Four Things About the 2022 Players Championship with Sean Martin

00:00:00
Speaker 1: 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 egg.

00:00:07
Speaker 2: Frida egg, Frida egg, fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about.

00:00:12
Speaker 3: Ready to run off of the hump. Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. This week is Player's Week, so I figured it would be no better than to bring in my favorite PGA Tour employee, Sean Martin, onto the podcast. Sean is a writer editor UH for PGA tour dot com. He is the lead editor, lead editorial, lead Comma Editorial at tour dot com. So we talk about a little bit about what's been going on on the PGA Tour as well as preview this week's players. As always, you can read Sean's writing at pgatour dot com. Highly recommend it. He does a great job blending stories and stats like nobody else can do. He's just a he's a golf nutt So uh, without further ado, here is Sean Martin and enjoy the players this week?

00:01:33
Speaker 1: All right?

00:01:34
Speaker 3: Sean Martin, Lead editorial for pgatour dot com, PGA Tour Editorial Lead. I like editorial lead more. You know, I'm not a big title human, but you got promoted from senior editor. You know every time every year you get promoted. It seems like because every year I interview you, you have a new title.

00:01:56
Speaker 2: I should flip the nines are saying, go from lead editorial to editorial lead, and just yeah, maybe I should do that. It's worked well for many golf courses, including Gustin Nationals, and I just flipped the nines.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's it's not a bad idea. I think it just it rings a little bit. It's easier, it doesn't You don't need the comma.

00:02:13
Speaker 1: Then neither.

00:02:14
Speaker 2: Titles with punctuation in them always throw me off, like because then oftentimes.

00:02:19
Speaker 4: You put a comma.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: If you say someone's name first, like Andy Johnson, CEO of Friday, you surround.

00:02:25
Speaker 4: That with commas. You have to throw a comma in the title.

00:02:27
Speaker 2: Then there's commas within commas, and it's just clauses and it's just can't keep it straight.

00:02:33
Speaker 3: As somebody that never learned where to put put a comma.

00:02:36
Speaker 1: My wife when she added the.

00:02:39
Speaker 4: You're running a successful golf website.

00:02:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, she used to used to say when she was editing the newsletter way back when she'd be like, I think that you actually think to put the comma always in the wrong spot. So you know, anytime the comma is involved, I try and get out of the situation.

00:02:59
Speaker 1: So we we haven't talked in a while.

00:03:01
Speaker 3: But how's what would have been your thoughts about the early part of the season. We're going to do our usual uh big tournament lead up, which this isn't quite a major, So we're going to do four things instead of five things.

00:03:15
Speaker 2: I was wondering if that was a shot at the status of the gold stand.

00:03:18
Speaker 3: It's more than a big you know, a regular tournament might quantify three things.

00:03:24
Speaker 1: This tournament guests four things. It's not quite five.

00:03:27
Speaker 4: It offers the same amount of fed ESCO points, but does not get as many things as the majors.

00:03:31
Speaker 3: I get it, well, I mean, the Honda offered just only one hundred fed x poits less than this one.

00:03:38
Speaker 1: You know, So what's that say?

00:03:43
Speaker 4: I actually don't. I don't know, to be honest, I'm speechless.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: That's why we're giving a lot of things. That is what I've said.

00:03:50
Speaker 2: There will be plenty of things, as we also know, we'll probably neither us will stick to four things. Things will get slid into things will be sub things. There'll be many things discussed today.

00:03:59
Speaker 4: Now things are good.

00:04:00
Speaker 2: I think last week was, uh, you guys discussed it on the Shocking Star, but an awesome week for just kind of golf.

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Speaker 4: Like you had the.

00:04:07
Speaker 2: Ascending star of Scotty Scheffler and then the Cinderella story of Brian brim and it kind of I think it's like the two things we love most about golf, right, you want that you want to see a rising star or you just want to see a guy whose life is completely changed on one day.

00:04:19
Speaker 4: And so we had that.

00:04:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is obviously Scheffler is a huge story and I think that a ton of success as it am and hit the ground running, was great player on the corn Ferry Tour and was a great player that just didn't have that win. And it's like always this thing is like is winning overrated in something that you know you got to have good bounces go your way to win. These guys, you know, in these events there's so many good players, and you know, Scotty Scheffler doesn't win for a couple of years, and everybody's starting to say, oh, is he ever gonna win? It's like now here two into three weeks against two of the best fields year is. The Other thing is that in in UH and he's got a lot of close calls in majors. It's uh, it's time to start talking about Scotti, Scheffler with UH, with Hovland, with not more Calan rom yet I don't think but you know, in that in that group, like I think they he is a obviously, you know, top five player in the world.

00:05:20
Speaker 4: It's crazy too because I feel like Scheffler and I could be wrong.

00:05:23
Speaker 2: And Brentley Romand will let me know if I am. But like, he didn't win a ton at college. He was a guy who just you know, consistently racked up top fives. You know, obviously he's a walker, cupper, he's a low am at the US Open, a great career like Scheffler Morikawa. I don't feel like they won a ton in college. Maybe that's just because the setups obviously aren't quite as penal and you can't separate yourself. I don't know, but they didn't win a ton in college and then have like this really quick success as pros. I mean, Scheffler despite appearances in what people say on Twitter, like he is twenty five years old and a fifth in the world now. And I don't know if maybe that's something you just continue to learn. I don't know, but they didn't. These were guys were lighting college golf on fire. Really this is a dominant player. I mean that was Matthew Wolfe when Colin Moricola and Scheffler were in college Pavelandudent win a ton of Oak State.

00:06:10
Speaker 4: I don't know. It was just something I was thinking about the other day, or actually yesterday when Scheffer's winning.

00:06:13
Speaker 3: I think, I mean, there's a couple of things to unpack from this, and I think there's there's different personalities, right, And I think that's a big part the thing that gets lost a little bit about performance and personalities. I personally kind of like I was never a great student, but the second I started working and it was my livelihood and it was my work, I became a great like employee, right, I was really I worked my ass off like I never worked in college or high school.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: At school, and I think that can be part of it.

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Speaker 3: There's a switch when you turn professional that all of a sudden, oh, this is my job and that's a different mentality and certain personalities where you're doing it. You're a college athlete, you know, at this point, at that point there's no revenue sources coming in. It's like kind of still like a hobby and I'm good at it, but it's not a job that there's a switch that turns, and certain guys are going to just take a leap because their personality is to kind of be a loafer. And I think I think Scheffler, I don't want to, you know, was known of like he had a lot of head scratching performances like what's going on? But then what I always noticed was the big big tournaments, when it was the NCAA Championships, when it was the USAM Scottie Scheffler was there.

00:07:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, US Open.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: I think he shot sixty nine the first round at Oakmont in twenty sixteen. Yeah, I mean it's very true and college golf like, yeah, you know, if you don't, especially in a program like Texas, you know, you finish fifth and you get on the jet with the team and you go back to your campus and have fun with your friends and you play ping pong after a practice, Like it is a totally different lifestyle than you know, when you're traveling the PJ Tour now and you're you know, he's married. Like, you're traveling to events and you're there for really one reason, and that's to play good golf and prepare to play good golf. There's no other really distraction.

00:08:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that's something that doesn't get talked about enough because golf is so it's so mental obviously, and you know, you see it with you see it with kids though that in NFL players and NBA got like you know, certain organizations know like, oh, if we can get this guy into our system, we can turn them into something that people might not see. But I think with golf there's the I think sometimes you know, kids turn pro and that whole dynamic crushes them. Also they really struggle with it. But then there's certain guys that just thrive with with like being a professional and knowing hey, like something clicks in their brain that says like, oh this I got to actually work hard now.

00:08:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually so you'll like this as a hoops head. But you know is at the MIT Sloan conference weekend, and.

00:09:00
Speaker 4: I want to talk about this, we'll get It'll be one of our things.

00:09:03
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't want to use our whole thing a lot too quickly though, But you know, I went to a couple of basketball panels and the next thing they feel really good about how to project players from college performance physically, But the next is like mentally, how do you pick who's going to be a great teammate? How do you predict who's going to you know, be a fit into your system? Well and as far as you know, sharing the ball and not being obsessed with individual stats. And part of it was, frankly, was like Daryl Morey said, the second that you think you have an answer, you don't have an answer. And it really was just like like, look, these guys are nineteen twenty years old, and we all change immensely from nineteen to twenty five, and you can't predict that, Like the best algorithm in the world isn't going to predict that.

00:09:45
Speaker 4: And so some of that too, like there is just some mystery to it.

00:09:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, I I So tell me a little bit more about the Sloan Sloan Conference. So, for those that don't know, the Sloan's Conference is the you know, basically sports and analytics super Bowl. So they're speakers. There are people that are, you know, great analytics experts, and every type of sport work for different teams, whether it's team based, editorial based.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: Go it was it in Boston again.

00:10:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was so cold. I don't know how people live in those parts of the country. It was unbelievable. I'm sure people at me with my weather takes, but it's unlivable even in March.

00:10:25
Speaker 4: Beautiful city though.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think one of there was a few golf things. It's Golf's never obviously one of the headliners there. It's you know, baseball, basketball, football. One of the cool things was Kirk Goldsberry, ESPN's NBA analyst, was talking about biomechanics and how that's still a frontier that the NBA hasn't delved deeply into, and he said that golf is actually, you know, really far ahead of basketball in that area. And I think it's always interesting when people do mention golf, you know, because everyone thinks we're behind the times and behind on certain things, but golf's embracing of biomechanics. And he did mention Bryson by name as kind of the example and how what he did during COVID and post COVID with his you know, kind of Chris Como's lab and his living room, but somewhere that golf was ahead of other sports. And I think I tweeted this morning, you know, I think the big thing that I really sense, it's been a few years since i've been to it, is that like we're definitely going from a macro to like a micro stage of analytics. And I think probably we were already there and I just picked up on it. But you know, analytics cause these giant changes in how we think about sports. So the NBA was shooting the three more often, MLB was focusing on three true outcomes of strikes, walks, and home runs. Golf it was bang driver more often, right, And so it's like, Okay, we found these new conclusions that we feel like we should play the game differently, and then now it's becoming more nuanced where it's like, okay, but those conclusions don't work for everyone, and so how instead do we use the analytics to get the most out of our team, like, out of what we have right now, instead of wish we had you know, Steph on our team or something, how do we get the best out of this player instead of trying to turn him into something he's nine. So I think that's kind of the next phase. I think we'll see that some in golf as well. And I think we are seeing it because like, look, not everyone can send it, you know, all the time, and Rory showed us that sometimes when you do try to do that, you you ruin things. So I think that's where we're coming out next. It'll be a much more nuanced view of kind of what analytics can do.

00:12:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that's the I mean, it makes a lot of sense. Right There's there's best practices and then there are obviously best practices for you, and it's such a personal endeavor the game. Like if you you could know percentage wise that this is certain shots the right shot, but if you're standing over the golf ball and you just don't feel good, you should not hit that shot because like at the end of the day, if you don't feel comfortable, you know, And that's I think one of the big things with the analytics is like what's necessarily right for the masses isn't always right for the end.

00:13:00
Speaker 2: Well and going you know, the thing that holds a lot of people up with biomechanics, like the NBA is like basically you got to send a guy up to I guess it's EA sports Lab in Vancouver where it's literally the suit with all the markers on it. But there was a company there, sports Box. I think someone us have seen them on Twitter that like literally it's gonna turn your phone into almost an a motion capture system where like you can film someone's swing and it will then produce this three D model of their motion and you can compare it to your own benchmark, you can compare it to someone else's swing, and so like, I mean, if you're one day in your pocket, your phone is going to be like a launch monitor, which I think isn't that far away either. The rap Sodo system is kind of the size of a launch monitor and uses basically a camera to kind of track it. Or you know, your phone is going to allow you to do like biomechanical analysis, like just imagine. I mean, I remember the players a couple of years ago. Web Sentison was like, yeah, we used to get a club from the trucks and be like all right, here, try to make this work. And now it's like, you know, if it doesn't work in a couple swing, they just change it, and so you don't you're not making your swing fit the club like the club's fitting your swing. So all these like changes can just happen now much more quickly, and there's so much less time in the wilderness trying to figure things out.

00:14:10
Speaker 1: That's it.

00:14:11
Speaker 3: I mean Ogilvy uh said on this pod years ago he was I think he said, it used to be everybody went week to week and they talk on the range. I think I've got it, and then one day everybody.

00:14:25
Speaker 1: Just knew what the answer was.

00:14:27
Speaker 3: Like it was like that's what TrackMan did, was that everybody on the range knew it, knew what it was. And it used to be you go week to week thinking you got it and thinking you had it figured out. And I think that's uh. That's been a little bit of the underrated, uh the underspoken about aspect of of what's going on on tour now, the depth of talent and the crazy school waiting scores that we saw early part of this year, is that like, you know, these guys are really good. They've trained differently than any other type of uh, you know, a golfer that we've seen to date, and you know, the swing is so dialed in now.

00:15:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so really the biggest separator now probably is mental game. Like there's so many players with the physical tools to do it right, it's the mental ability to withstand the pressure. So you go back to like Scotti Scheffler, like he was a very good college player, a great college player. But honestly, one of the things that maybe set separates him now is that he's a guy who doesn't seem to get you know, perturbed, doesn't seem to get very upset handles, the seems to handle the pressure.

00:15:29
Speaker 4: Now.

00:15:30
Speaker 2: You know, whether that's because Ted Scott's on the bag and he's helping him, or just is a coincidence that he's winning after Ted came on the bag. But you know, the biggest separator right now might be the mental game. And so those guys who possess kind of that eight factor, you know, mentally to handle Sunday afternoons, like you can't separate yourself as much with the physical game. So maybe it's the mental game now it separates you more.

00:15:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know Scheffler, it seems like he'd be playing the exact same way if it was Tuesday morning or Sunday afternoon. Just with his disposition, it's very similar, Like as he keeps becoming a little bit more more in the spotlight, like there's gonna be some DJ comps because I think like they've got a very similar kind of attute, apathetic look, but deep down that they you know, like that's the thing. Nobody gets to the top five of the world without working hard. Now for a quick word from our sponsor, Club Champion. A Club Champion is a new sponsor. They are the best in the business at club fitting. So I've been personally I could talk to this for a very long time. I've been going to Club Champion since before it was Club Champion. I used to get my clubs fit by one of the founders of Club Champion out of his garage when I was in high school. And it's been really fun as a consumer, as a customer of theirs, to watch them grow from a garage into this huge corporation that has club fitting centers all over the country.

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00:18:21
Speaker 2: Uh, he is not, but he maybe should be. Is the hottest player in golf? I guess I hate saying that.

00:18:26
Speaker 3: But it's like, how do you you know, hottest player in the last couple of months, but like, how do you how do you say John ram is the hottest player the last year?

00:18:34
Speaker 1: Because what he's right?

00:18:35
Speaker 2: And then going in to Bayhill, you would have said Victor Hoblin was the hottest player in the world. I mean he only finished a stroke behind him, so really that much of a difference. So yeah, he's not, but maybe he should have been. But I'm sure we'll discuss him.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: What's your first thing?

00:18:48
Speaker 4: My first thing is really the weather. It's kind of wild.

00:18:52
Speaker 2: We've got it looks like three different win We've got some rain early in the week, then it gets cool and windy. We've got like three different wind directions. I texted a couple caddies to try to get people who know this stuff better than I to weigh in on it. And you know, you've got possibly twenty plus a mile an hour wins on the weekend from different directions, and then on the weekend it's going to be seventeen and eighteen playing into the wind, which is going to make them very difficult, and that's kind of your traditional march wind. But I think just the variety. You know, you've got a golf course where it's it's hard to see this unless you've like been here or looked at an aerial of it, but it's a golf course where two straight holes don't go in the same direction until seventeen and eighteen. So if you've got different wind directions, you've got high winds, swirling winds, Like it's just a variable test because it's not like you know, for example, Keilah last year, on the back nine, you've got you know, I think four holes out, five holes in, and you just face one direction and then halfway through the back nine you face the same direction all the way come in. It's it's just it's gonna be kind of crazy. It's a little soft right now, but the rough is thick, and then a high wind out here is it could be hard.

00:19:59
Speaker 3: Other thing about it with wind is that you're in those tree canopies, so it's really actually really hard to like know which way it's blowing and it and it adds a lot of doubt because like you get those swirls and you get it coming down a tunnel and it might not be like the way the ball, the way the winds reacting above above that tree line isn't the what you feel on the ground. And I think that is something. And I think one of the things with this golf golf course in the March date, with the overseed right, the overseeded rye, it's never gonna play lightning fast, so like unlike like a lot of weeks, like if you see riv just getting drenched in rain, you're like kind of sad, like, oh that's a bummer. Like rain here isn't as big of a deal. They have subair in the greens which can get some of that moisture out of it. But I think the big thing is like the fairways aren't going to play like flying fast either way. You know, obviously you don't want rain, but it's not the worst place to get rain of all the places on the calendar.

00:21:04
Speaker 1: So I think that's the thing.

00:21:06
Speaker 3: But I yeah, I'm excited, and I think from you know, when you think about a golf tournament, right, you get these like four days of competition, and it's I was thinking about it. It's like you know, if you know basketball game or NFL game or any other sport, is like the game is condensed into this like small, you know, two hour block, but golf is crazy because it's spanned out. This is really the ideal kind of thing where you get that variability because each day is a little different and if you if you sit down and you really make a you know, a point to watch this tournament day and day out, you're gonna see something fun because holes are going to play so much differently day and day out.

00:21:45
Speaker 2: The hard part is that it's warm enough here now that the rain is going to be thunderstorms, which is going to mean delays and play probably it's not going to be you know, playing through it. But then the low on Saturdays forty one and the highest seventy Sunday, the lowest thirty six and the highest fifty three, which I mean, that's you don't get that very often, and it's gonna be a grind.

00:22:05
Speaker 1: I'm glad I'm not attending.

00:22:07
Speaker 4: I know, I might break out the beauties. Yea, he loves big mits.

00:22:10
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a big miss season for sure. So I was the weather is gonna add to an enhance the viewing experience and we got year two of every shot live, so that's I think this is one of the things to watch for the way most people watch this event, Like, I think this is one of the coolest things out there. Obviously Augusta does does it. It's not live, but the the ability to go back and watch somebody's round the entire entirety is incredible.

00:22:42
Speaker 1: It's so fun.

00:22:43
Speaker 3: It's really cool that you can always like, you know, one of the things I love about it is that you can go through and you can identify exactly where people made their round or lost their round because very rarely like these guys black out like Sheffler when he shot fifty nine right and they hit everything seemingly perfect and they're just on all day. But for the vast majority of rounds and over course of four rounds, there's always rough patches, and I always think that the guys that are in the hunt are the ones that navigate those rough patches as well. And with these like at Augusta and here, you can actually see what where these are and it's so fun. Like I recommend everybody checking this out, but it's you can really get a sense of how all these guys played, and I think a pigeonholed last year. I'm going to do my other one of my other things. You could see JT coming a mile away last year because of this every shot live like you'd go back and you're like, oh my god, he hasn't missed a shot for nine holes, ten holes, and it's like he just hasn't made a putt for the entire week. And then all of a sudden, putts started going in and and he he was like, you know, he was the very like it's this you know, variable, but ball striking sticks around for a while. I think one of the things is like JT's performance last year goes a little underrated. You you wrote about it, and you know, I think it goes underrated because he hasn't followed it up with with as stellar of play as we would have expected.

00:24:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think unfortunately part of that's the putter, which has been it's been down for a while, and I think people are starting to talk about it. I think that's really been the thing that held him back. But I mean it was incredible last year. You know, it hit the first seventeen greens. You know, he hits the green in two on nine, which that used to be like a momentous achievement. There was like four guys shot. Yeah, there was like four guys who had done it, even the JT. I mean, granted, you know Jimmy Johnson caddied for Stricker, who's not exactly a bomber, and some other guys. But he said, his caddies said, that's the first time I've.

00:24:49
Speaker 4: Had an eagle putt on nine.

00:24:50
Speaker 2: After he hit in two on eleven, he hits that big high cut with a four iron, makes eagle twelve, He drives it, hits a good drive on twelve, the rolls through the green. Sixteen was like the epitome of like what he can do as far as moving. It hits that controlled snaphook off the tee. The shot he plays on Tan and Augusta and then balls above his feet on an upslope and he hits a high cut with a five wood onto the green on sixteen, and then he plays that controlled snaphook again, maybe a little closer to the water than he wanted on eight.

00:25:17
Speaker 1: That that was a very fortuitous bounce.

00:25:20
Speaker 3: As a as a Westie fan, I was, I was, I was myth that that ball didn't bounce left on that hook.

00:25:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was you know, he's I talked to his dad. His dad said, honestly, he's been flushing it since he was five. Like people ask him, what's the incredible stuff you saw from JT at a young age, and he said, he really just had this innate ability to hit it flush from the start. And even so so like when he was seven and eight, we had to get him a full set of irons, whereas like most kids that age, you get him like maybe just the even numbered irons the odd numbered irons because there's not that much disparity, right, but like when he was eight, there's enough disparity.

00:25:53
Speaker 4: Between his irons that he needed like a full bag.

00:25:55
Speaker 2: And then JC while Alabama told out how after practice they'd have a contest see who could hit flake sticks from one to fifty out and he remembers the time that JT hit two of them like in one contest on one day. It's just you know, he he is a guy who he obviously is one of the best balls. He was on tour, maybe the best iron player post Tiger. He can make a case from Aricawa, which they're playing together, so that makes it really fun to watch. But also then a guy who really shapes it. You know, we talked about Moricawa and he alters height but mostly plays the fade. But JT, you know, kind of just plays the full array and really does kind of have that old school mentality with iron play, and it was on full display at the Players last year.

00:26:34
Speaker 3: I think the other thing that gets you know, goes under the radar about JT is how how many shots he uses around the greens. Also, yeah, like he is, he's really fun to watch chip the ball because he has the ray, he has the full bag of shots like he hits. He keeps a lot of shots low and uses the ground a lot. He bumps a lot of them into slopes. He he really he's a fun guy to watch play golf.

00:27:00
Speaker 4: You know.

00:27:00
Speaker 3: The putter is just you know, you look at his his career in that five win year is like the one one year he putted above average. You know, it's just if he could just be an average putter, he'd be the number one player in the world.

00:27:13
Speaker 2: Yes, some say he's American Todeci, but the Every Shot Live you combine it with tour cast, which is a kind of the cool three D shot or three D hole models and then show shot trails for every shot. It's it's a fun thing to play with because then when you do have every shot live, you have a video of the shot to go with the shot trails. So it's a fun thing to like just sit around and play with if you have some time to dive in.

00:27:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, ultimate second screen event. I think like that's the thing you could put the coverage on. You can kind of keep what's going on in you know, and you know hear what's going on.

00:27:45
Speaker 1: You won't miss anything.

00:27:46
Speaker 3: But then it's a great urnament to I like love going through people's rounds. Yeah, all right, what's your next one?

00:27:54
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of great players who are putting poorly, it's genre through his stats today. So John Ram leads the PGA Tour in Green's regulation, leads the PJ Tour, and Sharps caned off the t second or sorry leads a tour in shrops gain t degree, second is shros gained approach and fourth and driving distance, which I don't remember John Rom being like upwresched. I mean he knew he was long, I didn't realize. I don't remember him being top five long, he's fourth and driving distance so he's like far and away when you include like off the tee distance, driving it long and straight, hitting the approachhots like he is unquestionably the best like combo on tour right now, and.

00:28:31
Speaker 4: He's putting horribly.

00:28:33
Speaker 2: Changed putter's last round of Riviera and going into Bay Hill. You know there is variance. He blamed the Poeana on the West Coast, which is interesting because it is hard for him to putt, but also like he does great out there. Yeah, I won the US Open and that Tory Pines and any contents of Tory Pines every year and one his first tour event there, So you know, you do wonder is it is it a variance thing where if it is and things start to just turn, like you said, even average, then he's probably dominant. And if they don't, then he's gonna go crazy just striping it all day and getting nothing out of it.

00:29:05
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, this is an interesting thing about golf, right you could have down years with the putter. The putter is so variable it is a and it is a it's something that's like invokes scar scars and people like I think that's the thing is that putting struggles stick with you longer because there's just like a mental thing and and I think putting's almost easier when you're younger than when you get older, just because of the mental toll that you inflict on yourself over the years. And I think one of the things that makes Rom so appealing as a player and where you start to project out is all around excellence and slippage, like that's those are the unicorns that I think is the unicorn players are the ones that like, you look at it and it's like, oh, they could conceivably finish top twenty in every strokes gain category and John Rom's in that in that mix, and there aren't many guys that can do that. So I think obviously that's a you know, you look for it, putts are gonna go down, but you just hope it doesn't last too long, because that's where I think that's where you start to get worried about that type of stuff.

00:30:14
Speaker 4: Definitely.

00:30:14
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's even like it might be looking too much into it, but you know the ten incher at bay Hill, and obviously he was just trying to tap it in, but you're like, is there also just that discomfort with the putter. Now, granted, with the Greens the way they were, it's hard to even just ground the club. But you know, the last three seasons before this one he was thirty six, twenty second and forty second in SROs game putting. So he's a top fifty putter on tour. He's one thirty fifth right now. Again, you could be due for some regression, you don't know, but it's just something that I'm sure obviously you know sooner than later you want to see turn around.

00:30:43
Speaker 1: I mean, and the stats are we're like forty.

00:30:45
Speaker 4: Percent through the year, right, yeah.

00:30:47
Speaker 3: Like something like that because of the the wrap around schedule. One of the other things that I think you hit on there a little bit. With Rom ranking so high in distance, there have been a lot of like sneaky distance gainers, uh this year, like guys that you don't know like but then just have like you know, you wrote about Will zeal Taurus early in the year, but then you say Rom. It's like there are a lot of guys that have watched Bryson. They haven't made a big show of it, but they've come back longer and it's not even it's guys that you don't even know about, like, uh, you know Joseph Lamanna, who's come on this pot a couple of times and writes for some for the Frida Egg. He sent me a text yesterday about sneaky distance guy Chris Kirk, who's who's really added a lot of distance and and it's interesting he's been just popping up on leaderboards.

00:31:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, so interesting.

00:31:37
Speaker 3: One that he pulled out and was relevant last week at bay Hill. One thing with this that I uh, you know obviously got shut down last year. Bryson was talking about playing up the ninth. This is a golf course that kind of like it throttles everybody.

00:31:55
Speaker 1: Back yep, and you know it.

00:31:59
Speaker 3: A lot of players have talked about how long it took them to really learn how to play sawgrass. Obviously famously, Rory talked about how it really frustrated him for a long time. I'm you know, the holes aren't really close and you have these tall pines. But I'm wondering if there's going to be at some point some people that start to try and push for alternate strategies on different holes.

00:32:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm trying to think. I can't, off the top of my head. Imagine one where you really.

00:32:27
Speaker 3: Can other than the ninth going to eighteen up nine, which a kid did in the junior tournament.

00:32:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have incredibly long There is a hospitality on the hill between nine and eighteen. So then I don't know where you'd get if you want to release, like line of sight, I don't know where you would go.

00:32:45
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's really the only one because.

00:32:48
Speaker 2: The strand there's not many holes that run parallel to each other, and the trees between them are pretty so big.

00:32:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I'm curious that even if it's like small things like different different equipment, one of the things I'm always shocked about is how you know this is a golf course that you need to turn a ball over some you need to hit some right to left shots. Like I'm really always surprised that, like there isn't more equipment tinkering week in week out, and this seems like a course that you want a lot different bag here than at riv right, Yeah, like you'd want to set this bag up differently, but they're so reluctant, like I'm saying, you know, playing holes, but also how you approach this week just seems like one that you'd want to do something a little different.

00:33:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that, you know, you think about the T shot at ten and Augusta is unlike really anything else. It's a controlled snaphook. And JT uses that shot on two, sixteen and eighteen. That's three T shots. That's one fifth of your T shots for the round. And it is a controlled snaphook because he's not comfortable with just a little draw and but it works well. It's a exaggerated stinger, I guess if you will, But you don't really see see much of it. You see, especially in March. I think March it's a little more of a driver golf course.

00:34:04
Speaker 4: You know.

00:34:04
Speaker 2: Rory said that when he won in twenty nineteen, when he ascended his throne, that one reason that he finally had figured it out was because March is a little softer and more driver friendly.

00:34:13
Speaker 4: But yeah, and it is.

00:34:16
Speaker 2: Of course where you have to work it both ways to really kind of get the most out of it, because there are so many S shaped holes where it's a draw off the tee and then a fade.

00:34:22
Speaker 4: Into the green or vice versa. I don't know that's a good point.

00:34:27
Speaker 3: Though, Yeah, you know, so I think that's one of the things too with Bodern. Obviously we've seen like fade are you can hit that knuckle cut now, and that's what all most of the best players in the world hit, And the equipment has actually started to favor that way too, So you know, there's a lot of fade bias in drivers, and it's it's just an interesting thing that you don't see. You know, it might even be going back to an older model driver that lets you turn the.

00:34:58
Speaker 1: Ball over a little bit more.

00:35:00
Speaker 3: And I'm curious if you know, and I'm not a gear head at all, but this is this is an event that seems like I would be looking at like is there you know, like you think about one and ten, those aren't Those aren't driver t shots, but you want to turn the ball right to left.

00:35:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, one's pretty straight, honestly. One to me always feels a little bit like a fake because he has that pond on the right that really doesn't come into play for tour players. But it's really actually pretty honestly, it's the beauty of like peepe dives, you know, kind of visual tricks of like there's water on the right and it seems like you want to cut it off the off the trees, but like it really doesn't matter, Like it's just a it. It looks like a dog leg to the right because the green is off to the right side, but where you're driving it is dead straight. But it's just you're all turned about because of the bunker. You can see it by the green and I don't know, it's just it completely messages with you. I think another hole is four where you see some guys play driver more often now I'll be interested to see, especially with you know, different wind directions and if guys continue with that, especially if it's soft. But it really is, it's just so much of having to work it too out here is really like it's just a mental thing because of those visual tricks from Pete Die.

00:36:16
Speaker 1: All right, what's your what's your next one? What do you how about? You got left? You got two left?

00:36:20
Speaker 4: I got two left.

00:36:22
Speaker 2: I wanted to go to another elite ball striker since that's all we've kind of talked about, but one who is putting well maybe we don't know why, but Colin Morikawa. You know, Marikawa's results just on on the PGA Tour this season are are pretty incredible. It's second seventh, fifth, fifth, second, and you know, you think back in at the early part of his year more Kawa or career Marikawa like one, he took advantage of opportunities, right, he would get into contention and he would win, but then he would disappear for a little bit. And we saw it kind of late last year after he got injured, which granted that's an injury reason. But now, I mean it's five straight finishes of no worse than seventh and his last dight starts worldwide, he's got to win, two runners up, a total of five top fives and only two finishes outside of seventh. Like he's just this level of consistency now that you're seeing and he's fourth. The big thing is he's fourth and trops game putting, and again.

00:37:17
Speaker 4: How long does that last? Like you know, we don't we don't know.

00:37:19
Speaker 2: And he was on the Noling Up pod and talked about how I think just some of it just you can, you know, you continue to learn and get a little bit better and address it. And it's just if Kalain Mararikawa is gonna even be like we're don't know wrong, like an average putter.

00:37:35
Speaker 4: It's it's kind of dangerous.

00:37:37
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe he just needed to get rid of the Green.

00:37:39
Speaker 2: Books man, Yeah, I honestly, I mean maybe I think there is something. I think the guys talked about it first, and you know, we really no one really followed up and including myself, like two months into the No Greens Book, what the effect was. But you know, a lot of guys frankly, were kind of like, hey, I'm glad I don't have to use them like I used them because everyone else was and you don't want to lose that advance.

00:38:00
Speaker 4: Of having the Greens book.

00:38:01
Speaker 2: But for some guys, they didn't realize until it was gone it was better to get their nose out of the book and more focused on what was in front of them.

00:38:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it makes sense.

00:38:10
Speaker 3: It seems like he's a very like the way he hits irons, I mean, the tactical precision of that, and like the ability to seemingly feel like you know, Tiger always talking like Pinnhigh, like he hits his irons are so good, and that's so feel oriented that I you know, like you you can't, yeah, you say it's one fifty four, but like there's a lot of that goes into it. Of Wind all that computation that goes through players had and he is so good with that that it would make sense that he would be very good with with putting, like from a just that approach style, and they could have could help him a lot. I don't know, it's I think the consistency. What always amazed me about his collegiate career was that, I think his senior year, I think I think his worst finish was sixth and over the entire year, Yeah, and that's what he's doing. And that's the thing I think that's been so impressive about him his entire career is when you start to like compile the averages of like this is how few cuts he's made, This is how many top twenty fives he's had, this is how many top tens, And it's just getting better and better, just like it did in college. Like he was always a great player. He's a great player as a freshman in college, but the consistency just.

00:39:31
Speaker 1: Got better year and year out.

00:39:33
Speaker 3: And I think that's just we're just going to see more of that from him on the PGA tour level as he gets more and more comfortable. That other thing, like now he's going through these courses for the third time.

00:39:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's that's a big deal.

00:39:47
Speaker 2: Shout out fun around sixty six last year here, And I think, you know, people have different opinions about the Sagarine rankings. I frankly like him. They measure golf in a different way than he used to. The World Ranking favors kind of high finishes. You get tons of points, exponentially more points, just like how you get exponentially more money for high finishes. The Sagurins are more about just consistency, Like it'll ding you for poor finishes, but if you're just consistently knocking on like T twenty after T twenty, you'll be high in those. And he's eleventh of those right now. But I mean, really, even after I think he won the Open, he was like mid twenties, which people kind of scoffed at. But it was because he'd have these great finishes, but then he'd also follow him up with a bunch of kind of middling finishes that you know, the Sagurins kind of recognized.

00:40:28
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, what's what's your last one?

00:40:31
Speaker 2: A couple of one and this it's kind of repetitive, so I'll throw in a bonus thing. Also get that fifth thing just to get us major status, but speak something and just you know, maybe getting people starting to think of it as a patriot. I just looked really quickly at like the Strokes gain rankings for the winners in March in May, because you know, we have five players in March in the shot link era now because we had the ones from four, five oh six and then the last two and so stroscain approach. In March, the average rank of the winner for that week was three point eight. The worst finish was sixth. In May it was fourteen point four. Stroskaned off the tee. The average ranking was twelve, and that's because you had one person at thirty six. The other four guys were in the top ten, whereas May it was twenty fifth. And I think that goes back to it's a little bit softer of golf course. It's more driver, so you can kind of separate yourself with your driver. And then I think with the approach played, because it is softer, you can flag it a little more. May was so firm, and you saw a lot of guys actually win with really impressive around the green performances. You think of like Jason day Web Simpson Potter of was on fire.

00:41:40
Speaker 3: See what it was incredible around the green.

00:41:43
Speaker 2: Guys were missing tons of greens in May because it was so firm, and so really it kind of became more about the short game, where I think now with it being a little softer, a little longer, it really is more of a ball striker's performance. And so that's kind of I'm gonna go with my last thing of Cameron Young. I'm really interested to see what he does. He's been really impressive. He's made every cut since missing the cut at Sony's worst finish is fortieth. And really he's done well in a variety of golf courses. And you think of this as like a everyone talking about this is a veterans golf course. He needs to know, you need to learn it. You know, first timers don't do well here. But you know he finished twentieth, a Tory, twenty sixth, the Phoenix, runner up at Riviera sixteenth to Honda thirteenth Bay Hill. So just good performances on a variety.

00:42:24
Speaker 4: Of golf courts.

00:42:24
Speaker 1: You's got to be tired.

00:42:26
Speaker 4: He does have to be very tired. He is young, but yeah.

00:42:29
Speaker 3: He's probably not tired of looking at his bank account the last few weeks though.

00:42:33
Speaker 2: Definitely not, And so just curiously just what he does, just because he's shown an ability to adapt to so many different kinds of golf courses.

00:42:43
Speaker 4: Six last seven winners have been in their twenties.

00:42:45
Speaker 2: At the Players, Webb was the oldest at thirty two, So I think it's actually a little bit more of a young person's golf course again than we used to think it was.

00:42:52
Speaker 1: It's a good point.

00:42:53
Speaker 3: I think it it ties in a little bit about what Havod was saying this week about how when things get so firm he feels like it's not it doesn't favor him, who's obviously like a really elite ball striker, because then he ends up in a lot of areas where he has to chip from because it's so hard to hit greens.

00:43:12
Speaker 1: You know, it's a the line.

00:43:15
Speaker 3: Of like where it is like because firm still is better I think for longer hitters and you know, better ball strikers, but there is like when it gets so nuclear firm, it you know, it does kind of smooth everybody back together.

00:43:31
Speaker 1: And I think that that's right. Can Duke. I think he should get an exemption.

00:43:40
Speaker 4: A permanent lifetime for that one run.

00:43:42
Speaker 3: It should be on the you know, they do those reairs of players which I love, like the months leading in, and it should be one of them.

00:43:51
Speaker 1: That Saturday was wild.

00:43:54
Speaker 4: It was.

00:43:54
Speaker 2: But those years, you know, those years that Rory you know, talk about getting frustrated. Three aren't off the tee all the time because it really it was just so firm. There was not room to hit driver. Because this is a kind of constraining golf course. You can't really there's only so far you can hit it on some holes.

00:44:08
Speaker 3: It's constraining, and it's like constraining mentally too because it just like you just don't feel very comfortable out there. It's like you're just always on edge out there.

00:44:17
Speaker 4: Yep.

00:44:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, I got one more thing.

00:44:21
Speaker 3: I think this is just a I'm happy about this because it's, uh, you know, a couple of years ago, we had the COVID thing and it was like a you could just see it coming. It was just barreling down for Players Week, and this year we had a similar thing with the Saudi stuff that was happening, and you know, obviously Allen Schipbock tweeted out that they were like planning a big player's coup effectively, you know, they're all going to announce here, and having that all died out is delightful because, you know, I think we've had like a really interesting run of golf leading into this, and it's exciting for the players.

00:45:00
Speaker 1: Like, you know, last year was still kind of weird.

00:45:03
Speaker 3: It was like, you know, the first year it was one of the first big events back, and this is like the first like you know, players back since you know what Sarah, you know, was the shutdown a couple of years ago. And I think that's that's really cool. It should be a fun weekend of golf, fun week golf.

00:45:21
Speaker 1: You know, it's just it's a great, great tournament.

00:45:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was talking actually to your to Joseph Lamanya, who you were talking about. I was talking to the other yesterday about bay Hill and kind of just the different takes between when courses are difficult. You know, sometimes we're like we love the chaos some you know. Then obviously there were concerns with like the bay Hill set up and why it wasn't optimal, and I was kind of like, you know, we love chaos, but sometimes carnage kind of gets repetitive of you know, guys are missing in the same spot, right. But I think the players, like there's this great element of chaos because of seventeen and eighteen.

00:45:58
Speaker 3: Even like eleven, like a couple of years ago, when it looked like he was gonna win and then you know he's tried that absurd shot. I think that's one of the most Adam Hayes's Caddy was like you could tell he just didn't think it was a good idea that was, but yeah, there's chaos everywhere.

00:46:17
Speaker 2: Well it was great because the now, the now has got down to like the rape in the direction of the rape lines that the ball was in, and I mean we've got like real forensic evidence on like what was going down with the shot that just was nowhere near Lance.

00:46:29
Speaker 3: I think the thing that was missing at Bayhill last week was the idea that anybody could achieve anything like that, a that a great player could come Like I think what everybody loves, what you love like and you think about it in terms of a story, right, you know, but like everybody loves chaos and carnage, but there needs to be like the triumphant hero that that comes out of like out of the carnage to win the tournament. And last week, like I said this on the Shotgun Start, I think I think you could have played that tournament for five more days than there would have been fifteen guys right around the league, right around the same you know, they would have been the same guys, just like puttering around the same score.

00:47:13
Speaker 2: I thought that's why I thought Gary Wiland was gonna win. After on sixteen, I was like, oh, he's our hero. And the players, I mean, look, I'm just earning my paycheck, I guess. But the players is great because like your winning score is usually like twelve to fifteen hunder, right, So there's birdy opportunities. The par fives are reach bowl, there's a drivable par four, et cetera. There's lots of birdy opportunities. But like there's so you have both good and bad chaos. Like you can go on a run, and like JT said it, he's always liked this golf course and he's like, from the fairway, it's not that hard, Like it's very scorable from the fairway.

00:47:44
Speaker 4: So you can make a run.

00:47:45
Speaker 2: You can shoot sixty four, but once you start, you know, driving it out of play or missing fairways, like it's really easy to rack up a number, and so you just have that great swing in scoring, Like if the guy is on, he's gonna attack it, and if he's not, he's gonna get his face kicked in. And I think that's one reason why you see, like the lack of consistency from players, like except for Adam Scott and Sergia who always play well here, like very few players have a very consistently good record here. And I think that's why, and I think it works out well.

00:48:11
Speaker 3: I've always fascinated with Sergio and Adam Scott in every tournament because they've been a fixture of my golf life. And I thought we were going to go the entire pod without mentioning them, and I was going to be a little bit sad.

00:48:24
Speaker 4: But here you now, you guys are a fellow ambassadors special bars.

00:48:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, share the sunglasses, You're just toss it out free ads. I love it. Hey, who's your pick this week?

00:48:38
Speaker 4: Who is my pick? Uh? You know, actually that's not what I just did my things.

00:48:45
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out my pick too, so you know.

00:48:48
Speaker 2: I kind of I still am on louis Is Louis Island. The thing boost the island.

00:48:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, the island sounds delight.

00:48:56
Speaker 2: Prefecture of West the Island. He's still He's had some solid finishes. He withdrew from Phoenix or no, sorry, withdrew from h I think RSM this season, but the rest is like a bunch of top thirty finishes and just a real solid ball striker. He's played well here before. I think he'll I don't want to pick him to win just you know, there's a lot's a lot of bad memories there, but I think a good week from him and maybe maybe Morikawa. I think, actually it's got to be hobbling. I think, like it's got to be hobling.

00:49:27
Speaker 1: As I was just looking at Holin.

00:49:28
Speaker 4: You have a guy.

00:49:29
Speaker 2: Hoblin and Rob are the two I think guys I think of, and I think the stats beared out a little bit. Who like are the farthest straightest drivers. You know, they drive it far and they don't get it too far off line, and that's the best combo, especially out here.

00:49:43
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna go hobbling.

00:49:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm taking Holin too. I think that this is a big year in terms of it's weird saying this because last year was his first full year of majors, but yeah, he didn't do much and he had like some like round success. I think this is the year that he he's going to start to be a factor at in him and maybe he kicks it off with a win here. I feel like he kind of probably feels like he booted last week, and that's he comes in with, like you know what Rory talked about. I think that's a there's like two ways right where you can go from a setup last week, and you can you can be like worn out, but I also think you can go to the next week and be like, God, this is so easy.

00:50:26
Speaker 2: It's like swinging the baseball bat with a doughnut.

00:50:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and I think that's so hard week.

00:50:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:50:31
Speaker 3: I think Hoblin has that mentality of like he's probably going to come off that and be like, well, this is pretty easy compared to last week.

00:50:39
Speaker 2: He's also a guy, I mean, kind of like Scheffler. I guess it doesn't get upset by too much.

00:50:43
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

00:50:43
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:50:44
Speaker 3: It seems like he seems like a delightful guy to hang out with. I I was really happy that Brentley Romine uncovered that he had seen that photo I took of him at the PGA.

00:50:55
Speaker 4: It is. It's a very beautiful photo. It really is.

00:50:57
Speaker 3: It's the best photo I've ever probably ever take. I need I need to.

00:51:01
Speaker 1: I need to send him a.

00:51:02
Speaker 4: I gotta be honest. I thought Amon took it, so you may want to. You may need to re establish your credit.

00:51:07
Speaker 3: Amen had the quote that made the photo really good. That was it was like both the opulence and loneliness of professional golf.

00:51:15
Speaker 2: So now I just imagine you and Big hanging out listen to some just Norwegian death metal.

00:51:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the problem. We would wouldn't share the vent that the music tastes, don't. I don't know if it would work out all right, Sean, you'll you'll be on site reporting. People can follow you on on Twitter, on Instagram and then read you're writing a PGA tour dot com. You got anything else? You just wrote the JT thing. Do you have anything else in the in the can that you want to talk about?

00:51:42
Speaker 4: Now? Nothing in the hopper? I think, Yeah, the JT thing turned out well.

00:51:46
Speaker 2: I thought it was a fun story to do and just kind of get some of those stories from his past. And then the rest you know, just kind of stay flexible and stay fluid and I guess hop on the news when it happened.

00:51:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, well we'll have a good week and stay warm down there. You're gonna need a uh we need to send you some winter gear from up north.

00:52:04
Speaker 4: You might. I don't have, I have, I don't have big notes. They all do test this up.

00:52:18
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode was edited by the Great meg Atkins.

00:52:26
Speaker 1: Thank you Meg. As a quick reminder, uh, we got big tournament.

00:52:30
Speaker 3: This week, this is a great time to sign up for the fridagg newsletter. Will Nice will be pumping them out this week, always with his quick wit and humor as well as substance, substance on what's going on. So subscribe by going to Thefrida egg dot com. Uh there will be a newsletter sign up button right there and just enter your email. It's free, it comes three days a week, and everything's right there. You don't have to click out like you You get this nice email right into your inbox and it's not a you're not clicking links, there's you know, you're not going to be overwhelmed with advertisements. When you click those links, everything's right there in the email in a super readable format. So sign up for the newsletter. Go to the Friday dot com and sign up there.