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 2: And when I find my ball in a fried egg.
Speaker 3: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg, Frida egg
Speaker 3: egg Frida egg bride egg.
Speaker 2: Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 4: and today we're talking about whether fifty nine's are cool anymore?
Speaker 4: More specifically, Joseph Lamannia and I will discuss the low
Speaker 4: scoring at this past week's Travelers Championship on the PGA
Speaker 4: Tour and ask what if anything, golf courses like Traveler's
Speaker 4: host TPC River Highlands can do to test modern tour
Speaker 4: pros properly. But first we'll be joined by Meg Atkins
Speaker 4: for a special in and out segment focused on the
Speaker 4: Women's PGA Championship. So we'll talk about what we're in
Speaker 4: on and what we're out on related to the Women's PGA,
Speaker 4: which was held at the Holly Country Club this past
Speaker 4: week and won by Amy Yang. Let's start with you, Meg,
Speaker 4: What are you in on?
Speaker 5: Hey, guys, Okay, I am I'm in on Nellie's slump,
Speaker 5: not like I'm not in on her playing bad and
Speaker 5: I think it's great she's playing bad, But I am.
Speaker 1: In I think that's what you just said, though it is, but.
Speaker 5: Hear me out, hear me out, Here, me out, Okay, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm in on how this just plays out for the
Speaker 5: rest of the year and the highest of highs and
Speaker 5: now the lowest of lows. In terms of I mean,
Speaker 5: I would say if you ask Nellie like her low's
Speaker 5: would be probably more around the injuries, especially the blood
Speaker 5: clot but in terms of just her play like this is.
Speaker 5: This is the low of her career, miss missing three
Speaker 5: cuts in a row. And the reason I'm in on
Speaker 5: it is because I'm just so interested, in intrigued to
Speaker 5: see what happens the next time she tees it up
Speaker 5: and whether you know, this keeps going the downhill way
Speaker 5: or she shows us what she how she's been for
Speaker 5: the majority of the year and and comes back into
Speaker 5: form a bit you know, like when you were talking
Speaker 5: with Shane Garrett last week and he had the great
Speaker 5: line of the yo yo of hope, like we're kind
Speaker 5: of seeing this yo yo year now for Nelly and
Speaker 5: for someone who is you know, I think she's been
Speaker 5: I think she's been way more open this year than
Speaker 5: she has been in the past, But who can be
Speaker 5: a little bit more closed off? Like this was more
Speaker 5: emotion more you know this. She showed more on the course,
Speaker 5: you know, on fifteen than she shown in any sort
Speaker 5: of press conference, any sort of interview, and we saw
Speaker 5: that that bubble that she always speaks about burst kind
Speaker 5: of it right in front of our eyes. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm just really interested to see what's next and how
Speaker 5: she's gonna I hope turn this around. There's a lot
Speaker 5: of big stuff still on the calendar, Saint Andrew's Solheim Cup, Olympics.
Speaker 5: I believe we'll see her next at Evyon. I don't
Speaker 5: think she's going to play the team event this week,
Speaker 5: so yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna need a breather
Speaker 5: or take a break if she wins Chevron and Evyon
Speaker 5: and that's and that's it for majors this year, but yeah,
Speaker 5: it's a major. The next time she'll tee it up
Speaker 5: and well, we'll see where she goes. But I'm in
Speaker 5: on where this just the narrative of this year and
Speaker 5: where this slump is taking the narrative of Nelly's historic here.
Speaker 4: Seems like it's either an EMC or a win at
Speaker 4: this point for Nelly, and I guess in a way
Speaker 4: that's exciting but also striking that two of the EMCs
Speaker 4: happened at major championships recently, so that's got to be frustrating. Joseph,
Speaker 4: what are you in on?
Speaker 3: I'm in on the trajectory of Amy Yang's career. I
Speaker 3: think it's super cool she's played. This is her seventy
Speaker 3: fifth major, never won one. Thought it's cool that she
Speaker 3: doesn't have a hat or a bag sponsor, and she
Speaker 3: just wants to focus on golf because some of the
Speaker 3: sponsorship obligations take her away from golf. She'd had sixteen
Speaker 3: top tens between twenty ten and twenty seventeen, had had
Speaker 3: close calls in majors, but hadn't got it done. Talked
Speaker 3: about in her press conference how she had started to
Speaker 3: have doubts that she was ever gonna win one, just
Speaker 3: seeing the relief she had when she won. I think
Speaker 3: it's really cool when you have a player who's been
Speaker 3: around for a while that hasn't got one done. Maybe
Speaker 3: have some serious doubts that they're actually ever going to
Speaker 3: win one. Watching them get over the hump and win
Speaker 3: is a cool story. I don't know if fans always
Speaker 3: love it, like the Brian Harmon at the Open Championship
Speaker 3: last year, because I think there's sometimes a feeling of
Speaker 3: wanting to see a young player who could win five
Speaker 3: or six of them and you start talking about what
Speaker 3: their future is going to look like. When a player
Speaker 3: like Amy Yang wins, who's not at the end of
Speaker 3: her career but on the back nine, so to speak,
Speaker 3: you don't have that same conversation. But it's really I'm
Speaker 3: sure she's feeling extremely a serious sense of relief, and
Speaker 3: I think it's cool to watch a player win in
Speaker 3: that stage of their career.
Speaker 4: Meg any context or thoughts on Amy Yang for people
Speaker 4: who weren't previously familiar with her career.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she's a veteran. I mean, she's been out there
Speaker 5: for so long. I don't like I watched, you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of the coverage, most of it this whole week.
Speaker 5: It's shocking with that rhythm and that tempo and just
Speaker 5: how sweet of a swing she has that there hasn't
Speaker 5: been more winning. But yeah, I mean it's just super
Speaker 5: hard to get over the edge, and I find it.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's got to be even sweeter for her
Speaker 5: doing it against you know, the twenty year olds and
Speaker 5: the with all the youth movement in the women's game.
Speaker 5: She's stuck around. She thought about retiring, like, you know,
Speaker 5: had bad tennis elbow injury, and to you know, to
Speaker 5: keep going when others were taking time off, to you know, retire,
Speaker 5: start a family, or whatever the case may be. To
Speaker 5: hang around and to get that the biggest victory of
Speaker 5: her career after all these years.
Speaker 1: It was super cool to watch.
Speaker 4: With Amy Yang. It's interesting because she is on the
Speaker 4: LPGA Tour. That's where she has played a lot of
Speaker 4: her golf this year and recently, but she has also
Speaker 4: spent a significant portion of her career on other tours
Speaker 4: around the world, the Korean LPGA. Has she played in Japan,
Speaker 4: I would imagine maybe at least occasionally, and the standard
Speaker 4: of play on those tours is really really high, and
Speaker 4: we see some of that coming out in major championships
Speaker 4: where players who maybe aren't super familiar to an American audience,
Speaker 4: but more so to a Korean or Japanese audience. All
Speaker 4: of a sudden show themselves to be very very high
Speaker 4: quality players, and so we saw that again this week
Speaker 4: at Sahali. So what I'm in on is pretty simple.
Speaker 4: Lily Avu comes back from injury, immediately wins on the
Speaker 4: LPGA Tour and then records a T two. It's a holly.
Speaker 4: She's a killer, and I have to think that she'll
Speaker 4: show up at St. Andrews this year. Obviously, Lily Avu
Speaker 4: won two majors last year alone, which is still Nelly
Speaker 4: Corda's career total of majors. So something's going on with
Speaker 4: Lily Avu where she just performs in these big events,
Speaker 4: in these big moments, and I'm excited to see what
Speaker 4: comes of it. All right, let's get into what we're
Speaker 4: out on. I'll start with you again, Meg, what are
Speaker 4: you out on this week related to the Women's PGA.
Speaker 5: I'm so far out on threesomes and split tea's on
Speaker 5: the weekends of a major.
Speaker 1: It's just I.
Speaker 5: Saw I thought there was a chance when they when
Speaker 5: they had the coverage windows and we weren't going, you know,
Speaker 5: deep into primetime with it being on the West coast. Yeah,
Speaker 5: Olympic Trials, you know, the calendar of other sporting events happens.
Speaker 5: So you shoehorn in, you know, the final two rounds
Speaker 5: of a major of you know, the Women's PGA real
Speaker 5: deal major into split teas and threesomes on Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 5: It kills pace of play, It kills the rhythm that
Speaker 5: you're used to associating with the biggest events in golf.
Speaker 5: Uh yeah, it needs to go away for good. I
Speaker 5: don't know, and I'm not positive or enthusiastic or hopeful
Speaker 5: that it will, but yeah, it's it's unfortunate because we
Speaker 5: just had the US Women's Open where that wasn't the case,
Speaker 5: and you know, what's the what's the deal? I mean,
Speaker 5: KP and G has put forth a giant purse. They've
Speaker 5: done so much to grow this event. But if it's
Speaker 5: an NBC thing, a partner thing, Uh yeah, an LPG
Speaker 5: LPGA thing, we gotta we gotta have twosomes and everyone
Speaker 5: going off one on Saturday and Sunday of a major.
Speaker 4: So is it is it not clear why they're doing that?
Speaker 5: It wasn't It wasn't weather, It wasn't you know, there
Speaker 5: was You're on the West coast, it's the middle of June.
Speaker 5: It's the longest. You know, we have the most daylight
Speaker 5: hours we'll ever have. From all I understand, you know,
Speaker 5: they wanted to start those Olympics trials at six o'clock
Speaker 5: and and they got out of that coverage so fast
Speaker 5: last night they did. I think Tom Abbott asked Amy
Speaker 5: Yang two questions and then it was you know, drone
Speaker 5: shot of the overhead of eighteen green and we'll see
Speaker 5: you later and onto onto trials and on Saturday, you know,
Speaker 5: it ended at the same it was just the local
Speaker 5: news that was playing here. So I yeah, it's if
Speaker 5: it's if it's needing like or KPMG to and the
Speaker 5: LPG to put the screws to NBC on this, I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't know. But it's when you have the US
Speaker 5: Women's Open whatever two three weeks ago and you don't
Speaker 5: see that and then it happens at the KPMG and
Speaker 5: makes it feel like not as big of a deal.
Speaker 4: Joseph, what are you out on?
Speaker 3: I'm kind of pivoting here based on what Meg said
Speaker 3: on her to.
Speaker 1: Slump.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm just out on ever falling for the this
Speaker 3: time it's different with a certain player and expecting the
Speaker 3: dominance to persist week in and week out. Like this
Speaker 3: happens all the time, where a player goes through a
Speaker 3: super hot spell and Nelly Corda may pick it right
Speaker 3: back up right and when another major this year might
Speaker 3: win multiple more times. But it always feels different, and
Speaker 3: you can talk yourself into reasons why a certain hot
Speaker 3: streak is going to last. Scotti Scheffler is going through
Speaker 3: a similar thing right now and getting comparisons to Tiger.
Speaker 1: It very rarely lasts like.
Speaker 3: You have to be a true Unicorn for that hot
Speaker 3: form to persist. So I think just in general, when
Speaker 3: a player gets really hot, it's not fun to take
Speaker 3: the side of oh, this probably isn't gonna last, but
Speaker 3: it is more often than not the correct side. So,
Speaker 3: like Meg, I'm super eager to see what Nelly does
Speaker 3: the rest of the year, But the next time a
Speaker 3: hot streak comes around, I'm going to remind myself that
Speaker 3: you can't really fall for it.
Speaker 4: With Nelly it seemed to be different though, because of
Speaker 4: her or pedigree. She came into the LPGA tour with
Speaker 4: a lot of hype and a lot of accomplishments, and
Speaker 4: seeing her become the best player in the world and
Speaker 4: go on this run wasn't really surprising it. It wasn't
Speaker 4: a random thing with her, and so I think the
Speaker 4: expectations for her to continue being dominant are fairly valid.
Speaker 4: It doesn't feel random to.
Speaker 1: Me, and she looked to be clear.
Speaker 3: I don't think one missed cut means that the hot
Speaker 3: streak is over, like, especially on a setup like Sahalif,
Speaker 3: if you get a little off and missing a cut
Speaker 3: seems I don't want to use the word excusable, but
Speaker 3: it can happen. It's much more within Noah's range of outcomes.
Speaker 3: But in general, will we be talking about her three
Speaker 3: years from now as the best player in the world.
Speaker 3: As tempting as it can be to default to yes,
Speaker 3: like the answer is generally no.
Speaker 5: It's like the how many majors discussion like run It's
Speaker 5: never I always take the under. It's not very fun.
Speaker 5: It's more fun to have a hot take of you know,
Speaker 5: many many majors.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The the thing with Nelly, like all the wins were
Speaker 5: on so many different types of courses, different you know,
Speaker 5: different formats the match play. That's why I was like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is really something special because it wasn't just the
Speaker 5: May for Nelly type track that favored her huge advantage
Speaker 5: with distance, and that's also why this this you know,
Speaker 5: three cut three miss cut streak is so jarring and shocking.
Speaker 1: But I'm with you, Joseph.
Speaker 5: What's probably going to happen is the correction to the
Speaker 5: mean you know streaks, and they normally don't go from
Speaker 5: the highest the highest to the lowest the lows, like
Speaker 5: the snap of the fingers. But I they'll if I
Speaker 5: had to bet, well, you know, we're not going to
Speaker 5: see another We're not going to see another multi win
Speaker 5: streak probably from Nelly, but with her talent, I wouldn't
Speaker 5: be surprised if she gets knocks off another win or
Speaker 5: two either.
Speaker 4: Do you guys want to guess what I'm out on?
Speaker 1: No, that's a dangerous game.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so many, so many options.
Speaker 4: Grettah, look at this golf course that they just played.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, all right, what's going on?
Speaker 4: Okay, that's not really what I'm out on, you know,
Speaker 4: so Holly, Yes, it's it's really really claustrophobic. There are
Speaker 4: trees like right on top of the playing lines, but
Speaker 4: that's kind of what the golf course is It's not
Speaker 4: like there was a pre existing golf course that had
Speaker 4: a different character and then they added a bunch of trees.
Speaker 4: This has been the golf course from the beginning, and
Speaker 4: so it is what it is. You can say that
Speaker 4: it's one dimensional, and I will say that it's one dimensional.
Speaker 4: It is. It's a it's a one dimensional golf course,
Speaker 4: but it's distinctive. It does have something of a sense
Speaker 4: of place, and it has been like this basically from
Speaker 4: the beginning. I believe I'm not an expert on the
Speaker 4: history of Sahali, but what I'm out on more generally
Speaker 4: is just the Women's PGA Championship RODA. It's not really
Speaker 4: a rota, but the collection of sites that they're going
Speaker 4: to go to in the future. It hasn't been bad recently,
Speaker 4: you know. So they've recently gone to Baltis Rawl, the
Speaker 4: renovated Congressional aronom Inc. Not long ago, Olympia Fields a
Speaker 4: number of years ago. It hasn't been horrible, but it
Speaker 4: just hasn't been nearly as good as it could be.
Speaker 4: There are so many cool options for the Women's PGA
Speaker 4: when it comes to venues, and KPMG seems to be
Speaker 4: behind the event and giving it some funding and some juice,
Speaker 4: And so I would assume that they have a lot
Speaker 4: of options that they could go to a number of
Speaker 4: different courses. And the great thing about the Women's PGA
Speaker 4: Championship is that you don't need to go to these
Speaker 4: kind of massive courses that the PGA Championship in US
Speaker 4: Open have to go to in order to accommodate those
Speaker 4: hospitality and commercial needs and also the sheer distance that
Speaker 4: male players hit the ball these days, you can go
Speaker 4: to slightly more offbeat venues. They need to be big
Speaker 4: enough to accommodate a big championship, but they don't have
Speaker 4: to be, you know, on the scale of a US
Speaker 4: Open or a PGA Championship venue. So that opens up
Speaker 4: some really cool possibilities. If they were going to go
Speaker 4: to the Pacific Northwest this past week, why wasn't Chambers
Speaker 4: Bay on the table? You know, the USGA has dropped
Speaker 4: Chambers Bay at this point. It would be so cool
Speaker 4: to see a Women's PGA Championship there. In San Francisco,
Speaker 4: you've got Lake Mercet. I'm not sure what's going on
Speaker 4: with Lake Mersett on the LPGA tour, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: seem to be re entering the schedule, and so that
Speaker 4: would be a cool PGA championship site. What about like
Speaker 4: bel Air in Los Angeles? What about Plainfield Country Club?
Speaker 4: What about Lasnia, Lynx Old Town Club, Seminole, Southern Hills,
Speaker 4: that's a PGA anchor site, Quaker Ridge, Sciota, Baltimore Country Club,
Speaker 4: Milwaukee Country Club, Saint Louis Country. I mean, there are
Speaker 4: so many cool courses. I'm not sure if all of
Speaker 4: these would want to host a women's PGA Championship. I
Speaker 4: am not sure, especially that, you know, like Seminole, I
Speaker 4: don't know whatever, I'm just throwing that name out. I'm
Speaker 4: just looking at some cool courses that we know can't
Speaker 4: host a men's major and wondering why they aren't on
Speaker 4: the table. Why are we going to, you know, in
Speaker 4: the next couple of years. What PGA Frisco in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty five and twenty thirty one, I get it, but
Speaker 4: that's a lot of PGA Frisco. We're going to Hazel
Speaker 4: Team in twenty twenty six before the renovations happen. As
Speaker 4: far as I know, there are gonna be some renovations
Speaker 4: there by. Davis Love's firm that could make that course
Speaker 4: a little bit cooler, but as of now kind of
Speaker 4: a appointing choice. Then we're going back to Congressional again
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty seven. Really cool course. I like what
Speaker 4: Andrew Green did there, but do we have to go
Speaker 4: there with that frequency? We were just there a couple
Speaker 4: of years ago. Do you are you guys with me
Speaker 4: on this or am I crazy?
Speaker 1: I'm with you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's and it goes to like, you know, on
Speaker 5: the on the men's side of things, we've we've talked
Speaker 5: about the PGA Championship and its identity, Like we're kind
Speaker 5: of at the same point on the women's side too,
Speaker 5: where it almost feels like US Open Junior a bit
Speaker 5: like that was a super challenging test. You know, nobody
Speaker 5: ever besides Amy Yang and Rios was more than a
Speaker 5: few strokes under par And it's like, you know, the
Speaker 5: US Open student a pretty darn good job of that
Speaker 5: at better courses, and they're kind they're they're going the
Speaker 5: women's PGA is going to courses that the men can't
Speaker 5: play at anymore. Likes to Holly, you know that they
Speaker 5: hosted ninety eight Baltistral, but they're they're just not really
Speaker 5: picking the ones that I would prefer they pick. You know,
Speaker 5: there these are they have name recognition and whatnot. But
Speaker 5: we can do a bit of better. We can do
Speaker 5: a better job. And I'm not sure the identity of
Speaker 5: the Women's PGA of the past decade has been how
Speaker 5: much it's grown from per size to just you know
Speaker 5: what KPMG has done. But I'm not sure if they're
Speaker 5: hitting the mark on the identity of the of the
Speaker 5: championship and there the regular women's schedule could do way
Speaker 5: better job of the courses they're going to. Uh and yeah,
Speaker 5: KPMG Women's PGA can do the same.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I think in general a lesson of the last couple
Speaker 3: of years has been that the golf course and the
Speaker 3: venue is way lower on the list of the priorities
Speaker 3: for a lot of the governing bodies. I would imagine
Speaker 3: the KPMG, it's it's lower on the their list of
Speaker 3: priorities than it is for the people who are talking
Speaker 3: right now and for probably a lot of listeners of
Speaker 3: the Fried Egg podcast. Like, realistically, how much would viewership
Speaker 3: change if it hadn't been at Sahali and it had
Speaker 3: been at one of those golf courses you mentioned, Garrett, like,
Speaker 3: I'd prefer to watch it. I think Chambers Bay would
Speaker 3: be really interesting to see a championship go back there,
Speaker 3: and you'd still have the West Coast prime time, which
Speaker 3: I do think is worth prioritizing and was a benefit
Speaker 3: of the championship this past weekend. But I found Saholly
Speaker 3: to be underwhelming and not just claustrophobic, probably for the players,
Speaker 3: but I thought a lot of the holes kind of
Speaker 3: look pretty similar and it feels repetitive, and I think
Speaker 3: a problem with that is that when fans are watching,
Speaker 3: there aren't those holes that their senses kind of heighten
Speaker 3: and they're tuned into a particular hole that they know
Speaker 3: something different is going on. It did feel like each
Speaker 3: hole kind of bled together a little bit from watching
Speaker 3: the coverage this past weekend. But again, I'm with you,
Speaker 3: I just don't think that this is something that they'd
Speaker 3: probably ties.
Speaker 1: In the same way that we'd like them to.
Speaker 4: All Right, So that's the women's PGA Championship. We have
Speaker 4: a couple more women's majors coming up this year, including
Speaker 4: a great Women's Open, or likely to be a great
Speaker 4: Women's Open at the Old Course, so a lot to
Speaker 4: look forward to, Meg, thank you for joining for the segment.
Speaker 2: Thanks guys, all right, in a minute, Joseph and I
Speaker 2: will get into the Travelers Championship, the failed changes at
Speaker 2: TPC River Highlands, Cameron Young's Fake fifty nine and all
Speaker 2: that good stuff.
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Speaker 4: the main character on Twitter for a brief time this
Speaker 4: past weekend. Reason was that you tweeted this in response
Speaker 4: to Cameron Young shooting fifty nine on Saturday at the
Speaker 4: Travelers Championship. You said, and I quote, a meaningless accomplishment,
Speaker 4: an accomplishment has scare quotes around it, A meaningless accomplishment
Speaker 4: in the era of speed track man and failure to
Speaker 4: regulate equipment responsibility, sorry, and failure to regulate equipment responsibly.
Speaker 4: I couldn't even get it out. I'm so excited about it.
Speaker 4: This is a good tweet. This is what the app
Speaker 4: is for people takes exactly like this. But how can
Speaker 4: you call a fifty nine meaningless if this is only
Speaker 4: the thirteenth one in the history of the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: All Right, it was the phrasing of it, I will admit,
Speaker 3: was a little bit dramatic, Garrett and I was just
Speaker 3: having a little fun.
Speaker 1: But the serious take.
Speaker 3: There were three fifty nine's or three sub sixty rounds
Speaker 3: prior to twenty ten, and now this is the thirteenth
Speaker 3: on the PGA Tour. Bryson broke sixty on live last
Speaker 3: fall at the Greenbrier. We've had multiple players break sixty
Speaker 3: on the corn Ferry Tour this year, and people could say, well,
Speaker 3: that was at a short course, that was at altitude.
Speaker 3: That doesn't count. And if we're going to start qualifying them,
Speaker 3: then a ball in hand fifty nine that Cameron Young
Speaker 3: shot on a sixty eight hundred yard course that had
Speaker 3: just rained and it was super soft, like.
Speaker 1: The main point here.
Speaker 3: And I understand that when al Geiberger shot his fifty nine,
Speaker 3: he also was ball in hand. I'm not saying like
Speaker 3: ball in hand doesn't count. It's more just what used
Speaker 3: to be a rare feat and an accomplishment that people
Speaker 3: were glued to the TV to watch somebody finish their
Speaker 3: round if they were about to shoot fifty nine.
Speaker 1: It's no longer that.
Speaker 3: And I do think a lot of this comes down
Speaker 3: to equipment, and some of that's fine, and a lot
Speaker 3: of sports just advance some accomplishments that used to be
Speaker 3: people have thrown out, like the home run record as
Speaker 3: an example. I think NBA scoring is another example. Used
Speaker 3: to be really hard to score fifty points in a night,
Speaker 3: and now that happens with regularity. Some sports, like certain
Speaker 3: accomplishments just become more frequent. But I think with golf
Speaker 3: in particular, what used to be really special has become commonplace.
Speaker 3: And to just add a little bit onto that, I
Speaker 3: mean there were Sepstraka shot a sixty one on Sunday,
Speaker 3: Ludwig Obert shot a sixty two on Saturday, losing strokes putting.
Speaker 3: There were seven sixty two's shot over this past week
Speaker 3: at the Travelers. And as long as we keep having
Speaker 3: tournaments at TPC River Highlands, which seems fine, the event
Speaker 3: works well a sixty eight hundred yard course where it
Speaker 3: often rains, they're going to be more fifty nine. So
Speaker 3: wasn't trying to take away any kind of accomplishment from
Speaker 3: Cam Young. Camy Young is one of my favorite golfers
Speaker 3: to watch. Was adamant he should have been on the
Speaker 3: Ryder Cup team. I love Cam Young. It's not an
Speaker 3: anti Cam Young take, but I think the sanctity of
Speaker 3: breaking sixty has been compromised by technology and it's just
Speaker 3: not the exciting accomplishment that it used to be.
Speaker 1: Is that fair?
Speaker 4: I think that's fair. I wouldn't have said meaningless, but
Speaker 4: you also just said that you wouldn't have said meaningless. Necessarily.
Speaker 4: I think that we all understood that there was some exaggeration,
Speaker 4: some hyperbole in that tweet, but you know, hyperbole, irony,
Speaker 4: those kinds of rhetorical devices don't always come across on
Speaker 4: Twitter all that well, so that's understood. But I looked
Speaker 4: up some of these historical trends with fifty nine's and
Speaker 4: it is interesting you already mentioned that there were three
Speaker 4: before on the PGA Tour. There were three before two thousand,
Speaker 4: three before twenty ten, in fact, and then since twenty
Speaker 4: ten there have been ten. And I was looking at this,
Speaker 4: I was all of a sudden struck by memories of
Speaker 4: getting into golf, starting to watch golf in the mid
Speaker 4: to late nineties, and it being a reality that there
Speaker 4: were only two fifty nine's that had been shot in
Speaker 4: the history of the PGA Tour. And then I watched
Speaker 4: David Duval shoot fifty nine at the Bob Hope and
Speaker 4: that was incredible. He pitched a perfect game that day.
Speaker 4: What a round of golf. I mean it was thirteen
Speaker 4: under for one. Yeah, I mean, not the hardest course
Speaker 4: in the world, but that was something else that was
Speaker 4: musty TV. And yeah, we've had a lot of them
Speaker 4: since twenty ten. We haven't had a million of them.
Speaker 4: It's not a common accomplishment. It's not every tournament, but
Speaker 4: ten sents twenty ten. Now. I think part of this
Speaker 4: also is the context of what's happening on other tours
Speaker 4: as well. On the corn Ferry Tour there were again
Speaker 4: three fifty nines as far as I know, this is
Speaker 4: what I looked up. Sorry if this is not accurate,
Speaker 4: but there were three fifty nines before two thy ten.
Speaker 4: Since twenty ten there have been ten, so it's exactly
Speaker 4: the same ratio as the PGA Tour. And on the
Speaker 4: corn Ferry Tour there have been six fifty nine's in
Speaker 4: the past two years, and this year on the corn
Speaker 4: Ferry Tour there has been a fifty nine, a fifty
Speaker 4: eight and a fifty seven. This is mirrored in most
Speaker 4: tours across the world. Not on the European Tour. For
Speaker 4: some reason, there's only been one in history on the
Speaker 4: DP World Tour, but there have been two on live recently.
Speaker 4: If you look at the you know, the secondary tours
Speaker 4: across the world, the trend is similar. Starting in the
Speaker 4: twenty tens, fifty nine's just became more common, and I
Speaker 4: think the analogy that I would make would be to
Speaker 4: seventy point games in the NBA. I agree, still cool,
Speaker 4: but in the current era of higher scoring, they have
Speaker 4: become less impactful. I remember where I was when Kobe
Speaker 4: scored eighty one points in two thousand and six. I
Speaker 4: think it was I remember watching that game and just
Speaker 4: being having my mind blown. I remember people I was
Speaker 4: too young for this, but I remember it being talked
Speaker 4: about that David Robinson had scored seventy one points in
Speaker 4: a single game in nineteen ninety four. People talked about
Speaker 4: Michael Jordan's sixty nine point game in nineteen ninety or
Speaker 4: whatever it was. Now you have Luka Doncech scoring seventy
Speaker 4: three points this year, Joel Embiid scoring seventy earlier. This year,
Speaker 4: you have Donovan Mitchell and Damian Lillard both scoring seventy one.
Speaker 4: Last year, Devin Booker. Devin Booker with seventy in a
Speaker 4: few years ago. It was really awesome to see Damian
Speaker 4: Lillard hit that seventy mark. That was a super exciting game.
Speaker 4: My son went to it. He still he loves it,
Speaker 4: but it's just a little bit less special because it
Speaker 4: has become more common and the NBA appears to be
Speaker 4: making some moves so that these markers of individual greatness
Speaker 4: retain some of their sanctity. They're changing a couple of
Speaker 4: the calls that they might make around us. I'm not
Speaker 4: an expert in the NBA, as you can tell, but
Speaker 4: I think this analogy is a pretty solid one. The
Speaker 4: seventy point game still cool, but just feels a little
Speaker 4: bit less unusual.
Speaker 3: I'm with you, And it's not just a sub sixty take. Right,
Speaker 3: Like it's gotten easier to shoot sixty, It's gotten easier
Speaker 3: to shoot sixty one, Like Ricky Fowler and Denny McCarthy
Speaker 3: both shot sixty at this tournament last year. Right, Wyndham
Speaker 3: Clark shot sixty at Pebble Beach earlier this year. Like,
Speaker 3: these scores are going to keep happening. And that's not
Speaker 3: to say that they're not that they have completely like
Speaker 3: just no meaning. Right, every score has some meaning, Like
Speaker 3: I think at this point, I'm more impressed when a
Speaker 3: player goes low on a difficult setup and gains a
Speaker 3: bunch of strokes than a really soft wedge fest where
Speaker 3: you're kind of just target. You're going at the whole
Speaker 3: over and over again. These guys are really good at that.
Speaker 3: So when you have a track man, a driver head
Speaker 3: that's never been more forgiving, you know your exact numbers,
Speaker 3: and you go out on a golf course that doesn't
Speaker 3: have much of a defense, I guarantee you we're going
Speaker 3: to see more rounds like this next year, especially if
Speaker 3: it rains. So in Garrett, this might be a stretch,
Speaker 3: but I think part of where I was coming from
Speaker 3: a little bit on this. Yes, there's a certain golf
Speaker 3: history is special in a certain way that it's special
Speaker 3: in all sports, but I think particularly in golf, there's
Speaker 3: a tendency to destroy history. And on Friday they were
Speaker 3: showing a graphic of Xander Schoffley's made cut streak and
Speaker 3: comparing it to Tiger Woods, and like, I don't think
Speaker 3: we can do made cut streaks anymore. Right, there's a
Speaker 3: bunch of these events don't have a cut line, and
Speaker 3: even some of the ones that do, our seventy player
Speaker 3: fields where they're cutting the top fifty and ties, you
Speaker 3: might have fourteen golfers who get cut.
Speaker 1: I think a made cut in a streak used to
Speaker 1: mean something.
Speaker 3: Now when I see Xanderschoffley's made however, many cuts in
Speaker 3: a row, it doesn't have the same meaning that it
Speaker 3: used to, and so sure I was being a little
Speaker 3: dramatic with that tweet, but I just think in general,
Speaker 3: if there were more of an emphasis on preserving history
Speaker 3: in the golf world that would benefit the sport.
Speaker 4: Do they include the no cut events in Xanderschoffle's supposed
Speaker 4: made cut streak out toward the total.
Speaker 1: I didn't check that.
Speaker 3: I believe they do count them, but either way, right,
Speaker 3: it's kind of like a damned if you do, damned
Speaker 3: if you don't, because if he finishes, let's say he's
Speaker 3: leading from start to finish of a no cut event,
Speaker 3: that would have been a made cut, But if he's
Speaker 3: t sixty eight after two rounds and then shoots up
Speaker 3: to finish tenth, like, how do you There's no right
Speaker 3: answer for how you evaluate that in the history books,
Speaker 3: and I just think that's where we are, that something
Speaker 3: like a made cut streak no longer has a meaning.
Speaker 3: So maybe drawing the analogy to sub sixty rounds is inappropriate,
Speaker 3: And there's totally separate points, but I would just think
Speaker 3: there's a lack of focus on preserving history that again,
Speaker 3: here there is a solution which would be regulating equipment,
Speaker 3: and it wouldn't be a perfect apples to apples comparison,
Speaker 3: but it would be better.
Speaker 4: Earlier. Joseph, you use the phrase soft wedge fest on
Speaker 4: that topic, what do you make of TPC River Highlands.
Speaker 3: I don't want to dump on the golf course too
Speaker 3: much because I think when it was designed it would
Speaker 3: have been a fine test of professional golf, maybe not
Speaker 3: the most engaging, but at this point it does not
Speaker 3: stand up well to the modern game. And it's also
Speaker 3: in an area that often rains, especially in June, so
Speaker 3: you're gonna have a lot of soft golf courses. Last
Speaker 3: year was soft. Like I already mentioned, you had multiple
Speaker 3: low rounds, multiple sixties.
Speaker 1: This golf course.
Speaker 3: You have as high of a concentration of wedges as
Speaker 3: basically anywhere on the PGA Tour. Sixty eight hundred yards.
Speaker 3: There's a drivable four the fifteenth that can play like
Speaker 3: two seventy to ninety. Cam Young made eagle hit three
Speaker 3: wood basically right at the flag or just favor the
Speaker 3: right side of the green like it's kind of all
Speaker 3: systems go from start to finish on this course. Sixteen
Speaker 3: of the eighteen holes played under par on the weekend
Speaker 3: both That was true of both Saturday and Sunday. So
Speaker 3: it just doesn't pose a very significant threat to any
Speaker 3: of these guys. And I'm sure we'll get into some
Speaker 3: of the changes that they made that the PGA Tour
Speaker 3: made in advance of this championship, but frankly, there's not
Speaker 3: a lot of changes you can make short of a
Speaker 3: huge overhaul that would provide a stiff challenge.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's fine.
Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of people saying it's fine, this
Speaker 3: is a birdie fest, like that's fine the week after
Speaker 3: a US Open. Not every week needs to be a grind,
Speaker 3: But that I think still kind of reinforces the point that, okay,
Speaker 3: but where does that leave us then with shooting fifty
Speaker 3: nine in that being some something for the history books.
Speaker 1: So these are all related factors.
Speaker 4: I'm going to defend TPC River Highlands in a second, though.
Speaker 4: You didn't go after it too hard, so I don't
Speaker 4: think I need to mount that vigorous of a defense.
Speaker 4: But I think we should mention, first of all, some
Speaker 4: of the changes that were made to River Highlands in
Speaker 4: the past year in an attempt to help the course
Speaker 4: defend par a little bit better. This was in reaction
Speaker 4: to Keegan Bradley going super low at the Travelers last year,
Speaker 4: and I remember writing about these upcoming changes when it
Speaker 4: was announced that general renovations would be made, and what
Speaker 4: I wrote basically is that there's no point you know,
Speaker 4: like the players are going to go low anyway, And
Speaker 4: if you're taking advice directly from the players about what
Speaker 4: to change at a venue, then you're never going to
Speaker 4: get the result that you're looking for because the players
Speaker 4: are never going to suggest stuff that makes them truly
Speaker 4: uncomfortable or makes their job actually harder. So if you're
Speaker 4: seeking advice for how to challenge PGA tour pros, I'm sorry,
Speaker 4: just don't ask PGA tour pros. Find a good architect,
Speaker 4: find somebody like Pete Dye. And there's nobody like Pete Dye.
Speaker 4: But Pete Dye knew what he was doing. He called
Speaker 4: those guys chicken, and he truly challenged them, and he
Speaker 4: wasn't afraid of pissing them off. And that's what you need.
Speaker 4: You need somebody to come in from the outside, somebody
Speaker 4: who's not trying to make their living by shooting low
Speaker 4: scores and make these golf courses challenging that way, But
Speaker 4: I'm getting ahead of myself. Changes to TPC for Highlands
Speaker 4: six holes in total were altered. Fairways were narrowed, some
Speaker 4: significantly mounding was added. I'm not sure what that did.
Speaker 4: The ninth tee was moved to bring trees more into
Speaker 4: the line of play for current players, The eleventh green
Speaker 4: was made smaller, and the twelfth fairway was cut off
Speaker 4: at the distance that PGA twour players are now hitting
Speaker 4: their drivers. And that was the funniest change because if
Speaker 4: you look at the shot tracker, basically everybody was pushing
Speaker 4: their drives up to just short of the green and
Speaker 4: they were just like, all right, I guess we got
Speaker 4: to make that rough now, and so now everybody's hitting
Speaker 4: a five iron off that tee or whatever because the
Speaker 4: fairway ends at two seventy seventy five. In any case, Joseph,
Speaker 4: what did you make of these changes and their effect
Speaker 4: on play? Were some of them, you know, marginally effective?
Speaker 4: Of What was your conclusion here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm eager to get your perspective on some of this,
Speaker 3: because I actually will commend the tour to an extent
Speaker 3: with it was a pretty restrained there's changes I think
Speaker 3: were pretty restrained overall, and yes, I agree that you
Speaker 3: shouldn't solicit player feedback forgetting for how you're going to
Speaker 3: make changes. I think the low point was when Justin
Speaker 3: Thomas complained about the center line bunker at TPC Boston
Speaker 3: and then they removed the bunker, and like in my opinion,
Speaker 3: centerline bunkers are probably one of the best ways to
Speaker 3: test modern tour players. So just in general agree with
Speaker 3: the sentiment that players perspectives on some of this stuff
Speaker 3: aren't probably shouldn't be factored in too heavily. All that said,
Speaker 3: I think the PGA Tour it wasn't as much of
Speaker 3: a soliciting player feedback here. I don't think as looking
Speaker 3: at shot link data and trying to determine ways to
Speaker 3: tweak the golf course, hopefully in ways that don't impact
Speaker 3: member play too much. The twelfth is a good example,
Speaker 3: right where yes, they cut off the fairway and it
Speaker 3: forces players to hit into a little bit more challenging
Speaker 3: area where they're threatened by some fairway bunkers and there's
Speaker 3: out of bounds left. It's not going to affect members
Speaker 3: too much. I don't think there are very many members
Speaker 3: would be hitting driver over those bunkers. I don't know, Garrett, like,
Speaker 3: where do you stand on a change like that? Because
Speaker 3: esthetically it may not look great to have a huge
Speaker 3: strip of rough there, But I don't think it changes
Speaker 3: too much, and it probably does improve the way that
Speaker 3: that whole plays for the top players in the world.
Speaker 3: So overall the change has made very little impact. That
Speaker 3: was my first reaction when I saw them, as like,
Speaker 3: all right, we're talking about maybe a tenth of a stroke,
Speaker 3: maybe two tenths of a stroke overall in total across
Speaker 3: the whole golf course, So is it really worth it
Speaker 3: is a legitimate question. But to be fair, I don't
Speaker 3: think they went around like drastically changing the routing in
Speaker 3: completely mangling the golf course either. So I felt like
Speaker 3: it was a somewhat restrained approach. What did you think, You're.
Speaker 4: Well, I agree with you, but I think I come
Speaker 4: to a slightly different conclusion or have a different attitude
Speaker 4: about the approach to these changes. Narrowing the fairways, making
Speaker 4: the green that one the eleventh green smaller, I think
Speaker 4: that does make the golf course worse, and I think
Speaker 4: it betrays a misunderstanding of how to actually challenge PGA
Speaker 4: tour players and give them a test that's meaningful. Shortening
Speaker 4: the twelfth fairway whatever, It's just kind of silly. It's funny.
Speaker 4: I don't think it probably affects member play at all.
Speaker 4: As you said, what I'd just say in general is
Speaker 4: just that this was a waste of money. Why even
Speaker 4: do it? Why do it if this is going to
Speaker 4: be the result. And I think that anybody who knew
Speaker 4: anything knew that this was going to be the result,
Speaker 4: that these changes would make essentially no difference to scoring.
Speaker 4: If the motive was to make scoring tougher, then they
Speaker 4: might as well not have done anything right because the
Speaker 4: changes they made had no discernible effect on play. Yes,
Speaker 4: players played to a shorter spot in the twelve fair way.
Speaker 4: The scoring average on that hole was probably higher, but
Speaker 4: overall things were marginal, I think. And you just put
Speaker 4: a good deal of effort into a bunch of changes
Speaker 4: that essentially had no effect. So why do it at all?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll play devil's advocate to an extent, but also
Speaker 3: sincerely defend some of the changes a little bit. Again,
Speaker 3: if it were up to me, like, these changes don't
Speaker 3: mean much so in terms of should they have done
Speaker 3: it or not.
Speaker 1: I guess I leaned O.
Speaker 3: I don't want to bore people with the numbers too much.
Speaker 3: But just for example, on the first hole last year,
Speaker 3: sixty eight percent of players hit the fairway. This year
Speaker 3: it was down to fifty one percent, and that's an
Speaker 3: area of the golf course that they narrowed pretty significantly.
Speaker 3: Is that over the long run going to change the
Speaker 3: scoring average and make it a little bit more difficult,
Speaker 3: it'll raise the scoring average? Does it make the whole
Speaker 3: much more demanding for these players, give them something completely
Speaker 3: different to think about? No, not really overall. And again
Speaker 3: I don't want to go through we can. I don't
Speaker 3: want to go through all the numbers for each hole.
Speaker 3: It's probably not worth people's time. But the scoring average
Speaker 3: netted out to be pretty similar to last year, and
Speaker 3: the conditions were somewhat similar, but this was a much
Speaker 3: stronger field, and so I do think these changes will
Speaker 3: have somewhat a very small but somewhat meaningful impact on
Speaker 3: scoring average. It just doesn't make the shots that much
Speaker 3: more demanding. But like a change like the eleventh is
Speaker 3: it out of the realm of possibilities that it also
Speaker 3: could be an improvement for member play, Garrett, I mean
Speaker 3: it's one hundred and fifty yard shot. The green was
Speaker 3: pretty big, I think last year. I don't have the
Speaker 3: exact numbers in front of a very high percentage of
Speaker 3: those players are hitting the green. You could probably sell
Speaker 3: me that that was an additive change, even for.
Speaker 1: The member play.
Speaker 3: It's a shrunken green now kind of kidney shaped versus
Speaker 3: being much bigger before. To you, does that betray the
Speaker 3: character the golf course to make a change like that, Like,
Speaker 3: at what point are these changes actually additive? And we'd
Speaker 3: be upset just because they're changing the golf course in general.
Speaker 4: It's just a waste, don't I don't, honestly, I can't
Speaker 4: bring myself to care that much that they're altering TPC
Speaker 4: River Highlands. I just think the motive for these changes
Speaker 4: was to raise the scoring average, and that's a dumb motive.
Speaker 4: And besides, it failed to noticeably raise the scoring average.
Speaker 4: So why is it happening? Try to make the golf
Speaker 4: course more interesting instead, that's what the focus should be.
Speaker 4: And so about.
Speaker 3: So where do you stand on bringing a tea box
Speaker 3: a little closer to trees so that golfers instead of
Speaker 3: just kind of aiming up almost near the green, leaving
Speaker 3: themselves a fifty yard wedge in which is clearly not
Speaker 3: the way that the architect intended for the whole to
Speaker 3: be played. Now they do have to play it more
Speaker 3: like it was designed to be played, like, to be
Speaker 3: fair to the tour, wouldn't they say, Well, a lot
Speaker 3: of people complain that a lot of golf courses have
Speaker 3: been overrun and not playing like they're designed to be played.
Speaker 3: We have a contract with this golf course for the
Speaker 3: foreseeable future. Isn't this is a small change to move
Speaker 3: a tea box just a little bit to the right.
Speaker 3: Can you at least see where they're coming from.
Speaker 4: It's fine, whatever, I didn't realize you were such a
Speaker 4: PGA Tour stand just I'm not so disappointing.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that seemed to be actually the only change that
Speaker 4: focused on the strategy of the hole to me, right.
Speaker 4: The others just seemed to be, like, let's try to
Speaker 4: raise the scoring average a little bit the twelfth fairway,
Speaker 4: cutting off the twelve fairway forcing a layup. That's fine.
Speaker 4: I guess you can do that on a few holes
Speaker 4: on the course. If you do it on a bunch
Speaker 4: of holes. Then you start to deemphasize the skill of driving,
Speaker 4: which should be a skill that should be tested by
Speaker 4: a tournament golf course. But I don't want to get
Speaker 4: too into the weeds here. Did the making the eleventh
Speaker 4: green smaller improve it? I don't really care. Generally, making
Speaker 4: green smaller doesn't improve the hole because it shuts down
Speaker 4: pin positions. But I'm not sure if there were interesting
Speaker 4: contours on the eleventh green that were you know, discarded
Speaker 4: because the green shrink. I just, you know, making green
Speaker 4: smaller generally is not a good way to go about things.
Speaker 4: But I want to generally defend TPC River Highlands, and
Speaker 4: this is why I think that trying to make it
Speaker 4: tougher was missing the point. I'm fine with TPC River
Speaker 4: Highlands being a cream puff golf course. That's okay with me.
Speaker 4: I think that's what it should be. I think that's
Speaker 4: what this tournament is. What this tournament was, and I
Speaker 4: have attended this tournament a couple of times and enjoyed
Speaker 4: myself tremendously. I went to college in Connecticut. I would
Speaker 4: spend the summers on campus, and a couple of times
Speaker 4: I went to like a Friday or Saturday of this
Speaker 4: tournament and had a great time at TPC River Highlands,
Speaker 4: a wonderful place to watch golf. The finish is really cool.
Speaker 4: I mean you have the driveable par four fifteenth, which
Speaker 4: maybe used to work a little bit better when when
Speaker 4: players weren't hitting three woods, but whatever, I mean, kind
Speaker 4: of a fun hole to watch. Then you have that
Speaker 4: this finishing stretch that is kind of a remix on
Speaker 4: the usual Pete Die finishing stretch with water and play.
Speaker 4: There's a little bit of tension. The seventeenth hole is
Speaker 4: nerve racking, and then you have the amphitheater on the
Speaker 4: eighteenth hole, which is just a great place to be
Speaker 4: and creates such a fun vibe in every single finish
Speaker 4: at that tournament. The spirit of the travelers, I think
Speaker 4: is as a come down from the US Open. What
Speaker 4: I think the issue is is that it's now a
Speaker 4: signature event, so we have higher expectations for it. I
Speaker 4: don't think the travelers should be carrying high expectations for
Speaker 4: a professional golf test. I think it should be a
Speaker 4: mid tier tournament with a relatively weak field that you
Speaker 4: can have a lot of fun going to in person
Speaker 4: and where players won't be pushed that hard, but there
Speaker 4: will be some interesting shots. And frankly, TBC River Highlands
Speaker 4: is to me above average in terms of the look
Speaker 4: of the course and some of the quirk and you know,
Speaker 4: some fun shots and some memorable holes. That's what this
Speaker 4: course offers. I think that a lot of PGA Tour
Speaker 4: courses don't. But if you come with the expectation that
Speaker 4: this is going to be a real tournament golf test,
Speaker 4: you're gonna be disappointed because that's just not what the
Speaker 4: tournament has ever been about. It's just a chill excursion
Speaker 4: to Connecticut in the early summer. I think it's a
Speaker 4: fun tournament, but it being a signature event creates again
Speaker 4: a set of expectations that I don't think it's prepared
Speaker 4: to fulfill.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I didn't necessarily intend to go that this direction, Garrett,
Speaker 3: but I do think the difference between like Major championship
Speaker 3: golf PGA Tour golf has never felt bigger and this
Speaker 3: is another example of that. And it is kind of
Speaker 3: striking to me at least that a lot of the
Speaker 3: events that are signature events are the ones that have
Speaker 3: a lot of history, a lot of distinguished winners, and
Speaker 3: those are often the courses that require players to.
Speaker 1: Hit a lot of long irons.
Speaker 3: There are exceptions to that, like the RBC Heritage and
Speaker 3: obviously the Travelers, which is about as WEDG friendly as
Speaker 3: it gets, But like the Arnold Palmer even Tory Pines,
Speaker 3: which is not a signature event, like those are the
Speaker 3: golf courses that we tend to think of being closer
Speaker 3: to major championship level. Maybe I just have a preference
Speaker 3: for that because you get to see long irons. But
Speaker 3: I agree with you that TPC River Highlands is chill.
Speaker 3: It just doesn't resemble a strong test in any way.
Speaker 3: And so I think the fundamental question becomes what do
Speaker 3: you do with that?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Do you move the event or do you just lean
Speaker 3: into its identity as a birdie fest? And I think
Speaker 3: you're kind of leaning towards just lean into it being
Speaker 3: a birdy fest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I don't see. I don't see why not.
Speaker 4: I don't think every week on the PGA Tour has
Speaker 4: to be super serious. Now it should it be super serious.
Speaker 4: If it's a signature event, then probably, But Travelers, whatever
Speaker 4: it's it's it's almost like a like a fall event.
Speaker 4: But it's a really good version of that, and it's
Speaker 4: really well run. And you know what, I enjoy a
Speaker 4: lot of the players who seem to do well there.
Speaker 4: A variety of skill sets can thrive at TPC River Highlands,
Speaker 4: partly because a lot of people, a lot of players
Speaker 4: are playing from similar positions in the corridors, so it's
Speaker 4: not like a golf course that gives a significant advantage
Speaker 4: to bombing it. But we've seen bombers do fine there before.
Speaker 4: Bubba Watson, this was one of his one of his
Speaker 4: preferred venues. This is a place that he won a lot.
Speaker 4: But you also get players who don't normally do well
Speaker 4: on long major championship golf courses rising to the top
Speaker 4: of the leaderboard and ending up in playoffs because it's
Speaker 4: always this bunched leaderboard again, kind of soft usually. I
Speaker 4: you know, Connecticut's not that wet in June. I don't
Speaker 4: know why why it's always so soft, but it is,
Speaker 4: and that's what you get. And I sort of appreciate
Speaker 4: that when it comes to this tournament, just as a
Speaker 4: bit of variety that's fair.
Speaker 3: And I think again, maybe my main takeaway is that
Speaker 3: golf is just dealing with a lot of trade offs,
Speaker 3: and you're a little bit stuck when you can't move
Speaker 3: the property back at all, as you can at TPC
Speaker 3: River Highlands. So the changes that they're trying to make
Speaker 3: are sort of an acknowledgment that there's a problem that
Speaker 3: the golf course doesn't play. So I maybe would quibble
Speaker 3: a little bit with it's fine being a complete birdy fest,
Speaker 3: like I do think it lacks a little bit of
Speaker 3: intensity for that reason, it's fine as an event, but
Speaker 3: it's probably exemplary of the problem that golf faces where
Speaker 3: you can't even you can make changes, but especially when
Speaker 3: a golf course is solved, a lot of those changes
Speaker 3: are going to have minimal impact. So this golf course
Speaker 3: is just going to be a birdi fest where we're
Speaker 3: going to see more fifty nine to sixty sixty ones.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's completely fine, but then it kind of goes
Speaker 3: back to the original point of how meaningful is a
Speaker 3: low score if we've come to expect them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not particularly, but if this tournament we're super intense,
Speaker 4: then I wouldn't be able to lie down on a
Speaker 4: mound on the eighteenth hole and take a nap.
Speaker 3: That's what you're looking for. Out of a PGA tournament. No,
Speaker 3: it's fair, it has a great vibe. It seems like
Speaker 3: one of the more successful events. This is not to
Speaker 3: be little the event. I think it's a we're searching
Speaker 3: for a solution to a problem that you probably cannot
Speaker 3: solve in how you've fixed the golf course.
Speaker 4: On that note, Joseph, let's do recommendations hard left turn here.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what your recommendation is. It's probably not
Speaker 4: golf related. Mine isn't. What are you recommending this week?
Speaker 3: I'm recommend The Jinks Part two on HBO. Garrett, have
Speaker 3: you seen The Jinks the original series?
Speaker 4: I did see the original Jinks. I was not aware
Speaker 4: that The Jinks Part two was coming out, and in fact,
Speaker 4: having seen the Original Jinks, I'm a little confused as
Speaker 4: to where they could possibly go from there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I won't spoil anything because if you haven't seen The Jinks,
Speaker 3: it's one of my favorite true crime series that I've
Speaker 3: ever seen.
Speaker 1: There's some twists and the Jinks.
Speaker 4: You do relate to the main character, are you No,
Speaker 4: I don't want to spoil anything. Do you feel like that?
Speaker 3: I do not, But the Jinx two is basically the
Speaker 3: follow up what happens after that, because there are some
Speaker 3: revelations throughout the jinks, and so it's a really interesting
Speaker 3: follow up. I've only got through the first episode so far,
Speaker 3: but this is a I can't give a higher recommendation
Speaker 3: for the Jinx.
Speaker 1: The original and the Jinx two.
Speaker 3: Episode one is awesome, So if you've never seen it,
Speaker 3: that has my highest recommendation.
Speaker 4: I'm recommending a book. I think I've mentioned a couple
Speaker 4: of times on the podcast that I've been getting a
Speaker 4: bit into too wine recently, because evidently I'm a fancy lad.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm into golf and wine. These are two
Speaker 4: hobbies that aren't necessarily easy on the pocketbook. But I've
Speaker 4: been having fun learning about wine, and I've been seeing
Speaker 4: a lot of parallels in the wine world to the
Speaker 4: golf world. And it's been interesting for me to be
Speaker 4: in the position of a neophyte because I've been into
Speaker 4: golf since I was a kid, been reading about it
Speaker 4: since I was pretty young, and so I never really
Speaker 4: had the experience of being inducted into golf, you know, sickness, right,
Speaker 4: That's been the case for a long time, and I
Speaker 4: think it can be a little bit intimidating for people
Speaker 4: to get into golf later in life, not only because
Speaker 4: it's a hard sport, but because sometimes there's a little
Speaker 4: bit of snobbery around the finer points of golf course architecture,
Speaker 4: and you know, understanding professional golf and things like that,
Speaker 4: it can be pretty arcane and hard to understand. And
Speaker 4: I'm finding, to my delight, a lot of the same
Speaker 4: things about getting into wine, and you know, I've really
Speaker 4: been struggling to truly understand it, and to me that's
Speaker 4: been pretty fun. But it's also allowed me to sympathize
Speaker 4: a little bit with people who might be listening to
Speaker 4: the Friday Golf podcast perhaps to learn more about golf
Speaker 4: course architecture. It puts me in that position of learning
Speaker 4: something later in life. So the book I'm recommending is
Speaker 4: called The Judgment of Paris or just Judgment of Paris.
Speaker 4: This is about this kind of tasting contest between French
Speaker 4: wines and California wines that took place in the nineteen
Speaker 4: seventies in Paris. And I don't think it's a spoiler
Speaker 4: to say that the California wines did a lot better
Speaker 4: than people expected, and it was a big moment in
Speaker 4: the wine world where people are like, Okay, French wines
Speaker 4: are not necessarily absolutely supreme, because that had been the
Speaker 4: assumption to that point that French wines were way better
Speaker 4: than any other wines made anywhere else. So it was
Speaker 4: a little bit shocking in this blind tasting to see
Speaker 4: that the California wines acquitted themselves so well against the
Speaker 4: French wines. And so what this book does is it
Speaker 4: tells the story of that context and gives the backstory
Speaker 4: of some of the characters who were involved, but it
Speaker 4: also serves as a kind of history of the wine
Speaker 4: industry as it grew up in Napa Valley, and I
Speaker 4: found that completely fascinating. So this book is by George Tabor.
Speaker 4: He was actually the only journalist to attend this tasting
Speaker 4: in Paris. He was the only representative of the media
Speaker 4: who saw it, and years later ended up writing this book,
Speaker 4: Judgment of Paris, which is just a delightful kind of
Speaker 4: breezy read. And if you have any passing interest in
Speaker 4: wine in Napa Valley, in all of the dynamics of
Speaker 4: that really weird industry, then I very much recommend Judgment
Speaker 4: of Paris.
Speaker 1: All Right, So you start reviewing wines for Club TF.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do that. That's not coming. I
Speaker 4: have no valuable expertise and wine. I sit there tasting
Speaker 4: a wine, you know, I'll open a new bottle of
Speaker 4: wine like on Friday of each week. Basically it's a
Speaker 4: little tradition. I open it up, I go on the
Speaker 4: internet and look up when I'm supposed to be tasting,
Speaker 4: and I smell and taste the wine and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I guess I kind of get gravel from this maybe,
Speaker 4: or wet earth or you know, black currants or whatever whatever.
Speaker 4: Those are supposed to be one egg, one egg exactly
Speaker 4: that if I if I were reviewing line, probably every
Speaker 4: single one would get two eggs none, we'd get three
Speaker 4: eggs one none, we'd get one or zero because I
Speaker 4: wouldn't note if something is actually really good in the case,
Speaker 4: that's my recommendation. Thank you Joseph for being on the
Speaker 4: pod today. Always a pleasure, and we'll do it again
Speaker 4: sometime soon. Sounds good, Thanks Jarrett. This episode of the
Speaker 4: fridaygg Golf Podcast was produced by PJ.
Speaker 1: Clark. Thank you PG.
Speaker 4: If you're into Friday Golf content, I would recommend checking
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Speaker 4: slash membership and see what CLUBTF is all about. Lots
Speaker 4: of exciting things happening in there. We have so much
Speaker 4: fun producing the exclusive content for Club TF our course
Speaker 4: profiles or design notebook or tour guide, and that community
Speaker 4: that we're building in there has been so enjoyable to
Speaker 4: see grow. So if you like Frida Egg, golf Stuff podcast,
Speaker 4: the newsletter that we do, then plumb TF might be
Speaker 4: for you. The Friday dot Com slash membership check it out,
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon
Speaker 4: with another episode