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Speaker 1: Scotty Scheffler, Rory McElroy, Victor Hovelin, Patrick Cantley, and returning
Speaker 1: champion Keegan Bradley, as well as other PGA Tour stars
Speaker 1: in all four days of the competition at close by
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Speaker 1: dot com. The Travelers Championship there is only one. It's
Speaker 1: the Son of Witch podcast. This week's guest. After just
Speaker 1: what was an amazing US Open with Bryce and d
Speaker 1: Chambeau as now the twenty twenty four US Open, I
Speaker 1: caught up with Robert rock I had him on the
Speaker 1: podcast back in twenty twenty one. The Rocky played last
Speaker 1: week at the USA. He qualified and it's a great story.
Speaker 1: He had an almost twenty year career on the DP
Speaker 1: World Tour twice a winner be Tiger Woods down the
Speaker 1: Stretch in twenty twelve at the ABADABHSBC Championship, and he
Speaker 1: really doesn't play a lot of competitive golf these days,
Speaker 1: but he has one of I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: the best golf swings I've ever seen. It is a
Speaker 1: golf swing if you are a golf nerd or golf
Speaker 1: swing pervert, everybody loves his golf swing. And it was
Speaker 1: a really I thought it was one of the really
Speaker 1: cool stories last week. Didn't make the cut at a
Speaker 1: really good first round, but the golf course was really,
Speaker 1: really hard. I caught up with him on Sunday and
Speaker 1: he had a lot of good things to say about
Speaker 1: his week, about how he qualified, and I just think
Speaker 1: it's a really cool story about a guy that isn't
Speaker 1: really playing full time to qualify for a major. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a lot to learn from it. Listen,
Speaker 1: he's doing a lot of coaching now, he's still doing
Speaker 1: a lot of playing. But one of last week's really
Speaker 1: really cool stories. It's a really cool interview with Robert
Speaker 1: rock Enjoy it. Rocky, we had you on the podcast
Speaker 1: I think back in two thousand in one, but obviously
Speaker 1: this stage your life and this stage of your career
Speaker 1: for you to qualify for the US Open, I thought
Speaker 1: we'd get on and talk about the week and stuff.
Speaker 1: Obviously not the second round you wanted, but just the
Speaker 1: impetus at this stage your career. I mean, you had
Speaker 1: such a successful career on DP World. You know, you
Speaker 1: had wins, you'd be Tiger and Abadhabi, But at this
Speaker 1: stage of your life, what was the reason why you
Speaker 1: wanted to try and qualify for.
Speaker 2: A major again?
Speaker 1: And then talk us through qualifying and getting to, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest majors in our sport.
Speaker 2: There's probably a little bit of a twisted experiment for
Speaker 2: me really because I haven't haven't played hardly at all
Speaker 2: in two years.
Speaker 1: No for the people listening to this, Rocky, I mean,
Speaker 1: the fact that you haven't really played competitive golf in
Speaker 1: a number of years, I think is testament to the
Speaker 1: game that you've always had. But I think it's also
Speaker 1: a testament to be just golf porn. Amazing golf swing.
Speaker 2: That you've gone.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you I was on the
Speaker 1: Pudding Green. I can't remember what day it was, but
Speaker 1: you were on the Pudding Green and Tiger and his
Speaker 1: son Charlie were there, and you know, he introduced you
Speaker 1: to Charlie and I heard him say this, guy's got
Speaker 1: the best golf swing in the game.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, your.
Speaker 1: Golf swing has always been for the for the golf
Speaker 1: pervs like us. You are somebody I will watch hit
Speaker 1: golf balls.
Speaker 2: So thank you.
Speaker 1: The fact that you didn't really play competitively for two years.
Speaker 1: And where did you try and qualify for the US Open?
Speaker 2: All right? So? And why yeah, I've done the qualifier
Speaker 2: at Walton Heath for the last oh god knows how
Speaker 2: many years, which is a great of course, brilliant school.
Speaker 2: It's a wicked day, right, So you go, you go
Speaker 2: to Walton Heath, you played thirty six sols by both courses.
Speaker 2: That people are just free to roam all over the place.
Speaker 2: They're walking their dogs, watching golves. It's a cool event, right,
Speaker 2: And as far as European Golf's concerned, it's probably one
Speaker 2: of the best fields that we assembled for sure, right,
Speaker 2: is better than most tournaments. So it was a chant.
Speaker 2: That was my last chance to enter at that stage.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'll enter US Open qualifying at regional stage,
Speaker 2: which I mean, and I'll have to come over here
Speaker 2: to do it. You still had status. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know why i'd stays played right two years off,
Speaker 2: but you've won on DP, so yes, I forget what
Speaker 2: category made me enter, but I thought, while it's there,
Speaker 2: i'll have a go. And two years two years I
Speaker 2: played the open qualifier. Last year it was only one
Speaker 2: shot out and I played really nice there. But I
Speaker 2: was first out in that qualifier and misjudged the scoring,
Speaker 2: played the last role really cautiously and missed out by one.
Speaker 2: And then and the previous last year I played qualifier
Speaker 2: at Warton Heath as well and sort of surprised myself
Speaker 2: in the first round. I think I got it four
Speaker 2: under at one point and then made a really stupid
Speaker 2: course management era which was down to not playing right.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sharp enough and I just wasn't thinking well enough.
Speaker 2: But a few weeks ago played Warton Heath again, got
Speaker 2: to play with really good friend James Morrison. Good player,
Speaker 2: great play. I used to used to coach James actually
Speaker 2: until he fired me. Bless him, maybe we want to
Speaker 2: hire you. And he played really nice right, so we're
Speaker 2: having quite a good game. We were both well under par.
Speaker 2: I messed it up a little bit. I had a
Speaker 2: chance on a par five again made a stupid course
Speaker 2: management decision because I wasn't thinking sharp, but I was
Speaker 2: only I was only laser in the yardages. I didn't
Speaker 2: bother with the book. I just thought, I'm going for
Speaker 2: a game out with James, have a bit of a
Speaker 2: bit of a laugh, see if I can put together
Speaker 2: a couple of decent rounds. But I hit the ball
Speaker 2: brilliant first day and hold a few putts and then
Speaker 2: hit a three wood over the back of a par five,
Speaker 2: which was stupid because it was just an eye on
Speaker 2: to the front edge and two put right, and that
Speaker 2: would have got me to five under for the day
Speaker 2: on the first round, which I think with another par
Speaker 2: five to go, I should have closed that round at
Speaker 2: five or six under, which James did. James finished at five.
Speaker 2: I finished at three, and I thought, oh, well, that
Speaker 2: was good fun. That's my chance for a bit of
Speaker 2: enthusiasm for the second round. Thought that's that gone, but
Speaker 2: I'll just coach round with James because he's playing well.
Speaker 2: He might in And then the second round I started off,
Speaker 2: actually started for the first hole a bit sort of
Speaker 2: casually thinking I'm just accompanying James because he's five underd
Speaker 2: I'm three on you, not thinking you're gonna make it
Speaker 2: no no furthest thing from mine at that point, right,
Speaker 2: I almost thought, well, my back's not great. I'll probably
Speaker 2: probably hobble in and just support him. So I messed
Speaker 2: the first hole up, which was an easy short part
Speaker 2: for missed a little pot on the second for a birdie,
Speaker 2: and then I birdied the third. We'd gone me to
Speaker 2: four under, and I think James had stayed at five.
Speaker 2: Then I birdied. I think I birdied the next. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The next hole a luckie shot out of the heather
Speaker 2: which rolled down to like six foot or six foot
Speaker 2: ten foot to hold that. So I'm now five under, right,
Speaker 2: I'm saying as James, and an hour ago I was thinking,
Speaker 2: but he's getting in Now I'm on the same score,
Speaker 2: you ever know, right? And then I made a couple
Speaker 2: more birdies and I got to eight underpart, and then
Speaker 2: I started to realize that I actually was getting close
Speaker 2: to getting in here, and I've got five those holes
Speaker 2: to go, and that that dawned on me a bit too.
Speaker 1: Mine shifts because we just had the last major with
Speaker 1: the PJA at Valhalla and that famous duel where Tiger
Speaker 1: and Bob May are playing on Sunday and everybody remembers that,
Speaker 1: But I remember Tiger talking to me about that round
Speaker 1: back when my dad was working with him, and he
Speaker 1: said that there was a point late in the round
Speaker 1: on that Sunday to where up until that point, Bob
Speaker 1: May never thought he was going to beat Tiger Woods
Speaker 1: in the final round of a major championship in two thousand,
Speaker 1: like nobody thought that, Like the best players in the
Speaker 1: world didn't. Bj Singh didn't think that, Ernie Els didn't
Speaker 1: think they had a real chance to beat when he
Speaker 1: was Bob May definitely didn't think, but he.
Speaker 2: Was free wheeling it.
Speaker 1: And I remember Tiger saying that there was a point
Speaker 1: to where he had a putt for Parr and Bob May,
Speaker 1: like Tiger said, I had like a six seven footer
Speaker 1: and Bob May had hid it in there closer for Bertie,
Speaker 1: and he said, I made mine. And he said his
Speaker 1: father had told him watch other players as a junior,
Speaker 1: watch player's routines, because if their routine alters, they're nervous.
Speaker 1: And he said he took one extra practice stroke and
Speaker 1: one extra look and he missed the pot.
Speaker 2: And he said he.
Speaker 1: Knew that up until that point, he was just freewheeling it,
Speaker 1: didn't expect it. But he said that was the first
Speaker 1: put that he knew he needed to make, but he
Speaker 1: expected to make and he missed it. And that mind
Speaker 1: shift of you're freewheeling it. You've got no expectations, right,
Speaker 1: And so many people listening to this podcast will be
Speaker 1: like that. They'll have a good score, they'll just be
Speaker 1: freewheeling it, and then they make that mistake. I can
Speaker 1: break ninety to day if I par in and that
Speaker 1: can be really you got to avoids. You're trying to
Speaker 1: qualify for a major. You've got no expectations, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're like, I'm eight under with five
Speaker 1: to play, So how did you handle the next five?
Speaker 2: Because that can go one of two ways. Absolutely, I
Speaker 2: was eight under and I'm standing on a par five
Speaker 2: and I hit brilliant three with off the tea just
Speaker 2: short of this fair way trap, which was the hard shot.
Speaker 2: So I've got a five iron into this par five,
Speaker 2: pretty easy flag, and I thought, hang on a minute,
Speaker 2: I'm going nine under here right before of it. No,
Speaker 2: but I pulled this five on, which was typical. That's
Speaker 2: my typical shot when yeah, I pull it when I
Speaker 2: get I'm a little bit nervous and a bit quick.
Speaker 2: So I pulled it to left of the green, lagged
Speaker 2: to put woefully short, and missed it. And I thought,
Speaker 2: damn it, that's that's pretty much on queue with how
Speaker 2: how I was feeling. I thought, right, I got to Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got to reevaluate quick.
Speaker 1: So are you starting to get ahead of yourself at
Speaker 1: that point to to thinking about the outcome? Because we're
Speaker 1: always telling our junior golfers and people, listen, stick with
Speaker 1: the process, don't think about the result. Don't think about
Speaker 1: the outcome. That is really hard to do when you're
Speaker 1: really and it is a skill that, like you said,
Speaker 1: you have to learn that skill.
Speaker 2: It's the whole point of practicing horse management.
Speaker 1: When you're not playing a lot for an elite player
Speaker 1: like yourself, like you said, you make some sloppy boat
Speaker 1: he's some sloppy mistakes because you're just not short because
Speaker 1: you haven't had.
Speaker 2: To think like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so four holes left in the qualify over the
Speaker 1: US Open, you're eight under.
Speaker 2: Yeah, talk me through it. So I wasn't quite aware
Speaker 2: that I was getting that tight, but the five iron
Speaker 2: reminded me that i'd really put myself into the right zone.
Speaker 2: I'm if i'd a birdied that hole, which I should
Speaker 2: have done dead easy, i'd i'd I'm nine under. I'm
Speaker 2: on the qualifying mark in my own head. I hadn't
Speaker 2: actually looked at how many places were playing for because
Speaker 2: I didn't really consider it as a qualifier. So so
Speaker 2: i'm the next hole. I'm so I'm eight under. And
Speaker 2: the next hole is a blind t shop sharply around
Speaker 2: the corner. You can't see the fairway. And James went first,
Speaker 2: and he showed me the lion right and I've been
Speaker 2: driving it brilliant and I completely bailed out on this
Speaker 2: t shot. Hit it right. I thought, damn it, that's
Speaker 2: my chance gone right, both power and a par five.
Speaker 2: I'm in the in the row or the heather. I thought, well,
Speaker 2: it's fun while it lasted. This is going to be
Speaker 2: a bogie here, maybe worse. And I've got three holes left,
Speaker 2: the reasonably hard holes to finish. Thought, oh well, I've
Speaker 2: got ahead of myself. I deserve that i'd hit a
Speaker 2: provision or found the first drive. They're both in the
Speaker 2: same place. My only option was to chip it into
Speaker 2: the green side bonker. I'd run it under the trees
Speaker 2: into the bonker. I thought, well, smart play front, that
Speaker 2: was a smart enough play. I thought, I've got away
Speaker 2: with it, finding.
Speaker 1: In the front bunkery somehow find a way to make
Speaker 1: a park.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then that's then I'm going to need to
Speaker 2: probably nick one coming in if that goes to plan
Speaker 2: and hold the bon.
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say that that's unbelievab Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was unbelievable. I was on the up slope. I've
Speaker 2: been practicing. I hadn't been practicing bunker shots, but I've been.
Speaker 2: I've been rehashing this Bonker lesson. I got off Krista
Speaker 2: Marco right off an op slope. I've told so many
Speaker 2: people in the past month about how to hit these
Speaker 2: up slow bunker shots.
Speaker 1: All right, for all the listeners tell us how to
Speaker 1: hit the upslide. So when it's on an up slope,
Speaker 1: what did Krista Marco tell you what we played?
Speaker 2: Well? Can everyone listen? Yeah, I've known with christ Marco
Speaker 2: in Abbadabbi guy must be ten ten or more years ago,
Speaker 2: a right, neither of us were having a particularly good day.
Speaker 2: He found the front bunker on a load of high
Speaker 2: on the up slope to back pins, and he must
Speaker 2: have here half a dozen of them. They're all just
Speaker 2: pitched right by the hole, tapping in for pars and birdies.
Speaker 2: And I've never seen anyone do it so well on
Speaker 2: the up slope. On the up slide, which is a tough,
Speaker 2: tough shot because.
Speaker 1: You've got to try and get your body in the
Speaker 1: right place.
Speaker 2: You've got to you got to somehow get distance on
Speaker 2: it right. And there were thirty five yard bunker shots
Speaker 2: that were brilliant. So at the end of the round
Speaker 2: we're packing up bus stuff and I got mate, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm such a good day, but please tell me how
Speaker 2: you played those right, because I need I need that
Speaker 2: shot right. All of us need that shot. It's such
Speaker 2: a hard shot. It it's easy. He's just hock them.
Speaker 1: Pete Cowan talks a lot about I mean, I've spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time obviously around Brooks and the work
Speaker 1: that he does with Pete Cowen. Pete talks a lot
Speaker 1: about hooking some chips and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the average golfer.
Speaker 1: It can help all the rest of us, the non
Speaker 1: tour players, to think a little bit like, but why
Speaker 1: does that work?
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't explain in too much detail at the time, because.
Speaker 1: But I know you went back and figured it out.
Speaker 2: Yes, so he as we do when we miscuts. We
Speaker 2: want to get out of there, don't we. That's right.
Speaker 2: I was thankfully I was smart enough to not ask
Speaker 2: too much and piss him off. But I went back
Speaker 2: and pondered it, and I thought, yes, it just makes
Speaker 2: perfect sense. And when you when you're trying to draw
Speaker 2: or hook something, you shift your path a little bit
Speaker 2: more into out, which generally makes the club follow the slope. Pies,
Speaker 2: you're on an up slope, you're going from low to
Speaker 2: high right and out to win path is high to line.
Speaker 1: It's easier to draw it off an uphill lie than
Speaker 1: to try and fade it. Yeah, of course, and it's
Speaker 1: eisier to have faded off of downhill.
Speaker 2: I use the path on bunker shots a lot just
Speaker 2: to follow that slope, and most of our most people
Speaker 2: that try in that up hill lie bunker shot. The
Speaker 2: hard part is to stop the club burying into the
Speaker 2: sand so much, which takes out all of the energy.
Speaker 2: It's all, and you have to hit them so hard
Speaker 2: if you're going to cut across them and That's what
Speaker 2: I was guilty of at the time. Is it trying
Speaker 2: to hit the ball so hard on a op hill
Speaker 2: bunker shot with an open face cutting across it, trying
Speaker 2: to get it to go thirty yards. It's just it
Speaker 2: just doesn't happen, does it. It's just too hard. So
Speaker 2: as soon as you start, you just shift the path
Speaker 2: as much into out as you need to to make
Speaker 2: it just skim the sound like a normal bunker shot,
Speaker 2: And my bunker shots have been instantly bare.
Speaker 1: Well because on the up slope that makes for everyone listening.
Speaker 1: The reason why that makes sense is when it's a
Speaker 1: regular bunker shot, most players are doing the draw. They're
Speaker 1: too shallow, the arc bottoms out, they hit behind it,
Speaker 1: or they blade it. So we're always trying to have
Speaker 1: players on. An easy fix for bunkers is to get
Speaker 1: a little bit steeper to get the club working more
Speaker 1: up and down. But when it's on in upslope, that's
Speaker 1: the death move because you're going to hit it straight
Speaker 1: into the sand and you can't make a big enough
Speaker 1: swing to offset it.
Speaker 2: Especially with a face open as well. You kind of
Speaker 2: slice in an open blade straight underneath the ball and
Speaker 2: there's nothing actually hitting the ball at that point is
Speaker 2: other than the amount of sand you try and shift.
Speaker 2: So probably since that day my bunker shots have got
Speaker 2: miles better. And of course I've been sort of teaching
Speaker 2: that bunker shot. I think I've done a session with
Speaker 2: Georgia Hall previously and a few hours that i'd seen
Speaker 2: at the Belfry or it went with. I seem to
Speaker 2: have done that lesson a lot, right, So I thought,
Speaker 2: tell you what, you might as well actually sort of
Speaker 2: practice what you peach a little bit here, and so
Speaker 2: you haul the bunker gone. Now a panic even more. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I have three holes left your nine under it, and
Speaker 2: now I'm in right, I can only mess up, So
Speaker 2: now you can only suck it up. And I hit
Speaker 2: a lovely drive on the next pulled my wedge thankfully,
Speaker 2: two put it, and then I pulled two drives in
Speaker 2: a row. Actually know there was a part five which
Speaker 2: was a really long Part five, but a really good
Speaker 2: drive there. Good three would down it, but it went
Speaker 2: in the heather, chipped it on leg this pot up.
Speaker 2: Two pointed that and then I pulled it on the
Speaker 2: next after tea and it went towards some trees. But
Speaker 2: I knew there was there was space over there, but
Speaker 2: it was obviously it wasn't intentional. Ran through the trees
Speaker 2: like little clump of trees but not with rough round them,
Speaker 2: and ran onto the I think it's the second tee
Speaker 2: of the course we were playing, and I had eighty
Speaker 2: yards left clear line at the flag. I thought, God,
Speaker 2: you're so lucky here, right, do not do not mess
Speaker 2: this up? Right? It's just a log wed. It's a
Speaker 2: love web, a log wedge onto a green, right.
Speaker 1: Twentier room to run it, lots of options, couldn't be easier.
Speaker 2: So what option did you take?
Speaker 1: Because with eighty yards you could either hit the low
Speaker 1: runner of the one that checked, or you could carry.
Speaker 2: The normal, normal full lob wedge for me goes eighty
Speaker 2: one yards right, So I say, you couldn't ask for
Speaker 2: a better break here? Number right? And I quit on
Speaker 2: this swing like you wouldn't believe. I slowed down, thankfully.
Speaker 2: I still struck it okay, but I thought, God, that
Speaker 2: was that was like a slow motion. Where do you
Speaker 2: have left for a park? Well, it somehow took a
Speaker 2: bounce and popped up onto the green about not not
Speaker 2: pin high, but it was about thirty four up over
Speaker 2: sort of a corner of the green that was raised
Speaker 2: by the bunker. Not my favorite part by any means,
Speaker 2: and I hold that pot as well, right, and James
Speaker 2: was like, James.
Speaker 1: Said, yes, get in now you're ten under.
Speaker 2: No, I think that got me to got me to
Speaker 2: nine under. So now two holes left, one hole that
Speaker 2: was the seventeen one hole left, pulled the three wood.
Speaker 2: But playing partner James, he was class right because he
Speaker 2: was still going first, he's gone on the last t.
Speaker 2: I've gone, you up the laser. I haven't got a book.
Speaker 2: And the cross bunker didn't know how far it was
Speaker 2: away right, and it was a nice warm day. The
Speaker 2: fairways are running fast, and I thought, driver probably gets
Speaker 2: in that bunker, but I don't know for certain, and
Speaker 2: I want to get as close as I can because
Speaker 2: I need this to be an easy shark. Right. Him
Speaker 2: and his caddy were talking out loud. Thankfully it's three
Speaker 2: in this. I overheard him saying three twenty to the bonker.
Speaker 2: I thought, right, driver does get in that, so three
Speaker 2: would down the left a little bit, found a great
Speaker 2: lie lob wedge eased off on it too much again,
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh, please carry the bunker and the heather,
Speaker 2: and it just about carried both and just trickled down
Speaker 2: fifteen foot. I thought, wow, I got fifteen foot now
Speaker 2: and I'm in. I'm already in. I think this is enough.
Speaker 2: Everyone else around me was acting like it was enough enough.
Speaker 2: I didn't know. I didn't have any spots. We were
Speaker 2: playing for you make it? No, no, no. It was
Speaker 2: such a weak week effort, but I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: three put that and regret.
Speaker 1: How long was the wait to figure out if you
Speaker 1: made it?
Speaker 2: Most of the afternoon I had to do an interview
Speaker 2: and stop, but I'll come in at second. I was
Speaker 2: in second place at nine under, and then they said
Speaker 2: there's nine places and there's a load of good players
Speaker 2: behind me. Right, You're like, this isn't going to stare.
Speaker 2: Thanks for all the praise on shooting nine unders, but
Speaker 2: I thought, I'm not sure this is in yet. But
Speaker 2: I mean it drifted out a little bit. I finished fourth,
Speaker 2: but I was only one away from the playoff in
Speaker 2: the end, so it was a long way. I had
Speaker 2: a couple of beers. I was so stressed right because
Speaker 2: it was such a The last four holes just took
Speaker 2: me through it unbelievably it was that I'd forgotten what
Speaker 2: it was like playing qualifiers.
Speaker 1: And when's the last time you played a full schedule
Speaker 1: on DP world?
Speaker 2: What year? God like fall schedule. I don't actually know.
Speaker 2: I know I played fifteen events for the last three
Speaker 2: years I was playing.
Speaker 1: Whence the last time you played twenty events? Twenty two
Speaker 1: to twenty five events?
Speaker 2: Oh, ages, Ages, Maybe the first year back from COVID,
Speaker 2: I might have gone twenty events. Yeah, the year before that,
Speaker 2: I was slowing down. I was really struggling with my
Speaker 2: back when I was playing loads of events, and it
Speaker 2: was taking the fun out of it, right, because it
Speaker 2: was hurting when I was practicing. It was hurting when
Speaker 2: I was a tournament, so I was doing doing all
Speaker 2: sorts of time. When I was doing yoga, I was
Speaker 2: taking loads of pills. I was even starting running, right,
Speaker 2: I don't do that right just to that's great for
Speaker 2: your back. I remember one tournament I just felt the
Speaker 2: urge to run down the fairway because I was my
Speaker 2: hips on my back were just felt so stiff. So
Speaker 2: I feel like that all the time. Rocket.
Speaker 1: I feel the urge to run away from tour clars,
Speaker 1: I feel the urge to run the other way.
Speaker 2: So I haven't played a lot.
Speaker 1: So you get here, you get to Pinehurts, and again
Speaker 1: you've qualified for one.
Speaker 2: That you know is going to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an iconic, it's fiery, it's bouncy.
Speaker 1: But for your game, you've got to love a place
Speaker 1: like this, because this is a ball striker's paradise.
Speaker 2: You have to control your absolutely is now I've been
Speaker 2: here and seeing it, it absolutely is. Yeah. And the
Speaker 2: excitement lasted for about a day for qualifying, and then
Speaker 2: it turned into shit, what have I got myself into here? Right?
Speaker 2: It would have been hard enough qualifying just for a
Speaker 2: regular event, thinking I am playing, I must still up
Speaker 2: for this, And then I thought US Open. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like you're throwing yourself back in at the proper deepend
Speaker 2: don't you do? You show up here? When did you
Speaker 2: get here? It came Monday? Monday. I did loads of
Speaker 2: loads of practice at home, just trying to build the swing,
Speaker 2: get it into good or the expectations.
Speaker 1: Obviously, you go into trying to qualify for the US
Speaker 1: Open with zero expectations. You qualify, then you show up
Speaker 1: to the US Open. What were the expectations at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the week. Did you think if I can
Speaker 1: make the cut, it's a good week.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wanted to. Like I said at the start,
Speaker 2: it was a little bit of a twisted experiment to
Speaker 2: see whether just working on the things that I had
Speaker 2: done with my swing over the last ten years or so,
Speaker 2: whether I could just tap back to those quickly enough
Speaker 2: get the swing looking like it used to look or
Speaker 2: be a little bit slower, right, and see if those
Speaker 2: you know, the notes and notes that I would have
Speaker 2: had from tournaments and my swing thoughts that I relied on, like,
Speaker 2: would they work two years later? Right? Would they still?
Speaker 2: Could have still do it right? Could have still hit
Speaker 2: the ball as well? Shut even part of the first round?
Speaker 2: They obviously were. That's what I wanted to do, really,
Speaker 2: was to come and see if I could. I haven't
Speaker 2: played in front of a lot of people, are they ever? Right?
Speaker 2: But this is a lot of people.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people, a lot of people, two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people here this and.
Speaker 2: It's potentially embarrassing. But the first few days here on
Speaker 2: the range were great. Got to see a load of
Speaker 2: people like yourself that I haven't seen in ages, right.
Speaker 1: And the cool thing was I were lovely to me,
Speaker 1: and I watched you. I mean you are a golf
Speaker 1: pervert and a golf nerd like the rest of us
Speaker 1: that are instructors. I watched you with your all access
Speaker 1: badge when you weren't actually practicing yourself. You're standing on
Speaker 1: the range looking at golf swings.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Watching the players.
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Speaker 1: seventy the first round. You played fantastic the first round.
Speaker 2: What was that like? So was it a carryover from
Speaker 2: the qualifier? Obviously?
Speaker 1: And it's interesting, Rocky. The Walton Heath and this course
Speaker 1: they're not miles apart in kind of how they're set up.
Speaker 2: And yeah, driving wise, so.
Speaker 1: It's very similar because why if you miss a fair
Speaker 1: way there, you're making X if you're lucky to find it.
Speaker 1: And and in Walton Heath, I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I played there. I snapped pooked a T shirt and
Speaker 1: it's sitting in this ice plant.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Can hit this easy, and I took a swing and
Speaker 1: thing went sideway. You can get lucky here, Phil talked
Speaker 1: about I talked about this on on my podcast last week.
Speaker 1: Phil said that the hard part about this golf course
Speaker 1: is if you get offline, it baits you into thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can probably get this lie there. He said, You've
Speaker 1: got to lay up short and you can play this
Speaker 1: course from the front of these greens. It's hard to
Speaker 1: play from left, right or over the green.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I made that mistake a couple of times. Friday,
Speaker 2: but Thursday, when I had some who'd you play with?
Speaker 2: I played with Neil Shipley, and.
Speaker 1: I mean Neil Shipley for a college golfer. He played great,
Speaker 1: played Braided Augusta and he's playing He's played good this week.
Speaker 2: He's really good. Yeah, he's got good, good all around.
Speaker 2: Get drove it lovely, putt it nice, seemed to smile player.
Speaker 2: Played with Nico. He was a good player too. He
Speaker 2: had a rough start and battle back and played really
Speaker 2: well Friday. So two nice lads to play with. But
Speaker 2: I drove it really well on Thursday, right, I didn't
Speaker 2: wasn't really in any bother I think I had most
Speaker 2: of fair ways would you have to do around here?
Speaker 2: Which couldn't have gone better really because my iron play
Speaker 2: was good. I didn't miss many greens. I think when
Speaker 2: I missed a green, I was a little bit short
Speaker 2: and I just put it up, And I think I
Speaker 2: saved two pars from the bunkers on the right sides,
Speaker 2: which were easy bunker shots.
Speaker 1: You were early late or late early early late early late,
Speaker 1: which was I think the better draw this week?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Possibly? Yeah. Playing early was great for me having
Speaker 2: just got in it because it was a little quieter,
Speaker 2: It was a little softer.
Speaker 1: Were as many people down the sides of the fairways'.
Speaker 2: Like I was being solely judged on every shot, right,
Speaker 2: but it was it was so draining that first eight.
Speaker 2: Did you enjoy it? I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 2: I came in here, my back was sore when I
Speaker 2: was finished. My head was hurting from the amount of
Speaker 2: concentration right, because I hadn't tried that hard at golf
Speaker 2: probably in nearly ten years.
Speaker 1: I don't think everyone listening has any real understanding. It's
Speaker 1: to how mentally taxing majors are. Augusta's mentally taxing in
Speaker 1: a different way than US Opened. They set these up
Speaker 1: to be a test of they're testing your game, your technique,
Speaker 1: but I think what the US Open always tests is
Speaker 1: your mental strength because the way the USGA likes to
Speaker 1: set these golf courses up, and especially here at Pinehurst
Speaker 1: number two ruck these greens can sometimes be forty paces
Speaker 1: deep and there might be ten paces for them to
Speaker 1: put pins, So mentally it's very draining.
Speaker 2: I missed that part. I missed the just to trying
Speaker 2: to make the right decision right sometimes luckily on the
Speaker 2: first round, some of the yard is that I had
Speaker 2: once i'd realized that the ball was going quite far
Speaker 2: as well Hot County, but the yardage is fitted into
Speaker 2: me just hitting slightly under like they were at the
Speaker 2: top end of a lower club. So I'd had hit
Speaker 2: a lot of shots hard knowing that I didn't think
Speaker 2: I could get there, certainly wouldn't go over the back,
Speaker 2: but they might not reach the green. But on the
Speaker 2: first round I played loads of shots like that and
Speaker 2: they all they all actually just went that little bit
Speaker 2: further and made it onto the green right and made
Speaker 2: it easy. And then in the second round, what'd you
Speaker 2: shoot day two? Nine over nine?
Speaker 1: And you told me after you came and I saw
Speaker 1: you after the ground, you said, I honestly didn't see
Speaker 1: nine over today.
Speaker 2: And so were you? After shooting even.
Speaker 1: Poor in a major championship at a US Open on
Speaker 1: a golf course like this, Rocky, you've had a you
Speaker 1: know the math, You're like, Okay, I shoot anything even
Speaker 1: maybe even two over the more, I'm yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make the cut. Yeah by miles, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Did you get ahead of yourself? No? But I felt
Speaker 2: different in what way I know, and it was I
Speaker 2: wish I didn't. But I was very, very nervous the
Speaker 2: first day, really really thinking sharp, like I was on edge,
Speaker 2: and I was really thinking. The nervousness helped you help
Speaker 2: me better, help me think be Yeah, what the hell happened?
Speaker 2: On Friday? I warmed up really really well. I hit
Speaker 2: it lovely on the range, and then the drive down
Speaker 2: to the tenth didn't really help. A bit of a
Speaker 2: delay on the.
Speaker 1: Tee, yeah, because by the time you seized up a
Speaker 1: little bit you hit here at Pinehurst, the way they've
Speaker 1: got this golf course routed, the ninth is miles away
Speaker 1: from the clubhouse, and the driving range here is miles
Speaker 1: away from the first hall, so you've got to go
Speaker 1: to the back of the range and then it's probably
Speaker 1: about a eight to ten twelve minute yeah, drive out
Speaker 1: to the tenth and then you walk back from the.
Speaker 2: Tenth, so you nearly go in half an hour before
Speaker 2: you too.
Speaker 1: You haven't hit a shot, and everybody in the practice rounds,
Speaker 1: the two rounds that Brooks and DJ played and started
Speaker 1: on ten during the practice rounds, they both hit it
Speaker 1: sideways off the tee because they hadn't hit a ball
Speaker 1: in thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's harder and our back to down that tenth
Speaker 2: hole and the tenth hall is it's not an easy hole.
Speaker 1: It's a par five, but it's also not an easy hole.
Speaker 1: But there's only two part of buyers out here. So
Speaker 1: as a player, you know five and ten at Plaininghurst
Speaker 1: number two, there are your only chances to make berdies
Speaker 1: legit berdie proper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the only chance is where you can actually feel
Speaker 2: late after a good drive. You've just got to end
Speaker 2: up there. And I didn't play five or ten particularly
Speaker 2: well this week unfortunately. But ten you need two straight shots.
Speaker 2: Basically you don't have to flush both shots. But you
Speaker 2: got them straight and I went down the right, had
Speaker 2: side both On ten, managed to a lovely shot actually,
Speaker 2: and got it on the green two parted it and
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, that's all right, that's all right. I'm
Speaker 2: off and running. But I wasn't feeling quite the same unfortunately,
Speaker 2: and then a bad drive off eleven.
Speaker 1: But you said you were nervous on Thursday and it
Speaker 1: helped you, and you said you felt different on Friday.
Speaker 2: It was almost like I felt that Thursday had proved
Speaker 2: to myself that actually I'm still playing all right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're still agreed, still playing all right? Right, So I
Speaker 2: should be able to handle this because I've teed off
Speaker 2: on the cup mark on a Friday before and felt
Speaker 2: nervous all the way from the.
Speaker 1: Also, another thing that I don't think a lot of
Speaker 1: people listening understand is, regardless of what the tournament is,
Speaker 1: if you don't get off to a good start on Thursday, right,
Speaker 1: you know all day Friday you are going to be
Speaker 1: right around the cut line, and so you know that
Speaker 1: any bogie you make takes you one step away from
Speaker 1: the cut and it's stressful because it's hard to free
Speaker 1: wheel it in that situation. And it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you're the best player in the world, the number one
Speaker 1: ranked player in the world, or the three hundredth ranked
Speaker 1: player in the.
Speaker 2: World when you're on the cut line. And at a
Speaker 2: lot of.
Speaker 1: Tour players their rookie year will always have that I
Speaker 1: didn't get off to a good start on Thursday. So
Speaker 1: it seems like four tournaments in a row now every Friday,
Speaker 1: I'm just struggling to make the cut and I'm on
Speaker 1: the cut mark. And that's that's hard from a decision
Speaker 1: making standpoint, but I think it's also hard mentally well.
Speaker 2: And it's hard to swing like that because it's hard to.
Speaker 1: Swing freely knowing that any mistake you make and it
Speaker 1: can get you. I think into that mindset Rocky of
Speaker 1: you're trying not to hit bad shots as opposed to
Speaker 1: trying to hit good shots.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I've spent a lot of time in
Speaker 2: tournaments doing that and sometimes just not hitting a bad
Speaker 2: shot is what you have to do, right, And when
Speaker 2: you're a little bit younger, you probably play. And I
Speaker 2: was watching Neil Shipley just I think I wish I
Speaker 2: was twenty five playing this round.
Speaker 1: Today college golf. Just freewheelly.
Speaker 2: He was enjoying it and he played some smart golf.
Speaker 2: But for those listening that maybe have played some pro
Speaker 2: goal for events with cuts, right, this tournament and this
Speaker 2: course is like playing the last hole when you need
Speaker 2: to make a part to make the court on every
Speaker 2: hole on hole, and it's a difficult hole, right, and
Speaker 2: any mistake you make feels like it's going to send
Speaker 2: you home. Right. So, and I made two early doubles
Speaker 2: on Friday.
Speaker 1: You said that the doubles didn't come from really bad shots,
Speaker 1: and that's the thing I think everybody that's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't have made a slightly poor rouen on
Speaker 2: eleven where I've been hearing a nice little drawer with
Speaker 2: the driver, and I did all of Thursday, drove it lovely.
Speaker 2: And my last little look up when I was setting
Speaker 2: up over the ball, I caught a glimpse of an
Speaker 2: overhanging tree right, which is coming into that eleventh and
Speaker 2: it is in the way right. But sometimes you hit
Speaker 2: teacherts like you don't notice, and your ball takes off
Speaker 2: and it just misses it, and you think, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I didn't notice that. That was pretty close. But I
Speaker 2: got away with that. And then I took one little
Speaker 2: last look and thought that's tight there, and I hit
Speaker 2: it and I pushed it straight at this tree and
Speaker 2: it missed it, but it must have caught some later
Speaker 2: trees and it bounced down into the it missed the
Speaker 2: waist area, and it ended up on the pathway. And
Speaker 2: then I felt like I was a bit of an
Speaker 2: amateur golfer at this point. Right. So I'm walking down
Speaker 2: this pathway to my ball and my ball sitting on
Speaker 2: the path so I thought, I've got a clean light, right,
Speaker 2: so that's something. And all I can see down this
Speaker 2: pathway it's just a straight line through all the pine trees, right,
Speaker 2: and there's this big, well not big, there's this small
Speaker 2: patch of light up in the trees. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: that looks good, and that's the only thing you start
Speaker 2: focusing on. I thought, I'm going down there, and I
Speaker 2: thought that'd be stupid. Right, it's the US. I think
Speaker 2: this is not the time to think, you said me
Speaker 2: after two years off right, So immediately start looking left.
Speaker 2: I'm like, God, this chip out's I think this chip
Speaker 2: out looks harder. But it's hard not to see the
Speaker 2: nemes glaring at me. But the chip out was off
Speaker 2: of sandy light. And I'm going across the fairway and
Speaker 2: I've got to carry the waist, and I think I've
Speaker 2: got to spin it to make it stop before the
Speaker 2: other bit of waste, because if you.
Speaker 1: Hit it too far, you're going to have the exact
Speaker 1: same shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I thought that's a hard shot. I thought,
Speaker 2: which one's harder thing? Pulling across the fairway? I thought
Speaker 2: which one if I messed this chip out? Or if
Speaker 2: I've got two hundred yards for my third out of
Speaker 2: the waist. So that's not looking good and I didn't
Speaker 2: fancy it. And then I looked down. I thought, well,
Speaker 2: if I can get it through that gap, I'm now
Speaker 2: probably only twenty yards away from the green, don't know where,
Speaker 2: but I'm only going to be twenty yards away. I thought,
Speaker 2: if I'm in the waist twenty yards away from the green,
Speaker 2: I could probably get it on the green. So I hear,
Speaker 2: what club did you hit? Seven? Iron?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: I needed a six to get on the green, But
Speaker 2: the window for this wasn't wasn't going to be sack.
Speaker 2: I couldn't do it. So I thought, oh, come on,
Speaker 2: you're right, you're here. You're here to enjoy it as well. Right,
Speaker 2: So I thought, Saturday, let's have a go. And I
Speaker 2: set up over this this boar and I thought, righte,
Speaker 2: deep breath, and let's just give this a crack. And
Speaker 2: some of the spectators just started moving a little bit
Speaker 2: further away. I think you should be all right, right,
Speaker 2: but it's them down there that need to worry. And
Speaker 2: I hit this thing and I struck it perfect, and
Speaker 2: it took off. It went straight through the gap and
Speaker 2: hooked through the gap, and I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I've got where murder. I'm on agreen right, But it
Speaker 2: didn't go far enough, missed all the trees. It went
Speaker 2: through like as pure as anything. I thought, Oh, I
Speaker 2: hope somebody's video dictu I was lovely. But it came
Speaker 2: down in the bonker. But on the joint of the bunker,
Speaker 2: between the bunker and the waist down, I weren't really
Speaker 2: sure where I was at, and I didn't strike this
Speaker 2: chip like a little chip or pitch firm enough, finished
Speaker 2: on the front of green and a three points. So
Speaker 2: my best shot turned into a double anyway, right, thought,
Speaker 2: that's welcome, Welcome to the US Welcome to the US Open.
Speaker 2: Yet and then my next double was a really good
Speaker 2: seven eye that landed where I wanted to land. It
Speaker 2: couldn't keep the chip on the green.
Speaker 1: So do you think the difficulty has been around this course?
Speaker 1: And where is the borderline on golf courses like this,
Speaker 1: Rocky in your opinion on fair versus not fair? Because
Speaker 1: they are tucking pins here this week in places that
Speaker 1: the only I guess the argument would be, if you
Speaker 1: hit a good shot, you get rewarded, but you can
Speaker 1: hit a good shot here and get screwed. So you
Speaker 1: said to me earlier, you love the golf course, you
Speaker 1: love the setup. But for you as a player, for
Speaker 1: a golf course like this, it happens. I think at
Speaker 1: golf courses like this, and it happens at the Open
Speaker 1: Championship when the weather gets bad. Where is the line
Speaker 1: for you where it is fair but not fair?
Speaker 2: I think around the greens it's fair, right, because there's
Speaker 2: always a shot to play. There's always a shot to
Speaker 2: get it on the green, right. The score in this
Speaker 2: environment is almost irrelevant sometimes, So when I missed the
Speaker 2: green on the part three, I actually I went second
Speaker 2: to play. I followed Nico's seven nine. I was in
Speaker 2: two minds whether an eight or seven. He at seven
Speaker 2: on the green about fifteen foot away, thought, right, that's
Speaker 2: a shot. I felt like it exactly the same shot,
Speaker 2: probably landed a yard or two further than his onement
Speaker 2: over the back. My mistake at that point was I
Speaker 2: got a nice lie on the back, tried a open
Speaker 2: faced b lood wedge, hopefully with a little bit spin
Speaker 2: on it. I haven't been playing enough to know whether
Speaker 2: I'm really getting these things spinning properly or not. But
Speaker 2: there was a shot there to play, and I hit
Speaker 2: it tiny bit too hard and I probably went a
Speaker 2: little bit too straight. I was aiming right at the
Speaker 2: flag for sure, because I was trying to just get
Speaker 2: it on the green, but I was sort of on
Speaker 2: the boulder side trying to get spin rather than actually
Speaker 2: just dump this on the green and see where it finishes.
Speaker 2: There was certainly a shot to play, and then the
Speaker 2: next shot was apart from the front edge, which was
Speaker 2: easy enough, but I under hit it. So now I've
Speaker 2: got I had eight for a bow with about three
Speaker 2: foot slope swing on it right and a bit a
Speaker 2: lovely ta shot, and I've felt like I've it my
Speaker 2: chip all right. But if you hit it in the
Speaker 2: wrong place, you've got to be smart enough to know
Speaker 2: now's not the time. This is a four right, you're
Speaker 2: on a path three and you've bet a lovely shop.
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean you need a three right. You need
Speaker 2: a four and you need to not And I think that.
Speaker 1: Is something incredibly powerful for everyone listening that doesn't have
Speaker 1: the skill set of someone like yourself that has had
Speaker 1: a career on on on tour. It's sometimes I keep
Speaker 1: saying this and people that are listening are going to
Speaker 1: get tired of this. The way your score is going
Speaker 1: to get better for the average golfer is to make
Speaker 1: more bogies. It's not to make more birdies. It's not
Speaker 1: to make more pars. The average golfer that is listening
Speaker 1: that is just ten to twenty five if you made
Speaker 1: more bogies for the rest of this year, as opposed
Speaker 1: to making doubles, triples, quads.
Speaker 2: Your scores are going to plump it, and your ego
Speaker 2: has got a lot to do with that massively. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking I can hit this spinny chip that I've probably
Speaker 2: done a few times right recently, but my short games
Speaker 2: not in the sort of realms of where maybe Chefflers
Speaker 2: or Jordan Speeds or everyone who's at the top of
Speaker 2: their game right now has got full control of their
Speaker 2: strike and their spin. And I've probably watched that shot
Speaker 2: on TV Friday morning from over the back, seeing somebody
Speaker 2: nip it nice and it checked and then just fed
Speaker 2: down to take it. I can do that. I've done
Speaker 2: it beforpriately. I think I could do that right right now.
Speaker 2: I don't know whether I can do it or not.
Speaker 2: And most of my chips aren't going to come off
Speaker 2: as high spinning as I see them, so I should
Speaker 2: have gone right. Just remember what you do in here
Speaker 2: and just somehow get this on the green.
Speaker 1: And you're in the coaching world now like I am.
Speaker 1: And for everyone listening, you shoot nine over for the tournament.
Speaker 1: Missed the cut, yeah, but five over makes the cut.
Speaker 1: The two doubles you make, you make pars there. And
Speaker 1: I keep saying this double bogies, big numbers or destructive
Speaker 1: and destroy your cord.
Speaker 2: So not that out now, It wasn't you keep the
Speaker 2: doubles off, which is your priority, especially on day one
Speaker 2: and two in this If I don't double bogie a whole,
Speaker 2: I probably well, I'm pretty sure I'd still be playing today,
Speaker 2: And I don't mind if I make double bogies on
Speaker 2: Saturday or Sunday. Right coming where from where I've come from?
Speaker 2: So how do you grade yourself this week? What grade
Speaker 2: would you give yourself? And how did you my first round? Yeah,
Speaker 2: my first round really.
Speaker 1: Is in the first round seventy in a major Pinehurst
Speaker 1: US Open. Does that make you go I want to
Speaker 1: start playing again?
Speaker 2: No, it makes me want to play more majors. It
Speaker 2: doesn't make me want to play normal tournaments. Right, it
Speaker 2: makes me want to I want to test my brain
Speaker 2: making these decisions because regular golf.
Speaker 1: Again, how could they know? The average golfer doesn't realize
Speaker 1: it's watching on TV. The difference between a regular tournament
Speaker 1: of the nine days, This is golf on If there's
Speaker 1: something else other than steroids, this is golf on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is testing all your experience everything. You can't
Speaker 2: say get around here. Now everything you know about your
Speaker 2: own game, right, have you got the discipline to just
Speaker 2: say to yourself, I can't do this shop right, but
Speaker 2: I can do that one and that one will get
Speaker 2: me afore and that's all I need here.
Speaker 1: But this is also the equivalent of a fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty handicapper going out and playing their home course which
Speaker 1: has slow greens that don't have slope in every round
Speaker 1: is a major for you.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: And if you can think about it like that and say, okay,
Speaker 1: today is a major. If I go out and don't
Speaker 1: make mental mistakes today, I'm going to make some technique mistakes.
Speaker 2: Everybody does. Yeh.
Speaker 1: The best players in the worm Bryson d Chambeau Saturday
Speaker 1: made a double coming.
Speaker 2: In nothing as well.
Speaker 1: But every round of golf, the everyday golfer that's listening
Speaker 1: to the pod, it is a major. Treat it like
Speaker 1: that and just say listen, think well, manage your game
Speaker 1: with the skill set that you've got.
Speaker 2: You've got, yeah, because you can ease he watch somebody
Speaker 2: tea off and go oh that drive looks nice. I'm
Speaker 2: going to do that.
Speaker 1: But what's the grade do you give yourself this week?
Speaker 2: I think my first round was certainly ride up there
Speaker 2: as a plus. Yeah, I was really pleased with that.
Speaker 2: I could have shot under par and I got to
Speaker 2: the last hole with a pot for a birdie, and
Speaker 2: I thought, well, underpart would have got me in the
Speaker 2: top ten. And then I thought, well, don't be too greedy,
Speaker 2: too greedy here, right? What am I going to feel
Speaker 2: more pissed off at? Right? Am I going to feel
Speaker 2: pissed off at one over? Or I'm going to be
Speaker 2: super excited at one under? And I thought, I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what, the one over was going to hurt more? Right,
Speaker 2: So I just lagged it off and thought, levels levels
Speaker 2: a great day out there, right, And I was just
Speaker 2: so relieved that I managed to get round okay with
Speaker 2: very little prep. Right, I hadn't and even played and
Speaker 2: even played an eighteen old practice round basically so to
Speaker 2: battle my way round with. I think I had my
Speaker 2: fullest amount of energy on that first day, and I
Speaker 2: might have been lacking a little bit second date. So
Speaker 2: I'm disappointing myself that I made the wrong choices. Friday
Speaker 2: a chance to had a chance to make the cook
Speaker 2: because I was five over for the first nine and
Speaker 2: then I played the first four really really well, hit
Speaker 2: some great shots and a thinner pitching edge on the
Speaker 2: fifth over the green, which I mean, it's just such
Speaker 2: a standard shot, right. I wasn't even trying to do
Speaker 2: anything special with it. I was trying to hit it
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit harder to make sure it got there.
Speaker 2: But I was trying to play the shorter club and
Speaker 2: not go over the back of thind it. I thought,
Speaker 2: may you come all the way to the US open
Speaker 2: your thinner pitchingmage, I when that's pathetic, right? So I
Speaker 2: boge you that, and that's what made me chase on
Speaker 2: the last few holes. Unfortunately, I think I could have
Speaker 2: coasted it in, but you never knowd I could have
Speaker 2: three pointed from nowhere. But I got to the same
Speaker 2: position as Francesco did on the night needing hole in
Speaker 2: one to make the coup, and my my seven, I
Speaker 2: landed about two yards left a where his did and
Speaker 2: I made a fire.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Rockie, let's talk about the golf swing I
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier in Tiger Woods.
Speaker 1: I mean, Brad Faxon stopped recording video your golf swing.
Speaker 1: So many players were looking at your golf swing. I mean,
Speaker 1: are you aware of the golf swing that you have,
Speaker 1: you must be aware of it. I mean, you were
Speaker 1: as close to a lot of people's idea of perfection
Speaker 1: with the way that you move the golf club. But
Speaker 1: I know you're as critical as all golfers are of their.
Speaker 2: Own move.
Speaker 1: How did you go about getting the golf swing that
Speaker 1: you have? If anybody listening hasn't seen you hit a
Speaker 1: golf ball, you can find it online.
Speaker 2: Go look at it.
Speaker 1: It is as close to aesthetically perfect as possible.
Speaker 2: But how did you come about that?
Speaker 1: And what are the things that you work on that
Speaker 1: you think make your swing good? And what are some
Speaker 1: things that you think make golf swings good?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, I think it's important to know this isn't
Speaker 2: my golf swing, right, my golf swing that I started with,
Speaker 2: it might have looked okay, sort of tempo wise, but
Speaker 2: when you started, yeah, and me, when I turned pro,
Speaker 2: I didn't like it. It didn't feel right to me.
Speaker 2: It didn't feel like a swing. It felt like a
Speaker 2: bit of a hit. It felt like a decent backswing,
Speaker 2: but I felt like my downswing just wasn't didn't feel easy.
Speaker 2: And when I watched some really good pros that I
Speaker 2: admired when I was younger, all of them, basically, whether
Speaker 2: it be Sevy Faldo, Nick Price, Tiger Hogan, snead on
Speaker 2: the endless list of people to look at, isn't there?
Speaker 2: I think mine doesn't feel like that on the way down.
Speaker 2: Feels all right going back, but it doesn't feel right
Speaker 2: coming down. It feels like something's not right. So I
Speaker 2: set about in a pretty determined and relentless way of
Speaker 2: trying to change that. Rather than actually trying to be
Speaker 2: super competitive in saying I just need what I need
Speaker 2: to do to win tournaments or play good, that just
Speaker 2: became my obsession. So I've got to make this feel
Speaker 2: better for me because that's what I want to do.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't a tournament pro at that time, right,
Speaker 2: I was just a local club pro. So I just
Speaker 2: chipped away at that day by day, finally got a
Speaker 2: picture in my head of what I wanted mustling to
Speaker 2: look like, which was what which is pretty much what
Speaker 2: it looks like now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, you have a My daughter just
Speaker 1: graduated from Dartmouth and Roger Federer gave the commencement speech,
Speaker 1: and it was fascinating. He said, everybody looked at my
Speaker 1: game and says it was effortless. But he said nothing
Speaker 1: was effortless, every shot, nothing was effortless. He said everything
Speaker 1: I did was my team, myself. There was work, there
Speaker 1: was purpose and stuff. So when we look at your
Speaker 1: golf swing, it seems very unencumbered by lack of excess movement.
Speaker 2: That's basically what I wanted to do. I wanted to
Speaker 2: to rip out all the bits that I didn't feel necessary.
Speaker 2: They didn't give me that, you didn't need, I didn't need.
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't need that. I didn't like trying
Speaker 2: to repeat that, things that didn't make any sense to him,
Speaker 2: didn't have any logic to it, right. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to rip all of that out and see what I
Speaker 2: ended up with, basically, which would be in essence, a
Speaker 2: simple turn and minimal Yeah, and I suppose it all
Speaker 2: balls down for me that I think the turn in
Speaker 2: the swing is quite straightforward, right, once you've got an
Speaker 2: idea of you're trying to turn on a slight tilted
Speaker 2: angle with your shoulders and things heading down towards the
Speaker 2: ball without too much shift one way or another. But
Speaker 2: obviously I don't try and stay perfectly still. I like
Speaker 2: my head to move from side to side a little
Speaker 2: bit and knowing when when it's okay to do that.
Speaker 2: Then it's pretty much all about how your right arm
Speaker 2: folds on the way back right. So the left arm.
Speaker 2: If you're going to accept that your left arm's going
Speaker 2: to stay pretty straight, it hasn't got to do anything.
Speaker 2: So everything else is the right arm. So if you
Speaker 2: fold the right arm in order, and you've trained yourself
Speaker 2: to keep your turn on a thick sort of axis,
Speaker 2: then you've got to got to bend your right arm
Speaker 2: and straighten it at the right time, in the right
Speaker 2: order right.
Speaker 1: Because you teach now as well. I think what you're
Speaker 1: saying is, I think the average golfer has so much
Speaker 1: much excess movement, and I think that movement Rockie comes
Speaker 1: because we're static. I gave a lesson once and it's
Speaker 1: something that's always stuck with me. I gave a lesson
Speaker 1: once to a guy that had sold his semi conductor
Speaker 1: company to the US government for a gajillion dollars, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to learn how to play golf. And when
Speaker 1: I tell you, this guy had no talent, he had
Speaker 1: no talent. He could be one of the most unathletic
Speaker 1: human beings I've ever met, So trying to teach him
Speaker 1: to play, even swing a golf club was very difficult.
Speaker 1: But he said something in a break where he was
Speaker 1: putting more band aids on his hands for the blisters
Speaker 1: that has stuck with you. It was twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: The hardest part about golf for me is I'm starting
Speaker 1: at zero energy. And I just went, Yeah, we put
Speaker 1: you in a position.
Speaker 2: We tell you there's no other sport to generate.
Speaker 1: Tennis Tennis, you're serving, but you're serving because you're trying
Speaker 1: to make the other player move as a returner of
Speaker 1: SERVI you're trying to guess where they're going. Yeah, Cricket,
Speaker 1: you're standing there, you don't know were the balls coming, baseball, whatever.
Speaker 2: That golf is.
Speaker 1: We put you in a static position, and I think
Speaker 1: in an effort to get power. So many golfers move
Speaker 1: in an effort to try and get power. And like
Speaker 1: you said, it really is can your golf swing For
Speaker 1: people that watch it looks so simple, but you're trying
Speaker 1: to make it simple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm trying to. I don't feel like I'm anyway
Speaker 2: a sort of talented or athletic sort of person. I've
Speaker 2: got lots of evidence in other sports to suggest I'm
Speaker 2: no good at stuff. Right. So one of my I
Speaker 2: guess key beliefs was that can I build a swing
Speaker 2: that makes me all right at this right without relying
Speaker 2: on any sort of talent I might not have? Right?
Speaker 2: So if I can build a swing that it's a
Speaker 2: ball in a direction quite reliably, then that's in one
Speaker 2: part and it takes heedable movement. Yeah, And can I
Speaker 2: understand it? Can I keep doing it? Can I learn
Speaker 2: when it falls apart on me? And then the other
Speaker 2: bits for golf, like you're chipping and you're putting in
Speaker 2: your Bonker shots. That for me is where there's no
Speaker 2: avoiding a bit of talent, Right. You need to be
Speaker 2: able to see these things.
Speaker 1: Your technique will get you to a certain point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but to become Sevy Patrick read exactly these Shane.
Speaker 2: Lowry, I don't see it.
Speaker 1: The magicians and that that is the next level.
Speaker 2: That's the next level onwards. And I think when people
Speaker 2: ask me about talent in sport, I think you've only
Speaker 2: figured that out at the end. Right, So I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure are it more balls than most? Right? Obviously, There'll
Speaker 2: be some that have it more than me, but not many.
Speaker 2: But the frustrating part is when you get to the end,
Speaker 2: you know I can't have done much more, and then
Speaker 2: you look at people like Shane and Rory and you think,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what, no matter what I did right,
Speaker 2: my car just wasn't fast. They could have had two
Speaker 2: years off like me and still beat me. Right. That's annoying, right,
Speaker 2: But actually talent isn't it.
Speaker 1: But you've got Tiger Woods who a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Obviously you know there's been a bunch of it. But
Speaker 1: the two main areas of Tiger's dominance were when he
Speaker 1: worked with my father and he worked with Hank Haney.
Speaker 1: I think Hank gets maligned a lot because everybody likes
Speaker 1: aesthetically maybe the golf swing that Tiger had with my
Speaker 1: dad because of the positions, but the win rate and
Speaker 1: the majors, the golf swing that Tiger built with Hank
Speaker 1: Haney was as good, if not better. I'm biased because
Speaker 1: when I look at Tiger's golf swing, I remember the
Speaker 1: glory years that was kind of the model of the
Speaker 1: Adam Stott model. When Tiger Woods, who's in my opinion,
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in the Jack Nichols hera. But
Speaker 1: when Tiger Woods tells his son he's got the greatest
Speaker 1: swing in the game, does that register to you, Rocky?
Speaker 1: Does that make you go, that's fucking pretty cool?
Speaker 2: Do you go? No?
Speaker 1: No, no, But you have to when somebody like that
Speaker 1: says something, there has to be in an acknowledgment, Rocky
Speaker 1: in your own head, in a quiet moment when you're
Speaker 1: by yourself, to say to yourself, the goat just told
Speaker 1: me that my golf swing is the best he's ever seen.
Speaker 1: That must mean something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just lovely in there, because.
Speaker 1: For everyone listening, Tiger does not throw those bouquets out
Speaker 1: at all. He spends the majority of his career telling
Speaker 1: everybody they're no good. So when I actually heard that,
Speaker 1: I watched your reaction. You took it well, you blew
Speaker 1: it off. But that has to mean some. Like Tiger
Speaker 1: has said to me, you know, I grew up with
Speaker 1: I watched him. I videoed the first golf lesson he
Speaker 1: had with my dad. I've known him a long time
Speaker 1: and I'm by no means close to him.
Speaker 2: But every now and.
Speaker 1: Again, over the last ten years, he has said to me, Hey,
Speaker 1: good job with DJ, good job with Brooks. When he
Speaker 1: says that I do the same thing as you, I
Speaker 1: blow it off and say thanks man.
Speaker 2: You know they're great players stuff. But in quiet.
Speaker 1: Moments by myself, I have said to myself, it makes
Speaker 1: me feel like I made it when Tiger.
Speaker 2: If Tiger says something to you about or Tiger says
Speaker 2: than about anyone, Right, he's a man, isn't he He's
Speaker 2: a man. So the fact that Tiger actually even knows
Speaker 2: who I am.
Speaker 1: Right, well, you smoked his as said an album, which
Speaker 1: doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 2: No, But I'm more than happy that I can remember
Speaker 2: being an assistant pro watching him when that first Masters
Speaker 2: sat in the was actually in the bar in the clubhouse,
Speaker 2: thinking wow, look at this dude. This is some golf
Speaker 2: we're starting to see. Not my wildest dreams did I
Speaker 2: think like twenty odd years later I would have played
Speaker 2: golf with him. I would actually sort of know him
Speaker 2: to the point where I'm okay just going up to
Speaker 2: him saying, Hi, you're right. So yeah, It's just it
Speaker 2: makes all the hitting the balls worthwhile.
Speaker 1: But as a golf pervert like I am, Ludwig Oberg
Speaker 1: I mean, how good is this kid's golf swing? And
Speaker 1: you've been around the game, you know that there's more
Speaker 1: to the game than just a golf swing. But from
Speaker 1: a technique standpoint, this kid, it is so damn good.
Speaker 2: So good, And when you just love to start your
Speaker 2: career at that point like that, well.
Speaker 1: Last year at this time, I think this is right
Speaker 1: around the time he turned pro. So the things that
Speaker 1: he's doing, second at the Master's, top ten in.
Speaker 2: The world, Ryder Cup all I don't know.
Speaker 1: But when you look at his golf swings, what are
Speaker 1: the things you like about his move?
Speaker 2: And well, if I'd have had that swing when I started,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have it. I would have it any balls,
Speaker 2: I think i'd I'd be probably two million balls better off,
Speaker 2: and I'll probably have a much nicer feeling back, right, And.
Speaker 1: I think the kids got an enormous runway, ye in
Speaker 1: a very long, long runway.
Speaker 2: Any hope he makes the right decisions, because we all
Speaker 2: as golfers, we get to the crossroads sometimes where we're
Speaker 2: tempted to make a choice and and and change something.
Speaker 2: Most and nearly all the time, it's to get better,
Speaker 2: isn't it right? And he doesn't need to do that.
Speaker 2: If he can just wait patiently and see what that
Speaker 2: game brings him over a twenty year live spanning golf,
Speaker 2: he'll be quite happy without the end, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2: But he might get impatient and might go, tay, you,
Speaker 2: what I need to be able to do this? I
Speaker 2: need to be able to do that, And those are
Speaker 2: things you learned.
Speaker 1: Climber won a major in the Players in the same
Speaker 1: year as a fader of the golf ball. That was
Speaker 1: his second major champions So he's got two majors and
Speaker 1: a Players Championship and he tried to draw the golf
Speaker 1: learn how to draw the golf ball to win it
Speaker 1: a gust.
Speaker 2: The problem is when you're playing really good, you think
Speaker 2: you're capable of everything, don't you. You never think you're
Speaker 2: not going to play bad nah, And you think, well,
Speaker 2: tell you what I can do all this? Alright, I've
Speaker 2: got all that ticked off, so I'm going to do
Speaker 2: this as well. And it's that as well, this shot, yeah,
Speaker 2: and that adding that bit messes up with the stuff
Speaker 2: that you're already good at, right, And that's that's an
Speaker 2: amazing If somebody can stop him doing that, that'll be brilliant,
Speaker 2: because he'll be awesome.
Speaker 1: Lastly, the complete one hundred and eighty degree opposite of
Speaker 1: lud big Oberg and the complete one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: degree opposite of everyone out here.
Speaker 2: Bryson d Chambea love Bryceon, I mean absolutely love him.
Speaker 1: So what do you like about it? Because here's my
Speaker 1: uncle Billy, my dad's youngest brother. There was a year
Speaker 1: to where when in the heyday, when it's like two thousand,
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, and Tiger and Adam are out
Speaker 1: at my dad's place in Vegas and they're both hitting balls.
Speaker 1: It's two thousand and two thousand and one, and they
Speaker 1: both look like you can't swing the golf club any better.
Speaker 1: And my dad's youngest brother and uncle Billy said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Two of the greatest ball strikers of all time, Lee,
Speaker 1: Trevino Hailer. When Hale shut took it inside, came over it,
Speaker 1: hit fades, Trevino wide open, took it outside, dropped it under,
Speaker 1: hit draws. He's like, everyone is trying to teach, and
Speaker 1: everybody wants to swing like Tiger and Adam. No one
Speaker 1: is trying to swing like two or three. Bryson nobody
Speaker 1: is going to try and teach that or do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but what do you like about Bryson's golf swing? But
Speaker 1: and then what do you like about Bryson's game?
Speaker 2: I remember being in Abu Dabbi probably this might be
Speaker 2: when Bryson was still an amateur, when he led the
Speaker 2: Masters at one point, so they the January before all that.
Speaker 2: I'm hitting balls in Abadabi, just normal hitting balls, young
Speaker 2: lad hitting balls behind me, And how clear he was
Speaker 2: his machine gun in these three woods. His caddies just
Speaker 2: keeps turning them off right and he's and he's hitting them,
Speaker 2: and I think I've got relatively keen ear for strike
Speaker 2: after about sort of a dozen of and I'm like,
Speaker 2: here's a missed one. These are all awesome right out
Speaker 2: of the center right and the quick right be happening
Speaker 2: so fast it makes you listen. So turn around like
Speaker 2: this dude. He's got the Hogan hat on. Yeah, who's
Speaker 2: this dude. He's got his coach with him, Mike Shy,
Speaker 2: and it's.
Speaker 1: Got the weird golf clubs of the grip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we just got chatting. And I met him,
Speaker 2: So I met him a long long time ago, and
Speaker 2: we got chatting and they got a bit of golf
Speaker 2: machine background with Mike Bryson dow a lot of stuff then.
Speaker 2: But he had a really nice looking swing at that point.
Speaker 2: Really liked it. I mean he's still there right. The
Speaker 2: golf swing is.
Speaker 1: The golf swing has gotten better over since he won
Speaker 1: it wingfoot. I mean, he's been on live for the
Speaker 1: last two and a half years, and so you know
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people going, oh, we haven't seen
Speaker 1: him play. I mean I've I've been to every live event.
Speaker 1: I've watched the maturation of his game.
Speaker 2: What we're seeing right now is not a surprise. He's
Speaker 2: figured out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he went down the rabbit hole of the long
Speaker 1: drive and all of that stuff. He realized that wasn't
Speaker 1: sustainable and it wasn't manageable.
Speaker 2: No, but he's added something to him and he hasn't
Speaker 2: messed himself well doing it, and he still can hit it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: three fifty three give and display yesterday it was incredible.
Speaker 1: But he has some very unique things in his golf swing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think his superpower Rockie is first of all,
Speaker 1: he doesn't care what you think. No, in his head,
Speaker 1: what he is doing, he believes. I've asked him before,
Speaker 1: and my dad said to him once, what's with all
Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, trying to chip with a seven
Speaker 1: iron and stuff like my But in his head, he
Speaker 1: told me, listen, everybody thinks I'm crazy. I'm trying through
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that looks crazy to other people.
Speaker 1: I believe this can make the game.
Speaker 2: Simple for me.
Speaker 1: And that's really horrid for people on the outside to
Speaker 1: look at because all of the crazy, weird.
Speaker 2: Stuff he does.
Speaker 1: But he's like, listen, I'm just trying to make it
Speaker 1: as simple as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's done it from a point where he
Speaker 2: was actually really good in the first place too, Right,
Speaker 2: so he's been really brave.
Speaker 1: USM one tournaments, Ryder Cups, and then he goes on
Speaker 1: the long.
Speaker 2: Driver rabbit, tried everything with putting his iron players unique.
Speaker 2: He's driving is now unique. Right one irons now his
Speaker 2: long driver driver that I don't know one else.
Speaker 1: Uses, agrees a loft on his driver rock.
Speaker 2: And she showed it me on Tuesday. He showed me
Speaker 2: his six arm Tuesday, which actually looked like a short
Speaker 2: three iron to me.
Speaker 1: But and the new irons have bulge and roll, so
Speaker 1: like a driver at the toe they're kind of going
Speaker 1: away from you. But he in his head, he's like,
Speaker 1: listen at the speed I'm hitting it. If I hit
Speaker 1: it off the toe, I need to be able to
Speaker 1: have equipment that keeps on. Yeah, He's like, that's just
Speaker 1: designed around.
Speaker 2: On the key parts in this game. I think is
Speaker 2: is your determination to to a plan and not have
Speaker 2: people talk you out of it. Right, If you're determined
Speaker 2: that this is what you want to do, and you've
Speaker 2: got a vision for how you see yourself playing a game,
Speaker 2: and you can stick to that path and every day
Speaker 2: you get slightly closer to it, right, it keeps you
Speaker 2: on the straight and narrow every day. That stops you
Speaker 2: veering off on little tangents that can either derail you
Speaker 2: completely or delay your progress for years. And I remember
Speaker 2: when I was I was the only man on the
Speaker 2: back of the range with my camera and my tripod,
Speaker 2: and I'm mountain of balls and I'm playing rubbish and
Speaker 2: people are judging what I'm trying to do in my swing,
Speaker 2: and luckily, luckily I stuck to it because I was
Speaker 2: missing cuts. I was playing terrible, right, but I was
Speaker 2: sure that if I hit the ball better and more
Speaker 2: reliable and the way you wanted to, and I did it.
Speaker 2: I would enjoy being a pro, I would have. I
Speaker 2: would enjoy how my game felt. I would I was
Speaker 2: certainly enjoying the grind of trying to do it right.
Speaker 2: That was what That's what got me up every morning,
Speaker 2: right to keep working towards his swing. That I got
Speaker 2: in my head and it was my plan for making
Speaker 2: me a golf bro right, and thankfully it lasted me
Speaker 2: twenty years. Bryson does the same thing. He has a plan,
Speaker 2: he's so determined. Yeah, and he's done it from such
Speaker 2: a really good starting point, right. So he's obviously got
Speaker 2: loads of talent. He's a smart kid, and he's brave
Speaker 2: enough to take a punt on what he thinks he's better.
Speaker 1: Hold you now forty seven forty seven And for everyone listening,
Speaker 1: this the last thing I'll set it because I know
Speaker 1: you've got to go. I think you have one of
Speaker 1: the best golf swings I've ever seen, Thank you very
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of golf swings, and I think
Speaker 1: the way that you swing the golf club is as
Speaker 1: good as it gets. But the last thing I will
Speaker 1: say the hair, Rocky, you have the best hair in
Speaker 1: the game. You've never worn a hat because the hair
Speaker 1: is so good at forty seven. Now the visor the
Speaker 1: choice to wear the vison now because a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago I busted your balls because you had we'd
Speaker 1: like the British and you had like a trill be
Speaker 1: kind of ha. I said, there's absolutely no way that's
Speaker 1: going on your head, and you're like, I might put
Speaker 1: it on.
Speaker 2: You didn't put it on all week.
Speaker 1: If you wore a visor this week best here in
Speaker 1: the game, talk me through the visor choice.
Speaker 2: The visor's purely for this this temperature, in this sun. Right.
Speaker 2: I used to be able to do it all day long,
Speaker 2: sound the rain, just get somburned and just off and
Speaker 2: not worry about it. But now it just gets you
Speaker 2: when you get older, don't it. And I feel myself
Speaker 2: going a little bit dizzy sometimes, and of course if
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: So forty seven are we looking at Senior Tour?
Speaker 2: We bet Champs Tour. Earlier we had a little bit
Speaker 2: of joke because they've got the barber shopping here, aren't we, right,
Speaker 2: And we thought, what about barber? What about a barber
Speaker 2: on a driving range, right, because instead of having to
Speaker 2: go into town as to get your hair cut. You
Speaker 2: could just go and hit some balls, wait in line,
Speaker 2: get your hair done. We're quite cool.
Speaker 1: Don't dodge the question you're thinking about Champs Tour.
Speaker 2: Champion Store is hard to get on it good, good enough.
Speaker 2: I would love to play it, but going through the
Speaker 2: Q school for just a few spots it's a big ask.
Speaker 1: Last year at the US Open, we were on the
Speaker 1: putting green and someone was talking about the Champs Tour
Speaker 1: and DJ was putting and somebody said, DJ, you can
Speaker 1: play the Champs Tour when you're old enough. And he
Speaker 1: didn't say anything, and he just looked at all of
Speaker 1: us and he said, bro, a lot of shit has
Speaker 1: to go wrong in my life for.
Speaker 2: Me to be Champ Camps Tour.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we are going to see you post
Speaker 1: fifty winning golf tournaments on the Champs Tour. That's how good.
Speaker 1: I think your act is rocky. Great to see you
Speaker 1: this week. I think it's been a hell of a week.
Speaker 1: I think it's been one of the really cool stories
Speaker 1: and always good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, right a little bit, thank you.
Speaker 1: So that was Robert rock And, like I said, one
Speaker 1: of the cool stories to come out of last week.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, Bryson Deshambeau, he's the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four US Open champion. I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: best golf tournaments I've seen a long time. It's definitely
Speaker 1: one of the best majors I've seen in a long time.
Speaker 1: It was a tough one for Rory McElroy. And I'm
Speaker 1: a Rory McElroy fan. I think he's one of the
Speaker 1: best in the game. And it's tough, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're on that side of things. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: on that side of things as a coach. I've watched
Speaker 1: players in majors have chances to win and when they don't,
Speaker 1: it's it's tough. And you can see that Rory's feeling
Speaker 1: it right now. But what a performance by Bryson Deschambeau.
Speaker 1: And I think we are seeing a change in Bryson.
Speaker 1: I think he has matured a lot. But from a
Speaker 1: game standpoint, this is not a surprise to me. I've
Speaker 1: watched Bryson over the last two and a half years.
Speaker 1: I've watched his game mature really over the last year
Speaker 1: and a half. I've seen him play some unbelievable golf
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's a hell of a performance. Two time
Speaker 1: major champion, now two US Opens, and he's going to
Speaker 1: be a threat now moving forward in all the majors.
Speaker 1: The confidence he's got and the way that he was
Speaker 1: able to perform. The shot he hit on eighteen I
Speaker 1: think is under pressure. I think it's one of the
Speaker 1: best shots I've seen under pressure in a.
Speaker 2: Long, long time.
Speaker 1: And the way he played down the stretch. I mean,
Speaker 1: look on the thirteenth hole, Rory makes Berdie, Bryson makes
Speaker 1: bogie on twelve, He's got a two shot lead, and
Speaker 1: from then on in Bryson shoots won over and wins.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's going to be people asking a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about what happened with Rory, and this will
Speaker 1: be a tough one. But what I will say is
Speaker 1: I watched up close in twenty twelve. I was working
Speaker 1: with Ernie Els at the time, and Ernie made a
Speaker 1: lengthy harputt on the eighteenth hole, had a really really
Speaker 1: good final round. I think he shot a couple under.
Speaker 1: But Adam Scott bogied I think four holes coming in
Speaker 1: and it was devastating. It was devastating to watch. It
Speaker 1: was tough for Adam, but he won the Masters the
Speaker 1: following I think the following year, so I think Rory
Speaker 1: will be back. I think he's just too good of
Speaker 1: a player. But yeah, it was it was fun to watch.
Speaker 1: I think it was something that we needed. I think
Speaker 1: Bryson right now is moving the needle. Obviously, no one's
Speaker 1: going to move the needle like Tiger Woods. But I
Speaker 1: think Bryson has superstar status and he's won a lot
Speaker 1: of golf tournaments recently.
Speaker 2: He had a chance.
Speaker 1: I mean, he could could easily have won two majors
Speaker 1: this year, finished second at the PGA and now the
Speaker 1: US Open chairman. I think he's going to be one
Speaker 1: of the favorites as as we go into the Open Championship,
Speaker 1: the last major of the year. But and here's the
Speaker 1: other thing. You can watch Bryson play. You've always been
Speaker 1: able to watch Bryson play since he made the switch
Speaker 1: to come to live. That's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: If you want to watch Bryson Deschambeau play golf, you
Speaker 1: can watch it. You can watch him play live. You
Speaker 1: can go to live events and watch the US Open
Speaker 1: champion play golf. I think the brand of golf he plays,
Speaker 1: I think the way he plays the game. I think
Speaker 1: the way he has matured, I think the content that
Speaker 1: he is putting out there, he's second to none really
Speaker 1: in the professional game, and I think there are going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of players looking at what Bryson
Speaker 1: is doing and saying, Okay, can I do that. I
Speaker 1: think Live has allowed Bryson to come out of his shell.
Speaker 1: He loves the team format, he loves the crushers, and
Speaker 1: I have seen a big change in Bryson from the
Speaker 1: player he was when he turned pro.
Speaker 2: He was he was awkward. I think he, you know, it.
Speaker 1: Was kind of, you know, the scientist, kind of a
Speaker 1: nutty professor. And I really have seen a change in
Speaker 1: him and anybody that thinks this is an act. A
Speaker 1: lot of professional athletes, a lot of people in the
Speaker 1: public eye. The person they are away from the golf course,
Speaker 1: the stage, the court, the field, whatever, is different from
Speaker 1: what the public sees. But I believe there's a genuineness
Speaker 1: to it. I think Bryson is really, really smart, and
Speaker 1: I think, like a lot of people, he is using
Speaker 1: social media to his advantage. Absolutely, I one hundred percent
Speaker 1: think he's doing that. But show me somebody that's not
Speaker 1: trying to do that now. Show me people in the
Speaker 1: public eye that are famous, that are trying to use
Speaker 1: social media for their own gain. Everybody is trying to
Speaker 1: do that. You can monetize social media now and you
Speaker 1: can have an impact. So I'm here for it. I'm
Speaker 1: here for the Bryson show. He's a hell of a golfer.
Speaker 1: He hit some shots last week that nobody else.
Speaker 2: Is going to hit.
Speaker 1: And his putting is putting's joke right now. His short game,
Speaker 1: some of the short game shots. I mean on Sunday,
Speaker 1: he hit some short game shots that you know, the
Speaker 1: Golf Channel guys are just hoping and the NBC guys,
Speaker 1: they're hoping he doesn't get it up and down, and
Speaker 1: he did, and it was fascinating. Where does y mclroy
Speaker 1: go from here? I think he just goes back to
Speaker 1: being Roy McElroy. He hit the golf ball last week
Speaker 1: is as good as I've seen him hit the golf ball.
Speaker 1: You can't drive the golf ball much better than he
Speaker 1: drove it. Yeah, Okay, he had a couple of bad
Speaker 1: drives coming down the stretch. I mean, Bryson was hitting
Speaker 1: it all over the place and still managed to win. Right,
Speaker 1: You're gonna hit bad shots, You're gonna make bad swings,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hit bad drives. But Rory is as good
Speaker 1: as anyone in the game when he's on. He's one
Speaker 1: of those players. I've said it loads of times. When
Speaker 1: he's on, you're gonna make an argument that he's the
Speaker 1: best player in the game, Scotty Scheffler when he's on,
Speaker 1: in the way Scotty Scheffler has been playing, he's the
Speaker 1: best player in the game when he's on. And didn't
Speaker 1: have his best week last week. But the Bryson show
Speaker 1: is real, and I'll keep saying this. Bryson plays on live.
Speaker 1: If you want to watch live golf. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you don't have to watch the PGA Tour. Doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you can't be a fan of the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: If you want to watch Bryson d Schambeau play golf,
Speaker 1: and if you like the way he plays, and if
Speaker 1: you like him as a person and you like all
Speaker 1: the things that he's doing, he plays on live. That's
Speaker 1: where he plays. And if you want to watch him,
Speaker 1: you can buy tickets and go to the live events
Speaker 1: and watch him. You watch it on the CW. You
Speaker 1: can watch it on the app, you can watch it
Speaker 1: on all the platforms that lives on. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you can't be You can be a Bryson
Speaker 1: D Shambeau fan and you can be a Roy McRoy fan.
Speaker 1: You really can. And I've been saying this for two
Speaker 1: and a half years now. You do not have to
Speaker 1: choose between the PGA Tour between Live, between DP World,
Speaker 1: between the Asian Tour, between the Champs Tour, between the
Speaker 1: LPGA Tour.
Speaker 2: You do not have to choose.
Speaker 1: You can watch golf wherever you want to. It's all
Speaker 1: readily available. And I think Bryson is a big part
Speaker 1: of where professional golf is right now. I think he's
Speaker 1: a big part of where professional golf is going. And
Speaker 1: you're now looking at two guys that have gone to
Speaker 1: Live in the last two years that have won major
Speaker 1: championships brooks Keepka, Bryson d Chambeau.
Speaker 2: They play on live.
Speaker 1: You make your own conclusions based off of that, but
Speaker 1: that's where they play. And Roy McElroy plays on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour, that's where he plays. That's where he chooses
Speaker 1: to play. Bryson chooses to play golf on live, but
Speaker 1: it was a hell of a performance. I got to
Speaker 1: catch up with him today and you know, I'm proud
Speaker 1: of him. I'm proud of the person he's become, and
Speaker 1: he's a hell of a golfer. Anybody that thinks that
Speaker 1: Bryce it is in the real deal.
Speaker 2: He is the real deal.
Speaker 1: And he's got two major championships now and it is
Speaker 1: going to be incredibly interesting to see where his career
Speaker 1: goes from here. I want to thank everyone for listening, rate, review, subscribe,
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Son of a Butch comes
Speaker 1: to you almost every Wednesday.
Speaker 3: We'll be back next week.