Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a.
Speaker 3: Brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida, egg
Speaker 3: Frida egg egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm.
Speaker 2: About ready to run off of the hump.
Speaker 1: And Joseph on Sunday morning, May twenty first, you tweeted
Speaker 1: and I quote brings me no joy to report that
Speaker 1: the media pendulum has swung way too far on Michael Block,
Speaker 1: hoping the broadcast focuses on players with a legitimate chance
Speaker 1: of winning. Less than six hours later, Michael Block made
Speaker 1: a hole in one on the par three fifteenth hole
Speaker 1: at the PGA Championship. Joseph, will you apologize.
Speaker 3: You're starting this episode by turning the people against me.
Speaker 3: This is a tough jumping off point, the hill that
Speaker 3: I have to die on. But Garrett, when he made
Speaker 3: that hole in one, was that to.
Speaker 1: Win to win our hearts?
Speaker 2: Clearly.
Speaker 3: I mean, if if you're reading any social media or
Speaker 3: listening to the broadcast, it's one of the greatest shots
Speaker 3: in the history of golf, and it couldn't have happened
Speaker 3: to a more deserving individual. I mean, I was expecting
Speaker 3: them to say something like, Michael Blocks the type of
Speaker 3: guy that I want to marry my daughter. That was
Speaker 3: the level that we were at on Sunday. And to
Speaker 3: be honest, if there were enough cameras around, he'd probably
Speaker 3: think about doing it.
Speaker 1: My goodness, I really have turned the people against you
Speaker 1: already in this episode. I didn't realize that your hatred
Speaker 1: went this deep. I thought that you were going to
Speaker 1: take this opportunity to back off, apologize and just let
Speaker 1: people enjoy it. But no, that doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: the case.
Speaker 3: Look, it's not really a Michael Block take, though he's
Speaker 3: very camera aware. This is more about how the runs
Speaker 3: every good story into the ground and just beats it
Speaker 3: over and over again until we're sick of it. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know a little little cynical here. So I apologize
Speaker 3: to people if they're already you know, turned against me now,
Speaker 3: but I do stand behind that. I think it was
Speaker 3: a little much.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to admit I have to come clean
Speaker 1: in the company slack on Saturday, maybe it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was Saturday. It was Saturday. So there were some
Speaker 1: things going on on the golf course that were significant.
Speaker 1: When the broadcast went back to another walk and talk
Speaker 1: interview with Michael Block on the fourteenth hole, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I've had enough. I think this is enough.
Speaker 1: He seems like a really nice guy, and this is
Speaker 1: a great story. It really is a uniquely PGA championship story.
Speaker 1: It's it's the thing that can happen at this major
Speaker 1: that can't happen at any other major. But they they
Speaker 1: really seized it. You could see the media apparatus kind
Speaker 1: of starting to gather momentum, and man, when he made
Speaker 1: that hole in one on fifteen, it extended the story
Speaker 1: a few beats longer than I thought it would, and
Speaker 1: it seemed to justify the focus on him earlier in
Speaker 1: the week. And so it's a tough hill to die
Speaker 1: on right now. But I think that when we get
Speaker 1: four weeks from now and he's getting more and more
Speaker 1: exemptions into PGA Tour events, that there are going to
Speaker 1: be probably more people starting to side with you. But
Speaker 1: we'll see. It was a lovely, lovely moment on the
Speaker 1: fifteenth t I think even you would have to, I
Speaker 1: would have to admit that it was cool.
Speaker 3: It was cool, right we're more on the Like I
Speaker 3: texted Andy and Brennan, He's going to start getting sponsors exemptions,
Speaker 3: and then he started getting sponsors exemptions like that. That
Speaker 3: is the part that it was a little bit much
Speaker 3: about the story. It's not really a Michael Block thing.
Speaker 1: All Right. You're listening to the Frida Egg Podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Garrett Morrison. That is Joseph Lamannia, and today we are
Speaker 1: discussing takeaways from the twenty twenty three PGA Championship at
Speaker 1: Oak Hill. We're going to talk about the winner, Brooks Kopka,
Speaker 1: as well as the two other players who had a
Speaker 1: chance to win, Victor Hovlin and Scottie Scheffler. We're also
Speaker 1: going to give our final thoughts on the venue at
Speaker 1: Oak Hill Country Club. So let's start with Koepka. What
Speaker 1: was his edge this week?
Speaker 3: I'm so impressed with Brooks Koepka, Like I think of
Speaker 3: any golfer that I've been trying to predict in my life,
Speaker 3: he's the one I've gotten wrong the most. I finally
Speaker 3: maybe got wise to it in twenty twenty three, where
Speaker 3: I've just been high brooks Kopka because I've learned my
Speaker 3: lesson in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Brooks is
Speaker 3: so tactical, surgical with his iron play, powerful player, disciplined.
Speaker 3: He's a gamer and he shows up like he just
Speaker 3: knows when he's going into the round what he's about
Speaker 3: to do. And there's something pretty mesmerizing about watching him
Speaker 3: pick a part of golf course. I know this is
Speaker 3: a point that's been emphasized probably on the Frida Egg Pod,
Speaker 3: definitely on the Shotgun Start pod. Like when a golfer
Speaker 3: makes something look really boring, that's about as high of
Speaker 3: a compliment as you can pay a golfer.
Speaker 2: And Brooks does that. He's just surgical.
Speaker 1: What do you think his key shot was in the
Speaker 1: final round?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean I think was it just.
Speaker 1: An accumulation, because that's what it is with Brooks kept gut,
Speaker 1: he doesn't it's not like he does things that are
Speaker 1: like super spectacular.
Speaker 3: I think probably a couple moments. One that sticks out
Speaker 3: to me was saving bogie on number six. So after
Speaker 3: hitting that drive out right into the creek that the
Speaker 3: wheels could have come off there maybe a little bit,
Speaker 3: and it's just very Brooks to not let that happen.
Speaker 3: I think the other moment for me was stuffing the
Speaker 3: wedge on two, just kind of making it clear from
Speaker 3: the beginning that he was dialed in. And obviously the
Speaker 3: Masters didn't quite go his way. He didn't bring anything
Speaker 3: in the final round, and I think starting off on
Speaker 3: a good foot this past Sunday stuff in that wedgend
Speaker 3: on two and making birdie kind of set the tone
Speaker 3: pretty early.
Speaker 1: People would point to the bunker shot from the Friday
Speaker 1: lie on eleven. There is some argument as to whether
Speaker 1: it was really that hard of a shot, and he, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he ended up making bogie. In any case,
Speaker 1: it's not like he he got it within inches, but
Speaker 1: you know, that was certainly a moment that people were
Speaker 1: impressed with. I also wrote down the bogie save on
Speaker 1: number six. So he pushed his drive into Allen's Creek
Speaker 1: and ended up taking a drop on the other side
Speaker 1: of Allen's Creek from the green, and there's a tree
Speaker 1: blocking the green from that angle. So he was hitting
Speaker 1: out of pretty thick rough. It wasn't like super trampled
Speaker 1: down rough or anything. He was he was dropping his
Speaker 1: ball in legitimate Oak Hill PGA Championship rough and hitting
Speaker 1: a mid to long iron out of it over a
Speaker 1: tree from a bad angle, and he hit it to
Speaker 1: twenty five feet thirty feet or so it was.
Speaker 2: It was forty five feet. I just pulled up the trail, but.
Speaker 1: It was past the hole. It landed just in the
Speaker 1: right spot. And because he couldn't get any spin on
Speaker 1: the shot, obviously, and so it ran well past the hole.
Speaker 1: But that's within sort of the circle of lag putting
Speaker 1: friendship for Brooks Kopka. You know he's going to two
Speaker 1: putt from there. And that shot was just unbelievable. That's
Speaker 1: such a hard shot.
Speaker 2: Crazy shot.
Speaker 3: And if I remember correctly, when he hit it, he
Speaker 3: was like sit down a little bit, and it was
Speaker 3: forty five feet long. Like yeah, he's so dialed that
Speaker 3: he knew exactly where that ball was going. He's so
Speaker 3: much control over his irons, Like Brooks Kepka is a
Speaker 3: generational ball striker.
Speaker 1: Do you have any Do you have any predictions? It's
Speaker 1: tricky with Brooks because obviously his his body is an issue.
Speaker 1: We forget that because he looks healthy right now. But
Speaker 1: a guy who has had knee pro problems, leg problems
Speaker 1: in the past is probably going to have them in
Speaker 1: the future, Do you see him reeling off multiple more majors?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think three more is pretty conceivable.
Speaker 3: He's thirty three, let's say another six years of really
Speaker 3: strong golf and picking off one every other year seems
Speaker 3: quite reasonable to me. So Fienz's career at eight or
Speaker 3: nine majors, I would not be surprised at the same time, right,
Speaker 3: we know how golf is. If he never wins one again,
Speaker 3: it shouldn't surprise anybody like that happens all the time.
Speaker 3: So I think eight majors is very well within reach.
Speaker 1: Eight majors I'm looking this up right now, would put
Speaker 1: Brooks in the league of Tom Watson, Gary Player and
Speaker 1: Ben Hogan are at nine. That's the kind of rarefied
Speaker 1: company the Brooks Kepka seems to be headed toward. And
Speaker 1: you know what makes him such a difficult player to
Speaker 1: understand and is that his form in regular events, which
Speaker 1: are for him live golf events, really doesn't mean anything
Speaker 1: when it comes to predicting how he's going to do
Speaker 1: in a major, because he is so outrageously better in
Speaker 1: major championships than he is in regular events.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's why I've gotten Brooks so wrong
Speaker 3: in like twenty seventeen twenty eighteen era, because I didn't
Speaker 3: really necessarily believe in players like that who can just
Speaker 3: turn it on in majors and show nothing leading up
Speaker 3: to it. But I actually think he probably gets bored
Speaker 3: with some of the standard PGA Tour setups now live setups,
Speaker 3: and when he gets to a major, he actually wants
Speaker 3: to turn it on. He knows people are watching. He
Speaker 3: likes going to other sporting events, right, he likes going
Speaker 3: to big NBA games, like I think he likes the
Speaker 3: feeling of being a big game hunter, and at some
Speaker 3: point it becomes hard to deny that that's what's happening.
Speaker 3: So I think that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's what it is? That it's really
Speaker 1: that kind of romantic narrative of the guy who can
Speaker 1: step up in big moments. Is there another explanation that
Speaker 1: we can look for for his sort of out performance
Speaker 1: in the four majors.
Speaker 3: I think it's a couple things. I think major championship
Speaker 3: setups allow him to hit more demanding shots that separate
Speaker 3: himself more from some of the other players who, I mean,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna tpc's summer lends not really giving you
Speaker 3: the same opportunities to step up and hit some of
Speaker 3: these pure iron shots, and it doesn't demand the same
Speaker 3: quality of play. I also think those events probably get
Speaker 3: a little bit boring for Brooks, Like, why am I here?
Speaker 3: What does a win mean versus a major championship? We
Speaker 3: all know what that means. So it's not unique to Brooks, right,
Speaker 3: Tigers talked about only carrying, only caring about major championship trophies.
Speaker 3: I just think we're in a championship oriented mindset, especially
Speaker 3: true for Brooks, not true for everybody, but I think
Speaker 3: it's true for a lot of fans.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but you know, Tiger played really well in
Speaker 1: regular PGA Tour events, so much so that he won
Speaker 1: the most of them ever, aside from Sam Snead, who's
Speaker 1: a lot of whose wins or maybe not ones that
Speaker 1: we should necessarily count as full PGA Tour events. But
Speaker 1: I don't want to open up that can of worms.
Speaker 1: Tiger was great no matter what the event was. His
Speaker 1: competitiveness wasn't selective. It seemed to kick in whenever he
Speaker 1: was playing a golf event, whether it was a major
Speaker 1: or you know, I would imagine he was incredibly competitive
Speaker 1: in normal money games that he played at Medallist or whatever.
Speaker 1: Brooks seems to have a competitiveness that is selective or
Speaker 1: a focus that is selective, and he summons it at
Speaker 1: these four majors. Now, I think I would also point
Speaker 1: out that his five majors have all come at the
Speaker 1: PGA Championship in the US Open, and those tournaments, especially recently,
Speaker 1: have had pretty similar setups. Shinnecock Hills, Aaron Hills. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know those were as US Opens. Those were maybe
Speaker 1: not typical US Open setups, and so maybe this take
Speaker 1: isn't as ironclads as I wish it were. But the
Speaker 1: fact that he has won only PGA Championships in US Opens,
Speaker 1: do you think that's significant and do you think that
Speaker 1: tells us something about those tournaments?
Speaker 3: Honestly, no, because I'm a huge core setup person. But
Speaker 3: Brooks had a very good chance of winning the twenty
Speaker 3: nineteen Masters, he had a very good chance of winning
Speaker 3: the twenty twenty three Masters. Yep, he's won at Scottsdale.
Speaker 3: A little bit of a different test, pretty significant iron test.
Speaker 3: He actually can't really spray it out there. You could
Speaker 3: spray it at Okill, so Brooks has shown that he
Speaker 3: can do it on a variety of courses. Open championships,
Speaker 3: you got to be on the right side of a
Speaker 3: draw often, like there's just a little more variants involved,
Speaker 3: and that's maybe a little bit of a different style.
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't be surprised if Brooks is in contention
Speaker 3: at an Open Championship either. So for some players, I agree,
Speaker 3: and maybe we'll touch on this a little bit with
Speaker 3: somebody like Rory, But I think Rory's best chances are
Speaker 3: going to be setups like this at o'kill. I don't
Speaker 3: feel that as much that way about somebody like Brooks.
Speaker 1: Koepka, Why do you feel that way about Rory?
Speaker 3: Rory really does spray the golf ball with driver, and
Speaker 3: a setup like this really allows him to free wheel
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 1: Off of the tee.
Speaker 2: Sure, I don't want to jump too far ahead.
Speaker 3: Maybe we're getting into Oakhill in a little bit, But
Speaker 3: at oak Hill you could have wide misses and the
Speaker 3: fairways were so narrow that very rarely were you actually
Speaker 3: hitting the fairway. So it just allows you to bomb.
Speaker 3: As long as you're not blocking yourself out with trees,
Speaker 3: you're kind of just ripping driver. At Augusta, you can't
Speaker 3: do that. Like if you flare one way out right,
Speaker 3: you're getting deeper and deeper into the trees. Gets a
Speaker 3: little more tricky to save par Bogie Oak Hill was
Speaker 3: a free wheel. See Bryson doing well, you see Rory
Speaker 3: doing well. I think Bryson and Rory will tend to
Speaker 3: do well at similar majors over the next couple of years.
Speaker 3: The Tory Pines type setups where again you have a
Speaker 3: lot of room off the tee and you don't have
Speaker 3: like these penalty hazards lining the fairways with the exception
Speaker 3: of whole six and sort of seven. It just allows
Speaker 3: you to be much more aggressive off of the tea,
Speaker 3: get a little more creative. I think dog legs right
Speaker 3: like holes four, seventeen and eighteen. Those set up really
Speaker 3: well for players like Rory and Bryson. So I don't
Speaker 3: expect Rory to have a ton of success at Augusta LACC.
Speaker 3: I think he's got some course management issues and some
Speaker 3: shot selection issues that he's got to work through. Otherwise
Speaker 3: he'd be right there. But Brooks doesn't. I don't have
Speaker 3: that concern as much.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into that a little bit with Rory.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to jump quickly to Victor Hovelin
Speaker 1: and Scotti Scheffler, who were truly in contention where Rory wasn't.
Speaker 1: But what were Rory's issues with Corseman and shot selection
Speaker 1: this week, especially when you compare him to somebody who
Speaker 1: was playing like Brooks Kopka did.
Speaker 2: Look.
Speaker 3: People give a lot of different explanations for Rory. Maybe
Speaker 3: he's not mentally in it. Whatever, I'm gonna stay consistent,
Speaker 3: have the same conversation we had in twenty twenty two
Speaker 3: after the Open Championship. I think ninety plus percent of
Speaker 3: Rory's issues are shot selection. People are going to focus
Speaker 3: a lot on the layup iron shot on seven off
Speaker 3: the tea that went into the water. That was not good, right,
Speaker 3: That's reflective of some course management issues a little bit.
Speaker 3: But I take much more issue with the web shot
Speaker 3: on whole two on Sunday, where he's got like one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty yards from the middle of the fairway,
Speaker 3: tries to peel this little like sweepy fade into the
Speaker 3: front right location short sides himself, has no chance, doesn't
Speaker 3: really have that doesn't have a great look at par
Speaker 3: makes bogie. Other players make birdies there. If you watch
Speaker 3: what Brooks, Keopka did there, what Victor Hoveland did, Scotti, Scheffler,
Speaker 3: they're not hitting these sweepy fades where they're trying to
Speaker 3: get it right next to the hole.
Speaker 2: They're aiming a.
Speaker 3: Little bit left, hitting their stock fade in there, and
Speaker 3: if it goes a little right and gets close to
Speaker 3: the whole, excellent. But this is the same conversation that
Speaker 3: we had I remember talking about at St.
Speaker 2: Andrews.
Speaker 3: I think this is Friday Round part three eleven. At
Speaker 3: Saint Andrews. He tried to hit Rory tried to hit
Speaker 3: this massive draw from about like one hundred and eighty yards,
Speaker 3: started at like thirty yards right of the flag, ends
Speaker 3: up flaring it out right, making bogie. So people can
Speaker 3: talk about like strokes gained approach, strokes gained putting there,
Speaker 3: but there's some strokes gained shot selection. And I think
Speaker 3: that's what my biggest issue is. It always is with
Speaker 3: Rory is just being a little bit too clever, trying
Speaker 3: to strive for perfection too much, whereas other players like Scheffler, Hoveland, Kepka,
Speaker 3: they're taking those stock shots into conservative targets, and if
Speaker 3: it already did that, I'm very confident he'd start hoisting
Speaker 3: some major championship trophies.
Speaker 1: That shot on the second hole killed me. I mean,
Speaker 1: he had just birdied one, stuck at two inches on
Speaker 1: his approach seemed to, you know, have that feeling of
Speaker 1: making a charge. Now, I'm not sure that he ever
Speaker 1: could have gotten to minus nine. You know, he started
Speaker 1: the day at minus one, I believe, and got to
Speaker 1: two with that birdy at one. But as soon as
Speaker 1: he you know, from the middle of the fairway after
Speaker 1: a perfect t shot on two, short sighted himself to
Speaker 1: that pin. I was like, this is this is not happening.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't seem like he has the right mentality. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a possibility that he was aiming at the
Speaker 1: fat side of the green and just hit an incredible push.
Speaker 1: I don't want to assume that I know what he
Speaker 1: intended to do there, but it just seems really unlikely.
Speaker 1: I think that or right, that he was trying to
Speaker 1: feed a cute little fade into that front right pin
Speaker 1: and he just pushed it five ten yards and short
Speaker 1: sighted himself, And it was a shot that he should
Speaker 1: not have attempted, and that kind of stuff is really
Speaker 1: frustrating with Rory because this is an extremely intelligent individual
Speaker 1: and such a talented golfer, but he does seem to
Speaker 1: have a little bit of a weakness when it comes
Speaker 1: to shot selection in big moments where it's clear that
Speaker 1: his mentality is win or go home. I'm going to
Speaker 1: attack pins and if I miss then it wasn't meant
Speaker 1: to be. But I think that he probably could back
Speaker 1: into a few more wins than he does.
Speaker 3: Definitely, And for a little context here that when he
Speaker 3: went into the creak on number seven off of the tea,
Speaker 3: ends up making bogie there, loses about a half of
Speaker 3: a shot to the field, and not many guys are
Speaker 3: making birdies there. It's a mistake demanding tricky t shot.
Speaker 3: I kind of write that off as a little bit fluky,
Speaker 3: still not good. But when you make boge on number two,
Speaker 3: you're giving up over a shot to the field. You're
Speaker 3: giving two shots up to the leaders who all made
Speaker 3: birdie there. So that's a costly one. And I think
Speaker 3: the misconception with some of this conservative conservatism, like be
Speaker 3: conservative on your targets, is that.
Speaker 2: People who like me are arguing that you will.
Speaker 3: It. I think people think you won't make as many
Speaker 3: birdies that way, but that's actually not true. You're gonna
Speaker 3: stumble into a lot of birdies that way. So it's
Speaker 3: not true that once you're down and you're chasing, you
Speaker 3: need to start attacking all of the pins. You can
Speaker 3: be conservative on your approach targets and you're still gonna
Speaker 3: make a lot of birdies and you're gonna avoid all
Speaker 3: those sloppy bogies. So if I'm positive positive, if Rory
Speaker 3: adopted a little bit more of a modern philosophy around
Speaker 3: course management and shot selection, he'd be hanging with the
Speaker 3: guys that are beating him consistently. It's not a talent issue.
Speaker 3: It's a mindset like it is a course management shot
Speaker 3: selection issue.
Speaker 1: All right, let's touch on Hoveland and Scheffler, maybe just
Speaker 1: a quick takeaway for each. So Hobland, he was part
Speaker 1: of the main story of Sunday for most of the day.
Speaker 1: The story was the duel between Kopka and Hoveland. Then
Speaker 1: the sixteenth hole came around and Hoveland got into an
Speaker 1: issue with the fairway bunker there double bogied that hole.
Speaker 1: When Koepka burdied it, ended up losing by two, but
Speaker 1: he hung in there for a while on Sunday. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the same sort of fading away act that he
Speaker 1: did at Saint Andrews where he just wasn't a factor.
Speaker 1: He was a factor. And so what's your main takeaway
Speaker 1: for Hobland this week? Positive or negative?
Speaker 3: Very positive? I follow Victor Hobland pretty closely. I'm pretty
Speaker 3: he and Scotti Scheffler tend to play some of the
Speaker 3: best course management, have the best approach to their games,
Speaker 3: so I always watch their targets and how they play
Speaker 3: golf courses very closely. I think with Victor Hovelin what
Speaker 3: I've noticed this year, the ball striking has been incredible
Speaker 3: like it normally is, and the challenges have been on
Speaker 3: these tight line chips. So at Augusta really this this year.
Speaker 3: The firmest day was Sunday, and there were a couple
Speaker 3: of short game shots where Victor just can't clip it
Speaker 3: and spin it like some of the other players and
Speaker 3: have as much control versus somebody like Scottie Scheffler. So
Speaker 3: the thick rough kind of protected Victor from some of
Speaker 3: those touchy short game shots.
Speaker 1: It's a different technique, it's it's a hack, and we
Speaker 1: saw him hit a couple of really good ones on
Speaker 1: Sunday with that tech.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I also give him credit. His sand game
Speaker 3: was much better than I expected it to be. He
Speaker 3: hit some brilliant bunker shots from around.
Speaker 1: The gad Yeah, some hop hop stop kind of bunker
Speaker 1: shots for sure.
Speaker 3: About he hit a couple of the best short game
Speaker 3: shots of anyone I saw this week, and I was
Speaker 3: watching a lot of the tournaments. So I think for
Speaker 3: Victor Hovland, he's gonna have a lot of major championships success.
Speaker 3: It's just gonna be a matter of can he even
Speaker 3: contend in some of the setups. They're gonna demand some
Speaker 3: of those tricky short game shots off tight lines like
Speaker 3: Lacc and Augusta when.
Speaker 2: It's not soft.
Speaker 3: But incredibly impressed with him, like he's he's such a
Speaker 3: good player, he's a top ten player in the world,
Speaker 3: and he's a gamer like he's now shown up for
Speaker 3: the last three majors. We'll see what his major championship
Speaker 3: career ends up looking like. I have some concerns about
Speaker 3: the short game, but overall very impressed he hung in there.
Speaker 3: I don't think the shot on sixteen was a mental error,
Speaker 3: like at that point he's trying to win, probably caught
Speaker 3: it at a little bit thin three holes to go,
Speaker 3: like he hung in there and then stepped up in
Speaker 3: birdie eighteen to get into a tie for second. So
Speaker 3: very impressed with Victor Scotti. Scheffler shot sixty five on
Speaker 3: Sunday to get to T two. What's your takeaway from
Speaker 3: his week? I mean, it's it was just kind of
Speaker 3: a weird week for him.
Speaker 2: With Scotty, I just expect him to play well everywhere.
Speaker 2: I really do.
Speaker 3: He's got one of the best approaches mentally to the sport.
Speaker 3: Hits it long off of the tee, has a game plan,
Speaker 3: has a world class short game, good iron player that
Speaker 3: the question marks always the putter. He didn't make anything
Speaker 3: over fifteen feet this week and was still in it.
Speaker 3: He hasn't finished worse than twelfth this year. He's been
Speaker 3: dominant in major championships, did well in the Ryder Cup. Like,
Speaker 3: you just need to expect Scotty Scheffler to play well
Speaker 3: everywhere for now, and it's incredibly impressive, Like who are you?
Speaker 3: There aren't many golfers you're taking ahead of Scotty Chefler.
Speaker 3: I'd probably make him the favorite at LACC. It'd be
Speaker 3: between him, Rom and Brooks. Frankly, Scotty's incredible. Like there's
Speaker 3: not a whole lot to say about Scotty, which I
Speaker 3: think is a testament to how good of a golfer
Speaker 3: he is. There aren't these glaring weaknesses. And he was
Speaker 3: talking about whole six, which we've already talked about. The
Speaker 3: got a creak down the side, really hard hole, played
Speaker 3: almost strokeover par a couple of the rounds. Scotty talked
Speaker 3: about that hole, and he's like, yep, the target is
Speaker 3: just a little left of the center of the fairway,
Speaker 3: just kind of a little bit right of the left
Speaker 3: edge of the fairway. He's so tactical, he's got the
Speaker 3: game plan, he's got the modern strategy. Not somebody you
Speaker 3: want to be betting against much for the rest.
Speaker 1: Of his career. The putting was sort of the story
Speaker 1: this week with him. He did make one. I looked
Speaker 1: at this, he did make one putt over fifteen feet
Speaker 1: and it was a fifteen foot nine inch putt on
Speaker 1: eighteen on Sunday, his seventy second hole, he made his
Speaker 1: longest putt of the week, which was fifteen feet nine
Speaker 1: inches for a birdie and no. You know, he made
Speaker 1: a couple of like fourteen thirteen foot range putts over
Speaker 1: the course of the week, but no bombs, and so
Speaker 1: the putts weren't falling from long range lipouts, which he
Speaker 1: was talking about after the round. I lipped out a
Speaker 1: couple of putts that I thought were going to go
Speaker 1: in on the ninth hole. There was another one earlier
Speaker 1: in the round, and so he was a little frustrated
Speaker 1: with that. But I wonder with Scotty, considering how solid
Speaker 1: his total game is. I wonder if he's going to
Speaker 1: start to get in a place where he can win
Speaker 1: majors while putting at a fairly mediocre level. You know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't bad this week on the greens. He wasn't
Speaker 1: like one of the worst putters in the field. He
Speaker 1: was thirty fifth strokes gained. But he had that nine
Speaker 1: holes on Saturday, the front nine, he was four over.
Speaker 1: He just had a bad nine holes, and I think
Speaker 1: that that was the tournament there for him. So I
Speaker 1: wonder if he's going to get to a place where
Speaker 1: he can start taking down majors without having some of
Speaker 1: those longer putts go in.
Speaker 3: I don't think Scotty necessarily has like this jump that
Speaker 3: he has to make. In twenty twenty two, Scotty was
Speaker 3: incredible the first half of the year, not as good
Speaker 3: as second half of the year, and it was basically
Speaker 3: all his putter, So he might be subject to a
Speaker 3: little bit of a streaky putter who isn't right. I mean,
Speaker 3: Jordan Speith was the best putter in the world for
Speaker 3: a couple of years and then had this massive downswing
Speaker 3: like that happens, Putting comes and goes. But I will
Speaker 3: take Scotty Scheffler. I would take him against anybody at
Speaker 3: LACC and a lot of golf courses like that. So yeah,
Speaker 3: extremely high on Scheffler. You're You're right, Like the putter
Speaker 3: wasn't exceptional this past week and he still had a
Speaker 3: chance to win. The same thing happened at Augusta. He
Speaker 3: couldn't make a putt this year and he still finished
Speaker 3: what was he t?
Speaker 2: Seven?
Speaker 1: So looking forward to LACC, you know you mentioned Scotty
Speaker 1: Brooks and who else? M rom those are those are
Speaker 1: you guys going into that week? Anybody else anywhere near
Speaker 1: the level of those three? For LACC specifically, I.
Speaker 3: Think Xander Schaffey belongs in that conversation. I think Patrick
Speaker 3: Cantley long as in that conversation. I know that people
Speaker 3: will roll their eyes like Sander never gets it done,
Speaker 3: like just don't don't count either of those golfers out
Speaker 3: at LACC. So those would be my I wouldn't, Frank,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't put Rory in there for some of the
Speaker 3: reasons I've already kind of alluded to have some concerns
Speaker 3: about some of the shots selection, which can come back
Speaker 3: to by you if you shortside yourself in some of
Speaker 3: these locations at LACC. But more than that, it's the
Speaker 3: way that that golf course will penalize some arrant t
Speaker 3: shots kind of around the perimeters of your dispersion pattern,
Speaker 3: So there are some holes out there you can't really
Speaker 3: spray it, and I think Rory will feel a little
Speaker 3: constrained by that.
Speaker 1: Okay, a couple of players who played decently this week
Speaker 1: and maybe didn't get an awful lot of coverage. Cameron
Speaker 1: Smith was T. Nine. He had a great last day
Speaker 1: and that's why he was T. Nine, but he's still
Speaker 1: there in the top ten. Patrick can't Lay, whom he
Speaker 1: mentioned T nine, and xanderschoffle a T eighteen, you know,
Speaker 1: not a mile away. So a lot of these players
Speaker 1: are playing pretty well. Patrick Reid is also kind of lurking,
Speaker 1: and somebody that I don't know might be pretty effective
Speaker 1: at LACC. We'll see. You know, We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of guys sort of in that tier that doesn't get
Speaker 1: a lot of attention on the telecast, but obviously elite
Speaker 1: players and could round into form in time for LACC.
Speaker 3: It's interesting you brought up Patrick Reid because I was
Speaker 3: really impressed with what I saw from him this past
Speaker 3: week on a golf course that I didn't expect to
Speaker 3: sarticularly well, and he also finished top ten at AUGUSTA.
Speaker 3: I would not be surprised to see him in the
Speaker 3: mix at LACC, which is kind of Augusta like.
Speaker 2: Same with Cameron Smith.
Speaker 3: So if you're interested in seeing those characters at the
Speaker 3: highest level, I think LACC is going to be an
Speaker 3: opportunity for both of them to thrive. I will not
Speaker 3: say the same of Bryson for the same reasons as Rory.
Speaker 3: If Bryson makes that cut, i'd be surprised.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, some things to look forward to, for sure.
Speaker 1: All right. Let's take a quick break here, Joseph, and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we'll talk about what we made
Speaker 1: of Oak Hill this past week. This episode of the
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Speaker 1: All right, Joseph, let's talk about the venue Okill Country Club.
Speaker 1: We discussed it pretty in depth in the run up
Speaker 1: to the PGA Championship, but now we've actually seen the
Speaker 1: course in action. So first of all, what were some
Speaker 1: of the positives that you took away from Okill this week?
Speaker 1: Let's start there because I know that there are some
Speaker 1: critiques and we'll get to those. But what did you like?
Speaker 3: I thought the approach shots played interestingly. I apparent it
Speaker 3: was an episode of The Shotguns Start maybe where Andy
Speaker 3: and Brennan were talking about how a staple of Andrew
Speaker 3: Green's restorations is going to be He believes that you
Speaker 3: need to hit like a hybrid or a super long
Speaker 3: iron into at least one part three.
Speaker 2: I think they made some.
Speaker 3: Reference to that mindset, and so I thought whole eleven
Speaker 3: was really fun.
Speaker 1: To watch this past week.
Speaker 3: I liked the idea of a player having a hybrid
Speaker 3: in his hands, some kind of wood, or a long iron,
Speaker 3: so that was really refreshing to watch. Thought holes six
Speaker 3: and seven had a lot of character. I don't have
Speaker 3: a ton of positive things to say about many of
Speaker 3: the other holes, but I was impressed with I guess
Speaker 3: both the fact that the approach shots were demanding but
Speaker 3: you could hit the greens, and then short sighting yourself
Speaker 3: in some locations was a legitimate penalty. That was less
Speaker 3: true on the weekend once it got a little damp
Speaker 3: and saw. But I have some positive things to say.
Speaker 3: I guess one thing I'd tweeted, which I stand by
Speaker 3: is like, it's a pretty good version of a bad
Speaker 3: style of golf.
Speaker 2: Is how the way I feel about it when it
Speaker 2: was firm, yeah, and then once it got soft a
Speaker 2: little bit less? So what did you think?
Speaker 1: Well, I agree about the approach shots, and I think
Speaker 1: that the reason the approach shots were pretty interesting this
Speaker 1: week is because of the green expansions. These greens at
Speaker 1: Oak Hill had shrunk to circles, and there weren't the
Speaker 1: same kind of edge pin positions that would sort of
Speaker 1: float over hazards and be really close to runoffs and
Speaker 1: ledges and you know creaks in a couple of cases.
Speaker 1: And so I thought that the green expansions were incredibly successful.
Speaker 1: I think it's the most important thing that Andrew Green
Speaker 1: does consistently at his renovated and restored courses. You'll also
Speaker 1: see this at Inverness right, and so I was I
Speaker 1: was very encouraged by that. I thought that it proved
Speaker 1: that enlarging greens actually increases the challenge for major championship golf,
Speaker 1: which is a huge realization that so many clubs have
Speaker 1: come to recently, and more clubs need to come to.
Speaker 1: Finding these little fingers of the greens allows you to
Speaker 1: put pins in really hairy, challenging places. It rewards good
Speaker 1: ball striking, and it also gives you a little bit
Speaker 1: more green area for amateurs to work with. So it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that makes it more challenging for
Speaker 1: pros and less challenging for amateurs.
Speaker 3: I think it would be interesting to drill in on
Speaker 3: this somebody I haven't thought a ton about until this week.
Speaker 3: When you have super tucked pins, it's important to think
Speaker 3: about how that interacts with players' dominant strategies being conservative
Speaker 3: and playing away from those targets. And the more you
Speaker 3: tuck a pin and make short sighted locations even more difficult,
Speaker 3: the less players are going to attack them. So I
Speaker 3: think you had a dynamic this week where as long
Speaker 3: as you weren't blocked out by a tree, you were
Speaker 3: kind of fine in the rough. It was almost impossible to.
Speaker 2: Hit the fairway. But even if you did hit the fairway,
Speaker 2: or if you.
Speaker 3: Found the rough, no matter how wide it was, you
Speaker 3: weren't really attacking many of those pins. So it kind
Speaker 3: of led to a dynamic where everyone's playing into the
Speaker 3: same locations and you're just making a lot of pars.
Speaker 3: So I think that's one counterpoint sort of to consider
Speaker 3: with tucking pins. I'm all for the green expansion and
Speaker 3: having more interesting pins, but if you had more with
Speaker 3: and you could actually allow players to play from appropriate
Speaker 3: lies and have a good line in the fairway right
Speaker 3: bait them into taking on some of those tricky pins.
Speaker 3: But if everyone's playing from the rough, they're not going
Speaker 3: to attack any of those tucked pins.
Speaker 2: So it's something I.
Speaker 1: Agree that in order to find the full potential of
Speaker 1: these green expansions and these new interesting pin positions, you
Speaker 1: have to widen the fairways. And it's a major missing
Speaker 1: element because if you're going to have these neat little
Speaker 1: areas that you can put a pin that's so interesting,
Speaker 1: then you've got to allow players or tempt players to
Speaker 1: find an angle into them. Now, I would say that
Speaker 1: we just cited an example where a player did try
Speaker 1: to go at a tucked pin rory on the second
Speaker 1: hole on the last day, and so he was successfully
Speaker 1: baited into it. But I think you're right that in
Speaker 1: general players aren't going to be going after those pins necessarily.
Speaker 1: I think it's still interesting to have them, though, just
Speaker 1: to have them available.
Speaker 3: Important to note that was one of the softest days,
Speaker 3: and I agree. Look, I'm with you on I thought
Speaker 3: the green expansions were awesome. We just have to expand
Speaker 3: the playing corridors a little bit, and you need to
Speaker 3: have the opportunity to hit the fairway to actually realize
Speaker 3: the the to be able to appreciate the benefits of
Speaker 3: some of that green expansion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. A couple of other positives that I
Speaker 1: had were the bunker faces. You know, they're neat looking.
Speaker 1: I like them esthetically, and they also came into play
Speaker 1: consistently this week. They were pretty punishing. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that the bunkers were a terrible place to be
Speaker 1: this week, because you know, the sand is the same
Speaker 1: sand you see everywhere else, and the players know how
Speaker 1: to play out of it, and that's just the way
Speaker 1: it is. But we did see a little bit of
Speaker 1: complexity with those bunker faces on a few occasions where
Speaker 1: players got stuck on them or really had to get
Speaker 1: the ball up quickly, and so avoiding the bunkers was
Speaker 1: pretty important this week, at least more so than it
Speaker 1: would be at most PGA tour venues. So you know,
Speaker 1: I appreciated how those came into play a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Now obviously that some.
Speaker 3: Of the balls getting stopped in the steep grass faces
Speaker 3: of the bunkers, like Cameron Smith had a really tricky
Speaker 3: one on Saturday where it's like you're taking a baseball swing.
Speaker 3: That was a refreshing aesthetic and it's not something you
Speaker 3: see at every major Championshi venue.
Speaker 2: So I agree with you. I thought that was awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's an Andrew Green staple. And so the
Speaker 1: more we see Andrew Green renovations, the more I think
Speaker 1: we're going to see this style of bunker edge shaping
Speaker 1: as well as those hummocks. Right, I didn't see as
Speaker 1: much of those this week, and you know, maybe because
Speaker 1: they're just sort of few and far between. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to some of the critiques you've already indicated
Speaker 1: hinted at some of your dissatisfactions with the course. Let's
Speaker 1: start with the strategic question of why the misses versus
Speaker 1: slight misses and how Oak Hill might not really reward
Speaker 1: accuracy off the tee.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think maybe trying to estimate some of the
Speaker 3: numbers here. I haven't had a chance to generate some
Speaker 3: of the data, but to give people a little bit
Speaker 3: of an inside look at that and why it's obvious
Speaker 3: what you need to do here. So I can already
Speaker 3: tell you, like with near certainty, what that data is
Speaker 3: going to look like when I.
Speaker 2: Do generate it.
Speaker 3: I think a slightly off target miss will be penalized
Speaker 3: somewhere in the neighborhood of zero point three to five
Speaker 3: two point four shots off of a shot that was
Speaker 3: in the fairway, and a much wider miss will be
Speaker 3: like another eight hundredths of a shot, something very small.
Speaker 3: It's going to be almost identical if you just barely
Speaker 3: missed the fairway to if you were way off. And
Speaker 3: that's including all shots, regardless of whether you're blocked out
Speaker 3: by a tree. All shots just grouped together. So if
Speaker 3: you start to unpack that a little bit and understand, well,
Speaker 3: the fairways were nearly impossible to hit. Right if I'm
Speaker 3: a shot that's in the rough unimpeded by trees, probably
Speaker 3: a penalty of closer to two tenths of a shot
Speaker 3: versus one that found the fairway. And it's nearly impossible
Speaker 3: to hit the fairway. They were so bouncy, and you're coming.
Speaker 3: You're hitting a three hundred yard bullet. It's not gonna
Speaker 3: stop until it goes into the rough, So why ever
Speaker 3: pull three wood or an iron off of the tea.
Speaker 3: And that's even further accentuated on dog legs, where you're
Speaker 3: hitting a shot on an angle like Holds four seventeen
Speaker 3: and eighteen, where you basically have to land the ball
Speaker 3: in the rough and let it trickle onto the fairway.
Speaker 3: That was one of the only ways that those balls
Speaker 3: were staying in the fairways, especially on Thursday and Friday.
Speaker 3: So it just quickly becomes a dynamic of all right,
Speaker 3: if there's no penalty hazards out there, I can miss wide.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna take an extremely aggressive swing with driver,
Speaker 3: try to get it in the fairway. And if not,
Speaker 3: let's make sure I have an unimpeded look at the
Speaker 3: green that's not blocked out by trees. That was the
Speaker 3: dominant strategy, and that's why you see Bryson doing as
Speaker 3: well as he did. So does that does that make sense?
Speaker 3: Scartt some of the maybe some of the numbers behind it, and.
Speaker 1: Kind of want I mean, I definitely know what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I want you to explain one aspect of it, which
Speaker 1: is you talked about how players how the fairways were
Speaker 1: so firm that a driver would often just bounce through
Speaker 1: the fairway and not stop until it gets too rough
Speaker 1: because there's nothing to stop it. So why ever not
Speaker 1: hit driver? But somebody might argue, actually, if you hit
Speaker 1: a three iron or a three would maybe you'd have
Speaker 1: a better chance of stopping it in the fairway. So
Speaker 1: why is that not a legitimate strategy.
Speaker 3: In this case, because the fairways were so narrow and
Speaker 3: so firm that they were bouncing well into the air.
Speaker 3: I know, you guys put out the clip of Joel
Speaker 3: Damon's t shot on Thursday what stopping the golf ball,
Speaker 3: Like the rough was what was stopping the golf ball.
Speaker 3: So if you can hit a three iron, but you're
Speaker 3: gonna have to hit it like some kind of high
Speaker 3: fade or something that maybe lands soft enough on Thursday
Speaker 3: and Friday to stay in the fairway. If you don't
Speaker 3: execute that, now you've got a long shot to the
Speaker 3: green from the rough, and that's where it becomes a
Speaker 3: massive problem. If you're bright, Let's say you're Brooks and
Speaker 3: you've got would you rather have a six iron out
Speaker 3: of the rough into a firm green that might be
Speaker 3: elevated or would you rather have a nine iron?
Speaker 2: It makes a massive difference.
Speaker 3: So you just can't pick apart a golf course like
Speaker 3: that with irons and three woods off the tea. Sometimes
Speaker 3: the exception to that is if it gets much narrower
Speaker 3: where the driver is, but it's much wider back where
Speaker 3: the iron shot would end up, or the three wood,
Speaker 3: but that's not how this golf course was shaped. It
Speaker 3: was pretty much uniform with throughout, so particularly on the
Speaker 3: dog legs, it's just you got a bash driver.
Speaker 1: So the logic, as I understand it, is this, you're
Speaker 1: going to be in the rough a certain percentage of
Speaker 1: the time, no matter what, whether you had a three
Speaker 1: iron or a driver, so you might as well hit
Speaker 1: a driver. Furthermore, if you miss wide with a driver,
Speaker 1: you're often going to be in a place that's not
Speaker 1: any more punitive than missing the fairway slightly. Say you
Speaker 1: have a wide miss with a driver, that doesn't really
Speaker 1: hurt you so much at Oak Hill because those wide
Speaker 1: misses aren't that much worse than the narrow misses than
Speaker 1: a more accurate driver of the golf ball might have.
Speaker 1: And so if you're hitting three wood because you're trying
Speaker 1: to be more accurate, you're just sort of missing the
Speaker 1: point of the golf course. And so what is it
Speaker 1: about Oak Hill that makes wide misses not that big
Speaker 1: of a deal?
Speaker 3: The short answer is no penalties around the kind of
Speaker 3: the wide the outer bounds of your dispersion patterns.
Speaker 1: So yeah, compared to like a Florida golf course or
Speaker 1: a tpc sawgrass where you know, wide misses or out
Speaker 1: of bounds or in a marsh or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's gonna be some holes like that at
Speaker 3: Lacc where there's fescue and so maybe if you miss
Speaker 3: by a little bit, you're just in the rough, but
Speaker 3: if you miss wider, there's fescue there. Like there's sort
Speaker 3: of the gradients to the penalty that was not true
Speaker 3: at Oakill. I think another there are some subtle things
Speaker 3: to probably consider about a tree lined golf course with
Speaker 3: some sparse trees and not any additional features outside of
Speaker 3: those trees, Like whole six and seven are the counterpoints here.
Speaker 3: There's like the only holes at Okill that actually provided
Speaker 3: a little bit more of an accuracy test, but on
Speaker 3: most of the holes it's just tree lined. And I
Speaker 3: think there are a couple small things that also aren't
Speaker 3: talked about that matter. For example, if you have a
Speaker 3: tree in front of you, the aerial option becomes much
Speaker 3: more feasible. The less yarded you have in the more
Speaker 3: you can hoist the ball up right. Like if you
Speaker 3: have a tree, let's say twenty five yards ahead of you,
Speaker 3: you might be able to get a wedge over it.
Speaker 3: But you're not getting a seven iron over it. You're
Speaker 3: much less likely to get a seven iron over it.
Speaker 3: So there's just become fewer and fewer advantages to laying back,
Speaker 3: Like your driver might also fly over some trees, versus
Speaker 3: if you hit an iron three but a little bit
Speaker 3: off the mark, it might hit a tree and come
Speaker 3: straight down like.
Speaker 2: They are just these.
Speaker 3: Subtle things that also reward hitting a driver. So there's
Speaker 3: just become fewer and fewer reasons to ever elect to
Speaker 3: get conservative off of the tea. And also Andrew Putnam
Speaker 3: called out that a lot of these areas where we
Speaker 3: had wide misses were trampled down by fans, which is true,
Speaker 3: and that's another reason why some of these wide misses
Speaker 3: were rewarded.
Speaker 2: I will say I know for a fact at.
Speaker 3: The Ryder Cup in Paris in twenty eighteen, that was
Speaker 3: a consideration of Team Europe. They did not want the
Speaker 3: fans trampling down where Team USA was gonna hit. They
Speaker 3: pushed them way back. That is absolutely a key feature
Speaker 3: of why this didn't penalize wide misses very much. And
Speaker 3: get hospitality tents and stuff too. We don't need to
Speaker 3: get into a TiO discussion, but that's relevant as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you get preserved from that as well. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean there are a number of factors
Speaker 1: here conspiring to make wide misses, not that penal oak Kill,
Speaker 1: and another factor, this isn't true on every hole, but
Speaker 1: on a lot of holes, the tree removal strategy at
Speaker 1: oak Kill. They removed a lot of trees, right, It
Speaker 1: used to be very tree choked. They removed quite a
Speaker 1: few trees, and there were many reasons for that, aside
Speaker 1: from strategic The health of the golf course is better.
Speaker 1: The health of the trees is better now that they
Speaker 1: have more room to grow. So I want to be
Speaker 1: clear about that. But the tree removal strategy that they
Speaker 1: pursued Oakill created a situation where the trees that they
Speaker 1: left were ones that presumably guard or define the hole
Speaker 1: and are therefore kind of close to the fairway. But
Speaker 1: if you get farther away from the fairway, they removed
Speaker 1: a lot of trees over there. Those are big open areas.
Speaker 1: They look like lawns, right, because it's just rough. It's
Speaker 1: just green, lush, maintained rough, and they removed a ton
Speaker 1: of trees in those areas. Presumably the thinking was leave
Speaker 1: some of the trees that make the hole what it
Speaker 1: is and that have a immediate strategic influence on the
Speaker 1: whole corridor. But any trees that are back from the hole,
Speaker 1: we can just take those out.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, when you get to a PGA championship and guys
Speaker 1: are hitting the ball as far as they do and
Speaker 1: as far off line as they do, sometimes they're going
Speaker 1: to find those areas that are just so far off
Speaker 1: the hole that I think the club figured they could
Speaker 1: take away those trees and it wouldn't make a difference.
Speaker 1: But it does make a difference because suddenly a lot
Speaker 1: of those wide misses are in open areas, and so
Speaker 1: you have that dynamic that you're talking about where you
Speaker 1: can just bash driver.
Speaker 3: That's where I think the Tory Pines comparison is appropriate
Speaker 3: here where if you've ever watched the grounds of Tory Pines, like,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of holes where just a lot of
Speaker 3: rough if you miss by a foot or if you
Speaker 3: miss by thirty yards. So I do think people were
Speaker 3: comparing this to Bethpage winged Foot appropriate, definitely appropriate comparisons,
Speaker 3: but had a little bit of Tory Pines in it too,
Speaker 3: And it's kind of what you're hitting on there, some
Speaker 3: of those open spaces if you just blast the ball.
Speaker 3: And again that helps Bryson. He feels more comfortable when
Speaker 3: he can hit out into those areas and if hey,
Speaker 3: if I miss way out right, no, no big deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he seemed very very comfortable this week, very
Speaker 1: settled down, and so yeah, that was had had to
Speaker 1: have been a factor. All right, One more quick break
Speaker 1: and Joseph and I will be back with our storylines
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Speaker 3: It's got to be Block Watch, right, I mean sponsors
Speaker 3: exemption into Charles Schwab Challenge. Michael Block will be playing,
Speaker 3: So you know, I was thinking about actually driving up.
Speaker 2: It's only a few hour drive for me.
Speaker 1: What's in your neighborhood?
Speaker 3: Yeah, thinking about driving up to watch on Saturday or Sunday.
Speaker 3: But I'd like to see Michael Block play, so maybe
Speaker 3: I'll change those plans to Friday, you.
Speaker 1: Can apologize in person. He's also going to be at
Speaker 1: the RBC Canadian Open. He's also gotten the sponsor exemption
Speaker 1: into that. I believe he can get seven right before
Speaker 1: he runs out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, Garrett, sometimes these rules can be rewritten,
Speaker 3: so I wouldn't be surprised if they extend that number
Speaker 3: to nine just to get him a couple more starts and.
Speaker 1: Mcs, little some mcs getting the dig in there. He
Speaker 1: is forty six years old. Michael Block is likely to
Speaker 1: be a menace on the Senior Tour. True, maybe not. Maybe,
Speaker 1: Maybe this week was just sort of a freak accident.
Speaker 1: He played out of his mind. But you know, forty
Speaker 1: years from now, Michael Block could be the new Steven Alker.
Speaker 3: Do you think Steven Alker after he missed the cut
Speaker 3: this past weekend, was out watching Michael Block trying to scout.
Speaker 1: And the thing. Maybe there'll be a team format on
Speaker 1: the Senior Tour in the coming years. That'll be what
Speaker 1: revives the Senior Tour and it can be Michael Block
Speaker 1: and Steven Alker versus the world. That'll be pretty good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: lots of storylines to track with Michael Block. I agree,
Speaker 1: it's it's very exciting. I want to see if he
Speaker 1: keeps the same hat, the hat that just says raw
Speaker 1: in capital letters. Do you know what that means?
Speaker 3: By the way, I think anyone who buys a hat
Speaker 3: like that should basically go on a no fly list.
Speaker 3: So I don't know what it means, and I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna find out, all.
Speaker 1: Right, My storyline for the week is load management. I
Speaker 1: wrote about this a bit a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I just saw that after the Masters, a bunch of
Speaker 1: top players we're talking about how tired they were, John Rahm,
Speaker 1: Scotty Scheffler, Roy McElroy all spoke about being exhausted. Right
Speaker 1: around that time. The schedule for the PGA Tour in
Speaker 1: the first few months of the year is really really packed,
Speaker 1: and so these guys started to wear down. Now by
Speaker 1: the time they got to the PGA Championship, it seemed
Speaker 1: like at least Scheffler was fully back and form. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but you know who showed up looking really
Speaker 1: fresh and healthy was Bryson de Shambeau and Brooks Kopka.
Speaker 1: And they are obviously playing on live and so I
Speaker 1: wonder if their success in Majors is going to start
Speaker 1: to appeal a little bit to some players on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour who were on the fence. I wonder if
Speaker 1: any of those players are going to start to say
Speaker 1: there's something to this Live idea. If Bryson and Brooks
Speaker 1: were able to go on this tour, get healthy, come
Speaker 1: back looking happy, contend in majors, win majors, maybe there's
Speaker 1: really something to the Live Tour.
Speaker 3: I think the rest that's absolutely a valid storyline. I
Speaker 3: feel the same way I've always felt, which is that
Speaker 3: the top players on the PGA Tour should only be
Speaker 3: playing the designated events. They really shouldn't be trying to
Speaker 3: get them to some of these other events. I know
Speaker 3: that's a little bit of a paradigm shift from the
Speaker 3: way the tour currently operates, but I do believe that's
Speaker 3: the best model. I don't want to go too far
Speaker 3: down the look how well Live is doing, because I
Speaker 3: don't want to just cherry pick Brooks and Bryson also
Speaker 3: Live came from Orlando to the Masters. They're they're playing less,
Speaker 3: but they are also traveling all around the world. I
Speaker 3: don't think their schedule is necessarily perfect, but where I
Speaker 3: think this is going to be a huge issue for
Speaker 3: the PGA Tour is at travelers. When these golfers are
Speaker 3: expected to go directly on the heels of a US
Speaker 3: Open completely across the country to the northeast, there will
Speaker 3: be grumblings, whether they're public or not. And I think
Speaker 3: you're absolutely right that those golfers will be thinking a
Speaker 3: little bit about schedule reform. So I don't know how
Speaker 3: much more attractive Live gets. I mean, they're playing in Jetta,
Speaker 3: They're playing in Australia.
Speaker 1: You know, the travel component is tough, but it seems
Speaker 1: like Live has made that as easy as possible from
Speaker 1: with these chartered flights and stuff like that. And then
Speaker 1: it's just fifty four whole tournaments that have no impact
Speaker 1: on their psyche as far as competitiveness is concerned.
Speaker 3: But I don't want to land on a world where
Speaker 3: we think the right solution is never playing competitive golf outside.
Speaker 1: I agree, so bad for fans.
Speaker 2: I think that's where the impetus needs to be.
Speaker 3: The onnus needs to be on the PGA Tour to
Speaker 3: create a schedule where the golfers aren't playing as much
Speaker 3: as they are this year. So yeah, again, in my mind,
Speaker 3: that's just the designated events. There's like fourteen of them,
Speaker 3: and that's when we see the best golfers in the world,
Speaker 3: which is again consistent with like an NFL schedule where
Speaker 3: you play fifteen to twenty times a year.
Speaker 1: And this is something that Rory said was caught saying
Speaker 1: in the False Swing documentary, like maybe we've gotten a
Speaker 1: little soft. Every other sport requires athletes to be there
Speaker 1: at particular times, but the problem is you've got this
Speaker 1: competitor off to the side offering what appears to be
Speaker 1: right now just kind of like a club med situation,
Speaker 1: you know, an all inclusive resort. And you know, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have entirely believed that characterization of Live until I
Speaker 1: saw Brooks and Bryce and come back and look just
Speaker 1: like they've got a second lease on life. And maybe
Speaker 1: that's not something that's going to continue consistently, but I
Speaker 1: think if these guys keep showing up at Majors, if
Speaker 1: Cameron Smith comes back at LACC and looks great and
Speaker 1: plays great, if Patrick Reid does the same thing, then
Speaker 1: there's going to be more and more evidence that the
Speaker 1: Live guys are just a little better rested. And the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour is going to have to respond to.
Speaker 3: I think it's very reasonable and hopefully the false swing
Speaker 3: will be not They're not being a false swing that
Speaker 3: the top players are expected to play and will.
Speaker 2: Be a seven in the right direction there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, all right, Joseph, thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Talk to you again soon. Appreciate you
Speaker 1: having me here at This episode of the Frida Egg
Speaker 1: podcast was produced and edited by Matt Ruschis. Thank you, Matt.
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