Top Pro Golf Storylines for the Rest of 2025

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my.

00:00:05
Speaker 1: Ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Friday, Frida egg brid Egg, Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run.

00:00:13
Speaker 2: Off of the course. Welcome back to another edition of the fridaygg Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and today I am joined by one of our old co hosts, Garrett Morrison. He is now the host of our new Designing Golf podcast. If you haven't listened to that, check it out. Garrett is one of my favorite people to talk about all golf. Off with pro game architecture. He does a lot of architecture coverage, but I kind of enjoyed he hasn't had to, you know, give out any pro golf takes in a while, so I asked him to come up with some pro golf takes for you know, we each prep three big storylines of the rest of the golf season. So he came up. You know, I hadn't given out takes in a while, so his chamber was fresh and we kicked around that as well. As we talked about the course, we're most excited to see host a tournament the rest of the year. So check out Garrett's pod Designing Golf if you haven't already, and we're going to kick this podcast over to him. But first let's talk about our partner Echo. Echo makes some of the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn, whether it's golf shoes or just like personal life shoes. Their golf Their new Biome H five is is really spectacular. They are the innovators behind the hybrid golf shoe revolution and the biome Hybrid H five is their latest one. I am in Scotland recording this and these shoes drew inspiration from the Scottish Islands and really you can see in the design their beautiful shoes and they are so comfortable. They keep your feet dry, they keep your feet comfortable. I can't recommend Echoes enough. Some of the they have like next generation tech in these shoes. So Biome H five features echos, all new Echo text waterproof membrane. It ensures that they stay your feet stay dry and comfortable. So check out that they also have the Echo ter Attraction System SOUL, which provides stability and traction and it's a really nice look. So if you want to check out Echo, go to us dot Echo dot com and check out their new bo H five shoes. They are really spectacular. Big thanks to Echo for partnering with us. And let's get to Garrett Morrison. All right, Garrett, welcome on, former co host.

00:03:18
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me on this this fine podcast. It's a it's a real thrill.

00:03:23
Speaker 2: Now now that now that you have your own podcast, now you can say that I'm I'm the most frequent guest of this podcast exactly.

00:03:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be uh. I've been relegated to get all of my past appearances on this podcast are now guest appearances in preparation for the podcast called Designing Golf. People should know that it's called Designing Golf. They don't know about it yet. PJ mentioned that.

00:03:48
Speaker 2: It's uh, it's been delightful. I I've really enjoyed it. So I'm excited for you know, as we keep getting into major season, the stuff that you'll do on the major courses and uh, I just enjoy the exploration that you're doing there.

00:04:04
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Yeah, We've we've got some really fun courses for major championships coming up, so there should be some good episodes of designing golf and and obviously you know what, I'll be coming back on this podcast as well to talk about some some of the major venues that we'll be seeing in the coming weeks.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: I think it'll be the first first ever in twenty twenty five and beyond, maybe it'll be the only time back to back, Gust, I think we're going to record that Oakmont, Is.

00:04:31
Speaker 1: That right, Yeah, that's that's coming up soon. Yeah, it might be a couple of weeks from now, as opposed to next week.

00:04:37
Speaker 2: Well this is this is going to be a couple of weeks or a week from now.

00:04:42
Speaker 1: Oh okay, okay, so we've got to shift our time frame a little bit.

00:04:46
Speaker 2: I see, yeah, all right, we'll get getting out to that. I'm going be in Scotland when well when this is post raged. So a little you know, a little uh work before, behind the behind the scenes, getting getting stuff in the bucket before before I go abroad.

00:05:02
Speaker 1: You know, you're working ahead, Andy, This is this is great, this is great to see.

00:05:06
Speaker 2: Well, it's all PJ. Really, you know, PJ is the boss now.

00:05:09
Speaker 1: I mean I was gonna say that, but I thought it would be in play.

00:05:13
Speaker 2: For this pod. We are going to do a I think a fun exercise. Rory uh Rory winning a major removes kind of what the big story's been at every single major.

00:05:27
Speaker 1: For what do we talk about now?

00:05:28
Speaker 2: Six years? He said that, what are we going to talk about now?

00:05:31
Speaker 1: That's right, that's his post round, his post tournament press conference, He's like, what are we going to talk about next year? Legitimate point, what do we all talk about?

00:05:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like literally every major has been like, oh, it is Rory gonna win one finally and uh again and and that is removed. So I wanted to kick around what you and uh, you know you and I thought were the three biggest storylines in golf the rest of the year. And I think it's kind of got a men's slant, not to uh, not to slight the women's world, but it's a we we approached it from a men's slant and uh, and then we will close out with the golf course that's hosting a tournament, a televised tournament that we're most excited for the rest of the year. Rest of the year remaining.

00:06:21
Speaker 1: That'll be our that'll be our cap segment there.

00:06:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's dive in. Uh, what's your first storyline?

00:06:30
Speaker 1: Well, would it be weird to talk about Rory now now that we've just said that we don't have to talk.

00:06:37
Speaker 2: I don't think it's weird. He's one of my three.

00:06:39
Speaker 1: So what do you got the most interesting thing going in the golf world? I think the fact that he won the Masters opens up a bunch of other possibilities that I'm excited about because I was getting sick of Rory, was getting sick of talking about the same thing before every major. It was it was really starting to wear thin. I mean, we had eleven years of it essentially, and so it's going to be very enjoyable to talk about some different things with regard to Rory. So I guess my first point would be how does Rory react to this win? Because he could go in a couple of different directions. It seems like the general consensus is that this got the monkey off his back and it might open the floodgates because he has been relieved of this mental burden of chasing another major championship and specifically chasing a green jacket that he's now going to be able to win majors more easily. He could win three or four more before the end of his career, which would put him in an entirely different tier all time. He would be playing among the I don't know that, the Walter Hagens and the and the real greats of all time on that major list if he were able to do that. It seems like people are generally hopeful, optimistic that he can and get there because he has been freed up in this way. But I would say it's almost equally possible that he lets his foot off the gas a little bit, because this has been what has motivated him for a decade, and he has worked really hard to plug various leaks in his game, whether it was putting at one point or his wedge game more recently. He has had to put in a lot of labor to get his game in the shape that it was at the Masters and before, and so now that he has gotten what he wanted, now that he's accomplished so much of what he set out to accomplish at the beginning of his career, does he relax a little bit and does that end up having a detrimental effect on his game? I think it could go either way. I'm sort of leaning toward the first that you know, just knowing Rory's talent, him playing free is the best post possible thing for his game. But I would acknowledge that there's a possibility that the opposite could happen. So I'm wondering where you land on that.

00:09:09
Speaker 2: I love this take, you know, as a question, because I think everybody went Sergio Garcia, and I'm not comparing Rory to Sergio Garcia, but when Sergio Garcia knocked off the Masters, everybody was like this is And I was one of those people, right Floodgates.

00:09:29
Speaker 1: It totally felt like that could happen. I mean, it's frankly incredible that he hasn't won more majors given his ability. He's still really.

00:09:37
Speaker 2: Good, and he hasn't even contended in one right since.

00:09:40
Speaker 1: Hasn't even come close.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: So I will like, major championships are hard. I think like the thing you would point back to is like Rory's just been such factor in majors for so long.

00:09:54
Speaker 1: That's given himself so many chances, and I.

00:09:57
Speaker 2: Think if you saw decline, it would be in a couple of years. This would be my my thinking. Yeah, One of the things that I think with Rory is you never see him like beating balls into the night. You never see him like talking openly about like really needing to work on stuff, right, Like, I think that's like unique in the professional golf space. One of the things I think that he has is like he has his I think he works really hard, but I think he works also very smart. And I think one of the things is I feel and you know, I think he's pretty private with the way he works and what he does. But it seems to me that he has his game in a in a state where it's very manageable. He's he doesn't have a swing instructor looking over every single shot. He hits every on the range like so many players making micro adjustments. Like he owns a lot of his swing. You know, Michael Bannon will come in, maybe he'll go see Butch Harmon, you know, for a couple of days in the year. But for the most part, Rory McElroy is Rory McElroy's swing. Coach Faxon helps him with putting, but you know, I think like a lot of that is like just the idea of how he's putting. Rotella helps him with his mind, but like you don't see him. I thought, like we PJ pulled these numbers for me during Masters. Is like the polar opposites of Bryson and Rory. I think Bryson hit something like twelve hundred balls on the range at the Masters. Rory hit three hundred.

00:11:49
Speaker 1: That was a great new feature of app by the way.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: And I approximated those numbers. I don't. I would have had to look into my notes. But the he has this thing like I go, he gets to the course. I think it's four hours before his tea time, he does his workout and it's like regardless of the day, he has his set routine. And I think that's the thing like he's done. So he's he's been very open about his introspective approach, reading books about a lot a wide range of topics, nonfiction books, and I think he's been he's actually been one of the golfers that's most curious about like the way that super successful people structure their lives to create a sustainable life like that that he does that type of reading that like a business person would do, and I think he's taken that approach a little bit to his golf game and managing his golf game, where I think golf is a is a huge obviously a huge part of his life, but he also has a lot of other aspects of his life that take up time in his life. And I think like he does his work on his golf game and he knows how the work is and what it is, and I think that might be like kind of like unique among pro golfers the way he approaches it.

00:13:15
Speaker 1: It's interesting that he didn't overreact to the wedge problems that he was having a couple of years ago and even into last year. A lot of players might have gone deep on some mechanical adjustments there and created problems elsewhere in their game. We see this happen all the time. I think, maybe most recently it happened with Justin Thomas, where he was trying to fix something or other, was playing well but had one thing that was bothering him, and it just kind of snowballed into Victor Holand or Victor Hovland is maybe the best example recently. I mean, he's still probably overthinking it, but it's good to see him rounding back into form. So it really does seem like Rory stayed calm and gradually fixed what was going on in that specific aspect of his game and didn't try to overadjust or do anything too quickly.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: Maybe the only thing we've seen him over adjust overreact to in his career was the Bryson speed.

00:14:17
Speaker 1: The distance thing. Yeah, that was the one time it was kind of out of character. But it seems like he realized, I'm plenty long, you know, this is still a strength of mine and I don't need to do anything drastic here. So uh yeah, very interesting from Rory. My big question with him though, is can he win majors in control mode anymore? That was what was so scary about him In twenty fourteen. He won the PGA Championship and the Open Championship that year with his kind of B plus game just by leaning into his distance advantage and ball striking advantage, and those incremental advantages added up to a win at both of those tournaments. Valhalla was a little more exciting. The Open Championship was just sort of business right. That's what made you feel like he was gonna win eleven twelve majors at least because of the way he won at Hoylake. But he hasn't done that since then, and he certainly didn't do that at the Masters this year. He won the Masters by hitting a bunch of really spectacular, outrageous shots at the right moments and then hitting some really bad shots. That's not a super sustainable model really. I mean, Rory can do it more often than most people. But can he win majors playing boring golf the way that Tiger did in his prime. That's my big question with Rory going forward, and that's going to determine I think whether he wins three or four more majors or whether he wins none or one.

00:15:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a good question, and I think something that gets swept under the rug a little bit. I think the level of player that he's going against now is so much higher that it is much more difficult to just like blow away the field with a B plus game. I think he can win. Like I mean, the Masters was like kind of an example, Like there were moments where he added a plus game. There were also moments where we saw like Rory Rory of like the the horror show of Rory at the Masters came out in moments, in spades and you know, different shots. Yeah, it was like I mean the final round was kind of like the quintessential opening Rory round at the Masters, right it was like the twenty like twenty fifteen opening seventy three where it's like, I don't understand. He hit some amazing shots. He also hit some really bad shots. But I think one thing that I had my my Rory thought the storyline something that I I don't think it's talked about enough is is the idea of like the magnitude of winning multiple majors in a year. So obviously this has been talked about a ton is how well the rest of the major set up quil Hollow, a course that he has dominated at Oakmont of course, that you know, if you're a great driver of the golf ball, you you start out very far ahead of the field.

00:17:29
Speaker 1: He should be great there. I don't. He wasn't. He wasn't anywhere near the mix in twenty sixteen, was he?

00:17:36
Speaker 2: I'll have yeah, But like you think about like that, that's where that kind of US Open. There's a shift in US Opened. And I would say that him and Xander Schoffley are the two best US Open players in the world right now. You know, I'd say to be in that Brice too category as well. Right, Yeah, so Bryson, Xander and Rory the three best US Open players right now. Scotty Scheffler you can put in there too. But you know, I think like and then you have Port Rush in his backyard course that he's played tournament golf since he was a kid at so I looked up One of the things that I'm fascinated about is like the idea of winning multiple majors in multiple years. There aren't many golfers that have done it. Jack Nicholas did it five times, which is hilarious. Also if you look at the space between winning multiple majors in a year, So Jack did it seventeen years apart, he did in sixty three and eighty. Tiger had four years, but they were all between two thousand and two thousand and six. Rory, you know, Gary Player only had one. Arnold Palmer had two, but they were close together. Phil never had a year with two majors in a year. And you just start to think like that, the idea of like multiple majors in a year and him doing it eleven years apart is pretty like it is a emphatic exclamation mark on you know, winning two majors in a year is for the most part, and Xander did it last year, right, you and Scott he had an all time year. Xander had an all time year. But you are the without a doubt, for the most part, best player in the world of golf. And to do it over a decade apart is a pretty unbelievable achievement.

00:19:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to do it if he pulls it off this year, then he will have done it before when his prime was supposed to be and after when his prime was supposed to be. He did a lot of not winning majors during what should have been his absolute peak prime and so it's just a it's an odd looking career. Who do you think Rory is like chasing down right now on the all time list? Who are thin it's Phil right? Yeah? Because Phil's got six majors. Yeah, that feels like the next one and then and then Tom Watson is in a is in a tier above. But Arnold Palmer is hard a hard comparison because Palmer did so much of his winning in one window in the in the nineteen sixties and then obviously one a ton of PGA Tour events and worldwide events and it's just tough to compare careers from those eras. But yeah, Phil is really is really the next beast that that Rory needs to slay.

00:20:37
Speaker 2: I Like, I see people like he's not he hasn't caught foul though, and I think that's just like Feldo's career was so short, yeah, and it was so like obviously, six majors is incredible, it's an incredible achievement, but he he only had like six chances to win majors and he just.

00:21:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, Faldo really closed out those chances because Faldo was never anywhere near as dominant as Roy McElroy overall, just as a golfer. I don't know, maybe I'm forgetting something from I mean, this is a long time ago now that I was following Nick Faldough, but yeah, he just the fact that Faldo won six majors is extremely impressive, given that those were his chances and he didn't have a long period of real dominance in the game.

00:21:35
Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at Phil, if he gets to Phil, if he gets another major, he ties Phil. Phil obviously was winning into his late forties, and you know, he won the PGA in his fifties. Phil has forty five PGA Tour wins. Rory has twenty nine. Yeah, Rory has forty four professional wins. Though you know right where if you have and it's like if you start to stack the I don't think they should, I don't know what where you count these. Like the fact that Rory's won all these you know, European Tour Player of the Years is also like an aspect of his career that does you know, Like Phil was just a diet in the wool PGA Tour player and Rory's a full time PGA Tour player, but he's also played this part time schedule on the European Tour and been dominant there too.

00:22:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and and that sends me back to Faldo. Actually, we might not be giving enough credit to the European Tour run that Nick Faldo had when the European Tour was basically a coequal tour with the PGA Tour. And so you know, Nick Faldo's European Tour record is incredibly impressive, and perhaps the reason we don't remember him as a dominant player is because we're Americans and and just didn't experience that run from Faldo as much. So, yeah, that seems to be the category that he's playing in right now. But it makes a big difference whether he wins one more versus three or four more, because if three or four more happen and it's completely within the realm of possibility, then he's passing those guys up, and he's he's all of a sudden in a stratosphere that we haven't seen players in in a long time.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. And Watson did had two two major years too. I didn't include that, but and they were like five years apart.

00:23:33
Speaker 1: He won in Flurri's I mean, so much of his resume is open championship golf too. That's the thing about Watson is, you know, Rory's got the Grand Slam and is sort of an all seasons player. Watson was really just one of the great links golf players of all time.

00:23:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the It's it's a fascinating where like if he if he knocks off another major, it's just like when you start to look at careers, it's a very odd career. Yeah, with the majors of the front, big golf majors at the back.

00:24:07
Speaker 1: He was so young when he won his first slate of majors. I mean, he was again just not yet in his prime, and now he's on the back end of it, and it looks like he he could go on another one of those runs.

00:24:21
Speaker 2: I will push back those like you know this, this used to be golfers primes, and I'm wondering if we're if we like we had this with tennis. Tennis has has followed like in a lot of it, you know, like I did a pod years ago, maybe.

00:24:35
Speaker 1: Too, by the way, it's like all the gerontocracy of sports. It's it's interesting.

00:24:42
Speaker 2: I did a pod years ago about tennis and the technological innovation of racket sizes, the oversized racket and what it did to the sport. Had this like incredible youth movement, but the model that they predicted out was that eventually it returns to you have this huge youth wave when technological innovation occurs. And this was done to see what technology would do to workforce. Was the idea of it. You have a period where there's for a couple generations a huge youth wave, but then on the back end of that couple generation, youth domination experience returns to being profoundly important and it kind of normalizes back. I'm wondering if we are going to be getting to that point with golf at some point, you know, when do we have that kickback to where it used to be that the best players in the world were, for the most part, between thirty and forty.

00:25:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very possible. It's you know, it's so hard to predict the effects of technological advance on sports, and I think you also have to figure in more advanced training and how that has allowed certain very motivated athletes to extend their careers. That's what's going on with Steph Curry and Lebron James right now. You know, those guys are just playing way later into their careers than they should have, partly because they're still in great shape and they've been very intentional and smart about keeping themselves in tip top condition. And so if Rory can do that, there's no reason that he can't keep winning a lot of majors in his forties. The question is, given the balance of his life, given his various interests, is he really going to want to do that? I don't know. At some point he's probably going to want to just be a businessman and a family man, and that would be understandable. But if he decides to keep grinding through his forties, you know, of course, obviously we saw Phil Mickelson when at Kiowa at age age fifty, so it's very possible. Should we talk about somebody other than Rory at this point?

00:27:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, Pj's shaking his head. No, let's know, I should.

00:27:10
Speaker 1: Keep talking about This is just a Rory podcast.

00:27:12
Speaker 2: Free storylines, all, Rory, we got two storylines done. I guess what's your next one?

00:27:19
Speaker 1: My next one is related to John Rohm, and I'm going to try to move beyond just the kind of hacky hot take that that he hasn't delivered. But he really hasn't delivered in the only tournaments that he plays anymore that matter.

00:27:32
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say this, but having said that, I am gonna say.

00:27:36
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get that out of the way. I'm just going to get that out of my system. I'm also going to get out of my system that it was pretty unseemly to see some social media users patting Rom on the back for a T fourteen at the Masters. Rom is better than that, right, We don't we don't need to to give him a gold star for a T fourteen at Augusta National. We should have very high expectations for this player.

00:28:01
Speaker 3: Now.

00:28:02
Speaker 1: Okay, my more lukewarm take is that I think Rom is absolutely playing great golf right now. He just for whatever reason, hasn't done it in majors since the beginning of twenty twenty four. He you know, if you look at the data golf rankings, if you look at his strokes gained stats coming out of live, he is still in the very very top tier of players. I would say that there's kind of a big five right now with Rory, Scotty, Bryson, Xander and Rom, but it's really just been a big four in majors recently. Now, this changes all the time. We always want to declare a big three or a big four or a big five. This group shifts constantly.

00:28:50
Speaker 2: So remember what Jason Day, Rory, Jason Day, Speith and Ricky exactly.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: I know, I know it changes literally every three months.

00:29:02
Speaker 2: I remember they played, they played one of those Dubai tournaments and it was Rory, Speith and Ricky paired together. It was in twenty sixteen, I think, and I stayed up and watched it.

00:29:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like thinking back on That is like looking back at the Sports Illustrated covers that have like the next big thing, and it's some player that you.

00:29:22
Speaker 2: Had chat Campbell.

00:29:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, guy, you'd never heard of him, Iron you never heard of since In any case, Yeah, Sebastian Telfair or something.

00:29:33
Speaker 2: Lenny Cook, Lenny Cook sat, you know, New York's Pride and Joy. PJ st he was, you know, Saint John's Savior bringing up some paly. PJ doesn't even remember him. He can't talk. He can't talk on this podcast. He doesn't have a mic, can't defend, can't defend his Johnny's.

00:29:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's in the he's in the producer box. Por PJ can't defend New York. In any case, Rom is part of this group. And I would really say that if I'm just thinking who are the best golfers in the world, who are the guys, it's Rory, Scotty and Rom Or it should be those should be the guys. I think those are the best players right now. But obviously since the beginning of twenty twenty four, for Rom it's been T forty five cut WD T seven at the Open Championship last year, his best finish in the past five majors and then T fourteen recently. If you look at what Rory, Scotty, Bryce and Xander have done recently, all of them have won a major since the beginning of twenty twenty four all of them have racked up a good number of top tens and in a couple of cases top fives. They've been in the mix and they've been a factor, They've been relevant. Now. I do think rom is going to have a good performance in a major this season. He's a plus two strokes gained guy. Still, his all around game looks really solid. There's not like a problem that he's having with his putting or his short game or anything like that. It seems like he's pretty shipshape. So he should be contending in these big events. But there's a lot of pressure building up on him right now, and I get the sense that it has started to bother him a bit. And so that's the factor.

00:31:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I and I think this is the This is the risk, right, is the the scar tissue. And we just saw a golfer, a generational golfer, deal with this and it compounds and it becomes more and more of a problem. The longer and longer it goes on. Yeah, Rom needs needs to be in the mix on a Sunday in one of these because you know, the last year, he he peaked at the Open, the Olympics and into the fall with Live that's where he played his best golf last year, and he was great at the end of the year, like he could have won the Olympics. He should have won probably should have won the Olympics one gold medal there and ended up with no metal, you know, And I think, you know, he had like a similar disappointing major stretch after he won his first US Open and then he won the Masters, and I don't like, maybe this just is how it kind of goes with him, where it's this like kind of eve and flow. The other thing with Rom is like his life's changed dramatically, like he has three kids. Now he's playing on a different tour, and maybe that's where, like you know, he peaked where his where he started playing his best golf was in the fall. And it's like when your life changes, the way your golf like synks up with that changes, you know, how it sinks up and you know, the days get longer and he starts playing better golf. You know, if you want to be a present dad and go to the park during shorter days, like there's less time to practice golf.

00:32:59
Speaker 1: Right, that's an interesting theory. I just give give rom a little bit of bump, a little bit of a bump when it's longer days.

00:33:07
Speaker 2: It seems like he cares about being a dad too, which is great, like you know, like it shouldn't be like a thing that you you know, deter but like, you know, I think the overarching thing with John Rahm is like, is the way he's going about his schedule, and I think he's very much an iron sharpens iron kind of guy. Is the way he's where he's playing. It's not the way he's going about his schedule because he has no choice in how his schedule is set, which is probably the problem. Like, I mean, he doesn't get in. Last year when he got in the cauldron, he did not deliver the way we're used to seeing him deliver, Like he's almost like a bull when he gets you know, when he gets into the mix. Is the way that I would have described him before he went over to live and you know, last year when he got in the mix in these big moments, in these historic events. He's a guy that cares about history. He kind of faltered and fell off and in a way that we hadn't really we weren't really used to seeing with him. And that's that's just a question. It's going to be a huge question because you know, we're eight we're eight majors since his Masters win. Obviously he had the foot issue at Pinehurst, but we're eight majors of of real irrelevance.

00:34:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very surprising. But if you look at twenty twenty two in the majors for Rom, yeah, that was a similarly down year, and then he came back right after that and won the Masters the next year. And so we've seen him fall off in big tournaments before. And the question is whether that's one of those natural dips, a readjustment of the market, so to speak, or if it's actually something going on in his head and his game about real tournament golf. And if it's the latter, then we might continue to hear some grumblings from Rom or whoever else about about the obscurity of live and that would be another set of effects, big effects on the professional golf world.

00:35:27
Speaker 2: I think there's already a lot of grumblings from Ram about the way people perceive his his his place in golf, that he is unhappy, very unhappy with the way that the public and even his peers are, you know where where he feels like he stands in golf right now? Yeah, And that's you know, for a guy with you know, three and a half years left on his contract, probably not a good feeling.

00:35:56
Speaker 1: Probably probably not. And you know, some athletes take that kind of disrespect and turn it into fuel. I'm not sure how well that works in golf. Tiger Woods seem to make it work for a while, you know, in the Michael Jordan way or yeah Brooks finding these perceived slights, whether they're real or not, and turning them into great performances. I don't know, prom is that guy, really. I'm not sure that he's he's necessarily built that way to play his best golf when he's when he's trying to prove something to somebody who has slighted him. I haven't necessarily seen evidence that that's that's how he's built. It seems like frustration is more of a more eats away at him than than motivates him.

00:36:40
Speaker 3: But we'll see, Yeah, he's I mean, you just I go back to this, like, I'm not a PGA Tour apologist.

00:36:51
Speaker 2: I think I'm pretty on the record for being very critical of a lot of things about the PGA Tour. I will say the one thing about it is like they have some big historic events like Riviera, like players, you know, I don't I think like Quail Hollow Memorial was another event where like rom could go and play tournament golf that like felt like it mattered at high, high level golf course with with really uh you know, repercussions for mishits, you know, and you think about these events that and those were events they played great at, right.

00:37:33
Speaker 1: Yes, Memorial is a great event for.

00:37:35
Speaker 2: Him, great event. Had won at riv and you're playing against the best players in the world and that you know. I don't think Rory wins the Masters if he doesn't win the Players, if he doesn't like that the whole year leading into like the way your year is constructed leading into these tournaments helps you so much.

00:37:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, Scotty Shaw has used that momentum for a couple of seasons now too, where he just built up to major season by by winning and getting used to winning.

00:38:09
Speaker 2: And if you look at when Rom won the Masters, he was having an all time start to the year. Yeah, and and I just think that that's like one of the issues here is like he's not playing great like they played Durell Darrel is probably like one of their best golf courses that are gonna play this year. They're Chapultepec now, and and.

00:38:33
Speaker 1: That they're at that golf course, that's perfect.

00:38:36
Speaker 2: Like I don't know what they're what the event is that leads into the to the PGA, but like, you know, the the other guys are playing philadelph Philly Cunt Philly Cricket Club. They're playing like a bona fide great golf course leading into the PGA. And it's just it's not that that tour outside of Bryson has not been a great play for people to get get ready for major championships.

00:39:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Terryll Hatton is playing pretty well. It's so yeah, whatever Bryson is doing, it's kind of amazing because I would expect the effect of the schedule disruption and the fact that you don't have any choice and when you're playing, you know, I think John Rom probably got used to choosing whether to play the week before a major, or play two weeks before a major, and that element of choice I think is pretty important or was pretty important to John Rahm. It was definitely very important to Brooks Koepka. Who is you know, there's a whole other discussion to have about where he is right.

00:39:41
Speaker 2: Now, But yeah, I think that's almost made my list. Yeah, I guess he is on my next thing. We'll jump over to that.

00:39:47
Speaker 1: So we're getting to your next thing, your second thing now.

00:39:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ryder Cup teams, Yeah, I think it's been a banner year for the Europeans. Oh yeah, Obviously nobody's won a home Ryder Cup in or an away Ryder Cup in forever. And you know, if you would have said four years ago at Whistling Straits, you know, you looked at the American team and you looked at Beth Page and it's like, there's no way with the construction of the European team. Who had all these old shorter hitters, you know, Lee Westwood, Graham mc alter, Yeah, Ian Poulter, doctor McDonald wasn't on the team. Ian Poulter was on the team, like this aging team. Tyrrelhatton was at the time, like the thirty fifth ranked player in the world. Is no way this European team's going to even be able to compete. That was the story.

00:40:40
Speaker 1: This was the Whistling Straits European team. That was their last hurrah, right, Whistling Straits, We're onto it.

00:40:47
Speaker 2: And then you look at beth Page and you looked at that American team that had like basically no players outside the top fifteen in the world at the time. Rory was I think fifteenth in the world at Whistling st eight And you looked at this American team is like, this is the you know, greatest collection of players and they're going to be around forever and beth Page is a bomber's paradise, and look at this power advantage Americans have over the Europeans, and it almost feels like it's flipped to where you look at the European team, you look at the likes of Rory Ram, the Hoyguards, ludvig Abe or o'ber like, and you start to be like, wow, they might be like overwhelming at beth Page with their power and they're all around skill level and the American team and you know it's stout at the top. But you know, we saw this the last time there was a major championship at beth Page where it was Brooks. It was two of the prodigious power players in the game of golf, Brooks and dj and really nobody else had a chance that weren't unless you were a power player. And you look at the American team. They have Bryson, they have Xander, two guys that can move it in the top four of their rankings. Then it's Scotti Scheffler, who is obviously, you know, a supreme talent, but not not a power player. Colin Morikawa supreme talent, but not a power player. Russell Henley not a power player. Justin Thomas, a guy that can move the golf ball, but not like a huge power player. And then this is where it gets very interesting. You know, the next six in their rankings right now are Maverick McNeely, Brian Harmon, JJ Spahn, Patrick Cantley, Andrew Novak, and Harris English. HOGI is thirteenth, Fourteenth is Daniel Berger, Fifteenth is Lucas Glover, who won a major at beth Page. You know almost twenty years ago, Billy Horschel, like it is this team is is not what it you know, the names. It's it's almost shocking.

00:43:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have a depth problem, and this could change before the end of the year if certain guys start playing better. But there are so many too many members right now Team USA who seem to be in the wilderness. DJ and Brooks Kopka are big ones because they those are the guys who had a chance to win the last major at beth Page and they're just they're just nowhere to be seen at the moment, and that may change before the end of the year, but that's what needs to change before the end of the year for them to feel like the favorites going into this. Max Homa is nowhere to be found, Ricky Fowler is nowhere to be found, Tony Feenow not playing well, and then you've got some guys who are sort of in questionable form. I think Patrick Cantley should be a stalwart, but he's just been kind of hovering around mediocre finishes by his standards recently. Wyndham Clark is maybe always going to be inconsistent, but he doesn't seem like a sure thing either, and so you start to fill in this team with some guys who maybe don't seem like very good course fits at Bethpage Black. Brian Harmon is playing great golf, but is he the guy that you want at Bethpage Black. I mean he might have to be that guy. And then you look at the lower tiers of the European team and you've got some interesting prospects. You mentioned the Hoyguard twins, but I would equally say that I don't know if you mentioned Sepstraca. Yeah, he's been playing great golf recently. Aaron Raye has been sort of like a candidate for this team. Stephen Jaeger is a really good player. There are a lot of interesting prospects to fill in those like ten, eleven, twelve slots on the European Ryder Cup team. And I don't feel similarly about the US team.

00:44:54
Speaker 2: I mean, it's incredible if you look at the world rankings, uh so world rankings wise, the the Europeans have nine of the top twenty one players in the world right now, and I would and one of those is not John Rahm, like important footnote, Yeah, so what you know, and obviously like.

00:45:17
Speaker 1: Not so Jeriragosia either. Who's who's playing really good golf?

00:45:20
Speaker 2: And and you know, the Europeans are missing are the Americans are missing Bryson in that also, like I think, well, actually Bryson might be in the top top twenty. But anyways, nine of the top twenty one players that's the same as the Americans. And that is such a such a huge shift from the Whistling Straits Ryder Cup, and it's it's kind of gradually shifted that way over four years. But it's just a reminder always four years is a long time, you know, if you if you look at the world rankings, when when when the Whistling Straits was, you know, the Ryder Cup, the Europeans had three players in the top fifteen. It was rom at number one in the world, Victor Hovlin at fourteen, Rory at fifteen, Terrell Hatton was seventeenth and the American's highest ranked player at that at that Ryder Cup. Do you know who it was? No, it was the twenty second ranked player in the world at the time, Scottie Shuffler.

00:46:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:46:31
Speaker 2: Wow, And it's wild just to think about, you know, how much has changed.

00:46:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's uh, We're used to going into these Ryder Cups talking about the US team being much better on paper, but the European team having the intangibles that will allow them to compete and maybe win. That's what we're used to saying before every Ryder Cup. But I think we're going to be seeing a different tune this year. I think that European team is so so talented, and very few of the guys that they want to be on that team that Luke Donald is going to want to pick because he knows that they're the best players seem to be out of form right now. And again, this might shift before the end of the year, but that's the key thing. All of the top European players, aside from Matt Fitzpatrick, are playing great golf right now and that's just not the case with the Americans.

00:47:26
Speaker 2: So let me just run down these players on the American team where they ranked in twenty twenty one. This is Insane number two in the world, dj number three in the world, mar Kawa number four in the world, Can't Lay number five in the world, Showfle number six in the world, JT number seven in the world, Bryson number nine in the world, Brooks number ten in the world, Tony fen Now number eleven in the world, Harris English number thirteen in the world, Jordan Speith. I think Berger was on that team at sixteenth in the world, and then I believe the last player on that team was Scotti Scheffler at twenty two in the world.

00:48:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, incredible, and Scotty.

00:48:07
Speaker 2: Was like the like kind of oh they took Scotty Scheffler.

00:48:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a surprise.

00:48:12
Speaker 2: And then he went out and just like dusted Ram and singles.

00:48:16
Speaker 1: He played great.

00:48:17
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:48:18
Speaker 1: I will say the feelings will change, the vibes will change. If Justin Thomas has a really great rest of the twenty twenty five season, if he wins a major, you know, if he wins at quill Hollow where he has good memories, then the US team is going to have that starting five of Scheffler, Chafle, Morikawa, De'shambeau and Justin Thomas. And that feels a little better because if Justin Thomas is playing Justin Thomas golf, then that's a hell of a first five and you just try to fill in around that. But yeah, again, the depth of the European team is pretty imposing.

00:49:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, and people always will center are going to center around like Homess struggles, Speece struggles. I think a big one is Can't Lay struggles.

00:49:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fact that he's he's not in that elite tier right now.

00:49:14
Speaker 2: He's been their big, arguably best player for the last two or three Ryder Cups.

00:49:19
Speaker 1: Well, at Whistling Straits he was. He and Xander were kind of that that solid middle of the top group of the US team. They're just so reliable and somehow or another, Can't Lay just hasn't been a reliable greatest player, one of the greatest players in the world recently. Yeah.

00:49:38
Speaker 2: And then just like some other players that just you know, you thought maybe Sahath Thigala was heading for towards this. He's twenty seventh in the rankings right now. Sam Burns, a player that's been on a lot of teams, Scottie Steffler's pal twenty six in the in the rankings. It's just you just it's just different. Like I think, like promising too. Yeah. One of the promising players for the for the Americans is Daniel Berger. Yeah, who's playing great golf.

00:50:06
Speaker 1: He's really solid and and a Batia maybe is going to level up. And but the fact that we're we're hoping for akh Batilla and it's where we are.

00:50:16
Speaker 2: But I also like we just want to be like point out things here like they don't. There's also a course fit aspect of a beth Page. It's a big golf course where you hit up to a lot of greens. And this is what Jeff Ogilvie so eloquently like laid out, like you have to be a long hitter to win a beth Page. Well, these guys, these guys are not bombered. That's the biggest to be the biggest issue with the US team is that the back half of their rosters being filled in by short hitters.

00:50:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an it's unusual dynamic. But I will point out there is one American player who has won a tournament, a PGA Tour event beth Page Black. Unless my memory is Pat on me pat Reid, pat Reid. You know we're talking a long high ball hitter course ship.

00:51:11
Speaker 2: Off a third place finish.

00:51:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, listen, you know.

00:51:16
Speaker 2: Who I can see being a good pairing and Bryson.

00:51:21
Speaker 1: Just the just the bad boys.

00:51:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, complimentary games.

00:51:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely, they would be. They would be a really interesting foursome's duo. That'll be fun. Yeah, I think that's that's that's kind of what they need. They need Patrick Reid to play good enough golf, especially in the majors, to be to be a really viable candidate here, because just looking at the rest of these players that they could they could have for the picks for those last six picks, I don't know, it feels better to me to have Patrick Reid be one of those picks than than with all apologies to Billy Horschell, who's delightful.

00:51:58
Speaker 2: Oh come on, what about I'm Hogy and Billy Horschel. That could be dynamite pairing electric electric?

00:52:06
Speaker 1: I think is the is the adjective for it? All right? I think it's my turn for a storyline. Yeah, this is not just a professional golf storyline. This is this is something to do with the game as a whole, and you know, not just something I'm tracking this season also, but that I am paying attention to right now, and I think there are developments right now. Will the equipment companies, the PGA Tour and the PGA of America continue to gang up on the USGA, RNA and Augusta National on the rollback issue? What sort of leverage will professional golfers and golf professionals have over the governing bodies and the most powerful club in the world to cancel the rollback to make it so it doesn't happen. I don't know at this point what they think they're going to be able to do, because if the USGA and RNA and Augusta National quietly stick to their guns, then three of the four majors are going to use the roll back ball. And yet the PGA Tour is out there conducting tests on the ball and getting players unified around opposition to the roll back. Remember that that Adam Shuepack article back in March March that they got a little bit of run, and the main thing that got run out of that was Lucas Glover saying they haven't made no That was another quote from Lucas cover. They haven't made the goalposts narrower when field goal kickers got better, which I thought was funny to say. But he said, this might be the time that the Tour and PGA of America say we're out. It would be nice if somebody took a stand for us for a change, and that's sort of what circulated. But I thought the big story in this article was that the PGA Tour was conducting tests with players, they were preparing findings to present to the governing bodies about the effects of a potential roll back ball. So the PGA Tour has a program right now that they're following to oppose the rollback, and I want to keep an eye on this and hear about further developments because I just wonder what they can what they can possibly do, what kind of leverage they could gain over the governing bodies with regards to rollback, And I would have to assume that that leverage would mostly be public relations as opposed to being able to actually stop the process, because the governing bodies are going to be able to do it if they decide to stick with it. So I'm seeing a potential pr war heating up here. I think that's what the PGA Tour is doing. I think the PGA of America is going to join them on that front, and I just wonder how it's going to turn out, because I don't think they actually really have a say in the matter, but they're going to try to have a say in it.

00:55:07
Speaker 2: I think some interesting undertones are that maybe some of the equipment companies are realizing that they might want the rollback that they say more have an opportunity to cut into one company's giant, you know, ball dominance.

00:55:24
Speaker 1: I've always thought that this was an odd element that Taylor made would come out against the rollback, that Callaway would come out against the rollback. This is a great opportunity for them.

00:55:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think there's also undertones that you just hear things from people that certain ball companies are very very confident that they are actually ahead of the dominant ball company with the rollback ball.

00:55:54
Speaker 1: Because maybe they've actually been working on it as opposed to you know, paying lower to try to stop it from happening.

00:56:03
Speaker 2: So I think that's you know, there's a lot of layers to this. One thing that I like just worry worry about just in general is like, what's what's the rollback achieving? Is it going to achieve anything? We saw this. You did a great podcast about the history of the golf ball, and I really go I'll never forget is it was a documentary pod.

00:56:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, back in twenty twenty Friday.

00:56:27
Speaker 2: If you search Frida Egg's stories, you'll find it.

00:56:29
Speaker 1: It's called The Ball is the three part three part series.

00:56:32
Speaker 2: An all time one of the all time pieces of Frida Egg content. To be. But one of the things I always have been stuck with was the the story of when the the in the early nineteen hundreds, there was a fight against I can't remember exactly the balls which ball was being fought against, but there was a rollback. That was one. A rollback battle was one.

00:56:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was in the early twenties, and there were new specs that the the new golf balls had to you know, conform to starting on a certain date.

00:57:08
Speaker 2: And the date that those specs went into effect, a new ball came out that went even further than the last ball.

00:57:15
Speaker 1: And that and that fit the that fit the.

00:57:18
Speaker 2: Specs, And I think, like what I always took away from from that podcast for the last five years as I thought about this is if you give talented engineers some constraints to to innovate against, they will innovate and create a really great product. That's what they do. That's why they're talented engineers. And one of my fears is that this golf ball rollback does absolutely nothing.

00:57:46
Speaker 1: The rollback is so conservative that the effects would be easier to overcome. They've had to make it a more conservative rollback because they weren't able to go the route of bifurcation, or they got so much pushback on that that it wasn't viable and so they have to make it a universal rollback, which means that they have to make it less of a rollback. If we had bifurcation, they would probably be able to be a little more aggressive. But we are where we are.

00:58:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so we were at this place, and I think it could go one of two ways, where like, my hope would be that this institutes the idea that regulation is okay, the idea that equipment regulation and making tweaks to what the best players in the world use is okay. That would be my hope for this is that the sky is not falling, and that's the way that it comes out of this.

00:58:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that we regular regular adjustments like they have in Formula one, where it's okay, we've got a new set of specs, let's do this. But of course, yeah, I mean that it's a different deal when you're when you're talking about R and D being done by big companies, big equipment companies, as opposed to R and D by individual Formula one teams whose job it is to adjust to whatever new specs there are. Yeah, it's it's trickier.

00:59:22
Speaker 2: Maybe Bryson could just you know, uh make maybe he's our hope because he does his own R and D and it becomes just like R and D. Yeah, But my my fear on that topic is the is that this is like their one bullet and if they're using their one bullet on something that does nothing to them, has no impact on the men's professional golf and and they've used all of their capital and they there is no So that's that's kind of where I'm kind of like sitting with rollback is I'm kind of, you know, cautiously optimistic, but also very worried about, you know, potentially this being the only thing they can do and it really does nothing.

01:00:10
Speaker 1: Well, maybe that's sort of an answer to my question about what is the PGA Tour doing running tests and what is the PGA of America doing speaking out against this when it's probably going to just happen because the US Open and the Open and the Masters are very likely to institute the ball no matter what, and they're everybody's going to need to adjust to them. Well, what are the PGA Tour and PGA of America doing. They're probably making just making sure that this process is so hard that the governing bodies hesitate to do it again.

01:00:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So my last thing will be the Walker Cup team. Yeah.

01:00:53
Speaker 1: There to some amateur golf here.

01:00:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think this is gonna be a you know, like all time event, you.

01:01:02
Speaker 1: Know, pretty good venue. We're talking about it later.

01:01:06
Speaker 2: But something that I'm tracking just in general in his jarring, I was watching some old Walker Cup footage recently. You just see these players and you're like, oh God, what happened to that guy? Like, never went anywhere? What happened to this guy? And then if you if you watch like twenty seventeen, you look at the American team. Stuart Hagstad was the mid am. But then here I'm going to read you the players. Camera Champ PGA Tour winner, multiple time PGA Tour winner Doug gimm has had a bona fide PGA Tour card for five or six years now. Yeah, solid player, Maverick McNeely, PGA Tour winner, top ten player in the world coming into his own. Yeah, Colin Morikawa, multiple major champion, top five player in the world, Doc Redmand bona fide PGA Tour player, Scotty Scheffler, one of the best players in the world, one of the you know all all time, maybe you know, rounding into a generational player. Braydon Thornberry, he is the one right now that has not you know, you know, haven't.

01:02:23
Speaker 1: Heard from him recently.

01:02:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have not heard a ton he He is on the PGA Tour though now he got his PGA Tour card, which has been a long winding road.

01:02:33
Speaker 1: You know, I remember seeing that story. He came through the corn Ferry Tour. Yeah he won, he won the corn Ferry Tour Championship.

01:02:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he won. And he won the NCAA Championship in twenty seventeen, so you know, he's maybe his best golf is coming, but he's on the PGA Tour, so he's got his PGA Tour card. And then Norman Jeng, who has you know, kind of been a bit story, was like supposed to be golf's next big thing has not panned out. But if you compare this to like the eighties Ryder Cups, you mean Walker Cups or Walker Cups, there was nowhere near this type of hit rate. And if you look at you know, it's harder to look at like the next year is because we've now we're now at a point with these with these teams where it's like, Okay, we've given these these teams enough time to to settle in and we know where their careers are. But if you started to look at these like Walker Cup teams, the hit rate is so freaking high with them, I mean it is extraordinarily high. And I think like that is just an interesting lens to look at the Walker Cup through from now on. And I say this because this year's team appears to be of that generational type thing and is a big question is going to be who of the top players is going to be playing Because Luke Clinton has his PGA Tour card, Jackson Coaven is one made cut on the PGA Tour or one amateur win away from having his PGA Tour card through PGA Tour you just like Luke Clinton, David Ford is going to be the number one ranked player in PGA Tour you, which earns him a PGA Tour card. Of course, he's struggling. He might not make the team because of his struggles. Gordon Sargent is another American in contention for the Walker Cup team, probably on the outside at this point given his struggles, but he has a PGA Tour card. This Walker Cup team, if those four players play, they if those four players, I doubt all four of them will be there. But if all four of them were there, they would have four players with PGA Tour cards on a ten person team that includes one mid a I'm probably Evan Beck. So you're talking about four of the nine players would have their card. And then you start to look at the next couple guys and it's like Ben James, Ian Gilligan, Brendan Valdez, like the are these are players, Tommy Morrison, who is the low am at the Open. You know, like you're talking about like big time players who have already been doing it. I mean Ben James was you know, he wasn't in contention, but he was in the mix at the PGA Tour event a couple of weeks ago. Ian Gilligan I think, had a top twenty finish on the PGA Tour this year. You're talking about a list of names that could be extraordinary when you look back on it.

01:05:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, it should be a really fun tournament to watch for a number of reasons. The GB and I team hasn't had the.

01:05:57
Speaker 2: Same hit more of an American centrick storyline.

01:06:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I mean those are tremendously promising players. And there's also an indication here of how the amateur game has changed that so many of these potential team members for the American Walker Cup team have already shown that they can perform on the PGA Tour. There's no doubt that they're going to be able to make that leap in some form or fashion, whereas back in the day it was a lot more rare for players to stick around being amateurs but also being in PGA Tour events. Obviously nil has had its effect here, But yeah, these are some awesome prospects on the American team and should be a great tournament to watch.

01:06:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, should be super fun. So that's that's kind of my final storyline. All right, to close this pot out, let's talk about our favorite, our most tournament we're most excited to watch because of the golf course on TV with the remainder of the schedule.

01:07:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, easy answer is cypress Point for the Walker Cup. That's just going to be great. We'll see what the TV coverage is like. Typically the American Walker Cups, we keep saying Ryder Cup. The American Walker Cups. Recently, the ones held in the US have been televised pretty thoroughly. They did a good job at Seminal showing the golf course, but clearly this is not coverage on the level of a major championship. It's just going to be amazing to see high level televised golf at Cypress Point for the first time in many, many years. This is clearly one of the world's greatest golf courses and one that is not easy to play, and so people are going to get a little insight into what this course is like. Everybody's familiar with the ocean side holes at Cypress Point, but where this course really becomes great is its dune land holes. The way those holes use that land, use the high points, use the dune in different ways. It's just delightful in those stretches of the golf course, and I'm hoping that those holes get a little bit of a highlight in the television coverage. But that's the one I'm looking forward to. You you just have to choose Cyprus Point among the among the big venues that are that are remaining this year.

01:08:20
Speaker 2: I I really you know who knows what the TV contract is, right, Yeah, but if I was Golf Channel, I might think to myself, what a great opportunity for us to do more since we are are gonna be out there, and maybe we should show all these matches in full because we think that there's going to be a tremendous appetite to watch the greatest amateurs in the world play the you know, arguably the greatest golf course that nobody ever sees in the world.

01:08:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, your tone indicates that you're skeptical the Golf Channel will have this brain wave.

01:08:55
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it depends if Sam Sam Flood just determines that this is an event that they want to go all in on, you know. But yeah, I'm very skeptical of it. I think, like, you know, there's this is an event that would have one hundred thousand fans if if if it allowed, I would love And you're never probably going to get like the number of people that earn the ticket lottery, But that's gonna be.

01:09:18
Speaker 1: One of the hardest tickets to get, imaginable.

01:09:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. I can't tell you how many people have asked me, like, how would you recommend getting tickets.

01:09:25
Speaker 1: Trying to be volunteers, trying, trying to trying any which way.

01:09:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like just pray that you get super lucky in the lottery.

01:09:33
Speaker 1: Just just have really good connections maybe.

01:09:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they're like, can you get me tickets?

01:09:37
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, we're not, We're not in that in that tier of the social status.

01:09:45
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I think it would be very wise for them to expand any coverage that's outside their contract and just go all out with all these matches because I think there will be a huge and what else are they going to put on TV? You know? Is like would be my question.

01:10:00
Speaker 1: People say that golf architecture is a niche interest, but when it comes to Cyprus Point, I think the interest is going to be pretty general and widespread. So safe to say that if they're able to show a lot of the course, that there are a lot of people, not just a small group of nerds that would be interested in it.

01:10:18
Speaker 2: All right, With with Cypress Point off the board, I am going to go with Royal Port Rush for this one. We saw it in twenty nineteen, it was its debut or first first hosting and forever it was nineteen fifties. Yeah, and I think this is just you know, it's hard to say something's underrated when it's a top twenty course, widely considered top twenty course in the world. And it's like her when you get to that stratesgyre, it's like, you know, you're kind of picking your like what what you like the best? You know, it's you're you're at this like level of golf courses. But I mean, I think this is one of the most complete, thorough, phenomenal golf courses in the world. It has world class holes all over the place. I mean you start to go like four or five, six, like you just could run down the list, you know, eight and nine I probably wouldn't put in the world class bucket. But then you go on the back nine and it's got maybe the best finish of any Open Open Championship. I mean really, you go like holes fourteen through eighteen or extraordinary golf holes, and you just you know, all in all, it's it's a hairy, cold design in the late twenties. This is a late Golden age golf course that is hosting an Open Championship, and I think like a lot of Open Championship hosts are like kind of rudimentary, pieced together golf courses. And this is not I'm not like maybe the best golf the wordimentary. Maybe the best golf course in the world was constructed this way. The Old Course at Saint Andrew's.

01:12:01
Speaker 1: They're five different era. This is this is like really the only true golden age, like pure golden age up in championship course because Birkdale was later was a post war golf course and then every other course in the Rota it has ancient roots.

01:12:16
Speaker 2: Basically, I think you could probably put Mierfield in.

01:12:19
Speaker 1: The bucket, but is it But is it in the Rota anymore?

01:12:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this golf course is extraordinary. It has the dramatic dunes, It has the refined, you know, intricate and you know sometimes vexing green complexes. It has the elements. This is, to me, with the modern game, the most complete uh Open Championship test that we have. You know, the Old course is the most historic. It is the most you know, it's the it's the one that you can wax poetic about the most because the history and and the the roots of the game and the you know, just the love affair that golf has with the Old course in Saint Andrew's but like, let's make no qualms about it, like this for modern golfers is the premiere in my opinion test of golf. On the Open Championship, Roda, I think the the Open and just something underlying I'm watching. We've kind of started to see Scotty's taste in golf courses through press conferences come to the forefront. He talked about the predictable nature of Augusta National about in the sense of like with his T shot, you know, if I hit a good T shot, I'm I've got a great chance. If I hit an okay T shot, I've got an okay chance. If I hit a bad T shot, I'm in trees and I'm in trouble. And he likes that. He talked about at the US Open at Pinehurst, his dislike for the waste areas and the chance that it presented.

01:13:54
Speaker 1: Might be a member of the fair police.

01:13:57
Speaker 2: And then if you look at his open track record the Open Championship, it just has not matched his other majors. In the resume at other majors, I think like the underlying storyline for one of the underlying storylines for me is like is does Scotty hate links golf, and is he gonna be in like kind of like the Phil Mickelson camp where it takes him a long time to learn to appreciate it, which is like, honestly like a great, great story for when someone figures it out and learns to love it. Because it seems like right now he does not love links golf. He doesn't like the slower greens. He had all kinds of putting issues last week last year. And that's just kind of one of my underlying Scotty storylines is I'm watching him at the Open, but Port Rush is God. I love that golf course. I love it, and I'm I hope I go, But if I go, then I miss media day at Cyprus Point. It's kind of internal jostle there.

01:15:03
Speaker 1: These are the tough choices that you have to make when you're in the coal mines of golf media.

01:15:08
Speaker 2: That's right, That's right.

01:15:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean you went, you went to Northern Ireland last year and you saw this course as part of that trip. You saw Royal County Down, Royal Port Rush and many other great courses in Northern Ireland, and so this is this is one of those. So What's what's something that you saw it at the twenty nineteen Open, you saw it in person, What's something that struck you about the in person experience versus the TV experience.

01:15:36
Speaker 2: I think it's just the completeness of the whole place. It's just so well thought out. There's like extremely strategic holes, Like the fourth is like just an awesome boundary hole. The fifth is obviously one of one of the links Golf's great short part Part fours.

01:15:53
Speaker 1: Out on the cliff for people who who don't remember with.

01:15:56
Speaker 2: Obi, you know, the dude like literally you could just hit it over the dune that goes down to the beach.

01:16:01
Speaker 1: Might be a driveable Part four in this yeah, yeah.

01:16:05
Speaker 2: And then the sixth. The six is an all time par three. The seventh is a great hole. It's just I think, like to me, and then you you bake in the finish. I mean, the middle part of the back nine is awesome. But then the finish fifteen is an all world Part four. You're kind of playing up and you're just it feels like you're playing up to heaven at the green. It's up on this ridge. And then you got sixteen the two Calamity two hundred and forty yard all you can, all you could ask for. Par three seventeen a fascinating short part four with the kind of like do you lay up to the top and take the free wedge or do you drive it down? And the hill can kind of kick you in all sorts of ways. And then eighteen a big, big part four to finish it. It is. It's awesome, It is a the town's great. It is. It is just a it is a spectacular, spectacular venue and that you know, I think like the Open, they whether you the commercial kind of the commercial undertones of the Open has taken away from some of the the venues that are feasible for it to go to, but this is one of the venues that can host the most people. I think it's going to be the third most attended open and that's cool.

01:17:29
Speaker 1: That's why they've gone there. You know, they might not have gone back if it hadn't been for the fact that the Open has now outgrown some of the traditional open road of venues. But they were able to get to Northern Ireland and Port Rush is now firmly part of the ROTA and that's a great thing for everybody. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that one too. I want to shout out a couple more courses that people should look forward to. Obviously, Oakmont for the US Open is going to be really interesting. A recent Gilhant's renovation has sort of refined some aspects of the course, but not rot an amazing transformation like you did at Southern Hills, because Oakmont had already done a great deal of work to get to the point that it is now before Hands came in a couple of years ago. We've got PGA Frisco, the first look at PGA Frisco and Major Championship Golf for the Women's PGA Championship. That's going to be a frequent venue going forward, so I'm very curious to see how that plays for the women. We've got Philly Cricket Club much at this earlier the truest I think, yes, that's the week that this or next week, next week, the week after this podcast comes out. And then we've got Aaron Hills for the US Women's Open, going back there for the first time in a while, and Royal Royal Perth Call for the for the Women's AIG Women's Open. So some really cool golf courses coming up on the schedule. Lots of lots of fun coffee golf as well as golf at other times of the day at at very good golf courses.

01:18:59
Speaker 2: Awesome, great, great wrap up, Garrett, thanks for coming on, Thanks for joining the pod, and uh, we'll see you. We'll see you in west western Pennsylvania.

01:19:10
Speaker 1: Thanks Andy, always a delight. Yeah, Media day coming up.

01:19:13
Speaker 2: I'm excited to chat about Oakmont. That's probably one of the last remaining great, great golf courses in the United States. I haven't seen and you haven't seen it either.

01:19:22
Speaker 1: I haven't. I haven't been there. Yeah, and it's hard to come up with a reason to go to that area for for golf.

01:19:29
Speaker 3: Uh.

01:19:30
Speaker 2: And now now you're going to get Pittsburgh people.

01:19:33
Speaker 1: I didn't meet it that way. I can't out of the podcast without pissing off Pittsburgh ins.

01:19:39
Speaker 2: I can't wait to see Alleghany. I can't wait.

01:19:42
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of good I am.

01:19:44
Speaker 2: I'm going to plant my flag as I've been waiting, eagerly waiting to go to Pittsburgh to see the great golf in Pittsburgh.

01:19:52
Speaker 1: I remember going to Pittsburgh in college for a club water polo tournament and driving from from Connecticut to Pittsburgh and getting to fill Piladelphia at one point and being like, Oh, we're almost there, but you're not almost there.

01:20:05
Speaker 2: You know what. I'm also looking forward to PJ US Open Week. You got to look this up. Who are the Pirates playing? I can't wait to go to PNC Park, you know That's uh, that's the other thing is I can't wait to go to Pirates game US Open week.

01:20:19
Speaker 1: You know what.

01:20:19
Speaker 2: I will hopefully the Mets. Hopefully the Mets are in town. That'd be great for PJ. It's not the Mats saying.

01:20:24
Speaker 1: Although I've just I've just slandered Pittsburgh golf for some reason. I Mean, there's a lot of good golf in that area, but Pittsburgh city really really cool city. I love Pittsburgh. I've been there a couple of times, went for a wedding one time when for other reasons as well, it's it's such a fun city. So people who go to the US Open this year a lot of a lot of great things to do in Pittsburgh. Hope that hope that gets me back on the good side of those Midwesterners out there in Western Pennsylvania.

01:20:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's who's the team, PJ. We're gonna go watch great for a baseball.

01:21:02
Speaker 1: That would be fun.

01:21:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be to far two farm system teams duking it out during US Open week. So all right, thanks Garrett, and we'll talk to you very soon.

01:21:17
Speaker 1: Sounds good.

01:21:28
Speaker 2: All right, thank you for listening to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. Big thanks to PJ Clark for editing and producing this podcast. We'll be back next week. I think we're going to do an Oakmont a debrief with Garrett after we both play Oakmont for the first time in our lives, talk about the upcoming US Open venue. So then then we're right at the PGA. It's kind of wild. Always always shocked at how quick this major schedule gets going. But yeah, we'll be uh, we'll be humming. So thanks for listening and look forward to talking to you guys next week. M