Speaker 1: I miss the green.
Speaker 2: For example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball
Speaker 2: in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find
Speaker 2: my ball in a fried egg Friday Egg, the dreaded
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, Friday Friday Bride Egg, Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 2: to run off of the course. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome
Speaker 2: back to another edition of the Friday Egg Podcast. Today,
Speaker 2: I'm joined by PGA Tour Champions Star and former PGA
Speaker 2: Tour winner Paul Paul. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1: Good Thanks. Star kind of caught me off guard, but
Speaker 1: Journeyman been more the title, but I'll pick Star for
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 2: Hey, you got some wins on the Champions Store.
Speaker 1: I do have a I do have a couple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, former assistant Ryder Cup Captain. They don't
Speaker 2: they don't give that out to anyway.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I can base the argument that the
Speaker 1: fact that I was an assistant Ryder company belies that argument.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, Corey saw something that nobody else saw
Speaker 1: that was quite the experience.
Speaker 2: So to kick things off, I think you're you're most
Speaker 2: known for your fifty nine and I'm I want to
Speaker 2: know about what went on, you know, the night before
Speaker 2: the preceedings to the fifty nine. You know, was there
Speaker 2: anything that was different than a usual you know night
Speaker 2: before a tournament.
Speaker 1: No, not really, And i'd really been actually been struggling
Speaker 1: a little bit. I think I'd missed three cuts in
Speaker 1: a row prior to and you know, it was going
Speaker 1: through my usual prep that week and then Wednesday in
Speaker 1: the program on on Wednesday morning, and as soon as
Speaker 1: we got done, you know, the skies opened up, and
Speaker 1: I mean it rained so hard. I remember I was
Speaker 1: trying to go to the I think I was trying
Speaker 1: to go to a store and you could get out
Speaker 1: of your car because it was flooding everything. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, normally you'd be practicing Wednesday afternoon. That was
Speaker 1: a Wednesday. I knew he just kind of watched it
Speaker 1: at the hotel and watched it rain, which obviously led
Speaker 1: to little easier scoring conditions the next day. But no, nothing, nothing.
Speaker 1: I had no expectations. Zero.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Golf's the funny game. And uh I remember
Speaker 2: David Devall saying that he like never hit balls a
Speaker 2: lot because when he was struggling, he didn't want to
Speaker 2: hit balls, and when he was hitting it good, he
Speaker 2: didn't want to hit balls to, you know, lose rhythm.
Speaker 2: Was that the type of yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I tend to I have, you know, if I'm really
Speaker 1: struggling sometimes look at my Caddy will talk about going
Speaker 1: to the range and having to purge and just trying
Speaker 1: to get all bet swings out. But I do think
Speaker 1: there's you know it. I tend to try to do
Speaker 1: a lot of reflection, so I think, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the best practice that get done is kind of
Speaker 1: sitting down, like I said, like that Wednesday or it rained,
Speaker 1: and you can kind of think, hey, I've been struggling,
Speaker 1: why I've been struggling, And sometimes you know that self
Speaker 1: analysis is an important part of it, and I tend
Speaker 1: to do that a lot too. Having said that, there
Speaker 1: are times when you just feel lost, and there are
Speaker 1: plenty of times in the range where I've hit it
Speaker 1: that and just said, you know what, I don't need
Speaker 1: to hit it. I don't. I'm gonna go practice something else.
Speaker 1: This is awful or even putty it kept on. You
Speaker 1: throw down a ball at four feet and try to
Speaker 1: make ten in a row, and you can't make one
Speaker 1: in a row, and you you know, sometimes the best
Speaker 1: thing you can do is just you know, hey, today's
Speaker 1: not your day, Tomorrow's another day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think everybody's been there with like the shot cut.
Speaker 1: It happens, Yeah, it happens. You know, your linement gets
Speaker 1: a little squirrely and something something's just not registering for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. Maybe you you know, you sat, you slept
Speaker 1: funny that night, and you're hips get a little owl.
Speaker 1: Who knows. So there are there are things that happen
Speaker 1: in our sport, and sometimes we tend to especially younger guys.
Speaker 1: I knows, I've gotten older hopefully experience sometimes you can
Speaker 1: you can't kind of practice yourself into a funk, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you just need to say, step step back, take
Speaker 1: a look, take a breath, and say to level their day,
Speaker 1: we'll go back to work.
Speaker 2: So as your perspective on just the game. And you know,
Speaker 2: getting ready for tournaments changed a lot over your career.
Speaker 1: Yeah, again that goes back to experience. I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: I was, I don't know, middle of my career playing
Speaker 1: Hartford and i'd had a really good tuesday. I played
Speaker 1: a practice round and really really had a good couple
Speaker 1: you know, went to the range and really hit the ball,
Speaker 1: really really happened with everything. You know, went to the
Speaker 1: chipping you work on a short day and chipping everything in.
Speaker 1: I went to the putting rain and making thirty footers.
Speaker 1: I remember talking to John Wood, who's a caddie out there.
Speaker 1: I think he's working for Matt Kotcher now and going
Speaker 1: then you know, hey, this has been kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I can't I don't know what to practice now, I'm
Speaker 1: making everything, I'm chipping in and I'm picnic good, and
Speaker 1: he goes, let's just go home. Yeah, you've done, You're good.
Speaker 1: And then again the same thing happened. I was at
Speaker 1: the prime got ready down, so I actually took thirty
Speaker 1: six hours, didn't touch a club, went out a shot,
Speaker 1: out't know ten or eleven under for the first two days.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of funny how this concept of of
Speaker 1: over practicing. I have five hours of daylight. I need
Speaker 1: to use that. And sometimes, as a younger player get
Speaker 1: caught into this. I need to I need to work,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the best thing you can do is say, hey,
Speaker 1: things are good, let's go relax and get ready.
Speaker 2: H I think I find that in my older age.
Speaker 2: You know, I played amateur stuff, but I've as I've
Speaker 2: gotten older, I practiced way, way, way less, and it
Speaker 2: seems like I almost better than I was when I
Speaker 2: practice all the time outside of it.
Speaker 1: But I think part of that, part of that scouse
Speaker 1: were better. Part of that Scouds were better at practicing.
Speaker 1: We get more focused on our practice. We kind of
Speaker 1: said that you get you get you get good at
Speaker 1: setting goals your practice, you get good at you know,
Speaker 1: just getting better at practicing. You can get more done
Speaker 1: in an hour when you're at my age now that
Speaker 1: I could get done that, you know, two or three
Speaker 1: hours when I was twenty five. They really know I
Speaker 1: was doing. And so I've gotten a better idea of
Speaker 1: what it takes and how to play well. What I
Speaker 1: need to do. What are what are my strengths? That
Speaker 1: self evaluation issue that you need to have if you're
Speaker 1: going to get better, I mean on a self evaluation
Speaker 1: is something that every I don't care what your whether,
Speaker 1: you don't care what you do for a living, you
Speaker 1: need to have that. And sometimes it's you think and
Speaker 1: need to go to work, but sometimes hey, things are good,
Speaker 1: you need to go rest and be ready to go apply.
Speaker 2: What in terms of like self evaluation, it had how
Speaker 2: much has stats changed the way you can do that.
Speaker 1: You know the problem with golf stats is they tend
Speaker 1: to be intermixed to some extent. Now they have these
Speaker 1: new ones. It's these the engineers that come up with
Speaker 1: about strokes, game cutting and driving and whatnot, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how they work. I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 1: There was something someone had told me. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's true or not that that when I shot
Speaker 1: fifty nine, I had like the greatest stroke screen putting
Speaker 1: around and they had ever measured. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was durious of that time. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was true or not. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you even find that out. But the problem you have
Speaker 1: with some of the staffs that's take you know, you know,
Speaker 1: say putts per green and regulation. You know, if I
Speaker 1: had a good drive in the ferway and hold my
Speaker 1: whole five iron, I have zero puts for green and
Speaker 1: reulation in the course of this tour. I'm the best
Speaker 1: potter on tour. That seems odd. I haven't putted, you know.
Speaker 1: You know bunkers, you know sand saves. You know, if
Speaker 1: I hit a three feet and miss it, my sand
Speaker 1: game and I'm forty two percent. That doesn't mean I
Speaker 1: need to work on my standing any work on my
Speaker 1: three footers. There's a lot of so there's a lot
Speaker 1: of intermingling, and after that the evaluation actually kind of
Speaker 1: I would actually say the opposite. You need to be
Speaker 1: enough self aware about yourself and again to you know,
Speaker 1: know thyself is probably the best piece of advice you
Speaker 1: could give a young players. Know who you are and
Speaker 1: you know what you can do, and against evaluate. But
Speaker 1: if I go out and look at the stats and
Speaker 1: seven forty Sam says, there's there's a deeper deal there
Speaker 1: that you need to dive into. And but again, if
Speaker 1: a player can place for six months and can't realize
Speaker 1: what he's struggling with, then that's that's another set of problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think you see a lot of times when
Speaker 2: when players try and like you know, they have a
Speaker 2: lot of success and then they try and you know,
Speaker 2: you know Martin Kaimer famously, I think he was trying
Speaker 2: to add a fade or a draw. I think it
Speaker 2: was a draw for Augusta a draw, yeah, right, And uh,
Speaker 2: you know Luke Donald, you know, went on a quest
Speaker 2: for more distance when he was world number one, did
Speaker 2: you ever have anything like in your career where you
Speaker 2: tried to implement something and it it just was the
Speaker 2: wrong move.
Speaker 1: Now, we never really went down that path as on
Speaker 1: how I evaluated myself. I take the loose. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't you know, for me to be you know,
Speaker 1: Martin Kimer, when you played bad, was a better player
Speaker 1: than I was. Let alone, when he played good, he
Speaker 1: didn't choose Yeah, not yet anyway. The lou Donald issues
Speaker 1: is though again got the number one in the world.
Speaker 1: That's that's a stratosphere that I never even looked at,
Speaker 1: but he looked at it and try to get more length.
Speaker 1: And that's a part of That's an age. He's thirties,
Speaker 1: in his thirties, and he's looking at how the game
Speaker 1: is changing. You know, I've always been a short hitter.
Speaker 1: Kind of my last ten years on tour, I was
Speaker 1: in the bottom ten percent in distance, and I never
Speaker 1: really tried to hit it farther. I said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: never going to hit it farther or he's not significant.
Speaker 1: I always tried to figure out way to hit straighter.
Speaker 1: I said, if I'm going to hit it, if you're
Speaker 1: going to drive it short, you have to drive it straight.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're in short and cruk that you
Speaker 1: know that's again that's a whole other set of problems
Speaker 1: that I that I so I never tried to to
Speaker 1: make to fix the things that I think maybe deficiencies.
Speaker 1: I tried to make my strength stronger. I was always
Speaker 1: kind of way I looked at it improving my game.
Speaker 1: For me to be successful, I need to drive the
Speaker 1: ball in the fairway and you need to make potts.
Speaker 1: If I do those two things, I'm probably gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: And I always felt that that's kind of goes back
Speaker 1: to that evaluation. I remember Ry McElroy saying something kind
Speaker 1: of similar, saying that you know, he had a weakness,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what. Be honestly, I don't know
Speaker 1: what Rory mcroy's weaknesses are, as I haven't really seen them.
Speaker 1: Saying healthy seems to be his biggest problem playing soccer,
Speaker 1: probably maybe not high in the list of things he
Speaker 1: should do. But he mentioned that he didn't want his
Speaker 1: weakness was X. He said, I don't want to spend
Speaker 1: so much time trying to make X better that I
Speaker 1: lose my strength. And I thought that was a very
Speaker 1: profound thing to say. His strength is driving a golf
Speaker 1: ball and long and reasonably straight, and that's how he
Speaker 1: when he does that, he's very difficult to beat. And
Speaker 1: I'm the same I need to drive the ball straight
Speaker 1: and I need to make putts. And so that's where
Speaker 1: the bast majority of my of my thought process goes,
Speaker 1: not trying to fix what, you know, deficiencies I might have.
Speaker 1: And obviously, if I'm fat hooking five irons, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go figure out why. But I mean, if I if
Speaker 1: I'm more comfortable hitting a draw, I see no reason
Speaker 1: to work on the faith. If that that, to me,
Speaker 1: that would be I would need to have everything else
Speaker 1: in such good shape that to where I would do
Speaker 1: that make that kind of that kind of change would
Speaker 1: have to be you know, I'd have to be in
Speaker 1: a much better in a great place.
Speaker 2: Zach Blair who once said to me and and Zach is,
Speaker 2: despite what he says he's one of the shorter hitters.
Speaker 2: He always says, you know, I'm one of the longest hits.
Speaker 2: Zach Blair, younger guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: He uh he's a shorter hitter, but he you know,
Speaker 2: he hits it really straight. He found himself, he hits
Speaker 2: He hits driver almost everywhere on tour. Did you find
Speaker 2: that much like hitting a straight you know, on tighter holes?
Speaker 2: Hitting driver gave you.
Speaker 1: A yeah to some extent? To some extent, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean to me, if guys who drive it reasonably straight
Speaker 1: and who are in the top safe twenty and driving
Speaker 1: accuracy tend to hit driver more because they're more comfortable
Speaker 1: hitting dr I think I hit my driver straight and
Speaker 1: I hit my three with off the tea. I definitely
Speaker 1: think i'd hit my driver straight and I hit you know,
Speaker 1: for what or a long or a hybrid off the
Speaker 1: tea is. It's just it just to me, unless there's
Speaker 1: some reasons, there's a really compelling reason. You get holes
Speaker 1: where you know, you out there two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: yards and it becomes twenty yards alive with the hazards
Speaker 1: and you're gonna lay up obviously, But generally I hit
Speaker 1: my driver just just straight as anything else. And again
Speaker 1: it goes back to what I said before. If I'm
Speaker 1: not driving it good, it really doesn't matter. So if
Speaker 1: we've got a fairway that's thirty yards wide with trouble,
Speaker 1: I'm not hitting driver into that fairway to the vast
Speaker 1: joring at the time, I'm probably not having a good
Speaker 1: week anyways, good.
Speaker 2: Way to look at it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean again, you live by this and
Speaker 1: die by the sort of a little bit, and and
Speaker 1: you said these are things that I generally need to do.
Speaker 1: Now you can obviously get that's a that's a big
Speaker 1: long term concept. There are rounds where you kind of
Speaker 1: to drivers not feeling good and you're just getting it
Speaker 1: to getting it in the house to survive that round
Speaker 1: and get to the range and figure out why you're
Speaker 1: not doing whatever you need to do. There are times
Speaker 1: and again you get a little bit out of whack
Speaker 1: and you have to kind of way to fix that
Speaker 1: a little bit. And so you will, I will manipulate
Speaker 1: the round or am I hit three woods or whatever
Speaker 1: just to get the ball in play and get it
Speaker 1: on the green and get that get through that round
Speaker 1: as little damage as possible. That happens. But on a
Speaker 1: big from a big picture standpoint, you know, my strength
Speaker 1: is driving it straight.
Speaker 2: So with your career, like one of the you know, uh,
Speaker 2: I guess a stereotype for Californians and Florida Philoridians is
Speaker 2: that Californians don't play well in Florida, and Floridians don't
Speaker 2: play well in California. But you know two of your
Speaker 2: best tournaments happened in Florida. You know it was it?
Speaker 2: Did you just buck the trend? Or is that just
Speaker 2: a you know, a a not a real thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's again as experienced. The first time I
Speaker 1: took a look at Bermuda grass, to me, it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't figure out how your tail of
Speaker 1: what was going on there, But you know I got
Speaker 1: to I got through that. I would argue that the
Speaker 1: bigger problem is going from Florida to Californian putting in Polana,
Speaker 1: then going from California to Florida and learning how to
Speaker 1: put on Maria to Brina grass. Now, to me, is
Speaker 1: much more consistent. You can kind of if you spend
Speaker 1: some time and get some experience. It's it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's Bermuda tends to be a much better, more consistent
Speaker 1: putting surface than Californian struggle on Polana too at times.
Speaker 1: And but uh, going from a place where you know,
Speaker 1: you watch the at and T and that's the way
Speaker 1: you've got reasonably you got you got tough saying tough
Speaker 1: soil conditions to grow grass, and you got pumping grains
Speaker 1: and they got quick, and you know, you just have
Speaker 1: to accept that. Some of those courses Tory Pines as
Speaker 1: an example too, where you're going to miss a couple
Speaker 1: of three footers during the week even when you hit
Speaker 1: good potts. That's not the case in Florida. You can
Speaker 1: get going in Bermuda grass. I don't care who you are.
Speaker 1: The good puts they generally go in. And it's not
Speaker 1: a function of it's a function of dealing with that situation.
Speaker 1: California is just deal with missing three footers every once
Speaker 1: in a while when they hit good pots. In Florida,
Speaker 1: if you get the Marina grass is in good shape
Speaker 1: and you hit a good putt, they generally go in.
Speaker 1: That isn't the case on Polanna sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I lived in la and spent a lot of
Speaker 2: late afternoons playing Rancho Park, which, yeah, those things got
Speaker 2: pretty bumpy.
Speaker 1: And from yeah, I grew up in a recreation park
Speaker 1: and you play in the afternoon bumpy Polana. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a test of your patient. So you know, you
Speaker 1: go from you know, and when you go to Florida
Speaker 1: and we play wherever. We'll play at Boca Ratona and
Speaker 1: we'll play in Naples. The greens are perfect. They're permuta,
Speaker 1: but they're perfect if I hit a four footer on
Speaker 1: the line that's read correctly and it goes in. I've
Speaker 1: had plenty of four footers a pebble Beach or Riviera
Speaker 1: or Tory Pines, and I thought I hit a pretty
Speaker 1: good pet on the rune. I was trying to hit
Speaker 1: it and it just kind of didn't go in. That happens.
Speaker 2: It's well, you know, people talk about like agronomy being
Speaker 2: a huge thing that's like gone through a big, you know,
Speaker 2: advancement in the game over the last twenty years. Having
Speaker 2: had a career that spanned like you know, you know
Speaker 2: a long time, have you is that you know, would
Speaker 2: you say that's really, you know, changed the game.
Speaker 1: I think it's changed the professional game. I can't I
Speaker 1: can't speak for cause we're going in a golf course. They're
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time to get the golf course
Speaker 1: hit ready. I mean, a normal golf club doesn't have
Speaker 1: that kind of money to spend that they that say
Speaker 1: a tournament site is going to spend to keep the
Speaker 1: course in tour shape. But having said that, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the golf course conditioning has lowered scores. The fairies
Speaker 1: are better. The grasses that need less water and can
Speaker 1: stay so you know, the greens are smoother and stay
Speaker 1: smooth longer. Soft spikes of the know, if you have
Speaker 1: firm greens, you know you don't get a lot of rain.
Speaker 1: Soft spikes are make I think make a big difference
Speaker 1: over over metal spikes, which is this is what on
Speaker 1: the PJA Tour, capty more than twenty five percent of
Speaker 1: the guys that wearing metal spikes anymore. And with firm
Speaker 1: greens that makes a big difference, especially for the guys
Speaker 1: playing and say later in the afternoon. But agronomy has
Speaker 1: made a big I think agronomy is is a big
Speaker 1: part of why the golf scoring is so much better people.
Speaker 1: You know, if you watch major champions We played the
Speaker 1: the Open Championship at Turnberry the year that Watson lost
Speaker 1: in the playoff, and I'm playing pressure with Kevin Sutherland.
Speaker 1: We played really we were playing like in the We're
Speaker 1: both playing at four o'clock on Thursday, so we played
Speaker 1: like at three o'clock in the afternoon, two o'clock in
Speaker 1: the afternoon on Wednesday as a practice round, and we
Speaker 1: got done and the superintendent was on the eighteenth green
Speaker 1: and we were just stunned by how good the greens were.
Speaker 1: And and you know, and this is seven o'clock in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. This is the little last guys. You one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty guys that played, and they hadn't even
Speaker 1: moted yet. And it was perfect. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: absolutely perfect. And you know, if you if you read
Speaker 1: the green right from twenty feet and hit the butt,
Speaker 1: you're making it. There nothing to keep the ball. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that was the case twenty five years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with the Champions story, you know, as the pen
Speaker 2: the setups are as I understand it a little bit
Speaker 2: more benign with pins more in the middle. Does it
Speaker 2: make it more of a putting contest?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily. I think that, you know, our pins
Speaker 1: are all going to be four or five from the edge,
Speaker 1: Like the difference is probably more length. You know, we're
Speaker 1: playing golf courses that are between sixty nine and seventy
Speaker 1: two or three. Well, the PJ Tour is playing between
Speaker 1: seventy two or three and I'm assuming almost eight thousand
Speaker 1: now I think that's a bigger difference, and we're probably
Speaker 1: playing we're playing golf courses that are that are take
Speaker 1: away are majors. But you know, let's take the We
Speaker 1: just played the Schwab Cup Championship at a Phoenix country,
Speaker 1: but we basically played it. The member wanted to put
Speaker 1: their golf course in the best possible shape they had
Speaker 1: for their member, guests or whatever. That's basically what we're playing.
Speaker 1: We're playing you know, rough penal but not unplayable. Greens
Speaker 1: are perfect. They're trying to get you know, trying to
Speaker 1: get anything firm, but that's a weather issue. So we're playing,
Speaker 1: we're playing golf courses that they aren't trying as hard
Speaker 1: to make it as difficult either from a offen Our
Speaker 1: fairways instead of being twenty yards twenty five yards wide,
Speaker 1: are going to be thirty to thirty five yards wid
Speaker 1: Our greens instead of being trying to get to twelve
Speaker 1: or thirteen, we're trying to get to twelve, eleven or twelve.
Speaker 1: There's just little slight differences that that tend to you know,
Speaker 1: bunch the field. I can go back to what you're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, putting it, but putting to answer your question, now,
Speaker 1: putting you used to should be a statement that you
Speaker 1: knowed you drive for show in putford, Dellen, we've obviously
Speaker 1: proven it. That's not the case in professional golf. But
Speaker 1: everybody's a good putter is now a prerequisite to being
Speaker 1: a professional golfer. If you're not a good part of
Speaker 1: you're not professional golfer anymore. It used to be guys
Speaker 1: could ball strike their way around and be average putters
Speaker 1: and be pretty consistent good players. Just isn't the case
Speaker 1: in the game today, mainly because of the conditioning of
Speaker 1: the greens.
Speaker 2: You know, speaking to the transition from the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: to the Champions Tour, what would you say is, you know,
Speaker 2: the biggest difference outside of say the course set up
Speaker 2: in you know, rounds in three rounds.
Speaker 1: Versus four, Well, I think the biggest difference is that
Speaker 1: you're playing against your basically one generation of players, you know,
Speaker 1: generation being about ten years and the most of the
Speaker 1: players are between fifteen and sixty. While the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: you might play against through four generations of players. You
Speaker 1: got twenty year olds and forty five year olds playing
Speaker 1: out there, and so you're playing against you know, we're
Speaker 1: playing against I'm playing against the best of a generation.
Speaker 1: They're playing against the best of all generations. But once
Speaker 1: you get inside the ropes, it's the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: just as the competitions are saying. You're trying to do
Speaker 1: the same things. You're trying to beat the guys and
Speaker 1: trying to play the best you can. But the difference
Speaker 1: to me is that I'm only facing If the PGA
Speaker 1: Tour were for twenty to thirty year olds, it'd be
Speaker 1: very similar if we had it. You know, the Champions
Speaker 1: Tour is just one generation of players.
Speaker 2: One of our I send a tweet out to get
Speaker 2: some listener questions, and one of our listeners had a
Speaker 2: question that related on that, with like the influx of
Speaker 2: cash on the PGA Tour now and do you think that,
Speaker 2: you know, fifteen twenty years for now, there's going to
Speaker 2: be less players playing past forty.
Speaker 1: You know, that question gets has been brought up. I
Speaker 1: think as persons have increased, you know, probably since the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. I mean, I'm sure the people in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties couldn't believe how much money the guys in the
Speaker 1: seventies were playing for, and in the end of the day.
Speaker 1: You hear a lot of players talk about it, but
Speaker 1: we all like to compete, you know, we don't once
Speaker 1: you get past the money. The guys who are really successful,
Speaker 1: I don't care what sport it might be, and wanted
Speaker 1: to want to compete. And you see that in other
Speaker 1: sports too. Guys seem to hang on longer than they
Speaker 1: should because they think they can still compete. They still
Speaker 1: want to do that, that compete and golf, you're lucky
Speaker 1: you can do it. I mean, nine ers winning tournaments
Speaker 1: at sixty and he's going to win tournaments next year
Speaker 1: at sixty one. And that drive to compete is always
Speaker 1: going to be there, regardless of where their bank account
Speaker 1: may be. And everyone talks about you know, while there's
Speaker 1: the these thirty five year old kids, they say, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to play the Champions to it, and they're
Speaker 1: forty five. We'll see, and then they're fifty, they're playing
Speaker 1: the Champions Tour because this is what we do and
Speaker 1: we want to be We want to you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's ego driven, I don't know, but you wanted you
Speaker 1: want to compete, and you want to show your skills
Speaker 1: off and you want to see what you can do,
Speaker 1: and you really can't do that with it, you can't.
Speaker 1: They can't do that in other fields. They can go
Speaker 1: into television and whatnot. But the reality is what they've
Speaker 1: been doing their whole lives is competing against their fellow players,
Speaker 1: and that drive doesn't go away just because your bank
Speaker 1: accounts bigger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that same way. Like my
Speaker 2: wife does not understand why I play in like mid
Speaker 2: am events around the States, But it's just, you know,
Speaker 2: the there's nothing like competition.
Speaker 1: And you know, he challenges yourself. And Jack Nichols talked
Speaker 1: about retiring when he was forty and he's still playing
Speaker 1: the Masters. He've just one of the Masters when he's
Speaker 1: fifty eight. All these guys talked about that. I've always
Speaker 1: talked about, I'm not going to do this longer than next,
Speaker 1: and they all them doing it until they're sixty. So
Speaker 1: there's nothing that tells me that that Ricky Fowler is
Speaker 1: not in the same way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's like what else are they going to do?
Speaker 2: Just play money games right now?
Speaker 1: There's plenty of other things that I think, there are
Speaker 1: plenty of things they can do. They're all smart guys,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, these things are all really smart guys,
Speaker 1: but what drives them to be Ricky Fowler is this
Speaker 1: competitive nature. What drives Jordany on Justin Thomas to be
Speaker 1: Justin Thomas as his competitive nature. And then that's not
Speaker 1: going to go away because they're doing golf course architecture
Speaker 1: or they're doing something else. They're still going to have
Speaker 1: that desire to compete.
Speaker 2: You know, having played on the Hogan Tour, which was
Speaker 2: then the Web, then you played on the.
Speaker 1: Another way around the web to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then then I got it all mixed up, the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour and now the champions Right, How would you
Speaker 2: kind of contrast the difference that what? What are like
Speaker 2: the little things that you enjoyed about each Maybe not
Speaker 2: the most obvious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Hogan Tour, I was being just compiled, no idea.
Speaker 1: I'd never played any national level golf, however in college,
Speaker 1: I never played in NC double as, I never played
Speaker 1: at USAM, and I've never really done any I didn't
Speaker 1: even know anybody out there. I did even heard of
Speaker 1: these people except maybe which you read in Golf digest.
Speaker 1: I never really paid that much attention to who was
Speaker 1: a great player and college golf. I remember were playing
Speaker 1: one a PJ Tour event when he was a college player.
Speaker 1: He won the Western Open, I think, and he played
Speaker 1: at Oklahoma State and we played against him, but you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything. Okan Tour was just kind of
Speaker 1: like to me was the biggest thing was was going
Speaker 1: out there and playing and and and that's when I
Speaker 1: first realized that, hey, you know, maybe there is a
Speaker 1: future playing I was at that point. I was just
Speaker 1: got in my college degree and I was kind of
Speaker 1: you know him and hung and you know, give it
Speaker 1: a couple of years and see what happens. And I
Speaker 1: had some success, you know, and it kind of allowed
Speaker 1: me to kind of re evaluate in the sense I
Speaker 1: what what my goals would be, my goals were. You're
Speaker 1: obviously your ultimate goals will be the best player in
Speaker 1: the world, but those are you have other goals too,
Speaker 1: and kind of see where this goes. And it kind
Speaker 1: of went in a good direction. So I kind of
Speaker 1: kept going and it, you know, here I am today.
Speaker 1: PG Tour. It's a pretty cool thing, you know. I got.
Speaker 1: I got. I got to play for whatever it was,
Speaker 1: fifteen years the Tiger Woods. And to know that when
Speaker 1: you're playing a tournament you're playing against you. It's the
Speaker 1: ultimate challenge. And the European Tour has gotten better. But
Speaker 1: when I played the PGA Tour forstal yearly it was
Speaker 1: that week when I won bay Hill, it was the
Speaker 1: fifthest field in the world that year. This concept of
Speaker 1: and then maybe that's just your ego, that you you've
Speaker 1: got a chance, you're playing against the best possible players
Speaker 1: and you're one of them is a pretty cool thing
Speaker 1: once you step back and take a look at it.
Speaker 1: Now you're not thinking that I'm the first team. But
Speaker 1: like in the offseason and especially the last few years
Speaker 1: now that I've you know, gotten older and kind of
Speaker 1: seen what's going watching the kids today, got hey, I
Speaker 1: got a chance to do that for twenty years, that
Speaker 1: was That's a pretty cool thing. You know. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: too much of a fan of professional golf, but you know,
Speaker 1: having a chance to play with Tiger, I shot twenty
Speaker 1: eight playing the first time played the Tiger Woods, I
Speaker 1: shot twenty eight on the front nine. Things like that,
Speaker 1: you know, against the greatest players in the world. That's
Speaker 1: just a cool thing to be able to do. I
Speaker 1: see that in other sports, Baseball. I have a big
Speaker 1: baseball fan it's gonna be pretty cool out and play
Speaker 1: center field for the angel in your my trap. That's
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool thing. And then the Champions Tour it
Speaker 1: kind of gets back to what golf is really about.
Speaker 1: And you and you and you, and you know, golf
Speaker 1: is a great a great sport. It's it's a it's
Speaker 1: it's you play. But when you're not playing golf, you
Speaker 1: play golf for fifty I play a PGA Tour event,
Speaker 1: if I say a Champions Tour event, I'm actually playing
Speaker 1: golf for about fifteen minutes, you know, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: hitting and playing, hitting my hopefully sixty five shots at
Speaker 1: about fifteen minutes. So you know, you realize how you know,
Speaker 1: how good the people are in golf, because you get
Speaker 1: you have all this time to to talk and spend
Speaker 1: time with them, you know. And and I look back
Speaker 1: over the years and some city, how would you describe
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour And it's a bunch of guys who
Speaker 1: you'd love to have as your next door neighbor. And
Speaker 1: golf tends to breed that in our sport. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the nice things about the Champions Tour. You
Speaker 1: go to player dining and you have a choice of
Speaker 1: fifteen different tables you can sit there, and you know
Speaker 1: fifteen of them are going to be pretty good guys.
Speaker 1: You're going to enjoy a conversation with all eat lunch.
Speaker 1: And I think that best describes our game. The people
Speaker 1: that end up playing our game for long periods of
Speaker 1: time tend to understand that part of our game. The
Speaker 1: people who don't like the etiquette and don't like the
Speaker 1: slowness and don't like that stuff tend to go play
Speaker 1: other sports. They get bored when they're ten years older,
Speaker 1: twelve years old, or fifteen years old to move on,
Speaker 1: while the people stick it out tend to be you know,
Speaker 1: I've always said about the first t is that you know,
Speaker 1: what junior golf makes is not great golfers. It makes
Speaker 1: great citizens. And golf's always been very good at that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you could say that we all have
Speaker 2: We're all we're all sick os. You know, we are
Speaker 2: all self deprecators that like to give themselves a hard
Speaker 2: time for this pursuit.
Speaker 1: Well, golf tends to produce losers. I mean I played
Speaker 1: five hundred PGA Tour events and I went twice. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you eventually I will admit that golf eventually gets
Speaker 1: to everybody's driver a little bit crazy, but probably in
Speaker 1: a good way, because you do it's the greatest players
Speaker 1: in the world, you know, are losing the majority of
Speaker 1: the time, and that's difficult to deal with at times.
Speaker 2: So you spoke about playing with Tiger a little bit,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious as to you know, I've heard a
Speaker 2: lot of other players talk about like there was this
Speaker 2: intimidation factor. What was it like being in the ropes
Speaker 2: with him? I mean, obviously you shot twenty eight that
Speaker 2: first sign.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he uh. You know, first of all, Tiger I
Speaker 1: probably did sing knew, but you know, we grew up
Speaker 1: in the same place. He was, you know, a five
Speaker 1: year old kid hit involved at Hartville Park and it's
Speaker 1: a part three course. I had a lighted range and
Speaker 1: I was, you know, sixteen or seventeen, so we kind
Speaker 1: of you know, he grew up in the city next
Speaker 1: door to me, and we actually the Navy course which
Speaker 1: he talks about playing a lot, where he ran into
Speaker 1: some trouble because of the color of the skin. My
Speaker 1: dad was a military guy and I played golf there
Speaker 1: a lot, too, So it wasn't Tiger didn't have that
Speaker 1: same effect on me because I knew I saw him
Speaker 1: when he was five, hitting balls of the range. I mean,
Speaker 1: had a different, slightly different perspective of having said that
Speaker 1: he's a you know he good players can know that.
Speaker 1: They know that you're intimidated, not necessarily by the person,
Speaker 1: but by his skill set. He didn't intimidate me as
Speaker 1: a person. He intimidated because he was so freaking good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I played with him at the practice round
Speaker 1: on Wednesday before the US Open at Double Beach, was
Speaker 1: John Cook and Marco Mayor and myself and Tiger Woods
Speaker 1: on Wednesday morning, and I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's intimidating, but there's no way I was going
Speaker 1: to beat him that week. And I missed a caud,
Speaker 1: but there was no way anybody was going to beat
Speaker 1: him that week. And I knew that on Wednesday. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's intimidation or just respect, but
Speaker 1: I do remember it was an instant. We're playing together
Speaker 1: at the Buick Open in Michigan, and you know you're
Speaker 1: playing with Tiger, You're gonna have the are gonna be
Speaker 1: five deep on every hole, which you know we weren't.
Speaker 1: We were in the top twenty maybe and on the
Speaker 1: in the fourth hole, I had about a three or
Speaker 1: four foot for par and he he'd cut it out
Speaker 1: and he was just waiting to go to the next
Speaker 1: twa and I looked at I look up at the
Speaker 1: whole of the last time before me to get my
Speaker 1: tott and so he takes a picture, flash goes off
Speaker 1: anyone taking a picture of me. Tiger was somewhere, but
Speaker 1: I happened to catch it in his eye in my eyes,
Speaker 1: and I started used to you know, I was smart
Speaker 1: enough the back of way and you're blinking and was
Speaker 1: kind of catch off guard a little bit. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there trying to get my vision just to stop,
Speaker 1: you know, to get cleared up before I can hit
Speaker 1: this three footer. And I walked in there and I
Speaker 1: finally hit this button, knock it in, and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of walking up with Tiger, and I well, I was
Speaker 1: he I'm thinking he's going to say, you know, sorry,
Speaker 1: you know, you know whatever. He just said, welcome to
Speaker 1: my world, because it happens to him every shot. You know,
Speaker 1: he has to deal with that stuff. And you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't intimidating he was. He just said, this is
Speaker 1: this is if you want to be you want to
Speaker 1: be a great player, this is what you got to
Speaker 1: deal with. And he dealt with that and still won.
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that again, how he won. How
Speaker 1: these guys Nicholas and they put Nicholas and him in
Speaker 1: a similar category, How they could you know, win at
Speaker 1: that clip. What are those circumstances. It's pretty impressive. We've
Speaker 1: already forgotten how good Tiger was. We've completely forgotten. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I completely forgotten.
Speaker 2: This week with it coming back. It's you know, you
Speaker 2: I was reading this morning all these you know stats,
Speaker 2: and you've seen it all the week with people putting
Speaker 2: stats out there. I mean, it is unbelievable how good
Speaker 2: he was.
Speaker 1: They had they had an ever to Jason Day when
Speaker 1: he won the PGA listening straight and then he quite
Speaker 1: good the rest of that year and into the next year,
Speaker 1: maybe he won the match Player or something, and they
Speaker 1: had mentioned that he had won seventeen seven out of
Speaker 1: seventeen starts, which is ridiculous. I mean, that's just a
Speaker 1: ridiculous thing to do on the PGA two. I guess
Speaker 1: the best players in the world have seven wins in
Speaker 1: seventeen starts. Tiger did that seven different times. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just that's ludicrous. Again, Jordan Speace had a great
Speaker 1: start to his career and as channel, I don't know
Speaker 1: if he still does it might have a chance to
Speaker 1: the youngest person ever won the Grand Slam, you know,
Speaker 1: the career Grand Slam. Anyways, we talk about you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's not even I mean, Tiger,
Speaker 1: Jordan Speace is a great player, maybe the best player
Speaker 1: in the world. We've got Tiger would like a news
Speaker 1: for everybody.
Speaker 2: It's uh, I mean I was as a stat to
Speaker 2: that is like Jordan Speed smissed thirteen cuts in his career,
Speaker 2: Tiger Smith fifteen and Tigers started his career was two.
Speaker 1: Right, It's it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh. That's my favorite set I read that
Speaker 2: I had never heard before was the His forty European
Speaker 2: Tour wins is third all time and he never played
Speaker 2: one full season on the European too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. I thought it one time. He wanted
Speaker 1: he was the all time leading money winner on the
Speaker 1: European Tour. He was definitely the top two or three
Speaker 1: just based on you know the events, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: he's just there's a dominance there that we've forgotten.
Speaker 2: What what have you been watching? What do you expect
Speaker 2: from you know, this week? And do you know his
Speaker 2: you know, do you think there's anything uh, you know
Speaker 2: left in the tank for return?
Speaker 1: Obviously back to the conversation, the guy who wants to compete,
Speaker 1: he loves to compete, and there's you know, he's the
Speaker 1: ultimate that I would say if all the players we've
Speaker 1: talked talked about he I think he loves that competition
Speaker 1: as much as anybody. Whether his body can allow him
Speaker 1: to do that, it's a different question. Again. If he's
Speaker 1: healthy and can play, he's going to be he's gonna
Speaker 1: he's he's going to have some another player for all
Speaker 1: those guys to deal with. If you know he has
Speaker 1: again he has that that intangible that you have to
Speaker 1: have to be that good. I mean, there there are
Speaker 1: plenty of players over the years who have had incredible
Speaker 1: and let's say take Tiger Wood's won seventy tournaments and
Speaker 1: he won I think it's what fourteen majors. And you
Speaker 1: take another player like say Davis Love, who won twenty
Speaker 1: tournaments in one major, well, Tiger's not five times better
Speaker 1: than Davis Love. There's an intangible there that Tiger has
Speaker 1: that Davis didn't have. And Davis is one of the
Speaker 1: twenty greatest players of all time, maybe twenty or thirty
Speaker 1: greatest players of all time, and Tiger's that much has
Speaker 1: that much better. So Nicholas had obviously had it too,
Speaker 1: and you think there's probably three or four guys, so
Speaker 1: that intangible doesn't go away. So if Tiger's healthy and
Speaker 1: can play and can get you know, said gets a
Speaker 1: few some reps under him, there's nothing that tells me
Speaker 1: that if his body lets him play, he won't be
Speaker 1: a great player again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, outside of Tiger in that era, who did you
Speaker 2: think was the next best player?
Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously Phil. I mean, you know, Phil did it
Speaker 1: over a longer. Phillas VJ had good years, Erniels had
Speaker 1: good years. Phil did it over a decade, you know,
Speaker 1: and Phil kind of had that had that swash buckling attitude.
Speaker 1: But still one. I think Phill's one close to forty events,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly what it is and five majors
Speaker 1: and he really didn't start winning. He once started winning
Speaker 1: majors a little late in his career and he still
Speaker 1: won five, he won three. You know, there's nothing that
Speaker 1: says he might not win the US Open in the
Speaker 1: next few years too. And when they career, Dan slam
Speaker 1: and I think he was definitely the second best player
Speaker 1: they had that Steven. If you saw the stat on
Speaker 1: on Twitter about from you know, the tour from nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven to sometimes two.
Speaker 2: Thousand oh the top fifty things, well.
Speaker 1: The top the relation to PARR Major championships, that Tiger
Speaker 1: was one hundred and twenty eight under. Phil was third
Speaker 1: at like one hundred and twenty eight over.
Speaker 2: Yes, Steve flesh.
Speaker 1: Flash was actually Steve Fleshy was the flushy good friend
Speaker 1: of my flesh. He was number two at two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty shots, you know over at you know, it
Speaker 1: was a fifteen year period or something. I mean that's
Speaker 1: a but it shows you Phil, you know, flush he's
Speaker 1: a fush, he's an underrated player, and he's tremendous talent.
Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me as his name of it, but
Speaker 1: it shows you how good Pill was at that time.
Speaker 1: I mean so in a sense amazing how big a
Speaker 1: person feels, a big personality it feels. I always consider
Speaker 1: Phil a friend and he's I've always liked so to
Speaker 1: be that big a personality and can completely overshadowed by
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods tells you how again how great Tiger Woods was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. My listeners are gonna get
Speaker 2: ask for me. I always contend Ernie was number two
Speaker 2: in that era, so.
Speaker 1: Ernie had Ernie. Ernie definitely competed. It's hard sometimes he
Speaker 1: was Ernie still slightly in the era where the European
Speaker 1: Tour and the PGA Tour were apart. So it's hard
Speaker 1: to measure Nick Faldough, I mean, Nick Faldo, how do
Speaker 1: we measure How do you measure Colin Montgomery have? Do
Speaker 1: you measure something these guys? Nowadays, it's a little easier
Speaker 1: because there's a lot more competition among the top players
Speaker 1: from both tours or from the world. I guess now
Speaker 1: you'd call it. Back then, Ornie didn't still was bouncing
Speaker 1: back and forth and it was it didn't have the
Speaker 1: same we didn't have the ability to so he could
Speaker 1: be a reasonable choice there. It's just harder to figure
Speaker 1: out because there wasn't so much intertur competition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you look at their major championship stuff, I mean,
Speaker 2: they're they're so close. It's it's you know, I think
Speaker 2: they're like they're separated, like top all time top tens
Speaker 2: is like they have like one or two uh between them,
Speaker 2: and you know, one win more.
Speaker 1: For Phil right and Phil again fills a bigger personality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so that tends to help him in those types
Speaker 1: of rankings. Too.
Speaker 2: American too, you know, there's this American buys sure.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: So with a kind of spanning this era, there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of talk about bifurcation in the game. You know,
Speaker 2: where where do you kind of stand on the golf
Speaker 2: ball and technology?
Speaker 1: Well, again, this is you know, we're running a business
Speaker 1: and we can talk a lot about how I think
Speaker 1: some of these concepts. Well, first of all, this concept
Speaker 1: that we need to play eight thousand yard golf courses
Speaker 1: is an interesting concept. I know Chamblie talked about it
Speaker 1: a lot on Twitter. It's Chembley's fun to follow because
Speaker 1: he'll always say crazy stuff. And but again, no one
Speaker 1: if you look at you look on the PGA tour,
Speaker 1: I'd say the two courses at places the shortest on
Speaker 1: tour a Hilton Head and Colonial. No one shoots thirty
Speaker 1: end at part they're shooting actually higher a bitch of
Speaker 1: the stroke coverage of those relations apart is higher than
Speaker 1: average up tour. So length is not the it's not
Speaker 1: the end all to be. I remember we at the
Speaker 1: Houston Open. I don't know, I've got twenty fifteen years
Speaker 1: ago they switched over to displays redstone thing. It's called
Speaker 1: the thing. It's called the Houston Golf Club now. But
Speaker 1: we played the members course the first couple of years
Speaker 1: and the back nine was four a little over four
Speaker 1: thousand yards long. And I remember playing the practice round
Speaker 1: and getting done and God, this hit a bunch of
Speaker 1: three woods every hole. What the hell they had it
Speaker 1: that it was four thousand and thirty yards as a
Speaker 1: back nine. Thank god, Holy that's long. When they shot
Speaker 1: in tred couples, I think one day he shot twenty
Speaker 1: two hundred. Park length is not going to deterred scoring.
Speaker 1: So the ball, you know, forever, for all the greatness
Speaker 1: that the golf ball has, which it goes farther and
Speaker 1: spins glass, well there's a way for architects to deal
Speaker 1: with that. You know, just watch the tour players play
Speaker 1: the ten Folt Riviera and how bad they mess it up.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of you see twos and you
Speaker 1: see sixes. You know, length is Apple's a three wood,
Speaker 1: the three wood part four for all these guys, and
Speaker 1: they struggle with So there's ways to deal with that.
Speaker 1: That that the golf ball is harder to control distance wise.
Speaker 1: So there's ways for architects to to fix that through
Speaker 1: making distance control being more important than you know, being
Speaker 1: able to hit your pitching wedge. You know Marion for
Speaker 1: the US Open, till Micholson, you know he had a
Speaker 1: pitching legend. I think it's fourteen to part of three
Speaker 1: thirteen whatever the short part three is by the clubhouse
Speaker 1: and then and then the next role, he had two
Speaker 1: wed shots that he hit the wrong distance and he
Speaker 1: went bogey bogey and left he was open. Not because
Speaker 1: he didn't hit it, didn't play a five hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty yard part four well, but because he didn't hit
Speaker 1: wedge at the right distance. And the architect you need
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to make distance control more
Speaker 1: important than When you do that, then the players will
Speaker 1: demand up all that they can control better. But right
Speaker 1: now we're not doing that with architecture. We're just making
Speaker 1: it longer to where distance control is less important.
Speaker 2: That's I had Bill Corr on the podcast a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago, and he said, when a reporter called
Speaker 2: him about, you know, how he was going to combat
Speaker 2: the distance problem with Trinity Forrest, he said, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to make golf courses shorter and wider and
Speaker 2: make it more about them hitting it the right distance
Speaker 2: and the right line. You know where it's you know,
Speaker 2: they have to pick a line and they have to
Speaker 2: hit it execute the distance on that line.
Speaker 1: What's the hard what's the hardest hole in Major championship
Speaker 1: golf under pressure? It's not. It's twelve in Augusta, which
Speaker 1: forces you to either hit it at the right side
Speaker 1: of the green. It's forced you to hit the right club.
Speaker 1: You hit it at the right you know, And it
Speaker 1: was just throw a little bit of wind in there,
Speaker 1: and guys struggle because distance control is harder with the
Speaker 1: new golf ball. If you hit your nine nine hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty yards, one hundred and fifty yard shots a
Speaker 1: lot harder. But if you hit your seminiro and one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty yards, one hundred and fifty yard shot
Speaker 1: is a lot easier. I think that mathematically makes sense.
Speaker 1: Being skilled being the same. So when you start, when
Speaker 1: they start hitting the ball farther, it makes the gaps
Speaker 1: between the clubs bigger. So architects by by straight Chamblie
Speaker 1: with burying me on Twitter with this, but between lengthy
Speaker 1: and the golf courses plays into the hands of the
Speaker 1: long hitters into the golf ball while shortening and tightening.
Speaker 1: And again what Bill colere saying, making guys hit at
Speaker 1: the right distance, and you do have angling greens and whatnot.
Speaker 1: You know, we're hitting it twenty feet pin high left
Speaker 1: is no good or twenty feet pin high rights no good.
Speaker 1: You know that makes them hit the ball not only
Speaker 1: the right disc, but also you said the right line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that, and it's yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that's where like, that's where Die changed everything with Harbortown
Speaker 2: was he reintroduced this idea of like, it's not just
Speaker 2: about hitting it long end straight, it's about hitting it
Speaker 2: straight and the right distance and right.
Speaker 1: Now colonials like that and again Coloni.
Speaker 2: Farware, Yeah, it's port worth.
Speaker 1: You just have to firware.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it takes driver out of so many of
Speaker 2: those guys hands because of those dog likes and right you.
Speaker 1: Got you get well, you gotta shape it, which is
Speaker 1: harder to do with today's ball. Yeah, it's harder to
Speaker 1: hit shots because spin enough.
Speaker 2: That's I noticed with all the you know, like the
Speaker 2: famous shots from nineteen ninety nine versus the famous shots
Speaker 2: from like twenty seventeen, you don't see any All the
Speaker 2: shots today are just these towering you know, three woods
Speaker 2: or irons.
Speaker 1: Right, it's dead straight like.
Speaker 2: Versus the recovery shot.
Speaker 1: But there's a pretty big caveat here. And I think
Speaker 1: is that's not talked about, and the professional golfers of
Speaker 1: today are taking advantage or figuring out, what do I
Speaker 1: need to do to be successful. If tomorrow they decided
Speaker 1: to completely to shorten the golf ball and make it
Speaker 1: spinnier and make driving accuracy and distance control the most
Speaker 1: important thing in golf, and they could do those things,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be any good After a couple of years.
Speaker 1: The same guys at the unpopped, Yeah they So I
Speaker 1: do think, yeah, because the best players figure this out.
Speaker 1: Best players are the best players for a reason. So
Speaker 1: you know, back in the day when Tiger and Phil
Speaker 1: it's driving when they weren't driving it great, if driving
Speaker 1: accuracy were the most important thing in golf. Those guys
Speaker 1: would have had a totally different style of play and
Speaker 1: still be the best players. They've adapted themselves and figured
Speaker 1: out the best way to be competitive under these circumstances.
Speaker 1: And the great players do that. So some of this stuff,
Speaker 1: to me, some of this stuff to be is a
Speaker 1: little cringe wordy. When I hear about the way the
Speaker 1: game has played today, well that's that's a chicken an
Speaker 1: egg issue, and I don't I think it's very unfair
Speaker 1: to today's top players to say, well, the ball and
Speaker 1: this and that and the other thing. Well that they
Speaker 1: they're playing the equipment that they've been given and figured
Speaker 1: out the best way to be competitive with that equipment,
Speaker 1: and so to say that that equipment is why they're good,
Speaker 1: I think is a completely wrong. I think it's the
Speaker 1: other way around. These guys are great players, and the
Speaker 1: figure they have to be the best with the equipment,
Speaker 1: and today's says that Jack Nicholas were playing today, he'd
Speaker 1: be playing like those guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think TrackMan is underrated in it too, because
Speaker 2: it's taught everybody how to, you know, get to where
Speaker 2: they're perfectly optimized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can I'm sure it does. I mean I've never
Speaker 1: done that. I like what Dustin does with track memory.
Speaker 1: He optimizes distance, yea, he figures out how far to
Speaker 1: hit each shot. He's turned into the best short iron
Speaker 1: the ledge player in the world from the fair way.
Speaker 1: You know, cor the stats and and that says, that's
Speaker 1: got to be pretty scary if you're Barry macroy and
Speaker 1: h's where he is and he turns into a great
Speaker 1: player from one hundred and fifty yards. But again, I
Speaker 1: think it does a disservice to our top players. And
Speaker 1: I think that there it's just that they're not there
Speaker 1: because of the equipment. They're there because they're the best players.
Speaker 1: And don't under don't go over and forget that.
Speaker 2: So I want to get you out of here. We
Speaker 2: had some some listener questions. I wanted to get to
Speaker 2: real quick. Okay, Sean Martin, friend of the pod, and
Speaker 2: you know, a long time golf writer wants to know
Speaker 2: your best story from days as a substitute teacher.
Speaker 1: Wow, I mean, you can't repeat those. Do you have secrets?
Speaker 1: And we'll keep teaching stays in substitute teaching, I can remember,
Speaker 1: I remember the luckiest thing I can remember as lucky.
Speaker 1: I got lucky. One time, as I told the story,
Speaker 1: I was working a seventh grade pe class and some
Speaker 1: kid behind was you just I'm trying to take roles.
Speaker 1: I can roll out some basketball so they can do
Speaker 1: whatever they want to do for half an hour. And
Speaker 1: so it's in p He's always chaotic and trying to
Speaker 1: just to get that they have assistant. He's stand in
Speaker 1: a number of whatever numbers aren't standing on that to
Speaker 1: Mark Abson and uh, this kid was behind me while
Speaker 1: I'm taking roll and he had his jim shorts, you know,
Speaker 1: down around his thighs and his shirt tucked it and
Speaker 1: he was dancing and whatnot. It's a long story. Hope
Speaker 1: you have time, and I hope you and kids are
Speaker 1: kids are giggling and whatnot. And and I finally figure
Speaker 1: out and I go, hey, you could stop like an
Speaker 1: idy and get out your number. And he goes, hey,
Speaker 1: you can't call me an idiot, he says to me.
Speaker 1: I go, well, I can call you. And I said,
Speaker 1: you're actually like an idiot, but get on your number,
Speaker 1: and he goes, well, he started giving me a lip
Speaker 1: about it. I say, hey, look, you know I don't care.
Speaker 1: Once you head on down to the office. I'll just
Speaker 1: mark the absent and you can have your You can
Speaker 1: deal with it tomorrow. It's not my problem. And so
Speaker 1: I sent him off to the office and goes to
Speaker 1: the office and I finished role and finished the class,
Speaker 1: and you have to go back down to the school.
Speaker 1: Let me grab a little car. Did you sign out?
Speaker 1: And that's how they know you were there? And nobody
Speaker 1: signed me out and the principal wasn't none on my card.
Speaker 1: Then go talk to the principal. You know on I
Speaker 1: don't need to go to the principal's office too. I
Speaker 1: did that when I was a kid. I don't need
Speaker 1: to do it now. And so I walk in there
Speaker 1: and he goes, hey, did you send a kid down here,
Speaker 1: saying yeah, I did, and he goes he said, you
Speaker 1: called hi an idiot, and I go, well, no, I
Speaker 1: did so, I said, I said, he's actually an idiot,
Speaker 1: and he goes, well, we don't want he starts going
Speaker 1: in and we don't like to use that kind of language
Speaker 1: with her, which might be reasonable. Well I know, and
Speaker 1: I go ahead, you know this is he's addiction. He
Speaker 1: has a dictionary on his desk and I go open
Speaker 1: a dictionary and look up the word idiot, and he
Speaker 1: started looking at me. He just do it, and he so,
Speaker 1: and I don't know what it's going to say. So
Speaker 1: I said, this is I explained to him what his
Speaker 1: student was doing. And he had Jimmy shorts down around
Speaker 1: his knees and his shirt tucked in and he was
Speaker 1: dancing like whatever behind me. Yeah, again, he looks up it.
Speaker 1: I go, what's the first word under idiot? Now, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I have no idea what it's going to say.
Speaker 1: And the thing it says is buffoon, which is just
Speaker 1: stupid luck. It's a dumb luck on my part. And
Speaker 1: so I go, look, I don't know what kind of
Speaker 1: school you're running here where you think it's okay to
Speaker 1: act your students to act like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't want me again, they have they have
Speaker 1: a massive shortage of substitute teachers. They probably still do today.
Speaker 1: And if you don't want me coming back here and teaching
Speaker 1: your classes, I'll be more than happy to tell them
Speaker 1: enough to send me here anymore. You know, I'm moren't
Speaker 1: happy to tell all the other substitute teachers don't begun
Speaker 1: there either, And they kind of looked at me, looked
Speaker 1: at the dictionary, looked at me, signed the card and said, no,
Speaker 1: I think we're okay. But I was try the luckiest thing.
Speaker 1: It's maybe one of the five luckiest things that's ever
Speaker 1: happened to me because I could have said anything and
Speaker 1: it said buffoon that particular dictionary. I said, buffoon isn't
Speaker 1: exactly what he's acting like. Maybe you guys can do
Speaker 1: a better job of getting your kids to act better,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I feel like buffoon needs to be used more in.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, it's a great word.
Speaker 2: It is. I mean, it's quite if you call somebody
Speaker 2: a buffoon is pretty insulting.
Speaker 1: Yes it is.
Speaker 2: I agree, that's fine. So I DK in Massachusetts wants
Speaker 2: to know, wants you to rank w reck Park, Skylinks
Speaker 2: and El Dorado and uh and and best or worst.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'm by reck Park's one of the
Speaker 1: great municipal courses, you know, the original Virginia Country Club
Speaker 1: and it's been around since the reck Park's been around
Speaker 1: one hundred years almost, And I would I would argue
Speaker 1: reck Parks won a great minisalant off courses in the
Speaker 1: country about the world. So that's that's an obvious number
Speaker 1: one Skyling's Eldon Rodders probably two in Skyland's three. They
Speaker 1: redid Skylink, but for no apparent reason. The old Skylings
Speaker 1: used to be fun. They used to have a game
Speaker 1: out there on Fridays. You go out and play and guys,
Speaker 1: you know, you get a guy out there with you know,
Speaker 1: a six a sixteen pack of beer and a broken
Speaker 1: for wood and seven irons and a putter and shoots
Speaker 1: sixty five all day long. And it was a it
Speaker 1: was a fun game to play with. And eld Roda
Speaker 1: was a good Eldorado. They've done a good job. You
Speaker 1: know what they've done that for for municipal golf courses.
Speaker 1: You know, like my what I would say is you
Speaker 1: go play. I haven't play Skylis much lately, but Elder
Speaker 1: Rod of reck parker terrific condition. And consider they are
Speaker 1: getting I don't know, I mean, I don't know your
Speaker 1: rounds of golf they get. They got to get one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand rounds a year there. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's it's a Recklar Red Parks iconic.
Speaker 1: Reck Park's iconic. Didn't like it.
Speaker 2: Reck Park. It's like Branchip Park produced a lot of
Speaker 2: PGA Tour players.
Speaker 1: If I ask you, guys at Joe John Merrick, you
Speaker 1: know you go back to the Jamie Mulligan deal. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise if Patrick Cantley played Summer Reck Park growing up,
Speaker 1: you know. And then there's a story that hasn't you know,
Speaker 1: it's starting to get told. Well, what Patrick Cantlay did
Speaker 1: last year? Get a tolling off on a tangent about
Speaker 1: Long Beach. Here's the guy who took off, didn't play
Speaker 1: for four years and injuries and whatnot. You know, had
Speaker 1: his best friend and caddy died in his arms, and
Speaker 1: you hit by a car. Show up last year, played
Speaker 1: twelve events, make twelve cuts, make Tour Championship and then
Speaker 1: win the second start. So he lost fourteen events, He's
Speaker 1: made fourteen cuts as a win Tour Championship. I mean,
Speaker 1: how many guys in the history of the sport could
Speaker 1: have taken four years off between twenty one and twenty
Speaker 1: five and then the tour championship in twelve starts. I
Speaker 1: can think of about three Nicholas and Wood and maybe
Speaker 1: Holding get hit by a boss in one three major.
Speaker 1: So I got to give him some Very few people
Speaker 1: could have ever accomplished that, and I don't know that
Speaker 1: that story is being told. Then he won obviously won
Speaker 1: at Las Vegas here in the in the fall. I mean,
Speaker 1: this guy, this kid is unbelievably good. I mean I've played,
Speaker 1: I played with him and a few times and it's
Speaker 1: he's better. He's he he just went out and playing
Speaker 1: with us at Virginia. He's better than I ever was,
Speaker 1: and and talking about a limitless expectations. That guy's going
Speaker 1: to be a really good player for a really long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope he stays healthy. I did this article
Speaker 2: last year.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of work.
Speaker 2: The uh. I did this article twenty five the top
Speaker 2: twenty five Americans under twenty five. And I was going
Speaker 2: through it and I, you know, I haven't, you know,
Speaker 2: play an amateur golf. You remember Patrick Cantley, you know,
Speaker 2: like and I saw he was still twenty four. I
Speaker 2: was like, he's got to be in this top twenty five.
Speaker 2: And then he came back. I was so excited. But
Speaker 2: people forget, like, you know, like this was a guy
Speaker 2: that completely overshadowed speed at that at that same age,
Speaker 2: like you know, like it was Patrick Cantley. I mean
Speaker 2: what he did when he was nineteen, was out of
Speaker 2: this world. I I I'm really excited if you know,
Speaker 2: if we can get you know, ten great years of
Speaker 2: Patrick Cantley, I'd be really awesome. I love his doing
Speaker 2: on the course too.
Speaker 1: He's got a good plan. He's got a good plan
Speaker 1: about hisself, and you know, him and Jamie really worked
Speaker 1: hard and done a lot. You know, it's it's obviously
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a big Jamie Mulligan fan. Who's his teacher,
Speaker 1: And Jamie Mulligan has taken three kids basically high school kids,
Speaker 1: made him tour players. There's everything. I understand that. Butch
Speaker 1: Harmon's a great teacher. But he made Tiger Woods better. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I could make Tiger Woods better, can't.
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: He took John Merrick, Patrick Cantley, John Mallinger. These guys
Speaker 1: were just high school kids slash college kids, just kind
Speaker 1: of especially American, can't way it's just kids. Junior programs
Speaker 1: at their club turned them into tour players and tour winners.
Speaker 1: Now that's unprecedented in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's I feel like, yeah, that that is a
Speaker 2: story that probably should be.
Speaker 1: Told and then we won't say what what Jamie's done
Speaker 1: for John Cook and Luke List and Peter Thomas Ulo myself.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a long list of people who have
Speaker 1: worked with Luke. Luke List worked with him for a
Speaker 1: year and once my guy struggling to keep his card.
Speaker 1: He had a great year last year, and I expect
Speaker 1: he's gonna have a great year this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah he I mean, he was a like a top
Speaker 2: twenty machine last year.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he's a he's a really good player.
Speaker 2: He he hits it so far as such a you know,
Speaker 2: it's like that's a guy with a ton of potential.
Speaker 2: Let's say, you know, you look at a guy that
Speaker 2: could win five times in two three years and definitely one.
Speaker 1: Jamie's got another guy, Max Homo, he's worked with is
Speaker 1: a really good player.
Speaker 2: He's uh, he's a funny guy, just from following them
Speaker 2: on Twitter. So we do this thing. We won't get
Speaker 2: you out of here, so you don't know, we don't
Speaker 2: take up too much of your time. We do this
Speaker 2: overrated underrated. So it's just a question. You gotta say
Speaker 2: overrated or underrated. There's no properly rated.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, mock Turtlenecks, way underrated.
Speaker 2: I'm you know what, they might be ripped down so
Speaker 2: much that they could be underrated.
Speaker 1: Another way underrated. They're very comfortable, they are, especially if
Speaker 1: you guys don't have especially guys who don't have shoulders
Speaker 1: and big necks.
Speaker 2: All right now that Furik posted fifty eight is fifty
Speaker 2: nine watch overrated? And this is from Derek Goss.
Speaker 1: Yes, the overrated. Yeah, over the fifty nine watches overrated.
Speaker 1: I would think that they sent enough of them there
Speaker 1: and fifty eight change things little, but sure.
Speaker 2: Somebody else if somebody asked us, and I forgot to
Speaker 2: write down who was more pissed after your fifty nine
Speaker 2: stricker that he wasn't leading after shooting sixty or you
Speaker 2: that you were only leading by one after that?
Speaker 1: To me, it had been me. I mean I woke
Speaker 1: up next morning with the Starbucks, came back turning theater
Speaker 1: and I was three back. He was not leading the
Speaker 1: turnam that was three back. He almost hold it on
Speaker 1: the last hole too. I think he columns caught the
Speaker 1: edge of the hole almost hold it for fifty nine
Speaker 1: the last hole with like a long iron or something that.
Speaker 2: Was during his run there where it was.
Speaker 1: Hey one over here, I mean beating stricker. John Deere
Speaker 1: was like beating Tiger Firestone, you.
Speaker 2: Know, between him and Zach Johnson. It was those guys.
Speaker 2: That golf course just Taylor made for that. I mean
Speaker 2: their local agree.
Speaker 1: It's uh yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: But that's an example, not a long course.
Speaker 1: No. And again that golf course if you played there
Speaker 1: in the fall. We played there right in the middle
Speaker 1: of summer where they can't get it firm. We played
Speaker 1: there in the fall when they got firms. Would to
Speaker 1: see the scoring like that. It's a better golf course
Speaker 1: than that. It's just there so you can't play everywhere
Speaker 1: at the perfect time of year.
Speaker 2: I grew up and we'd have like tournaments in October there.
Speaker 2: It was tough, especially cold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets firm. It's not that easy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cold and wendy and firm. That place has teeth,
Speaker 2: right all right. The last last one from al Pandera
Speaker 2: the button, the top button, butting the top button of
Speaker 2: your shirt.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm overrated, under it, way underrated. I mean again,
Speaker 1: that's that button is there for a reason, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean I never again when you have a big
Speaker 1: knack and I have like a nineteen inch nineteen in
Speaker 1: the quarter atch neck. I make dress shirts, so if
Speaker 1: I don't button the top button my shirt, I need
Speaker 1: to have a gold chain to play. But sure it
Speaker 1: would be the collar would be so play. That's why
Speaker 1: I do it. There's a caller. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: have I don't if I had like a little neck
Speaker 1: and the buttons just stay right there. But if I
Speaker 1: don't button that button, my whole shirt opens up like
Speaker 1: you know, a nineteen seventies disco dancer.
Speaker 2: See, that's an interesting perspective. I am so anti the
Speaker 2: top button, but I have a skinny knack.
Speaker 1: Right, So it wouldn't make sense for you when I
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: I'm my god, this just doesn't This would never look right.
Speaker 1: But I'm not the only person does. Somebody else is
Speaker 1: doing it now too. I don't know who. There. I
Speaker 1: thought there's a somebody else that done it.
Speaker 2: Bubba does it, and there you go. I mean Daval
Speaker 2: did it for a while, Tiger did it for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course that's some good company.
Speaker 1: Devall and Tiger exactly. Buba Bubba's one two Masters talk
Speaker 1: about over the Masters is the most overrated golf tournament
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do you think that has to do with
Speaker 2: them playing the same course every single year.
Speaker 1: I think that has a lot to do with I
Speaker 1: think it has to do with I think Augustus only
Speaker 1: is the smartest, for the four Majors are the smartest people.
Speaker 1: They make the show, the golf course, you know, the
Speaker 1: USGA makes the sh show par and you know, but
Speaker 1: they do such a great job that they have no problem.
Speaker 1: They love. As a matter of fact, when when again
Speaker 1: Nicholas shoots sixty five and making eagles the last day
Speaker 1: and making hitting good shots and being nobody rewards good
Speaker 1: play more than Augusta National on Sunday, no tournament and
Speaker 1: they do. So there's so there's nothing. It's the it's
Speaker 1: the most underrated telecast. But from a tournament standpoint, to me,
Speaker 1: it's it's overrated. But they do such a great job
Speaker 1: of creating drama with their golf course. They aren't trying
Speaker 1: to make it play the hardest on Sunday. They're trying
Speaker 1: to make it play the most exciting on Sunday, And
Speaker 1: every other tournament misses that. Every tournament misses that. They're
Speaker 1: always talking about Sunday pins, with the Sunday pins of
Speaker 1: the gusts that are a lot of the easiest ones
Speaker 1: they're in like the Fun Team eighteen sixteen, eighteen's in
Speaker 1: the bowl, but in seventeen's in a very difficult spot
Speaker 1: where you make a mistake. It's a problem that they do.
Speaker 1: They're they're set up, they have they have perfected golf
Speaker 1: course set up, in my opinion from a whole location
Speaker 1: stand point, perfected it and nobody else does that.
Speaker 2: Well, the players is starting. You know that the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour has done such a smart thing with the players
Speaker 2: having it at Sawgrass year and year out, because now
Speaker 2: when you come down the stretch of everybody knows what's
Speaker 2: coming versus when you play, you know, a US Open
Speaker 2: at you know Aaron Hills or Chambers Bay, nobody, nobody.
Speaker 1: Has a clue what's going at right, right and again.
Speaker 1: But the USA is trying to make us j is
Speaker 1: trying and also would never stick the pin. If the
Speaker 1: USJA ran the US Open at at Augusta National on
Speaker 1: sixteen on Sunday, the pin wouldn't be there, so you
Speaker 1: wouldn't see all the drama. The tiger Woods chip, in
Speaker 1: which one of the greatst iconic shots in golf when
Speaker 1: he beat the marc Up. You know, Nicholas almost hold
Speaker 1: it there in eighty six when he won, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: put the pin. They put the pin back right, and
Speaker 1: everybody making double and everybody kind of going, okay. You
Speaker 1: know the year I played, the year that Zach shot,
Speaker 1: I think it was Zac shot. One of the part
Speaker 1: won the tournament taking a lay from Zach. But I'm
Speaker 1: sure the ratings weren't as good. Then you get bad
Speaker 1: weather and over par wins a gust, it's not as good.
Speaker 1: And you know when you get fifteen hunder par and
Speaker 1: you get a guy, you know birding, you know, Birdie
Speaker 1: in the last holes to win that people love that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good finish.
Speaker 1: It's like and it's not like everyone's doing it either,
Speaker 1: gus that spread it out on Sunday, you get two
Speaker 1: or three guys in a chance to win. It's there's
Speaker 1: plenty of guys shooting seventy five on Sunday, whether guys
Speaker 1: are shooting sixty five.
Speaker 2: So you know, last question, if one one course that
Speaker 2: never hosts tournaments that you'd love to see, say, say
Speaker 2: the PGA Championship could go anywhere and this is you know,
Speaker 2: and they didn't have to worry about grand stands or anything,
Speaker 2: and it would be the permanent host of the PGA Championship.
Speaker 2: Where would you go with it?
Speaker 1: To me, the best golf course I've played is pie Valley,
Speaker 1: and I think it bes again. I think Pine Valley
Speaker 1: would be very similar to Augusta National. I think you'd
Speaker 1: see the low score, lower scores than you'd expect. You know,
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen under might win the tournament. But I
Speaker 1: think even parking finished, you know, six or seven, so
Speaker 1: it's spread things out. Guys would get rewarded for good
Speaker 1: shots and penalized for bad shots. So that's literally what
Speaker 1: we're looking for. And the USh tends to tends to
Speaker 1: penalize bad shots and good shots at the times gust
Speaker 1: that very rarely does Augustine National penali is a bad shot,
Speaker 1: I mean a good shot, very rarely. And Pine Valley's
Speaker 1: like that. Pine Valley tends if you out and play good,
Speaker 1: you can shoot a good score there. I know that,
Speaker 1: you know. But if you don't play well, man, you
Speaker 1: can shoot a million there, and I mean a million,
Speaker 1: And I like that. I think another calf course is
Speaker 1: like that, though maybe again the equipment may have changed
Speaker 1: the cyper's point to the golf course that if you
Speaker 1: play good you can shoot seven or eight in a
Speaker 1: part you played that you shoot eighty in a hurry.
Speaker 1: And that's that's that's a great thing about golf. Too
Speaker 1: many golf courses are today we've gotten into this golf
Speaker 1: course have gone hardware. Good round is seventy and a
Speaker 1: bad round in the ninety five of the teak out
Speaker 1: pursh where a good round with sixty five and the
Speaker 1: bad round seventy five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I I agree, I agree, I like. I
Speaker 2: love golf courses that allow you.
Speaker 1: Augusta does that a great job of that for the pros.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's uh, we're on the same page there, I
Speaker 2: I that's I'm excited to see Trinity for us. You know,
Speaker 2: modern designed by you know, a great architect. That's I
Speaker 2: think what's kind of lacking with the you know, it's
Speaker 2: the explosion in the driving distance is that you know,
Speaker 2: you know some of the golf course you know playing
Speaker 2: but you know these guys don't design golf courses for
Speaker 2: them for the PGA Tour pro you know.
Speaker 1: So that's right. We need more of that too. We
Speaker 1: have too many golf plerses being designed for pros and
Speaker 1: not enough golf courses being designed for the everyday player. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this concept of seventeen sets of teas to me as
Speaker 1: bad for our game, not good for our game. It
Speaker 1: takes away from the what's great about our sport is
Speaker 1: that everyone kind of played the same course. And the
Speaker 1: golf ball has effected that a little bit. But we don't,
Speaker 1: you know, we golfers should have three or four, three
Speaker 1: sets of teas, and they should have a front, metal
Speaker 1: and back and that's all you really should knee and
Speaker 1: if you need more than that, then maybe get to
Speaker 1: look at your design and not necessarily look at the
Speaker 1: figure out how to make tolls longer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I figure out how to make them wider.
Speaker 1: Again, I get again. I told this to Fell and
Speaker 1: you didn't that tight had this conversation that the biggest deturn,
Speaker 1: you know, rough to me is the worst hazards in golf,
Speaker 1: and it just penalizes, you know, if you get a
Speaker 1: golf first like the US Open, and you can go
Speaker 1: twenty yard white fairways and knee deep rough that favors
Speaker 1: long hitters but does not favorite short hitters because everybody
Speaker 1: drives in the rough. And I figure long and the rough.
Speaker 1: You mightley get it up by the green, but you're
Speaker 1: short in the rough of chipping out. So I always
Speaker 1: thought that if you really wanted to make it fairy again,
Speaker 1: I think trees are great urns. I think dog legs
Speaker 1: are a real dog legs are great deterrence, and again
Speaker 1: wind and then firmness and then angles, you know, forcing
Speaker 1: players to hit the ball on the pick a line
Speaker 1: and hit it on that line. If you don't, you
Speaker 1: gotta pentalized and hitting at the right distance. That's how
Speaker 1: you make the game harder as supposed to. Just let
Speaker 1: me tell you something, and from an architecturals, now, I
Speaker 1: don't mean that if you have a five hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty yard part four that's difficult. All you need is
Speaker 1: a tee a fair way in the green. You don't
Speaker 1: need anything else to make a three hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: yard part four difficult. You actually need some imaginations skill
Speaker 1: And take the fourteenth hole at Nearfield Village, one of
Speaker 1: the great short part fours in golf. Jack did a
Speaker 1: good job of thinking you hit the ball on the
Speaker 1: right line the right distance. Twelve all against the National
Speaker 1: is a perfect example of that. Anybody could make the
Speaker 1: a two hundred and fifty yard part three hard. It's
Speaker 1: not that difficult. You just need tea in the green.
Speaker 1: That's it. You know, it could be anything. It's going
Speaker 1: to play difficult. It's making the short one that the
Speaker 1: one where everyone can play difficult. The challenge is good
Speaker 1: players and allows bad players to play. That's the skill
Speaker 1: in architecture that we seem to be losing a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I bang that. I talk about narrow
Speaker 2: fairways and and favoring the long hitters so much. You know,
Speaker 2: if you miss the fairways like the twenty yard wide faaraway,
Speaker 2: everybody's gonna miss a handful of times.
Speaker 1: Well again, the straightest driver on tour it's about ten
Speaker 1: out of fourteen faraways, and the most crooked driver on
Speaker 1: tour hits about seven. Yeah, that's and the three fairways.
Speaker 2: I think that's why you saw so much good, so
Speaker 2: much variety at Aaron Hills was because these faraways were
Speaker 2: wide and guys could go out and hit twelve fairways.
Speaker 1: But I thought it was a good turn. And the
Speaker 1: USJ doesn't like those kinds of scoring. I think, did
Speaker 1: he shoot fifteen when he shot there? A pretty decent
Speaker 1: under four but again I think we've That's where the
Speaker 1: us J is wrong, is that that score is the champion.
Speaker 1: It wasn't hard to figure out who the best player
Speaker 1: that week was, and to me, that means you've done
Speaker 1: your goal. And when Rory got sixteen hundred Congressional, it
Speaker 1: wasn't hard to figure out who. It's not like some
Speaker 1: flukey guy who didn't. He deserved to win, and you can,
Speaker 1: you can. You guys are into this. You go back,
Speaker 1: and the lower the score is relation to par, almost invariably,
Speaker 1: the more worthy the champion was. You know, when two
Speaker 1: over par wins the Overville Moody ones, when eight under
Speaker 1: part wins, Jack Nicholas wins, that's a great point and
Speaker 1: we Augusta does it again. I hate to say this,
Speaker 1: A Guesta does a great job with that too. But
Speaker 1: when you see really low scores in major championships, a
Speaker 1: lot of times it's Tiger Woods and Jack Nicholas and
Speaker 1: guys okay, Rory McElroy, Jordan Speed. Mean, I think this
Speaker 1: Kupka guy and he pronounces name, this guy holy, he
Speaker 1: can really apply. Man, he's gonna win a lot of
Speaker 1: major championships.
Speaker 2: I would guess, Yeah, he he's got a lot of game.
Speaker 2: There's that much.
Speaker 1: He has a lot of games.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he hits the great, he puts well, and he
Speaker 2: chips well, it's not like there's any holes.
Speaker 1: So is known.
Speaker 2: Well, Hey paul I, I appreciate the time.
Speaker 1: And yeah, no problem, and.
Speaker 2: Uh I'll see you that. You guys got the senior
Speaker 2: players that of course. I uh I grew up playing
Speaker 2: around and more. Yeah, old school Donald Ross course. So
Speaker 2: we'll see you out there next summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, come find me
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks a lot, and thank you