Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is powered by tdamor Trade. Every stroke counts on the scorecard and every penny counts in the market. That's why Tedameritrade is committed to straightforward pricing with no surprises, so you're free to swing with confidence. Visit tedomortrade dot com slash Fried Egg member SIPC. Today we welcome on Aeron Oberholzer. Aaron played on the PGA Tour for a number of years and is now an analyst on the
Golf Channel. Kind of a jack of all trades, covering everything from NCAA Golf to the PGA Tour. This week he's out at the Senior Players and we just kind of pick up our conversation here talking about Matt Wolf's win last week, the Young Guns on tour, kind of what's changed in the game, and then we close with a little bit of talk about the Open.
So here's Aeron Oberholzer. I miss a green, for example, I'm already a set.
When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball.
In a brid Egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida egg egg Frida, egg.
Bride egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off of them.
The distance thing is gonna just be with the young guys. It's it's just crazy because everybody was like, oh, Champson anomaly.
It's like, no, he's just the start.
No, he's just him and him and Wolf at the beginning. Yeah, him and Wolf at the beginning. I played with a kid. I'm good friends with the kid. He's like a little brother to me. Frankie Sappan who plays for Alabama, he's one toy when he wants it all day, all day. We went and played his home club, North Oaks UH in Minnesota a couple of nights, two nights ago, just
played nine holes for fun. Had my boys out there and they were whacking it around and Frankie was coming off the lake like he was wake surfing all week up in there. Uh just had a week off. He was up there with the family and no warm up swings, no practice. Gets on the first tee. There's a bunker down there on the right side, downhill t shot bunker
on the right side. It's got to be a solid to ninety carry probably yeah, probably three bills to carry it to play in about two two ninety downhill and flushes it over the bunker by fifteen twenty yards and hit a hit an eight iron into the into the first hole was a par five. I hit a five wood. I necked mine a little bit down, but I was in the middle of the fairway and literally hit five wood. He hit eight iron.
It's crazy.
So this is just the start. You're right. He was twenty five to thirty yards by me easily, sometimes forty when he wanted to be all the whole nine holes we played, it was unbelievable the speed.
I was talking to this kid.
Could I know his coach at the US Open? He was, Uh, he was an altar. He was the first alternate.
And the guy we were.
Just talking he teaches all the you know, a lot of the young kids in Chicago that are like really good.
He's got a few guys.
That are probably going to be on tour soon. But he was telling me, he is like all I teach now is all we work on is speed and putting.
Yep, that's all it is speed and putting.
Yeah. Just you hit it far and then you make putts.
And you're gonna be good. Yeah, because you'll learn how to eventually.
Exactly a pro approach play comes into play. I mean, you look this last week, and approach play was really important. I mean, you know, Morikawa was won. He's not long, but his proproach play has to be good because he's not long, he's an average length guy. But but Wolf Wolfe's approach play was stellar. So there is some there. When you get to the highest level, it does become about proper control and approach play. But it's so much easier, made so much easier if you've got one hundred and
seventy five or lesson on every hole. You know, so if you're not playing outside of one hundred and seventy five yards, the game's pretty simple.
That's I think that is what kind of makes Wolf and Morikawa a little bit different than say like a Cameron Champ or you know, some of the other young guys that we've seen recently. As they you know, like Markaua.
Put on one of the best press performance of the whole season of the.
Year, without a doubt. He he. Here's the funny thing. Lavener and I were talking about this and early in the year or during nty double A's and then and I after I saw Marikawa for the first time play up close at Pasa Tieno at the Western, I really looked at his game and I said, and then I've seen Wolf, and I knew I was gonna see Wolf again at nty Double A's and I knew what he's He's done this year. But I'm sitting there looking at Marikawa and I'm going, this is the most tour ready
dude of the four guys. I mean, like, if you look at the complete game, you know there's just he doesn't have any weaknesses. Is he's not long, but you know which is which might be his only weakness quite honestly, Colin, because every other part of his game I watched him and I'm like, not good swing, controls his distances really well, flights his ball, can hit it both directions, cuts it, fades it, he's not scared, drives it really well, his
good touch around the greens and puts it great. And I'm sitting there going, well, you know whereas Wolf, you know, I saw some holes in his game quite honestly that could I thought could be cleaned up. Hoblin, I've felt had some holes. He's not a he's not a great putter Hoblin isn't he's I think him and Wolf are going to be streaky to start with. And you saw it where Wolf got hot and used his distance to his advantage. But Moro Cow is going to be that
like real plotter, consistent, just not make any mistakes. And uh, I just I just I see I saw Colin of the four and you know, throwing cell in there. I thought that I thought that Colin had the most tour ready aim from driver through the putter as far as two are ready to win, you know, obviously with the distance, like you just said, the guy with the distance stuff, it was it was it was I thought it was
Wolf who had who who could win right away. It was definitely Matt Wolfe, especially when you look at the courses he's coming through in the Midwest. I thought he might give himself a shot and he did. Yeah, it's and then and then took advantage of it.
See you've covered you know, you did a lot of college stuff this this spring. It's a I mean, so did you foresee all of them having as much success as they did?
When you know, you saw Colin at at the.
Western and then n C a As and then he saw you know, Victor and Uh and Matt Wolfe at UH at the NCAA's.
Did you expect him all to play so well so quick?
Uh? Uh? I actually, you know what's quite quite honestly, I didn't expect I thought there. I thought it'd be a little bumpier for Matt. I expected Hoblin to play well he has, And I expected Colin Morikawa to play well he has. After watching Justin's Justin's Got Justin. I watched Justin for eighteen holes at Passing and he didn't have his best day, didn't have his best stuff by any stretch, and pass he beat him up a little bit. But there are some I see. I see Justin needing.
I see Justin quite honestly needing a year on the web or on the corn Ferry Tour. He he's he of the four, he's the least ready to to to to play at this level based on what I saw.
Yeah, it's I mean, obviously everybody's gonna compare this class. I mean, and the you know, one of the things is like Will Gordon hasn't even really you know that that he hasn't gotten the tour sponsor, but he's been playing on Canada, and he's been he's been lighting it up up there. I mean, he's another Yeah, just unbelievable talent, so that everybody's this class to that and.
Will and Will's stand Yeah, Will's fantastic. Cameron Young if he could, if as long as his back stays healthy from from Wake Forest, he's a stud. He could do it. There. There's a this class is going to be when it's all said and done, the class that's either graduated or come out this year twenty nineteen out of college, they're
gonna they're all really really strong players. And and and I can see I can see all the aforementioned guys being on tour at some point with full full status at some point, probably within the next two to three years. Quite honestly, Justin's got to work on his wedge play. So he's got to work on his wedge play as flighting his irons. He hits the ball. He hits the ball in my opinion, too high.
And uh, even though people say, oh, you like that, you don't like that to a certain extent, But I think trajectory control is really important when you get to the highest level and being able to control the distances with your irons, and I really it really kind of he was exposed.
I thought at Pasa Tiempo on his wedge play and Passa Tiempo is a golf course that requires you know, really really crazy good iron control and good approach play, I mean exquisite approach play because of how the greens are and yeah, you're hitting shorter irons in there, but that should give you even more control of your ball. And I just didn't see it out of justin that that day that I watched him again, he didn't have his best step by any stretch.
But I agree with that they make the ball flight.
I think the ball flight's a little too high.
It's the when the tour, you know, with the tour is you know the pins are tucked and getting at those, you know, just being able to hit it into the right spots. And I mean it's like what Tiger says is, you know he's always worried about missing at the right distance, and I feel like, you know, going really good. These guys are just hitting it within you know, a yard of the number every time and that ties perfectly into trajectory.
Oh, without a doubt, That's why Jason did. I watched Jason Dayer for eighteen holes out out at three a m. And he was I had it was first round of golf. I've ever watched Jason on the ground where he didn't take a full swing at an iron, first round of golf I've ever seen him play. I'm like, he's serious about this. Tiger's you know, William Steve has convinced him, and maybe he's talked to Tiger and he's taking it to heart because you know, in college, Tigers swung hard
at irons. But that was college. But when he turned pro and started working with Butch on his game, that guy hardly ever took aunt. He never took a hundred percent swinging an iron and still does it. It's all seven the full swings for him with an iron, seventy five to eighty five percent. And every time I saw Jason the first a well eight years on tour, even when he won the PGA, it was if it was in between two clubs, it was in between a nine
and eight, it was a full blown nine. I mean, just back it up the ball in the stands and just launch it if I have to, versus playing at a ball, you know, in the middle of your stance or a ball up in your stands and just feathering a little fade in there with an eight if you have to just take him little off. And I saw a lot of that this week from from Jason, which I thought was really cool. I mean, he was really flighting the ball. Never seen him hit it as low
as he did this week. It was. It was really cool to watch.
Actually, Day, is that the Steevie Day thing is something to watch. I think like it would be it'd be really fascinating to see if Day can kind of remake you know, he had his like run, that eighteen month run where maybe you know, best run for eighteen months we've seen since Tiger, you know, and and then you know he's kind of struggled last couple of years.
But like if he was able to.
You know, fall down on you know, where he's spending the teams and then get back up into that top three four players in the world, you know, by you know, reinvent. So few guys I feel like, once you get to that elite level, are able to kind of reinvent their game.
Yeah, it's hard, It's really hard, and I think Jason's going to find it very difficult, and he is going to go He's going to go through some serious growing pains with this, with this, with learning how to do this at at you know what, I guess you'd consider a later age learning how to play this way even though he's still what does he he's still in his twenties, right, late twenties, maybe he's thirty. I think he's twenty eight or twenty nine, And you know, it's I don't know,
I think I think he can do it. It's just how how much patience does he have to play like the kind of the way he did at three m this last week on a golf course Seemingly you would think he would destroy with his game and just you know, barely makes the cut and then plays, you know, okay on the weekend, not great by any stretch. You know, how how much how much patience does he have for
that kind of golf and for how long? So you know, if he has the wherewithal to stick with it, it's I think it could pay great dividends, especially in the majors, especially in the majors.
So with all these young guys and yeah, the success I mean this this week was at at Minneso Minneapolis was crazy with how young the leader board was. I mean, you were is it Jason Day? So he's thirty one? Is Jason Day thirty one?
There you go?
Is Jason Day a like what we would used to consider like a thirty eight year old.
That's a good point. Yeah, it's like you, I guess you could start looking at don't know and dog years kind of compared to Yeah, I guys are learning at at a younger earlier e clip because of you know, I mean, I think for all the things that we've all talked about on airic Golf Channel, you know, I think you know, track Man plays a role in that you're not sitting there hunting for something over the period of two hundred or three hundred balls in four or
five hours. You're literally looking at a screen going, oh, that's why I'm hitting it this way. You know, if you understand track Man and you understand all the numbers and permutations, I mean, you can figure it out swing to swing. This is how I need what I need to do to create a you know, you can turn a number into a field, and that's what these guys
are so good at. They can turn that number into a field and then just change their golf swing to match up to what they want to see the ball flight, and then double check okay, that's right. And literally you can check your you can change it. You can fixcuse me fix and change your golf swing or change your golf sling in one or two swings now and then and get confirmed, get it confirmed that you're doing what you want to do. And then the other I think
a bigger factor than anything. I go back to my junior day first play a cut off hand me down set for my grandfather that didn't even fit me, and I was trying to crnagle it and figure out how to use it and say on and so forth. At thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old, so I finally got a decent set of clubs that I still again weren't fit for me. They just right off the rack. These junior kids nowadays are getting are they have access to the same thing
that we do as professionals. They have the same access to the fitting and to the TrackMan numbers and getting a skin rates right and the launch right and optimizing their drivers and optimizing their irons and oh this is the descent angle you need and your irons and this is the apex you need at your speed to stop the ball. I mean, they have all this at their disposal and before you know it's boom, it's just plug
and play, man. And I think that's I think, in all honesty, between those two things, those are the two biggest things of why kids are so ready on the PGA tour nowadays. You know, they just they they've got the metrics. They know the metrics that they have to have because they're out there and the data is there. We didn't have this kind of data when I was
growing up. You know, you literally dug it out of the dirt, and you you you played the game with more feel, without a doubt, it's way more field than you do. Now. There's a lot more science in the game. But it's that science that's allowing younger kids who don't have the experience of digging it out of the dirt to get to the levels they are so quickly. The science is helping them massively.
That's as I was thinking about this the other day, and I think, like we're we're seeing like these way people those like the young guns kind of common waves like we had that J. T. Speathberger kind of run right, and I think those are the guys that never hit. They never hit so like Ricky was the guy. Ricky in that group was the guys that had never hit anything but a solid core ball. JT and Speith, those guys are the guys that never hit a driver head
that wasn't four hundred and sixty ccs. And then now these guys are the guys that never you know, never took a lesson without track man.
Without track man. Exactly right, exactly right. That's a great way to look at it. It's just it's the progression of the science of the game there, I don't I mean, how many years did it take to go from wood to steal and then how many years were we in steel until we hit graphite? And then how many years that wood shafts to steal shafts? And then how many years were we in just steal shafts before the first raphite chaff of invented? Yeah, and then how many years
were we with wooden heads for drivers and woods? I think it was the metal head.
I think it was ninety three to ninety seven.
Was the transition for the wood to metal is from what I can tell, Like the last per Simmons were gone in ninety seven exactly.
But the first metal head early eighties, the original one from Taylor made uh huh, So that was when it first came out, when they when it was widely adopted. You're right, it was probably the mid to late nineties when everybody said, I've got to get rid of the wood. It's just it's the per simon is it's a dinosaur. It's it's you know, it's archaic now. So it so
in the last call it, geez, call it. Twenty five years, we've seen the biggest technology jump, the biggest technology jump in the history of the games, from graphite chafts to head I mean look at I mean graphite chafts to heads, to balls to everything, versus from ninth let's call let's let's use nineteen ninety six or ninety seven as the delineations of the mark. You know, the the that's the market in years, going back all the way to Bobby
Jones era. You know, when they were using hickory shafts, the golf ball and everything hadn't changed as much as it has changed, and everything the game hasn't changed in that period of time as much as it's changed in the last twenty five years, you know it or twenty that's what that twenty two years, right, I mean, that's that's insanity. I mean, when you're really stopping that, I mean,
that's crazy in twenty two years. Look what has changed. Hell, My driving distance in two thousand and three was I want to say, two hundred and eighty five yards, which was dead average on tour, dead average on tour average last year on tour was two ninety six. Yeah, and that's with a PROV one X. That was the first year three of the PROV one X. And now you know now, guy, now it's two ninety six with virtually
the same ball. So what's that tell you? Shafts have gotten better, drivers have gotten bet driver heads have gotten massively better since that two thousand and three shit, since twenty and ten, they've gotten massively, massively better. And yeah, and guys have gotten stronger. Period. Those are the three factors that I look at when I look at distance.
You know, I remember playing rock hard golf courses in two thousand and three, So you can't sit there and tell you, well, the courses are faster now, that's bs courses were fast back when I played on tour in two thousand and three, my rookie year. It's just that the technology has gotten so crazy advanced in the last fifteen to twenty five years that, you know, that's what That's what I believe has allowed these young guys to really flourish. Quite honestly, Yeah, you're good place, don't get
me wrong. But I would love to see. You know what I would love to see. I'd love to see a tournament with Ballotta everybody plays the same Ballota golf ball, because pretty much that's what it was back in the early to mid nineties. Everybody was playing relatively the same ball. They're all wound liquid core balls. And then I want to see everybody got to play a blade, got to play a blade, everybody's got to carry two iron And quite honestly, I don't care what woods you put in
your bag. Seriously, you can go ahead and take the woods right now. But with a Ballota golf ball and blade irons, even with even using today's driver, the ball's not going that's a marshmallow. The ball's not going anywhere, ye going anywhere.
I think that, Like, so I've messed around with this stuff, and I think like the Ballada When I hit it, I hit at about three hundred and that Ballada when I hit the Ballata, it's like two seventy five.
It's nuts. Yeah, it's twenty five yards.
Yeah, it's going Yeah. Which was which was like back in the nineties, was like that was that was above average driving distance. I want to say what Davis led the tour in driving distance before Daily came along in the late eighties early nineties when he was and he was using per Semon, and I think he was averaging like two eighty four to eighty five. Yeah, and that was what was leading the driving distance. If my memory serves me correct. That might be off on that number,
but I don't think it was much. It wasn't two ninety I know that. And yeah, it's just it's a different ballgame, you know. I would love to see a tournament like that. The best players are still probably going to be the best players, but you would bring a lot more guys into the fray, quite honestly, because because you'd put a you'd put a you'd put a like rivol said, you put an onus on driving the golf ball straight. Think that's what you had to do back then.
I think the thing that that gets lost too is like the guys that weren't the long that had all the skills, like the guy I I think's like the poster child for everything that kind of happened as justin Leonard.
Oh, him and Kavin, Yeah, him and Corey. Without a doubt you could you could take either him or Corey. They both and and actually to a certain extent, Lee Jansen because he was right on that cusp. And so I would say that those three guys, those three guys with what they accomplished winning majors, they all won majors with either ballattas or a wound golf ball. As soon as that wound golf ball went away and they went to solid coret golf balls, those guys were basically done.
They were done because now all the longer hitters could just stand up there and swing away freely, and they weren't getting the same dispersion rate, so it just didn't matter miss and fairways stopped mattering two and and and put those guys, you know, put, those those guys went the way the Dodo. Yeah, those those guys. That's why it's why Brian gave in my opinion Yard for the best player on tour, best player on tour, Yard for yours.
It's unbelievable.
You know, he's a he's I think he's the only four time first team All SEC player ever.
SEC. Yeah, I'd have to check that, but that I believe you, But I believe you. You probably you're probably right because he's off the top of my head. Oh yeah, the guy's amazing. Yep. A lot of respect for chess, all those guys who who hit it, you know who literally I can play out of their bags. In fact, I'm longer than Brian game. Uh and I'm probably a little bit longer than Chez and you know, and those guys. The fact that those guys are still out there competing
and winning, you know, chess winning. I mean sure, there are certain golf courses that he's only about a handful to maybe ten courses a year. He's got a chance to truly a decent chance to win on with his game. Otherwise he's got to do crazy good stuff outside the box that his skill set doesn't usually set up for.
So much respect for those guys, because that puts a lot of pressure on you to sit there and go to literally look at the schedule and go, well, shoot, I've only got ten tournaments a year that I really have a good chance to win.
I go, so, you know, yeah, I gotta make I gotta make one point five million and ten tournaments, exactly.
I got to make one and a half million and ten tournaments. That's basically the way they got to look at things, which is that's pretty good. That's pretty good numbers. If you could make one hundred and fifty grand a tournament, that's what I'm pretty good.
What do you think there's any psychological thing for these young guys playing really well because of all the other because the other young guys playing well early. I mean, how was that for you when you were coming out and like playing on tour as a young guy.
Oh as far as motivation.
Like intimidation, like were you you.
Know, I think it depends on the player to a certain extent. I think certain players are going to be a little more intimidated than others. But I've never seen a group of young guys since the since Speak, since the Speak Crew came out that were that were not intimidated by older, more established players my generation. Tiger, you know, Tiger helped us Tiger kind of helped us with that, but experience still mattered. Even when I came out, experience
still mattered. We didn't have There was no truck man, there was no there was no one there to to reaffirm you're doing the right thing day in and day out. You know, even longer hitters like Hank Keeney who came out same age. I played college golf with him and Tiger. They were the too longest on the planet when they played. When we played in college, they were both longer than daily and and and I sat there and I just went and Hank, you know, couldn't do what we all
thought he could do for whatever reason. But he had the formula you thought to be able to do some really cool things on in professional golf with as long as he hit it and with as athletic as he was and the speed he could create. He had holes in his game without a doubt. But but there was definitely there was definitely an experience gap that that doesn't exist or isn't as big of a gap now as it was when I came out on tour and even before me, where you had to learn the golf courses,
whereas now, you know, because there isn't such. Most of the golf courses on tour, the yardage books are so good you can literally play. You could play. You could show up on Tuesday, go around PPC Twin Cities with a putter and a wedge and just chip and put around the greens and play that golf course from the yardage book, no problem, no problem.
Green trading books, you don't even have to know.
How to read a green exactly exactly right. So if you're confused about you can win it. Some guys, if you're that calm and you feel that good about it. Literally you can show up on Thursday morning never seeing the golf course and you could probably shoot a pretty good score. Whereas that was never the case. You always had to do your homework. You always had to do that. Now, obviously the guys who do more homework, they're gonna have a better chance to a certain extent, at least, that's
what's got my theory. They're always gonna have a better chance because they know this or that or the other thing that maybe a guy who hasn't seen the golf course. But I've also shown up to golf tournaments and golf courses that I haven't seen before on lesser tours, not the PGA Tour, but on lesser tours where I've shot sixty five and I didn't play a practice round, you know. So it so it's just it's a lot of it's a lot of it's having no fear, understanding your own game,
playing the distances, not trying to do too much. But yeah, I don't think that these guys are intimidated at all because they've got all the information they need. There's there's no stone left unturnedned for the most part, they have everything they need to have to play well. All the It literally comes down to execution. There's no guessing involved.
You know, you don't even catch Harley flyers anymore. There's no guessing in shots to a certain extent, less the roughs, you know, four or five inches deep and you bury one and you really don't know how it's going to come out, to a certain extent, or Bermuda. Still you do some guessing in but quite honestly, there's there's not a lot of guessing in golf anymore. There's not a lot of there's not a lot of there's not a lot of freedom in in uh in playing the old
school way, which was in freedom and playing by feel. Yeah, you know guys who played by feel and played with that kind of freedom because they had the experience on the golf course and had the experience of tournament rounds under their belt. That's all gone now. I mean, that's that's another reason why these young guys are able to come out and play the way they're able to play right off the bat. They they have the freedom already in knowing that they know what they need to know, period,
and then they just go out and execute. Boom, this is what I need to do. I need to get my driver here. I need to have my spin right here. I need to have my launch angle here. I need what is track man say? Perfect? I got it all there? Boom, ready to go. I need to have my six iron fly this far. The the same angle's got to be here. Oh what is track man say? Boom perfect? Got that dial? All right, We're ready to play one one? What you know,
there's a random random six iron for Matt Wolf. What's a two bills?
Probably one.
I don't know who the yardage is.
I think he was hitting like seven irons from two hundred down the stretch. He had probably had a little adrenaline going, but I think i'd imagine he has the six iron at least two zero five.
Yeah, So if you feel comfortable with your technique, about the only thing that still exists is pressure coming down the stretch and maybe not trusting technique, but if you trust your technique, it's literally execution, just seeing the shot, committing to the shot and hitting the shot, because everything else is you can't screw it up, quite honestly, other
than letting pressure get you. That's the one thing that that's still it's still it's getting easier for the guys hand dealing with pressure because of all these things, but that's still existing, will always exist, you know. And technique I saw Wyndham Clark struggled with. I could see he struggling down the back nine last this last week with his technique, so I could see that maybe the pressure
was getting to him to a certain extent. So each individual is going to handle it a little differently in that case, But veterans aren't coming out like in my day now. I remember my first Saturday on tour, making the cut in my first event at Sony and getting to play with Stuart Appleby like this is cool. He's won four or five times on tour. You know, here's a guy that you know, played on President's Cup teams and knows his way around and a and known as
the phenomenal ball striker. I would step to that first tee. I was a little intimidated by Stuart, by Stuart Appleby because I knew how you know, It's just that he's played. He's played. He's played Wildlife fifty times, probably five hundred times. Who knows, I mean a lot. He's played that golf course a lot. He knows it like the back of his hand. He knows what to do when he hits it over in the left roof the right rough. He knows what to do when he misses a green ear
there everywhere. I've got to learn that stuff. And yeah, I don't have.
And I don't think like Matt Wolf's step into the tea or Mari kala is stepping the tea. If they're paired with, say Louis Sayson, I don't think they're intimidated by that.
No, they're not, absolutely not, No, because they know all the metrics because they if they don't, they're going to have them soon. But they probably still they probably still have staff guys that are saying and a lot of guys do have stack guys saying, this is what you have to do well this week if you want to have a chance to win on this particular golf course.
So this is what you need to practice, you know, which is which has Back when I played, which wasn't that long ago, you didn't we had still had we had we didn't have the strokes, game stats, we didn't have all those all the metadata that you have now
and all the data that they have now. So you're sitting there looking at it, going you had to play the golf course once or twice or one year, four rounds and then go back and then re and then re evaluate in your own mind, all right, this is what I need to work on for this golf course next year. Now it's like, no, this is what you need to work on before you've even seen the golf course. This is what you need to work on to go
win here. It's crazy, Yeah, it's really. It's actually pretty cool, but it's but it's it takes some of the romanticism out of the game, in my opinion, you know, some of the I mean, the guess work, and the romantic side of the game is kind of lost because there's just I think there's a little too much science in the game right now in my opinion.
In my opinion, Well, what would you do if you could, you know, say you could, you're a golf star, what would you do to get a little romanticism back in the game.
Oh, oh gosh, that's a great question. Andy, Uh, I'd go back. I don't know. I'd probably be one of these old fuddy duddies that would go back to older tech. You know, get rid of get rid of uh, get get rid of these big drivers, get rid of them. I mean the same thing Nicholas talks about, the same
thing Jack talks about. I I, you know, I to get some of the romanticism back of the game and to really to really see who the best players are, who's going to do the do their homework and work the hardest, to do their homework, to understand what they need to do to win week in and week out at every golf course. You know, get rid of the
get rid of the greens books. You can have yardage books because you know, even back way back in the day, the guys were making yardage books, or had yardage books when Gorgeous Georgia's out, you know, printing them up and writing it and making them by hand.
The Greens books, I think would be my first thing.
Gone Green's books, Greens books. I want the Greens books so gone, it's not even funny, Like you have.
To be able to read a green like Johnny Miller didn't didn't win a couple of majors because he couldn't read Greens.
I'm telling you what, Andy, You and I are on the same page, and I know we sound like get off my lawn, but I agree with the percent I think Greens books. I think Greens books are are right now or worse than the golf Ball and the Driver combined. Quite honestly, I'd get rid of Greens books. I'd get rid of the Driver. I'd go back to.
Hey, here's here's a question I'd go back to.
I'd go back to nineteen I'd go back to nineteen ninety eight tech. That's what I would do. Now, go back to nineteen ninety eight tech. You can't make and no Tiger. You can't make your own golf ball. You can't have rock Ishie make you a perfect ball for you that was solid core that no one else had access to. You can't do that, So you got to go back to the wound ball, which he was drumming
everybody with anyway, so it wouldn't have mattered. So but I would I would say that you gotta go, you gotta go, you gotta go back to nineteen ninety eight pre that, you know, titleist professional wound ball or ballata. I don't mind. We need as long as we go back to a wound the characteristics of a wound ball. I think that that would bring some of the romanticism back in. And you know, some old school some old school golf, you know, I don't I don't mind. You
you can play ping. I t pluses if you want. I don't have any problem with that, irons, but I just don't want to. I don't want to see I just like you know, no track man, you know, none of that stuff. I want to see you guys. I want to see you know. I want to see guys dig it out of the dirt. And I think, to a certain extent, a lot of guys still do that.
I don't think guys are I don't think there's a lot of guys out there who are so in love with the track man that they that they the top guys at least, I don't think that there's too many of those guys. I still think a lot of the top guys dig it out of the dirt, really go find it and and and have and understand their feels like innately uh and and it serves them well, there's
no doubt. But there's a certain amount of science that those guys use, for sure that are allowing them to do what they're doing, uh to the game right now, that maybe they wouldn't be allowed to do if we were to go hit the way back button and go twenty twenty five years in the time machine. Quite honestly, I don't think that would I think it would be uh, it would be a tougher game for everybody, and I
think it would be more fun. You know, we could we could play sixty five hundred yard golf courses a game.
Yeah, so you could play fast Tampa, but uh.
We could we could play fasted Tampo again exactly the.
Uh with uh something I think about a lot, uh you know, and this is kind of points to this whole conversation, is uh, what's the what's the tournament that experience matters most year in year out.
Oh, Augusta.
You know that's the only place they don't allow green reading books.
Yep, yep, and God bless them, and I hope they continue to do that. I'm pretty sure that that the chairman Ridley's gonna he is not going to allow them, and I hope that that continues to happen at Augusta. And quite honestly, I'd like to see all the major championships not allow them. And I just, yeah, I would, you know, I mean, the guys who make them, the Straca guys, they I mean, I've said it on Twitter
and I've gotten They've attacked me left and right. Oh you're killing my You know, I got to put my kids through college and this and that and the other thing, and you know, woe is me? What am I going to do without a job if they if they take away this and that? And I'm like, well, you know what if the guy who was building metal build whipping whipping woods do when metal woods came along, he figured out how to make metal woods and and and he worked on those, you know, So I mean, you just
gotta you got to adjust. You got to adapt, you got to figure out things. And uh, I would love it to see him taking away, but I just I don't you know, if you're talking with Thomas Pagel, uh where we had a conversation this year, we were having a conversation because he was there for everybody that so just in case anybody had any freak outs on the rules, the new rules this year, he was there and he
was great to talk to. And uh, that's going to be the hardest thing is getting rid of those greens books, because then he's like, well, then we probably have to get rid of yardage books. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure you could probably put an addendum in there for green reading materials and then the yardage books. Basically, if a guy who's doing yardage books, basically he just draws the shape of the green and puts nothing on the green,
and the players can do all that. That's that's the players do that.
It should be like a great caddy and a great and a well a well prepared caddy would be out there doing that.
Well, caddies do that. But I did that on my own, you know, before Mark Long did these gorgeous books that and these and you know, and then they're they're perfect. The numbers are perfect, I mean, right to the letter. Before Mark Long did the books, Gorgeous George did the books, and I was I'm old enough to know that I played my rookie maybe my first two years three and o four with Gorgeous George books. I still have them all, still have all my old Gorgeous George Yarde books back
at home. They're cool. And I remember writing in stuff on the greens because George didn't put all the slopes in the lines, and that I put those in. Well, here's a big slope right here. You got to watch out here, and this is the slopes. There's all there's a little bump right here that George didn't write in and didn't see, but I see it. So that's gonna throw the putt a little bit further right or left than you normal that you think it would, just based
on my own reconnaissance, you know, and prep. You know these things and you draw them in yourself. I'd love to get back to that. I just don't know if if it's ever going to happen.
Yeah, yeah, it's I who knows. I thought they tried and then they kind of fell back, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I think, you know, there's there's a lot, there's there's probably more going on than I understand, and that maybe you understand as well. Behind closed doors, maybe there's not, but maybe there is that we don't know about, and uh may never know about. Even if I asked someone, I don't know if we'd get a straight answer. Quite honestly, I.
Don't think they'd tell us anything.
Yeah, I don't know that they would tell us much. Yeah, which is fine. I look, the game. The game's fun right now, it really is. It's fun to watch, it's fun to broadcast, it's fun to still fun to play. It's just different. It's just different than what it used to be. I I miss you know, I miss you know. I think there's a lot of nostalgia and golf, and I feel a lot of nostalgia when I you know, when I went out with my with my uh my, my buddy Frankie seppened the other night as his club
and we were and we were messing around. He had a bunch of old a lot of balls, who knows how good they were, but he had a bunch of old tour a lot of and professional balls, and we were out there with with a with a wood wood and presuming and having a great time just hitting shots. He had an old Wilson Staff one iron. This thing. I mean, it's probably the loss of a three iron now, but it's definitely. It was definitely from the early eighties to late seventies, and the Greens victory was was as
slick as could be on that thing. It was, but I was I was hitting that thing from like one hundred and ninety yards, you know, and then I'd move up to one hundred and eighty and I'd hit these big slices and you know, open it up a little bit and play it with a with a ballot of ball and played this massive thirty yards slice from one hundred and eighty yards. It was so much fun. You know.
That's the kind of there's a handful of guys playing those shots on tour nowadays, when you know, back in the day, I think a lot of guys had to play those shots and they're fun. They were fun. I loved playing shots like that. I love curving the ball, making the ball curve and you know it goes pretty straight. Now, I mean, I'm watching guy out there and even when I go out and play, it's just like, you know, when I want to draw one in, I've got to like, well,
I can't start it that far right. I got started like five yards five yards further left that I normally could because it's just not going to move as much.
I think the biggest, biggest winner of the whole ball thing was was the big the big body guys that hit a cut.
Yes, without a doubt. It's easier to.
Control, which is why they went so far.
Oh yeah, without a doubt because you could hit it. You know. When Nicholas played, he taught himself how to hit a flat cut, how to hit a flat high bomb, you know, or a knuckle cut, which is what Brooks hits on every shot. But Nicholas had to teach himself how to do that and take the spin off of it. Tiger had. Tiger had a natural he was so naturally shallow through the ball that he kind of he kind of did that even he and he might not have
been trying to do that. He just did it. But he Tiger hit a great flat high bomb cut with a with a wound ball. I mean I remember seeing it firsthand every time we played golf against each other when we were in college, and whereas everybody else was spinning the ball into the air, we all spun it into the air. You know, those guys learned how to top themselves, how to launch it into the air and
take the spin off of it. And you know that's kind of lost on today's generation because all the equipment does it for you. I mean, it's set up to do it, so you don't have to teach yourself how to hit those shots. They're hit for you. Basically, you just have to You just have to have the guy with the track man, who's running the track man, give you the right numbers. Okay, we need to get two hundred. We even get two hundred more spin off your ball. Okay,
that's take the wrench out. Okay, knock it down. I have to great boom. There you go, there's two hundred less RPMs. There's your little knuckle cut.
So funny.
My buddy Vince India gave me a driver a couple of years ago. He plays on the web and uh, you know it was one of his old drivers. He built it up for me and and I'm hitting it and a couple I see him a couple of weeks later and he's like, hey, how's that driver. I'm like, hey, you know, it's a little too spinny. You know, I just feel like I'm losing you know, ten yards because
it's just spinning so much. He goes, oh, let me just flip the gravity corps flips this thing, and uh, all of a sudden, I'm hitting it twenty five yards further.
It was nuts. Yeah, it's just like just like that, it just took all the spin off.
That's listen, that's that's I got to hand it to guys like Marty Jerdson at King and all the and all the engineers at the at they they have done such a phenomenal job, you know, recreating the driver. Because the USGA finally, thank goodness, said okay, next enough, this is where we're stopping. We're stopping at this coefficient and
restitution and we're stopping at this size head. So now now you got to us around with CG and and m O I, and you got to and and materials and put it all together and see what you can
come up with. And and you know, everybody at all the manufacturers and engineers like Marty, they're doing such a good job reinventing the wheel and and creating you know, easier clubs to hit, even though they're they're they're cut off from A from A from a certain standpoint, from the U. S C A, from going forward and progressing
the technology they have to find out. They have to find different ways to progress the technology with what they have, and they're doing a good good job of that through m o I and how they put the heads together and where they put the where they put the CG and and how you can change the CG around and it's it's really I find that fascinating. I think it's really cool, and uh, it's fun to tinker. I'll tell
you what. The one thing I I don't miss. I don't miss having to test six different drivers alongside of one another and not liking any of them, and then then had being out there all day because they had to rebuild drivers and glue into every head Versus now you just grab a shaft and you lock it in and boom you go and you're literally fitting a driver in a half an hour.
Honestly, you don't miss the days where the driver was the hardest club to hit in the bag and not the easiest.
Well, I miss, I don't miss those testing days, yes, driver, that those testing days drove me des I'm like, I used to just sit there and cringe when I had to know titles have come out with the new driver when I was signed with Titleists, when I was playing, I'd just sit there and cringe that. I love testing wedges. I love testing irons because they were pretty easy for me to fit. As long as you got the loft
and lies right. I know the window that my ball should be coming out of the window that I want to see. I know how it should spin. You know, I know the distance I should hit it into the wind house. She hit a down wind, cross wind, the soul, whole nine heads. As long as it's doing that boom, we're good. Throw them in the bag. Drivers were like, oh,
I used to just an three Woods. Drivers in three Woods drove boomsane Andy, Oh, they drove me nets testing those things because they wear my ass out after half an hour hitting balls with a driver. I mean, I can only hit so many drivers back in the day, and I don't get tired. Drive me nets. Yeah. So now it's I said, Eve, and now it's pretty simple. This is where we're trying to get to twenty five or twenty two to or twenty. For me, I like it twenty three to twenty six hundred spin twenty three
to twenty six hundred. I want launch it at about eleven eleven and a half tops twelve and uh you know the spin rate, Yeah, the spin rate should be that twenty two twenty three to twenty six twelve and a half. Yeah, twenty three to twenty six twelve and a half. That's what I want. Any lower and I can't control it any higher and I lose distance. But right in that little sweet spot, I'm golden, you know. And then the fall speed in the club, that speed, it is what it is with an old man with
four hand surgeries. Yeah, so I'll take what I I'll take what I can get.
I do now as a as a as a out of shape golf blocker and podcaster that sits in a chair most days.
You know, just exactly sounds like you still create some good speed though at three hundred yards.
Man, Yeah, my best days are might be behind me, is what I'm starting to But uh so what do you what do you think about this whole new schedule with openness.
I like it, I really do. I like it. I think I listened from a coming now that I'm not playing, and and I and I have to look at it from a television perspective. I think it's great for the fans. I think you get you get a massive event every month, culminating in the FedEx Cup playoffs. You get the players, you get the Masters, you get the PGA, you get the US Open, you get the Open Championship, bang bang bang bank right right in a row every month, once a month, you got. You got a fantastic you got
a basically a major championship. Okay, and then all culminates in in the UH, in the in the fedixs Cup playoffs, and it's all done before football. Okay, the fall season is great, and the fall season is becoming more and more important, There's no doubt. You look at the statistics. It behooves guys to go and play the fall season to get a great jump on FedEx Cup points so
that you don't get too far behind. Now, the top, the top players, they don't have to you know, are going to play in those Asia that Asia slang free points, you know, for three three straight events, so they don't worry about They're gonna get points no matter what. But the guys who aren't in those events, the rank and file, it's really a big deal to play in that fall season. But you know, the PGA Tour, the real TGA Tour season.
For I think the fan, the average fan is from when we're seeing Wales breach out of the water at Capol Little all the way until we hold the last putt at east Lake. That's the season, okay. And and I think that right now it's nice in compact, I think the stories flow a little bit easier. I think from a television scheduling standpoint, we've all been we've all had our hair on fire to a certain extent, especially a guy like me who does four different tours for
Golf Channel. It's not like I'm just doing the PGS or just doing the Champs Tour. I'm nt double as I do a women's event here and there. You know, I'm all over the I'm all over the place. So my schedule's pretty hectic, especially from May first on and so or at least May through May through July. My
my my schedule's nuts. Uh So, I think from a TV personnel standpoint, and Ana or a standpoint, we were all we were all kind of sitting there going, oh boy, what's our schedule, what are our schedules going to look like? And how you know in this compact season. And I think to a certain extent, I think we were all fairly crazy at the Golf channel of our schedules. But for I think that it's for the average fan. I like it. I think it's great. I mean I don't.
I didn't like. I didn't like the players in May. Didn't like the players in May. It really didn't. I didn't like. I don't like the way that golf course plays in May. I played one players in May, the first one in seven, and then hurt myself and couldn't play, didn't play in another one, and I I just I preferred in March. I prefer in March. And now that we've got it back in March, I think that's a
good thing. And then but obviously to have to go March April and one month increments pretty much except for maybe from Yeah, now in one month increments, literally one month increment, you've got a major championship. That's pretty cool.
Yeah, it's it's it's wild.
From coverage standpoint, I feel like, right when I've gotten over the one, it's it's it's starts the next one started.
I know, all of us in the all of us in the media and or in the golf media, golf bloggist sphere, anybody who's doing anything media oriented in golf. Our hair's on. Our hair has been on fire all year. There's no doubt. And you there's no I mean, there's there's busy, and then there's psycho busy. And I think that all of us were for the most part, if you had a full schedule, you know, that's that's site you were psycho busy this year. From a from a golf media standpoint, the thing is, and so.
The thing that's interesting is how this new schedule is affected like tiger schedule where we're seeing him like now this we saw him play a lot in the lead up of the Masters, but now you know for the Open, no, no starts between the US Open and the Open.
Well, I I but I also I also think that that has a lot to do with with forty three year old years old and you know, and eight surgeries between his knee and his back. Yeah, So I mean there's there's a lot going on there, Andy that I think that that I think that if we if Tiger, let's just pretend Tiger's never had a surgery and he's forty three years old. I think Tiger plays a couple
of times, quite honestly, I think he does. I think he plays a couple of times between between the the between the Open and and uh, even though he didn't in the past, maybe he does now, you know, to get the reps in. Maybe he plays at least once. You know, he used to play what he played one event between He always played one event between the US Open and the Open Championship back in the day, just to see where he was at. And then he'd go
over and play. You know, he get over there a week early, get adjusted practice, play on the golf course, and make sure that he had all his ducks in a row. But he's, you know, he's forty three. With all this stuff that he's had going on with him,
I can't blame him. We're going to see more and more of a Hogan light schedule out of him, I think as the years go on, quite honestly, because the body, you know, I don't know if he I don't know if his doctor said the same thing my doctor told me after my fourth hand surgery, which was basically, I don't know how many shots he got after my last surgery, I don't know how many shots he got left in his hand, but there's a number, and once you hit
that number, you're done. He said that to me verbatim, and I said, WHOA, that's that's honesty for you. So maybe Tiger has that. He doesn't know about it. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe doctors have said, you're good, just take care of it. But he's definitely got to got to do things differently now and can't play the way that you know, can't play and practice the way he once did.
So I don't blame him. I don't know in all, honestly, Andy, I don't know if it hasn't much to do with as much to do with the schedule as it does honestly his back in his body.
Quite honestly, Yeah, I mean, it's just unbelievable. I'm still shocked that he won the Masters, you know.
Oh, I think we're all in shock. I think we're all still in shock that he that he was, that he won the Masters. It was it was everything kind of fell into place. He hit the shot, and he hit the shots. Uh and and you know what, if his back's good, the temperatures are right, I wouldn't doubt it if he contended at Port Rush. Yeah, there's there's two tournaments that are kind to old people, and that's the guy and people who know what they're doing around him.
That's the Masters and the Open Championship.
So I feel like that dovetails well with what you were saying about romanticism and golf. I feel like the Open Open kind of brings it back a little bit.
I think everybody I totally agree, because you know what, there's that's still the one place Augusta to a certain extent, but still Augusta. Augusta is still you can play modern golf in Augusta and not get penalized. Honestly, you don't have to. You still need to shape shots, but you can still stand up on teas at Augusta and just swing away. With today's equipment, you don't have to move the ball. You still kind of got to move the ball.
On a links course. You gotta hit low, you gotta roll it out there, you gotta bullet sometimes, you gotta take spin off. You've got to do all kinds of funny stuff at an Open Championship with a golf ball. It's definitely the most old school, nostalgic, just romanticized tournament. And you know, honestly, it's probably my favorite to watch.
It is. I'd have to say it is my favorite to watch, and I'd have to say after that, it's probably the Masters, but the Open Championship is my favorite to watch for that reason.
Yeah, it's definitely. I think the last couple he opens have been just so good to it. Last year I had this moment, I'm like, Yep, this is my favorite major, and I think there's something I think Obviously, you're always going to get firm conditions, you know, which is which is? That's the number one thing I enjoy watching is like that hollow thud when the ball hits the ground is the best sound in golf. But then when you throw in wind, to me, that's when you get wind and firm.
That's when you really separate, you know, the real players from the kind of the the good golfers.
We were talking about this last week. It doesn't matter, it doesn't it doesn't matter. You can make a golf course if the golf course. If the golf course is soft, it can be fun to watch, but you're gonna have everybody in their grandmother right there with a chance to win. You really don't know who's hitting it well and who's
not hitting it well. On a soft golf course, would you sue that golf course firms up and gets like a brick, The separation happens really quickly, and you know exactly who's hit it well, and who's hit who's not hitting it well, and and who's got control of their ball and their spin and their trajectory and who doesn't. Uh.
Firmness is the absolute separator. The firmness of a golf course is the absolute separator of good ball strikers and even moderate to mediocre ball strikers, not even poor ball strikers, but just guys who are just kind of average ball strikers. That week, that potential week it'll separate, those guys will be gone. And the guys who are at the top of the board, the first twenty twenty five names, you know,
those are the guys that are striking their ball. For the most part, the best I firm conditions, the best ball strikers are always going to come to the top, I think, and then and then if you.
And then if you throw in the wind, that's when all the trajectory can control and the spin control all that just cut get so high. It just that's what's so cool. And there's no options taken away. It opens either you can hit all different.
Exactly, which is why, to this day and for for history that I can that I can think of Phil Mickelson as the greatest Open champion of all time because I mean, he's a good iron player. He's always been a good iron player, but his calling card was not links golf never was. And he taught himself out of plate and pulled it off, and no one thought he could win that tournament. I don't think he even thought he could win that tournament. And for him to do it phenomenal.
All right, you.
Got you gotta get out of here. Erin always a pleasure having you on. But uh, all right, before you got to go, what real quick? Who's your pick to to win the Open?
Uh? I haven't given it much thoughts. I'll be honest with you to uh to be to be honest, but you know I'm gonna go. Let me think about it really quick. I think it's going to be a top ten guy. And I honestly think that he. I think that he's done enough on links golf courses to to and and I, and he's coming in hot. It's hard for me to get away from a guy like John ram on a place like that. It really is. Yeah, he's got that, He's got the control. I saw what
he did at the Irish Open this last week. It's gonna be tougher obviously at Port Rush. Uh.
He's been knocking on the major door too. He's had a couple ten fives in the last.
He's starting to he's starting to figure it out. And I think that his game. You know, he plays a piercing flight. He's good in the wind, he's good in bad conditions. He drives it fantastic. If he just keeps his emotions in check, that's the biggest thing for If he can keep his emotions in check, I think John Rong can get it done. I really do. I think he can win his first major championship.
Awesome.
Well, hey, thanks for coming on and we'll watch for you this week at the Senior Players in Akron.
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