I miss a 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 frid Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida egg brid Egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course. Welcome to the FRIDAYGG Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison and at long last, it is Open Championship Week, the last men's major championship of twenty twenty four. We'll be starting tomorrow at Royal Troon Golf Club in Scotland.
So today Joseph Lamannia and I thought we'd look back on the last Open held at Royal Troon, which was in twenty sixteen and which everyone remember for the incredible Sunday duel between Phil Nicholson and Henrik Stenson. So Joseph and I rewatched that final round, which is available for free on YouTube, to see what, if anything, it can tell us about what to expect this week at Troon.
We'll also discuss some early reports on the condition of the course and the outlook of the weather, and we'll offer a few picks and predictions to wrap up the episode, But first a quick word from our sponsor, Club Champion. Club Champion helps golfers of any skill level play better golf through custom fitted and custom built equipment. They have extensively trained master fitters who use an in depth, data
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champion dot com and book You're fitting today again. That's code fried Egg all one word. All right, Joseph, Let's get into our discussion of Royal Troon as the Open Championship approaches. First, I want to talk a lot little bit about what we've heard about the course so far this week. We are recording this on Tuesday, and of
course the tournament starts on Thursday. What we've heard so far is that the course is in good condition, that there's a little bit of bounce in the fairways, but that the greens are going to be softer and maybe slower than expected because it's been a wet spring in the UK, it has not been hot and so the course hasn't really had a chance to bake out yet. It's also possible that, you know, the RNA just hasn't
pushed the greens super far so far. But if the greens are a little bit softer than expected, how do you think that that changes things going into the tournament.
Yeah, I would love to see it firm, obviously, I think most people would Windy Firm thinks test is probably the best version, but I think the main things it changes is that short sightedness is not as much of a penalty, so it allows you to be a little bit more aggressive on some of your approach shots, and then there's just a little bit more predictability on your iron shots and getting your distances right because it's not as subject to the bounces that the greens might generally
have otherwise, and if they're a little bit slower, it's just a little bit easier to get your numbers correct. So we'll see how they play. I'd love to see it get a little bit firmer and faster, but as you mentioned, given the conditions this summer and the weather that they've had in that area of the world, it's probably not a realistic expectation.
The other thing we've heard is that the weather can be will be probably a bit unpredictable. There's low confidence in the details of the forecast so far. But right now what we're hearing is that there could be some kind of storm or some windiness Wednesday evening leading into morning, and just general kind of like rains here and there, winds here and there. We don't know really what to expect. So what have you seen from the forecast so far?
And how has that been factoring into your thinking about the about what to expect.
Yeah, I'm not putting too much stock in the weather reports at this moment because as we know, that can change quickly. I think a unique feature of Royal Troon that's worth spending time thinking about is the routing and how generally the prevailing wind your downwind on the front nine and into the wind on the back nine, and so just thinking about weather and timing of when you're playing is a big deal. That's something that was that played a crucial role in the twenty sixteen Open Championship
that I'm guessing we'll talk about. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the ocean course at Kiowa Island in the way that the routing like you're headed one direction for one nine and then another direction for the other for another nine another tournament, Phil Mickelson did pretty well, And so it's not the best comparison necessarily the Ocean Course and Royal Troon, but in thinking about weather patterns and how that can impact play, I don't think it's an unreasonable comparison.
Yeah, And the unpredictability is a common thread right at at Kiowa the weather can be one thing in the morning and another thing in the afternoon very easily, and none of it typically matches the forecast exactly, so it's tough to put too much stock into it. But we could see a wave split again, right, That's a distinct possibility whenever you have an open championship, but especially one on the west coast of Scotland where things just seem to be a little bit dicey and hour to hour
out there by the ocean. So in any case, we have heard a couple of things from players so far this week about the golf course, things from press conferences that I found interesting. The first is that a lot of players seem to agree that it is a tale of two nines. In fact, a couple of different players use this exact phrase, a tale of two nines, that if you're going to score at Royal Troon, then you'd better do it on the opening nine, because the closing nine,
the homeword nine, is going to be really tough. There aren't a whole lot of opportunities for easy birdies coming home. Has that been your general impression looking at the course?
Yeah, And I really like this quote that friend of the pod Sean Martin, the PGA Tour had tweeted, he's apparently this is a quote from Tom Watson that he said of Royal Troon. It's sort of like playing the Chicago Bulls. You know, at the end of the game, they're going to be coming back at you, so you better get off to a pretty big lead. And yeah,
I think that's appropriate. It's being echoed by players some pretty gentle handshake type holes to start, and then you're playing into some beefy holes on the back nine that often play into the wind. So I agree that that's how I envision it playing out as well.
I really liked how Iona Stephen put it in the Golf Digest every whole video the script was written by others, but she was the narrator of the video, and what she said was that the first six holes are heaven, the next six holes are purgatory, and the final six holes are hell. That's not an exact quote, but that's
the spirit of what she was saying. Basically, those holes going out along the coastline are your opportunities, you know, a few sub four hundred yard par fours and just some opportunities to get up near the green with your tee shot, especially for these players. And then the middle stretch of the course, things get tougher and tougher. You're in some more choppy land, you have some more uncomfortable
tea shot and looks on your approaches into greens. And then the holes coming home are just tough, tough, tough, a lot of long holes, a lot of long irons, and just a lot of trouble that you can get into and you know, some incredibly penal bunkers and things like that. So I like that way of thinking of Royal Train in kind of three phases. But yeah, opening nine versus Final nine, that's really gonna be a big theme of the week.
Now.
The most interesting thing that I heard from a player, and I wanted to get your take on this, Joseph was unsurprisingly from Tiger Woods. He always says the most interesting things about the courses that they're playing for major championships, so it's no surprise that he came out with this one. But what he said basically is that you'll see a lot of guys laying up to the same spots on these holes, especially if it's windy. So you know what
he said exactly. This is the quote, he says there will be occasional areas where with the right wind conditions, guys can be aggressive, especially some of the longer hitters, they can be aggressive. It does allow for that, but in general, if we get the wins we're forecasted, I think we're all going to be playing from about the same areas. This is kind of something I saw in twenty sixteen, something that we saw in that final round,
the duel between Mickelson and Stenson. A lot of the time they were kind of playing to some of the same areas and fair ways. Do you think that's going to be what we see this week or has the game changed a bit since twenty sixteen.
Didn't know we're going to be getting into this right off the top, Garrett, But it's actually one of my favorite attributes of Royal Troon. I think people could take the other side of this and argue that it's boring when people play into similar spots, But it's not as
if the holes are cut off at driver length. There are a couple that play that way, but generally speaking, a defining characteristic of Truon is but the fairways are relatively narrow, often about twenty eight to thirty yards wide, but then get narrower at driver length, and they don't then just widen back up to where you can bash
driver if you're one of the longest players. So there's a lot of penal pot bunkers in the fairways in strategic positions that you need to avoid, and that's why you're gonna often see players hitting things like iron wood off of a lot of the t boxes. But I
don't view it as a negative. I think those shots in and of themselves, the firmer the golf courses and if there's wind, are demanding shots in their own rights, and it's not like everyone's just getting up and hitting a simple four iron into a generous landing area and then everyone's flipping a wedge, and so I think it's
a little bit more dynamic than that. Wind is a massive factor, and to Tiger's point, there are a couple opportunities where, especially if you're downwind which tightens your dispersion, there are some opportunities to let it rip a little bit. I think the third hole is a good example to look at, and in the right condition, some of the longest hitters may be able to push their tee shots up near the green, which is a risk worth taking, right if you take on a risk with a driver
in it. It's the difference between having one hundred and twenty yards in or one hundred and sixty like that's not as good of a risk to take. But if it can be the difference between having one hundred and thirty yards in and having like thirty yards in, like going over a hazard versus laying back behind it, that's a risk that there's quite a bit of payoff involved in.
So in the right conditions, especially downwind, which again does tighten your dispersion, there are going to be some opportunities to be aggressive off some of the teas.
Now, a final thing that Tiger said that I wanted to note. This is an observation just about links golf in general, I think, but I like the way that he put it. He said, over here, you can run the golf ball one hundred yards if you get the right wind and the right trajectory. It negates some one of the high launch conditions that most of the times you see on the tour that populate the world nowadays.
And so maybe this is sort of wishful thinking on Tiger's part, but I think there's a kernel of truth to it that you know, distance off the tee on a links course where there's wind and firm turf is not so much a factor of high launch and pure ball speed as it is situational awareness, the ability to control trajectory and the ability to maximize your distance in any given situation depending on the conditions of the ground
and the wind. And so I think that's something that gets at something that I really appreciate about the Open Championship, and it's that you see players, older players who truly know how to control their shot shape and everything else off the tee being able to compete with some of the bombers because they're able to get distance in different ways. I don't think it's an original observation about links golf. This is often said, but I just like the way
that he phrased that. That's something that I do like when it comes to this tournament.
And I think as part of that it's important to recognize that part of the reason that that works at Truon is because the gorse bushes, which often sit off the fairways, impose a very stiff penalty. It's not like finding just a little bit of rough like we see on a lot of PGA Tour weekend and week out tests where you still have a shot. It's a scary penalty when you go into the gorse bush, especially on
some of the holes out there. So just another another thing to motivate players from being a little bit more conservative off the tea. I think off the t this golf course is amazing.
All right, let's get into the twenty sixteen rewatch. You and I went through the final round telecast, which I believe was the sky Sports telecast. I think that sky Sports this was like their first effort at an Open Championship Final round telecast. I think before that it was BBC. But so we got the sky Sports version of it, not the US version of the telecast, and so it
was quite good, you know. It's this is something that you notice when you switched to what people across the pond have access to, that it's a very good and insightful piece of television. But in any case, I came up with a few categories to go through, some awards that we could give to different aspects of the final round and the play that we saw, you know, is this copying the rewatchables podcast, who could say, you know, it might be inspired by a segment on The Rewatchables,
but we're doing our own version of it here. So I wanted to start with what you think is the coolest hole based on what we saw in the twenty sixteen final round. And I want to talk about a hole other than the postage stamp, which we kind of went into in depth in the podcast that I did with with Sam Cooper a few days ago. So what was the coolest hole that you saw?
I think the eleventh hole at Royal Troon might be one of my favorite golf holes in professional golf, not just at Royal Troon obviously. It's a burly par four, plays almost five hundred yards, often plays into a prevailing wind,
and that tee shot is incredibly intimidating. You've railroad down the right side, that's out of bounds, gorse on either side of the fairway, kind of a little bit of an awkward angle to hit the tee shot we saw in twenty sixteen in in Rewatching It that Henrik Stenson believe he took threewood off the tee pulled it a little bit but not much, and was basically in the first cut not too far from the gorse that lines the left side, and his view of the green was obscured.
There's so much going on on that whole visual intimidation off the tea, some obscured site lines into the green. Super difficult hole, probably one of the most intimidating tea shots in professional golf. Maybe in an Open championship Rhoda up there. You know, I remember Thomas Peters snapping his club and throwing it into the gorse bush in this championship. That wasn't shown on the telecast, but like, it's a hole where you're going to see some blow up. So
I think that's one of the coolest holes in professional golf. Garrett, I'd be curious your opinion on the eleventh.
I wonder if Thomas Peters club is still there, if they made like a little statue out of it. That's the kind of plaque though, I'd like to see on a golf course. Yeah, yeah, I love eleven. You know, I just I like the way the fairway moves, you know, in the landing zone, the way it kind of starts away from the railroad and then moves on a diagonal
to the railroad. So Basically, the more aggressive you want to get, the farther up you want to get on the whole, the more you kind of have to adjust your line toward the rail roat, which is super uncomfortable, and it's all blind like you can see a little bit more out to the left there, but if you're going to the right, if you're going straight down the fairway,
then then you're basically completely blind. And I think that's a that's a t shot that's so uncomfortable for players these days, because it's just hard to come up with
a point to aim at. Even on the tenth hole, which is also a blind tea shot, you're hitting over like a big set of dunes and like waste area type bunkers, and so there are various things that you can, various reference points that you have you can once you know the course, you know the basic dimensions of the fairway, But on eleven, I think that it's just kind of barren, like there's not much to hook into when you're when you're trying to come up with an aiming point, and
that's that's a tough thing for players who are more used to kind of certainty and everything being out in front of you, as the phrase goes, So it wasnother hole, Yeah, another hole that I like. Seven. I just think it's a This is a fun drive and pitch hole. This was I believe, the most famous hole at Royal Troom before the postage stamp was designed for or took on its current form for the nineteen twenty three Open. But really fun t shot with lots of different options. Off
the tee. The fairway kind of wraps around a dune that's on the right side of the whole corridor, So the fairway kind of swings out to the left and then slants back to the right before straightening out for the approach to the green. Short left is kind of the safest spot to be, but it's the least advantageous.
Short right requires challenging some bunkers on the right side, and maybe your approach is kind of blind from over there because you're hitting over the dune, and then you have options to go long and I think a lot of the players in this tournament are going to look to get up by the green, depending on where the tea is and what the wind is doing. But I think we'll see some variety of play on seven. But in twenty sixteen. Both Phil and Henrik laid up on
this hole. Were kind of laid up on this hole. I'll have to look at my notes. I know Henrick did, and he was kind of out to the right a little bit on his layup. Phil actually, I remember now pushed up a little bit more, but he was kind of on the left side and ended up with kind of a weird lie where he wasn't able to get any spin on the ball, and so there was some variety of play there. Laying up was a legitimate option
for players in twenty sixteen. Maybe we'll see players being more aggressive this year with the hole because the fairway is fairly wide up by the green, and I think that, you know, players will see an advantage and getting up there. But that's a very interesting hole, and the green side is just beautiful. It's kind of set between these two dunes and kind of benched in there, and it's a classic Links Golf green site. So I really like seven.
I can't speak too much on it, Gere, because I'd be getting ahead of myself and to potentially the next award that we're doing here.
So okay, so the next award is coolest green complex.
I picked the seventh, and of all the awards we did, this was probably the most challenging one for me because it's.
Hard to see the greens on the telecast, right, Yeah, and maybe you just see where the pen is and you see where the ball lands, and it's a little bit hard.
To tell, and you might have a differing view. I don't think the appeal of Royal Truon, at least for me, is the green complexes. Necessarily they're pretty small and they don't have a ton of contouring then at least to my eye that.
I it's subtle contouring, it's there, right, And some of them are a little bit modernized, which is you know what we see at Open Championship venues these days. Some of the greens aren't don't don't quite feel antique. They have some of those little runoffs and stuff that Mackenzie but like to put into green complexes that they rebuild.
Yeah, I don't think they strike fear. The green complexes strike fear into players the way that a lot of green complex is doing professional golf. But what I like about the seventh recurring feature of this golf course is that generally the greens are narrower in the front and then expand in the back. They often have a pop bunker short right and short left and like a little neck that you can run the ball up. Running ball up is not a great option, but it's possible. The
seventh is is different. Like you mentioned, it's set in a beautiful dune escape, but it's a little bit more. It's wider in the front and then a little bit narrower towards the back of the green, and I just find it visually appealing, really cool and completely different than the rest of the golf course. I think it stands kind of by itself. There's not another green that looks like it on the golf course, so it scores a lot of points for me in the variety category and
just it's aesthetically pleasing. So that's the one that I will nominate. It's not really a contour based how putts are going to play based argument, but I just think it's a beautiful golf hole.
Yeah, and something to watch out for I think on seven is if the pin is in the back, how aggressive are player is going to be? Because I think a lot of players are going to be want to be really short of that pin, because you know, going over the back to a back pin would be very very bad on that specific golf hole, and so that's that's a place where players will have a real choice about what distance they're hitting their kind of short approach
into that hole. I think like, for instance, if they if they decide to move the tee up a particular day and make the hole almost drivable, then they might put that back pin in there to create a little bit more difficulty and give the players another question to answer. So we'll see what they do with that. For me, the coolest green complex, the one that I really liked, is another pretty subtle one in terms of internal contour,
but it's ten ok. No bunkers on ten. It's oriented so that the deepest you know look that you have at the green, the way that the green is deepest for you from the fairway is from the left side, and there's just this massive falloff on the right side of the green that's very very intimidating. But then missing left leaves you this kind of tricky recovery over some contours that run along the left edge of the green.
On the little you know Veritaid documentaries that the RNA posts on their YouTube channel during Open week, which I absolutely love and really recommend. It's called Inside the Open or something like that, just a little series of very kind of like slice of life footage of players preparing for the Open. But there was some footage of players including Tiger and I think Justin Thomas, practicing some chip shots from the left side of the tenth Green, and
they're very, very tough. You know, it's trying to figure out how high to play your ball and what kind of spin to put on it and where to land it. All that stuff is super tricky from the left side of the tenth Green. So something to look out for is if players want to avoid that right side fall off, which is so obvious, like it's like ten feet, you know, it's like I can't go there, do they? You know, hedge toward that left side and then end up with
a very tough up and down situation. I also really like the sixth Green, not so much for the shaping of the green itself, which looks a little bit modern to me, but the way the approach to that green works. This is a long par five and a lot of players might be able to go for the green in two it's six hundred and twenty something yards, but they'll they'll still be able to go for it if they get a good t shot. The approach to that green is really smart. Basically, there's a bunker kind of short
left of the green the green. It's where a lot of players might want to be landing their second shots to run them up onto the green from distance, you don't want to be in that bunker. It leaves just such a such a savage bunker shot. And so some players who might want to be a little bit safer but still get their ball up by the green might
go a little bit left. But from there the approach to the green kind of falls off to the left and will kickballs down into this little area that leaves a very tough pitch shot over a short left bunker. And so the choices that players make in approaching the sixth green will be very interesting to me. All Right, let's talk a little bit about players in the twenty sixteen Championship. Let's start with the category. I was shocked
to see this name. Who did you not expect to see involved in this championship?
For me, it was Tyrril Hatton. I had no idea honestly that he was involved in this tournament at all. I didn't really realize that his career was even as promising back in twenty sixteen. He hadn't had it too much of a professional career at that point. I think he'd missed four straight Open Championship cuts in a row coming into that tournament, but.
Might have been even less than that. But it was like, yes, he three or four missed cuts.
Yeah, yeah, and those were the only I think he played in one PGA a few Opens and that was it.
And he hadn't won on the European Tour yet.
He's twenty four at the time. Yeah, finishes T five. I just don't didn't expect to see him at all, and now seeing how much better he's gotten and how successful his career is now, like he's a legitimate name to consider in the twenty twenty four Open Championship, didn't expect to see him.
Yeah, my pick was baby faced. Tyrrel Hatton as well, did not remember that this was kind of his coming out party, his first top twenty in a major. Even T five really really strong finish, but Stenson and Phil were so far out in front. It's understandable that you would miss some of the guys who came third, fourth, fifth in twenty sixteen. Another player who placed solo fourth in his case was Steve Stricker, forty nine years old.
At the time, I didn't remember that he played so well in this championship, or I mean, I of course remember that he had a lot of longevity and that he had some good performances into his late forties, but this was one of his last real appearances on a big major stage solo forth. He did pretty well, all right, And of course identify.
This was the beef Johnston Major, which I think people probably do remember, but it was just interesting to kind of revisit that this was.
The height of beef mania. The announcers had a bunch of beef puns at the ready. You know that that approach was a little undercooked. That was undercooked beef and things like that. So people were really having fun with beef. All right, category, let's identify one thing that would not happen in twenty twenty four that did happen in twenty sixteen.
Yeah, I think this is going to be an interesting litmus test because the game of golf has changed radically since twenty sixteen ton of speed now and there aren't too many short hitters. Yes you can, of all majors, this might be one that invites it is one that invites a variety of playing styles. But there's a lot of long hitters out there now. So what I picked was, you're not going to see a lot of driver five iron into the fifteenth hole, which is five hundred yard
par four that often plays into a prevailing wind. I think this will be a good litmus test drive Phil hits driver five iron in the final round into a slight breeze, pretty mild conditions in that final round, so that tea box should be the same as it was in twenty Some holes have been extended, but the fifteenth I believe, is, if not an identical location, very close. So I think that's a good one that's held constant
over time. Let's see, in reasonably calm conditions what a player like even Phil today, Like I bet he's hitting driver seven iron today, So I'm interested to see what those distances kind of look like compared to the almost a decade ago. But it's going to be radically different.
For my thing. That wouldn't happen in twenty twenty four I looked at the clubs that Stenson and Phil hit in the final round off of each te and what I came up with at the end was that Stenson hit seven irons off of the non par three t's at Royal Truon in the final round in twenty sixteen. He hit five three woods right his famous three wood, his bomb three wood that would go as far as some players drivers. He hit five of those and then he hit two drivers. Phil hit seven irons off the tee,
hit two fairway woods and hit five drivers. I'm gonna say that whoever wins this year is not going to hit just two drivers off the tee in the final round as Stenson did in twenty sixteen. I might be wrong about that. I you know, it could be that players hit a lot of irons off these tees. As you were expressing earlier, there are reasons to lay up in some of the same areas as other players at Royal Troon. There are reasons to to, you know, let your foot off the accelerator a bit on some of
these teas. But I just don't think we're going to see a winner who hits only two drivers. What do you think about that.
Yeah, Stenson's a little bit of a unique case, and that.
It is, it's kind of cheating. I mean, maybe we won't see a winner who hits five drivers off the tee, which which filled it in twenty sixteen.
Yeah, I will say, I think you're gonna see a decent amount of iron and three wood off of T's. But to your point, yes, I think the chance is that there are only two drivers hit in the final round by the winner. Are close to zero, right, because you're gonna get them on both the part five well not necessarily both the part fives on the front, but likely there are more than two expected drives. I mean, there's no doubt about that.
All right, let's talk about our shots of the day. What was your shot of the day.
A few different ones stand out here, I mean, Garrett, I'm sure you had a similar takeaway, but there were almost no missed shots the entire day, like both of these kinds.
Were they a single bunker? I was trying to remember this, don't anybody phil or Henrik. I don't think they were in any bunkers.
I don't remember. I mean, there's a little bit of them in the fescue, but just over all, they step up and flush it over and over again. It's it's absolutely incredible. So yeah, I highly recommend people going back and watching it. It's just an unbelievable display of golf. The one that stood out to me is the iron that Phil hits into the fourth hole, the par five. He hits a two hundred and thirty seven yard long
iron to about ten feet and makes eagle. And so that is at the forty five and a half minute mark on YouTube on the YouTube clip. The reason I pick it is because a minute later on the telecast they show his swing from kind of straight on, like you're looking at his chest, and they do the swing in slow motion. It is remarkable how fluid and impressive Phil swing is in that round, in that particular swing.
I'm not a student of the golf swing, like I'm not very knowledgeable about the golf swing, but you when you watch that, it's unbelievable to see his club position and how well he generates speed, Like just a magnificent swing. So I would highly recommend people go back and watch that slow most swing at the forty six and a half minute mark. Again, you could pick so many different shots from that day but that one really stands out to me as just an unbelievable golf shot. How about you, Garrett.
Well, for anybody who doesn't remember that Phil Mickelson was one of the greatest iron players of all time, go and watch this final round because this is a good demonstration of what he was capable of. Yeah, his chips and pitches were very impressive and kind of flashy, but his iron play is really what I think made him a many time major winner, made him the second best player of his generation. Those irons that he hit at
Troon were absolutely incredible. Why it just happened to be the case that Stenson was up to that challenge, right because Stenson also one of the greatest iron players of all time. And maybe that's a kind of theme that we'll see it for many players who do well at Troon. But my shot other day, I had a few candidates. I ultimately chose Phil's approach into ten. He was in the fescue, the ball was way below his feet and
he couldn't complete is his follow through. He had to kind of hit a sod off fall through because he didn't have the balance to go all the way through the ball, and he hit it to I don't remember exactly how close it was, but maybe ten feet or something like that, like.
One seventy right, hit about one seventy in.
Absolutely incredible shot, like just given the circumstances, given the pressure, and given his lie. I mean a lot of players would be happy to be kind of left of the green on ten with that shot, but no, he was attacking the flag from that position. Just an incredible shot. There were you know, I think a lot of people probably remember a couple of shots that Phil hit on
the first two holes. This is this was the indication right right out of the gate on Sunday in twenty sixteen that this was going to be a legendary duel. I remember these shots. It was Phil's approach into one where he hit it to a couple of inches right, big statement. He was one back of Stenson. And then there was a two showing on the first hole because Stenson bogie the hole and Phil stuck it to literally
a few inches and made birdie. And then Phil's chip on two after missing the green to the right right, Yeah, yeah, he had to hit this little chip from a tight lie over a short right bunker to a pin that was pretty tight to that bunker, there was no backstop and he just hit a beautiful crisp Phil Mickelson chip that lipped out that that shot could have gone in easily, So you know, the Phil. It's funny. The Phil shots
are the ones that stand out. Even though Stenson ended up putting him away in the last few holes, and obviously Stenson making some big putts down the stretch, the one on fifteen from twenty twenty five feet was totally unexpected and maybe it was even longer. I think it was longer, but yeah, it might have been might have been more like thirty to forty, but it was he was across the green from from the from the hole
and that one was not expected to go in. And then his tea shot on seventeen, the long par three four iron from t twenty, So there must have been some interesting wind conditions happening, or you know, just the game has changed a lot from twenty sixteen, but we
would see Bryson hitting a pitching wedge these days. Yeah, that tea shot he hit on seventeen was just a classic Hendrickxtenson iron that it's a little explosion at the at impact when he hits an iron well, and that was one of those irons, and you know something about that shot. I know I'm talking about like a lot of shots here, so I'm super cheating on these categories. My bad. But there's this video that Live Golf put out with Phil and Stenson discussing the twenty sixteen final round.
They put this out a couple of days ago, and it's pretty good. I wish they had gone a little bit more in depth, but they do talk about certain shots and Phil talks about being stunned on seventeen, specifically that shot that hendrikitt because it was so high and Phil was thinking, he can't possibly hit it that high and have the ball reach the green because he's putting the ball way up in the air where the wind is going to act on it and he's going to come up short. He can't get all the way there
hitting the ball that high. But it got all the way there, And there was just something about Stenson's ball flight that was so penetrating, where he hit the ball so solid and maybe just kept some spin off of it and it didn't get caught up in the wind.
He just hit these shots that bore their way through the wind and that's what made him almost unbeatable at Troon, and the fact that Phil got anywhere close to him is a testament to how spectacular he was on certain shots in that final round and really on those final two days. All right, finally, not finally, but you know, we would have a couple of final big categories here, but the final kind of you know, detailed category. Let's talk about the biggest what if moment in the final round.
I might have interpreted this question a little bit differently as a broader what if, So forgive me if I deep from the points, but yeah, my biggest what if is just if players had gotten different tea times. And this is a historic wave split. Of the eleven golfers that finished T nine or better, nine were from the early wave. Yeah, both Stenson and four shots, right, it was a lot of shots and I don't have the exact count in front of me, but it was a
lot of shots. Both Stenson and Phil were late tyro Hatton was one of the last tea times on Thursday. Like, that's the side that got the beneficial draw. So we wouldn't I mean, if Phil or Stenson had received a different draw, like, we would not be talking about this championship the same way. It might have been a snoozer,
one player completely running away from it. Right if Rory or Jason Day, who was number one at the time, had been on the right end of the draw, then we might just be talking about a completely different championship. So this is one that stands out as an all time draw, Garrett, of the top seventeen, there were two more in the late wave. Sorry, only two more on the wrong side of the split, Gary Woodland. And then do you want to guess the other player, who.
Of course going to be our lad from Northern Ireland.
Well, so yes, you're correct that Rory was. But sorry, of the players between like T nine behind T nine and T like seventeen, the other one was Patrick Reid, which I just find amusing, okay for being on there.
I mean that was intentional on the part.
So not immune to a bad draw there, So I thought it was an amusing tidbit.
Life in the line drive section. That's that's Patrick Reid's autobiography title. I believe the biggest what if for me was a little more specific, what if Phil's putt on sixteen dropped so he lipped out a putt on the sixteenth hole, and Henrik had a putt for Bertie that this was a putt for eagle that Phil had on the part on the par five he had a spectacular fairway would into the screen, just one of his incredible strikes of the R two seventy Right. Yeah, I mean,
just like this was Phil Mickelson on that day. He's just flushing the ball unbelievably at historic levels. He almost made this putt. This putt kind of like died just across the hole, right. He didn't quite get it there, and so the ball just sort of, you know, veered off course right as it was getting to the hole and went right across the front of it. If that putt had dropped, Stenson has like a three four footer
for Bertie. I think that puts more pressure on Stenson because he knows he needs to make that putt in order to stay one up on Phil at that point going into seventeen. The part three where Stenson ended up hitting an incredible t shot, But if Phil's pett goes in, Stenson might miss that putt and then they might be even going into seventeen. I think that math is right. My apologies if it's not, it's right. So that was a big wef moment. And then Stenson almost put it
into the Greg Norman bunker on eighteen. That was something that I actually totally forgotten, the bunker on the right side of the fairway that Greg Norman made famous in
nineteen eighty nine. His three would nearly got to it, I mean, just in an adrenaline fueled strike, and if he had found that bunker, then things could have definitely gone differently, because at that point, I believe the separation between the two players was two shots, and so certainly there could have been a two shot swing there all right, Before we get to the big final categories here, Joseph, any stray notes or tidbits that you just wanted to
touch on, anything in your notes that you thought was interesting that you just want to get out there.
I have a bunch of notes. I'll keep it. I won't go through all of them. I did not remember this, and I'm curious if you picked up on this, Garrett. In the telecast, walking off the thirteenth tee, the RNA tells Stenson and Phil to pick up the pace as they'd fallen a little bit behind, and you can barely
hear it on the telecast, but it's interesting. They're in the middle of this epic duel, no one's near them on the leader board, and they don't get put on the clock, at least that I remember, but they're told to pick up the pace, and kind of just an interesting anecdote about that as I've reflected on it. I remember being at Dell match play in Austin and Phil
was playing against Stenson. Years later, obviously, I don't remember exactly which year, and after walking off one of the greens, Phil said to his caddy and I was standing there and heard it in slightly more colorful language, Man, Hendrik Stenson is so freaking slow. And I've always kind of wondered if any of the twenty sixteen Open Championship lingers
a little bit there. Hendrick Stenson's not the speediest golfer, and Phil does look ready to hit a lot of the shots in this twenty sixteen Open Championship.
Yeah, he pulls the trigger quickly on a couple.
Of them, he does, and so it's just interesting.
Even especially I remember he hit his approach like right on top of Stenson's approach.
And some of the putts like as Hendrick Stenton's hitting them, Phil's already prepared to hit. He kind of steps in pretty quickly and hits them. There's one where he even finishes. I don't know if you remember that from the telecast, but he hits a good chip shot and decides he wants to finish like a three footer instead of letting Stenson hit his six or seven footer. So really interesting to see the RNA tell them to pick up the
pace a little bit. And then maybe some of that additional context was delighting me as I watched through that twenty sixteen Open Championship.
I like that note, especially because then three years later, no not three years later, more than three years l this was in twenty twenty one, I guess at pgaj ap and Chata Kiwa. Famously, Phil sort of slow played brooks Kopka in the final round and frustrated Koepka. So maybe Phil was taken a tip from Stenson there from the twenty sixteen final round. That's pretty funny. All right, Let's get to the last couple of categories here, some
general big picture categories. First of all, what do you think is the overwhelming key to success on this golf course royal trend.
For me, it's just premiere iron play. I think you see it with Phil and you see it with Stenson. When you're hitting your irons well, you have a lot of opportunities to make birdie and hit some approach shots close, and even if you're not super close, a lot of
those putts are makeable. I think that's a huge key to success, not just for what I just mentioned, but you're hitting iron off a lot of teas, and given how easy the driver has become to hit, and you can hit the ball basically anywhere on the club and it flies relatively straight, I think it's pretty difficult off the tee to hit a flush a bunch of irons
and woods, especially if wind is a factor. So I'm really hoping we get a little bit of wind, and I think you will see some of those premier ball strikers, especially the best iron players in the world, rise to the top. Obviously, like wind can create some variants and some unpredictability in ways, that is also relevant, and some of those iron players could get taken out just by being on the wrong side of a draw. But to me, I would be targeting the best iron players in the
world when thinking about who's gonna win this championship? How about you?
Yeah, I mean that was my number one note for this category as well. It is totally conspicuous, totally obvious in this final round that the main differentiating factor between Stenson and Phil and everybody else is that those two players were hitting greens from distance with irons and striking their irons with a flushness and a purity that the other players simply were not matching. You saw other players
missing greens scrambling. You hardly ever saw Stenson and Phil in a position of scrambling, especially after they hit a fairway right. If they were in the fairway, you could pretty much bank on ten fifteen feet in a birdy opportunity. And these were not the easiest conditions, and other players were showing that nobody else was anywhere in the vicinity of Stenson and Phil in that final round. I mean, Stenson, what did he shoot sixty three and Phil was sixty five.
We probably should know these numbers off the top of our heads, but nobody was close to those numbers, and it was because of the iron play. If I had to choose another key to success on this golf course. It would just have to be avoiding bunkers off the tee and having a solid strategy for avoiding those bunkers. We didn't see Phil and Stenson in bunkers off the tee.
Part of that may have been a little bit of luck, because you always need that luck, but also part of it was that they were thoughtful about their choices off the tea, about their lines, about the clubs that they are hitting, so that they gave themselves the best chances possible not to be in those bunkers. And I think that that's probably going to be another theme that we see in twenty twenty four.
It was sixty three and sixty five respectively.
Just mean that she did look up. I think it's absolutely incredible.
We had one more category, which was something to the effect of biggest lesson, and mine was avoid trouble. So I would echo that that staying out of the fairway bunkers, like taking lines off of the te's that aren't going to put you in trouble, even if it means hitting an ironer would instead of pushing driver trying to hit shots like on eleven that off the tea, stay out of the gorse and that's obviously easier said than done, but you're going to get your scoring opportunities if you
stay out of trouble. It's not the type of golf course that you're going to be able to overpay. There's certain holes where you may be able to in the right conditions, especially if it's downwind, but generally speaking, this is a golf course to be a little bit conservative off of many of the tea's and then just avoiding some of those most penal bunkers on the golf course. So that was my biggest lesson for twenty twenty four.
Agree with that. My biggest lesson for twenty twenty four is something that we've already referred to, and that is that the wave split is god in the Open Championship, and we might see another one with unsettled weather in the forecast this year, we could see another wave split. I'm not sure which way it's going. I'm going to make a guess on that in a minute, but when the weather is volatile, then the wave split really does help determine who has the best chance at contending on
the weekend. And that's just something that we see in the Open Championship. More than any other tournament in the world, and it's something that you either love or hate. I happen to love it. Any form of randomness and chaos that can be introduced to this professional game that has become so rationalized and predictable in some ways, I'm all for. And so give me a wave split, even if it happens to hurt my favorite players the best or the worst, I should say, all right, let's get into some picks
and predictions. Now that we've done our categories for twenty sixteen, I think we've talked about that final round thoroughly enough. Again, going to recommend that people go see it because it's just such a fun, fun final round and there are probably a lot of things, even if you watch it at the time, probably a lot of things that you don't remember about what happened that day and how excellent the play from Phil and Henrik was. Let's do some
picks and predictions. Who are you looking at this week for, you know, possible players who can set themselves apart in the way that Phil and Henrick did in twenty sixteen.
I listed two names, Garrett, I think there are a lot of usual suspects that, yeah, Scottie Rory, Right.
Yeah, Scotti Scheffler probably gonna be pretty good, right.
The ones that I felt worth calling out first, I think watching this twenty sixteen rewatching it, one name that kept kind of getting pounded into my head is Colin Marikawa. Colin has had arguably his best season. I mean it is his best season statistically. He's been kind of red hot as of late. In major So far this year, He's finished tied for third at the Masters, tied for fourth at the PGA of Ahalla, and tied for fourteenth at Pinehurst. Colin Morikawa obviously has already won two majors,
including an Open Championship. I think the knock on him tends to be that he has some struggles in the wind and.
That I was just going to bring this up. What do you make that?
Yeah, that really tight cut that he hits and he goes to on every shot can turn into a little bit of a wipeye fade. If you watched the Farmer's Insurance this year at Tory Pines, like that fade did not work super well when it got windy. But I still trust Colin, especially on a golf course that takes driver out of your hands fairly often if he's standing up on tees ripping a lot of irons and woods. There's not too many golfers that I trust more on
that type of setup. And he's crafty with his irons. He has the default stock fade that he likes to hit. But Colin Moricala's got a little bit more in his bag than just a white bee fade. Unbelievable iron player can make a case that he's, if not the best iron player in the world, certainly top five. His short games come a long way this year, by far having the best short game season. I also think some of the putting on these slow greens is probably a little
bit more of what he's used to on the West coast. Man. This kind of screams Colin Morikala to me.
It's not the hardest putting course, right, It's if you're on the green, then two putts are very achievable for most people. And so putting is going to be like a tough different ferentiator this week, or less of a differentiator than than it usually might be, because it's always a differentiator, but but it might deemphasize it a little bit this week. All right, call him Markawa. Now what I like about Marikawa. I am a little bit worried about the the wind thing. I mean, hitting that fade
in the wind is tough. But maybe it's a bit of an overemphasized theme with mari Kawa at this point, because he is he's a good golfer, he can he can handle the wind. He is in that later wave on Thursday, and something that I'm looking at, I'm not sure. It's it's not advisable to make predictions based on forecasts. I will just say that. But since I'm not a betting expert, I'm just gonna go ahead and put all my chips in the uh in the forecast bucket, put
all my eggs in that basket. I think that Thursday morning is going to be tough. I think there's some weather coming in late Wednesday and it's going to be kind of clearing out on Thursday morning. I think that players could have a harder time on Thursday morning than they do on Thursday afternoon. And so I'm mainly looking
at players who go out on Thursday afternoon. Now, some of the players who go out in the morning on Thursday, justin Thomas Joaquin Neeman Tony Final, John Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood, Brian Harmon. This is starting to get a little bit later in the morning, but Ry McElroy's going out at about ten am, Tyrol Hatton, Max Homer, Keegan Bradley are going out in kind of mid morning. Now afternoon players
would include Corey Connors, Jason Day, Phil Nicholson. He had an afternoon tea time in twenty sixteen on Thursday and worked to his advantage. Then it could again this time, Wyndham, Clark, Hideki Brooks, Xander can't Ley, Morikawa, Sam Burns, Shane Lower, Cameron Smith, Matt Fitzpatrick, Scotti, Scheffler, few other names there, but that's basically the pool of players that I'm looking at. I like Morikawa in that group of players. Tell me if this is stupid, but I'm kind of looking at
Shane Lowry. I like that name. I think he's not really good with his men and long irons. He did well last.
Week, He's playing pretty well coming in and if there's somebody that can brave the elements. I know this always gets brought up with Shane Lowry, but former Open champion, he's done it. He'll be very comfortable no matter what weather it gets thrown at him. I don't think it's a crazy pick. Also interesting to me that you mentioned Corey Connors because I didn't know that he'd get the
first bill shout out there. But Corey Connors is an elite ball striker and he's having a really good season, so he is kind of an interesting name to keep an eye on.
I feel like people always bring up Corey Connors when it comes to major championships because it's a lot of courses that reward great ball striking right, mid and long iron play more than PGA Tour courses tend to reward that skill, and Corey Connors is your ultimate example of somebody who has an outsize skill in that area. But yeah, Corey Connor is The reason I mentioned him first is he's going out earliest in the afternoon, but he is in the afternoon wave.
It's a draw. Yeah, He's one of the few players in professional helps that hits a tight draw.
You would think he plays well in the wind. I don't know if there's evidence that he plays well in windy conditions, because we just don't get that much in the way of windy conditions anywhere on the schedule. I mean, Matt Fitzpatrick is another, you know, legendary mutter who can
play well in various conditions. I don't know if he's in the greatest form of his career or anything like that, but then obviously Scotti Scheffler is going out late on Thursday and that could be a major advantage for him. Brooks Cupya is somebody that I've brought up in every major so far this year. It hasn't really worked out for me that well in any of the majors this year, but I'm always his name because it's it's not wise
to doubt him in a major championship. Now, Bryce into Shambeau the most talked about player of the year, probably maybe other than Rory, but talked about for different reasons. Do you think he struggles at this course? Is it like a too easy of a take to say that he might struggle here? I think it is, And let me just say why. Sure, he's a great long iron player, he I mean, if we're looking at long and mid irons as the differentiating factor, then he could be great.
But I'm not sure how much he's looking to hit driver on this course. But if it's a long iron contest, and for Bryson, the long irons are like the seven and eight irons. But if it's a contest from those distances, he does really, really well from those distances. Now his ball might be a little bit high, but I don't know. I mean, like, it seems like he should be able to thrive with this kind of test. But I think we just assume that when it comes to links golf, Bryson is not your man.
I wouldn't have Bryson quite as high as I would have some of these other players. But I do think Bryson, I'm not too concerned about the way that he lines up with the golf course like this, maybe in the way that I would have been in the past. I think he has some advantages and that he understands the way that his ball interacts with the wind and leans into that a little bit more than a lot of
players probably do. Understanding that, you know, your dispersion gets wider when you're playing into the wind, and that just bashing driver all the time isn't always the best strategy. And I think Bryson went a little bit far in that direction when he put on all of his distance.
I think he's learned to rain that in a little bit and has expressed that his caddy, I know that he had gone on the Get a Grip podcast of Fried Egg Pot and had talked a little bit about some of the things, some of the considerations they make, and you know this, this is a little bit maybe less of a calculated tournament than a lot of other ones. But as his caddie Gbo said on that pod, like Bryson's a pretty darn good field player, even though he
has a rap, is being calculated about everything. So I think that course management and ability to understand that the right shots to hit, and how he's evolved in that way is a reason to be optimistic about Bryson. Again, I wouldn't put him as high as a McElroy or a Scheffler or a shaft Lee or Mori Kala frankly in terms of his chances of winning, but certainly wouldn't be surprised if he's in the neck. Can I give
you another name or absolutely? I think one golfer flying a little bit under the radar is Louis Ustazan, and Louis Ustazen is actually playing really good golf and he's getting some respect in the betting markets, but he doesn't have the visibility. Right. He's playing on Live, which is a tour that just doesn't have nearly as many eyeballs on it as the PGA Tour. He hasn't even played, hasn't played a major this entire year, but he's been playing very solid on live. And he's a golfer who's
been good in majors pretty much his entire career. I think he's finished in eight of his eight top tens and thirty two starts since twenty fifteen, like a twenty five percent clip, which isn't bad. He's forty one, and this is a major that generally some of the more seasoned players, Yeah, can I have success?
Henrikan and Phil were both in their forties when they in twenty sixteen, he.
Finished twenty third in this event. Last year, he finished tied for third at Saint Andrews in twenty one. Kind of has done well on some courses that like, I don't think Chambers Bay is the perfect comparison for Truon, Like he he did very well there despite a bad opening round, and just I think he's a flusher that has a lot of shots. Former Open Champion. I would not be rolling out Louius Tasan.
That's an incredible shout. I would not have picked out that name, but Louis says and is Loui Ustasan. I mean, he just shows up and performs in majors. It hasn't happened for a couple of years at this point, but he's one of those players that can just turn it on for a week and shock everybody, and nobody picks him and all of a sudden he's there.
So he won twice in December on the DP World Tour. Like he's been good.
Well, okay, what do you think of Cameron Smith? He's going out in the afternoon on Thursday. How is he playing? Another live player that I just have a hard time assessing.
I've had a hard time assessing Cameron Smith too. I don't think i'd be as optimistic based on what he's put out so far.
Yeah, his form has been kind of non inspiring.
Yeah. I thought Pinehurst would probably be a better showing and he hasn't shown that much. But like, yeah, he's I don't know. He finished T two at Live Singapore. I don't really know exactly what to make of that I think it does have meaning. It was probably for too long thought that they had no meaning. Like, I think there's some meaning in the results, but it's hard to.
Exact approximately as much meaning as there is for like a signature event, maybe less because the field isn't isn't quite as strong as a signature event. But we're also we're talking about a you know, a small field kind of event.
Yeah, I think Cam Smith, he's almost thirty one, he may end up being the type of player that had that surge and it happened a little bit not late in his career, but kind of in the middle and then maybe flamed I don't want to say flamed out, But I'm not as optimistic about camp Smith this year until we see a little bit more for him.
Yeah, he certainly had a run of exceptional form for a couple of years, but hasn't necessarily shown that he can sustain that. But you know who knows like he's
a he's obviously a great player. His short game is putting amazing, and I just think like when we're when we're looking at him, just a couple of years ago he was winning an Open championship and now we just don't talk about him as much, and maybe maybe for some decent reasons because of his recent form, but he just is a guy who's who's there and who might be a factor. All right, So we have had a really good run of major championships this I think the
majors this year have been absolutely exceptional. Actually, I can't remember a year of majors that was this solid across the board. I mean, probably there has been one in the past ten to fifteen years that I'm forgetting right now. But the Masters was great, you know, the PGA Championship was really fun to watch, and then the US Open
was an all timer. I know it's hard to predict these things, but do you think we could be set up for another really fun major or is this the type of course and set up that could maybe lead to a little bit of disappointment, maybe kind of a low energy major like we saw at last year's Open at Hoylake.
I mean, I would expect it to be an exciting major, and I think it's a great golf course that brings out a lot of cool shots. So kind of as we've talked about before, like some of that Thursday to Saturday entertainment value. I think it's going to be really high,
especially if we get some wind. Given that there's going to be some blustery, wet conditions, I think if players are playing through that, then it's unlikely that we get a runaway unless there's a huge wave split right, Like it's blustery and rainy in the morning on Thursday, but then in the afternoon the golfers are playing a calm, soft course. Then that increases the chances that somebody in that wave gets really hot and pulls away. My expectation
would be that this is a great Major. Sure you could have somebody like Brian Harmon, who is a great player, run away from it and make it a little bit sleepier, but I'm going into it with the expectation of it being a great golf tournament.
All right, Joseph, thanks for coming on the pod. Hoping for a great week this week, and I think we'll probably reconvene afterwards for a little takeaways podcast.
Sounds great, Let's have a good tournament.
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