Pro Golf Check-In Ahead of the 2026 PGA Championship

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.

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Speaker 2: Bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida Egg, Frida egg bride egg Lie.

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Speaker 1: I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Welcome back to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. Today I am joined by Kevin vat Vealkenberg and Joseph Lavania to kind of take the temperature of the golf world so far. We're going to do a little exercise around our biggest risers and biggest followers in pro golf, as well as a storyline we're looking forward to the rest of the year. A little housekeeping note you may have heard an ad leading into this podcast, just a you know, kind of note about where we're going with Friday Golf. We have we will have probably a couple more ads going forward on this podcast than usual. We are beginning to work with an agency that provides ads to the podcast. Really, this is fueling growth for us. You know, we're going to be very very conscious of the listener experience as we always have been, and we will continue to you know, try and make this the most listener friendly podcast we possibly can. These advertisements are going to really help us grow. It's going to help us continue to make more and more content. Better and better content is our goal as we're trying to con to push our company forward. You know, I'm super proud of where our team has uh has has kind of come from when I think about recording podcasts uh eight nine years ago to now and uh, you know, just what we're able to do on a weekly basis is something I know I thought we could get to but never imagined. And you know, as we keep growing, our goals and what we want to do change and and this was this is a big part of where we want to go and what we want to be able to do in the long run is uh, you know, we want to continue to change the golf media landscape and continue to hire super talented people and and give them the freedom to do really great things. So we will have a few extra ads per episode. You'll you'll find them at the pre roll, the mid roll, so kind of in the middle of the podcast, before the podcast and after the podcast. But as always, you know, so none of this would be possible without you guys, the listeners, and I hope you can understand what we're trying to do. We are kind of trying to continue to elevate our quality and quantity of coverage on the sport of golf. I wanted to do a little thing on the golf course as we head into we're two weeks out from Ironom Ink. This obviously is a standout major championship season. You obviously have Shannakok and Augusta National. I think you can make an argument those are the two best modern championship golf courses in golf the way they are able to test players. But I think ironom Inc Is one of the better PGA Championship venues that they've had and will have in years. I think he would probably is their their best venue. I think Ironomic is very, very good and there are a lot of things that Ironomanc goferers that are similar to Augusta National and h and to a lesser extent, Shinnacock. The You know Ironomic obviously, it's in Philadelphia. It was designed by Donald Ross nineteen twenty six. Donald Ross Design. Philadelphia is known for its golf architects and golf architecture. Uh, the famous Philly School of golf architecture was started. There includes the likes of AW tilling Hast, William Flynn, George Thomas, George Crump, Hugh Wilson, a lot of architects. You know. William Phones, the Oakmont designer, was a part of it, as in in you know, they really are what dominate Philadelphia golf architecture, particularly William Flynn. You see his name all over Philadelphia. A. W. Tilling Hast obviously is very prolific championship golf designer in the Northeast. One of the unique things about ironom Ink. Ironom Ink was built after the vast majority of the famous Philadelphia clubs, and it was built by Donald Ross, an outsider to the town obviously. Ross born in Scotland, came came across and uh and started working in Massachusetts when he got to America and obviously the most prolific architect of this era, having designed over four hundred courses. UH. That being said, Ironomink I would put into the top tier of golf courses designed by Donald Ross. You know, the likes of Oakland Hills, South Seminole, Uh, it is right up there. You know Interlock and would be another one that I think is great Sciota. Another great Donald Ross design Essex County obviously in Massachusetts, but I would put into that top echelon of Donald Ross Donald Ross's work ironom Ink. As is the case with most golf courses in the Philadelphia area, it is terrific land. That's kind of the core ingredient of golf in Philadelphia is a land. It is just it's really broad and brawny land, but it's very well scaled for golf. And what I mean by that is that the rises and falls. There are a lot of valleys that you know, these golf courses in Philadelphia play into and then come out of. They're big valleys, but not too big. Something that's really important for golf architecture is, you know, if you can keep those rises and falls below thirty feet, you know where they these properties are very choppy, but never too severe. You don't want to have a sixty foot drop very often. You know, it can be cool once in a while, but if you drop sixty feet or eighty feet, you have to play back up the eighty feet and that's usually where golf can get a little redundant. And golf architecture can get a little redundant. So with that, you know, ironomic like the other other Philadelphia area courses, most of them, it has a really nice piece of land. I don't think it's necessarily the best piece of land uh in Philadelphia by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a good piece of land and really good if you consider the grand scheme of golf in America. Uh, this is a site that you would never find in flatter portions of the country like Chicago. It is a it is a very very nice property for golf. Now that being said, there are some flatter portions of the golf course, and we did a big video with Gil Hants that illustrates some of this. But there are some There's some you know, flatter portions around the exterior of the property, and some holes that run along those exterior are are flatish. Uh. Those holes tend to be the most heavily bunkered and have the most severe sets of greens. The other holes that kind of play there's one central valley and there are some holes that play down into the valley and a lot of plays holes that play along the valley floor. And this is where you know, it's important for a property to not be too severe. You know, one of Ironomic's great assets is that this valley is it's a pretty in spots, a pretty gentle fall to the valley, and what it allowed Donald Ross to do was route a lot of golf holes on the slope of the valley. So in many cases at ironom Ink, you play along the edge of this kind of valley, and what it creates is a dynamic of of uneven lies. And this is something that we see, you know, really thrives at Augustin National and and where you know you could see some similarity with ironom Ink in Augusta National is that their players are going to have to hit from uneven lies. They aren't as severe as Augusta, they aren't as prevalent as Augusta. Augusta is basically every hole you hit from an uneven lie except for par threes. But at Ironomk you're gonna have to hit a handful of shots with longer irons from uneven lies to very severe greens. So when you start to think about ironom Ink as a championship test, I imagine they're gonna have pretty thick rough there looks like we're ten ten days out or so from the championship as of this recording. There looks like there's a pretty good amount of rain in the forecast, So it's gonna be it's gonna play long, and it's gonna play probably fairly soft. With that, you are going to have a lot of a lot of long irons into you know, severe greens. So what you're gonna see is the best long iron players are probably gonna be rewarded.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: The other big thing that you're gonna see at ironom mak Is is kind of a lot of talk of the bunkers. There are tons of bunkers at around. Although they you know, there are a lot of them, I don't think they're that severe and that that penalizing in nature. This is a member's course the vast majority of the time. I don't think you're gonna see those super severe hard to advance it out. You know, there will be a lot of thick rough you're you're not gonna see a lot of short grass shots. So it's gonna be kind of a typical PGA championship around the greens. But really the stars of the show a show at aronom inc is the greens. They are heavily tilted, as you would expect from a nineteen twenty six golf course, a lot of slope in them, as they used to be played at much slower speeds. The thing that you that really makes ironomic screens stand out are these kind of pronounced spines that ross built in a lot of greens, and what they do is divide the green into really small pockets and sections. It's going to give Carrie Haig a lot of flexibility on where he puts pins and how you can protect h really scoring in certain areas by you could really tuck away pins into tough spots. And these ridges are built up, so one of the things when you're putting or you're chipping across them, you're having to deal with the up and then over kind of putts where you're having to go uphill and then on the backside is downhill to the slope. These are just hard putts to gauge. Obviously huge reward if you can hit it into the right pocket because then you get a lot of makeable shots, and they're kind of like small bowls with these ridges, but if you miss outside the pocket, it makes it really hard to put not just because of that ridge, but also that pronounced slope. There's a lot of back to front sloping greens, so you're you're dealing with like, okay, I if you have a thirty foot or across a ridge, over a ridge, you're also probably gonna have to play six seven feet of break on that putt. With the nature of these greens. So Irono Mac, I think this is gonna be I think it's gonna be a fun test. I would love, you know, if the the weather forecast, you know, kind of clears up, I think it would be phenomenal course with firm and fast conditions. Uh. Probably unlikely. You're just not gonna get that in May and uh in Philadelphia very often, I don't think. But if if it clears up and it's firm and fast, I mean, the greens are gonna be really, really punishing, probably my favorite hole. Uh. In terms of watchability for this tournament, I hope we see a lot of the fifth. It's a short part three that really accentuates those greens. Tin tins of little tiny pockets. There's about four really unique whole locations out the green created by two central spines As I said before, go check out our YouTube video on Irono Make if you want more and you want kind of a more visual oriented uh AT aeronomy. Before we get to Kevin and Joseph, let's talk about our friends over at eight Sleep. The difference between dragging through your second round and actually playing well comes down to how you recovered overnight. You know the science of sleep. Your body needs to cool down in order to enter deep sleep, and deep sleep is when your muscles actually repair and your mind resets. For golfer, that means steadier hands, better focus on approach shots, and more patients over four footers. The Pod five is the tool from eight Sleep that controls your sleep temperature automatically. This thing you put on your bed. It cools your bed down to fifty five degrees all night, so there's no tossing and turning before the six thirty am tea time. It also can it can change based off you and your partners needs, So if you need a cooler and your partner needs a warmer, it can do that. It increases your rem sleep by over half, fall asleep nearly twice as fast if it usually takes you thirty minutes of fall asleep. The pod is gonna cut that in half. You plan every detail of a golf trip the pod, make sure your sleep doesn't undo all of it. Use our code fried egg at eight that's EI g h T sleep dot com slash frieda egg for up to three hundred and fifty dollars off the pod. Five. You will get thirty days to try it at home and return it if you don't love it, but we're confident you will. Use the promo code fried egg at eightsleep dot com slash Frida egg for up to three hundred and fifty dollars off your pod. Five. All right, let's get to Kevin and Joseph. All right, Joseph KVV, welcome back to the show. We're we're a week out from the PGA. If I'm being completely honest, in my head, I thought the PGA until recently it was a couple of weeks from. Now. PJA alerted me that that wasn't the case.

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Speaker 4: Uh well, I had to.

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Speaker 1: Cancel a flight that was fooked to Philly. Uh not gonna make it now, I have I have another another engagement that week. But but anyways, it is a big event. We've got lots of big storylines obviously with UH, with Spief going for the Grand Slam, but then obviously Rory coming off his six major win and UH and Brooks you know, back, and there's all kinds of storylines galore. But we are now four full months into the PGA Tour calendar, UH, which you know, really the season. We're about halfway done, UH realistically with the season, and I wanted to get you guys on and UH and talk about followers and risers as well as a summer storyline to watch. So let's start with the positive. Joseph euro Upe first, who's your big riser of the year.

00:16:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is one where I don't know that I'd say I'm eating Crow. But my biggest, the player I'm most impressed with is Minwoo Lee this year. And there are a lot of options we could go with this nomination.

00:16:20
Speaker 3: But a year ago.

00:16:22
Speaker 5: Minwu Lee was ranked twenty fifth in the world and now he's thirty first in the world. But he is a much better golfer today than he was a year ago. I referred to him as a ball speed fraud last year at the PGA, and this year he himself he referred to his twenty five version of himself, essentially as a ball speed fraud and leading into Houston, he said, more or less, he used to bash it around, get his butt kicked at the signature events, and he could play well at the non signature events, like he rose in the owgr because he won in Houston, which, all due respect to Memorial Park isn't always the best litmus test for how complete of a game a player has and the results this year of min Wu's evolution, he said, he's slowed down his swing, He's worked on his iron play. It is showing in signature events or call it big events. I said, signature events, majors and the players. Last year he had two top twenties in thirteen of those starts, and it was a twentieth and a seventeenth. This year, through three of those big events, he has sorry. Through six of those big events, he has three top twenties, a runner up at Pebble, a couple other good finishes. Min wus just a much better player. He's hitting it way more accurately off the tee, much improved iron play. He's gone from one hundred and sixtieth strokes gained approach to fiftieth now he's a positive gainer, and off the t he's gone from one hundred and fifth to eleventh, totally different level of ball striker. Has always had great short game in putting, and I think, finally this guy is a threat to win big golf tournament. So I'm wildly impressed at Minwu, the awareness that he needed to change his game, the work he's put in. I think we have a serious golfer who could win a big tournament or a major over the next twenty four months.

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Speaker 3: A major, yeah, he could.

00:18:07
Speaker 5: I mean, he wouldn't be my first five to eight names, but if I saw him at the top, contending one of the last two groups on Sunday, that wouldn't surprise me. In a year ago, that would have been shocking.

00:18:17
Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think I talked to have been a little bit this year earlier about Scotty, and one of the things that we referenced was that players where he had to lead on Sunday going in. You know, he and Scotty were in the final group, and he kind of essentially confirmed exactly what you were talking about, Joseph Isse. He just didn't really know where to miss, where to how to play finesse shots, it kind of all came unglued on I think the fourth hole there where he made triple because he just couldn't really hit a half wedge into that green and take the spin off of it. And you know, he said that that experience taught him a lot, but it took a while for it to kind of make sense for him right to learn how to playoff speed shots. And I think that that self awareness is always cool when you see that in an athlete, where they are willing to say, like, you know what, I actually did not have it figured out and my talent was not enough to take me as far as I wanted to go. And I do think that that is represents a really cool evolution in mose game.

00:19:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, listen, like all these all the young players come out on tour with flaws in their game, and I think, Joseph and you hit on something really valuable here. I think the difference between really talented players that end up with you know, ten plus year careers versus those that you know, maybe on tour for seven to ten are the players that are able to you know, look at their game, understand that I have weaknesses, and approach improving them in the right in the in the right manner, not necessarily the right manner, but who can approach improving them without ruining the other aspects of their game without losing the DNA of themselves as a golfer. And I think that that's the impressive thing about I think when players go to the lab and figure it out, is like, Okay, you know, min Wu still finished T three at Houston this year, Like he can still go out and play bomb and gouch the style of golf that that he's thrived at. But then you look at the you know, you look at his I think he finished third at at Pebble Beach, second at Pebble Beach, and that's just that's not really a bomb and go find it golf course like it's small greens, like you have to be pretty precise with iron shots, lots of uneven lies, like that is a testament to the variety, you know, And then he goes and plays well Arnold Palmer, a golf course that you know is just hard, flat out hard, and that was really firm, it was really fast that week. And I just think that listen, like he didn't have the masters that I think a lot of people expected him to have, but the arrow was pointing up. And I love the call out of a player who's actually dropped in O WGR over the last year, but is showing that he's a more well rounded player because I think, like, you know, a lot of people would look at you know, Rory McElroy and say, oh, he had some down years, but in there was a lot of progression, you know, in that major drought, there was a ton of game progression that's led him to where he is now. And it's you know, golf isn't always this like, you know, straight road to improvement, Like there's windingness and sometimes you know, you might take a little dip. But yeah, I love Minweu. He was on my short list of players that I was considering for them and I really, you know, it would be great if he if he wants a big tournament.

00:22:07
Speaker 5: The major championships are still the blind spot you called out Augusta. Augusta was a really bad start for Min Wu and to date he has one top ten in a major. He finished t. Five in the twenty twenty three US Open. Other than that, he's missed his last four cuts in majors. So I think over the next three major starts, We're going to find out how real some of that evolution is. And I would not I wouldn't be skeptical of what he's going to do. I think we could see at least one contention in a major over the next three I think would be a reasonable expectation for mine.

00:22:38
Speaker 1: All right, KVV, who's your guy?

00:22:41
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with the Fields here.

00:22:43
Speaker 2: You know, I'm probably more into the fields than Joseph, and I always think I make good good parallel our points on the plotting here is I'm a fields emotions guy, justps more analytics dated guy. So I'm gonna go with Gary Woodland. And I think, like this is just such a cool story, you know, if you if you look back, it was March ninth when he sort of sat down with Rex Hoger the Golf Channel and talked about, you know, I'm not okay and it's okay to not be okay, and I'm suffering from this this stuff. I'm feeling often overwhelmed and carrying around this burden is enormous to me. I just I don't really know how to deal with it. I feel this anxiety all the time about you know, people looking at me and wondering that, you know, the health scares that I've been through, and just the act of talking about that managed to sort of free Gary up to just be a better golfer.

00:23:38
Speaker 4: And what a kind of a cool thing that is.

00:23:40
Speaker 2: I mean, like, you know, obviously one in Houston, but just the results in general have been better. You know, he's he's already he's started off again at the Durral this week. He's in the top ten after the first round. Who knows sort of how that'll play out, but it's a great course for him. It was the top ten at the Heritage. I mean, you know, didn't play great obviously, like at the Masters, but was good enough. You know, was shot in sixty six and the last day he played pretty well at the vaalas Bar, which was sort of the next tournament after he'd kind of revealed like what was going on and everything. I just think it makes for a really cool story of someone who kind of felt this burden and was willing to sort of open up with the hope that some people had you know, would be going through similar things. And I literally got like just by like retweeting a couple of stories a couple people message me and be like, you know, I'm going through something similar with this, and I just want you to know that, like Gary, talking about this really did mean a lot to me, and I hope you guys will keep, you know, talking about this and keep the awareness out there.

00:24:45
Speaker 4: I think that that's just a cool thing.

00:24:46
Speaker 2: And Gary's he was in the you know, I think he was one hundred and thirtieth in the world last year and now he's in the top fifty.

00:24:54
Speaker 4: You know, he's probably going to keep climbing.

00:24:55
Speaker 2: Just with kind of more steady play it strokes gained across the board, he's better. I mean, he's a top thirty player in the world right now. I would say he's I think he's thirtieth right now. And it strikes gained on the PG Tour, so you know, you could put him, you know, top forty somewhere about fifteen in the world kind of when the as the season plays out. It's just a great story and I just I love that some the simple thing like that, not a simple thing obviously, but a complicated thing like that was able to help him play better golf.

00:25:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I I mean this is just a life life lesson, right and I think you could you could look at some of the other things going on in the sport. You could look at you know, Tiger Woods's struggles and like Gary, Gary Woodland's like a role model here in terms of you know, just showing people, whether whether you're a golfer, whether you're just a regular Joe like me or you or Joseph talking about something and getting a huge problem off your chest, like just generally it usually doesn't yield bad results, you know, but we as humans fear like being putting ourselves out there, the insecurities, and I think for Gary it's it's illuminating with like the power of what you know, being upfront and and comfortable does for your golf game. I mean, golf is such a mental sport that you know, being being open I think as a person helps your golf game. And I you know, I think like when we look at the tour, so many people are guarded with the media, with with just speaking about what they're going through. And I think there's something about like the sport where golfers are drilled to be you know, keep keeping even keel, don't show emotion, and yeah, I get that inside the ropes, but if you're struggling, making people aware that you're struggling is only going to help your golf game. I think because it allows you to play more freely, It allows you to be yourself more and the moment you let people in. And I think Gary is a great testament to this. Like Gary's gotten so much support since he did the interview with Rex. I mean, he's you know, I think he was like people like Gary Woodland before. Now he is a fan favorite. And I think people being aware of the things that he's going through is it's not going to hurt him inside the ropes. Ever, it's gonna yield people being just more aware, like okay, like maybe we should give him more space, you know, being just more open to that. And whether it's a dozen people at a tournament that actually think that through it is, uh, it's yeah. I just I can't see a downside to a lot of this stuff.

00:28:12
Speaker 3: I first him around, go ahead.

00:28:14
Speaker 4: I just was gonna say one little anecdote.

00:28:16
Speaker 2: But like I when he came back first from the can't the Legion, the brain surgery stuff, I just happened to be walking past him on like a Monday at Riviera and I was he we kind of made eye contact and I was like, hey, Gary, it's just great to see you back out here, and he kind of like almost got teared up. He was just like, hey, thanks, Like we don't know each other, but it was just like a simple act of somebody saying like, hey, we really it's great to see you back just made him kind of emotional.

00:28:43
Speaker 4: It made me kind of want to root for him that much more.

00:28:47
Speaker 5: I follow him around a decent amount of the Masters because he was paired with Scotti the first couple of days, and like I'm seventeen, he hit a drive a mile right, as Gary Woodland is prone to do from time to time, so they had to lower the ropes and like he had to go out to the middle of the fifteen fairway and hit the shot, and he is scanning around, like making sure that people aren't all around him. He's talked about that that he feels like there's people behind him at all times. To watch his eyes scan around like that and also play high level golf win in Houston when he is dealing with that, I think there's a tremendous amount of mental toughness that's required from Gary Woodland not to state the obvious, but playing championship golf is stressful enough. Being genuinely terrified about having people behind you as you're trying to hit shots is a whole different level of commitment that's required. And I don't know what you, guys, if your experience has been the same as mine, but I feel like athletes have taken a much different approach, and specifically golfers and being more open over the last five to ten years than twenty twenty five years ago, even with things like have you thought about winning this major? And I feel like we have more guys now who are like, yes, I've thought about it, like it would be amazing, versus I feel like there was just a lot more deflection in previous decades. I don't know if you have found that experience to be true. I think Jordan's Speed's been a great example of that. He's been very open with his struggles with his golf game, not his mental game, but just over the last five years, I think Jordan's kind of let people in on, yeah, I'm going through it like I'm trying to figure it out, and a lot of other golfers probably historically would deflect in that position and I think it does tie in with Gary Woodland being more open with his mental health and how he struggled to handle PTSD, And there's probably a pretty powerful lesson in there that you play better golf when you're comfortable, as Andy you touched on. So I don't know if you guys think that's true, but that's something that's been rummaging around in my head the last like five years. It feels like golfers talk about winning majors differently than they used to, and I think it can only help you.

00:30:53
Speaker 2: I think that Andy brought up Tiger and sort of the mental health stuff. You know, we talk a lot about the influence that Tiger had on a generation of golfers, so.

00:31:01
Speaker 4: They all wanted to be like him.

00:31:02
Speaker 2: They were all willing to start working out like him. I don't know that we have ever really talked a lot about the influence that Tiger had on a lot of people in dealing with the media and treating it sort of like it was combat. And you know, I covered Michael Phelps for a long time when he was sort of at the height of his powers, and everything that he did was sort of from the Tiger playbook of trying to deflect, trying not to sort of say anything ever controversial, trying to be super boring. And I think as Tiger kind of continues to fade a little bit from the scene, you see more people who were kind of like, I don't know, I just find that sort of whole cloak and dagger routine to be a little bit exhausting, and they're willing to sort of give you more. I mean, We've been having this debate a little bit recently on Twitter about like, is Scotty Scheffler, like how he deals with the media, is that problematic at all? And I've always been of the sort of belief that on a day to day basis, like Scotty's probably worse at dealing with the media, with Tiger had sort of a bland politeness that he could sort of deal with the questions day to day. He understood that. I mean, you think, I think Tiger only skipped media like three times in you know, twenty years or something ridiculous. And Scotty can be kind of petulant and kind of angry when you know it, gets asked questions that are off topic or leading him in a certain direction. But in like press conferences, and away from the sort of day to day kind of back and forth. Scotty's way, way better than Tiger ever was about opening up and like giving you insight into here's what I think about this course, here's why I hit this shot, Here's what I think about, you know, the kind of up and downs of being a professional golfer. And I find that to be kind of really valuable. I'm I think people kind of don't appreciate that about Scotty, and that gets into a little bit of what you're saying.

00:32:48
Speaker 4: Joseph is like.

00:32:49
Speaker 2: He's willing to give you a lot and willing to share personal anecdotes about struggles with himself that Tiger never would, and I think that that is a credit to him and the blessing to all of us who are just trying to kind of understand these people better.

00:33:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. I I think allowing people a lens and it's a double edged sword though, because then you know, if you you know, and I'm talking I duck and I was both sides of your mouth. But like you know, if you if you fail, people might point to you being open as a weakness, which, you know what it kind of reminds me of like people that we're getting on Rory McElroy for changing his opinion about a complex subject and over the course of a couple of years, like, okay, you got me. You know, I changed my opinion on something. But like I do, you know, it's just a tricky aspect. Like I think Tiger has influenced the sport in so many ways of his mannerisms, his approach to fitness, his approach to you know, media, his schedule making like he really changed the sport in a lot of ways. And you know, I think it is probably he revolutionized the high performance era and brought in ushered in the high performance era of the PGA Tour. Whether that era is more compelling is a fascinating question because before before Tiger, you had a lot more, I would say, characters who were willing to just chop it up. And obviously, you know, you look, you just watched nineteen ninety six Masters or ninety five Masters versus you know, the twenty twenty five Masters. You can see the level of athletic you know, kind of attention to the gym that has has been ushered in in the last you know, thirty years.

00:34:51
Speaker 3: Maybe it's simple to me.

00:34:52
Speaker 5: The lesson from Gary is that if you're you are playing better golf if you're being yourself, and it resonated with me when I talked to Patrick Rogers earlier in the year, and I really wanted to ask him what advice he would give to some of the best amateur golfers in the world coming out because Rogers, you could look at his career a couple different ways, but I think the prevailing narrative is one of the best college golfers of the twenty first century and his career hasn't panned.

00:35:20
Speaker 3: Out the way that he would have hoped.

00:35:22
Speaker 5: That might be a little harsh, but I think it's pretty fair, and he's a really smart, mindful guy. So I was curious what his perspective was, and basically what he said is when he came out on tour, he was trying to emulate other golfers and seeing, oh, like Rory does this, Dustin Johnson does this, I'm not as good at that. I need to get better in this area. And his biggest revelation over the last ten years is that by understanding your golf DNA, to use a term that you invoked, Andy, that is how you play your best golf and remove expectations. And I think there's something connected to Gary Woodland talking about PTSD that if you're trying to be somebody else, you're not gonna play your best golf. And it's a difficult headspace I'm sure for young amateur golfers to get into when they turn pro. But I feel like there's a profound lesson there, not just from Gary, but from anecdotally other golfers. It's Patrick Rogers, it can be speed, it can be whoever. That playing any kind of character on the golf course is not going to bring out your best golf.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: Well, it's anything and life. Being yourself is always going to yield the best results in the long run, right you know? I Yeah, I think that that's one of the hardest things I learned, because when you're a kid, you're always emulating other golfers, you're emulating pros, you're emulating the best junior in the area. But the hard lesson you eventually learn, and I feel like you generally like for me, I learned it in my mid to late twenties, was like, Oh, I just have to be me and I have to play my way. You have to find people that communicate to you and manners like everybody talks about, oh he's a great coach, he's a great caddy. The great coaches and the great caddies are the ones that communicate best with with their with their subject you know, I'll just use I know myself better, you know than any any but any golfer. But like if I went to you know, you know, Mark Blackburn's a genius and he'll be you know, he's a subjective of one of one of my one of my picks for for this segment, but like you know, he he gives people tons of information. And like the way I like to think about my golf swing is like simple movements, Like I so I can remember how it feels to turn my shoulder a certain way. But like if you told me my ground force metrics are x y z and you need your only turn x degrees and you need to be at this like I'm I'm lost. That's not going to work for me. Like it's funny, and you know, you think about like I had the most success playing golf when I had you know, when I had a caddy, my cat. My favorite person to caddy for me is my cousin who you know, played high level baseball. He was a pitcher and coaches baseball. And to me what worked was like he played a sport at a high level, where like if you come and do a mound visit somebody, you're not going to go to the picture and say, hey, buddy, throw more strikes. It's like, no shit, that's what I'm trying to do. And it's the same regard is like you can't you can't tell a golfer like you know you need to hit better shots. It's like, oh, do you think I'm trying to hit the ball over here and over here? Like what you need is to me, what I found with that was like somebody that talked to me the right way, got me in the right mindset, knew when to be light and joke, knew when to talk about you know, the bears, but also new like the moments that we needed to lock in and focus on accomplishing the shot. So like, the key to I think playing your best golf at the highest level if possible, is surrounding yourself with people that allow you to be yourself in all aspects, allow you to be comfortable. And this is where like I think it's so humorous to me the you know, up until the Masters last year, the Harry Diamond slander about oh Rory needs to change his caddy to you know, like imagine what he would have done. And Bones has become a friend of mine in the golf world, imagine if he had Bones. Like Phil Mickelson and Rory's personalities are polar opposites. You don't say, what Rory needs from his caddy is complet letely different than what Bones needs from his caddy. You look at Rory does like a lot of the work on the golf course himself. That tells me what Rory wants from his caddy is just somebody to say the right thing at the right time. And you go to it at twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five Masters, and you know who said the right thing at the absolute right time was Harry Diamond walking to scoring after. You know, Rory probably felt like he like gave away the green jacket. He says, we would have taken this on it. That is that is getting a team to a place where you are able to be yourself and you you have the people around you, you know you can say the same thing about Scotty Shuffler and Ted Scott, Like, look at what happened with that is just like a perfect matchup where Scotty and Ted share a you know, a passion for you know, religion and they're able to they believe like their backstop of their beliefs are the same, you know, and that provides them like this ability. Like if you put an atheist on Scotty's bag, it probably wouldn't work well.

00:41:17
Speaker 5: A lot of content ideas coming out of this Andy getting a less than the Blackburn Scotty play a hole with Nathan atheist on the bag?

00:41:29
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?

00:41:30
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely, I would.

00:41:33
Speaker 2: It would be interesting to think about that in terms of who we don't I don't think we know enough about caddy personalities to be like who's a bad fit currently? But that is a sort of a fascinating thing thing. And you understand why players why caddies are fireable, right is because you have to find someone who fits with you.

00:41:51
Speaker 5: A great example, if we're gonna talk caddies, apparently the Paulta Sory cam Jung experiment did not go super well and another player or another caddy that's I think very technical works for a lot of guys. VJ liked that to sorry, knew his golf swing really well. They ended up working together. I think Web Simpson leaned on Paul for a lot of swing advice. Now Cam Young has a friend on the bag Kyle, who's a really good player, reads the greens for him. And you can't attribute all of Cam's success to the caddy change. I think becoming a good putter is a much bigger part of the story there. But clearly having Kyle on the bag has been a huge net benefit. So Andy, if you're looking for supporting evidence of that theory, which doesn't feel like you need it, it's I think it's pretty established, pretty sound theory.

00:42:38
Speaker 3: But that would be a really good example.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like we get this. The friend thing is comfort right. I mean, like Cam Young, he's a pretty quiet guy, but I imagine like his friends, if you if you, you know, like a lot of introverts are really extroverted with people that they're comfortable with, and they get it. And I think, like you just think about like to story two stories, a personality he likes to be out there, you know, I could see they're generationally like so far apart too, like what are they going to talk about inside the ropes? And if you don't want to talk about the golf swing, what are you going to talk about? So I think it's interesting. I was the matchup though, like, and here's my biggest riser, and this makes a ton of sense. Matt Fitzpatrick, probably the most data centric golfer in the world, starts working with the most data centric golf golf coach in the world, and Mark Blackburn or one of them, you know, I don't I don't know who's the most data centric. It's not my realm of the realm of the world, but like an extraordinarily data centric coach. And all of a sudden, you know, Joseph, your take is aging like fine wine here. You know, years ago on this podcast you said I wouldn't be surprised if Matt Fitzpatrick was the best player in the world as some point in his career, and right now he might be the best player in the world. He has been basically over the last year, absolutely extraordinary. I think when he you know, maybe not fully to the Scotty level yet, but he's got four wins if you count the Zurich, which I don't know whether you want to count it or not. So he's got three wins, three individual wins. He obviously had the really close runner up at the Players where, you know, basically so closely he had come down to the seventy second hole to win that. He's got fourteen top tens in the calendar year. Just an extraordinary run of golf really since since last year's Masters, hasn't missed a cut, you know, one over Rory McElroy in the in the DP you know, world final there. But Matt Fitzpatrick's been just an absolute revelation over the last year. And what I find amazing about it was like the surge has come right after he reached basically probably the bottom rock bottom of his professional career, and now his he's at basically the pinnacle. This is, without a doubt, the best sustained golf that he's played in his career.

00:45:21
Speaker 5: Kevin, I know you've got matth Fitzpatrick takes. You were pretty high on him a couple months ago, so why don't you go ahead.

00:45:25
Speaker 2: I just think I'm just really impressed with you know, It's funny. There was the thing going around Twitter recently he was like, oh, look at Matt Fitzpatrick's swing, and he used to be so much more prettier, And why couldn't we stay well, you know why in part because like that swing wouldn't be able to compete on tour, right And you know that the swing was aesthetically beautiful, but you need speed and power to compete on the tour at the level that you want to compete out if you're past fitz Patrick. And he did that. He changed, he made his swing faster and a little more rotational, and now like, even though he's really not a physically imposing person in any way, shape or for like, he is a really good driver of the golf ball. He doesn't hit the ball as high with his irons as some other people to do, but he's able to make it work. I you know, the crosshanded shipping thing still to me, like logically, I can't quite grasp it. I just tried it the other day just to sort of see, and it felt like holding a snake in my hands. But it's awesome to watch him like turn that from being a liability into sort of a you know, at least a break even proposition or a strength. I just I don't I was expecting a little bit more the Masters this year, but you know what, like fourteen top tens. As he was pointed out, Andy, my my fall or. That almost reaffirms me in some ways I feel better about naming this person a fall or coming up. But because that's like, that's an awesome sort of consistency that a lot of players do not have. I just I don't know. He's a good interview. He's someone who's really willing to give you good quotes. And then maybe that doesn't matter if you're just a fan of the game or whatever, but it's someone in an in my position like who's trying to find interesting things about players, Like I love talking to fits.

00:47:04
Speaker 4: I love listening to him give interviews.

00:47:08
Speaker 5: The Fitzpatrick, there's a lot of there's a lot to digest with Fitzpatrick. I think one, I've had a big mindset shift in the last five eight years about what makes a great prospect. And I think back again five eight years ago when somebody came out and showed a ton of speed but weren't super polished in other areas. To me, that was attractive, like, Okay, well there's a lot of upside there, and if they can develop the other parts of their game, then they're going to be a great player and they'll have the speed, but that is so much easier said than done, and it is really hard to have both speed and be a great iron player. I think Gary Woodland not to go back to him, but that's another's player who actually has done both of those things, and it's an interesting career to take in. Because he's US Open champion, you could say he's one of the less one of the lower quality major champions of the last ten years. But the other side of it is like Cary Woodlon's been a really good player for fifteen to eighteen years. But with Fitzpatrick, that's the sort of the other model, and it's maybe he doesn't have a ton of speed when he comes out, but he's very polished in his other areas. And if that player can put on a little bit of speed like then they have, that actually might be the more sustainable path to being a great player. And I think we saw something similar with Xander. He's dealt with a little bit of injury that you could chalk up to some of the speed increase if you wanted to, So that would be the counter argument, but Xander was had some speed, but him taking his speed to another level over the past couple of years is what got him multiple major championships. I think Matt Fitzpatrick is a great example that if you are very polished and then you start to pick up some of the speed, you could be a world class player.

00:48:52
Speaker 3: Now.

00:48:52
Speaker 5: Even even something like Patrick Reid kind of stands out to me too. He talked about he wasn't a great ball striker growing up, so that's made a short game really good. And then when the ball striking gets a little better, like you have the short game. So I think I've kind of inverted my model on what makes a great prospect, and Mat Fitzpatrick's played a big role in that.

00:49:11
Speaker 2: Well, it just speaks to like, well, we'll pinge and pod eater become like as good as Metphis Patrick, Like right now, I would say very unlikely.

00:49:21
Speaker 4: Right and then.

00:49:22
Speaker 2: Because at fits Patrick was a was a get the ball on the whole guy, and that's impossible to teach andy go aheads hard interrupted.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: It's all right, you know. I think if you go through the top ten in the world right now, it's actually a pretty compelling case for what you're talking about. Obviously, Rory Backroy Unicorn. But I think what everybody's based, like the way they think about pro golfers is is Okay, Tiger and Rory did it with sheer power, and yeah, she power is is vitally important. And I think like what's become clear is like you have to have requisite power. You have to be able to get the ball out there three hundred plus yards, Like you can't be a you know, bottom twenty five percent power player. And maybe that's changed a little bit, but you go down the list, it's like Scottie Scheffler just really good again the ball in the hole. If you watched him in college, yeah he he wasn't. I mean he barely made the Walker Cup team, but you know what he did was like it was an all round array of skills. Bonafide golfer Matth Fitzpatrick one of the youngest USAM champs of all time. Bonafide you like, score the golf ball. I think about this a little bit, like, you know, the guys you can kind of go like a couple of ways with like if you said NBA players just as a as a complex, you know, like Jalen Brunson fell the I think the second round Draymond Green because they were undersized, because they had deficiencies with athleticism, you know, fringe athletes. These guys fell to the second round. But like when you watch them play, it's like, oh, they know how to play the sport. And I think that's the thing that gets mixed up with all the track man and the love of data, is that with this love of data, we lose like who are actually golf savants because I think like to be a top tier and before I think Dustin Johnson is slash was a golf savant. Like people will laugh at his answers and press conferences, but I think he understood how to play golf like an exceptionally high level. But you think about like the players that get to the top of the game are I think are generally golf savants. And you think about Justin Rose's fifth in the world. That guy, he has evolved as a player from what he was early on so much and he continues to evolve in his late forties. And Cameron Young, I think goes more unto the Rory Tiger camp, but he won at a pretty prolific level at the college level. He's always won a lot. Tommy Fleetwood not a speed demon. Colin Marcowa not a speed demon, but excellent, excellent iron players, And like if you watch Tommy Fleetwood play on a challenging condition day, it's like, oh, this guy has such a deep bag of shots in his repertoire, like knockdown, low draw iron shots that you just don't see anybody else hitting. You know, Russell Henley, you go through this top ten, JJ Spawn's number ten, Russell Henley's number eight, not speed demons, guys that have just consistently gotten better at the sport. And I think, like a through line with their career, they were always really good golfers, you know, but you know, never going to be somebody that just jumps off the page because they're you know, their ball speed was exceptional. And then you already hit on Xander who's number nine, you know, you go through that top ten in the world. Like I think, like the only player you'd ever characterize as a speed demon would be Cameron Young, and I think that's an unfair characterization given his career.

00:53:35
Speaker 5: Just to give people a very high level, quick overview, like top ten in the world, Andy, you mentioned them, average ball speed in professional Golf's around one seventy five seventy six miles an hour. Almost every name that you mentioned is somewhere between like one seventy four and one eighty. Scotty's like one eighty. The two outliers would be Rory and cam Young off the top of my head, those are high one eighties guys, and Russell Henley's like one sixty seven. Most of the guys are like around one seventy five one seventies six. Like I do think there's a lesson in there that the one eighty eight's the one nineties, like Minwu Lea, he had to learn how to dial it back a little bit.

00:54:11
Speaker 3: So uh it is.

00:54:13
Speaker 5: It's an interesting moment in golf to look at what's working and consider that getting the ball in the hole, even if you're not a one eighty eight guy, if you are one eighty eight, you better have the other parts.

00:54:23
Speaker 1: If you go eleven through twenty, it's similar. Got her up would fall into the above one eighty McIntyre is you know why around what eighty mctire Sepstraca In the one seventies, Ludwig won a mid one eighties guy, but then Hideki one set high one seventies, Ben Griffin right around one eighty, right, yep, j T right around one's highest seventies right.

00:54:50
Speaker 3: Can't keep it on the planet so that one doesn't even matter.

00:54:52
Speaker 1: But yes, Harris English high seventies, Jacob Bridgman in the seventies five yep, yeah, and then you got John Ram which is so in that bucket the next ten. You have three guys above that are consistently above one eighty exactly.

00:55:08
Speaker 2: Can I just throw out an example too, Andy that this I read a lot about this when I was doing the Shuffler piece. But you know, Scott, Scotty Scheffler and Brad Dalky were like kind of like rivals when they were grown up in junior golf and kids like Dolkey was the person that everybody thought was going to be a dude. And this is the person now you see, like he's he can hit the ball one nineties ball speed, whatever, but he could not make it on tour. Even he has admitted, like, I never thought that Scotty was going to turn into this, But Scotty was just always really good at figuring out a way to get the ball around the course and get in the hole and it you know, when they were coming up, everyone was like, Oh, Dog is going to be the star. He's hitting it way past Scotty. It just didn't work out that way.

00:55:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's you could go to any sport like this goes to you know, and I think there's some you know, it goes to the pitchers, Like drafting pitchers is fascinating. I was sitting at a game with a friend of mine who who played minor league baseball, was a pitcher, and you know, it was interesting. You know, people fall in love with the numbers behind pitchers, like the you know, hey, but he what what something that he said stuck with me. As he said, like, if you watch major league pitching, the best pitchers all have a very unique motion. There's there's very rarely do they deliver the ball in a conventional manner. And what that does is it it just hides the ball a little bit longer and it comes out of their hand just it looks a little different. And that's he was like, that's one of the key traits to a major league pitcher. That and you know, I I think like the general person would look at that and and you know, like, what's funny to me a little bit about about the golf industry is like the people that that hand out you know, contracts, the agents are these are not like guys that almost like that. In some cases there are guys that almost made it, you know, but like in many cases it's just like a guy that likes golf. You know, there's a wide spectrum. But like that tip as someone I would just look and be like, oh my god, that guy throws a ninety eight. But like the idea of like oh if if you hide it for a split second longer, it is going. And there's so many things about golf that that go into it, like something I always marvel about with Bryson, And I don't think anybody everybody always talks about speed with Bryson. I think Bryson just like a great gamer, Like just the guy manufactures a score as well as anybody in the world in my opinion, and I don't there's no metric that shows that, but when you watch it in person, you I'm always marveling at it.

00:58:10
Speaker 3: The only pushback score is data. Like I think that the.

00:58:16
Speaker 5: Turning data into the enemy isn't appropriate when people say like people are too focused on data. I think there's a lot of people out there who are really intelligent about the way they look at data and aren't missing that. They're like, yeah, I act there is an element of they don't have all the traits, but they score well. Therefore, like there's something innate about that athlete. So I will push back a little bit on the data as the enemy. But I understand what you're saying is like speed is probably an over indexed data point. But when you touched on Bryson, can I get to my biggest follower, then we My biggest follower is Bryson this year. I think that for the Bryson winning twice on live, which especially in light of recent news, is going to have next to no meaning in the history of golf, and then going out and missing the cut at Augusta and going on multiple years now of being a very average iron player, you can't consider Bryson a top five player in the world right now. There's no argument for it. Scotty, Rory, cam Young, Fitzpatrick, John Ramsander Schaffley like that, that's six names. They're all way better than Bryson right now. And to be at a point in his career in the middle of his prime's thirty two, he's experimenting with new equipment was pretty seemed pretty immature in my opinion at the Masters, with a lot of his comments and scoffing at people for what he's doing with his irons, and I just I wonder how committed Bryson to Shambeau is to golf long term, and if getting back on top of the world is a high priority for Bryson because he's not there right now. If liv does fold up or if he doesn't re sign his contract, he's gonna have he's going to be looking for a place to play. I don't know if that'll be on the PGA Tour or not. And if he decides, hey, like, I'm going to focus on YouTube golf and building this business and just play the majors, which I don't know how realistic that is, but it's not a zero percent chance, then I think that would be really bad for his golf game. And to be talking about a guy like this who's a two time major champion, one of the best golfers of the last five years, his game feels as vulnerable as it's felt in a while. It's just disappointing to see that out of Bryson, I will also call out he got multiple votes. It was one of the highest vote earners in our anonymous pro Golf survey for most overrated golfer in the world, and those were from people who know ball. So I think there's a pretty good case that Bryson's overrated, not going to be a top five player in the world. Again, who knows. I mean, Andy, your point about him getting the ball in the hole, I hear you. But he does need to become a better iron player at some point, and since he did the speed training, he really hasn't been a great iron player. So I'm a little down on Bryson. He's probably Yeah, he's my biggest follower of twenty twenty six so far.

01:01:01
Speaker 2: I wonder how much the iron play is just lost in this like experiment of like, oh, I want to have these bulg face irons. I want to have you know, three D printing.

01:01:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like I want.

01:01:12
Speaker 1: To release his own irons.

01:01:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's my own irons. I'm gonna partner with LA Golf. They're gonna, you know, they're going to make the shafts that are perfect for me. Then LA Golf is essentially like goes bankrupt or goes out of business, and so where is he sourcing all this material? Like, is he actually have a three D printer in his house where he's like staying up late at night, you know, making the steel and cutting in the grooves some of this stuff. I've always felt that Bryson is, you know, posturing in a lot of ways about stuff that he he wants you to think that he understands, but he actually does not. I don't think that that's you know, I know that his like college teammates felt that way, that they thought, you know what, the guy's is just a really good golfer. The stuff about this being a scientist is kind of bs. So I just I think, you know what people always say, Oh, I think Bryson should go just try to play regular length irons.

01:02:05
Speaker 4: I don't.

01:02:05
Speaker 2: I won't go that far, because I think part of what makes him great is like his obsession with like proving that this method is the way to do it, and he probably works really fricking hard at it. But I just feel like you're right, Joseph. Ever, since he wanted to be the longest player in the game. You can look at the stats right there on day to golf, like he became a worse iron player like almost every year, and to the point where he was a really below average iron player for like twenty twenty two, he was legitimately bad. It kind of was like been This year has kind of been sort of similar. It's just like length can especially on live play these courses without a lot of trouble, you can just hammer it down there. And of course that's how you're gonna end up shooting fifty eight on a week setup. But it doesn't really work and a course where you have to be super precise with your irons, and the Masters showed that.

01:02:53
Speaker 1: I still listen, he won at a golf course I never would have expected him to win in Pinehurst, and it was a gritty win. Maybe I'm over index saying. I mean, I think it's just super hard to play only four tournaments that matter every year, which he's been doing. I wouldn't be surprised if if he comes and if he picks off this week or next week at Aronomy like that's that wouldn't surprise me one bit. So I think, well, say, I you know, yeah, the Master's was a disappointment, but I'm not going to read too much into one one tournament result. I agree though, that the iron play needs to get better. I just don't think we see him playing enough meaningful golf to draw like huge conclusions.

01:03:43
Speaker 3: That's fair.

01:03:43
Speaker 5: I mean, I wouldn't be shocked to be wins either, Like I'm not a I don't want to say that this is the start of a decline. I don't know that we're going to see that. But it's not like the iron play is a real issue and he's missing shots left and there's some people who would get into the the specs of his irons and why that happens that it doesn't seem like rocket science, Like the left miss feels like that's part of the build that he has going right now. So I don't know what magically changes that.

01:04:07
Speaker 3: But I mean, Quail Holla.

01:04:09
Speaker 5: Last year, he probably I'm not gonna say he should have won, but he was right in the mix and started missing iron shots left in the water, like he had a really good chance to win that tournament kind of gave it away with his iron play. So it's not like he missed a bunch of putts which can flip overnight, like there is a real technical issue happening there. So I don't know if the standard of golf gets raised every year, and I don't think Bryson has really kept up with that.

01:04:34
Speaker 2: He's a full I mean, the sample size isn't great, but he's a full stroke worse in stricts gained this year than he was last year, so that's a pretty significant drop.

01:04:45
Speaker 5: But other other followers found Bryson out there. We're going all big names or where are we going?

01:04:51
Speaker 2: I gotta go with Victor Hoblind In part, I was with that's fine, in part that Victor Hoblin has become one of the worst drivers of the golf ball of a certainly of a player his caliber. I mean, like Jordan Speed's a better driver of the golf ball. Max Homa right now is a better driver of the golf ball than Victor Hobland. And we all know what kind of problems Max has had. They have similar rounds, so this is not like an unfair sample size. Victor just cannot keep the ball from spinning way right. He's only missed I looked it up this morning. He's only missed two balls in their left rough all year. It's just everything is spinning off the planet.

01:05:31
Speaker 4: Going right.

01:05:32
Speaker 2: I mean it's like twenty percent of his drives almost are missing in the right. And this used to be a person who thrived on taking away one side of the golf course just setting up in hitting it and down the left side and with a you know, a power sort of bullet cut and whatever that was has disappeared for him, and you know he has. You talked about Matt Fittpatrick having fourteen top tens. Victor Hobin has one top ten this year. It's just not happening right now. And this is all true with him being becoming actually a very good short game player. I mean, he's like the fortieth best person on tour in around the Greens now and that was a huge, huge hole in his game forever. And so we've solved the short game issue, but the driver is a mess, and it just I don't I don't know what to make of someone who's just constantly, constantly tinkering and really has the talent to be a top five player in the world, but continues to sort of slowly slide down THEWGR.

01:06:33
Speaker 1: It's a delicate balance between trying to get better. This goes to the Minwu lead discussion earlier about attacking your weaknesses and improving them, but not losing your DNA as a golfer. I mean, I think, like, what do you think about Victor Hoblin and he walked onto the PGA Tour as one of the premiere t degree ball striking, which would be driving and approach play players in the world. I mean, he walked onto the tour and was a top ten guy in those two stats, like all around, just machine of an approach and driving player. But he's so obsessed with improvement that I think, like, similarly to Jordan Speith, he's kind of lost the DNA of what made him great in the first place, Like he's messed with it and it's a little unrecognizable. Like the reality of Victor Hovlin was like and we saw it for such a short period of time when he ran through the FedEx Cup. He was just a good short game away from being one of the three to five best players in the world. And you could have just locked that in. If you don't touch anything, you just lock that in. But this game, it's the beauty of the game is is you can't cocker. So you as a player always are looking to and especially at the highest level of the game, the professional level, you're always looking like, how do I get a tenth of a shot better? And that pursuit of trying to do that can lead you down the complete wrong into the wrong places, And I mean it's what makes the sport so fickle.

01:08:25
Speaker 5: I think with Victor Kevin, you're hitting on the most. His driver is a problem right now. It's he's spraying it, and until he's not spraying it, Victor can't compete the iron. The around the green improvement, I'm not willing to call it solved. He has throughout his career hovered between being horrific around the greens and being slightly like being okay passing. I think it's a pretty limited twenty twenty six sample size to.

01:08:54
Speaker 3: Say that it's solved.

01:08:55
Speaker 5: It's better, But from talking to some short game people, like I do think there are potential limitations. And the way that Victor hoblin in some of his technique, some short game coach was getting into how like, yeah, he'll be able to pick the ball cleanly, but some of the ground first shots with that, like really forward shaft lean and how steep he is, like that might be a problem. So I think there's probably some un I know that that gets into disputes in the short game world, so don't want to walk into a short game war.

01:09:22
Speaker 4: But don't get Jomeo on your ass.

01:09:25
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm not willing to call it solved yet. We will see.

01:09:28
Speaker 5: But the driver is the big, big question mark. So I think everyone should monitor Victor's driver and if he shows four to five good starts in a row where he's keeping it on the planet, and even this year his speed went down, I think he was trying to keep the ball in play a little bit and he'll dip down to like one seventy two and he's normally like one seventy six to one seventy eight. If that starts to come back up and he's hitting it straight, then he's immediately a real threat to start winning again because he's one of the best iron players in the world. He's always a top twenty iron player a year in and year out. Almost wanted Oakmont last year. I think that's a little forgotten with how sloppy that day ended up going. But Victor was right there, had a real chance to win going into the going into Sunday, So I think it's a hold it's not a it's not a buy, it's not a cell. It's a watch what happens with the driver. And as soon as the driver starts to turn around, I think you can start buying Victor again.

01:10:23
Speaker 1: All right, I'll move on to mine. It's another it's another European. He's played, He's been in contention a lot. Shane Lowry is my biggest faller. I don't I think that we've we've seen enough here and and why I put him as a faller. I don't think he's gonna win another individual golf tournament of substance.

01:10:53
Speaker 4: Forever.

01:10:53
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that I I can't be moved off of the Honda mm hmm. And then the back to back Masters final rounds. I think that, yeah, he's gonna play great golf and he's gonna be He'll probably play on the next Ryder Cup team. And I don't you know, I don't necessarily care where his o WGR rank goes. But in terms of a why he fits in the faller, I'm removing him from the lexicon of ever being a player that I think is going to win a golf tournament again. And listen, I would love to be wrong here. I would love to have it shoved in my face. I think he's a genuinely interesting character in the game. I'd like to see him win more. But just what I've seen at the ends of tournaments and the you know, kind of crucible if you would you know that term, I don't think it's happening again.

01:12:00
Speaker 2: I wish we had a word that was the opposite of like ball speed imposter, because that might be what Chane is, like just a dude who doesn't have enough speed or whatever to compete anymore.

01:12:11
Speaker 4: Like I I don't know.

01:12:13
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the speed thing. I think it's just a mental thing. I can't get it done at the end of the end of a tournament. Thing like he's got the recklessit skills, exceptional short game. Really when he gets hot, he gets really hot. I just I think the back to back you know, eighty whatever, seventy eight or whatever he shot in the last two final rounds of the Masters, and then then what happened at the Cognizant not the Honda. I just I don't foresee him winning again.

01:12:51
Speaker 5: Eighty one in the final round last year the Masters, eighty this year in contention in both.

01:12:58
Speaker 2: I thought it was funny when Rory said, oh he always following the scoreboards because I thought, well, if I'm not going to win Shane, I don't I hope Shane wins.

01:13:06
Speaker 4: It is like, oh, nope, nope, that's not happening.

01:13:09
Speaker 5: I think it's a real question. And is he on another Ryder Cup team again? He's thirty nine and being realistic, he was towards the back half of this past Ryder Cup team. A year is a long way from now to still be playing really good golf. And there are a lot of hung a lot of young, hungry Europeans who would like that spot. So I think that's a real question. Do we see Shane Lowry.

01:13:29
Speaker 4: Again in Ireland? Leave Shane at home in Ireland?

01:13:32
Speaker 2: I think that would be a big controversy that you not be quiet about it either.

01:13:37
Speaker 5: That could be a big, big controversy going into next year, Shane Lowry or not, that's going to be a big one.

01:13:44
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I mean there's a lot of young talent.

01:13:50
Speaker 4: Does you with the Hoyguards playing better?

01:13:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard for me to think that. I don't know, but this is the type of player that you to our earlier conversation that you just you know, you overlook because but I think, like the thing is, he knows how to get the ball in the hole exceptionally well for fifty four holes, and some I think like players lose their nerve, they lose the ability to like closing. We've seen this so often. I think people like closing how to golf tournament is so exceptionally hard and such a skill, and I think you can lose the skill and I and you lose the nerve. And I think that's the thing. He's lost the nerve, like he like his comments after the cognizant of like, you know, I don't know what happened. It just came over me, like the inability like that to me was like, oh that's this may never happen again.

01:14:53
Speaker 5: This is a huge topic, so I don't want to open a can of worms, but there is some great research and analysis to be done on the relationship between swings and swinging under pressure. And I do wonder a little bit with the sort of white bee fade that we see from Shane at times. If when you can't feel your hands at the end of a tournament, how does that impact swinging under pressure and maybe it's not all technical.

01:15:15
Speaker 3: It could be.

01:15:16
Speaker 5: I'm sure a lot parsing out which how much is technical versus mental is a really difficult problem. But I know there are people who would maintained that, like a guy who hits a hard draw, like a Patrick Reid, that that swing can withstand pressure A little bit more hard thing to prove. Tommy Fleetwood would be a great counter to that who hits a draw and has not been clutched. So I don't I think it's really hard to determine, but I feel like there's a lot to be done in that field.

01:15:50
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01:17:07
Speaker 4: Uh.

01:17:07
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01:17:51
Speaker 2: God Kevin, I think it's Ken Rory win two three majors. I think that's the most compelling storyline to me. Like Scotty had clearly kind of overtaken Rory as the best player in the world, and I think Rory, you know, had that postmaster's lull and there was understandably a little bit of a letdown. But I think he's like really focused and really kind of like, you know what, this is all the matters I can take, you know, big chunks of time off and keep myself fresh and get ready. And I think we're gonna see him contend and at least two more of majors this year. He didn't have a great time at Shinnecock last go round, but I would be really surprised if he wasn't in it at Burkedale, and he should be in it at Aeronomic.

01:18:38
Speaker 4: It's I just think that he could put he could begin to put a huge.

01:18:44
Speaker 2: Gap between him and the other players in terms of like majors. One with a historic year this year, when you can it's hard to like say that you know anything other than the mental bugaboo of having not won the Masters was holding Rory back over the last decade, and now he's won two in a row.

01:19:05
Speaker 4: Like I don't know.

01:19:06
Speaker 2: I know we said some of this last year, like oh, he's going to be freed up after winning the Masters, but I actually really believe it now this time that this is he's figured out a formula for himself.

01:19:16
Speaker 3: I don't think he's just freed up.

01:19:17
Speaker 5: I think he's also just so much more talented and it only proves itself more year in and year out. I think if you were to pick major venues that set up well for Irono, Mink would be pretty near the top of that list. I think, especially not to do the whole like Rory can only play when it's soft, because he's proven that that's not the case. But a soft long setup where I think early call Irono MinC may not be the stiffest test of professional golf and may lend itself to some bomb and gouge, especially if it's soft, which it often will be in these may Philly conditions. I think there's there are very few golfers, I mean, Scotty, you can make an argument for over Rory. But that play sets up incredibly well for Rory mac Royce. It's like winged footage, a little oak hill ish. It's more in that vein than certainly more in that vein than somewhere like Pineers. But again Rory proved he can play well there.

01:20:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think around Mink fits him well. But I think something that's changed with Rory is like, actually, the harder, the more well rounded the setup, the better it is for him. Now. I think you could actually make a case that when you get to the bomb and gouge, it lets more players in than when you you know, it goes to the Brooks quote a quote like when the course is really tough and it's a major, there's only ten to twelve guys that can win.

01:20:38
Speaker 5: There's something to that. But the hardcore accuracy tests I don't like for Rory. The Miarfield villages, yeah, are pretty tough.

01:20:45
Speaker 1: On them all right. My storyline to watch will be Scottie Scheffler. I think we've seen early in his career we had the putting adversity, and I think the you know, the putter, he overcame that. He you know, he went to the spider and the claw and he's overcome that, he's become a great putter. To me, he's dealing with a little bit of of falling short, coming up short, a good amount not being able to string together four rounds on multiple cases. And this is an extraordinarily high standard that he has set based off the last three years. But you see it in press conferences. I think that the there's a toll that being the number one ranked player in the world takes on players. It's hard to stay there because of just the obligations, and he kind of rose to his place by being obligation free. You know, people expected him to be a very good player. Nobody expected him to be this, you know, the best player since Tiger, and all of a sudden, the last two years he's been met with more demands of his time than he ever has in his life. And I think one of his superpowers is illustrated by like Jordan Spieth has said this, one of the superpowers is like he he lives like a fairly care free life, and I think you're starting to see some of that boil over and then the idea of coming up short. So listen, like if if Scotty, I expect Scotty to get a major this year. But if he doesn't it it just gets harder to win majors the longer you go without one. And I just I think Scotty obviously, like this is not it's just a very compelling story, like he hasn't gotten it done the way we've grown accustomed to the last three years, and that could switch. It could flip this week and all of a sudden, it's you know, he wins a ton of stuff, Like he comes back and he wins at Darrel when we're recording this, you know, he comes back from bad first round wins at Darrel. But this year's been kind of the story of him coming up short just because of like a myriad of reasons. And I don't you know, I'm just fascinated to see if it clicks in and he has a great second half of the year, but the first half of the year has been lackluster by his standards.

01:23:34
Speaker 3: You want to go, Kevin, do you have anything on that.

01:23:37
Speaker 4: I just kind of agree with all that.

01:23:38
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the thing I would emphasize the most is someone who has thought a lot about Scottie this year is that he really needs to like have a simplified life, and the more complicated it gets, the more little annoyances start to kind of creep into the rest of his life. Like let's give him a little bit of a pass, just kind of adjusting on new parenting. Two kids is a lot more than one kid. I think he's, you know, wants to be a pretty involved dad. I think, you know it, just you can see the tension sometimes in him just dealing with the bullshit of being the best player in the world. It's like he doesn't really want to talk about live stuff after every single development in this but there's an obligation, there's a responsibility of the best player in the world to sort of weigh in on that kind of stuff. And that's a little bit what I was mentioning about, how he's worse than Tiger at dealing with the day to day news cycle stuff. He's better at the things where it's like, hey, can you tell us like the meaning of life? But he doesn't want to talk about the meaning of live and he gets, you know, perturbed about simple questions about like why'd you go hit balls after your round? Like what we're you searching for? I wasn't searching for anything. That's why always Mario routine. It's like little simple things like that, I think kind of reveal like, man, this is annoying, why do I have to do this? And so I just think it's a kind of a it's important thing to figure out how to navigate, and you know he's not going to be perfect.

01:25:09
Speaker 5: In that, and I think you're hitting on becoming a parent annoyance with being world number one, Like Andy, you're having trouble getting it done.

01:25:18
Speaker 3: I think there's also a deeper like his game's just not.

01:25:20
Speaker 5: As good as it was here Cup, like whether that's because of things that are off the course or something with this swing. I think it's very clear that we're seeing a B version of Scotti Scheffler, and it's remarkable what he's able to do with his B game. But to your guys point, the question is if if we see that a level what we saw throughout twenty twenty five, because again, if I would maintain that if he had his A game at the Masters, or even his A minus game like he wins this year's Masters, and that's a big one to let go in the middle of your prime. So I don't I have felt a little bit like we might see a little bit of a downturn from Scotty. We're recording this in the middle of the Ralmber of shots he hit on his first round that were just uncharacteristically bad. Scottie Scheffler swings way higher than anything we saw last year, so we shall see my storyline of the summer. I'm going a very different direction the potential professional debut or expected debut of one of the great amateurs of the last fifteen years in Jackson Coyven. I think that's a massive, massive golf story that since people don't watch a lot of college golf or pay attention to it, maybe doesn't slide under the radar too much for people who listen to this podcast. But I think from the general golfing public, we have a true great who's on the doorsteps of professional golf. Three time SEC champion back to back to back, It's only been done one other time. He's won six of eight college starts this year in twenty twenty six. His worst finish is tenth. This is a different level of consistency than we've seen from a lot of other big time prospects of the last ten to fifteen years. Could be number one ameter that we've seen recently. I think anywhere between like one and three. He's played nine pro starts, not as a pro, obviously he's still an amateur, but he's played nine OWGR sanctioned events in his last four. He's finished top twelve in all of those, which is just unbelievable, not just upside, but consistency for somebody who's not even twenty one when he was playing those events. Three straight top tens, and to some of our earlier discussion, he's shown he's like one seventy five ish ball speed guy won seventy six.

01:27:33
Speaker 3: That is enough.

01:27:34
Speaker 5: That is sufficient that if he comes on tour, he'll probably pick up a couple of miles an hour through equipment tweaks and getting a little bit stronger in his first couple of years in professional golf. There are no reservations about Jackson Coyvin's game. A lot of people would say he's one of the best putters they've ever seen in college golf. He's gained strokes with his irons and is off the tee in the professional starts he's made. This is a potential monster in waiting, and there's no which thing is a sure thing that this feels as close to it as we've seen.

01:28:02
Speaker 3: In a while.

01:28:04
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this. I saw that Data Golf had him in like the top fifty in the world already, right.

01:28:12
Speaker 5: I think that's right. I think they have him as their number one amateur in their database. It goes back like fifteen twenty years.

01:28:19
Speaker 1: I you know, I think this is the most complete player. Another name that I throw out that because of how much buzz Kaven is getting that I don't think people are paying a lot of attention to is prest And Stout, who just won his third straight.

01:28:34
Speaker 3: Big twelve super Coo.

01:28:35
Speaker 1: Like and any other year, Preston Stout would be the story. Now. Personally, having watched him at the Walker Cup, I have some pace of play concerns that you know that you don't have nothing to do with. His ability to play golf at a high level might actually help him play golf at a high level. But I didn't enjoy the Preston Stout experience because of the face. But that being said, I think like it's it's you know, like this is kind of reminiscent of the Morekowa Hoflin Matt wolf Year when they all came out, but with Coyven and Stout particularly at the top, I think like those two are are look like very bonafied PGA Tour players. Winning three straight big time conference tournaments and both regards is like insane, insane to win a high level individual tournament, even i'lbe at a college three years in a row, nut stuff Jackson Coyven. Can't wait to see him.

01:29:43
Speaker 2: I remember when I first started covering golf, really it was like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, and just like that feeling of excitement of like, oh, man, Rory's great, this kid Speeth is coming, this kid justin Thomas is really good. It just it's there is a little bit of a similar fear feeling of like, oh, there could be a whole nother wave of like great players who are coming down the pipe that you know, ten years from now, we're gonna be like, oh yeah, of course, like Jackson Coyvin and Blades Brown are dueling it out, you know, And I just think that's that's a fun moment when there's like a whole wave of good young kids coming.

01:30:20
Speaker 1: We you know, and it's still so early, and so many of these guys but we haven't had anybody really pop in a while at a young age. And obviously I don't think it's fair in a lot of cases to say that about a lot of guys you know that are very young in their career. But we just haven't seen someone that's super young. And before people yell about Bridgeman or got her up like they're twenty six. You know, we haven't seen you know, Thorbjornton look like he might be breaking out, but he just hasn't gotten across the line in something big. He's twenty four, but he's been around for a couple of years. We haven't seen that that twenty one year old sensation yet.

01:31:06
Speaker 4: Yep. I don't know.

01:31:09
Speaker 2: Twenty one is so young. I think it's like a generational thing when somebody comes along at twenty one.

01:31:13
Speaker 1: But uh, maybe it's co even.

01:31:16
Speaker 5: Maybe, and he probably will have a little bit of a rough I think expectations should be tempered for the first twelve months. He's not going to be super consistent, but I think we're going to see the upside. I think we'll see him make cuts in majors right away.

01:31:29
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think that does it. We got everything in Uh, we'll have a we'll have it. We have a ton of major coverage coming coming down the pipe. We just released a video about Ironom innk uh for anybody that's looking to get ready for the the PGA Championship. Uh and uh. We'll be back next week with a with a preview for Ironom Miink and the PGA Championship. Big thanks to Joseph and Kevin obviously for coming on board or board doing this podcast, but all their contributions to our website on a weekly basis editorially for the newsletter and also the website. They will have a bunch of major championship coverage coming down in the next next week or two. And big thanks to PJ for editing and producing this podcast.