Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
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Speaker 1: Fall twenty for twenty percent off your order. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is with Jeff Ogilvie, who of course won the last
Speaker 1: US Open at Wingfoot the two thousand and six US
Speaker 1: Open at Wingfoot. It was great to talk with Jeff
Speaker 1: as it always is and get insight into Wingfoot and
Speaker 1: what he expects this week and what he went through
Speaker 1: in six. As US Open week is pretty much here,
Speaker 1: we will be chalk full of coverage on our various
Speaker 1: channels at the Frida Egg. So a couple things to
Speaker 1: look out for if you don't already, be sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe to our free newsletter. It is sent out during
Speaker 1: major weeks every day and you'll never miss anything that
Speaker 1: we do or anything that's going on in the championship.
Speaker 1: On the podcast, we will have a couple new episodes,
Speaker 1: including a Frida Egg's Story from Garrett that will be
Speaker 1: centered around the US Open at Wingfoot, a historic US
Speaker 1: Open at Wingfoot. And then also subscribe to our YouTube
Speaker 1: page and check it out. We have a great video
Speaker 1: of Wingfoot up with Gil Hans and Jeff Ogilvy talking
Speaker 1: about the greens. And we will also be debuting our
Speaker 1: second episode of Digging into Design, which will feature Gil
Speaker 1: Hans talking about the West Course at Wingfoot. So that'll
Speaker 1: be kind of like a it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: podcast that Digging into design series, but with video. So
Speaker 1: when he's talking about features on the golf course, we're
Speaker 1: going to show you what he's talking about, or historical
Speaker 1: photos that they use during the restoration, we're going to
Speaker 1: show you. I think it's just a better format to
Speaker 1: talk about a golf course than necessarily a podcast, which
Speaker 1: we've done a lot of over the years. So, without
Speaker 1: further ado, here is Jeff Ogilvie. I miss a green,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball
Speaker 1: in the bunker.
Speaker 2: I'm really a set. You want to find my.
Speaker 3: Ball in a bright egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 3: egg Frida egg, Frid Egg, Brian egg bride egg brid
Speaker 3: egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off with the.
Speaker 3: Be It will be a game. It will be a
Speaker 3: make or break for him. Actually, I mean you can
Speaker 3: tell right now, for you, like the way you look
Speaker 3: at things changes a little bit, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like he might just not want to be overseas as
Speaker 3: much and you want might want to be at home
Speaker 3: a bit more. And I don't know, we'll see it
Speaker 3: changes a few guys, some guys without a conscience keep
Speaker 3: playing well or better, you know, guys with a conscience,
Speaker 3: and he is one with a conscience.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's fifty to fifty after kids, you know,
Speaker 2: it's different.
Speaker 1: Do you believe so this is a question I had
Speaker 1: for you. Will it wins right after baby? There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of study it like not studies, anecdotal stuff
Speaker 1: about basketball guys having a baby and then shooting. They're
Speaker 1: unconscious shooting for a couple of weeks after. Do you
Speaker 1: do you believe in any kind of post baby bump.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would believe in a post baby bump short
Speaker 3: term that it would be potential that it would because
Speaker 3: you're so high on life right it is. Nothing is better,
Speaker 3: like it's the everything is good, you know, And it's
Speaker 3: quite a scary thing having a baby, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean? Like this all of a sudden you think
Speaker 3: there's things that can go. You've never worried about stuff
Speaker 3: before your life, and now is that you're worried about
Speaker 3: things going wrong? Or is this baby going to be
Speaker 3: all right? I hope everyone's healthy. I hope my wife's
Speaker 3: all right. So when it all happens and it's just
Speaker 3: such a happy moment, I think you can get a bump.
Speaker 3: I think long term, it's a challenge for a guy
Speaker 3: who wants to be around his kids and his family
Speaker 3: because the tour life is and when you're a home
Speaker 3: you're at the golf course all day and then you
Speaker 3: go away all the time, you know, and it's not
Speaker 3: all the time all the time, like three weeks is
Speaker 3: three weeks, you know, So handle that stuff different, both
Speaker 3: sides of it, I think.
Speaker 1: And your kids can only travel with you for so
Speaker 1: long until they have life.
Speaker 3: Ours came till the first one went to school, really,
Speaker 3: you know, and then which is five years, and then, yeah,
Speaker 3: they need their lives. Yeah, they need their friends, and
Speaker 3: they're set up and it's not fair to them to
Speaker 3: get dragged around the world. So it's fun for them
Speaker 3: a little bit, but not every week.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: There's some there's some guys on tour who like homeschool
Speaker 3: their kids and they do it pretty much full time
Speaker 3: travel with their kids. But that's a full commitment too.
Speaker 3: That makes playing the golf different too, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's gotta be tough on the kids because
Speaker 1: they don't you know, they're friends, you know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3: It's funny, especially it's the same the tour life is
Speaker 3: interesting like that. It's my kids had a bunch of
Speaker 3: friends for the first five years of my oldest life
Speaker 3: and four years of the next one. Their friends were
Speaker 3: two friends kids of my is in all our friends.
Speaker 2: Our world was there. And then they start going to
Speaker 2: schools and they move on to their.
Speaker 3: School friends and they don't know any of the other
Speaker 3: kids anymore that they grew up with, the first five
Speaker 3: Because it's quite an interesting world, the tour world. If
Speaker 3: every five year runs of like kids coming out and
Speaker 3: then they disappear and new ones come out, you know,
Speaker 3: because everyone goes to school and stays at home all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's different about golfers and kids is
Speaker 1: that your guys' careers are generally longer and into your
Speaker 1: life later than a you know, a football player. They're
Speaker 1: done at twenty eight, twenty nine, basketball player very rarely
Speaker 1: over thirty three. And you know, you guys could play
Speaker 1: the senior Tour all the way till you're sixty. You know.
Speaker 3: That's the interesting thing about our careers is I start
Speaker 3: with all these I mean, it was me and Scottie
Speaker 3: and Justin Rose and Immlman and Garcia and all in
Speaker 3: that sort of thing, and then luc Donald and Palter
Speaker 3: and gradually people have kids and like and then later
Speaker 3: on other guys have kids, and my kids are kind
Speaker 3: of teenagers now and Scotty's are really young, and like,
Speaker 3: it's just the different phases of things, like i start
Speaker 3: bringing kids out on tour and I'm dragging diaper bags,
Speaker 3: you know, through the airport, and I'm like doing that
Speaker 3: sort of nightmare thing, which is great.
Speaker 2: It's a great period of your life, but it's also crazy.
Speaker 3: And then I get I'm finally over that, and you
Speaker 3: start going on your own and it was just kind
Speaker 3: of fun too, right, but then you've got the tragedy
Speaker 3: you're leaving your kids at home, you know, and then
Speaker 3: there all your friends are now carrying the diaper bags
Speaker 3: around and.
Speaker 2: You're back to doing it solo.
Speaker 3: It's just funny because the career, like you say, it
Speaker 3: goes for like thirty years or more.
Speaker 2: You live people's lives with them in a way, you know.
Speaker 3: Junior go off when they're single and you're young, and
Speaker 3: you kind of run around and you all kind of
Speaker 3: get married and then you all have kids and then
Speaker 3: the kids and wives are all stay at home and
Speaker 3: you're back to single again by the time you're late forties,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, not single, but traveling solo again.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just the journey you take on tour
Speaker 3: is not It's not the same all the time. Like
Speaker 3: as your life changes, the way the tour works changes.
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a cool part when you all
Speaker 1: get on tour and like everybody's starting to have success.
Speaker 1: That's got to be like a cool moment when everybody
Speaker 1: that you grew up playing with and around around you
Speaker 1: has you know, made it, And then that.
Speaker 2: Was the best. It was the best.
Speaker 3: I mean my first year in Europe, we had five
Speaker 3: people in the house. We had a caddie drummer he
Speaker 3: was caddying for me, and we had Steve Allen who
Speaker 3: was playing in Europe at the time, who's played a
Speaker 3: lot of PJ Tour and web dot Com, corn Ferry,
Speaker 3: Marcus Wheelhouse and Steve Alca who still plays up and
Speaker 3: down from the corn Ferry. So we had four golfers
Speaker 3: and if one of us came home on Sunday night
Speaker 3: and made ten thousand pounds, so if someone has made
Speaker 3: five figures.
Speaker 2: We went out all night. That was it.
Speaker 3: We were celebrating for a week. If one guy made
Speaker 3: ten thousands. Now it's like fifteen thousand for last place
Speaker 3: at like the John Deere or something, right, but if
Speaker 3: someone made ten thousand pounds, we were dining out for
Speaker 3: three days on how happy we were for our friends
Speaker 3: and to see guys fight for their card and have
Speaker 3: that great week late in the year, or some guy
Speaker 3: gets his first win, or that journey through as people
Speaker 3: come up through, it's just it's a brilliant period.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic. Yeah, and you.
Speaker 3: Hope cutle of guys struggle, but a couple of guys
Speaker 3: are going well, and like, it's just a great journey.
Speaker 3: Golf like that when it goes well. I mean it's
Speaker 3: a brutal one when it doesn't. But those days are fun.
Speaker 1: And in a way, you don't get teammates in golf,
Speaker 1: but you get your guys that you essentially spent your
Speaker 1: whole life with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I've spent my life with well, my
Speaker 3: working life with the same bunch of people.
Speaker 2: Generally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it comes and goes. You're definitely on the
Speaker 3: same team. In a way, you're never very rarely. Like
Speaker 3: I think if we played match play like the tennis,
Speaker 3: if it was to tennis head to head, I think
Speaker 3: the locker room would be a little bit frostier, you know.
Speaker 3: But because seventy two half stroke players a brutal thing
Speaker 3: to do any and also there's more than one winner
Speaker 3: in a stroke play tournament. As the guy hasn't made
Speaker 3: a cup for a while, he finally makes a cut,
Speaker 3: he's a winner, you know.
Speaker 2: And there's a few of them. Every week. There's a
Speaker 2: guy hasn't had a top ten for three years, he
Speaker 2: has a top ten. He's a winner. The guy like
Speaker 2: wins the.
Speaker 3: Tournament a winner everybod there's lots of little winners. Whereas
Speaker 3: match play there's a winner and a loser. So the
Speaker 3: fifty percent of every day, half the people are headless
Speaker 3: and they don't like the burther the guy that just
Speaker 3: beat them right.
Speaker 2: Stroke plays different.
Speaker 3: If you haven't had a good tournament, you've had a
Speaker 3: run of twentieth and you have a tenth, that's a
Speaker 3: good week.
Speaker 2: It's like a mini victory.
Speaker 3: So I think because it's like that, we're all quite
Speaker 3: happy to we want everyone else to do well anyway,
Speaker 3: because we realize a good year is only winning once
Speaker 3: or twice and three times or something. That's ninety five
Speaker 3: percent of the tournaments we play, other people are going
Speaker 3: to win, So you'd rather your friends win those than
Speaker 3: everyone else. Right, It's such a hard job. Who if
Speaker 3: someone asks you for help on tour, everybody helps everybody.
Speaker 3: No one says, nah, I'm not going to tell you
Speaker 3: that because it's just such a hard it's not going
Speaker 3: to make the guy beat you. It's just helping him
Speaker 3: because you've needed help before.
Speaker 2: You know. It's such a So no I saw that golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was looking at like John Rahm after he
Speaker 1: won BMW eleven wins and at the time one hundred
Speaker 1: and four pro starts, but that includes some as an amateur.
Speaker 1: His win rates like eleven percent, and it's astronomic. You
Speaker 1: think about it, it's like, oh, that's not that high,
Speaker 1: but Tiger Tiger's twenty two, and then there's nobody else
Speaker 1: higher than John rob at eleven percent.
Speaker 3: Eleven's outrageous. I mean one in ten. I mean, if
Speaker 3: you play thirty a year, that's three tournaments a year.
Speaker 3: That's pretty good, right, but comparative comparative to other sports,
Speaker 3: it's like the numbers are like, what, really ten percent?
Speaker 2: Come on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you think about baseball, they always make that joke about, oh,
Speaker 1: if you bat three hundred year hall of famer in golf,
Speaker 1: if you yeah, five percent win rate, you're you're well,
Speaker 1: all time greats.
Speaker 3: It's like a measure of like filing the least as
Speaker 3: opposed to winning that he's doing the most right. Baseball
Speaker 3: hitting is the same. Yeah, if you hit it three
Speaker 3: out of ten times, you're Hall of famer. That's kind
Speaker 3: of nunty, right. If you win two out of every
Speaker 3: ten tournaments, you're the one of the best golf. You're
Speaker 3: the best golf of all time. Like, it's just crazy.
Speaker 2: Crazy though, by the way, that's one out of five.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And that includes like the last ten that is unbelievable.
Speaker 3: That concludes a few years where he didn't win any Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just outrageous.
Speaker 1: I didn't have time. I was going to look at
Speaker 1: what it was from ninety nine to nine. It would
Speaker 1: probably be closer to thirty percent.
Speaker 3: I think it would have to be, wouldn't it. I
Speaker 3: Mean he had a couple of seven, eight nine win
Speaker 3: years didn't.
Speaker 1: He Yeah, And then it's like the top ten rate
Speaker 1: is insane. It's like, I think he's fifty over fifty
Speaker 1: percent of the time he's finished in top ten.
Speaker 2: Which is not even right, is it?
Speaker 3: Such people have no idea when they look at his numbers,
Speaker 3: if they only watch Tiger's numbers, they just think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: top ten easy.
Speaker 2: It's not that easy.
Speaker 1: That was the thing that I came out of it
Speaker 1: as I looked at like Ernie and Phil their win
Speaker 1: rates were seven percent, and it was and then you
Speaker 1: look at like Rory DJ They're at seven eight percent.
Speaker 1: And obviously, you know, Phil and Ernie have dropped some
Speaker 1: because of you know, the last six years of their career.
Speaker 1: But yeah, my conclusion was we should be comparing all
Speaker 1: the next big thing to Phil and Ernie, not to Tiger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Targer is the outlier. You can't use him.
Speaker 3: He's not the you can't use him. It's the numbers
Speaker 3: are so distorted from the rest that Targus Targa. You know,
Speaker 3: Jack's numbers are pretty nutty too. He won out a
Speaker 3: twenty percent of his tournaments.
Speaker 2: He's how low.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Hogan was thirty percent.
Speaker 3: Considering he was over two hundred at the start. It's
Speaker 3: pretty nuts in it.
Speaker 1: Andy he had a like a life threatening car crash
Speaker 1: in Yeah, it's nice. The all type greats you know,
Speaker 1: are really great. I'm interested to hear your thoughts two
Speaker 1: years in. What do you think of the FedEx Cup
Speaker 1: playoff format?
Speaker 2: I think it.
Speaker 3: I was on the pack when we were talking about this,
Speaker 3: and it was I guess the issue that everyone had
Speaker 3: with it was was just a bit confusing, Like the
Speaker 3: whole time, it's always been confusing, right, Yes, it's never
Speaker 3: been obviously simple to just you have to kind of
Speaker 3: read the fine print to work out what's going on.
Speaker 3: And you still kind of do in a way because
Speaker 3: it's so different. But the idea is you actually don't.
Speaker 3: It's actually relatively simple. Whatever the board says, that's that's
Speaker 3: that's the FedEx cupboard. It's actually created a FedEx Cup
Speaker 3: leaderboard effectively for the last four days.
Speaker 2: I don't mind it.
Speaker 3: The right guy won clearly, right, I mean, it may
Speaker 3: not have been the best player for the twelve months season,
Speaker 3: but he was certainly the best player at the right time.
Speaker 1: You know, he was, without a doubt the best player
Speaker 1: in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Oh by a mile.
Speaker 3: I mean Olympia Fields was just that finish was just
Speaker 3: beyond outrageous. And the play golf he played there and
Speaker 3: the golf he played at Boston was just not that's
Speaker 3: not human, you know.
Speaker 2: And then to go and win, I know.
Speaker 3: He technically didn't win East Late, but he won East Late.
Speaker 3: Five in front finishes it off for Clark. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: he when he's there like kissing, his quotes perfect when
Speaker 3: he starts when he's feeling it, Like what do you
Speaker 3: say when feeling it? I just try to make a
Speaker 3: bit of money to fill up my bank account, Like
Speaker 3: I ain't catching that guy.
Speaker 2: That's actually true. You're not catching Dustin when he's feeling it.
Speaker 2: It's a bit like Rory.
Speaker 3: Him and Rory feeling it would be interesting, you know,
Speaker 3: because they both go so crazy low and like dominate fields.
Speaker 3: You know, Brooks dominates tough golf courses and he dominates
Speaker 3: that down the stretch thing, you know. But Dustin and Rory,
Speaker 3: they just they don't have a governor when they get going,
Speaker 3: they just it's fun to watch.
Speaker 1: To win by eleven with like the world, I mean,
Speaker 1: what are the best fields of the year. It's just
Speaker 1: I don't care where it is. It's insane. You won
Speaker 1: by six? Were you just in the zone that week.
Speaker 3: Cappellau I won by six? Yeah, I played so well
Speaker 3: that week. And it's funny. I started six in front
Speaker 3: and those leads are really hard. On Sunday, It's the
Speaker 3: only time I ever had any sort of significant lead,
Speaker 3: and it was really weird, and I played kind of
Speaker 3: weird tents and stuff the first eight holes and I
Speaker 3: was back twenty one in front, going up nine, and
Speaker 3: then I made a great eagle on nine at Cappelua,
Speaker 3: and then I was away right and I ended up
Speaker 3: winning by six, but winning by eleven, and I was
Speaker 3: just that was the best I ever played, probably on
Speaker 3: a course it really suited me. And there's only thirty
Speaker 3: guys there, So winning by six a Capellau is not winning.
Speaker 3: Winning by six somewhere in a full normal field is
Speaker 3: more impressive, right, because you've beat more guys, so eleven
Speaker 3: guys at Boston on a course that would be hard
Speaker 3: to separate because everybody finds it relatively easy to make
Speaker 3: a few birdies, you know, it finds a good player
Speaker 3: that's actually wing foot relative to like a Boston. I
Speaker 3: think they're both that it's a good comparison. You still
Speaker 3: find great players who won at Boston all the way
Speaker 3: through if you look at who have won there, and
Speaker 3: it's always been low, but it's always great players. So
Speaker 3: it finds players who have every shot right and the
Speaker 3: best player in the currently at the moment just one
Speaker 3: by eleven, so their play. It's finding the best player.
Speaker 3: But also Olympia Fields found the best player too, you
Speaker 3: know the next week And that was.
Speaker 1: The thing with Boston too, was Harris English was kind
Speaker 1: of out on his zone and second too. It was
Speaker 1: clearly the second best player that week.
Speaker 3: It was a bit like the well, the last time
Speaker 3: we saw something like that was truon right with Stenson
Speaker 3: and Michelson. They just, i mean third played the best
Speaker 3: tournament ever, true, I mean the best. They played the
Speaker 3: third best Open championship ever and they finished third by
Speaker 3: fifteen shots or something.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Boston's great. That's a good course.
Speaker 3: I'm glad it's it's certainly a longheaded course, like a
Speaker 3: massive advantage to fly the trouble. But yeah, Dustin, wow,
Speaker 3: what a level they're playing at the moment. But like
Speaker 3: in two weeks time, that could be the JT, you know,
Speaker 3: and two weeks later it could be Brooks could be
Speaker 3: coming back. Well, Brooks a bit hurt, but when he
Speaker 3: gets fit, he could be that guy that's Rory could
Speaker 3: easily just go bang.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like we've never had we haven't had a lot
Speaker 3: of this for a long time. There's ten potential number
Speaker 3: oners in the world, you know, and then there hasn't
Speaker 3: been before maybe more.
Speaker 1: I've always thought that winning tournaments is one thing, but
Speaker 1: blowing out people is a whole different level of goth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3: It's it's just and I said, I only ever did
Speaker 3: it once and six again, it's a sure short field
Speaker 3: isn't that thing.
Speaker 2: But I was playing so well at that time.
Speaker 3: And so for these guys who Tiger and Dustin that
Speaker 3: who can routinely like just annihilate fields, the level they're
Speaker 3: playing at is so far in front of everyone else
Speaker 3: in the field.
Speaker 2: It's just crazy.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's amazing that people can get as good as Dustin is,
Speaker 3: don't you think, Yeah, Like it's wow. It's just what
Speaker 3: thirty under a week, I mean, six under a day
Speaker 3: is not thirty under a week. You're six shots short.
Speaker 3: If you shoot six under a day, you're six shots
Speaker 3: behind Dustin. That's that's not case level, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's this is my issue with the with the
Speaker 1: FedEx Cup Final. I make it to East Lake, I
Speaker 1: could go out and shoot sixty five every day, and
Speaker 1: that when on an extraordinarily tough golf course. I think,
Speaker 1: if you're there, everybody should have an equal shot.
Speaker 3: Well, this is a big argument, right, No, so I've
Speaker 3: been I was in the pack the whole time this happened.
Speaker 3: The argument is you've got to find the balance between
Speaker 3: rewarding the season, rewarding the twenty five starts everyone's made,
Speaker 3: and having a playoff. A true playoff would be exactly
Speaker 3: as you say, you get to East like, the winner
Speaker 3: of East Like wins at all.
Speaker 2: You know, that's the true playoff.
Speaker 3: They don't want to do that because the players are
Speaker 3: never going to vote for that, because the players want
Speaker 3: to get rewarded for their body of work. So this
Speaker 3: is a compromise between the body of work. Mathematically possible
Speaker 3: that everyone in the field can win, but they make
Speaker 3: it difficult for the thirtieth guy to win, and they
Speaker 3: make it easier for the first guy to win.
Speaker 2: Really, they want they want it to be a playoff.
Speaker 3: I think deep down, if Ponovidra had the chance that
Speaker 3: they would go a little more aggressive on that. But
Speaker 3: the players have to vote for it because it's the
Speaker 3: players organization. Players are never going to vote for that,
Speaker 3: you know, because they don't want the guy to be
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty fifth getting into the first one
Speaker 3: find his way somehow having a miraculous week finished.
Speaker 2: Thirtieth and win and win it all. You know. That's
Speaker 2: the players hate the idea of that. That's done.
Speaker 1: That's what makes the idea. Yeah, that's what makes the
Speaker 1: NCAA Tournament the greatest three weeks in in sports.
Speaker 2: You know. And and I think that would be brilliant.
Speaker 2: I think I always.
Speaker 3: Thought it would be nice to top thirty, to get
Speaker 3: rid of some to get rid of a part of
Speaker 3: the field every day. You know, maybe you play the
Speaker 3: first thirty six withth of thirty and you get rid
Speaker 3: of fifteen, and you've got fifteen going out on Saturday
Speaker 3: starting at scratch and you get rid of five and
Speaker 3: then you all go back to square on Sunday and
Speaker 3: you've got ten guys fifteen million dollars add in holes
Speaker 3: go like that would be.
Speaker 2: TV, you know, or eight guys or four guys or something.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine.
Speaker 3: But again that's probably a little aggressive for people, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, I don't mind. This is the
Speaker 3: best version of it so far.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I don't I like the five guys having a chance.
Speaker 1: You know, there's two schools of thought. And now they
Speaker 1: have that Windham rewards, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is why they put that in because of
Speaker 3: to reward the season, to kind of soften that for
Speaker 3: the players. We're going to look after the guy plays
Speaker 3: the best for the year, you know.
Speaker 1: So now that you have that, I think that you
Speaker 1: got it. I think East Lake's got to be anybody
Speaker 1: there can win because you've made it. You've made it
Speaker 1: all the way there. Nobody there has had a bad year.
Speaker 3: No, and I mean nobody gives the best golfer in
Speaker 3: the world a head start at the Masters every year exactly.
Speaker 2: Rons to start at the same score you was open.
Speaker 3: It's like, and yeah, I agree in theory that it
Speaker 3: would be really great to have it all come down
Speaker 3: to a few guys on the Sunday go boys. What
Speaker 3: TV that would be, what entertainment that would be, and
Speaker 3: what pressure you'd see guy. I mean you'd actually see
Speaker 3: fifteen million moves a needle for a lot of people,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like down the stretch all the stuff. I
Speaker 1: mean that we've got it a little bit yesterday, but
Speaker 1: they didn't acknowledge it. But like JT and Xander were
Speaker 1: clearly they were work because I mean they're playing for
Speaker 1: two and a half million dollars. Yeah, and I mean
Speaker 1: it's more than a win on tour.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's nuts. It's a strange thing. How much money.
Speaker 2: It's amazing. It's a good thing.
Speaker 3: Look, I always liked east Lake every version I played
Speaker 3: of the Tour Championship.
Speaker 2: I liked this one.
Speaker 3: I haven't played in this format, so I'm not sure,
Speaker 3: but I just like when the guy who was playing
Speaker 3: best at the time wins it.
Speaker 1: And this time that happened, so I think, look last
Speaker 1: year it happened too, Which is like the big thing
Speaker 1: for this is like Rory was clearly playing the best
Speaker 1: of anybody last year and DJ was clearly playing the
Speaker 1: best of anybody this year and they both won. So
Speaker 1: I mean that's the big saying.
Speaker 3: You know, if you look at the winners since it
Speaker 3: was AD seven, it started we started it. If you
Speaker 3: look at the guys who have won it, it's pretty much
Speaker 3: with the exception of Bill Has, who at the time
Speaker 3: was clearly I mean, I mean, he's a lovely bloke,
Speaker 3: but he was like twenty third or something going into
Speaker 3: that week. With the exception of Bill Has who's a
Speaker 3: great player and worthy of winning anyway, it's been VJ, Furick, Tiger, Macelroy,
Speaker 3: Dustin like it's been the who's who of the tours.
Speaker 3: So it has identified like the superstars. So the format
Speaker 3: does find the superstar. But it would be nice if
Speaker 3: there'd be more Bill Has stories.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, because I think that's what makes it.
Speaker 3: Doesn't He won't even notice the fifteen game in his
Speaker 3: bank account, you know what I mean, Well, he will fifteen,
Speaker 3: you do, But you know what I mean, whereas the
Speaker 3: twenty seventh guy in the field or something, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's a life changer. You know, He's not saying fifteen
Speaker 3: million in career earnings, whereas Dustin's probably got fifteen career earnings,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's up to like eighty six million
Speaker 1: now with.
Speaker 2: This combining all the fedect the bonuses and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I mean just on course. I saw Scottie Scheffler.
Speaker 1: He made two and a half on the course this year.
Speaker 1: Then he got two and a half bonus or something like.
Speaker 1: He may end up making five million dollars and his
Speaker 1: best finish in a tournament was third. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, it's good to be it's good. It's a good
Speaker 3: time to play good. Yeah, you know, it's a good
Speaker 3: time to play. Well, there's I mean, it seems to
Speaker 3: this point it's been recession proof, and I think, to
Speaker 3: be honest, COVID has actually helped golf, you know, because
Speaker 3: it's you're never going to have trouble getting people back
Speaker 3: to golf tournaments because you can keep people separated, right,
Speaker 3: whereas football stadiums, basketball stadiums, that's like just patrio dish
Speaker 3: for like viars spreading, right. So I mean it's golf
Speaker 3: is and it's a healthy exercise thing that you can
Speaker 3: doubtdoors and keep yourself saying. I think golf is just
Speaker 3: going to get bigger, I really do, even more popular.
Speaker 3: And the thing what golf needed, COVID has been what
Speaker 3: golf needed.
Speaker 1: What it's the dirty secret of the whole thing is
Speaker 1: that the pandemic is like the best grow the game
Speaker 1: initiative that the golf has ever had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the power brokers in golf got together. Yeah, this
Speaker 3: is good for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to change gears. We got us Open
Speaker 1: coming up. Yeah at a venue you wont good tournament weeks.
Speaker 1: I always remember weird little things. Is there a small moment,
Speaker 1: like a small little thing that you remember vividly from
Speaker 1: six that's not not making a putt like you know,
Speaker 1: the back nine, but any kind of small thing that,
Speaker 1: whatever you think about it, you remember.
Speaker 3: My most vivid memory is kind of silly. It's not silly,
Speaker 3: it's obvious when you think about it. But we stayed there.
Speaker 3: We were there for two weeks. We played West chest
Speaker 3: of the week before, same hotel, the whole thing, and
Speaker 3: the World Cup was on. It was the World Cup
Speaker 3: soccer was on and Australia had got in the World
Speaker 3: Cup for the first time for my lifetime anyway, and
Speaker 3: we we were in the group with Brazil. And on
Speaker 3: Sunday morning, I was in the fitness trailer like next
Speaker 3: to the range, and I late started my warm up
Speaker 3: because Australia was playing Brazil because it was such a
Speaker 3: big deal, you know, And we end up we played
Speaker 3: really well.
Speaker 2: We ended up losing the match.
Speaker 3: But I remember my vivid memory is watching Australia play
Speaker 3: Brazil on Sunday late. It was Saturday or Sunday. I
Speaker 3: think it was Sunday, and I late started my warm
Speaker 3: up because I had to watch the end of the
Speaker 3: football game.
Speaker 4: It's kind of silly, so Sunday that was Sunday. For Saturday,
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure it was Sunday. It was definitely late
Speaker 4: in the tournament. I have to go back and look
Speaker 4: at the schedule of that tournament. But yeah, because the
Speaker 4: fitness trailer was a refuge for us on tour because
Speaker 4: there's a TV in there, and like the fitness trailer
Speaker 4: back then.
Speaker 3: It's a bit more popular now, more guys going it now,
Speaker 3: but it's been a growing thing. It's one of those things.
Speaker 3: In January, everybody's in the fitness trailer right, but by
Speaker 3: the time you get to like April or May, like
Speaker 3: the news resolutions are gone and only the guys who
Speaker 3: were always in there in there. And I used to
Speaker 3: just didn't do much, but I stretched a lot of stuff.
Speaker 3: So I went in there every morning, and you would
Speaker 3: the guys who were always in there were always in
Speaker 3: there and we would just watch TV and stuff in there.
Speaker 3: It was a great little hangout. And that week in
Speaker 3: the wing foot it was right next to the punt
Speaker 3: and green, so it's a little refuge away from all
Speaker 3: the craziness. You know, it's just players and trainers are
Speaker 3: sitting in there watching TV and stretching and warming up
Speaker 3: and we're watching the football in there.
Speaker 2: It was brilliant.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Ian Poulter walked head to toe pink on Sunday.
Speaker 3: That's one of my big memories too.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: I play with my playing partner second last group, and
Speaker 3: he was in that Doug Sanders kind of phase of
Speaker 3: his life where everything he wore had to be the
Speaker 3: same color. And it's Father's Day in New York and
Speaker 3: it's pink hat, pink shirt, pink shoes, pink bag, pink
Speaker 3: headcovers everything. And I was invisible in my group, right.
Speaker 3: They didn't even see me because it was like he
Speaker 3: just let off this lightning rod of lets just attack
Speaker 3: me and yell at me because I'm drinking. I'm wearing
Speaker 3: all pink today, baby pink.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: So he actually really looked after me because I had
Speaker 3: an unscathed like five hours through a New York crowd,
Speaker 3: you know, because they didn't even notice me because I
Speaker 3: wasn't wearing pink.
Speaker 2: It was brilliant.
Speaker 1: That's those are the days of AGP design.
Speaker 2: I JP design.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And he had all those He had all the
Speaker 3: foot joy classics of the icons. I think that I
Speaker 3: guess the icons of foot Joys. And he had like
Speaker 3: every custom color that there was at that time.
Speaker 2: He had.
Speaker 3: They had a lot of guys on to a travel
Speaker 3: with these club glove things, and he traveled with like
Speaker 3: five of them, and one of them was just full
Speaker 3: of shoes, like just full of foot He had like
Speaker 3: seven pairs of foot jowers he wore for the week
Speaker 3: because they all had to match his stuff or a production.
Speaker 1: How many shoes did you travel with?
Speaker 2: Two? Usually I would have two.
Speaker 3: Like a wider, a black, or two different and I
Speaker 3: would kind of rotate them day to day. But I
Speaker 3: became very I'd just wear a pair of shoes out
Speaker 3: and I'd get a new pair. I was kind of
Speaker 3: more that way, like they're very important shoes, you know
Speaker 3: for a health perspective. You know that they're feeling good
Speaker 3: and you're not getting blisters, and you kind of know
Speaker 3: where you stand. If you like some guys wear new
Speaker 3: shoes all the time, I couldn't do that.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 3: He just gave a whole bunch away I think on
Speaker 3: the Instagram this year. Actually he signed a whole bunch
Speaker 3: and he raised a lot of money for charity, which
Speaker 3: is really cool. But he had he was like Dug Sanders,
Speaker 3: He had hundreds of pairs of shoes.
Speaker 1: I did a spartlight thing on that open during the
Speaker 1: quarantine and went back and watched it. And I have
Speaker 1: to say that the fashion across the board. Your your
Speaker 1: outfit was the one that Mate holed up today out
Speaker 1: of everybody. But you know you had, you had the
Speaker 1: baggy shirts. You had if your equis in the button down,
Speaker 1: short sleeve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's funny when you go back right
Speaker 3: the parish, the amount of material and some of those
Speaker 3: shirts in that period.
Speaker 2: And it got better by that point.
Speaker 3: As you said, mine was like I mean, Perma was
Speaker 3: pretty cutting edge at that point.
Speaker 2: And I was actually wearing probably the most conservative thing
Speaker 2: out of my closet that day, which I was glad.
Speaker 3: Someone gave me advice when I was really young, I said,
Speaker 3: where wear something that you like? Wear your favorite stuff
Speaker 3: on Sunday, because if you win, you don't want to
Speaker 3: wear that ridiculus. You don't have that ridiculous shirt on
Speaker 3: the wall of the locker room for the next fifty years. Right.
Speaker 3: I can't remember if I made that choice, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I was happy with I was happy that I won
Speaker 3: the US Open, and I'm still happy with what I
Speaker 3: wore that day. Definitely don't regret it. There's some you
Speaker 3: go back, some of those ones in the seventies were amazing.
Speaker 3: What they used to wear, just amazing. There's big Ponty color.
Speaker 3: Wasn't the big white beilt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like the eighties was actually the best
Speaker 1: time for golf because the guys, yeah, they hadn't wore
Speaker 1: they weren't They weren't all wearing hats at that point.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I like the no hat look if people could pull
Speaker 1: it off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the no hat thing, or the big fluffy like
Speaker 3: almost the perm outside the visor and stuff like the
Speaker 3: legendary stuff. Yeah, flaps on the shoes, remember the flaps
Speaker 3: of the shoes over the laces.
Speaker 1: Saddle were they called saddles or no.
Speaker 3: I was something to stop water getting in the laces
Speaker 3: or something, and it was like you had these little that's.
Speaker 1: What it was for. I think, so, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: even know that. Let's bring those back. I might, I
Speaker 1: might have to get a pair of shoes. So question
Speaker 1: So six plus six obviously extraordinarily hard. There's obviously the massacre.
Speaker 1: It's never played easy. Can the wing foot be overpowered?
Speaker 2: No, not how they'll set it up.
Speaker 3: I mean, I read an article this morning in I
Speaker 3: think Shackelford posted it.
Speaker 2: It was in Rochester West Westchester Journal News.
Speaker 3: And apparently the rough is nuts and they've spent all
Speaker 3: summer like fertilizing the raft and walling the raf and stuff.
Speaker 3: So I don't believe you can hit enough fair ways.
Speaker 3: You're not going to be able to make birdies just
Speaker 3: bomb and gouging it. I don't think, because the greens
Speaker 3: are such that if you're coming out of the rough,
Speaker 3: you might be a hit on the green with the
Speaker 3: weird j other ruff, but you won't be able to
Speaker 3: get anywhere near the hole and you're risk missing in
Speaker 3: bad spots.
Speaker 2: So I don't think you can overpower it.
Speaker 3: I think power will be is a massive advantage in
Speaker 3: thick rough, like it's an enormous advantage in thick rough
Speaker 3: just because you can get it out of it and
Speaker 3: you can get it closer to the green. But the
Speaker 3: guy who wins will be Everyone will look back and
Speaker 3: it'll be like, Wow, that guy got up and down
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 2: That's the guy who'll win.
Speaker 3: It'll probably be a long hitter, because the best golfers
Speaker 3: are all long hitterers anyway, and everyone will talk about, oh, well,
Speaker 3: it's different now because it's a long but that it'll
Speaker 3: be the guy who gets it up and down the
Speaker 3: best and managers who can make pars after missing fairways.
Speaker 3: That's kind of what I did best that week. When
Speaker 3: I look back, was inside one hundred. I was really
Speaker 3: really good. So if I missed a fairway, it wasn't
Speaker 3: the big stress. I'd laid it up just somewhere sort
Speaker 3: of short of the green, and I just got them
Speaker 3: up and down all day. And you can play wing
Speaker 3: foot from short, you can't play wing foot from like
Speaker 3: past pin High because you're always coming down the hill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even Pennhigh in the wrong spot in Pinney's too far. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like you have to but then you then you
Speaker 1: have to deal with those false fronts too, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's that aspect to and there's quite a
Speaker 3: few greens that have kind of a bit up in
Speaker 3: the air and you've got to fly it.
Speaker 2: All the way up there too, So it's a good look.
Speaker 3: There's enough elevation change to make difference that there's eighteen
Speaker 3: crazy greens as you've done that the beautiful and scary.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's you can't overpower it.
Speaker 3: Power is a massive advantage, but it's not it's not
Speaker 3: the winning formula there.
Speaker 2: You're going to have to get it up and down
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 3: Like someone like Ram, I mean Ram sixty play around
Speaker 3: the greens out of the otherworldly sometimes if he brings
Speaker 3: that sort of short game, it's that sort of player,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the balance of his game is just he's not
Speaker 1: he's great at everything. There's nothing that you look at
Speaker 1: and say, oh, you know, he really needs to work
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 3: No, the only weakness you would say is the one
Speaker 3: that most of us have is he gets a little
Speaker 3: bit spicy from time to time.
Speaker 2: But we all do.
Speaker 3: That, right, and that's just part of it. And he
Speaker 3: seems to be way better on that front than he
Speaker 3: was before. Like he seems to actually be progressing and
Speaker 3: learning and he's still because he's looked like such a
Speaker 3: big grown up man since he was young.
Speaker 2: He's still only what twenty four?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, he's got the world of
Speaker 3: his feet, that kid, and the emotion is good in
Speaker 3: situations like those, you can I mean that being a
Speaker 3: fiery guy.
Speaker 2: That's the guy who holds.
Speaker 3: That part on top of dust and that you know
Speaker 3: in that playoff, the fiery guy, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I just it's it's good. He wants to.
Speaker 3: Yes, it would be. Wasn't that the most unbelievable finish?
Speaker 3: That was an unbelievble finish? Yeah, someone like that would
Speaker 3: be my pick. I mean Tiger in his prime, you know,
Speaker 3: textbook Tiger player. Great short of Phil too. It's a
Speaker 3: great field place because it's it's it helps to be
Speaker 3: really good with a long game like that's obviously a
Speaker 3: big advantage, but you've got to be out, You've got
Speaker 3: to do the second two shots in every hole are
Speaker 3: really important. You know. That's sorry, they're not the second, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're third and the fourth shot in every hole.
Speaker 1: I just stopped back to the beginning of this conversation.
Speaker 1: How good would Ron be as a tennis player? With
Speaker 1: how fire he is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, Spanish tennis players.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean be interesting because tennis seems to tilt
Speaker 3: people with that I mean people with that headspace. Tennis
Speaker 3: seems to really drive people over the edge. And it's
Speaker 3: a little bit more racket smashing. And what a shame
Speaker 3: about the joker thing the other day that he was open,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it seems yeah, I couldn't play tennis.
Speaker 2: I would have breaken too many rackets. I wouldn't been
Speaker 2: out of handlet you know, been.
Speaker 1: Crazy golf, you'd see so many more broken clubs. If
Speaker 1: golf was was just match play all the.
Speaker 3: Time, absolutely, and the relationships between the players would be awful,
Speaker 3: you know, because guys would get guys. You'd have a
Speaker 3: guy's number, and you would beat a guy three times
Speaker 3: in a row, and it would just annoy the guy, you know,
Speaker 3: and that would be that would be going around everywhere,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: It would be.
Speaker 1: I played a match against this kid once and I
Speaker 1: had a big lead on the back nine and he
Speaker 1: starts cutting into it and I didn't give him an
Speaker 1: eighteen inch putt and he missed it. He went nuts, nuts,
Speaker 1: went nuclear on me. He was so mad and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you missed it. And then the next one he did
Speaker 1: give me like an inch putt, and then at that
Speaker 1: the match he wouldn't shake my hand.
Speaker 2: I love that's the best. I love that.
Speaker 3: That's the best part about matchplay. I miss that would
Speaker 3: be the good side, the bad side of the match
Speaker 3: players were to the relationships on two wouldn't be as good,
Speaker 3: but the bad the good side would be you'd have
Speaker 3: fun stuff on that go on so.
Speaker 1: Weak foot, What would you say the five to ten shots?
Speaker 1: Obviously it's a us O, but you've got to pay
Speaker 1: attention to every shot. But what what are the five
Speaker 1: to ten or a handful? No number specific that just
Speaker 1: really grab your attention that you know you're thinking about
Speaker 1: maybe ahead in the round.
Speaker 3: Well, firstly, whether you t off on one or ten,
Speaker 3: they are both brutal holes. To start on ten is
Speaker 3: a brutal hole to start on there'll be a two
Speaker 3: t start. I imagine ten is. It's probably only what
Speaker 3: a seven of them these days?
Speaker 2: Oh? Really? Really?
Speaker 1: They built it back towards it's right next to the
Speaker 1: pro shop.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's say it's a six sign. Maybe it's
Speaker 3: a small green elevated. If you miss it, you're not
Speaker 3: getting up and down. It's a stunning hole. But what
Speaker 3: if you miss it, you make you miss the green.
Speaker 3: You probably making Vogue your first hole. That's kind of sucks.
Speaker 3: And the first green is the same. I mean you
Speaker 3: could hit it just twenty feet in four part you
Speaker 3: know this story, was it seventy four that Jack patted
Speaker 3: off the first green?
Speaker 2: I think had a four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's the I think one intend to start.
Speaker 3: If you start on one of those, that's really tough.
Speaker 3: I think the third, if I go around the court,
Speaker 3: the third is a brutal hole. Billy Casper famously laid
Speaker 3: up four days in a row, played it as a
Speaker 3: part four and got up and made played as a
Speaker 3: two shot hole and made four for four times.
Speaker 2: That's a key hole.
Speaker 3: I think five and six are key holes, although fives
Speaker 3: are part four this time, so five was a part
Speaker 3: five for us.
Speaker 2: So that was five and six were birdie holes.
Speaker 3: That was the only little two hole BIRDI stretcher on
Speaker 3: the course when we played five and six.
Speaker 2: Now it's five, it's going to be interesting night. Never
Speaker 2: part four.
Speaker 3: I mean, wow, that's gonna be really really hard, insane,
Speaker 3: like completely insane.
Speaker 2: It was a great Part five.
Speaker 3: It was the only hole that was reached at part
Speaker 3: five that was reachable because twelve wasn't reachable. Wow, it
Speaker 3: was border unreachable. And it was the one little respite
Speaker 3: if you get the fair way. Okay, at least I'm
Speaker 3: going to be able to get this next to the
Speaker 3: green and have it up and down for Bernie. And
Speaker 3: the next one is the same because you could you
Speaker 3: had like a little sand on in six, and then
Speaker 3: after that seven. I mean it's only like a nine nine,
Speaker 3: but seven is a brutal little pat three and then
Speaker 3: eight nine or two of the hardest part fours in
Speaker 3: the world back to back.
Speaker 1: And so you singled out those birdie holes, is it?
Speaker 1: Because hitting a good T shot there just makes a
Speaker 1: world of difference and gives you like some sort of
Speaker 1: life as opposed to like say the fourth hole, where
Speaker 1: you got to hit a good two good shot. You know,
Speaker 1: most holes you got to hit two good shots. But
Speaker 1: there you have a chance if you hit a really
Speaker 1: good T shot at getting one back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they're so rare birdies and us opens at
Speaker 3: places like wing Foot, I mean there's single digits for
Speaker 3: the week kind of birdies, you know, so you want
Speaker 3: to be under before you're over and around you don't
Speaker 3: want to if you get three over after five, it's
Speaker 3: like you just can't see three birdies to get it
Speaker 3: back to even part.
Speaker 2: It's just so hard.
Speaker 3: So when you had birdie opportunities are almost more pressure
Speaker 3: in the US Open because you have to make them,
Speaker 3: you know. So that was a stretch and you very
Speaker 3: rarely get two in a row because the rest of
Speaker 3: the course around that was really difficult. So seven, you're
Speaker 3: always more pressure on the hole. You can make birdie seven,
Speaker 3: you can because it's a short iron. But seven is
Speaker 3: one of those typical wing foot holes in that no,
Speaker 3: a typical US Open style hole that if you hit
Speaker 3: a good shot, you can make a birdie. If you
Speaker 3: had a bad shot, goodness gracious, you know that grains
Speaker 3: quite a long way up in the air. And again,
Speaker 3: short irons, you feel like you're a chance, so you
Speaker 3: get maybe a little bit more aggressive, but then you
Speaker 3: miss it just a little bit and you actually make
Speaker 3: five all of a sudden on an easy hole.
Speaker 2: Now you've done.
Speaker 3: You've just made double on a hole where everyone else
Speaker 3: has made pa It's just it's the relentlessness of a
Speaker 3: US opener at a place like Wingfoot, it's just seventy
Speaker 3: two holes of really difficult holes, and you're going to
Speaker 3: make more bogies than birdies. So every bogie is heavier
Speaker 3: than a normal bogie because it's so much harder to
Speaker 3: get it back.
Speaker 2: You know, you can have to hit.
Speaker 3: Fairways, I mean the long The long part for is
Speaker 3: you have tip fairways because you're not going to get
Speaker 3: it there in two or you're not gonna have any
Speaker 3: semblance of control coming out of that raff.
Speaker 2: And the short holes, the shorter holes like the six eleven.
Speaker 3: Not many of them really, I mean six eleven, I'm
Speaker 3: struggling for any more short holes that you really loved it.
Speaker 2: The fairway too, so you can get that wedge.
Speaker 3: You know, you want that wedge because you just don't
Speaker 3: have that many chances to have that wedge. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: what a brilliant place. Yeah, I mean, it's the more
Speaker 3: you think about the course. I've obviously talked about it
Speaker 3: a lot recently because of this coming up, and people
Speaker 3: were interested in It's it's hard to see anything other
Speaker 3: than a guy who plays really well all week winning,
Speaker 3: you know, And I know that sounds dumb, It probably
Speaker 3: happens everywhere but you're not gonna be able to have
Speaker 3: a have a weakness in.
Speaker 2: Your game that week.
Speaker 3: You're not going to be able to work around a
Speaker 3: dodgy driver or a like get around your your eyrons
Speaker 3: aren't that great. You're gonna have to do everything well
Speaker 3: or you're just gonna get completely beaten up. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like the reverse of the Masters finish. I remember
Speaker 1: last two thousand and six, the last six holes were
Speaker 1: six of the eight hardest holes on the golf course.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of that reverse where you know, the
Speaker 1: Augusta you always have the guy posting early and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's in the clubhouse at ten, you know, and then yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, in twenty minutes you realize how just
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that the guy's at ten, But at wingfoot
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, he's in at eight plus eight, maybe
Speaker 1: he actually has a chance.
Speaker 3: And the laders are the laders are at four over
Speaker 3: with six to play, He's still got a chance.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It was like, well, six I think out of the
Speaker 3: last it was the last five or six groups, so
Speaker 3: ten or twelve guys. I was the only guy to
Speaker 3: part of the last four holes out of the twelve
Speaker 3: best players of the tournament, which is crazy. And I
Speaker 3: had to get up and I had to chip in
Speaker 3: and get up and down twice for I got up
Speaker 3: and down on sixteen from fifty yards. I chipped in
Speaker 3: on seventeenth par and I got up and down from
Speaker 3: the front of eighteen.
Speaker 2: So what a finish.
Speaker 3: And if you go before that, thirteen is a strong part.
Speaker 3: Three yeah, probably five.
Speaker 2: Iron at the moment, six iron maybe four iron could
Speaker 2: be probably.
Speaker 3: Over two hundred. It's over two hundred and fourteen's are
Speaker 3: strong strong part.
Speaker 1: Four.
Speaker 3: Fifteen is a strong part. Four sixteen's I think the
Speaker 3: longest part four in the course. It was in O
Speaker 3: six it was five hundred and six. Seventeen's a really
Speaker 3: awkward little hole with a narali little green, and eighteen
Speaker 3: is eighteen. I mean, mister fairway and you're not making
Speaker 3: par so ah, yeah, what a finish. Eleven and twelve
Speaker 3: they're a chance tens of tricky howle but have hit
Speaker 3: the ten eleven, twelve. He hit a good shot on ten, ten, eleven, twelve,
Speaker 3: Twelve's apart five. It's a long one, but these guys
Speaker 3: are along right. But after that thirteen through eighteen, what
Speaker 3: you said was at six to the last the hardest
Speaker 3: eight holes in the Classic?
Speaker 1: Yeah, last six last six holes were six of the
Speaker 1: eight hardest for scoring.
Speaker 2: RAS not not surprised. Was that just sunday it was
Speaker 2: a whole week?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, that's amazing when you think about how
Speaker 3: hard some of the other holes are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like that though. It's that sort of course.
Speaker 3: So again, starting on ten on Thursday morning, that's a
Speaker 3: tough draw, you know, if you're one over after three
Speaker 3: and then you've got those holes coming.
Speaker 1: So well, it's interesting how each nine has gives you
Speaker 1: almost pockets of scoring where you've got now without five,
Speaker 1: it's it's six, seven really and then nine. But then
Speaker 1: on the back it's it's eleven twelve, and that's it.
Speaker 3: It's eleven twelve and then you're done. Yeah, that's your
Speaker 3: scoring done. I mean massive drives away Dustin or Brooks
Speaker 3: or Rory or these guys can hit drivers, they can
Speaker 3: hit wedges into some of these holes that I can't
Speaker 3: see wedges into, right, But there's not many, you know,
Speaker 3: there's you're gonna have. There's not gonna be You can't
Speaker 3: just waale away with driver of the Bryson approach and
Speaker 3: see if it works out. It's just it's too long
Speaker 3: a week to have that many shots out of rough,
Speaker 3: you know. You just you just can't go all seven
Speaker 3: eight nine times around being the rough. And I think
Speaker 3: if you're trying to hit it three thirty three forty
Speaker 3: on every hole, you're gonna hit it through some corners
Speaker 3: and it's going to be fair, firm fairways. It's gonna
Speaker 3: be tough to that many fairways and that us open ruff.
Speaker 3: I guess from the evidence that I've seen actually this
Speaker 3: morning on what the ruff's gonna be like, you're just
Speaker 3: not going to be able to play around with a
Speaker 3: rough too much, I don't think. So they'll start backing
Speaker 3: off the tea a little bit, you know, and then
Speaker 3: they'll have a bit more long So it might be
Speaker 3: interesting that way. We'll see what it'll do to the
Speaker 3: modern approach. But I think you're just not gonna be
Speaker 3: able to take liberties with the rough like you can.
Speaker 1: Some other aspect of it. Is the September date, I
Speaker 1: think they're going to be able to push the course
Speaker 1: a little bit more than you would in June. You
Speaker 1: know that this is the best time agronomically for golf
Speaker 1: courses in New York.
Speaker 3: I would have thought, by a long way and hopefully
Speaker 3: some trees in started turning maybe a little bit. It's
Speaker 3: probably not cool enough yet, but it's Yeah, the fall
Speaker 3: is always in the Midwest New England area, the fall
Speaker 3: is the best time to play golf, you know, by
Speaker 3: a long way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the end of summer.
Speaker 3: So you've had great growth, and you've kind of it's firm,
Speaker 3: and you haven't had too much rain, and it's cool nights,
Speaker 3: and it's not light or it's not light till nine
Speaker 3: o'clock at night, so you can stress to great they
Speaker 3: get the cool kind of darkness for longer. Yeah, they
Speaker 3: could be really fast. It'll be probably in better shape
Speaker 3: than it was last time, just because of that, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe because of any other factors. But having it at
Speaker 3: the end of summer rather than the start of summer's
Speaker 3: got to be an advantage for agronically, agronomically.
Speaker 2: Or to think.
Speaker 3: And they've had less play. They had less play this year,
Speaker 3: I imagine, right, just naturally because of COVID probably.
Speaker 1: Too, maybe more everywhere had record play.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't imagine that was don't come to Melbourne don't
Speaker 2: come to Melbourne. When allowed to play golf in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: It's a well at least I've got We've got a
Speaker 1: lot more cases though. So something you said about hitting
Speaker 1: it in in the rough, you can't hit it in
Speaker 1: the rough all day. Would you say that it's a
Speaker 1: lot of the US Open is about stress management, almost
Speaker 1: keeping the stress off you for long periods of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean it's a long week if you've even if
Speaker 3: you're making them a six foot of for par, even
Speaker 3: if it goes in, it's anxiety inducing before you hit
Speaker 3: it right. You've got this, I've got to make this
Speaker 3: part for power, going to make this part, got to
Speaker 3: make this was a tap in.
Speaker 2: It's you just go tap it in.
Speaker 3: There's no mental energy drawn from just a tap in.
Speaker 3: But if you've got six you could shoot even par.
Speaker 3: But every one of those part of pars was a
Speaker 3: six foot part. You're going to be pretty at the
Speaker 3: end of that day. But you should even par. If
Speaker 3: you've just put it up from thirty feet and tapped
Speaker 3: it in every hole, you're going to think that was
Speaker 3: kind of easy. So there's ways and there's ways, and
Speaker 3: if you're in the rough, you're just going to have
Speaker 3: long par puts all week and it's just going to
Speaker 3: wear you out. It's not that you can't do it,
Speaker 3: it just mentally wears you out. That guy who plays
Speaker 3: the front nine and he hits eight greens, the only
Speaker 3: one he missed was on the front edge. He's tapped
Speaker 3: it in for par for the front nine. He's cruising
Speaker 3: around like hasn't used any energy yet. The other guy
Speaker 3: who shot even part, he's hold six, he's hold six
Speaker 3: eight footers and two five footers, all left to righters
Speaker 3: and downhillers. He's on the same score up to nine holes,
Speaker 3: but he's used to all his energy up. So that's
Speaker 3: that's like you said, it's the stress avoidance.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't want.
Speaker 3: You just don't want those you get in situations that
Speaker 3: are plays like wing foot where you've missed the green.
Speaker 3: It's like, right, I know I can't make par. How
Speaker 3: do I not make double? You know? And those kind
Speaker 3: of management situations where you've got to hit your bunket
Speaker 3: of forty bunker shot to forty feet just because it's
Speaker 3: going to be somewhere you could too put from. You know,
Speaker 3: those situations where you're out really quick and grind your feet. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and if you're hitting in the roff all the time,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have You're just gonna have situations like that
Speaker 3: because you just even if you can move it out
Speaker 3: of the rough, which it doesn't sound like you're going
Speaker 3: to be able to move it too far.
Speaker 2: Even if you can, you can't move it with any control.
Speaker 3: You know. It's just you're kind of trying to get
Speaker 3: it to an area where maybe you can get it
Speaker 3: down from You're not like trying to get it close.
Speaker 3: It's just yeah, stress stress management is a good way
Speaker 3: to it's energy preservation, you know. And sometimes it's not
Speaker 3: under your control. I mean, we all aim it in
Speaker 3: the right spot and it goes there, or it doesn't,
Speaker 3: you know, like we tried it at the rough. I mean,
Speaker 3: but you could certainly there'll be an experience. It's the
Speaker 3: sort of course it's got some new quite a lot
Speaker 3: of depth and nuance to it because it's one of
Speaker 3: those it hasn't really been messed with since the old days, right,
Speaker 3: so it's an old nuance. You kind of course you
Speaker 3: would think experience does well, there's a there's certainly an
Speaker 3: added advantage experience there than say there would be over
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 2: Olympia fields, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I want to pick on Limp fields interviews great, but
Speaker 3: Wingfoot's just got a little bit extra, you know. And
Speaker 3: I think the as I said, Tiger in his prime
Speaker 3: would be primo for Wingfoot, you know, because he would
Speaker 3: just love the challenge of the under the whole thing
Speaker 3: and the plotting it around and playing it smart and
Speaker 3: hitting irons off a lot of teas and stuff. I
Speaker 3: think the guy who embraces that challenge of how do
Speaker 3: I best manage this as opposed to just plays just
Speaker 3: tries to play a good version of normal tour golf.
Speaker 3: I think the guy and embraces it has a chance
Speaker 3: to do really well because it's that sort of.
Speaker 1: How would you spend your time leading up to the tournament?
Speaker 1: Would you just go about your regular practice round nine nine?
Speaker 1: It seems like most guys just play nine nowadays, or
Speaker 1: would you spend more time doing different things out there
Speaker 1: versus a regular tour start.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I love the US Open clearly, but they
Speaker 3: ruined Monday to Wednesday in the US Open when they
Speaker 3: started having tea times in practice rounds, and they don't
Speaker 3: let us tea off without tea times, and it's a
Speaker 3: two tee tea time, so they have a morning wave
Speaker 3: and an afternoon wave. Because normally on two of like
Speaker 3: pros thirty times a year we turn up and we
Speaker 3: make Tuesdays work. There's no t sheets. We just get
Speaker 3: there and it just works. Some guys want to play it.
Speaker 3: You just kind of find your way to the tea
Speaker 3: and there's a couple of busy moments, but you pair
Speaker 3: off with your guys and you play.
Speaker 2: It actually works really fine. The USGA don't trust us
Speaker 2: to handle that situation, so.
Speaker 3: We have to put our tea toe and you're booking
Speaker 3: them like so they're four balls from seven o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning, off one and ten from seven till nine,
Speaker 3: and then there's four balls from like twelve till two.
Speaker 2: Well, four balls in every group. It's just a six
Speaker 2: hour round. It's a three hour and nine holes.
Speaker 3: There's fifty autographs off the back of every green, which
Speaker 3: is kind of fun, but everybody's hitting fifty chips on
Speaker 3: every hole and everyone's taking twenty five minutes to play
Speaker 3: every hole every group.
Speaker 2: So after three hours of that, no one's going to go.
Speaker 2: So I'll do that again.
Speaker 3: Can I go to the back nine like that, please like,
Speaker 3: So that's why that's happened. Everyone would play eighteen holes
Speaker 3: if it was eighteen holes like it was. Everyone plays
Speaker 3: eight en at the Masters because you play it in
Speaker 3: four hours and it's great fun. You know, you practice
Speaker 3: rounds at the US Open a miserable Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Speaker 3: and then Thursday it is great. But that's partly why
Speaker 3: everyone plays nine because it takes six hours to play
Speaker 3: out in holes. I always found the best practice round
Speaker 3: to play one really early, like eight in holes, really early.
Speaker 3: First group at seven o'clock one is not too bad,
Speaker 3: and then last I liked Wednesday at two o'clock actually
Speaker 3: because quite often everyone's so pumped and so excited. Monday
Speaker 3: morning is the busiest time at the USA because everyone's
Speaker 3: so Jackson be there. Right by the Wednesday afternoon, everyone's gone.
Speaker 3: They're all tired, they've all been hitting balls and practicing
Speaker 3: and hit a million ship shots. Wednesday afternoons a ghost town.
Speaker 3: So that was always my go for thing. But yeah,
Speaker 3: everyone does just play nine holes. But what I would
Speaker 3: focus on in the lead up, knowing what I know
Speaker 3: from two thousand and six, I would have spent the
Speaker 3: last six months on the chipping, you know, working on
Speaker 3: sixties whenever I could find some heavy rough to chip
Speaker 3: out of, just get really really good around the greens,
Speaker 3: because that's what I was doing well at the time.
Speaker 3: I didn't do that on purpose in six it just
Speaker 3: happened that I was working on my short game a lot,
Speaker 3: and it happened to be the thing that I think
Speaker 3: was the separator for me at Wingfood. So I would
Speaker 3: do that again only because of what happened last time.
Speaker 3: But in the week leading up the managers the way is, oh,
Speaker 3: you couldn't hit enough shots from inside fifty eighty yards,
Speaker 3: you know, around the greens, out of the raft and
Speaker 3: just really get a good feel for getting it up
Speaker 3: and down somehow and get a feel around the greens.
Speaker 3: The hitting it you can work out wherever. You can
Speaker 3: just look at the book and work out kind of
Speaker 3: where to hit it sometimes. But the short game stuff
Speaker 3: that really is a form thing. You know, it comes
Speaker 3: and goes, and if you get really sharp and you
Speaker 3: have that feel, So I'd be doing a lot.
Speaker 2: Of that, I think.
Speaker 1: Would you say that there's any venue do you feel
Speaker 1: like there's a stylistic it could look completely different. But
Speaker 1: from the way the course plays, is there any camp within,
Speaker 1: whether it's US Open venues or tour stops, anything that
Speaker 1: is somewhat similar to Wingfoot in the way you have
Speaker 1: to play.
Speaker 3: I think I think like wing Foot, Oakmont, Shinnecock, Pinehurst,
Speaker 3: maybe even Pebble, like prototypical US Open venues, but are
Speaker 3: all really different. You know, wing Foot Oakmond are very similar,
Speaker 3: and it's all about the greens, you know, really old
Speaker 3: school greens, crazy greens that you couldn't build them today.
Speaker 3: They like they wouldn't give you another job if you
Speaker 3: built those greens in to day, but yet everybody loves them.
Speaker 3: You know, Pinehurst are same. You couldn't build Parhurst number
Speaker 3: two now, it's no way, you know, So I think there, yeah,
Speaker 3: if they've just got such a great kind of structure
Speaker 3: and like the way they were built to begin with,
Speaker 3: to just easily set them up for US Opens, I
Speaker 3: think Wingfoot is. I mean, I know it's there and
Speaker 3: it's rose colored glasses because I won there and all that,
Speaker 3: But Wingfoot's about as perfect for a US Open tournament,
Speaker 3: a big tournament, as any venue gets anywhere. Like they're
Speaker 3: really it's a world class course that's always going to
Speaker 3: be hard enough. You could set it up easier than
Speaker 3: they do, you know, but it would still never be
Speaker 3: very easy because the greens are so challenging. It's thirty
Speaker 3: six holes, so you've got that scale, right, You've got
Speaker 3: that big clubhouse, you've got you can use the other
Speaker 3: course for the range. You know, You've just got scale
Speaker 3: to put all the stuff. And it's just it's not
Speaker 3: a it's a course that's somewhat intimate, a big course,
Speaker 3: but it's all kind of close together so the crowd
Speaker 3: can kind of see everything really easily. And it's close
Speaker 3: to the best US Open venue actually saying that. I
Speaker 3: don't want to say that just because they're coming up
Speaker 3: to it, but can you think of a better one?
Speaker 3: I mean, Oak one's a great one. Oak one's a
Speaker 3: great one.
Speaker 1: It's easy to get two too, for a lot of
Speaker 1: different areas. You know, it's not if you're if Shinnacock's awesome,
Speaker 1: but it's the pain that they asked for everybody to
Speaker 1: get to because unless you're staying on the other side
Speaker 1: of the island, the traffic's just insane. You know.
Speaker 3: Oh, Shinnecocks are not made to get to Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: brutal to get to yeah, because there's only one way in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would. That's why I was My next question
Speaker 1: was going to be where does it fit in? I
Speaker 1: think if we went with a tier, you know, it
Speaker 1: would be like picking out the best golfer in the world.
Speaker 1: Right now, it depends on what week it is. For
Speaker 1: the best golf course of the world. It is what's
Speaker 1: what's the best golf course of the world. What day
Speaker 1: of the week is it? You know what am I
Speaker 1: in the mood for?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think with this one, I think it's in that
Speaker 1: first tier of US Open.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3: I mean as course, as I just mentioned, you got Armond,
Speaker 3: wing Foot, Shinnakock panas probably Pebble and Pebble when we
Speaker 3: played in the pro am is. Pebble is brilliant, but
Speaker 3: it's not a US Open. But it's a very set
Speaker 3: up a ball course because it's on side slopes and
Speaker 3: small greens as soon as it gets firm. I think
Speaker 3: Pebble's a great US Open venue. They're Tier one. I
Speaker 3: might have missed a couple there, certainly. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 3: put anything in front of Wingfoot as a tournament venue,
Speaker 3: can you? With everything that's got going for it's certainly
Speaker 3: in the top tier. I mean, Pinehus is a brilliant week.
Speaker 3: Oak Month's a brilliant week. But Wingfoot's got twenty million
Speaker 3: people living within an hour and a half probably, as
Speaker 3: you say, easy to get to all the other advantages. Yeah,
Speaker 3: top top, top tier. And you shouldn't always go to
Speaker 3: top tier things because I think some of the other
Speaker 3: US opens are really really interesting. I mean I thought
Speaker 3: Chambers was really interesting. Unlucky that the greens Day there were,
Speaker 3: but it was a really interesting tournament. I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 1: Did you ever play the country You'd never played the
Speaker 1: country club?
Speaker 2: I didn't play the country club.
Speaker 1: Nov Does people ever tell me that that's going to
Speaker 1: be just a bloodbath in a couple of years.
Speaker 2: I don't understand that mentality.
Speaker 3: It annoyed me a little bit reading the article's Wingfoot
Speaker 3: this morning about uh, this is going to be a
Speaker 3: great wing Foot open that we all remember, hopefully it's
Speaker 3: eight over par It's like, I don't mind if it's over.
Speaker 3: I mean, as I'm glowingly talking about how good Oat
Speaker 3: Mountain Wingfoot are and we always shoot way out of
Speaker 3: parate those two courses. But if the intent is to
Speaker 3: get people to shoot out of a power, I don't
Speaker 3: like it. It's kind of like if it happens. If
Speaker 3: it happens, that's fine.
Speaker 2: I don't understand it, like that was.
Speaker 1: Part it was. It just naturally, like the weather allowed
Speaker 1: it to be super firm. And the golf it's a
Speaker 1: US Open golf course. They've had US Opens at it,
Speaker 1: and the scores were you know what, two guys ended
Speaker 1: up under par, three guys ended up under par, and
Speaker 1: Wingfu was obviously much more difficult golf course than than
Speaker 1: Olympia Fields.
Speaker 3: Is yeah, so if it naturally, I mean we're the dependent.
Speaker 3: But you've got a bit of wind Olympia.
Speaker 1: Fields, right, Yeah, a little bit the first day, but enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah it wasn't crazy windy, but it just hadn't rained
Speaker 1: for three weeks, so it was firm.
Speaker 2: I just like a setup.
Speaker 3: And I think when foot see what the great, great
Speaker 3: great courses do is that even if the setup goes
Speaker 3: over the top, and they've absolutely gone over the top,
Speaker 3: it setups. I mean, Shinoko a couple of year ago
Speaker 3: is over the top. Don't care what anybody.
Speaker 2: Says it was.
Speaker 3: If the great courses seem to be able to weather
Speaker 3: that and still have great tournaments and great people win.
Speaker 3: You know, that's what brings a top tier course like
Speaker 3: wing Foot at five over or five hunder, great players
Speaker 3: would win, you know, outside.
Speaker 1: Of me, Oh come on, but you're the tame player
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 2: Been silly.
Speaker 3: But like there's other courses that might not do great courses, however,
Speaker 3: you set them up create great championships.
Speaker 2: You know O six was a great championship.
Speaker 3: I mean with an hour to play, what a last
Speaker 3: hour of a tournament, right Shinacock always provides a great finish.
Speaker 3: It was a brilliant finish there a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: you know, like Pinehurst was dominated. You know, pebble is
Speaker 3: usually dominated to usually someone separates. It's interesting. But like
Speaker 3: good play, it doesn't matter how you set up wing Foot,
Speaker 3: great players are winning, it'll be a great tournament. That's
Speaker 3: Halo and the massacre was apparently just absolutely the carnage.
Speaker 3: But he was one of the best US Open players
Speaker 3: of all time and he stood up you know, Zella
Speaker 3: and Norman and then they were both at the top
Speaker 3: of the world at that time. It's like the great
Speaker 3: courses create great champions. Yeah, however you set them up
Speaker 3: and there that that's the top tier. The top tier
Speaker 3: are the ones that do that continuously repeatedly in different situations.
Speaker 3: The best players always come out on top. That's at
Speaker 3: least from a competitive measuring stick. That's a good measure
Speaker 3: of a good course, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, O six you had Harrington, you had Vja,
Speaker 1: you had Phil Manty. I mean the Furick he was.
Speaker 1: He was the one. I think that kind of doesn't
Speaker 1: get enough of. Wow. He you know, everybody obviously always
Speaker 1: talks about Phil in Mantia a little bit. But Furick
Speaker 1: down the stretch, he gave, he gave up. He had
Speaker 1: probably is kicking himself as much as those other guys are.
Speaker 3: Every one of those guys you mentioned had as much
Speaker 3: chance as me or more with four holes, four or
Speaker 3: five holes to play. Yeah, it's yeah, that was the
Speaker 3: who's who of the time in O six it provided
Speaker 3: the top ten was like eight guys who were always
Speaker 3: up there in majors.
Speaker 2: You know. It was That's that's what happened in O six.
Speaker 2: It was those guys.
Speaker 3: Tiger was the only exception, but his father, Earl had
Speaker 3: just died. His father had just died after the Masters,
Speaker 3: and he hadn't really played for six weeks, and he
Speaker 3: righted the ship when he won the next two majors
Speaker 3: after that, So he worked it out.
Speaker 2: But ferrex Us Open, the only exception there was Tiger
Speaker 2: not being up.
Speaker 1: Ferix Us Open record during that like five years is bananas, really.
Speaker 2: So he won Olympia Fields, he was got top five,
Speaker 2: I think he was.
Speaker 1: He finished second the year before that, he was in
Speaker 1: He was in the mix at the Oakmart the next
Speaker 1: year when Cabrera won, I think he finished second. And
Speaker 1: when at Oakmart, to Cabrera, he should have won that way.
Speaker 2: That's a big one for him because he's a Pittsburgh guy, right.
Speaker 1: And everybody thought he was going to win. And I
Speaker 1: think he made bogie or something on the last whole.
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what happened, but.
Speaker 3: I remember Cabrera pumping hitting that last few I'd open
Speaker 3: nth with driving at like three twenty five. Ye, Cabrera
Speaker 3: was just nuts at the time.
Speaker 1: Cabrera is one of the great golf stories.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: Do you play with her much?
Speaker 3: It's funny, so naturally gifted. I play with him a ton. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we were on some President's Cup teams and stuff. He's
Speaker 3: a legend, so talented, almost.
Speaker 2: Worked too hard.
Speaker 3: He was like the there's this thing in golf about
Speaker 3: hard work, right, and like this guilty and because he
Speaker 3: came from really poor upbringing in Argentina and he just worked.
Speaker 2: Really he was so naturally gifted.
Speaker 3: He was probably one of the ones who should have
Speaker 3: just turned up, like fred Couples, to the golf course
Speaker 3: every day, played golf, had bit of fun and gone
Speaker 3: home and had a couple of beers or something, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. But he actually went home and
Speaker 3: hit balls all day every day and actually kind of
Speaker 3: wore himself out by grinding too hard.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it makes sense, totally makes sense.
Speaker 3: Supernaturally talent. All those argies are complete flushes, you know,
Speaker 3: legend like two majors.
Speaker 2: I mean, what a career Cabrera.
Speaker 3: He was as good as he nearly won the one
Speaker 3: that had won. He was in the playoff for Scotting
Speaker 3: at the Masters. I mean, he's the real deal, Cabrera.
Speaker 2: Flusher.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Couples, You channel the little Freddy Couples before
Speaker 1: a you're of wing foot when with watching watching sports
Speaker 1: instead of you know, getting into your warm up.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, absolutely, that's the mean.
Speaker 3: Like at the time, you just think why would you
Speaker 3: be doing something like that, But like when you look back,
Speaker 3: it's like, that's actually the important stuff is to is
Speaker 3: to somewhat somehow take a little bit of the seriousness
Speaker 3: out of it. You know, it's not life or death.
Speaker 3: The golf tournament. You know, one hundred and fifty five
Speaker 3: guys go away every time not winning. Isn't the one
Speaker 3: guy who does. And you lose nearly every tournament you
Speaker 3: ever play, and you're fine, You're still breathing, and you
Speaker 3: get to play next week.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not the end of the world.
Speaker 3: So I think guys like Freddie and Dustin just have
Speaker 3: the natural gift at taking a level of seriousness out
Speaker 3: of it that some of us can't, you know, and
Speaker 3: it just gives them an advantage in situations like that.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, Freddie gets bag guy, but that back
Speaker 1: in derailed them. I mean, he was he was getting
Speaker 1: right to he was winning everything, and then he heard
Speaker 1: the back and everything. Hey, so let's uh, let's wrap
Speaker 1: it up here. But I want I need to get
Speaker 1: your your winning predictions, your score and in winter, well.
Speaker 3: About a week ago, I predicted to somebody even par
Speaker 3: and Dustin Johnson. After reading a little bit, I think
Speaker 3: it'll be over par, and I'll go with John Rahm
Speaker 3: because I think his short game. Dustin will have a
Speaker 3: little bit of a it's going to be hard to
Speaker 3: back up what he's just done.
Speaker 1: That's he's almost too hot.
Speaker 2: He probably had a few, He's probably had a few
Speaker 2: beers the last couple of days. I would have thought,
Speaker 2: maybe not that.
Speaker 3: He won't be trying his best, but mentally emotionally, there'll
Speaker 3: be a period where it'll be hard to keep playing
Speaker 3: how he's playing. Ram will be a little bit hungry,
Speaker 3: you know, he's just won a tournament around of course,
Speaker 3: the most recent tor him around the course. That'll be
Speaker 3: us even like those two are at the top, and
Speaker 3: he's just got that. He's got the flare around the greens,
Speaker 3: you know. And I'll say he'll win it three over.
Speaker 1: It's a strange setup with the Major, with it right
Speaker 1: after the playoffs, where all these guys have played three
Speaker 1: weeks in a row. Where I was talking to a
Speaker 1: buddy of mine this morning who's on web, and he
Speaker 1: was talking about how he's played, you know, four straight weeks,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was like, I'm going to try
Speaker 1: and stay away from the golf course a little bit.
Speaker 1: He's like, because you know, I need to stay away
Speaker 1: a little And I'm like why, He's like, well, I've
Speaker 1: played four straight weeks. There's been a lot of golf.
Speaker 1: But I'm just tired, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just wears. Yeah, leading to like leading
Speaker 2: like those guys do every week, that's just a tiring
Speaker 2: thing to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the mix, it's different. And he's played well recently.
Speaker 1: He's like in a lot of great golf, which takes
Speaker 1: a lot out of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and Rory, you'd think it would be. Yes, there's
Speaker 3: a bump when people have babies. But still, well, I
Speaker 3: mean that's a hard one.
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to take Rory with everything, like
Speaker 1: I feel like this is kind of I mean, it's
Speaker 1: crazy he has one major since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: It's just nut, it's not I can't understand that.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I feel like this could be like the shift,
Speaker 1: like the just the perception that change that he needs
Speaker 1: because something's going on. There's the It's the only explanation
Speaker 1: I can see is that the majors have gotten in
Speaker 1: his head a little bit. But that's but Rom. It's
Speaker 1: so hard not to pick Rom.
Speaker 3: Well, he has he ticks every box. And as I said,
Speaker 3: like it's a similar game to him and Dustin. They
Speaker 3: hit it miles, they hit it straight, they're great with everything.
Speaker 3: Ram has just that flare around the greens. You know,
Speaker 3: those of those guys right at the top, they've all
Speaker 3: got great short games. I'm not I mean, but Ram
Speaker 3: has that Spanish flare, you know, the extra little bit
Speaker 3: around the greens that might be a difference maker, and
Speaker 3: that sort of cour on that sort of course.
Speaker 2: But look, Web Simpson could.
Speaker 3: Win, you know, Patrick Cantlay, Patrick Cantlay could win. I mean,
Speaker 3: Maracauer could win without himn thinking about.
Speaker 2: It, you know.
Speaker 1: So Adam Scott.
Speaker 3: Scotty could win. He was there in six. I mean,
Speaker 3: I wonder if anyone how many of the guys were
Speaker 3: there at six. Dustin wouldn't have been there yet.
Speaker 1: You know who's a sneaky greet a great picture of
Speaker 1: the golf bar who never gets any credit for it.
Speaker 1: Tony Now, yeah, great short game, absolutely, but not great
Speaker 1: he Yeah, I don't know, it's going to be that
Speaker 1: guy who's I was putting really well at the time,
Speaker 1: and putting on us opens, especially late Thursdays and Fridays,
Speaker 1: when the full field has been over.
Speaker 3: The greens your late teachers. They they're fast and a
Speaker 3: bit ropey because of the size of the field. Usually
Speaker 3: it's the great putters who put well, So the guys
Speaker 3: who put well at Riviera, the sort of guys who
Speaker 3: all put well. Guys who put well in California will
Speaker 3: put well at Wingfoot, you know, some slope kind of
Speaker 3: fast greens. That would be my that's DJ, I think
Speaker 3: it DJ, Yeah, it's it's it is. It's because that
Speaker 3: all of a suddenly the West Coast is a unique
Speaker 3: putting experience. But Westchester County up there is a similar green.
Speaker 3: There's a bit of a power issue, similar grassing as
Speaker 3: the California greens, and they can get fast and slopey
Speaker 3: and smooth in the morning and bump in the afternoon.
Speaker 3: That is usually only the elite putters, you know, on
Speaker 3: stuff like that or that, that free part of the
Speaker 3: guy doesn't stress about putting, you know, which would be
Speaker 3: a dust and he's an elite putter, but he's certainly
Speaker 3: a non stress putter, you know, Sneeka. He used to
Speaker 3: make everything in California, MARACAUI. He's just one there. They're
Speaker 3: not the same, but there's a similarity to putting oldist
Speaker 3: that at Riviera and wingfoot surface of the green wise
Speaker 3: and speed wise.
Speaker 1: Man, this would be so good for Brooks if he
Speaker 1: was Yeah, it's.
Speaker 3: Brooks absolutely, and it's as Brooks the courses I've ever
Speaker 3: seen two years ago, you know, if he was healthy
Speaker 3: and yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: All right, excited for this week, any anything you're particularly
Speaker 1: excited to watch.
Speaker 3: I'm just excited to watch the whole thing. I'm really
Speaker 3: the whole thing. Really, I'm going to soak it up.
Speaker 3: It's it'll be uh nostalgic a little bit to watch it,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, it's just interested to see it.
Speaker 1: Bub bubbera. You're not playing.
Speaker 2: It's a shame.
Speaker 3: When we were going back at up until March and
Speaker 3: the COVID thing. I was certainly going to be there
Speaker 3: playing if I could, but be there either way, and
Speaker 3: I can't, So that's a shame. But it'll be fun
Speaker 3: to watch. Since it's been such a crazy year that
Speaker 3: golf is. As I said at the start, all of
Speaker 3: us they started when they started canceling the Masters, scanning
Speaker 3: all this film and say, oh my god, it's like
Speaker 3: armageddon for.
Speaker 2: Like tour golf. But six months later it's like too golf.
Speaker 3: Golf is actually doing it better than every other sport,
Speaker 3: and it's powering, and we've forgot tournaments and FedEx Cups
Speaker 3: and we're having all these majors and it's like wow, like.
Speaker 2: Just excited that it's happening.
Speaker 3: You know, I just want to watch because the big
Speaker 3: memories wing foot for me in that tournament was the
Speaker 3: last hour. Because of how the last hour was, I'm
Speaker 3: looking forward to seeing the last hour again, you know,
Speaker 3: like you we can actually get five or six guys
Speaker 3: with a chance with an hour to play.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's going to be fun to watch.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Have you ever rewatched that? Is that something you've done.
Speaker 3: Entire I haven't watched it, and it is an entirety,
Speaker 3: like the five hour coverage or whatever. But I've watched
Speaker 3: the last few holes a couple of times, and I've
Speaker 3: been to a bunch of dinners and things where they'll
Speaker 3: show footage from the thing, like as part of the
Speaker 3: talk or something. But I've never sat down and watched
Speaker 3: the whole thing. Start to finish, I should, but see
Speaker 3: I'm on the coverage early up to about the first
Speaker 3: five or six, and then Phil kind of takes over
Speaker 3: the coverage for most of it, you know, and I
Speaker 3: kind of pop up there towards the end because there's
Speaker 3: so many guys in contention, and it was Phil's kind
Speaker 3: of coronation week Tommy Roy, you know, I mean, they
Speaker 3: picked the guy who's going to get the most ratings.
Speaker 3: It's perfect, right, So it's not like watching me play
Speaker 3: seventy eighteen holes. You probably saw me play. You missed
Speaker 3: a punch of me in the middle, you know, in
Speaker 3: an odd put here or the odd shot here.
Speaker 1: So they put the final two hours up on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and that's what we watched when we did this spotlight thing,
Speaker 1: and it was the coverage opens with Kenny Ferrin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just really bad.
Speaker 3: That's the it's just the trivia question at the trivia
Speaker 3: who played with Phil in the last round?
Speaker 2: You six?
Speaker 3: K Ferry was playing really way out a little sweet spot.
Speaker 3: He played well for a couple of years in there,
Speaker 3: and he was playing the last trip he was open.
Speaker 3: But yeah, he didn't have a good day that day.
Speaker 1: I don't think he Now the crazy thing was he
Speaker 1: hit a wedgshot on eleven or something. He was like
Speaker 1: slamming his club and he was plus seven.
Speaker 2: At the time.
Speaker 1: It's like, dude, you're in it. You're in it, and
Speaker 1: he's like melting down. Yeah, and you're just like but yet,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like one of those things where
Speaker 1: he probably felt like he was shooting a million. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the best advice I got. I got.
Speaker 3: Judy Rankin is while my wife's sister married Judy Rankin's son.
Speaker 3: So Judy Rankin is my wife's my sister in law's
Speaker 3: mother in law.
Speaker 2: There you go. So anyway, so.
Speaker 3: Judy is close. I've been close with Judy for a
Speaker 3: long time. And Thanksgiving dinners and stuff, Judy's there. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I get a note on Sunday morning or a text
Speaker 3: from Judy on Sunday morning saying, and I'm too behind
Speaker 3: playing in the second life group. She goes, never be
Speaker 3: everyone always opens a newspaper on Monday morning and they're
Speaker 3: surprised about how high the score was that won the
Speaker 3: US Open. Never think you're out of it today. You
Speaker 3: never know what's going to win, and that was exactly
Speaker 3: to your point with Kenth Ferry. It's say, that's the thing,
Speaker 3: however bad it's going in the US, it's always higher
Speaker 3: the score that wins than you think, so you.
Speaker 2: View it like that.
Speaker 3: You know, it was really good advice, you know, just wait,
Speaker 3: wait for everyone to go away, as opposed to kind
Speaker 3: of panic enforce it.
Speaker 2: This is a good advice.
Speaker 1: It's good advice for almost everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, in life, U havings especially Yeah, because you're
Speaker 3: two over after two on Thursday and you're like calling
Speaker 3: a travel agent, right, but everybody's two erraughs.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like it's just part of it. You
Speaker 2: just ten over could win the tournaments. They're just hanging there,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: All right, well, hey, thank you for coming on. Excited
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts after and look forward to another,
Speaker 1: hopefully as dramatic of one as say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's what I'm going to be brilliant.
Speaker 3: If we could get the five or six guys with
Speaker 3: a chance for an hour to play, it would be great.
Speaker 3: I mean, if it's a procession that's fun to watch too,
Speaker 3: right for guy wins by five, But any lead it's
Speaker 3: not going to be safe. You know, like you said,
Speaker 3: if a guy posts six over and you're three over
Speaker 3: on the fifteenth te I haven't. They're not giving you
Speaker 3: the tournament yet, you know. So yeah, it's gonna be
Speaker 3: fun to watch
Speaker 2: And off America and manage