Five Things About the 2022 PGA Championship with Kevin Van Valkenburg

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Garrett here. One quick note up front. It was announced on Friday that Phil Nicholson had withdrawn from the twenty twenty two PGA Championship. That was after Andy Johnson and Kevin Van Valkenberg recorded this podcast that you're about to listen to. So that's why they don't mention it and why they talk about Phil as if he's probably going to play. Just wanted to let you know about that on with the pod.

00:00:27
Speaker 2: Today's episode is brought to you by Golf Blueprint. These guys are our favorite golf practice plan providers, two very very sharp guys. Kevin Moore is a professor at University of Georgia and Nico Darros is a aspiring professional golfer who also has his doctorate. So these guys are extremely smart and the key to play good golf is practice. But one of the things that they do an awesome job at is creating practice plans.

00:00:58
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00:01:00
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00:01:28
Speaker 3: 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 bride egg, Frida Egg, the dread Frida Egg, Frida Egg Egg, bride Egg, Lie.

00:01:39
Speaker 2: I'm about ready to run off the golf course. Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast, and welcome to almost PGA Week. We're gonna we're releasing this on Sunday before the PGA Championship. Wanted to get something out there for everybody that was that wanted to kind of get in the PGA mood. Early I did our traditional five Things about the PGA Championship with none other than ESPN dot COM's Kevin van Valkenberg. Kevin has covers a lot of different beats. He writes a lot about the NFL, wrote a ton for ESPN magazine, also has covered golf for a number of years. He's back after a little bit of hiatus. He will be on site at the PGA Championship. You can find his work at ESPN dot com and you can also follow him on Twitter at Kevin van Valkenberg. So, without further ado, here is our preview on the PGA. Excite, really exciting PGA Championship. All right, we're here PGA. I guess we're kind of here. This is this is recording Thursday morning. Golf shots are just being hit at the Byron Nelson. But I got Kevin van Valkenberg on here to talk about next week's PGA. Do kind of a big picture preview. Each of us have come up with five things that we're watching for next week, five big storylines. Kevin, how excited are you to be on site and back on the golf beat for ESPN.

00:03:37
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, what a what a journey through the wilderness it's been. No, you know, big picture, you got to bring in a big gun like me, a big guy physically, big guy.

00:03:46
Speaker 2: Bring any ESPN credentials when we got When we need big picture, we bring in the big big guns. I mean, this is this major is shaping up to be quite a delightful bevy of storylines.

00:04:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm excited. I've never been to Tulsa. I have been to Oklahoma City once. I haven't seen Kyle Porter in a couple of years, so excited to see him and you know the Bunkie Perkins down there and in the great state of Tulsa, a couple of people that I've met through various golf journeys and travels. The beautiful state of Oklahoma. Welcome us all in and yeah, I'm I'm. I haven't covered a major for ESPN since twenty nineteen, since Brooks won at Bethpage. Was did a stint on the ESPN investigative team and obviously covered a lot of NFL stuff. So fun too, excited to be back and on site.

00:04:48
Speaker 2: Brooks is last major, that's.

00:04:51
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, Brooks is one of my things to watch on this thing. Who knows he saw he withdrew from the Nelson today, so who knows if he'll even show.

00:05:00
Speaker 2: That's uh yeah, I think that's uh. I mean, it's a fascinating place to start, as Brooks Brooks.

00:05:08
Speaker 3: I'm not sure how much you know this, but Brooks has only finished outside the top fifteen at the PGA in his career twice. In like ten starts he has he has been legitimately one of the best PGA Championship players of the last twenty five years. Like he you can pretty much if he's healthy auto lock him in for like a top ten because he just this the perfect kind of style of golf for.

00:05:40
Speaker 2: Brooks, right. It's you know, I was thinking about this and I almost made it one of my storylines, but it was actually the first thought when I woke up out of bed this morning. To just to show how demented my brain is, is that I was thinking, how delightful it is that we're going to Southern Hills. There's no fairway narrow way in going because of like some like there's not an organization that's saying, hey, we we don't care about par, but we but all of our actions point to us caring about score to par like that they just let a golf course be what it is and they don't get like extraordinarily punitive obviously, like Bethpage was punitive in the rough, but like that's kind of the nature of that golf courses. It's narrow fairways and thick rough like and you have to deal with it. You know, it should be the fairway should be wider, but the golf course in its state every day of the week. Is is that way you know, they aren't going to make wholesale architecture changes, but like they go to these golf courses and they kind of just let the golf course be the golf course. And at Southern Hills this week, we're going to see like a little bit wider. It's going to be more like an Augustine National type setup, you know, the Bermuda rough. I think it's going to be. I talked to Russ Myers yesterday to two and a half inches, you know, nothing crazy and and I think that's kind of a testament to Brooks at at PGAs is like when the golf course is just set up to be hard but not.

00:07:14
Speaker 3: You know, rinkyd super not like random, like you need luck and stuff to get to be successful. Right Like there, There's what I always think is if the golf course is hard but fair, then Brooks is a great pick because like I think we've said this before when we talked about like what made him you know good in a lot of like at Chinnacok and at you know, at beth Page and at the one in Saint Louis, which is but bell Reeve like he hits it into the rough, like he's one of twenty guys who can basically just play that like a normal shot, Like can just rip a seven iron into the middle of the green, whereas a lot of guys is like it's either they get a good lie and they can do that, or they get a bad lie and they got to chunk it forward and just sort of guess he's just one of the few guys with enough clubhead speed at the bottom of the swing to be able to do that. And so that's why he's always a good sort of pick in these things in us opens.

00:08:17
Speaker 2: This not to mention, I mean when you look at his game and when he's when he's rolling, what's he what's his weakness?

00:08:26
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, it's Potter is a part of it. And injuries, I guess.

00:08:32
Speaker 2: Injuries are really the only thing. I mean, I think like he's just a sensational all round player and I and when you think about major championships and who tends to play well regularly at major championships, is it's people without clear weaknesses, right.

00:08:50
Speaker 3: I just think too, he's super disciplined when he just he's like rarely ever it's like, oh, I got to go at this pin. I got it. I mean, he makes it very stupid, it doesn't matter, make us really stupid choice. He's like the anti Phil in that regard, Like when Phil was younger in his thirties, Like when Phil was Brooks' age, he'd basically go at every single pin. He would you know, try to kill every single drive. He would try to hold every single chip. And Brooks is just always super smart about you know what, like I could make a twenty footer here, like there's no reason to sort of press right now in this moment. And so that's why, you know, he like the way that he just basically like made everyone fall away at Shinnecock. I think it's like was surgical in that sort of respect. Like you know, he wasn't playing lights out golf there. There was other guys who played better stretches of golf at Chinny than he did. But he was the guy who just had the discipline to be like, yep, just going to hit us the middle of the green and I'm not going to short side myself here, and I think you in that round, like one time hit it in a bad spot and was able to make a bogie, but just accepted like, yep, got to make a bogie here, made like a twenty five footer.

00:09:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, Brooks, So you are you are you worried at all about his the curse that he put on himself at the at the twenty twenty PGA when he when he just decided to mean thirty or twenty people on the leaderboard, one of whom, you know, one of whom one tournament is off to one of the best professional starts we've ever seen, one of whom now is the number one player of the world that was on that leaderboard. Another was Dustin Johnson, who is arguably this generation's best player, you know, when he went gun to blaze and it's kind of been a different story for Brooks in final rounds.

00:10:35
Speaker 3: My favorite thing about that is like when people were like, wow, I can't believe you like slagged your best friend in that and he was like, I don't know, we're not even like that close. Like you guys made that it's a media creation and that like there's clips out there of like that would be like, you know, who's your best friend on tour? Oh, Dustin, we just get along so well, Like he's my guy. It's like Brooks like rewrites history like he's George orwell, he just he will basically like erase things and pretend, you know, we've always been at war with Eurasia.

00:11:07
Speaker 2: Now having you know, with the Last Dance pretty fresh in my mind. Yeah, isn't that a little bit of a characteristic that Michael Jordan had where you know, the famous Washington bullet story with I forgot the guy's name who scored forty or fifty out of them and they own back to back games and he and he insists that he said something to him after the game and the guy I think his name's Bradford, Bradford something. Yeah, he you know, to this day he's like, I didn't say anything to Michael Jordan, isn't it doesn't Brooks have a little bit of that that quality of where he just like kind of has a selective memory of what he remembers and.

00:11:48
Speaker 3: Doesn't yep a hundred percent. So I mean he's just he's a weirdo though in that sense too of like he's big time like you know, well the media just created that, you know, when he's like the huge driver of a lot of it. So anyway, I guess his hip was sort of a little bit sore going into Augusta. I actually thought that I kind of looked like a dumb ass because I tweeted a bunch of like, oh Brooks, he's ready, We're sleeping on Brooks, and yeah, I mean I thought he I don't know if you saw, like he got in a little bit of a pissy match with a fan at Phoenix right before, and so I was like, Oh, Brooks is in a great headspace to just dominate. I guess it's always been a good course for him. And then you know, he missed a cut, so I felt like, huh. You know, Brooks was so good last year at Majors, like other than when he was limping around playing in Augusta when he real probably shouldn't have been playing. You know, he finished again like top five and three of them. So I think that's the Brooks that I want to see as the guy who's just like always kind of in the mix. And I think it'll be a good I mean, I don't know a ton about the redesign. You know, I didn't do enough homework here and watch the Frida egg drone footage and stuff of the Southern Hills. So I can't really say how great the layout is for him, but.

00:13:12
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's going to favor somebody that's good at a lot of things, you know, So I think Brooks, you know, it's somebody that covers other sports for living as well as golf. I have to ask, wouldn't it be nice to know why why Brooks kept go w D this week? Like if you were if if you were baby, you know, embracing gambling as an avenue. Wouldn't it be nice to know? Is this an injury? Is this why? Why is any.

00:13:39
Speaker 3: There would be think that, Yeah, if you're embracing gambling, that maybe you should have to kind of disclose this kind of stuff. If only there was a collective bargaining agreement or something between these independent contractors.

00:13:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know that's uh. I think the thrill of lining cashing like a you know, forty to one ticket is what what gives gambling, you know, the draw of gambling to golf. I don't want to get into that. I don't want to evolve into a gambling conversation.

00:14:07
Speaker 3: No.

00:14:09
Speaker 2: My next one, speaking of all around talents, somebody that has certainly burst on the scene, the last few months, but anybody paying attention would have seen this scene something probably not this coming, but something very good coming. Scotty Scheffler, the top chef.

00:14:28
Speaker 3: I want to throw out this. You're the first person I ever heard mentioned Scotty Shuffler's name, like way back when he was an amateur or when he was on the corn for a tour. You were like, this guy is going to dominate. He's going to be so good. I was like, how's some guy named Scotty going to dominate? That's just that we haven't had a great Scotty since Scottie Pippen. But clearly you knew, you knew your shit.

00:14:48
Speaker 2: What I I wish I could go back and get the receipts. I think on the old website we've transferred over and we didn't like, we didn't move all like the like all the story he's over And I wrote something at an ETCAA about like a little blurb about Scottie Scheffler, but it's lost lost to the interwebs, and you know, I can't go get my receipts from like twenty seventeen, unfortunately. But yeah, I mean, you know, he's making his first start as this Byron Nelson first individual no no offense to Ryan Palmer in this Zurich, but first time we've really seen him sy Semasters will be this week at Byron Nelson, so he'll come in either winning five of his last seven or four of his last seven starts. Obviously, that type of run is like Jason Day territory right now. And I think one of the things that I have in my head is is this a hot run or is this the without a doubt best player in golf, Because that's kind of the territory we're at with this run, right It could go either way. He could slide back, and the more likely scenario is he slides back and he's one of the top players in golf, and it becomes part of the cycle that we've been in effectively since Tiger Woods, where you know, this guy might be the flavor of the month for you know, flavor of the half year, and this guy might be and that's kind of we've been trading these spaces. But you know, there's a lot to like about Scheffler here is that I think a lot of the skills that are transferable at a lot of the skills that are relevant at Augusta National are gonna be relevant this week. You've got you know, pretty wide fairways, you've got approach approach shots are going to be important, and if you miss the green, you want a good short game. Sky. Scheffler's good at everything. He has said that Southern Hills is one of his favorite golf courses. He won the twenty fifteen Big Twelve Championships at Southern Hills. He was he you know, that was before the redesign, but you know it, like Brooks, He's good at everything. There's no discernible weakness. And when you're that way, it makes sense that he's played extraordinarily well at major championships. You know, you go look at his major championships. It's you know, T four at the PGA in twenty twenty. But then he's the last four majors he has a win and three top eight with the win, so four times he hasn't finished worse than eighth in a major in the last four starts. So Scheffler, I think the big question is is he the clear cut best player in golf or is this a hot hot run?

00:17:34
Speaker 3: Well could be both. You know, I was on the golf beat during that sort of Rory Spieff fourteen to fifteen run when it felt like either one of them in their sort of of their respective heater could win every single major that they were in, and they were both the I think at the moment of those you know, certainly Rory in fourteen and Jordan fifteen like the best player in the world in that stretch, and you know, maybe apologies to Jason Day, but.

00:18:08
Speaker 2: I feel like you're you're just you know, you're crushing Jason Day. I feel like he should be he should be included in that stretch. He was at the back. He was the back end of the stretch.

00:18:19
Speaker 3: He was the back end of the stretch. Maybe I was just so enamored with speed at that moment, like a huge crash on.

00:18:25
Speaker 2: The thing is they only got one major, right the other guys, you know, Rory got two and twenty fourteen, Speith got two in that period.

00:18:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was really competitive in the other two. Like if Jason Day doesn't exist, you know, he's got three, Yeah, he's got three, or you know, if he doesn't hit one bad shot at a bad moment at st Andrew's like he probably gets in that playoff too. But what I think too. So my point, I guess is being like, when you're on one of these heaters, you just got to kind of ride it as long as you can, right because there's no guarantees. Like speaking of like wishing that receipts could be returned. There's some receipts out there that I wish I could delete from the Internet. ESPN's not quite like the year old the Friday Tumblr archives, but it's still up there where I'm talking about how, you know, just Thomas and Jordan Speeth are going to duel it out for six and seven majors like be the you know, the Tom Watson of their generation. That was a bit naive in terms of history because you think when you're in the middle of one of these runs, you just think like, oh, this is the kind of the new normal. This person's never gonna you know, come down off the seat or they're the best player in the world. I mean part of you know, I think the reason that I ended up getting on the golf beat is that I pitched a story at the end of fourteen and be like, you know, is Rory is sort of carrying the torch for the you know, he's the New Tiger, and everybody thought like, yeah, he's probably not going to win, you know, eighteen, but he could win ten. And you know, it's he's still at four because at that moment, it seemed like Rory was, you know, the next great player, like one of the next five best players to ever live. And so I don't know if that's true of Scheffler, Like I think you know that he could you know, you could tell me that he could win three majors in his career and I'd be like, yeah, that sounds like amazing. That's like the high end of what I'd expect. And so like, if he's still on this heater right now where everything is just seems easy, then yeah, I could totally see him winning at Southern Hills and just you know, but I don't think like the thing where I think it feels like it gets a little out of hand is if you start predicting this is going to run forever, Like it's just great players have these really hot streaks, and in some ways, once those go, they're never quite like as hot as they don't burn quite as bright as they ever did before. And that's been true of DJ, it's been true of Speed it's been true of Rory.

00:20:53
Speaker 2: So the other interesting thing about this is is that these runs, these hot runs ten in this era to be happening when players are young, and it's almost like they're chasing the fountain of youth like they are. Maybe maybe it's some some being naive like major maybe major championships and winning golf tournaments is easiest when you don't know any better, and maybe that's the thing. But this this dovetails, I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna get number two out here because you've you've hit on this already. Do you know what the numbers twenty seven, seventeen, and fifteen, what the relevance of those numbers are?

00:21:42
Speaker 3: No? I don't, all right, those.

00:21:44
Speaker 2: Are the number of major championships starts for Rory McElroy, Jordan Speith, and Justin Thomas since their last major win. And as you kind of laid out, you know, with Rory in twenty fourteen, it's like at that point, he he's on this prolific pace. He's you know, maybe not Tiger, but he is he's something more than Phil the one.

00:22:08
Speaker 3: The thing that I kind of thought is like, maybe Rory can be the greatest European player ever, like he's you know, maybe he doesn't win as many majors as Gary player, maybe doesn't quite get to doesn't win ten, you know, and obviously, like you know, Jack and Tiger, you know, sort of do it out for the greatest American. But you know, it seemed unthinkable that Rory wouldn't win like seven eight majors, right and be potentially like the greatest European player ever. And that's just still has never materialized. I think the one thing that I would think about with Scheffler right now is that he doesn't have any like scar tissue, right, he doesn't have like he once he got over the hump, it was like, oh gosh, like I can you know, I can win. I'm a winner. I've been a winner all my life. Eventually, like Skott, Scheffler will have like a round where he freaking falls apart because that's golf, right, or he just completely like has a mayor where everyone expects him to contend and he just stinks. Like Rory's had plenty of those, and that Rory's talked a lot about how that kind of weighs on you and how all of a sudden you can't you know, feel as young and free and you don't like you're overthinking certain like I don't want to go with that pin because I don't want to make an error. And that's I think what that's what dogs speak, it's what dog's Rory, it's you know, I don't think it dogs DJ, but maybe it does, you know. And so those things are probably coming for Shuffler, but not yet right because he just hasn't had them happen. It's just everything feels like it's totally free right now.

00:23:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean, and that's the thing with these guys, like I think, you know, these were what appeared to be as of four years ago, the superstars, and at this point, I don't know if you can call any of them. I think ratings wise, like speak and Rory drive drive numbers, right, drive interests, and they're they're superstars from that standpoint, but from their play over the last few years, no, like they haven't, you know, they haven't been superstars. And Justin Thomas has won a lot of events, but he hasn't been relevant in major championship golf outside of his one win. And I looked at it, you know, for context, like I didn't even bother looking at Tiger in this. But once Phil got his major, the longest stretch of you know, no wins between majors in his prime was thirteen and that was before Mierfield. The longest for Ernie was twenty appearances between ninety seven and two thousand and two. I have to say, I think I've come around on philby and better than Ernie.

00:24:53
Speaker 3: Wow show.

00:24:57
Speaker 2: I still stand by like in their p I think Ernie was a better player, but career wise it's pretty pretty emphatic, especially with my new points system.

00:25:10
Speaker 3: Glad you didn't walk into the ocean at Kiwa because I was just I was just rewatching the Kiwa celebration at the end of the end. I was looking in the background for you, like looking to spondent, you know, neck deep in the in the waves, poor calling you back. Yeah, I don't know. I mean people forget that, Like Phil really should have won three straight majors, right, you put one ball in the fairway at wing foot, and all of a sudden he's won three straight majors. Like if you think about that, like has has at any point Justin Thomas been even in contention in three straight majors. Nope, you know, I guess s beeithe almost did it, so he could sort of say that's equal. But like I I don't know, man, I am. I can't figure out JT. Like we watch him at the Players and you see, like I used to sort of think that he was like I used to call him like a firesome golfer, right. I used to think, like he just hit it far or hit it high, not a lot of like brains or imagination, just unbelievable. And I think that was a he evolved a little bit. But also maybe that was a bad rate on my part because he's such a creative mind in terms of like, Okay, I got to hit this shot with less spin. I gotta to hit the shot in this trajectory. And that's what we ask that's what we want from golfers, right, is to we always kind of complain about, oh, it's just bombing gouge dumb, and that's not JT. Like he is super creative and interesting and smart, and he has all of the sort of game The putter lets him down sometimes, but it's such a bummer because he's one of the few people who is really interesting to watch in adverse conditions and different things, and yet he's been just really bad at the British Open, where all those things should come into play, and he's been pretty bad at Augusta, where like creativity should be rewarded. And I just I wanted to see him at when he was leading at Aaron Hills, after that unbelievable round that tied whatever or I guess comparative to part broke Johnny Miller's US Open record, I really thought that he was going to come out and win that and it was gonna be like, all right, finally JT is like he's that dude, and he just kind of like Ricky that day just kind of went backwards and Brooks just boat raced everybody. And I've never really felt quite like the same about JT. Again. I was just like, man, like, that was such an opportunity that you threw away, and those are so hard to get. You know, you're leading a major championship after three rounds and you got to go out and take those and to shoot whatever. It was like sixty for seventy three on that day, when Brooks shot like sixty seven, it was just kind of a nothing burger.

00:27:46
Speaker 2: I think That's the alarming thing about JT is how few opportunities. You're talking about a major what four years ago? Yeah, and really like what has there been a great opportunity? Maybe the Masters a year ago in twenty twenty one. You know, he had the you know, kind of disaster on Saturday, I think when he hit when he found raised creek on the back nine and thirteen, and.

00:28:14
Speaker 3: Well he was leading at wingfoot after two rounds and wasn't even in the conversation by the end, Like, you know, it's just it's hard to look. This shit is really hard. But also like you got to put those four rounds together and he has these kind of like blockages where he just can't quite figure out how to get out. I mean, even as much as we've teased Rory, Rory's been way more relevant in majors since than JT has since they you know, this is JT won his.

00:28:43
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00:30:11
Speaker 3: I actually think I would on Speak because I think that like Speth's game will be forever relevant. I think he'll have streaks where he's hot with the putter. I think he'll have streaks where he's you know, back to being the best iron player in the world. You know. I think he'll always kind of be a little bit radic with the driver. But I think that it's Speeth also kind of has like that thing in him where he likes just loves golf. And it would not be surprised me to see Speth win like a British Open in like his forties, like a little mirror type British Open, or a phil British Open, or a Darren Clark British Open, like he's going to be relevant in that for a long time. I don't. Rory just doesn't strike me as someone who wants to kind of stick around and do it forever. I wouldn't be surprised to see Rory basically be like a ceremonial golfer in his forties. So I think I would take God, if if Rory wins one more major, I can almost see like the Tiger thing of like, well, I did it, I came back and I proved everybody that I could still do it, and now I'm good, like I'm you know, I don't need to win anymore. And yeah, I think I would take the under on the other two that I can see JT and Rory each getting one more major, but I would weirdly outpick speed to win more.

00:31:34
Speaker 2: I Yeah, I think I go under on all of them.

00:31:37
Speaker 3: And it leads me into the smarter bed for sure.

00:31:41
Speaker 2: It leads me into like my last thought on these droughts, and it's more it's a question, but I think I fall on one side of it. You know, there's clearly a new crop of young talent on tour. And are they just younger and better?

00:32:03
Speaker 3: I mean, are they younger and better? Or are they is the game? I think you've talked about this a lot. Is the game still rewarding like speed and power and youth? Like is it essentially like how the NFL works where you're maybe other than playing quarterback, you're at your best when you're twenty three to twenty six, because that's when you're at your physical peak as a football player. Right. So, I remember once we were talking to ESPN the magazine back when we were sort of thinking about interesting story ideas, and we came up with this kind of story pitch that was like golf breaks everybody eventually, like when's it going to break Roy McElroy? And that was kind of like, you know, like golf kind of broke Phil's brain in a lot of ways and he like managed to stitch it back together. But like golf broke Tiger's brain in some ways, like Jack's like one of the few people that it didn't like break, I mean of all of those eras, Like golf is so hard that it drives everyone a little bit crazy, right, and it just you Yeah, there's other things a factor into life that you know, kids, marriage and finances and all that stuff. But like golf obviously broke Greg Norman a couple of times, and it's still breaking him in weird ways. And so I think you're right, Like it doesn't seem like it's there's not a lot of guys right now in their thirties who are winning their first major like this idea that Ricky's gonna like click and figure it out or you know, all of a sudden like oh, this wily veteran sort of now that has figured it all out. He's I don't know that that's gonna happen, man, because there's gonna be a lot of like there's kids right now who are seventeen, who are going to be way better than Ricky is when they're twenty three and he's thirty five. So what is the guarantee that like this experience is really being helpful in the long run. Like, I just that's how sports kind of work, because you just kind of like the youth movement just keeps pushing and pushing and getting better earlier.

00:34:02
Speaker 2: Would anything break the golf Internet? Like in golf, would there be more takes than any player, more so for any player than Ricky going to play live?

00:34:15
Speaker 3: Oh man, I mean, imagine how much fewer commercials we'd have to watch. I say it might mean, I don't know, the Rocket mortgage is going to be like super excited about this. This is Saudi Arabia investment fund back player. I mean it certainly like Tiger would would be like the the I mean, it would be funny to see if Tiger did it, only because you would see all these people who had been anti live for so long just flip all of a sudden be like, well, he's an independocondreary. He should be able to do what he wants. Obviously, you know, America's done some bad stuff too.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: What do you got on your list? What else you got? It was Ricky? It was a Ricky Live golf on there.

00:34:59
Speaker 3: It was not that's a great, great one to have on there. But you know, I guess we haven't even ruled that out. That's still very possible. You know, I guess Brooks is on my list. So tell me what you think about this being the course expert, is this is Southern Hills Speak's best chance to win the career Grand Slam that's coming up in a while at PGA Venues.

00:35:24
Speaker 2: I've said this, I think, I think I said this on the shotgun start all those fun together, But I do believe that I think Southern Hills is just I mean, it's perfect for his game. It's got a lot of Augusta National characteristics in the sense of you're dealing with topography on almost every shot. I mean, the places where Southern Hills is flat for the most part. There's the second and third hole are flat holes, but you have a creek that winds through them, and then the other flat holes are par threes, So you're dealing with topography. You're rarely hitting that rain shot. You're going up, you're hitting from side hills. On almost every shot you're either going up or down or a side hill, and a lot of them you're doing both. That's something you see at Augusta National. The greens provide very small targets in the sense of like if you're in the right section, you're really good, which is very similar to Augusta National. You have space off the tee, which I think is super important for Speed. Yep, if he has a good week driving the golf ball, he could hit eleven fairways in a round, and I don't think that's the case usually at PGA's or US Opens, just because of the golf courses they go to and in the US Open case, the way they set up golf courses since Aaron Hills, So I think from that sense, and then you've got short grass around the greens, which is really good for great short game players. You know, Speed can play more aggressively approaching greens knowing short grasses around him because he's a magician around the greens, and he can get up and down when he short sighted ten feet below the hole from short grass, whereas you know that long rough and it keeps balls close, but it becomes a little bit more of the luck of the draw, did I get a good lie? So I really do like Speith here. I like it. The other thing it shares with Augusta National that I think it's one thing that I've been thinking about a lot is there are a lot of draw t shots out there. So we've seen certain players like JT really struggle with some draw holes at at Augusta National, like thirteen has been a disaster for Justin Thomas. But Jordan Speth is a guy that has played well at a course that requires a draw and who knows what shot shape he actually hits. I think it's a you know.

00:37:52
Speaker 3: He might not know at this point whether he's gonna play a fade or a draw, so he might be guessing on the downswing which is going.

00:38:01
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think this is this is a great spot for Speath. I hope that preshot routine's gone. I gotta feel like it's not gonna be probably right now if we were watching the Nelson right now.

00:38:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think from just thinking about it and looking at the future venues, you know, it would be a neat thing if he did win the career Grand Slam. Obviously, only four guys have done it, and he this might be his best chance in a while, right, Like he's playing good but not so good that like all the attention is on him, all this pressure is on him. No one, no one's out there like writing like will Speith win the you know career Grand Slam this week like they were you know, the first time around when he had the shots at it? And you know, is ok Hill like a good fit for him? I don't think it's particularly good at all. You know, it's like, what is it? Ironomic is coming up? That might be a good fit for him in the future, but like Quail and Valhalla, those aren't don't strike me as like particular. Nobody knows what Frisco is going to be like, But he'll be also what by the time like those, we got oak Hills next year, and then we got Valhalla in twenty four, and then Quail and then Ironomic And by the time we get to Frisco, it's a home game for speed.

00:39:13
Speaker 2: He might he might have like three kids by then. He might have too much perspective.

00:39:17
Speaker 3: Do way too much perspective. So we got to start an anti perspective movement. Really, I think that's what we there ought to be like a whole. I might that might be my first column. It's like you need less perspective at this point.

00:39:31
Speaker 2: Well, ask somebody with one kid. I think I do think that there is some perspective that one kid provides that you you don't live with before you have a kid. Yeah, But I think there's also like a sliding scale of perspective. And I think once you enter like Brendan for sure with four kids has has way too much perspective, it becomes what it becomes is your life is just is just filled with problems because that your children are provided you know you and you don't have any time to think about anything but your kids.

00:40:06
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yes, I agree on that.

00:40:10
Speaker 2: You know, this is like the Rory scale. Right when you're single and you have no girlfriend or or or your girlfriend's a tennis star that's trying to achieve the same thing that you're trying to achieve, which is like superstardom, you're probably your best self because you can go full narcissist, yes, right, Like all you have to do is take care of yourself, which is good for golf, right, and then you have like relationships, Like I think like there's a scale like it's your life like and that's I think one of the really interesting things about golf is that the mental aspect of the sport really plays a role in your in your en course performance, and your different life moments have impacts, and people handle child like people handle parents differently, right, and like, there's all these factors that are the great unknown, and I think that's what makes the game so fickle.

00:41:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent agree. I think uh. I always thought that about Rory, like that his was one of the themes that I was sort of contemplating as I was writing about him for the first time in the beginning of fifteen, was you know, eventually, like marriage and stuff and and kids are going to change his life in ways that he can't like grasp. I remember I talked to Michael Phelps once about this when he was like on his it was prior to the Beijing Olympics, and I was like, are you you know, do you ever like date people here at the University of Michigan And he was like, eh, you know, there's some people here in our lives. And I was like, well, how do you you know prioritize like swimming stuff versus you know, like, Hey, this girl for my girlfriend wants to hang out whatever, and he's like yeah, I basically just tell him like you're either like on board with my schedule or you're gone, like because there's no you know. And the woman he was dating the time is now his wife. And he laughed when we like talk about that later in life, is like, yeah, like I didn't have any perspective because all I was doing was like selfishly pursuing what I wanted. And you know, thankfully the you know, Nicle stuck by him all that time and dealt with his kind of you know, ruthless ambition at that point. But that's so true of golfers. It's like, yeah, you can just grind and be awesome and never have to worry about, you know, anything but yourself, and then all of a sudden that flips.

00:42:27
Speaker 2: Well, you know, this leads me into one of my topics. Two of golf's great narcissists who have really revealed one of whom has really revealed himself in the last year since his historic when Tiger and Phil who you know, I think we talk about how speak's flying under the radar, and I have another flying under the radar thing after this. But you know why everybody seemingly is flying under the radar is because of Tiger and Phil. Tiger making his second start since that awful injury, you know, self induced injury, uh, and then Tyger and then Phil potentially we don't know if he's playing for sure. Nobody knows nobody if he's playing for sure, but he's in the field, so we're operating that he's playing.

00:43:17
Speaker 3: One comment on that, real quick, I was thinking about this, isn't there there's a PGA Champions like champions dinner, right? I know that they like gather like on the Wednesday night or whatever. For I don't think it's like a necessarily quite. It's obviously not like a Gusta where you pick the menu and all that stuff. But like you think the Phil would have to like make the people there aware that he might or might not be coming, that he was going to be the host, and what he wanted to sort of do for the dinner. I mean that you think maybe that is the people who hold the key the breaking news to whether Phil is going to play or not. Are they like the weight staff or the cooking staff at Southern Hills.

00:43:53
Speaker 2: I mean, I had been getting reports about like security is preparing for Phil like a month ago, like you know, I think he's I think he's playing because again, this kind of goes back to who he is. He wants that right, He's the ultimate showman, and he I just can't imagine him skipping the title defense of historically, you know, right there with Tiger's twenty nineteen Masters win is Phil's twenty twenty one PGA win completely like unbelievable that he won that tournament. I still, like to this day when I think, like what I'm preparing for this podcast, I'm like, I can't believe he won last year. I cannot believe that this man one the PGA last year.

00:44:46
Speaker 3: It would be so sweet if Phil came this week and I don't know, you know, he's never been your guy, but like with a full like big gray beard, fifteen twextra pounds, wearing those ava's hair kind of like long, you know, maybe in a ponytail, walked into that presser and was like what you got hit me? I'm ready to answer it all and just was like, yeah, don't care. When for the money next? I think if Phil should just be in full like doesn't give a f in the next stage that that would be the way immediately he would be won back by a lot of people. If he was like, but you know, he'll probably do some contrition and some like you know what, I don't know. I would I would like to see if Phil just go kind of full trollish, but he you know, knowing him, he'd step in it somehow, I'd say something dumber and it would just be rebooted all over again. Do you think he's playing I do, Yeah. I think he should have played the Byron Nelson this week.

00:45:45
Speaker 2: Well, he might not have been any of them.

00:45:47
Speaker 3: That's true. He should have tried and the see like if they would let it, but then he wouldn't have That's probably a good indication that why he didn't because if he could have played ahead of time he always plays that, Yeah, it would have just given him. It would have dealt like it would have got all this stuff out of the way, and then he could have said at Southern Hills like, hey, I answered that last week, but I really appreciate the question, like I'm just here to talk about the golf now. I already talked about that stuff at the Byron Nelson.

00:46:13
Speaker 2: The thing about it is that it's been a really hard period of time with him in terms of pr and I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been.

00:46:26
Speaker 3: I think.

00:46:28
Speaker 2: I think in a way, him deciding to remove himself from everything has actually made it worse. It's made it really easy for people to pile up. It's made some of his like his real believers, a bit skeptical about what all is going on. And I think being out in the public and just being himself is crazy, like because at the end of the day, like he's one of the greatest players of all time, he's coming off one of the greatest wins of all time. And sports, like there's the sports politics crowd, like there's you know people people just want to like sports and have it be the departure. And I think Phil is one of the people in golf that offers the the best departure in a way, right, Like, no matter what you feel about the guy, the things that like I've never been a fan, but like there are just he provides these moments on the golf course in competition where you just like laugh out loud, You're like, what what is he doing? Why? You know? And when you when you take away all of the extracurriculars, and you know, and I think people have largely done this with Tiger Woods and been able to like move on when you take away all of that. Like he is, he is one of the great showmen. He's one of the you know, true spectacles. And and when do we talk about all these other but what we've talked about, all these other players, all everybody else we've talked about in this kind of discussion, we all are just hoping for one of them to be something like a shell of what Tiger and Phil have provided us for three decades.

00:48:19
Speaker 3: I mean, love or hate Phil, He's made it interesting to watch, like, even with all of his various fuck ups and all of his like you know, I always thought that the best way to sort of kind of describe the way a lot of his personality is that he just gets bored with like the status quo, and so he has to create kind of chaos to see if he can wiggle his way out of it. And you know, it's he needed constantly to like I think he has like such a maybe a short attention span is the right way to put it, but doesn't quite grasp it. So it's like oh, like I This year, I'm going to play true drivers. This year. I'm going to play four wedges this year. I'm super into stats this year. I'm super into fitness. This year. I'm a family man. This year. You know, I'm I'm working with Butch Harmon. No. This year, I'm not having a coach like he is here. I'm using a franken Wood. I'm not going to hit any drivers off the tee. It's like there was Tiger was a person who was like I wanted everything to be the same. I needed to sort of you know, just be super disciplined. And Phil was like, yeah, man, how can I think about like ways to keep myself interested in this because it just otherwise I'll board to death. And so maybe this is the ultimate like created chaos to see if I can wiggle out of it. It's like whether you're a magician or whether you're a gambler, the same kind of principles apply of like, hey, watch, watch me see if I can get out of this mess. And this is the ultimate kind of call on that this is okay, can the dude get out of it? Or can he win people back?

00:49:45
Speaker 2: It's going to be riveting. I think he's going to play too. I just the whole thing, the whole last twelve months is just absolutely bokers How a man can go from the very top of the sport, like the toast, the toast of all of sports. And for a man to do go from that to really like the cellar of the sport, like just like the punching bag of the sport within a calendar year is unbelievable.

00:50:15
Speaker 3: I always when I think about your phil antagonism, uh in the last year, so I think about that thing in the internet that's like, oh they had us in the first half there it was you know you you had a dark moment at Kiwa. Phil had sort of dunked in your face and ultimately like you came out okay in the end film messed. Like if you look at the last year, the long descent of weirdness into him, remember you know when he was like fighting with the Detroit news guy about that investigative story and like all his ridiculousness around the pip and like fighting with various you know, bitching at the USGA about the driver Lenk. Like it's sort of been a slow descent of weird and of like you know, the obviously the media writes stuff. You know, I still think some knucklehead tech bro got in his head after around at you know, in Phoenix or something about oh, you know, you're they're ripping you off, fie, there's twenty billionsybe it.

00:51:14
Speaker 2: Was at the fortnite, could have been when he was up.

00:51:17
Speaker 3: At the tech bro it could have been, And that just convinced him of something that wasn't true at like so many of super rich people who don't consume like actual legitimate news, and they get their news from like sitting around a table post round with the people. And you know, he just is further descended into sort of a Howard Hughes weirdness now believing things that are just you know, fit his biases.

00:51:42
Speaker 2: And you know, we barely have talked about Tiger, but I don't think that there needs to be that much said. Do you have any expectations of Tiger competing contending in this tournament?

00:51:52
Speaker 3: Contending? No? But I think you know he could was hopefully, I guess my hope would be is that we'll see him looking a little bit stronger towards the end of the tournament if he makes a cut. Right, is that he he was limping super hard at the end of that I guesstin run So it was kind of hard to watch. But you know what, he was, what four shots off the lead after two rounds, like obviously.

00:52:19
Speaker 2: Four shots out a second, which is I think relevant because we had a run away winner.

00:52:23
Speaker 3: You know, he still knows how to think his way around the golf course and still knows how to hit his irons and spots where he's not going to make doubles, and so I think, you know, would it be super compelling? Obviously he was in the mix, absolutely, Like should anyone expect that at all? Like I don't think so. Like I still think maybe Saint Andrews is a is a much better chance if that it's ever going to happen again, and it's probably his last realistic chance at St. Andrews, Like he'll be fifty five the next time it comes around, so that's you know, unlikely, So he had to sort of hopefully be geared towards that as like his thing.

00:53:04
Speaker 2: So I'm going to make the case that this is everybody's going to saying that Saint Andrews is better is his best chance. I'm gonna make the case that this is his best chance this year. Here's why it's gonna be warm if the weather holds. The weather right now is showing dry, warm with with some wind like That's the other thing. It's if the weather forecast and this is Thursday, like this could change. The weather forecast is showing a dry week with fifteen mile an hour winds at a golf course that's got similarities to Gustin National. And when you start to think about it that way, you've got a shot maker. You've got a guy that's great around the greens with all the shots around the greens. Like if it's if the turf is firm and it's warm, that back is going to work better. And the golf course really lends itself well to Tiger. I actually would make the argument that this is a better chance than Saint Andrews, where it's probably gonna be cold and and we've seen along like the last few years, when is cold and windy, Tiger doesn't have a good chance, you know. So I'd say this could be like where he's, you know, ripping off undershirts because he's sweating through him like a Keelmack a few years ago, where he's you know he's going through his seven shirts because it's hot and humid, and but he's swinging well, and I like, I like that. I think that that's where I'm landing. Like, would I be surprised if he misses the cut? No, the guy's barely played any competitive golf. But would I be surprised if he's in the mix? Absolutely not. This is a place that that would fit his game. He was the last guy to win here in a major championship too, So I don't think you can rule him out of being somewhat of a factor on the weekend. And I share your sentiment, Like what I do want I just want him to not look like so uncomfortable on the weekend.

00:54:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good game and actually kind of I'm on I'm on board with your Southern Hills versus Saint Andrew's take. I think also Saint Andrews is wide open enough to where like, if a bunch of guys could play really well, it's not like he's the only guy with experienced at Saint Andrews, and so he'd have to outplay some guys too. Whereas you know, this is a totally new like resign, no, one knows how this is going to play in major championship sort of case. And he has always been really good at, you know, being the best player at a course where no one has ever sort of seen it play in the majors before. So I subscribe to your take.

00:55:36
Speaker 2: There's what's your what else you got on your list? I we're just you know, soaking up time here. I think I'm through three. I don't know how many year through have some of them been unloaded with other topics that we've talked about.

00:55:51
Speaker 3: I want to see old Stu Sink get a little redemption Southern Hills. Imagine we're talking about real obscure takes here. Yeah, like Stu Sink all of a sudden, the fact that Stu Sink is still relevant. I want to see Stu sinc have a little bit of redemptive moment. He's still playing good golf. That's why I want to sort of see it here.

00:56:10
Speaker 2: St Sink the resurgence is just I really wish. I wish he had held on to a little bit better of a last year and he would have been in the mix for Ryder Cup pick. That would have been just like delightful. If Stricker had like the hard decision between Scheffler and Sink and had gone Sink or something.

00:56:30
Speaker 3: In another era, they probably would have they would have put Stu sinc on that team because like as veteran experience, right when they used to throw those who was the fifty year old pick that they picked one year with a captain's pick? Was it Jay Hawes?

00:56:44
Speaker 2: I can't remember Jay has that's.

00:56:47
Speaker 3: The like two thousand and six is like some slim pickens for the US Ryder Cup team. I gotta say, here's.

00:56:53
Speaker 2: A of my what of my takes here is uh I think it's crazy how under the dar two players And I really prepared this around one, but as I was preparing around one, I found myself with two Like I think that there's the Tiger Phil and Scheffler buzz and I think Spieth is almost like number four in the storylines and and somehow the two best young players in the game and over like if you take Scheffler in a vacuum of like this is a this is a seven week run or seven start run really like a half a year, the two best young players in the game, Caluin Morikawa and John Ram are just like they're in a position they shouldn't be in as the two best young players in the game in the sense that they're like storyline like f is Colin Morricawa and John Ram. I mean, Moricow has got six wins in his first seventy starts as a pro, He's got two major championships. He's been incredible at major championships. And here's a golf course that is to require extraordinary precision approaching the greens, Like this is a guy that should be just like this should be one of the leading stories of the event, and it it almost didn't make my list, And you know, I just think that is uh, that's it's crazy. And the same goes for Ram. And it's like both these guys, you know, if either of these guys win this week, we're talking about like Morku with three rom if he wins, is like, you know, is back to like is he the best player in the world without a doubt? Like in both of them, they're the two players that right now, based off of the trajectory they're on, have a chance at being a phill like star in the game of golf. You know, obviously they aren't gonna have the off course, but on course they they could truly be better than the Rory, the the you know, and this is kind of like the ilk we're talking about, but both of them, their consistency is my boggling and something we really haven't seen.

00:59:02
Speaker 3: I think Mark how is a scent is like he's probably like one of the most underrated studs in all of sports, right, Like people just don't really quite believe that it's real, maybe just as he doesn't do it in sort of this overpowering, dominant way, like he's so good at the the precision thing, like it hitting your irons, like just consistently brilliantly. H And that's somehow like not of a like a much of a macho thing. It doesn't hit it, you know, three P fifty or whatever. It's just I find myself like you're right, Like if Colin Mark Howe won a major this week, no one would be surprised, and he would have as many majors as speak and that would be completely like mind boggling in terms of the way that they've been covered in the last few years. Right, I guarantee that like if you do that thing where you punch in like someone's you know name into Google how many stories or how many hits have they been? Like Smith, would Dwarf call him Makawa uh? And so I don't know, is it like is there a racial element to it at all? Like why is calin Markawa not thought of as like more awesome and more dominant? I don't know.

01:00:11
Speaker 2: I don't think he's as exciting of an in. It's very like I think speeth is very real. He'll tell you what he's thinking. More Kawa to me feels like he's telling you what his agent wants him to say. And I love kalum Morikawa. I've been a huge fan of kalum Mori Kawa for a long time. But you get the feeling of like immense commercialization from a A the second he termed pro and very rarely are you ever do you ever feel like? I don't. This is just my personal opinion. I just don't feel like we're ever actually hearing what he truly thinks about a subject unless he's talking like in nitty gritty about golf.

01:00:58
Speaker 3: And some of that. You know, it was a business I can't remember what part of business major he was at Cal, but like he effectively really probably knows how to manage his brand with like zero risk, and that is just basically like just sticking to golf and not really having any kind of other interests kind of you know, trickle into this stuff. He's not uber famous in the way that like a lot of the other guys are, right, Like, I bet he could walk around a lot of streets in America and not be recognized. My final thing on the five things, I think there should be like the PGA of America should have way more like focus and attention, not necessarily during the broadcast, but about who's going to finish as the low professional, the teaching professional. I think that you know, obviously there's some of that always whatever, but there should be like big wagers on it. There should be like, you know, stories about every guy spotly should be gambling all the time on it. I would I would like that would be fun.

01:02:01
Speaker 2: I think the other thing is that there should be like a real count of how much time was spent on either the lesson tee or in the pro shop for these guys, because I think there's a lot of different levels, a lot of different profiles of these guys. Like there are some of these guys that all they do is play golf they're effectively professional golfers that are PGA pros, and then there are some guys that are legitimate teachers. I would like to know more. Honestly, this is the key. Honest you know, Ben Cook last year masquerading around was one of the most fraudulent. It's like, this guy hasn't spent He's played, He's played ten Latin America Tour events in the spring. What's he been at his pro shop in Michigan that he allegedly is a pro at?

01:02:55
Speaker 3: Poor Ben Cook gets savaged by you on like all different mediums. I wonder, like if his family's listening out here, get in Andy's mention, what is he?

01:03:04
Speaker 2: Is he a Latin American PGA Tour player, like a Latin American Tour player or a PGA pro You can't.

01:03:10
Speaker 3: It's a great point. He's you know, it's the Omari restI of the next uh lower down teaching pro. You ought to be able to have to like have testimonials of like how many lessons have you given.

01:03:20
Speaker 2: Lessons or or how many surets have you folded? Like what's what's your what's your merchandise? Like how well do you know your your bea dratty rep. You know, how how well do you know your your Grayson Rep?

01:03:35
Speaker 3: Like?

01:03:35
Speaker 2: Do these people know who you are?

01:03:38
Speaker 3: Can you get can you get a shipment of precision pros quickly from? Like? You know, do you have the guy's number in your phone? You don't need to look it up in the system, It's in your Yes. See how it's exciting This could be if the broadcast had a little bit of creativity, Just do the do the legwork.

01:03:53
Speaker 2: It's the same thing that makes the Mise Bryson Annual duel and Augusta so enticing. Is that Larry Biz's life compared to Bryce and day Chambeau's is so different. They play the game so differently, and yet Augusta Nashville every year they seem to be just locked in a tussle for T forty two.

01:04:14
Speaker 3: Who if every like top ten player, top twenty player had to be paired with a TGA, a PGA teaching professional, an actual teacher in the first two rounds. Who would be more like annoyed by that development? The actual PGA tour pros or the pg teaching pros.

01:04:36
Speaker 2: So I think the tour pros would be annoyed. I think the more the more, you know, right, descriptor for the PGA pros would be like more shook, like it's completely out of their comfort. So you know, like imagine a PGA pro playing with tiger and I having to deal with the tiger.

01:04:59
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, pnessions are really really tough out there, Ben.

01:05:02
Speaker 2: How do you like a first And they always put a first time PGA like first time playing the PGA Championship.

01:05:11
Speaker 3: Welcome to the caudron man, like, let's go. You have the tea.

01:05:19
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, like the one time I played the bid Am, I thought it was absurd. They gave me the last tea time the first day and it's like, oh, for Fox's sake, I got to sit around and think about this until two fifteen today. But all right, my last I love that take. My last storyline to watch is the Live Undertones.

01:05:43
Speaker 3: This could be the last dance of some people. Yeah, say goodbye to Sergio and to Westy and all the guys, all the boys.

01:05:51
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's a lot of names that we don't know.

01:05:53
Speaker 3: Ricky could be on that list for all we know, Like rick could be like, well, I'm gonna go play for I'm gonna redeem my career over on the Live tour.

01:06:01
Speaker 2: I think the other thing about this is last year it was kind of swirling around. If you remember early in the week there were meetings. Seth Waw made a really strong comment last year about Live in Saudi Arabia about how they'd be banned from Ryder Cup and from PGAs. Since then, I feel like it hasn't been murmured again. I feel like there's been a walk back in a sense of silence the Masters. I don't I don't think Ridley's comments were at all like throwing support behind the tour. I don't think the USAA hasn't said anything about it, and I don't think they will. I think these major championships are kind of just like sitting back and waiting to see what happens and saying, you know, we're Switzerland right now. And I think this is the last kind of time I think where the golf is going to be really normal in the sense of like this is where everybody plays, and after this week that live list is going to come out. Who knows it might leak and come out this week, but I think there's gonna be a lot of names on that list that that people didn't expect. I think something that hasn't been talked about enough is that I think it's going to be a heavy international list.

01:07:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:07:21
Speaker 2: I think when you think about Saudi Arabia, money is not I don't think as reprehensible to Europe and Asia as it is to America because they're closer to it, they have more of it in their daily lives. And I think what you're going to see is is what if the tour becomes what if a lot of the international players are gone from the tour? You know what if this is this is just a speculation. There is no what if a player like Hideki left And I'm not say saying he's going to but what you know, like what happens to the tour like that? That's someone they can't afford to lose. They can't afford to lose Japan's biggest star because are they actually a global tour if they lose a lot of the international base.

01:08:13
Speaker 3: You know what I think I was thinking about this. Remember back when we were kids, were essentially like Europeans played on the European tour, right, they would come to the majors and they would maybe come it was like a big deal when like Sevy would come and play like a normal event in the United States. We might be returning to a time where and this would you would live stuff would have to kind of not play at like Trump bed Messer and Pumpkin Ridge and like the shitty course outside of Chicago, like they'd have to if they were If this deal was like, Okay, these events are going to be played all over the Middle East, in Europe and Australia and whatever, and that's where you have to play. Honestly, it would be kind of interesting in some ways, right because it's not kind of like the divide between the American League and the National League when they before interleague play. It was like, oh, you know, we get to see them together in the majors and it's like sort of interesting that it was like a kind of a that's where I could maybe be like, wow, maybe this would be the one time if they're still all allowed to play in the majors, be kind of fun to sort of have them mix it up there, because then you could have debates and discussions of like what is does this live win mean anything to anybody? Whatever? It'd be weird to me though if they're just like literally playing tournaments within the United States, that's where I don't know if it like live Auto basically trying to be focused on we're just going to be the global tour, right, The PGA Tour is really global in name only, right because what they have tournament in Canada, tournament in Mexico. Like, it's not like they're going to play tournaments in Australia or tournaments you know, around the world that much like the wgc's or some of that. But I don't know, I mean, I think that you're right, like it is sort of represented. It could be kind of a reversal going back to like what it was when our kids, when you just didn't see as much of the sort of you know, I mean, how often was Ian Muslim playing in the United States other than the Masters, right he was? Just Like I love that Bamberger book to the Links Land where the European Tour was the European Tour and.

01:10:12
Speaker 2: Like sneaky that book. That book might be the best comprehensive golf book ever written because it it it no other book covers to like professional golf and travel and it's such a seamless like the gracefulness of the of how it just goes from one topic to the next is unbelievable.

01:10:37
Speaker 3: Bimberger is just he's awesome. You know, He's certainly someone admired for a long long time.

01:10:42
Speaker 2: Uh.

01:10:43
Speaker 3: And you're right, like he had enough credibility as like a legitimate caddie and also as like a truly great writer to sort of blend the two. And like there's you know, they would take like a freakin' bus from like you know, down to Portugal for the Portugal Open, you know, and like there's scenes the bus would get pulled over and like the police are interrogating them and that. You know, it's like nobody knows like what the outcomes in it. It's a it's not super easy to get a hold of these days. And I don't know if it's out of print, but you can find it.

01:11:13
Speaker 2: I remember DJ and I talked about it on a pod. DJ Pie and I talked about it on a pod, and then the next time I looked on on Amazon, it was like an eighty dollars book to buy it.

01:11:25
Speaker 3: Well, we're just driving things, driving up the cost right to hear one more.

01:11:29
Speaker 2: Time, and that's what happens whenever an old book gets brought up on what if no leg up bring does an old book for one of their reading the book pods. It's just it's all of a sudden you can't afford to buy it. You need to know, you need to be out ahead of the release. Podcast release schedule on old books, not new books. Please don't reach out to me about interviewing you for your new book.

01:11:52
Speaker 3: Uh Andy, I'm sad I won't. I won't see at Southern Hills this week. Next week, I would love to have you know, it's been a while since I got to see you. Well, so other than through the.

01:12:01
Speaker 2: Screen, well maybe open.

01:12:05
Speaker 3: I'm hopeful we'll see No, no yet us open, I think so, we'll see. We'll be there, Lord knows. I'll swing by the Bigsby House then for eat some.

01:12:15
Speaker 2: Chips Precision pro houset. All right, Hey, great chat, Look forward to the next time and have a great week with DG. Thank you for listening to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. This episode was edited by the wonderful Meg Atkims. Thank you, Meg. It is major Championship week that means we are going all out in terms of content. We've got a ton of articles already up on the site. We will have many more meg along with Garrett Morrison, we'll be one so we will have on site reporting from the PGA Championship. It should be an awesome week. The easiest way to stay up to date on these major championship weeks, know what's going on, see all of our content, but just having you know a good grip of what's going on in the major is to sign up for the Frida Egg newsletter. If you go to the website, it's right there at the fridagg dot com. Sign up for free and you will not miss a beat with the major, and then most importantly, you'll be a better golf fan the rest of the week. Go visit the website. There's lots of new stuff. There will be probably multiple things up every day. And thank you for listening, and let's have a great PGA week. He