ought to kiss that 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:58.040 punter league. 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.480 When metal woods hit the tour, the per simon market 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.360 was dead because everybody wants to play with the guys 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:09.439 on tour playing. So metal woods just changed the club 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:13.840 repair business. Nobody needed to have a metal wood refinished. 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.080 The golf balls didn't show them up. There's no expense 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.199 in repair, and it was just something that my market 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.440 in repair business just went into toilet and you could 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.040 hear the flush. 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.000 But it wasn't just the financial realities that had changed. 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.560 The work itself had become something totally different. 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:39.040 Metal woods. It's mostly computerized now, I mean it really is. 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.320 They're not taking a piece of clay and saying, let's 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.600 shape it this way, or let's take a piece of 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.800 wood and rasp this out and cut this insert in. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:50.280 And it's not a bad thing. I'm not trying to 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.520 poo poo the idea that they don't have any skills, 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.040 because they do. But it's not hand crafted. It's not 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:02.120 taking a piece of wood by and running a file 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.400 across it until you get to shape and you run 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:06.480 your fingers across it and you get the feel if 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:08.439 you don't like that, well I'll change it a little bit. 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:10.160 Or how am I going to add a little bit 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.520 of weight to this thing? It's none of that anymore. 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.440 I think most of it is done today by computers, 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.320 and no, I'm not interested in doing that. I like 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.360 being able to hand work a golf club. 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.160 So John Henry changed paths again. He went to work 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.760 at Sandpoint Country Club in Seattle. Mud Green's raked bunkers 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.280 and eventually became the assistant superintendent. After he retired, he 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.960 kept working part time in the pro shop, but he 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.000 needed something else to do with his time. As it 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:47.800 turned out, just outside the gate at Sandpoint was a 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.720 club repair shop run by Jim von Lasso, incidentally the 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.240 father of Andrew von Lasso, who's leading the US. It 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.559 reopen as we speak, and. 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.240 I went over to a shop a couple of times 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.240 taking clubs from Sandpoint, and once I walked through the 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:05.000 front door, I'm going, you know, this is just so familiar, 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.760 and I missed doing this. So when I retired, I 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.120 just fixed up a little spot down stairs in the 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.640 basement and started working on golf clubs again. 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.000 And it's since it was mostly a hobby now not 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:19.880 a business. John Henry was free to work on the clubs. 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.000 He wanted to work on the old stuff, the hand 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:23.800 crafted stuff. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:29.079 The craftsmanship is unbelievable of what these guys used to do. 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:35.680 I mean, I'm never I'm at awe of the different 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:40.120 clubs that I take apart about how they put them 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:43.000 together back in the day. And they weren't using the 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.400 machinery that we have nowadays. These are guys that are, 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.880 you know, hand drilling things. They're auguring things out, and 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.840 it's I would love to go back and watch some 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.400 of these craftsmen put clubs together. Even the guys in 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.959 the pre nineteen hundred clubs were truly crafts and and 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.640 the stuff that they did, I think it's like it's 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:05.240 a work of art. 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:06.319 It really is. 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:08.880 It doesn't look like it, but let me hand you 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.320 two pieces of wood and you go do it. So 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.560 when I can take those clubs and and get a 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.160 chance to work on them, it's just like, Okay, this 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.240 is part of history, and so I'm working on history. 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:23.760 And that's that's the cool part. 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:39.360 Nobody gets confused out there and uh, yeah, you got 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.640 your own individual market be great. 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.720 I played it was a pink and white one time, 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:48.440 but I had to give up. 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:49.960 Because the other guy said what number? 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:57.320 So here's here's the My name is Stravko Barbik, and 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.920 I am the head golf professional at Gear Golf Links. 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:04.360 I go by Ze because it's easier for everybody to pronounce. 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:10.040 I am enjoying the sunshine and watching these wonderful people 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.320 play golf and doing the starting on the first tea, 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:20.240 it is our eleven thirty tea time from Port Townsand, Washington. 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:30.200 Rob Berman, Well done. 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:33.240 Could you introduce yourself? 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.520 Yeah, I'm Rob Berman. I'm one of the co founders 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:37.160 of Northwest Hickory Players. 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:39.080 And what are we doing right now? 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.960 We are just off the first Sea Center cut one 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.080 hundred and forty yards in on a sixty five degree 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.080 day and perfect weather on the sea side of Oregon, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.320 final round of the US hick Reopen. None of my 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.200 group's in contention, so we're here. 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:57.520 To have fun. Chapter two, Rob Berman plays a hole. 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.840 So at this point, John Henry Williams has helped me 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:05.280 understand the appeal of Hickory golf clubs as objects, the 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.040 history behind them, the craftsmanship that goes into them. But 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.240 now I need to see what it's actually like to 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.360 play them. So I pull aside Rob Berman as he's 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.880 walking off the fifth green. I ask him if he 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.080 can talk me through all of his shots on the 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:23.680 next hole, the sixth, and he says sure. He might 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.560 end up regretting that, all right, So what's the plan 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:28.760 on this hole? This is a tricky hole. It's got 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.720 a blind approach, it's all uphill. So the trick for. 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:34.880 Me is getting out far enough that I can have 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:36.480 a comfortable club into this green. 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:38.000 So what are you going to hit here? 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.760 I'm gonna hit my brassy, which is my driving club. 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:46.600 It's twelve degrees, hoping to hit two twenty if I 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:57.000 if I'm lucky, how that shot go? Well? Garrett? With 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.840 a uphill fairway. Like so many people, I tend to 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.960 try harder than I. Shit pulled that too far left 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.479 changes the whole planning. Now I'll try to punch it 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:09.760 up to one hundred yards and wedge it. 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:19.280 On it's out stop. I've proven to be bad luck 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:24.199 for you so far, so that one is in a 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:29.199 fair way bunker. But back in the whole corridor, we. 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:31.440 Did We did have a few players that walked off 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.800 the course yesterday and there's two schools of thought on that. 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:40.840 You know, most of us don't take it too internal, 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:42.440 you know, if we're not playing well. 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.439 Very nice, you know, like like a lot of tournaments 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.240 that are accessible to a lot of different people. There 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.920 are those who are very competitive and than those who 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:53.680 just want to have fun. 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:56.399 Yeah, And we have pros plane in this tournament and 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:01.720 rank amateurs, and we've got players from eighteen to eighty, and. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.840 That's what's so much fun. You meet new. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:06.440 People and you share what you love. 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.520 Fairway bunker shot. What club are you gonna have here? 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.359 I'm gonna use my eight iron, which is the equivalent 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:15.479 of a pitching wedge, just to get out of this 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:19.119 fairly low bunker and try to leave myself an angle 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:20.640 into this very hard pin. 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:33.720 Right, all right, we're on the fairway, all right. The approach, Wow, 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.000 now that was a nifty shot. Tell me about that. 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.359 That's my one hundred and forty yard club from one 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.160 hundred and twelve yards. So that's just a little knockdown shot, 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:45.959 as Jean Harry Varden would call it. 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:54.840 Push shot. First good shot at the hall. All right, 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:56.760 so you've got a putt. Could you tell me a 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:58.359 little bit about your putter. 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.840 Yeah, I've got a pretty special putter to Jean Gassier. 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:06.040 Jean Gassier won the nineteen twelve French Open. He played 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:10.479 out of Chantilly, France, and after his win in nineteen twelve, 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:12.680 his potter model became popular. 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.480 It's a beautiful club. It's a wooden potter head, you know, 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:19.720 kind of I don't know what you compare it to. 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:21.760 It's like it's a mallet with toe hang. Yeah. 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.080 They used to call it the piano because it's kind 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.720 of shaped like a grand piano. It's pretty uncommon. 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:35.760 One, two, three, four or five. Oh, he's got about 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:37.960 a ten footers or six. But it's been fun talking 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:41.720 about all the different clubs. I mean, the cool thing 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.760 is that each club has a story, right, Each club 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.760 has some homemade elements and has decades of history behind it. 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:51.600 I think that's a big part of the appeal of 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:57.320 this kind of golf. You know, it's not just nostaga, right, 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.240 You're playing with these things in the present, and they 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:05.840 have kind of beauty, integrity, craftsmanship in and of themselves. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:10.679 And he missed the pet for six. That's a seven. 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:20.760 He might have missed the shorty too. I wanted to 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.840 ask you like. So, one of the ideas of one 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.800 of the selling points I suppose of modern equipment and 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.600 the attempt that it makes is to reduce the number 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.199 of times a player has a bad hole. And so, 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:38.720 you know, when you have a bad hole with your 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.359 hickory clubs, what is your attitude towards it? 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.080 Yeah, I suppose you can be way more forgiving on 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.240 yourself if you have a bad hole, because there's so 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:51.159 little forgiveness in these clubs. You know, that's the beauty 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.760 of hickory golf. You get these clubs and you have 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.239 to learn them. It takes time to learn them. Some 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.399 clubs you never can hit, and occasionally you find a 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:05.439 club that's just suited perfectly for you. Yeah, And you know, Garrett, 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.640 it all comes down to fundamentals of your swing, and 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.840 if those aren't tuned, it doesn't matter what you have 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.359 in your hands. 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.200 Not far from where I leave Rob is the fourth tee. 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:25.520 I wait there for a few minutes and the final 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.600 group arrives. Andrew von Lasso is still leading, and Colin 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:34.080 mcnamarath is telling me that he sucks. Literally, he says, Garrett, 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.479 I suck. He's three over through three and things don't improve. 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.600 On the fourth hole, he hits his t shot over 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:43.679 the green over a low wooden fence out of bounce. 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.560 His provisional does almost the same thing but stops short 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:50.400 after His drive on the fifth hole a good one. 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:52.960 I catch up with him in the fairway. Tell me 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:58.800 how it's gone so far? Oh, not good? So far? Thanks? 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:08.760 Not good so far? What's your state of mind life 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:09.240 at the moment? 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:14.479 Yeah, I feel fine. It's gonna take some made putts 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:15.439 to get back into it. 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:16.800 Right now. 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:22.199 I think I'm down seven after starting down too, so 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:25.840 I've got a little work to do. But yeah, I 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:42.840 just gotta make some putts. It can change in a hurry. 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.960 Season two with Friday Stories is made possible by Precision 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:49.439 pro Golf. All right, I told you at the top 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:51.680 of the episode about the holiday sale going on at 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.120 precisionprogolf dot com. Lots of great deals there right now, 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:57.760 but I want to zero in on one in particular, 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:01.480 and that's thirty dollars off that NX n slope rangefinder. 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.160 The NX nine slope happens to be my rangefinder, and 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.480 it's really fantastic. I love the pulse vibration feature. Basically, 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.359 you get this little buzz when you lock onto the flagstick, 0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:15.840 which just gives you this serene sense of confidence that 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:19.000 you're getting the right number. And that's what it's all about, 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:22.080