Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at b Draddy. I had a great time with the guys from b Draddy and Summit Golf Brands this week at.
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license gear. So use the promo code frieda Egg fifteen and that's all caps fried egg and then the number fifteen and you'll get fifteen percent off your order from bdradty dot com. Now on to our conversation with Brad faxon I.
Miss the Green. For example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my ball in a fried egg Friday egg and dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg egg Frida egg, bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the So you said just the facts. It's funny. When I was looking at titles for my show, I had done a charity event a few years ago and called it Fax and Friends. You know, there's a show on Fox called Fox and Friends, the Morning show. I
worked for Fox Sports. My wife wakes up every morning turns on Fox and Friends. So I thought Fax and Friends would be pretty good name. And then but just the facts spelled Fax instead facts kind of I thought that was a better way to go. And I like how you just started in because the guys that I like on radio, especially the guys I listened to in New England when I was living in Rhode Island, that there was a show on wee I in the morning, The Dennis and Callahan Show was a pretty big show,
syndicated show, and they just started talking. They didn't and everybody on Serious XM on PGA Tour Radio, you know, Michael bad, whether it's tailor's ours are they start off talking, Hey, it's name of the show station we're on. I mean, people know that, you know. I just I think, like you just let's have a conversation.
Well, so I think about it.
I had this epiphany when I interview a lot of architects and they talk about constraints like if you put a clubhouse here, you got to start here right and you got to end here versus.
And I thought about it.
I was like, if I do an intro and I introduce somebody, I have to start right there. I don't get the ability to, like, if we have a conversation, like I could cut this out if I wanted to start our conversation fifteen minutes in, because that's where I think it really kicks off. Well, I can't move things around as easily if we do an intro exactly.
No, that makes a lot of sense to me. And if you have something you want to talk about, just start talking about it.
Yeah, exactly.
And I don't know, there's too many rules sometimes on the radio for my liking, where I have to reintroduce the person I been talking to, Like, it just doesn't feel right. It's not something we would do sitting on this chair and couch together talking to each other.
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, how's hosting and doing interviews?
Ben? After being on the other side.
You know, it's interesting. I went to when I first got my card in nineteen eighty four, the PGA tour offered some media in PR counseling from a woman named Andrea Kirby, and I thought it was a great idea. She had been at ESPN for a long time and she was Her topic was to help you answer tough questions, how to stay on point, how to move the conversation in a direction that would benefit you, and ultimately how
to look good. And she talked about body language and how important body language was when you were getting interviewed, and she showed us an incredible example of a hockey player after he had a game was over. She turned a sound down guy had a towel over, and you knew it was the end of the game, and you just watched him answer this question that took about forty five seconds. And then she paused the video and said, what do you think just happened to this guy or
his team? And we all said, well, he got the news that somebody's family died. They must have lost, he must have given up the winning goal or whatever it was. And he had just scored the winning goal in triple overtime to win the Stanley Cup. And I'm looking at this going she's right, because I never thought body language could make such a difference. And smiling is important. People
like to see people that are happy. And even Michael Breed, who has been a great friend to me and you know, an advisor, really going on the radio, he says, the more you can stand up when you do your show, and the more you can smile when you talk, people can hear your smile. And I'm going, that's ridiculous, but it makes a lot of sense to me. They can hear your happiness, your excitement. So I started the JUSTI
Fact Show almost exactly a year ago. Here at the show I signed my contract and I think I learned from this woman Andrew Kirby nineteen eighty four. That's a long time ago. Yeah, how to speak better, how to end a sentence a lot of times. You know. The one thing I learned then was you keep talking sometimes and you never stop talking. And if you were lucky enough to watch Jim Nansen kind of Lisa Rice yesterday at the titleist opening, Jim nantz is he's so in control.
He's never rushed, he's never hurried. He pauses and it doesn't feel like you're waiting for him to say the next thing, and it's just it's regular, it's normal. So long answer to your question.
Well, it's amazing.
Like people that are very good at asking questions. It's a real art because it's their brief but they're like they get their point across so quickly.
I'm still it's funny.
I listened to myself self when I'm editing, and I'm like, God, just stop talking.
Yes, and that you know we're talking about my interview coming up. Scottie Cameron, and you've got to ask a short, open ended question because people want to hear the person you're talking to, and you know, you always got to the conversation is going to drag in a direction and then you got to break it back and you know,
get a few points across. But I think so your original question for me being the host of a show, I mean, I've had some friends tell me, Look, people just want to hear what you have to think about golf and golfing in the world. You don't need a lot of guests. When I'm doing a show by myself and not sitting in front of somebody, it's hard to talk by yourself. I'm not looking at anybody. I'm looking at four walls, so that's more difficult than having somebody
on the show. I'm lucky because my show's on Monday, so there's always something to talk about after a weekend of golf on all the tours, but everybody does that. So I'm trying to get guests that people don't have all the time, or thoughts people don't hear all the times, so that show can be a little bit more unique. And I'll throw my opinion in there. I'll get on that,
and I've enjoyed it. But I'm in a really interesting part of my career as I've won't winded down from playing golf to work in more in media, working for Fox at the USGA so and then have my feet in the game as an instructor with some top players.
Yeah, a few famous ones.
It's yeah, but I mean it's it's odd because I don't know that I've seen a TV announcer that's really involved in players games. And it can be I.
Guess costas a little bit with Paul like and it was always when Paul Casey's coming down the stretch, he's talking about like very intimate knowledge of the swing and what happens to Paul when their pressure gets a little you know, I.
Know in one of my I don't know if you'd call this a stick or not. But when I first met Rory McElroy, which is almost two years ago, he was under contract with another putting and instructor, and I was one of those that took a lot of lessons and I knew what it was like to cheat on an instructor. I wouldn't say cheat, but cheat. I told Roy. The first thing I said to him as I said, Roy, I'm not looking for any publicity here. I will never
say anything to anybody about you and I speaking. If you go to the press and say something and then somebody asks me, I'll just kind of repeat what you said. But our stuff is sacred to me and you. And I think that gave him pause to exhale and say thank you. And it was uncomfortable because Kenyan, Phil Kenyon, who's one of the most noted putting instructors, teaches I
mean justin Rose, Hendrick Stintson, Western Fleetwood. I'm missing other good players Fitzpatrick and and Rory and you know, it's it's hard, but and maybe even the stuff that they worked on was correct helped his stroke get better. But you know, maybe unlocking the door is what I helped him.
I've taught.
I talked with some pros yesterday, some club pros about the idea, and I think this is so true with teaching golf, is two teachers can be teaching the same thing, but one it's conveying the message in a in a in a way that the pupil understands it. Like you could be teaching the same exact thing, but just the way you convey the information, something clicks with one way versus the other, and that feel or that thought really resonates and all of a sudden it works.
It's fascinating to me to scheme how players' minds work, sometimes in pictures, words or phrases. And I can give you a great example of some time I spent with Gary Woodland, who is another student now of Phil Kenyon, but I spent a little time with him four or five years ago. And as talented as Gary Woodland was and is, he was a young golfer when I first to talking to him. You know, he didn't plague golf as a kid like most players on the tour do now.
And we were just having a conversation about putting, and we were on a putting green at Old marsh Down where I live, a beautiful old Pete Die course, and I made a comment to him that when I was putting my best, I always had to mark a putt when I missed, because it ran far enough by the
hole that it wasn't a tap him. When I was putting my best, I mean, when I'm not putting my best, I'm a little more cautious, and then the speed's closer to the hole, and people kind of assume that, oh, he's got great touch when it ends up right by the cop I think the most the most prolific putters hit the ball with a little bit of authority. So I just had that conversation. I never really said anything
more than that to Gary. And then the next week he had a great first round and his pressroom comments where I talked to Brad Paxton last week he told me to hit it harder. Never said that. I didn't say hit it harder, Gary, I said just that my putts always went by the hole a little bit. But how he interpreted my little phrase or my comment was I need to hit it harder to make more putts.
It's interesting.
I think, like I grew up caddy in and played, but when pressure comes putting, you start worrying about the next putt instead of it seems like and it's always pace oriented, right. It's just like whenever anybody has a big putty, it's very rare to see somebody like, you know, hit it with that pace that in most putts like they go in when they go in there, you know they've got pace to them.
I see that most of all, and look, I'm new from the instructor side. I was a player, and because you were a good player or a good putter doesn't mean you're going to be a good instructor, does it. You know, does Jack Nicholas because he was the best player that ever lived or Tiger Woods, does that mean they're going to be great instructors. You know, you have to have a way about having a conversation or or talking to them to help them. And you need to
learn about the person, the personality, how they think. And you know, I did this for a long time. Well I got better as I got older, and I've learned a lot now from some of these putting instructors of what they look at on the technical side of it. And I've yet to have any player, whether they're a great player or an aspiring player, come to me and say I need more thoughts, I need to take more time, and I need to try harder. I've never had any
great player, talented players say that to me. Now, beginner golfers, they need a lot of instruction. And when people ask me, is there a secret to this? And I say, it's time. You know, there's not a shortcut to this. You know, You're not going to be a great putter by taking two lessons. You know, you've got to spend endless hours. And I think later today when I talked to Cameron to Scottie about putting, I get insulted when somebody says, well,
you're just lucky were born that way. And I'm like, let's go back to when I was five or six years old and first starting and how many hours and how many times did I spend hitting putts from all distances on all kinds of courses throughout a year. So yeah, get me going that way. Yeah.
I think I was talking to Billy Hurly last time and he was talking about like people that he's played golf with all different walks of life, but success they and he was talking about himself, and he said, you know the thing is anybody that has, you know, that reaches a high level of success in a field, they've made a sacrifice that other people didn't want to make, whether it was moving somewhere early in their career to get ahead, like moving to Asia if you're you know,
in business and getting head that way, or in his case, he's like the amount of time I've spent hitting three foot Putts is something that nobody else would do, like very few people would do.
Yes, yes, so I can go back. Reminds me of in my college days. One of my college roommates was on the baseball team. He was a picture for the baseball team, and he was a good pitcher, but he wasn't an aspiring professional. And the school, Furman University, had a decent baseball program for a small Division one Double
A school. But I was so devoted to the game that every class I took at Furman was between nine and twelve, so I was always done at twelve, and many of the days I'd go hit balls before my nine o'clock class, so I didn't go out as late as a lot of my friends. I wasn't crazy. I mean I had fun certain times, but he didn't say an He never said anything about it. And after our first full year's room and he was I'm so impressed with how disciplined you are, because he says I would
never be able to do that. And I never thought of that as a sacrifice, you know. I thought like when my eyes opened, I wanted to be outside hitting golf balls. And most of the great players I don't see these great players as today getting up at eleven o'clock in the morning and trying to figure out what their day is going to be, like most of them have a little bit of a plan going on.
Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, that's the thing is all the hours that go into it. So you you've talked last night a lot about you know, getting thoughts out of your head. And I'm a big proponent of this with putting, how do you how do you get people to get stuff out of their head in the first place?
Like what?
Okay? So there's I found there's two really good ways to do it. First of all, I've played a lot of golf with a lot of thoughts on my head swinging. You know, I went to more teachers than anybody. I can guarantee you I would probably lead the tour in two categories one and maybe Ben Crenshaw would be ahead of me. But I think I've played more of the top one hundred courses than anybody. I think so. And
I think I've worked. I know I've worked and paid for more instructors than anybody alive over eighty that's a lot written checks to eighty different instructors. And I have a list somewhere that's pretty funny to see. And I
get my balls busted all the time about it. So I know what it's like to play with no thoughts, one thought or fifty thoughts, and in putting, I don't know why I was able to separate that and play with zero to one, you know, or somewhere in between zero and one is the right amount in my opinion.
So if I have somebody that comes to see me and they have multiple thoughts, I kind of look at it like if you're a big guy, if you're an overweight guy and you're trying to lose weight, you don't go from a bacon double cheeseburger to a turkey burger or an impossible burger. You just take the bacon off first, right. You got to go in layers. And somebody that has
one hundred thoughts you got to win down. So I actually add thoughts to them so they could get rid of all the other ones something to hold on to, and finding that magic is will take time to do it. And then when I have somebody like Patrick Cantley who had been to a bunch of instructors and every instructor tells him you have a great stroke. Why aren't you
making putts? You know, that's the hardest thing to figure out, because now it's more let's sit down, because every time he hits a putt, people say, well, your stroke's perfect. All the machines, all the technology tells you face some path or square, temple's good, grip looks good. Pat you know everything, and you're like, holy smokes, this this is going to take some time too. So that's the two ends of the spectrums. And I rarely see it. And I'm friendly with I know Phil Keny a little bit.
David Orro is a bit of big help to me and learning about biomechanics of the putting stroke, the weight shifts and everything that happen, wrist angles changes, and I'm like, oh my gosh when he starts talking about this stuff. He can look at a player in one stroke and pick apart the mechanical side of that. But if you start trying to change a player's older or radial deviation, you know, words that I hate hearing an instructor talk about to a player. It can scare somebody. Yeah, you know,
players don't want to make big changes. They and they want to keep their feels and with all the technology now, I'm fascinated with all the informations out there and how some of that's transferred to a player, and no wonder so many guys are getting afraid of chipping and putting, and chipping's become an epidemic. It used to be just hit a chip shot, never thought about now like there's ten ways to hit one shot.
I'm like, what it is a you know, a comment from last year with the rules changed with the pin, and I'll never forget, you know, Adam Scott had a great year actually statistically on and around the green and he talked about with putting with a pin and how it you know, the pin being in reminded him of a kid when he would just go to the practice screen and just hit putts and everything would hit the pin and go in. And it's like almost like you
could tell it from that comment. It almost freed his mind. That like liberated him and brought back like a much simpler time, because every every professional remembers when they're a kid. Somehow golf can get more difficult the more you work at it.
I think every one of us played on a course that had a short, little flagstick on a putting green. I don't know if you'd call it a flag stick. Whatever that thing was where you had the handle, you could pull it up and it was metal, and you could hit the ball hard and you could make it make a loud noise. And we challenge ourselves, how hard can you hit this in and make the ball go in?
And you know, maybe we're too lazy to pull it out of there to hit practice putts, or maybe you wanted to hit all three of your balls in there and scoop it up and catch all three balls at once. You know when you did that, And I understand the mindset from Adam Scott and how hey, if that brings me back to that childlike memories enthusiasm that I had or I didn't worry about missing, I think that's cool. I hate the rule. I hate the rule. I think
it's degrading to the game. I can't imagine at the Masters this year somebody having a five foot or to win and leaving the flagstick in. It's like, what are we doing playing a late nine holes? I mean, take the flagstick out? Is it really speeding up the game? No? As a matter a lot of caddies tell me, you know, some guys wanted in, some guys wanted out. We're asking
questions and it certainly is not growing the game. Do you think somebody's ever driven by, you know, a public course and said, oh, they leave the flagsticks in, let's go play golf today. You know, So why why are we doing this? Well?
And I think this is I get rules.
Like one of the things that drives me nuts is like interpretation of them.
Right.
This is a rule that was created for when me and my buddy are playing trying to cram in nine holes at the end of the day, we're chasing the sun. I'm one hundred feet away and I'm putting too a pin.
I could putt with it in. You know that that was I think, I assume is the attention intention of the rule, Like I don't have to go pull the flag out, And because I and but professional golfers their job is to look for ways to get tiny incremental advantages, right, And this is a method of you know, hey, I can get a little advantage here if I if I some people think I personally believe like I've made putts
with it out my whole life. I can't look at it and make a putt with it in, because like it's just a foreign thing to me.
That's so I have so many responses to this. As a kid, I was a caddy, My dad was a golfer. I grew up with the game. I learned rules, the number one rule, play it as it lies. That's the first thing we learned about the king. I'm Patrick Reid, so that's one thing. And then you know, the flagstick was to be removed. I remember playing with a member at my club. I was young, and this guy's name was Ralph Gunderson. His wife was my gym teacher in
elementary school, and Ralph was a good player. I caddied forim a lot, and it just so happened that he said, you want to come play a few holes with me. We were in a cart and I'll never forget this. I was on the twelfth hole. We were playing like an emergency nine, and I had like a thirty footer and the flagstick was in and he's just kind of standing on the fringe waiting for me to putt, and I said, mister Gunderson, can you grab the flag for me?
And I would have never considered even putty. Even this was meaningless nine holes with the flagstick in, and he kind of was like, oh, and he walked over and took the flag. It was, you know, it's one of those things. I followed that rule, and now that it's changed, I'm like, it's I think it's cheap the game. There's no sense in it. And now there's debates about You can listen to Mark Brody, you can listen to Dave Pells.
You can listen to the professor at Berkeley that said keeping the flag stick in helps most of the time, unless you're going to miss it. Hit the flagstick on the low side of a breaking putt has more chances to go out than go in. So I'm so confused. I don't know what's right. But what I do know I was in a conversation with Bob Rotella and Dave Pells. Now Pells would have been the first guy that studied
I don't know if you'd call this science. He likes to call himself a scientist, but his opinion was it was better to keep the flag stick in when you were off the green. I remember that, Remember that I had more chances of the ball going in than not going in. And Rotella said to him Dave, I just tell my players, whatever makes you more confident, and Pell's got no, it has nothing to do with confidence because the ball's rolling. It doesn't know if you're confident or not.
And Roteller says no, but you have to get the ball rolling. And if the flag stick in makes you more confident, you have a better chance of making it. If the flagstick out makes you more confident, you have a better chance of making So I'm a big Rotella guy, and I Pels was kind of speechless and get got angry. It was funny, And I think.
This is like one of the most compelling things with golf is hitting on. This is like there's a constant tussle between like the science and the the just the mental aspect of golf, Like is it art or is it science?
And is it like there?
And I feel and I'm interested to hear your perspective. Working with tour players and being on tour for years, tour players typically fall and there are really analytical ones and really just field based players, right, And there's not a ton in the middle ground.
You're saying, there's not a ton in the middle ground. Yeah, to me, it's it's so individualistic on an how a player plays and how they think. And the greatest two players we said it earlier, Jack and Tiger. You can see them behind the ball, painting a picture, an image in their mind, and very deliberate, both of them. Tiger takes three or four practice swings almost every shot. Jack
seemed to stand behind that ball all the time. And the image of Jack on the eighteenth hole in nineteen eighty six at the Masters, he was hitting threewood off that tee. I don't know if you remember it, but he would always picture a shot and he hit this beautiful little almost like a pull cut fade all the time.
And he had teed the ball up fairly high for a threewood back then with persimmon, and he always kind of walked up with the club dangling in his right hand and his left hand kind of shaking as he circled into his path to get to address the ball.
And in this particular shot, he got up over, he went through his waggles and he stepped away and he started looking at his glove like something was wrong with his glove, when he clearly wasn't able to make this swing because he didn't have the picture and ready, and one of the announcers said, oh, Jack's nervous here, you know, and people would get concerned when somebody stepped away from a shot, And to me, it's like, no, he's gathering
his thoughts here. And then he piped his three would write down the middle, and I'm like, that's a guy that is committed. And if you watch Justin Thomas this year in the playoff at Kapolua, where both Shoffley and Reed had missed putts that they said they got gusted, Justin Thomas had about a three foot putt to win and you saw him step away And I texted him afterwards because he texted he said, hey, look the wind
was blowing. It was gusted. I wasn't going to let augusta wind make me blow this put or blow this tournament. And I think that's what the great players have always been able to do.
Yeah, it's like when the second something that takes you out of that moment, or you think about something other than just what's at hand, you got it to step off because it.
Breaks the train of thought.
It's like nothing ever goes well when you start thinking about something else.
No, And for Rory McElroy, last year at the Players Championship. I mean it was to me a monumental occasion. On the twelfth hole the final round, it's the driveable par four water on the left. It's a newer hole that was renovated two years ago. Maybe players can easily reach
the hole. Rory could do it with the three when he left the ball a little bit to the right and short of the green off the took perfect t shot and the flagstick was left towards the water and he chipped it a little bit by maybe ten or twelve feet close to the fringe, and he had now a kind of an uphill left to right breaking putt and it was a pivotal putt. It was critical there
and maybe a cup's worth of break. And he got up over the putt and is we worked a lot on routine and then he stepped away and he readjusted his line because a lot of times, you know, like most players, he had an underread going. And he said, look, I knew I needed to play a little bit more break. So he went through his routine again and made it, and maybe a year before that he wouldn't have done it. So as a player myself, that did situational stuff is
a lot of the things we talk about. So it's that wouldn't be mechanics, right, but it's like, how are you going to respond to something like that? How are you going to respond when you've had a series of putts that you've hit perfectly that go over the edge of the hole and don't go in. How do you talk to yourself?
And I feel like that is like it was like kind of for Rory with what he went through the last few years with putter, Like that's a monumental putt because if you're not putting, if you're not putting well and uphill ten foot good breaking left to right putt as a righty is you know, that's so such a hard put to it because to hit it the pace to get that ball to go in because you know the Tennessee has missed it short and right, like we
talked about and coming down the stretch and pressure. Do you have a moment from your career that like stands out where you were really working on something and coming down the stretch, you know it clicked and that just set off a really great run of golf.
I have two putts that I think have helped me to understand how good the human body can work and the mind works. One of them was in Australia. I had a two shot lead at the Australian Open. I played the first two rounds of Greg Norman when he
was number one in the world. It was a Metropolitan, a great Mackenzie course, and I had been going down to Australia for the past few years and had just learned about all these sand belt courses and I'm like, Wow, the best greens, hard conditions, firm, windy, and this eighteenth toll. If I made five, I was going to win. Part four. Hit a three foot off the tee to be saved, hit it down the middle, hit it just on the right fringe. Most of the trouble in that hole was
on the left. And I putted it up to about four or five feet fast greens. And I didn't care if I made this put or not. I really didn't. All I knew is if I got it to the lip, I could make the next putt. So my thought was I want this to get to the front edge and trickle in or I'll be There was no ego in this putt. I didn't have to make this to win, and I hit this putt and it got to the edge and it sat there like Tiger's chip on sixteen
in Augusta, and it fell in. And it's just like when you tell your brain when you have that picture that's so clear about what you want to do. It's amazing how good you can you can feel things. And the best golf I ever played in my career was the two thousand and one Sony Open at Wili, and I shot twenty under par in the last hole I had. You know, I played with L's and Layman, so I was playing with top players the last couple of rounds and it was just a flall ass around. I eagled.
There were two part fives. I made an eagle every day and I finished it with an eagle on my round three times. And the eighteenth hold, the seventy second hole, I hit a five or two about eight to ten feet under the hole with a left to right break, a good amount, you know, a cup's worth of break, and another putt that I had no concern about whether I made this put or not. You know, all I
saw was a perfect line. And I remember the feeling and all of us have felt it when you hit a pot in the exact middle of the sweet spot and it leaves, it melts onto the face of the putter and it goes off and you're like, oh my gosh, that felt good. Everything was perfect and the ball rolled in a perfect speed, perfect line. And I think you can I think you can teach people to feel that in practice. You can tell them that they need to
get there in petition. But I think I've figured out a few different ways where I can help people understand those feels in their practice, where they can translate that to the golf course. And that's I think that's what the goal is of everybody is can you play, you know, rounds of golf playing in that state of mind where there's no concern for the result. I mean, I never walk down the street thinking I'm the best putter in
the world. But I was a confident putter, and I think for a long time I was able to put most putts, taking away the importance down and play the importance of the putt, the result, and just really falling in love with hitting putts.
I think that's a lot of it.
I I've always.
Been like a player that struggled on the greens, but in the last couple of years, I've learned to like love putting.
And it's amazing how like it changed, like all of a sudden.
People are like, ah, you're a really great potter, and it's just like it was like a mindset switch and now I can't hit the ball.
But that's golf.
Yeah, And people say that all the time. You know, when they're when they're hitting it well, they tend to not put as well. When they're putting well, they're not hitting it as well. And sometimes it's desperation you make these putts. And it's interesting to see, like statistics on the tour from five eight ten feet, how tour players make more of those for par than they do for birdie. I mean, so is that technical?
No, it's a loss of version.
It's what I did a podcast with an economist.
It's a loss of version.
So tell me what loss of version?
So people people remember their losses. They did a whole study on this. They remember their losses more than they remember They fear losing a shot more than they they want to gain a shot loss of birdie. Okay, So they did a study at Oakmont and Pebble with the ninth hole at Oakmont, in the second hole at Pebble, when they switched it from a five to four. Oh so, by simply switching the par to par four, players scored point two shots better on the hole, same.
Hole, but par four, same distance.
Same distance, And I mean they did the whole control, like they looked at it all over the years, historically pretty much the same scoring average. When it switched to par four, the scoring average went down point two. They said, if you switched par five, every par five on tour, I say, par fives don't exist, because you know, when you think about par five, is expert player reaches it
in three shots? Those outside of maybe fourteen of Pebble, you know, and a few other handful examples, they're all part four. So if a player could convince themselves that it's a par sixty eight.
Whoever this was that you talk to, would if he told every player you got to play it as a par sixty eight, you're going to shoot a lower score.
He said, they shoot one shot lower per round point point.
Yeah, yeah, that's since she so another row tell his story. He was at Jack Nicholas was speaking to a group of people, and Jack Nicholas was finishing the conversation, the talk, and he said, I never three putted the last hole of any tournament I ever played in. Never, he said. So. There was some questions afterwards, and then Jack and Rotella were together and this player came up and said to Jack, Jack, I remember the eighteenth hole on Sunday at SO and
so tournament in Ohio. You definitely three putted the last hole, and Jackson, no, I never three putted the last hole. And and this conversation went back and forth, and this guy got very angry and wrote, I said, let me ask you something. Let's call him Bob. Bob, what's your handicap? Because I'm sixteen? He goes, do you remember three putting year holes? Last holes a lot? He goes, oh, yeah,
I remember it all the time. He goes, okay, so you're sixteen handicap and remember all those and Jack Nicholas is the best player that ever lived and he doesn't remember that. Which way of thinking is correct? The guy walked away angry, So you know, create your own reality. You have to do that to be great at this game.
Yeah.
I love that story, and I love when people walk away all angry. That's something that makes so much sense.
You know, last last I I asked about you know, playing an environment of like an urban environment, if it was different then But in your response was you know, I didn't really care as long as it was a.
Great golf course. To you what is what is the golf experience?
You know at a great golf course, from like an architectural standpoint, how does it enhance the professional golf product?
So, being a Rhode Islander native Rhode Islander, I was around older golf courses compared to the rest of the country is Let's say Donald Ross's home was it Rhode Island in the summers, a little town called Little Compton, and he built a cool little par sixty nine course called Siconic country Club. The course where I grew up,
Rhode Island country Club, was Donald Ross. There's Wana Moist probably the most well known course in the state, Newport country Club that Char's US Senior Open host had Donald Ross holes on it. So William Flynn was there, Tillinghasse was there, Willie Park was in Rhode Island. Rayner was there with Wana Moye Billy ANDREI grew up on a Rainner of course, and didn't know who seth Rayner was Lee Jansen finally told him that. So some of the best architects in the world were in Rhode Island, so
I learned their names, read a lot about architecture. Then, obviously, being near Massachusetts, played a lot of courses. The Country Club was one of the original five courses. William Flynn, who you know, did Shinnecock Hills as well. So I started learning and tying all these things together and learning what great architecture was by playing them, not by you know, trying to become a landscape architect. You know, I just saw great golf and how the best holes looked and
felt and courses were. And then when I got on the PGA Tour, you know, having watched PGA Tour golf, you always knew listen to players comments how I loved Riviera, how I loved Harbortown, how I loved west Chester. And they were always the older colonial, the older courses people seemed to players seemed to like. And then as the game started to grow in popularity and we had to be concerned about where are we going to put spectators.
Let's create more drama. That's that's the balance. And I was surprised at how few of the courses we played on the PG Tour were great. You know, we didn't play top ranked, top one hundred courses very often, so that was always that made that made a difference, and but it made less of a difference to players than I thought, you know, then I thought it should have. You do you.
Think that the great golf courses create a different leaderboard than say, you're run of the mill built for PGA to our golf say it, We'll just say like TPC New Orleans, you know, Louisiana, but like not not I don't want to. But do you feel like the Riviera Riviera created a different, different type of success from the player, like asked different questions than you know, that modern course that you talked about that wasn't like you know.
Yeah, that's a good question. That there were so many factors that would influence a field. A lot of it was tradition, like Riviera had been there for one hundred years, Hogan his history there, schedule, where it is the schedule, is it a run up to something that was important? Perse that was something title, sponsor, where you lived. All those things were factors. If you think about the US Open,
the first one Fox did at Chambers Bay. Of course, nobody really knew anything about they didn't have any history, had a great leaderboard and a compelling finish, didn't it ye to watch what happened? It was sensational. So will Chambers Bay be another US Open course? Maybe? If the US Open were held at TPC at Louisiana, like you said, would the leaderboard be better than it is as a regular tour of one hundred to get the top players there? Would they have to change the the golf course with
firmer conditions and more rough. Absolutely, But you know, every course, every tournament doesn't have to have a fantastic leaderboard to still be a great tournament. As a matter of fact, I think it's better that every tournament's not a nine or ten on the scale.
It's interesting. So Riviera one of my favorite staffs.
I think the last player to win Riviera that was under the age of twenty eight is Adam Scott. And like, you know, it's like maybe thirteen or fourteen years ago now, and it's like something about that place it favor, you know. And I don't know if this is statistically just an anomaly, but older players seem to thrive there. And I don't know if it's something about the game at Riviera that you know requires a little bit of thought.
The more times you go around it, you learn more and more.
At great courses, that seems to be one of the common threads is like every time you play you kind of reveals itself a little bit more.
You know, I have a fun spark spot at Riviera. My greatest round ever played was there in the PGA in ninety five, and Bob Roteller wrote a story about my round. I don't know if I ever saw it in golf as game of confidence and I read it or I show players that I've tough or talk to I don't want to brag and say, hey, read this because it's about me. But what goes through a player's mind when they're playing great is not unique, you know. It's you still get bad thoughts, you don't hit every
shot perfectly. You have to manage the emotions of playing a great round of golf when you need to. But Riviera there's subtleties to the course. And if one cour one hole at Rivia plays easy, like number one, the short par five down the hill, number two will play more difficult, depending on the winds, time of day, temperature. You know, you can play there sometimes when it's cold and wet and the ball doesn't go anywhere. Uphill shots play so long. No course makes you turn the ball
in both directions more than Riviera Rivia does. Those big yucalyptus trees, the stadium, look of the eighteenth Toll, that's just natural. It's hard. I've never met anybody that goes from Riverer and goes this isn't one of the coolest places I've ever played. That's the look of the bunkering, the green complexes and George Thomas. I mean, what a combination.
I mean, that's the thing.
George Thomas's might be the most underrated architect.
You look at it.
Every single he didn't do that many projects, but every single one home run.
So being a New England guy. There's a great course in Massachusetts by the Cape called Katans and Katans It is hard to get, too hard to find, and you got to go through these windy little roads and as you're driving out towards the peninsula where it is, you pass this little course called Marion M A R I O N. Have you been there? Oh?
Yeah?
And you know there's a little shack or shed whatever, and you know, like a gravel pit sort of parking lot and stone wall in front of a green and you know, I just used to laugh at that. You know, you saw pull carts out there so you could go pay twelve bucks and pay play your eight or nine holes. George Thomas's first course ever and incredible. Yeah, and it's got great views when you go. Did you you so you've been out there?
Yeah? I played.
I played it with a with another with a with a architect, young architect.
It was so fun.
We went out there on our box like if there's nobody working there, you check your money in and you know that was That's a really, I think an interesting course for people to go see because it's like a glimpse into the first iteration of golf architecture. Yes, because that was in the rock walls were the hazards, because it was it was easier to build a rock wall than dig a bunker.
Totally, and there were a lot of rocks around there. The Philadelphia Quakers kind of that was a vacation spot for them. They would come to Jamestown, Rhode Island, they would come to Cape Cod Thomas never got paid a feed to design a golf course. It's fabulous a wealthy guy, but that's where he learned his craft. And I don't know if he took some of that schooling from maybe North Barrack that had some rock walls around it. Uh and and those walls, you know, part of what farmers
laid down to divide properties. And then you just put him up and make the guy hit it over the fantastic.
Yeah, that's it's a neat play. That's like one of the hidden gems. It's in terms of.
An authentic, unique golf experience, there are a few that have more kind of character. Like it's not going to wow you with conditions, but just a neat little spot.
You shouldn't drive by it, you should stop.
And so if you were going there, you had to have gone to Catansit.
I didn't go. Oh, I just went to Marian You did.
That's amazing.
Well, I was flying into Boston to get to Yale and I had time for one stop, so I stopped.
That was your one stop. Now, that's great story. Marion Golf Club.
I have a thing for you know.
Well, if you're making me jealous, because I want to go back there. My dad was a good player, and he was a member when I was a little kid at Rhode Island Country Club, where I learned to caddy and learned the game. But he also was a member of a place in the Cape called Eastward ho which has now moved way up in the rankings. Keith Foster did a renovation there, cleared thousands and thousands of trees. So that is one of the great places in America
that many people don't know about. But there's a town called Fall River, Massachusetts. Fall River was a mill town. My father was worked at the Far River Gas Company. And there's an eighteen hole course called Fall River Country Club. But the original nine holes there is a sensational nine holes of golf. I brought Gil Hans there. They had punch bowl greens, they had dance style green. He goes, this is one of the greatest places I've ever seen.
So those little nine hole tracks can be really, really fun.
I mean, we could talk I wanted to talk more about golf course. We've bet we ended up on to talk about you know, the mind and golf, and but like I mean, that's I think one of the neatest things about golf is just the exploration and and a lot of times the golf courses that you've never heard of, Like it's so worth just stopping and getting out of your car and seeing, like what's going on here, because like there are cool, little quirky nine hole courses all
over the place, especially in the northeast, you know. And uh so it's it's been a pleasure of having you on and we'll have to do it again. Maybe uh if we get closer to uh, you know, may do something about wing foot.
Or definitely, yeah, let's do something coming up there. Because I my feeling on this US Open is the usj would never admit this, but I think they want to really make guys sweat. I think they want to see some scores, some traditional US Open golf, I know Curtis Strange and Paul As. I want to see guys bloody when they finish around.
And those greens are.
Real quick talk about so you know, wing footscreens on on a like they would fall if somebody built them today. They'd be like these greens they're unfair, but like because of the tradition, they you know, they are they are intimidating as a great putter going to place with with very undulating greens, do you feel just like when you stepped on a course like that where you're at a bigger advantage.
Definitely. And I think the best putters, the better putters like that where it's difficult, challenging on every putt. I always put in my best at a place like Augusta because it made you be more creative. You know you were you were nervous because putts were so fast. But I think the the opposite is true too, Like at death Page, everybody said he's the best conditioned. Greens are all flat, you're gonna put great. I put it horribly there. I couldn't see a picture.
You know.
Straighter putts are harder for me than breaking putts.
It's interesting because, like I think, one of the things that's happened with this green speed's getting so highah is that you know, tour doesn't like to put pins on much slope because they never want the course to be part of the conversation. Yes, And what's happened is like I was watching even Kapalua down the stretch, I'm like, God, I haven't seen a putt that anybody's played outside the hole from inside seven feet.
And losing losing slope.
Slope is the best, you know, having a five footer that you're looking at, it's like, well, I could play it a ball out and put some paste on it, or I could play it a cup out and die in the top edge. Like that's where putting ads. There's almost an added dimension to it.
So I learned that at a British Open, which traditionally are flattered greens because of the wins out there when the weekends came around the RNA who set up the golf course where they were always able to find more slope. So you can make the course play more difficult with your whole locations. Obviously tucking them behind a bunker or by the edges of the green, but put in them where there's a lot of slope really is underrated and make it much more difficult.
I agree, yeah, I mean, and it adds a dimension to the pro shop when there's more slope because you can't get above it all of a sudden, then your target line is aiming right at it, and having five feet all around it becomes oh, I got to stay below it, and that bottom part of the circle is going to be twenty five feet.
And that's where, of course, knowledge is really important, you know, that's a big part of it. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed.
Yeah, it's fun.
So we'll talk soon, and good luck talking to Scotti later.
I can't wait. I got to get a little bit more organized. There's a lot of things you can An hour is not long enough to talk to Scotti, Cameron, that's.
For sure, all right. Thanks Bratt, har Dannie. You've been listening to the fried Egg podcast. We do the digging for you.