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 2: Friday Egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, fridagg fridagg brid egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Andy Johnson, and today we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: the last major of the year, sadly, the last men's
Speaker 1: major of the year, the Open Championship. I can't believe
Speaker 1: we're here, but it's mid July, and that's astonishing too. Uh,
Speaker 1: But we have a awesome, awesome major championship ahead, one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty third Open Championship. It will be held
Speaker 1: at Royal Port Rush, which we saw very recently twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen Open Championship host which delivered an awesome major. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, the first major that Royal Port Rush had
Speaker 1: held in a very long time. It will only be
Speaker 1: the third time that Royal Port Rush has ever held
Speaker 1: the Open Championship. A awesome golf course, a truly delightful
Speaker 1: Open Championship venue. So this is a big week ahead
Speaker 1: We will have a ton of stuff pouring out from
Speaker 1: both on the ground and just from observations from watching
Speaker 1: the telecast this week, so be sure to follow our
Speaker 1: verious social channels sign up for the fridayg newsletter today.
Speaker 1: I am excited. Wanted to do a little something different.
Speaker 1: I feel like some of these preview pods can get
Speaker 1: a bit redundant. You know, you do this storyline and
Speaker 1: it and it becomes you know, storyline. You know, they
Speaker 1: over the course of five months, if you count in
Speaker 1: the players, they you know, those storylines are the core
Speaker 1: storylines or the core storylines, and they Uh. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to do something a bit different. Uh. One of
Speaker 1: one of Golf's great personalities has been on the bench,
Speaker 1: been on the d L. Billy Horschell joins who obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean you talk about a guy who almost won
Speaker 1: a won an Open championship. Last year Billy Horschell finished
Speaker 1: T two, was standing, you know, had the had the lead,
Speaker 1: uh with uh with ten holes left in last year's Open.
Speaker 1: Awesome performance at Troon. Billy was was gracious to hop
Speaker 1: on uh and chat Open Championship with us. So we
Speaker 1: talk about Billy UH A lot of just Open centric conversation.
Speaker 1: But to tie it all together, PJ and I are
Speaker 1: going to jam through some of the big stories. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the big stories on the front
Speaker 1: end of this podcast. Then Billy is going to take
Speaker 1: us home. So beefy Open Championship Preview this week the
Speaker 1: Open Championship. All of our coverage is brought to you
Speaker 1: by our friends over at Mercedes Benz. Mercedes Benz has
Speaker 1: been partnering with the Open since twenty eleven, and the
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Speaker 1: full lineup of vehicles. All right, PJ, let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Is this the first time that you have been an
Speaker 1: audible guest on this podcast?
Speaker 3: No one other time. I think the first episode of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five me, you and Joseph did like fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes on TGL before that started. Remember TGL, Remember when
Speaker 3: that was like a big part of our line.
Speaker 1: Remember TGL you got.
Speaker 3: You got the frogs in the background.
Speaker 1: Now I am I don't ever remember TGL. I've live
Speaker 1: in TGL lifestyle every day, you know, I just not
Speaker 1: day I'm not thinking about think about my beloved ballfrogs,
Speaker 1: you know, and what we're what we're how we're going
Speaker 1: to improve from.
Speaker 3: Last It's been a great year for the Frogs. On
Speaker 3: on the actual golf courses, there's been a lot of wins,
Speaker 3: a lot of good finishes, and in in the in
Speaker 3: the TGL Thunderdome not so much. But you know what,
Speaker 3: what would you rather have?
Speaker 1: Well? You know, uh, the next year is the new year.
Speaker 1: We're counting down the days here. I was just on
Speaker 1: a call talking about how golf goes dead ways and
Speaker 1: I almost piped in, you know what about TGL not anymore?
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about the the Open, one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty third Open Championship. We're going to port Port Rush.
Speaker 1: We're going to do a quick truncated a couple of storylines.
Speaker 1: What's the number one storyline? You're you're looking out for?
Speaker 3: Colin wri Kaua just as a whole, it's been a
Speaker 3: very interesting odd year, up and down, pretty tumultuous, a
Speaker 3: couple of caddy splits, a new caddy, Billy Foster on
Speaker 3: the bag for him, Matthew Fitts. Coaching changes too, Yep,
Speaker 3: coaching changes too. It's been up and down. Zero major
Speaker 3: top tens this year to this point, which is the
Speaker 3: first time that's happened for him. Entering the Open Championship
Speaker 3: is since he became a full time player in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Since he won the Open in twenty twenty one, he's
Speaker 3: gotten miscut miscut T sixteen, so hasn't seen a lot
Speaker 3: of success necessarily at this tournament since he wins. Since
Speaker 3: he won, he kind of choked API to Russell Henley
Speaker 3: late on the back nine there, finished top ten at
Speaker 3: the Travelers or at the Players the next week, but
Speaker 3: after that only a T eight at the Rocket. Since then,
Speaker 3: he's only played the signature events outside of the Rocket
Speaker 3: and the Zurix, so he hasn't honestly played that much.
Speaker 3: An uncompetitive T fifty at the PGA, an uncompetitive T
Speaker 3: twenty three at the US Open. It's been an up
Speaker 3: and down year in a lot of ways for Colin
Speaker 3: wore account. But this is a guy who is put
Speaker 3: in that top flight of Americans in a Ryer Cup year,
Speaker 3: has won multiple major championships and kind of just feels
Speaker 3: lost for me right now.
Speaker 1: He's he's an interesting player in the world of golf.
Speaker 1: Just the the whole draft of winning a tournament is alarming.
Speaker 1: I mean that being said, He's been so consistent for
Speaker 1: his career uh, the you know the point you made
Speaker 1: right out of the gate. No top tens in majors
Speaker 1: this year. He has been a fixture in his career,
Speaker 1: one of the great major championship players, one of the
Speaker 1: most steady players. Uh, you know, we've seen it in
Speaker 1: some time. He's in that top echelon. You know, if
Speaker 1: you retire tomorrow, he's probably a Hall of Famer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is an amazing He accomplished that within the first
Speaker 1: couple of years of his career, which is you know,
Speaker 1: they it's it's been an interesting you know, golf just
Speaker 1: in general spent kind of an interesting time right where
Speaker 1: we've we had that like huge youth wave and I
Speaker 1: still think like there's obviously like supreme young talent coming
Speaker 1: into the game, but it has a bit normalized. I
Speaker 1: would say we've seen some some older players really have success.
Speaker 3: I think you're seeing it in both ways. The younger
Speaker 3: guys are better, but the technology is helping the old
Speaker 3: guys stay relevant for longer.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, no, I think I mean
Speaker 1: it used to be like if you look at like
Speaker 1: the career arcs, it used to be like you you.
Speaker 1: I think the technology is helping young guys be relevant
Speaker 1: earlier than ever earlier because it was a sport where
Speaker 1: like you had to learn how to play. It was
Speaker 1: you know, there's so much aspect of the game that
Speaker 1: took experience that has been that experience window has been
Speaker 1: shortened so much, whether it's learning golf courses, whether it's
Speaker 1: you know, how to hit, like technology has created a
Speaker 1: situation where like when you get weather, you don't have
Speaker 1: to hit as many shots as you used to have
Speaker 1: to hit when a ball spun more like the art
Speaker 1: of like taking spin off the ball. It's still important,
Speaker 1: let's not, but it is much less valued today than
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. So I do think, like, but I think,
Speaker 1: what's I think where we have like those like you know,
Speaker 1: we're still going to have like these young players come in,
Speaker 1: but like it felt like we had just like this
Speaker 1: monster youth wave happened, and now those guys are are
Speaker 1: twenty eight, twenty nine, you know, And Scottie Scheffler is
Speaker 1: like a great example of somebody who started popping after
Speaker 1: he was twenty five, you know. And then we've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, people that are late bloomers like Stepstraka and
Speaker 1: Russ Henley Russ Henley's having a career year in his
Speaker 1: mid thirties. And you know, the last major we had
Speaker 1: Adam Scott contending at forty six, which or forty four, right,
Speaker 1: forty five forty four I think, which was an amazing,
Speaker 1: amazing you know, feet you obviously have Roy McElroy still
Speaker 1: doing it in his mid thirties. So it's just like,
Speaker 1: I think golf's in a nice balance where it has
Speaker 1: like a lot of different ages playing well. But Colin
Speaker 1: more Kaw is just like in this middle period of
Speaker 1: his career, this is it'll be you know, where does
Speaker 1: he go the next five years? Do the next five
Speaker 1: years look more like his first three years or or
Speaker 1: or more like the last year and a half?
Speaker 3: Do you think and this is this is something that
Speaker 3: I have thought about when thinking about Calin mor Kauer
Speaker 3: for a while. Do you think it's it's bad that
Speaker 3: he's only playing the signature events and does not make
Speaker 3: any in between starts and not playing like a a
Speaker 3: Houston or any of the Texas events that you see
Speaker 3: maybe a Scottie or a Rory play. And I mean,
Speaker 3: he's played the Rocket for the last three or four years,
Speaker 3: but other than that, he's pretty much just picking the
Speaker 3: signatures and playing from that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great question. I think there is
Speaker 1: like a cadence that you develop when you win golf tournament.
Speaker 1: I think that winning a player of Morekowa's level winning
Speaker 1: tournaments is in the familiarity that you gain when you win,
Speaker 1: the comfort that you gain when you win, when you
Speaker 1: win anything is important and I think like we we
Speaker 1: see it every year, like Scotty cleans up every year
Speaker 1: a couple of just regular events. This year it was
Speaker 1: the CJ Cup right where he cleaned it cleaned up there,
Speaker 1: and it's like it gets them going, you know, it
Speaker 1: gets some rolling. I think that. I think, like the
Speaker 1: the hard thing when you just play signature events is
Speaker 1: that you are playing Scotty Scheffler and Rory McElroy and
Speaker 1: every other top flight. The competition level and those of
Speaker 1: winning is hard when you have somebody that has played
Speaker 1: as dominant golfer skuy Scheffler's played the last two years
Speaker 1: as well as Rory played the first you know, four
Speaker 1: months of the year. Like, you know, that's one of
Speaker 1: the interesting things that has developed is like Rory was
Speaker 1: the best golfer in the world from January till uh
Speaker 1: till the Masters. Scotty has taken the throne. I guess
Speaker 1: this can lead right into my my first thing. I'm watching.
Speaker 1: You know, Rory and Scotti, they've run like parallel. We
Speaker 1: haven't seen them both at their best at the same time.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, Like, you know, the PGA Tour Player
Speaker 1: of the Year is kind of a joke, right, you know,
Speaker 1: you win the FedEx Cup and they're gonna You're probably
Speaker 1: gonna win the Player of the Year.
Speaker 2: But like the.
Speaker 1: Actual player of the year, if Rory or Scotti, it's
Speaker 1: it done this week gets their second major, I would
Speaker 1: have a hard time believing either one of those guys
Speaker 1: isn't the player of the year no matter what happens
Speaker 1: to the rest of the year.
Speaker 3: Well sometimes sometimes two majors isn't even good enough to
Speaker 3: win Player of the.
Speaker 1: Year, that's right, Like I mean, last year was an
Speaker 1: interesting year because Scotty went absolutely bananas. He had so
Speaker 1: many wins. But if you get to the point where
Speaker 1: Rory has two majors and a players, Yeah, if Scotty
Speaker 1: won every playoff event, I don't think you give him
Speaker 1: Player of the Year over somebody that wins, you know,
Speaker 1: completes the career Grand Slam, wins the players and wins
Speaker 1: an Open, and you know a.
Speaker 3: Lot of style points on the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I mean they I think that's like the
Speaker 1: interesting thing. It's like this middle period of Rory's year
Speaker 1: has been has been weird, dynamic. You know. There there's
Speaker 1: been some like iciness with the media. There's been some
Speaker 1: poor play.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I think everybody thought this relief would be off and
Speaker 1: it had the opposite ef fact where it's like, what's
Speaker 1: the next mount to climb? Here we go to a
Speaker 1: major championship in his home country, Northern Ireland. Second time
Speaker 1: he's gotten to play a major at home, and it's
Speaker 1: at a golf course he famously shot a sixty one
Speaker 1: at as a kid playing the North of Ireland. He
Speaker 1: never won the North of Ireland at royal Port Rush.
Speaker 1: The great amateur event that was hosted is hosted there
Speaker 1: every year, the Irish Amateur Event. But like if he
Speaker 1: wins this now, like statistically you're probably not going to
Speaker 1: say this was like one of the greatest years of golf.
Speaker 1: But in terms of emphatic like just if you could,
Speaker 1: like if you remove you just look at the accomplishments
Speaker 1: of the Pebble Beach where a venue he never won at,
Speaker 1: the Players, completing the career Grand Slam, Augusta National. If
Speaker 1: he wins at Port Rush, that's an incredible year. And
Speaker 1: then the added opportunity he could win an away Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup at Beth Paid Black, Like there's like this could
Speaker 1: be a crazy, crazy accomplishment year of in terms of
Speaker 1: like highest of high type stuff. But again, if Scotty
Speaker 1: wins this, he is without a doubt the player of
Speaker 1: the year. That's I think that's one of the fascinating
Speaker 1: things is if either of these guys win it, they
Speaker 1: have had the best year in golf. And it's still
Speaker 1: an open case. Like I think everybody's like closed the
Speaker 1: door to Scotty's. But like if Rory wins this, like
Speaker 1: a talk about like great great, like storybook stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would be hard to pick against given all
Speaker 3: of the context of Royce here, and it was something
Speaker 3: that everybody talked about, you know, leading into the Masters.
Speaker 3: That also he had Quail Hollow on the docket, his
Speaker 3: favorite course in the world as a potential major venue.
Speaker 3: You this year, this major, the twenty twenty five major
Speaker 3: season set up pretty well for Rory and in terms
Speaker 3: of storylines and everything, and if you're able to check
Speaker 3: two of those boxes, you get to win a pebble.
Speaker 3: He talked about venues earlier this week, and you know
Speaker 3: what's important pebble BEA's obviously an iconic venue. It's hard,
Speaker 3: it would be, it would be almost impossible. Then you
Speaker 3: had the Ryder Cup on top of it, that would
Speaker 3: be that would be hard to beat. But Scotty, I mean,
Speaker 3: Scotty got his home game at at Craig Ranch, you know,
Speaker 3: just just dominating the Dallas area. So maybe maybe maybe
Speaker 3: Rory has to win this week to compete with that.
Speaker 3: But Scotty is week in, week out, Like you said,
Speaker 3: if you just go total number of months, right of,
Speaker 3: Rory was the best player in the world from January
Speaker 3: through the middle of April, and Scotty's gotten the rest
Speaker 3: of the year since then. Then you start looking at,
Speaker 3: you know, how many if neither of them win, what
Speaker 3: what is the debate? And Scotty's going to have the
Speaker 3: quote unquote belt for longer here and it's probably going
Speaker 3: to pick this pick.
Speaker 1: This analytics, right, Yeah, Like that's the other thing is
Speaker 1: like what what's interesting to me is like Rory wins
Speaker 1: this week, say he doesn't play great in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: they're and Scottie plays great in the playoffs. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean I have like this. You're gonna have this like
Speaker 1: amazing analytical versus like contextual debate.
Speaker 3: Be a great Miguel Cabrera winning the Triple Crown versus
Speaker 3: Mike Trout who had every analytical his first full season,
Speaker 3: his every analytical and Miguel Cabrera got the the contextual
Speaker 3: MVP there. So that's it's a good it's a good
Speaker 3: point actually by you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's like actually like a one of
Speaker 1: the great you know, kind of just sports debates in
Speaker 1: the modern era. Is this like the push and pull
Speaker 1: of analytical versus you know, like the the what the
Speaker 1: numbers say versus what the eye test or the story
Speaker 1: says right, And that's what would make it such a
Speaker 1: fascinating debate.
Speaker 3: I think it's it's it's you know, the career Grand Slam.
Speaker 3: It's only happened so few times, and you're adding the
Speaker 3: context of potential win at Port Rush. When you add
Speaker 3: the historical context that needed that obviously comes with those wins.
Speaker 3: These are not just normal wins. If they happen, then
Speaker 3: I think you're getting to decide where maybe the analytics
Speaker 3: still matter as much. But if these were wins independent
Speaker 3: of the historical context, I think that equation changes greatly,
Speaker 3: at least in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Just something also to note with both of those guys,
Speaker 1: Scotty Scheffler, I think like one thing that I would
Speaker 1: say most a lot of the great players have done
Speaker 1: is they've won multiple majors in the same year. This
Speaker 1: was If Scotty wins, it would be the first time
Speaker 1: he's done multiple majors in a year. For Rory, if
Speaker 1: he would were to win this, he would join This
Speaker 1: was Jamie. I brought this up on I believe before
Speaker 1: the US Open about Rory. Jamie Kennedy did the the
Speaker 1: numbers a elite random he called her random club in golf.
Speaker 1: If Rory McElroy won this week at royal Port Rush,
Speaker 1: he'd become just the third player in the last fifty
Speaker 1: years to win multiple majors in a year multiple times.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it would be Tom Watson in nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: and eighty two and Tiger Ray for Tiger two thousand,
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, two thousand, and five two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, so he.
Speaker 3: Got a little bit of catching up to do to
Speaker 3: get to that mark.
Speaker 1: But and then obviously Jack Nicholas did that multiple times
Speaker 1: as well. So yeah, the I think like I think
Speaker 1: those two that player of the year. Like I think
Speaker 1: that's what kind of like the open. One of the
Speaker 1: added things of it being the last major now is
Speaker 1: it does have this like this like who had the
Speaker 1: best year in golf kind of debate, And I think
Speaker 1: that's that's independent of whoever the PGA Tour decides as
Speaker 1: their player of the year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I was gonna say, like does does the
Speaker 3: does the player of the year like at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, the actual official word like really matter,
Speaker 3: Like is that is that? Is is that the important factor?
Speaker 3: Or is it the more you know, commonly accepted who
Speaker 3: had the best year?
Speaker 1: I mean, like an interesting thing was be like if
Speaker 1: Scotty won this, if Scotty wins this, like when when
Speaker 1: we talk about twenty twenty five, three years from now,
Speaker 1: is is that's a great Scotty the thing that we
Speaker 1: remember or is still gonna be rory with the career
Speaker 1: Grand Slam?
Speaker 3: You would think unless Scotty wins this in some crazy
Speaker 3: dominant fashion and runs away with it. That some some
Speaker 3: level of hit. Again the historical context that you're gonna
Speaker 3: have to add, But yeah, I mean, obviously twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five is going to be circled on the calendar for
Speaker 3: the Masters for the rest of time.
Speaker 1: What do you have next?
Speaker 3: I have the defending champion at Royalport Rush, Shane Lowry. Right,
Speaker 3: very interesting, you know season for him, not unlike Colin Moore.
Speaker 3: Caller had a T two it at Truest as his
Speaker 3: best result of the year.
Speaker 1: But just hitting all the sad boys, well, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not trying to be sad boys, but I'm trying to
Speaker 3: see where these guys are at. As of now, it's
Speaker 3: his worst major year since twenty seventeen. I hate again,
Speaker 3: I hate to be the Debbie Dowder bringing this all up.
Speaker 3: But he's fourth in strokes guarantee to Green, He's second
Speaker 3: in strokes. Game approaches, irons have been great this year
Speaker 3: for Shane Lowry. But I went and looked it up.
Speaker 3: His form coming into the Open in twenty nineteen at
Speaker 3: royal Port Rush. It had T three in Hiltonhead cut
Speaker 3: from the Zurich th eight at the PGA T twenty
Speaker 3: eight the US Open and then won the Open Championship,
Speaker 3: his forum coming in now Thaighten at hilton Head, the
Speaker 3: T two, T twelve at zeroch T two at Truist,
Speaker 3: which is his best finish of the year, cut it
Speaker 3: to PGA T twenty three at the Memorial T thirteen
Speaker 3: in Canada, cut it the US Open, and a T
Speaker 3: forty five at Travelers, So he had some He was
Speaker 3: trending a little bit at least was around had a
Speaker 3: top ten finish at the PGA heading into twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: but has not had outside of the Truest any sort
Speaker 3: of success this year that would would make anybody think
Speaker 3: that the title defense is even on the table at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 1: It's a unique setup here, Like I don't think usually
Speaker 1: you get a title defense in an Open, a US
Speaker 1: Open or a PGA like this close.
Speaker 3: While you're sad and while you're still like in the.
Speaker 1: Top arguably light, yeah, more accomplished, Like obviously the Opens
Speaker 1: a big part of his career, but like the last,
Speaker 1: if you zoom out a little bit further, the last
Speaker 1: eighteen months is the best golf that Shane Lowry's played
Speaker 1: in his career. Like once he got over the putting
Speaker 1: thing with that Zurich win to now is probably the best,
Speaker 1: you know, highest world ranking. He's he's he's gotten to
Speaker 1: most you know, So it is it is a you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that dynamic is going to become a
Speaker 1: little bit more true with the US Open, with their
Speaker 1: with their Rota, with their anchor sites. You know, like
Speaker 1: Pinehurst is coming up quick again and Pebble's coming up.
Speaker 1: It will be like in pretty quick succession. So but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a it's an interesting aspect of like you
Speaker 1: usually see like you usually see these courses like spaced
Speaker 1: almost ten years out and in some some regard, but
Speaker 1: this being just so close so on the heels, and
Speaker 1: I think that's like actually like you know, subplot storyline
Speaker 1: of the Open. It's like they don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of venues. Yeah, like we are. I think we're getting
Speaker 1: going to get the Open champion ship basically at the
Speaker 1: Old Course every five years from now, so one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty, one hundred and fifty, five hundred and sixty,
Speaker 1: like that's the new cadence for the Old course. Port
Speaker 1: Rush appear like because of the amount of fans they
Speaker 1: can fit, but also it is a world class test
Speaker 1: of golf, but that seems to be on a fast track.
Speaker 1: The Open needs more venues and on that you know,
Speaker 1: we uh, this will get to My second one is
Speaker 1: the golf course twenty nineteen. It was awesome, you know,
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of anticipation of it coming
Speaker 1: back to Northern Ireland. Obviously a country an area of
Speaker 1: the world that like people ask like why why didn't
Speaker 1: this happen like earlier, Well, it was a country, a
Speaker 1: part of the part of the world that was going
Speaker 1: through some of its own like issues and it's an
Speaker 1: amazing place. I got to visit Northern Ireland in March
Speaker 1: of last year. Love the people, love the place and
Speaker 1: Royal Port Rush to me is like one of the
Speaker 1: greatest golf courses in the world. I think, like somehow,
Speaker 1: like in a weird way, like you know, you think
Speaker 1: about like where it is. You know, it's like I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty widely considered like a top twenty course
Speaker 1: in the world, Like I think it might be like
Speaker 1: might be too low. I you know, I talk about
Speaker 1: this a lot with Matt Rush's from our team and
Speaker 1: Brendan and Cameron who we all played together. You know
Speaker 1: there are courses that are more stunning and more dramatic
Speaker 1: and more like once in a lifetime bucket list places
Speaker 1: like you know, the most famous Northern Ireland course along
Speaker 1: with Port Rush is Royal County Down. I would put
Speaker 1: that in a bucket. But I do think like in
Speaker 1: a way if this makes sense, like I think Royal
Speaker 1: County Down is like a more stunning place to play golf,
Speaker 1: but I think that from top to bottom in terms
Speaker 1: of the whole package, Royal port Rush is probably a
Speaker 1: golf course with less weaknesses and a more well rounded
Speaker 1: golf course. This is to me at the very top
Speaker 1: the best links tests, like maybe among the best. It
Speaker 1: probably would be one of the three or four best
Speaker 1: tests of golf in the world of golf. Like I
Speaker 1: think if I was going to make a list a
Speaker 1: short order of those, I'd have Shinakock, Augusta National, Royal
Speaker 1: port Rush and like Royal Melbourne would be my kind
Speaker 1: of like holy Grail Testing Championship Golf. I think what
Speaker 1: this brings to the table, It's got incredible topographical interest.
Speaker 1: You hit up, you hit down, and you often hit
Speaker 1: from lies that are not flat. That to me is
Speaker 1: like a core feature of great Great Championship golf. So
Speaker 1: you think about Shinnacock has that in spades, Augusta National
Speaker 1: has that in spades. Port Rush has that in spades.
Speaker 1: The other thing that port Rush has that, you know,
Speaker 1: like Shinnakok has this too, exceptionally firm playing conditions, so
Speaker 1: the ball bounces, the ground is alive, and that to
Speaker 1: me is another really important example. Royal Melbourne would be
Speaker 1: another golf course that has that exceptional firmness, that thud
Speaker 1: that you get. It's been a dry spring in in
Speaker 1: the in the UK and Ireland and that should aid
Speaker 1: that kind of the ball being alive when it hits
Speaker 1: the ground out there. The last thing that is like
Speaker 1: that this course has that I think Shinnakok has somewhat
Speaker 1: is reliable conditions. One of the last you know, real
Speaker 1: like if there's no win, these guys just hit stock shots.
Speaker 1: There's no reason to see artistry with the strike, you know,
Speaker 1: moving trajectories, having to shape shots because of the wind
Speaker 1: coming off your left or off your right. A Royal
Speaker 1: port Rush, you're going to get some reliable conditions. Now,
Speaker 1: like I look at I was looking at the weather.
Speaker 1: The wind doesn't look like anything crazy, But like a
Speaker 1: fifteen mile an hour wind out there is a wind
Speaker 1: you have to consider and you have to start to
Speaker 1: not just hit the stock shot at the stock trajectory.
Speaker 1: You have to move the ball up and down. And
Speaker 1: I think what that does is it just separates the
Speaker 1: true strikers, the people that really have the game and
Speaker 1: also have the experience and in all the shots in
Speaker 1: their bag. So for me, you know, port Rush and
Speaker 1: what separates it from other links courses is it's got
Speaker 1: like a really great, sophisticated set of greens. So you
Speaker 1: start to see you're just gonna see a lot of
Speaker 1: really neat contouring in the greens versus a lot of other,
Speaker 1: you know, open championship venues where the greens are a
Speaker 1: little bit that's where you might lose interest. And this
Speaker 1: this golf course has some really sharp surrounds, some really
Speaker 1: interesting contours on the greens. So the golf course to
Speaker 1: be it's gonna be awesome and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see it host another major championship.
Speaker 3: So would you be surprised on set up or you
Speaker 3: know how it's gonna play based on your experience, opinion
Speaker 3: or whatever. Like Shane Lowery kind of ran away with
Speaker 3: it in twenty nineteen one by six, Like is it
Speaker 3: gonna be set up where somebody can just go and
Speaker 3: kind of take it or is this gonna be a
Speaker 3: tight ending here?
Speaker 1: I think the golf course is one where like, if
Speaker 1: you're playing well, you really like lift and separate from
Speaker 1: like when I say that, like it does a great job.
Speaker 1: We talk about this with Billy a little bit. But
Speaker 1: that middle, the middle stretch of Port Rush, there's a
Speaker 1: lot is going to be talked about about the opening
Speaker 1: because you get out onto the ocean and there's some dramatic,
Speaker 1: beautiful golf holes and the finish which has you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen through eighteen is awesome at Port Rush, like unforgettable holes.
Speaker 1: The sixteenth you're going to hear so much about. But
Speaker 1: that middle portion of Port Rush is about as demanding
Speaker 1: of golf as you can get, and it sits down
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's not by the ocean. Some of
Speaker 1: the contouring is a little bit smaller, but it's like
Speaker 1: this great size and then the green a lot of
Speaker 1: the greens in that section of Repel and it is
Speaker 1: like you got to be golfing your ball in the
Speaker 1: middle of the round at Port Rush, and I think so.
Speaker 1: I think the golf course just in general, if you
Speaker 1: look at Lowry what he did really well, is he
Speaker 1: just dominated in terms of hitting green? Hm, it is.
Speaker 1: It is a it is a war of attrition out
Speaker 1: there with ball striking. You need to be just almost
Speaker 1: machine like out there or else like you know, some
Speaker 1: of the I think like this is what makes it
Speaker 1: a little different than a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: links older links courses. The greens, like the surrounds are
Speaker 1: severe like it is. If you miss greens you can
Speaker 1: be in some really tough positions. It is, so I
Speaker 1: think that's the the nature of port Rush is and
Speaker 1: why it's so taxing tea to green is because of
Speaker 1: the greens themselves being more like you know, everybody always
Speaker 1: talks about Augustin Ashler. These are not Augusta National Greens, Like,
Speaker 1: they aren't like that. But they are more in that
Speaker 1: vein than a lot of links courses where they have
Speaker 1: those vicious false fronts. They have these these pretty big
Speaker 1: hollows that you can get into and then you have
Speaker 1: to recover from spots to bother.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, if I just am as a viewer
Speaker 3: wondering whether it's going to be a tight finish at
Speaker 3: the end, like obviously Lowry ran away with it, Brian
Speaker 3: Harmon won by five. I think it was like but
Speaker 3: then you have s Andrews whore. It comes down to
Speaker 3: the final hole you had last year where Xander only
Speaker 3: one by two. Like back nine on Sunday, are you
Speaker 3: expecting somebody to lift and separate or do you think
Speaker 3: it's gonna be maybe a little tighter.
Speaker 1: I would expect just a couple people to have a
Speaker 1: shot to win on the back nine of Sunday is
Speaker 1: like one of those tournaments where you you know, uh
Speaker 1: where you come in and it's like, you know, Pinehurst
Speaker 1: was this way kind of right where you you Pinehurst,
Speaker 1: You're like, well.
Speaker 3: Patrick Cantley might stick around for a little while, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Pavon was in the final group. But you know,
Speaker 1: but like you're like, okay, this is these are and
Speaker 1: that's what I like those tournaments the most, where over
Speaker 1: the course of the of the tournament, it becomes very
Speaker 1: clear this is the main act, this is who we're
Speaker 1: we're zeroing in and it's like Sunday morning, the anticipation
Speaker 1: builds because it's like, okay, it's this guy this guy
Speaker 1: and this guy. Let's see who has it.
Speaker 3: You have the heavyweight bout, you have to you have
Speaker 3: to fight.
Speaker 1: I maybe the most memorable open recently was the Phil
Speaker 1: Stenson duel, which was one of the greatest, greatest tournaments
Speaker 1: I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's uh, that's that's on the table for this week.
Speaker 1: You're saying, well, it's like that idea of that heavyweight
Speaker 1: if you think about like the greatest majors recently, you know,
Speaker 1: you put Pinehurst in there. Obviously Rory's Master's win is
Speaker 1: like but like you know, that was kind of more
Speaker 1: of like the emotional swings, but like again.
Speaker 3: Like it's we thought that was going to be a
Speaker 3: heavyweight bout. Yeah, and then ten guys had a chance
Speaker 3: to win by the end of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and and but then you go back, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, Phil and H and H Brooks and in
Speaker 1: newsdays and at at Kiowa was like there was only
Speaker 1: a couple of guys that were going to win that
Speaker 1: golf tournament. Uh, you know, and obviously Phil wins. You
Speaker 1: got the Phil Stenson one. You know that that is
Speaker 1: something that I think is a recipe for really memorable things.
Speaker 1: It's it's like kind of like the other tournaments have
Speaker 1: so much going on, it's hard to like fixate on exactly.
Speaker 1: They're chaotic, right, which which yields like you know, like
Speaker 1: if I if you said, hey, Colum or Cow has
Speaker 1: win at Harding Park, It's like, well, how many things
Speaker 1: do you want me to tell you about? Because there
Speaker 1: was a moment when I thought Matt Wolfe was going
Speaker 1: to win. There was a moment when I thought Scotty
Speaker 1: Schffler was going to win, and that was like the
Speaker 1: emergence of Scotti Scheffler. And then there was like you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's all these other guys, and then you know,
Speaker 1: Colin Markoo hit a shot and all of sudden he won.
Speaker 3: He had one shot that kind of just sealed it went,
Speaker 3: oh okay, there we go. That guy won.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So versus like I think, like the benefit when
Speaker 1: you have a course that separates players out is that
Speaker 1: allows you to really soak in and think and feel
Speaker 1: the gravity and the the importance of every shot.
Speaker 3: So do you play a draw disparity take heading into
Speaker 3: Port Rush here. I feel like it's the number one
Speaker 3: storyline every year at the Open. We're just half half
Speaker 3: of the guys that.
Speaker 1: It's all weather weather dependent. If weather blows in and
Speaker 1: that can do. We're going way too long. I almost
Speaker 1: set this to be ten minute max, with like a
Speaker 1: meeting on the back of it. We so we were
Speaker 1: forced to be brief here. I guess nobody's probably complaining.
Speaker 1: But what's your last thing?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: Keing and Bradley. I just it feels like Keek and
Speaker 3: Bradley is the main character of golf these days. Already
Speaker 3: at the Crowbar, a Saint John, you know, not to
Speaker 3: be a Debbie Downer again. Five straight miss cuts at
Speaker 3: the Open. It's been his worst major historically. But guys,
Speaker 3: sitting ninth in Ryder Cup points right now. On the
Speaker 3: one hand, does he need to do anything? Does he
Speaker 3: need to make a cut snap this streak? Does he
Speaker 3: need a top thirty, top twenty? Does he need to
Speaker 3: contend to really shore this up? Or is there anything
Speaker 3: that he could do extend this miscut streak to six
Speaker 3: that would leave him off of his own team come
Speaker 3: September because this is the last I mean, unless he's
Speaker 3: gonna go win the BMW again, which is quite possible.
Speaker 3: But for right now, we'll call this the last shot
Speaker 3: for everybody ryder cup wise.
Speaker 1: I think he's pretty locked in. It's hard, like it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to believe that he's going to go
Speaker 1: from where where we would slot him in probably like
Speaker 1: if you did your own slotting of like he's probably
Speaker 1: like the seventh or eighth guy on the team.
Speaker 3: He's probably even higher, honestly.
Speaker 1: If we're going conservative, like seventh or eighth guy, not
Speaker 1: not just off the points list. Whoever's going to point
Speaker 1: out he's ninth in points. But like if you run
Speaker 1: down like any logical like a logical golf fan list,
Speaker 1: seventh or eighth at the low end to twelve, like
Speaker 1: it's you have to have like a if you missed
Speaker 1: the cut the rest of the way. I think that's
Speaker 1: where you you alarm. You sound alarmed, but like when
Speaker 1: you look at the schedule upcoming, like he's he's a
Speaker 1: good fit for the playoffs, Yeah, I think, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of surprising he hasn't played well in the open.
Speaker 1: He's still such a good ball striker. I mean, he's he's.
Speaker 3: Only five to eleven in made cuts even like he
Speaker 3: just he doesn't not not even contend it's high finished
Speaker 3: as a T fifteen, he just he doesn't even play
Speaker 3: half the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, my last thing here is the last chance,
Speaker 1: So the last major of the year. I think, like society,
Speaker 1: golf culture, the majors over the last you know, call
Speaker 1: it five six years have just gained more and more significance.
Speaker 1: These guys careers are so defined on majors. Billy kind
Speaker 1: of talks about this on the pod, like and like
Speaker 1: the the struggle of playing majors understanding like your your
Speaker 1: expectation to win them. The society is like fawning over them.
Speaker 1: They're only four of them a year. It makes it
Speaker 1: very hard, makes it extremely hard. Like you know, I
Speaker 1: think like you think about like a career like Chris
Speaker 1: Paul who just announced his last year in the NBA,
Speaker 1: Like his he's had this unbelievable career, one of the
Speaker 1: great point guards of all time, has never won an
Speaker 1: NBA championship. Is like second line of his career. And
Speaker 1: it's similar with golf, where it could be you could
Speaker 1: be talking about like what like Greg Norman. Greg Norman
Speaker 1: is a perfect example, as was by far the best
Speaker 1: player in the world of golf for a very long time,
Speaker 1: outstanding driver of the golf ball, incredible ball striker. Only
Speaker 1: two major championships, you know, like that is just like
Speaker 1: so quick. So if you start to think about the
Speaker 1: last chance, right, You've got Bryson, who I think like
Speaker 1: Bryson Brahm and are are kind of in their like
Speaker 1: own bucket. I think they have elevated themselves at this
Speaker 1: top pier, top of the pyramid. Your career, your your
Speaker 1: year is really defined based off of major success. In
Speaker 1: a different bucket, You've got more Cowen and Xander. Xander's
Speaker 1: interesting just because of the injury. Defending champion obviously of
Speaker 1: the Open. The injury has been weird. He's played well
Speaker 1: this week with the Scottish, who knows if that could
Speaker 1: be Like I'm almost giving him pass because of the
Speaker 1: injury year. It's been the worst year of his career.
Speaker 1: More cow we touched on earlier. And then final person
Speaker 1: I'm putting in this bucket is Brooks, who obviously has
Speaker 1: five majors. His whole career has been defined by major
Speaker 1: championships and not success in other tournaments. Like most most guys,
Speaker 1: it's like, well he's won all these other tournaments. For Brooks,
Speaker 1: it's like he's got five majors, Like.
Speaker 3: Hey, if you're if you're into Phoenix, I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess he's got that a couple of times that year.
Speaker 1: And I think the thing with Brooks, the added layer
Speaker 1: with Brooks here is is Ricky Elliott being from Northern Ireland,
Speaker 1: them being in the mix last time it was a
Speaker 1: port Rush, you could tell they really wanted to win it.
Speaker 1: For Ricky, I like, Ricky is a legend in port
Speaker 1: Rush and so so Brooks would be in this bucket.
Speaker 1: And then the other aspect of these players are like
Speaker 1: the JT, the Ludwig the Victor. For Ludwig and Victor,
Speaker 1: these are the things that would alter the discourse of them,
Speaker 1: their career and how we discuss them. And I think
Speaker 1: what's interesting about Victor he's been sniffing around a lot
Speaker 1: at majors the last couple of years. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: the way you win a Major is you get into
Speaker 1: contention at a lot of majors, And like Xander is
Speaker 1: a perfect example of that. Last year. Yeah, oh you
Speaker 1: can't win. He's good. Can't get it done, can't get
Speaker 1: it done, like the marker. When the discourse becomes you
Speaker 1: can't get it done on Sunday, that means You're closer
Speaker 1: than ever at getting it done on a Sunday, and
Speaker 1: I think that's like the interesting thing I would I
Speaker 1: would highlight. I'm taking Victor this week, and that's why
Speaker 1: do you have a pick?
Speaker 3: I'm taking big shot Bob another guy who's sniffed around
Speaker 3: in Open championships, almost just back toward his way into
Speaker 3: a US Open. But I'm going Bobby Mack. He's been
Speaker 3: so good the last two months. Everything data, Golf page,
Speaker 3: it's very very green for the last too much for
Speaker 3: Bobby Max. So I think he's trending, and I feel
Speaker 3: pretty good. Honestly, I don't know how I feel. How
Speaker 3: great it is that it's the week after the super
Speaker 3: Bowl the Scottish Open, But that's my pick right now.
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, PJ, thanks for coming on and hitting
Speaker 1: the storylines. We'll kick it over to Billy. This is
Speaker 1: This was really fun chat. So I hope everybody enjoys
Speaker 1: the Billy Horschell and uh and and we will uh
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you at the end here, all right, Billy,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming back on, excited to talk about the Open.
Speaker 1: What's going on with you? The Open last year, which
Speaker 1: was an incredible tournament, that you were a key character
Speaker 1: of you know, I was talking with PJ. Actually, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we've been missing all year
Speaker 1: is Billy Horshell. How are you doing, how's the hip
Speaker 1: and where are you at in terms of your rehap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything's going really well. It's two months now since
Speaker 2: my surgery. We have and recoveries progressing nicely. Haven't had
Speaker 2: any setbacks, which is which is always nice. Started hitting
Speaker 2: balls this week, working can work up to about six
Speaker 2: iron can give it like fifty percent effort, but I
Speaker 2: don't know what fifty percent effort is. I'm probably more
Speaker 2: about sixty seventy percent. So yeah, I mean I'm following,
Speaker 2: you know, the instructions as much as I can, and
Speaker 2: and hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be able
Speaker 2: to work into slowly hitting some woods and and but yeah,
Speaker 2: everything's so far is going well and looking forward to
Speaker 2: get back out here and hopefully in a couple of months.
Speaker 1: I feel like if you're taking a last cent and
Speaker 1: somebody tells you to swing sixty percent, like the ball
Speaker 1: still comes out about the same as if you swing
Speaker 1: if you're swinging all out at it. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: imagine fifty percent. That's the Dicey probably is a lot,
Speaker 1: as you said, a lot higher than that. What's been
Speaker 1: the hardest part about not being out there?
Speaker 2: Oh, you know, I've been asked this question a little bit,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, right around my surgery or
Speaker 2: just before, I pretty much just sort of shut my
Speaker 2: golf side off. You know what I've the way my
Speaker 2: brain works and what I've solely been focused on in
Speaker 2: a personal in a singular aspect for for decades now.
Speaker 2: I just shut it off because I knew I was
Speaker 2: gonna be playing. I knew I was gonna be practicing
Speaker 2: time soon. I didn't want to sort of, you know,
Speaker 2: this is a perfect time for me to hang out
Speaker 2: with my family, be a part of my kids. His
Speaker 2: life's a little bit more, you know, hang out my
Speaker 2: wife more. Just sort of really ingrain myself into my
Speaker 2: family on a full basis about what we're having to
Speaker 2: worry about going to practice and play and everything. So,
Speaker 2: but the thing I have missed is when I do
Speaker 2: watch on Sundays, you know, seeing guys competing to have
Speaker 2: a chance to win. That's that's what I miss is
Speaker 2: not not being out there, not having that opportunity to
Speaker 2: to win golf tournaments. But but for the most part,
Speaker 2: like I said, I mean, I haven't really I haven't
Speaker 2: really missed golf. I really haven't. I've enjoyed being home.
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed being a dad, taking my kids to to
Speaker 2: their practices and taking them to their sporting events and
Speaker 2: and and not you know, you know, waking up in
Speaker 2: the morning and yeah, I'm going to the gym to
Speaker 2: to to rehab and other stuff. But I get to
Speaker 2: come home and I don't have to worry about going out
Speaker 2: to practice. I can just hang out the house and
Speaker 2: and just relax, which is which has been, like I said,
Speaker 2: been pretty nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get in like the the a slice of
Speaker 1: early retirement, but then you go back out there, which
Speaker 1: is like you know perfect you mentioned, uh watching on Sundays.
Speaker 1: How connected to the to the game have you stayed?
Speaker 2: I mean, other than watching through the TV, that's about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I obviously I still talk to quite a
Speaker 2: few guys, and quite a few guys have reached out
Speaker 2: check in on me how I've been doing. But but
Speaker 2: other than that, I haven't. You know, there's the connection
Speaker 2: there is. It is like how everyone says, you know,
Speaker 2: when you're away from the tour. You're away from the tour.
Speaker 2: You know, you have your friends and you have certain
Speaker 2: people reach out to you, but other than that, you
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, some people can feel like a
Speaker 2: little lost, that they're not not connected, or they're missing out,
Speaker 2: or they're not in in the grain that they've always
Speaker 2: been of knowing what's going on out on tour and
Speaker 2: the ins and outs and all the little things.
Speaker 1: What you know, you've you've effectively bet a fan watching
Speaker 1: on Sundays. Yeah, what what are your observations as a
Speaker 1: fan of golf? And like, I feel like not a
Speaker 1: lot of tour players they think they like don't get
Speaker 1: to be a fan. As you said, like this is
Speaker 1: probably like one of the first times you've had a
Speaker 1: long break where you just watch golf. Like, what what
Speaker 1: have your observations been as a fan?
Speaker 2: That should be Probably I need to be careful on
Speaker 2: how I say some of this. I think some of
Speaker 2: the stuff that with the technology aspect of it, with
Speaker 2: with both CBS NBC, I think they're doing some really
Speaker 2: unique things and different things. You know, when when I
Speaker 2: think of stuff, sometimes I'm thinking about how to make
Speaker 2: things better and not always focusing on what's really good
Speaker 2: right right then and now.
Speaker 1: That's what podcasts are for.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: People say that's you know, it's the place to dream
Speaker 1: and talk about things that you think could could change.
Speaker 2: I'll say what I've always said for a while now,
Speaker 2: because I've always watched a lot of golf. I've always
Speaker 2: been a golf and I'm a golf fan at heart.
Speaker 2: For as a PGA Tour player ever thought about playing
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour, I loved watching golf and I watched
Speaker 2: every minute of golf that possibly could. I think coming
Speaker 2: from a too aspect and a view of way I
Speaker 2: see things and understand things and and what I would want,
Speaker 2: I think some of the analyst is is too too
Speaker 2: cheery a little bit. I think we you know, you
Speaker 2: need that Johnny Miller in there. And I've said this
Speaker 2: for a long time. You need someone that's gonna call,
Speaker 2: you know, be critical of guys when they hit bad
Speaker 2: shots or decisions or anything. I don't I don't think
Speaker 2: anyone comes across strong enough, and I don't think anyone
Speaker 2: does it to what I would say at a good
Speaker 2: at a at a decent level. As for me as
Speaker 2: a fan watching golf, and like I said, I have
Speaker 2: a I'm a PJ Tour player. I have a PJ
Speaker 2: Tour of brain. I understand what a good golf shot is.
Speaker 2: I understand what a bad golf shot is. A lot
Speaker 2: of the viewers do too, but maybe not as in
Speaker 2: depth as mine. But you know, we need to be
Speaker 2: critical of us as as tour players. If someone hits
Speaker 2: a webshot from forty you know, from one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty yards at forty feet, that's a that's awful. Like,
Speaker 2: let's let's call them out. Let's say that's you know,
Speaker 2: especially if you know, with four holes up to play
Speaker 2: and he's tied for lead and one back, that's pressure.
Speaker 2: That's that's clearly has to be pressure. He's afraid of
Speaker 2: missing that shot. He's afraid of pooling the shot. Like,
Speaker 2: let's be Johnny Miller a little bit like I missed
Speaker 2: Johnny Miller. I know people gave Johnny Miller a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, a lot of crap from here and there,
Speaker 2: but man, he when I watched the old coverages, I
Speaker 2: have a great appreciation for the way he did a
Speaker 2: job in his booths for so many decades.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think like the key to longevity too,
Speaker 1: is is doing that because then you don't get old
Speaker 1: because you're just saying what's really on your mind. Right
Speaker 1: when you try and sugar when you sugarcoat stuff like,
Speaker 1: you lose the spectrum of your potential ability to like
Speaker 1: talk on a subject right because you're limiting what you
Speaker 1: can say. I think, uh, I think, let me.
Speaker 2: Stop you, let me let me stop you. You know,
Speaker 2: I just had a thought come on in my head. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 2: And a lot of the analysts there now you know
Speaker 2: there and you have to create a relationship with players,
Speaker 2: like to do a good job, you have to crelationship
Speaker 2: to grow out in the range and get information and everything.
Speaker 2: But I'm not sure if they're afraid to be critical,
Speaker 2: because they're going to lose that aspect of it. And
Speaker 2: if it is that way, then us as tour players
Speaker 2: were too soft. And if someone's going to criticize, you know,
Speaker 2: our decision or what you know, calls out on stuff like,
Speaker 2: that's the name of the game. That's what they're doing
Speaker 2: as an analyst, that's what they should do. Sam Burns
Speaker 2: at the US Open birdies number ten in the final
Speaker 2: round goes to number eleven. He has a I don't know,
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty yards shot up the hill, whatever
Speaker 2: it was. And when he said the head, when he
Speaker 2: said when they said he had seven iron, I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't think that's enough club because I know Sam,
Speaker 2: I know how far he hits his club. He hits
Speaker 2: it further than me. But with a you know, I
Speaker 2: don't think the yard is took into effect the uphill
Speaker 2: second shot on uphill lie maybe Sam and Travis is
Speaker 2: little worried with the water running down, maybe catching a
Speaker 2: little flyer with the water and going over the green.
Speaker 2: But Sam comes up short. It's super unlucky to be
Speaker 2: plugged or beyond that lip. However it was. But in
Speaker 2: my aspect was that probably should have been a six
Speaker 2: iron there. You know, you got a lot of green
Speaker 2: to work with. You know, seven iron is that enough
Speaker 2: to carry the bunker? You know, be a little critical,
Speaker 2: like I don't if I remember correctly, Like that wasn't
Speaker 2: critical in that aspect there.
Speaker 1: I thought. Also in that regard the t shot was
Speaker 1: a real mistake too, because the you know, like he
Speaker 1: in normal conditions, I think he hit three wood. I
Speaker 1: think that was the right club. But the weather was
Speaker 1: it was like kind of like piss and rain and
Speaker 1: the ball's not going anywhere and you have to hit something,
Speaker 1: especially with how soft the turf is. You know, you're
Speaker 1: worried about that creek that cuts through, but with how
Speaker 1: soft it was, the ball's not going to roll into
Speaker 1: the creek. And there was a misplay off the tee
Speaker 1: and none of it was like all like, oh, bad luck.
Speaker 1: It was like, no, maybe a a misplayed golf hole.
Speaker 2: You know, you can you can say a little bit
Speaker 2: of bad luck. But maybe the decision making, maybe the
Speaker 2: club selection off the team, maybe the club selection to
Speaker 2: the green probably wasn't the right one. And yeah, you
Speaker 2: can look back after a shot. But before we hit
Speaker 2: that shot, I was saying, seven irons is not enough club.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's enough club. And maybe it's because
Speaker 2: I just saw someone before him hit a seven iron
Speaker 2: come up short in the bunker I think it was
Speaker 2: or whatever. And Sam's hitting seven iron from maybe five
Speaker 2: yards further. I'm like, that's got to be a six iron. Sam, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, but you know, there's, like I said, I
Speaker 2: think that aspect like that's a you know it we
Speaker 2: we I think as as fans and as players and everyone,
Speaker 2: like you want to you want to show how great
Speaker 2: we are and and when we hit great shots, hit
Speaker 2: great shots, but when we hit bad shots or or
Speaker 2: we choke or we do something that the pressure gets
Speaker 2: to us or you know, if you think it's a
Speaker 2: mental you know, he's got a little mental yip action,
Speaker 2: you know, because of the shot he hit or whatever,
Speaker 2: Like let's call us out on that. Like that's that
Speaker 2: just sort of creates a little bit of edge. I
Speaker 2: think that's, you know, something great that viewers would love
Speaker 2: to see. Like I said, I don't know. I grew
Speaker 2: up in the era with Johnny Miller, and I think
Speaker 2: Johnny Miller is the best, and I always I've always
Speaker 2: thought that way.
Speaker 1: Particularly a back nine on Sunday is like what you're
Speaker 1: talking about, you're talking about, like what golf is. You're
Speaker 1: talking about the essence of golf is that by the
Speaker 1: culmination of the back nine on Sunday, you are at
Speaker 1: like peak decision making and execution moments where the margins
Speaker 1: just shrink down. And that part of it is because
Speaker 1: of what you're feeling as a player in that moment,
Speaker 1: like you are amped up and you are going through
Speaker 1: this like you know, you're trying to bring home in
Speaker 1: that situation the biggest win of your career for everybody
Speaker 1: on that board for the most part, and you know,
Speaker 1: like the execution, the decision making becomes so razor thin
Speaker 1: because you know, like I think, like every time I
Speaker 1: get done with a major, I just am like god, Like,
Speaker 1: what's crazy is like a bounce here or a bounce
Speaker 1: there you could talk yourself into like almost like ten
Speaker 1: guys getting it done outside of the times where like,
Speaker 1: you know, a player just runs away and is clearly
Speaker 1: the best you know, and it is That is what's
Speaker 1: amazing about golf and why some of those decision decisions
Speaker 1: need to be like scrutinized and looked at with like
Speaker 1: a fine comb, like did did they do the right thing?
Speaker 1: Because that's the difference between you know, winning and losing.
Speaker 1: And I think for Sam Burns, like he hit some
Speaker 1: really good shots on that back nine, but he also
Speaker 1: hit some really bad shots. And in the bad shots,
Speaker 1: like you know he had on the what was it
Speaker 1: the short on twelve he had he hit one of
Speaker 1: the worst wedges I've seen, like a pro in contention,
Speaker 1: hit from you know where he basically missed the I
Speaker 1: think he missed the green on twelve from ninety yards,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like that's just you know, not
Speaker 1: good enough in that in that moment. But uh, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the Open. We'll talk about you in contention.
Speaker 1: Last year, this this was a this was an awesome,
Speaker 1: uh weekend at the Open. Just in general, I imagine
Speaker 1: that there are moments and shots that run through your head.
Speaker 1: I feel like when you play tournament golf, you get
Speaker 1: like these like vivid like movies in your head of
Speaker 1: moments from last year. Are there particular things that you
Speaker 1: think about often? The honest answer, No, See, that's a
Speaker 1: good short memory.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean I can remember every shot hit
Speaker 2: and and you know what I felt like and emotions
Speaker 2: I was feeling, and you know everything you know doing
Speaker 2: the shot. You know, there's times that I'll catch myself
Speaker 2: looking back, But a lot of times I'm always I'm
Speaker 2: so focused on moving forward and and what's the next
Speaker 2: thing getting there again that you know, sometimes you don't
Speaker 2: you don't sit back and yeah, you know I didn't
Speaker 2: win the Open, but I played great. I had a
Speaker 2: you know, I had a chance to win. I finished
Speaker 2: second best finish of my career in a major and
Speaker 2: and you know probably should have you know, when I
Speaker 2: look back at it, I say this every time, even
Speaker 2: after win. I should probably enjoy this more and let
Speaker 2: it soak in and and and take it all in.
Speaker 2: But I'm always so much of moving on to the
Speaker 2: next thing. But I think some shots I think about,
Speaker 2: just some some great bunker shots I hit. At the
Speaker 2: same time, I think about some awful iron shots I hit.
Speaker 2: I hit an awful iron shot in the final round
Speaker 2: on number ten. I had an awful iron shot on
Speaker 2: number sixteen the third round. My third shot, you know
Speaker 2: it was I flared it right into a bunker and
Speaker 2: plugged it. But I hit a great bunker shot and
Speaker 2: almost hold it out, you know, burning number eighteen on Sunday,
Speaker 2: burning sixteen seventy eighteen to finish. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: there's there's shots that I can easily call, but I
Speaker 2: just don't go back and and you know, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: sort of caught off God when it does come when
Speaker 2: I am caught, you know, thinking about it.
Speaker 1: The Saturday round in particular was like one of the
Speaker 1: great like just holding it together. It felt like like
Speaker 1: just like keeping the ship going forward. Rounds and probably
Speaker 1: in your career.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. I mean, honestly, I mean the way
Speaker 2: the conditions were and everything, it was more or less
Speaker 2: like get the ball, go forward. I don't really care
Speaker 2: how far it goes, as long as it's going forward
Speaker 2: and not left or right too much like we are
Speaker 2: winning at this game. And yeah, it was. I can't
Speaker 2: say it was the toughest conditions I played in, because
Speaker 2: the toughest conditions I played in was the second round
Speaker 2: of Dunhill in twenty twenty two or three. I think
Speaker 2: it was my wife Scott it, so it was twenty two. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was. It was nasty weather that we played in.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that that day in that round. And I've
Speaker 2: said this many times, I don't I don't think I
Speaker 2: would have played as well if I wasn't paired with
Speaker 2: someone like Justin and Foods for Rosian Foods. There are
Speaker 2: two great friends of mine. We have mutual respect for
Speaker 2: each other, and we both are just guys that grind
Speaker 2: it out. You know, when when you're grinding it out
Speaker 2: and you're making a score and you have someone else
Speaker 2: doing the same thing, it's sort of you guys are
Speaker 2: you know, fist pumping each other and sort of pulling
Speaker 2: for each other, even though we're in one of the
Speaker 2: last groups on a third round of a major. You're
Speaker 2: pulling for each other. Now, if I had it was
Speaker 2: playing with someone who was just doing the towel, you know,
Speaker 2: made a couple of bad holes and just doing the
Speaker 2: towel like that just sort of brings the whole mood
Speaker 2: down in the group that it's, yeah, you're you're letting
Speaker 2: the conditions get the better of you. But you know,
Speaker 2: I've always enjoyed playing and stuff like that, And like
Speaker 2: I said, you know, I obviously it was a great
Speaker 2: pairing to have. And I think, you know, Rosie and
Speaker 2: I played beautifully in those conditions.
Speaker 1: I think you hit on, you know, a core essence
Speaker 1: of the Open. I think, you know, golf is unique
Speaker 1: and what you just said, like you're you're you and
Speaker 1: Rosie are in the thick of it. Have both have
Speaker 1: a great chance to win late in a tournament that
Speaker 1: you know, career defining moments for both of you. And
Speaker 1: because of the additional element of the Open, which is
Speaker 1: the elements the idea of whether you know you're playing
Speaker 1: the course in any golf tournament, you're building almost like
Speaker 1: a house when you think about a four round golf
Speaker 1: golf round in the first rounds of Foundation, just like,
Speaker 1: we don't screw this up. We've got a chance to
Speaker 1: build up right. And you're but you're you're doing this
Speaker 1: on your own and you're competing at the same time,
Speaker 1: but you're playing against the course. And when you get
Speaker 1: those elements, like, I think you hit on it totally.
Speaker 1: When you're playing a particularly it feels like challenging mentally
Speaker 1: challenging round of golf. That player that you're out they're
Speaker 1: battling with, becomes like if you're both going through, like
Speaker 1: you can draft off each other in there, and it's
Speaker 1: it's so true. And I don't know if there's ever
Speaker 1: been analytical studies done on it, but like sometimes you
Speaker 1: just come across bad vibe groups where like things aren't
Speaker 1: going well and it's easy to get down down in
Speaker 1: your luck as a group with the Open when the
Speaker 1: elements turn is how's that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And I guess this is a links golf question. What
Speaker 1: are the skill sets and the types of traits that
Speaker 1: you need to have for when you know the Open
Speaker 1: or any links tournament can get particularly challenging.
Speaker 2: I you know, I think, uh, I can't remember how
Speaker 2: I phrased it last year after the third round. But
Speaker 2: you're not You don't care about any perfect you don't
Speaker 2: care about what a swing looks like. You don't care
Speaker 2: how how far it goes. You're hoping that it hit
Speaker 2: somewhere in this in the face and the ball goes straight.
Speaker 2: Like I mean, when I'm playing those conditions, like, I
Speaker 2: feel like I'm not swinging that hard. I feel like
Speaker 2: it's a shorter golf swing. I feel like the ball's
Speaker 2: not going up in the air. I'm keeping it, you know,
Speaker 2: out of the wind, out of the out of the
Speaker 2: elements as much as I can. You know, it's not
Speaker 2: pretty golf. It's you know, the score and the way
Speaker 2: you do it can look can sort of look pretty,
Speaker 2: but the way it feels and the way you know
Speaker 2: what how you want it to look and everything can
Speaker 2: look ugly. And you know, I think it's just sort
Speaker 2: of like managing it. You know, how am I going
Speaker 2: to hit this shot from one hundred that I remember? Yeah,
Speaker 2: like the third like I said, sixteen the third round,
Speaker 2: my third shot, I had like one hundred and maybe
Speaker 2: twenty yards and I was in between six and seven.
Speaker 2: I thought I could chip a little six and I
Speaker 2: you know, just you know, didn't make a great you know,
Speaker 2: little chippy action. I flirted out to the right and
Speaker 2: I was like, man, maybe it's just been a hard
Speaker 2: seven to play it back in your stance and just
Speaker 2: put it even lower, maybe even run it up the
Speaker 2: green a little bit. But you know, it's one of
Speaker 2: those things where I just say, you find a way
Speaker 2: to get it done. I think that's what the best
Speaker 2: players who played in those conditions have always done. You know,
Speaker 2: they're not worried about making this sling look pretty, not
Speaker 2: worried about how far the ball goes. I mean you're
Speaker 2: really not. I mean you're worried about hitting the center
Speaker 2: of the face. But you know, with the technology now,
Speaker 2: you know you can be a little off center with
Speaker 2: a missit and the ball is still going to go
Speaker 2: fairly straight. So yeah, it's it's it's survival golf is
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 1: In a way, like listening to you talk about this
Speaker 1: is it is it kind of almost a return to
Speaker 1: when you were younger, more naive, and knew less about golf.
Speaker 1: It becomes more like golf as a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're just trying to hit shots you're trying to
Speaker 2: figure out how to hit this shot. You know, you know,
Speaker 2: you're trying to hit like a twenty low hook. You
Speaker 2: know what club I'm gonna hit like a twenty yard
Speaker 2: low hook, or if I'm trying to play a bump
Speaker 2: and run shot. I remember hitting on number ten eleven,
Speaker 2: that was twelve thirteen thirteen to part four, played really long.
Speaker 2: I hit driver, and I tried to hit like a
Speaker 2: two iron. I flirted at short rider of the green.
Speaker 2: I think Rosie made hit three wood. He hit a
Speaker 2: beautiful shot. I think it was three. He hit a
Speaker 2: beautiful shot, like on the front edge of the green
Speaker 2: from like one hundred and ninety yards and he hits
Speaker 2: it three two hundred and seventy yards. So but I
Speaker 2: had this stance over in my third shot. That ball
Speaker 2: was like above my feet. But I was on a
Speaker 2: severe downhill, lie in the fest in like the heather
Speaker 2: or whatever, and I was trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: to hit this And I was fifty yards from the
Speaker 2: hole in, and I knew if I hit a fifty six,
Speaker 2: I was gonna have to hit it really hard and
Speaker 2: it was gonna get up in the air too much.
Speaker 2: And I'm like if I hit a fifty two, there
Speaker 2: was this hill in front of me about seven to
Speaker 2: ten yards that it may not clear. And I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I got to take the fifty two because I'm not
Speaker 2: hitting something up in the air. And I hit the
Speaker 2: fifty two it barely clear. Is a hill, hits a downslope,
Speaker 2: runs out there has a whole bunch of you know,
Speaker 2: momentum to the ball checks a little bit with all
Speaker 2: the water and the wind, the ball stops right, almost
Speaker 2: goes in. I think I almost lipked it out. And
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, you just figure out how
Speaker 2: how to hit a shot. It doesn't matter how it looks.
Speaker 2: You're just sort of using as much imagination as you
Speaker 2: possibly can.
Speaker 1: I think that like act perfectly executed, like chip that
Speaker 1: has like a little run to it, as one of
Speaker 1: the one of the greatest feelings of golf when you're
Speaker 1: just watch it and you know right when you clip it,
Speaker 1: it's just right, Yes, you, I would say, and I
Speaker 1: you know, you know, in the case of being blunt,
Speaker 1: I'm not mischaracterizing your Link's career here. It was not great.
Speaker 1: It felt like it feels like twenty twenty two. You
Speaker 1: had a t twenty one at the Old Course and
Speaker 1: that kind of started. Is there something that that changed
Speaker 1: in your in your approach to the Open or is
Speaker 1: something about your game and finding something that really that
Speaker 1: allowed you to become more of a well rounded player
Speaker 1: that you started to play better in links golf. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's a couple of things. I think early
Speaker 2: on in the first five or six years of my career,
Speaker 2: maybe seven, and at the Links at the Open Championship.
Speaker 2: I mean, we all know this can happen, but five
Speaker 2: hours seven of those I was on the worst drawl
Speaker 2: you could possibly get. I mean not just I was
Speaker 2: on a bad draw. I was on the worst, like
Speaker 2: the literally the worst little hour ninety minute stretch of
Speaker 2: tea times like.
Speaker 1: That was where I was set up one of the
Speaker 1: core elements of it.
Speaker 2: It is, and and I think you know through that
Speaker 2: I may have not handled those situations as well. Obviously
Speaker 2: I didn't have any as well because I missed the cut,
Speaker 2: simple as that. But I think the big thing was
Speaker 2: when I started playing the Dunhill Links Championship on the
Speaker 2: dp WLD Tour at the back end of the year.
Speaker 2: I love going to the Saint Andrews and I enjoy
Speaker 2: it so much, but playing three rounds of links, four
Speaker 2: rounds of links, course of golf, playing in conditions that
Speaker 2: in late September, early October and Scotland can be sort
Speaker 2: of iffy, really, you know, improved, you know, just my knowledge,
Speaker 2: my understanding. I always felt I had the game. I
Speaker 2: always felt I had all the shots. It was understanding
Speaker 2: when to hit certain shots, it was understanding what a
Speaker 2: good score was, how to play certain holes in the conditions,
Speaker 2: and you know, just all that knowledge you gain. And
Speaker 2: so that started in twenty one. I go to twenty
Speaker 2: two at Saint Andrew's. I play really well. I had
Speaker 2: unfortunately ten three putts that week that's on the green,
Speaker 2: that's not off the green, that's ten. So you know,
Speaker 2: that was a little bummer because I played really well
Speaker 2: and I put it the worst I possibly could for
Speaker 2: four days, you know. And then twenty three where were in.
Speaker 1: Twenty three twenty three would have bands not true twenty
Speaker 1: three Hoylake Hola.
Speaker 2: Again, that was one where I didn't play that bad.
Speaker 2: I just made a couple of bad swings. You know.
Speaker 2: Then it you know, takes chances of the momentum. But
Speaker 2: I felt comfortable with myself on link style courses and
Speaker 2: you know, I was. It was finally nice to see,
Speaker 2: you know, a result happened in the opening because I
Speaker 2: loved the Open so much. I love the fans, I
Speaker 2: love the history, I love the courses. I love everything
Speaker 2: about golf over there, like missing the Genesis this week,
Speaker 2: the Scottish Opening, and missing Open these two weeks. This
Speaker 2: is the first time in two months that I've actually
Speaker 2: been like, God, damn, this sucks, Like I wish I
Speaker 2: was over there.
Speaker 1: I feel similar similarly, one of my or two of
Speaker 1: my colleagues are going over. I'm not going over and
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of like, oh God, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny you say, like going to the Dunhill. I
Speaker 1: spent a week in Saint Andrew's earlier this year, and
Speaker 1: it's like if I were if I were a pro golfer,
Speaker 1: and it makes actually total sense, right, Like this is
Speaker 1: one of the majors of the year, one of the
Speaker 1: four majors, and the Dunhill is like it offers you
Speaker 1: an opportunity to go hang out in like one of
Speaker 1: the greatest towns in the world of golf, and during
Speaker 1: when school is in session, which I think like heightens
Speaker 1: Like when you go play an open there, it's kind
Speaker 1: of it's not really like the vibrant college town. Correct
Speaker 1: it becomes, but like the Dunhill Week the schools in session,
Speaker 1: is this vibrant college town with like all sorts of
Speaker 1: culture and and it's like one of the coolest things.
Speaker 1: But as you illuminated, I mean this is like this
Speaker 1: is just opportunity to expose yourself to the type of golf.
Speaker 1: And I think like one of the things that gets
Speaker 1: like sometimes forgotten about golf is like so much of
Speaker 1: setup and golf courses, like types of golf courses dictate
Speaker 1: who's going to play well. Like I think it's like
Speaker 1: very interesting when you look at like US Open sectional qualifying, right,
Speaker 1: Like there are guys that just get out every year
Speaker 1: from the same site. And it's not they should not
Speaker 1: have like this overwhelming, but like certain set up, certain
Speaker 1: styles of golf lead to different types of players. We
Speaker 1: see it with like people that are really in the
Speaker 1: weeds on gambling. Like yeah, there are like courses for
Speaker 1: courses and like exposing gaining yourself the opportunity to expose
Speaker 1: yourself to the types of gained that valuable experience on
Speaker 1: links golf, and I think, like, what you know, one
Speaker 1: of the things I'm fascinated by with the Open is
Speaker 1: like the age the average age of contenders and major championships,
Speaker 1: and almost every major has gone like is plumb, It's
Speaker 1: down right. The older championships are the Masters, which has
Speaker 1: like a very complex course, and the Open. The Open
Speaker 1: is like the the tournament that like pro golfers of
Speaker 1: all ages have like a shot, but it's actually like
Speaker 1: it's a It's a really wide spectrum if you look
Speaker 1: at it. It's significantly older the average age of say
Speaker 1: the top ten, than every other major, and to me,
Speaker 1: like the vast majority of Americans have so little experience
Speaker 1: playing that style of golf. And that's why you see
Speaker 1: that that average age tick up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, you know. I tell all my friends
Speaker 2: anyone I come across and they ask about link style
Speaker 2: horses are playing over there. I was like, if you
Speaker 2: go over there, I'd be hard pressed if you came
Speaker 2: back and you told me that you'd rather play American
Speaker 2: courses more than links courses more, because I think it
Speaker 2: allows anyone at any level to be able to play
Speaker 2: well there. You don't have to fly the ball every
Speaker 2: time onto the green. You can run the ball up,
Speaker 2: you can bounce the ball up. There's other ways to
Speaker 2: get the ball closer. You know, you can in America.
Speaker 2: You know, if a guy drives it two thirty, he
Speaker 2: drives it two thirty. He may only hit it two twenty.
Speaker 2: It rolls out ten yards over there, depends on you know,
Speaker 2: how much weather they've had. He can hit it two
Speaker 2: twenty and he could run out fifty yards. And I mean,
Speaker 2: how nice. I mean that's for anyone to be able
Speaker 2: to green fifty yards and hit five yards clubs into
Speaker 2: a green or four less clubs, like they're going to
Speaker 2: enjoy golf even more. So. It's just so unique and
Speaker 2: there's so many options and a way to play the
Speaker 2: game of golf. And obviously that's where it started, and
Speaker 2: that's how you know, you know, we the game. I
Speaker 2: can't say ultimately should be played because you can't have
Speaker 2: you can't recreate that everywhere in the world. But it's
Speaker 2: just a foundation of golf and it's so fun to
Speaker 2: go over there because like I said, and I tell
Speaker 2: guys said, try to hit shots. Listen to your caddy
Speaker 2: if he's telling you hit a five iron and sort
Speaker 2: of play like a little bump shot or you know
Speaker 2: a little half shot and only hit like one hundred
Speaker 2: yards and let him roll out of eighty yards. Like
Speaker 2: do that. He's telling you because he knows how this
Speaker 2: needs to be played. And I think the caddies make
Speaker 2: it such a great experience as well.
Speaker 1: Over there, it's it's funny, you know one of the
Speaker 1: good the players that's played well at the Open, that's
Speaker 1: a young player and it's like it was a it
Speaker 1: was a big story at Hoylake was this Matthew Jordan
Speaker 1: who grew up playing Hoylake, right, and he's not I
Speaker 1: would say, like he's not like of the tier of
Speaker 1: world class player, but like here he is. He's earned
Speaker 1: his spot in the Open three now now it's the
Speaker 1: second year in a row playing on an exemption of
Speaker 1: finishing in the top twelve of last year's Open. It's
Speaker 1: like periods on links golf is so important to playing
Speaker 1: and I think there's like almost like an embrace of
Speaker 1: links golf that has to happen in order for you
Speaker 1: to play well. Like Phil Michelson talked about this like
Speaker 1: it took him a long time to like learn to
Speaker 1: love links golf. I'm kind of curious with like with
Speaker 1: the week of the Open you go to these places,
Speaker 1: is there anything that's different for you with like the
Speaker 1: town or anything that you do differently when you're over
Speaker 1: there than a normal week on the PGA Tour or
Speaker 1: a normal major week for that matter in America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean over there. Majority of times, obviously, I'll
Speaker 2: have a house and I'll have you know, pretty much
Speaker 2: every one of my teams stay in the house. And
Speaker 2: you know, you know, through the years, we usually have
Speaker 2: gone out to dinner and then we go to a
Speaker 2: pub and hang out for an hour, or we go
Speaker 2: to a pub before and have dinner and then go
Speaker 2: to dinner. Like we just we we get out of
Speaker 2: the house, and you know, it's not for me because
Speaker 2: I get my mind away from golf and just enjoying
Speaker 2: being over there and having a great time. And you know,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes there's other golfers and caddies that we
Speaker 2: meet up with, and uh there's other times where we're
Speaker 2: just in there and the locals will come over and
Speaker 2: chat chat with us a little bit. And so it's
Speaker 2: it's a cool little aspect in the sense of that
Speaker 2: you know, it may be a little bit tougher over
Speaker 2: the last couple of years because of where we stay,
Speaker 2: and then there's so many you know, there's a good
Speaker 2: thing about I thinks there's so many fans that sort
Speaker 2: of stay in town and sort of get bombarded a
Speaker 2: little bit, and but it is a cool aspect when
Speaker 2: you can just go hang out of the pub and
Speaker 2: just sit there, you know, have it pying to two.
Speaker 2: You know, talk with your buddies. You know. You know,
Speaker 2: if there's some locals in there that have been there
Speaker 2: for years and decades, you know, they tell they tell
Speaker 2: you stories, which some of their stories are so great
Speaker 2: to hear.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I I can totally understand and how
Speaker 1: it could be overwhelming if it's an area that like
Speaker 1: a lot of fans are staying, and it's where sometimes
Speaker 1: even the remote ones where there's very limited lodging, it
Speaker 1: ends up better because everybody like shuttles in and out
Speaker 1: and they aren't around after after after rounds. You know,
Speaker 1: you brought up your team. I think like there's there's
Speaker 1: been some news lately, a more high pro I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, we go in waves of high profile players
Speaker 1: making changes to their team, and it feels like this
Speaker 1: year is a is a high turnover team team year.
Speaker 1: Just in general, coach changes caddy changes is continuity one
Speaker 1: of the most underrated aspects in in pro golf.
Speaker 2: To you, yeah, I believe so, and listen, I've made
Speaker 2: I've made my fair share of caddy changes pretty much
Speaker 2: every the coach I've had. The coaches have all been
Speaker 2: there and stayed there, but the caddies have come and
Speaker 2: gone a little bit and and and more or less,
Speaker 2: it's it's what I need a period of time, like
Speaker 2: what I needed and that aspect, and right then and
Speaker 2: there for a caddy, like that's who I would hire
Speaker 2: and that's what I got, and then you know, i'd
Speaker 2: go out of that and I would want something else
Speaker 2: from a caddy, you know. And so uh so I
Speaker 2: tell guys like it's okay to make changes in caddies,
Speaker 2: like because you got to find something that works for
Speaker 2: you and what you're looking for, and you know, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it takes a little while to go through a
Speaker 2: few changes with caddies. Now, with a coaches aspect, I'm
Speaker 2: always I think if you've had success with the coach
Speaker 2: for a while, and you know, let's say you go
Speaker 2: through a little rut like it's you see a lot
Speaker 2: of guys change caddies, I mean coaches, Like it's it's
Speaker 2: nothing like, oh, this guy's not good enough for me anymore.
Speaker 2: You know, I've played bad the last six eight months.
Speaker 2: It's not working anymore, which is weird because it worked
Speaker 2: for so long. And yeah, you're going to go through
Speaker 2: a little lull and you got to you know, this
Speaker 2: is where communication with your coach comes in and discuss
Speaker 2: you know, your goals and what you want, and you
Speaker 2: also you have to be open to hearing criticism from
Speaker 2: your coach because you may have changed and how you
Speaker 2: being and how you know, he may be trying to
Speaker 2: coach you the same, but you're not listening the same.
Speaker 2: You're not soaking it all in and you're not listening
Speaker 2: to what he's trying to tell you. You know, I
Speaker 2: had so you know see that a lot. And you see
Speaker 2: when that happens, guys' games don't ultimately get better. You know,
Speaker 2: majority of time, I think if you did the statistics,
Speaker 2: guys that have had coaches for a while and they've
Speaker 2: had success and then they go through a little you know,
Speaker 2: low where it's not as good. You know, they may
Speaker 2: have coach change. Majority of time, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 2: work out. I'm going to say better than seventy five
Speaker 2: percent of the time it doesn't work out. I mean,
Speaker 2: I could have easily made a coaching change in twenty
Speaker 2: three when when I was playing bad, and could have
Speaker 2: told Todd Anderson, Hey, Todd, you know we've had at
Speaker 2: that point, we've been sixteen years together. We've had sixteen
Speaker 2: great years together. I just I think, you know, it's
Speaker 2: time for me to go in a different direction. I'm
Speaker 2: just not sure if this is working. Are And I
Speaker 2: never had that thought. You know, we Todd and I
Speaker 2: tides on my best friends. We've had we had conversations
Speaker 2: and I told him what I you know, what I
Speaker 2: was struggling with. You know what I was, you know,
Speaker 2: was expecting. You know, he told me, you know some
Speaker 2: things about me, and so it was a it was
Speaker 2: a great communication and open line that we've always had.
Speaker 2: And and and at the same time, why would I
Speaker 2: want to change when this guy for the last sixteen
Speaker 2: years has got me to a high level where we've
Speaker 2: won at that point, you know, seven times on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, and we've won on the d PEOPLE Tour
Speaker 2: and you know, we've made a Presidence Cup team together,
Speaker 2: Like I've had a ton of success with him, Like
Speaker 2: it's going to be pretty hard to find someone else
Speaker 2: that's going to duplicate that. But the same time, what
Speaker 2: I also see with players is that they go to
Speaker 2: coaches and change coaches without understanding the way that coach teach,
Speaker 2: and they don't understand the way their body works and
Speaker 2: and the way that coach teach and what he does
Speaker 2: may not work with how your body, you know, ultimately functions.
Speaker 2: You know, there's some teachers out there that sort of
Speaker 2: work with what you have, and there's other teachers that
Speaker 2: are really stuck into their mole of Hey, we need
Speaker 2: to do this, this is how I think the swing
Speaker 2: should be, and your body possibly can't do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the coach thing is is an interesting I do.
Speaker 1: I think continuity is just like it's like anything like
Speaker 1: you get in any sort of long term relationship. You
Speaker 1: get to the point where you just like understand somebody
Speaker 1: at a deeper level and there's like even it's just
Speaker 1: like things you can communicate even without saying anything, right.
Speaker 1: It's the idea. It's also having the memory bank of
Speaker 1: being able to recall back five years before when maybe
Speaker 1: something similar was happening and it looked looks okay, but like, hey,
Speaker 1: you remember we did this with this hip and you
Speaker 1: know this, it's like that's I think the thing that
Speaker 1: you miss when you when you're constantly hopping around, is
Speaker 1: you miss that recall bank, that idea of like being
Speaker 1: able to go back and like look at like this,
Speaker 1: and so I you know, I think like the caddy
Speaker 1: things an interesting element to it, where like it can
Speaker 1: also sour on the opposite end, I think everybody always
Speaker 1: thinks about like the player, you know, getting like sometimes
Speaker 1: like the caddy could get tired of hearing the message
Speaker 1: from the player back right, because like a caddy's in
Speaker 1: a tough position where like they're you know, they're dependent
Speaker 1: on the player hitting the shot, you.
Speaker 2: Know, And I won't I won't lie. I had a
Speaker 2: caddy fire me. I got fired by a caddy Like
Speaker 2: it was okay. And he's a great friend of mine,
Speaker 2: and we've had conversations since then. But he's a great
Speaker 2: friend of mine and we still are. And you know,
Speaker 2: I understand at the moment in time, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: what was going on and decision he made, you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't. You know, obviously it sucked because I thought
Speaker 2: this is going to be a guy who's gonna be
Speaker 2: with for a while. But you know, ultimately it didn't
Speaker 2: work out, and it's fine, you know. It's it's like
Speaker 2: I said that that aspect is so tough because you're
Speaker 2: with that person so much and you see him so much,
Speaker 2: and you know, but I think, you know, you're talking
Speaker 2: about continuity. You know, my teacher Todd talks about this like,
Speaker 2: look at the best players in the world. Always been
Speaker 2: with his coach since she's been a kid. You know.
Speaker 2: Scotty has been with his coach since she was a kid. Jordan'
Speaker 2: speeth has been with his coach since she was a kid.
Speaker 2: Justin Thomas has been with his dad forever. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get who else is in the top
Speaker 2: of the world. Lud Big has been with his coach,
Speaker 2: John Rahm Phillips. Yeah, you know, for since he was
Speaker 2: in college, you know. And so there there is that,
Speaker 2: like you said, you know, there is that memory bank
Speaker 2: of going back to things and trusting, and then then
Speaker 2: there's just that unspoken stuff that he understands you without
Speaker 2: having without you having to say anything. And and Todd
Speaker 2: knows it with me, like when I get frustrated, you know,
Speaker 2: when we're working and and there's times when I'm frustrated
Speaker 2: and he's trying to tell me something and I'm just
Speaker 2: not listening, like he just sort of he'll just be quiet,
Speaker 2: and he knows within ten to twenty minutes, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get out of my little get my
Speaker 2: panties out of a wad, and I'm going to realize, Okay,
Speaker 2: what was that that you're telling me to? Okay, I
Speaker 2: get that. You know that works. Yeah, you know, I'll
Speaker 2: come back to him because I know what he's saying
Speaker 2: at that moment in time is correct. But there is
Speaker 2: just a wall right there where I just don't want
Speaker 2: to hear it. I don't want to. I'm frustrated. I
Speaker 2: just want to, you know, hit balls as hard as
Speaker 2: I can and be frustrated and get all the frustration out,
Speaker 2: and then when that's all gone and insane Billy comes back,
Speaker 2: then we can have then he can start teaching me again.
Speaker 1: That's you know, I think, like what you hit on,
Speaker 1: I continew like something I find interesting about the game
Speaker 1: right now is I feel like there's like a tier
Speaker 1: of players that have elevated up. And if you look
Speaker 1: at at at that tier of players, there's a simplicity
Speaker 1: almost like even Bryson, Like Bryson doesn't have a coach
Speaker 1: out there, you know, uh with him, like either, Like
Speaker 1: there is a simplicity to the approach to the game.
Speaker 1: And if you look at that, it's it's for the
Speaker 1: most part continuity, continuity and belief and what they're working on,
Speaker 1: and it's not you know, like Bryson did the speed thing,
Speaker 1: but he's been on the pursuit of like a lot
Speaker 1: of the principle, the core principles have stayed the same
Speaker 1: about how he swings the club, how he approaches the game,
Speaker 1: but like there is a simplicity, and that simplicity, simplicity
Speaker 1: in the golf swing comes generally, I believe, from continuity
Speaker 1: of the thesis of what you're trying to build with
Speaker 1: a coach.
Speaker 2: I agree, and I'll take it all on. One little
Speaker 2: piece to it. You know, Brett mccaby's my sports psychologist.
Speaker 2: You know, you talk about belief and what you're doing.
Speaker 2: You know, one little piece of odd onto is ownership,
Speaker 2: Like you own what you're doing. Like I may believe
Speaker 2: what TA is telling me. And I may believe what
Speaker 2: I'm doing is correct, but until I fully own it
Speaker 2: where I put it in my own words and my
Speaker 2: own fields, you know that really work. That is when
Speaker 2: I think it fully comes together because you know, Todd
Speaker 2: may tell me something and what hit the way he's
Speaker 2: you know, telling me to feel it or give me
Speaker 2: some feels or something like that, you know it's correct.
Speaker 2: I've got to figure out my way of sort of
Speaker 2: putting that little puzzle together, Like, am I gonna there's
Speaker 2: a feel he telled me? Tells me is that correct?
Speaker 2: Or is that the feel I like? Or is there
Speaker 2: another feel? And t A is very you know great
Speaker 2: at if I say, hey, I understand what you're telling me,
Speaker 2: and I understand this feel, but you know I'm feeling
Speaker 2: it this way. And I'm like, if I'm feeling this way,
Speaker 2: is I'm always still getting the results that you want
Speaker 2: with my feel? And He's like yeah, And so that
Speaker 2: I took ownership of that into my golf sling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as we saw at like the PGA where
Speaker 1: Scotty's kind of going haywire on the front nine, it
Speaker 1: came back to a feel, right, Yeah, that that idea
Speaker 1: of a feel and that's what flips the switch in
Speaker 1: allows him to save you know, I think a lot
Speaker 1: about like that round, and it's like where where Scott
Speaker 1: He's like impressive at this point in his career. Maybe
Speaker 1: most impressive is his lack of scar tissue. Right, Like
Speaker 1: he hasn't had had a major moment where it's like,
Speaker 1: oh man.
Speaker 2: He messed yeah yeah, like lost something, yeah he.
Speaker 1: And that was that to me felt like the the
Speaker 1: moment where like his career in in his his feel,
Speaker 1: the way he feels inside the ropes in a major
Speaker 1: championship could have changed, and because he turns it around
Speaker 1: there he comes out unscathed. And it's still like he's
Speaker 1: perfect with fifty four hole leads, Like he's like you know,
Speaker 1: like he's this guy that like nobody wants to see.
Speaker 1: And it was They're like I feel like with golf,
Speaker 1: you're looking for that little like edge with someone. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: like you know, if you're if you're chasing him, it's like,
Speaker 1: well he did fumble it at at at Quill Hollow,
Speaker 1: Like this is you know, I'm you're looking for hope
Speaker 1: sometimes And I think what's interesting with him now is
Speaker 1: like he heads this tournament that you know, of all
Speaker 1: the majors, he's had the least success. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's not like he's been bad. His game works everywhere,
Speaker 1: and he goes to this this major and it feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, he he almost won at oakbot Was despite
Speaker 1: like having a pretty bad week on the greens, and
Speaker 1: he comes to this major and it's like God, like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just he's he's a quintessential perfect major
Speaker 1: player because of how simple the the the swing and
Speaker 1: the approaches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just it's a consistency in which he strikes
Speaker 2: the ball, consistency of his iron play, you know. I
Speaker 2: mean even when he's off, his disscontrol isn't that bad
Speaker 2: or or the dispersion isn't that bad. So it's very
Speaker 2: tight and he gets away with it and and yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean you said you know, as like you're like, man,
Speaker 2: where is my hope? Where am I going to get it?
Speaker 2: You know, if I played, if I was ever in
Speaker 2: a final group, I'm like, Okay, you know, if Scotty
Speaker 2: plays Scotty, it's gonna be tough, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: But you know, Scotty's prone the missions from short putts.
Speaker 2: Probably Scotty's prone to you know, getting when he's in
Speaker 2: green side bunkers, hitting SHANKO two or hitting a bad
Speaker 2: greenside bunker shot, and so you know, and then you know,
Speaker 2: if you know, obviously he hasn't driven the ball as
Speaker 2: well as of late, you know, going back to the
Speaker 2: PGA Championship, and maybe before the PGA Championship, maybe the
Speaker 2: week or two before. So maybe if his if he
Speaker 2: has a little if he's driving it, you know, if
Speaker 2: he's been a little off of the driver, like I
Speaker 2: may be able to get a shot here or two away,
Speaker 2: you know, if he's a bad drive, depending on the situation.
Speaker 2: So you just, uh, it's one that I learned from
Speaker 2: Tiger is you just got to stay in it. You don't,
Speaker 2: you know, you don't have to do anything special like
Speaker 2: everyone he talked about, like everyone you know when they
Speaker 2: played him, that they had to do something special to
Speaker 2: beat him, and he didn't really anything special. Yes, there
Speaker 2: would be times you went out there and shot a
Speaker 2: sixty five or sixty seven in the final round, but
Speaker 2: you look at the final doout scoring average, it's nothing
Speaker 2: like you know, jaw dropping. But he'd let everyone else
Speaker 2: beat them. You know, he'd let everyone you know, beat
Speaker 2: themselves because he knew that they felt that they had
Speaker 2: to do something special. And so if you have that mentality, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to stay in it. You know. It's
Speaker 2: the same thing when I play with you know, with
Speaker 2: Roy McRoy. Roy's going to drive the ball. Great, Roy's
Speaker 2: going to do it. But if I stay in it
Speaker 2: and I don't make any mistakes and do anything stupid
Speaker 2: trying to you know, catch him. You know, if he
Speaker 2: makes us, if he stumbles up, then I have a
Speaker 2: chance of catching him or beating him. Now if he doesn't, hey,
Speaker 2: you know what, maybe I have to do something at
Speaker 2: the end the last four or five holes, whatever it
Speaker 2: may be, to do something try and get them. But
Speaker 2: you know, if I don't catch them, then it's typically
Speaker 2: cap It's the same thing with Scotty Scheffler. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just those those guys that you know, it's just
Speaker 2: sort of really special, you know, and and can be
Speaker 2: I guess people would say intimidating. You know, people try
Speaker 2: to do more than what they are able to do,
Speaker 2: above their ability, and as long as you can stay
Speaker 2: in your play, within yourself and play your game, you're
Speaker 2: gonna have a chance more likely come the end because
Speaker 2: that person may be realizing that a Scotti, Scheffler or
Speaker 2: voy mc hey man, he's not making any mistakes, you know,
Speaker 2: he's you know, yeah, he's not doingything special, but he's
Speaker 2: just hanging around and it's sort of like a little
Speaker 2: like a little you know what is an insect or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, he's just always buzzing around you. You can't get
Speaker 2: rid of it. And then you know, they mess up
Speaker 2: and make a mistake and you take over. So it
Speaker 2: could be a flip side of that that people will
Speaker 2: think about. And that's the way I think about it.
Speaker 2: I just want to be that little insect, that little nag,
Speaker 2: you know, and in their in their in their game,
Speaker 2: that I'm always there that you know, if they don't
Speaker 2: continue to play you know, solid golf, I'm there to
Speaker 2: hopefully capitalize the you know.
Speaker 1: That's I think that's great advice for anybody. You know.
Speaker 1: The sport in general always is it's a constant asking
Speaker 1: you to try and do something that's maybe outside your means,
Speaker 1: like even to your level, to the highest level. Golf
Speaker 1: is always and I think maybe one of the things
Speaker 1: that's unique about links golf is like you get these
Speaker 1: like good lies that are out of position and like
Speaker 1: where you're looking at it, and it's like, well, I
Speaker 1: can hit this shot, I could do this, but maybe
Speaker 1: it's not the right time to try and do it.
Speaker 1: And that's what you're talking about, is staying within yourself,
Speaker 1: being like smart, not taking on you know, Like I
Speaker 1: think that's it's constantly playing against your ego golf and
Speaker 1: in at any level you're playing, is staying in it.
Speaker 1: With port Rush, I I guess like, actually before we
Speaker 1: get there, you know, I think like Rory obviously is
Speaker 1: a huge story this week with with it being in
Speaker 1: Northern Ireland. I think, like I believe if my memory
Speaker 1: is serving your right, like you at last year we're talking,
Speaker 1: you know, you started to have success in the majors,
Speaker 1: play well at Valhalla, you played well at the Open
Speaker 1: last year. But part of that was was the idea
Speaker 1: of like you wanting to play so well in majors
Speaker 1: and almost letting go of that. And I believe it
Speaker 1: was some of your work with Brett that was like
Speaker 1: this and obviously a huge storyline as Rory playing in
Speaker 1: front of the home crowd last time in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: he had he got off to the disasters start. What
Speaker 1: could you talk through just like kind of what you're
Speaker 1: you guys went through with the majors and and how
Speaker 1: you go about letting go?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, for so long, you know, almost a decade,
Speaker 2: you know. It was one of those things where you know,
Speaker 2: all like, I wanted to win a major. I want
Speaker 2: to be called a major champion. I want to be
Speaker 2: called a multi you know, you know, major champion, multiple
Speaker 2: major champion. And I've always felt like my game had
Speaker 2: the ability to win any major. Yeah, you sort of
Speaker 2: learn and you grow and you get better with your game.
Speaker 2: That makes it, you know, even more viable in those majors.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I have a perfectional side.
Speaker 2: I always felt like the win majors you had to
Speaker 2: be perfection, And obviously, deep down I know that's not true,
Speaker 2: but it was always tough those weeks to try not
Speaker 2: to be perfect. I would, you know, even if I
Speaker 2: started out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday feeling great and not thinking perfect,
Speaker 2: Thursday morning would come up in perfection Cide would come
Speaker 2: out and that obviously derailed a lot of my you know,
Speaker 2: not having more success in a major. But I think
Speaker 2: starting to work with Brett in twenty eighteen. I think
Speaker 2: it was right around end of twenty COVID. The US
Speaker 2: Open at Wingfoot was the first one that I felt
Speaker 2: very comfortable with everything. I played really well for forty
Speaker 2: five holes. I think it was in the top ten
Speaker 2: with twenty seven holes left to go, and I just
Speaker 2: didn't play well. I didn't. It wasn't that, you know,
Speaker 2: I got ahead of myself. I just just didn't execute
Speaker 2: the shots Neally is good and didn't make the putts
Speaker 2: to stay in it. And so but I walked away
Speaker 2: even though I was disappointed because I don't think I
Speaker 2: finished that high that week. I think may have finished
Speaker 2: thirty or something. I was like the first twenty seven holes,
Speaker 2: not the first the first forty five holes I played
Speaker 2: really solid. I'm like, okay, hey, I know what I
Speaker 2: need to do now. And I always felt like going forward.
Speaker 2: I always the mindset was in the right spot. You know,
Speaker 2: for the last five years, there's just now executing shots
Speaker 2: and and timing. You know, listen, you've got to hit
Speaker 2: it well, you got to put it well. You know
Speaker 2: we all know that. But you know, making sure the
Speaker 2: games in a sharp enough spot to be able to
Speaker 2: do that. And then I think one last piece that
Speaker 2: I sort of told Brett it was last year coming
Speaker 2: off disappointment in twenty three, and obviously I played started
Speaker 2: play well early, play well early in twenty four and
Speaker 2: I won at Punta Khana, and I think it was
Speaker 2: at PGA. I just said to him, I was long lines, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I've always thought on myself, you know, for
Speaker 2: a long time that I that I was going to
Speaker 2: be a major champion, like I was good enough and
Speaker 2: I had the game, and you know, that was something
Speaker 2: I was going to accomplish, but not that this is
Speaker 2: sort of like I'm giving up. But I just said,
Speaker 2: I realized that there's a lot of people in the
Speaker 2: game of golf that have come before me, that have
Speaker 2: had unbelievable careers that are probably better players to me.
Speaker 2: Over their career, they would be you know, pro careers.
Speaker 2: They're going to be considered a better player than me
Speaker 2: that didn't win majors. And you know, if when my
Speaker 2: career is done, if I don't win a major, I'm
Speaker 2: going to be disappointed, but I will still be very
Speaker 2: satisfied with what I have and you know, I just said,
Speaker 2: you know, look at Steve Stricker, look at Lee west
Speaker 2: for look at Luke Donald. You know, even look at
Speaker 2: the guys who've only won one major, you know, Adam Scott,
Speaker 2: Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia. I mean, it is amazing to
Speaker 2: me how tough it is to win a Major. I mean,
Speaker 2: I've always known it is. But then when you look
Speaker 2: at guys that I would say are better players to me,
Speaker 2: have better careers in me, that have won a major,
Speaker 2: or I've only won one, You're like, gosh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not the end of the world if I don't
Speaker 2: win a major. And so with that I realized I
Speaker 2: think that just allowed me to you know, I can't
Speaker 2: say be content because that's sort of like saying you're
Speaker 2: giving up. But it's not. It's just like I was
Speaker 2: content if I went out there and I played the
Speaker 2: best I could for the next you know, eight years
Speaker 2: and majors and I don't. If I'm not able to
Speaker 2: knock off one, that's fine. But I'm going to play
Speaker 2: these next eight years of majors going out there thinking
Speaker 2: I'm gonna win, believe it, I'm gonna win, and playing
Speaker 2: the game of playing the way I want a Major
Speaker 2: is the way I do and every other.
Speaker 1: Event it's like a like acceptance of that. You you know,
Speaker 1: in a way too, it's like you can play great
Speaker 1: and it cannot happen, like Xander kind of went nuts
Speaker 1: last year, and and it's not like, you know, you
Speaker 1: didn't lose the major, but you played great and that's
Speaker 1: all you could do at a certain extent, and like
Speaker 1: a lot of like I think that's what makes golf
Speaker 1: one of the most intoxicating games. Is like a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the result is out of your hands,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's what makes it baddening.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: I mean, I you know, listen, I excuse me. After
Speaker 2: that final round, Like, yeah, I was. I was disappointed
Speaker 2: I didn't win, you know, to have the best chance
Speaker 2: in my career in nearly a decade, in over a decade,
Speaker 2: to have a chance to win a major and to
Speaker 2: come up short. You know, when I got and I
Speaker 2: and I played really well for the first seven holes.
Speaker 2: I was right there in position, and I just around
Speaker 2: the turn, I lost a couple of shots, and then
Speaker 2: you know, I gave myself some opportunities coming in. I
Speaker 2: just make the putts to stay with Xander until the
Speaker 2: end before it was too late. You know, I held
Speaker 2: my head up high because I didn't feel like I
Speaker 2: lost that major. I played that I played that final
Speaker 2: around exactly the way I wanted and the way I felt,
Speaker 2: and everything. I missed a short put of ay, I
Speaker 2: hit a bad iron shot tent. Other than that, I
Speaker 2: just didn't execute at the level that I needed to
Speaker 2: to win. And you had someone like Xander who went
Speaker 2: out there and executed at a high level on those
Speaker 2: last nine holes and played a beautiful round the golf,
Speaker 2: and he deserved to win, and and and so you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't sleep one hour or even one minute that night.
Speaker 2: I stayed awake all the way until I had to
Speaker 2: catch a flight the next morning because there was just
Speaker 2: so much adrenaline and emotion and going through everything. But
Speaker 2: you know, I walked away with my head held high, like, Hey,
Speaker 2: this this is hopefully just a stepping stone if I
Speaker 2: can put myself here. You know, x amount more times
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna get it done because I've shown
Speaker 2: my career. Yeah I don't have multiple you know, you know,
Speaker 2: double digit wins on the PJ Tour, But when I've
Speaker 2: gotten in the mix on the PGA Tour or the
Speaker 2: dp World Tour. You know, I feel like I've got
Speaker 2: a decent percentage of closing out and winning tournaments.
Speaker 1: With with port Rush and in the Open being he's
Speaker 1: kind of talking, you just talked through like the weight
Speaker 1: of these tournaments. Is there is there an additional weight
Speaker 1: with the last major of the year, whether it was
Speaker 1: the PGA at the early part of your career or
Speaker 1: the Open. Is there an added element to the last
Speaker 1: major of the year.
Speaker 2: No. I mean, for me, I never felt like there
Speaker 2: was because I always felt like, hey, there's next year,
Speaker 2: there's another year. You know. I think maybe when you
Speaker 2: get towards the end of your career, you know, you
Speaker 2: may be thinking like, hey, there's not many majors after this,
Speaker 2: like there's you know, you know, there's a there's a
Speaker 2: there's a limit the times ticking and everything, and so No,
Speaker 2: I never felt that way. And you know, you mentioned
Speaker 2: Rory earlier and the pressure he's you know, he felt
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen there, you know, he talked about it.
Speaker 2: I think I expect Rory to play well. I think, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, Rory is going to be energized, He's going
Speaker 2: to be amped up. I think obviously he's still going
Speaker 2: to have the pressure because I think he wants to
Speaker 2: do well. He wants to win at port Rush, There's
Speaker 2: no doubt about it. He's spoken very much of that.
Speaker 2: And then when you have your good friend Shane Shane
Speaker 2: Lowry who won in twenty nineteen, you want to join
Speaker 2: your your your friend and winning at port port Rush.
Speaker 2: So but I think what Rory's gone through the last
Speaker 2: couple of months is actually a good thing that will
Speaker 2: hopefully lead to possibly him playing really well at port
Speaker 2: Rush here this week.
Speaker 1: What do you remember from port Rush the golf course,
Speaker 1: from the golf course side, and what makes it kind
Speaker 1: of a unique test in the open Rod.
Speaker 2: And it you know, I was trying to think about
Speaker 2: this the other day. I can do a really good
Speaker 2: job remembering a lot of the holes. And there's just
Speaker 2: a great mixture of holes that you feel like you
Speaker 2: can take advantage of, and there's holes that you feel like, man,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm holding onto this this realpe as hard
Speaker 2: as I can. And you know, you think about one two, one,
Speaker 2: two three four or fairly one two three, one, one
Speaker 2: through five, it is very fairly benign, you know, t
Speaker 2: shot wise, distance wise. I think they may have added
Speaker 2: some bunkers. I saw a specialize they've had some bunkers
Speaker 2: on some of those holes. And then right around the
Speaker 2: turn it gets really there's some challenging holes there. I
Speaker 2: would say, so that's five after the part five, maybe
Speaker 2: it's number seven, eight nine. Right around there, I.
Speaker 1: Remember you kind of get in the middle of the property. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the greens set up and they.
Speaker 2: Get in and getting in some little dunes area, and
Speaker 2: I remember the fairways being a little bit tighter, and
Speaker 2: when you get off the fairway, like there's so many
Speaker 2: little hollows there that you can get some really bad
Speaker 2: lies if I remember correctly. It's just a great golf course.
Speaker 2: It really is. And I remember what's is it sixteen
Speaker 2: or seventeen to long part of three sixteen? Oh man,
Speaker 2: that was a beast. That was a beast with the
Speaker 2: way the wind blew. And I think it was blown
Speaker 2: in from the right, you know, hard off the right,
Speaker 2: which you don't want to miss it, right, But then
Speaker 2: you know everyone was, you know, looking it because of
Speaker 2: the wind, was you know, into the crowds left. I
Speaker 2: think I went, I yelled for immediately after my two
Speaker 2: T shots. I mean, I'm trying to cut it in it.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't cut it because you're trying not
Speaker 2: to wipe cut it because if you come up short,
Speaker 2: you're way like sixty people below the green and no
Speaker 2: man's land. And so it's a beautiful golf course. And
Speaker 2: I don't know that truly. I think when the technology
Speaker 2: and the drones and everything now, I think will truly
Speaker 2: come to see how great the golf course is. But
Speaker 2: I think it's just a great combination of of you know,
Speaker 2: challenging every aspect of the game and the way you
Speaker 2: know in every shot, and then you think about, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm sort of jumping from the spot to spot, but
Speaker 2: just some way some of the T shots are like
Speaker 2: number five obviously is a fair way of slants like this,
Speaker 2: but the T shots here and the greens over here,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of when you set up to the
Speaker 2: T shots sometimes you feel like you're aiming too far right.
Speaker 2: You know, on that T shot you wind up pulling it.
Speaker 2: It's a part four that you can drive and and
Speaker 2: so yeah, it's just it's a really great, great golf course.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed, and I was disappointed that only played two
Speaker 2: rounds there in nineteen, and I'm really in disappointed not
Speaker 2: to be there this year because I was really looking
Speaker 2: forward to getting back there because I did enjoy the
Speaker 2: golf course, and I think what Rory's missioned and talked
Speaker 2: about and a lot of guys have, when you enjoy
Speaker 2: the golf course and you enjoyed the challenge of it,
Speaker 2: it lends to, you know, a chance of playing better golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, when you feel activated, right, it's like your
Speaker 1: brain's really working. I think something that you illumined to
Speaker 1: that I hadn't really thought of is there's a lot
Speaker 1: of T shots when you talked about five, and I
Speaker 1: started to think about other T shots where the fairway
Speaker 1: kind of just you know, five is in a drastic example,
Speaker 1: but they just kind of like move a little bit
Speaker 1: off the center where you're hitting a cross it on
Speaker 1: an angle, and then you have like the great land
Speaker 1: movement that makes so many of those T shots very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Especially I feel like in that middle section of the round.
Speaker 2: It's a lot like a Pete Die golf course and
Speaker 2: the way he does his little tea boxes everything. But
Speaker 2: then you add in, you know, a fifteen to twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five mile paror wind and everything you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that makes even more of a challenge in the way
Speaker 2: the tea box sits and the way you feel and everything.
Speaker 2: I think there's a hole on the backside that they
Speaker 2: convert from a par five to a par four. So
Speaker 2: that's nine, maybe twelve or thirteen somewhere around there, I think,
Speaker 2: And that's that's just a tough t shot as well.
Speaker 2: And the way the wind blows, because I think it
Speaker 2: was blowing, you know, in off the right if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly when we played there.
Speaker 1: You know, you talked about sixteen. I think what's unique
Speaker 1: about sixteen is like it's very obvious, like where you
Speaker 1: don't want to be right, but like one of the
Speaker 1: dynamics of it over the course of playing you know,
Speaker 1: four four rounds at this golf course for players that
Speaker 1: are playing late on the you know, on the weekend,
Speaker 1: is like you're going to hit the ball left there
Speaker 1: at some point, and I think like it's like one
Speaker 1: of those classic like you get over there and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: this is not I don't want to be here at all,
Speaker 1: like because it's like gnarly. It's like rossa you could
Speaker 1: get like you can be like you could be like, well,
Speaker 1: I'd almost rather be sixty yards or sixty feet below
Speaker 1: the green at this point than where I am right now,
Speaker 1: because I'm staring at it and I might hit it
Speaker 1: down there. And what I think is like so unique
Speaker 1: is like you start with like that, You're like, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to hit it over here. This is my target,
Speaker 1: and so much of golf at this point has become
Speaker 1: like you know, it's like the target and your dispersion
Speaker 1: and like whether it's like some like I, over the
Speaker 1: course of four rounds, your target might start to creep
Speaker 1: a little bit right because you know how bad it
Speaker 1: is there and whether it's like I think, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is if you feel this is
Speaker 1: like there's sometimes like your subliminal like subconscious mind will
Speaker 1: take over even if a shot, like if a SHOT's
Speaker 1: like semi blind and there is a lot of semi
Speaker 1: blindness that this golf course and a lot of links courses.
Speaker 1: Even if you know it's it's better to be right,
Speaker 1: but you can't see it. Sometimes that subconscious mind can
Speaker 1: take over and you still miss it left because like okay,
Speaker 1: like I can't like I can't see that, and I'm
Speaker 1: afraid of that. Like, is there an aspect of that
Speaker 1: happening at great golf courses where your subconscious can take over?
Speaker 2: No, you exactly right. You know that's where like you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes in practice rounds, you know, if the wind's going
Speaker 2: to become in a certain way, like that wind's come
Speaker 2: coming in off the right, you almost really you know,
Speaker 2: you want to hit one of those shots where you
Speaker 2: feel like you hit it good, you start it right,
Speaker 2: and the wind pushes it back to where you want.
Speaker 2: Or let's say you start it right and and you
Speaker 2: hit it good, the windows at push it, but you
Speaker 2: know it carries and it's it carries to the front
Speaker 2: right of the green, or it carries that you know,
Speaker 2: the depression there. That's you know you got to carry,
Speaker 2: you know, flying it to the green. You know, you
Speaker 2: want to have that sort of comfort level over the
Speaker 2: shot that hey, if I start this a little bit right,
Speaker 2: I'm still gonna be okay, especially if I hit a
Speaker 2: solid you know. That's like last year at at Troon,
Speaker 2: you know number ten, number eleven, You know number ten,
Speaker 2: you got to aim at way left of what you
Speaker 2: think and you got to win pushing it left, I
Speaker 2: mean pushing it to the right. And I remember the
Speaker 2: practice on hitting like three with a driver, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh man, that's way too far left. And I get
Speaker 2: down there and it's in the fairway, and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, okay, Like that gives you comfort that I
Speaker 2: can hit the shot over here where I think it's
Speaker 2: not going to be in a good spot, it winds
Speaker 2: up in the fairway, you know. Same thing on number eleven.
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, on Tuesday, went out early, and
Speaker 2: when I came to make the turn, the conditions got worse.
Speaker 2: It just got picked up, not rain, but win. But
Speaker 2: it was coming the direction that we actually played on
Speaker 2: the weekend, you know, in off the left, and I
Speaker 2: remember hitting a t shot and pulling it and if
Speaker 2: you pull it, there's course there that you can run through.
Speaker 2: And on the line I thought was gonna run through,
Speaker 2: I was okay. So I gave me, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of my parameters, like okay, I can hit it all
Speaker 2: the way this far left, I can all the way
Speaker 2: this far right, Like it gives you that comfort level.
Speaker 2: I know my parameter, and I know where I can
Speaker 2: you know what my far left line is and my
Speaker 2: far right line is it just gives you that comfort
Speaker 2: level over shots when you know in certain conditions or
Speaker 2: you know, you get nervous, you know at certain situations.
Speaker 1: I you know, one of the unique elements of of
Speaker 1: of some Blinks courses is that out and back. But
Speaker 1: you hit on like and you you might end up
Speaker 1: with a wind that you just hate. Like for me,
Speaker 1: I have faded the ball. I just cannot stand when
Speaker 1: I play a stretch of holes where it's off my
Speaker 1: left and it's just like I it just puts me
Speaker 1: in a blender. I can't. I can't. I hate it
Speaker 1: so much. And like you can some Links courses, some
Speaker 1: of the road of courses, you're gonna get hit with
Speaker 1: that wind over and over and over. Port Rush is
Speaker 1: a little bit more complex of a routing where you
Speaker 1: it's a it's a later you know, Golden Age golf
Speaker 1: course where the routing is like you you go in
Speaker 1: different directions, you're meandering around. What does that What is
Speaker 1: the uniqueness of that when you factor in the wind,
Speaker 1: you know what makes that tough versus like where you
Speaker 1: can just be in a bad wind for a stretch
Speaker 1: of holes and that can derail your round. Versus the
Speaker 1: you know, when when the course is just moving around
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: You know, I think you know in certain aspects, you know,
Speaker 2: like you said, left right win. You know, if you
Speaker 2: know you got like nine holes of the left right win,
Speaker 2: and like the first hole you play, you hit a
Speaker 2: bad shot in the left right wing, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I got four holes. I've got to hit the shot again.
Speaker 2: Like port Rush a little bit different because obviously there's,
Speaker 2: like I said, the first thing, four holes are sort
Speaker 2: of in the similar wind direction. You know, it may
Speaker 2: move a little bit, but but you get to some
Speaker 2: of the interior holes and you're like, oh man, the
Speaker 2: next couple holes, I've got to win off the right.
Speaker 2: So now it can sort of balance you out, and
Speaker 2: you know, you can sort of make corrections in the
Speaker 2: swing and try things a little bit to rectify when
Speaker 2: you get back into that left to right win or
Speaker 2: if you have an issue of the right left win.
Speaker 2: You know. So I think it's there's a balance in
Speaker 2: sence the way the golf swing is. You know, as
Speaker 2: a golfer, like you can come off the golf course
Speaker 2: and I feel like, hey man, I got to go
Speaker 2: hit balls that I've just been hitting in twenty five
Speaker 2: mile pour left right wins and I need to you know,
Speaker 2: you know, get my swing sort of back to neutral
Speaker 2: again out there. When you have the win moving around it,
Speaker 2: it can keep your swinging a little more neutral state.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, the great thing about some
Speaker 2: of these links courses is if I played five or
Speaker 2: six holes the same direction, I get a really good
Speaker 2: beat on the win, where now when it's you're moving around,
Speaker 2: sometimes you're not getting a good beat. Like if I
Speaker 2: had it into the left in left to right on
Speaker 2: the first you know, two holes and next holes are
Speaker 2: down off the right or down off my left, like okay,
Speaker 2: like how much a wind going to help now? And
Speaker 2: then if it changes two holes later, like you're sort
Speaker 2: of trying to figure out, you know, the effect, how
Speaker 2: much effect it's going to have on the golf ball
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think, what's it? You know, Like I never like
Speaker 1: thought about, like I guess you know, it's like that,
Speaker 1: like the swing getting like off neutral right, and that
Speaker 1: is totally what happens in those like when you get
Speaker 1: kind of out of sorts with wind being just like
Speaker 1: hammering you, it's like, uh, you know, I was played
Speaker 1: horse with the neighbor the other day, and I knew
Speaker 1: he couldn't shoot left handed. I just went lefty all
Speaker 1: you know, Like, yeah, I learned how to shoot with
Speaker 1: both hands, Like I'm just left left. You just hammering
Speaker 1: him to death on his weakness. Like that's what a
Speaker 1: wind can do when it's moving around it. Almost like
Speaker 1: that's what you you were talking about early in the Red,
Speaker 1: Early in the pod is like the experience that like
Speaker 1: understanding where you can hit shots with with different things
Speaker 1: is when that move wind is constantly moving around it
Speaker 1: as the layers of complexity and like you know they
Speaker 1: you talk about if if you watch basketball, like somebody
Speaker 1: watches Demarge Rosen isolate and go to work in the
Speaker 1: mid range, they say he's in his bag. He's deep
Speaker 1: in his bag. That is being deep in a golfer's bag.
Speaker 1: Is that that like different that win constantly moving around
Speaker 1: and having to hit all these different shots? And I
Speaker 1: think what port rush does particularly well is too different
Speaker 1: green sites, some sitting up where everything's rejecting away, some
Speaker 1: sitting down where you can hit something that kind of
Speaker 1: scoots into it. That's what makes this golf course to me,
Speaker 1: Like at the top of the the open venues. Like,
Speaker 1: if you've played a ton of opens, what would where
Speaker 1: where would you put this in relation? Like what are
Speaker 1: your favorite ones that you know favorite open venues?
Speaker 2: Hmm, man, that's a good question. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: give you what my number one is because I don't
Speaker 2: even know what my number one is. Just give give
Speaker 2: me port rush. I think Royal trains are really good
Speaker 2: tests to go off. I like that, obviously I'm biased.
Speaker 2: I played well, but I missed a cut there the
Speaker 2: first when I played in sixteen, I was sixteen. I
Speaker 2: shot like three or four into the first day, and
Speaker 2: then I shot a bazillion the second day. I mean,
Speaker 2: Matt Fitzpatrick and I we made the turn, we got
Speaker 2: the number nine, and I'm telling you we played in
Speaker 2: some of the worst conditions, I mean, even worse than
Speaker 2: we played on Saturday. It was blowing even harder in sixteen.
Speaker 2: The last nine holes of our second round, I think
Speaker 2: we both shot like forty five or forty six on
Speaker 2: the inward nine. Yeah, and so I wasn't really happy
Speaker 2: going back there last year. And then I remember, you know,
Speaker 2: Monday playing I was like, man, you know this course
Speaker 2: is actually really good. I've just got to figure out
Speaker 2: this slot to you know, when this wind switches into
Speaker 2: us off the left, off the the inward nine, how
Speaker 2: to play it? And it was perfect that I played
Speaker 2: Tuesday morning and then switched and I got to play
Speaker 2: it on the second am my eighteen. But I thought
Speaker 2: it was a really good test. So port Russ Troon.
Speaker 2: I think Saint George's Royal Saint George's is an awesome course.
Speaker 2: I know it can be a little quirky with the
Speaker 2: fairways and so many mounting.
Speaker 1: Everything polarizing that one that one does some of some
Speaker 1: of the least favor Like I think if you played players,
Speaker 1: that might be the highest least favorite.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, and I understand why because you hit
Speaker 2: good golf chests don't get rewarded a lot. But I
Speaker 2: thought it was I thought it was a really good test. Uh,
Speaker 2: Murfield is really good to play it in thirteen my
Speaker 2: first open. So those are four? Could I find a
Speaker 2: number one that all love Saint Andrews. I love Saint
Speaker 2: Andrews and I haven't I love the town. I loved
Speaker 2: everything about it. I do believe, I mean the technology
Speaker 2: has sort of nullified it. The challenge is so many
Speaker 2: wedshots as so many holes you can drive with the
Speaker 2: driver now, so stuff you can take out a play,
Speaker 2: you know, And but when what the conditions get really bad,
Speaker 2: which I played in the Dunhill, it's one hell of
Speaker 2: a test, you know. I remember fourteen is a perfect example,
Speaker 2: the part five there. I was playing with it with
Speaker 2: Carroll there and who was I can't remember who my
Speaker 2: partner was. We were playing with it one year with
Speaker 2: him and the wind was it was rainy and the
Speaker 2: wind was blowing in and there was a bunker when
Speaker 2: you're walking off the tee from the back to you
Speaker 2: have to walk there one hundred and eighty yards to
Speaker 2: get to the fairway or two in yards, like, there's
Speaker 2: a bunker there offen, you know, once you get to
Speaker 2: the fairway, and I'm like, I remember playing it there
Speaker 2: in fifteen, Like, why the hell is this bunker? You're like,
Speaker 2: that makes no sense. And Carroll and I played Dunhill
Speaker 2: and we both hit t shots and we both ended
Speaker 2: up in that bunker in the tee and bars when
Speaker 2: we went two and twenty yards and there's a I
Speaker 2: understand why there was a bunker there now because of
Speaker 2: the wind direction. But at the same time, if you
Speaker 2: there's enough fair a hit, but you miss it a little,
Speaker 2: right your ob team back up from the from the
Speaker 2: from the t. So yeah, I you know, hopefully maybe
Speaker 2: with some changes and a few other things down the road,
Speaker 2: you know, the Saint Angels will show a little bit
Speaker 2: more of what what it is. But I think it's
Speaker 2: a great golf course and I do love it, do
Speaker 2: love it a lot.
Speaker 1: Last last question before we get you out of here.
Speaker 1: There's rumors of of potential opens in new countries, maybe
Speaker 1: you know, expanding. I mean, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: rumors about Port Marnick, uh being being a potential future
Speaker 1: host in Ireland, but they're saying like beyond you know,
Speaker 1: the British and Ireland islands. Uh what what are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: The stupidest freaking thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 3: I will and.
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm happy if that goes viral because
Speaker 2: it's like it's like what I told Mike Davis after
Speaker 2: Chambers Bay. Obviously I had comments about Chambers Bay and
Speaker 2: I thought Chambers Bay the view the golf course that
Speaker 2: was really unique and really cool. You know, My aspect
Speaker 2: was the greens, and you know he called me all
Speaker 2: the Blue two days after the US Open to apologize
Speaker 2: for the condition of the Greens, and they messed up
Speaker 2: and they should have handled it better and not put
Speaker 2: us in a situation that we were all in. And
Speaker 2: then we had Aaron Hills a couple of years later,
Speaker 2: you know, and I just I went to mic after
Speaker 2: Aaron Hills. I said, listen, I thought, both those courses
Speaker 2: are really nice. You know, they're really cool. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to criticize them because I think, you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's a room for them to be played. But
Speaker 2: as a US Open test, the US Open is about
Speaker 2: challenging every aspect of game, from your driveway to to
Speaker 2: iron play, the short game to putting the mental like,
Speaker 2: you know, let's get back to what the US Open
Speaker 2: is and like you have to drive the ball well
Speaker 2: to be able to play well. Like you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I like Pinehurst and I think, you know, I'm here
Speaker 2: with Pineers being in rotation because you know, I think
Speaker 2: it's a little fifty to fifty in some of those
Speaker 2: lies when you get off the fairry. But I still
Speaker 2: think there's a you do have a benefit for hitting
Speaker 2: the fairway more than if you get off get out
Speaker 2: of the fairway. But you know, when we went to
Speaker 2: Chambers Bay and went Darren Hills, we're playing these big
Speaker 2: wide fairways where really the the you know who, I
Speaker 2: consider myself a really good driver of the golf ball
Speaker 2: may not be long, but I was fairly accurate. You know.
Speaker 2: That was one advantage taken away from me. You're going
Speaker 2: to move in the US Open or the Open Championship
Speaker 2: away from link style courses, you know, I and if
Speaker 2: you play them on you know link style, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe link style courses in other countries, it's not the
Speaker 2: same as being played in the UK. Like I'm okay
Speaker 2: going to Ireland playing Portmarnarch. I think that's an awesome
Speaker 2: I love that golf course. I think it's great. I
Speaker 2: played it during the World Cup pract session, you know,
Speaker 2: But to take it outside of the UK, I just
Speaker 2: can't think of a course outside of the UK that
Speaker 2: you know, would would fit you know, the fee and
Speaker 2: everything that is the Open Championship. Like that's just it's
Speaker 2: as nine and I hope it doesn't happen. I hope
Speaker 2: it doesn't. I mean, I'm old school. I want to
Speaker 2: see it always be played in the UK.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like an idea they've proposed, like Australia, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: wait are we like And I not that they've like
Speaker 1: a floated you know, it's like.
Speaker 2: That they have, but some other people have talked about it.
Speaker 1: So if you go, if you go there in the summer,
Speaker 1: our summer, it's their winner there, then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you might you might have to go split teas, right,
Speaker 1: so you've lost like one charm of the Open. Everybody
Speaker 1: goes off one right, like the long days. If you
Speaker 1: go even even if you go like closer to the equator,
Speaker 1: you might lose that daylight that you need at the
Speaker 1: Open to go all off one tee like. And then
Speaker 1: if you go anywhere like anywhere, you're losing the elements
Speaker 1: of being on a small island in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ocean, right that present itself, right, there's the weather
Speaker 1: element of it.
Speaker 2: I'm for people trying new things and doing different things,
Speaker 2: but you know, I you know, in a certain instance,
Speaker 2: you've got to stay within your your framework and your
Speaker 2: parameters and what you you have sort of your little
Speaker 2: niche and what works and what's been successful and what
Speaker 2: that particular championship where that particular tournament is about, and
Speaker 2: you know, I think we should. You know, they've had
Speaker 2: going to Portmarnock in twenty nineteen was obviously a first
Speaker 2: step and I think that's great. And you know, we
Speaker 2: could maybe go down the Royal County down why don't
Speaker 2: we go somewhere in Ireland, Like you know, Ireland has
Speaker 2: so many great wings style courses. Like let's just stay
Speaker 2: within the in the in the British aisles there a
Speaker 2: little bit. Okay, let's not get going to other land
Speaker 2: masses because like I said, you lose a lot of
Speaker 2: the charm that is the Open Championship and the one
Speaker 2: thing you will lose which makes the Open so great,
Speaker 2: and it gets talked about a lot, but I don't
Speaker 2: think it's talked about enough. Is is a fan so
Speaker 2: unbelievable and their knowledge of the game of golf and
Speaker 2: you know, you know, clapping for a shot when it
Speaker 2: was hit the forty feet they like they know that
Speaker 2: was a good shot from where you hit it. Like
Speaker 2: they know what golf is, they know what a bad
Speaker 2: shot is, they know what a good golf shot is.
Speaker 2: And it's so cool to play in front of them
Speaker 2: and their knowledge, and you know, I enjoy I enjoy that,
Speaker 2: enjoy going over there, you know, multiple times a year
Speaker 2: to play tournaments, because they truly do make it enjoyable
Speaker 2: to play in front of fans like that.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, the the culture, just the golf culture. I
Speaker 1: you know, one of my favorite things every time I'm
Speaker 1: over there is when you're in a town and you
Speaker 1: see a kid walking with his bag on his shoulders
Speaker 1: to the golf course like from his house. Like it's
Speaker 1: just like I those things, like I can think of
Speaker 1: ten of the occasions in my head, like just etched
Speaker 1: into my memory of like and it's just like, God,
Speaker 1: that's so cool. Like I grew up riding a bike
Speaker 1: to a golf course, right, but it was a it
Speaker 1: was a it was a good bike ride. Like the
Speaker 1: idea of just walking from my house and town to
Speaker 1: a golf course that's just down the street is the
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. All right. I said that was the last question,
Speaker 1: but but you brought it up, I'd be remiss. You
Speaker 1: played one of the great Walker Cups, Royal County Down
Speaker 1: Walker Cup. Favorite story memory of playing. You know you're
Speaker 1: you're in your youth playing Royal County Down. You know
Speaker 1: your team had Ricky on it Dustin Johnson, Like you
Speaker 1: look at that, there's four major champions, tons of Bona
Speaker 1: Fide Tour pros, one of the great Walker Cup teams
Speaker 1: and like a very close match.
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, it was. It was an enjoyable time. I
Speaker 2: think we were over there for two weeks playing you know,
Speaker 2: courses around Ireland and then made our way up to
Speaker 2: the County down. Yeah, I think it was. It was awesome.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. Obviously. To will be on a victorious
Speaker 2: winning walk up team was unbelievable. First time we had
Speaker 2: won over there, I think since like ninety two or
Speaker 2: ninety five something like that. I mean, there's there's probably
Speaker 2: a tons of stories and I'll give you two. I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: I was twenty years old, very brash, very cocky, very
Speaker 2: self assured of himself. I remember Ricky and I were
Speaker 2: playing Rory and Johnny Cadwell on Sunday morning. We were
Speaker 2: four down after five we made the turn all square.
Speaker 2: I think at this point we were maybe what am
Speaker 2: I about to talk about? We were about one or
Speaker 2: two up in the match and Ricky, I think, on
Speaker 2: the fifteenth of Part three, hit a shot at iron
Speaker 2: shot out to the right into this bunker and it
Speaker 2: was a long bunker shot and you're above the green
Speaker 2: and you know everything and I and I was up
Speaker 2: against the lip and I hit this unbelievable bunker shot,
Speaker 2: came out perfect lanes on the green and the balls
Speaker 2: rolling down and I come running down like a damn gazelle,
Speaker 2: you know, hoot and hollering at the top of my
Speaker 2: lungs like go in, go in, and the ball lips out.
Speaker 2: You know, we make par. Rory and them had twenty feet,
Speaker 2: they make par. We won the match like two and one.
Speaker 2: And obviously, like I was brash, I was an idiot.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not an idiot, but I mean I
Speaker 2: was brash. I mean, as I said going in there,
Speaker 2: I said I was gonna be the surgery Garcia of
Speaker 2: the American team, of the US Walk up team. And
Speaker 2: so I got paired up with Rory in the Sunday
Speaker 2: afternoon singles. We get up on the first t I
Speaker 2: hit a good drive and he just unleashes on one
Speaker 2: and it goes so far and he's way down there.
Speaker 2: He can't have more than seven or eight r in
Speaker 2: the green, and he said, you know, an iron shot
Speaker 2: in there to about fifteen feet, I've got like seven
Speaker 2: feet for Birdie and he makes his ego putt and
Speaker 2: he goes he yeld the top of his song was
Speaker 2: like fuck yeah, let's go something like that, and like
Speaker 2: I was like, oh shit, I'm in trouble. You know.
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I'm in trouble right now. And listen,
Speaker 2: we didn't know who Roy was. We knew he just
Speaker 2: won low am at the Open Championship at CORTNEWSI you
Speaker 2: O seven. We knew he was a good player, but
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't come over to the States and play.
Speaker 2: He was only eighteen at the time. You know. There
Speaker 2: was a lot of hype around them and everything, and
Speaker 2: you know, we all, you know, I thought it was
Speaker 2: you know, it was good, but you know, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: I could have told you this is what was going
Speaker 2: to happen. I saw potential, I saw talent, but yeah,
Speaker 2: time we just thought it was another player who you know,
Speaker 2: we were trying to beat. And you know, he showed
Speaker 2: me something on that that Sunday afternoon singles that I
Speaker 2: walked away with and I was, I was, I was
Speaker 2: impressed and I respected the hell out of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh that had to be an amazing experience,
Speaker 1: uh playing that golf course and in the Walker Cup.
Speaker 1: I you know, it's like you talk about like the
Speaker 1: infrastructure needed for championship golf, and yeah, that's a bad thing.
Speaker 1: It's like the thing that stinks, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to like the Open to become this like you know,
Speaker 1: they value the fan and like it's part of it,
Speaker 1: it's part of what makes it special. But it is
Speaker 1: also the downside is a venue like Royal County down
Speaker 1: is unavailable given the modern the modernization of major championships,
Speaker 1: and there's other venues in America that are similarly where
Speaker 1: you just have you know, small like it commercially isn't
Speaker 1: as big of a success. And it's like that would
Speaker 1: be to me, that would be up there in the
Speaker 1: top top echelon of of of tests because that I
Speaker 1: don't think there's much harder golf courses in the world
Speaker 1: than that, and more more maybe more demanding, is the
Speaker 1: right is the right term?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I would agree with you. I think it's an
Speaker 2: awesome golf course and it would be in my top
Speaker 2: five the links courses. I always already have top five,
Speaker 2: So let's make a top six.
Speaker 1: All right, last least. Uh, who's your pick to win
Speaker 1: before we get out of here? If you if you were,
Speaker 1: if you had to make, if you know, a gun
Speaker 1: to your head, who's going to win this week?
Speaker 2: Oh? Oh man, I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's a couple of people that you
Speaker 1: can never go wrong, nobody could ever doubt.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I mean I'm going to say, you know,
Speaker 2: the Irish will be shining upon once again.
Speaker 1: All right, So all right, anyone who's Irish.
Speaker 2: I'm going with anyone who's Irish. I think the Irish
Speaker 2: luck and they're gonna have Irish beach. They're gonna be
Speaker 2: shined upon again.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take I'm gonna take Victor Holin. I feel
Speaker 1: like he's been sniffing around a lot of majors. He's
Speaker 1: just he's been been there. He's there at the old
Speaker 1: course obviously. Uh, and I just think he's he's bound
Speaker 1: to get one done here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a good one. All right, good.
Speaker 1: One, Billy, big thanks. We can't wait to see you
Speaker 1: back on the golf course. I was I was looking
Speaker 1: through the Ryder cup standings, and that was the thing
Speaker 1: that was most bummed about, was like I you know,
Speaker 1: I think this year you would have you would have
Speaker 1: been on the team game given your form and and
Speaker 1: uh and we'll we miss you. We can't wait for
Speaker 1: you to come back and be back out there. And
Speaker 1: big thing for coming on this podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks guys, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday
Speaker 1: Golf Podcast. That was that was I love Billy. He's
Speaker 1: he's so you know, what I appreciate about him is
Speaker 1: he's candid. He tells you exactly what he's thinking, and
Speaker 1: that's very rare in sports. Uh So, Billy, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: bummer that he's watching this week and not playing. Uh
Speaker 1: it's a bummer when you look at the US Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup team that he's not in the mix because I think,
Speaker 1: given the way he played last year, he was going
Speaker 1: to be squarely in the mix this year. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so we'll be back. I actually have we have a
Speaker 1: bonus episode coming this week. Uh that will be out
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. Uh so yeah, we'll have an extra episode
Speaker 1: and then we'll be back with Trevor after the championship
Speaker 1: to do the recap breakdown of what happened at Port Rush.
Speaker 1: So thank you guys for listening supporting the pod through
Speaker 1: these majors. This year, We've got a couple more episodes
Speaker 1: of major golf left. Then we got the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 1: a little boom and the playoffs. What really matters, right,
Speaker 1: So big thanks to PJ for hopping on doing the
Speaker 1: storylines and also editing producing this podcast. Lock in, get
Speaker 1: the coffee ready, and enjoy the open