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Doing trum solos. Now you know John Wright, John right to Van. That's like write down John Right Valley. We have a Dave Fox Live coming up on site here at Epic Brewing Company right downtown. It's eight twenty five South State Street. They are pushing their Utah hipcheck ice Logger. We are giving away very very nice four ounce beer glasses, first come, first served, one apiece.
Please want a piece. Let's act right, But we've.
Been pretty football hockey, little soccer centric today. But the PGA Tour is making its historic return to Utah Black Desert resort coming up on Thursday. Our next guest knows a thing or two about the game of golf. John, Right on a Tuesday, John, Happy Tuesday, buddy.
How are we doing.
I'm doing well, spent, how are you doing well?
I'm excited for this.
So, as somebody that is very plugged in to the golf community here in the state of Utah, what's the the buzz level, what's the excitement level? The PGA Tour rolling back into our state for the first time in sixty years.
Oh, it's amazing. Everybody is so excited. And the Monday qualifiers were full and everybody's trying to get a chance to play, and the tickets are flying off the shelves and everybody's ready. It's been the first event in sixty three years here in the state of Utah, and we got it for four years, and then we have the LPGA coming next year as well, So everybody, the Utah is becoming a golf state now, Yes.
Sir, and you know it's been a golf state John for a while. Well, as you know better than anybody. You know, we've been talking about this on the program the in preparation for this event coming up. When you travel around when you were, you know, playing in your career as well, and you tell people you're a golfer from Utah.
What do it?
Because we always ask like, what do NBA fans think about Jazz fans? What do college football fans think about Utah football?
B YU?
What is the golf community nation?
Why?
What do they think about when they think of Utah golf?
Well, I think mostly and this is fitting for this weekend, and they think of Southern Utah, they think of Saint George, they think of sant Holo. It's a new Black Desert golf course and all those beautiful red rock golf courses down in southern Utah. So it's become a real golf destination for you know, the boys going on their golf trips. They make it Saint George and people talk about it.
They love them. Sand Hollow is consistently ranked in the in the top hundred of courses you can play, and Black Desert is going to be in there as well. I unfortunately haven't gotten to play it yet. It's so so popular with its grand opening, I haven't got out to to play it yet, but it is I have heard nothing but bravery views and it's it's going to be a mainstay in Utah golf and this tour event makes it even cooler for everybody.
Well, now I know that I have played one course that John Wright has not, so I can put that in my you know, putting.
My tool belt there. It's awesome.
I'm excited for you to play it so you can kind of see what it's like. What is I don't know much about Tom wise goff. I've learned much a lot more about him after him, you.
Know, kind of designing the thing.
What sort of elements is he known for as the architect and the chief designer here of the Black Desert Resort golf course.
Well, he's a real thinker. He plotted his way around the golf course. He was never he was never a power hitter, and he was never a freak athlete of any sort. He was just really smart and really precise. And that's what his golf courses are like. He's he's done quite a few golf courses. And unfortunately, here's our claim to Tom Wiscott. He passed away recently and he had been getting treatment at the Hunts and Cancer Center. So he has a strong connection to Utah. As well,
so he was going up. His heyday was against Jack Nicholas, so that's why we haven't really heard much about him. He was second to Jack Nicholas and the Masters, I believe in nineteen seventy six, and second to him and
a couple other majors. He did win a couple of British opens, but he was a phenomenal player and a real thinking man, and his courses are well thought out and they're very strategic, and he took a beautiful piece of property down there in southern Utah and made it into this masterpiece from what I understand, all right.
One of the cool stories as a result of this tournament making its way to descend on Saint George is that of ja Don Blake, who's a Saint George native and he's a resident, and he's playing in the Black Desert Championship via a sponsor exemption, and this will be his five hundredth PGA Tour start. Put that into context for me and your thoughts on this great story that jay Don Blake is going to make his five hundred start in his own backyard.
Well, between Jada and Blake and I, we have five hundred career start. That's contact. I mean, it's pretty amazing. He was a legend at Utah State University back I'm a little bit younger than him, well ten or for so years, but his legend was already being written at Utah State. I heard stories about him just getting up out of a team van and walking to the first tee and with untied shoes and just striping it down the middle and shooting sixty five and win in the
golf tournament. So he's a phenomenal talent and a crowd uthon. He's always represented Utah and our state so well, and he's won three times on the Champions Tour and once on the PGA Tour and had a long, very successful career. So good for him. He's always been a Saint George's resident from the very beginning. He stayed true to his roots, and this is a great way for him to kind of wrap it all up.
We have eight golfers with Utah tiyes, including Mike Weir. I always kind of push back on the whole Utah's Mike Weir. He's from Canada, but ultimately he lives here and went to BYU.
What are your thoughts on seeing Mike down of this field.
Well, I'm lucky enough to see Mike occasionally and play with him even sometimes. And he's aged well. He and I are the same age, and he's still playing well out on the Champions Tour, and he just recently captained the President's Cup team for the international squad and they came up short. But Mike is an absolute legend in Canadian golf. At one point he was pulling more popular than Wayne Gretzky up at Canada right after he won the Masters. So Mike is most stranger to being a
high level figure, and I think he'll play well. Black Desert, from what I gathered, is not particularly long, and with all that lava everywhere, he's got to keep your ball in play, and Mike is very good at that. So was jadaen Blake, and so were some of these other players I look for. You know, you talk about players
with Utah tie, Zach Blair is one to mention. You know, I played a lot of golf against Zack when he was an amateur, and Zach won every single time we had a tournament with Saint George, Like I can't remember a time where Zach was in the field in a tournament in Saint George that he didn't win, So I would love to see that happen again.
Any of the other local players in the mix, you know, reference that there's Zach Jones, There's Peter Cass, There's Bowen Moss, there's Dustin Volk. Any of the other local players do you think will potentially be in the mix coming up on Sunday?
Well, a lot of these are young players that are getting their first shot and their you know, high school or well college kids, and Bowen Moss and Thatch Jones. Zach is a phenomenal player, great, he's gonna do great for BYU or he has been doing great for BYU. And then Bowen Moss is in Arizona State commit. And Dustin Bulk has played in the PGA Championships. He's a
local PGA professional. So I look for them to to be a little more comfortable than they normally would in such a big start because they're playing, they're playing up the way above their level right now, and uh, they're certainly good enough to compete if they can manage their nerves. Patrick Fishburne is one we should take a look at. He's a He's played on the PGA Tour now for a couple of years, so he's used to he's used to the pressure. He's used to playing on the PGA Tour.
He's back home. He's an Augdam kid, and uh, he hit the ball a long way. If he can he can keep that ball and play down there, he could he could contend as well. I would love to see the Utah contingents really contendent and make their make their presence known. This season, we've.
Got six Cougars and no utes. Man, what gives I don't know.
I think we need to lobby the tournament committee a little harder or something, because you know my utes. They opened up their first two college events, one at Washington State and one at Washington with two resounding victories. So uh, I don't know. Maybe they need to play a little bit better in that Monday qualifying. And that's another thing
we could talk about. For the first time ever. I've been following Monday qualifiers since I started playing, and for your listeners that don't know, every Monday, prior to a PGA Tour event, they have a Monday qualifier where there's a full field of players playing for four spots in the field. And it's become so popular that players have
to pre qualify to get into the qualifier. And there was some controversy and some players that shouldn't have been eligible to got to play and then they qualified, and so that's been a big talk amongst the diehard golf fans this week. But no, I know, Mitchell Skal, the former ute, former State Am champ, missed by a couple of shots, and some of the other Utah players just barely missed. But those Monday qualifiers are absolutely brutal. You
cannot make a single mistake. The qualifying score was sixty five exan hollow and for anyone who's ever played there, that's a great golf score there. And I don't think a single player that made it made a bogie.
So wait a second, John, you know the dark arts of sports socc radio. If there's a controversy, we're talking about it. That's the deal. I did not know that this was a thing, So please elaborate. What's the controversy surrounding the Monday qualifiers.
Well, normally, to enter a Monday qualifier, you have to be at a certain status, having played on a PGA tour or some of the other Auxit, Hillary Tours or there's other qualification levels. And a couple of players, there were four of them, they didn't meet those criteria, but they went ahead and entered anyway, and there was a clerical error and they were allowed to play. And you know,
just just the way things work out. A couple of them played really well and qualified and there was some complaining and some things, but you know, it's it happened, and it's it's not a it's not a huge deal, but it's it. It shouldn't have happened. And and so now we've got a couple of we've got a couple of upset people that were in the Monday qualifier that they would have made it had the other two didn't
and all that. But you know, the thing about golf spent is shoot the lowest score and then you don't have to worry about anybody. You don't have to be like uncle Rico and say if Onlly the coach would have put me in. You know, if you shoot the lowest score, you're in. And that's the bottom line with golf. Just shoot the low score and you're in. So they didn't do it, and don't complain, Just go to the following week. Next week is in Las Vegas. Go play down there?
Are you going to tell me the names of these cheaters on air? You get to text me off air?
Absolutely not cheaters, And I don't know any of them. I just read about that. All they did was enter a tournament and play and it was no fault of their own and frankly, no one's fault, just a mistake.
Okay, fair enough.
So let me ask you, and you know, we had the managing partner on the show this week and he explained and described exactly what's going on with Tony. Tony fen now and he's choosing to be a father to his son this week for a tournament that a son is playing in and Tony is captain and kind of the group.
So of course Tony's.
Gonna pick the the side of things where he's gonna be there for his child.
I totally understand that. But what are your thoughts on Tony not playing? Like if we took that dynamic out of it, which we can, because that's what he's.
Doing, do you think he would have played and what would it have meant to see, you know, the best golfer in our state play in this event for the PGA Tour coming back for the first time in sixty three years.
I think it's just a really unfortunate scheduling conflict. I have no doubt Tony would have played, and that Tony wants to play. But I believe that, you know, with it. I believe it's the PGA Junior Series that Tony is the assistant captain of with his son's team, and they're there, they've done well, and they've moved on until they have a big event this week. And I think he'd always planned on being there and this just happened to conflict and he made his choice, and you know, let's not
I would be very slow to criticize Tony for that decision. Everybody, sure, everybody makes their own priorities. And he's got those five children that he that he wants to be around for, and he travels so much in his job and he wants to be a part of that. And I have nothing but great things about Tony Feno, and I know that he would he would love to play there and
represent us all. And frankly, he's he played the Vegas event when that was the closest one to Utah and had hundreds of fans that would make the track from up here and go down to Vegas, and so he loves to play in front of his home crowd.
So to speak.
And this just didn't work out. But I have no criticism at all for that decision now for sure.
So I wonder your reaction to the field that was released. So for me, if I have heard of you, that's a good sign. And I've heard of plenty of these golfers. You know, brand Stedecker is won nine times. Lucas Glover won an Open, US Open. We talked about, of course, Mike, we're a major championship, winning the major.
For golf nerds, who are the names that when you saw the list, you're like, oh sweet, that guy's going to be here.
Well, you mentioned one if you want to see great golf, and Claire was near the top of the world there just a few five to ten years back. Lucas Glover, and he's had a bit of resurgent at the about a year ago right now. At the end of last year in the playoffs he won a couple of times.
So there's someone you can go and watch. For those of you who enjoy the broadcast, broadcasters and the commentary Kevin Kissner, who was up there doing some great commentary with the President's Cup and has been working on a lot of the events. He's in the field as well. Joel Damon there's another guy who he's probably one of the best follows on social media. He and Maxcoma. If you guys love Instagram, those guys are fun to follow.
Joel will be there and JB. Holmes for people. A few years back, he was at the top of his game. He's had some injuries and he's trying to work his way back. So some of these guys. Spencer is kind of in that dead zone, that competitive dead zone between the ages of like forty two to fifty, where you're still good and you still like to compete, but you're not old enough yet for the Champions Tour. And these guys can still play amazing, amazing game of golf, and
there's no shortage of talent down there. It's just you haven't heard a lot of these guys. But I'm telling you all these guys in that field are capable of winning any event on the PGA court, not just this one. The the talent level is extreme and for anyone going down to watch. There's there's plenty of great players to watch. There's Aaron Bradley's another one as well. He's been around a long time and as a fantastic player who's just continuing to play well throughout his career.
All right, Johnny, before I say you loose, would you be so bold to give me.
A pick to win the thing?
It looks like as of now, Keith Mitchell is the favorite at sixteen to one.
You could throw a couple of names out there. Who do you think gets it done? And why?
You know what? I like Kevin Kissner. I know that he is now a broadcaster, but he's still trying to hang on to his playing abilities and he wants to he wants to continue and play, and to do that, he's going to have to maintain some status and he's got to play well in these Fall Series events. So I look for him to play well. And I know that Joel Damon is playing well right now as well. And Keith Mitchell is a good pick too because he just barely came up one shot short last week in
Mississippi and so obviously he's playing well. But I mean the real that I would I want to pick someone I want to. I want to pick Zack Claire because uh, he just he's he's just Saint George through and through. His father owns some golf courses down there. He's from there.
Well he's not from there, but he lives there. He's got a lot of connections down there, and I think he's just super comfortable down there, and I would love to see him climb up that leaderboard and really excite the fans down there because he's he's he's been a mainstay on the PGA Tour now for seven or eight years, and uh, it'd be cool for him to get his first win on home soil.
All right, John, Well, thanks for the time, man. It should be a fun week, so enjoy it and we'll get you back on soon.
Yes, thank you. It'll be fun. Everybody tune in. It'll be on Golf Channel all weekend.
Yes, sir, the PGA Tour making its historical JOHNA you Black Desert Resorts starting on Thursday going through Sunday. Tickets available at Blackdesertevents dot com.