Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a.
Speaker 2: Bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Frida egg bride egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Andy Johnson. Today I am joined by Kevin vat Vealkenberg
Speaker 1: and Joseph Lavania to kind of take the temperature of
Speaker 1: the golf world so far. We're going to do a
Speaker 1: little exercise around our biggest risers and biggest followers in
Speaker 1: pro golf, as well as a storyline we're looking forward
Speaker 1: to the rest of the year. A little housekeeping note
Speaker 1: you may have heard an ad leading into this podcast,
Speaker 1: just a you know, kind of note about where we're
Speaker 1: going with Friday Golf. We have we will have probably
Speaker 1: a couple more ads going forward on this podcast than usual.
Speaker 1: We are beginning to work with an agency that provides
Speaker 1: ads to the podcast. Really, this is fueling growth for us.
Speaker 1: You know, we're going to be very very conscious of
Speaker 1: the listener experience as we always have been, and we
Speaker 1: will continue to you know, try and make this the
Speaker 1: most listener friendly podcast we possibly can. These advertisements are
Speaker 1: going to really help us grow. It's going to help
Speaker 1: us continue to make more and more content. Better and
Speaker 1: better content is our goal as we're trying to con
Speaker 1: to push our company forward. You know, I'm super proud
Speaker 1: of where our team has uh has has kind of
Speaker 1: come from when I think about recording podcasts uh eight
Speaker 1: nine years ago to now and uh, you know, just
Speaker 1: what we're able to do on a weekly basis is
Speaker 1: something I know I thought we could get to but
Speaker 1: never imagined. And you know, as we keep growing, our
Speaker 1: goals and what we want to do change and and
Speaker 1: this was this is a big part of where we
Speaker 1: want to go and what we want to be able
Speaker 1: to do in the long run is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we want to continue to change the golf media landscape
Speaker 1: and continue to hire super talented people and and give
Speaker 1: them the freedom to do really great things. So we
Speaker 1: will have a few extra ads per episode. You'll you'll
Speaker 1: find them at the pre roll, the mid roll, so
Speaker 1: kind of in the middle of the podcast, before the
Speaker 1: podcast and after the podcast. But as always, you know,
Speaker 1: so none of this would be possible without you guys,
Speaker 1: the listeners, and I hope you can understand what we're
Speaker 1: trying to do. We are kind of trying to continue
Speaker 1: to elevate our quality and quantity of coverage on the
Speaker 1: sport of golf. I wanted to do a little thing
Speaker 1: on the golf course as we head into we're two
Speaker 1: weeks out from Ironom Ink. This obviously is a standout
Speaker 1: major championship season. You obviously have Shannakok and Augusta National.
Speaker 1: I think you can make an argument those are the
Speaker 1: two best modern championship golf courses in golf the way
Speaker 1: they are able to test players. But I think ironom
Speaker 1: Inc Is one of the better PGA Championship venues that
Speaker 1: they've had and will have in years. I think he
Speaker 1: would probably is their their best venue. I think Ironomic
Speaker 1: is very, very good and there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that Ironomanc goferers that are similar to Augusta National
Speaker 1: and h and to a lesser extent, Shinnacock. The You
Speaker 1: know Ironomic obviously, it's in Philadelphia. It was designed by
Speaker 1: Donald Ross nineteen twenty six. Donald Ross Design. Philadelphia is
Speaker 1: known for its golf architects and golf architecture. Uh, the
Speaker 1: famous Philly School of golf architecture was started. There includes
Speaker 1: the likes of AW tilling Hast, William Flynn, George Thomas,
Speaker 1: George Crump, Hugh Wilson, a lot of architects. You know.
Speaker 1: William Phones, the Oakmont designer, was a part of it,
Speaker 1: as in in you know, they really are what dominate
Speaker 1: Philadelphia golf architecture, particularly William Flynn. You see his name
Speaker 1: all over Philadelphia. A. W. Tilling Hast obviously is very
Speaker 1: prolific championship golf designer in the Northeast. One of the
Speaker 1: unique things about ironom Ink. Ironom Ink was built after
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the famous Philadelphia clubs, and it
Speaker 1: was built by Donald Ross, an outsider to the town obviously.
Speaker 1: Ross born in Scotland, came came across and uh and
Speaker 1: started working in Massachusetts when he got to America and
Speaker 1: obviously the most prolific architect of this era, having designed
Speaker 1: over four hundred courses. UH. That being said, Ironomink I
Speaker 1: would put into the top tier of golf courses designed
Speaker 1: by Donald Ross. You know, the likes of Oakland Hills,
Speaker 1: South Seminole, Uh, it is right up there. You know
Speaker 1: Interlock and would be another one that I think is
Speaker 1: great Sciota. Another great Donald Ross design Essex County obviously
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, but I would put into that top echelon
Speaker 1: of Donald Ross Donald Ross's work ironom Ink. As is
Speaker 1: the case with most golf courses in the Philadelphia area,
Speaker 1: it is terrific land. That's kind of the core ingredient
Speaker 1: of golf in Philadelphia is a land. It is just
Speaker 1: it's really broad and brawny land, but it's very well
Speaker 1: scaled for golf. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 1: that the rises and falls. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: valleys that you know, these golf courses in Philadelphia play
Speaker 1: into and then come out of. They're big valleys, but
Speaker 1: not too big. Something that's really important for golf architecture is,
Speaker 1: you know, if you can keep those rises and falls
Speaker 1: below thirty feet, you know where they these properties are
Speaker 1: very choppy, but never too severe. You don't want to
Speaker 1: have a sixty foot drop very often. You know, it
Speaker 1: can be cool once in a while, but if you
Speaker 1: drop sixty feet or eighty feet, you have to play
Speaker 1: back up the eighty feet and that's usually where golf
Speaker 1: can get a little redundant. And golf architecture can get
Speaker 1: a little redundant. So with that, you know, ironomic like
Speaker 1: the other other Philadelphia area courses, most of them, it
Speaker 1: has a really nice piece of land. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's necessarily the best piece of land uh in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a good
Speaker 1: piece of land and really good if you consider the
Speaker 1: grand scheme of golf in America. Uh, this is a
Speaker 1: site that you would never find in flatter portions of
Speaker 1: the country like Chicago. It is a it is a
Speaker 1: very very nice property for golf. Now that being said,
Speaker 1: there are some flatter portions of the golf course, and
Speaker 1: we did a big video with Gil Hants that illustrates
Speaker 1: some of this. But there are some There's some you know,
Speaker 1: flatter portions around the exterior of the property, and some
Speaker 1: holes that run along those exterior are are flatish. Uh.
Speaker 1: Those holes tend to be the most heavily bunkered and
Speaker 1: have the most severe sets of greens. The other holes
Speaker 1: that kind of play there's one central valley and there
Speaker 1: are some holes that play down into the valley and
Speaker 1: a lot of plays holes that play along the valley floor.
Speaker 1: And this is where you know, it's important for a
Speaker 1: property to not be too severe. You know, one of
Speaker 1: Ironomic's great assets is that this valley is it's a
Speaker 1: pretty in spots, a pretty gentle fall to the valley,
Speaker 1: and what it allowed Donald Ross to do was route
Speaker 1: a lot of golf holes on the slope of the valley.
Speaker 1: So in many cases at ironom Ink, you play along
Speaker 1: the edge of this kind of valley, and what it
Speaker 1: creates is a dynamic of of uneven lies. And this
Speaker 1: is something that we see, you know, really thrives at
Speaker 1: Augustin National and and where you know you could see
Speaker 1: some similarity with ironom Ink in Augusta National is that
Speaker 1: their players are going to have to hit from uneven lies.
Speaker 1: They aren't as severe as Augusta, they aren't as prevalent
Speaker 1: as Augusta. Augusta is basically every hole you hit from
Speaker 1: an uneven lie except for par threes. But at Ironomk
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to hit a handful of shots with
Speaker 1: longer irons from uneven lies to very severe greens. So
Speaker 1: when you start to think about ironom Ink as a
Speaker 1: championship test, I imagine they're gonna have pretty thick rough
Speaker 1: there looks like we're ten ten days out or so
Speaker 1: from the championship as of this recording. There looks like
Speaker 1: there's a pretty good amount of rain in the forecast,
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be it's gonna play long, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna play probably fairly soft. With that, you are going
Speaker 1: to have a lot of a lot of long irons
Speaker 1: into you know, severe greens. So what you're gonna see
Speaker 1: is the best long iron players are probably gonna be rewarded.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The other big thing that you're gonna see at ironom
Speaker 1: mak Is is kind of a lot of talk of
Speaker 1: the bunkers. There are tons of bunkers at around. Although
Speaker 1: they you know, there are a lot of them, I
Speaker 1: don't think they're that severe and that that penalizing in nature.
Speaker 1: This is a member's course the vast majority of the time.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're gonna see those super severe hard
Speaker 1: to advance it out. You know, there will be a
Speaker 1: lot of thick rough you're you're not gonna see a
Speaker 1: lot of short grass shots. So it's gonna be kind
Speaker 1: of a typical PGA championship around the greens. But really
Speaker 1: the stars of the show a show at aronom inc
Speaker 1: is the greens. They are heavily tilted, as you would
Speaker 1: expect from a nineteen twenty six golf course, a lot
Speaker 1: of slope in them, as they used to be played
Speaker 1: at much slower speeds. The thing that you that really
Speaker 1: makes ironomic screens stand out are these kind of pronounced
Speaker 1: spines that ross built in a lot of greens, and
Speaker 1: what they do is divide the green into really small
Speaker 1: pockets and sections. It's going to give Carrie Haig a
Speaker 1: lot of flexibility on where he puts pins and how
Speaker 1: you can protect h really scoring in certain areas by
Speaker 1: you could really tuck away pins into tough spots. And
Speaker 1: these ridges are built up, so one of the things
Speaker 1: when you're putting or you're chipping across them, you're having
Speaker 1: to deal with the up and then over kind of
Speaker 1: putts where you're having to go uphill and then on
Speaker 1: the backside is downhill to the slope. These are just
Speaker 1: hard putts to gauge. Obviously huge reward if you can
Speaker 1: hit it into the right pocket because then you get
Speaker 1: a lot of makeable shots, and they're kind of like
Speaker 1: small bowls with these ridges, but if you miss outside
Speaker 1: the pocket, it makes it really hard to put not
Speaker 1: just because of that ridge, but also that pronounced slope.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of back to front sloping greens, so
Speaker 1: you're you're dealing with like, okay, I if you have
Speaker 1: a thirty foot or across a ridge, over a ridge,
Speaker 1: you're also probably gonna have to play six seven feet
Speaker 1: of break on that putt. With the nature of these greens.
Speaker 1: So Irono Mac, I think this is gonna be I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna be a fun test. I would love,
Speaker 1: you know, if the the weather forecast, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of clears up, I think it would be phenomenal course
Speaker 1: with firm and fast conditions. Uh. Probably unlikely. You're just
Speaker 1: not gonna get that in May and uh in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: very often, I don't think. But if if it clears
Speaker 1: up and it's firm and fast, I mean, the greens
Speaker 1: are gonna be really, really punishing, probably my favorite hole. Uh.
Speaker 1: In terms of watchability for this tournament, I hope we
Speaker 1: see a lot of the fifth. It's a short part
Speaker 1: three that really accentuates those greens. Tin tins of little
Speaker 1: tiny pockets. There's about four really unique whole locations out
Speaker 1: the green created by two central spines As I said before,
Speaker 1: go check out our YouTube video on Irono Make if
Speaker 1: you want more and you want kind of a more
Speaker 1: visual oriented uh AT aeronomy. Before we get to Kevin
Speaker 1: and Joseph, let's talk about our friends over at eight Sleep.
Speaker 1: The difference between dragging through your second round and actually
Speaker 1: playing well comes down to how you recovered overnight. You
Speaker 1: know the science of sleep. Your body needs to cool
Speaker 1: down in order to enter deep sleep, and deep sleep
Speaker 1: is when your muscles actually repair and your mind resets.
Speaker 1: For golfer, that means steadier hands, better focus on approach shots,
Speaker 1: and more patients over four footers. The Pod five is
Speaker 1: the tool from eight Sleep that controls your sleep temperature automatically.
Speaker 1: This thing you put on your bed. It cools your
Speaker 1: bed down to fifty five degrees all night, so there's
Speaker 1: no tossing and turning before the six thirty am tea time.
Speaker 1: It also can it can change based off you and
Speaker 1: your partners needs, So if you need a cooler and
Speaker 1: your partner needs a warmer, it can do that. It
Speaker 1: increases your rem sleep by over half, fall asleep nearly
Speaker 1: twice as fast if it usually takes you thirty minutes
Speaker 1: of fall asleep. The pod is gonna cut that in half.
Speaker 1: You plan every detail of a golf trip the pod,
Speaker 1: make sure your sleep doesn't undo all of it. Use
Speaker 1: our code fried egg at eight that's EI g h
Speaker 1: T sleep dot com slash frieda egg for up to
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty dollars off the pod. Five. You
Speaker 1: will get thirty days to try it at home and
Speaker 1: return it if you don't love it, but we're confident
Speaker 1: you will. Use the promo code fried egg at eightsleep
Speaker 1: dot com slash Frida egg for up to three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars off your pod. Five. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to Kevin and Joseph. All right, Joseph KVV, welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. We're we're a week out from
Speaker 1: the PGA. If I'm being completely honest, in my head,
Speaker 1: I thought the PGA until recently it was a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks from. Now. PJA alerted me that that wasn't
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 4: Uh well, I had to.
Speaker 1: Cancel a flight that was fooked to Philly. Uh not
Speaker 1: gonna make it now, I have I have another another
Speaker 1: engagement that week. But but anyways, it is a big event.
Speaker 1: We've got lots of big storylines obviously with UH, with
Speaker 1: Spief going for the Grand Slam, but then obviously Rory
Speaker 1: coming off his six major win and UH and Brooks
Speaker 1: you know, back, and there's all kinds of storylines galore.
Speaker 1: But we are now four full months into the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour calendar, UH, which you know, really the season. We're
Speaker 1: about halfway done, UH realistically with the season, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to get you guys on and UH and talk
Speaker 1: about followers and risers as well as a summer storyline
Speaker 1: to watch. So let's start with the positive. Joseph euro
Speaker 1: Upe first, who's your big riser of the year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is one where I don't know that I'd
Speaker 5: say I'm eating Crow. But my biggest, the player I'm
Speaker 5: most impressed with is Minwoo Lee this year. And there
Speaker 5: are a lot of options we could go with this nomination.
Speaker 3: But a year ago.
Speaker 5: Minwu Lee was ranked twenty fifth in the world and
Speaker 5: now he's thirty first in the world. But he is
Speaker 5: a much better golfer today than he was a year ago.
Speaker 5: I referred to him as a ball speed fraud last
Speaker 5: year at the PGA, and this year he himself he
Speaker 5: referred to his twenty five version of himself, essentially as
Speaker 5: a ball speed fraud and leading into Houston, he said,
Speaker 5: more or less, he used to bash it around, get
Speaker 5: his butt kicked at the signature events, and he could
Speaker 5: play well at the non signature events, like he rose
Speaker 5: in the owgr because he won in Houston, which, all
Speaker 5: due respect to Memorial Park isn't always the best litmus
Speaker 5: test for how complete of a game a player has
Speaker 5: and the results this year of min Wu's evolution, he said,
Speaker 5: he's slowed down his swing, He's worked on his iron play.
Speaker 5: It is showing in signature events or call it big events.
Speaker 5: I said, signature events, majors and the players. Last year
Speaker 5: he had two top twenties in thirteen of those starts,
Speaker 5: and it was a twentieth and a seventeenth. This year,
Speaker 5: through three of those big events, he has sorry. Through
Speaker 5: six of those big events, he has three top twenties,
Speaker 5: a runner up at Pebble, a couple other good finishes.
Speaker 5: Min wus just a much better player. He's hitting it
Speaker 5: way more accurately off the tee, much improved iron play.
Speaker 5: He's gone from one hundred and sixtieth strokes gained approach
Speaker 5: to fiftieth now he's a positive gainer, and off the
Speaker 5: t he's gone from one hundred and fifth to eleventh,
Speaker 5: totally different level of ball striker. Has always had great
Speaker 5: short game in putting, and I think, finally this guy
Speaker 5: is a threat to win big golf tournament. So I'm
Speaker 5: wildly impressed at Minwu, the awareness that he needed to
Speaker 5: change his game, the work he's put in. I think
Speaker 5: we have a serious golfer who could win a big
Speaker 5: tournament or a major over the next twenty four months.
Speaker 3: A major, yeah, he could.
Speaker 5: I mean, he wouldn't be my first five to eight names,
Speaker 5: but if I saw him at the top, contending one
Speaker 5: of the last two groups on Sunday, that wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker 5: In a year ago, that would have been shocking.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think I talked to have been a little bit
Speaker 2: this year earlier about Scotty, and one of the things
Speaker 2: that we referenced was that players where he had to
Speaker 2: lead on Sunday going in. You know, he and Scotty
Speaker 2: were in the final group, and he kind of essentially
Speaker 2: confirmed exactly what you were talking about, Joseph Isse. He
Speaker 2: just didn't really know where to miss, where to how
Speaker 2: to play finesse shots, it kind of all came unglued
Speaker 2: on I think the fourth hole there where he made
Speaker 2: triple because he just couldn't really hit a half wedge
Speaker 2: into that green and take the spin off of it.
Speaker 2: And you know, he said that that experience taught him
Speaker 2: a lot, but it took a while for it to
Speaker 2: kind of make sense for him right to learn how
Speaker 2: to playoff speed shots. And I think that that self
Speaker 2: awareness is always cool when you see that in an athlete,
Speaker 2: where they are willing to say, like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I actually did not have it figured out and my
Speaker 2: talent was not enough to take me as far as
Speaker 2: I wanted to go. And I do think that that
Speaker 2: is represents a really cool evolution in mose game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, listen, like all these all the
Speaker 1: young players come out on tour with flaws in their game,
Speaker 1: and I think, Joseph and you hit on something really
Speaker 1: valuable here. I think the difference between really talented players
Speaker 1: that end up with you know, ten plus year careers
Speaker 1: versus those that you know, maybe on tour for seven
Speaker 1: to ten are the players that are able to you know,
Speaker 1: look at their game, understand that I have weaknesses, and
Speaker 1: approach improving them in the right in the in the
Speaker 1: right manner, not necessarily the right manner, but who can
Speaker 1: approach improving them without ruining the other aspects of their
Speaker 1: game without losing the DNA of themselves as a golfer.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's the impressive thing about I
Speaker 1: think when players go to the lab and figure it out,
Speaker 1: is like, Okay, you know, min Wu still finished T
Speaker 1: three at Houston this year, Like he can still go
Speaker 1: out and play bomb and gouch the style of golf
Speaker 1: that that he's thrived at. But then you look at
Speaker 1: the you know, you look at his I think he
Speaker 1: finished third at at Pebble Beach, second at Pebble Beach,
Speaker 1: and that's just that's not really a bomb and go
Speaker 1: find it golf course like it's small greens, like you
Speaker 1: have to be pretty precise with iron shots, lots of
Speaker 1: uneven lies, like that is a testament to the variety,
Speaker 1: you know, And then he goes and plays well Arnold Palmer,
Speaker 1: a golf course that you know is just hard, flat
Speaker 1: out hard, and that was really firm, it was really
Speaker 1: fast that week. And I just think that listen, like
Speaker 1: he didn't have the masters that I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people expected him to have, but the arrow was
Speaker 1: pointing up. And I love the call out of a
Speaker 1: player who's actually dropped in O WGR over the last year,
Speaker 1: but is showing that he's a more well rounded player
Speaker 1: because I think, like, you know, a lot of people
Speaker 1: would look at you know, Rory McElroy and say, oh,
Speaker 1: he had some down years, but in there was a
Speaker 1: lot of progression, you know, in that major drought, there
Speaker 1: was a ton of game progression that's led him to
Speaker 1: where he is now. And it's you know, golf isn't
Speaker 1: always this like, you know, straight road to improvement, Like
Speaker 1: there's windingness and sometimes you know, you might take a
Speaker 1: little dip. But yeah, I love Minweu. He was on
Speaker 1: my short list of players that I was considering for
Speaker 1: them and I really, you know, it would be great
Speaker 1: if he if he wants a big tournament.
Speaker 5: The major championships are still the blind spot you called
Speaker 5: out Augusta. Augusta was a really bad start for Min
Speaker 5: Wu and to date he has one top ten in
Speaker 5: a major. He finished t. Five in the twenty twenty
Speaker 5: three US Open. Other than that, he's missed his last
Speaker 5: four cuts in majors. So I think over the next
Speaker 5: three major starts, We're going to find out how real
Speaker 5: some of that evolution is. And I would not I
Speaker 5: wouldn't be skeptical of what he's going to do. I
Speaker 5: think we could see at least one contention in a
Speaker 5: major over the next three I think would be a
Speaker 5: reasonable expectation for mine.
Speaker 1: All right, KVV, who's your guy?
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with the Fields here.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm probably more into the fields than Joseph,
Speaker 2: and I always think I make good good parallel our
Speaker 2: points on the plotting here is I'm a fields emotions guy,
Speaker 2: justps more analytics dated guy. So I'm gonna go with
Speaker 2: Gary Woodland. And I think, like this is just such
Speaker 2: a cool story, you know, if you if you look back,
Speaker 2: it was March ninth when he sort of sat down
Speaker 2: with Rex Hoger the Golf Channel and talked about, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not okay and it's okay to not be okay,
Speaker 2: and I'm suffering from this this stuff. I'm feeling often
Speaker 2: overwhelmed and carrying around this burden is enormous to me.
Speaker 2: I just I don't really know how to deal with it.
Speaker 2: I feel this anxiety all the time about you know,
Speaker 2: people looking at me and wondering that, you know, the
Speaker 2: health scares that I've been through, and just the act
Speaker 2: of talking about that managed to sort of free Gary
Speaker 2: up to just be a better golfer.
Speaker 4: And what a kind of a cool thing that is.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, you know, obviously one in Houston, but
Speaker 2: just the results in general have been better. You know,
Speaker 2: he's he's already he's started off again at the Durral
Speaker 2: this week. He's in the top ten after the first round.
Speaker 2: Who knows sort of how that'll play out, but it's
Speaker 2: a great course for him. It was the top ten
Speaker 2: at the Heritage. I mean, you know, didn't play great obviously,
Speaker 2: like at the Masters, but was good enough. You know,
Speaker 2: was shot in sixty six and the last day he
Speaker 2: played pretty well at the vaalas Bar, which was sort
Speaker 2: of the next tournament after he'd kind of revealed like
Speaker 2: what was going on and everything. I just think it
Speaker 2: makes for a really cool story of someone who kind
Speaker 2: of felt this burden and was willing to sort of
Speaker 2: open up with the hope that some people had you know,
Speaker 2: would be going through similar things. And I literally got
Speaker 2: like just by like retweeting a couple of stories a
Speaker 2: couple people message me and be like, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: going through something similar with this, and I just want
Speaker 2: you to know that, like Gary, talking about this really
Speaker 2: did mean a lot to me, and I hope you
Speaker 2: guys will keep, you know, talking about this and keep
Speaker 2: the awareness out there.
Speaker 4: I think that that's just a cool thing.
Speaker 2: And Gary's he was in the you know, I think
Speaker 2: he was one hundred and thirtieth in the world last
Speaker 2: year and now he's in the top fifty.
Speaker 4: You know, he's probably going to keep climbing.
Speaker 2: Just with kind of more steady play it strokes gained
Speaker 2: across the board, he's better. I mean, he's a top
Speaker 2: thirty player in the world right now. I would say
Speaker 2: he's I think he's thirtieth right now. And it strikes
Speaker 2: gained on the PG Tour, so you know, you could
Speaker 2: put him, you know, top forty somewhere about fifteen in
Speaker 2: the world kind of when the as the season plays out.
Speaker 2: It's just a great story and I just I love
Speaker 2: that some the simple thing like that, not a simple
Speaker 2: thing obviously, but a complicated thing like that was able
Speaker 2: to help him play better golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I mean this is just a life life lesson,
Speaker 1: right and I think you could you could look at
Speaker 1: some of the other things going on in the sport.
Speaker 1: You could look at you know, Tiger Woods's struggles and
Speaker 1: like Gary, Gary Woodland's like a role model here in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, just showing people, whether whether you're
Speaker 1: a golfer, whether you're just a regular Joe like me
Speaker 1: or you or Joseph talking about something and getting a
Speaker 1: huge problem off your chest, like just generally it usually
Speaker 1: doesn't yield bad results, you know, but we as humans
Speaker 1: fear like being putting ourselves out there, the insecurities, and
Speaker 1: I think for Gary it's it's illuminating with like the
Speaker 1: power of what you know, being upfront and and comfortable
Speaker 1: does for your golf game. I mean, golf is such
Speaker 1: a mental sport that you know, being being open I
Speaker 1: think as a person helps your golf game. And I
Speaker 1: you know, I think like when we look at the tour,
Speaker 1: so many people are guarded with the media, with with
Speaker 1: just speaking about what they're going through. And I think
Speaker 1: there's something about like the sport where golfers are drilled
Speaker 1: to be you know, keep keeping even keel, don't show emotion,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I get that inside the ropes, but if
Speaker 1: you're struggling, making people aware that you're struggling is only
Speaker 1: going to help your golf game. I think because it
Speaker 1: allows you to play more freely, It allows you to
Speaker 1: be yourself more and the moment you let people in.
Speaker 1: And I think Gary is a great testament to this.
Speaker 1: Like Gary's gotten so much support since he did the
Speaker 1: interview with Rex. I mean, he's you know, I think
Speaker 1: he was like people like Gary Woodland before. Now he
Speaker 1: is a fan favorite. And I think people being aware
Speaker 1: of the things that he's going through is it's not
Speaker 1: going to hurt him inside the ropes. Ever, it's gonna
Speaker 1: yield people being just more aware, like okay, like maybe
Speaker 1: we should give him more space, you know, being just
Speaker 1: more open to that. And whether it's a dozen people
Speaker 1: at a tournament that actually think that through it is, uh,
Speaker 1: it's yeah. I just I can't see a downside to
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 3: I first him around, go ahead.
Speaker 4: I just was gonna say one little anecdote.
Speaker 2: But like I when he came back first from the
Speaker 2: can't the Legion, the brain surgery stuff, I just happened
Speaker 2: to be walking past him on like a Monday at
Speaker 2: Riviera and I was he we kind of made eye
Speaker 2: contact and I was like, hey, Gary, it's just great
Speaker 2: to see you back out here, and he kind of
Speaker 2: like almost got teared up. He was just like, hey, thanks,
Speaker 2: Like we don't know each other, but it was just
Speaker 2: like a simple act of somebody saying like, hey, we
Speaker 2: really it's great to see you back just made him
Speaker 2: kind of emotional.
Speaker 4: It made me kind of want to root for him
Speaker 4: that much more.
Speaker 5: I follow him around a decent amount of the Masters
Speaker 5: because he was paired with Scotti the first couple of days,
Speaker 5: and like I'm seventeen, he hit a drive a mile right,
Speaker 5: as Gary Woodland is prone to do from time to time,
Speaker 5: so they had to lower the ropes and like he
Speaker 5: had to go out to the middle of the fifteen
Speaker 5: fairway and hit the shot, and he is scanning around,
Speaker 5: like making sure that people aren't all around him. He's
Speaker 5: talked about that that he feels like there's people behind
Speaker 5: him at all times. To watch his eyes scan around
Speaker 5: like that and also play high level golf win in
Speaker 5: Houston when he is dealing with that, I think there's
Speaker 5: a tremendous amount of mental toughness that's required from Gary
Speaker 5: Woodland not to state the obvious, but playing championship golf
Speaker 5: is stressful enough. Being genuinely terrified about having people behind
Speaker 5: you as you're trying to hit shots is a whole
Speaker 5: different level of commitment that's required. And I don't know
Speaker 5: what you, guys, if your experience has been the same
Speaker 5: as mine, but I feel like athletes have taken a
Speaker 5: much different approach, and specifically golfers and being more open
Speaker 5: over the last five to ten years than twenty twenty
Speaker 5: five years ago, even with things like have you thought
Speaker 5: about winning this major? And I feel like we have
Speaker 5: more guys now who are like, yes, I've thought about it,
Speaker 5: like it would be amazing, versus I feel like there
Speaker 5: was just a lot more deflection in previous decades. I
Speaker 5: don't know if you have found that experience to be true.
Speaker 5: I think Jordan's Speed's been a great example of that.
Speaker 5: He's been very open with his struggles with his golf game,
Speaker 5: not his mental game, but just over the last five years,
Speaker 5: I think Jordan's kind of let people in on, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm going through it like I'm trying to figure it out,
Speaker 5: and a lot of other golfers probably historically would deflect
Speaker 5: in that position and I think it does tie in
Speaker 5: with Gary Woodland being more open with his mental health
Speaker 5: and how he struggled to handle PTSD, And there's probably
Speaker 5: a pretty powerful lesson in there that you play better
Speaker 5: golf when you're comfortable, as Andy you touched on. So
Speaker 5: I don't know if you guys think that's true, but
Speaker 5: that's something that's been rummaging around in my head the
Speaker 5: last like five years. It feels like golfers talk about
Speaker 5: winning majors differently than they used to, and I think
Speaker 5: it can only help you.
Speaker 2: I think that Andy brought up Tiger and sort of
Speaker 2: the mental health stuff. You know, we talk a lot
Speaker 2: about the influence that Tiger had on a generation of golfers, so.
Speaker 4: They all wanted to be like him.
Speaker 2: They were all willing to start working out like him.
Speaker 2: I don't know that we have ever really talked a
Speaker 2: lot about the influence that Tiger had on a lot
Speaker 2: of people in dealing with the media and treating it
Speaker 2: sort of like it was combat. And you know, I
Speaker 2: covered Michael Phelps for a long time when he was
Speaker 2: sort of at the height of his powers, and everything
Speaker 2: that he did was sort of from the Tiger playbook
Speaker 2: of trying to deflect, trying not to sort of say
Speaker 2: anything ever controversial, trying to be super boring. And I
Speaker 2: think as Tiger kind of continues to fade a little
Speaker 2: bit from the scene, you see more people who were
Speaker 2: kind of like, I don't know, I just find that
Speaker 2: sort of whole cloak and dagger routine to be a
Speaker 2: little bit exhausting, and they're willing to sort of give
Speaker 2: you more. I mean, We've been having this debate a
Speaker 2: little bit recently on Twitter about like, is Scotty Scheffler,
Speaker 2: like how he deals with the media, is that problematic
Speaker 2: at all? And I've always been of the sort of
Speaker 2: belief that on a day to day basis, like Scotty's
Speaker 2: probably worse at dealing with the media, with Tiger had
Speaker 2: sort of a bland politeness that he could sort of
Speaker 2: deal with the questions day to day. He understood that.
Speaker 2: I mean, you think, I think Tiger only skipped media
Speaker 2: like three times in you know, twenty years or something ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And Scotty can be kind of petulant and kind of
Speaker 2: angry when you know it, gets asked questions that are
Speaker 2: off topic or leading him in a certain direction. But
Speaker 2: in like press conferences, and away from the sort of
Speaker 2: day to day kind of back and forth. Scotty's way,
Speaker 2: way better than Tiger ever was about opening up and
Speaker 2: like giving you insight into here's what I think about
Speaker 2: this course, here's why I hit this shot, Here's what
Speaker 2: I think about, you know, the kind of up and
Speaker 2: downs of being a professional golfer. And I find that
Speaker 2: to be kind of really valuable. I'm I think people
Speaker 2: kind of don't appreciate that about Scotty, and that gets
Speaker 2: into a little bit of what you're saying.
Speaker 4: Joseph is like.
Speaker 2: He's willing to give you a lot and willing to
Speaker 2: share personal anecdotes about struggles with himself that Tiger never would,
Speaker 2: and I think that that is a credit to him
Speaker 2: and the blessing to all of us who are just
Speaker 2: trying to kind of understand these people better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. I I think allowing people a lens
Speaker 1: and it's a double edged sword though, because then you know,
Speaker 1: if you you know, and I'm talking I duck and
Speaker 1: I was both sides of your mouth. But like you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you fail, people might point to you
Speaker 1: being open as a weakness, which, you know what it
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of like people that we're getting
Speaker 1: on Rory McElroy for changing his opinion about a complex
Speaker 1: subject and over the course of a couple of years, like, okay,
Speaker 1: you got me. You know, I changed my opinion on something.
Speaker 1: But like I do, you know, it's just a tricky aspect.
Speaker 1: Like I think Tiger has influenced the sport in so
Speaker 1: many ways of his mannerisms, his approach to fitness, his
Speaker 1: approach to you know, media, his schedule making like he
Speaker 1: really changed the sport in a lot of ways. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think it is probably he revolutionized the
Speaker 1: high performance era and brought in ushered in the high
Speaker 1: performance era of the PGA Tour. Whether that era is
Speaker 1: more compelling is a fascinating question because before before Tiger,
Speaker 1: you had a lot more, I would say, characters who
Speaker 1: were willing to just chop it up. And obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: you look, you just watched nineteen ninety six Masters or
Speaker 1: ninety five Masters versus you know, the twenty twenty five Masters.
Speaker 1: You can see the level of athletic you know, kind
Speaker 1: of attention to the gym that has has been ushered
Speaker 1: in in the last you know, thirty years.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's simple to me.
Speaker 5: The lesson from Gary is that if you're you are
Speaker 5: playing better golf if you're being yourself, and it resonated
Speaker 5: with me when I talked to Patrick Rogers earlier in
Speaker 5: the year, and I really wanted to ask him what
Speaker 5: advice he would give to some of the best amateur
Speaker 5: golfers in the world coming out because Rogers, you could
Speaker 5: look at his career a couple different ways, but I
Speaker 5: think the prevailing narrative is one of the best college
Speaker 5: golfers of the twenty first century and his career hasn't panned.
Speaker 3: Out the way that he would have hoped.
Speaker 5: That might be a little harsh, but I think it's
Speaker 5: pretty fair, and he's a really smart, mindful guy. So
Speaker 5: I was curious what his perspective was, and basically what
Speaker 5: he said is when he came out on tour, he
Speaker 5: was trying to emulate other golfers and seeing, oh, like
Speaker 5: Rory does this, Dustin Johnson does this, I'm not as
Speaker 5: good at that. I need to get better in this area.
Speaker 5: And his biggest revelation over the last ten years is
Speaker 5: that by understanding your golf DNA, to use a term
Speaker 5: that you invoked, Andy, that is how you play your
Speaker 5: best golf and remove expectations. And I think there's something
Speaker 5: connected to Gary Woodland talking about PTSD that if you're
Speaker 5: trying to be somebody else, you're not gonna play your
Speaker 5: best golf. And it's a difficult headspace I'm sure for
Speaker 5: young amateur golfers to get into when they turn pro.
Speaker 5: But I feel like there's a profound lesson there, not
Speaker 5: just from Gary, but from anecdotally other golfers. It's Patrick Rogers,
Speaker 5: it can be speed, it can be whoever. That playing
Speaker 5: any kind of character on the golf course is not
Speaker 5: going to bring out your best golf.
Speaker 1: Well, it's anything and life. Being yourself is always going
Speaker 1: to yield the best results in the long run, right
Speaker 1: you know? I Yeah, I think that that's one of
Speaker 1: the hardest things I learned, because when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you're always emulating other golfers, you're emulating pros, you're emulating
Speaker 1: the best junior in the area. But the hard lesson
Speaker 1: you eventually learn, and I feel like you generally like
Speaker 1: for me, I learned it in my mid to late twenties,
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, I just have to be me and
Speaker 1: I have to play my way. You have to find
Speaker 1: people that communicate to you and manners like everybody talks about,
Speaker 1: oh he's a great coach, he's a great caddy. The
Speaker 1: great coaches and the great caddies are the ones that
Speaker 1: communicate best with with their with their subject you know,
Speaker 1: I'll just use I know myself better, you know than
Speaker 1: any any but any golfer. But like if I went
Speaker 1: to you know, you know, Mark Blackburn's a genius and
Speaker 1: he'll be you know, he's a subjective of one of
Speaker 1: one of my one of my picks for for this segment,
Speaker 1: but like you know, he he gives people tons of information.
Speaker 1: And like the way I like to think about my
Speaker 1: golf swing is like simple movements, Like I so I
Speaker 1: can remember how it feels to turn my shoulder a
Speaker 1: certain way. But like if you told me my ground
Speaker 1: force metrics are x y z and you need your
Speaker 1: only turn x degrees and you need to be at
Speaker 1: this like I'm I'm lost. That's not going to work
Speaker 1: for me. Like it's funny, and you know, you think
Speaker 1: about like I had the most success playing golf when
Speaker 1: I had you know, when I had a caddy, my cat.
Speaker 1: My favorite person to caddy for me is my cousin
Speaker 1: who you know, played high level baseball. He was a
Speaker 1: pitcher and coaches baseball. And to me what worked was
Speaker 1: like he played a sport at a high level, where
Speaker 1: like if you come and do a mound visit somebody,
Speaker 1: you're not going to go to the picture and say, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: throw more strikes. It's like, no shit, that's what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do. And it's the same regard is like
Speaker 1: you can't you can't tell a golfer like you know
Speaker 1: you need to hit better shots. It's like, oh, do
Speaker 1: you think I'm trying to hit the ball over here
Speaker 1: and over here? Like what you need is to me,
Speaker 1: what I found with that was like somebody that talked
Speaker 1: to me the right way, got me in the right mindset,
Speaker 1: knew when to be light and joke, knew when to
Speaker 1: talk about you know, the bears, but also new like
Speaker 1: the moments that we needed to lock in and focus
Speaker 1: on accomplishing the shot. So like, the key to I
Speaker 1: think playing your best golf at the highest level if possible,
Speaker 1: is surrounding yourself with people that allow you to be
Speaker 1: yourself in all aspects, allow you to be comfortable. And
Speaker 1: this is where like I think it's so humorous to
Speaker 1: me the you know, up until the Masters last year,
Speaker 1: the Harry Diamond slander about oh Rory needs to change
Speaker 1: his caddy to you know, like imagine what he would
Speaker 1: have done. And Bones has become a friend of mine
Speaker 1: in the golf world, imagine if he had Bones. Like
Speaker 1: Phil Mickelson and Rory's personalities are polar opposites. You don't say,
Speaker 1: what Rory needs from his caddy is complet letely different
Speaker 1: than what Bones needs from his caddy. You look at
Speaker 1: Rory does like a lot of the work on the
Speaker 1: golf course himself. That tells me what Rory wants from
Speaker 1: his caddy is just somebody to say the right thing
Speaker 1: at the right time. And you go to it at
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five Masters, and you
Speaker 1: know who said the right thing at the absolute right
Speaker 1: time was Harry Diamond walking to scoring after. You know,
Speaker 1: Rory probably felt like he like gave away the green jacket.
Speaker 1: He says, we would have taken this on it. That
Speaker 1: is that is getting a team to a place where
Speaker 1: you are able to be yourself and you you have
Speaker 1: the people around you, you know you can say the
Speaker 1: same thing about Scotty Shuffler and Ted Scott, Like, look
Speaker 1: at what happened with that is just like a perfect
Speaker 1: matchup where Scotty and Ted share a you know, a
Speaker 1: passion for you know, religion and they're able to they
Speaker 1: believe like their backstop of their beliefs are the same,
Speaker 1: you know, and that provides them like this ability. Like
Speaker 1: if you put an atheist on Scotty's bag, it probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't work well.
Speaker 5: A lot of content ideas coming out of this Andy
Speaker 5: getting a less than the Blackburn Scotty play a hole
Speaker 5: with Nathan atheist on the bag?
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely, I would.
Speaker 2: It would be interesting to think about that in terms
Speaker 2: of who we don't I don't think we know enough
Speaker 2: about caddy personalities to be like who's a bad fit currently?
Speaker 2: But that is a sort of a fascinating thing thing.
Speaker 2: And you understand why players why caddies are fireable, right
Speaker 2: is because you have to find someone who fits with you.
Speaker 5: A great example, if we're gonna talk caddies, apparently the
Speaker 5: Paulta Sory cam Jung experiment did not go super well
Speaker 5: and another player or another caddy that's I think very
Speaker 5: technical works for a lot of guys. VJ liked that
Speaker 5: to sorry, knew his golf swing really well. They ended
Speaker 5: up working together. I think Web Simpson leaned on Paul
Speaker 5: for a lot of swing advice. Now Cam Young has
Speaker 5: a friend on the bag Kyle, who's a really good player,
Speaker 5: reads the greens for him. And you can't attribute all
Speaker 5: of Cam's success to the caddy change. I think becoming
Speaker 5: a good putter is a much bigger part of the
Speaker 5: story there. But clearly having Kyle on the bag has
Speaker 5: been a huge net benefit. So Andy, if you're looking
Speaker 5: for supporting evidence of that theory, which doesn't feel like
Speaker 5: you need it, it's I think it's pretty established, pretty
Speaker 5: sound theory.
Speaker 3: But that would be a really good example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like we get this. The friend thing
Speaker 1: is comfort right. I mean, like Cam Young, he's a
Speaker 1: pretty quiet guy, but I imagine like his friends, if
Speaker 1: you if you, you know, like a lot of introverts
Speaker 1: are really extroverted with people that they're comfortable with, and
Speaker 1: they get it. And I think, like you just think
Speaker 1: about like to story two stories, a personality he likes
Speaker 1: to be out there, you know, I could see they're
Speaker 1: generationally like so far apart too, like what are they
Speaker 1: going to talk about inside the ropes? And if you
Speaker 1: don't want to talk about the golf swing, what are
Speaker 1: you going to talk about? So I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I was the matchup though, like, and here's my biggest riser,
Speaker 1: and this makes a ton of sense. Matt Fitzpatrick, probably
Speaker 1: the most data centric golfer in the world, starts working
Speaker 1: with the most data centric golf golf coach in the world,
Speaker 1: and Mark Blackburn or one of them, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know who's the most data centric. It's
Speaker 1: not my realm of the realm of the world, but
Speaker 1: like an extraordinarily data centric coach. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, Joseph, your take is aging like fine wine here.
Speaker 1: You know, years ago on this podcast you said I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if Matt Fitzpatrick was the best player
Speaker 1: in the world as some point in his career, and
Speaker 1: right now he might be the best player in the world.
Speaker 1: He has been basically over the last year, absolutely extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I think when he you know, maybe not fully to
Speaker 1: the Scotty level yet, but he's got four wins if
Speaker 1: you count the Zurich, which I don't know whether you
Speaker 1: want to count it or not. So he's got three wins,
Speaker 1: three individual wins. He obviously had the really close runner
Speaker 1: up at the Players where, you know, basically so closely
Speaker 1: he had come down to the seventy second hole to
Speaker 1: win that. He's got fourteen top tens in the calendar year.
Speaker 1: Just an extraordinary run of golf really since since last
Speaker 1: year's Masters, hasn't missed a cut, you know, one over
Speaker 1: Rory McElroy in the in the DP you know, world
Speaker 1: final there. But Matt Fitzpatrick's been just an absolute revelation
Speaker 1: over the last year. And what I find amazing about
Speaker 1: it was like the surge has come right after he
Speaker 1: reached basically probably the bottom rock bottom of his professional career,
Speaker 1: and now his he's at basically the pinnacle. This is,
Speaker 1: without a doubt, the best sustained golf that he's played
Speaker 1: in his career.
Speaker 5: Kevin, I know you've got matth Fitzpatrick takes. You were
Speaker 5: pretty high on him a couple months ago, so why
Speaker 5: don't you go ahead.
Speaker 2: I just think I'm just really impressed with you know,
Speaker 2: It's funny. There was the thing going around Twitter recently
Speaker 2: he was like, oh, look at Matt Fitzpatrick's swing, and
Speaker 2: he used to be so much more prettier, And why
Speaker 2: couldn't we stay well, you know why in part because
Speaker 2: like that swing wouldn't be able to compete on tour,
Speaker 2: right And you know that the swing was aesthetically beautiful,
Speaker 2: but you need speed and power to compete on the
Speaker 2: tour at the level that you want to compete out
Speaker 2: if you're past fitz Patrick. And he did that. He changed,
Speaker 2: he made his swing faster and a little more rotational,
Speaker 2: and now like, even though he's really not a physically
Speaker 2: imposing person in any way, shape or for like, he
Speaker 2: is a really good driver of the golf ball. He
Speaker 2: doesn't hit the ball as high with his irons as
Speaker 2: some other people to do, but he's able to make
Speaker 2: it work. I you know, the crosshanded shipping thing still
Speaker 2: to me, like logically, I can't quite grasp it. I
Speaker 2: just tried it the other day just to sort of see,
Speaker 2: and it felt like holding a snake in my hands.
Speaker 2: But it's awesome to watch him like turn that from
Speaker 2: being a liability into sort of a you know, at
Speaker 2: least a break even proposition or a strength. I just
Speaker 2: I don't I was expecting a little bit more the
Speaker 2: Masters this year, but you know what, like fourteen top tens.
Speaker 2: As he was pointed out, Andy, my my fall or.
Speaker 2: That almost reaffirms me in some ways I feel better
Speaker 2: about naming this person a fall or coming up. But
Speaker 2: because that's like, that's an awesome sort of consistency that
Speaker 2: a lot of players do not have. I just I
Speaker 2: don't know. He's a good interview. He's someone who's really
Speaker 2: willing to give you good quotes. And then maybe that
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if you're just a fan of the game
Speaker 2: or whatever, but it's someone in an in my position
Speaker 2: like who's trying to find interesting things about players, Like
Speaker 2: I love talking to fits.
Speaker 4: I love listening to him give interviews.
Speaker 5: The Fitzpatrick, there's a lot of there's a lot to
Speaker 5: digest with Fitzpatrick. I think one, I've had a big
Speaker 5: mindset shift in the last five eight years about what
Speaker 5: makes a great prospect. And I think back again five
Speaker 5: eight years ago when somebody came out and showed a
Speaker 5: ton of speed but weren't super polished in other areas.
Speaker 5: To me, that was attractive, like, Okay, well there's a
Speaker 5: lot of upside there, and if they can develop the
Speaker 5: other parts of their game, then they're going to be
Speaker 5: a great player and they'll have the speed, but that
Speaker 5: is so much easier said than done, and it is
Speaker 5: really hard to have both speed and be a great
Speaker 5: iron player. I think Gary Woodland not to go back
Speaker 5: to him, but that's another's player who actually has done
Speaker 5: both of those things, and it's an interesting career to
Speaker 5: take in. Because he's US Open champion, you could say
Speaker 5: he's one of the less one of the lower quality
Speaker 5: major champions of the last ten years. But the other
Speaker 5: side of it is like Cary Woodlon's been a really
Speaker 5: good player for fifteen to eighteen years. But with Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 5: that's the sort of the other model, and it's maybe
Speaker 5: he doesn't have a ton of speed when he comes out,
Speaker 5: but he's very polished in his other areas. And if
Speaker 5: that player can put on a little bit of speed
Speaker 5: like then they have, that actually might be the more
Speaker 5: sustainable path to being a great player. And I think
Speaker 5: we saw something similar with Xander. He's dealt with a
Speaker 5: little bit of injury that you could chalk up to
Speaker 5: some of the speed increase if you wanted to, So
Speaker 5: that would be the counter argument, but Xander was had
Speaker 5: some speed, but him taking his speed to another level
Speaker 5: over the past couple of years is what got him
Speaker 5: multiple major championships. I think Matt Fitzpatrick is a great
Speaker 5: example that if you are very polished and then you
Speaker 5: start to pick up some of the speed, you could
Speaker 5: be a world class player.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: Even even something like Patrick Reid kind of stands out
Speaker 5: to me too. He talked about he wasn't a great
Speaker 5: ball striker growing up, so that's made a short game
Speaker 5: really good. And then when the ball striking gets a
Speaker 5: little better, like you have the short game. So I
Speaker 5: think I've kind of inverted my model on what makes
Speaker 5: a great prospect, and Mat Fitzpatrick's played a big role
Speaker 5: in that.
Speaker 2: Well, it just speaks to like, well, we'll pinge and
Speaker 2: pod eater become like as good as Metphis Patrick, Like
Speaker 2: right now, I would say very unlikely.
Speaker 4: Right and then.
Speaker 2: Because at fits Patrick was a was a get the
Speaker 2: ball on the whole guy, and that's impossible to teach
Speaker 2: andy go aheads hard interrupted.
Speaker 1: It's all right, you know. I think if you go
Speaker 1: through the top ten in the world right now, it's
Speaker 1: actually a pretty compelling case for what you're talking about. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Rory Backroy Unicorn. But I think what everybody's based, like
Speaker 1: the way they think about pro golfers is is Okay,
Speaker 1: Tiger and Rory did it with sheer power, and yeah,
Speaker 1: she power is is vitally important. And I think like
Speaker 1: what's become clear is like you have to have requisite power.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to get the ball out
Speaker 1: there three hundred plus yards, Like you can't be a
Speaker 1: you know, bottom twenty five percent power player. And maybe
Speaker 1: that's changed a little bit, but you go down the list,
Speaker 1: it's like Scottie Scheffler just really good again the ball
Speaker 1: in the hole. If you watched him in college, yeah
Speaker 1: he he wasn't. I mean he barely made the Walker
Speaker 1: Cup team, but you know what he did was like
Speaker 1: it was an all round array of skills. Bonafide golfer
Speaker 1: Matth Fitzpatrick one of the youngest USAM champs of all time.
Speaker 1: Bonafide you like, score the golf ball. I think about
Speaker 1: this a little bit, like, you know, the guys you
Speaker 1: can kind of go like a couple of ways with
Speaker 1: like if you said NBA players just as a as
Speaker 1: a complex, you know, like Jalen Brunson fell the I
Speaker 1: think the second round Draymond Green because they were undersized,
Speaker 1: because they had deficiencies with athleticism, you know, fringe athletes.
Speaker 1: These guys fell to the second round. But like when
Speaker 1: you watch them play, it's like, oh, they know how
Speaker 1: to play the sport. And I think that's the thing
Speaker 1: that gets mixed up with all the track man and
Speaker 1: the love of data, is that with this love of data,
Speaker 1: we lose like who are actually golf savants because I
Speaker 1: think like to be a top tier and before I
Speaker 1: think Dustin Johnson is slash was a golf savant. Like
Speaker 1: people will laugh at his answers and press conferences, but
Speaker 1: I think he understood how to play golf like an
Speaker 1: exceptionally high level. But you think about like the players
Speaker 1: that get to the top of the game are I
Speaker 1: think are generally golf savants. And you think about Justin
Speaker 1: Rose's fifth in the world. That guy, he has evolved
Speaker 1: as a player from what he was early on so
Speaker 1: much and he continues to evolve in his late forties.
Speaker 1: And Cameron Young, I think goes more unto the Rory
Speaker 1: Tiger camp, but he won at a pretty prolific level
Speaker 1: at the college level. He's always won a lot. Tommy
Speaker 1: Fleetwood not a speed demon. Colin Marcowa not a speed demon,
Speaker 1: but excellent, excellent iron players, And like if you watch
Speaker 1: Tommy Fleetwood play on a challenging condition day, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this guy has such a deep bag of shots in
Speaker 1: his repertoire, like knockdown, low draw iron shots that you
Speaker 1: just don't see anybody else hitting. You know, Russell Henley,
Speaker 1: you go through this top ten, JJ Spawn's number ten,
Speaker 1: Russell Henley's number eight, not speed demons, guys that have
Speaker 1: just consistently gotten better at the sport. And I think,
Speaker 1: like a through line with their career, they were always
Speaker 1: really good golfers, you know, but you know, never going
Speaker 1: to be somebody that just jumps off the page because
Speaker 1: they're you know, their ball speed was exceptional. And then
Speaker 1: you already hit on Xander who's number nine, you know,
Speaker 1: you go through that top ten in the world. Like
Speaker 1: I think, like the only player you'd ever characterize as
Speaker 1: a speed demon would be Cameron Young, and I think
Speaker 1: that's an unfair characterization given his career.
Speaker 5: Just to give people a very high level, quick overview,
Speaker 5: like top ten in the world, Andy, you mentioned them,
Speaker 5: average ball speed in professional Golf's around one seventy five
Speaker 5: seventy six miles an hour. Almost every name that you
Speaker 5: mentioned is somewhere between like one seventy four and one eighty.
Speaker 5: Scotty's like one eighty. The two outliers would be Rory
Speaker 5: and cam Young off the top of my head, those
Speaker 5: are high one eighties guys, and Russell Henley's like one
Speaker 5: sixty seven. Most of the guys are like around one
Speaker 5: seventy five one seventies six. Like I do think there's
Speaker 5: a lesson in there that the one eighty eight's the
Speaker 5: one nineties, like Minwu Lea, he had to learn how
Speaker 5: to dial it back a little bit.
Speaker 3: So uh it is.
Speaker 5: It's an interesting moment in golf to look at what's
Speaker 5: working and consider that getting the ball in the hole,
Speaker 5: even if you're not a one eighty eight guy, if
Speaker 5: you are one eighty eight, you better have the other parts.
Speaker 1: If you go eleven through twenty, it's similar. Got her
Speaker 1: up would fall into the above one eighty McIntyre is
Speaker 1: you know why around what eighty mctire Sepstraca In the
Speaker 1: one seventies, Ludwig won a mid one eighties guy, but
Speaker 1: then Hideki one set high one seventies, Ben Griffin right
Speaker 1: around one eighty, right, yep, j T right around one's
Speaker 1: highest seventies right.
Speaker 3: Can't keep it on the planet so that one doesn't
Speaker 3: even matter.
Speaker 1: But yes, Harris English high seventies, Jacob Bridgman in the
Speaker 1: seventies five yep, yeah, and then you got John Ram
Speaker 1: which is so in that bucket the next ten. You
Speaker 1: have three guys above that are consistently above one eighty exactly.
Speaker 2: Can I just throw out an example too, Andy that
Speaker 2: this I read a lot about this when I was
Speaker 2: doing the Shuffler piece. But you know, Scott, Scotty Scheffler
Speaker 2: and Brad Dalky were like kind of like rivals when
Speaker 2: they were grown up in junior golf and kids like
Speaker 2: Dolkey was the person that everybody thought was going to
Speaker 2: be a dude. And this is the person now you see,
Speaker 2: like he's he can hit the ball one nineties ball speed, whatever,
Speaker 2: but he could not make it on tour. Even he
Speaker 2: has admitted, like, I never thought that Scotty was going
Speaker 2: to turn into this, But Scotty was just always really
Speaker 2: good at figuring out a way to get the ball
Speaker 2: around the course and get in the hole and it
Speaker 2: you know, when they were coming up, everyone was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: Dog is going to be the star. He's hitting it
Speaker 2: way past Scotty. It just didn't work out that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's you could go to
Speaker 1: any sport like this goes to you know, and I
Speaker 1: think there's some you know, it goes to the pitchers,
Speaker 1: Like drafting pitchers is fascinating. I was sitting at a
Speaker 1: game with a friend of mine who who played minor
Speaker 1: league baseball, was a pitcher, and you know, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, people fall in love with the numbers behind pitchers,
Speaker 1: like the you know, hey, but he what what something
Speaker 1: that he said stuck with me. As he said, like,
Speaker 1: if you watch major league pitching, the best pitchers all
Speaker 1: have a very unique motion. There's there's very rarely do
Speaker 1: they deliver the ball in a conventional manner. And what
Speaker 1: that does is it it just hides the ball a
Speaker 1: little bit longer and it comes out of their hand
Speaker 1: just it looks a little different. And that's he was like,
Speaker 1: that's one of the key traits to a major league pitcher.
Speaker 1: That and you know, I I think like the general
Speaker 1: person would look at that and and you know, like,
Speaker 1: what's funny to me a little bit about about the
Speaker 1: golf industry is like the people that that hand out
Speaker 1: you know, contracts, the agents are these are not like
Speaker 1: guys that almost like that. In some cases there are
Speaker 1: guys that almost made it, you know, but like in
Speaker 1: many cases it's just like a guy that likes golf.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a wide spectrum. But like that tip
Speaker 1: as someone I would just look and be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that guy throws a ninety eight. But like
Speaker 1: the idea of like oh if if you hide it
Speaker 1: for a split second longer, it is going. And there's
Speaker 1: so many things about golf that that go into it,
Speaker 1: like something I always marvel about with Bryson, And I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody everybody always talks about speed with Bryson.
Speaker 1: I think Bryson just like a great gamer, Like just
Speaker 1: the guy manufactures a score as well as anybody in
Speaker 1: the world in my opinion, and I don't there's no
Speaker 1: metric that shows that, but when you watch it in person,
Speaker 1: you I'm always marveling at it.
Speaker 3: The only pushback score is data. Like I think that the.
Speaker 5: Turning data into the enemy isn't appropriate when people say
Speaker 5: like people are too focused on data. I think there's
Speaker 5: a lot of people out there who are really intelligent
Speaker 5: about the way they look at data and aren't missing that.
Speaker 5: They're like, yeah, I act there is an element of
Speaker 5: they don't have all the traits, but they score well. Therefore,
Speaker 5: like there's something innate about that athlete. So I will
Speaker 5: push back a little bit on the data as the enemy.
Speaker 5: But I understand what you're saying is like speed is
Speaker 5: probably an over indexed data point. But when you touched
Speaker 5: on Bryson, can I get to my biggest follower, then
Speaker 5: we My biggest follower is Bryson this year. I think
Speaker 5: that for the Bryson winning twice on live, which especially
Speaker 5: in light of recent news, is going to have next
Speaker 5: to no meaning in the history of golf, and then
Speaker 5: going out and missing the cut at Augusta and going
Speaker 5: on multiple years now of being a very average iron player,
Speaker 5: you can't consider Bryson a top five player in the
Speaker 5: world right now. There's no argument for it. Scotty, Rory,
Speaker 5: cam Young, Fitzpatrick, John Ramsander Schaffley like that, that's six names.
Speaker 5: They're all way better than Bryson right now. And to
Speaker 5: be at a point in his career in the middle
Speaker 5: of his prime's thirty two, he's experimenting with new equipment
Speaker 5: was pretty seemed pretty immature in my opinion at the Masters,
Speaker 5: with a lot of his comments and scoffing at people
Speaker 5: for what he's doing with his irons, and I just
Speaker 5: I wonder how committed Bryson to Shambeau is to golf
Speaker 5: long term, and if getting back on top of the
Speaker 5: world is a high priority for Bryson because he's not
Speaker 5: there right now. If liv does fold up or if
Speaker 5: he doesn't re sign his contract, he's gonna have he's
Speaker 5: going to be looking for a place to play. I
Speaker 5: don't know if that'll be on the PGA Tour or not.
Speaker 5: And if he decides, hey, like, I'm going to focus
Speaker 5: on YouTube golf and building this business and just play
Speaker 5: the majors, which I don't know how realistic that is,
Speaker 5: but it's not a zero percent chance, then I think
Speaker 5: that would be really bad for his golf game. And
Speaker 5: to be talking about a guy like this who's a
Speaker 5: two time major champion, one of the best golfers of
Speaker 5: the last five years, his game feels as vulnerable as
Speaker 5: it's felt in a while. It's just disappointing to see
Speaker 5: that out of Bryson, I will also call out he
Speaker 5: got multiple votes. It was one of the highest vote
Speaker 5: earners in our anonymous pro Golf survey for most overrated
Speaker 5: golfer in the world, and those were from people who
Speaker 5: know ball. So I think there's a pretty good case
Speaker 5: that Bryson's overrated, not going to be a top five
Speaker 5: player in the world. Again, who knows. I mean, Andy,
Speaker 5: your point about him getting the ball in the hole,
Speaker 5: I hear you. But he does need to become a
Speaker 5: better iron player at some point, and since he did
Speaker 5: the speed training, he really hasn't been a great iron player.
Speaker 5: So I'm a little down on Bryson. He's probably Yeah,
Speaker 5: he's my biggest follower of twenty twenty six so far.
Speaker 2: I wonder how much the iron play is just lost
Speaker 2: in this like experiment of like, oh, I want to
Speaker 2: have these bulg face irons. I want to have you know,
Speaker 2: three D printing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like I want.
Speaker 1: To release his own irons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's my own irons. I'm gonna partner with LA Golf.
Speaker 2: They're gonna, you know, they're going to make the shafts
Speaker 2: that are perfect for me. Then LA Golf is essentially
Speaker 2: like goes bankrupt or goes out of business, and so
Speaker 2: where is he sourcing all this material? Like, is he
Speaker 2: actually have a three D printer in his house where
Speaker 2: he's like staying up late at night, you know, making
Speaker 2: the steel and cutting in the grooves some of this stuff.
Speaker 2: I've always felt that Bryson is, you know, posturing in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways about stuff that he he wants
Speaker 2: you to think that he understands, but he actually does not.
Speaker 2: I don't think that that's you know, I know that
Speaker 2: his like college teammates felt that way, that they thought,
Speaker 2: you know what, the guy's is just a really good golfer.
Speaker 2: The stuff about this being a scientist is kind of bs.
Speaker 2: So I just I think, you know what people always say, Oh,
Speaker 2: I think Bryson should go just try to play regular
Speaker 2: length irons.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 2: I won't go that far, because I think part of
Speaker 2: what makes him great is like his obsession with like
Speaker 2: proving that this method is the way to do it,
Speaker 2: and he probably works really fricking hard at it. But
Speaker 2: I just feel like you're right, Joseph. Ever, since he
Speaker 2: wanted to be the longest player in the game. You
Speaker 2: can look at the stats right there on day to golf,
Speaker 2: like he became a worse iron player like almost every year,
Speaker 2: and to the point where he was a really below
Speaker 2: average iron player for like twenty twenty two, he was
Speaker 2: legitimately bad. It kind of was like been This year
Speaker 2: has kind of been sort of similar. It's just like
Speaker 2: length can especially on live play these courses without a
Speaker 2: lot of trouble, you can just hammer it down there.
Speaker 2: And of course that's how you're gonna end up shooting
Speaker 2: fifty eight on a week setup. But it doesn't really
Speaker 2: work and a course where you have to be super
Speaker 2: precise with your irons, and the Masters showed that.
Speaker 1: I still listen, he won at a golf course I
Speaker 1: never would have expected him to win in Pinehurst, and
Speaker 1: it was a gritty win. Maybe I'm over index saying.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's just super hard to play
Speaker 1: only four tournaments that matter every year, which he's been doing.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if if he comes and if
Speaker 1: he picks off this week or next week at Aronomy
Speaker 1: like that's that wouldn't surprise me one bit. So I think, well, say,
Speaker 1: I you know, yeah, the Master's was a disappointment, but
Speaker 1: I'm not going to read too much into one one
Speaker 1: tournament result. I agree though, that the iron play needs
Speaker 1: to get better. I just don't think we see him
Speaker 1: playing enough meaningful golf to draw like huge conclusions.
Speaker 3: That's fair.
Speaker 5: I mean, I wouldn't be shocked to be wins either,
Speaker 5: Like I'm not a I don't want to say that
Speaker 5: this is the start of a decline. I don't know
Speaker 5: that we're going to see that. But it's not like
Speaker 5: the iron play is a real issue and he's missing
Speaker 5: shots left and there's some people who would get into
Speaker 5: the the specs of his irons and why that happens
Speaker 5: that it doesn't seem like rocket science, Like the left
Speaker 5: miss feels like that's part of the build that he
Speaker 5: has going right now. So I don't know what magically
Speaker 5: changes that.
Speaker 3: But I mean, Quail Holla.
Speaker 5: Last year, he probably I'm not gonna say he should
Speaker 5: have won, but he was right in the mix and
Speaker 5: started missing iron shots left in the water, like he
Speaker 5: had a really good chance to win that tournament kind
Speaker 5: of gave it away with his iron play. So it's
Speaker 5: not like he missed a bunch of putts which can
Speaker 5: flip overnight, like there is a real technical issue happening there.
Speaker 5: So I don't know if the standard of golf gets
Speaker 5: raised every year, and I don't think Bryson has really
Speaker 5: kept up with that.
Speaker 2: He's a full I mean, the sample size isn't great,
Speaker 2: but he's a full stroke worse in stricts gained this
Speaker 2: year than he was last year, so that's a pretty
Speaker 2: significant drop.
Speaker 5: But other other followers found Bryson out there. We're going
Speaker 5: all big names or where are we going?
Speaker 2: I gotta go with Victor Hoblind In part, I was
Speaker 2: with that's fine, in part that Victor Hoblin has become
Speaker 2: one of the worst drivers of the golf ball of
Speaker 2: a certainly of a player his caliber. I mean, like
Speaker 2: Jordan Speed's a better driver of the golf ball. Max
Speaker 2: Homa right now is a better driver of the golf
Speaker 2: ball than Victor Hobland. And we all know what kind
Speaker 2: of problems Max has had. They have similar rounds, so
Speaker 2: this is not like an unfair sample size. Victor just
Speaker 2: cannot keep the ball from spinning way right. He's only
Speaker 2: missed I looked it up this morning. He's only missed
Speaker 2: two balls in their left rough all year. It's just
Speaker 2: everything is spinning off the planet.
Speaker 4: Going right.
Speaker 2: I mean it's like twenty percent of his drives almost
Speaker 2: are missing in the right. And this used to be
Speaker 2: a person who thrived on taking away one side of
Speaker 2: the golf course just setting up in hitting it and
Speaker 2: down the left side and with a you know, a
Speaker 2: power sort of bullet cut and whatever that was has
Speaker 2: disappeared for him, and you know he has. You talked
Speaker 2: about Matt Fittpatrick having fourteen top tens. Victor Hobin has
Speaker 2: one top ten this year. It's just not happening right now.
Speaker 2: And this is all true with him being becoming actually
Speaker 2: a very good short game player. I mean, he's like
Speaker 2: the fortieth best person on tour in around the Greens
Speaker 2: now and that was a huge, huge hole in his
Speaker 2: game forever. And so we've solved the short game issue,
Speaker 2: but the driver is a mess, and it just I
Speaker 2: don't I don't know what to make of someone who's
Speaker 2: just constantly, constantly tinkering and really has the talent to
Speaker 2: be a top five player in the world, but continues
Speaker 2: to sort of slowly slide down THEWGR.
Speaker 1: It's a delicate balance between trying to get better. This
Speaker 1: goes to the Minwu lead discussion earlier about attacking your
Speaker 1: weaknesses and improving them, but not losing your DNA as
Speaker 1: a golfer. I mean, I think, like, what do you
Speaker 1: think about Victor Hoblin and he walked onto the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour as one of the premiere t degree ball striking,
Speaker 1: which would be driving and approach play players in the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, he walked onto the tour and was a
Speaker 1: top ten guy in those two stats, like all around,
Speaker 1: just machine of an approach and driving player. But he's
Speaker 1: so obsessed with improvement that I think, like, similarly to
Speaker 1: Jordan Speith, he's kind of lost the DNA of what
Speaker 1: made him great in the first place, Like he's messed
Speaker 1: with it and it's a little unrecognizable. Like the reality
Speaker 1: of Victor Hovlin was like and we saw it for
Speaker 1: such a short period of time when he ran through
Speaker 1: the FedEx Cup. He was just a good short game
Speaker 1: away from being one of the three to five best
Speaker 1: players in the world. And you could have just locked
Speaker 1: that in. If you don't touch anything, you just lock
Speaker 1: that in. But this game, it's the beauty of the
Speaker 1: game is is you can't cocker. So you as a
Speaker 1: player always are looking to and especially at the highest
Speaker 1: level of the game, the professional level, you're always looking like,
Speaker 1: how do I get a tenth of a shot better?
Speaker 1: And that pursuit of trying to do that can lead
Speaker 1: you down the complete wrong into the wrong places, And
Speaker 1: I mean it's what makes the sport so fickle.
Speaker 5: I think with Victor Kevin, you're hitting on the most.
Speaker 5: His driver is a problem right now. It's he's spraying it,
Speaker 5: and until he's not spraying it, Victor can't compete the iron.
Speaker 5: The around the green improvement, I'm not willing to call
Speaker 5: it solved. He has throughout his career hovered between being
Speaker 5: horrific around the greens and being slightly like being okay passing.
Speaker 5: I think it's a pretty limited twenty twenty six sample
Speaker 5: size to.
Speaker 3: Say that it's solved.
Speaker 5: It's better, But from talking to some short game people,
Speaker 5: like I do think there are potential limitations. And the
Speaker 5: way that Victor hoblin in some of his technique, some
Speaker 5: short game coach was getting into how like, yeah, he'll
Speaker 5: be able to pick the ball cleanly, but some of
Speaker 5: the ground first shots with that, like really forward shaft
Speaker 5: lean and how steep he is, like that might be
Speaker 5: a problem. So I think there's probably some un I
Speaker 5: know that that gets into disputes in the short game world,
Speaker 5: so don't want to walk into a short game war.
Speaker 4: But don't get Jomeo on your ass.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm not willing to call it solved yet. We
Speaker 3: will see.
Speaker 5: But the driver is the big, big question mark. So
Speaker 5: I think everyone should monitor Victor's driver and if he
Speaker 5: shows four to five good starts in a row where
Speaker 5: he's keeping it on the planet, and even this year
Speaker 5: his speed went down, I think he was trying to
Speaker 5: keep the ball in play a little bit and he'll
Speaker 5: dip down to like one seventy two and he's normally
Speaker 5: like one seventy six to one seventy eight. If that
Speaker 5: starts to come back up and he's hitting it straight,
Speaker 5: then he's immediately a real threat to start winning again
Speaker 5: because he's one of the best iron players in the world.
Speaker 5: He's always a top twenty iron player a year in
Speaker 5: and year out. Almost wanted Oakmont last year. I think
Speaker 5: that's a little forgotten with how sloppy that day ended
Speaker 5: up going. But Victor was right there, had a real
Speaker 5: chance to win going into the going into Sunday, So
Speaker 5: I think it's a hold it's not a it's not
Speaker 5: a buy, it's not a cell. It's a watch what
Speaker 5: happens with the driver. And as soon as the driver
Speaker 5: starts to turn around, I think you can start buying
Speaker 5: Victor again.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll move on to mine. It's another it's
Speaker 1: another European. He's played, He's been in contention a lot.
Speaker 1: Shane Lowry is my biggest faller. I don't I think
Speaker 1: that we've we've seen enough here and and why I
Speaker 1: put him as a faller. I don't think he's gonna
Speaker 1: win another individual golf tournament of substance.
Speaker 4: Forever.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that I I can't be moved off of
Speaker 1: the Honda mm hmm. And then the back to back
Speaker 1: Masters final rounds. I think that, yeah, he's gonna play
Speaker 1: great golf and he's gonna be He'll probably play on
Speaker 1: the next Ryder Cup team. And I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily care where his o WGR rank goes.
Speaker 1: But in terms of a why he fits in the faller,
Speaker 1: I'm removing him from the lexicon of ever being a
Speaker 1: player that I think is going to win a golf
Speaker 1: tournament again. And listen, I would love to be wrong here.
Speaker 1: I would love to have it shoved in my face.
Speaker 1: I think he's a genuinely interesting character in the game.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see him win more. But just what
Speaker 1: I've seen at the ends of tournaments and the you know,
Speaker 1: kind of crucible if you would you know that term,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's happening again.
Speaker 2: I wish we had a word that was the opposite
Speaker 2: of like ball speed imposter, because that might be what
Speaker 2: Chane is, like just a dude who doesn't have enough
Speaker 2: speed or whatever to compete anymore.
Speaker 4: Like I I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the speed thing. I think it's
Speaker 1: just a mental thing. I can't get it done at
Speaker 1: the end of the end of a tournament. Thing like
Speaker 1: he's got the recklessit skills, exceptional short game. Really when
Speaker 1: he gets hot, he gets really hot. I just I
Speaker 1: think the back to back you know, eighty whatever, seventy
Speaker 1: eight or whatever he shot in the last two final
Speaker 1: rounds of the Masters, and then then what happened at
Speaker 1: the Cognizant not the Honda. I just I don't foresee
Speaker 1: him winning again.
Speaker 5: Eighty one in the final round last year the Masters,
Speaker 5: eighty this year in contention in both.
Speaker 2: I thought it was funny when Rory said, oh he
Speaker 2: always following the scoreboards because I thought, well, if I'm
Speaker 2: not going to win Shane, I don't I hope Shane wins.
Speaker 4: It is like, oh, nope, nope, that's not happening.
Speaker 5: I think it's a real question. And is he on
Speaker 5: another Ryder Cup team again? He's thirty nine and being realistic,
Speaker 5: he was towards the back half of this past Ryder
Speaker 5: Cup team. A year is a long way from now
Speaker 5: to still be playing really good golf. And there are
Speaker 5: a lot of hung a lot of young, hungry Europeans
Speaker 5: who would like that spot. So I think that's a
Speaker 5: real question. Do we see Shane Lowry.
Speaker 4: Again in Ireland? Leave Shane at home in Ireland?
Speaker 2: I think that would be a big controversy that you
Speaker 2: not be quiet about it either.
Speaker 5: That could be a big, big controversy going into next year,
Speaker 5: Shane Lowry or not, that's going to be a big one.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I mean there's a lot of young talent.
Speaker 4: Does you with the Hoyguards playing better?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard for me to think that. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but this is the type of player that you to
Speaker 1: our earlier conversation that you just you know, you overlook
Speaker 1: because but I think, like the thing is, he knows
Speaker 1: how to get the ball in the hole exceptionally well
Speaker 1: for fifty four holes, and some I think like players
Speaker 1: lose their nerve, they lose the ability to like closing.
Speaker 1: We've seen this so often. I think people like closing
Speaker 1: how to golf tournament is so exceptionally hard and such
Speaker 1: a skill, and I think you can lose the skill
Speaker 1: and I and you lose the nerve. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the thing. He's lost the nerve, like he like
Speaker 1: his comments after the cognizant of like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what happened. It just came over me, like
Speaker 1: the inability like that to me was like, oh that's
Speaker 1: this may never happen again.
Speaker 5: This is a huge topic, so I don't want to
Speaker 5: open a can of worms, but there is some great
Speaker 5: research and analysis to be done on the relationship between
Speaker 5: swings and swinging under pressure. And I do wonder a
Speaker 5: little bit with the sort of white bee fade that
Speaker 5: we see from Shane at times. If when you can't
Speaker 5: feel your hands at the end of a tournament, how
Speaker 5: does that impact swinging under pressure and maybe it's not
Speaker 5: all technical.
Speaker 3: It could be.
Speaker 5: I'm sure a lot parsing out which how much is
Speaker 5: technical versus mental is a really difficult problem. But I
Speaker 5: know there are people who would maintained that, like a
Speaker 5: guy who hits a hard draw, like a Patrick Reid,
Speaker 5: that that swing can withstand pressure A little bit more
Speaker 5: hard thing to prove. Tommy Fleetwood would be a great
Speaker 5: counter to that who hits a draw and has not
Speaker 5: been clutched. So I don't I think it's really hard
Speaker 5: to determine, but I feel like there's a lot to
Speaker 5: be done in that field.
Speaker 1: All right, before we get to the storyline we're gonna watch,
Speaker 1: let's talk about our friend over at Shady Race. If
Speaker 1: you're serious about your golf game, your vision on these matters,
Speaker 1: that's where Shady Rays Golf Collection comes in. These feel
Speaker 1: just as bit as premium as the expensive brands that
Speaker 1: I've owned. One of the great things is their price
Speaker 1: isn't as premium. They're built for the course. Their color
Speaker 1: rush lens tech enhances contrasts that helps you track the
Speaker 1: ball in the air, read greens better, and cut cut
Speaker 1: the harsh glare with our lightweight frames. They stay put
Speaker 1: through their through your swing and there's no slipping when
Speaker 1: you're lining up a putt. I personally, I've found these
Speaker 1: really useful also while I'm running as well as golf.
Speaker 1: The lightweight, the no slip, and it really just helps
Speaker 1: you kind of see wherever you're going in a sunny
Speaker 1: spot a little bit better. If they're lost or broken,
Speaker 1: Shady Rays will tell you it will send you a
Speaker 1: new pair with their Loss and Broken protection program. If
Speaker 1: I drop them in the lake, they replace them. If
Speaker 1: I knock them off on the car path, they replace them.
Speaker 1: Sit on them one day, they replace them. So go
Speaker 1: to Shady Rays do that's s h A D y
Speaker 1: r a y s dot com and check out their
Speaker 1: golf collection.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: If you use the promo code fried, you get forty
Speaker 1: percent off two plus pairs of polarized sunglasses. Treat yourself
Speaker 1: to the Shades, rated five stars by over three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people. That's Shady Rays dot com. Use the promo
Speaker 1: code fried for forty percent off two plus pairs of
Speaker 1: polarized sunglasses. Let's get to one storyline to watch. I
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate this going in an hour, but alas good
Speaker 1: discussion always always yields longer time than you expect, uh
Speaker 1: storyline to watch the rest of the summer.
Speaker 2: God Kevin, I think it's Ken Rory win two three majors.
Speaker 2: I think that's the most compelling storyline to me. Like
Speaker 2: Scotty had clearly kind of overtaken Rory as the best
Speaker 2: player in the world, and I think Rory, you know,
Speaker 2: had that postmaster's lull and there was understandably a little
Speaker 2: bit of a letdown. But I think he's like really
Speaker 2: focused and really kind of like, you know what, this
Speaker 2: is all the matters I can take, you know, big
Speaker 2: chunks of time off and keep myself fresh and get ready.
Speaker 2: And I think we're gonna see him contend and at
Speaker 2: least two more of majors this year. He didn't have
Speaker 2: a great time at Shinnecock last go round, but I
Speaker 2: would be really surprised if he wasn't in it at Burkedale,
Speaker 2: and he should be in it at Aeronomic.
Speaker 4: It's I just think that he could put he could
Speaker 4: begin to put a huge.
Speaker 2: Gap between him and the other players in terms of
Speaker 2: like majors. One with a historic year this year, when
Speaker 2: you can it's hard to like say that you know
Speaker 2: anything other than the mental bugaboo of having not won
Speaker 2: the Masters was holding Rory back over the last decade,
Speaker 2: and now he's won two in a row.
Speaker 4: Like I don't know.
Speaker 2: I know we said some of this last year, like oh,
Speaker 2: he's going to be freed up after winning the Masters,
Speaker 2: but I actually really believe it now this time that
Speaker 2: this is he's figured out a formula for himself.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's just freed up.
Speaker 5: I think he's also just so much more talented and
Speaker 5: it only proves itself more year in and year out.
Speaker 5: I think if you were to pick major venues that
Speaker 5: set up well for Irono, Mink would be pretty near
Speaker 5: the top of that list. I think, especially not to
Speaker 5: do the whole like Rory can only play when it's soft,
Speaker 5: because he's proven that that's not the case. But a
Speaker 5: soft long setup where I think early call Irono MinC
Speaker 5: may not be the stiffest test of professional golf and
Speaker 5: may lend itself to some bomb and gouge, especially if
Speaker 5: it's soft, which it often will be in these may
Speaker 5: Philly conditions. I think there's there are very few golfers,
Speaker 5: I mean, Scotty, you can make an argument for over Rory.
Speaker 5: But that play sets up incredibly well for Rory mac Royce.
Speaker 5: It's like winged footage, a little oak hill ish. It's
Speaker 5: more in that vein than certainly more in that vein
Speaker 5: than somewhere like Pineers. But again Rory proved he can
Speaker 5: play well there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think around Mink fits him well. But I
Speaker 1: think something that's changed with Rory is like, actually, the harder,
Speaker 1: the more well rounded the setup, the better it is
Speaker 1: for him. Now. I think you could actually make a
Speaker 1: case that when you get to the bomb and gouge,
Speaker 1: it lets more players in than when you you know,
Speaker 1: it goes to the Brooks quote a quote like when
Speaker 1: the course is really tough and it's a major, there's
Speaker 1: only ten to twelve guys that can win.
Speaker 5: There's something to that. But the hardcore accuracy tests I
Speaker 5: don't like for Rory. The Miarfield villages, yeah, are pretty tough.
Speaker 1: On them all right. My storyline to watch will be
Speaker 1: Scottie Scheffler. I think we've seen early in his career
Speaker 1: we had the putting adversity, and I think the you know,
Speaker 1: the putter, he overcame that. He you know, he went
Speaker 1: to the spider and the claw and he's overcome that,
Speaker 1: he's become a great putter. To me, he's dealing with
Speaker 1: a little bit of of falling short, coming up short,
Speaker 1: a good amount not being able to string together four
Speaker 1: rounds on multiple cases. And this is an extraordinarily high
Speaker 1: standard that he has set based off the last three years.
Speaker 1: But you see it in press conferences. I think that
Speaker 1: the there's a toll that being the number one ranked
Speaker 1: player in the world takes on players. It's hard to
Speaker 1: stay there because of just the obligations, and he kind
Speaker 1: of rose to his place by being obligation free. You know,
Speaker 1: people expected him to be a very good player. Nobody
Speaker 1: expected him to be this, you know, the best player
Speaker 1: since Tiger, and all of a sudden, the last two
Speaker 1: years he's been met with more demands of his time
Speaker 1: than he ever has in his life. And I think
Speaker 1: one of his superpowers is illustrated by like Jordan Spieth
Speaker 1: has said this, one of the superpowers is like he
Speaker 1: he lives like a fairly care free life, and I
Speaker 1: think you're starting to see some of that boil over
Speaker 1: and then the idea of coming up short. So listen,
Speaker 1: like if if Scotty, I expect Scotty to get a
Speaker 1: major this year. But if he doesn't it it just
Speaker 1: gets harder to win majors the longer you go without one.
Speaker 1: And I just I think Scotty obviously, like this is
Speaker 1: not it's just a very compelling story, like he hasn't
Speaker 1: gotten it done the way we've grown accustomed to the
Speaker 1: last three years, and that could switch. It could flip
Speaker 1: this week and all of a sudden, it's you know,
Speaker 1: he wins a ton of stuff, Like he comes back
Speaker 1: and he wins at Darrel when we're recording this, you know,
Speaker 1: he comes back from bad first round wins at Darrel.
Speaker 1: But this year's been kind of the story of him
Speaker 1: coming up short just because of like a myriad of reasons.
Speaker 1: And I don't you know, I'm just fascinated to see
Speaker 1: if it clicks in and he has a great second
Speaker 1: half of the year, but the first half of the
Speaker 1: year has been lackluster by his standards.
Speaker 3: You want to go, Kevin, do you have anything on that.
Speaker 4: I just kind of agree with all that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the thing I would emphasize the
Speaker 2: most is someone who has thought a lot about Scottie
Speaker 2: this year is that he really needs to like have
Speaker 2: a simplified life, and the more complicated it gets, the
Speaker 2: more little annoyances start to kind of creep into the
Speaker 2: rest of his life. Like let's give him a little
Speaker 2: bit of a pass, just kind of adjusting on new parenting.
Speaker 2: Two kids is a lot more than one kid. I
Speaker 2: think he's, you know, wants to be a pretty involved dad.
Speaker 2: I think, you know it, just you can see the
Speaker 2: tension sometimes in him just dealing with the bullshit of
Speaker 2: being the best player in the world. It's like he
Speaker 2: doesn't really want to talk about live stuff after every
Speaker 2: single development in this but there's an obligation, there's a
Speaker 2: responsibility of the best player in the world to sort
Speaker 2: of weigh in on that kind of stuff. And that's
Speaker 2: a little bit what I was mentioning about, how he's
Speaker 2: worse than Tiger at dealing with the day to day
Speaker 2: news cycle stuff. He's better at the things where it's like, hey,
Speaker 2: can you tell us like the meaning of life? But
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to talk about the meaning of live
Speaker 2: and he gets, you know, perturbed about simple questions about
Speaker 2: like why'd you go hit balls after your round? Like
Speaker 2: what we're you searching for? I wasn't searching for anything.
Speaker 2: That's why always Mario routine. It's like little simple things
Speaker 2: like that, I think kind of reveal like, man, this
Speaker 2: is annoying, why do I have to do this? And
Speaker 2: so I just think it's a kind of a it's
Speaker 2: important thing to figure out how to navigate, and you
Speaker 2: know he's not going to be perfect.
Speaker 5: In that, and I think you're hitting on becoming a
Speaker 5: parent annoyance with being world number one, Like Andy, you're
Speaker 5: having trouble getting it done.
Speaker 3: I think there's also a deeper like his game's just not.
Speaker 5: As good as it was here Cup, like whether that's
Speaker 5: because of things that are off the course or something
Speaker 5: with this swing. I think it's very clear that we're
Speaker 5: seeing a B version of Scotti Scheffler, and it's remarkable
Speaker 5: what he's able to do with his B game. But
Speaker 5: to your guys point, the question is if if we
Speaker 5: see that a level what we saw throughout twenty twenty five,
Speaker 5: because again, if I would maintain that if he had
Speaker 5: his A game at the Masters, or even his A
Speaker 5: minus game like he wins this year's Masters, and that's
Speaker 5: a big one to let go in the middle of
Speaker 5: your prime. So I don't I have felt a little
Speaker 5: bit like we might see a little bit of a
Speaker 5: downturn from Scotty. We're recording this in the middle of
Speaker 5: the Ralmber of shots he hit on his first round
Speaker 5: that were just uncharacteristically bad. Scottie Scheffler swings way higher
Speaker 5: than anything we saw last year, so we shall see
Speaker 5: my storyline of the summer. I'm going a very different
Speaker 5: direction the potential professional debut or expected debut of one
Speaker 5: of the great amateurs of the last fifteen years in
Speaker 5: Jackson Coyven. I think that's a massive, massive golf story
Speaker 5: that since people don't watch a lot of college golf
Speaker 5: or pay attention to it, maybe doesn't slide under the
Speaker 5: radar too much for people who listen to this podcast.
Speaker 5: But I think from the general golfing public, we have
Speaker 5: a true great who's on the doorsteps of professional golf.
Speaker 5: Three time SEC champion back to back to back, It's
Speaker 5: only been done one other time. He's won six of
Speaker 5: eight college starts this year in twenty twenty six. His
Speaker 5: worst finish is tenth. This is a different level of
Speaker 5: consistency than we've seen from a lot of other big
Speaker 5: time prospects of the last ten to fifteen years. Could
Speaker 5: be number one ameter that we've seen recently. I think
Speaker 5: anywhere between like one and three. He's played nine pro starts,
Speaker 5: not as a pro, obviously he's still an amateur, but
Speaker 5: he's played nine OWGR sanctioned events in his last four.
Speaker 5: He's finished top twelve in all of those, which is
Speaker 5: just unbelievable, not just upside, but consistency for somebody who's
Speaker 5: not even twenty one when he was playing those events.
Speaker 5: Three straight top tens, and to some of our earlier discussion,
Speaker 5: he's shown he's like one seventy five ish ball speed
Speaker 5: guy won seventy six.
Speaker 3: That is enough.
Speaker 5: That is sufficient that if he comes on tour, he'll
Speaker 5: probably pick up a couple of miles an hour through
Speaker 5: equipment tweaks and getting a little bit stronger in his
Speaker 5: first couple of years in professional golf. There are no
Speaker 5: reservations about Jackson Coyvin's game. A lot of people would
Speaker 5: say he's one of the best putters they've ever seen
Speaker 5: in college golf. He's gained strokes with his irons and
Speaker 5: is off the tee in the professional starts he's made.
Speaker 5: This is a potential monster in waiting, and there's no
Speaker 5: which thing is a sure thing that this feels as
Speaker 5: close to it as we've seen.
Speaker 3: In a while.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this. I saw that Data Golf
Speaker 1: had him in like the top fifty in the world already, right.
Speaker 5: I think that's right. I think they have him as
Speaker 5: their number one amateur in their database. It goes back
Speaker 5: like fifteen twenty years.
Speaker 1: I you know, I think this is the most complete player.
Speaker 1: Another name that I throw out that because of how
Speaker 1: much buzz Kaven is getting that I don't think people
Speaker 1: are paying a lot of attention to is prest And Stout,
Speaker 1: who just won his third straight.
Speaker 3: Big twelve super Coo.
Speaker 1: Like and any other year, Preston Stout would be the story. Now. Personally,
Speaker 1: having watched him at the Walker Cup, I have some
Speaker 1: pace of play concerns that you know that you don't
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with. His ability to play golf
Speaker 1: at a high level might actually help him play golf
Speaker 1: at a high level. But I didn't enjoy the Preston
Speaker 1: Stout experience because of the face. But that being said,
Speaker 1: I think like it's it's you know, like this is
Speaker 1: kind of reminiscent of the Morekowa Hoflin Matt wolf Year
Speaker 1: when they all came out, but with Coyven and Stout
Speaker 1: particularly at the top, I think like those two are
Speaker 1: are look like very bonafied PGA Tour players. Winning three
Speaker 1: straight big time conference tournaments and both regards is like insane,
Speaker 1: insane to win a high level individual tournament, even i'lbe
Speaker 1: at a college three years in a row, nut stuff
Speaker 1: Jackson Coyven. Can't wait to see him.
Speaker 2: I remember when I first started covering golf, really it
Speaker 2: was like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and just like that
Speaker 2: feeling of excitement of like, oh, man, Rory's great, this
Speaker 2: kid Speeth is coming, this kid justin Thomas is really good.
Speaker 2: It just it's there is a little bit of a
Speaker 2: similar fear feeling of like, oh, there could be a
Speaker 2: whole nother wave of like great players who are coming
Speaker 2: down the pipe that you know, ten years from now,
Speaker 2: we're gonna be like, oh yeah, of course, like Jackson
Speaker 2: Coyvin and Blades Brown are dueling it out, you know,
Speaker 2: And I just think that's that's a fun moment when
Speaker 2: there's like a whole wave of good young kids coming.
Speaker 1: We you know, and it's still so early, and so
Speaker 1: many of these guys but we haven't had anybody really
Speaker 1: pop in a while at a young age. And obviously
Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: to say that about a lot of guys you know
Speaker 1: that are very young in their career. But we just
Speaker 1: haven't seen someone that's super young. And before people yell
Speaker 1: about Bridgeman or got her up like they're twenty six.
Speaker 1: You know, we haven't seen you know, Thorbjornton look like
Speaker 1: he might be breaking out, but he just hasn't gotten
Speaker 1: across the line in something big. He's twenty four, but
Speaker 1: he's been around for a couple of years. We haven't
Speaker 1: seen that that twenty one year old sensation yet.
Speaker 4: Yep. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Twenty one is so young. I think it's like a
Speaker 2: generational thing when somebody comes along at twenty one.
Speaker 1: But uh, maybe it's co even.
Speaker 5: Maybe, and he probably will have a little bit of
Speaker 5: a rough I think expectations should be tempered for the
Speaker 5: first twelve months. He's not going to be super consistent,
Speaker 5: but I think we're going to see the upside. I
Speaker 5: think we'll see him make cuts in majors right away.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think that does it. We got
Speaker 1: everything in Uh, we'll have a we'll have it. We
Speaker 1: have a ton of major coverage coming coming down the pipe.
Speaker 1: We just released a video about Ironom innk uh for
Speaker 1: anybody that's looking to get ready for the the PGA Championship.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. We'll be back next week with a
Speaker 1: with a preview for Ironom Miink and the PGA Championship.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Joseph and Kevin obviously for coming on
Speaker 1: board or board doing this podcast, but all their contributions
Speaker 1: to our website on a weekly basis editorially for the
Speaker 1: newsletter and also the website. They will have a bunch
Speaker 1: of major championship coverage coming down in the next next
Speaker 1: week or two. And big thanks to PJ for editing
Speaker 1: and producing this podcast.