Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a bride egg
Speaker 1: Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg, Frida egg,
Speaker 1: Brian egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 1: to run off of the hump, Joseph, I am worried
Speaker 1: about Jordan Speif should I be as worried about Jordan
Speaker 1: speed as as I am?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 2: What is your cause for concern?
Speaker 4: Look? You know, I I don't ask for much. I'm
Speaker 4: a big Speaf fan. But when he has an opportunity
Speaker 4: to win a tournament against Adam Shank and Taylor Moore
Speaker 4: and he bogies two of the last three holes and
Speaker 4: he spends the entire round not being able to hit
Speaker 4: a fair way, I just I start to get a
Speaker 4: little frustrated. I start to feel like, you know, all
Speaker 4: the Speaf haters out there, including some in our own company,
Speaker 4: that they're that they're starting to get the upper hand
Speaker 4: in the argument, and I just want a little more
Speaker 4: from Jordan. Can can you give me some hope? Is
Speaker 4: he actually turning around this season or is it just
Speaker 4: going to be a big tease like it has been
Speaker 4: for the past four or five years.
Speaker 2: Did you want him to not get into contention? Would
Speaker 2: that have been better?
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm obviously being a little a little unfair
Speaker 5: by making that comment, but you know, I think Jordan
Speaker 5: Speeths had obviously a pretty fascinating career. I don't know
Speaker 5: where the hype is right now compared to where it
Speaker 5: was last year at this time, but he showed some
Speaker 5: really strong flashes right about this time. Last year was underwhelming,
Speaker 5: especially at Augusta. But this is kind of what Jordan's
Speaker 5: game has looked like now for a little over a year.
Speaker 5: I think you should be optimistic as a Jordan Speed supporter.
Speaker 5: I mean, he's gained strokes on his approach in the
Speaker 5: last five tournaments in a row, like the putter, has
Speaker 5: shown some flashes, but it's still a little scary inside,
Speaker 5: you know, close range. But if you're somebody who's optimistic
Speaker 5: about Jordan Speed, he's giving you plenty of reasons to
Speaker 5: be optimistic, especially at a setup like Augusta. I think,
Speaker 5: like lacc, there are some reasons to be optimistic, but
Speaker 5: he's not a top five player in the world.
Speaker 2: At the moment.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's what I needed to hear. That's all I
Speaker 4: needed to hear. Thank you for giving me some reassurance. Now,
Speaker 4: Taylor Moore did did win the valspar. I really don't
Speaker 4: know a thing about Taylor Moore. Do you know a
Speaker 4: thing about Taylor Moore?
Speaker 2: He hasn't.
Speaker 5: He didn't give us a ton to hold on to.
Speaker 5: But I don't know a ton about Taylor Moore's game.
Speaker 5: I from a quick look up. I mean he hits
Speaker 5: the ball along, which is always a that's something you
Speaker 5: can hold on to as a reliable skill. The ball
Speaker 5: striking has been pretty good this calendar year, so it's
Speaker 5: impressive that he finished tied for eleventh at Tory Pines.
Speaker 5: He's actually had like a pretty good calendar year, so
Speaker 5: he's somebody to pay attention to.
Speaker 2: But you never really know.
Speaker 5: The driver's been really good, and that's a reliable skill.
Speaker 5: So sometimes wins come from players you don't always expect,
Speaker 5: and yesterday was a great example.
Speaker 4: It sounds like a lot of other PGA tour pros
Speaker 4: is That's what it sounds like to me right now.
Speaker 4: Kind of no offense to Taylor Moore. I don't know
Speaker 4: a thing about it. He might be a tremendously interesting guy,
Speaker 4: but this seems to me like an assembly line situation.
Speaker 4: Now I may be proven wrong. He may go on
Speaker 4: to have a really hot season, like a like a
Speaker 4: Sam Burns type season or something like that. But I
Speaker 4: just don't know, and I was a little frustrated.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: I wanted to see Speef pull it out. And I
Speaker 4: guess I'm a fanboy. So that's that's all this really is.
Speaker 4: In any case. That is Joseph Lamania. I am Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 4: and you're listening to the Fridagg Podcast, and today we're
Speaker 4: going to talk about the demise of the WGC Dell
Speaker 4: Technologies match Play, the final edition of which will be
Speaker 4: played this week on the PGA Tour. After that, I'm
Speaker 4: going to talk to Dean Snell about the technological side
Speaker 4: of rolling back the golf ball. Dean is the founder
Speaker 4: and CEO of the ball manufacturer Snell Golf, as well
Speaker 4: as an engineer who worked for Titleist and Tailor Made.
Speaker 4: He's also on the record as being anti rollback, and
Speaker 4: while I do not want to turn this interview with
Speaker 4: Dean into a crossfire style debate, I do think it'll
Speaker 4: be informative to hear from an extremely well informed voice
Speaker 4: on the equipment industry side of this issue. He's a
Speaker 4: reasonable guy, he's a very smart guy, but he sees
Speaker 4: these things very, very differently than I do. Listeners are
Speaker 4: very familiar with my opinion on the rollback issue, Andy's opinion,
Speaker 4: pretty much anybody who works at the Fried Egg's opinion,
Speaker 4: and so I thought I would seek out a different
Speaker 4: point of view on this subject. At the end of
Speaker 4: the episode, Joseph and I will each give our storylines
Speaker 4: to track this week in golf. But for Joseph, let's
Speaker 4: talk about the match play. You are our Austin correspondent.
Speaker 4: Do you ever play at the Butler Pitch and Putt?
Speaker 2: I do. I love the Butler Pitch and Putt.
Speaker 4: It's a great place, isn't it.
Speaker 5: I think it's a great model for what some alternative
Speaker 5: forms of golf can look like, and it's been very successful.
Speaker 4: It's it's just in the middle of the city. For
Speaker 4: people who aren't familiar with this with this place, it's
Speaker 4: in the middle of the city, and I'm not exactly
Speaker 4: sure how many holes there are, maybe nine, And it's
Speaker 4: it's short par threes with really interesting greens, like greens
Speaker 4: that were designed by Dan Proctor. People are familiar with
Speaker 4: Dan Proctor. He worked for Corn Crenshaw has has and
Speaker 4: has done a set of a small set of really
Speaker 4: great courses with Dave excellent, including Wildhorse Wildhorse Golf Club
Speaker 4: in Nebraska, which we've raved about. And so there are
Speaker 4: these fascinating greens, and you know, it's just a it's
Speaker 4: just a little par three course in the middle of
Speaker 4: the city, pretty small footprint, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's turf tea boxes. You show up, you throw
Speaker 5: your you pay, you put your golf ball into a holder.
Speaker 5: That that's you're in the queue. When you're up, you go.
Speaker 5: It's nine holes. There's beer carts. You sometimes have to
Speaker 5: watch out for some stray golf balls because it doesn't
Speaker 5: always attract the best player. But that's just part of
Speaker 5: the experience. And you don't really need more than like
Speaker 5: a gap wedge or a pitching wedge. But I'm hopeful
Speaker 5: that post rollback, maybe you'll need.
Speaker 4: A nine iris's that's what rollback is really about, protecting
Speaker 4: the butler pitching putt, precisely, making people club up and
Speaker 4: play those greens.
Speaker 2: Properly as they were designed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, So you know, main topic in Austin
Speaker 4: this week obviously is the match Play, which is going
Speaker 4: away after this year. Very sad but somewhat predictable, and
Speaker 4: we'll get to some of the factors that caused its
Speaker 4: demise in a minute, but first I want to talk
Speaker 4: a little bit about Austin Country Club. This is I
Speaker 4: think one of the best courses on the PGA Tour,
Speaker 4: and it's one of the reasons that I'm pretty sad
Speaker 4: about the fact that we're not going to see the
Speaker 4: match play again, not just because match play is a
Speaker 4: great format that I really enjoy, but also because Austin
Speaker 4: Country Club is a cool course to see annually and
Speaker 4: we're not going to anymore. So just as a sendoff,
Speaker 4: what do you think makes ACC a special venue for
Speaker 4: tournament golf?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could go deep here.
Speaker 5: I love Austin Country Club personally, think it's one of
Speaker 5: the best courses on the PGA Tour. I've always kind
Speaker 5: of objected to when people say it's a great match
Speaker 5: play course but kind of imply that it wouldn't be
Speaker 5: a great stroke play course. I think it'd be a
Speaker 5: great stroke play tournament that you could have here too,
Speaker 5: so I love it. It penalizes whyde misses heavily. There's a
Speaker 5: lot of variety in the holes. I think the par
Speaker 5: fives are excellent. There's one course that I'm kind of
Speaker 5: on the record of appreciating is TPC San Antonio, and
Speaker 5: I would describe Austin Country Club as a much better
Speaker 5: version of that golf course, really big pre for hitting
Speaker 5: accurate drives. A lot of different players can succeed there,
Speaker 5: and like Cordy Connor's finished third at del match Play
Speaker 5: last year, he's a winner at TPC San Antonio. I
Speaker 5: think that's the best comparison, But Dell match Play, Austin
Speaker 5: Country Club is just a better version of that interesting.
Speaker 4: So you wouldn't compare it necessarily to like the other
Speaker 4: Pete Die courses on tour as much.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, like PJA West, less of a much
Speaker 5: less of a penalty to being arrant off the tee.
Speaker 5: And then if you were to think about some other
Speaker 5: courses like Sawgrass or Harbor Town, those you have to
Speaker 5: be accurate, but it's doing it in a little bit
Speaker 5: of a different way, with like really small greens and
Speaker 5: tight tree lined corridors where you're not even always hitting driver.
Speaker 5: At Austin Country Club, it's a little more open feeling,
Speaker 5: but you can get into some trouble off the tees,
Speaker 5: especially with how firm it is out there. So it
Speaker 5: penalizes wide misses in a similar way to a course
Speaker 5: like Sawgrass in terms of magnitude. It just does it
Speaker 5: in a different way, and it's a way that I
Speaker 5: think is more appealing.
Speaker 4: And so what is that different way? If you were
Speaker 4: to put a finer point on that, I think we
Speaker 4: all know what The way that TPC Sawgrass penalizes wide
Speaker 4: missus is there's water right, or there's thick trees or
Speaker 4: something really straightforwardly penal Austin Country Club's like a little
Speaker 4: bit wider right, And you say, it does this same
Speaker 4: thing in a different way, So what is that.
Speaker 5: There are some penalties kind of on the perimeters. So
Speaker 5: a great example would be the driveable par four. The
Speaker 5: fifth hole, there's out of bounds down the entire left side,
Speaker 5: So if you're going to go for that green, you
Speaker 5: can't just spray it. You could go out of bounds
Speaker 5: like that. That's an example. Whole six, great par five.
Speaker 5: If you just get a little bit off there, you
Speaker 5: can't get home in two. It's really hard to get
Speaker 5: home into even if you hit a good drive. But
Speaker 5: some of the holes kind of have pretty steep runoff
Speaker 5: almost off of the fairways. Whole ten would be another example,
Speaker 5: short par four where if you just blow it out right,
Speaker 5: you can kind of down a big down slope. So
Speaker 5: it does it in a variety of ways, but there's
Speaker 5: just penalties on some of the perimeters. Even whole nine,
Speaker 5: which I think people will be familiar with, big down
Speaker 5: slope in the fairway. It's a par four with water
Speaker 5: to the left. And this is a controversial hole. I
Speaker 5: remember Spied hit it in the water last year and
Speaker 5: was really upset that his ball went in the water.
Speaker 5: But if you favor the right side of that fairway,
Speaker 5: then shouldn't go into the water. So it just it
Speaker 5: just kind of requires precision in an interesting way that
Speaker 5: kind of varies holes a hole, but overall, you got
Speaker 5: to hit it online there or you're either going to
Speaker 5: run into some trees and some dry spots. Another example
Speaker 5: would be like hole eight, also off the tee on
Speaker 5: the right on hole nine, you can get into some trees,
Speaker 5: but there's water out there. I mean, it just does
Speaker 5: it a variety of ways. I think it's an excellent
Speaker 5: example of having a diverse set of holes.
Speaker 4: You mentioned hole nine and number eight. Is there another
Speaker 4: hole that's maybe not ballyhooed like the like some of
Speaker 4: the river holes are, or or some of the most
Speaker 4: photogenicals are. Is there a hole out there that you
Speaker 4: think people should really pay attention to as being representative
Speaker 4: of the virtues of this course.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a lot of good ones. I mean, I
Speaker 5: think hull five's are great drivable four I really like.
Speaker 5: I actually think Hule one's a pretty good opening hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it does.
Speaker 5: There's bunkers down the left side. It leaves a really
Speaker 5: touchy bunker shot. If you find a bunker on the left,
Speaker 5: you might have a little wedge, big downslope over the
Speaker 5: back of the green that you cannot go long. Yes,
Speaker 5: so a lot of players like to favor the right side.
Speaker 5: But if you remember a lot of past memories at
Speaker 5: Dell matchplay, you'll recall a lot of players in the
Speaker 5: trees kind of over by the concessions on whole one.
Speaker 5: Bryson's that been there a number of times, and part
Speaker 5: of the reason for that is the left side's a problem.
Speaker 5: But you can't just launch driver down the right side either,
Speaker 5: And I think that's such a refreshing departure from some
Speaker 5: other setups like Tory Pines and like Bay Hill, where
Speaker 5: normally you just have to take one side out of
Speaker 5: play and you can kind of blast it down the
Speaker 5: other side. Austin Country Club doesn't afford you that opportunity,
Speaker 5: So that's something I really appreciate about it.
Speaker 4: So Number one, you can, like I've seen players drive
Speaker 4: that green right depending on where the tea is, like
Speaker 4: really get it up near the green on that hole.
Speaker 4: It's generally downhill, I believe, but it kind of turns,
Speaker 4: has a sharp turn in it, and they're just like
Speaker 4: I've seen drives all over the place on that hole.
Speaker 4: Just a wide, wide range of outcomes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great opening hole.
Speaker 5: It's a bit demanding off the tee and you do
Speaker 5: kind of want to favor the right side there, But again,
Speaker 5: if you spray it out right, you run into a
Speaker 5: problem really quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I guess one other hole I throw out is fourteen,
Speaker 5: a cool hole along the water, and there's a bunker
Speaker 5: down the left side that you don't really want to
Speaker 5: be in and there's water down the left, so a
Speaker 5: lot of players kind of blast it out right. But
Speaker 5: you can't just blast it out right there and have
Speaker 5: an easy approach shot in. You often are with wind
Speaker 5: long approach shot into that green. Just bailing out way
Speaker 5: right becomes a problem too. So I think it's a
Speaker 5: good example of having some room to navigate out there,
Speaker 5: but a real reward for finding the fairway. And again
Speaker 5: you have a lot of players like Billy Horschell, Kevin Kisner,
Speaker 5: Matt Kocher, Cory Connors. Those are the type of players
Speaker 5: who have had success there, so that's not a coincidence.
Speaker 4: So farewell, Austin Country Club. You will be missed. This
Speaker 4: is a good PGA Tour venue. I can't imagine that
Speaker 4: it's going to be replaced by something in its schedule
Speaker 4: spot that's equally interesting. But I have heard word that
Speaker 4: the Houston Open might be moving back to the spring,
Speaker 4: and that's on a really interesting Tom Doak renovated golf
Speaker 4: course in Memorial Park. And so maybe that's the one
Speaker 4: silver lining here is that will we'll get to see
Speaker 4: another really well designed Texas course highlighted at this spot
Speaker 4: in the schedule. But you know, other than that, I'm
Speaker 4: not happy about saying acc go away, so kind of
Speaker 4: rip is as far as the schedules concerned. I'm sure
Speaker 4: that the membership is not that unhappy about it, though,
Speaker 4: so they'll kind of get their golf course back at
Speaker 4: this time of year. So let's talk about what happened
Speaker 4: to the match play. You know, there's been some reporting
Speaker 4: around this. It's not totally clear, honestly why this tournament
Speaker 4: went away, but you can put together some narratives about
Speaker 4: why the tournament wasn't just more successful than it was,
Speaker 4: and we'll talk about some of those, but just to
Speaker 4: get into some of the reporting around it, why this
Speaker 4: tournament ended up dying. Adam Schupack had a good report
Speaker 4: for Golf Week a little while back, and he heard
Speaker 4: a number of different things from a number of different people.
Speaker 4: Kevin Streelman, who's on the Player Advisory Council, told him
Speaker 4: that it was a sponsorship issue, which means that it
Speaker 4: was a Dell issue, And you know, that fits with
Speaker 4: some of the things that we've heard over the years
Speaker 4: about Dell's feelings about this tournament. It was just in
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen that Dell suggested that the PGA tour finished
Speaker 4: the tournament with thirty six holes of stroke play, and
Speaker 4: some players in the room were like, well, what would
Speaker 4: you call it then? So Dell was not happy. I
Speaker 4: don't think with the match play format, and with the
Speaker 4: fact that you know, you could get to a Sunday
Speaker 4: and you would have two players that people weren't really
Speaker 4: interested in vying for the championship. You wouldn't have the
Speaker 4: big names there on the final day to attract people's attention,
Speaker 4: and Dell was looking for different ways to alleviate that issue. Obviously,
Speaker 4: there was a big format change a few years ago
Speaker 4: where you know, the first rounds became round robin instead
Speaker 4: of immediate elimination, and so the format was an issue
Speaker 4: for the sponsor. The sponsor was not happy, and so
Speaker 4: Streamann saying that it was a sponsorship issue would seem
Speaker 4: to be accurate. Now, another issue was the host venue
Speaker 4: and the membership's attitude towards hosting a yearly PGA Tour event,
Speaker 4: which is very understandable according to Adam Shuepack. Again, the
Speaker 4: tour clashed with Austin Country Club over the terms of
Speaker 4: a contract extension and they kind of went back and
Speaker 4: forth about this and Ultimately, Panavidra apparently just went radio
Speaker 4: silent and stopped negotiating with Austin Country Club, even when
Speaker 4: acc made it clear that they were willing to come
Speaker 4: up with some kind of deal to keep the tournament
Speaker 4: coming back, it appeared that the PGA Tour at a
Speaker 4: certain point just wasn't interested. So now the tour has
Speaker 4: confirmed that there will be no match play event on
Speaker 4: the schedule next year. Joseph, why do you think it
Speaker 4: is that match play didn't survive on the PGA Tour
Speaker 4: in this era and do you think it's just an
Speaker 4: awkward fit overall for the modern PGA Tour.
Speaker 5: I think it is an awkward fit for the modern
Speaker 5: PGA Tour. But to me, that's kind of an indictment
Speaker 5: of the golf ecosystem, the current state of the golf ecosystem,
Speaker 5: and why some reform would be nice. And maybe we've
Speaker 5: already started to move in that direction with some of
Speaker 5: the schedule changes that have been announced for next year.
Speaker 5: But there are a lot of logistics goal issues with
Speaker 5: adell match play. Players don't know how long they're going
Speaker 5: to be there, Fans don't know exactly when they can
Speaker 5: show up, and who they're going to see when they
Speaker 5: do show up. So if you plan that, you know
Speaker 5: you want to show up for the Saturday or the Sunday.
Speaker 5: I mean Sunday only has a couple golfers on the course. Anyway,
Speaker 5: I think another huge issue that they've had is that
Speaker 5: Sundays are sleepy because there's only four golfers on the course.
Speaker 5: And the point that I would make, which is not
Speaker 5: a this is not my first time making this point
Speaker 5: on this podcast, is that it's hard to understand what
Speaker 5: the stakes are. If you're playing for money, we get that,
Speaker 5: but if you're playing for FedEx Cup standings on like
Speaker 5: the runners up match on Sunday, why should somebody care
Speaker 5: about how many points are being allocated to the winner
Speaker 5: of that match. I think the PGA Tours schedule change,
Speaker 5: and this is something we'll talk about more on this pod.
Speaker 5: I'm sure has improved that because now only the top
Speaker 5: fifty players in the FedEx Cup standings are getting into
Speaker 5: all of the designated events the following year, So this
Speaker 5: runner up match and the final match might actually have
Speaker 5: a little bit more meaning. That being said, it's still
Speaker 5: only four golfers on the course, and from a broadcasting
Speaker 5: perspective and from a fan experience perspective that has an impact.
Speaker 5: It's not ideal, but I'd love to see a little
Speaker 5: bit of reform so that we can get a match
Speaker 5: play event on the schedule that is appetizing and is
Speaker 5: appealing for both sponsors and fans, because in my opinion,
Speaker 5: it's the most compelling format of golf.
Speaker 4: Now, there's another issue with match play, and it's fit
Speaker 4: on the PGA Tour that I've heard you mentioned before,
Speaker 4: and that has to do with the official World Golf
Speaker 4: Ranking and the way that all works with a match
Speaker 4: play event. Could you explain that sure.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just a known thing with Dell matchplay
Speaker 5: that you might play a good couple of days and
Speaker 5: still get eliminated, right like you can be Scotti Scheffler,
Speaker 5: play two really good rounds of golf, just get beat
Speaker 5: by somebody who gets hot, and then maybe push in
Speaker 5: your third match, and you're going home and you're gonna
Speaker 5: be pen from like an official World Golf rankings perspective,
Speaker 5: but if that had been a stroke play event, you
Speaker 5: might be tied for fifteenth after those three days. So
Speaker 5: it's just it's a high variance format that especially if
Speaker 5: you're one of the best players in the world, and
Speaker 5: if the course doesn't fit your game particularly well, your
Speaker 5: expectations OWGR wise are not high that week. It's also
Speaker 5: worth calling out that the new methodology implemented in August
Speaker 5: of twenty twenty two rewards large fields, and this is
Speaker 5: a small field. This is sixty four players, so they're
Speaker 5: not even as large of a sum of total points
Speaker 5: being allocated to the event anyway from an OWGR perspective.
Speaker 2: And so this is one of the ways.
Speaker 5: That I've been critical of some of the changes to
Speaker 5: the OWGR and will continue to voice that that maybe
Speaker 5: it's not a good thing that the OWGR rigid methodology
Speaker 5: disincentivizes an event like matchplay from existing, because I think
Speaker 5: the golf world would be better if OWGR facilitated match
Speaker 5: play on the calendar, hopefully ideally more than once a year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, what we're seeing is a couple of
Speaker 4: different factors promoting format homogeneity. One factor is the broadcast.
Speaker 4: Seventy two hole stroke play is just the format that
Speaker 4: the telecast seems to like, the one that it's comfortable with,
Speaker 4: the one that it really wants every event in the
Speaker 4: end to be because it just kind of works for
Speaker 4: the networks. And then you have OWGR, which, especially in
Speaker 4: light of the recent changes to the formula, would strongly
Speaker 4: penalize essentially participating in a match play event because match
Speaker 4: play events have to be smaller fields and the top
Speaker 4: players are going to have to deal with some of
Speaker 4: the randomness of match play, of the fact that you
Speaker 4: might just get beat by somebody who would probably not
Speaker 4: beat you over seventy two holes of stroke play. And
Speaker 4: so these influences of these various institutions on the PGA
Speaker 4: Tour has just caused match play, which is the most traditional,
Speaker 4: most important historical format in golf, to be chased off
Speaker 4: of the PGA Tour, which is kind of remarkable, but
Speaker 4: it's a testament to the strength of those influences trying
Speaker 4: to get every PGA Tour event to be the same.
Speaker 4: And so, how do you deal with this, Joseph, from
Speaker 4: an institutional or from a systemic perspective, With the broadcast existing,
Speaker 4: with the OWGR existing as it does right now, how
Speaker 4: do you solve this problem? How do you encourage the
Speaker 4: PGA Tour to try new things, or any tour to
Speaker 4: try new things other than seventy two holes of stroke play.
Speaker 5: It's a good question. I don't know how deep you
Speaker 5: want me to go into one of my solutions, but.
Speaker 4: One of your solutions. And you wrote a newsletter about
Speaker 4: this this morning, which is excellent. People check out Finding
Speaker 4: the Edge newsletter. Joseph always writes great stuff in there,
Speaker 4: as well as for us in the Friday newsletter. But
Speaker 4: you say, right off the bat, get rid of THEWOWGR.
Speaker 4: So I'm happy to te you up for that one
Speaker 4: if you want to go into it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I might be getting a little dramatic with
Speaker 5: phrasing it that way, like you could just kind of
Speaker 5: reform the OWGR.
Speaker 2: But if the OWGR, or let's.
Speaker 5: Just just say major championships allocated spots to tours based
Speaker 5: on their order of merit, then tours could have whatever
Speaker 5: formats they want because they the OWGR basically be outsourcing
Speaker 5: that order of merit calculation to the tours instead of
Speaker 5: dictating it themselves, which they are the ones administering the ranking.
Speaker 5: So if Augusta said, hey, pg Tour, you get seventy
Speaker 5: spots in our major this year, then the PGA Tour
Speaker 5: could have whatever kind of calendar it wanted, and it
Speaker 5: could send the top seventy players from the FedEx Cup standings,
Speaker 5: which would mean that you could have match play multiple
Speaker 5: times because you're responsible for the methodology. So that's one
Speaker 5: way you could solve it is getting away a little
Speaker 5: bit from letting owgr dictate all the terms of qualification,
Speaker 5: maybe just outsourcing that to the tours, letting them run
Speaker 5: their own formats and allocating points how they see fit.
Speaker 5: So I think that's one one way you could get
Speaker 5: around it. Perhaps you could also tweak the format a
Speaker 5: little bit. I think one thing we haven't talked about
Speaker 5: that's interesting. Match play starts on Wednesday. Wednesday is probably
Speaker 5: the best day to go out to Austin country Club
Speaker 5: because every player is starting with a fresh slate, optimisms high.
Speaker 5: No one feels like they can't win at that point.
Speaker 5: By Thursday, since it's pool play, some players who have
Speaker 5: lost their first match, there's already a little bit of
Speaker 5: wind out of their sales. By Friday, some players are
Speaker 5: playing matches that don't matter at all. Yeah days they've
Speaker 5: already been eliminated. And then on Sunday you have a
Speaker 5: really sleepy only four golfers on the course. Ticket prices
Speaker 5: are really low. Every year for Dell matchplay on Sunday,
Speaker 5: despite it being the final day, I'm sure the broadcast
Speaker 5: doesn't do huge numbers. So if you think about it,
Speaker 5: Friday and Sunday are two of the sleepiest days of
Speaker 5: the event, which those should be days that a lot
Speaker 5: of people are tuned in. So I do think structure
Speaker 5: there's a little bit of an issue there, and with
Speaker 5: some tweaks to the format, I think you could get
Speaker 5: away from that.
Speaker 2: A little bit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's really interesting because definitely, by far the best
Speaker 4: days of the match play are Wednesday and Saturday.
Speaker 5: And on top of that, if it starts on Wednesday,
Speaker 5: think about a player like Justin Thomas who wanted.
Speaker 2: To play the Valspar.
Speaker 5: If he plays Valspar and that finishes on Sunday, that's
Speaker 5: a tight turnaround to get to Austin and t things
Speaker 5: up on Wednesday morning. So it just it maybe isn't
Speaker 5: presenting the best set of incentives for a player to
Speaker 5: go show up for that event.
Speaker 4: So then, you know, considering all of that, what is
Speaker 4: your argument for keeping match play on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 4: Let's consider the alternate perspective here, right, the sponsors view,
Speaker 4: the OWGRS view whoever right the player's view that match
Speaker 4: play is a problematic format for them, what is the
Speaker 4: strong argument that we can make to them that match
Speaker 4: play should have a place on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 5: I think it's the best format golf, full stop, and
Speaker 5: I think it's produced some of the best authentic drama.
Speaker 5: As the tour comes up with the player Impact program
Speaker 5: right tries to incentivize drama, tries to beef up rival
Speaker 5: rees like Bryson and Brooks, Dell Matchplay produced it just
Speaker 5: within its format without even trying to conjure drama.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: We had Sergio and Kocher get into it, Kevin nah
Speaker 5: and Dustin Johnson kind of have a little bit of
Speaker 5: a skirmish. There have been these head to head duels
Speaker 5: that have been really cool at Dell Matchplay, and that's
Speaker 5: just a byproduct of a cool format. So I think
Speaker 5: if you could make Sundays a little bit more compelling,
Speaker 5: and there are ways to do that, then we might
Speaker 5: actually be able to sell to sponsors. Hey, this format
Speaker 5: could work, and it produces some of the best golf
Speaker 5: we see all year. So I think match play it
Speaker 5: just produces drama that you don't have to conjure. I
Speaker 5: think we should have match play multiple times a year,
Speaker 5: and you actually can then at the end of a
Speaker 5: player's career say well, what was his match play record?
Speaker 5: Jordan Spieth versus Justin Tom what were they in match
Speaker 5: play against one another? But now we're removing that context
Speaker 5: completely from the PGA Tour, which I think is a mistake.
Speaker 5: I mean, even think about a story like Steven Ames
Speaker 5: and Tiger Woods. How fun of a story is that
Speaker 5: to reflect on and Tiger completely trounced him.
Speaker 4: It's become a way of understanding everything Steven Aames versus
Speaker 4: Tiger Woods. Anytime anybody sees a huge blowout or somebody
Speaker 4: you know talking a little bit too much before a
Speaker 4: match and then and then getting beaten, or before a
Speaker 4: game and getting beaten, they got aimed, right.
Speaker 5: And I think again, if you go out and you
Speaker 5: have a bad day as a PGA Tour player, it
Speaker 5: could just be a seventy five in a stroke play event,
Speaker 5: and you can justify it however you want. But if
Speaker 5: you go out and match play and you lose, you're
Speaker 5: zero to one, there's a finality to that, and there's
Speaker 5: something refreshing about having a win loss record that I
Speaker 5: think golf benefits from, even though we only see it
Speaker 5: team events and Dell match play once a year, which
Speaker 5: now we're not going to see anymore.
Speaker 4: Well, that's kind of sad, But let's hope that some
Speaker 4: people are listening and see some potential and match play
Speaker 4: and understand that when it comes to the entertainment product,
Speaker 4: that match play holds enormous potential. Just think of that
Speaker 4: Full Swing episode, the first Full Swing episode Frenemies Jordan
Speaker 4: Speith and Justin Thomas. You know what would be really
Speaker 4: meaningful is if Jordan Speith and Justin Thomas went up
Speaker 4: against each other in match play and Jordan one or
Speaker 4: Justin one, and we and we looked at that closely
Speaker 4: and understood how that shifted the dynamic of their relationship,
Speaker 4: because otherwise I don't buy that they're frenemies. So let's
Speaker 4: just hope that somebody, somebody out there with money sees
Speaker 4: that there's that opportunity and uh and takes it up.
Speaker 4: So coming up after this break, I talked to Dean
Speaker 4: Snell about rollback from his perspective as a ball engineer
Speaker 4: and manufacturer. This episode of the Frida Egg Podcast is
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Speaker 4: All right, back to the episode. So, Dean, when I
Speaker 4: go to snellgolf dot com right now, I see that
Speaker 4: all of your product is sold out. So what's going on.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been an interest in year two and a
Speaker 6: half years actually since COVID kind of kicked in golf.
Speaker 6: Golf took off. You know, was booming, and mounds were up,
Speaker 6: memberships up, people were playing, getting a little extra money
Speaker 6: from the government, and uh, you know, we were selling
Speaker 6: we were selling some good golf balls. But what happened
Speaker 6: in golf was there was a big issue with the material.
Speaker 6: There was a big supply chain issue with material shortage.
Speaker 6: That's in pretty much every single golf ball that's in golf.
Speaker 6: So the big companies had a surplus, were they able
Speaker 6: to you know, kind of use what they had in
Speaker 6: house and try to get through it. Some of them
Speaker 6: actually canceled some models and use the material in the
Speaker 6: top of the line models, you know, And us being
Speaker 6: on the smaller side to where we work off of
Speaker 6: purchase orders quite a bit, so there wasn't any available,
Speaker 6: so we were kind of we kind of got limited
Speaker 6: on our supply and that that kept going right through
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two. So for us, what we what we've
Speaker 6: done is we've spent the last the last year and
Speaker 6: a half or so working to UH to try to
Speaker 6: create a different supply chain and in a different way
Speaker 6: to you know, to get golf balls and different levels
Speaker 6: of manufacturing and stuff and create prototypes based on feedback
Speaker 6: from our customers. And we've done that work over the
Speaker 6: last year and a half. So we're getting ready now
Speaker 6: to have a launch of new products and everything's kind
Speaker 6: of kind of new for us, new supply chain, how
Speaker 6: we how we work and UH and we shouldn't be
Speaker 6: in this situation again with the with the point that
Speaker 6: we put in place and we sold out of pretty
Speaker 6: much everything that we had in house. Now with the
Speaker 6: plans for this new uh new launch, which we're planning.
Speaker 3: For April third.
Speaker 6: So April third, we'll have some information coming out with
Speaker 6: all the new products and new new names and everything
Speaker 6: and uh and we should be ready to go.
Speaker 4: Okay, so that's coming up. That's got to be exciting
Speaker 4: to to sort of have been on the bench for
Speaker 4: a while and now, uh, now, now you're finally freed
Speaker 4: up again.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm I'm a hockey player, so I feel like
Speaker 6: I've been sitting in the penalty box for a while.
Speaker 6: It's time to time to get out there or to
Speaker 6: either pull the shirt over someone's head and start throwing uppercuts,
Speaker 6: score a couple of goals, and time to score some goals,
Speaker 6: I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: All right, So I'm talking to you today about the
Speaker 4: Model Local Rule news that came out last week, and
Speaker 4: just to give people some context, the USGA and RNA
Speaker 4: proposed a Model Local Rule or MLR, and tournaments can
Speaker 4: use this MLR to require players to play a reduced
Speaker 4: flight golf ball. Now, just to give people some details
Speaker 4: on what the current testing of golf balls is or
Speaker 4: the way that balls are tested to be deemed conforming.
Speaker 4: Right now, balls are tested according to this standard at
Speaker 4: a clubhead speed of one hundred and twenty miles per hour,
Speaker 4: a dynamic club head loft of ten degrees as I understand,
Speaker 4: I think it's a dynamic loft as opposed to the
Speaker 4: actual club loft, and a spin rate of twenty five
Speaker 4: twenty rpm. A ball cannot travel more than three hundred
Speaker 4: and seventeen yards. Now, the test for the MLR ball
Speaker 4: will be clubhead speed one hundred and twenty seven miles
Speaker 4: per hour, loft eleven degrees, spin twenty two to twenty rpm,
Speaker 4: and it still can't go more than three hundred and
Speaker 4: seventeen yards. So they've increased the clubhead speed, increased the loft,
Speaker 4: and decreased the spin, all of which would normally make
Speaker 4: the ball go farther. But the MLR ball needs to
Speaker 4: go the same distance three hundred and seventeen yards under
Speaker 4: those testing parameters, So basically the MLR ball will need
Speaker 4: to have less juice. Now, Dean, from an engineering perspective,
Speaker 4: you're a brilliant engineer. You had a role in creating
Speaker 4: some really famous golf balls, including the titlest Professional, the Titleist,
Speaker 4: pro v one the tailor made five piece ball, I believe. So,
Speaker 4: just from an engineering perspective, what do you think it
Speaker 4: will take to invent this new MLR ball?
Speaker 6: Oh, there's a there's a couple of things that are
Speaker 6: going to have to happen when you when you start,
Speaker 6: the manufacturers are going to have to go have this
Speaker 6: testing completed and find out where the ball is. So
Speaker 6: three seven is the max limit with a with a
Speaker 6: three yard tolerance, so it can go to three twenty.
Speaker 6: That's that's the max. Every golf ball that's submitted today
Speaker 6: that's played on tour, we max out the speed and
Speaker 6: we also max out that distance to the current test
Speaker 6: that we have. So if they're going to add a
Speaker 6: significant amount of clubhead speed and not add any distance,
Speaker 6: pretty much every ball is going to fall over that
Speaker 6: maximum distance limit and it will be illegal to that
Speaker 6: new standard. So each manufacturer is going to have to
Speaker 6: go back now and see where where is it, how
Speaker 6: far further does it go, and how much do they
Speaker 6: have to reduce it. And there's a couple of ways
Speaker 6: that you have to evaluate that. If it's a if
Speaker 6: it's a pretty significant this gap, you might have to
Speaker 6: do it with a combination of the ball design, which
Speaker 6: is adding spin to the golf ball, maybe slowing down
Speaker 6: the ball a little bit with speed, but adding spin
Speaker 6: to it, which is which is a bigger effect, and
Speaker 6: uh and aerodynamics, So you can make the dimples be
Speaker 6: a little bit deeper, you know, and create more drag
Speaker 6: which slows the ball down at those faster speeds, and
Speaker 6: you can also add spin. The problem is when you
Speaker 6: do that, when you're adding spin to the to the
Speaker 6: driver's shot, you're also adding spin to all the other
Speaker 6: shots in the bag. So the players are gonna you know,
Speaker 6: you're gonna make the players be shorter, the long hitters
Speaker 6: are still going to be the longest, and then you've
Speaker 6: got then the players are going to have to really
Speaker 6: struggle with golf balls that have higher spin rates throughout
Speaker 6: the bag. So if you switch back and forth one
Speaker 6: tournament to another using this ball and not using this ball,
Speaker 6: it's not just the driver issue. It's not just Okay,
Speaker 6: we just shortened the ball and the rest of the game.
Speaker 3: Is the same.
Speaker 6: The added added spin to the ball is a big
Speaker 6: difference how on how these player is use the golf
Speaker 6: balls to perform today, especially when you add wind into
Speaker 6: the game. So it's not an easy one step solution
Speaker 6: by saying, Okay, we'll just drop the speed of the
Speaker 6: core and everything's fine. You know, it can really be
Speaker 6: a core speed issue, it can be a spin issue,
Speaker 6: and it can be an aerodynamic issue. If it's an
Speaker 6: aerodynamic issue, the cavities to make these golf balls have
Speaker 6: to be changed for every.
Speaker 3: Single every single ball, and all the tooling has.
Speaker 6: To be changed, and that can be in a very
Speaker 6: expensive process to do.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So, you know, if you were tackling this problem yourself
Speaker 4: and you were looking at the possibilities of increasing spin,
Speaker 4: altering the aerodynamics, or looking at the core of the
Speaker 4: ball and maybe putting some different stuff in there, I'm
Speaker 4: not exactly sure how that would work. What would you
Speaker 4: tackle How would you go about trying to reduce the flight?
Speaker 4: Would you would you look at spin as the primary factor,
Speaker 4: or would you look at kind of all three factors
Speaker 4: that I just mentioned there.
Speaker 6: Well, the simple solution would be to try to slow
Speaker 6: the core down.
Speaker 3: So you try to slow the ball down.
Speaker 6: I don't believe that that's going to get the yardage
Speaker 6: that everybody's talking about the increase that's going to happen
Speaker 6: I don't believe you're going to be able to bring
Speaker 6: that twenty to twenty five yards shorter by throwing the
Speaker 6: four down, So I don't think that would be a
Speaker 6: simple solution. Just change your core formulation, your rubber system,
Speaker 6: make the ball be slower, and then the rest of
Speaker 6: the ball would still have a similar spin even though
Speaker 6: the ball speed was slower. So I don't think that's
Speaker 6: going to be a viable, lower cost solution, So I
Speaker 6: think you're going to have to do it with a combination.
Speaker 6: The second way to do I would address if it's
Speaker 6: a small thing, is if the aerodynamics can change, then
Speaker 6: you can keep your performancey your golf ball similar to
Speaker 6: the rest of the shots besides the driver, that would
Speaker 6: probably be okay. And if you have to add spin
Speaker 6: to the ball, you're really changing the aerodynamics and the
Speaker 6: spin rate of the ball from tee to green, and
Speaker 6: that's a bigger adjustment for the players to have to
Speaker 6: deal with. So obviously the speed would be first. Their
Speaker 6: dynamics is expensive to do, but for some processes. Some
Speaker 6: processes have individual cavities where you have to make you know,
Speaker 6: hundreds and hundreds of them, and they make it dimples
Speaker 6: cavities is a very expensive process, you know. And then
Speaker 6: adding spin to the ball is easy to do with
Speaker 6: the designs inside of the materials we can use, but
Speaker 6: it changes the whole dynamic of the golf ball from
Speaker 6: t de green, not just the driver.
Speaker 4: Yes, and players would be especially sensitive to spin when
Speaker 4: it comes to approaches and wedges, and so that that
Speaker 4: would seem to be a tough thing to get players,
Speaker 4: top players to adjust to. So my understanding is that
Speaker 4: equipment manufacturers have done an experiment kind of like this before.
Speaker 4: And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I
Speaker 4: believe years ago the governing bodies actually asked a few
Speaker 4: manufacturers to produce a reduced flight ball. Am I right
Speaker 4: about that? Or and and if so, tell me about
Speaker 4: that now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Correct, They did ask some to participate, if you want to.
Speaker 3: I don't think many did, but.
Speaker 6: There was a It was sent out to the manufacturers
Speaker 6: to say, if you'd like to produce it. What they
Speaker 6: wanted to do at that time was to create a
Speaker 6: tournament ball, so I think, And and my memory is
Speaker 6: not as shocked as it used to be either, but
Speaker 6: I believe it was some tournament in Ohio use somebody
Speaker 6: made some I don't know who it was. It wasn't me,
Speaker 6: but they made some farm and they played this tournament
Speaker 6: in Ohio, uh, using this one ball. That's that's a
Speaker 6: that was a completely different scenario to say that there
Speaker 6: would be a tournament golf ball for the PGA Tour.
Speaker 6: That's not out asking manufacturers to make your own balls
Speaker 6: be twenty five yard shorter with whatever performance. There's a
Speaker 6: there's a big issue for me on this the distance
Speaker 6: increases that are causing some of these problems on the
Speaker 6: tour and the elite players. For distance to me is
Speaker 6: four factors in the in the equal equally contribute. The
Speaker 6: golf ball speed has not increased like everybody says they don't.
Speaker 6: They're not made faster, they're not going further because the
Speaker 6: speed at all, the speed is actually the same as
Speaker 6: it has been forever. But we've been able to design
Speaker 6: the balls having spin rate lower. So when when the
Speaker 6: spin rate is lower, the players are now launching the
Speaker 6: ball higher. High launch low spin is adding distance. So
Speaker 6: that's one factor. The second factor is the drivers. The
Speaker 6: drivers the sweet spots have gotten pretty big on them.
Speaker 6: The drivers have gotten longer, and the players are actually
Speaker 6: able to swing, you know, swing the club's a little
Speaker 6: bit more aggressive because they're pretty more forgiven that's added distance.
Speaker 6: The third thing is the players. The players today are
Speaker 6: into fitness and the bodies twist and turn like it
Speaker 6: hurts to watch them sometimes. But when I started in
Speaker 6: golf thirty four years ago, the tour average for ball
Speaker 6: speed was one hundred and sixty miles an hour, and
Speaker 6: these players today hit them one hundred and eighty one
Speaker 6: hundred and ninety miles an hour. That's just ball speed.
Speaker 6: So that's how fast they're hitting the ball, which hasn't
Speaker 6: increased in speed, but they've increased the ball velocity twenty
Speaker 6: thirty forty miles per hour, which is which is crazy.
Speaker 6: So that's the driver and the players. And then the
Speaker 6: third thing is the agronomy when you go out on
Speaker 6: these courses. You see some of these courses in Phoenix
Speaker 6: and in Hawaii where some of the balls are still rolling.
Speaker 6: You know, they get thirty forty fifty yards a row.
Speaker 6: If you come with me and play at my course
Speaker 6: on Saturday, sometimes we can fix the pitch marks on
Speaker 6: the side of our drives as they're softer and they're wet.
Speaker 6: So I studied this years ago at LaCosta, with the
Speaker 6: top ten players in the world played one year to
Speaker 6: the next year. It's when they used to do the
Speaker 6: Tour Championship there, I believe, and it rained one year,
Speaker 6: So just the same course with the same players year
Speaker 6: over year. It was about a twenty two or twenty
Speaker 6: three yard difference in distance driving distance in that week
Speaker 6: when they were there because the course was softer. So
Speaker 6: my personal opinion is, if this is truly a driver
Speaker 6: issue and you're worried about the balls going to fire
Speaker 6: and obsolete courses, you can do two things. Number One,
Speaker 6: if you really wanted to put something in as a restriction,
Speaker 6: the t height of the tee, if you made it
Speaker 6: a half inch or three quarters of an inch, that's
Speaker 6: going to add the spin that we just talked about.
Speaker 6: So just by teeing, just by having a maximum tea
Speaker 6: height of three quarters of an inch or a half
Speaker 6: an inch will take off ten to fifteen yards of distance.
Speaker 6: Because the players can't hit up on the ball and
Speaker 6: launch you that high launch glow spin, it's going to
Speaker 6: hit lower and have more spin, which will shorten the
Speaker 6: golf ball up. And then if you water the fairways
Speaker 6: and shape the fairways at three hundred yards with a
Speaker 6: little bit of rough. That one week they're at your course,
Speaker 6: you'll see that they won't row with fire. They'll take
Speaker 6: a little bit more, pay a little closer attention to
Speaker 6: the accuracy on the course design and layout. Try to
Speaker 6: keep it in the fairway. You know, we watch them
Speaker 6: play the US Open every year, and any course they play,
Speaker 6: it's set up to try to be power. So you
Speaker 6: can set courses up that one week they come to
Speaker 6: you to try to make it power, and it's fun
Speaker 6: to watch them struggle. But it's not fun if you
Speaker 6: did that forty weeks in the season and the players
Speaker 6: will get hurt. So I think if you control the
Speaker 6: t height, you water the fairways, you use a lawnmower
Speaker 6: to let it grow a little bit, and then cut
Speaker 6: it on Monday and let the rest of us play.
Speaker 6: You know, it's a lot easier, cheaper way to deal
Speaker 6: with If you believe that your course is being obsoleted
Speaker 6: by distance, you can't tell the players they can't hit
Speaker 6: it harder. You know, when a big hitter hits the
Speaker 6: ball fire and a short hit it doesn't, you can't
Speaker 6: blame the player for that. So by shorten and shortening
Speaker 6: a golf ball twenty five yards, you're moving back. The
Speaker 6: long hit is twenty five yards, but you're moving back
Speaker 6: the short hit is twenty five yards. And I honestly
Speaker 6: believe that you're going to create a bigger winning percentage
Speaker 6: of the long hitters because hitting an eight iron, in
Speaker 6: hitting a five iron, in with golf balls that have
Speaker 6: more spin on them with affected by the wind, that
Speaker 6: proximity to the pin is going to get bigger and
Speaker 6: you're going to see a big difference in scoring. And
Speaker 6: I don't think anybody wants to watch a guy hit
Speaker 6: a five y and thirty feet put down two put
Speaker 6: give a golf.
Speaker 3: Clap and move on. You know.
Speaker 6: They like to see some excitement in it and have
Speaker 6: players challenge a little bit. And you know, if you
Speaker 6: really think about it, if you wanted to, if you
Speaker 6: wanted to say, we don't want sixteen under to win
Speaker 6: the golf tournament. These par fours and everybody reaches in two,
Speaker 6: no part five. So everybody reaches in two that they
Speaker 6: play four rounds, take two of them and make them
Speaker 6: into par fours that week. You know, now this score
Speaker 6: is posted, will be eight under to win, not sixteen
Speaker 6: under and still playing the same golf course without without
Speaker 6: making any big expensive changes.
Speaker 4: I think that everybody agrees that distance games have been
Speaker 4: a combination of factors. I think that's a common ground here.
Speaker 4: That you know, players have trained to hit the drivers
Speaker 4: and the balls that they've been given, and that the swing,
Speaker 4: the golf swing has changed as a result. And so
Speaker 4: I think that there is broad agreement on that. Where
Speaker 4: there might be some disagreement is how we go about
Speaker 4: finding some kind of solution or even if we need
Speaker 4: a solution. There's a lot of disagreement about that. And
Speaker 4: I think listeners to this podcast know what my perspective
Speaker 4: on all this stuff is. I think I've stated that
Speaker 4: pretty frequently that that I don't think that courses should continue,
Speaker 4: should should continue to need to change as they have
Speaker 4: for you know, the past one hundred and fifty years
Speaker 4: in golf, and that we have to start looking to
Speaker 4: some other possible ways to rain in the distance that
Speaker 4: the golf ball is going. And I greet the MLR
Speaker 4: rule with a little bit of optimism. But what I'm
Speaker 4: really curious to, you know, ask you about, and to
Speaker 4: get into detail about, is what all of this looks
Speaker 4: like from you know, an expert on the engineering and
Speaker 4: manufacturing side, and so we haven't really even talked about
Speaker 4: the manufacturing consequences of an MLR ball, and so I
Speaker 4: wonder if you have any thoughts on what it's going
Speaker 4: to look like or what it's going to take for
Speaker 4: the OEMs to manufacture this new ball alongside their existing lines.
Speaker 6: Well, it's a it's a valid point on the on
Speaker 6: the cost. You know who's going to pay for it.
Speaker 6: The tour players don't pay for golf balls. So if
Speaker 6: you have to spend millions of dollars on creating.
Speaker 7: A new line, you know that can have new tooling
Speaker 7: and new engineering to create this separate line of golf
Speaker 7: balls that you have to make, you know, buy the
Speaker 7: equipment process, pay the people to make them, pack them,
Speaker 7: ship them to the tour, pay somebody to be on tour.
Speaker 6: Give them to the tour players for free. And you've
Speaker 6: got this big expense at the end of this time,
Speaker 6: with this cost to make this ball that's being used
Speaker 6: on tour that the people aren't going to buy because
Speaker 6: it's twenty twenty five yard shorter. So that's a big expense.
Speaker 6: What's going to happen with this proposal is the people
Speaker 6: that buy the golf balls are now going to see
Speaker 6: the price of theirs go up. So they say it
Speaker 6: doesn't affect the average consumer, but it really does. I
Speaker 6: mean there's a cost to it. Unless the USA are
Speaker 6: someone's going to say, hey, we'll give you twenty million
Speaker 6: dollars each and you guys go create this ball and
Speaker 6: supply it to the tour. There's no more contracts for
Speaker 6: tour players to play products and endorse them and then
Speaker 6: sell them based on players using them because they're not
Speaker 6: using the ball that they sell them. It's twenty yards shorter,
Speaker 6: So why would somebody want to buy that? They don't,
Speaker 6: So there's a big financial impact to this thought process
Speaker 6: that says I don't disagree that the players have hitting
Speaker 6: the golf ball and the yardages are getting, you know,
Speaker 6: crazy long. But when Mark maguire stands up in at
Speaker 6: home plate at Fenway Park or Aaron Judge with that
Speaker 6: short left field wall, they don't make them hit from
Speaker 6: the backstop.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: But the Bucky Dentz or the Each Rows or the
Speaker 6: short hitters could still win the game with a single
Speaker 6: or a double off the wall. So if you're physically
Speaker 6: able to hit the ball further, and you shorten it
Speaker 6: up twenty five yards, You're still physically able to hit
Speaker 6: the ball further, and you probably increased your chances to win.
Speaker 6: And there's a cost to it, and there's no money
Speaker 6: to it, and someone's going to pay for it on
Speaker 6: the back end. So that's that's my thought process on
Speaker 6: just the proposal of saying it's a golf ball. Now,
Speaker 6: if you put a t height max Of three quarters
Speaker 6: of an inch and you shorten the ball fifteen yards
Speaker 6: without changing anything so now nobody can hit. You're still
Speaker 6: going to move this the long hitters back. You're still
Speaker 6: going to create this issue where the short hitters are
Speaker 6: going to be at a bigger disadvantage because a lot
Speaker 6: of courses have added length. But this is this is
Speaker 6: definitely an elite kind of player, so I agree with that.
Speaker 6: But having the golf ball be the be the answer
Speaker 6: to hit a driver shorter is going to is going
Speaker 6: to create I think a bigger issue financially for the
Speaker 6: players and for the cost to make and for the
Speaker 6: manufacturers to get to the players and then pass on
Speaker 6: to the consumers. Somehow, someone's going to pay for it.
Speaker 3: So Dean.
Speaker 4: I hear you saying that this ball is going to
Speaker 4: be twenty five five yards shorter. That's the number you've
Speaker 4: used a couple of times. The governing bodies have estimated
Speaker 4: that they think that the ball is going to be
Speaker 4: fifteen yards shorter. Now, when you say twenty five yards,
Speaker 4: is that you kind of looking at the new parameters
Speaker 4: and sort of estimating what you think the new distance
Speaker 4: will be.
Speaker 6: I'm saying that you can't say it's going to be
Speaker 6: fifteen yards because that is a launch condition. At eleven degrees,
Speaker 6: at twenty two hundred spin, that's eight that's one shot
Speaker 6: You got one hundred and forty something toward players t
Speaker 6: and up a driver. There's one hundred and forty different
Speaker 6: launch conditions there. So everybody doesn't hit it at eleven
Speaker 6: degrees and twenty two hundred and they'll be fifteen yard shorter.
Speaker 6: Some guys are higher spinning players, they'll be twenty five
Speaker 6: yard shorter. Some guys are lower spinning players, they might
Speaker 6: be ten yard shorter. The gap it's not a it's
Speaker 6: not a a just a measured number that you use
Speaker 6: on a robot test that calculates a distance using that
Speaker 6: three hundred and twenty yard shot that they use is
Speaker 6: using you're lifted your aerodynamic properties with that speed and
Speaker 6: spin and launch. It's not even out on a driving range,
Speaker 6: it's not even.
Speaker 3: On a golf course.
Speaker 6: It's a calculated number based on launch conditions that are
Speaker 6: programmed into it with your ball performance characteristics. So there's
Speaker 6: no definitive one distance answer to this. Some guys might
Speaker 6: be ten, some guys might be twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: It could be it could be a big.
Speaker 6: Difference, it could be a small difference, but it's not
Speaker 6: a single point difference. That's a one launch condition. Watch
Speaker 6: on tour when they do the track Man system and
Speaker 6: they show the numbers behind it. And yesterday when I
Speaker 6: was watching it, one of the guys hit it one
Speaker 6: hundred and eighty two miles an hour and he was
Speaker 6: fourteen degree launch and twenty six hundred spin. And the
Speaker 6: other guy was one hundred and seventy and he was
Speaker 6: thirteen degree launched with twenty one hundred spin. Well, the
Speaker 6: guy that was slower and speed went longer because his
Speaker 6: launch angle spin with more optimum. So that's what happens
Speaker 6: when you when you have different players hit different shots,
Speaker 6: you can't predict what the distance.
Speaker 3: Is going to be.
Speaker 6: Only that one point that they defined is going to
Speaker 6: tell you what they test that, but it's not going
Speaker 6: to tell you what the tour is going to do.
Speaker 4: Some people in and around the equipment and industry have
Speaker 4: been saying that manufacturers might simply refuse to make the
Speaker 4: MLR ball if this rule in fact goes into effect.
Speaker 4: Do you think that's actually a possibility.
Speaker 6: Oh No, I mean that's a that's a question that
Speaker 6: I would that they that they would have to probably answer.
Speaker 3: But uh, I.
Speaker 6: Mean I I My question would be, if I was
Speaker 6: one of the big manufacturers, is who's going to pay
Speaker 6: for it?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 6: I mean, as a it's a big cost, it's a
Speaker 6: it's a big expense to support these places that people
Speaker 6: don't buy balls. But the people that do buy them
Speaker 6: actually pay, you know, they use the money to pay
Speaker 6: this this this stuff to be done. But now if
Speaker 6: you put all this cost into it and no one's
Speaker 6: going to buy them, then then you you're basically back
Speaker 6: to You're basically back to selling golf balls with no
Speaker 6: endorsements or support or or tour support whatsoever. No one's
Speaker 6: buying them, so that they would have to answer that question.
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't I don't know. You might see
Speaker 6: some people bail out of it, you know, if because
Speaker 6: they're not going to sell them. So what would be
Speaker 6: the value of a top manufacturer to supply this ball
Speaker 6: that they can't sell to anybody? What's the value to them?
Speaker 3: I don't know. But who's going to pay for it? Somebody?
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I know it's not going to come out of their
Speaker 6: bottom line profits.
Speaker 4: That's for sure, now, you know, addressing the menu, the sorry,
Speaker 4: the marketing piece of this, which you've mentioned a couple
Speaker 4: of times that you know, in an MLR era, marketing
Speaker 4: a tour ball would be very different. Now from my
Speaker 4: perspective as a consumer, and I admit that I may
Speaker 4: just be weird. I don't look at Justin Thomas and
Speaker 4: say I need to play the same ball that he does.
Speaker 4: I look at Justin Thomas and say he's playing a
Speaker 4: title ball. Titleist must be an awfully good golf ball.
Speaker 4: And then moreover, if I'm, you know, say, a savvier consumer,
Speaker 4: I look at a ball like the one that you make,
Speaker 4: Dean and say, well, maybe I'm not sure if you
Speaker 4: have a tour staff, do you have a tour staff.
Speaker 4: We don't direct a consumer model. Basically an excellent product.
Speaker 4: I've played it, I've played snowballs. They're just as good
Speaker 4: as anything else. I, as a savvy consumer, will look
Speaker 4: at that and say, you know this Dean Snell guy
Speaker 4: knows how to make a golf ball. I bet these
Speaker 4: are pretty good, even if nobody on tour is playing it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to play this golf ball because I think
Speaker 4: this is going to be good for my game. And
Speaker 4: you know what, it's cheaper than the other options. It's
Speaker 4: cheaper than me going and buying a sleeve at the
Speaker 4: pro shop. So in that sense, do you think that
Speaker 4: marketing will be a lot more difficult for tour ball
Speaker 4: makers or will it just be Will it just be different?
Speaker 4: Will it? Will they have to fight new ways to
Speaker 4: market this new product.
Speaker 6: Well, if you break down what you said there into
Speaker 6: two different areas, the first part of your the first
Speaker 6: part of your statement was that you believe that some
Speaker 6: people think, like Justin Thomas plays a Titus ball, So
Speaker 6: I'm playing a Titus ball because it's good. Well, Justin
Speaker 6: Thomas plays a prov one ball, and I buy the
Speaker 6: prov one because Justin Thomas is playing that. So I
Speaker 6: think that's when you look at Titleist total sales, the
Speaker 6: Prov one and prov one X are a huge the
Speaker 6: biggest portion of their sales. People aren't buying the cheaper
Speaker 6: ball from Titleis because they know it's good. Because Justin
Speaker 6: Thomas plays the titles. They're buying the ball that he's
Speaker 6: playing and spending a lot more money to buy it.
Speaker 6: So I don't know if I agree with you on
Speaker 6: because he's playing titles, that's what they'll go buy because
Speaker 6: they could do that and their sales would be higher
Speaker 6: on the cheaper product, but it does. They're buying it
Speaker 6: because that's what he's using. It's a tour ball. It's
Speaker 6: so successful they advertise it. Now, if Justin Thomas plays
Speaker 6: a tie to US pro v one mL Our ball
Speaker 6: and it's and it's sitting on the shelf and he
Speaker 6: wins the tournament with it, do you think someone's going
Speaker 6: to go buy the Title US mL Our ball that
Speaker 6: they put this money into and the value. Do you
Speaker 6: think that would be their number one selling ball anymore?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
Speaker 6: You know, it would be some other model that they
Speaker 6: would have, maybe the current prov one that that they
Speaker 6: that they don't use on tour. I don't know, but
Speaker 6: they would have to have a separate model this this
Speaker 6: tour ball would have to be separate that wouldn't be sold,
Speaker 6: you know that that no one would want to buy.
Speaker 6: And I think there's a whole group of people out
Speaker 6: there that buy clubs that the tour supports because they
Speaker 6: see it as being as good and they do it
Speaker 6: by models. Every manufacturer has a Bridge Stone has the
Speaker 6: B series, you know, the tour series, CALLI has the
Speaker 6: Chrome Soft. All these manufacturers have these top of the
Speaker 6: line balls that are then number one selling ball. And
Speaker 6: it's not because it's the brand name and I know
Speaker 6: they make something good and I'll buy something cheaper. It's
Speaker 6: because that's what they see them play and that's what
Speaker 6: they want to play, and that's why there's a model
Speaker 6: name to it as well.
Speaker 4: So I've heard some concerns that this might be taking
Speaker 4: money out of tour players' pockets in the end because
Speaker 4: of this marketing issue that you're bringing up. Do you
Speaker 4: think that's a real, you know, plausible situation here that
Speaker 4: that tour player sponsorships could be worthless because of this,
Speaker 4: and that might be one reason that PGA tour stars
Speaker 4: might resist this new rule.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, there's got to be one reason for it.
Speaker 6: And god, I also think that you know, they they
Speaker 6: also understand that they're you know that they work hard,
Speaker 6: they're athletes, they fit, they they spend a lot of
Speaker 6: time in the gym. You know, like I said, the
Speaker 6: ball speed that the tour players are hitting today has
Speaker 6: gone up thirty miles an hour because of the players.
Speaker 6: It's not because because of the ball. So they've worked
Speaker 6: hard to get themselves into this position to have to
Speaker 6: have a little bit of advantage to hit it further.
Speaker 6: And you know, now you're going to push them back.
Speaker 6: You're pushing everybody back. So to me, it's it steps back.
Speaker 6: You know, the players themselves are going to lose money,
Speaker 6: There's no question about it. No one's going to get
Speaker 6: paid millions of dollars to pay something that they can't sell.
Speaker 6: And they may they may sell something to wear the
Speaker 6: hat and be on tour and you know, and use
Speaker 6: the clubs and things like that, but the golf ball
Speaker 6: side to it is used on every shot. And if
Speaker 6: you want to play what the tour players play, you're
Speaker 6: not going to You're going to use what they sell
Speaker 6: on the side and not what the tour play is play,
Speaker 6: because that's a different, totally different product that's made to
Speaker 6: be shorter and spin more So, I think there is
Speaker 6: a there is a big loss and financial side to
Speaker 6: the tour. I don't know if the reason why they're
Speaker 6: against it is because of money. It has to be
Speaker 6: part of it, but I don't think it's the whole reason.
Speaker 6: I really think they take pride in being athletes now
Speaker 6: and working hard to be able to have this you know,
Speaker 6: this distance that they that they've in everybody's game distance.
Speaker 6: It's not it's not just the elite tour players have
Speaker 6: gotten longer. The short hitters have gotten longer too. But
Speaker 6: but moving people up and back is just you know,
Speaker 6: water the fairway.
Speaker 3: Try, just try.
Speaker 6: I don't know what they did to the course this
Speaker 6: week and the tournament that we just watched, but I
Speaker 6: think nine or ten under one twenty one hunderd win.
Speaker 6: You know, So if you, if you're a course set
Speaker 6: up for the week that they're there, challenge them a
Speaker 6: little bit on it and soften it up a little
Speaker 6: bit and make the rough just a little thicker where
Speaker 6: it takes takes the bombing guage kind of part out
Speaker 6: of it. You know, I think the scores can be
Speaker 6: brought back a little bit. But uh, but I like
Speaker 6: I say, I don't disagree with with the fact that
Speaker 6: the players hit the ball longer than.
Speaker 3: The courses were made for. I don't disagree with that.
Speaker 6: I just think for me personally, golf is fun right now,
Speaker 6: and it's growing and different players can win that you
Speaker 6: really don't know who they are, and and it's uh,
Speaker 6: you know, people kind of want that one week, might
Speaker 6: want to see birdies and then they come to the
Speaker 6: US Open and they watch them struggle for power, and
Speaker 6: then they go back and play again. So I'd like
Speaker 6: to see them soften them up a little bit during
Speaker 6: the week. You know, they can firm the greens up,
Speaker 6: they can soften the fairways up, they can have the
Speaker 6: rough a little bit higher and shape it a little bit.
Speaker 3: Just try that, you know.
Speaker 6: If the pg but that's a PGA Tour issue, not
Speaker 6: a USGA issue from a rule point of view. So
Speaker 6: that's the course set up, and you see the USBA
Speaker 6: does that during the US Open. They do the course
Speaker 6: setup and it's very easy to make a golf course
Speaker 6: play the power, which they can do. So I think
Speaker 6: there's opportunities there. This distance issue right now is not
Speaker 6: us on a Saturday morning at a golf course. Our
Speaker 6: groups don't even play the back tees, you know, this
Speaker 6: tie is further back, so nobody's really The amateur golfer
Speaker 6: is not adding forty yards to his drives, you know, like.
Speaker 3: The tour players are. But the tour players are doing it.
Speaker 6: Because the fairways of the failways the tour plays at
Speaker 6: are like greens that we play on for average golfers,
Speaker 6: you know, when they roll a lot, you know, and
Speaker 6: they're they're able to hit the ball further obviously and faster.
Speaker 3: So there's a.
Speaker 6: Lot of factors in this, but I just think shortening
Speaker 6: it up fifteen twenty twenty five yards, whatever it ends
Speaker 6: up being, is going to create a lot more issues
Speaker 6: than that one week that they play at the course
Speaker 6: that they're worried about.
Speaker 4: It's definitely going to be complex, And you know what
Speaker 4: I find so interesting about this debate is the different
Speaker 4: perspectives that we as golfers all bring to it. You know,
Speaker 4: you're you're coming at this from the perspective of a
Speaker 4: ball expert in a ball manufactured and also a golfer.
Speaker 4: I don't want to discount that that part of it.
Speaker 4: I come at it more from the perspective of somebody
Speaker 4: who loves golf courses above pretty much everything else. And
Speaker 4: I like when golf courses play firm. I like when
Speaker 4: golf courses aren't overwatered. I like when golf courses don't
Speaker 4: have super high rough where there's a why area in
Speaker 4: which players can kind of strategize and find out different
Speaker 4: ways to attack the whole That that, to me is
Speaker 4: really interesting and a key part of the game. And
Speaker 4: that's the part of the game that that I see
Speaker 4: potentially being protected here. But the way that this is
Speaker 4: being gone about, you know, the exact method of protection
Speaker 4: here find you know, figuring out an MLR ball is
Speaker 4: obviously going to have its own sort of consequences that
Speaker 4: are that are worth thinking about. Even for somebody like
Speaker 4: me who is saying the courses are the most important thing.
Speaker 4: Let's think about that first before we do anything else.
Speaker 4: I would acknowledge that, man, this is creating a real
Speaker 4: set of difficulties for ball manufacturers and ball engineers. Now
Speaker 4: I know that you don't manufacture a tour intended ball.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that the that the MLR is going
Speaker 4: to affect Snell Golf's business. But do you do you
Speaker 4: see this new potential reality affecting the way that Snell
Speaker 4: Golf goes about things.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 6: I mean, we've had seven or eight tour players come
Speaker 6: to us and want to play the ball and tour
Speaker 6: and we've respectfully declined it's not our business model. We
Speaker 6: try to keep the cost down and make the tour
Speaker 6: performance be available to all of our customers by director consumers.
Speaker 3: So you know, we've eliminated.
Speaker 6: A lot of the other things that have big expenses
Speaker 6: to them, and we pass that savings back to our customers.
Speaker 6: So it's no cheaper to make the golf what we
Speaker 6: do today than it is to make a tailor made
Speaker 6: of titleist. It's the same cost, but the added cost
Speaker 6: that they have to support that tour is what I'm
Speaker 6: talking about. If our golf ball sell for twenty nine
Speaker 6: to nine nine a dozen and their self for fifty
Speaker 6: five dollars a dozen, and they cost the same to make,
Speaker 6: that's the cost that they're putting into financing the tour,
Speaker 6: Having people on tour, having reps, pro shops markups margins.
Speaker 6: So it's easy to figure out what that is to
Speaker 6: become a global brand, top of the line, you know company,
Speaker 6: which they are. So I mean I look at it
Speaker 6: as I'm also a fan of golf, you know, as
Speaker 6: you mentioned about your the course side to it. The
Speaker 6: issue on the course that you're talking about is the
Speaker 6: is one week that the tour is there. It's not
Speaker 6: an issue on the course fifty one weeks out of
Speaker 6: the year to golfers that pay to play golf, you know.
Speaker 6: So I look at this issue as as let's let's
Speaker 6: keep the game fun, Let's get people to want to play.
Speaker 6: Let's make it easier for people to try to play
Speaker 6: on a game that's extremely difficult, not the PGA Tour level,
Speaker 6: but to the you know, an average handicap I believe
Speaker 6: is somewhere around seventeen.
Speaker 3: You know, single digits are.
Speaker 6: Less than five percent of all golfers. So this is
Speaker 6: this is what we have as a business that we
Speaker 6: want people to join this game that we all love
Speaker 6: and watch. And I a lot of friends that watch,
Speaker 6: and they want to see birdies on the weekend. They
Speaker 6: don't want to see people struggle for power. So it's
Speaker 6: just as a fan, not as a not as a
Speaker 6: guy in the business, but as a fan of golf,
Speaker 6: that's that's my preference of what I want to see,
Speaker 6: and I just see this as a you know, that
Speaker 6: week that that they're at your course. And again, I
Speaker 6: don't know what they did this week at Innisbrook. I
Speaker 6: don't know if it was windy. I didn't see a
Speaker 6: lot of the event, but ten under one the one
Speaker 6: there the tournament, and I'm not sure what happened with it,
Speaker 6: but it wasn't twenty one twenty two hunder. And they
Speaker 6: weren't obsolete in the course by any means. Harbortown for
Speaker 6: years was one of the shortest courses on tour, and
Speaker 6: they're set up that they had when the tour came in.
Speaker 6: I believe like eight to ten under was the lowest
Speaker 6: score average for a long time, and then it went
Speaker 6: to twelve. I'm not sure what it is today, but
Speaker 6: there were there were a lot of a lot of
Speaker 6: places that you know that that can create some excitement
Speaker 6: for golf. Look at the tenth hole at Riviera. Every
Speaker 6: player can probably drive that that green and they were
Speaker 6: struggling to make power a lot because of the way
Speaker 6: it's that up. So it doesn't necessarily mean that we
Speaker 6: have to add yards to courses, but we can change
Speaker 6: maybe a setup a little bit during that week for
Speaker 6: them to play and still and still let the ninety
Speaker 6: nine percent of people that pay for everything for one
Speaker 6: hundred percent of people that pay for everything kind.
Speaker 3: Of enjoy it.
Speaker 6: You know, that's just my personal opinion. I agree with
Speaker 6: you on the hit. They hit it fire and the
Speaker 6: old fashioned courses can't you know, they're hitting it further
Speaker 6: than what they were designed to do. I got that,
Speaker 6: you know, But I just think that the solution that's
Speaker 6: proposed create You mean, you could you could put a
Speaker 6: rule in golf saying you can't use the t you
Speaker 6: just now you've just take them back thirty yards, you know,
Speaker 6: And if you if you do the USGA proposal and
Speaker 6: say let's bring them back to their number fifteen yards,
Speaker 6: does that solve the problem when they're hitting the ball
Speaker 6: three hundred and seventy five yards three hundred and sixty
Speaker 6: yards off the tee, is three fifty a solution?
Speaker 4: Well? You know, I've often wondered during this whether this
Speaker 4: is going to be enough and how quickly very smart
Speaker 4: engineers are going to figure out how to get us
Speaker 4: back to the same place that we were, and this
Speaker 4: is something that the USGA has acknowledged as a possibility,
Speaker 4: and and so that's yeah. I've I've definitely wondered about
Speaker 4: that myself, whether you know, if it's fifteen yards, if
Speaker 4: that's the number that it's reduced by, is that the
Speaker 4: magic number somehow? And I don't think that there is
Speaker 4: is necessarily a magic number. It's it's an enormously intricate problem.
Speaker 4: And I'm not sure that that we're going to solve
Speaker 4: it in one fell swoop. But I think I think
Speaker 4: we can agree on that, you and I, Dean.
Speaker 6: I want to make one more point. What's interesting about
Speaker 6: what you were just talking about? What I mentioned a
Speaker 6: minute ago that the tour average was one hundred and
Speaker 6: sixty miles per hour with ball speed and out. Today
Speaker 6: you see players hitting it one seventy, one eighty seven
Speaker 6: bryce and close to one ninety. And you still see
Speaker 6: players hitting at one sixty eight or so. There is
Speaker 6: your problem. If you're looking for a solution to something
Speaker 6: it there is no solution if the player can take
Speaker 6: a golf ball that's the same ball maxed out speed
Speaker 6: and get hit it thirty or forty miles an hour faster,
Speaker 6: because the player can do that with the same equipment.
Speaker 6: You're not going to solve a distance problem by saying
Speaker 6: what's the right number to bring them back because in
Speaker 6: golf at those speeds, every mile an hour in ball
Speaker 6: speed is about two two.
Speaker 3: And a half yards of distance.
Speaker 6: So someone is thirty to forty miles an hour faster
Speaker 6: in ball speed. Just ball speed, which is which they're
Speaker 6: all playing the same ball. They all play in the
Speaker 6: same ball speed max out. If you're thirty miles an hour,
Speaker 6: you're sixty to seventy five yards ahead of that person.
Speaker 6: So shortening the ball up twenty five yards of fifteen yards,
Speaker 6: you're still going to be sixty to seventy five yards
Speaker 6: ahead of that person. You know, so that you can't
Speaker 6: you can't tell the player he can't hit the ball
Speaker 6: that much faster than the other player. So distance is
Speaker 6: going to always be a challenge. And there isn't a
Speaker 6: there is a there is a The number they're picking
Speaker 6: is a is a ball speed, launch, angle, and spin
Speaker 6: one number. But they forget the fact that Bryson hits
Speaker 6: it at one ninety and some of the shorter hitters
Speaker 6: hit it at one sixty five or one seventy. That's
Speaker 6: forty yards of distance right there. It shortened the ball
Speaker 6: up twenty you know. It's it's basically you're making this
Speaker 6: this guy still be forty yards behind him, but twenty
Speaker 6: yards further back, you know. So that that's the challenge
Speaker 6: that's there, which I don't I don't have a solution
Speaker 6: to that, because the players have been able to be
Speaker 6: able to work their bodies and generate that kind of
Speaker 6: swing speed which generates that kind of ball speed.
Speaker 4: Look, if it were up to me, we'd all be
Speaker 4: going back to persimmon and balls with liquid in the middle.
Speaker 4: So that's I think that that was If if Bryson
Speaker 4: is looking at a at a Persimon driver from nineteen eighty,
Speaker 4: I bet he's not swinging quite as hard at it
Speaker 4: and looking to find middle a little bit more. And
Speaker 4: if the ball's spinning a lot, then then I'm sure
Speaker 4: everything would change. And yeah, I mean I think that
Speaker 4: we all know sort of what happened in the eighties
Speaker 4: and nineties when it came to the new technology and
Speaker 4: golf equipment. It was an amazing achievement on the part
Speaker 4: of engineers to come up with these ideas but it
Speaker 4: definitely permanently altered the game of golf, and we're dealing
Speaker 4: with that now. So Dean, thank you so much for
Speaker 4: coming on the podcast and sharing your perspective. I really
Speaker 4: appreciate it.
Speaker 3: All righty, my pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 4: One more quick break and Joseph Lamania and I will
Speaker 4: be back with our storylines to track this week in golf.
Speaker 4: All right, Joseph storylines. So anything that you're looking at
Speaker 4: this week in golf that you think could put potentially
Speaker 4: develop and be interesting.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: I think there are again, some people like the new
Speaker 5: PGA Tour schedule that's been announced for next year. Some
Speaker 5: people hate it. One of the components is that the
Speaker 5: designated events are going to be limited fields seventy to
Speaker 5: eighty players, and fifty of those spots are going to
Speaker 5: be filled by the previous year's FedEx Cup standing, so
Speaker 5: if you were top fifty, you're into all the designated events.
Speaker 5: One of the massive benefits of configuring things this way
Speaker 5: is that the race to get into the top fifty
Speaker 5: means a lot more now, and so that is something
Speaker 5: that I've already been tracking. Other people have made the
Speaker 5: same point. It's kind of cool to start looking at
Speaker 5: the FedEx Cup standings and appreciate what it means. So
Speaker 5: I would give an example this week of a player
Speaker 5: like Kevin Kisner, who's had a really poor start to
Speaker 5: this PGA Tour season. He's ranked I'm looking it up
Speaker 5: right now, at one hundred and eighty first in the
Speaker 5: FedEx Cup standings. If he wants to get into the
Speaker 5: top fifty at the end of the year, he has
Speaker 5: to take advantage of courses like this fit him well
Speaker 5: and then he's had success on in the past.
Speaker 2: So that's a cool story to watch. It's like some
Speaker 2: of these golfers.
Speaker 5: Like Matt Kocher, Billy Horschel, Kevin Kisner, when they get
Speaker 5: to a course that fits their game, do they take
Speaker 5: advantage of it, because if they don't, they may be
Speaker 5: on the outside looking in at the end of the year.
Speaker 5: And I think it's a really cool storyline to track
Speaker 5: this year in a testament to what the PGA Tour
Speaker 5: has done with the new schedule and.
Speaker 4: Do they take advantage of the match play format and
Speaker 4: some of that opportunity that it presents to players who
Speaker 4: might not be able to beat the top guys over
Speaker 4: seventy two holes, right match play. I'm starting to think
Speaker 4: of a match play tournament as a kind of shuffling
Speaker 4: of the deck on the PGA Tour, really useful shuffling
Speaker 4: of the deck where some people might rise, some people
Speaker 4: might fall, But it's a way to kind of break
Speaker 4: the flow of seventy two hole stroke play and its
Speaker 4: relative reliability and just get in there and kind of
Speaker 4: mess things up. And that's good. A little bit of chaos,
Speaker 4: a little injection of chaos, just like in golf course design,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, can be really good.
Speaker 5: Totally agree, right, And I think a cool thing about
Speaker 5: match play is if you're struggling, you're going home. But
Speaker 5: if you're struggling in the third round of a seventy
Speaker 5: two whole tournament stroke play and you have a couple
Speaker 5: bad holes to finish your round, you can get a
Speaker 5: good night's sleep and go out play a soft course
Speaker 5: in the morning and hope you go low. That doesn't
Speaker 5: exist in match play, so I think that's really cool.
Speaker 5: Also to the high variance point, it is high variance,
Speaker 5: but part of that is the golf course is a
Speaker 5: little bit different. Scotty Scheffler's finished, he's won, and he's
Speaker 5: been runner up here in his two starts.
Speaker 2: It's not a complete crapshoot.
Speaker 5: So I think it has a great balance between chaos
Speaker 5: and rewarding mentally tough play when one players step up
Speaker 5: and hit good shots.
Speaker 4: All right, So my storyline this week is pretty simple.
Speaker 4: Will more equipment companies come out against the model local rule? Now?
Speaker 4: Titleist got a lot of attention this past week, or
Speaker 4: kushnit It's parent company, got a lot of attention for
Speaker 4: putting out a long, very critical statement about the model
Speaker 4: local rule. They're against it. We knew that they've been
Speaker 4: against it. They've been preemptively arguing against this rule for
Speaker 4: years and years now, for decades, and so that was
Speaker 4: no surprise. But Titleist is the market leader in ball
Speaker 4: manufacturing right now. They have a position to defend. They
Speaker 4: don't like the idea of things being disrupted this much. Now.
Speaker 4: Other manufacturers were a lot more quiet. Bridgetone did put
Speaker 4: out a statement of its own, but it was significantly
Speaker 4: more lukewarm. They said, we're concerned about the idea of bifurcation.
Speaker 4: We don't want anything to get in the way of
Speaker 4: golf's success right now. But they also said we're going
Speaker 4: to continue making as good of a ball as we can,
Speaker 4: and so basically they're saying, if this happens, fine, we'll
Speaker 4: adjust to it. The other manufacturers were totally silent, gave
Speaker 4: a complete no comment. They said, we are studying the
Speaker 4: information and the proposals provided we have no further comment
Speaker 4: at this time. Taylor Made did not say anything. Strickson
Speaker 4: did not say anything. Wilson did not say anything. Go Wilson.
Speaker 4: So this is interesting to me because you know, according
Speaker 4: to the common sense position on all this, every ball
Speaker 4: manufacturer is super against the model local rule ball and
Speaker 4: the governing bodies are going to have a revolt on
Speaker 4: their hands. But so far, it doesn't seem like that's
Speaker 4: the case. It seems like there are some sort of
Speaker 4: second tier in terms of the market manufacturers looking at
Speaker 4: this and saying, you know, we're not going to say
Speaker 4: anything about this right now because this could be an
Speaker 4: opportunity for us. So I wonder if that's what they're
Speaker 4: thinking now. If they come out this week and say
Speaker 4: we're against the model Local rule just as much as
Speaker 4: Titleist is, then then that's one thing. Maybe they just
Speaker 4: needed some time to study this. But you know what,
Speaker 4: they've all had a lot of time to consider a
Speaker 4: possibility like this. They all sort of knew this was coming,
Speaker 4: and so I think that they're silence so far is
Speaker 4: really notable. And what I'm going to be looking out
Speaker 4: for is if they do say something this week, and
Speaker 4: if they don't, then I think that there are some
Speaker 4: sort of second, third, fourth place manufacturers looking at Titleist
Speaker 4: and saying we might be able to take that throne.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Look, I think if the government came out and said
Speaker 5: that chocolate is bad for you and we're going to
Speaker 5: reduce chocolate consumption in the country, Hershey's would come out
Speaker 5: with a statement that they're displeased. Yes, And that's what
Speaker 5: a kushnet coming out with this statement that they're not
Speaker 5: happy with the rollback. To me, it's the same thing, like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we get it, you're financially incentivized to keep the train rolling.
Speaker 5: But coming out of the statement that you're upset is
Speaker 5: very different than saying you're not going to adapt to it.
Speaker 5: And until somebody comes out and says we're not even
Speaker 5: going to build that ball, then it's all just noise
Speaker 5: to me.
Speaker 2: So I agree with you.
Speaker 5: I'm really excited to see how this shakes out and
Speaker 5: there's going to be an opportunity for a hungry ball
Speaker 5: manufacturer to come up and fill that need.
Speaker 4: All right, Joseph, thank you for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Garret appreciate it.
Speaker 4: To This episode of the fridagg Podcast was produced and
Speaker 4: edited by Matt Rushius. Thank you, Matt. If you'd like
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