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 in a fried.
Speaker 2: Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Fridaygg, Frida Egg,
Speaker 2: Brian Egg, Frida Egg.
Speaker 1: Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of
Speaker 1: the hump.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Fridaygg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison here
Speaker 3: with Joseph Lamania and Andy Johnson, and today we're doing
Speaker 3: takeaways from the twenty twenty four Open Championship. This episode
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Speaker 3: started with takeaways from the twenty twenty four Open. As
Speaker 3: usual for our major wrap up pods, I'm joined by
Speaker 3: Andy Johnson and Joseph Leamania. Andy, how you doing.
Speaker 4: I'm doing great, Garrett, I am. It felt nice to
Speaker 4: sleep past like five am for the first time in
Speaker 4: a few days today.
Speaker 1: That was that was delightful.
Speaker 4: So, you know, just kind of getting recalibrated on a
Speaker 4: normal schedule, although I do love the open schedule covering
Speaker 4: in the States where most majors. We kind of like
Speaker 4: it's like a morning till nighttime day for four days straight.
Speaker 4: These days like you get time to have like your
Speaker 4: normal life.
Speaker 3: I agree with that. The day, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: seems really long when you're covering the Open from the States. Joseph,
Speaker 3: how's it going with you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. I think this tournament inspired me more,
Speaker 2: like been more excited to talk about golf after this
Speaker 2: particular tournament than any other one this year. So I'm
Speaker 2: really excited to do this all right.
Speaker 3: So just to set the scene here, our twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four champion Golfer of the Year is, of course, Xander Schaffle.
Speaker 3: Xander shot sixty five in his final round at Royal
Speaker 3: Troon to win by two shots over Justin Rose and
Speaker 3: Billy Horschel. Also in the mix were Tristan Lawrence. I
Speaker 3: think we all learned how to properly pronounce his name
Speaker 3: this week, though A shotguns start is still muddying the
Speaker 3: waters with that. Russell Henley was in there, Shane Lowry
Speaker 3: was in there, but really it was kind of a
Speaker 3: three golfer race between Shaffle A, Rose and Horschel, and
Speaker 3: Shoaffle A pulled away at the end. So Andy want
Speaker 3: we start with you, what is your first takeaway from
Speaker 3: this tournament.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think my first takeaway is I think
Speaker 4: we have to reassess where Xander Schaffley is in the
Speaker 4: hierarchy of best men's professional golfers. This major year with
Speaker 4: top tens in every major and two wins, not to
Speaker 4: mention a second place of the players, which you know
Speaker 4: kind of goes untalked about, is an extraordinary year in
Speaker 4: the biggest events. I think that's what we want from
Speaker 4: golfers in general, when when you talk about, you know,
Speaker 4: what a star player is is you want them to
Speaker 4: show up in the majors. You don't want them shown
Speaker 4: up to you know, Heritage or TPC Craig Ranch and
Speaker 4: winning by eight and that being the triumphant moment of
Speaker 4: the year. You want them to be in the arena
Speaker 4: and really contending for major championships. And I think Xander
Speaker 4: Schoffley he was a great all round player. I think
Speaker 4: he was a great major championship player before this year,
Speaker 4: but he started working with Chris Como, added a significant
Speaker 4: amount of yardage and now we see an ultra elite
Speaker 4: Major championship player that is the better the tougher the
Speaker 4: golf course, the the more well rounded the test, the
Speaker 4: more it suits Sanders Stoffley's game. I don't think it's
Speaker 4: out of this question, out of this like, out of
Speaker 4: the realm of possibilities that he is the most well
Speaker 4: rounded player in golf. It might be just a fact
Speaker 4: there are no weaknesses in his game, and I'm super
Speaker 4: excited to see where it goes from here. Xander to
Speaker 4: me seems like a player that's got the makeup just
Speaker 4: based off his career. There's not really any injury risk.
Speaker 4: He's consistently improved. So what do the next three four
Speaker 4: years look like for Xander Stoffley? And could we be
Speaker 4: talking about, you know, the best player of his generation?
Speaker 2: Andy, I mean you said it, the major championship performance.
Speaker 2: Xander now has played in thirty majors and he's finished
Speaker 2: in the top ten and fifteen of them, so fifty
Speaker 2: percent of his majors he's finished in the top ten
Speaker 2: I've seen. I don't have the full list of players
Speaker 2: like who have finished in fifty percent of their top
Speaker 2: tens and their first thirty starts. I know Brooks Koepka
Speaker 2: did it. It's rare though, and we will see how
Speaker 2: it ages. I'm sure that's a percentage that will go
Speaker 2: down over time, as it does for most players, right
Speaker 2: like once once he's thirty seven. I don't think we
Speaker 2: can expect him to continue at that clip, but I mean,
Speaker 2: he's in elite territory. There aren't many golfers who boast
Speaker 2: a fifty percent top ten clip in majors, and he's
Speaker 2: been doing it since Aaron Hills right when he when
Speaker 2: he burst onto the scene first major, his first major,
Speaker 2: right he finished in the top ten. So it's reasonable
Speaker 2: to talk about him as one of the best players
Speaker 2: in the world right now. Agree that he's more well
Speaker 2: rounded than somebody like Scotti, who clearly has deficiencies with
Speaker 2: the putter. Who else are we even talking about as
Speaker 2: being as well rounded as Xander Schoffley.
Speaker 4: I think the other thing everybody golombs down the fifty
Speaker 4: percent top ten. To me, maybe what's more impressive is
Speaker 4: eight top fives. I mean, over over twenty five percent
Speaker 4: at the time he's played major from his first one.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of times you have that skew
Speaker 4: of like your first seven majors, you could kind of
Speaker 4: just throw out the window. I saw people comparing camp
Speaker 4: Smith's first majors before Live and majors after Live, and
Speaker 4: it's kind of like, well, it's a junkstat because you're
Speaker 4: going back to twenty thirteen. You know, was Xander he
Speaker 4: has come on the scene. I mean he he's sectional
Speaker 4: qualified into his first Major and like effectively since then,
Speaker 4: he's been a top ten player in the game. Before
Speaker 4: that Major at Aaron Hills, I think there are real
Speaker 4: questions whether he was going to keep his card because
Speaker 4: it had been a struggle, and now he's been a
Speaker 4: world class player since and he just continues to improve.
Speaker 3: So who is the player of the year this year
Speaker 3: on the PGA Tour? Can we start that debate right now?
Speaker 1: I'll let Joseph answer that.
Speaker 2: Look, I think it's this is maybe what everyone's gonna say.
Speaker 2: I think it's into not indisputable, but I feel very
Speaker 2: strongly that if any player is teeing it up tomorrow,
Speaker 2: like I'm taking Scotty Scheffler against anybody else in the
Speaker 2: field and feeling really good about it. But to me,
Speaker 2: I do believe that Xander Schoffley should be the player
Speaker 2: of the year, considering he won two major championships and
Speaker 2: all due respect to Scotty, like it's been a ridiculously
Speaker 2: impressive year, but wins in limited field events, though they
Speaker 2: are extremely impressive and there's a lot of depth of
Speaker 2: talent there, those aren't going to age the same way
Speaker 2: ten years from now that Xander's two major championship wins are.
Speaker 2: So Xander finishing in the top eight and all four
Speaker 2: majors this year with two wins, that does more for
Speaker 2: me than wins at the Arnold Palmer and at the
Speaker 2: RBC Heritage and things of that nature. So, Eileen Xander
Speaker 2: at the moment.
Speaker 4: I think the other thing about it is the variety
Speaker 4: of major wins Valhalla to Troon, it's a big it's
Speaker 4: a drastically different up in course. And I think, like,
Speaker 4: if we wanted to nitpick Scotty, He's got two major wins.
Speaker 4: Xander's got two major wins. Both of his are at
Speaker 4: Augusta National, which seemed like a place that fits his
Speaker 4: game perfectly. I don't think like Scotty's had chances, but
Speaker 4: there hasn't been the major that slipped through his fingers.
Speaker 1: Really would you agree with that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, sort of, Like I mean, he just doesn't he
Speaker 3: didn't have as much history as Xander does at this point,
Speaker 3: he doesn't have the experience of toiling for years and
Speaker 3: coming up short in major championships and then finally breaking through.
Speaker 3: Scotty's story is a little bit different. He had a
Speaker 3: very quick ascent once he got on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: I mean he was kind of, you know, working toward
Speaker 3: that level for a while. But once he broke out,
Speaker 3: he really broke out, and he did so fairly early
Speaker 3: in his PGA Tour career. So yeah, it's just a little.
Speaker 4: Bit different it to me, like Scotty is I called
Speaker 4: him on the Shotgun Start, like a major championship zombie.
Speaker 4: It's like he's he's like un he just is unkillable,
Speaker 4: Like it's just always gonna be around.
Speaker 1: It's like always.
Speaker 4: But to me, like a lot of times he either
Speaker 4: has it and he's gonna win and and we've seen
Speaker 4: that at Augusta National twice now, or it's like this, I
Speaker 4: finished eighth, But I never really you never really felt
Speaker 4: like he had control, right. I think that's an interesting
Speaker 4: thing because even Xander, when you go back, he had
Speaker 4: a lot of majors, Like there was a moment in
Speaker 4: time and during the Carnoustie Major where you're like, he
Speaker 4: is winning this tournament. And I don't think we've really
Speaker 4: had that with Scotty in any major outside of the
Speaker 4: two that he's won. And it's just it's just and
Speaker 4: maybe it's just Scotty gets the deal done and and
Speaker 4: Xander didn't. But it's just something I've noticed, Like even
Speaker 4: lacc last year, he had a great chance, but he
Speaker 4: did nothing on Sunday, right, there's never a point in
Speaker 4: that major where you were like, Scotty's gonna win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's that if
Speaker 3: he's putting, he wins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting that the fastest greens where a lot
Speaker 4: of times, a lot of analytics people say Putting's devalued
Speaker 4: the most at at the Masters, is the one that
Speaker 4: he's won twice. I don't you know, you if you
Speaker 4: want to compare the major's numbers between Scotty and Xander,
Speaker 4: twenty one events for Scotty now twelve top tens, eerily
Speaker 4: very very similar, six top fives, so you're basically like
Speaker 4: running the exact same percentages effectively like identical percentages. And
Speaker 4: I think so Xander's got twenty three top twenty fives
Speaker 4: and third events. Scotty has sixteen and twenty one. I
Speaker 4: mean they are like effectively running identically identical numbers in
Speaker 4: these majors. Xander just has a little bit more sample size.
Speaker 4: It's pretty interesting, Like, I don't you know I would
Speaker 4: I would have been I think it would have been
Speaker 4: crazy at the beginning of the year to say that
Speaker 4: Scotty and Xander are pretty close. But after the two majors,
Speaker 4: it's just amazing. I guess I'm always reminded at major
Speaker 4: years like how much majors matter, like what the weight
Speaker 4: they add to something. And for Player of the Year,
Speaker 4: I think this is you know what it all comes
Speaker 4: down to. The ultimate prize.
Speaker 3: Comes down to the FedEx Cup. You know what would
Speaker 3: be a really what would be a funny situation is
Speaker 3: if Scotty won the Net Championship at East Lake and
Speaker 3: Xander Shaffle actually won the tournament, Well, that would be.
Speaker 4: Fun Xander has won that tournament the gross division a
Speaker 4: couple times and not great at that course, and not
Speaker 4: won the net tournament. And I from what I gather
Speaker 4: from this is a this is a shotgun start special
Speaker 4: unsubstantiated rumor that he is quite disgruntled about this fact
Speaker 4: and that that it may have been.
Speaker 1: Like I I agree with him.
Speaker 4: How come if you win the gross event there is
Speaker 4: not counted as like an official win.
Speaker 1: Because if you go to wow gr page it is
Speaker 1: counted also.
Speaker 2: Not to take it in a different direction, that's very
Speaker 2: different than takeaways from the Open, but some of the
Speaker 2: official World Golf Rankings, board members and the talks of
Speaker 2: why Live doesn't get points being there's some conflict between
Speaker 2: team success and individual success. I mean they do give
Speaker 2: OWGR points to the Tour Championship, which you could argue
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of a conflict there and if
Speaker 2: you're playing for your net score your gross score, so
Speaker 2: maybe a little bit of a contradiction in there as well.
Speaker 2: But that's that's a little bit of an aside from
Speaker 2: an Open Championship conversation.
Speaker 3: Food for thought. Why don't we get back to the
Speaker 3: Open Championship unless there are any other notes on this
Speaker 3: discussion we're having right now, Andy, do you have something else?
Speaker 4: I just have on Scotty both major wins, he was
Speaker 4: the fifty four hole leader, and maybe that's just he's
Speaker 4: the front he's the front runner, he's the front runner.
Speaker 4: Everyone thought Shane Lowry was where he gets out, and
Speaker 4: I could see it like overcoming Scotty Scheffler with the
Speaker 4: way he hits the golf ball is like a seemingly
Speaker 4: insurmountable task. But without the putter, without that putting prowess
Speaker 4: it is, it makes it a little bit harder for
Speaker 4: him to come from behind. You know, you have to
Speaker 4: make birdies. And I think that's the thing when you
Speaker 4: look at Xander's round, I mean a final round sixty five,
Speaker 4: just bogie free, didn't have a par putt longer than
Speaker 4: three feet, Like he put together a masterclass yesterday, and
Speaker 4: the only way you do that is with just supreme
Speaker 4: all around skill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was awesome. And I think that the part
Speaker 3: of the solution to this question that we're asking about
Speaker 3: the difference between the way that Scotti Scheffler wins majors
Speaker 3: and the way that Xander Schaffle seems to win majors
Speaker 3: is that Scotty's ceiling is just really really high, and
Speaker 3: when he's putting well, he runs away and hides. Xander
Speaker 3: grinds you down through overall excellence, and that wins you
Speaker 3: a lot of tournaments. That gets you a lot of
Speaker 3: high finishes, but it doesn't necessarily make it so that
Speaker 3: you run away with tournaments in the way that Scotty
Speaker 3: is clearly capable of. So it's an interesting contrast between
Speaker 3: these two players, and the fact that their last names
Speaker 3: are Schaffle and Scheffler's just hilarious to me. My wife
Speaker 3: still doesn't know the difference between them. When she sees
Speaker 3: one of them on the leader board, she can't figure
Speaker 3: out which one they are, And that's just kind of
Speaker 3: a funny thing that's happening in golf right now. We've
Speaker 3: got Xander Schafflin, Scotti Scheffler. But to get back to
Speaker 3: Royal Troon and the Open Championship, Joseph, I'm curious to
Speaker 3: hear your first takeaway.
Speaker 2: My biggest takeaway from watching this was that nature has
Speaker 2: a way of making you feel small, like when you're
Speaker 2: battling the elements when there's wind.
Speaker 3: Like nature finds a way. Is that the Jurassic Park motto.
Speaker 2: I've never even seen Jurassic Park, so I can't speak
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 3: But I've never seen Jurassic Park. Oh my gosh, Will
Speaker 3: Knights hasn't seen ace Ventura. Oh he has now, well,
Speaker 3: Joseph you're gonna have to watch Jurassic Park. You can't
Speaker 3: use the generation Z card here. I'm sorry, you've got
Speaker 3: a Jurassic Park.
Speaker 2: There's other higher priority movies on my list, so maybe.
Speaker 2: But with natural topography, with wind, I think nature has
Speaker 2: a way of making you feel small and therefore making
Speaker 2: the shots big. And some of that might be subjective
Speaker 2: and just being a human being faced with big scale
Speaker 2: you're by the ocean. But also, I mean wind does
Speaker 2: is a natural rollback. The ball does not go as
Speaker 2: far in the wind, and some of that's designed. Some
Speaker 2: of that's the way that Royal Truon is set up,
Speaker 2: with wide misses getting crushed in the gorse bushes and
Speaker 2: it's really scary to stand up there and rip a driver.
Speaker 2: You know, if you hit it, if you mishit it
Speaker 2: a little bit, it could go on the train tracks
Speaker 2: on eleven. Like, there are all these instances at Royal
Speaker 2: Truon where you can get yourself into trouble. But I
Speaker 2: think what has this major solidified for me is that
Speaker 2: so infrequently in professional golf is is it a battle
Speaker 2: against nature? And I think the Open Championship has really
Speaker 2: distanced itself from the other Majors and from every other
Speaker 2: tournament that we watch most weeks that it is a
Speaker 2: battle against nature. Augusta does a great test it is
Speaker 2: the furthest thing from a battle against nature. That's like
Speaker 2: the most unnatural golf course you can come across. Hurst
Speaker 2: was great, right, but that's not that's not really a
Speaker 2: battle against nature. Like it's warmed the balls flying forever.
Speaker 2: This felt like a true battle against nature. And I
Speaker 2: think the Open Championship has really given itself an identity
Speaker 2: more and more as golf feels more homogenized and overly manicured.
Speaker 4: I was I was talking to my neighbor last night,
Speaker 4: and my neighbor is A. He's like A he's like
Speaker 4: a writ writer and podcaster in the outdoor space. And
Speaker 4: he's like a big surfer, very very casual golfer. Hasn't
Speaker 4: played golf in like ten years. He says he watches
Speaker 4: ESPN Plus and said he he said, the thing that's
Speaker 4: stuck out to him, he's like the the that golf
Speaker 4: tournament was super cool and it was unbelievable to watch
Speaker 4: these guys fight against the elements. And he's like, usually
Speaker 4: I turn on the TV and it just doesn't everything.
Speaker 4: There's a sameness to everything, and he's like, I love
Speaker 4: and if you think about like he's written a lot
Speaker 4: about surfing, surfing is an outdoor sport that the wave
Speaker 4: is going to be different all the time, and there's
Speaker 4: that idea of like, you know, surfing against the elements
Speaker 4: of the wave, right or outdoor sports you think about
Speaker 4: like different, whether impacting how you ride a bike or
Speaker 4: run a race.
Speaker 1: Like there.
Speaker 4: The element aspect of golf like that, I think was
Speaker 4: one of the things that made this tournament so amazing
Speaker 4: was the changing winds. The way the golf course played
Speaker 4: differently every day gave it this like Okay, there's something
Speaker 4: new to attack. And I know that every golf course,
Speaker 4: every every round can't be like that. Not every golf
Speaker 4: course is on you know, on the ocean, you know,
Speaker 4: on an island in the ocean, right, But there are
Speaker 4: things that they can do from a setup standpoint to
Speaker 4: break the homogenization of professional golf. I just don't think
Speaker 4: I think we're so far away from ever having that
Speaker 4: type of mentality where we think about like every day
Speaker 4: is a new test. And I thought that's one of
Speaker 4: the things the big themes of this week that resonated
Speaker 4: with a lot of people. Was the idea that every
Speaker 4: day was drastically different there and it was cool. You
Speaker 4: turned on the TV. I can't wait to see what
Speaker 4: they're battling today.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know you don't even get this every
Speaker 3: week in links golf. No, we didn't get it at
Speaker 3: Saint Andrews with Rory and Cam. We didn't really get
Speaker 3: it at Hoylake with Brian Harmon. We got a little
Speaker 3: bit of it. We got a couple of days of
Speaker 3: really interesting weather, but we also got a couple of
Speaker 3: days of low scoring conditions and fairly placid weather. This
Speaker 3: week was perfect. But you're more likely to get this
Speaker 3: kind of weather to get this kind of battle against
Speaker 3: the elements, as Joseph is putting it, if you play
Speaker 3: more links golf. I don't think there's any other way
Speaker 3: to manufacture this. Andy. You said there are some set
Speaker 3: up things that you could do to make every week
Speaker 3: more like this. What do you think some of those
Speaker 3: things are, because I think that they're always going to
Speaker 3: fall short.
Speaker 4: I just think I think when you go to a
Speaker 4: golf course, when you're hosting an event at a golf course,
Speaker 4: I don't think it's unreasonable when somebody's playing for twenty
Speaker 4: million dollars, when there's a twenty million dollar perse that
Speaker 4: the player's job should be to get prepared to play
Speaker 4: every tea box at the golf course. I think they
Speaker 4: already have an issue with early rounds, like the early
Speaker 4: practice rounds. The value of a practice round ticket or
Speaker 4: attending a practice round is diminished with the less and
Speaker 4: less practice rounds that people play.
Speaker 1: Make these guys prepare.
Speaker 4: I'd love to see sometimes they play a five hundred
Speaker 4: yard hole three hundred and twenty yards the next day.
Speaker 4: I think, like we see that when you change things up,
Speaker 4: and what this week like when things change, it flummex'es players.
Speaker 1: And I don't. I don't.
Speaker 4: I think there should be rather than a test that
Speaker 4: everybody knows the questions for and you have you have
Speaker 4: three days to prepare for the questions you know are coming.
Speaker 4: I always thought a test in school where you didn't
Speaker 4: know what the questions were was a more challenging one
Speaker 4: where you had to prepare for everything. And then the
Speaker 4: test came out. Oh, I thought they were going to
Speaker 4: use this team, but they didn't. I swore that they
Speaker 4: were going to ask me a question about this, but
Speaker 4: they didn't to me golf, and I know there's some
Speaker 4: some constraints with infrastructure in different things, having to move
Speaker 4: rope lines. To me, there there needs to be especially
Speaker 4: when you know that you have less interesting weather, less
Speaker 4: bouncy soil, and dramatically less interesting golf courses, you need
Speaker 4: to do a lot. That means you need to work
Speaker 4: really hard on the setup, and to me, the setup
Speaker 4: is mailed in every week.
Speaker 2: I think with that too. And this is a little
Speaker 2: bit different. Andy, you're kind of saying, given the constraints
Speaker 2: or given the courses you have, here's something you could
Speaker 2: do slightly different direction here. But I just think it
Speaker 2: illuminates the need to prioritize venues. That wind is a
Speaker 2: reliable factor. You can't guarantee it, but I think it
Speaker 2: highlights the value of a championship venue like Kiowa right,
Speaker 2: like the ocean course at Qe Island, where it's on
Speaker 2: the ocean and it's reliable that you're going to get
Speaker 2: some level of wind. So to me, that was a
Speaker 2: huge takeaway. I don't think there's many championships where on
Speaker 2: Wednesday someone's asking you about who you like and you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I need to the forecast is going to play a
Speaker 2: huge role in that. Like how I'm frying myself checking
Speaker 2: the forecast almost hourly the weeks of Open Championships and
Speaker 2: it's just not like that many weeks in the professional
Speaker 2: golf calendar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you need to go to courses where there is
Speaker 3: some expectation of weather on a regular basis. But it's
Speaker 3: tough because not many courses are like Links courses in
Speaker 3: the sense that they can handle that weather. The ability
Speaker 3: of Links courses to stand up against the worst of
Speaker 3: conditions and remain playable is something that's fairly unique to
Speaker 3: the coasts of Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland. I mean it's
Speaker 3: fairly unique. It's not completely unique, but you find those
Speaker 3: courses there that you can play through conditions, and then
Speaker 3: you also happen to have an organization in the RNA
Speaker 3: that runs the Open Championship that allows play to continue.
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure that the PGA Tour is really
Speaker 3: prepared to do that, or even if the DP World
Speaker 3: Tour has that kind of courage at this point. But
Speaker 3: that's a key part of this, that the courses can survive.
Speaker 3: The courses are hardy.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think like the overarching thing here is natural.
Speaker 4: With the way golf has gone in the optimization of
Speaker 4: pro golfers, the very best defense is natural elements. That
Speaker 4: is that's it, right. Wind is the ultimate way to
Speaker 4: test the best players in the world. Wind, I would say, wind,
Speaker 4: followed by firm turf, you know, architecture and farm firm
Speaker 4: turf in there, and then followed by probably topography. Topography
Speaker 4: would be my last thing.
Speaker 3: Let me put a pin in this with a couple
Speaker 3: of quotes from Justin Rose and Billy Horschell, both of
Speaker 3: whom contended for the win on Sunday.
Speaker 1: And play a lot of PGA Tour golf.
Speaker 3: Play a lot of PGA Tour golf, and play a
Speaker 3: good amount of European Tour golf. Both Horsell and Rose
Speaker 3: have experienced with that for different reasons. Horsefell because it
Speaker 3: just seems to be a passion of his, which is great.
Speaker 3: But Rose said, there's very few stock shots that you
Speaker 3: hit on the golf course this week. That's probably why
Speaker 3: there's a bit of unpredictability to the look of the leaderboard.
Speaker 3: Horsechell says, I enjoy hitting little bunch shots. I get
Speaker 3: tired of golf where you're making false wings and you
Speaker 3: lean into a certain number and it stops. I like
Speaker 3: when you have to be creative and find a way
Speaker 3: to get around the golf course, and I think I've
Speaker 3: always done that well for the most part. I think
Speaker 3: that those two moments in the press conferences after the
Speaker 3: round on Saturday, those were both comments that they made
Speaker 3: on Saturday. Get at the very simple thing that needs
Speaker 3: to happen in golf tournaments if we want to see
Speaker 3: real skill, real golfing skill come to the four and
Speaker 3: that is making it so players aren't hitting stock shots.
Speaker 3: It's as simple as that. You mentioned topography, Andy, I
Speaker 3: think topography is one of those things that makes players
Speaker 3: not hit stock shots. That's what Augusta National does so well.
Speaker 3: Even though you can't necessarily count on the elements playing
Speaker 3: a big role at Augusta, and they did earlier this year,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't always happen. What you can count on
Speaker 3: is that players will be hitting from uneven lies and
Speaker 3: hitting non driving range, non stock shots, and so that's
Speaker 3: that's really what we've got to strive for in different ways,
Speaker 3: because not every course is a links course. Not every
Speaker 3: course can offer this this combination of elements that take
Speaker 3: players out of their comfort zones. So let me get
Speaker 3: to my takeaway, and it relates to what we've been
Speaker 3: talking about, so we can move on from it fairly
Speaker 3: quickly if we want. But my big takeaway from this
Speaker 3: championship is to maintain the integrity of the competitive game.
Speaker 3: And I don't mean to be too melodramatic here, but
Speaker 3: I really think that's what's at stake. The major tours
Speaker 3: just need to visit links courses and authentically links like
Speaker 3: venues more often. That's something that I think needs to happen.
Speaker 3: I think that's obvious. Now. I don't believe it is
Speaker 3: going to happen. I think there are a lot of
Speaker 3: obstacles in the way of this occurring, but it just
Speaker 3: seems obvious to me after watching this season of golf
Speaker 3: and seeing the varieties of golf that were played at,
Speaker 3: especially the major championships, that you just need to go
Speaker 3: to the links of Great Britain and Ireland more often
Speaker 3: with the best players in the world in order to
Speaker 3: truly test them and truly figure out who can play golf.
Speaker 3: Right now, the DP World Tour goes to essentially three
Speaker 3: does three Links tournaments per year unless I'm missing one
Speaker 3: Scottish Open, Open Championship and the Dunhill Links. That's obviously
Speaker 3: better than the PGA Tour, which participates in the Scottish
Speaker 3: Open and the Open Championship. We've got to figure out
Speaker 3: ways to bring more or links courses into at least
Speaker 3: the DP World Tour rotation. A tournament at a Lynks
Speaker 3: course in England, maybe one of the links courses that
Speaker 3: has been left behind by the Open Championship, like Royal
Speaker 3: Saint Port's or Princes or Royalhythm in Saint Anne's which
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to really be in the road to anymore.
Speaker 3: You could maybe have a tournament in Wales, go to
Speaker 3: a Royal Port Call on an annual basis. They seem
Speaker 3: willing to host tournaments. You could go to some links
Speaker 3: courses in the Netherlands. There are options here for the
Speaker 3: DP World Tour. I don't think it's really going to happen,
Speaker 3: you know. Shane Bacon asked Keith Pelly this question a
Speaker 3: few years ago, is there going to be a link
Speaker 3: season on the European Tour? And Keith Pelly said, essentially
Speaker 3: I brought that idea to the players when I came
Speaker 3: on board and they said, no, it would be too
Speaker 3: difficult for us to play links golf more than two
Speaker 3: weeks in a row, and so that would be a
Speaker 3: big hindrance, and I believe also the finances would be
Speaker 3: a big hindrance. Now, is it ridiculous that the players
Speaker 3: say we can't play links golf more than two weeks
Speaker 3: in a row. Yes, that is totally ridiculous and it
Speaker 3: indicates everything that's kind of wrong with the standardization of
Speaker 3: strategy and play in the pro game right now. But
Speaker 3: that is what the players believe, even on the European Tour.
Speaker 3: You can imagine that the pack on the PGA Tour
Speaker 3: would feel even more strongly about it. So that's where
Speaker 3: we are. We got to see more links golf, but
Speaker 3: there's not a great path to incorporating that into the
Speaker 3: major tours.
Speaker 4: I think this is I guess this is the big
Speaker 4: carrot of what's going on in the greater golf world
Speaker 4: right now with the potential unification of golf, reunification of golf,
Speaker 4: and the potential for a World Tour, because I would
Speaker 4: throw in more than just links golf. I think everybody
Speaker 4: that watched the President's Cup in twenty nineteen at Royal
Speaker 4: Melbourne has a thirst for sand Belt also being a
Speaker 4: part of this. And I think that this this week
Speaker 4: kind of cemented to me that that the best I
Speaker 4: think there's you know, there's a class of best players
Speaker 4: in the world. He's Andrew schoffley' is Rory McElroy, Scottie Shufflers,
Speaker 4: John Rams. They're going to be great at all types
Speaker 4: of venues. But this week solidified to me that there
Speaker 4: are players who are drastically undervalued in terms of the
Speaker 4: way we think of them as players because of the
Speaker 4: style of golf that they are forced to play week in,
Speaker 4: week out that doesn't necessarily fit their skill set, that
Speaker 4: doesn't really activate their shot making abilities that they might
Speaker 4: have over other players, and lead to them being middle
Speaker 4: of the road players who are actually far superior on
Speaker 4: different surfaces. And I think like the great Carrot and
Speaker 4: the great opportunity for golf is kind of looking at
Speaker 4: the venues. Joseph hit on this venues matter, You hit
Speaker 4: on this with links, the idea of Link season. But
Speaker 4: the unbelievable opportunity is to really examine and figure out
Speaker 4: how do we make golf the most compelling it possibly
Speaker 4: can be? And anybody that watched this week, I would
Speaker 4: have a hard time not believing that this should be
Speaker 4: a central part of your schedule, that this type of
Speaker 4: golf should be part of, say the twenty events that
Speaker 4: the top players play. Do you think that we should
Speaker 4: have twenty percent of it beyond links golf? Should there
Speaker 4: be four events and that you know, if you have
Speaker 4: four events, there maybe a sand belt event or two.
Speaker 4: You know, you get to that and you know it.
Speaker 4: Just to me seems like we should be thinking about
Speaker 4: the way you put that schedule together. If it's a
Speaker 4: world tour, if it's got billions of dollars behind it
Speaker 4: from various funders, whether it's the private equity money or
Speaker 4: potentially the the PIFF money, the Saudi Arabian PIF money,
Speaker 4: can you build a tour that really highlights the world
Speaker 4: of golf and also builds storylines when you go from
Speaker 4: from locale to locale. Of these are these are the
Speaker 4: types of skill sets that we see rewarded. The types
Speaker 4: of skill sets that were rewarded this week were dramatically
Speaker 4: different than those on the PGA Tour. In general, there
Speaker 4: was a creativity. There was a very clear lack of
Speaker 4: youth on the leader board. There was I don't know
Speaker 4: where the youngest player finished, like the you know, I
Speaker 4: don't think there was a player under twenty five that
Speaker 4: was even like a factor. I didn't even see shots
Speaker 4: from a player under twenty five in the last couple
Speaker 4: hours of the telecast.
Speaker 1: What did they You know, Jordan wasn't it. He's twenty
Speaker 1: eight or twenty nine.
Speaker 3: I know, But he's a relative to these other guys.
Speaker 3: He's pretty much two times in a row for Matthew Jordan.
Speaker 3: By the way, at the Open Championship, props to him.
Speaker 1: He's just a link specialist. But that's like the point.
Speaker 4: Matthew Jordan has been struggling on the European DP World
Speaker 4: Tour and they play all over the world, but for
Speaker 4: some reason, when it comes to links golf, he becomes
Speaker 4: one of the best players in the world. He grew
Speaker 4: up playing it. Like these are the types of storylines
Speaker 4: you miss when you don't have that reliable around the
Speaker 4: world schedule. And I think like this year, like this year,
Speaker 4: if you could take the Irish Open and make it
Speaker 4: a signature event, and if you had had you know,
Speaker 4: the Genesis Scottish Open, the Open Championship, and then you
Speaker 4: have the Irish Open a royal county down. All of
Speaker 4: a sudden you're starting to see what it could be,
Speaker 4: but that that's probably going to be a sparsely attended event,
Speaker 4: you know. I think, I know Shane Lowry and Rory
Speaker 4: are playing in it, but like that will be a
Speaker 4: sparsely attended event that should have a great, great field.
Speaker 4: So to me, it becomes about build out the schedule,
Speaker 4: and I think, like we say, it's far flung, it's
Speaker 4: it's but this is literally the time when it could
Speaker 4: be a possibility. Once once this gets locked in the
Speaker 4: negotiations are over, that's when the opportunity passes. To me,
Speaker 4: we have to look at this worldwide schedule because for
Speaker 4: a golf fan or a viewer, it adds so much interest,
Speaker 4: storylines and like potential elements for players to battle against.
Speaker 2: I don't have a whole lot to add Andy. I
Speaker 2: think it's yes, setting up the schedule that way, but
Speaker 2: also doing it in a way that's sustainable. And all
Speaker 2: I mean by that is it has to be within
Speaker 2: the best interests of the venues to host those events
Speaker 2: over a long period of time, and it seems like
Speaker 2: that's something that golf is struggling with, like, why do
Speaker 2: why would some of these historic private venues want to
Speaker 2: host professional golf tournaments? Is a reasonable question. Even a
Speaker 2: place like Riviera, unless Golf or you know, the re
Speaker 2: unified entity or the PGA Tour or Live, unless they
Speaker 2: own all of the venues, you're always going to be
Speaker 2: negotiating with those clubs. And so I think that's just
Speaker 2: something that we'll see over the next few years how
Speaker 2: golf handles that question if they're building new venues, hopefully
Speaker 2: prioritizing visiting parts of the world that create these kinds
Speaker 2: of elements. But it's just it's a relevant factor. Like
Speaker 2: even if you set up the schedule for the next
Speaker 2: three years to prioritize that type of golf, ten years
Speaker 2: from now, it still has to appeal to those venues
Speaker 2: to bring the best professional golfers in for a week
Speaker 2: and give up their course.
Speaker 3: Sorry, the real young guy on the leaderboard in the
Speaker 3: top ten with Sung JM, of course, and I shouldn't
Speaker 3: be forgetting Sung JM. And then Tristan Morris is twenty seven,
Speaker 3: but there was nobody who was like twenty or twenty
Speaker 3: one in the top ten.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's interesting too in I don't
Speaker 4: want to like, you know, but I don't want to
Speaker 4: like shit on anybody or anything. But when you think
Speaker 4: about like the wave of these great talents, these optimized players,
Speaker 4: and this is a small sample size, and I think
Speaker 4: if they played more golf, they would probably play better
Speaker 4: in this in this theory. But you go down the
Speaker 4: list of guys that you would say are track man golfers.
Speaker 4: Gordon Sergeant was bad, you know, and I think he's
Speaker 4: young and it's not fair, but Wyndham Clark was bad.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 4: I think you look at even Ludwig aber Aberg, who's
Speaker 4: had a great start to his career, but to me,
Speaker 4: it seemed like this golf just was different in something
Speaker 4: he wasn't really prepared for.
Speaker 3: Andy.
Speaker 2: I think maybe the best example could be Davis Thompson,
Speaker 2: who came in basically red hot. He's twenty five, coming
Speaker 2: off a T nine at the US Open, a runner
Speaker 2: up at Rocket Mortgage and a win at John Deere Classic.
Speaker 2: Finished T forty six at the Scottish and T sixty
Speaker 2: six at the Open, including a seventy eight or seventy
Speaker 2: nine on Sunday. I think he's a great example.
Speaker 4: Minwu Lee would be another one that I would throw
Speaker 4: into this boat. Right, Like, you see, all these players
Speaker 4: and a lot of other players played well, but Akha
Speaker 4: Batilla has been one of the best players in golf
Speaker 4: and Oxhay's you know, there have been some amazing quotes
Speaker 4: from Akshay talking about firmness on the PGA Tour and
Speaker 4: the adjustment to NONPGA Tour of events. I think he
Speaker 4: was talking about the US Open where he's like, it
Speaker 4: took me a while to get used to this firmness,
Speaker 4: you know, and then it took me a while to
Speaker 4: go back to the softness of the PGA Tour. And
Speaker 4: I think this is the thing, is that if you
Speaker 4: it will breed better players like we want to see.
Speaker 4: I think like one of the things that Jeff Ogilvie
Speaker 4: said on the pod years ago was like the saddest
Speaker 4: I think he said this to me at a dinner.
Speaker 4: The saddest thing about pro golf is that we don't
Speaker 4: get to see the best players in the world hit
Speaker 4: all the shots they can hit because the venues and
Speaker 4: the setups don't ask them to hit the shots that
Speaker 4: they can hit. This was a rare week where we
Speaker 4: saw the best players in the world hitting the full
Speaker 4: arsenal of stuff in their bag to attempt to maintain
Speaker 4: their position on the leader board. Like they had to
Speaker 4: pull out everything they had, all the skills and it
Speaker 4: It just was beautiful to watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who knew that Scotti Scheffler had a cut stinger
Speaker 3: in his bag? I didn't really until he used it
Speaker 3: on the eleventh hole this week because he kind of
Speaker 3: had to. And turns out he has that shot, which
Speaker 3: is which is pretty cool. All right. Before we get
Speaker 3: to our next set of takeaways, a quick word from
Speaker 3: USGA memberships. For more than one hundred and twenty five years,
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Speaker 3: and becoming a USGA member today. Okay, let's get to
Speaker 3: some other takeaways. Why don't we go to you, Joseph.
Speaker 3: What do you have as a kind of secondary takeaway
Speaker 3: from the Open Championship of twenty twenty four. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't want to cherry pick or overreact too much,
Speaker 2: but I think there's something to Scottie Scheffler's putting this year.
Speaker 2: He is clearly not a good putter, yet since changing
Speaker 2: to a mallet, he has gained strokes in nearly every
Speaker 2: event that he's played, mostly on the PGA Tour. That
Speaker 2: the two big exceptions are Pinehurst and Royal Troon, where
Speaker 2: he finished almost dead last and putting in each of
Speaker 2: those events, And I think there is something too. It
Speaker 2: highlights the homogeneity of the test that is offered week
Speaker 2: in and week out. Pinehurst might not be appropriate, that
Speaker 2: might be a little bit closer to what they see
Speaker 2: week in and week out, but especially Truon. I know, Andy,
Speaker 2: you're on the green speeds thing, and that's I think
Speaker 2: there is something to that that Scotty struggles to find
Speaker 2: the center of the putter face on greens like at
Speaker 2: Royal Truon, which are a little bit slower. You're dealing
Speaker 2: with putting both into the wind downwind. It's notable that
Speaker 2: in the three Open Championships with shot link data, I mean,
Speaker 2: Scotty has lost strokes putting in all of those. I
Speaker 2: think it's something to look for specific with Scheffler moving
Speaker 2: forward in Open Championships. Is he always going to put
Speaker 2: poorly on these types of more field based, slower greens
Speaker 2: where you got to strike it properly. But also I
Speaker 2: think it's just potentially, I don't want to overreact, an
Speaker 2: indictment of the homogeneity of the putting test that we
Speaker 2: see week in and week out.
Speaker 4: I think one of the things too, is that those
Speaker 4: two tournaments, I think you hit up a setup, Like
Speaker 4: the goal of PGA Tour setup is to set up
Speaker 4: the course so it's very similar, same speeds, same sand,
Speaker 4: you know, weekend week out like that is their goal.
Speaker 4: Their goal is to be, you know, like a hotel
Speaker 4: franchise where I check into a Marriotte and I know
Speaker 4: what I'm getting nice analogy.
Speaker 3: This is great.
Speaker 4: I come to a PGA Tour event, I'm a member,
Speaker 4: I know what I'm getting into. We're having to travel
Speaker 4: week in, week out. That's enough test, you know, So
Speaker 4: let's make the golf course in the setup is similar
Speaker 4: to last week as possible. Is, I think is the
Speaker 4: overarching goal of the setup team. It's fascinating that you
Speaker 4: highlight these two events that he struggled with, and they
Speaker 4: are set up by different governing bodies. That means there's
Speaker 4: a different threshold for the amount of slope that you might.
Speaker 1: Put a hole location.
Speaker 4: Maybe these holes have been cut on a little bit
Speaker 4: more slope where all of a sudden you have to
Speaker 4: match speed and line more reliably. When a pin is
Speaker 4: on more grade slope, that means it's going to break more.
Speaker 4: And I think one of my big biggest complaints about
Speaker 4: PGA Tour golf, if you watch it regularly like I do,
Speaker 4: is that rarely inside of ten feet do you see
Speaker 4: putts that are played outside the hole.
Speaker 1: It is like right edge, left edge.
Speaker 4: So then all of a sudden, when you don't have
Speaker 4: to play it inside or outside the out you know,
Speaker 4: really far outside the hole. Pace and line don't matter
Speaker 4: as much when you have to play a cup out
Speaker 4: right on a five foot putt, all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: hitting the ball exactly the pace that you want, which
Speaker 4: means hitting the ball on the dead center of the
Speaker 4: sweet spot and matching said pace with the line becomes paramount.
Speaker 4: This is testing putting skill requires you to match pace
Speaker 4: and speed, and I just think on the PGA Tour frankly,
Speaker 4: like we don't see that because they don't have very
Speaker 4: high thresholds. Like in speaking to a lot of architects
Speaker 4: that have worked with the PGA Tour, they are their
Speaker 4: number one thing when new greens are being built is
Speaker 4: the grade of slope in pinnable areas, Like they just
Speaker 4: won't use areas of the green if they aren't under
Speaker 4: one and a half percent slope.
Speaker 3: And don't get us started on the sand that PGA
Speaker 3: Tour sand. You know, there's a there's a PGA Tour
Speaker 3: venue coming up Black Desert Resort in Utah where they're
Speaker 3: using kind of the standard PGA Tour sand and it
Speaker 3: really doesn't work in the environment of that golf course,
Speaker 3: which is a pretty cool location. But more on that
Speaker 3: in the future. Joseph, I do want to raise another
Speaker 3: point with Scotty's putting. Another possible cause of it, aside
Speaker 3: from the greater difficulty of greens that are set up
Speaker 3: by the RNA and the USGA versus the PGA Tour,
Speaker 3: and that is just the pressure factor. You know, is
Speaker 3: this where we can just be Zinger and say that
Speaker 3: it's that it's pressure when when Scotty is put under pressure,
Speaker 3: he is less likely to keep his putting stroke together.
Speaker 3: And you know, when people are sort of mechanically we're
Speaker 3: mentally fragile with a particular shot on a golf course,
Speaker 3: they can often get through day to day, week to
Speaker 3: week PGA Tour events, but then when it comes to
Speaker 3: the pressure cooker of a US Open or an Open Championship,
Speaker 3: it's a different story. Now. Of course, to Scotty's credit,
Speaker 3: he won some really big tournaments this year and held
Speaker 3: up under pressure. But I guess then my question would
Speaker 3: be how sustainable is any given technical or equipment fix
Speaker 3: For Scotty Scheffler, he switched to the mallet and that
Speaker 3: had immediate, noticeable, trackable results for his putting. It was
Speaker 3: obvious that that was at least partly the source of
Speaker 3: his revival on the greens this year. Now, maybe we're
Speaker 3: seeing kind of the inevitable regression. The honeymoon period is over.
Speaker 3: The honeymoon period lasted for a long time, several months.
Speaker 3: Usually a honeymoon period with a particular putting stroke or
Speaker 3: putter doesn't last that long for normal players, but it
Speaker 3: lasted a while for scar It doesn't seem that it's
Speaker 3: permanent from the evidence of at least this week and Pinehurst.
Speaker 3: Does he then move on to a new fix, a
Speaker 3: new kind of equipment. Does he bring the broomstick into play,
Speaker 3: and does that give him a similar kind of result
Speaker 3: where he is red hot at the beginning of the season,
Speaker 3: winning everything, and then gradually regresses as the season goes
Speaker 3: on and he forgets some of that, you know, flush
Speaker 3: of the of the new stroke or the new equipment.
Speaker 3: So I wonder if this is just a pattern that
Speaker 3: we're going to see with Scheffler.
Speaker 2: I think you raise a few different points, and it
Speaker 2: should be noted like Scotty Scheffler gained strokes putting at
Speaker 2: the Masters, Like I don't want to go too far
Speaker 2: in the direction of he only gained strokes and PGA
Speaker 2: Tour Events'.
Speaker 3: Gamer no he dealt was difficult greens.
Speaker 2: And not just as a comment about Scotty, but like,
Speaker 2: are we making too much of the different setup? Like
Speaker 2: I'll qualify it that way, but it is interesting. Like
Speaker 2: Aksha Batia is another player who kind of went He
Speaker 2: went to the broomstick, and he's been a much better putter.
Speaker 2: He also lost strokes putting at this Open Championship, not
Speaker 2: a lot, he was pretty close to zero. But I
Speaker 2: think what it could illuminate is that by throwing variety,
Speaker 2: by throwing different tests putting and wind different green speeds,
Speaker 2: it that is probably a good way to identify who
Speaker 2: can really put over a long period of time. And
Speaker 2: I think Scotti Scheffler will be a good use case
Speaker 2: to look into where he puts well and where he struggles.
Speaker 3: All right, Andy, do you have a last takeaway for us?
Speaker 4: I think my last takeaway and I've seesaw on this
Speaker 4: topic a lot, but my last takeaway is the open
Speaker 4: to my favorite golf tournament to watch a lot of times,
Speaker 4: I'll say the Masters, and I think the Master's benefits
Speaker 4: from like you've been, You've been, you haven't had major
Speaker 4: championship golf for nine months, but then when you get
Speaker 4: through the string of major championship golf, I always feel
Speaker 4: like at the end of the Open that it is
Speaker 4: my favorite And I'm just gonna say it is my favorite,
Speaker 4: uh version of the game of golf, and it's my
Speaker 4: favorite tournament to watch year and year out. I can't
Speaker 4: wait for next year with port Rush, but to me,
Speaker 4: the Open offers just there's such a simplicity about it.
Speaker 4: Like I think one of the things that I love
Speaker 4: is that there isn't noise about setup year and you're out,
Speaker 4: because the setup is like, this is what the golf
Speaker 4: course is, and this is what the weather gave us.
Speaker 1: Like there's just like a an aspect.
Speaker 4: Of how the Championship plays out, the spirit of it
Speaker 4: and the the you know, simplicity of it that just
Speaker 4: makes me happy. And I just I love watching it
Speaker 4: year and you're out and it's my favorite tournament. You know.
Speaker 3: What's so great about watching the Open Championship in the
Speaker 3: US and partic is that it pushes avid golf fans
Speaker 3: so far out of their daily routines that they have
Speaker 3: to kind of create specific traditions for the Open. This
Speaker 3: is at least what I've done, you know, living on
Speaker 3: the West Coast, it's especially difficult because basically the meat
Speaker 3: of the Open is happening when I'm normally asleep at
Speaker 3: least on Thursday and Friday, and so for the first day,
Speaker 3: I usually stay up late to see the opening tea shot.
Speaker 3: And we've turned this into a kind of a social
Speaker 3: media thing where we have different shifts during the first
Speaker 3: round of the Open, and that's been really fun too,
Speaker 3: and a new tradition. Typically on Sunday, I'll get up early,
Speaker 3: and my parents live about fifteen twenty minutes away, and
Speaker 3: I go over and watch the Open with my mom
Speaker 3: and dad. And I do that because you know, my
Speaker 3: family's usually a sleep and so being up and making
Speaker 3: coffee and eating breakfast and watching TV is not necessarily
Speaker 3: the best thing for them on Sunday morning. So I'll
Speaker 3: go over to my parents' house and watch it with them.
Speaker 3: You know, there's no other major that is like this
Speaker 3: because of the unusual time that it's on. For US people,
Speaker 3: us based people in particular, you have to create new
Speaker 3: routines just for this week, and that's part of what
Speaker 3: makes it really stand out for me. That's not necessarily
Speaker 3: anything about the course or anything about the tournament, both
Speaker 3: of which are really great for their own inherent reasons.
Speaker 3: But that's one reason I love it because it just
Speaker 3: it makes me do different things than I normally would
Speaker 3: do to watch a golf tournament, and I have those
Speaker 3: associations and memories year on year, and that's why it's
Speaker 3: my favorite golf tournament as well. Where do you stand
Speaker 3: on a just is this your top or would you
Speaker 3: go another direction?
Speaker 2: It's always been my favorite tournament of the year, and
Speaker 2: for all the reasons that you guys just described. One
Speaker 2: that's slightly different but related to your tradition, Garrett. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's fun sitting up late on Wednesday night, ten pm
Speaker 2: eleven pm knowing that the golf tournament starts in just
Speaker 2: a couple of hours and that you're going to wake
Speaker 2: up into the middle of action like that is a
Speaker 2: rare It's a rare time in professional golf. You might
Speaker 2: wake up into the early and the third round of
Speaker 2: some tournament that's in the United States if you're on
Speaker 2: the West Coast, but they aren't the most meaningful players
Speaker 2: like you have top players teeing off at three am
Speaker 2: in the United States time and you wake up directly
Speaker 2: into that round. I think it's really cool. You sit
Speaker 2: up late on Saturday night, tournament starts in a few hours.
Speaker 2: Like you mentioned, Andy, what is the weather going to be?
Speaker 2: Just that experience really stands out for me. Not to
Speaker 2: mention the type of golf that they're playing, that it's
Speaker 2: an attractive style of golf, the whole ritual of it.
Speaker 2: It's really separated itself for me, And yeah, it's my favorite.
Speaker 3: You know. Now. The funny thing is it's July and
Speaker 3: I'm looking at the rest of the year and I'm
Speaker 3: thinking to myself, all right, what is there to look
Speaker 3: forward to? Now? I'm not complaining. Yes, it is a
Speaker 3: little bit weird that the major season ends in July.
Speaker 3: That continues to be a bit odd. But what are
Speaker 3: you guys looking forward to for the rest of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four When it comes to golf, what should people
Speaker 3: keep tuning in for in these next few months.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to see the new Eastlake Andrew Greens renovated it.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's super hard.
Speaker 4: Just no matter how it turns out, I think that
Speaker 4: the idea of renovating a golf course in a single year.
Speaker 4: We saw it with Colonial and gil Hands this year
Speaker 4: and I think the golf course was was like very playable,
Speaker 4: but it was like, you know, it's hard to renovate
Speaker 4: a golf course in a year, and getting it done
Speaker 4: itself is like a is a an accomplishment that should
Speaker 4: be you know, praise. But East, like, I'm fascinated to
Speaker 4: see what it is. This is a golf course that
Speaker 4: is important in men's pro golf at the time being.
Speaker 4: I don't think ideally you'd have East like being played
Speaker 4: in August, but that's where we live, that's what we're at,
Speaker 4: and I think it's it's a pretty neat piece of ground.
Speaker 4: It's got a a neat purpose in in mission, in
Speaker 4: the community, and it hosts this big tournament that you know,
Speaker 4: kind of has become more about money and less about
Speaker 4: the idea of it being the Tour Championship, which itself
Speaker 4: was a nice identity. But I'm excited to see that.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to see what Andrew Green's done. And then
Speaker 4: the other thing, the other big thing, Royal County down
Speaker 4: for the Irish Open is must see TV.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we're not through with coffee Golf and Royal
Speaker 3: County Down Irish Open is happening in September, mid September,
Speaker 3: I believe. And then the Dunhill Links. I love the
Speaker 3: Dunhill Links, and you know, it's such a great thing
Speaker 3: to wake up early for. It doesn't seem like really
Speaker 3: anybody else watches it. Maybe it's hurt a bit by
Speaker 3: the fact that it's got that pro am format and
Speaker 3: so got these kind of pebble beachy vibes which don't
Speaker 3: necessarily work to its benefit. But the courses they play
Speaker 3: at the fact that it's at the Old Course, I mean,
Speaker 3: talk about a burly golf course that can deal with anything.
Speaker 3: Hosting this many tournaments the Old Course is just incredible,
Speaker 3: and the fact that it hosts the Dunhill Links in
Speaker 3: addition to everything that it does every year is awesome. Now,
Speaker 3: on the subject of the Old Course, we've also got
Speaker 3: a women's major coming up. We've got the Women's Open.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's called the Women's British Open anymore.
Speaker 3: They went with that nomenclacier for a while, but now
Speaker 3: they've gone to the Women's Open Championship that will be
Speaker 3: at the Old Course as well, and that's something that
Speaker 3: I am looking forward to tremendously, And so as much
Speaker 3: as we talk about there not being much Links golf
Speaker 3: on the schedule, we're getting at least a little bit
Speaker 3: in the late summer and early fall of this year.
Speaker 3: We've got the President's Cup coming up as well. Joseph,
Speaker 3: anything in there that you're looking forward to for the
Speaker 3: rest of twenty twenty four or have any other things
Speaker 3: to throw in.
Speaker 2: I would say I was going to say two things. One,
Speaker 2: the President's Cup drama, like the around the picks and
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. The event itself may not deliver,
Speaker 2: especially with the international side being a little bit depleted,
Speaker 2: not having live golfers participate, like it could be lopsided,
Speaker 2: we'll see, But the drama around it and who gets picked,
Speaker 2: who gets left off the team, that's always interesting. And
Speaker 2: then yeah, the Irish Open. I'm so excited to watch
Speaker 2: Royal County down and experience link Skulf the way that
Speaker 2: we just did that. As much as I wish it
Speaker 2: were a bigger part of the schedule, it could be
Speaker 2: a huge bright spot in the fall for golf fans
Speaker 2: and be something that we all look forward to. So
Speaker 2: I'm really excited for that, all.
Speaker 3: Right, Joseph Andy, thanks for coming on the pod.
Speaker 1: Thanks Garrett, Thanks guys.
Speaker 3: This episode of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast was produced
Speaker 3: by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. It's been a great
Speaker 3: season of men's major championships, So thank you to all
Speaker 3: the listeners out there for following along. If you enjoy
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