I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
And when I find my ball.
In a bright egg Friday egg, Frida Egg Friday, fridag bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course.
Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. We've got a great show today. I'm excited about it. Actually, we had Gary Young, he's one of the PGA Tour's chief referees, on to talk all things PGA Tour set up. That's me and Joseph Lamania talking with Gary. It was enlightening. There was a lot of stuff I learned from it about how they go about setting up a golf course for a
PGA Tour event. And then we talked about some of the hot topics TiO, pace of play, preferred lies, all sorts of stuff. So it was really it was fun chat with Gary. I appreciate him coming on and you know, answer and answering questions, answering questions that an idiot like me has about what he does for his job. But before we get to that, we got to do in and out Joseph, what are you in on this week?
Andy?
I am in on signature events with a cut. This week at the Genesis Invitational, we're going to see the first signature event the PGA Tour's new model with a limited field and a cut. So field of about eighty players, they're going to cut down to the top fifty and ties after two days. I think that is a wonderful recipe for the modern golf product, and I would love to see more of these signature events limited fields that don't have a cut implement a cut. I think it
adds something. It's additive. It introduces some competitiveness to the event and makes it not feel like a WGC where guys are climbing from T sixty one to T forty eight on Sunday that really don't need to be on the golf course. So I think people are really gonna like that cut line this week at Riviera, and it's something I'm excited about. I think the signature event should have a cut line. So that's what I'm in on.
I almost went with this also, This was almost what I was in on, but I completely agree the other thing. The other advantage we're seeing it this week as the waste management is barreling into the Super Bowl. As we record this segment of this podcast, it is it is on. I thought this was gonna be over. I thought we were going to be done with this. But you know, when you have a big field in eighty players on
a weekend is a big field. That's what they cut to on the PGA Tour, they cut actually off into less than eighty players. So the signature events often feature more players of the weekend than a regular event. So cutting it down to fifty it gives you a lot of flexibility. You can withstand weather delay, you can move tea times around easier.
You know.
One of the things that makes the product way better, and Gary touched on this is t time spacing and number of players. So if you could go to Twosome's and space it out twelve minutes, it makes the pace of play the product better. This is a big I completely agree one thing I'm in on, and this is reactive to yesterday's telecast. It's just trying new things with the telecasts. I thought that Kissner and Smiley on sixteen
were wonderful. It was just like a nice different thing, and I think the key to this is not being locked in and can in like they're gonna look at this and be like, we can do this all over the place. We should do this everywhere, and it's that's
not the takeaway here. The key here is that this worked really well at this event because it fit this event, Like the whole atmosphere of sixteen lends itself so well to that that little broadcast snippet like them sitting there talking it through, talking about the atmosphere, all the things that went into that, it works so well right there.
The key to this idea is finding something like that at every event across the board, and it's not always going to be the same thing, so that that style might work well a few other places on the PGA tour where there's holes that have a similar atmosphere or stakes you know, that tie to it. The other key is finding different formats of that type of idea, like a different broadcast, different formats of it that fit, you know, another specific of at riviera. Maybe it's people sitting and
talking about ten or another hole. Right, just change it up, try new stuff. But I loved the initiative to try something new.
I agree with you Andy, not to be negative. I think there was a little sacrifice on some of the shots from the players in contention, So I had a little bit of a problem with that on Saturday Night. But Smiley and Kevin Kissner themselves were great, and I loved that feed and seeing all those shots on sixteen, So I think there's a balance there, like also need to show the shots from the players in contention, But I totally agree with you, that was a great feed.
I think it was a unique situation also. I mean, like Saturday of that event's always going to be about sixteen, but there's also the unique situation of like the weather delays, Right, what are you out on?
This is going to be an old person yelling at cloud take Andy, but you're not even old. I know that's what's crazy about it. But I am out on celebrating drunkenness, specifically at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. These videos of people like falling over drunk on the cart path. I think this year's Phoenix Open got a little out of control. And when you kind of the brand of the Phoenix Open, I think they do a lot of things right. So my favorite events of the year, but
the more that the rowdiness is celebrated. I think it attracts a certain type of person and things maybe got a little bit out of control this year. I love a lot about the Phoenix Open. I've been I was drinking. I'm all for it, but I think some of the like the viral clips of people peeing on themselves and stuff. Maybe if we cut back on some of that, we won't have as many fans yelling at players and taken away from some of the events. So I'm out on that. What do you think about that?
Andy, I've thought about this a lot, and I just think this is just in general, the natural progression of the way these things work, right, is that you get an identity. Everybody finds out how cool it is, and it's super fun. It's a party atmosphere. It's unique to the tour, and the tour leaned into it. And I don't have like a problem with them leaning into it. But this is the natural progression of how these things work. I went to the University of Illinois. It's known for
its unofficial Saint Patrick's Day Party. It was a big deal when I was there. I think it's still a big deal now, but it was like this day, it was a Friday, everybody just got wasted and it you know, listen, I partaked, I enjoyed it. But every year you're there, it gets a little bit worse because you get more and more people come from in from out of town. More. It becomes less and less of a homegrown type event.
And I think that's one of the things that happens here, is like with this, with the with waste management, it's just evolved into this and and what it is is that people come in from all over the country to party and celebrate, and it's less about like this is Phoenix's event, right. It's people that come in there. It's their expectation. They treat it like a bachelor party day. And you know, this is just the natural progression that's going to happen. And it happens with all sorts of things.
It happens with golf course design, where you know, once you say, oh, we're going to start, you know, narrowing fairways and growing rough like one course does it, one course does it a little bit more, one course does it a little bit more. This is the way society works. So I don't know where you go from here. If you're the waste management, it clearly did. I had some friends that were on site, had an awesome time, but they they're like, you know, they cut off alcohol sales
that I talked to. One of them talked to a police officer that said that like one hundred and thirty people were taken out on stretchers. I don't know how you rein this back in because the PGA tour has leaned so far into what it is that it seems very hard. I don't know what to do. I'm glad I don't have to decide this, but yes, this is just what happens. The things that are deemed cool is that this is they get they spiral out of control. That was a long winded answer.
No, Look, I agree with you. I think a lot of things about it are great, right, like even having a party identity is fine. But I think it's gotten a little out of control, and I agree with you. I don't know exactly what you do to reign it back in, But all right, Andy, what are you out on?
I you know, I so respect low scorers, I love them, but I just am gonna say that the number the scorers in the fifties no longer has the same cachet that it used to. We saw a fifty seven from Crystobauld Dell Solaire on the corn Ferry Tour this week. We've just seen, you know, like this year has been low score after low score after low scorer. Obviously Joaquin Neeman shot fifty nine the week before on Live Tour. You know sixties that we saw sixties from Wyndham Clark
at Pebble Beach. It's just not it's it's like saying, you know, I would use this to to like, these are major League Baseball records that are being broken on a little league field, you know. So I don't think he had hit much more than a dgend any hole.
You know.
The the I guess the ability for a golf course is to defend themselves against the moundern player or at an all time low you know, some equipment modifications and rollbacked or coming. I don't really think it's going to do much of anything. This might be just the new era and I'm just out on it being a huge deal because I just think it is. It is what it is in today's era of golf. Your thoughts, I agree with you, Andy. The Corn Ferry Tour ones were a bit of a special circumstance because it was a
short golf course at altitude. But a score is just a number on a card at this point. Getting put on fifty nine watch that used to be rare fun and now it means basically nothing. Like I don't get excited by it anymore. I think the baseball analogy's appropriate. Also, NBA players scoring fifty, like, we've seen a huge increase in that this year to where it's no longer as noteworthy when somebody puts up fifty points. So yeah, scoring is all relative. I don't get excited by it either.
But I think, especially this year, you're going to see a lot of low scores, like I think we're in for over the next year or two some really low scores until there's a rollback. And I agree with you that even once once the rollback happens, it's not going to have that significant of an impact.
So I'm with you. I'm out on that too.
All right, let's get to Gary Young, But first let's talk about our friends from the USGA and the the USGA Greed Section, which has been helping golf facilities provide better playing conditions for over one hundred years. When you schedule a course consulting visit with the USGA agronomist, you'll get more than just an expert in grond me. You'll get a trusted partner who's familiar with your region and
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key maintenance decisions. Book a course consulting visit by March thirty first, and you'll receive five hundred dollars off your first visit. That's not an inconsequential amount of money. So that's five hundred dollars off your first visit. And for more information on how to schedule a visit, go to USGA dot org slash green section dash CCS. That's USGA dot org slash green section dash CCS. All right, thanks to the USGA, and let's get to Gary Young. All right, Gary,
thank you for coming on. I would love to hear about how someone becomes a rules official. How do you become the head referee for PGA Tour event? How does that even come about? How does your life take you here?
Yeah, it's probably probably well, first of all, thanks for having me on. It's probably the most common question that we get asked by fans that are walking by and see the rules official sticker on the front of the golf cart. They're always like, how do you become one of those? That sounds like something I'm interested in? I said, yeah, it looks like fun right now, but it has its moments. You know, everyone on our team comes from various backgrounds.
Number one, most of us have either work have either been golf professionals at some point in the past, whether we were PGA of America members. Couple members of our team were actually members of the PGA Tour who later in their career decided to pursue being rules official, which is really I think that's important. It's always great to have a player's point of view on our committee. To someone like Mark Duce Bobbik, who does our television rules
analyst role. And Mark was actually a middle linebacker for the Minnesota Vikings. How about that. So, you know it's something that just post football career, he really dedicated himself. He got involved in state and section associations, got a lot of experience in administration of golf, got educated on the rules, long extensive education on the rules, and eventually was hired later by Mark Russell. So, you know, we have a very very bad grounds that everyone comes from.
I think that's what makes us special.
Do you guys? Is there like a test? You know, financial advisors have to take a series seven? Is a Is there some sort of tests that you have to study for and then upkeep at certain times Like I'm just that's something I've always wondered.
Yeah, absolutely, yes. We all started out by having to score very well on the USGA PGA of America. They do a joint rules workshop. You intend to workshop for
about a week. It's a very extensive dive into the rules of golf and how to interpret the rules of golf, and then you take one hundred question exam and have to score exceptionally well on that to be considered so and then also it's just continually, like any other profession, the continuing education and we are constantly doing a deep dive into the rules of golf as they happen across
all the major tours. We share with one another, rulings that we have, we talk about them in depth so that we have a better understanding of everything.
Do you have a favorite obscure rule or ruling, like, is there one that that sticks out like that?
That's literally I was gonna ask Andy, meaning about the if you have a golf ball in your pocket and you mark your ball, and you put it the ball that you just marked in your pocket and then marked the exact same way. Gary, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're not sure which one you were using, I believe that is a lost ball.
And that was I think that comes more into play when we have a ball in play right right, and we hit one and we haven't marked it, and we get out there and maybe we hit a provisional that's the same exact ball, same exact marking. Yeah, that would be a situation where if you truly could not tell which one was the first one in play, you know that particular that first one is deemed to be lost. And yeah, so it's always a good idea to mark your golf balls differently, for sure.
Would you then have to hit a third t shot if say you hit a provisional now.
In that situation. I'm trying to remember the exact interpretation on that one, but I believe the second the second ball would become the ball and play.
But if you can't, if you don't know one, you'd be.
Hitting your If you couldn't be hit, couldn't tell either, or you know, you would be hitting your fourth shot now from from the fair way.
Yeah, I think I remember reading it within the context of marking your ball on the green and like putting it in your pocket and then you're not sure because you have two balls in your pocket. And I was just a crazy situation that probably doesn't come up. Do you have a personal fear obscure one?
I really don't. I really don't. They are all they all have their challenge is at times. So that's why we have a committee. And you know, when you're out there and you get in a situation like that one you just threw at me, I mean, you know, it's so weird, it's so unusual for something like that to happen. I would throw that out to the entire committee for everyone's feedback, to make sure that we get the call right.
And as a matter of fact, I would say, okay, guys, before I close this out this ruling, is there anyone else that's thinking differently than what we've just heard, Because oftentimes there's someone sitting there really thinking about it and there's some small little thing that the committee's not thinking about. So we have had situations like that, and that's why it's important that there are eight of us, nine of us there at the course. We truly act as a committee on things.
Well, Gary, when we resperd to PGA Tour setup, who all would that entail that? That's a big question I have, like who all is coordinating maintenance with respect to how long the grass should be green speeds? Can you can you explain who all within the PGA Tour orbit that term would encompass.
Yeah. So when we talk about setup, we're talking about two different things. There is the agronomic setup of the golf course, so that would be green speeds, height of cut in all of the different areas of the golf course. And then there's the other portion of setup, which is handled that week of the competition. And I can talk a little bit about both. So the first part, the agronomic setup. That's really something that is set up by the chief referee and the advanced rules official for each event.
So we have a person that travels to the golf course a week in advance and his or her job is to prepare the golf course for competition. They work with our ronomist and the local superintendent or director of agronomy at a facility and they make sure that everything that we have. You know, from years of experience playing at a venue, we know what optimal conditions are for that particular venue. Maybe the height of cut at three inches is perfect for that golf course given the grass type.
Maybe at another place it might be two inches because it's bermuda grass. And you know, each type of grass represents a different issue at different heights of cut. Same thing with height of fairway, speed of greens, it really depends upon the architecture of the golf course. You know last week at Pebble Beach, that's a really challenging set
of greens to find quality whole locations. Once the greens get above a certain speed, we knew we had big wins coming in last week, so we actually backed off the green speeds. Our target speed was between eleven and a half and twelve. We actually backed it off closer to just below eleven, which now allows us to go into some more slopier areas. But again, we were trying to get high and dry. We were trying to put the whole locations up where moisture wouldn't shut us down
and we could keep playing golf. So that was the bonus of being at lower green speeds. Everyone always thinks, oh, fast green speeds, that's the challenge, not really, you know, if you want to go to some of these really quality whole locations on an old golf course, we need those green speeds to be lower.
Is that a tough conversation just you know, you hear PGA tour players talk about when they go to the say the Open Championship, and they say always talk about, oh, the greens are slower than I'm used to. There's a period. Is it hard to have a little bit slower greens when you have, like I'm thinking in my head, Sedgefield as a great example where the greens have is an
old golf course. It's a Donald Ross design that has a lot of slope and it's one of the one of the places I feel like you see four footers with the most break you'd see anywhere on tour. Is it a hard thing to accomplish with players that are used to act speed.
Well, it's an interesting comment because we don't try. We are definitely not a cookie cutter tour, meaning we're not looking to be twelve every week. We're not looking to be you know, three inch height of rough. It really
is driven by the architecture of the golf course. You mentioned Sedgefield, that's a great example of a very challenging set of greens, and we just know historically if we if we have the green speeds too high, can really lose quality whole locations, ones that are going to challenge the player on their approach shot to the green. And so almost like when we become too fast on a set of greens, we tend to have to go towards the middle of the green with the whole locations, and
you don't get the variation in whole locations you're looking for. So, you know, you mentioned the Open Championship that they do a great job with their golf course setup and some of the most challenging whole locations. I'm always you know, when I'm walking with a group at the Open Championship, I'm always looking at Hoss saying, wow, I mean if we try that on the PGA Tour. But their green speeds are such that they can go to those places, so, you know, I think that makes a lot of sense.
And I think your original question to players, do they mind it? Yeah, I mean they have to make adjustments to you know, that their stroke for sure. You know, sometimes if it's a little on the slower side, you have to pop it a little bit more than just that normal flowing stroke that they have kind of week in and week out. So I think it's tougher to use the aim point that way.
You're talking about the agronomics part of the setup, and then you'd mentioned there being the other piece of the setup. Maybe if you can elaborate that on that And one question I had is what is the PGA Tour's goal with setup and in your opinion, what are the ingredients of a proper PGA Tour test. So maybe if you want to take those questions in whatever order you see fit.
The goal of any PGA Tour event any day is to try to set up the most difficult course we can yet fair, difficult yet fair. We're trying to challenge the best players in the world. You see some events where the numbers are are high, you know, like it's you know high meaning under par. Seems like the guys
are shooting lights out there. Well certain venues just you know, they don't have maybe the challenge of some of something like a Tory Pines or a pebble beach or other places where you can kind of ratchet things down a little bit by having tougher whole locations. So our goal every day is difficult yet fair given the day's conditions.
So we have two setup guys each week, or we also have women, so I shouldn't just say guys, but we have two set up people each week, and their job is to communicate with one another on how they're setting up their nine each day. One's doing the front, one's doing the back. They want to make sure they have four different clubs in the player's hands on par three's. Usually a golf course has four of them, so we're looking for variety, variety in the whole location and shot shape.
We're also looking for variety in the yardage. So the goal is to have four different clubs in their hands, and then throughout the golf course, just balance between right, right hand, left hand, whole locations front, middle, back. You're looking at it so that when a player looks at a whole location sheet, they see nice balance and it almost looks like one person is setting up the golf
course rather than two distinct ones. And that's something that we work hard at is, you know, working with the staff, and they do a great job. Already. We have a really terrific staff and they understand golf and they've been doing it a long time, so they know how to set up a challenging course, but really looking for that balance so that doesn't appear that it's two distinct people setting it up.
I'm sure I could ask you a million questions on pin locations alone. One that maybe a couple parts to this question, but something I always think about how the golf course plays in the morning versus how it plays when it gets a little firmer in the afternoon, and
how wind interacts with that. So can you maybe talk a little bit about some of those considerations, And for example, are you trying to get similar difficulty on Thursday and Friday because you have players who play one morning one afternoon and maybe how you change that over the course of the four days. So again a few questions that I just threw at you, but very interested in how that impacts pin locations and what you're trying to accomplish.
Now, those are really good questions. You know, you are trying to keep the golf course a little more balanced. For sure, on Thursday and Friday, each player is going to have a chance to play in the morning in the afternoon wave, and you hope to keep the conditions as similar as possible. You're looking to strike that balance because weather oftentimes doesn't allow that, so you're factoring that into your decision making, and you're always setting up for
the worst conditions that are going to be faced. So what might appear to be an easy set up in the morning for the guys playing in the morning, you're really trying to keep it fair for the guys in the afternoon who are going to face maybe high winds or a driving rain or something like that. So you're always thinking about equity, and that's what the most important function of rules committee is to keep the event as equitable as possible, the competition equitable. And then again, you
know there's some places that are just a challenge. You know, we go to places with high altitude. I can always remember we used to play out in Reno and the golf course we played there, we had to really water the heck out of it overnight, and the guys would always complain about how how damp it was in the morning, and yet in the afternoon it was rock hard. And it was like, well, if we don't get it damp in the morning, guess what, it's gonna be dead by
the afternoon. It's going to look like all these mountains around us where there's no vegetation. We are in the middle of an arid area where moisture is needed. So you're always trying to strike that balance. You don't want it to be too soft for the guys in the morning, but you got to give it enough moisture to get it through the day.
Over your time at the PGA Tour, how would you say that setup has evolved both from the aspect of player revolution they're hitting it further, but also from an agronomic standpoint. Never is agronomy bet better. Never have we been able to push courses to the same standard as we can today.
Yeah, I think you're hitting on a good point there, because distance is something that we hear about all the time, and although I don't disagree, people are hitting it a little bit further each year, and we see that the athletes are getting bigger and stronger every year. The ability for them to talk to to fine tune their equipment is getting better and better with the use of track
Man data, so they're optimizing everything about their equipment. But going to the agronomic side, there's no doubt that our agronomy team for sure has gotten better and better at providing just outstanding conditions and that has an impact on distance as well, no doubt about it. We've been mowing fairways at lower tolerances for sure, constantly asking courses to dry it down because our players want firm, fast conditions
and that's what we try to provide each week. So that has a big has a lot to do with the distance debate. Is part of it is the data that's coming from our tour is being driven by just superior conditions week in and week out. I guarantee it last week that stop and wet mess we played in the distance was not a big factor because balls were hitting and stopping right there, So that would be a week that would skew the numbers severely.
In terms of your stance. You were just kind of talking about tests early on. What do you see from your chair on the best way to test the modern PGA tour player.
Probably the best way is to have a challenging set of greens. This is just my take on it from watching it play out. It's all about I think architecture where water is able to leave the green, it doesn't kind of shots that hit close to the green tend to get repelled away from the green if they're not precise, rather than architecture that almost rewards a shot that's maybe hit just a little more offline, hit something and ricochet's
back onto the green. So if I were designing a course to challenge the best players right now, it would all be about precision on iron shots into the green and then of course a nice challenging set of greens that doesn't have severe slopes, but just subtle, subtle features
that are very difficult for the player to read. And I think I noticed that our players love the older courses as opposed to some of the modern courses, and I think a lot of that has to do with some of the most classic designs that you think of.
Probably some of your favorite courses were built in a period where and most of those courses were built by hand, by horse and plow and labor, you know, manual labor with rakes, and they get all those fine little details that you really have to search for with your eye. It's not so obvious as you know nowadays with some of the larger dozers and things like that that they use.
It's I think there are certain architects in the modern era that that tend to be able to provide that same type feel that I'm talking about some of the classic courses.
I agree, like there is a thing where when you're not sure, it seems like it's hard. When the guys struggle the most when they can't really tell which way a putt breaks right and they think it might be on the right edge, and then it moves just a fraction to the right instead, and that's what kind of flummoxes them. It gets the it gets that Pete's I quote. It gets them thinking right, you win, right, I get them thinking from your perspective, and obviously this is all opinion.
Do you think the older courses because of history, also get away with a little bit more severity in features because that's the way it's always been, versus when you go to say a newer venue or a course that's been renovated in something news introduced that's different from what it used to be.
I think you're hitting on a good one there. You know, if you show up the US Open and it's being played at Wingfoot, where that can have some crazy features, right th.
I feel like those screens wouldn't work at like TPC Scottsdale.
No.
I think if someone showed up and someone had just designed that golf course or that set of greens complexes, the players would probably be, you know, saying some nasty things about it. But yeah, you do tend to just accept some of the older architecture. And I think that the guys understand that, you know, those greens were designed when the golf ball well just wasn't rolling at the speeds that that we have greens rolling at now. So there is a balance there. And again, you know, I
think the USGA does a great job. They do a great job setting up the US Open each year. I think we enjoy, you know, the challenge they present and they've been nice enough to have us there, uh with them, just asking questions as they're as they're setting up, but they do an outstanding job presenting a good challenge.
Well, while we're here, I you know, one the the course of what you were discussed discussing about testing the world's best, it sounded a lot like Pinehurst number two greens that repel with kind of subtle slopes in them. But while we're on the major championship setup stuff. You know, you you attend majors, you were, you work majors. How do you kind of look when you look at take a step back and look at those setups versus the PGA Tour setups. How do you think they differ? How
do you think they're similar. I'd just be curious in your perspective of majors versus the setups that you guys do as your for your organization.
I think, first and foremost, it starts with the ability to nail down some of the some of the most iconic venues. You know, and when you are bringing a major championship to some of the most iconic venues in our country, sometimes they're willing to host those events. You know, obviously they're more open to it. So it starts with the quality of the architecture, and that is one thing it seems like they get right every year, and then the ability to create a firm, fast condition. So this
year at Pinehurst, it should. You know, everything tells you that that place should at that time of year be paying, playing, firm and fast and has the architectural value to really
challenge the best players in the world. Now. I think another venue that they played recently a US Open was the country Club and Brookline and everyone was wondering, well, what's that going to be like, you know, and I had no doubt in my mind it was still going to present a serious challenge because it had some real strength in that those greens complexes, and I knew they was going to challenge the guys and they were not going to have the memory recall because not many of
them have played there, and it stood up to be a terrific challenge. But a lot of it was they, you know, the USGA did a great job setting that place up that week, and they had us there and they asked a lot of questions and I respect them for that because we're with the players week in week out, and the fact that they even asked our opinion. You know, we're flattered by that and we're proud to be part
of our our national championship. We probably have more input at the US Open with them than than any other major, which, you know, but I respect all of the organizations that run them, and I think they do a great job presenting a really tough challenge. I mean, sometimes it can have our players scratching their heads, but you know what, it always it's fair. It's not it's not across the line. They do a good job of keeping things in check.
Now, So I imagine you kind of look at them and think, oh, how nice it must be to be able to like really focus in on one event for you know, for a long period of time. But on the flip side, they look at you guys, and it's like, God, it must be nice to do this every week.
You know.
Yeah, Yeah, I don't think that we can push things sometimes as hard as they do. They're not gonna be They're not gonna be facing the players week in and week out, There's no doubt about it. But yeah, that is a luxury. I wish I had that luxury of just doing it once a year, but they all do a good job. Carrie Haig from the PGA of America does an outstanding job every year, and you know you would think that I would hear criticism, but never do. I mean, he just does a great job.
Gary, going back to one of your answers from a couple questions ago about what an ideal test is and when you hit a shot that's not perfectly struck, it
repels away. I think you're not to put words in your mouth, but kind of getting at the relationship between hitting a shot online and experiencing a consequence, and with that, I think a hot topic always on social media that I'd love to get your perspective on is t i I relief where there's there are infrastructural requirements of a PGA Tour event and any professional golf event, but oftentimes hit a shot offline and you're able to get a free drop, not experience as much of a consequence as
maybe fans on social media. I'd count myself in this camp I would like to see. Curious for your perspective on TiO relief. Is it? Are there solutions? Do you think it's a problem on tour? I'd just love to get the PGA Tour's perspective on that subject.
Well, I think you you know, it's an important part of it, right, these tournaments run, they raise a lot of money for charity, you know, and and we sell those venues, and it's an important part of the formula of a successful PGA Tour event. We're trying to get people close to the action, especially sometimes on the closing holes of an event. That's it's important that all those
structures are there. Not to mention that our own infrastructure to provide data for everything right now in the sport, whether it be gaming, whether it be our broadcasts, all there's things popping up all over the golf course. So when you go and play a golf course as the average player, you don't encounter all these things. And we certainly can't punish the players for ending up in an area where something is on their line of play, so
we do. I mentioned the advance official. The advance official works almost year round with an event, working with the proper placement of everything on the golf course. He's trying to strike a balance between the location of a structure from an entertainment standpoint and then also from the design of the golf course and trying to protect the design features the golf course. You don't want to have structures right up right up against the eighteenth green where it's
almost creating a backboard. And I think that's probably what you're getting at is, you know, it's a balance there. So we're always asking more room, more room, and unfortunately some venues don't provide enough room for all these things. So as upset as the home viewer may be getting, you know, it's within the rules of the game and they don't have to encounter all of these things when they play a golf course. It presents challenges, good and bad.
You know, sometimes it does reward the player, and if we've placed something wrong and it happens to player gets rewarded for that, you know, we're making notes of that and we'll make darn shore next year that same thing isn't located there. But it's it's a balance. We're always trying to provide an entertainment vehicle for all of you to see at home, and at the same time, you know, we've got to have the ability to entertain people on site and provide data for all those other folks.
So there's a lot, there's a lot to balance. I know one thing I've seen at major championships in the past, and maybe this has happened that PGA Tour venues, is sometimes they'll have a designated drop area that's like a bad lie. Whether it's a little bit of fescue or something. Is that something that the PGA Tour has considered, or are there any counterbalancing solutions to the backboarding issue for example?
Uh, We've always we have always shied away from drop zones or drop areas because quite frankly, we just believe there's a rule in place that that keeps the ball in a more similar area to where where struck. You know, where it was lying. So we would rather operate off the TiO local rule rather than bring a player to the nearest drop zone and have them all playing from within there and creating divots in there and everything every
other possibility. We just believe there's a rule in place, and we all understand it, and we have we're very comfortable operating under it. I think it's more the home viewer that doesn't understand sometimes what we're doing. But you know, sometimes it's not always creating an easy up and down situation. Sometimes it creates a worse situation than the player would have been facing if that thing wasn't there. So yeah,
this plus is and minuses. I think everyone just gets upset when they see a player somehow get rewarded for hitting a bad shot. And I get that.
I get that you're referencing with a lot of the infrastructure that's out on tour. Shot link towers, for example, are a big part of that. And I'm curious, does the PGA Tour what is PJ Tour setups relationship with data? Are you looking at certain scoring averages and hoping that you get a certain distribution of birdies and bogies on particular holes based on how you've set it up? Are you evaluating a setup based on some of the data
that you're getting back. Just curious what your relationship is with data and maybe how that's changed since you've been the PJ Tour.
We we've come a long way and we're good. It's only going to get better. We're doing a deeper dive into the data all the time. And you know that's one thing that we the PGA Tour has made a huge investment in data through shot link and shot link has been a huge help for us in our daily setup of the golf course and our planning. And you know, I talked about our setup team and their ability to take a deep dive into the data, looking at when the whole location is in this section of the green
in this wind direction. They can look back at the data and they can see where the shot dispersion pattern was off of the tee. They can make adjustments based on all that data, thousands and thousands of shots that
are being struck. And it's almost getting to the point where I think in the future we can actually select a golf course and almost have the ability to predict what the score is going to be just based on you know, the computer will figure out that whole location with that wind and do it for each hole and almost predict what the average score is going to be and what, you know, what the winning score might be. You know, it's really a neat tool in our toolbox,
and it's just just in its infancy right now. We are come a long way, and we've got a lot of great people working in the background. The PGA Tour has not stopped with everything going on in professional golf. Right now, I can tell you. The folks at the PGA Tour are hard at work trying to figure out how we can be better and continue to distance ourselves from our competition, especially in that end of the business. We are getting stronger and stronger every day.
Do you have a specific example of maybe how data changed the way you thought about something with your job right where you thought for years And I feel like this happens to me all the time with golf data, where oh I thought this, but actually this was the case. It could be a whole location, it could be you know, a way, it could be a variety of things.
Obviously, I think probably where in my day to day oftentimes we're talking about making changes to golf holes on certain courses, and our team now has the ability, through all the shot linked data and through all this technology that they've developed, before we make the change to the golf hole, and if we're thinking of moving a bunker or shifting something or bringing the rough line in, they can take all of the shot dispersion data and overlay that and make the changes to the hole and it
will figure out and simulate what the balls that end up in the rough what the average score was, and you can see ahead of time, before you spend any money making those changes to a golf course, are you really going to have the impact that you're looking for? So, you know, the Players Championship is a great example TPC Sawgrass. We are constantly looking at that golf course. How can
we present a better challenge to that golf course? And it's not just distance oftentimes it's shifting features, slightly changing angles, you know, constantly trying to make the player think out there. So before we spend money on it, we can on CAD designs they can shift, change things and calculate is that worth it? Is it going to change the average score for.
The whole With regards to making changes, especially you know, architectural changes at a place, you know with say Stagress designed by one of the greatest architects of all time. When you're looking at that, are you guys looking at pure difficulty? How do we get this average up? Or is more the goal to how do we create a wider range of outcomes like where where we have more low scores but also more high scores.
Yeah, well I think you hit on it. We've never We love the fact that the range of champions at TPC Sawgrass is really wide. You know, you have players short, short hitters, medium and long, and it's never favored any one particular type of player. So that's why we personally love the course and we continue to tweak the place.
Pete Die was just an unbelievable architect who challenged you physically and mentally, and it was important to us that if as we move forward there at TPC Sawgrass, it was important to us that we get player feedback from people who have played it in the past, and we've gotten a lot of feedback, especially from Davis. Davis Love, who is now involved in making future adjustments to Pete's design.
He absolutely was a big fan of Pete Pete's design and he's very thoughtful in his own architecture, and we thought he was the perfect guy to bring on board. So he has been really deeply invested in future adjustments to the golf course there and making sure that he is being true to pete thoughts on how to play that golf course. And also Tiger has also had some
input with Davis. They've talked extensively about how the course used to play, and we value their opinion obviously, any any of the past champions who really want to see that golf course be the true challenge.
Gary, I'm really glad you brought up TPC saw grass because I think one debate I've kind of had with people recently, what's the best time to play TPC saw grass. How does it play differently in May versus March. Really interested in your perspective on how it plays differently in March than in it's history, oracles at least where it used to be in May, and what some of the
differences are in setting up the course firmness levels. Really curious for your perspective on how that moved to March has changed how TBC sawgrass plays.
Move move back to March. Joseph might be too might be too young to remember the March days before the May days.
Joe's a young one. Huh. I'll be honestly it uh. We we had the benefit of knowing how it would play in March. We had been playing it in May, and we're providing a very firm, fast golf course. It didn't quite have the color that it has. It didn't have the appeal visually, you know, because the Bermuda was still somewhat you know, not coming fully out of dormancy, and I think that everyone felt that the golf course presents itself better in March. Just visually striking the rough
is certainly a challenge. Still, we have the ability to it's all overseed, so we have the ability to beef the rough up and it's thick and juicy. It's just not going to play as firm and fast. So we know that the scoring is going to be good, and I think that's it's always produced somewhere in that fourteen to fifteen under par region, somewhere in there, so and we're okay with that. We think that at the end of a week, we want to see some scoring. It's
all about the competition itself. Was it a compelling competition. Let's not get focused on how many under par wins the tournament. And that's something that I don't like is when people start placing, you know, they start saying something about a venue, they say, oh, they shoot a twenty something under par there. It's all about the competition. What people remember in the end was the exciting finish and was it a duel coming down the stretch? Was there
a playoff? An exciting playoff? I don't think many people actually remember what the winning score was, so we don't get hung up on that.
I think the whole score things kind of silly if you look at how many player you know, Look, when Tiger came out, nobody hit the ball over three hundred yards. Now half the tour hits the ball over three hundred yards. I think the scoring competition, the scoring conversation is crazy. It's like, you know, the the quality of a golf course cannot be determined by what you know. Par is relative.
Have you, guys ever talked about like dramatically. I know you've done it in occasions where like TPC Craig Ranch went down in par one shot. Have you ever talked about going to like a par sixty eight for one week and just seeing how what the general reaction would be.
I don't know that. We've just discovered us doing that. There are times where we look at a par say there's a par five, and when you look at the end of the week and the average for that hole is four point zero or four point one, that's really a par four for our players. You know on the card it's a par five. So there have been times where we have we've changed the par value on a hole.
But when we do that, we want to make sure that the green is one that is receptive to a long club being hit to it, so that we can truly call it a par four and have the players have it feel like it's a true par four. They understand hitting a longer club. In where they get critical is when it's a green that was really designed to receive a wedge and where and they're hitting you know, long clubs to it.
I've done some research on this subject and if you go back to when par was created in nineteen tens, it was determined that a par five was a hole that is reached with three shots by an expert player, that would be the normal. And my question with that is like, are there actually you know, we just saw it with pebble stopping. We pebble guys hitting irons into fourteen, which has traditionally been one of the few real three
shot par fives on tour. My question is is it, I mean, do par fives really even exist in the pro game today?
It's it's there's not many. There's not many that require three shots anymore. Let's let's be honest, you know. So that's where sometimes our whole locations on that particular hole will be challenging, knowing that they are going to be somewhere up there around the green flipping a wedge. Well, the balance is going to be urine and have a really difficult up and down to achieve a birdy there. You know that should should mean something, so but yeah, they just it's a function of the game and how
it's evolved. And you're right, there aren't many that they don't reach into anymore.
Gary. In terms of sports leagues, PGA Tour other sports leagues as well, modernizing, one hot topic is always pace of play, speeding the game up. You know, Major League Baseball recently implemented a pitch clock. You are uniquely positioned to just discuss some of the complications in implementing a shot clock in golf. It's something that gets thrown around
a lot. Really curious for your perspective on the difficulties of implementing a solution like a shot clock and kind of how what the tour stance is on that right now.
And I'll forgive you guys for the pop shots that you take at us once in a while about our lack of addressing pace of play. But honestly, I so.
It takes a long It's a big commitment to watch golf.
Yeah, we hear. Don't worry. I'm being honest with you, guys. It's all about having the ability to spread the groups out. Okay, it's spreading the tea time intervals out, and clubs across America would help the pace of their own pace of play by creating more space. What happens is when the fields get large, then we get one hundred and fifty six players in a field. We've got to have t
time intervals so close together. And then, as you just said, par fives really are all reachable, right, so you can almost assure yourself that every par five is going to have a weight. So now you've got four weights occurring throughout the golf course, and with all of them starting so close to one another, and knowing that these weights
are occurring, how do you time anyone? You know, It's just you kind of lose your ability, and the slower players can tend to hide in those situations, they don't stand out as much. When we get to situations where our fields are smaller and we can spread the tea times out, you see the results in the pace of play. The pace of play suddenly goes from north to five hours to suddenly now we're playing about four hours and forty five minutes, which for professional golf and everything they're
playing for is acceptable. This is not some round of golf that you're playing on a weekend with your buddies. These guys are playing for their lives. And we all know that we have a system in place that I firmly believe in through the shot Link system, and it tracks average shot time data on each player. We have moved to that system rather than and yet we will still t groups if they fall out of position with
the groups ahead of them. They all have a responsibility to stay in position with the group ahead of them, and we will warn groups and we will time groups. But the bigger thing is the slowest players on the PGA Tour are going to end up paying fines at the end of the year if they set themselves apart from the rest and they and they don't. You know, I've always said to the slower players when when they get a what we call an ast infraction. So at the end of each event, there's an average time to
hit a shot. The slowest basically the slowest five percent ends up getting an ast infraction if they get ten. During the course of the year, fines start to kick in and it starts to accumulate quickly, and we don't discuss that publicly with anyone the amounts, but they're hefty amounts, and what it is, it's just encouraging people to play. We're looking like cars on a highway. We don't want people going one hundred and we want people going forty.
We're looking for everyone traveling right around sixty five seventy miles per hour going down the highway. And if everyone's spaced the same, traffic flows nicely. Things are gonna happen during a round of golf. We're gonna have lost balls, We're gonna have rulings. These are things that happen that don't happen at your club each week, and the average person doesn't understand, like why is it taking them five hours to play? Well, there's ruling calls, there's drive backs
to the tee. How often does someone go back to the tee at your club when you're playing or you're just throwing down in the field.
They don't.
They don't have a cart. They got to run back that's right. The junior golf days, the junior golf and the amateure golf days, the runback of shame. We either got to compose yourself after you sprint three hundred yards and hit the next teach. It's not a good feeling a lot.
Of There's a lot of components to pace of play, but the biggest component is having the ability to space groups out. And that's why we've always preached you know, although we're a membership organization, we look at a maximized starts at the same time, just understanding that smaller fields will provide us the best opportunity to improve pace of play.
I guess you know where where I'm going to push back because obviously I think I'm on a I have very well documented my feelings here. But the thing that frustrates me the most is that playing slow is rewarded on the On the PGA tour, you hear players talk about I used to play fast. We heard brooks Ka talk about how he realized he was trying to play too fast, and that's what he did at Okill. One of the changes he made from the Masters to o'kill
was I slowed down. I just took my time I went to the bathroom when I didn't need to go to the bathroom. When you talk about the end consumer, that's tough to hear. But with the with regards to you know, you have this system in place, you can identify who the slow players are. They're timed every SHOT's time. Wouldn't struck wouldn't the most effective strategy be to to dock strokes not fined because with the amount of money that's being played for now, these fines are completely inconsequential
to versus Like a shot or two. I know, if I if I saved myself two shots when I'm playing well because I play slow, I'm going to make up five hundred thousand dollars and that's going to pay for all my fines. No matter what the subject, it just doesn't seem like all the the considerations are aligned here with like the most the only place to me that ever is going to dissuade a PGA Tour player from playing slow is saying we're taking away shots in this tournament.
That that to be like, nobody wants to be penalized ever in a golf tournament, and that is the ultimate versus finds like if I play better because I play slow. They're going to pay for themselves.
At some point, at some point they're going to hurt, hurt enough to change your mind, I promise you. And it has happened. So finds finds due work, believe it or not, it bothered. Even when you're a person that makes a lot of money playing. When the finds escalate, it gets their attention and it has changed behavior. I can speak from experience that there are players who have changed their ways when the finds got to be a certain amount. But to your other point, the strokes, there's
a huge inequity there. Okay, so you're a guy who is playing brutally slow and you miss the cut, or you just make the cut and you get hit with one stroke penalty. Doesn't really harm you much. You're another guy who's played at a great pace the whole tournament, but now coming down the stretch, you're in contention, and something happens to you and you're on the clock, your group's on the clock, and get you get a couple bad times, and all of a sudden, we're hitting you
with a one stroke penalty. That one stroke penalty could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars if not nowadays could cost you a million dollars for that one shot if you end up losing by one. Where's the equity in that? You know? So you know that's that's kind.
Of why.
We look, we won't hesitate to get to that one shot and we have given the one shot penalty out. Okay. I it's just we believe that there's a big inequity there and the way the system is designed to get to that point, you'd have to be a fool. I mean you've been your group's been warned, okay, and then the next step is you don't make up time and your group gets put on the clock or you get put on the clock individually, and now you're being timed
and you go over your time. Now I've got to come out and tell you that I had you for a bad time, and I have to explain to you that the next time that happens, it's going to be a one stroke penalty. So that's like three or four stages that we go through before that, And that's the way the system's designed by the players themselves.
Get I guess, like where I would every other sport. What amazes me about professional athletes in general. Is the difference between Tom Brady and someone with first round, top five pick measurables is the way that Tom Brady is able to quickly process coverages and make decisions under the
gun under the highest pressure situations. To me, one of the things about professional golf is that when the pressure ratchets up when it is the time to go win, I want to see players have to continue to make decisions pull the trigger when they are in uncertain times. Tom Brady throwing a pass before he knows the receivers open in making that play is like a player not really sure about the wind having to trust his gut and pull the trigger, hit the shot under a stipulated time.
To me is a more compelling product. And obviously you can disagree here, but there's also a physical fitness aspect of this. Right If I have to climb the eighteenth hill at Riviera and I'm up and I hit the shortest T shot and I have forty seconds to play,
I might be breathing a little bit harder. There is a there's a real like when you talk about a is golf a sport or is this really like just a you know, we can wait and we can wait out win until it dies down to hit the shot and wait two minutes because I know I'm in the last group and I'm not going to get popped for
this this one time. Like to me, there seems to be like a little bit of a clash with pace of play and the idea of competition and playing an outdoor sport with like with levers that are pulled against you as a competitor.
I agree with every point you're making there. I would love to see everyone again. Like I told you, our goal is to identify the slowest players, get them to understand that the numbers don't lie, that they are a slow play and that they need to change. And that's that's a big part of our job is to get them to understand that we're not looking to make them a fast player. I just want you to be an average speed player. That's all I'm asking of you. We
want everyone playing about the same amount of time. You know, So I think to your point there is they get too cerebral and you're looking for them to be more reactionary and be athletes out there make a decision and go with it. And I have the same frustrations as you at times because I love the product as well, and that you know, I'm a fan as well as you know working out there, so I want to see it go quicker. We all do. But you know, it's
it's a balance every It's like everything in life. There's a balance there, and we've got to get these guys to see the numbers and the numbers don't lie. And you can give all the excuses you want, but the numbers do not lie. You're everyone's being treated the same. It's it's mechanized. Now. You can't tell me that it's a volunteer that you had, that it was hitting the button a little late. It's now a fully automated system
that is doing it. When someone hits a shot, it records right away and then the clock starts on the next person. And it's very well thought out system that throws out all the bad data in four or five different categories. So it's it's holding everyone to the same uh, same measurements.
All right, Let's let's get out of here with a few fun questions.
Now, let's ask some good ones here. Come on, heat on me here.
I'm sorry, you know, I don't want to I don't want to be like Bryson with anhill.
You know, here're a couple of layups. Will you.
What's your what's your favorite golf course to go to to set up? Like what what's the place that you find is to be for you and your job where you nerd out and have the most fun doing a tournament at.
We just came from it. I hate to say it. I mean, Pebble beat You can't beat it. I mean, it's just so beautiful. It can be such a great golf course if it's the right time and the conditions are right, it can be just an outstanding golf course. And it has been. You know, I hate to say it. People complain about where we are in the schedule. Well, that we've had like stretches of four or five years
with perfect conditions out there. It's just unfortunate. You know, you're going to get a couple now and then with this Pineapple Express, El Nino and.
The mainstream it comes with it.
You know. It's like I said, it's the price of being imperative. It's but that's my I love being at Pebble Beach. I love I love working the Masters tournament. I mean, such a gorgeous place, great people, everything about the event. I really cherish going to the Open Championship and the tradition of the Open. Yeah, it's all those iconic venues. Very very blessed to do what I do.
Is there a golf course that you think it hasn't been on the PGA Tour, but maybe you're like, wow, I would love to see that be a PGA Tour venue and might have the space to accommodate some of the infrastructure. Any in Young's dream bucket list to add this to the PGA Tour rotation.
I don't know that. I don't know. I've played some great courses over in Ireland that just I loved. I mean, I don't know if you guys have ever played old Head in kin Sale if you If you haven't, you put that on your bucket list. You know there's great courses over there, Waterville, bally Bunyon. I mean, gosh, Scotland's littered with courses. I'd love to see us play and see how the guys could do. And who knows. Who
knows what the future brings. You knows as we as we there's a lot of talk about international play in the future and maybe that will give us the opportunity to go to some of these great, great iconic venues and around the world. So yeah, I don't have anyone that jumps out.
Is your least favorite thing to do? Preferred lies? Is that your least favorite part of the job. When you got an institute preferred lies?
My least favorite part of the job is interviews. But preferred lies it's a necessary evil for professional golf. We have to have certain standards and the ability to improve your lie within a club length when the golf course reaches a point of saturation like we had last week. It allows us to continue to play golf right, but it also can lead to some scenarios where a player can gain a significant advantage. So I understand why. You know, some of the major championships are reluctant to ever put
preferred lies into play. But sometimes you've got to make sure that you're going back out onto a golf course that you can continue play on. So there's a balance there, all.
Right, last question, I promise, all right, you're off a red eye. We can't ask anymore. What is what is it? When you think back to like one ruling, like it's the ruling that pops in your head the most often, what is it in the history of your career, Like, there's got to be one that just like jumps to mind every time.
Well, probably one of the most painful ones was with Webb Simpson and this was that the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, and web was I think at the time he was leading by one shot and I got called to the green on I want to say, his whole fifteen, yeah, fifteen, and he had put his putter down behind the ball and the ball moved. But he had put his putter down, you know, maybe in half an inch to an inch behind the ball, and it wasn't like you put it down firm the way he was describing it to me.
But at that time, the weight of the evidence went against the player. His feet were in the position, in the address position. Everything was saying that he was taking his address to make the stroke, and it led to him being penalized and he ended up losing the tournament,
and shortly after that the rule ended up changing. Thankfully, when accidental movement occurs on the putting green, and thank god that has happened, and we've avoided a lot of silly penalties through the years where I think it was a situation where the ball just hadn't quite settled, you know. It was maybe it was on the edge of a spike mark or something, or a little spike imprint, and it ended up falling and it just did it happened to do it while the guy's potter was behind the ball.
You hated that. That was really hard. And then I had one ruling over at the President's Cup years ago in Korea that we ended up getting wrong as a committee. I wasn't sure, and I put it out to the committee and we had some of the best rules minds in the entire world there on site, and it was
one of these real obscure ones. We had the one ball rule in effect, and Phil Mickelson had changed his ball without announcing it to anyone, and it was four ball match play, and I told him that I believed he was disqualified from the hole, but it didn't disqualify as partner, and I put it out over the radio, and long story short, in the end, we ended up getting it wrong and it affected the match.
And easiest guy to deal with than that, it was just it was.
Just a really weird, weird moment and to keep my head straight for the rest of the match, knowing that we had made this blunder and I was a big part of it. And you know, in the end, in the end, the match ended up being tied. So thank goodness it didn't cost anyone, you know, big.
I feel like that's like I grew up caddying and when you're caddying in a club championship match and you give like a bad read and that's all you can think about like the next like like you're they asked you to read another putt and you're like like you just like don't even want to step up and read the putt because you just you know, you just butchered the last read.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's a good, good analogy right there.
Yeah, Gary, Where where will we see you next?
What's uh? And uh?
Thank you obviously for the time. Coming off of a long week here.
Yeah, absolutely, I'm actually headed to the Mexico Open at Vedanta and then the Players Champions following that. So I've got a little bit of a break in my schedule right now, which is good. I need a little little time off, go do something different for a few days and get away from golf.
It's a good time to be in North Florida. Too, good time of a year to have a little time.
I'm headed to Maine. Oh wow, I go snowmobiling up in Maine, so I just kind of get away from it. I'm here in Massachusetts, so I'll look forward to a little break for a few days, regroup, and then come back come back at it.
All right, Thanks so much, Gary, and look forward to seeing you at a tournament sometime soon.
Okay, thanks guys, Thanks for having me on a lot of fun.
Thanks Garry.
All right, Thanks to Gary Young. That was he was more than generous with his time, and he was coming off of red Eye. That was a effort as he fended off some of our questions and concerns about pace of play. Joseph, do you have a recommendation for everybody?
I do, Andy, And I'm curious if you've watched this. So I'm going the golf route actually this week. And one of my favorite things to do is watch old golf tournaments on YouTube. Generally I watch old editions of the Masters, a lot of two thousand and five to twenty eighteen nineteen, a lot in that range. I like to go back and watch, but recently, I stumbled upon I didn't realize the twenty sixteen Open Championship at Royal
Truon is on YouTube. Went back and watched that, the epic duel between Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson, all time golf tournament. It is a delightful watch. And the added bonus is that the Open Championship this year is at Royal Truon where it was in twenty sixteen, so helps you get prepped for the upcoming Open Championship and you get to relive an all time, all time duel between two excellent ball strikers. So it was really fun to
go back and rewatch. That would highly recommend it. Andy, have you watched that tournament since twenty sixteen?
I have not. I remember it vividly. I remember where I watched it. I was at I was in Los Angeles. I remember just like I was, you know, waking up at weird hours, West Coast and I just like vividly remember watching that golf tournament epic shots go crazy. That was a duel. I'm going to go back and watch that. That's a good recommendation. I have a recommendation on YouTube as well. All right, two YouTube recommendations I am. I would say that I'm not like a huge Bryson De
Shamba fan. That being said, I stumbled across his YouTube page recently and I watched the Sergio Garcia Bryson De Shambo one club nine hole match. Awesome. It was so awesome and I think think it was just like an amazing thing to watch Sergio do. As somebody who has watched basically Sergio Garcia's entire career, to watch him play nine holes with a five iron, they probably and just but with a putter, yep, But he used a five iron.
He was just he hit some just extraordinary shots and it makes you just like long for a little bit tougher equipment so that you could see guys have to hit shots again because he was amazing in this like and I think Bryson, like by the end of it, Bryson I think got like punched in the face right at the start. He was This is not the type of golf that Bryson plays. Like shot making, it's very you know, this had blasted up there, hit a wedge, you know, and this is a way different golf for
a golf with one club. Bryson uses seven iron but by the end of it, Bryson was hitting some really cool shots. I thought it was an amazing YouTube video, like, honestly, like one of the best, maybe the best golf YouTube video I've ever watched. Is this one club match between Bryson Deshambeau and uh Sergio Garcia. Awesome golf, Awesome golf shots. It's really like, if you're into golf, that's what you want to see from a YouTube video.
I've watched it, I believe. Is it a Austin golf club, Andy.
Uh No, it's that it's at Spanish Oaks.
Okay, Okay, that's right. Yeah, I've watched it. It's pretty short. I want to say, it's like an hour and a half or maybe not even that long.
Not even I think it's like forty five minutes.
Yeah, Like it's really see some cool shots. Sergio's working the ball both ways. Bryson's like hitting a seven iron over trees from like a thing.
They flopped it flopped, it flopped a seven iron like sixty yards over a big tree and stopped on a dime. I mean, incredible, some incredible shots.
Yep, yep, it's a good watch. I like that.
Andy, legitimately some of the best golf shots I've seen hit in a long time from Sergio. I'm with you, all right. That does it for this show. Big thanks to Matt Rusis for producing and editing this podcast. As a reminder, we got a huge week in CLUBTF. If you're not a member of CLUBTFE, maybe check it out. But it's Riviera week. I know Garrett is going to get a Riviera profile up sometime this week. On the golf course. I did a little one thing about every
hole at Riviera that'll be up early this week. But yeah, if you if you don't yet sign up for CLUBTFE, it is one hundred and twenty dollars for the year. We also just announced our summer member guest that is at an awesome golf course on Long Island. But yeah, and you can get access to that if you're a member, So big thanks. For more information on CLUBTF go to thefridagg dot com slash membership and you can see all the all the benefits you get there. But big thanks
to Joseph for coming on. And we will be back later this week with a new episode of the Friday Podcast.