Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a frid Egg
Speaker 1: Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida egg brid Egg
Speaker 1: Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 1: off of the hump course. Welcome to the FRIDAYGG Golf Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrett Morrison and at long last, it is Open
Speaker 1: Championship Week, the last men's major championship of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: We'll be starting tomorrow at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland.
Speaker 1: So today Joseph Lamannia and I thought we'd look back
Speaker 1: on the last Open held at Royal Troon, which was
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen and which everyone remember for the incredible
Speaker 1: Sunday duel between Phil Nicholson and Henrik Stenson. So Joseph
Speaker 1: and I rewatched that final round, which is available for
Speaker 1: free on YouTube, to see what, if anything, it can
Speaker 1: tell us about what to expect this week at Troon.
Speaker 1: We'll also discuss some early reports on the condition of
Speaker 1: the course and the outlook of the weather, and we'll
Speaker 1: offer a few picks and predictions to wrap up the episode,
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Speaker 1: code fried Egg all one word. All right, Joseph, Let's
Speaker 1: get into our discussion of Royal Troon as the Open
Speaker 1: Championship approaches. First, I want to talk a lot little
Speaker 1: bit about what we've heard about the course so far
Speaker 1: this week. We are recording this on Tuesday, and of
Speaker 1: course the tournament starts on Thursday. What we've heard so
Speaker 1: far is that the course is in good condition, that
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of bounce in the fairways, but
Speaker 1: that the greens are going to be softer and maybe
Speaker 1: slower than expected because it's been a wet spring in
Speaker 1: the UK, it has not been hot and so the
Speaker 1: course hasn't really had a chance to bake out yet.
Speaker 1: It's also possible that, you know, the RNA just hasn't
Speaker 1: pushed the greens super far so far. But if the
Speaker 1: greens are a little bit softer than expected, how do
Speaker 1: you think that that changes things going into the tournament.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love to see it firm, obviously, I
Speaker 2: think most people would Windy Firm thinks test is probably
Speaker 2: the best version, but I think the main things it
Speaker 2: changes is that short sightedness is not as much of
Speaker 2: a penalty, so it allows you to be a little
Speaker 2: bit more aggressive on some of your approach shots, and
Speaker 2: then there's just a little bit more predictability on your
Speaker 2: iron shots and getting your distances right because it's not
Speaker 2: as subject to the bounces that the greens might generally
Speaker 2: have otherwise, and if they're a little bit slower, it's
Speaker 2: just a little bit easier to get your numbers correct.
Speaker 2: So we'll see how they play. I'd love to see
Speaker 2: it get a little bit firmer and faster, but as
Speaker 2: you mentioned, given the conditions this summer and the weather
Speaker 2: that they've had in that area of the world, it's
Speaker 2: probably not a realistic expectation.
Speaker 1: The other thing we've heard is that the weather can
Speaker 1: be will be probably a bit unpredictable. There's low confidence
Speaker 1: in the details of the forecast so far. But right
Speaker 1: now what we're hearing is that there could be some
Speaker 1: kind of storm or some windiness Wednesday evening leading into morning,
Speaker 1: and just general kind of like rains here and there,
Speaker 1: winds here and there. We don't know really what to expect.
Speaker 1: So what have you seen from the forecast so far?
Speaker 1: And how has that been factoring into your thinking about
Speaker 1: the about what to expect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not putting too much stock in the weather
Speaker 2: reports at this moment because as we know, that can
Speaker 2: change quickly. I think a unique feature of Royal Troon
Speaker 2: that's worth spending time thinking about is the routing and
Speaker 2: how generally the prevailing wind your downwind on the front
Speaker 2: nine and into the wind on the back nine, and
Speaker 2: so just thinking about weather and timing of when you're
Speaker 2: playing is a big deal. That's something that was that
Speaker 2: played a crucial role in the twenty sixteen Open Championship
Speaker 2: that I'm guessing we'll talk about. It kind of reminds
Speaker 2: me a little bit of the ocean course at Kiowa
Speaker 2: Island in the way that the routing like you're headed
Speaker 2: one direction for one nine and then another direction for
Speaker 2: the other for another nine another tournament, Phil Mickelson did
Speaker 2: pretty well, And so it's not the best comparison necessarily
Speaker 2: the Ocean Course and Royal Troon, but in thinking about
Speaker 2: weather patterns and how that can impact play, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's an unreasonable comparison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the unpredictability is a common thread right at
Speaker 1: at Kiowa the weather can be one thing in the
Speaker 1: morning and another thing in the afternoon very easily, and
Speaker 1: none of it typically matches the forecast exactly, so it's
Speaker 1: tough to put too much stock into it. But we
Speaker 1: could see a wave split again, right, That's a distinct
Speaker 1: possibility whenever you have an open championship, but especially one
Speaker 1: on the west coast of Scotland where things just seem
Speaker 1: to be a little bit dicey and hour to hour
Speaker 1: out there by the ocean. So in any case, we
Speaker 1: have heard a couple of things from players so far
Speaker 1: this week about the golf course, things from press conferences
Speaker 1: that I found interesting. The first is that a lot
Speaker 1: of players seem to agree that it is a tale
Speaker 1: of two nines. In fact, a couple of different players
Speaker 1: use this exact phrase, a tale of two nines, that
Speaker 1: if you're going to score at Royal Troon, then you'd
Speaker 1: better do it on the opening nine, because the closing nine,
Speaker 1: the homeword nine, is going to be really tough. There
Speaker 1: aren't a whole lot of opportunities for easy birdies coming home.
Speaker 1: Has that been your general impression looking at the course?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I really like this quote that friend of
Speaker 2: the pod Sean Martin, the PGA Tour had tweeted, he's
Speaker 2: apparently this is a quote from Tom Watson that he
Speaker 2: said of Royal Troon. It's sort of like playing the
Speaker 2: Chicago Bulls. You know, at the end of the game,
Speaker 2: they're going to be coming back at you, so you
Speaker 2: better get off to a pretty big lead. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's appropriate. It's being echoed by players some
Speaker 2: pretty gentle handshake type holes to start, and then you're
Speaker 2: playing into some beefy holes on the back nine that
Speaker 2: often play into the wind. So I agree that that's
Speaker 2: how I envision it playing out as well.
Speaker 1: I really liked how Iona Stephen put it in the
Speaker 1: Golf Digest every whole video the script was written by others,
Speaker 1: but she was the narrator of the video, and what
Speaker 1: she said was that the first six holes are heaven,
Speaker 1: the next six holes are purgatory, and the final six
Speaker 1: holes are hell. That's not an exact quote, but that's
Speaker 1: the spirit of what she was saying. Basically, those holes
Speaker 1: going out along the coastline are your opportunities, you know,
Speaker 1: a few sub four hundred yard par fours and just
Speaker 1: some opportunities to get up near the green with your
Speaker 1: tee shot, especially for these players. And then the middle
Speaker 1: stretch of the course, things get tougher and tougher. You're
Speaker 1: in some more choppy land, you have some more uncomfortable
Speaker 1: tea shot and looks on your approaches into greens. And
Speaker 1: then the holes coming home are just tough, tough, tough,
Speaker 1: a lot of long holes, a lot of long irons,
Speaker 1: and just a lot of trouble that you can get
Speaker 1: into and you know, some incredibly penal bunkers and things
Speaker 1: like that. So I like that way of thinking of
Speaker 1: Royal Train in kind of three phases. But yeah, opening
Speaker 1: nine versus Final nine, that's really gonna be a big
Speaker 1: theme of the week.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The most interesting thing that I heard from a player,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get your take on this, Joseph
Speaker 1: was unsurprisingly from Tiger Woods. He always says the most
Speaker 1: interesting things about the courses that they're playing for major championships,
Speaker 1: so it's no surprise that he came out with this one.
Speaker 1: But what he said basically is that you'll see a
Speaker 1: lot of guys laying up to the same spots on
Speaker 1: these holes, especially if it's windy. So you know what
Speaker 1: he said exactly. This is the quote, he says there
Speaker 1: will be occasional areas where with the right wind conditions,
Speaker 1: guys can be aggressive, especially some of the longer hitters,
Speaker 1: they can be aggressive. It does allow for that, but
Speaker 1: in general, if we get the wins we're forecasted, I
Speaker 1: think we're all going to be playing from about the
Speaker 1: same areas. This is kind of something I saw in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, something that we saw in that final round,
Speaker 1: the duel between Mickelson and Stenson. A lot of the
Speaker 1: time they were kind of playing to some of the
Speaker 1: same areas and fair ways. Do you think that's going
Speaker 1: to be what we see this week or has the
Speaker 1: game changed a bit since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Didn't know we're going to be getting into this right
Speaker 2: off the top, Garrett, But it's actually one of my
Speaker 2: favorite attributes of Royal Troon. I think people could take
Speaker 2: the other side of this and argue that it's boring
Speaker 2: when people play into similar spots, But it's not as
Speaker 2: if the holes are cut off at driver length. There
Speaker 2: are a couple that play that way, but generally speaking,
Speaker 2: a defining characteristic of Truon is but the fairways are
Speaker 2: relatively narrow, often about twenty eight to thirty yards wide,
Speaker 2: but then get narrower at driver length, and they don't
Speaker 2: then just widen back up to where you can bash
Speaker 2: driver if you're one of the longest players. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot of penal pot bunkers in the fairways in
Speaker 2: strategic positions that you need to avoid, and that's why
Speaker 2: you're gonna often see players hitting things like iron wood
Speaker 2: off of a lot of the t boxes. But I
Speaker 2: don't view it as a negative. I think those shots
Speaker 2: in and of themselves, the firmer the golf courses and
Speaker 2: if there's wind, are demanding shots in their own rights,
Speaker 2: and it's not like everyone's just getting up and hitting
Speaker 2: a simple four iron into a generous landing area and
Speaker 2: then everyone's flipping a wedge, and so I think it's
Speaker 2: a little bit more dynamic than that. Wind is a
Speaker 2: massive factor, and to Tiger's point, there are a couple
Speaker 2: opportunities where, especially if you're downwind which tightens your dispersion,
Speaker 2: there are some opportunities to let it rip a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think the third hole is a good example to
Speaker 2: look at, and in the right condition, some of the
Speaker 2: longest hitters may be able to push their tee shots
Speaker 2: up near the green, which is a risk worth taking,
Speaker 2: right if you take on a risk with a driver
Speaker 2: in it. It's the difference between having one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty yards in or one hundred and sixty like that's
Speaker 2: not as good of a risk to take. But if
Speaker 2: it can be the difference between having one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty yards in and having like thirty yards in, like
Speaker 2: going over a hazard versus laying back behind it, that's
Speaker 2: a risk that there's quite a bit of payoff involved in.
Speaker 2: So in the right conditions, especially downwind, which again does
Speaker 2: tighten your dispersion, there are going to be some opportunities
Speaker 2: to be aggressive off some of the teas.
Speaker 1: Now, a final thing that Tiger said that I wanted
Speaker 1: to note. This is an observation just about links golf
Speaker 1: in general, I think, but I like the way that
Speaker 1: he put it. He said, over here, you can run
Speaker 1: the golf ball one hundred yards if you get the
Speaker 1: right wind and the right trajectory. It negates some one
Speaker 1: of the high launch conditions that most of the times
Speaker 1: you see on the tour that populate the world nowadays.
Speaker 1: And so maybe this is sort of wishful thinking on
Speaker 1: Tiger's part, but I think there's a kernel of truth
Speaker 1: to it that you know, distance off the tee on
Speaker 1: a links course where there's wind and firm turf is
Speaker 1: not so much a factor of high launch and pure
Speaker 1: ball speed as it is situational awareness, the ability to
Speaker 1: control trajectory and the ability to maximize your distance in
Speaker 1: any given situation depending on the conditions of the ground
Speaker 1: and the wind. And so I think that's something that
Speaker 1: gets at something that I really appreciate about the Open Championship,
Speaker 1: and it's that you see players, older players who truly
Speaker 1: know how to control their shot shape and everything else
Speaker 1: off the tee being able to compete with some of
Speaker 1: the bombers because they're able to get distance in different ways.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's an original observation about links golf.
Speaker 1: This is often said, but I just like the way
Speaker 1: that he phrased that. That's something that I do like
Speaker 1: when it comes to this tournament.
Speaker 2: And I think as part of that it's important to
Speaker 2: recognize that part of the reason that that works at
Speaker 2: Truon is because the gorse bushes, which often sit off
Speaker 2: the fairways, impose a very stiff penalty. It's not like
Speaker 2: finding just a little bit of rough like we see
Speaker 2: on a lot of PGA Tour weekend and week out
Speaker 2: tests where you still have a shot. It's a scary
Speaker 2: penalty when you go into the gorse bush, especially on
Speaker 2: some of the holes out there. So just another another
Speaker 2: thing to motivate players from being a little bit more
Speaker 2: conservative off the tea. I think off the t this
Speaker 2: golf course is amazing.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the twenty sixteen rewatch. You
Speaker 1: and I went through the final round telecast, which I
Speaker 1: believe was the sky Sports telecast. I think that sky
Speaker 1: Sports this was like their first effort at an Open
Speaker 1: Championship Final round telecast. I think before that it was BBC.
Speaker 1: But so we got the sky Sports version of it,
Speaker 1: not the US version of the telecast, and so it
Speaker 1: was quite good, you know. It's this is something that
Speaker 1: you notice when you switched to what people across the
Speaker 1: pond have access to, that it's a very good and
Speaker 1: insightful piece of television. But in any case, I came
Speaker 1: up with a few categories to go through, some awards
Speaker 1: that we could give to different aspects of the final
Speaker 1: round and the play that we saw, you know, is
Speaker 1: this copying the rewatchables podcast, who could say, you know,
Speaker 1: it might be inspired by a segment on The Rewatchables,
Speaker 1: but we're doing our own version of it here. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to start with what you think is the
Speaker 1: coolest hole based on what we saw in the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen final round. And I want to talk about a
Speaker 1: hole other than the postage stamp, which we kind of
Speaker 1: went into in depth in the podcast that I did
Speaker 1: with with Sam Cooper a few days ago. So what
Speaker 1: was the coolest hole that you saw?
Speaker 2: I think the eleventh hole at Royal Troon might be
Speaker 2: one of my favorite golf holes in professional golf, not
Speaker 2: just at Royal Troon obviously. It's a burly par four,
Speaker 2: plays almost five hundred yards, often plays into a prevailing wind,
Speaker 2: and that tee shot is incredibly intimidating. You've railroad down
Speaker 2: the right side, that's out of bounds, gorse on either
Speaker 2: side of the fairway, kind of a little bit of
Speaker 2: an awkward angle to hit the tee shot we saw
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen in in Rewatching It that Henrik Stenson
Speaker 2: believe he took threewood off the tee pulled it a
Speaker 2: little bit but not much, and was basically in the
Speaker 2: first cut not too far from the gorse that lines
Speaker 2: the left side, and his view of the green was obscured.
Speaker 2: There's so much going on on that whole visual intimidation
Speaker 2: off the tea, some obscured site lines into the green.
Speaker 2: Super difficult hole, probably one of the most intimidating tea
Speaker 2: shots in professional golf. Maybe in an Open championship Rhoda
Speaker 2: up there. You know, I remember Thomas Peters snapping his
Speaker 2: club and throwing it into the gorse bush in this championship.
Speaker 2: That wasn't shown on the telecast, but like, it's a
Speaker 2: hole where you're going to see some blow up. So
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the coolest holes in professional golf. Garrett,
Speaker 2: I'd be curious your opinion on the eleventh.
Speaker 1: I wonder if Thomas Peters club is still there, if
Speaker 1: they made like a little statue out of it. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of plaque though, I'd like to see on
Speaker 1: a golf course. Yeah, yeah, I love eleven. You know,
Speaker 1: I just I like the way the fairway moves, you know,
Speaker 1: in the landing zone, the way it kind of starts
Speaker 1: away from the railroad and then moves on a diagonal
Speaker 1: to the railroad. So Basically, the more aggressive you want
Speaker 1: to get, the farther up you want to get on
Speaker 1: the whole, the more you kind of have to adjust
Speaker 1: your line toward the rail roat, which is super uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and it's all blind like you can see a little
Speaker 1: bit more out to the left there, but if you're
Speaker 1: going to the right, if you're going straight down the fairway,
Speaker 1: then then you're basically completely blind. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a that's a t shot that's so uncomfortable for players
Speaker 1: these days, because it's just hard to come up with
Speaker 1: a point to aim at. Even on the tenth hole,
Speaker 1: which is also a blind tea shot, you're hitting over
Speaker 1: like a big set of dunes and like waste area
Speaker 1: type bunkers, and so there are various things that you can,
Speaker 1: various reference points that you have you can once you
Speaker 1: know the course, you know the basic dimensions of the fairway,
Speaker 1: But on eleven, I think that it's just kind of barren,
Speaker 1: like there's not much to hook into when you're when
Speaker 1: you're trying to come up with an aiming point, and
Speaker 1: that's that's a tough thing for players who are more
Speaker 1: used to kind of certainty and everything being out in
Speaker 1: front of you, as the phrase goes, So it wasnother hole, Yeah,
Speaker 1: another hole that I like. Seven. I just think it's
Speaker 1: a This is a fun drive and pitch hole. This
Speaker 1: was I believe, the most famous hole at Royal Troom
Speaker 1: before the postage stamp was designed for or took on
Speaker 1: its current form for the nineteen twenty three Open. But
Speaker 1: really fun t shot with lots of different options. Off
Speaker 1: the tee. The fairway kind of wraps around a dune
Speaker 1: that's on the right side of the whole corridor, So
Speaker 1: the fairway kind of swings out to the left and
Speaker 1: then slants back to the right before straightening out for
Speaker 1: the approach to the green. Short left is kind of
Speaker 1: the safest spot to be, but it's the least advantageous.
Speaker 1: Short right requires challenging some bunkers on the right side,
Speaker 1: and maybe your approach is kind of blind from over
Speaker 1: there because you're hitting over the dune, and then you
Speaker 1: have options to go long and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the players in this tournament are going to look
Speaker 1: to get up by the green, depending on where the
Speaker 1: tea is and what the wind is doing. But I
Speaker 1: think we'll see some variety of play on seven. But
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Both Phil and Henrik laid up on
Speaker 1: this hole. Were kind of laid up on this hole.
Speaker 1: I'll have to look at my notes. I know Henrick did,
Speaker 1: and he was kind of out to the right a
Speaker 1: little bit on his layup. Phil actually, I remember now
Speaker 1: pushed up a little bit more, but he was kind
Speaker 1: of on the left side and ended up with kind
Speaker 1: of a weird lie where he wasn't able to get
Speaker 1: any spin on the ball, and so there was some
Speaker 1: variety of play there. Laying up was a legitimate option
Speaker 1: for players in twenty sixteen. Maybe we'll see players being
Speaker 1: more aggressive this year with the hole because the fairway
Speaker 1: is fairly wide up by the green, and I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, players will see an advantage and getting up there.
Speaker 1: But that's a very interesting hole, and the green side
Speaker 1: is just beautiful. It's kind of set between these two
Speaker 1: dunes and kind of benched in there, and it's a
Speaker 1: classic Links Golf green site. So I really like seven.
Speaker 2: I can't speak too much on it, Gere, because I'd
Speaker 2: be getting ahead of myself and to potentially the next
Speaker 2: award that we're doing here.
Speaker 1: So okay, so the next award is coolest green complex.
Speaker 2: I picked the seventh, and of all the awards we did,
Speaker 2: this was probably the most challenging one for me because it's.
Speaker 1: Hard to see the greens on the telecast, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and maybe you just see where the pen is and
Speaker 1: you see where the ball lands, and it's a little
Speaker 1: bit hard.
Speaker 2: To tell, and you might have a differing view. I
Speaker 2: don't think the appeal of Royal Truon, at least for me,
Speaker 2: is the green complexes. Necessarily they're pretty small and they
Speaker 2: don't have a ton of contouring then at least to
Speaker 2: my eye that.
Speaker 1: I it's subtle contouring, it's there, right, And some of
Speaker 1: them are a little bit modernized, which is you know
Speaker 1: what we see at Open Championship venues these days. Some
Speaker 1: of the greens aren't don't don't quite feel antique. They
Speaker 1: have some of those little runoffs and stuff that Mackenzie
Speaker 1: but like to put into green complexes that they rebuild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they strike fear. The green complexes
Speaker 2: strike fear into players the way that a lot of
Speaker 2: green complex is doing professional golf. But what I like
Speaker 2: about the seventh recurring feature of this golf course is
Speaker 2: that generally the greens are narrower in the front and
Speaker 2: then expand in the back. They often have a pop
Speaker 2: bunker short right and short left and like a little
Speaker 2: neck that you can run the ball up. Running ball
Speaker 2: up is not a great option, but it's possible. The
Speaker 2: seventh is is different. Like you mentioned, it's set in
Speaker 2: a beautiful dune escape, but it's a little bit more.
Speaker 2: It's wider in the front and then a little bit
Speaker 2: narrower towards the back of the green, and I just
Speaker 2: find it visually appealing, really cool and completely different than
Speaker 2: the rest of the golf course. I think it stands
Speaker 2: kind of by itself. There's not another green that looks
Speaker 2: like it on the golf course, so it scores a
Speaker 2: lot of points for me in the variety category and
Speaker 2: just it's aesthetically pleasing. So that's the one that I
Speaker 2: will nominate. It's not really a contour based how putts
Speaker 2: are going to play based argument, but I just think
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful golf hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and something to watch out for I think on
Speaker 1: seven is if the pin is in the back, how
Speaker 1: aggressive are player is going to be? Because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of players are going to be want to
Speaker 1: be really short of that pin, because you know, going
Speaker 1: over the back to a back pin would be very
Speaker 1: very bad on that specific golf hole, and so that's
Speaker 1: that's a place where players will have a real choice
Speaker 1: about what distance they're hitting their kind of short approach
Speaker 1: into that hole. I think like, for instance, if they
Speaker 1: if they decide to move the tee up a particular
Speaker 1: day and make the hole almost drivable, then they might
Speaker 1: put that back pin in there to create a little
Speaker 1: bit more difficulty and give the players another question to answer.
Speaker 1: So we'll see what they do with that. For me,
Speaker 1: the coolest green complex, the one that I really liked,
Speaker 1: is another pretty subtle one in terms of internal contour,
Speaker 1: but it's ten ok. No bunkers on ten. It's oriented
Speaker 1: so that the deepest you know look that you have
Speaker 1: at the green, the way that the green is deepest
Speaker 1: for you from the fairway is from the left side,
Speaker 1: and there's just this massive falloff on the right side
Speaker 1: of the green that's very very intimidating. But then missing
Speaker 1: left leaves you this kind of tricky recovery over some
Speaker 1: contours that run along the left edge of the green.
Speaker 1: On the little you know Veritaid documentaries that the RNA
Speaker 1: posts on their YouTube channel during Open week, which I
Speaker 1: absolutely love and really recommend. It's called Inside the Open
Speaker 1: or something like that, just a little series of very
Speaker 1: kind of like slice of life footage of players preparing
Speaker 1: for the Open. But there was some footage of players
Speaker 1: including Tiger and I think Justin Thomas, practicing some chip
Speaker 1: shots from the left side of the tenth Green, and
Speaker 1: they're very, very tough. You know, it's trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how high to play your ball and what kind
Speaker 1: of spin to put on it and where to land it.
Speaker 1: All that stuff is super tricky from the left side
Speaker 1: of the tenth Green. So something to look out for
Speaker 1: is if players want to avoid that right side fall off,
Speaker 1: which is so obvious, like it's like ten feet, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like I can't go there, do they? You know,
Speaker 1: hedge toward that left side and then end up with
Speaker 1: a very tough up and down situation. I also really
Speaker 1: like the sixth Green, not so much for the shaping
Speaker 1: of the green itself, which looks a little bit modern
Speaker 1: to me, but the way the approach to that green works.
Speaker 1: This is a long par five and a lot of
Speaker 1: players might be able to go for the green in
Speaker 1: two it's six hundred and twenty something yards, but they'll
Speaker 1: they'll still be able to go for it if they
Speaker 1: get a good t shot. The approach to that green
Speaker 1: is really smart. Basically, there's a bunker kind of short
Speaker 1: left of the green the green. It's where a lot
Speaker 1: of players might want to be landing their second shots
Speaker 1: to run them up onto the green from distance, you
Speaker 1: don't want to be in that bunker. It leaves just
Speaker 1: such a such a savage bunker shot. And so some
Speaker 1: players who might want to be a little bit safer
Speaker 1: but still get their ball up by the green might
Speaker 1: go a little bit left. But from there the approach
Speaker 1: to the green kind of falls off to the left
Speaker 1: and will kickballs down into this little area that leaves
Speaker 1: a very tough pitch shot over a short left bunker.
Speaker 1: And so the choices that players make in approaching the
Speaker 1: sixth green will be very interesting to me. All Right,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about players in the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen Championship. Let's start with the category. I was shocked
Speaker 1: to see this name. Who did you not expect to
Speaker 1: see involved in this championship?
Speaker 2: For me, it was Tyrril Hatton. I had no idea
Speaker 2: honestly that he was involved in this tournament at all.
Speaker 2: I didn't really realize that his career was even as
Speaker 2: promising back in twenty sixteen. He hadn't had it too
Speaker 2: much of a professional career at that point. I think
Speaker 2: he'd missed four straight Open Championship cuts in a row
Speaker 2: coming into that tournament, but.
Speaker 1: Might have been even less than that. But it was like, yes,
Speaker 1: he three or four missed cuts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and those were the only I think he
Speaker 2: played in one PGA a few Opens and that was it.
Speaker 1: And he hadn't won on the European Tour yet.
Speaker 2: He's twenty four at the time. Yeah, finishes T five.
Speaker 2: I just don't didn't expect to see him at all,
Speaker 2: and now seeing how much better he's gotten and how
Speaker 2: successful his career is now, like he's a legitimate name
Speaker 2: to consider in the twenty twenty four Open Championship, didn't
Speaker 2: expect to see him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my pick was baby faced. Tyrrel Hatton as well,
Speaker 1: did not remember that this was kind of his coming
Speaker 1: out party, his first top twenty in a major. Even
Speaker 1: T five really really strong finish, but Stenson and Phil
Speaker 1: were so far out in front. It's understandable that you
Speaker 1: would miss some of the guys who came third, fourth,
Speaker 1: fifth in twenty sixteen. Another player who placed solo fourth
Speaker 1: in his case was Steve Stricker, forty nine years old.
Speaker 1: At the time, I didn't remember that he played so
Speaker 1: well in this championship, or I mean, I of course
Speaker 1: remember that he had a lot of longevity and that
Speaker 1: he had some good performances into his late forties, but
Speaker 1: this was one of his last real appearances on a
Speaker 1: big major stage solo forth. He did pretty well, all right,
Speaker 1: And of course identify.
Speaker 2: This was the beef Johnston Major, which I think people
Speaker 2: probably do remember, but it was just interesting to kind
Speaker 2: of revisit that this was.
Speaker 1: The height of beef mania. The announcers had a bunch
Speaker 1: of beef puns at the ready. You know that that
Speaker 1: approach was a little undercooked. That was undercooked beef and
Speaker 1: things like that. So people were really having fun with beef.
Speaker 1: All right, category, let's identify one thing that would not
Speaker 1: happen in twenty twenty four that did happen in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is going to be an interesting
Speaker 2: litmus test because the game of golf has changed radically
Speaker 2: since twenty sixteen ton of speed now and there aren't
Speaker 2: too many short hitters. Yes you can, of all majors,
Speaker 2: this might be one that invites it is one that
Speaker 2: invites a variety of playing styles. But there's a lot
Speaker 2: of long hitters out there now. So what I picked was,
Speaker 2: you're not going to see a lot of driver five
Speaker 2: iron into the fifteenth hole, which is five hundred yard
Speaker 2: par four that often plays into a prevailing wind. I
Speaker 2: think this will be a good litmus test drive Phil
Speaker 2: hits driver five iron in the final round into a
Speaker 2: slight breeze, pretty mild conditions in that final round, so
Speaker 2: that tea box should be the same as it was
Speaker 2: in twenty Some holes have been extended, but the fifteenth
Speaker 2: I believe, is, if not an identical location, very close.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a good one that's held constant
Speaker 2: over time. Let's see, in reasonably calm conditions what a
Speaker 2: player like even Phil today, Like I bet he's hitting
Speaker 2: driver seven iron today, So I'm interested to see what
Speaker 2: those distances kind of look like compared to the almost
Speaker 2: a decade ago. But it's going to be radically different.
Speaker 1: For my thing. That wouldn't happen in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: I looked at the clubs that Stenson and Phil hit
Speaker 1: in the final round off of each te and what
Speaker 1: I came up with at the end was that Stenson
Speaker 1: hit seven irons off of the non par three t's
Speaker 1: at Royal Truon in the final round in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: He hit five three woods right his famous three wood,
Speaker 1: his bomb three wood that would go as far as
Speaker 1: some players drivers. He hit five of those and then
Speaker 1: he hit two drivers. Phil hit seven irons off the tee,
Speaker 1: hit two fairway woods and hit five drivers. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say that whoever wins this year is not going to
Speaker 1: hit just two drivers off the tee in the final
Speaker 1: round as Stenson did in twenty sixteen. I might be
Speaker 1: wrong about that. I you know, it could be that
Speaker 1: players hit a lot of irons off these tees. As
Speaker 1: you were expressing earlier, there are reasons to lay up
Speaker 1: in some of the same areas as other players at
Speaker 1: Royal Troon. There are reasons to to, you know, let
Speaker 1: your foot off the accelerator a bit on some of
Speaker 1: these teas. But I just don't think we're going to
Speaker 1: see a winner who hits only two drivers. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Stenson's a little bit of a unique case, and that.
Speaker 1: It is, it's kind of cheating. I mean, maybe we
Speaker 1: won't see a winner who hits five drivers off the tee,
Speaker 1: which which filled it in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say, I think you're gonna see a
Speaker 2: decent amount of iron and three wood off of T's.
Speaker 2: But to your point, yes, I think the chance is
Speaker 2: that there are only two drivers hit in the final
Speaker 2: round by the winner. Are close to zero, right, because
Speaker 2: you're gonna get them on both the part five well
Speaker 2: not necessarily both the part fives on the front, but
Speaker 2: likely there are more than two expected drives. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about our shots of the day.
Speaker 1: What was your shot of the day.
Speaker 2: A few different ones stand out here, I mean, Garrett,
Speaker 2: I'm sure you had a similar takeaway, but there were
Speaker 2: almost no missed shots the entire day, like both of
Speaker 2: these kinds.
Speaker 1: Were they a single bunker? I was trying to remember this,
Speaker 1: don't anybody phil or Henrik. I don't think they were
Speaker 1: in any bunkers.
Speaker 2: I don't remember. I mean, there's a little bit of
Speaker 2: them in the fescue, but just over all, they step
Speaker 2: up and flush it over and over again. It's it's
Speaker 2: absolutely incredible. So yeah, I highly recommend people going back
Speaker 2: and watching it. It's just an unbelievable display of golf.
Speaker 2: The one that stood out to me is the iron
Speaker 2: that Phil hits into the fourth hole, the par five.
Speaker 2: He hits a two hundred and thirty seven yard long
Speaker 2: iron to about ten feet and makes eagle. And so
Speaker 2: that is at the forty five and a half minute
Speaker 2: mark on YouTube on the YouTube clip. The reason I
Speaker 2: pick it is because a minute later on the telecast
Speaker 2: they show his swing from kind of straight on, like
Speaker 2: you're looking at his chest, and they do the swing
Speaker 2: in slow motion. It is remarkable how fluid and impressive
Speaker 2: Phil swing is in that round, in that particular swing.
Speaker 2: I'm not a student of the golf swing, like I'm
Speaker 2: not very knowledgeable about the golf swing, but you when
Speaker 2: you watch that, it's unbelievable to see his club position
Speaker 2: and how well he generates speed, Like just a magnificent swing.
Speaker 2: So I would highly recommend people go back and watch
Speaker 2: that slow most swing at the forty six and a
Speaker 2: half minute mark. Again, you could pick so many different
Speaker 2: shots from that day but that one really stands out
Speaker 2: to me as just an unbelievable golf shot. How about you, Garrett.
Speaker 1: Well, for anybody who doesn't remember that Phil Mickelson was
Speaker 1: one of the greatest iron players of all time, go
Speaker 1: and watch this final round because this is a good
Speaker 1: demonstration of what he was capable of. Yeah, his chips
Speaker 1: and pitches were very impressive and kind of flashy, but
Speaker 1: his iron play is really what I think made him
Speaker 1: a many time major winner, made him the second best
Speaker 1: player of his generation. Those irons that he hit at
Speaker 1: Troon were absolutely incredible. Why it just happened to be
Speaker 1: the case that Stenson was up to that challenge, right
Speaker 1: because Stenson also one of the greatest iron players of
Speaker 1: all time. And maybe that's a kind of theme that
Speaker 1: we'll see it for many players who do well at Troon.
Speaker 1: But my shot other day, I had a few candidates.
Speaker 1: I ultimately chose Phil's approach into ten. He was in
Speaker 1: the fescue, the ball was way below his feet and
Speaker 1: he couldn't complete is his follow through. He had to
Speaker 1: kind of hit a sod off fall through because he
Speaker 1: didn't have the balance to go all the way through
Speaker 1: the ball, and he hit it to I don't remember
Speaker 1: exactly how close it was, but maybe ten feet or
Speaker 1: something like that, like.
Speaker 2: One seventy right, hit about one seventy in.
Speaker 1: Absolutely incredible shot, like just given the circumstances, given the pressure,
Speaker 1: and given his lie. I mean a lot of players
Speaker 1: would be happy to be kind of left of the
Speaker 1: green on ten with that shot, but no, he was
Speaker 1: attacking the flag from that position. Just an incredible shot.
Speaker 1: There were you know, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: probably remember a couple of shots that Phil hit on
Speaker 1: the first two holes. This is this was the indication
Speaker 1: right right out of the gate on Sunday in twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen that this was going to be a legendary duel.
Speaker 1: I remember these shots. It was Phil's approach into one
Speaker 1: where he hit it to a couple of inches right,
Speaker 1: big statement. He was one back of Stenson. And then
Speaker 1: there was a two showing on the first hole because
Speaker 1: Stenson bogie the hole and Phil stuck it to literally
Speaker 1: a few inches and made birdie. And then Phil's chip
Speaker 1: on two after missing the green to the right right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he had to hit this little chip from a tight
Speaker 1: lie over a short right bunker to a pin that
Speaker 1: was pretty tight to that bunker, there was no backstop
Speaker 1: and he just hit a beautiful crisp Phil Mickelson chip
Speaker 1: that lipped out that that shot could have gone in easily,
Speaker 1: So you know, the Phil. It's funny. The Phil shots
Speaker 1: are the ones that stand out. Even though Stenson ended
Speaker 1: up putting him away in the last few holes, and
Speaker 1: obviously Stenson making some big putts down the stretch, the
Speaker 1: one on fifteen from twenty twenty five feet was totally
Speaker 1: unexpected and maybe it was even longer. I think it
Speaker 1: was longer, but yeah, it might have been might have
Speaker 1: been more like thirty to forty, but it was he
Speaker 1: was across the green from from the from the hole
Speaker 1: and that one was not expected to go in. And
Speaker 1: then his tea shot on seventeen, the long par three
Speaker 1: four iron from t twenty, So there must have been
Speaker 1: some interesting wind conditions happening, or you know, just the
Speaker 1: game has changed a lot from twenty sixteen, but we
Speaker 1: would see Bryson hitting a pitching wedge these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that tea shot he hit on seventeen was just a
Speaker 1: classic Hendrickxtenson iron that it's a little explosion at the
Speaker 1: at impact when he hits an iron well, and that
Speaker 1: was one of those irons, and you know something about
Speaker 1: that shot. I know I'm talking about like a lot
Speaker 1: of shots here, so I'm super cheating on these categories.
Speaker 1: My bad. But there's this video that Live Golf put
Speaker 1: out with Phil and Stenson discussing the twenty sixteen final round.
Speaker 1: They put this out a couple of days ago, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. I wish they had gone a little
Speaker 1: bit more in depth, but they do talk about certain
Speaker 1: shots and Phil talks about being stunned on seventeen, specifically
Speaker 1: that shot that hendrikitt because it was so high and
Speaker 1: Phil was thinking, he can't possibly hit it that high
Speaker 1: and have the ball reach the green because he's putting
Speaker 1: the ball way up in the air where the wind
Speaker 1: is going to act on it and he's going to
Speaker 1: come up short. He can't get all the way there
Speaker 1: hitting the ball that high. But it got all the
Speaker 1: way there, And there was just something about Stenson's ball
Speaker 1: flight that was so penetrating, where he hit the ball
Speaker 1: so solid and maybe just kept some spin off of
Speaker 1: it and it didn't get caught up in the wind.
Speaker 1: He just hit these shots that bore their way through
Speaker 1: the wind and that's what made him almost unbeatable at Troon,
Speaker 1: and the fact that Phil got anywhere close to him
Speaker 1: is a testament to how spectacular he was on certain
Speaker 1: shots in that final round and really on those final
Speaker 1: two days. All right, finally, not finally, but you know,
Speaker 1: we would have a couple of final big categories here,
Speaker 1: but the final kind of you know, detailed category. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the biggest what if moment in the final round.
Speaker 2: I might have interpreted this question a little bit differently
Speaker 2: as a broader what if, So forgive me if I
Speaker 2: deep from the points, but yeah, my biggest what if
Speaker 2: is just if players had gotten different tea times. And
Speaker 2: this is a historic wave split. Of the eleven golfers
Speaker 2: that finished T nine or better, nine were from the
Speaker 2: early wave. Yeah, both Stenson and four shots, right, it
Speaker 2: was a lot of shots and I don't have the
Speaker 2: exact count in front of me, but it was a
Speaker 2: lot of shots. Both Stenson and Phil were late tyro
Speaker 2: Hatton was one of the last tea times on Thursday. Like,
Speaker 2: that's the side that got the beneficial draw. So we
Speaker 2: wouldn't I mean, if Phil or Stenson had received a
Speaker 2: different draw, like, we would not be talking about this
Speaker 2: championship the same way. It might have been a snoozer,
Speaker 2: one player completely running away from it. Right if Rory
Speaker 2: or Jason Day, who was number one at the time,
Speaker 2: had been on the right end of the draw, then
Speaker 2: we might just be talking about a completely different championship.
Speaker 2: So this is one that stands out as an all
Speaker 2: time draw, Garrett, of the top seventeen, there were two
Speaker 2: more in the late wave. Sorry, only two more on
Speaker 2: the wrong side of the split, Gary Woodland. And then
Speaker 2: do you want to guess the other player, who.
Speaker 1: Of course going to be our lad from Northern Ireland.
Speaker 2: Well, so yes, you're correct that Rory was. But sorry,
Speaker 2: of the players between like T nine behind T nine
Speaker 2: and T like seventeen, the other one was Patrick Reid,
Speaker 2: which I just find amusing, okay for being on there.
Speaker 1: I mean that was intentional on the part.
Speaker 2: So not immune to a bad draw there, So I
Speaker 2: thought it was an amusing tidbit.
Speaker 1: Life in the line drive section. That's that's Patrick Reid's
Speaker 1: autobiography title. I believe the biggest what if for me
Speaker 1: was a little more specific, what if Phil's putt on
Speaker 1: sixteen dropped so he lipped out a putt on the
Speaker 1: sixteenth hole, and Henrik had a putt for Bertie that
Speaker 1: this was a putt for eagle that Phil had on
Speaker 1: the part on the par five he had a spectacular
Speaker 1: fairway would into the screen, just one of his incredible
Speaker 1: strikes of the R two seventy Right. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: just like this was Phil Mickelson on that day. He's
Speaker 1: just flushing the ball unbelievably at historic levels. He almost
Speaker 1: made this putt. This putt kind of like died just
Speaker 1: across the hole, right. He didn't quite get it there,
Speaker 1: and so the ball just sort of, you know, veered
Speaker 1: off course right as it was getting to the hole
Speaker 1: and went right across the front of it. If that
Speaker 1: putt had dropped, Stenson has like a three four footer
Speaker 1: for Bertie. I think that puts more pressure on Stenson
Speaker 1: because he knows he needs to make that putt in
Speaker 1: order to stay one up on Phil at that point
Speaker 1: going into seventeen. The part three where Stenson ended up
Speaker 1: hitting an incredible t shot, But if Phil's pett goes in,
Speaker 1: Stenson might miss that putt and then they might be
Speaker 1: even going into seventeen. I think that math is right.
Speaker 1: My apologies if it's not, it's right. So that was
Speaker 1: a big wef moment. And then Stenson almost put it
Speaker 1: into the Greg Norman bunker on eighteen. That was something
Speaker 1: that I actually totally forgotten, the bunker on the right
Speaker 1: side of the fairway that Greg Norman made famous in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. His three would nearly got to it,
Speaker 1: I mean, just in an adrenaline fueled strike, and if
Speaker 1: he had found that bunker, then things could have definitely
Speaker 1: gone differently, because at that point, I believe the separation
Speaker 1: between the two players was two shots, and so certainly
Speaker 1: there could have been a two shot swing there all right,
Speaker 1: Before we get to the big final categories here, Joseph,
Speaker 1: any stray notes or tidbits that you just wanted to
Speaker 1: touch on, anything in your notes that you thought was
Speaker 1: interesting that you just want to get out there.
Speaker 2: I have a bunch of notes. I'll keep it. I
Speaker 2: won't go through all of them. I did not remember this,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious if you picked up on this, Garrett.
Speaker 2: In the telecast, walking off the thirteenth tee, the RNA
Speaker 2: tells Stenson and Phil to pick up the pace as
Speaker 2: they'd fallen a little bit behind, and you can barely
Speaker 2: hear it on the telecast, but it's interesting. They're in
Speaker 2: the middle of this epic duel, no one's near them
Speaker 2: on the leader board, and they don't get put on
Speaker 2: the clock, at least that I remember, but they're told
Speaker 2: to pick up the pace, and kind of just an
Speaker 2: interesting anecdote about that as I've reflected on it. I
Speaker 2: remember being at Dell match play in Austin and Phil
Speaker 2: was playing against Stenson. Years later, obviously, I don't remember
Speaker 2: exactly which year, and after walking off one of the greens,
Speaker 2: Phil said to his caddy and I was standing there
Speaker 2: and heard it in slightly more colorful language, Man, Hendrik
Speaker 2: Stenson is so freaking slow. And I've always kind of
Speaker 2: wondered if any of the twenty sixteen Open Championship lingers
Speaker 2: a little bit there. Hendrick Stenson's not the speediest golfer,
Speaker 2: and Phil does look ready to hit a lot of
Speaker 2: the shots in this twenty sixteen Open Championship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he pulls the trigger quickly on a couple.
Speaker 2: Of them, he does, and so it's just interesting.
Speaker 1: Even especially I remember he hit his approach like right
Speaker 1: on top of Stenson's approach.
Speaker 2: And some of the putts like as Hendrick Stenton's hitting them,
Speaker 2: Phil's already prepared to hit. He kind of steps in
Speaker 2: pretty quickly and hits them. There's one where he even finishes.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember that from the telecast,
Speaker 2: but he hits a good chip shot and decides he
Speaker 2: wants to finish like a three footer instead of letting
Speaker 2: Stenson hit his six or seven footer. So really interesting
Speaker 2: to see the RNA tell them to pick up the
Speaker 2: pace a little bit. And then maybe some of that
Speaker 2: additional context was delighting me as I watched through that
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen Open Championship.
Speaker 1: I like that note, especially because then three years later,
Speaker 1: no not three years later, more than three years l
Speaker 1: this was in twenty twenty one, I guess at pgaj
Speaker 1: ap and Chata Kiwa. Famously, Phil sort of slow played
Speaker 1: brooks Kopka in the final round and frustrated Koepka. So
Speaker 1: maybe Phil was taken a tip from Stenson there from
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen final round. That's pretty funny. All right,
Speaker 1: Let's get to the last couple of categories here, some
Speaker 1: general big picture categories. First of all, what do you
Speaker 1: think is the overwhelming key to success on this golf
Speaker 1: course royal trend.
Speaker 2: For me, it's just premiere iron play. I think you
Speaker 2: see it with Phil and you see it with Stenson.
Speaker 2: When you're hitting your irons well, you have a lot
Speaker 2: of opportunities to make birdie and hit some approach shots close,
Speaker 2: and even if you're not super close, a lot of
Speaker 2: those putts are makeable. I think that's a huge key
Speaker 2: to success, not just for what I just mentioned, but
Speaker 2: you're hitting iron off a lot of teas, and given
Speaker 2: how easy the driver has become to hit, and you
Speaker 2: can hit the ball basically anywhere on the club and
Speaker 2: it flies relatively straight, I think it's pretty difficult off
Speaker 2: the tee to hit a flush a bunch of irons
Speaker 2: and woods, especially if wind is a factor. So I'm
Speaker 2: really hoping we get a little bit of wind, and
Speaker 2: I think you will see some of those premier ball strikers,
Speaker 2: especially the best iron players in the world, rise to
Speaker 2: the top. Obviously, like wind can create some variants and
Speaker 2: some unpredictability in ways, that is also relevant, and some
Speaker 2: of those iron players could get taken out just by
Speaker 2: being on the wrong side of a draw. But to me,
Speaker 2: I would be targeting the best iron players in the
Speaker 2: world when thinking about who's gonna win this championship? How
Speaker 2: about you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was my number one note for
Speaker 1: this category as well. It is totally conspicuous, totally obvious
Speaker 1: in this final round that the main differentiating factor between
Speaker 1: Stenson and Phil and everybody else is that those two
Speaker 1: players were hitting greens from distance with irons and striking
Speaker 1: their irons with a flushness and a purity that the
Speaker 1: other players simply were not matching. You saw other players
Speaker 1: missing greens scrambling. You hardly ever saw Stenson and Phil
Speaker 1: in a position of scrambling, especially after they hit a
Speaker 1: fairway right. If they were in the fairway, you could
Speaker 1: pretty much bank on ten fifteen feet in a birdy opportunity.
Speaker 1: And these were not the easiest conditions, and other players
Speaker 1: were showing that nobody else was anywhere in the vicinity
Speaker 1: of Stenson and Phil in that final round. I mean, Stenson,
Speaker 1: what did he shoot sixty three and Phil was sixty five.
Speaker 1: We probably should know these numbers off the top of
Speaker 1: our heads, but nobody was close to those numbers, and
Speaker 1: it was because of the iron play. If I had
Speaker 1: to choose another key to success on this golf course.
Speaker 1: It would just have to be avoiding bunkers off the
Speaker 1: tee and having a solid strategy for avoiding those bunkers.
Speaker 1: We didn't see Phil and Stenson in bunkers off the tee.
Speaker 1: Part of that may have been a little bit of luck,
Speaker 1: because you always need that luck, but also part of
Speaker 1: it was that they were thoughtful about their choices off
Speaker 1: the tea, about their lines, about the clubs that they
Speaker 1: are hitting, so that they gave themselves the best chances
Speaker 1: possible not to be in those bunkers. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's probably going to be another theme that we
Speaker 1: see in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: It was sixty three and sixty five respectively.
Speaker 1: Just mean that she did look up. I think it's
Speaker 1: absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2: We had one more category, which was something to the
Speaker 2: effect of biggest lesson, and mine was avoid trouble. So
Speaker 2: I would echo that that staying out of the fairway bunkers,
Speaker 2: like taking lines off of the te's that aren't going
Speaker 2: to put you in trouble, even if it means hitting
Speaker 2: an ironer would instead of pushing driver trying to hit
Speaker 2: shots like on eleven that off the tea, stay out
Speaker 2: of the gorse and that's obviously easier said than done,
Speaker 2: but you're going to get your scoring opportunities if you
Speaker 2: stay out of trouble. It's not the type of golf
Speaker 2: course that you're going to be able to overpay. There's
Speaker 2: certain holes where you may be able to in the
Speaker 2: right conditions, especially if it's downwind, but generally speaking, this
Speaker 2: is a golf course to be a little bit conservative
Speaker 2: off of many of the tea's and then just avoiding
Speaker 2: some of those most penal bunkers on the golf course.
Speaker 2: So that was my biggest lesson for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Agree with that. My biggest lesson for twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: is something that we've already referred to, and that is
Speaker 1: that the wave split is god in the Open Championship,
Speaker 1: and we might see another one with unsettled weather in
Speaker 1: the forecast this year, we could see another wave split.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which way it's going. I'm going to
Speaker 1: make a guess on that in a minute, but when
Speaker 1: the weather is volatile, then the wave split really does
Speaker 1: help determine who has the best chance at contending on
Speaker 1: the weekend. And that's just something that we see in
Speaker 1: the Open Championship. More than any other tournament in the world,
Speaker 1: and it's something that you either love or hate. I
Speaker 1: happen to love it. Any form of randomness and chaos
Speaker 1: that can be introduced to this professional game that has
Speaker 1: become so rationalized and predictable in some ways, I'm all for.
Speaker 1: And so give me a wave split, even if it
Speaker 1: happens to hurt my favorite players the best or the worst,
Speaker 1: I should say, all right, let's get into some picks
Speaker 1: and predictions. Now that we've done our categories for twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about that final round thoroughly enough. Again,
Speaker 1: going to recommend that people go see it because it's
Speaker 1: just such a fun, fun final round and there are
Speaker 1: probably a lot of things, even if you watch it
Speaker 1: at the time, probably a lot of things that you
Speaker 1: don't remember about what happened that day and how excellent
Speaker 1: the play from Phil and Henrik was. Let's do some
Speaker 1: picks and predictions. Who are you looking at this week for,
Speaker 1: you know, possible players who can set themselves apart in
Speaker 1: the way that Phil and Henrick did in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: I listed two names, Garrett, I think there are a
Speaker 2: lot of usual suspects that, yeah, Scottie Rory, Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Scotti Scheffler probably gonna be pretty good, right.
Speaker 2: The ones that I felt worth calling out first, I
Speaker 2: think watching this twenty sixteen rewatching it, one name that
Speaker 2: kept kind of getting pounded into my head is Colin Marikawa.
Speaker 2: Colin has had arguably his best season. I mean it
Speaker 2: is his best season statistically. He's been kind of red
Speaker 2: hot as of late. In major So far this year,
Speaker 2: He's finished tied for third at the Masters, tied for
Speaker 2: fourth at the PGA of Ahalla, and tied for fourteenth
Speaker 2: at Pinehurst. Colin Morikawa obviously has already won two majors,
Speaker 2: including an Open Championship. I think the knock on him
Speaker 2: tends to be that he has some struggles in the
Speaker 2: wind and.
Speaker 1: That I was just going to bring this up. What
Speaker 1: do you make that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that really tight cut that he hits and he
Speaker 2: goes to on every shot can turn into a little
Speaker 2: bit of a wipeye fade. If you watched the Farmer's
Speaker 2: Insurance this year at Tory Pines, like that fade did
Speaker 2: not work super well when it got windy. But I
Speaker 2: still trust Colin, especially on a golf course that takes
Speaker 2: driver out of your hands fairly often if he's standing
Speaker 2: up on tees ripping a lot of irons and woods.
Speaker 2: There's not too many golfers that I trust more on
Speaker 2: that type of setup. And he's crafty with his irons.
Speaker 2: He has the default stock fade that he likes to hit.
Speaker 2: But Colin Moricala's got a little bit more in his
Speaker 2: bag than just a white bee fade. Unbelievable iron player
Speaker 2: can make a case that he's, if not the best
Speaker 2: iron player in the world, certainly top five. His short
Speaker 2: games come a long way this year, by far having
Speaker 2: the best short game season. I also think some of
Speaker 2: the putting on these slow greens is probably a little
Speaker 2: bit more of what he's used to on the West coast. Man.
Speaker 2: This kind of screams Colin Morikala to me.
Speaker 1: It's not the hardest putting course, right, It's if you're
Speaker 1: on the green, then two putts are very achievable for
Speaker 1: most people. And so putting is going to be like
Speaker 1: a tough different ferentiator this week, or less of a
Speaker 1: differentiator than than it usually might be, because it's always
Speaker 1: a differentiator, but but it might deemphasize it a little
Speaker 1: bit this week. All right, call him Markawa. Now what
Speaker 1: I like about Marikawa. I am a little bit worried
Speaker 1: about the the wind thing. I mean, hitting that fade
Speaker 1: in the wind is tough. But maybe it's a bit
Speaker 1: of an overemphasized theme with mari Kawa at this point,
Speaker 1: because he is he's a good golfer, he can he
Speaker 1: can handle the wind. He is in that later wave
Speaker 1: on Thursday, and something that I'm looking at, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: It's it's not advisable to make predictions based on forecasts.
Speaker 1: I will just say that. But since I'm not a
Speaker 1: betting expert, I'm just gonna go ahead and put all
Speaker 1: my chips in the uh in the forecast bucket, put
Speaker 1: all my eggs in that basket. I think that Thursday
Speaker 1: morning is going to be tough. I think there's some
Speaker 1: weather coming in late Wednesday and it's going to be
Speaker 1: kind of clearing out on Thursday morning. I think that
Speaker 1: players could have a harder time on Thursday morning than
Speaker 1: they do on Thursday afternoon. And so I'm mainly looking
Speaker 1: at players who go out on Thursday afternoon. Now, some
Speaker 1: of the players who go out in the morning on Thursday,
Speaker 1: justin Thomas Joaquin Neeman Tony Final, John Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood,
Speaker 1: Brian Harmon. This is starting to get a little bit
Speaker 1: later in the morning, but Ry McElroy's going out at
Speaker 1: about ten am, Tyrol Hatton, Max Homer, Keegan Bradley are
Speaker 1: going out in kind of mid morning. Now afternoon players
Speaker 1: would include Corey Connors, Jason Day, Phil Nicholson. He had
Speaker 1: an afternoon tea time in twenty sixteen on Thursday and
Speaker 1: worked to his advantage. Then it could again this time, Wyndham, Clark,
Speaker 1: Hideki Brooks, Xander can't Ley, Morikawa, Sam Burns, Shane Lower,
Speaker 1: Cameron Smith, Matt Fitzpatrick, Scotti, Scheffler, few other names there,
Speaker 1: but that's basically the pool of players that I'm looking at.
Speaker 1: I like Morikawa in that group of players. Tell me
Speaker 1: if this is stupid, but I'm kind of looking at
Speaker 1: Shane Lowry. I like that name. I think he's not
Speaker 1: really good with his men and long irons. He did
Speaker 1: well last.
Speaker 2: Week, He's playing pretty well coming in and if there's
Speaker 2: somebody that can brave the elements. I know this always
Speaker 2: gets brought up with Shane Lowry, but former Open champion,
Speaker 2: he's done it. He'll be very comfortable no matter what
Speaker 2: weather it gets thrown at him. I don't think it's
Speaker 2: a crazy pick. Also interesting to me that you mentioned
Speaker 2: Corey Connors because I didn't know that he'd get the
Speaker 2: first bill shout out there. But Corey Connors is an
Speaker 2: elite ball striker and he's having a really good season,
Speaker 2: so he is kind of an interesting name to keep
Speaker 2: an eye on.
Speaker 1: I feel like people always bring up Corey Connors when
Speaker 1: it comes to major championships because it's a lot of
Speaker 1: courses that reward great ball striking right, mid and long
Speaker 1: iron play more than PGA Tour courses tend to reward
Speaker 1: that skill, and Corey Connors is your ultimate example of
Speaker 1: somebody who has an outsize skill in that area. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Corey Connor is The reason I mentioned him first is
Speaker 1: he's going out earliest in the afternoon, but he is
Speaker 1: in the afternoon wave.
Speaker 2: It's a draw. Yeah, He's one of the few players
Speaker 2: in professional helps that hits a tight draw.
Speaker 1: You would think he plays well in the wind. I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's evidence that he plays well in
Speaker 1: windy conditions, because we just don't get that much in
Speaker 1: the way of windy conditions anywhere on the schedule. I mean,
Speaker 1: Matt Fitzpatrick is another, you know, legendary mutter who can
Speaker 1: play well in various conditions. I don't know if he's
Speaker 1: in the greatest form of his career or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but then obviously Scotti Scheffler is going out late on
Speaker 1: Thursday and that could be a major advantage for him.
Speaker 1: Brooks Cupya is somebody that I've brought up in every
Speaker 1: major so far this year. It hasn't really worked out
Speaker 1: for me that well in any of the majors this year,
Speaker 1: but I'm always his name because it's it's not wise
Speaker 1: to doubt him in a major championship. Now, Bryce into
Speaker 1: Shambeau the most talked about player of the year, probably
Speaker 1: maybe other than Rory, but talked about for different reasons.
Speaker 1: Do you think he struggles at this course? Is it
Speaker 1: like a too easy of a take to say that
Speaker 1: he might struggle here? I think it is, And let
Speaker 1: me just say why. Sure, he's a great long iron player,
Speaker 1: he I mean, if we're looking at long and mid
Speaker 1: irons as the differentiating factor, then he could be great.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure how much he's looking to hit
Speaker 1: driver on this course. But if it's a long iron contest,
Speaker 1: and for Bryson, the long irons are like the seven
Speaker 1: and eight irons. But if it's a contest from those distances,
Speaker 1: he does really, really well from those distances. Now his
Speaker 1: ball might be a little bit high, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, it seems like he should be able
Speaker 1: to thrive with this kind of test. But I think
Speaker 1: we just assume that when it comes to links golf,
Speaker 1: Bryson is not your man.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have Bryson quite as high as I would
Speaker 2: have some of these other players. But I do think Bryson,
Speaker 2: I'm not too concerned about the way that he lines
Speaker 2: up with the golf course like this, maybe in the
Speaker 2: way that I would have been in the past. I
Speaker 2: think he has some advantages and that he understands the
Speaker 2: way that his ball interacts with the wind and leans
Speaker 2: into that a little bit more than a lot of
Speaker 2: players probably do. Understanding that, you know, your dispersion gets
Speaker 2: wider when you're playing into the wind, and that just
Speaker 2: bashing driver all the time isn't always the best strategy.
Speaker 2: And I think Bryson went a little bit far in
Speaker 2: that direction when he put on all of his distance.
Speaker 2: I think he's learned to rain that in a little
Speaker 2: bit and has expressed that his caddy, I know that
Speaker 2: he had gone on the Get a Grip podcast of
Speaker 2: Fried Egg Pot and had talked a little bit about
Speaker 2: some of the things, some of the considerations they make,
Speaker 2: and you know this, this is a little bit maybe
Speaker 2: less of a calculated tournament than a lot of other ones.
Speaker 2: But as his caddie Gbo said on that pod, like
Speaker 2: Bryson's a pretty darn good field player, even though he
Speaker 2: has a rap, is being calculated about everything. So I
Speaker 2: think that course management and ability to understand that the
Speaker 2: right shots to hit, and how he's evolved in that
Speaker 2: way is a reason to be optimistic about Bryson. Again,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't put him as high as a McElroy or
Speaker 2: a Scheffler or a shaft Lee or Mori Kala frankly
Speaker 2: in terms of his chances of winning, but certainly wouldn't
Speaker 2: be surprised if he's in the neck. Can I give
Speaker 2: you another name or absolutely? I think one golfer flying
Speaker 2: a little bit under the radar is Louis Ustazan, and
Speaker 2: Louis Ustazen is actually playing really good golf and he's
Speaker 2: getting some respect in the betting markets, but he doesn't
Speaker 2: have the visibility. Right. He's playing on Live, which is
Speaker 2: a tour that just doesn't have nearly as many eyeballs
Speaker 2: on it as the PGA Tour. He hasn't even played,
Speaker 2: hasn't played a major this entire year, but he's been
Speaker 2: playing very solid on live. And he's a golfer who's
Speaker 2: been good in majors pretty much his entire career. I
Speaker 2: think he's finished in eight of his eight top tens
Speaker 2: and thirty two starts since twenty fifteen, like a twenty
Speaker 2: five percent clip, which isn't bad. He's forty one, and
Speaker 2: this is a major that generally some of the more
Speaker 2: seasoned players, Yeah, can I have success?
Speaker 1: Henrikan and Phil were both in their forties when they
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, he.
Speaker 2: Finished twenty third in this event. Last year, he finished
Speaker 2: tied for third at Saint Andrews in twenty one. Kind
Speaker 2: of has done well on some courses that like, I
Speaker 2: don't think Chambers Bay is the perfect comparison for Truon,
Speaker 2: Like he he did very well there despite a bad
Speaker 2: opening round, and just I think he's a flusher that
Speaker 2: has a lot of shots. Former Open Champion. I would
Speaker 2: not be rolling out Louius Tasan.
Speaker 1: That's an incredible shout. I would not have picked out
Speaker 1: that name, but Louis says and is Loui Ustasan. I mean,
Speaker 1: he just shows up and performs in majors. It hasn't
Speaker 1: happened for a couple of years at this point, but
Speaker 1: he's one of those players that can just turn it
Speaker 1: on for a week and shock everybody, and nobody picks
Speaker 1: him and all of a sudden he's there.
Speaker 2: So he won twice in December on the DP World Tour.
Speaker 2: Like he's been good.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, what do you think of Cameron Smith? He's
Speaker 1: going out in the afternoon on Thursday. How is he playing?
Speaker 1: Another live player that I just have a hard time assessing.
Speaker 2: I've had a hard time assessing Cameron Smith too. I
Speaker 2: don't think i'd be as optimistic based on what he's
Speaker 2: put out so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his form has been kind of non inspiring.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought Pinehurst would probably be a better showing
Speaker 2: and he hasn't shown that much. But like, yeah, he's
Speaker 2: I don't know. He finished T two at Live Singapore.
Speaker 2: I don't really know exactly what to make of that
Speaker 2: I think it does have meaning. It was probably for
Speaker 2: too long thought that they had no meaning. Like, I
Speaker 2: think there's some meaning in the results, but it's hard to.
Speaker 1: Exact approximately as much meaning as there is for like
Speaker 1: a signature event, maybe less because the field isn't isn't
Speaker 1: quite as strong as a signature event. But we're also
Speaker 1: we're talking about a you know, a small field kind
Speaker 1: of event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Cam Smith, he's almost thirty one, he
Speaker 2: may end up being the type of player that had
Speaker 2: that surge and it happened a little bit not late
Speaker 2: in his career, but kind of in the middle and
Speaker 2: then maybe flamed I don't want to say flamed out,
Speaker 2: But I'm not as optimistic about camp Smith this year
Speaker 2: until we see a little bit more for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he certainly had a run of exceptional form for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, but hasn't necessarily shown that he
Speaker 1: can sustain that. But you know who knows like he's
Speaker 1: a he's obviously a great player. His short game is
Speaker 1: putting amazing, and I just think like when we're when
Speaker 1: we're looking at him, just a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: he was winning an Open championship and now we just
Speaker 1: don't talk about him as much, and maybe maybe for
Speaker 1: some decent reasons because of his recent form, but he
Speaker 1: just is a guy who's who's there and who might
Speaker 1: be a factor. All right, So we have had a
Speaker 1: really good run of major championships this I think the
Speaker 1: majors this year have been absolutely exceptional. Actually, I can't
Speaker 1: remember a year of majors that was this solid across
Speaker 1: the board. I mean, probably there has been one in
Speaker 1: the past ten to fifteen years that I'm forgetting right now.
Speaker 1: But the Masters was great, you know, the PGA Championship
Speaker 1: was really fun to watch, and then the US Open
Speaker 1: was an all timer. I know it's hard to predict
Speaker 1: these things, but do you think we could be set
Speaker 1: up for another really fun major or is this the
Speaker 1: type of course and set up that could maybe lead
Speaker 1: to a little bit of disappointment, maybe kind of a
Speaker 1: low energy major like we saw at last year's Open
Speaker 1: at Hoylake.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would expect it to be an exciting major,
Speaker 2: and I think it's a great golf course that brings
Speaker 2: out a lot of cool shots. So kind of as
Speaker 2: we've talked about before, like some of that Thursday to
Speaker 2: Saturday entertainment value. I think it's going to be really high,
Speaker 2: especially if we get some wind. Given that there's going
Speaker 2: to be some blustery, wet conditions, I think if players
Speaker 2: are playing through that, then it's unlikely that we get
Speaker 2: a runaway unless there's a huge wave split right, Like
Speaker 2: it's blustery and rainy in the morning on Thursday, but
Speaker 2: then in the afternoon the golfers are playing a calm,
Speaker 2: soft course. Then that increases the chances that somebody in
Speaker 2: that wave gets really hot and pulls away. My expectation
Speaker 2: would be that this is a great Major. Sure you
Speaker 2: could have somebody like Brian Harmon, who is a great player,
Speaker 2: run away from it and make it a little bit sleepier,
Speaker 2: but I'm going into it with the expectation of it
Speaker 2: being a great golf tournament.
Speaker 1: All right, Joseph, thanks for coming on the pod. Hoping
Speaker 1: for a great week this week, and I think we'll
Speaker 1: probably reconvene afterwards for a little takeaways podcast.
Speaker 2: Sounds great, Let's have a good tournament.
Speaker 1: This episode of the Friday Golf Podcast was produced by
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