Geoff Ogilvy - 2020 Masters - podcast episode cover

Geoff Ogilvy - 2020 Masters

Nov 20, 20201 hr 7 minEp. 258
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Episode description

Geoff Ogilvy joins Andy to break down the 2020 Masters. Geoff tells some stories about playing with this year's champion Dustin Johnson and discusses DJ's great mental approach to golf. The conversation also touches on the excellent play from several members of the 2019 Presidents Cup Team, and on the reasons why Rory McIlroy might struggle getting out of the gate at major championships.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at Weatherman Umbrella. Everybody needs a good umbrella. That's one of the things in life that you shouldn't go through without a good one. Weatherman is the best umbrella. These guys make unbelievable umbrellas. The company was started and the umbrellas are designed by none other than a Weatherman. So I think that's who I would trust with my umbrella

purchase is a Weatherman. These umbrellas are resistant of wind up to fifty five miles an hour. They were actually tested in a wind tunnel. They were the official umbrella of the Ryder Cup team as well as the President's Cup and Solheim Cup, so biggest team competitions in the world are trusting Weatherman umbrellas. And they also provide UV protection, so if you're looking to avoid the sun, umbrella is

a great way to do that. So they come in two sizes, sixty two inch and sixty eight inch and they are great gifts for the golfer that has everything. And they have a variety of selections of umbrellas from Arnold Palmer collection. Folds of honor collection to college umbrellas, so you can get your favorite college or you could go with the Arnold Palmer obviously iconic umbrella logo. You

can go to Weatherman Umbrella dot com. That's Weatherman Umbrella dot com and if you use the code fried egg all caps, no spaces, you'll get twenty percent off your order. So go get go upgrade your umbrella at Weathermanumbrella dot com. Today's episode is with our regular guest, former PGA Tour Champion, US Open Champion Jeff Ogilvie. Jeff comes on to talk about the twenty twenty Masters, tell us some good Dustin Johnson's stories, talk about Rory and a lot of things.

So what of our favorite guests and thanks as always for listening and I hope you enjoy this episode with Jeff Ogilvie. I miss the Green, for example, I'm already upset when I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.

Speaker 2

And when I find my ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Frida egg, Frida egg bright egg, Frida.

Speaker 1

Egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run.

Speaker 3

Off of the hump.

Speaker 1

I was wondering did you like having balance, like where you took time off or were you just all all the time golf?

Speaker 2

Oh, later on I started taking time off, But early days I was it was every day pretty much, and if it wasn't if if if there was a day off, it was really because I just couldn't get to the golf course, Like Monday was just all travel or something else going on. But early on, so the kind of like late twenties, I was every day and then gradually have to have kids, and like life gets on, there's

a much more day. And I really as I went on, I looked forward two weeks off and know it's been two or three weeks off later in the year later on, but early days it was every day. I think you kind of have to. I think the older you get, the longer time you can take off, you know, and get away with it. I'd be all right, And I think it's short. When I was young, when I took three days off, I felt like I set myself back two weeks. But now if I take two weeks off, I feel like I actually improve.

Speaker 4

That's funny.

Speaker 1

That's when you're young, you feel like you have to be there all the time or else, I wonder what do you have you ever thought about what it is that flips?

Speaker 4

Is it just perspective or knowing your swing better that.

Speaker 2

I think it's also your body just knows the move better and it's had more experience and it's learnt more and it's harder to unlearn. I think the more swings you make and the more golf you play, it it's like riding a bike, you know what I mean, Like the more you do it, I think it's harder.

Speaker 3

You just you just retain it more. That makes sense.

Speaker 2

Get thirty years of golf under your belt, you don't forget how to play in a month. You know, if you've got three years of golf on your belt, maybe a month makes a difference, you know.

Speaker 1

So with DJ now I think, you know, obviously he wins a ton, But the thing that I'm most impressed by is how we wins.

Speaker 4

You know, how.

Speaker 1

He's just seemingly like blows out fields all the time and they happen to be the best fields. Should that count for something when we're looking at his career in totality, is how he won? Should that factor in legacy?

Speaker 3

I'm a bit weird a legacy I don't know.

Speaker 2

All I know is he makes golf look easier than anyone I've ever seen play golf anybody. Freddie made it look really easy, you know. Louis makes it look easy. Sometimes Rory makes it look pretty easy. But Dustin, it's just there's just no real He's not expending any effort to actually play such an aggressive game or something, you know what I mean. It's just such a peaceful headspace he gets in and it seems to be so easy for him.

Speaker 3

His legacy is sound.

Speaker 2

I think whether he I don't know, whether he wins big numbers, and I mean sure it makes the difference with Tiger, right, I mean two like fifteen shots and nine shots, two majors in a row. That certainly added to his kind of mystique and legacy because he won him by so far.

Speaker 3

So it's got to be part of it.

Speaker 4

I guess, yeah, I think.

Speaker 1

I think Shane Bacon pulled these stats of his last thirteen wins, like over fifty percent of them, or by five shots or more or three shots or more.

Speaker 4

It's just something bad, you know.

Speaker 1

And these are wgc's playoff events, Like DJ doesn't rack up the you know, John Deere classics.

Speaker 2

No, he wins big tournaments, and it's kind of seems to be like how he is when he does win. It seems like he's he gets to that sort of point of freedom in his golf game where he just gets better and better that week. Like he's playing better on at the end than he was at the start. I feel like he just doesn't. It feel like he's just hitting it harder and he's hitting it longer, and he's so free, and it's like if he played eight rounds,

he'd win by twice as much. You know, it just seems like he's he's improving on that course faster than everyone else all the time. To me, he just seems to play better every day, and that's a rare gift. I think the freedom he plays with towards end of the tim's amazing. How hard he can eat his driver.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's like that final round where he has those early bow geese. But then and then he's laying up on par five's on the back nine frombo and he still shoots the he ties the little round of the day and it's like he was playing as conservatively as he could.

Speaker 2

Yeah, he just can't help it. He just can't help it, like he's just good, right. I mean, I've played I played a fair bit with Dust and I played a couple of practice rounds with him, I don't know, four or five years ago the Masters pre the tournament, you know, like a week or so before, and I hadn't really ever thought of him as an obvious guy to win there. But this is probably twenty fifteen or something, or fourteen or fifteen, playing practice ronds with him, and after two

days and he took all my money thirty six. I was it was like, oh my god, how does this guy not win this? Every single time? It was unbelievable, how amazing he looked around there. So I've been behind of picking him every year since, you know. And there was a good one for him, I think, because it even suited his game even more, being a little bit softer.

Speaker 3

I think he's so aggressive and free.

Speaker 2

It's just it was and the Greens weren't like at their filthy scariest, you know, which if I get, I mean, he's.

Speaker 3

A great part of but if he did have if.

Speaker 2

There was an area of his game where he wasn't a ten out of ten, he was only an eight out of ten, it's his pudding, probably right, and it was probably easier putting than true aditional Augusta putting.

Speaker 3

Maybe, I don't know, but what a golf Yeah, and his headspace is so.

Speaker 2

Good, so natural, and I'm glad that Rory came out and there's a few guys coming out saying, hey, there's a little bit more going on in there than you guys think, because I've always thought that that he knows exactly what he's doing.

Speaker 3

He's just smart enough to not.

Speaker 2

Worry about like all the details, you know, and that's actually a gift and an intelligence to not chase the rabbit hole. It tastes the technique down the rabbit hole. And tried to all this that pretty much every other tour player does the opposite. He's the opposite of Bryson, you know, he's the anti Bryson in the approach. They both work hard, but Dustin just he feels it and Bryson works it out, you know, works it out with

his brain. Dustin works it out with his body, you know, and his feel and it's just so it's incredible to play with. It's quite intimidating to play with Dustin because of how easy he makes it you know how strong he isn't But then you talk to him and he's like a little puppy dog. He's just nice to everybody, and he's zero ego about his approach. Really, relative to the PGI Tour, it's quite hard to look down the range and not bump into a few egos down the

range on the tour. He actually is probably the lowest ego of all out there, which is so amazing considering he's probably the best out there.

Speaker 3

It's incredible.

Speaker 1

It's like you said when we did the pods last year about how you have to play free at Augusta. You can't play scared at Augusta or else I'll eat your lunch, Like you have to swing free to take on those shots. And then you think about the way, and that is what gets overlooked is in a way he's like the ultimate field player because of how little

he thinks about it. It's you know, for seventy two holes, this tournament crew has been following DJ and on the eighteenth hole, they're still shocked at how quick he hits the ball.

Speaker 2

You know, Yeah, it is, it's he's it's it seems to be like almost I mean, I said anti Bryson, if Bon Bryson, that sort of approach is like the modern approach, like the no stone unturned, all the one percenters, let's just look at every angle of the game and how can we master every bit.

Speaker 3

Dustin's like, oh, well, I just hit the.

Speaker 2

Ball over there, and I do it better than you come catch me, you know, And it's so refreshing and it's so fun to watch. And I think most golfers on tour I think it kind of envious at how simple his approaches, but I don't.

Speaker 3

It's not.

Speaker 2

He's not without like working on something when he needs to. Like when his wedge game was a bit off on him, and Butcher and claud or whoever it was, got him in front of it, and maybe even Keith from Taylor Made they got in front of the track man to work on his wedgey outages and he sharpened that up. But he didn't go over the top and like kind of show off with doing it. He just warmed up for ten minutes every day, so how far he hit his wedges and in a couple of months he was

a great wedge player. And then stops really doesn't overdo it like most of us do. You know, we get something that works to and then we just beat it to death because it's good, and then we beat something else to death, and before we know, we've got seven little drills that we have to.

Speaker 3

Do before we can even hit a shot. You know, he doesn't do that.

Speaker 2

He kind of fixes a little issue and then just I've worked that out now and now I'll just play. You know, it's a really unique gift that he has, I guess at not once it works, he doesn't mess with the formula. You know, he's like, this is good, I'll go this way. And it's so it's so difficult to do. That's the hardest thing to do in golf is to not like tinker all the time, and he doesn't seem to.

Speaker 1

There's something too that, like, you know, most players talk about what they're working on, and for him, like he never said, he's just like, oh, i'm hitting it good.

Speaker 4

You know, I'm playing well.

Speaker 1

Like you know, the fact that he gives so little off it's almost like, I don't know, if you fail NFL football. It's almost like Bill Belichick in a way where Belichick, you know, gives Press and the other teams nothing.

Speaker 4

You know, he's always it's like dost it.

Speaker 1

I doubt he's intentionally doing it by but by never you know, construing any difficulty with golf in his game, he probably mentally, like you were saying, he makes it look so easy, you know, he never says anything's hard, and.

Speaker 4

It probably messes a little bit with the competitors.

Speaker 3

I think a little bit.

Speaker 2

And it's also how water off a duck's back. He can be like I really I like the no ego thing. He doesn't seem to care most of our reaction when we play bad or most I think almost this is human nature. When we hit a bad shot or we play bad, we get angry. We're actually getting angry for everybody else. Yeah, you know, we'll like I'm better than this. See look if I get angry, they'll think I'm normally better than this.

Speaker 3

Or we're a little.

Speaker 2

Embarrassed about the shot we hit and that's what flares us up or something. He doesn't have any of that. He shoots eighty and he walks off, of course, like he shot sixty five. So he's going around there and truly not concerned with what people think, not concerned whether people think he's good or bad. So there's all that weights off his shoulders and he just plays golf. If he plays well, that's cool. If he doesn't play well,

oh well, I'll play well next time. You know. It's such a peaceful way to play that that's intimidating to be around someone. Why can't you just get annoyed about something for a minute, you know, it's incredible.

Speaker 1

Do you do you remember like the first time you played with him and like were you was there? Like were you an of how he hit driver? Do you remember early rounds with him versus you know, as you you know, you played a decent amount with him, as you became more familiar with him, like how your opinion or perception of his game changed.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think I played with him the first I played the first time played with him at Akron and that was pretty close to what was his first year, nine or something, yeah, eight.

Speaker 3

Or nine, something like that.

Speaker 2

I think it was his first year and he had won Pebble earlier in the year. And I remember it was right at the beginning of Twitter, And I wouldn't normally remember this, but it was because I tweeted it. I'm not on I have been on Twitter for years, but it was kind of like the new kid in the town on the block at the moment of Twitter. So every round you'd come off, you'd say, oh, something about it, you know. But I remember coming off going, oh, my gosh, I just played with Dustin Johnson. This guy

is going to be This guy's unbelievable. Like I could not believe how well he hit it. Like when you when you're kind of where I was out at that point, sort of late twenties, top of the game, or not on the top of the game, but up there in the sort of top areas, you have a level of kind of pre disrespect, you know what I mean, Like not disrespect, but.

Speaker 1

You you know, you're you know, you're a batter. Yeah, yeah, you're playing with You're better.

Speaker 2

Then, yeah. And like I'm not saying I'm better human, but I'm better at this job than you are right now.

Speaker 3

But and you're very rarely every now and then.

Speaker 2

You come across like a Louis all of a sudden comes from I remember I first played with him from Africa. I'm like, oh my god, who's this kid? You just notice it's like this is different from the normal guy

I'll play with. And Dustin was the same after I rememb after about nine holes, he pumped it up nine nine at Akron's a really hard fair way to hit, and I'm like having to skirt it up the left semi raft to like keep it on the right edge of the fairway, and he just flies the whole hill and hits like a sand on in And I was long ish and I was, as I said, I was top ten in.

Speaker 3

The world and playing with it, and I'm like, who is this guy? Like unbelievable.

Speaker 2

I can't beat this guy if he starts playing like this. And I only probably I had three or four you have. I had three or four of them in my whole career, and he was one of them. Louis was one of them, and he was one of them, and Rory was one of them. It's just like, wow, this is different from everybody else.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you just when you play with someone you know this better than you You just know pretty quick out a golf course, I feel like, you know, it's just they It's like you can see him hit a shot or something and you're like, I don't have that shot.

Speaker 2

Absolutely, and like it's just it's even as much as just the sound it makes when a guy hits it because we stand on Raine. I mean, I've heard I've heard myself hit it my whole life. I've heard good players hit it every day he's down in there, and you hear fifty guys hitting the ball all the time constantly, So we're really tuned into the sound of a golf shot. Every five or ten years, somebody comes along and hits one that we've never heard it sound like that. It's like,

oh my goodness, and Dustin's one of them. It's just Dustin and Rory, especially the noise it makes. It makes you turn around, like when they're hitting their long clubs because it's sat square and that's solid, and yeah, I can't do that.

Speaker 1

But has there been any guy that has that sound that you know, that hasn't had the career that you thought they would. That you know, maybe that dust at a Rory level, but who you were like, oh, you know, this guy think is going to be really good, but just hasn't.

Speaker 4

I don't want you to throw anybody under the bus.

Speaker 2

It's pretty rare, to be honest, usually. I mean, I think also it's a self preservation confidence thing. I don't know what all the other guys but at least I can't speak to them.

Speaker 3

But for me, I think I would always kind of.

Speaker 2

Not like just just feel like I'm better than them anyway, just not look it was only if it was just that amazing that it would like you would notice, because it's sort of like to keep yourself confident. You can't think, oh my, this guy's good, this guy's good, this guy's good, this guy's good. Even though everyone's good, you kind of

have to keep a bit for yourself. Now I can still beat that guy, I can say, But every now and then someone comes along that you just you just just a comedy like it's just that much better at silly and those guys were it not really. I think generally sound is a very telling thing, and it's a tuned in thing that the average year that hasn't listened to a million pros hit balls could hear it. But there is very rarely a guy I can make that sound that squash doesn't at least have a period where

he's just outrageously good. No, everyone who should have made it. I think there's some who have like gone away made it and then gone away quickly, and you can't work it out why. But generally.

Speaker 3

I mean, someone who we know is great is usually great.

Speaker 1

Who's the guy that had the worst sound that was really good that, you know as a testament to they They weren't. They didn't have the Christmas sound, but they got every ounce out of it.

Speaker 2

I don't know. I mean, look, there's there's a whole gabutt across that I've played with. I mean, Corey Pavin was nuts at getting around the golf course. Now he didn't make the sound, but he struck the ball really well, but so.

Speaker 3

Differently from every other pro.

Speaker 2

I mean, by the time I was playing with him, he was hitting the low burning fades, life massive cuts, like really low and like running up the fairway and then he would do these really and he could he could miss hit a lot of shots, but he would always beat you. You know, that to me was amazing. Furick is nuts. He strikes it really well, but it doesn't hit very hard. But the game he plays and when you watch him play, it's like incredible. Yeah, there's

been so many different versions. There's not many really who have clanked the ball and unwell for a very long period of time. There's some guys who just don't have the strike I can't. I'm not going to throw anyone on the I can't.

Speaker 3

Think of anyone on the top.

Speaker 2

Some look, some guys are gifted natural ball strikers, and some guys are gifted natural around the greens, you know what I mean. And you know what, like Brad Faxon is never going to make a sound like Rory McElroy when he hits it. But Brad Faxon tells Rory how to put you know, so they everyone has their spot, but.

Speaker 3

Generally guys hit it pretty well. I think now.

Speaker 2

I think it was probably different back with woods and balladas and blades and like the clubs back from the eighties, when you pick them up now it's like no sweet spot clubs.

Speaker 3

There must have been a much.

Speaker 2

More sort of variety of strikes and stuff with different equipment. But now most guys are hitting it pretty square and solid.

Speaker 1

I think one of my favorite Corey Pavot memories is that Travelers he got in the playoff with Bubba. They got in the playoff and I think he hits Rewood into the playoff full eighteen and Bubba had lovewedge.

Speaker 2

Oh no, right, unbelievable, I mean, but that shots how good he is he's got free with in and he's in the playoff of a tournamentive It's nuts. How good he was unbelievable.

Speaker 1

It's a good juxtaposition in a way. Was was h camp Smith and DJ. Like the way camp Smith was playing. You know, he's kind of hitting it all over the place. He was getting up and down out of trash cans. You know, it was incredible. You know he's hanging in there. He really had a shot on the back nine if DJ, you know, screwed anything up. But that was the thing I wanted to you know, your President's Cup team showed out.

It was like the twenty nineteen President's Cup team leaderboard, and I wanted to know if you thought there that Royal Melbourne it all helped him.

Speaker 2

I think yeah, I think a few things helped them. When we left that week, there would everyone I think, or at least most people inside the locker room, had the feeling that a lot of these boys are going to kick on and they're going to get a lot out of this.

Speaker 3

You know, we had a really good week.

Speaker 2

Ernie Els was incredibly like good captain and I think they all got a light out of spending a week with Ernie and and at Roll Melbourne, so there was a feeling and then COVID came and maybe there was a little bit of momentum loss. But yes, I think Roll Melbourne really helped him from the Masters, especially guys like Answer and that who probably hadn't played stuff like

that before. And the confidence you get out of making parts and hitting shots like they had to at the President's Cup at Royal Melbourne a similar style shots at Augusta, So I think it probably helped them. Yeah, I mean, look, it's a great dress rehearsal. I mean a Royal Melbourne,

well it looks completely different. If you can navigate Roal Melbourne, you can navigate Augusta, you know, by the way the greens are and the way you have to approach them and under the hole and angles and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 3

So I'm sure it really helped. Yeah, brilliant. It was fun to see Cam Cams.

Speaker 2

Cam's got that way about him that the closer you get to the end of the tournament, the better he's going to be. You know, really hard work, a great player, but he's definitely got a nose for the poorty end of the tournament. And you could see that with the scramble and hanging on as they didn't matter what he was doing.

Speaker 3

He was going to hang in there, you know.

Speaker 2

So I would he's got every chance to win anywhere. When you see him sort of the way he was doing, he was playing great. An answer played great. Yeah, It's Look, the Masters has always had a lot of international stuff up the top, and I think that's because it's quite unique. It's a unique setup for American golf, so it's a

bit more democratic in that respect, you know. I think it gives it's a little bit more of a longheaded course now, but it generally gives everyone a chance and if you can sort of adapt and learn with any experience, you can pull experience from anywhere, and.

Speaker 3

I think it helps you. Augusta.

Speaker 2

I think generally international non Americans have often done really well because their experience with a variety of conditions kind of steps up. And I think Roll Melbourne is probably one of the best examples of that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's the I think obviously DJ One he's one of the longest players this year, but in general the last few years, it hasn't been long players that have been winning necessarily all the time, Like obviously you have your Bubba's, but you have speeth. You got Danny Willet wasn't necessarily long tiger at aage forty four, was not a long hitter.

Speaker 3

You know.

Speaker 1

It's it's a course that is very you know, it allows a lot of different styles, and I thought, you know, with just Sung, Jay, DJ and and Cam, it showed like three distinctly different types of players going going add it down the stretch on Sunday.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean, look, I think distance gets so much attention now and it's a bit unfair to the rest of the game, you know, because the rest of the game is always just as important, and getting the ball in the hole is still the most important thing. I mean, Bryson holds so many parts, Like it's not just how if he hit it far and didn't hold any puts, we wouldn't even like we would all be bagging his approach, you know what I mean, we don't think it's wrong.

So and Augusta is always great at showing that, you know. I mean, distance is a massive advantage, but it's proportionate to everything else, you know, proportionate to the short game and strategy and leaving it where it is and leaving it under the hole and putting well. So yeah, again playing at its absolute longest. I imagine last week with the way the Fairways were playing with all the rain. Yeah, with Cam and Sung Jay and as you say, normal sort of players and speeds had a great run there

a few years back. Length is important, but it's you can overcome that if you do other stuff great there.

Speaker 1

Did you use green reading books a lot when you played? Did you start at the end or were you just pretty much did you read the green?

Speaker 3

Yeah? I didn't really use green reading books.

Speaker 2

I feel like the traditional kind of breaks to the eleventh green kind of thing works really well at the mark.

Speaker 3

Just the red dot theory.

Speaker 2

You know, in the local caddies, they've got red dots, and that's kind of the general direction, and the ones that are obvious break where they do, and the ones that aren't obvious generally kind of drift towards that sort of raised creek area. I didn't like reading a Green, Oh yeah, I didn't like reading a Green with a percentage.

Speaker 3

I think I put one in a couple of times and had to look.

Speaker 2

But I found myself getting so intrenched in the book and forgetting about the put and that's not I feel like it gave me the right reads, but I didn't hit the right put reading it that way, Does that make sense? I was a little detached from the feel of it or something, so it didn't work for me. So it wasn't my thing. But I've seen guys who weren't amazing green readers put them in and became great green readers and improve their putting. So I'm not saying

they're not great for the right guy. But for me, there weren't my thing. I was more under my feet, kind of looked feel I needed to be connected to the feel of the put more than I needed to know the exact break.

Speaker 3

That makes sense or I do.

Speaker 1

I'm curious with big tournaments. Did you ever have like a trouble getting started at any part of your career, like getting going in like the first round, like just getting off to a good start.

Speaker 4

Is that ever?

Speaker 1

Yeah?

Speaker 2

I think for me getting off to a good start, if I'd hyped up the tournament a lot in my mind and like really was excited about it, and like it was it was almost too important.

Speaker 3

I'd made it too important in my mind.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think starts were really difficult. It sounds kind of negative, but I feel like almost on the first tee just sort of oh, well, I hope I play well. This would be nice and like focus and like get right into this, but we'll see what happens. Was a better approach that I'm going to play well this week, you know? For me, I feel like when I was I'm going to play well this week six holes in, I'm three over after six and scratching my head, going, well, I wonder if I can get home Friday night or

it's going to be Saturday morning, you know. But later on or the ones just even earlier on, I did quite well at starts and majors and stuff when I actually went there and I had no clue and I was just happy to be there, and I played well, you know, I mean, as opposed to later on sometimes when I was really ripped up and I'm going to play well this week, That's when I found it hard. So I'm guessing this is related to Rory.

Speaker 1

It's just yeah, I bet it's just puzzling, you know. It's uh, And I think like, and I'm not at all any sort of person that can talk to PGA tour, but like I feel like when we'd have a state tournament at a course I grew up playing, or my home course, or I always struggled at those, But if it's somewhere else, like and I just wonder if something, you know, you look at what he's been doing in Majors, and it's like, if he just got rid of the first eighteen holes, he'd have won three or four of

them by now since his last one. And it's just it's just it's so and you every year you hear him with a different mentality coming into the Masters. You know, it's one year he's juggling, you know, one year he spent tons of time at Augusta, And you just wonder, like it's it's gotta be because like sood, the same guy that played the first eighteen holes wasn't the same guy that played the next fifty four.

Speaker 2

No, And that's pretty common the pattern, his pattern at the Master's the last couple of years, bad first round, like good barnstorming finish. That's quite a common pattern, you know. And as you say, that seems to pop up with home courses and courses where people everyone's like, this guy's gonna win, for sure.

Speaker 3

He's a Master at this course, all of a sudden he starts badly.

Speaker 2

Well that's just that kind of amplifies how good Dustin's mental state is. Yeah, you know, like it actually it means. It means so much to Rory, and he's actually trying. He's trying different things to play well there, you know, which is admirable and it's ninety nine, but numbersent a humans do that. You know, Oh that didn't. We'll try a different approach. I'll juggle or ill go there more role and so it's it's a big expectation his head. Dustin's like, oh, the muster is next week. I hope

I play well, you know kind of thing. And he's obviously working, but it's not like he's not working for it. But it's not the be all and end all. And I think he was sess Australians we saw it was the shark.

Speaker 3

Augusta.

Speaker 2

It just became almost too important, you know, And f Rory it's partly self inflicted, but also like the world around him inflicted. You gotta win this, you gotta win this, you gota. We don't have to win this. The guy's at all time Hall of Fame legend. I mean what a legend. He doesn't He's plays so good, it must be so fun to play like that. He doesn't need it, like Sam Snead never won the US Open, and Sam's needs going to it's fine, you know.

Speaker 3

So it's like it's.

Speaker 2

Fine, but obviously really really wants it. And that's a hard thing. That's just a hard It's it's a difficult course when you don't even like it, not for the Masters, but all of a sudden you put all that stuff up, and all the ghosts of the Masters and all the things that come with the fact that it's the mass, is the loftim exemption, it's the grain jacket and all that stuff.

Speaker 3

It just adds so many layers of.

Speaker 2

Pressure if in your head winning is the only good result that week, you know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean it's like what you saw Ernie's comments a couple of years ago, Like and you know, he was a guy that was like a perfect example where oh, he's going to win three of these things and he's perfect and he goes out and shoots sight of what was it, thirty three on the back nine with a two shot lead and loses the fill you know, one year and it's just I think Rory's self awareness and

like everything that makes golf fans love him. I got comments from people like why does every golf writer commentator love Rory so much? And it's because of his self awareness and like the way he speaks about the game that everybody loves it, it loves you know him and roots for him. Is that might get in his way of like, you know, the expectations just rise and he's too aware of everything that comes with it.

Speaker 3

Yeah, thinking is certainly the enemy.

Speaker 2

In golf, like overthinking, anythinking really, I mean, we all just do better if we just see ball hit ball, right, that's the ideal. And Rory's not made up that way neither am I We think about stuff and like he he's very as you said, very aware of the whole situation, the whole state of the game, where he's at the

importance of everything. Very kind of Yeah, he's that guy which is great in the media center, but maybe not so great at getting ready for the first round of a tournament you really really really really really want to win, you know, because he's clearly playing as well as Dustin if you look at his last couple of rounds, he's on pace form wise, I.

Speaker 4

Mean he sparted at dust In ten shots.

Speaker 1

They played together DJ b Bay ten shots the first round, and then they finished the terms twenty hundred eleven under. You know, they played the same for the next fifty four holes.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so the standard is is he's right there.

Speaker 3

I don't know.

Speaker 2

Look, I played with Ernie a couple of times in the first round, first two rounds at the Masters, when he'd been playing well on the lead up and all that kind of when he was in the thing and he started poorly too. And it's like, I think, what happens to me at least when I had a lot of expectations and I would go out and start, I would be playing the same, but maybe I'd make a

bogie on the second hole. If I had high expectations that week, that bogie on the second hole would make my head explode and in all the stress and all the worry. Whereas if I was just going in there hoping to have a good tournament, if I bogged the second I was like, oh, we'll get it back on the third. You know, it was like more or because I wasn't worried about anything in the future, I was just like, all right, well, let's do Boggy too. Let's

Birdy the third third. Whereas I think, when you've got this expectation that you're going to win the tournament and this is the only thing that matters, now, when you bog you the second on Thursday, all of a sudden, you freak out, you know, and you don't react well, and now you're three over after six as opposed to maybe just have a settling Birdy a couple of holes later.

Speaker 3

So it's it.

Speaker 2

Isn't really that he's not ready on the first team for me, if I was doing what he did, and I never did it on that scale, But when I had a bad first round and came storming back, it was always because I was too attached to the end result of the tournament on Thursday or Friday and not

just on looking at what I was doing. And I think that's just a natural byproduct of wanting to win something so bad it's hard to get out of your head, you know, And you've been for six months every time you're on the range, your whole life.

Speaker 3

Basically you're on the range eating parts. This is about.

Speaker 2

This is the aiden at the Masters, and this is to win this. This is to win that when you get there and you've got all this air pressured up in the balloon and you're ready to go. As soon as you're like kind of there's a crack in the armor. It all seems to fall apart when you're really really amped up about the end result. For me, but when I just went there with no expectations and I'll hit it down the first and I'll see if I can hit the fairway and then move on, it's but it is.

It's that one shot at a time, just be present. And I think it's very difficult to do that with such massive expectations and like kind of demand on yourself to win the tournament, which we all kind of do.

Speaker 3

But yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2

His challenge isn't learning how to play well enough or any theories for winning the Masters. His challenges to get there and to just trade it like a normal tournament, because if he plays his normal way, he's going to be there at the end.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And then you think back to like DJ where this conversation started, and his mentality is think about what happened to him at Chambers Bay, and like how ninety nine point nine percent of golfers would have reacted to that, you know, three plot the last hole, you would have seen him with their head in their hands, like he just like walked off the budding green and was like

went on as Mary way seemingly. You know, I'm sure he was busted up and the inside it's sub vain, but from the outside it, you know, he seemingly just kind of moved on as soon as it was over.

Speaker 2

And people what bugs me is people have often had that approach. It's gone on because Dozen doesn't think about anything though. He's just so simple, And I'm like, well, no, it's actually the only intelligent way to deal with what happened at Jambers Bay. After seventy two holes on that green, those greens, that was going to happen to somebody, you know, I mean, it would just we'd all be missing two foots all week.

Speaker 3

So it wasn't like.

Speaker 2

This was like an easy sort of two part that he had in a great situation. And it was like you were kind of that was that way he parted out on that last hole, was in every hole for seventy holes that week, the way it was, and he just I think it's just it's actually the perspective he shows he's busted up. You know, he's busted up because he really wants it. But it's like, well, it just wasn't my day. The Greens were like that, it's a shame, but it's not going to help me to dwell on this.

Speaker 3

Let's just move on.

Speaker 2

Like I don't actually think he has that conversation in his head, but that's how it happens. That's actually the best way to deal with anything, the way he deals with it. And yet people kind of maybe think he's

lucky for that approach, but I don't know. I just think he's he's got this innate feeling that none of that is it's not really the end of the world when you three pup the last that year was open because he knows he's great and Noil wins the more down the road, you know, it's a great approach.

Speaker 1

If you had to put it, like an over under on DJ's Majors, what he ends with, what would you? I mean, he's got five runner ups, two wins, you know, a couple a handful of thirds.

Speaker 4

What's he get to when it's all said and done, as.

Speaker 2

I mean, that's obviously an impossible thing, but it wouldn't be surprising to see him get to five or six I think probably.

Speaker 3

I mean mid thirties. Now you'd think seemingly.

Speaker 2

I mean, I know he's had the old injury here and there, but they were kind of outlier injuries.

Speaker 3

He hasn't had a patent.

Speaker 2

The pattern of his body's been pretty good, and he doesn't he's clearly the best goal for it's physically he's going to be competing for five or six years.

Speaker 3

And that's twenty or so chances.

Speaker 2

He's so good when he gets good, I mean, he might not win anymore, but it wouldn't be surprising to see him win five or six or seven, you know what I mean, because he could easily.

Speaker 3

Win two in a year.

Speaker 2

The way like when he gets going, he gets going and it's almost no one beats him, and he just gets further away from the field and he seems that was the first time he'd started in a lead, right, like a proper lead in a major, and like just he had the bit of a roughish front nine and then just went away.

Speaker 3

I think you do that once.

Speaker 2

There's unbelievable confidence that he can get out of that. And if you've got that confidence and belief with the game compared to that game that he has. Wow, he could win and he could win at any court. There's no course that he couldn't win at too, because he's got more than just long you know, he's got your shapes. Certain, he's got a great sense for golf, like he knows.

He plays a smart He play hits the right clubs and his strategy is always pretty sound and he doesn't make bad decisions on the course.

Speaker 3

He can win anyway.

Speaker 2

I mean, he's got five or six months and he gets to go back to the masses again with all that confidence. If he's inform, it'd be hard to bet against him. It'll be interesting. Yeah, I think he'll win a few more though he's too good, not too.

Speaker 1

The other thing, too, is that he's got he's gone through every awful thing that can happen at a major, you know, on Sunday already, And I think there's value to that, Like it's you saw it on on Sunday. It's like he made those two bogies, Well that was like nothing comparative when he shot eighty at Pebble, you know, and that was you know, nothing compared And it was like I think that stuff when you have those near misses.

It builds so much character in you, in your golf, in your golf character, like it builds in your golf soul. And it's like, I don't think he's gonna have disastrous Sundays as often in majors or maybe ever again, like he's had all the bad luck and he has too.

Speaker 4

You know it's if.

Speaker 2

You yeah, I think I always found in those really extreme Sunday rounds, those big rounds, the disaster comes from panicking when you have like he tripled the second at Pebble right, and in your head just spins and you panic.

Speaker 3

A little bit.

Speaker 2

Whereas if it was Thursday in the Pebble Beach pro am or something, he tripled the second hole and then he'd go on and he'd make a few birdies. He wouldn't panic when he made the triple. If you annoyed, you wouldn't panic. And I think on Sundays you panic.

But now, as you said, because he's been through that, been through an outrageously weird situation at Whistling Straits Chambers Bay again, kind of a weird situation because on any normal green he wouldn't have free part of that, you know, it was a crazy pin on a crazy surface.

Speaker 4

Olk, but even when he won was crazy.

Speaker 3

I mean Oakmont.

Speaker 2

He's been through Sunday kind of weird, crazy, un settling things that have happened on Sundays so many times. As you said, he's like battle hardened now, like he's not going to panic.

Speaker 3

He knows he can get it done.

Speaker 2

He knows it's not the end of the world if he doesn't win, you know, because he's had actually some ones that really would make you think it's the end of the world, two or three of them. It's like head in the hands, what sport am I going to play next?

Speaker 3

Sort of thing.

Speaker 2

But he's coming out the other side unscathed and got better for it.

Speaker 3

Nothing.

Speaker 2

What's going to worry him on Sunday now, yeah nothing, Nothing worse can happen that's already kind of happened. So he's now there in that headspace with a better physical golf game than most people. And oh well, like good things happen, bad things happen, but not worried about bad things happening. Now he's got an advantage of everyone else is now thinking that that bad things might happen, you know. So yeah, battle hardened brilliant. Yeah, I think he could Sundays.

He could just become the Sunday guy now like quickly.

Speaker 1

Yeah, in that he's got obviously, like the PGA is like a Dustin Johnson set up tournament. You know, the US Open every year is a dust and you know, now he's got the Basterds. Like in many ways, like I've heard Major Champ you'd say that the Open is actually the easiest to win because if you get on the right side of the draw, it could be a you know, half field tournament, is like that might be the hardest major for him to win is the Open. But even then he's got all the shots.

Speaker 3

He's so talented.

Speaker 2

I mean, I think there's no it's an outrageous thing to say that anybody knows this for sure or whatever, but really, pretty much every day everybody in the world wakes up, he's the best golfer generally, you know, more often he's more often that day better than everyone else on that go Everyone's there's some unbelievable golfers at the moment.

Speaker 3

It always has been.

Speaker 2

But like just Thomas and de Shambeau and Brooks and Webb Simpson and across the.

Speaker 3

Bo I mean, there's this players playing well all.

Speaker 2

The time and I miss ten of them, right, but all things considered dust and seems to be the best most of the time. You know, he's always playing the best golf in the world.

Speaker 3

And that guy with a good headspace. Wow, I mean, you're not Vietnam.

Speaker 2

And the Open it opens a ball striking contest more than it does a putting contest. You know, if the Masters in the US Open become short game and putting contests a little bit, the Open is usually it's truly a ball strike, firm conditions, cross wins. The putting is generally flat and a bit easier. You know, you hold a few more fifteen twenty foot is at the Open, but getting it to fifteen twenty foot is the real skill.

Speaker 3

And a ball striker that good.

Speaker 4

I mean yeah, I mean head close calls like Royal St. George's. He had a close call? Was it Saint Andrews?

Speaker 1

He was really close and then Zach Johnson took that one, I think, But yeah, I mean is I would say that if you put it at three and a half, if you know, four or over or four or lass, it would be be an interesting bad I wonder what Vegas would put it out.

Speaker 3

Oh he's over under career.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look because he could win three next year and then all the sunny's at five, you know, or he might go two years.

Speaker 3

He might. I mean when when Rory.

Speaker 2

Left wherever it was, this guy's going to win twenty majors, you know, But things happen and life gets in the way, and there's always I mean, justin Thomas is surely going to break out and win a few more the way he seems to play in these big tournaments all the time. And then there's Rory, and then Bryson, and then Brooks seems can win them for fun too, and then there's Marakawa who's coming, and all these other guys. So it's it's not like he's going to have it free. No

one's ever had it free. But it's getting There's more and more guys playing like when when I first started, and I'm sure it was even more like amplified back in Jack's day and Hogan's day and Jones, I mean, all the way through, the best has always been way better than everyone else, you know, And when I when Tiger came out and in my time it was so it was so far and away the best, and then Duval and then everybody else, you know what I mean kind of thing, Ernie.

Speaker 3

But now there's.

Speaker 2

Twenty five guys who like play at that level. That's such a high level that it's going to be hard at a mass. It's at least at the moment. And we said this before Tiger came out, that no one's eving going to win eighteen or ever, no chance because there's too many good players. But it's even amplified now. There's so many good players, so it wouldn't be weird if you didn't win any and it wouldn't be weird

if you won another five. Like it's yeah, I'd like to I'd like to own a steak in Dustin's golf future.

Speaker 1

Though you should have tried to buy in an Akron when you played the first time with.

Speaker 3

Them, absolutely by five percent.

Speaker 4

Of what about a good a shrewd investment that.

Speaker 1

So before the week Can'tley says, this golf course changes every year. They tweaked the eighteenth green two years ago, and they tweaked the fifth green last year. Maybe in a weird way. I know more about the fifth hole than Jack Nicholas knows about the fifth hole, and he talked this was a question about like.

Speaker 4

Do you.

Speaker 1

Know lean on past champions players that I've had success here? And he kind of was like, you know what, I kind of just go do my own thing. So do you think the value of experience that Augusta National will decrease over time as technology continues to advance, or is Augusta unique enough that it'll always require years of.

Speaker 4

Experience to continually succeed.

Speaker 2

I don't think it'll always require it, you know, Like I don't think it's a prerequisite. Is I don't think you need experience to play well there, but it certainly helps.

Speaker 3

I mean, look at Langa. You know, if you had.

Speaker 2

That field around the Houston Open, Lang is not making the cut, you know what I mean, Or Tory Pine South or something, you know what I mean, or most of the place we there's just no way. But you get to a really long, soft, toasted Augusta there's Langer has probably knows how to play that course better than anyone in that field, you know, because he's played it more times than any world And it really is always

going to be that place. I'm not saying Patrick Patrick can approach it anyway once and he's a very cerebral kind of guy, and he's a smart goal guy and he works it out. But yeah, and they do it just they've been adjusting stuff forever, right, every year we get there, it's like, oh, they've done something to eleven, or they've done something to the fifth green, or there's there's something different here, and.

Speaker 3

It's constantly evolving.

Speaker 2

But generally it's not really Augusta about one little.

Speaker 3

Specific thing here or there.

Speaker 2

It's just the more times you hit it in the wrong spot there you learn how to play the court. I mean, when you're in the right spot, you just think, oh this I was pretty easy. But it's not until you hit it over the the first hole that you just don't hit it there again and you don't miss it back right for that pin or front left for that pin or ever. And it just takes a certain number of rounds that you can't get out of a green book or.

Speaker 3

Just looking.

Speaker 2

It just takes getting burnt a few times to kind of find your your kind of line of charm around the course, you know what I mean, Or ways to play certain pins and how does it play when it's cold?

Speaker 3

And windy.

Speaker 2

You know, how does it play when it's long and soft here? Like does it play different in the afternoons? Can you read this screen when this shadows on it or not? Like it's such a There are so many little intricacies and nuances to playing that course in that tournament. That experience is always going to be an advantage. It's always going to be it's always going to be an advantage to have that information. I mean, you don't, as I said, you don't need it, but it's an advantage.

So Patrick, he's probably going about it the right way for him, but he'll be better than than he was this time. Yeah, I think you better there at the time after than he was that time. So that sort of says that experience stats something. You know.

Speaker 1

Web Simpson had like a great quote after his first round he played really well and last year, after you know, years of not playing great, he finished I think t fifth last year and uh, they asked him, like, you know, what's with the you know, your recent really strong play here, and he said, you know, I had to start giving the golf course more respect, Like I can't show up here and play it like I play a normal tour course.

Like there are places you just cannot hit the ball and I have to leave myself in certain places, and he's like in that, now I'm playing the golf course

so much better, you know, I'm able to score. And it's it's funny because, like I I almost got frustrated with JT on like Saturday, that just the entire week, Like I thought he was playing just as good as DJ, and in a way he took chances and took things on places where you're like, you know, Tiger would have hit this shot here, you know, and and because of it, he makes a six on you know, a hole that you know, ins said of a four, and you know it's like the guy that would have been you know,

we would have had DJJT Sunday if he you know, just kind of takes care of business. It's just interesting because like I thought about that Patrick Cantley quote all week, and it's like, you see the guys longer and even Tiger came up with no form whatsoever, and after the first round he's there sixty eight.

Speaker 2

You know, it is it's that it's it's hard to there are no golf courses that we play at least regularly.

Speaker 3

That have so much to learn.

Speaker 2

You know. It's a sense of timing too, because there's two ways. I mean, Websines has learned to respect the course a little bit. I had to learn to lose a little bit of respect. At times I respected it too much. Sometimes I went in too cautious and played really and I played great, or week can finish fifteenth because I just couldn't make enough birdies because I was

playing it too smart. And where I think the guys who are really good at that place traditionally, I mean guys like Jack and Tiger and Phil and Bubba, is that they know when to play smart, but they also have a sense of timing when you know what, I have to take this shot on, you know, and they do, you know, because you see the winners sometimes play outrageously aggressive.

Speaker 3

Shots in fifteen and.

Speaker 2

Stuff like that, and you just you just wouldn't do it if you had respect for the shot. But every now and then there's a sense of timing and and recognition of you know what to win this week, there's a few shots I have to take on and there's a few shots that I really have to respect and every day, and that's on every hole, I mean, one day the seventh, you're hitting away from the hole. You're hitting a conservative t shot away from the hole because

that's the way the pin is. And then the next day you move the pin fifteen feet and you're trying to smash up as far as you can and you're really trying to stump and hold your second shot almost like and they can change, but you have to have experienced every hole with all the different pins in all their different conditions to kind of have that sort of database of knowledge about all these things, which ones you can get away with going for and which ones you can't.

And I really do think that's just a trial by error experienced thing. I mean, you can do it. First week, Camp Smith played great. Was that it was his first one.

Speaker 1

Right, I don't think it was Camp He finished t fifth a couple of years ago there and then yeah, that's right, top five Chambers.

Speaker 3

And was it his first one?

Speaker 4

It was? It was Sung Tase.

Speaker 2

And Sun Jay's first one finished second. So it can be done. But uh, it's just it's an advantage. As I said, and as we talked about last year, the big one of the biggest things about Augusta is the.

Speaker 3

The freedom which you can swing it.

Speaker 2

It makes you nervous because it's a nervous making place and there's train wrecks everywhere. So you're hitting the sh that you can only hit. You if you hit with this free gay abandon almost you know just just what happens happens, and that's when you hit your great shots, when you don't really worry about where they go. But the shot that you're having to take on there's all sorts of bad things that can happen, but the.

Speaker 3

Only way you can hit it is to free up.

Speaker 2

So it does that to you. And I think the more you know the course, the more you understand the good and bad spots you can miss for each shot and eats pin so it allows you to free up, you know, because you understand what's up there in front of you. But if you haven't sort of played that shot with that pin in those conditions a few times, you might not know that there's that actually short left is actually good today, you know, or so you can free swing it out to the left and you'll be okay.

It kind of that all makes sense. I just think you just got to have a database of things that you've done and people you've played with, and you play practice rounds with guys who've played there before, and everyone's always talking about everyone's got theories how to play every hole who've played there a long time.

Speaker 3

You know, the first you do this, and on the second can you do this?

Speaker 2

And you put all those theories together and you kind of come up with your own picture of how you want to play the course, but that takes some time. Well.

Speaker 1

The other thing, too, is like you don't know there's a terrible place until you get there one time.

Speaker 2

You know, yeah, it looks quite simple, and like you hit it there like two years ago on Thursday, and you got it up and down easy, but they moved this pin, sick, this is a six foot and a different spot this pin, and now you're in the same spot and you can't chip it on the green.

Speaker 3

You know, Yeah, it really is. Some spots that.

Speaker 2

Look really docile are really really scary, and some spots that look really really scary really aren't that bad, you know.

Speaker 1

And Someday Sunday just went around and you know, I would say a Sunday Sunday he was getting up and down all over the place, but he just went around and flagged it all week, like he's in for a dose reality when he doesn't have his a game and he starts finding these weird places.

Speaker 2

Yeah. And also if you get a bit of a bounce on the green, there's quite a lot of pins there that you can get it close to most there, but sometimes you have to land it twenty feet right and drift it in or short or back it up from the back slope or something. He's just so mechanically amazing, doesn't miss a shot, has no weakness physically, and clearly

mentally he's pretty strong. It's hard to imagine he's not going to be sort of knocking on the door for those majors for quite a while if his game stays the same, because he's talk about sound and like talk about adulation of the driving range. I mean, everybody loves sung Jay. I mean he's such a good player.

Speaker 1

I just I hope he wins a major so he doesn't have to go through the military thing.

Speaker 3

Oh does that get them out of it?

Speaker 4

Yeah? It's only only major I think are Olympics.

Speaker 3

So that would be grouse.

Speaker 2

You would think, well, he'd certainly make the Olympics if it happens next year.

Speaker 3

Is it happening?

Speaker 4

I don't know, but I think it's supposed to.

Speaker 3

That would be great.

Speaker 2

That's a strange thing. And when was it Sang Moon had to go back? Yeah, I think about and then he checked in.

Speaker 4

Like a two year break, you know from the game.

Speaker 1

It's just nuts, was it wasn't it? Uh wasn't uh Ernie. Ernie was in the military early as a.

Speaker 3

Kid, but I think so early days.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but he went to some like his commander was like a golf nutt and he ended up just teaching lessons on the range or something.

Speaker 3

Yeah, you read that about all this.

Speaker 2

I wasn't I mean, it wasn't like when Annie and all that in the service at some point and I would just giving golf lessons back in the day the serviceman. I mean, our boys needed and the boys need to work on their golf game while they're helping us out, you know, I mean everyone needs to work their golf game out.

Speaker 4

Real quicks.

Speaker 1

Lots of drama about the sixteenth hole moving the pin back right for Sunday.

Speaker 4

What do you think about it?

Speaker 1

That moving away from the whole one flag on the left.

Speaker 2

I wouldn't really like to see it on a regular basis, but there is they used to when Nicholas hold that part and said five it was up there.

Speaker 3

You know, I don't know how how long.

Speaker 2

A period, like how long is it pre seventy five? Was it ever down there in the hole one pin?

Speaker 4

I'm not sure?

Speaker 2

Or is that was that a new thing at some point like in the late seventies or eighties.

Speaker 3

I don't know. It is a very fun pin, and it's.

Speaker 2

A holy one pin or it's not a holy one pin, and they.

Speaker 3

Know where it is.

Speaker 2

There's a six, there's six inches in a different spot that it goes in, and there's six inches away that it will never go in.

Speaker 3

You know, kind of thing.

Speaker 2

I think because of the history of that pin in the last thirty or forty years, I wouldn't like to see it go away from it. But saying that, if you if you make par on that top right, that's probably one of the hardest pars on a par three. That's a seven nine or six or eight on whatever you want to call it, seven nine in the world,

that top right pin. I mean, you've got to hit the highest of high quality shots to get it on the top tier, and if you don't, it's a really difficult two part because it's one you really got to smash from the bottom of the hill, and you don't want to smash it because you don't want to hit a four feet past. You know, it's a great So

on a challenge perspective, I kind of like it. But on an excitement perspective, I'd rather see people birdying and holing ones and stuff on sixteen rather than all the groans from three parts, you know, or balls drifting down the hill and like missed puts and stuff.

Speaker 3

So I don't know, I'd be fifty to fifty.

Speaker 4

I don't put much stock in this.

Speaker 1

There's there are people out there that say, hey, you know, winning a Major without fans isn't real. I think you're you beat the best, one of the best fields of the world. You want an Augusta. It's a win to win. Everybody played the same conditions. Do you put any stock Do you think it's easier to win a Major without fans or you know, is there any stock or at all that would say that major wins without the fans this year are diminished Major wins.

Speaker 3

No, I wouldn't say diminished at all.

Speaker 2

Everybody was playing under the same conditions, right, I mean everybody was trying to win. Everybody standing there on the first three last week really wanted to win the Masters. They were there's a there's it's it's it's a different environment that they're playing in, but the headspace is still the same. This is the Masters, this is lifetime exemption, this is the Green Jacket, this is all this stuff.

It's a different it's probably different challenges, or maybe there's an element of challenge that's removed, but it's removed for everybody. You know, it's not like it's Dustin's playing with no crowd and a chill that environment. Everyone else has pandemonium. It's the same for everybody across the board. So I don't think it diminishes it in any way. It's probably slightly a It might suit slightly different players here and

there when they're like that. You know, Wingfoot might have been interesting.

Speaker 3

I mean, New York.

Speaker 2

Gets loud and boisterous and like kind of crazy later on a Sunday afternoon.

Speaker 3

Might have been different from Bryson.

Speaker 2

I don't know, but it still looked like he was so far and away the best player in the field, you know, and the same thing this week and Colin it's hard to argue that was that was a pretty exciting revd up atmosphere filled kind of back nine and finish, even without too many people there. So I don't know, I wouldn't. I don't think it's diminished at all. Everyone's playing under the same conditions, and I promise you every player in the field is.

Speaker 3

Thinking of it as the same you know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, he any with twenty twenty coming to an end, I think everybody's excited for twenty twenty be over. But any impressions on golf in twenty twenty, like what's happened? Any any grand conclusions or thoughts in general on the year?

Speaker 3

Oh wow, no amazing.

Speaker 2

I mean in Mark, when it all started coming down and all the events started getting canceled and dropping like flies, it's just like wow. It was kind of a hidden for golf. I was like, what's going to happen here? But all of a sudden, the PGA too, had an unbelievable job when they went back to Colonial I remember, they's know, what are they doing? This is so ridiculous, Like everyone's going to get sick and all the players.

This is such a bad idea. But it went really well and then they got better and better and better at it, and they basically had it. We forget that it wasn't like a normal year, but it was really it kind of had a normal tour year in the end, or at least a money listed, some results, and we got to watch some golf and the best players play. So I mean, from that respect, the tour, at least the PGA Tour did an unbelievable job.

Speaker 3

And the level.

Speaker 2

Bryson's obviously a story when he said he was going to gain all this weight this time last year and he's going to come out and hit it further. So everyone rolls their eyes and go, okay, Bryson whatever. But he came out he actually did it, and no one's ever done that, no one's ever tried to gain distance significantly and not lost the plot.

Speaker 4

Right, He's Novi's gigged sixty pounds between Masters appearances.

Speaker 3

You know what.

Speaker 2

It's unbelievable and like how well he's done that, and it's incredible and the effect that that's going to have on the way young people approach the game. And then kind of the anti Bryson approach, if you like, with dust with dustin. I mean, he's not anti but it's the opposite end of the spectrum that you've got bookends about how to approach golf. You know, you've got no stone unturned Bryson, you get like Albert Einstein physics lessons, and you've got a guy saying, hit ball, fine ball, hit.

Speaker 3

Ball, ceball. Let's just go this is good fun. You know, like, what do you think about it? Too much? It's not that hard and everything in between.

Speaker 2

So I think it's And they're both the best two golfers in the world, so it's how good a stage is that. I mean, it's amazing. I think too much gets talked about distance. I think distance is a big part of the conversation that needs to happen in golf. But I think it needs to be holistically thought about.

Not no snap, little rule change here and there is going to do a whole lot of good for the game, but a holistic kind of approach from all angles and all thoughts, all parties and all thoughts, and just to keep these golf courses relevant. You know, it would be interesting. But I think it gets talked about too much. You know, I think the level of golf at the top is so fun to watch at the moment, they're amazing. Yeah,

bring on twenty one. Let's get a little bit of normality back and travel and schedules and a few people in front of the golf courses and stuff. But the level of golf being played at the top of the game at the moment is higher now than it was this time last year.

Speaker 3

And that's amazing.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean there's so many and it just seems like there's more and more young players. You know, there's just going to be floods of talent coming. Yeah. That happens with any sport. When the purses go up. With what Tiger did for the game, more athletes are going to come to the game, you know.

Speaker 2

Yeah, And we're learning about to teach the swing better. And I think this whole I mean we've talked about it before, but I think growing up trying to hit it as hard as you can is actually a pretty good way to find your swing.

Speaker 3

So we've got it.

Speaker 2

Used to be like those would be like constantly kind of searching their swing. You know, everyone's like giving guys tips on the range, and all the way through your career, you're always trying.

Speaker 3

To find it.

Speaker 2

Seems like they've got a much better sense of what they've They're more complete techniques at a young age. You know, they've flowing, they've had more information, better coaching, they're more complete golfers when they come out, they've sort of done a lot of All they need to do is pick up a bit of experience and off they go. Whereas before it was five or six years on tour before you kind of got your game up to the level.

Now their games at the level are even a higher level than most of the pros when they come out, and it's amazing.

Speaker 3

It's young.

Speaker 2

It's definitely young in the average down and I think golf in the forties used to be a lot of guys sweet spots. It's going to be harder and harder for guys in their forties to compete because of the way the game is played. You know, twenty year olds are just stronger than forty year olds generally. Yeah, fast,

fast is a better way to say. Yeah, And if that continually gets rewarded as much as it does, and there's there's so much to be gained in hitting it long way and fast, the kind of the Jerry Kelly, David Toms, Steve Stricker kind of in the forties, those great sort of twilights of PGA tour careers are going to be harder and harder to see because it's going.

Speaker 3

To be just harder to compete if you're not flying at three twenty.

Speaker 1

You know, I, you know, I thought of you when I was watching Live from U and I made Diaz had like a bunch of tidbits on DJ. He talked to, you know, like his his teacher when he was growing up, and the teacher when he was grown up is like one like lesson and message to DJ was always just hit as hard as you can.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Well that was a Daily's kind of model too, right, And I always loved Daily's action and he was always he made the sound and he had he was one of the ball strikers. It's a good like. Back in the day, it was like, oh, well, long hitters hit it sideways. You know, you've got to hit it on the fairway. You've got to like just be a sensible golfer. And that actually was that headspace of trying and hit

the fairwell, that's actually a contral only headspace. You know, you're actually trying to control it, and that's what we don't want it I mean the great golf swings are letting go of control, right, just just being relaxed and free. And that's what happens when you start trying to hit the ball a long way. You get a bit more free because you if you worry, if you don't worry about where it goes, it actually goes straighter.

Speaker 3

Don't worry.

Speaker 2

You know.

Speaker 3

That's the biggest, the the ironic kind of frustration with golf.

Speaker 2

Really, the real fundamental issue that everybody struggles with is control versus letting it happen, you know, and then letting it happen is where you want to be. But we want to hit it where, we want to hit it straight, and we want to hit a good shot so bad that we all lean towards that controlling kind of side, and that's where we get into all our paralysis by analysis headspace and messing with our heads dustn't and that model of just hitting it as hard as you can

it kind of frees you up from that. You know. It's more just like I just want to smash it, and that's how your body wants to work, you know, with like take the governor off and just go, you know, and it freeze up and it goes where it wants to go.

Speaker 3

It's a great way to learn how you how to swing it.

Speaker 2

And yeah, it's just going to continue to probably bring the average age of the best golfers in the world down, at least the average age of the PGA to it.

Speaker 3

The age is going to get less and less, I think for a bit.

Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, he'll probably Yeah.

Speaker 2

There'll still be I mean, Dustin is still going to compete his fort I mean, Micholson is still one of the best players in the world of fifty, you know, and there's still going to be those outliers. But the average age I think that he used to be in the thirties. Guys sweet spots. I think the sweet spots will be in the twenties.

Speaker 4

Late twenties.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, all right, well, hey, thanks as always for coming on and we'll talk to you maybe in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 4

Who knows next.

Speaker 3

Absolutely, absolutely

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