Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my.
Speaker 3: Ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida
Speaker 3: Egg Friday Egg, Frida Egg brid Egg, Frida Egg Bride
Speaker 3: egg Lie.
Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off of the.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 4: and today we're talking about the state of amateur golf
Speaker 4: with Lawrence Donagan. But first before we get into that,
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about what we're in on and
Speaker 4: what we're out on this week. Here to do that
Speaker 4: with me is Joseph Lamania. Joseph, what are you in on?
Speaker 3: Gary, I'm in on the unexpected wonderful golf weekend that
Speaker 3: we had the Women's Olympics, which was a super exciting
Speaker 3: finish with Lydia Coe. You don't always know that you're
Speaker 3: gonna get a compelling finish down the stretch. She had
Speaker 3: to play great golf, and she did play great golf.
Speaker 3: Was super emotional when she won. Thought that was a
Speaker 3: delightful ending to a great Olympics, both on the men's
Speaker 3: and the women's side. And then we got the little
Speaker 3: cherry on top yesterday evening with Matt Coocher's debacle at
Speaker 3: the Window Championship, which I don't know how plugged you
Speaker 3: and you were to that situation, Garrett. But in case
Speaker 3: anyone missed it, every golfer got done with a marathon
Speaker 3: of play at Sedgefield after rains storms. They crammed everybody
Speaker 3: in except for one Matt Coocher, who returned to finish
Speaker 3: on Monday morning. If you somehow missed it, he was
Speaker 3: completely out of contention. T twelve missed the FedEx Cup
Speaker 3: playoffs like just nothing. I mean there is still some
Speaker 3: fall positioning to play for, very little to play for,
Speaker 3: and decided that he was not going to finish the
Speaker 3: eighteenth hole due to darkness, despite the other guys in
Speaker 3: his group finishing, and he came out made a nice
Speaker 3: dramatic par this morning as we're recording this. So you
Speaker 3: never know what kind of weekends you're going to get
Speaker 3: in August. It could have been sleepy, but between lydia
Speaker 3: Co and Matt Kucher, I love that windfall we got
Speaker 3: this past weekend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, created an extra day of work for all
Speaker 4: the tournament's staff and you know, I was just doing
Speaker 4: Matt Kucher things. I think my favorite part of this
Speaker 4: was his explanation of why he did that. He was
Speaker 4: trying to set an example, right, he was trying to
Speaker 4: set an example for a playing partner of his, and
Speaker 4: this playing partner happens to be happens to be twenty
Speaker 4: nine years old.
Speaker 3: He apologized to everyone today that he had to be
Speaker 3: the one that didn't get to finish. I loved the
Speaker 3: passive language there, as if some wrong had been done.
Speaker 4: Happened to him, right, happened to him? Do it happened
Speaker 4: to him?
Speaker 3: But I'm in on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it seemed it seemed to be pretty delightful.
Speaker 4: I was actually out at dinner with with some neighbors
Speaker 4: when when this was all happening. But I came back
Speaker 4: and it was one of those things where I had
Speaker 4: to gradually piece together what was going on from a
Speaker 4: variety of different tweets, and that's always an interesting process.
Speaker 4: But eventually the picture came into focus. This is Matt
Speaker 4: Coucher being Matt Coucher and uh and and that is
Speaker 4: always always pretty funny. But we haven't we haven't seen
Speaker 4: it in a while. From from Cuture. He's he's been
Speaker 4: a little bit obscure lately, hasn't hasn't really been a factor.
Speaker 4: But man, when he gets back in the spotlight, he
Speaker 4: he really seems to make the most of it. So
Speaker 4: all credit to him.
Speaker 3: Good to have him back. Yeah, what are you in on, Garrett?
Speaker 4: I'm in on men's and women's fields playing simultaneous or
Speaker 4: back to back tournaments at the same venue.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: This has obviously been tried a couple of times. It
Speaker 4: hasn't worked that well. It does work well at the
Speaker 4: VIC Open in Australia where this is the format of
Speaker 4: the tournament. They play simultaneously. They kind of mix the
Speaker 4: men's and women's fields together and it seems to really
Speaker 4: give that tournament an identity and people are excited about it.
Speaker 4: There's a thirty six whole facility that they play at
Speaker 4: that helps it all function. Didn't really work that well
Speaker 4: when they tried it at the Australian Open. The Ausie
Speaker 4: seem to be going after this a bit like trying
Speaker 4: to make this happen, which is a great thing. But
Speaker 4: they did it at the Australian Open and the logistics
Speaker 4: seem to have not worked that well. So there are
Speaker 4: ways that these simultaneous tournaments can come off well and
Speaker 4: there are ways that they can fail, and so you
Speaker 4: just have to execute it right. I also think it's
Speaker 4: interesting to see men's and women's fields playing back to
Speaker 4: back tournaments at the same venue as they did at
Speaker 4: the Olympics, at the Golf Nacional, as they did at
Speaker 4: those US Opens back in twenty fourteen at Pinehurst, and
Speaker 4: I believe a repeat of that structure of the US Opens,
Speaker 4: the Women's Open as well as the Men's Open, is
Speaker 4: coming up in a few years as well, and so
Speaker 4: this is being tried. But whenever it happens, I love
Speaker 4: it as a golf nerd, seeing men's and women's fields
Speaker 4: playing the same course in very different ways, seeing different
Speaker 4: holes be set up in distinct ways is really interesting,
Speaker 4: something that I wish maybe the telecast made more of
Speaker 4: or showed more of. I do think people would be
Speaker 4: interested in that if they were delivered that kind of content,
Speaker 4: So I'd just like to see more experimentation here. And
Speaker 4: obviously I think that this kind of this kind of
Speaker 4: mashing up of the men's and women's games could potentially
Speaker 4: really help the women's game reach a larger and more
Speaker 4: enthusiastic audience than the LPGA Tour seems to have so
Speaker 4: far this year. This season has been really interesting on
Speaker 4: the LPGA Tour for a number of reasons, Nellie Korda
Speaker 4: being one big one. But it just doesn't seem to
Speaker 4: be gaining much public momentum, and so I'd like to
Speaker 4: see the powers that be try to figure out how
Speaker 4: to unlock some of that enthusiasm that surely would be
Speaker 4: there if women's golf tournaments were presented properly and given
Speaker 4: a stage to shine. So yeah, like this idea of
Speaker 4: the men's and women's fields being kind of in the
Speaker 4: same place at the same time and playing the same course.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was super cool during the US
Speaker 3: Open at Pinehurst in twenty fourteen, how some of the
Speaker 3: women were out watching the men's tournament and warming up
Speaker 3: getting ready for their week, like as the men were
Speaker 3: playing theirs tournament. It'd be cool to see it go
Speaker 3: in the other direction too, But I mean, scheduling is
Speaker 3: just a huge part of that, right, Like none of
Speaker 3: those guys were sticking around in Paris after they were
Speaker 3: done with the Olympics. Some of them had to go
Speaker 3: play the Windom Championship. So this just gets into the
Speaker 3: scheduling and the lack of cooperation generally. But Garrett, I
Speaker 3: guess where do you land on some kind of mixed
Speaker 3: team event at the twenty twenty eight Olympics? Like that
Speaker 3: seems there are people of two minds on that one.
Speaker 3: This version of the Olympics worked very well and the
Speaker 3: individual portion of this seem to motivate players both on
Speaker 3: the men's and the women's side, to where now the
Speaker 3: Olympics is an unbelievably compelling event, Like let's not do
Speaker 3: away with that, right, Like, let's not try something that
Speaker 3: gets away from a winning formula. But there are only
Speaker 3: two weeks to run these events, So do you think
Speaker 3: that doing a team mixed event in between is the
Speaker 3: winning formula? Like? How do you think this comes to fruition?
Speaker 3: Because I think a team mixed event would be super compelling.
Speaker 3: I just don't want to jeopardize something that's already special.
Speaker 4: It's hard to work it out, because, yes, the stroke
Speaker 4: play tournaments, now that we're three additions in, seem to
Speaker 4: have gained their own identity. You know, there were objections
Speaker 4: and including I would imagine from me, I don't exactly.
Speaker 4: Remember what I said about this at the time, But
Speaker 4: when I heard that they were doing seventy two whole
Speaker 4: stroke play, I was disappointed for the Olympics. I wished
Speaker 4: that they had been a little more daring and creative.
Speaker 4: But now that that's what we've settled on, this is
Speaker 4: the Olympics tournament.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: It has that identity and it has that kind of tradition.
Speaker 4: So far, it's not much of a tradition yet because
Speaker 4: again only three but this is what it is, and
Speaker 4: so we've got to keep that and got it. We've
Speaker 4: got to build on that. But yeah, I'd love to
Speaker 4: see a mixed team event. I'd love to see some
Speaker 4: match play, some you know, some kind of teammate interaction
Speaker 4: between between players, which we don't get right now. But
Speaker 4: I just don't know how that's going to be worked
Speaker 4: out practically. And furthermore, I think that especially the men,
Speaker 4: are at their limit with the Olympics of what they're
Speaker 4: willing to do for free. They've got the President's Cup,
Speaker 4: I mean, none of this is They're not doing it
Speaker 4: for free. They're get they're getting paid in a number
Speaker 4: of different ways for these things, but you know, it's
Speaker 4: not not big prize money. They've got the Olympics, they've
Speaker 4: got the President's Cup, they've got the right Cup. I
Speaker 4: fear that adding more Olympic events would just set up
Speaker 4: those events as well as the existing ones that we
Speaker 4: already have, for failure. I think there would be some attrition.
Speaker 4: I think there would be players who would balk at
Speaker 4: doing not just the seventy two hoole stroke play, but
Speaker 4: also the additional event. I think there would be players
Speaker 4: who wouldn't want to go that far with it, and
Speaker 4: that's unfortunate. I don't think that's the right thing or
Speaker 4: the right attitude necessarily. I think that's just the reality.
Speaker 3: I haven't thought too much about the optimal format, but
Speaker 3: thinking about it right now in real time, I could
Speaker 3: see some kind of it doesn't need to be four days,
Speaker 3: Like what if it's the very front end of the
Speaker 3: Olympics in twenty twenty eight, there's like a two day
Speaker 3: team mixed event, where like maybe it's one day of
Speaker 3: best ball in the morning, alternate shot in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: and then they take the top four teams and do
Speaker 3: some kind of little match play the next day. That's
Speaker 3: not a huge lift, it's a decent amount of golf
Speaker 3: for the teams that go all the way to the finals.
Speaker 3: But I think if you ask four days of them,
Speaker 3: they're much less likely to say yes. If it's two
Speaker 3: days and they get a little bit of time to
Speaker 3: play the golf course get ready for their own individual
Speaker 3: stroke play events, it could be a cool way to
Speaker 3: set the stage. So maybe they should experiment with an
Speaker 3: abbreviated format, some kind of sprint one or two day event.
Speaker 3: I think would be pretty.
Speaker 4: Cool, little prologue.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean imagine seeing Minji Lee and Min Wuli
Speaker 3: play together as brother and sister. That would be incredible.
Speaker 4: All right, Joseph, what are you out on?
Speaker 3: I am out on the stranglehold that ranking systems have
Speaker 3: over the professional golf world just in general. I know
Speaker 3: that the official World Golf rankings has been in the
Speaker 3: crosshairs a lot. Team Europe, in announcing their criteria for
Speaker 3: how you're going to qualify for the Ryder Cup in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, did not include any official World Golf ranking.
Speaker 3: It's not included as part of the criterias as to
Speaker 3: how you get points, and it was part of their
Speaker 3: criteria in twenty twenty three that was how three of
Speaker 3: the spots were allocated was based on Official World Golf Ranking.
Speaker 3: I think the second order effects of what ranking systems
Speaker 3: do there are benefits. It's cool to see that some
Speaker 3: players in the top ten for however many consecutive weeks,
Speaker 3: or it was in the top ten and twenty ten
Speaker 3: and then again in twenty twenty, and you see these
Speaker 3: You evaluate the players legacies and windows of their careers
Speaker 3: via the Official World Golf Ranking. So I think it
Speaker 3: has its positives. But the way that it funnels players
Speaker 3: to one tour or as we may talk about on
Speaker 3: this podcast as a little teaser, the wagger the amateur
Speaker 3: golf rankings, some of the knock on effects that has
Speaker 3: if you're deterring players from showing up because it's going
Speaker 3: to impact their rankings, either as an amateur or as
Speaker 3: a professional. That's just one of the cons to having
Speaker 3: a ranking system, and I do think the golf world
Speaker 3: should consider if potentially the golf world would be better
Speaker 3: off without having a ranking system that had some of
Speaker 3: these negative effects like preventing players from showing up because
Speaker 3: they're prioritizing their rankings, or funneling players into one location,
Speaker 3: in this case America on the men's side, it is
Speaker 3: a worthwhile conversation to consider some of the benefits of
Speaker 3: going away from or making ranking systems less central to
Speaker 3: the golf ecosystem, so to speak.
Speaker 4: What would happen if we just eliminated all of them tomorrow?
Speaker 4: If we just did like a fanouse snap and all
Speaker 4: of the world rankings systems in golf just disappeared, What
Speaker 4: do you think would happen?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 3: I think you'd have a bunch of qualifiers into tournaments,
Speaker 3: which would be really cool.
Speaker 4: So like Major Monday Ghue, you would love that. Ryan
Speaker 4: French would be very happy.
Speaker 3: I think it would be I think it would be cool.
Speaker 3: But you could do a lot of you know, if
Speaker 3: you finish in the top of this event, you're automatically in,
Speaker 3: Like that's a way you could round out fields. So
Speaker 3: you know, if you finish in the top twenty of
Speaker 3: the Masters, maybe you're back the next year. Like, there
Speaker 3: are ways that you could do it. The main con
Speaker 3: is that you'd have a hard time saying, hey, who's
Speaker 3: the best player in the world right now? But there's
Speaker 3: already debates about that. And on the men's side, like
Speaker 3: Live Golf doesn't get a Fisher World golf rankings point.
Speaker 3: So people have already been saying, well, maybe Bryson's the
Speaker 3: best player in the world. It's not a great argument,
Speaker 3: but we already deal with that issue. So I think
Speaker 3: you'd have a lot of more of a qualifier based
Speaker 3: system into getting into certain golf tournaments, and I think
Speaker 3: that would probably be a better version of golf. But
Speaker 3: and this is not to tease our upcoming interview too much,
Speaker 3: but I think this is probably more of a problem
Speaker 3: on the amateur side even than on the professional side.
Speaker 3: So yeah, people know, I think I'm going to be
Speaker 3: digging into the world to the world amateur golf rankings
Speaker 3: a little bit, and if people are super knowledgeable on that,
Speaker 3: feel free to reach out. But it does seem like
Speaker 3: it causes a lot more problems than it solves.
Speaker 4: Little off season project for Joseph. I like it well,
Speaker 4: long form, long term, long term investigation of world ranking systems.
Speaker 3: I like that worth looking at. What are you add on, Garrett, I.
Speaker 4: Am out on denying that you said the F word
Speaker 4: on live television when you clearly said the F word
Speaker 4: on live television. Morgan Pressel, an announcer during the Olympics,
Speaker 4: said about Brook Henderson. At one point, Brook Henderson had
Speaker 4: just hit a good shot and had like high fived
Speaker 4: or fist bumpter caddy or something. Morgan Pressel said, she's
Speaker 4: fucking fired up. You to see it, and it was funny.
Speaker 4: People shared the clip around social media. It was just
Speaker 4: a little little extra sideshow during the competition, something to
Speaker 4: chuckle about, nothing particularly offensive. We all know that she
Speaker 4: didn't really mean to say that that. Probably what she
Speaker 4: meant to say was she's fricking fired up or freaking
Speaker 4: fired up, and it just came out the wrong word.
Speaker 4: But she did say the F word. She said it.
Speaker 4: It's on air. We all heard it. Pressel statement the
Speaker 4: next day. I stumbled over my words, and unfortunately it
Speaker 4: sounded as if I said something inappropriate. I am so
Speaker 4: sorry that it came across as such, because I would
Speaker 4: never say that on air in a broadcast. So I mean, listen,
Speaker 4: this isn't that serious, this isn't that bad. But she's
Speaker 4: not saying I said it, And it was just a slip,
Speaker 4: she said. I didn't say it. It it just it just
Speaker 4: came across like I You you may have thought that
Speaker 4: you heard that, but I would never I would never
Speaker 4: I would never that was the tactic. And it's just
Speaker 4: this kind of gaslighting approach to pr cleanup that so
Speaker 4: many golfers seemed to think is the way to do things.
Speaker 4: But it's not the way to do things, because we
Speaker 4: all know that you're lying, you're not this is not
Speaker 4: the truth. You said what you said, and you might
Speaker 4: as well just own it and say, you know, listen,
Speaker 4: sorry about that. I don't even need her to apologize.
Speaker 4: Maybe some people do, maybe she needs to, but I
Speaker 4: just I just don't accidentally said the wrong word and
Speaker 4: egg on my face, my bad. That's that's really all
Speaker 4: you need to do. And Zach Johnson the same thing
Speaker 4: at the Masters when he told the gallery in Amen
Speaker 4: corner to fuck off. We all heard it, we all
Speaker 4: saw it, saw it, we knew what he was doing,
Speaker 4: and he flat out denied it, said he was saying
Speaker 4: it to him self. It's not what happened. Guys, Just
Speaker 4: just admit it, Just just say I'm fallible, you know,
Speaker 4: that's my bad, and laugh it off. But that's that's
Speaker 4: not what people seem to want to do and trying
Speaker 4: to clean up these messes. So so we're left with
Speaker 4: kind of being gaslighted. But in any case, just thought
Speaker 4: i'd point that out. I thought it was a fun
Speaker 4: part of the weekend. And by the way, they dmcad
Speaker 4: the clip almost immediately and so it's no longer really
Speaker 4: available on on on Twitter or wherever else. And so
Speaker 4: that's just another thing that they do to try to
Speaker 4: memory hole certain things that happened during golf tournaments.
Speaker 3: Look, this is bigger than golf, right, It's it's the
Speaker 3: art of apologizing. It's the i'm sorry if you were offended.
Speaker 4: Not of the non apology, right right, this is not
Speaker 4: an apology. It's like I'm sorry that you guys so
Speaker 4: weird that you heard me say this when I.
Speaker 3: Didn't, right, And I think the main lesson when you
Speaker 3: watch people apologize successfully and just own it, it works better.
Speaker 3: Like this is not a good strategy, so.
Speaker 4: It becomes like a good thing for them.
Speaker 3: Right right, Like just own it. So I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I don't have much to add. This is much bigger
Speaker 3: than golf. It happens in all fields. But I think
Speaker 3: people need to learn that the right approach is just
Speaker 3: to own it. So I'm going to hear it. I'm
Speaker 3: out on that too.
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Speaker 4: go to Goodwalkcoffee dot com slash fried Egg. All right, so, Joseph,
Speaker 4: We've got an interview with Laurence don again coming up,
Speaker 4: and the subject dis amateur golf. The occasion is that
Speaker 4: the the US Women's Amateur just wrapped up yesterday at
Speaker 4: Southern Hills and the US Amateur is getting underway right
Speaker 4: now at Hazelteine. Those tournaments are just always a delight
Speaker 4: to watch. So first of all, I would definitely recommend
Speaker 4: tuning in this week and watching the golf. But Lawrence
Speaker 4: Donagan is the person we're talking to about amateur golf,
Speaker 4: and you know, he's many things in golf media. He's
Speaker 4: a veteran journalist who has written for The Guardian and
Speaker 4: The Harold and other outlets. He's also the founder of
Speaker 4: mckeller magazine as well as the co host of the
Speaker 4: mckeller podcast along with Jeff Shackelford. But maybe most relevant
Speaker 4: to this episode, he is the father of an excellent
Speaker 4: young amateur golfer who is playing this week in the
Speaker 4: US Amateur at Hazelteine. So Lawrence has a lot of thoughts,
Speaker 4: a lot of takes about amateur golf. Such an interesting
Speaker 4: guy to talk to, and so let's just go straight
Speaker 4: to that interview. Okay, So Joseph and I are here
Speaker 4: with Lawrence Donnagan. Lawrence, it's great to have you on
Speaker 4: the podcast. How are you doing right now?
Speaker 5: Thanks for helping me on Garrett. Hi, Hi, Joseph. We've
Speaker 5: never made before, so here we are. Yeah, we'll just
Speaker 5: dive right into it. Joseph will chip in when he
Speaker 5: wants to chip in, But just to get us started,
Speaker 5: we're going to talk about amateur golf, about the amateur
Speaker 5: golf scene, about some of the issues, and also some
Speaker 5: of the joys of participating in amateur golf. You have
Speaker 5: a unique perspective on this, Lawrence, not only because you're
Speaker 5: a longtime golf journalist, but because your son, Nile is
Speaker 5: a very good player who has in fact qualified for
Speaker 5: the US Amateur. So, just briefly, to give people a
Speaker 5: sense of what your perspective is on the world, what
Speaker 5: was the US Amateur qualification experience like for you? Well,
Speaker 5: it was great for me because I ass my want,
Speaker 5: I wasn't there. I act as a chauffeur. I teake
Speaker 5: young Now he's not that young as nineteen I took him.
Speaker 5: I always drop him off at the golf course, but
Speaker 5: pre round an hour and a half before then, I disappear.
Speaker 5: I go into town, I go find a coffee shop,
Speaker 5: I go and read a book. I go tour you.
Speaker 5: On that particular instance, I went into Bend for fight.
Speaker 5: He was qualifying at ben Golf Club for final qualifying
Speaker 5: for the amateur. And then I try my best not
Speaker 5: to look at my phone that the live scoring. I
Speaker 5: know people love life scoring. It's a curse, it's an
Speaker 5: absolute curse. But if you look at live scoring, your
Speaker 5: entire day is ruined. So I do my best not
Speaker 5: to look at live scoring. Otherwise the whole day is ruined.
Speaker 5: You just that's all you can think about, because it is.
Speaker 5: We're all the same. You know, if you've got kids,
Speaker 5: you know you don't you don't want it to be
Speaker 5: hourt or to fail. You know, it's just like a
Speaker 5: parent watching a kid do anything. You know, your kid
Speaker 5: comes home and says, I've got a D and an exam.
Speaker 5: You kind of so I see the kind of golf
Speaker 5: process is a little bit that that particular day I managed.
Speaker 5: I didn't see any live scoring. Drove back to the
Speaker 5: golf course, and it's really funny even when you come
Speaker 5: into the car park and if you can tell how
Speaker 5: your son walks. If I see him in the distance
Speaker 5: walking up, I look away because I don't know want
Speaker 5: to know where he is. It was pathetic. Doesn't it
Speaker 5: sound so awful, But it was really funny in that
Speaker 5: particular day. So his mum was pulling his trolley that day,
Speaker 5: Baggie was, and so she doesn't really know much about golf.
Speaker 5: So I walked back into the car park round and
Speaker 5: he's at the tent, the scorer's tent. So I walk
Speaker 5: up and I said to mum, how do you do?
Speaker 5: I don't really know quite well, I think. And then
Speaker 5: now sitting at the desk and I go, well, how
Speaker 5: did it go? And he did They usually just held
Speaker 5: the eight fingers down, which is really cool.
Speaker 2: Oh that was so that was really great.
Speaker 5: He told me that that was I think he shot
Speaker 5: sixty four a couple of times tournament somewhere, but I think,
Speaker 5: you know, he's never really he's never qualified for a
Speaker 5: USG event. I think he tried, you know, USGA Junior
Speaker 5: arm a couple of times, didn't make it. Got through
Speaker 5: the final qualifying in the USGA for the US Open,
Speaker 5: actually was first alternate. This is quite a good funny story.
Speaker 5: Took him to Olympic Club. He was first reserve and
Speaker 5: and five minutes before some guy never showed up, so
Speaker 5: he jumped on the first tea and off he went,
Speaker 5: and he.
Speaker 2: Was right behind.
Speaker 5: He's had to say, Maverick McNeely had a golf coach
Speaker 5: called Alex Murray, and now he's gone to the same coach.
Speaker 5: So nearly was in the group in France, so that
Speaker 5: you know he's sixteen years old, they'd seventeen. Really thrilling stuff.
Speaker 5: But this is a you know, he's this is a
Speaker 5: bit a big deal. You make you qualify for the
Speaker 5: us AMAZ A really big deal. So we leave for
Speaker 5: Hazel time. We're recording a Wednesday, believe on Thursday. Then
Speaker 5: I think the first first rounds next Monday and Tuesday,
Speaker 5: so really look forward to that. He's actually his is
Speaker 5: a longtime little league coach. It's going to come over
Speaker 5: and caddy for him, so that that's pretty cool. In fact,
Speaker 5: his name is Tod mctaffy and Todd now qualified. He
Speaker 5: won his regional qualifier for the Open this year, and
Speaker 5: Todd flew over from her home where we live in Norland, California,
Speaker 5: over to caddy for him at Row Singport. So it's
Speaker 5: kind of cool. It kind of takes a village, doesn't it. Mom,
Speaker 5: little league caddy, dad drives. You know, it's it's a
Speaker 5: really cool experience actually, especially for somebody like me. I
Speaker 5: just love golf. I love watching amateur golf. This is
Speaker 5: really really cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, quite a qualifying round for a for
Speaker 4: a young nile. He was medalist by I believe for
Speaker 4: strokes and so that that is a way to qualify
Speaker 4: for the for the US Amateur. He plays played college
Speaker 4: golf last year at Northwestern, so clearly a very good
Speaker 4: young player. I met him at Chambers Bay when I
Speaker 4: when I came and talked to you, Lawrence, and seems
Speaker 4: like a great kid. And uh, and so we're rooting
Speaker 4: for him at the at the U s AM. But
Speaker 4: kind of backing up and zooming out a bit, what
Speaker 4: have you learned about parenting through this amateur golf process?
Speaker 4: Because you know, I mean, this is a serious amateur player.
Speaker 4: I'm sure you've seen some pretty intense parenting in in
Speaker 4: this area. I wonder if you've kind of adjusted your
Speaker 4: thoughts over time about how.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, some people might look at me, see I'm
Speaker 5: an intense perient. Well I'm never. I'm never at the
Speaker 5: golf tournaments. But I kind of evolved over these. I
Speaker 5: coached all sorts of things. I coached soccer football, as
Speaker 5: we would call it. I go middle school golf team,
Speaker 5: what else, go baseball, little league, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: And I used to have a really you know, hands
Speaker 5: off parents, light touch, and but it's hard. It's a
Speaker 5: I see, you know, I see it at golf tournaments. I've
Speaker 5: seen some horrendous stuff at golf tournaments. You know when
Speaker 5: when now I was really young, you didn't play a
Speaker 5: lot of tournament golf, but you see parents cheating and
Speaker 5: you know, and you know, you'd go and pick them
Speaker 5: up after a golf tournament and you say, how did
Speaker 5: it go? It was really good, but little Johnny's dad
Speaker 5: threw the ball back in the fairway, and you know.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 5: So but see the longer I go home and and
Speaker 5: I look at the guys, Now I'm very careful here
Speaker 5: because I don't want to, you know, shame is the
Speaker 5: wrong word. But I see some parents who I've known
Speaker 5: for years and have really reputations for being really intense,
Speaker 5: really hands on, hovering, you know, all you would think
Speaker 5: all the worst traits. But you know, but then you
Speaker 5: see their kids are you know, they're now college seniors
Speaker 5: and they're winning big tournaments, you know, or they're doing
Speaker 5: really really well. So when I say I've evolved, I
Speaker 5: just what and now think? I just think it's it's
Speaker 5: just different ways of doing it. There's no right way
Speaker 5: or wrong way. I don't think. I used to think
Speaker 5: there was a right way and a wrong way, but
Speaker 5: now I'm really not so sure. I guess whatever works
Speaker 5: for a particular family, for a particular parent, for a
Speaker 5: particular kid. You know, of course, you hear stories all
Speaker 5: the time of great players who are completely turned off
Speaker 5: by the pushy parents and the you know, the great
Speaker 5: junior players, but they just get ground down, they get
Speaker 5: you know, forc into doing it, you know, and they can't.
Speaker 5: Eventually they get to the stage where they're no longer
Speaker 5: under their parents' control and they just rebel and they
Speaker 5: kind of pack it in I think, you know, the pushy,
Speaker 5: very pushy, intense approach works with kids who love golf,
Speaker 5: really really love golf. But for the kids who are
Speaker 5: kind of ambivalent, then I don't think the strong parent
Speaker 5: thing works.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, Tiger Woods comes to mind,
Speaker 4: maybe the most famous father son relation, famous father son
Speaker 4: relationship and golf, And I mean it certainly worked in
Speaker 4: the sense that the player became incredibly good and the
Speaker 4: parenting was was quite intense by by most people's standards.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I actually interviewed Eryl at the house in Cyprus
Speaker 5: in southern California, went down and interviewed Errol about a
Speaker 5: couple of years before he died. Yeah, that was amazing.
Speaker 5: You walk up to the house and this like modest,
Speaker 5: suburban kind of house, but with this incredible door. This
Speaker 5: really elaborate, it's like a door for a three million
Speaker 5: dollar house in Laguna Beach or something. And you walk in.
Speaker 5: The door opens and Errol's sitting in the barker lounger
Speaker 5: for his cigarettes, Sta stamped out in his soup dish,
Speaker 5: and the room was filled with all these trophies, everything
Speaker 5: just amazing and yeah, super intense. He took me to
Speaker 5: the garage. Heah, and he said the chair. You know,
Speaker 5: this house was prepared for the Smithsonian, he said, So,
Speaker 5: the door was buil out for the Smithsonian, the garage
Speaker 5: was preserved.
Speaker 2: You know, this is the chair where Tiger sat.
Speaker 5: Watching me hit balls into this particular net. So Erro
Speaker 5: was all in. But I guess what Erro had There
Speaker 5: was just a kid who loved golf, who just couldn't
Speaker 5: get enough golf. Yeah, crazy, crazy for it. So yeah,
Speaker 5: as I say, you know, it takes all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 5: all kinds of methods.
Speaker 4: So from from your perspective and your experience, what has
Speaker 4: been the best thing about about amateur golf for you?
Speaker 4: Just from the from the parents' perspective.
Speaker 5: Often, well, well, I I can't separate the parents and
Speaker 5: the golf fan. I mean the parents thing is just
Speaker 5: seeing seeing our kids. He's not an amazing player, guy,
Speaker 5: I think he's right. I don't know, it's three hundred
Speaker 5: in the world or something. You know, he's a good player.
Speaker 5: He might get better, he might get worse, who knows.
Speaker 5: But just seeing your your kids just do something that
Speaker 5: he that he loves and you know, gets a certain
Speaker 5: amount of confidence from it and self respect but again
Speaker 5: in respect from others, I think that's a big deal
Speaker 5: because once you get into the kind of elite amateur
Speaker 5: golf level, get what you fight. I mean, it's like
Speaker 5: a traveling circus. All these kids kind of know each
Speaker 5: other and they're all kind of looking at each other,
Speaker 5: and it's it's quite as a parent, speaking as a parent,
Speaker 5: it's really good to see your kid find a spot
Speaker 5: a place in that world, and it's a world that
Speaker 5: he absolutely adores. All he wants to do is play golf,
Speaker 5: which wasn't always a case. He was a multiple sport kid,
Speaker 5: and so from a parental perspective, it's it's that's that's
Speaker 5: wonderful to see your kid be in some in some
Speaker 5: way be fulfilled. You know, as I say, who knows
Speaker 5: where it will take him, and it might be many.
Speaker 5: There's been many disappointments along the way, and I'm sure
Speaker 5: there'll be many in the future, and just to see
Speaker 5: how he gets through that, you know, will it build
Speaker 5: his character?
Speaker 4: Will it?
Speaker 5: You know, crush it not crush is the wrong word,
Speaker 5: but you know, we'll see. I mean so that, I mean,
Speaker 5: there's that aspect, but the main thing for me, I'm
Speaker 5: not going to lie it selfish, like, I absolutely love
Speaker 5: amateur golf. I've always I've always liked amateur golf, but
Speaker 5: being around so I'll take now to Hazeltown next week
Speaker 5: and I'll drop him off and he'll do his thing,
Speaker 5: and I'll go to the other course. I'll go and watch.
Speaker 5: It's just awesome. I can't I keep on saying this
Speaker 5: to people. You know, why would you go to a
Speaker 5: PGA Tour event and be roped off fifty yards to
Speaker 5: the side. You know, you can't see anything, you can't
Speaker 5: really hear anything. I went to the regional at Stanford
Speaker 5: this year, the NC two year Regional at Stanford, and
Speaker 5: I walked a few holes with right down the fair
Speaker 5: we would look Clanton. I mean, come on, I mean,
Speaker 5: look Clanton's I think it's playing his four PG Tour
Speaker 5: event this year coming up this week at the window.
Speaker 5: Just one of the best players in the world, you know,
Speaker 5: walking down the fairway five yards behind. Mike Clayton wrote
Speaker 5: a piece a couple of years ago that you know,
Speaker 5: the best way to watch golf is to watch it
Speaker 5: down the line because you can you can really see
Speaker 5: the ball, you know, and elite amateur events that's what
Speaker 5: it's all about. It's you know, you can really see
Speaker 5: the guys who can play, the guys who can shape
Speaker 5: the ball, who can hit the shots. So there's that,
Speaker 5: plus you get proximity. It's just, I mean, just awesome.
Speaker 5: Want that Stanford Regional. I walked with thorbe Jornsen, walked
Speaker 5: a few few holes with him ten yards away. Michael Thorbejorson.
Speaker 5: That's pretty cool. So I kind of get that, you know,
Speaker 5: I love it. The other thing is, and these kids
Speaker 5: are really lucky.
Speaker 2: They like now played.
Speaker 5: In the Linx Trophy this year. I don't know people
Speaker 5: in the States would know what the Links Trophy is,
Speaker 5: but it's one of the big European amateur events. And
Speaker 5: it's two rounds. First two rounds one and the one
Speaker 5: in the Jubilee Great Golf Course on its own, and
Speaker 5: then the second is on the Old Course and then
Speaker 5: the weekends at the Old course.
Speaker 2: Of the entry fee for that was eighty pound, So these
Speaker 2: so nas played the old course to course.
Speaker 4: It's play a little bit for the rest of us.
Speaker 5: He's played the Old course four times in a week
Speaker 5: for eighty pounds, So.
Speaker 2: That's really cool.
Speaker 5: Uh So you get to go and see great golf
Speaker 5: courses this summer we've been. We went to the Old Course.
Speaker 5: I got to see that, got to see elite golf
Speaker 5: in the old course. Then we went to the Amateur
Speaker 5: Championship was up at bally Lyffing. The two courses up there.
Speaker 5: The main thing was played in the Glacidi. But the
Speaker 5: great golf course here is the old course at bally Lyfting.
Speaker 5: That is a wonderful, wonderful golf course. So got to
Speaker 5: see that that reintroduced to that had been there twenty
Speaker 5: years ago. Royal sinkports for for final qualifying for the Open.
Speaker 5: My goodness, you know, that was so cool. And he
Speaker 5: went off and played. He missed by a couple of
Speaker 5: shots whatever, But I went followed Matthew Southgate and Gray
Speaker 5: mcd well, which was awesome, you know, down walking down
Speaker 5: the fairway. Really cool, great golf course. Will pass quickly
Speaker 5: over the Scandinavian for the European Amateur. That was an
Speaker 5: absolute shock. Great brilliantly conditioned golf course, but just such
Speaker 5: a terrible design.
Speaker 2: I know you guys like the design stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, not the place you would go when going
Speaker 4: to that area of the world.
Speaker 2: No, definitely not.
Speaker 5: And I'm trying to think what else. But the point
Speaker 5: is it takes you. Amazon Golf has taken me to
Speaker 5: some amazing, just amazing golf courses to see them, to
Speaker 5: see them in a different way, you know, not from
Speaker 5: the point of view that I'm kind of hacking it
Speaker 5: around in eighty five or whatever, but to see you
Speaker 5: great players playing these amazing golf course. I watched Calum
Speaker 5: Scott play Calm Scott Walker Cup player for GB and
Speaker 5: I last year. I think he's number five and PG
Speaker 5: two U this year watch him player the old course.
Speaker 5: That was a real education of how to play golf.
Speaker 3: Laurence, I'm glad you brought up the cost eighty pounds
Speaker 3: to play four rounds at Saint Andrew's. One topic that
Speaker 3: I wanted to get into a little bit with you
Speaker 3: is accessibility and totally I suppose there are at least
Speaker 3: two facets to that, one domain knowledge and then two
Speaker 3: explicit financial costs. I'm curious if you can paint a
Speaker 3: little bit of a picture of amateur golf. I know
Speaker 3: it's different in America than in the rest of the world,
Speaker 3: but what are like does a junior golfer need to
Speaker 3: be playing in AJAGA American Junior Golf Association events, for example,
Speaker 3: and like what the costs are associated with those? Can
Speaker 3: you kind of paint a picture of how an amateur
Speaker 3: golfer navigates the landscape.
Speaker 5: I have had years and years long feud with the AGGG.
Speaker 2: I used to do this.
Speaker 5: I would go this week, now's playing in the Scottish
Speaker 5: Men's Amateur at Western Gals and the cost is eighty pounds. Alternatively,
Speaker 5: he could be playing in the AGGA something something All
Speaker 5: Star at some bullshit golf course in the middle of
Speaker 5: Texas for three hundred and fifty dollars. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: I mean just absolute nonsense. So two things about that.
Speaker 5: One the cost. You know, certainly in Europe it's a
Speaker 5: completely different paradigm over there. So in this country it's
Speaker 5: basically it's been an AGGA monopoly in this country for
Speaker 5: years and years and years, and they've really exploited it,
Speaker 5: really exploited it. I mean, you know, they'll listen to
Speaker 5: this and I'll go, yeah, but we have this player
Speaker 5: you know fund for whatever you know, and it'll be
Speaker 5: we give out three hundred thousands, one thousand dollars a
Speaker 5: year in player support or whatever. The CEO of the
Speaker 5: AGGA gets paid a million dollars a year a million
Speaker 5: dollars a year, so the bureaucracy of the AGGA is
Speaker 5: propped up by these Either it's just scandalous entry fees.
Speaker 5: So that's one thing, right, the ludicrous entry fees relative
Speaker 5: to what goes on in Europe. But but the main
Speaker 5: point you touched on there, Joseph, the it's just what
Speaker 5: talent has been missed in this country. I mean, nobody
Speaker 5: can afford this. We're lucky, we have the financial means,
Speaker 5: you know, to be able to afford it. We chose
Speaker 5: not to do the AGGA out for the reasons that
Speaker 5: I'm outlining to you. I just we just felt it
Speaker 5: was just ridiculous, outrageous. And the way it's designed is
Speaker 5: to kind of it's brilliantly designed to lure players and
Speaker 5: you know, you've got to get enough stars to get.
Speaker 2: A place in the field.
Speaker 5: And you know, but my other objection to the way
Speaker 5: that amateur golf, certainly junior golf in this country is
Speaker 5: sitting in the US, is set up. It's just it's
Speaker 5: so inaccessible. Who can afford us a very very small
Speaker 5: number of families. So hey, that's kind of bad, you know,
Speaker 5: it's kind of bad thing. But also in terms of
Speaker 5: the talent missed, you go to an agent. In fact,
Speaker 5: this is true all over the world actually, because golf
Speaker 5: is expensive, pretty monochromatic, Joseph, you go to you look
Speaker 5: up down the range at any junior or amateur event
Speaker 5: is pretty monochromatic, which is, you know, the one good
Speaker 5: thing is this The USGA set up this development program
Speaker 5: which I think might break the monopoly the A G
Speaker 5: G A. I think it's you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 5: going to be like a ladder system as I understand it,
Speaker 5: you know, feeding up from the local like the Northern
Speaker 5: California Junior Golf, Southern California Junior Golf will all feed
Speaker 5: into this USGA development system and it'll be like a
Speaker 5: pyramid and the best players will go to the top.
Speaker 5: So what with that, what will happen, hopefully is that
Speaker 5: the best players at the bottom of the ladder, who
Speaker 5: can't afford to make the step up into the AGGA,
Speaker 5: they will be spotted and they will be elevated by
Speaker 5: the USGA, and hopefully so the kind of missing of
Speaker 5: talent that that will become less of an initial, you
Speaker 5: would hope, but the actual structure of it is, you know,
Speaker 5: it's just sickening. It's honestly sickening. The Tiger Woods went
Speaker 5: Actually when he made his Hall of Fame speech, you know,
Speaker 5: he spoke about his parents taking out a second mortgage,
Speaker 5: a second mortgage so that he could play on a GGA.
Speaker 5: People never noticed that that's just a second mortgage to
Speaker 5: play junior golf. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: So a lot of families aren't able to do that.
Speaker 5: So yeah, over back back home the and it's certainly
Speaker 5: in the UK and Europe you'll notice now actually coming
Speaker 5: through the national federations are a lot but golf is
Speaker 5: a little bit more accessible. And then nationally the tentacles
Speaker 5: of the national federations in places like Sweden, Germany, France,
Speaker 5: the UK, the reaches quite far down down the pyramid
Speaker 5: and they're they're kind of pulling kids out. And you
Speaker 5: can see that now if you look at, well, who
Speaker 5: are the best player coming through from elite amateur golf
Speaker 5: and in the last few years, I mean, obviously you've
Speaker 5: got Sergeants or be Ornsen, but a lot of these
Speaker 5: guys are European you know Hoveland, especially Scandinavian's Hoveland Auburg.
Speaker 5: There's a kid in Sweden just now called Simon Hovall
Speaker 5: watch out for this kid. He's going to Texas Tech
Speaker 5: next year. This kid is unbelievable. There's a kid in
Speaker 5: the Czech Republic, of all places, what's his name? I
Speaker 5: wrote it down at Louis Louis Klein. He's fifteen years old.
Speaker 5: I mean, this kid is unbelievable. Again, because of the
Speaker 5: national federations over there are a bit more proactive. The
Speaker 5: pyramid business are closed off. These guys are coming through.
Speaker 5: And I'll tell you what, when you say you're eventually
Speaker 5: golfing Mierica will feel it when you get to the
Speaker 5: Ryder Cup and the European start. I say this all
Speaker 5: the time. The twenty thirty five European Ryder Cup team
Speaker 5: will all be continental players. But the continent development systems
Speaker 5: are so much better than anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 5: And PGA two and the USA and the USGA had
Speaker 5: better watch out. Which is why this development thing that
Speaker 5: they brought up is a really good development. If it
Speaker 5: stayed the way it was with the closed off pyramid,
Speaker 5: thea AGGA completely controlled golf of the United States would
Speaker 5: have been in trouble.
Speaker 3: So while we're on the cost lawrence, one thing that's
Speaker 3: kind of troubled me that I really wanted to get
Speaker 3: your perspective on the importance of track man and seeing
Speaker 3: how much of an advantage it is at the highest level.
Speaker 3: I've always been curious with the trickle down effects of that.
Speaker 3: Are our junior golfers, you know, if you go out
Speaker 3: to a driving range at an elite amateur event, are
Speaker 3: there a bunch of TrackMan's out there? And what does
Speaker 3: that mean for accessibility? Curious again for your perspective on
Speaker 3: the technology piece of this and how maybe that's raised
Speaker 3: the barriers to entry for golfers of little means.
Speaker 5: Again, part of our national federation set up. Say you're
Speaker 5: part of the French setup in the friends, they will
Speaker 5: have TrackMan. You've got a tournament and the French guys,
Speaker 5: the two national coaches will have some track mans for
Speaker 5: the guys to use. I'm not gonna lie of it again.
Speaker 5: We're lucky, We're financially kind of lucky. Now got a
Speaker 5: track man, he got his own track man. Kind we
Speaker 5: kind of rationalize it in a way I knew we
Speaker 5: knew it was madness, but we kind of rationalize it away.
Speaker 5: The good thing about track Man, you can see, you know,
Speaker 5: they're not like used cars that don't depreciate to the extent,
Speaker 5: so track you could buy a track Man in three
Speaker 5: years later and sell it for a ten to fifteen
Speaker 5: percent appreciation. So as a family we rationalize it in
Speaker 5: that way. But it's but it's huge. It's really you know,
Speaker 5: you got to an elite amateur event now and you
Speaker 5: know a lot of guys, a lot of guys have
Speaker 5: got a track Man there, and I see foresight. You know,
Speaker 5: they do the quad they're now running. They're pitching a
Speaker 5: program now for elite players, elite younger players. So they're
Speaker 5: obviously they see it as a huge market. I'm not
Speaker 5: saying you can't compete at that level without access to
Speaker 5: to launch monitors, but my goodness, it's a it's a
Speaker 5: hell of advantage.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 5: Again, a kid like ours, it's heavily influenced by what
Speaker 5: it sees a the PGA tour. He looks at Dustin.
Speaker 5: How did Dustin Johnson become a great West player? We
Speaker 5: just de TrackMan combines all day, all day as we speak,
Speaker 5: right now he's up at his golf club where he's
Speaker 5: track man, and I can guarantee you, you know, you'll
Speaker 5: be doing combines all day or whatever whatever he does,
Speaker 5: I don't know, and there'll be a you know, dozens
Speaker 5: and dozens and dozens of other kids in his position.
Speaker 5: He'll be doing the same thing. It's you know, it's huge.
Speaker 5: It's a huge thing. And if you're if you don't
Speaker 5: have access to to then you you are at a
Speaker 5: disadvantage because it's the same with you. You can see
Speaker 5: in professional golf, can't you. It's it's revolutionized the way
Speaker 5: that people play and think about golf, and it's the
Speaker 5: same at the elite amateur.
Speaker 2: Level as well.
Speaker 4: On the idea of national yeah, you mentioned a couple
Speaker 4: of Swedish players, I believe, or at least you mentioned Oberg.
Speaker 4: It's funny to hear Maya Stark and Lynn Grant also
Speaker 4: talk about their experiences coming up through that system, knowing
Speaker 4: Ludwig and other really good players who ended up in
Speaker 4: the American university system in some form or another or
Speaker 4: sometimes not. But that seemed to be a key formative
Speaker 4: experience for a lot of the best young players right now,
Speaker 4: and it certainly. You know, Australia has its version of
Speaker 4: this that has existed for a long time and players
Speaker 4: like Adam Scott and others Aaron Battley came.
Speaker 2: Up through that.
Speaker 4: I wonder if you think that applying that to the
Speaker 4: US context would work, or whether we're just too big
Speaker 4: and unwieldy as a nation for something like this ever
Speaker 4: to exist.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think it'll work here. I think the
Speaker 5: people who've designed it and Chris Amby, who Zamber who's running,
Speaker 5: the guy wh used to coach at the USC and
Speaker 5: Pepperdine is assistant coach at Pepperdine, I think I think
Speaker 5: it's been very well designed. But again they're basing at
Speaker 5: all what what what it's all based on the European Actually,
Speaker 5: it's all all started with the Australian Institute of Sport
Speaker 5: that was so far ahead in terms of development of
Speaker 5: all sports, and golf was one of the sports. Because
Speaker 5: it's it's obviously a big deal over there, yeah, but
Speaker 5: maybe even less significant than the other Australian sports. And
Speaker 5: we're seeing that right now with the Olympics, where there
Speaker 5: are so many truly excellent Australian athletes and that's not
Speaker 5: a coincidence. There's some brilliant I've watched, you know, I've
Speaker 5: watched hours and hundreds of hours of development nonsense, you know,
Speaker 5: trying to you know, discern if there's a if there's
Speaker 5: a correct way to do it. There's a great video
Speaker 5: of a former head of the Australian Institute of Sport
Speaker 5: going on about elite juniors. There's no such thing as
Speaker 5: an elite junior. So and he was saying this stuff
Speaker 5: ten fifteen years ago. So they were they had thought
Speaker 5: about it, and they were big into tapering, it's called tapering,
Speaker 5: big into multiple sports. So they would you know, you
Speaker 5: actually got penalized within the system if you just concentrated
Speaker 5: on golf when you were aged thirteen or fourteen. You know,
Speaker 5: obviously Adamscott wouldn't get penalized.
Speaker 2: But you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So they thought, they thought long and hard about it.
Speaker 5: They kind of template that everybody else has followed, Sweden, Germany,
Speaker 5: France to less of the England's pretty good, but a
Speaker 5: lot of it depends on resources. I think the usgas
Speaker 5: what's it have in the bank. I don't know, Garret,
Speaker 5: this kind of number, you probably.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean. It's a lot.
Speaker 5: It's a lot, so they've got money to spend on it.
Speaker 5: And you know, as I say, when it was announced,
Speaker 5: I was really hoping it was a shit show. It
Speaker 5: was going to be a shit show, and I could
Speaker 5: easily criticize it. But lo and behold, I think they've
Speaker 5: well so far. It's early days yet, and I do
Speaker 5: see some social media stuff that they've been putting out
Speaker 5: on the junior program, which I don't particularly like elevating
Speaker 5: these these superstar kids.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't think that's the best thing for these kids,
Speaker 5: the stage. But nevertheless, I think it'll I think it
Speaker 5: will work all right.
Speaker 4: So, a big thing that's affecting the amateur game, especially
Speaker 4: in the US right now, is all of the chaos
Speaker 4: in the pro game. Yeah, so I wonder if you
Speaker 4: just have some general thoughts or a general theory of
Speaker 4: how all of these structural shifts at the top end
Speaker 4: of the professional game are affecting the way that amateur
Speaker 4: golfers kind of make their way through their careers.
Speaker 5: Well, yes, it's a really interesting thing, and I can't
Speaker 5: quite decide whether or it's a good thing or a
Speaker 5: bad thing.
Speaker 2: Yet.
Speaker 5: It's been percolating for a while. Well, essentially, let me
Speaker 5: how can we frame this live comes along? The shift
Speaker 5: was already. Firstly, the PGA Tour has always reached down
Speaker 5: into the amateur game. I mean, it's Windham this week.
Speaker 5: The PGA Tour put a video this morning. I saw
Speaker 5: on the social media fees Justin Thomas, sixteen year old
Speaker 5: Justin Thomas makes his debut at the WINDOWM Championship twenty sixteen.
Speaker 5: So the point is the professional tours I've always reached
Speaker 5: down into the amateur game and plucked out a few,
Speaker 5: you know, the absolute best. Your Tiger played at Riviera
Speaker 5: when he was sixteen or whatever. He was fifteen, I
Speaker 5: can't remember. So it's always there's always been a little
Speaker 5: bit of that. But now the advent of live golf
Speaker 5: coming along, there is as like an arms race between
Speaker 5: the kind of establishment tours, a desperation we call it
Speaker 5: youth youth. What's the youth desperation syndrome? There seems to
Speaker 5: be a real rush to promote younger players. Again, I
Speaker 5: don't want to highlight individuals and know what, I don't
Speaker 5: know the personal circumstances or what's going on with say
Speaker 5: the family. There's a kid called Miles Russell. I'm sure
Speaker 5: everybody if you're listening to this, you know, everybody know
Speaker 5: who Miles Russell is. You got an invite to the ever.
Speaker 5: I think it's a Rocket Morgan got more good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the lefty kid, he got a lot of got
Speaker 4: a lot of player on social media that.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean. And that's great for him
Speaker 5: if that's what they want. But you know, and there's
Speaker 5: you know, there's this kid, Blades Brown, another really good player.
Speaker 5: Actually actually now played a practice round with him a
Speaker 5: couple of years ago somewhere and I was watching this
Speaker 5: something old ship.
Speaker 2: Now you're in trouble here. Boy, that kid can play,
Speaker 2: by the way, he's a good player. But what so.
Speaker 5: The pg Tour is desperate, you know, it doesn't want
Speaker 5: to lose. It doesn't want to lose players. There's Live
Speaker 5: Golf come the first round of contracts that Live Golf
Speaker 5: for coming up for renewal I think at the end
Speaker 5: of this year, So lives are going to be on
Speaker 5: the lookout for talent and and the PGA Tour knows that.
Speaker 5: It's really so hence we have the well they already
Speaker 5: lost Caleb Sura really a brilliant player when the Western
Speaker 5: junior really good player played in the Walker Cup last year.
Speaker 5: He's a sophomore at Tennessee Boom. He's gone went to
Speaker 5: Live Golf. He's now part of the infamous or famous,
Speaker 5: whatever you want, Legion thirteen squad. I think he made
Speaker 5: about three and a half million in his first week,
Speaker 5: so I think he's pretty probably pretty happy. But you know,
Speaker 5: coming around at the end of this year, Live will
Speaker 5: be on the lookout for some fresh talent and mago.
Speaker 5: You know, if they look at you know, you look
Speaker 5: at the likes of Thorby Arsen, you look at the
Speaker 5: likes of Luke Clanton, the rising junior at at Florida State.
Speaker 5: There's all I'm trying to think of other players Ben
Speaker 5: James at Virginia, Jackson Coyven at Auburn, really really good
Speaker 5: players who have already proved that they can kind of
Speaker 5: cut it at the pro level. So there's there's that,
Speaker 5: there's that, and and you know all these players all
Speaker 5: have agents and you know they're not they're not immune
Speaker 5: to there are ignorant about what's out there for them
Speaker 5: if they want to go and take it.
Speaker 2: So the tour, you know, so the tour.
Speaker 5: Is really really you know, running fast to keep up
Speaker 5: and that you know, so yeah, you have the accelerated program.
Speaker 5: Gordon Sergeant got his tour card last year, and the
Speaker 5: accelerated program, which of people who don't know as a
Speaker 5: you know, there's all any number of points. If you
Speaker 5: win the US Amateur you get three points, if you
Speaker 5: are the win the Ben Hogan Awards, you get three points,
Speaker 5: and then once you hit twenty points you automatically get
Speaker 5: your your tour cards. So Gordon Sergeant got his tour
Speaker 5: card last year. You also obviously haven't got PT Tour University,
Speaker 5: which has proven itself to be a, if nothing else,
Speaker 5: a great identifier of talent. I have the first three
Speaker 5: guys I think have gone through your Ludvig Sergeant. I
Speaker 5: think the sergeant get it who got it last year,
Speaker 5: Luke thorbi Orsen got it, So you've got Ludvig, You've
Speaker 5: got thorbi Ornson this year. Luke Clanton's already miles ahead.
Speaker 5: So although I think he's still a junior, so he
Speaker 5: won't be able to get it for another couple of years.
Speaker 5: But the point being that, well, for instance, the US
Speaker 5: Amateurs starts next Monday, Luke Clant's playing. This is this
Speaker 5: is how I impact that all of that impacts amateur golf.
Speaker 5: And you know, Luke Clant's playing at the window this week.
Speaker 5: What if he makes a cut? He's playing on Sunday?
Speaker 5: Is he going to fly over night and tea up
Speaker 5: in the US Amateur and Monday morning. I haven't seen
Speaker 5: the field yet for the US Amateur. I don't know
Speaker 5: if he's in. I don't know if he's out. But so,
Speaker 5: you know, a lot of these set the Elite. I
Speaker 5: don't know if people know that there's something called the
Speaker 5: Elite Amateur Series, which is seven of the best amateur events.
Speaker 5: You know, you have the North and South and Northeastern
Speaker 5: and the Southern, the pak Coast, a lot of the
Speaker 5: Sunny Hannah, a lot of the fields. This year, I've
Speaker 5: kind of you know, he had the Western Amateur last
Speaker 5: week and three of the top five amateurs in the
Speaker 5: world didn't play.
Speaker 2: Clanton didn't play. Who else?
Speaker 5: Summer Hayes didn't play and Sergeant didn't play for I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't know what the reasons were, but the probably
Speaker 5: exhausted playing the PG Tour events and they're going to
Speaker 5: take a week off. Once upon a time nobody missed
Speaker 5: the Western. The Western was you know, behind the US
Speaker 5: Amateur the Western.
Speaker 4: It's a semi major almost absolutely.
Speaker 5: In fact, you think, why wouldn't you be playing because
Speaker 5: there's actually two points for the PG Tour Accelerated card
Speaker 5: if you win it. If you win the Amateur the Western,
Speaker 5: you get two points. So but again, so you know,
Speaker 5: all this turmoil and noise within the pro games kicking
Speaker 5: down into the amateur game your fields. There's so many events,
Speaker 5: and you know, guys are picking and choosing. You know,
Speaker 5: do you go play the Sonny Hannah or are you
Speaker 5: going to play in the Are you gonna play on
Speaker 5: the Rocket Mortgage. I mean there's a no brainer, isn't it.
Speaker 5: You would kind of think. So it's it's you know,
Speaker 5: there's also too many events, and I mean it's really crete.
Speaker 5: The top players now are really picking and choosing. I
Speaker 5: think when you look at the Amateur Championship this year
Speaker 5: at bally Lyiff, and that was a kind of a
Speaker 5: remote spot for the RNAH pick great venue, but it
Speaker 5: was kind of remote. I mean, that was a pretty
Speaker 5: weak field this year relative to years gone by that
Speaker 5: used to be a pre eminent event with, by the way,
Speaker 5: a Master's invite, I think a US Open invite and
Speaker 5: an Open Championship invite, and still a lot of the
Speaker 5: best players in the world didn't bother And it's because
Speaker 5: of all this noise and what's going on, you know,
Speaker 5: in the pro games, it's kind of kicking down at
Speaker 5: the amateur game.
Speaker 3: On that lawrence, Earlier this year, when Nick Dunlap won
Speaker 3: the American Express, he was kind of tased with a situation, Hey,
Speaker 3: do I turn pro and start playing on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: He's only a sophomore in college. Can you maybe offer
Speaker 3: your perspective on not necessarily Nick Dunlap specifically, but a
Speaker 3: player in that situation, an elite amitur who's navigating the
Speaker 3: landscape right now, how would you be charting out your
Speaker 3: trajectory given the options that might be available to you,
Speaker 3: returning to school, playing on live, playing on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 3: What are those considerations?
Speaker 5: Well, well, it's it's very hard if you're Nick done that,
Speaker 5: it's very very difficult to say no. I mean, you
Speaker 5: win a PGA Tour event, that's a you know, so
Speaker 5: you can't criticize it.
Speaker 2: You know, in the moment.
Speaker 5: How can you criticize somebody for taking the PGA Tour card.
Speaker 3: But I I.
Speaker 5: Think you've got to be super careful. You know, Gordon
Speaker 5: Sergeant got his pg Tour card through the accelerated program. Okay,
Speaker 5: didn't take it, announced that he was going to he's
Speaker 5: going to finish his junior year and he's going back
Speaker 5: to college. He's going back to Vanderbilt this year. I
Speaker 5: think that's a pretty smart move because your brilliant player,
Speaker 5: incredible player, and went to the Masters, stumped the place out.
Speaker 5: You know, he did, you know, he was They were
Speaker 5: all talking about he's ball speed and he's clubs, but
Speaker 5: the guy can It was he can't ship, he can,
Speaker 5: you know, and it was kind of obvious and obvious
Speaker 5: to him. So I think he's done something really really smart.
Speaker 5: Obviously he's further bit. You know, he's got that, he's
Speaker 5: probably got all sorts of nil deals got on so
Speaker 5: there's no huge rush but you know, to to turn
Speaker 5: pro and take the rewards that are there from you know,
Speaker 5: in in the short term. But he's done a pretty
Speaker 5: smart thing going back and you know, understanding that his
Speaker 5: game isn't really quite ready for the pros. So again,
Speaker 5: as I say, you don't want to criticize somebody like
Speaker 5: doing that because he's subsequently won he wanted a Barracuda
Speaker 5: like last month or two or three weeks ago, so
Speaker 5: you know, who can blame him. But but who's winning
Speaker 5: major championships these days? You know, there's no twenty one
Speaker 5: year olds winning majors these days. That just isn't who's
Speaker 5: winning on the PGA tour, you know, with with regularity
Speaker 5: these days, So guys in their late twenties, it's all
Speaker 5: these seasoned guys, guys you know, twenty nine to thirty one.
Speaker 5: There's nobody super young coming through a part from down
Speaker 5: lap super and yeah, just a different, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 5: different you know because obviously he's from you know, the
Speaker 5: other side of these from the other side.
Speaker 2: Of the world.
Speaker 5: But but yeah, but but there's nobody like say Jordan
Speaker 5: Speed coming out really young, winning majors, you know, being
Speaker 5: a top three player in the world. So I would
Speaker 5: say there's two paths. But I would say Sergeant has
Speaker 5: been pretty smart about it. But again, I have no
Speaker 5: idea what his nil situation is, but I'm sure he's
Speaker 5: pretty comfy in what he's doing and I'm sure he's
Speaker 5: not living in the dorm at Vanderbilt, or you know,
Speaker 5: he's living in a ten ten ten person house, seven
Speaker 5: bedrooms to ten people. That's not I'm sure that's not
Speaker 5: his living circus, not in the bunk beds right now.
Speaker 5: He's not in a he's not in a bunk bad situation,
Speaker 5: but it is us. It's a real tricky one.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Again, if you're if you're at college, if you're at
Speaker 5: tennessee the Caleb Sura. You know, I'm trying to think
Speaker 5: there's another really good player that I can't remember off
Speaker 5: the top of my head.
Speaker 2: You know, Caleb s Is.
Speaker 5: You know, it's now making you know, five million a year.
Speaker 5: That must be he must be pretty to some some
Speaker 5: level at least you must be pretty envious of that.
Speaker 5: You think, well, shit, I used to be him qualified
Speaker 5: every week, and you know, and now he's off spending
Speaker 5: his time with Bryson, and oh my god, maybe I
Speaker 5: would probably stay at college if that was one offer
Speaker 5: from me.
Speaker 4: Right well, I mean, certainly, nil Is is one big
Speaker 4: factor that's maybe kind of tamping down some of the
Speaker 4: urgency to go pro that that former generations of players
Speaker 4: might have felt. In their you know, junior or senior
Speaker 4: years of colle if they were really really top elite players.
Speaker 4: But then at the same time, you have these influences
Speaker 4: of the PGA Tour's urgency to get more young talent
Speaker 4: in the pipeline, keep it away from live. You have that,
Speaker 4: and then you have the battling factor of just the
Speaker 4: trajectory of player development, which has changed in recent years
Speaker 4: because of changes in technology and instruction, but still in general,
Speaker 4: twenty year old's, twenty one year olds are not ready
Speaker 4: to go out and kill it on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 4: And so it's almost like, you know, young players at
Speaker 4: this point are dealing with all these battling influences pulling
Speaker 4: them in a variety of different directions, and a lot
Speaker 4: of these influences might not necessarily be to the benefit
Speaker 4: of their development as players.
Speaker 2: No, you're dead right.
Speaker 5: Actually, I think these kids coming out of the elite
Speaker 5: game e leade amateur golfer, they're able to mich Aprose.
Speaker 5: But you know, over the length of a season, you know,
Speaker 5: it's a different deal then. But you know, say somebody
Speaker 5: like Luke Clanton, this is I say, he's played three
Speaker 5: times on the PGA Tour this year. I think he
Speaker 5: finished what was it, he finished ty second at the
Speaker 5: Rocket mar No, tie second at the John Deere TI,
Speaker 5: tenth at the at the Rocket Mortgage, and fortieth or
Speaker 5: something at the US Open. But can you could a
Speaker 5: player like that to staying it over an entire season
Speaker 5: with the travel, the grind, the physical exertion. I'm not
Speaker 5: so sure about that. But what is certainly true was
Speaker 5: chanted about it with somebody this morning, is the you know,
Speaker 5: the difference between the elite amateur players and the kind
Speaker 5: of middle of the pack PG. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 5: Is there any difference whatsoever? I'm not so sure. I mean,
Speaker 5: these guys are coming out of college. You've gone four
Speaker 5: or five years of college, Luke Big, you know, pretty
Speaker 5: pretty impressive, start Hoveland again, you know, really quite good.
Speaker 5: So these guys are showing that that there's not much
Speaker 5: different between you know, the elite amateurs and the kind
Speaker 5: of mid range PGA tour pros and in many cases,
Speaker 5: but I just wonder if they can do it. You
Speaker 5: have there was a four year college guy. The guys
Speaker 5: who've come out and really they're all four year college guys.
Speaker 4: He's guys could spend a long time in college. I
Speaker 4: mean he was in a spring chicken when he came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he was.
Speaker 5: And that's another thing about the Swedes. You know, I
Speaker 5: spoke earlier about this kid, Simon Howald, the Swedish kid
Speaker 5: who he's not going to college until he's twenty years
Speaker 5: He won't start college until he's twenty years old. Ludwig
Speaker 5: was the same Lucan graduated from Texas Tech when he
Speaker 5: was when he was twenty four. I'm just not sure
Speaker 5: that you know, these twenty year olds or twenty one
Speaker 5: year olds or nineteen year olds or you know, God forbid,
Speaker 5: you know they're like some Miles Russell Blades Brown. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I think people again, I better be careful here. You
Speaker 5: don't want to because you don't know the particular situations,
Speaker 5: but you know, people are pushing these kids really very
Speaker 5: very I'm not entirely sure about the motivations, you know
Speaker 5: what exactly is going on here. There's a great, great player.
Speaker 5: Actually he played on the PG Tour this year. He
Speaker 5: played in the CG Cup, made the Cup. Chris Kim,
Speaker 5: wonderful kid. Now play with them, absolutely wonderful kid, great family.
Speaker 5: Now play with them at the Jack the Police Trophy,
Speaker 5: which is a kind of junior Walker Cup thing. We'll
Speaker 5: have to go into that. Great player won the Brittish
Speaker 5: Boys last year, but he's hardly played in any amateur
Speaker 5: events this year. He's this week, he's playing in a
Speaker 5: Challenge Tour and the European Tour. Is that really he's
Speaker 5: seventeen years old. Is that really what's best for him
Speaker 5: at this stage? Again, I really, you know, viewed from
Speaker 5: the outside, you would probably say you probably say no, Lawrence.
Speaker 3: I feel like one big topic that maybe goes under
Speaker 3: the radar, underappreciated, is how few golf courses, with how
Speaker 3: far the golf ball goes, can test professional golfers at
Speaker 3: the highest level. And you're seeing the difference in signature
Speaker 3: events versus non signature events, Like the courses that can
Speaker 3: put long irons in guy's hands and be demanding, they're
Speaker 3: few and far between. And I feel like cornferry tour
Speaker 3: golf courses and a lot of college golf courses. Yes,
Speaker 3: if you're dominating on those, you're probably more likely to
Speaker 3: be a great professional golfer. But the difference in the
Speaker 3: questions that it's asking you seemingly have never felt larger
Speaker 3: like I even think there's probably a case that an
Speaker 3: elite amateur like Patrick Rogers had a ton of success
Speaker 3: in college but it didn't necessarily translate to the professional golf. Well,
Speaker 3: he's not a great long iron player. I'd be curious
Speaker 3: from your perspective, especially in the recruiting process with your child,
Speaker 3: is that a big focus on? Hey, when I get
Speaker 3: to this college program, how are they going to be
Speaker 3: able to prepare me? Not just for the college courses
Speaker 3: that I'm playing, but I want to make sure I
Speaker 3: can play major championship golf courses. I want to make
Speaker 3: sure I can play at bay Hill, And there's just
Speaker 3: so few of these opportunity needs to actually test your
Speaker 3: skills on.
Speaker 5: That scale them laughing into you mentioned Patrick Rodgers. I
Speaker 5: remember going down to Stanford seem with some event and
Speaker 5: I don't know if people know the first hole with
Speaker 5: Stanford is a part five year over the road, down
Speaker 5: hill whatever, Patrick Rodgers driver Sandwich and a part five
Speaker 5: the first of all?
Speaker 3: What is this.
Speaker 2: So actually funny? Enough?
Speaker 5: College courses tend to be quite long, so I don't know,
Speaker 5: not quite sure. Northwestern Sure they're playing with sa Halle,
Speaker 5: which is not. You know, that's quite a.
Speaker 2: Long golf course.
Speaker 5: And then they're playing Olympia Fields at the Fight the
Speaker 5: Fight Nill, and I think, and that's a that's a
Speaker 5: long golf course, that's a you know again, yeah, you
Speaker 5: caught me out there. There's not many college events that
Speaker 5: are one like Corn Ferry Tour scores. And then that's
Speaker 5: just not that's not just because the players in the
Speaker 5: corn Ferry Tour are better, It's just that the golf
Speaker 5: courses in the Cornferry Tour are better. I think college
Speaker 5: does a again, it's just a impressionistic sense of what's happening.
Speaker 5: I think it's pretty good preparation. There is enough for right,
Speaker 5: certainly at the kind of Power five conferences, they play
Speaker 5: a decent variety of golf courses. You know, I went
Speaker 5: down to the Wake Forest invitation was at Pinehers number
Speaker 5: two this year and the you know, you know one
Speaker 5: by Jackson Coyven, the great Jackson Coyvin.
Speaker 2: But you know one.
Speaker 5: But I think a score of one under par so
Speaker 5: that there is a decent variety. But yeah, you make
Speaker 5: a good point about the you look at these Corn
Speaker 5: Ferry Tour, even the America's Tour, These events are not
Speaker 5: prep These are not preparing, not preparing you know, players
Speaker 5: for the top level. You know, if you're winning on
Speaker 5: the corn Forerry Tour twenty under par, then you got
Speaker 5: to you know, the PGA. You know, it's not You're
Speaker 5: not ready. You're really not ready for major champ for
Speaker 5: major championship challenges. I really don't think. But so I
Speaker 5: think I think I've slightly take issue with you know,
Speaker 5: I mean I haven't been around the call seen long enough,
Speaker 5: it's only been a year. But I think it does
Speaker 5: a pretty good job of preparing kids. I know from
Speaker 5: our perspective. You know, the prepares kids for the grind.
Speaker 5: You know, you know, you're playing thirteen tournaments a year.
Speaker 5: It's quite a lot. You're adding your academics and all
Speaker 5: these coaches and then every I think every serious program
Speaker 5: is the same. They're very big on nutrition, very big
Speaker 5: on strength and conditioning. So it's I think it's a
Speaker 5: pretty good preparation. But where I think it goes arise
Speaker 5: when when you when you go to the pros, and
Speaker 5: then I think it gets silly. I think the corn
Speaker 5: Very Tour is just really not fit for purpose. I really,
Speaker 5: I really don't think it is, certainly if your purpose
Speaker 5: is to be challenging for major championships. Again, sure I
Speaker 5: can be proven wrong straight away, but I guess Xander
Speaker 5: didn't say very long in the He was in and
Speaker 5: out of the corn Fory to a quick cup of coffee,
Speaker 5: and he was on a BT tour. But I'm not
Speaker 5: sure many of the very very best players in recent
Speaker 5: years will probably be wrong. People give me about ten names.
Speaker 4: Well, Scotty Shuffler dead, but you're I think you're right
Speaker 4: that the it's it's a fewer and fewer players are
Speaker 4: coming up through that system. It used to be that
Speaker 4: every everybody would come up through that kind of process,
Speaker 4: but now that's not as much the case.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know how long was Scotty on the
Speaker 5: I don't know how long Scotty he was on the
Speaker 5: Corny too.
Speaker 4: I don't think a year right justin was either a
Speaker 4: year he won a few times better.
Speaker 5: Not long enough to cement any Yeah it would, but
Speaker 5: do you know, to cummend anything different about his game?
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't think not that. Yeah, Well, he had a
Speaker 5: lot of injuries at college. But you know the guys
Speaker 5: who have come out Loveland all but these guys have
Speaker 5: gone straight. Thorbiornsen I think is going to be an
Speaker 5: absolute superstar. He's not.
Speaker 2: Well, he's not.
Speaker 5: He's already on the PG Tour. I think he's well
Speaker 5: on his way to making his card. But yeah, but
Speaker 5: but yeah, I think you know, college is as a
Speaker 5: tough grind for these kids, I mean, a real very seldom.
Speaker 5: That's what made you know, Jackson Coyven and the kid
Speaker 5: at Auburn who I think he I think he finished
Speaker 5: outside the top six once this year and in a
Speaker 5: college of it, which is just amazing, and he was
Speaker 5: a freshman. That's what made his year oh so remarkable,
Speaker 5: absolutely incredible. Because again, I'm sure they played a few
Speaker 5: easy golf courses, but there's there's there's not a it's
Speaker 5: not there's a lot of events where it's where it's
Speaker 5: really hard. Wait for est Invitational.
Speaker 4: Pinder's been one of them. So one structural factor that
Speaker 4: we haven't touched on yet that I want to make
Speaker 4: sure to get to before we wrap up is the
Speaker 4: world amateur golf ranking. You know, I don't know much
Speaker 4: about this subject. I've I've vaguely, vaguely gotten the sense
Speaker 4: that people aren't happy with it. I'm certain I've certainly
Speaker 4: gotten that message, but I don't really know much about it.
Speaker 4: Can you give me a sense of what kind of
Speaker 4: influence this ranking, which is the primary ranking the in
Speaker 4: the amateur game in the US, and what influence does
Speaker 4: it have on the game at the moment.
Speaker 2: Well, it's huge, you know.
Speaker 5: Well, well, let me go. It's probably kind of long winded.
Speaker 5: Wagger World Amaster Golf ranking is really important in multiple ways. One,
Speaker 5: it determines fields for amateur events. So if you're one
Speaker 5: hundred and seventy on wager, you've got no chance to
Speaker 5: get into the Western Amateur, the US Amateurs next week,
Speaker 5: the top five hundred get exempt into final qualifying for
Speaker 5: the US Amateur. The top hundred get exempt into the
Speaker 5: US Amateur. Okay, US Junior Amors, which is a particular,
Speaker 5: particularly important tournament. For as much as a junior golf
Speaker 5: tournament can be important, it's a particularly important tournament in
Speaker 5: the junior world. You think you're top five hundred, you're
Speaker 5: into the US Junior Ram. So it's a very you know,
Speaker 5: PGA Tour now uses Wagger in determining points. You know,
Speaker 5: if your career best finish and the Wagger is second.
Speaker 5: You get x number of points, So the pg TUR
Speaker 5: uses Wagger to dish out points in the accelerated program
Speaker 5: and determine how guys do in PGA tour University. So
Speaker 5: it's Wagger's influence is huge, absolutely huge. So you have
Speaker 5: that on the one hand, but on the other hand
Speaker 5: you have Waggers. I'm going to use the word corruption,
Speaker 5: but I don't mean it, and it's true, you know,
Speaker 5: and it's your boldest sense of So Wager's not corrupt.
Speaker 5: You're not phoning somebody at the USG and saying, hey,
Speaker 5: give me a couple of extra Wagger points. I'll send
Speaker 5: you a put a poach salmon from Scotland or whatever,
Speaker 5: you know. So it doesn't work like that. But there's
Speaker 5: all sorts of amazing stories. So when you get to
Speaker 5: the top ten and Wagger maybe the top fifty, you
Speaker 5: can basically say that that's quite good. I mean, there's
Speaker 5: you can argue about it.
Speaker 2: At the margins.
Speaker 5: Wager is calculating over the space of two years, which
Speaker 5: is stupid.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely stupid.
Speaker 5: So guys who have still got high ranking have played
Speaker 5: ship for the last nine months, but played great eighteen
Speaker 5: months ago. And they'll be fifteenth in the world or
Speaker 5: ninth in the world, which is plainly ridiculous. So there's
Speaker 5: that criticism at they have very highest level. But apart
Speaker 5: from that, it's kind of just about fine. But once
Speaker 5: you start getting into i'll give you for rinch, I
Speaker 5: better be careful here. Something else I've forgot to mention.
Speaker 5: Wager determines membership of teams. So GB and I team
Speaker 5: for the Walker Cup next year, as is currently constituted.
Speaker 5: The captain of the GB and ISAA guy called Dean
Speaker 5: roberts and a great good A better suck up here
Speaker 5: just in case you know, just the best.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say he's a great player, Dean Robertson.
Speaker 5: He he won on the European Tour. Fabulous, great swing.
Speaker 5: But he's gonna he's good picking ten guys. Five of
Speaker 5: those guys will be the top five guys on wager.
Speaker 5: So so if you're a GB and nine player and
Speaker 5: you're one of the five best GB andy, GB and
Speaker 5: I guys as ranked by wager, you're on the Walker
Speaker 5: Cup team.
Speaker 2: A very big deal.
Speaker 5: So that fact, how does that influence what.
Speaker 2: What players do?
Speaker 5: Obviously it influences them to play better, but also influences
Speaker 5: and this is the case in the usg as well.
Speaker 5: Also influences players two where they play, what tournaments they
Speaker 5: play in. You know, once upon a time, when none
Speaker 5: of this stuff existed, players are just going to play. No,
Speaker 5: it's they're having the US Amateur at Cyprus point. Oh jeez,
Speaker 5: I'm definitely gonna go that. I say it's a bad
Speaker 5: ex But so players who just go and play. Now,
Speaker 5: players are very very careful about where they play because
Speaker 5: they don't want to impact their wager. And I'm talking
Speaker 5: about the very very best players all around the world. Incidentally,
Speaker 5: talking about Walker Cup teams, I'm talking about Eisenhower Trophy teams,
Speaker 5: which is the World Amaster Got team championship, the best
Speaker 5: three guys and I can only speak for Scotland. I
Speaker 5: think two of the three guys are the best two
Speaker 5: guys picked off wager. How does it influence players where
Speaker 5: they play? And once upon a time they would just
Speaker 5: go and play, and now they're nursing, and you can
Speaker 5: see it there. Now they're nursing, their wagger rankings are
Speaker 5: taking care not to play. I'll give you, for instance,
Speaker 5: if you go and play in the Welsh Amateur Championship.
Speaker 5: You're a top player and you're going to play in
Speaker 5: the Welsh Amateur Championship. Say you're fortieth on the rank
Speaker 5: the wager and if you stay in fortieth place, you
Speaker 5: will get picked for the Walker Cup team. So you're
Speaker 5: incentive to skip your national championship. The Welsh Amateur National
Speaker 5: Championship is huge because in order to nurse your wager,
Speaker 5: you've really got to finish first or second in that tournament.
Speaker 5: You might have a bad week, you might have the
Speaker 5: flu and go and finish fiftieth. You'll get minimal points
Speaker 5: and that will take your wager ranking down. So players
Speaker 5: don't want that to happen. So you see it all
Speaker 5: over the place. Now it's a real I think there's
Speaker 5: a great guy on Twitter called Amateur Golf Bible, a
Speaker 5: guy called Mark Haley. I think he mintained last week.
Speaker 5: Of the top twenty five English guys on wager, I
Speaker 5: think only ten of them played in the English National
Speaker 5: Amateur last week. Fifteen guys missed it. And I'm sure
Speaker 5: there are all sorts of different reasons for that, but
Speaker 5: I guarantee you somewhere in the mix of all of
Speaker 5: that will be guys looking to nurse their Wager ranking.
Speaker 2: So a really not a good thing.
Speaker 5: You'd have to say further down the rankings, it's a
Speaker 5: wholesale I mean, I will use the word corruption. You
Speaker 5: have national federations in obscure places setting up tours specifically
Speaker 5: for their elite players. So to run a Wagger tournament,
Speaker 5: all you really need you need you need ted players,
Speaker 5: and you need I think it's ted players, and you
Speaker 5: need to play fifty four holes and there might be
Speaker 5: a minimum number of Wagger players need to be ranked
Speaker 5: in the field or something like that. So you have
Speaker 5: I'm not sure this goes on, but it used to
Speaker 5: go on. National federations would set up I won't name
Speaker 5: a European country but it's a small European country that
Speaker 5: nobody's really ever heard, would set up tournaments and they
Speaker 5: would instructor they'd get their eleven best players and they
Speaker 5: would have like eleven events, and they would instruct each
Speaker 5: player to win an event. So this week is going
Speaker 5: to be your event, Joseph, and next week, Garrett, you're
Speaker 5: going to win the event. The purpose of that is
Speaker 5: if you win a Wagger a Wagger event, the minimum
Speaker 5: number of points that the winner of a wagger event
Speaker 5: gets a seven point five huge So if you finish
Speaker 5: fiftieth in the Western Amateur, huge event, massive event, very
Speaker 5: important event. If you finish fiftieth in the Western Amateur,
Speaker 5: let's say you'll probably get six and a half points.
Speaker 5: Compared to Garrett Morrison winning the Lithuanian Something Tour you
Speaker 5: get seven and a half. So can you see where
Speaker 5: the corruption comes into A use of the country Lithanian.
Speaker 5: I'm not saying it was Lithania, but so.
Speaker 4: It was Lindenstein. We're calling out like Liechtenstein, right, we're
Speaker 4: call it.
Speaker 5: So the point being it's very very easily manipulated to
Speaker 5: for malevolent purposes. You know, for instance what I called
Speaker 5: them out on social media. Last year there was a
Speaker 5: private school in Scotland set up a tour, set up
Speaker 5: events basically for their own kids to play in essense
Speaker 5: of they're farming farming wagger points. So why is this important?
Speaker 5: It's important because it's important because the top five hundred
Speaker 5: get automatic extension into the US Amateur. It's important because
Speaker 5: the British Boys Championship is taking off the wagon rankings.
Speaker 5: They go down the wagon rankings and you're selected based
Speaker 5: on your you know, for a place in the field
Speaker 5: based on your wagon rankings. So it's a you know,
Speaker 5: it's very hard to imagine there's a perfect system, but
Speaker 5: as currently constituted, it's a pretty imperfect situation for a
Speaker 5: very very important thing in amateur golf.
Speaker 4: Now, to finish here, yeah, I mean, that's that's fascinating
Speaker 4: in for Lawrence, that definitely clarifies things for me. And
Speaker 4: if people are angry about the ow g R right now,
Speaker 4: I think maybe, oh my god, more arguably about about Wagger.
Speaker 4: But in any case, just to finish here, if I
Speaker 4: if I were just to appoint you that the czar
Speaker 4: of amateur golf, and this is something that I think
Speaker 4: it might be a good thing. Right to keep it simple,
Speaker 4: what is the first directive? What is the first big
Speaker 4: fix or simple thing that you either take away or
Speaker 4: implement to make the experience better for young golfers.
Speaker 5: I would take away rankings, particularly junior rankings. That's really it.
Speaker 5: I think that would solve a lot of issues about
Speaker 5: where players play, how they behave, how parents behave. If
Speaker 5: you remove the significance of rankings, I think overall, certainly
Speaker 5: junior golf would improve hugely.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 5: And at the elite amateur level, again it's hard because
Speaker 5: there's so much at stake. Now, there's so much money
Speaker 5: at stake, there's so much prestige at stake. I don't
Speaker 5: know you could remove the rankings at the at the
Speaker 5: highest level, but certainly at junior level it would improve behavior,
Speaker 5: you know, just enormously. I would also, so again I'll
Speaker 5: get murdered for this. I'd abolish the A G G A.
Speaker 5: I just think, and just go to a regional, you know,
Speaker 5: like now, it didn't play a lot as a junior golfer,
Speaker 5: but the gg J G A, NCA or whatever it's called,
Speaker 5: the junior golf A so season in northern California, it
Speaker 5: was a brilliant just a brilliant breeding ground. Last week,
Speaker 5: just very quickly last week at the at the Western.
Speaker 5: At one point in the tournament, three the top four
Speaker 5: came through the j G G n C Coyven Gilligan,
Speaker 5: Zach Polo, a great player of Arizona, all came through,
Speaker 5: you know, the junior system. And these were three kids
Speaker 5: that really barely touch I mean, Jackson played a lot
Speaker 5: of agg later in his career, and that's fine. He
Speaker 5: was looking for a good competition. But the rankings are
Speaker 5: they they provoked all sorts of terribly bad behavior, you know,
Speaker 5: and you know, put too much pressure on kids at
Speaker 5: the upper level. Oh my goodness, i'd get rid of agents.
Speaker 5: Get rid of agents there. I mean, they're I mean
Speaker 5: the US amateur next week are going to be crawling
Speaker 5: all over the place. I believe somebody told me yesterday
Speaker 5: again that there's I think there's two hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: kids playing college golf now who are making money. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: And I'm not sure that that's I mean, great for them,
Speaker 5: and I'm sure that would it's a great help when
Speaker 5: you're because le amateur golf is an expensive business, believe
Speaker 5: you me. And I'm sure the money helps. But you know, again,
Speaker 5: I think it might provoke alkins bad behavior.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 4: I think that wanting to get rid of agents might
Speaker 4: be where the journalists and the parents meet and shake hands,
Speaker 4: don't you.
Speaker 5: Think, Oh yeah, I'm not sure. I'm guessing some Oh actually, yeah,
Speaker 5: give it. I don't know if every should be a
Speaker 5: referenced that dun Lap story last week.
Speaker 2: That was a story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a nasty situation in your first I mean
Speaker 4: people should read that that article by Josh Carpenter for
Speaker 4: Sports Business Journal about Nick Dunlap and the lawsuit that's
Speaker 4: going between his agency and his family. But the first
Speaker 4: question you ask when you see an article like that
Speaker 4: is like, why is the agent so involved before the
Speaker 4: kid turns pro to the extent that it becomes a
Speaker 4: dispute once he does turn pro. And and so I
Speaker 4: think that's a It's about serving the kids, right, Junior golf,
Speaker 4: amateur golf should be kid centric. That's that's my perspective
Speaker 4: on it. Maybe this is just the former teacher in
Speaker 4: me speaking, but when I think of junior athletics, it's
Speaker 4: it's got to be something that is more focused on
Speaker 4: the child. And it seems like a lot of aspects
Speaker 4: of junior golf and amateur amateur golf don't really have
Speaker 4: that motive. And so maybe that's just what we need
Speaker 4: to get back to somehow or another. Though I don't
Speaker 4: have much optimism that it will.
Speaker 5: We send like two old guys here.
Speaker 4: Is gray hairs.
Speaker 5: That's never it's never good. Although I'm saying that you're
Speaker 5: talking about the nickdun Lap situation, yea, the agency, I
Speaker 5: don't think this was that we're named. It was GSC.
Speaker 5: It's Bryson Dechampole's agency, the agency he's with. I note
Speaker 5: this week that they've got two top guys just put
Speaker 5: PG two University of just come out and just signed
Speaker 5: the GS. So it doesn't seem to be doing them
Speaker 5: any harm. You read the storyline, you think, oh my god,
Speaker 5: that's their toast, a partly their note toast.
Speaker 2: Far from it.
Speaker 4: My goodness. Well, Lawrence, this has been a total delight.
Speaker 4: Thank you for coming on the podcast, and of course,
Speaker 4: best of luck to Denial in the US Amateur this week.
Speaker 4: We'll be falling along and hope he has a great
Speaker 4: experience listen. Thanks for that, Thanks Joseph, Thanks Garrett.
Speaker 2: All Right, so.
Speaker 4: Joseph and I are back for recommendations. Before we get
Speaker 4: into that, i'd like to talk a little bit about
Speaker 4: Friday Golf getting into the book business. We've actually partnered
Speaker 4: with Josh Pettitt and the Alistair Mackenzie Institute on the
Speaker 4: release of Mackenzie's book Golf Architecture. So this is a
Speaker 4: groundbreaking book in the history of golf architecture. It was
Speaker 4: released in nineteen twenty and a lot of people might
Speaker 4: be familiar with Spirit of St. Andrews from mackenzie, but
Speaker 4: Golf Architecture was kind of the original version of that,
Speaker 4: and it has so much of the analysis and the
Speaker 4: passages the quotes that are very famous from Mackenzie's body
Speaker 4: of work. So this is a really great and concise
Speaker 4: book about golf course design. Probably the single best single
Speaker 4: volume book to read if you're getting into reading about
Speaker 4: golf architecture. So these books will ship out in about
Speaker 4: six to eight weeks.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: Cheap copies of this book can be found on the internet,
Speaker 4: but Josh went to great lengths to recreate the original
Speaker 4: edition of this book by manually typing out the entire
Speaker 4: text and retype setting the whole book. So this is
Speaker 4: as close to a true reproduction of the original book
Speaker 4: as possible. There's nothing else available that's anything like this.
Speaker 4: So we would like people to go to McKenzie dot golf.
Speaker 4: That's the very simple URL where you can find your
Speaker 4: copy of this book, and you can use the promo
Speaker 4: code fried egg all one word for ten percent off
Speaker 4: your copy of McKenzie's original Golf Architecture edition. Really really
Speaker 4: great thing here in a wonderful book, all right, So Joseph,
Speaker 4: let's do let's do recommendations. What are you recommending this week?
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit of a random one. But there's
Speaker 3: a podcast that's what.
Speaker 4: The segment is all about. Man, this is this is
Speaker 4: about randomness here.
Speaker 3: That was an unnecessary preface. There's a podcast called Acquired
Speaker 3: that a lot of my friends are into on just
Speaker 3: how certain businesses got started. Specifically, I would recommend the
Speaker 3: episode about the NFL, which was released in January of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, not just because the NFL season is
Speaker 3: coming up, but I think it is pretty instructive and
Speaker 3: considering the golf world right now as it's being shaped,
Speaker 3: and some of the ingredients that made the NFL successful,
Speaker 3: and why they set things up the way that they did,
Speaker 3: how the business model they had the foresight to create
Speaker 3: competitive parity and stress that and some of the media
Speaker 3: deals that they entered into. I do while I was
Speaker 3: listening to it, if you know a ton about the NFL,
Speaker 3: you might not learn a bunch. But considering some of
Speaker 3: the same problem sets that are faced by the professional
Speaker 3: golf world as everything is kind of getting shaken up
Speaker 3: and potentially some kind of deal gets put back together,
Speaker 3: I thought it was a useful exercise to listen to
Speaker 3: that pod and consider what the implications for golf. So
Speaker 3: it's a big commitment. It might be like three hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, believe it or not. This was a
Speaker 4: backup recommendation for me today. I was thinking about recommending
Speaker 4: the acquired podcast, not that specific episode. I think the
Speaker 4: one that I would have guided people toward would have
Speaker 4: been maybe the recent Starbucks episode where they actually did
Speaker 4: one of their kind of narrative podcasts with Howard Schultz
Speaker 4: in the room with them. Pretty awesome offering there. But
Speaker 4: when it's just the two hosts going through one of
Speaker 4: these company stories, it's a really really compelling podcast, very
Speaker 4: good storytelling. And yes the episodes can be three four
Speaker 4: hours long. Sometimes for some companies like Video for example,
Speaker 4: they'll do multi part episodes that are just kind of epic.
Speaker 4: But it's a very very engaging podcast and one that
Speaker 4: I would recommend as well. So the recommendation that I'm
Speaker 4: going to make is actually another podcast. So we're just
Speaker 4: like directing people to other podcasts. But that's fine. We
Speaker 4: want people to listen to a lot of podcasts here
Speaker 4: in compositions. We want people coming back on the podcast
Speaker 4: app listening to us as well as these other great ones.
Speaker 4: The one that I've been kind of mainlining recently in
Speaker 4: addition to Acquired is the Big Picture podcast from The
Speaker 4: Ringer hosted by Sean Fennessy and Amanda Dobbins. This is
Speaker 4: a chat show about movies essentially, but the specific genre
Speaker 4: of episode within this podcast that I've been listening to
Speaker 4: is the movie draft episodes where they bring in Chris Ryan,
Speaker 4: who's another kind of Ringer universe personality, and they draft
Speaker 4: movies from certain years in different categories. So there's categories
Speaker 4: like blockbuster or comedy or drama or action slash horror
Speaker 4: slash thriller, and they look at movies from a specific
Speaker 4: year and they kind of do a snake draft of
Speaker 4: the movies to see who can come up with the
Speaker 4: best lineup of movies. And I've really enjoyed these. I
Speaker 4: think a lot of people really enjoy these. I think
Speaker 4: they've been very successful episodes for the Big Picture because
Speaker 4: they keep doing them over and over, and in fact,
Speaker 4: they're running out of kind of like years in the
Speaker 4: past four decades to do at this point. But I've
Speaker 4: been basically listening to these from the beginning. Within the
Speaker 4: last few weeks, and I find them very, very fun.
Speaker 4: There's a great dynamic between the hosts, and it's a
Speaker 4: good way to kind of remember movies that you saw
Speaker 4: at the time but haven't revisited since and just be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I should go back and watch that again, Like The Mummy,
Speaker 4: for instance, that Brendan Fraser movie. It's such a great
Speaker 4: little action movie that Hollywood doesn't really make anymore, completely original,
Speaker 4: and it's just a fun watch. And it's basically available
Speaker 4: for free online. I think it's on two B or something.
Speaker 4: But that's the kind of movie that I remember seeing
Speaker 4: in the theaters when it came out, but then forgetting
Speaker 4: about and not really going back to. And so these
Speaker 4: movie draft podcasts are kind of a great way to
Speaker 4: remember some of those things. So Big Picture Podcast, I
Speaker 4: think it's a really really high quality pod. All right, Joseph,
Speaker 4: I think that's it for today. Anything else, that's it, Okay,
Speaker 4: Thanks for coming on the pod.
Speaker 3: Thanks Garrett. That's fun.
Speaker 4: This episode of the Frida egg Golf Podcast was produced
Speaker 4: by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. We want to make
Speaker 4: sure that people are aware that Frida egg Golf has
Speaker 4: a pro shop. Go to proshop dot Thefrida Egg dot com.
Speaker 4: I believe that's the URL, pretty confident that's the r L.
Speaker 4: We have a lot of great stuff there. Our merchzar
Speaker 4: meg Atkins, does a wonderful job of creating good looking,
Speaker 4: inventive products that I think you'll really like. So go
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Speaker 4: com see what we have there. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 4: and we'll be back again soon with another episode.
Speaker 3: M