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Speaker 1: slash tf E look good golf Gooder. I miss a green,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball
Speaker 1: in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find
Speaker 1: my ball in a bride Egg, Frida Egg, the dreaded
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, fridagg, Frida Egg, brigg Frida Egg, bride Egg, Lie,
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the hump. Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name is
Speaker 1: Garrett Morrison and I am here live at the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two PGA Championship with Meg Atkins. Meg, you work
Speaker 1: for the Friday Egg. I'm not actually sure what your
Speaker 1: title is. I start every episode with fellow Frida Egg
Speaker 1: employees by asking them what their title is. What is yours?
Speaker 1: Technically miscellaneous.
Speaker 2: Shellmate? You know, general shellmate at the Frida Egg. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not too good at titles here at the Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: are we No?
Speaker 1: Not really well so, Meg, this is your first time
Speaker 1: on the podcast, so welcome, very exciting to have you on.
Speaker 1: You are here at the PGA Championship with me. We
Speaker 1: are the representatives of the Friday Egg at this event
Speaker 1: at Southern Hills We've been here since Wednesday, so we
Speaker 1: got to walk around the course a little bit on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and the first round on Thursday has just happened. It's
Speaker 1: wrapping up right now. I think the leader board is
Speaker 1: pretty much set. We're sitting here in the media center.
Speaker 1: We're in Radio Boo booth number three or four, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure which one it is. Five wherever we are,
Speaker 1: we're right next to Kevin van Volkenberg, who is currently
Speaker 1: recording an episode of The Shotgun Start with Andy Johnson
Speaker 1: and Brendan Porath. So that's just to set the scene
Speaker 1: for you here. But we're looking at the big board
Speaker 1: right now. It's on TV, so players are finishing up.
Speaker 1: But I think things are pretty much going how they're going.
Speaker 1: So how was your day in general? What was like
Speaker 1: the structure of your day?
Speaker 2: The day was fantastic. Got out here pretty early and
Speaker 2: immediately went out. Obviously, Tiger Speeth Rory we're out early
Speaker 2: and I was able to follow them for a few
Speaker 2: holes and then I kind of set up shop at seventeen.
Speaker 2: When we got here yesterday, we kind of went out
Speaker 2: in the evening. Crowds had cleared out and it was
Speaker 2: a lovely evening stroll kind of getting ours. You've been
Speaker 2: out here before, my first time seeing Southern Hillston in person,
Speaker 2: so it's great to kind of get my bearings and
Speaker 2: walk the course and see, you know, get a feel
Speaker 2: for everything before all the craziness today. So seventeen kind
Speaker 2: of caught my eye, just so much going on on
Speaker 2: that short little par four. So I kind of set
Speaker 2: up shop there and watched the first six seven groups
Speaker 2: come through this morning, and I think the longest approach,
Speaker 2: what I think I saw, was around one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five yards or so, so you know.
Speaker 1: They were all kind of pushing up to that zone
Speaker 1: of that hole that is kind of it's all part
Speaker 1: of this extended green complex. There's a bunch of crazy
Speaker 1: undulations around it, and there's a creek that runs through
Speaker 1: the middle of it, and all the shots were kind
Speaker 1: of ending up there, so there was like these half
Speaker 1: wedges and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so I watched seven groups, so twenty one players.
Speaker 2: Everyone in the fairway except for two and one Birdie
Speaker 2: is what I saw. So I saw short long right
Speaker 2: left spinning off the front. I mean that pin was
Speaker 2: up close, you know, barely hanging on that front left edge,
Speaker 2: the trap right in front of it, and for you know,
Speaker 2: a half little wedge shot. It just was proving to
Speaker 2: be pretty darn difficult for everybody. And I watched her
Speaker 2: in the media center, JT and Ricky and kind of
Speaker 2: afternoon wave and Harry Higgs just flew the grain. So
Speaker 2: I don't think it was easier harder morning to afternoon,
Speaker 2: but a pretty perplexing little hole. And there's so much
Speaker 2: more they can do with it too, with different pin
Speaker 2: locations and move the tea up maybe and see if
Speaker 2: people still pull driver. There's just trouble everywhere too. So
Speaker 2: that was a great, a great start to the morning.
Speaker 2: Kind of came inside and then followed the supergroup for
Speaker 2: the afternoon, which was just a thrill. I mean, still
Speaker 2: coming down from.
Speaker 1: It, Tiger sith Rory. Yeah, you followed them for their
Speaker 1: back nine, which was the front nine of the course.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it was unreal cool but yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: we'll get into it, I'm sure, but some some highlights
Speaker 2: to talk about for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Cool. Yeah, So my my basic approach was to
Speaker 1: I followed a group in the morning through the back
Speaker 1: nine and then followed another group another group through the
Speaker 1: front nine, and so in the morning I followed Victor Hovland,
Speaker 1: Will Zalatorus and Cameron Smith, who were the group in
Speaker 1: front of Tiger spith Rory. So I kind of avoided
Speaker 1: the insanity, but I saw a few of the shots
Speaker 1: from the from the Supergroup when I was looking back.
Speaker 1: And then in the afternoon I went along with John
Speaker 1: ram H Scottie Scheffler and sorry, the third one is
Speaker 1: escaping me right now. Who is the third member of
Speaker 1: that group, Colin Moore of course, Yeah, so that was
Speaker 1: kind of the super Group in the afternoon, decided to
Speaker 1: follow them. I was actually the only media member following them.
Speaker 1: So I think a lot of our colleagues here in
Speaker 1: the media center may have followed the Supergroup in the morning,
Speaker 1: written their stories and then you know, maybe not gone
Speaker 1: back out on the course, which was understandable because by
Speaker 1: that point it was ninety degrees outside, the sun was
Speaker 1: beating down, the wind was picking up. It was a
Speaker 1: lot less comfortable than it was in the morning. And
Speaker 1: it was pretty comfortable in the morning, like you know,
Speaker 1: it is nice weather.
Speaker 2: It was not bad at all. And yeah, to your
Speaker 2: comment about everybody following that group, they're overheard multiple fans
Speaker 2: commenting on look at all the people following, Look at
Speaker 2: this entourage following, So yeah, I can officially say it
Speaker 2: was part of the entourage, but yeah, it was. I
Speaker 2: think it pretty much cleared out and everybody here in
Speaker 2: this room was out following them and then kind of
Speaker 2: came back in and took a break. So pretty wild
Speaker 2: to that you're the only one with that group.
Speaker 1: I know other people inside the ropes who were following along,
Speaker 1: but I didn't. I didn't think I don't think it
Speaker 1: was any you know, media people specifically, So yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe maybe I'm maybe I'm the crazy one,
Speaker 1: but I just followed them for their front nine, which
Speaker 1: was the front nine of the course, and they have
Speaker 1: since finished up. So what we're going to do with
Speaker 1: this podcast, it's going to be pretty brief from here. Basically,
Speaker 1: we just wanted to run through a few observations from
Speaker 1: what we saw today. You've already talked about a kind
Speaker 1: of course related observation with the seventeenth hole, but what
Speaker 1: we want to do is have one tournament observation from
Speaker 1: the two of us, So one observation of the play
Speaker 1: that was happening, or you know, stuff that was has
Speaker 1: occurred in this first round of the tournament, even though
Speaker 1: that's probably all going to be a race by tomorrow.
Speaker 1: One course related observation, so what we saw from Southern
Speaker 1: Hills today, One fan observation, stuff that we saw out there,
Speaker 1: and then one thing that we are watching for this weekend.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the tournament observation. I'll go with
Speaker 1: mine first and the thing that I saw out there.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if the stats are going to
Speaker 1: really bear this out at this point, but to me,
Speaker 1: there was a distinct difference between the morning and afternoon
Speaker 1: waves today just in terms of the comfort level of
Speaker 1: being out there and the shots that were required. The
Speaker 1: winds were really calm in the morning for Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: For the forecast that we got, there were some kind
Speaker 1: of random rustlings happening, some gusts that kicked up, and
Speaker 1: some sudden places, weird little pockets of the course that
Speaker 1: suddenly got windy in the morning, So there were some
Speaker 1: of that unpredictability happening, But in the afternoon, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, at least what I felt was far more steady,
Speaker 1: and it was a lot hotter out there, and so
Speaker 1: so far, there's about a shot difference between the two waves,
Speaker 1: a little bit less than a shot difference at this
Speaker 1: point because I think maybe things have calmed down out
Speaker 1: there in the evening. But looking at the leaderboard right now,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of people who were out there
Speaker 1: in the morning at the very top, you know, most
Speaker 1: significantly Roy McElroy and will Zalatorus. They got their work
Speaker 1: done in the morning wave. Rory shot a pretty clean
Speaker 1: sixty five. Will Zalatorus, who I saw for his front
Speaker 1: nine shot sixty six. He was striking the ball really
Speaker 1: well and he was putting really well. The putting stroke
Speaker 1: looked smooth, like there were a couple of kind of
Speaker 1: dicey short putts, a couple of where you saw that
Speaker 1: hitch come in that he tends to have, But like
Speaker 1: in general, his lag putting was great and it seems
Speaker 1: like he's comfortable on these greens in a way that
Speaker 1: he might not be on poem. What was one tournament
Speaker 1: observation that you.
Speaker 2: Had back following Rory, I mean it was the driver
Speaker 2: was just unreal. The drive on five. I think he
Speaker 2: said in his post round interview that he duck hooked
Speaker 2: it left in his practice in his practice round Wednesday,
Speaker 2: and so he's like, whatever, I'm just gonna go with
Speaker 2: my fade. But the line over those trees, I mean,
Speaker 2: you're the driving range is right over there to the left,
Speaker 2: and so starting it over there and fading it. The
Speaker 2: wind was helping a bit a bit, you know, pushing
Speaker 2: it a bit with them and the bit to the right.
Speaker 2: So it made sense. But you know, to start it
Speaker 2: left out there after you after you duck hooked it
Speaker 2: in the practice round, I think tells you the confidence
Speaker 2: he was feeling by that point in the round with
Speaker 2: the driver.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean the story is Rory from the first round
Speaker 2: and getting rid of the Thay struggle the Thursday a headache,
Speaker 2: and and and putting himself in a hole that he
Speaker 2: can't dig out of for the rest of the tournament
Speaker 2: has been has been the theme for him, and how
Speaker 2: did how is he not completely freed up this evening
Speaker 2: and and just loving obviously where he's at. I would
Speaker 2: think there's some relief in coming out strong out of
Speaker 2: the gates for the first time in a while and.
Speaker 1: That was his demon. But I wonder if this puts
Speaker 1: even more pressure in like literally leading the tournament sure,
Speaker 1: you know, because what he's been doing in first rounds
Speaker 1: in majors in recent history has been just taking himself
Speaker 1: kind of out of the tournament. Now he's done exactly that.
Speaker 1: He's gone to the opposite extreme. So you almost hope
Speaker 1: for like him being in that mix around T eight
Speaker 1: right now, which is a couple of shots back, but
Speaker 1: still very much in it. Now he's out in front.
Speaker 1: It'll it'll be an interesting test of nerves tomorrow maybe,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it is possible that that. You know, this
Speaker 1: was kind of a hurdle that he had to get
Speaker 1: over just playing well in the first round, right, So
Speaker 1: what was he doing well out there? Like I didn't
Speaker 1: see much of his round because I was following another
Speaker 1: group obviously, what you know, he's had trouble with his
Speaker 1: wedges and stuff like that. What what did you see
Speaker 1: from him that was kind of different?
Speaker 2: He was he was steady, you know, the hiccup on
Speaker 2: the on the front nine. His second nine was that
Speaker 2: six seven eight stretch. I thought, you know on five
Speaker 2: after that drive getting up and down for Bertie was
Speaker 2: all right, you know, let's took advantage of that par
Speaker 2: five like I should. And then six and eight were
Speaker 2: just tough long par threes. Yeah. Six was interesting. We
Speaker 2: were sitting right on the tee, probably the closest we
Speaker 2: got to them for the whole round, and he kind
Speaker 2: of had a little hesitation, a little hiccup in his takeaway.
Speaker 2: And I mean, normally it's just smooth and perfect, that
Speaker 2: sweet watch in real life and up that up close
Speaker 2: like that is it's just beautiful. But there was a little,
Speaker 2: a little teeny little hiccup. He ended up a little
Speaker 2: bit long there and just didn't get up and down.
Speaker 2: And there's gonna be, I mean, on these surrounds, there's
Speaker 2: going to be you're not going to get up and
Speaker 2: down from everywhere. And then you know, seven, the drive
Speaker 2: one of the only way where drives out left but
Speaker 2: recovered tap in par and then ate just in a
Speaker 2: terrible position in the left front.
Speaker 1: But it was a tough hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw a few different groups make a mess of
Speaker 1: that hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And then the birdie on nine to kind
Speaker 2: of end on a high note, you know, where it was,
Speaker 2: you know, getting a little shaky and you know, just
Speaker 2: kind of got it in, got it in the house,
Speaker 2: got it in, you know, wrapped up, wrapped up. The
Speaker 2: round well, definitely helps.
Speaker 1: And something to remember is obviously that his last major
Speaker 1: round was at the Masters, that spectacular final round, and
Speaker 1: after that he was representing to the press at least
Speaker 1: that something had changed, that that had unlocked something in him.
Speaker 1: And so maybe he's maybe he's really proving that right
Speaker 1: now that that would be great to see obviously. All right,
Speaker 1: so one course observation, why don't we start with yours?
Speaker 1: Is there something other than the seventeenth hole itself that
Speaker 1: caught your eye about the course this time through.
Speaker 2: When we walked it Wednesday, you know that we had
Speaker 2: it to ourselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you see the Wednesday everybody everybody gone home,
Speaker 1: they're resting up for today.
Speaker 2: Yep. You see the wide corridors you see, you know,
Speaker 2: the with the true movel, how you can see through
Speaker 2: the property so far, which is which is so so
Speaker 2: neat and I mean I can't imagine it in O
Speaker 2: seven plaustrophobic like that. But the course observation, you know,
Speaker 2: on top of seventeen was the tightness around six te
Speaker 2: and then you you kind of walk past five green
Speaker 2: and you get to three t two green, then you
Speaker 2: get up to six green and seventies, right, there.
Speaker 1: Like literally right right back of the green. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: this narrow little strip of land clearly wasn't intended to
Speaker 1: be a tea right and right behind the green that's packed, yes.
Speaker 2: There with people. There's the hospitality tents lining on the
Speaker 2: left side of six, and there's just so it was
Speaker 2: the most crowded part of the course is that area,
Speaker 2: and then seven was very crowded to with some hospitality there.
Speaker 2: Awesome for fans. You can see so much, so so
Speaker 2: much from there, so many different shots a little you know,
Speaker 2: claustrophobic for the for the players. Yeah, Tiger Roryan speaks.
Speaker 2: Teed off on six, then kind of walked a bit,
Speaker 2: had to stop as another group was teen off three
Speaker 2: and then continue their walk on.
Speaker 1: I mean the problem has been created by the pushing
Speaker 1: back of the third t into the middles in the
Speaker 1: sixth holes corridor, and then the pushing back of the
Speaker 1: seventh te basically right just tucked behind between the sixth
Speaker 1: green and the property line. These teas were not intended
Speaker 1: to be there. They're there. They're making it work, but
Speaker 1: it's pretty hectic, like it's pretty smashed in there.
Speaker 2: For spectating, it's great, it's great, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: Where would you stand, like specifically around there.
Speaker 2: Maybe beyond yes, yeah, behind the tea and then you
Speaker 2: know the left side of six you kind of get
Speaker 2: that whole vantage point six t all the way to
Speaker 2: six screen and everything in between. That's a great if
Speaker 2: you're a fan.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the traffic, you know, you need a traffic copp
Speaker 2: almost in there. The marshals, there are the volunteers. They're
Speaker 2: not getting they're not getting paid in that, they're not
Speaker 2: getting paid anything. They're not getting paid it at all.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they've got a job in there, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a good place for a fan if
Speaker 1: you don't mind like being around a lot of people, Yes,
Speaker 1: if you'd rather be someplace where there aren't a whole
Speaker 1: lot of people around, there are other places on the
Speaker 1: course that are a little more chill.
Speaker 2: But if you want to see action.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's yeah. Yeah, you see the approaches into
Speaker 1: two and that's so. This is something about the course
Speaker 1: that Andy and I noticed when we first visited the
Speaker 1: course in twenty nineteen, these clusters of teas and greens.
Speaker 1: You know, Perry Maxwell was looking for natural sites to
Speaker 1: put his teas and greens because he wasn't using advanced
Speaker 1: drainage methods to get them dry, so he was looking
Speaker 1: for places that would drain naturally. There are a few
Speaker 1: specific places on the property that drain really naturally, and
Speaker 1: that's where he put all his teas and greens. And
Speaker 1: part of the result of that is what we called
Speaker 1: these concentrations of energy, and that is certainly one of them.
Speaker 1: At that corner of the course where the fifth hole is,
Speaker 1: the sixth hole, second, third, seventh hole, all of that
Speaker 1: is kind of mushed into a little ridge on that
Speaker 1: end of the property. Of the land rises up a
Speaker 1: bit there, and there are other places on the property
Speaker 1: that are like that. You know, I'm thinking of where
Speaker 1: thirteen green and sixteen green are right by that little pond.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a great little concentration of energy. And
Speaker 1: then in the middle of the course where you have
Speaker 1: the first green, the third green, the seventeenth green, the
Speaker 1: eighth green, that is a big time. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of hospitality there right now, but a ton
Speaker 1: of people are in there, and it's noisy in there,
Speaker 1: and it's it's fun. I think, you know, that's kind
Speaker 1: of where i'd like to be because there's a nice
Speaker 1: variety in what you're seeing. So one quick extra course
Speaker 1: observation that I had is that the back nine is
Speaker 1: just so excellent at this course. I think that there
Speaker 1: are some weaknesses in the front nine. The fourth hole
Speaker 1: is just doesn't function for this tournament as it was
Speaker 1: intended to function. The sixth hole is never one that
Speaker 1: I was a particular fan of, So to my mind,
Speaker 1: there are some weaknesses in the front nine, but the
Speaker 1: back nine is just hit after hit after hit for me. Now,
Speaker 1: what really made an impression when I first came to
Speaker 1: the course was the opening and closing stretches of the
Speaker 1: back nine. So ten, eleven, twelve in that beautiful little valley,
Speaker 1: they just use it perfectly. They're great holes. And then
Speaker 1: seventeen and eighteen a spectacular short par four and long
Speaker 1: par four finish and opportunity and a big brute of
Speaker 1: a closing hole. So those things that really jumped out
Speaker 1: at me when I first saw the course. But this time,
Speaker 1: when I was going through, I saw how great those
Speaker 1: middle holes in the back nine are. Thirteen is a well,
Speaker 1: the tea isn't a ridiculous place over the twelfth green.
Speaker 1: Now I've wrote about this for the website. But it's
Speaker 1: a true risk reward par five where some players are
Speaker 1: going for it and some aren't, and that landing zone
Speaker 1: is just this big gully, and so you find all
Speaker 1: these strange lies and that complicates the decision about whether
Speaker 1: to go for the green. The fourteenth hole is in
Speaker 1: a weird spot on the property. It's like a nothing
Speaker 1: piece of land, but it is the coolest green on
Speaker 1: the course. And then the fifteenth you really need to
Speaker 1: challenge the bunker on the left if you want a
Speaker 1: good angle to the green, because the green slants so
Speaker 1: severely to the left, you want to be over on
Speaker 1: the left side as much as possible so that you're
Speaker 1: not hitting down the slope of that green. The sixteenth
Speaker 1: hole has this kind of tight driving zone where a
Speaker 1: bunker in pinges, but if you lay up short of
Speaker 1: that driving zone, you're back in that gully that crosses
Speaker 1: the thirteenth hole that I was talking about. So just
Speaker 1: looking at these holes, they didn't make as big of
Speaker 1: an impression on me the first time I saw them
Speaker 1: as the holes that are around them. But this time
Speaker 1: I saw that, like every shot was really challenging these
Speaker 1: players on those holes. And yeah, I just think the
Speaker 1: back nine here is about as good as it gets.
Speaker 1: So it's so so good. All right. One fan observation
Speaker 1: for you seen and heard. Is there anything out there?
Speaker 2: Hi? You know, for following that the Tiger group. The
Speaker 2: silly things I heard were not really in that group.
Speaker 2: It was pretty tame they were.
Speaker 1: It was an incredibly well behaved mom. Yes, following them.
Speaker 1: I noticed this too in the morning.
Speaker 2: It was more. I tweeted, you know, on seventeen Hedeki's
Speaker 2: hidden from the trees and fan behind me goes, that's
Speaker 2: Mozarella over there in the trees. And I mean the
Speaker 2: things that you get the I mean, some of the
Speaker 2: comments are just so hilarious, you know. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 2: get annoy you gotta. You gotta laugh at it because
Speaker 2: it's it's it's pretty pretty hilarious. After Tiger's group finished,
Speaker 2: I kind of went over to the interview area and
Speaker 2: then I was up by one as Ram Scroup was
Speaker 2: teen off and first time I heard the mashed potatoes
Speaker 2: and the bab babui by different people at the same time,
Speaker 2: so they kind of canceled each other out. So we'll
Speaker 2: take that as a win. I mean, besides that it's just,
Speaker 2: you know, something that looks like a great shot is
Speaker 2: actually forty feet away. You know, you know, you just
Speaker 2: really can't see how good or out of a shot
Speaker 2: it was into the greens, and you just hear fans
Speaker 2: all around and be like, it's stuck it two feet
Speaker 2: two feet that's all he's got. And then you see
Speaker 2: up on the big board tiger Woods thirty seven feet
Speaker 2: ten inches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the perception sometimes people don't understand. They see a
Speaker 1: shot that's online, they think it's close, but it's all
Speaker 1: about the distance victual run, and so they can't see
Speaker 1: that it's.
Speaker 2: Actually over all great crowds, I don't think.
Speaker 1: The fans were any less informed necessarily fans anywhere. It's
Speaker 1: just these are these are the funny things that happen
Speaker 1: when you're walking around a big tournament like this where
Speaker 1: not everybody is super familiar with what they're watching.
Speaker 2: Now, I'll forever call him Hideki Motzrella perfect.
Speaker 1: So one fan observation that I had, and I'm not
Speaker 1: I don't mean to create any controversy here or imply
Speaker 1: that there was any bad behavior on the part of
Speaker 1: the culprit. But on the third hole, John Rahm lost
Speaker 1: his t shot to the left and it hit a
Speaker 1: woman in the faces. She grabbed her mouth, so it
Speaker 1: seemed like it hit her in the mouth. Now what
Speaker 1: I heard, I thought was a tree hit and the
Speaker 1: ball bounced back in the fairway. And I looked around
Speaker 1: and I saw this woman holding her face and crouching down,
Speaker 1: and there was there were a couple of people there
Speaker 1: who were helping her and calling over, calling over some help.
Speaker 1: But she sort of crouched down behind this tree, seemed
Speaker 1: to be in pain. But nobody told John Rum and
Speaker 1: so he went on playing.
Speaker 2: How far was this ball from her?
Speaker 1: It was I would say like twenty twenty five yards,
Speaker 1: and it's like kind of in this shaded place on
Speaker 1: the third hole to the left.
Speaker 2: To the left, yep.
Speaker 1: And it seemed like she was trying to stay out
Speaker 1: of sight, and so I you know that she didn't
Speaker 1: want people to make a big deal, and and so
Speaker 1: I was I was kind of asking around, is she okay?
Speaker 1: It seemed like she was fine, but she had she
Speaker 1: had gotten the golf ball hit to the face. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if the ball deflected off the tree before
Speaker 1: it hit her or something, but there was a big
Speaker 1: smack when that ball hit what it hit and it
Speaker 1: bounced back in the fairway, and uh, and that was
Speaker 1: just that was just kind of a strange moment. I
Speaker 1: sort of wonder if if John Raum knows at this
Speaker 1: point and has you know, sent a signed glove or
Speaker 1: something along to the poor woman who got who got hurt?
Speaker 2: Did he yell four?
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I do not know.
Speaker 2: Were you down?
Speaker 1: Down?
Speaker 2: Three?
Speaker 1: Down? I was down. This was when I was first
Speaker 1: arriving at that group. That's when I first caught up
Speaker 1: to them. I managed to work my way to them.
Speaker 1: It takes a while to work your way across this
Speaker 1: golf course sometimes because you got across a lot of
Speaker 1: fairways to get where you're going. So I just arrived
Speaker 1: at the hole and I was walking up and this
Speaker 1: is what happened as soon as I arrived in the
Speaker 1: vicinity of the group. So I did not hear or
Speaker 1: not hear afore call. So I'm not sure. I think
Speaker 1: John ram is somebody who does call for and he
Speaker 1: seems like kind of a soft hearted guy. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he would have, you know, gone over and consoled her.
Speaker 1: But that was just kind of a strange incident. In
Speaker 1: any case in general that the big thing that I
Speaker 1: noticed in the morning was how was how tame relatively
Speaker 1: the fans were around the Tiger group. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was cheering, but there wasn't a whole lot of just
Speaker 1: super obnoxious behavior like like sometimes you expect when the
Speaker 1: crowds get that big. And then another thing I noticed
Speaker 1: in the afternoon is that everybody left the course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: by the time I was following this group of like
Speaker 1: world number ones or former world number ones in Morikawa,
Speaker 1: Scheffler and ram and there was a substantial crew who
Speaker 1: was they were following that group through the course. But
Speaker 1: we arrived at the ninth green and I looked up
Speaker 1: in those big bleachers that are above the ninth and
Speaker 1: eighteenth greens, and they were empty.
Speaker 2: And they were packed.
Speaker 1: They were packed packed in the morning. They were shoulder
Speaker 1: to shoulder. And so it seems like people got their
Speaker 1: fix whatever they were looking for in the morning and
Speaker 1: knew that the hot weather was coming and got a dodge.
Speaker 2: And perhaps you know, going off at eight fifteen in
Speaker 2: the morning tampered some of the rowdiness. And yeah, tomorrow
Speaker 2: Friday afternoon, that group rolling through could be a different
Speaker 2: a different story. But Tiger Mania not so much. And
Speaker 2: he got off to such a hot start. I know
Speaker 2: you would have thought that, you know, it would just
Speaker 2: continue to grow and grow. Now, his play obviously faltered down,
Speaker 2: you know, faltered a bit down the stretch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there were some roars, but there wasn't the
Speaker 1: kind of constant din that you'd expect. And maybe partly
Speaker 1: that's because it's Thursday. Maybe it'll be different tomorrow. All Right,
Speaker 1: one thing you are watching for this weekend, I'll start
Speaker 1: with that, and that is the that's the importance of distance.
Speaker 1: That's something that I'm going to be watching for because
Speaker 1: that's not something that I necessarily had my eye on
Speaker 1: going into this tournament, the thought that distance off the
Speaker 1: tee was going to be pretty important. But watching that
Speaker 1: group in the afternoon, Rom, Moricawa and Scheffler on the
Speaker 1: front nine especially, I noticed that there were a lot
Speaker 1: of holes where they were hitting driver where the two
Speaker 1: longer players in that group, who were Rom and Schefler,
Speaker 1: and especially Rom had a real advantage on the hole overall,
Speaker 1: So on the first hole, on the second hole, on
Speaker 1: the fourth hole, fifth hole, not so much, the seventh,
Speaker 1: not too much, the ninth, but those holes toward the
Speaker 1: beginning and middle of the front nine in a way
Speaker 1: that is not the case on the back nine. There
Speaker 1: was a there was a you know, an opportunity for
Speaker 1: the longer players to really stretch out and gain an advantage.
Speaker 1: They could cut the dog leg on the par five
Speaker 1: fifth hole and give themselves a much better shot into
Speaker 1: that green. You know, the lines you were talking about,
Speaker 1: the lines they were taking on that hole earlier though,
Speaker 1: I mean Rory hit a three hundred and seventy yard
Speaker 1: drive there. Rom hit a similar length drive on that
Speaker 1: hole cutting the dog leg. That is something he can
Speaker 1: do that just you know, Colin Morrikawa can't can't do.
Speaker 1: You know, Marikawa ended up in the bunker on the
Speaker 1: left there. He took a similar line, but he didn't
Speaker 1: make the carry. And so I wonder whether you know,
Speaker 1: through the course of the week, we're going to see
Speaker 1: some bigger hitting guys rise to the top. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: toward the top of the leaderboard, we see the likes
Speaker 1: of Matt Kocher. We see Kevin Nah up there. I mean,
Speaker 1: Kevin not's not short. We see a Matt fitzp I mean,
Speaker 1: these players are often in the mix in big tournaments,
Speaker 1: and so this is not to say that shorter hitters
Speaker 1: don't have a chance, but I'm just wondering if distance
Speaker 1: is going to be a little more important at this
Speaker 1: course than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 2: Yep, and the weather, the change from Friday to Saturday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the thing that you're looking for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you can't imagine the high of sixty whatever,
Speaker 2: sixty eight seventy on Sunday, seventy seventy seventy five on Saturday.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's what it was at seven ams,
Speaker 2: you know, eight am today and today and tomorrow, so
Speaker 2: that's a big drop when that When that cold front
Speaker 2: comes through tomorrow should be interesting. It you know, comes
Speaker 2: from the north and brings in, you know, the colder temperatures.
Speaker 2: We had a south wind today and that made let's
Speaker 2: that made nine and eighteen play into that breeze. You
Speaker 2: had it a bit behind you on five where we
Speaker 2: saw the big drives of three seventy from Macrooi. I
Speaker 2: think Ram was up by around three eighty. So if
Speaker 2: that switches in five plays into the wind a bit more,
Speaker 2: one plays into the wind a bit more. Who knows
Speaker 2: if we're seeing those bunkers get carried by as many
Speaker 2: players as we saw as we saw today. The other
Speaker 2: thing is where this u early late, late early, you know,
Speaker 2: ends up with that weather change.
Speaker 1: It didn't go too crazy today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Point eight point eight is what the last number that
Speaker 1: Will Knights has given us. He was kind of tracking that.
Speaker 2: So then you look at it.
Speaker 1: Maybe tomorrow afternoon round bigger. Yeah, there could be a
Speaker 1: bigger difference tomorrow.
Speaker 2: But the solid afternoon rounds today by JT by Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 2: by who else had a good one, Joquing Neeman. Obviously
Speaker 2: we'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if it's there in the morning, those guys could
Speaker 1: really if they put themselves in a good position.
Speaker 2: If the gusts come, if it's super winding in the
Speaker 2: morning and they're still hanging around the leaderboard, then obviously
Speaker 2: keep an eye out for them over the weekend if
Speaker 2: they're so. Yeah, I mean, who knows. Whether it's very
Speaker 2: unpredictable thing to yeah exactly, but I think it's I'm
Speaker 2: glad it's not ninety ninety ninety ninety in the same
Speaker 2: wind all four days. I'm glad that we're going to
Speaker 2: have that change. How that change pans out and when
Speaker 2: it happens, we'll see. But at least we're gonna get
Speaker 2: some variety.
Speaker 1: All right. Perfect, Thank you Meg, You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Thank you Bery