Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When
Speaker 1: I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 1: And when I find my ball in a brid egg
Speaker 1: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg
Speaker 1: brid Egg fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to
Speaker 1: run off the golf course.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I am
Speaker 2: your host, Andy Johnson. Today I am joined by Trevor Immelman.
Speaker 2: We are going to break down the one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty fifth US Open. It was held last week at Oakmont.
Speaker 2: It was very wet, It was quite a week. It
Speaker 2: was a lot of weather. Pure chaos broke down on
Speaker 2: the back now and I'm excited to chat with Trevor
Speaker 2: about all the ins and outs and contenders. Also the
Speaker 2: setup Oakmont overall is a course. Really fun chat with
Speaker 2: Trevor breaking down this major. I can't believe we're we
Speaker 2: are three legs of the four through the major season.
Speaker 2: We've got Port Rush coming up in about a month
Speaker 2: exactly from today, so really a lot of storylines. Obviously,
Speaker 2: JJ spawn captured the title. Incredible finish for him to
Speaker 2: win his first major and and win at Oakmont. What
Speaker 2: a first major to get Oakmont? It's not usually a
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Speaker 2: fifteen percent off. Let's get to Trevor Immleman. All right,
Speaker 2: Trevor Immelman, as always, was becoming a tradition, maybe not
Speaker 2: unlike any other a tradition. Is you coming on to
Speaker 2: talk about our last major this weekend? We had the
Speaker 2: US Open. It was It was quite the tournament.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of things to talk about about
Speaker 2: this tournament. JJ Spawn captured the title. It became anybody's tournament.
Speaker 2: On the back nine just a you know, a ton
Speaker 2: of players had a chance. JJ Spawn though, makes four
Speaker 2: birdies on the back nine the last two holes to
Speaker 2: win by two shots over Robert McIntyre and capture his
Speaker 2: first major championship, his second win of his career and
Speaker 2: obviously a part of a breakout season for Spawn, who's
Speaker 2: now top ten in the world.
Speaker 3: And you know, the win goes with the.
Speaker 2: Runner up playoff loss at the players one of the
Speaker 2: other huge events on the PGA Tour calendar as well
Speaker 2: as a second place at down in Palm Beach. So
Speaker 2: thoughts on JJ Spahn and and kind of the finish there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, extremely impressive gulf from him. I mean, what
Speaker 1: a week it was, what a final round it was.
Speaker 1: I posted a message on X earlier in the day
Speaker 1: that just always had a feel that there were going
Speaker 1: to be some crazy twists and turns throughout the day.
Speaker 1: Every shot seemed on such a knife edge, particularly the
Speaker 1: t shots. If you hit it into the rough, you
Speaker 1: just never knew what you were going to get. And
Speaker 1: things were just changing dramatically, and then we got the
Speaker 1: weather delay. But you know, you've got to give so
Speaker 1: much credit to JJ for the way that he finished
Speaker 1: the tournament off, to go ahead and come back in
Speaker 1: thirty two. I'm just looking at the scorecard here. Four
Speaker 1: birdies in his last seven holes. You know, birdies were
Speaker 1: hard to come by. We saw that throughout the week,
Speaker 1: even when conditions were better. And for him to go
Speaker 1: ahead and make those four birdies down the stretch there,
Speaker 1: and particularly the last two holes when everything was on
Speaker 1: the line, you got to tip your cap to him
Speaker 1: and congratulate him. He went out there and won that
Speaker 1: with a moment that will be remembered for a long time.
Speaker 1: With that brilliant pot across the green at eighteen.
Speaker 3: I mean, the pot was incredible.
Speaker 2: I was standing right there behind and you know, like
Speaker 2: I'm a member of the media, I'm supposed to be impartial,
Speaker 2: And when that putt got about five feet away, I
Speaker 2: like threw my hands up because I knew it was
Speaker 2: one of those putts that was traffic. And I mean
Speaker 2: I let out an audible like oh, I you know,
Speaker 2: I cheered because it was just such a remarkable putt.
Speaker 2: I mean, you just it's when I saw where he
Speaker 2: hit it. When I got up to the green, I
Speaker 2: was looking at him, like, God, this is that's a
Speaker 2: hard put I wouldn't want to have to two put
Speaker 2: that to win.
Speaker 3: You know. That's that's about one of the worst putts
Speaker 3: you could have on the green.
Speaker 1: The odds were far greater than he was going to
Speaker 1: three put than what you know it was going to
Speaker 1: be if he made it, and just incredible really, and
Speaker 1: it went in at perfect speed like there was no
Speaker 1: you know, in a week where it felt like there
Speaker 1: was quite a lot of luck at play with the
Speaker 1: lies and the rough and you know whether you're to
Speaker 1: be able to advance the ball twenty yards fifty yards
Speaker 1: get it up onto the green. There was just felt
Speaker 1: like no luck involved in all that partt When in
Speaker 1: perfect speed it was tracking the last eight or ten feet,
Speaker 1: you just were like, man, I think this is going
Speaker 1: to go in brilliant moment there for him. I'm a
Speaker 1: huge JJ spawn fan. He is a wonderful guy, a
Speaker 1: great guy that's very popular on to a really good
Speaker 1: sense of humor. It doesn't take himself too seriously, and
Speaker 1: you know he's put in the hard yards throughout his
Speaker 1: career to make it to this point. And so fun
Speaker 1: to see good people get rewarded who've put the work
Speaker 1: in and battled through the adversity. That was quite something.
Speaker 1: That was really a cool moment. They're watching him make
Speaker 1: that putt and you see the reaction from all the
Speaker 1: other competitors, whether it be Tyrrell or Bob or even
Speaker 1: Halan that he's playing with. I mean, these guys just
Speaker 1: looking at it going like yeah, fair play. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's something special right there.
Speaker 2: I loved it, like just like kind of like putter
Speaker 2: toss going in and It's almost like he didn't know
Speaker 2: what to do, like just through It's.
Speaker 1: Gaddy caddy was so close to him that I thought
Speaker 1: he might try to dive and catch him. It was.
Speaker 1: It was quite funny to see the caddy right there
Speaker 1: with him, probably trying to get a read on the
Speaker 1: pot if it went by the hole, and you know
Speaker 1: he's holding the umbrellas hammering down with rain again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've probably watched it fifteen times since, and
Speaker 1: you always spot something that brings a smile to your face.
Speaker 1: You know, after the initial shock of the ball going in.
Speaker 1: The more you watch it, the more other things you
Speaker 1: start to notice really cool, I think.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously the first two majors of the year,
Speaker 2: we had Rory McElroy Scottie Shuffler, supreme talents, players that
Speaker 2: from a young age were destined for, you know, stardom
Speaker 2: on the PGA Tour. Obviously, Rory tons of expectations as
Speaker 2: a kid. Scotty wins the US Junior becomes the number
Speaker 2: one player in the world. Jaduspahn a little bit different path,
Speaker 2: and one of the beautiful things about golf is is
Speaker 2: that you know you never know what age you're going
Speaker 2: to play your best golf, and here he is at
Speaker 2: thirty four, really rounding into his his his best self.
Speaker 2: I loved the quote he talked about in his post round.
Speaker 2: He said, I grew up watching golf. I was a
Speaker 2: young kid wanted to play golf. I loved golf. It
Speaker 2: was a passion for me growing up. I always played
Speaker 2: with my parents. Growing up, one thing led to another.
Speaker 2: I wasn't really groomed to be a professional golfer. I
Speaker 2: didn't get put through academ academies. I didn't play a JGA.
Speaker 2: I played local stuff. I did qualify or actually, my
Speaker 2: first big USGA event was the US Junior. I did
Speaker 2: that two times when I was like sixteen and seventeen.
Speaker 2: That's kind of when I realized my potential. I just
Speaker 2: kept going like one foot in front of the other,
Speaker 2: junior golf, college golf, turning pro, and now here I
Speaker 2: am with the USGA, a US Open trophy. Think about
Speaker 2: the career and it's like this just incremental rise. Where
Speaker 2: he's not playing AJGA golf.
Speaker 3: He's played.
Speaker 2: He plays at San Diego State, obviously a pretty strong program.
Speaker 2: But you know his path to the tour. He started
Speaker 2: on the Canadian Tour. He got up through the Canadian
Speaker 2: tour to the corn Ferry Tour. You know, it was
Speaker 2: the web dot com. I remember watching him at the
Speaker 2: very beginning of the Frida Egg. I went to one
Speaker 2: of my first trips to pro golf tournament was to
Speaker 2: the Columbus Nationwide event and I watched him there and
Speaker 2: you know, because a guy on web dot com tour
Speaker 2: was like, you know one guy you should watch hit
Speaker 2: a golf balls, JJ Spawn. He can really hit it.
Speaker 2: And I watched him there and then it's just like
Speaker 2: he kind of was just mired in in the middle
Speaker 2: of the PGA tour for years and who knows where
Speaker 2: he goes from here, but it's just, you know, to
Speaker 2: get to the top ten in the world rankings, it's
Speaker 2: just a very unexpected He's not someone you go and
Speaker 2: watch and you're like, wow, like you know that guy,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's aesthetically, he doesn't look like he's like,
Speaker 2: you know, he's not one of these like six foot
Speaker 2: four Cam Davis, like gret you know, god like looking
Speaker 2: golf swings when you're looking at the range. But that
Speaker 2: swing is is really repeatable and we saw it under
Speaker 2: pressure just you know, deliver two. I mean, two absolute
Speaker 2: perfect drives on seventeen and eighteen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a lot of ways, it's it's like a
Speaker 1: little bit of a throwback, isn't it. You know when
Speaker 1: I when I turned pro, it was kind of accepted
Speaker 1: that you would go through years of like cutting your
Speaker 1: tea and learning the ropes and getting to understand the
Speaker 1: golf courses and learning from the other great players and
Speaker 1: stumbling a bunch before being able to win, and then
Speaker 1: eventually you would reach your prime in your thirties. I
Speaker 1: mean everyone used to think you'd reach your prime in
Speaker 1: your thirties, and then I guess really started with Tiger
Speaker 1: was the first guy to jump on there and absolutely
Speaker 1: dominate in his early twenties. But as the years of progressed,
Speaker 1: guys have had more and more success early. But you know,
Speaker 1: as you talk about that and read through some of
Speaker 1: his accomplishments, I mean, it's it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: throwback of he took his time, he lost his card,
Speaker 1: He used to go through the mini tours a lot
Speaker 1: of self doubt in moments, wondering whether it'd be good enough,
Speaker 1: but he kept at it and had the right group
Speaker 1: of people around him to keep nudging him in the
Speaker 1: right direction, and now he's major champion, and he's won
Speaker 1: the US Open at one of the toughest golf courses
Speaker 1: to play. He absolutely flushes the ball, there's no doubt
Speaker 1: about that. My son has done some travel with me
Speaker 1: this summer since he got back home, and he was
Speaker 1: with me at the Charles Schwab at Colonial and I
Speaker 1: always like to go down on the range on Saturdays
Speaker 1: and Sunday mornings and watch the leaders warm up and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe have a chat with them, see what's
Speaker 1: going on, see if I can notice any patterns with
Speaker 1: their swing and their ballflight. And JJ was up near
Speaker 1: around the lead that week as well, and we watched
Speaker 1: him warm up and we left the range and my
Speaker 1: son Jacob said to me, man, I didn't realize JJ
Speaker 1: hit the ball that pure. It was extremely impressive warm
Speaker 1: up all the way through. The bag doesn't have a
Speaker 1: crazy amount of power to be able to overpower any
Speaker 1: sort of golf course, but there's for sure enough pop
Speaker 1: in the bat. We're talking mid to high one seventies
Speaker 1: penetrating ballflight. He moves the trajectory around, up and down
Speaker 1: quite a lot. For the most part, hits the fade
Speaker 1: but the ball comes out and it feels and sounds like, man,
Speaker 1: this thing has been hit, and it's been hit rarely squarely.
Speaker 1: Love is swinging, Lovey is right shoulder powers through the ball.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of face flipping and face rotation going
Speaker 1: on there. And I was like, yeah, I mean, this
Speaker 1: guy flushes it and he's starting to get that self
Speaker 1: belief now that he's had all of these close calls
Speaker 1: after the initial win at Valero, but he's for sure
Speaker 1: up this game in the last twelve months. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think he leaned on all of those experiences coming
Speaker 1: down the stretch yesterday, and maybe, you know, it's one
Speaker 1: thing getting it done at the end and making all
Speaker 1: those brilliant birdies and hitting those two brilliant drives on
Speaker 1: seventeen and eighteen. But I'll tell you what. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people would have packed it up after
Speaker 1: five or six holes after the start that he had.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean that in necessarily even a quitting fashion.
Speaker 1: I mean it in getting down on yourself mentally and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, this is clearly not my week. I've
Speaker 1: just hit the flag stick on two after hitting a
Speaker 1: perfect wedge, and I'm off the green, he makes another
Speaker 1: bogie there, he makes what does he make here? Five
Speaker 1: fives to start, and then he bogies the next hole
Speaker 1: the past three. So he's five over after six on Sunday,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'd love to know the self talk and
Speaker 1: the thought process he was going through at that moment.
Speaker 1: But to be able to hang in there and keep
Speaker 1: grinding it out is something that I think is super impressive.
Speaker 1: The rain delay probably helped him to be able to reset,
Speaker 1: maybe take a little squizze at the leaderboard and go okay.
Speaker 1: I know that was maybe the worst possible start I
Speaker 1: could have got off to, but the good news is
Speaker 1: I'm actually still in this and he was able to
Speaker 1: be able to reset. But yeah, man, it was cool.
Speaker 1: It was cool to watch. And you know, in sports,
Speaker 1: we love to see the favorites win, but every now
Speaker 1: and then it's fun to see somebody step up and
Speaker 1: prove to themselves and the world that they can get
Speaker 1: it done too. And that's really what I take out
Speaker 1: of his performance. And who knows where this goes from here?
Speaker 1: You know, who knows? That's It's one of the beauties
Speaker 1: of sport where you have to watch, you have to
Speaker 1: get in the game and you've got to complete all
Speaker 1: seventy two. Hold. I mean, this guy who knows he
Speaker 1: could win more majors going down the road for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think with Oakmont's pedigree for winners, the the membership
Speaker 2: certainly wishing him to win more. The uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I had in my notes, so I was going to
Speaker 2: ask you this is is this the rain delay that
Speaker 2: that changed the course of the US Open? Because if
Speaker 2: you look at Spawns quotes and from his press conference,
Speaker 2: he you know, he he talked to his coaches obviously
Speaker 2: during the break, and I think it was Josh Gregory
Speaker 2: who said.
Speaker 3: It was. He said they were just like, dude, just chill.
Speaker 2: If you're if you were given four shots back going
Speaker 2: into the back nine on Monday, you would have you
Speaker 2: would take that. They just said, just let it come
Speaker 2: to you. Be calm, stop trying hard. That's what I
Speaker 2: was doing. I felt like I had a chance, a
Speaker 2: really good chance to win the US Open. At the
Speaker 2: start of the day. It was just unraveling very fast.
Speaker 2: But that break was actually the key for me to
Speaker 2: winning this tournament. You know, you just think about Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it seemed like the break was also had a
Speaker 2: detriment on other players, you know, and uh, one thing
Speaker 2: I was curious about and it seemed like we a
Speaker 2: lot of guys had a lot of trouble hitting hitting
Speaker 2: approach shots from the from the wet fairways when they
Speaker 2: came out. Is there something that spawns swing that you know,
Speaker 2: we both have talked about, like that consistent strike that
Speaker 2: he asked. It's seemingly a heavy ball the hits when
Speaker 2: he is there something about his swing that actually was
Speaker 2: you know that separated him on the on the soggy
Speaker 2: fairways because that was giving people a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really tough to answer because all of these
Speaker 1: guys are are so good through the impact zone. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't get to this level unless you are. You
Speaker 1: just kind of wonder did he let that bother him
Speaker 1: less than some of the others. The thing that makes
Speaker 1: golf so elusive and winning and championship golf so elusive
Speaker 1: is it's just one little tiny piece of doubt can
Speaker 1: cause havoc. And you know, maybe he just dealt with
Speaker 1: it mentally in a better way to where he was like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put my swing on the on the shot
Speaker 1: and see what happens rather than being a little apprehensive
Speaker 1: or being a little more defensive. Who knows, you just
Speaker 1: need that one little shred of doubt to cause absolute havoc.
Speaker 1: But it reminded me so much of other sports. You know,
Speaker 1: we've seen delays like that change outcomes in sports. You
Speaker 1: see it in tennis sometimes players will go for a
Speaker 1: bathroom break or the rain or.
Speaker 3: Come my Cubs World Series.
Speaker 1: Remember that Super Bowl in New Orleans when the it
Speaker 1: went out and all of a sudden the game changed. Uh.
Speaker 1: You see it in Formula one all the time. So
Speaker 1: it's just one of the beauties of sport. Nobody knows
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. You just got to keep rolling
Speaker 1: with it. You've got to be you've got to be unflappable.
Speaker 1: You've got to you've got to be in a situation
Speaker 1: to where you need to be able to expect anything
Speaker 1: and and and not allow any of it to bother
Speaker 1: you and to affect your psyche at all. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's probably the main thing that I was impressed with
Speaker 1: from JJ yesterday was the start, the the delay, the
Speaker 1: change in conditions, the sloppy fair ways. He dealt with
Speaker 1: all of that so well. And uh came out on top.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The other thing is, you know, he putted extraordinary and
Speaker 2: one of the things that's been a soft spot throughout
Speaker 2: his career has been the putter. He's always been really
Speaker 2: tee to green Ace. The putter has been, you know,
Speaker 2: not as reliable put it. I think like what impressed
Speaker 2: me the most, and it impressed me at the players
Speaker 2: was like his lag putting under the gun under pressure
Speaker 2: where you might see that's where and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you get more you have more thoughts going through
Speaker 2: your head. It gets harder to leave putts dead and uh,
Speaker 2: and the putts he hit coming in made it a
Speaker 2: lot easier on him because you know, they just matching
Speaker 2: perfect speed with the with the you know, in a
Speaker 2: in a situation where finding the perfect speed was hard
Speaker 2: because the speed of the Greens drastically changed after the
Speaker 2: rain delay. I think like the the adaptability and for
Speaker 2: him to just kind of go out and just really
Speaker 2: in a situation where nobody was taking the ball, he
Speaker 2: just grabbed it and ran with.
Speaker 3: It and and I think, you know, it'll be interesting.
Speaker 2: Josh Gregory was talking afterwards, he and he and I
Speaker 2: think this is like an important note of JJ spawn
Speaker 2: as he was talking about how you know, he obviously
Speaker 2: works with a ton of players, but he was like,
Speaker 2: you know, this guy is having a career year. He's
Speaker 2: gotten into the top fifteen in the FedEx Cup, top
Speaker 2: twenty five in the World golf rankings, and it's really
Speaker 2: easy when you get there to become complacent. And what
Speaker 2: he said to me is, I'm ready to work. I'm
Speaker 2: tired of coming up short. I want to be a lead.
Speaker 2: And you think that that type of mindset is kind
Speaker 2: of what can lead to people becoming world class at things,
Speaker 2: especially when he already has the traits of being a
Speaker 2: really good ball striker. If he you know, he makes
Speaker 2: some incremental gains on the short game and putting over
Speaker 2: the next you know, eighteen months, you know this, it
Speaker 2: might not be where we're surprised that he's a top
Speaker 2: ten player.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's clearly put a lot of great work in.
Speaker 1: You know, if we zero in on putting shucks. I
Speaker 1: remember a couple of seasons ago. You know, he was
Speaker 1: trying all sorts of different styles. He was trying arm block,
Speaker 1: he was going conventional, different putter styles, all sorts of
Speaker 1: different things. But you know, he's done well with this
Speaker 1: putter change. He's found a stroke that looks rarely, rarely solid,
Speaker 1: and he made a bunch of putts throughout the week
Speaker 1: that were absolutely clutch. I mean none more so than
Speaker 1: that bomb on eighteen. It's fascinating to me, you know, nowadays,
Speaker 1: with the advent of social media and all the great coverage,
Speaker 1: whether it be podcasts or pregame shows and all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. It was so much talk going into
Speaker 1: the week from the members at oakmand from the USGA,
Speaker 1: from players that had made scouting trips up there, like
Speaker 1: these green these greens are going to be fifteen. They're
Speaker 1: so fast, they're so undulating, and in a lot of
Speaker 1: sense that sort of starts to plant seeds in your mind.
Speaker 1: You know, never mind being a fan, but how about
Speaker 1: if you're a player and you're starting to hear all
Speaker 1: that stuff, read all that stuff, and then they have
Speaker 1: all of the rain coming into the tournament. The players
Speaker 1: get there on Monday, it's soaking wet. The greens aren't
Speaker 1: quite as fast. Then Tuesday, Wednesday, everybody's like, oh, they
Speaker 1: started to get fast again. And then the rain kept
Speaker 1: coming in throughout the week and they never quite got
Speaker 1: to that point to where they were super scary, but
Speaker 1: he found a way to keep adjusting. So well, really
Speaker 1: really cool stuff.
Speaker 2: This is a crazy It was a weird week, yeah,
Speaker 2: for a tournament, just with you know, kind of the
Speaker 2: lead up the rain.
Speaker 3: Then it was, you know, kind of hot.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different like conditions within days, you
Speaker 2: know more nothing more so than Sunday, where you know,
Speaker 2: it's pretty idyllic in the morning, great scoring conditions, and
Speaker 2: then the afternoon got you know, it was a little windier.
Speaker 2: The rain obviously threw a huge wrench in it and
Speaker 2: became very difficult in the middle. And then you came
Speaker 2: out to I think like what a number of players
Speaker 2: that Adam Scott called it borderline whether they should have
Speaker 2: been out there, and he was more this was more
Speaker 2: talking about what happened to Sam Burns, not himself.
Speaker 3: I want to be clear with that.
Speaker 2: This is not him, like you know this this was
Speaker 2: prodded and asking about Sam and he said, you know,
Speaker 2: the you know, the fairways were borderline. Justin Thomas was tweeting,
Speaker 2: doesn't look great out there, you know, like you had
Speaker 2: a tweet about whether they should be out there.
Speaker 3: I think the.
Speaker 2: This week was it's just gonna be one of those
Speaker 2: tournaments where we go down to look back on and
Speaker 2: be like, a lot of weird stuff happened that week,
Speaker 2: And I think it was a setup style that we
Speaker 2: haven't seen from the USGA in a long time. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the Mike Davis era was centered around kind of the
Speaker 2: graduated rough philosophy, where and what I mean by graduating
Speaker 2: rough is where your penalty for hitting in the rough
Speaker 2: progressively gets greater the further from the fairway you get.
Speaker 2: I think then John Bodenheimer came in and we've had
Speaker 2: an era of like where he came in was after
Speaker 2: Shinnecock and there was a lot of negativity amongst the
Speaker 2: players about the USGA and they're may be credentials for
Speaker 2: hosting such a big tournament. And I think we got
Speaker 2: a number of years in the recent years where they've
Speaker 2: been very cautious with setups, very you know, this is
Speaker 2: the way it is. But it almost felt like Oakmont
Speaker 2: gave them a veil because it's Oakmon, and the gravitas
Speaker 2: of Oakmon is similar to Augusta National, where players aren't
Speaker 2: going to really say because this is the way Oakman
Speaker 2: is it's it's punishing, it's unforgiving. Where they really put
Speaker 2: their foot down on the setup. It was thick, uniform,
Speaker 2: rough from the second you ventured off the fairway to
Speaker 2: the rope line. I would say that my biggest critique
Speaker 2: would be if you're outside the rope line, you're in
Speaker 2: a much better spot than if you're inside.
Speaker 1: The rope line.
Speaker 2: And then obviously the greens, and I think the new
Speaker 2: whole locations that were created by the Green, the restoration
Speaker 2: historical renovation that Gil Hans had really opened up some
Speaker 2: new dimensions to to the golf course in terms of
Speaker 2: whole locations that otherwise would have felt more like in
Speaker 2: the middle of the green. What was your what are
Speaker 2: your thoughts on kind of the US Open? You obviously
Speaker 2: played through a couple of different eras in the setups
Speaker 2: that they've they've had, and where this setup this week
Speaker 2: stood for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot there to unpack. I would say
Speaker 1: that this US Open at Oakmont was how how I
Speaker 1: remember it when I was playing, just got to hit
Speaker 1: it so straight, got to find a way to keep
Speaker 1: it in play, otherwise you're just hacking it out. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of liked the idea of graduated rough.
Speaker 1: I think there would be a way nowadays too, through
Speaker 1: the use of data, figure out what the the penalty
Speaker 1: should be, how heavy the penalty should be depending on
Speaker 1: how far you stray from the middle of the fairway
Speaker 1: or or the edge of the fairway, even if you
Speaker 1: wanted to do it that way. But yeah, gosh, when
Speaker 1: you have in a certain aspect, I wonder. Let's just
Speaker 1: say there was no rain throughout the week and that
Speaker 1: course got like super firm and fast, like we saw
Speaker 1: guys putting it down the first fairway from one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty yards out. Okay, thanks thanks to your great
Speaker 1: idea there. Imagine if it just kept getting firmer throughout
Speaker 1: the week, with amount of slope and undulation you have
Speaker 1: in some of those fairways, how hard it would have
Speaker 1: been to keep the ball on the short grass. It
Speaker 1: would have been galy. It would have been so hard
Speaker 1: to keep your t shot in play it.
Speaker 3: Was away on Friday, Yeah, there would have been.
Speaker 1: A bunch of eight and a half out of ten
Speaker 1: te shots that then end up a foot off the
Speaker 1: fairway and just in complete hack out rough. And to me,
Speaker 1: that was kind of one of my concerns as I
Speaker 1: enjoying watching. I didn't work at all this week. I
Speaker 1: was just a fan on the couch, you know, reading,
Speaker 1: listening and watching as much as I could. Was it
Speaker 1: becomes a little a little bit of a fifty to
Speaker 1: fifty call on what sort of lie you're going to get,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't punish you according to how poor the
Speaker 1: shot was. And earlier in the week I also put
Speaker 1: something out on social media where you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan of Oakmont. I played a US Open and
Speaker 1: was way too hard for me, but have a ton
Speaker 1: of respect for the golf course and how it has
Speaker 1: stood the test of time. But I always felt like
Speaker 1: the beauty of the course is the greens and the
Speaker 1: magnificent slopes that you have on these greens. You know,
Speaker 1: you think of some other courses like Augusta National or
Speaker 1: many links courses over in the UK and Ireland, even
Speaker 1: a wing Foot where you get these giant ridges and
Speaker 1: slopes and bowls and plateaus and so much interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: But when you have super thick rough around the greens,
Speaker 1: it becomes quite one dimensional. Rather than seeing players use
Speaker 1: their imagination to use these ridges and slopes and funnels
Speaker 1: and see the ball get rejected down a hill like
Speaker 1: we were seeing at number two or we were seeing
Speaker 1: at number three. I would love to have seen a
Speaker 1: little bit more of that so we could have seen
Speaker 1: some more variety. It just felt like it was it
Speaker 1: hit your drive. You know, guys were fifty to fifty,
Speaker 1: whether they were hitting the fairway or not, and you're
Speaker 1: walking up there praying that you've got some sort of
Speaker 1: lie that you can advance it or not. You can
Speaker 1: have two balls right next to each other and have
Speaker 1: one guy going for the green, one guy hacking out sideways,
Speaker 1: and it was the same thing. Around the greens. We
Speaker 1: saw this either a bunker shot, a pot from off
Speaker 1: the fairway or the chop with the love wedge to
Speaker 1: thirty feet. And I would just love to have seen
Speaker 1: a little more variety there to see it mess with
Speaker 1: these players' minds to where they have to bump and
Speaker 1: runs and flops and checkers and all sorts of different things.
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting it's an interesting one. It'll be
Speaker 1: fascinating to see what the USGA learned from this, because you're,
Speaker 1: you know, you're always capturing the data, especially nowadays, and
Speaker 1: seeing how everything unfolded so Yeah, that's kind of my
Speaker 1: thoughts on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I echo a lot of thoughts. I think
Speaker 2: the setup philosophy. I did a panel with Scott Langley
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, who's obviously very with the setup. Their their
Speaker 2: goal with the setup was to create a black and
Speaker 2: or a true or false test. He we kind of
Speaker 2: talked about, you know, before we went on you know,
Speaker 2: you know, multiple choice tests, true false tests. He asked
Speaker 2: me what type of test I like more and I said, well,
Speaker 2: I like short answer, which wasn't that's not even in
Speaker 2: the USGA wheelhouse.
Speaker 3: They don't to me, you know that what.
Speaker 2: So they wanted to set up a true false test,
Speaker 2: and to me, that's kind of like for me, my
Speaker 2: personal taste. And I think, like what's very interesting is
Speaker 2: like I think a lot of like regular uh you know,
Speaker 2: like your weekend golfer loves the true false test because
Speaker 2: they like to see the best players in the world
Speaker 2: struggle and feel that relatability to somebody hacking it out
Speaker 2: of the rough at.
Speaker 1: Times, because they don't see the best golfers struggle very often. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think this.
Speaker 2: This was so far from a typical PGA tour stop.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was this was like Memorial setup ratcheted up,
Speaker 2: which is typically one of the hardest PGA Tour setups.
Speaker 2: I'll just say the one thing that the Memorial has
Speaker 2: is they have like one of the things I think
Speaker 2: that course does really well is it scaled the appropriately
Speaker 2: for the modern game. And what I mean by that
Speaker 2: is that it does have thick rough and it is
Speaker 2: very punishing when you get off the fairway. The fairways
Speaker 2: are just forty yards wide where you have a little
Speaker 2: bit more space to play in, and the test is achievable.
Speaker 3: It's what you said, you know.
Speaker 2: I think like one of the things that I don't
Speaker 2: like about really thick rough is the idea that okay,
Speaker 2: we want to test who's driving the driving it the best,
Speaker 2: But isn't the way that golf course was set up,
Speaker 2: particularly Thursday Friday. I thought it played a lot better
Speaker 2: on the weekend when the fairways got soft and they
Speaker 2: played wider.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the way.
Speaker 2: It was set up on Thursday and Friday was we
Speaker 2: don't know who's even close to passing the test because
Speaker 2: the test isn't passable. Yeah it, And what I mean
Speaker 2: by that is, you know, I always thought in college,
Speaker 2: and you know, I don't want to get into the academics.
Speaker 2: But like I always thought like the stupidest tests of
Speaker 2: the world were like, oh, the high score in the
Speaker 2: class is thirty percent, you know, or high score in
Speaker 2: the class is fifty percent. To me, the way and
Speaker 2: this is my personal setup, and I want to just
Speaker 2: you know, this is my personal and you can disagree.
Speaker 2: It's fine to disagree with this, but my personal belief
Speaker 2: is that the way a golf course should test a
Speaker 2: game should be like the first part. The first question
Speaker 2: in the test is off the tee, do you can
Speaker 2: you pass that test? And I should have a good
Speaker 2: chance to pass that test. Then the next question is
Speaker 2: approaching the greens, and all in all with that, there's
Speaker 2: layers of gray. And this is what I think Augusta
Speaker 2: National does so so well. And I'm not saying every
Speaker 2: venue should be set up like Augusta, but when you
Speaker 2: have great greens like Oakmont, what you have the ability
Speaker 2: to do is induce a lot of gray area. So
Speaker 2: the passing the test that Augusta is getting into a
Speaker 2: small pocket in a rather wide fareaway. There is a
Speaker 2: grade a place and you can still be in the
Speaker 2: fairway and you could have gotten that question off the
Speaker 2: team wrong and smart players know that they got it wrong.
Speaker 2: Other players might might say, like I can take this on.
Speaker 2: I'm from the faraway, but you don't know you're playing
Speaker 2: from the wrong area. But it allows you the opportunity
Speaker 2: to hit the great shot to recover. And I think
Speaker 2: that's the biggest thing that we were missing from this
Speaker 2: tournament was the excitement that recovery brings, recovery shots and
Speaker 2: this and the actual like you know, we can say
Speaker 2: we're testing skill. The one thing that the setup did
Speaker 2: not allow for was the skill of recovery. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the skill of recovery to me, like you know, when
Speaker 2: I was looking at I was trying to you know,
Speaker 2: Sam Burns hasn't played well in many major championships, and
Speaker 2: I'm getting into like I'm thinking about, like, why is
Speaker 2: Sam Burns playing well here? I was thinking about this
Speaker 2: this morning when I was on my way to the airplane,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well he was. He's an example of
Speaker 2: where the recovery here. It wasn't daring recovery shots, skillful
Speaker 2: mid irons from judging a lie and the rough and
Speaker 2: really like saying okay, like I can I can take
Speaker 2: on this screen. It was more hack it out hacking.
Speaker 2: He what he was doing was hacking it forty yards
Speaker 2: up and then wedging it close and putting. Which wedging
Speaker 2: and putting is his real Like, that's his bread and butter.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Agree, and that should be.
Speaker 2: Part of his recovery, but that shouldn't be the only
Speaker 2: path to recovery in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we saw something similar at Wingfoot when
Speaker 1: Bryson won in twenty. When you dial it up to
Speaker 1: this point, all the answers are false. It's so hard
Speaker 1: for anybody, even at this great level that these players are,
Speaker 1: it's just so hard for them to constantly be hitting
Speaker 1: good shots. I mean, it's not possible. They're not machines,
Speaker 1: you know, never mind uneven lies and wind and rain
Speaker 1: and all that other kind of stuff. And like at Wingfoot,
Speaker 1: for instance, they got the fairways so narrow that all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, even the most accurate drivers were missing
Speaker 1: a great amount of fairways. So then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the equation got put back onto distance. Okay, now, because
Speaker 1: everybody's missing fairways because the fairways are so narrow, that
Speaker 1: means that the longest hitters have a massive advantage because
Speaker 1: if everybody's missing them, why wouldn't you just rather be
Speaker 1: forty fifty yards further up there like Bryson was, to
Speaker 1: where you've got a better chance of hacking it out
Speaker 1: up onto or near the green and a better chance
Speaker 1: to make a part. And kind of had a little
Speaker 1: bit of that feel this week again. And the emphasis
Speaker 1: at the end of the day for me, when I
Speaker 1: look back at the last four rounds was it was
Speaker 1: it turned into you know, who's putting the best out here,
Speaker 1: Who's who's going to be able to to put from
Speaker 1: long range? Who's going to be able to make those
Speaker 1: eight ten foots to save pars after they've had to
Speaker 1: chop it out of the rough? And JJ was the
Speaker 1: guy that really rarely putted well this week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I want to be you know.
Speaker 2: The other thing about this is that when you think
Speaker 2: about the ethos of the US Open, it goes to
Speaker 2: a new venue every year. Part of the ethos of
Speaker 2: the US Open should be showcasing the the spirit and
Speaker 2: the the wide range of golf that we have in
Speaker 2: America through these different venues in different locales. My question,
Speaker 2: my question, you know, my bigger question, and if Oakmont
Speaker 2: wants their identity to be this, I would say, that's great,
Speaker 2: that's you have that identity. But like my my critique
Speaker 2: would be, as you alluded to earlier, this is one
Speaker 2: of the greatest golf designs in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: To me, the this style of setup kind of puts
Speaker 2: restrict plates on on on what type of creativity, the
Speaker 2: creativity and shot making that this golf course could bring
Speaker 2: out if set up a little bit differently. And I think, like,
Speaker 2: you know, what's what's wild to me is like why
Speaker 2: people don't And I think this is like maybe more
Speaker 2: of a Mike Davis thing, where like people just like
Speaker 2: do not like Mike Davis. But I am I'm shocked
Speaker 2: at like the negativity that people have towards the graduated
Speaker 2: rough idea, because to me it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: And like the idea of if I'm three yards off
Speaker 2: the fairway, I hit a without a doubt better t
Speaker 2: shot than someone that's fifteen yards off the fairway. Thus
Speaker 2: I'm penalized less for being three yards off the fairway
Speaker 2: then somebody that's fifteen yards off the fairway, And then
Speaker 2: what like my real issue becomes when somebody's twenty five
Speaker 2: yards off the fairway and they're in they're in trampled
Speaker 2: down spectator areas, and they get a clean lie and
Speaker 2: they're they're better off than the person who missed the
Speaker 2: faraway by two inches.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always love, love it when when a player
Speaker 1: has to make a choice and you know, if you've
Speaker 1: missed the fairway and you look down at your ball
Speaker 1: and you're like, gosh, I think I might be able
Speaker 1: to go for this. But there's absolutely that conflict of
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the smart play is because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, you know what's playing well in
Speaker 1: the US Open is trying to keep the double bogies
Speaker 1: off your card. I mean, it's impossible to go through
Speaker 1: a US Open without making your whole host of bogies,
Speaker 1: But can you keep the big numbers off of your card?
Speaker 1: And when you start to really challenge the players and
Speaker 1: bait them into going for it, especially when you've got
Speaker 1: green complexes like this to where we could see some
Speaker 1: really fun chips and pitches and putts and bunker shots
Speaker 1: with all these great undulations and stuff like that, I
Speaker 1: would be in favor of the graduated rough to be
Speaker 1: able to if you're three yards off the fairway, you're
Speaker 1: absolutely in two minds of whether is this going to jump?
Speaker 1: Is this going to come out soft? I've got this
Speaker 1: deep bunker in front. I don't want to be short
Speaker 1: sighted there, you know, And you're managing that reading of
Speaker 1: the lie all the time. I'm kind of in favor
Speaker 1: of that. I mean, I'm in favor of that when
Speaker 1: I was playing. I'm in favor of that now as
Speaker 1: an announcer because there's so much more meat on the
Speaker 1: bone to talk about and to question and to listen
Speaker 1: to the player and caddy conversation and the caddy saying oh,
Speaker 1: I don't think you can get there, and the player
Speaker 1: going oh no, no, this lies good enough. I can get there,
Speaker 1: and then hitting the shot and going through that process
Speaker 1: and bearing in mind what just happened. Was it the
Speaker 1: right decision, was it the wrong decision? I think that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff is quite interesting. But you know, when
Speaker 1: you think back to the the the US opens at Oakmond,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is is kind of what we've seen.
Speaker 1: You know, It's just it's a beast, it's a monster.
Speaker 1: It's it wears you down. I mean, we saw players
Speaker 1: do so many crazy things this week. You know, guys
Speaker 1: really losing their cool early on in the week. You know,
Speaker 1: the Shane Lowry one is just like so funny to
Speaker 1: me that he went and just picked his ball up.
Speaker 1: He thought he had put his market down and he
Speaker 1: picked it up. You know, for a player of that
Speaker 1: caliber to be so scrambled in their mind in that
Speaker 1: moment to make a mistake like that just shows how
Speaker 1: how this course really was beating them up mentally and physically.
Speaker 1: I think that's just the test that you're going to
Speaker 1: get here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, being there on the ground, I
Speaker 2: don't think I've ever seen just the like seemingly uniform
Speaker 2: million mile stare from player after player as they walked
Speaker 2: from green to tea. Just nobody was having a good
Speaker 2: time out there. Nobody was having a good time. It
Speaker 2: was pain and suffering and you know, it hurt a
Speaker 2: couple of players wrists on the way out. It dispatched
Speaker 2: some some physical pain. I think, like the final point
Speaker 2: I'll make about this whole the whole setup, is it
Speaker 2: is necessitated that this this tournament. They were gung ho.
Speaker 2: The president of the club got up at media day
Speaker 2: and said, we're going to have an over par winner.
Speaker 2: That's what we've told the usj we're having an overpar winner.
Speaker 2: One guy finished under par, one under, you know, and
Speaker 2: if it was if.
Speaker 1: It was firm, it would have been way over par,
Speaker 1: like way over part.
Speaker 3: Way over par.
Speaker 2: And and and they they did this through the rough.
Speaker 2: Let's be clear, when people like those bunkers were fierce,
Speaker 2: you saw a.
Speaker 3: Lot like I love.
Speaker 2: I love the penalty that bunkers, Fairway Bunkers gave out
Speaker 2: this week, where you saw guys just having to like
Speaker 2: just flip it out.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 2: But where I like struggle is when the rough, the rough,
Speaker 2: which is not of a hazard, the rough is doling
Speaker 2: out a greater penalty than the bunker.
Speaker 3: Almost.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've had that for many years though,
Speaker 1: don't you.
Speaker 2: I think that's where we and this gets to the
Speaker 2: greater point and why we've gotten here is because of
Speaker 2: the equipment and how far it goes and us trying
Speaker 2: to hold on to to the the relic of even par.
Speaker 2: And it particularly comes true at the US Open. Every
Speaker 2: year comes ahead because nobody's happy, like I thought. You know,
Speaker 2: Pinehurst last year was one of the greatest championships I've
Speaker 2: ever seen it, and it was you know, two of
Speaker 2: the world's best players elevated and distancing themselves from a
Speaker 2: field and having one of the great showdowns of our time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and there was a whole contingent of people that were
Speaker 2: upset because of what score?
Speaker 3: Where are they finished? And score it apart?
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know what score they were. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: it so much.
Speaker 2: I have no th at six hunder, you know, And
Speaker 2: I think like that's that's the push and pull of
Speaker 2: this tournament, is that nobody's going to be happy, whether
Speaker 2: you you know, and and the whole kind of metamorphois
Speaker 2: of this is that equipment's made it and it's been
Speaker 2: you know, you cannot get even par unless you have
Speaker 2: rough like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do agree with that. This is this is
Speaker 1: a debate that may never end. It's been going on
Speaker 1: for decades. You know. Jack always tells the story of
Speaker 1: him starting to talk about this in the seven these
Speaker 1: uh and you know, golf, golf, social media, you know,
Speaker 1: people get fired up when you talk about about the
Speaker 1: equipment and possibly rolling it back when you get to
Speaker 1: this level of player and these guys that have rarely
Speaker 1: dedicated their whole lives to getting good at the sport
Speaker 1: and then you give them this high level of equipment there,
Speaker 1: there's all this is there's really no defense that you
Speaker 1: can come up with other than the setup that we
Speaker 1: just saw.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, and I think you've got to have three hundred.
Speaker 1: You've got to have, you got to have. You brought
Speaker 1: up the Memorial earlier. Uh Memorial has kind of similar rough,
Speaker 1: wider fair ways, but there's four par fives where there's
Speaker 1: only two at Oakmont, and you know, you've got to
Speaker 1: have three three hundred yard past threes. We had the
Speaker 1: eighth hole yesterday. I had three hundred and one yards,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. And that's that's just due to
Speaker 1: excuse me, that's just due to having to stretch it
Speaker 1: out so much in order for the players to have
Speaker 1: a similar shot value than what all the other great
Speaker 1: champions through the years have had to endure. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the only way you're going to the only way
Speaker 1: you're going to create some defense is make the penalty
Speaker 1: so severe from a rough standpoint.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some players that did not lift the the.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I first want to go through some of
Speaker 1: this here with JJ before we jump off of that.
Speaker 1: So driving distance, he was thirty sixth so he's right
Speaker 1: at three hundred average, so that's in the top quarter there.
Speaker 1: Sixty three percent of fairways he hit, field average was
Speaker 1: fifty three percent, so he did drive the ball straight
Speaker 1: than the majority of people. He was nineteenth and fairways
Speaker 1: hit greens in regulation he was ninth. That's seventy one percent.
Speaker 1: That's also pretty stella. Field average fifty six percent, so
Speaker 1: he rarely gained a lot right there. And then twelfth
Speaker 1: and putting, so yeah, he was really rarely consistent throughout
Speaker 1: the bag. But strokes gain putting, he was twelfth a
Speaker 1: number of putts second in strokes gain putting, a lot
Speaker 1: of that probably due to a sixty five footer on
Speaker 1: the last hole there.
Speaker 3: But did you see he didn't even know where he
Speaker 3: was on the leaderboard?
Speaker 1: Excuse me?
Speaker 3: He said, said he didn't want to be to be
Speaker 3: play it safe. He didn't want to like.
Speaker 1: I'm too afraid to look at it, because you know,
Speaker 1: he wanted to remain in that same mindset, which I
Speaker 1: totally get. You know, I used to do something similar,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to make sure that he wasn't distracted
Speaker 1: going on to that final green and that he could
Speaker 1: feel that he was in the lead and just rarely
Speaker 1: wanted to try his best to stay in the zone.
Speaker 1: And it was a great choice because he went ahead
Speaker 1: and made that putt. You know, another thing I'll just
Speaker 1: say is I'm a huge fan of the USGA. I
Speaker 1: think they do so much great stuff. And if you
Speaker 1: look at you know, this Championship through the years, you know,
Speaker 1: I was, I was so excited leading into this week.
Speaker 1: You know, the US Open really gets me pumped up.
Speaker 1: And when you look at this venue, you look at
Speaker 1: Pinehurst last year, you look at the venues that they
Speaker 1: have upcoming, you know, it's like it's it's mouth watering stuff.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I'm really excited to see what they
Speaker 1: come up with going forward.
Speaker 2: I think, and I mean next year going to Shinnacock,
Speaker 2: that's a golf course that can kind of I think
Speaker 2: it might be the only golf course in the world
Speaker 2: that can statiate the both parties that want to see
Speaker 2: recovery shot, high level shop making mixed with even pars course.
Speaker 3: That is to me.
Speaker 2: You know, Oakmant, It's Oakmant and Shinnacock are without a doubt,
Speaker 2: the two most challenging golf courses in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that's that's fair to say Shinnecock
Speaker 1: as well. You know, you get the possibility of strong winds.
Speaker 1: And I played an open there way back, the US Open,
Speaker 1: and there's just so many holes where you you're not
Speaker 1: sure if you're going to be able to hit the green,
Speaker 1: you know, just thinking about ten and eleven, like ten
Speaker 1: is a shortish part four and you got a somewhat
Speaker 1: of a blind t shirt and you steer one down
Speaker 1: into the fairway and you've got a short club in
Speaker 1: and you just you're like, I don't know, this green
Speaker 1: is so firm. I don't think I can keep the
Speaker 1: sandwich on the green. And you get to eleven, the
Speaker 1: pass three up the hill, and it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: You're just wondering, like, gole, this is I'm not good
Speaker 1: enough to do this. I mean, the golf course just
Speaker 1: constantly asks you those questions of you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to have to strike this perfectly from the fairway to
Speaker 1: generate enough spin. I'm probably gonna have to hit it
Speaker 1: ten to fifteen feet higher than my standard flight to
Speaker 1: try and get some elevation on it to stop it quicker.
Speaker 1: And then you're hoping it somehow catches a soft piece
Speaker 1: of the green, because this thing could just bounce flag
Speaker 1: high straight over the back. And then if you throw
Speaker 1: the wind into it and your down wind and knocks
Speaker 1: it down into a front bunker that's you know, eight
Speaker 1: or nine feet deep. You've got a whole host of
Speaker 1: other issues. It's it's gonna be a fun one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they they have, they have some incredible venues lined up.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be awesome to watch.
Speaker 2: I think I think ten ten eleven or shen Cock
Speaker 2: is maybe the worst two starting holes because they obviously
Speaker 2: split tea if you're a little nervous. Oh, I couldn't
Speaker 2: think of two worst, two worst shots to have to
Speaker 2: hit than the approach shots of those two.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean the whole the whole place. I mean
Speaker 1: one is one SnO barg and either because you've got
Speaker 1: to try and drive it into a dog leg downhill
Speaker 1: if and the wind's blowing across and then that green
Speaker 1: falls off on all sides. And then two is the
Speaker 1: long part three, right, Yeah, you could be going in
Speaker 1: there with lumber and yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 2: The twenty twenty sixth preview here, All right, let's take
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Speaker 2: the ball is coming out, what windows coming out of,
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Speaker 2: a club purchase. Let's get back to Trevor Immelman. Let's
Speaker 2: get to some guys that didn't win. JJ spond all
Speaker 2: around performance though obviously played really strong t De Green
Speaker 2: as he does often with that golf swing and then
Speaker 2: the great putting week on top of that.
Speaker 3: You're close with Adam Scott.
Speaker 2: I think that this was kind of the story everybody wanted,
Speaker 2: was the near forty five year old adding that second major.
Speaker 2: Obviously he was right there, had the lead at times
Speaker 2: on Sunday. You know, what is it about him that
Speaker 2: most impresses you as he continues to play high level
Speaker 2: golf into his mid forties.
Speaker 1: His motivation to still want to play well and his
Speaker 1: motivation to win. You know, I've never ever heard the
Speaker 1: guy talk about money or the amount of money that
Speaker 1: he's playing for. He's obviously been around so long that
Speaker 1: he's seen everything from a standpoint of prize funds and
Speaker 1: through the Tiger boom and then now over the last
Speaker 1: few years as things have really jumped up. But for him,
Speaker 1: it's just all about winning and building this legacy of
Speaker 1: winning the best tournaments, the best championships, and now he's
Speaker 1: still motivated and keen to put the work in. For me,
Speaker 1: you know, we've known each other forever. We competed in
Speaker 1: junior golf together and came through all the different stages
Speaker 1: of amateur golf, young on Tour, European Tour, PGA Tour,
Speaker 1: winning majors. You know, here I am, I'm six months
Speaker 1: older than him, and I haven't played a professional tournament
Speaker 1: since the end of twenty nineteen, and he's still up there.
Speaker 1: You know, the last two majors, at the PGA Championship,
Speaker 1: he's tied for second with seven holes to play, and
Speaker 1: the next major, the US Open, he's what was he
Speaker 1: tied for the lead after the eleventh hole, maybe twelve,
Speaker 1: tenth hole, maybe something like that, And that to me
Speaker 1: is just seriously impressive that he's still willing to make
Speaker 1: the sacrifices from a practice and travel standpoint, living in
Speaker 1: Europe and still got all the speed to be able
Speaker 1: to do that. That is impressive. I have not spoken
Speaker 1: to him today. Spoke to him a few times before
Speaker 1: the round yesterday and during the delay yesterday we were
Speaker 1: texting back and forth. But yeah, he's going to be
Speaker 1: hurting for sure. You know. He felt really good all week.
Speaker 1: He felt great going into the week. He loves Oakmont.
Speaker 1: He liked the way the course was set up, even
Speaker 1: from he called me on a scouting trip. He went
Speaker 1: the Monday after the Memorial and he called me from
Speaker 1: the golf course and was like this, I like this.
Speaker 1: I really like this. He had played a couple opens
Speaker 1: there before and so felt like he was comfortable with
Speaker 1: it mentally. It wasn't overwhelming like it normally does to
Speaker 1: people when you go there for the first time. It's
Speaker 1: just so hard. It starts to make you anxious and
Speaker 1: nervous about man, I might not break ninety at this place.
Speaker 1: And so he felt really good, had a good vibe,
Speaker 1: and it was fun to see him up there, you know,
Speaker 1: like you say, I'm really close with him, spend a
Speaker 1: ton of time with him, and it was fun. Afternoon
Speaker 1: on the couch rooting, rooting for him and seeing it
Speaker 1: all unfold. But for sure he's he's going to be
Speaker 1: hurting today. And it absolutely was was an opportunity that
Speaker 1: that he's going to feel like he let slip by.
Speaker 2: It's funny as you as you were talking and I
Speaker 2: just started scrolling through the leaderboard, you know, with him
Speaker 2: calling you on the scouting saying, you know, I really
Speaker 2: like this place. I think it really sets up well
Speaker 2: for me. You know, there's a level of experience. Obviously,
Speaker 2: he was one of the few players in the field.
Speaker 2: I think it was like him justin Rose and I'm
Speaker 2: playing Phil who had played three plus US opens at Oakmont,
Speaker 2: you know, this was being their third. But you look
Speaker 2: through you scroll through the leaderboard and something that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of void on the leaderboard is is that that
Speaker 2: youth wave that has seemingly taken over pro golf When
Speaker 2: you kind of start to scroll through it. Sure there
Speaker 2: all the guys that were on the board have been
Speaker 2: around for a while, Ben Grit maybe you could say
Speaker 2: a little bit inexperience in in majors and uh and
Speaker 2: then like you get to like rasp miss andeerguard Patterson
Speaker 2: or is kind of the next one. But you know,
Speaker 2: for the most part, this leader board was very, very seasoned. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he drove the ball so well, and I think something
Speaker 2: that people have been were just shocked by was seeing
Speaker 2: some of the ball speed numbers. I also thought like
Speaker 2: one of the things he carried around at Oakmont that
Speaker 2: was particularly useful was that mini driver. Yeah, where you
Speaker 2: saw it on eleven where Sam Burns hit his three wood.
Speaker 2: It wasn't enough to cover the hill in that And
Speaker 2: on Sunday afternoon rolls down the hill, he goes up
Speaker 2: there with that mini driver. Where has he been finding
Speaker 2: the speed? As as someone who's approaching forty where where
Speaker 2: can I find the speed that he's finding?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's quite incredible. I mean he cruises,
Speaker 1: absolutely cruises, and in one eighties. I mean it's the
Speaker 1: one eighty seven on eighteen on Saturday and the one
Speaker 1: eighty eight that they picked up on the fourth hole yesterday.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a that's a little more than normal
Speaker 1: probably probably you know, he's normally in that one eighty
Speaker 1: four zone. So there's there's some adrenaline attached to that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the fourth hole yesterday, Excuse me. It was
Speaker 1: it was, Yeah, the part five, the part five A
Speaker 1: couple of things. You know, he's pretty big guy, always
Speaker 1: been in great shape, always worked out a lot. He's
Speaker 1: very in tune with his fitness and his body and
Speaker 1: managing all of that. And he is one of the
Speaker 1: most hyper mobile, flexible people that I have ever come across.
Speaker 1: I mean, his shoulders and arms and upper back, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like rubber bands. In fact, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we talk about a lot with him is
Speaker 1: sometimes he's so loose up top that his swing can
Speaker 1: get a little bit long and then he can get
Speaker 1: a bit out of sink and you know, but the
Speaker 1: advantage to that is that he's able to really generate
Speaker 1: a ton of club hit speed on the way down.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's got a near perfect swing, unbelievable leg
Speaker 1: action to be able to send all that energy down
Speaker 1: into the club. And he's not afraid to let it
Speaker 1: rip either. You know, it's a club that he's very
Speaker 1: very confident with, and so he steps up and just
Speaker 1: freewheels it. The money Driver's been in the bag for
Speaker 1: a long time, more than a year now. He absolutely
Speaker 1: loves that club. Every now and then he'll throw in
Speaker 1: a three wood instead depending on the course set up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he loves that many driver. He calls it
Speaker 1: the weapon. He uses it a lot, likes it. Able
Speaker 1: to change the trajectory quite a bit with it and
Speaker 1: get a low one out there if he wants to,
Speaker 1: if he needs a little extra run on it. So
Speaker 1: it's a club that he loves. But yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: he's just a guy that's like it's aspirational in many
Speaker 1: ways when you observe him, you watch him, you hang around.
Speaker 1: You know, even yesterday, they caught that moment where, I mean,
Speaker 1: the guy's just shot seventy nine, he's he's come back
Speaker 1: in forty one, he's one, two, three, four, he's five
Speaker 1: over the last five holes yesterday to finish, and they
Speaker 1: catch that that moment of him congratulating JJ spawn and
Speaker 1: it's so authentic and so real, and you can see
Speaker 1: that he feel feels good for JJ. He understands and
Speaker 1: appreciates what a mo mentus occasion that is for him
Speaker 1: and treats him accordingly. He's a true gentleman of the game.
Speaker 1: You know, we spoke about we spoke about JJ being
Speaker 1: a bit of a throwback with having to wait later
Speaker 1: in his career to become the finished product, if we
Speaker 1: want to call it that. In many ways, Adam's a
Speaker 1: bit of a throwback from that's standpoint of it being
Speaker 1: a gentleman's sport.
Speaker 2: It's funny you brought up that hyper flexible. You know,
Speaker 2: back when I was working my first job out of college,
Speaker 2: I was living in the city and I used to
Speaker 2: watch Morning Drive every morning and they had a feature
Speaker 2: with Adam Scott and I'll never forget it. They like
Speaker 2: went through like his fitness regimen and they had I
Speaker 2: think they had the guy that was helping him at
Speaker 2: the time they were doing it, and they were like,
Speaker 2: Adam's biggest problem this we have to rein in his flexibility.
Speaker 2: We're doing counter exercises to like make him like almost
Speaker 2: less flexible with like resistance going the other way, which
Speaker 2: you know, and it makes sense to how he's how
Speaker 2: that has parlayed into aging. So well, you know, on
Speaker 2: top of you know, I'll just add this on top
Speaker 2: of you know, the congratulating JJ. You know, this guy
Speaker 2: just had had you know, he was gutted, obviously, probably
Speaker 2: had a Sunday that he did not want or expect
Speaker 2: to have. He was he was as always completely open, honest,
Speaker 2: available and gracious with his time with with people that
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to him. All the way out to
Speaker 2: the parking lot, he was talking to Brendan Quinn, who
Speaker 2: wrote a great piece in The Athletic about about him today.
Speaker 2: In that piece, he talked about about kind of where
Speaker 2: he goes from here. He said, I I feel like
Speaker 2: I can keep this up for another eighteen months for sure.
Speaker 2: Then at that point I'll be forty six. I think
Speaker 2: I can push myself for the next year and a
Speaker 2: half and then reassess. You know, that's a reasonable goal.
Speaker 2: It's not so long, but it's like, are you ever
Speaker 2: going to do it? I need to give myself a
Speaker 2: bit of a deadline, a bit of an or a
Speaker 2: bit of urgency, right, So you know that gives them
Speaker 2: a gives them a year and a half, that takes
Speaker 2: them right through the President's Cup eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. You know, because he has the speed still,
Speaker 1: he could probably stretch that out a little longer. So
Speaker 1: we'll just have to see. You know, he still has
Speaker 1: the appetite, he still has the speed. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: gonna be fun to see what he does over the
Speaker 1: next eighteen months because he's still ride it. He's still
Speaker 1: right into it. And you know, something that a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't talk about is, you know, the amount
Speaker 1: of time that he's investing as well into being on
Speaker 1: the board of the PGA Tour and being a part
Speaker 1: of that. You know, there's a lot of things going on.
Speaker 1: He's got a young family over in Europe, doesn't live
Speaker 1: in the US. And you never see though, or at
Speaker 1: least he doesn't show the frustration in any way. He
Speaker 1: always handles everything with the utmost class and I have
Speaker 1: a ton of respect for that. He's just just a
Speaker 1: wonderful guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that was one thing I was going
Speaker 2: to say, is like, you know, I can't imagine, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of like probably the thing that is, you know,
Speaker 2: the golf swing and the skills it seemed to be
Speaker 2: there are going to be there for probably the next
Speaker 2: five years, the ability to do it at least for
Speaker 2: five years, you know, in the vein of like Michelson
Speaker 2: one of fifty one. Yeah, and a lot of that
Speaker 2: is like similar to Adam Scott, like still has the
Speaker 2: speed and the movement capabilities.
Speaker 1: You know, and similar to Michelson too and completely different
Speaker 1: to somebody like Tiger is just hasn't really ever had
Speaker 1: any any crazy injuries, yes, or anything that would set
Speaker 1: him back or surgeries to where he would need to
Speaker 1: take time out. So that's probably been one of the
Speaker 1: things that's aided him to be able to maintain all
Speaker 1: of the speed and decent play into his mid forties
Speaker 1: and maybe, yeah, maybe he can stretch it out the
Speaker 1: way the way.
Speaker 2: Filled in, Yeah, to be to be the biggest threat
Speaker 2: is the family piece, Like that's that's got to be
Speaker 2: the hardest thing about chasing this is the idea I
Speaker 2: was reading a little bit about it yesterday, is like
Speaker 2: the two to three weeks off, you know, it is
Speaker 2: as someone who occasionally leaves his family for ten ten
Speaker 2: plus days, that that is the hardest part about, you know,
Speaker 2: about any of this, And I imagine that is probably
Speaker 2: the thing that that would hold him back. And then
Speaker 2: you know, you know, he's in a spot where he
Speaker 2: doesn't have exemptions forever, you know, and he has to
Speaker 2: keep his game at a certain level to play more
Speaker 2: than the masters.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, that's something we all sign up for as athletes.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look at any any athlete out there,
Speaker 1: or any entertainer or any high level businessman or woman.
Speaker 1: When you when you get to that that one percent,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna have to make sacrifices in your personal
Speaker 1: life in order to keep that going. And it's something
Speaker 1: that we're all juggling at all times. I mean, like
Speaker 1: you say, if you're in a similar situation, constantly be
Speaker 1: on the road, whether it be going to majors or
Speaker 1: big tournaments, or doing podcasts or going to do you know,
Speaker 1: course visits and stuff like that. You know, we're all
Speaker 1: just trying to do the best we can. From that standpoint. It's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's tough when you've got three, four, five balls
Speaker 1: in the air that you're trying to juggle. But to
Speaker 1: some extent, every everybody is in that same situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, different way.
Speaker 2: Everybody's got circumstances, whether they're home every night or whether
Speaker 2: they're on the road one hundred nights, two hundred nights.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Was there anybody else that really impressed you this
Speaker 2: week that maybe didn't that did not win?
Speaker 1: Ah? Yeah, I thought. I thought Bob McIntyre showed a
Speaker 1: lot of toughness. We've seen it from him before. You know,
Speaker 1: he's got he's got something inside him that that that
Speaker 1: like that grittiness, which which I.
Speaker 2: Like, Like you watch him and nothing jumps off like
Speaker 2: it's nothing. Nothing is like screams he's world class at
Speaker 2: this or that. But he just shows up and is
Speaker 2: is around and and gets the ball in the hall.
Speaker 3: See he's not afraid.
Speaker 1: He doesn't seem like he's afraid to have the ball.
Speaker 1: He's not afraid of of a moment. We sought a
Speaker 1: little bit at the Ryder Cup. We saw it leading
Speaker 1: into the Ryder Cup. We saw it a few times
Speaker 1: last year the Canadian Open, we saw it the Scottish Open.
Speaker 1: And when he's coming down the stretch there, it's not
Speaker 1: easy to win at home when you've got everybody putting
Speaker 1: a little extra heat on you, wanting you to win
Speaker 1: as the hometown guy. And then yesterday coming down the stretch,
Speaker 1: I mean he was tough. He was making brilliant putts
Speaker 1: and hit wonderful t shots as well up the last
Speaker 1: couple of holes. And yeah, he's got that little something
Speaker 1: extra that's that's and I mean this in the most
Speaker 1: respectful way possible. He's got that that something extra that's
Speaker 1: it's annoying to have to play against because you know
Speaker 1: that he's he's not going to give it to you.
Speaker 1: You're going to have to do something like make a
Speaker 1: sixty five winter on the last hole like jj'sporn did
Speaker 1: in order to beat him. So yeah, I was super
Speaker 1: impressed with him. He just continues to take incremental steps
Speaker 1: to getting better over the last few years. Great to
Speaker 1: see Hovlin back up there. Same thing with with pj's
Speaker 1: guy Cameron Young. Some better play here over the last
Speaker 1: few weeks, of course, I think in a certain way,
Speaker 1: it's starts with qualifying for the US Open and that
Speaker 1: marathon day and getting through the playoffs. So good to
Speaker 1: see him.
Speaker 2: They need him, They need him for that Ryder Cup.
Speaker 2: They need some players with some pop in the bat for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you, And a lot of that
Speaker 1: stems from him starting to put much better in the
Speaker 1: last month or so.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know Hatton as well, he's got that little extra
Speaker 1: chip on his shoulder.
Speaker 2: I thought it would have been apropos for the man
Speaker 2: that it always has great quotes. You know, whether you
Speaker 2: agree with him or not, you just love his quotes
Speaker 2: about golf courses. If he would have won in that
Speaker 2: torture chamber.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's brilliant. It's sort of halfway through the week,
Speaker 1: or maybe it was before the week when he said
Speaker 1: people ask him about the mindset and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: I love us opens because everybody starts on the same page.
Speaker 1: Is what I do every week of my career. They're
Speaker 1: just angry and irritable and can't quite figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: all these different breaks that they're getting. And I thought
Speaker 1: he hit a lot of high quality shots.
Speaker 2: I thought he kind of got jammed by by seventeen
Speaker 2: with that rough going down into the bunker. That was
Speaker 2: like something that happened all week. Obviously that was there.
Speaker 2: Everybody knew about it. But you know, it's like you
Speaker 2: basically got put into a spot where it's virtually impossible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sixth inch of off on a forty five degree downhill,
Speaker 1: lie hitting uphill to a fairly quick green. There was
Speaker 1: just nothing that he could He could really do that.
Speaker 3: And needing a three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there was there was a lot of good stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, Ram and Scheffler kind of hung around. Seems
Speaker 1: like Ram is starting to find his stride again and
Speaker 1: and really hit some high quality shots like we were
Speaker 1: used to seeing a few years ago when he when
Speaker 1: he won those two majors and shefflet they mayeazing thing
Speaker 1: about Scheffler is he's he's so good. He's so good
Speaker 1: that he can have his D game and still have
Speaker 1: a chance to win with with nine holes to play,
Speaker 1: and and that that's that's quite special. That's quite something.
Speaker 2: I mean, you look at you watched that Saturday round.
Speaker 2: If you watch it again, it's just like that guy
Speaker 2: should have been right in it. And even on Sunday
Speaker 2: he's just a couple putts, you know, he had I
Speaker 2: think he had seven three puts on the week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he made nothing, made nothing on Sunday and
Speaker 1: still with a few holes to go when everyone else
Speaker 1: started to leak oil, you were like, go Lee, is
Speaker 1: he going to be able to get in there two
Speaker 1: over and have a chance to win this before JJ
Speaker 1: made those great birdies to finish. But yeah, he yah,
Speaker 1: he he's good man. He's that's obviously not groundbreaking analysis
Speaker 1: right there. But to be able to come to U
Speaker 1: as tough of a tist is what this is, uh,
Speaker 1: and and clearly not have his best stuff and still
Speaker 1: have a shot at it is it's quite something.
Speaker 2: He's one of the ones that I think if you
Speaker 2: looked at if you looked at if it was a
Speaker 2: graduated rough setup, that's probably someone that finishes maybe a
Speaker 2: little bit higher on the board. And you know, I
Speaker 2: just I don't think he really misses very much wide.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: I think he's probably the guy that is the most
Speaker 2: penalized by the one yard you know what we talked
Speaker 2: about with like one yard, two yard, three yards off
Speaker 2: type of setup. Uh so that was that would be
Speaker 2: I think like if you it'd be an interesting you
Speaker 2: can't do this obviously, but if that that graduated rough setup,
Speaker 2: it might have been a similar situation to DJ, where
Speaker 2: you looked at the board at times on the weekend
Speaker 2: and it's like, who are these guys? You know, a
Speaker 2: reminder of you know, at the time when DJ won,
Speaker 2: Shane Lowry wasn't really who Shane Lowry is today. Andrew
Speaker 2: Landry was on the board, Scott Piercy, you know, similar
Speaker 2: you know set up. It was just you know where
Speaker 2: where Scotty might have lifted and separated the way DJ did.
Speaker 2: Obviously winning winning by two in the score books, but
Speaker 2: really four if you take away the silly penalty.
Speaker 1: Now let's just talk from from a graduated rough standpoint
Speaker 1: and an agronomy standpoint, this is your wheelhouse, you know.
Speaker 1: The maintenance stuff obviously did an incredible job with pretty
Speaker 1: much everything going against them for everything but the weeks
Speaker 1: leading up and the week of the event. I mean
Speaker 1: they did an incredible job, even during and off to
Speaker 1: the delay, squeezing water all over the place.
Speaker 2: I read I read an article real quick about with
Speaker 2: Mike McCormick, this great superintendent there that was from the
Speaker 2: winter and it was a Pittsburgh article, a Pittsburgh newspaper,
Speaker 2: whereas like, what would.
Speaker 3: Be the dream lead in and he was like, ideally
Speaker 3: no rain for the monthly day?
Speaker 1: Get and he got something.
Speaker 3: Got the most rain ever recorded in Pittsburgh. Yeah, in
Speaker 3: the time frame lead again, you.
Speaker 1: Gotta tip your cap to just the man hours. I mean,
Speaker 1: those people are not getting they're working so hard, they're
Speaker 1: not getting any sleep. They're just grinding it out, making
Speaker 1: sure that that they keep the course the way they
Speaker 1: want it, in the way this championship deserves. But if
Speaker 1: you had to do graduated rough from a maintenance standpoint,
Speaker 1: and how how much extra work is that to be
Speaker 1: able to maintain that?
Speaker 2: I don't think it's really I think it's the matter
Speaker 2: of like changing the blades on. You know, like it's
Speaker 2: like if you're mowing your lawn and you just change
Speaker 2: the height of cut.
Speaker 1: Okay, But what happens if you get a week like
Speaker 1: this and maybe this would have been a better first question,
Speaker 1: where there's so much rain and they can't necessarily get
Speaker 1: the mows in there, then then what happens?
Speaker 2: Well then I think, like, I mean, I don't think
Speaker 2: they mowed much of this week obviously, then you you
Speaker 2: would already have the base of the graduated rough and
Speaker 2: it would just grow longer. Okay, But it's not like
Speaker 2: you know, the shorter rough's going to all a sudden
Speaker 2: be longer than the longer rough, right.
Speaker 1: No, I understand that. It seems like earlier in the
Speaker 1: week they were they were going with the hand mowers,
Speaker 1: and then they had the blows and the rakes and
Speaker 1: they had everything going trying to get it to stand up.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's.
Speaker 2: I think, Like, I think the thing is like you
Speaker 2: can agree or disagree on the setup in the philosophy,
Speaker 2: but they absolutely executed the setup they were going for.
Speaker 1: Oh they nailed it. Yeah, they nailed it to a tea.
Speaker 1: Even with all of the rain and the bad weather.
Speaker 1: Would you go, would you go, okay, so you've got
Speaker 1: about it. You've got a yard of the of the
Speaker 1: semi right, would you go what two or three yards
Speaker 1: of maybe two and a half inches and then jump
Speaker 1: to the five or what would you do? Uh?
Speaker 2: I think like I might go like yeah, probably, like
Speaker 2: maybe maybe I go to like three three and a
Speaker 2: half even I mean they were cutting in five and
Speaker 2: a half right, Yeah, we're not talking about just like
Speaker 2: having no rough.
Speaker 3: I think that's like the thing that people.
Speaker 1: Like, no, no, no, But how area? How wide? Would you
Speaker 1: have that strip?
Speaker 3: Just probably a couple of yards? Right you want to?
Speaker 2: I think like you could do it, even running in
Speaker 2: and out of bunkers, right, like you see those bunkers
Speaker 2: into the in the faariaway. Maybe that's the lean line
Speaker 2: of demarcation is in and out of those bunkers. One
Speaker 2: of the other things it would do is more balls
Speaker 2: would get into those ditches, which are like real penalties.
Speaker 1: I love the look at those. I love that long
Speaker 1: grass coming out that looked so good on TV.
Speaker 2: And if you conceivably if the if the grass was shorter,
Speaker 2: running into the bunkers, you would you'd probably deduce that
Speaker 2: more balls would get up near the faces because more
Speaker 2: balls would enter the bunker with more pace. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the things I loved. I love the way
Speaker 2: the balls rolled up to the faces. They didn't come
Speaker 2: like one of my big big complaints about Quail Hollow
Speaker 2: would be, like all the balls end up at the
Speaker 2: bottom of the bunker, and at the bottom, yeah, and
Speaker 2: at the bottom of the bunker, it really reduces the
Speaker 2: penalty that those bunkers are going to inflict, like what
Speaker 2: we saw why those bunkers worked, the faraway bunkers. And
Speaker 2: you know, Sam Burns is like the quintessential the way
Speaker 2: that I don't think like enough people are going to
Speaker 2: give credit to Sam Burns. That Saturday round he played
Speaker 2: was incredible. Ye to just like have to just shovel
Speaker 2: a couple of balls out of the bunkers and save par
Speaker 2: over and over again was awesome without his best stuff
Speaker 2: off the tee, but the that like him having to
Speaker 2: just chip out, I think like if you had for rough,
Speaker 2: then the ball comes in a little bit faster into
Speaker 2: those bunkers and gets up to near the face.
Speaker 3: So the bunkers are them.
Speaker 2: More penal, But yeah, I don't think you have to
Speaker 2: do much right, Like I'm not talking, And I think
Speaker 2: this is where like people people were like, oh, he
Speaker 2: just wants fair away everywhere. It's like, no, like, give us,
Speaker 2: give us the opportunity for flyers. I thought, like a
Speaker 2: perfect example of what you were talking about earlier about
Speaker 2: like that chance was was how Sunday's eleventh hole played off.
Speaker 2: That played out with Adam Scott and Sam Burns. Now
Speaker 2: this was because Sam Burns was in the in that divot.
Speaker 2: He ends up short and all sorts of problems. He's
Speaker 2: trying a very tough shot, right, that was a very
Speaker 2: challenging shot from the divot uphill to that small green
Speaker 2: on the eleven. Yeah, I'm Scott hits a bad approach,
Speaker 2: but let's just say he caught a flyer from the
Speaker 2: rough instead of just hitting a bad approach. He ends
Speaker 2: up long and they both like then chaos ensues around
Speaker 2: the green, right because they're in certifiably awful places around
Speaker 2: the green. And I think that's what I I You know,
Speaker 2: like what you said, this great these great putting surfaces
Speaker 2: that they have there. You know, you could you could
Speaker 2: say to me, Oakemont's got the greatest set of greens
Speaker 2: in the world, and I don't think I could like,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to disagree with you. I might say
Speaker 2: I like these maybe more, but they're like, you know,
Speaker 2: without a doubt in the question.
Speaker 3: The more shots that.
Speaker 2: We we encourage people to play into the greens, the
Speaker 2: more interesting they're going to get.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, last one of my parting thoughts with Sam Burns.
Speaker 2: I loved how he handled the situation. Maybe didn't handle
Speaker 2: it well in the moment to play well. It seemed
Speaker 2: like that lie affected him I'm fourteen, maybe mentally and
Speaker 2: the end actually hitting it, but afterwards, like could have
Speaker 2: been so easy to blame blame the rules officials just
Speaker 2: kind of took ownership of it, and I thought that
Speaker 2: was very classy of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Kind of the guy is.
Speaker 1: That's how I know him. It's what I've witnessed and
Speaker 1: seen every time I've been around him. He's a great guy.
Speaker 1: And even in the moment, I thought he handled it
Speaker 1: quite well, Like, Okay, he asked for the second opinion,
Speaker 1: that's perfectly acceptable. But when the second opinion came down
Speaker 1: and that official said no, we don't think you should
Speaker 1: get relief. He didn't really throw a tantrum or do anything.
Speaker 1: He said okay, and he went about hit the shot.
Speaker 1: Shot very clearly had a ton of water come in
Speaker 1: between the ball and the grooves. I mean it just
Speaker 1: had a snap hook on it, which is a shot
Speaker 1: he doesn't hit all that often, being a favor of
Speaker 1: the ball. And then afterwards, yeah, you know, handled it,
Speaker 1: handled it like a pro, and you know, had had
Speaker 1: a great shot at it really until that moment. It
Speaker 1: was at that point that I felt like the final
Speaker 1: pairing was out of it. He made the double there
Speaker 1: and Adam three putted to make the bogie there, and
Speaker 1: at the same time JJ hit that brilliant drive on
Speaker 1: seventeen to within ten or fifteen feet and it was
Speaker 1: just like, oh man, you know, I think this is over.
Speaker 1: Because McIntire was in the clubhouse at one over and
Speaker 1: in the last three holes, we're a bit of a
Speaker 1: struggle for that final pairing.
Speaker 2: Last question, any any thoughts on the struggles of some
Speaker 2: of the top players this week.
Speaker 1: I just think it's that sort of golf course, you know,
Speaker 1: if you are if you are just off your game,
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna it's going to eat you up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember playing in the US Open. I missed the
Speaker 1: cut by a shot or two. I wanted to say
Speaker 1: it was one shot, and I bogie the ninth hole,
Speaker 1: which was my thirty sixth hole in O seven. You
Speaker 1: just got to be You've got to be on it
Speaker 1: with your game, You've got to be in it mentally.
Speaker 1: And it's a brutal test, you know, when you get
Speaker 1: a course that is set up and playing this difficult.
Speaker 1: Nobody nobody is immune. Man, nobody is immune. It can
Speaker 1: it's there's no there's no judging out there. You just
Speaker 1: nobody cares about your reputation. Nobody cares how the course
Speaker 1: doesn't care how many tournaments you've won. It's going to
Speaker 1: eat your lunch if you if you're not not on it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was what we saw.
Speaker 2: I think, like the margin between being nine over on
Speaker 2: on on Friday afternoon and and six over and you know,
Speaker 2: at six over having a legitimate shot at contending was
Speaker 2: so narrow, just because.
Speaker 3: It's like a a.
Speaker 2: Lie here, a couple of minutes of misputt here, And
Speaker 2: I mean that's the amazing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The thing you sit back at the end of all
Speaker 2: these golf tournaments and realize is how small the margin
Speaker 2: is over the course of four days. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: the amazing thing with with golf is like so many
Speaker 2: people focus in on what happens on Sunday, but you
Speaker 2: know often there's you know, just monumental moments and Thursday
Speaker 2: and Friday that shape tournaments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the cut was cut was seven over, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So if you made the cut on the number and
Speaker 1: then found a way to shoot even on the weekend,
Speaker 1: you went from making it on the number to tie nineteenth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just shows just how difficult it was.
Speaker 2: I mean, big shot Bob had the best weekend shooting
Speaker 2: sixty nine, sixty eight, but he you know, he was
Speaker 2: he finished second after being four over, and he was
Speaker 2: what he would have been nine shots back of Sam Burns.
Speaker 3: At that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. First round seventy, second round seventy four. So how
Speaker 1: on earth do you shooting back to back? How on
Speaker 1: earth do you shoot back to back grounds in the
Speaker 1: sixties on the weekend of a US Open at Oakhorn.
Speaker 1: That's pretty pretty impressive stuff from Bob right there.
Speaker 2: I Mean, there were so many guys in the mix
Speaker 2: that he kind of snuck up on the on the
Speaker 2: whole tournament telecast and everything, and he was out way
Speaker 2: in front of the leaders.
Speaker 3: You know where he in just the bogie.
Speaker 2: I think the way he started with two bogeys in
Speaker 2: the first three holes, like it threw the scent of
Speaker 2: Bob McIntyre maybe winning off the mark. But then he al,
Speaker 2: Sudi's just there.
Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah. I mean the other thing in in
Speaker 1: defense of that is he started with two bogeys in
Speaker 1: his first three holes, so even further back, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: to play his last twelve holes bogie free with three
Speaker 1: birdies in awful weather, So his last twelve holes he
Speaker 1: made six threes. That is that is some proper stuff right.
Speaker 2: There, I said, I tweeted about this, but I think
Speaker 2: like in this, as you said, you know, bogie his
Speaker 2: first two holes, like he's immediately that five over and
Speaker 2: the leaders are going off at three under when he's
Speaker 2: five over.
Speaker 3: It makes sense why he wasn't on the telcast.
Speaker 1: I had just dealt with for sure, and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he just played some Brillian go I
Speaker 1: mean sixth threes in the last twelve holes.
Speaker 3: He could have won.
Speaker 2: He could have won it, and they showed twenty shots
Speaker 2: of him in regulation because of like just the nature
Speaker 2: of this tournament. It was a wacky tournament.
Speaker 1: I mean it really was. And I saw a clip.
Speaker 1: I saw a clip of him. He made a nice
Speaker 1: little I don't know, maybe three foot on the eighteenth
Speaker 1: hole to say to save his part. And I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no gimmes at Oakmont because the greens is so treacherous.
Speaker 1: But this putt, it's got to put a break to it,
Speaker 1: and he's made it, and he's given like a decent
Speaker 1: sized fist pump because he's probably thinking to himself at
Speaker 1: that point that that might have been the winning putt,
Speaker 1: and then and then he's has to sit around and
Speaker 1: watch those guys finish. And it was only JJ's brilliant
Speaker 1: stuff from seventeen and eighteen that stopped him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible tournament. Thanks as always for coming on.
Speaker 2: Are you back on the road your Travelers this week?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm home till Friday, and then we go up
Speaker 1: to Travelers, which is the final signature of the end
Speaker 1: of the season.
Speaker 3: And then then you got Scotland.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got we got Scotland.
Speaker 2: Uh, you're gonna play any golf while you're over there.
Speaker 1: I you know what I think I'm gonna do. Well.
Speaker 1: I always love to play in North Berrick. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite courses in the world. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to take my clubs. I think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna play play it with like a rental set or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 3: You know where you should go?
Speaker 2: Where you should go to Boris's shop in Golin rent
Speaker 2: a set of hickories.
Speaker 1: That's not a bad idea.
Speaker 2: He's got. He's got a little shop in downtown Gollan.
Speaker 2: Get you yourself a little a set of hickories. He's
Speaker 2: He's one of the most interesting human beings in golf
Speaker 2: that I've ever met. Oh really yeah, very interesting guy.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't I wouldn't advise getting in a hickory match
Speaker 2: with him though, No, I'm.
Speaker 1: Sure he'll take me down and he hit probably fifty
Speaker 1: shots in my whole life with hickories.
Speaker 2: My biggest regret of my latest Scotland trip was that
Speaker 2: I didn't bring old clubs because I had to play
Speaker 2: Oakmont the Monday on my way back, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm not playing hickories.
Speaker 1: Imagine how tough that would be.
Speaker 3: Be extraordinarily tough.
Speaker 1: That would be. Yeah, So I'll be over there and
Speaker 1: then we come back and finish the regular season and
Speaker 1: uh then that'll be it for me for the for
Speaker 1: the year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well we're we'll look forward to uh
Speaker 2: look forward to those couple events and uh looking forward
Speaker 2: to the last majors of the year.
Speaker 3: And thanks. It's always for coming on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, it's Uh, it's fun to join you.
Speaker 1: It's it's fun too. You know. Usually when I'm working
Speaker 1: on TV, it's like a platform for me to be
Speaker 1: able to get my thoughts out, but this week I
Speaker 1: didn't have that platform because I was sitting at home
Speaker 1: watching it and uh, you know, it's fun just to
Speaker 1: be able to sit with somebody that loves the game
Speaker 1: as much as you do and and talk about it.
Speaker 1: And major championship golf is is the best. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Kudu's kudos too to JJ on the great win.
Speaker 1: He is gonna gonna remember that pot and lifting that
Speaker 1: trophy for the rest of his life and be celebrated
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. So that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, epic moment too with his with his kids there
Speaker 2: like unforgettable memory, brilliant. You know, I won't ever forget
Speaker 2: that visual. It's on Father's Day. Awesome, awesome win. So
Speaker 2: all right, thanks Trevor. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks and.
Speaker 2: All right, thanks big thanks to Trevor for coming on.
Speaker 2: These have been really fun. I hope you guys are
Speaker 2: enjoying them as much as I am. Also, huge thanks
Speaker 2: to PJ Clark. He was on the ground all last
Speaker 2: week at Oakmont, was rumbling around put out some new
Speaker 2: feature on the Shotgun Start called the Lunch with the
Speaker 2: Boys on our social page. Him and Joseph kind of
Speaker 2: dove in and we're doing a bunch of stuff on
Speaker 2: the ground at Oakmont. That was a fun development. Big
Speaker 2: thanks to PJ for putting that together and putting this
Speaker 2: podcast together. We'll be back next week with a new
Speaker 2: edition of the podcast. And big thanks to everyone who
Speaker 2: followed along for our open coverage. It was a lot
Speaker 2: of fun to be there and and I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: there without your support.
Speaker 3: Thanks.