Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is powered by tdam or Trade. Every stroke
Speaker 1: counts on the scorecard and every penny counts in the market.
Speaker 1: That's why tedam or Trade is committed to straightforward pricing
Speaker 1: with no surprises, so you're free to swing with confidence.
Speaker 1: Visit tedomritrade dot com, slash Friday Egg member SIPC. It's
Speaker 1: US Open weekend. We welcome on US Open champion two
Speaker 1: thousand and six US Open Champion Jeff Ogilvy. Jeff comes
Speaker 1: on to talk about the US Open, what is like
Speaker 1: to play in it, a little bit about his win
Speaker 1: at Wingfoot and as well as other US Opens, and
Speaker 1: then Pebble Beach. So, without further ado, here's Jeff Ogilvy
Speaker 1: and enjoy today's podcast. I miss the green, for example,
Speaker 1: I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker,
Speaker 1: I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in.
Speaker 2: A Friday Egg Frida egg thedded Frida egg Frida egg
Speaker 2: Frida egg Frida egg egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the course. If
Speaker 1: you were going to do a rota, say five courses
Speaker 1: for the US Open, what would they be.
Speaker 2: Uh Oakmont finalst Number two, Shinnacock Pebble have many that
Speaker 2: four it's for one more. I mean I like West
Speaker 2: Coast opens. I don't like Olympic though. I don't think
Speaker 2: that belongs in that. I mean, Olympics amazing, but I
Speaker 2: don't think it belongs in that. If it's just gonna
Speaker 2: be fun, I don't know. Riv Maybe Riviera being incredibly
Speaker 2: wis open. La North will be fun too. I think
Speaker 2: v would be a great one.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'm excited for La North. I'm a little worried
Speaker 1: about scores. People getting crazy about scores there.
Speaker 2: It's going to be wide, but the greens are pretty
Speaker 2: crazy there. Yeah, I'm all worried about logistics. I mean,
Speaker 2: how car is going to get in and out and
Speaker 2: like where people are going to stay in, Like that's
Speaker 2: like the busiest traffic area in the whole world. That's
Speaker 2: going to be a logistically interesting you know, who's going
Speaker 2: to rent the Playboy mention for the week?
Speaker 1: Monkeys are still, the animals are still. Do you know
Speaker 1: those apartments like that overlook it they are like empty?
Speaker 1: Oh really, I guess that like oil money owns them
Speaker 1: and they're like perfectly content just hemorrhaging money. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like there's just all of them are empty.
Speaker 2: Because that's such a good place. Yeah, the West Coast
Speaker 2: opens are good because of the weather's more predictable, right,
Speaker 2: you just you can get foggy at Pebble, right, but
Speaker 2: like l a weather in summer, like the Tory Open
Speaker 2: was the best West weather we've had by far, and actually,
Speaker 2: weirdly enough, the Chambers was the best one we've had too,
Speaker 2: Like the East coast ones of storms and sometimes you
Speaker 2: get unpredictable rain and it's really really hot. But yeah,
Speaker 2: what I say, Oakmont, Pinehurst, Pebble, China, wing Foot. There
Speaker 2: you go, We've got to put wingfo. It's a perfect venue. Actually,
Speaker 2: it's a great place, not just because of me, but
Speaker 2: it's a great club.
Speaker 1: What what's the most underrated thing about winning a years helping?
Speaker 2: The most underrated thing? They're all rated pretty high. I think,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's been good.
Speaker 1: I guess like, what's the thing that you didn't know
Speaker 1: that like when when you want it that now you
Speaker 1: look back and you're like, whoa, that was cool.
Speaker 2: The thing that blew me away the most is that,
Speaker 2: even to this day, I get new people telling me
Speaker 2: that they were there that's or they marshaled the fourth
Speaker 2: hole the thirst day that week, or like, how many
Speaker 2: people are like actually involved in watch interested in the
Speaker 2: US Open is more than any other tournament that I've
Speaker 2: ever seen or heard about. I mean, everybody's seen. This
Speaker 2: is such a tradition in the US to watch the
Speaker 2: US Open on Sunday others day. It's just what people do, right,
Speaker 2: And they might not watch golf all year, but that's
Speaker 2: their day to watch golf. And to this day I
Speaker 2: meet people who talk about that Sunday for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: It was kind of remember one because of what Phil
Speaker 2: did and stuff too, so it kind of sticks out
Speaker 2: in people's memories a little bit to I think, just
Speaker 2: how many people watch it, it's just amazing for me.
Speaker 1: You had Phil and you had Manti. Yeah, just the
Speaker 1: scoring in general. The massacre at wing Foot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was nuts. It was. It actually didn't obviously
Speaker 2: because I was playing well. It didn't seem everyone was
Speaker 2: complaining about how hard it was, and I didn't think
Speaker 2: it was that hard. I mean, obviously our scores were high.
Speaker 2: We were I don't know if anyone was ever under par.
Speaker 2: Maybe after day one there was someone on a part,
Speaker 2: but I want it five five over. I think five over.
Speaker 2: But I never thought it was that hard, and people
Speaker 2: complaining that the greens were a bit ropy in the
Speaker 2: afternoons and stuff. But obviously I was playing well because
Speaker 2: I thought that it was playing perfectly. It was tough.
Speaker 1: It's you know, isn't that how it is? Though? If
Speaker 1: you're playing well, like you're probably not gonna be complaining.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess. I mean every other US Open I
Speaker 2: complained pretty much, not complained. But they're just so hard
Speaker 2: and it feels unfair hard sometimes, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: just you just get You can put in like nine
Speaker 2: great holes and you're just grinding and you're trying so hard,
Speaker 2: and every hole is the hardest hole you've ever played.
Speaker 2: You're making pars and you're making pars, and you're making
Speaker 2: pars and you get one kind of weird bounce into
Speaker 2: a bad lay over the green. You make a double
Speaker 2: and you're just all the air comes out of your
Speaker 2: sales because you've just put so much effort in keeping
Speaker 2: near parer. As soon as you make it, you know
Speaker 2: you're never getting back to me a power again. Right.
Speaker 2: It's just such a depressive, deflating kind of experience. You
Speaker 2: can have a US Open that they could be hard
Speaker 2: to play.
Speaker 1: And my buddy that played is a lot of am
Speaker 1: USGA stuff. We were playing in the mid amf're and
Speaker 1: he was like, just remember par. When you're making a
Speaker 1: lot of pars, you're doing really good. Like, especially with
Speaker 1: that being a match play thing, you know, like if
Speaker 1: you make if you just keep making lots of pars,
Speaker 1: you'll be fine. Like you can you know, you can avoid,
Speaker 1: you know, but if you make tons of pars, you're fine.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's the way with the US
Speaker 1: Open too. I was, I was out watching today and
Speaker 1: I was, I think there's a lot of birdies at pebble,
Speaker 1: and Rory talked about it a little bit. There's a
Speaker 1: ton of birdies at pebble because you get wedges if
Speaker 1: you hit good shots. And but the flip side of
Speaker 1: it is that pebble might be like laden with the
Speaker 1: most like you can make double or triple or quad anywhere.
Speaker 2: It seems like you can make a double or triple
Speaker 2: so fast and even with a wedge in your hand
Speaker 2: if you just get a little too aggressive. The grains
Speaker 2: are very kind of volcano. You know, they're all high
Speaker 2: with the bunkers. Bunkers on the outside are really high
Speaker 2: with steep slopes down onto the greens. And so if
Speaker 2: you're landing it over any of these bunkers, you hit
Speaker 2: these downslopes. And if you take on too much, you
Speaker 2: hit a big downslope, you get one big bounce over
Speaker 2: the back into some crazy rough they've got that. Just
Speaker 2: ringing the bunkers is like nutty thick. You can and
Speaker 2: you get over the green, and then you get over
Speaker 2: the green on half the greens at Pebble you can't
Speaker 2: get the web the pitch on the green. This is
Speaker 2: no way. It's just going to go off the front.
Speaker 2: So it's a it's relatively doable if you hit every shot. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, not every US Open can be like that. Man,
Speaker 2: you can hit good shots at Oak Mautin get in
Speaker 2: real trouble Pebble. Have you hit good shots, you're going
Speaker 2: to be all right, But as soon as you miss,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have stress. When it's set up like this anyway, it's.
Speaker 1: How much people talk about how different it is from
Speaker 1: like the pro am, but like how what would you say,
Speaker 1: like a shot value? Would us open versus AT and
Speaker 1: T pro am set up.
Speaker 2: Be well, the pebble the pro am. We don't play
Speaker 2: way off the back, I don't think. I mean there's
Speaker 2: us open TC here that I don't think. I think
Speaker 2: they only use every ten years here, So it's not
Speaker 2: as long. I mean, the ball isn't rolling on the fairways,
Speaker 2: so it maybe plays in some ways. It might play longer,
Speaker 2: but it plays so wide because the fairways are really
Speaker 2: wide here, normally like fifty sixty yards wide. I mean
Speaker 2: it's a public course. They play sixty thousand rounds a year.
Speaker 2: They want to get everyone around as fast as they can,
Speaker 2: so the fairways are really wide, and the greens are
Speaker 2: very soft, and the pins are right in the middle
Speaker 2: of the prime because we've got ams out there and
Speaker 2: they want to they don't have the tough pins, they
Speaker 2: have the easy pins. So it's not it it's it's
Speaker 2: the same shots that you're being asked to hit because
Speaker 2: the tough shot. The tough thing about people, I think
Speaker 2: is that the balls I wasn't You're always on a
Speaker 2: side slope the whole property like slopes towards the ocean,
Speaker 2: and you play one the balls below your feet. You know,
Speaker 2: you play two the balls below your feet, you play
Speaker 2: like three, four, five, not so much. Six the balls
Speaker 2: below your feet down slope. Eight the balls arguably on
Speaker 2: a downslope sometimes nine the balls really below your feet.
Speaker 2: Ten the balls really below your feet, you know, And
Speaker 2: then you turn back around to come the other way,
Speaker 2: and the balls above your feet for the rest of
Speaker 2: the way. And it's so that stuff is the same
Speaker 2: when it's in the pro am. So the part of
Speaker 2: the trickiness of pebble is still there. But when the
Speaker 2: ball lands, it stops in the pro am, and the
Speaker 2: us over with the ball lands it doesn't stop, and
Speaker 2: that's why it gets so much harder.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing I think that's neat I tucked
Speaker 1: with Garrett, one of my who's our editor about it
Speaker 1: is that all the greens, it's kind of got that
Speaker 1: a little bit of a gusta thing that you talked
Speaker 1: a lot about where the greens orient the opposite way
Speaker 1: of the slopes and all the holes, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's different in the way Augusta is so varied, But
Speaker 1: like pebble's kind of like you get through one stretch,
Speaker 1: then you go to the other stretch where you're gonna
Speaker 1: be like the opposite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the holes along the on the way out. I
Speaker 2: suppose the holes like nine and ten. It's very obvious
Speaker 2: that you need to hit a draw into those greens,
Speaker 2: but the ball is so far below your feet and
Speaker 2: the ocean's out to the right. It's a pretty scary
Speaker 2: proposition to try to hit a draw, so it confuses
Speaker 2: you slope a lot. It's pretty untalked about. I think
Speaker 2: at Pebble and the US Open, it's just accentuated because
Speaker 2: it's firmer, so the fairways get pink narrowed way down
Speaker 2: to I mean, they're wider than some US Opens, I
Speaker 2: would say here. I don't know if they've come out
Speaker 2: with any numbers, but they're probably thirty yards wide at Pebble.
Speaker 2: Maybe because of this, they play fifteen yards wide though,
Speaker 2: because the ball goes sideways when it lands a lot
Speaker 2: of holes. So it's just a great place to play golf,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it asks. There's some scary shots you're
Speaker 2: asked to hit, you know, like those Augusta style shots
Speaker 2: over fifteen and like kind of hero shots here. They're
Speaker 2: not quite as I guess famous, but I mean the
Speaker 2: second jounter eight is a scary shot. The shot up
Speaker 2: the hill at six is a really scary shot. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a different style of thing of going over water,
Speaker 2: but you're hitting it up just a cliff. You know.
Speaker 2: Eight's an incredibly tough shot. The second shot to nine,
Speaker 2: and the second shot to ten, and the t shot
Speaker 2: on ten. I mean, they're outrageously difficult shots and like
Speaker 2: you really really just have to kind of sack up
Speaker 2: and hit it, you know what I mean, You just
Speaker 2: have to. Like, it's just there's no there's no way
Speaker 2: of hitting a shot under the ninth or tenth graded
Speaker 2: people if you're not just super confident put a proper
Speaker 2: swing on it, because it's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's more intimidation because it's like a
Speaker 1: cliff than a normal water hazard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think. I mean, it's so big the ocean, right,
Speaker 2: it's so beautiful and all you're looking at it all day,
Speaker 2: so it's got your attention. And I think the psychologists
Speaker 2: will tell us the ball goes where our attention is, right,
Speaker 2: and it's your attention. How do you not look at
Speaker 2: Carmel Bay when you're playing nine to ten? Right, it's
Speaker 2: the prettiest thing in the world. It's clearly more difficult
Speaker 2: being the ocean and the cliff than it would be
Speaker 2: just a pond or a lake or something.
Speaker 1: It's really amazing, Like when you when you get up
Speaker 1: sex and then you see everything. It's like, no matter
Speaker 1: how many times you see it, it's still just amazing.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous. It's the mean. It's the best revealing golf
Speaker 2: is walking off the fourth tier pebble. Yeah, they play
Speaker 2: the first three holes you like, and you can kind
Speaker 2: of get a glimpse of what's going to go on
Speaker 2: on the third, but then you've kind of play the
Speaker 2: fourth T and it's you walk about one hundred yards
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you go past the beach
Speaker 2: club and you just come out to this and for
Speaker 2: the next two hours you're just on the cliff looking
Speaker 2: at the Pacific Ocean. It's outrageous, But that we walk
Speaker 2: off that fourth T is one of the best moments
Speaker 2: in golf.
Speaker 1: I think that's a coolhule too. I think that's that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's sweet. I mean it feels over bunket these days,
Speaker 2: but that's a great little hole, what a great little green.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see him, go put it up one day,
Speaker 1: make it too eighty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because going for it's not to play even if
Speaker 2: you can get there, I don't think so if you
Speaker 2: give it a too eighty, they're not going to be
Speaker 2: able to help themselves, these guys. Yeah, and you can
Speaker 2: see five sold all day because they'll all miss the
Speaker 2: green left and no one will hit it up. Pitch
Speaker 2: it on the green and yeah it'll be Yeah. That's
Speaker 2: a that's a cool hole. That's a great hole. I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, Pebble's got good holes, like people probably kind
Speaker 2: of there's some Cypress points not around, you know who
Speaker 2: don't think Pebble's worthy of the same breath. But it's
Speaker 2: got a lot of really cool stuff about it.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's completely different style course
Speaker 1: than Cypress, where where Pebbles like a a journey against
Speaker 1: like the wilderness, you know, and like you know, like
Speaker 1: it's a big.
Speaker 2: Big course and.
Speaker 1: It's much more like a it's like browny and where
Speaker 1: like Cypress is like kind of like it's like a romantic.
Speaker 1: Cypress is like a romantic place to play off and
Speaker 1: then you go to Pebble reminds me a lot of
Speaker 1: Yale which is like, you know the place where you're
Speaker 1: going and it's like an adventure, you know, like in
Speaker 1: nothing more to me than the sixth hole where you're
Speaker 1: like climbing up and it's like you're you're hitting it
Speaker 1: up a mountain. You can imagine doing that in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty nine.
Speaker 2: It's pretty brave. I mean that routing like six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight is incredibly It's an amazingly brave thing to do.
Speaker 2: And that long ago, with the equipment that they had
Speaker 2: to go up that hill, no one would go up
Speaker 2: six anymore. You'd play down at the bottom of the
Speaker 2: hill and you'd walk up and play another hole or something.
Speaker 2: You know, you wouldn't No one would do that now.
Speaker 2: And seven's pretty audacious. Put a little hundred yard hole
Speaker 2: right there on the thing, I mean, what a wile too, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it's what a spot there like that that
Speaker 2: section of course six through ten Green is that's a
Speaker 2: pretty stretch, but it's a pretty good stretch of golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then every bay sleeps on the uphill holes,
Speaker 1: but they're pretty cool.
Speaker 2: I like them too. It's different. It's there. I mean,
Speaker 2: eleven is a pretty easy hole really in the US Open,
Speaker 2: Old thing. I mean, you can get it wrong because
Speaker 2: the green's is really small. But twelve is one of
Speaker 2: the hardest greens to hit in the world on a
Speaker 2: path three for green, it really isn't very slopy. It's
Speaker 2: actually one of the flatter ones of pebble. And it's
Speaker 2: that's a nightmare hole next one you can get wrong.
Speaker 2: It seems so simple, but that green is savage. And fourteen,
Speaker 2: that green is you can make any number you want.
Speaker 2: You could be one hundred and ten for two from
Speaker 2: the green and you could you could make anything there.
Speaker 2: Fourteen it's better than it was when they fixed it,
Speaker 2: but it's still great. It's so small. You try to
Speaker 2: hit it onto a table top from one hundred and
Speaker 2: ten and from one hundred and ten it plays one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty up the hill. And if you miss
Speaker 2: at a yard left, it's really bad. If you miss
Speaker 2: a yard right, it can used to come all the
Speaker 2: way back off the green behind the front bunker. Crazy.
Speaker 1: I saw a stat and twenty ten. If you miss
Speaker 1: the fairway on fourteen, only thirty four percent of players
Speaker 1: hit the green in rag.
Speaker 2: That'd be right, because it's I mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: what it measures. Five point fifty or something. It's quite
Speaker 2: a long hole, but it effectively plays about one hundred
Speaker 2: yards longer than it is because third the second shot
Speaker 2: is up. I mean, I don't have the centig grade
Speaker 2: it's up, but it's up pretty steep for a really
Speaker 2: long way way up in the air.
Speaker 1: That left ruff is an awful place.
Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, they're rough anywhere in the US Open,
Speaker 2: and it feels people's obviously a fertile place, like grows
Speaker 2: pretty good rough here.
Speaker 1: So we talked, we talked about it was kind of fitting.
Speaker 1: We talked about Brooks the last last time we talked
Speaker 1: before the PGA and how like historically great like he
Speaker 1: is on the back nines and closing out stuff and
Speaker 1: then sure enough, like he goes out and wins. You
Speaker 1: kind of called it. You're like, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a high ball hitter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know with Brooks, like what do you what
Speaker 1: do you think about in terms of how do you
Speaker 1: measure winning major championships versus PGA Tour event, Like you
Speaker 1: know the balance of winning a lot or winning the
Speaker 1: really big ones a lot?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, Brooks, you obviously want to win the
Speaker 2: majors of the pinnacle of the sport, and only the
Speaker 2: great players seem to win them more than once or twice,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, it's only the truly greats to
Speaker 2: win multiples. I still think there's something impressive about the
Speaker 2: guys who play well every week, they play and win
Speaker 2: piles of tournaments forever, like they five six seven wins
Speaker 2: a year for fifteen twenty years. I think it would
Speaker 2: be fun to see him win some more regular events.
Speaker 2: Not that would make him any better or worse and whatever.
Speaker 2: I just think it's those truly truly like forever greats,
Speaker 2: you know, the samson Needs and the Hogans and the
Speaker 2: Nelson's and the Nicholas's and the Tigers, and they've won
Speaker 2: every size of event and they win everywhere they go.
Speaker 2: You know, I think that's really impressive. Nothing against Brooks
Speaker 2: at all. And it's ridiculous what he's doing. I mean,
Speaker 2: he could maybe he wins them all late, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe he just starts winning. It's baffling to me how
Speaker 2: he can look that good in like in the Majors,
Speaker 2: I mean, or he was only one shot away at
Speaker 2: the Masters too in the end, you know, like you
Speaker 2: can look that good in the big tournaments and in
Speaker 2: the regular tournament it's almost like it's not a big
Speaker 2: enough occasion for him or something, you know, or he's
Speaker 2: working on his game, or he's tuning up for the majors.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but it's different. It's different how he
Speaker 2: plays in majors to norms.
Speaker 1: It's I don't know, there we had, Like you know,
Speaker 1: there are some basketball players like Robert Ory who'd always
Speaker 1: hit big shots, like you know, but like he wasn't
Speaker 1: like an all time great, you know, he just would
Speaker 1: hit big shots. But like you know, Robber Ory, you
Speaker 1: can't compare like a guy going out and winning four
Speaker 1: majors and you know, nine nine attempts to Robber Ory.
Speaker 1: But like with Brooks, it's it's fat. It's so they
Speaker 1: the super Book, it was like, I think it's the
Speaker 1: longest bet they've ever like time wise, they've ever put out.
Speaker 1: And they put out Brooks seven and a half wins
Speaker 1: or seven and a half majors.
Speaker 2: Seven and a half. What's the one that five.
Speaker 1: Four four and it expires when he turns fifty.
Speaker 2: Wow, you probably take the over at this point. You know,
Speaker 2: he's won four in two years, But I mean, who
Speaker 2: knows I mean you just don't know, right, how often
Speaker 2: do you see a guy have a run like this?
Speaker 2: And I mean two years ago you would have said
Speaker 2: Jordan's going to win fifteen, right, and the two years later,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying he's not going to win fifteen, but
Speaker 2: no one's saying that anymore. Right. It's hard to Rory too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: time changes things, It's weird. I mean you would have
Speaker 2: thought it only might have won a few more than
Speaker 2: he did, you know, And then Tiger came along. You
Speaker 2: would have thought Phil would have won them earlier, or
Speaker 2: Westwood would have won something. It's a or sergeriy I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have taken so long, you know, or Adam Scott
Speaker 2: or Justin Rose. You know, so the hard ones to
Speaker 2: win and you can. And who knows if there is
Speaker 2: a kid who's twenty one right now who's already better
Speaker 2: than Brooks, you know, or he just needs a couple
Speaker 2: of years under his belt like Brooks had, and then
Speaker 2: he goes and wins more and it gets harder and
Speaker 2: harder for every generation.
Speaker 1: That's the interesting thing with Brooks too, is like he's
Speaker 1: twenty nine, Like it wasn't I guess, like Rory, we
Speaker 1: had this flurry when he was really young, and it's
Speaker 1: almost like he struggled. I wonder if like having it
Speaker 1: come a little bit later while still being young was
Speaker 1: almost like it is almost a blessing for.
Speaker 2: I think Brooks is the roadmap he's taken to get
Speaker 2: here is interesting, and I think more like junior golfer
Speaker 2: zoo have aspirations or who are going to potentially be
Speaker 2: that good should look at it. Going to Europe first
Speaker 2: and playing like the challenge to like the smallest her
Speaker 2: in Europe just to get on the European terny. He
Speaker 2: played in Europe for three or four years just because
Speaker 2: I mean to learn how to play everywhere around the world.
Speaker 2: So he just came back a more complete golfer. And
Speaker 2: the guys who went majors are complete players. You know.
Speaker 2: You have to have every shot, and you have to
Speaker 2: be good at every aspect, and you have to be
Speaker 2: good at the travel and learning a new course fast
Speaker 2: and dealing with adversity. And that's what happened when you
Speaker 2: play your first four or five years somewhere else, especially Europe,
Speaker 2: because you get to a different country every week and
Speaker 2: there's different currencies and languages and foods. And maybe not
Speaker 2: the same conditioning you used to in America maybe, And
Speaker 2: he just I think he just became such a more
Speaker 2: well rounded player. So I just think the roadmap he
Speaker 2: took to get here prepared him better than anyone else's path.
Speaker 1: You know, is that do you think you because you
Speaker 1: went and played Europe right after you turn pro for
Speaker 1: a while, Like, is that the hardest part about like
Speaker 1: early in your career, is like being a professional on
Speaker 1: the road?
Speaker 2: Like it's yeah, I mean I was so enthusiastic at
Speaker 2: that point. I didn't find it hard. I just found
Speaker 2: it exciting. Right, I'm just traveling around the world. Who
Speaker 2: doesn't travel want and travel around the world when they're
Speaker 2: twenty one twenty two. Everybody kind of wants to write.
Speaker 2: And I was getting paid to do it, so it
Speaker 2: was I thought it was exciting. And I didn't do
Speaker 2: it as long as Brooks. Brooks was there for a
Speaker 2: long time, four or five years, I think. And you're
Speaker 2: really total And Peter Euline did the same thing. They
Speaker 2: were kind of doing it at the same sort of time.
Speaker 2: And Peter's become a pretty well rounded good player too.
Speaker 2: You know, It's not that it's not great here but
Speaker 2: playing the PGA, trying to get on the PGI to
Speaker 2: a straight away would be like trying to like get
Speaker 2: a hit from a major league pitcher from little league.
Speaker 2: You know, like it's not that big a jump, but
Speaker 2: it's a pretty big jump and you can get beaten
Speaker 2: over the head pretty quick. Saying it's not tough in Europe,
Speaker 2: but it's probably a little bit easier. There's a lot
Speaker 2: more toilets to choose from, and again, you get a
Speaker 2: different environment and you've maybe got fields you gradually can
Speaker 2: beat up on just a little bit quicker than you
Speaker 2: could beat up on the ones over here, and you
Speaker 2: just build confidence and skill, and yeah, it's pretty It's
Speaker 2: it's an interesting way he took because it's tight. It
Speaker 2: would be tough for an American kid to do that.
Speaker 2: It's easy for an austrain kid to go to Europe first, right,
Speaker 2: because you have to go somewhere first, you do the
Speaker 2: stepping stone thing. It makes sense. But to leave your
Speaker 2: home country when you're a kid and go do that,
Speaker 2: it's pretty brave.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. Well, wasn't like he was a schmuck either.
Speaker 1: He was you know, like American, yeah, golfer.
Speaker 2: He could have tried the route that most people tried,
Speaker 2: but was he either got really good advice or was
Speaker 2: just had a kind of it's a bit of wisdom
Speaker 2: at the time and thought, you know, this is the
Speaker 2: path for me, and it wow, I mean, look at it.
Speaker 2: He's he's the most rounded complete golfer we've almost ever seen,
Speaker 2: really the way he's playing at the moment.
Speaker 1: The Q School also now still you can still go
Speaker 1: a Q school and be on the European Tour.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're still going to real Quy school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is I think there's something cool about it,
Speaker 1: but I think.
Speaker 2: We can still I think we should still have one too.
Speaker 2: But even if it wasn't twenty five cards, I just
Speaker 2: there was something really cool about, you know, zero to
Speaker 2: PGA Tour in one week, you know something about it.
Speaker 1: It led to some guys that flamed out quick.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, but I mean really through history of
Speaker 2: at least through my era, of who I grew up
Speaker 2: with and who made it and who didn't, I can't
Speaker 2: think of many who should have made it who didn't
Speaker 2: know And then there's no shoot ups and you can't
Speaker 2: make predictions like that. But by the time everyone was thirty,
Speaker 2: the ones who you thought were going to make it.
Speaker 2: They all kind of found their way out there. Maybe
Speaker 2: took them a couple more years than they wanted. But
Speaker 2: usually the ones who are supposed to get out there
Speaker 2: get out there. I mean some of like Jordan, for example,
Speaker 2: he missed it second stage and then six months later
Speaker 2: it was like number one in the world or something like.
Speaker 2: It was just it was inevitable that he was going
Speaker 2: to get on to it right. Second stage didn't matter.
Speaker 2: He just found a different way to get on. But
Speaker 2: you school was a good.
Speaker 1: Thing usually, you know, you know, like certain guys like
Speaker 1: what are what are the things that like, you know,
Speaker 1: a guy is going to make it versus a guy
Speaker 1: that like me, they have comparable amateur but like you know,
Speaker 1: one guy is sure fire and one gay is maybe do.
Speaker 2: You think this? I mean, these are intangibles, right, but
Speaker 2: you just I don't know the guy who makes that
Speaker 2: great up and down to stay one in front of
Speaker 2: the seventeenth hole somewhere, or like just they do that
Speaker 2: key stuff. I mean, there's plenty of goes to hit
Speaker 2: it well and part well and that it's part of
Speaker 2: that too. Like some guys just make golf look easy, right,
Speaker 2: just easier than ever it looks for everyone else. You know,
Speaker 2: Adam Scott at fourteen looked like he was gonna be
Speaker 2: number on in the world. It just looked like it.
Speaker 2: You know, he just it was easier for him. But
Speaker 2: there's other guys you just see it in their eyes
Speaker 2: at the right moment. So you know, they finish off
Speaker 2: tournaments really well, or they compete really on the harder courses,
Speaker 2: maybe better than the other courses. They handle situation like
Speaker 2: situations that not everyone handles well, intangible sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: but you can tell when you see someone who there's
Speaker 2: no again, there's no guarantees, but you can usually tell
Speaker 2: the ones who have got a little bit more something
Speaker 2: than the others. It was the game that he was
Speaker 2: at least I can in golf.
Speaker 1: Most surprised that didn't get to where he say, you
Speaker 1: may we might have an injury to In.
Speaker 2: My era, Joel Kraibell was an incredible player. He was
Speaker 2: kind of second ranked amateur around after Tiger. Right attack
Speaker 2: right Stanford went at the same time as Tiger lost
Speaker 2: to him in the semi finals. I think of his
Speaker 2: last us M, he looked the real deal. He was
Speaker 2: really special and me he won the Western End that
Speaker 2: I went to, like no one even got close to him,
Speaker 2: like it was. This guy's pretty amazing. I can't think
Speaker 2: of many others though. He got injured when he when
Speaker 2: he was turning and got back injury and never really
Speaker 2: kind of made it back, so it didn't kind of
Speaker 2: work out for him. But I'm sure there's been a few.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's always a few that slipped through the cracks, right.
Speaker 2: They get hurt at the wrong time. I mean Patrick Cantley,
Speaker 2: he's kicking goals now, but he kind of got set
Speaker 2: back a little bit with a bad back at the
Speaker 2: wrong time. You know, you don't have a bad week.
Speaker 2: I mean Jordan, as I said, speak missed second stage.
Speaker 2: Accu's cool. He nearly had to have a year up
Speaker 2: right when he was turning pro. So it's a tough
Speaker 2: deal to get onto her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they And now with this new schedule, it makes
Speaker 1: it like even more interesting how you would go about
Speaker 1: it as a college kid.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, like there'd be two there's two real roots.
Speaker 2: You can do the Latin America Canada to a thing
Speaker 2: to try to get top five on them, to get
Speaker 2: on the web, and then the web you can try
Speaker 2: to get up or do you go to Europe and
Speaker 2: really back yourself and say I'm going to go to
Speaker 2: Europe or Asia and try to get top fifty in
Speaker 2: the world and start getting invites and go that way.
Speaker 2: It's almost there's no easier way. I mean, each model
Speaker 2: would work for different people, but you might become a
Speaker 2: more rounded player if you went the Europe route, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. You mean you might never get
Speaker 2: to top fifty in the world. I mean, that's quite
Speaker 2: hard to get to the top the world, and you
Speaker 2: might even not get on the European Tour. But that's
Speaker 2: really the only two methods is come up off the
Speaker 2: WAB or come through top fifty in the world. You know.
Speaker 1: So yeah that like Kitty Yama guy, uh, Kurt Kittyama
Speaker 1: had no status and he got he went through European Tour.
Speaker 1: Q School American guy. He's won three times this.
Speaker 2: Year in Europe. Well there you go. So he's on
Speaker 2: his wife, right, his ranking must be getting up there exactly.
Speaker 1: It's like it's unbelievable, you know, he went through, but
Speaker 1: like think about how much his life changed. He probably was,
Speaker 1: you know, pondering what am I doing? What am I
Speaker 1: gonna do right two now he's won three times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy on the second BIX Tour in the in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in Europe. I mean you can see. I
Speaker 2: mean the Righter Cup proves it. I mean those guys
Speaker 2: can go like they can really play.
Speaker 1: Do you think there what's the difference in the style
Speaker 1: of play between the two tours, Like, is there a
Speaker 1: noticeable difference between setup or golf courses or is it
Speaker 1: just the diversity of where you are?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well the golf courses, I mean, America's had a
Speaker 2: pretty big influence at least on competitive golf around the world.
Speaker 2: The places that you play a similar style than you
Speaker 2: play on the PHA to it mostly but you do again,
Speaker 2: you're going to some pretty crazy places. So grass is
Speaker 2: different everywhere, mostly newer courses because they're the ones who
Speaker 2: have the money, the promoter, the owners and the promoters
Speaker 2: to kind of show off their golf course. That's kind
Speaker 2: of half the reason golf tournaments are on. Sometimes you're
Speaker 2: just go to so many different places, probably and the
Speaker 2: conditioning is probably a little bit more inconsistent. You can
Speaker 2: you still have some you don't get bad green weeks
Speaker 2: on the PHA two very often, or bad fairways or
Speaker 2: weird way they might create some but it's generally pretty perfect.
Speaker 2: Every week you're less so right because you're going to
Speaker 2: some non golf countries and you're going to Germany. I mean,
Speaker 2: they've had some good golfers, but they don't really have
Speaker 2: many golfers there, so they don't really have to spend
Speaker 2: the money on their golf courses. And you get a
Speaker 2: Russia or they don't know, are got any golf courses,
Speaker 2: and so in Turkey they're playing in Turkey now, Saudi
Speaker 2: Arabia now like Dubai Kenya, they play everywhere. Right, So
Speaker 2: you're and travel always makes I don't know, adds a
Speaker 2: bit of wisdom to people or like roundedness or common
Speaker 2: sense or something right, because you just see every different
Speaker 2: sort of condition and every sort of different level of
Speaker 2: frustration that you just get better at dealing with stuff.
Speaker 2: And I think that aspect is the most important thing
Speaker 2: about that tour. I mean, you probably get it to
Speaker 2: their Latin America tour as well, and you're going to
Speaker 2: play Canada and driving around in a car like some
Speaker 2: of those guys do or something, and that would be
Speaker 2: like really great too, I think. But zero college to
Speaker 2: the PGA tours. I mean, I know they're trying to
Speaker 2: kind of create a faster route from college to PGA Tour,
Speaker 2: but that's that's a road that's not many guys are
Speaker 2: ready for. That's a fast that's a fast track. I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been close to ready. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So getting back to the US Open, so we
Speaker 1: saw backpage like you can't he predicted a little bit
Speaker 1: it was gonna be a high ball hitter if we saw.
Speaker 2: DJ DJ and Brooks one of the two picks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then Rory, who had a dismal first
Speaker 1: twenty seven holes, managed you know, last forty five years
Speaker 1: better than everybody, you know, worked his way up to
Speaker 1: t T eighth. So you know, with that, that golf
Speaker 1: course like clearly set up for that type of player. Like,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to create, you know, set up a
Speaker 1: golf course for where any style player in the field
Speaker 1: could win, how would you set it up?
Speaker 2: Well, you do, Pebble would be pretty close this week,
Speaker 2: everyone's got a chance. I think it's it's not long.
Speaker 2: It's long for a normal golf course sakes, but it's
Speaker 2: not long for you. It's open, and it doesn't see
Speaker 2: Beth Page is long, but it plays way longer because
Speaker 2: you go up to all the greens and it's all carried.
Speaker 2: You can't run it on any of the greens pebble.
Speaker 2: You could probably play it along the ground almost some
Speaker 2: of it, so it'll certainly suit. I mean, a longer
Speaker 2: hitter always has an advantage, but it's nullified here a
Speaker 2: little bit. They have the advantage of being able to
Speaker 2: hit less club onto the fairways. That's always going to
Speaker 2: be an advantage of three wood instead of driver and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. But it's such an experience strategic kind
Speaker 2: of test. It's more about that kind of that kind
Speaker 2: of canny golf skill, you know, missing it around the
Speaker 2: greens in the right place and having all the little
Speaker 2: kind of shots around the greens and being absolutely impeccable
Speaker 2: from inside ten feet because you just can't have short
Speaker 2: power parts of pebble. It's really difficult. They're so slopey,
Speaker 2: and this West Coast grass this power when it gets firm,
Speaker 2: like when the usg get it firm, which Thursday is
Speaker 2: not going to be like that by Sunday. Well, they
Speaker 2: get very difficult to get your speed right on such slopes.
Speaker 2: So you're going to have three four five footers for
Speaker 2: power all day. So the real magic skill is a
Speaker 2: great part of a great short putter, I would think,
Speaker 2: and I think in two thousand tigers, one hundred percent
Speaker 2: from inside ten feet or something.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous stuff might have been that whole year.
Speaker 2: Mcdowe's an incredible short putter. He's he talked about last
Speaker 2: time the green's kind of got a bit ropy in
Speaker 2: the afternoons last time in twenty ten, and he couldn't
Speaker 2: understand whatever I was talking about. He thought the greens
Speaker 2: were rolling perfect. So you know, when you're putting well,
Speaker 2: you're putting well. So I mean it could be a
Speaker 2: speech week, you know, it plays into him. If he
Speaker 2: was playing at his best, this would be like right
Speaker 2: down Jordan's street. I would have.
Speaker 1: Thought, Yeah, I always play as well at Pabo too,
Speaker 1: and the at and t. It's got a lot of
Speaker 1: similarities with Augusta in the way of like the skills,
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Of fast greens, really tricky around the greens and fast
Speaker 2: and side slopes. You're hitting off side slopes, which is yeah,
Speaker 2: so shape becomes really important, right because the shape is
Speaker 2: getting dictated to you by the slope. But you kind
Speaker 2: of sometimes want to have the other shape. So it's
Speaker 2: real skill that can do that, real form, I should say.
Speaker 2: I mean everyone could do it out here, it's just
Speaker 2: it's guy's in form that'll do that.
Speaker 1: What do you think about? So with Open you win,
Speaker 1: you go to sixty Masters lifetime, PGA pretty much lifetime,
Speaker 1: and then US Open ten years.
Speaker 2: It's perfect because there's no other tournament like the US Open.
Speaker 2: The Masters has proven that you can compete with wisdom
Speaker 2: and experience to your sixties, right, I mean plenty of
Speaker 2: guys have shown it over the years. I mean Jack
Speaker 2: nearly wanted at fifty eight, Freddy's been in contention for
Speaker 2: the last twenty years. Watson had a bit of a
Speaker 2: run at some point. Like you can play Augusta. For
Speaker 2: what you lose in distance, you continue to gain an experience.
Speaker 2: So it's just you're not making up the numbers when
Speaker 2: you're fifty five at the Masters, of you're Fred couples,
Speaker 2: you're actually a real threat for the tournament. The Open
Speaker 2: is probably similar. I mean they're getting longer the Opens.
Speaker 2: But again we saw Tom when he was sixty right
Speaker 2: nearly when it when he was sixties, So like it's
Speaker 2: that's doable too. The PGA probably not so much, but
Speaker 2: that's just the way they do it. But the US Open,
Speaker 2: I mean, ten years out of winning, you could really
Speaker 2: be in different form. You know, it's a long time
Speaker 2: and the US Open is the ultimate test, and if
Speaker 2: you are not playing really, really well, you're going to
Speaker 2: go for a lot and it would kind of well,
Speaker 2: it would be embarrassing, and it's just it's just not
Speaker 2: fair on the guy. It's almost fairer to say, look,
Speaker 2: you know, if you still exempt, that's great because you're
Speaker 2: still playing well. But if you've not done well for
Speaker 2: the last ten years, we're going to look after you
Speaker 2: and not make you do it.
Speaker 1: I get in. It would make it less open.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would make it less open too, So that
Speaker 2: makes more sense to because it is nice that it's
Speaker 2: effectively one hundred percent of qualifying field. Really. I mean,
Speaker 2: the PGA, the top fifty in the world guys they've
Speaker 2: kind of qualified because they've qualified through their last two
Speaker 2: years of play, right, and the rest of the field
Speaker 2: is qualified. And it's truly what seventy or eighty or
Speaker 2: ninety qualifying spots I think in this field, and that's
Speaker 2: really good.
Speaker 1: Is Sectional qualifying like the least covered event and professional golf.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, maybe it's a pretty they're interesting days.
Speaker 2: I mean, nobody likes them. Not two guys don't like them.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure, like if the US Open is
Speaker 2: your thing, and you're you're an AM and you're a
Speaker 2: club golfer and you have a normal job, and you
Speaker 2: play really well enough for getting the sectional, it's the
Speaker 2: biggest day of the year, right, it's a really good thing.
Speaker 2: But for two guys who have just come off like
Speaker 2: four tournaments in a row, to go out and play
Speaker 2: thirty six holes around one course on a Monday is
Speaker 2: not everyone's favorite. And there's a lot of attrition, Like
Speaker 2: on the second round. There's nobody there in the second
Speaker 2: round because anyone who shoots over parms for sure, it
Speaker 2: just goes home. But there's some cool stuff there they
Speaker 2: could get. They could make some good TV there because
Speaker 2: there's a little drama, Like especially you've always got that
Speaker 2: young AM kid who's like right on the line and
Speaker 2: he's waiting at the eight eighth green, and you get
Speaker 2: the grizzled old who's the only one who can knock
Speaker 2: him off his spot. Shoots sixty six in his second round,
Speaker 2: and then the lookle kid gets sad or the little
Speaker 2: kid makes it, and there's a playoff with seven guys
Speaker 2: for two spots, and everyone watches and there's some fun
Speaker 2: stuff that happens, and it's kind of a throwback. It
Speaker 2: feels like I'm going to golf a little bit. A
Speaker 2: lot of guys are carrying their bags, or the local club,
Speaker 2: the members all come out to watch, and there's like
Speaker 2: the leaderboard with the someone's just filling in all the
Speaker 2: boxes with the sharpies and stuff, or like the chisel
Speaker 2: point doing all the nice graphics and stuff. It's like
Speaker 2: it's just it's a bit of a throwback. Playing thirty
Speaker 2: six in a day. I love flaying thirty six in
Speaker 2: a day. I wish we did that more. I just
Speaker 2: think the day you can find yourself. You can get
Speaker 2: such you can get into such sweet patches of form
Speaker 2: when you have that long to kind of find your
Speaker 2: swing for the day. And playing a course twice in
Speaker 2: a day. I always liked the second lap because you
Speaker 2: learn all this stuff on the first lap. I don't
Speaker 2: know they're good things. It'd be a good you could
Speaker 2: what you can make some pretty good TV out of
Speaker 2: it if they condensed it. I mean it's a long day,
Speaker 2: but you'd condense and make some little package out of
Speaker 2: it to be fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thirty six is such a it's like a I
Speaker 1: always think after the thirty six holidays, like you get
Speaker 1: in your car and you're driving somewhere and it's like
Speaker 1: you've been like in a completely different world. It's like
Speaker 1: you like escape reality. But then I always think that
Speaker 1: the back nine and the first nine or of the
Speaker 1: second round, the back nine of the first round, first
Speaker 1: time in the second round, it's like that if you're
Speaker 1: playing good, like those eighteen holes that are like gonna
Speaker 1: be about best eighteen also goth, you could passibly play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just like I always loved it. I just
Speaker 2: I missed thirty six in a day. I mean I
Speaker 2: would have trouble walking around it at the moment. But
Speaker 2: and Amatons, we used to play thirty six, thirty six,
Speaker 2: we do Saturday Sunday thirty six thirty six. We wouldn't
Speaker 2: think of it and then do it the next weekend.
Speaker 2: But those qualifiers are they're fun. They're fun because like
Speaker 2: it is all manner of different like levels of intensity
Speaker 2: and attitude on gus, you have to go really low,
Speaker 2: you have to play really well. The first one I
Speaker 2: first started playing them, I was really surprised at Like
Speaker 2: you see the scores and you're like, well, that course
Speaker 2: must have been easy. But then you go there and
Speaker 2: you shoot two sixty eighth and you're right under and
Speaker 2: you missed by two. It's like, wow, this is like
Speaker 2: it's the next level. The level is really high.
Speaker 1: I think there's something too, like the with the qualifiers,
Speaker 1: where there's this like I guess and if you covered
Speaker 1: it would lose this A litt all is like where
Speaker 1: there's like this added shread of like doubt and you
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on, like where like you don't
Speaker 1: and that's like one of the toughest things to deal
Speaker 1: with when you're playing is like you're thinking about the number, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you have no clue. Nobody knows even you know
Speaker 1: you're out there and you're like, nobody knows, but you
Speaker 1: know you think it's good enough. Eventually you just I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: You kind of get an idea, I guess, but you
Speaker 2: really don't because it's always lower than you think. You know,
Speaker 2: you think a six under will make it this course,
Speaker 2: like when you're nine holes in or something and then
Speaker 2: it ends up being eleven, right, It's like, well, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's the other way obviously if you're playing really well.
Speaker 2: But that's that's the best. That's the thing you miss
Speaker 2: in pro golf when you, like you were amateur golf
Speaker 2: that walked from eighteen, that really fast walked from putting
Speaker 2: your card in to go see the board to see
Speaker 2: if you did any good or not because you didn't
Speaker 2: know what anyone had. So to walk over and see
Speaker 2: the guy filling in all the boxes with the sharpig,
Speaker 2: and I think that's just a good moment in golf.
Speaker 2: It's like the the leaderboards getting flipped up at the Masters.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a bit of suspense.
Speaker 1: You know, and then you're sitting waiting for everybody to
Speaker 1: come in that's the worst.
Speaker 2: And you're going through the things. He had sixty eight
Speaker 2: in the first round so he could do it, and
Speaker 2: you pick out the three or four guys who were
Speaker 2: coming that could actually knock you out. It's like, it's
Speaker 2: just it's just a fun I just really like that scene.
Speaker 2: It's just a good scene. And the whole qualify that's
Speaker 2: what it is is fifty guys standing around the border
Speaker 2: at the end wondering what's going to happen and talking
Speaker 2: about all their stories from the golf day and how
Speaker 2: unlucky they got. Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I could talk about that. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: this is a whole rabbit hole yourself and week we're
Speaker 1: talking about qualifier. So with your US Open experience, let's
Speaker 1: take the wing foot out of it, Like, what was
Speaker 1: the what was the next best US Opening was it?
Speaker 1: Was it all pain and suffering in the US Opening?
Speaker 2: Or it was all suffering?
Speaker 1: Was your next favorite? You know kind of experience with her?
Speaker 2: Tory was my next favorite. I played second last group
Speaker 2: on Sunday with Rocco.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I was in a pretty good spot. Tiger
Speaker 2: and Westwood were in the last group. We were in
Speaker 2: the second last group, and I played pretty well. I
Speaker 2: think I was like, I don't know if I was
Speaker 2: ever in the lead, but I might have been title
Speaker 2: one back going up nine and I plugged one in
Speaker 2: part five nine at toris like seven thousand hours long,
Speaker 2: and I plugged in the fairway bunker and then later
Speaker 2: it and like got it out and then went for
Speaker 2: the green and plugged it with my third shot in
Speaker 2: the bunk. I had two plugs in one hole or
Speaker 2: something made buggy and never really Friday Glass again Friday
Speaker 2: egsperts and then ended up eighth or seventh or eighth
Speaker 2: or something like that. But I just I had the
Speaker 2: Rocco show. So Roco played great all day, Tiger and
Speaker 2: Westwood behind us, so that San Diego and that he
Speaker 2: was at the peak of his powers. Tiger with the
Speaker 2: knee thing, and like they were just and it was
Speaker 2: his town and they're going nuts and Roco. Everybody loves
Speaker 2: Rocco and it was really really fun. And Rocco finishes
Speaker 2: eighteen and Tiger's won back now right, Yeah, He's laid
Speaker 2: it out in the rough, and we were standing around.
Speaker 2: I had the little gaggle of people and Rocco had
Speaker 2: the big gaggle of reporters around him while Tiger makes
Speaker 2: that big part and the noise was just outrageous. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was pretty special. But I really enjoyed that open
Speaker 2: again West Coast. We stayed in like delmar I looked
Speaker 2: at the ocean every day and like seventy degrees and Tory.
Speaker 2: It was the one time I really enjoyed playing Tory
Speaker 2: like it was firm and the greens were decent. It's
Speaker 2: so tough in the tournament in January that it's just
Speaker 2: it beats you around the head because it plays so long,
Speaker 2: because it's cold and soft, and it was I had
Speaker 2: a great time. That was my second favorite, easily my
Speaker 2: second favorite.
Speaker 1: I was reading about oh Sex and I saw like
Speaker 1: one of the quotes that stuck out was like how
Speaker 1: good Porter was to play with, like in the final round,
Speaker 1: Like what do you do? You think there's something about
Speaker 1: like when you're coming down the stretch, like you're playing
Speaker 1: partner and situations like that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean I knew Paulton really well by
Speaker 2: that point. I mean socially, we hung out and we
Speaker 2: played in Europe together a fair bit, so I knew
Speaker 2: him really well, and we're kind of similar age, and
Speaker 2: so it was just I think being with one of
Speaker 2: your boys helps, you know, or maybe it can hurt
Speaker 2: in some situations, But for me it was great because
Speaker 2: he was his energy was well, if he wasn't gonna
Speaker 2: win it, then he wanted me to win it, right,
Speaker 2: so you can then that's kind there's something about that,
Speaker 2: you know, if a guy can be obstreperous out there
Speaker 2: and act a bit like a right whatever. He's not
Speaker 2: that into you winning that It's different. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It just did good energy and he was It was
Speaker 2: just fun to be with one of your mates when
Speaker 2: you win the tournament and the scorers. Thatt with him
Speaker 2: was the best because we kind of watched the film
Speaker 2: show unfold a little bit on the TV and the
Speaker 2: scorer's hut, and he was just you could look in
Speaker 2: his eye when Phil ends up hitting his second shot,
Speaker 2: hits the tree, it drops and starts looking for me,
Speaker 2: looking pold. His eye was like he had this little
Speaker 2: glimmer in his eye, like this is going to work
Speaker 2: out pretty well. He was just genuinely happy for me,
Speaker 2: and it was nice to be with someone like, you
Speaker 2: know who's just because I would have been happy for
Speaker 2: him to win. It would have been great. I don't
Speaker 2: know I would have been as genuinely happy as he seemed.
Speaker 2: He was just really pumped that his playing partner and
Speaker 2: his friend is about to win this tournament. It was
Speaker 2: just a nice group. You know. He wire all pink too,
Speaker 2: pink shoes, pink socks, pink pants, belt, everything on father's
Speaker 2: day in New York. So it was pretty brave. So
Speaker 2: he took all the attention away, which was great.
Speaker 1: That was during Palter's apparel era, Like you know, he
Speaker 1: were he wore that all gold that one time. Remember
Speaker 1: that that goal. Whenever I think Ian Porter, I think
Speaker 1: about that outfit, I can't get it out.
Speaker 2: Pretty brave man, like not short on confidence with his apparel.
Speaker 1: His story. I mean when he turned pro with have
Speaker 1: a four handicap legend, that just a legend.
Speaker 2: Like he if there's any like a like a case
Speaker 2: that you can talk yourself into something if you want
Speaker 2: it bad enough, he talked himself into it. You know.
Speaker 2: I mean there's clearly people with more physical skills, but
Speaker 2: he has turned himself into them. Like just an outrageously
Speaker 2: good player and under pressure he is just I mean
Speaker 2: he has the respect of the whole locker room because
Speaker 2: the stuff he does in the right A cup, it's
Speaker 2: just on another level, Like it's outrageous. How good he is.
Speaker 2: His story is incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's I think he obviously gets it. He gets
Speaker 1: under people's skin. So like you know, I think from
Speaker 1: like a fan perspective, you know, there's a lot and
Speaker 1: in New York. He just I'll think he just had
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of rubbing it in their face, right,
Speaker 2: because it's exactly what they don't want their golfers to
Speaker 2: be wearing in New York. I see, I feel like
Speaker 2: and it's just but he he banters back fun with
Speaker 2: them and like they end up loving him, right because
Speaker 2: he's great to them.
Speaker 1: What was that with Phil? Like, you know, he's like
Speaker 1: the New York guy and like being in the mix
Speaker 1: with Phil and the mix out of us upend, Like
Speaker 1: did it feel like more of an atmosphere of like
Speaker 1: a I don't know President's Cup ever it has had
Speaker 1: like an atmosphere like a Ryder Cup, but like that
Speaker 1: Raider Cup where you were playing like almost against the
Speaker 1: hometown crowd, like you were at an away game, like
Speaker 1: if it was like an NBA Finals.
Speaker 2: It's certainly in the last nine holes when it became
Speaker 2: apparent that he might win, it was very profil. But
Speaker 2: it wasn't anti anybody else. It was just pro Phil.
Speaker 2: They love him, I mean they they just love him
Speaker 2: so much. And the way he was playing that week,
Speaker 2: he was driving at the Raff, making a crazy part
Speaker 2: driving the raff, making Birdie out of the raff, like
Speaker 2: he was doing crazy stuff from crazy places and it
Speaker 2: was just probably really great fun to watch the way
Speaker 2: he was doing it. But yeah, the last he made
Speaker 2: he made Bertie on fourteen when we were on the
Speaker 2: fifteenth tee and it was like really out of the
Speaker 2: rough and he hit it to four feet or five
Speaker 2: feet and they just went absolutely ballistic when he made
Speaker 2: the part. I was like, wow, this is these people
Speaker 2: want this guy to win really bad. But we're kind
Speaker 2: of sad for the middle in the end, because like
Speaker 2: they were like it was their man's weak right.
Speaker 1: How much were you like paying attention to the leaderboard
Speaker 1: when you were in the hunt and tournaments coming down
Speaker 1: the stretch.
Speaker 2: Normally quite a lot. I never really found it weird
Speaker 2: to see my name on it, so I didn't. I
Speaker 2: never noticed myself react negatively weird, like play poorly after
Speaker 2: looking at it, So I never really came up with
Speaker 2: a reason to not look at it. But that week,
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, whether there weren't many or whatever, I
Speaker 2: didn't really look much on the back nine. Maybe I
Speaker 2: knew that it was better for me to not, and
Speaker 2: I had I knew I was I think I was
Speaker 2: two back with four to play, maybe, and I was
Speaker 2: kind of losing my head a little bit frustrated because
Speaker 2: I think I burgied fourteen and feel birdied fourteen, so
Speaker 2: maybe I was even three back at that point. I
Speaker 2: don't know, probably two bad. And Squirrel Makeddie just said, look,
Speaker 2: let's no one's going to part of the last four holes.
Speaker 2: Let's just part of the last four holes, and who knows,
Speaker 2: no one's going to do that, so let's just do that.
Speaker 2: You'll be really close if you do that. So I
Speaker 2: kind of, like, for whatever reason, had this moment of
Speaker 2: being sensible for once on the golf course, and I
Speaker 2: actually really did just try to part fifteen, and then
Speaker 2: when I got to sixteen, I'm like, oh, I just
Speaker 2: make part because it seemed like such a ridiculous proposition.
Speaker 2: It kind of forced me to just think about the
Speaker 2: next shot in front of me, like to part of
Speaker 2: the last four holes. That's how hard it seemed like
Speaker 2: a proposition. So I didn't even like running a marathon
Speaker 2: it so let's just run the first mile. So here
Speaker 2: we go. And I was one of the only times
Speaker 2: in my life that I was actually like that, like
Speaker 2: properly one shot at a time, or one hole at
Speaker 2: a time, Part fifteen, Part sixteen, made a good up
Speaker 2: and down from shore of the green on sixteen, drove
Speaker 2: it the trees on seventeen and ended up chipping in
Speaker 2: for par. I mean, my ball never really was on
Speaker 2: the green except when it was rolled into the hole,
Speaker 2: and then eighteen made a great par. In the end,
Speaker 2: I got in a great drive, got unlucky. It went
Speaker 2: into a divot that was kind of like an old
Speaker 2: sound divot and hit a decent second shot, I thought,
Speaker 2: and I was actually posing. I thought i'd actually stiffed
Speaker 2: it. It was right at it, and I thought it had
Speaker 2: landed like a foot short of where it needed to.
Speaker 2: But you watched on TV, he'd probably landed five yards
Speaker 2: short where it needed And it was probably the sand
Speaker 2: and the divot that made it go shorter than I
Speaker 2: thought it was going to go. I felt like I
Speaker 2: got all ball. But you know, Sandy Divotts, this is
Speaker 2: not quite the same as grass got up there and
Speaker 2: had a filthy little pitch. But the thing that I
Speaker 2: the first time I really noticed that I knew the
Speaker 2: true state of affairs is when I got to that
Speaker 2: green after I'd missed it short. We got up there,
Speaker 2: the leaderboard was to the left of the green, which
Speaker 2: and it's kind of a dog leg left wing foot,
Speaker 2: so you can't see the leaderboard till you get to
Speaker 2: the green that Monty had made six not five. We
Speaker 2: knew Monty had made bogey. We saw him miss a
Speaker 2: part on the green and there was a groan, and
Speaker 2: we knew we'd missed the green. But I guess he'd
Speaker 2: three padded, so he'd made double. So it wasn't until
Speaker 2: then I had that pitch suret the third shot on
Speaker 2: eighteen that I knew that it was. Phil was the
Speaker 2: only one in front of me, and if I got
Speaker 2: up and down, I was second on my own. We
Speaker 2: figured I was on the same score as Monty because
Speaker 2: we thought he'd make bugg. You made double that so
Speaker 2: that made me a little bit. I still thought I
Speaker 2: was gonna get up and down and finished second at
Speaker 2: this point with a real chance to to playoff. You
Speaker 2: know that kind of went through my head. It's say, back,
Speaker 2: that was eighteen whole playoff days too, so like new
Speaker 2: hotel room, Like what am I going to do? Like
Speaker 2: all this stuff, So you were thinking about that kind
Speaker 2: of a minute, like it flashed into my head like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, I could because for the previous three holes,
Speaker 2: I kind of thought I wasn't. I didn't think about
Speaker 2: winning or anything because I thought I wasn't going to win.
Speaker 2: I just figured Phil was going to because as I said,
Speaker 2: I was at least two back, I think, and there
Speaker 2: were no birdies to be had. So I had a
Speaker 2: really good pitch. It was an easy pitch probably to
Speaker 2: hit the fifteen feet because it kind of goes up
Speaker 2: again past the hole, so, but a hard one to
Speaker 2: hit the four or five or whatever it hit. I
Speaker 2: hit a really good one and it came out nicely
Speaker 2: and spun and did everything it needed to do. So
Speaker 2: that was nice that I didn't that I gave myself
Speaker 2: an relatively simple put out. It was downhill, but it
Speaker 2: was downhill inside right. You could just get it moving
Speaker 2: and it was going to go in if you started
Speaker 2: in the right spot. So and then yeah, Phil did
Speaker 2: what he did. So when I when I made it,
Speaker 2: when I was putting it, like, I thought it was
Speaker 2: a really good chance for a playoff because eighteen is
Speaker 2: really hard, right, yeah, And I think there was no
Speaker 2: balls that we could see on the fairway. But I didn't.
Speaker 2: I never thought that would be to win the tournament
Speaker 2: out right. Ever, No, it never entered my head. Who
Speaker 2: thought who was going to think that he would make double?
Speaker 1: That Johnny Carl was pretty epic. A buddy of mine
Speaker 1: sent me that, like because he had a fried egg
Speaker 1: and then yeah, the way Johnny said the like and
Speaker 1: it's just funny how but like I was listening as
Speaker 1: like an advocate, you know, Carl. But with that that
Speaker 1: pit shot, I mean, I've always thought, like a really
Speaker 1: pitch that you hit the pitch just rate is one
Speaker 1: of the greatest feelings in golf. Like right when you
Speaker 1: hit it, you know, it was just perfect.
Speaker 2: It was ridiculous. Like I'd been working on it for
Speaker 2: my pitching more than anything else for a long time,
Speaker 2: just for a few different reasons. But there's that one shot,
Speaker 2: and I think only really really great short games actually
Speaker 2: have ever felt that perfect, Like elite golfers have felt
Speaker 2: that one that just comes out so perfect, you know,
Speaker 2: just grabs on the face properly, and it flights a
Speaker 2: little bit lower whatever, and it's spinning and it's like
Speaker 2: it's a one in five even when you're pitching it.
Speaker 2: Well right, Yeah, But balladas. It was a little bit easier,
Speaker 2: but like these days, it's just and you're gonna have
Speaker 2: really good grus and clean and a good line. Everything's
Speaker 2: got to work right and when you do it, even
Speaker 2: when you're practicing, you like look around. So did anyone
Speaker 2: say that he good? Was that? I mean, it's just
Speaker 2: a special feeling and it came out like.
Speaker 1: That you want, yeah, it grabs just right. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: it remained me that pitch and Justin Roses and Marion
Speaker 1: they like those they're very similar, like like they but
Speaker 1: maybe that's like the thing is like with the Masters,
Speaker 1: Like everybody like, oh, you know the US Open, like
Speaker 1: but like that that shot in golf is is unbelievably
Speaker 1: fun to watch, is like the recovery shot. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think there's something like Masters. You we think
Speaker 1: about the approaches and everything, and the Open is that
Speaker 1: you have the elements and everything. And the US Open
Speaker 1: sometimes people are like, well, they're just getting beat over
Speaker 1: the head, but like those are the shots that kind
Speaker 1: of win.
Speaker 2: And they're the shots that like move the needle in
Speaker 2: the locker room, if you like, the people got the
Speaker 2: guys in the locker room get really excited about the
Speaker 2: great short game shots just the freakish ones you know
Speaker 2: there are and you have to have a freakish green
Speaker 2: a week around the greens, especially at pebble, because I
Speaker 2: mean they are so small. I mean, twelve grains a
Speaker 2: day would be really impressive for you, you know. So
Speaker 2: that's six up and downs the day. That's twenty four
Speaker 2: for the week. Like, that's a lot of times. You
Speaker 2: gotta get up and down and a long stuff to
Speaker 2: really slope greens.
Speaker 1: So the other thing with the with the pitches is
Speaker 1: that's where I feel like the nerves can get you.
Speaker 2: The mass short grass, Yeah, pictures with a wedge, Yeah,
Speaker 2: with a lob wedge or something. They you can get
Speaker 2: them wrong for sure. They're the one. Well, they're the
Speaker 2: ones when you say guys have issues where they're pitching,
Speaker 2: like targeted a few years ago, that's the one that
Speaker 2: you don't want. You know, you're not rough under the ball.
Speaker 2: No one gets the flubs out of the rough. I
Speaker 2: mean you might not good shots, but you don't fat
Speaker 2: them or thin them out of the rough. But off
Speaker 2: the short grass, that's that's that's when you know you
Speaker 2: be pitching it well. When you could you could pitch
Speaker 2: yourself a pudding green and it would go well, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, it's it's still true. It's I mean the
Speaker 1: short game and stuff. I think, I don't know, what
Speaker 1: did you think about Aaron Hills a few years ago?
Speaker 1: Like from the idea, you know, people are always about
Speaker 1: thick rough, but like the short grass around the greens.
Speaker 2: I think if the course suits short grass, then I
Speaker 2: like short grass around the greens. I think it's a
Speaker 2: it's sometimes it's a it's an easier test for a
Speaker 2: good picture, and it's a harder test for a bad picture,
Speaker 2: you know, a bad short game. And I think it's
Speaker 2: kind of what you want, right you want the guys
Speaker 2: who are playing well, who have the complete game, to
Speaker 2: be able to separate themselves. I think sometimes some courses
Speaker 2: just don't lend themselves to that yeah set up. And
Speaker 2: I think sometimes rough around the greens. It's not my
Speaker 2: if I was going to build a course from scratch,
Speaker 2: you would always try to build it where balls were
Speaker 2: going to roll off round greens, like they do with
Speaker 2: the Masters or something. But sometimes I think rough around
Speaker 2: the greens is a good test, especially if it's varying rough.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if I love the uniform stuff. It's
Speaker 2: relatively the same shot you have to play out. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter where you go. When it's that perfect four
Speaker 2: inch high rye grass, it's all in a dead straight vertical.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes that's a little bit kind of boring.
Speaker 2: I like that kind of gnally kind of variable rough
Speaker 2: that you get into the fescue at Chittacock or in Britain.
Speaker 2: You get some pretty narly stuff. And I think that again,
Speaker 2: the really gifted short games, which is what you're trying
Speaker 2: to find in a golf tournament, is the gifted the
Speaker 2: good guys, right, the guys who are playing their best,
Speaker 2: the more variety you give them a on the greens,
Speaker 2: I think that's maximum chance for the best golf, the
Speaker 2: cream to rise at the top in the end.
Speaker 1: Variable testing people talk about the identity of the US helping, Well,
Speaker 1: what would you say, is you're the identity of the
Speaker 1: US helping.
Speaker 2: It's the hardest test relative to power in golf.
Speaker 1: So par is a central piece of air.
Speaker 2: Well they think it is. I don't think it is,
Speaker 2: but there are I mean I would argue that there
Speaker 2: are just as difficult as shots. On weeks where we
Speaker 2: shoot fifteen under, you know what I mean, But maybe
Speaker 2: the power is a little different stuff. Sometimes it's like
Speaker 2: it's a battle. They have a tournament at Whisper Rock
Speaker 2: once a year where they put the pins on sides
Speaker 2: of hills. It's crazy staff and the tees. Your right
Speaker 2: foots off the back of the tee on every hole.
Speaker 2: It's called the Battle of attrition. I think the US
Speaker 2: Open is the battle of attrition. That's his identity. They
Speaker 2: just have this obsession. It seems like they're hopefully they're
Speaker 2: losing it now, but or they're drifting away from it
Speaker 2: to get us to shoot around pass somewhere. And that's
Speaker 2: I think probably where they go wrong, because sometimes that's
Speaker 2: just not possible unless there's weather involvement, you know, or
Speaker 2: if it's too soft or something so and then they'll
Speaker 2: just go nuts with the greens just to keep us
Speaker 2: somewhere near PA, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: I just think, just find a set up that allows
Speaker 2: the guys who are playing their best that week separate themselves.
Speaker 2: I don't think the score is I don't think it matters.
Speaker 2: I think the US Open generally does that. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can't fake it at the US Open. You have
Speaker 2: to be playing well. You know, you really don't. You
Speaker 2: can't get away with a bad driver that week, or
Speaker 2: a bad putter or a bad anything, right. I mean
Speaker 2: in a normal week, maybe you can kind of get
Speaker 2: the talented guys can get away with something being a
Speaker 2: little bit off, but not at the US Open. Battle
Speaker 2: of attrition just every shot is that every hole is
Speaker 2: the hardest hole at your home club, set up as
Speaker 2: hard as it can and you do that seventy two
Speaker 2: holes holes in a row. Like it's just there's never
Speaker 2: a let up.
Speaker 1: I imagine like US Open rounds, when you get off
Speaker 1: the course, did you feel different than say a normal
Speaker 1: PGA Tour event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fatigued? You know that. I mean anyone who's ever
Speaker 2: played competitive golf who like knows they have to part
Speaker 2: of the last nine holes or do a stretch of
Speaker 2: holes and it's in a really good score to like
Speaker 2: get to make a card or to make the match
Speaker 2: play at your club, James, or whatever it is. And
Speaker 2: you you hold that kind of whatever it is, that
Speaker 2: focus at tension or whatever in your head, that really
Speaker 2: intensity I guess it is that has to be high
Speaker 2: when you play US Open. So you feel I think
Speaker 2: after a Thursday, especially if you're doing well. If you're
Speaker 2: doing poorly, I think you kind of male it in
Speaker 2: a little bit, just because you focus on all how
Speaker 2: bads must score hards. It's just when you kind of
Speaker 2: playing well, you just hang on to that tension and
Speaker 2: that anxiety and the intensity. It's a bit of a
Speaker 2: Not many people grind on the range of the US
Speaker 2: Open after they play. I mean the guys still do,
Speaker 2: but way less than an normal tournament. Yeah, it's tiring.
Speaker 2: It's super tiring mentally tiring, because every shot is the
Speaker 2: hardest shot you've ever had. Almost It feels like sometimes
Speaker 2: you play Oakmond and every hole is the hardest home
Speaker 2: you've ever played, and you got it an eighteen times
Speaker 2: in a row, and every time you miss the shot,
Speaker 2: you make a bogie like that. That's a level of
Speaker 2: intensity or pressure or something on every shot that's not normal.
Speaker 1: What do you think would happen if they changed the power?
Speaker 1: They say they made pebble par sixty nine. You know,
Speaker 1: guys are hitting mid irons at eighteen. Guys are hitting
Speaker 1: you know, they're hitting the only real par five where
Speaker 1: you know the definition of parr in nineteen eleven was
Speaker 1: that ideal shots from tee to green, allowing for two parts.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it would be interesting. I think some
Speaker 2: guys would have different scores, don't you think, Like if
Speaker 2: you made eighteen to part four for one tournament, and
Speaker 2: you might eight in the part five for the tournament
Speaker 2: the next week, and everything else was exactly the same,
Speaker 2: the scoring average would be different.
Speaker 1: They'd they'd score better at past sixty nine, I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean that's what they say they see with this
Speaker 1: loss of version stuff. But like, but then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, like if Pebble's par sixty nine, like you
Speaker 1: don't have to do anything crazy to have score be
Speaker 1: around park.
Speaker 2: No, that would be interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like what I And if you want the
Speaker 1: definition of par like because it's all based off of
Speaker 1: this history, right, but par's arbitrary.
Speaker 2: You could draw the line in the sand whatever you want.
Speaker 2: It's us. It's our perception of whether over power under
Speaker 2: power is a good score or not. It doesn't really
Speaker 2: mean anything.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, Like you know, like this is the thing
Speaker 1: is like for some why did PARR become a determinive
Speaker 1: different dificulty when it's just made up and it's like
Speaker 1: nobody would say, like if you played pebble in the
Speaker 1: US Open, then you play it on a Sunday morning
Speaker 1: in April with you know, after it rained, you know,
Speaker 1: an inch and there's no wind, like, be completely different
Speaker 1: golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and oak Water to past seventy eight isn't necessarily
Speaker 2: an easy course. Still just the same shots, right, it's
Speaker 2: still really really hard. Yeah, just because you're six under
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean it's easy. Every shot'spin just as hard
Speaker 2: to shoot seventy two as it was being two over
Speaker 2: it's seventy two. Yeah, it's the same because it's a
Speaker 2: mental difference. Though.
Speaker 1: It made me think about Trinity Forrest too. When I
Speaker 1: started thinking about this, it's like, oh, traenty fourth is
Speaker 1: easy because they're shooting twenty three underd It's like, well
Speaker 1: you got mid iron into one. Everybody's going for seven,
Speaker 1: you know, five is everybody can get home?
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, it played short last year, so then
Speaker 2: all of.
Speaker 1: A sudden you got It's like if it was part
Speaker 1: sixty eight and eleven underwins, it's said twenty three under,
Speaker 1: would people say it's easy.
Speaker 2: No, of course it wouldn't.
Speaker 1: No. So it's like the problem with the USGA. This
Speaker 1: par thing is a real thing.
Speaker 2: Right, Well it is, but it shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's not. That isn't a difficulty, right, because
Speaker 1: something can be difficult and you could shoot sixty five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if everybody shoots, you know, seventy, you still played
Speaker 1: really good.
Speaker 2: It would be I would rather than see them defend
Speaker 2: power by changing par than changing the course, which is
Speaker 2: kind of what you're saying, Yeah, that's right, or manipulating
Speaker 2: the course. I mean it should be at its most difficult, right.
Speaker 2: It should be like the club championship in any club.
Speaker 2: It should be back teas. It should be the greens
Speaker 2: as good and fast and firm as you can make
Speaker 2: them sensibly, and your four toughest pins. It should be yeah,
Speaker 2: you know. And if that has us shooting adding under
Speaker 2: power and that makes the USGA not happy, then yeah,
Speaker 2: change the par don't manipulate the course and put the
Speaker 2: pins on sides of the hills and grow the rough
Speaker 2: crazy long and do crazy stuff. Just have it. I
Speaker 2: don't know it'd be an interesting to do it. I
Speaker 2: think you just want to see the guy who plays
Speaker 2: the best be able to showcase his skills and win,
Speaker 2: you know, like people here in two thousand. I mean,
Speaker 2: the best player in the world clearly found the course
Speaker 2: pretty playable and no one else did. So it gave
Speaker 2: the best player in the world the best canvas possible
Speaker 2: to win. And so does Scenanders because he won by
Speaker 2: nine like ten minutes later. Right, So two completely different
Speaker 2: courses that found the best golfer in the world and
Speaker 2: no one could catch him. A bad setup in that
Speaker 2: era would have been one that Tiger didn't win by
Speaker 2: a lot, you know, because those those setups allowed him
Speaker 2: to show he was the best as long as it
Speaker 2: allows that. I don't think it matters what the score is.
Speaker 1: Is there one that sticks out like that was where
Speaker 1: you felt like the most where it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: the best player what you know, didn't they made it one,
Speaker 1: but that you know they it was hard to separate.
Speaker 2: I thought Chambers was hard to set up. I think
Speaker 2: the best player ended up winning and it was a
Speaker 2: great leader board in the end. So, but that would
Speaker 2: have been a hard one to separate because you just
Speaker 2: couldn't make any puts. You just couldn't, Like, it just
Speaker 2: wasn't possible.
Speaker 1: Would that be a good venue if they fix if
Speaker 1: the greens, the grass or.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting venue, Like it's the weird property that
Speaker 2: there's about five or six holes that go up and
Speaker 2: down this just massive cliff at the edge of this quarry.
Speaker 2: And I don't like those holes at all, but all
Speaker 2: the ones on the bottom I thought were really cool.
Speaker 2: And I think the fine fescue Open was good for
Speaker 2: the Open. I like that kind of Lynxy is not lynxy,
Speaker 2: but the ball running like a Lynx course, running fifty
Speaker 2: sixty seventy meters and like going over with these hills
Speaker 2: and running down slopes, and I think it's a different
Speaker 2: style of test. Great players generally play well when it
Speaker 2: gets like that. Yeah, so that's kind of why I
Speaker 2: like that. I mean, the partner's number two is completely
Speaker 2: unique for US Open, but it's perfect. You're going to
Speaker 2: find a good player.
Speaker 1: There because and camer separated.
Speaker 2: Separated, like truly separated. See that's a piners is maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit too far around the greens because KMA
Speaker 2: chipping would be his achilles here if he has one,
Speaker 2: because chipping is so hard there, then he actually he
Speaker 2: didn't have. His weakness wasn't necessary. He didn't have to
Speaker 2: expose his weakness because you can put from everywhere Pinehurst,
Speaker 2: you know, so he didn't have to chip. There's interesting
Speaker 2: that what's seen as a short game test might actually
Speaker 2: be more of a long game test, you know.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I guess yeah, because he could put everywhere.
Speaker 2: Apart from everywhere, he didn't have to use his laugh
Speaker 2: so that's countship. But if he has a weakness, it
Speaker 2: would be in that area. So he puts from everywhere,
Speaker 2: and he's an incredible ball striker. But yeah, that great
Speaker 2: players and he's a great player. Clearly thrive when it
Speaker 2: gets fiery, you know, like so I kind of and
Speaker 2: Chambers get super fiery. That was as fiery as I've
Speaker 2: seen it open. So I think in some respects it's
Speaker 2: a good venue. But I think he'd have trouble getting
Speaker 2: the players to go back to go back there with
Speaker 2: that complaining because that was pretty poor. The Greens. Yeah,
Speaker 2: not that no one's fault. They lost him, but and
Speaker 2: it was they lost them too late and you couldn't
Speaker 2: save them. But we had best of it. I mean
Speaker 2: it was incredible weather. We had eighty five degrees and
Speaker 2: some for seven days straight. Huge crowds, too, huge crowds,
Speaker 2: they love it up. There would be great I mean it's.
Speaker 1: A there's in more places up in the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: because like this is the best West Coast open by far,
Speaker 1: the best because like you know, everybody gets to watch
Speaker 1: the most golf yeah, of any open.
Speaker 2: Like, and it's predictable weather. Yeah, it never rains in
Speaker 2: the West Coast in summer ever, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: nice all day and it's a good temperature, and like
Speaker 2: you said, the East Coast TV, it's perfect. Everyone gets
Speaker 2: home from work and watches yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they just seed more good golf course down
Speaker 1: the West coast.
Speaker 2: Well, there's plenty. You know. California's got two coming up, right,
Speaker 2: It's got this and in LA in two years. Yeah yeah, No,
Speaker 2: Tory in two years and then LA in a couple
Speaker 2: of years after that. So they're coming here a lot.
Speaker 2: Toris in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, they got two years.
Speaker 2: That's a good open. Toy is a good open. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it'll surprise you. I promise you. It's a
Speaker 2: great open. It is. If it's like it was last time,
Speaker 2: it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: It's what means help. The Tiger made wing Foot so
Speaker 1: tough and of sex.
Speaker 2: Well, it was the first year they did the graduated rough,
Speaker 2: so the rough was playable. It was the first year
Speaker 2: we could miss the fairway by three or four yards
Speaker 2: and move it somewhat near the green. I mean it
Speaker 2: wasn't like you could get a five on on it,
Speaker 2: but you could backfoot a nine one or and eight
Speaker 2: on and hack it up somewhere around the green and
Speaker 2: hope you could get it up and down, whereas before
Speaker 2: it was just get this, get the sandwich out, and
Speaker 2: you was open up to that point. So that was different.
Speaker 2: So that was kind of easier. But the greens at
Speaker 2: wing Foot are brutally hard, really back to front pitched
Speaker 2: greens with like kind of waves and stuff, and they're
Speaker 2: really tricky and their power they get ropie when you
Speaker 2: push them, really really firm, and they were kind of
Speaker 2: difficult to put on beaten up. I would have called
Speaker 2: them on Thursday and Friday afternoon. And when they're really fast,
Speaker 2: really slopey with a little bit of ropiness about them,
Speaker 2: it gets really tough. And it's just naturally it's a
Speaker 2: tough course. It's like Okamon. It's one of those just
Speaker 2: naturally difficult courses that there's really no good places to
Speaker 2: miss it on some holes, and the greens play really
Speaker 2: effectively small, and my shelt game was just outrageous at
Speaker 2: that point. So I didn't really I did it because
Speaker 2: I got up and down a lot kind of had
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: You expect a similar like scoring next year.
Speaker 2: I think golf is gold The standard of golf is
Speaker 2: generally higher than it was then. There's more good players.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were playing great golf. We thought we
Speaker 2: were playing great golf, and clearly Tiger was playing as
Speaker 2: good as anybody kind of around that era.
Speaker 1: But how's the first time he missed a cutting? Like forever?
Speaker 2: His father just died a year Yeah, so fill and
Speaker 2: the Masters and he won hole Lake straight after that.
Speaker 2: So but that era was obviously good. But I feel
Speaker 2: like it's deeper now. Those the pool that you would
Speaker 2: you were picked, thing that could win a major now
Speaker 2: is bigger than it was then.
Speaker 1: Did they have the Grand Slam Ofcgarf that year?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did you play? That had to be one of the
Speaker 1: last years for.
Speaker 2: That it We were one of the last ones in Kawaii.
Speaker 2: We went to Kawaii and they went to Bermuda for
Speaker 2: a couple of years after that. It was a crazy event.
Speaker 2: I think Furich was at mine because he had the
Speaker 2: next best scoring average because Tiger won two. So it
Speaker 2: was Phil the Tiger and Weir and Furick, I think
Speaker 2: because they always used to let the if someone won
Speaker 2: too for that year. But the best, the best thing
Speaker 2: out of the best thing that came out of wing
Speaker 2: Foot was I played with Tiger and Film in the
Speaker 2: first year rounds of Madonna in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: which was the biggest crowd I've ever seen. It was
Speaker 2: just unbelievable for six holes. It was a really fun
Speaker 2: six holes because it was the height. Field won the Masters,
Speaker 2: Tiger won the Open, and I'm in sandwich in the middle,
Speaker 2: Like no one really even cares that I'm there, so
Speaker 2: I'm just a spectator. Really, it was crazy. It was
Speaker 2: really fun. And Chicago people are allowed, as you know,
Speaker 2: and Madonna's a loud place like the amphitheaters.
Speaker 1: And a loud place except when the Euros make a Sunday.
Speaker 2: Rosie makes the seventy, it's really quiet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that the playing with Tiger shot thing? Real?
Speaker 1: Like the people say, like I think Rory and GT
Speaker 1: said something like last year after riv like you know,
Speaker 1: it had to be a shot a shot in half.
Speaker 2: What they dealt with that day because I played two
Speaker 2: groups in front of them that day. What they were
Speaker 2: dealing with because that was Tiger just back out. Everyone's
Speaker 2: hyped this has come back number four or whatever, but
Speaker 2: like this one's going to stick, right.
Speaker 1: People were just crazy for the craziest morning, outrageous.
Speaker 2: And River is a really small property and holes are
Speaker 2: really close together, and uh, target group. Tiger fans are
Speaker 2: different from normal golf fans, or an element of his
Speaker 2: crowd is different. They're Tiger fans. They're not golf fans.
Speaker 2: So they're just there to see their man. They don't
Speaker 2: like understand that there's other groups on the course, and
Speaker 2: I mean, that's not what they're about. They're about seeing Tiger, right.
Speaker 2: So I think whenever I played, I play with him
Speaker 2: a lot, and I was pretty fortunate in some pretty
Speaker 2: good situations like that. People were great. But I think
Speaker 2: on these comebacks, especially when he hasn't been around for
Speaker 2: a long time and then he came in. When he
Speaker 2: came back, people were extra crazy. It was look, it
Speaker 2: was tough. He was good to play with him, that
Speaker 2: he wouldn't put in part out if he didn't have
Speaker 2: to and like get the crowd to walk off and stuff.
Speaker 2: He was generally pretty good to you like that, Like
Speaker 2: he had he had an understanding or an awareness of
Speaker 2: the effect that he had on the crowd, so he
Speaker 2: was pretty good with it. But yeah, it's difficult. The
Speaker 2: hardest group to play in was in front of Tiger
Speaker 2: in those days or any day really probably because every
Speaker 2: time whenever you're putting, his crowd's coming up the fairway.
Speaker 2: They're all walking to try to get positioned around the green.
Speaker 2: They're all trying to get on the tee, they're all
Speaker 2: trying to get positioned for the next group to get
Speaker 2: a good view. So they don't care that you're putting.
Speaker 2: They're just walking right because they want to be next
Speaker 2: to the green. So the least favorite draw historically would
Speaker 2: have been a group in front of him, not with him.
Speaker 2: With him, it's kind of your bit insulated because it's
Speaker 2: you're just in amongst it, and it's like that white noise.
Speaker 2: It's just so much noise, you know, it's like noise
Speaker 2: canceling headphones. You don't notice after a while because it's
Speaker 2: just constant. But the group in front or around him,
Speaker 2: that gets tough because you don't quite have the white
Speaker 2: noise effect, but you have the stampeding masses up coming
Speaker 2: up behind you when you're hitting all the time.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. So what we got five under through day one,
Speaker 1: what's the winning score going to be at Pebble.
Speaker 2: I think it'd be less than ten. I think there's
Speaker 2: no course that I know that could get difficult quick
Speaker 2: faster than Pebble. I think just by amount of water
Speaker 2: they put on the greens. It's not going to rain,
Speaker 2: I mean it, if it stays foggy, it won't get
Speaker 2: as firm. But they could get the greens crazy firm
Speaker 2: and crazy fast really quick here, I think, And I
Speaker 2: think by the end they'll be tough, although they probably
Speaker 2: a little gun shy right because of their last few years.
Speaker 2: They need a really smooth, good one, right, I need
Speaker 2: no one to talk about set up.
Speaker 1: Well, it's too easy.
Speaker 2: But again, if if it goes too deep, they're obviously
Speaker 2: not afraid because Aaron Hill's yeah, they went into the teens, right,
Speaker 2: so they've broken that kind of Well that.
Speaker 1: Was rain no whend yeah two, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't The forecast doesn't look like there's anything too
Speaker 2: crazy coming, but I think it'll be like high single digits,
Speaker 2: I would think. I don't think there'll be a whole
Speaker 2: lot of people under part at the end. I mean
Speaker 2: seventy two holes here. Eventually you're going to have some
Speaker 2: you're going to have some bumps in the road, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's going to get progressively harder every day. I
Speaker 2: didn't really study the pins today, but most pins that
Speaker 2: are tough because they're also slopey. So single digits under
Speaker 2: path we'll see.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's eight be even part of parax.
Speaker 2: Well there you go. Yeah, so it's past seventy one,
Speaker 2: it is past every one. Yeah, that's not a bad
Speaker 2: way to think about it. Actually, if they're really obsessed
Speaker 2: with score near Pa, just change the power. But then
Speaker 2: we're going to be growing because there's night pop offs.
Speaker 1: Well but is it a part five anymore? If to so,
Speaker 1: think about the definition two ideal shots from an expert player,
Speaker 1: or how many ideal shots from an expert player plus
Speaker 1: two putts?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that that's a difficult definition.
Speaker 1: Eighteen at Pebble, if you hit a great drive, gat
Speaker 1: not a four. But if you hit a great drive
Speaker 1: and great second shot, you're on the green, right, yes.
Speaker 1: So if on six at Pebble you hear a great drive,
Speaker 1: great second shot, good say even good good drive, good
Speaker 1: second chat, you're on the green, right, yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: part four. That's what it was in nineteen eleven.
Speaker 2: Six four definition of yeah, yeah, well it's interesting, but
Speaker 2: you're arguing it kind of kills itself because par it
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter anyway, right.
Speaker 1: Well it does. Then I'm just saying, if you're going
Speaker 1: to care about score it apart, then you got to adapt.
Speaker 2: And I've always traditionally done traditionally that's what they did,
Speaker 2: right They'd go to a normal course, pinching the fairways
Speaker 2: a little bit, turn a past eventy two and a
Speaker 2: past seventy and that was it. That's that was kind
Speaker 2: of their thing. And they just got so excited about
Speaker 2: how hard they made it that they just took it
Speaker 2: too far. Maybe sometimes what if you but but you
Speaker 2: say that if you look at the list of champions
Speaker 2: we've had, even through these controversy setups like Jordan speak
Speaker 2: winning at Chambers. Everyone thought that was a disaster. You
Speaker 2: give me the the best goal from the world at
Speaker 2: the time won and he beat Dustin Johnson, who was
Speaker 2: probably the other best golfer in the world at the time.
Speaker 2: Adam Scott was up there and Jason David they were
Speaker 2: all right there, right, Brooks has won twice in a row.
Speaker 2: He's clearly the best player in majors. So they're finding
Speaker 2: the right champions. So say what we want that they're
Speaker 2: ticking my box and that they're letting the best player
Speaker 2: in the field show his skills, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then yeah, like it already their early outreach
Speaker 1: today is like I was too soft and you look
Speaker 1: at the leader ports like then you get the best
Speaker 1: in the world at the top, Like you don't, Like
Speaker 1: I went to watch you know today and it's like
Speaker 1: you watch it, you hit a bad shot, Like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be really really really hard to make par you know,
Speaker 1: like you guts.
Speaker 2: Funny that people look at the score rather than the Nimes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it is the Moors look at the names
Speaker 2: and Lightbow, not the Scooes all shooting. To me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but and that's like the thing that drove me
Speaker 1: kind of crazy about Aaron Hills when everybody was going nuts,
Speaker 1: was like that Saturday was absolutely electric. You had j
Speaker 1: T make an like he made eagle on eighteen for
Speaker 1: I mean, he shot sixty three, Patrick Reid shot sixty five,
Speaker 1: He hit nine greens. You know, he's just chipping in
Speaker 1: from everywhere making everything. Like you know, it's just an
Speaker 1: unbelievable round where you saw these guys just playing un
Speaker 1: I mean, Fleetwood had a crazy good round. Like it
Speaker 1: was like all the greatest players in the world are
Speaker 1: having Like you're watching them do spectacular stuff and everybody's
Speaker 1: complaining because they're shooting low score.
Speaker 2: And I was just nonsense wrong. Yeah, Like, but that's
Speaker 2: part of it's almost on because if you go to
Speaker 2: a different venue every year, you can't get us to
Speaker 2: shoot the same score because we're just on different courses
Speaker 2: in different conditions. It should you should have low scoring
Speaker 2: years at high scoring years. I mean, it should go
Speaker 2: like that depending on where you go and what the
Speaker 2: conditions and the weather have been. So we need to
Speaker 2: golf fans collectively need to give the USGA a break
Speaker 2: on the score at least. Yeah. Well, I think it's
Speaker 2: like I need to get rid of it out of
Speaker 2: their head too. I think they still have it in
Speaker 2: their head. I think a little bit of the score.
Speaker 1: I think like the every venue should have their unique
Speaker 1: thing right, yeah, because like that's what the Open has.
Speaker 2: The Open is unique and nobody ever cares or remembers
Speaker 2: the score that's been shot at the Open, and each
Speaker 2: venue is like necessary freakish score.
Speaker 1: They're kind of like unique little thing like well, at
Speaker 1: Troon you got to avoid all of the bunker like
Speaker 1: Truan on the Moon, you know, and then you've got Burkedale,
Speaker 1: which everybody's oh it's the bad, but it's it's much
Speaker 1: more of a standard task, like you know, everybody's got
Speaker 1: and like nobody cares that at the Old Court. So
Speaker 1: if somebody, if they win at eighteen hundred, you.
Speaker 2: Know, cares, well. I don't think many people care. No
Speaker 2: one goes away going oh they Open wasn't a real
Speaker 2: tournam this year because I didn't under won the tournament, right, Like,
Speaker 2: no even think spect saying something on it. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I don't know. My thought is just like par hasn't
Speaker 1: been adjusted for the modern game, and that's why they're
Speaker 1: having such problems with setup to protect par.
Speaker 2: Well, you can't do it with length. They've been trying
Speaker 2: to do it with length, and you can't do it
Speaker 2: with length, and you shouldn't do it by making the
Speaker 2: greens too fast, so the ball doesn't ever stop on
Speaker 2: a slope, right, So whatever else you can do, I guess,
Speaker 2: you know, and par is the easiest way to at
Speaker 2: least affect the number on the right hand side of
Speaker 2: the scoreboard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're not going to regulate, if you you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't regulate the technology that allowed for mass distance,
Speaker 1: but they've regulated par where they don't allow power to move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: That's it's quite interesting, but it would be a shame
Speaker 2: if we lost great like Part five strategies and stuff,
Speaker 2: because everything just became a Part four. And see, I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's completely it's completely the same because
Speaker 2: two ideal shots. It's not the whole field that can
Speaker 2: hit two ideal shots on the eighteenth, you.
Speaker 1: Don't think so, No, everybody's hitting it past the tree.
Speaker 2: Well in this particular week. But if it goes two
Speaker 2: miles an hour into the wind and gets misty and foggy,
Speaker 2: no one in the field gets it there into so.
Speaker 1: You can't see. Because that that's a funny thing with Chambers.
Speaker 1: Remember when you can't say.
Speaker 2: It's an ideal driver. Three wood from two to sixty, right,
Speaker 2: it's got to be like a I think it has
Speaker 2: to be a driver and an iron for pretty much
Speaker 2: everyone in the field for it to be a part
Speaker 2: four an iron, the longest iron three on drivers, three iron,
Speaker 2: that can be a part four for I'll pick on Zack. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Zach's in the bottom twenty percent of driving distanceably in
Speaker 2: the field. Okay, but I mean he may disagree.
Speaker 1: He's been working on as uh.
Speaker 2: You know, speak space. But it's a dissensible to ninety something, right,
Speaker 2: But the guy it's a two ninety something. He's not
Speaker 2: hitting an iron in the eighteenth of Pebble Beach. He's
Speaker 2: a three wood probably, yeah, maybe not maybe five wood.
Speaker 2: That's well, look at the shot. It is, though, there's
Speaker 2: got to be some respect for the difficulty of the shot.
Speaker 1: See, it would be easier if you went half pars,
Speaker 1: because then if you made if you made eighteen eighteen
Speaker 1: and six half pars and you were you're par seventy,
Speaker 1: how do you have a half par? I mean there's
Speaker 1: there's I mean, like I said, Pinehurst four and five
Speaker 1: when Core flipped the pars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they did Chambers in the tournament. Yeah, one
Speaker 2: in eighteen is.
Speaker 1: Four five four five, and people went nuts, couldn't You
Speaker 1: just didn't think it.
Speaker 2: Was that weird that that was one of the least
Speaker 2: weird things about Chambers. I think it was kind of
Speaker 2: a little bit weird.
Speaker 1: Because you think about par you think about, oh, I
Speaker 1: mean birdie or boguey.
Speaker 2: I don't know, how do you make a power if
Speaker 2: it's a half ba.
Speaker 1: But when you say you make a birdie on like
Speaker 1: a two forty par three, you walk off the green.
Speaker 1: In your head, you're kind of like, I got I
Speaker 1: got a little more on a shot there, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you make a bogie on like a really hard
Speaker 1: part four, you think that way too, right, Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what about this idea, whatever the leader is,
Speaker 1: is that zero everyone else's PA, everyone else is not
Speaker 1: over par but just one four six.
Speaker 2: Well, certainly, like it's hard to mess with PA because
Speaker 2: it's the way of measuring someone's skull relative to everyone
Speaker 2: else at different points in the round, because that's not
Speaker 2: just wait till the end and you've had childred and
Speaker 2: seventy four shots sort of it like it's you need
Speaker 2: to be able to measure in the middle of a round.
Speaker 2: Maybe that would be a massive shift in golf scoring thinking.
Speaker 1: It would be I think, to a certain extent better
Speaker 1: because it would show.
Speaker 2: It would be better if we didn't worry about past
Speaker 2: so much. But power is so important for handicapping, right,
Speaker 2: so it.
Speaker 1: Would be standard though with everything across, like you'd see, oh,
Speaker 1: like he won by you know, like people would stop saying, oh,
Speaker 1: it was like what you said at the beginning. Like
Speaker 1: sometimes when it's you know, somebody shoots twenty two hunderd,
Speaker 1: it's still really challenging.
Speaker 2: It can be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so if they wanted.
Speaker 2: Zero always, yeah, that guys it was at zero maybe,
Speaker 2: and it will.
Speaker 1: Show relative people, Yeah, start to judge relative performance more
Speaker 1: because like you know, I don't know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: sell you on some Craig crack pot.
Speaker 2: I think golf's doing it. I think they just need
Speaker 2: to just understand. Like last year, I think, I mean
Speaker 2: they're going to say that I don't know, they didn't
Speaker 2: do anything wrong and it just got either go unlucky.
Speaker 2: But they just have to say, well, sometimes we're going
Speaker 2: to shoot low these boys. You know, if we don't
Speaker 2: have the weather this week, or we didn't have the
Speaker 2: lead up weather, or we didn't get the course to
Speaker 2: how we thought it could be as tough as well.
Speaker 2: That's what we go this week. Let's just make the
Speaker 2: best of it, and they shoot fifteen they shoot fifteen
Speaker 2: under and let that happen every now and then. When
Speaker 2: they can't make it really difficult. Sometimes it's easy, right,
Speaker 2: You got to openmond, you have to do anything. You
Speaker 2: just open the gates, and it's tough pineers and number
Speaker 2: two it's going to be the same. But sometimes you
Speaker 2: come to pebbles sometimes and maybe it's been a little
Speaker 2: bit damp in spring. It's just going to be soft.
Speaker 2: It just is what it is, and guys are going
Speaker 2: to go low. That's all right though, right, Yeah, good
Speaker 2: players when the at and t great players when the
Speaker 2: eighteen t usually yeah, you know, so you're going to
Speaker 2: find a good champion anyway.
Speaker 1: I think what you said about like look at the leaderboard,
Speaker 1: not the score, look at the names.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's the if you get the names. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can tell the guys people in golf who follow golf,
Speaker 2: they regardless of the world rankings, know the cream. You
Speaker 2: know who's playing well at the time, and the cream
Speaker 2: in that field. If the cream that field if the
Speaker 2: platform they're on or the course they're on allows the
Speaker 2: guys who are playing their best to be there at
Speaker 2: the end on Sunday, then it's a good setup. And
Speaker 2: that's that's what the Masters does. They almost always get
Speaker 2: everyone they should have in contention in contention deep on
Speaker 2: Sunday afternoon because the test that's presented is it's such
Speaker 2: a complete test that only the players playing really, really
Speaker 2: well can pass that test.
Speaker 1: Well. Yeah, and then like this year is a perfect example.
Speaker 1: It was a wet, warm week, you know, like not
Speaker 1: ideal for them, like conditioning wise, and then on Sunday
Speaker 1: you got Mulinarry would all that.
Speaker 2: Every pre tournament favorites opt for Rory is like they're
Speaker 2: really in contention, you know. And it seems to happen
Speaker 2: every year. So it doesn't really matter the score that is.
Speaker 2: It just matters that the players playing their best are
Speaker 2: given the kind of platform that allows them to show
Speaker 2: their skills, you know, and that doesn't always have sometimes,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying in US Opens, but sometimes we have
Speaker 2: tournaments that really lay on like it's all about to
Speaker 2: go who parts well? See Beth Page. I think is
Speaker 2: a little bit one dimensional in that you just can't
Speaker 2: do it unless you fly it a really long way
Speaker 2: in the air, which is a massive part of being
Speaker 2: one of the best players in the world, right, But
Speaker 2: it's not probably the complete test that you could get
Speaker 2: at the Masters, which is massive on distance, but it's
Speaker 2: also massive on strategy and short game.
Speaker 1: And I mean, think about if Spith had gained ten
Speaker 1: shots or eleven charts like he did at beth Page
Speaker 1: and at the Masters, like on the greens he has
Speaker 1: one of the historically unbelievable putting me. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: was what six shots behind Brooks, Yeah, no chance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no chance. It was well, certainly much more difficult,
Speaker 2: and like there's a there's probably a time for that test,
Speaker 2: you know, just like there's the time for the tiny, little, small,
Speaker 2: bouncy narrow test. You know, there's a time horrible yeah,
Speaker 2: Harbortown style test, well, the Marian kind of deal, you know.
Speaker 2: But as long as the best, the guys who are
Speaker 2: playing their best are kind of given that opportunity to shine,
Speaker 2: I think you know you've got it right. I don't
Speaker 2: think the score matters then, And the best tournaments always
Speaker 2: had the the best leaderboards, the best setup, So the
Speaker 2: best golf course setups always have the best leader boards,
Speaker 2: and they're the final ones to watch. The other ones
Speaker 2: we want to watch. We want to watch number one
Speaker 2: versus number three, number versus number seven versus whoever else.
Speaker 2: You know, we always want to watch our heroes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the most memorable ones. Yeah, no, very remember that.
Speaker 1: I don't know some people remember the other ones, but
Speaker 1: you know you remember Jack versus Watson Dull in the.
Speaker 2: Sun, Yeah, and like and that Obviously that was rock
Speaker 2: hard that week, and it allowed the two best players
Speaker 2: in the world at that time showcased that there was
Speaker 2: so much better than third at that moment. You know.
Speaker 2: It was a bit like Hendrick can Fiel. It true,
Speaker 2: and it was obviously very playable that week if you
Speaker 2: were playing like them. If you weren't, it was completely impossible, right,
Speaker 2: So it allowed perfect It's a perfect setup. That was
Speaker 2: absolutely magic, and who doesn't that was one of the
Speaker 2: best weekends of golf to ever watch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always will remember that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that course it's naturally tough. You don't have to
Speaker 2: do anything, true, all.
Speaker 1: Right, we're gonna wrap it. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: need to give you any more of my theories it's
Speaker 1: enough for a day. But thanks for coming on. Who
Speaker 1: you are, who you taking. We're midway through round one.
Speaker 2: So well. I was picking Jordan before the week, but.
Speaker 1: We got to get a leaderboard up to eight.
Speaker 2: Here, we're gonna get an update. Xander is interesting, Xander's
Speaker 2: Xander look good. I think Louis. I always liked Louis.
Speaker 2: If Louis gets down deep in the tournament, he's more
Speaker 2: competitive than people know, and he is. He's got every.
Speaker 1: Show, the Grand Slam runner up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got the Grand Slam runner up. He's a
Speaker 2: big he's a big time performance. Let's go for Louis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, I got I took Dustin, but he's even.
Speaker 1: He's already five shots back.
Speaker 2: Dustin at Pebbles always gonna be there and nothing.
Speaker 1: Pros prosident. The Boston story instant, the Baston consist papers,