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.
Speaker 2: Ball in a bride Egg Friday Egg the Dread and
Speaker 2: Friday Friday Frida Egg Egg, Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie,
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and
Speaker 3: today we are recapping the twenty twenty three Open Championship
Speaker 3: at Royal Liverpool. Brian Harmon pretty much ran away with
Speaker 3: the tournament. He took the lead with an incredible sixty
Speaker 3: five on Friday and he stayed well ahead of the
Speaker 3: field the rest of the way, ended up winning by
Speaker 3: six strokes. I've definitely seen more exciting majors, but there's
Speaker 3: plenty of interesting stuff to discuss. So in this episode
Speaker 3: we're going to dig into two big stories from the
Speaker 3: Open with two different guests. First up, we have Sean
Speaker 3: Martin of PGA tour dot Com talking about the champion,
Speaker 3: Brian Harmon. Sean is very familiar with Harmon, having covered
Speaker 3: Harmon's amateur career, and by the way, you may not
Speaker 3: have known much about Harmon before this week. But he
Speaker 3: was an exceptional amateur golfer. After Sean, we'll call in
Speaker 3: Joseph Lamania for a few takes on the golf course.
Speaker 3: Royal Liverpool was a compelling venue, I thought, and it
Speaker 3: had some unusual traits that maybe other championship golf courses
Speaker 3: can learn from. Joseph is the author of the Finding
Speaker 3: the Edge newsletter, which he should check out, and a
Speaker 3: contributor to the Frida Egg. All right, let's get to
Speaker 3: it right after this break, you'll hear from Sean Martin.
Speaker 3: Our first sponsor for this episode is a new one,
Speaker 3: Ores and Alps. Ores and Alps was founded by two
Speaker 3: women with outdoorsy husbands, so they know what sun wind
Speaker 3: and pollution can do to your skin. But every option
Speaker 3: out there was just too expensive, full of chemicals, or
Speaker 3: simply inconvenient. So they took matters into their own hands
Speaker 3: and the result is simple, clean tsa approved, feel good
Speaker 3: skin care at a manageable price point. So my family
Speaker 3: and I have been using Oars and Alps products all summer,
Speaker 3: and everything from the face and scalp mist to the
Speaker 3: moisturizing body lotion has been a big hit. Specifically, I'd
Speaker 3: like to shout out the hydrating antioxidant SPF fifty spray,
Speaker 3: which has become my and my famili's go to sunscreen.
Speaker 3: It was actually named best sunscreen by Men's Health. Has
Speaker 3: a nice fresh scent, it's not greasy, and it's water
Speaker 3: and sweat resistant for eighty minutes. It's just a really solid,
Speaker 3: great sunscreen. I've also I personally enjoyed the go Stick
Speaker 3: Clear SPF thirty five. It's just a solid stick that
Speaker 3: doesn't melt in the heat. I carry it in my
Speaker 3: golf bag and it just glides on nice and clear,
Speaker 3: super convenient, and so that has been a big part
Speaker 3: of my summer. And when the sun comes out and
Speaker 3: it starts to get hot, you really need to take
Speaker 3: care of yourself on the golf course. You know, if
Speaker 3: you're out there, please put sunscreen on. It is such
Speaker 3: an important thing to do. So Oris and Alps have
Speaker 3: a huge range of skincare products. Go to Orisonalps dot
Speaker 3: com to start building your kit, and when you go there,
Speaker 3: use code egg fifteen to get fifteen percent off all products.
Speaker 3: That's Orison Alps dot com. Code egg fifteen for fifteen
Speaker 3: percent off all Right. Back to the episode, Sean Martin,
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker 4: How you doing good? How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm doing okay. Did you have a weird sleep schedule
Speaker 3: this week?
Speaker 4: I did not. I think being on the East Coast, honestly,
Speaker 4: I can keep it pretty normal. I get it at
Speaker 4: five am most days, so I hadn't missed too much
Speaker 4: when I woke up. Maybe there were a couple of
Speaker 4: four thirty alarms. Did a little bit of watching it
Speaker 4: on my phone in the gym, trying to keep it
Speaker 4: a fairly normal schedule. I still have a day job,
Speaker 4: still have kids to take care of, so I didn't
Speaker 4: go too far off the rails. No I know Brendan
Speaker 4: or Andy or any thing like that. Nothing overnight.
Speaker 3: I mean. I think Brendan is similar in the sense
Speaker 3: that he's a dad too. Wakes up early anyway, Andy
Speaker 3: as well. Andy. Andy wakes up early. But being on
Speaker 3: the East Coast does a major advantage here. I always
Speaker 3: get a little bit screwy during open Week because the
Speaker 3: first day I stay up late to watch the beginning right,
Speaker 3: and then I try to reverse it as the week
Speaker 3: goes on, and that's the big challenge.
Speaker 4: I grew up in California, so I remember the open
Speaker 4: being on so early. I was shocked my first few
Speaker 4: years when I lived in Florida at how late it
Speaker 4: seemed to come on almost because I mean with eight
Speaker 4: hours being from California, you could turn that thing on.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you turn on the night before if you wanted to,
Speaker 4: and so it is even that three hours definitely makes
Speaker 4: a huge difference.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure. All right, So Brian Harmon is our winner.
Speaker 3: What are a few things that you think he did
Speaker 3: better than anyone else this week? Because he clearly was
Speaker 3: a cut above.
Speaker 4: And I think the big thing was the potter. We
Speaker 4: all saw it. It was hard to miss it. It's such
Speaker 4: a big putter, which makes for plenty of jokes.
Speaker 3: Golf scene from space, Yeah, it's it shows up in
Speaker 3: satellite imagery.
Speaker 4: Between Crystal Lamprect and Brian Harmon.
Speaker 1: Golf.
Speaker 4: Twitter definitely got its fill, probably went over its rate
Speaker 4: limit on high jokes. I think you know it's harmy
Speaker 4: right away.
Speaker 3: At a certain point it gets a little bit mean,
Speaker 3: right like, I mean, the guys come on, you know
Speaker 3: he can't he can't help it. But yeah, Crystal lamb practice.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen the photo yet of them. We just
Speaker 3: wrapped up the tournament. There is going to be a
Speaker 3: photo of the two of them standing next together to
Speaker 3: each other, presumably.
Speaker 4: And Kyle Porter made a great call pulling out the
Speaker 4: air and judge jose Al Tuove photo it definitely fit.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean the first thing was the potter,
Speaker 4: which is one of Brian's strengths. And then you know,
Speaker 4: coming from your own Twitter handle, it was I think
Speaker 4: he hit in two bunkers all week and I thought
Speaker 4: even you saw it the first five holes Sunday, you know,
Speaker 4: he hit it in some spots and it got a
Speaker 4: little squirrely, but I mean he really minimized the damage
Speaker 4: playing those. I think in one over after he made
Speaker 4: the birdier and then quickly getting it back with the birdies,
Speaker 4: and and that was another big thing too, is the
Speaker 4: bounce back. I think Justin Ray had the stat I
Speaker 4: think six bogies all week and he followed four of
Speaker 4: them immediately with birdies. So it was just the control
Speaker 4: of staying out of trouble, staying out of the pop bunkers,
Speaker 4: and then just putting fantastically. You know, I think you
Speaker 4: can get away with a little more at a links
Speaker 4: course because you have the option of running it up
Speaker 4: it's one right reason why we see older players contend
Speaker 4: as well, because you know, it's not like it's immediately
Speaker 4: hack out or I can't carry down to the screen.
Speaker 4: A guy like Brian Harmon, who's very creative, who talked
Speaker 4: about his love of hitting a variety of shots. As
Speaker 4: long as he's at a spot where he can move forward,
Speaker 4: he has a chance to get it on the green
Speaker 4: because he can, you know, use the ground and finagle
Speaker 4: something and roll something on there.
Speaker 3: One quick correction, Brian Harmon actually was in three bunkers
Speaker 3: this week because he found one on the final hole
Speaker 3: of the tournament, and so we tweeted that out prematurely
Speaker 3: and got pretty owned in the replies. So three bunkers,
Speaker 3: but he was in two of those bunkers, you know,
Speaker 3: through seventy one holes. Two bunkers. Both of them were
Speaker 3: on Friday when he played extraordinary golf, a sixty five
Speaker 3: bogie free and he was in a bad position in
Speaker 3: a fairway bunker on the twelfth hole, had to play
Speaker 3: out backwards, missed the green on his long approach and
Speaker 3: proceeded to chip in. And so that's the kind of
Speaker 3: day that it was for Brian Harmon On Friday. It
Speaker 3: was not an easy golf course, and he played as
Speaker 3: good of golf as I think you can play in
Speaker 3: those conditions, so it was super, super impressive. I believe
Speaker 3: he gained eleven strokes putting over the week, So that
Speaker 3: was kind of the story. And this is sort of
Speaker 3: how players win at Royal Liverpool, right, just the control
Speaker 3: and a good putting week.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and really, I mean, outside of the actual the
Speaker 4: game itself, the most impressive thing probably was how he
Speaker 4: kept it together. Sitting on the lead for fifty some
Speaker 4: odd hours. You know, you're sitting there, You're spending multiple
Speaker 4: days going to bed and trying to not think about
Speaker 4: how you're on the precipice of this goal that you've
Speaker 4: devoted your entire life to. And you know, even on
Speaker 4: the golf course, you know, so many other other sports
Speaker 4: are reactive and they last, you know, ninety minutes, let's say,
Speaker 4: and there's constant you know, it's just about reacting to
Speaker 4: what's going around you. Golf is hours on the golf course,
Speaker 4: minutes between shots, and you have all this time that
Speaker 4: you're just still not doing anything really, and then trying
Speaker 4: to hit a stationary golf ball and you're just alone
Speaker 4: with your thoughts, and so really that was the most
Speaker 4: impressive thing because after Friday, with all the putts he
Speaker 4: made the chip in for par you know, everyone's screaming regression.
Speaker 4: Can't keep it up. You know, putter's gonna cool. We're
Speaker 4: gonna see him go by the wayside, even with this
Speaker 4: five shot lead. And that's a very reasonable take. So
Speaker 4: for him to withhold it all, to still play strong
Speaker 4: and steady on the weekend while also having to withhold
Speaker 4: or withstand the pressure of a five shot lead is humongous.
Speaker 4: You know, with a one shot lead, you are you're
Speaker 4: not looking too far ahead. But when you're five shots
Speaker 4: ahead for that long, it has to be so hard
Speaker 4: to just keep everything in control and even try to
Speaker 4: get a good night's sleep and just go out and
Speaker 4: perform the next day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, usually it's a good theory that somebody
Speaker 3: who is leading a tournament primarily because of a super
Speaker 3: hot putter might not be a sustainable leader of that tournament.
Speaker 3: Usually that's like a pretty solid way of thinking. But
Speaker 3: in Brian Harmon's case, he is an extraordinary putter, right,
Speaker 3: He's one of the best putters in the world, and
Speaker 3: so yes, he was, even by his standards, exceptional this
Speaker 3: week on the greens, but it wasn't that surprising to
Speaker 3: see him keep it up on Saturday and Sunday with
Speaker 3: the putter right.
Speaker 4: And also, you know, after two rounds we screamed small
Speaker 4: sample size, small sample size, regression. It's like, well, four
Speaker 4: rounds is still a really small sample, and I mean, really,
Speaker 4: a golf career, golf season is a series of small samples.
Speaker 4: Four days is a really small sample. Seventy two holes
Speaker 4: of stroke play, you know, is a good way to
Speaker 4: identify the best player. But also there it's just a
Speaker 4: small lest sample that there is still variants and randomness
Speaker 4: that come into play. And just because a guy has
Speaker 4: a hot putting round or two doesn't mean necessarily that
Speaker 4: he's going to regress to the mean. I mean, careers
Speaker 4: are made on these small sample sizes. It's about putting
Speaker 4: four good rounds together. It's not about one hundred and
Speaker 4: sixty two game season. It's you know, Brian Harmon's year,
Speaker 4: His career is made by these four rounds and what
Speaker 4: he did in these four rounds. He could miss the
Speaker 4: rest of his cuts for the rest of the decade
Speaker 4: and he's still the Open champion. He still has a
Speaker 4: satisficate saturdaye so is satisfied with being the Open champion.
Speaker 4: He's still gonna be on that Ryder Cup team. And
Speaker 4: I think that's one of the crazy things about golf,
Speaker 4: and I love seeing it in a story like this.
Speaker 4: This guy's thirty six years old, he's been a professional
Speaker 4: for more than a decade, and his career will be
Speaker 4: defined by these four rounds. His life changed in a week.
Speaker 4: And that's the great thing about golf where I think
Speaker 4: it's different than other sports that no matter what he
Speaker 4: does from here, he is the Open champion, all right.
Speaker 3: I don't think many people are super familiar with Brian
Speaker 3: Harmon's backstory, but you definitely are. When did you become
Speaker 3: aware of Harmon the amateur player?
Speaker 4: They're very familiar with his off course pursuits now, that's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the hunting and stuff, especially in the UK where
Speaker 3: it seems like that has caused a bit of a
Speaker 3: scandal that he likes to hunt. I think he's a
Speaker 3: bow hunter, right, so this is not really a gun
Speaker 3: thing necessarily, no.
Speaker 4: And I do appreciate I mean, he eats what he kills. Also,
Speaker 4: it's not this you know, sadistic type thing, which a
Speaker 4: trophy hunter, right, he's not.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I have to tell you where their hamburgers come from.
Speaker 4: But that's another topic. But yes, Brian Harmon, he was
Speaker 4: in this great sweet spot in my career where I
Speaker 4: worked at Golf Week and it was a great role
Speaker 4: of covering college golf and you get to know players well.
Speaker 4: They're excited to talk to the media because usually they've
Speaker 4: done something well. And I was there from two thousand
Speaker 4: and six to twenty thirteen, and Brian Harmon's amateur career
Speaker 4: was two thousand and five to two thousand and nine,
Speaker 4: pretty much his college career. But even before that being
Speaker 4: a humongous golf nerd I mean early two thousands, the
Speaker 4: era of like the Laker, you know, yellow and Purple
Speaker 4: Shaft and the titleist nine to seventy five D and
Speaker 4: the titlest nine nineties. Like in that era of golf,
Speaker 4: Brian Harmon was the guy in junior golf, I mean,
Speaker 4: absolutely dominant. And this is before Speeth, this is before
Speaker 4: we kind of got accustomed to teenagers really getting into
Speaker 4: two events and even making cuts and playing well. It
Speaker 4: just was not there was a larger gulf between the
Speaker 4: amateur game and especially the junior game. Then there was
Speaker 4: the professional game, and he was just the guy. Two
Speaker 4: time AJGA Player of the Year. He won the US
Speaker 4: Junior in three. The next year he was the medalist
Speaker 4: by eight, which is over thirty six holes, so he
Speaker 4: beat the field by eight at Olympic Club. I was
Speaker 4: looking if you lost to Brian Harmon in stroke play
Speaker 4: at the two thousand and four US Junior by nineteen
Speaker 4: shots over two rounds. He still made match play. And
Speaker 4: then later that summer he made a PJ Tour cut
Speaker 4: at age seventeen. He was calling his players playing partner's mister.
Speaker 4: You know, I think he played a role in Thatcher
Speaker 4: and he called a mister Thatcher would say, sir, I
Speaker 4: mean he was. And then he played in that Walker
Speaker 4: Cup team with Anthony cam at two thousand and five.
Speaker 4: He was the youngest American ever to play in the
Speaker 4: Walker Cup. It was just stuff that, you know, Speeth
Speaker 4: and Thomas came along and did it. But at that
Speaker 4: time guys were not doing that. That was it was
Speaker 4: really unheard of, and he was he was the man.
Speaker 4: He lost his way a little bit at Georgia. He
Speaker 4: describes as being a little banged up, had some trouble
Speaker 4: kind of making the adjustment. He has spoken to about
Speaker 4: just taking some time at each level to adjust. But
Speaker 4: then he did play another Walker cup in O nine
Speaker 4: to close out his college career, so two time Walker Cupper.
Speaker 4: But even when he turned pro, he missed his first
Speaker 4: two Q school attempts at first stage and was playing
Speaker 4: what was called the E Golf Tour at the time,
Speaker 4: playing the mini tours. So an interesting career in the
Speaker 4: fact you had a guy who was really kind of
Speaker 4: unprecedented in a bit. I mean, you had Tiger and
Speaker 4: Field befo him, but he was in really rarefied air
Speaker 4: as a junior golfer. Good college career, but I don't
Speaker 4: think really was what would have been expected from him.
Speaker 4: And then comes out of school and is playing mini
Speaker 4: tours for two years because he misses a Q school.
Speaker 4: So this teen phenom who also had to overcome some
Speaker 4: adversity to get to this level.
Speaker 3: A couple of fun stories out there about Brian Harmon
Speaker 3: as a kid. First of all, what did you learn
Speaker 3: about how Harmon got started in golf, how he became
Speaker 3: interested in the game. It involved a tournament in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety seven, but maybe not the tournament you would expect
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of people were inspired to play golf
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety seven, and they were inspired by a
Speaker 4: double digit dominant victory. For Brian, it was Steve jones
Speaker 4: eleven shot win in the Phoenix Open, which is still
Speaker 4: one of the I mean, he'd won the US Open
Speaker 4: last or the previous year, so he was a guy,
Speaker 4: I guess, but it was definitely one of the more
Speaker 4: just random victories, if you will. And Brian he was
Speaker 4: home from school that entire week. He couldn't remember if
Speaker 4: he was sick or if it was spring break or
Speaker 4: some sort of holiday, but he said he watched like
Speaker 4: every minute of it. And also Tiger did make that
Speaker 4: hole in one at TBC scott Still that week, so
Speaker 4: there was also the excitement around that. But I mean,
Speaker 4: Brian says when he played a practice on with Steve
Speaker 4: Jones when he got on tour, he told him, he goes, look,
Speaker 4: you're the reason I got into golf, which I'm sure
Speaker 4: had to just kind of, you know, take Steve Jones
Speaker 4: back a little bit. He probably has not heard that
Speaker 4: statement too many times, despite being a major champion. But
Speaker 4: Brian's parents didn't really play golf. He said the year
Speaker 4: course was like two miles away, so literally would throw
Speaker 4: the clubs on his back and bit two miles to
Speaker 4: the nearby course, and within two years he was breaking eighty.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow, it's Steve john crazy.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's just so funny to me. But you know,
Speaker 3: also I don't want to insult Steve Jones because this guy,
Speaker 3: as he said, was a real player. Another story that
Speaker 3: I love about Harmon as a young golfer is one
Speaker 3: that gets told a lot on Twitter these days. That
Speaker 3: might be a little bit overplayed in some ways, but
Speaker 3: I believe that you were the initial reporter to put
Speaker 3: this story out there about what happened at the two
Speaker 3: thousand and nine nc Double A's. Brian Harmon at that point,
Speaker 3: I believe, is a senior at Georgia and he comes
Speaker 3: up against Ricky Fowler. Could you tell me how this
Speaker 3: match ended up unfolding in the end.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So we're at Inverness in toled Ohio, the famous
Speaker 4: Inverness Club, the first year the ncla's had gone to
Speaker 4: this match play format, and the two teams that year
Speaker 4: are Oklahoma State and Georgia. Oklahoma State has Fowler Morgan Hoffman.
Speaker 4: I want to say Kevin Tway is also on that team.
Speaker 4: He might have been a year later. And Georgia is
Speaker 4: some iteration of Harmon Harris English Hudson Swafford. I mean,
Speaker 4: just two teams that are stacked with future tour players,
Speaker 4: and you have stroke play qualifying and Georgia does not
Speaker 4: play well, and they actually tie for seventh place in
Speaker 4: stroke play and the tiebreaker. So the best man in
Speaker 4: my wedding actually played in that nine text A and
Speaker 4: M team that goes on to win. They tied for
Speaker 4: seventh with Georgia and my friend Matt. He was the
Speaker 4: fifth man on that team. His score never counted in
Speaker 4: the stroke play, but the tie breaker was your fifth
Speaker 4: man score, and so text A and M because his
Speaker 4: fifth man score beat Georgia's fifth man score. Georgia was
Speaker 4: the eight seed, tex An M was the seven seed,
Speaker 4: and Oklahoma State had one going away, and so they
Speaker 4: got text A M got to avoid Oklahoma State, the powerhouse,
Speaker 4: and it set up really the one to two matches
Speaker 4: in the first round. Unfortunately, so I believe then coaches
Speaker 4: didn't set the matches. It was just based on your
Speaker 4: golf stat ranking. So it's Ricky falavers Brian Harmon and
Speaker 4: Ricky I don't know the exact details, but he's leading.
Speaker 4: He makes a putt and after the fact you find
Speaker 4: out that it was just kind of an oversight that
Speaker 4: Ricky and Mike McGraw left the green without putting the
Speaker 4: flag in. But you know Brian Harmon, you know, being
Speaker 4: a smaller guy, he is very fiery.
Speaker 3: And maybe a little chip on his shoulder.
Speaker 4: Exactly totally, and he will admit that and sees the
Speaker 4: flag now put in, and that just grinds his gears
Speaker 4: and he goes on, I believe, to birdie four holes
Speaker 4: in a row, the last four holes to win the match,
Speaker 4: for Georgia to win the team match in advance, and
Speaker 4: I mean it did it. Put I mean Ricky Feller
Speaker 4: had to go into the locker room, and I mean
Speaker 4: he came out and his eyes were red. He had
Speaker 4: been crying. And then text Am goes on to win,
Speaker 4: and my friend Matt the Great, the late great ROMBLICKI
Speaker 4: wrote this great article about how Matt this like upstanding,
Speaker 4: like good GPA community service, all this stuff helped text
Speaker 4: am win with, you know, by being the fifth man
Speaker 4: who's the throat score contributions greater than his his golf.
Speaker 4: I think was the way they phrased it, which base
Speaker 4: was like it wasn't that good, but like he did
Speaker 4: help them win, and he has the ring to prove it.
Speaker 4: So we always joke about that as well. But I
Speaker 4: mean it was Brian Harmon in a nutshell of a
Speaker 4: very just a good competitor, good ship on his shoulder
Speaker 4: that I think we saw this week. And actually I
Speaker 4: do have one more texting with Justin Huber about about
Speaker 4: Brian Harmon, because I was looking at those two thousand
Speaker 4: and four US Junior scores and I think Hubert lost
Speaker 4: to him by twenty four and Justin says he warmed
Speaker 4: up to him. Warmed up next at the Olympic Club range.
Speaker 4: He says he was a better wedge player fifteen than
Speaker 4: I ever was. He hit the pan at least twice
Speaker 4: and hit probably ten out of ten from one hundred
Speaker 4: yards inside a four foot circle on the range next
Speaker 4: to me. I thought I should go home. Then we
Speaker 4: had a fog delay and he's laying on a couch
Speaker 4: taking a nap during it, and I'm stressed out about
Speaker 4: playing and he's just napping, goes out and shoots sixty
Speaker 4: six sixty five, So pretty good story.
Speaker 3: These are the kinds of stories that you hear about
Speaker 3: Brian Harmon as an amateur. There's a bit of a
Speaker 3: gap between I think how current golf fans view Brian
Speaker 3: Harmon and how his peers and competitors do on the
Speaker 3: PGA Tour, because if you ask tour pros who are
Speaker 3: about Brian Harmon's age about the guy, they're like, no, seriously,
Speaker 3: this guy is unbelievable, but he just didn't quite do
Speaker 3: it in his career so far on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: And he's in his mid thirties, so like, this has
Speaker 3: been a long time. Why do you think his skill set?
Speaker 3: I mean, he's been a really good pro. I don't
Speaker 3: want to misrep present this. He's won two substantial PGA
Speaker 3: Tour events, the John Deere Classic and the Wells Fargo,
Speaker 3: as well as the QBE Shootout, which everybody seems to
Speaker 3: forget that he won with He one with Patton Kauseaire.
Speaker 3: I believe it was either okay, I was gonna Sayton
Speaker 3: because I or Jason Kokrak is one of those. But
Speaker 3: in any case, Harmon wasn't as dominant as a pro
Speaker 3: as he was as an amateur, especially initially when he
Speaker 3: was on the many tours and kind of struggling. Why
Speaker 3: do you think his skill set didn't immediately translate to
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour. Do you have a theory about that
Speaker 3: or is it just kind of the randomness of golf.
Speaker 4: I thought he had a great quote about it this
Speaker 4: week when asked about it, when he said that he
Speaker 4: played just so freely as a junior, and you can
Speaker 4: kind of see. I mean, people got on about the
Speaker 4: waggles and the amount of waggles there were, but I
Speaker 4: think he's fairly quick in his decision making, and even
Speaker 4: in the waggles, he's he's quick, and he's moving. He's
Speaker 4: not kind of and so I he just kind of
Speaker 4: is rapid fire. I think when things are going well,
Speaker 4: and so I think when he was a junior, things
Speaker 4: are rolling, He's winning everything. You know, he said nobody
Speaker 4: could beat me. I think he just was free wheeling,
Speaker 4: you know, And you get to the tour and you
Speaker 4: get to harder golf courses, there's more trouble, there's more rough,
Speaker 4: the fairways are narrower, the greens are firmer, and if
Speaker 4: you don't have I think that easily can kind of
Speaker 4: some doubt can creep in, especially when you're someone who's
Speaker 4: had success at so many levels. And even he said
Speaker 4: no one junior golf could beat him, which was I mean,
Speaker 4: it wasn't even really being braggadocia. I think it was
Speaker 4: kind of true. But then he gets out, you know,
Speaker 4: college golf, there's more players who are good, and then
Speaker 4: has some struggles off the bat as a pro and
Speaker 4: I think you just realize there's tons of good players here.
Speaker 4: There's our guys who can beat me, There's thousands of
Speaker 4: guys who can beat me, he said. And so I
Speaker 4: think just that you lose that free wheeling self a
Speaker 4: little bit, and you get a little cautious, get a
Speaker 4: little doubt, And I think I definitely think that's part
Speaker 4: of it. And I think too, it's just you know,
Speaker 4: you look at it and it is like it's not sex,
Speaker 4: but it's this incredible consistency. You know, he's kept his card.
Speaker 4: I think he said twelve straight years, which he's really
Speaker 4: proud of, and there is something to that. It's it's
Speaker 4: not sexy, and I know he expected more out of
Speaker 4: himself and more and people expected more out of him.
Speaker 4: But maybe it's a lack of length, but it's just
Speaker 4: a it didn't really pop until like this week, and
Speaker 4: then even at the Wells Farga would be a great field.
Speaker 4: But I don't know, I really don't know. It's a
Speaker 4: it's a strange game, and I think there's a lot
Speaker 4: of guys like Brian Harmon's. You know, I tweeted that
Speaker 4: his career kind of has the ebbs and flows that
Speaker 4: most do over this time period, and I think it's
Speaker 4: just the nature of the game. And I mean, I
Speaker 4: kind of it sounds bad, but I kind of refer
Speaker 4: to him in a text as the next Jimmy Walker,
Speaker 4: which honestly that sounds like a slight but it's really not.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, ask Andy to pull up the list of Feedest
Speaker 4: Cup number ones, and I mean, he's all over it.
Speaker 4: But you know, he played on multiple national teams, won
Speaker 4: a major one eight times, let's say, and so this
Speaker 4: could be the catalyst for Brian Harmon who realize he
Speaker 4: can beat some people and do some of the stuff
Speaker 4: he did. But I think I do think, you know,
Speaker 4: you see it even with guys like Speef and when
Speaker 4: guys come out and get on a heater right out
Speaker 4: of the gate, that there's periods in your life where
Speaker 4: nothing can go wrong, and then when that first thing
Speaker 4: goes wrong, it can take a while to get over it. Right,
Speaker 4: you get punched in the face the first time, like
Speaker 4: you know, you go through these. When Speed came out,
Speaker 4: he was rolling and winning everything and all the putts
Speaker 4: are going in and life's easy, and it's it's hard
Speaker 4: one to get hit in the mouth the first time,
Speaker 4: and so there could be some of that as well
Speaker 4: that takes while to come over and get that confidence back.
Speaker 3: So I have kind of a philosophical wondering that's related
Speaker 3: to what you're talking about here. This whole story would
Speaker 3: seem to have some kind of appeal. A guy who
Speaker 3: is incredible as a junior, doesn't quite live up to
Speaker 3: expectations when he turns pro, has a solid career but
Speaker 3: not an extraordinary one, and then he arrives at the
Speaker 3: Open Championship and he absolutely obliterates the field with frankly
Speaker 3: beautiful golf. You would think that this story would be
Speaker 3: very appealing to a lot of golf fans, and I
Speaker 3: think it probably is appealing to some golf fans, but
Speaker 3: there's also a lot of people that we've heard from
Speaker 3: this week who are unhappy about seeing somebody like Brian
Speaker 3: Harmon dominate this tournament. And there's a couple of threads
Speaker 3: to that. One is that he ran away with it
Speaker 3: and there was never really any threat to his lead,
Speaker 3: and so we didn't get to see a really dynamic
Speaker 3: tournament where the outcome was at all in doubt at
Speaker 3: any point except for maybe a few times early on
Speaker 3: Saturday or early on Sunday. But the other thread to
Speaker 3: it is that often golf fans just don't really love
Speaker 3: seeing an underdog win. I believe that if John rahm
Speaker 3: Orry McElroy we're running away with this tournament, that fans
Speaker 3: would be more riveted to it. And so I wonder
Speaker 3: why you think that in golf we don't root for
Speaker 3: the underdog more, or that underdog stories don't seem to
Speaker 3: have the appeal that they do in other sports.
Speaker 4: I think it's the where were you win? Factor? So
Speaker 4: you see some dominant win by Rom or Rory, who
Speaker 4: are putting on Hall of Fame careers, they are all
Speaker 4: time greats, and you can kind of remember where you
Speaker 4: were when they won this tournament by you know, ten shots,
Speaker 4: and you remember where you were when they put on
Speaker 4: this all time historic performance. And I mean, the odds
Speaker 4: are that Brian Harmon's Open Championship win is going to
Speaker 4: just kind of be lost to history. You know, we'll
Speaker 4: move on. It's I mean, you have to have a
Speaker 4: heck of a career to become a Hall of Famer,
Speaker 4: let's say. And so I think that it's not gonna
Speaker 4: be one that you're going to tell your kids about
Speaker 4: right that you saw this one, whereas with Rory or
Speaker 4: rom it could be you know, where were you when
Speaker 4: Tiger won the Masters by by twelve? Where were you
Speaker 4: when I mean, I remember where I was when the
Speaker 4: ninety nine Ryder Cup happened. It's just it's different when
Speaker 4: a star wins. You feel like you're I think because
Speaker 4: you don't have the team dynamic of other sports, where
Speaker 4: you know, if your team is in it, you're rooting
Speaker 4: for your team, but if they're not, then you're probably
Speaker 4: rooting for the underdog. You're in part because when Butler wins,
Speaker 4: or George Mason or whoever you that's the same. It's
Speaker 4: the opposite side of it, but it is the where
Speaker 4: were you win? You know, I remember when FAU made
Speaker 4: its final four run.
Speaker 3: Let's say, yeah, they're like beating Duke or something, yeah,
Speaker 3: or North Carolina, you know which is. You know, if
Speaker 3: you're not a fan of one of those teams, then
Speaker 3: you like to see them lose. Yeah, But that's not
Speaker 3: really the case with dominant golfers very much. With Rory
Speaker 3: and rom you know, most fans I think want to
Speaker 3: see them win.
Speaker 4: They do, and I think it is funny how it is.
Speaker 4: It is so different. I look at you know, I
Speaker 4: look at a win like Harmon, like yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: as a writer, I know, like writing Roaring Ram, you're
Speaker 4: writing something of historical significance, significance possibly whereas but like Harmon,
Speaker 4: I look at a guy like Brian Harmon, who you know,
Speaker 4: he shows up to the golf course every day for
Speaker 4: however many years and hits balls and goes to this
Speaker 4: whole routine, you know, hoping to win a major, thinking
Speaker 4: he could win a major, seeing guys who he's probably
Speaker 4: better than win a major, but it hasn't happened for
Speaker 4: him until now, And just what it would be like
Speaker 4: and how to even relate it to my own life
Speaker 4: of just doing something consistently for ten fifteen years with
Speaker 4: no idea what the result is going to be, and
Speaker 4: just the discipline it takes to just keep doing it
Speaker 4: with no idea what the outcome is going to be.
Speaker 4: You know, I think so much I look at my
Speaker 4: own life of like I like to tweet and then
Speaker 4: see how many people like the tweet right because instant.
Speaker 4: But I'm like, what if I picked something that really
Speaker 4: meant a lot to me? You know? He talked to
Speaker 4: this week about someone told him to do something that
Speaker 4: when you're doing it you lose track of time, that
Speaker 4: you love it that much that while you're doing that activity,
Speaker 4: the world melts away. Kind of, I was like, well,
Speaker 4: what if I just you know, picked something, figure out
Speaker 4: what that was for me, spend ten years on it,
Speaker 4: Let's say writing a book, being a writer. What if
Speaker 4: I just said I'm gonna write a book and I'm
Speaker 4: gonna spend an hour a day on it for ten years.
Speaker 4: It may not be good, it may sell be a
Speaker 4: best seller, it may do nothing, but I'm I'm going
Speaker 4: to go down this path with no idea how it ends,
Speaker 4: and just keep going down this path that to me
Speaker 4: is really admirable and something frankly that I would love
Speaker 4: to see in my own life. And for Brian Harmon,
Speaker 4: that's you know, that's what this has been. He shows
Speaker 4: up every day and he hits balls and goes through
Speaker 4: his drills and you know, does the same stuff and
Speaker 4: plays a bazillion tournaments a year and has played probably
Speaker 4: five hundred golf tournaments in his life, thinking of you
Speaker 4: when the British Open one day, but never knowing, and
Speaker 4: then he finally does. And I mean, the satisfaction that
Speaker 4: has to bring is immense.
Speaker 3: And we should appreciate that. And yet somehow it's hard
Speaker 3: to engulf. But once you put it that way and
Speaker 3: you try to relate to it, then it certainly becomes
Speaker 3: more meaningful because this type of achievement is frankly more,
Speaker 3: I want to say, it's more common just across life,
Speaker 3: right where you work at something hard through your twenties
Speaker 3: into your thirties and then it starts to pay off.
Speaker 3: Usually people aren't successful or acclaimed right away right like
Speaker 3: some recent great golfers have been. Usually, just in life,
Speaker 3: it takes us a while to find our thing and
Speaker 3: to develop that skill set and that set of achievements
Speaker 3: that then eventually pays off. And so that's what we
Speaker 3: saw with Brian Harmon this week. That should be satisfying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean for Rory and Rahm in some ways,
Speaker 4: it's probably easier to go to the driving range every day.
Speaker 4: It's like, man, if I keep work and keep working this,
Speaker 4: I'm probably gonna pick off a major, win a bunch
Speaker 4: of big tournaments, you know, add to my Hall of
Speaker 4: Fame career. But for like Brian Harmon, who spent twelve
Speaker 4: years on tour, he's won twice. I mean, obviously it
Speaker 4: provides a very nice living for your family and you
Speaker 4: need to do that. But you show to the golf
Speaker 4: course just not knowing what's going to come out of it.
Speaker 4: I don't know. To me, it'd be easy to become
Speaker 4: cynical or give up, or become lackadaisical. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think Brian Harmon, though, I really like that quote
Speaker 4: about doing something where the world melts away while you're
Speaker 4: doing it, where time just you forget about time, because
Speaker 4: I think we look at Brian Harmon we're like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's from Georgia Haunt's Simple Story whatever. But to me,
Speaker 4: he's actually a really pretty introspective guy who really loves
Speaker 4: golf down with him in twenty seventeen, after the after
Speaker 4: Aaron Hills, just to kind of do an interview because
Speaker 4: that looked like maybe that was when Brian Harmon was
Speaker 4: finally gonna, you know, reach this level that we all
Speaker 4: thought he was, or fulfill all the expectations. He'd come
Speaker 4: close to Aaron Hills, he'd won earlier that year at
Speaker 4: Wells Fargo being a good field, and so it seemed
Speaker 4: like that was when Brian Harmon was going to break out.
Speaker 4: And he gave this really good quote about he was
Speaker 4: at the Humana that back then the Palm Springs event,
Speaker 4: and it was his thirtieth birthday and he's having a
Speaker 4: barbecue and he's just like he's like, man, I turned thirty.
Speaker 4: I'm like the end is near. Not so much like
Speaker 4: I'm gonna die tomorrow. But you know, earlier in your life,
Speaker 4: you know, you graduate high school, graduate college, you meet someone,
Speaker 4: you get married, you have kids. There's always like milestones, right,
Speaker 4: but you hit a certain point in your life where
Speaker 4: you stop hitting those milestones and is like, Okay, most
Speaker 4: of my career is actually behind me, and so if
Speaker 4: I want to accomplish the things that I think that
Speaker 4: I should accomplish and want to accomplish, like I need
Speaker 4: to take this thing seriously. And it was just a
Speaker 4: really interesting it was partly pondering his mortality. It was
Speaker 4: mostly about golf, but it was it was a really
Speaker 4: interesting perspective I've really never heard fromyone before of like
Speaker 4: of just pondering the end. I mean, this is the
Speaker 4: way he phrased it. So the end was the end
Speaker 4: is approaching kind of more of his golf grouper, I
Speaker 4: think also his life and also too so when he
Speaker 4: gets the end of his life knowing like, hey, did
Speaker 4: I really accomplish the things I wanted to? And did
Speaker 4: I do the things necessary to accomplish the things that
Speaker 4: I wanted to? So I always have found that really interesting.
Speaker 4: I think some of those quotes come out this week too,
Speaker 4: that he's act, he's a pretty he's a he gives
Speaker 4: good quotes, he's a good thinker, he thinks about things.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's uh, that's that's something that people should read
Speaker 3: up on. Brian Harmon is certainly not just another sort
Speaker 3: of assembly line pro from Georgia, although he has some
Speaker 3: elements of that in him, he also has definitely something
Speaker 3: else about him. All Right, Sean as always really fun
Speaker 3: to talk to you. Let's take another break here, and
Speaker 3: after that, I'm going to bring on Joseph Lamania to
Speaker 3: chat about the golf course. This episode of the Frida
Speaker 3: Egg Podcast is brought to you by Gooder Gooder mikes
Speaker 3: twenty five dollars active sunglasses that don't slip, don't bounce,
Speaker 3: and are one hundred percent polarized. My personal favorite pair
Speaker 3: of Gooders is called Just Knock It On. They're in
Speaker 3: what Gooder calls the BFG style. This is for large
Speaker 3: noggins and I just wear them all the time. I
Speaker 3: wear them everywhere. I wear them when I go out
Speaker 3: to play golf. I recently took them out on the
Speaker 3: lake for a stand up paddle boarding and kayaking trip.
Speaker 3: That's something we've been doing more of this summer, my
Speaker 3: family and I. We've got a new stand up paddle
Speaker 3: board and our friends have some kayaks and we've been
Speaker 3: getting out on some lakes and rivers in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3: It's been really fun. But what you need is a
Speaker 3: really solid pair of sunglasses that just stays on your
Speaker 3: face and functions well. And this pair of Gooders that
Speaker 3: I have that just knock it on are very light.
Speaker 3: They sit nice, uncomfortable, steady on my face. They're again
Speaker 3: one hundred percent polarized, and you don't have to be
Speaker 3: super precious about them because they're just twenty five dollars
Speaker 3: and it's not a huge tragedy if you happen for
Speaker 3: some reason to lose them. So, if you want to
Speaker 3: support the show and pick up a pair of Gooders,
Speaker 3: Gooder is giving Fridagg listeners free shipping on your first order.
Speaker 3: You can go to Gooder dot com slash TFE and
Speaker 3: use the code TFE to get free shipping. Gooder offers
Speaker 3: a thirty day money back guarantee and one hundred percent satisfaction.
Speaker 3: So find your pair at g oo d r dot
Speaker 3: com slash tfe and use code TFE to get free shipping.
Speaker 3: Right back to the episode, Joseph Lemania, the final Men's
Speaker 3: major of the year is in the books. Are you
Speaker 3: sad or are you relieved?
Speaker 2: What do you mean that the Tour Championships in August? No,
Speaker 2: I'm both. I'm sad, but it's also like, scarcity is
Speaker 2: what we advocate for, right, So I'm glad they are
Speaker 2: only for majors. It's special that we get to experience
Speaker 2: them in the windows that they exist, and then the
Speaker 2: wait until next April. There's something nice about it. So
Speaker 2: mixed emotions, but I actually really enjoyed this Open Championship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I enjoyed many aspects of it as well. Not
Speaker 3: everybody was as into it as we were, perhaps, but
Speaker 3: one of the reasons you and I were more into
Speaker 3: it than a lot of people is that the course
Speaker 3: was really interesting to watch be played. And so that's
Speaker 3: what we're going to talk about here. I asked you
Speaker 3: to come up with three different takes on the golf
Speaker 3: course or all Liverpool. Of course, as always, you tend
Speaker 3: to approach things from a competitive perspective, you know, how
Speaker 3: the course plays for a field of elite players. There's
Speaker 3: a separate discussion to be had about the aesthetics of
Speaker 3: Hoylake and some of the recent design changes that have
Speaker 3: been made there. I'm actually going to write a bit
Speaker 3: about that for the Fried Egg, But what we're talking
Speaker 3: about right now is slightly different, focusing more on the
Speaker 3: strategic and testing aspects of the course. So what's the
Speaker 3: first thing you want to touch on it when it
Speaker 3: comes to Royal Liverpool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, hot button issue is the internal out of
Speaker 2: bounds I think, especially leading up to the tournament, there
Speaker 2: was a mixture of opinions on it. I think once
Speaker 2: the tournament started most people were into it. I'm very
Speaker 2: pro the internal out of bounds that was on three
Speaker 2: and eighteen. As you've noted multiple times throughout the week.
Speaker 2: Important to note that those are not artificial lines like
Speaker 2: there's a berm in there, and it they serve a purpose.
Speaker 2: It denotes the practice range. But that like that aside,
Speaker 2: it's important. But even that aside, if it were artificial,
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say that I would sign off on it
Speaker 2: if it were artificial. But I'm a huge fan of
Speaker 2: the internal out of bounds on those holes and the
Speaker 2: strategic test that it presented. I've heard some calls for like, well,
Speaker 2: is out of bounds rule a good rule? Like should
Speaker 2: you really have to hit from the original position or
Speaker 2: maybe should it be lateral hazard? Like no, I am
Speaker 2: very here for having to rete when you hit a
Speaker 2: shot into a spot that's out of bounds. I thought
Speaker 2: it was unbelievable. It made three and eighteen infinitely more
Speaker 2: exciting and it was something completely different than we see
Speaker 2: most weeks.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was like a star of.
Speaker 2: The Major Championship, both those holes three and eighteen, right.
Speaker 3: And so first of all, you mentioned that I've gone
Speaker 3: through this a number of times this week on Twitter
Speaker 3: and elsewhere. Once again, internal out of bounds is a
Speaker 3: tricky term for what this actually is because at one
Speaker 3: time it was not internal out of bounds. It was
Speaker 3: not property that belonged to Royal Liverpool or Hoylake. It
Speaker 3: was it was a separate of the property that the
Speaker 3: golf course. You know, it wasn't part of the golf course.
Speaker 3: I think when people hear internal lot out of bounds,
Speaker 3: they automatically assume that it's like another part of the
Speaker 3: golf course, another fair way or something that has been
Speaker 3: somewhat arbitrarily marked as out of bounds, which is what
Speaker 3: you've referred to as artificial internal out of bounds. So
Speaker 3: that's one thing I think that the just the term
Speaker 3: is what made people mad this week, as opposed to
Speaker 3: what was actually on the ground at the golf course,
Speaker 3: which is a historic burm and enclosure that have never
Speaker 3: been an intended part of the course. But you mentioned
Speaker 3: that you like the rule stroke in distance, the threat
Speaker 3: of that penalty you think does some good things for
Speaker 3: the strategy of the whole. I was unsure about this
Speaker 3: myself going into the tournament. Would this make players too
Speaker 3: conservative in their approach to these holes? Would it mean
Speaker 3: that nobody challenged the hazards alone on the right side
Speaker 3: of eighteen and three? And so what did you make
Speaker 3: of that? Like, do you think it would have been
Speaker 3: different if this had been just a hazard and a
Speaker 3: stroke penalty as opposed to the stroke and distance.
Speaker 2: Maybe, but players are conservative with water anyway, so it
Speaker 2: might have had a slight difference, but not overly impactful.
Speaker 2: But beyond that, like, I just think it plays much
Speaker 2: more interestingly and it's much more intimidating. If you have
Speaker 2: to hit another shot, like you've uncapped downside, you might
Speaker 2: make a nine on that hole. If you spray a
Speaker 2: couple out of bounds, it's far more intimidating than having
Speaker 2: water there. You hit into the water, you drop, you
Speaker 2: make five or six. Like, we don't see big numbers
Speaker 2: anymore and professional golf in part because players have adapted
Speaker 2: a more modern strategy of avoiding those hazards. But it's
Speaker 2: nice when it comes into play and when it's scary,
Speaker 2: and when there's a wind coming off your left and
Speaker 2: there's out of bounds to the right, Like, that is
Speaker 2: an interesting dynamic.
Speaker 1: I don't think that should go away.
Speaker 2: One kick I've kind of been on is talking a
Speaker 2: little bit about how everything in professional golf has gotten easier,
Speaker 2: which is not a unique idea, right, Equipment's gotten easier,
Speaker 2: there's more information, there's track man, there's course management.
Speaker 3: The agronomy has made everything easier too. I mean the
Speaker 3: quality of the greens and the fairways.
Speaker 1: Everything's easier.
Speaker 2: So is it really a problem that you're going to
Speaker 2: have to re tee if you spray one out right
Speaker 2: off the golf course? Like I'm here for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what specifically did you see about the strategy of
Speaker 3: those holes that you liked? Because they I mean it's
Speaker 3: not just that the internal out of bounds quote unquote
Speaker 3: internal out of bounds is there. It's that these holes
Speaker 3: incorporate the line of that out of bounds in pretty
Speaker 3: cool ways. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think both there's something to chew on with
Speaker 2: both of those holes. So whole three is a it's
Speaker 2: a clever example of.
Speaker 1: Hey, if you're going to want to.
Speaker 2: Take driver out of golfer's hands. The way you do
Speaker 2: that is it's got to be really penal on a
Speaker 2: wide miss, which the out of bounds to the right
Speaker 2: clearly was, and generally it has to be wider in
Speaker 2: the fairway for shots that are less than driver. So
Speaker 2: at long iron length, the fairway was pretty wide there.
Speaker 2: If you wanted to hit driver, you had to carry
Speaker 2: the corner and if you went a little left you
Speaker 2: were in the fescue, which was actually pretty playable. But
Speaker 2: if you've sprayed it out right ob and you're hitting
Speaker 2: three from the t box, and then on the approach shot,
Speaker 2: if you spray it out right again, you're out of
Speaker 2: bounds because the approach ran the entire length of the
Speaker 2: berm and the ob to the right. So you had
Speaker 2: some shots that got flared out right, some approach shots
Speaker 2: that ended up out of bounds. It's it was cool, right,
Speaker 2: the more aggressive you were off the tee, you gave
Speaker 2: yourself an easier approach shot. A lot of guys just
Speaker 2: kind of fired a long iron down the left side
Speaker 2: of the fairway, which is what I would have done
Speaker 2: in that instance, and then you don't have to take
Speaker 2: on quite as much of the ob on the right.
Speaker 1: But there was a lot players talked.
Speaker 2: About that being an actual decision point in their rounds
Speaker 2: versus ninety five ninety eight percent of holes that we
Speaker 2: see week in and week out you don't really have
Speaker 2: to think about.
Speaker 1: So that's that's all. Three.
Speaker 2: Do you have any thoughts on hoole three? Before we
Speaker 2: talked briefly about eighteen.
Speaker 3: I love whole three. It's the opener for the members,
Speaker 3: and I think part of the magic of it being
Speaker 3: an opener is that it's so the opposite of a
Speaker 3: gentle handshake. It just goes hard in the opposite direction,
Speaker 3: which I think is a really great way for golf
Speaker 3: architecture to violate unwritten rules. You know, there's an unwritten
Speaker 3: rule that the first hole should get players away from
Speaker 3: the clubhouse and you know, let them take their hacks
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, and in general, I think that's
Speaker 3: not a bad principle. I think it makes sense. But
Speaker 3: if you're going to work against it, then go the
Speaker 3: opposite direction all the way. Commit to it. And that's
Speaker 3: what I appreciate about hole three, or for the members
Speaker 3: hole one. So then eighteen, this is god the rerouting
Speaker 3: has messed with my head, but it's sixteen for the members.
Speaker 3: I think it's a great finishing hole, you know. I
Speaker 3: think it's probably a better finishing hole than it is
Speaker 3: a sixteenth hole. And maybe that's the main reason for
Speaker 3: the rerouting, But there was some real jeopardy on that
Speaker 3: hole this week for sure.
Speaker 2: Clearly, what those two holes have in common is the
Speaker 2: OB is in play on the T shot and it
Speaker 2: runs the entire length of the hole. So what eighteen
Speaker 2: had in particular is that at some point you had
Speaker 2: to take on some serious danger because the bunkers surrounding
Speaker 2: the green were penal, especially that string on the left side.
Speaker 3: Left side, especially to a left pin where we saw
Speaker 3: some disasters exactly.
Speaker 2: So if you want to really bail out on your
Speaker 2: T shot, you may end up with a reasonably long
Speaker 2: approach in and it's some the second shot you're gonna
Speaker 2: have to take on some danger with the right side
Speaker 2: and challenging the OB a little bit. You can't really
Speaker 2: just play along the fescue the entire hole. Eventually, you're
Speaker 2: gonna have to hit a daring shot if you want
Speaker 2: to make power better, especially if you want to make birdie.
Speaker 2: So I appreciated that about it. The second shot was
Speaker 2: no gimme. Even if you hit a great t shot
Speaker 2: like you were gonna have to navigate a lot of
Speaker 2: trouble again flair one out right so be You even
Speaker 2: had some golfers who got really conservative with their tea
Speaker 2: shots went out left into the fescue and then it's
Speaker 2: hard to control your ball out of there. Hit second
Speaker 2: shots out of bounds. Ricky Fowler hit a few out
Speaker 2: of bounds right. You had to take on the trouble
Speaker 2: at some point, and I appreciated that about the hole.
Speaker 3: All right. What's your second big note about the golf
Speaker 3: course from the week?
Speaker 2: Well, sticking with the theme of penalties, the bunkers, that
Speaker 2: the penal hazards that the bunkers were this week. It's
Speaker 2: been a while since we've seen bunkers as penal as
Speaker 2: these ones were at Royal Liverpool, and that something I appreciate.
Speaker 2: To challenge these golfers, really make them think about their lines.
Speaker 2: It has to be a stiff penalty, and both on
Speaker 2: the fairway bunkers and in the green side bunkers. It
Speaker 2: was no gimme that a lot of them are coming
Speaker 2: out sideways. You had some players hitting shots backwards. You
Speaker 2: had a couple of players putting in the bunkers just
Speaker 2: to get to a shallow to the more flat spot
Speaker 2: in the middle of the bunker instead of being up
Speaker 2: against the lip. They were legitimate penalties this week, and
Speaker 2: that restores a lot of shot value, both on the
Speaker 2: approach and on the tee shots. It's a constant threat
Speaker 2: of a big number that kind of keeps you on
Speaker 2: edge for your entire round. So I thought that was
Speaker 2: a refreshing watch this week.
Speaker 3: It changed the way players played off the tee right.
Speaker 3: And this is not a new take about Royal Liverpool.
Speaker 3: This has been around in you know, our kind of
Speaker 3: like twenty first century discourse about this golf course since
Speaker 3: Tiger won basically while keeping the driver in the bag,
Speaker 3: and so did you basically see that kind of tactic
Speaker 3: from Brian Harmon this week, that sort of conservatism off
Speaker 3: the tee.
Speaker 1: Brian Harmon hit some drivers.
Speaker 2: I think overall you saw much more conservative play off
Speaker 2: the tee, largely from the field than in most weeks.
Speaker 2: That said, I actually think this setup and how playable
Speaker 2: the fescue was lent itself to kind of some more
Speaker 2: aggressive play than some players went. I think some players
Speaker 2: got anchored a little bit to the idea, oh, Tiger
Speaker 2: Woods never hit driver here, like this week, I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna hit a bunch of irons off the tee, when honestly,
Speaker 2: I think there were some holes where I would have
Speaker 2: gotten pretty aggressive with driver, especially as conditions were pretty calm.
Speaker 2: But generally speaking, the combination of a lot of wind
Speaker 2: with bunkers, especially at your driver length, that were extremely penal,
Speaker 2: that's going to result in some conservative play when the
Speaker 2: wind died down a little bit, especially when the fescue
Speaker 2: is playable, I would have gotten I would have been
Speaker 2: ripping some driver out there, though, I will say that.
Speaker 3: And I think it created varied play off the tee
Speaker 3: this week, which is sort of what I appreciated. And
Speaker 3: I think what the argument for the less brutal rough
Speaker 3: might be. I really liked the rough here, not necessarily
Speaker 3: purely for reasons of strategy, but more that it was inconsistent, unpredictable,
Speaker 3: and fit with the natural environment of the course in
Speaker 3: a really nice way that you rarely see at US courses.
Speaker 3: But I think the fact that players could really play
Speaker 3: most of the time out of the rough effectively meant
Speaker 3: that taking driver on some holes was the play. You
Speaker 3: had to make a judgment on individual holes about whether
Speaker 3: you were going to go after it, because you know,
Speaker 3: it wasn't for sure that you should keep the driver
Speaker 3: in the bag on all these holes. Sometimes that little
Speaker 3: area up around, you know, three hundred to three hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty yards off the tee, Yeah, there was some
Speaker 3: rough up there, but you can take that chance, especially
Speaker 3: if you can get past the fairway bunkers. I think
Speaker 3: that was sort of the calculus on some of the holes,
Speaker 3: whereas on others it was like, driver is super risky here,
Speaker 3: and you know if you're playing the percentages and you're
Speaker 3: probably not hitting driver.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think it's important to note that those fairways
Speaker 2: are very narrow. So if you had super narrow fairways
Speaker 2: and then unplayable fescue right off of the fairways, it
Speaker 2: would result in a little bit of a The dimensions
Speaker 2: wouldn't necessarily fit the modern game super well. So I
Speaker 2: think it makes sense to have playable fescue. Could probably
Speaker 2: make an argument for some graduated fescue.
Speaker 1: I don't know how people.
Speaker 2: Always feel about that, but that's why I like, I
Speaker 2: think whole five stood out to me where there's the
Speaker 2: gorse bush on the left and to dog leg left,
Speaker 2: So the more left you go, you're kind of shortening
Speaker 2: the hole. But if you pull it a little left
Speaker 2: or Brian harmon a lefty, if you flared out left,
Speaker 2: wide miss goes into the gorse bush, significant penalty versus
Speaker 2: more narrow misses might just be a little bit in
Speaker 2: the fescue or right and still playable. So I think
Speaker 2: that hole stands out as one that I like off
Speaker 2: of the tea, where you have that gradience in the
Speaker 2: penalties online is rewarded taking on more risk and going
Speaker 2: left might incur a big penalty.
Speaker 1: So I really liked the way that hole set up
Speaker 1: off the tea.
Speaker 3: What did you make of the fact that after Day one,
Speaker 3: Royal Liverpool and the RNA decided to change the presentation
Speaker 3: of the bunkers a little bit. Much was made going
Speaker 3: into the tournament about how the bottoms of the bunkers
Speaker 3: would be flat so that balls would not roll back
Speaker 3: toward the middle, which allows players to play out of
Speaker 3: them because they're not up against the stack sod lips
Speaker 3: of the bunkers so often. But when they're flat, I
Speaker 3: would even say that most of the time you end
Speaker 3: up against the face of the bunker, because when your
Speaker 3: ball lands in the bunker, it's going to run out
Speaker 3: a little bit on a flat bottom and just come
Speaker 3: to a stop once it hits that wall. And so
Speaker 3: on the first day we saw a lot of players
Speaker 3: just like absolutely boned in the bunkers. By the second
Speaker 3: day of the championship, that had changed. What did you
Speaker 3: make of that? If anything?
Speaker 2: Pretty hard and fasttable for me is I don't like
Speaker 2: to see changes made between rounds one and two. So
Speaker 2: in terms of the competitive integrity of the tournament, I
Speaker 2: just don't like to see modifications made between rounds one
Speaker 2: and two. I'd rather see you wait till after round two,
Speaker 2: once both waves have experienced the same conditions or the
Speaker 2: conditions as similar as possible. That said, I don't have
Speaker 2: a super strong opinion on the small tweak that was
Speaker 2: made to the presentation of the bunkers. Will say, I
Speaker 2: don't think bunkers are penal enough generally that we see
Speaker 2: fifty one weeks of the year, so I'm never gonna
Speaker 2: complain about bunkers being too penal. Don't hit it there,
Speaker 2: so I don't think it had to be done, but
Speaker 2: I don't feel I don't land super strongly one way
Speaker 2: or the other. I just don't like to see changes
Speaker 2: made between rounds one and two. And I'm never going
Speaker 2: to complain about a bunker being too penal. It's always
Speaker 2: an option to avoid it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, I agree. I think in this case,
Speaker 3: the reason that I'm sort of with you and I
Speaker 3: don't feel too strongly about the change that was made
Speaker 3: is that the bunkers were still really brutal round two
Speaker 3: and on. They were still places that you did not
Speaker 3: want to be right, and I get that they were
Speaker 3: trying to reel that in a little bit. I don't
Speaker 3: know if it was necessary really, but they did it,
Speaker 3: and the difference was, unless you were, like really paying
Speaker 3: super close attention, the difference was pretty minimal.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 3: Third take on the golf course. What's your kind of
Speaker 3: final thought that you want to put out there about it?
Speaker 2: Sure, this might be slightly controversial, so it's eager for
Speaker 2: your opinion here as I was forming my opinion of
Speaker 2: the golf course over the course of the four days.
Speaker 2: But really likes be more than that, because in the
Speaker 2: lead up to the tournament itself, I will caveat this
Speaker 2: with I know. Something some people have said about Royal
Speaker 2: Liverpool is you don't appreciate it as much the first
Speaker 2: time you play it, and over time you come to
Speaker 2: appreciate it more and more.
Speaker 3: So, Yeah, notice what people say, especially who are like
Speaker 3: members of the course or who have played the course
Speaker 3: many times. There are a lot of subtleties out here
Speaker 3: that you don't necessarily notice on television or playing it
Speaker 3: the first time. It grows on.
Speaker 2: You as more iterations of the Open Championship are played here.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I'll pick up on some of these things
Speaker 2: and update my opinion. I think Royal Liverpool is a
Speaker 2: little bit redundant and that monotonous might be too strong
Speaker 2: of a word, but I like the redundant qualities it has.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of the same thing over and over
Speaker 2: on a lot of holes, which is avoid the bunkers
Speaker 2: off the tee, like control your ball in the wind.
Speaker 2: There's not a whole lot going on on the greens.
Speaker 2: Most of the course is flat. A lot of the
Speaker 2: holes are pretty similar to me, So one my litmus
Speaker 2: test right now that I like for architecture and for
Speaker 2: professional golf, but also just for playing in general is
Speaker 2: how many holes could you draw?
Speaker 1: After?
Speaker 2: And if somebody watched let's say three days of the
Speaker 2: Open Championship this week, and they maybe watched three hours
Speaker 2: a day, how many holes could they name at Royal
Speaker 2: Liverpool and draw. I think some of the holes would
Speaker 2: run together a little bit, so I think in the
Speaker 2: variety column I wouldn't give it the highest marks, And
Speaker 2: maybe if I played it more, if I saw it
Speaker 2: in person, i'd feel differ diferently, But I think it
Speaker 2: was a little bit of a redundant test. What's your
Speaker 2: reaction to that?
Speaker 3: I see where that comes from, for sure. And it's
Speaker 3: notable that the holes that we've already talked about, like
Speaker 3: three and eighteen are really ones that stand out from
Speaker 3: the rest, that have a different feature on them that
Speaker 3: grabs you immediately when you see it and fixes itself
Speaker 3: in your memory. Seventeen the new par three was sort
Speaker 3: of like that, but maybe not in entirely the best
Speaker 3: way for different reasons. I would yeah, exactly. I would
Speaker 3: say that fourteen, that Harry hole along the Dune ridge
Speaker 3: is memorable for several reasons, the alpshole the par three
Speaker 3: along the Dune Ridge, But yeah, I mean some of
Speaker 3: the inland dog leg holes with bunkers left and right
Speaker 3: usually staggered in the landing zone, and a similar type
Speaker 3: of sort of angled green you run together when you
Speaker 3: watch the course during a tournament, for sure, And I
Speaker 3: think that some of this is baked in to the
Speaker 3: history and the architecture of the course, where especially before
Speaker 3: Harry Colt came and made changes updated the course to
Speaker 3: the golden age of golf course architecture in the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 3: naturalized some things, redid some greens. Until that point, Royal
Speaker 3: Liverpool was sort of your classic Victorian golf course in
Speaker 3: some ways. It was on Link's land. It wasn't a
Speaker 3: boring inland course by any means. It's always had some
Speaker 3: cool undulation, even if it's small undulation in the fairways.
Speaker 3: But the architecture there involved before Harry Colt, a lot
Speaker 3: of kind of cross bunkers and steeplechase type hazards that
Speaker 3: were a little bit repetitive, and that were intentionally repetitive
Speaker 3: because that at one time was sort of the style.
Speaker 3: You wanted to test the drive. Can you carry this bunker,
Speaker 3: test the approach, can you carry this next bunk? Or
Speaker 3: if you achieve that, then you've done your job and
Speaker 3: you can have a chance at a good score. And
Speaker 3: I think that even after Harry Colt made the changes
Speaker 3: that he did in the twenties, that some of that
Speaker 3: essence still stayed at Royal Liverpool, some of that repetitiveness,
Speaker 3: and that's just an aspect of the course. Another factor
Speaker 3: here is that I think a lot of the greens
Speaker 3: have been monkeyed with in the modern era. Since the
Speaker 3: nineteen eighties and nineties, a lot of the greens have
Speaker 3: been renovated and they've gotten some of these little runoffs,
Speaker 3: the kind of scoopy runoffs that have some interesting playing
Speaker 3: characteristics that are certainly testing and allow for a number
Speaker 3: of different recovery shots. But to me, a lot of
Speaker 3: the inland greens have started to look pretty similar because
Speaker 3: of this modern construction method that has been used, and
Speaker 3: some of the artistry of Harry Colt's green, or some
Speaker 3: of the uniqueness of the kind of pre modern greens
Speaker 3: at the course has gone away in favor of this
Speaker 3: more modern style around them. And that's something that I
Speaker 3: would say makes some of the holes repetitive too, because
Speaker 3: you know, used to be that this week's whole one
Speaker 3: for the members seventeen. The whole called Royal used to
Speaker 3: have a unique green pressed up against the road. Everybody said,
Speaker 3: everybody who saw this green said it was a masterpiece.
Speaker 3: You know, that one's no longer there, and instead we
Speaker 3: have this green that was originated by I believe Donald
Speaker 3: Steele and maybe renovated by Martin Hottree and just has
Speaker 3: these little, you know, scoopy runoffs around it, And so
Speaker 3: we don't have that injection of distinctiveness on that whole
Speaker 3: anymore that the course used to have. To those points
Speaker 3: kind of make sense, you know, how this has emerged
Speaker 3: over time. You know, this is kind of part of
Speaker 3: what the course is, I guess, but it has been
Speaker 3: made more so maybe in recent years.
Speaker 1: No, it does.
Speaker 2: I'm a proponent of the tight runoff areas, so I
Speaker 2: can't be too critical of the flat greens. And also,
Speaker 2: you know, without appreciating the tight runoff areas because they
Speaker 2: do a lot for the approach shot value and then
Speaker 2: for some delicate chips around the greens. It just felt
Speaker 2: like every putt players were hitting was pretty flat and
Speaker 2: maybe had a tin of other movement in it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: really easy golf course to put on. Don't tell that
Speaker 2: to Cameron Young or Scottie Scheffler. But overall, mild greens
Speaker 2: that I don't think had a ton of character. And
Speaker 2: if you said to somebody, hey, you know, draw this green,
Speaker 2: like how does this green break?
Speaker 1: I don't think it show.
Speaker 2: Maybe it just didn't display as well on TV, but
Speaker 2: I thought the greens were pretty boring overall.
Speaker 1: L liked the golf course.
Speaker 2: Would be excited to see another Open championship here because
Speaker 2: again the style of repetition, it's a good style, strategic
Speaker 2: and it's fun. But a lot of holes kind of
Speaker 2: ran together for me. I think like two, six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight nine, like twelve, fifteen, sixteen, A lot of those
Speaker 2: holes like didn't do a whole lot for me.
Speaker 3: What did you make of the new seventeenth hole?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this this feels like some hot water here. I
Speaker 2: kind of land somewhere in the middle. So I appreciate
Speaker 2: the argument that the masterful work, original architecture like that
Speaker 2: that shouldn't be meddled with, and that makes sense.
Speaker 3: To me, and I don't think like to that point,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that the thirteenth hole from members fifteen
Speaker 3: for the Championships that Harry Colt designed going Inland was
Speaker 3: ever considered like one of the best holes at this course.
Speaker 3: So right, No, the Dowie hole, the Dowie hole was
Speaker 3: the Dawi is was what this week was number nine
Speaker 3: And yeah, that one was considered to be an amazing hole,
Speaker 3: but the pros didn't like that. Kind of a separate subject.
Speaker 3: But the hole that was replaced by seventeen this week
Speaker 3: was a par three that ran Inland that Harry cult designed,
Speaker 3: but I don't think was ever like among the top
Speaker 3: tier of cult holes at Hoylake, gotcha?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well that all that aside, I do think it
Speaker 2: stood out a little bit as like this doesn't really
Speaker 2: look like the rest of a Royal Liverpool. Yeah, Garrett,
Speaker 2: am I correct that reworking that hole, though, added a
Speaker 2: significant amount of length to what they played as whole
Speaker 2: eighteen yes this week, and I do think like that
Speaker 2: is a byproduct of modern technology, so that it should
Speaker 2: be called out. I also think Holy eighteen with modern
Speaker 2: technology plays much better at the length it played than
Speaker 2: if it were fifty yards shorter, so I have to
Speaker 2: appreciate that when within this discussion, I don't think seventeen
Speaker 2: was a great hole. I don't think it created the drama,
Speaker 2: even if the conditions have been a little bit better.
Speaker 2: I just don't think it was that engaging of a hole.
Speaker 2: Don't love the idea of messing around too much with
Speaker 2: Harry Colt's architecture, even if it wasn't one of his
Speaker 2: best holes, But this part I will not back down from.
Speaker 2: I do think the closing stretch of a tournament, having
Speaker 2: some holes that heighten your attention and then get you
Speaker 2: engaged and you know some big numbers are at play
Speaker 2: is a very positive attribute of a golf course, and
Speaker 2: some of the implications of that are dangerous because you
Speaker 2: might have some courses then trying to rework sixteen through
Speaker 2: eighteen if they want to host big golf tournaments, and
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how I feel about that, probably feel
Speaker 2: pretty negatively.
Speaker 1: But as an.
Speaker 2: Entertainment product, a highly volatile closing stretch, it creates a
Speaker 2: lot of excitement and it makes the championship better, So
Speaker 2: I can appreciate that. Don't think seventeen nailed it. Don't
Speaker 2: love the hole, but.
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on.
Speaker 2: In that reworking that I think all warrants discussion.
Speaker 3: The lengthening of eighteen probably was a major consideration in
Speaker 3: rerouting that hole that we haven't talked about enough. I
Speaker 3: think everybody regarded eighteen as one of the highlights of
Speaker 3: this course during this tournament, and so it's worth mentioning
Speaker 3: that it would have been a different type of hole
Speaker 3: if seventeen didn't turn into what it is now. Now
Speaker 3: talking about the execution of this idea of having a
Speaker 3: dramatic par three right near the finish, which, as you say,
Speaker 3: is a good idea for championship golf. We've seen this
Speaker 3: proven out at any number of courses, maybe most famously
Speaker 3: TPC Sagrass, which was mentioned as potentially even an inspiration
Speaker 3: for this remaining of the clothes at Hoylake. The execution
Speaker 3: of it, I think just didn't quite get there. What
Speaker 3: we saw basically was that in calm conditions, this hole
Speaker 3: was just green and regulation after green and regulation. You know,
Speaker 3: it is eighty two percent on Saturday, and that can
Speaker 3: be fine, right, These are pros sometimes the you know,
Speaker 3: greens hit from that distance especially is that high. But
Speaker 3: the thing is, once you're on this green, there's not
Speaker 3: that much interesting that happens. It's basically a bunch of
Speaker 3: flat putts, So once you get on the green, the
Speaker 3: drama is sort of over. So if players are hitting
Speaker 3: the green a lot, then the drama isn't quite there.
Speaker 3: Then when it's windy, if it's really windy, then the
Speaker 3: hole maybe tips into ridiculousness a little bit. You know,
Speaker 3: it was forty eight percent greens and regulation on Friday
Speaker 3: when it that was the windiest toughest day of this championship.
Speaker 3: And so if the conditions really come in hard, players
Speaker 3: are missing the green a lot and they're finding themselves
Speaker 3: in these really really penal pop bunkers, especially on the
Speaker 3: right hand side of this green, where the recovery is
Speaker 3: very very difficult. Long is super dead, short is not good,
Speaker 3: left is not terrible, but not great. And so I'm
Speaker 3: not sure I necessarily love this hole in any conditions.
Speaker 2: I think I probably enjoy it much more on a
Speaker 2: windy day than on a calm day, even if it
Speaker 2: borders on like maybe.
Speaker 1: A little ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous is maybe too strong of a word, But I
Speaker 2: hear you, I think one part of the hole, and
Speaker 2: that this idea is occurring to me in real time,
Speaker 2: so you can check me on this. But I don't
Speaker 2: think it gets much more interesting based on the pin location.
Speaker 3: And no that yeah, yeah, I mean maybe if it's
Speaker 3: like a right pin, where that right bunker that is
Speaker 3: the worst place to be is really in play. Maybe,
Speaker 3: but especially if it's a front pin, everybody's just going
Speaker 3: to the middle of the green and putting back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it doesn't really change your targets like a
Speaker 2: whole lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, the dead spots are still deaf.
Speaker 3: If it's on the right, yeah, it doesn't change your target.
Speaker 3: You're playing in the middle of the green if it's
Speaker 3: on the right, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think that was the part that was kind
Speaker 2: of standing out to me versus like TPC Sawgrass, which
Speaker 2: seventeen isn't necessarily my favorite Part three in the world,
Speaker 2: but though each of those pin locations has a distinct
Speaker 2: character to it, like you're hitting different shots to those
Speaker 2: pin locations, and I don't think seventeen at Royal Liverpool
Speaker 2: had that at all. So for me, a brilliant Part
Speaker 2: three does depend on where the pin is and it
Speaker 2: plays a little bit differently. So I just wasn't quite
Speaker 2: as engaged by seventeen. But look like there's compared to
Speaker 2: a lot of Part three's we see week in and
Speaker 2: week out, like I'd rather watch that, But you're right,
Speaker 2: wouldn't give it like the most glowing review either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe my standards are a little bit too high there,
Speaker 3: or I'm I'm might be I might be a little
Speaker 3: quick to criticize because I really I don't like the
Speaker 3: waste bunker work between the tea and the green there.
Speaker 3: But we don't need to go down that particular rabbit
Speaker 3: hole right now in this conversation, and so it's very
Speaker 3: possible that I have a general kind of ill feeling
Speaker 3: about this hole that I'm applying to the strategic merits
Speaker 3: of it as well. I don't know if your model
Speaker 3: is the seventeenth that's t TPC Sawgrass fine, But one
Speaker 3: of the things that makes seventeen at Sawgrass so awesome
Speaker 3: is that the green is incredible and the pin positions
Speaker 3: are so different, and so I don't know, I think
Speaker 3: that's that might be the part that's missing for me
Speaker 3: is some internal contour and differentiation in the green, which
Speaker 3: may not have been really practical to create because the
Speaker 3: green itself is so small.
Speaker 2: I think maybe part of the problem with it is
Speaker 2: the way danger kind of surrounds the entire green. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and when there's that much danger on all sides, it
Speaker 2: almost like it just becomes purely execution. There's not a
Speaker 2: whole lot of like risk reward based on the pin,
Speaker 2: So I don't know's it's.
Speaker 3: Middle, middle, middle every time, especially since there's not much
Speaker 3: internal contour. There's nothing else to consider except for the hazards,
Speaker 3: and the hazards are basically equidistant from the middle of
Speaker 3: the green, and so that's where you're going. I mean,
Speaker 3: maybe you edge a little bit left, because if you
Speaker 3: miss left, then you're if you're a decent bunker player,
Speaker 3: you're probably making par whereas if you miss right, you're
Speaker 3: in some real danger of making a big number. So
Speaker 3: maybe maybe that's a little adjustment. But the green is
Speaker 3: so small that I think you would agree that that
Speaker 3: adjustment would be very minute, you know, exactly. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 3: all right, that's seventeen at hoy Lake and we've got
Speaker 3: your three takes on the golf course. Joseph, thank you
Speaker 3: so much for that, and thank you in general for
Speaker 3: coming on the post major podcasts this year. They've they've
Speaker 3: all been really interesting. Always appreciate your thoughts. So let's
Speaker 3: do it again.
Speaker 4: Soon.
Speaker 3: Let's do it again next year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, talk to you after the Tour Championship. Appreciate it, Garrett,
Speaker 2: all right, thanks man.
Speaker 3: This episode of the Frida Egg podcast was edited by
Speaker 3: Natt Rusius. Thank you, Matt, and thank you especially for
Speaker 3: working on the weekend during the Open Championship. One of
Speaker 3: the best ways to support the Frida Egg is to
Speaker 3: join Club TFE. Just go to the Frida Egg dot
Speaker 3: com slash membership and check out what we're offering there.
Speaker 3: We had lots of Open Week content, including a post
Speaker 3: with some of the best writing that's ever been done
Speaker 3: about Hoylake from authors like Bernard Darwin and Patrick Dickinson.
Speaker 3: Just some really interesting stuff, along with some historical images
Speaker 3: that we found. This week, Andy wrote a profile of
Speaker 3: North Barrick Great Course in Scotland with some beautiful photos
Speaker 3: that they took last year when they were there, along
Speaker 3: with some really nice analysis and reflections about the golf course.
Speaker 3: There's a great community in clubtf that's developing. In the
Speaker 3: comment sections on these posts, people say such interesting fun things.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of discussion this week about the
Speaker 3: Open Championship itself, along with a Club TFE pool that
Speaker 3: I haven't actually looked at the results of but I'll
Speaker 3: have to check that out after I get off the microphone.
Speaker 3: So CLUBTFE the Friday dot Com slash membership really fun
Speaker 3: experience there. Go check that out. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 3: and we'll be back again soon