Do 59s Still Matter? Plus: A Women’s PGA Recap - podcast episode cover

Do 59s Still Matter? Plus: A Women’s PGA Recap

Jun 24, 20241 hr 1 minEp. 561
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Episode description

After another packed weekend of professional golf, Garrett Morrison and Joseph LaMagna first welcome on Meg Adkins for a round of In/Out following the KPMG Women's PGA Championship, won by Amy Yang at Sahalee Country Club. Then, Garrett and Joseph discuss the Travelers Championship and whether a sub-60 round still holds the same weight following Cameron Young's performance on Saturday. The two also break down how the course changes at TPC River Highlands held up against the best players in the world following the renovations made for this year's tournament.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

Speaker 2

And when I find my ball in a fried egg.

Speaker 3

Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg, Frida egg egg Frida egg bride egg.

Speaker 2

Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.

Speaker 4

Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about whether fifty nine's are cool anymore? More specifically, Joseph Lamannia and I will discuss the low scoring at this past week's Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour and ask what if anything, golf courses like Traveler's host TPC River Highlands can do to test modern tour pros properly. But first we'll be joined by Meg Atkins for a special in and out segment focused on the

Women's PGA Championship. So we'll talk about what we're in on and what we're out on related to the Women's PGA, which was held at the Holly Country Club this past week and won by Amy Yang. Let's start with you, Meg, What are you in on?

Speaker 5

Hey, guys, Okay, I am I'm in on Nellie's slump, not like I'm not in on her playing bad and I think it's great she's playing bad, But I am.

Speaker 1

In I think that's what you just said, though it is, but.

Speaker 5

Hear me out, hear me out, Here, me out, Okay, Okay, I'm in on how this just plays out for the rest of the year and the highest of highs and now the lowest of lows. In terms of I mean, I would say if you ask Nellie like her low's would be probably more around the injuries, especially the blood clot but in terms of just her play like this is. This is the low of her career, miss missing three

cuts in a row. And the reason I'm in on it is because I'm just so interested, in intrigued to see what happens the next time she tees it up and whether you know, this keeps going the downhill way or she shows us what she how she's been for the majority of the year and and comes back into form a bit you know, like when you were talking with Shane Garrett last week and he had the great line of the yo yo of hope, like we're kind of seeing this yo yo year now for Nelly and

for someone who is you know, I think she's been I think she's been way more open this year than she has been in the past, But who can be a little bit more closed off? Like this was more emotion more you know this. She showed more on the course, you know, on fifteen than she shown in any sort of press conference, any sort of interview, and we saw that that bubble that she always speaks about burst kind

of it right in front of our eyes. And yeah, I'm just really interested to see what's next and how she's gonna I hope turn this around. There's a lot of big stuff still on the calendar, Saint Andrew's Solheim Cup, Olympics. I believe we'll see her next at Evyon. I don't think she's going to play the team event this week, so yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna need a breather or take a break if she wins Chevron and Evyon and that's and that's it for majors this year, but yeah,

it's a major. The next time she'll tee it up and well, we'll see where she goes. But I'm in on where this just the narrative of this year and where this slump is taking the narrative of Nelly's historic here.

Speaker 4

Seems like it's either an EMC or a win at this point for Nelly, and I guess in a way that's exciting but also striking that two of the EMCs happened at major championships recently, so that's got to be frustrating. Joseph, what are you in on?

Speaker 3

I'm in on the trajectory of Amy Yang's career. I think it's super cool she's played. This is her seventy fifth major, never won one. Thought it's cool that she doesn't have a hat or a bag sponsor, and she just wants to focus on golf because some of the sponsorship obligations take her away from golf. She'd had sixteen top tens between twenty ten and twenty seventeen, had had

close calls in majors, but hadn't got it done. Talked about in her press conference how she had started to have doubts that she was ever gonna win one, just seeing the relief she had when she won. I think it's really cool when you have a player who's been around for a while that hasn't got one done. Maybe have some serious doubts that they're actually ever going to win one. Watching them get over the hump and win

is a cool story. I don't know if fans always love it, like the Brian Harmon at the Open Championship last year, because I think there's sometimes a feeling of wanting to see a young player who could win five or six of them and you start talking about what their future is going to look like. When a player like Amy Yang wins, who's not at the end of her career but on the back nine, so to speak,

you don't have that same conversation. But it's really I'm sure she's feeling extremely a serious sense of relief, and I think it's cool to watch a player win in that stage of their career.

Speaker 4

Meg any context or thoughts on Amy Yang for people who weren't previously familiar with her career.

Speaker 5

Yeah, she's a veteran. I mean, she's been out there for so long. I don't like I watched, you know, a lot of the coverage, most of it this whole week. It's shocking with that rhythm and that tempo and just how sweet of a swing she has that there hasn't been more winning. But yeah, I mean it's just super hard to get over the edge, and I find it. I mean, it's got to be even sweeter for her doing it against you know, the twenty year olds and the with all the youth movement in the women's game.

She's stuck around. She thought about retiring, like, you know, had bad tennis elbow injury, and to you know, to keep going when others were taking time off, to you know, retire, start a family, or whatever the case may be. To hang around and to get that the biggest victory of her career after all these years.

Speaker 1

It was super cool to watch.

Speaker 4

With Amy Yang. It's interesting because she is on the LPGA Tour. That's where she has played a lot of her golf this year and recently, but she has also spent a significant portion of her career on other tours

around the world, the Korean LPGA. Has she played in Japan, I would imagine maybe at least occasionally, and the standard of play on those tours is really really high, and we see some of that coming out in major championships where players who maybe aren't super familiar to an American audience, but more so to a Korean or Japanese audience. All of a sudden show themselves to be very very high quality players, and so we saw that again this week at Sahali. So what I'm in on is pretty simple.

Lily Avu comes back from injury, immediately wins on the LPGA Tour and then records a T two. It's a holly. She's a killer, and I have to think that she'll show up at St. Andrews this year. Obviously, Lily Avu won two majors last year alone, which is still Nelly Corda's career total of majors. So something's going on with Lily Avu where she just performs in these big events, in these big moments, and I'm excited to see what comes of it. All right, let's get into what we're

out on. I'll start with you again, Meg, what are you out on this week related to the Women's PGA.

Speaker 5

I'm so far out on threesomes and split tea's on the weekends of a major.

Speaker 1

It's just I.

Speaker 5

Saw I thought there was a chance when they when they had the coverage windows and we weren't going, you know, deep into primetime with it being on the West coast. Yeah, Olympic Trials, you know, the calendar of other sporting events happens. So you shoehorn in, you know, the final two rounds of a major of you know, the Women's PGA real deal major into split teas and threesomes on Saturday and Sunday.

It kills pace of play, It kills the rhythm that you're used to associating with the biggest events in golf. Uh yeah, it needs to go away for good. I don't know, and I'm not positive or enthusiastic or hopeful that it will, but yeah, it's it's unfortunate because we just had the US Women's Open where that wasn't the case, and you know, what's the what's the deal? I mean, KP and G has put forth a giant purse. They've

done so much to grow this event. But if it's an NBC thing, a partner thing, Uh yeah, an LPG LPGA thing, we gotta we gotta have twosomes and everyone going off one on Saturday and Sunday of a major.

Speaker 4

So is it is it not clear why they're doing that?

Speaker 5

It wasn't It wasn't weather, It wasn't you know, there was You're on the West coast, it's the middle of June. It's the longest. You know, we have the most daylight hours we'll ever have. From all I understand, you know, they wanted to start those Olympics trials at six o'clock and and they got out of that coverage so fast

last night they did. I think Tom Abbott asked Amy Yang two questions and then it was you know, drone shot of the overhead of eighteen green and we'll see you later and onto onto trials and on Saturday, you know, it ended at the same it was just the local news that was playing here. So I yeah, it's if it's if it's needing like or KPMG to and the LPG to put the screws to NBC on this, I don't.

I don't know. But it's when you have the US Women's Open whatever two three weeks ago and you don't see that and then it happens at the KPMG and makes it feel like not as big of a deal.

Speaker 4

Joseph, what are you out on?

Speaker 3

I'm kind of pivoting here based on what Meg said on her to.

Speaker 1

Slump.

Speaker 3

Okay, I'm just out on ever falling for the this time it's different with a certain player and expecting the dominance to persist week in and week out. Like this happens all the time, where a player goes through a super hot spell and Nelly Corda may pick it right back up right and when another major this year might win multiple more times. But it always feels different, and you can talk yourself into reasons why a certain hot

streak is going to last. Scotti Scheffler is going through a similar thing right now and getting comparisons to Tiger.

Speaker 1

It very rarely lasts like.

Speaker 3

You have to be a true Unicorn for that hot form to persist. So I think just in general, when a player gets really hot, it's not fun to take the side of oh, this probably isn't gonna last, but it is more often than not the correct side. So, like Meg, I'm super eager to see what Nelly does the rest of the year, But the next time a hot streak comes around, I'm going to remind myself that you can't really fall for it.

Speaker 4

With Nelly it seemed to be different though, because of her or pedigree. She came into the LPGA tour with a lot of hype and a lot of accomplishments, and seeing her become the best player in the world and go on this run wasn't really surprising it. It wasn't a random thing with her, and so I think the expectations for her to continue being dominant are fairly valid. It doesn't feel random to.

Speaker 1

Me, and she looked to be clear.

Speaker 3

I don't think one missed cut means that the hot streak is over, like, especially on a setup like Sahalif, if you get a little off and missing a cut seems I don't want to use the word excusable, but it can happen. It's much more within Noah's range of outcomes. But in general, will we be talking about her three years from now as the best player in the world. As tempting as it can be to default to yes, like the answer is generally no.

Speaker 5

It's like the how many majors discussion like run It's never I always take the under. It's not very fun. It's more fun to have a hot take of you know, many many majors.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 5

The the thing with Nelly, like all the wins were on so many different types of courses, different you know, different formats the match play. That's why I was like, Okay, this is really something special because it wasn't just the May for Nelly type track that favored her huge advantage with distance, and that's also why this this you know, three cut three miss cut streak is so jarring and shocking.

Speaker 1

But I'm with you, Joseph.

Speaker 5

What's probably going to happen is the correction to the mean you know streaks, and they normally don't go from the highest the highest to the lowest the lows, like the snap of the fingers. But I they'll if I had to bet, well, you know, we're not going to see another We're not going to see another multi win streak probably from Nelly, but with her talent, I wouldn't be surprised if she gets knocks off another win or two either.

Speaker 4

Do you guys want to guess what I'm out on?

Speaker 1

No, that's a dangerous game.

Speaker 5

Yeah, so many, so many options.

Speaker 4

Grettah, look at this golf course that they just played.

Speaker 1

Okay, all right, all right, what's going on?

Speaker 4

Okay, that's not really what I'm out on, you know, so Holly, Yes, it's it's really really claustrophobic. There are trees like right on top of the playing lines, but that's kind of what the golf course is It's not like there was a pre existing golf course that had a different character and then they added a bunch of trees. This has been the golf course from the beginning, and so it is what it is. You can say that it's one dimensional, and I will say that it's one dimensional.

It is. It's a it's a one dimensional golf course, but it's distinctive. It does have something of a sense of place, and it has been like this basically from the beginning. I believe I'm not an expert on the history of Sahali, but what I'm out on more generally is just the Women's PGA Championship RODA. It's not really a rota, but the collection of sites that they're going to go to in the future. It hasn't been bad recently,

you know. So they've recently gone to Baltis Rawl, the renovated Congressional aronom Inc. Not long ago, Olympia Fields a number of years ago. It hasn't been horrible, but it just hasn't been nearly as good as it could be. There are so many cool options for the Women's PGA when it comes to venues, and KPMG seems to be behind the event and giving it some funding and some juice, And so I would assume that they have a lot of options that they could go to a number of

different courses. And the great thing about the Women's PGA Championship is that you don't need to go to these kind of massive courses that the PGA Championship in US Open have to go to in order to accommodate those hospitality and commercial needs and also the sheer distance that male players hit the ball these days, you can go to slightly more offbeat venues. They need to be big enough to accommodate a big championship, but they don't have to be, you know, on the scale of a US

Open or a PGA Championship venue. So that opens up some really cool possibilities. If they were going to go to the Pacific Northwest this past week, why wasn't Chambers Bay on the table? You know, the USGA has dropped Chambers Bay at this point. It would be so cool to see a Women's PGA Championship there. In San Francisco, you've got Lake Mercet. I'm not sure what's going on with Lake Mersett on the LPGA tour, but it doesn't seem to be re entering the schedule, and so that

would be a cool PGA championship site. What about like bel Air in Los Angeles? What about Plainfield Country Club? What about Lasnia, Lynx Old Town Club, Seminole, Southern Hills, that's a PGA anchor site, Quaker Ridge, Sciota, Baltimore Country Club, Milwaukee Country Club, Saint Louis Country. I mean, there are so many cool courses. I'm not sure if all of these would want to host a women's PGA Championship. I am not sure, especially that, you know, like Seminole, I

don't know whatever, I'm just throwing that name out. I'm just looking at some cool courses that we know can't host a men's major and wondering why they aren't on the table. Why are we going to, you know, in the next couple of years. What PGA Frisco in twenty twenty five and twenty thirty one, I get it, but that's a lot of PGA Frisco. We're going to Hazel Team in twenty twenty six before the renovations happen. As far as I know, there are gonna be some renovations

there by. Davis Love's firm that could make that course a little bit cooler, but as of now kind of a appointing choice. Then we're going back to Congressional again in twenty twenty seven. Really cool course. I like what Andrew Green did there, but do we have to go there with that frequency? We were just there a couple of years ago. Do you are you guys with me on this or am I crazy?

Speaker 1

I'm with you?

Speaker 5

Yeah, it's and it goes to like, you know, on the on the men's side of things, we've we've talked about the PGA Championship and its identity, Like we're kind of at the same point on the women's side too, where it almost feels like US Open Junior a bit

like that was a super challenging test. You know, nobody ever besides Amy Yang and Rios was more than a few strokes under par And it's like, you know, the US Open student a pretty darn good job of that at better courses, and they're kind they're they're going the women's PGA is going to courses that the men can't play at anymore. Likes to Holly, you know that they hosted ninety eight Baltistral, but they're they're just not really picking the ones that I would prefer they pick. You know,

there these are they have name recognition and whatnot. But we can do a bit of better. We can do a better job. And I'm not sure the identity of the Women's PGA of the past decade has been how much it's grown from per size to just you know what KPMG has done. But I'm not sure if they're hitting the mark on the identity of the of the championship and there the regular women's schedule could do way better job of the courses they're going to. Uh and yeah, KPMG Women's PGA can do the same.

Speaker 1

I mean, I'm with you.

Speaker 3

I think in general a lesson of the last couple of years has been that the golf course and the venue is way lower on the list of the priorities for a lot of the governing bodies. I would imagine the KPMG, it's it's lower on the their list of priorities than it is for the people who are talking right now and for probably a lot of listeners of

the Fried Egg podcast. Like, realistically, how much would viewership change if it hadn't been at Sahali and it had been at one of those golf courses you mentioned, Garrett, like, I'd prefer to watch it. I think Chambers Bay would be really interesting to see a championship go back there, and you'd still have the West Coast prime time, which I do think is worth prioritizing and was a benefit

of the championship this past weekend. But I found Saholly to be underwhelming and not just claustrophobic, probably for the players, but I thought a lot of the holes kind of look pretty similar and it feels repetitive, and I think a problem with that is that when fans are watching, there aren't those holes that their senses kind of heighten and they're tuned into a particular hole that they know

something different is going on. It did feel like each hole kind of bled together a little bit from watching the coverage this past weekend. But again, I'm with you, I just don't think that this is something that they'd probably ties.

Speaker 1

In the same way that we'd like them to.

Speaker 4

All Right, So that's the women's PGA Championship. We have a couple more women's majors coming up this year, including a great Women's Open, or likely to be a great Women's Open at the Old Course, so a lot to look forward to, Meg, thank you for joining for the segment.

Speaker 2

Thanks guys, all right, in a minute, Joseph and I will get into the Travelers Championship, the failed changes at TPC River Highlands, Cameron Young's Fake fifty nine and all that good stuff.

Speaker 4

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percent off with the code egg fifteen. That's Oorsenalps dot com slash fried egg again fifteen percent off with the code egg fifteen. Check them out. Joseph Leamania You became the main character on Twitter for a brief time this past weekend. Reason was that you tweeted this in response to Cameron Young shooting fifty nine on Saturday at the

Travelers Championship. You said, and I quote, a meaningless accomplishment, an accomplishment has scare quotes around it, A meaningless accomplishment in the era of speed track man and failure to regulate equipment responsibility, sorry, and failure to regulate equipment responsibly. I couldn't even get it out. I'm so excited about it. This is a good tweet. This is what the app

is for people takes exactly like this. But how can you call a fifty nine meaningless if this is only the thirteenth one in the history of the PGA Tour.

Speaker 3

All Right, it was the phrasing of it, I will admit, was a little bit dramatic, Garrett and I was just having a little fun.

Speaker 1

But the serious take.

Speaker 3

There were three fifty nine's or three sub sixty rounds prior to twenty ten, and now this is the thirteenth on the PGA Tour. Bryson broke sixty on live last fall at the Greenbrier. We've had multiple players break sixty on the corn Ferry Tour this year, and people could say, well, that was at a short course, that was at altitude.

That doesn't count. And if we're going to start qualifying them, then a ball in hand fifty nine that Cameron Young shot on a sixty eight hundred yard course that had just rained and it was super soft, like.

Speaker 1

The main point here.

Speaker 3

And I understand that when al Geiberger shot his fifty nine, he also was ball in hand. I'm not saying like ball in hand doesn't count. It's more just what used to be a rare feat and an accomplishment that people were glued to the TV to watch somebody finish their round if they were about to shoot fifty nine.

Speaker 1

It's no longer that.

Speaker 3

And I do think a lot of this comes down to equipment, and some of that's fine, and a lot of sports just advance some accomplishments that used to be people have thrown out, like the home run record as an example. I think NBA scoring is another example. Used to be really hard to score fifty points in a night, and now that happens with regularity. Some sports, like certain

accomplishments just become more frequent. But I think with golf in particular, what used to be really special has become commonplace. And to just add a little bit onto that, I mean there were Sepstraka shot a sixty one on Sunday, Ludwig Obert shot a sixty two on Saturday, losing strokes putting. There were seven sixty two's shot over this past week

at the Travelers. And as long as we keep having tournaments at TPC River Highlands, which seems fine, the event works well a sixty eight hundred yard course where it often rains, they're going to be more fifty nine. So wasn't trying to take away any kind of accomplishment from Cam Young. Camy Young is one of my favorite golfers to watch. Was adamant he should have been on the

Ryder Cup team. I love Cam Young. It's not an anti Cam Young take, but I think the sanctity of breaking sixty has been compromised by technology and it's just not the exciting accomplishment that it used to be.

Speaker 1

Is that fair?

Speaker 4

I think that's fair. I wouldn't have said meaningless, but you also just said that you wouldn't have said meaningless. Necessarily. I think that we all understood that there was some exaggeration, some hyperbole in that tweet, but you know, hyperbole, irony, those kinds of rhetorical devices don't always come across on Twitter all that well, so that's understood. But I looked up some of these historical trends with fifty nine's and it is interesting you already mentioned that there were three

before on the PGA Tour. There were three before two thousand, three before twenty ten, in fact, and then since twenty ten there have been ten. And I was looking at this, I was all of a sudden struck by memories of getting into golf, starting to watch golf in the mid to late nineties, and it being a reality that there were only two fifty nine's that had been shot in the history of the PGA Tour. And then I watched David Duval shoot fifty nine at the Bob Hope and

that was incredible. He pitched a perfect game that day. What a round of golf. I mean it was thirteen under for one. Yeah, I mean, not the hardest course in the world, but that was something else that was musty TV. And yeah, we've had a lot of them since twenty ten. We haven't had a million of them. It's not a common accomplishment. It's not every tournament, but ten sents twenty ten. Now. I think part of this also is the context of what's happening on other tours

as well. On the corn Ferry Tour there were again three fifty nines as far as I know, this is what I looked up. Sorry if this is not accurate, but there were three fifty nines before two thy ten. Since twenty ten there have been ten, so it's exactly the same ratio as the PGA Tour. And on the corn Ferry Tour there have been six fifty nine's in the past two years, and this year on the corn Ferry Tour there has been a fifty nine, a fifty eight and a fifty seven. This is mirrored in most

tours across the world. Not on the European Tour. For some reason, there's only been one in history on the DP World Tour, but there have been two on live recently. If you look at the you know, the secondary tours across the world, the trend is similar. Starting in the twenty tens, fifty nine's just became more common, and I think the analogy that I would make would be to seventy point games in the NBA. I agree, still cool, but in the current era of higher scoring, they have

become less impactful. I remember where I was when Kobe scored eighty one points in two thousand and six. I think it was I remember watching that game and just being having my mind blown. I remember people I was too young for this, but I remember it being talked about that David Robinson had scored seventy one points in a single game in nineteen ninety four. People talked about Michael Jordan's sixty nine point game in nineteen ninety or whatever it was. Now you have Luka Doncech scoring seventy

three points this year, Joel Embiid scoring seventy earlier. This year, you have Donovan Mitchell and Damian Lillard both scoring seventy one. Last year, Devin Booker. Devin Booker with seventy in a few years ago. It was really awesome to see Damian Lillard hit that seventy mark. That was a super exciting game.

My son went to it. He still he loves it, but it's just a little bit less special because it has become more common and the NBA appears to be making some moves so that these markers of individual greatness retain some of their sanctity. They're changing a couple of the calls that they might make around us. I'm not an expert in the NBA, as you can tell, but I think this analogy is a pretty solid one. The seventy point game still cool, but just feels a little bit less unusual.

Speaker 3

I'm with you, And it's not just a sub sixty take. Right, Like it's gotten easier to shoot sixty, It's gotten easier to shoot sixty one, Like Ricky Fowler and Denny McCarthy both shot sixty at this tournament last year. Right, Wyndham Clark shot sixty at Pebble Beach earlier this year. Like, these scores are going to keep happening. And that's not to say that they're not that they have completely like

just no meaning. Right, every score has some meaning, Like I think at this point, I'm more impressed when a player goes low on a difficult setup and gains a bunch of strokes than a really soft wedge fest where you're kind of just target. You're going at the whole over and over again. These guys are really good at that.

So when you have a track man, a driver head that's never been more forgiving, you know your exact numbers, and you go out on a golf course that doesn't have much of a defense, I guarantee you we're going to see more rounds like this next year, especially if it rains. So in Garrett, this might be a stretch, but I think part of where I was coming from

a little bit on this. Yes, there's a certain golf history is special in a certain way that it's special in all sports, but I think particularly in golf, there's a tendency to destroy history. And on Friday they were showing a graphic of Xander Schoffley's made cut streak and comparing it to Tiger Woods, and like, I don't think

we can do made cut streaks anymore. Right, there's a bunch of these events don't have a cut line, and even some of the ones that do, our seventy player fields where they're cutting the top fifty and ties, you might have fourteen golfers who get cut.

Speaker 1

I think a made cut in a streak used to mean something.

Speaker 3

Now when I see Xanderschoffley's made however, many cuts in a row, it doesn't have the same meaning that it used to, and so sure I was being a little dramatic with that tweet, but I just think in general, if there were more of an emphasis on preserving history in the golf world that would benefit the sport.

Speaker 4

Do they include the no cut events in Xanderschoffle's supposed made cut streak out toward the total.

Speaker 1

I didn't check that.

Speaker 3

I believe they do count them, but either way, right, it's kind of like a damned if you do, damned if you don't, because if he finishes, let's say he's leading from start to finish of a no cut event, that would have been a made cut, But if he's t sixty eight after two rounds and then shoots up to finish tenth, like, how do you There's no right answer for how you evaluate that in the history books, and I just think that's where we are, that something like a made cut streak no longer has a meaning.

So maybe drawing the analogy to sub sixty rounds is inappropriate, And there's totally separate points, but I would just think there's a lack of focus on preserving history that again, here there is a solution which would be regulating equipment, and it wouldn't be a perfect apples to apples comparison, but it would be better.

Speaker 4

Earlier. Joseph, you use the phrase soft wedge fest on that topic, what do you make of TPC River Highlands.

Speaker 3

I don't want to dump on the golf course too much because I think when it was designed it would have been a fine test of professional golf, maybe not the most engaging, but at this point it does not stand up well to the modern game. And it's also in an area that often rains, especially in June, so you're gonna have a lot of soft golf courses. Last year was soft. Like I already mentioned, you had multiple low rounds, multiple sixties.

Speaker 1

This golf course.

Speaker 3

You have as high of a concentration of wedges as basically anywhere on the PGA Tour. Sixty eight hundred yards. There's a drivable four the fifteenth that can play like two seventy to ninety. Cam Young made eagle hit three wood basically right at the flag or just favor the right side of the green like it's kind of all systems go from start to finish on this course. Sixteen of the eighteen holes played under par on the weekend

both That was true of both Saturday and Sunday. So it just doesn't pose a very significant threat to any of these guys. And I'm sure we'll get into some of the changes that they made that the PGA Tour made in advance of this championship, but frankly, there's not a lot of changes you can make short of a huge overhaul that would provide a stiff challenge.

Speaker 1

Maybe that's fine.

Speaker 3

I've seen a lot of people saying it's fine, this is a birdie fest, like that's fine the week after a US Open. Not every week needs to be a grind, But that I think still kind of reinforces the point that, okay, but where does that leave us then with shooting fifty nine in that being some something for the history books.

Speaker 1

So these are all related factors.

Speaker 4

I'm going to defend TPC River Highlands in a second, though. You didn't go after it too hard, so I don't think I need to mount that vigorous of a defense. But I think we should mention, first of all, some of the changes that were made to River Highlands in the past year in an attempt to help the course

defend par a little bit better. This was in reaction to Keegan Bradley going super low at the Travelers last year, and I remember writing about these upcoming changes when it was announced that general renovations would be made, and what I wrote basically is that there's no point you know, like the players are going to go low anyway, And if you're taking advice directly from the players about what to change at a venue, then you're never going to

get the result that you're looking for because the players are never going to suggest stuff that makes them truly uncomfortable or makes their job actually harder. So if you're seeking advice for how to challenge PGA tour pros, I'm sorry, just don't ask PGA tour pros. Find a good architect, find somebody like Pete Dye. And there's nobody like Pete Dye. But Pete Dye knew what he was doing. He called those guys chicken, and he truly challenged them, and he

wasn't afraid of pissing them off. And that's what you need. You need somebody to come in from the outside, somebody who's not trying to make their living by shooting low scores and make these golf courses challenging that way, But I'm getting ahead of myself. Changes to TPC for Highlands six holes in total were altered. Fairways were narrowed, some significantly mounding was added. I'm not sure what that did.

The ninth tee was moved to bring trees more into the line of play for current players, The eleventh green was made smaller, and the twelfth fairway was cut off at the distance that PGA twour players are now hitting

their drivers. And that was the funniest change because if you look at the shot tracker, basically everybody was pushing their drives up to just short of the green and they were just like, all right, I guess we got to make that rough now, and so now everybody's hitting a five iron off that tee or whatever because the fairway ends at two seventy seventy five. In any case, Joseph, what did you make of these changes and their effect on play? Were some of them, you know, marginally effective?

Of What was your conclusion here?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I'm eager to get your perspective on some of this, because I actually will commend the tour to an extent with it was a pretty restrained there's changes I think were pretty restrained overall, and yes, I agree that you shouldn't solicit player feedback forgetting for how you're going to

make changes. I think the low point was when Justin Thomas complained about the center line bunker at TPC Boston and then they removed the bunker, and like in my opinion, centerline bunkers are probably one of the best ways to test modern tour players. So just in general agree with the sentiment that players perspectives on some of this stuff aren't probably shouldn't be factored in too heavily. All that said, I think the PGA Tour it wasn't as much of

a soliciting player feedback here. I don't think as looking at shot link data and trying to determine ways to tweak the golf course, hopefully in ways that don't impact member play too much. The twelfth is a good example, right where yes, they cut off the fairway and it forces players to hit into a little bit more challenging area where they're threatened by some fairway bunkers and there's out of bounds left. It's not going to affect members too much. I don't think there are very many members

would be hitting driver over those bunkers. I don't know, Garrett, like, where do you stand on a change like that? Because esthetically it may not look great to have a huge strip of rough there, But I don't think it changes too much, and it probably does improve the way that that whole plays for the top players in the world.

So overall the change has made very little impact. That was my first reaction when I saw them, as like, all right, we're talking about maybe a tenth of a stroke, maybe two tenths of a stroke overall in total across the whole golf course, So is it really worth it is a legitimate question. But to be fair, I don't think they went around like drastically changing the routing in completely mangling the golf course either. So I felt like

it was a somewhat restrained approach. What did you think, You're.

Speaker 4

Well, I agree with you, but I think I come to a slightly different conclusion or have a different attitude about the approach to these changes. Narrowing the fairways, making the green that one the eleventh green smaller, I think that does make the golf course worse, and I think it betrays a misunderstanding of how to actually challenge PGA tour players and give them a test that's meaningful. Shortening the twelfth fairway whatever, It's just kind of silly. It's funny.

I don't think it probably affects member play at all. As you said, what I'd just say in general is just that this was a waste of money. Why even do it? Why do it if this is going to be the result. And I think that anybody who knew anything knew that this was going to be the result, that these changes would make essentially no difference to scoring. If the motive was to make scoring tougher, then they might as well not have done anything right because the

changes they made had no discernible effect on play. Yes, players played to a shorter spot in the twelve fair way. The scoring average on that hole was probably higher, but overall things were marginal, I think. And you just put a good deal of effort into a bunch of changes that essentially had no effect. So why do it at all?

Speaker 3

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate to an extent, but also sincerely defend some of the changes a little bit. Again, if it were up to me, like, these changes don't mean much so in terms of should they have done it or not.

Speaker 1

I guess I leaned O.

Speaker 3

I don't want to bore people with the numbers too much. But just for example, on the first hole last year, sixty eight percent of players hit the fairway. This year it was down to fifty one percent, and that's an area of the golf course that they narrowed pretty significantly. Is that over the long run going to change the scoring average and make it a little bit more difficult,

it'll raise the scoring average? Does it make the whole much more demanding for these players, give them something completely different to think about? No, not really overall. And again I don't want to go through we can. I don't want to go through all the numbers for each hole.

It's probably not worth people's time. But the scoring average netted out to be pretty similar to last year, and the conditions were somewhat similar, but this was a much stronger field, and so I do think these changes will have somewhat a very small but somewhat meaningful impact on scoring average. It just doesn't make the shots that much

more demanding. But like a change like the eleventh is it out of the realm of possibilities that it also could be an improvement for member play, Garrett, I mean it's one hundred and fifty yard shot. The green was pretty big, I think last year. I don't have the exact numbers in front of a very high percentage of those players are hitting the green. You could probably sell me that that was an additive change, even for.

Speaker 1

The member play.

Speaker 3

It's a shrunken green now kind of kidney shaped versus being much bigger before. To you, does that betray the character the golf course to make a change like that, Like, at what point are these changes actually additive? And we'd be upset just because they're changing the golf course in general.

Speaker 4

It's just a waste, don't I don't, honestly, I can't bring myself to care that much that they're altering TPC River Highlands. I just think the motive for these changes was to raise the scoring average, and that's a dumb motive. And besides, it failed to noticeably raise the scoring average. So why is it happening? Try to make the golf course more interesting instead, that's what the focus should be. And so about.

Speaker 3

So where do you stand on bringing a tea box a little closer to trees so that golfers instead of just kind of aiming up almost near the green, leaving themselves a fifty yard wedge in which is clearly not the way that the architect intended for the whole to

be played. Now they do have to play it more like it was designed to be played, like, to be fair to the tour, wouldn't they say, Well, a lot of people complain that a lot of golf courses have been overrun and not playing like they're designed to be played. We have a contract with this golf course for the foreseeable future. Isn't this is a small change to move a tea box just a little bit to the right. Can you at least see where they're coming from.

Speaker 4

It's fine, whatever, I didn't realize you were such a PGA Tour stand just I'm not so disappointing.

Speaker 1

I'm not.

Speaker 4

Yeah, that seemed to be actually the only change that focused on the strategy of the hole to me, right. The others just seemed to be, like, let's try to raise the scoring average a little bit the twelfth fairway, cutting off the twelve fairway forcing a layup. That's fine. I guess you can do that on a few holes on the course. If you do it on a bunch of holes. Then you start to deemphasize the skill of driving, which should be a skill that should be tested by

a tournament golf course. But I don't want to get too into the weeds here. Did the making the eleventh green smaller improve it? I don't really care. Generally, making green smaller doesn't improve the hole because it shuts down pin positions. But I'm not sure if there were interesting contours on the eleventh green that were you know, discarded because the green shrink. I just, you know, making green smaller generally is not a good way to go about things.

But I want to generally defend TPC River Highlands, and this is why I think that trying to make it tougher was missing the point. I'm fine with TPC River Highlands being a cream puff golf course. That's okay with me. I think that's what it should be. I think that's what this tournament is. What this tournament was, and I have attended this tournament a couple of times and enjoyed

myself tremendously. I went to college in Connecticut. I would spend the summers on campus, and a couple of times I went to like a Friday or Saturday of this tournament and had a great time at TPC River Highlands, a wonderful place to watch golf. The finish is really cool. I mean you have the driveable par four fifteenth, which maybe used to work a little bit better when when players weren't hitting three woods, but whatever, I mean, kind

of a fun hole to watch. Then you have that this finishing stretch that is kind of a remix on the usual Pete Die finishing stretch with water and play. There's a little bit of tension. The seventeenth hole is nerve racking, and then you have the amphitheater on the eighteenth hole, which is just a great place to be and creates such a fun vibe in every single finish at that tournament. The spirit of the travelers, I think

is as a come down from the US Open. What I think the issue is is that it's now a signature event, so we have higher expectations for it. I don't think the travelers should be carrying high expectations for a professional golf test. I think it should be a mid tier tournament with a relatively weak field that you can have a lot of fun going to in person and where players won't be pushed that hard, but there

will be some interesting shots. And frankly, TBC River Highlands is to me above average in terms of the look of the course and some of the quirk and you know, some fun shots and some memorable holes. That's what this course offers. I think that a lot of PGA Tour courses don't. But if you come with the expectation that this is going to be a real tournament golf test, you're gonna be disappointed because that's just not what the tournament has ever been about. It's just a chill excursion

to Connecticut in the early summer. I think it's a fun tournament, but it being a signature event creates again a set of expectations that I don't think it's prepared to fulfill.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

I didn't necessarily intend to go that this direction, Garrett, but I do think the difference between like Major championship golf PGA Tour golf has never felt bigger and this is another example of that. And it is kind of striking to me at least that a lot of the events that are signature events are the ones that have a lot of history, a lot of distinguished winners, and those are often the courses that require players to.

Speaker 1

Hit a lot of long irons.

Speaker 3

There are exceptions to that, like the RBC Heritage and obviously the Travelers, which is about as WEDG friendly as it gets, But like the Arnold Palmer even Tory Pines, which is not a signature event, like those are the golf courses that we tend to think of being closer to major championship level. Maybe I just have a preference for that because you get to see long irons. But I agree with you that TPC River Highlands is chill. It just doesn't resemble a strong test in any way.

And so I think the fundamental question becomes what do you do with that?

Speaker 5

Right?

Speaker 3

Do you move the event or do you just lean into its identity as a birdie fest? And I think you're kind of leaning towards just lean into it being a birdy fest.

Speaker 4

Yeah, absolutely, I don't see. I don't see why not. I don't think every week on the PGA Tour has to be super serious. Now it should it be super serious. If it's a signature event, then probably, But Travelers, whatever it's it's it's almost like a like a fall event. But it's a really good version of that, and it's really well run. And you know what, I enjoy a lot of the players who seem to do well there.

A variety of skill sets can thrive at TPC River Highlands, partly because a lot of people, a lot of players are playing from similar positions in the corridors, so it's not like a golf course that gives a significant advantage to bombing it. But we've seen bombers do fine there before. Bubba Watson, this was one of his one of his preferred venues. This is a place that he won a lot.

But you also get players who don't normally do well on long major championship golf courses rising to the top of the leaderboard and ending up in playoffs because it's always this bunched leaderboard again, kind of soft usually. I you know, Connecticut's not that wet in June. I don't know why why it's always so soft, but it is, and that's what you get. And I sort of appreciate that when it comes to this tournament, just as a bit of variety that's fair.

Speaker 3

And I think again, maybe my main takeaway is that golf is just dealing with a lot of trade offs, and you're a little bit stuck when you can't move the property back at all, as you can at TPC River Highlands. So the changes that they're trying to make are sort of an acknowledgment that there's a problem that

the golf course doesn't play. So I maybe would quibble a little bit with it's fine being a complete birdy fest, like I do think it lacks a little bit of intensity for that reason, it's fine as an event, but it's probably exemplary of the problem that golf faces where you can't even you can make changes, but especially when a golf course is solved, a lot of those changes

are going to have minimal impact. So this golf course is just going to be a birdi fest where we're going to see more fifty nine to sixty sixty ones. Maybe that's completely fine, but then it kind of goes back to the original point of how meaningful is a low score if we've come to expect them.

Speaker 4

Yeah, not particularly, but if this tournament we're super intense, then I wouldn't be able to lie down on a mound on the eighteenth hole and take a nap.

Speaker 3

That's what you're looking for. Out of a PGA tournament. No, it's fair, it has a great vibe. It seems like one of the more successful events. This is not to be little the event. I think it's a we're searching for a solution to a problem that you probably cannot solve in how you've fixed the golf course.

Speaker 4

On that note, Joseph, let's do recommendations hard left turn here. I'm not sure what your recommendation is. It's probably not golf related. Mine isn't. What are you recommending this week?

Speaker 3

I'm recommend The Jinks Part two on HBO. Garrett, have you seen The Jinks the original series?

Speaker 4

I did see the original Jinks. I was not aware that The Jinks Part two was coming out, and in fact, having seen the Original Jinks, I'm a little confused as to where they could possibly go from there.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 3

I won't spoil anything because if you haven't seen The Jinks, it's one of my favorite true crime series that I've ever seen.

Speaker 1

There's some twists and the Jinks.

Speaker 4

You do relate to the main character, are you No, I don't want to spoil anything. Do you feel like that?

Speaker 3

I do not, But the Jinx two is basically the follow up what happens after that, because there are some revelations throughout the jinks, and so it's a really interesting follow up. I've only got through the first episode so far, but this is a I can't give a higher recommendation for the Jinx.

Speaker 1

The original and the Jinx two.

Speaker 3

Episode one is awesome, So if you've never seen it, that has my highest recommendation.

Speaker 4

I'm recommending a book. I think I've mentioned a couple of times on the podcast that I've been getting a bit into too wine recently, because evidently I'm a fancy lad. You know, I'm into golf and wine. These are two hobbies that aren't necessarily easy on the pocketbook. But I've been having fun learning about wine, and I've been seeing a lot of parallels in the wine world to the

golf world. And it's been interesting for me to be in the position of a neophyte because I've been into golf since I was a kid, been reading about it since I was pretty young, and so I never really had the experience of being inducted into golf, you know, sickness, right, That's been the case for a long time, and I think it can be a little bit intimidating for people to get into golf later in life, not only because it's a hard sport, but because sometimes there's a little

bit of snobbery around the finer points of golf course architecture, and you know, understanding professional golf and things like that, it can be pretty arcane and hard to understand. And I'm finding, to my delight, a lot of the same things about getting into wine, and you know, I've really been struggling to truly understand it, and to me that's

been pretty fun. But it's also allowed me to sympathize a little bit with people who might be listening to the Friday Golf podcast perhaps to learn more about golf course architecture. It puts me in that position of learning something later in life. So the book I'm recommending is called The Judgment of Paris or just Judgment of Paris. This is about this kind of tasting contest between French wines and California wines that took place in the nineteen

seventies in Paris. And I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the California wines did a lot better than people expected, and it was a big moment in the wine world where people are like, Okay, French wines are not necessarily absolutely supreme, because that had been the assumption to that point that French wines were way better

than any other wines made anywhere else. So it was a little bit shocking in this blind tasting to see that the California wines acquitted themselves so well against the French wines. And so what this book does is it tells the story of that context and gives the backstory of some of the characters who were involved, but it also serves as a kind of history of the wine industry as it grew up in Napa Valley, and I found that completely fascinating. So this book is by George Tabor.

He was actually the only journalist to attend this tasting in Paris. He was the only representative of the media who saw it, and years later ended up writing this book, Judgment of Paris, which is just a delightful kind of breezy read. And if you have any passing interest in wine in Napa Valley, in all of the dynamics of that really weird industry, then I very much recommend Judgment of Paris.

Speaker 1

All Right, So you start reviewing wines for Club TF.

Speaker 4

I'm not going to do that. That's not coming. I have no valuable expertise and wine. I sit there tasting a wine, you know, I'll open a new bottle of wine like on Friday of each week. Basically it's a little tradition. I open it up, I go on the internet and look up when I'm supposed to be tasting, and I smell and taste the wine and I'm like, I guess I kind of get gravel from this maybe, or wet earth or you know, black currants or whatever whatever.

Those are supposed to be one egg, one egg exactly that if I if I were reviewing line, probably every single one would get two eggs none, we'd get three eggs one none, we'd get one or zero because I wouldn't note if something is actually really good in the case, that's my recommendation. Thank you Joseph for being on the pod today. Always a pleasure, and we'll do it again sometime soon. Sounds good, Thanks Jarrett. This episode of the fridaygg Golf Podcast was produced by PJ.

Speaker 1

Clark. Thank you PG.

Speaker 4

If you're into Friday Golf content, I would recommend checking out Club TFE. Just go to the Friday dot com slash membership and see what CLUBTF is all about. Lots of exciting things happening in there. We have so much fun producing the exclusive content for Club TF our course profiles or design notebook or tour guide, and that community that we're building in there has been so enjoyable to see grow. So if you like Frida Egg, golf Stuff podcast, the newsletter that we do, then plumb TF might be

for you. The Friday dot Com slash membership check it out, Thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode

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