Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 1: A brid egg Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida eggag bride
Speaker 1: egg lie.
Speaker 3: I'm about ready to run off the golf. Welcome back
Speaker 3: to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode
Speaker 3: is a big one, obviously, if you have not heard,
Speaker 3: the U s g A and the RNA has released
Speaker 3: news about a potential new golf ball that would be
Speaker 3: used by high level tournament players men's high level tournament players.
Speaker 3: So we break this down. This has obviously been a
Speaker 3: long process. We've had number of podcasts about the prospect
Speaker 3: of this and they've moved to the next kind of
Speaker 3: chapter of it. So for this pod, we did something
Speaker 3: a little special. I wanted to get a variety of
Speaker 3: insights from a different angles of who this would impact.
Speaker 3: So for this podcast, I talked with Tom Doak about
Speaker 3: the architecture angle. I talked with Roberto Castro, a retired
Speaker 3: PGA Tour player, about how this would impact the PGA
Speaker 3: Tour and PGA Tour players, and then I also spoke
Speaker 3: with Joseph LaMagna about the impact on golf course strategy.
Speaker 3: He obviously contributes for the Frieda Egg, writes in Club
Speaker 3: TF and in the newsletter, as well as appears on
Speaker 3: the podcast pretty regularly. He does on the side, he
Speaker 3: also does consulting for PGA Tour players where he helps
Speaker 3: them break down strategy. So we talked about that, and
Speaker 3: then Garrett and I are going to be on this
Speaker 3: podcast in a minute here kind of just talking about
Speaker 3: the basics of it and our general takes. So you're
Speaker 3: gonna get a lot of different perspectives in this podcast
Speaker 3: on different angles of it. It's obviously a massive topic
Speaker 3: and will impact the game. Really, you know, I think
Speaker 3: this is the way a lot of regulation works. Like
Speaker 3: you implement it and you're not really sure you know
Speaker 3: one thing that is going to address, but it causes
Speaker 3: a lot of different ripples throughout the industry. So that's
Speaker 3: what we tried to do with this podcast was give
Speaker 3: you a little bit of an encompassing look at how
Speaker 3: it impacts, you know, directly impacts a few big things.
Speaker 3: So excited that this happened. As a quick reminder, you know,
Speaker 3: one of the things if you're a Frida Egg newsletter subscriber,
Speaker 3: you saw this week was that we have a whole
Speaker 3: new spring line in the Pro Shop. If you want
Speaker 3: to support the Frida Egg, this great way to do it.
Speaker 3: Meg Atkins has really got some great stuff. She did
Speaker 3: an awesome job stocking the shop. I myself had to
Speaker 3: ask ask for a couple of things because they really
Speaker 3: caught my eye. I thought they're awesome and some of
Speaker 3: the best stuff that we've ever had in the pro Shop.
Speaker 3: If you want to check that out, it's pro Shop
Speaker 3: dot Thefrida Egg dot com. Lots of hats, layers, some
Speaker 3: new golf shirts, some stuff that's geared towards the first
Speaker 3: major for both the Frida Egg and the Shotgun Start,
Speaker 3: which if you're looking for more on this potential rollback
Speaker 3: for the for the tour professionals, check out the Shotgun Start.
Speaker 3: We had a long discussion about that as well as
Speaker 3: this podcast that you're already listening to. So without further ado,
Speaker 3: here is the podcast all about rollback again. Here's me
Speaker 3: and Garrett and then it will be followed by Tom Doak,
Speaker 3: Joseph Lamannia and Roberto Castro. Thank you and here you
Speaker 3: got all right, Garrett, Big big golf news this week
Speaker 3: obviously the UH, the golf world has quickly divided itself
Speaker 3: into different camps.
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of people in the middle
Speaker 4: that are just the silent, silent middle class.
Speaker 1: And enjoying the fight, watching the fight.
Speaker 4: Yes, I would. I'd love to hear kind of your
Speaker 4: top level thoughts about the USGA's announcement UH with the
Speaker 4: with the regulations to the potential regulations the ball. Really
Speaker 4: they're in a comment period, so the regulations the ball are,
Speaker 4: you know, they're kind of collecting feedback and you know,
Speaker 4: we'll see, we'll learn more later this fall.
Speaker 1: Let me try to lay things out here. I think
Speaker 1: people should know first of all, what a model local
Speaker 1: rule is, because that is the key to this whole
Speaker 1: discussion and to analyzing the entire situation. So a model
Speaker 1: local rule is optional. The USGA is going to create
Speaker 1: this rule, put it out there, and different organizations, tours,
Speaker 1: different entities in the golf world can adopt it if
Speaker 1: they want to. And this model local rule will essentially give,
Speaker 1: as the USGA puts it, give competition organizers the option
Speaker 1: to require use of golf balls that are tested under
Speaker 1: modified launch conditions to address the impacts of hitting distance
Speaker 1: in golf, and this golf ball would be essentially tested
Speaker 1: at a higher club head speed then balls are currently
Speaker 1: tested at and will have to go the same distance,
Speaker 1: so the ball will fly shorter than the current ball.
Speaker 4: And one quick thing here that this is very important
Speaker 4: for everybody to understand. The longer players are still going
Speaker 4: to be longer. The shorter players are still going to
Speaker 4: be shorter. So it does not move. It does not
Speaker 4: remove somebody from swinging higher than the testing speed at
Speaker 4: one twenty seven and hitting it further than their three
Speaker 4: hundred and seventeen yards. If you swing at one thirty five,
Speaker 4: it will go further than the high end of their
Speaker 4: testing range.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: So it's important to understand that there's not there's not
Speaker 4: like a ceiling on how far you can hit the
Speaker 4: golf ball.
Speaker 1: They are just it's not going to hit an invisible
Speaker 1: wall at three hundred and seventeen yards and drop out
Speaker 1: of the air exactly.
Speaker 3: So it is a it is that's just what it's
Speaker 3: being test at, tested at, which then scales all the
Speaker 3: distances down roughly between five and ten percent.
Speaker 1: Right, And so what the USGA is saying is that
Speaker 1: the longest players will lose fourteen to fifteen yards in
Speaker 1: driving distance. Now there's been some dispute over that. Some
Speaker 1: people are saying it might be more like twenty yards,
Speaker 1: but we don't really know yet until we see the ball,
Speaker 1: and this model local rule won't be available until January first,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six at the earliest, so we've got some
Speaker 1: time here. But I just wanted to clarify that upfront
Speaker 1: because I've been tracking the discussion in a number of
Speaker 1: different venues and I feel like a misunderstanding of the
Speaker 1: model local rule and how it actually operates is at
Speaker 1: the core of a lot of people's concerns about this.
Speaker 1: Because it really doesn't need to affect any particular organization
Speaker 1: that doesn't want to buy into it. The USGA and
Speaker 1: RNA have passed the buck to other entities in the
Speaker 1: golf world and said, if you want, for whatever reason
Speaker 1: to adopt a reduced flight ball, then you can start
Speaker 1: to do that using this model local rule. Now, I
Speaker 1: think that their play is more complicated than that, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I want to get into. Do
Speaker 1: you want to get into that, like the kind of
Speaker 1: the strategy that's probably being used by the governing bodies here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I think you know, from my perspective, this
Speaker 3: is this was strategically the correct play for the USGA.
Speaker 3: They are the.
Speaker 4: Governing body they aren't in the USGA are the governing
Speaker 4: bodies of the game of golf. But they also do
Speaker 4: a lot more than governess. And I think that's where
Speaker 4: it was tricky. Like if the only thing they did
Speaker 4: was was create rules and protect the game, you know,
Speaker 4: I think we would have had something in place a
Speaker 4: long time ago. But you know, the tricky thing with
Speaker 4: the USBA as they've grown as an organization is they
Speaker 4: do a lot more and they you know, I think
Speaker 4: they are I hate the word grow the game, but
Speaker 4: they are vitally involved with growing the game of golf.
Speaker 4: And I think you know, from this standpoint, when you
Speaker 4: look at the rule, the idea of it applying a
Speaker 4: model local rule that can be applied to the high
Speaker 4: end of golf, that is an attempt to not have
Speaker 4: the pr hit of like you're trying to make golf harder.
Speaker 4: If you went with a ruling that said we're gonna take,
Speaker 4: we're gonna make we're gonna take yardage away from everybody,
Speaker 4: there would be a lot of backlash of like, wait,
Speaker 4: golf's having this moment, and you're gonna make it harder,
Speaker 4: even though I don't even believe that it would be
Speaker 4: harder if you if everybody played this equipment, I don't
Speaker 4: think if you if if.
Speaker 1: Just find the right t's, chill out, find the right teas,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be that much harder. And most amateurs if
Speaker 1: they played a reduced flight ball, if you just like
Speaker 1: snuck one into their bag in place of the pro
Speaker 1: v one x or whatever they have in there and
Speaker 1: had them play it, I bet they'd play. Most amateurs
Speaker 1: would play eighteen holes and not even notice a difference.
Speaker 4: So at the core of this, I think the the
Speaker 4: choice to make it a what people are calling bifurcation,
Speaker 4: which is the model local rule. So you could theoretically
Speaker 4: all of men's professional golf, and theoretically is an important
Speaker 4: title here because we don't know if the PGA Tour
Speaker 4: or the PGA Championship will accept this. But like, theoretically
Speaker 4: all of men's professional golf can play a different ball
Speaker 4: than the regular, you know golfer, the weekend golfer, and
Speaker 4: they from a marketing standpoint, are not taking away things
Speaker 4: from the person that needs all the help they can get.
Speaker 4: What they are trying to do is really you know,
Speaker 4: what this all is about, for the most part, is
Speaker 4: professional golf. But I don't agree that it's just a
Speaker 4: professional golf problem. I think this is a problem across.
Speaker 1: Golf, and I think that the governing bodies acknowledge that.
Speaker 1: And that is the complexity here that I'd like to
Speaker 1: get into is the governing body's awareness that distance gains
Speaker 1: are a problem not just at the elite competitive level,
Speaker 1: but all over the place in golf. Regular local courses
Speaker 1: have had to lengthen over the past several decades because
Speaker 1: everybody has gained distance, and especially like the top five
Speaker 1: percent of the longest amateur players have gained just as
Speaker 1: much distance as the pros have. Right, if you have
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifteen miles per hour of clubhead speed,
Speaker 1: you can be a five handicap. I've played with five
Speaker 1: handicaps who have that much clubhead speed, and you're going
Speaker 1: to be hitting it just as far as the pros do.
Speaker 1: You might not know where it's going. But they're a
Speaker 1: problem at normal courses as well. And you know what,
Speaker 1: the USGA and R and I have done a lot
Speaker 1: of research in the past several years looking into exactly
Speaker 1: that problem, and so I think the intention here is
Speaker 1: eventually to have an effect beyond the elite competitive level.
Speaker 1: But I want to get into the strategic and pr
Speaker 1: play that they're doing here, because you're right that a
Speaker 1: big thing that Mike Wan and Martin Slumber, the CEOs
Speaker 1: of the USGA and the RNA, are saying right now
Speaker 1: is that this will not affect the recreational golf level.
Speaker 1: We've gotten feedback in the past year that nobody wants
Speaker 1: the recreational game to be negatively affected, and so this rule,
Speaker 1: this model local rule, is intended for high level competitions.
Speaker 1: That is what they're saying right now. But that goes
Speaker 1: against the research that they've done recently, that they've spent
Speaker 1: a lot of money doing discovering that the distance problem
Speaker 1: in golf is not just a professional golf problem, it's
Speaker 1: not just a PGA tour problem. It is a problem
Speaker 1: all over the place, and it's an issue for the
Speaker 1: sustainability of the game. And so I think that what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do here is introduce this model local
Speaker 1: rule to some championships like the US Open and the Open.
Speaker 1: I think they probably figure that the Masters is going
Speaker 1: to implement the ball because Augusta National Golf Club has
Speaker 1: been you know, has had to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: money expanding its course, and its leaders do seem open
Speaker 1: to implementing a new ball. And so that's three majors
Speaker 1: right there. That's three very powerful tournaments in golf. And
Speaker 1: so if they adopt the model local rule, is that
Speaker 1: going to have a kind of trickle down effect throughout
Speaker 1: the game where different tours, including the PGA Tour, as
Speaker 1: well as other institutions like state championships, like various amateur
Speaker 1: championships like the NCAA, like your local club championship. Is
Speaker 1: there going to be a trickle down effect where all
Speaker 1: of those different kinds of tournaments and competitive environments will say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, three of the biggest tournaments in golf are
Speaker 1: using the model local rule ball. So I guess we better.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to qualify for the US Open,
Speaker 1: if you want to go to your local qualifier and
Speaker 1: try to get into the US Open, you've got to
Speaker 1: learn how to use the reduced flight ball. So I
Speaker 1: guess we might as well start playing ball at the
Speaker 1: local level at our courses and I think that their
Speaker 1: hope is that this ball will eventually make its way
Speaker 1: into the recreational game that we play on an everyday basis,
Speaker 1: but they can't say that because people are scared of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you hit on exactly what I've been
Speaker 3: thinking about the last twenty four hours and why this
Speaker 3: was the right way to approach this, because you know,
Speaker 3: we talked about like the marketing headache, but when I
Speaker 3: think about how this could infiltrate the overarching game, it
Speaker 3: is through the competitive golf landscape at the amateur level.
Speaker 3: So you know, the idea of you know, I used
Speaker 3: to play competitive golf. I haven't in the last five
Speaker 3: years because I've been busy. But you know, the thing
Speaker 3: about it is like what you play that competitive golf
Speaker 3: at a state level, and this is like as a
Speaker 3: mid am, right, is like I would play it. I
Speaker 3: try and play the US Open, I try and play
Speaker 3: the US AM, I try and play the US Midam.
Speaker 3: It sounds like their goal is to have this ball
Speaker 3: be used at the US Midam. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm one of the best players at a club,
Speaker 3: I am going to be probably using this ball predominantly
Speaker 3: this is the ball that I'm going to use, and
Speaker 3: that's going to have a trickle down effect into the
Speaker 3: group that I'm playing with, and that's going to just
Speaker 3: continue to push out. The same thing goes for like
Speaker 3: if you have a kid that's a growing, that's a golfer,
Speaker 3: that's you know, that's really good, they're aspiring to play
Speaker 3: the US Junior. It sounds like this is going to
Speaker 3: be tied into the US Junior. Maybe not the first year,
Speaker 3: but quickly after. So if your kids wants to play
Speaker 3: the US Junior, that's the pinnacle of golf. Like the
Speaker 3: Western Junior, the US Junior, those are the pinnacles of
Speaker 3: junior golf. You know what's probably going to be The
Speaker 3: Western Golf Association is probably going to follow the USGA.
Speaker 3: You know, they're historic organizations. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: if your kid wants to, you know, compete at the
Speaker 3: highest level, they're going to start to use this golf
Speaker 3: ball and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: The amateur level. The same thing. Now where I find
Speaker 2: where all this the wrench comes.
Speaker 3: In is if the tour says we are not doing that,
Speaker 3: and I think that that that is a it's it's
Speaker 3: interesting they obviously have the power to do it.
Speaker 2: But the thing about it is, I think it's a.
Speaker 3: Really bad marketing play by them if they do it,
Speaker 3: because it's saying, hey, we don't want to play these rules.
Speaker 3: We'd prefer to have the game dulled down, especially, you know,
Speaker 3: it would be super weird after we watch people play
Speaker 3: Augusta National and have to hit a wide ray shots
Speaker 3: and even accentuate the product difference that we see, Like
Speaker 3: we watch Augustin and it's like, God, I wish every
Speaker 3: week of golf was like this, and then have that
Speaker 3: accentuated by like, oh, we're gonna see these guys hit
Speaker 3: more shots and the best golf course and the way
Speaker 3: you know that they play year in, year out, and
Speaker 3: then they're going to go to Harbortown, a tiny little
Speaker 3: course with a souped up golf ball.
Speaker 2: It's going to further.
Speaker 3: Like there's a running joke that the tour is almost
Speaker 3: like WWE is to wrestling as to what major championship
Speaker 3: golf is with like the TiO relief, they get the
Speaker 3: favorable rulings, the lift clean in place, if they refuse
Speaker 3: to accept the equipment stuff, it's just going to accentuate
Speaker 3: that fact that, like you know, the PGA Tour doesn't
Speaker 3: play the same golf that you play.
Speaker 1: And I don't think the players are going to want
Speaker 1: to go back and forth the play. What do the
Speaker 1: players on the PGA Tour care about. They care about
Speaker 1: the majors. Specifically, they care about the Masters, the US Open,
Speaker 1: and the Open Championship. Those are the three tournaments they
Speaker 1: care the most about. The PGA Championship, we don't really
Speaker 1: know what's going on with PGA of America, but we've
Speaker 1: heard rumblings that they're not stoked about the model local rule.
Speaker 1: But I think that the Masters, the US Open, and
Speaker 1: in the Open hold a lot of cards here and
Speaker 1: that what we see is a bit of a game
Speaker 1: of chicken going on between the PGA Tour and those
Speaker 1: three majors, because I think that the PGA Tour knows
Speaker 1: that if the top three majors implement this ball, that
Speaker 1: they're probably going to have to follow suit. I think
Speaker 1: that they know that they don't quite have the clout
Speaker 1: to stand up against those three majors and say to
Speaker 1: the players, you have to play one ball on our tour,
Speaker 1: or you get to play one ball on our tour
Speaker 1: and then you're going to have to switch for the
Speaker 1: most important tournaments of the year. I honestly don't think
Speaker 1: that most players are going to go for that, and
Speaker 1: that what most players would want is for the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour to pressure the USGA and RNA in this comment
Speaker 1: period to drop this idea. I think that's why you're
Speaker 1: seeing so many tour players come out so strongly against it.
Speaker 1: Right We've seen Justin Thomas speak out, We've seen Keegan
Speaker 1: Bradley open his mouth, We've seen Charlie Hoffman go on
Speaker 1: PGA Tour Radio. We've seen a lot of guys come
Speaker 1: out really aggressively against this, and I think the reason
Speaker 1: for that is that their preferred situation would be if
Speaker 1: this idea just went away. But I don't think it's
Speaker 1: going to go away. And I think that once the
Speaker 1: most important major start to use this model local rule,
Speaker 1: that the PGA Tour is going to be in a
Speaker 1: really tough spot because it's going to seem like they're
Speaker 1: not playing real golf and their players are not going
Speaker 1: to want to switch back and forth and you know,
Speaker 1: play a ball that they're not used to for their
Speaker 1: most important events of the year.
Speaker 3: I you know, and This is the thing is, I
Speaker 3: don't think it's going to be that big of an adjustment.
Speaker 3: Everybody's kicking and screaming right now about it, but the
Speaker 3: reality is is like it's going to be a little
Speaker 3: bit of adjustment. But they aren't taking They aren't changing
Speaker 3: all the clubs either, you know, like and I think
Speaker 3: that's like one of the things if we wanted to
Speaker 3: talk about what we wish they would have done, and
Speaker 3: I understand why they couldn't get there, and maybe this
Speaker 3: is the first regulation that pushes the ability to say, hey,
Speaker 3: this isn't all that bad that we change. But you know,
Speaker 3: so the one thing with the tour is if they
Speaker 3: go to this, if they stick with their ball and
Speaker 3: they don't go to this, like who's going to play
Speaker 3: the week before the Masters, Who's who is? Those tournaments
Speaker 3: are just going to be wiped off the schedule, right,
Speaker 3: Like nobody's playing the week before the Masters or the
Speaker 3: or the week before the US Open or the week
Speaker 3: before the Open and not playing with the tournament ball.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, they're they're they're gonna have at least I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: they're the best players in the world. They should be
Speaker 1: able to make this adjustment. But if they're going back
Speaker 1: and forth, they'll need a little bit of time to
Speaker 1: dial things in and get their yardages and and make
Speaker 1: sure that everything's, you know, in line for a big,
Speaker 1: important tournament. I think you're right that the week before
Speaker 1: a major, if they have to adjust to a different ball,
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna have to spend some time optimizing that ball.
Speaker 3: I think we both agree that this politically was a
Speaker 3: smart and strategically a pretty smart move by the by
Speaker 3: the usg the way they've rolled this out, I think
Speaker 3: that I would say that, if I summed up, both
Speaker 3: of us were a little disappointed, Like in an ideal world,
Speaker 3: you'd see this across all of golf.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that was my first reaction. I wish
Speaker 1: this were a universal rollback, and I still feel that way,
Speaker 1: But I understand the political maneuver a little bit better
Speaker 1: now than I did when the announcement was made. But
Speaker 1: you know, a year ago, they were looking at doing
Speaker 1: a model local role for the driver and doing a
Speaker 1: universal rollback for the ball, and I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: disappointed that that hasn't stayed that way, that we're no
Speaker 1: longer looking at the driver and that we're no longer
Speaker 1: looking at the idea of a universal rollback for the ball.
Speaker 1: It seems like the governing bodies have seeded the point
Speaker 1: that a rollback of the amateur's ball would be bad
Speaker 1: for the recreational game, when I don't think that's the case.
Speaker 1: I don't think that they should admit that point that
Speaker 1: a shorter ball is necessary worse or less fun or
Speaker 1: somehow unattractive for recreational players, because I just don't see
Speaker 1: it that way at all.
Speaker 3: You know, I've I've kind of played golf with a
Speaker 3: self imposed rollback for the last year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have, so for those that I've.
Speaker 3: Talked a little bit about this on this podcast, But
Speaker 3: I play with a persimon driver titleist PT three Wood
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies Blade Irons, and.
Speaker 1: You're you're you're such a woke andy look at you,
Speaker 1: I such a frankly.
Speaker 3: Frankly, what happened was like my my ten year old
Speaker 3: clubs they broke and I just haven't got I haven't
Speaker 3: found the time to go get new ones from from
Speaker 3: Club Champion, and like I just haven't gone.
Speaker 2: Like that's literally why this has happened.
Speaker 3: I've like had like great joy playing the game at
Speaker 3: a smaller scale.
Speaker 2: And We've heard this this word used before, but.
Speaker 3: I've had like incredible amount of fun playing golf courses
Speaker 3: and not bludgeting them with a driver and a wedge
Speaker 3: like I've I think I've gotten I think like I
Speaker 3: haven't played modern equipment, but like I think when I
Speaker 3: play it the next time, it's going to be like WHOA,
Speaker 3: Like I've gotten a lot better over the last year
Speaker 3: because I've had to like work on different things, Like
Speaker 3: I've had longer approach shots into greens all for a year,
Speaker 3: you know. I just like my short game is better
Speaker 3: because I've missed a lot more greens. And that's I
Speaker 3: think the interesting thing about this when you talk about,
Speaker 3: you know, the tour is like and be recreational golf.
Speaker 3: The recreational golf takeaway is like I have done this.
Speaker 3: I've I think that's it's probably been pretty close to
Speaker 3: the yardage number that I've taken away from myself, and I've.
Speaker 2: Really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: I have not like I you know, there are times
Speaker 3: when it's soft and I'm playing with people with modern
Speaker 3: equipment that I get a little frustrated. But for the
Speaker 3: most part, I've really never been like you know what,
Speaker 3: this sucks that I don't have I can't hit it
Speaker 3: twenty five thirty yards further.
Speaker 2: This this is terrible.
Speaker 3: I will say also, like for the professional game, for
Speaker 3: people that are saying like, oh, power players are going
Speaker 3: to be so much more advantage because this is going
Speaker 3: to hurt shorter players more. I don't think so, because,
Speaker 3: like if you're not hitting wedges all the time, golf
Speaker 3: becomes a.
Speaker 2: Lot harder for the power players.
Speaker 3: Like, what needs to be looked at, It's not just
Speaker 3: like the strokes gain difference off the tee. What needs
Speaker 3: to then be looked at is like, how is the
Speaker 3: individual player from one fifty versus one twenty five? So
Speaker 3: look at that one twenty five versus the one fifty number.
Speaker 3: But also the player, the shorter player, say they go
Speaker 3: from one seventy five to two hundred. What's the difference there?
Speaker 2: Right? Is there a huge difference?
Speaker 3: And you know, different players, it's going to be different things,
Speaker 3: like certain players are going to be better at that
Speaker 3: around the green I think is going to be more
Speaker 3: emphasized because of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that it should be seen rollbacks should
Speaker 1: be seen less as a deficiency, less as taking something
Speaker 1: away and more as sort of changing the nature of
Speaker 1: the game that you play. And for some people it
Speaker 1: will be a disadvantage. Let's be honest. If you play
Speaker 1: from the same tees and you rely on a certain
Speaker 1: amount of distance off the tee and you have less distance,
Speaker 1: then yeah, you're going to be hitting longer clubs. But
Speaker 1: for other people it might be good for them to
Speaker 1: have tighter dispersion, the tighter dispersion of a shorter drive.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that it's just more complex than
Speaker 1: saying roll back is a disadvantage to recreational golfers or
Speaker 1: something that makes the game more difficult, because I just
Speaker 1: don't think it would feel that way in reality. And
Speaker 1: part of this comes from my memories of playing golf
Speaker 1: before the four hundred and sixty cc driver. You know,
Speaker 1: I was young, but I did play golf in the nineties,
Speaker 1: and guess what, it was just as fun then as
Speaker 1: it is now. It wasn't that big of a deal
Speaker 1: to me that my three would was sometimes easier to
Speaker 1: hit off the tee than the driver. That was fine.
Speaker 1: That was a feature of the game, you know, And
Speaker 1: we played with spinnier balls that traveled a shorter distance.
Speaker 1: The game was still incredibly fun. It was still the
Speaker 1: greatest game I had ever played in my life. And
Speaker 1: so anyway, that's that's my take on that. Now we
Speaker 1: should get to the guests that you have lined up,
Speaker 1: because people, we could talk forever about this, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll talk more about it in the future. But
Speaker 1: who's next up on the docket?
Speaker 5: Here?
Speaker 2: We got Tom Doak first.
Speaker 3: He will be up and he obviously has some interesting
Speaker 3: thoughts on architecture and how this applies to his job.
Speaker 2: Then we have Roberto Castro.
Speaker 3: I wanted to have somebody on that was very connected
Speaker 3: to the PGA Tour game, but maybe not like right
Speaker 3: in it right now. So they have a little bit,
Speaker 3: you know, it's one of those can you see the
Speaker 3: force through the trees type situation. And then Joseph Lamannia
Speaker 3: to talk about strategy. We got into it a little bit,
Speaker 3: but he has some more thoughts on how golf will
Speaker 3: change if there's fifteen to twenty yard reduction in drivers.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go to it.
Speaker 3: Now. For a quick word from our sponsor, which is
Speaker 3: Club TFE. This is the membership for the Fried Egg.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I made a very conscious
Speaker 3: decision when I started this company seven years ago was
Speaker 3: that we would not be taking money from equipment sponsors
Speaker 3: that wanted our voice to be, Hey, buy this club,
Speaker 3: use this ball, it's the best, because it's something that
Speaker 3: I just didn't believe it. I believe that there is
Speaker 3: no best ball, there's a best ball for you, there's
Speaker 3: a best club for you. But also I believe that,
Speaker 3: you know, the game had kind of gotten a little
Speaker 3: out of balance and that a you know, regulation was
Speaker 3: probably needed. And you know, I never wanted a company
Speaker 3: that financially supported us to have a role in how
Speaker 3: we talked about the game. So you know, obviously that
Speaker 3: is a big revenue source for most media companies in golf,
Speaker 3: and that's not a revenue source for us. One of
Speaker 3: the ways that we support our staff continue to grow
Speaker 3: and continue to improve the content we put out is
Speaker 3: through Club TFE, which also happens to be a way
Speaker 3: for you to feed fuel your golf addiction. We are
Speaker 3: posting daily articles Monday through Friday in Club TFE. Every Wednesday,
Speaker 3: we have a detailed course review right up with a rating.
Speaker 3: We have a monthly member video. We have a monthly
Speaker 3: hangout which is kind of just like a live podcast,
Speaker 3: and we have a lot more early event access discounts
Speaker 3: to the pro shop. It is something that we're excited about.
Speaker 3: We want to continue to build and grow and it
Speaker 3: is a awesome probably the best way for you to
Speaker 3: support the Frida Egg and what we do here. So
Speaker 3: if you're interested in the membership, if you want to
Speaker 3: check it out, go to membership dot thefridagg dot com.
Speaker 3: It is one hundred and twenty dollars for the year
Speaker 3: and it gets you a lot of stuff. I think
Speaker 3: you know, I've been really impressed with our team and
Speaker 3: our output and our dedication towards it. It is something
Speaker 3: that we want to be a really special product. It
Speaker 3: is not just a GoFundMe type thing. It is a product.
Speaker 3: We are putting a lot of our time and energy
Speaker 3: into it, and I think everybody on the team is
Speaker 3: very proud of what we've done with it so far.
Speaker 3: So if you're interested in supporting us, membership dot Thefrida
Speaker 3: Egg dot com. It's one hundred and twenty dollars for
Speaker 3: the year. And now back to our discussion on the
Speaker 3: latest USGA and RNA news. Tom with the Rollback News
Speaker 3: Today and Geared towards elite players. You recently completed a
Speaker 3: golf design that was, you know, obviously part municipal golf,
Speaker 3: but also part hosting a PGA Tour event every year
Speaker 3: in Memorial Park in Houston. How, if any would you
Speaker 3: have changed your design for that golf course with this
Speaker 3: reduction in distance in mind?
Speaker 6: Honestly, I don't think it changes what we did much
Speaker 6: at all. I mean, you know, you're talking about a
Speaker 6: five or six percent rollback of the golf ball from
Speaker 6: from what I can tell from the little bit that
Speaker 6: I've heard so far. And you know, what I've always
Speaker 6: tried to do is recognize that even tour players hit
Speaker 6: at different distances. You know, some guys carry a three
Speaker 6: hundred yards, some guys carry it to ninety. A few
Speaker 6: can hit carry it three fifteen. So you don't I've never,
Speaker 6: I've always tried to avoid putting all the hazards at
Speaker 6: a certain distance, thinking, you know, if you can carry
Speaker 6: it three hundred, then you're good and you should be
Speaker 6: rewarded all the time. And if you can only carry
Speaker 6: it two eighty five, well then you're not so good
Speaker 6: and you have to hit it into tighter spaces all
Speaker 6: the time. So a Memorial Park has a range of carries,
Speaker 6: you know, and there's a couple of them, like the
Speaker 6: shot from the back tee on sixteen that to carry
Speaker 6: the most part of the water on the right is
Speaker 6: a little over three hundred yards. And if this, you know,
Speaker 6: if I am reading this rollback right, there's a lot
Speaker 6: fewer guys that are going to take that on that
Speaker 6: particular carry on unless the wind is helping them or
Speaker 6: something like that. But you know, all it's going to
Speaker 6: do is slide back the scale a little bit of
Speaker 6: you know, the guys, the guys that can carry it
Speaker 6: further now are going to have to play up more
Speaker 6: like the guys who are a little shorter, and the
Speaker 6: guys who are on the short end of the stick
Speaker 6: now are going to have to think back a little
Speaker 6: bit further two and you know, and there's going to
Speaker 6: be one or two holes where they've got to give
Speaker 6: up trying to make a certain carry.
Speaker 3: In a way, would you agree that this would make
Speaker 3: your golf course perhaps even a little bit more versatile.
Speaker 6: If this is only being applied to the elite players
Speaker 6: and not to the people that play Memorial Park every day,
Speaker 6: you're narrowing the gap a little bit there. You know,
Speaker 6: you're you know, you're letting all the amateurs go out
Speaker 6: and still hit the ball just as far as they do,
Speaker 6: and you're shortening the gap between them and the tour
Speaker 6: pros from you know, probably fifty or sixty yards now
Speaker 6: down to thirty, which that makes a difference. But and
Speaker 6: you know, the one thing this will affect is that
Speaker 6: the scoring will go up a little bit. If everybody's
Speaker 6: hitting two more clubs into green, that's going to matter some.
Speaker 6: It's not gonna I don't think it's going to change
Speaker 6: the approach of what they're trying to do.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I don't think that they're going to go away from
Speaker 6: attacking as many pins because they've got an aid iron
Speaker 6: to the green instead of a wedge. But it will
Speaker 6: have some effect.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: It's you know, if you if you you know, I
Speaker 6: don't know the numbers very well, but you can look
Speaker 6: very clearly on the all those charts they have now
Speaker 6: and say, okay, if everybody's hitting approaches from twenty yards
Speaker 6: further out, we know what the scoring differential is there
Speaker 6: between one hundred and forty yard approaches and one hundred
Speaker 6: and sixty yard approaches and you can count on the
Speaker 6: scores going up that much.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then furthermore with that, obviously, is that you know,
Speaker 3: it's not just the driver. You know, their irons will
Speaker 3: be slightly it won't be as short, but they will
Speaker 3: be a little bit shorter too. I imagine for you
Speaker 3: as a designer, this gives you the opportunity, a little
Speaker 3: bit more of an opportunity. It seems like it's a
Speaker 3: very hard thing to do, is to get a longer
Speaker 3: iron like a five iron or more into a professional's
Speaker 3: hand on a part four. I imagine that this will
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 6: Yes, it will, you know, by the same token it's
Speaker 6: going to mean. I mean, if anything, it means they'll
Speaker 6: hit driver, you know, even more of all the time
Speaker 6: everywhere now because they because they you know, they've have
Speaker 6: been beaten into them. They need to get up there.
Speaker 6: And if if hitting an iron off the team means
Speaker 6: they're that much further back in the rough than they
Speaker 6: would have been before, they're not willing to take that chance.
Speaker 6: They're just going to pound driver all day. Unless they're
Speaker 6: trying to hit into a funnel with water on both sides.
Speaker 6: Obviously they don't do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's That's the one thing that I'm super interested
Speaker 3: to see with the strategy component is if let's we
Speaker 3: know that like there's huge value to get a wedge
Speaker 3: in the rough versus a seven iron in the fairway,
Speaker 3: but when you move that back and it's a seven
Speaker 3: iron in the rough or let's just say a five
Speaker 3: iron in the fair way, right, how does that change?
Speaker 3: And I'm sure there's data, and I apologize that I
Speaker 3: don't have this data. I'm not a corese strategist, but
Speaker 3: that's what I'm wondering. If that is a smaller delta
Speaker 3: there and then all of a sudden, does it start
Speaker 3: to present more of a choice off the tee?
Speaker 6: Maybe, but I don't think. You know, I've always thought
Speaker 6: that the biggest change in my lifetime and the equipment,
Speaker 6: it wasn't the ball, It was the driver. And you
Speaker 6: know the reason those guys and you know they do
Speaker 6: use three food off the tea fair amount now, but
Speaker 6: the driver just has there's such a big face there
Speaker 6: and you can go at it so hard and you know,
Speaker 6: miss way up on the toe somewhere and it only
Speaker 6: costs you like five yards on the carry. To me,
Speaker 6: that the biggest lesson for me from the Renaissance Club
Speaker 6: in Memorial Park was there that the pros distance control
Speaker 6: is so consistent because the equipment is so forgiven that
Speaker 6: it's almost impossible to you know, make a carry on
Speaker 6: a golf course that you know, they don't ever mis.
Speaker 6: You know, they don't make a mistake with a carry
Speaker 6: because if they hit you know, if you made them
Speaker 6: hit driver fifty times and they and their average carry
Speaker 6: was three hundred yards, I think the margin for error now,
Speaker 6: like the worst drive out of fifty is going to
Speaker 6: go like two ninety four ninety five, So all they
Speaker 6: you know, if they know it's more than two ninety,
Speaker 6: you know, if they know two ninety is the carry,
Speaker 6: they can go for that every time and they're never
Speaker 6: going to miss. Whereas twenty years ago that was not true.
Speaker 6: You know, you could there was always a chance of
Speaker 6: not having a perfect on center, hitting the ball didn't
Speaker 6: fly so far and you had trouble. And now it's
Speaker 6: like two ninety five over water. Oh yeah, I'm going
Speaker 6: to make that every time.
Speaker 3: It sounds like the USGAH looked at that and they
Speaker 3: thought it might be too compliment complicated to implement, doing
Speaker 3: some sort of a change along those lines. Years ago,
Speaker 3: I did a little experiment. I never published the results
Speaker 3: of this, but I went to a track man and
Speaker 3: I hit Hickory driver, a Persimon driver, and then a
Speaker 3: modern my modern driver and what was And I hit
Speaker 3: about ten to twenty shots with them. And what was
Speaker 3: interesting was to look at the dispersion. It was it's
Speaker 3: just what you're talking about. And the dispersions were like
Speaker 3: a horizontal line or not like a diagonal. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to explain this in a non visual format, but it
Speaker 3: was like a diagonal with the with the person and
Speaker 3: the smaller head drivers, the Persimon and the Hickory. What
Speaker 3: I saw was there was a diagonal which was like
Speaker 3: kind of short. You had that short right miss that
Speaker 3: was the short misses, and then the left it kind
Speaker 3: of like it had that wide dispersion of right and left,
Speaker 3: but then there was a short right component of it
Speaker 3: where the ball is just not going very far if
Speaker 3: you missed it a certain way right. But then when
Speaker 3: you got to the modern driver, it was just like
Speaker 3: a horizontal line where the distance was basically the same,
Speaker 3: but you would miss right or left. So it removes
Speaker 3: that short miss from a miss hit when you that's
Speaker 3: what's happened with modern drivers, is the right You've been
Speaker 3: saying that forgiveness for a high swing speed player is
Speaker 3: just off.
Speaker 6: The charts, and you know, I mean it's not just
Speaker 6: you know, I recognize it with the driver because that
Speaker 6: affects even me. You know, pros generally they're not missing
Speaker 6: the driver way up on the top. They're pretty good,
Speaker 6: you know. So it goes through all the clubs in
Speaker 6: their bag too. Where I really realized it, you know,
Speaker 6: Padrick Harrington now is consulting on the Renaissance Club in Scotland,
Speaker 6: and we were we were sitting in his kitchen talking
Speaker 6: through the holes and we got to the seventeenth pole
Speaker 6: and you know, seventeen's long, part three and there's a
Speaker 6: deep ass bunker left front, which you don't see very
Speaker 6: well from the tee and it's only really in play
Speaker 6: with the pin on the left. So one or two
Speaker 6: days out of four. But we when we went to
Speaker 6: look at that whole, Padrick said, oh, I forgot that
Speaker 6: bunker was even there. And I said, wait, you you
Speaker 6: know the holes like two twenty you know, you got
Speaker 6: to carry it two hundred and something over the bunker
Speaker 6: you're not even thinking about that. And he's like, no,
Speaker 6: the way the green is, I'm trying to you know,
Speaker 6: the the green slopes away from the bunker a little bit,
Speaker 6: so I'm trying to land the ball eight yards on.
Speaker 6: I'm never going to be eight yards short from two twenty.
Speaker 5: And he meant it. You know, he wasn't joking.
Speaker 6: He was like, I'm never going to make that, have
Speaker 6: that miss, and I'm like, what the hell am I
Speaker 6: even doing?
Speaker 3: Speaking of professionals, this is just cave across by desk,
Speaker 3: we're recording this well, well, professional golfers. Comments are rolling in.
Speaker 3: We got we got one from Web Simpson, and the
Speaker 3: question to you would be, how would you respond to
Speaker 3: Web Simpson's commentary that the solution to the distance problem
Speaker 3: is better architecture and more specifically, more rough and more trees.
Speaker 6: I don't know Web Simpson's game well enough, but you know,
Speaker 6: anytime a player says more rough and more trees, he's
Speaker 6: a straight hitter and not a really long hitter, and
Speaker 6: he just wants the long hitters punished when they hit
Speaker 6: a wild t shot, which I can totally understand from
Speaker 6: his perspective. You know, the problem about talking with any
Speaker 6: tour pro or really any golfer about their perspective on
Speaker 6: this stuff is that it's all based on their own game,
Speaker 6: you know. You know, even Jack Nicholas when we were
Speaker 6: working at Sabonic. You know, Jack is you know, he's
Speaker 6: well aware that you know, Tiger Woods in the younger
Speaker 6: generation they hit it, you know, thirty yards farther than
Speaker 6: Jack did back then. But to Jack, you know, a
Speaker 6: two hundred and eighty yard carry was was a reasonable
Speaker 6: carry and if you could make that, you should be rewarded.
Speaker 6: And if you didn't hit it solid, you know, to
Speaker 6: him it was it was still the way we were
Speaker 6: talking about how golf used to be. If you didn't
Speaker 6: hit the driver so solid and it didn't make that carry,
Speaker 6: then you should be punished for that. But he just,
Speaker 6: you know, he couldn't help but think of it in
Speaker 6: terms of his own game, even though he knows better
Speaker 6: that there's plenty of other guys that hit a different
Speaker 6: distances than it.
Speaker 3: I mean, to be a great golfer, there is a
Speaker 3: self pursuit aspect, like you have to be very selfish
Speaker 3: and you have to view kind of the world of
Speaker 3: golf through a very like it's it's very hard to
Speaker 3: be you know, almost like a you know, thinking of
Speaker 3: other people and be a successful pro golfer.
Speaker 6: Yes, and and you know, more than that, they want
Speaker 6: to believe that if they you know, they know when
Speaker 6: they're hitting the ball well or not well, and they
Speaker 6: want to be rewarded for hitting the ball well. Web
Speaker 6: Simpson's idea of hitting the ball well is I'm hitting
Speaker 6: it straight on the fairway all the time, so the
Speaker 6: golf course should be tighter, and if I can't hit
Speaker 6: that fairway, I should be punished for you know, and
Speaker 6: other guys it's more about how far they hit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great point. I think if you pulled,
Speaker 3: you know, Jason Cocrack to Web Simpson, I'm amazed that
Speaker 3: you preface it by saying you know nothing about web
Speaker 3: Simpson's game and then then explained web Simpson's game to
Speaker 3: a t. But if you compared those two players to
Speaker 3: get wildly different opinions on how a golf course should
Speaker 3: be set up, so a bigger question. And I think,
Speaker 3: you know, if they had taken this approach to roll
Speaker 3: back for the entire game, not just the professional game,
Speaker 3: and it seems like what you're getting at not much
Speaker 3: would change with how you designed a course for a professional.
Speaker 3: How would golf course design and management change if this
Speaker 3: was applied universally across the board to golf.
Speaker 6: Again, I don't think it changes that much. I mean,
Speaker 6: you know, the average player, the Deltas are way bigger
Speaker 6: on their misses and how far they hit. You know,
Speaker 6: how far one You know, if you're a ten handicapper,
Speaker 6: some of them hit the ball two ninety and some
Speaker 6: of them hit the ball two hundred yards, And you
Speaker 6: can still be a ten handicapper under either of those scenarios,
Speaker 6: depending on how the rest of your game.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: The thing about why the tour pros are so consistent
Speaker 6: is partly you have to be really good at all
Speaker 6: parts of the game to survive out there. You know,
Speaker 6: it's not like there's tour pros with who hit it
Speaker 6: gray but have bad short games that won't work. And
Speaker 6: it's not like they're tour pros they hit it bad
Speaker 6: but have great short games. That's not good enough to
Speaker 6: be one of the hundred best players in the world.
Speaker 6: But when we're talking about the average golfer, the ten
Speaker 6: or fifteen handycap app er, Yeah, there's huge variations in
Speaker 6: what kind of golf they play, and that's why there's
Speaker 6: huge variations in what kind of courses they like.
Speaker 3: I think you're spot on, and I just want to
Speaker 3: clarify point when people talk about, oh, this guy's not
Speaker 3: a doesn't have a great short game on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: That's in comparison to his peers, who are the very
Speaker 3: very best in the world. Not like you know, in
Speaker 3: my years of caddying, you could create an eight handicap
Speaker 3: that has such wildly different skill sets, right. One could
Speaker 3: be really long off the t tour, long off the
Speaker 3: t but an eight handicap because it's wild and it's
Speaker 3: very inconsistent and just wawful around the green.
Speaker 6: And the other guy is a sixty five year old
Speaker 6: guy that used to be scratched and still hits every
Speaker 6: shot exactly flushed, and he's just not long enough to
Speaker 6: be any better than an eight handicap exactly.
Speaker 3: So it's important like to reference when when when there's
Speaker 3: criticism of a tour pros putting. For example, if you
Speaker 3: took that guy and put him at your club or
Speaker 3: your local course, he would probably be by far the
Speaker 3: best putter there, you know, like That's the thing that
Speaker 3: I think sometimes people like overlook is how good, how
Speaker 3: great these guys are everything, you know, and how wildly
Speaker 3: different in terms of like for there to be a
Speaker 3: shift in design, how drastic would the changes have to be?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 6: You know, they've been talking about this for forty years
Speaker 6: and if they'd have if they'd have stopped the growth
Speaker 6: thirty years ago, it would be different and he wouldn't
Speaker 6: see got you know, a course wouldn't have to be
Speaker 6: seventy five hundred yards to be a tour site. But
Speaker 6: you know, I mean, I you know, I thought that
Speaker 6: they were probably going to talk about a ten percent rollback,
Speaker 6: which would be enough to you know, not build some
Speaker 6: of the crazy back tees that we've been building. Some
Speaker 6: people talked about a fifteen percent rollback. That would get
Speaker 6: you know, that would bring Rory McElroy back to where
Speaker 6: Jack Nicholas was forty years ago. That would be that
Speaker 6: would that might have serious implications for course strategy at
Speaker 6: that point. You know, now you're talking about hitting pretty
Speaker 6: long clubs into a lot of the greens. You can't
Speaker 6: be on the rough for that. And now you got
Speaker 6: to think about, okay, you know, where is the balance
Speaker 6: of hitting the fairways more versus versus getting a little farther.
Speaker 6: But you know, I don't think a five or six
Speaker 6: percent different change makes a real difference in terms of
Speaker 6: how people attack the golf course, because really, all you're
Speaker 6: talking about is I don't know. I don't know when
Speaker 6: the average PGA Tour driving distance was six percent shorter,
Speaker 6: but when that long ago, you know, it was in
Speaker 6: my professional lifetime, and I haven't really started I haven't
Speaker 6: really changed much in my professional lifetime about how I
Speaker 6: approach design.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 6: You know, the change has been incremental, and it's certainly
Speaker 6: way different now than it was thirty five years ago,
Speaker 6: but not to a level that, oh, you know, we
Speaker 6: got to start designing everything differently.
Speaker 3: I think what you talked about with like fifteen percent
Speaker 3: for example, what that could also lead, Like you talked
Speaker 3: about the strategy change, but another thing that might change
Speaker 3: is the golf ball makeup. At that point, if all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, guys are hitting very long irons into
Speaker 3: play into greens rather than short irons, and greens are firm,
Speaker 3: they might value a spin yar golf ball. You know,
Speaker 3: these these are all different things that could you know
Speaker 3: that when This is a very small change and it
Speaker 3: limits the downstream you know effects that it does. It's
Speaker 3: a very safe change really when you think about because
Speaker 3: when you start to do a bigger and bigger change,
Speaker 3: that's where you start to have the more unforeseen downstream
Speaker 3: changes that could come up. And you know, I obviously
Speaker 3: it's a We're still three years from implementation, and I
Speaker 3: think there's nothing is final, so it'll be fun to
Speaker 3: watch this. Tom. I really appreciate you coming on and
Speaker 3: giving us your insights on the latest chapter in the
Speaker 3: two hundred year golf debate.
Speaker 6: All right, Andy, thank you, Roberto.
Speaker 3: What do you think about the changes introduced today, the
Speaker 3: reduction in just the tour professionals effectively distanced by fifteen
Speaker 3: to twenty yards via the swing speed test of the
Speaker 3: of the technology. What are your overarching thoughts on the
Speaker 3: news from the USJA and RNA today.
Speaker 7: My thoughts are pretty simple. I think it's just a
Speaker 7: no brainer. The how is you know upward debate? If
Speaker 7: it's ten, if it's fifteen, if it's twenty, I'm sure
Speaker 7: it'll affect some players more than others. The details, you know,
Speaker 7: we can talk about, but just the headline to me,
Speaker 7: I kind of was like, Okay, that needed to happen,
Speaker 7: kind of moved on with my day. That's how I
Speaker 7: see it.
Speaker 3: What do you mean by it had to happen and
Speaker 3: it's a no brainer. Why is it a no brainer?
Speaker 7: I think there's just two factors. One, the golf ball
Speaker 7: continues to fly farther, and that can be for a
Speaker 7: number of different reasons. You can say it's the driver,
Speaker 7: you can say it's the ball, you can say it's
Speaker 7: faster players, and all of those might be true, and
Speaker 7: all of them are true to some extent. But the
Speaker 7: ball continues to go longer and the courses don't get longer.
Speaker 7: So at some point either you're going to play a
Speaker 7: completely different game unlike the one that really how the
Speaker 7: game was designed to be played, which in my opinion
Speaker 7: is fourteen clubs. You hit some long shots, you hit
Speaker 7: some short shots. You have to be kind of good
Speaker 7: at all all the shots to be really good, or
Speaker 7: you can't expand the golf courses anymore. It's just not
Speaker 7: it's literally not possible anymore. To add, you can't have
Speaker 7: ten thousand yard golf courses. There's roads and neighborhoods, and
Speaker 7: there's no more land and no more water, so ball
Speaker 7: continues to go farther, courses don't get longer. Something had
Speaker 7: to be done.
Speaker 3: You know, I have to say I was I wanted
Speaker 3: to have you on because I thought, oh, he's he's
Speaker 3: a retired former player, he's going to have no bias,
Speaker 3: kind of no dog in this fight. But I just
Speaker 3: recalled that you just lost your course record at TVC
Speaker 3: Sawgrass this past weekend, so there could be some bias
Speaker 3: sneaking in here.
Speaker 7: I blame the rules officials for that. The setup was
Speaker 7: no that was you know, that was actually like obviously
Speaker 7: the course was gettable that day. But here's what happened there.
Speaker 7: You're talking about a twenty five million dollar perse and
Speaker 7: a guy who shot seventy eight on Thursday, and he
Speaker 7: backs into the cut like he shoots a nice round
Speaker 7: on Friday. The cut moves to two over, and we've
Speaker 7: all been there as pro golfers, like when you make
Speaker 7: that cut on the number, especially, like it kind of
Speaker 7: moves your way. It's the it's the lightest feeling in
Speaker 7: professional golf. You go play on Saturday and you're like,
Speaker 7: if I shoot nighty, I shoot nighty, I'm still going
Speaker 7: to collect a check I didn't think I was going
Speaker 7: to get and all I have is upside and he
Speaker 7: caught a day where the conditions were favorable. All he
Speaker 7: could do was just go put stuff more cash into
Speaker 7: his pocket and he shot sixty two. So it was
Speaker 7: that was cool.
Speaker 3: It was great round a notorious gambler, as you described,
Speaker 3: playing with house money.
Speaker 7: House money. It's house money. You put the chips on
Speaker 7: the table and they can't take any away. All they
Speaker 7: can do is add to your stack. You don't have
Speaker 7: to be a professional gambler quasi professional gambler to know
Speaker 7: that's a good deal.
Speaker 3: All right, So back to the subject in hand. Sorry
Speaker 3: for the quick quick divergence. I just was listening to
Speaker 3: your talk and thinking about the about the feeling on
Speaker 3: Saturday you had probably why do you think some tour
Speaker 3: pros are so adamantly opposed to the rollback?
Speaker 7: People just are generally hardwired to oppose change. A lot
Speaker 7: of a lot of people. And if you are on
Speaker 7: the PGA tour currently, you have the best job in
Speaker 7: the world. You've worked you know, you've worked your ass
Speaker 7: off to get that job. You've built a skill set,
Speaker 7: so anything that could potentially throw that off kilter is
Speaker 7: probably a little concerning, and I could see how there
Speaker 7: would be pushback.
Speaker 3: Do you think there's any credence to or you know,
Speaker 3: could explain how these guys are saying that the rollback
Speaker 3: will hurt the product? Do you think there's any validity
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 7: I don't think so. I think if the ball was
Speaker 7: going to go two hundred and forty yards, it might
Speaker 7: hurt the product. But I think there is a very
Speaker 7: large disconnect between the reason people play golf. There's golf
Speaker 7: and then there's professional golf in the PGA Tour, in
Speaker 7: the LPGA Tour, and I think we tend to mash
Speaker 7: those up too much. Most people go to the golf course,
Speaker 7: invest their time and their money because they enjoy playing
Speaker 7: the game of golf. And that has nothing to do
Speaker 7: really with what happens on Sunday on the PGA or
Speaker 7: LPGA Tour. And look at this COVID golf boom, Like,
Speaker 7: first of all, I think it's real. I think a
Speaker 7: lot more people have come into the game of all ages,
Speaker 7: all stripes, all colors, and they're sticking to it. And
Speaker 7: what happened on the LPGA or PGA Tour that could
Speaker 7: explain that nothing. Nothing's different. There's some stars in the game,
Speaker 7: there are some great players. Nothing is that considerably different.
Speaker 7: If this was going to happen, you would have said
Speaker 7: it would have happened with Tiger Woods, not rom or Scheffler,
Speaker 7: who are the best players in the game. Now, what
Speaker 7: happened is people had time. People had time to go
Speaker 7: try golf, and they had flexibility with their work life,
Speaker 7: and they loved the game. They didn't say like, oh
Speaker 7: my gosh, like did you see the Honda Classic this weekend,
Speaker 7: I'm going to go take up golf. That didn't happen. Now,
Speaker 7: once they do take up golf, they do enjoy watching
Speaker 7: the tour and the LPGA Tour, because once you've hit
Speaker 7: a few golf balls yourself, it is amazing to see
Speaker 7: what the tour players can do, and the competition is
Speaker 7: really compelling. But I don't think it hurts the product
Speaker 7: at all.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a pretty small reduction. It's five to
Speaker 3: ten percent, and you you could call me, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm in my late I'm getting towards my late thirties.
Speaker 3: Now you could call me an old fuddy duddy or whatever.
Speaker 3: I feel like I move the ball pretty well. Myself
Speaker 3: off the tee. One thing I noticed is I think
Speaker 3: this actually could help the product from like spectating in person.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget at the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straights,
Speaker 3: I was like having trouble picking up Bryson's ball off
Speaker 3: the tee because it was going so fast, like you know,
Speaker 3: to a certain extent, I think that the product in
Speaker 3: person could be like I'll never forget, you know, watching
Speaker 3: a Honda Classic and in the early two thousands, and
Speaker 3: I sat behind a te box all day and the
Speaker 3: distance of the ball wasn't traveling, wasn't what made me unbelievable.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget VJ saying walking up to the tee
Speaker 3: like he had that you know that saunter right, and
Speaker 3: he gets up to the tee and just the prodigious
Speaker 3: height that he hit the ball, Like the way the
Speaker 3: ball launched off the face. It seems to me nothing
Speaker 3: about that is changing with a five to ten percent
Speaker 3: reduction in distance, like the launch angle, all of that
Speaker 3: is staying the same. That's what is super impressive. There's
Speaker 3: no way to gauge if a ball is flying three
Speaker 3: hundred and ten yards or three hundred yards, whether you're
Speaker 3: in person or you're watching on TV. It is more
Speaker 3: about the way the ball comes off the face. And
Speaker 3: I I think a question I would have is like
Speaker 3: how far would have been too far from your perspective
Speaker 3: of as a tour player, because I think that this
Speaker 3: is almost feels like and it seemed like it was
Speaker 3: almost admitted to be a band aid solution.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 7: First of all, I remember going to tour events as
Speaker 7: a kid and being shocked at the driving range at
Speaker 7: how they just clipped every shot so pure, like every
Speaker 7: single shot was perfect. And that's my vivid memory of
Speaker 7: watching golf as a kid, like going to tour events
Speaker 7: and el my aunt plate on the LPGA, so I
Speaker 7: would go watch her hit golf balls when I was
Speaker 7: a kid, and I was like, she just hits every
Speaker 7: shot perfect. And as a PGA tour player, you do
Speaker 7: a corporate clinic and like you could roll straight out
Speaker 7: of the car, grab a seven iron and hit a
Speaker 7: seven iron that to me felt like chunky and stiff
Speaker 7: and wasn't any good. And every single person on that
Speaker 7: range at that clinic is like, oh my gosh, effort,
Speaker 7: Like look at that shot, what a perfect golf shot. Right,
Speaker 7: so that that doesn't affect the product at all. That
Speaker 7: the ball goes ten percent, I think it could make
Speaker 7: the product better because I was watching Sawgrass this weekend
Speaker 7: in the most compelling hole other than seventeen, which is
Speaker 7: obviously amazing to watch when it's windy, but sixteen is
Speaker 7: the most fun hole to watch because they're all hitting
Speaker 7: like two hundred to two hundred and twenty yard second shots,
Speaker 7: which is what you used to hit into a par
Speaker 7: four occasionally, maybe once or twice around, and golf is
Speaker 7: still really hard from that distance, Like so few guys
Speaker 7: were hitting the green, they were bailing out, left not
Speaker 7: many in the water. But if you can start putting
Speaker 7: some six irons and five irons back in players' hands,
Speaker 7: I think that the product gets better because it's just
Speaker 7: more interesting than driver wedge. So to answer how much
Speaker 7: would have been too much, I don't think you need
Speaker 7: to go back to you know, the long hitters today
Speaker 7: carry the ball three hundred to three hundred and ten yards,
Speaker 7: and I think if it flies to eighty or two ninety, great.
Speaker 7: I don't think taking them to hitting at two sixty,
Speaker 7: like you're you know, that's too much to do at
Speaker 7: one time. But it's just it's just gotten so crazy,
Speaker 7: like you know, ball speeds of one seventy with three
Speaker 7: woods now and Min Wu Lee hit an iron that
Speaker 7: had a one to seventy two ball speed, Like, I
Speaker 7: don't think we're going too far here, folks, Like it's
Speaker 7: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I kind of come to thinking about like four
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty yard par fours as like what they've
Speaker 3: become has been. It's crazy that like they've become, you know,
Speaker 3: just say normal conditions, no crazy wind nothing. You're talking
Speaker 3: about long hitters hitting driver nine iron, Yeah, maybe driver wedge.
Speaker 3: You're talking about like middle of the road PGA Tour
Speaker 3: players is driver seven iron yep, And to be that's
Speaker 3: that's wild. Four hundred and eighty yards like what I remember,
Speaker 3: And I don't want this to be like a nostalgia,
Speaker 3: but I remember as a kid. We're about the same
Speaker 3: age I remember as a kid, like four hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty yards when I was in high school was like
Speaker 3: a beast, you know. And you and I think the
Speaker 3: USA did a nice job today talking about it, talking
Speaker 3: about we've been out at the junior tournaments, like we
Speaker 3: go to the Junior am we see what is going on,
Speaker 3: because like it's so drastically different when you watch the
Speaker 3: amateur and junior level to the early two thousands, which
Speaker 3: is really where it kind of feels like they're trying
Speaker 3: to push it back to than it is now.
Speaker 7: You know, yeah, totally. And the so I've seen the
Speaker 7: Instagram videos of like the speed training that kids are doing.
Speaker 7: There's that one coach he gets like four kids at
Speaker 7: a time and they're lined up on a mat and
Speaker 7: they're doing like step by step speed training. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 7: you know, athletes are better and they're training better. Okay, fine,
Speaker 7: But it's the USGA's job to protect the game. It's
Speaker 7: to write the rules of the game so that the
Speaker 7: game is played in the spirit of the game. And
Speaker 7: we made up the rules to start with, like so
Speaker 7: we can right. And I think the game was designed
Speaker 7: to be played with a multitude of shots, and that
Speaker 7: has gone away because of the long distances. So let's
Speaker 7: make it more interesting through the bag and let's make
Speaker 7: the courses play like they're designed to. I heard that
Speaker 7: I've never played at LACC, but I was talking to
Speaker 7: Bryce Molder the other day who played on tour, and
Speaker 7: he goes over there for work now a good bit
Speaker 7: and has played there a bunch, and he said the
Speaker 7: back nine is like over forty five hundred yards or something.
Speaker 7: He said, there can be four. There's like four. He's like,
Speaker 7: I don't know where they'll put the t's, but there
Speaker 7: are four or five par fours that are five point fifty. Like,
Speaker 7: that's not normal, that's not possible most places. Obviously Augusta
Speaker 7: did the big deal at thirteen this year, but that's
Speaker 7: not going to be possible all over that golf course.
Speaker 7: So I think this is the right move.
Speaker 3: What type of player do you think will be most
Speaker 3: advantaged and most disadvantaged by let's just say to use
Speaker 3: a blanket fifteen twenty yard reduction in distance.
Speaker 7: I don't think it shuffles the world ranking hardly at all.
Speaker 7: I think that everyone is going to hit it shorter.
Speaker 7: The best strikers are still the best strikers, the best
Speaker 7: putters are still the best putters. I just think it
Speaker 7: makes the gameplay more interesting.
Speaker 3: And more interesting. From your standpoint, is a wider variety
Speaker 3: of clubs hit into the green?
Speaker 5: That's right? Yeah.
Speaker 3: Strategically, I mean you played in the era where like
Speaker 3: strategy became a big thing on tour. And the strategy
Speaker 3: is not from like the romantic golf architecture standpoint, hitting
Speaker 3: it to certain sides of the fairway. Strategy is if
Speaker 3: I can hit a driver and push it up there
Speaker 3: without it getting going into a hazard, that is the
Speaker 3: best idea for the best thing for me to do,
Speaker 3: you know, versus laying back and hitting it from the fairway.
Speaker 3: For the most part, the idea of pushing driver, what
Speaker 3: do you think you know? Obviously that is and I
Speaker 3: think my big question with this is does that change
Speaker 3: if all of a sudden, instead of pushing it up
Speaker 3: to a wedge, I'm pushing it up to a eight
Speaker 3: or seven iron versus I could take a five iron
Speaker 3: in the fairway, or versus a say a seven iron
Speaker 3: in the wedge standpoint, Do you think that has any
Speaker 3: I could have any strategic impact the shorter driving distance.
Speaker 7: That's a good question, and i'd actually I'm not the
Speaker 7: best person to answer this. I was not a super
Speaker 7: stats guru. I mean that was coming online when I
Speaker 7: was on tour. You might know more about it and
Speaker 7: have more conversations about it.
Speaker 5: But I think part of.
Speaker 7: That, like hit it as close to the green as
Speaker 7: possible was driven by there were just more players that
Speaker 7: could hit it really far, Like there just wasn't a
Speaker 7: three to twenty shot in the bag for most guys
Speaker 7: on tour in twenty ten, right, and then as more
Speaker 7: of those guys came on tour that became an option.
Speaker 7: They had decide how they wanted to play the golf courses.
Speaker 7: So so it's hard to answer whether that strategy will
Speaker 7: really change. I do know that driving it straight, I
Speaker 7: know you're big on the driver face and you know,
Speaker 7: go going to a smaller driver that's less forgiving. I
Speaker 7: think it's still pretty easy to hit the driver crooked.
Speaker 7: It really is like you saw it at Bayhill. On
Speaker 7: these are the last two tournaments I watched. Nobody could
Speaker 7: hit that sixteenth fairway and when it mattered on sixteen
Speaker 7: and eighteen it was really hard to hit it straight,
Speaker 7: and fifteen was the same way, like guys were not
Speaker 7: hitting it straight coming down the stretch. And Rory, you know,
Speaker 7: whether he's having a hard time finding a driver or
Speaker 7: just wasn't swinging his driver great. At TPC he missed
Speaker 7: the cup by eight shots. So it's still very possible
Speaker 7: to hit a crooked t shot in today's world, with
Speaker 7: today's equipment, do.
Speaker 3: You think it would be advantageous to have less forgiveness
Speaker 3: in drivers? Do you think the driver spec not addressing
Speaker 3: any driver specs equipment specs is a miss or do
Speaker 3: you think they got it right by not touching anything
Speaker 3: with that.
Speaker 7: I think that that would potentially change the world ranking
Speaker 7: a little bit more than changing the golf, like just
Speaker 7: having the ballgo twenty yards shorter for everyone, I think
Speaker 7: the same skills still matter. I do think that if
Speaker 7: you change the forgiveness of drivers or clubs, I mean,
Speaker 7: I think it's pretty obvious that if you put like
Speaker 7: a small headed driver and everyone on tour had to
Speaker 7: play straight blades and you had to carry a three
Speaker 7: wood and then a two iron and a three iron
Speaker 7: and a four iron, that some play the world rankings
Speaker 7: would shuffle a little bit, Like a really pure striker
Speaker 7: would rise up. They're already at the top, right, Like
Speaker 7: the same top five would be the same top five,
Speaker 7: but kind of that, like Adam Scott would go from
Speaker 7: twenty fifth in the world to like sixth in the world,
Speaker 7: right because he's just an absolute flusher. And I mean
Speaker 7: Rory said this before, where He's like, if a hybrid
Speaker 7: wasn't invented, I separate from the field even more because
Speaker 7: I can hit a three iron up my nose. Now,
Speaker 7: a guy like me, a low speed guy from two forty,
Speaker 7: I can hit a hybrid or a five wood, and
Speaker 7: I was pretty good with a five wood, right, Rory's
Speaker 7: three iron is more impressive. But actually I would bet that, like,
Speaker 7: give me a hundred balls versus Rory's three iron. My
Speaker 7: five wood pretty decent. But if we're if we're all
Speaker 7: playing straight blades and it goes back to less forgiving clubs,
Speaker 7: he's going to outrun me really fast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing. And you see Rory play great,
Speaker 3: like he didn't have his a game. He almost won
Speaker 3: bay Hill. And one of the reasons that he plays
Speaker 3: great at bay Hill is that that's one of the
Speaker 3: few courses that requires you hit six or seven long
Speaker 3: irons there. And I mean, I wrote about this in
Speaker 3: the Fridak newsletter. It paid me to write about it.
Speaker 3: But like it gives bay Hill actually an identity is
Speaker 3: the lack of variety in the golf course is unique
Speaker 3: because it's like, oh, these guys have to hit a
Speaker 3: ton of long irons. And like Bryson played well there.
Speaker 3: Bryson was a great long iron player, Like you know,
Speaker 3: everybody talked about his distance off the tee. He's always
Speaker 3: been a great long iron player. And it's interesting when
Speaker 3: you start to think about the game a little bit
Speaker 3: differently in terms of like finding the center and having
Speaker 3: long irons, it really drastically. I think that's what you know,
Speaker 3: people that long for the game of the seventies, that's
Speaker 3: what they longed for, is the idea that the greatest
Speaker 3: skill in the game is the ability to hit that
Speaker 3: towering long iron. Yeah.
Speaker 7: I agree with that, and you know, I think it's
Speaker 7: still rewarded. It really is, And like the height part
Speaker 7: is really probably underrated and under talked about. Like I
Speaker 7: was reasonably successful tour player and played well on hard
Speaker 7: courses and was on the shorter half of the spectrum.
Speaker 7: I mean, became really short, but when I started, I
Speaker 7: was kind of in the middle, and then I steadily
Speaker 7: moved down in distance. But the main reason was I
Speaker 7: could hit it high. I really could hit high shots
Speaker 7: with four, five, six, seven irons, and it was a
Speaker 7: big advantage on hard golf courses. And you know, if
Speaker 7: you add distance to that, now you're really cooking.
Speaker 3: With a shorter I don't know if you're there. You're
Speaker 3: an edgiteer, so this might be right up your wheelhouse.
Speaker 3: With the ball going shorter, do you think there will
Speaker 3: be a push for a little bit more spin in
Speaker 3: the ball because you're going to have longer shots into greens,
Speaker 3: into firm greens.
Speaker 7: That's possible, It's very possible you. I mean again, you
Speaker 7: saw that on sixteen at Sawgrass this week that whole
Speaker 7: once it rained on the weekend, it wasn't so much,
Speaker 7: but it was hard for them to hold that green
Speaker 7: with that two and twenty yard type shot.
Speaker 3: Last question, if you're the tour, is there any real
Speaker 3: thought to rejecting this from the USGA and saying no,
Speaker 3: we're going to play by our rules.
Speaker 7: I don't see what the upside would be to that.
Speaker 7: The governing bodies, the Tour, the RNA, you know, the
Speaker 7: PGA of America, they all have a really good relationship.
Speaker 7: I think they've kind of walked in locks that probably
Speaker 7: more than ever of the last few years.
Speaker 6: I don't see.
Speaker 7: I'm sure they've all been in communication throughout this whole time.
Speaker 7: I would be very surprised if that was the case,
Speaker 7: but that's just my take.
Speaker 3: All right, Roberto, thanks for coming on. You've got a
Speaker 3: podcast that everybody can check out. The Course record show.
Speaker 3: I listened to podcasts and to prepare for my interview
Speaker 3: with Joe Ogilvy that was last week. That was fantastic.
Speaker 3: Anything new with your show.
Speaker 7: No, we just were focusing on the business of golf,
Speaker 7: so you had Joe to talk about the tour regulations
Speaker 7: and field sizes. We picked some golf companies and ran
Speaker 7: through who owns them, whether Joe would buy or sell
Speaker 7: as a professional investor, so we will be always kind
Speaker 7: of looking at the business side of the golf industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a worth I love love checking the episodes
Speaker 3: out and listening. It's a definitely a unique podcast, which
Speaker 3: is the most important thing in a crowded space is
Speaker 3: you've got a very unique angle and obviously a very
Speaker 3: unique perspective being somebody that's been very deeply entrenched in
Speaker 3: the game of golf. So highly recommend everybody go check
Speaker 3: out your show. And thanks for coming on to talk
Speaker 3: about this.
Speaker 7: All right, Andy, good talking to you.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 3: Joseph, you are i would say, an advisor for strategy
Speaker 3: with top end players, you know, at the amateur ranks,
Speaker 3: the developmental tour ranks, the PGA Tour ranks. You really,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the things that you do is
Speaker 3: advise them on how to play a golf course, I
Speaker 3: you know, to kick things off. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people might understand this, but
Speaker 3: maybe give it a you know, explanation on how the
Speaker 3: distance gains and power has impacted strategy in golf as
Speaker 3: of you know today.
Speaker 8: Okay, yeah, a lot's unpacked there. I'll try to keep
Speaker 8: it as succinct as possible. I think the as data
Speaker 8: has become more advanced, especially with the shot link system
Speaker 8: that was put in on the tour almost two decades ago,
Speaker 8: and strokes gained Mark Brody's invention, there have been a
Speaker 8: lot of insights drawn that prior to that point you
Speaker 8: would have had to just hypothesize. Now we know, right,
Speaker 8: distance is one of the most reliable advantages on tour.
Speaker 8: You're going to hit the ball. You might not hit
Speaker 8: the ball straight every day, but if you're a long hitter,
Speaker 8: you're gonna hit the ball long every day. So a
Speaker 8: lot of players have chased swing speed because they know
Speaker 8: that it's one of the most one of the most
Speaker 8: reliable advantages on tour, but there are a lot of
Speaker 8: other advantages on tour that have come from analyzing data,
Speaker 8: being aggressive off the tee, being conservative on your approach targets,
Speaker 8: like taking hazards out of play. There's some over art
Speaker 8: principles that the top end players are adhering to, and
Speaker 8: I would say overall strategies, players are getting better and
Speaker 8: better about strategy as the years go by. Whole Tenant
Speaker 8: Rivier is a great example, and they've shown those graphics
Speaker 8: where ten fifteen years ago a lot of players were
Speaker 8: laying up. Now everyone's going for it, and part of
Speaker 8: that's equipment, which I'm sure we'll touch on today.
Speaker 3: So the idea is that the further you can hit it,
Speaker 3: the closer you can get, and the easier the game
Speaker 3: gets from there, the basic hypothesis, assuming you don't hit
Speaker 3: it into a trap or a water hazard.
Speaker 8: I think that's a simple way of looking at it.
Speaker 8: But I think the key insight is more that when
Speaker 8: you lay back with like a three wood or an
Speaker 8: iron off the tee to the difference between your chance
Speaker 8: of hitting the fair way is outweighed by the distance
Speaker 8: gain of hitting a dry and so a lot of
Speaker 8: people historically thought, Okay, laid back with three wood because
Speaker 8: you're going to hit the fairway versus a driver, you're
Speaker 8: not going to hit the fairway. But that's a reductive
Speaker 8: way to look at it. And if you actually compare
Speaker 8: your chance of hitting the fairway with a driver versus
Speaker 8: a three wood, you'll quickly arrive at the conclusion that
Speaker 8: the driver is the better play. I'm simplifying a little bit,
Speaker 8: but that's the main that's driving a lot of the
Speaker 8: decisions the players are making.
Speaker 3: So with that in mind, just you know, a basis
Speaker 3: understanding of the strategy. With that in mind, you know,
Speaker 3: the USGA has proposed these changes here. Now, if we
Speaker 3: remove say fifteen to twenty yards off of t shots,
Speaker 3: and obviously there's going to be some trickle down irons
Speaker 3: are going to go shorter to not as much. Will
Speaker 3: strategy fundamentally change on the PGA tour fundamentally?
Speaker 5: Absolutely not.
Speaker 8: All the same concepts are going to apply in practice,
Speaker 8: Like are there going to be small modifications to how
Speaker 8: players play certain holes?
Speaker 5: What kind of shots they still like? Yeah? I think so.
Speaker 8: And there's a lot of unknowns, right, we need to
Speaker 8: see how this new ball reacts. But there will be
Speaker 8: some small differences. I think to say that, oh wow,
Speaker 8: now players are going to start playing golf courses completely
Speaker 8: differently would be a huge overstatem and it's not going
Speaker 8: to change very much.
Speaker 3: How do you see more nuanced? What are things that
Speaker 3: you look at with this and think, oh wow, that
Speaker 3: might be different?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 8: I mean I think approach targets will be interesting because
Speaker 8: long irons, generally players are getting really conservative with their
Speaker 8: targets right, And the reason for that is that your
Speaker 8: dispersion patterns pretty wide. With a long iron versus a wedge,
Speaker 8: you can get a little bit more aggressive because you
Speaker 8: have a tighter dispersion pattern. So now we'll just have
Speaker 8: to see how those dispersion patterns change when you're hitting
Speaker 8: the ball a little bit shorter and what is a
Speaker 8: long iron disp pattern versus a wedge Like, There'll just
Speaker 8: be some small changes there.
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 8: The other thing we'll have to see how players off
Speaker 8: the tea dispersion patterns change with a Spinni or ball,
Speaker 8: because if for some reason it's much easier to hit
Speaker 8: a three wood than a driver or something, that could
Speaker 8: change when you hit threewood off the tee versus a driver.
Speaker 8: I don't expect that to be the case, but I
Speaker 8: want to I want to have more information before saying
Speaker 8: anything definitively.
Speaker 3: I was wondering too, you know, and this is something
Speaker 3: like obviously one of the things that's happened. And you explained,
Speaker 3: like you might hit the fairway less when you hit
Speaker 3: a driver than a fairway wood. But the distance, the
Speaker 3: additional distance, the closer you get, like, it's not a
Speaker 3: given that you're going to hit the fairway with a
Speaker 3: three wood if you lay back, how far would that
Speaker 3: pendulum have to change? And does it change with like distance?
Speaker 3: In is it then all of a sudden? Does it
Speaker 3: change with like if I if all of a sudden
Speaker 3: I'm hitting a seven iron out of the rough instead
Speaker 3: of a wedge, then all does that five iron out
Speaker 3: of the fairway look more advantageous than the seven iron
Speaker 3: from the fairway versus wedge?
Speaker 5: It would have to change pretty significantly.
Speaker 8: I think the key here will be does the dispersion
Speaker 8: pattern with the driver versus the three wood?
Speaker 5: Does that gap widen?
Speaker 8: Because it is true that a three wood, generally a
Speaker 8: player's dispersion pattern is tighter. It's not just that a
Speaker 8: driver goes farther, which is why you miss fairways more often.
Speaker 8: Your dispersion pattern is actually wider with a driver, not
Speaker 8: just distance, actual dispersion. So if that were two, if
Speaker 8: the difference between driver and three wood work to significantly widen,
Speaker 8: then you'd derive in more situations where three wood's the
Speaker 8: better play, especially if a fairway narrows where your driver's
Speaker 8: going to end up. That's true. If those dispersion patterns
Speaker 8: don't really change, I don't expect there to be much
Speaker 8: of an off the tee club selection, any any kind
Speaker 8: of fundamental shifts in how players are thinking about that.
Speaker 8: So we're just gonna have to see. But if drivers
Speaker 8: in three woods kind of have the same ish dispersion
Speaker 8: patterns as before, then now I don't think that's going
Speaker 8: to come into play.
Speaker 5: I think players are going to keep being pretty aggressive
Speaker 5: with driver.
Speaker 3: So the way the fundamentally the way we see guys
Speaker 3: play golf should stay pretty similar from a strategic standpoint.
Speaker 3: With this this rollback, what type of rollback would you
Speaker 3: say you would need to see to have a significant change.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I don't I'm not enough of an expert on
Speaker 8: some of the specifics of what you could do. But
Speaker 8: for example, if the driver, if the sweet spot was smaller,
Speaker 8: and your just dispersion patterns started to get pretty wide
Speaker 8: with driver because you have to hit it in the
Speaker 8: center of the face, then it would bring more three
Speaker 8: woods into playoff the tee again, especially if the fairway
Speaker 8: titans where your driver's supposed to go, so that I
Speaker 8: think you'd have to modify the driver most likely. But
Speaker 8: like with a spin of your ball, if you're into
Speaker 8: a significant wind, like, I'm interested in seeing what those
Speaker 8: dispersion patterns look like because that could be an instance
Speaker 8: where hitting three wood may make sense even under these
Speaker 8: regulations that they've proposed.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and I don't know if there's going to
Speaker 3: be a spin your ball, but it would make sense
Speaker 3: possibly if you're hitting longer shots into greens on average,
Speaker 3: that these players might want a little bit more spin,
Speaker 3: especially with how firm some greens get on tour.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: In terms of just general thoughts, do you have any
Speaker 3: general thoughts on the news today and just you know,
Speaker 3: the conclusions that you've come up with.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I'm really happy to see something being done.
Speaker 8: The death of the long iron on par fours is
Speaker 8: something that I think you and I both have lamented
Speaker 8: over the time, Like you don't see a lot of
Speaker 8: long iron hit on the PGA tour, And I'm excited
Speaker 8: that even if it's a five percent reduction in distance,
Speaker 8: you're gonna get more irons and fewer you know, more
Speaker 8: wedges turned into a nine iron and eight iron like
Speaker 8: that does introduce more compelling play, even if it doesn't
Speaker 8: have a fundamental impact on how players strategize.
Speaker 3: I mean that that could fundamentally change golf. I don't
Speaker 3: I don't anticipate the top end changing, like the very
Speaker 3: top players having an impact on but you know, if
Speaker 3: you turn wedges into eight irons, like if you tearn
Speaker 3: four wedges into eight irons, and that that could dramatically
Speaker 3: shift some of the prerequisite skills needed in golf.
Speaker 8: Right, I think shipping probably just got a little more important. Right,
Speaker 8: So that's one thing you could just directly point to,
Speaker 8: guys are going to hit fewer greens. The other thing
Speaker 8: that there will be some dialogue around is who does
Speaker 8: this benefit like a long hitter or a short hitter,
Speaker 8: And the consensus seems to be be a jerk reaction,
Speaker 8: the knee jerk reaction. That long hitters are going to
Speaker 8: benefit from this, I'm not sure that I quite see that.
Speaker 8: Padrake Harrington said that. Bryson D. Chambeau kind of said
Speaker 8: the opposite, like this is penalizing me for working so
Speaker 8: hard and hitting it long. I do think this is
Speaker 8: going to benefit shorter hitters based on some theory and
Speaker 8: which holds.
Speaker 5: For example, for example, a short part.
Speaker 8: Four now right, let's say three hundred and thirty yard
Speaker 8: part four, where a guy hits it three point fifteen
Speaker 8: off the tee versus a player who hits it three hundred.
Speaker 8: That player who hits it three fifteen is at a
Speaker 8: significant advantage right now because he can get it within
Speaker 8: ten to fifteen yards of the green, which value of
Speaker 8: distance is really strong. Inside fifty yards, the incremental benefit,
Speaker 8: incremental benefit of having like an extra ten to fifteen
Speaker 8: yards is huge inside fifty yards. As we move that back,
Speaker 8: there's less of a benefit there now. So if a
Speaker 8: three hundred and thirty yard part four did is more,
Speaker 8: this regulation change is leveling the playing field a little bit.
Speaker 8: That's not true of every length of pool, like a
Speaker 8: four hundred and fifty yard part four that just swung
Speaker 8: in favor of a long hitter. Now barely barely, but
Speaker 8: overall we'll see how this shakes out.
Speaker 5: I actually think it's going to benefit a shorter hitter.
Speaker 3: That's what I saw this too, this discourse that like
Speaker 3: short hitters are screwed, and I uh, I think the
Speaker 3: thing that's discounted about short hitters on the PGA tour
Speaker 3: at this point, if you're a shorter hitter on the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour, that means you're like a freak of nature
Speaker 3: across the board with all the other aspects of the game.
Speaker 3: That means you are like extraordinarily good. And I think
Speaker 3: for a short hitter that might be hitting a five
Speaker 3: iron into the green, when a long hitter is hitting
Speaker 3: a nine iron into the green. Them hitting a three
Speaker 3: iron into the green versus a five iron isn't as
Speaker 3: big of a deal as a long hitter going from
Speaker 3: a nine iron to a seven or a six iron.
Speaker 8: Well where it's really big. So it'd be valuable if
Speaker 8: people looked up a plot. I mean, I'm trying to
Speaker 8: think of where one would exist, but where the value
Speaker 8: distance's biggest is generally inside like fifty yards, and then
Speaker 8: it gets pretty big between like two hundred and ten
Speaker 8: and two hundred and forty yards. That's where it gets
Speaker 8: pretty steep on the curve. Outside of that too, sixty
Speaker 8: two seventy to eighty. The difference there, the marginal benefit
Speaker 8: of like ten yards is not as significant. So some
Speaker 8: of these par fives we're going to see some equalizing
Speaker 8: and that's not going to be as tilted in favor
Speaker 8: of the long hitters. So the other and the other
Speaker 8: thing I would the other thing I was saying.
Speaker 3: I think that would be run counter to what people
Speaker 3: would think is that you would think that the short
Speaker 3: par fours and the and the par fives would be
Speaker 3: where the the long hitters have such an advantage with
Speaker 3: a rolled back ball. But this might not be the case.
Speaker 5: I think it's good.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it should in theory equalize that a little bit more.
Speaker 8: I mean, they're still going to have an advantage, right,
Speaker 8: but it should equalize it a little bit more. I
Speaker 8: think the other huge thing to look for. I don't
Speaker 8: think carrying hazards is talked about enough in the value
Speaker 8: of distance discussion. But now with a five percent reduction
Speaker 8: in absolute terms, there are going to be fewer hazards
Speaker 8: that a long player can carry that a short player cannot.
Speaker 8: And so there you're going to be removing some of
Speaker 8: those scenarios where a Dustin Johnson, a Bryson, D Chambeau,
Speaker 8: like some of those really long hitters Rory can carry
Speaker 8: a bunker that other players cannot. And that's significant, right,
Speaker 8: Like if the difference between two drivers before was three
Speaker 8: hundred and eight versus a three hundred yard carry, so
Speaker 8: eight yards, and now it's just a little bit smaller,
Speaker 8: it's shrunk down.
Speaker 5: To whatever four or five yards. We'll see that just.
Speaker 8: Lessens the number of hazards that only the longest players
Speaker 8: could hit. So I think that's another way that this
Speaker 8: could equalize things a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like a great example of a golf course like
Speaker 3: that is the Detroit Golf Club where Bryson won, you know,
Speaker 3: and he literally could hit it over every single hazard,
Speaker 3: but a shorter hitter still had to contend with all
Speaker 3: these bunkers.
Speaker 8: I'll give you another example that as you were saying
Speaker 8: that came right to my mind.
Speaker 5: Hoole two at Quail Hollow.
Speaker 8: That's a shot that a lot of the long hitters
Speaker 8: just send over the trees, and it's a huge advantage
Speaker 8: if you can take that over the trees, dog leg
Speaker 8: left and they just fire it over the over the trees.
Speaker 5: I'm interested. Can you still do that?
Speaker 8: Like we'll see with the I mean, I don't even
Speaker 8: know if the PGA Tour is gonna adopt these the
Speaker 8: new ball, but if they were to, that'd be a
Speaker 8: really interesting t shot because that's a classic example of
Speaker 8: where shorter players would benefit because now everyone would be
Speaker 8: sort of playing into the same location.
Speaker 3: All right, Joseph, people can find your work on Twitter,
Speaker 3: and thank you for coming on and giving lending your
Speaker 3: expertise here on strategy and how this could potentially impact
Speaker 3: the top players and how they play golf courses.
Speaker 9: Thanks for having me appreciate it, Handy.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Frida
Speaker 3: Egg podcast. It was edited by Matt Rushes. Thank you, Matt.
Speaker 3: As a reminder, we're barreling down on the Masters, this
Speaker 3: is right around the corner. If you want to get
Speaker 3: kind of inundated further into the game of golf and
Speaker 3: you don't already check out the Friday newsletter. We just
Speaker 3: did a great one on this subject of the podcast
Speaker 3: you just listened to. It's available on the website, that
Speaker 3: edition of the newsletter and full I think, Garrett to
Speaker 3: the word count is like three thousand words. We kind
Speaker 3: of split it up and dove into different topics about this.
Speaker 3: So if you're still looking for more, I mean, this
Speaker 3: is it's such a big topic. I mean I could
Speaker 3: do six hours of podcasts analyzing all the little areas
Speaker 3: that this.
Speaker 5: Is going to go down.
Speaker 3: I think that's the fascinating thing is like there are
Speaker 3: a lot of unforeseen consequences that not I don't consequences
Speaker 3: aren't isn't the right word, but unforeseen things that are
Speaker 3: going to happen from this, because that's what happens when
Speaker 3: when big regulation happens, is that a lot of innovation happens.
Speaker 3: I think that's the thing that's not being talked about enough,
Speaker 3: is that, like, really, this is how kind of the
Speaker 3: world works. You regulate something and then people innovate off that.
Speaker 3: So we're going to see some new stuff from this.
Speaker 3: So check out the Friday newsletter. I've diverted here, but
Speaker 3: it is a it is a nice morning read every Monday,
Speaker 3: Wednesday Friday. It's free and it will keep you in
Speaker 3: tune with the game of golf and what's going on
Speaker 3: the big topics, and again we put a lot of
Speaker 3: effort into that. It's basically like a big article three
Speaker 3: times a week from our staff. So thank you for listening,
Speaker 3: thank you for the support, and we'll be back next
Speaker 3: week with a new episode of the Friday Podcast.