Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another edition of the
Speaker 1: Frida Egg Podcast. We are back with new episode here
Speaker 1: in the New Year with PGA tour player Roberto castro So.
Speaker 1: This will be a two part podcast, with the second
Speaker 1: half of this podcast posting later this week. Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody had a great holiday and enjoy Roberto
Speaker 1: castro I miss a.
Speaker 2: Green for example, I'm already upset when I find my
Speaker 2: ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I
Speaker 2: find my ball in a brid egg, Frida Egg, the
Speaker 2: dreaded Frida Egg, Friday, Frida Egg, fridagg bride Egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off the Yeah, well that's
Speaker 2: one of my questions. We can talk about it when whatever,
Speaker 2: during the when it comes up. But like, is it
Speaker 2: possible to separate like the course from the club, you know,
Speaker 2: like that is like such a huge like thing in
Speaker 2: my opinion, you know that I don't think, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not to get like all like Malcolm Gladwell, but like,
Speaker 2: you know, is it is it because of the membership
Speaker 2: and the club and the prestige or the history or
Speaker 2: the course or the you know, like the nostalgia I
Speaker 2: don't know, there's just so many pieces that I think,
Speaker 2: like some of these clubs get you know, like I
Speaker 2: mean the list when you guys had this conversation the
Speaker 2: list you went down, it's like, oh, he was like
Speaker 2: Cyprus and Pine Valt and it's like yeah, but that's
Speaker 2: like walking into a church and when net g Illinoy
Speaker 2: and being like, I don't know, like Saint Patrick's Cathedral
Speaker 2: just like gets it right in New York. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like yeah, okay, sure it does, but like not
Speaker 2: every you know, like there's just I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: just the you know, like when we talk about like
Speaker 2: golf or where it should go, it's like, well, look
Speaker 2: at these places like when you butt in the locker
Speaker 2: rooms are metal and it's like, yeah, but you could
Speaker 2: get that an Alpharetta Georgia. People will be like this
Speaker 2: is the dumbest thing I've ever seen, you know, Like
Speaker 2: there's it's just a hard like I think people get
Speaker 2: really nostalgic for things that are very unique, you know,
Speaker 2: that are now replicable.
Speaker 1: You know it's funny. I uh so like col Club
Speaker 1: and San Francisco. Yeah, so San Francisco Golf is obviously
Speaker 1: like the the super exclusive one, the one where like
Speaker 1: nothing's changed, you know, you're like going back in time.
Speaker 1: You know. I've grown to appreciate the no cell phone rule.
Speaker 1: Like I love just putting it away, Like I like
Speaker 1: you leaving it in the car, and like, yeah, outside
Speaker 1: of like the fear of some crazy thing happening, you
Speaker 1: like for the most part, like you're you're gonna be fine,
Speaker 1: and then you enjoy your day so much more. But
Speaker 1: like so like COL Club is like if so, I
Speaker 1: think San Francisco Golf Club is a much better golf
Speaker 1: of course, right, But Cal Club they did this big
Speaker 1: restoration or renovation really and they completely overhauled like the
Speaker 1: vibe and the the the membership of the club with
Speaker 1: this restorate. Like their their thought was like if if
Speaker 1: people are complaining about what we want to do and
Speaker 1: making it really golf centric, then like that's fine, let
Speaker 1: them leave because those aren't the members we want. And
Speaker 1: they've completely overhauled the membership with this whole you know thing.
Speaker 1: And it's like that's a perfect example. Like so San
Speaker 1: Francisco Golf Club, at my point in my life, I'd
Speaker 1: rather be a member of Cal Club than San Francisco
Speaker 1: golf club because like cal Club would be I would
Speaker 1: fit in more there. You know, they have a vibe,
Speaker 1: they have they have more games, you know, you it'd
Speaker 1: be way easier to find a game to play. You know,
Speaker 1: the people that I'd be playing with, I'd have more
Speaker 1: in common with. So I think that is like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that go into a club. Like
Speaker 1: and it's like when I was a member at a
Speaker 1: club in Chicago, it was you know, it was in
Speaker 1: the wrong part of town and so it had fallen
Speaker 1: on tough times they needed members. But like I was
Speaker 1: twenty eight when I joined, and I joined, and then
Speaker 1: like I got a bunch of my buddies that I
Speaker 1: played midday I'm golf with to join. So you know,
Speaker 1: the golf course wasn't great. There's way too many trees,
Speaker 1: you know, it drove me insane. But I had like
Speaker 1: forty guys that were threes or less to play with,
Speaker 1: you know, and that that makes a huge difference. That
Speaker 1: makes a place, It makes a place special. I always
Speaker 1: tell people, like, you should join a club that you
Speaker 1: know you're going to have good games.
Speaker 2: At, and there's so many I don't know. I think
Speaker 2: it's very like people and like the current you know,
Speaker 2: like social media, golf Twitter verse, like they want to
Speaker 2: ascribe like off to like one thing, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's like like people who really love golf, like it's
Speaker 2: because of good architecture or it's because of and it's
Speaker 2: like no, people like they're like ten different, Like I
Speaker 2: hear like yours the one you're talking about. You joined
Speaker 2: your boes. It was a fine course. We had forty
Speaker 2: guys in the scratch game every day and you those
Speaker 2: were like scratched afore. And then the club I joined,
Speaker 2: We planned it in college. Could college really high end
Speaker 2: like suburban club. The course was in one of Doak's
Speaker 2: books as a zero on the Doak scale. Okay, a zero,
Speaker 2: but I'm telling you those members, we had such a
Speaker 2: good group of guys, and those guys have kind of
Speaker 2: stay from that club of the year since. But like
Speaker 2: they're golf nuts, they're going to the UK every year.
Speaker 2: They joined other Like these guys are junkies, and we
Speaker 2: all were at a place with a dope zero but
Speaker 2: it didn't matter. Like the course was in pure shape
Speaker 2: and it was like fancy and the service was you know,
Speaker 2: like I'm just saying there's something different ways doing the came.
Speaker 2: If you think it's just good golf architecture, why how
Speaker 2: does that explain the like bowels or millions of people
Speaker 2: that go to a driving range and golf balls after
Speaker 2: work every day, you know, like even play it, so
Speaker 2: like want to hit balls off a mat. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's just if there's no one solution for like either
Speaker 2: growing the game or like explaining why people like it
Speaker 2: or why.
Speaker 1: I think golf course architecture is so important in the
Speaker 1: sense of like most people don't know why they like
Speaker 1: certain courses and everything. And if if people played better golf,
Speaker 1: if there was more better golf, people would play more
Speaker 1: golf and it would be less expensive. Because really good
Speaker 1: golf architecture is actually way more simple than the stuff
Speaker 1: that offends someone like dok or myself. Like you know,
Speaker 1: look at Augusta when it opened, it had twenty two bunkers.
Speaker 1: You know, Brandon Is diverted a lot from it, but
Speaker 1: like twenty two bunkers is is the maintenance budget on
Speaker 1: that is a fraction, and it'd be It's the same
Speaker 1: thing as like letting courses be living organisms, letting them
Speaker 1: you know, kind of brown out, not having to have
Speaker 1: everything be lush and perfect like. That's I think the
Speaker 1: aspects of of golf that kind of gets swept under
Speaker 1: the rug, and in a lot of ways, I think
Speaker 1: where people people have unrealistic expectations because of what they
Speaker 1: see on TV. It was like when the Tour when
Speaker 1: uh they were at Trinity Forst this year, and the
Speaker 1: and the Golf Channel like jacked up the saturation levels
Speaker 1: on the TV to make Triny Forrest look more green.
Speaker 3: Oh really, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Did you play that? You're in the one you're gonna
Speaker 1: play You're gonna play that next year?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: That's quoil Caddy.
Speaker 2: Uh went work there and he said it was pretty sweet.
Speaker 2: He said it was cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what, uh, what's it? You know, You've you've
Speaker 1: had an interesting uh career where you're one of the
Speaker 1: rare guys that's gone Tour Championship to Web and then
Speaker 1: back and then back. But what do you think the
Speaker 1: biggest difference between the Web and the PGA tourists.
Speaker 3: Man, it's totally different.
Speaker 2: I mean I played Web in two thousand and eleven
Speaker 2: and then six years on tour, and then I played
Speaker 2: WEB last year and now much changed on the Web. Honestly,
Speaker 2: in my six or seven years, the tourist changed a lot.
Speaker 3: But the Web really hasn't changed much.
Speaker 2: I mean, the golf courses are totally different. You know,
Speaker 2: they're much shorter and they're much less penal. So literally
Speaker 2: anyone in the field can win a Web tournament. And
Speaker 2: you see that like this year, like ten guys won
Speaker 2: that did not finish in the top twenty five. You know,
Speaker 2: you can go like five miss cuts in a row
Speaker 2: and then win a Web tournament because if you can
Speaker 2: get it out there and have a really good putting
Speaker 2: week and hit you know, you can win. You don't
Speaker 2: really see that on the tour, Like guys that went
Speaker 2: on tour are trending in that direction generally, or they're
Speaker 2: very very good players that have been through like a
Speaker 2: you know, a bad stretch or whatever. But there's not
Speaker 2: like the Web rookie that you know, has missed six
Speaker 2: of his first eight cuts and then like wins Byron Nelson,
Speaker 2: Like that doesn't generally happen. But on the Web tour
Speaker 2: every year there's guys that just you know, they're one
Speaker 2: sixtieth on the money list, they've made one cut and
Speaker 2: then they peel off twenty five hunder, you know, somewhere
Speaker 2: in the Midwest in July and they win. So it's
Speaker 2: it's totally different. They'll play anywhere on the web, literally anywhere.
Speaker 1: That's what I was looking at, Like Cameron Champ and
Speaker 1: I was, you know, he got off to such a
Speaker 1: good start in the fall, and I was thinking to myself, like,
Speaker 1: how come he wasn't more dominant on the web. And
Speaker 1: I started to think about it. I always thought that
Speaker 1: that that web courses might favor bombers more, but that
Speaker 1: made me kind of realize that it actually, like the
Speaker 1: shorter courses give every everybody a shot.
Speaker 3: Totally yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if everyone is hitting nine iron or down
Speaker 2: on a shorter, easier course, you know, being seventy yards
Speaker 2: is not that big of an advantage of being.
Speaker 3: One hundred yards.
Speaker 2: It's a much bigger difference when for seventy versus one twenty.
Speaker 2: It's a big difference when I'm two hundred and he's
Speaker 2: one fifty. That's a wedge and a five iron, you know.
Speaker 2: And look, it doesn't necessarily mean that like the wrong
Speaker 2: guys are having success out there. The golf course that
Speaker 2: he won in Utah was the most nothing course that
Speaker 2: I saw this year. Like it was though it was
Speaker 2: just an you know, not to be mean. It's a
Speaker 2: fine little country club, you know, neighborhood course, but it
Speaker 2: was the most nothing course. And he won. And you know,
Speaker 2: the Web finals had a buddy from Tech who was
Speaker 2: there in Arizona, and the scores were just insanely low.
Speaker 2: The web dot com Q School Finals, Yeah, and the
Speaker 2: scores were insanely low. And I don't follow college golf
Speaker 2: that closely, but I know what the right, you know,
Speaker 2: the big names are. And it seemed like of the
Speaker 2: ten big names, nine of them finished in the top forty.
Speaker 2: And then that Thornberry kid, you know, shot like ten
Speaker 2: under the first day and kind of got stuck and.
Speaker 3: Didn't finish in the top forty.
Speaker 2: But all the other kids that were all Americans at
Speaker 2: the big schools, and you know, the Norman Jong's and
Speaker 2: the you know, the kid from Texas, Scottie Scheff, all
Speaker 2: those kids, like, yeah, they all finished in the top forty.
Speaker 2: And the course was obviously a nothing course where you know,
Speaker 2: just kind of a everyone said, if you kept it
Speaker 2: out of the desert, it was then the easiest course
Speaker 2: in the world, So you know, it's not necessarily like
Speaker 2: the best players are still the best players even if
Speaker 2: you go play a you know, kind of a rinky
Speaker 2: dent course, you know, and and they have their certain challenges.
Speaker 3: To the Web Tour.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't blame them. Some of the courses
Speaker 2: are pretty disappointing. But hey, if there's a sponsor and
Speaker 2: there's a town that wants to host the tour, you know,
Speaker 2: they're just going to play where they can play. It's
Speaker 2: that's I mean, on the list of five things that
Speaker 2: need to happen to put together a web course, you know,
Speaker 2: the courses pretty far down that list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think the thing with the Web
Speaker 1: Tour that that frustrates me is that no other sporting
Speaker 1: league subsidizes the senior tour their senior circuit over their
Speaker 1: developmental tour, like you know, minor league baseball. The minor
Speaker 1: league teams are clearly supplemented by the by the big
Speaker 1: league team. And to me, that's where it kind of
Speaker 1: falls short, is that this is the tour that's responsible
Speaker 1: for developing your next wave of stars, and you subsidize
Speaker 1: the aging stars that have already made their money, who
Speaker 1: are already in the pension program and you know, getting
Speaker 1: theirs like they've already gotten theirs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that tour is not responsible for developing the
Speaker 2: next generation of the guys that end up in the
Speaker 2: top ten or twenty in the world, that become the
Speaker 2: next generation of tour stars. They either play one season
Speaker 2: there or they play zero seasons there. It's just not
Speaker 2: it's not a you know, they're not responsible for developing.
Speaker 2: It's more of a way of identifying. It's more of
Speaker 2: like a season long qualifier in my opinion, And if
Speaker 2: you look at it that way, you know, I would
Speaker 2: do some things differently if you look at it as
Speaker 2: basically a season long qualifier. But you know, the tour
Speaker 2: they're smart. The persones haven't gone up. You know, I
Speaker 2: was gone for six years, and the purses are the same,
Speaker 2: but traveling is more expensive. Caddies are you know. I
Speaker 2: mean how ten twelve years ago they were playing for
Speaker 2: almost the same thing they're playing now. The Web Tour
Speaker 2: is financially not very viable unless you finish in the
Speaker 2: top twenty five. You can break even or make a
Speaker 2: little money. But the tour knows that as the carrot
Speaker 2: gets bigger and the purses go up on the PGA Tour,
Speaker 2: they could play for zero money. They could announce today
Speaker 2: that there's zero purses for the web dot Com schedule
Speaker 2: next year, and they would fill the fields right now.
Speaker 2: Because if you get your card, you're playing for seven
Speaker 2: million every week the following year. So the you know,
Speaker 2: I means the incentives to play for a million dollars
Speaker 2: a week on the tour, on the web tour, or
Speaker 2: subsidize it. From the tours business perspective, it's not really there, right.
Speaker 1: So you said to you, if you were looking at
Speaker 1: it as a season long qualifier, you'd change some things.
Speaker 1: What would be a couple of things that you change.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd make the schedule more travel. You know, I
Speaker 2: played when I turned probably played mini tours, and I
Speaker 2: drove to the tournaments and we played for one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty grand or two hundred thousand dollars purses. But
Speaker 2: you drove and you carried your own back or you
Speaker 2: rode in a cart, and you could do it and
Speaker 2: you could make some money. You know. Kisner and I
Speaker 2: always talk about how, you know, we were lucky when
Speaker 2: we were playing minis, like we made money, especially for
Speaker 2: being twenty one, twenty two years old, and that's those
Speaker 2: main tours have kind of gone away for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's like PGA Tour Canada and
Speaker 2: China or Latin America. I don't know, that's a different,
Speaker 2: you know topic, but I would you know, if you're
Speaker 2: looking at it as more of a qualifier, you maybe
Speaker 2: you have sixteen tournaments and there's four tournaments in Florida,
Speaker 2: and then when it's July, there's four tournaments around Chicago,
Speaker 2: and then you know, when it cools back down or whatever,
Speaker 2: you have to go out to California or to the
Speaker 2: desert in Arizona. But you make it to where maybe
Speaker 2: you're not playing for as much, but you're not spending
Speaker 2: as much. I mean the amount of them. I mean
Speaker 2: to you know, this buddy of mine who played at
Speaker 2: Georgia Tech. He's a really good young player, Vince Waley.
Speaker 2: He went through the Q School. He finished in the
Speaker 2: top forty and lost money at Q School even with
Speaker 2: the you know, they give you a bit of a
Speaker 2: check for finishing the top forty. You know it's going
Speaker 2: to cost him fifteen twenty grand to go play the
Speaker 2: first five tournaments. You go to the Bahamas for two weeks, Colombia, Mexico, Panama,
Speaker 2: you know, ten fifteen thousand bucks. And if he makes
Speaker 2: that money back, he's going to be like near the
Speaker 2: top twenty five of the money list, you know. And again, hey,
Speaker 2: you go have a good year out there. Another tech
Speaker 2: kid that finished like third or fourth on the money list,
Speaker 2: you know, he made three hundred something thousand dollars. That's it.
Speaker 2: You know, even if you spend one hundred or one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty, that's a hell of a good year.
Speaker 2: You know, coming out of college, there's definitely opportunity to
Speaker 2: make money out there. But if the purses continue to
Speaker 2: not in like simple inflation ten years from now, they're
Speaker 2: still playing for six hundred grand a week out there,
Speaker 2: and but you're flying all over the country, it's completely untenable,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I agree with that. I got a buddy
Speaker 1: who's now five straight years. He's so he's made through
Speaker 1: every stage of Q school for five straight years, but
Speaker 1: he's never you know, his he gets the web tour,
Speaker 1: he hasn't played great on any year. And it's and
Speaker 1: I look at it him just like god like from
Speaker 1: a financial standpoint, like he you know, he's going to
Speaker 1: run out, you know, like he's going to run out
Speaker 1: of cash, and he's you know, clearly one of the best,
Speaker 1: you know, six hundred players in the world probably, right,
Speaker 1: And it's like, God, what a tough gig. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're one of the six hundred best basketball players,
Speaker 1: you're playing for millions of dollars in Europe at least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah. And you know, like some people are like, well,
Speaker 2: if you go get your MBA, you know, you pay
Speaker 2: one hundred grand or whatever, and you don't make any money,
Speaker 2: you're not earning in your job, and it's an investment
Speaker 2: in your future earnings and the web Tour you can
Speaker 2: look at it that way, and hey, that's one way
Speaker 2: to look at it. But when you get your MBA,
Speaker 2: you're almost guaranteed to have future earnings as of in
Speaker 2: whatever your career is, you know, the Web tour or
Speaker 2: any developmental golf, you know, any kid turning pro, there's
Speaker 2: no guarantee you could do that for ten years and
Speaker 2: you never make the tour and then you're starting kind
Speaker 2: of from scratch. So I don't think that's you know,
Speaker 2: kind of a perfect analogy. But you know, if you
Speaker 2: make it. It's like, well, you know, I've busted it
Speaker 2: on the web tour for a year or two and
Speaker 2: kind of broke even and whatever. But now I'm playing
Speaker 2: for big money. That works out, you know for those guys.
Speaker 1: Well you could be like Omar, You're usty and just
Speaker 1: become like the sensation of the PGA circuit.
Speaker 2: Just crush the section event.
Speaker 1: So you've You've talked a little bit about your You
Speaker 1: went to Georgia Tech, and I think it's one of
Speaker 1: the things I find unique is you graduated with honors
Speaker 1: an industrial engineering degree from the you know, it's the
Speaker 1: top industrial engineering school in the country. Uh, what would
Speaker 1: you what would you be doing if you weren't golfing.
Speaker 3: That's a good question.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, I think just like people romanticize,
Speaker 2: you know, professional golf. I think, you know, I romanticize
Speaker 2: like my buddies of corporate jobs or you know, have
Speaker 2: done really well in that world. So you know, you'd
Speaker 2: like to think that, like you get the consulting job
Speaker 2: out of college and you go back in business school
Speaker 2: or or something like that. But it's just hard to say.
Speaker 2: You know, I also have friends that went that root
Speaker 2: for a while and then ejected because they, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: that's not as glamorous as it sounds. It's hard to say,
Speaker 2: but you know, when I turned pro, it was too
Speaker 2: I had finished school in two thousand and seven. I mean,
Speaker 2: things were booming, like my you know, classmates were like
Speaker 2: taking multiple offers from big companies and you know, and
Speaker 2: I was like hauling off to you know, Connapolis, North
Speaker 2: Carolina to play for you know, fifty bucks in a
Speaker 2: mini tour event. So it was you know, I was
Speaker 2: kind of like, well, well, you know, we'll see how
Speaker 2: this goes. And then you know, two thousand and eight happened.
Speaker 2: And then a couple you know, a Georgia tech guy
Speaker 2: older than me that had played for a couple of
Speaker 2: years and then was in the workforce, a real estate guy.
Speaker 2: I mean it was two thousand and eight, two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, and he was like, man, I'm talking to
Speaker 2: like you know these guys, I'm like, I might as
Speaker 2: well just like play mini tours now, like the opportunity
Speaker 2: there's just no there's no business, there's no deals, there's
Speaker 2: no you know everything. When every the bottom fell out
Speaker 2: of everything, he was like, maybe I should go back
Speaker 2: and play golf, Like there's nothing, you know, so it's
Speaker 2: kind of just timing of when things happened.
Speaker 3: But it's hard to say exactly what i'd be doing.
Speaker 2: Who knows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's funny. I Uh, after I graduated college,
Speaker 1: I played some good AM stuff and I thought about
Speaker 1: playing and I had like a moment where I you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't play in college, and but I was, you know,
Speaker 1: I could have played some other places. And I was
Speaker 1: sitting in a hotel and I can't remember what part
Speaker 1: of Florida, and you know, it was around New Year's
Speaker 1: and I'd just seen all my friends and I was
Speaker 1: just like, what the fuck am I doing down here?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And it's like you got to have like a you
Speaker 1: got to have a deep burning desire is what I
Speaker 1: learned really quickly. And I was like, I don't really
Speaker 1: have this, and I don't know if I'm good enough
Speaker 1: to do this. It's uh, but it's it, you know,
Speaker 1: the dream is uh. In that time, I graduated in
Speaker 1: nine and so like that that time is you know,
Speaker 1: it was like the job market was so bad it
Speaker 1: didn't you know, going and checking it out for six
Speaker 1: months wasn't a big deal.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, yeah, it's it's different though that I mean,
Speaker 2: I talk about it a lot with my brother and
Speaker 2: the coach at Tech. You know, when I finished. You know,
Speaker 2: it's about the same time as you. They were guys
Speaker 2: on my team obviously that played golf at Georgia Tech's.
Speaker 2: They were really good players and they did not turn pro.
Speaker 2: You know, it was kind of like, man, like I
Speaker 2: was kind of the five to six guy, or you know,
Speaker 2: maybe I was like the four guy and played most
Speaker 2: of my time here, but like, no, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to play pro golf. And man, this generation now like
Speaker 2: across the board, I mean, like my brother's twenty six,
Speaker 2: like all those kids are turning pro, you know, and
Speaker 2: I it's I don't know if it's a millennial thing
Speaker 2: or or what, but I just want to be like
Speaker 2: guys like you know, like it is like if you're
Speaker 2: the you know, if you're the five or six guy
Speaker 2: on a college team, like, you know, you got a
Speaker 2: long you got a lot of long way to go
Speaker 2: if you're going to make a living doing this. But
Speaker 2: you know, guys do it for either a short time
Speaker 2: or they you know, they.
Speaker 3: Figure it out.
Speaker 2: But it's definitely interesting to watch the kids, uh that
Speaker 2: are coming up now, you know, And I, like I said,
Speaker 2: I was very fortunate the many tour situation was so
Speaker 2: different for those couple of years after I turned pro,
Speaker 2: so different.
Speaker 3: I was lucky in that regard.
Speaker 1: It's so to me the you know, the tour has
Speaker 1: changed in the last yeah, kind of since like I
Speaker 1: would say Jordan Speed twenty twelve ish. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like when we first have seen this, it's like, what
Speaker 1: do you why do you what would you attribute to
Speaker 1: this like mass wave of youth talent that's coming into
Speaker 1: the game. And essentially unlike any time before you've talked
Speaker 1: about you and Kissner, I look at like Kissner is
Speaker 1: a perfect example of like he's like an all round guy.
Speaker 1: He's you know, I think I don't think last year.
Speaker 1: I think the year before he finished top forty in
Speaker 1: every strokes gain category and it and you look at it,
Speaker 1: he's a three or four time All American. But it
Speaker 1: still took him five six years to get to the
Speaker 1: get to the PGA Tour. And it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: that guy now is there you know within two years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. And I think for the
Speaker 2: guy that played golf in college for four years, like
Speaker 2: like Kisner myself or Cooch or Snedeker. You know, I
Speaker 2: think the prime of your career was kind of the
Speaker 2: traditional like call it thirty to thirty three, twenty eight
Speaker 2: to thirty two. You know, maybe that that was the prime,
Speaker 2: But I mean I don't think that's the case anymore.
Speaker 2: I think it's you know, it's honestly, it's twenty to
Speaker 2: twenty five and twenty to twenty eight, and this generation
Speaker 2: that's now like reaching that. I mean, Jordan, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean those couple of years that Speed had,
Speaker 2: I mean that had twenty one twenty two, I mean
Speaker 2: some of the best years in the history of golf,
Speaker 2: and Justin Thomas did it super young. And even McElroy, right,
Speaker 2: I mean he's you know, his best years were in
Speaker 2: his early twenties. But I think the biggest difference is,
Speaker 2: like you nail it. I mean, if you play like
Speaker 2: kids or I play, you have to be really good
Speaker 2: at all parts of the game. And for a week
Speaker 2: to have a good week, you have to hit it good.
Speaker 2: You have to drive it well, you have to chip
Speaker 2: and put it well. You have to have a good
Speaker 2: week on the greens. But if you hit it three
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty yards in the air and straight. Some
Speaker 2: weeks you really just need to have a good putting
Speaker 2: week or a really good driving week where you hit
Speaker 2: it super straight to have like an amazing week or
Speaker 2: to win. And there's less of like the learning how
Speaker 2: to play. And I'm not saying these guys can't chip
Speaker 2: and putt, and they don't. They know how to chip
Speaker 2: and putt, that's you know, and they know how to play.
Speaker 2: But like you know, Ogilvie kind of talked about it
Speaker 2: when you spoke with him, like you had to learn
Speaker 2: how to play, and I think I fell in that category.
Speaker 2: Maybe kids might have too, you know, but there's not
Speaker 2: that much of a learning curve when you can hit
Speaker 2: it three hundred and thirty yards dead straight and put
Speaker 2: well and you're polished and you you know, you played
Speaker 2: the ajaga, you played at a big time college, even
Speaker 2: if it was just for a year or two, you've
Speaker 2: just had way more experience and you're not you just
Speaker 2: the expectation is totally different. Like when I turned pro,
Speaker 2: there was like one or two guys a year that
Speaker 2: would get maybe their PGA Tour card, and there was
Speaker 2: three or four guys a year that like were recently graduated,
Speaker 2: that would get on the Web Tour, that would make
Speaker 2: it through Q School to the finals and get on
Speaker 2: the Web Tour. But the expectation for most people, not
Speaker 2: Anthony Kim and not Dustin Johnson. Those guys are my age,
Speaker 2: my year of college, and Dustin obviously just crushed the
Speaker 2: tour school and then he's the best player in the
Speaker 2: last ten or twelve years, him or Rory. But the
Speaker 2: expectation was like you had to get your legs under you,
Speaker 2: you know, get better and get out there. And you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, golf's all mental. If the expectation now is
Speaker 2: to do what Justin Thomas did, then there's a decent
Speaker 2: chance that Cameron Champ is going to do it. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just what you believe is possible and what you
Speaker 2: believe you can do and what your expectation is.
Speaker 3: It shifts everything.
Speaker 2: You know, it may not be more than a mentality.
Speaker 2: I mean, Jordan was the you know, kind of the
Speaker 2: first one, right, So that's it.
Speaker 1: I'd never thought about like the expectation and the mental
Speaker 1: side of it, but that's it's so spot on because
Speaker 1: now if you're a really highly regarded college player. You
Speaker 1: turn pro, you've seen all of your peers, guys that
Speaker 1: you've beaten, you know, guys you've competed against for you know,
Speaker 1: ten years of your life. Go do it. It's like
Speaker 1: it's not as tall as a task, it's not as intimidating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it isn't it's you know, it's expectation. It's
Speaker 2: mental where you see yourself and it had and it
Speaker 2: you know, that's fifty percent. And then it has to
Speaker 2: match up with a skill set. But the most important
Speaker 2: skill set on the tour is driving it eight hundred
Speaker 2: miles and putting really well. Yeah, and those these kids
Speaker 2: have that.
Speaker 3: They have that skill set.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's not just I believe in mine.
Speaker 2: There's a lot. You can believe in yourself all day.
Speaker 2: I can believe in myself. I'm not going to play
Speaker 2: in the NBA even if I think, you know, but
Speaker 2: these kids have the skill set to match. They have
Speaker 2: the two or three skills that are most important for
Speaker 2: playing in today's On today's.
Speaker 1: Tour, distance has obviously always been a huge advantage. But
Speaker 1: I look back to like Hank Keeney and Hank Keeney
Speaker 1: hit it really far you know, he was you know,
Speaker 1: essentially camera Champ before Camera Champ, but that era he
Speaker 1: did not succeed, you know, in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: how he could you know, drive the ball, Like what's
Speaker 1: changed that? Now? You know these guys hit it that
Speaker 1: hit it far that don't you know that do almost
Speaker 1: every other aspect of the game at a below average
Speaker 1: PGA Tour level. All of a sudden they make our
Speaker 1: top you know, thirty players.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I would guess two things. One day,
Speaker 2: hit it insanely straight. Dustin hits it so straight it
Speaker 2: makes your eyes water. I mean, it's incredible how straight
Speaker 2: he hits it. And Brooks I've never played with Brooks,
Speaker 2: but it seems like the same. I've played with Dustin
Speaker 2: the most of those guys that are like top five
Speaker 2: in the world. He hits it so straight. And I've
Speaker 2: played with McElroy a few times and he HiT's so
Speaker 2: straight and just turning it on TV. Do you know
Speaker 2: how narrow the fairways are when you carry it three
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty yards and then if it rolls out
Speaker 2: well like I watched Rory flipped on like Riviera last year,
Speaker 2: so he gets to like ten eleven twelve, turns a
Speaker 2: little to the right and he drives it down there
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty five yards in the fairway. He
Speaker 2: has to land that ball on the right side of
Speaker 2: the faraway so it can run to the left side
Speaker 2: of the fairway at three hundred and fifty yards. It's
Speaker 2: an and he's doing it hole after hole after hole.
Speaker 2: It's unbelievable how straight they hit it. And then they
Speaker 2: chip and pot too. You know. Cameron Champ led the
Speaker 2: field and putting I think in Mississippi and then at
Speaker 2: rs M and Sea Island. I'm not sure if he
Speaker 2: did that for four days, but I think sitting around
Speaker 2: breakfast on Sunday, they were showing the stat that he
Speaker 2: was leading the field and putting for three days at RSM.
Speaker 2: You know, the chip and putt like crazy, you know,
Speaker 2: and and they hit it long and straight. So I'm
Speaker 2: not sure what you know in the previous generation that
Speaker 2: those guys were either more crooked or more one dimensional,
Speaker 2: meaning that's like the only thing they could do was
Speaker 2: hit it far.
Speaker 3: But that's not the case anymore.
Speaker 1: It's you know, this is this is good. It's going
Speaker 1: to make give me a reason that I have to
Speaker 1: I have to finish writing this thing. I found a
Speaker 1: really interesting academic study the other day. I got on
Speaker 1: this rabbit hole about tennis, you know, and tennis is
Speaker 1: you know, changed over the years, and I've found this
Speaker 1: study that these two students looked at the change from
Speaker 1: wooden to composite rackets and tennis and how it how
Speaker 1: it changed the you know, skills that succeeded in tennis.
Speaker 1: And it was a study to examine like workforce, right
Speaker 1: instead of because you can't study like what technological change
Speaker 1: can do to workforce because people's careers are fifty years,
Speaker 1: So they looked at tennis because it was six to
Speaker 1: fifteen years. And it was fascinating that, like when there's
Speaker 1: a major technological change in the in tennis, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the skills that are rewarded are changed. So,
Speaker 1: you know, tennis used to be all about precision, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, that composite racket allowed for top spin,
Speaker 1: so players with power and top spin all of sudden
Speaker 1: became extremely dominant in the sport, I believe it. So
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating thing. I think there's so many parallels
Speaker 1: and to my from what I can think of, like
Speaker 1: the only real sports that have you know, had this
Speaker 1: major technological change or golf and and in tennis, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know if it was the pro
Speaker 2: v that flies straighter or if it's the drivers.
Speaker 1: I think the combination of the head size, TrackMan and
Speaker 1: the ball, because like those are three major innovations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's I mean two anecdotal stories. I mean
Speaker 2: my college coach coached at Oklahoma State, gosh, and maybe
Speaker 2: the early nineties when they they went in C double
Speaker 2: a's and finished second a couple other times, like Alan
Speaker 2: Braddon who now coaches there. It's some really good players
Speaker 2: like Phil's era. Okay, when phills at Arizona State and
Speaker 2: coaches like, look, we're the best team in the country.
Speaker 2: Are one of the couple best teams in the country.
Speaker 2: And I mean the night before a tournament, we got
Speaker 2: four out of five guys on the driving rings trying
Speaker 2: to find us, like find figure out how to get
Speaker 2: it on the golf course, Okay, and we were the
Speaker 2: best team in the country. Like we lose more balls
Speaker 2: in practice rounds. Coaches like, I mean, we don't. We
Speaker 2: don't hit a ball out of play anymore. And like
Speaker 2: Tech's still good and they're still a good team, but
Speaker 2: like you know, all of a sudden, in the practice rounds,
Speaker 2: it's just five. I have two hundred and ninety yard
Speaker 2: bombs down the middle every single time, Like you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's totally different, totally different game. And then you
Speaker 2: know on Christmas Eve or whatever Golf channel had that
Speaker 2: Christmas Day that all those shells. Wonderful world of golf.
Speaker 2: So I watched the Pine Valley and Congressional just because
Speaker 2: I know those two courses, especially Congressional because I've played
Speaker 2: there so many times. And it was Di Vicenzo. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the guy's a legend, like great player. He literally topped
Speaker 2: it off the first te He hit it one hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty yards and didn't get to the faraway. Could
Speaker 2: you imagine any tour player hitting anything. I mean, he
Speaker 2: may spray one on, but like hitting anything, but just
Speaker 2: like a high bomb off the first tee. And the
Speaker 2: Pine Valley match was the same thing. They would mishit
Speaker 2: these t shots and they would be like, ooh, didn't
Speaker 2: quite get to the fairway two thirty five off the tee.
Speaker 2: That's impossible now, yeah, right, So to your point, huge
Speaker 2: technological change because those guys swing it unbelievable. You know,
Speaker 2: they had beautiful golf swings and they were spectacles players.
Speaker 2: So you can't tell me that like Jeene Littler or
Speaker 2: whoever it was, like, you know, was was a less
Speaker 2: pure striker than you know, Cameron Champ. But it's impossible
Speaker 2: to top it with today's equipment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it's I went to uh a track winter
Speaker 1: facility in Chicago the other day and I used their
Speaker 1: track man because I got sent uh this uh these
Speaker 1: old clubs that from a buddy who's one of his
Speaker 1: members at his club is a former tour player, uh
Speaker 1: from back in the day, and he just dropped off
Speaker 1: like six sets of clubs, so he sent me one
Speaker 1: of them, so I, you know, I went, I went
Speaker 1: to this TrackMan and hit the Hickory driver. I have
Speaker 1: this Hogan driver that's like a Persimmon driver, and then
Speaker 1: my driver and I use ballattas and pro v ones
Speaker 1: and it was insane because with the you know, it's
Speaker 1: the middle of winter here and I'm not swinging great,
Speaker 1: but I literally like it would have been a complete
Speaker 1: shank with any other driver with my modern driver, and
Speaker 1: it's still went to ninety and then I get the
Speaker 1: you know, I get the Persimmons and the Hickory drivers,
Speaker 1: and if I hit that shot, it would go nowhere.
Speaker 1: I mean it was it would be like a low,
Speaker 1: cold pull left and and you know, and what I
Speaker 1: saw was there was a wider dispersion of both the
Speaker 1: distance and direction with those with the old clubs because
Speaker 1: the file ball was possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so very possible.
Speaker 1: And it's fascinating because like, I'm sure you're the same
Speaker 1: way when I grew up, like you could still hit fallballs,
Speaker 1: like in high school golf, I remember like being able
Speaker 1: to like top it off the tee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it's it's different. And then you know,
Speaker 2: that might be part of the answer to the you
Speaker 2: know why in like the eighties or nineties, was the
Speaker 2: top you know, the whatever, the correlation between you know,
Speaker 2: driving distance and money list finish you.
Speaker 3: Know, wasn't as high as this today.
Speaker 2: And maybe maybe that's the reason. It was just so
Speaker 2: much harder, maybe to hit it long and straight. I
Speaker 2: mean obviously Norman and Nicholas and Tiger you know, before
Speaker 2: the pro v hit it longer and straighter than everyone.
Speaker 2: But it was maybe just that much of a unique
Speaker 2: you know, because there's as much as it's easy to say,
Speaker 2: like Dustin, I mean every year there's you know, there's
Speaker 2: twenty I mean rom hits it three thirty and straight,
Speaker 2: Justin Thomas hits a three thirty and straight. McElroy, does
Speaker 2: you know there's in every year there's more. So it
Speaker 2: becomes a different skill set that's rewarded, just like your
Speaker 2: you know, research on the on the tennis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's the thing is Like I feel
Speaker 1: like I had like a realization a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago that if I swing as hard as I can
Speaker 1: at drivers, it's the best way I can swing a
Speaker 1: golf club. Yeah, because like it gets you athletically into it,
Speaker 1: it gets a better motion. But but the back flip
Speaker 1: side of it is like you're not focused on hitting
Speaker 1: the sweet spot because the head's so big you can't
Speaker 1: really miss.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know what the I don't
Speaker 2: know what the poll numbers would show. But if you
Speaker 2: were to pull the PGA Tour, if you had to
Speaker 2: hit a faaraway eighteenth hole, you have to hit the
Speaker 2: faaraway to win or save your life, would you rather
Speaker 2: hit a driver or a three wood driver, my guess
Speaker 2: would My guess would be people say driver eighty percent
Speaker 2: say driver.
Speaker 1: No doubt to me, Like, I almost like, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about taking the three wood out of the bag because
Speaker 1: I use it so little.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: It's like and I used to have like that Sonar
Speaker 1: Tech three wood that I would just like back in
Speaker 1: the day, I would just hit that at any time
Speaker 1: I felt uncomfortable. It was like my favorite club in
Speaker 1: my bag. It's it's just fascinating. So you touched on
Speaker 1: this a little bit like with the with consistency on
Speaker 1: the web, and so from you, your standpoint as a
Speaker 1: tour pro is consistency underrated and winning overrated.
Speaker 2: I think that winning is underrated, and I think that
Speaker 2: consistency is it's not overrated or underrated.
Speaker 1: Properly awesome.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's properly rated. But I think I think,
Speaker 2: and this is coming from someone who has zero wins
Speaker 2: on the tour, I think winning.
Speaker 3: Is what it's all about, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think the guys that are most impressive for
Speaker 2: the guys that win when they get up there, and
Speaker 2: if you look at guys that have had success, they've
Speaker 2: won it every level Like this Bryson Deshambo. I mean,
Speaker 2: I like tweeted whatever it was two years ago. I
Speaker 2: mean when I was, you know, on tour obviously when
Speaker 2: he was coming out and playing on his sponsor spots,
Speaker 2: and it's like, what do you think? Because you know
Speaker 2: what you think about this guy or you know players
Speaker 2: and the I'm like, what do I think? I think
Speaker 2: that he won the US Amateur and the NC Double
Speaker 2: A and the only guys that have done that, it
Speaker 2: made a hundred million dollars on tour. I think he's
Speaker 2: going to dominate, Like not dominate, but I think he's
Speaker 2: going to make a hundred million dollars on tour. That's
Speaker 2: what I think. And I don't care if he's you know,
Speaker 2: hitting it with a shovel like he's a winner. The
Speaker 2: guy wins huge tournaments, and I think winning is underrated,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's it's been I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: my generation, Web Simpson won a lot of junior tournaments,
Speaker 2: he won a couple of colls. You know, he won
Speaker 2: an amateur golf and lo and behold. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't know how many majors he's contended in, but he
Speaker 2: won the one at Olympic Club and you know, the
Speaker 2: guy's got five six wins or whatever he has.
Speaker 3: That's just a trend that.
Speaker 2: Continues, and it's a it's I don't I think it's underrated.
Speaker 3: Winning is underrated.
Speaker 2: It's a tough, tough thing to do, and the people
Speaker 2: that do it a lot are it's those are some
Speaker 2: bad dudes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, web Web had a great year. I mean won
Speaker 1: the players and contended and every other major, I think,
Speaker 1: a top twenty and every other major. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's a heck of a player. It's so from
Speaker 1: like a week to week standpoint on the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: versus majors, Like, what would you say is the biggest difference.
Speaker 3: I think it's a big difference.
Speaker 2: I've played a dozen majors, and I just think it's
Speaker 2: it's mean, it's rewards a really strong game the majors.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that it's a lot more difficult,
Speaker 2: the courses are a lot longer. It's you know, and
Speaker 2: it's it's an interesting, interesting, uh difference. You know. I think,
Speaker 2: like I looked up I listened to you and Olivi's
Speaker 2: deal and y'all talked about something and I clicked on
Speaker 2: like Ryan Moore's page and like he actually hasn't had
Speaker 2: he has like three top tens and majors, and I
Speaker 2: would have guessed he had like sixteen because he's such
Speaker 2: a good player and he's always played well in such
Speaker 2: big tournaments. And then you have like guy like Bill Haas.
Speaker 2: I remember he finished top ten somewhere and they were like,
Speaker 2: that's his first top ten in a major. And he's
Speaker 2: a spectacular player. But you know, I mean, well, one
Speaker 2: of the four majors in Augusta, where being you know,
Speaker 2: having a certain type of games obviously fits that course
Speaker 2: really well. But the majors are tough, and I mean
Speaker 2: the field are you know, there's so much deeper. But
Speaker 2: I think that's why. You see, like we played at
Speaker 2: Birkdale two years ago and I just thought to myself, like,
Speaker 2: anybody can win this tournament the way the course is.
Speaker 2: Anyone can win this tournament and lo and behold it's
Speaker 2: Spee who's there at all? The majors and Cooch and
Speaker 2: I just think it's really hard for a guy like
Speaker 2: Foots or someone like that. And Couch has contended Augusta
Speaker 2: a couple of times, but uh, and then the US opened,
Speaker 2: which has become like our best invitation of the some
Speaker 2: sort of weird British Open the last six years, eight
Speaker 2: years is the same thing. It's big, long, wide, so
Speaker 2: anyone can hit. It's it's very it rewards a certain certain.
Speaker 3: Type of game.
Speaker 2: But you know, the guys that play well consistently in
Speaker 2: the majors, you know, I know Ricky hasn't won one,
Speaker 2: but he's got what like ten top fives and majors.
Speaker 2: Like that's some serious playing, you know, I mean kept
Speaker 2: him before he started winning him and know he has
Speaker 2: like he's like sixteen of the last seventeen majors he's
Speaker 2: finished in the top twenty or something like. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you do that every time, you're gonna win a couple.
Speaker 2: And he's won three, which is amazing.
Speaker 3: That's that's some serious golf.
Speaker 1: It's like you're gonna fall into a few like Ernie
Speaker 1: L's is almost like a perfect example his last major win,
Speaker 1: like he fell into that, but like it was almost
Speaker 1: like his reward for finishing in the top five like
Speaker 1: thirty times in majors.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more. I watched I watched him lose
Speaker 2: a couple that were heartbreakers, and when he won that
Speaker 2: one it just felt like, oh, that's about right. Like
Speaker 2: he you know, like he he should have you know
Speaker 2: he's doing he's doing another major because he's there all
Speaker 2: the time. You're one hundred percent right.
Speaker 1: It's so, what do you think in terms of the
Speaker 1: with and at the professional level? Is it? Is it?
Speaker 1: Do you do you think it's over eight or under a?
Speaker 1: Do you think it has to be narrow? Do you think?
Speaker 1: Do you are you in the the Brandle's Chambolise school
Speaker 1: of thinking or are you more in the in the
Speaker 1: fried Egg school thinking not to you know, you can
Speaker 1: you can say the Brandle thinking. It's not going to
Speaker 1: offend me.
Speaker 2: I I'm not in the Brandle school thinking when it
Speaker 2: comes to the with or the distance. I mean I
Speaker 2: heard him saying that, you know that the interview that
Speaker 2: he thinks they just need to build better golf courses,
Speaker 2: and I mean where who's going to build them? I
Speaker 2: don't I don't understand where we're supposed to go play
Speaker 2: now with the way how far the ball goes? And
Speaker 2: then you know they asked him in that interview like, well,
Speaker 2: what did you think about golf ne SNL for the
Speaker 2: the Ryder Cup? Is that a good example of how
Speaker 2: to make it tough again, and he was like, well,
Speaker 2: something like that, but not like that, not like that exactly,
Speaker 2: but something like that. And I'm like, but what, like,
Speaker 2: what's what's the solution to? And scoring is not really
Speaker 2: the thing I have an issue with. I mean, scoring
Speaker 2: to me is very arbitrary. People get really hung up
Speaker 2: on scoring, and I think Aaron Hills and Shinnakok were
Speaker 2: a perfect example of that. The greens at Aaron Hills
Speaker 2: were literally like a pool table and they had four
Speaker 2: par fives. If you change one of those par fives
Speaker 2: and then you make the greens bumpy like they were
Speaker 2: at Shinnakok, you get the scoring pretty similar. And the
Speaker 2: greens aren't bad at Shinnakock. They're just whatever eighty year
Speaker 2: old greens, you know, whereas Aaron Hills greens were so
Speaker 2: good that if you had a good putting week and
Speaker 2: you're a great potter like Brooks Koepka, you can hoop
Speaker 2: so many putts. And Shinnikock is a great golf course
Speaker 2: and it's a hard golf course, but so is Aaron Hills.
Speaker 2: And they weren't sixteen shots difference as far as playability.
Speaker 2: But when the greens are bumpy or not perfect. You know,
Speaker 2: you make a couple less ten footers around, and a
Speaker 2: couple less ten footers is eight shots at the end
Speaker 2: of the week. So it's not a scoring issue. It's
Speaker 2: just like when you watch Aaron Hills and Brooks Kopka
Speaker 2: didn't hit more than seven iron into a par four
Speaker 2: and they had to go into the middle of Wisconsin
Speaker 2: to build an eight thousand yard golf course and they
Speaker 2: still couldn't put anything longer than a seven iron in
Speaker 2: these guys hands. You're like, what are you supposed to do?
Speaker 2: I mean, what's the answer? Brandle? Like, where do you
Speaker 2: go from there? You know? And if you don't want
Speaker 2: golf nacional, if you don't want eight inch rough and
Speaker 2: narrow fairways, like, how do you want to like challenge?
Speaker 2: How are we going to challenge the players? And this
Speaker 2: is strictly professional golf, Yeah, you know, we're not talking
Speaker 2: about recreational golf. And I don't you know that's I
Speaker 2: don't see how it's possible to challenge guys that hit
Speaker 2: it that long and straight anymore.
Speaker 1: So that's it's a fascinating thing. So I thought, with
Speaker 1: like Aaron Hills, I think with the with unless you
Speaker 1: want a tour that is, you know, what I think
Speaker 1: about a lot is like the associated penalty of missing
Speaker 1: the fairway for a guy who hits it two eighty
Speaker 1: versus Brooks or DJ. Like when Brooks are DJ business
Speaker 1: a fairway, they're gonna have wedge in their hand, and
Speaker 1: being in the rough with a wedge is not that
Speaker 1: big of a deal versus being in the rough with
Speaker 1: like a six or a five iron or seven iron
Speaker 1: even like all of a sudden, then that's a really
Speaker 1: hard shot if you're in the rough with a with
Speaker 1: a you know, less lofted club. So the associated penalty
Speaker 1: of missing a fairway is so so much different for
Speaker 1: you know, the long hitter than the say the even
Speaker 1: the three hundred yard hitter, which has now become the
Speaker 1: average hitter on tour. Is and so like to me,
Speaker 1: like what Aaron The special thing about Aaron Hills or
Speaker 1: Shinnecock is it gave somebody the opportunity that's a shorter
Speaker 1: hitter to legitimately hit fourteen or fourteen fairways.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: So in my mind it's like and I totally agree
Speaker 1: with the scoring thing. The score that's where everybody kind
Speaker 1: of is twisted, is like, you know, the game has changed,
Speaker 1: so why are we holding on to the same scores,
Speaker 1: Like why not just make the part at a at
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour, you know, say, say the players make
Speaker 1: the par par sixty eight. You know, sixteen isn't a
Speaker 1: par five anymore, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't get hung up on the scoring. The thing
Speaker 2: that I think and this is just me as like
Speaker 2: a golf fan, and you know, I say, I get
Speaker 2: an inside the rules. Look to me, the issue is
Speaker 2: that golf is now a game on the professional level
Speaker 2: where you play with it's basically wedges and putter and
Speaker 2: like the rest of the bag doesn't really matter except
Speaker 2: for a couple of part threes around. And that's the
Speaker 2: part that that's the off, you know, just as a fan,
Speaker 2: like not as a player trying to make a living, like, dude,
Speaker 2: go out there and make a living. Like there's no
Speaker 2: I don't have any like grudges or or any hard
Speaker 2: feelings about the way the game is played now.
Speaker 3: From that standpoint, it's like killer be killed.
Speaker 2: I understand what I signed up for, but I just
Speaker 2: I just wish that the game would get back to
Speaker 2: being more of a, you got to use all fourteen
Speaker 2: clubs because right now I tell the college kids, like
Speaker 2: the tech kids that I see, it's like, you either
Speaker 2: need to be prodigious with the driver or the putter
Speaker 2: to make a living. That is, those are the two clubs.
Speaker 2: If you're not prodigious with one of those two, you're
Speaker 2: going to have a really hard time. Guys that are
Speaker 2: prodigious with both.
Speaker 3: And those guys are the top ten guys in the world,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like my buddy, for my buddy, Sean Martin,
Speaker 1: who writes for the Tour, he was like, you know,
Speaker 1: eight of the top ten strokes gained driving made it
Speaker 1: to the Tour Championship, and it was like thirteen or
Speaker 1: thirteen of the thirty, we're in the top twenty. It's
Speaker 1: like if you drive it far, so like if you're
Speaker 1: in the top tennis and of strokes gained off the tea,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to lose your card.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's it's not just far. They hit it straight, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and like I agree with like, no one
Speaker 2: is knocking these guys, Like I'm not knocking them for like, oh,
Speaker 2: they just hit it far. It's like, no, they hit
Speaker 2: a start and stupid straight Yeah, so you know that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Watch that'll do it for part one of the Roberto
Speaker 1: Castro podcast. I hope you enjoy it. UH. Part two
Speaker 1: will go into more detail into Roberto's background, how he
Speaker 1: got into the game, much more about life on tour, tour, golf,
Speaker 1: golf course architecture, just a lot of topics. It was
Speaker 1: a fun podcast and ford uh Part two later this week,
Speaker 1: and thanks for listening.