Geoff Ogilvy - Bryson‘s Transformation, Harding Park, and Young Guns

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by b Dratty. Our friends at b draddy want to introduce new arrivals for the fall. B dratty has freshened up its offering with new colors, prints, and styles. Our favorite is the Tripping Billy Polo, a printed polo made of the softest Peruvian Pima cotton. Seriously, this cotton is like butter. I have all these polos that I wear like T shirts because they are so comfortable. They'd also like to feature a tonal TIEDI that is a casual take on a polo and yet can pass it most golf courses for dress code. For a limited time, take twenty five percent off your entire purchase at bdratty dot com with code TFE twenty five that's all caps, no spaces TFE twenty five, and pick up some new Dratti gear that's bdratty dot com code TFE twenty five. Today's episode is with former US Open champion Jeff Ogilvie. It's been a while since Jeff and I talk, basically after the President's Cup, so we caught up on all the happenings in golf, and then we did a little bit of a preview on the PGA Championship. That's this week obviously a big week. It's awesome to have major championship golf back. This will be a part of our PGA Championship preview coverage. If you don't yet subscribe to our newsletter, that will get you updates daily once the tournament starts, and give you a robust preview on Wednesday, and then Garrett will be producing another TFE story. So then that's gonna be all centered around TPC Harding Park, which is it's gonna be a really cool story just about the municipal golf in San Francisco and Harding Park's place in it. So that will be dropping Wednesday. Be sure to check that out. And yeah, it should be an awesome week. I can't wait to watch major championship golf. And it's cool having the PGA kick us off at Harding Park with which should be a great stretch of golf here the next three months. So, without further ado, here is Jeff Ogilvie. I miss a green for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg egg egg egg brid egg lie.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off the golf course. It's good though, there's good things out of it though. I mean, I love the pinning. I love the pinning. I think the pinnin is so good for like club normal golf. I think pros do whatever, but club normal golf pinion is the best.

00:03:02
Speaker 3: And no rakes.

00:03:03
Speaker 1: People. I played around where somebody took it out and I like didn't like it out. I got used to putting with it in. Now it's like felt really weird, and I've I've I've felt the other way when people would want me to put with it in before, and now I'm like used to put them with it in. It's kind of nice having at end.

00:03:22
Speaker 2: I like it, and it's so liberating never having to touch a flag or a rake for another person, right, yeah, no one has to do it for anyone, so you just you It's just a smooth round of golf when you don't have to do those two things for some reason. Hang on a minute, I'll go get the flag for you or hang on a minute, I'll go rak that for you.

00:03:36
Speaker 3: You go grab it.

00:03:37
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's it's not that bad, but it's just so nice not doing it.

00:03:41
Speaker 1: I kind of enjoy, you know. Maybe this is because I'm like I hate myself or something, but I kind of enjoy when I hit a bad shot and a bunker and it's in a footprint. Now.

00:03:54
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's actually kind of cool.

00:03:57
Speaker 2: The bunkers, especially Melbourne bunkers that were spoiled because there's so good looking anyway, but they look miraculous with all the footprints. They look so good. It's like little pine valley little pockets everywhere kind.

00:04:06
Speaker 3: Of it's awesome.

00:04:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got a lot of pictures of because I'll take them early in the morning and I'll do these like straight downs of bunkers, and I like the look of bunkers with footprints in them.

00:04:19
Speaker 3: I do lots of footprints.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like a pristine bunker with one set looks awful, right. But if it's just been going to let go for a few days and there's a bit of rain raking and a bit of wind and a few footprints here and there, it looks brilliant.

00:04:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like it.

00:04:33
Speaker 1: Hey, so last time we talked, we were at the beginning of the Brason experiment.

00:04:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:04:39
Speaker 3: Wow, huh that turned out. I mean wow, I mean, hats off for the guy.

00:04:46
Speaker 1: That's nuts, unbelievable.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never said no one's ever I mean forever, at least in my forever. Anytime anyone tried to get longer, they lost they lost it right, they got they gained way and got injured, and they lost their swing and they started hitting at sideways the Ian Baker Finch style kind of And there's the Bobby Clampet though, whatever it is, there's one hundreds of them who have chased distance and chased technique and just gone disastrous. And he's like one of the only guys who's actually got better longer. He's almost the best golfer in the world at the moment.

00:05:19
Speaker 3: It's nuts.

00:05:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. I can't believe that it like worked. And you know, the amazing thing is how accurate he's stayed, Like he hits it pretty straight. You know, there's occasional off the planet foul ball, but you know, for the most part, it especially at a lot of golf courses, you hit it three sixty and there's not a lot of trouble when you're forty yards around the green all the time.

00:05:46
Speaker 2: Well, I mean a forty hours shot out of the raff is pretty easy. And if it's forty yard shot from the fairway, I mean where he drove it on the first Millfield Village the other week, I mean that's I've seen more people play third shots from there. I never no one's ever can considered like fourteen people have driven.

00:06:02
Speaker 3: Tried to drive fourteen before.

00:06:03
Speaker 2: You know, off that front tier, that's a driverable hole, but number one is a it's a three wood seven on hole my whole life. You know, he's a driver at a forty yard pitch. He had like forty five for the pin. Crazy, But it's funny. Hogan used to say, Uh, the harder he hit it, the better he hit it, Like when he really clicked, you know, when his secret or whatever he something clicked for him. The harder I hit it, the better it worked. And Bryson seems to have gone onto something like that. Whatever it is, it doesn't look the same. It's a it's not Hogan, but he's obviously tapped into that. You know, the harder he goes, the better it goes. Because he does hits at three sixty death straight. It's nuts.

00:06:41
Speaker 1: That's something you've said before too, is a lot of the longest guys are the best swingers of the golf club on tour, like Rory and DJ Brooks, they're they're great ball strikers in general.

00:06:55
Speaker 2: Well, I think there was probably a lot of untapped potential in a human before and the odd there was the odd outlier that kind of showed like that the Bob Jones and the Sneed and the Normans and the Nicholas and they they kind of showed the potential power. But now everybody's kind of tapping into that. And I think now that everyone's kind of base speed or power is there, it's only the great action that can really like maximize their body, I think. So it used to be the long hitter was the guy who'd take a few risks and hit the big hook and like try to hit a long way. Now it's the guy who just hits the cruisy fade and hits the straightest. So you get Brooks and Dustin and Bryson and Rory that are the straightest drivers in Gulf and the longest.

00:07:35
Speaker 1: It's almost unfair, Piers, like three fifties of the new three hundred. Now do you think more guys are gonna chase at distance now that Bryson's successfully done it.

00:07:47
Speaker 2: Well? One yes, because the tour is absolutely a follow the leader environment always has been since day one. Before my time, people were copying the best golfers of the world.

00:07:56
Speaker 3: You know, they just work.

00:08:00
Speaker 2: So yes, there'll be guys who do it, and there'll be guys who do it well, and there'll be a lot of guys who do it. Paulie Bryson's an interesting guy and he he doesn't he thinks about everything before he does it, you know, Like, I'm sure there was quite a well charted plan for this whole thing. I mean, hopefully guys don't go the wrong way, but I think it showed people what some of the the Jack Nicholas and the Tiger and everyone who's ever talked about the equipment going a bit too far. Bryson's kind of like put a big magnifying glass on it. You know, this is actually where golf could look like in twenty years. Guys. I mean, it's fine that there's outliers, you know, jacket at three hundred plus in the sixties. You know, I don't mind the length it's but do we It's a view of what golf might look like in twenty years, you know.

00:08:50
Speaker 3: And I think that's surprised a few people.

00:08:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's because you saw camera Champ when he came out. Everybody's like, oh, you know, he's an outlier. And now Bryson is right there with him. And Bryson wasn't that a year ago? You know?

00:09:08
Speaker 2: No, he's if one guy, and he's a big guy, Bryson, and he's clearly very committed, and anyone else to make those sort of games would be amazing. But it does show you that if you get the protein bars and you go to the gym a little bit and you set up your little home studio to hit it.

00:09:22
Speaker 3: Hard, who knows.

00:09:24
Speaker 2: I mean, it's at least I mean, people have been working on hitting it far forever, but it was proportionate right now. It's guys go home and if the tour guy's bag, you pull out his tour bag, he's got speed sticks and some sort of he's got about four or five apparatus in there that like help him swing it fast, you know, to practice with every day.

00:09:43
Speaker 3: It's just a thing everyone works on.

00:09:45
Speaker 2: So I think the Bryson's shown that there is like gold at the end of that highway if you take it, you know, so people are going to do it.

00:09:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, the thing with a distance, that's just I mean, if you hit it three every day you go to the golf course, you hit it three fifty. It's not like I don't know if I'm gonna putt well today or I hope I hit my irons close today. It's like every day you show up, you know, the boss going three fifty, three sixty, and you know, if you hit it reasonably straight. He's just every round he starts two shots ahead of you know, the average guy in the field, and you don't eat what we saw when he won in Detroit. He didn't even play that well outside. You know, he putted well, he drove it well, and everything else was pretty media mediocre to below average. And that's the amazing thing with distance. If you're dominant there, you can it covers up so much other stuff.

00:10:40
Speaker 2: That's true on setups like that, I think it like somebody like Riviera, would be interesting to see how that style would work because you can be close to the green at Riviera and not be able to hit the green.

00:10:50
Speaker 3: Right in certain situations. And he might be too big for a.

00:10:54
Speaker 2: Course like that, I don't know, But what an advantage to that straight and over three hundred every sit Like it's incredible, Like there's no fairiwy bukers for him. Yeah, unless they unless they're grave side buckers. It's uh, it's nuts. I mean, Colonial Millonnie was taken down some of those holes. These are courses I've played fifty times, you know, and it's just it's bizarre where he's hitting there.

00:11:16
Speaker 3: It's crazy. It's impressive, like beyond everything that.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: Like, I don't like the way golf looks if people are driving at forty yards from powerful So I'm not sure if the whole field was doing that, people would lose interest. I think at some point or at least everyone would just watch t shots. But it's impressive, Like it's fun to watch.

00:11:37
Speaker 1: I was watching. I was out walking a championship course the other day and it's a course that has like a lot of trees that they use as like the trees are kind of like point people directions, and I was standing on teas and I just started thinking about where Brighton's going to be hitting. It's kind of unbelievable because you're like, he just hit it over these trees and you know that looks like somewhere he could hit it, and it's just otherwise out of this world, like nobody else would be doing that. But it takes a four to fifty hole and turns it into you know, pitching putt, which is it's it's quite an advantage if you were gonna try and set up against that, how would you set up a golf course in order to mitigate distance? And obviously it's always going to be an advantage.

00:12:26
Speaker 2: You know, it has to be, and it should be an advantage. Like it's a big part of golf. I mean, Jack and Bobby Jones again, Snake, all these guys. I had advantage Gauzell longer and that was no longer. Be Gauzelle better, you know, So it's part of who is better?

00:12:40
Speaker 3: Equation?

00:12:41
Speaker 2: Right is power and length? It is because it's using your body well and swinging it well. And as I said, a good swing makes it ball go fast, so it should be advantage. I mean, I just think you have to have a golf course firm Mild Village was actually was a perfect a perfect illustration of what soft golf firm golf has two weeks in a row. That is such a good job. I mean Jack and the crew there. I mean to have two tournaments at Millfield Village that two weeks in a row, that felt like, at least from the outside looking like watching different there were two completely different tournaments to watch the course at a different personality both times. What a great effort that was just on that. To have a court to a tournament at the same course two weeks a row and have it feel like different tournaments was nuts. But I mean, as soon as you've got the greens really firm Millfield, I mean, the whole length thing is irrelevant because you've just got to be under the hole and you can only get under the hole from a good position off the tee and a firm fairway. They're very wide at Millfield Village, but they play quite narrow when they're firm. I would just make it firm and fly and fiery, you know, because when it's soft you can wale away with the driver over a corner because you know when it lands it's going to stop. But if it's going to land and run out twenty Picking lines over corners difficult, you know, and then if you're in the raft them, it's hard to get it close to the pin because the wedgehot's difficult because of the firm green.

00:14:05
Speaker 3: And so I would just turn the water off a little bit.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, that's that's what Bill kra was talking about with Trinity Forrest is the idea of making long hitters not only hit it long and straight, but long straight and the right distance. And if you get those angles and it's firm and you're cutting a corner, the fairway gets smaller in general. But then you also have to think about how far is it's going to roll?

00:14:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have the have far is it going to roll?

00:14:31
Speaker 2: And you have when everything is firm. I mean, I think it was a Hogan quote, like you measure drive by position, not purely just by distance.

00:14:41
Speaker 3: Right, there's a.

00:14:42
Speaker 2: There is a best spot in the hole to come in from, and the firmer it is, the harder it is, and the more quality shot you have to hit to get it to that spot to hit the good shot into the green, you know what I mean. So it's a bit more thought off the tea, I think when everything's firm.

00:14:57
Speaker 1: John and Zechwitz did ransom number for me for that tournament, and the penalty of the rough was the identical to almost every other week at Mierfield Village, but it was incredibly it was much more difficult percentage wise to hit fairways. And then the proximity for par threes was higher than normal, which would point to the firmness, because that was as firm as we've ever seen it. So the firmer fairways made it harder to hit fairways, same penalty for rough as it usually is, you know. But then it was also on par three's they saw the proximity go up, which probably was because of firm greens, because I think the pins were about the same as every year there.

00:15:43
Speaker 2: I look at them out a been a bit windier and stuff, I mean, but generally every tournament I've ever played, at least in the last fifteen years, I mean, the standards got so much better, at least the depth wise. If it's soft and the grains are good, guys will go low. It doesn't matter. I mean, luck look what happened at Medina.

00:16:01
Speaker 3: A few years ago.

00:16:02
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a really long course historically really difficult. It is difficult, but with perfect presentation of greens and a little bit soft. If the best players and will come playing well, they're going to shoot low. But if it's firm, then there's I don't know, it's just the ball bounces through the corner into the rough little bit and it just bounces that one hop over the back and you've got a little wedge from over the green. It just it's harder to free swing and just go nuts, you know, when it's firm, because it just you've got to be a bit more kind of you leave a bit more in to like fit the ball in the course.

00:16:35
Speaker 1: It was kind of like Harbortown this year in the summer, wet and soft and hot versus when they play it right after the Masters, like and the scores were just crazy compared to usually exactly.

00:16:47
Speaker 2: I mean, one or two hundred hilton ahead of day was always good for eight or nine ounder for the week was always good for a top ten and the old days always like it. And the winner would sometimes just be like ten, eleven and twelve on a part. And it's a very small course, so there's very relatively simple greens to put always the like the putting record putting records were it hid there but no one could hit greens, and so you were trying to get up and down all week, which is why it had the putting record. But when it was soft, yeah, everyone goes low. So it's not I don't think you want kind of Shinacock twenty eighteen firm? Was it twenty eighteen? Yeah, but you and it's fast, but it needs to like go somewhere when it lands the ball a little bit, you know, And I think then it's you can just play the Bryson style, but it would be interesting to see him do that around of course, a firmly presented course and Milfield Village. The second week was firmly presented and he missed the cut, right or was it the first week.

00:17:44
Speaker 1: He missed the cut? I mean he had that ten, which was a big, big rease in life.

00:17:49
Speaker 2: But that's h and he's look and he's on the back end of a lot of tournaments in a row, and obviously his workday is twenty four hours, right, He doesn't seem to take a break, so he was probably really tired. So you can't really read much into that, but yeah, I like golf with the bounce on a little bit firm. The majors are always the masters.

00:18:12
Speaker 3: A perfect example.

00:18:12
Speaker 2: There's no rough, there's a second cut, but there's basically there's no trouble to really hit it into off the tee as far as the lie you get, and the fairwies aren't even really that firm, but a little bit firm on the greens and fast, and it uses kind of position to test people not lie.

00:18:32
Speaker 3: That makes sense. Yeah, that's all I see, Augusta. The scores.

00:18:37
Speaker 2: The best player always shits fifteen sixteen under, but eighth is always three under or something, you know, like it spreads the field. It really rewards because angles and positions matter, not just out and out length and length is the biggest advantage in Augusta massively and Bryson will do great there, but it's not the whole thing. The job isn't done if you just smash it three fifty down every fairway. He has to have it three fifty in the right place or he's going to.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: Have trouble fourteenth fairway from the thirteenth. That's what you were saying, He's going to do fortate.

00:19:05
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, absolutely, he could do absolutely I mean thirteen, to be fair, he's just gonna it's gonna be nothing. He's going to annihilate thirteen. Babba it a few years ago.

00:19:13
Speaker 1: And make prompt. We haven't talked into the USGA talked about the rollback, you know, and something might happen. Possibly they're studying. They said that there's adverse a fact, so.

00:19:29
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, it's such a as I said, I'd love to see it not have to change. But if golf in twenty years become if the PGA Tour becomes.

00:19:40
Speaker 3: One hundred and fifty.

00:19:41
Speaker 2: Six, Bryson's teeing it up every week, not as in Bryson to Chambau is a great person to watch it.

00:19:47
Speaker 3: He's a massive addition to golf.

00:19:49
Speaker 2: But that style of play, I don't know if that's quite as attractive as what we you picture as golf, you know what I mean. If everybody's doing it, so maybe there's an issue. Having to kind of create venues and distort venues doesn't seem to make sense either.

00:20:06
Speaker 3: So look, I'm not saying for ninety nine nine nine.

00:20:12
Speaker 2: Percent of golf as much of an issue, but right at that pointy end, it's getting a little weird the way they're playing, you know, like traditional golf courses, and I just I think that would be a shame in the end if if everybody ended up just taking it over corners and flying at three sixty and chipping it onto greens. I mean, you don't even need about four clubs, you know.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the crazy thing I was thinking about with you know, with the way Brazen played at Detroit especially. You looked at it and he you know, he'd only hit like a five iron into par fives. He wasn't even you know, usually at least we still had you know, oh par fives test long irons, and it's like that that's not even the case anymore. So it's just it's a it's an insane kind of thing. And of course that should be firm as Hardig Park. You've played there, yeah.

00:21:00
Speaker 2: Hard President's Cup. We played there in what was that nine nine? Yeah, brilliant place. Love I love the area. I mean that whole Olympic Harding Park. I've never played the other one.

00:21:10
Speaker 1: There, San Francisco.

00:21:12
Speaker 2: I played San Francisco. There's another one there too.

00:21:14
Speaker 1: Right, Harding Park, Lake Mercellmpic.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: Like I said, I've never played Lake messaid, but San Francisco is brilliant obviously Olympic is brilliant, frustrating as to play, and he was open. Harding Park is a lovely place. I mean it's public, right, Yeah.

00:21:32
Speaker 1: I think it's seventy seventy bucks for San Francisco resident, which is you know, it's not cheap, but it's a pretty good deal for golf in the city at at a pretty good level.

00:21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great course too, it's really cool. I was looking. I looked at a little bit the other day on some pictures that got posted from somewhere, but I can't remember. We changed the routing though, right we finished eighteen to the one around the trees, right, the dog leg.

00:21:55
Speaker 1: Left, yeah, with the water on the left.

00:21:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, the one that daily into I had a playoff on that WTC. Yeah, I remember that as fourteen or fifteen, So my numbers are a bit done.

00:22:07
Speaker 3: But it's a beautiful place.

00:22:09
Speaker 2: Such a California style course, you know, kind of that damp, kind of near ocean, kind of side of hill feeling like it's yeah, it's great, it's very California.

00:22:18
Speaker 3: I like it.

00:22:19
Speaker 1: What do you from what you remember? Was there anything that stood out for like, you got to do ax well out there.

00:22:33
Speaker 2: Nah, You're got to hit it pretty straight. The trees are quite prominent, you know, Olympic style. You know if you hit it down into the rough that you might have some kind of cypress limbs and some trees to go past.

00:22:44
Speaker 3: I think it's.

00:22:45
Speaker 2: Relatively narrow and tricky around the greens. I think tricky because greens in California, I say this with love, are generally not that smooth. Olympics, by the way, miraculous when we played when where in the US Opening. They were the best greens we've ever part of the US Open on, ironically, and they were in California because our brand new bent and they hadn't got any power in them. They're usually a test and what happens on California greens is great putters put well. You know the Seneca's Tiger Ricky will probably put well. The Historically the guys Michelson's a West Coast genius, right, there's a there's a handful of guys who really seem to get that around the greens thing on the West Coast, so I.

00:23:29
Speaker 1: Speak speak actually really good Jason Day DJ another good one.

00:23:37
Speaker 3: You know he is brilliant.

00:23:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. There's certain players that put remarkably better on Poeanna than anywhere Else's nuts.

00:23:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, DJ's one pebble a hundred times. Yeah, they it's it's alert skill. Putting in California, if you didn't grow up there, it's a learned skill. It's not that it's it's just a different skill, right, and it's quite scary, and usually the best butters do it the best.

00:24:05
Speaker 1: I lived in California for a while. I played. I would play Rancho Park late at night, which you know, Rancho Park's probably the busiest, one of the busiest five busiest public golf courses in America, and it would be ropy. But is that just is it just not? Is it because there's doubt in players head that make it so makes it so tough.

00:24:27
Speaker 2: I think what happens is just power that naturally is the grass. It twenty four hours, it changes quite a lot, you know, when it's first cut, you get out there in the morning. It's not These grains are perfect, miraculous and there's the power greens in the world Oakmont Pine Valley that Oakmont's grains are the best in the world. And they're like eighty year old power and they're perfect. So anyone who's got a stigmas as power can't be good, just go to Oakmont like they're miraculous. But in California, near the water, the salt in the air, whatever it is, by two or three o'clock in the afternoon, they're.

00:25:00
Speaker 3: Nothing to do with the super. It just gets a bit bumpy.

00:25:02
Speaker 2: They get faster, and they get bumpy, and they tend to go straight like good. As I said, good putters whole them. But it's a very scary experience putting from inside five or six feet on those things in tournament speeds and tourment conditions, and fear is usually what drives people's putting to go bad. So it's the guys who are the most confident they're putting, they seem behold more. They love Mickelson's mate like miles of putts in California over the last twenty five years. Miles makes it from everywhere. And if you watch when you watch the LA Open or Tory Pines or Pebble Beachs, you watch these tournaments every year on and you're just watching the leaderboards and you just think, oh, yeah, these people are holding putts. But if the rest of the tour is like flipping out trying to hold two foot is on the putting green Riviera and like two and they're headed like it's nuts, It's funny. They're good brand.

00:25:53
Speaker 1: Sedecker is an interesting career because if you look, I've looked at all of the stats, and you know, he's never been a plus ball striker at all, and it's just amazing how good he is around and on the greens, like just utterly out of this world. I mean, when you play with him, does it feel like that.

00:26:17
Speaker 2: His putting is just nuts? Like his ball striking is tidy, like it wouldn't statistically show well probably, but it's very rhythmical, you know, it's like metronomic. He's got this great kind of speed that he plays golfer pace. His routine is good, and when you play with him, you can tell he's a good player straight away even.

00:26:35
Speaker 3: If he's not hitting it well.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: Does that make sense because he's just got this great cadence to how he plays and good players usually do that. And putting, his putting strokes like this long, and his balls they go in the hole better than other people's balls. They like, you know, those great partners. The ball sends to just go down, It just goes in for whatever reason. His ball just looks like it goes in the hole better than everyone else's.

00:27:03
Speaker 3: It looks like that's where it wants to be.

00:27:06
Speaker 1: That's the nuts with great jump shooters, like a great shooter in basketball, the ball goes in the hoop differently, like it's like vortexas it's like it's like a vortex.

00:27:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, nuts, Yeah.

00:27:25
Speaker 1: Who else would be in the same class honor around the greens that you know that you would put in there with with Seneker.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: Wells, I mean we obviously Tiger and Phil. Phil's putting has been hit and miss. It's never been the same as Brad's potswell every day, right, Phil putswell. When he puts well, he puts great, but he has bad times to spif there was about four four through four year period there where he around the greens was just something I'd never seen or heard of before. Absolutely miraculous. John Rahm is sure games well publicized. His short game is very Spanish like it's genius level. And his putting is nice, right, his putting is really really good and really solid. But his short game. It's little sixties and fifty six is around the green and just they're so nice to watch.

00:28:15
Speaker 1: I feel like he could be number one for a while.

00:28:18
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean this the lockdown or the COVID sort of stuck inside. I've done more like we're finding old swings of YouTube and golf swings, and it's more of a go. It's been a golf swing news of me rather than any other part of golf. Golf swing's been my thing, and there's so much footage. I like my search on the Instagram, the little search magnified glass that shows up things you might like.

00:28:42
Speaker 3: It's all just golf swings, right, so I go.

00:28:45
Speaker 2: Five, But it's like metaphorically at the bus stop or whatever, and I'm just watching golf sings, golfs and golf sings. John Rams does everything it needs to do to be good for a really long time, you know, so strong.

00:28:58
Speaker 3: It's great.

00:28:58
Speaker 2: He could be the only thing that will catch him is it's difficult to be number one. You know, very rare is the tiger who love very rare. A is the guy like tiger who just loves that level of attention every week.

00:29:12
Speaker 3: I mean, I think.

00:29:13
Speaker 2: John's he wears number one, well, he wears a great player in the world number well, but number ones are pretty magnified spotlight position, you know what I mean. Most guys usually have a few years and then they come back, and then they go up and they come back and you know what I.

00:29:28
Speaker 1: Mean, what about his swing do you like so much?

00:29:34
Speaker 2: It's so shallow on the way down. I mean, everyone talks about shallowing. They like the club not getting steep, shallowing down, and.

00:29:44
Speaker 3: It's just so naturally.

00:29:47
Speaker 2: He's one of those guys that the harder he hits it, the better he's going to hit it, you know what I mean. It's like it's well, if you think of the worst swing, like the average amate a golfer you see down on the golf course, and it's just a big pull inside over the top like kind of slice. The worst swing you can imagine that's actually a golf swing. Rams is the opposite of everything of that. Like it just does everything good, you know, like his pivots, the position of the club. I like the laid off boat wrist thing. He's so strong. It's all about his body and his arms just go along for a ride. It's very easy for him to get straight along.

00:30:22
Speaker 3: I just.

00:30:24
Speaker 2: It just ticks every box from me, and if when I first saw it, I'm like, that's a bit of an odd action, that's a bit different, but it does.

00:30:30
Speaker 3: It ticks every box, So that's great.

00:30:32
Speaker 2: I like his swing.

00:30:33
Speaker 1: What other swings? Where you have you been masperised by? Take us out a little bit of your journey here.

00:30:42
Speaker 2: Well, I like old golf obviously, and I've found a lot of Snead and Jones I think are my two favorites. There's a lot of Trevino. I like Trevino, and I loruld have loved to have seen Trevino hit it, and knowing what you know as a golfer, you know his action was pure. But the great Sneed footage is some great YouTube of Sneed and the Jones videos, all those Jones videos he made, those ones he made for TV or whatever. I just have these boy Jones would be like Cameron Chat right now, like I'd I'd really love it. Would have been unbelievable if you could somehow get Bob Jones with twenty twenty equipment and like six months to get used to it, how would he actually hit it? And I reckon he would edit like Capjam it would have just been nuts. His move was so good.

00:31:29
Speaker 1: I mean he was heading the wooden stuff three hundred plus.

00:31:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's amazing to me, Like what I my sort of.

00:31:38
Speaker 2: Fruitless thought passages that I go down that aren't really going to get me anywhere? Is I mean, there's there was an advantage to learning with their equipment because a lot of guys back then had had really, really really good moves, you know, said Bob Jones, is like just next level move.

00:31:54
Speaker 3: It was way inside. He was wearing jackets and.

00:31:56
Speaker 2: Tires and crazy clothes and it was and he was in a three hundred with crappy stuff, a great move. And then Snead's is just everyone needs to watch Snaid swing it for a while. Just watch it. You don't have to copy it, but just watch it because it's just wow. No one's swinging that that could ever.

00:32:12
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a great Hogan video where he's talking about the down swing and what he's thinking about with like his his like I think he's talking about like his lower body and like how it moves, and it's just that is a video that I love. And then earlier Ernie Els I could watch on loop for days.

00:32:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ernie Ernie El's early Ernie was good. It's funny.

00:32:40
Speaker 2: There's a there's watching swings, and then there's playing with guys. Obviously, I've been lucky to play with guys like the guys I've played with who hit the bit. Sergio has probably been of someone of Mike Ero, who's played for the last twenty that's sort of same period as me. Sergio is consistently the best ball strike. It was from day one. He just flushed it, and the longer the shot, the bettery. I mean, he's just an unbelievable ball striker. But I don't love watching his swing as much as I like watching someone else's. But I love watching him hit it. Does that make sense? There's swings I like to watch, and there's ball flights. I like to watch. Sergio's ball flight I could watch all day. Not that I don't like his swing, but I feel.

00:33:18
Speaker 1: Like John Ramshaw a little like that.

00:33:20
Speaker 3: I don't know why.

00:33:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think anybody would say it's the most beautiful swing, but then when you see the ball come off, you're just like.

00:33:27
Speaker 3: Wow, Yeah, yeah, I love.

00:33:30
Speaker 2: Marikawa's swing is brilliant too. I think Colin.

00:33:34
Speaker 3: Like his action.

00:33:36
Speaker 2: I think holand I like what they do. They're all doing similar stuff to what the old guys did. And I don't know if I could actually describe to you in words or write it down like what they're doing. But holand morikaua a lot of the great moves showing things that those really old time great actions showed too, like more so than maybe the eighties and nineties and swings, you know what I mean. I think that we kind of went off on that video camera tangent for a while, and I think everyone's going to come back to just what works his best, you know, and what works happens to actually be best clearly. You know.

00:34:12
Speaker 1: It seems like the individual authenticity of the golf swings back rather than like, you know, I've gotten in the rabbit hole of some old players like Faldo, who would have you know, he'd carry around his picture book of pictures, you know, and compare us to like get into the positions, like to make sure his like swing was right along like the the A position or whatever. You know. It's crazy how the technology actually has led us back to individuality almost.

00:34:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we kind of we the video camera came along and we've it still gets used, but it's it's it's it's not used for technical purposes anymore.

00:34:55
Speaker 3: It's a vanity thing now.

00:34:56
Speaker 2: I think people just post industry instagram videos and youtubes and it's all about content this world. No, so I think the video thing has gone more that direction, and the teaching is force plates in the ground, track man or some sort of launch monitor and like club base check here and stuff, and people are really just swinging it. However they swing it to get good numbers, and then the ball goes good and that happens to be Probably they're naturally good path and they're good swings, so they're actually great players. Whereas we there were periods in our generation that fowlow led better influenced generation, and it might be unfair to even blame them. Might be just video cameras came along and they are accessible and we could use them, and every coach thought, oh, well, this is a tool.

00:35:38
Speaker 3: I've got to have one.

00:35:39
Speaker 2: So every coach in the world for twenty years, you turn up, he goes, let's put a few on, Let's have a look how you're going. And so your whole spirit was how do I look? You know, whereas now it's how do I hit it? How do I feel? And it's it's subtle. It's a massive difference. And because of that, I think ball striking is I think the elite end of golf, which twenty five years ago it's still a bit of a dark art swinging it and hitting the ball right. There's still kind of a mystery about it. People still really believe that Hogan had a secret and all that stuff. Now it's like, nah, ball strike it's pretty easy. Just kind of practice this for a while and you hit it pretty good. You know, golf isn't easy, but they're hitting it. I feel like once the how it looks came out of people's heads. I think they're all starting to swing it. Yeah, like you said, authentically them, which seems to be a better way to be.

00:36:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's there's a I listened to this one podcast. It's got one of my favorite quotes ever. It was this tech investor isn't even naval and he said, authenticity will outrun all of your competition.

00:36:43
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like it. It's true.

00:36:45
Speaker 2: And if you look at Matthew Wolf, Colin marcau Hoveland, I'm missing the other sung jay.

00:36:54
Speaker 3: They're doing it their way. Yeah, they're doing it their way.

00:36:57
Speaker 2: They're doing it, they're playing their game that it's not a vanity contest, it's a I just want to flush at contest, you know.

00:37:03
Speaker 3: And they're doing it.

00:37:04
Speaker 1: Well, you got ten dollars to spend on those five guys. How are you allocating your capital? You know you get you get get percentage points on their on their career achievements.

00:37:17
Speaker 2: Where are we? Maricau, Hoveland, Wolf, who else?

00:37:22
Speaker 1: Niemen and Sung Jay.

00:37:24
Speaker 2: Sung j Okay. I'm going to take uh, maricaw and number one.

00:37:31
Speaker 3: I don't know how.

00:37:31
Speaker 2: I've got two dollars for each if I average it right, So I go Marcawa, Sun Jay and Hoveland would be tied for second, and then Neemen and who's the last one?

00:37:41
Speaker 1: Wolf?

00:37:42
Speaker 2: Wolf, I like, is amazing and he's going to play a lot of uh great golf for a long time. But Colin is a standout and Victor and Uh, I'm forget them all, But Marcau are out of that crew. I think Wolf. I love his action. I love his action. There's something really special about it. But and Wako is good. Yeah, Marcau, he looks the real deal to me. I mean, his ball straight. The guys I've talked to who have played with him says, it's just ridiculous how well he hits it, just week in week out. It's just a machine made to play golf, and with a great spirit, like a great It's that that level headed kind of demeanor that when every now and then you get a guy who's really got that kind of great head for golf. And Marcaoa's headspace seems to be great.

00:38:30
Speaker 1: I say, I said a couple of weeks ago that he's the best tiring player since Tiger.

00:38:37
Speaker 2: It looks at when you watch him right, And everyone I've talked to have played with him said, yeah, it's NATSI gets it so good. I mean, I all just watch him hit on the range and how to hit it that good.

00:38:44
Speaker 3: It's cool. It's nice he.

00:38:45
Speaker 2: Could be and when the thing about two of golf is that wears you out because golf is a hard game, and so after a while, the shine comes off the whole experience and it's just becomes you go through these stages of it being easy and grinding, easy and hard and easy and hard and easy and hard, and that kind of can wear you down and that's why pros are always I need a bit of time off at the end of the year, you know, because all year they've been just working at it, because it's hard to play at that level all the time. If you're naturally a great ball striker like Colin and you have to expend less of your mental energy actually finding a way to hit it every week. You've got so much more energy to score well every week, you know, And any given week on tour, you're you're really working hard to make puts or to like just stop that ball gun in the right trees like it did last week or whatever. You're working hard, and that's fine, and most guys play in that state all the time, and that's cool, but it wears you down. If you're not having to grind that hard to get it to go where you want it to go, it's going to weigh you down less and you're going to be lighter and you play better, you know. And those long careers are those sort of guys like thread couples. Quite often a guy like forred couples who just doesn't expend energy he doesn't need to. And Morokawa seems to be that guy.

00:40:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you know, fred Couples like everybody dogs on him, but when he heard his back, he was he had won so many tournaments, like I think he'd won ten times in three years or something. He won the Major and he was number one, and then he hurt his back and he could never practice putting the same way again. You know.

00:40:21
Speaker 2: No, I don't let people tell you that Freddy wasn't a good putter. I mean, he may have gripped at left hand low and had a stabby ish looking stroke, but he made He made more pots between ten and twenty feet of anyone I've ever play with. He made a lot of putts.

00:40:36
Speaker 1: For these young guys I was reading about. Monty was talking about how important it is to get a major when you're young, before like the scar tissue builds up, and because he had that close call in the early nineties at Pebble, you know, and he thought he I mean, they congratulated him after his round. Congratulations and then I think kite on that one, but I did. But he talked about how important is like and I think he was talking about Westwood, how important it was for Westwood to get one when he was young. And then of course Westwood, you know has been so many near misses. Do you feel like, you know for these all these young guys, I mean rom Bryson. There's so many good young players now in this game with you know, and there are only four majors a year, and is it going to be you know, one of those things where some guys aren't going to get him because you know that scar tissue builds up or.

00:41:37
Speaker 2: Well, first thing, it's a first world problem saying you need to win a major young. I mean if you if you play golf, if you play golf and you never have to have a real job and you get to like play golf for a living and they send you big checks at the end of every week that you play well and you never have a real job, that's success, right.

00:41:57
Speaker 3: There's nothing you need more than that.

00:42:00
Speaker 2: Now, if you want to, if it's very important to you, I think, and you see yourself as a guy who could be or should be having majors on their resume, that everyone that goes past it probably gets more difficult, I'm sure, especially after two or three closed calls and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Of the last twenty majors Monti played, it would have been so is this the one. Is this the one? How you're playing Colin, You're going to win this one. You need to win one of these. You know you're the best player with that one. You know that would be tough. And so in his case, he's talking about his life, right, and it would have been great if he got one out of the way, because he might have won five. He was that good talking about guys who impressed me. His ball starking was just miraculous and an authentic swing. But saying that, I don't know. I mean, look, Sergio didn't win one young, he won one. Phil didn't win one young, he won one. Scotty didn't win one young, he won one. Like I don't know. There's a lot of guys who win him in their late thirty Stenson one it late, Justin Rose won it relatively late.

00:43:00
Speaker 3: Jason's wasn't straight away like I don't know, Like I think.

00:43:07
Speaker 2: There's there's there's an element of like that Jordan, what he did, the kind of there's two sides to that one. There's that kind of I wouldn't be young and dumb it's not the right word, but a little bit just no battle scars. He came out he'd been dominating amateurs for a while. He really excited about being a pro gol for he's got his whole life looking forward to him. It makes a few parts gets in a sweet spot and he he wins a few majors straight away. That's brilliant. Well that's two things right. One, he doesn't have to win a mate. Well, as I said, did I have to win a major. But he's now off the hook for a major winner. But for the rest of his career he has to live up to that. So he's going to play under more stress and like be disappointed more often because he's had such a good start too, you know, so we're never really happy. So I don't know, I don't know. There's no have to win anything, but I think the sooner rather than later if you really really really want to win or win anything. I think if it becomes a thing. See Rory of the Masters is going to become a thing. You know, he's one lots of majors, but that when it becomes a thing, like Sergio with the majors for a while and fill with the majors and Monty it it becomes Westwood. It becomes a thing. And when it becomes a thing. You're not just free playing golf anymore. You know, like you're you're you're oversinking, thinking something that really doesn't contribute to you playing well or badly. You know.

00:44:26
Speaker 3: So there's there's two sides there, I guess I think.

00:44:30
Speaker 1: I mean, it kind of is similar to like playing playing a tournament at your home course where you know you've played it so many times, you know where all your all the misses are and all the bad bad places to hit it are, and you're you know, all of a sudden, you get in a tournament and it's just different than when you're playing with your boys.

00:44:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to be an amazing patch to see who kind of stands up because there's, as you said, there's a lot of guys that look like that potentially they could be that guy who wins the next multiple major winner. You know, Ram looks like a multiple major winner. Colin could be a multiple Wajor winner. I mean, a bunch of guys, Bryson, who knows it's who's going to be the guy who kind of steps up out of this group because the group looks so deep and so good, you know, like right now we think Bryson and mark Auer and Raham. They're going to be the top three or four in the world for the.

00:45:27
Speaker 3: Next few years.

00:45:28
Speaker 2: But then in a month's time it'll be Justin Thomas will win two weeks in a row, and all of a sudden, he's gonna be a bit you know what I mean. Like it, it's an unbelievable period of golf.

00:45:35
Speaker 1: At the moment, it almost it'll be when we're fifteen years out from this, it'll be looking back. I feel like we'll look at two or three majors as like, oh man, he won a ton of majors.

00:45:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gone back to that period. It's funny. I mean everyone says everything goes around, it comes around and goes around. But when I was a kid, everyone was like, that's it. There's too many good golfers. No one will ever dominate again. We'll never see a Jack Nicholas. There's just no way. There's too many good players. We'll never see a guy who wins double digit majors again.

00:46:10
Speaker 3: It's not gonna happen.

00:46:11
Speaker 1: And that was like, that was Faldough, that was you know who.

00:46:17
Speaker 2: Langer Langer, I mean, a great period Pain Stewart guys like that, like brilliant, strange, god a strange Corey Pavin, Yeah, brilliant run off. But it was like everyone's going to share it a bit, we won't see any more Jack Nicholas. And sure enough, as that talk was happening, Tiger Woods comes along, and then for fifteen years people are like, well, it's just there's no good golfers.

00:46:37
Speaker 3: There's only one golfer in the world.

00:46:41
Speaker 2: He beats them every time, and and it was kind of true, like you just won everything that was important for a decade. But now it's gone back to the talk before Tigers. Well, everyone's too good. You can't dominate. So I don't know, it's all cycles. Someone might stand up and be extra special, you know, I don't know. But at the moment it's incredibly deep and you could not pick it could be five guys that could be number one in the world between now Christmas, Like you know what I mean, it's nuts.

00:47:13
Speaker 1: Well, I was looking at stats of the last year Adam Scott had statistically his best season is his career and he didn't even win.

00:47:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, look and you played nine holes with that of Scott? You really, how do I beat this guy? You know what? I mean, but this is nothing against out of Scott. This is a pro for everybody else. There's just a lot of players who play that good. Now, you know a lot of players. It used to be that you would and look every generation. I'm sure it's the same and there's a lot of relativity here. But when I walked on the range twenty five years ago, when I first started playing pro tournaments, there was usually two or three guys that just stood out from everybody else, be it the Greg Norman or the Faldo.

00:47:52
Speaker 3: Or the set.

00:47:52
Speaker 2: It was like, Wow, who's beating this guy Westwood when he was young Monty. Now it's like everybody just hits it good. You know, no one really stands out on the range about how hard they hit the driver or.

00:48:04
Speaker 3: Hit they good.

00:48:05
Speaker 2: Because everybody hits it good. There's a lot less fear. The people have unbelievable putters, like miraculous putters. People have talked about the authenticity. People have like given up trying to look good with a putter, and they just hold it how they want and they're making everything. You know, it's it's hard to say it's a great period. It's a Tiger effect too, right, It's all these kids who are like now, they're all the ones who are like little kids watching Tiger win, thinking I want to be that.

00:48:31
Speaker 1: Guy with no fans. How do you think that would affect having played in so many majors one major, how much different would it be playing playing and in the hunt in a major without fans or would it be similar?

00:48:45
Speaker 2: I don't know because I've never done it, but I I imagine there'd be elements of it that would be easier. There's elements of the crowd that make it more difficult because it just makes it seem a bigger occasion, which could be good and bad. People tend to make you nervous, you know, when there's lots of people.

00:49:04
Speaker 3: Around it, there's no one there, it would feel.

00:49:07
Speaker 2: Smaller maybe, But saying that, there's a lot about momentum and atmosphere that you can capture, you know, and it's usually the highest, like the biggest atmospheres that you see the best golf, you know, the Ryder Cups, last nime holes of the Masters, back nines, at US opens. You see miraculous stuff when there's like crazy energy and it's it would be an odd feeling coming down playing thirteen fifteen sixteen at the Masters on Sunday, tied for the league with tiger Woods and having that energy.

00:49:38
Speaker 3: It would be really odd, I think.

00:49:42
Speaker 2: So I don't know. I don't know if it'd be easier or harder. There'd be elements of both, I think.

00:49:46
Speaker 1: I mean, in your situation at the weak foot, it wouldn't have taken VJ fifteen minutes to take that drop.

00:49:54
Speaker 3: No, we would have finished earlier.

00:49:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be, it looks, but they'd be see at a US Open and at a tournament and non say not not the Master's pretty much everywhere else. There's no crowd now to tamp down the RAF, so there'll be There's always been this common complaint from tour players that if you if you missed the fairway by three yards, you're dead, and if you missed it by twenty you're fine because you're out where everyone's stepped on it and it's flat. So two of golf often punishes the just miss, it doesn't punish the big miss.

00:50:28
Speaker 3: Off the tea. Well, that's going to be the other way around.

00:50:31
Speaker 2: You know, it's just gonna get worse and worse if there's no one trampling down all the stuff. It's just going to get awful, So that could be interesting in the US to Open if they are if that ends up count ahead.

00:50:40
Speaker 1: How would you with like all these events packed together. I mean we were recording this, well, it'll be WGC this week, but then PGA and then a couple of weeks later you got the US Open. But in between there you've got the playoffs, You've got you know, the Master. How would you approach such a jam packed schedule?

00:51:01
Speaker 2: Wow? I mean even given that, taking away like the current state of the world and to say it was a normal to saying it was a normal state of the world and all those tournaments, I don't know. I would just you have to be very wary of like not overdoing the pre tournament stuff. When you play that many big tournaments, I think you can you see a lot of guys early in their career kind of blow all their energy on Monday Tuesday Wednesday by spending nine hours at the course Monday Tuesday Wednesday, their first Masters, you know what I mean, by Thursday morning, they're just done because they've just warned theirselves out. And if you do that week in a week out at big tournaments, that's easy to do, so, I think you'd be really smart that you'd have that Brooks style, you know, you play nine holes Tuesday, nine hole Wednesday, and be really a bit more casual about it, saying it might not be ideal for this actual tournament, but playing eight big tournaments in twelve weeks to play them all the best, I think I have to kind of just chill on them a little bit relaxed. I think it'd be very easy to get tired. And that's just the golf side of it. The the whole kind of COVID world and the spending that much of a time just having room service or Uber eats in your room and playing video games or whatever it is. I mean that's got to get tedious after a while too, you know.

00:52:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's got to. Yeah. I mean it's hard enough being in your own personal house, let alone, like in hotel rooms, it's just nuts.

00:52:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a different thing.

00:52:36
Speaker 2: I mean, look, we're used to hotel rooms, and I don't mind the hotel room here and there, but like that much of it, Like it's nice to go out to dinner or to just cruise around and do some stuff, and like it's a long it's a it's a long stretch.

00:52:50
Speaker 3: If you played three or four.

00:52:51
Speaker 2: Weeks in a row and you'd live in like that, you're not seeing much reality and you've done a few laps around your Netflix, you know what I mean by the end of that.

00:53:01
Speaker 1: So, who do you think is going to win this PGA? Who'd be your pick at Harding Park?

00:53:08
Speaker 2: It's gonna I think it's gonna be a good part of I mean, I'm sure the grains a miraculous and I'm sure I've saw them wrong, But I will say, I don't know it's gonna be one of these I don't know who should I pick.

00:53:19
Speaker 3: I should be.

00:53:20
Speaker 1: Looking at some names. You just run down the world rankings. It's crazy, Rom McElroy, JT. Web, Simpson, DJ Brooks, Bryson, Reid, Scott, Cantley, Xander, Marikawa, Fleetwood, Hatton, Tiger, Final Rose. I mean got the top twenty Leashman, Woodland and uh and Fitzpatrick. That's the top twenty. Pretty good top yeh.

00:53:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty good out of all those guy. I mean, obviously Colin Gray. I think Rom is going to be up and about because he's just one, and he's number one in the world. J T JT is a threaten any big tournament. I mean, I know Jimmy's been.

00:54:04
Speaker 3: Sick, but.

00:54:07
Speaker 2: Of the President's Cup outside of Tiger, who really impressed me in the President's Cut walking around on the fairways and driving a cart and just being I followed justin two or three rounds and he's he's that's how good he is.

00:54:20
Speaker 3: That's justin.

00:54:20
Speaker 2: Thomas is like just the complete golfer, you know, and not afraid in big situations, confident he puts good enough out there.

00:54:29
Speaker 3: I'll he's going to be if he keeps staying the way he is, he's gonna be one of my favorites going into almost All Made.

00:54:34
Speaker 2: Just really the way he plays, you know, because you just know on the last nine holes he's going to be there. You know, if he's if he plays well and he gets in content, he's not going to go away, he's gonna be hard to beat. And Brooks, I see, Brooks had a good score to start Memphis, so Brooks. There's so much horsepower in people like Brooks and Dustin that if if they just fall out of bed the right way, I mean, they can win without even thinking about it. You know, those two guys like. It's nuts how good they are.

00:55:00
Speaker 1: It's just crazy that the way Brooks has played majors, that like the way even like right now and this it probably plays and the way he plays his best is when he might start to feel like he's been an afterthought in goth and that's when he goes and rolls out of Ben wins two majors.

00:55:17
Speaker 2: You know, well, that's it. It's hard right now to be if you want to be the man that everyone talks about, no one is for more than about a month, you know, if you think about it. I mean, Bryson was the talk of the world, and all of a sudden Rams the talk of the world, and no one's talked about Brooks.

00:55:33
Speaker 3: It's about six guys ago.

00:55:34
Speaker 2: You know, justin Thomas, like Hoveland and Moroco, all the youth, and Brooks, by the way the last four years has got historically one of the best records for four years of all time.

00:55:44
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just.

00:55:45
Speaker 2: Nuts that he's played. It's a bit unfair.

00:55:49
Speaker 3: The guy's so.

00:55:49
Speaker 2: Good though, well, he could win any day he wants if he just if it all just works, he'll just win.

00:55:55
Speaker 1: Do you think it's just I mean, we've talked, We've brushed this subject a few times this conversation. But is it just the nature of goth that makes it really hard to be like, you know, Lebron's been the best player in the NBA or one of the best three players in the NBA. You could get into arguments for a decade. You know, it is there just something? Is it just goth is so hard to be the best or best three at even for a decade?

00:56:26
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:56:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if it was match play, like more like tennis. I think if all golfers match play, I think you would see a bit more dominant tennis style. Yeah, you'd have three or four guys who just had the wool over everyone and no one could beat them. You would have that. But in stroke play, there's so much randomness a little bit, and a great stroke play player isn't necessarily the go who has the best score today. It's the guy who averages kind of the best score. You know, he plays well for the longer periods, So you don't always win because there might be three other guys you're hold more puts for you that week, but over the long haul, you're going to be the best player and that's who the best player is, who kind of averages the best score.

00:57:05
Speaker 3: Well, that's not going to win all the time.

00:57:06
Speaker 2: And there's just a lot of guys, a lot of guys who are good at having good scores all the time. Now it's just a hot it's just a hard game. It's just a lot of people doing it.

00:57:14
Speaker 1: It's like, do you think it's because like if it was all match play, eventually Brian Gay, who's a great player, incredible career, but Brian Gay is going to have to play John Rahm and when that day comes there's like an added intimidation factor versus he's playing at ten fifty four off ten in John Ram's at nine off one. He's never going to see John Rahm and he could go out shoot sixty four.

00:57:46
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, it's like match play. Stroke play is basically an execution contest. Who plays seventy two holes the best? And I'll compare it to everyone else's effort over those seventy two holes and we'll see who. So it's it's more of a kind of I don't know, it's it's a mental test, but it's not match players are mental. Is the way you're playing is less important than the way you are thinking in match play a lot of times. And again, yeah, you had a John Brown Bryan Gay matchup. I'm not saying Brian wouldn't beat him, but it would be scary proposition standing on the first tea for someone like that around one day, Brooks the next day, Rory the next day.

00:58:27
Speaker 3: It's like, that's a tough three days in a row.

00:58:29
Speaker 2: Whereas if you're just trying to have the same scores as them over seventy two holes, you're not. You're not trying to match them on every shot.

00:58:36
Speaker 1: You know.

00:58:37
Speaker 3: It's different, all.

00:58:38
Speaker 2: Right, But it's just good players. It's just good players everywhere. It's just a well in tennis.

00:58:42
Speaker 1: The other thing with tennis is they have you know, like I almost feel like a set is like a match, you know, and they play best of five, and it's like a tennis match, Like it's so hard for a little bit less skilled player to beat the one of the best players.

00:59:04
Speaker 2: Yes, it seems that way because tennis also, one you're hitting the shots, but two you're having to return the other players shots. So the better they are one, the better their shots are and harder they are, so you can't hit quality shots. Up there, so they affect how you play. Yeah, it doesn't happen in golf as much, but yeah, it's just like it's a lot of kids play it, especially that Tiger effect.

00:59:27
Speaker 3: It got really cool.

00:59:28
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people in the world in their twenties now who have spent fifteen years trying to hit the.

00:59:32
Speaker 3: Ball well, way more than there were before.

00:59:35
Speaker 2: Like when I was a kid, I wouldn't tell my friends at school, especially at the young age, that I played golf because it was a dorky sport. Now everybody like, it's the cool sport, right, So it's just there's just more people doing it. There's more athletes doing it. It's a cooler thing to do. And the guys who win in this modern world, they have a million Instagram followers and they have private planes and they have this cool lifestyle that kids aspired that. I mean, these kids just want that, you know, and that's and that's more prevalent than it's ever been, you know, Ricky and Poultz and all that, tweeting their pictures from net jets on the way home and stuff.

01:00:13
Speaker 3: People want that.

01:00:14
Speaker 2: So they work amount of they work harder, but it's it's a more tangible goal for them, you know, they just it's just they get the superstartup, which seems to be what this millennial generation, that's a big carrot for them. Yeah.

01:00:30
Speaker 1: Well, more money in any sport usually is going to lead to more talent and more athleticism, a better athlete, you know. That's that's and that's what. Tager brought so much money into the game that it's natural that it would it would come. So, hey, thanks for coming on. We're excited for the PGA and always good to catch up.

01:00:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, no worries, it'll be good. Get a major back with no people.

01:00:53
Speaker 3: Well, so it's like