Five Things About the 2021 PGA Tour Season with Sean Martin

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by us the Friday Egg. So all I'm asking you do, if you don't subscribe to the newsletter, go over Thefrida egg dot com sign up for our newsletter.

00:00:17
Speaker 2: There.

00:00:18
Speaker 1: It's three days a week. Will Knights does an awesome job.

00:00:21
Speaker 3: Garrett two.

00:00:22
Speaker 1: I occasionally write something very occasionally, mostly Will Knights, but he does an awesome job with it. It's a it'll keep you informed this golf season. We got a new year, new you be more informed. Read the Fridaygg newsletter. It's really easy. It takes like three minutes to read before we get into it. It's it's starting a new Year's twenty twenty one. I hope everybody had a great New Year's holidays period. I'm excited for twenty twenty one. It should be fun. We have a normal golf season. I had, you know, for this episode, I had Sean Martin on. Sean is a senior editor at PGA Tour. He is one of the smartest guys in golf. He knows everything. He just rattles off facts that you just have no no clue even existed. He's just a very intelligent and talented golf writer, and we talked about twenty twenty one and kind of what each of us are watching. Without further ado, here is Sean Martin.

00:01:23
Speaker 2: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.

00:01:26
Speaker 1: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

00:01:28
Speaker 3: And when I find my ball in a.

00:01:30
Speaker 2: Bright egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, frid egg.

00:01:34
Speaker 1: Egg Frida egg brid egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the golf course.

00:01:58
Speaker 3: You big New Year's resolution, not.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: Really, no, no, And then we have we've got a baby coming in February, trying to catch up to Brendan poorathuh due February thirteenth, so we're about five six weeks away. So it's really too hard to plan too far an advance, and you got that coming your way.

00:02:18
Speaker 3: Valentine's made possibly maybe you know, do you know boy girls, three boys?

00:02:24
Speaker 2: We're gonna our father's Oh yeah, we're gonna rack up these father son titles in a few years. Here might be might be aiming for Charlie Woods, the Martins coming for Team Woods.

00:02:37
Speaker 3: My cousin's the Chicago Cop.

00:02:40
Speaker 1: They had two kids, you know, two boys and they were really wanted to get a third and they wanted to get a girl, and they had they had kids, and they got twins. So now they have four, like just completely changes life when.

00:02:55
Speaker 2: You go to four.

00:02:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can't even like get get in a normal car.

00:02:59
Speaker 2: No. Well we're I am currently minivan shopping. So yeah, I know this is big news. This is why people tuned in. They wanted to hear about this. We're going hond to Odyssey.

00:03:10
Speaker 3: Twenty people have twenty twenty hot.

00:03:13
Speaker 2: Minivan takes, So for anyone who's curious, we're gonna go Honda Odyssey, dependable, responsible, So I'm looking forward to it.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: Hey, before we get into our topic we're gonna do, I don't know how to describe. We each came up with like five things we're watching for twenty twenty one.

00:03:29
Speaker 3: Wanted to do a little PG.

00:03:31
Speaker 1: Eight tour year not season year preview because we've got two seasons in this year.

00:03:38
Speaker 3: But I first I just.

00:03:39
Speaker 1: Wanted to ask you what's going on over on Adecki Hill.

00:03:43
Speaker 2: Well, he's back at the Century. He's what a way to maybe end the windless route was to would be to win the Century Tournament champions this week without actually winning to get in the field. What a just mind blower that would be.

00:04:00
Speaker 1: It is it's I mean, the same thing would be for feed out. There would be a lot of people that would just be fascinating to get the win when they did win, you know, in the season prior. But I think it's a it's it was the right thing to do well.

00:04:15
Speaker 2: And I'll be honest. I I actually I emailed someone at the two er years ago and I was like, why don't we also just invite you know, the top thirty. You know, it'll be a lot of overlap. I won't add that many names. It'll bulk up the field a little bit because the field was kind of hovering, like twenty five twenty six, which is kind of small, and you know, now it gets you to like forty You had forty five eligible forty two playing and I feel like that's a good number. And they said they like the kind of special uniqueness of winners only, which I get. You know, it's much easier to just say winners only, but I like this field size.

00:04:52
Speaker 3: I mean, they'd have to change the name though.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: Turn a champion, you're a champion of the of the season. If you finish, you know, top thirty, it's a it's a remarkable.

00:05:02
Speaker 3: You're just you're crowding people over there.

00:05:05
Speaker 2: I mean, well, look, would you rather you know, do you want a guy? Season long consistency, some would say is more impressive than, uh than just winning some random event.

00:05:14
Speaker 3: That's true.

00:05:16
Speaker 1: That's an ever ongoing debate that will rage for for centuries beyond this.

00:05:22
Speaker 2: Would you rather be? And this is not a COVID take Unfortunately, Jim Herman one of the three that's not in the field because you know he has COVID, But would you rather be Tony fen Now or Jim Herman? Now? Herman has three wins compared to Tony's one. But you know, and that's a tough one.

00:05:37
Speaker 1: Hey, Jim Herman's champions who are eligible. Tony is not champions.

00:05:41
Speaker 2: Tony got a lot of money though.

00:05:47
Speaker 1: Alsome, But gag back to Jim Herman's by yes, this podcast was created for Jim.

00:05:56
Speaker 2: I know, poor guy's not even the field. I hope he's doing well. I haven't checked my uh my Twitter recently. I may misquote myself and if I do, I'll go back and correct it. But Jim Herman three victories ten career top ten, so thirty percent of his top tens are victories. The only player, I want to say, since nineteen ninety I think with a higher percentage of their top tens being victories among players with at least three wins is Tiger Woods. It's a it's a mouthful, you got to think about it. Takes a while to get a wrap your head around it. But only Tiger Woods, you know, So Jim Herman and Tiger No one else between those two or besides those two converts more often when they when they taste blood in the water, they just they attack.

00:06:38
Speaker 3: You know.

00:06:39
Speaker 1: For for Hermie, it's just getting more blood in the water.

00:06:43
Speaker 2: Just he doesn't get there often, but when he does, he's a he's a killer.

00:06:46
Speaker 1: I've got buddies that are casual golf fans, betters, and when Hervey was in the hunt at Olympia Fields, I was telling them to hammer Hermie because he was like, he was like after two routes. I want to say, he was like eighth or something, and I'm like, listen, this guy he only content like he doesn't just fall And it was sure turned out like the one week where he just fell off off the face of the earth, the fact, but his odds were just crazy for being at the top.

00:07:16
Speaker 2: Tack Well, and I love you know, he's a University of Cincinnati guy. And all I think about with the Bearcats, you're an NBA guy, is I just think Kenyan Martin and Nick van Exel. It's all I can think about when I hear University of Cincinnati, even though I did learn lastly that Sandy Kofax went to the University of Cincinnati before becoming a Dodger. But yeah, I just I was. That was my very small sliver of NBA fandom was when Nick van Exel was on the Lakers. And the fact that there's Kenyan Martin Junior. I saw his name recently and you know the box score. I feel very I feel very old. Kenny Martin Junior is now in the league.

00:07:51
Speaker 1: I uh yeah, the van Exel played on that Lakers team with Cedric's.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: About all three.

00:07:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:07:59
Speaker 2: Jeff Perlman's great book three Reading Circus on the Kobe Shack Phil Jackson years gets into some of that, and man, it was a great look back at some of the just that Lakers debacle before the glory years.

00:08:16
Speaker 1: That's you know, that's the one thing that golf misses out on is all the inner team drama.

00:08:22
Speaker 2: You know, no trades, no cuts, We don't get no free agents except equipment sort of. That's why I think that's why people love the equipment stuff on January first. It's because it's like the closest you get to free agency.

00:08:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of big news this week with it.

00:08:37
Speaker 2: It is sad though you don't you don't have like the pr g r s and the zvos and the you don't have the really random company. Yeah, and the Kent was a great one.

00:08:48
Speaker 3: Jeff Quinney's no.

00:08:50
Speaker 2: Man, he was so good in two thousand and eight. Gosh, former right Usam Champ.

00:08:58
Speaker 1: Anyways, I just wanted to know what was going on on Hideki Hill, and now we're talking with talking Jeff Quinny, Ni Kent and Jim Hervis stas Daiwah.

00:09:09
Speaker 2: Don't forget daiwa. Also equipment.

00:09:14
Speaker 1: Are we buying or selling on Hideki Hill this year?

00:09:20
Speaker 2: No, I think the nerds are pro Hideki all. You know, the Strokes gained all the indicators. You know, he's a guy that say that he's one of the top players in the world. He just hasn't won in a very long time. But I think, you know, i'd rather I don't know if i'd hammer Hideki because he hasn't won. But it's it's just a matter of time, let's be honest, just a matter of time. You know. Maybe Takumi Kanaya coming out, young blood right behind him, nipping in his heels, that maybe that'll put some energy back into him next week. It's sony. He sees this threat coming his way, you know, and he sees some young maybe he sees some young Hideki in Takumi, and maybe that inspires him to, you know, to find his better form again.

00:10:03
Speaker 1: It might be nice for him if if some of the press just you know, all flocked to could you imagine if he has a little bit less pressed, Ie, if you were.

00:10:11
Speaker 2: Hit decky, then all of a sudden and all of a sudden this year you would finish you a round, sign your card and there was no media waiting for you. Every day of your professional career, there's been ten people gather around you for thirty minutes a day, and then now just nobody. It would be jarring.

00:10:27
Speaker 1: Do you what do you think about that storyline in general with the with the no fans thing. Do you do you think there's some credence to the fact that it might benefit younger players.

00:10:38
Speaker 3: I think it has to.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: Write I think, I mean, I think it has to I mean, I would think, especially a major down the street. I mean, I was thinking about it, like a wing foot is would Bryson worried about literally killing people and now you can just you know, swing away. He kind of said it, Augusta. He's like, look, if there are fans here, like I'd be aiming at them, and that's a little bit you know, jar that's worrisome if you're a player standing over your ball aiming at where people are, and so it's definitely easier in that sense. So, you know, I would think I would think so, you know, you got to, you know, so much talk about controlling your breathing and controlling your adrenaline and just kind of, you know, trying to stay level while everything's just going crazy around you. And I think that's the thing, is nothing is going crazy around you. It's easier if you just kind of keep the game slow or slow it down. You're not going to get That's when I think guys start collapsing as you know, things start moving quickly, is the cliche, and I think without fans it's that doesn't happen quite as much.

00:11:37
Speaker 1: I think the other thing, too, is like if you've been playing on the PGA Tour for twenty years in a certain way, it's like almost a shock to the system when when everything's gone different in a different way, where all of a sudden it might have felt somewhat foreign to some of the bigger names that have been out there for fifteen years. And I think that's where comments have some ways. Well, and then he's played golf that way with jam fans since you know, two thousand and nine, and all of a sudden they're all gone, you know.

00:12:12
Speaker 2: Whereas like Morikawa, Hoblin and Wolf they've played in front of you know, not very many people all of their career.

00:12:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like in a way it was a it was a it flipped it to where younger players had no adjustment and all the older players had to see that. I don't know, let's talk about our five things. And you know, being the host of this show, you get first, you get first pick, you get to go with your first topic. Say, I don't know how you would what you would describe these are. They aren't predictions. They might some of them might be predictions. They're more just topics or story.

00:12:51
Speaker 2: I'm gonna come in, hort. Let's you know, let's just get right to it. I like to chum the waters into space a little bit. I don't have a super dog in this fight, but I'm just sure go with Bryson. I am excited to watch Bryson Deshenbo play golf in twenty twenty one.

00:13:06
Speaker 3: I mean, he was the story of twenty twenty. Yeah, there's no way it is.

00:13:11
Speaker 1: It's kind of insane, how captivating. And I mean I didn't I would never have guessed that Bryson would have been able to suck up so much of golf media coverage as well as just the general interest because he got so big that he came back out and like other sports commentators were noticing this, you know, beefy guy playing golf and hitting it.

00:13:37
Speaker 2: Someone say he's the size of a linebacker.

00:13:43
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see him like plantation course. I think he could really unleash everything.

00:13:49
Speaker 2: I don't know when this is posting, but do you know who he's playing with in the first round Brandon Todd his average, which I just I hope that we get to see a lot of that group because if nothing else, there is the PGA Tours Fantastic Tour cast tool, which is three dimensional shot trails on every every shot. But I mean the distance debate right there. Just Bryson his average carry is fifty yards longer than Brendan Todd, and I think it rained yesterday. So if it's soft, it's just gonna be it's gonna be ridiculous. And there's I mean, there's not a hole where Bryson's not gonna hit driver. The fairways are one hundred yards wide.

00:14:25
Speaker 1: If they don't like they should, the telecast should have like a graphic almost every hole detailing the difference in distance and what they're playing into the hole for the viewer. Like that has to be almost every hole of those two playing.

00:14:41
Speaker 3: It has to have that graphic show up or.

00:14:43
Speaker 2: Just photoshop at Walmart between their two balls. I want to I want to this is you know, some people seen on Twitter, some people haven't you know. I like to chum the waters and the distance debate. I'm not a super passionate participant, but I like to kind of just drop little you know, a little chum.

00:14:59
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna this is my you like to you like to stir up the waves, you like to get in the you like to kick in the wave pool, get a little bit more joffy water.

00:15:07
Speaker 2: This is where I'm gonna elaborate my distance take. Should Bryson be allowed to hit the ball this far? I don't really know. There are people who are very passionate about saying shouldn't. Is it fascinating? Yes? And I think that though the problem is now at the distance debate. I think there's two camps talking past each other, which never happens on Twitter. Uh, there's the one camp that is arguing that is I would argue, is anti rollback, is in favor of things the way they are, and they're debating is Bryson's way of playing hitting as far as possible, not as worried about where it's going. Is that the awful way to play golf? And also would that be the optimal way to play golf even in the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties with person and Bellada, et cetera. So I think that's and they're arguing that point, and you know, you can I occasionally drop these on Twitter, but you can find these amazing old quotes where it's like, oh my gosh, these people are hitting it so far and they're swing so hard, like what's happening to our game? Like I saw Lou Stagner post a nineteen fifty five golf I just quote about how players are just like basically bomb and gouge specialists. And you see descriptions of how Jack Nicholas played, about how he was, you know, bombing over things and hitting greens out of the rough and and then the other side, you know, people who may want to see things roll back, Like I understand where they're coming from of you know what, like we we can't keep buying up land wayinfoot had to add teas for you know, the US Open this year. But I think, yeah, I think those are the two sides.

00:16:36
Speaker 3: Were immediately rendered rendered irrelevant. Yeah, that's I think.

00:16:41
Speaker 1: That That's the thing I see it. You know, I I clearly am on one side of the coin. I but I also understand. I think the thing I get.

00:16:50
Speaker 2: From my take is that I think even if you roll about.

00:16:53
Speaker 3: Understanding their bias.

00:16:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now there's other people I feel like, who do want to like almost bring Bryson back to the field, which that kind of rollback I don't I don't agree with. I do understand that the current equipment gives a better advantage to players with higher swing speeds. But I do think no matter what you do the equipment, I think that style of play that Bryson has that's not going anywhere. So the rollback is not going to address the quote unquote bombing gouge. The let's get ripped and swing as hard as we can. I really don't think even smaller driver heads I really don't think will affect that, but it will have the benefit of smaller golf course is smaller footprints, So I do think a rollback will accomplish the or would accomplish the smaller footprint, you know less walk between greens and tea's not having to buy a new land for teas. But I don't think it will change the calculus of Look, it's beneficial to just hit it as far as you possibly can, even if you're missing another fairway or so.

00:17:51
Speaker 3: So distance is always an advantage.

00:17:54
Speaker 1: And I see there's a uniform, Hey, this is the penalty for rough I don't know, And this is something that somebody might feel inform me from what I gather, that's just an average.

00:18:07
Speaker 3: This is the penalty for rough.

00:18:09
Speaker 1: It doesn't take into account what is the penalty for rough if I have a sand wedge in my hand versus a six h iron. I, being somebody who plays golf, knows that I can hit a lot better of a shot when I have a sand wedge in the rough than when I have a six iron in the rough.

00:18:27
Speaker 3: That is pretty common sense, correct.

00:18:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.

00:18:31
Speaker 1: So if all of a sudden, six hirons are restored into the game as a club that might be used occasionally on par fours as they once were, that's where I think people want. That's what I wonder about, is like, what is the effect of penalty for rough when you're two hundred yards out versus when you're one hundred yards out? And if I can hit driver to one hundred yards every time, what's the point, you know, when there's such a smaller penalty for rough. So I think that's where the strategy debate kind of falls down a little bit, Like, well, the strategy might be a little bit different if you have to hit a five iron out of the rough and all of a sudden you're like, you know what, like that might turn down and I might have this go forty yards left versus like a sandwich, You're never going to really miss very big when you have a sandwich every time if you bomb it up there. So I think that's where that debate and there's no way for us to know. And that's the hard thing because these analytics, the shot link data, all that wasn't available in a time when we had equipment that allowed for this.

00:19:40
Speaker 3: So I didn't want to talk.

00:19:42
Speaker 1: About the just this debate here on No, No, I didn't bring it up as any of my five things.

00:19:47
Speaker 3: And here we are.

00:19:48
Speaker 1: But with Bryson, he seems to be the igniter of this dicision.

00:19:53
Speaker 2: Well it is, and because I think too, you know, some people look at him and they're turned off by kind of that approach or just that look of this guy just jacked out of his gills, swing as hard as he can into a net, which I kind of understand. I just think the whole process is fascinating. Like you know, we don't have a lot of players bringing us into their process via social media as much, and I feel like, you know, enjoy it or not. I think it's great that like he's bringing us in and some of the videos are funny and some are not. And you know, do you want everyone looking like a beefed up you know linebacker history as hard as possible? Maybe maybe not?

00:20:33
Speaker 1: Just do you have to be The other question is do you have to be looking like a beefed up linebacker in order to get the gains?

00:20:41
Speaker 3: Or is that just something that true?

00:20:43
Speaker 1: It's a part of his process, you know, like could I get the games without putting on sixty?

00:20:48
Speaker 3: Wait?

00:20:49
Speaker 1: You know some people might believe that you could do, but you could do one without the other. But we we only Bryson's work it out. And I think the thing that is amazing with what he's doing is that he is essentially limiting, like the control the variables, like he's gonna show up and hit the ball four hundred yards, Like golf is so uncertain. You never know what's coming out the day you go to the golf course. Like you could be swinging great on the driving range, you have the best warm up of your life, and you could go out and hit it like crap. But the one thing that's going to be constant is he's going to hit the ball four hundred yards every time or three fifty three eighty whatever it is. He's gonna hit the ball really far every time he teas it up. And what that does is it maximizes like he's he starts every round essentially effectively one to two shots up on the field because of how far he.

00:21:41
Speaker 3: Hits the ball.

00:21:42
Speaker 2: Also, are we I'm just curious what is it going to go this year? Like is he gonna get bigger?

00:21:47
Speaker 1: Yes, that's what I'm I want to know what's been going on for the last three months? How far this going? Now it's gonna be he is? And you know the thing is, like we're watching this this character on this meteoric rise. Is there going to be a point where something happens, Because like, there are all these concerns with what he's just the sustainability that's.

00:22:13
Speaker 2: Part of it, but there's all these just questions to be answered that we're all can't wait to see what happens. Is he gonna weigh three hundred pounds? Uh? Is he gonna rip his you know, bicep off of his the off the bone? Uh? Is he gonna explode? Is he going to like and then even too, is he gonna like break golf and win six times this year or is he not? And you know is is he gonna lose control of it and start shooting eighty because he can't keep it on the planet. Uh. I think that's the one thing. So that is my point is that no matter where you stand on the distance gain, it's like this really intriguing storyline that will be wildly entertaining, uh and wildly and hotly debated, and we just need those in golf.

00:22:56
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I And I think this is like just in general, what I appreciate about it is a completely different style. Okay, you might not like the style, but golf is best when you have contrasts of styles, like we just talked about with Todd and Deshambo. Like if Todd goes out, I don't think this is gonna happen because I don't think this golf course is the best fit for uh, mister Todd. But if Todd goes out and dust Bryson for two rounds, you know, I guess they repair every round in this tournament, right.

00:23:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do repair a round unfortunately, But it'll be like.

00:23:30
Speaker 3: When Larry But if he goes out and shoots sixteen.

00:23:32
Speaker 2: Larry tied him in the first und Augusta and they were like, I think they were tied through thirty six holes. Now, granted, like Bryson had the dizziness, he said, but like that's the thing too. Then when he loses to like Brendan Todd or Larry Mize or uh, you know, CT Pain or Zach Blair, what's do we have a ZB status update? By the way, how we looking on the recovery from shoulder surgery.

00:23:50
Speaker 3: He's I think he's uh.

00:23:52
Speaker 1: He was saying that spring he can start hitting the ball, hitting balls again. You know, maybe maybe he'll be making a rehab. Started at a Frida Egg event like Leslie Bryant, you're you.

00:24:04
Speaker 2: Unfortunately didn't pan out too well, I don't think. But actually Wesley, Wesley, Wesley Papers well, he got yeah, you get in the mix, got in the shootout, that went downhill fast for one of us. Things did start moving quickly because there were fans present. That was the hard part. But yeah, I don't know. So Pryce is my number one, just because you know what we need, like we need debate topics, we need uh, we just need discussion topics. We need you know, people doing wild, crazy things, because that's the beauty of golf too, is like all these wild and crazy things people will try in order to just shoot lower scores, and one of them has gained fifty pounds and you know, eat a cow hole in eight eight organic protein shakes.

00:24:46
Speaker 1: It's relatable because everybody in the world is looking for their golf fix. You mentioned somebody that Bryson might win six times and break golf. So somebody that I am thinking is going to have a massive twenty twenty one is Justin Thomas. And I know I'm going out on a big glim here, but let me explain further. He made the comment that he could win ten or eleven times this season, and I read it. At first it was like, WHOA, that's pretty bold, and then I thought about it and I go, you know what, I wouldn't be that surprised because I think he's got in terms of that extra gear game, that game where you know, like when he's playing even close to his best, it's gonna be very hard for anybody to top. And a guy that when he's going his best, DJ's going as best, is a guy that can match, you know, shot for shot with that top tier, right, I think he's that. And then I looked at I thought about his twenty twenty and I was like, God, he was really in the mix a lot, and he didn't necessarily win as much as I thought he should. I thought he gave away some wins. And so he had eleven top tens and just twenty events. So he finished in the top ten over fifty percent of the time. And it was I thought, by far, his most consistent year. And he had his best year in his mate in majors. You know, he won one year, but he had never had more than you know, one top ten in a major. In this season, he obviously was very much in the mix of the US Open and the Masters. The Masters, like I thought, he just he gave away shots left and right. He could have won that. And and then he had the close calls at Workday, Sherwood and the Geronimo Classic.

00:26:26
Speaker 2: The one thing I like about JT that I think it's good is he hired a new putting coach. He made that I love about the parlance of coaching relationships that sound like dating relationships. But it became official at the US Open. John Graham is his name. Upstate, New York guy because JT's putting was a weakness. I remember sending text to friends like when are we gonna start talking about JT's putting because the stats are not good. He was, i think two years ago, losing strokes on the green but still winning winning events losing strokes on the greens. He did that at Saint Jude. He lost strokes on the greens and won because his iron play so good. And the thing with with John Graham, he said, is that it wasn't technical stuff. It's the opposite of like, he's a very feel player with his irons. He's good at shaping shots and changing trajectories, and then with the putting, especially when he hurt his wrists, like two years ago, all he could do for a while was putt and so he's like, all right, I'm gonna dial in my putting strokes. I'm gonna make it mechanically perfect. It's gonna be great. And that really hurt him because he got overly mechanical. So all him and John Graham were working on is like reading greens, just working on field stuff to get his putting to be more like his iron play. And so you do if you take JT's iron game with some good putting, you know, five win seasons are are definitely possible. So I like that one.

00:27:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's he's only twenty seven. That's the other thing. He's been out there for a long time. He's been winning for a long time. But at twenty seven and with the makeup of his game, it's not I and I don't want to I didn't want to put Speth in Edny by five, but it's that like Speth where you feel like he might have been maxed out. Yeah, Like I feel like still has room to grow as a player. And that's the thing that's just crazy, you know, is like, how good this guy could be in three four years?

00:28:12
Speaker 3: What's your next one?

00:28:13
Speaker 2: Going back with the big name theme, which I promise is not just gonna be this back and forth, but I'm looking forward to the season of sort of appreciating DJ. You know, he dominated the end of the season, he won the fed As Cup, he won a second major at the Masters, and then obviously I think and even that interview with the Mandavalleione is kind of the heartfelt, getting choked up. I think just so much of the way we look at DJ now has changed and you know, it used to be the butt of jokes and the interviews and the you know, oh you know, DJ is not that smart, and the narrative has turned to like he's like he's not a man of many words. He doesn't you know, give these long Rory McElroy esque answers, but like he's a golfing savant and so and then appreciating his game for what it is instead of like really commenting on like his forman's in the media center, which is actually I think kind of understated funny and kind of understated intelligent too. But people just are so quick to just you know, fall in those old stereotypes. So I'm looking forward to like this. All right, we've all kind of realized. Now the narrative now is DJ is a generational maybe not generational player, generational player, hall of Fame player.

00:29:18
Speaker 3: I think he's a generational player, and.

00:29:19
Speaker 2: Let's enjoy this, you know, with the maybe ten years that he has laughed versus let's all laugh at DJ. So I'm looking forward to that.

00:29:27
Speaker 1: Well, but you start to add up, like where where is gonna go? And you know, let's just say he's got five really good years left in them right.

00:29:37
Speaker 2: So forty two open like forty two. I think.

00:29:40
Speaker 1: A stat I kind of started was rummaging around with recently was top weeks in the top ten of the OWGR. I think it's an underrated way to look at somebody's career, you know, because you know, nobody that spends a lot of time in the top ten is a is a joker. So he's got three hundred and thirty seven weeks in the in the OWGR top ten, almost guaranteed two more years, two full years in the next two years in the top ten, so that that's gonna get them up into the Jim Furick zone. He's got more wins than Furiic, Like you think, if he's got five good years, he's probably got at least eight tour wins and maybe one major. And you get three majors, and you get thirty PGA Tour wins, thirty plus PGA tour wins.

00:30:25
Speaker 3: There aren't a lot of guys that have done that.

00:30:27
Speaker 2: No, I like it so And.

00:30:30
Speaker 3: Then the other thing is he is not beating up on any b fields.

00:30:33
Speaker 1: No, that's the other underrated thing about DJ and his wins is you look at the wins in the fields like he doesn't win heritage, is no offense to heritage. But he doesn't win the heritage. He wins wgc's playoff events, Like that's the crazy years ago.

00:30:51
Speaker 2: But he kicked it away.

00:30:53
Speaker 3: He's close.

00:30:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, he's got the he's got a National Open, a couple of national Opens with the Canadian.

00:31:02
Speaker 2: Animals won it Royal Saint George's last time it was there, So we're going there this year.

00:31:07
Speaker 3: Yeah all right.

00:31:10
Speaker 1: So mine is a player not quite came just a little bit before DJ. This is like the precursor almost to DJ. A group of players Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose.

00:31:24
Speaker 3: Essentially since I.

00:31:25
Speaker 1: Became a golf fan minus three or four years of before, before they were around, these guys have been essential fixtures of top twenty players in the world. You know, Rose you could make qualms about, but Sergio and Adam Scott fixtures just always their first like names you spout off about. And at this point now they are fading into are they top forty players in the world. And my question, you know, really centers around was last year in aberration was it a weird year? And you know we saw the signs with Sergio before this, and Sergio's obviously had some other things going on. But you know, was this a weird year or are the A and are these guys gonna come back to being top twenty guys, top twenty five guys or is this what they are at this point?

00:32:21
Speaker 2: What's your take? I mean, Adam Scott's still twenty first in the world. Adam Scott wanted Riviera this year. I think of the group, I think Adam Scott has the best chance. I think Sergio just some of the stats aren't good. You know, he won the Sanderson, but since the restart of the season he only had two other finishes. So but going back to Colonial in what may only two other finishes better than thirtieth, t five at the Heritage and then t. Twenty one to the CJ Cup. But so it really, I mean, even the results right around the wind like he had missed three of his last four cuts. It wasn't good heading into the Sanderson. And it's amazing his strokes game off the tee like it remains top five annually, but the iron play is falling off, which you kind of expect the opposite, like the iron play to last forever and the distance and the play from the tee to fall off. But so that's a little bit concerning and a question that he can get it back. I think Adam Scott just seems just very kind of set in how he does things. I don't know, he just seems you know, Sergio's got two children. As someone has two children, that's a huge effect on your professional life. Justin Rose, I feel like he puts so much effort into it that, in one sense, when things get back to normal, I could see him regaining his form. I think, you know, you he's a guy, uh, He's a guy who just is so routine based and he's a very hard worker. He's very kind of technical in his approach of how he does things, and so you know COVID, where you've got all these new restrictions and have to do things differently. I could see that throwing him off. So I could see him coming back. But that is kind of contingent on maybe the world getting back to normalish. But I think Adam Scott's the best candidate to kind of stay up there.

00:34:13
Speaker 1: That's the thing I was looking at this and I started looking into the stats like you allude to with Sergio and I kind of almost like got into camp of Sergio might be the best candidate because he, you know, where Scott's lost a little bit of his lusters off the tee. You know, he was routinely like a plus, he was gaining three quarters a shot around off the tee, and you know, he's maintained a good, good iron play and he's actually been putting really well the last two years statistically, which you know, for basically his whole career was always the thing holding him back and now and I just I don't know if he can get back to being a dominant driver of the golf ball at age.

00:34:58
Speaker 2: Go with a forty might go forty insure. That's and that's some of the crazy. That was the crazy one. All the people that responded okuess, oh well spoil it. But like that was one of the crazy things. Was you know, you knew people were gonna try some different stuff after Bryson did what he did. But Adam Scott is not a reactionary guy. He's not a guy that's just gonna change things on willy nilly. And then to see him as one of the first guys to start showing up with a forty eight inch driver. You were like, you're, wow, this is you know, this is serious. Guys, are this is gonna happen? I think so that was surprising, but I mean maybe the forty inch driver, maybe he gets long again, and I don't know.

00:35:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, it serves you all this iron play, you know, and I don't know, it's kind of crazy that went away because that, like you said something that you just wouldn't expect to go away. So that he gets that back, he's right back to being, you know, because of the way he's still performing off the tee and with Rose, I don't know that the stats tell sad sad tail there.

00:36:01
Speaker 2: I think with with Sergio too, you did have some equipment stuff. I forget his current equipment situation. I think he's a free agent. But I mean, yeah, obviously if you know, between the ball and the irons, there's a lot that you know, equipment can cause problems with when it comes to approach play. I think the drivers nowadays because the huge miss is not in play. I think the driver you're less apt to, you know, maybe the equipment throwing you off. But I think the irons because iron play is so much about precision and the combination of the iron and the ball. If you have some equipment uncertainty, it could definitely greatly affect the iron play. So maybe Sergio gets that sorted out and gets back to hitting it the way he was accustomed to.

00:36:40
Speaker 3: All right, you're up next. What's your next top?

00:36:42
Speaker 2: I gotta scroll down. I think I know one of them was just the events that we didn't have in twenty twenty. Uh First off, the player the Player Championship, which I think we should have two. I think we should spend fourteen days in Ponta Vidra. Hear me out the first week we start. You know, I forget who had a six foot remaining on Thursday. They didn't put out, so the round wasn't completed. Bring him back, bring him back, make him putt it out, and let's go from that. Bring the field back. If you know, if you didn't requalify for twenty twenty one, that's fine, and we're just gonna play out the twenty twenty Players Championship KDECI starts Friday with a two shot lead, maybe course record, and then the next week we will play the twenty twenty one Player Championship.

00:37:24
Speaker 1: So it's good take, you know, get your boy his best chance to win an alleged But.

00:37:30
Speaker 2: Then also you think about it, we got ncla's you know, I tweeted this last night. Matthew Wolf is still your reigning NCFA champion. Colin Morikawa and Victor Hovland we're in the field the last time the NCAA Championship was contested. They're all top fifteen players in the world. Now US opened sexual qualifying. We had a US Open but there was no qualifying. So just all those events, you know, you skip a year. But so when we get around to those events, it will have been two years since we've seen them, since we saw you know, winters crown of those events, all the events we didn't have in twenty twenty Open Championship. I mean, just I'm looking.

00:38:06
Speaker 1: Forward to think about Dylan Forertelly is like the longest ragining John Deere Classic Champion, and.

00:38:13
Speaker 2: Now I'll have a forty eight inch driver when he arrives there.

00:38:16
Speaker 3: I So let's talk about that while over here the Chez.

00:38:23
Speaker 1: According to Shane Bacon, Max Homa decking out the forty eight inch driver, This is going to be a big thing. People are going to go to two driver setups, you know, like, this is a crazy time of golf, and this is spurned by your spurned. I don't know if that's the right word.

00:38:41
Speaker 3: Driven, spurred.

00:38:43
Speaker 2: I think you're thinking of spurred on.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: Spurred, Yeah, spurred on by Bryson obviously. But you know, everybody seeing this immense advantage that gaining twenty yards does for them, whether you're you hit it to eighty, whether you hit it two ninety, whether you hit a three hundred and additional twenty yards makes a massive impact as long as you could keep it on.

00:39:05
Speaker 2: The stot Sink was talking to him about he gained twenty yards right before the safeway and then he won for the first time in eleven years. He's forty seven years old. He gained twenty yards. He said it was mostly setup changes, but still that there was twenty yards out there, and I mean he had an amazing fall after, you know, quite a few years of not doing a whole lot.

00:39:20
Speaker 3: Well, that's the thing. I think.

00:39:21
Speaker 1: There are so many guys that have always played golf with a little bit of distance in the tank, you know, where they know they have a little bit more than they lead on, you know, And but it's always been conventional wisdom to leave it off the tank. And this is like an important point and the whole Brison debate and the whole distance debate whatever. I don't even think it's really that much of a debate. But is that, like the ideology and you alluded to this earlier has changed with golf, Like.

00:39:51
Speaker 3: There there are clear metrics with the way the.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: Game is played today that that tell you hit the ball as far as you can.

00:39:57
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's the big thing, and all doubt has been removed. So you had Jack Nicholas and you had things written about him. They were like, hey, he hits it really far, he misses fairways, but then he's also strong enough to you know, hit greens out of the rough, which is I've heard you talk about this. The other side of the strength is now you can hit greens out of the rough. But there's always some doubt. You know, It's like, well, is it really worth it to miss another fairway around or two fairways around if I'm gonna hit it twenty yards further? Or should I try to hit fairways? And you know, guys would arrive at different decisions, and as we know, we're not you know, rational beings. So I think now though, with all doubt being removed, instead of like you know, a couple guys over here are just gonna bomb away at it, and a couple guys over here and fairways, now everyone knows like there's no doubt, I have to bomb it. And so that I think is also one of the big changes that I mean the equipment, Like, look, the equipment is vastly different than what was played twenty years ago, thirty years ago. But I do think the fact that all doubt has been remained, it's a consensus, there's no dissenting voices hit it as far as you can. I think that is a huge impact. It's backed by data.

00:41:01
Speaker 1: Like what I'm interested to see is I think like this is kind of like the whole okay, the pace and space stuff with the NBA, Like we're going to put more shooters on the floor, we're gonna shoot more threes, We're going to try and get more corner threes. I am really excited to see some people do some radical experimentation with.

00:41:24
Speaker 3: Setups in their back.

00:41:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I think we might eventually see somebody with like five or six wedges and two drivers, and I think that that's perfectly reasonable. Because I think what we're going to see is that people are going to realize, like I don't need to carry a two iron, a three iron, and a four iron or whatever you're your equivalent of that is, I could turn those into one club like I don't necessarily I could turn my two iron through my six iron into two clubs or three clubs instead of five, right, And.

00:41:59
Speaker 3: I don't know if that math even makes sense. It might be four.

00:42:03
Speaker 2: I don't do two through six is counted out two, three, four, five.

00:42:07
Speaker 1: So we could turn that into three clubs, and all of a sudden, I gain this because three out is I only hit those clubs maybe once around, and I can gain more shots by having multiple drivers, like one that I if there's nothing around, I pull this thing out and I hit it as far as I freaking can, and one that, hey, if there's a little bit of trouble. And then you could start seeing these people shift these setups of their bag radically from week to week based off the golf course.

00:42:36
Speaker 2: Well, I think that's you made the other sport comparison to basketball. And that's the interesting thing is it's not just golf, it's all these other sports. Because of analytics and data and numbers and math going through these transformations that are not appealing visually. So like baseball three true outcomes. You know, everyone has this idea of what they think baseball should look like, and it's you know, hit and runs and and moving the runner over and sacrifice bunts. And then the numbers were like, no, get the ball airborne. Especially when guys are throwing it at ninety eight miles an hour, you're not gonna hit it that often and string together like three hits in a row. So get the ball airborne. Try to hit homers, you know, hit the ball over the shift. And so the data says one thing, but then it becomes less visually appealing because now everyone's either striking out walking or hitting a homer, and there's not a lot of balls in play. Or basketball, you know, everyone's launching super long threes or you know, and same thing with golf. You know, we had an idea of what golf should look like, and it's you know, it's trying to have you know, trying to swing within yourself, swing eighty five percent, hit the fairway, and then the numbers say otherwise, And so there is a place where you know, In all of these sports, rules changes are made to kind of get them back to, you know, what we think the best viewing product is, because it is entertainment.

00:43:52
Speaker 1: I would like I would like to make one large important point with all these references, is that of all these sports that we've alluded to, the only one that has gone through major technological improvements and equipment that allows for such performance as golf.

00:44:11
Speaker 2: That is. Yeah, I mean, the baseball equipment is. You can make some arguments about you know, changes in the ball, but yeah, I mean the baseball bats to the baseball bat.

00:44:22
Speaker 3: Basketball is still basketball.

00:44:24
Speaker 1: These are so the question always, you know, remains, is this capable with other equipment. It might very well be, and I'm not saying it wouldn't be. I'm guessing that it Some of it would be capable of Some of this would be happening whether or not the equipment was what it was or if it went back, but not all of it would. We wouldn't be seeing such a severe degree of it because so much of the bag has been rendered.

00:44:52
Speaker 2: Now I do think away. I mean, I have quotes from like Bobby Jones. Somehow guys are swinging out of their shoes and you know, holes have been reduced to four hundred yard hole has been reduced to driver and wedge. So I do think that a rollback would would accomplish the goal of reducing the footprint of a golf course because you would need less land because the ball isn't going as far. But I don't think it would visually change what the game looks like as much. And you've made the point that it could because coming out of the rough with a longer iron versus a shorter one. But also what then it's hard because one of the goals also is to use less land for the golf course. So if you shortened golf courses with a rollback, then you're using less land, but that you know, the true yardage is kind of stayed the same, if that makes sense. I'm also my other concern, frankly, is, you know, in reading some stuff from quite a few years ago, the grooves rule change was supposed to address all this and did nothing. And so then I'm like, well, what if we, you know, do something and it doesn't really change as much as we thought it did, and then we've just changed a bunch of stuff and it hasn't had an effect.

00:45:51
Speaker 3: Well, I don't.

00:45:53
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna bring up my point, but there's no I'm just gonna We're gonna breeze to the neck.

00:45:58
Speaker 2: Same point.

00:45:59
Speaker 1: But I'm just going to say there's no adherence of any testing regulations in a sport where billions of dollars are at stake.

00:46:06
Speaker 3: And let's move to the next point, which is, uh, what I want.

00:46:11
Speaker 1: I like to think about players in tiers. I think like crying, the idea of like who's yeah, like.

00:46:17
Speaker 2: Like crying like players in tiers, like just crying after losing a big lead. It's a it's a.

00:46:23
Speaker 1: Pun those types of tears, yes, But the idea of like who's the best is kind of like trivial, like what's the best golf course in the world, Like, well, what day of the week is it?

00:46:35
Speaker 3: And that's so much of golf.

00:46:37
Speaker 1: But the way I like to think about it is like, Okay, who are there Tier one guys where when I think of, hey, this golf tournament, these are the guys I immediately think.

00:46:46
Speaker 3: About winning a golf tournament.

00:46:48
Speaker 1: Here's what I have for my Tier one right now this year going into this year, DJ Rory J.

00:46:56
Speaker 3: T rom Bryson and Brooks.

00:46:59
Speaker 2: That is, Brooks is still I wont poof. That is not I have I.

00:47:04
Speaker 1: There's enough body of work there that I cannot. I cannot release Brooks from there after after what he did in twenty nineteen, having injury issues in twenty twenty and it being such a weird year, I'm gonna, I'm gonna I believe in I mean.

00:47:18
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's not even a game standpoint for me. It's more just like when he shows up in a major, you just can't trust enough that he's gonna be healthy for all four rounds. It's kind of like Tiger. You know, if Tiger's healthy, he's Tier one. But it's I mean slightly different. Tiger's not healthy quite as often as Brooks is. But if, yeah, if healthy, if Brooks can prove to me that he's gonna be healthy in all of twenty twenty one, then sure I'll put them in Tier one. But go on.

00:47:39
Speaker 3: But so anyways, this is my Tier one.

00:47:42
Speaker 1: And then I started looking at names that are outside of it, and it's it's who's gonna move.

00:47:47
Speaker 3: In here this year?

00:47:49
Speaker 1: Of these aforementioned player, these mentioned players here, Xander Morikawa can't lay Wolf. You know, those are the ones that jumped off the page to be as the likely candidates to move in there. Obviously, like a perfect example, Bryson was not in this tier one last year at the start of the year. You know, Tyrell Hadden is the name. I think that because he's English, people don't give enough credit.

00:48:17
Speaker 3: He was very extraordinarily good last.

00:48:20
Speaker 1: Year and if you look at analytics, he was probably one of the three best players in the world last year.

00:48:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I took it. My take was, I agree, I had five people in my tier so tier one is everyone. But but Brooks, I don't see a way any of those players move out of Tier one, just because I think you get into Tier one with a body of work that's over several years. And so the actually the person I thought was most at risk of falling out of Tier one was Rory only because if he has another winless year, you start to kind of ask questions and not like the is Rory trying hard enough questions? Because I think that's a I don't like those takes, like I don't like when layers from the past is the same thing as the deep, when players in the past just parachute in and just take a shot at a guy that they don't spend any time with or around. I get it. It's good headlines, it's you know, it's it's discussion. But anyways, so if Rory.

00:49:17
Speaker 1: Rory hasn't been ranked outside the top ten in the world in like the last decade.

00:49:21
Speaker 2: But Tier one, I imagine it's like your five favorites. When you get to a major, and if Rory goes winless again this year, then you're like, well is he and but it all changed quickly. Then he wins back back weeks and you're like, oh, he's back. So my Tier two is where I kind of saw some fluctuation, and I look at it. I agree with you. I'm like Calin Morikawa. Tier two. You know, he's not quite a day. He's one of the five favorites, and you to show it to major and I think next year will be a big He's closed, but next year or this year is gonna be a big adjustment. And it's just interesting to see how he copes with having won a major. He admitted that, you know, after winning the PGA, his results took a nose dive because he'd accomplished like everything he'd ever dreamed of at the age of twenty and that's an adjustment, and so now it's can he bounce back and kind of get back to normal and be the player that he was? I got Victor Howland Matthew Wolf. I'm I compare Matthew Wolf to DJ in that I think that like he'll win a little bit early, but we're still a few years from seeing the really good stuff. And mind you, he's only twenty one.

00:50:21
Speaker 1: That's I think that's the important thing to remember with Matthew Wolf is that he's still only twenty one, and like he's there's there's an adjustment here that people. I think what's happened with all the youth success that goes a little bit unnoticed is just going from college golf to pro golf is hard because you're transitioning and you're in your early twenties and you're learning how to be a professional and you're learning how to deal with like like it's little things, like you all of a sudden have all this funny it's like just getting out of bed and going to work every day.

00:50:57
Speaker 2: You know, the rest of my Tier two can't lay I had in there. I think we're still waiting for like the top to you know, can't lay to blow the roof off. I guess a little bit like he's been very consistent, but just winning more often. He's already won once this season, so maybe this is that year. And then Patrick Reid and Xander, I mean Xander, So since the start of last season he hasn't won, so he gets over looked a little bit. But twenty Top twenty five.

00:51:24
Speaker 1: He technically technically did have the lowest in an event.

00:51:31
Speaker 2: But the leaderboard didn't say that players play off the leaderboard. Even he said that, He's like, it doesn't count. It wasn't on the weak like a guy on Sunday coming down the back nine. You're looking at the leaderboard, and.

00:51:41
Speaker 1: Yes, but he should accomplish the feet of having the lowest total strokes in a week of competition.

00:51:48
Speaker 2: And then Patrick Reid. I think Patrick Reid's had a very steady season, and I would put him up there as kind of a tier two type guy. That's my tier two. But I just don't see Tier one changing all that much.

00:52:00
Speaker 1: See like I could never see and this is like the thing is I could never see Patrick Reid or like Web Simpson, I would put in this bucket too. Web Simpson and Patrick Reid aren't guys that I could see going into that tier one just because they don't have the facets of the game, which is like they don't have the tools to be a week to week consistent dominant right.

00:52:27
Speaker 2: This year. You don't think like, oh, you know, they're gonna win this thing by five because they it's they don't have the horse power for a course like a Key Island and say, but they could win multiple times, picking their.

00:52:38
Speaker 1: Spots exactly and popping up like they get hot they things are going right. These guys can win a few times in a year. But they aren't a guy. They aren't somebody that any course you go to, any any day of the week you expect, And I don't. I think those are examples of guys that are getting everything out of their games and everything out of what they have. But when I yeah, and so when I looked at this and thought about like who who could go up? You know, Xander Morikawa can't lay and Wolf Wolf Holin really and I feel like some j just does not get any love.

00:53:18
Speaker 2: Is he also twenty one?

00:53:19
Speaker 3: How's this guy not in this? Yes, he's twenty one.

00:53:23
Speaker 2: He has only one.

00:53:24
Speaker 3: Playing the final group of a vage he has only one once?

00:53:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I mean Victor Hoblin's only one twice on twice pr doesn't really count?

00:53:36
Speaker 2: Wow? Tell?

00:53:40
Speaker 3: I mean if you look at fr it's not like a tour of a strike the field wise.

00:53:45
Speaker 1: Wow.

00:53:46
Speaker 2: Just no. But his end of the year was was good.

00:53:50
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:53:52
Speaker 2: I don't know, I understand. I understand what you're saying. I think though we're we're short changing a little bit.

00:53:58
Speaker 3: I mean, like, hey, let's here's my question. Here's my question. It was.

00:54:05
Speaker 1: Is Sung Jay's year on the Web Tour winning twice, going wire to wire, winning more money than anybody's ever won on the Web Tour more impressive than Hovelin's win at Puerto Rico and and keep it by At this time, he's a nineteen year old Korean with no friends, doesn't really speak the language, and playing in a foreign country.

00:54:29
Speaker 2: Gosh hm. I mean I would take a season over a week, so I would say that. But then at the same time, Victor Hobland was winning the US Amateur, you know, playing well at the US Open. I think Victor. If you don't ask me if Victor Holland's a better player than Sung JM. I take Victor Hobland.

00:54:49
Speaker 3: It's an interesting.

00:54:52
Speaker 2: Victor Hollland's Norwegian. It's not like you know, people are biased.

00:54:55
Speaker 3: He played college golf.

00:54:57
Speaker 1: He played college golf, and he's he's more Americanized than than sug Jay is.

00:55:03
Speaker 3: Just from a name recognition standpoint.

00:55:06
Speaker 2: I think I take Victor Howland all day.

00:55:10
Speaker 1: The way he drives the golf ball is unbelievable. Yeah, you know, what's your next one?

00:55:16
Speaker 2: The Walker Cup? So and this is one that was you know, this is what we see every two years by schedule, not by a pandemic, but seminole. Very excited for that. I don't know what the TV plans are, if any. I am hoping to possibly, you know, drive down there. It's only a few hours. I don't know as much about the amateur game as I, you know, used to, But I just love the Walker Cup. I think it. I love Walker Cup years because you know, every event kind of means a little bit more. I love the debate. I'm actually I was someone who used to, you know, rail against the all captains picks sort of process because there was no sort of players ever knew where they stood all summer and they did institute kind of that you know, wagger based selection process. But I think the wagger based system actually makes me a little sad because the on the flip side, you lose some of that intrigue of like the mystery of who they're gonna pick, and you know who is the snub and you know.

00:56:18
Speaker 3: Who's the USGA guy.

00:56:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, who's the you know, who's the guy who's finishes T five? And you see it, there's the guy who finishes like T five every week who gets left off for a guy you know, or who makes it over a guy who has like two big wins. And I think, I like, and I'll admit it, I was wrong. You know. In two thousand and nine, I rode hard for Dan Woltman because he won the Northeast d Amateur Round of sixteen and the US Amateur and they picked Cameron Trengalli instead, And obviously they were correct that Cameron Tranglly was the better player than Dan Woltman, even though Wotman had that big win.

00:56:52
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I I you know, I played junior golf against Dan and Waltman paired with him a few times.

00:56:58
Speaker 3: That's a blast in the past.

00:56:59
Speaker 2: You up, uh and just never really panned out, unfortunately, but though recently did like Monday.

00:57:06
Speaker 3: He's still at he did, like I think he's still.

00:57:08
Speaker 2: He mondayed and finished like second at a corn very event randomly.

00:57:12
Speaker 1: I think it was the Chicago one. Actually, huh a few years ago. I think Holba might have won that year.

00:57:19
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I like that. You know, I think some names to watch, you know, some Davis Thompson Ricky people are various about Ricky Castillo at Florida.

00:57:28
Speaker 1: All right, So I put I carried for my buddy in the Western Am. It was at Skochie, So it was four years ago, and we got paired with a fifteen year old Ricky Castillo, and I've like, I turned my buddy on like the fourteenth, fourteenth hole, and I was like, this kid is so fricking good. I mean, he had not missed a shot. I think he shot like a sixty seven or sixty six that day, and it was just I just had never seed a fifteen years old play so well, just like total control of his game, and it's and it's not been surprising at all. And this is one of the things I think that got lost with all the Aca hype and Trava was that Ricky Castill might be the better player of.

00:58:13
Speaker 3: The two of them.

00:58:15
Speaker 2: Yeah so, uh, same age group. John Pak Florida State Tyler Sir Faci is already on the team because he won the US AM He Brentley romand had it today that he's going to turn pro after the after the Walker Cup, after the Pearson Cootie.

00:58:29
Speaker 3: It's an early Walker Cup that's intriguing.

00:58:32
Speaker 2: And I don't it's interesting. I mean, I guess it's a good way to prepare for the postseason, but and I don't have I haven't paid enough attention. I don't know the reasons for it. Uh, squeezing it in there before regionals, that was a pre COVID decision. So I mean, I guess.

00:58:47
Speaker 3: The time of year it's gonna play.

00:58:50
Speaker 2: You don't want to play seminole in August, I mean, if you can't, if I wouldn't pass the opportunity up. But uh, it's better to play in May. Pierce and Coody, grandson of Charles Cooty, fiftieth anniversary of his master's victory coming up. Western Amshamp also works with Chris Como. Like Bryson, Big Stu Hagastad, Austin Eckrote t twelve at the at the maac Coba, William Mao, Pepperdine. I think a guy that doesn't get enough attention Quaid Cummins.

00:59:18
Speaker 1: I think we should I think we should call him Bill Mau just a better, better name with the consonants, you know.

00:59:27
Speaker 2: I like it Big big Way, big Bill mal Big Bill, and actually one guy. I don't know that he has a chance making the team, but I'm looking forward to this kid, Luke Potter out of Southern California. He won that Marito Amateur that was supposed to be like a basically a us AM simulation. Uh call westco over Preston Summer Hayes in the final shot the lowest score in AJJA history recently won the Southern California Amateur. Him and Summer Hayes are both going Arizona State.

00:59:54
Speaker 3: So yeah, you didn't even bring up the hammer.

00:59:58
Speaker 2: Cole Hammer, I did not big win South Beach South Beach Amateur five shot victory. He's bad. It's Hammer time once again. That'll be an interesting one to see, you know, because he did not play well. He was not playing well before that, obviously, he's a past Walker Cup participant, so will be curious to see if they, you know, if that gets him back on the team, or if they need to see some more out of him or his past Walker Cup experience Netsmount on the team, same captain Nathaniel Crosby. I don't know, We'll see.

01:00:31
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna move to the next subject, which happens to be timely.

01:00:36
Speaker 3: It's a it's a Walker Cup snub of past years.

01:00:40
Speaker 1: So I was thinking about how we have, like we have these people that jump on the scene right away, right your JT's, your speech, there are great really early, and then you have recently, with this crop of players where we're seeing this young success, you also have the late bloomers, and they are not late.

01:00:59
Speaker 3: By Eddie means, that are on a normal timeline. It's not strange. It is strange for people at.

01:01:06
Speaker 1: Twenty two to be playing top five in the world type golf.

01:01:09
Speaker 3: It is not strange for it to.

01:01:11
Speaker 1: Take somebody to twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight to get there. And I was looking around trying to figure out who could fit this mold, kind of your Tommy Fleetwood mold where Fleetwood.

01:01:24
Speaker 3: Everybody knew about Fleetwood.

01:01:26
Speaker 1: He but everybody was wondering, hey, when is everything going to come together for him? And then sure enough, I think about age twenty six twenty seven, that's when he started to really make a big name for himself on the European tour.

01:01:37
Speaker 3: So Brooks would fall into this.

01:01:39
Speaker 1: But he's just a complete statistical aberration that you cannot, you know, expect anybody to win four majors. But my vote is for Sam Burns.

01:01:50
Speaker 2: This is your breakout between the ages of twenty three to twenty six.

01:01:54
Speaker 1: I think we could start begin to see a big breakout and where he could be into that twenty players.

01:02:01
Speaker 2: The Scottie Scheffler count in this conversation, is he already too good?

01:02:06
Speaker 1: I kind of think he's we have we don't have a big enough sample size for him to fit into this of enough of him kind of just getting by.

01:02:16
Speaker 3: I think he's excelled too much.

01:02:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's too good? You agree with? Okay? Yeah, I think in the vein of kind of what we're talking about, I think we may see a comeback of Aaron Wise. Yeah, that's a good another guy turned pro super early. He was like barely twenty when he turned pro. So he's still only twenty four years old.

01:02:33
Speaker 3: Is he twenty three?

01:02:34
Speaker 2: Twenty four? Already has a PGA tour win, some signs of progress in the fall. It was interesting. So speaking of your boy Brooks. He played with Brooks in the Fedest Cup playoffs in twenty eighteen and just saw you know, Brooks playing bomb and gouge, like hitting approaches close out of the rough. He's like, I gotta get stronger. And he came out the next year and he was like, I mean, he was noticeably bigger. And then I was at the Houston Open and he was in like the third to last group on Sunday and I was watching him and I texted someone who turned out was now his former agent, was his agent back when he'd won, and I said, Aaron, looks like he's smaller again, and he said, yeah, I think he has shrunk back down. So his body has kind of gone through this, like, you know, getting big and jacked. I think maybe it didn't work out. He had a couple of rough seasons in twenty nineteen and then even twenty twenty, so I think he went back to, you know, being a little bit going back to the body he had when he was a great college player.

01:03:31
Speaker 1: And Ian, Yeah, he's got everything that you look for with this.

01:03:36
Speaker 2: And then so he finished the air. He was runner up at a Mayacoba to Hoveland, had a real chance there. So I think we may may see Aaron Wise.

01:03:44
Speaker 1: And the thing too is like a runner up at Mayacoba for Wise, Like you look at Mayacoba and you'd say, this is not a golf course for his game, right, And that's an impressive thing about that Hovelin, Like he's a great driver because of he hits it pretty far relatively like above average distance but extraordinarily accurate, you know, whereas whereas uh with with Wyse, you know, I don't think that's necessarily a great court course fit for him. So a second there is even more impressive with Burns. It's a lot of the a lot of the same stuff as Wise. Like uber talented guy. He's already you know this year he's picking up a shot off the off the tee and that like is just a recipe for success. It's really hard to be a mediocre golfer when you start every round one shot ahead of the field. And and it's really just if he can clean up his approach, play and the rest of his game.

01:04:46
Speaker 3: And you know, we've seen him putt well in spurts.

01:04:49
Speaker 1: He is a guy that that can you know, And I think one of the things is like with a guy like Sam Burns, he could develop a little bit of a chip because it hasn't happened for him right right away, and people we tend to forget as media, like it's like the you know, if you're not president, and you know, we forget how talented some of these guys are right.

01:05:08
Speaker 2: Well, and interesting with him is you know, he'll always be remembered as the guy who played with Tiger at the twenty eighteen Honda and beat Tiger. But I mean that says something about his gumption to be a guy with no PGA Tour card paired with Tiger in the final round of event and then beat him. And then you know, he got his car the next year and then had like a freak injury, injured his broke his ankle playing basketball with kids on his street, missed the latter half of the year, and then admit that he came back too soon, and then COVID hit. So he's kind of had this kind of stop start to his career where and being able to kind of maybe get some momentum. But he was thirty six hold leader, a Safeway fifty four hole leader in Houston. So games seems to be coming around, and he has that kind of self belief that you need to do well.

01:05:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that tremendous confidence, you know his game. So that's uh, that's my last one.

01:06:03
Speaker 3: Do you have one?

01:06:03
Speaker 2: My last one was and we've kind of touched on it a lot, but it's just the what's next for the Hoveland Morikawa Wolf triumvirate. You know, you've got Hobland's got two wins Morecawa's got three. Wolf only has one win. But also, I mean only you quote unquote, but again he's twenty one runner up. He had three runners up last year, two to Bryson, fifth four old leader at the US Open, and just I think it's gonna be interesting. I think in a sense, I think Hoveland has kind of the most momentum, and not just because he just won the last event that he played on the PJ Tour at least, but I think with Maricawa, I think it's gonna it's interesting adjusting to life. Is a major champion like that young, Like we all know Colin Moricaw was really good. But I just think, and he's even admitted it that winning a major that young, you've got to kind of reset your expectations and you've got to adjust to life as like the superstar. Uh. And then with Matthew Wolf, I think, yeah, I think Wolf again. Like I said, I think it's like DJ. You know, he'll win here and there, but we're a couple of years away from seeing the really great stuff as we kind of polish it. There's tons of physical skills, there's distance. Now it's just about polishing up those areas of the game. So DJ obviously was the wedge game.

01:07:11
Speaker 1: That week to week because exactly see, that's the thing, and that's like where you know, there's there's a difference between just raw talent and where we see like Tiger and his prime, Like you always heard him talk about how he's just trying to be more consistent, and that's really you know what it becomes like.

01:07:30
Speaker 3: I think more Kawa.

01:07:32
Speaker 1: Is clearly the most consistent of these three, and I think Covelind has an opportunity to be extraordinarily consistent too, just because of his driver. I think, like you know, right now Wolf might be the guy that is the most volatile but the least surprising to win Weekend.

01:07:49
Speaker 2: Really high ceiling. I think he's really high ceiling just yet you hit it, and he showed some more consistency at the end of the year, and so I think it is that some period. I just think, yeah, again, it's just making some of those adjustments, cleaning up some parts of the game that then could turn into it like a DJ type layer.

01:08:09
Speaker 1: And I thought this sounds crazy, you know, but like, I just don't think there could be overstated enough that there has to be an adjustment period. A lot of times when you're twenty one years old, you turn professional and all of a sudden you're a multi millionaire, like you're the life change of that it could cause certain things like it maybe, you know, I think some of the inconsistency could just be simply from that drastic of a life change.

01:08:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think maybe like a very natural player, I think, you know, you kind of look at it like you finished runner upt the US Open and then Shriners and then the very next week almost finishes last at the CJ Cup, and like he just said, it just some stuff got out of whack and it got a little you know, he just couldn't quite turn it around. So you have a guy, obviously with a very natural swing, very natural motion that when it's clicking, it's it's clicking, and then maybe when it's not it's off. But yeah, he's twenty one. I mean, one of the greatest collegiate seasons of all time. I think it was what six wings won the NCAA's by six I think, so him and Tiger, and.

01:09:12
Speaker 3: It was where he was winning. It's where he was winning too.

01:09:15
Speaker 1: You know, he would won Olympia Field's Pebble Beach like it just killing people.

01:09:21
Speaker 2: I mean, he's twenty one years old and he's fifteenth in the world, so it's that's wild to think about. Any I mean, now that he.

01:09:28
Speaker 3: Played well, he started the year like seventy.

01:09:30
Speaker 2: Because it's only I mean, he was runner off with the US Open, he had the fift four hole League. But also I mean he was in the mix of the PGA, like very much in.

01:09:35
Speaker 3: The mix, so everybody was in the mix. At the two good point, you gotta you.

01:09:41
Speaker 1: Got anything else you want to get off your chest before this, uh this twenty twenty one calendar season on the PGA Tour.

01:09:50
Speaker 2: I don't think so.

01:09:51
Speaker 3: I think you got a players pick. Who's your players.

01:09:54
Speaker 2: Pick, Decky. I mean that's that's an approach shock golf course. I could see it being a great place for more. I actually am kind of kind of bummed. If you do remember we paired Morikawa, Wolf and Hoblin together the players and they all shot like they all broke seventy in the first round. They were in really good position, and of course it all got shut down. So it's a great golf course.

01:10:18
Speaker 1: Is for is DJ's biggest blemish on in his career, only one top ten at the Players.

01:10:23
Speaker 2: He's trending. It's similar to Augusta in that it was a place that he could not play earlier in his career and then he It's like there's like this line of demarcation where he was horrible at Augusta and TVC Sawgrass and then he just almost immediately like got better and then just kept getting better every year. And so I do feel like it's similar in that sense. I could see him.

01:10:47
Speaker 3: I feel like that's all he's got left.

01:10:48
Speaker 1: He's won all the playoff events, he's got the WGC Slam Yeah, he just needs to get the players. And he's you know, a pot of veeder legend.

01:10:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he's a legend, just a legend. How many majors do you think his crew with?

01:11:04
Speaker 1: I mean, so the natural over under is three and a half? Right, who think over?

01:11:08
Speaker 2: Who is more? There's several years at play here. Who would you give a better chance of completing the crew grand slam? Uh, let's start with DJ R Brooks or DJ Brooks or Speed?

01:11:20
Speaker 1: I think Brooks over DJ Uh No, I'd say, Oh, that's a hard one. God, that's a good question.

01:11:30
Speaker 2: Speed. He only has to win one and he's got, you know, another thirty years of.

01:11:33
Speaker 3: Golf out of the out of the question.

01:11:37
Speaker 2: The problem is it's the it's the major that's worse for him. It's the PGA.

01:11:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a that's a no fly for me. I've bed take the other two for that.

01:11:47
Speaker 3: Rory. You could throw Rory in there too.

01:11:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that's the thing, you know, on Rory, it's so easy to assume he's gonna win a Master's. But it was so easy to assume Great Norman was gonna win a Master's and Ernie L's and all those guys.

01:12:01
Speaker 1: I mean, we're getting we're getting closer to ten We're closer to ten years since his last major than we are.

01:12:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a great point on your ten year, ten year window of major victories. But it is it's so hard to imagine a guy who's what is he thirty thirty one that his window is closing?

01:12:20
Speaker 1: Sean, do you know how many weeks he's spent in the official World Golf ranking top ten.

01:12:27
Speaker 2: Four fifty, Like pull where I have that, I might go DJ just guy, I can see him like winning at Kiwa and then you know, picking off a British Open. He's like forty four years old.

01:12:38
Speaker 1: Rory right now is fifth all time in weeks in the top ten in the world Golf ranking.

01:12:46
Speaker 2: I could see that.

01:12:48
Speaker 1: He's got five hundred and forty eight weeks in the top ten in the world off rankings. Norman's at six forty six, Michelson's seven seventy five, L's seven eighty eight, and Tiger I know six. So you know, at thirty years old, Rory, if he spends ten more years in the top ten of the world Golf rankigs, he will overtake Tiger Woods.

01:13:15
Speaker 3: It's not unrealistic.

01:13:18
Speaker 1: He's he's less than he's less than four hundred weeks away, which is kind of crazy, you know, like they that's a that's a rory stat you know, it's.

01:13:32
Speaker 2: I mean, the amount of the longevity is is amazing. Yeah, I.

01:13:41
Speaker 1: Would probably go like the next close the next closest active players are Sergio and Adam Scott, and they're one hundred weeks behind them behind him, and every week that goes by, they're losing ground. And those guys are ten years older than them.

01:13:57
Speaker 3: You know, DJ.

01:13:58
Speaker 1: DJ's at three thirty seven, DJ, who's had it like a historic he's two hundred weeks behind.

01:14:03
Speaker 2: It is amazing. It's it's hard to been what six years since Roy won a major.

01:14:09
Speaker 1: And that he's made like it's been six years he hasn't won a major and he's been in the top ten in the world every year of those six years.

01:14:16
Speaker 2: But you know, it's hard to do is win majors, and I think we just take it for granted.

01:14:20
Speaker 1: I know, you know he would he it would be a different status if everybody got on board with the players being a major.

01:14:27
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I think you proved that it is.

01:14:34
Speaker 1: All right, that coulda good bye by it on that, but hey, thanks for coming out.

01:14:39
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure.

01:14:39
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure everybody could read you at PGA tour dot com. You great follow on Twitter, great follow you know, you just got a great content all the time.

01:14:51
Speaker 2: Thank you man. Much appreciated. Always a fan of The Friday and its work, so I appreciate how being back on.

01:14:59
Speaker 3: Good life luck with baby three.

01:15:00
Speaker 2: I'm gonna need it, so I appreciate that as well.

01:15:04
Speaker 3: All Right, we'll see you so good.

01:15:13
Speaker 2: M