Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a bright egg
Speaker 1: Frida egg Frida, egg Frida egg.
Speaker 2: Brid egg lie, I'm about ready to run off the
Speaker 2: golf course.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host,
Speaker 1: Sandy Johnson, and uh, what a tournament. The Open Championship
Speaker 1: is concluded, our major championship season on the men's side
Speaker 1: is over, and Ryan fox is the champion Golfer of
Speaker 1: the year. Uh. Foxy played just an outstanding gutty back
Speaker 1: dine to beat a number of competitors coming down the
Speaker 1: stretch after Cam Young posted a number and kind of
Speaker 1: surprisingly was the number to beat at nine under, Foxy
Speaker 1: kind of outdueled the likes of Sam Burns, Scottie Scheffler,
Speaker 1: Seawoo Kim down the stretch to win his first major championship.
Speaker 1: Having gotten to know Foxy a little bit, this was
Speaker 1: an awesome win. He came on the podcast The Friday
Speaker 1: Golf Podcast two years ago in twenty twenty four, when
Speaker 1: he was playing his first year out on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: Is a great guy. Wonderful guy. Definitely one of the
Speaker 1: good guys in just his general story of getting into
Speaker 1: the game late and being this late bloomer who grinded
Speaker 1: his way up was really endearing. And to see him
Speaker 1: play the back nine of a lifetime to get it
Speaker 1: done at a very very challenging Royal Birkdale. I think
Speaker 1: we saw when the wind got up, with the firm
Speaker 1: and fast conditions, that was a lot of golf course
Speaker 1: to deal with. On Sunday Congress to Ryan Fox, I'm
Speaker 1: joined today by Trevor Immelman. It'll be our final installment
Speaker 1: of the Majors podcasts of the year. We'll probably do
Speaker 1: something around the President's Cup, which is coming to Chicago
Speaker 1: and Medina. As always, big thanks to Trevor, the CBS's
Speaker 1: lead analyst, for joining us and breaking down these major championships.
Speaker 1: It's always fun to chat with Trevor. Before we get
Speaker 1: to Trevor Immelman, let's talk about our friends at Mercedes Benz.
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Speaker 1: All right, let's get to Trevor a moment. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that you're in the booth. If I
Speaker 1: was in the booth, not that I ever would be.
Speaker 1: I would have seven hundred tabs open at all times.
Speaker 1: I'm a computer and I can't believe that you operate
Speaker 1: in the booth without a million tabs open. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you possibly do that. How do you do
Speaker 1: that with just an iPad?
Speaker 2: Well, if you, I mean, if you want me to
Speaker 2: take you inside my life in the booth, I do
Speaker 2: have a computer that I do not own. It's linked
Speaker 2: up that CBS links up for me to all the
Speaker 2: shot link and you know, all the different stats stuff,
Speaker 2: and so I operate on that during the show. And
Speaker 2: then I have have an iPad to my right that
Speaker 2: has the bios of everybody in the field and all
Speaker 2: my different notes on all those guys. And then I
Speaker 2: have another iPad to my left that I keep just
Speaker 2: on how the course is playing, so I know exactly
Speaker 2: which holes are playing hard, which are playing easy, which
Speaker 2: ones are gettable, and so I operate between those three
Speaker 2: along with the notes on paper. It's old school, Andy.
Speaker 2: I like to go old school.
Speaker 1: I like writing stuff down too. I retain information when
Speaker 1: I write stuff down, but I don't do it nearly enough.
Speaker 1: Hence why my wife's always wondering why I forget things,
Speaker 1: but I am I'm curious. What did the Ryan fox
Speaker 1: file look like before yesterday.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I've known Foxy for a long time,
Speaker 2: playing on the tp Will Tour together and that was
Speaker 2: sort of towards the end of my career as he
Speaker 2: was coming through. I mean, you guys have told the
Speaker 2: story very well of his late start in golf and
Speaker 2: when he turned pro and as he started breaking through
Speaker 2: on the world stage. Obviously have had a lot of
Speaker 2: dealings with him as he's been so so so close
Speaker 2: to making the international team a couple of times, and
Speaker 2: actually spoke to him last week at the Scottish Open,
Speaker 2: spent a few minutes with him as he was heading
Speaker 2: to his tea time. Gosh, that must have been Saturday,
Speaker 2: and then chatted again with him last night. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is a guy that you know, he comes from
Speaker 2: great Stock. Yeah, I'm not quite sure that American fans
Speaker 2: quite understand what a legend his father is and was
Speaker 2: played fly half, which is number ten for the All Black.
Speaker 2: They broke my heart my whole childhood, his dad did
Speaker 2: because he was just so good. I mean, when you
Speaker 2: look in rugby terms, Ryan's dad is kind of you know,
Speaker 2: he's up there. You know, he's up there in the
Speaker 2: Brady Jordan Tiger Woods type of mold, Wayne Gretzky mold.
Speaker 2: I mean, this guy was an absolute superstar. And so
Speaker 2: it's really really cool when you look at their family
Speaker 2: history of his grandfather being a New Zealand cricketer, his
Speaker 2: dad just being an absolute stud and now Ryan right
Speaker 2: up alongside him winning the Open Championship. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is a pretty cool story right here.
Speaker 1: I mean it's amazing. And I think you see this
Speaker 1: with with kids of legends, you know, I think this
Speaker 1: happened with like Michael Jordan's kids. Is like you know,
Speaker 1: when you're on the court, you get the other teams,
Speaker 1: the other player's best shots. And you know, for Foxy,
Speaker 1: I did realize this until yesterday. But you know, he
Speaker 1: on the rugby I think it's a pitch right field. Okay,
Speaker 1: only just only a football.
Speaker 2: Pitch World Cup too much.
Speaker 1: On the rugby field. I just was trying to use
Speaker 1: the right term of a sport. On the rugby field,
Speaker 1: he was targeted and he had a series of concussions
Speaker 1: as a kid, and then you know, caused him to
Speaker 1: give up the sport and then you know he he
Speaker 1: he talked about this on our podcast a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, but he's like, I was looking for some
Speaker 1: competitive outlet, so I always like golf, so I decided
Speaker 1: to play golf. And it's like, you think about that,
Speaker 1: He's age eighteen and he just decides he's going to
Speaker 1: play competitive golf, and sure enough, now twenty one years later,
Speaker 1: he's a major champion. It's a pretty unbelievable story just
Speaker 1: about you know, there's so many layers to it, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And you know, you look at his
Speaker 2: journey to here. I mean, he rarely has done it,
Speaker 2: done it the proper way, done it the hard way.
Speaker 2: He's had to earn every little thing. And you look
Speaker 2: at his major championship record. I mean, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: Typer sixteenth in the Open in twenty nineteen was his
Speaker 2: best major championship finished. Before this week and the last
Speaker 2: few seasons, we've got to know him a bit more
Speaker 2: here in the in the US, shall I say, the
Speaker 2: fans over here have become more accustomed to him. The
Speaker 2: initial win at Myrtle Beach and then the marathon playoff
Speaker 2: with Sam Burns in Canada, eventually hitting that unbelievable fairway
Speaker 2: would shot to close that out a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: So he's been on the rise and it's kind of
Speaker 2: fun to have. You were talking about old school with
Speaker 2: the computers earlier, but it's kind of fun and refreshing
Speaker 2: to see again. You know, this is sort of the
Speaker 2: progression that people used to take to where you would
Speaker 2: mature and you would start to have your best stuff
Speaker 2: in your mid mid to late thirties, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of the road that he's taken, and it'll be fun
Speaker 2: to see, you know, what happens from here. But regardless,
Speaker 2: what a great cherry on the cake for him to
Speaker 2: get this win and the way that he went about it,
Speaker 2: the way he played the majority of the weekend, I mean,
Speaker 2: sixty twos seemed to be out there throughout the week,
Speaker 2: but shoots the great third round to get into position.
Speaker 2: And then the way he played that second nine, I
Speaker 2: mean from thirteen to eighteen was you know, he went
Speaker 2: out and won this open. He didn't back into it.
Speaker 2: Nobody handed it to him. You know, you could you
Speaker 2: could make a case for Cam Young having that stumble
Speaker 2: at the end, but eighteen is such a difficult hole.
Speaker 2: But the way Ryan finished over those last five or
Speaker 2: six holes was was pretty stiller and gutsy. And I
Speaker 2: enjoyed watching that, you know.
Speaker 1: I there's so many things that hit on and I
Speaker 1: think what you said, the old school path to getting here.
Speaker 1: He starts on the Australian Tour almost quits there. You know,
Speaker 1: he talked about that in his post round press conference
Speaker 1: about how he almost was going to quit, and then
Speaker 1: his dad caddy for him and he's like, this is
Speaker 1: supposed to be fun. Why don't we go have some
Speaker 1: fun this week? And sure enough he kept his card
Speaker 1: years and years on the DPEAT World Tour, and then
Speaker 1: he eventually comes over here and as you reference, you know,
Speaker 1: not you know, about a year a little bit more
Speaker 1: than a year ago. He's playing alternate field events. You know,
Speaker 1: he's playing the he won the Myrtle Beach which is
Speaker 1: a which is an opposite field event. He wins Canada.
Speaker 1: Then you know, right after that, but you know, this
Speaker 1: is a guy who you know, it wasn't it's just
Speaker 1: not been an easy path and I think, like I
Speaker 1: think what showed on the weekend was that grit. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially down the stretch that I think that was a
Speaker 1: the you know, I think we could get to accustomed
Speaker 1: to saying, oh, that was a bad break. But I
Speaker 1: believe he got dealt a couple of really bad breaks
Speaker 1: at extraordinarily crucial times. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: players after the breakout fifteen where the ball hits the
Speaker 1: you know, he's a foot from hitting from a perfect shot,
Speaker 1: the ball hits the face and bounces back and leaves
Speaker 1: him no swing to where he has to chip out sideways.
Speaker 1: I think that moment breaks a lot of guys. And
Speaker 1: this is but this is someone who has I mean,
Speaker 1: I could only imagine the conversations that that someone that
Speaker 1: has gone through what Ryan Fox has gone through to
Speaker 1: get to where he is, has had in his head
Speaker 1: late night in some motel room in rural Australia thinking
Speaker 1: about what the hell am I doing right now? Or
Speaker 1: a hotel room in Thailand on the DP World Tour
Speaker 1: by himself, you know what he's thinking. And that that
Speaker 1: to me showed up with just the way he handled
Speaker 1: what happened to him on the golf course coming down
Speaker 1: the stretch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you look at some of the winds.
Speaker 2: He's won twenty times worldwide now, but obviously I mean
Speaker 2: some of them, a lot of them. Yeah, and some
Speaker 2: of them you know you may have never heard of.
Speaker 2: But it's just slipping stones as he's you know, honing
Speaker 2: his craft and learning how to play as a professional.
Speaker 2: And then you know, and then the big one start
Speaker 2: to flow. You know, the Irish Open, well there is
Speaker 2: lost in a playoff, but the BMW at Wentworth Alfred
Speaker 2: Dunhill links. You know Myrtle Beach you mentioned earlier. I
Speaker 2: mean that might be the secret for everybody in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty seven because I believe Aaron Rye played at Myrtle
Speaker 2: Beach this year and then won the PGA Championship and
Speaker 2: so you know, guys may want to add that to
Speaker 2: their schedule next year.
Speaker 1: But opposite field events because you had Windham before LACC too.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I forgot which one do you won?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. But you know it's funny
Speaker 2: when you talk about the bad breaks, and I always
Speaker 2: find that quite interesting. You know, everybody knows where these
Speaker 2: pots bunkers are. They're like magnets. I would love to
Speaker 2: hear from him, and I was texting back and forth
Speaker 2: with him last night. Obviously he was super busy with
Speaker 2: everything that was going on, might have.
Speaker 1: Gotten a few you've gotten text back, a few glasses
Speaker 1: of wine deep Yeah, as was going to be flying.
Speaker 2: It seems like that Clara jug was filled with some
Speaker 2: grape early on, which is good and as it should be.
Speaker 2: But I would love to find out from him that
Speaker 2: shot on fifteen. You know, when you look at where
Speaker 2: the whole location was in the back left and the
Speaker 2: wind blowing across that hole. And he's the type of
Speaker 2: guy that would give you a very honest answer. I mean,
Speaker 2: he just he tells you exactly how it is. He
Speaker 2: doesn't waste any time trying to sugarcoat things. I wonder
Speaker 2: if he pulled that iron shot or not. You know,
Speaker 2: it's such a difficult shot with the wind whipping across,
Speaker 2: the whole location is tucked back left. You know, oh
Speaker 2: you've got the DP pot bunker in front. And really
Speaker 2: so the play to me on such a difficult hole
Speaker 2: is more the type of shot that Sewu Kim hit
Speaker 2: a group or two in front, where you play it
Speaker 2: out more to the middle of the green because you
Speaker 2: know you're going to land it in the front portion,
Speaker 2: which brings that pot bunker into play and so you
Speaker 2: play out more thirty thirty five feet to the right.
Speaker 2: We saw a couple guys take it on, a couple
Speaker 2: get fortunate, and Ryan's ball just hits on the face
Speaker 2: and kicks into the back edge. I'd love to hear
Speaker 2: from him if he pulled that slightly or not. But yeah,
Speaker 2: you're one hundred percent correct. Didn't moan about it, didn't
Speaker 2: shake his head and stomp around, got right in there
Speaker 2: with the lob wedge, played it out backwards and then
Speaker 2: a brilliant up and down to stay in it, and
Speaker 2: then also the bounce back after that. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: birdied thirteen fourteen, saves that bogie, and then on sixteen,
Speaker 2: which was a tough hole, okay, and just flags it
Speaker 2: there and converts the putt, you know. And then seventeen
Speaker 2: was another one. He decides to go with the driving iron.
Speaker 2: He has the ability to rarely flat it down, and
Speaker 2: we saw how burnt out and firm the fairways were,
Speaker 2: and that long iron just trickles into the front of
Speaker 2: that bunker at three point thirty or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: I mean, how good, How good was the second shot
Speaker 2: out of the bunker with the way the stance was,
Speaker 2: How awkward. It was how much he had to bend down.
Speaker 2: He's got a little bit of lip in front of him.
Speaker 2: You know. You think back to the shot that Cam
Speaker 2: Young hit on the eighteenth out of the pot bunker.
Speaker 2: Ryan could have fatted that and not got far enough
Speaker 2: down there, or stayed in the rough. He could have
Speaker 2: scalded into the lip. You know, when the balls that
Speaker 2: far below your feet and you're getting into such an
Speaker 2: awkward set up position, you could catch the puzzle on
Speaker 2: that shot. You know, really there's a whole host of
Speaker 2: things that could happen. But his hand eye coordination is
Speaker 2: so sharp that he advanced it quite far down there
Speaker 2: and eventually had a pretty good look at birdie. So
Speaker 2: to me, that was just as impressive as fifteen, kind
Speaker 2: of getting out of jail a little bit. And then
Speaker 2: that eighteenth hole, I mean, that eighteenth hole at Royal
Speaker 2: Birkdale to me is one of the better finishing holes
Speaker 2: in tournament golf. I mean, never mind just majors. I
Speaker 2: mean it just asks great questions of you. You know,
Speaker 2: with the technology these days and as far as what
Speaker 2: these guys hit it, they're not always forced to go
Speaker 2: ahead and pull the driver. Now you can lay back
Speaker 2: on eighteen and take at least a couple bunkers out
Speaker 2: of it, But then you're going to be hitting such
Speaker 2: a long club in for your second. And so if
Speaker 2: you do go ahead and decide to pull that driver, man,
Speaker 2: you do not have much space there, particularly with how
Speaker 2: firm the fairways were. And he decided that he was
Speaker 2: going to take the opportunity to try and win the tournament.
Speaker 2: And wow, how good are those three shots that he's
Speaker 2: hit on the eighteenth? I mean, that is that's what
Speaker 2: you dream of when you're a little kid. Is finishing
Speaker 2: off any tournament, the club championship, a game against your mate,
Speaker 2: you never mind a major, and the Open. To finish
Speaker 2: the eighteenth hole like that and win by one is
Speaker 2: that's a story he's going to be telling for for
Speaker 2: many years to come.
Speaker 1: I think you hit on you know, seventeen, the bunker shot.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to pick out one because he
Speaker 1: hit so many great ones from really thirteen on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just spectacular shot making all the way in. But that
Speaker 1: one on seventeen, you know, you illustrated how many things
Speaker 1: could go wrong with that, And as he was acutely
Speaker 1: aware of all of that, also you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: of all the things that could go wrong in his
Speaker 1: ability to get it down to where he had one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty four yards I think it was, and
Speaker 1: he's hitting a wedge all of a sudden and convert
Speaker 1: taking what happened, you know, where man, this driving iron
Speaker 1: rolled out in an inconceivable number and into this bunker
Speaker 1: that I didn't. I'm hitting the iron so it doesn't
Speaker 1: get there, you know, effectively, and it gets in there,
Speaker 1: and then he gets it to where he generated. I
Speaker 1: think like one of the things is that he generated
Speaker 1: another really comfortable look and he had the really similar
Speaker 1: distance looks on sixteen, seventeen and eighteen, and there's something
Speaker 1: about like getting through seventeen after that t shot. He
Speaker 1: put himself in a stressful situation. But say he had
Speaker 1: just been able to just shovel it out a little
Speaker 1: bit and he had two hundred yards into seventeen, it
Speaker 1: all of a sudden would have he would have like
Speaker 1: accumulated stress there. It would have been, you know, he's
Speaker 1: probably hitting a big lag putt to make his par
Speaker 1: and he's scooting out of there. But I think it
Speaker 1: almost put him in an attacking mindset where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I just missed that birdie on seventeen, Let's go get
Speaker 1: it on eighteen. You know, I thought, the way this
Speaker 1: is never it's never going to look when when people
Speaker 1: look back on his round, They're never going to look
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, what a great round of golf
Speaker 1: that sixty eight was. Because the number with the with
Speaker 1: the other numbers that people shot during the week, whether
Speaker 1: it was you know, the sixty two's that the sixty
Speaker 1: two he shot on Saturday, or the sixty twos from Friday,
Speaker 1: or even Cam Young who went out two hours ahead
Speaker 1: of him, his you know sixty four that he shouts
Speaker 1: are all going to obscure. The other piece of this
Speaker 1: is that in those last I don't know five groups,
Speaker 1: nobody put a real number up on the board. Nobody
Speaker 1: really went out and shot a number. And on the
Speaker 1: back nine it opened up where it was like anybody's game,
Speaker 1: and this guy went out and made four birdies on
Speaker 1: a very very hard back nine. I mean, there were
Speaker 1: so many crosswinds, the course is super firm, and the
Speaker 1: wind finally kicks up. It was the hardest conditions of
Speaker 1: the tournament and he played. I mean, everybody's gonna look
Speaker 1: at the sixty two's everything. This was the nine of
Speaker 1: the tournament.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Look, when you are
Speaker 2: in the final pairing in the final round of a
Speaker 2: major championship, it's the pressure in the heat and the
Speaker 2: exposure and the spotlight that is on you, you know,
Speaker 2: increases dramatically compare to if you were someone like even
Speaker 2: a Cam Young who went out there a couple hours before.
Speaker 2: I mean, Cam Young is going to the first he
Speaker 2: knowing that he only really has one option on the
Speaker 2: day he had a bit of a rough third day.
Speaker 2: He only has one option. He's got to go out
Speaker 2: there and put his foot on the gas and hope
Speaker 2: things fall his way and have a chance with a
Speaker 2: handful of holes to play. He did that and he
Speaker 2: deserves a ton of credit for that round of golf.
Speaker 2: But total different type of pressure that Cam Young had
Speaker 2: when he started his final round and when Burns and
Speaker 2: Fox he started their final round. So you know, that
Speaker 2: just highlights everything that you've just said. I mean, for
Speaker 2: him to go out there and play that well, shoot
Speaker 2: a great sixty eight and get it done, you gotta
Speaker 2: tip your cap to him. And really that's the advantage
Speaker 2: of being in the final or the penultimate pairings is
Speaker 2: you know everyone in front of you, you can kind
Speaker 2: of get a feel for or see what they're doing,
Speaker 2: how they've finished, you can get a feel for what
Speaker 2: it's going to take, what the number is. And the
Speaker 2: beauty about Roal Birkdale is you've got to wait a
Speaker 2: long time for those part fives to roll around. But
Speaker 2: when they roll around, all of a sudden, you get
Speaker 2: a couple of chances late in your round where eagle
Speaker 2: is in play, and so if you are a stroke
Speaker 2: or two behind, you know that there's still some time
Speaker 2: to catch up. And it was fun. I mean the
Speaker 2: last hour or so, it really was was great watching
Speaker 2: to see if anybody could could catch or tie Cam Young.
Speaker 2: I mean, it would have been fascinating. Can you imagine
Speaker 2: if he won, finishing like two hours and twenty minutes
Speaker 2: before the leaders, that would have been been quite something.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't really remember himba that happening in
Speaker 2: a major championship for quite some time. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: sort of my brain's almost going back to Ben Curtis
Speaker 2: early in the two thousands.
Speaker 1: That's what I saw. I saw people comparing it to
Speaker 1: Ben Curtis, if he had, if he had won, and
Speaker 1: it would have been you know, yeah, I think you
Speaker 1: make a great point because that Sunday morning about like
Speaker 1: the difference and feel when you're in a late pairing,
Speaker 1: whether it's like one of the last you know. I think,
Speaker 1: particularly with this one, one of the last three pairings,
Speaker 1: all those guys felt like they probably had Hey, if
Speaker 1: I play a really good round, I'm gonna win this tournament.
Speaker 1: And but there's also like this idea and you saw
Speaker 1: it is like I could shoot, you know, if Sam
Speaker 1: Burns shoots seventy, he's he's in it. It's a different
Speaker 1: dynamic in the sense of like you don't have to
Speaker 1: light the world on fire for Cam Young, you know.
Speaker 1: And and how close he got hit there, as you said,
Speaker 1: one option you go get it. But if it doesn't,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, ah, shucks, I didn't. I didn't have
Speaker 1: like that great round bottled up today and I yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think of his decision making
Speaker 1: on eighteen?
Speaker 2: Are we talking about Foxy Still or came Young?
Speaker 1: Cam Young?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't mind it. I don't mind it.
Speaker 2: It's such a difficult t shot no matter what club
Speaker 2: you choose, like I touched on earlier. You can take
Speaker 2: a couple of bunkers out, but then you're really going
Speaker 2: to be stuck with a long iron in. Their whole
Speaker 2: location was tucked behind that right bunker, and so if
Speaker 2: you're going in with something longer, I mean, now you
Speaker 2: rarely are probably going to be dumping it to about
Speaker 2: thirty five or forty feet and you're just playing for
Speaker 2: par at that point. We know how Wally drives the ball.
Speaker 2: We know how Wally drives it under pressure. You think
Speaker 2: back to the t shot he hit on the eighteenth
Speaker 2: of the players this year, and really it's one of
Speaker 2: his weapons. I mean, he has got a great game
Speaker 2: through the bag, but the driver is one of his weapons,
Speaker 2: and so I don't really second guess that too much.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm totally comfortable with that. The other thing
Speaker 2: about it is, you know everything was going his way
Speaker 2: for the whole round, and you know, you look at
Speaker 2: he goes out in twenty nine. He makes another birdy
Speaker 2: at fourteen, another birdy at seventeen, so he gets the
Speaker 2: two par fives and at that point he is seven
Speaker 2: under for the round, and so all the momentum is
Speaker 2: going his way. It's one of those where you know,
Speaker 2: you keep riding the wave until he get tossed off.
Speaker 2: And when I initially saw the lion the bunker, I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: there might be a chance it was similar to what
Speaker 2: Ryan had in the third round. And then he took
Speaker 2: his stance and he seemed to rarely be aiming a
Speaker 2: long way left to try and open that club face
Speaker 2: up to create some more loft and hit a big
Speaker 2: slice to try and get it up or on the
Speaker 2: green or you know, around the green. But in the
Speaker 2: end it didn't didn't come close. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: quite a long way from getting over the lip of
Speaker 2: that pot bunker. So yeah, it's the beauty of Lynx Golf.
Speaker 2: You know. I just love how the bunkers at Links Golf,
Speaker 2: the majority of them, they don't have to be massive
Speaker 2: to cause havoc. You know. Obviously the area around him
Speaker 2: a lot of times feeds towards them, and so they
Speaker 2: they sort of get get swallowed up. Like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: it's like there's a magnet in there, and it's just
Speaker 2: like it's encouraging your ball to come towards it. But
Speaker 2: once you get in him, I mean it's you know,
Speaker 2: you're looking at it half the full shot penalty, and
Speaker 2: that's why I love it. I was actually having this
Speaker 2: discussion with my son while we were watching it, thinking
Speaker 2: back to players who've won the Open or done real
Speaker 2: well who've never been in a bunker for the week.
Speaker 2: I think I seem to remember Tiger maybe in two
Speaker 2: thousand at St Andrews. He wasn't in one bunker the
Speaker 2: whole week, and so to be able to plot your
Speaker 2: way around, I mean, some are some are harder than others.
Speaker 2: You know, you look at an aerial of the eighteenth
Speaker 2: draw Birkdale, is so many of them out there just
Speaker 2: looking to grab your ball, and Cam just couldn't quite
Speaker 2: sneak it by there. But it also highlights how great
Speaker 2: Ryan's t shot was, especially being iced on the last tea.
Speaker 2: It was a bit of a hold up there. He's
Speaker 2: gone ahead and put the tea in the ground, which
Speaker 2: you know how many psychologists would disagree with that. You know,
Speaker 2: don't start your routine until it's your turn to He'd
Speaker 2: already had that ball teed up, he had the driver
Speaker 2: in his hand. He's kind of wondering around the tea
Speaker 2: box waiting for someone to tell him he can go
Speaker 2: ahead and whack it and just steps up there and
Speaker 2: crushes it down the middle. I mean it really highlights
Speaker 2: what a magnificent tea shot that was.
Speaker 1: It was, I mean, outstanding te shot. I think, you
Speaker 1: know the way these things work, right, It's like five
Speaker 1: years from now, people are gonna be like, oh, Ryan
Speaker 1: Fox snuck one out. You know, you know it depending
Speaker 1: on what happens. But as we've hit on, he's won
Speaker 1: twenty times across the world. And I think the other
Speaker 1: thing about it, the winning score of the tournament was
Speaker 1: ten under. It's not like a create. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: a nineteen twenty under Open, like you know, like last
Speaker 1: time we were at the old course, it was I think,
Speaker 1: what was it, twenty under the Campsmith one. The guy
Speaker 1: shot one thirty on the weekend. Yeah, shot right on
Speaker 1: the week to win the Open Championship, and of course
Speaker 1: that yielded the winning score ten under. Like incredible, incredible
Speaker 1: weekend performance. One thing I wonder about with Cam, and
Speaker 1: something I think about a lot with tournament golf, is
Speaker 1: you become fixated with a number in your head that
Speaker 1: this is the number that I have to get to,
Speaker 1: this is the number that it has to be. And
Speaker 1: I think for Cam going out early where the wind
Speaker 1: hasn't quite kicked up, and the way he went out
Speaker 1: and got it, I almost sent like a false sense
Speaker 1: of what the number was going to be throughout the
Speaker 1: entire field, but more and most importantly him, because as
Speaker 1: soon as he got off the course, he's like, I
Speaker 1: wish I was at you know, basically said I wish
Speaker 1: I was at eleven or twelve. I don't think I
Speaker 1: have much of a chance. But I think that the
Speaker 1: psychology of that on the eighteenth hole in the bunker
Speaker 1: played into it, and I think it's just a good
Speaker 1: thought for anybody that's playing copetitive golf anywhere, whether you're
Speaker 1: in club championship, whether you're playing a match, is like
Speaker 1: figurative numbers in your head will only get you in trouble,
Speaker 1: and all you could do at the moment is like
Speaker 1: hit the shot in front of you. And it's like
Speaker 1: he dumps that out in front of the green. It's
Speaker 1: probably a pretty easy up and down for him. The
Speaker 1: way he's kind of going, and you know he's had ten,
Speaker 1: it's a completely different story. And you played out a
Speaker 1: number of times. I think it's probably harder for fox
Speaker 1: to make a birdie on eighteen to get into a
Speaker 1: playoff that it is actually to win. I don't know though.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously you could play that the game of
Speaker 1: figurative all over. But I have to think that throughout
Speaker 1: the entire field there was a belief that the number
Speaker 1: needed to be eleven or twelve, and it ended up
Speaker 1: and a lot of people were kicking themselves when they
Speaker 1: realized I just had to get to ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's that's an accurate and fair assessment
Speaker 2: right there. You just never quite know, particularly in this
Speaker 2: style of golf. I mean, it did appear to me.
Speaker 2: I was on site Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then I
Speaker 2: flew home, so I watched it on TV over the weekend.
Speaker 2: But it did appear to me that the last hour
Speaker 2: and a half or so, the wind did pick up,
Speaker 2: probably as strong as it had been all week long.
Speaker 2: And uh, and as the wind starts to whip across
Speaker 2: these holes, it really gets harder to to get it
Speaker 2: in there close and and and really take it as
Speaker 2: deep as what we saw from some of the earliest starters.
Speaker 2: So and then and then also you know, you've you've
Speaker 2: got the the extra layer of again, Now it's crunch time.
Speaker 2: Now we're down to the end. I mean this is
Speaker 2: not Thursday afternoon or Friday afternoon. I mean, now, now
Speaker 2: who's going to lift the cleric jug? And so all
Speaker 2: of that stuff, stuff starts to factor in and the
Speaker 2: air starts to get a little more thin. Ah, but uh,
Speaker 2: it was fine. I mean a particular moment there, it
Speaker 2: felt like they were there were a handful of more
Speaker 2: or more of guys that had legitimate shots, but particularly
Speaker 2: with you know, seventeen being a reachable part five, I mean,
Speaker 2: somebody could have made an eagle or bogie on that whole.
Speaker 2: That could have been a huge switch right there. So
Speaker 2: it was great. What a way to finish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, there's there's some similarities. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit different in the sense of the way the
Speaker 1: tournament unfolded, but it felt it had a little bit
Speaker 1: of a rondom innk with the way that the final
Speaker 1: nine unfolded, where you know, there's a lot of people, uh,
Speaker 1: and a lot of different types of players, a lot
Speaker 1: of different experience levels on the leader board, and and
Speaker 1: one player went out and took it from everyone. It
Speaker 1: happened to be the fox that you know, out out
Speaker 1: smarted the whole field.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: I like that. The clever old fox saved as best
Speaker 1: for the last. So you know, they there's some headlines
Speaker 1: right itself. What's you make of Scottie Shuffler's week.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, as always, he's in there. He gives
Speaker 2: himself a chance. I mean it's remarkable the consistency that
Speaker 2: this guy has. Doesn't matter the conditions, doesn't matter the
Speaker 2: style of course. It can be firm, it can be soft,
Speaker 2: it can be low scoring, can be a really stern test.
Speaker 2: I mean, he just finds a way to have a
Speaker 2: chance to win. I thought it was some of the
Speaker 2: best ball striking I've seen from him in a number
Speaker 2: of months. Actually thought that he got his swing into
Speaker 2: a nice zone and slot and was rarely hitting a
Speaker 2: lot of beautiful shots, but he didn't quite quite make anything.
Speaker 2: Felt like couldn't rarely buy a put and then had
Speaker 2: to push toward the end. We had the awkwardness of
Speaker 2: seventeen where he gets the drop and he comes up
Speaker 2: what is he three behind? And so sixty seven on
Speaker 2: Sunday had a real shot at it. But you know,
Speaker 2: Bogion eighteen Bogion fifteen, Bogion thirteen. So he shoots even
Speaker 2: on the second nine, I mean rarely gave himself a
Speaker 2: great shot after going out in three under thirty one,
Speaker 2: especially with the start when he flagged it on number
Speaker 2: one and on two and he starts Bertie Bertie, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh boy, I mean this could get interesting here.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I echoed that. I thought that was the
Speaker 1: best he's looked tee to green in a in a
Speaker 1: long time, which is very scary for anybody playing him
Speaker 1: the next few weeks. Uh. Unfortunately, you know, none of
Speaker 1: those are major championships for him.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The putter, I you know, outside of last year at
Speaker 1: at at Port Rush, I feel like every time we
Speaker 1: come to the Open, the putter just is is just
Speaker 1: a bit I don't know if it's the slower greens,
Speaker 1: I I you know, there was a lot of commentary
Speaker 1: about the greens and particularly the way they they were
Speaker 1: later in the day just being a little bumpier, and
Speaker 1: obviously a lot of players playing a lot of mixture
Speaker 1: of grasses, not a lot of you know, not a
Speaker 1: lot of rain this year, so that you know that
Speaker 1: just naturally the grasses are a little bit more stress stressed,
Speaker 1: but you know, it just seemed like those those moments
Speaker 1: where he could get momentum going or keep momentum riding
Speaker 1: every time it came down to a very very makeable
Speaker 1: putt and in that range of putts that you know,
Speaker 1: you you you feel like you should make all of them,
Speaker 1: but you should you statistically are going to And it
Speaker 1: just felt like he was living in that zone all day,
Speaker 1: all week long and just could not get get just
Speaker 1: rolling with confidence on the greens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been a funny one kind of you know,
Speaker 2: as I've observed closely at the events that that we
Speaker 2: cover at CBS, I mean I don't see anything necessarily
Speaker 2: wrong with the stroke or the technique or where he's
Speaker 2: striking the putt on the face. He's been hitting a
Speaker 2: lot of putts that you know, with two or three
Speaker 2: feet to go, it's got a good chance and it
Speaker 2: just burns by the edge or maybe it's a hair
Speaker 2: firm or it comes up, you know, one roll short.
Speaker 2: But they all look like they've got a shot to
Speaker 2: go in with a few feet to go. So kind
Speaker 2: of weird that he's in this stretch where it's just
Speaker 2: not quite happening for him on the greens, but I
Speaker 2: don't see I don't see anything glaring in you know,
Speaker 2: from a technical aspect, it just seems to be one
Speaker 2: of those runs that are tough to explain in golf
Speaker 2: where the balls is not dropping.
Speaker 1: Right now that's watching him on Saturday, I thought it
Speaker 1: was insane. I mean, he has so many good putts,
Speaker 1: and he had a couple couple like pretty pretty rough
Speaker 1: flipouts in terms of just like how does that not go?
Speaker 2: In?
Speaker 1: A couple that burned the edge? In every round he
Speaker 1: played this week, it felt like, God, I think that
Speaker 1: was as high as he could have shot, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's just like one of those like I felt like,
Speaker 1: I feel like like last year that was a tournament
Speaker 1: he wins by six or seven shots, and it's like
Speaker 1: in the discourses, how does that? How's anybody going to
Speaker 1: beat this guy? And for whatever reason, this year it's
Speaker 1: just been, you know, the ball striking hasn't been there
Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks and that's let him down.
Speaker 1: And in the big high stakes moment, you I mean,
Speaker 1: you go back to Shittacock kind of coming down the
Speaker 1: stretch and and surprisingly it's his ball striking that lets
Speaker 1: him down, and then this week it's his putter, and
Speaker 1: all in all, it's it's I you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't think you would get here with any player after Tiger, really,
Speaker 1: but it's the end of the year and the fact
Speaker 1: that he didn't win one of these is crazy to me,
Speaker 1: given how many chances he had, given the the level
Speaker 1: that his game is at even in an off year
Speaker 1: where he's still head and shoulders better than everybody, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's just remarkable that we sit at that
Speaker 1: end of the year, and in a way, I think
Speaker 1: it makes it a little him a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a compelling character in the game that he didn't
Speaker 1: get one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it sure does build the anticipation for
Speaker 2: the Masters next year because we know how well he's
Speaker 2: played there in the past. But it's just been a
Speaker 2: case of, you know, he hasn't quite been able to
Speaker 2: put it all together at a tournament for a few
Speaker 2: months now. We've spoken many times about how high his
Speaker 2: floor is and that's why he just seems to be
Speaker 2: in the top ten every time he puts a team
Speaker 2: in the ground. But yeah, I think you're very accurate
Speaker 2: there where, you know, for a few months now, the
Speaker 2: ball striking hasn't quite been a shop is what he
Speaker 2: would like. But his short game was giving him the
Speaker 2: opportunity to still have a chance to win on Sunday.
Speaker 2: But that kind of flipped here this week. I'm just
Speaker 2: looking at the stats now and this just is going
Speaker 2: right off the open app So take that for what
Speaker 2: you will. But stroke's going off the t seventh and
Speaker 2: approach fourth. So I mean that kind of shows like
Speaker 2: how well he was hitting the ball, but the putting,
Speaker 2: you know, he's losing strokes for the week on the
Speaker 2: greens and so once again, you know, it hasn't quite
Speaker 2: been able to get firing on all cylinders. But still
Speaker 2: with nine ers to play, I had a shot, a
Speaker 2: shot to win another major.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's what do you think of his drop
Speaker 1: on seventeen?
Speaker 2: Gosh, it felt awkward. I mean it felt awkward, you know,
Speaker 2: such a difficult shot. First of all, I mean, he's
Speaker 2: got a severe upsloping lie. He knows he's got to
Speaker 2: push it to make something happen, and he decides to
Speaker 2: go for it. I saw that he said afterwards that
Speaker 2: you know, in a normal situation where he didn't have
Speaker 2: to push, he would never have hit a wood and
Speaker 2: gone for the green from that lie he's got the
Speaker 2: huge dune in front of him and went way to
Speaker 2: the left. I think he said it clipped something on
Speaker 2: top of the hill and kind of deflected it to
Speaker 2: the left. It was pretty confusing, I would say for
Speaker 2: fans watching to try and understand what was going on.
Speaker 2: You saw people looking for the ball left of the hospitality,
Speaker 2: and then they stopped looking. He had a provisional, you know,
Speaker 2: before he got down there, and then next thing he's
Speaker 2: taking a drop and he's hitting, and the graphics it's
Speaker 2: his third shot and everyone's like, WHOA, what's going on here?
Speaker 2: But I guess. I mean, the rule is pretty clear
Speaker 2: cut regarding Tio's temporary movable obstructions and those all outlined,
Speaker 2: and the bowl was deemed to have gone in there
Speaker 2: and pretty good break. Pretty good break.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was it, didn't you know. I I think
Speaker 1: this was a big week for the rules. Uh to
Speaker 1: the Brice and situation statement, I guess where I think, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think Scotty Scheffler did anything wrong, and in
Speaker 1: the moment, as a competitor, you're trying to do everything
Speaker 1: you can to get yourself the best ruling you can
Speaker 1: where I would sit as as someone watching it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't feel right to demand people to stop looking for
Speaker 1: your ball because where if there, if you find your ball,
Speaker 1: you drop in a much worse place that just like
Speaker 1: a like in a vacuum. I get like I've told
Speaker 1: people in my tournament, don't look for the ball. I've
Speaker 1: told people like, do not look for the ball because
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to find it and I'm
Speaker 1: just going to play my lost ball provisional, you know,
Speaker 1: in that situation with how many people at the end
Speaker 1: of a major championship, to me, it's really silly that
Speaker 1: you can assume that something went into TiO area not
Speaker 1: find the ball, and if you find the ball and
Speaker 1: it sounds like where they found the ball, the drop
Speaker 1: would have been much worse situation. And to me, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't feel really in the spirit of the game
Speaker 1: with with how it all unfolded. Where he got to
Speaker 1: drop in an area that frankly he did not hit
Speaker 1: a shot anywhere near, and it gave him basically the
Speaker 1: chance to attempt a heroic shot which he did not
Speaker 1: pull off at whatsoever, and then get the reward of
Speaker 1: if he would have just laid up. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think that from a sense of like the
Speaker 1: rules and I think this is it's just we're at
Speaker 1: an interesting point with the Bryson thing, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into the Bryson thing, but like, you know, I I think, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the spirit of the game has always been the players,
Speaker 1: you know, are are gentlemen and they do this and that.
Speaker 1: But with how high the stakes are coming down in
Speaker 1: a major championship, I just thought that that was a
Speaker 1: little you know, while completely by the rules, completely by
Speaker 1: the rule book, it was not in the spirit of
Speaker 1: competition and and really the game and protecting the field
Speaker 1: that he was awarded a drop and also could simultaneously
Speaker 1: tell people to stop looking for the golf ball because
Speaker 1: if it's found, he knows he's going to get a
Speaker 1: drop in a worse spot, which tells me he knew
Speaker 1: the ball, where the ball was and where you know,
Speaker 1: everybody knew where it was and where he should be dropping.
Speaker 1: But because it wasn't found, you know, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense to me.
Speaker 2: No, Look, did it did it feel did it feel awkward? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Did he do anything wrong? Not?
Speaker 1: Now? Uh?
Speaker 2: And you know, in that case, he had the walking
Speaker 2: rules official right there with him, talking him through the
Speaker 2: whole situation and letting him know what his options were.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it did feel a bit funny, and it'll
Speaker 2: be interesting to see if the USG and the RNA
Speaker 2: look at this moving forward with their big championships. Obviously
Speaker 2: that affects the PGA Tour, the dp World, to all
Speaker 2: other tours around the world because they operate by the
Speaker 2: RNA rules and the USGA rules, and so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just a tough one because you've got these massive
Speaker 2: tournaments with championships with huge buildouts for the fans to
Speaker 2: encourage people to come out and watch and support and
Speaker 2: sponsor hospitality and all that, and you try and get
Speaker 2: it as close to the action as you can so
Speaker 2: people can can really feel a part of it and
Speaker 2: enjoy the experience. And you know this, this is just
Speaker 2: part of it. It's one of the things that you
Speaker 2: have to deal with.
Speaker 1: Do you think just you know, this could be this
Speaker 1: is across the board, and do you think TiO drop
Speaker 1: areas are appropriate the way they're generally staged across the
Speaker 1: world of golf, which TiO is temporary and movable objects,
Speaker 1: So that would be like a grandstand. Do you think
Speaker 1: across the world of golf, the TiO drops are generally
Speaker 1: fair with what typically happens with them.
Speaker 2: I can't think. I think whether it's fair or not is.
Speaker 1: Do they protect the field? Actually? Is the better question?
Speaker 2: Well, if everybody's playing by the same rules, then it
Speaker 2: is it is in essence protecting the field because everybody
Speaker 2: has got the same option and chance to use that
Speaker 2: drop zone. What I was going to say was, you know,
Speaker 2: if they if they hit it into one of these areas,
Speaker 2: I can't think of another way to do it. You know,
Speaker 2: with these massive grandstands and hospitality that surround a lot
Speaker 2: of these areas, I just can't think of another way
Speaker 2: to do it.
Speaker 1: I guess by by only solution. I think the Open
Speaker 1: does actually a pretty good job of this the drop zone,
Speaker 1: especially if you if you've set your your structures back appropriately,
Speaker 1: and I don't think this is always the case. In
Speaker 1: some places it's really hard to have a lot of space.
Speaker 1: I think the drop zone should be extremely uh places
Speaker 1: that you you should not want to be just generally
Speaker 1: that should be the general thought process when you're when
Speaker 1: you're painting out a drop zone. Yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is a spot of bother because if you hit it
Speaker 1: into the stands, it's it's generally a bad shot and
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be there. Shouldn't be. And I don't think
Speaker 1: Scotty was ever using this as a bailout. But he
Speaker 1: hit an objectively awful shot and got a huge reward
Speaker 1: because it would ended up in in a spectator area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know he did. He did, there's no denying that. Uh.
Speaker 2: I feel that, you know, every venue is going to
Speaker 2: present different opportunities of where these drop zones could be,
Speaker 2: and so even there it's going to be like subjective ast.
Speaker 2: You know, what is the worst spot where it's tough.
Speaker 1: It depends on the whole location on a day too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's it's just it's one
Speaker 2: of the it's one of the little knocks or one
Speaker 2: of the little negative aspects of you know, coming down
Speaker 2: the stretch in a massive tournament that's meaningful, something like
Speaker 2: this can happen. But unless you get away from having hospitality, uh,
Speaker 2: which would be a very bold call, man, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's I don't think you can avoid it. I
Speaker 2: think it's just something we have to to learn. The stomach.
Speaker 1: It would have been something that if he had made
Speaker 1: birdie on eighteen, it would have I don't it would
Speaker 1: have maybe the Briceon situation while we're here, while we're
Speaker 1: on rules, rules, this would be.
Speaker 2: A possible of the show right here.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you know, we're we're talking about what happened,
Speaker 1: and these are the big stories. Bryce it de Shabou
Speaker 1: is given a two stroke penalty for improving his lie
Speaker 1: on Friday night after he played a spectacular round of
Speaker 1: golf that you know, he lifts himself into the final
Speaker 1: pairing of Saturday. After play, they deemed that he improved
Speaker 1: his lie on the fifth hole while he was in
Speaker 1: a big area of tall grass. You know, really the
Speaker 1: way the wording from the RNA was accidental. There was
Speaker 1: thick rough and while he was you know, kind of
Speaker 1: evaluating the shot, it appeared that he stepped on some
Speaker 1: grass that was in his back swing and that would
Speaker 1: have matted it down and enabled them an easier swing.
Speaker 1: What did you think of the whole situation? Uh?
Speaker 2: You know, the first thing I want to say is,
Speaker 2: you know, as fans, we've known Bryceon for more than
Speaker 2: a decade now, and you think about when he won
Speaker 2: the US Senator in twenty fifteen. Standout college player broke
Speaker 2: through the ranks quite quickly, won a whole host of
Speaker 2: tournaments all over, including a couple of US Opens. I
Speaker 2: think it's important to acknowledge and have on the record
Speaker 2: that in all those years, which is more than ten,
Speaker 2: has been a polarizing figure in the sport, very well known,
Speaker 2: well documented, and popular and had a large following. And
Speaker 2: in all that time, I don't know about you, but
Speaker 2: I have never seen or read or heard anything about
Speaker 2: him being cavalier with the rules in any way, shape
Speaker 2: or form. I think that's important to know. Interstate. He
Speaker 2: seems to have great respect and honor for the game
Speaker 2: and for the rules of it. And so do I
Speaker 2: think it was it was accidental? I do. Do I
Speaker 2: think that the penalty was probably fair? Yeah, I probably do.
Speaker 2: It just seemed like the way he went in there,
Speaker 2: there was there was what's the best way to say this,
Speaker 2: It seemed like there was a distinct possibility that he
Speaker 2: was he had created some room for his backswing, and
Speaker 2: so you know, at the end of the day, it's
Speaker 2: just like any sport, you know, in this case, the
Speaker 2: RNA is govern the rules for the week. I can
Speaker 2: promise you they didn't take this lightly. They were probably
Speaker 2: stewing over it. You know what, what was that the
Speaker 2: fifth hole, if I'm not mistaken correct, So they were
Speaker 2: probably steering over it for a couple hours, looking at
Speaker 2: all the different angles of video, and and that was
Speaker 2: that was their conclusion, and that was their decision. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's there's there's nothing more than what you can say
Speaker 2: about it at that point. You know it did it
Speaker 2: look awkward from the angles that we all saw. The
Speaker 2: grass was so high that, you know, he was taking
Speaker 2: big high steps and and stuff was getting trampled down.
Speaker 2: It was, it was. It was tough one and and
Speaker 2: obviously everything that happened in and around that, the debating
Speaker 2: back and forth, the players not being able to put
Speaker 2: their cards in, and the tee times being delayed coming out,
Speaker 2: it was a bit of a mess there towards the
Speaker 2: end of Saturday evening, which is a little bit of
Speaker 2: a unfortunate and disappointing because it was such a great
Speaker 2: day of golf. I mean, we saw some amazing golf,
Speaker 2: and even Bryson himself, the way he finished round three
Speaker 2: and some of the shots he hit the birdies he
Speaker 2: made at fifteen and seventeen or shall I say no,
Speaker 2: I got to go back this What.
Speaker 1: Round was round too?
Speaker 2: Was round two?
Speaker 1: Eighteen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, eighteen, seventeen and eighteen. Sorry I I clicked the
Speaker 2: wrong round there. Yeah, he birdied eleven, seventeen and eighteen,
Speaker 2: and then everything kind of went sideways with the penalty.
Speaker 2: It was just super awkward, man. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, you know, the RNA is is, they're
Speaker 2: in charge of the rules for the week, and they've
Speaker 2: decided it's a penalty, and there's there's just not much
Speaker 2: eCos after that.
Speaker 1: I thought, I I think it was a tricky situation
Speaker 1: and one of the things we'll never know. And I
Speaker 1: think it maybe and this could be good for good
Speaker 1: in the in the long run for Bryson, or bad
Speaker 1: in the long run for Bryson, whatever. The RNA might
Speaker 1: have a different camera angle than everybody else had.
Speaker 2: Possibly just nobody knows.
Speaker 1: Nobody knows, and and that's kind of an organization that's
Speaker 1: gonna put stuff under lock and key. And in a way,
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting when you zoom out on like
Speaker 1: the RNA and what they've what they've done over the years,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it was the they did kind of
Speaker 1: the surprise driver test years ago and popped like a
Speaker 1: dozen players on the eve of the Open with with
Speaker 1: hot drivers. I think they gave Decki a pace of
Speaker 1: play warning at mirror or penalty at mirfield when he
Speaker 1: was in the mix in the in in the hunt
Speaker 1: years ago. I think they've gone about they tend to.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I wonder about is if
Speaker 1: if deep down they don't like the way that players
Speaker 1: the players their behavior around golf balls. And I think
Speaker 1: this is something as uh someone that I someone that
Speaker 1: you know that goes to tournaments and watches inside the
Speaker 1: ropes very close up. Sometimes I wonder, I'm like, is
Speaker 1: that the way you should be, you know with a ball,
Speaker 1: you know, with a with a lie in the way
Speaker 1: that that the players, I think it's I think players
Speaker 1: have become very casual with the way they treat a
Speaker 1: golf ball that's not in the fair way, just in general.
Speaker 1: And something I noticed just on television was they they
Speaker 1: hit Bryson with this penalty and the rest of the
Speaker 1: weekend I saw a completely different behavior of players around
Speaker 1: golf balls and thick rough than I usually see the
Speaker 1: way that they walked, and it was so evident. Early
Speaker 1: on on Saturday, Scotty and Bryson hit it virtually in
Speaker 1: the same spot behind the second second green into the thicker,
Speaker 1: you know, thicker rough there, and I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever seen those two players act more careful around golf
Speaker 1: balls as they were sitting up to make sure they weren't,
Speaker 1: you know, they weren't going to move. And I think
Speaker 1: like in a way, the enforcement of of of this
Speaker 1: rule we have not seen really administered by any any
Speaker 1: tournament organization for years, and I think potentially this was
Speaker 1: a signal of the RNA to say this rule should
Speaker 1: be enforced more often, because this is bringing to light
Speaker 1: that this I think this stuff happens. I think it
Speaker 1: happens a lot around around the world of golf, and
Speaker 1: it should be policed much more. Whether it's the act
Speaker 1: of I'm never going to hit a three wood out
Speaker 1: of this lie, but I'm going to put the three
Speaker 1: wood down behind the ball when I'm in the thick
Speaker 1: rough and look and act like I'm going to hit
Speaker 1: the three wood and then pull out an iron. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody knows what they're doing there, and I think like
Speaker 1: just in general, the idea of, like everybody, if you're
Speaker 1: in playing competitive golf, you're more hyper aware of what
Speaker 1: you're doing in your surroundings, in your in your situation
Speaker 1: that maybe in any other pursuit in in the world.
Speaker 1: The the awareness that you have those four hours, like
Speaker 1: the or five hours you're out there, and I just
Speaker 1: felt like, I feel like guys know exactly what they're doing.
Speaker 1: And I think I don't think like I think the
Speaker 1: game's gotten to a point again, I don't think that
Speaker 1: this is viewed as a problem on tour because it's
Speaker 1: gotten so casual.
Speaker 2: I would push back a little bit. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's fair to say it happens a lot. I would say,
Speaker 2: you know, it's few and far between. Maybe the rule
Speaker 2: needs to be clarified even more, and players need to
Speaker 2: know exactly how close they can get, where exactly they
Speaker 2: can stand. I mean, remember when the rule was adjusted
Speaker 2: recently about caddies lining you up and when they could
Speaker 2: stand behind you and at what point they needed to
Speaker 2: be clear of that zone. Maybe there's something like that
Speaker 2: that needs to be clarified with you know, because I
Speaker 2: saw a lot of people online talking about, oh, that's
Speaker 2: his routine, he stands behind it. But you know, if
Speaker 2: you're standing that close to the ball behind it to
Speaker 2: where you're in lung grass and you're flattening out an
Speaker 2: area to be able to make a back or have
Speaker 2: a cleaner approach to the ball, that's obviously a problem.
Speaker 2: And uh, and so maybe that needs to be really
Speaker 2: clarified for these guys a little bit more when they
Speaker 2: get get out of position like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, you know, I would. The thing
Speaker 1: that gets me is is the behavior with the ball
Speaker 1: and the rough sometimes, you know, just I mean, how
Speaker 1: many times do you see people with a bad lie
Speaker 1: in the in the in the rough around the greens,
Speaker 1: and like by the time they're hitting the ball, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look as bad because they've sold so many
Speaker 1: wedges down behind the ball. It's like, how, I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look it's risky. Now, it's risky. The most important
Speaker 2: thing in our sport is is your reputation, and that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff really can leave a pretty nasty mark
Speaker 2: on you for the rest of your career. And that's why,
Speaker 2: you know, I really wanted to make sure that I
Speaker 2: said that about Bryson before. Was I mean, this guy
Speaker 2: has got, you know, more than a decade of experience
Speaker 2: at the highest level, and we've never really ever mentioned
Speaker 2: anything like this with him before, and so you know,
Speaker 2: it's something you've got you've got to be a little
Speaker 2: bit gentle with because you just don't want to be
Speaker 2: tarnished in that way with our sport. And nowadays, you know,
Speaker 2: these cameras all over the place, not just the official
Speaker 2: cameras of the tournament and the broadcasting network, but the
Speaker 2: majority of the fans. You know, you look at any
Speaker 2: of these pictures now of guys hitting these fabulous shots
Speaker 2: down the stretch. I mean pretty much everybody in the
Speaker 2: crowd's holding up a phone and they're videoing what's going on,
Speaker 2: and so there's so many different views and angles of
Speaker 2: of all these different shots that, yeah, I mean, you
Speaker 2: better make sure that you're keeping everything squeaky clean. And
Speaker 2: I thought that Scotty Chef Laughter's round yesterday made a
Speaker 2: very good point. He said, you know, everybody kind of
Speaker 2: knows where the rules are, and you try and stay
Speaker 2: as clear as far away from that edge as you can.
Speaker 2: I mean, you just you don't want to ever allow
Speaker 2: any gray area. And I thought that was a very
Speaker 2: good point to make. And you know the other thing.
Speaker 2: The other thing about it, Andy, is we haven't heard
Speaker 2: Bryson's side because he refuses to speak to the media
Speaker 2: for some reason. And so it would have been great
Speaker 2: after all of this we watched it all go down,
Speaker 2: and we heard the RNA's point of view and their
Speaker 2: adjudication on the matter, so to speak, and their clarification
Speaker 2: as to why he was getting a two stroke penalty.
Speaker 2: It would have been nice for us to hear from Bryson,
Speaker 2: understand his point of view, and then go from there.
Speaker 2: But I don't think it's helped that he has kept
Speaker 2: quiet and not wanted to go on the record with anybody,
Speaker 2: because when you do that, then you know, people's imagination
Speaker 2: can just run wild and they can say whatever they
Speaker 2: want and there's no distinct two points of view that
Speaker 2: you can then operate between.
Speaker 1: I would wholly agree with that. You know, that's a
Speaker 1: situation where I think you would want to talk about
Speaker 1: what happened. I think it would be advantageous to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: I was just walking, I was trying to just look
Speaker 1: at it by lie you know, you know, it's tall grass,
Speaker 1: like a lot of ways to play play that off,
Speaker 1: you know, in a way, like I think that I
Speaker 1: think by not talking, he actually kind of puts himself
Speaker 1: more in like this is not fair, right, but it
Speaker 1: makes you appear more guilty by not stating your case
Speaker 1: to the further point, like and I just want to
Speaker 1: I don't think any anybody, you know, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody thinks they're they're gaining an advantage on tour
Speaker 1: or at tournaments with what I'm talking about with their
Speaker 1: kind of bed manner around the golf ball. But I
Speaker 1: I think that just in general, more there should be
Speaker 1: more care around the golf ball. And and you can
Speaker 1: agree or disagree with this, and I know this, you know,
Speaker 1: but I think that a lot of the blame of
Speaker 1: this whole situation lies around the tours that administer the
Speaker 1: rules week in week out. As to why we got
Speaker 1: to where we got with the Bryson situation, you know,
Speaker 1: is that I can't remember the last time that there
Speaker 1: was ever this, Like, I don't think I've ever heard
Speaker 1: of the tour in the ten years that I covered
Speaker 1: the sport penalizing someone for improving their lie. And are
Speaker 1: you telling me that in ten years nobody's improved nobody's
Speaker 1: even come close to improving their lie and it's a
Speaker 1: self policing sport and like that to me is crazy, right,
Speaker 1: So to me, a certain part of this needs to
Speaker 1: be This should be a rule, This should be administered regularly,
Speaker 1: and there should be I don't I think there should
Speaker 1: be situations of this happening. It shouldn't be a big
Speaker 1: deal when it happens too, because this happens. Everybody's played
Speaker 1: golf where they know they put their club down in
Speaker 1: a situation you're like, ah, that lies looks a little
Speaker 1: bit better than it looked before.
Speaker 2: But where is the.
Speaker 1: Nash?
Speaker 2: I just I hate gray area? Mm hmmm, and where
Speaker 2: where where is the line that you're going to draw?
Speaker 2: I mean, a player is I'm obviously not advocating for
Speaker 2: anyone improving their life. Obviously I'm not advocating for that,
Speaker 2: but a player is allowed to ground their club before
Speaker 2: making a stroke, and gosh, it seems like that's going
Speaker 2: to open up a can of worms right there. Man.
Speaker 1: It's tricky, But like this is this is my point.
Speaker 1: Do you think that like this has never happened in
Speaker 1: ten years and that's like the the issue, Like it's
Speaker 1: because nobody wants to be uncomfortable, and the only reason
Speaker 1: is un comble is because it never happens.
Speaker 2: You should run for office.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think I don't think the players
Speaker 1: on tour would like myself point on a lot of things.
Speaker 1: But but you know, this is, this is the thing
Speaker 1: I that you know, the next time, next time we
Speaker 1: see somebody going the rough and they they ground the
Speaker 1: soul of a fairway wood, you know, behind the ball
Speaker 1: to see if they could hit three wood from a
Speaker 1: terrible lie in the rough, which you see every single
Speaker 1: week on tour, every single week, and it's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: I'm going back to iron. That person never thought once
Speaker 1: about hanging three wood from that lie. It's clear as
Speaker 1: day what they're doing. And everybody who's ever played golf
Speaker 1: at a moderately high level knows what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, once again, every single week is prob
Speaker 2: maybe a stretch. Does it happen? Yeah, sure it probably does.
Speaker 2: Who knows how many times in a year of golf
Speaker 2: on a profession two Uh. But then fans maybe maybe
Speaker 2: it's maybe it's up to the fans.
Speaker 1: Maybe the should be up to the fans. It should
Speaker 1: be up to the players. It's the end of the day.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day, nobody wants to police
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: It's not nobody does, and it's.
Speaker 1: So if the players can't police it, then then it's
Speaker 1: up to the tour and there are rules officials to
Speaker 1: actually start making some rulings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 1: And that's why I respect about the RDA is they
Speaker 1: looked at it and they said, hey, this is what
Speaker 1: we think happened.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean no, she would just hope
Speaker 2: that everybody is it is trying to protect the field
Speaker 2: and do what's right. It's one of the beauties of
Speaker 2: our sport, is that self pleasing aspect. I kind of
Speaker 2: don't even want to think about it, Like I don't
Speaker 2: want to let my mind go in a direction of
Speaker 2: thinking that this is happening, you know, left right and center.
Speaker 2: I don't see it happening left right and center. If
Speaker 2: if if if I was on a on on a
Speaker 2: broadcast and I saw a player doing that, I would
Speaker 2: say something immediately on the air. So yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe I don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. It's uh, it's an awkward topic. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think like one of the lasting stories from
Speaker 1: this this open will be I mean, there nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: forget what happened to Bryson. And I think, like the
Speaker 1: fact that happened to Bryson is like a whole another
Speaker 1: piece of this of Like, you know, he's kind of
Speaker 1: he like over the course of his career, he's had rules,
Speaker 1: like he's done things. What was it he was putting
Speaker 1: a certain way and then all of a sudden the
Speaker 1: putting I can't remember exactly the way he was putting.
Speaker 1: That putting style was outlawed a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 1: Like you know, you think about like his He's had
Speaker 1: numerous situations like this, and I think, like I'm not
Speaker 1: saying I don't think the RNA necessarily singled him out,
Speaker 1: but over the history of his career, it does feel
Speaker 1: like he gets singled out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was that when he was doing the side settle.
Speaker 1: H m hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I Mean, look, one thing we know about him
Speaker 2: is he thinks outside the box and he tries to
Speaker 2: figure out the best way for him to get the
Speaker 2: ball in the hall as fast as possible. I mean, nobody,
Speaker 2: nobody at this level of the game tried to, you know,
Speaker 2: really increase the power and speed and hit it as
Speaker 2: far as what he was through that COVID period as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's, look, he's willing to to take some
Speaker 2: some some risks when it comes to improving his game
Speaker 2: and improving his skill set and thinking outside the bucks.
Speaker 2: But yeah, because he's he's so polarizing and so popular
Speaker 2: in our sport, it brought it brought a lot of
Speaker 2: attention to it, didn't it?
Speaker 1: Did it? Did? It was just honestly I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is he's going to talk about it at some
Speaker 1: point and it's going to become a story again. And
Speaker 1: obviously with where he sat on the leader board, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, a huge story and who knows if you
Speaker 1: replay it. But like then, all the energy he expended
Speaker 1: that night probably on it couldn't have helped the chances
Speaker 1: of him the rest of the tournament. To segue here,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about about something, your thoughts on something. So
Speaker 1: this is a very interesting statistic. By next year's Masters,
Speaker 1: there will be no major champion under the age of thirty.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Kala Morrikawa is the youngest and he turns thirty in February,
Speaker 1: So by next year's Masters, we will not have a
Speaker 1: major champion, anyone who's won a major. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: under the age of thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you got to think that's going to
Speaker 2: change at some point. Here is soon ish, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of there's a lot of uh, great
Speaker 2: youngsters that are coming through. I mean, what do you
Speaker 2: think about that step people get old?
Speaker 1: Andy, Well, I just think it's it's so it's counter
Speaker 1: you know golf. I wrote about this with Bryson, you know,
Speaker 1: in the sense that like he had no form, he
Speaker 1: was filming YouTube videos. I wrote this after the first round,
Speaker 1: and then he comes out and he plays a great round.
Speaker 1: He's squarely in the mix when everybody thought he had
Speaker 1: no chance, like the discourse, and I think, like overall,
Speaker 1: the sport is getting younger. Statistically, the sport is getting younger. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What I find fascinating is, like, you know, three years ago,
Speaker 1: it was oh, there's gonna be it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: matter of time before like thirty three years old and
Speaker 1: you're considered over the hill. And I think people were
Speaker 1: saying that, like you're thirty three years old, you're over
Speaker 1: the hill. And here we are a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: and there's nobody under the age of thirty with a
Speaker 1: I just think.
Speaker 2: The runway is long to now because guys get better, faster,
Speaker 2: you know, earlier on in their twenties, and then they
Speaker 2: had a longer runway. You know. It's it's it's interesting.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting stat. But think about before next year's
Speaker 2: master how many guys have won majors in their twenties
Speaker 2: of the last decade A ton You think about you know,
Speaker 2: j T and Speech and Scottie and you know, wrong
Speaker 2: a lot of guys.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I haven't really formulated what I think
Speaker 1: about it. I just think it's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: mesmerizing stat given the dominant discourse of the sport has
Speaker 1: been this youth wave for years, and it's I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's the you know, you know, obviously you
Speaker 1: have like someone like Cameron Young, who's got five top
Speaker 1: four finishes in majors. He's twenty eight years old, right,
Speaker 1: and he almost won this one. Sam Burns is you know,
Speaker 1: I think he's just about to be thirty or he's
Speaker 1: twenty nine. He obviously was very very close and I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about him this year. The thing I've
Speaker 1: seen is I don't think there's We've had a ton of.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: Next wave of young players hasn't had their breakout moment yet.
Speaker 2: No, no, but you got to anticipate that it's going
Speaker 2: to be coming at some point.
Speaker 1: I mean my question would be if you said, you know,
Speaker 1: under the age of twenty six, who's the best player
Speaker 1: in the sport? I think it's like a complete toss up.
Speaker 2: Who would you go with? Got her up?
Speaker 1: I mean, got her up's twenty six, right? Or's he
Speaker 1: twenty five?
Speaker 2: Mm? Not exactly sure, we can figure that twenty seven?
Speaker 2: Is he twenty seven?
Speaker 1: So you know, you start to get down. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's like the Michael thorpe Jornsen ok Shay. Okshay might
Speaker 1: be the most accomplished player oberg Obrah twenty six. Oh
Speaker 1: he is Tom Kim.
Speaker 2: Tom Kim's back on the map after that great win
Speaker 2: in Scotland. How about this youngster from South Africa, Casey Jarvis,
Speaker 2: who's finished type for six can be pretty coral.
Speaker 1: President President's Cup guy.
Speaker 2: Could be I'm sure Jeff's got his eye on him.
Speaker 2: Won a couple of times on the DP World Tour
Speaker 2: this year. That's a huge that's a huge finish for him,
Speaker 2: type for six, great weekend, sixty well lost three rounds
Speaker 2: sixty seven, sixty eight, sixty six the last three round.
Speaker 2: That's pretty cool. East season his early twenties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing about it
Speaker 1: is like nobody's done the big leap.
Speaker 2: All do the hoydguysh.
Speaker 1: Twenty five, twenty six, Yeah, you know, Yeah, It's it's
Speaker 1: just you know, we I think we got accustomed to
Speaker 1: like the speef JT. You know, early when Colin Morikawa.
Speaker 2: Rory Rory, Rory rieled off four majors pretty quickly in
Speaker 2: his twenty early twenties, mid and early twenties.
Speaker 1: And it could just be that the guys that are
Speaker 1: thirty are are you know, this was just a generational
Speaker 1: post Tiger era of golf that had just incredible talents,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think there could be things Like
Speaker 1: the other aspect of it is, I think majors are
Speaker 1: more important than they've ever bet and and maybe that's
Speaker 1: a piece of it. It's like, you know, it's hard
Speaker 1: enough to win a signature event, and maybe that's part
Speaker 1: of it too. You know, I've thrown a lot of
Speaker 1: things out here, but I find it. I find it.
Speaker 1: It's like a fascinating thing to think about. Do signature
Speaker 1: events make it so much harder for a young player
Speaker 1: to win, to get that first win once they've earned
Speaker 1: their way in there, because then they have to beat
Speaker 1: Scottie Rory, like Cameron Young, they have to beat the
Speaker 1: best players in the world. That it actually stunts their
Speaker 1: growth as a player because they don't get that first
Speaker 1: first big win. You know, could that be a piece
Speaker 1: of it? And then they just you know, to get
Speaker 1: across the line a major makes it more difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to say I didn't feel that way
Speaker 2: at all because I think, and actually even even Ryan
Speaker 2: Fox mentioned this post winning yesterday, the ability to be
Speaker 2: able to be out here on the PGA, to play
Speaker 2: against the best weekend and week out is what it
Speaker 2: drives you. I mean, it's sink or swim, and and
Speaker 2: so I I think it's better for players to have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to compete against the best. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think back to myself when you know, I was top
Speaker 2: fifty in the world at some point in two thousand
Speaker 2: and two, so I'm twenty two years old at that moment,
Speaker 2: and you know, back then we used to have world
Speaker 2: golf events, right, and so it was the same as
Speaker 2: sort of a signature event where all the best would
Speaker 2: convene and you would play, and you know, I'm going
Speaker 2: up against Ernie and Tiger and VJ and Duval and
Speaker 2: David Toms and you Davis Love, you go down the list,
Speaker 2: Phil and so at that particular moment in time, and myself, Adam, Scott,
Speaker 2: j f Ogilviy, Sergio, Luke Donald like we're having to
Speaker 2: find a way to swim in deep water, and the
Speaker 2: majority of us did. So I actually think that's good
Speaker 2: for you as an athlete because you have a very
Speaker 2: very crystal clear understanding of what you're going to need
Speaker 2: if you want to be able to compete. So I
Speaker 2: actually see that as a positive. And if the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour does go ahead, and it appears like they're going
Speaker 2: to with this new structure and the Championship Series has
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty man fields, you know it's going
Speaker 2: to give a few more opportunities to some guys to
Speaker 2: go ahead and try and break through, or to get
Speaker 2: that close to the sun, if you know what I
Speaker 2: mean to where they're playing against Scottie and Rory and
Speaker 2: Fleetwood and all these different guys mark Kaua week in
Speaker 2: and week out and really get a clear understanding of
Speaker 2: what it takes in order to be successful at that level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm curious how this this goes, like what
Speaker 1: the trends do. But you know, when you start to
Speaker 1: list off who you expect to win the next majors,
Speaker 1: it's been a long time since, like you know, the
Speaker 1: first player, like you know Cameron Young will be, but
Speaker 1: like there hasn't been that twenty five, twenty six year
Speaker 1: old that's just rattled off right in that first bucket
Speaker 1: of players.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned Cameron Young. Do you think he'll would
Speaker 2: have major next year?
Speaker 1: I you know, I don't know. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you feel about like the Ludwig performance, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'll use it as a way to talk about Cameron
Speaker 1: Young too, because I think people get very hard on
Speaker 1: people who don't win majors when they're in the mix.
Speaker 1: And to me, all the whole the whole game is
Speaker 1: getting yourself into the spot where you have the potential
Speaker 1: to play the back nine that Ryan Fox played and
Speaker 1: win the tournament.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: And the more times you put yourself in there, It's
Speaker 1: kind of the Rory quote at LACC. I think about
Speaker 1: it all the time. I'd take one hundred sundays like this.
Speaker 1: You know, you know that's the game. The game is
Speaker 1: to be there in the mix. And I think when
Speaker 1: you put yourself there routinely, like Cameron Young, like Ludwig,
Speaker 1: the chances are way more likely that you're going to
Speaker 1: get one then you're going to be Lee Westwood at
Speaker 1: the end of your career.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, Eventually a putt is going to get hot
Speaker 2: on that Sunday and.
Speaker 1: You go, I mean, like to think about think about
Speaker 1: Rory uh and it. If you think about Rory at Pinehurst,
Speaker 1: the back nine until sixteen and eighteen, he finally made
Speaker 1: the putts that didn't drop at Saint Andrews, at la At,
Speaker 1: you could go down the list all the that finally,
Speaker 1: like in the middle of that back nine he made
Speaker 1: he holds some just great putts that like those fifteen
Speaker 1: footers that didn't go in, and then he misses the
Speaker 1: two shorter putts coming down the stretch that cost him
Speaker 1: the tournament. But you think about that, it was like
Speaker 1: that tournament he won, he won it at it, but
Speaker 1: then he lost it, right and that was after years
Speaker 1: of having the same being in the same position and
Speaker 1: coming up short because the putts didn't go in, Like
Speaker 1: you just have to be there, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: you give people crap, like people are so quick to
Speaker 1: oh this is this is a choke. One guy wins.
Speaker 1: There are twelve guys at some point on Sunday yesterday
Speaker 1: that you were like, this guy might win. This one
Speaker 1: guy gets to win. So did those eleven others choke? No,
Speaker 1: you know, they just fell up, came up short, and
Speaker 1: only one person. That's the unique thing about golf, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like the World Cup where you have to
Speaker 1: beat one person in front of you each way and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, we just got a bad batch up,
Speaker 1: Like you know, the reality with golf is like only
Speaker 1: one guy gets to lift the trophy and everybody else
Speaker 1: is thinking about all the shots that they didn't pull
Speaker 1: off that cost him not lifting the trophy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm a huge fan of Cameo.
Speaker 2: I think it's a matter of time for him, Like
Speaker 2: he has got it all, man, He's got it all.
Speaker 2: He's got every single aspect of the game, the demeanor,
Speaker 2: even the way he handled that eighteenth hole when he
Speaker 2: hit the lip and he just puts the club behind
Speaker 2: his neck like there's no no, no whining or you know,
Speaker 2: stumping of his feet there. Thought he handled that whole
Speaker 2: situation like a champ and then almost hold the bunker
Speaker 2: shot to save par and then made a great four
Speaker 2: foot for the bogie. I'm I'm a huge fan of his.
Speaker 2: I think it's a matter of time before he gets
Speaker 2: gets it going.
Speaker 1: The demeanor inside the ropes is really something. He just unflappable, right,
Speaker 1: Like you go out watch him and you might he
Speaker 1: might be shooting seventy six or sixty two, you know,
Speaker 1: and he looks the same way inside the ropes.
Speaker 2: It's you know, and that's something he's had to work on,
Speaker 2: by the way. I mean, I remember probably two or
Speaker 2: three years ago, he had a chance to win in
Speaker 2: Detroit coming down the stretch. I was part of the
Speaker 2: broadcast there, and he didn't handle it well. He didn't
Speaker 2: handle it well, coughing up the lead and eventually not winning,
Speaker 2: and I remember calling him out for it. And so
Speaker 2: that's clearly something that he really has worked on and
Speaker 2: improved as he's gotten a little older. And I just
Speaker 2: don't see I just don't see any any real weaknesses
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's I mean Tea Green, He's gonna win it open.
Speaker 1: He hits it too damn good to not win it
Speaker 1: open you anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean now that he now that he seems
Speaker 2: to have solidified and found some consistency with the putting
Speaker 2: at that point. At that point, you can win any
Speaker 2: of them. It doesn't matter what the golf course looks like.
Speaker 1: Did you have any other any other uh parting thoughts
Speaker 1: here from the for the turb.
Speaker 2: Well, I thought it was awesome. Uh. I love the Open,
Speaker 2: I love the history and tradition, I love Links golf.
Speaker 2: It was great to be on site for a few
Speaker 2: days and so get get the feel for it. You know.
Speaker 2: I gave Casey Jarvis a shout out already a couple
Speaker 2: other guys I'd like to give a shout out to
Speaker 2: see what Kim he had a He had a good
Speaker 2: shot deep into the tournament and unfortunately didn't quite work
Speaker 2: out at the end. But that was that was good
Speaker 2: to see from him. He's another guy that I think
Speaker 2: has the ability to to win a major championship. Uh.
Speaker 2: And then I thought it was kind of cool from
Speaker 2: Adam scott You know, he turned forty six during the
Speaker 2: week and received an award from the RNA earlier in
Speaker 2: the week as well for everything he's done for the
Speaker 2: sport in the way he's conducted himself, and and then
Speaker 2: a nice sixty six on Sunday to finish in the
Speaker 2: top ten. That's so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool. Didn't You didn't get to see a
Speaker 1: lot of them, the way the nature of of where
Speaker 1: where he started and and and what was going on.
Speaker 1: But I mean another another Wikipedia yellow for him too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, look at that that That chart is
Speaker 1: unbelievable to look at. How about the President's Cup eight
Speaker 1: Internationals at the top fourteen of the of the Open.
Speaker 1: Did you see that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course I saw that. It's been an exciting
Speaker 2: couple of weeks for US with Tom Kim winning at
Speaker 2: the Scottish Open. You know, in a lot of ways
Speaker 2: he was kind of on the outside looking in, and
Speaker 2: then in the last month or so its started to
Speaker 2: rarely show some great form, had a had a sniff
Speaker 2: of it at the US Open, eventually finished third there
Speaker 2: and then continued that with the winning Scotland. So huge
Speaker 2: couple of weeks for him and for us, obviously he's
Speaker 2: got President's Cup experience, he's he's somebody that in that
Speaker 2: environment seems to thrive on it and enjoy it. And
Speaker 2: then Ryan Fox winning the Open, now that's that's absolutely massive.
Speaker 2: It's going to be fun to to see him in
Speaker 2: the team. He's been knocking on the door for a while.
Speaker 2: And uh, it's going to be great to have, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody on our team at Medina who's a current major
Speaker 2: champion in the year, so looking forward.
Speaker 1: To that, you'll have as many current major champions as
Speaker 1: the as the Americans have.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, because the Europeans have got to
Speaker 2: so Wyndham will be there as the US Open champion.
Speaker 1: It's uh, we're you got Chicago all all behind the
Speaker 1: international team.
Speaker 2: I think, well, could you work on that for us please?
Speaker 1: And I'm working.
Speaker 2: I want now that you've moved back home, you know,
Speaker 2: get get all the troops, get all the troops behind
Speaker 2: the black and yellow.
Speaker 1: I got a lot of people asking me for tickets,
Speaker 1: and I said one thing, if I if I get
Speaker 1: your tickets, you got root for the international team.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it. That it's on the back of
Speaker 2: the ticket.
Speaker 1: All right, Trevor, We'll talk to you sometimes, dude. As always.
Speaker 1: This is uh, this is quite fun breaking down the
Speaker 1: majors with you, and uh look forward to look forward
Speaker 1: to my medina and uh talking to you at some
Speaker 1: point around around that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great to join you guys again.
Speaker 1: Thanks all right, big thanks to Trevor as always for
Speaker 1: coming on, and big thanks to our staff at Friday Golf,
Speaker 1: Brendan and Kevin were on site. Joseph made an advanced
Speaker 1: scouting mission to Birkdale. Everybody on this team provided awesome insights,
Speaker 1: whether it was on our live blog, through our newsletters
Speaker 1: or podcasts. Big thanks to our entire team, and big
Speaker 1: thanks to PJ Clark for putting in the hours, producing
Speaker 1: a lot of audio and adding a lot of insights
Speaker 1: across the week. Big thanks to PJ. We'll be back
Speaker 1: next week. I think we might have Ryan Fox coming
Speaker 1: on one of our platforms. I would guess it will
Speaker 1: be on the Shotgun Start. It sounds like that might
Speaker 1: be worked out, so check that out there. And big
Speaker 1: thanks to all the listeners for coming with us. Major
Speaker 1: season stick around. We'll have a lot of other great
Speaker 1: pods the rest of the year. And what a year