Speaker 1: This is a big deal. We are talking about people
Speaker 1: who pay to play. You're making rules because of what
Speaker 1: you see based on people who get paid to play,
Speaker 1: that impact the people who pay to play. That's a
Speaker 1: bad decision.
Speaker 2: I got bouncing my head.
Speaker 3: Can't get him jh. Not to think what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3: Got bouncing my head. Can't get them out, joh, not
Speaker 3: the thing what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 4: Hello, this is allan schipnook back for another Fire Drill podcast.
Speaker 4: It's a big day in golf with the rollback announcement
Speaker 4: by the USGA. There's a lot to talk about. We've
Speaker 4: convened an all star panel of Matt Janella and Michael Bamberg.
Speaker 4: We're hoping to get esteemed architect and thinker Michael Clayton.
Speaker 4: He was supposed to be here now he may buzz
Speaker 4: it at any moment. We'll patch him through. But there's
Speaker 4: a lot to talk about real quick before we get
Speaker 4: to the news of the day and what it means. Matt,
Speaker 4: why don't you tip your cap to our corporate sponsors here?
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, you know you've heard it before, you've
Speaker 1: listened to this podcast. But obviously link soul and that
Speaker 1: lifestyle brand that you know I'm proud to be affiliated
Speaker 1: with and to where you know on and off the
Speaker 1: golf course. Go to link soul dot com use fire
Speaker 1: Pit twenty five for twenty five percent off your next
Speaker 1: purchase of all Links Soul gear. I'm especially a fond
Speaker 1: of the flat brims and the hoodies, regardless of my age.
Speaker 1: And the Dormy Workshop, the company that does fine leather
Speaker 1: goods and does our head covers and anything else that
Speaker 1: we make made of leather. They're just simply, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the best in the business. And we also have a
Speaker 1: promo code fire Pit fifteen for fifteen percent off your
Speaker 1: next purchase on dormy workshop dot com.
Speaker 2: Awesome, All right, let's get to it.
Speaker 4: There's a lot to talk about here, and Michael, you
Speaker 4: wrote a very thoughtful piece for five by Collective dot
Speaker 4: Com sticking out a little bit of a middle ground
Speaker 4: that the rollback was necessary, but it's not going to
Speaker 4: have a cataclysmic effect on all of us now that
Speaker 4: it's here, now it's official. What does this mean for
Speaker 4: the professional game and then for guys like us?
Speaker 5: Uncharacteristically, Alan you understated, I think I'll have no impact
Speaker 5: on us. The three of us on this conversation, and
Speaker 5: little I think there's they split say there's sixty nine golfers,
Speaker 5: literally fifty nine point nine to nine million golfers. They
Speaker 5: will have no effect. You'll never know the difference, just
Speaker 5: like I would say to the three of us, if
Speaker 5: you get a top flight in a pro v one,
Speaker 5: we can barely tell the difference in terms of distance,
Speaker 5: in terms of click and everything else. So I think,
Speaker 5: but in terms of what they really wanted to do
Speaker 5: to have an impact on the best golfers in the
Speaker 5: world and make I think this is their real goal,
Speaker 5: make classic classic golf course is still meaningful at meaningful
Speaker 5: park lives and the rest thirteenth, Augusta National and many
Speaker 5: other examples. I don't think it's going to do it
Speaker 5: at all.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're Matt. Your point is, if they're going
Speaker 4: to do it, they didn't go far enough right. They
Speaker 4: should have rolled it back more if they were going
Speaker 4: to do it.
Speaker 1: To Michael's point, like then why are we doing Like then,
Speaker 1: why are we Why are we going through this? What
Speaker 1: is actually happening right now? What is being done? What
Speaker 1: just got announced in twenty twenty three, that's going to
Speaker 1: go to effect in twenty twenty, like the none of this,
Speaker 1: you know, makes any sense to me, So I'm just
Speaker 1: not you know, it's such a small percentage of people
Speaker 1: that it's apparently going to impact, but then it's also
Speaker 1: eventually going to end packed some of us. But by
Speaker 1: the time we get to twenty thirty, I'm already dealing
Speaker 1: with rollback. It's called age. Like everybody's going through it.
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods is going through it. Phil Mickelson is fighting
Speaker 1: the fight of being able to actually still say he
Speaker 1: hits bombs. Like the longest hitters aren't winning or dominating,
Speaker 1: They're playing a different brand of golf. There's you know,
Speaker 1: none of this. Is it that one hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: Open that we were there at Saint Andrew's in which
Speaker 1: guys were driving the eighteenth with a threewood in you know,
Speaker 1: burnt out conditions in a summer stretch of time in
Speaker 1: Scotland in which the fairways rolling faster than the greens.
Speaker 1: Was that so optically unsettling to them that they were like,
Speaker 1: that's it, we have to do it. What is going
Speaker 1: on right now?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think the answer and Mike One has
Speaker 4: said this in it's sort of a sensible way, is
Speaker 4: we had to do something. We can't do nothing, because
Speaker 4: if you project seven years from now when guys are
Speaker 4: driving it, three seventy three, eighty three, ninety four hundred,
Speaker 4: whatever the norm was going to become, if it went
Speaker 4: completely unchecked, like they had to draw the proverbial line
Speaker 4: in the sand.
Speaker 2: And maybe this is just the opening salvo.
Speaker 4: If the USGA had come and said we're going to
Speaker 4: roll it back twenty five percent for the pros or
Speaker 4: thirty percent, there would have been mutiny and anarchy. We're
Speaker 4: already sort of seeing that a little bit. But maybe
Speaker 4: they start with this rollback and then they keep dialing
Speaker 4: it back a little bit more so the old courses
Speaker 4: and the marions and those courses can be relevant. Again,
Speaker 4: I don't know that to be true, but I think
Speaker 4: they had to set some kind of precedent that we're
Speaker 4: still the sheriff of this game, that we still.
Speaker 2: Need a little bit of law and order.
Speaker 4: And you know, there's that legal term splitting the baby,
Speaker 4: where you kind of come to a compromise it's not
Speaker 4: really satisfactory to either side.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit like that.
Speaker 4: It wasn't enough of a rollback, but it's something and
Speaker 4: everybody's mad. But at least they've started the governance process,
Speaker 4: so that would be my answer to your question is
Speaker 4: what is happening is they had to start somewhere, and
Speaker 4: this is where they started.
Speaker 2: This may not be the end.
Speaker 5: Now what have you done with Alan Schipnak out there
Speaker 5: on the west coast? When did it get so measured
Speaker 5: and reasonable? This is very weird slash unsettling. But I
Speaker 5: do agree with everything Alan said. I truly despite everything
Speaker 5: I said before, I truly do agree with everything Alan said.
Speaker 5: You do have to have a line on this end,
Speaker 5: and you can't just let it keep escalating. And if
Speaker 5: this is a line of the sand, which I don't
Speaker 5: really believe it will be, it's better than nothing. But
Speaker 5: I think, at the risk of repeating myself, they didn't
Speaker 5: or maybe this is saying a new thing. I don't
Speaker 5: think they really identified the problem and the problem. You know, Matt,
Speaker 5: HiT's the long way, and you do too, Alan, but
Speaker 5: that is.
Speaker 2: Not the problem.
Speaker 5: You're not going to abandon dunes and the part five
Speaker 5: so are obsolutely the problem is super super narrow. It's
Speaker 5: golf on TV at the best courses in the world.
Speaker 5: I don't know the numbers that Nicholas said it, but
Speaker 5: Nicholas said, you know there used to be that someone
Speaker 5: could help me here. Maybe you know, there used to
Speaker 5: be five in your courses that could in the world,
Speaker 5: that could hold major championships. Now there's one hundred, whatever
Speaker 5: the numbers are, but it's something on the order of that,
Speaker 5: and that's not good for golf. You know, these great
Speaker 5: old courses are worth preserving. And if they don't have
Speaker 5: legitimate part fives and you know, two shot part fours,
Speaker 5: then they sort of the game gets it's a lesser
Speaker 5: game actually without the old courses and the marriage being meaningful.
Speaker 4: Well, and this also it speaks to this how this
Speaker 4: process was so messy because you know, Matt, you've you've
Speaker 4: been pretty forceful on social media that this is the
Speaker 4: wrong time for a rollback for the amateur golfer as
Speaker 4: the game is exploding in popularity, as we were bringing
Speaker 4: all kinds of new people to game, and the message
Speaker 4: now is we want to make it harder for you.
Speaker 4: That's a bad message. You know, bifurcation was on the table.
Speaker 4: That would have made sense. You could have you could
Speaker 4: have throttled back the pros as much as you want
Speaker 4: and not messed with the rest of us. But the
Speaker 4: ball manufacturers didn't want that, and they control the players well,
Speaker 4: I mean because they take their cues from the manufacturers
Speaker 4: who pay the bills. So the pros and the manufacturers
Speaker 4: killed by furcation, and so then that sort of backed
Speaker 4: the USGA into a corner, like, if we're gonna do anything,
Speaker 4: it's got to be for everybody now, So it's ironic
Speaker 4: that we could have had a sensible solution that don't
Speaker 4: touch the amateurs, just deal with this very tiny subset
Speaker 4: of golfers who do smash the you know, ungodly distances,
Speaker 4: But the manufacturers and the players killed that the tour players.
Speaker 2: So now.
Speaker 4: Now it's affecting all of us. But the crazy thing
Speaker 4: is the PGA Tour and the pg of America have
Speaker 4: kind of signaled they're not into this, and certainly Live
Speaker 4: Golf is not gonna be into it.
Speaker 2: So we may get into this.
Speaker 4: Bizarro world scenario where the professional circuits opt out of
Speaker 4: this and they choose not to follow this rule, but
Speaker 4: it affects the amates. So all the pros have unchecked distance,
Speaker 4: but the amateurs are getting penalized like that makes my
Speaker 4: brain hurt. There's a long way to get to that moment,
Speaker 4: but it's theoretically possible, and that's insanity.
Speaker 1: Well so so so okay, all of that being said,
Speaker 1: and the USGA trying to ultimately protect let's say, their championships,
Speaker 1: and the RNA trying to protect their Open championship and venues,
Speaker 1: and why don't they Why don't they just simply then
Speaker 1: get into the business of making a tournament ball, much
Speaker 1: like what people wanted Augusta to do several years ago
Speaker 1: at the Masters, to say, create a tournament ball and
Speaker 1: say this is the ball you're gonna have to play
Speaker 1: at my championship or mid championships in the case of
Speaker 1: the RNA and the and the USGA, and say, in
Speaker 1: order to play this championship, you have to play this ball.
Speaker 1: And then they're going they then you take the manufacturer
Speaker 1: is out of the equation. You control your situation as
Speaker 1: it relates to your championships, which is the only place
Speaker 1: that any of this actually matters, and just isolate that
Speaker 1: situation and say and do whatever you want, make the
Speaker 1: rules that you want to have people to adhere to,
Speaker 1: and then let everybody else decide if that's something they
Speaker 1: want to do at their tournament, at their course, in
Speaker 1: their search coumstensus, not unlike, you know, let's go all
Speaker 1: the way down to go Hill Park in the Wishbone
Speaker 1: bral where John Asher says in order to have the
Speaker 1: course record, you have to play Per Simmons, and the
Speaker 1: Wishbone Ball brawl is played with Per Simmons and men
Speaker 1: play against women. And it's all, you know, like, there
Speaker 1: is ways to do this that simply you know, blanket
Speaker 1: statements and doing these this rule rule changes and rollbacks
Speaker 1: to the masses just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what No, seriously, let's get back. Why wouldn't they just
Speaker 1: do that and make ball. They're sitting on it, piles
Speaker 1: of cash. They've used these championships to raise the money
Speaker 1: to you know, they have the money, go make.
Speaker 2: You own ball.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it makes sense except the most important tournaments.
Speaker 4: And now you're if the players, you know, twenty five
Speaker 4: weeks a year, are you using a different ball on
Speaker 4: the tour because they don't want to give up that
Speaker 4: competitive advantage because other guys are using it. Then you
Speaker 4: come to the Masters of the US Open. It's the
Speaker 4: most important championship. You got to learn this new ball
Speaker 4: and then you know, it's it's to be fun.
Speaker 2: It'd be interesting. It'd be a great talking point.
Speaker 1: But baseball, you go to a different field. You got
Speaker 1: to hit it further and right field, then you have
Speaker 1: to go to left field. You've got you know that's true.
Speaker 4: I mean in tennis, you know, tennis is messed with
Speaker 4: the ball different on different surfaces and different things like
Speaker 4: it wouldn't be unprecedented, they would just be. It would
Speaker 4: be a big deal. It would be a sea change.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would love this. It's a big deal.
Speaker 1: This is a big deal. We are talking about people
Speaker 1: who pay to play. You're making rules because of what
Speaker 1: you see based on people who get paid to play
Speaker 1: that impact the people who pay to play. That's a
Speaker 1: bad decision. This is your client, tele this is your customer.
Speaker 1: This These are the people thirty years ago that you
Speaker 1: would have given anything to have them show up and
Speaker 1: pay to play this game. And they're here now and
Speaker 1: we're saying and we're going to shut the door on
Speaker 1: their face and say, uh sorry, I know the game
Speaker 1: is hard. It's really hard. That's why the game is
Speaker 1: so hard that things like top golf and Part three
Speaker 1: courses and short courses, and that that's the actual trend
Speaker 1: that's happening right now. Sustainability issues, well, guess what the
Speaker 1: game is already shrinking, grasses are improving, pottable water is
Speaker 1: going away and more. The trend is to reclaim water
Speaker 1: to water these golf courses. So throw the sustainability stuff
Speaker 1: out and it's going to correct itself by water prices
Speaker 1: and everything that else is involved. This is not the
Speaker 1: solution to anything related to sustainability. This is not the
Speaker 1: solution to grow the game. And all the marketing efforts
Speaker 1: that you've put forward governing bodies to try to get
Speaker 1: us there, all of that is now a massive contradiction
Speaker 1: and a big, unnecessary pr nightmare that we're all going
Speaker 1: to have to endure for the next tk coming years.
Speaker 1: And it's unnecessary and it's driving me crazy because you
Speaker 1: know why, and I think we can all agree we
Speaker 1: love this game.
Speaker 2: Why do we love.
Speaker 1: This game because of the places it takes us, the
Speaker 1: people we meet, the relationships we forge, the experiences we have,
Speaker 1: the opportunities we have to have that camaraderie community and
Speaker 1: show up and also share it with the people who
Speaker 1: matter most family, friends, our children, their children. So the
Speaker 1: reason why I want to grow the game, and why
Speaker 1: I was so supportive of the Grow the Game efforts
Speaker 1: and why everyone got behind that movement is that very reason,
Speaker 1: because we want people to have the experiences that we've
Speaker 1: all been blessed to have relating to golf. If you
Speaker 1: suck the game of golf out of my life and
Speaker 1: all the relationships I've had because of golf, I'd have
Speaker 1: almost nothing. That's why I care about it. That's why
Speaker 1: I post, and that's why I want it to continue
Speaker 1: to grow, because golf creates good people, and good people
Speaker 1: is exactly what we need right now in this world.
Speaker 1: And if the person that's showing up and playing music
Speaker 1: too loud or is not conforming to the general etiquette
Speaker 1: of what the game is, guess what. We stop them
Speaker 1: and go.
Speaker 2: By the way.
Speaker 1: Carts can't drive over the green. Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: this is goad Hill Park. This John Ashworth created this community.
Speaker 1: Please don't just run over arbitrarily. The signs that are
Speaker 1: saying parts this way. You coach them up. That's part
Speaker 1: of the process that community kicks in and we right
Speaker 1: the ship and we correct the wrongs and we make
Speaker 1: better people because of it. Why is first t exists?
Speaker 1: Why does uthon course happen because you want kids in
Speaker 1: the game so that they can become better people.
Speaker 2: What are we doing?
Speaker 1: Matt?
Speaker 2: I wish you had some passion on this.
Speaker 1: So this is madness. The governing bodies literally loaded a
Speaker 1: gun and just shot themselves in their own feet.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, let me play Devil's advocate here. I mean,
Speaker 4: for the beginning golfer. I agree that optically it's not
Speaker 4: a great message. But for people who just learn to
Speaker 4: play the game, who don't swing the club that hard
Speaker 4: or well, they probably won't even notice the difference when
Speaker 4: the ball goes back. Well that's the question. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's why bifurcation would have made sense. I think you know, Michael,
Speaker 4: your point was it? And I like the top flight
Speaker 4: versus provy one. Maybe some of us would know the difference,
Speaker 4: But if we're talking about the beginners, they certain they
Speaker 4: certainly wouldn't. They're just trying to find the club phase.
Speaker 4: I mean, Michael, in your mind, what what is the
Speaker 4: way forward? Like, where does the game go from this moment?
Speaker 5: Well, the greatness about the about the four majors when
Speaker 5: people actually do watch golf and like say Hartford and
Speaker 5: waste Man, well, Wasteman, it's not for an example, but
Speaker 5: you know, the ordinary pH to event or the ordinary
Speaker 5: live event is that those events invited massive, massive audiences.
Speaker 5: And this this dovetails with with with with medicine. And
Speaker 5: if we when we watch ordinary golf, it's driver eight
Speaker 5: iron or driver sandwich into so many part forwards and
Speaker 5: we can't relate because we're not doing that. But if
Speaker 5: those four, let's call it, even five times a year,
Speaker 5: if the players got on board with it, if you
Speaker 5: did have a special ball for those events, it would
Speaker 5: make golf even more inviting because we the public and
Speaker 5: especially beginners people near to the game, would relate even
Speaker 5: more to what they're doing on TV because it would
Speaker 5: at least start to approach what we're doing, which isn't
Speaker 5: happening now. Now the game is so bifurcated already, but
Speaker 5: they're not willing to admit it. You know. Rory McRoy
Speaker 5: said that the other day, he said, you think the
Speaker 5: clubs that I played and you play are the same.
Speaker 5: Of course not. They're so finally tuned to their exact needs.
Speaker 5: We go to Dick's Sporting Goods about whatever the guy
Speaker 5: gives us, or if the person gives us. So I
Speaker 5: think there is really I think that governing bodies didn't
Speaker 5: really really identify the problem. The problem is not running
Speaker 5: out of land at ninety nine percent of the thick
Speaker 5: golf courses. It's this tiny sliver of courses where they
Speaker 5: are running out of land. They can't make the course
Speaker 5: long enough, and we can't really relate to what they're doing.
Speaker 5: And to your point Alan about, you know, would it
Speaker 5: really would it be fair to make a guy to play,
Speaker 5: you know, one ball twenty five weeks a year. To
Speaker 5: Bad's point about, you know, you got a short porch,
Speaker 5: you know, Fenway and a different one at Yankee Stadium
Speaker 5: and Rety and all the rest. Adjust, just adjust. It
Speaker 5: would be another part of the challenge. So I think
Speaker 5: it would. I think it would have been really neat.
Speaker 5: You know, of course we're not old enough to remember it,
Speaker 5: but the diming rule was once to think, can you
Speaker 5: imagine at one point, you know, people are like, can
Speaker 5: you believe they're going to give it to the steming rule?
Speaker 5: Now that this next generation hasn't even heard of it,
Speaker 5: And why would they so like if you did something
Speaker 5: quote radical, like actually give the athlete a ball to
Speaker 5: use in these four or five different tournaments, it would
Speaker 5: seem crazy and outrageous for a while, and then it
Speaker 5: just wouldn't. It would just be normal. And of course,
Speaker 5: of course in every other sport pretty much except for bowling,
Speaker 5: that's what happens the governing body because every putting on
Speaker 5: the event gives you a ball and go play. And
Speaker 5: even to the last thing. I know, the manufacturers would
Speaker 5: go crazy about this, but you could even have of
Speaker 5: course it would be expensive and blah blah blah, but
Speaker 5: you could have the different manufacturers make the tournament ball
Speaker 5: that would be used in these four or five different tournaments. Okay, great,
Speaker 5: they can still get their name out there.
Speaker 1: The thing, the other thing that drives me crazy just
Speaker 1: to say, is like, why why just the ball, Like
Speaker 1: you know, let's roll back mowing, let's row back mowers,
Speaker 1: and let's go to longer length fairways, let's grow out rough.
Speaker 1: I mean, the pros don't like to play with long rough,
Speaker 1: so guess what, there's no more long rough anyway. They
Speaker 1: don't play in long rough. They don't. They don't really
Speaker 1: like it. You know the pros are going to always
Speaker 1: just do this is this is a such a small
Speaker 1: set and an entertainment factor factory, and they're getting paid
Speaker 1: to put on a show and what we think the
Speaker 1: show should be or could be or supposed to be,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if they don't if they don't go
Speaker 1: along with it. It's like you still need to get
Speaker 1: buy in from them. And if you get buy in
Speaker 1: from them, then it doesn't matter from us. And once
Speaker 1: they passed on it, then why are Why is the
Speaker 1: solution then to to to go and pick on everybody,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody at school, Like it just makes no
Speaker 1: sense to me.
Speaker 4: They did address the fairway height in the in the
Speaker 4: in the report on the distance, and they said it
Speaker 4: was pretty negligible in two to four yards maybe longer.
Speaker 1: Fairweaight cards For what they're saying, right, it is like
Speaker 1: you know almost a third of what they're actually proposing.
Speaker 1: So if you take fairway length, if you limit the
Speaker 1: loft in the club head and say okay, you can
Speaker 1: only use thirteen degrees and higher, you can't go down
Speaker 1: to an eight degree loft, if you can only have
Speaker 1: a certain length of shaft, if you can only have
Speaker 1: a certain clubhead size. You know, why, why does it
Speaker 1: have anything really to do? You know, like why do
Speaker 1: you just single out the ball and just say.
Speaker 2: That's the issue. You know, hard and faster.
Speaker 1: We're seeing the ball roll thirty to seventy yards after
Speaker 1: it lands on these fairways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think on some level.
Speaker 4: The ball is an easy scale go if you wanted
Speaker 4: to get into the systemic issues and you could go
Speaker 4: down a rabbit hole, you know, you could regulate t
Speaker 4: height you get to.
Speaker 1: We are in that hole. This is where we are.
Speaker 1: This is where we've we've we we are not going
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole. We have been shoved into.
Speaker 2: The rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, unnecessarily. And that's also part of my frustration.
Speaker 1: You know, the professional game, as you guys both know,
Speaker 1: is an absolute shit show, dumpster fire, uh, inside out,
Speaker 1: upside down and backwards. It's it's just like to the
Speaker 1: point where people are tuning out and moving on at
Speaker 1: a big at a big rate, and now the governing
Speaker 1: bodies of the so called quote masses are going to
Speaker 1: throw this grenade into that room.
Speaker 2: Well, it does.
Speaker 4: It does get interesting because golf but louder does not
Speaker 4: really dovetail with shorter driving distances. So what Live is
Speaker 4: going to do and what the PGA Tour is going
Speaker 4: to do, and they don't have to be in lockstep
Speaker 4: assuming this framework agreement blows up, even if it's consummated,
Speaker 4: like they're not bound by there's no nitty gritty in
Speaker 4: that that they're gonna have to follow the same competition rules.
Speaker 4: So then you can you know what one tour does
Speaker 4: versus the other. To your point, Matt, it gets messy.
Speaker 2: I think Michael.
Speaker 4: Mentioned this earlier. I mean professional golf on TV has
Speaker 4: never been more boring, and some of that is just
Speaker 4: the style of play when they do go to I
Speaker 4: think it's like that old Donald Ross course outside Detroit.
Speaker 4: I mean, the guys are in wedge into every single hole.
Speaker 4: Is just so boring because you give a pro a
Speaker 4: wedge either going to hit a great shot or a
Speaker 4: good shot. There's no danger. You know, either they're going
Speaker 4: to be thirty feet, they're going to be five feet.
Speaker 4: But the range of outcomes is so small. That's why
Speaker 4: I like bifurcation. I like the more severe rollback where
Speaker 4: the game becomes more interesting to Watts.
Speaker 1: In the first four by f Kid, I was for
Speaker 1: just for the record, I'm for by furcation. Do whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, like do whatever you want to do the
Speaker 1: pros and and get them on board.
Speaker 4: And that's said that to me is such a miss.
Speaker 4: Here is you know, the the PGA tour helped kill it.
Speaker 4: I mean they're still writing letters to the USG They're
Speaker 4: still pushing back, and it's their product that's suffering. I mean,
Speaker 4: their product has never been more anadyne and more just
Speaker 4: it's just predictable. And it's their product, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, Like look at the NFL. What a mess
Speaker 4: the NFL is, But it's their product. Like they're gonna
Speaker 4: have to address the tush push like that's you know,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't Calvin Johnson came along. He was
Speaker 4: really tall and he's unguardable. Randy Moss was an elite
Speaker 4: athlete who was basically unstoppable for a chunk of time.
Speaker 4: I mean Tom Brady won seven supers, you know, was
Speaker 4: it played in seven Super Bowls?
Speaker 2: Like what what?
Speaker 1: Like does that mean? We just have like what do
Speaker 1: we what are we doing? We just sort of react
Speaker 1: based on everything that continues to happen at the elite level.
Speaker 1: And the difference here being is that you're making decisions
Speaker 1: that affect the people who pay to play. What if
Speaker 1: you put polls in front of everybody's seats in the
Speaker 1: grandstands of people who are watching football and say we're
Speaker 1: gonna make it harder for you to watch the game
Speaker 1: that you're paying to play.
Speaker 5: Matt, what would you answer to this question if let's
Speaker 5: say Mike Wan and Slumbers and Fred Ridley called you
Speaker 5: zoom called just like this one. They said, Mat, You've
Speaker 5: been around the game all your life. What do you
Speaker 5: see as the issue with the game right now as
Speaker 5: it relates to this one narrow thing? How far the
Speaker 5: golf ball goes?
Speaker 1: I don't see it. I do not do well. I
Speaker 1: just don't see it. Buddies trip we have on our
Speaker 1: annual Buddies trip, we have a range of plus handicaps
Speaker 1: to twenty four handicaps. If anything, distance is an issue
Speaker 1: for the greater majority of the people on the trip
Speaker 1: in terms of the ball doesn't go far enough golf.
Speaker 2: Go go play lido.
Speaker 1: Right now from the forward t's and if you shoot
Speaker 1: your handicap, I'll send you a hat. Right now, Go
Speaker 1: play the lido at Sand Valley. And you think you're
Speaker 1: going to go out there and overpower that golf course.
Speaker 1: This is one of the old classics that was built
Speaker 1: to be a tough golf course. Like, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't see it. I don't see it anywhere. I don't
Speaker 1: see it at Tory Pines. I don't see it at
Speaker 1: Beth Page. I don't see the distance is not an
Speaker 1: issue unless we turn on the TV and we think
Speaker 1: we're going to ask ourselves. And if you're at a
Speaker 1: private club and distance is an issue, maybe you have
Speaker 1: an issue with an architecture of that golf course or
Speaker 1: where that bunker was originally. Like, really, there's enough people
Speaker 1: in your membership at your private club that you all
Speaker 1: pay to play that this is a problem that should
Speaker 1: in somehow impact the masses. Do whatever you want at
Speaker 1: your club, do whatever you want at the pur But
Speaker 1: for the people who rock up at goad Hill Park
Speaker 1: forty five yards par sixty five, eight par threes, you
Speaker 1: know what the issue is. It's golf is too hard.
Speaker 1: That's the issue. So anything we're doing to make it
Speaker 1: harder makes no sense, and it's going to affect the
Speaker 1: bottom line at that little mini municipal who's fighting for
Speaker 1: its life to try to get more people to rock
Speaker 1: up and pay to play.
Speaker 5: Alan, what do you what do you think? Alan? What
Speaker 5: do you think? Like? My contention is they haven't really
Speaker 5: been forth right about what they think the problem is.
Speaker 5: But what is what's your take on.
Speaker 4: When you say they are you are you talking about
Speaker 4: the ruling bodies as the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they think the.
Speaker 5: Problem is really really whether they're saying it publicly or not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean Matt touched on the problem is that
Speaker 4: the two tournaments are being most affected by the distance
Speaker 4: explosion is the US Open and the British Open, because
Speaker 4: they're locked into these old traditional venues that have gotten
Speaker 4: so short. And it's we have a measuring stick and
Speaker 4: you go back to the old course every five years
Speaker 4: you can see, you know, no one's hitting drive off eighteenymore.
Speaker 4: It is too short at the old course. I mean
Speaker 4: it's a three wooded computer. In five years are going
Speaker 4: to be you know, uh Lude, big a bear and
Speaker 4: and Gordon Sargent. I'm gonna be hitting three irons and
Speaker 4: driving the green quickly quickly.
Speaker 5: I would definitely add as Nation to that list. I
Speaker 5: guess too, so that everybody and their mother reaches eight
Speaker 5: now No, so that, so that that is the issue
Speaker 5: for the governing vice.
Speaker 2: They've been asleep at the wheel for decades.
Speaker 4: Distances have gone unchecked, and where it's most obvious is
Speaker 4: at their most important championships. And so I think they're embarrassed,
Speaker 4: Like you know, they play the old course they have
Speaker 4: they put tea's on the eden and the new course
Speaker 4: and in ob areas and all this ridiculousness just to
Speaker 4: try and make it something like the shot values that
Speaker 4: have always been there.
Speaker 2: So that's what I think.
Speaker 4: That's why I think is driving this is they have
Speaker 4: egg on their face every year when it's clear that
Speaker 4: their their malfeasance and their ineptitude has allowed the professional
Speaker 4: game to become to run amok, and so they they
Speaker 4: have to do something because of their own championships.
Speaker 2: It's only two.
Speaker 5: Weeks a year, just for four or five weeks a year. Yeah, Like, no,
Speaker 5: no LPG event feels that way that I could imagine,
Speaker 5: no way. Now players felt the player the TPC sawgrass course,
Speaker 5: they would probably identify with all of that. Got me,
Speaker 5: eighteen Can you match your guys playing eighteen at the
Speaker 5: three arn and a six arm? Which they do? You
Speaker 5: know you hit a three arm and you hit it
Speaker 5: right down the right side the Boks and then you'll
Speaker 5: hit a cut six iron in there. I mean, that's
Speaker 5: not what Pete I wanted. So so okay, I think
Speaker 5: that I'm based on what you just said, we're totally
Speaker 5: on the same page. So on that basis, I'm with
Speaker 5: you with the line in the sand. But why not,
Speaker 5: as Matt and I have both been saying, why not
Speaker 5: just have a golf ball for these four or five
Speaker 5: weeks a year.
Speaker 4: It's certainly feasible, And now that's going to be the
Speaker 4: only solution since since they've officially punted on bifurcation as
Speaker 4: a governing principle, then the tournament ball becomes the last hope.
Speaker 4: But to me, I mean, I like you said, I
Speaker 4: think you said it. Well, Michael, it seems crazy, but
Speaker 4: then after a couple of years, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 4: And you know, when I coached high school basketball, we
Speaker 4: use a certain kind of basketball all year long. We
Speaker 4: get to the CCS playoffs, they have a deal a
Speaker 4: different manufacturer. They handle this ball pre game. It feels weird,
Speaker 4: it doesn't dribble the same. The girls don't like it. Well,
Speaker 4: too bad. This is the ball we're using. You got
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes of warmups to get used to it, and
Speaker 4: you go play. It's still a round ball that bounces,
Speaker 4: so I mean it exists in sports like but.
Speaker 5: That is sport right there. It's like when when Phil
Speaker 5: complained about the two hundred and seventy yard par three
Speaker 5: may who cares? Is two seventy for everybody? Done? Right there.
Speaker 1: College baseball players play their whole lives with middle bats,
Speaker 1: and in order to make the pros, they have to
Speaker 1: adjust to a wooden bat. The you know, the the goat.
Speaker 1: Let's let's pull the caddies. Okay, let's go to Saint
Speaker 1: Andrews and the Old Course and ask the caddies if
Speaker 1: we think we need to roll the ball back to
Speaker 1: make the Old Course more relevant. Let's go to Pebble
Speaker 1: Beach and ask the caddies if we think this is
Speaker 1: a good idea to roll the ball back for the
Speaker 1: people who are rocking up and playing Pebble Beach. I
Speaker 1: know for a fact that the caddies at Sand Valley
Speaker 1: dread the idea that they're going to have to caddy
Speaker 1: for these amateurs at the Lido on a daily basis
Speaker 1: and have to witness the carnage that's going to be
Speaker 1: displayed out there for all these people who love the
Speaker 1: architecture and playing one of these classical golf courses and
Speaker 1: they're making putting out for sixes, sevens, eights. Please pick
Speaker 1: it up, you're making a nine. Please, it's over. Let's
Speaker 1: go and talk to the caddies about which course they
Speaker 1: like to caddy at Bandon Dunes more is it Pacific
Speaker 1: Dunes or is it is it Sheep Ranch? Like this
Speaker 1: is like this.
Speaker 2: This is this right?
Speaker 4: So okay, this is where we've come to in this podcast.
Speaker 4: We all three of us agree they should have bifurcated.
Speaker 2: They didn't.
Speaker 4: So now an interesting question becomes what happens in seven years,
Speaker 4: Like will will the golfers rebel? Will they just will
Speaker 4: they just opt out? You know, none of us are
Speaker 4: playing in big time amateur events. We're just playing with
Speaker 4: our friends. So when you get to the first t
Speaker 4: in two thousand and January first, two thousand and thirty,
Speaker 4: do you say, boys, you know, I've got some pro
Speaker 4: v ones that are year and a half old.
Speaker 2: I'm going to use them. I don't know what you got,
Speaker 2: you know, like.
Speaker 4: It's it's just like when we play, we grant each
Speaker 4: other mulligans. Occasionally there's certainly gimme's, Like all of us
Speaker 4: have our own low key interpretation of the rules as
Speaker 4: it is now. So what do you think will the
Speaker 4: average golfer embrace the new dead ball? Or in mass
Speaker 4: are we just going to vote with our pocketbooks and
Speaker 4: ignore the rule?
Speaker 2: Like, what's going to happen?
Speaker 5: People are going to be I don't care. People are
Speaker 5: going to be I don't care. You know, I've been
Speaker 5: playing these iwos. I don't know if they're legal or not.
Speaker 5: I think they are. I think their grandfather did. I
Speaker 5: don't care. Now if it was actually playing in something
Speaker 5: where someone cared and said, okay, well if you care them,
Speaker 5: I care. But otherwise I don't care.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, so, Matt, Matt, you you organize an
Speaker 4: annual Buddies trip. People know about the Uncle Tony motasal Michael,
Speaker 4: you have an annual gathering called the Shiviz where you
Speaker 4: bring together, you know, a couple dozen guys to play.
Speaker 4: So what is going to happen in twenty thirty? Are
Speaker 4: you going to have to specify to this motley crew
Speaker 4: of friends who come from all over the country have
Speaker 4: different backgrounds in golf, different handicaps, different world views. Are
Speaker 4: you going to say what ball they have to do?
Speaker 5: Is? Mean course, the answers is known. And to your
Speaker 5: point out you know this word bifurkate, it seems to
Speaker 5: be like the one dressed up. You know, tiger love
Speaker 5: is the word. It's been using it for years, like
Speaker 5: people seem to know what the word is, but the
Speaker 5: word is so abused. The game is not bifurkate. We
Speaker 5: just play a totally different game. My little thing, you know, uh,
Speaker 5: that has all sort of its own quirks as well.
Speaker 5: And my thing, you can't make worse than triple. There's
Speaker 5: nothing in the rule but says you can't make worse
Speaker 5: than triple. But in my thing, you can't make worse
Speaker 5: and triple. And the whole handicap system is the whole
Speaker 5: entire handicap system is quote bifurcated. Because you're supposed to
Speaker 5: turn in a stroke play score where putts are routinely given.
Speaker 5: Those two things don't go in the hand in hand, right.
Speaker 5: The gimme is a real thing in match play, and
Speaker 5: it's totally an anomaly or not anomaly. It's it's anathema
Speaker 5: to shop play competition, yet you combine the two so
Speaker 5: that the PG excuse me, the governing has done a
Speaker 5: very poor job of explaining that there really are two
Speaker 5: different games. And and I think that's I think that's
Speaker 5: a starting point recording seven years fround. I don't think
Speaker 5: allan anyone's going to I don't think anyone's going to
Speaker 5: care if.
Speaker 4: We I don't know, Well, this is a thought exercise.
Speaker 4: Matt twenty thirty. Uncle Tony Invitational. Hopefully I'm there. Let's
Speaker 4: say you hopefully I'm there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I.
Speaker 2: Won't maybe names like Kevin Price.
Speaker 4: But we have some hardos who like really follow the
Speaker 4: rules of golf and are really into that. So some
Speaker 4: of the guys come up to the Uncle Tony they
Speaker 4: have the dead balls. I say, you know what, I'm
Speaker 4: not down with the USGA. I'm I'm using my old ball.
Speaker 2: Gives me an advantage.
Speaker 4: I win the Uncle Tony Invitational. Some guys are pissed
Speaker 4: off because I use an old ball and I had
Speaker 4: an advantage, Like you, as the commissioner, how are you
Speaker 4: going to deal with that?
Speaker 1: I did you know I kicked people out for not
Speaker 1: wanting music. You know, I kick people out for you know,
Speaker 1: bringing sh campaign instead of whine or tequila like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I kick people out for complaining about who
Speaker 1: they're paired with. Like I'm not kicking people out for
Speaker 1: you know. We we go to Bandon Dune's and we
Speaker 1: play the sixty two hundred yard tees and we let
Speaker 1: the uncles you know, go all the way up where
Speaker 1: you know, play from wherever you want to essentially play from.
Speaker 1: I'm doing everything I can to try to make this
Speaker 1: more fun. I always say my first advice to any
Speaker 1: alpha planner of a Buddy's trip is play down to
Speaker 1: your lowest common denominator. Essentially, in terms of budget, you've
Speaker 1: got to make sure you don't price people out of
Speaker 1: the destination. You want to make sure everybody comes along.
Speaker 1: You want to have the highest handicappers be able to
Speaker 1: have a chance to have fun and win. I don't
Speaker 1: cater to like the two or three plus handicaps on
Speaker 1: the trip and let the rest of the people suffer
Speaker 1: the consequences. In fact, I let the lowest handicappers play
Speaker 1: from where the forward tease so that we don't buy
Speaker 1: for Kate the camaraderie of the event by having those
Speaker 1: guys go all the way to the back teas and
Speaker 1: us having to wait for them to hit, and then
Speaker 1: we all wait and then we then hit. Oh I forgot, Sorry,
Speaker 1: we have one more. I didn't know. You have to
Speaker 1: hit like I'm trying to accommodate the group, the masses,
Speaker 1: because everybody is paying to be there. And if the
Speaker 1: good players end up shooting sixty five instead of shit
Speaker 1: sixty nine, I don't really give a shit. I say,
Speaker 1: that's really well played. All he done is pro is
Speaker 1: an exceptional player. He has struggled the last few years.
Speaker 1: He got his game in gear. He had four rounds
Speaker 1: in the sixties, including on the Leado, which is great golf,
Speaker 1: and he won the tournament. As you know, he and
Speaker 1: his partner Andrew Fleming had a five or six handicap,
Speaker 1: won the tournament. They beat all the net players because
Speaker 1: they played the best golf. I don't really give it.
Speaker 1: I don't really give a shit. And going back to
Speaker 1: the tournament ball and the US in the RNA taking
Speaker 1: the pile of cash that they're all sitting on that
Speaker 1: they've been taking for all the entrants and all the
Speaker 1: people who paid to be a part of these tournaments
Speaker 1: and all the merchandise it's been sold. Making a tournament
Speaker 1: ball and throwing up a purse of twenty million or
Speaker 1: how are amid millions of dollars they put in terms
Speaker 1: of a purse for the United States Open and hoist
Speaker 1: that big trophy and have one of the majors. They
Speaker 1: are sitting with the leverage in the power because they've
Speaker 1: got the money for those events. If they set a
Speaker 1: price of what you're playing for and this is the
Speaker 1: US Open and it's a major championship, but you have
Speaker 1: to play this tournament ball that we've created, people would
Speaker 1: play it. And if the players don't want to play it,
Speaker 1: they don't play it. Make it about that small slice
Speaker 1: and ignore the rest of us and leave us alone.
Speaker 4: So we have an emerging consensus on this podcast. They
Speaker 4: should have bifurcated. They didn't. Now they should go to
Speaker 4: a tournament ball. And the thing that's interesting is if
Speaker 4: they were to do that, that would be great for
Speaker 4: Goat Hill because and shorter courses because not everybody wants
Speaker 4: to buy percimmons or as access to Percimmons. But you
Speaker 4: could go to Goat and you play the tournament ball,
Speaker 4: and now instead of forty five hundred yards, it plays
Speaker 4: more like fifty five hundred and essentially, you know, you
Speaker 4: could take these these deador balls to par three courses
Speaker 4: like Golden Gate Park, hit More Club if you want to.
Speaker 4: Like I was actually on Grand Cayman, like I think
Speaker 4: I was in high school and I played the Cayman
Speaker 4: ball on that little course and it was like it
Speaker 4: was fun. You know, you're playing a eighty yard hole
Speaker 4: and you're hitting a three wood or whatever. And I
Speaker 4: mean as as we as we we've been celebrating all
Speaker 4: these part three courses, Like I think if you have
Speaker 4: this this tournament ball, that you could be mass marketed
Speaker 4: for shorter courses.
Speaker 2: That could be fun. It just that's all the real.
Speaker 1: I mean, people I walk up to go with Friday Skins.
Speaker 1: Guys put in twenty bucks, some guys play Percimmons, some
Speaker 1: guys out Todd Dempsey. Right now, as we're talking in
Speaker 1: this conversation, through one round of the PGA Tour champions
Speaker 1: Q School is four under par. He's playing the Q
Speaker 1: School with Per Simmons that he made that he made
Speaker 1: hand crafted. Todd Dempsey legend, Arizona State. Like this guy
Speaker 1: is like a bona fide badass. He rolled it back himself,
Speaker 1: and he's competing with the rest. He should roll back
Speaker 1: is there. If you want it, you want it, go
Speaker 1: take it, have at it, roll it back, do whatever
Speaker 1: you want until you're blue in the face. I could
Speaker 1: care less leave us alone.
Speaker 5: Tapping on what ball he's using.
Speaker 2: No, if he's using a gut of perza, I'll be
Speaker 2: really impressed.
Speaker 1: Not Yeah, it's not all right.
Speaker 4: Well it's it's an interesting topic and it gets people
Speaker 4: fired up, as listeners have heard on this podcast, especially.
Speaker 5: Where are you going in Australia?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we should we should mention that it's it's Wednesday,
Speaker 4: late morning here in California. I'm going to be driving
Speaker 4: to SFO here in a little bit and I'm going
Speaker 4: to be flying to Melbourne, Australia for Jeff Ogilvie and
Speaker 4: Michael Clayton's sand Belt Invitational, one of the coolest little
Speaker 4: tournaments in golf. We've been covering it the last couple
Speaker 4: of years on Firepit Collective dot com.
Speaker 2: I was just doing it from Afar.
Speaker 4: We had some video guys who are on site, but
Speaker 4: I'm making the trip this year. I will be doing
Speaker 4: daily dispatches, fun stuff on social try and wrangle a
Speaker 4: few homies for a podcast perhaps and you know I've
Speaker 4: I'll tweet it out. I Matt and I and a
Speaker 4: couple other our friends did this the ultimate golf trip
Speaker 4: probably in the history of golf trips, right for COVID
Speaker 4: hit and we did Melbourne and Tasmania and king Island
Speaker 4: that's in between, and it was it was epic. Also
Speaker 4: New Zealand. I can't believe we did that in eight days.
Speaker 4: And yeah, Melbourne is one of the all time great destinations.
Speaker 2: So I'm excited. I'll bring my golf clubs.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be a little busy, but hopefully I can
Speaker 4: sneak in some golf and it's it's just gonna be
Speaker 4: It's gonna be a fun time. And I hope people
Speaker 4: follow along because if you if you haven't paid attention
Speaker 4: to the stamp but invitational, it brings together the pros and amateurs,
Speaker 4: men and women, some some old AUSSI legends. You know,
Speaker 4: we're seniors now playing it. So it's multi generation. It's
Speaker 4: just they play a different course every day. Royal Melbourne,
Speaker 4: Kingston Heath Peninsula, Kingwood, which is a neo Classic and
Speaker 4: the fourth.
Speaker 2: The fourth venue rotates this year.
Speaker 4: It's Victoria, where there's a statue of Peter Thompson by
Speaker 4: the first tea waiting to pass judgment on your t
Speaker 4: shot and great golf course. Super fun place. We last
Speaker 4: night of our trip, we stayed in the clubhouse there
Speaker 4: and they have some rooms and.
Speaker 2: We were the people.
Speaker 4: The members kind of knew We've been on social media
Speaker 4: for weeks playing all these golf courses and so they
Speaker 4: were happy are there and one of the most fun
Speaker 4: nights ever had in golf travel because they were so
Speaker 4: welcoming and.
Speaker 2: Want to hear all our tall tales.
Speaker 4: So I'm looking forward to getting back to Victoria and yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's gonna be good fun.
Speaker 2: Thanks for mentioning that, Michael.
Speaker 5: I appreciate that. That shows you how much sway Clayton and
Speaker 5: Ogle we have in the game when you when you
Speaker 5: cite those courses, I mean, for people know Dolphin Australia,
Speaker 5: that's uh, Marion and Seminole and Augusta National and psych Melbourne.
Speaker 1: Melbourne is like taking the best of Philadelphia, the best
Speaker 1: of Chicago, the best of San Francisco, and the best
Speaker 1: of New York and putting them all in like you know,
Speaker 1: within driving distance, like within a very short amount. It's
Speaker 1: an embarrassment of ridge. They have so many they can
Speaker 1: rotate for the next few years and you'd never have
Speaker 1: to play the same one over and over again. Victoria.
Speaker 1: I got the chance to stay at Victoria Golf. We
Speaker 1: we stayed in those little those rooms above the club out.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such an incredible golf course. And the
Speaker 1: way that those fairways cut into those greens and there's
Speaker 1: you know, and then on into those bunkers.
Speaker 2: It's like it's it's so pure.
Speaker 1: It is so pure well and.
Speaker 5: Just as quick quick as I hear. But it relates
Speaker 5: to our theme when when Tiger played as the playing
Speaker 5: captain in that i think twenty nineteen President's Cup, the
Speaker 5: shots that he played there were so inventive and so
Speaker 5: much more interesting than you know, the smash mouth golf
Speaker 5: that we're customers saying. You know, i'd say at Hartford,
Speaker 5: I'm not picking a Hartford, but that's what they do there.
Speaker 5: It's a long, you know, it's a short, soft course,
Speaker 5: but it was just interesting, and you know, maybe it's
Speaker 5: a function of my age and the kind of golf
Speaker 5: I grew up watching that. You know, I'm so drawn
Speaker 5: to that kind of golf. But I don't know anybody
Speaker 5: couldn't say that that was that's not better golf, and
Speaker 5: that's that's the joy of the old course. It really
Speaker 5: should be the joy of Augusta National only, especially when
Speaker 5: it's dry at all, is to see guys pay fiddly
Speaker 5: finesse difficult shots out of difficult lies in the ball move.
Speaker 5: So anyway, I don't have a great grade trip, but
Speaker 5: I think on the point that golf gets more interesting
Speaker 5: when the ball is not so hot. And you know,
Speaker 5: I just want to wrap up one quick thought here
Speaker 5: because I feel like maybe i've been too harsh harsh
Speaker 5: on the governing bodies, and I really do agree with
Speaker 5: that first thing you said, you did have to do something,
Speaker 5: and this is doing something, and I do think it's
Speaker 5: a good thing that they're doing it, and they are
Speaker 5: giving a lot a lot of the time, but it's
Speaker 5: a major but it's not going to do anything for
Speaker 5: the real issue that I think facing golf, which is
Speaker 5: are these great courses from yesteryear are going to become relics?
Speaker 5: That's really the honest to god issue, And I think
Speaker 5: they have not really been willing to say that out loud.
Speaker 1: And I just want I want to clear up one
Speaker 1: little factoid. Tom Brady played in ten Super Bowls, one
Speaker 1: seven of them. We celebrate his greatness. Steph Curry is,
Speaker 1: you know, revolutionizing the game of basketball, and we celebrate
Speaker 1: Steph Curry's greatness. Lebron James, Wilt Chamberlain, you know, scored
Speaker 1: one hundred points and they didn't raise the rim like
Speaker 1: I Just what sort of always kind of half bugs
Speaker 1: me about the game of golf is we can never
Speaker 1: be satisfied and just simply celebrate greatness without overreacting and
Speaker 1: tigerproofing or you know, rolling back the ball like it
Speaker 1: just for whatever reason, we can't just simply say that's amazing, congratulations.
Speaker 5: And just a quickholo of that. Matt just proves how genius,
Speaker 5: not really the golf governing guys can be. Is they
Speaker 5: got they got tigetproofing totally wrong. Exactly you got it right,
Speaker 5: was Nick Price. So you want to tigerproof, go to
Speaker 5: sixty six hundred.
Speaker 1: Yards less is more. It's the answer to this has
Speaker 1: always been shorter is the answer, not necessarily for the
Speaker 1: ball but for the courses and the architecture and the
Speaker 1: turnpoints and make it, make them be more accurate. And
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm bummed. But I love golf. I know
Speaker 1: we all love golf. Anybody who's listening right now still
Speaker 1: loves golf. And this, to me is a bruise on
Speaker 1: the game.
Speaker 5: I don't agree that. I don't think this is any
Speaker 5: certa crisis. I think it's more like nothing.
Speaker 1: It's unnecessary, it's unnecessary.
Speaker 2: It's kind of an own goal.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm just gonna wrap up by saying that I
Speaker 4: hope I'm still still Michael Clayton.
Speaker 2: By the way, No, don't let him in, leave him
Speaker 2: in the waiting room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why don't we, Alan, Why don't we let Michael go?
Speaker 2: And let's say a load to Michael.
Speaker 1: For another, doctor Bamberger, thank you? Yes, oh my god.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna patch Michael Clayton in. He's coming on.
Speaker 1: As Bamberger is saying goodbye, We're trading one Michael for another.
Speaker 1: We're going from Philly to Melbourne. Quite an exciting thing.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna actually stop this podcast down. If you
Speaker 1: care to listen to conversations with Michael Clayton that'll be
Speaker 1: part two of our rollback conversation, Big Gun.
Speaker 3: I played the wind, made a fortune. When my ship
Speaker 3: came in, I ran the table, never thought I could
Speaker 3: fall down. The winter time hit me like a cannon
Speaker 3: in the ball, and now I can't shape this losing streak.
Speaker 3: Every road I take is a dead end street. I
Speaker 3: got thoughts in my head, can't get them out, trying
Speaker 3: not to think what I'm thinking about. I got the
Speaker 3: thoughts in my head. I can't get them out, trying
Speaker 3: not to think what I'm thinking about.