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 1: And when I find my ball in a fried egg
Speaker 1: Friday egg, the.
Speaker 3: Dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg brid Egg, Frida Egg
Speaker 3: bride Egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Garrett Morrison, and today we have takeaways from the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two US Open. So things got off to
Speaker 1: a pretty strange start early last week in Brookline. The
Speaker 1: chatter at the country club was all about the Saudi
Speaker 1: backed lived Off Invitational Series and the threat that it
Speaker 1: poses to the PGA Tour. The topic came up at
Speaker 1: almost every press conference and behind the scenes, it seemed
Speaker 1: to be the only thing people wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: And that's understandable. It's a huge, air defining story, but
Speaker 1: I have to admit it was a bit of a
Speaker 1: relief when the golf started and we realized that we
Speaker 1: had a great tournament on our hands. The country club
Speaker 1: was demanding, but not sadistic. The conditions were blustery, but
Speaker 1: never to the point the play had to be stopped,
Speaker 1: and the proper golfers, the ones who show up when
Speaker 1: the course is tough and the wind is strong, rose
Speaker 1: above the fray. Rory McElroy, Colin Morricawa, John Rahm, and
Speaker 1: Scottie Scheffler quickly got themselves into contention, but late on Sunday,
Speaker 1: everyone's focus was on a duel between two less well
Speaker 1: known players. Will Zalatoris from San Francisco by way of
Speaker 1: Texas and Matt Fitzpatrick from England. Both have played well
Speaker 1: in recent majors. Fitzpatrick made it to the final pairing
Speaker 1: at this year's PGA Championship, and on the same day
Speaker 1: Xalatoris narrowly lost in a playoff, so it wasn't surprising
Speaker 1: to see the two of them trading blows down the
Speaker 1: stretch at the US Open. This time, Fitzpatrick was just
Speaker 1: slightly better. He arrived at the seventy second hole one
Speaker 1: stroke ahead of Xalatorus, and after pulling his drive into
Speaker 1: a fairway bunker, Fitzpatrick hit the shot of his life,
Speaker 1: a nine iron that he squeezed around the lip of
Speaker 1: the bunker and faded back to the middle of the green,
Speaker 1: eighteen feet from the pin. That is how you win
Speaker 1: a major championship. To discuss all of this and more,
Speaker 1: we have four guests today. We have Palo Ugetti, a
Speaker 1: staff writer at ESPN dot com, to sum up the
Speaker 1: big storylines of the week. We have Ryan Barrath of
Speaker 1: golf dot com to talk about Matt Fitzpatrick's recent gains
Speaker 1: and distance. And we have Bradley Klein, a journalist in
Speaker 1: golf architecture historian, and he'll say a few words about
Speaker 1: the course and the way it was set up. But
Speaker 1: first we're going to talk to a player who was
Speaker 1: actually in contention at the country club. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour pro Nick Hardy. Nick has been on
Speaker 1: the Friday podcast twice before and has been on an
Speaker 1: absolute tear since coming back from a wrist injury about
Speaker 1: a month ago. Nick is truly one of the good guys,
Speaker 1: always fun to talk to, so we figured we'd start
Speaker 1: with his story. All Right, I am on the phone
Speaker 1: with Nick Hardy, who was t fourteen this week at Brookline.
Speaker 1: Great performance from Nick. He is currently in the car
Speaker 1: talking to me on the phone. So Nick, where are
Speaker 1: you headed right now?
Speaker 4: I'm headed to Hartford the next event at the Travelers
Speaker 4: so can't wait.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a cool event. Have you have you played
Speaker 1: in the Travelers before?
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 4: They gave me an exemption actually in twenty eighteen. It
Speaker 4: was my first PGA threwer started as a professional, So wow, yeah,
Speaker 4: definitely good, good memories and it's just a great event.
Speaker 4: I love this event.
Speaker 1: All right. So you know you had a great week
Speaker 1: at the country club, But why don't we start A
Speaker 1: couple of months ago you were dealing with a wrist injury,
Speaker 1: So maybe you just tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the issue that you were having and what made you
Speaker 1: ultimately decide to take some time off.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So I heard my wrist in Louisiana at the Zurich Classic.
Speaker 4: It was a week where I really actually felt like
Speaker 4: my game was turning around. Finally, I told my fiance
Speaker 4: Liz on the drive to the Sunday round at the
Speaker 4: course and like, no matter what happened today, I'm very
Speaker 4: happy with where my game's headed and the direction I
Speaker 4: feel with my game, and I'm just excited. And then
Speaker 4: that day I heard my wrist and I was diagnosed.
Speaker 4: I was like out for a month. So now looking
Speaker 4: back on it, that risk injury is a blessing in disguise,
Speaker 4: and I think it really just helped settle my thoughts.
Speaker 4: I just stopped thinking about golf for a couple of
Speaker 4: weeks at least, and it gave me clarity, I think
Speaker 4: in the game. Again, among other things that I changed
Speaker 4: in my lifestyle kind of I made some tweaks to
Speaker 4: help maybe help my better my life as well, just
Speaker 4: outside of golf. So just among those certain things of
Speaker 4: how it happened and how it transpired, it all kind
Speaker 4: of helped towards my comeback.
Speaker 1: So, if you don't mind talking about it, what were
Speaker 1: some of the adjustments that you made to your routine
Speaker 1: or your kind of approach to the day to day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, alongside with clearing my mind with you
Speaker 4: know kind of maybe some negative thoughts and some just
Speaker 4: overtrying complicating, especially with certain areas of my game, I
Speaker 4: kind of lost my confidence really my putting mainly for
Speaker 4: a while there, and it really affected the rest of
Speaker 4: my game, and so that just you know, flowed down
Speaker 4: my thoughts. I had a really good putting week at Zurich,
Speaker 4: but I know I got hurt and then really all
Speaker 4: I could do after a couple of weeks on the
Speaker 4: shell was putt. So I practiced my putting a lot
Speaker 4: for a couple of weeks when I couldn't even hit
Speaker 4: a ball, So that putting in the time there helped
Speaker 4: for that helps solve that. But I also started using
Speaker 4: a Neuropeak pro and Intel belt and that was crucial
Speaker 4: for me. I did practice my breathing two times a day,
Speaker 4: and it you know, it's really a score system that
Speaker 4: scores you and how well you're doing really just how
Speaker 4: your heart is connected to your breathing, and so that
Speaker 4: helps a lot. I started taking daily magnesium supplements. That's
Speaker 4: really helped me just everyday life kind of relax and chill,
Speaker 4: and I think that that's helped a lot too. And
Speaker 4: then when I came back from injury with my wrists
Speaker 4: and started hitting balls, I noticed that in order to
Speaker 4: protect my wrist, I had to swing a certain way
Speaker 4: when I came back for that first Glenn Club event
Speaker 4: on the corn Ferry Tour, and that that way I
Speaker 4: was swinging really helped me control my spin and distance
Speaker 4: better with my long irons or and now with my
Speaker 4: long irons my short irons, and so I was very
Speaker 4: surprise because wow, I was like wow, like the things
Speaker 4: I kind of need to work on my swing are
Speaker 4: really helpful for coming back with this injury and trying
Speaker 4: to maintain not hurt this injury.
Speaker 1: So interesting all.
Speaker 4: Of that kind of added together. I can get into
Speaker 4: more detail if you'd like about the kind of the
Speaker 4: feelings in my swing that helps go.
Speaker 1: That way, if you want, Well, I'm curious. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't need to get too deep into the weeds.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like, was it just that you weren't
Speaker 1: using your wrist to save your swing anymore? You kind
Speaker 1: to kind of keep it stable in order to prevent injury.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So it was my left wrist that I heard.
Speaker 4: And in my swing sometimes I just get a little
Speaker 4: narrow and I pulled down and my my golf swing,
Speaker 4: and it causes me to kind of lose space and
Speaker 4: effectively just kind of pinch the ball and hit high
Speaker 4: spinners that kind of don't don't aren't very good trajectory.
Speaker 4: So it forced me to use my body more and
Speaker 4: be softer in my in my lower body to start
Speaker 4: my transition and then all also slower with my upper
Speaker 4: body pulling, and so that kept me wide and that
Speaker 4: kept me hitting you know, nine irons. Able to hit
Speaker 4: nine irons, pitching wedge just low and off speed better.
Speaker 4: And it's something I've always worked on, but it was
Speaker 4: just it just kind of made me realize, Wow, yeah,
Speaker 4: like this is the way I need to swing all
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well it's interesting, you know. I mean, if people have
Speaker 1: listened to your past podcasts with Andy, You've been on
Speaker 1: the Frida Egg podcast twice before, they know that you're
Speaker 1: a golf nut. You know, you play a lot of golf,
Speaker 1: You're really into. It was taking some of the time
Speaker 1: off just sort of helpful from that person, from just
Speaker 1: like removing yourself from the usual like all golf all
Speaker 1: the time routine and just doing something else for a while.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean that on top of it was probably
Speaker 4: that was the biggest beneficial thing it did for me,
Speaker 4: because as we all know, golf is such a mental game,
Speaker 4: and I think I caught myself just spinning my wheels
Speaker 4: for a few at leates a few months, especially the
Speaker 4: first just ever since January, I'd say, just spinning my
Speaker 4: wheels and trying really hard. And you know, every night
Speaker 4: you go to bed, you just wake up the next day.
Speaker 4: I want to wake up the next day and like Okay,
Speaker 4: this is what I gotta do to figure this out. Really,
Speaker 4: it just made me take a step back and just
Speaker 4: lose sight of the game for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: And when I came back, all my thoughts were clear again,
Speaker 4: and I'm not spinning my wheels now. I'm able to
Speaker 4: hit the ground running and really just move with it.
Speaker 4: And that was the biggest thing. I just taught me
Speaker 4: a lot of lessons on perspective, taught me how far
Speaker 4: I've come in the game, that I've really put in
Speaker 4: the hard yards, and I've earned myself the right to
Speaker 4: just believe in myself and I'm not gonna get off.
Speaker 4: I can take a few days off and look, I
Speaker 4: proved to myself, I could take thirty days off, come
Speaker 4: back and almost win a tournament like I am. I'm
Speaker 4: not gonna lose my fields. I'm not gonna start getting
Speaker 4: in bad habits if I just take time off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've paid your dues already. You don't need to
Speaker 1: keep paying them every day, all the time, exactly.
Speaker 4: And that's how I operated really in high school and
Speaker 4: college a ton, because I actually did need to keep
Speaker 4: those going, because I just my fundamentals weren't as good,
Speaker 4: but now I realize how good my fundamentals are. And
Speaker 4: it taught me, hey, like you can relax a little
Speaker 4: bit when you get off the golf course, we're not
Speaker 4: thinking about golf one bit, or just totally detached and
Speaker 4: really enjoying my time with my fiance or thinking about
Speaker 4: my family more, or just being away from the game.
Speaker 4: When you're away from the game is so important. And
Speaker 4: I feel like over the course of the last three
Speaker 4: tournaments that since I've come back, it's really shown that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. All right, So it wasn't too long
Speaker 1: after coming back that you entered the US Open qualifier,
Speaker 1: So just quickly tell me about that day and what
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, qualifying for the tournament.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was. It was crazy to day. I played
Speaker 4: the thirty six hole qualifier and I played the first
Speaker 4: i'd say twenty five holes really well. The last eleven
Speaker 4: holes I finished very poorly. I finished three over with
Speaker 4: no birdies in the last eleven holes, and it was
Speaker 4: really disappointing finish. And I finished just outside the top
Speaker 4: eight qualifiers and it tied for ninth. So I was
Speaker 4: in a five man playoff just for first alternate, and
Speaker 4: it ended up going five holes. So I played forty
Speaker 4: one holes that day. I got to the golf course
Speaker 4: at six am and left the course at eight forty
Speaker 4: five pm.
Speaker 1: God all right, well, so tell me about the playoff.
Speaker 1: How did that go?
Speaker 4: It was a wild all five minutes, had thirty looks.
Speaker 4: On the first hole, no one made their putt, and
Speaker 4: then we went on to the next hole. It was
Speaker 4: the short part. Four We all had wedges. I hit
Speaker 4: the closest to about seat, everyone else had around fifteen
Speaker 4: feet and the only person that make their part was
Speaker 4: Jim Herman. So I knew, I knew I had to
Speaker 4: make it, but either way I was going to continue
Speaker 4: in a playoff for second aulder, so I had to
Speaker 4: make it in order to get first ault. It made
Speaker 4: the putt one of the twelve. Twelve to thirteen are
Speaker 4: the hardest souls of the course. Twelve I made about
Speaker 4: a five foot slider to extend, and then on thirteen
Speaker 4: I made a twelve footer that broke about five feet
Speaker 4: to extend, and Jim made a putt from like five
Speaker 4: six feet to extend after my made by putt. And
Speaker 4: then on the fourteenth hole it was pitch black, almost
Speaker 4: pitch black you can barely see. I knew it was
Speaker 4: going to be our last hole and I hit a
Speaker 4: wedgend there to about eight feet. Jim hit it to
Speaker 4: about eighteen feet. Jim missed it, and I made it,
Speaker 4: and that that's what did it.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: And just to give context for people, Jim Herman is
Speaker 1: a two time PGA Tour winner, maybe a three time
Speaker 1: PGA Tour winner, not exactly sure off the top of
Speaker 1: my head, but this guy's a player. So it was
Speaker 1: you versus him for that first alternate spot. You So
Speaker 1: you were first alternate And at what point did you
Speaker 1: know you were in the tournament?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 4: Friday night. So I was like technically the last official
Speaker 4: man in the field before the official field came out.
Speaker 4: So I think I was second or third overall first,
Speaker 4: you know, first alternate, So among all the all the
Speaker 4: qualifying sites, I was, I think second or third. I
Speaker 4: think Tiger pulled out, pull A, Katy pulled out, and
Speaker 4: then I got I got a spot because there was
Speaker 4: a couple of different exemption categories for a winner in
Speaker 4: Canada that didn't win, So that's why I got in
Speaker 4: Friday night.
Speaker 1: Gotcha all right? So you're at the country club first
Speaker 1: two rounds, you shot sixty nine sixty eight, which are
Speaker 1: some incredible US Open rounds. What were you doing well
Speaker 1: on those days?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I was really managing my mind and managing my
Speaker 4: patients and managing all the you know, surrounding things around
Speaker 4: me really well. I was highly focused. I drove the
Speaker 4: ball well the first two rounds, and I just missed
Speaker 4: in the right spot, and that's that was the key.
Speaker 4: I didn't make a lot of mistakes. I think I
Speaker 4: only made I don't know, maybe six birdies. But I
Speaker 4: made very few mistakes as well, So it was just
Speaker 4: a solid couple of days. I was definitely in the
Speaker 4: harder wave too, so I was pretty proud of the
Speaker 4: way I played the first two rounds.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. Is this your Was this your fourth US Open?
Speaker 1: Am I right about that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So obviously you have some experience with this tournament.
Speaker 1: What have you learned from past US Opens that you
Speaker 1: were applying on those during those first couple of rounds.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I learned the value of patients, obviously, and I
Speaker 4: learned that when you get rhythmic shots, when you get
Speaker 4: opportunities to get in a rhythm, you take it. Because
Speaker 4: the US Open it's just utter chaos when you're playing.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's just you're you know, it's hard to get
Speaker 4: it's hard to hit string three four five six fairways
Speaker 4: in a row. It's hard to string three four five
Speaker 4: six greens hit in a row. So what I mean
Speaker 4: by that is like, if there's times where you know,
Speaker 4: you don't want to be over aggressive on the first rounds,
Speaker 4: you just want to kind of get the ball in
Speaker 4: the fairway, give yourself some kind of string, some momentum along.
Speaker 4: So that's that's kind of what I've learned in the
Speaker 4: US Opens and how to play and how to go
Speaker 4: about it. That was key.
Speaker 1: So you were t eight going into the third round.
Speaker 1: What did it feel like to be in contention at
Speaker 1: a tournament this big? I mean, you've been in some
Speaker 1: big spots before, You've been in some pressure spots, but
Speaker 1: I think this was sort of new territory for you,
Speaker 1: very new territory.
Speaker 4: I was, you know, in contention of a major in
Speaker 4: a week, and I've never done that before. But I
Speaker 4: was weirdly relaxed, and I felt very prepared, and I
Speaker 4: believe in myself was very high. So I just felt
Speaker 4: like I'd manifested this for a long time, and I
Speaker 4: think that's what really helps me. The third round was
Speaker 4: incredibly difficult because of the conditions and the golf course
Speaker 4: changed so much as I played Friday morning. It was
Speaker 4: tough for me to get adjusted to that. But I
Speaker 4: actually played pretty well all things, considering the front nine
Speaker 4: and getting adjusted to that and just the crowd and
Speaker 4: the whole experience it was. I was proud of myself
Speaker 4: for that. I definitely think I came out much more
Speaker 4: ready to play Sunday because of Saturday's experience.
Speaker 1: Right. Well, So going back to step for a second,
Speaker 1: I think that something that people need to recognize about
Speaker 1: your first two rounds, the sixty nine and the sixty eight,
Speaker 1: is that you played late early, right. You were in
Speaker 1: the afternoon wave on Thursday and the morning wave on Friday,
Speaker 1: which turned out to be the more difficult draw. I
Speaker 1: believe it was about a two stroke difference, Like it
Speaker 1: was two strokes harder to play when you played, but
Speaker 1: you still fired those rounds, which is which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So Saturday, you mentioned the course was different, the conditions
Speaker 1: were different, and tell me about how much more difficult
Speaker 1: the course was that day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the greens were extremely firm, and that also makes
Speaker 4: some harder pot because they get a little last year,
Speaker 4: they may get a little less true to Pott, and
Speaker 4: just chipping on the greens is super tough. And predicting
Speaker 4: how it's gonna bounce, that's really just the toughest part
Speaker 4: is the scoring part. So you got to go in
Speaker 4: not really expecting to make many birdies. But I guess
Speaker 4: said earlier, I learned that you got to get some
Speaker 4: rhythm going and the best you can try to string
Speaker 4: along some shots where you can kind of get into
Speaker 4: momentum in a groove. And it's really hard to do that,
Speaker 4: especially Thursday or sorry, Saturday's round it being that windy,
Speaker 4: and especially the wind direction changed. That wind direction was
Speaker 4: probably the hardest direction that we played.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was coming out of the north, it was cold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just a tough day. You ended up shooting
Speaker 1: seventy three. I believe in that round you had a
Speaker 1: triple bogie, and so a portion of that seventy three
Speaker 1: is is certainly due to that just that one hole,
Speaker 1: I suppose.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that triple bogue is really unfortunate. I had a
Speaker 4: great shot too, and I just hit the back of
Speaker 4: the green and bounce in the festuo grass right against
Speaker 4: the big rock wall, so I had no shot and
Speaker 4: I hit it was you know, it was unfortunate because
Speaker 4: I actually hit such a good shot to get there,
Speaker 4: but my only option was taking up playable about fifty
Speaker 4: yards further back towards the tea box, and I hit
Speaker 4: a very poor recovery four shot that landed short of
Speaker 4: the green and the rough, and I hit that on
Speaker 4: a two putted for a triple. So it was really
Speaker 4: unfortunate because I walked away with the whole feeling like
Speaker 4: I didn't really hit any poor shots to get there
Speaker 4: that triple bogue. But that's what can happen to us open.
Speaker 4: You get a little off with the club decision, Like
Speaker 4: I missed one club decision and it cost me three shots,
Speaker 4: so that that was very unfortunate, But I was really
Speaker 4: proud of the way I came back after that and
Speaker 4: buried the next two holes.
Speaker 1: You did, Yeah, So that was on the thirteenth hole,
Speaker 1: obviously a tough part four that's not played normally by members.
Speaker 1: You know, you're playing two holes in one there and
Speaker 1: a kind of a classic country club punishment there. You
Speaker 1: missed the green and all of a sudden you're infescue
Speaker 1: and rocks. You know, that's that's sort of what that
Speaker 1: place delivers. But in any case, going on to Sunday,
Speaker 1: just take me through the early part of year round.
Speaker 1: You started pretty hot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I started hot with the putter. That was key.
Speaker 4: I had two solid shots in the first hole. Was
Speaker 4: definitely feeling the nerves. But once I you know, made
Speaker 4: a nice part of the first soul that settled me down.
Speaker 4: And hit a great shot into two that went over
Speaker 4: the green, hit a great chip out of the fescu
Speaker 4: grass next to the bunker, who was a terrible lie
Speaker 4: and just did good to get it too about eight
Speaker 4: ten feet. I made that putt and then I got
Speaker 4: a great another grade up in down on the third
Speaker 4: goal out of the bunker, made another nice little twelve
Speaker 4: fourteen footer for par and then I hit a nice
Speaker 4: shot out of the Rufio number four and made another
Speaker 4: about fifteen footer for Bertie, and then made another fifteen
Speaker 4: footer on five for Bertie, and then made another fifteen
Speaker 4: putter on number six for par So. I was feeling
Speaker 4: it with the putter. I did look up at the
Speaker 4: leaderboard after number five and I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 4: two shots back, so I knew I kept playing the
Speaker 4: way I was playing, it could really go my way.
Speaker 4: I don't think I was like the moment was definitely
Speaker 4: not too big for me. It's just the US Open
Speaker 4: really was expose any sort of thing in your game
Speaker 4: that may not be the best, and I didn't drive
Speaker 4: at my best over the weekend. I kind of mishit
Speaker 4: a t shot at number eight. It left me in
Speaker 4: the first cut in the left side, and I kind
Speaker 4: of didn't have an angle to go for it, and
Speaker 4: I wish I was a little more aggressive there. I
Speaker 4: laid up way too far back and I could have
Speaker 4: hit three with much closer to the green or even
Speaker 4: I was considering driver off the deck. But that was
Speaker 4: a gutsy shot. But you just got to play that
Speaker 4: whole smart and I did in a good eight iron
Speaker 4: into that green. I just kind of hit it a
Speaker 4: little too far right and you came back down the slope,
Speaker 4: so and then I hit it over the green and
Speaker 4: missed about an eight foot or from bogie. So it
Speaker 4: was definitely a tough hole. I'm definitely bummed about the
Speaker 4: eighth hole. That's where things willmentum change and then you
Speaker 4: got a tough stretch of holes after that. Nine, two
Speaker 4: thirteen are very very tough hole. So yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: the rest of the day, I'm not very pleased with
Speaker 4: how it turned out. Walked away feeling a little uh
Speaker 4: snake bitten about the rest how it went the rest
Speaker 4: of the day, But it was super super good experience
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 1: So just overall, what do you think you're gonna take
Speaker 1: away from this experience and carry into tournaments like like
Speaker 1: the Travelers this week.
Speaker 4: Yes, my focus and the simple to no thought, especially
Speaker 4: when I'm away from the game, away from the course,
Speaker 4: my focus level and how strong my mind is. I'm
Speaker 4: very proud of the way that I've come back from
Speaker 4: this injury, and I think I've just shown my capability
Speaker 4: of playing out against the best players in the world
Speaker 4: so far, and I believe I can win. And I
Speaker 4: think if I keep putting myself in chances like that
Speaker 4: to win on Saturday and Sunday, I've walked away from
Speaker 4: my last three events on Sunday feeling very i would
Speaker 4: say slighted, not very happy with the way things finished.
Speaker 4: So I think if I keep staying patient, I'll walk
Speaker 4: away from one of these Sundays, either with a trophy
Speaker 4: or just very proud and happy the way I finish.
Speaker 1: All Right, Nick, it's always fun to have you on
Speaker 1: the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on a great performance this week, and good luck
Speaker 1: going forward. Man.
Speaker 4: Thank you very much, thank you.
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Speaker 1: player's membership. That's golf Blueprint dot com OG twenty. All right,
Speaker 1: on with the episode. Next up is my interview with
Speaker 1: Palo Ugetti. Palo is a staff writer at ESPN dot
Speaker 1: com and he mainly covers college football. He also used
Speaker 1: to write about the NBA for The Ringer, but lately
Speaker 1: he started reporting more and more on golf, and he
Speaker 1: was on site in Brookline all this week. So let's
Speaker 1: see what he has to say.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny, you know, I never expected golf to
Speaker 5: be part of my coverage when I took this job
Speaker 5: at ESPN. But given that the golf the gollege football
Speaker 5: season is so short and there's a long offseason. It
Speaker 5: was kind of like, Okay, what do I do now?
Speaker 5: What do I kind of put in my time just
Speaker 5: you know, to buy my time for the for the
Speaker 5: football season. And really it just kind of happened out
Speaker 5: of nowhere where I covered one Latin American Amateur Championship,
Speaker 5: shortly in part import because I speak Spanish, so there
Speaker 5: was like an advantage there to talk to some of
Speaker 5: the players. And suddenly, you know, I'm being asked if
Speaker 5: I could go to the Women's Open and then the
Speaker 5: men's Open, and you know, so I think it's happened
Speaker 5: all really fast. But it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 5: I mean, I recently got into playing, like about a
Speaker 5: year and a half ago, so it's all kind of
Speaker 5: coalescing into this big like golf, I don't know, golf
Speaker 5: golf interest, and it's been cool to get a chance to,
Speaker 5: you know, as I'm playing more and then finding out
Speaker 5: more about the game, like being up close to you know,
Speaker 5: obviously the best players in the world for sure.
Speaker 1: When was the Latin American am that you covered? Was
Speaker 1: that just like last year?
Speaker 5: It was this year? It was early this year. I
Speaker 5: don't remember exactly one month, but yeah, it was this
Speaker 5: year's Latin American Am, which was awesome. I mean it
Speaker 5: was It's really cool, Like those events, I feel like
Speaker 5: are really cool because you get to just get to
Speaker 5: know a bunch of stories, a bunch of different players
Speaker 5: who were you know, coming up and from different countries,
Speaker 5: and so it was a good like initial experience. And
Speaker 5: then the Women's Open last week was awesome at Pine Needles.
Speaker 5: That was a great tournament and also a lot of
Speaker 5: a ton of good stories there. So I think I
Speaker 5: was slowly making my way to the Men's US Open
Speaker 5: here and which which I mean quite quite a first
Speaker 5: men's tournament to do, but it's but it was a
Speaker 5: lot of fun to get to be up close for that.
Speaker 1: It is incredible. I think it was an all timer.
Speaker 1: So so you got a good one for your first
Speaker 1: men's US Open. So let's get into it. You know,
Speaker 1: if I were to ask you for one big takeaway
Speaker 1: from this week, like, you know, one major thing that
Speaker 1: you'll you'll remember and keep in your mind for this tournament,
Speaker 1: what would it be?
Speaker 5: Obviously, Fitzpatrick's just shot on eighteen that that feels like
Speaker 5: it's going to be remembered out of the bunker, you know,
Speaker 5: I was right there when he hit it, and when
Speaker 5: it landed, it's just was an explosion of cheers, and
Speaker 5: it was just just a crazy moment. Like as soon
Speaker 5: as he was in the bunker, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is going to a playoff. And the fact that
Speaker 5: he was able to win it all just right there
Speaker 5: on eighteenth hold that was crazy in itself. But I
Speaker 5: keep coming back to Sala Taurus while was Ala Taurus.
Speaker 5: For some reason, there was something about him, maybe just
Speaker 5: the way he talked in press conferences or the way
Speaker 5: he kind of came off before Sunday's round and then
Speaker 5: even after Sunday's round. I don't know there. I think
Speaker 5: I'm attracted to the mental aspect of the game. I
Speaker 5: think a lot, and he seems to be very much
Speaker 5: willing to kind of lay it all out there and
Speaker 5: just say, you know, this is how I'm feeling. And
Speaker 5: then also like you know, he literally said I'm three
Speaker 5: strokes away from a few strokes away from being a
Speaker 5: three time major champion, and you know, nobody could argue
Speaker 5: that with him for that. So I think for me,
Speaker 5: like I keep coming back to Sulla Taurus because there's
Speaker 5: a path where he's suddenly the guy that we're talking
Speaker 5: about instead of somebody like a Scottie Scheffler, And I
Speaker 5: don't know, I find him fascinating and I just wonder
Speaker 5: where he goes from here. And it feels like he's
Speaker 5: going to win a tournament sooner rather than later. But
Speaker 5: the fact that he kind of just finds himself in
Speaker 5: this similar situation it must be tough, you know, for
Speaker 5: him to deal with mentally.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so he lost in a playoff at the
Speaker 1: PGA Championship to Thomas and he comes here and although
Speaker 1: there was no playoff, it really did feel like a
Speaker 1: shootout between Matt Fitzpatrick and will Zalatoris down the stretch,
Speaker 1: even though Scotti Scheffler was also getting into the mix
Speaker 1: during the final holes as well, But it just didn't
Speaker 1: feel like Scheffler was ever truly kind of part of
Speaker 1: the main story. The main story was Xalatoris versus Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 1: and Fitzpatrick prevailed. So Xalatoris did you follow him at
Speaker 1: all this week? Did you talk to him in interviews?
Speaker 1: What are just some of your observations about his playing
Speaker 1: style and his character and was it, you know, something
Speaker 1: in there that made him appeal to you.
Speaker 5: I caught him on the last few holes on Saturday
Speaker 5: and he was coming in at the lowest round and
Speaker 5: people were amazed at the rann who was putting together
Speaker 5: really because of the conditions in the weather, and he
Speaker 5: was just hitting everything so well. And I just the
Speaker 5: putting thing is so fascinating to me because he knows.
Speaker 5: It's clear that he knows. There was so much chatter
Speaker 5: about it putting, and I love that. I love that.
Speaker 5: I love that he's not like ignorant to the fact that,
Speaker 5: you know, people have theories about his putting or or
Speaker 5: zab rudering videos about his putting. Like I love that,
Speaker 5: you know, and I think it's great that he's like
Speaker 5: kind of lean almost leaning into it. Like today he
Speaker 5: called out the Instagram morons. He said, uh, that we're
Speaker 5: discussing his putting.
Speaker 1: Uh wait when did he say Instagram morons? Was this
Speaker 1: in a post round interview?
Speaker 5: It was I would have to pull it up. Let me,
Speaker 5: let me just pull it up really quick, because it
Speaker 5: was honest.
Speaker 1: So he was probably talking about people like, you know,
Speaker 1: sharing videos of his short putts, because it's his short
Speaker 1: puts where the issues crop up or seem to crop up.
Speaker 1: He makes a lot of them as far as I know.
Speaker 1: But the stroke is is hard to watch because there's
Speaker 1: a hesitation and an adjustment that happens with the putter
Speaker 1: head on the on the backstroke and and then eventually
Speaker 1: he's able to bring it through. But there's definitely a
Speaker 1: glitch there, a kind of stammer I guess in the
Speaker 1: in the putting stroke is how it would how I
Speaker 1: would describe it. That's not they are on the longer puts.
Speaker 1: In fact, his longer his twenty footers this week were
Speaker 1: dead eye. I mean, he was making a lot of
Speaker 1: them and getting close to making a lot more of them.
Speaker 1: But it's his short putts where where the demons seem
Speaker 1: to sort of pop up a little bit.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, I almost think he's he's he strikes me
Speaker 5: as somebody who's super self aware of his game, of
Speaker 5: just his whole self. And he said that on Saturday
Speaker 5: after his round. You know, like I'm playing defensively, he said,
Speaker 5: defensively aggressive. Basically, you have to play on this course,
Speaker 5: you have to be defensively aggressive. And he said he's
Speaker 5: just leaving himself with twenty five twenty to twenty five
Speaker 5: putts so that he knows, you know, he can get
Speaker 5: him close. He doesn't have to make them, but if
Speaker 5: he gets him close, he'll have very short puts to
Speaker 5: be able to, you know, just move on to the
Speaker 5: next hole. And I think for him, it was interesting
Speaker 5: to notice that he was, you know, he wasn't very
Speaker 5: aggressive out there. I mean, he laid up on the
Speaker 5: short part four fifth hole every day, which I mean
Speaker 5: that hole was I was right there next to the
Speaker 5: green today. I want to just watching that he laid
Speaker 5: up and it worked out fine. But then Fitzpatrick drove
Speaker 5: the green, which was insane, like that was.
Speaker 1: A great shot, one of the best shots of the day, one.
Speaker 5: Of the best shots of the day. So he's he
Speaker 5: seems so in control of his game that it's almost like,
Speaker 5: I wonder if you were letting yourself go a little
Speaker 5: bit more, maybe those are the chances you need to
Speaker 5: take right to be able to get over the hump.
Speaker 5: I don't know, like it's one of those things where
Speaker 5: it's hard to tell, right, it's hard to tell what
Speaker 5: is what is exactly holding him back? And I don't
Speaker 5: think there's anything holding him back. And he even said,
Speaker 5: you know, it's a few inches here and there, a
Speaker 5: break here and there, and so I don't know, I
Speaker 5: just find him fascinating because I think, you know, something
Speaker 5: I wrote on Saturday is, you know, usually we think
Speaker 5: of success for athletes as linear, right, and even in
Speaker 5: the NBA or any sport that almost that's almost never
Speaker 5: the case, right. But what he was saying is almost
Speaker 5: like the failure has been linear because every time he
Speaker 5: fails or he comes close and he doesn't win, he
Speaker 5: learned something else, He picks up something else and feels
Speaker 5: more confident to where he said, you know, after the
Speaker 5: PGA Championship he felt, Okay, I can be one of
Speaker 5: the best players in the world, which you know, he
Speaker 5: kind of showed that today in some ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wonder at what point the learning
Speaker 1: from failure stops and it just becomes scar tissue. Did
Speaker 1: you get a sense from him after the round this
Speaker 1: week what he was at least trying to take away
Speaker 1: from this experience in order to make it positive for
Speaker 1: the future.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was interesting because in some ways the questions
Speaker 5: directed at him were, you know, how do you pick
Speaker 5: it back up? You know, how do you what do
Speaker 5: you learn from this? And you know, how do you
Speaker 5: get over this? And he was pretty honest, I mean
Speaker 5: honestly he was. He said, you know, I haven't had
Speaker 5: time to process this one. This one will probably sting
Speaker 5: more than the others because he was so close and
Speaker 5: you know he's going to be time to process it.
Speaker 5: But he did say I'm glad that the open is
Speaker 5: only in a few weeks now, way he can get
Speaker 5: back at there, get back out there. And so I
Speaker 5: think he seems like you're in a pretty good spot,
Speaker 5: you know. I he was literally this was like, this
Speaker 5: is a random observation, but I thought it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 5: And I'm sure this happens all the time. But he
Speaker 5: was answering questions while three TVs around him were showing
Speaker 5: Fitzpatrick raising the trophy, and at one point they cut
Speaker 5: the TVs off because they probably realized, like, Okay, this
Speaker 5: is kind of awkward position to be putting Will in.
Speaker 5: But then they brought him back and then suddenly, you know,
Speaker 5: he's finishing Upany's interview and Fitzpatrick is coming in and
Speaker 5: you hear all the cheers, and I don't know, like
Speaker 5: I mean, as a human being, you would think that
Speaker 5: that would get to you in some way. But he
Speaker 5: seemed pretty composed of it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, did you pull up the Instagram moron's quote?
Speaker 5: I did. I did here, let me let me read it,
Speaker 5: let me read it to you. So he said, I
Speaker 5: honestly don't know what to take from this, yet I
Speaker 5: was pretty pleased, just because I'm known for my boss striking.
Speaker 5: And then he you know, he's talking about the putt
Speaker 5: on eighteen. I'm sure all the Instagram morons are going
Speaker 5: to say, has something to do with my left wrist
Speaker 5: flextion coming down, But I promise you it's got nothing
Speaker 5: to do with it. I think, just keep doing what
Speaker 5: we're doing. This one's stinks for sure, but I know
Speaker 5: that we're going to get this.
Speaker 1: So there you go. That sums it up pretty well
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah. I mean Salad Torus whenever I see
Speaker 1: him in an interview is. I made this joke on
Speaker 1: Twitter this year about how he's like the golfer that
Speaker 1: you want to take home to meet your parents because
Speaker 1: he's so well spoken. He comes across as friendly, as
Speaker 1: very intelligent, as self deprecating, but it also seems to
Speaker 1: bring with it this what you refer to earlier as
Speaker 1: a self awareness. And then that occasionally pops up in
Speaker 1: his golf game. I wonder if that's something you've thought about,
Speaker 1: whether that that aspect of his personality, that the self deprecation.
Speaker 1: He's not dull, you know, he's not like really low
Speaker 1: kind of energy like Scottie Scheffler and Dustin Johnson are
Speaker 1: you know, not that those guys aren't intelligent. I think
Speaker 1: that's a trope that we need to get rid of
Speaker 1: that DJ and Scheffler can't be intelligent, They just have
Speaker 1: a really different and lower energy. And so I wonder
Speaker 1: if Zalatorus's energy just being at that kind of higher frequency,
Speaker 1: if that can be something that will sort of limit
Speaker 1: him in some of those big moments.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think he's not low energy,
Speaker 5: but I wouldn't even say he's high energy either. Like
Speaker 5: it's he's sort of just is right there in the
Speaker 5: middle where he can be, like you said, self deprecating,
Speaker 5: but also just kind of explain golf to you in
Speaker 5: some ways, Like he's not hesitant to be like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this was a shot you know I was thinking about,
Speaker 5: you know, and he even talked about Fitzpatrick's shot like
Speaker 5: he raved about it, you know, he said, you know,
Speaker 5: it's a one in twenty shot. It's a shot that
Speaker 5: will be showing in highlights over and over again. And
Speaker 5: so he I mean, honestly, maybe to put as simple like,
Speaker 5: he just seems like a golf nerd, right, who is
Speaker 5: able to not just talk about golf in a nerdy way,
Speaker 5: but also like express it in a way that's very
Speaker 5: proper and like, you know, it's very clear. And I
Speaker 5: think that was interesting to me, is he he He
Speaker 5: wasn't hesitant to show his what he was feeling. He
Speaker 5: wasn't hesitant to show you know, hey, I thought about
Speaker 5: this or did this or like, oh it, yeah, it
Speaker 5: sucks that I haven't. I've been so close, but I
Speaker 5: haven't won, you know, and I to me personally, that's
Speaker 5: just like a refreshing perspective, right, And you mentioned Scheffler,
Speaker 5: and Scheffler you know he tries, you know, he says
Speaker 5: things here and there, but he's also like, you know,
Speaker 5: when I play good golf, it's fun and and kind
Speaker 5: of that's it, right, yeah, exactly, And honestly, I Fitzpatrick
Speaker 5: similarly had some great quotes too. He's able to kind
Speaker 5: of you know, dissect his game dissect his round and
Speaker 5: talk about, you know, what he was thinking on and obviously,
Speaker 5: you know, from a media perspective, that just strikes a
Speaker 5: different chord, right, And I think I do wonder if, like,
Speaker 5: you know, how how that relates to the game, right,
Speaker 5: whether that changes things at all, because somebody like Scheffler
Speaker 5: or Dusta Johnson, do they just go out there and play, right,
Speaker 5: and these these other guys, like do they overthink things?
Speaker 3: Do they?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: And obviously now we're just kind of projecting that onto
Speaker 5: them in some way, but it is part of part
Speaker 5: of you know, it's such a mental game that you
Speaker 5: do wonder if if some of that stuff gets to
Speaker 5: them a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Fitzpatrick certainly is well known for taking
Speaker 1: a meticulous, scientific approach to his game, and that certainly
Speaker 1: seemed to pay off this week. He has improved substantially
Speaker 1: over the past few years. The moment that's going to
Speaker 1: get remembered is that shot from the bunker, the fairway
Speaker 1: bunker on eighteen. An incredible shot because when the ball
Speaker 1: trickled into the bunker off the tee for Fitzpatrick and
Speaker 1: settled kind of not far from that lip, my first
Speaker 1: thought was is he going to be able to get
Speaker 1: this to the green or is this is he going
Speaker 1: to have to take a lob wedge and kind of
Speaker 1: pop this out onto the fairway. Now, you said that
Speaker 1: you were out there, you were looking at this shot,
Speaker 1: So could you set the scene for me? Where were
Speaker 1: you and what was going through your mind about what
Speaker 1: his you know, prospects were.
Speaker 5: So I was right behind the flag, just about behind
Speaker 5: the flag and you know, kind of by the TV tower,
Speaker 5: and of course everybody's you know, as soon as they
Speaker 5: see the ball going in the it's a huge like whoa,
Speaker 5: Like okay, here we go, like you know, playoff, thinking
Speaker 5: about all the different possibilities, like okay, it just got real,
Speaker 5: you know. And and even Zala Turis referred to it
Speaker 5: as a match by situation and it did feel that way,
Speaker 5: you know. And so you know, I'm standing back back there,
Speaker 5: everybody's crowding around that, you know, anticipation, and suddenly you
Speaker 5: see the ball just land so perfectly. And I was
Speaker 5: waiting for it to land in the front bunker, right
Speaker 5: the bunker that's protecting the eighteenth Green, because I was
Speaker 5: thinking about John Rahm the day before and how he
Speaker 5: landed in the bunker and how you know, obviously he
Speaker 5: wasn't able to get out of the bunker the first
Speaker 5: shot and the second shot he just ended up being
Speaker 5: in the front bunker. And I wonder, you know, it's
Speaker 5: crazy because you think about what was the thinking between
Speaker 5: just like just going for it, you know. I I
Speaker 5: like Zala Taurus called it baldsy, you know, and I
Speaker 5: think there's probably not a better way to describe it.
Speaker 5: And so it was just absolute, you know, pandemonium when
Speaker 5: when people saw you know, him land there. And what
Speaker 5: was even more fun was the fact that when Zala
Speaker 5: Trus hit it, he had it just inside Fitzpatrick's ball.
Speaker 5: So it was just like this, it just felt like
Speaker 5: this very you know, almost like a boxing match where
Speaker 5: like one fighter lands one punch and then the other
Speaker 5: lands a better punch. And of course, like you know,
Speaker 5: Zala Taurus had the pressure on him and he had
Speaker 5: to come back. But you could feel the atmosphere of
Speaker 5: just like, okay, this is we're we're witnessing something special,
Speaker 5: something we rarely get to see. You know, usually you
Speaker 5: get to see the leader come up right and try
Speaker 5: to finish off the round. But the fact that both
Speaker 5: guys were in the same group and just trying to
Speaker 5: finish it off and trying to hold on for Fitzpatrick
Speaker 5: and really try to come back for zala Taurus. It
Speaker 5: was it was a perfect sports moment in that sense,
Speaker 5: because you really had, you know, here's here's my shot,
Speaker 5: here's my shot, you know, and and and and that's it.
Speaker 5: You know, there's no I mean, Scheffler obviously was in
Speaker 5: the clubouse of five under, but at that point it
Speaker 5: was just about the two of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really did seem that way. So, yeah, Sheffler
Speaker 1: was at five under, Zaladtorus was five under, and Fitzpatrick
Speaker 1: was standing at six under, and which ended up being
Speaker 1: a winning score. But there were a lot of potential
Speaker 1: scenarios that could have played out there, because if Xalatoris
Speaker 1: birdied the hole and Fitzpatrick part it, they the two
Speaker 1: of them would have gone to a playoff. If Xalatoris
Speaker 1: birdied the hole and Fitzpatrick bogied it, then Xaladoris would
Speaker 1: have won outright, and there could have been a three
Speaker 1: way playoff as well, which was starting to seem like
Speaker 1: the most likely situation that Xaladoris would par the hole
Speaker 1: and that Fitzpatrick would bogey it, but that didn't happen
Speaker 1: because that was such a sensational shot. Now looking at
Speaker 1: it from the television viewers perspective, my thought was that
Speaker 1: lip of the bunker is a problem. Ye that's blocking
Speaker 1: his route to the pin. And what it looked to
Speaker 1: me like he did, and I'm gonna sure if you
Speaker 1: remember the ballflight, but that he was really he was
Speaker 1: really specific with the initial start line of the shot.
Speaker 1: He was discussing that with his caddy, and it looked
Speaker 1: to me like that start line was well left of
Speaker 1: the flag. It may have even been left edge of
Speaker 1: the green. But he was able to cut the shot
Speaker 1: out of the bunker, he was able to hit a fade,
Speaker 1: and it was able to get it up pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it passed over the lip of
Speaker 1: the bunker and if maybe he missed his line a
Speaker 1: little bit to the right, but it seemed like the
Speaker 1: intention at least was to kind of start it just
Speaker 1: outside of that lip of the bunker and let it
Speaker 1: fall back to the right toward the pin. And just
Speaker 1: like the ability to do that in that situation from
Speaker 1: that spot is incredible.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think if Fitzpatrick said he hit a
Speaker 5: nine rate and it was funny because he said, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't even think about it, like it was like
Speaker 5: I just I play fast, and you know, I think
Speaker 5: it just natural instinct or natural talent took over and
Speaker 5: I aimed left.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 5: I think my fellow colleague Kevin van Malcolmberg has a
Speaker 5: column about you know, being right there in that like
Speaker 5: right behind Fitzpatrick for that shot, and I believe he
Speaker 5: did say, you know, he aimed left right to maybe
Speaker 5: get over the bunker and have that ball flight in.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I think it's just eighteen was such an
Speaker 5: interesting hole. I mean I was also them during when
Speaker 5: they were on fifteen, and it's one of those things
Speaker 5: where you're just like, how does how do things turn
Speaker 5: out this way? Obviously the course factors into it, but
Speaker 5: Souad Tour has hit a better t shot, but he
Speaker 5: ended up in the rough and then Fitzpatrick hid him
Speaker 5: more further right, but he had handed up a better
Speaker 5: lie and he had a shot that was incredible too.
Speaker 5: Like I think if if he wouldn't have had the
Speaker 5: shot on eighteen, we would be remembering the shot on
Speaker 5: fifteen because he just perfectly shaped it into the green,
Speaker 5: and it was just and Sala Tours could barely get
Speaker 5: it up there off from the gruff. So it's just
Speaker 5: you know, these little breaks, right, these little moments, these
Speaker 5: little small you know, different different things could go different
Speaker 5: ways and it would have been a different tournament. But
Speaker 5: that was I thought that was another memorable hole because
Speaker 5: I think that's where things shifted a little bit as
Speaker 5: well for sure.
Speaker 1: All Right, well, Paula, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: me for this little segment. Appreciate it, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to saying more work from you from golf tournaments.
Speaker 5: Thanks no, thank you guys for having me. I love
Speaker 5: the podcast and great to be on.
Speaker 1: All right. I am here with Ryan Barrath, who is
Speaker 1: now the senior editor of Equipment, the senior equipment editor
Speaker 1: at golf dot Com. Ryan, you've been on the podcast before.
Speaker 1: You're back for a quick takeaway segment. Where are you
Speaker 1: right now?
Speaker 3: I am outside of Connecticut for the Travelers Championship. I
Speaker 3: was at the US Open for a couple of days
Speaker 3: earlier in the week, went home back on a plane,
Speaker 3: and now I'm back on the road covering equipment again.
Speaker 1: Sweet all right, So I wanted to have you on
Speaker 1: to talk specifically about some training and equipment issues with
Speaker 1: our twenty twenty two US Open champion, Matt Fitzpatrick. A
Speaker 1: big part of the story this week was Matt Fitzpatrick's
Speaker 1: distance gains. You look at him and you don't think
Speaker 1: that he's going to hit the ball that far, and indeed,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago he really didn't hit the
Speaker 1: ball that far. He was kind of in like the
Speaker 1: Web Simpson Zach Johnson area of the distance stats on
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour. He's added quite a bit of distance
Speaker 1: since then. A really informative stat I saw earlier today
Speaker 1: from Joseph Lamannia was that his percentage of drives over
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifteen yards has risen from around ten
Speaker 1: percent to around like twenty seven percent. So he's, you know,
Speaker 1: he's hitting a lot of drives way out there. He
Speaker 1: kind of has that bomb ball in him now and
Speaker 1: in terms of driving average, he's now around kind of
Speaker 1: tour average, So he has added a significant amount of distance.
Speaker 1: It was a big talking point on the telecast this week,
Speaker 1: and you have some information about how he went about that,
Speaker 1: So could you just give me a sense for what
Speaker 1: the basics of that story are how did Matt Fitzpatrick
Speaker 1: add that amount of distance?
Speaker 3: So there's a couple of facts here. One is his equipment.
Speaker 3: He is extremely optimized. One of the interesting things about
Speaker 3: a lot of players on the PGA tour is they
Speaker 3: are not completely optimized for distance. They're optimized for maybe
Speaker 3: a little bit more accuracy because they have power in
Speaker 3: the tank, as you would say. But for Matt, all
Speaker 3: of his equipment is designed to, especially with his driver,
Speaker 3: I mean, is designed for optimization of launch and spin.
Speaker 3: And what that comes down to, which is a relationship
Speaker 3: to clubhead speed, is ball speed. Ball speed is one
Speaker 3: of the most important factors when it comes to looking
Speaker 3: at distance potential that you're able to create, and the
Speaker 3: more ball speed you can create, the more distance you're
Speaker 3: going to create. You can see players with extremely high
Speaker 3: clubhead speeds that might not necessarily be extremely efficient. Well,
Speaker 3: Matt has put himself in a category where he is
Speaker 3: extremely efficient when it comes to his equipment just for optimization.
Speaker 3: And we saw that, I mean, there was a number
Speaker 3: of times where people pointed out that he drove it
Speaker 3: further than Dustin Johnson. And you know, five to ten
Speaker 3: years ago someone would go out and see Dustin Johnson
Speaker 3: and he's probably one of the longest players on tour
Speaker 3: and to think that somewhat unassuming British man would put
Speaker 3: it by him a number of times that the US
Speaker 3: Open this week was something to watch and I think,
Speaker 3: as you said, a lot of people took notice very quickly.
Speaker 1: So the equipment is optimized. There's been some training that
Speaker 1: has gone into this as well, right, and you have
Speaker 1: quite a bit of information about a specific method that
Speaker 1: he's been using. I believe he's been working on some
Speaker 1: technique stuff, as anybody would if they're trying to gain
Speaker 1: some distance, and so he's kind of shut down some
Speaker 1: of those distance leaks that he had before. Your colleague
Speaker 1: at golf dot Com, Luke Cardanen. But tell me a
Speaker 1: little about the STACK system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the STACK system is essentially an overload underload
Speaker 3: program that was developed by Sasha McKenzie and Marty Jertsen.
Speaker 3: Sasho is a Canadian biomechanist and a lot of people
Speaker 3: are familiar with Marty Jertson. He's a VP of Performance
Speaker 3: and Fitting at Ping Golf and one of the things
Speaker 3: that I know he's talked about in the past, and
Speaker 3: I had the chance to interview before was you know,
Speaker 3: Marty's a very accomplished player, and I believe he was
Speaker 3: playing in a PGA Championship or a US Open and
Speaker 3: he saw that he needed distance, Like he realized that,
Speaker 3: you know what, if I need to play at the
Speaker 3: big boy level, I need to be able to get
Speaker 3: it out there where with a lot of these players,
Speaker 3: and you know, they work to develop this overload underload
Speaker 3: and a lot of people familiar with it with baseball.
Speaker 3: I would say close to ten years ago this started
Speaker 3: becoming saying something where players would throw something heavy and
Speaker 3: then throw something light, and throw something heavy and throw
Speaker 3: something light, and it basically trains your body to actually
Speaker 3: move faster. And the stack system is that for golf,
Speaker 3: and it works with a basically a single stick that
Speaker 3: allows you to adjust the weights on it. Extremely heavy,
Speaker 3: extremely light. It can somewhat it can basically replicate the
Speaker 3: overall weight and feel of your driver, although it is
Speaker 3: abily forty two inches long, so a lot shorter than
Speaker 3: your driver. And you can you go through this program,
Speaker 3: and the program, thanks to Ta Sasho and Marty's begain
Speaker 3: very very smart people, creates an individual program based on
Speaker 3: your driver swing, based on where you are losing potential.
Speaker 3: Because it goes through a baseline setting program that is
Speaker 3: basically like close to it's what. It takes about twenty
Speaker 3: five to thirty minutes to go through. It's a lot
Speaker 3: of swings. And one of the reasons I'm familiar with
Speaker 3: it is because I'm a user.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 3: I would say that I was a relatively early adopter
Speaker 3: to this, much like Matt. I was someone who was
Speaker 3: not overly long. I mean Matt was much longer than
Speaker 3: me anyways, but you know, to see what is potentially
Speaker 3: potentially available through also not only like creating and reducing
Speaker 3: those speed leaks, as you say in your swing, but
Speaker 3: also finding a program that's going to work. And for Matt,
Speaker 3: I mean I was at the range that came open
Speaker 3: a couple weeks ago now, and he was out there
Speaker 3: using this thing over and over again. And it's it
Speaker 3: has warm up programs, it has programs that are you
Speaker 3: can use like in more and off seasons, so they're
Speaker 3: like really more heavy training programs, maintenance programs.
Speaker 1: It's a really cool system.
Speaker 3: And again, you know, I don't I'm just an advocate
Speaker 3: for it because I didn't think that I would have
Speaker 3: the potential to gain the speed that I did when
Speaker 3: I started using it about a year ago. And it's impressive.
Speaker 3: And for Matt, I mean, you know, for someone who average,
Speaker 3: say under one seventy to hit ball speeds into the
Speaker 3: low and mid one eighties at the US Open this week,
Speaker 3: that is a big, big jump because ball speed is
Speaker 3: king when it comes to creating distance, and he's obviously
Speaker 3: done that. And you know, the stack system, again is
Speaker 3: something that has as baseball pitchers have used it to
Speaker 3: gain speed. It trains your body to move faster. You
Speaker 3: don't have to bulk up Lake Bryce, and you can
Speaker 3: get stronger, but you don't need to bulk up like
Speaker 3: you see a lot of these players try to do.
Speaker 3: You got to protect your body in certain ways when
Speaker 3: you are moving faster, but it comes to down to
Speaker 3: training your body to actually make that speed and control it.
Speaker 3: And obviously he did a very good job of that
Speaker 3: and it also helped him, you know, hit it straighter too,
Speaker 3: which is very important.
Speaker 1: Right now, Okay, so this is not an ad for
Speaker 1: the Stack system. You're not endorsing the Stack system. You're
Speaker 1: somebody who has used it. We're talking about this because
Speaker 1: it's a pretty common thing that tour players are doing now.
Speaker 1: They're using these speed training programs. Are ones other than
Speaker 1: the STACK system out there? What's the one that's like
Speaker 1: really well on the one that kind of is maybe
Speaker 1: the best known. What's it called it? Like it's like
Speaker 1: the different sticks?
Speaker 3: Yeah, was like speed sticks. So they they have so
Speaker 3: the difference again, very similar programming. Stack uses like an app.
Speaker 3: They have other programs that are within the this. I think,
Speaker 3: I want to say it' speed six. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I'm I feel like I'm.
Speaker 1: Something, I feel like simplified. I can find different examples
Speaker 1: of this out there. And players use these things, you know,
Speaker 1: and and essentially it's like it's like weight training kind of,
Speaker 1: but it's it's the golf swing exactly.
Speaker 3: And uh, you've seen like Phil has used them in
Speaker 3: the past, I know, you know everyone talked about Phil
Speaker 3: like keeping his distance into his fifties, which is a
Speaker 3: very impressive feat overall, and you can see him out
Speaker 3: in the range. So he'll use these things these ways.
Speaker 1: The really fast swings, right yeah. Same kind of like
Speaker 1: a minor meme for a bit when he first started
Speaker 1: doing it, because it looked so ridiculous. But what he
Speaker 1: was doing was he was like training himself how to
Speaker 1: swing super fast. And it might sound kind of stupid,
Speaker 1: but it seems like one of the big things that
Speaker 1: you need to do if you're trying to gain distance
Speaker 1: is just swinging faster. You just have to get used
Speaker 1: to whipping the club through faster. And that's what these
Speaker 1: guys are doing now.
Speaker 3: And one of the fasting things. And I've worked with
Speaker 3: people like about this and I'm not I'm no expert
Speaker 3: in the field.
Speaker 1: I'm just a user and.
Speaker 3: Have absorbed a lot of information around people and gone
Speaker 3: through this process is the fact that you can only
Speaker 3: swing as fast as you can stop it. You know,
Speaker 3: you can only put an f one car can only
Speaker 3: go as fast as it's able to stop or else
Speaker 3: it doesn't work right. And so part of this is
Speaker 3: your body being able to control that speed and know
Speaker 3: where it's going. These are players at the highest level,
Speaker 3: So again we've got stacked. There's the super super Speed.
Speaker 3: That's it, so super.
Speaker 1: Speed, yeah, that's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then there's another one called the sling Shot, which
Speaker 3: is a relatively new product, and they all offer different
Speaker 3: kind of ways of doing this using either timing devices
Speaker 3: or interchangeable weights. Slingshot is one that has a number
Speaker 3: of interchangeable weights. The speed sticks has a number of
Speaker 3: different sticks, so they're not interchangeable. You'll see other versions
Speaker 3: of these as well, but it's it's essentially an overload
Speaker 3: underload program. And from Matt, this is one of the
Speaker 3: things when new work in club fitting and club building,
Speaker 3: and you see all the time, how do I get
Speaker 3: in distance? How do I get di how do I
Speaker 3: You can optimize as much as you want, but you
Speaker 3: know everyone says, oh, the shaft is the engine to
Speaker 3: the club, or the club adds anger to the club.
Speaker 3: Your human body is the engine of the golf club.
Speaker 3: You cannot make a golf club go faster unless you're
Speaker 3: able to swing it faster. You can do little things
Speaker 3: to tweak it, maybe make it a little lighter, a
Speaker 3: little longer, but the potential comes from you as the
Speaker 3: human being. And Matt's the perfect example of someone who
Speaker 3: you know, really doesn't mess to his equipment. He's got
Speaker 3: some fairly old gear in his bag, newer driver relative
Speaker 3: a newer fairywood, newer I mean we're talking clubs in
Speaker 3: the last five years, and his driver is a new
Speaker 3: current model, but he's realized that, you know, I'm going
Speaker 3: to change my body. If I'm going to do something
Speaker 3: really important, it's going to be training my body. And
Speaker 3: Bryson gets a lot of the attention for what he
Speaker 3: created and the drive Bay Hill and all these different things.
Speaker 3: But over the last two years, it's progress, progress, progress,
Speaker 3: and obviously it worked out for him taking it home Brookline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like a pretty durable model for Matt Fitzpatrick.
Speaker 1: He's not going anywhere. Would expect him to win on
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour a bit more, but he's starting to
Speaker 1: seem like one of those major specialists, one of those
Speaker 1: guys who just shows up when the course is good
Speaker 1: and hard and when the pretenders are going to fall away.
Speaker 1: You know, that's when Matt Fitzpatrick is going to thrive.
Speaker 1: And part of it is due to this really smart
Speaker 1: work that he's done on his game. All Right, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Ryan, appreciate it. Have fun in Connecticut
Speaker 1: this week. That's a fun tournament. That's cool that you
Speaker 1: get to go to that one. Looking forward to seeing
Speaker 1: your work out of there, and we'll chat again soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, all right, I am on the
Speaker 1: line with Bradley Klein, who is a golf architecture historian.
Speaker 1: He was also on site this week to write some
Speaker 1: articles for Morning Red, which is now a sports illustrated company,
Speaker 1: so you can see his work there. Brad, you were
Speaker 1: at the country club this week when.
Speaker 2: Exactly this week I was, well, I was at media
Speaker 2: day three weeks ago and played the course, not from
Speaker 2: those tees, I played them from more forward, these like
Speaker 2: sixty one hundred yards. And then I was out there
Speaker 2: all day Wednesday, all day long, and then walked with
Speaker 2: a couple of players inside the ropes, and then did
Speaker 2: the same thing on Friday.
Speaker 1: Okay, So just talking about the course itself, the architecture
Speaker 1: that you saw out there, the setup that you saw
Speaker 1: out there. What is your number one big takeaway from
Speaker 1: the week?
Speaker 4: I thought the.
Speaker 2: Course was absolutely brilliant. It held up, It presented an
Speaker 2: amazing challenge. In some ways, it was a little bit
Speaker 2: more of a typical or classical throwback soap and set up.
Speaker 2: Didn't have the wide stairways of Aaron Hills, it didn't
Speaker 2: have the contrivances of crazy fast greens with the surrounds
Speaker 2: that rolled out forever like Shinnecak Hills in four and
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. It was a wonderful combination of fairly
Speaker 2: small greens. You noticed there was no short there's no
Speaker 2: short class rollouts around there. You rolled into sand or
Speaker 2: graduated rough and the very precise cuts. The course is
Speaker 2: not long. It was like seventy two sixty four. I
Speaker 2: think overall probably played a little short reach day, but
Speaker 2: because you had wind and the course was firming up
Speaker 2: each three days until the rains came Saturday night. But
Speaker 2: you know, you saw the scores were rising when the
Speaker 2: wind and the dry weather came up. And then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden this morning, because of the three tents
Speaker 2: of an inch, course was a little more receptive shot.
Speaker 2: This average score went down. But it was a stunning,
Speaker 2: perfect test for modern tour players. It was not bombing Gowage.
Speaker 2: You had to be precise, a lot of inconsistency in
Speaker 2: the lies and bunkers, around the bunkers and in the rough.
Speaker 2: The other thing you saw which was interesting is because
Speaker 2: you had so many layer cuts. You know, you had
Speaker 2: fairways cut, then you had five foot wide intermediate at
Speaker 2: an inch and a quarter. Then you had an eight
Speaker 2: foot wide path that was two and a half to
Speaker 2: three inches. Then you had more intense rof at four inches,
Speaker 2: so a lot of times of all rolling out would
Speaker 2: come up right against the edge and you couldn't tell,
Speaker 2: if you know, your house of protects in the heavier
Speaker 2: grass and your lie was in the slightly shorter grass.
Speaker 2: So you had a lot of difficult, complex lies and
Speaker 2: shots to have to deal with. And I just thought
Speaker 2: it was a fantastic open. Nobody lost it. Fitzpax had
Speaker 2: played brilliantly. It's just fabulous, absolutely fabulous open.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you know you were there on Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 1: The word was that on Wednesday the course was pretty fiery,
Speaker 1: and then on Friday they slowed it down just a
Speaker 1: bit with some water. Did you see a difference in
Speaker 1: how the course was playing during that last practice round
Speaker 1: on Wednesday versus how it played on Friday.
Speaker 2: Well, there was a lot less wind than the wind.
Speaker 2: It was the same wind as on Thursday. In other words,
Speaker 2: it was a reverse wind coming out of the east
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, as I recall, and then it came out
Speaker 2: of the northwest for the last few days. So what
Speaker 2: I did see was that the wind pretty much laid
Speaker 2: down and it was warmer also, and then the temperature
Speaker 2: dropped over the weekend, so it ball doesn't go quite
Speaker 2: as far. But they didn't tinker with that golf course
Speaker 2: very much. They might have put a little water in
Speaker 2: because it was supposed to rain on Friday and it
Speaker 2: never did. So there was a little bit of control,
Speaker 2: but not much. And I didn't see any I didn't
Speaker 2: see molars in the rough, so they just let it go.
Speaker 2: And you know what's very impressive is the strength. Now
Speaker 2: I was there in eighty eight, so that's the day.
Speaker 2: Those are the days of you know, the old wound
Speaker 2: golf ball and Curtis Strange, you know, hitting at two
Speaker 2: fifty five off the tee. The athletes, now they weren't
Speaker 2: athletes then, are so much stronger, and they can attack
Speaker 2: the ball with so much force on a vertical plane
Speaker 2: that allows them to flush through the rough and so
Speaker 2: because it's not quite permuta, the ball doesn't go to
Speaker 2: the bottom of it get completely covered for the most part,
Speaker 2: so that they can muscle their way out and you know,
Speaker 2: they're hitting seven irons one ninety. But that's the modern
Speaker 2: athletic golf point. And what's interesting is it's everybody is
Speaker 2: learning it. There was much attention paid to Fitzpatrick having
Speaker 2: increased his swing speed from one twelve to one nineteen
Speaker 2: miles per hour over the last two years and what
Speaker 2: that allowed him to do. And he's not a very
Speaker 2: big guy, you know. You look at the two guys,
Speaker 2: Xalaturus and Fitzpatrick are fairly slight looking, but boy did
Speaker 2: they get a lot of velocity out of the swing.
Speaker 2: So I think the graduated roughs here actually worked really well.
Speaker 2: The one regret I always have with these setups is
Speaker 2: because of the spectator trampling at the far edges. If
Speaker 2: you missed the fairway by fifty by ten yards, you
Speaker 2: have a very difficult line to deal with it. You
Speaker 2: miss it by forty yards, you're in trample down ground.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any way to deal with that
Speaker 2: other than keeping spectators off.
Speaker 1: Which you don't want to do. But it is sort
Speaker 1: of graduating in the opposite direction from from what the
Speaker 1: intention is. So you refer to the nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: US Open at the country Club, which you attended. You know,
Speaker 1: the course then was prepared by Reese Jones. That was
Speaker 1: that was the Reese Jones restoration. You know, the kind
Speaker 1: of that. You know, we discussed this in the podcast
Speaker 1: that we just released about the Open Doctor. That was
Speaker 1: kind of a really important moment in popularizing the notion
Speaker 1: of restoration. You know, I'm not sure how how vividly
Speaker 1: you remember the details of the course from nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: but if you were to compare the course now to
Speaker 1: that course then at the eighty eight US Open, what
Speaker 1: are some of the main differences that jump out to you.
Speaker 2: Well, there are half as many trees, and there's twice
Speaker 2: as much or three times as much rescue tall knee
Speaker 2: high grasses. And you know, when I look back now
Speaker 2: and I think about, what was that restoration talk all about.
Speaker 2: Because the fairways were fairly narrow, you couldn't get the
Speaker 2: ball to roll quite as firmly because of all sorts
Speaker 2: of technology. I do think there was some greens expansion
Speaker 2: back then. They lengthened the golf course. You Know, what
Speaker 2: I would say is that the country Club even then
Speaker 2: presented a very different image than many of the old
Speaker 2: golf courses that were on the tour, or for that matter,
Speaker 2: on the US Open rota. If you think back to
Speaker 2: what Congressional or Olympic club certainly Oakland Hills, which was
Speaker 2: just tight ribbon fairway, lateral bunkers left and right. You
Speaker 2: did have more offset bumpering at the country club back then,
Speaker 2: and that was accentuated. They were expanded a little bit,
Speaker 2: so you did have that sort of I would say,
Speaker 2: particularly the offset bunker, and I remember that very distinctly
Speaker 2: in dealing with those praggy mounds like on third hole
Speaker 2: or the long four part tenth hole. So what was
Speaker 2: achieved this time around, through Gilhans and through Superintendent Dave
Speaker 2: Johnson and the USGA prep with Darren Bivard as a
Speaker 2: championship agronomist was a real master work of fast down
Speaker 2: the middle and very demanding on the edges. And it
Speaker 2: just worked out, you know, if you notice, because all
Speaker 2: the talk all week was about the Saudi Toller and
Speaker 2: Greg Norman and all that other stuff, people forgot the
Speaker 2: golf course and there was not a single The biggest
Speaker 2: issue on the whole golf course all week was whether
Speaker 2: Justin Thomas should have gotten a drop from the fairway
Speaker 2: at the drain on Saturday. That was it. Nobody had
Speaker 2: a single complaint, well.
Speaker 1: Which seems to be kind of the goal right now,
Speaker 1: right for the USGA setup team that the course is
Speaker 1: not really the story, or at least that's that's what
Speaker 1: it strikes me that they've been trying to do. You know,
Speaker 1: they want the course to be maybe the story in
Speaker 1: the early week in the sense that we go to
Speaker 1: a different course every year. But if the course is
Speaker 1: a story later in the week, then to the USGA
Speaker 1: right now, that will usually mean that it's not good
Speaker 1: that people are talking about the setup in a negative way.
Speaker 1: But this week that wasn't really the point of discussion.
Speaker 2: The golfers should be the story on Tuesday and Wednesday
Speaker 2: and Thursday should be about the competition. Now. Part of
Speaker 2: the difference, I want to be careful how and say
Speaker 2: this is that Mike lan is not an aspiring architect.
Speaker 1: He's a businessman, right which Mike Davis was has since
Speaker 1: actually gone into architecture. And that's not meant as an
Speaker 1: insult to him.
Speaker 2: To be fair, Mike Davis didn't bring a lot of
Speaker 2: innovation to the golf course set up. That was evident today.
Speaker 2: You had a brilliant short four part the fifth hole
Speaker 2: that they could go for, which, by the way, played
Speaker 2: a level park today didn't even play under book. What
Speaker 2: Mike Davis did introduce was the graduated rough and the
Speaker 2: importance of shifting that kind of categories of holes. You
Speaker 2: had short fours and long force, and you had, you know,
Speaker 2: like you had this time around, very demanding long four pars,
Speaker 2: like that tenth hole that played way over par, you know,
Speaker 2: the one with the second shot way up the hill.
Speaker 2: So I give him credit for that, and he certainly
Speaker 2: made the USJA take more of an investment in the
Speaker 2: course set up in a more varied way than just
Speaker 2: a punit of single file, you know down the middle
Speaker 2: of the twenty two yard wide fairways, so a lot
Speaker 2: more variety out there. You know, some of these fairways
Speaker 2: were forty yards in the in the landing area and
Speaker 2: then a narrow down to twelve in the chicage like
Speaker 2: you had on the third holes or the tenth hole.
Speaker 2: So I just thought the variety was brilliant, and you
Speaker 2: had because you're taking out all these trees, you have
Speaker 2: a lot more wind across the golf courst. So people
Speaker 2: don't appreciate the impact of wind as something that sort
Speaker 2: of pops up. Once you've taken trees down, it's still
Speaker 2: a tree golf courst but it was a lot more
Speaker 2: openness to it as.
Speaker 1: Well, right and inconsistent trees, and so the winds become
Speaker 1: sort of unpredictable because there are places presumably on the
Speaker 1: course where the winds are kind of you know, it
Speaker 1: feels a little more still, but then there are more
Speaker 1: open places where the wind plays a big role, and
Speaker 1: so the player always has to be thinking about it.
Speaker 1: It's not a constant thing, it's a variable thing.
Speaker 2: Well. The perfect example of that little dropshot Part three
Speaker 2: eleventh hole, which I believe played to part today or
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit over. Because of the front hole
Speaker 2: location and the fact that you put the ball up
Speaker 2: in the air, it's only a gap wedge or a
Speaker 2: lob wedge. All sorts of things can happen to it.
Speaker 2: So it's a combination. And guild Hens and his team
Speaker 2: did a very good job of expanding the greens and
Speaker 2: then pushed the edges rolled out. You saw that all
Speaker 2: the time, particularly in the part three is where you
Speaker 2: and we saw this repeatedly during the week where you
Speaker 2: had to judge, you had sort of weigh the approach shots,
Speaker 2: so you landed just down the green and let it
Speaker 2: roll out. If you landed the ball too far into
Speaker 2: the green, it would roll through into the heavy rough
Speaker 2: and you'd have a very awkward downhill shot from an
Speaker 2: uncertain lie. So that's where you know a lot of
Speaker 2: shots were lost just on those pitches where you're trying
Speaker 2: to control it but you're also guessing at the lie.
Speaker 2: So all that stuff, to me was just brilliant to observe.
Speaker 1: So I'm on the record as being a little bit
Speaker 1: nostalgic for the fiasco US Open. You know, the US
Speaker 1: Open that just kind of spins out of control. There
Speaker 1: are various examples of this, the ones where the players
Speaker 1: get really angry at the course set up, when maybe
Speaker 1: the USGA loses the greens a bit at some point
Speaker 1: during the week. Those are just really entertaining. They're distinctive
Speaker 1: kind of in the world of go. There wasn't really
Speaker 1: any other tournament that could go wrong like a US
Speaker 1: Open could go wrong. And I understand why they've moved
Speaker 1: in this more professional direction.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: They really have control of the courses now and six
Speaker 1: under has won the past three years, and so it's
Speaker 1: clear that they're shooting for a number somewhere in those
Speaker 1: kind of mid single digits under par as opposed to
Speaker 1: over par or around even par, which I believe was
Speaker 1: more the goal back in the day, maybe during the
Speaker 1: Mike Davis era, and certainly before that. And so I
Speaker 1: wonder if if you you know, given that you love
Speaker 1: the setup this week? So did I. I thought it
Speaker 1: was brilliant, but it's also representative of a kind of
Speaker 1: new phase of USGA setup. Do you share that sort
Speaker 1: of longing occasionally for a US Open that that goes
Speaker 1: really crazy or is that something that you don't look
Speaker 1: back on as fondly.
Speaker 2: No, I hate it because all it does is make
Speaker 2: for easy sheep kind of press that is uninformed about
Speaker 2: what usually goes wrong. I'll give you an example of
Speaker 2: how they manage it though. Here's a great example of
Speaker 2: the fourth hole. They've been driving over a blind to
Speaker 2: a flat fair away and then the green all four days,
Speaker 2: the pin was in the middle left. They that green
Speaker 2: slows hard right the left. They could if they put
Speaker 2: the pin on top right that we'd still be playing
Speaker 2: that round because the ball would never come to a stop.
Speaker 2: So they they're smart enough now now, and they also
Speaker 2: have moisture meters they have they know exactly what the
Speaker 2: wind is going to be they know exactly the condition
Speaker 2: of the turf in ways that they're much smarter about.
Speaker 2: I mean, to me, these sort of setups play to
Speaker 2: my strength, which is I have and I spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time with these guys. I feel for the superintendents.
Speaker 2: I've known Dave Johnson, the superintendent, I've known him for
Speaker 2: seventeen years now and worked with him. Are a couple
Speaker 2: of courses included back when he was a nine hole
Speaker 2: guy at white Nesville. So I find it more satisfying
Speaker 2: to see their skills come through. So but that's just
Speaker 2: because I'm a snob, I guess or something. You know, No.
Speaker 1: I think I think it means that it's more empathetic.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the car wrecks are kind of weird to watch,
Speaker 2: but it's not a great way to finish. I was.
Speaker 2: I was at Shinnakok in two thousand and four four
Speaker 2: and saw what happens. And the other thing is I
Speaker 2: hate it when pros complained. I'd rather give them a
Speaker 2: playing surface that they have to show their skills. And
Speaker 2: you saw that this week. Some of these guys knew
Speaker 2: that they could do it, and you know it didn't
Speaker 2: reward Bryson to Shamba style of golf. You had to
Speaker 2: control the ball, so I thought it was pretty well
Speaker 2: done in that sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean I got to say it, even
Speaker 1: even though I do have a kind of affection for
Speaker 1: some of those fiasco US opens just from you know,
Speaker 1: the car wreck watching point of view, because I'm not
Speaker 1: as good of a person as you are, Brad. That's
Speaker 1: that's basically what it comes down to. You have to
Speaker 1: say that the finish today, the final round, the shootout
Speaker 1: between Xalatorus and Fitzpatrick, with Scheffler kind of poking his
Speaker 1: head in there at the end as well, completely justified
Speaker 1: this new approach that the USGA is taking where they're
Speaker 1: a bit more conservative. They're a bit more you know
Speaker 1: early in the week they kind of keep the governor
Speaker 1: on a bit. That approach has been justified by by
Speaker 1: the competition. It was really fantastic. All right, Well, I've
Speaker 1: kept you long enough here, Brad. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for stopping by, and hope to talk to you again soon.
Speaker 2: You know, they gave me the Green Section award, Dave Johnson.
Speaker 2: If the superintendent next year at LA North doesn't get it,
Speaker 2: we'll know he's screwed up.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Nick Hardy, Paalo Yughetti, Ryan Barraff, and
Speaker 1: Bradley Klein for those interviews. What a great week at
Speaker 1: the country Club. Just one of the best majors in
Speaker 1: recent memory, and I cannot wait for the Open Championship
Speaker 1: at St. Andrews. If you've been enjoying the Friday Podcast,
Speaker 1: please do us a favor and leave a rating and
Speaker 1: review in iTunes. That's maybe the easiest way to support
Speaker 1: what we do, and it really helps us reach new listeners.
Speaker 1: That's it, Thank you for listening and we'll see you soon.