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 brid egg Friday egg, the dreaded Friday Friday, Frida egggg fridagg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course.
Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson. It is the US Open. We are here US Open Week at Sunday, the US Open. I am pumped. We are gonna be playing this at Pinehurst number two this year. It'll be the first of a run of five appearances for Pinehurst number two in the next twenty five years. So it should be a big tail tell sign of how major championships, particularly the US Open, is going to play out over the next
you know, a couple of years. And to do our traditional five things about this major podcast, we have get a Griff podcast Host Shane Bacon KFT Corn Corn Ferry Tour. You know announcer Shane Bacon, a man that wears many hats, founder of Grounder Repair, Logo Redesign Business. You know, a man of many talents. Shane Bacon. Welcome on the podcast.
Andy. That is quite an intro, my goodness. I mean that's like one of the best most professional ones you've ever done. No children's book author.
You know. Yeah, there's too many.
Us USAM qualifier didn't break eighty at USAM. You didn't get any of that stuff in there, Like you can't get that in I'm so pumped to be joined by you. Hey, you're are you a hot coffee guy? You're you're holding your cofee guy about right now? Are you only hot coffee guy? Or do you get into iced ever?
Look at this sea cup? Nice, I use this. I use this cup specifically for this podcast about the US Open. I decided to go with the US Open coffee mug.
You know, one of the great things about where I live, I think one of the greatest, most underrated, under talked about things, is that you have basically the perfect coffee climate where in the mornings I go hot coffee because you know, mornings I wake up it's usually about, you know, sub sixty degrees, and then if I need an afternoon jolt, I always go ice coffee and it'll be you know, sixty plus degrees, perfect weather for ice coffee. I like that,
what are you? Are you ice coffee? Like I think if I was in Chicago, the way my my coffee works in Chicago is summer was like exclusively ice coffee. I used to make ice coffee. Now I don't. I can't put the ice coffee into the fridge or else I am going to be drinking too much coffee. So I like have to like require myself to leave to go get an afternoon coffee. Otherwise I will just drink afternoon coffee. Does that make sense. I'm not a big fan of drinking afternoon coffee. I only do it when
I need to do stuff. What's your coffee behavior?
So you know, we're both partners with our good friends a good walk who do just an amazing, amazing job with their coffee. I will make the cold brew out of their coffee. I'll get the ground coffee and then make it with the toddy cold brew system. Yeah, and I'm pretty much a coldbrew guy at this point. I'll have I'll have hot coffee on golf trips, like if you're abandoned or you know, I was just up in Wisconsin,
like Aaron Hills has great coffee in their cabins. I'll I'll have hot coffee there, but if I'm at home, I'm likely going to have a cold brew that I make with good walk or I'm gonna go out and get like a Starbucks cold verse like that, which I'm heavy right now because I'm on the road. I'm doing corn ferry this week, headed into the US Open, by the way.
At this point, At this point, I think the cold brew might be the only drinkable Starbucks coffee.
I think that's a very fair point to say. Andy, guess how many guys in the KFT event this week are playing in the US Open next week. I bet you can't get it right.
I can't. I know I'm not going to get the number right, but I was looking through it. I mean, you've got like Tim Widing, you got Isaiah by.
The way, is how we say that now?
Now?
Yeah, I like it.
I think I'm gonna stick with Widing because I like how skinny is with a name Widing. He's a very slender guy, and I think it just ruins the whole. Like you know, I always love when you when you have names that contradict the appearance of someone you know.
I agree, agree, wholeheartedly. We had seven guys in the field at the BN you were.
Playing Frankie Frankie kappin Sapin well Saffin again. I I like the idea of Frankie kappin the second being a mob boss. So we're gonna start this with me, you know, being disrespectful to all these people's names, but you know, some sometimes you got to look at the name and say, like, hey, I could I could really make a name for myself if I if I leaned into this, look at.
You, look at you go, Yeah, seven guys in the KFT event or playing uh playing US Open next week, and then of course you got ben Cole's in the field because he was number one on the KFT points list, so KFT represented next to next week at the at the US Open.
Do you think I should change the way my name's pronounced to Andy Onnsen j J s.
Maybe Hanson Hanson.
You could go with I'm I'm Shane Mason, because.
It would be epic if I did do a different pronunciation of bacon, which has never existed in the history. I will get this, Andy, I will get people occasionally that ask kind of spell my last name and I'm there's only one way, dude, There's only one way. I got nothing else for you.
Well, that's uh, that was one of my things, one of my things, I think kind of how I'll always remember Xander, our most recent major champion, the champion of the PGA Championship last month, How I will always remember him. I will always remember watching him, Cameron Champ and Trey Mullnax play the first round at Aaron Hill's US Open. They were basically three qualifiers. I think maybe Champ might have had some exemption, but I think they were three qualifiers.
They were at the end of the bus on Thursday afternoon, and they were all playing pretty good golf. I think moll Nax and Xander in particular were playing great golf, and Xander kept it going and it was really the standout early per performance in his PGA Tour career that
launched him into really a star. He became a star shortly after he carried that performance, that confidence they gained from the US Open, which he qualified into into a you know what, became a really stout major championship career
up to his win at the PGA Championship. So Xander Schaffley is like a great example of what qualifying for a major can provide these there are a lot of world class talents that have qualified into this tournament that wouldn't be in the Masters because you have to have be a world class talent with world class results to get into the Masters. The PGA is a similar where you know, the only way you're qualifying in is with results. This is a championship that allows world class players to
qualify in. It allows world class amateurs like yourself to get into sectional qualifying and have a chance to qualify in. But I think, like one of my big stories, and this is what I love about the US Open, is the idea of like, are we going to see a qualifier make a run and have a Xander like jump coming off of a run. It's one of the things that you love about sports. It's you know, you have occasionally players that get a ten day contract with a team and parlay you know, in the NBA, and parlay
it into a long NBA career. This is kind of golf's version of that, where you know, whether it's Monday qualifying on the PGA Tour and turning into hot run that gets you a card eventually the US Open could
be one of that of one of those moments. And I pulled a couple of names that just just to watch, and like, how I thought about this was like super talented players who haven't necessarily been on the big stage, and it could be they've been beat up a little bit by the process of getting to the PGA Tour that could be there on the PGA Tour, they just haven't had a breakout, real breakout performance. Four. I have
four names here. Isaiah Selinda, former Walker Cupper, plays on the corn Ferry Tour at you know, just a weird time. He stayed amateur rather than turn pro to play in a Walker Cup. And this is a guy that was his peers have all like his peers, people that were thought of to be of the same level have are basically all on the PGA Tour, all having very strong careers. To point to this point, he kind of got beat up by the system, didn't have a place to play,
you know, when he didn't get through Q school. Then COVID hit and he was basically froze out of any form of golf. And he's super super talented kid, hits it long and someone you know, he's already won. He won on the corn Ferry Tour this year. So when I expect to be playing the PGA Tour for fifteen years.
And Andy on that too easy to forget that Isaiah played excellent in the amateur at Pineers number two back in twenty nineteen. I mean, this is a guy that made the round of sixteen and you know it ran into one of the other great young players that were in the field that week to lose and not advance to the quarterfinals. But has experienced in piners number two, has experienced in USGA Championships around pine ER's number two, which I think is going to be really really important.
This feels like Andy and you would know better than me. This feels like a golf course where the more you play it, the better you understand, like where to go and where not to go. And to me, I think that.
Could be a good thing or a bad thing there.
Well, I think for the pros it's a good thing. I think for idiots like you and me, it's not so good. But you know, I just I think that seeing this place the way it played, I was out there covering it for the amateur. I mean, it was spicy, it was firm, was what you'd expect pinor number two to be, so I think him being involved in that is also a good thing for his his chances.
Another name along the same lines and his former teammate Brandon Wu who plays on the PGA Tour. He was the medallist at that usam uh he qualified in out of the Dallas one with all the pros. Just another name he played on tour. Obviously a very decorated amateur career and has been on the PGA Tour for a couple of years, just hasn't broken through. Another name, Rico Hooey, who played great on the corn Ferry Tour last year. I think he hasn't had a ton of starts on
the PGA Tour. It's kind of a weird year, I think, to be a PGA Tour rookie coming out of the corn Ferry Tour.
Yes, if you want to play golf, it's a weird year.
It's very strange year. And then the last one who I think like, I think you look at like the live players and I think a lot of them have have probably maybe regressed a little since they went there. But a young player who I've been super impressed with who I think has really worked, who's improving at a very quick rate, is David Pouche, young Spanish player, and he qualified in. I think he's he's been like super
what's been impressed about him. He's playing on this tour where you know, money is no no object of anybody, you know, concern of anybody that's playing somewhat good golf there. And he's been out grinding on the Asian Tour in weeks off trying to up his world ranking. He clearly wants to. I think he's got This is all anecdotal just for observer from Afar. It seems like this guy wants to be a world class player, and by what I mean a world class player playing in major championships.
So he qualified in, was the medalist at Lake Mercaid, and I'm I'm super interested to watch him continue evolve. I think he's only like at twenty one years old right now, so.
Well so so that that kind of leads into something I have as one of my five things Andy, because I think you're you're onto something here. I mean the US Open, It's it's one of the great events in sports. Because of what you just said, young players can qualify in Guys like Ben James, you know who I think is is headed quickly to the PGA Tour, I mean metalist, you know, shoots sixty four in the second round there to qualify for the US Open, made it run last
year at the US Amate, a great young player. And then I was thinking about some of the maybe maybe more notable names that qualified through sectionals, and I think Harry Higgs is obviously an easy pick considering the way he's played on the corn Ferry Tour over the last month, couple of wins there. I feel like Harry's got a lot of confidence coming in feels a little andy like
what we saw with Jason Gore years ago. And Jason Gore is playing awesome golf I think at the time on the web dot Com Tour, and then gets to the US Open and contends and you know, gets some stuff. I think he was in the final pairing on Sunday there at bet Page Black. And then Zach Blair I think is a name we should obviously, you know, focus on as well, just considering how good the short game is. The piner's number two. As we know, we'll test a
lot of pitch shots and shots around the greens. I don't think you've got to be overly long to play well at Piner's number two, especially as firm and as fast as it is it's expecting to play. So I feel like zb coming in with the way he's been playing as somebody to at least circle if you're looking, maybe outside the top thirty names in terms of favorites. But one of the things I wrote down Andy is
Pineer's number two US Opens. Every time they've had a US Open there, we've had a random guy in the mix. So I wrote down, who's going to be the random guy in the mix this year? So twenty fourteen it was Eric Compton, if you remember in the mix, I mean nobody was going to catch Kimer, but Eric Compton I think finished third. That week five was our champion.
Was the random guy in the mix, Michael Campbell, and then ninety nine it was Tim Herron was in the mix kind of with Payne, Phil and Tiger going into that Sunday. So who's going to be the random player for this US Open? I looked at ben On. He's played great golf, not excellent golf, and I'm not sold on the short game. There, So I think my random guy.
I was kind of going through the names and the odds and some of these players on who I think has a chance that's maybe well off the list of players you'd expect to contend, and I think I've landed on Alex Norn. I'm very consistent this season, finished t for T twelfth at the PGA, and I was looking at his numbers Andy, and they're pretty remarkable. I mean, Tita Green on the PGA Tour this year, he's eleventh off the T forty second approach, twenty sixth around the green, ninth,
he's fourth in stross game total. I mean that's obviously, when you combine everything and look at great numbers, very impressive. I mean you're up there with guys like Scotti and Xander and Rory when you're landing fourth. So I feel like, as I'm looking at who's going to be the next rant quote unquote random player to make a run of the US Open at Pinehurst, considering it's happened every time we've gone to Pinehurst, number two, I think my guy is Alex Nornah.
Yeah, he's played unbelievable golf. I think I meant to do this at the top. But here's a little bit of the championship history of Pineers. Number two for those that aren't. You touched on it a little bit. So you have twenty fourteen, most recently Martin Kaimer wins at minus nine, Fowler and Compton are at minus one, and then you have Keegan, Jason Day, DJ Brooks and Henrik Stenson at plus one. So big lift separations.
Andy Brooks just sneaking in there, man, just total.
That was like the first big big Brooks moment.
So crazy. It's like these little moments, like a little bit what you talked on, you touched on with Xander at Aaron Hills. It's these little moments when you're a nope, quote unquote nobody in golf and you just have this moment at this stage and you go, Okay, I can contend here, and then you know three years later you want to us opened very interesting.
Two thousand and five, Michael Campbell wins at even, Tiger is at plus two, Tim Clark's Orgio and Mark Hensby. If you if you didn't go Tim Harron, you could have gone Mark Hensby there. I guess Tim Harron was ninety nine ninety nine.
He was he was a little bit more in the hunt through three rounds.
But yes, yes, Hensby at plus five and then ninety nine. Payne Stewart wins obviously a historic major at minus one, Michelson's at even and VJ and Tiger are at plus one. I think the next scores were plus five. I think one of the things you see with with Pinehurst is it does through three of these and we'll see what happens. It does really allow people to lift and separate.
Yep.
I think it's just the challenge of of I mean, just the challenge of approaching these greens, I think is what creates that lift in separation. All right, let's take a quick break to talk about our part partner Echo. The latest from Echo Golf is the LT one. It's sneakers style, modern design. It's really good looking shoe, you know. I think one of the things I appreciate about Echo is obviously the comfort, and they've got some good style,
but they are always uh innovating and pushing forward. And the LT one features an L Y t R foam that is an advanced bounce and rebound material embedded in the soul. It makes a cloud like comfort and walking eighteen has never felt better. I'm really pumped. I'm getting my lt ones down in Pinehurst. I've been wearing the evrs, which has been a great shoe. It's awesome. Uh and they're super durable and they last a long time. But
I would go check out the lt one. They have laced and boa options are obviously waterproof, and check them out at Echo dot com. Golf.
My next thing, my fourth thing, if you will, will somebody finish? Will somebody finish? Under par? I mean I wrote down similar things to what you just said. Twenty fourteen, three guys finished under par. Nobody finished under par. Ninety nine one guy finished under par. In the three US Opens headed into twenty four we've had exactly one player better one under par at a US Open at Pinehurst number two. So I just you know, we talked so much about these US Opens, like what do we want
them to be? Do we want them to be tough? Do we want them to be brutal? Do you want guys to go out there and still be able to make birdies? This place feels like a golf course that you're just not going to see people touch double digit under par unless you're absolute lap in the field like we saw with Kaimer, right. And so my question to you is, and I talked to some people over the last couple of days preparing for the podcast that either live in Pinehurst or work you know, for the USJA
and around the US Open. They're saying conditions are where they want them to be. It is firm, you know, it is fast, it is tough. It's gonna be tough again like they're expecting it to be. I don't think they've had a ton of rainy andy in the area over the last couple of weeks, which I know they want. They wanted to be relatively browned out. So it feels like we're setting ourselves up for another US Open where if you go out and make a whole bunch of pars,
you're gonna be in the hunt. Do you see the same thing?
Yeah, I just think this this parlays into my kind of golf course thing. I think it's just it's just a brutally tough place to play golf. There are certain golf courses that are just naturally hard, and this is one of them. I don't know if naturally is the right word, since since the greens are propped up and artificially hard. I guess, and this intentionally difficult, but I think this golf course is just it's just so difficult
to get comfortable on it. And I did a podcast with Garrett where we talked about this a lot right before this one. But every t shot seemingly plays a little bit on a diagonal, which means you have to pick line and distance off the tee. That's an uncomfortable, uncomfortable way to play golf. It's a huge juxtaposition from our last major championship host Valhalla, which is just bombs away you have to and then when you're approaching the green,
I think, what's the unique thing? The targets are just so small and with the way modern golf, this is what I'm excited to watch. Like one of my five things is just like modern golf has this theory of like you gotta aim five yards right, like you just always aim away from it. It's not modern golf, it's you know, golf with a brain. People have been doing this for years. But the idea of hey that pins tucked left, you need to aim five yards right and
be happy with the disper dispersion. I think that worked really well. When there's rough catching the ball at Pinehurst, the ball rolls away because of the edges, and the edges of the greens are all crowned or predominantly all crowned, and then you have short grass that kind of sends the ball further away. I think that like just generally disrupts the formulaic nature of this strategy that people deploy.
It's based off of a large sampling of PGA tour courses where the ball stops, there's rough around the greens, and the ball stops they aren't, you know, crown greens where the ball rolls away. So the idea of aiming away here I think is a little bit less advantageous because the ball rolls away here, and I think what's going to have to happen. Players have to take on
a little bit more risk. And I'm not saying like they need to go fire at every flag, but the targets are so small here that you have to take You have to do things that you don't want to do with a with a somewhat regular occurrence. That's the way I feel when you play here is when you play tentatively, it really really choose you up like I you know it is. It is. If you're not playing committed golf and really confident with your your golf swing,
you you don't have much of a chance here. I don't know how you feel about it.
Yeah, I mean I think you're spot on. I mean, you know, I played it last year, I've played it a few times. It's one of my favorite courses to play because of how much you've got to be thinking all the time. And also to your point, it's a lot of step up and hit a golf shot, which I think major championship golf should be. I think there should be a lot less we can bail out here.
We have to hit the golf shot on this at this spot, at this time, and if I don't pull the golf shot off, I've got to hit an unbelievable shot just to say par right. I feel like Pianeer's number two is an easy place to get to three and four over, and it's a super hard place to get back to even right. There's not a whole bunch of birdies out on this golf course. The par fives are difficult, the short par fours are difficult. And you said it, I mean even with the sand wedge in
a labuche. I remember last year, you know, I was playing with some very good players, you know, played with a buddy of mine that played mini toward golf and Joel Kladd, who's you know, a scratch golfer, and you know, you're four and five holes into it explaining to them that there's not really any place to bail right. I mean, you can maybe hit it fifteen feet away from if the pin's left in those trouble you could maybe hit it fifteen feet to the bigger side of the green.
That's kind of it. And if you do bail out, the pitch shot, the chip shot, whatever you're picking from that point forward is going to have to be extremely creative. Like going back to Joel last year, Joel plays at a course in southern California where it does have runoff areas. He hits a lot of like bump and run five irons there when he's playing golf. He hit that shot to perfection around Pinehurs number two. So there is an
open championship element around the greens. But when I'm looking at people and I've got some names on my list, we'll get two of my five things but when I I'm looking at these level of players, Yes, you've got to be a great iron player, but the creativity with your hands has got to be there, and there are there are gonna be a lot of golf shots you don't see even at true in my opinion, you'll see players trying to play at the US Open.
Yeah, I think you hit on something. Also when you brought up ZB is that I don't think you necessarily have to. I think power is always a huge advantage, right, Like it's like I'm going to turn down being a long hitter at any golf course. I'm good, Yeah, I you know what, I prefer to hit it to ad.
I don't need those twenty yards. It's fine, just keep those.
Things forty forty yards. But one of the things that Pine Nurse does is it chokes at three hundred yards like almost every hole. So I that's That's the other thing is that how how much risk are our player is going to take on? Are we going to see a lot of drivers out here? I think the games the game's changed a ton since twenty fourteen, ten years ago. I mean it's changed a lot. So are we going to see a ton of drivers like the number of players that hit it over three hundred yards, it's I mean,
it's it's a multiple of twenty fourteen. So my my question, one of my questions with the golf course is at too, is how much of a driver test is it still? You know, and and with it especially going forward the way they kind of and I want to be clear, they did renovation and this was one of Mike Davis' input was we wanted this to choke in with bunkers
and native at three hundred yards. So you know, while it doesn't present like your your US Open venue where the USGA narrowed fairways like because you see the rough come in here, they did it very they concealed it very well with native, it does choke. It gets very narrow at three hundred yards on almost every hole. So it'll be interesting to see where where, how that how that has like just like an overall holistic effect on
how many drivers are we seeing. I think it's important for a golf course to allow players to hit driver because you want to examine the driver test. It's not what it used to be with in terms of driver forgiveness has gotten so good that like hitting a driver isn't. I don't think the greatest skill challenge like it used to be in the nineteen eighties. Maybe, but it's still I think an important recipe of a championship golf course.
And and if it if it gets a point of like these guys are, you know, are hitting four or five drivers around, I think you need to start to look at like, what what are we doing with some of these narrowing areas and are we limiting the the interest in the in the in the golf course by doing that so.
So that that actually that actually leads right in andy to I have. You know, we did five things. I did a couple of golf course things and a couple scoring things and.
Knocking him out here quick. I think we're both down to three.
This is I got three left and this is one of my big things. And I think I said this before the year started. This was my pick to win this US Open. It feels like it's cam Smith time this week. No better venue for him in terms of a major championship. In my opinion, I feel like there are places that make sense when you look at cam Smith as a pro golfer, When you look at cam Smith as a top ten golfer in the world, the Old Course obviously being one of them. You don't have
to drive a golf ball super well. Augusta National and another five top tens, and his last seven starts at the Masters. And I think Pinehurst is absolutely perfect for Cam. You mentioned the driving of the golf ball. He is not a great driver of the golf ball. He won't have to hit as many drivers as he typically does, I think at most major venues. And I think, like,
I don't know Cam Smith. I've talked to him a couple of times in my life, but I feel like Cam Smith is one of those players that gets more interested when the golf course gets him interested, right when they ask the questions that Cam wants to answer. This feels like a place like that where you've got to pitch the golf all exceptionally well. He's one of the best in the world at that. There are crazy bunker shots you're gonna have to hit. He's unbelievable like that.
And and you know this, if you pick Pinehurs number two up and said it anywhere in the world, I think it would make the most sense for it to be in the sand belt of Australia. So for me, I'm looking at cam Smith as not just my pick, but a serious favorite to top five, top ten, whatever you want to do, because again, I feel like this golf course doesn't set up well for a lot of players. I think it sets up very very well for Cam Smith, and he's sneaky played pretty good in the majors over
the last couple of years. I mean, after the Open Championship win, I think we all kind of saw him go to Live and go is this guy gonna show up and play golf anymore? He's played pretty good in the majors, especially at some of the courses I mentioned. So I feel like cam Smith is a heavy name to think about this week.
Yeah, I think he's played. He's he's played Okay. I don't think we've seen him really in the mix in anything like where it's like he's gonna win, but he I think he's played. He's played decent this the last couple of months on Live. I it's hard to judge. I think like John Rom's like a great example of like it's really hard to judge what's going on on LIV. Like for world class players, I think it's pretty easy to career top tens there, but it's very difficult to
understand what the the state of their game is. I think, like obviously, I think every golf course in the world is is a good setup for him. Scotty Scheffler is one that you know, this golf course might be might be the Uh.
We'll get Andy. We'll get to that in a minute. I got on my list as well, and my last thing is Scotty specific, so we'll get we'll get to mister. But real quick just just just want to just want to touch on came real quick wins the twenty twenty two Open. Hasn't missed a cutting a major since the win. Finished fourth of the US Open last year, t ninth of the PG last year, and T six that Augusta
this year. So he hasn't necessarily been in contention at these major championships, but he's played good enough golf to you know, find himself in the top ten comes Sunday evening.
Yeah, and when he's going, I think like a great approach player too, So I think that's the other aspect, Like I think if you everything from te after the t shot into the green, he's a top five player in the world, and I think that's super important at Pinehurst number two. Yeah, I've got I'll go with another live player. I've got two live players. On to my next things. I'll go with John ram here. He signed
the live deal obviously in the Winner. I think he anticipated it being a short window of him playing live golf.
I think he thought, Andy, you you know, like on a much lower level, I was listening to you guys at the Shotguns start talking about the framework agreement or whatever they call it, being a year ago. You know, I remember there were talks and we might have done this offline as much as we did online. But when Rom signed the live deal, Remember when you guys were talking, You're like, I think he's expecting to be and why
in playing in this thing? Like That's how quickly I think John Rohm thought that that stuff was going to be hided out.
And I, you know, listen like he's got the This is the worst start to a major championship season of his entire career, dating back to when he was an amateur and when t at the Master's miscut at the PGA. And this is a small sample size. I just don't think it's possible for anybody to take a big bag of money like that and not get a little.
Soft I would agree wholeheartedly. I mean, I think it's it's it's extremely hard to be pressing, and I think one of the hardest things. We've talked a lot about this with Live. I think this is no not to live the product, but I think it's hard to find form in the way they go about their business. It's it's sporadic and it's scheduling. It's kind of all over the place worldwide. Playing as much golf as you typically do, there's only ten or twelve guys that you think you
really should be contending and competing with. That's not the feel you're gonna get. PJ Tour weeks week tw week. Andy, look at the two guys that have beat Scotti Scheffler this season on the PGA Tour. These are not top twenty guys in the world. These are relatively random PGA Tour players that found their game that week and were able to beat, not just contend with beat the best
golfer in the world. That's the difference, in my opinion, in PGA Tour golf, even signature event golf, and Live right now is there is still the sixtieth seventieth guy in the field that can beat the number one guy in the world on any given week at a PJ Tour event.
Yeah, it's like the bottom fifteen on LIV aren't gonna beat John Rahm. No with I mean it might be like a sporadic once every thirty times might beat them, but not like have a chance to beat like and they beat him in the sense that John rom plays bad and finishes fifteenth and they finish fourteenth, Right, I think like I think, I think there's an adjustment period, and I I think you can play and we've seen
people play good major championship golf from Live. I think the important caveat here is there's an adjustment period they like you have to like. John Rahm is to me seems like a very much a creature of habit, like he likes the way way things are like and this is the way things are, this is the way I do things. Him going to Live has completely disrupted the
way he prepares for major championship. He talked about it a little bit like I'm playing less golf like, and I think he's at this place where he probably like if he didn't if if if he went to live on his own recon it didn't take whatever, hundreds of millions of dollars to go there. I think we'd hear like this is just you know, you'd probably hear a very candidate on Rahm being like, this is not working for me. I think I need to do this. I
need to do this. I wonder how much how much practice and prep he he had in his life before maybe the Masters outside of playing these you know, three round events like listen, like John Rohm's a level of player. He's a generational talent in a in a fifty person field that's got a very weak bottom of the field. You can roll out of bed and finish in the top ten when you're this talented.
Yep.
So I think like there's like this smoke of like, oh, he hasn't won, but he's been, you know, top ten in every event on LIV. That's not an accomplishment for this guy. And I'm sorry that I'm holding him to a higher standard. But after last year's Masters win and near missed you at the Open Championship contended, you know, at the Open Championship T two the year year before, he finishes top ten in every major. Two years ago, he finishes top ten in every major contended and a
bunch of them. This is like, is this guy going to get to six or seven? He's in his like late twenties at this point. This is the time, This is the time, this is his this was supposed to be this when you look at his career when you zoom out, this is one of his five or six years of the meat of his career, and he's off to the worst major championship start of his career. Now, could things turn around? Could he win this week? Absolutely?
But like you know, when we zoom out, when we look at like, I'm sure this thing's gonna get resolved
and we're gonna have people playing back together. Maybe probably not next year, Maybe it's the next year when we zoom out fifteen years from now, at John Rahm's career, if if, if the major championships don't kind of turn around this year, I think John Rahm will have a you know, he's never gonna regret the three four hundred million that's in his bank account, but he will have a regret of you know what, I wasted one of
my prime years of my career. So I think that's like to me, like in terms of like player interest, storyline, John Rahm is number one for me, Like interesting it is it is put up or shut up time for him, and like if he if he has another lackluster or performance, I just like don't know how you don't look at like, Okay, you're You're just not the same you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, You're not the same guy right now.
I mean, Andy, you and I are both big sports fans. I mean, you know, golf has never dealt with this before, but almost every other sport does. Is guys get traded or demand trades in the prime of their career, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. And there are plenty of players that we can circle and go, Man, if Griffy hadn't gone to the Reds, like what would have happened in Seattle? You know what I mean?
Yeah, if the thunder stay stuck together, you know, yeah, if.
They don't, If they don't, if they don't short James Harden four million bucks and they keep that core three together, are they the dynasty that Golden State turned into? Like there are swinging door moments in every team sport across the board for decades and decades, and golf never had to deal with this because golf didn't have anywhere players could get traded to. But I think your point is
extremely valid on John Rahm. Obviously, this is a guy that is extremely competitive across the board, and it feels like right now maybe he's not getting that competitiveness he hoped to get at live. And again, like you said, things could flip right now. But I think of all the people like Bryson to me is benefited from Live Golf a little less exposure. We can kind of get to pick and choose your spons You get to lean into social media and do a great job with YouTube.
That's a great place. It's it's not live, it's edited. You know, all those things I think play into Bryson's hands. Right Live seems to work well for Bryson and Schambeau. It might not be working well for John Rohm. You know, both things can be true. So it's gonna be very very interested this week if John Ram has a bad US Open at Pineher's number two at a place where short game is the premium, premium thing that you've got to lean on, and John Ram has one of the
best short games in the world. Then you're going to really start to wonder who's this guy gonna be because, like you said, you go a full season, he turns thirty in November. Andy, you know, like right now thirty is getting older. Off on the men's side, right we're getting where this thing's get younger by the year. He's gonna turn thirty and then all of a sudden, he's
gonna be thirty two. And if he's sitting on one major championship at thirty two, this is going to be a moment he's going to look back on and go, was this a decision that may or may not have disrupted my career? Now? Easier to do that when you got three hundred mil in the bank. But you know, I mean when you're looking at a guy that's thinking about trophies and you know, wants to be one of the best of his generation, he's got to kind of start to step it up. Now.
I mean, I think, like John Rahm's had a great career to date and everything, but this is where that age debate is that like age isn't talked about enough with young players in the sport. John Ram was a really old rookie on the PGA Tour. Like I mean it was like late twenty three twenty four when he would like really burst on the scene. You think about what what player like Rory Macelelroy did before twenty four, you know what I even like, I always think like
Joaquin Neeman's a great example. Joaquin Nemans still like only twenty four. He's been he's been out there forever. It's like we and I think, like this is this is a part of like you know, I'm not gonna this is not besmirching Ludwig at all. I think I've been super impressed. But Ludvig's twenty four. He's an old old young player, right, And I think like age needs to
be especially with golf. It wasn't as important when it took people a long time to figure out like oh the courses, how to play the courses, and everything wasn't as dialed in as it is now where it's it's never been easier to be a young player on tour
with the data and track man and everything. But like, age is always an important thing to consider because I do I we're gonna see we're we're seeing less and less players, Like I mean, forty used to be like you're still a favorite, and forty is like I can't believe this guy's forty. Like look at like Adam Scott and Justin Rose Jason Jason Jason Day is an old old man and that used to be like kind of like a normal age to be on the PGA Tour.
So I think it's just an important thing to note with these players were and I think like PGA Tour you has created this like very big incentive for the top players to stick around with that card. But at the same time, you know, like these guys are getting out there at twenty three when I think a lot
of them could be out there when they're nineteen. They're they're that level of talent, right like I you're seeing it now with these sixteen year olds that are coming on and like firston on the scene and like making cuts at sixteen, Like we remember like special special players like Tiger playing the Riviera, he didn't make the cut like these kids now like they're more equipped, they're better than ever. And and like you said with rom like I mean listen, like he's gonna be thirty, Like this
is not He's not a spring chicken. He feels young because he hasn't been around that long because of how old of a rookie he.
Was, right, Yeah, yeah. By the way, I think I said he had one major, obviously he's got two. Yeah, I mean, you know, Andy, I was. It's funny. I was listening to I was listening to this Kobe Bryant interview last night with Big kat in a Ron. I think it was like years ago for pardon my take or something. I mean, I think it was maybe twenty seventeen or twenty the biggest one life.
Well, I've been you know, I ran into I ran into a former major champion that.
Looks like my hole in one jar from back in the day.
I ran into a former major champion, a tennis player, and he was toting around this monster jug. I've always wanted a monster jug of water, yeah, said something. And he's like, this is this is the way, this is the way you hydrate.
Just so people listening and aren't watching. And he's got like a sixty ounce Mason jar that he's drinking water out of with no eyes.
It's been super effective for me, Like I just I've been I feel more hydrated than I've ever.
Been so no Stanley sponsorship for the Fried Egg, but if the Mason Jars want to sponsor.
The works for a ball corporation.
To listen. I was listening to this Kobe interview and they were talking about Kobe's decision to turn pro out of high school, and he was talking about how he felt like he had the skill set to play professional basketball. But what he said was there were so many players in the NBA that were getting later in their careers that he said, I want to watch them. I want to play against them, and I want to learn from
them on the court. And I think your point about staying around in college or maybe not turning pro to your twenty three or twenty four. If you turn pro at eighteen and you've got the skill set to be able to stick around and keep your card, you're going to be watching your quote unquote professional peers. You're gonna watch Scott, You're gonna watch Rory, You're gonna watch Joaquin.
You're gonna watch that crew of players, and you're gonna be able to pick up things that they do, the way they practice, the way they go about their business. Maybe your game isn't great for two years, but the stuff you're going to learn in those two years is going to be massively important for when you start to feel comfortable in those moments. So yeah, I think it's
a really interesting thing about PJ Tour. You does a great job of incentivizing players to stay till their seniors because you could get a PGA Tour card or you can get a ton of starts on the corn Ferry Tour, which is huge for these players. But if you're a generational level player, maybe Michael thorpe Jornsen, you know, when he's not injured, is generational loot big maybe generational right,
you know, John Rohm, potentially generational type of player. Maybe there is a level of thinking about turning pro a little bit earlier so you could get those reps alongside the piers you're going to be competing again against the next four or five years.
All right, let's take a break for our other partner. As Shanon alluded to, we are both partners with Goodwalk Coffee. We love Goodwalk Coffee so much that we decided to partner up and create a joint brand. So we have a couple of blends with good good Walk. We have the frieda Egg Golf blend that's on the lighter side. That's my preference. I really love this coffee. If you're a darker coffee drinker. We have the Shotgun Start blend, So if you use the code frieda Egg at checkout
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of them. That's Goodwalkcoffee dot com slash Frida Egg. I think the PGA Tour system was a little bit more accessible, and I I think the idea of like, like you finish a college like if you're a college athlete, like think about this, like if you're a college golfer and I'm a sophomore, finished my sophomore year and I'm thinking about turn pro and it's like, well, like sixty percent of the corn Ferry schedule is done. I'm not getting
a card that way the PGA Tour. The only way I'm getting up there is if I finished top five in Q school in this one tournament against a lot of great players, or or through corn Ferry, which is which is basically like it's a crapshoot for me to get into that top thirty that and with that few starts like the whole system, and like I mean, this is like a dynamic with the sport that that I
believe is holding some young players back. Is that like it is unlike any other sport where the college golf schedule ends in the middle of the professional golf schedule, Like no other sport works this way, right like a college football in the NFL end roughly at the same time, and the off season's a line the NBA, like college baseball doesn't just extend through the summer, it ends in the spring, and its like I guess college baseball might be the only comp right where your season ends and
it's the middle of the MLB season, so there's the comp. But you're being drafted into a farm system for a team and you join, like, I think this is like it's really a broken And we saw before PGA Tour you adapted their rules. I can't believe we're talking about this.
I mean, yes, we'll move past it when you're done.
But before PGA Tour adapted their rules that you adapted the rules, we were seeing an influx of players like Davis Riley, will Z l Torres term pro in the middle of the winter, basically at the end of the
fall season. They were leaving there. And it was it was smart move because it's like I align my schedule with that year, and I think, like, listen, like, I think it's a great change of like, but I think that PGA Tour you should be like, hey, if Jackson Coyven was the best player in college golf this year, he should get a exactly. He should. He should get his PGA Tour card, right, Like, I think that's the way it should work. That it's kind of silly to me that you have to be a senior to cash in.
I mean, I think the point of that is incentivizing guys to stick around. But yeah, I think about it, right.
Yeah, if you're ready to go, go, you're ready to go cash in on your career. We see it all over the place, like what if Jordan Speed had stayed till he was senior, would he have one major?
Andy. I was talking to Austin Greeser on the phone the other day, obviously turned pro this week at the corn Firy event. I thought he sounds set something really interested to me. I was talking about preparing for the corn Faery and professional golf, and he said, the interesting thing is college golf courses in college setups are tougher
than the corn Ferry Tour. So he said, I roll into the corn Faery Tour and it's not very intimidating because I've played so many of these high level amter events. You know, he nearly wins the US Amateur at Oakmont, he plays in the Masters, like he's checked all these boxes at tough places. You show up to the KFT and you're not that intimidated. But again, it's such a
short season. You have that you've got to play excellent, excellent golf in a four month run with the most pressure in your life to get your card, or you're kind of figuring out what you're gonna do the next year. It's not great, but yeah, we're talking to us open, so let's move on.
All right.
I got something for you, Andy, go for it. It's a point you made on the pod. I think it was on Shotgun Start. Maybe Brandon made it, but I thought it was a great point, and I was thinking think a lot about it the last couple of weeks. I cannot believe you're drinking out of that charge Jesus. I mean, you could put like daffodils in that thing. You could put a lot of a lot of flowers in your Mason jar.
Try it out, Try it out.
I don't know how. I don't even know if Amazon will ship that big of a jug. So talking about Rory in Major Championships a few weeks ago on the Shotgun Start, and I thought you and Brenda made a great point. You said it feels like Rory used to play the easy venues the best. You think about his wins soft Congressional Valhalla, Kiowa, like very soft and scorable. You know, he blows the field away in a lot of those places, And now it feels like he plays
the harder golf courses better. And I thought it was a stude. I thought it was absolutely accurate when you kind of look at the way Rory has played and Rory's contended and major championship golf. I also think about Rory at Pioneer's number two, and I think we love to gloss and glow about Rory's driving. I think maybe the most underrated thing in golf right now is Rory mclory's ability to pitch the golf ball. You think about
how many pitches he has around the greens. I mean, he can hit it low with spin, he hits it high, he holds out a lot. He's a very very underrated bunker player as well. I think this sneaky plays well into Rory's game. It's tough, It's gonna be tough, even par Is gonna be a great score, and you've got to be creative around greens. And I feel like we don't give. We don't give Rory the flowers we should
in terms of pitching and chipping. And I feel like he's gonna showcase that this week at Pioneers number two. And listen, I'm not gonna pick Rory. I mean, I think I've kind of done that for the last decade and I'm a little tired of picking him. But I will say, I think he's gonna get you. That's fine. I hope he does. Man, I hope he comes up and just and just and just buzzes me in the
back with the victory. But I feel like this is a place that if he can drive the golf ball at a Rory average level or above, I think he's got an incredible advantage in a place like this, considering the mix of power off the tee and touching finesse around the greens.
I think something else that I think, like, obviously, the proach play is kind of the the the delta for Rory, right and when his approach plays cut, I honestly think this this golf course might expose some people that we think are great approach play players that are kind of just like I hit it here, and the golf course never punishment punishes me.
Can you give me an example of that.
I don't really. I just think there's probably like a lot of players, Like I think Rory probably gets a little over aggressive for a weekend week out player with his approach targets. But I think here that aggression might pay off because it's so punishing everywhere around the greens. Does that make sense?
Yeah? Yeah, like if if there's a touch flag and you miss it short side, and it's gonna be tough even if you miss it on the fat side of things anyway, So it's.
Just exactly like everything feels short sighted. Yeah, that where I think like his approach play is like kind of like when it's on, it's like, all right, get your popcorn. But here, I think there are gonna be a lot of players that like just like they miss a lot. I mean, I'll never forget Jeff Ogilvie's quote years ago on this podcast of like if you put me in the middle of the fairway with a wedge in my hand on every hole, I'd be happy if I hit
twelve greens. You know, I like, I always I think about that all the time, Like this guy that want of us up and.
Saying this, yeah, wing foot, He's saying that that's crazy.
Yeah. And so when I think about that, I think like there is like an idea of like I don't know, it's not about like how bad you know how, It's more about like how many spectacular approach shots do you hit in a given week, and less about the average, right, because like average, like average are going to get penalized here, And I think that maybe the penalty for being over aggressive here isn't quite as high as Augusta National because there isn't the water, right, Like I'm just thinking about,
like trying to think about the golf course in the I think you can be a little bit more. It feels like a golf course that you shouldn't be aggressive on, but it actually, in turn is a golf course that you might want to be a little bit more aggressive on your approach play because if you're short side yourself versus fat side yourself with some of these pins, it's not a big difference. But at Augusta National, if you short side yourself, you're just dead.
You make a boat yep.
And there's always a good place to miss. I think, like the good place to miss at Pinehurst is is where fifteen handicappers miss it's short of the green. These guys aren't gonna be like I'm I'm gonna play the to short of the green to pitch up like, that's not gonna It might happen if they're in the waist sometimes, but that's not That's not the way professional golf works, which is why this golf course is so playable for a fifteen handicap and so diabolically difficult for the world's
best player. So, I, you know, I agree with that Rory sentiment. I think he's gonna be off everybody's radar this week, Like he's not on my five things to watch. And I think that's because you just like naturally are like, I don't think that's a Rory course. But I you know, so much of this stuff is counterintuitive, all right. I have Bryson on mine.
Nice.
I think he's been kind of like a sneaky maybe the story of golf this year.
I mean, Scott, you still have to say Scott, we still see Scott. You'd have to say Scotty and Nelly above Bryson. But I think Bryson's probably in the top three or four storylines. I agree with you.
We've seen him specialized, like he specializes in that Valhalla wing foot, oak hill, narrow fairway, thick rough type setup. Right that that's where we've seen him play really well. This year Masters was like a revelation like, oh my god, like Bryson's playing well at Augusta and you know, I want to say, like he played really well in round one and it was like it kind of was like leaking oil after round one, but like he had a
really good finish at Augusta. And I think that bryceon Pineer's number two on paper does not set up well for Bryson. This doesn't seem like a place that's going to be super friendly. But like my question is, like are we seeing Bryson like become this like really great
all around player. Have we seen him like he's evolved, And like my question is is this like the third evolution of Bryson to Shamba where he came in as like this really good all around player, transformed into the into the hulk, became this burley boy, this big big boy, this lumbering master of the golf ball that just hit it, you know, far, and became this specialist of this one setup and now has he evolved back into maybe the into the best version of him, the best where he
can hit it long, but he has all the rest of the skills. Like I think this week is a really good barometer of like can Bryson, Like I think Bryson became this specialist, like okay, this type of course, Like, but is Bryson now like any golf course you put him on, you have to consider him a top five to seven favorite, And this week is a big barometer
of that. I I wholeheartedly I've said this before. I wholeheartedly believe that what he's doing on YouTube is making him a better, more well rounded player, playing these like weird formats he played Hickory golf, Like, I think this stuff makes him better. I think like he's playing the one Club Challenge with Sergio. I think, without a doubt this stuff is taking him out of that super analytical this is the way I play golf and showing him other ways in developing his shot making skills.
Still got the six iron linked lab which I just don't love it at this golf.
My bigots everywhere my.
Yeah, I mean maybe my I I feel like this is like the worst golf course for Bryson, I mean, if he needs a cut, I'd be shocked.
So this is this is why I'm super interested, Like what if he if he if he contends here?
This is this is kind of like the the Obviously I'm not comparing to Bryson the Tiger, but I think this may be to your What your point is here is like is this Tiger's Hoylake right where it's like I'm just gonna take driver out of my hands and I'm still gonna beat you guys. Right, It's like I'll just take this thing that once was a big weapon of mine out of my hands, and I'll just hit iron off every tee and I'm still good enough to play and contend against you. It's I think for Bryson
here it's power. Probably not the biggest factor you're going to see at other major venues, right, Obviously not nearly as big a factor as you saw at Valhalla Augusta still leans into power if you could hit a long way and hit it relatively straight. I think Truon, if you beat it in the open course, it probably helps, even though I think Truon might be on the lower
end of those types of golf courses. I just feel like what Bryson does well, I don't know if this place really kind of you know, like highlights those things, and what he does poorly at times I think is important around Pineer's number two. So yeah, I think it's a great point. If he plays well here, it could be Bryson's you know, big moment. If I can contend any place, it doesn't matter.
All right, what's your last one? It's Scotti Scheffler. I knew you were the last one.
Scott.
I knew. I just left him off mine because I knew were going to talk about him. Yeah, yeah, for sure, he's my pick to win. Though I'm picking Scotty, I haven't. I haven't picked him in won and done, I somehow talked myself out of the Masters. I'm not doing it this time.
So I was thinking about Scotty Scheffler and Pineurs number two because I think you said you touched on earlier, Andy, and I'll get your points on it in a in a second, it feels like legitimately the perfect set up for Scotty Scheffler. If you asked, you know, the USGA to set up a US Open golf course. I was thinking back to twenty fifteen, right, the Jordan Speed run.
So he comes off the Masters, which is a golf course that I think Jordan Speed in modern you know, in modern pro golf understands and plays as well as anybody that plays Augusta. Now Scotty's probably replaced Jordan that in that you know department, But for six seven years it was Jordan' speef in Augusta. What US Open venue does he have after that? Chambers Bay, which is probably the best US Open golf course that Jordan Speif will
ever face. Don't have to drive the golf ball extremely straight, lean heavily on your iron play, and make a lot of eight to twelve foot and he was doing that as good as anybody in the world in twenty fifteen. Right when he goes on to win, then what does Scotty get in the next stop or what is what does Speed get to the next stop in the open road?
Up? Yeah?
Right, I mean super wide kind of plays into Jordan's hands. He's a shot out of the playoff, nearly wins three in a row. I feel like this lineup for Scotty.
Val Healla, like Valhalla might have been the worst set up possible.
Totally agree, totally agree, like like that part separate driving. Yeah, when you're looking at the US Open venue, I think back to twenty fifteen and Jordan set up extremely well. For Jordan, he had a great run at the major championships then. And I feel like right now, Scotty comes off the win at the Masters, has the weird ass situation at the PGA, and doesn't play well in that third round, and that really was it for Scotty. I mean,
was in contention outside of the third round. And now you're getting to a place that if you're like, all right, man, do you need to drive it? You know, relatively straight and long helps. Sure, Scotty does that. Great. You need to be a great iron player that hitchers with almost every iron you have in your hand Yep, Scotty does that. Oh and by the way, are you a very good picture of the golf ball? Oh? Yeah, I'm one of the best in the world. All right, here's Piner's number
two for you. I feel like, if there's ever a place to put a bed in or talk to your friends about a guy doing what Kimer did in fourteen, it feels like Scotty could win this thing. By six seven eight shots considering the golf course in his skill set.
Yeah, I listen, Like, if there's gonna be one player that I think will separate lift and make this a weekend snoozefest, it's Scotty Scheffler just for all. I think, Like the biggest thing is that I just think he's going to be playing from better positions than everybody else. I think the driver, I mean, we talk about the iron play, We've talked about the short game. I think
a lot. The driver's so good, Like he's not the longest guy out there, And I love how people like point It's like, well, the number one player in the world is like six sixtieth and driving distance, It's like, well, he's still got plenty of gas in the tank. He's hidden it.
He's in the passing thirty past more cal in the final of the match. Yeah, right, Like I mean, you know, I mean this, this guy's got another gear. Yeah.
And and the thing about his driver is he's so accurate. It's the same thing as it's an extension of the iron play. Why the iron I mean, the iron play is extraordinary, but the driver is just an extension of that. Like he's a great long iron player because he he hits it so precise with his long irons. The driver
is such a weapon. It's not going to jump off the page on paper when you look at his number of drive is driving distance number, but the precision of it is just like it is always in the window, right. He just doesn't miss his windows. And I think, like at a golf course like Pineers, like he's just going to give himself more if he's driving the ball decently, He's going to give himself more opportunities to hit irons, which irons are the thing that he does better than
anybody else. And then you know he said the top three pitchers if he misses the green, Like, I just think this is this is a prime Scottie Scheffler week. I I if he if he's got his B game, I have a hard time. I like, you know, if Scotty Scheffler has a C game, what where do you think he finishes?
I mean, I think he contends with a C game. I think he intends at the US Open with a C game.
That's that's the way I feel. I feel like it like it's like a T four if he if he's got a C game.
Oh well, I mean what was it? Was it O five when Tiger was chasing Campbell and it felt like Tiger had a C game in nearly one there, right, I mean it's it kind of feels very similar to Scotty this week. It's like, if he has his best stuff, he's going to Martin Kaymer the field. If he has his C game, he'll have a chance to win. And
I mean that's a scary thing. And I think Andy, everything you said about Rory and aggressiveness with the approach play, I feel like that could all be applied to Scotty, if not applied heavier to Scotty where he can be more aggressive knowing I can miss greens and still get the ball up and down.
I think that's an interesting Scotty is a super conservative player. I think that's like, I think that that would be my one thing where like what's the adjustment period for him to possibly shift his strategy to become a little bit more aggressive. He might be right out of the gate. I think, like, I think that's like probably an underrated thing that people don't talk about. With Scotty and and Ted Scott is those guys seemingly prepare for golf courses
as well, if not better than anybody else. And I think it's easy when you look at like how he hits the ball to say that, but I think their game plan in general, like Scotty doesn't like give away stuff, so I I I think I have some faith like you're saying, like, I think like if it becomes who can who can take on a little bit more risk better than anybody else. Is the guy that hits the best iron boat shots on tour?
Right, yes, yes, I mean and again like Andy, I think and you can correct me here, but the one part of Scotty's game that isn't the best in the world is the putting. And it feels like at Piner's Number two, when you get on these greens in verdiable positions, the putts aren't extremely difficult. I mean, they can still be tough, but it feels like once you find yourself on these difficult greens to hit, that's not the hardest part of the golf course.
I think the thing about Scotty is like it's similar to Zlataurus, where it's like I I'm like terrified if he's ten feet away that if I was putt playing against him, I'm like, I would be terrified anytime he's like seven or I think he's like very good outside of eight feet. Like to me, it seems like he makes a lot of twenty footers, Like just this is anecdotal me watching golf, but it seems like he makes a lot of mid range putts. I think the issue is a little bit on the short, short putting side
of things. But I yeah, I'm not really worried. I think, like the guy, his floor is so insanely high. All right. My last thing, Uh, I think Xander took our best player without a major off the board. I think he was like, by far the best player without a major when I'm when I'm zooming out, So I think like we're back to like who's the best player without a major? You got Ricky eight wins of players he's finished his second in every major except for the PGA, which he's finished third.
And play played played great at Pinehurst when it was your last time.
Nine top fives and thirteen top tens. He's not playing great golf right now, but he played well last year's US Open. You got Victor eight wins, a FedEx Cup title, only three top fives in majors obviously, the three top fives have come in very short order recently. Again, when you talk about young players, like he turned pro before his senior year, so he's a little bit younger than you would think, Like he's not. He wasn't a twenty three year old rookie. So Victor is still young even
though he's been out there for a while now. Patrick can't lay eight wins, only one major top five, twenty ninth.
Star crazy crazy, what was that was that? Twenty nineteen Masters.
Yeah, he's not playing good golf either.
Yeah.
And Max Homa six wins, one major, top five obviously that was this year's Master's nineteen starts not that many starts. Tony fenw six wins, four top fives and majors, ten top tens and thirty two events. Like I kind of like, I think it's like feed or Victor.
It's Victor. For me, it's for sure Victor. I just feel like the play of late in the majors, and I mean I think you know you're forgetting that you're talking about his top fives and the way he's played in the majors. I mean, you forget final group at the Open two years ago, playing alongside Rory like a lot of different experiences in the majors over the last couple of years, and obviously, I mean, you know, going back to mister Mayo seems to have been an incredible
elixir for Victor. So I again, I.
Don't it seems like an odd It might be an odd pairing, it might be an uncomfortable pairing, but it works. That's sometimes how life works.
Sometimes those teammates on basketball teams aren't the most normal of people together, but they work together. I mean, look at Stephen Draymond for goodness sakes, you know, I don't think you'd necessarily pair those guys up personality wise, but they've won a lot of championships together. I don't think this is a great golf course for Victor Hobblin personally, because I'm again, if you're gonna expose a part of the game, you hate that it exposed the part of
your game you struggle with the most. That being said, who the heck knows With Victor. It seems like he came out of nowhere at that PGA championship. So I would say Victor is my easy answer for best player currently without a major championship.
Yeah, I would, I would agree. I think like f now's a sneaky second. I thought about putting like Tommy Fleetwood in there, but there's just not off of a winning resume outside of I think we're at like the stage where it's like, I think Victor nobody deserves a major, right, Like you don't look at anybody, and it's like we're back to the stage where you feel like everybody who who really deserves a major has a major.
Maybe outside of Victor, I would say probably outside of Victory. And you could maybe make that argument for Ricky from back in the day, just because as good as as good as Ricky played back in the day at the majors, you know what I'm saying.
So it's a it's just like we're back, we've normalized again where it's it's there. But all right, Shane, who your pick is? Scotty your pick?
I'm gonna go cam Smith.
Yeah, Scotty, all right, I got I got Scotty. Where do you think the winning score is gonna be?
I think three underwins.
I think I'm gonna go to six.
Wow, Okay, okay, only one person ever at a US Open a pine has got the six hunder to win, so I mean, actually only one person's ever gotten to three hunderd to win, So we're both kind of going off the off the norm over the last few years.
So all right, well this should be a great, great US Open. Look forward to watching it, and uh hopefully you know, people who listen on on Sunday morning will listen to your your final round broadcast at corn Fairy.
Corn Fairy BMW, baby jump in. I think we're on at U maybe like seven pm, five pm something like that Eastern. Just look'll figure it out.
There'll be you know, a few thousand people that will listen to this by then.
There you go.
All right, Thanks Shane, we'll talk to you soon.
No problem, buddy, anytime.
All right. Today's episode was produced and edited by Matt Rusis. Thank you, Matt. A quick reminder sign up for Club T We've got a lot of good stuff cooking for Pinehurst and the US Open. I know that we are putting the finishing touches on a design notebook that's an architect roundtable on Pinehurst number two. So if you're really into golf, if you're really into golf architecture, this memberships. It must we do a lot of fun stuff. We just did a shotgun Start hang out ahead of the
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