A Conversation with Dodo Molinari, Vice Captain for Ryder Cup Europe

this podcast. Joseph, what are you in on?

He struggled to find his footing and came into yesterday with a very outside chance of getting his PGA Tour card, and he got it done. It was cool to see him get choked up and talk about basically, things haven't gone his way the last couple of years, and it's nice to finally have something go his way. Seems like a cool down to earth dude who now has his PGA Tour status locked up for next year. Was extremely satisfying watching him win.

make the tour. It can be a matter of you have a bad week at the wrong time, you fall under rut, you play your best golf at inopportune times, like we saw that with Hideki Matsiama. This is what I always think about this, Like when you rattle off what four of six wins in twenty sixteen, I believe the winter it was like, oh, like, this guy is the best player in the world, but he's playing at his best golf of his career at the wrong time.

You know, it's like, just there's no nothing consequential brain Thornberry. I mean, he's played everywhere. I think he was playing on like the All Pro Tour at one point. This is not something you usually see of a Haskins Award winner of a the best player in college golf, especially in this era. I think long term these types of things can be a blessing in disguise. It could give them a little bit more juice, a little more I

guess motivation, because you can. I'm sure he had some moments where he felt the bottom where he's watching guys that he used to compete, probably beat a lot, have huge success on television on the PGA Tour. Congress to Brain Thornberry, great, great moment.

most historic back nines in all of golf. They were battling and it was very much of a kind of just hang on for dear life situation because the wind and everything that went into it. We saw Bob McIntyre just go off about the seventeenth hole at St. Andrews, a player that was in the mix, saying it should be blown up redone. There's this preposterous that I had to hit a four iron into the green. This is what we want, this is what we want from pro golf.

We want the golf course to be holding up. And I think, like you know, the Old course was a great example the day before in pretty benign conditions. Players were just going nuts and beating it up and then the wind comes out and the rain comes and it's as much as they can handle. But like them hitting a foe iron. This is this is a quarterback in the NFL going against a great defense. The golf course matters.

It adds an additional layer. The finish to the Sanderson was great, but it was more of here are a couple players that don't usually win trying to get it done. There was no added element of the golf course is presenting a really tough test and standing in the way of them getting it done. And I think that's the thing that you had with Terrell Hatton cole Starts going back and forth down the stretch. It was, you know, Hatton opened up a lead, but then you know, you

turned and went back into the wind. On the back nine, it was really hard and cole Starts was hitting great golf shots and then it comes down to eighteen. Hatton gets up and down for the birdie. Cole Starts doesn't. He wins. It was just a It was a sensational finish to the Dunhill, and the golf course amplified it. So this is not necessarily a shot at Country Colby Jackson, which is maybe one of the most bland golf courses I've ever seen on TV, but not a shit there.

They shouldn't be hosting PGA Tour events at courses like this, and I understand there might not be a better host in Jackson, Mississippi, But if you're going to take in a couple billion dollars from house side investors, this is something to look at.

one for people to look at that. We kind of talked about this in the pod of ODO a little bit, But that's a good template of a golf course that maybe looks on paper like a test accuracy, but doesn't at all, and kind of goes to your point that that's just not a great PGA Tour test.

towering cuts seven iron into a tuckpin. Like, it's mostly just bash the driver up there and hit your sixty degree And all this stuff matters and how it relates to competition at the highest level and when everything gets ratcheted up. So what are you out on?

Not even to mention, I think the golf world has a little bit of a star building issue that some of these young guys come out on tour and people don't know who they are. There's probably an opportunity to divert some of those Champions Tour resources into building the corn Ferry Tour and building college golf, Like college golf isn't even really on people's radar, and I think that's something that could be an engaging avenue for the golf world to go down, is to put some money into

that and maybe not into this. I don't know. It basically feels like televising adult rec league softball at this point. For me, I can't believe that the purses are as big as they are for a Champions Tour events. That whole operation needs to go away.

like the awareness of young golfers is extraordinarily low. So if that's the case, if if you're having trouble with with awareness of like who is Kevin You, for example, a great young player who was a great player at Arizona State and has basically breezed up to the highest level of go He took his PGA Tour you an exemption on the Corn Faery Tour, turned it into a PGA Tour card and one year and then has won on the PGA Tour in his first year on the

PGA Tour. Ninety nine percent of golf fans have no clue who Kevin You is, and that would be he would have been a absolute superstar in college golf. He was a superstar in college golf. The problem is two thousand people in the world might care about college golf. So that is the real issue, and the tour has to address that. The Champions Tour is effectively a roughly sixty five million dollar subsidy. They just subsidize the tour.

If you took sixty five million dollars and put it into the corn Faery, you'd have every single event would be televised and broadcast alive. You'd have enough money to pour down into televising maybe a handful of elite amateur events and more college events, which to your point, are you're building your stars. You are just building the awareness up so that when Kevin You wins at age, what is he twenty five?

having your people, you know, be ingrained. Like they have this huge organization, but you know, outside of Sean Martin and maybe a handful of others, nobody pays attention to what's going on in college golf because it's not their job. This would make it part of their job and they would just get better at covering the young players in the sport. There'd be more context, There'll just be more understanding.

and it goes to vying for Ryder Cup spots. I would consider that kind of relegation and pro in promotion. That's more of a promotion like, hey, you've been put on this pedestal down to relegation promotion from the PGA Tour, corn Ferry Tour, and you could even go down to the America's Tour. We don't ever, we're not gonna, We're not anywhere close to seeing that. But that's another fascinating aspect. So the Corn Ferry Tour, thirty cards are handed out.

You know, at noon on a Sunday against the NFL, you cannot the television broadcast calendar like this is finishing. The most compelling event comes at the end of the afternoon of the first slate of football games, the most football games. Give this a chance. I thought the venue was really great. French Lick, the Pete Die Course is a really interesting golf course. It's a big boy golf course. It's a it's a golf course that you would type of shots you would see high level tour events, high

level tour course. It just needs to you know, this course, this this tournament should be covered. It should have its own week. It shouldn't go opposite Sanderson. It should have its own week and really be put up front for the PGA Tour because it is one of their best events.

So I just like, I think that the tour really needs to like look at their assets, look at what events they have, and construct a calendar based off of like, Hey, I know this isn't a PGA Tour event, but this is one of the best things we have going and if we prioritize it it's another potential, you know, one hundred million dollar plus franchise if we if we can do this right. And this goes back to like kind of what you talked about, but like this would make

the corn Faery the more compelling. The final event is the more compelling every other Corn Faery Tour event is.

a lot more interest or a Tuesday evening. So I think that could be something to explore. But I agree with you it should be highlighted way more than it is. It's a pretty special closing stretch to just nobody was watching it.

You get the primetime slot on a Tuesday. I mean, I know that the I know golfers didn't really like TPC Stonebree. I was thinking that would be a solution, but I know a lot of the lot of the Corn Ferry Tour players didn't love it. But find find a good venue and have it there. I mean, I know chamber Spay is like actively looking for things to host.

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And that's how we started. I mean mom and dad were both at the time like single digit handicaps, so we just you know went with them. And but for them, like it was always school came first and then if you could play good golf grade but if not, you know, it had to be successful in school.

then I started to get better pretty quickly. So towards the end of my it was between the middle and the end of my college career, I said, well, I want to finish this first and then I want to give it a try at golf. But it wasn't something that you know, I wasn't like one of those is that when they're like sixteen or seventeen every I think, so, this is going to be unbelievable. So then my very

last year in college, I was playing good golf. I qualified for the Open Championship and then I made the cut as an anders and then straight after that it was a US Amater qualifier. At the time, there was no World Amateur rankings or anything, so I just flew across, won the qualifier, back on for a couple of weeks, back to Marion, to play the USUM and then won the USUM, which obviously opened the one thousand doors and a lot of opportunities, and it was the best thing

that could happen to my golfing career. So then I had to wait another nine month because obviously you don't want to turn down the opportunity to play in the Masters, in the US Open, in the Open Championship again, and then I turned for the following year after the Open Championship.

Had the two thousand and five US Amateur at Marion noted you were the first golfer from Continental Europe to win that event, and like you mentioned, that got you into the two thousand and six Masters, where you were paired in the first two rounds with Tiger Woods and Robert Allenby. And I believe your brother Francesco, who you'd mentioned, obviously a great professional golfer and major championship winner, was on the bag for you that week. Pretty incredible set

of circumstances for your first Masters. Wanted to ask what you remember about that week.

of notes from the week. A friend of mine st you should write them down, and I think it was a great idea because I still had this like small diary with some thoughts and things that happened that, you know, almost twenty years down the line, you're starting to forget. The feeling was very weird, to be honest, I remember not even being nervous on the first tee. It was like something between a dream a movie set. It was

just very very weird. Like a lot of people around the tee obviously on the first all playing with Tiger, and he introduces himself like every other golfer high you know, Tiger was nice to meet you. And you know, it

was weird. Francesco was cadding and I remember, you know, anytime Tiger went into a greenside banker, he was the first one to be right next to him, trying to clean his ball and trying to It was just, you know, an experience for both of us which made me realize a that obvious even if I won USUM, I was still far far away from you know, being able to

compete in a major championship. But also you just you know, you just see other people play, You see those kinds of courses that you know, as an amateur you don't even dream about playing in the Masters, and it was it was an unbelievable experience.

twelve and a half to thirteen. So, I mean, everything is so difficult to I tried to play quite a few practice rounds in the in the weeks before, in the days before, but the problem with the Gasa is that the course tend to change a lot from even from Wednesday to Thursday. I remember on Wednesday playing with Sergio Alazabal and maybe Caderrera at the time, and I felt, oh, you know, the golf course is not too difficult. The

greens are still receptive enough. And then you show up on the parting on Thursday morning and all of a sudden, the greens became brown and it's like, well, you know, twelve hours ago it was fine, and now it's just

completely out of control. So it was you know, it's always an experience, and it's something that you know, some people might tell you tomorrow is going to be firmer, faster, but until you see how much of a difference they can make in twenty four hours, it's really difficult to believe. And I think that's part of the reason why anyone playing the first Masters has a massive disadvantage, because it's difficult to imagine how the golf is going to play until you actually see it with your own eyes.

And I think it's you know, it's a great way to separate the you know, the best players in the field to someone that is playing other golf. I would say it's much more difficult to separate players on a soft golf course or a slow golf course, for sure.

I could record fairways gaining his number of parts. It was extremely simple in the beginning, and then like everything I do, I try to make it a little bit better, you know, each week, each month, and it became quite quite a big thing in you know, after a few years. Then I met Mark Brady at the beginning of twenty eleven, and that's when he starts gaining patting came out on the PG tour for the first time. So I just read the article, I you know, looked for the for

the you know, the guy behind it. I sent him an email. We met a few weeks later in Florida and since then we've been good friends. We spend a lot of time together. We tried to shot, you know, as much as we can. So fast forward twenty nineteen. So I started collecting my own data in two thousand and three. So then about sixteen seventeen years later, there were a few guys in Europe that we're looking for

some sort of system to collect their starts. There was one company at the time working in Europe, which you might know. And then the thing with me is everything I had done until then was written in Excel. It was all in Italian. It was very clumsy to enter the data, so it was difficult for anyone else to

use it. And then COVID happened. So during COVID, I basically had three four months at home, no tournaments, nothing to do where you know, in the beginning, I said, well, I'm going to beat this ago and I'm going to start building something that more players can use, and you know, we can do reports and we can make it easier

to analyze and to read and to use. And then during COVID, I remember speaking to Phil Kenyon and Phil obviously is a great patting coach and he has a bunch of top players, and I said to Phil, I said, look, i'm building this a If you have any ideas, any feedback that you would like to add, I'm very happy to because I'm, you know, literally building it from scratch. And then, b if you think about any of your players that might be interested, then I like to talk

to them. And a few days later he put me in touch with Met Fitzpatrick. And when I showed what I was doing to Matt, he was immediately blown away. And he said, well, he wasn't even finished at the time, but he said, you know this is going to be so good, and I trust you so much that I don't care how much this caused, how much you charged me, I'm just going to I just want to use it perfect.

So then he was my first client when players started after COVID, and I thought, you know, once I get to do ten players in a couple of years, that's it, you know, that's I won't be managing more than ten players, and as simple as that. And then Matt started to play really well. He had a few interviews where he talked about me, and then within I want to say, eight or nine weeks, I was up at ten players

and there were more and more coming in. So then I had to hire one person, then a second person to help me with some day to day stuff so I could still Basically what I'm doing now is I have three people helping with the basic stuff, and I like to spend my time still, you know, thinking about new ideas or new stuff you can do with the data. So I split my time between still developing some things

and helping players with the analytics. And as you said, it's become quite a big business because he started as a hobby. Then I said it was my retirement plan, and now it's pretty much my major job.

aiming away from hazards. Like how would you describe those key insights that players have internalized to shoot better scores?

most common mistake. The other common one that I found in many many cases is the opposite one is being overly aggressive with approach shots like taking on some pins that doesn't make any sense to take on. I would say for the elite players, that's the two most common ones. And then there's a very strange one, which is it's not really a mistake, but it's like, as a player, you have no idea about your missus, about what you're

good at, what you're not so good at. You might have a rough idea, but once you know, if I start asking you, are you better on left to right pass or right to left paths, I can bet pretty much all the money I have that most players don't really have a clue. And sometimes I was the same myself before collecting all this data. I was just, you know, sometimes I was looking at it and I remember one time going to for a patting lesson to fil Kenyon and he says to me, what's your you know, what's

your common mistake in patting? And I said, well, Phil, I'm missing everything to the right, Like any bad path is always to the right, and whether it's a left to right or right to left, it's always to the right.

And it was like very early days in my you know stats thing, so I didn't really have good starts about my putting so I started to back trace, and I had a look at the last six months prior to that lesson if I was missing more to the left or more to the right, and on any break from any distance, it doesn't matter the type of grass,

the speed of degreen is anything. I was missing two times more often to the left than to the right, and I was convinced as a player that it was the opposite, probably because I missed a couple of short pass to the right or a path that you know to make the cut or to win a tournament to the right, and then in your mind you just create these stories that it's very difficult to eradicate from a

player's mind. But when you actually look at the data, it's like, hang on a minute, I missed two pass to the right, but you know in the three rounds prior to that, I miss eight pass to the left, So I'm actually missing more left and right. And I think that's something that again without collecting data, it might be on your putting, it might be a long game, it might be whatever. There might be a player that

is convinced that is three would is fantastic. And then you look at the numbers and the dispersion is actually worse than the driver. It's just very difficult as a player to have, you know, a neutral eye and an opinion on your game.

Can you just offer your perspective maybe on both of those. Yeah, I think that's pretty related topics.

doesn't change. There's no because I think the thing is what you gain a little bit being on the right angle of the whole, on the right side of the hole, as most people think, or when you when you see on TV look you hear about angles a lot. I feel like what you gain being on the good side of the of the hole, you lose it because all of a sudden the hazard becomes more on the side. And again, as golf professional, is much easier to go over water than to go on a hole with water

on the side of the green. So obviously we're talking small, small margins. But what you gain on one side, you lose it on the other. So it's at the end of the day, angles don't matter one bit now. The only I would say, the only time where they do matter a bit is that if you're in the rafugh sometimes you're in the left raff and you have a slightly better way into the green or angle, if you

want to say, then the right side. But again, it doesn't make any sense to chase an angle because you think, oh, I'm going to have an easier second shot, because at the end of the day, being on the fairway, even if if it's on the wrong side of the fairway. It's always better than being on the you know, in the raf on on the right side of the hole. Now there's a few Yeah.

a shot generally, So the more you try to gain that tenth of a shot of an advantage, you bring in more risk of finding the rough. Therefore it's not worth it. Is that a reasonable way to summarize some of those findings.

it needs to be a very wide farewell. Like the only course I can think of where the angle matter a little bit is the Old Course of Sanders. But there you have like ninety yards white fairway in some cases.

So obviously from being fifty yards right of center or forty yards left of center, the second shot changes dramatically up to the point where from the left side you might have to go over a banker to a firm green to a short pin, so it's unstoppable, while from the right side the bunker is not even in play. But again, how many courses there are in the world like the Old course, Probably you know less than five.

So I think at the end of the day, you know, as we said, in most most cases, they don't really they don't really matter.

was a demanding test. It maximized shot value. What would that golf course look like. What are some of those architectural features that you found to be a strong test for professionals that are engaging mentally? Right, It's not just this rip it down the center of the fairway with the stock fade.

should be penalized a little bit. If I miss the ferry by thirty yards, I should be penalized a lot more and if I miss it by sixty yards. I'm not saying it should be automatic, ob but it should be like something similar. And I think of, you know, of all the courses on the PGA Tour Agasta National, I think it's it's a great golf as of the Tea because it's kind of designed in that way. Like if you you know, if you hit a good t show, if you're a good driver the golf but Agasta National

and you have a great chance to win. If you don't drive the golf ward, well, you don't stand the chance.

It's as simple as that. I think what I don't like about Augusta I think sometimes the second shots are built in a way where there's too much of a fine line between a great shot and a and a poor result, Like if you think about especially whole SAYHULD thirteen, I think that's a bit extreme sometimes where you're hitting like a long iron of a side slope into a green and then you know, the difference between pitching it on the green or two yards short is like between

a three and a six. I think that sometimes it's fifteen as well. I think sometimes that's a little bit too much. But I think of the Tea Agasta nationally is as good as a test of a modern golfer as they can. Like, I hate when you see a golf course where everyone is just bombing driver and there's not much consequence whether you're on the fairway, whether you're in the rough. Yes, you lose a little bit if

you're in the rough, but not so much. And I think the way Augusta is built is you know, you need to be in position of the tea in order to have a chance to hit the second shot close. And the more you move away from the middle of the fairway, the more trouble you're going to encounter. And I think that's okay.

in opening T shirts in major championship. I think because again it's like the difference between a good T shirt and a bad T shirt is it could be a lot. If you hit a good T shirt on the first it's you're looking at, it's almost a birdihole like it. It becomes it plays under part. As soon as you miss that fairway, you'll do you'll do very well to make it four. And if you miss it by twenty yards each side, then do very well to make a five.

And I think that's, you know, that's the typical characteristic

of a good golf old. I think so. I don't think it's you know, some of the lending areas, yes, are wide, but also the penalties around those landing areas are quite heavy, and so if you spread around the gasta, maybe again I think that people are a bit I think biased by When Tiger first came out, the golf course was much shorter, it was a lot wider, and the distance he was hitting the ball, you could hit it pretty much anywhere, like on eighteen he was flying

it over the bankers and then yes, you have, you know, one hundred and fifty years to play with there, but now you can't do it anymore now. The landing area on the eighteenth it's probably twenty five years wide, the actual landing area because the right half of the fairway you can't see the green. So I think it's you know, it's a difficult course of the team, or at least I would say it's difficult, but it's a course that separates a lot of the good drivers from the poor ones.

fit his game better. Like you are mentioning with how the course used to play for professional golfers versus now with this speed revolution in golfer's hitting it a lot farther. Rory himself included that his dispersion pattern doesn't fit on Augusta National as well as it would have at the beginning of his career. Is what is your reaction to that theory?

always lives. If he misses a shot, he always leaves himself a chance to get up and down, which is the same thing that Scott did so well this year when he was windy. I think it was the Saturday

that was very windy. I can't remember exact there was one round where he was very windy and it was difficult for everyone, but Scotty was missing greens, and he would always miss it on a side where he would have an up and down, and I think in previous years I would obviously, you know, I was hoping for Rory to win, and I'm still and I think it will, but I think he was just missing two often in places where you know there's no there's no tomorrow, there's

no you're starting to make. You can't make a power, you're starting to make a bogie. So I think one issue is that, And I think the other issue with Rory Agasta, as you kind of mentioned before, is that he hits it very, very long. But I think compared to other players, even when he's playing well, he might still hit a bad shot that obviously gets punished at Agasta.

Like if I see, you know, the players of those caliber like John and Scotti and Brooks and DJ, when they're on and they're playing really well, I don't see many bad shots, while you know, with Rory as good as he is, and you know, he's every bit as good as any one of these players, sometimes even within't easy in contention, he still hits one shot that is like, you know, forty years off line and a Gasta you pay a big price for it. So I think it's

a combination of things. I think I really like the way. I think it was not this year, but last year that he started really to talk in his you know, pre Masters press conference about trying to be more patient and how he not to you know, play himself out of the tournament on day one, which happened before, you know, trying to accept that sometimes he just needs to work for the middle of the green and tupat and keep going.

And I think that's ther mindset and the attitude to win a Master's and I'm pretty confident that he's going to win one soon.

where I'm going with this. Often people will start to say, like, well, he should have left himself below the hole. Now, what is your reaction immediately when when you hear that.

I think the big mistake was on sixteen the three but the bogie on sixteen from basically the middle of the fairway with a short iron in hand. That second part was again a three four footer, but it was much easier than the one on eighteen. That's probably what cost him the US Open, I would say. And the other thing as well is that, you know, you can talk as much as you want about that last round, but you cannot say that or Patti Pole on that last round because up until the fifteenth hole he made

basically every part he could make in that round. He was very unlucky on the part five on the the fifth hole where he had a good second shot and ended up making a sixth. I mean there was probably a foot away from being an easy four. And again it's I think people underestimate how difficult it is to win golf tournaments, especially majors, especially those big events. I mean, he hasn't won in ten years now, but there's only four years. There's a lot of you know, good players

that are trying to win them. It's it's extremely difficult. Then sometimes you need to know, you need to be lucky at one point. And obviously he's always been on the on the bad side recently. But you know, I saw him last week at Wentworth and I said, two,

you know, it was before if finished second again. It just you know, I finished second at the Irish Open and I said to him, I said, eventually, if you keep playing like this, eventually the wheel is going to turn and you're gonna be on the good side and you're gonna start winning, you know, five, six and seven times in a year, like like Scotty does. And he just laugh and he said, yeah, I know. I just you know, have to be patient and it's gonna happen.

foot slider. What is your advice your reaction to that, but also your advice to junior golfers or anybody that's trying to play at a highlight. Are you always trying to chip it as close to the hole as possible or would you can see that, hey, in extreme situations when you play glassy, extremely undulating greens somewhere like Augusta,

somewhere like Pinehurst. You know what, there actually might be some situations where I'd rather have a six foot uphill put than a three and a half foot downhill slider. What's your perspective there.

the six footer straight up hill. Maybe, But again we're talking extreme situations where the average golfer would never encounter, like on your golf course, as fast as the greens may be, as sloppy as they may be, I think from short range at least, it doesn't. It's just the closest you are, the better it is. Now, if you know from further away, obviously a ten footer downhill on a super quick green it's going to be probably more difficult than a twelve footer straight uphill or a thirteen

footer even. But then the thing is if you're starting to if you're trying too much to leave yourself the uphill pass, then all of a sudden you'll be putting all day from further away, and then you're gonna it's not an effective strategy in the end. It's almost like you have to accept that sometimes you're gonna have a four footer, you know, across the slope downhill, and you just have to hope that it's not on the last all of us open to make the playoffs.

My intuition would be that they do right, that they're too conservative off of the tea's as well. But some people might argue, well, the women's game is different and they hit it more accurately off the tea, so they should hit driver less often. What's your overall impression for analyzing both of those sets of data.

hitting these many fairways. There's something wrong. But it's just it's a driving machine. She's very, very good. Also with a prose play. You know, she was a bit like I remember last year talking to his Caddy as well, and she was a bit like Scotty, Like you could see the potential in Scotty and you know, the pattern was letting him down. And Nellie was kind of similar, like as soon as she has and others were good patting week, it's almost impossible for her to finish outside

top three. So she's an unbelievable golfer. But going back to your question, I think pretty much the same concept applies. Like even with them, you can see them sometimes they're two conservative of the tea. Same as demands they should hit driver way more often. And sometimes you know, even someone like Nelly that she has the approach shots incredibly good. She sometimes can be a little, you know, to a

girl see into the greens. I think as golf professional, as you almost overestimate your ability with approach play with you know, being able to you know, there's a flag on the left side with water left, or just going to aim two years eight of it with a seven iron. Sometimes you know, it's almost impily. I put it this way, it's almost impossible to be too conservative into the grease with your approach shots, like you would have to be seriously aiming away from the pin way more than you think,

and it's just very easy to become too aggressive. And if you're too aggressive, you usually pay a big price for it, especially in the beginnings.

more success with a fade. My question to you is is that actually just a realization of the best way to play golf or is that also technology driven that the modern driver you're the right person to ask, because when you started playing golf and playing professionally in the early to mid two thousands, the driver technology has changed a lot to now. So is that was that inevitable that everyone's going to end up hitting a fade or is that a byproduct of driver technology advancement?

especially with the driver. I remember, again going back to Rory when when he first came out, everything was like, it's linging twenty five yard raw even off the tea, and then in time like even now, when you see him hitting a driver on a good day or when he's playing well, it's a pretty neutral shape. And he was someone that he again he would, you know, sling it twenty twenty five yards right to left, and his swing hasn't really changed much. Maybe a little bit, but

not that much. And when you look at you know, all the top drivers of the ball, I would say at least eighty percent he did left to right, and they don't even try to hit it right to left Like the most consistent of them, they all he did left to right. And I think again it's something to do with how the driver is built, and also I think swing wise, it's probably a fade is a little bit more reliable than at all.

those penalties. Similar to how you're describing with the kind of architecture that you like to see. What is your react? Would you be in support of regulation change that shrunk the size of the driver head.

the rules, I would definitely go down that path. I think it's something that amateur golfers won't probably enjoy because for them it's easy with you know, these days, with the big club heads and just swing it and it doesn't really matter where you hit it, it goes somewhere straight. But I think for professional golf, I think that would be the way to go again. It will bring a lot more skill back into the game for sure.

very next day. And I've known Luke for like twenty five years, probably because we played amateur golf together, and the same thing. He asked me, you know what I could do, and obviously he Luke was vice captain before in Whistling Straits and in Paris as well, so he knew what was going on there and he said, yeah, I would like to, you know, get your help and

keep working with you. So you know, yeah, I did the last one in Rome and of when when Luke was named captain again, I remember the very the day before he was named captain, he sent me a very nice text saying, you know tomorrow i'd be announced as captain. But you know I need I need you to be at my side from day one pretty much. So please you know, I would like you to to be vice captain again and said, yeah, of course, fantastic.

we can get. You know, one view, when you're making optimal pairings, it would be, hey, we're going to put together the best analytically the best data driven pairings, and we're going to tell you who to play with, and you're gonna be fine with that, and you're gonna go out and play well, right like, that's probably in your head the ideal scenario, but like, let's say, for example, there are two golfers who really want to play well together,

think they have extremely strong chemistry, but you might evaluate that they're a quarter of a shot, for example, disadvantage compared to the optimal pairing. I mean, is there does that chemistry matter to where it could actually when you factor it in outweigh that quarter of a shot? Like, how do you think about quantifying the chemistry and who people sort of on a subjective basis, want to play with.

it's not only the players. Then you have to look at what balls they use, what you know, do they play well together? Do they you know, are they friends? Are the wives getting along well? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that goes on in there. It's not only obviously, the data is a big part of it, and I felt like Luke was going very much with the data. Then you know, there were some pairings that we had in mind that for one reason or the other,

we couldn't we couldn't bring out. But again it's I think you need to find the right balance between the data, what the data says, what the players tell you. Sometimes you might have a player or a pairing that looks unbelievable, but then they're not playing well, so all of a sudden you can't really use them together. It's a combination

of things. I think that the big thing for us with the data was that we had a good plan, stuck to the plan because obviously we got off to a great start, but it was avoiding some big mistakes or some you know, yeah, basically avoiding some big mistakes that were done before that might have you know, been repeated in Rome. We just stayed away from, you know, a couple of pairings that you know, sometimes the players want to play together, but you just explained to them, look,

this is it's not gonna work. So if it's not gonna work, you're not gonna look good. We're not going to look good. It's gonna hinder the whole team. So you need to find again, it's it's a fine balance, and I think Luke's one of Luke's best skills that we was just to find. You know, everything he did was you know, from the communication to the players to you know, these little things. He was absolutely unbelievable out of ten.

you speak to them. But I think what we did is we tried we started to look at the pairings very very early. We started look, started to talk with the players extremely early. So when we got to Rome, everyone knew exactly what was going to happen, and there was no you know, no last minute guessing or no improvisation. I mean it took us every day. It took us literally five minutes to hand in the pairings simply because we knew exactly what we were doing and it was

pretty simple and straightforward. There was a lot of preparation. I mean, the weeks before we're very easy. I think I couldn't make a cup for like a month before. It was like, you know, trying to do this, try to solve the pay it's time to speak with the players, trying to speak with Luke. You know, we were going

to dinner with Luke pretty much every night. It was a lot of hard work before and then once you once you get to the weekend of the Ryder Cup, hopefully most of your work is done and you just you know, see the players play and play. Well.

but tends to happen. How much information do you think is contained in what you see from a player in one of those first opening sessions versus your priors, and hey, even if this golfer that we evaluated is probably our weakest link, Like if he goes out and crushes it, are you saying to yourself, you know what, maybe he needs to get a little bit of more run the next two days? Are you sticking to that evaluation that you had coming in again.

One of the reasons I think why everyone wants to play everyone the first day and we'd usually do it, the American usually do it, is because the Ryder Cup itself is a very different environment to your day to day tournament. And you want to see how the player reacting that if you know, someone might not be playing very well coming in, but then you know, if you think about someone like Poulter or Sergio, they loved that environment and it didn't really matter how they played before.

As soon as they got you know, somewhat of a decent start on day one, then they were incredible for the whole week. Other players might be opposite. You might have a player who is playing great coming in and then it just doesn't feel comfortable in that environment where everyone shouts and every you know, basically every golf every golf shot feels like it's the Sunday of a Major down the last hole, so you get players are reacting a bit differently, and if there's no history in it,

you want to see how they play. And I think that's the biggest reason why you try and play everyone on day one and you know, and then you go from there a little bit.

but confers are twenty seven. One is never played in that environment, so it's an unknown one has played before. How do you think about how that could break the tire or work in one's favorite versus the other, Because then if you don't take the guy who's never played before, two years later you might have the same situation again where you might be holding against him that he hasn't had any team success.

golf is a fickle sport. Mesh play is a bit of a I'm not saying a lottery, but it's like it's even it's different to seventy two hole stock play. It's very difficult I mean, the data semple is so small, and you might have a great record because you know, you play against someone that you know was just having a bad day and all of a sudden you get a point. But you might have been the second worldst player on your team and you still you get a point. So I'm not a big believer in you know, your

your previous record. I'm more a believer on how you've been playing recently and how you've been playing on that single week, to be honest without mentioning it.

so you know, we still won four matches. So maybe if he had played, we wouldn't we wouldn't have one for I don't know, so yeah, I think again it's it's a very fine balance between all these things, and you know, sometimes again you have to be lucky, because I mean, everything looked it looked like we were geniuses in Rome because we decided to start with four songs, because we set up the golf force in a certain way.

But then again, maybe Victor doesn't chip in at the first and then we lose that foursome, we lose another one. It's too old after the first the first morning, and it's a completely different Rider Cup. So you know, sometimes again it's it's fine lines. It's you try and shift the odds as much as you can in your favor, but there's only so much you can do. And at the end of the day, you know, a player having a good day or a bad day can turn the tables pretty easily.

that way? I mean, how do you think about a problem like that?

as it proved in the last few Rither Cups. And again I think you know, it's difficult enough to play in front of an away crowd that you don't also need the golfers to be set up in favor of the of the home team. I think they've taken away quite a few things already. Like in previous years, like if I'm talking ten or fifteen years ago, the home team could decide which teas they could set the pins. Sometimes they were the only one to know the pins that they were going to be used. So there was

obviously too much of an advantage. So now they've taken away the t boxes, you cannot choose which one to use, whether you want to move up a tea or not. You can't do it. You cannot side on the pins. We are given the five pins at the beginning of the week that they're going to use in the you know, in all the sessions, but you're not even told this is the Sunday pin, this is the Friday morning pin. You just know the five pins. That's it. And I

think that's a very good way to do it. And I would try and do pretty much the same on the golf So I would build the golf course where you know, ideally there's only one tea, so that's it. You can't can't move it, and I would make it, you know, a good match play courses in a lot of holes where there's like either reachable power fours with water or you know, reachable part five. You know with

some penalty involved. I think I think Marcos Simono, I think it was a great venue because of the back nine, the front line was so and so, and we knew that we had a lot of data from the Italian opening previous years, and there were not a lot of birdies and bogies made on the first eight holes, seven holes, and then from the eight all onwards. If you look at it, it was either extremely difficult holes or birdie holes, but you could easily make a bogie on the same hole.

There were holes where you could decide to go for it or to lay up like there was a lot of things happening from the eighth all onwards, and I think that's a very good trait to have in a radical course.

years ago. Like twenty years ago you just knew how many failures we're hitting, how many games are we hitting, how many paths are we taking. Now we have you know a lot more information about your own players, the opposition players, so you make more informed decision for sure.

I don't think that's probably going to be true. Like you have the Hoyguards, long hitters coming in Ludvig, like we're probably going to see pretty similar skill sets that your opinion.

my goal from links courses. Well, basically, you have to hit it low, hit it straight, doesn't matter how far you hit it, and you have to cheapen pat Well, and that's like the typical English player. My age is still you know, it's not long, hits it low and chips and Partwell. I think now the good English players that are coming on tour, because they've been in college in the US and because they you know, they understand that it's a different game as a pearl, they all bombed,

they all hit it high. It's completely different to how it was twenty years ago.

I'm not gonna tell you. I can write it down if you want, or I can send you. I can send you a text and then you keep the text and then September twenty five you can reveal the text.

recommend Sturgil Simpson. Andy I'm doing a music wreck too, Okay.

to really dive in. But if you're like into just like guitar limited vocals, this is a band to check out.

them out there on like an event calendar. But we are going to have a lot more of those next year. If you're a member you just get emailed hey, we're we have this setup. So we did some last week in northern Michigan. We'll have a couple in the southeast around our Old Barnwall event. But we will continue to add more and more of these as we go, so check those out and check out Club TF if you're not already a member. Big thanks to everybody for supporting us.

The you joined CLUBTFE at the Frida egg dot com slash membership, it's one hundred and twenty dollars for the year, ten dollars a month and it really helps support us and helps us grow. So we will be back on Thursday. I think Garrett and I are going to do an architecture mail bag and then we also have an interview with Jason meersman a one of the one of the biggest characters I've met in the Superintendent world. So that'll be fun and thanks for listening.