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.
Speaker 2: In a fried Egg, Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Friday,
Speaker 2: Frida Egg Egg, fridagg Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 2: to run off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Golf podcast.
Speaker 1: Today I am joined by Frida Egg Golf's Brendan porth By,
Speaker 1: co host usually on the Shotgun Start. We haven't done
Speaker 1: a podcast on here since the start of the Shotgun Start.
Speaker 1: I don't think as well as the great Jeff Shackelford,
Speaker 1: a podcast regular, the writer of The Quadrilateral, a wonderful
Speaker 1: newsletter on substack that I recommend everybody subscribe to. And
Speaker 1: we are going to break down our five kind of
Speaker 1: favorite most memorable events of twenty twenty four as a
Speaker 1: way to kind of cap off the year, as well
Speaker 1: as talk a little bit golf architecture right out of
Speaker 1: the gates. So I'm excited for this. I wanted to
Speaker 1: get a little extra episode out before the holiday season
Speaker 1: here give people something to listen to on their travels.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody has a great holidays, safe travels and
Speaker 1: looking forward to next year with this podcast, we will
Speaker 1: have an episode out I think on New Year's Day
Speaker 1: is probably one we'll release it, but that will be
Speaker 1: a PGA Tour season preview with the golf kicking off
Speaker 1: at Kapalua. Maybe some another topic in there as well.
Speaker 1: But looking forward to next year on this pot cast. First,
Speaker 1: before we get to this conversation, I would urge everybody
Speaker 1: to go check out Fat Cork. They are a longtime
Speaker 1: partner of ours on the podcast. This is the time
Speaker 1: of year for champagne. They are connoisseurs of champagne. They
Speaker 1: basically they go to France and they find all the
Speaker 1: individual growers and work out you know, partnerships with them
Speaker 1: to get their own private stock. So the grower's private
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Speaker 1: a great, great last minute holiday gift for a champagne
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Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: This guy, uh, the the owner, is a a golf
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Speaker 1: So check it out. Uh use the promo code golf
Speaker 1: for free shipping. All right, I am joined by two
Speaker 1: of my favorite people to talk golf with Brenda Porath,
Speaker 1: who I talk way too much golf with on a
Speaker 1: regular basis on Shotgun Start and Jeff Shackelford, uh, the.
Speaker 3: CEO, head of Creative Lead editor, writer podcast aster CMO,
Speaker 3: Chief Operating Officer of the Quadrilateral A a staple of
Speaker 3: any golf Officionado's newsletter collection. In a wonderful holiday gift,
Speaker 3: you know, wonderful gift, last minute gift, Brenda and I
Speaker 3: like to talk about Shotgun Start on shotgun start. You
Speaker 3: know those types of gifts that you can get at
Speaker 3: the last minute, print out a receipt and just put
Speaker 3: in an envelope and hand it to somebody that is
Speaker 3: your this is Quad Gifting season.
Speaker 2: Well thanks Andy. Yeah you left out chief Content Officer,
Speaker 2: but that's okay. Yeah, it is that time of year
Speaker 2: when when you forgot somebody or something too that I
Speaker 2: mean not that that ever happens, and you just hit
Speaker 2: a few buttons and there you go. I've got a
Speaker 2: little discount for my current subscribers, so I appreciate the
Speaker 2: plug and appreciate the reading, and I've enjoyed your your
Speaker 2: year in review. And a couple of the memory said
Speaker 2: I helped Jog with my various ramblings during the majors.
Speaker 1: I got to ask this is an off topic question.
Speaker 1: We'll get into the into the meat of this podcast
Speaker 1: in a second, but how are you enjoying Big ten hoops?
Speaker 1: You're a big U c l A guy. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Big Ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, reality will set in when they go east.
Speaker 2: But I mean they played Washington. Uh yeah, the rut.
Speaker 2: I mean everybody always both football and basketball. Everybody mentions, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't wait for UCLA Rutgers or UCLA Maryland, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of has a basketball tradition they've played and there's
Speaker 2: some stuff there, but yeah, it's uh, look, the Bruins
Speaker 2: are ready for it. They're they're they play kind of
Speaker 2: a big ten style, tough, ugly Mick cronin basketball. So
Speaker 2: but right now the UCLA women that everybody's i mean,
Speaker 2: they get they're getting bigger crowds than the men. It's
Speaker 2: kind of frightening, uh to be honest.
Speaker 1: Well, you know that's a that's what everybody wants out
Speaker 1: of women's golf, is the popularity.
Speaker 2: And uh well that'll be up to the next commission.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I will. I do have to stand up
Speaker 1: for Rutgers basketball. They've got they've got projected to the
Speaker 1: top three picks. They got Ron Harper's kid, right, and
Speaker 1: the other his dad was yeah, yeah, so he's he's unbelievable,
Speaker 1: the kid. So Rutgers Rutgers might be a powerhouse this year.
Speaker 2: Ron Ron Harper was.
Speaker 4: He was not.
Speaker 2: His dad was unbelievable. When he before he started hurting
Speaker 2: his knees, I mean when the Clippers got him, and
Speaker 2: of course he went to the Clippers and the injuries began,
Speaker 2: so anyway, but that's cool, that's good to know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a Danny Fairy trade. Nice nice, I remember that.
Speaker 1: Miami, right, Yeah, then he came to the Bulls and
Speaker 1: won a bunch of championships, right right, that's right, all right,
Speaker 1: So topic for today, we're gonna do one golf architecture
Speaker 1: take away from twenty twenty four, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to dive into our five favorite event of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing we're gonna have some overlap in here, so
Speaker 1: this should you know, it should just take an hour
Speaker 1: and a half, like every pod does. Jeff, we'll start
Speaker 1: with you. What's your golf architecture take Hm.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to try to take the thought thought free,
Speaker 2: whatever it may be. Yeah. So, well, I'm working on
Speaker 2: a it's just over twenty years of an update for
Speaker 2: my grounds for golf, and most of it's held up well,
Speaker 2: but I'm throwing out a couple chapters that are now
Speaker 2: outdated and it's shocking what's changed. This is my way
Speaker 2: of trying to be positive before I bitch and moan
Speaker 2: about something. But it's amazing how much has changed in
Speaker 2: those twenty years, and so it's great to see the
Speaker 2: fun factor still being something of late that is on,
Speaker 2: you know, top of mind for people on whether, of course,
Speaker 2: whether they like it or not. But Andy, I got
Speaker 2: to tell you this year, my current thing is the
Speaker 2: cost of these projects and these dollar figures. I just
Speaker 2: can't believe some of them. I just saw the green
Speaker 2: fee at Cabot in Florida three ninety five, and that's
Speaker 2: being passed along, you know, the high construction costs, and
Speaker 2: I just don't get it, and I think we have
Speaker 2: to kind of have a serious conversation about what's going on.
Speaker 2: I mean, the minimalists are charging a lot of money
Speaker 2: or running up pretty big tabs, and we know, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes people put a big dollar figure on a project
Speaker 2: because they think that impresses somebody. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it does or not. I don't think it does. And
Speaker 2: certainly at a club where people are probably financing the project,
Speaker 2: they don't think it's so cute. So anyway, that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of my take on the current state of affairs.
Speaker 2: Everything is pretty great in terms of the architecture business,
Speaker 2: but this cost thing, and of course twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: could be a disaster for the golf course construction industry
Speaker 2: if the if the uh Trump administration goes forward with
Speaker 2: the deportation program. So that's gonna If you think it's expensive,
Speaker 2: now it's gonna get worse.
Speaker 1: I think the thing that I completely agree with your sentiment.
Speaker 1: What's crazy to me is that sometimes you hear the
Speaker 1: cost as like a badge of honor. Yeah, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: believe we're spending twenty five million on this project. And
Speaker 1: it's like and then it's like, oh, but our guest
Speaker 1: fees because of it are now going to be three
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. It's just like, what are we doing? What's
Speaker 1: the point of being a member of a club if
Speaker 1: it's three hundred dollars for a guest fee. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I said this in another pod, but I think like
Speaker 1: one of the things that people miss. Everybody thinks they
Speaker 1: can reple k the Kaisers and what they do, but
Speaker 1: like the Kaiser secrets soft they build golf courses for
Speaker 1: cheaper than everybody, and then they maintain them for cheap
Speaker 1: like they they like that's one of the beyond like
Speaker 1: finding the great land, you know, hiring the right architects,
Speaker 1: having a great customers experience. The big thing they do
Speaker 1: is they they keep their cost slow. But like everybody
Speaker 1: else doesn't seem to understand that, and it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it drives me insane. You go, you hear
Speaker 1: people like like wax Poetic about their experience abandoned dunes,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, those greens are like ten
Speaker 1: or nine. People go to Scotland, Ireland and they're oh,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. It's like, well, how do we come back
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, we need our greens fifteen you know, well.
Speaker 2: You're right. It starts with the land and sand. Sand
Speaker 2: saves a lot of money. But here's a fun fact
Speaker 2: for you, because I went down a little rat hole
Speaker 2: for a piece I wrote on North Barrett and I
Speaker 2: got confirmation of this. Guess how many you now? And
Speaker 2: I'm not blaming the USGA green entirely for this rising costs,
Speaker 2: but it is one of the costs, both creatively and
Speaker 2: financially that we're seeing. Guess how many USGA greens Corn
Speaker 2: Crenshaw have built in their their career.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing like one course wanted them May eighteen, Yeah, zero, zero, Okay,
Speaker 1: I was thinking maybe one, maybe one golf course demanded them.
Speaker 2: They've done some California modified at some at a couple
Speaker 2: of renovations like Riviera, but that's not how they work.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: They just dig out a hole and they dump sand
Speaker 2: that's been tested and you know whatever for agronomic purposes,
Speaker 2: it'll work, and they build and creatively it's so much better,
Speaker 2: just the tie ins and the surrounds, the approaches and
Speaker 2: the beauty and and then costs wise that you know,
Speaker 2: that's a chunk of change. But some of the other
Speaker 2: stuff too, irrigation systems, and it's nuts, and like you say,
Speaker 2: it's a weird, a weird badge of honor, and not
Speaker 2: everybody's in agreement with that. A lot of people are
Speaker 2: rolling their eyes with some some clubs are spending. But
Speaker 2: it's essentially doubled in ten years. That's just nuts. Ten years,
Speaker 2: like three that could even be less. I was, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I feel like.
Speaker 1: It's doubled in the last five five years at least.
Speaker 2: I'm with that.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's happened, it's like this like it's
Speaker 1: like this strive for perfection. Yeah, yeah, I remember years
Speaker 1: ago I had Stephen Britton on Great Superintendent and he
Speaker 1: talked about like why do we want every green to
Speaker 1: be perfect? Isn't there like a beauty? And if you
Speaker 1: play at a club and one of the greens sits
Speaker 1: in shade all morning, you know it sits in shade
Speaker 1: all morning. And because you understand the dynamics of your course,
Speaker 1: like the local knowledge of this green's going to be
Speaker 1: a little bit softer when I roll around to it,
Speaker 1: so it's going to spin a little bit more. Like
Speaker 1: these are all little things that make the game of
Speaker 1: golf beautiful. Like I remember as a kid playing my
Speaker 1: local Muni remembering like the little intricacies of this green
Speaker 1: versus this green, this this green always just like the
Speaker 1: ball bounces a little bit more, so I need to
Speaker 1: land this a little bit shorter, like that is all
Speaker 1: part of the joys of golf.
Speaker 2: And one of the things unfortunately, and I've had this
Speaker 2: chat with regard to major setups is and the tour
Speaker 2: to how much they're all working to try to get
Speaker 2: every green the same. And you know, like with La
Speaker 2: North before the US Open, you know, it's just it's
Speaker 2: a big leap now for these organizations to treat a
Speaker 2: green differently than the others, and they have to write
Speaker 2: memos and post it and reveal it. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: you know about how about rewarding somebody you play some
Speaker 2: practice rounds or gets a local caddy and figures it out,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean this has happened to Riviera. Every
Speaker 2: year the eighteenth green sits higher than every other green
Speaker 2: on the course. It dry, it drains better, it dries
Speaker 2: out faster, it's firmer. And guys either take that into
Speaker 2: account or they don't. And the idea of trying to
Speaker 2: manipulate the conditions so that players don't have to figure
Speaker 2: it out is is it's depressing and and then it
Speaker 2: gets expensive obviously when they get into it architecturally where
Speaker 2: they actually rebuilding stuff just to make them not have
Speaker 2: to think as much. And it's it's another reason why
Speaker 2: so few guys played a lot of practice rounds on
Speaker 2: golf courses.
Speaker 1: Now, I was rage finders came out when I was
Speaker 1: in high school. But I remember early in my competitive
Speaker 1: young junior career, and this is probably you, this was
Speaker 1: you lived through this. But like, if you were a
Speaker 1: really smart player, you were looking at where all all
Speaker 1: the pins were on a golf course when you walked
Speaker 1: by yep. And it's just like you think about some
Speaker 1: of the like what made like a high IQ player
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I'm spotting where these whole locations are.
Speaker 1: I did it, used to do it when I caddied
Speaker 1: to It's like, okay, this one's like it looks like
Speaker 1: about four yards back of center, Like it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of here because you used to not know this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I think like some of the like we love,
Speaker 1: I mean, like Jalen Brunson's a great example of the
Speaker 1: NBA player where he was a second round draft pick
Speaker 1: because people were worried about like could he athletically hang
Speaker 1: in the NBA. Now he's one of the best players
Speaker 1: in the NBA because he's just a smart basketball player.
Speaker 1: And I think like one of the things that we're
Speaker 1: starting to lose a little bit in the game across
Speaker 1: the board, from club level up, from municipal level up
Speaker 1: is the idea of golf IQ and what you know,
Speaker 1: when we don't ask people to have a higher IQ,
Speaker 1: it kind of like it it removes an element of
Speaker 1: the game where you can differentiate yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know why the organizations they still
Speaker 2: I mean, they still protect whole locations, although then you
Speaker 2: get those the night before now. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: know why they go to these efforts to to to
Speaker 2: do this stuff. You know, if a guy complains about that,
Speaker 2: then they kind of sound like an idiot. Plus they
Speaker 2: have these so many guys have such good caddies now
Speaker 2: doing great stuff. I mean, I loved watching I love it.
Speaker 2: The old course. You'll see somebody like you know, Jolaicava
Speaker 2: out walking the course, you know, with an afternoon tea
Speaker 2: time and going walking the course in the morning. Or
Speaker 2: Greller did that I think in the year Speed contended there.
Speaker 2: I mean, that kind of stuff I love. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're absolutely there should be a great reward for uh
Speaker 2: for for trying to outsmart the course or at least
Speaker 2: just make sure you've covered all the bases and you
Speaker 2: don't get out smart by the setup and uh and
Speaker 2: it's just kind of this this worrying about UH player
Speaker 2: reactions and meltdowns and man and look at we you
Speaker 2: you bitch loud enough looking at Matt Fitzpatrick got his
Speaker 2: way with the uh, the the crack driver thing. This
Speaker 2: week they announced another you know, modification and it's like yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, no and he was relentless about it, and
Speaker 2: so he got his way. And same thing with the
Speaker 2: golf ball distance debate stuff. So it's, uh, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: something I wish the the the majors would would kind
Speaker 2: of get a little bit tougher on and but I
Speaker 2: kind of fear they're going the other direction. So anyway,
Speaker 2: is that enough? Old man?
Speaker 1: Ranking Brandon, what's your bring?
Speaker 4: Bring a rand that I was gonna be sort of
Speaker 4: a stretch forest in and in the corner wait waiting
Speaker 4: for you guys to create, And I, honestly, I don't
Speaker 4: know if I'm bringing the positivity. I come with no
Speaker 4: amount of arrogance with this take. It's more of a
Speaker 4: pondering and it kind of doubles off what Jeff has said.
Speaker 4: I think it seems like we're in a boom era
Speaker 4: right of building, certainly compared to the preceding are era,
Speaker 4: and a boom sort of follows that there's a demand,
Speaker 4: right and so people want to create. Oh, people like this,
Speaker 4: there's a demand for this, Let's do more of this.
Speaker 4: I feel like there's been sort of a monotony. We're
Speaker 4: get touching like a monotony level here in terms of
Speaker 4: a like why is this created to add, you know,
Speaker 4: the sixth or eighth or fourteenth course at a resort
Speaker 4: that is going to be very expensive trip for people,
Speaker 4: or it's a course that a billionaire can fund himself,
Speaker 4: or a bunch of guys can chip off high six
Speaker 4: figures to make it their third course or their second
Speaker 4: course out of town. And I'm not saying this is
Speaker 4: bad or regrettable, but it seems to be getting monotonous
Speaker 4: in the purpose of why this boom is occurring or
Speaker 4: why more golf courses are being built. Now, I won't
Speaker 4: pretend to be sophisticated enough on the design front to
Speaker 4: say that the builds are monotonous. They aren't, although I
Speaker 4: equipped internally recently, if you did a carousel and instagram
Speaker 4: of all the recent courses built in the Southeast, what
Speaker 4: percentage of the consumer would be able to tell let's
Speaker 4: just say Pinehurst number ten from Broom's Edge from More
Speaker 4: Like the Now. That's why the sophisticated player joins these
Speaker 4: plays because they like this restaurant and they can tell,
Speaker 4: whereas most restaurant goers cannot. I think you know it
Speaker 4: does feel like and not just to you know, but
Speaker 4: are a present company like is a rustic canyon which
Speaker 4: wasn't built, was built this century like that kind of
Speaker 4: purpose built. Like I'm not suggesting there's land of plenty
Speaker 4: in urban areas or ex urban areas, but the game
Speaker 4: is booming, golf course building is booming. Is excess is
Speaker 4: any kind of the golf course boom meeting the actual
Speaker 4: golf met the actual golf boom of the population. And
Speaker 4: even where I am in suburban DC, it's just so
Speaker 4: overcrowded and jammed. And if it's fifty miles outside of
Speaker 4: the city center, there's land that is not being pursued,
Speaker 4: and so I feel a little bit of a monotony
Speaker 4: settling it. And it's not to say it's bad for
Speaker 4: the builders, but as a consumer, it feels sort of unattainable.
Speaker 1: I think what you hit on ties perfectly with what
Speaker 1: Jeff talked about, because what Jeff mentioned, the cost has
Speaker 1: made the model only work for big resorts and billionaires
Speaker 1: or multiple one hundred millionaires, or you know, a collection
Speaker 1: a cohort of extraordinarily wealthy people, like that's the only
Speaker 1: two that financially it makes sense to build a golf
Speaker 1: course right now, because like what Jeff's say, oh, it
Speaker 1: is twenty twenty five million dollars sometimes more to build
Speaker 1: a golf course with verticals, you're probably getting to thirty million.
Speaker 1: How do you possibly pay that back? Make the investment
Speaker 1: work at an affordable dollar some like? So if I
Speaker 1: do one hundred you know, let's just back of the
Speaker 1: napkin math. Let's say I charge one hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: and I do forty thousand rounds. That's four million dollars
Speaker 1: in revenue. It costs me one point five to two
Speaker 1: million to maintain a year. Let's just say two for
Speaker 1: round numbers. So I have a fifteen year if everything
Speaker 1: goes great, a fifteen year payback for the thirty million
Speaker 1: I put in. It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is certainly not totally a great explain. This
Speaker 4: is not laying the blame at sort of the builder.
Speaker 4: It's just you hear about every new project, right, and
Speaker 4: it's it's always like, well, that's it's it's kind of
Speaker 4: more of filling that same purpose for why it's built,
Speaker 4: and and so there's there's there's that's sort of settling in.
Speaker 4: And that's not to say, go good for the design
Speaker 4: of the architect Go get it. This is what the
Speaker 4: work that's out there. But uh, that's where I've gotten to.
Speaker 4: And it was awesome the first last few years, and
Speaker 4: now it's just sort of setting in as as a
Speaker 4: consumer from the other side, and who lives in a
Speaker 4: massive urban area, you know, with the giant population, how
Speaker 4: hard it is for some of this new work and
Speaker 4: this new demand to be to meet somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: I think the shame too is that like the work,
Speaker 1: I would say, and I'm curious what Jeff thinks. I
Speaker 1: think like we're in this period where there's never been
Speaker 1: such a high standard of golf design being built, but
Speaker 1: it's built for so few and it's built in the
Speaker 1: cost of it is so high that it's impossible for
Speaker 1: it to be built right now for the masses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also is probably a deterrent to renovating some
Speaker 2: places that would serve a lot of the purposes that
Speaker 2: that Brennan's talking about. I mean, I'm the same situation
Speaker 2: here in LA you know, demands crazy, but but the
Speaker 2: public offer courses are generally run down and the bones
Speaker 2: are there to have good stuff. But I mean, if
Speaker 2: somebody's going to look at freshening it up, and and
Speaker 2: you're you're at five six million dollars before you really
Speaker 2: even get into the architecture, just whatever irrigation and you know,
Speaker 2: maintenance facility, whatever that is needed, which is usually the
Speaker 2: case with all these before you even get to the
Speaker 2: fun stuff of just kind of more lively bunkers or
Speaker 2: some tree removal or bringing act some some cool hazards
Speaker 2: or getting rid of crap that people added. That's what
Speaker 2: that's what's depressing to me. And that's that's kind of
Speaker 2: where you know, I think the the U s g
Speaker 2: A had an opportunity. I think they still have the opportunity,
Speaker 2: but to kind of bring together their expertise on the
Speaker 2: green section side their name there there there, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, the National Links Trust is great what they're
Speaker 2: trying to do, but the us GA is still the
Speaker 2: us GA. And uh and and and then look at Bethpage.
Speaker 2: We're gonna go there next year, and people still associate
Speaker 2: that with the U s g A. Uh, they don't.
Speaker 2: They don't really associate it with Rheese Jones or anybody else.
Speaker 2: It was bringing the us open there and what David
Speaker 2: Faye and everybody did the state of New York and
Speaker 2: and so that's what that's what bums me out when
Speaker 2: you get into these dollar figures. Look, I I have
Speaker 2: no problem with rich guys building places out in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere that are cool and great. But it's that.
Speaker 2: It's that, but it's not trickling down. I guess in
Speaker 2: a in a way that you'd hope so we'll see.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, I don't want to sit here and
Speaker 1: tell somebody how to spend money. But you know, to me,
Speaker 1: if the USGA did a project every decade and they
Speaker 1: spent twenty to thirty million dollars, that would be very
Speaker 1: well served funding you know, sources, and you think about
Speaker 1: like places that they could do this at. I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine Rancho Park revitalized. Yeah, and you have somebody like
Speaker 1: Gil revitalized Rancho Park. I mean, that place would be extraordinary.
Speaker 1: It would be an amazing, amazing It already is an
Speaker 1: amazing community hub. I frequented it so much in my
Speaker 1: mid twenties. At three pm, when my office in Chicago
Speaker 1: was shut down and I was living in la I
Speaker 1: would go over there and I'd play like five holes.
Speaker 1: It was the winter. I kept five holes in in
Speaker 1: two hours. But it was an amazing place. And it's
Speaker 1: like they have the little par three course. That place
Speaker 1: could just be one of the beacons of approachable golf
Speaker 1: in America, you know, and it already is, but it's
Speaker 1: still run down.
Speaker 2: It is. It is, and the thing that we've seen
Speaker 2: in La for instance, it is really wild. And I
Speaker 2: still don't fully understand how it happened. And I'm not complaining,
Speaker 2: but somebody on the golf committee decided, you know, we
Speaker 2: need we need better food at our courses. Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well you need better golf too, but okay, So then
Speaker 2: they farmed out the food and beverage to all these
Speaker 2: hipster foody operations and they're absolutely killing it now, Rancho.
Speaker 2: They found some asbestos, so it hasn't been finished yet.
Speaker 2: But when it is finished, the group has They've already
Speaker 2: done this great little outdoor bar. Uh you know, they
Speaker 2: got a burrito thing. Yeah, the indoor is going to
Speaker 2: be like a fifties cafe. I don't know what it's
Speaker 2: gonna it's there. They're working again anyway, pen Maar, dreadful
Speaker 2: golf course down in vent is nothing there. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a it's it's where people crash land planes from
Speaker 2: Santa Monica Airport. Basically courses packed. Though it's green grass,
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful place. You get the sea breeze. But
Speaker 2: they've got this food, betterfage operator that's got concerts, good food.
Speaker 2: They've got epic merchandise. I don't want to talk too
Speaker 2: much about because there's some people who might come hunting
Speaker 2: for some some copyright related knockoff stuff. And so you
Speaker 2: look at that and you go well, and I realized
Speaker 2: somebody on the golf committe, I go, well, the courses
Speaker 2: are full, right now, what do we need to replenish
Speaker 2: the stuff for? But it's like, well, why not aspire
Speaker 2: to to match what's happening with the food beverage with
Speaker 2: the golf experience, what you know? And like I occasionally
Speaker 2: go hit balls there and I just look at you know,
Speaker 2: the balls are like pickleballs and no dimples or crap.
Speaker 2: Mats are crap, and I'm looking at kids come and
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, I don't need a pyramid of
Speaker 2: titleist and perfect grass, but come on, can we We're
Speaker 2: in the twenty first century. We can do better. And
Speaker 2: it's and so, I mean, the good news is there
Speaker 2: are great examples. But yeah, again like West Palm Beach,
Speaker 2: lovely story. But you know, you just keep hearing this
Speaker 2: fifty five million dollar number. Well, how do you how
Speaker 2: do you take that to other cities and places and
Speaker 2: that do have a you know, let's say a fund
Speaker 2: which LA does right now of profits from the golf
Speaker 2: to put back and they're going to but but then
Speaker 2: you don't have a lot of great examples to point to.
Speaker 2: I guess is what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's where once a decade, like imagine if
Speaker 1: the USJA had been doing this since Beth Page. Beth
Speaker 1: Page was nineties, so you have the nineties as Beth
Speaker 1: Page say, they did something in Boston, Yeah, Boston, something
Speaker 1: like that, they did one in LA in the twenty tens,
Speaker 1: and then they did one, say they did one in
Speaker 1: you know, Chicago. Oh, you know, I'm going to show
Speaker 1: my bias here or DC, you know, and like at
Speaker 1: this point we've got, you know, five great places or
Speaker 1: four great places of public golf that were all because
Speaker 1: of the USGA. Like it just seems like a no
Speaker 1: brainer and a you know, in the relative scheme of
Speaker 1: a billion dollar organization, a small amount of money to
Speaker 1: allocate to, you know, the place where the most people
Speaker 1: pick up the game of golf.
Speaker 2: And I think they get a lot of donations too,
Speaker 2: and that's something they seem to be very interested in.
Speaker 2: They're they're going about it with the national team program,
Speaker 2: you know, that's what we need. That eludes me as
Speaker 2: as to not not not necessarily trying to help out
Speaker 2: some some promising players. Uh and now there's a spot
Speaker 2: available with blades Brown turning pro.
Speaker 1: But uh, well they all do you recall?
Speaker 2: It eludes me because like I don't quite get why
Speaker 2: a rich guy I would want to fund that versus
Speaker 2: having their name, you know whatever on the starter shack
Speaker 2: at a place where he has five million helped replenish
Speaker 2: the golf course something like that.
Speaker 1: Anyway, did you see do you remember Seth Wah's comment
Speaker 1: about how pro golf and golfers interact, how it changed
Speaker 1: has changed, How it used to be people watched on
Speaker 1: TV and that inspired them to go to the golf course,
Speaker 1: and how now it's very clear that people are less
Speaker 1: people are watching than ever and more people are playing
Speaker 1: than ever. And it's like completely and it's like almost
Speaker 1: like this national program is like the ideology of yesteryear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll do mine here. We're well on our
Speaker 1: pace to an hour and a half here, So my moment,
Speaker 1: I guess that the year is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: players of the generation talking about golf course architecture helping
Speaker 1: him become a very US Open player. So here's Rory McRoy.
Speaker 1: He was asked about, you know, what's happened at the
Speaker 1: US Open? Why has he started to play such great
Speaker 1: golf at the US Open? Now, I didn't. If you
Speaker 1: have a look at the US Open that I did
Speaker 1: win in eleven, it was more of a PGA championship
Speaker 1: rather than a US Open. Typical US Open setup, tough
Speaker 1: scene for congressional right there. I really don't think I
Speaker 1: embraced the US Open setups. Probably ten years into my
Speaker 1: US Open career, played my first one in O nine,
Speaker 1: and I think I really changed my mindset around them
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen that won in Pebble, and then since
Speaker 1: then I've I've started to enjoy the style of golf
Speaker 1: a lot more. It's a lot different than the golf
Speaker 1: we play weekend, week out. I really appreciate that, and
Speaker 1: I've started to appreciate golf course architecture more and more
Speaker 1: as the years have went on, and I've started to
Speaker 1: read more about it and understand why golf course architects
Speaker 1: do certain things and design courses the way they do,
Speaker 1: just becoming more of a student of the game again.
Speaker 1: And I think because of that, I've started to embrace
Speaker 1: golf courses like this and setups like this. I just
Speaker 1: think that's a great moment for golf architecture in a
Speaker 1: major championship to have Rory McElroy saying, listen, I started
Speaker 1: to read about golf architecture. I'm paying more attention to
Speaker 1: golf architecture, and it's helping me play better at these
Speaker 1: really tough setups.
Speaker 2: And it was I mean, that's my top The Pinehurst
Speaker 2: week was just a great week, and that was in
Speaker 2: his performance, in Bryson's performance, and the way they managed
Speaker 2: the course, just the whole thing was was was special.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I it's it is. It's wonderful what he said.
Speaker 2: It's also incredibly depressive. It's like him, Tiger and about
Speaker 2: five others that kind of get that big picture view
Speaker 2: and he's really the only one that can can say
Speaker 2: it and and and elaborate and uh and and really
Speaker 2: explain it well, but we'll we'll take anybody who's interested
Speaker 2: in that. So it's and I think it's why he
Speaker 2: still has the energy to to to play. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's been at this a while now and he has
Speaker 2: a lot of money. He's done well for himself and
Speaker 2: a lot of guys who are in the situation that
Speaker 2: they hit a wall, and so it's pretty clear that's
Speaker 2: the thing that that's motivating him and exciting him and
Speaker 2: there's some great stuff coming in that sense for him.
Speaker 2: So I'm thrilled. And yeah, it was and I was
Speaker 2: just thrilled, I think given the way Pineers went last time,
Speaker 2: the combination of whatever, the look of the place and yeah,
Speaker 2: they had a rough winner and then and this time
Speaker 2: it was probably almost too green, but whatever. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna complain about that, but it was greened up. But
Speaker 2: they had to in some cases with certain greens had
Speaker 2: to be kept a certain way and holdable. So some
Speaker 2: of them are really I don't even know what shots
Speaker 2: they hold. But so it was, Yeah, that was that
Speaker 2: was that was a special event. You know, sometimes they
Speaker 2: come together and that one. You just it was a
Speaker 2: big deal for that to go well. For the USG
Speaker 2: because they're coming right back. And and I didn't see
Speaker 2: any sign really of the whole anchor thing and what
Speaker 2: that meant other than I think Andy, you and I
Speaker 2: discussed it a while back. But you know, Pinehurst showed
Speaker 2: they put the money in, they put their their investing,
Speaker 2: and that was cool. I didn't see it much in
Speaker 2: the fan experience that that that spoke to, O, we're
Speaker 2: coming here a lot. But whatever, that's that's a small thing.
Speaker 1: So I was looking at recently, I was looking at
Speaker 1: Google search traffic for golf courses, okay, and it's unbelievable,
Speaker 1: absolutely incredible if you look at Pinehurst and what a
Speaker 1: US Open brings in terms of people searching Pinehurst and
Speaker 1: it and the same thing happens for Pebble at the
Speaker 1: US Open, and it's just a reminder of why these
Speaker 1: these courses jumped and did backflips for the USGA in
Speaker 1: order to come there. And then you go to Pinehurst
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, this place, it's just booked out.
Speaker 1: Every single day, it's just completely full. And you know,
Speaker 1: it was a great tournament. But let's get to the events.
Speaker 1: Unless Brendan's got thoughts on, let's go.
Speaker 5: I think it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't the corner waiting for the ball?
Speaker 4: I mean, what makes like quickly, why wouldn't you want
Speaker 4: to engage your brain? Why wouldn't you want their brain
Speaker 4: to match up with whatever athletic and god given skill
Speaker 4: you had, right? And maybe because your guy given skills
Speaker 4: too good. Maybe because you don't need to engage your
Speaker 4: brain fifty weeks of the year, and maybe at the
Speaker 4: US Open and the Masters or you do and you
Speaker 4: just don't have to worry about it. But yeah, I
Speaker 4: just think about like I don't know Luke Keikley, right,
Speaker 4: middle linebacker, Right, They always talk about how he knew
Speaker 4: what like the plays of the offense before this, So
Speaker 4: he was an all pro on his athletic ability. Only
Speaker 4: he's a Hall of Famer because he could match his
Speaker 4: brain up with that ability. And it makes sense, Like,
Speaker 4: I don't know why people my more to Jeff's point,
Speaker 4: wouldn't do this right, Why you wouldn't try to engage
Speaker 4: your brain more more often?
Speaker 2: Well, there is the architecture, Andy, I mean, you know
Speaker 2: there's a danger in noticing too much and taking too
Speaker 2: much in And I mean, and I that's why I
Speaker 2: always marvel at Tiger, Nicholas Ben Crenshaw, Jeff Ogilvie, I
Speaker 2: mean the the the when you if you talk to
Speaker 2: him or read what are they They say they see
Speaker 2: a lot, They take in a lot, including you know,
Speaker 2: where all the trouble is and where things can go wrong.
Speaker 2: And it's a very special gift. And Rory's I think
Speaker 2: now in that class too, of just taking in everything,
Speaker 2: every detail, but then being able to pull off the
Speaker 2: shot and and it's it's it's just a very Bobby
Speaker 2: Jones too, another one who caught you know, every detail
Speaker 2: of a golf course, but somehow could just kind of
Speaker 2: put it all. So, I mean Jack, you know, we
Speaker 2: used to look at stuff and get bored trying to
Speaker 2: thinking how he'd redesign it just because it was so bad.
Speaker 2: But it didn't. It didn't impact I packed his game.
Speaker 2: I think Jeff Ogelvie at times it might have impacted
Speaker 2: his game, you know, bad setups or whatever. And I
Speaker 2: totally understand that, by the way, as somebody who was
Speaker 2: very guilty of that when he played in college, just
Speaker 2: getting caught up in stuff that you go, well, why
Speaker 2: they do this and why is there internal ob and
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So yeah, it's another thing that's
Speaker 2: really impressive about Rory and then also select group of
Speaker 2: others who love golf architecture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that like playing just the weekend, week
Speaker 1: out tour for someone who is creative and thoughtful is
Speaker 1: really hard because it's just such a you know, once
Speaker 1: rewarded on tours, just mundane. This is how I go
Speaker 1: about my day day in day out. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that Scotti is necessarily mundane, but his process is
Speaker 1: so simple and so boring and so perfect for week in,
Speaker 1: week out PGA tour golf. It is like, I do this,
Speaker 1: this is how I get ready, this is what I
Speaker 1: do every week, and I'm okay living this way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's been exposed at times on
Speaker 2: certain setups with at majors, and you see the patience
Speaker 2: that gets lost pretty quickly at stuff that, yeah, you
Speaker 2: probably don't see in a regular tour event. And it's
Speaker 2: probably very bad news for his peers that he actually
Speaker 2: has room to probably improve and appreciate sometimes that yeah,
Speaker 2: I missed another Birdie Putt, but pars pars are good.
Speaker 2: I think Rory made a comment about that this year too,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of realizing that was part of the
Speaker 2: genius of Tigers at his prime, that he really, you
Speaker 2: pars were pretty valuable even even in a changing game
Speaker 2: and twenty underwinnings sometimes and too in a major to
Speaker 2: appreciate those and to not get annoyed when you when
Speaker 2: you missed your eighth thirty part of the day.
Speaker 1: I think we should be worried that Skotty just learned
Speaker 1: what crypto curtaincy was. You know, who knows what could happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know if he learned it, he had questions.
Speaker 4: He has it now he's in possession of some or
Speaker 4: whatever session means.
Speaker 2: But he can he can buy some guns and drugs
Speaker 2: and all sorts of great things. That's about all you
Speaker 2: can really do with crypto.
Speaker 1: Right now, we're going to get the crypto crypto fans
Speaker 1: and in the in our grill here, all right, let's
Speaker 1: get to number five in your top five events of
Speaker 1: the year, Brendan, are you supposed to go from five
Speaker 1: down or.
Speaker 5: What's go one?
Speaker 4: Let's go one. We just talked about, all right, Scotty
Speaker 4: being Yeah, Scotty Fox with the unpredictability Rory's quote with
Speaker 4: the architecture, Rory talking about how he could take in
Speaker 4: too much. I think after the fact, sort of his
Speaker 4: post mortem, I mean, he may be genuine in saying this,
Speaker 4: or he may just be kind of covering stuff up.
Speaker 4: I think he's genuine that he got too engaged with
Speaker 4: everything around him.
Speaker 5: He got two and that was one of.
Speaker 4: The great privileges and pleasures of being on the ground
Speaker 4: was being able to sort of take in a lot
Speaker 4: of what was happening in those last two groups. And
Speaker 4: the tension, as I said, was floating through the air
Speaker 4: almost from the prior tee up to the fairway in
Speaker 4: the green as these groups kind of went through the round.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that might be an instance where Rory was like,
Speaker 4: I wish I hadn't been too too perceptive of what
Speaker 4: was happening behind me, of the shot that landed on
Speaker 4: the green as I stood on the seventeenth tie, or
Speaker 4: whatever it may be. Clearly, in our year review you talked,
Speaker 4: I think Andy said like the event of the decades,
Speaker 4: maybe a major of the decades.
Speaker 5: It was just it was a really special one. I
Speaker 5: don't we know what happened.
Speaker 4: I'll just put a quip put a bow on it,
Speaker 4: saying rarely do we like remember majors, both for their
Speaker 4: failures and their triumphs. And I think like this highlight
Speaker 4: package or this sort of these memories will last before
Speaker 4: they Bryson Bunker Shot certainly, and obviously for Rory's you know, shortcomings,
Speaker 4: failure at sixteen and eighteen specifically, And so it just
Speaker 4: had the whole package combined with the golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's my it's my vote, and it's
Speaker 2: just the whole thing. And I I do wonder what
Speaker 2: Pineers is going to be like in five years when
Speaker 2: they're all another a few yards longer off the tee.
Speaker 2: It was already kind of yeah, I mean the eight
Speaker 2: will eighteen be drivable? You know where we're heading, But
Speaker 2: that part's kind of kind of nuts. But we'll enjoy
Speaker 2: this one. And I was just thrilled the other thing,
Speaker 2: just to get into architecture a little bit on Piners.
Speaker 2: That was I just love the way, other than when
Speaker 2: they tried to make thirteen. I'm still not wild on
Speaker 2: thirteen becoming being forced as drivable, but I love that
Speaker 2: the third, seventh, and thirteenth holes, which are basically a
Speaker 2: drive and a pitch, the three fifty to three ninety
Speaker 2: yardage range, which has kind of been a dying breed
Speaker 2: of hole with architects and with courses that those were
Speaker 2: probably the three best holes out there, and they created
Speaker 2: all sorts of fun and excitement and variety and they
Speaker 2: just played beautifully. And I guess even thirteen drivable other
Speaker 2: than the grand stand behind the green is a sort
Speaker 2: of a backstop things, you know, but because long was
Speaker 2: good there, it wasn't that hard of a downhill chip
Speaker 2: so anyway, but I loved how those holes played, and
Speaker 2: also just an incredible effort by the maintenance team to
Speaker 2: kind of get the name areas just right. You know,
Speaker 2: we heard I think you guys heard it too going
Speaker 2: in and they've done a bunch of plantings and I
Speaker 2: was like, uh, that could be that could be bad,
Speaker 2: but I think it was great. And I know they
Speaker 2: were taking a bunch out right after the Sunday. Well
Speaker 2: I didn't think they were that bad, to be honest
Speaker 2: at all. Frankly, I thought the randomness was just perfect.
Speaker 2: It was just you just didn't quite know what you
Speaker 2: were going to get. But look how many guys we
Speaker 2: saw hit recoveries. How how few guys just had like
Speaker 2: a sideway punch out. It was. It was perfect.
Speaker 1: I would say that Brandle would disagree with you. But
Speaker 1: the other thing I would say about that that I
Speaker 1: heard in weeks after was that maybe maybe just the
Speaker 1: lack of supply was the greatest thing that happened to
Speaker 1: the Usgay. They bought every piece of wire grass they could,
Speaker 1: uh huh, and they like, you couldn't buy it anywhere
Speaker 1: in the area because of the US because the US
Speaker 1: Open so may it might have been just that they
Speaker 1: ran out and by that was the perfect amount because
Speaker 1: there was not too much to buy.
Speaker 2: You know, nice I will never know, but good, well,
Speaker 2: now there's plenty to buy, I assume from what the
Speaker 2: superintendent said.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I loved about that US
Speaker 1: Open was just the shots around the Green. We saw
Speaker 1: just such a wide array of different shots. And I
Speaker 1: think like one of the things that's neat about Pinehurst
Speaker 1: is the emphasis. It's it's kind of like Augusta National,
Speaker 1: where there is a uber, uber high premium on tee
Speaker 1: to greenplay. But if you have the have the around
Speaker 1: the Green play going, you can really separate yourself with
Speaker 1: some of the up and downs. And I think like
Speaker 1: when you think back to that Sunday between Rory and Bryson.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of memorable great shots that led
Speaker 1: to Birdie's, but the most memorable shots of the round
Speaker 1: were around the green, the up and downs, the saves
Speaker 1: that kept the momentum going. And I think that was
Speaker 1: like the thing about that golf course was it just
Speaker 1: was so taxing and so difficult to keep the train
Speaker 1: going forward. You know those those momentous par saves, and
Speaker 1: you think back to Bryson where he was able to
Speaker 1: do it on eight on fourteen was an extraordinary up
Speaker 1: and down save, and then of course on eighteen, and
Speaker 1: you know those three saves, and you think about Rory
Speaker 1: where he gets the you know, tough break, maybe not
Speaker 1: perfectly executed shot on five, but then on six seven
Speaker 1: he get makes these up and downs that kind of
Speaker 1: keep the round together where it's it could have spiraled
Speaker 1: out of control, even the up and down on seventeen.
Speaker 1: After that miss on on sixteen where it looked like,
Speaker 1: you know, it gave him the chance on eighteen to
Speaker 1: be be there. I think like the premium I appreciated
Speaker 1: about it was like it really felt like a all
Speaker 1: around test where if you drove it well you were
Speaker 1: getting rewarded, iron play really rewarded, and then the short
Speaker 1: game had a huge, huge emphasis. So that's one of
Speaker 1: the things I appreciated so much about it.
Speaker 2: And last thing on that, you know, people seize on
Speaker 2: Maury's pot on eighteen, but it was it was a
Speaker 2: chip that was the mistake. He just left himself the
Speaker 2: one putt as a right hander you really don't want.
Speaker 2: And Bryson's bunker shot, I mean, he was he kept
Speaker 2: it below the whole. I don't I mean that he
Speaker 2: was just I don't know what he was trying to do,
Speaker 2: but he tried not to hit it on the clubhouse roof,
Speaker 2: which was very doable if you caught a little too
Speaker 2: much ball, but he kept it below the hole. And
Speaker 2: and I think that's kind of why, you know, Rory
Speaker 2: snapped a little when he saw what the coverage said,
Speaker 2: which they just they just blew it. I mean, NBC
Speaker 2: just completely blowed. Johnny Miller would have been immediately all over.
Speaker 2: I can't believe he just left himself that putt. You
Speaker 2: don't know, you can't believe how hard that putt is.
Speaker 2: And they were like ah, I went back and watched it,
Speaker 2: like ah, Okay, well he's you know, they just completely
Speaker 2: and their their tower was right there. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was just a whiff. And I'm not saying they're to
Speaker 2: blame for the miss putt. It just to your point, Andy,
Speaker 2: it was the short game element I felt like was
Speaker 2: You're right it was compared to Augusta. Let's say you could.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are hardship shots and there aren't many
Speaker 2: bumping runs left at Piners, but you you did see
Speaker 2: some really cool stuff that held rounds together or spark
Speaker 2: to come back. And I feel like at Augusta it's
Speaker 2: getting to wear. When you miss greens, it's more of
Speaker 2: just trying to manage and not make double and just
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, get it on and maybe you
Speaker 2: make the par putt kind of thing. They've they've taken
Speaker 2: some of the skill out, I think some of the
Speaker 2: work around the greens there and the way they maintained
Speaker 2: the turf. So anyway, that's a whole other rat hole.
Speaker 1: All right, Number two, any other parting thoughts on Pinehurst?
Speaker 5: Nope?
Speaker 1: All right, number two. What do you got? VP?
Speaker 4: Number two for memorable or favorite, I'm gonna say the
Speaker 4: Men's Olympic competition. This was kind of Scottie Scheffler maybe
Speaker 4: at his peak. I mean it's his best quote unquote
Speaker 4: funnel round quote unquote best fun round of his career,
Speaker 4: sixty two course record, nine under just sort of as
Speaker 4: an event, it's certainly on architectural you know, separate out
Speaker 4: the golf course design, the Golf Nationale though we've become
Speaker 4: as a custom with that place as Augusta National, it
Speaker 4: feels like in the last four or five years. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it's like the best player in the world in full
Speaker 4: flight and nine under sixty two. I think he started
Speaker 4: four shots back, six shots starting on the back nine,
Speaker 4: thank you, Bertie. Those last five he hit that on eighteen,
Speaker 4: not Bertie's last. He had five on the back nine.
Speaker 5: That in eighteen.
Speaker 4: He like gouged that eight iron like we thought had
Speaker 4: no chance from that le Gulf National rough maybe not
Speaker 4: the Ryder Cup version, but still it's it's rough onto
Speaker 4: the green and made the birdie putt to close it out.
Speaker 4: So it was like Scheffler the top of the world.
Speaker 4: It was six back. At one point there was John
Speaker 4: Rahm's collapse. We had the element of live players together
Speaker 4: or some of them together. John Rahm, uh really collapsing
Speaker 4: down the stretch and talking about the pain of like
Speaker 4: I let my country down. He said, I losing by day,
Speaker 4: by losing today, I have a much deeper appreciation appreciation
Speaker 4: of what this tournament means to me than if I
Speaker 4: had won any medal. But you wouldn't hear that very often.
Speaker 4: He appreciates it almost more than had I won. So
Speaker 4: you had the rom clups, you had the rory, uh
Speaker 4: you know, still in the aftermath of Pinehurst kind of
Speaker 4: you know, early August, and I think he opened his
Speaker 4: back nine with five birdies. It was it was still
Speaker 4: a hail Mary chance, but he got in the mix
Speaker 4: there five birdies in a row on the back nine
Speaker 4: and then hid it in the water. And that is
Speaker 4: that You had Tom Kim going for a metal stand
Speaker 4: and all that brains with the military service. You have
Speaker 4: Victor Perez, the net home favorite, missing the metal stand
Speaker 4: by a shot, and they had Fleetwood. He had five
Speaker 4: birdie chances in a row coming down the stretch, he
Speaker 4: gets a metal. Fleetwood gets a metal. It was just
Speaker 4: I kind of had it all in terms of the
Speaker 4: the gold chase and then also the stakes below that
Speaker 4: on a Sunday that that featured the best in the
Speaker 4: world going his absolute best down the stretch. So I
Speaker 4: don't know if that's not number two, but it's up
Speaker 4: there for the summer.
Speaker 1: Well, he just gave it your number. Yeah, Jeff, what
Speaker 1: do you got?
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, I'm gonna I'm going to go over
Speaker 2: to Saint Andrews and the Women's Open.
Speaker 1: My number three.
Speaker 2: So that was your three? Okay? Good? Well then you
Speaker 2: can you can you can pick up off of that.
Speaker 2: I just it. I mean, the weather was pitiful, but
Speaker 2: it was fun seeing the old course play. Well, it
Speaker 2: was fun seeing stuff that you don't see you in
Speaker 2: the Men's Open. There just just just whatever long irons
Speaker 2: into the road hole green and holding the green. Uh,
Speaker 2: some of the strategy stuff that we we wax on
Speaker 2: about actually happening, seeing the holes not stuck on top
Speaker 2: of you know, ant old aunt hills and the greens
Speaker 2: and and some of the stuff they do to protect
Speaker 2: par and the Men's Open or the regular Open. But
Speaker 2: you know, Lydia code down the stretch, just that that
Speaker 2: weather was just so awful and what she did, and
Speaker 2: and and Nelly played so beautifully but just too just
Speaker 2: too strange, shocking double Bogies, you know, hits it out
Speaker 2: on Saturday on sixteen with the wind from the west,
Speaker 2: which is really hard to do when you have the
Speaker 2: whole world to the left, and then and then the
Speaker 2: double on Sunday on the fourteenth, when she she was
Speaker 2: up by the green in two shots and in a
Speaker 2: really good spot and otherwise played pretty much flawlessly. Just
Speaker 2: a lot of clutch final rounds. And you know, to
Speaker 2: your point, Brendan on the on the Olympic sixty two
Speaker 2: and I ad meant to go back and look at
Speaker 2: this year, and I haven't done it yet. It seems
Speaker 2: like there's been a lot of incredible final rounds this year,
Speaker 2: just incredible final rounds. And I don't know how you
Speaker 2: quantify or compare that with past years, but it just
Speaker 2: feels like we had a lot of people play clutch
Speaker 2: golf the last day instead of people just kind of
Speaker 2: hanging on to win. And that's that's been that's been great.
Speaker 2: And obviously Lydia Coe doing that on Sunday, I forgot
Speaker 2: what she shouts, she can't go super low, But I
Speaker 2: mean the weather was.
Speaker 1: Was the weather was insane on that back nine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was nuts it was. I
Speaker 1: thought like she had the driver off the deck on seventeen.
Speaker 1: I think also like it was this great Nelly year
Speaker 1: and Nelly, you know, like there was like a cadence
Speaker 1: of the year, and then you had this lydia Co
Speaker 1: part of the year. And I think like everybody likes
Speaker 1: to talk about like who's gonna be the next big
Speaker 1: thing in women's golf, and a lot of times we
Speaker 1: forget how big of a thing Lydia Coe has been
Speaker 1: in terms of like like incredible career arc. I think
Speaker 1: like extremely relatable career arc in the sense of like
Speaker 1: sensation awesome early career. I always, I personally am drawn
Speaker 1: to career arcs that have struggle and then had some
Speaker 1: years where it didn't work well, didn't go well, lots
Speaker 1: of like changes, poor play, and then to have her
Speaker 1: win at the Old Course, you know, after the Olympics,
Speaker 1: obviously getting the Olympic medal and this, and just like
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know how many more years of
Speaker 1: Lydia Coe we have, which is one of the sad
Speaker 1: things about the women's game. Not sad, but like you know,
Speaker 1: it is like you kind of one day you just
Speaker 1: lose these stars and unlike you know men's golf, where
Speaker 1: you'll see Rory play into his early forties and who
Speaker 1: knows how long, and you know, you see Tiger still
Speaker 1: playing in his fifties. Like I don't know how many
Speaker 1: more great years of Lydia Cooe we had, but we
Speaker 1: got a really great year of Lydia Coe that matched
Speaker 1: up with a great Nelly year. And this was them
Speaker 1: showing down, a showing a showdown between kind of the
Speaker 1: two of them with other great players Lily of vou
Speaker 1: Ronnie Yin Uh you know too. Yeah, you got four
Speaker 1: top five players on the on the leader board, duking
Speaker 1: it out at the Old Course, hitting, as you said,
Speaker 1: shots that we don't see the men hit, and was
Speaker 1: really really fun.
Speaker 4: I would just you know, we think of Lydia Coe,
Speaker 4: this is this incredible career and it is all that.
Speaker 4: But her majors had been eight years, and her majors
Speaker 4: were the Ana Inspiration now known as the Chevron, Carlton
Speaker 4: Woods and the Avon, and it had been eight years
Speaker 4: similar to that Rory length that Pinehurst, and so I
Speaker 4: think a women's Open at an old course felt the
Speaker 4: fitting of the totality of the career right, and it
Speaker 4: had been a while, so on top of the visuals
Speaker 4: of hitting lumber just on top of the road hole
Speaker 4: bunker and having courted. And I'll add this like, I
Speaker 4: get a lot of pushback from I guess PGA Tour
Speaker 4: network sort of people who have been in trench there
Speaker 4: too long the venues like don't really matter. But man
Speaker 4: like to add to this, with Pebble Beach, even if
Speaker 4: it's a lower ameter event, a women's event, they can
Speaker 4: elevate it, like for you have to have both the
Speaker 4: diehard golf fan invested in some reason, right and whether
Speaker 4: it's the old course that brings them the table to
Speaker 4: then go evangelize it to the You're not going to
Speaker 4: get the person the casual unless the people who love
Speaker 4: golf are already in the boat. And so I just
Speaker 4: feel like the old course brings an element obviously and
Speaker 4: elevates the women elevates an amateur event, same with Pebble
Speaker 4: Beach the year before. Why not so often in women's
Speaker 4: golf it's this Frankenstein where we bolt on the sponsor
Speaker 4: to the time of year, to the market that will
Speaker 4: have us, and then we choose the course and why
Speaker 4: not try and it clearly elevated this championship. It's such
Speaker 4: as it's undeniable.
Speaker 1: On that thought, I was contemplating getting Lancaster in this
Speaker 1: in this top five, and it was like, it's like
Speaker 1: an example. It's like, that's not the world's greatest golf course,
Speaker 1: that's not the old course, but it just shows what
Speaker 1: a really good golf course does for a tournament. And
Speaker 1: it also showed the I think the potential that the
Speaker 1: women's game has if they just visit really good golf courses.
Speaker 1: They could visit a Lancaster level golf course, I think,
Speaker 1: almost every single week on their calendar, and that should
Speaker 1: be the thing that zeroed in on is like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go visit the golf courses that other that men
Speaker 1: can't visit anymore, that are great golf courses. My number
Speaker 1: two is absolutely on the venues matter list of golf events.
Speaker 1: It was impossible, Jeff brought up our friends at NBC.
Speaker 1: It was almost impossible to watch this event. It was shockingly,
Speaker 1: it was like being teleported back to nineteen ninety five
Speaker 1: on my couch as a kid watching European Tour golf.
Speaker 1: It's the Irish Open at Royal County.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wondering where you're going now. I remember, yeah,
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 1: It was extraordinary golf tournament. Another ry McElroy heartbreak down
Speaker 1: the stretch and it was but the golf shots, the
Speaker 1: mystique of Royal County down the visuals, even without any
Speaker 1: bells and whistles, just with ground cameras that struggled to
Speaker 1: track the balls. You know, no golf course commentary whatsoever
Speaker 1: about what makes this place you know, an out of
Speaker 1: the sublime test. But you saw just you know, the
Speaker 1: degree of difficulty, the level of shot making that was
Speaker 1: required on that golf course was just at a different
Speaker 1: level than your week in, week out tour stop and
Speaker 1: it led to this unbelievable finish, a really good leader
Speaker 1: board given the field with Rory Rastus Hoyguard, Brenda's favorite
Speaker 1: Mateo Manaso, who was in a resurgent period of his career,
Speaker 1: because they went the next week to Wentworth and it
Speaker 1: was you know, Mateo and Rory again and in the
Speaker 1: final groups. But this was, this was an extraordinary golf
Speaker 1: event that I will not forget. And again, venues really matter.
Speaker 1: That should have been that event should have had all
Speaker 1: the best players in the world, and you know, the
Speaker 1: the full treatment of telecast.
Speaker 2: And then they go to the K Club next year.
Speaker 4: So yeah, why why is it? Why was it relegated
Speaker 4: mid September? It's not like going with golf and we're
Speaker 4: relegating it to streaming here and there and wherever it was.
Speaker 1: You had to go to NBC Sports app, right, right,
Speaker 1: not even it wasn't even on Peacock right right.
Speaker 4: I mean he speaks to your earlier quote about the
Speaker 4: Rory quote, right, I mean, engaged with the architecture and
Speaker 4: certainly bringing out a little bit more of him.
Speaker 5: He's great everywhere, but.
Speaker 1: But well that's a golf course. They I think historically
Speaker 1: he had had fits.
Speaker 4: With right different era of his Yeah, yeah, yeah he missed?
Speaker 2: Did miss Did he miss the cut the last time
Speaker 2: it was there? I think so yeah he did? Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it was spectacular and you're right, it was a
Speaker 2: shame that, yeah, relegated to September. And I mean, I
Speaker 2: just don't know how we don't have a link season,
Speaker 2: a permanent run of the Scottish and the Irish and
Speaker 2: the Open.
Speaker 1: Do we want to opine about why we don't have
Speaker 1: a Lenk season? Oh well, because players don't want to
Speaker 1: leave America for well, yeah, yeah, and that's what.
Speaker 2: That's Yeah, that's possibly a bigger part of it now.
Speaker 2: It used to be. It wasn't that long ago. Guys
Speaker 2: were in this kind of well I can't three three
Speaker 2: weeks of that, we'll screw up my swing kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And I don't hear that as much now. I think
Speaker 2: with track Man and different stuff, you don't A guy
Speaker 2: doesn't want to believe that would happen. And but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's probably just yeah, time away from from the US.
Speaker 2: So maybe when when the PIFF buys the European Tour,
Speaker 2: they can they can establish a link season or something,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, or Royal Greens, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well they're going to build all the all
Speaker 1: the great links of courses of Saudi Arabia by that
Speaker 1: Neil right.
Speaker 4: Today, No alcohol at the twenty thirty four World Cup.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that'll go overwhelm.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great. Get out ahead of it, are they. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not going to help ticket sales. So how do
Speaker 2: we get some stadiums built and then we decide what
Speaker 2: the alcohol policy will be.
Speaker 4: It is it is remarkable, like some of the blame
Speaker 4: goes to the DP World Tour, right, and I understand
Speaker 4: their hamstrun and it's like what I just talked about,
Speaker 4: the sponsors wagging the dog, you know, and all this
Speaker 4: stuff and and but you kind of have to put
Speaker 4: your foot in the ground and try to put the
Speaker 4: product first and not relegate such a quote unquote event.
Speaker 4: You're event of your season essentially in terms of golf fans,
Speaker 4: uh to you know, mid September it's and.
Speaker 2: The Scottish renaissance has kind of run its course and
Speaker 2: they're they're lovely people and and and it's a good
Speaker 2: it's certainly better than you know, loch Loman to prepare
Speaker 2: for the Open, but it's also time to to to
Speaker 2: probably get back to the little road that they had.
Speaker 2: I know that's more work from the infrastructure side, but
Speaker 2: but they have just they just have so many great
Speaker 2: places and the and the Open, the Scottish Open is
Speaker 2: a gulling were so good and Castle Stewart were great.
Speaker 4: And so it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they need to finish on Saturday so that
Speaker 2: the get out of the way of the Wimbledon final
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. Anyway, that's that's.
Speaker 5: A nice.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's take a quick break. We are humming
Speaker 1: in Club TFE. I think it's a great membership. We
Speaker 1: produce a lot of content in there. Right now, we're
Speaker 1: in kind of our event swing. We we give members
Speaker 1: early access to event. An event that we just launched
Speaker 1: was the Sand Valley Trip that sold out just for
Speaker 1: CLUBTFE members. So if you're interested in coming to our events,
Speaker 1: Club TFE is a great way to make sure you
Speaker 1: get into the events that you want. Also, from a
Speaker 1: content side, we are humming in there with a lot
Speaker 1: of writing about golf courses, golf architecture, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited where. We've got some big plans in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five for it. So if you like what
Speaker 1: we do, if you haven't joined and become a member,
Speaker 1: consider it in the new year. It is one hundred
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Speaker 1: dot com slash membership to learn more. Thanks, let's get
Speaker 1: back to Jeff and Brendan.
Speaker 5: All right, who's up next?
Speaker 2: Andy?
Speaker 4: I had Women's Open three, which we've already gone. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna zag here. I didn't necessarily, I don't know if
Speaker 4: I understood the assignment at five memorable. I don't know
Speaker 4: if it's all.
Speaker 1: My favorite I like to be I like to be
Speaker 1: very loose with my Yeah, one.
Speaker 4: Of my like favorite could mean a lot of things.
Speaker 4: One of my honorable mentions was the Phoenix Open, just
Speaker 4: because we finally found the bottom and it's provoked change,
Speaker 4: like we've gotten so.
Speaker 5: Bad, Like that's what we had to get so bad?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean apparently we're you know, zero tolerance policy
Speaker 4: for the next Phoenix Open.
Speaker 5: We finally got so that one.
Speaker 4: I can appreciate that we at least reached the bottom
Speaker 4: to stay like, all right, well this is too much.
Speaker 5: But the next one.
Speaker 4: In a similar vein one of my favorite events, the
Speaker 4: Travelers Championship. The week after the US Open, number one
Speaker 4: on this list, I think we sort of the mask
Speaker 4: came off for laired Bear Rory w D's. Well, of
Speaker 4: course he w D's like the signature event we're supposed
Speaker 4: to hold, and of course he's not playing the freaking
Speaker 4: Travelers Championship the week after this had just happened.
Speaker 5: There were days after this had just happened.
Speaker 1: I want to also historically note that this is the
Speaker 1: year they wanted to debut. There are millions of dollars
Speaker 1: have changes to the golf course to increase the difficulty
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 4: This is where this is why it made my list.
Speaker 5: It's on.
Speaker 4: So we add new tea boxes, more mounding, shrinking the
Speaker 4: eleventh green, cutting the twelfth fairway off at landing disks,
Speaker 4: just stopping the fairway. All right, let's let's do something different,
Speaker 4: replacing it with rough more trees, narrowing a bunch more fairies.
Speaker 4: Millions of dollars. After they went twenty twenty two under
Speaker 4: last year or twenty three under last year, the Winnings
Speaker 4: Course twenty two under this year, Rory had called it obsolete,
Speaker 4: like I'm sorry that in twenty three. It's just obsolete.
Speaker 4: Technology has rendered the golf course obsolete. Not that it was,
Speaker 4: you know, the old course of Royal County Down or.
Speaker 2: Pinehurst before that, but it had sighting.
Speaker 4: Yes, so there was a fifty nine. Kim Young had
Speaker 4: his fifty nine. There were to sixty one on Sunday.
Speaker 4: There were seven sixty twos shot throughout the week. This
Speaker 4: is millions and million, seven sixty twos, fifty nine, multiple
Speaker 4: sixty ones. It's twenty two under and look it's a
Speaker 4: signature event.
Speaker 5: The field.
Speaker 4: The smaller scoring average was essentially the same as the
Speaker 4: prior year, and this was millions of dollars spent to
Speaker 4: make it quote unquote harder or toughen it up for
Speaker 4: essentially one week, and then it's added, we get this
Speaker 4: protest at the end, you got paint flying everywhere. It's
Speaker 4: just a memorable goofy event for a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 4: And then you backed it up. I'll stop my soliloqually
Speaker 4: here with John Deere. A week later or two weeks later,
Speaker 4: Hayden Spring are breaking sixty and it's just so clear
Speaker 4: the tournament players club or course, these courses that were
Speaker 4: built to test the actual best in the world are
Speaker 4: no longer relevant, are no longer they're they're pillow they're
Speaker 4: pillow fights.
Speaker 6: You got see side Farm still, you got the Middiesota.
Speaker 6: You know that that's twenty on there, your tests than Valhalla.
Speaker 6: So anyways, that's why it made my list. River how
Speaker 6: there was the rory like, of course the sign of
Speaker 6: course he's not playing. This is the real world that
Speaker 6: we can address these up as signature designated of course
Speaker 6: he's not and then the course changes and then a
Speaker 6: little protest to end it off. I got asked to
Speaker 6: go on local radio here on Monday, and I was like, no,
Speaker 6: Grant is not in the middle of the football season.
Speaker 6: But I only do one radio st Buddy hosts the
Speaker 6: main radio station in towns.
Speaker 5: Like why are you wait?
Speaker 2: What? Why?
Speaker 4: Why you expected after the US Open or that, like
Speaker 4: the protests to be made in a larger sports radio subject.
Speaker 4: So yeah, the Travelers hit this year for a number
Speaker 4: of reasons.
Speaker 5: Wo good and bad.
Speaker 2: So do you want to mention who won?
Speaker 5: Scottie Shuffler won, he dominated, he went, he went.
Speaker 2: I don't think he did. I just want to make
Speaker 2: sure I don't think.
Speaker 1: Yes, he got back to the he got back to
Speaker 1: the confines of Bluegrass Rough, got for the wire Grass,
Speaker 1: got to the confines of Bluegrass Rough and everything clicked.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that was a memorable, memorable ish week for
Speaker 4: both architecture reasons.
Speaker 2: You're all red, you're all worked up. I love it.
Speaker 5: Got the juice there, the Travelers champions.
Speaker 1: It is an incredible, incredible I mean they're gonna do
Speaker 1: the same thing with TPC craig Rams this year. They're
Speaker 1: spending what fifteen million dollars with Landy Watkins mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And it's gonna end up being the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: The scores are gonna be exactly the same, yeah, right, right.
Speaker 2: Right, Actually might get better because of course we'll be
Speaker 2: in probably in really great shade. They'll have all the
Speaker 2: new bells and whistles and and you just you give
Speaker 2: these guys greens that hold and good conditioning. There's it
Speaker 2: just takes eighty five hundred yards and freak of stuff
Speaker 2: to prevent them from from shooting low scores at this point,
Speaker 2: so like, why bother?
Speaker 1: All right, you got number three? What's your number three?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna uh uh bring a more civilized selection. After
Speaker 2: the travelers ranting, I go with the Curtis Cup at Sunningdale.
Speaker 1: You know, a good choice here.
Speaker 2: Well, we've been overdue for a really good close cup
Speaker 2: event that could go either way right to the very end.
Speaker 2: We don't get many of those. Une was kind of close.
Speaker 1: But the President's Cup didn't make your list.
Speaker 2: It did not, It did not, It did not make
Speaker 2: my top twenty five. So the H and I stopped
Speaker 2: at twenty. I mean it just was spectacular, and you know,
Speaker 2: in a weird way that the minimalist television coverage was
Speaker 2: was kind of uh, it just fit. It worked. I
Speaker 2: mean I could have you know, it would have been
Speaker 2: nice to have some other stuff, but no tracer and
Speaker 2: and but it was. It was clean and solid, and
Speaker 2: there was too much talking from one of the encourse reporters.
Speaker 2: But other than that, it was a great event and
Speaker 2: just brilliant play, clutch play, asterisk tally, you know, just
Speaker 2: whipping Lottie wode on Sunday three and two. It was
Speaker 2: just playing great, best best amateur in the world. Blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. Fifteen year old just drums her eagles the tenth.
Speaker 2: They had a great driveable hole setup, was perfect, course,
Speaker 2: was magnificent. The captains were great, classy, gave all the
Speaker 2: credit to the players. You know. It was a one
Speaker 2: point win for GB and I, Patriana Matthew, you know,
Speaker 2: it was all the players. No none of her you know,
Speaker 2: analytics and none of the other hilarious stuff that we
Speaker 2: get in events. It was it was just Sarah Byrne
Speaker 2: was incredible. She went undefeated. Then we had we had
Speaker 2: you know, we had a little testing this there with
Speaker 2: Megan schoffel Chow film. Yeah, getting a little annoyed at
Speaker 2: not being given a pot. So it had a little
Speaker 2: bit of an everything, and I just I thoroughly enjoyed it,
Speaker 2: and and the people out in the walking, the course,
Speaker 2: the dogs, you know, just the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's a great event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at bel Air, it should be it should be spectacular.
Speaker 2: They they they'll have the clubhouse open even by then,
Speaker 2: so it should be great.
Speaker 1: I think it's open now, right, Yes, yes, it's open.
Speaker 2: Yeah, finally, finally I talked to a remember the other day,
Speaker 2: and the Nobu trained chefs are are just just bringing
Speaker 2: the heat with the great I said, can you get
Speaker 2: a burger though, Yes, yes you can still get a burger?
Speaker 5: Okay, good, might go.
Speaker 1: I might have to go down there this this this winter.
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I'm going to rain down here, so
Speaker 2: you should come down. It's wearing another we're in a drought.
Speaker 2: You're getting all the rain up.
Speaker 1: There and dumping up.
Speaker 2: It's going to be eighty here today in l A.
Speaker 2: So come on down and uh yeah check it.
Speaker 1: Out, all right. My my number four is uh wait,
Speaker 1: what are you three? Well, three's women's open. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go with Canada, Canadian Open. I just loved the story.
Speaker 1: Bobby Mack. Once Bobby Mack was his dad with his
Speaker 1: dad on his bag. Yeah, overcoming the drones, but he
Speaker 1: wins with his dad on the bag. I feel like
Speaker 1: anybody that grows up playing golf with their dad, this
Speaker 1: is just a dream scenario, right, the dad sent Bobby
Speaker 1: Mack wins with his I mean like wins with his
Speaker 1: dad on the golf bag, like anybody that you know.
Speaker 1: He only was was one loop. And then my favorite
Speaker 1: part about think so I don't think he did.
Speaker 2: For something later in the year anyway, go on, sorry.
Speaker 1: My favorite maybe he should come back for the Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup next year. Give Bobby Mack a little bit more
Speaker 1: juice than that event. My favorite part of about it
Speaker 1: is the wins. And then he and he bypasses the
Speaker 1: big payday at Memorial and goes home to open and
Speaker 1: uh and and drinks a bunch of pints and and
Speaker 1: has a good celebration there and uh and then comes
Speaker 1: back for the US Open. So this is just a
Speaker 1: this is a sentimental pick. I think like winning a
Speaker 1: golf tournament with your father on the bag is just
Speaker 1: you know, that's about as good as it can get
Speaker 1: for anybody that's pursued golf.
Speaker 4: A couple of good, meaningful wins for him obviously winning
Speaker 4: the Scottish which he said we cared more about.
Speaker 5: Than you know, anything other than I think the Open.
Speaker 4: I'm not even I think even more than the other
Speaker 4: ajors the Open and yeah that went with your dad.
Speaker 4: Doesn't get much better than that for him there in
Speaker 4: a month. Aside from the drone the drone interference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got to deal with that. I mean, he's
Speaker 2: just got to get over that.
Speaker 1: Yeahm had trouble at Live.
Speaker 2: Oh right, yeah, not that loud. I don't understand it.
Speaker 2: And it's not like they're in the middle of the
Speaker 2: night and you know, and they're not seeing a Ryan
Speaker 2: up there. It's like Jesus, just deal with it. It's
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's weird about it is it's a
Speaker 2: consistent noise. Because they were getting a little aggressive at
Speaker 2: Valhalla with with one and I was and guys were
Speaker 2: looking at it. I'm like, well, but it's a it's
Speaker 2: not like it's going up and down and making, you know, accelerating,
Speaker 2: And that's what usually pro golfers just tell you. As
Speaker 2: long as it's just sort of steady and it's not
Speaker 2: going to change, it doesn't bother me. But it's when
Speaker 2: they kind of fluctuate that that's and understandably you don't
Speaker 2: want that, you don't want to be surprised. But Bobby
Speaker 2: seems to have the new Monty Rabbit ears going, so
Speaker 2: pro golfers.
Speaker 5: Kind away find away whether it's a nice choice.
Speaker 1: All Right, Who's who's got number four? You guys both
Speaker 1: have number four.
Speaker 5: I'm already on four. Yeah, Jeff's got hit.
Speaker 2: Well you're four.
Speaker 1: What was your your your father? Was your three? Was
Speaker 1: the Open?
Speaker 2: Four?
Speaker 1: Was the Travelers?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: No, US Open, Men's Golf, Olympics, Women's Open, Travelers four.
Speaker 5: So there you go. Jeff's on four.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna go with the Open troon. I
Speaker 2: just thought it was okay, it was. It was a
Speaker 2: great week. Tough week, of course, really was was weird
Speaker 2: the way the wind direction, uh just changed a lot,
Speaker 2: and it just was brutal on Friday afternoon, I mean
Speaker 2: the late the late wave had no chance and the
Speaker 2: postage stamp played beautifully. Uh, the whole course just played.
Speaker 2: It played really well given the non traditional win most
Speaker 2: of the time, and some places don't perform as well
Speaker 2: when that happens. And so I mean some of the
Speaker 2: stuff the guys did on Saturday when it was it
Speaker 2: was so cold and nasty, and then Xanders sixty five
Speaker 2: on on Sunday and Justin Rose and Billy Hell giving him,
Speaker 2: you know, they kept him honest, and it was I
Speaker 2: thought it wasn't, you know, the most thrilling final round,
Speaker 2: but it was just it was just great off and
Speaker 2: Xander did some brilliant stuff down the stretch. It was interesting.
Speaker 2: He didn't really pay much attention to the leader board
Speaker 2: until about fourteen, and that little up and down on sixteen,
Speaker 2: even though it was looking pretty good for him, that
Speaker 2: was very chunkable into the bunker or it was just
Speaker 2: not an easy shot and Rose was hanging in there
Speaker 2: and reached a green of two and he just kind
Speaker 2: of put him away with that. And I thought the
Speaker 2: setup was great. The fan experience seemed to be pretty good.
Speaker 2: There were a few things, but a lot of people.
Speaker 2: So I just thought it was a classic great Open
Speaker 2: and kind of kept the whole Americans at Trooon thing going,
Speaker 2: which is a pretty wild situation how well US players
Speaker 2: do well there. So yeah, just a just a great
Speaker 2: solid week and another good open.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I think the thing that I loved the
Speaker 1: most about it is the idea of like you have
Speaker 1: this tournament that anybody can win, and then the best
Speaker 1: player of the group of anybody can win, you know,
Speaker 1: reaches the hardest part of the golf course, the eleventh hole,
Speaker 1: the railway hole, and just hits the gas, hits the
Speaker 1: gas pedal and it and he was just gone, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and nobody was going to be able to keep it was.
Speaker 1: It was just like the It was like when you
Speaker 1: watch like a horse race and it's close and you
Speaker 1: get to turn three and then the best horse in
Speaker 1: the race just hits the level that nobody else can touch.
Speaker 1: And and to me like golf tournaments that unfold that way.
Speaker 1: Like everybody loves their underdog story. But like what you
Speaker 1: a lot of times, like the joy of watching sports
Speaker 1: is to watch the sublime athletes and performers touch levels
Speaker 1: that you sit back and you say, you know what,
Speaker 1: he's better than those guys. And I think that was
Speaker 1: like a moment was Xander where it's just like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this guy is, you know, one of the three best players,
Speaker 1: four best players in the world. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the PGA win at Valhalla was great and all, but
Speaker 1: that was like kind of one of those tournaments that
Speaker 1: anybody in the top four or five could have won.
Speaker 1: It was a total crapshoot. Who made a putt at
Speaker 1: you know, the right moment was that this was I'm
Speaker 1: better than you and I'm putting putting this tournament away,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciated that. Also, I'll never forget Scottie
Speaker 1: Shuffler on the eighteenth hole that like chunk iron into
Speaker 1: the silly sand scrape.
Speaker 2: It was crazy. It was just crazy.
Speaker 1: I think it wo'll be the worst shot we ever see.
Speaker 1: Scotty Shuffler.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, unreal, not supposed to be in play.
Speaker 4: That's hands out there, and he brought it into play.
Speaker 5: Scotty did.
Speaker 1: Also, I think, like Scotty, it seemed like he had
Speaker 1: solved the putter and then he gets on these slow
Speaker 1: greens and windy greens. It seemed like a real real issue.
Speaker 1: It looked like the old issue.
Speaker 2: And it made me.
Speaker 1: Also think, like, you know, it seems like when he
Speaker 1: has to hit the putt, it's a lot harder, you
Speaker 1: know than when it's just like if I just touched
Speaker 1: this and get it online, it goes in, which is
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour speed, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why. I mean, slow greens generally expose
Speaker 2: putting and then and they highlight people with a good
Speaker 2: stroke because you do have to you're not just starting
Speaker 2: the ball. They are tricky greens to read. But I
Speaker 2: thought he really let them get to his head. It
Speaker 2: was it was I think that was about as cranky
Speaker 2: as he was all years, seem like, in terms of
Speaker 2: barking back at Ted Scott and stuff. One other thing
Speaker 2: that's about Xander. I just you know, the contrast and
Speaker 2: styles between that and Valhalla. To win on those two
Speaker 2: golf courses is just, uh, I mean, just the complete
Speaker 2: opposite in terms of firmness and stuff you need to
Speaker 2: do around the greens. That's just that's that's impressive.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, So he goes, He goes, turns at
Speaker 1: turns at five, Rose is at six, Thurston is at seven,
Speaker 1: and Billie's at five. The eleventh, he Birdie is to
Speaker 1: get to six. At that point, he's one behind Thurston,
Speaker 1: Pars the twelfth, Birdie's the thirteenth, gets to seven, Birdie's
Speaker 1: the fourteenth to get to eighth, Pars fifteen, Birdie's sixteen
Speaker 1: to get to nine, and it's it's over. It was, yeah,
Speaker 1: as what do you got BP, I mean, I.
Speaker 4: Have the open chammpionship, but just for all the reasons
Speaker 4: you've stated, is number five, for all the uncomfortableness that
Speaker 4: it brings and the unique, you know, the usual, the
Speaker 4: unique that the win what we thought would be sort
Speaker 4: of the wind guys who shape it one way really
Speaker 4: challenging them right going coming back. You know, nobody wants
Speaker 4: that ball being blown away on the left or right,
Speaker 4: and it kind of flipped on him there and having
Speaker 4: guys you know, unable to reach part fours and too
Speaker 4: was this unique wrinkle on Saturday when it got really
Speaker 4: cold and windy coming down the Strets and obviously left
Speaker 4: Shane Lowry extra grumpy.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: It was a pleasure pleasure to watch, like firmly entrenched Truan.
Speaker 4: I don't know if our generation really remembers true as
Speaker 4: much as it should. Uh, And I think this was
Speaker 4: really a refresher for people our age. I had the
Speaker 4: Players close by though too, another sky guy I realized
Speaker 4: I was going really scotty predominant here between the Olympics
Speaker 4: and the Travelers is a little bit of it wrinkle.
Speaker 4: But the Players was a great championship, right Wyndam Clark
Speaker 4: at the time the number two player kind of tour,
Speaker 4: Scotty the number one player, Scotty having a neck injury,
Speaker 4: still shooting a sixty four kind of that was and
Speaker 4: showing it on a different kind of different kind of
Speaker 4: test and going first person, going back to back at
Speaker 4: the Players. That was a great championship. But when you
Speaker 4: think about it, I was thinking about this week of
Speaker 4: all the of all the tour properties or tour positions
Speaker 4: that have been weakened by the arrival of Live, it
Speaker 4: feels like the Players has been the most sort of
Speaker 4: delegitimized as whatever it claimed to once be. Right, Scotty's
Speaker 4: winning without John ram in the field and without Brooks
Speaker 4: and without Bryce, and that feels decidedly on Major Ish
Speaker 4: or Major adjacent, which is what they kind of It's
Speaker 4: really weakened that Live is really weak in their position.
Speaker 4: But it was a great championship when we kind of
Speaker 4: needed after a stinker of a sort of first quarter
Speaker 4: of the year on the tour.
Speaker 2: And how about I mean, I thought it was didn't
Speaker 2: get much play, but the Ryder Cup points come out
Speaker 2: in the in the Players is being treated just like
Speaker 2: any tour event. Last year's players is not. So that's
Speaker 2: why Brian Harmon has a slight chance to make the
Speaker 2: team at the moment. But this coming players is just
Speaker 2: gonna be like the Honda or anything else. Points wise,
Speaker 2: I was shocked that they didn't keep that whatever the
Speaker 2: point and a half, you know, the major like system
Speaker 2: in for the players. That was kind of a sad
Speaker 2: admission that it is is not what it used to be.
Speaker 1: What's your those guys, what's your number five?
Speaker 2: You know, I have to get off the architecture bus
Speaker 2: now and go with Valhalla. It was, you know, the place.
Speaker 2: Just your review was spectacular, by the way, if people
Speaker 2: haven't heard it, but on the on the Shotgun start
Speaker 2: your review of the I mean, it's just unbelievable how
Speaker 2: whenever they go there stuff happens. Obviously, there were a
Speaker 2: couple of things that weren't attractive, somebody dying and Scotty's driving,
Speaker 2: But the stuff that went on early and I mean
Speaker 2: Jimmy Dunn dropping that that letter, and the Rory's divorce
Speaker 2: coming out, and and uh, just all the stuff that
Speaker 2: that went on, it goes on there and then you know,
Speaker 2: the finish was it was spectacular. The course I was.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know why I keep falling for
Speaker 2: this when places go to Zoysia grass and they, oh,
Speaker 2: it's going to be better, it'll be firmer. I don't
Speaker 2: know why I fall for that every time. It's not
Speaker 2: it's it's cucula light, it's it it even if it
Speaker 2: had not rained, I just didn't see that. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: leaning into the tournament, I just didn't see that place
Speaker 2: playing firmer and faster. It was in great shape, don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong. Superintendent's beautiful job, and they brought it
Speaker 2: together really well given some of the stuff that happened.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, it's it's amazing how that golf course
Speaker 2: just seems to produce exciting stuff. One funny thing that happened,
Speaker 2: so Xander opens with his sixty two, which you again
Speaker 2: recounted on the on the sh going to start. But
Speaker 2: one thing you didn't know or see, I don't think
Speaker 2: so the PGA has got this kind of messed up
Speaker 2: press conference thing, which again is not their fault. This
Speaker 2: is trying to keep the players happy. So they have
Speaker 2: this you know, kind of sitting standing weird thing and
Speaker 2: we all stand and there's really only that there's no
Speaker 2: other secondary areas, and so Xander shoots the lowest score
Speaker 2: in the history of the PGA Championship. And the guy
Speaker 2: who runs the press conference is great, nice guy. He's
Speaker 2: got a little clock, you know, they like to have
Speaker 2: a little stopwatch, like see you know it's somebody, it's
Speaker 2: something's going on too long. He can kind of go, oh,
Speaker 2: we went ten minutes enough. But anyway, so the clock
Speaker 2: is running and Xander's just starting to talk about this
Speaker 2: historic round and it's at like four and a half
Speaker 2: and I'm standing behind him and I can see it,
Speaker 2: and here comes Tiger, and Tiger just walks and opens
Speaker 2: the door and Xander kind of looks and it's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: I guess we're done. So the lowest round the history
Speaker 2: of the PGA at that point, Xander got four minutes
Speaker 2: to barely and we're all just like, uh, we're not
Speaker 2: that's it. And but you know, Tiger runs the show
Speaker 2: and there's no other place to talk to them because
Speaker 2: they're so determined to keep press from intermingling with players
Speaker 2: somewhere other than this stage. And that was just it
Speaker 2: was just kind of chintzy and weird, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: but Louisville great, great, great golf town, great great fans.
Speaker 2: Uh just was you know?
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 2: Just did it again? I'm I I don't I don't
Speaker 2: want them to go back there.
Speaker 4: But Solheim, right, Solheim next, and then I think a
Speaker 4: PGA will be going back there.
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, that I think the ownership
Speaker 2: one's another one.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm sorry to end on such a note.
Speaker 2: It was an eventful Come on, you're content creators. You're
Speaker 2: not creators around soil level content creators. But that's right,
Speaker 2: Come on, generation.
Speaker 1: Were you surprised you're left off the creator console?
Speaker 2: You know, I would have brought I'd make those meetings
Speaker 2: so likely if they had me. But I'm quite pleased
Speaker 2: to not be a part of that.
Speaker 4: Well, I think Andy introduced you as the CEO of Quadrilateral.
Speaker 4: I think you can make a lateral move to this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well created.
Speaker 2: There's another CEO job you know that's available now, so
Speaker 2: and who wouldn't want that job after that rollout videos?
Speaker 1: So sure, Well we're just spitballing here.
Speaker 2: To go off. Well, what the hell was that?
Speaker 4: I can tell you you're holding the do.
Speaker 2: I just want to know because it's just it's just
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody knows what it was.
Speaker 2: Who are they trying to glure?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: I just don't And then the commissioner is going to
Speaker 2: report to this what a mess anyway? And of course
Speaker 2: j doesn't even have a CEO.
Speaker 1: So go ahead, last question and we're done with this.
Speaker 1: We're right at the one and a half.
Speaker 2: What your yeah, what's your final.
Speaker 1: Event right now? Right now? Event you're most looking forward?
Speaker 1: Dude twenty twenty five, didn't tell you to prep on this?
Speaker 5: I mean, I just go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Well, this is an easy one because I've surveyed my
Speaker 2: fine subscribers and they've come back with a pretty The Quad.
Speaker 1: The Quad listens to.
Speaker 2: The Quad, folks are excited about port Rush in the Open,
Speaker 2: I have to give a slight edge, although you know,
Speaker 2: we'll see what happens. But to Cyprus point in the
Speaker 2: Walker Cup, I mean, I don't know who the hell's
Speaker 2: going to be playing for these teams? Is going to
Speaker 2: be like a bunch of sixteen and seventeen year olds.
Speaker 1: But Blades is gone, Blades is gone.
Speaker 2: I don't see Luke Clinton making making an amateur status
Speaker 2: to September. I just don't I don't feel like that's
Speaker 2: going to happen. It would be great, but it just
Speaker 2: doesn't seem likely. But it doesn't matter. It's Cypres's point.
Speaker 2: I wish the captains would designate, you know, a twenty
Speaker 2: twenty eight conforming golf ball be used, but I don't
Speaker 2: think that's going to happen. But either way, and then
Speaker 2: who knows what Golf Channel will do with it. But
Speaker 2: hopefully the they'll get enough people out there and it'll
Speaker 2: be it'll be a good event or great event. It's
Speaker 2: just there's nothing quite like it. But other than that, yeah,
Speaker 2: obviously Port Russian and would be second for me, and
Speaker 2: maybe Oakmont. I'm curious where they're going to hit drives
Speaker 2: at Oakmont. But yeah, my readers overwhelmingly picked port Rush.
Speaker 5: I took that survey. I was a respondent in that.
Speaker 2: Thank you turnout.
Speaker 1: I'm meant to meant to respond.
Speaker 2: You still have time. The polls close in about six
Speaker 2: hours and then I'm going to wrap it up tonight
Speaker 2: with a whole the votes.
Speaker 1: You got to stuff the ballot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's a tight race for organization of the years.
Speaker 2: So the folks that the RNA and Augusta National are
Speaker 2: probably will be closely monitoring that vote.
Speaker 1: I thought your PTA tour is not winning.
Speaker 2: They were not an option on organization of the Uh
Speaker 2: you should.
Speaker 1: You should have put it in there just for fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Fay garnered any posts about.
Speaker 2: So what do you got?
Speaker 4: It was a similar similar order. I think, like I said,
Speaker 4: like you said, who knows what the networks will do?
Speaker 4: Who knows how much you know evangelizing will be able
Speaker 4: to or accessibility of viewing will be able to be
Speaker 4: consumed next year September. But I think that that's kind
Speaker 4: of a similar order. Port Rush, certainly for me having
Speaker 4: gone there in the intervening year as well, is very
Speaker 4: very high on the list. And you know we got
Speaker 4: a senior open.
Speaker 5: I know PJ.
Speaker 4: That will be a note of him at Sunningdale that
Speaker 4: the Senior Open is going to sunning Timers kind of
Speaker 4: s PJ to signing. Yeah, we could send them to
Speaker 4: just Firestone maybe for the call It Company.
Speaker 2: Do you think do you think we could get Sunningdale
Speaker 2: to have a h a life or a dinosaur sized
Speaker 2: UH inflatable? Do you think do you think we could
Speaker 2: get that? Really it really fits with sunning Dale's.
Speaker 4: Well there, yeah, yeah, I still can't believe.
Speaker 2: My favorite thing about that's still I think it's the
Speaker 2: most unbelievable thing I saw all year. But they actually anyway,
Speaker 2: it's just unbelievable.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing about PJ is on these he can't
Speaker 1: talk on these. Well, you see him.
Speaker 2: We've entertained him at least you see him.
Speaker 1: You see him just kind of spacing out. And then
Speaker 1: anytime the champion stur gets brought up, it's just like
Speaker 1: he's like, uh, he just perks up, he sits up
Speaker 1: in his chair. I think I've been a very similar sentiment.
Speaker 1: I will, just for for difference in Penny, I'll say
Speaker 1: that the port Rush will be mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess it's gonna be interesting, but kind of sad,
Speaker 2: I think, because you know, I've got some reports and
Speaker 2: it's pretty significant trees, tree loss and in ways that
Speaker 2: aren't great. So well, we'll see, but it's gonna be interesting,
Speaker 2: but it's not one that's fun to talk about. I think.
Speaker 2: More interesting on the fun way is like what are
Speaker 2: guys going to do at Oakmont? Because to our earlier conversation,
Speaker 2: it is it is, you know, we talk about architecture.
Speaker 2: The one thing that blows my mind with players today
Speaker 2: is the stuff that they come up with on trying
Speaker 2: to come to play an alternate route on a hole
Speaker 2: and stuff I would just never think of and see
Speaker 2: and go, are you kidding? Like number nine at Augusta
Speaker 2: playing down one, like the launch angle to get that
Speaker 2: t shot over the tree. Anyway, how they come up
Speaker 2: with some of that stuff, and Oakmont is just going
Speaker 2: to be it's gonna be dreamy for them to figure
Speaker 2: out how they could just not play down the hole
Speaker 2: they're supposed to.
Speaker 1: Be lots of into you know, in course out of bounds.
Speaker 5: It could happen.
Speaker 4: That could be one I might throw a six man
Speaker 4: six man vote in for just an extra one maybe
Speaker 4: for the Wells Fargo moving up to Philly cricket, see
Speaker 4: what the big boys can do there too as well,
Speaker 4: like they might at Oakmond, all through Pennsylvania bash it
Speaker 4: around some of those older courses.
Speaker 5: So six man option for next year.
Speaker 1: It could be some interesting weather in May there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you could set ups.
Speaker 1: That's whether. It's always a key ingredient to memorable golf.
Speaker 1: All right, that does it? Thank you, Jeff. Everybody go
Speaker 1: check out the quadrilateral, like like we just talked about.
Speaker 1: You know, your voice is heard there. It is uh
Speaker 1: you know, it goes straight to Jeff's email, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's a great holiday gift and I'm sure he
Speaker 1: loves all the responses. So thank you Jeff for coming on,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you in the new year.
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks guys, good chatting with you.
Speaker 1: All Right, that does it for the last episode of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Thank you all for listening, Thank you
Speaker 1: all for another great year. We will be back next year.
Speaker 1: As I said at the top, I hope everybody has
Speaker 1: a great holiday season. Big thanks to PJ Clark for
Speaker 1: editing and producing this podcast. We did a lot of
Speaker 1: pods there at the end of the year, and between
Speaker 1: the Shotguns Start and this, Pj's done a wonderful job
Speaker 1: putting them all together. Big thanks to PJ. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be back in twenty twenty five. Thank you guys.
Speaker 1: Have a great holidays.