Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball.
Speaker 2: In a brid Egg Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg Bride,
Speaker 2: Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run.
Speaker 1: Off of the hump.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Podcast.
Speaker 3: Today's episode is our Open Championship preview. So we did
Speaker 3: five things I think I think Clay's got to five
Speaker 3: things with golf course architect, former European Tour player and
Speaker 3: golf commentator Michael Clayton. So Michael has played in three
Speaker 3: Open Championships at the Old Court, So figured, you know,
Speaker 3: someone keen to golf architecture as well as the professional
Speaker 3: game would be perfect for this podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Mike for coming on.
Speaker 3: It's always great to pick his brain on on the
Speaker 3: game of golf. He's got just a wealth of stories
Speaker 3: and history and uh and knowledge. So, without further ado,
Speaker 3: here is our Open Championship Preview with Michael Clayton. Clayton's
Speaker 3: You're back and we got the one hundred fithieth Open
Speaker 3: at Saint Andrew's the Old Course. I know it's a
Speaker 3: place that you love and I figured it'd be a
Speaker 3: great time to bring you on to talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about, you know, the world of professional golf. And
Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll touch on the Old Course. But tell
Speaker 3: me how many how many competitive rounds have you played
Speaker 3: at the Old Course in professional golf rounds?
Speaker 2: To miss cuts to make cut? So I made the
Speaker 2: cut in ninety nineteen ninety, missed at ninety four, missed
Speaker 2: at ninety.
Speaker 1: Five, three majors, three majors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it. So, and I've never played the
Speaker 2: golf course outside of an open week. I've walked it,
Speaker 2: but never played it. So I've never actually played it
Speaker 2: for fun.
Speaker 1: It seems like you got to go do that.
Speaker 2: I do. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of a
Speaker 2: train wreck of a course to play in the middle
Speaker 2: of the day when there are thousands of people out there,
Speaker 2: and just you know, when you've played it when you're
Speaker 2: in an open, it's like playing it when it's I mean,
Speaker 2: it's the craziest place in the world to play golf.
Speaker 2: It's not like you can go out there at four
Speaker 2: o'clock and be on your own. You're playing in a
Speaker 2: four ball and it's six hours and there's balls going everywhere,
Speaker 2: and in some ways I just enjoy walking it rather
Speaker 2: than playing it.
Speaker 3: So this is with it being there, I feel like
Speaker 3: it's a really nice kind of punctuation on the year
Speaker 3: of golf. I think we've had really really stand out
Speaker 3: major championships this year, and it's fitting that it's the
Speaker 3: one hundred and fiftieth Open and it'll be at St.
Speaker 1: Andrews.
Speaker 3: And for this I did our traditional preview here with
Speaker 3: five things about about the tournament that you're looking forward to,
Speaker 3: and uh, why don't you, Why don't you hit me
Speaker 3: with your first thing that you're you're looking forward to?
Speaker 2: Tiger because everyone wants to know the state of Tiger's game.
Speaker 2: And we finished up watching was it YouTube last night
Speaker 2: and no wherever it was, I watched that round he
Speaker 2: played at the McManus thing in Ireland, so swinging looks good.
Speaker 2: You know. I just think he's the most compelling guy
Speaker 2: since Sevy who was the you know. So it's everyone's
Speaker 2: fascinat as to what he's going to do in the
Speaker 2: state of his game. How the course plays is the
Speaker 2: second most interesting thing is how's the what's how's it
Speaker 2: going to be affected by the equipment, which is really
Speaker 2: a debate that's ramped up even more since the last
Speaker 2: Open there, you know it was it was it was
Speaker 2: a question in you know, twenty fifteen they were already
Speaker 2: playing the Torment on five different golf courses or four
Speaker 2: plus an out of bounds him malayas Eden New Old
Speaker 2: and the seventeen's out of bounds. So but that debate
Speaker 2: has only gotten bigger in the in the intervening seven years.
Speaker 2: So it's a will highlight where the state of the
Speaker 2: game is re equipment and so much of that is
Speaker 2: the problem with that debate is that it's so dependent
Speaker 2: on not dependent on but people fixate on the scores
Speaker 2: they shoot. So if ninety underwins like it did in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety, it's a disaster because well, look the course
Speaker 2: is too easy and obsolete and too short. Five years
Speaker 2: later in ninety five, John Darley shot White five under,
Speaker 2: So five under one all's right with well, because only
Speaker 2: five under one, but that's complete. You know, that depends
Speaker 2: on the way that so you know, it's not asking
Speaker 2: the question of what the equipment's done. The courses including
Speaker 2: St Andrews and Roll, Melbourne and Marion and you know
Speaker 2: the great all courses that were intended to play one
Speaker 2: why but play another way because the vulgus I.
Speaker 1: Fought, those two are are right there. I'm mined.
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm very fascinated with Tiger for this
Speaker 3: this tournament. Obviously, you know, we didn't see him at
Speaker 3: the country club. Last time we saw him at Southern Hills,
Speaker 3: he made the cut. I mean, I think one of
Speaker 3: the things that has wowed me this year with Tiger
Speaker 3: is just like the really resiliency to make cuts. And
Speaker 3: it kind of makes me wonder about other guys that
Speaker 3: are in their primes, at the peak of their powers,
Speaker 3: that are missing cuts. And it's like this guy, I mean,
Speaker 3: he's got like one and a half legs and he's
Speaker 3: out there making baking cuts and you know he's not
Speaker 3: playing again tournament golf outside of that. And then at
Speaker 3: Southern Hills, i mean, the weather turned and it just
Speaker 3: wasn't a real pretty third round scene, and you know,
Speaker 3: it makes me wonder about this tournament, like, I you know,
Speaker 3: part of me in my head this if this goes
Speaker 3: for the Old Course and and Tiger is like, are
Speaker 3: both of these courses kind of at the end of
Speaker 3: their championship day, Like is Tiger and the Old Course
Speaker 3: kind of coinciding at the end of their championship days,
Speaker 3: Like if you know, nothing meaningful is done with equipment,
Speaker 3: it looks like there might be something done with equipment.
Speaker 3: We'll see what it is exactly, but you know, are
Speaker 3: is Tiger's really major championship career? Could this this could
Speaker 3: be the end? You never know at this point with
Speaker 3: his body, it would be a fitting one hundred and
Speaker 3: fiftieth at Saint Andrew's place to say goodbye.
Speaker 1: I don't think he will necessarily.
Speaker 3: This is all just speculation obviously, But then also like
Speaker 3: with the Old Course, like this is a place that
Speaker 3: is a you know, it's a temple, it's a you know,
Speaker 3: holy grail. It's one of the you know, greatest courses
Speaker 3: of the world, maybe the greatest and you know, historic
Speaker 3: championship courses in the world. And like you said, it's
Speaker 3: the number of places they have to move teas to
Speaker 3: to fit championship golf in and the way that championship
Speaker 3: golf has played there now is so far removed from
Speaker 3: what it was. You know, the question is is it
Speaker 3: still a great open venue?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a great venue because the venue is more
Speaker 2: than just the golf course. So is it a great
Speaker 2: You know, the venue is the town, so it's it's
Speaker 2: the best venue. So is it the best course? And
Speaker 2: does it offer a suitable test? Well, you know, there
Speaker 2: are lots of short part falls out there now, are
Speaker 2: lots of wet shots and only has two part fives,
Speaker 2: which is maybe maybe golf needs more part fires, because
Speaker 2: maybe that's the only way to test a driving a
Speaker 2: two on us to build more part fives. But you
Speaker 2: know it's it's I think it's I would say reverse
Speaker 2: it and say this is what this is the straw
Speaker 2: that breaks the camel's back and forces there Ina to
Speaker 2: do something about the ball. I think, you know, I
Speaker 2: hope someone goes out there and shoots fifty eight and
Speaker 2: makes a mockery of the golf course. I hope Bryson
Speaker 2: drives it on the first hole and they can see
Speaker 2: the insanity of what they've allowed to get out of
Speaker 2: the bag, you know, I mean, how they've let this
Speaker 2: equipment get to this point when they I mean what
Speaker 2: scared I think what scared them off was that was
Speaker 2: we had this ridiculous argument about grooves in ping irons
Speaker 2: essentially made no difference to certainly made no difference to
Speaker 2: half other ball went, but that case spooked them so
Speaker 2: much they just kept putting off and I were too
Speaker 2: scared to band the driver head size that They've been
Speaker 2: terrified by the threat of lawsuits from the ball manufacturers,
Speaker 2: and they've just done nothing for this has been a
Speaker 2: problem for twenty years now. But I think at some point.
Speaker 2: I think at some point they're going to have to
Speaker 2: do something because you and America will see it more
Speaker 2: than me because they are just because it's a numbers game.
Speaker 2: But you know that there's a ten year old out
Speaker 2: there and a twelve year old out there that's tomorrow's
Speaker 2: four hundred yard driver unless they do something, because it's
Speaker 2: not going to just stop going further. And I've long
Speaker 2: argued that the freak in one generation, and that freak
Speaker 2: now is who is it, Camon Champ, is that Nie
Speaker 2: and Bauer? This African kid is at Bryce and they've
Speaker 2: always been the norm. In the next generation that all,
Speaker 2: they've always become the norm. So how does the game
Speaker 2: manage a norm of three hundred and fifty oard average drives?
Speaker 2: Can't it can't function or work on any course. And
Speaker 2: Andrews or raw Melbourne or Carnusta or Augusta or no
Speaker 2: course can function when the scale is that far out?
Speaker 1: How would you say?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: What hole out there?
Speaker 3: Or A couple holes have changed the most with modern
Speaker 3: technology from when you played it and opened, well.
Speaker 2: They've moved the teas back so farther. The fourth is
Speaker 2: I haven't played the fourths obviously since ninety five, so
Speaker 2: for twenty five years, but it teas back so far
Speaker 2: now that looks like such a long, incredibly difficult hole.
Speaker 2: So I start on the team, go the hell do
Speaker 2: you play this with less than a drive and a
Speaker 2: two one? But then you go play with kids and
Speaker 2: you hit a good drive and they hit it eighty
Speaker 2: yards further than you do, and you go, well, that's
Speaker 2: how they play it. So it's hard to you know,
Speaker 2: unless you're out there watching them playing in them and
Speaker 2: seeing how they play it, it's hard to imagine how
Speaker 2: difficult is that hole is going to be? What can
Speaker 2: you do with holes like six and seven and you
Speaker 2: know nine and ten and twelve and sixteen and eight,
Speaker 2: and you can't make them any longer. They're just drives
Speaker 2: and pitches, drives and wedges. So yeah, it's unusual. If
Speaker 2: you're building a golf course now, you would never build
Speaker 2: as many short part fours as they build on the
Speaker 2: old course. I mean one short, three, short, six, was short, seven, eight, nine, twelve, eighteen, sixteen,
Speaker 2: were all kind of short part fours. So no one
Speaker 2: would compile a group of holes like that and put
Speaker 2: them under one course now, no matter how great they are.
Speaker 2: So it's I'm convinced they're going to do something at
Speaker 2: some point, They're going to do something about the ball
Speaker 2: because they have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, at some point something has to be addressed.
Speaker 3: What you know with regards to the with regards to
Speaker 3: the golf course, and I know this is you know
Speaker 3: what you consider the greatest golf course in the world
Speaker 3: to be the greatest golf course in the world.
Speaker 1: What's your what's your.
Speaker 3: Favorite memory or the one you think about, like is
Speaker 3: there a shot that you played in your majors there
Speaker 3: that you think about the most over the years, Like,
Speaker 3: is there a shot you remember the most?
Speaker 2: Well? Two The first was the second hole in No.
Speaker 2: Eighty four I put I pulled the drive over in
Speaker 2: the bunk away on the left. And the first lesson
Speaker 2: you should learn about links golf is if you're in
Speaker 2: a bunker, get out, And it was kind of a
Speaker 2: nice lie a lot of downslope, not that high a lip.
Speaker 2: I can get there with a seven nine straight into
Speaker 2: the face, nine nine straight in the face, Sam Way
Speaker 2: jat sideways triple. So I remember that is you know,
Speaker 2: the first just get out, just cost you a shot,
Speaker 2: get out, and the second was playing with It was
Speaker 2: a freak draw. The drawing nineteen ninety was supposed to
Speaker 2: be Payne Stewart, Bernard Langer and Larry Nelson right before
Speaker 2: the tourment like on Monday, Larry Nelson with drawers, and
Speaker 2: I would I was the second qualifier. I'd played well
Speaker 2: that year on tour, so they stick.
Speaker 1: Me in the in the group unbelievable.
Speaker 2: So it's Stuart Langer, Clayton, what's going on here? It
Speaker 2: was like ridiculous. So Bernard and I were Payne was
Speaker 2: obviously playing well, we finished second that week. He was
Speaker 2: playing well, Langer was not playing well. I was playing well.
Speaker 2: So we were both one under, playing seventeen on Friday
Speaker 2: and the cut was going to be even. So I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I can make a bug in a part, It'll be fine.
Speaker 2: End of the wind three iron shot. I flew it
Speaker 2: into the bank at the front of the seventh green
Speaker 2: and propped it and ran up to about fifteen feet. It
Speaker 2: was like an amazing shot and Bernard did pretty much
Speaker 2: the same thing. So we made fours there part of
Speaker 2: the last and the cut finished up going to one
Speaker 2: forty three. It was the first underpart whatever in a major.
Speaker 2: I think that was kind of a cool shot. But yeah,
Speaker 2: one good memory of one bad one, but it was
Speaker 2: it was It was fun to play with those guys.
Speaker 2: You kind of was a That was an unusual draw
Speaker 2: for me and a major for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, what was that like being in a major?
Speaker 3: You know, it being we see it happen all the time,
Speaker 3: where you know somebody wd's you get out of that group.
Speaker 3: Do you remember, like what was the difference in the
Speaker 3: feel of a major at that And I'm sure, like
Speaker 3: you know, you had events where you were in high
Speaker 3: profile late Sunday pairings, but when it's a Major championship,
Speaker 3: how's that different?
Speaker 2: I remember? Really, I mean again, you just kind of
Speaker 2: you're into what you're doing. I remember walking on the
Speaker 2: first tee. I was with Squirrel who was cutting for me,
Speaker 2: Squirrel who carted for Jeff Ogilvy when he won the
Speaker 2: US Open. I walked on to the first tair looked
Speaker 2: at but I said, you guys must be nervous playing
Speaker 2: with mid today. But yeah, it was that were great
Speaker 2: to play. I mean, Pain was that. It was. It
Speaker 2: was a It was a really cool group to play with.
Speaker 2: Bernard was you know, there were two cool guys to
Speaker 2: play with. It wasn't like that I felt out of
Speaker 2: place or you know, they didn't treat me any differently
Speaker 2: from they would have treated Larry Nelson. It was it
Speaker 2: was just it was fun playing with him. And there's
Speaker 2: always kind of you know, I don't know what it is,
Speaker 2: but there's always more angie or more something around a
Speaker 2: group like that, you know, partly because you don't want
Speaker 2: to make a fool of yourself, and you tried desperately
Speaker 2: not to. I played decently enough that you know, I
Speaker 2: walked off the last screen, and at least I didn't
Speaker 2: think I was a complete hack. But it was fun
Speaker 2: and Pain played. I remember how beautifully Paine played. He
Speaker 2: was using that beat, that that way or Wilson Driver,
Speaker 2: and he played beautifully for two days the Wheel.
Speaker 3: I didn't think we were going to talk about the wheel,
Speaker 3: but that's you know, old school, old school club that
Speaker 3: not everybody listening to this will be even be aware of.
Speaker 3: With Tiger, you know, we kind of breezed over what
Speaker 3: are your expectations? What do you expect out of Tiger
Speaker 3: this week? You know, and I always preface this with
Speaker 3: saying anything it does would surprise me.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious what you what you think?
Speaker 2: No, well, Shack and I did a state of the
Speaker 2: game played last week where I said, of course Tiger
Speaker 2: can't win, and he said, well, why can't he win? You? Well,
Speaker 2: you know, we've spent I mean, I thought in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six, it was, you know, there's no way this
Speaker 2: guy's going to make enough money to make a card
Speaker 2: for nineteen ninety seven and of course Yah won twice,
Speaker 2: and so we've we've spent twenty years underestimating what he
Speaker 2: could do and how great he was until he until
Speaker 2: kind of s Andrew's and Pebble Bee Well, well, Augusta
Speaker 2: in ninety seven, it was you know, that was the
Speaker 2: first time. But once he'd done s Andrew's and Pebble
Speaker 2: Beach in two thousand, you could never underestimate how great
Speaker 2: he was and what he did. It's interesting to look
Speaker 2: back at his career now, you know understand that we
Speaker 2: lived through one of the you know the greatest eras
Speaker 2: Ian the Jones era, the Nicolas era, the Hogan era
Speaker 2: and Tiger and it was, you know, we're all lucky
Speaker 2: to incredibly lucky to see him play and play. I
Speaker 2: saw him play some inside the ropes a couple of times,
Speaker 2: the last round at beth Page in two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: the last two days at Hoylake, and the and the
Speaker 2: singles at the at Royal Melbourne and the President's Cup,
Speaker 2: and it was, you know, golf beyond belief. Really only
Speaker 2: in my time only watching Sevy was close to being
Speaker 2: as good.
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Speaker 1: Now back to Michael Klay.
Speaker 3: A thing I'm watching is, you know, over the years,
Speaker 3: I think this goes a lot with the weather conditions,
Speaker 3: the courses, the architecture, the firmness of the turf. The
Speaker 3: Open is an older, older guys tournament. You know, we
Speaker 3: see a lot of older players win Open championships. If
Speaker 3: you go down the list like that, the average age
Speaker 3: of winner is a lot older. So that's something with
Speaker 3: with with us in an unprecedented youth cycle. That's something
Speaker 3: that I would like to see, you know. Is something
Speaker 3: I'm just watching, is are we gonna are we gonna
Speaker 3: get a guy that like bags his second major or
Speaker 3: an unexpected you know, add on to a two time
Speaker 3: major that's a little bit older in the in the
Speaker 3: tooth like a you know that. That's something that I'm
Speaker 3: watching this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it always amazes me when I watch
Speaker 2: Adam Scott play. It's like, why isn't he still He
Speaker 2: always looks like he plays beautiful and he's played now
Speaker 2: a bunch of opens. There's no reason why that course
Speaker 2: doesn't suit him. Is he the sort of old guy
Speaker 2: who could jump up and have a great week and win?
Speaker 2: And kel Nagle won the Open there in nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: he was forty years old and one of the most
Speaker 2: amazing stats ever in golf that no one ever let
Speaker 2: him know about, let alone talk about it. It was
Speaker 2: the fifth major he ever played, and he was forty
Speaker 2: years old and he won the Open. So whilst he
Speaker 2: was old, he was he had he was young in
Speaker 2: golf terms in terms of and he was he top
Speaker 2: tender pretty much through the sixties in the open.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, you just could see, you could see, you know,
Speaker 3: somebody just popping a win and it wouldn't be a surprise, right.
Speaker 3: There's so many great guys, great players, long jevity type
Speaker 3: players in their like late thirties, early forties, Adam Scott,
Speaker 3: you know, you've got Justin Rose, who's been playing good
Speaker 3: golf lately. You've got you know, I don't think Sergio
Speaker 3: is gonna do it. He hasn't done much of anything
Speaker 3: since he won the Masters. But you look at that
Speaker 3: that age group of players. Even you know Mark Leishman,
Speaker 3: he's not exactly old, but he's older, you know, and
Speaker 3: has played well at the at the at at C
Speaker 3: and Andrews almost one in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: Yep, no doubt. I mean Louis, I mean Louis got
Speaker 2: I guess he got a little lucky with the draw,
Speaker 2: but I mean he still plays beautifully. And you know,
Speaker 2: there are as always it's the it's the course that
Speaker 2: throws up the most number of possible guys who can win,
Speaker 2: really because there are so many different ways to play it.
Speaker 2: And you know, Pennet Thompson's view in nineteen ninety five
Speaker 2: was he told me on Wednesday, he said, John Dai
Speaker 2: will win here because you'll hit us, said it over everything,
Speaker 2: and he did. And Day's record in the open to
Speaker 2: that point was terrible. But he found a course where
Speaker 2: he could hit it over everything, and he hit it
Speaker 2: over everything and beat Rocker and Michael Campbell. So so
Speaker 2: there was that. You know, you look at Rocker, Campbell
Speaker 2: and Daily and Leishman, Johnson and Louis. There were you know,
Speaker 2: six guys you finished up, you know, threatening to win
Speaker 2: and playing off and opening and they're kind of wildly
Speaker 2: different games. And you know, at that point they weren't
Speaker 2: the best players in the world, but they they played
Speaker 2: great golf and during the week. So it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's a we'll see.
Speaker 1: So what's your what's your third thing?
Speaker 2: Well? I think this is because I saw it because
Speaker 2: he posted it decade How decade works there, Scott force
Speaker 2: it because this is the ldimate disrupted this course for
Speaker 2: you know, the mathematical formula of playing golf courses, and
Speaker 2: it's you know, at seven, you know, he put up
Speaker 2: a picture of seventeen which was take driver and at
Speaker 2: sixty two yards White it's too eighty and sixty two
Speaker 2: yards white, take a driver and aim it here. So,
Speaker 2: you know, as much as I detest the fact that
Speaker 2: you can distill golf down to a mathematical formula, I
Speaker 2: kind of understand that on most courses you can. And
Speaker 2: this is the ultimate disruptor, this golf course for his system.
Speaker 2: But a lot of interesting to see how it works
Speaker 2: and how I mean, you probably won't know how many
Speaker 2: guys are using it, but you know Zella Taurus is
Speaker 2: and you know Bryson probably is what Bryson is. So
Speaker 2: it's interesting to see how that plays out, how that
Speaker 2: that formula. You know, can you play St Andrews in
Speaker 2: a formula way with a computer and a Google map
Speaker 2: and a protractor and hes you play the golf course?
Speaker 2: Does it work? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that I'm curious about
Speaker 3: is the firmness of the turf and what that does.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Obviously, I remember with decade with the USAM abandoned. You know,
Speaker 3: I think he I think Scott Faucet send a tweet
Speaker 3: out it was like this is a driver everywhere of course,
Speaker 3: like or something along those lines. You're gonna hit driver
Speaker 3: everywhere and then I was watching the Usam and it
Speaker 3: was irons everywhere because the firmness of the turf and
Speaker 3: the way that ball just runs, you know, And that
Speaker 3: will be the interesting aspect of like you know, mathematically,
Speaker 3: when you look at it, it's like, Okay, I can't
Speaker 3: hit my driver this far. But we've seen in so
Speaker 3: many opens guys reached bunkers that they didn't think they
Speaker 3: could ever get to in very crucial spots like the
Speaker 3: seventy second hole of an open, where they hit you know,
Speaker 3: they're just pumped up and the turf's running and the
Speaker 3: ball gets to a bunker they never thought in a
Speaker 3: million years that they would reach.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: That's the the I think the equalizer with links golf,
Speaker 3: along with the wind, you know, and what that to
Speaker 3: particularly young players, And you know that mathematical not hitting
Speaker 3: different shapes of shots. Is this one stock kind of
Speaker 3: shot type of mentality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just teed up and hit as far as
Speaker 2: you can. And it's in some ways it's such a
Speaker 2: tempting place to do that because you can get so
Speaker 2: close to so many greens. The ultimate case of I
Speaker 2: mean that bunker that Norman drove it into. It true
Speaker 2: in the playoff I played that week, the bunker was
Speaker 2: never a consideration. It wasn't remotely close to being in play.
Speaker 2: And because no one almost no one walked back to
Speaker 2: that tea, because that tea was so far back at true.
Speaker 2: I mean Wayne Grady, who I stayed with that week,
Speaker 2: was in the playoff and as soon as Greg hit
Speaker 2: that drive, Calcu and I just said a great shot
Speaker 2: and we was walked off. It was just a great
Speaker 2: drive and couldn't believe where it finished. It was just
Speaker 2: beyond belief that that thing went into that bunker. So
Speaker 2: you're right, that's the that's the you know, it's the
Speaker 2: mystik of the links and why they're so interesting and
Speaker 2: why they're you know, a bunker. That's you know, the
Speaker 2: Arni l story about those bunkers at Millford on the
Speaker 2: fifth hold that why the hell are they there? And
Speaker 2: then he comes around three days later and the things
Speaker 2: straight into the window. Now I know why they're there,
Speaker 2: you know. So it's no right. It's golf like no
Speaker 2: other golf. It's like tennis on a clay court, which
Speaker 2: I never understood until Paul Mcam, a great tennis player,
Speaker 2: explain to me why clay court tennis was the equivalent
Speaker 2: of links golf, why it was so much more nuanced
Speaker 2: than hard court tennis or grass court tennis, and why
Speaker 2: it was the most interesting and the best form of
Speaker 2: the game. And he drew that straight parallel between clay
Speaker 2: court tennis and lynx golf, which you kind of wouldn't
Speaker 2: think that, but he said, you know, you really find
Speaker 2: that who can play when you watch people playing a
Speaker 2: clay court, and you really find that who can play
Speaker 2: when you watch people player on the links golf course.
Speaker 1: I think, you know what thin I'll parlay off this.
Speaker 3: One of my things is I've got will zel Torris
Speaker 3: along with Rory Baceleroy. These both these guys have three
Speaker 3: top tens and all three majors. Zel Torus obviously has
Speaker 3: been extraordinarily close to the last two.
Speaker 1: I think I watched a ton of him.
Speaker 3: At at the the country Club, and I did. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think in terms of young talent, he's got the
Speaker 3: widest array of shots from Teter Green. I think, I
Speaker 3: just I'm so impressed with his with his striking, you know,
Speaker 3: the the the iron play that like of all the
Speaker 3: young players, I feel like, if it gets really windy,
Speaker 3: he's the guy that I actually like a lot because
Speaker 3: of the way he can control his trajectories and and
Speaker 3: different things. And obviously I think some of that, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know how you agree if you agree with this,
Speaker 3: but the other thing with wind when it's windy, short
Speaker 3: game kind of becomes important, and that could be you know,
Speaker 3: a spot where like a guy like Scheffler thrives. But
Speaker 3: the you know, the other thing with Rory on this
Speaker 3: point of the three top ten guys is I, you know,
Speaker 3: I feel like Rory was really in the crux of
Speaker 3: the live stuff the last two majors, between the PGA
Speaker 3: and the US Open. I mean, there was very peak
Speaker 3: peak live and things have started to play out a
Speaker 3: little bit more. I think there's less pressure there.
Speaker 1: But also.
Speaker 3: I just don't think he's in the same position that
Speaker 3: he's in at the Masters and this and and I
Speaker 3: don't know, something about this year, the way he's played
Speaker 3: and it being the one hundred and fiftieth at Saint
Speaker 3: Andrews like makes me think that we're gonna get an
Speaker 3: all time winner, you know, just something you know, maybe
Speaker 3: it's the romantic of me, but like it feels like
Speaker 3: a Rory Maceleroy win would be just apropos this.
Speaker 2: Week, and he's when we were talking about the five
Speaker 2: things you you know, were that have going on interest
Speaker 2: us this week. Rory's really almost at the top of
Speaker 2: the list with Tiger. What's What's I mean? I watched him.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen him play much. I've seen him pay.
Speaker 2: I saw him playing Australia. In fact, he played, he
Speaker 2: played in the open when he was a kid, he
Speaker 2: straight open when he was sixteen. But I watched him play.
Speaker 2: He was here in the twenty and forty or fifteen mile,
Speaker 2: I can't remember. In fact he won, he buried the
Speaker 2: last and Adam Bogan it and he beat him by shot.
Speaker 2: I was a standard of how good he was, and
Speaker 2: he was he won four majors at that point, I think,
Speaker 2: and it's beyond belief that he hasn't won one since.
Speaker 2: How's that possible? And you know, and we watch him
Speaker 2: play and it's like, how's he going to mess this
Speaker 2: one up? And surely you can't keep not winning if
Speaker 2: he was as good as that, and you put yourself
Speaker 2: in that position. I mean, he seems like he's gotten
Speaker 2: around playing that miserable first round and taking himself out
Speaker 2: of it on Thursday. He's played some great opening rounds
Speaker 2: the last couple of Majors, So I just kind of
Speaker 2: imagine that Roy McRoy finished his career with four Majors
Speaker 2: and not not. I mean I would bet on eight.
Speaker 2: So I just think he's that good a player. But
Speaker 2: you know how as each one, as each subsequent year
Speaker 2: and major goes on without him winning, won't it's gotta
Speaker 2: be tough for him.
Speaker 3: Well that's the thing too. It's just the pressure that
Speaker 3: adds with every miss, you know, and every close call.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, like everybody was writing there,
Speaker 3: like you know, everybody kind of talked about how the
Speaker 3: Masters was such a big deal for him, finishing second
Speaker 3: and walking away happy like he couldn't have walked away
Speaker 3: happy coming in his side, like you know, you know,
Speaker 3: like that when you're that elite of a player, like
Speaker 3: I know he said he was happy, like he's shot
Speaker 3: his best rounde ever.
Speaker 1: But it was all that.
Speaker 3: It's always all the other things that you know, you
Speaker 3: think about. You get done with a four round tournament,
Speaker 3: and you know, you remember every little micro moment and
Speaker 3: every time you just you gave one away. And I
Speaker 3: think That's been the big thing with with Rory over
Speaker 3: the years is just the his game just doesn't seem
Speaker 3: quite as tidy as others in majors. And there's the
Speaker 3: there's these lapses and these three whole stretches. And but
Speaker 3: that being said, I do think he's playing as good
Speaker 3: of golf as he's played in a very long time.
Speaker 3: You know, he's he's you know, he's had some runs
Speaker 3: of great golf and this year has been one of
Speaker 3: those runs. And and it just it seems like the moment,
Speaker 3: like if I was going to pick it out right
Speaker 3: winner this week, I might pick I think I've gonna
Speaker 3: pick Rory.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to pick.
Speaker 3: Somebody different for like by one and done zem in,
Speaker 3: but because I've already taken him.
Speaker 1: But like I like Rory this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he played what he played. He got caught
Speaker 2: in the wind. That was it. They opened Louis One
Speaker 2: where he shot sixty three the first round and then
Speaker 2: got the horrible start of the draw and shut a
Speaker 2: shot a high seventies in the second day and finished
Speaker 2: up you know, that far behind. But it was only
Speaker 2: that one day that Yeah, I mean, I just you know,
Speaker 2: he's I mean his thing always looks great to me
Speaker 2: when you watch him play in Canada and you think, well,
Speaker 2: of course he's the best part in the world. But
Speaker 2: if it was the best parande in the world, he
Speaker 2: would have won one major in eight years, wouldn't he.
Speaker 2: So that's why it's why it's such a fascinating game.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a that's a conundrum of the gun.
Speaker 2: I how can when when when Tom Watson walked off
Speaker 2: the eighteenth Green in nineteen eighty three, and you know,
Speaker 2: if someone had said that's the last major he's going
Speaker 2: to win, you would have been what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Because he's the best part in the world. He's thirty
Speaker 2: four years old. Same with Arnold Palmer in nine to
Speaker 2: sixty four Augusta. It was inconceivable that was going to
Speaker 2: be the last major he was going to win, as
Speaker 2: it would be inconceivable that the PGA that Rory won
Speaker 2: at Valhalla was you know, if someone said, if someone
Speaker 2: when he walked up that green said in the dark,
Speaker 2: that's going to be the last major that guy's going
Speaker 2: to win, it's like, well, you completely crazy, of course
Speaker 2: it's not.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing too, that's the kind of.
Speaker 3: I think one of the the fallacies that we fall
Speaker 3: into every time we get a guy that wins one,
Speaker 3: you know, John Rahm at last year's US Open, it's like, well, like,
Speaker 3: could this guy win five majors? Like is the media thing?
Speaker 3: And it's, you know, it's hard to win two majors.
Speaker 3: It's there are a lot of great players that don't
Speaker 3: get two majors. There are a lot of generational talents
Speaker 3: that get to like, look at Dustin Johnson and his
Speaker 3: career at majors, How's that guy only have two? You know,
Speaker 3: like it feels like he should have five or six
Speaker 3: and he only has two? And will he ever get
Speaker 3: another one? I don't, you know, I don't think he will.
Speaker 2: I mean, how does Fred Couples have one? How did
Speaker 2: Fred Couples, Hell Sutton, John Bobby Klamp at Marco Amira
Speaker 2: have three between them? I mean it's beyond imagination that.
Speaker 2: I mean, my contemporaries that were the best colleges plays
Speaker 2: in America when I was growing up, And how is
Speaker 2: that possible? As good as they were, and Sevi and
Speaker 2: Felder finished up with eleven between them.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to win majors. And I think it
Speaker 3: gets harder when you go through these lapses, when you
Speaker 3: have the droughts like once once in your mind, like
Speaker 3: I it's one of those things you want the young talents,
Speaker 3: you want them to pick one off early, because then
Speaker 3: if they don't pick one off early, it's all of
Speaker 3: a sudden you start to get worried that it may
Speaker 3: never happen because of the scar tissue that comes from
Speaker 3: coming close and falling up and falling short so often.
Speaker 3: Because you know, when you think about golfers, is like,
Speaker 3: there aren't a lot of golfers that have more than
Speaker 3: a ten year window of really good golf. For most guys,
Speaker 3: it's five years, like you know that of really great golf.
Speaker 3: And you know they're the people, the players with more
Speaker 3: of more than that window. They're they're just generational players.
Speaker 2: You know, yep, doubt it's a golf Tourments are hard
Speaker 2: to win. They're really hard to win. You know, it's
Speaker 2: easy to sit back and say you should have done it.
Speaker 2: It's like comes down to that when you've got to
Speaker 2: get it done, which shows how it only shows how
Speaker 2: great the great guys were. Tiger the obvious One, Tiger Jones,
Speaker 2: Hogan Nicholas, you know, shows how great that they could
Speaker 2: just pick them off and in a part, in part
Speaker 2: they picked them off because they knew that that was
Speaker 2: what was going to happen to the other guys, and
Speaker 2: very often it did.
Speaker 3: So we both I think we both dispensed of four.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing that we probably share a fifth here. We've
Speaker 3: we've shared almost all five. We didn't talk about these before, okay,
Speaker 3: and uh, I'm guessing live is on your list? Is
Speaker 3: the fifth one? The Lift Tour and the PGA Tour
Speaker 3: and and what might happened that week or do you?
Speaker 3: Did you keep it off?
Speaker 2: I know I kept it off. I'm so over it.
Speaker 2: I just I think history will in ten years will
Speaker 2: know how it's played out. I don't think anyone has
Speaker 2: any idea how it's going to play out. That is
Speaker 2: what it is. I don't know. I don't think. I
Speaker 2: don't history's going to I think there'll be a whole
Speaker 2: lot of unintended consequences. Hopefully one of them is the
Speaker 2: PGA tour gets out of November and December, unlets the
Speaker 2: rest of the world have some time to play their
Speaker 2: own torments in their own countries without destroying the mean
Speaker 2: the Australian Tour has been destroyed by the wrap around tour,
Speaker 2: and not entirely that, but the fact that Leishman and
Speaker 2: Smith and Cam Davis and our best players are kept
Speaker 2: behind after school to play because they want to get
Speaker 2: off to a good start the following year's kept them
Speaker 2: out of playing in Australia and it's just trashed out tour,
Speaker 2: you know. So if one of the unintended consequences is
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour gets out of November December, that'll be
Speaker 2: a great thing. And I've long argued, because I was
Speaker 2: a disciple of pretty much everything Peter Thompson ever thought
Speaker 2: and wrote, was that this should be a great tour
Speaker 2: outside of the United States, and that was what he
Speaker 2: tried to start. My bitch with Greg is that Greg's
Speaker 2: twice now done it for the benefit of Greg and
Speaker 2: what Greg's thinks should happen. Peter was doing it to
Speaker 2: try and create jobs for players outside of the United States,
Speaker 2: and he started the Asian Tour basically, he skipped the
Speaker 2: US Masters one year to play the Indian Open. He
Speaker 2: played the European Tour, the Japan Tour, the Australian Tour,
Speaker 2: and the Asian Tour primarily as the best non American
Speaker 2: player for fifteen years and brought those tours to life
Speaker 2: really because he and Colnaga were the big stars in
Speaker 2: Australia and they know they've created those tours, and golf
Speaker 2: outside of the United States went otherwise, who knows what
Speaker 2: would have happened. So the best thing that could happen
Speaker 2: for the game would be a great World Tour. You know.
Speaker 2: Everyone's argument is the source of the money and the
Speaker 2: number of players that are playing it. If you're gonna
Speaker 2: have a great world too, I can't be forty eight players.
Speaker 2: It has to be one hundred and fifty players.
Speaker 3: That's I mean, I think that's a wonderful I think
Speaker 3: that's one of the holes of of live is obviously
Speaker 3: the small player field. Like if the bigger you know,
Speaker 3: I think they have to have a feeder tour, they
Speaker 3: have to have a lot of movement up because otherwise
Speaker 3: you'll just get guys up there that are that are
Speaker 3: dead weight, like you know, you nobody would want to see,
Speaker 3: you know, two years play out of a guy losing
Speaker 3: his game, you know, and just being at the bottom
Speaker 3: of every leaderboard every week and wondering why he's there.
Speaker 3: But I think one of the bigger things with Live
Speaker 3: this week is is just like, is this the is
Speaker 3: this the last normal major championship?
Speaker 1: Really? Right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What what are exemptions going to look like next year?
Speaker 3: With a World Golf rankings and everything? Like, you know
Speaker 3: a lot of guys that were used to seeing the
Speaker 3: majors might not be exempt into majors next year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because yes, So the biggest question, one of the
Speaker 2: biggest questions is do they give them the the World
Speaker 2: Golf rankings give them points. So if they don't clearly
Speaker 2: the guys who are not otherwise exempt, like DJ's exempt
Speaker 2: obviously for a bunch of years and Bryson, I guess,
Speaker 2: but Kopka. But the guys who are just what once
Speaker 2: they're top once out of the top fifty, how do
Speaker 2: they get back in? You know, that's the question. But
Speaker 2: Rory and Rory hinted at it. But at some point
Speaker 2: is there a compromise and that everyone kisses and makes
Speaker 2: up and who knows? I mean, that's why it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: I think, So what's your what's your fifth thing?
Speaker 2: If I was an Australian, it would be on a
Speaker 2: whole heart did the Australians play because they've always there's
Speaker 2: always generally been an Australian in there with a shot
Speaker 2: to win. So which one of them is it? So
Speaker 2: that's purely out of self interest. But you know, cam Smith,
Speaker 2: Scott Leishman, we've got a bunch of guys playing this.
Speaker 2: I should know Matt Griffin who qualified from Asia. Sorry
Speaker 2: a torment no, no, no, the vic Open, the Victorian
Speaker 2: Open here got three spots, which was kind of bizarre
Speaker 2: because because we didn't play in the Australian Open last year,
Speaker 2: so they gave those spots of the Victorian Open. So
Speaker 2: Matt's from Melbourne, a friend of mine, so he's playing. So,
Speaker 2: you know, from a purely selfish point of view, my
Speaker 2: interest is in how the Australians play that.
Speaker 3: Camp Smith I think one of the most more fun
Speaker 3: you know, top ten players in the world to watch.
Speaker 3: You know that he gets it done differently. He's obviously
Speaker 3: added a ton of distance, he's gotten so much better
Speaker 3: with the with the striking, but that that that short game,
Speaker 3: you got to think, with the firm conditions, tight turf,
Speaker 3: that's a that's a good spot for camp Smith.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he's a remarkable. I saw him when the
Speaker 2: Straien Amateur. He was five down after fourteen holes in
Speaker 2: the morning, and you know, the kidd he was playing
Speaker 2: looks so much better, hit the ball, further, better swing,
Speaker 2: just look And wasn't that impressive because we only watched
Speaker 2: him for fourteen holes and to go five down by
Speaker 2: the time he walked off the sixteenth green in the
Speaker 2: afternoon winning three and two. When you kind of pulled
Speaker 2: apart how he played, it was incredibly impressive. It just
Speaker 2: didn't look that impressive. And he's just been the same
Speaker 2: way his whole career. He just doesn't he doesn't look
Speaker 2: like Rory or Kepka, or he just doesn't look obviously
Speaker 2: Greg Norman or se doesn't look obviously impressive. But if
Speaker 2: you really watch him play and study how he plays,
Speaker 2: he's incredibly impressive and he keeps doing it.
Speaker 1: So who's your pick to win?
Speaker 2: I think Rory? I mean, I mean, but I always
Speaker 2: picked Rory because I just because he always looks like
Speaker 2: the best player to me, and it's always like, surely
Speaker 2: this is you know, surely this is going to be
Speaker 2: the one, and I think we're all guessing it. It was.
Speaker 2: It was much easier in the seventies. This is sound
Speaker 2: like an old bitching guy here, but it was much
Speaker 2: easier in the seventies when the Open pretty much identified
Speaker 2: the best player in the world every year because it
Speaker 2: was Simon and Balada and still and it was hard
Speaker 2: to play in the wind and only the very best
Speaker 2: players won. Wis Golf was the best player in seventy three.
Speaker 2: Jack was always the best player, so he was always there.
Speaker 2: Treno was playing the best golf in seventy one. Miller
Speaker 2: was coming at the end of that amazing US Open
Speaker 2: seventy three, four, five, seventy six, but he was the
Speaker 2: best player in seventy six. And you know, so if
Speaker 2: you're picking the best who, I mean, who's the best
Speaker 2: player in the world, now, it has to be Ry
Speaker 2: He always I mean, Chef was number one, but he's
Speaker 2: he the best player in the world. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: I know you you watched him play it Brooklyn and said,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't look that the ball comes off his club.
Speaker 2: It's just not that impressive, Right, I'm gonna have a
Speaker 2: sitting play on TV. It's like, how's this got How's
Speaker 2: this got the best part in the world? But is.
Speaker 1: That's it?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I said that, and then somebody was telling me.
Speaker 3: Somebody was telling me that it's because he uses Tailor
Speaker 3: Made clubs, that that that's the sound. But I when
Speaker 3: I listened to somebody else playing Tailor Made clubs, it
Speaker 3: doesn't sound like that.
Speaker 1: It just like it's this weird.
Speaker 3: It sounds like he hits them fat, almost like it's
Speaker 3: like fat and clunky, and then it ends up like
Speaker 3: four feet away from two twenty and you're like, wait,
Speaker 3: like is that really like it's funny. I got text
Speaker 3: from some other some caddies around the tour that were like, dude,
Speaker 3: I totally know what you're talking about. Like, you know,
Speaker 3: you hear him hit the ball and it's like you
Speaker 3: think he like toe hooked it into the into the
Speaker 3: junk and it ends up ten feet and you're like, wait,
Speaker 3: how did that? But yeah, I you know, if I
Speaker 3: was gonna say who's I think Justin Thomas impresses me
Speaker 3: the most. Justin Tom and I would say I think
Speaker 3: Xalataurus outside of putting, really impresses me too. Like those
Speaker 3: two guys I think are on a different level when
Speaker 3: it comes to their shot making capabilities in terms of
Speaker 3: being able to really control distance, height, shape, everything. They
Speaker 3: got all the shots in their bag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course if you don't, Yeah, you've got to
Speaker 2: see them play to see what they're like. I watched
Speaker 2: Bobby klamp I played, I played with Clamper down here
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty one, and he was they kind of
Speaker 2: some I've never seen xalators play, but in some ways
Speaker 2: they seem like the same player. I watched clamp A
Speaker 2: play Naty one. I mean, he was a flusher. He
Speaker 2: just crashed it, beautiful player. He was gonna be there,
Speaker 2: you know, he was going to be an unbelievable start. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know it went away. But you know they
Speaker 2: almost you know, kind of thin Californian kids, blonde hair,
Speaker 2: great hitters. So as bad as Zlato's short punting struck looks.
Speaker 2: You haven't missed that many, does he?
Speaker 1: No, No, not anymore.
Speaker 3: I mean I think I think one of the other
Speaker 3: things I really like about Xalatorus is is his swagger.
Speaker 3: You know, like he he when you see you see him,
Speaker 3: the way he moves, the way the way he reacts
Speaker 3: like it doesn't he never gets too high or too low,
Speaker 3: and and it just he's got you know, he honestly
Speaker 3: has that that cocky, that quiet cockiness, that arrogance that
Speaker 3: so many great players have, like where where they know
Speaker 3: they're better than the guys they're playing with, but they
Speaker 3: don't they don't say it, but you can tell when
Speaker 3: they the way they move around that they are better players.
Speaker 3: Like it's just you know, like you see, you're hard
Speaker 3: to talk to you because you were, you know, growing up,
Speaker 3: you were probably one of the better players always. But
Speaker 3: you know, he reminds me of when you're in junior
Speaker 3: golf and you knew, like the great, the great player
Speaker 3: in the date is on the putting green and just
Speaker 3: the way they move around to putting green versus everybody
Speaker 3: else on the putting green. And I think xel Taurus
Speaker 3: kind of has that mojo about him where he knows.
Speaker 3: He talked about how he believes at Brookline, how he
Speaker 3: believes he belongs there. I kind of read into that
Speaker 3: as him saying, I know I'm better than most guys
Speaker 3: out here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's just when you're that, you know, the
Speaker 2: evidence is there. You watch the shots you hit, and
Speaker 2: you watch the other shot, the shots the other guys hit,
Speaker 2: and you can just see that you're better that was it.
Speaker 2: Bobby Jonesy's was it? Giants said that it's always good
Speaker 2: to have a song or unsaid contempt for the ability
Speaker 2: of the other man, you know, and I mean Sevee
Speaker 2: was like that because Sevi could Greg. They knew that
Speaker 2: were better because they could they could see the shots
Speaker 2: they could hit that the other guy couldn't hit.
Speaker 1: That's why the majors are the most fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's why that it's why the game
Speaker 2: would be better if it went to better courses more often.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, we can see how much better
Speaker 2: the golf was it, you know, Augusta, Southern Hills, the
Speaker 2: country Club and presumably the old course. You know how
Speaker 2: how great the golf is because because the stage is
Speaker 2: so great. You know, you go to the average PGA
Speaker 2: tour course or the Mount Juliet and go, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just it's a place to play golf and it's
Speaker 2: a nice golf course, but it's not really doing it.
Speaker 2: But we're preaching to the choir here. But you know,
Speaker 2: you watch Tiger play at Roy Melbourne in the President's
Speaker 2: Cup when Tiger was old at twenty nineteen Presidents Cup,
Speaker 2: and he wasn't playing much golf at the time, and
Speaker 2: he was clearly the best player there because because the
Speaker 2: course showed off the things that he could do that
Speaker 2: the other guys couldn't. That's why you need the great stage,
Speaker 2: and that's why golf needs to stop playing down the
Speaker 2: motorway for twenty five million dollars and ten million dollars,
Speaker 2: needs to start going to better golf courses, and it
Speaker 2: needs to start regulating the equipment so he can go
Speaker 2: back to better golf courses and they're relevant again, you know.
Speaker 2: So they're that that along with so the equipment and
Speaker 2: the architecture and live and the compromise that we've got
Speaker 2: to make, all the compromise that the game is going
Speaker 2: to have to make to manage those three things are
Speaker 2: the most important questions of the next ten years, really,
Speaker 2: and it's going to take people with a high golf
Speaker 2: IQ to manage it. Not manufacturers and not administrators, but
Speaker 2: you know, administrators listening to people with high golf I
Speaker 2: cues as to why this needs to be controlled. And
Speaker 2: someone needs to tell the PGA too, why they need
Speaker 2: to go to better golf courses and not just the
Speaker 2: same formula thing week afterward week because I don't know
Speaker 2: about you, but so many of my friends just say,
Speaker 2: I just don't watch golf anymore. I'm not over. I'm
Speaker 2: so bored with it. When's it interesting anymore?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think, I mean, I think that's the that's kind
Speaker 3: of where it's headed when it when it becomes so
Speaker 3: homogenized and you know, every week is the same on
Speaker 3: the PGA tour. I think that's the kind of the
Speaker 3: that's what they've you know, they tried to add all
Speaker 3: this and they thought, oh, make it uniform would be
Speaker 3: a good thing. But reality, what they were doing is
Speaker 3: stripping away the history and and the quirk and the
Speaker 3: the neat things about a week in, week out stops
Speaker 3: on tour and and that's where they find themselves now
Speaker 3: with you know, a huge competitive threat. And and as
Speaker 3: you said, I I can't add anything more to that.
Speaker 3: That was a beautiful closing statement. That's the great Mike Clayton.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coving on and UH and
Speaker 3: talking about the the old course and the open and UH.
Speaker 1: And we people can find you on to Twitter and
Speaker 1: on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Your you're writing is on Golf Australia, UH mostly and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, just all time, all time golf mind.
Speaker 1: You're one of the golf mines that that the administrator should.
Speaker 2: Be talking to I should be.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday
Speaker 3: podcast that was our preview for the Open Championship.
Speaker 1: Early this week.
Speaker 3: For the Open, I've got a special episode. I think
Speaker 3: it'll be really neat. It's gonna we're gonna go in
Speaker 3: depth on preparing for the Old Course with a player
Speaker 3: and a caddy. So I'll let some more details come
Speaker 3: out later, but really excited about that episode. And uh,
Speaker 3: I'll also probably give some thoughts on the Old Course
Speaker 3: of first time visiting and there. So thank you to
Speaker 3: Meg Atkins for producing and editing this podcast as well
Speaker 3: as Fridays.
Speaker 1: She's doing an awesome job. Thank you, Meg.
Speaker 3: And a quick reminder, we have some Open Championship gear.
Speaker 3: I hope there's still some there. We've got Tartan Seamus
Speaker 3: headcovers and yardage book covers as well as ballmarkers with
Speaker 3: a special Saint Andrew's logo.
Speaker 1: And then we have T shirts.
Speaker 3: We have regular T shirts, long sleeve T shirts with
Speaker 3: a cool illustration on the back, as well as our
Speaker 3: Saint Andrew's logo Fridagg Logo, so you can get those
Speaker 3: at proshop dot Thefridagg dot com.
Speaker 1: And thank you for listening to the Frida Egg Podcast
Speaker 2: No.