The guys from paying. They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
I just love that I can hit any shot I kind of want.
We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the proven Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bacon. That is Marty Jerts and Marty we got a special guest. I've bit excited about this one.
Yeah, Wayne Radar Riley. Yeah, I think that's a good place to start. Cheane is wayn Why don't you tell us where Radar came from?
Well, when I was a young boy, I was actually
playing an apprentice golf profession in Australia. I had to work at a pro shop for three years and because my parents made me do that in case I didn't make it as a golf bro and they would bang on and I was in a place called Orange and I was camping because we couldn't afford to stay in a hotel playing this championship and Wayne Riley it was right at the height of a TV show called Mash and you're you know, with the helicopters and Radar Riley out of mash and it upset me Bactually really I
was only about fifteen or sixteen years of age, but they did me a favor really, So it's, uh, that's where I get RADI Riley Nash.
When you're walking the golf course, do you get radar more than when polot you absolute?
They're always their always screaming, don't you.
Yeah, it's in the UK, Yeah, it's it's absolutely, it's it's it's it's all Rader, all of it. And in Australia it's all Rader.
So you're from Sydney, Australia, you live in England now encourse commentator for Sky Sports. You do an unbelievable job. You're one of my favorite listens. How did you get into that? Because a lot of people might not know about your playing career, How did you transition from player to encourse commentator?
Well, I retired from the playing on the DP World two European Tours, I know it as and I went back to Australia and I actually bought a nine whole part three golf course and what was it, Wayne Riley Path three?
And there you go?
Yeah, And originally and and and I had that, and I got a phone call from Channel seven back in Australia and they said, would you like to come and do some en course commentary? And I was eleven o'clock or nine. I was half a say. I said, sure, you got the right right guy usual you know what Wayne Grady or someone like that like that. They said, not, it's you. We think you can do it, and that was it, and then Sky got me and the rest is history. I didn't find it very difficult at all,
and which is which is a bonus. You know, some people struggle with it, and but they learned to do it, and that's fine. But straight away I just duck the water. I'd been in every predicament as a golf pro, up trees everywhere, so I kind of knew how to call shots reder.
Do you still own the PO three course?
No? No no. I leased that out for two years to this guy and he started to steal from me, so I ended up selling it back to him. I sold it to him, I mean true, yeah, I leased it to him, and there's ways that I shouldn't say this, but he didn't steal, did you?
You just maybe a bit sketchy, I'm assuming it's not Wene Riley P three.
It's Silver Slvania waters Bath three.
Now there you go.
So after you were camping and working as a golf pro playing these was it?
Were they junior.
Tournaments in Australia you were planning at that time sixteen seventeen, Well.
No, they were. We call it an apprentice. I'm not sure if it's the stay the same here in the States. You have to work in a pro shop for three years to become fully qualified, gotcha. Yes, you could fall back on being a club pro if you didn't make it on the circuit. So that's what I did, and I did the whole three years, which was almost like a jail sentence, basically selling Mars bars to the members and cleaning their golf clubs and all that. I did
the whole lot. Do your lessons, No, I wasn't. You're not allowed to us apprentice. Yeah you can now, But when my day, it was, you know, thirty dollars a week I used to get when I first started, and it was it was very interesting. But I started that when I was fifteen. It was a decent golf even when I was fifteen. So I did it for three years I was out at eighteen, but I'm fully qualified. Never had to use it, but so it's been as
good as an Astronia motorbike. It's been useless really, but I'm still a fully qualified golf brother.
So you're a PGF Australia member of the.
Oh absolutely, they always have been and pay it every year. So whether they know I am.
You pay your dues, I do.
Wait, what what year did you turn pro and what was the what were the early days like of your professional career.
Well, that was around nineteen seventy seven when I had to go and work in the pro shop, and but I was out at about nineteen eighty one. I started to play pro am. We've got an unbelievably good pro am circuit in Australia where Wayne Grady, a major champion, Ian Baker Finch, Greg Norman back in the day played this pro am circuit. We all honed our game on that.
You know, playing five thousand dollars was a total person If you won, you won seven hundred dollars and you could just keep on going on to the next event. They were all year round, except when the big tournaments in Australia were happening. So it was a great place
to hone your game. Every single day. You'd finish, you get in the car and you go to the next one and they all in the same vicinity as each other, so off you'd go, and then you'd play on the proper tour when it started like October through December, and then they'd start up again and the finish late February with the Australian Masters, and then when you got your card, you go and play in Europe or you play in
the States. So Australia's and it's still got a great it's a great honing ground for young pros, but there aren't big championships. We used to have like thirteen or fourteen big championships and now they're basically is the Australian PGA and the Australian Open. Because of the world schedule. Now it's a world schedule. People go, why haven't we
got big championships down in Australia. When I go back to Australia, But it's very difficult now because you know, the same time as Australian Open, Tiger's got his event, the Hero and so many things going on now. Sponsors aren't interested anymore unless you've got great fields. Basically Scottie Smith if they had at leash and these are kind of great Australian players. If they aren't playing, sponsors aren't really interested.
When did you start to show signs of being a very good golfer? I'm always interested in when people see a clicking, or when they start to see the results, or if somebody tells them, hey, you've got some serious game. When did you start to see your abilities click?
About nineteen to twenty I started to sort of win these pro am events and then start top tens on the on the circuit, and I won my first tournament when I was like twenty one, being in Baker Beating and Baker Vench in a playoff, a big event Victorian PG eight and yeah, it just went on from there. And then twenty two I came over and got my card in Europe and off you go.
Was your first big win the ninety one Australian Open, No.
The PGA. But see, as I say, the thirteen tournaments we had back in Australia, Yeah, they are all big events. You know. We've got like Bob Shearers and Jack Newton's blust from the past Baker, Finches. You know, all these guys played in the events that we won, but they don't hear of them now. But they are big events. But my big yeah, the Australian Open would have been nineteen ninety one was my first big on. Everyone wants to win the Australian openers in Australia even now it was,
but it was back then. You know there were three and out of the four major champions in it. I mean, it was a huge event in Australia Open. It is it true?
You went birdie, birdie, birdie, and tell us about that putt on the last hole or the last the finishing stretch of that tournament.
Well, it's an interesting story because in nineteen ninety I started with ping and and I won the Air New Zealand Open by seven shots. And anyway, I hope we've got all day and I got. I go back to Europe in nineteen ninety one, and I parted it up so badly. It was incredible with a short buttter. Nothing to do with the part I just didn't line up well. The holes were open and I found it hard to square them up, and I thought I've got to start again.
So in about September, two months shy of the tour finishing in Europe, I went back to Australia and I said, well, okay, I'm going to start and I'm going to become a child again in the respect of I'm going to get a long putter and I'm going to go out there and find something that's different than using the short putter. So I went back for seven weeks and I practiced so very much with the long part. It didn't hit
a shot seven weeks, just parted every single day. And I went to defend the Air New Zealand I don't work, which I won the prey previous year in nineteen ninety by seven shots, and I ran about thirtieth and I didn't put very well. I thought, oh jee, I just wasted seven weeks. Next week, next week I get to the Australian Open and I played unbelievably like I had
all year, but wasn't partying very good. And I'm on the about third down on the board going into about the five holes from the end of the championship, three shots back and I'm winging and whining, and my caddy then Lindsay, she said it was a lady's great caddy, good player herself. And she said, if you don't stop whinging when you burdy these last four holes, you're not going to remember it.
And I said, come come on, it's creak caddy advice.
Yeah, yeah, that's all right, Shane. But then I hit it to fifteen feet on the fifteenth miss of the game. I said, what were you saying? So anyway, the next path through I hit a five iron up there to about nine feet behind it. Did then I hit a one iron over the back of the green on a par five seventeenth at Royal Melbourne, chip it down to
thirty feet because it was in a tangy light. It was a good shot to get at thirty feet Ray Melbourne Green's really fast in with this long part, absolutely marvelous. So then all of a sudden I sling this six iron right around the green on eighteen under the whole thirty three feet. Well she didn't touched the sides in she went as well, so and then they all started to make a few boges, said coda. Uncle Rada prevailed with the new putter. I mean you all should get
the long partter. It was a b ninety.
This isn't twenty twenty four though. I mean, there weren't a lot of long putters out there. I mean, this is this something somebody built for you. You go have to go find it. I mean, how did you get your hands on something like that?
What in the early nineties.
I looked at rock O Mediate, really mediate, he had one. They were already Peter Sing and Sam Trans were already using the chin one, only two of them. But Rocco had this thing in his chest, yes, and anchored, you bet you we were anchoring and it was it was like, you know, I thought that really and then I grabbed it and I clawed it and it was like and I just kept on thinking, TikTok, like a grandfather clock, TikTok, TikTok. And it worked. It was brilliant.
You see a lot of the you know, now the stigma's gone, the ego's gone with the long putter, right, it seems that you see a younger players doing it, Folks struggling with the hebgb's doing it or not or not the hebgb's. I mean, it's just a different technique. I personally use it as well. It's not easy. There's a skill to it. You need your stuff to do a lot of things very mechanically with it, temple wise,
very important the pressure you apply to it. What advice would you have for somebody that wants to try it, they've never used a long putter, any technique things, and any tips or tricks to somebody.
Yeah, as long as you do get over that, as I said, the Grandfather clock, as long as the putter does hang vertically, I feel almost like the toe heel up just a little bit and it hangs down. And you can get that thing just given it the TikTok, the old Grandfather clock. If you can give it that, and you know, it's almost as well with the long putter. You know, in my day it was almost showing off, Like you get onto the green and people go, look at this guy, what's just thing? Not many people, so
they're already looking at you. Yeah, they're looking at you. They were looking at me, and I was going, yeah, here I am. You might be looking at check what I've got here. You know, So all of a sudden you've gone from the short part of where you didn't want people to watch because it was like a live rattlesnak in your hand and now you've got this, you've got this TikTok thing go and you hold them from
everywhere and they're all going whoa. And we went through that stage in the nineties where everyone started using it and then it stopped.
It's coming back, though, Yeah, it is coming back.
Rad Are you you went rattlesnake there? I mean you're from Australia. You could have picked any other of the most poisonous snakes in the world.
You read belly black Sune, We've got a red bit.
You're talking to the American audience.
Well, that's what it's all about. Yeah, to know where that came from.
Jake, twenty years on the European Tour. Now we've heard so long about the European Tour and kind of the fraternity that is the European Tour. I can only imagine what it was like in the eighties and nineties. I'm assuming you've got a couple of good storre worries about touring for twenty years on the euro tour with some of your buddies and stuff. So if you could share a couple of well of those.
Types, it's just it's the stories are just you know, because Basically, we didn't have courtesy cars like on the PGA Tour. If you're a player, you get given the car. Yeah, you pick it up from the airport, I suppose, and you drive around. We used to have to get picked up, you know, or catch a cab. And I remember it was so strange to play on the European time. I remember playing in Madrid once. So I'm playing in Madrid and you had to get a golf club called Club
de Campo ported a hero, great course in Madrid. And I get up and I jump in the cab on Sunday morning, running about tenth in the championship, you know, going in the week and not gonna win, but gonna have a decent week. Get in the cab by myself. Anyway, see all these people up the road, and I've got an hour and a half until I head off. And I stopped and I go, what's going on here? Matathon? I said, what, So there's a marathon. Okay, so I've
got to get through this marathon. But I'm not allowed to get through this marathons on there's police everywhere.
They're blocking off the roads.
So I've got the clubs in the boot of the cab. Everyone's honking their car. If you've ever been a midman, Madrid a magical place. So I ended up making my Titan by three minutes. I had to run through and a marathons. They shut a marathon down, and it's really wide. It just isn't the street, it's the footpath people can run. So I ran through a marathon with hundreds of people with my bats ping of course on my back. I'm running through all these people and they're all going, what's
going on? What's this guy doing running? But this is the sort of thing we used to do. We didn't get courtesy cars or go round marathons. They go, right, today's a marathon, we've got to go around, so book your car early. I had to run through things like that. We used to have. Tuesday nights were legendary. We shouldn't go into those too much. A little red eyed on on Wednesday pro Am Day. But it's all The game's changed so much for the better. But I wouldn't change
the days we used to. We used to play. If you had an ordinary week, you wouldn't win that much money. You had to play well the next week as well. It was we didn't play for that much money back then. It's changed. It's changed dramatically. These guys playing for twenty five million a week and twenty million a week, it's all and they're still winging.
Still, they're silf whining they can win, are still whining.
It's like, unreal. I can't get in that. We'll play better man, go and play. Oh well, you have to go back. You can't play for the twenty million with the designated great events. You have to go and play. Oh poor you, you have to go and play for seven.
Really, I think you're gonna be okay.
I think a lot of people should take a good hard look of themselves and see how how lucky they are.
When Rory got the Curtis the police escort at the Ryder Cup that one time and made his tea time by about half an hour? Were you sitting there going there's no stress in that.
I was there on that first jarge. I think it was half an hour.
Show a little quit, little tighter.
Oh yeah, I'd say he he parked ten minutes before. Okay, it wasn't much more because I saw him walk on the tea and they cheered him and he smiled and madonah it was I was right. I just laughed. It was just unreal.
Flashbacks to Madrid.
Evans knows what he was doing that night.
Radar, tell us a little bit going back to equipment. Tell us a little bit about what ball driver. You know you played in the eighties and nineties and and and what your experience has been now you've played such a broad spectrum of equipment much golf ball driver, metalwood, standpoint, tell us all the job though.
Yeah, the old driver, it's been so long ago. What was the silver driver that Ping used to have. They used to have a three with the same Yeah, there you go, yeah, those but back when I started with Ping, you you you had? It was great, it was the best. I mean, you had to use thirteen of the fourteen clubs. That's what cast has said. He said, you got to use thirteen of the fourtune and I used fourteen, and
you had to use the putter. If you had a Ping bag, There's no using someone else's butter, because that's what Ping. It was the daddy of the butter. You know. That's what and still is everyone's truck. If you look at Scotty wats his name, I'm not going to mention his second name. We're not even going to go there. But if you have a look at that, it's a copy of the answer, right, Tiger's putter that he hold everything with that red dot. It's it's you just look
at it when it was down there. Well that's an answer. So how how someone? I'm sorry, I'm not taken. You know, I'm not upset in the apple card here, It's just it is fact. I mean that. Well, you can't copy what Carston did, but there it is, and everyone's going Scotty's really really well, he's a few years late, I feel. But I used all the clubs you had to and it was an incredible time and I still do all my clubs though I haven't got anything else in it.
I wouldn't dare because why there isn't anything as good.
And you had the big white staff bag, right, that was the classic and that still is with the brand today.
You know what, Yes, I've got that big white staff bag with my thing that I do I think called round with Raider that comes out. But when I won the Australian Open, I had a lady cat in for me, Lindsay, and I had a little white bag that was the same material. I'm not sure they still do it. I really don't know, but it was the most unbelievably good bag. It had the big Ping on there.
Yeah you still have it, you start it at home?
No, no, I don't. I might have gave it to Lindsay. I probably did. But it's a beautiful bag and it's not the big one. I've got the big one. Yeah, but now you know, there's so many bags you can get. I've got this little light bag that I carry around when I'm in England and go and play it come,
you know, with a strap over. They're like, I'm wearing a bra and you know, and I walk walk around the golf course and it's you don't even know you've got it on your back and it's you know, there's so many golf bags that you can get now, and you know Ping at the forefront of that as well.
Yeah, Ping's still the best bag out there, that is for sure. You mentioned around with Radar. How did that come about? Because it's been a really really entertaining series. I know people really enjoyed online.
Dominic Griff is the main man in the UK for the truck and he came up with the idea. He says, well, let's do a series of and go and play with some some ping staffers. And we've done that in Europe where we're yeah, you know, going to get some guys over here on the PGA too. It's just hard because I'm in the UK. And however that works, will make it work. But yeah, it's been it's been great fun. It is great fun filming and is unbelievable. Get the drone out and it's watch it on YouTube. It's around
with radar, ping around with they're they're great fun. I've done him and as I've gone so many good players and it's they're brilliant that take us long to do and every and we've got one little we've got one camera and we've got a drone and all that sort of stuff and the sounds great. People go well, a many camera and it's it's incredible the way it's done, and it's and it comes up and they're so popular. If I come to America through Sky because you don't
watch Sky over here. The other thing you get on Sky over here as the Formula one and and the golf goes back to the UK. But when I come over here, most people the Americans come up to me through around with radar and they I've never heard one person go to you that rad of around with radars crap, it's we love it. So that's positive.
How's your game these days when you're playing with the pros? I mean, do you still feel like you can kind of get in their kitchen at all?
No?
Okay, not like you.
I mean you're out there. You know, you're one of those wannabe players. I see.
I'm like, what about that. I'm like your garden with the chipping. I'm like captain of the wanna be pro the team.
Yeah, but it's it's like, no, no, not really. I played on Saturday and I was I wasn't very good, but with my job, without jobs, you know what it's like. I mean, you play for three weeks and you start to become I'm shooting around par I'm having some funny here, and it's it's great. Then you got a way for through you don't touch a club and you go back and you start again.
That's right.
It's literally like you with the long putter, right, It's like going back to the first time you learned about golf.
That's what it's about.
Shane is such a wannabe pro. It's still questionable whether he has his amates status's.
Right, But I'm loving the us.
Don't look in at this us.
I'm loving the back of the garden. The backyard.
What's the branding for it? Oh the griddle, the grid shipping green. Unbelieve Yeah, look, look, you know what, you know what. I messed up though. I did the bunker. Okay, I did a little bunker off the green. Now I've got two little kids, and that's now.
Just the sand pit.
Well that's it's it's fine for them to play in it. But I come home from a trip like this, You're right, sand everywhere. They'll be staying on in the halls on the green, and I spend two hours cleaning it. So the bunker might not have been a great play, but I love having in the backyard.
Of course you do. Yeah, fantastic. Can you spin it out of the bunker? Yeah?
Yeah, you know it's I really don't hit a lot of bunker shots there. It's truly a sandbox for you.
Just when you have people around for a barbecue, it's like.
I'll break it up and clean.
Oh you don't go to the bunker.
Yeah, but other than that, it's just the trucks and stuff are in there. Where'd the hat come from?
By the way, My mom my mother, and she said, you know you're going to do this on core stuff. You know, you have to keep your complexion. You you know, you're a good looking man, so you don't want to sort of the sun to sort of spoil those rugged good looks. So mom bought me a hat, and and every time I now she doesn't buy me hat, so anymore, I just go and buy one. Every couple of years, I just go and and get one. In Australia's an Australian hat. And it's it's been great, you know, it's been.
It's been. I didn't think I at the start, I didn't want it to be something to make me known. It was just I'm wearing the hat. That's the way it is. And now everyone's you know, the hat in america's not that cowboy and I'm like, yeah, mate, whatever, pretty good American, right, Yeah. Well it's a it's a good hat. They're good hats, and it helps you know over here, especially the sun shining all the time, and it gets a bit hard when you're in Scotland or Ireland.
That's blowing that you need the string a thousand. There's no, it's amazing. It doesn't really come off and it's it must be something to do with having a big fat head mate.
You've done encourse commentating for a long time. Can you name the three players that you enjoy watching the most or when you get their groups you get the most fired up?
You know, I'm so lucky, Shane that I don't have to worry about I know. It's like I even so much that I don't care who wins. Okay, I really don't care who wins. I don't really have to know what people say, What score do they? What score are they on radar?
It's not my job.
It's not my job. My job is to concentrate on how that was lying. My job is sight, sound, smells, really, I mean, what they are facing, what is going on? Is my job to know if he's one under or two under? Is like I didn't know the first round of the Masters. When I was out this year with Scottie first round shot six under, I could have sworn he was two. Really, I stood up on the eighteenth green behind the ground and looked up on that big wide board and I went, no, no, no, no, they've
got that wrong. Then you think this or no, there's no way they've got that wrong. Here at the Master, there's no way they're having it wrong. Six under couldn't believe it. Well, I mean, I just I just I just call what you guys, the viewing audience want to know. So I don't Brory all these guys tigers, you know back in the day that was I saw some things with him. I mean I think we all saw some things with him. You just shook your head and just
started laughing. And yeah, but watching guys, I like watching guys play with long players. It was short watched the way you know Kevin case New or someone like that playing with Rory McElroy. See how he gets around and there's a great job.
Well, I mean I think people that I mean, I've done on course a little bit in my career, and I don't think people quite understand the cadence that you're going through. I mean, you're trying to stand one hundred yards or maybe a couple hundred yards away from the tee so they can't hear you. Maybe you can see the club or you're just going up to the fairway to get up there, so you get a number and you can kind of look at the lie and you
can get out of their way. I mean, it's really this kind of song and dance that I don't think people that have either been out to a golf tournament before are obviously done on course commentary understands that there's this you're it's like a four and a half hour, you know, dance party you're basically having with the golf course and try not to get in the player's kitchens while also trying to get the information, you know, out on the telecast.
Yeah, that's a very good point. Over here in America, a lot of the on courses seem to stand just on the off the tee where I am up with the landingside right on is way ahead and I go to sometimes I used to go to Bones. I said what east, and well, I want to see what they head off the team. I said, well, I can ask my producer of the tea. I could just press a button. They go, that's the last of the job for me.
That's the information you can see too that that's that's not my first producer when I did it on course, he said, that's not your job telling them driver a three wood, it's like a poor three is different.
You know less.
But I can find that whether it's a five iron, because what you've got to do is match. If he's hitting the five iron on a past three, it comes up on the screen. I can't go six one because they're going to go on home. This guy doesn't know what he's doing. So you've got a little bit of help. But when it comes down to the meat of it all, I have to be in front. I have to save that balls in a divot. If it's over there under a tree in the grass, I have to be up there.
And then I keep on going forward. And then I when they hit the green, I can get up there. Line the putts up, move to a high spot. I'm nowhere near them. They don't even know they know I'm out there, but I'm never in their way. And and that's the way standing behind them, as a lot of Americans do.
I'm not you know, everybody's situation does.
Everyone's different. But I just don't see why they do that. They're getting too close to them, and well there's potential there for them to tell them to go away. Where I'm seeing everything, but I'm just way in front of them.
Radar, if you didn't get a chance to read a pipe, let's say you were Russian, or you couldn't get up there in time, and the host says, Radar, what does this putt do? What's your go to line when you don't know what the putt does?
Well, I always see it because, to be honest with you, the only reason I would do that is because if I can't read it. Sometimes it's interesting, you know, with us, even as golfers, you go, I don't.
Know what this is going to happen here.
Most of the time, I'll say it on it I've got no id ot to do. But my go to line if I'm in a little bit of trouble out there, Jeez tear what the smell of Burger's over there is just unbelievable. The hot dogs, I mean, I mean, the miss ohios that are out here are just unreal. Oh, the winds just got up, gee, wiz might affect this part, which is just a little uphill.
I remember I missed maybe but one of my first time courus Marty, and I was like, I know, is this is a really tough read?
Is what I said, Just throw it out there.
Sometimes you've just got to come out with things that you know, other things. If you can't pick that.
En coourse commentaries or you carry Green's books, is that a thing?
Yeah, I mean some do. Some bring Greens books. Some have yardage books.
I mean there's there's there's there's arrows in our Greens books. But to be perfectly, you know, this is a one that if I'm out there with Maltby, say Maltby or another few guys will go together. We'll all because is the same as me. He's always in front, even though Roger's got a buggy and and and we we go up there, we'll look at me and I'll look at him right left, and they'll full go.
So there's a few of us crowdsourcing it.
You know, you get a line, we're all only human. I maybe you get a read wrong. I mean, you know it's going to happen, but you don't want to get too many wrong because that's your job. I mean, look, it's fun stiff on courses to me.
I just go on play now.
And there's a lot of them out there. I'm not going to mention any name and I'm like, wait a second, come on, let's just get something. Give me something here, give me, give me something, because it's at the end of the day, it's golf is entertainment. This is entertainment. What we're doing right here. We are here to give them something, and you know we're just you know, boring. I just don't think it cuts it.
But how do you mix that in because your job is I mean, your job is to be informative, but you're also very funny and you're entertaining. So how do you weave that in as it's just your personality.
I don't try to be an. I'm not. I'm just I'm like this away from it, I'm just a bit mad. Probably they should just lock me up. I suppose it's a rubber room somewhere. But you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, all of us. I mean it's like, you know, it's just as I always believe it. It's entertainment and if you can bring entertainment to it. Look, there's nothing wrong with being stiff. And you know, this is an uphill hug. There's a seven nine the winds out of the right
hand side. I mean it's like, I mean, you know, yeah, all right, okay, but let's talk about something else. There might be something funny. There's a streaker running down the middle of the fairway. Well the cat the producer is not going to show the streaker, but we can talk about the streak.
That's right.
It's like, where did that happen? Tory Pines, wasn't it Tory Pines? There was a streaker in the US Open.
Famous one was the daily one at the Open was like the most famous I think streaker he chases it's.
Right, yeah, but yeah, whatever's going on. There's so many things to talk about out there in our job that some people just miss a trick. But when they listen to your podcast, guys here, yeah they're gonna go well yeah maybe, but maybe they'll go non.
Must not red or.
We've had a lot of tour players on the podcast. I've liked auson the question of.
Like shaping the ball.
I like when I like when watching the elite players move the golf ball high, low, left, right, right, the left, who have in the modern era right now, Baba curves it a lot.
Baba, yeah, Bubba, he just comes straight to mind, Yeah doesn't he? I mean, just bend it like Bubba. I mean, he just that shot at the Masters down the right hand side with that wedge, what was at one hundred and fifty or something around there. That was an incredible shot that made Bubba that shot. I'm not sure if that was his first Master's win or his second Masters win first first. Yeah, and he he just bends the ball so so so it just it's quite incredible. But
now we are looking at Scotty. Scotty, Scotty, he can he can shape it, especially with the driver he gets. Seems does this seem to miss a fairway?
Scotty Scheffler, It's a really long and really straight. It's crazy.
He just finds a lot of fairways, you know, for a longer player.
It's just an incredible golfer and an incredible person.
Yep.
He really is always remembers my name and he's just a lovely, lovely guy. But the golf ball, I don't believe lends itself to bending it. Like when we were younger, I was younger that the old remember the old tool Bilata. Oh yeah, yeah, it was like chewing gum was like a piece of like a piece of putty.
You could get your finger and.
Oh you could you could you could run old one. I had irons when I was a kid. This was before pro v days. I had irons and it had a little globe in the middle of the iron, right in the sweet spot. And I remember I was playing a tour blata and I was, you know, ten, eleven, twelve years old, and I munched one and it was one of the first times I could really feel like compression with the iron. And I got up there in the little globe in the middle of the iron had
been imprinted in the middle. Oh yeah, likes, I'm taking this out of the play.
Yeah, I mean bending the golf ball. It's a very good question. They seem to bend the golf ball now a lot with the driver predominantly from left to right. Can't really do it from right to left trampoline effect now. But you know, Rory is about the only guy who draws when he's driving the golf ball. He's best hits a soft right to left draw. There aren't many guys that do it. Scotty can do it. Tiger obviously back
in the day, could do it. But if you look at the guys that you know, you know they want to just fair way find it and hit that. They hit it low and they just peel it, but when it comes to their eyns, they don't move it that much.
Yeah, that's kind of what I've noticed. But I'm interested in that. You know, I see like a player like Justin Thomas. Yeah, you know, curving it into different pins and things that.
But he's unreal. He's beautiful. When he was playing his best, that driver, that low.
Thing is like when he won the players.
Remember he hit the shell on sixteen, that was the swinging dry and then on eighteen he hit the low one EGA.
A couple of years ago, he had that thing going.
Yeah, he had Yeah, But then we had Victor on right after, right before he won the Tour Championship, when he was playing his best, and we asked him and he's like, I just hit a dead straight with parents.
He don't want it to fall in when he was playing his best.
Yeah, Victor, right now, you know he tinkered. Victor's going to be back in five seconds. I mean, Victor's going to be absolutely funny. He's just one of those guys. I don't know what he why he did it, you know, tried all this stuff and he's not playing awful. But he's Look, this guy works so hard and he's a golf junkie, junkie and he will be back within either. Don't worry about Victor, Victor. Do you've worried about Victor? Amus? Did he win last year thirty five million?
Ye, he had a pretty decent year.
He's about twenty twenty three and he could own Oslo where he comes from.
Red Or how often you're on the road, Like, how many weeks a year you on the road? Twenty two weeks a year?
Twenty two weeks. I just a few other things for ping. And you know, I love twenty two. I used to do like twenty seven, but now it's twenty two. It's perfect for me. Well, he's me trying to play golf.
And I mean, I met you at the President's couple years ago at Liberty National, and I've been a fan ever since. I find you again. I think you do a lot of what I love about golf. You make it fun, you make it entertaining, you kind of keep it light and at the same time, you know what you're talking about. So I've been a big fan for a long time and we really appreciate the time.
And it's been great thank you ever so much, loving you, loving your work.
Though Radar Wayne Riley, thank you so much. This is the ping proven Grounds podcast