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 brid egg,
Speaker 1: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday, Frida Egg, Brian Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 1: off of the hump. Hello and welcome to the Frida
Speaker 1: Egg Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison. I'm here today
Speaker 1: with Andy Johnson. How are we doing, Andy.
Speaker 2: Garrett, I'm wonderful. How are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm doing all right, busy day today. Just interviewed Amelia
Speaker 1: Emiliacho this morning for another podcast that's going to come
Speaker 1: out before this one. So an exciting couple of weeks
Speaker 1: coming up. We've got the Annua and the Show Around
Speaker 1: Championship on the LPGA Tour next week, and then the
Speaker 1: week after that is of course the Masters. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be on the road traveling a little bit. We've got
Speaker 1: a Friday event coming up as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got our first event.
Speaker 3: We are also uh first time credentialed at the Masters,
Speaker 3: so that's exciting.
Speaker 2: I'll be there.
Speaker 1: Amazing and how did that happen?
Speaker 2: Lots of years of rejection before.
Speaker 1: You just keep trying and eventually they get in exactly.
Speaker 3: It's like, uh, you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people could relate to that with with various aspects of life.
Speaker 3: But yeah, if you if you say, if you ask
Speaker 3: enough time, so eventually they might say yes. You know,
Speaker 3: they can't say yes if you don't ask.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's good advice or not, but
Speaker 1: with with the Master's credential, I think probably it's a
Speaker 1: it's a solid bit of advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really excited about that.
Speaker 3: And I can't wait to get down there and and
Speaker 3: cover cover one of them from the ground and and
Speaker 3: it'll be it'll be fun.
Speaker 2: I'm going to write a lot.
Speaker 3: I've been writing some getting warmed up, you know, I've
Speaker 3: been getting ready with uh, getting the pen back out.
Speaker 1: You've been flex the riding muscle quite a bit lately.
Speaker 1: Check out the website. Andy has been up there with
Speaker 1: some some really good articles, one on green speeds recently
Speaker 1: and you know the and one on the latest changes
Speaker 1: to Augusta National, which which we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about today. So at the Masters we are going to
Speaker 1: have you there credentialed. We're also going to have Brendan
Speaker 1: there and Will as well. There's going to be a
Speaker 1: little house. Is Cameron going to be there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for a couple of days, so he'll be there
Speaker 3: just early in the week and he's got a bunch
Speaker 3: of different things he's doing, but yeah, we'll be there.
Speaker 3: We'll be doing daily Shotgun Start podcasts and then obviously
Speaker 3: we'll have the daily newsletters on the Frida Egg. You know,
Speaker 3: this is a you know, free advertisement for our own company,
Speaker 3: but sign up for those if you if you haven't yet,
Speaker 3: you go to the Frida egg dot com and we'll
Speaker 3: get those out daily during the week and then there'll
Speaker 3: be a ton of stuff going on on social media,
Speaker 3: so I'm excited. I'm going to bring my camera out
Speaker 3: for the first couple rounds, for the practice rounds, and
Speaker 3: we'll have some photo journals on on social on Instagram.
Speaker 3: And I wish I could go to the ANWA but
Speaker 3: it coincides with the Charleston event.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a bummer, but.
Speaker 3: Hopefully hopefully we go back next year and I can
Speaker 3: go to that next year because that's that's I think
Speaker 3: one of the most fun days that Saturday. I'm not
Speaker 3: I have to I'm not crazy about the format, but
Speaker 3: that Saturday is really great at Augusta and Ashletal.
Speaker 1: Do you wish there were more rounds at Augusta? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: is that the basic take?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's just kind of a cop out
Speaker 3: to not have more rounds at Augusta.
Speaker 2: But it's it's great that they have it, you know.
Speaker 3: And I think if you thought about this ten years ago,
Speaker 3: it seemed far fetched. And I think the Augusta's done
Speaker 3: a lot of things in the last you know, decade
Speaker 3: that has taken them from way behind the times to
Speaker 3: on the forefront of the times in golf, you know,
Speaker 3: with with their expansion with the Asian Pacific am you know,
Speaker 3: being kind of the first one of many steps. But
Speaker 3: you know, I think I think in terms of that tournament,
Speaker 3: it's just a weird, weird kind of schedule. And it
Speaker 3: could be you know, I think meg Atkins was talking
Speaker 3: about writing something. I don't know if she'll write something.
Speaker 3: She might have written something by the time this podcasts out.
Speaker 3: But the break, the day break is awful. It's like,
Speaker 3: what type of tournament has a day break?
Speaker 1: So the one thing that's cool about it, and you know,
Speaker 1: the general schedule, I agree is a bit weird. But
Speaker 1: one thing that's cool about that Friday practice round is
Speaker 1: that the players who missed the cut on Thursday get
Speaker 1: to go play Augusta National, because that would just be
Speaker 1: watching them at Champions Retreat and seeing some players miss
Speaker 1: the cut in one of those huge like you know
Speaker 1: fifteen for two playoffs you know that happen on Thursday
Speaker 1: at the Annua and seeing players not get to go
Speaker 1: have that experience at Augusta National at all would be
Speaker 1: pretty sad, Like that would that would to the edge
Speaker 1: of like I don't know if I want to watch that,
Speaker 1: but the fact that they all get to go and
Speaker 1: have a great day at Augusta National, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: And also I want to I want to point out,
Speaker 3: like somebody might come to one of our events and say,
Speaker 3: this is a stupid format, and that's fine. This is
Speaker 3: just my opinion of theirs. It's their tournament, so not
Speaker 3: everybody's a fan of alt shot. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 3: this is their tournament, so they got to choose. But
Speaker 3: I think it I just I don't know. I think
Speaker 3: it's you could do the practice round before too, Like
Speaker 3: why don't you have the practice round before? Why don't
Speaker 3: you have practice round at championship if you're gonna do
Speaker 3: it the way you do it, have consecutive days of
Speaker 3: a tournament, though it doesn't make any sense, have a pause.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's unique.
Speaker 3: It's really silly, actually, like you get out of your
Speaker 3: cadence of the tournament's like you almost feeling you got it.
Speaker 2: I can only imagine.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you asked Amelia about this, but
Speaker 3: you know, like getting out of the tournament mode, going
Speaker 3: back into a practice ground and getting back in it's
Speaker 3: got to be weird.
Speaker 2: It's different. You never did.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask her that. I didn't want to put
Speaker 1: her in the position of having to say something negative
Speaker 1: about it, because clearly she's very grateful for the opportunity
Speaker 1: and is not going to say anything critical as she should.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, it's great, it's amazing they have
Speaker 3: this event. But just like anything the first edition, you know,
Speaker 3: to the tenth, there should be constant improvement with the event,
Speaker 3: and I think the format is one area where the
Speaker 3: event could be greatly improved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. All right, Well, so let's get to
Speaker 1: the real subject, and that is the latest changes at
Speaker 1: Augusta National which you have written about and which I
Speaker 1: think are worth discussing in a little more depth because
Speaker 1: they indicate a possible kind of new direction for the
Speaker 1: architecture at Augusta National, and so they're really interesting in
Speaker 1: that sense. There are the ones that have been announced,
Speaker 1: and then there are some ones that haven't really been
Speaker 1: announced but that you discussed in the article. I think
Speaker 1: that it may have been breaking news. I'm not exactly sure,
Speaker 1: but the ones that have been announced have been moving
Speaker 1: Te's back at holes eleven, fifteen, and eighteen, and then
Speaker 1: some larger changes at eleven, the par four that begins
Speaker 1: Amen corner, where trees along the right side of the
Speaker 1: hole have been removed. There are a few trees that remain,
Speaker 1: but the hole has been widened quite a bit to
Speaker 1: that side, bringing it back a little bit to the
Speaker 1: hole that it was, not necessarily in nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: but more back to the hole that it was when
Speaker 1: like Tiger Woods was over there in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: you know, playing that shot from the right side of
Speaker 1: the fairway from about one hundred and fifty yards. I
Speaker 1: have that image of him on the right side of
Speaker 1: the fairway there where there were no trees. In recent
Speaker 1: years that area would have been covered in trees. So
Speaker 1: eleven has been changed quite a bit. And then fifteen
Speaker 1: is the other kind of big change where that hole
Speaker 1: has been lengthened. So maybe we should start off by
Speaker 1: talking about eleven. What are some of your impressions, Andy
Speaker 1: about the changes at that hole and how they're going
Speaker 1: to affect play strategically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, I mean, these are huge changes, and it's
Speaker 3: not all the way back to what it was, but
Speaker 3: it's a lot closer. And I think one of the
Speaker 3: big changes is that off the te players won't be
Speaker 3: playing to the poor angle. You want to be up
Speaker 3: the right side on that hole, and in the past
Speaker 3: recent years that side has been covered with trees, so
Speaker 3: there's going to be significantly less trees. They still have
Speaker 3: those like three trees there, but at least a side
Speaker 3: is open to where you feel like you can hit
Speaker 3: a shot. What happens when everybody plays left, which is
Speaker 3: what the hole has been forcing everybody to do, is
Speaker 3: you're at a place where you have to play defense.
Speaker 3: And that's why you've seen so many shots over the
Speaker 3: years end up short right over there in that shipping area,
Speaker 3: and it's you know, you watch Jordan Speed's chip from
Speaker 3: there every year. I feel like that I just like
Speaker 3: have that etched in my brain. But it's mainly because
Speaker 3: from the position they are in, that's the smart shot
Speaker 3: is to just kind of hit it over there, because
Speaker 3: that taking it on from that spot is really, really
Speaker 3: a hard shot. So now with that right side opened,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be able to see some players actually make
Speaker 3: an attempt at hitting it close to the hole and
Speaker 3: what I think the interesting dynamic. And we'll see if
Speaker 3: the numbers bore this out. But I think you're gonna
Speaker 3: see more birdies this year, and that's great and people
Speaker 3: are gonna say, oh, you're making it easier. But with
Speaker 3: more birdies, I'm anticipating there's gonna be more balls to
Speaker 3: find the water, because the the thing that gets lost sometimes.
Speaker 3: I think you want golf courses to encourage aggressive play.
Speaker 3: If players are in a spot where they don't think
Speaker 3: it's a wise play to go at.
Speaker 2: Something, they are going to play conservative.
Speaker 3: They're very conservative, but you need to put them into
Speaker 3: opportunities for them to play aggressively and make mistakes. And
Speaker 3: that's one of the things that a lot of the
Speaker 3: rest of the course that Augusta does is that it
Speaker 3: forces you to play aggressive because you know how hard
Speaker 3: the two putt is if you don't hit it close
Speaker 3: to a pin. And on the eleventh it's become a
Speaker 3: hole where people are like, you know what, I'll take
Speaker 3: my chances trying to get up and down for four
Speaker 3: and if I walk away with five, it's not a
Speaker 3: big deal. But if you give the players the opportunity
Speaker 3: to look and say, oh, I can make a three,
Speaker 3: you're probably going to also get a lot more sixes
Speaker 3: and sevens, And that, to me makes a much more
Speaker 3: interesting golf course. And it's really what makes Augusta for
Speaker 3: the most part, so exciting. What makes twelve at Augusta
Speaker 3: such an iconic championship hole is that literally anything can
Speaker 3: happen there.
Speaker 2: A two is easily had.
Speaker 3: It's a wedge or a sevens easily had if you
Speaker 3: if you just hit a bad shot.
Speaker 2: And I you know, I think everybody remembers when that happened.
Speaker 3: So one of the other subtle changes that I've heard,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it, and that's why I kind of
Speaker 3: left out of the article a little bit. You know,
Speaker 3: I didn't I wanted to kind of focus on stuff
Speaker 3: that you know was very easibly discernible.
Speaker 2: But I've heard that the chipping area on the right.
Speaker 3: Is is a couple of foot to a couple feet lower,
Speaker 3: which makes those mounds, those amazing mounds on that right
Speaker 3: side of the green, which is a really cool feature.
Speaker 2: And you see it.
Speaker 3: You see these green side mounds at Pasta Tiempo too.
Speaker 3: You see them at Jockey Club in Argentina. You see
Speaker 3: Mackenzie loved using these mounds. They he used them on
Speaker 3: eight at Augusta, you see him there. But on eleven,
Speaker 3: if you bail right, if it's a little bit low,
Speaker 3: those mounds become even more of a factor and it
Speaker 3: makes it even harder to keep the ball from running
Speaker 3: into that water because you're coming from lower. So it's
Speaker 3: gonna just incentivize people to not bail out this year,
Speaker 3: which I think is a really really great change, and
Speaker 3: it's them understanding the identity of the golf course and
Speaker 3: how the eleventh had turned into this hole that just
Speaker 3: it was It just didn't fit with the rest of
Speaker 3: the golf course.
Speaker 1: It was just hard.
Speaker 2: It's just one dimensional.
Speaker 3: It leaves like the reality is now seven is that
Speaker 3: hole where it kind of sticks out like a sore
Speaker 3: thumb in its current state.
Speaker 2: It's what eleven used to be. It's hit it here
Speaker 2: or else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, okay, so seven is a part four pretty
Speaker 1: much straight away, and the trees are really close on
Speaker 1: both sides, and the whole thing is just like hit
Speaker 1: it between the trees. You know, if you're between the trees,
Speaker 1: are fine. The bunker. The green is surrounded by bunkers,
Speaker 1: not necessarily any preference for one side of the fairway
Speaker 1: or the other. You just got to get in the
Speaker 1: fairway and then you can have a nice approach in
Speaker 1: there to the green. So you know, going back to eleven,
Speaker 1: I remember this interpretation from an article of years a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. But it seems like what the
Speaker 1: club did with that hole is what it did with
Speaker 1: a lot of different holes at the course, and that
Speaker 1: is to trade birdies and double bogies.
Speaker 2: They wanted to make them harder.
Speaker 1: They wanted the scoring average to be higher, and I
Speaker 1: think that that's a useful distinction between making something harder
Speaker 1: and making the scoring average higher. Just because the scoring
Speaker 1: average is higher doesn't necessarily mean it's more challenging. It
Speaker 1: just means that the range of scores. Sometimes the range
Speaker 1: of scores is really shrunk, and I think that the
Speaker 1: scoring range. I'm not sure if the stats bear this
Speaker 1: out necessarily, but what it seems like they did was
Speaker 1: that they traded birdies and doubles for pars and bogies
Speaker 1: and just you know, more bogies, and so the scoring
Speaker 1: average was higher, but the hole became less dynamic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the thing that you see across
Speaker 3: other holes that they didn't narrow, you know that they
Speaker 3: just lengthened. The lengthening kept that score distribution pretty consistent
Speaker 3: where and when I say score distribution, I mean eagles, birdies, pars, bogies, doubles, triples.
Speaker 3: If you just lengthen it keeps it retains that balance.
Speaker 3: But when you narrow and lengthen what it does is
Speaker 3: it it just shrinks the possible outcomes. And I think
Speaker 3: this is it. I think the distinction that you hit
Speaker 3: on is everybody thinks, oh, we need to make the
Speaker 3: golf course harder, And I think the important thing is
Speaker 3: you should want to make the golf course challenging. And
Speaker 3: a whole like eleven, where you have this preferred line up,
Speaker 3: the right or bad line up, the left, and if
Speaker 3: you don't get it on the preferred line, then you're
Speaker 3: in a spot where you can't really attack in the
Speaker 3: In the spot you have to put it in is
Speaker 3: very undesirable. But if you play up the right and
Speaker 3: you have the opportunity to attack, that's more challenging. That's
Speaker 3: you know, that's more of a game of chess. Right, Okay,
Speaker 3: I did this, but I didn't get it to where
Speaker 3: I wanted. I didn't execute my shot. So I'm over
Speaker 3: here on the left, and now I have to figure
Speaker 3: out I either have to take those water on now
Speaker 3: or I'm going to take it on on the next shot,
Speaker 3: you know, Versus if I play up the right, I've
Speaker 3: got a really good shot, I've got helping contours with
Speaker 3: that hill, and I could feasibly hit a shot in
Speaker 3: here that goes close without taking on too much risk
Speaker 3: of the water.
Speaker 1: And just imagine you're a player in contention on the
Speaker 1: last day of the Masters. What kind of hole would
Speaker 1: you rather face? A hole where you can fairly easily
Speaker 1: be assured of either a par or a bogie, or
Speaker 1: a hole where you could make a birdie but you
Speaker 1: might make a really big number and have a disaster
Speaker 1: that can eject you from the tournament. I think pretty
Speaker 1: much every time somebody would say, yeah, give me that
Speaker 1: hole where I might make a bogie, but I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily gonna do that much worse than that versus the
Speaker 1: hole where you know there's a real opportunity and you
Speaker 1: feel obligated to go for that opportunity. But if you
Speaker 1: go for too much, then then you might make that
Speaker 1: big number. Yeah, that's a big part of what makes
Speaker 1: such a compelling tournament golf hole. And it's also something
Speaker 1: that is challenging, Right, even if you don't make a
Speaker 1: big score, even if you birdie the hole, even if
Speaker 1: most of the field birdies the hole, if that possibility
Speaker 1: looms of a catastrophe, I think that makes the whole challenging.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think if you think about the entire
Speaker 3: golf course, especially if we just go down to the
Speaker 3: back nine, you know, ten birdies possible, a bogies possible.
Speaker 2: It's you know, you don't see a lot of doubles.
Speaker 1: There, right, you have tens of tough hole.
Speaker 3: Two shot, there's a lot of two shot swing. There's
Speaker 3: potential for two shot swing. Eleven had become this hole
Speaker 3: where it was mostly just parers and bogies.
Speaker 2: There were very rarely birdies.
Speaker 3: So this it was just this hole that would like
Speaker 3: kind of like a the rare small distribution hole. Then
Speaker 3: you go to twelve, where literally anything's possible. Thirteen you've got,
Speaker 3: you know, really possible ranges of three to six.
Speaker 2: You know, three to seven.
Speaker 3: Fourteen is a three to five hole, right, fifteen you've
Speaker 3: got three to thirteen. You know, we've seen the same
Speaker 3: guys one year make a three, make a thirteen the
Speaker 3: next hole next year, but that one has a huge range.
Speaker 3: Sixteen has a huge range, and then seventeen to eighteen
Speaker 3: kind of like throttle down and back to that three
Speaker 3: to five range on both of those holes where it's
Speaker 3: kind of hard to make a big mess. But eleven
Speaker 3: was the one that kind of stuck out as like
Speaker 3: you kind of got lucky if you made a birdie,
Speaker 3: and it was the one hole that didn't really fit
Speaker 3: with the rest. And now if you go down almost
Speaker 3: every hole there it has that swing potential.
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Speaker 1: think that thirteen has started to become one of those
Speaker 1: holes where the range of possibilities has been narrowed, because,
Speaker 1: as you said, that hole has been literally physically narrowed,
Speaker 1: and I think that that has taken some of the
Speaker 1: dynamism out of it. And so I wonder if if
Speaker 1: Agusta National kind of continues along this path of you know,
Speaker 1: expanding short grass areas and making certain holes wider, I
Speaker 1: wonder if some reversal of course at thirteen is possible.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's super easy to figure out what holes are.
Speaker 3: The ones is like, you just look for the ones
Speaker 3: with the new trees, and thirteen to one with the
Speaker 3: new trees, they look kind of thirteen seventeen seven. Ye,
Speaker 3: they look you know, they look out of place. I
Speaker 3: think this is one of the things everybody marvels at
Speaker 3: the presentation of Augusta Nashell. But you go to thirteen
Speaker 3: and those trees look just silly. There's dead trees in
Speaker 3: this really thick grove of trees over there, and it's
Speaker 3: just you know, they're young, and it just doesn't look
Speaker 3: right compared because the way they transition out of it too,
Speaker 3: it gets really wide in the lay up area, and
Speaker 3: it's like, well, this wasn't supposed to be this way,
Speaker 3: but I think they might be taken on a couple
Speaker 3: of these a year, if I had to guess, you know,
Speaker 3: they did a few. And this is the way a
Speaker 3: lot of clubs go about making changes, and I think
Speaker 3: it's a smart way for them to go about making changes,
Speaker 3: is like, don't do it radically and do it small
Speaker 3: over time. I think, like, you know, if it wasn't
Speaker 3: the Masters, like if it was just a regular tour event,
Speaker 3: just a few people would notice, like you know that
Speaker 3: we're on the grounds like the week of.
Speaker 2: But this is a great positive change.
Speaker 3: And this coupled with the other really big change signals
Speaker 3: kind of a philosophical shift, which is the other big change.
Speaker 3: If you look last year's Ariel versus this year's. They
Speaker 3: have a course map aerial on their website and if
Speaker 3: you go look at that and go on Google Earth,
Speaker 3: they don't match up right now, so you can see
Speaker 3: exactly this expanded short grass and I think this is
Speaker 3: a huge, huge development. It's signaling the end of the
Speaker 3: rough era at Augusta National.
Speaker 1: Maybe not the end, like the second cut isn't gone yet.
Speaker 3: It's not all the way gone, but it's significantly reduced.
Speaker 3: And what you're gonna see is is fairway draped over
Speaker 3: the landforms out there. They have these big, beautiful land forms.
Speaker 2: And one of my pet.
Speaker 3: Peeves about course presentation is when you have these big
Speaker 3: beautiful land forms, get the short grass over all of it,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's what you're going to start to see.
Speaker 3: A few key ones that you'll see play out two, three, nine, ten.
Speaker 3: Obviously eleventh got a lot of expanded short grass, but
Speaker 3: those holes have significant contour in the fairways where the
Speaker 3: hills kind of come in to play, where you're hitting
Speaker 3: t shots, where you're gonna see balls bound down into
Speaker 3: less desirable places than they previously were getting to. So
Speaker 3: in the case of nine, for example, this ball is
Speaker 3: gonna get into a worse and worse angle over on
Speaker 3: the right side, we're talking about hole that swings left.
Speaker 3: If you can't hit that draw, you're gonna be in
Speaker 3: a lot worse spot than you were before because that
Speaker 3: ball is going to bound right further into a worse
Speaker 3: angle to hit into that green with a severe false front.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things that was underrated
Speaker 3: about the second cut that was actually helpful was that
Speaker 3: it kept the spin off your golf ball. And how
Speaker 3: many times have we seen guys stand in the fairway
Speaker 3: and rip shots off the front of that green and
Speaker 3: watch it tumble down fifty yards. It's like one of
Speaker 3: my favorite shots to watch because that potential situation's there,
Speaker 3: and now we're gonna get more of that. But the
Speaker 3: guys are going to be coming from worse angle and lower,
Speaker 3: so that spin is going to be even more pronounced,
Speaker 3: and they're going to have to spin it because they're
Speaker 3: coming over the bank a bunker from a bad angle
Speaker 3: into those front PINNs, So they're going to have to
Speaker 3: have some spin on it, but not too much spin
Speaker 3: because it'll be easy to rip it off the green
Speaker 3: from the from that fairway. So that's one big one.
Speaker 3: Two is another big one where you're going to see
Speaker 3: maybe some balls bound on the right side when you
Speaker 3: miss right instead of getting hung up in the rough,
Speaker 3: it could bound into the pine trees there. Ten, it
Speaker 3: should bound into the pine straw on the right side.
Speaker 3: There another hole that you need to turn the ball
Speaker 3: right to left. And three should be actually pretty interesting
Speaker 3: because now every almost everybody hit driver there and there's
Speaker 3: going to be a lot more short grass left where
Speaker 3: I think the ball. If you guys remember where Bryson
Speaker 3: lost his ball a few years ago and they had
Speaker 3: to take that cart ride back, remember that. I just
Speaker 3: remember Brett, I remember running twee. He lost this ball
Speaker 3: in the left front. It was the fall. It was
Speaker 3: the fall masters, I think, oh, okay, and then he
Speaker 3: had to take the cart ride back by himself, by himself,
Speaker 3: and okay. I can't remember what song that Brendan put
Speaker 3: on it, but uh, but yeah, that should be more
Speaker 3: fun to watch because balls are going to get in
Speaker 3: a little bit further below the green and a further
Speaker 3: left of guys that you know, they've been just driving
Speaker 3: it up there and taking the chip up, which I
Speaker 3: think is kind of a smart play that webshots does
Speaker 3: not look fun at all.
Speaker 1: The web shot from the fairway. Yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: really dicey because the slope in the in the green
Speaker 1: is so strong with the movement of the land, and
Speaker 1: the land there moves to the left right, so when
Speaker 1: you're when you're left, you're you're well below, way below.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of a theme with the short
Speaker 1: grass expansions. Look at the low sides of the hole
Speaker 1: and where the short grass has been pushed out, where
Speaker 1: the second cut has been pushed back on the low
Speaker 1: sides of holes, that's where you're going to see more
Speaker 1: balls running out. And that introduces a necessary dimension I
Speaker 1: think for nine to ten especially, but also it sounds
Speaker 1: like for three where if you're missing to the side
Speaker 1: where you're not supposed to miss, the hazard is now
Speaker 1: the land, which is how it should be, because the
Speaker 1: big defense at Augusta National, aside from the greens, is
Speaker 1: the topography of the property, and there it's working against you.
Speaker 3: It's just removing the barriers, right, It's removing the things
Speaker 3: that stop balls from getting to worse places, which has
Speaker 3: been the short the rough.
Speaker 2: It's not like menacing rough.
Speaker 3: It just stops the ball from rolling to where it
Speaker 3: might end up being, which ends up you know, it
Speaker 3: gets to a worse and worse spot the more it
Speaker 3: rolls down the hill. Almost in every case at Augusta,
Speaker 3: because you're rolling to a worse angle. You know a
Speaker 3: lot of the angle, a lot of the ideal lines
Speaker 3: are where you have to hug, hug a side of
Speaker 3: the fairway that also has a contour if you think
Speaker 3: about ten, you need to hug the left side. Nine
Speaker 3: you have to hug the left side. Three the best
Speaker 3: way to play it if you're going for that green
Speaker 3: is to hug the right side. And now if you
Speaker 3: the more you go left, the further you're gonna send,
Speaker 3: it's gonna send you left.
Speaker 2: You know. Five, you have to hug the left side.
Speaker 3: What that's the way Augusta was designed is there's ideal
Speaker 3: lines of charm, right.
Speaker 2: There are these in.
Speaker 3: If you're there, then your next shot is significantly easier.
Speaker 3: But to get there, you have to hit a very
Speaker 3: good shot, and sometimes you have to deal with a
Speaker 3: hazard to get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's not just hazards that Augusta relies on
Speaker 1: to create those lines of charm. It's often land. The land, yeah,
Speaker 1: as we're saying, And that's that's part of what makes
Speaker 1: this golf course so great is that it uses its
Speaker 1: incredible endowment of land to create strategy. And that's what
Speaker 1: gets a little bit weakened when you start to put
Speaker 1: in this second cut, because it's really, as you indicated earlier,
Speaker 1: it's not a super punishing hazard in and of itself.
Speaker 1: Hitting out of it is not hugely difficult for these pros.
Speaker 1: I mean, you saw how the likes of Bryson dealt
Speaker 1: with the rough at Wingfoot, which is far more penal.
Speaker 1: But what it does do is is it slows the
Speaker 1: course down and it works against this idea that the
Speaker 1: land is actually the hazard at Augusta, and so it
Speaker 1: should be cool to see that come back in. Now.
Speaker 1: The changes that you've mentioned, a lot of them are
Speaker 1: fairly subtle. You know, they're not going to be as
Speaker 1: noticeable as the changes at eleven. I'm sure the telecast
Speaker 1: is going to cover the changes at eleven quite thoroughly
Speaker 1: because it's so visible what happened there. But these short
Speaker 1: grass expansions might end up being even more telling of
Speaker 1: what could happen in the future at Augusta. They could
Speaker 1: they could end up being more important. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And another huge shage they made was obviously the
Speaker 3: fifteenth at New Tea Box. I've heard that they reworked
Speaker 3: the area in the landing area too to kind of
Speaker 3: recreate a hill and and so you know what it's
Speaker 3: going to lead to on fifteen, which I think is
Speaker 3: really exciting. I think this has become I don't think
Speaker 3: like architecturally For the everyday player, this is a great
Speaker 3: golf hole. But for the professionals it's a thrilling hole
Speaker 3: to watch because it really makes them do something they
Speaker 3: don't want to do, which is they have to play
Speaker 3: aggressively on their second shot because there's trouble short and
Speaker 3: there's trouble long. There's nowhere really to bail. The bunker
Speaker 3: on the right of the green is like the only bail.
Speaker 1: And you don't and you don't want to lay up
Speaker 1: because the web shot is just as hell exactly, you know,
Speaker 1: arguably more so because of the because of the spin factor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this has become a really great hole, and
Speaker 3: I think it's just going to be enhanced with longer
Speaker 3: clubs in And if you think about the fifteenth, I've
Speaker 3: said this on the Shotgun start a little bit, but
Speaker 3: like the fifteenth has become what thirteen I think used
Speaker 3: to be. It's become the iconic, go for it, monumental
Speaker 3: decision hole at Augustin National because thirteen it's just so short,
Speaker 3: and you know, they've kind of jerrymandered the hole so
Speaker 3: much that it's like a three wood seven iron. Now
Speaker 3: if you hook it, you hook it. If you don't
Speaker 3: you don't and then you lay up, you know. But
Speaker 3: the fifteenth is the spot where you stand in the
Speaker 3: fairway and you have to hit the shot that you
Speaker 3: don't want to hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the one I agree with that. The
Speaker 1: one revision that I'd make is that it's not really
Speaker 1: a decision so much as a moment of execution where
Speaker 1: you have to hit this shot right. Usually, if they're
Speaker 1: in the fairway, they're not deciding between laying up and
Speaker 1: going for it, unless they're sort of over to the
Speaker 1: left and behind those trees there, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they lay up because they don't want to hook it
Speaker 1: around and risk all that. But generally, if they're in
Speaker 1: the fair way, they are going for the green. But
Speaker 1: the rare site here, I think is that they have
Speaker 1: to hit a super solid mid iron. Basically, maybe it's
Speaker 1: become a short iron for some guys. I don't exactly
Speaker 1: know what they're hitting in there, but I've seen some
Speaker 1: mid and long irons being hit there, and they have
Speaker 1: to hit that shot so well right. They have to
Speaker 1: hit it right on the button, And for me, that's
Speaker 1: where the tension comes from.
Speaker 3: I think the thing too, is that the best golfers
Speaker 3: the best golfer, you know, whether you know it or not,
Speaker 3: is extremely conservative. Like the better the golfer, the more
Speaker 3: conservative they are. So what I mean by making a
Speaker 3: decision is it's more of a decision of all right,
Speaker 3: well I got to hit this shot. There's nowhere else
Speaker 3: I can aim and hopefully miss the shot right close,
Speaker 3: Like there's nowhere I can't aim here forty feet right
Speaker 3: and be I mean in between clubs. I can't take
Speaker 3: the club this longer and just shoot it over the
Speaker 3: green and shoot it to the back of the green.
Speaker 3: That's the way really good players think a lot where
Speaker 3: there's a hazard in front of the green, Oh, I'll
Speaker 3: just hit it five yards long.
Speaker 2: Here, you can't do that.
Speaker 3: Like, this is the moment where they have to, like
Speaker 3: you said, execute, but they also have to make the
Speaker 3: mindful decision that they are hitting the golf shot.
Speaker 1: They have nowhere to bail. Yeah, I'm not gonna I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess if we're going to bail anywhere, it's out
Speaker 1: to the bunker on the right. But even that, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: like you don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: Well, you could hit a tree and you could bounce
Speaker 3: back into the water. You know, there's all kind of
Speaker 3: like there's no safe harbor on this hole, which I
Speaker 3: think is it's like I said, I don't think this
Speaker 3: is a good golf hole for like the everyday player necessarily,
Speaker 3: Like if you were looking at the golf holes at Augusta,
Speaker 3: it would be one of the weaker holes for like
Speaker 3: the everyday member play. But for professional golf, I find
Speaker 3: it really really compelling.
Speaker 1: Well it is, and you know, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if I could make a great argument that it's that
Speaker 1: it's a good golf hole in general. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: not that many ways to play it, and you know,
Speaker 1: the pond in front of the green is just sort
Speaker 1: of like whatever. The green is ultra severe for its speed.
Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter is when the Masters
Speaker 1: comes down to that point on Sunday, one of the
Speaker 1: most memorable shots in the round, without fail, is that
Speaker 1: approach into fifteen. You remember it every year. Every year,
Speaker 1: everybody holds their breath as whoever is in the lead
Speaker 1: is getting ready to hit that shot. And you remember
Speaker 1: that shot from the winners, Sergio Garcia.
Speaker 2: That's unbelievable. I remember, I'll never forget.
Speaker 3: I'll let out a visit an audible yelp, like a
Speaker 3: yelped right because of that that shot, I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, it is it's such is in what it
Speaker 3: should be even better longer because it's going to be
Speaker 3: longer irons.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, that's why I think that this is
Speaker 1: where lengthening actually does get me excited. Usually I'm not
Speaker 1: that stoked about news that, you know, a five hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty yard hole has become a five hundred and
Speaker 1: forty yard hole, But in this case, yeah, instead of
Speaker 1: hitting an eight iron or whatever, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a six iron or a five iron, and that just
Speaker 1: ratchets up the tension even more because just hitting that
Speaker 1: kind of that club pure is a thing that pros
Speaker 1: can do that your normal player cannot do, and seeing
Speaker 1: them truly execute that shot is just such a pleasure.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I mean, that's that's the coolest shot
Speaker 1: pretty much on the entire course, maybe outside of the
Speaker 1: t shot at twelve, and maybe it has surpassed that
Speaker 1: in terms of just cheer tension because of where it
Speaker 1: is in the round. But in any case, that that
Speaker 1: should be really fun to watch now. As for like
Speaker 1: looking forward into the next several years, if you were
Speaker 1: to choose where the club would go next in making
Speaker 1: some alterations to the course, where would you go? All right,
Speaker 1: So we talked about this in a podcast not not
Speaker 1: long ago. This was a question, right, Yeah, did that
Speaker 1: make it into the podcast?
Speaker 2: I think it did, But like, okay.
Speaker 1: So maybe we don't need to go I would I.
Speaker 3: Would just say, like, I think the big decision to
Speaker 3: the bunker style, right, is whether you go back to
Speaker 3: that Mackenzie style or you keep these you know, kind
Speaker 3: of ice cream scoops that they have now that I'm
Speaker 3: not a fan of. I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: like them. But I would say, like, I don't think
Speaker 3: the club wants to move away.
Speaker 2: From the ice cream scoops. That's just my general sense
Speaker 2: of It.
Speaker 1: Would be stunning if they did, because then they'd change
Speaker 1: a bunch of other things along.
Speaker 3: I mean, if they went back to like dirty or
Speaker 3: bunker sand, if they went away for the white and
Speaker 3: went to like a natural bunker sand, because they have
Speaker 3: an old golf course that, you know, it would be
Speaker 3: truly unbelievable.
Speaker 2: But that's probably not.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 3: What I would love to see is just the continued
Speaker 3: push in the direction of the seventh of Hey, let's
Speaker 3: look at the holes that we've altered that no longer
Speaker 3: fit really the rest of the character of the golf course.
Speaker 3: And it's really easy to single them out. You know, seven,
Speaker 3: it's seventeen is super narrow. Now those two are really
Speaker 3: the ones that I think have been changed the most
Speaker 3: in terms of their corridor and their intention.
Speaker 1: Maybe five, but five is pretty pretty wide. Right now,
Speaker 1: they're just goofing around with where the tea.
Speaker 3: Is good because that those bunkers are reinstated, right those
Speaker 3: bunkers are heroic carry and if you don't carry the bunkers,
Speaker 3: you want to be as close to those bunkers as possible,
Speaker 3: which is the effectively the road hole. Like that hole
Speaker 3: is the road hole. So imagine the old Course hotel
Speaker 3: being those bunkers. And that's the strategy of it is
Speaker 3: you want to be as close as possible to the
Speaker 3: old Course hotel. And then it opens up the green,
Speaker 3: I mean that green. If you have never been, there's
Speaker 3: a couple of greens out there. If you've ever been,
Speaker 3: they're just you see them and you're just like, holy shit,
Speaker 3: I can't believe this is a real green. And the
Speaker 3: fifth green is one of those it's the front is
Speaker 3: so big.
Speaker 1: Fourteen gets a lot of recognition. Five doesn't get as
Speaker 1: much recognition for having a crazy green.
Speaker 2: But it's nuts. I mean, the false front is huge.
Speaker 2: I mean, like the photo.
Speaker 3: You don't get photos with ground screw out there, but
Speaker 3: the photo is if or if a player is on
Speaker 3: that bottom front. If somebody ever got a good shot
Speaker 3: of a player in good light with the shadow coming
Speaker 3: down with the player at the base of the front,
Speaker 3: it's just unbelievable how vaga it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, the sixth green also is nuts green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and seventeen We've talked about this off the microphone,
Speaker 1: but seventeen gets kind of short shrift by the telecast
Speaker 1: sometimes because the angles that you see of that whole
Speaker 1: don't really do it justice. I'd love to see it
Speaker 1: from that approach angle in front of the green really
Speaker 1: showing kind of how cool that green site is, because
Speaker 1: I think it just gets flattened a little bit in
Speaker 1: the way that they show its angles usually behind Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's high behind the green, you just don't see quite
Speaker 1: what that what they're facing when they hit that shot.
Speaker 3: I will say that like in this it'll be interesting,
Speaker 3: like CBS has been spectacular in terms of where their
Speaker 3: products come in the last year and a lot of
Speaker 3: their improvement has been camera angles. Yes, it's become so
Speaker 3: much more enjoyable to watch golf on CBS. And will
Speaker 3: it carry over into the in the Masters, hopefully we
Speaker 3: see some of those really new camera angles. Eighteen eighteen's
Speaker 3: another one that needs to.
Speaker 1: You think, the shoot off the teeth. I think the
Speaker 1: bunkers on the left, Yeah, yeah, those are yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean the story behind those or they didn't want it,
Speaker 3: they didn't want those to get built ever are what's it?
Speaker 3: I can't remember the recall the exact story, but Cliff
Speaker 3: Roberts like made somebody come put I think that was
Speaker 3: Cobb's first work there was putting those in. Nobody wanted
Speaker 3: to put them in there. The bunkers on the left
Speaker 3: are so silly there it goes against the entire ethos
Speaker 3: of the golf course.
Speaker 1: You have to you have to either lay up short
Speaker 1: of them or hit like.
Speaker 2: A slice or now people could just hit it over them.
Speaker 1: Well, which is what I remember. They They have moved
Speaker 1: those bunkers and maybe added one in, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century. But I remember when when
Speaker 1: Tiger was out there. He was hitting it over the
Speaker 1: bunker there. He was just blasting it way over and
Speaker 1: then then taking what he got on the other side. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly the uh that that whole needs needs
Speaker 1: a look. But in any case, exciting things. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: Augusta is always going to move a little bit slowly
Speaker 1: on these fronts. It's not a trend following place. It
Speaker 1: is a trend setting place. And so it's encouraging that
Speaker 1: some short grass expansions are happening and maybe then the
Speaker 1: influence of Augusta will start to rub off on other
Speaker 1: courses as well. That interesting storyline to track there. This
Speaker 1: episode of the Frida Egg Podcast was edited by Meg Atkins.
Speaker 1: All Right, so we have an exciting week coming up here.
Speaker 1: We have the final round of the ANNWA tomorrow and
Speaker 1: of course the Chevron Championship this weekend. Major championship season
Speaker 1: has officially started, and then of course we're rolling into
Speaker 1: Masters week and we've got a lot planned for the Masters.
Speaker 1: At the Friday Egg. We should be coming out with
Speaker 1: a lot of written material on our website. We'll have
Speaker 1: at least two editions of the Frida Egg Podcast and
Speaker 1: daily installments of the Shotgun start with Brendan and Andy.
Speaker 1: Lots of stuff to follow along with and to keep
Speaker 1: up to date on it, I would recommend following our
Speaker 1: social media accounts. So we are the Friday Egg on
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Speaker 1: So see you next week and thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: Eight