Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Fried Egg Podcast.
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Speaker 1: com slash Fried Egg member SIPC. What an open at
Speaker 1: royal Port Rush, great win there by Shane Lowry. Lots
Speaker 1: of stuff happened from Rory miss and the cut, Tiger
Speaker 1: miss and the cut to the equipment testing. Ricky with
Speaker 1: another top five finish. So we had Jeff Ogilvie came
Speaker 1: back on to talk a little bit about the week
Speaker 1: and what's ahead on the PGA Tour calendar with the
Speaker 1: WGC Memphis and as well as the FedEx Cup playoffs
Speaker 1: and kind of riff into a lot of different ideas
Speaker 1: about the playoffs and the schedule. So here's Jeff Ogilvie.
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a bright egg,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida, egg Frida, egg Frid egg
Speaker 2: bright egg Frid egg bright egg.
Speaker 1: Lie. I'm about ready to run off the golf course.
Speaker 1: He was nails.
Speaker 2: He was he was nails. That first hole was the
Speaker 2: whole tournament on Sunday, it was. I mean, he misses
Speaker 2: that parton Bleetwood makes his part. It'll be a hard
Speaker 2: wind from there if you lose three on the first
Speaker 2: hole in a day like that. But that part was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: he's up for this, you know, because the first time
Speaker 2: was nervy, you know, nervy. He shot like nervy, good
Speaker 2: bunk shot. Really it's a hard bunk shot, a great part,
Speaker 2: but it's like eight feet short. It's like, holy wow,
Speaker 2: this guy's gonna make double on the first. But yeah,
Speaker 2: he did well, and what pressure. Can you imagine what
Speaker 2: he was feeling?
Speaker 1: I was thinking. I was thinking about it. It's I
Speaker 1: find in my goth like when I get in situate
Speaker 1: like if because of what happened at Oakmont where he
Speaker 1: blew the fore shot lead uhuh, like the next time around.
Speaker 1: It almost always works out when you when you have
Speaker 1: something that just kills you.
Speaker 2: That's what I was. I mean, the media kept running
Speaker 2: all can he get past the ghosts of the thing.
Speaker 2: It's like almost every single time someone loses one of
Speaker 2: those long, those big leads in a major on a Sunday,
Speaker 2: they do better the next time, Like Mike Weir went
Speaker 2: for eighty at Madonna, when Tiger and Sergio went for
Speaker 2: the thing two years Iteries winning the Masters. You know,
Speaker 2: there's like how many stories of a god tanking on
Speaker 2: a Sunday and the next time they get the chance
Speaker 2: they take. It happens all the time, don't you think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember I. Uh, I came back in
Speaker 1: a match once and I forced a playoff, like a
Speaker 1: crazy comeback. And then I like, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you ever had this happen, Like you're going
Speaker 1: to the playoff and you almost feel like you did
Speaker 1: what this giant thing, and and you lose focus. I
Speaker 1: hit a bad drive on the first playoff hole lost
Speaker 1: the playoff, and I was like, well that was terrible,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, and then the next time that happened,
Speaker 1: like when I was walking to the playoff tea, I
Speaker 1: was just like, just you got to hit a good drive,
Speaker 1: you know. It was funny, like because then the next
Speaker 1: time it worked out, you know, and I.
Speaker 2: Went I I was. I got the last grip of
Speaker 2: the Victorian Open, which was a PROVN ninety. I was eighteen,
Speaker 2: I think, and shot seventy eight in the last round.
Speaker 2: Still finished like fifth or something because it was a
Speaker 2: tough day, but shot seventy eight. And then the next
Speaker 2: time I was there, I shot like one under or something.
Speaker 2: I was leading a year later or something in the
Speaker 2: Big Open in the last group, and I shot like
Speaker 2: one under in the last round, So I like got
Speaker 2: way better at the first time you deal with it.
Speaker 2: It's tough, and four shots in a major, it's like,
Speaker 2: especially in Oakmond, give me a break. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 2: ten shots isn't enough at Oakmond. It's it'd be the
Speaker 2: hardest cause of the world to keep a lead. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think Aaron Baddley the time before when Cabrera won,
Speaker 2: he had a three shot leads doning Sunday and he
Speaker 2: tripled the first which you can do without really doing
Speaker 2: a whole lot wrong in Oakmont, and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden your lead's gone. It's tough. Those big leads are
Speaker 2: a bit more over, it's almost easier to have the
Speaker 2: Only time I have had a really big lead was
Speaker 2: a cappellua and it was uncomfortable, and that's capilla. It
Speaker 2: was a cruizy ton. After eight holes, I was only
Speaker 2: one in front. It was I was freaking out. It
Speaker 2: was hard. That's a weird thing. Having a big lead.
Speaker 1: It's almost sometimes it's almost better. I feel like to
Speaker 1: be like one back than.
Speaker 2: In the league, even certainly for your sleep the night
Speaker 2: before and your kind of level of comfort and kind
Speaker 2: of you haven't won anything, you haven't achieved anything yet
Speaker 2: if you're one behind, But if you're six in front
Speaker 2: of four in front of something, it's like you've kind
Speaker 2: of it's on you now, you know, like you actually
Speaker 2: have to play.
Speaker 1: Well, how was it for you when you had a lead?
Speaker 1: Sleeping on a lead? Like everybody talks about it, you know,
Speaker 1: I obviously it's probably pretty personal experience for each player.
Speaker 1: Nobody's the same.
Speaker 2: I am relatively was relatively relaxed about stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But I still didn't sleep properly ever, Like it's tough.
Speaker 2: As I said, the Kapalou was the only big lead
Speaker 2: I had. I had six. I didn't sleep properly. It
Speaker 2: was it's a long morning and it's a long night,
Speaker 2: and you're just thinking about all this stuff. I think
Speaker 2: guys are worse. I wasn't that nervous, I don't think,
Speaker 2: but obviously I was a little bit because I didn't
Speaker 2: sleep the same. I was certainly very happy once I
Speaker 2: got on the golf course, once I got that first
Speaker 2: tea or played the first hole and got on the second,
Speaker 2: I feel like it was kind of all right at
Speaker 2: that time. His night must have been rough, and he's honest.
Speaker 2: How nice was he? He just comes out and says, yeah,
Speaker 2: I just sleep very well, and I got up early,
Speaker 2: and they had to talk to my coach. And I
Speaker 2: think people grab it him because of his honesty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he the way he I mean, like he was
Speaker 1: talking about it on Friday, He's like, yeah, I've tried
Speaker 1: to win this clear drug, Like this is not easy,
Speaker 1: you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, right he was.
Speaker 1: He was so bluntly honest. It was I think that's
Speaker 1: like one of the things they take away from this.
Speaker 1: Like he he had some quotes last year about how
Speaker 1: awful because he played so bad last year at Carnousti,
Speaker 1: and he was like sitting in his car, are like
Speaker 1: mad about you know where he was, But he was
Speaker 1: he talked to the press about how much Oakmont had
Speaker 1: ruined him for like a year and a half. Did
Speaker 1: he really yeah, I mean, he's the quotes I wish
Speaker 1: I hadn't pulled up, I hadn't pulled up the other day,
Speaker 1: but they I mean, he talked about how it pretty
Speaker 1: much ruined his golf game for like a year and
Speaker 1: a half, losing that thing because he felt like he
Speaker 1: was the number one player in the world for three days,
Speaker 1: and then he started to play conservative. He talked about
Speaker 1: he laid up on two when he could have driven
Speaker 1: it up there, and he was playing to protect the
Speaker 1: lead rather than playing to win.
Speaker 2: M h.
Speaker 1: And that was those quotes for a year ago, not
Speaker 1: you know, before or during this championship.
Speaker 2: That's the hard pot rot. I think you give yourself
Speaker 2: the win before you've won, right, kind of like it's
Speaker 2: yours to lose now when you're lading a little bit
Speaker 2: overnight at least. I mean maybe not if you get
Speaker 2: in the lead on the third hole, like you know,
Speaker 2: it's the middle round, but if you go to bed
Speaker 2: with a four shot lead, you've kind of like visualized
Speaker 2: that trophy sitting on your counter and visualized all the
Speaker 2: stuff that's coming with it like you've kind of given
Speaker 2: it to yourself a little bit. Now it's mine to protect.
Speaker 2: You're protecting something a little bit, and golf you never
Speaker 2: play well when you protect right and you kind of
Speaker 2: try not to mess up. That doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It's why the best rounds are always when like your
Speaker 1: flurry of birdies comes at the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, my first great major I finished fifth at
Speaker 2: s Andrews. I burtied in Oh five I finished. I
Speaker 2: birdied fifteen sixteen, sorry, fifteen seventeen eighteen on Sunday. I
Speaker 2: went from like fourteen to fifth something. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I had ten in a major, but it's like I
Speaker 2: was never near the top ten ever until I mean
Speaker 2: I probably passed ten people by birdying seventeen on Sunday.
Speaker 2: So it was like, it looks great, but I I
Speaker 2: mean I was ten f last group was about as
Speaker 2: close as I got to the last group. But that
Speaker 2: and then the next major bults Roll. I finished. All
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I thought I'm a top ten major guy.
Speaker 2: And I played bold stroll really well instead of sat
Speaker 2: in the top ten all week and finished fifth or
Speaker 2: six again, I was like, oh, well, now I've got
Speaker 2: this worked out, but the first top ten was nothing.
Speaker 2: It was a top ten without any pressure at all.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, it was a back door back door Yeah.
Speaker 1: How do you as pro as a like as a
Speaker 1: pro and then also like other pros like back door
Speaker 1: tap tens, like media always talks about back to Oh
Speaker 1: he you know, he just king of backdoor top tens,
Speaker 1: Like is it a top ten to a top ten
Speaker 1: or is there you know, do you feel better about
Speaker 1: the one that you're around all the time?
Speaker 2: I always felt better about the back door one because
Speaker 2: it feels like you got the most out of the week.
Speaker 2: You've got the most out of like an average week,
Speaker 2: Like the average week, you finish in twenty fifth your Bertie,
Speaker 2: I don't know, three of the last four and you
Speaker 2: finished fifth, like I was finished in the twentieth all
Speaker 2: week and I stole a few there on the last
Speaker 2: few holes, right. I always liked that. Or you should
Speaker 2: sixty five from middle of the field and you finished
Speaker 2: eighth to something or seventh. It's like that was satisfying
Speaker 2: because I feel like you've got so much more out
Speaker 2: of the week than you probably should have. But the
Speaker 2: one where you sit top ten all week and then
Speaker 2: you're double seventeen and finish eighteenth. That is the worst.
Speaker 2: There's nothing worse than that. Having a great week all
Speaker 2: week and you had two good holes away from finishing
Speaker 2: top two or three or winning or something, and you
Speaker 2: have a double and you finish eighteenth or something, and
Speaker 2: those really condensed ones. That's depressing. That's really frustrating because
Speaker 2: you put so much work into the tournaments. It all
Speaker 2: comes unraveled on one bad swing or three part or something.
Speaker 2: It's pretty frustrating. So it works both ways.
Speaker 1: So with the tournament you alluded to a little bit
Speaker 1: with you know, Lowry kind of put it away pretty early.
Speaker 1: But like, I mean, we've talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: with Augussa and how how good championship courses separate the field, Like,
Speaker 1: do you feel like a great championship course can sometimes
Speaker 1: lead to less drama than a mediocre one that keeps
Speaker 1: everybody around us?
Speaker 2: Certainly, I mean, somehow Augusta manages to create the drama, right,
Speaker 2: But I think great courses like scenandra Is quite often
Speaker 2: there's no drama in the last five or six holes
Speaker 2: at the Open at Sandra's because the guy who's winning
Speaker 2: is like separating so much, you know, Tiger's come up
Speaker 2: the last eight or nine shots in front a couple
Speaker 2: of times. I don't know, it's a bit of both.
Speaker 2: I think it's both. I just think that's the randomness
Speaker 2: of golf and who plays well that week. And I
Speaker 2: certainly think weather like Sunday at the Open stops the
Speaker 2: drama a little bit, you know, because it spreads to
Speaker 2: so many guys have a bad day. Right on a
Speaker 2: day like that, there's just gonna be less people up there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's well, I'm up me wrong.
Speaker 1: But it seemed like there was no faking it out there.
Speaker 2: And some bare I mean we've all been out there
Speaker 2: on days like that, those seaside courses, I mean a
Speaker 2: five mile an hour windows, like a ten mile an
Speaker 2: hour window on to the seaside, right, because it's so heavy,
Speaker 2: because it's off the ocean, and then the rain and
Speaker 2: you're and you're wearing so many clothes and the grass
Speaker 2: gets so dense in the rough and the ball goes short.
Speaker 2: It's tough, and you're so exposed. There's no trees. You
Speaker 2: can't go hide under a tree, right, You're just you're
Speaker 2: just getting hit. You end up lying up against sand
Speaker 2: dunes and stuff. When it gets bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's so funny because you know, Westwood's
Speaker 1: got his uh, got his girlfriend Caddy in for him,
Speaker 1: and he talks about it like two days before about
Speaker 1: you know, she doesn't know that much about golf, but
Speaker 1: that's not a big deal. And then like you see
Speaker 1: it out like a torrential down for it, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: this is maybe where experienced candy could help a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Keeping everything dry and everything. He didn't even
Speaker 1: have a rain jacket. It was just I was like,
Speaker 1: oh god, this is just that had to be just
Speaker 1: brutal out there that day. What do you think of
Speaker 1: Port Rush?
Speaker 2: Wow? It looked incredible, right, I mean it's I heard
Speaker 2: nothing but good reports. It looked and men looked amazing,
Speaker 2: looked seemed like a perfect venue really. I mean they
Speaker 2: just love it to the Irish, right, it's just their
Speaker 2: They just broth on supporting events. It's just their thing
Speaker 2: and they're strong in goo. And they had like three
Speaker 2: or four like what well and probably two realistic contenders
Speaker 2: that they thought of with McDowell and McElroy like the
Speaker 2: favorite of the tournament, and they got Larry and Harrington
Speaker 2: and they got a great cast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's uh. I thought that the scale
Speaker 1: of it was just in a way it kind of
Speaker 1: it kind of felt to me a little bit like
Speaker 1: the opens version of like Shinnacock. Because of the topography
Speaker 1: and the way the greens repel, it.
Speaker 2: Just looked like it demanded really you couldn't get away
Speaker 2: with anything, but if you did play well, it looked
Speaker 2: like there was good scores there that looked like you
Speaker 2: had to play really well. But I mean.
Speaker 1: It's the way the greens kind of run off. I
Speaker 1: thought that, you know, small targets and everything. That's to me,
Speaker 1: the the key to testing you guys is like there's
Speaker 1: got to be ways of you know, like great shots
Speaker 1: were really great shots out there, and good shots were
Speaker 1: just good you know, mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, how about that first time? How would
Speaker 2: you like a first t I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: fair to have out of bounds on the side both
Speaker 2: sides of the first valley, Like, I know it's not
Speaker 2: supposed to be fair and all that, but one getting
Speaker 2: the field away when every third guy's reloading too, like
Speaker 2: I mean just pumping into the window that you could
Speaker 2: see that we're all just like backboarding irons and just
Speaker 2: trying to sneak it on the front edge of the
Speaker 2: fairway because just get it between the white posts. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's about the most brutal first T shirt I've ever seen,
Speaker 2: Like incredible. I don't know, they just finally a bounce
Speaker 2: this too, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're internal. Well I guess they didn't own the
Speaker 1: land originally, so now they own it, but it's still
Speaker 1: out of balance. I know shackle For was was just
Speaker 1: so mad about it, but I mean, did you see
Speaker 1: Darren Clark who got up there the first first morning
Speaker 1: just pulled out driver just a bush, just rip. I
Speaker 1: mean that was like that. I thought, like it was
Speaker 1: so funny because like that first T shirt, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a driver hole, you know. And then the rest
Speaker 1: of the week all the irons off that tea.
Speaker 2: I mean of like the out of bounds on one side,
Speaker 2: like the Prestwick thing or the I mean a kind
Speaker 2: of a tighter version of like Snandra's kind of thing
Speaker 2: without out of bounds. I want to help, but give
Speaker 2: a guy if he wants to just bail it, and
Speaker 2: it'd a really weak kind of conservative t shot. Let
Speaker 2: the guy do that, right, if he's kind of making
Speaker 2: the whole really hard for himself. But out of bounds
Speaker 2: on both sides twenty to a fairway or something I'm
Speaker 2: glad I didn't have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just it's a scary, scary shot. It's probably
Speaker 1: the hardest t shot on the course right off the bout.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine there's a hard one. I mean there was.
Speaker 2: Out of bounds is just the ultimate penalty, right because
Speaker 2: it's just add one and start again. Like it's.
Speaker 1: It's pretty much the worst way to start a tournament without.
Speaker 2: A doubt bounds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, it's uh so, you know, like Ricky, another
Speaker 1: high finish for Ricky. Females starting to rack up these
Speaker 1: high finishes. Fleetwood, what what do you think about guys
Speaker 1: that come close a lot? But like, because I mean
Speaker 1: everybody's always like, is Ricky going to do it? And
Speaker 1: now people are saying, well's Fleetwood the new Ricky. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, to me, sometimes it's half luck, but like
Speaker 1: that the ball bounces the right way. But like, you know,
Speaker 1: even Westwood's a perfect example a guy that's been there
Speaker 1: so many times that when does experience start to turn
Speaker 1: into a bad thing in majors?
Speaker 2: More, I don't know. I guess scot tissue. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess guys at Westwood and Sergerio eventually developed a
Speaker 2: bit of Scots issue, right did you ended up beating it?
Speaker 2: But they had a lot of Sundays that didn't go
Speaker 2: there why And I guess or as Taga, every time
Speaker 2: he was on a Sunday he would win right and
Speaker 2: get into last group. So he had like the opposite
Speaker 2: of that, he had just bulletproof confidence. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think that more times they
Speaker 2: had generally, the better off you're going to be the
Speaker 2: next time, the more comfortable. It certainly would be helpful
Speaker 2: the guys if they closed the deal the first time
Speaker 2: they were up there, you know, is in the next
Speaker 2: few times it would be easy, right, Like it becomes
Speaker 2: a thing and it's such a wake from them, there is,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's such a stress from the golf world
Speaker 2: on this major thing. They make people feel like they
Speaker 2: need to win it or they're not a real golfer.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, hang on a minute. I mean, Fleetwood's
Speaker 2: a pretty real golfer, you know. Rookie Fowl is a
Speaker 2: pretty real golfer. Like they what if they don't win
Speaker 2: one in the end. I mean they're good enough too,
Speaker 2: and if they do, that'd be great, But it's not
Speaker 2: the end of the world. But it's put It's put
Speaker 2: to these people like it's the end of the world,
Speaker 2: and so they the guys who carry that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: Like a guy like Dustin obviously doesn't carry that, you know,
Speaker 2: but other guys Sergeria obviously carried it quite heavy, and
Speaker 2: Lee carried it quite heavy, and even like Phil and
Speaker 2: Deval and that before they won, guys like that, they
Speaker 2: were carrying it pretty heavy before they got it done.
Speaker 2: It's a tough deal. There's enough self inflicted pressure. But
Speaker 2: outside of that, Ricky, I think Ricky's too good to
Speaker 2: not get it done at one point. He just he
Speaker 2: doesn't have a weakness as a golfer. Physically, he's an
Speaker 2: unbelievable ball striker, plenty long enough, great iron player, ridiculous
Speaker 2: short game, and he's everyone wants to part like Ricky.
Speaker 2: I mean, he has everything and it obviously has the
Speaker 2: ability to finish the deal because he's won a bunch
Speaker 2: of tournaments and the way he won that Players Championship,
Speaker 2: which is probably the hardest finishing stretch or the most
Speaker 2: penal finishing stretch we played regularly, and me he just
Speaker 2: I mean, he's thirty seventeen three times in a row
Speaker 2: in the last round of the playoffs and he'd drive
Speaker 2: it down of the eight. I mean, this is a
Speaker 2: guy who knows what to do under pressure, right, he
Speaker 2: can get it done. So maybe it's just a matter of,
Speaker 2: you know, just putting it all together in one Week's
Speaker 2: a it's a compliment that he's always there, you know,
Speaker 2: and there's like this hard there.
Speaker 1: That's the thing is like there's only you know, I
Speaker 1: think Brooks said this in that press conference where he
Speaker 1: talked about like how there's only so many guys at
Speaker 1: a major he has to beat and Ricky like there's
Speaker 1: only so many guys that can finish in the top
Speaker 1: five of a major regularly. Like you might get hot
Speaker 1: one week and finish up there, but like you know how,
Speaker 1: I mean, there can't be more than a dozen guys
Speaker 1: that could regularly finish top five in any major you
Speaker 1: put them in.
Speaker 2: No, there can't be many. I mean there's like ten, right,
Speaker 2: there's the obvious ones. I mean you can see Baba
Speaker 2: having a yewer. He's up there, Adam having a yewer.
Speaker 2: He's up there a lot Brooks, Dustin Rory, You're running
Speaker 2: out of a rose dancing in his time, but probably
Speaker 2: not at the moment. You know, like that Consistently it's
Speaker 2: a pretty high level getting the top five in a major.
Speaker 2: I mean, Ricky's always in the last two or three
Speaker 2: groups on the Sunday. It seems like, No, I can't
Speaker 2: imagine he's not going to get it done. And Tommy
Speaker 2: what Tommy did it Shinnecock last year and the Ryder Cup,
Speaker 2: He's clearly not. He's tilly very capable under pressure. Right
Speaker 2: that shot he hit eighteen at Shinnecock to maybe shot
Speaker 2: sixty two was that was a proper golf shot and
Speaker 2: at that point, and at that point it really felt
Speaker 2: like he could win this tournam by three or four
Speaker 2: at Chinnicock finishing that early. So I mean, I think
Speaker 2: he'll get it done too. I think Ricky's been up
Speaker 2: there a lot more than Tommy hasn't he I feel.
Speaker 1: Like way more. It's I found this crazy stat in
Speaker 1: the since twenty fourteen, Ricky is one of three players
Speaker 1: that hasn't fallen outside of the top fifteen ever in
Speaker 1: the world rankings. It's him, that's Rose and I can't
Speaker 1: remember the third one zat Dustin it's a I can't remember,
Speaker 1: but it's He's I mean, it's crazy. The consistency isn't seen.
Speaker 2: As I say, he doesn't have a weakness as a golfer.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can go in between the ears and
Speaker 2: I mean that's an unmeasurable but from tee to green
Speaker 2: and around the greens, he just he doesn't have a weakness.
Speaker 2: He's probably arguably top to bottom one of the best
Speaker 2: golfers ever because he just doesn't. He just hits, does
Speaker 2: everything well, and he seems to love the lengths, and
Speaker 2: he travels around the world and he plays interesting tournaments
Speaker 2: and like he's all good. I can't see him not
Speaker 2: like getting it done at some point. But maybe not.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's just it's not a matter of gil Maybe
Speaker 2: it's a bit of timing and luck, Like you say,
Speaker 2: horses that suit his eye that week. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: he had lowry like on a this a lot of
Speaker 2: runover motion that's hard to beat. You know when guys
Speaker 2: likes to lowry tap into something like that. You see
Speaker 2: those stories that's it seemed inevitable after a while. That's
Speaker 2: Saturday when he was finished in those last few holes.
Speaker 2: It's just the inevitability of it. It was like, Wow,
Speaker 2: that's how do you beat that? You know, so you
Speaker 2: can run in You run into that a few times
Speaker 2: and not really on you. And he's run into Brooks
Speaker 2: kept here the last couple of years, and that's pretty
Speaker 2: hard to beat, you know, So they'll get it done.
Speaker 2: It's a great conversation, though, the best player to not
Speaker 2: win a major, I think it's ridiculous, but I think
Speaker 2: it's a great conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was, so I started to think about like
Speaker 1: guy like Ricky and like how he compares and because
Speaker 1: like the number, like how do you how do you
Speaker 1: value a top five in a major? Like what's is?
Speaker 1: What's more impressive winning the John Deere or coming fifth
Speaker 1: in a major?
Speaker 2: Again, how do you measure that? But I think you
Speaker 2: have to like take a like what is success as
Speaker 2: a professional golfer? I mean success as a golfer is
Speaker 2: someone who doesn't have a real job. It gets to
Speaker 2: play golf every day of his life and he doesn't
Speaker 2: have to worry about money otherwhere else. Right, that's success.
Speaker 2: He gets to play golf whenever he wants. Ricky Fowler
Speaker 2: is about as successful as you can possibly get by
Speaker 2: that metric to like have anything out there that's you
Speaker 2: would if he ends without a major, that that was
Speaker 2: a failure. It's like, hang on a minute. He's got
Speaker 2: a hundred million in the bank. He's an unbelievable life.
Speaker 2: He's never sat at a desk and he played golf
Speaker 2: every day of his life. How was that not success?
Speaker 2: You know? So I think it's kind of they're amazing
Speaker 2: to win, and he's good enough to win in history
Speaker 2: will be looking at him better if he does. All
Speaker 2: these guys if they do. But I don't know, you're
Speaker 2: playing golf every day your life and you're getting paid.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good and everybody loves you.
Speaker 1: He's gone, all right, yeah, Yeah, That's like kind of
Speaker 1: where I'm going with this idea is like, you know,
Speaker 1: like I think, like a top five in a major
Speaker 1: is probably the same as winning a you know, same
Speaker 1: level of achievement as winning a regular event. So it's
Speaker 1: like people like to bag on Ricky because he's only
Speaker 1: got six major wins, but you know, the number of
Speaker 1: top five finishes in majors is just extraordinary.
Speaker 2: To me, the joy of the job was always the
Speaker 2: being in contention, you know, the having a chance the
Speaker 2: last nine and feeling all that that goes with that,
Speaker 2: and just being in the mix. He gets that every week.
Speaker 2: He has fun almost every week because he's always in
Speaker 2: the mix, you know, or somewhat near the mix. To me,
Speaker 2: that's the fun. And I mean the winning is obviously
Speaker 2: great everything that comes with it, but the real enjoyment
Speaker 2: for me came out of And a lot of guys
Speaker 2: will say that. Tiger always said that he loved just
Speaker 2: being in it, Like it's just that's the fun part.
Speaker 2: Like that, that high pressure situation when guys are playing
Speaker 2: well and you're all just doing your stuff. That's my
Speaker 2: favorite part. And he gets to do that all the time.
Speaker 2: So on some level, he's he's scratching the itch that
Speaker 2: he had when he was young that I just want
Speaker 2: to get on TV and I want to compete against
Speaker 2: the best, and I just want to like play well
Speaker 2: in the biggest tournaments. He's doing that. You know, we've
Speaker 2: turned into talking about Ricky, but I also he has
Speaker 2: in the guys who can tend all the time and
Speaker 2: haven't been winning him. I'll win them, and if they don't,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's the end of the world. It'd
Speaker 2: be great for them if they do, and they're good
Speaker 2: enough if they can. But yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: think it's a little bit over But I think amazing thing.
Speaker 2: And I think majors are great and you should have
Speaker 2: benchmarks in sports, you know, you really should. But it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's failure if it's not black and white.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of success that you can
Speaker 2: have in golf without winning a major.
Speaker 1: I think as golf, as like statistics become more and
Speaker 1: more prevalent in golf, I think that what we'll get
Speaker 1: valued more is is like some somebody that has one
Speaker 1: major win versus somebody that has no major wins and
Speaker 1: twenty top fives like that, that's gonna shift a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, where people aren't just gonna be like, well
Speaker 1: he's got a major, you know, and he doesn't. That's
Speaker 1: I think that's changing with a week.
Speaker 2: Probably should, I mean it probably should. I mean from
Speaker 2: some metric, Sam's Need was a better player than Jack Nicholas.
Speaker 2: He won ninety tournaments and did it, and he won
Speaker 2: in his twenties thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, Like, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's pretty outrageous. He was good for fifty is you know?
Speaker 2: I mean that's obviously he's not. But he enjoyed his
Speaker 2: time along the way, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: don't know. It's there's only four of them a year,
Speaker 2: and there's one hundred and fifty or two hundred guys
Speaker 2: trying I mean, not share them around that much.
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Speaker 1: And now back to Jeff Ogilvie. What do you think
Speaker 1: of the Xander thing?
Speaker 2: That's I don't know. I've got a few different thoughts
Speaker 2: on that. I mean, I think they should clearly test
Speaker 2: drivers every now and then, but I think they should
Speaker 2: test every driver that's going to end up in a
Speaker 2: two players bag. That should test before tailor made or
Speaker 2: Callaway or titlist or anyone puts it in a player's
Speaker 2: hands so it knows it's a it's a legit, good
Speaker 2: safe drive before a player and gets it in his hands.
Speaker 2: I think that's what should happen. But I think the
Speaker 2: owners should be on the manufacturer a little bit, and
Speaker 2: the U S and the R and I and USGI
Speaker 2: for not testing. Uh, pretty tough to test on a
Speaker 2: Monday or the tournament. You know of a major see.
Speaker 1: But that's that's the thing. Is like every other every
Speaker 1: other sport that plays for millions of dollars that uses equipment,
Speaker 1: that equipment's tested like you know, like NASCAR, the cars
Speaker 1: are tested before and after every race. You know, for cycling,
Speaker 1: the bikes are weighed before and after every race. Like
Speaker 1: to me, like with how much money is at stake
Speaker 1: and the fact that you wouldn't be able to tell,
Speaker 1: like by the by looking at a driver you have
Speaker 1: no clue if it's conforming or not. That the tests
Speaker 1: have to happen right before the first t.
Speaker 2: But how impracticable is that. I mean, you're going to
Speaker 2: tell a guy that he can't use his driver that
Speaker 2: he just warmed up with.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be. I mean, I don't think you'll have
Speaker 1: any nonconforming drivers then, but I.
Speaker 2: Think the owners should be I think one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: I think you should test. But I don't think it
Speaker 2: should be anything to do with the player. I think
Speaker 2: it should be through the manufacturer because that's it's complete
Speaker 2: trust from a player, and I don't I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: Callawai didn't mean to give him a driver that was
Speaker 2: like that. I mean, they build him close to the
Speaker 2: edge and there's tolerances either way, and it probably happens
Speaker 2: on one out of twenty drivers that they do that, right,
Speaker 2: or I hope something like that. Well that's the test.
Speaker 1: They can be where they can wear to where they're
Speaker 1: over too. So if you hit a bunch of times,
Speaker 1: well then it goes over.
Speaker 2: I've heard that too. Yeah, Well, I think the owners
Speaker 2: should be on the manufacturer because I think there's complete
Speaker 2: trust from the player that what his manufacturer is giving
Speaker 2: him is kosher, you know, and if they go on
Speaker 2: to all the manufacturers is right that we're just going
Speaker 2: to constantly test that we're going to come in every
Speaker 2: week and we're going to to bring in I don't
Speaker 2: know all the drivers that are going to end up
Speaker 2: on the range. They just go through this test and
Speaker 2: we just make sure it never it can never even
Speaker 2: happen from the start, you know. And maybe you test
Speaker 2: everyone's clubs once go through bag storage, or everyone drops
Speaker 2: their clubs off once a month or something and they
Speaker 2: check the driver or something. I don't know, but Tuesday
Speaker 2: or Monday Tuesday of a major to find you don't
Speaker 2: have your driver, that's a bit unfair because it's not
Speaker 2: his fault. It's just one hundred percent not his fault.
Speaker 2: He had no clue. It's not no play in the
Speaker 2: history of the world is going to say, hey, can
Speaker 2: you test my driver? I think it's illegal. You know.
Speaker 1: JT said that he did that.
Speaker 2: Really well, okay, well that's cool. I've never found that.
Speaker 2: I've never had a drive. I've just gone away, I
Speaker 2: have could this go? I'm not going to ask any.
Speaker 1: Questions, but I know that's I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: like the thing. It is like I I think about it,
Speaker 1: and it's like, I don't it just seems like something
Speaker 1: that it's got to be tested. There's ten ten, ten
Speaker 1: million plus dollar purses out there.
Speaker 2: I certainly think you have to test, but I think
Speaker 2: there's a better way to have it done than the
Speaker 2: way they did. And I don't know this thirty tests,
Speaker 2: why can't your testiment? Like, if you're going to test,
Speaker 2: you might as well testimal.
Speaker 1: The test takes like twenty seconds.
Speaker 2: So maybe at some point. And your registration process when
Speaker 2: you register when you're because those majors are these tournaments,
Speaker 2: there's a process to registering. Sometimes it might take five
Speaker 2: or ten minutes. You come your register with your bag,
Speaker 2: they take your bag out of the back, they bounce
Speaker 2: the ball off the face and they go, right, you're good,
Speaker 2: off you go. I don't know, maybe that's how you
Speaker 2: do it. But I do think the owners should be
Speaker 2: on the manufacturer. I really do, because we technically don't
Speaker 2: own our golf clubs. The manufacturers do. We're just borrowing
Speaker 2: them from them. You know, we are using what they
Speaker 2: want us to use. That's I'm not saying it's anybody's fight.
Speaker 2: I think any manufacturers are intended that are intending to
Speaker 2: get illegal stuff in people's hands, but it happens, Like
Speaker 2: you say, they can wear out and stuff can happen.
Speaker 2: But I think it's oonus is on them because we're
Speaker 2: we are like kresh as dummies for their clubs in
Speaker 2: a while, where a mennecans for their clubs. So we uh,
Speaker 2: I think the owners should be on them.
Speaker 1: So so in cycling, there's there's there's bikers that are
Speaker 1: putting motors in their bikes and these are these tiny
Speaker 1: little motors. Yeah tiny. They don't help you really unless
Speaker 1: you're going up a hill, and these little motors can
Speaker 1: go make you go one mile an hour faster for
Speaker 1: short periods of time but in a three week race,
Speaker 1: it makes this huge difference. And it's been like an
Speaker 1: epidemic in there they're using like thermal cameras, but like
Speaker 1: to the naked eye, nobody would ever know. So like
Speaker 1: here's like you know, while you view it this way,
Speaker 1: there could be some like that's where I think, like
Speaker 1: the testing, it has to happen because like you you know,
Speaker 1: there's always a bad apple here is.
Speaker 2: But look, you're comparing cycling, which is a sport that
Speaker 2: historically people have been quite happy to try to break
Speaker 2: the rules. I mean they asked Eddie Mrks, could you
Speaker 2: win the Tour de France without drugs? Eddie Mrks won
Speaker 2: five right in the fifth sixties and seventies, he was
Speaker 2: a hero. Could you win the Tour de France without drugs?
Speaker 2: He goes, why would you want to? That was his answer.
Speaker 2: I mean it's been in that sport. It's just part
Speaker 2: of the sport to get away with one. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think it's bizarre they're putting motors in their bikes,
Speaker 2: But golf's different. I mean the difference in Xander's driver,
Speaker 2: the illegal one to the illegal one would be half
Speaker 2: a yard or something. He would be so insignificant. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously you can make one that would go fifty yards further. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's people aren't It's not like people the winning
Speaker 2: tournaments obviously because they've got legal drivers, where that would
Speaker 2: be different in a bike race over three weeks you
Speaker 2: really have if you are not riding as much as
Speaker 2: everyone else, that's a big difference. I'm not saying it's
Speaker 2: not important, and you have a line in the sand,
Speaker 2: you've got to do it. I just think no one,
Speaker 2: there's no intention here. No one's intending to do this.
Speaker 2: And and I think the reason Xander got so annoyed
Speaker 2: is because of that inference that he was kind of
Speaker 2: trying to cheat a little bit, which is completely false
Speaker 2: because he would have had no clue that it was illegal.
Speaker 2: And if any guy on tour that I know knew
Speaker 2: they had an legal driver, most would want to get
Speaker 2: it changed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, like, and I don't think this is
Speaker 1: about Xander. It's like my my thinking is just like,
Speaker 1: you know, like what happened to him and the other
Speaker 1: guys that got like whatever, Like it's the whole idea
Speaker 1: that we've that you got that that you guys play
Speaker 1: for ten million dollars and there's no regular testing. To me,
Speaker 1: is absolutely insane.
Speaker 2: I think all any player, and I think every player
Speaker 2: wants it too. The players just want to level playing
Speaker 2: field like this precedent. I mean, back in the good
Speaker 2: old days, guys used to hacks all their grooves out
Speaker 2: and do crazy stuff on their wedges. I mean it's
Speaker 2: kind of happened, and put grease on the face of
Speaker 2: the driver and like it's I mean it's people have
Speaker 2: done this stuff. But as I said, the equipment in
Speaker 2: the old days, you'd go into your the proch up
Speaker 2: or then your garage and like mess around with your clubs.
Speaker 2: Now you just go into the the laboratory on the
Speaker 2: range and they just give you a new club and
Speaker 2: you hit it. You just it's trust you Just how
Speaker 2: do you measure COI yourself? You know, you hit ten
Speaker 2: drivers and one goes a bit better, or that could
Speaker 2: be the shaft or your swing or that day, or
Speaker 2: that one goes better, or maybe it just matches you better.
Speaker 2: How are you supposed to know that it's breaking the rule?
Speaker 2: You know, it's impossible for a player to work that out.
Speaker 1: Now I agree with that. I think it's obviously like
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't. I would never have any
Speaker 1: clue what my driver set up would be, and I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody like you can't. But like that's where yeah,
Speaker 1: it is trust, but they're just has to be testing.
Speaker 1: I think everybody probably should probably.
Speaker 2: Wake up car the players need to put the hand
Speaker 2: up and say, yes, we're happy for you to test.
Speaker 2: But if you start testing, you have to test everybody.
Speaker 2: And I still think it should go through the manufacturer
Speaker 2: side of things, I really do. I think it would
Speaker 2: be best if no driver like that ever even made
Speaker 2: it into a bag, like it was stopped before it
Speaker 2: got there. Ye wad be the best solution. It's almost
Speaker 2: like somehow.
Speaker 1: If they could figure out how much like you could
Speaker 1: potentially wear it, you know, like say you use a
Speaker 1: driver for two years and it wears, then saying like okay,
Speaker 1: if it's at this limit, like you can't put it
Speaker 1: in there because it's going to go over in two years.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's crazy. Have you ever used driver
Speaker 1: for two years?
Speaker 2: I'm sure I did in the old days, But like
Speaker 2: the more the technology is moving the past year chair
Speaker 2: well titleist product cycle is two years generally, so I
Speaker 2: generally used titless products for two years, but I would
Speaker 2: probably not use generally in that two year period of
Speaker 2: the same head, I've used a different laft or different shaft,
Speaker 2: or cut half an inch off or changed the waiting around.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd never keep it the same for two years.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have used the same hit.
Speaker 1: This whole thing's kind of kind of funny for me.
Speaker 1: I Uh, I've got this driver that my buddy who's
Speaker 1: on the web gave me, so it's out of it.
Speaker 1: It's a tour van driver. And it's funny because I've
Speaker 1: I've had the same guy fit me for clubs for
Speaker 1: like twelve years, and I went in to get a
Speaker 1: new new driver and I hit it, and then he
Speaker 1: had me hitting all the new stuff and he's like,
Speaker 1: you would be absolutely insane to switch from this driver.
Speaker 1: And it's like a twenty sixteen twenty fifteen driver.
Speaker 2: Oh really, Yeah, But I think it's just.
Speaker 1: Because it's I think it's it was going as far,
Speaker 1: you know, if not further, and way straighter than everything else.
Speaker 2: Wow. Driver is a very important club. Certainly, if you
Speaker 2: have a rule, you have to police the rule. They're
Speaker 2: just going to find a better way to do it
Speaker 2: than they did, because it didn't. It was just bad
Speaker 2: for everyone, right the way it came down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and nobody looked good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be better than yeah, no one look good.
Speaker 1: They should have just tested everybody. That's like the logical thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what they have four out of thirty not
Speaker 2: past that's quite a high. That's quite a lot. I mean,
Speaker 2: so you would have had twenty or so in the field,
Speaker 2: which is pretty significant, which is actually shows that there's
Speaker 2: an issue, right if you had tested thirty and you've
Speaker 2: got four of them.
Speaker 1: That's what That's why I was kind of thinking with it.
Speaker 1: Is like if if it had been one, you know,
Speaker 1: you could say, oh, blah blah blah. But thirteen percent
Speaker 1: is a big number.
Speaker 2: It is. It means there's twenty or so in the field,
Speaker 2: which would be clearly it needs to be tested. But
Speaker 2: I mean I'm a bit maybe I'm naive about sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. There has to be a black and white
Speaker 2: rule in the sand. But I bet Exander didn't drive
Speaker 2: it any shorter or any different, No, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the thing is like, if it's
Speaker 1: just one over, it's not a big deal. But it
Speaker 1: kind of is a big deal because like for the
Speaker 1: guy that's five under, you know, well, it's.
Speaker 2: Like a it's like a false start in running race.
Speaker 2: I mean it might only be one hundredth of a second,
Speaker 2: but it's all it's important, right, So it's I mean,
Speaker 2: it's important if you have a line in the sand,
Speaker 2: you actually have to make sure everyone's on the one
Speaker 2: side of it. But it's one of it's a weird
Speaker 2: situation in the sport at the moment. It's like there's
Speaker 2: there's no intent by anybody because the maount of the
Speaker 2: tolerances are so they're going right up against the line.
Speaker 2: They're not they're trying to make it legal, and they
Speaker 2: make five thousand of them or five million of them,
Speaker 2: and a few of them are going to fall on
Speaker 2: the outside of the line because there's manufacturing tolerances and
Speaker 2: they end up in two bags and it's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Nobody's trying to do it. It just happens, right, There's
Speaker 2: got to be a way of catching it before it
Speaker 2: gets to that kind of layer getting called out, manufacturer
Speaker 2: getting called out, r and a getting called out. Like
Speaker 2: everyone kind of lost out of that exchange. But it
Speaker 2: could be done where everybody, no one even knew what happened,
Speaker 2: but everyone just was comfortable that everyone's clubs were legit.
Speaker 2: I would be that situation, right.
Speaker 1: That's the thing is that I think as a competitor
Speaker 1: is a if you like, you should want this.
Speaker 2: Again. I mean, you do want it, but I also
Speaker 2: like whatever I've always been like, if people want to
Speaker 2: do that, they're going to get found out. Like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, that's stress about stuff, But you're right, if
Speaker 2: you play this much money as is important. Golf's always
Speaker 2: had that spirit of you know what. There's probably a
Speaker 2: few guys who try to push the envelope, but most guys.
Speaker 2: The thing that Xander seemed to hate the most was
Speaker 2: someone joking that he cheated. Like that really freaks a
Speaker 2: golfer out when he hears that, Like any situation that
Speaker 2: puts him in that position is not really fair because
Speaker 2: it had nothing to do with him. Really, I don't think.
Speaker 2: I just don't know how he could have known that
Speaker 2: it was illegal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that because like that that's a
Speaker 1: brutal situation to be in, especially when like you're trying
Speaker 1: to win a major championship and you got your peers
Speaker 1: saying like even if they're joking, it's just like.
Speaker 2: You could own us on the players and say, hey, look,
Speaker 2: the manufacturers will come up with their own testing device
Speaker 2: to have on tour. Its like if you get a
Speaker 2: driver you think he's extra special, boys, and you really
Speaker 2: want to be confident, you can take it out into
Speaker 2: a come in back into our van, will show you
Speaker 2: on the machine. See it's passes go. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: the owners could be on the player, but in that situation,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, like a pre pree measure,
Speaker 2: and the manufacturer just won't let that driver go back
Speaker 2: out of the van.
Speaker 1: Well see, but that's the manufacturer is the one that
Speaker 1: to me has the least straight intentions here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they clearly are quite happy to have drivers
Speaker 2: that go a long way out exactly.
Speaker 1: So like to me, like the manufacturers, it's the governing body,
Speaker 1: the PGA, tour and the player are the three player
Speaker 1: people that have you know, have aligned interests here, and
Speaker 1: the manufacturer is the one that doesn't.
Speaker 2: They they're the only ones who could who have the
Speaker 2: technology and the means to like logistically like make sure
Speaker 2: players don't get a legal ones though you know, maybe
Speaker 2: they get maybe they get fined. If a player that
Speaker 2: plays their equipment it comes out of their van, that happens,
Speaker 2: they get fined.
Speaker 1: See that that would be I think the right way.
Speaker 2: So like in this situation, Callaway get fined because they
Speaker 2: have put an legal driver in play. I really don't think.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm a play and I know I'm trying
Speaker 2: to say it's not a players fall, but it really isn't.
Speaker 2: Like maybe the owners should be on us, So maybe
Speaker 2: more players will go check now, you know, because of this,
Speaker 2: guys will be ooh, my driver's a bit special. Better
Speaker 2: go check this before that happens to me. So it
Speaker 2: might be good in that respect. But I think the
Speaker 2: manufacturer should get fine because I think they have the
Speaker 2: capability and wherewithal to test drivers before they put them
Speaker 2: in players hands, and just to make sure drivers like
Speaker 2: they just don't get in players hands and test the
Speaker 2: period and test the periodically when they do the regrips
Speaker 2: every six weeks for the boys or whatever, because guys
Speaker 2: will get their regrips four or five times a year
Speaker 2: and they leave their bag there and they go have
Speaker 2: lunch and they come back and the lilofts. When you
Speaker 2: do that, you test the woods and if they pass good.
Speaker 2: If they don't, you talk to your man, you say, look,
Speaker 2: you got to get a new driver. This one's not
Speaker 2: going to pass anymore. Yeah, or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because like what everybody's saying now is that is
Speaker 1: that three woods are even worse because no keep.
Speaker 2: Them in there. They don't test ther on the there's
Speaker 2: no I don't believe there is a TOR rule, the
Speaker 2: same CR rule on a three wood as a driver,
Speaker 2: but they don't have a test for the three wood
Speaker 2: or something something like that. Three woods go nuclear. Now
Speaker 2: there's so long. Oh, there's one hundred percent. There's three
Speaker 2: woods that are bouncing all over the place. But I
Speaker 2: don't think there's anything in the rules of golf that
Speaker 2: it either doesn't allow you to test them or there
Speaker 2: isn't a CR rule on a three wood one or
Speaker 2: the other. I don't know, but it's a weird. It's
Speaker 2: a weird area of the rules.
Speaker 1: That all right, let's let's move on. We don't need
Speaker 1: to talk about this anymore. But uh so we got
Speaker 1: we got FedEx Cup coming up. I'm curious your take
Speaker 1: is as a player who played before and after, what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on the playoff system.
Speaker 2: Firstly, this scheduling, playing that tournament they played last week
Speaker 2: and now playing in Memphis this week, that's a big
Speaker 2: that's a big ask for a lot of reasons. Memphis
Speaker 2: has always been a great tournament. It's a great venue,
Speaker 2: but it's really really hot and it's a WGC, so
Speaker 2: it's the real deal the week after the real deal.
Speaker 2: Like back to back, it feels like they've had a
Speaker 2: bit of a relentless run here and Ireland Northern Ireland
Speaker 2: to Memphis is a bit of a mission that aside.
Speaker 2: The FedEx Cup. I like it. I think it's I
Speaker 2: think it's I think it's been really good. I think
Speaker 2: we've generally had really cool champions. Eventually one of the
Speaker 2: better players of the year has won the whole thing.
Speaker 2: So it seems to find a really good player. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I think you can argue up and down
Speaker 2: whether it's volatile enough or not violatile enough. But there
Speaker 2: was there was probably four new four tournaments that were
Speaker 2: five six million dollar tournaments all of a sudden turned
Speaker 2: into eight million dollar tournaments with FedEx Cup, and to
Speaker 2: me that was great just for a player. There's just
Speaker 2: more money to play for, which is really the point
Speaker 2: of a professional golf after the prestige of winning all
Speaker 2: the tournaments and stuff, I mean, the point of being
Speaker 2: a proposed to pilot cash, especially at the end of
Speaker 2: the year, and there was another opportunity to do that.
Speaker 2: So I kind of like them.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's to play golf all the time and never
Speaker 1: have to work.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: That that WGC. So next year they go open WGC Olympics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there'll be a bit of attrition in
Speaker 2: the WGC field. I would think maybe a lot because
Speaker 2: the Olympics doesn't capture the whole Gulf world, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just a couple from each country. That's a long
Speaker 2: run Japan, like Britain to Memphis to Tokyo. It's putting
Speaker 2: some miles in the put some miles on the plane.
Speaker 1: Whoever does that is a true iron man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's legendary. That would be absolutely legendary.
Speaker 2: There'll be guys who do it. It probably won't be many.
Speaker 2: There won't be won't be that many who are in
Speaker 2: all three. There will be actually a few. He'll be
Speaker 2: an all three because the top fifty in the world guys.
Speaker 2: I think the playoffs are great. I think it's they're
Speaker 2: smart finishing it before football. I think it's it's it
Speaker 2: just shows you that there's just really is a lot
Speaker 2: of quality events, and like where do you put them all?
Speaker 2: There's just a lot of tournaments that are really good,
Speaker 2: and we start in January and we have good tournaments
Speaker 2: most weeks all the way through to September, and we're
Speaker 2: and we're telling everyone it's too compressed and there's too
Speaker 2: many good tournaments. So what do you want us to do?
Speaker 2: Like lots of people want to sponsor tournaments and put
Speaker 2: tournaments on. It's a good thing. Running out of dates,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, what is tough for the place.
Speaker 1: So one one thought I've had just recently is what
Speaker 1: if less guys made the playoffs? And since like Golf's
Speaker 1: struggle is always seemingly been that they like weighing season
Speaker 1: long performance appropriately in the playoffs, right, so that you know,
Speaker 1: number one twenty isn't going to win the FedEx Cup,
Speaker 1: you know, put the whole thing after having you know,
Speaker 1: pretty mediocre year. So what if like only forty eight
Speaker 1: guys made it, and like every other sport, everybody in
Speaker 1: the playoffs is on a level ground.
Speaker 2: It's the constant debat. I mean, I was on the
Speaker 2: pack the Player Advisory Committee for a lot of the
Speaker 2: period when we were doing the FedEx carpet was coming
Speaker 2: and all the different little kind of adjustments they made
Speaker 2: in points and format and stuff. And it's half the
Speaker 2: people want pure playoffs start at zero. Half the people
Speaker 2: want like no change. They just want to be rewarded
Speaker 2: for their whole year. Like it's a really you're never
Speaker 2: going to please everybody with it. I think the word
Speaker 2: playoffs was the wrong word because then everybody expects like
Speaker 2: kind of knockout football basketball style playoffs, because golf really
Speaker 2: is your body of work is kind of to be
Speaker 2: respected more than a four round time tournament, you know,
Speaker 2: like Tiger's body of work and it's not only the wins,
Speaker 2: but it's like second third, always in the top ten.
Speaker 2: Ricky Fowler's body of work and the majors is very important,
Speaker 2: and it's harder to do that. It's harder to play
Speaker 2: thirty tournaments consistently well than it is to play two,
Speaker 2: you know. So that's the spirit in that people want
Speaker 2: to recognize the the whole year. But there's also the
Speaker 2: for the excitement purposes of the of the actual tournaments
Speaker 2: and to make them bigger, more exciting tournaments, and more
Speaker 2: volatility would be better. So it's that it's a debate,
Speaker 2: and I don't know what's right. You know, as I said,
Speaker 2: they kind of they didn't really choose either direction, volatility
Speaker 2: or looking after the thing. They've kind of walked the
Speaker 2: tight rope in the middle and they've always tried to
Speaker 2: keep it there. You know. I like them. This year
Speaker 2: will be interesting because the formats bizarre this year so bizarre,
Speaker 2: it'll take people get time to get used to. Like
Speaker 2: starting off at a difference to ornament, where you start
Speaker 2: off at a different score. That's pretty amazing. But the
Speaker 2: you start ten under, I think is that the guy
Speaker 2: who's leading and the next guy's eight under it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's kind of weird that your ten shots behind on
Speaker 2: the first tee for half the field?
Speaker 1: Did you? Did you hear?
Speaker 2: That showed us all the numbers. They showed us that
Speaker 2: they ran through historically the last ten TOO championships, and
Speaker 2: they showed us how it all would have worked out.
Speaker 2: It would have kind of worked out similarly weirdly enough,
Speaker 2: like it's but that doesn't take into account the guy
Speaker 2: they're going to be on the first team in a
Speaker 2: different headspace now because of their starting score. So I
Speaker 2: don't know, we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1: The OWGR board for the World Rankings is wouldn't take
Speaker 1: the net event, so they're the results. So your your
Speaker 1: official World Golf Ranking points will come from a traditional
Speaker 1: seventy two hall championship.
Speaker 2: Which is nonsense, right, because what it's nonsense both ways.
Speaker 2: It's nonsense because you're playing in a different headspace. If
Speaker 2: you start ten behind your your head is in a
Speaker 2: different you're putting different swings on it, and you're feeling
Speaker 2: different and making different decisions and playing a different seventy
Speaker 2: two holes, and you would if you started the same.
Speaker 2: You just are. So that's interesting. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like, do you play for the play for the
Speaker 1: World World Golf Ranking points? Like winning the Tour Championship,
Speaker 1: that's it's a big number that's going into your OWGR.
Speaker 1: And like if you're anywhere near a major cut line,
Speaker 1: that's gonna you know, get you in or get you
Speaker 1: out or do you go for the fedexcap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. Are they going to
Speaker 2: know on the course? Are they going to know if
Speaker 2: they were leading the actual no handicap event.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't think so. I can't imagine that
Speaker 1: putting two scoreboards.
Speaker 2: Up, and they won't if that's just a World Golf
Speaker 2: ranking thing that they won't put it on TV. That'll
Speaker 2: be like they'll try to make that not be an issue.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it'll be interesting. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, when Rory won, you hold that shot, it
Speaker 2: was amazing, and like Tiger won a count the times,
Speaker 2: and like all the finishes in those FedEx Cups have
Speaker 2: been great. I do think there is a part of
Speaker 2: there is a lot of people who would love to
Speaker 2: see it come down to. I don't know, what if
Speaker 2: you have a group of four on the last round
Speaker 2: that's for the ten, and they start at zero on
Speaker 2: the first two on Sunday, you know, I mean, you
Speaker 2: somehow get to that, You somehow get to everybody gets
Speaker 2: their retirement plans and all that, and you play the
Speaker 2: seventy two whole tournament and someone's a too Chamion and
Speaker 2: then the next day you finish it on Saturday, and
Speaker 2: then the next day Sunday you have the top four
Speaker 2: or the top eight. We're all starting to even best
Speaker 2: got today, when's ten go boys? That would be TV.
Speaker 2: See that would be really cool TV. But again people
Speaker 2: are like, well I led the money list all year
Speaker 2: and I won seven times and I'm not in the
Speaker 2: ten million dollar thing. That's not fair. Like, well you
Speaker 2: won seven times, mate, You've got a bit of money,
Speaker 2: you know, I think. But there's a feeling amongst players,
Speaker 2: some of most of the players will be like, well
Speaker 2: that isn't fair. But it's just as fair as anything else, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, you can hand out money however you want.
Speaker 2: It'll be cool. Though it would be like a super
Speaker 2: Bowl of golf. You have four eight guys starting at
Speaker 2: zero blank for even if you split it. Maybe you
Speaker 2: had five for the winner of tour championship, you just
Speaker 2: had five for the playoff or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Did they ever in the in the pack meetings? Did
Speaker 1: you guys ever talk about match play?
Speaker 2: I think it was thrown out there a little bit,
Speaker 2: but it's just I don't think it's it's it's just
Speaker 2: been given up by the like how's it big match play?
Speaker 2: Because it just doesn't seem to work, even though I
Speaker 2: think it could in the right setting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one idea I had last year in my head
Speaker 1: was that you you do a match play, but you
Speaker 1: you do it for every single spot and one through
Speaker 1: thirty two. So like I the last day, you have
Speaker 1: like a you know, a seven versus eight match, you
Speaker 1: know for seventh and eighth, and it's worth three hundred grand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he could do that.
Speaker 1: Because that would be super cool. And then you get
Speaker 1: you know, because the beef against match play is like, well,
Speaker 1: Sunday sucks, there's only two guys on the golf course. Well,
Speaker 1: you'd have all thirty two guys.
Speaker 2: Huh, you just it's not a knockout match play. You
Speaker 2: only progress to the final if you win. But when
Speaker 2: you lose, you just play the guy you have to
Speaker 2: play next for your position or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just play. Yeah, you play out all thirty
Speaker 1: two spots. Maybe I think that would be really cool.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of match play'd be kind of cool.
Speaker 2: I kind of like the idea of the old shootout.
Speaker 2: Remember the old shootout. You'd have nine people on the
Speaker 2: first team and you'd lose a whole player on every
Speaker 2: whole kind of thing. Yeah, but you could do that
Speaker 2: over a whole week and maybe lose of the thirty.
Speaker 2: You lose five a day or something, and you get
Speaker 2: down a Sunday and you've got ten and you get
Speaker 2: after nine holes and you lose ten after nine holes,
Speaker 2: or maybe you get down to nine guys and you
Speaker 2: just shoot out the last nine holes. I mean something
Speaker 2: crazy like, I mean, can you imagine?
Speaker 1: And it would make us that format, would make it
Speaker 1: relatable because so many people play that in a club event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's the member guest disorder or stuff like
Speaker 2: that in some places. I don't know. I just think
Speaker 2: we're an entertainment product at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: and I think as long as everyone gets like rewarded
Speaker 2: in exemption and financial for their success, it'd be great
Speaker 2: attention for the game if you could create one of
Speaker 2: those things that, Oh, my god, did you know there's
Speaker 2: this Tiger and Rory and Brooks and Dustin are playing
Speaker 2: for ten million today. You got to watch that? Can
Speaker 2: you imagine? Like?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Crazy?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that that was like the thing with
Speaker 1: the match. I won't I'll never forget. I want. I
Speaker 1: watched the match and I went out to the bar
Speaker 1: and like to beat the couple of my buddies and
Speaker 1: there they are not golf fans at all and they
Speaker 1: were like, what, hey, how was the match? Who won
Speaker 1: the match? Who won the match is because it is
Speaker 1: so compelling when a few big names play for a
Speaker 1: big dollar amount, and it's easy to understand for.
Speaker 2: Them it would be Look, I think there's there's a
Speaker 2: big part of Pontovidra that would love that. But unfortunately,
Speaker 2: or unfortunately fortunately in most cases that it's a player's
Speaker 2: organization and everything has to kind of go to a
Speaker 2: vote and you're going to get the cross section of opinions,
Speaker 2: and generally the average one you end up with kind
Speaker 2: of the one in the middle that doesn't offend too
Speaker 2: many people and keeps everybody happy. You know, that's just
Speaker 2: the way it works. I think it's pretty I think
Speaker 2: it's pretty good. It could be way better, I mean,
Speaker 2: way more exciting, but I think it kind of it
Speaker 2: balances out. As I said, stud, I think it balances
Speaker 2: out that kind of rewards your year. It's if you
Speaker 2: have a really great year, it's kind of hard to
Speaker 2: miss east Lake. I mean you can, you can, but
Speaker 2: it's difficult, And if you finish one hundred and twentieth
Speaker 2: for the year, it's quite difficult to make East like, see.
Speaker 1: This's where I think where the current format I think it,
Speaker 1: Like my opinion on this has changed since we started talking.
Speaker 1: It is like the format where you take the big
Speaker 1: risk is the last one because everybody that gets there
Speaker 1: is rewarded and has had a great year or playoff
Speaker 1: run to get there, right, Yeah, so that's where you
Speaker 1: take the risk.
Speaker 2: And the top thirty. I think once you've gotten the
Speaker 2: top thirty, you've got your master start, you've got your
Speaker 2: major starts, you're locked up, you've got your extra money. Like,
Speaker 2: top thirty is a great year. Whatever happens, you know,
Speaker 2: regardless of who you are finishing in the top thirty,
Speaker 2: it's always everyone on tour is happy when they make
Speaker 2: the Tour Championship. Yeah, you could probably get a little
Speaker 2: bit more aggressive in the last event, but they've tried
Speaker 2: to do that this year. They know that just a
Speaker 2: straight seventy two whole stroke player with like that points
Speaker 2: kind of that it wasn't working exactly how they wanted,
Speaker 2: so they've changed. I actually think they're doing all right
Speaker 2: because they're trying a few different things without like if
Speaker 2: they go too aggressive and it's a disaster, you know,
Speaker 2: that's kind of risky, Right, They've got a pretty good
Speaker 2: thing what they've got, So yeah, this will be interesting.
Speaker 2: This is a weird one. This is weird, like people
Speaker 2: starting off for seventy two on different scores like handicapped
Speaker 2: golf in pros kind of thing, like different ten shot
Speaker 2: lead over other guys. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: You definitely have to apply to them for doing They're
Speaker 1: doing something drastically different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look this, all these things that they do,
Speaker 2: they have numbers and stats guys who run every single
Speaker 2: possible scenario and they end up with it works. Then,
Speaker 2: as I said, they laid this, they showed us all
Speaker 2: the numbers, they laid this format down on top of this.
Speaker 2: If we'd started all the last previous ten of these
Speaker 2: like this, this is how they would have gone. And
Speaker 2: they kind of went the right way, every single one
Speaker 2: of them. Like statistically, now, I know you can't really
Speaker 2: do that because no one was playing it with that mindset,
Speaker 2: but statistically they they come up with a model that
Speaker 2: the numbers tell them will work. Yeah, so we'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like my big beef with it is like last
Speaker 1: year we wouldn't have gotten Tigers went. Tiger wouldn't have won,
Speaker 1: justin Rose would have won, and that that's like sad.
Speaker 2: It's going to be interesting to see if by sun
Speaker 2: Sea on Thursday, it's gonna be odd, right because everyone's
Speaker 2: gonna be on different scores. But by Sunday it will
Speaker 2: have shaken out and everyone's in the it's a level
Speaker 2: playing field after you've started, right, like and if the
Speaker 2: guy you started off number one is having a bad
Speaker 2: week or he's having a great week, like and Sunday,
Speaker 2: is everyone going to remember that we started like that?
Speaker 2: Or is it just going to be for is it
Speaker 2: just going to be eight and whole Sunday again? You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the guy that's thirty is going to feel like
Speaker 1: he pumped three ob on the first d Yeah.
Speaker 2: He's like ten back, Like, how's that ten back on
Speaker 2: the first But if but if fifty four hours later,
Speaker 2: like the whole thing shapes out and everyone kind of
Speaker 2: balances out and we just have a normal leaderboard on Sunday,
Speaker 2: then people might forget that there was kind of a
Speaker 2: handicapping at the start.
Speaker 1: I and I don't think you should be able to
Speaker 1: call like whoever wins the tour champion.
Speaker 2: No, that was the big argument and from the pack,
Speaker 2: the big argument from the pack was if the guy
Speaker 2: who shoulds the seventy two lower shots for that week
Speaker 2: should win the Tour Championship. You know, you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: able to win a tour event based on something you
Speaker 2: did in a different event, you know, or other events.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Tour events a three is it Tour
Speaker 1: Championships three year exemption?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so that I think it's three. Used to
Speaker 2: be five. I think it's three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah to me, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: It's certainly see that. I think another one of the
Speaker 2: things that's kind of held them back from maybe being
Speaker 2: a bit more aggressive is the fact that the Tour
Speaker 2: Championship is such a historic event and they want the
Speaker 2: Tour Championship to be the Tour Championship and not kind
Speaker 2: of mess up that tradition. And if you start getting
Speaker 2: weird with match plays and knockouts and shootouts, and it's
Speaker 2: not the Tour Championship anymore, and it's they've got the players,
Speaker 2: the Tour Championship, the Tournament of champions you know, they've
Speaker 2: got that kind of higher level of event that they
Speaker 2: like to that have been historic and been around a
Speaker 2: long time. They kind of like to preserve that. So
Speaker 2: that kind of holds them back to But this one
Speaker 2: is a bit weird, you're right. I mean, how do
Speaker 2: you become tour championship if you started in front of
Speaker 2: someone else but they beat you for the seventy two holes,
Speaker 2: but you beat them for the trophy? A weird. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like a club comp though it's like the member gainst.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just crazy because like you could have Jordan
Speaker 1: Speith who gets into the church, like you know, he's
Speaker 1: like seventieth and FedEx Cup right now, I think, But
Speaker 1: he gets into the tournament, he's you know, thirtieth on
Speaker 1: that on that number. He gets in on the number
Speaker 1: and he win. He beats say it's I don't know,
Speaker 1: say it's Brooks. He beats Brooks by eight shots the
Speaker 1: week and Brooks as the tour champion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something wrong with that. But again, they ran
Speaker 2: all these numbers and they don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 2: So we'll see.
Speaker 1: That's but I mean, may it'll go well, it's definitely
Speaker 1: a bit. If it doesn't go well, it'll it'll change
Speaker 1: quickly out is my cast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you think the one, to be honest,
Speaker 2: I think the FedEx Cup is going to be strong
Speaker 2: for a while, and I think they kind of know
Speaker 2: what they're doing this WGC. They're playing this week as
Speaker 2: it's going to be fraught with issues for a while,
Speaker 2: you know, especially if they're going to back it up
Speaker 2: after the Open. That's it. And look, as I said before,
Speaker 2: you're just playing golf for a living. It's not a
Speaker 2: real job. It's all good, but you're not going to
Speaker 2: get the performance out of guys after they just got
Speaker 2: battered around port Rush for four days. They're going to
Speaker 2: fly to one hundred and one hundred in Memphis and
Speaker 2: they're just heads. A lot of their heads are just
Speaker 2: not going to be in the game, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you're just not going to get the performance. I
Speaker 2: mean it's look, you're paying these guys a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and I don't think it's fair that they whine and say,
Speaker 2: don't give me ten million this week, give it to
Speaker 2: me next week. Well they give me, I've got to
Speaker 2: sit on the beach for a week. I don't buy
Speaker 2: that argument at all. But you're not going to get
Speaker 2: the performance out of guys because they're going to be
Speaker 2: Jaden flat. You know, That's what I feel. Maybe not
Speaker 2: but especially at the end of this summer. I mean
Speaker 2: a lot of these guys I played eight in the
Speaker 2: last ten weeks, and four of them were majors. And
Speaker 2: now they've got a WGC and they've got to take
Speaker 2: one week off and play FedEx Cup playoffs and stuff
Speaker 2: and next year the Olympics. I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 2: pretty relentless, and you end up the standard of golf
Speaker 2: will go down. That's that's not I don't think it
Speaker 2: matters about us players being precious and getting tired. That's
Speaker 2: on us. We chose this job. But the standard of
Speaker 2: golf will go down if you overplay these guys in
Speaker 2: big tournaments, and they'll start pulling out of these WGCs
Speaker 2: because they'll prioritize other things, you know.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's I think having traveled a lot
Speaker 1: for work before I started this, and I travel a
Speaker 1: lot for this. Is like you know when when you
Speaker 1: travel like four street week through your job, it's not
Speaker 1: enjoyable and like it takes it like a toll on you.
Speaker 1: And you definitely like even as an office worker job
Speaker 1: like you you're not going to work as well as
Speaker 1: if you're well rested in at home.
Speaker 2: No that's the thing to me. I mean, and everyone,
Speaker 2: like everybody grinds at their job and like has parts
Speaker 2: of it that I don't love, but like it's kind
Speaker 2: of you want people to do it well when they
Speaker 2: do it right, that's the thing. I mean. Maybe this
Speaker 2: will change how they train. Maybe there'll be attrition, Maybe
Speaker 2: there'll be less people play earlier in the year. Maybe
Speaker 2: that run, there'll be more people pull out of some
Speaker 2: tournaments in May, like between the masses in the US Open,
Speaker 2: may take more time off in that period. Maybe more
Speaker 2: guys will not play between the two Opens. You'll get
Speaker 2: attrition somewhere else, or you'll just get the standard of
Speaker 2: golf coming down. And that's when you get guys getting
Speaker 2: headless and snapping clubs over the knees and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Really because they're just like twisted because they've been in
Speaker 2: four different countries in three weeks.
Speaker 1: Like it's tough, what and you're adjusting. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of money, but yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean climate support rush, I mean Northern Ireland to Memphis.
Speaker 2: I can't emphasize enough how big a climate change that
Speaker 2: is fifty degrees glober warming in a week.
Speaker 1: Swap hoss invitation oh my goodness.
Speaker 2: And it's a cool course, it's a good cause, and
Speaker 2: it's a great like it's a great it's always been
Speaker 2: a good community. They love it because it supports the hospital.
Speaker 2: And there's absolutely nothing wrong with FedEx having their tournament there.
Speaker 2: I just think it's the wrong date. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know they have it in the spring. You know,
Speaker 2: put it in the spring when we used to play
Speaker 2: Memphis way back when it was the week before the
Speaker 2: US Open. It was already too hot. Yeah, if you
Speaker 2: could bang it this, but when do you put it
Speaker 2: in the spring. You got the you got the PGA there.
Speaker 2: Now you've got Memorial, you got Colonial, You've got the Nelson,
Speaker 2: You've got I mean, you've got good stuff everywhere now,
Speaker 2: Like it's I'll give it to the tour. That tournament.
Speaker 2: The tour is getting deeper and stronger and more good tournaments.
Speaker 2: And mean it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: That's ah. I think. Well, I'm curious. I've I've been
Speaker 1: doing a bunch of research on like the forming of
Speaker 1: the WGCs. Did you play in the mash play at
Speaker 1: Metropolitan the one year they have.
Speaker 2: It there, No, that went down about nearly went to
Speaker 2: one hundredth in the world, so top sixty four and
Speaker 2: normally it goes to what's sixty five, right, someone's injured
Speaker 2: or someone's wife's having about you or something, and like
Speaker 2: number sixty five gets in that year, it was like
Speaker 2: ninety eight got in because no one wanted to go
Speaker 2: down and uh, the PF folk you got to the fight?
Speaker 2: Did PF folky whin that Steve Stricker be in the
Speaker 2: final or something? Right?
Speaker 1: I don't happen event in front of me.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole intention.
Speaker 2: I wasn't in that.
Speaker 1: The whole intention of the WGC to me, like, and
Speaker 1: this is like a perfect example of it, Like you're
Speaker 1: going to Memphis for a World Golf Championship right after
Speaker 1: you played in Northern Ireland. It doesn't make much sense,
Speaker 1: you know, and like the whole intention, Like I've been
Speaker 1: reading about Norman and his World Tour and all what
Speaker 1: he wanted and how the idea kind of spawned from that,
Speaker 1: and it just seems so such a far you know,
Speaker 1: and I know FedEx is the biggest sponsor, so you
Speaker 1: know they got to take care of them. But this
Speaker 1: is the furthest thing from what was intended when the
Speaker 1: World Golf Championships started.
Speaker 2: It is, and like the two the idea was, let's
Speaker 2: get the top fifty or the top one hundred guys
Speaker 2: in the world, or that Echelona players together more often
Speaker 2: around the world. Like that's the spirit of it. But they,
Speaker 2: I mean, the conspiracy theorists would say when they put
Speaker 2: it outside of America, they put it, they put the
Speaker 2: match play in Australia, so it just wouldn't work. And
Speaker 2: it was like the first week in January or something,
Speaker 2: so nobody wanted to go, and they like they just
Speaker 2: kind of made it. So it ended up just bigger
Speaker 2: versions of you regular two events. It's hard though, and
Speaker 2: as I said, because it's like it's the only way
Speaker 2: it really works is if you create a layer of
Speaker 2: tournaments above the normal ones, and that's just fraught with
Speaker 2: so many complicated situations and exemptions and egos and sponsors,
Speaker 2: and now sponsors are like, well, why don't I why
Speaker 2: don't we get the three year exemption for our tournament
Speaker 2: only get the two year exemption. We put almost as
Speaker 2: much money in a ZAM and it's just really it's
Speaker 2: a can of worm. So it's just ended up being
Speaker 2: regular tour events really although be it they were in
Speaker 2: Mexico City, which is pretty good. That's a cool That's
Speaker 2: what it's about, right, that that one is actually great.
Speaker 2: I think I don't know, it's a difficult thing. And
Speaker 2: this there's philosophically obviously, everybody thinks it'd be great to
Speaker 2: have ten or twelve tournaments around the world, really high
Speaker 2: end tournament. Yeah, tournaments like Memorial or like what Akron
Speaker 2: used to be, Riviera Place, like the really premium to
Speaker 2: the Wentworth Tournament in the UK, I mean, the austral
Speaker 2: And Open, like maybe the Japan Open, or I mean,
Speaker 2: it'd be brilliant to have like that kind of Tennessee
Speaker 2: kind of feel about the big events. But you've got
Speaker 2: to align so many people and so much stuff and
Speaker 2: just to get all that worked out, and you're putting
Speaker 2: players noses at a joint and sponsors noses at a
Speaker 2: joint and golf you're going to you're going to connect
Speaker 2: the golf associations with the professional association. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just it's logistically or like just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the other tough thing is that if you're
Speaker 1: going to Australia or Japan, it's like it's like a
Speaker 1: three week trip essentially.
Speaker 2: Kind yeah, it's it is a big trip. Like this
Speaker 2: is a perfect example, like this schedule have had two
Speaker 2: weeks port rush to Memphis that if you have that regularly,
Speaker 2: guys are just not going to do it. The regular too,
Speaker 2: is just too good. You can live in Florida or
Speaker 2: Arizona or Texas. You can go three hours from your
Speaker 2: home twenty five times a year and play for eight
Speaker 2: million bucks seven million bucks. Why am I going to Japan?
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Why am I going to Australia?
Speaker 2: Like you just why would you? Like you wouldn't because
Speaker 2: it's too it's too good. Like whereas the LPGA, those
Speaker 2: girls travel, they go everywhere because they kind of have to, right,
Speaker 2: They're gonna play when there's a tournament on, they go play.
Speaker 2: We've got choices, We've got lots of If I don't
Speaker 2: play this week in Japan, I'll just play next week
Speaker 2: in Greensboro or something, you know. I mean, it's like
Speaker 2: there's there's too many good tournaments in the US, which
Speaker 2: is a great thing, which is actually a testament to
Speaker 2: the tour of it. That just makes it hard because
Speaker 2: to get to a level above that. It takes a
Speaker 2: lot of money and a lot of organization. There's still
Speaker 2: people who are trying to do it though, there's still
Speaker 2: there's there's part ofganizations out there who are trying to
Speaker 2: like capture a world tour. It's really hard to it's
Speaker 2: really hard to pull off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be cool, but yeah, and the problem.
Speaker 1: The other thing that you run into is if you
Speaker 1: succeed and you get that, every other smaller tour event suffers.
Speaker 2: That's the problem, right, that's the problem with these other
Speaker 2: events stuff. And nobody watches Reno this week, right, like
Speaker 2: they never have. It's a great tournament.
Speaker 1: Speak for yourselves.
Speaker 2: You know. I love Rena. I won there. I think
Speaker 2: it's the midplace. It's one of my favorite tournaments off
Speaker 2: the whole PGA tour, for like the course, the venue,
Speaker 2: how cruizy the week is, how nice the weather is.
Speaker 2: But when the top fifty you're playing somewhere else, most
Speaker 2: people are going to watch that. So if you have that,
Speaker 2: if you don't want to get rid of events, which
Speaker 2: is kind of unfair on the rank and file guys,
Speaker 2: you know, and just have WCS eight weeks a year
Speaker 2: around the world and have no tournaments that same week.
Speaker 2: That's not right, is it.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's a hard one. It's a really
Speaker 2: hard one.
Speaker 1: It's a good question too. It's like it's like, could
Speaker 1: could you survive? Could could the PGA Tour and Web
Speaker 1: Tour become like the bottom and top half become more
Speaker 1: flexible and then you have these elevated events once a
Speaker 1: month or you know, a little more than once a.
Speaker 2: Month already do. I thought an interesting idea would be
Speaker 2: to make the where well, the corn Ferry Tour and
Speaker 2: the PGA Tour, like everybody's got the same exemption from
Speaker 2: number one down Brooks is number one, number one twenty
Speaker 2: five in the money is one twenty five. Then you
Speaker 2: get the fifty in from the Web or whatever. But
Speaker 2: everybody's got a number down to about four or five
Speaker 2: hundred year exemption. And you have two events every week,
Speaker 2: just like this week we have Memphis and Reno. Every
Speaker 2: week you have they're all PGA two events. The corn
Speaker 2: Ferry Tour is now just the PGA Tour. Everything is
Speaker 2: a PJU to and you just have Tier one and
Speaker 2: Tier two events. You know, maybe you have premium tier
Speaker 2: events and you can have multiple events in a week
Speaker 2: that and then you might get some web traditional web
Speaker 2: corn Ferry type sponsors who are ready to kind of
Speaker 2: step up there, spend and like go from a two
Speaker 2: million dollar tournament to a four million dollar tournament because
Speaker 2: like that's they've always wanted to. They don't really want
Speaker 2: to get to like the full PGR toolet but they
Speaker 2: might want to go up a little bit, you know,
Speaker 2: and there might be some PGR two events just like
Speaker 2: you know what, I'd rather just can I just back
Speaker 2: this off and just have like a little bit of
Speaker 2: a smaller event And if you're in you just have
Speaker 2: to play as a player. You have to play the event,
Speaker 2: the highest event that you're exempt into that week, and
Speaker 2: if you don't get into the WGC or the big one,
Speaker 2: you get into the one underneath, like this week. If
Speaker 2: you don't get into Memphis, you just go to Reno
Speaker 2: and it would have two events.
Speaker 1: It would solve the issue of like say you're a
Speaker 1: tour rookie or a guy that's low on the list
Speaker 1: and you get a bad start to the year and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you can't play for two months.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: That's like the thing that killed in right now. There
Speaker 1: are two. I was talking about this with Brendan poor Eth,
Speaker 1: and the shotgun start is like if you right now
Speaker 1: they have same ownership, but they use two different currencies
Speaker 1: with points hmm, like the tour owns five tours, all
Speaker 1: of which use a different currency.
Speaker 2: You could certainly combine the money lists or point lists
Speaker 2: and just have bigger or smaller events and the one
Speaker 2: twenty five line and all those sort of things would change,
Speaker 2: but there would be kind of like benchmark position. You
Speaker 2: still have FedEx Cup playoffs on that and if you
Speaker 2: were two hundred and sixtieth on the list, if you
Speaker 2: finish two hundred and sixtieth on the list, where you're
Speaker 2: just not going to get into those top twenty or
Speaker 2: thirty events, but you're going to get into the next
Speaker 2: thirty events, and you've got a realistic and if you
Speaker 2: win a Tier too event, you get a one year exemption,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you're up in the big ones.
Speaker 2: You win a Tier one event, you get the two
Speaker 2: year exemption. Like, I don't know, if you combine them,
Speaker 2: maybe you could have a more interesting kind of it
Speaker 2: would be a better deal for the guys down the bottom,
Speaker 2: like a better pathway up and it would allow your
Speaker 2: room to create events on top of events you've already got.
Speaker 1: You know, it would create like that free flow, and
Speaker 1: it would let like when somebody's struggling, they wouldn't. It
Speaker 1: would actually, I think, help the struggling PGA Tour player
Speaker 1: because he wouldn't he would have somewhere to play. M hm,
Speaker 1: you know, like it it would really help. And then
Speaker 1: say like this kid, Christopher Ventura, he just he's won
Speaker 1: two Web events in three weeks, like he'd be playing
Speaker 1: up high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah he would. And the guys who'd been struggling,
Speaker 2: who'd started with their card this year and it were
Speaker 2: really really battling. I mean they might be now not
Speaker 2: they might be like drifting down and not getting into
Speaker 2: like some bigger ones. It's an interesting I think. I
Speaker 2: think there's more room the gap between the Web corn Ferry,
Speaker 2: the corn Ferry Tour money wise and exemption wise and
Speaker 2: all that. The gap between that and the PGA Tour
Speaker 2: is too big. It's a massive jay. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just it's almost it's not a money losing proposition the Web,
Speaker 2: but it's close. I think it is.
Speaker 1: It is a money like the guy that makes this
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, like they're barely covering expenses.
Speaker 2: You know, it's Bordlin and that's not fair. I just
Speaker 2: think there's more money, and there's a little bit more
Speaker 2: money in golf than that, And I think there'd be
Speaker 2: a way to create a better secondary tour which would
Speaker 2: allow your room to maybe put some really premium stuff
Speaker 2: on top of the big one, you know, I think
Speaker 2: it would be not that there isn't premium stuff, you
Speaker 2: know that world too. You'd have a bit more room
Speaker 2: if you've got if every one of your members has
Speaker 2: got somewhere to play that week for a reasonable amount,
Speaker 2: then they don't really mind if the top fifty go
Speaker 2: off and make ten million somewhere else because I got
Speaker 2: three million to play for and like Chicago that way
Speaker 2: or whatever, you know, and maybe it's well.
Speaker 1: The other thing is that now that the PGA Tour
Speaker 1: owns Canada and Latin America, it gives them like essentially
Speaker 1: a new funnel in m H. Like that's the piece
Speaker 1: that they hadn't had for so many years, was now
Speaker 1: that they now they owned two more supplemental tours, and
Speaker 1: they own China.
Speaker 2: They owned all the pathways to get on the page
Speaker 2: a tour pretty.
Speaker 1: Much, but none of them allow for movement, Like they
Speaker 1: all operate in their own entity.
Speaker 2: The movement is difficult. Like it's a pretty I mean
Speaker 2: the Latin America and the Canadian Tour, which those guys
Speaker 2: can play. They're really good. I just haven't had an
Speaker 2: opportunity yet. And they're all young and they're okay. I
Speaker 2: mean it's top five for a whole year, gets a
Speaker 2: chance to play web dot Com. I mean, that's five
Speaker 2: on the money list. It's really high. That's so you
Speaker 2: can finish sixth on Canada, sixth on Latin American a year,
Speaker 2: probably lose money for a year, and you've got nothing
Speaker 2: to show for it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing is is that top five is
Speaker 1: just conditional too, it's not even full.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tough. It's I don't know. I mean we're
Speaker 2: trying to you're trying to if you're trying to please
Speaker 2: the golf fan to give him great golf tournaments, but
Speaker 2: you're just trying to capture the the best way to
Speaker 2: have the most people have this job and enjoy it,
Speaker 2: right and like, and there's a lot of small market's
Speaker 2: not just for the players. There's there's lots of small
Speaker 2: markets that just can't have PGA two events, but they
Speaker 2: could have a lower level to PG to event and
Speaker 2: they probably would. You know. I mean, how many great
Speaker 2: little four or five hundred, six hundred thousand people towns
Speaker 2: are there in America with good golf courses. They're everywhere,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Cedar Rappers Iowa.
Speaker 2: That's I think about the price at the price point
Speaker 2: of twelve million dollar ask. You can't do that in
Speaker 2: seat of rapids. But if it was a four million
Speaker 2: dollarsk or something, well maybe you can. You know. I
Speaker 2: don't know, like, yeah, maybe you can't. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: much smarter people than us working on stuff like this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, all right, well we've we've covered, you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of topics and you know, we're very off course,
Speaker 1: but until again, we got we got top Presidence Cup
Speaker 1: one of these days. Yeah, you're let's do it, Assistant Captain.
Speaker 1: We gotta hear what's going on with an international squad.
Speaker 2: The inside the squad. I don't know my role because
Speaker 2: I've been down here has been I've been going out
Speaker 2: to Royal a little bit and I'm going to wander
Speaker 2: around Royal with a few of the long time royal
Speaker 2: members and see if we can find some sneaky pins
Speaker 2: for our team. You know, it's kind of the program. Well,
Speaker 2: you can't narrow roll Melbourne down like you did Parish National,
Speaker 2: and you can't grow rough, but we might be able
Speaker 2: to create a local knowledge advantage if we can kind
Speaker 2: of teach how guys how to play it quicker. But
Speaker 2: I think Tiger's been there a bunch to everybody knows
Speaker 2: how to play the course. So it'll be be fun.
Speaker 2: Everyone down here is excited about it. I mean, Melbourne
Speaker 2: people love golf tournaments. They're like Chicago people, right, they
Speaker 2: just turn up to big events. They just do So
Speaker 2: it's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know. One one trick if if Patrick
Speaker 1: Reid makes the team is he always felt that the
Speaker 1: tour was conspiring against him by putting right pins on Sundays.
Speaker 2: So I work out all the shot shapes from everyone
Speaker 2: and put all the pins on the wrong side for
Speaker 2: the American.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, you know, just just do that, figure out
Speaker 1: figure out their alternate shot teams and who's hitting the
Speaker 1: pro shots and moving around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's we need our team needs to
Speaker 2: win this tournament. Soon, otherwise it's going to kind of
Speaker 2: get a bit boring. But yeah, it's fun to be
Speaker 2: involved with such good fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well we'll talk soon.
Speaker 2: Oh I cheered my That was good.