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 Frida Egg Frida Egg, Frida egg Egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the gum. Welcome to the Friday Egg Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we are talking about Full Swing. Full Swing is the docuseries on professional golf that just premiered on Netflix and has created a tremendous buzz in
the golf world. Everybody's talking about this, and I would imagine that there are a lot of podcasts in your feed on this very topic. So I hope my guest today and I will be able to introduce some fresh stuff into the conversation. But right off the bat, I just want to say that it's really exciting. I think
that professional golf is getting the Netflix treatment. There's real potential that it will attract new interest in golf and deepen people's appreciation and understanding of the game and some of its characters. And it's just a huge accomplishment that it got made at all. So congratulations to Chad Mumm and Paul Martin and the whole production team there. So with that said, my guest is Megan Schuster, who is
an editor and podcast host for The Ringer. Meghan has covered both golf and Formula one for The Ringer, so I figured she would be an especially insightful guest for this episode because Falsewing is more or less trying to follow the model of Drive to Survive, which was the is the Netflix docu series that has done a lot to popularize F one in America. I've been wanting to have Megan on for a long time. She's one of my favorite voices out there, so really excited to have
this conversation with her. So let's talk about the issue of spoilers and when the best time to listen to this podcast might be. Our intention is to make this episode something you could listen to before or after watching all eight episodes of the full Swing season, but we do talk about specific moments in the series. Now, the traditional notion of spoilers I don't think really applies here, because if you're listening to this podcast, you probably know
basically what happened in professional golf last year. I would be shocked if you didn't know who won the Majors, for instance, and the show is in some part about who won the Majors. Now, there might be some people out there who don't want to know anything about what the Netflix camera's caught behind the scenes, so that's up to you. But basically our goal here was to ride that line between giving a general overview of the show and talking about some of the most interesting specific scenes.
Now for a more in depth take on Full Swing, we at The Friday Egg have actually created a whole separate podcast. It's called Full Swing Thoughts, and it's hosted by Andy Johnson, Brendan Porath, and Joseph Lamania. I haven't listened to every episode yet, but I'm excited to dig
in because those guys are so smart and funny. Now, Full Swing Thoughts, this new show is intended to be consumed after you've seen the series or as you're watching the series, so it's a little more in depth specific and I could imagine that this podcast right here could be one that sort of introduces Full Swing to you and gives you some ideas about our take on it and some discussion around that, and then Full Swing Thoughts
can really get into the nitty gritty for you. You can find full Swing thoughts wherever you get your podcasts, and there's also a link to the feed in the show notes for this episode. Check that out and without further ado, let's go to Megan Shuster. All right, so, Meghan Schuster, do you go by Meg?
I'd go by Meghan, but my social media I signed up for it when I was in high school and it all has Meg on there, So I get called both pretty often at this point in my life and fine with both, but I generally would introduce myself as Megan.
Okay, because I feel like sometimes people see a Meghan and just automatically start calling her Meg, which isn't isn't always wanted. We do have a Meg in the frieda Egg, so happy to keep you as a Megan. So how did you you cover both golf and F one for The Ringer? I know you worked for Grantland I believe as well Rip Rip, so golf and F one? How did you end up covering golf for The Ringer's what's your background in the game.
Yeah, golf was a little bit of a happy accident. The Ringer started in twenty sixteen and we just didn't have a whole lot of peace on staff who either loved golf or had the ability to cover it. We have a lot of golf fans on staff, but most of them are heavy into other sports, other major responsibilities. They didn't really have time to kind of follow it in that way. So I think it was ahead of
maybe the either twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen Masters. They asked me if I was interested in writing about it, and I just kind of jumped into it from there. I've always been a big golf fan horrible golf player, so I always feel like a little bit of a fraud when I talk about golf listen and write about golf, because it's the whole game. Thing does not come naturally to me. But yeah, one of my favorite sports to watch. It has become one of my favorite things to cover. Too.
Cool. And you've also been getting into F one. You sometimes co host or host the Ringer F one show as well, and that's relevant for the current discussion of golf and the Netflix documentary because of course they're sort of trying to follow the F one I Have to Survive model, where there was this very popular F one docu series about the sport, and a lot of people ended up getting into Formula one because they watched that documentary and we're sort of fascinated by it. So did
you get into F one through Drive to Survive? Where you want of? I don't know if there's a name for that, that generation of F one fans, but I'm among them. Are you among them as well?
I am? Yes, it was one of my kind of COVID lockdown shows. I'd had multiple co workers recommend it to me, and it was just something that I never really thought I would enjoy. I've never been a big racing fan before in my life, Like, wasn't an indiecar, Gal, wasn't into Nascar, So I kind of thought it was pointless. And then you know, in the middle of lockdown, we all have to find our comfort somewhere, and so I
turned it on and I got really heavily invested. And then yeah, now Box to Box Films, which is the company that produces Drive to Survive, is now also producing Full Swing, the Golf Show, Point Break the Time a show, and is yeah kind of helping Netflix to get into this sort of sports docuseries territory. But yes, I'm definitely part of I think they just call it the drive to Survive generation. At least that's what I call it.
Nothing more derogatory than that. I have a feeling that, like, I don't know this, but I feel like hardcore F one fans have to somewhat look down their noses at people who got into it through this documentary.
Yes, absolutely, yes, that is the case. Luckily, I think most of our F one audience is well. I actually I can't say that. I don't know where they're all from. I would imagine a lot of them are Americans who probably have gotten into it over the last few years along with the rest of us. But yeah, yeah, I'm sure there are some looking down of the nose at all of us, some.
F one snobs. So what do you think, I mean, just as a way to set up how we're going to assess what full Swing is doing. What do you think may drive to survive? So good?
Yeah, I think it's a combination of a few things. And I think this will cross over a bit with the golf too. I think first and foremost, as far as you know, number of people that you need to know, big names that you need to know. In formula one, I feel like it's fairly accessible in that way. There's only twenty drivers on the grid at any point in time, ten team principles if you feel like you need to
know who the team principles are ten teams. You know, when I try to get my friends into it, I always say that, you know, maximum thirty people, really twenty people, really ten if you want to get into, like the title race of it. So I feel like that alone makes it a pretty effective sport to get into. But as far as drive to survive specifically, I think they did a really good job, at least of the first two seasons of not focusing too heavily on the title race.
Especially in those seasons it was you know, Mercedes by a mile and no one else was really close. So instead of focusing on that, they really let you into the lives of you know, Daniel Ricardo and some other big, big personalities on the grid and made you fall in love with the people behind it rather than the sport itself.
And then as you know, the seasons go along and you start to get a little bit more familiar with it, then they start really introducing kind of the racing and strategy aspect and kind of try to educate you along the way, but just to hook people. I think they really focused on the people behind Formula One, and I think that was ultimately really successful.
And there was a kind of boldness to that strategy, right, because the only Formula One driver that I knew by name before watching Drives to Survive was was Lewis Hamilton. Sure, and Lewis Hamilton did not participate in the first season of Drive to Survive. Mercedes wasn't there. Ferrari wasn't there, right, Ferrari was probably the only other team that I could have named as a Formula One team. I'm like, oh, yeah, for sure, Ferrari has to be one of the teams.
You know, Michael Schumacher drove for that, right, and so you know there's a there's a gutsiness to opening with other characters. But it was also by necessity, right, because they couldn't They didn't have access to these big star drivers, and so they made the most of Daniel Ricardo and good Steiner, and they really made a great season or
two of television out of those characters. And then all of a sudden, Lewis Hamilton, I'm sure, was looking at the success of it and saying, well, crap, now Ricardo is more popular than I am, what's going on here? And had to end up participating, and so the gamble sort of paid off there.
Yeah, Season one for them definitely seemed like a bit of a prove it season. I remember when I started watching Drive to Survive, I actually had messaged the person who recommended it to me and was like, wait, if Lewis Hamilton won this season, why did I not see any of him? Why did he not speak like like,
what's going on here? And he had to actually inform me that, Yeah, like both Mercedes and Ferrari declined to participate and wanted to see basically how it went and whether it was worth them getting involved at all or if it would just kind of be a distraction. And now you know, they're stalwarts on the series every year.
Lewis Hamilton is will be in season five. So yeah, I think from that perspective, it was really interesting and it was kind of a big bet, I think for them to believe that they could cultivate these characters and make people care about the drivers who are farther down the grid, and ultimately, I think, in that way, make f one as a whole more interesting than just caring about the top two teams at any given time, right.
And I think there's a number of other aspects of F one that make it lend itself so well to TV. You know, some of those you mentioned, like there's a limited number of teams and people you have to be familiar with in order to really follow F one. You know, it's just ten teams on the grid, and you've got the two drivers per team, and you've got the team bosses, and that's really all you need to be familiar with.
The races happen, you know, once a week or once every couple of weeks during the F one season, and you can watch them pretty easily, Like it doesn't take that long to follow the races. And so if you're trying to distill this down to a season of television, it's pretty easy. In a lot of ways. Everybody's going for the same goal, which is to win the season long championship or to place high in the season long championship. And you know, there's a simplicity to the F one
season that seems. I mean, it's already structured like a television season right from the get go, you know, and that that had to have made it pretty simple to make Drive to Survive in a lot of ways compared to other sports, especially tennis and golf.
Yeah, I mean, like you say, it's it's very easy to track one specific driver's progression across a full season. They're going to have their highs, They're going to have races where they suck. They're going to have races where they get on the radio with their race engineer, team principle and they're arguing, and you know, you can always blow that up into something which you know is something Drive to Survive has been accused of a little bit as dramatizing Formula One, which I'm sure we can get
into with golf later on. I'm sure there'll be some criticisms there rightly so. And you know, now that I've been watching a few actual full F one seasons, having you know, started with Drive to Survive and now actually watching the races themselves, I feel like I understand and those criticisms, But also for me, I feel like the show and the actual Formula one season almost exist in two separate universes for me, where the show now feels like a reality show and I love watching it For
the drama. I love watching it for the chaos that it causes, where you know, if you're watching the full f one season, you're not just getting those kind of distilled little nuggets, you're getting the week to week picture. So in that perspective, I think it's really interesting. But I love both for you know, both of the things that they offer.
All Right, So let's get into full swing a little bit. It's eight episodes. When we release this podcast, they'll have been out for one day, twenty four hours about and so, you know, just assessing this season of TV as a whole, what do you think were some of the things that it did well?
Yeah, I think it followed the Drive to Survive model in the same way that it really rather than focusing on results across the whole season, rather than focusing on on course performance, it really tried to let you know who some of these guys are from, you know, major stars that people are probably already familiar with, like Justin Thomas down to you know, the rookies, to Joel Damon, to some guys that maybe you know, if you hadn't watched this full PGA Tour season, you didn't really know about.
So I think in that way, it succeeded. Yeah, there are other struggles, but I think that peer kind of distilled character creation, if you want to say it that way, was was really successful for me.
I thought the series did do some good subtle character work in a lot of cases, and one thing that it was particularly good at was when a player was less than likable. The series did a good job of
sort of conveying that without being obvious about it. And so I think the episode that focuses on Ian Poulter, for instance, it shows a lot of Ian Poulter's positive characteristics, you know, his great gift of guess, his ability to describe things and narrate things in a way that not many athletes have, his sense of humor, but it also portrays some of his brattiness and all that kind of stuff. His air of smugness and superiority, like it comes through
really clearly in that show about him. And maybe that's inevitable just because he was being himself more or less, but I thought that the show did a pretty good job of showing that and in some other cases where the characters were like less likable than Tony fenow Right, who is who is maybe the nicest and most likable person on the PGA tour and comes across that way
in the show. They're you know, not everybody is coming across that way in their episodes, And I thought that was good, right, that the show is not trying to promote these guys, that it's trying to show something about who they actually are. Yeah.
I mean, if you don't have a little villainy, I think it all gets to be portrayed as kind of puff pc and like, oh, well, everyone on the PGA Tour is such a great guy. Why wouldn't you want to root for these people? And it just feels more fake if you don't have any of that edge in there.
I feel like with most of the guys, they tried to give you at least a semi three D picture of who they are, you know, with how they interact with their families, how they interact with other professionals on the course, what is going through their minds if they're miked up on the course and you know, in the middle of their round. So I feel like they tried to give you, at least in most cases, a relatively holistic view of who these guys are. So yeah, that was fun.
To see who do you think which player do you think benefits the most image wise from their appearance in this in this docu.
Series, Oh, for sure, Joel Damon. And I think that's for a lot of reasons, Like I feel like, you know, I'm and I think a lot of people are just drawn to like the average everyday golfer who goes out there tries their best. Like it's just very relatable from that perspective about his game and the fact that he will just openly tell you, no, I don't think I have what it takes to be the best in the world. I don't think I have what it takes to be
in a major or win a major, I guess. But I also found sort of his kind of mental struggles very fascinating and very illuminating and that air of vulnerability that I feel like can be really hard to get from professional athletes, and he was just so open and honest about Yeah, like I this is something that I
have to work on. This is something that if I do ultimately want to win consistently on the PGA Tour be one of the top twenty some thirty some golfers, that this is something I need to overcome, and even his caddy's saying like, I don't know if Joel wants to be in the top thirty, Like, I don't think he wants that pressure. I just I always feel like with golf, something I love the most is getting inside
golfers heads. And that episode, I felt like, along with one or two of the other ones, really let you see the inner machinations of how somebody goes out there and tries to do this every week.
I agree Joel's episode was great, and his relationship with Gino Bonneley, his caddy, was really endearing, right, And you know, those guys are very open with each other. They say, I love you a lot, you know, and they you know, it is a kind of marriage, and they have a particular dynamic that is unique to the two of them. I also liked, you know, it's sort of a trope in these series to have the the workout scene. Right everybody, Oh yeah, everybody gets the personal trainer scene. It's in
you know, Drive to Survive in full swing. Just about every episode we see Rory throwing a big medicine ball against a mirror. I don't know exactly how that works, actually, if you're supposed to be.
I was a little concerning. Yeah, it was like, is that gonna break? That seems like a hazard. I yeah, it was very confused by that.
It looked really cool, but it just didn't seem all that functional. But Joel Damon's personal trainer scene was a hilarious It was almost like a parody of one of these personal trainer scenes in a sports documentary because he was just like, you know, like cause like I don't want to do this, can you? Can you please give me some things that make me look like I'm not a complete goober and just sort of suffering and hating it. And I just loved it, like it was it was really real.
Well, and his pregnant wife being in there with him, basically talking trash to him and saying that like she was doing a better job than he was, and she was right, she is, she wasn't lying. It was just really incredible television.
Yeah, that was great. So another player that I think oddly will sort of benefit from his appearance in this series, you know, and oddly because he is not really the subject of one of these episodes, was Joking Neeman, who appears most in Meto Perera's episode or Meto Prera's segment of his episode, Woking Neeman has gone to live right he is now on the live Golf tour. The series doesn't really touch on that. It shows him as sort of Meto Pereira's friend, and you know, in a weird way,
like he's not in the series very much. But it showed me something different about Woking Neeman, who I've sort of regarded as kind of a buttoned up, very organized, with drawn for the most part, very talented young golfer. But in his appearances in these scenes with Mito Pereira, he kind of like had a little bucket hat on and he was sort of being the funny guy, like
the party guy, and he's really skinny and little. I got a new perception of him as the guy in the friend group who's sort of the jester, and that to me made him charming. It's very much a sidebar in the series, but some of these players, some players sort of appear here and there and don't really become the subject of an episode, and some of those appearances would seem to be beneficial to them.
I guess, yeah, I'm with you. I think Joaquin did come across very charming. I also thought it was very sweet seeing how he kind of supported Meto when he started doing better than expected during the PGA Championship, and how he was, you know, trying to give him some advice, trying to help him stay relatively calm and locked in, and even how he was walking alongside you know, Mito's wife and trying to give her some perspective on holes.
And you know, on the eighteenth when he has his meltdown, Joaquin is there behind the green talking to his wife saying, oh, you know, this isn't actually for par this is for Birdie, and you know, just just like trying to support them
through it. I thought it was sweet, and it's sweet to see, like, you know, the kind of the genuine friendships I guess that form on tour because we're exposed a lot to you know, the Justin Thomas, Jordan Speth, Ricky Fowler triad and and that's all well and good, but there are so many other relationships out there that are really important and I liked seeing that a lot.
Yeah, the guys from South and Central America on tour are really tight with each other, and we don't get much of a portrayal in that in mainstream golf media, be partially because of the language barrier, but this, you know, the Netflix series was able to break through that a little bit and speak to Meadow's wife, whom Meto describes as little but charming, which I thought was hilarious. She's little, but she's charming, Like those are.
Two mutual ELI things. Yeah, like, oh, she's short, so very funny.
Person, but she's actually quite charming.
I guess Mito is pretty tall as far as golfers are concerned, so maybe that's what he's referring to as their height difference. I don't know, but yeah, that was very interesting.
So any players in your opinion who did not come off well?
Yeah? I I don't know if I feel like he didn't come off well or just we didn't really see any kind of real personality with him. And that was Colin Morikawa. For me, I felt like, you know, you know, it doesn't help when you're in an episode alongside Tony Fein now, who is the most personable golfer on the PGA tour, and you see him as you know, such
a family man. He has his whole you know, group of kids following him around on tour he's there, you know, supporting his wifeless she's going through the death of her father, and you know, no one is going to come out looking like, you know, an angel next to that. But he just didn't seem like he had very much to offer. Like really, what we saw from him was you know, kind of him and his dog on his jet, which was fine, and then his meeting with Adida's overclose, which
like it was like a totally fine thing. What he did when he was kind of trying to pick out his outfits, like you want to look nice when this is what you do for a living, but when that is sort of your portrayal up against Tony Finow, it just didn't come across really great to me. It didn't change my opinion of him, I don't think, but it also didn't make my opinion of him better.
I really wonder about Marikawa's segment and whether some of the unlikability that comes across was intentional on the part of the makers of that that show, because you know, I don't think that Colin Morikawa is necessarily known as a as somebody who's hard to deal with. I think he's maybe regarded by people in the media as being a little bit dull and guarded and very managed. But you know, there are not that many scenes of Markawa.
First of all, he plays no role in the drama of that episode, right because he he doesn't really do itthing in a tournament. He just kind of shows up to the Open, which he won the year before and delivers back the trophy. That's the most we really get from him. But then the other scenes of him are on his private jet, as you mentioned, complaining about one
of his gloves that doesn't fit. Yes, yes, and in that Adidas meeting, which, as you say, like it's valid for him to give feedback on the clothes that he's going to wear. He wants to be comfortable. That's what the meeting is for. But that scene was so awkward because you have this Adidas guy who's just like using all this corporate speak and kind of like, you know, so is It just seems awkward and that's what we get of Colin Morikawa.
It did have me questioning kind of what was left on the cutting room floor as far as Morikawa goes, like whether it was just that they didn't end up getting much time with him, so they needed to use what they had or like you're saying, whether it was more of an intentional choice where they did get more time with him and that is what they decided that
they wanted to have come a in the show. And I don't know the answer to that, but that was one of my kind of bigger personality related questions coming away, was like, is that really was at the end game? And you know, these people are so good at what they do that it does kind of make me think that that was the direction they wanted it to go. But yeah, I'll be curious once people have watched it to see what their overall reaction is, because yeah, I was very curious about that.
Did you have a favorite family member?
Ooh, so I think it's a tie for me. Uh, two people. We already talked about. One of them a little bit. Mito Pereira's wife, I think her name is Antonia, was just very sweet to see how stressed out she was for Meto during the PGA Championship. And you know, we don't really see like golf family is on the course and until you know, somebody wins and then we see the big happy reaction and how you know, sweet it is and how excited everyone is and this was
really the opposite of that. This is what was her watching her husband melt down in real time, and it was almost painful, Like I had to pausit at one point and just take a deep breath and like, remember that those are not my emotions happening, they're hers. But it was it was tough to see her go from you know, so excited over the Friday and Saturday to so so down and trying to be there for him on Sunday. I thought she was great, and then I also he had relatively limited time. But I found Matt
Fitzpatrick's brother Alex, very funny and very relatable. And you know, Matt Fitzpatrick is someone who can be a little bit sullen or a little bit more reserved, and I don't feel like he shows a ton of personality all the time. But Alex was like the total opposite and totally made up for that, and I felt like he helped show a different side of Matt too, So I liked both of them a lot.
Absolutely. In the Fitzpatrick episode, the contrast with Fitzpatrick that is set up is Dustin Johnson, which makes sense because DJ, in his approach to the game is in many ways the opposite of Fitzpatrick. He's the opposite in terms of physical stature, and you know, there's a rich contract there. But DJ's segment of that episode didn't really come to anything because he simply just didn't do very well in the US Open last year. But when Alex Fitzpatrick shows up and is who he is, sort.
Of this lad, right, yeah, exactly.
You know, he's a bloke and he and he and he shows up in the episode, It's like, this is a great point of contrast with Matt. It kind of shows what Matt's both positive and you know, more challenging qualities are, you know. And I think Fitzpatrick comes across okay in the episode, but on his own he's a little bit hard to relate to until you just realize that he's just a nerd, right, That's that's it. He's
just really into golf. He loves the specifics of it, and he works incredibly hard and has gotten a lot better, and all of that is very admirable, but he can be a little bit hard to relate to. I think his brother is the is the bridge there for sure.
I agree that the one thing that I or I guess The other thing that I was excited about you got to see in the Fitzpatrick episode was all of his old notebooks, because that was sort of the talking point around him, you know, coming out of that US Open, was He's written down every golf shot he's ever hit since he was I forget how old, fifteen fourteen And
I was always like, is that real? Like you can say that and that's fine, But seeing all of those notebooks that he still had stored away with his family, I was like, Oh, okay, this really is you. And then when he and Alex were talking on the range and Alex was like, do you actually write down every shot that you hit on the range? Too? And he said yes. I was like, oh, okay, you are. That is just your mindset. This is not for show.
That which is crazy to write down every shot you hit on the range, that's just right. That's kind of another level. I mean a lot of players keep track of every shot they hit on the course, but I'm not sure how many are out there taking notes on
the range. Another shot out for a family member I have to give is sahith Igala's dad, who is just a sort of a ray of light and yeah, and you know, Smith is very likable on his own, but it's kind of clear where he comes from and some of the qualities that he has when you meet his dad. There are talking heads in this series, right There are people who sort of help contextualize things and narrate things that the players themselves are not able to, you know,
sort of explain in an effective way themselves. We have Sean Fully, we have Amanda Renner, we have Dan Rappaport, we have Dyllan's Chair. I think all of them did quite well. Any of those that you thought sort of stood out as ones who might want to return and you know, take on that role again.
Yeah, I mean, I will say all the talking heads have a relatively difficult job in this show because, you know, similar to Formula one, they're trying to explain to the rules about what happens. They often have to go into detail about, you know, what a golf tournament entails all four rounds. I think they had to mention multiple times throughout the show, how the cut line works, and how many players are advancing in the fact that you don't get money if you don't make the cut and all
of that. So it's not easy to be I guess super interesting with this stuff. But I thought Sean Foleyo was was great. I liked his perspective a lot. I felt like he was very personable and maybe this is just more what he got to weigh in on, but I liked his perspective a lot. I also, I always love Amanda Runner, so I was really happy to see her on that. I thought she did a great job.
I hope they gave her like an honorary executive producer credit or something, because she was given the hardest job I think of any of the narrators in this series, and that was to tell us what a cut was, Yeah, what verdies and bogies were. She has often gone to to, you know, do those explainers for new people to the game, and that is such a hard job to do effectively, and you know, she might be the most professional person
in golf media. She pulls it off. She does it with a smile, with good energy and makes it pleasant to listen to, so it's not annoying. Favorite random scene or moment that stands out to you. There are a lot of little micro scenes in this in this series, Are there any that sort of stick in your memory?
There are like five that I think I could call to mind from brooks Kepka's episode alone that is coming
out of the show. Really the episode that I think is going to stick with me and the one that I found most overall illuminating, and the moment that I will remember most, I think is, you know, he just didn't perform very well in a tournament, had some disappointing results, and was coming back to his home in Jupiter and his you know, fiance was showing him some clothes she was going to wear I'm guessing on her bachelorette or you know, something pre wedding, and he's sitting on this
kind of like fluffy oversized swing that they have in their house because professional golfers have swings in their home and that's fine and normal, and he is He's just sitting there, dazed, completely not paying attention, nodding along being like, yeah, sounds great, and you can just see him staring off
into space in his own head. And he kind of explains later, He's like, you know, I am just really in my head about my game right now, Like if I'm not on the course, I'm like thinking about my swing, which seems to be a really new phenomenon for him,
and something he's pretty honest about throughout the episode. But that just seeing you know, this big burly man sitting on this fluffy swing looking at clothes and just like could not be more checked out, is something that will stick with me for quite a while.
And looking haggard, like very haggard. He doesn't look good in his episode. He looks broken down, in pain, tired. The bleached hair doesn't help in a lot of cases. It just kind of looks sad and limp.
It makes it look like a midlife crisis. Honestly, it's really hard. It's a hard episode to watch.
Yeah, I'm laughing about it, but it is actually really sad. It's seeing him in that state. It's hard to see anybody struggling as profoundly as he clearly is in that episode. And to his credit, he's super open, vulnerable, honest about the struggle that he's going through. He says at one point, which this is I found this stunning. I can't compete with these guys on a week to week basis. You never hear a golfer say that much less Brooks Koepka, who his whole persona is, I can beat anyone winning
golf tournaments as easy. That was his whole thing in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Now he's saying, I can't compete with Scotty Scheffler. This, you know, like a character from a fifties sitcom, Scotti Scheffler. I can't compete with that guy. I mean. It's just an astonishing episode overall, I thought. And it's made up of scenes like the ones that you mentioned, which are very, very effective.
Yeah, the vulnerability when he's sitting on his couch with his mom and he is talking again about Scotty and he's saying, you know, Scotty's out there, he's the number one player in the world. Because he's not thinking about his game. He's like, I can virtually guarantee you that he leaves the core and is unbothered by what has happened on the course. And even when he's on the course,
he's not overthinking things. He's processing at his normal speed, normal rate, just going about the motions because it's going so well. And there's like this longing in his voice when he's talking about that, like you know, that's how it used to be for him when he was kind of dominating winning those four majors, and he's like, I'm at the opposite place right now. I'm overthinking everything. I can't calm my mind down. I can't stop thinking about this game when I'm off the course. And that was
like very painful for him to say. And yeah, I really give him a lot of kudos for being as honest about it as he was. And you know how the injuries have affected him in things. And it really was illuminating to me too about his decision to go to live and it seems like that opportunity maybe just came up for him at the right or they got to him at the right time where he isn't competing, he doesn't feel like he has this drive to beat the best players out there anymore on a week to
week basis. Yeah, it felt like a little bit of like a Rosetta stone for me of like, Okay, this is why it kind of Brooks has been doing what he's been doing over this time because he just has this big crisis of confidence.
I'm washed up. I'm offered a big bag of money not only for myself but also for my brother. Yes, and that's you know that that is yeah, that's the story of that episode. They don't spell it out like that, but it's clear what that episode is implying that he knew he was washed and that's why he took the big bag of money and ran. And so yeah, it's a very illuminating a scene that comes to mind for me.
I don't think anybody else is probably going to notice this unless it become It could become a meme, this scene on Twitter. I could see that happening Pat Perez in a random scene. Pat Perez was not a participant in this documentary, but he shows up and I believe the RBC heritage talking to somebody I'm not even sure who might might have been polter. He knows everyone's follower counts on Twitter, on on Instagram, yes, really specifically, he
knows how many people follow Ricky Fowler on Instagram. He knows how many people follow Phil Mickelson on Twitter. He was just pulling these numbers off the top of his head, not looking at his phone. This stuff is in Pat Perez's head. What's with that?
It was late, Like you said, it was amazing. He wasn't like, oh, you know, Ricky's got around thirty million followers. He was like, he's got one hundred and fifty three million, or he's got you know, however many thousand Phil has you know, at one point six eight million follows. I was like, what is he? And like you said, just totally off the cup they started this. I think they were talking about Rickey Fowler maybe and why he's in so many commercials and you know, he has such a
big social media following and he doesn't post. That was another thing that I remembered where he was like, he who doesn't ever pa.
He doesn't even earn it. Yeah.
I was like, how often are you checking Ricky Fowler's Instagram? Buddy?
He must be really up to date? And it was, Uh, that was just so weird and uh and in allow ways, yes, one of us totally. This episode of The Fried Egg Podcast is brought to you by Lumen. Lumen is a skincare brand for men with products that will keep your face clean while helping you reduce the signs of aging. One of the best bundles they offer is the Anti Fatigue Essentials Bundle, which includes Dark Circle Defense, a charcoal cleanser,
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All right, so we have covered a lot of the positives of the series, some of the things that were funny, some of the things that the Netflix crew did well, and there are those things. What do you think were some of the difficulties that this show faced in covering a season of professional golf? What is tricky about the subject that this documentary tried to cover.
I think there are a lot of things. I think, you know, like we've kind of mentioned already, just the sheer number of tournaments, the fact that each tournament is four days, the fact that not everyone is at the same tournaments, and it's just difficult to create kind of a consistent story arc across the season, you know, like we have a Tour Championship at the end of the year, but generally there's not, i don't know, like a super giant arc at the end of the year where everything
is coming together and everything matters like there are in some other sports.
Nobody cares about the FedEx, nobody cares about the Tour Championship is like the worst tournament of the season. That is a huge problem. Nobody cares about the season long championship, whereas an F one that is people's lives to you know, not only win the championship, but they care if they get fourth as opposed to fifth, and that's absent in golf. So yeah, that's a really good point. You're going on to some other factors as well.
Yeah, I also think they struggled a bit to kind of delineate for people the difference between winning a major and winning an average tournament. You know, they did a lot at the Waste Management Open, which is a great and wonderful tournament and incredibly fun, but you know, I didn't feel like there was a whole lot of difference portrayed between winning that versus winning you know, the US
Open and some other things. And even like I think the closing arc to Tony Finow's story was him winning at the three M, which, like, I live in Minnesota and I love golf, but like the three M, very few people care about the three M, So so that was a little bit difficult for me, knowing what I know about golf, and I'm trying to come at this with like, Okay, this is primarily you know, they're trying to mix it in for people who do know golf and for people who don't sort of like drive to survive,
and so I'm like, you're gonna have some hiccups there. I think the biggest thing that I had an issue with too was the live stuff. And I felt like a lot of this series was build like they were going to really kind of dig into the controversy and really try to show some of the tensions that were happening. And you know, they interviewed a lot of the live guys like Brooks, Stuff's and Johnson Ian Poulter all of that, I didn't feel like any of them were necessarily very
interrogated on their decision. And I'm guessing some of that has to do with the fact that, you know, this show is related to the PGA tour, and it's hard for them to like objectively come at someone and be like,
why did you join? You know what about all of these you know, deeper issues like when you say that you know this, you did this for your family and for the money, and you know, don't you think about X, Y and Z. And they showed a little bit of the clips of part conferences where they were asked that, but it didn't seem like the producers themselves were really digging into that in any way, and that was something
that I felt was kind of a failing. That was something I was really looking forward to seeing in the show, and felt like it felt pretty flat overall.
Yeah, you know, I think that Live was unlucky for this series in a lot of ways. And that's the opposite of what a lot of people thought last year when Live was happening, and people were like, oh my god, the Netflix documentary has got to be amazing. This is the perfect time to be covering the PGA Tour in
a docu series format. And I think that it was actually really unlucky that Live happened this year because it threw a wrench in the works of what this season had to do, which was to introduce pro golf to a big audience. And clearly the choice was made that we need to do character portraits, We need to bring these players on the stage, introduce them to people, make them easy to relate to in some ways, try to
explore a diversity of players, right. You know, episodes six and seven deal with non white players on the PGA tour, which I think was really important for this series to do, and I'm glad that they did it, but it was, you know, it gave you an idea of how complex the task was of just introducing a cast of characters
in the first season. I think they were always going to do a poor job of introducing live golf, because you know, live is sort of like golf fandom junior level honors course, whereas JT and Speith is golf fandom one oh one, right, and this series was trying to do golf fandom one oh one. The choice was to
do these character focused episodes. What did you make of that choice overall, just even beyond the live stuff, the choice to go with characters rather than telling a narrative of the season or a narrative of the tournaments being played. Do you think it was a good choice to go with characters in this way.
I think it's hard. I think, you know, as someone who binged all eight episodes over the course of a couple of days, it did get a bit monotonous. The fact that it was all character studies, like it felt like there was a bit of a banngo card of like, oh okay, we followed them to their house, here's that
scene doing something relatable. Now they're at this tournament and they're not doing so well, and they're questioning, you know, X piece of their game or X thing that's going on in their lives, and then you know, at the end they kind of find some redemption or they don't, and that is what it is. And so that was a bit difficult. I will say, I think this is something that Drive to Survive did a lot at the
beginning too. Or they are kind of trying to introduce the audience to the people and to get you familiar with them and figure out who you like, who you don't like, who is going to be someone that you
want to consistently follow. And I feel like now Drive to Survive is just starting to get into more of the issue stuff, Like you know, in this forthcoming season, they're going to address some of the car purposing that happened last year, some of the cost cap stuff, some of the more intricate things that they I don't think would have to with a ten foot pole in the
first season or two. So I'm trying to be like a bit charitable with my criticisms because I'm hoping that maybe Full Swing is trying to build up to that and kind of lay the foundation and give viewers something to build upon so that when they do, you know, get to more tournaments specifically, and more you know, wider scale events in the game, that they're able to do that a little bit better. But yeah, it was definitely weird all the flashbacks to all of the different tournaments,
and it was jarring for me at times too. I was like, why are we doing this again?
My feeling was that in Drive to Survive, characters would come back for multiple episodes, right they You know, Daniel Ricardo wasn't just in the first episode and then kind of disappeared. He was there sort of a consistent presence more or less throughout the season, as I recall, and I haven't watched it recently, so if that's not the case, then my bad. But you know, one thing that sort of happens in this series is that we meet Justin
Thomas and Jordan's the first episode. We meet Brooks Kopka and Scotti Scheffler in the second episode, and we more or less don't hear from them for the rest of the series, and so we don't get a sense for really what the narrative of their season was unless we look really closely at the last episode and realize, oh, they're Scotty Scheffler. I recognize him, and so yeah, there's they did make a choice there, and it's an understandable choice.
It's also understandable because there's really no narrative to a golf season. I mean, that's maybe the real underlying problem here. There is a narrative to an F one season. There's not a coherent story often in a PGA Tour season, and that's part of what these designated slash elevated events are trying to rectify going forward. I suppose. So you know, I don't know if you like obviously you and I are pretty deep in the weeds on this stuff. We're
not necessarily the only intended audience for this series. Did you get a sense or did you ever think about whether this would be appealing to a non golf fan.
That's a good question. I struggle a little bit, I think with the middle, middle part of this season. Once you get kind of through the Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Kopka episodes and those are names that household people may know, it does get a little bit difficult in
the middle part. You know, with Ian Poulter, Joel Damon, Matt fitzpastwork, Dustin Johnson, there's not a whole like Joel Damon is great and has a lot of great character, and you know, if people stick around for that episode, they will fall in love with him. But it is difficult.
You're not getting a whole lot of like incredibly dynamic personality in there or or you know, success on the golf course, and I could see that being kind of a point where, you know, without sort of a through line of a narrative arc of the full PGA Tour season,
where that could lose people a little bit. I also think that it's a little more challenging with the PGA Tour portrayal overall because there are so many more golfers out there that you're going to see leader boards on there where there are you know, the other ten people on there, you may not know their name against the person that you're following, And I think that's a little bit difficult too if you're a casual fan, being like, so are these other people on the leaderboard? Good? Is
this person just doing well? Like what is happening there? Where you know, like we talked about earlier, that's the thing we're drive to survive is able to succeed a little bit more because you know everyone on the grid. So I think just like the sheer number of golfers is a little bit difficult, and you know, maybe some of the rules and stuff that they do their best at explaining all of that, but I could see some some sticking points for the casual of you or for sure.
Yeah, and the middle of this season that you're talking about is sort of the point when you realize that these episodes are not building on each.
Other, right right, Yes, you know, you're all their own standalone episode exactly.
Yeah, And you get to episode four, four and five and you're like, oh, this is sort of the structure of the series, is it. We're not going to be linking together these episodes into a big through line, And that can lose people, for sure, unless they're just really interested in being introduced to new characters in golf and trust the Netflix crew that they're going to show them something interesting about a brand new player that they haven't
been introduced to yet. And I think that that's probably going to be a big ask for non golf fans. Now, clearly they made the calls they did because they were focusing on characters, not on the live story. The live story over the course of the season makes no sense. And I don't think that anybody a non fan getting into it is going to understand the stakes of the live story at all. Nothing about it is really ordered
in a way that I can follow. In this series, I feel like, I wonder if you reacted the same way to that.
Yeah, I mean they do a lot of alluding to live things without I feel like, fully flushing some of it out. Like you know, some of the talking head folks that they had were say things like, oh, you know, Live is trying to change the face of golf and this could have huge steaks for the PGA tour, and and they don't outside of you know, them trying to get people to jump to the live too, or they don't fully address what the you know, what the stakes
are from a wider perspective. You know, they get into some of the PGA too or like banning, these people don't really explain why that is. There's there's not like a whole lot of delving into the causes for the tension, and like you said. The timeline of things, especially with the Cam Smith thing like that, was so dramatic and ended up being a storyline, you know, kind of throughout Sunday,
which was super weird. The Sunday of a major. You're talking about this guy and you're watching him go out there and be incredible and vanquish this other guy who is also incredible, and at the end of it, it was sort of like, I don't even very conflicting emotions, like I don't know how to feel about this if he's going to turn around and kind of jump over to live And that wasn't you know, outside of that sort of contentious press conference answer that he gave about
it wasn't super interrogated either. So yeah, the timeline of it was definitely weird. The first live tournament, I don't think they showed until maybe we got to the Dustin Johnson episode, which was like five episodes in. So yeah, yeah, all of that was very interesting.
Yeah, in addition to that, I don't think we really learn in the series what the PGA Tour is Like. We spend we spend so much time at the majors, We go right to the to the PGA Championship, and the Masters in the first two episodes, and there's no real time spent establishing what the PGA Tour is. And so if I'm somebody who doesn't know anything about this, live comes in and people are saying that it threatens the existence of the PGA Tour, I'm like, well, what's the PGA tour?
Like?
Why does it matter?
Why?
Why is that important that the PGA Tour is being threatened? And I'm not sure that we really got that in this series. And I don't want to be unkind here. This is a episodes and they made the choice to focus on character portraits, but these are the kinds of things that get sort of left out. I wonder if you, I mean, it seems like Full Swing Season two is
going to happen. I actually don't know a lot of specifics about this, but you know, if you were to have a wish list for what they would do in the in the second season of the series, what are some of the things that you would want them to address or you know, just do in season two of Full Swing.
Yeah, well, number one on my wish list would be that they get Tiger, of course, but you know, closely following that, I hope that they are able to delve into kind of the changing structure of the tour right now with you know, the elevated events and how that affects the star players, how that affects the people who are not so high up in the in the tour rankings. I also hope that, you know, with those elevated events, we're able to get maybe a little bit more of
a consistent storyline across the season. If if you're getting people together more often, they're playing together more often, you can kind of compare their results a little more one to one than you're currently able to do. Something like that would be great. But yeah, just just generally like more of a mix of sort of the holistic storyline and like you said, kind of calling people back with the one off you know, here's this person, here's why they're interesting kind of standalones.
Yeah, I think I agree, and and yeah, and I hope they get a chance to do it again. Like I think that this, you know, this first season missed for me in a lot of ways, but I see the potential there. I think there's a talented crew behind it, and so hopeful that they keep to they keep at it and are allowed to keep making it because there's there's obviously some potential in it. All right, So Megan,
where can people find you on Twitter? And and where what what sort of audio venues are you going to be participating in this year?
Yeah, well, you can always find me and all my colleagues at the Ringer dot com. You can find me on Twitter at meg Schuster. You can also find me currently on the Ringer F one show. I'm hosting that for the next couple of months. Well, the wonderful Kevin Clark is out on paternity leave.
Kevin congratulation.
Shout out to Kevin. Yes, many congratulations, and hopefully I'll be on the show a bit, you know, throughout the F one season after Kevin returned to Yeah, those are kind of my big things right now.
Cool, all right, thank you so much, thank you. This episode of the Frida Egg podcast was edited by Matt Rusius. Thank you, Matt. To support the Frida Egg, there are a couple of things that you can do. First of all, if you leave a rating and review in iTunes or wherever you're listening to this podcast, that would be super super helpful for us. At a higher level, you can join CLUBTFE. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash
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