This is a big deal. We are talking about people who pay to play. You're making rules because of what you see based on people who get paid to play, that impact the people who pay to play. That's a bad decision.
I got bouncing my head.
Can't get him jh. Not to think what I'm thinking about. Got bouncing my head. Can't get them out, joh, not the thing what I'm thinking about.
Hello, this is allan schipnook back for another Fire Drill podcast. It's a big day in golf with the rollback announcement by the USGA. There's a lot to talk about. We've convened an all star panel of Matt Janella and Michael Bamberg. We're hoping to get esteemed architect and thinker Michael Clayton. He was supposed to be here now he may buzz it at any moment. We'll patch him through. But there's a lot to talk about real quick before we get
to the news of the day and what it means. Matt, why don't you tip your cap to our corporate sponsors here?
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Awesome, All right, let's get to it.
There's a lot to talk about here, and Michael, you wrote a very thoughtful piece for five by Collective dot Com sticking out a little bit of a middle ground that the rollback was necessary, but it's not going to have a cataclysmic effect on all of us now that it's here, now it's official. What does this mean for the professional game and then for guys like us?
Uncharacteristically, Alan you understated, I think I'll have no impact on us. The three of us on this conversation, and little I think there's they split say there's sixty nine golfers, literally fifty nine point nine to nine million golfers. They will have no effect. You'll never know the difference, just like I would say to the three of us, if you get a top flight in a pro v one, we can barely tell the difference in terms of distance,
in terms of click and everything else. So I think, but in terms of what they really wanted to do to have an impact on the best golfers in the world and make I think this is their real goal, make classic classic golf course is still meaningful at meaningful park lives and the rest thirteenth, Augusta National and many other examples. I don't think it's going to do it at all.
I mean, you're Matt. Your point is, if they're going to do it, they didn't go far enough right. They should have rolled it back more if they were going to do it.
To Michael's point, like then why are we doing Like then, why are we Why are we going through this? What is actually happening right now? What is being done? What just got announced in twenty twenty three, that's going to go to effect in twenty twenty, like the none of this, you know, makes any sense to me, So I'm just not you know, it's such a small percentage of people that it's apparently going to impact, but then it's also
eventually going to end packed some of us. But by the time we get to twenty thirty, I'm already dealing with rollback. It's called age. Like everybody's going through it. Tiger Woods is going through it. Phil Mickelson is fighting the fight of being able to actually still say he hits bombs. Like the longest hitters aren't winning or dominating, They're playing a different brand of golf. There's you know,
none of this. Is it that one hundred and fiftieth Open that we were there at Saint Andrew's in which guys were driving the eighteenth with a threewood in you know, burnt out conditions in a summer stretch of time in Scotland in which the fairways rolling faster than the greens. Was that so optically unsettling to them that they were like, that's it, we have to do it. What is going on right now?
I mean, I think the answer and Mike One has said this in it's sort of a sensible way, is we had to do something. We can't do nothing, because if you project seven years from now when guys are driving it, three seventy three, eighty three, ninety four hundred, whatever the norm was going to become, if it went completely unchecked, like they had to draw the proverbial line in the sand.
And maybe this is just the opening salvo.
If the USGA had come and said we're going to roll it back twenty five percent for the pros or thirty percent, there would have been mutiny and anarchy. We're already sort of seeing that a little bit. But maybe they start with this rollback and then they keep dialing it back a little bit more so the old courses
and the marions and those courses can be relevant. Again, I don't know that to be true, but I think they had to set some kind of precedent that we're still the sheriff of this game, that we still.
Need a little bit of law and order.
And you know, there's that legal term splitting the baby, where you kind of come to a compromise it's not really satisfactory to either side.
It's a little bit like that.
It wasn't enough of a rollback, but it's something and everybody's mad. But at least they've started the governance process, so that would be my answer to your question is what is happening is they had to start somewhere, and this is where they started.
This may not be the end.
Now what have you done with Alan Schipnak out there on the west coast? When did it get so measured and reasonable? This is very weird slash unsettling. But I do agree with everything Alan said. I truly despite everything I said before, I truly do agree with everything Alan said. You do have to have a line on this end, and you can't just let it keep escalating. And if this is a line of the sand, which I don't
really believe it will be, it's better than nothing. But I think, at the risk of repeating myself, they didn't or maybe this is saying a new thing. I don't think they really identified the problem and the problem. You know, Matt, HiT's the long way, and you do too, Alan, but that is.
Not the problem.
You're not going to abandon dunes and the part five so are obsolutely the problem is super super narrow. It's golf on TV at the best courses in the world. I don't know the numbers that Nicholas said it, but Nicholas said, you know there used to be that someone could help me here. Maybe you know, there used to be five in your courses that could in the world, that could hold major championships. Now there's one hundred, whatever the numbers are, but it's something on the order of that,
and that's not good for golf. You know, these great old courses are worth preserving. And if they don't have legitimate part fives and you know, two shot part fours, then they sort of the game gets it's a lesser game actually without the old courses and the marriage being meaningful.
Well, and this also it speaks to this how this process was so messy because you know, Matt, you've you've been pretty forceful on social media that this is the wrong time for a rollback for the amateur golfer as the game is exploding in popularity, as we were bringing all kinds of new people to game, and the message now is we want to make it harder for you. That's a bad message. You know, bifurcation was on the table.
That would have made sense. You could have you could have throttled back the pros as much as you want and not messed with the rest of us. But the ball manufacturers didn't want that, and they control the players well, I mean because they take their cues from the manufacturers
who pay the bills. So the pros and the manufacturers killed by furcation, and so then that sort of backed the USGA into a corner, like, if we're gonna do anything, it's got to be for everybody now, So it's ironic that we could have had a sensible solution that don't touch the amateurs, just deal with this very tiny subset of golfers who do smash the you know, ungodly distances, But the manufacturers and the players killed that the tour players.
So now.
Now it's affecting all of us. But the crazy thing is the PGA Tour and the pg of America have kind of signaled they're not into this, and certainly Live Golf is not gonna be into it.
So we may get into this.
Bizarro world scenario where the professional circuits opt out of this and they choose not to follow this rule, but it affects the amates. So all the pros have unchecked distance, but the amateurs are getting penalized like that makes my brain hurt. There's a long way to get to that moment, but it's theoretically possible, and that's insanity.
Well so so so okay, all of that being said, and the USGA trying to ultimately protect let's say, their championships, and the RNA trying to protect their Open championship and venues, and why don't they Why don't they just simply then get into the business of making a tournament ball, much like what people wanted Augusta to do several years ago at the Masters, to say, create a tournament ball and say this is the ball you're gonna have to play
at my championship or mid championships in the case of the RNA and the and the USGA, and say, in order to play this championship, you have to play this ball. And then they're going they then you take the manufacturer
is out of the equation. You control your situation as it relates to your championships, which is the only place that any of this actually matters, and just isolate that situation and say and do whatever you want, make the rules that you want to have people to adhere to, and then let everybody else decide if that's something they want to do at their tournament, at their course, in their search coumstensus, not unlike, you know, let's go all the way down to go Hill Park in the Wishbone
bral where John Asher says in order to have the course record, you have to play Per Simmons, and the Wishbone Ball brawl is played with Per Simmons and men play against women. And it's all, you know, like, there is ways to do this that simply you know, blanket statements and doing these this rule rule changes and rollbacks to the masses just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, what No, seriously, let's get back. Why wouldn't they just do that and make ball. They're sitting on it, piles
of cash. They've used these championships to raise the money to you know, they have the money, go make.
You own ball.
I mean, it's it makes sense except the most important tournaments. And now you're if the players, you know, twenty five weeks a year, are you using a different ball on the tour because they don't want to give up that competitive advantage because other guys are using it. Then you come to the Masters of the US Open. It's the most important championship. You got to learn this new ball and then you know, it's it's to be fun.
It'd be interesting. It'd be a great talking point.
But baseball, you go to a different field. You got to hit it further and right field, then you have to go to left field. You've got you know that's true.
I mean in tennis, you know, tennis is messed with the ball different on different surfaces and different things like it wouldn't be unprecedented, they would just be. It would be a big deal. It would be a sea change.
I mean, I would love this. It's a big deal. This is a big deal. We are talking about people who pay to play. You're making rules because of what you see based on people who get paid to play that impact the people who pay to play. That's a bad decision. This is your client, tele this is your customer. This These are the people thirty years ago that you would have given anything to have them show up and
pay to play this game. And they're here now and we're saying and we're going to shut the door on their face and say, uh sorry, I know the game is hard. It's really hard. That's why the game is so hard that things like top golf and Part three courses and short courses, and that that's the actual trend that's happening right now. Sustainability issues, well, guess what the game is already shrinking, grasses are improving, pottable water is going away and more. The trend is to reclaim water
to water these golf courses. So throw the sustainability stuff out and it's going to correct itself by water prices and everything that else is involved. This is not the solution to anything related to sustainability. This is not the
solution to grow the game. And all the marketing efforts that you've put forward governing bodies to try to get us there, all of that is now a massive contradiction and a big, unnecessary pr nightmare that we're all going to have to endure for the next tk coming years. And it's unnecessary and it's driving me crazy because you know why, and I think we can all agree we love this game.
Why do we love.
This game because of the places it takes us, the people we meet, the relationships we forge, the experiences we have, the opportunities we have to have that camaraderie community and show up and also share it with the people who
matter most family, friends, our children, their children. So the reason why I want to grow the game, and why I was so supportive of the Grow the Game efforts and why everyone got behind that movement is that very reason, because we want people to have the experiences that we've all been blessed to have relating to golf. If you suck the game of golf out of my life and all the relationships I've had because of golf, I'd have
almost nothing. That's why I care about it. That's why I post, and that's why I want it to continue to grow, because golf creates good people, and good people is exactly what we need right now in this world. And if the person that's showing up and playing music too loud or is not conforming to the general etiquette of what the game is, guess what. We stop them and go.
By the way.
Carts can't drive over the green. Oh, by the way, this is goad Hill Park. This John Ashworth created this community. Please don't just run over arbitrarily. The signs that are saying parts this way. You coach them up. That's part of the process that community kicks in and we right the ship and we correct the wrongs and we make better people because of it. Why is first t exists? Why does uthon course happen because you want kids in the game so that they can become better people.
What are we doing?
Matt?
I wish you had some passion on this.
So this is madness. The governing bodies literally loaded a gun and just shot themselves in their own feet.
Well, okay, let me play Devil's advocate here. I mean, for the beginning golfer. I agree that optically it's not a great message. But for people who just learn to play the game, who don't swing the club that hard or well, they probably won't even notice the difference when the ball goes back. Well that's the question. I mean, that's why bifurcation would have made sense. I think you know, Michael, your point was it? And I like the top flight
versus provy one. Maybe some of us would know the difference, But if we're talking about the beginners, they certain they certainly wouldn't. They're just trying to find the club phase. I mean, Michael, in your mind, what what is the way forward? Like, where does the game go from this moment?
Well, the greatness about the about the four majors when people actually do watch golf and like say Hartford and waste Man, well, Wasteman, it's not for an example, but you know, the ordinary pH to event or the ordinary live event is that those events invited massive, massive audiences. And this this dovetails with with with with medicine. And if we when we watch ordinary golf, it's driver eight iron or driver sandwich into so many part forwards and
we can't relate because we're not doing that. But if those four, let's call it, even five times a year, if the players got on board with it, if you did have a special ball for those events, it would make golf even more inviting because we the public and especially beginners people near to the game, would relate even more to what they're doing on TV because it would at least start to approach what we're doing, which isn't happening now. Now the game is so bifurcated already, but
they're not willing to admit it. You know. Rory McRoy said that the other day, he said, you think the clubs that I played and you play are the same. Of course not. They're so finally tuned to their exact needs. We go to Dick's Sporting Goods about whatever the guy gives us, or if the person gives us. So I think there is really I think that governing bodies didn't really really identify the problem. The problem is not running out of land at ninety nine percent of the thick
golf courses. It's this tiny sliver of courses where they are running out of land. They can't make the course long enough, and we can't really relate to what they're doing. And to your point Alan about, you know, would it really would it be fair to make a guy to play, you know, one ball twenty five weeks a year. To Bad's point about, you know, you got a short porch, you know, Fenway and a different one at Yankee Stadium and Rety and all the rest. Adjust, just adjust. It
would be another part of the challenge. So I think it would. I think it would have been really neat. You know, of course we're not old enough to remember it, but the diming rule was once to think, can you imagine at one point, you know, people are like, can you believe they're going to give it to the steming rule?
Now that this next generation hasn't even heard of it, And why would they so like if you did something quote radical, like actually give the athlete a ball to use in these four or five different tournaments, it would seem crazy and outrageous for a while, and then it just wouldn't. It would just be normal. And of course, of course in every other sport pretty much except for bowling, that's what happens the governing body because every putting on the event gives you a ball and go play. And
even to the last thing. I know, the manufacturers would go crazy about this, but you could even have of course it would be expensive and blah blah blah, but you could have the different manufacturers make the tournament ball that would be used in these four or five different tournaments. Okay, great, they can still get their name out there.
The thing, the other thing that drives me crazy just to say, is like, why why just the ball, Like you know, let's roll back mowing, let's row back mowers, and let's go to longer length fairways, let's grow out rough. I mean, the pros don't like to play with long rough, so guess what, there's no more long rough anyway. They don't play in long rough. They don't. They don't really
like it. You know the pros are going to always just do this is this is a such a small set and an entertainment factor factory, and they're getting paid to put on a show and what we think the show should be or could be or supposed to be, it doesn't matter if they don't if they don't go along with it. It's like you still need to get buy in from them. And if you get buy in
from them, then it doesn't matter from us. And once they passed on it, then why are Why is the solution then to to to go and pick on everybody, you know, everybody at school, Like it just makes no sense to me.
They did address the fairway height in the in the in the report on the distance, and they said it was pretty negligible in two to four yards maybe longer.
Fairweaight cards For what they're saying, right, it is like you know almost a third of what they're actually proposing. So if you take fairway length, if you limit the loft in the club head and say okay, you can only use thirteen degrees and higher, you can't go down to an eight degree loft, if you can only have a certain length of shaft, if you can only have a certain clubhead size. You know, why, why does it
have anything really to do? You know, like why do you just single out the ball and just say.
That's the issue. You know, hard and faster.
We're seeing the ball roll thirty to seventy yards after it lands on these fairways.
Yeah, I think on some level.
The ball is an easy scale go if you wanted to get into the systemic issues and you could go down a rabbit hole, you know, you could regulate t height you get to.
We are in that hole. This is where we are. This is where we've we've we we are not going down the rabbit hole. We have been shoved into.
The rabbit hole.
Yeah, well, unnecessarily. And that's also part of my frustration. You know, the professional game, as you guys both know, is an absolute shit show, dumpster fire, uh, inside out, upside down and backwards. It's it's just like to the point where people are tuning out and moving on at a big at a big rate, and now the governing bodies of the so called quote masses are going to throw this grenade into that room.
Well, it does.
It does get interesting because golf but louder does not really dovetail with shorter driving distances. So what Live is going to do and what the PGA Tour is going to do, and they don't have to be in lockstep assuming this framework agreement blows up, even if it's consummated, like they're not bound by there's no nitty gritty in that that they're gonna have to follow the same competition rules. So then you can you know what one tour does versus the other. To your point, Matt, it gets messy.
I think Michael.
Mentioned this earlier. I mean professional golf on TV has never been more boring, and some of that is just the style of play when they do go to I think it's like that old Donald Ross course outside Detroit. I mean, the guys are in wedge into every single hole. Is just so boring because you give a pro a wedge either going to hit a great shot or a good shot. There's no danger. You know, either they're going to be thirty feet, they're going to be five feet.
But the range of outcomes is so small. That's why I like bifurcation. I like the more severe rollback where the game becomes more interesting to Watts.
In the first four by f Kid, I was for just for the record, I'm for by furcation. Do whatever, you know, like do whatever you want to do the pros and and get them on board.
And that's said that to me is such a miss. Here is you know, the the PGA tour helped kill it. I mean they're still writing letters to the USG They're still pushing back, and it's their product that's suffering. I mean, their product has never been more anadyne and more just it's just predictable. And it's their product, you know what I mean, Like look at the NFL. What a mess the NFL is, But it's their product. Like they're gonna have to address the tush push like that's you know,
you know, I don't Calvin Johnson came along. He was really tall and he's unguardable. Randy Moss was an elite athlete who was basically unstoppable for a chunk of time. I mean Tom Brady won seven supers, you know, was it played in seven Super Bowls?
Like what what?
Like does that mean? We just have like what do we what are we doing? We just sort of react based on everything that continues to happen at the elite level. And the difference here being is that you're making decisions that affect the people who pay to play. What if you put polls in front of everybody's seats in the grandstands of people who are watching football and say we're gonna make it harder for you to watch the game that you're paying to play.
Matt, what would you answer to this question if let's say Mike Wan and Slumbers and Fred Ridley called you zoom called just like this one. They said, Mat, You've been around the game all your life. What do you see as the issue with the game right now as it relates to this one narrow thing? How far the golf ball goes?
I don't see it. I do not do well. I just don't see it. Buddies trip we have on our annual Buddies trip, we have a range of plus handicaps to twenty four handicaps. If anything, distance is an issue for the greater majority of the people on the trip in terms of the ball doesn't go far enough golf.
Go go play lido.
Right now from the forward t's and if you shoot your handicap, I'll send you a hat. Right now, Go play the lido at Sand Valley. And you think you're going to go out there and overpower that golf course. This is one of the old classics that was built to be a tough golf course. Like, you know, I don't see it. I don't see it anywhere. I don't see it at Tory Pines. I don't see it at Beth Page. I don't see the distance is not an issue unless we turn on the TV and we think
we're going to ask ourselves. And if you're at a private club and distance is an issue, maybe you have an issue with an architecture of that golf course or where that bunker was originally. Like, really, there's enough people in your membership at your private club that you all pay to play that this is a problem that should
in somehow impact the masses. Do whatever you want at your club, do whatever you want at the pur But for the people who rock up at goad Hill Park forty five yards par sixty five, eight par threes, you know what the issue is. It's golf is too hard. That's the issue. So anything we're doing to make it harder makes no sense, and it's going to affect the bottom line at that little mini municipal who's fighting for its life to try to get more people to rock up and pay to play.
Alan, what do you what do you think? Alan? What do you think? Like? My contention is they haven't really been forth right about what they think the problem is. But what is what's your take on.
When you say they are you are you talking about the ruling bodies as the day.
Yeah, they think the.
Problem is really really whether they're saying it publicly or not.
Yeah, I mean Matt touched on the problem is that the two tournaments are being most affected by the distance explosion is the US Open and the British Open, because they're locked into these old traditional venues that have gotten so short. And it's we have a measuring stick and you go back to the old course every five years you can see, you know, no one's hitting drive off eighteenymore. It is too short at the old course. I mean
it's a three wooded computer. In five years are going to be you know, uh Lude, big a bear and and Gordon Sargent. I'm gonna be hitting three irons and driving the green quickly quickly.
I would definitely add as Nation to that list. I guess too, so that everybody and their mother reaches eight now No, so that, so that that is the issue for the governing vice.
They've been asleep at the wheel for decades.
Distances have gone unchecked, and where it's most obvious is at their most important championships. And so I think they're embarrassed, Like you know, they play the old course they have they put tea's on the eden and the new course and in ob areas and all this ridiculousness just to try and make it something like the shot values that have always been there.
So that's what I think.
That's why I think is driving this is they have egg on their face every year when it's clear that their their malfeasance and their ineptitude has allowed the professional game to become to run amok, and so they they have to do something because of their own championships.
It's only two.
Weeks a year, just for four or five weeks a year. Yeah, Like, no, no LPG event feels that way that I could imagine, no way. Now players felt the player the TPC sawgrass course, they would probably identify with all of that. Got me, eighteen Can you match your guys playing eighteen at the three arn and a six arm? Which they do? You know you hit a three arm and you hit it right down the right side the Boks and then you'll hit a cut six iron in there. I mean, that's
not what Pete I wanted. So so okay, I think that I'm based on what you just said, we're totally on the same page. So on that basis, I'm with you with the line in the sand. But why not, as Matt and I have both been saying, why not just have a golf ball for these four or five weeks a year.
It's certainly feasible, And now that's going to be the only solution since since they've officially punted on bifurcation as a governing principle, then the tournament ball becomes the last hope. But to me, I mean, I like you said, I think you said it. Well, Michael, it seems crazy, but then after a couple of years, it's not a big deal. And you know, when I coached high school basketball, we use a certain kind of basketball all year long. We get to the CCS playoffs, they have a deal a
different manufacturer. They handle this ball pre game. It feels weird, it doesn't dribble the same. The girls don't like it. Well, too bad. This is the ball we're using. You got fifteen minutes of warmups to get used to it, and you go play. It's still a round ball that bounces, so I mean it exists in sports like but.
That is sport right there. It's like when when Phil complained about the two hundred and seventy yard par three may who cares? Is two seventy for everybody? Done? Right there.
College baseball players play their whole lives with middle bats, and in order to make the pros, they have to adjust to a wooden bat. The you know, the the goat. Let's let's pull the caddies. Okay, let's go to Saint Andrews and the Old Course and ask the caddies if we think we need to roll the ball back to make the Old Course more relevant. Let's go to Pebble Beach and ask the caddies if we think this is a good idea to roll the ball back for the
people who are rocking up and playing Pebble Beach. I know for a fact that the caddies at Sand Valley dread the idea that they're going to have to caddy for these amateurs at the Lido on a daily basis and have to witness the carnage that's going to be displayed out there for all these people who love the architecture and playing one of these classical golf courses and they're making putting out for sixes, sevens, eights. Please pick
it up, you're making a nine. Please, it's over. Let's go and talk to the caddies about which course they like to caddy at Bandon Dunes more is it Pacific Dunes or is it is it Sheep Ranch? Like this is like this.
This is this right?
So okay, this is where we've come to in this podcast. We all three of us agree they should have bifurcated.
They didn't.
So now an interesting question becomes what happens in seven years, Like will will the golfers rebel? Will they just will they just opt out? You know, none of us are playing in big time amateur events. We're just playing with our friends. So when you get to the first t in two thousand and January first, two thousand and thirty, do you say, boys, you know, I've got some pro v ones that are year and a half old.
I'm going to use them. I don't know what you got, you know, like.
It's it's just like when we play, we grant each other mulligans. Occasionally there's certainly gimme's, Like all of us have our own low key interpretation of the rules as it is now. So what do you think will the average golfer embrace the new dead ball? Or in mass are we just going to vote with our pocketbooks and ignore the rule?
Like, what's going to happen?
People are going to be I don't care. People are going to be I don't care. You know, I've been playing these iwos. I don't know if they're legal or not. I think they are. I think their grandfather did. I don't care. Now if it was actually playing in something where someone cared and said, okay, well if you care them, I care. But otherwise I don't care.
Well, I mean, so, Matt, Matt, you you organize an annual Buddies trip. People know about the Uncle Tony motasal Michael, you have an annual gathering called the Shiviz where you bring together, you know, a couple dozen guys to play. So what is going to happen in twenty thirty? Are you going to have to specify to this motley crew of friends who come from all over the country have
different backgrounds in golf, different handicaps, different world views. Are you going to say what ball they have to do?
Is? Mean course, the answers is known. And to your point out you know this word bifurkate, it seems to be like the one dressed up. You know, tiger love is the word. It's been using it for years, like people seem to know what the word is, but the word is so abused. The game is not bifurkate. We just play a totally different game. My little thing, you know, uh, that has all sort of its own quirks as well.
And my thing, you can't make worse than triple. There's nothing in the rule but says you can't make worse than triple. But in my thing, you can't make worse and triple. And the whole handicap system is the whole entire handicap system is quote bifurcated. Because you're supposed to turn in a stroke play score where putts are routinely given. Those two things don't go in the hand in hand, right. The gimme is a real thing in match play, and
it's totally an anomaly or not anomaly. It's it's anathema to shop play competition, yet you combine the two so that the PG excuse me, the governing has done a very poor job of explaining that there really are two different games. And and I think that's I think that's a starting point recording seven years fround. I don't think allan anyone's going to I don't think anyone's going to care if.
We I don't know, Well, this is a thought exercise. Matt twenty thirty. Uncle Tony Invitational. Hopefully I'm there. Let's say you hopefully I'm there.
Yeah, so I.
Won't maybe names like Kevin Price.
But we have some hardos who like really follow the rules of golf and are really into that. So some of the guys come up to the Uncle Tony they have the dead balls. I say, you know what, I'm not down with the USGA. I'm I'm using my old ball.
Gives me an advantage.
I win the Uncle Tony Invitational. Some guys are pissed off because I use an old ball and I had an advantage, Like you, as the commissioner, how are you going to deal with that?
I did you know I kicked people out for not wanting music. You know, I kick people out for you know, bringing sh campaign instead of whine or tequila like that. You know, I kick people out for complaining about who they're paired with. Like I'm not kicking people out for you know. We we go to Bandon Dune's and we play the sixty two hundred yard tees and we let the uncles you know, go all the way up where you know, play from wherever you want to essentially play from.
I'm doing everything I can to try to make this more fun. I always say my first advice to any alpha planner of a Buddy's trip is play down to your lowest common denominator. Essentially, in terms of budget, you've got to make sure you don't price people out of the destination. You want to make sure everybody comes along. You want to have the highest handicappers be able to
have a chance to have fun and win. I don't cater to like the two or three plus handicaps on the trip and let the rest of the people suffer the consequences. In fact, I let the lowest handicappers play from where the forward tease so that we don't buy for Kate the camaraderie of the event by having those guys go all the way to the back teas and us having to wait for them to hit, and then we all wait and then we then hit. Oh I forgot, Sorry,
we have one more. I didn't know. You have to hit like I'm trying to accommodate the group, the masses, because everybody is paying to be there. And if the good players end up shooting sixty five instead of shit sixty nine, I don't really give a shit. I say, that's really well played. All he done is pro is an exceptional player. He has struggled the last few years. He got his game in gear. He had four rounds in the sixties, including on the Leado, which is great golf,
and he won the tournament. As you know, he and his partner Andrew Fleming had a five or six handicap, won the tournament. They beat all the net players because they played the best golf. I don't really give it. I don't really give a shit. And going back to the tournament ball and the US in the RNA taking the pile of cash that they're all sitting on that they've been taking for all the entrants and all the people who paid to be a part of these tournaments
and all the merchandise it's been sold. Making a tournament ball and throwing up a purse of twenty million or how are amid millions of dollars they put in terms of a purse for the United States Open and hoist that big trophy and have one of the majors. They are sitting with the leverage in the power because they've
got the money for those events. If they set a price of what you're playing for and this is the US Open and it's a major championship, but you have to play this tournament ball that we've created, people would play it. And if the players don't want to play it, they don't play it. Make it about that small slice and ignore the rest of us and leave us alone.
So we have an emerging consensus on this podcast. They should have bifurcated. They didn't. Now they should go to a tournament ball. And the thing that's interesting is if they were to do that, that would be great for Goat Hill because and shorter courses because not everybody wants
to buy percimmons or as access to Percimmons. But you could go to Goat and you play the tournament ball, and now instead of forty five hundred yards, it plays more like fifty five hundred and essentially, you know, you could take these these deador balls to par three courses like Golden Gate Park, hit More Club if you want to. Like I was actually on Grand Cayman, like I think I was in high school and I played the Cayman ball on that little course and it was like it
was fun. You know, you're playing a eighty yard hole and you're hitting a three wood or whatever. And I mean as as we as we we've been celebrating all these part three courses, Like I think if you have this this tournament ball, that you could be mass marketed for shorter courses.
That could be fun. It just that's all the real.
I mean, people I walk up to go with Friday Skins. Guys put in twenty bucks, some guys play Percimmons, some guys out Todd Dempsey. Right now, as we're talking in this conversation, through one round of the PGA Tour champions Q School is four under par. He's playing the Q School with Per Simmons that he made that he made hand crafted. Todd Dempsey legend, Arizona State. Like this guy is like a bona fide badass. He rolled it back himself, and he's competing with the rest. He should roll back
is there. If you want it, you want it, go take it, have at it, roll it back, do whatever you want until you're blue in the face. I could care less leave us alone.
Tapping on what ball he's using.
No, if he's using a gut of perza, I'll be really impressed.
Not Yeah, it's not all right.
Well it's it's an interesting topic and it gets people fired up, as listeners have heard on this podcast, especially.
Where are you going in Australia?
Yeah, we should we should mention that it's it's Wednesday, late morning here in California. I'm going to be driving to SFO here in a little bit and I'm going to be flying to Melbourne, Australia for Jeff Ogilvie and Michael Clayton's sand Belt Invitational, one of the coolest little tournaments in golf. We've been covering it the last couple of years on Firepit Collective dot com.
I was just doing it from Afar.
We had some video guys who are on site, but I'm making the trip this year. I will be doing daily dispatches, fun stuff on social try and wrangle a few homies for a podcast perhaps and you know I've I'll tweet it out. I Matt and I and a couple other our friends did this the ultimate golf trip probably in the history of golf trips, right for COVID hit and we did Melbourne and Tasmania and king Island that's in between, and it was it was epic. Also
New Zealand. I can't believe we did that in eight days. And yeah, Melbourne is one of the all time great destinations.
So I'm excited. I'll bring my golf clubs.
I'm gonna be a little busy, but hopefully I can sneak in some golf and it's it's just gonna be It's gonna be a fun time. And I hope people follow along because if you if you haven't paid attention to the stamp but invitational, it brings together the pros and amateurs, men and women, some some old AUSSI legends. You know, we're seniors now playing it. So it's multi generation. It's
just they play a different course every day. Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath Peninsula, Kingwood, which is a neo Classic and the fourth.
The fourth venue rotates this year.
It's Victoria, where there's a statue of Peter Thompson by the first tea waiting to pass judgment on your t shot and great golf course. Super fun place. We last night of our trip, we stayed in the clubhouse there and they have some rooms and.
We were the people.
The members kind of knew We've been on social media for weeks playing all these golf courses and so they were happy are there and one of the most fun nights ever had in golf travel because they were so welcoming and.
Want to hear all our tall tales.
So I'm looking forward to getting back to Victoria and yeah, it's it's gonna be good fun.
Thanks for mentioning that, Michael.
I appreciate that. That shows you how much sway Clayton and Ogle we have in the game when you when you cite those courses, I mean, for people know Dolphin Australia, that's uh, Marion and Seminole and Augusta National and psych Melbourne.
Melbourne is like taking the best of Philadelphia, the best of Chicago, the best of San Francisco, and the best of New York and putting them all in like you know, within driving distance, like within a very short amount. It's an embarrassment of ridge. They have so many they can rotate for the next few years and you'd never have to play the same one over and over again. Victoria. I got the chance to stay at Victoria Golf. We we stayed in those little those rooms above the club out.
I mean, it's such an incredible golf course. And the way that those fairways cut into those greens and there's you know, and then on into those bunkers.
It's like it's it's so pure.
It is so pure well and.
Just as quick quick as I hear. But it relates to our theme when when Tiger played as the playing captain in that i think twenty nineteen President's Cup, the shots that he played there were so inventive and so much more interesting than you know, the smash mouth golf that we're customers saying. You know, i'd say at Hartford, I'm not picking a Hartford, but that's what they do there.
It's a long, you know, it's a short, soft course, but it was just interesting, and you know, maybe it's a function of my age and the kind of golf I grew up watching that. You know, I'm so drawn to that kind of golf. But I don't know anybody couldn't say that that was that's not better golf, and
that's that's the joy of the old course. It really should be the joy of Augusta National only, especially when it's dry at all, is to see guys pay fiddly finesse difficult shots out of difficult lies in the ball move. So anyway, I don't have a great grade trip, but I think on the point that golf gets more interesting
when the ball is not so hot. And you know, I just want to wrap up one quick thought here because I feel like maybe i've been too harsh harsh on the governing bodies, and I really do agree with that first thing you said, you did have to do something, and this is doing something, and I do think it's a good thing that they're doing it, and they are giving a lot a lot of the time, but it's a major but it's not going to do anything for the real issue that I think facing golf, which is
are these great courses from yesteryear are going to become relics? That's really the honest to god issue, And I think they have not really been willing to say that out loud.
And I just want I want to clear up one little factoid. Tom Brady played in ten Super Bowls, one seven of them. We celebrate his greatness. Steph Curry is, you know, revolutionizing the game of basketball, and we celebrate
Steph Curry's greatness. Lebron James, Wilt Chamberlain, you know, scored one hundred points and they didn't raise the rim like I Just what sort of always kind of half bugs me about the game of golf is we can never be satisfied and just simply celebrate greatness without overreacting and tigerproofing or you know, rolling back the ball like it just for whatever reason, we can't just simply say that's amazing, congratulations.
And just a quickholo of that. Matt just proves how genius, not really the golf governing guys can be. Is they got they got tigetproofing totally wrong. Exactly you got it right, was Nick Price. So you want to tigerproof, go to sixty six hundred.
Yards less is more. It's the answer to this has always been shorter is the answer, not necessarily for the ball but for the courses and the architecture and the turnpoints and make it, make them be more accurate. And I'm just I'm bummed. But I love golf. I know we all love golf. Anybody who's listening right now still loves golf. And this, to me is a bruise on the game.
I don't agree that. I don't think this is any certa crisis. I think it's more like nothing.
It's unnecessary, it's unnecessary.
It's kind of an own goal.
Well, I'm just gonna wrap up by saying that I hope I'm still still Michael Clayton.
By the way, No, don't let him in, leave him in the waiting room.
Yeah, why don't we, Alan, Why don't we let Michael go?
And let's say a load to Michael.
For another, doctor Bamberger, thank you? Yes, oh my god. All right, I'm gonna patch Michael Clayton in. He's coming on. As Bamberger is saying goodbye, We're trading one Michael for another. We're going from Philly to Melbourne. Quite an exciting thing. But we're gonna actually stop this podcast down. If you care to listen to conversations with Michael Clayton that'll be part two of our rollback conversation, Big Gun.
I played the wind, made a fortune. When my ship came in, I ran the table, never thought I could fall down. The winter time hit me like a cannon in the ball, and now I can't shape this losing streak. Every road I take is a dead end street. I got thoughts in my head, can't get them out, trying not to think what I'm thinking about. I got the thoughts in my head. I can't get them out, trying not to think what I'm thinking about.