What's the point of a golf course at that level? It's a bull's going three hundred and seventy five yards. There is there is no point to it. There's no point to golf if every every powfowards are driving a wage and you can't keep extending tease. You can't. So you know this is a this is the right decision.
I got daouncing my head can't get him and not the thing what I'm thinking about, not counting bouncing my head.
Can't get him out, not the thing what I'm thinking about.
Hello, this is Alan Schipnook back for another Fire Drill podcast. We started talking roll back, Matt Janella, Michael Bamberger and myself. We ended that because Michael Clayton called in from Melbourne. You know Michael Clayton as the core architect of barn Google Dunes and Neo Classic down in Tasmania, long time tour player in Australia and in Europe, a great thinker about the game. And without further ado, let's go to cleats. Who's coming in hot.
Well, I've been on about it for twenty years, which is about as long as everyone else has since the pro v when it there's a whole bunch of issues it for the best players. It fundamentally changed the way golf courses play because the ball goes so far. So if you'd said that to Alison McKenzie one hundred years ago that in one hundred years time, the vast majority of power fours were going to be only driving eight irons and the other six holes were six h seven,
I had two five irons. Now, if you'd said to the great minds of golf of one hundred years ago that this is what the game is going to toscend into, is a succession of massive drives and short irons, that it would be horrified at that because that wasn't the way they thought the test of golf. That wasn't what they saw the questions of golf course asking that they
all assumed and thought. The golf course would ask occasionally that the part four was a test of a driving a wood, lots of long lines, chilling has to win foot, you know, it was about drives and long lines, and that has largely completely gone from the professional game. Mike One asked Rory three the Scottish Open, when was the last time you hit more than a six hundred a
part four I don't remember. You know, it's clearly a ludicrous situation when when a golf course Arctic and a golf course can't ask the best players in the world is at more than a six hunder or part forever and it really happens.
So the question now is.
The USG and the RNA have decided to take a stand.
But did they go far enough?
I mean, is is this rollback and have a material difference on how the game is played?
Or is it more symbolic than anything else?
If they went back to the distance Jack and Greg hit the ball in the mid eighties, not Jack and Jack in the seventies, Greg Norman when Norman was a massive hit eighty but he probably wasn't at top of the driving distance on the PGA two is probably was, but he was in the top three. He was driving
it somewhere around the mid two seven to eighty. Say that would be that would for me would be a reasonable You know, was anyone saying golf was broken in the eighties when when the ball was going as far as it was and short courses of length and since then? But you know, in twenty twenty eight, when they're rolling the ball back and the balls and it's going to be going further in twenty twenty eight than it is in twenty twenty three because there are just more young
kids coming out with the ball further. So if what are they rolling it back, you know, ten percent? Five percent? Maybe they were saying, yeah, so not going to make that much difference. I don't think, you know, it's what's five percent, So it's fifteen or twenty yards, it'll help and it'll help with you know, all this last week
is routine eight iron. We had we become a bit of a joke by the end of the week because we had we had the exact one sixty meet number five times during the week exactly on one one hundred and seventy five yards. That's an eight iron.
The rollback has not gone far enough. So one thing that Matt and Mike Lane were kicking around was why not a tournament ball just for the major championships to protect these old golf courses. Would you would you support that?
No? Because what about Australia? Does anyone care about Royal Melbourne? I mean, the problem with this debate is it's entirely American centric. Now that affects America. I mean, you know, there are two points. We went through a roll back, an effective roll back. The opening of nineteen seventy four went to the big ball, then the tour in Australia. I think in nine seventy eight, I think the seventy seven Open was a small ball tim and seventy eight
was a big ball to him. It was the first one I played in Europe about the same time, so you know, and no one in America cared that we all lost twenty five guards and it was a much bigger change. The size of the ball changed, every shot change, chips changed, bunker shot change, putch changed, It was way more difficult to play in the wind, you know, I mean, everything changed for us, and no one in America gave
a damn that we all had to change. And of course the unintended consequence of that was the great generation of foreign players that you know, I argue with that never would have happened. Ballisteros, Norman, Price, Langer fell, all those guys lyle if they'd been switching, which was happening in Australia, you know, David Graham would come back and he'd want to play the big ball because he was playing in America he hated switching balls, and everyone hated
switching balls back and forward. So it was a great thing that had happened. And the unintended consequence was that generation of players all of a sudden didn't have to change balls and you had to hit the ball better because it was more difficult used to be called. So now that's what I was saying, that it was off the point. So no, I wouldn't just in doorse of the major championships because what about courses in Britain and Australia for tournaments here, So I.
Guess it'd be more like a tournament, a tournament ball that any tournament could invoke that rule.
Yeah, well, so of course the Australian would adopt it, and probably the Japanese Open. But then you've got this mess of players switching balls again, which is which is what we're is where we were aut last time, and players hate switching balls. Are you either change or you don't.
But I think it's going to be a worldwide thing, you know, I always you know, I always thought bicycle in the game was better because we had a bifircated game and it was just fine, right, you know, of course this is a compromise, and a compromise, no one's ever happy as a pissed off because they're losing distance, even though you know, again it's an American center of debate.
The evidence of our rollback, which was smaller a big ball, was that no one cared when they said that's a good idea, and they changed and everyone changed, and you know, Peter Thompson objected because his view was, why are we blindly following America, which was you know, not long after the Vietnam War, which where we blindly followed America into the Vietnam Wars. That wasn't a very good idea either, but you know, that was a reasonable point of view.
Why are we just blindly following America? Because because you know, there was there were two reasons for the well, the small ball was better in the wind, and it was the easier to use in the wind. And there's a much more wind in Australia and Britain there is in America. But my understanding is the Americans began to use the big ball because it sat up better on the lush off their ways, you know, way back when they changed when they made the ball bigger. I don't know when
they did it, the twenties or thirties. Whenever they did it was because the small balls sat down, and you know the weather lash of Fellers in America, the small ball sat down more so they just made the big the ball bigger than make it easy to hit. I think that's what happened. Amazing.
It is a funny, funny chapter that modern golf fans have forgot about completely, that we've already gone through this and as a sport.
But well, well that's kind of my big beefy is that you know, you get on Twitter and Americans are going nut's about this. Well, we all went through this. This wasn't that big a deal. But it's you know, it's maybe a bad analogy, but when we had a gun massacre in nineteen ninety six and thirty five people were killed in Port Arthur, the prime minister, the conservative prime minister, said that's bad. We're going to buy back guns and we're going to restrict people's ability to use
and buy guns. They won said that's a good idea. You and Sandy Hook and if that didn't stop, you know, so Americans react much differently in Australian than probably Europeans.
And geopolitics has entered the chat.
But hold on, let me, let me, let me just jump in here for a second, because, first of all, Jim Jeffries and his just having you talk about the guns and stuff that.
Jim Jeffries comedic, brilliant.
Yeah, is one of the things that I actually watch to give myself like therapy over what's happening with guns in America. It's like, I just listen to that and it gives me at least a little I'm able to laugh about a really sad and horrific situation.
Yeah, that's an amendment.
Yeah, I mean, I can't even you can't even do him justice. Watch Jim Jeffries on guns. If you haven't seen it, I've watched it forty four hundred and seventy two times. It's brilliant. The Michael I'm listening, I have nothing but respect and admiration for you, your place in the game architecture, your opinions. So I've been listening, and I and I and I read what you what you write, and I and I and I hear what you're saying.
You're caddying for these young players. But you know, for me and and you, we said, yes, I'm American centric because I'm in America, and I've been a part of the game since, you know, covering the game since y five and and have watched the game struggle, ebb and flow, shrink, grow, shrink again. Here we are at this height of this boom in America with golf. Everybody's coming to the game, and we're coming at the game. The game has evolved, right.
We're just on the phone and did a podcast on Jay Blasi redoing a part three course at Golden Gate Park. We know gold Hill Park, and Jeff comes and plays Per Simmons at a forty five hundred yard par sixty five. And that place is booming and it's great and people can roll back there or not roll back. And we have this, you know, all those oh the game initiatives and all those youth initiatives, and all this momentum and growth for the amateurs, for the people who pay to
play is in a really nice, beautiful, healthy place. Now some would argue we have too many people out there. They're the etiquette is bad, and I feel like over time we train them up, we get more people playing the game and more people playing the game means more good people because the game fosters good people. Right, We learn community, camaraderie. We travel to play the game. By traveling, you experience different cultures. Different cultures means you get more information.
More information means less racism, less bullshitty. That relates to the other sort of components of general life and the way we consume the world around us. Right, all those things are why we I think we can all agree the common bond here is that we love the game.
Right.
You love the game. I love the game. We come at it from different perspectives. You're really in the ropes of the professional game and seeing these guys go driver eight iron from one hundred and seventy and that hurts you, right, that hurts you. What what hurts me is the governing bodies contradictions of like grow the game, grow the game, grow the app hold on, we grew too much, or the ball's going too far, and now we're going to
put a full stop on the people who pay to play. Right, people rocking up, and the general perception being that whether it's five yards or fifteen yards or zero yards, whatever it is, it's just this pr nightmare that they've unleashed right now today on the masses, and the game being dragged professionally through this horrific situation from a professional standpoint, and then throwing the ams into a similar pr nightmare. Just feels like it doesn't make sense. Why just the ball?
Why not shrink the club beds, Why not grow the fairway length? You know hard? In fact, the fair ways at the old course were running faster than the green. Like, there's so many other factors to me to pinpoint the ball to say that this is the issue, and this is what we're rolling back, and this is how far we're rolling back, and we're doing in twenty eight Like to me, it's like it's so unnecessary, and that's what hurts me.
Well, I don't think the ball is clearly not the issue. The balls the solution. The issue is, you know, the complete failure of the USCA and the RNA to administer someone that controlled the size of the driverhead. When the great Big Bertha came out, they should have said that's it, you know. So what I think came with the oversized driver ahead was long as shafts, because if you put a forty three and a half inch shaft in a one of the modern drivers that looks completely out of scale,
looks ridiculous. And if you put a one or today's shafts in an oppersimit head, it also looks ridiculous. So the scale of the the length of the club, which is all contributed to the ball going further, and if also the ball runs for there was no run last week at this ran open. The ball was not moving on the fairway more than five yards, so short, and it's always run for Everetts and Andrews, you know, and my Canadate one. It's been a lot of it's been
a COVID injuice boom and two that go. But we went through this before and nothing, no one can play, nothing happened. The game still the game, you know. I arguably the game grew in the in the in the eighties when everyone lost twenty five yards and went and went to play with the big ball, which was a bigger change than this to the average player, was a much bigger change to change the size of the ball,
and the game did just fine. So I don't see that the game is predicated around how far the ball goes. The other point I would make is that to agree with you. The best the best thing the administration could do was take away all the restrictions and make a ball that went fifty yards further for women and old guys and probably half the people who play golf. So why why is my wife's mother playing golf with the
sign boll Roy McElroy. It's ridiculous. Michael Buller goes further if you can, well, you know, wouldn't that grow the game more than I think what was if you you know, for the you know, for the majority of amateurs who played the game, if the bull went further, wouldn't the game be more fun?
Yeah? And the other thing is, I think we all agreed that bifurcating is the answer. And unfortunately, you know that got had declined or denied at the elite level, and so therefore here we are. You know, I look at pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports in the US because it's a mini mini version of tennis. We see short course, top golf, part three courses, you know, as I pointed out, look at Bandon Dune's the last four editions short course, putting course, short and fun course
in the Sheep Ranch and another short course. Because Kaiser's hyper focused on the retail golfer and making sure people want to keep coming back. He's creating more short cradle at Pinehurst and the short course at Whistling Straits and Forest Dunes and over and over and over again. Short is happening. The game is evolving. We are making adjustments because of time, playability, affordability, accessibility, all those things. It feels like they say, oh, not doing anything, wasn't It
wasn't an option. In fact, as it relates to the people who pay to play, I think it was an option. And I was saying earlier when we were talking with Bamberger. If the USJA is sitting on a polo cash and the RNA is sitting on a polo cash, why don't they cut out the middleman, not deal with the manufacturers, make their own tournament ball, set up a twenty million dollar perse that's called the US Open, which is a
major championship. Say you got to play with this ball that we made, and let everything else fall into place. People who are going to want to play for that kind of money are going to start playing with that ball and practicing with it and using it when they need to, when designated events. Say we're going to the
tournament ball. It feels like then you're addressing the rollback that needs to happen at the venues that need it to happen at, with the players who need it to be that need to be impacted, and you're leaving everybody else alone.
I mean that was That's what's crazy.
That was part of that was the original phrasing of this rollback was the local model rule. Like they could have this already, would have been done and dusted, it would have been announced today, but the tours killed it, like yes.
So so it's it's a case of be careful what you wish for. You know, it's the manufacturer's fault. If Wally Ulon whoever the bust of Toddles is right now it said, this is a good idea. We're very happy to make a ball for the top level of the game. You know, we don't want to bother it, cut it, so so we'll support this. Instead they kick and screaming, go nuts about it, like like every every like every lobby group, like the cigarette companies are, the alcohol companies are,
the gambling companies. Certainly in Australia, I argue against everything that I think is going to affect their bottom line. So the us and I said, okay, we'll do it for everyone.
Well they are they in fairness to them, in fairness to them, and I'm not paid by any equipment company, right, we have no ties to any equipment company. But in fairness to let's say titleist. If some restaurant is making really good chicken and they've worked hard at their recipe and they're making the best chicken in town, and someone rocks up and says, sorry, no more selling that type of chicken. You're going to have to use this type
of chicken. And they go, well, wait a minute. We've spent years and we've got this chef that specifically makes this famous recipe, and you're going to take I mean, they are trying to make a living. And that's why I'm saying to the USGA and the RNA, then get in the ball business and make your own ball. Don't be beholden to the manufacturers. If you really want to govern the game. You kind of missed the boat you lost. The ship has sailed, and you know twenty years ago
you kind of missed. Now you can take matters in your own hands because you've made a bunch of money off of all those guys hitting at that far, this long, this many times. You've made the money on on on the tournaments that you hold. Put it into your own ball and take control of your own situation and pay for the price. Pay the price that you missed twenty years ago by not doing what you should have been done back then.
So who's going to use that ball? The European too, the Japanese too, this is African too, these trying to it. Well, then it's just a complete miss because you know the players are going to go to they're going to play the West Test, the Classical or whatever. Though, and then the week after they got to the USR and they got to change bulls when they go they're going to hide doing that.
In baseball, Michael, one week you play at Finway. In the next next week you play at Kamiski, or the next week you go to Petco and you got to play different length of of of you know, little different lighting situations, you know, different court. Every golf course creates their own set of different you know, it's a venue. It changes all the time.
Like my mind would be the histor the evidence of when the game last had that situation when players would come to Australia go to Britain to live for the open and switch balls. They hated it. In fact, Jack was the one I think he said to the RNA in ninth you know in the early seventies, we need to go and we all need to be start playing the same ball. So in seventy four they switched to the big ball. So you know, players players switching back and forward is going to be a nightmare, I think.
But you're still dealing with the small subset who get paid to play, and not affecting the people who pay to play, which is really at the base of all of this. This is a business. This is a game people choose to participate in in their off time after they're after they're done with work.
Yeah that's true, but it goes back to my original point. When they rolled the ball back in Australia and Britain, no one gave up becaus the ball went shorter. No, golves are much better game than you know. I'm not going to play if my ball goes shorter. I mean, either move up a tea or you know whatever. But you know, golf is not about how fare your driver go.
I don't think if the only reason you're playing golf is because your ball goes, and what's the what's the average gamer on its five yards ten yards, He's not even going to notice it really move up a tea or whatever. But the game, the evidence of the last time this happened was well, the evidence was the game was just fine. Well why you do it? Because one, because the ball goes way too far, not for just the players on the PJ Tour or the European Tour,
but for the average am. I mean Lucas Michelle who works for me one of the US metameter a few years ago. Every hole of Metro is pretty much a driver and a wedge for him. And it's a long golf course. The ball goes and there are two other things that no one ever talks about. Well, some talk about the problem with the ball has never been hit further off line. It goes miles sideways. Now with for good for strong young men who not on the PJ Tour, but it can s win the club at a decent speed.
But when the club gets inside and the faces open, there are boundary problems that we as architects are completely unsolvable. Now the ball goes way further offline than it ever did,
so that's a problem. And the other thing I think that having catered at the European Tour school and watch the Australian Tour and watch others struggle to get on a tour outside of Australia despite being probably the best young player down here, is you look around the professional game and there are way too many young kids trying to make a living when there are way too few jobs. And the more difficult the game was to play, you would weed the kids out h aren't good enough before
they get two players pros. There are way too many kids from make a living out of this game. And when you know, I keep saying when I played, you know, back and back in the day. I don't want to sound like an old grump who just wants to go back to the way it was. But the great thing about if the Simmon driver and a blader ball was it always found the best player in the world of at the Open Championship. Because if you couldn't hit a persimmon driver and a blader ball through the wind, you
didn't have a hope in the Open. So you look at the guys who won that tournament. Once the Americans started playing, were the guys who won that tournament always the best, the guy who was playing the best or the best part in the world. And seventy three was why scoff in seventy six it was miller Jack was always there at Trevino seven at the end of the seventies, you know, so you know, you really had to hit
that ball properly. And since then we've seen the game get way more fun and way better for the people. You care about that and the people I care about. We all care about the average player. The driver's easier to hit, the hybrid's better, revelation, laft wedges have been a revelation, the fact that we got away from Ballada so you could buy an affordable ball that wouldn't cut and it would spin, but it flew better through the wind.
I mean, so many things that have happened in the last forty years because of technology that made the game easier to play. And that's a great that's been a eight thing for golf and the growth of the game. But the unintended consequences. There are thousands of young kids
who all think they're good enough to be pros. Now they're all out there and there aren't enough jobs for them, and it's a it's not a tragedy like Guards as a tragedy or is, you know, but it's a tragedy in a game, and that these kids they're never going to make a living out and the quicker. You can weed those kids out of the top level because they're not good enough to play, but the equipment has given a sense that they're good enough because the ball goes
a long way, they shoot load scores. If they can't at a one on like Jack and gregor at the one on, they can need a hybrid club. There are thousands of them out there, and if you made the game marginally more difficult to play for them, it would stop this chantage of thousands of kids out there trying to play.
But even even as it relates to the guys on tour, it would be a more interesting game where the driver edge to me is a problem as just a consumer, it just gets boring well.
Well, and people are turning off the page. I can't tell them. It feels that I don't watch anyone. What's boring?
Yeah, it really, But again, Michael, there the PGA Tour is in control of their product. This is a product, you know, the governing bodies just because they're going to say whatever they're saying, the PGA Tour is still going to do what it does. The PGA of America is going to do what it does. Like I still don't see how or what like there is. You know, the governing body of the NFL is the NFL. The governing
body of Major League Baseball is Major League Baseball. The governing body of the PGA Tour is the PGA Tour. They they're trying to sell tickets, and if they have identified a problem with what their product is, they need to make changes based on you know, the the the eyeballs, how they broadcast the tournament, like the PJ Tour is
a lot of issues. But like hitting the ball to or or you know, having people rock up and see someone hit a two hundred and eighty five yard drive versus a three hundred and fifteen yard drive, I don't know if that's going to solve their problem.
They got real rules, but the different Yeah, but the difference between baseball and football and those other sports is none of those players are paid as endorses for the Baseball are using or the football are using. Every golfer is a paid endorser of an equipment company. The players have a huge voice on the PJ Tour. The equipment companies don't want the ball roll back, and the players
are just spooking their message, that's all they're doing. And players who I know Ogilvy was without throwing him in the mess, was that, Jeff, we're not paying it to talk about the ball. Stop talking about the ball. And he stopped talking about the ball. So the players, their opinions are owned and bought by the manufacturers. And Rory and Tiger are the only two guys who are big enough to come out and say what they what they want to say, because what's the Bridge not going to sign a Tiger?
Well yeah, well because they've gotten rich nothing, but they've gotten rich enough to be able to have that independence, you know what I mean.
But well, the players have it, and and you know, going back to the chicken analogy, titlists have always made the best ball, and and they've all and they've developed the naming golf that they're not going to sell one less golf ball if the ball goes shorter because one they've always made their best ball and in the last seventy years that they've created an amazing brand. So people aren't going to stop buying titless balls because the titlest
ball goes shorter. But I make a difference step bottom line.
Well, if it's illegal. If it's illegal, they'll stop buying it. I mean, you know, in theory, I mean, I could
see their point. They've if you go to the ball factory and you see what they do and put into the R and D and how many decades of money they've spent to b number one, in which you know they've earned it quite frankly, I mean, and then you know, and then you blur that, you blur the marketplace, you and you bring everybody back to a starting point in which you're you know, yeah, you're going to have a lawsuit. And again why you know, of course I.
Would see I would I would argue that that just this is Tylis to be the most popular maker of the new ball if people trust them and they've got the R and D, we'll see.
But you can see where you can see their argument saying you know, yeah, you know.
So so here's a question, Matt. You know, we agree that this is a compromise, bifurcation would have been better. So in golf, since Ted Ray was a boy, Sam sne Jack Nicholas, who was next? I was loved, probably Greg, John Day, you know Tiger Rory. Now it's Gordon Sergeant So who flies at what three seventy five? Whatever his ball spit is? So you know the history of that, The history tells us the freaking one generation has always
been the Norman the next. So what so is it okay in twenty years when everyone's in its three hundred and seventy five yards? I mean, what happens to the game. What's the point of a golf course at that level? If the ball's going three outre and seventy five yards, there is there is no point to it. There is no point to golf if every every part forwards are driving a wedge and you can't keep extending teas you can't.
So you know, I think this is a this is the right decision because the freak always becomes the normal. And you know people are going to say, well, that's not going to happen now, Well, no one thought that people were going to hit the falls filed John Daily when he came out at Crooked Stick. No one could believe how far he hit the ball. Ship there are women who with the ball further than that now, yeah, there are five women on the LPJ tour. I think
it was statistically longer than Greg Norman. Was it nine eighty five? You know it was there a problem with the game, and now father Ball went in nine eighty five. No one thought it was a problem. You know, there was a fair It was a fair fight between the golf course and the playout. It's now a completely unfair fight because the golf courses, you know, it's early in Australia,
they're completely defenseless, you know. And the worst thing about playing the old course now is that because I catered at Royal Stinkport's and the unqualify there. The worst thing about playing those golf courses you walk back eighty yards through every team, not every team, but most of them, because that's the way they've resolved the issue of the ball going so far.
I think you need you caddy for too many good players. I think that you'd walk off on the third hole if you caddied for me anyway. But I think you need to caddy for more people like me who really suck at the game, Matt.
Every Saturday I play with three guys who are really bad at golf. So I know, you know, I know how I watch people play all the time. I mean, I you know, we walk around golf courses. The funniest thing. We're walking around a golf course the other day and there were two women playing. You guys walk ahead. They just hate you watching him play golf. Parish to what you know, I see lots of bad players, don't you know. We deal with them all the time. I know I do.
I have difficult the game is but yeah, you know, we're talking about two you know, we're talking about two entirely different games. You know that, you know, which is why you need two sets. I think you need two sets of rules. Yeah, but you know, this is the man. This is on the manufacturers and the PJA too, because they said we're not going to you know, the game shouldn't be bifecated. So you said, okay, it's going to
be done for everybody. So you know, but because because because doing nothing is not an option, and historically Gordon Sergeant, he's going to be the norm, because that's what's always happened. And why is it going to be any different now? You know, there are a bunch of fourteen and fifteen year old kids in there who are being told if you want to compete as a player on the PGA too, you have to win the club at one hundred and thirty miles an hour. Your balls bed's got to be
one hundred and ninety miles an hour. So what's going to happen? That's what they're going to do, because that's what humans do.
You know what's going to happen. They're all going to try to swing for one hundred and thirty miles an hour, and they're going to hurt their backs, and you know, the will Zala Tauruses of the world, the rollback happens naturally and organically because no one like can sustain that type of physical activity at anything beyond your mid to late twenties. You know, it's going to happen naturally. You're going to have a younger group of people who come up.
If the game allows for these people to your back to your other point of so many people trying to get in and get it, get a piece of the cash that's floating around in the professional game, because that's the big carrot. And why all those thousands of people are trying to achieve that elite level is because there's money to be made and only and more to your point, there's only small chunk of people who are actually getting access to that money. So that's again part of the
professional you know, dilemma. But not many Gordon sergeants are going to be able to swing one hundred and thirty mile hour swing speeds or drive at three hundred and seventy yards for more than like one two, three, four five. How long is he going to be able to do it? And the other thing is is that those people that are swinging that lard are not just going out and walking away and winning by ten shots.
Which is the next issue, which this is not about scoring. This is not about scoring. You can distort the dimensions of it of any golf course in the world to make even part win a tournament. Just do it. Seven didn't say you just have those fairways, I'll win every week. So but sure some of them get it, but not all of them will get injured. You know, there's bound one hundred and twenty five mother Wake. And you know, the other point about this is do we want to
drive and what we have one? You know, do you want to drive a Sam Snead out of the game, who was for three consecutive he is in his sixties finish in the top five in the PG Championship. Do we never want to see that ever again? Or Jack Nichols winning the masses at forty six, or do you want to I don't think.
That's actually a great look for professional golf to be total Well.
No, I think it's amazing that.
I think a big, old chubby guy walking off off the couch and going and winning a major championship.
Well, yea, but Sam Steve was arguably the greatest athter who ever played the game. The guy was a great enough player, and his sixties definished the top five in a major championship three years in a row. Well, I think it was ninth one year, and then third and fifth and whatever he was. It was a fricking amazing achievement. You know, do we want to kill that? But you know we've killed the Corey Paven and Calvin Pete out
of the game. Those you know. You know, if someone counted the ball at crazy distance, well I consider a crazy distance. They can't play anymore. I mean, why do you want to drive those players out of the game. How much better was the game for the variety it had. Now it's just all about it. You know, if you can't hit fair enough, you can't play. Corey Pavin couldn't itIt far enough, but he could play because you know, last I looked, there were thirteen other clubs in the
bag and he was really good with him. If you can't drive the ball X distance, you can't compete. It's a horrendous look for the game.
In a way, we're kind of agreeing, you know, we keep landing on an agreement that you know, a bifurcation would have been the best scenario. Manufacturers, I see their point. It's a business they're making money.
Way with then I just don't see that point because because I actually don't see that point, because because if some rocket science technolo I just can't went to the boss of titles tomorrow and said I've figured out how to make a ball that goes four hundred yards it's legal, they would switch their machines tomorrow to make that ball.
I don't give a damn about the consequences on golf courses, on the speed of play, on the boundary problems who would affect They couldn't care less, and it's not their job to care care it's not their job to care. But it's the administrator's job to care about how golf courses play, how the ball goes offline, you know the consequences of the distance. It's it's their job to care.
And you know, they've decided that four hundred yards is not the line on the standards three hundred and thirty or three hundred and forty, So so what point is it too far?
But again, let's go back to that point about how in other sports people don't get bit paid to play that specific bat or play that specific ball, because essentially Major League Baseball has a ball that everybody plays and
a bat and that has to conform. There's you know, I think there are different versions of a wooden bat or companies that make wooden bats that players can choose from, So why not Why don't then the governing bodies would you be a fan of if today's announcement was the USG and the RNA we're going to go into development with in in their own ball and maybe even like it could even expand beyond that, essentially to say this is these are our rules and regulations to play in
our tournament. We're putting up twenty million, and let the chips Forllward. They may.
Aunt Tata. That's kind of say get out of that business. Why are you in that business?
They can't say that anyway. They're saying that anyway.
No, well, I think the manufacturers, like the ball I don't see what the wash of the and I in the USA and in the business of bull Man. If they're in the business of running torments, they're not in the business of manufacturing golf polls.
But you eliminate that whole other thing that we're talking about, which is the dilemma, which is the manufacturers are paying players to play, and therefore the players are going to reject the bifurcation. So in order let's again stay let's I feel like we should stay focused on the subset of the game that it truly impacts, which is such a small percentage, and let's stay hyper focused on that
and continue to make adjustments that impact that group. But be the minute you start making adjustments that impact the people who pay to play, in which the game is already hard, it's for them. No matter what we do. It makes no sense in the minute it goes to the masses, it makes no sense to me.
Well, two points, that would be the gun. One of the game's never been easier.
To play, but it's still hard.
It's still hard, and it's hard because it's hard because it's a game of it's hard because it's a game of technique, and it's hard to master the technique. And the average player, the average player plays at a level
they play because of their technique. You know, if you're a twenty handicap player, it's because you've got a twenty handicap swing playing and a twenty handicap grip and a twenty handicap swing twenty seven fifteen for whatever level it is, you play at that level because it's a game of technique. So it's you know, so I've forgot that, I've lost my point.
Yeah.
My other point would be people make the analogy of you know, running tracks and baseball tracks and cricket fields. They're not pieces of architecture. Golf course is unique. A golf course is unique in sports is it's a piece of architecture designed and intended to test a wide variety of skills and to make holes that ask different questions.
And until this generation, if you built, if an architect built a hole that was a four hundred and seventy yards Part four, he could reasonably expect a hole to test driving a long line or driving a mid iron, and he built the green that was appropriate for the shot that was being played to it. Not always, but generally, you know, there were great holes with greens that are wildly the road hole Andrews is not is not an
appropriate green for a long line approach. It's the best hole in the world, and it's an exception that proves the rule. But you know, golf courses asked those questions. They don't at the top level, they don't ask those questions anymore. In fact, there are a whole bunch of holes that were designed with greens that were built to receive mid the long line so now now played with wedges.
So there they weren't designed to roll at eleven on the stemp or twelve on the stemp either. They weren't. There's that, like, you know, there's a lot of other you.
Know, well, well that's that's awesome, but that's also true, and that comes back. But you know, fundamentally, there are a whole bunch of greens who were built for long lines that are now players in short lines too. So the game's out of scale. It's and we're talking about at the top level. It's not just PJ Tour plays.
It's there's a whole you know, there's there are thousands of people, thousands of great amateurs who they all hit the ball forever, and golf courses don't play the way they used to play, the way that they were intended to play, the way the great minds of you know, Bobby Jones, and again you know he's going back to the past, the way Jones and mackenzie and the great minds thought, you know, George Thomas and all the great architects that the tests they were making, the way the
game they should the way they saw the game playing, and the way it should be played. You know, that's completely gone and lost. And you know, is Wally youle On a better mind than Alistair McKenzie or Bobby Jones, well or whoever's the boss that time. All they care about is their bottom line and that perception of how
this will hurt their business. Now, I didn't think of them like a damn but a difference said business, because they've always made the best golf ball, and they've developed an amazing brand payple of a great loyalty to it. They're always gonna buy Tatness bul whether it goes two hundred and fifty turing eighty three hundred and thirty yards, They're still gonna buy their golf ball.
I gotta jump in here. I need to catch a plane. I'm coming to see you, Michael. We've been podcasting for over three hours straight here.
Uh, they'll fed up with that.
I'm not fed up. I'm just I'm just out of time. I got to start getting to the airport, but but very quickly. Let's just tee it up. So Michael, I am coming your way. I'm heading to San Francsco Airport here to fly to Melbourne to the sand Bell Invitational. I can't wait. I've been covering the tournament the last two years from afar. Now I'll be in the dirt, at least in the sand. Tell the listeners why this tournament is special and what it means to you personally.
Well, we started off in Covid. Quickly the kids said no where to play, and Jeff Ogley and I started to think all the game, which was it was an eighteen and thirty six old just chance to play, and they started playing competitive golf and it was fantastic and you know they embraced it. Now you know they play most Mondays and sam Belt Tormentsort evolved out of that where we went to originally kens and Heath Peninsula, kingswood
yar in Ryal, Melbourne. So can we have a day at each of your courses to run a four round tournament. We want about thirty five or thirty six pros and the same number of kids, so men and women, boys and girls. We've got an eleven year old playing this year, a twelve year old, a bunch of teenagers like thirteen fourty. Emilia Harris who won last year as fifteen. She's like a veteran. I'm just looking at I'm just looking at the PGA Tour score. Robin Troy is now leading at
twenty seven hunder par. She's leaving the LPGA Tour school that she looks like she's going to win through fifteen holes to come and play. Nicholas Colsart is playing Cam Davis, who is amazing, is a defending champion. Jeff og he's obviously playing. Elvis is playing sother a bunch of great young and old pros, young amateurs. It's free to get in.
We play a different course every day. Can't tell you how many really good young Australian plays send me emails pleading to play, and I'm sorry, guys, we've only got thirty six bots and I wish I could fit you in and send me an email earlier and yeah. So it's a really cool tournament. It's free to get in. And you can see Cameron Davis playing with a thirteen year old girl. I mean last year he played the last two rounds with Mamachah Kabori, who's Kazuma Kabori's brother sister.
He had a driver on the seventeenth hole, a peninsula king do. I fought and hold it and beat her by one shot, so she's a driver off the deck. It was amazing shots. So the women play off different teas and they play a different par so the men play. So we cut the men's part down at seventy on not exactly but essentially seventy on Royal Melbourne and the area. Finchill out the women's past seventy two and the winning score is relative to power if that makes sense, does it?
So it's a really cool event and this is the third year and it's gonna be great fun to watch out evolves.
It's really really quick. Hugh Foley, our friend from Ireland, a dear friend, is playing, which is amazing and has quite the resume. Second in the US Midam two years ago and on the north and South of Ireland. Not done since. I think Darren Clerk did it way back when. So you got Hugh Foley. But Jeff flew out from Melbourne to play in the Wishbone Brawl and on the driving range again not to not to talk for Jeff, and we're going to run a clip of his about
the sand belt. But I love the idea that part of the reason, and I'm sure you can, you can,
you know, emphasize this. But what Jeff loves about this is that as a kid he would have loved an opportunity to play with the pros, to pick their brains, to see them, you know, shoulder to shoulder, and watch how they carry themselves, how they practice, how they get ready, how how they perform under pressure, And that to me is also a really cool subset of this is that that's what you guys are providing, is this sort of this opportunity to sort of compete together.
Yeah, yeah, well well that's not so much the subset, and it's the whole point of it. You know, it's the mentoring thing. It's like, you know, the sounds for you Amelia Harris when she was thirtained, so sit down with Petafala who was sixty years old, talk about, you know, how did you play that shot? How do I prepare it?
Because Chok is the most rabid preparer for pro golf ever and Sevy one said, the only man with a better shortcame on the European than me is Peter Fowler, so you know, and you know she was with him for an hour and a half and he took it down the chipping grind and he showed her how to play different shots and so that's the whole point of the whole thing. And you know, it was the mentoring thing, and it's a really cool to The clubs are great because it's not too much of an inconvenience for the
members because we only spend one day at them. There are no grandstands, TV towers that you know, we don't have to pay them any money for the course. Yeah, it's me. It's an amazing thing. And Lloyd Cole's in Melbourne on Wednesday night, so Alan, you're coming to see Lloyd Cole on Wednesday night.
I think I look forward to it, So.
That'll be fun. So Lloyd's of course a complete golf nutt and Australians love Lloyd Cole. So he's playing in town on Wednesday night. So we'll see how many of the players want to come. Most of them have probably never heard of Lloyd Cole. But anyway, now and all I have.
Michael, thank you for your time and and thank you for your perspective and all that you do for the game. And obviously a big like I said, big fan of your your opinion and your architecture. And I've been doing some things on what you guys have been doing. And you've got a great team and uh, and so keep up all the great work. And I'm I'm uh. You know at some point you know that at the core
of all this is is we love the game. And I hope someday to come down to the Sand Belt and uh and to walk some fairways.
Yeah, to come and play it and say it and look forward to see you Alan.
All right, thank you, Michael, Thank you, Michael.
Okay, well, Michael Clayton and I will continue this conversation in person in Melbourne while I'm covering the sand Belt Invitational. You can follow all that on Firepit Collective dot com. There'll be daily stories, probably some more podcasts. We'll be doing some fun stuff on social along the way, on my handles and of course on the Firepit handles.
So thanks to listening.
For those of you who went from Bamberger to Clayton, you're the lunatic fringe of golf fans and we love you and we thank you for your support. Matt, always a pleasure. I wish I had as much passion for anything in my life as you do for the anti rollback arguments. It's impressive.
Uh and uh.
But anyway, good stuff. Thanks for having us safe. Yeah, thank you, thank you, and that's the end of this podcast. Goodbye.
I'll bet big and I played the wind made a fortune when my ship game and I ran the table and never thought I could fall down.
The win hit me lack of canon the ball and now I can't shake this losing stream. Every road I take is a dead end street.
I got dat in my head.
Can you jo not to think what I'm thinking about now? Kind of thoughts in my head.
I can't get them out. Trying not to think what I'm thinking about