Arron Oberholser

and I would go to his place. My dad would take us out to this little part three golf course in the East Bay, Oakland called Lake Chabaux, and we'd play. We'd play the little nine hole parts three. I don't even know if it's still there anymore, but it was. It was a great place to learn on And then other than that, when I when I got my dad said, I'm not taking you a big golf course until you can hit your driver two hundred yards in the air, and you know, he didn't want me to slow people down.

And it's much more liberal now with kids on the golf course, but that's kind of the way it was back then. It was a it was an older gentleman's game to middle aged person's game, and there wasn't a lot of There wasn't a lot of openings for young people in the game unless you went out unless you remembered a club and you went out with your parents who remembers at that club late in the day, a three four, and you stayed away from the older members

who were playing quote unquote serious golf out there. So that's how I kind of learned. I was a publics kid my whole life, and so I grown up in the San Francisco Bay area. We had a pleusora of courses to choose from a from a from a public standpoint that were great, you had hearting. I grew up at Salmateo Muni, I always called Samatalo Muni. It's called

Poplar Creek now, but it's on the bay. You know, in the springtime, during high school matches and high school practice, they turned the fan on like clockwork at about one pm, and it had blown a steady twenty with potentially getting up to thirty miles an hour, and every afternoon. I've never played a day out at San Mateo Muni where the wind didn't blow. It always bleue. So it was a dead flat golf course. But it taught you how

to control your ball flight. It taught you that it taught out to and putt really well because you didn't hit a ton of greens. Greens were small and you're always missing them because of the wind. So you became a good ball striker, and at the same time you became a good pitcher and putter of the ball as well, because putting on bumpy polana, you're gonna go one way or the other. You're either gonna get scared the death of it, or it's going to turn you into a

beastly good putter. And then the other course that I grew up on that I give a lot of credit to was Crystal Springs, again very different than Uni. It was up in the hills in Berlin, game up on top by two to eighty. The big freeway that runs north and south in San Francisco from San Francisco to San Jose and it was cut literally cut into the side of a mountain, and I can count three flat lies on the entire golf course. Three. That's all you had.

The ball was above your feet, below your feet, a combination of one or the other the whole way around. You never had a flat lie, and the wind blew twenty every day. So you learned how to play very feel oriented golf. You learn how to hit all the shots under all kinds of conditions. And I think that's one of the one of the ways my creativity with my ball straking came about is playing those two golf courses.

It also it also real I also realized that when to score on those two golf courses, you had to play good golf. I mean, you're playing with the straight ballattas back in those days, and you had to have all the shots. You had to be able to hit a four iron from one hundred and fifty yards into a twenty five mile hour win and just bump it up there. You had to learn how to chip with a four and five iron with those big kitched greens from back to front, you know, at Crystal Springs and

Muni where you're putting your those bumpy plans. You'd take a four iron and maybe you were a yard or two off the green and you just you literally hit it like a putter, but it was a forearm. You'd chip with it up those greens because when the greens were wet, you'd be if you didn't learn how to take spin off the ball, you'd rip that ball back off the green into the wind on that soft planta.

So I learned a lot of different shops around there, and then when I got a little older, the guys I met some one of my best friends Dad joined cal Club and I got introduced to the California Golf Club at about fourteen or fifteen years old, and i'd go up with them once a month or so in high school and i'd play with them up there. So those were my three main places that I played. And I played harding every once in a while, and I

played Palo Alto Muni every once in a while. We had high school matches at Green Hills and Menlo Country Club and all those places around there, and it was a great variety, great variety of golf courses to learn on to grow up on. But the one theme was bumpy three o'clock Polana when you played high school matches, so you had to turn yourself into a fearlessly good putter.

And then that's what I think the bay area of the most war in my golf game coming up was that if you can put on Bumpy three o'clock Polanta, you can put on anything. You know.

really great putters from like a mental side of things. Mostly?

of the imagination. Tea Green. I was a I had. I was a four on the floor guy. I didn't have a fifth year or sixth year like a lot of the guys do today. I had to wedge it. I had to hit good mid irons to short irons. I didn't have that kind of game, so I had to learn how to do it more tactically. And I had to putt well. I had to wedge it well,

and I had to putt well. And I felt like I did those things fairly well, and especially on the West Coast, where my brain would just flip the switch and go and I literally think, I own these guys. I own these guys on the West Coast. I'd think like that, and you have to think like that, I think to a certain extent. And it was just the reverse when I get to Florida and I'd put against those guys who grew up in Florida. I'm like, Jesus,

how do you put these damn bermuda greens? Man? I have no idea what the ball is going to do. And for the first couple of years on tour, on the web tour, I'd get out there and i'd get to the southeast, I'd just pull my hair out because I didn't understand grain all that much, because we didn't play on a lot of it in California unless you went to the Central Valley around Presno area. There was some bermuda greens down there, but I didn't play on

them hardly at all. And so I understand why guys from Florida would come out to the West Coast and they'd pitch a fit, and then US West Coasters would go to Florida and we pitched we pitch a fit out there well, because we just couldn't. A lot of us couldn't. Had a hard time with the grain.

Blattas and it's been in the news. A ton being somebody that's kind of lived through the you know, technology era and played at a high level through it. You know, you've played in the late nineties, and you know, how is technoloology really what do you think has it changed? How has changed the game the most in the last twenty years or so?

matter what blade you pick. You just got to like to look at it. They're all going to do the same thing as far as blades are concerned. But the ball, for sure, I'll never forget. When I first got a box of the of the original Provy ones from Titleist, I was I just turned professional in nineteen late nineteen ninety eight. I was out at Stanford and I was and I was down there just playing, and I decided I had my I had my my regular professional nineties

that I was very happy with. That was an excellent wound ball. Yeah, and one of my favorite balls of all time. Actually, uh, even to this day, it's still one of my favorite balls of all time. And then I had this box of these Probe ones and they were they were testing, they weren't even they weren't even coming out yet. But it was either nine I think it might have been ninety nine. Actually I don't think it was ninety eight. I think it was it was.

It was early in the spring in ninety nine, and it was it was set to come out, you know, I think in two thousand, but they had for some reason, I had, uh, some of these balls. And now I'm losing track of time. It was ninety nine two thousand somewhere in there. I can't wrap it. But I was on the Canadian Whore I totally remember. And I'm playing with these balls, and I'm and I'm and i'm i'm I'm comparing them side by side. And I get to the second hole at Stanford and I decide, all right,

I'm going to try these things. And I'm and i'm I'm very reluctant. I'm a I'm a serial tinker. I'll tinker with anything, but it takes a lot for me to put it in my bag. A lot. I mean, it's got to be remarkably better for me to switch anything out if I know I'm comfortable with something and I like something. And so I took it out on

the second hole. On the second shot, I ripped the driver around the corner, kind of played like a hard draw, and I had nine iron in And so I'm sitting there going, Okay, let me, I'll drop, I'll hit my I'll hit my my regular ball, and then I'll hit the provy one. So I hit my regular professional ninety and I hit this beautiful nine iron in the middle of my stands and I kind of flighted it really gorgeous in it, and it went like like a four

iron or a five iron would go today. I mean, just this gorgeous little flighted night iron in there, about twelve fifteen feet. I remember the shot like it was yesterday. And then I dropped the pro v one and I hit it and the thing went freaking straight in the air, and I'm like, that's not a window I'm familiar with.

And it went about five yards further, so I'm about a half a club longer, and I was about i'd say twenty five thirty feet behind the pin, and so the rest of the nine holes, I was just trying to figure out how far this ball was going to go and what it did, and I wasn't comfortable with it, so I didn't. I didn't end up playing it on the Canadian tour. We didn't get him until I think late two thousand, but I remember testing and I'm like, man, I just I didn't like the original trov one because

I felt like I didn't have the same control. And then I'm down at Q School playing with Cameron Beckman in a practice round at the two thousand Q School in Lakinta, and we're at the Nicholas Private Course and Cameron could hit it, he could create some speed. And I hit a drive off one I can't remember which hole it was on the Nicholas Court Nicholas Private and I popped it out there pretty good. And then he gets up there with that new pro V one, uh

and pops it and he's twenty five by me. Now, I'm usually I was shorter than Cameron normally back then, probably by but not by twenty five yards. And I'm like wow. And he was consistently twenty to twenty five yards passed me all day long. And I'm sitting here going, man, this is this, this is this might be a game changer here. Well, I ended up playing with my regular professional ninety when there was a few guys, more than

a few guys. I believe it would switch to the pro V one that week, and I ended up missing my card by a shot in that Q school and was and had to go to the web Tour, which was a blessing in disguise quite honestly. But but that's when I knew that things were going were about to change, when I saw a guy hit it twenty five, you know, twenty twenty five thirty by me times when I'm sitting there going, oh man, you know, I'm roasting these and I'm not even coming close to him. So it was

an eye opener for sure. And that's where the ball changed. But then again then it changed again in two thousand and three. And the funny thing is when the X came out. That's that, in my opinion, is the ball that changed the ball. And when the X came out and earning set records at Kapalua when the wind didn't blow that year and shot thirty or thirty one und or something crazy like that for four rounds, and that's

when I knew. And I was on tour. I was a rookie on tour that year, and I'm thinking, I'm going, oh my god, what is going on here? And so when I do my research for certain tournaments, the Masters is one of those tournaments. I don't take records before two thousand and three. I don't even bother looking at it. If you want to talk about history and get the

warm and fuzzies with history, that's fine. But I don't bother looking at any scoring or this or that or anything at Augusta prior to two thousand and three because

the ball was when the ball was changed. There's a reason six lefties have won in Augusta since since the Prov one X came out, since titleist prov one X came out, because they could hit bomb cuts with it, and you could control a bomb cut, you can control a knuckle cut, and you could hit that shot with that ball, whereas it's harder to control a hard draw with that ball. So it gave the lefties. That ball gave lefties and a decent advantage like Bubba, like Weird

back in two thousand and three. Now, Weird didn't win it with his ball striking, and he wanted to know

three with his putting. But nonetheless, I've betually he felt more confident standing on holes like ten and thirteen and fourteen and two when you really got to slide a hard one around the corner to give yourself an opportunity to get to certain holes and to have to have the axium amount of distance and get yourself out there with a cut, whereas before the ball would spin a little bit more and you couldn't you didn't get the distance, whereas the guys who could turn one down with a

spinier ball took just enough spin off of it, but could still control it. Yeah, and the game now, the game shifted right then and there in three So that's where I think it really changed. And then drivers has slowly caught up with the ball. But the ball, I mean, the ball has been ahead of a game for the better part of thirteen fourteen years now.

It's not even middle of the road anymore. I think one sixty five or one sixty six is and so, and you know, I'm not playing and I don't have my golf muscles and I'm missing bones in my hand. But still I'm you know, one sixty one to one sixty three is kind of low end for PGA Tour. So I can control the draw a little bit because

I'm not creating the speed. But those guys, oh my gosh, if those guys want to try to play a hard draw, it can get out of control, or it can get blocked in a heartbeat with no spin and not come around. I remember Rory McCrory when he switched to Nike equipment had that problem. I was looking at his numbers when he first went to Nike at Golf Channel doing something. We were talking about Dick. We were talking about either

Abu Dhabi when he made his debut. I believe it was Abudabby and I'm looking, I'm like, God, his draw is not gone now. He had something technical going on in his golf swing that wasn't good at the time. He gets some bad footwork going from what I remember looking at the video. But the one thing that I

noticed is that that didn't lies. I'm looking at at at track man data or radar data, and I'm looking, I'm going he was spinning his his titleist ball and his titles driver at twenty seven hundred RPMs the year before. In twenty twelve, he goes to Nike and now he's spinning in at twenty one. That's a six hundred RPMs. Is a huge difference. And that's why h you know, and he liked to play that tight little draw out there,

and that draw wasn't drawing yep. So that's something that he had to get used to and he did and he won, and he won two majors. So but but that's the kind of thing that could happen. And I think that that's why a lot of the guys who were hitting, who hit, who have gone to the cut, like Dustin Johnson, And you can see what kind of a of a driver it's turned Dustin Johnson into going to that cut.

are firm. Do you think that you know Patrick Reed is a player that you know kind of fits that right to left mold, that you know might not be a perfect fit for a tough setup.

left ball flight. He's very handsy. He's got a lot of toe drop in the top of his back swing with his with his golf club, which means that when you look at his swing through impact, he's got to exit up, which I call exit up, which means the arms have to cross over really quick, and he's got to get that hard release, which means the club base isn't square very long in the hitting zone. That one foot behind a one foot in front of the ball,

So when his timing's off it can go everywhere. He can hit snaps, he can hit blocks, And so I think if if he gets the club face square at the top and he doesn't have so much toe droop, which you know can say, and you know he's he's cuffed at the top with his left hand, and whenever you get cuffed at the top of your left hand versus a flat left wrist, you're gonna have to You're gonna have to make that extra move on the way down to square, keep the club to square, the club

base up. I know it because that's exactly what I did in college and I had to change it. And it took me three or four years between the Canadian Tour and the Web Tour and then on in the PGA or to change it. It was It's very hard. It was very hard for me to change that. I had to change it slowly and incrementally over time, and it had to evolve rather than just blow it up and do a wholesale change. It was. It was very difficult for me. And he might not want to change it.

He might figure out a way to control it. But uh, I think that that's one of the reasons why he gets he's inconsistent with his ball striking for sure.

with what he does with the driver. But there's no doubt, and I'd be lying if I didn't if I didn't say that the technological advances in golf over the last ten to fifteen years have absolutely helped these guys in all facets, from track Man to this new quad Foresight that's now out. These launch monitors who are given these guys instant data on their club and their club that speed, and their launch angles and their attack angles and everything.

I mean, they can diagnose what's going on from swing to swing to swing, and they can change from swing to swing to swing versus back in the day you might have to go through half a bucket before you figure out what's going wrong. You can get it. You can figure out what's going wrong and one golf swing these days, so that has a play in it. But there's definitely technology overall has helped these guys. And yes, I think it has created some parody in the game,

no doubt. And I don't mind parody. That's another question. Do you do you like parody or do you like some guy dominating? You like that that Tiger Woods era dominance, And quite honestly, I kind of like the parody. I like I like knowing or not knowing who's gonna win every week. With Tiger in the field, it was one to three, you know, he's a one to three, one to four favorite every every week, or even better or even better more than that, or five, you know, seven

to five or whatever you want to call it. He was. He was old, uber dominant. It was ridiculous what he did. But but I like it now where we're going into Augusta and no one's got a clue because you can point to anything in these guys games and go, Okay, he's got a hole here, he's got a hole here, he's got a tiny hole here in his game for this place, and you just like, you have no idea that this is one of the most wide open masters, in my opinion, in years, based on all kinds of

different factors. But technology has definitely given these guys, has brought everybody closer together because now out there you're absolutely

splitting hairs, absolutely splitting hairs. I've turned to a fairly keen cyclist over the last four or five years, and it's almost like what the guys do in the Tour de Front or the Giro do Italian and the big World Tour team is that when they go into testing and they're finehunting their bodies and their bikes, I mean it is, they're looking for absolute marginal gains, I mean two percent here to be, you know, a tenth of a second faster than the next guy, and that makes

all the difference in the world. When you're riding the bike at thirty miles an hour, and it's the same thing goes in the golf world. It's the same exact thing in the golf world. These guys are looking for just marginal gains at the highest level and they're trying to find that through this equipment or this workout routine, or I ate that for dinner and that didn't sit well with me and I had a tough round, So I'm going to get that out of my diet. Literally.

I think that that's what a lot of guys do, and it and it's all to fine tune the athlete. And that's the way all sports have gone to over the last ten or fifteen years. The evidence by the Golden State Warriors with all the stuff that they do off the basketball court. The guys do to keep their bodies in shape and so on and so forth, doing hyperbaric chambers and the cryotherapy and all that stuff for their body. It's it's it's it's all good stuff, but it's all leading to more parody in the game.

have a shot at the title. And now GoF has shifted from you know, that superstar driven game with Tiger and VJ and Ernie and David Duvall and his heyday, but now it's much more like the NFL, where weekend, week out, anybody can win. You know, you're never surprised a three and you.

to win legitimately. Legitimately, one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty guys have a legitimate chance to win, you know, on any given week if they do, if one guy does a little bit of more of this or a little bit more of that, he can win the golf tournament. And it's not and it's not that much, it's very little that separates the guy who misses the

cut to the guy who wins. Quite honestly, it's just you know, it's a putt here, a putt there, or getting hot at the right time on a Saturday, or you know, if simple as a warm up on the range, moving your ball position or this or that, it's just splitting hairs.

on that golf course as far as I'm concerned. But if I had to pick one, since the changes, the final changes in six when they added all the distance and planted the trees, you really have to drive your ball now whereas it was truly a second shot golf course.

You know, back in the day when Tiger won by twelve, and Faldo came back and beat Norman in ninety six, and so on, it all the way back to well well before that and into the seventies, in eighties and even sixties, you know, you could spray it here, spray it there, and create angles for yourself to certain hole locations. Now those angles have been chopped in some cases chopped in half, especially eleven and seventeen and maybe even fifteen because of the tree plannings. You can't create the same

angles that those guys used to create. So putting your being able to drive the ball in a certain section of the fairway and still create that angle, even though the angle might be not as acute, a little more obtuse.

It's it's important to still drive your ball. It's important to drive your ball, and I don't think that's talked about because quite honestly, when you look at the statistics of the Masters winners over the last probably since like I said, since O three, which is where I like to go back to, you have to hit greens, you have to hit you have to hit at least fifty greens. That's that is the that is the gold standard number to win. To win the Masters, you have to hit

fifty greens. Very few people in that span since so three have hit less than fifty greens and won the Masters. The highest is is uh Is Adam Scott in twenty thirteen, who hit fifty five greens. The lowest was Mike Weir, who hit thirty eight and won the Masters, which is amazing to me that he hit thirty eight greens and won the Masters in oh three because he putted and chipped his rear end off. But you got to hit fifty greens to have it, to have a chand deep or very close to fifty greens.

O seven. I played that year and it was a nightmare that year.

all of a sudden, your misses aren't exaggerated. So with with the course conditions in mind, you know who are who are some guys you like? Next week?

And I think that when the golf course is soft, as we've seen before with Rory, his chest gets a little bit more puffed out because when the ball, when any big hitter, when the ball just hits and sticks, that makes the fairway that much wider, which means they can swing that much harder, which means they're going to be that much farther ahead of the next guy and hitting that much less club into the Now, they can turn the sub arizon on the greens, but you can't

turn that they don't have sub airs in the fairways, so so the greens can get fairly firm, but the fairways can be soft. And I and I quite honestly, I think that plays into the longer hitter's hands. I mean most golf courses these days now do now anyway, But I think that from a from a from a standpoint of of the longer hit, the guys who drive it really well, and and and and in total driving Rom who's obviously playing fantastic and as one of the best drivers of the golf ball on the planet, Rom

DJ Rory. I think Rom's going to surprise people next week. I know Augusta is not really kind to first timers, but I think Rom's going to surprise people next week. And I wouldn't doubt if he's in the top five going into Sunday on the back nine with a chance. I think Rory is if if Rory can putt, if the putter shows up, Rory's going to be there. I think Dustin's going to be there. The weird thing about Dustin is is that the last number one to win the Masters was two Tiger. He was the last number

one to win the Masters. He was number two going into the Masters, you know, five when he beat Christa Marco in the playoff. DJ was actually number one going into the Masters that year. So history's going a little against Dustin Johnson. And the average world rank who's won the Masters the last say, since twenty ten is twelve. That's the average world rank. And who's sitting at number

twelve right in now? Patrick Reid funny enough, and right around there thirteen is Justin Rose, who's kind of starting to turn into a little bit of a chic pick for next week. And again with Justin, it's the putter. If the putter shows up, Justin's always got a chance at Augustin National. He's got a very good record there. As far as a sleeper pick for me, Paul Casey not a sleeper pick. I think Paul his game is starting to round into form, get better. He loves that place.

You've got perfect ball flight again, a guy who bombs it. You can hit it both directions, right to left, left to right. I think Paul's gonna I think Paul's going to be there too, and he finished fourth last year and he's he's also had a tremendous record at Augusta National. But the sleeper pick I think for me is Mark Leishman, ye bend of my dark horse obviously One Bay Hill a couple of weeks ago, has a T four. He's only played in four Masters, missed three or four cuts,

but the T four was in thirteen. He knows how to play the place, and he's in good form right now, and maybe he can recapture some of those vibes from twenty thirteen and play well again next week. But I like him as a sleeper pick.

think it was six when Michelson won. That was my rookie year there and I finished fourteenth. I played, I played very well. The next year it was blowing twenty every day. It was like the windshield factor was like thirty eight. It was ridiculous. And the golf course was full of fire, I mean hard and fast, and it absolutely ruined me. And because I wasn't used to that, and O wait was kind of similar. It was kind

of halfway in between. But when you haven't seen that golf course with fire in it, with that bounce, I mean when you see a ball bound in certain spots, that can be intimidating for certain guys. When you think you've get a perfect drive in a certain area and it's often too the pine straw and you're having to create something crazy around a pine tree and out of the pine straw that can get to that can get to a rookie. There's no doubt, you know.

Would you say that you know that it compared to most courses that the tour stats at has that more of a risk reward feel throughout the round than everywhere else.

I think that, uh Mackenzie loved from what I you know, playing growing up playing in Santaate State, we got to play Posta Tiempo every every Monday for four years I did. So I got to know Mackenzie very well in that regard at Post Temple and kind of how he what His philosophy was, and you might have a pin that's located in one section of green, you're aiming thirty feet right or left of a pin and using that slope to bring it in. I think that that kind of

stuff is awesome. That's that's why Mackenzie's my favorite architect, because he just used He used the land so well and used you had to use your imagination and understand the entire golf course and understand, you know, uh, where the ball could feed from, and you wouldn't you wouldn't have to attack every flagstick. You could. You could use the banking and you could use different slopes to get the ball to gather the ball where you want. And that's one of the beauties of Augusta National in its

risk reward. Sometimes you don't want it very rarely. You want to go right out of tin and Augusta National very rarely. You you you're constantly playing away from pins, even with wedges, to to use slopes to to kind of take the fire out of the out of the out of the bound and the and the ball and let the ball gather. And sometimes twenty feet is a phenomenal shot because if you go with that pin where

twenty feet right or left is a dominal shot. You go out that pinning, don't pull it off like you said. I mean, you can make a double bull, you can make a double bogie and not have a penalty shot very easily. So just by messing around trying to get cute with a pitch shot. So it's very important to

take your medicine. And that's another thing where rookies tend to struggle with, especially in today's in today's day and age, where everything is go go go right at pins, right at the pin, right at the pin, right at the pin, fire and go Augusta Nationals a throwback, and you can't. You really can't do that there.

differently than the usual one. And then they had the w GC Mexico, which you know was was very short but also very firm and fast. Like, do you think that the tour needs to look at at going to more unique and different setups, because you know, this tour schedule is kind of a slog of the same type of golf course weekend week out.

going anywhere. So in that regard, it's up to the tour officials in my opinion, to set the golf course up and Slugger and his crew and Mark Russell and his crew when they're out there, those guys, uh and all the guys who do set ups, and one guy sets up the front nine, usually one guy set up the back nine, and it's up to it's up to our tour tour officials at the regular tour stops to really make it interesting for the players, and they can

only do so much. You can, Hey, listen, there's certain golf courses out there where you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig, you know. So so, I mean, they can do whatever they want, but they can't dress you know, you can, you can dress it up only so much, so you know it's it's uh Yeah, Harbor Town, you can put in the same vein Harbor Town is always exciting.

it's it's not the case. It's just not the case, just due to a lot of different factors.

on positions and all this. But quite honestly, I think in regards that the best players have always been artists, and golf courses are canvas. And I grew up and I have a good reason to think like that. My mom is by trade as an artist. She has a master's from San Jase State in graphic design. And when I was a kid growing up, our coffee table books were architectural digest, mone Mayonnai Dega, Rembrandt, all the greats of art, especially Impressionist work, and so had I have.

I have a very fond memory of art. I have a very healthy respect for art, and because of my mom and so for me, the golf course and golf course architecture was just another extension of artwork, because much like artwork hanging on a wall in a gallery, you can have one person walk up to a dega and go, that is the most gorgeous looking thing I've ever seen

in the world. And then you could go over to a Monet sitting right next to this diga, and you can go, and another person will go, this is the most gorgeous thing that I've ever seen, and they'd both be right. And that's how I look at golf course architecture. Are there some dogs out there? Yeah, there's there might be some stuff done by the greats that I don't like,

but very few things. Much like the greats and golf course architecture, when you're talking about rainers, CEB McDonald, Tillinghast, Mackenzie, Ross, you know the greats of the Golden Age, you know the guys who were the greatest of all time at what they did, and the pioneers. I think that very few works from those guys were dogs. There are some you can go, wow, this is a this is a Ross, or this is a McKenzie. Like some people say that about Claremont country Club up in the East Bay Hill. Wow,

this is a mckendie. It's a cute little six thousand yard golf course in the in the in the East State Hills that no one knows about that it's a McKenzie. Same with Green Hills Country Club right up the road from my front norm when I grew up in stan Mitfield, California, in sam Bruno or Millbray, it's a it's a McKenzie and no one hardly knows that it's there. But it's a cute little, I don't know, sixty two hundred yard golf course. That's the McKenzie that people either love or hate.

So I just I've always looked at golf course architecture from the perspective of it being art. I've never tried to assign values, even though I probably have in the past, I've never tried to assign I've never purposely tried to assign values to rate a golf course on certain things. I think if I had to, the one thing would be shot values. I mean, what are the shot values? Like, do you do you play a lot of different clubs? Do you have to use it a lot of different clubs? Off the t's do you do?

You've got to be way over here, and you might have a longer shot, but I've got a better angle than you sitting on the right, even though you're a club or two shorter than I am. In an agree. So that's the kind of stuff that I love about strategic golf courses and the old school golf courses. And and they'll they'll always be art to me. And it's in the eye of the beholder, quite honestly. You might

not like dope. You might a certain dope stuff. You might not like certain crunshot course stuff or Hant stuff or Kyle Phillips, who's one of my favorite favorite architects, and the stuff that he's done over the last few years, I think is really good stuff. I think all those guys are are kind of a throwbacks of the old

school guys, only in this modern era. And I'm glad to see that they're kind of taking some of the some of the things that that all the guys back in the twenties did and they're kind of trying to live it on their golf courses just a little bit with their own modern twist.

I use all my clubs in my bag? Is there a good variety in their par threes?

play the right teas. Let's say your eight iron only goes one hundred and twenty play one hundred and twenty yard t box one hundred and ten yard te box at the same home. Okay. It has to have a great reachable risk reward par five all right, four hundred and eighty five to five hundred and twenty five yards with all kinds of issues all over the place. But you can still hit driver if you want to. I don't like the ones that take driver out of your hand.

But yet, if you want to hit driver, you've got to hit a good driver but leaves you a bail area. But it's going to be a tough out to get to make to make a three maybe or a four from that at bail area. But if you hit the drive right with your driver, you've got to you know, a mid iron to a long iron in your hand is from the back tees is a good as a good player, and you've got a chance to make a three.

And usually the green's fairly difficult. And then the last and the least last, but not least is a little part four. Love the drivable part four. And again you got to make it tough. You gotta make I think in all honesty, you either got to make the layup tough and make the layup so tough with an iron that that guys don't want to do it, so that they're that are like, I don't want to lay up with a seven iron and and hit a sandwich in Why would I do that? So you, I mean, that's

the kind of stuff that that I love. And then the green's got to be cautiously psychotic, as I like to say, to where it's not goofy, but it tests the player's patience.

the pin is located. And I you know, I was I would be missed, be remiss if I didn't mention George Thomas with those other architects, because he's kind of the quiet one of the bunch back then, and I think did brilliant work that doesn't get as much recognized and one of my favorite golf courses. I mean, I would rivi here is one of my favorites. It's in my top ten of all time without a doubt. M h.

winner than twenty eight. And I think it's so much because of how you have to think, and it becomes so angle oriented that you have to think your way around the golf course. And it's not robot golf like these other places where it's just hit it close, because there's actual you know, there's you have to create the angles to make the birdies out there. And I bet you would know much more having played it in you know, competition.

very similar, I think to a certain extent. You know, every year for the I was out there walking the golf course this year with Dustin Johnson watching him doing live golf, and you do you have to create angles on a lot of holes out there, uh And and George Thomas set up the greens at angles and angled the greens to where you know, if you don't get on a certain side of the fairway, it's gonna be a little bit more difficult attacking certain whole locations at

that place. And and yet people consider it to be

more of a US Open tract. But when you they didn't have hardly any rough there this year, I mean hardly, And it was spotty at best, and and there was some thick part of the golf course, but most of the golf course was extremely playable off the fairwe and and so you if you wanted to you know, if you wanted to blow it right on certain holes or left on certain holes, Uh, you had an opportunity to do so and and create yourself, give yourself proper angles

into into the whole locations. But yeah, I think that I think that that golf course in and of itself does a does a fantastic job in in not only determining champions, but uh, creating really good some of the greatest shot values on the PGA Tour.

Bubba who ended up winning hitting it. You know, it's some some spots eighty ninety yards past him.

course this year, my goodness. I mean, I'm watching him go up nine, which is uphill, and there's a bunker out there at about two seventy and it's a i think two seventy to cover it or two seventy five to cover it, and he's playing with Perez and Trendall and Cameron's not long. He's one of the shorter hitters on tour, relatively short, you know, high two seventies, low two eighties. Perez is not short. Perez is above average

to average average, above average on tour. And DJ Perez gets up there and bounces it, flies it in the bunker because.

This guy's hitting nine iron or a ledgeendo number nine at Riviera and these guys are laying up out of this bunker. Yeah, with no chance to get to that grain. So he just took the place apart. He did. It was it was, it was. It was interesting to watch him play that place and how how he worked himself around that golf course. But distance distance his king man, That's what he showed me there that day. He had

all the shots. There's no doubt he played some beautiful, soft touchy type shots in the greens that uh, which is why I'm picking him. He's my pick to win Augusta, which is you know, I'm going out on a big win. There aren't I but the guy's just playing too good.

But he showed me a lot at Riviera of what he could do with his soft touch shots from the eight iron, nine iron, seven iron type shots that you need those at Augusta National to feed it to certain whole locations so the guy is just in full control of his game right now. It's fun to watch.

three woods. So I'm not worried about Dustin Johnson on two or thirteen, which are two key holes that you do need to when you're his link, you do need to turn it down from right to left the rest of the holes. If he wants to hit an iron off a fourteen, he can. If he wants to hit a three wood off of fourteen and turn it down, he can. Fifteen, he can cut it. Seventeen, he can cut it. Eighteen. He has to cut it. One, he

has to cut it. Three he can practice. We drive the green in the right conditions the rest of the golf course. He really doesn't have to sit up there to hit a big sling and draw. Quite honestly, he can, you know, nine. He might. He might have to finagle a straight ball or a slight draw just a little bit. Ten. Yeah, you gotta sling it. But again, that's a three ord or a two iron down the hill for him, or

a driving iron of some court, some some kind. Every other hole he can stand up there and hit a nice little, you know, nice little bleeder from left to right that goes through twenty. So I have no worries about DJ yeah next week, other than other than his putting. That's a good call. Yeah, he hasn't putted well at Augusta National traditionally, but he's got this new putter in the bag, and you know when speech's coming out and saying,

you know, DJ's a favorite. I don't know why I'm the favorite, because there's no reason I should be the favorite based on the way Dustin's playing right now, you know. And I agree with Jordan one hundred percent, whether he's trying to take pressure off himself next week or not, he's right on any account that Dustin's the favorite next week.

to get into some Twitter questions. We got some good ones here, and you've mentioned some some of the courses you grew up playing in the Bay Area, and you've mentioned a few lesser known places like Green Hills and but what are you know some of your other favorites in the Bay Area that that everybody might not know about.

it's absolutely stunning. And I would, I would highly recommend people go play up there. You know, you know, I'm a big fan of public golf. Go play all the muni's. Go play Palo Alto Muni, Go play San Jose Muni, go play, Go play Sunny Vale Muni, Go play San Mateo Meni now called Poplar Creek. Crystal Springs isn't a Muni, But go play Crystal Springs, a semi private golf club up on the hills there. Go play Crystal Springs. They're fun tracks. Some of them are pretty flat, as flat

as pancakes. Uh, but it's just you know where I grew up. It's it's it's it's just a it's a they're fun tracks that aren't going to break your bank, and you'll have a nice day out there.

Maybe this might be a stretch, but maybe in the state of California, quite honestly, if it's done right, if it's done right, if you if you go back to a total, a true restoration, it could potentially be the best municipal golf course in in California. Yeah, in my opinion. Yeah, so there's a lot riding on it. You know, I'd want a guy who really understood McKenzie number one. There's a lot of guys that do but to do it and I've played Sharp obviously grown up, and that's another

one you can add to the list. Although they've they've really let it go, quite honestly. But if that comes and pruishing, if they do it. It could be pretty magical. Actually that place, yeah.

keep an eye on. I I want to get out there and play it and see it before and you know, always it gives you a good mindset of what how it's changed over the years. But so, uh, Columbus Pete wants to know what your thoughts are on Pebble Beach being considered overrated.

that golf is in the eye of the beholder. And there might be people out there who played it that went eh, and that's cool. That's there. That's their opinion. But you know, for me, there is absolutely zero overrated about Pebble Beach. And if I had one place to play the rest of my life every day, and I and I could play it every day, it would be

Pebble Beach with out of doubt. Out of doubt not just because I won there, but just because of the variety of holes and the things that you have to do around that place, and that you change a pin from twenty feet over here to twenty feet over there, and the whole and the wind switches from this direction of that the golf course plays so different every day. You get a different golf course every day out there. It's brilliant. Mm hmm.

it all. In my opinion, it all depends on how his body's feeling, and then whether his whether his game is is he feels his games up to snuff, because that place can make if your game's not right, it can make you look real foolish. Yeah, real quick.

week to week. And it happened in my hand. I'd wake up one day and my I'd get out to the range, hands perfect, and everything's going great. I'm striping it and I can hit all the shots. The next day I wake up and I and I can barely hold onto the golf club. I'm dead serious doing this weekend week ount. I think it's the same for his back. I don't. It's so up in the air. The back

is compromise. His back is compromised, and it's compromised, in my opinion, fairly severely, based on the fact that he just when you've had three surgeries, Based on my knowledge, I've had four surgeries on one part of my body and I'm missing bones in my left hand. It's where I can't play anymore. He's had three microdissectomies on his back. He does it. I don't think he knows how that thing's going to react from day to day, and I think he's trying to learn how it's going to react.

Is there a pattern? And I thought that, you know, I think he was being very aggressive with his scheduling in my opinion, going trying to go to the Middle East and all that. And I applaud him for thinking that he could do it, but I was a little skeptical about the the scheduling when I saw it, I'm like, man, you gotta pop on a plane for seventeen hours. That's not great for the backs.

from him. But but he's but he I think his career has been underrated to be to be quite awesome. I don't think people have have given him the do and it's it's mainly because of Tiger. What Tiger did. What Tiger did, Tiger made everybody look less than less than stellar. Uh, he made us all look foolish at times, There's no doubt because of his greatness. But but by no means do I think that that diminished Phil's career

and in any way, shape or form. The guys the guy's underrated, I think for what he's done and who

he is and what he's become. And a real quick side note because we were we were texting back and forth a little bit before here when in regards to a young gentleman on the tour by the name of Grayson Murray, who who's maze if who's made a name for himself a little bit maybe not such a great way on the tour with with some of the stuff he said in regards to the world rankings and so on and so forth, and maybe to some of the

other tours Phil. I would remember playing a practice round with still back in I can't remember what I was I was, actually, I think I was a top fifty player in the world this time, and I was I was complaining about something I wasn't happy and about this that or the other thing, about access to this tournament of that tournament. And I'd been under my breath and quietly complaining to my caddy and this and that for about four or five holes, and Phil finally looks at

me and goes, Oberholzer, shut up. I'm tired of listening to talk about that. I go, I've taken aback by it. I'm like what, And he's like, He's like, if you don't like your lot in life, just play better. Period. And I didn't talk to him for about two holes because I was so ticked off at him for saying that. But the fact is is he was dead on right, and that's that would be my advice, I guess to mister Grayson Murray, if you don't like your lot in life, play better.

This is this is going to be his livelihood if he wants to be, and he's got a choice he can make right now on how good he wants to be, and spending time getting into arguments, in my opinion online with guys about things that really don't matter in my opinion, aren't going to help him get to the goal that I believe he can reach, which is being a PGA Tour winner. Yeah.

and the analysis that we try to give him every week. It's, uh, it's a lot of fun doing it, and I'm glad that, uh that we try to create healthy discussion with with the stuff that we say between what doesn't matter, no to Brandle, Frank David, do all myself, Trip Eisenhower, Jim Gallagher, all the guys, and and we're gonna try to do our best to do the same thing next week. I think we've got a good play to shows next week for for the Masters for Life from the Masters.