Welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by the Fridagg Pro Shop. Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about our prints. Most of it is my photography. We do fine art paper prints, which are beautiful traditional prints. You can get those framed or unframed, and then we also do metal prints, which are kind of a little bit more unique, one of kind vivid colors. Everybody that sees these metal prints are kind of in awe of them. And we have
tons of golf courses photographed up on the site. We have some other ones. I'm still trying to get up there, it just takes some time. Most recent one that we put up was Kiwa Island, the ocean course, so we got a bunch of photos from beautiful morning out at kia And what we're doing through Sunday of this week, which would be through I don't know what would be the twenty something twenty second. We are doing twenty percent
off those Kiawa prints, both paper and metal. So a good time to get yours if you've been there and want a beautiful print of golf course on an ocean. Anyways, today's episode is with Jeff Ogilvie. It's been a little
while since we chatted. Obviously, it's been a nuts news cycle the early part of the year between the USGA Patrick Reid and something that I saw that was really cool that prompted this chat that I wanted to talk with Jeff about was this player series event that Jeff hosted in Australia and it is a mixed event, really cool.
He goes into detail about that, and I think long term, this is an event that golf should take a look at and think, hey, can we do more of these or incorporate some of these maybe in America, Europe other places, because it is such a neat event, and I think there are would just be a huge interest in it on a bigger scale, and hopefully one of these Australian ones is televised. It would be neat to see it.
I'm sure it's televised in Australia, but it'd be great to see it televised or stream somewhere that we could see it in the United States. Without further ado, here
is Jeff Ogilby. 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 egggg Frida egg brid egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the Did you have like one teacher throughout your career junior gaul for Did you have multiple? What was your teaching situation?
I had a few lessons from a few different guys when I was younger, really young, I mean I was I think Dad take me, tout me to get some lessons before I was ten, sort of eight and nine, maybe ten with the local pro at his golf club, a guy called Henry Caussele, who was the pro at
Yariara It's where Dad was a member. And I had a couple lessons there and I remember I wrote down like the four or five things he gave me, like the legs and the strongest thing in the body, and there was a couple of well there was three or four things, and then I think I got a lesson to have Bruce Green, who was the pro Rod Melbourne
still is still a legend driving around ro Melbourne giving lessons. Yeah, been there forever, great player, too, wonderful teacher, old school teacher a bit like more like like the Butch Harmond school. No video cameraund, no track man. He's just got that old school kind of. I just tow it in here or move the ball back and he stance and hit it hard to day Jeff or some stuff like that.
But then I kind of as we got into the system, like their systems here, so as a good junior golfer you sort of get noticed by the State Golf Association and the Institute of Sport. And once I kind of got into that system. Steve Banner Dale Lynch sort of Banny at first, who's coached a lot on to a lot of guys who play in the US, and then Day Lynch pretty much from about fifteen sixteen onwards all the way through.
So I had a few like different.
Ones along the way, but then it became Lynchy really for most of the time. And he came over with he came over regularly with me and Dads and Stevie Allen and Great Spence and Charmers and yeah, a few different ones.
But did you ever think about switching once you were with Lynch?
No, So I'm a good I'm a bad student in the I think I'm just I don't. I'm very skeptical of everything anyone tells, you know, I think I know better, you know, which is a whole mark of guys. You play on to it generally when you talk to them, they all think they know the answers. But I actually did think I knew the answers, and I liked Lynchy because he helped me.
Find them my own way, you know what I mean. He didn't tell me this is the way it is, he said.
He just did very wise about golf, the way he spoke about it, you know, very educational. So I never even considered anyone else to be honest because I thought everything he said was great.
Yeah, I always wonder about that because I feel like continuity is like the most important thing, because in reality, I feel like most golfers are just usually working on the same things over and over again, and if you switch, it's just like you're starting from scratch and it could get you all all messed up.
Well, I think.
It should be a medicine, not a diet, you know, Like it should be like going to the doctor. He fixes you up, and then you go away and you go play again, and then you come back when you need the doctor again, whereas they they're a bit like chiropractice or something. Not to pick on chiropractice, but like once you start going to a golf coach, just like we've got to come back next week, you've got to
come back the week after, you got to come back. Well, if you were teaching me, I wouldn't need to come back all the time, you know. And I think the art of a golf coach is that he teaches the golfer how to coach himself. He needs to become redundant. And at some point I think that was at least my philosophy. And if you look at the best golfers of all time, I mean Jack, he barely needed a coach by the end.
I mean Stuart Maiden helped Jones.
I mean, Hogan did it all himself, so need did it all himself, Travino did it all himself. Guys like Freddi Kupels kind of did it all himselves. The long these long term great balls truckers found their game their way, you know, and you can get an advice and stuff along the way of how to help, sort of signposts if you like, try this, try this, try that, and
you'll discover it over in that area. But I think if you have a guy as ah, well, you're going to come back and fix your set up or fix your back swing and never going to be any good until you do that.
I think it's missing the point of coaching.
So it makes sense is going to become self playing because when you get out in the third hole and it feels bad that day, you can't hang on, let me send you a video of swing and tell me what I'm doing wrong. I mean, you got to work it out today and then on the fourth and then and the game is really the art is working it out as you go along there. So a great coach is someone who teaches someone how to do that.
And if you get it right, then you'll be infinitely more consistent because every day you wake up and you feel a little different in being able to figure out what isn't quite working in a given day. Will that's the lead to more made cuts, more times in contention?
Yeah, you just you'll you're actually you'll be always polishing that skill, that skill of I've got to work it out today, how to hit it straight today? You know how to hit a good shot right now? That's an art to kind of if you feel if you're feeling kind of crappy and you wake up feeling weird sometimes and you do, You've got to work out how to hit it today because no one cares.
How you if.
You're swings getting there, you know, I mean, you've got to shoot a good score today. And the best golfers are the ones or the most consistent goings are the best golfers, because some of the best golfers seem to be those guys who can like peak for a certain week with all their technique work and that.
But I think the true professional and the art of the game.
Is to be able to hit a good shot right now, work it out. And if you don't hit this one good, the work out the next one, you know what I mean, and just repeat that.
And I think the great coaches.
Get their players to be more self sufficient, you know, they get them motivated, They get them wanting to be out there, and they get them wanting to kind.
Of learn about their golf swing and play rather than just.
Making them think if you hit all these certain positions and these numbers, you'll be player.
You know, there's an irony about it that a golf a great golf coach would make you see them less over time, which would thus cost them money in terms of lesson time.
It's a conflict in their business model.
Yeah, it's yeah, But the truly great coaches are if you talk to them, they're like, even though you might see them behind the guys on the range all the time, the great I mean, Butcher's just keep them half the time most of the time, just keeping these guys in a good mood and pumping him up mentally and just generally having a good time. And if they need, if they want something, he's there with it, you know what I mean. But he's generally just there helping them out.
And then the great coaches a lot of that. They're not giving any technique lessons on the range on Thursday mornings. I mean, some of them aren't. But the great ones don't, you know, They're just going to be there and make their player feel like a better player all the time. I think that's really the art, making the player love the game and love kind of working his game out, you know, because it's hard going to work out.
Was there a guy outside of your coach? Is that that you over the years that you liked talking to the swing most about like either player or coach that you just like to chat with about well, you know, different things about the swing.
All the ways through it was interesting.
I always thought like, if I go all the way through my golf through the players. Justin Rose when we were kids, he was always into this with Justin and Trevor were the two guys Immelman who really were into the swing and had great technical actions, And I was interested in what they were working on and used to talk to them a little bit about it growing up through the thing. And then on the way I'm obviously Lynchy.
He was my guy we would talk to the most, but I always to love I hung out with Butcher a lot because he was I used to.
Play a lot with Adham, so we Scotty, so we'd walk a lot.
Of practice rounds, and I loved hanging out with She was just good energy and had a fair bit of wisdom with the game. I think Pete Cowen speaks brilliantly about the game. I don't know anybody's thought about it as much as Pete.
I mean everybody.
There's a lot of people that have thought about golf a lot. You and me included, right but Pete right up there, he's played at a pretty high level. Accepted that he wasn't there because of for whatever reason. I think he says he's at his anger issues were pretty strong. But he's he's incredibly wise about the game and no nonsense.
You know, he won't sugarcoat it for you. He'll say, this is the way it is. If you do this, you'll be better. If you don't, you won't.
Like he's got a really interesting delivery system. Yeah, yeah, he's great a lot of guys. Look, I still love speaking to all the coaches. I think it's fascinating, like how everybody's trying to interpret It's the same thing, really, I mean, you're just trying to get the club to hit the ball the right direction, you know what I mean basically, and everyone interprets that completely differently and explains
it differently. And I think it's there's value in talking to lots of different people about it because everyone sees it different and you you will too. But the more different perspectives you have, maybe the more you can kind of zone in on the way you want to feel about it, you know.
Yeah, And every golfer like the way they understand how that person interprets it different, like and somebody could just explain it a little different and it clicks with you.
Yeah, absolutely, Like there was definitely times when Lynchy was like probably banging his head against the walls, knowing, how can Jeff not get this?
How can he not get this?
And then I would talk to other another player or just randomly and someone would be or I'd look at another player working on something and I would try something and Lynch, She's like, well, that's what I've been trying to get you to do for a year or so, why don't you just tell me that? You know, so we get very tunnel vision suck in our ways, And as I said, I was fairly stubborn. I knew the answers and no one else did. So you don't open
your eyes as much. I think the more times, the more the more you just absorbed the game from all sorts of people, I think the more it helps.
It's funny you mentioned Justin Rose because I think I think he almost did what Bryson did before Bryson did it, because he that how he gained distance was pretty incredible because he went from being you know, not long to long over the course of a couple years.
Yeah, he wasn't naturally one of the long ones for me or kid, I mean Charles Howell will Kids, he was naturally long. You know, he's always smashed it and hit the ball. Well, I mean Scotty Adam was really naturally long, Sergio I was naturally long, but Justin wasn't naturally long. But he's created He's made himself a long hitter,
which is amazing. Yeah, it's hard to do because history has always said that the guys who tried to gain length usually lost the plot, right, but recent times, You're right, Justin was one of the runs who actually turned himself from a not he wasn't short, but he wasn't one of those naturally like speedy swingers to a guy actually smashes it.
Yeah, yeah, impressed.
Yeah, tell us about this Player series in Australia. It perked my interests and I wish it was on TV. I thought it was a really cool concept. And he tell us the concept of the event, and then about the first one that you hosted and played in Australia.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it was really cool. So the Player series events, we thought we've been struggling to get the big sort of the medium level to events going in Australia. We've always sort of done right with the Strain Open and the PGA and the Masters and stuff, though the Masters has gone.
By the way so now, but.
We'd always have two or three big events and then there'd be nothing for anyone to play in except for the guys who go overseas.
So there was sort of a bit of an idea thrown around.
I'd always thought that we should get amateurs and pros playing together more often. And then with the Victorian Open, they've been running the men's and women's tournament concurrently at the same thirty six hole venue and you'd play men's group, women's group, men's group, women's group, and that's been a massive success. Has having a guys and girls tournament running
at the same time. Brought more people in kind of opened our eyes to the women's game and opened their eyes to our game, like it was just a really good thing. So combining the pros and juniors and men and women both in the one tournament, we thought, one, this is at not a crazy prize money level, but at at a at a level. To create this, let's have guys and girls play the same tournament, and we adjust the girl's teas to match theoretically, you know what I mean, as good as we can. So only one.
We're playing for one and the men and women are for it. And it's pro. It's the best pros we can find in the area, and thirty or forty ameters, you know what I mean. So the first two days there's a men's pro, a woman pro probably and an elite amateur who could win the tournament, you know, these plus anticap gids, these kids who are about to turn pro.
And then on the weekend after the cut, the two pros in the group they would they had like an under eighteen junior tournament on the week thirty six tournament they played in our group. So we had a junior in every one of our groups.
Oh my god.
So yeah, so the junior's got to play with pros on the weekend in a tournament in contention, play for their own thing, and the men and women got to play their own tournament too. It was It was amazing. So the Australian Tour Graham Scott, who's one of the rules officials, set up the teas for the guys and the girls and we had Suo who was probably our most legitimate women play this. She's top fifty in the world, plays LPGA, a really really good player.
She had a chance to win.
She was tied for the lead with two hours to play. And then we had Elvis Smiley who's a young amateur nineteen I think nineteen and one of the probably one of the best amateurs in Australia right now.
He bird is the last to go in front of Sue on Sunday.
And then Brad Kennedy, the veteran pro who's won a bunch of Japan and stuff Australia. He goes and has like three hundred in the last four and he ends up winning by a shot. So we have a girl about to win, then one of the amateurs is about to win, and then a pro wins right at the end, all in front of the thing, and we had the young There was a young fourteen or fifteen year old girl, Molly, who was a local girl from Rosebud the course we were playing. She was tied for the lead and the
amateur thing or one behind in the amateur tournament. And the amateur tournament was this the junior tournament was to say was girls and guys in the same thing.
She stumps it to like three feet in the last in front of her.
Home crowd makes Bertie to win, and then the kid no, and then the kid, the eighteen year old kid. He comes up the last and I was like a twenty foot of a beat her by a shot. Like it was just an amazing thing. Everybody, just the experience everyone gained was really really cool, and everyone was really excited. And as I said, we had a guy and a girl like Sue, as I said, a world class player,
and Brad Kennedy's a world class player. They we got the tea's right, So it was a fair tournament, you know what I mean, between guys and girls.
So it was really cool.
What was the difference in yardage about.
In very Look, it was quite a short course, so it was maybe a little bit. I don't know if it would be easier to do on a short course for a harder course on a longer course, I don't know, but thirty meters thirty yards something like that, ten on the path, threes and thirty on a part five something like that, I don't know, forty on a part five
something like that. So it was they were trying to get it, so we hit the same clubs in and it's it's a tough one, I think, because there's more variation between the longest women golfers and the shortest than there is between the guys. You know, I think totally the median band for guys is pretty much everybody you know, between two ninety and three ten or wherever you want to put it. That's kind of where everybody hits it except for a few outliers, you know. Whereas the girls,
there's some girls who hit it far. And the difference between the and Van Dam and the shortest here on tour is sixty yards or something fifty yards. You know, there's no guys don't have that spread.
Mb Park hits at like two thirty you know.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
And Ni, Yeah, it's crazy.
So there's a big It would be harder probably to look and this isn't a thing that you would ever have at a super high level because I think it would be really difficult to get right. As I said, with the elite, everybody's but at this level that we're doing it like sort of Australian pros, you aren't really don't have anywhere to go, so at the moment, really good players, I mean, we had some pretty legit players in it, and the quality of the fields we have.
That next year will be interesting because we're going to do it again. We're going to try to do as many as we can around Australia. But the next one we'll do the same tournament again the week before all week after the vic Open. Hopefully it happens and we should have almost a full LPGA style field and European too kind of guys field, so along with the juniors and the kids and stuff.
It could be really good.
Man, that's cool. It had to be so much fun to be like that. It had to be unlike any tournament you've ever played in.
I was so cool.
It was maybe the coolest tournament, I mean outside of the obviously the Masters and stuff like that, as far as just how happy people were to be in it and how much fun people had. It was the best tournament I've ever played by far. I mean, the kid we played with on I was in the last group. I played decently the first two days and it was the last group on Saturday and played with this young kid Jack who was no a bell actually Jackson gud who won it our Bell and I hadn't heard of him.
He was like seventeen or eighteen, and he was so nervous. On the first two he's flipping out right. He's playing in the last group on Saturday to pro to and there's gallery ropes and there's signs that its like feels like a big tournament. But by about the sixth or seventh hole, he'd like completely grown up as a golfer and he just played. It was unbelievable just to see the experience he got out of one day that we
never had a chance. No one gets a chance to do this, you know, play behind the inside the ropes on the weekend with pros. But it's not completely serious because you're not actually in the tournament, but you actually get to see what they do and get the feeling of being there.
It was. It was incredible. It was great.
I mean or that we had parents who were I mean they were coming up just just gushing about how like good this was for their kids, and that was amazing.
It was really cool.
That's as you know, when I think back to playing golf as a junior golf her, I would this had that is probably where this event does the most good is for those juniors, because like every time you play at a higher level, it's like a whole new experience and you get that out of body, uncomfortable experience, and this one had to be like it probably like felt like jumping three levels, going from high school to like a graduate school class. For these kids.
Yeah, it was amazing. I mean it was.
And you can't buy experience like that. I mean, it's never been there this sort of thing, you know. I mean only if any of these kids kind of get lucky enough and have that crazy week where they Monday qualify into the Australian Open or something and happen to play well and sort of like there's a lot of ifs and bots about getting an experience like that, but if if you can provide that experience, it was just yeah, they all got better that week, for sure. Is it
probably want to do it more? You know, like the motivation is like, wow, this is fun. This people actually watching me play and this privy ones on the range and there's like, I mean this is like nice.
You know a motivation.
What do you think about the idea of that this type of product for golf at a bigger scale. When you think about the value prop of of this, maybe just say it happened on the PGA Tour with LPGA Tour and then junior golfers, is that you know, we were We started to see it with just the annual the Augusta National Women's Amateur, like uh Fosse and cup show, the two girls that duked it out on the final day.
They were also known commodities when they turn pro like people like you know, casual golfers know who they are, and it's like this has the opportunity to like I think one of the toughest things for golf is like they make their chops off off guys like Tiger and Phil and Ernie and who are around for twenty years. Is like it it almost extends. It builds a brand of some of these like up and coming kids earlier, you know, in the process if the right kids are there.
Absolutely, yeah, I think it works on I don't think it works on like an important tournament, you know what I mean?
I agree, but I think it really works.
I mean it would be amazing because I mean, you could do it in such a bigger scale in the US, you know what I mean, it's just more money involved, so you could just I don't know, you could do it on a bigger scale, but it.
Was just I just it's look, it's everything that golf, at least.
In Australia and the kind of the countries that were influenced by, say the RNA.
But still it's the feeling is still in the US that aminism.
Pros have always been kept far apart, and men and women have always been kept far apart. There's always been like almost like four different sort of areas of golf. It's like, why can't we all just playing the same thing. It's actually a better product when we're all in the same place, you know. And the junior thing like, yeah, you just can't one. It's going to make them want to do it more too, Like you say, it builds their brand.
Three, it makes everybody better. It's it's better to watch.
It was so interesting, like when I finished three or four groups to watch the last few groups come in and watch the juniors play with the pros in the last few holes and stuff, and it was just more interesting to watch than three guys who just hit perfect
shots all the way in and have twenty foots. You know, I mean or whatever I mean too, it was great, I want saying that, but it was just something that you didn't see every day, so it was more interesting to see, haws, the girls, how do the girls play this hole?
How do the kids play this whole? What's this prog?
What's this experienced pro going to feel like he's probably feeling pressure because there's kids beating him, and like, yeah, you know, like it was just there's just there was a lot of elements and maybe every week it wouldn't be the same as a one off, but I feel like it's a format that would work anywhere, you know, and I think one would buy in, you know, I think golf is a sport can buy into this.
Sort of model because everybody wins here.
You know.
It's funny too. Just this is like an anecdotal thing that happened to me in the winter when the father son, I put the father son on my TV. My wife like doesn't care about golf at all, Like she she walks by the TV with golf on all the time. It never stops, never asks what's going on. And then there's like there's Charlie Woods and there's Coocher's kid and she like stops dead in her track. She's like, what's what's this. I'm like, oh, this is the father son.
And she's like, how old are these kids? And I was like, I they're like eleven, twelve, thirteen, some of them are seventeen. And she's like this is so cool. Like she sat down and started watching golf because of the kids. I think, you know, like, and I think it brings it gives you a different feel too, like,
and it attracts it for audiences. And here's like, you know, my wife, It's like, it just was really interesting to me that like she was all sudden enthralled in this event, that like, of all the events that I watched, like I had about the least amount of interest in, you know, was the one that interests her the most. And I think that's the other where you these different events have the ability to engage different types of fans. It's not like a one box fit's all type proposition that everybody
seems to be going for. It's like this type of event is compelling to a lot of different types of people.
I think too, Yeah, because there's going to be people who were at Rosebud the tournament we just played who were going to now look in the paper or on the internet or whatever they do and follow these kids. I wonder how that kid's doing we saw at Rosebud.
I wonder how that girl's doing. Your body the last and they're going to look for their name, and they're going to get lifelong fans maybe potentially out of being exposed at that point, you know what I mean, Like I think it's a I think it's fantastic.
Yeah, I really enjoyed. It was better than we ever imagined.
Actually, I get messages every once in a while from listeners or readers who tell me stories about like going to see Like one that pops into my mind is like this this couple went and watched a random turn. They happen to be in Spain when the European Tour was there, and they remember walking they're the only people following Lee, like an eight or nineteen year old Lee Westwood, and like, of course, like he chatted them up and they'll like the note was basically like we've been Lee
Westwood fans for our entire lives. Like and that's the thing that with the kids and getting golf fans, like these are just golf nuts who are in Spain for some trip and we're like, oh, we're gonna go watch this European Tour event, and sure enough, they stumble into following a random group and they become a lifelong fan of a golfer. And that's how people become fans of golfers. I think that's one of the things that's tough. It's not like I'm not you know, I'm a Chicago Bulls
fan because I'm from Chicago. But like, becoming a fan of a golfer, you have to kind of have a reason. And I grew up a fan of Luke Donald because I caddied for Luke Donald when I was fifteen years old, you know, But like, how else do you become a fan of a golfer?
Yeah, you're true, right, I mean, my parents said the same story.
They went to the Westlife Classic in Adelaide in nine and seventy six and saw this blondeheaded kid who just seemed to be more special than the rest and watched him play seventy two holes and he won, and there he was Greg Norman like, and they were lifelong Greg Normal fans because they saw him before, you know, they saw him as a kid and that small skye and he probably said high across the roads or something. It
was like, yeah, it was You're right, absolutely. You have a connection with a play, a lot of that you follow, you know, and this is just opening up. As you said this, I didn't even think of this would get more.
We get a different group of people watching it, but it would, especially with the kids involved and the guys and the girls and kids involved, all sort of battling it out under that same sort of environment that you're normally kind of you're only used to seeing, like PGA tour players and the seventy two old stroke play thing like that thing that we see fifty one weeks a year. Something different always captures our interest, and this has got something for more people to watch.
Yeah, it is such a cool event. When so when's the next one?
There's one?
It's well, yeah, we're going to do that one every year at the same place, but we're going to try to get I say, we the tour down here.
The one I'm going to help out with is the one we just had.
They're putting one on in Sydney at Bonnie Doing in March.
That's a good.
Body, then it's good. Yeah, readone by Ocah. Yeah, it's good. It's nice as right next to the lakes. It's all sand. It's a pretty cool place, really cool place.
So that we'll see how that goes.
I think the format will be it'll be good and I think it'll we should be able to get a few running in Australia at least, I said, to complement out of the big tournaments we've got and to give what's happened with these juniors these days the kids is that, at least in Australia, the world Amated golf ranking has become their obsession.
You know, they want to get high up on that for whatever.
It is, scholarships or like sponsorship when they turn pro and invites and stuff, and so it works just like a little bit like the pro rankings. And there's certain situations where if you play less you get more points, you know, you help your ranking. You don't want to play week events, you know, to dilute your scores. So
they're all not playing enough tournaments. These kids, and the Australian kids are all unbelievably good golfers, but then when they turn pro, it seems like they're just a little bit underdone. And so the more of these things we can get, I think the better because it won't go into their world Amitter golf ranking hopefully, and they'll get all that the playing experience without sort of messing it up.
Yeah.
I couldn't imagine. When I was young, I played every tournament that you could find an entry form for. You know, it didn't matter where I was doing.
I was going.
At the moment, they're scheduling themselves as their kids, and I'm just not quite sure I like that. I'd rather than just be playing a lot more so let's give them more stuff to play, so.
Even if they win, like a lower level event, it can hurt them or finishing.
I don't know. I haven't studied the details of the system, but I know that maybe only a win would help, you know.
And we're talking about the kids who are like right up the top.
I mean there's been a few, but they really want to be in that top three or four in the world aming rankings.
And we've had a couple in that area that.
Won't play reasonably big events because on a world scale there's small points and if they don't win, they'll hurt their rankings and stuff. Yeah, it's amazing amate a level that we're doing that. You know, it's crazy.
We don't.
We don't have the college tournaments which don't count for that. I don't think do they or do they?
I think they do count, but they're they do. I think that's where a kid.
They're forced to play them. They have to play them, you know, which is which is the good thing. Which is why the US kids are doing the best apart from the US having the most good golfers, is that they're that competitive environment where they just all they do is play against each other. All they're playing for their spot on the team each week and then they're playing and they just they've got they're always playing to have
a good score today. Like I said, they're not you know what I mean, when you have six months between tournaments, you get it, you can get off track.
They didn't.
They don't have a mini tour down there. Really is there is there like or is it mostly PGA driven?
We don't have any.
It's all PGA driven And we have COVID's messed the whole thing up because we canceled our big events last year.
But yeah, we have ten or twelve or fifteen kind.
Of really small events and then we have two or three four big ones in a normal year and they're all run by the two.
They're all kind of on the same money list.
But yeah, it's not what it was twenty five years ago too, But we don't have Greg Norman's number one and the pipe piper as well, and this Australian football and the tennis that's are at the moment, and the Grand Prix and that that takes a lot of the sponsored money.
But yeah, and the big play. The tour's expansion has to have hurt too, like where the PGA tour calendar instead of being thirty thirty weeks, is now fifty weeks.
You know.
Yeah, we've been date squeezed especially yeah, with with the fall getting used so heavily by Europe and the US now that that's kind of when we could sit in you know, November December and we'd have a few in January. But with Kapelloua starting in January first basically and then not finishing till the middle of December, any Australian who's playing a foreign tour has a difficult time coming to
play back here. And then on top of that, you're never going to get any extra players because they've all just done the grind for the Race to Dubai, or they've grind through the Fall series and they've traveled around the world. The last thing they want to do is put another two weeks in Australia and the other side of the world in So it's difficult date wise for sure,
But I don't know. I means the US has also made people think that a tournament anying less than four or five million it's not a real tournament anymore either, you know.
So that's crazy.
I mean, it's Amilil's like, this is a good thing, but it's definitely made it difficult for Australia and New Zealand and South Africa and Japan and other countries that, like it's just hard to keep up.
It's funny because you see like guys that get into some random fields that haven't played, you know, every seemingly every couple of weeks, there's like you're like, oh God, how did this guy get in this field? And it's like some career money exemption and people will be like, oh, why is he even playing? He hasn't played five years. It's like, who wouldn't want to go play for seven million dollars, Like.
It's like, yeah, who's not doing that?
Right?
Do you want to play golf for forty four days? And the person seven million? Like it's like, well, maybe I'll play a couple of good rounds and I'll make you know, one hundred grants.
Absolutely, Yeah, it's amazing. It's a juggle.
The tourist so uh, the tour being PGA Tour, Ponovidra is just an amazing organization.
It's incredible what they've done.
I mean, it's just that Woods and uh, and then the second degeneration after Target has been so good. You know, the Ricky and the Jordan and the Brooks and the Dustin and it's JT. It's like a very lovable generation of players, you know, lockable.
It's just incredible.
That's that's the interesting thing that you brought up with Norman becoming the biggest player in the game, Like it was Norman Faldo savvy for an era. And then you think about when you read back about the early nineties, you know, American golf was not in a good place, like they didn't have a superstar really, you know, they had Freddie, but he never lived up to what it
what he could be. Davis Love never won as much as people thought, and it was like the end of the Watson Nicholas era there was until Tiger came along, and really, you know, Phil was becoming that star. All the big names in golf were international and the and you know then you look at like west E's era and Monty and and Sergio, Like the European Tour was really a good foil for the PGA Tour for a while and then it Tiger just ruined ended everything.
Yeah, it's probably a good thing, yeah, but he certainly helped be the catalyst for like the big like you said, the rebirth of American great American professionals. I mean they're not They're all wing right right through that era. We're picking, We're picking.
Yeah, nepick, total neck picks here.
But i mean, look at the list applies now.
I mean Dustin Brooks, Justin, I mean JT, Jordan, Ricky and I'm missing a bunch, I'm sure, just long term top ten player in the world level players, you know, the sort of players we're talking about. It's a great and I'll tell you Australia we had twenty more than twenty players on the PGA during the early two thousands. I guarantee you most of that is because we all got excited about golf because of the Shark, you know. I mean the influence of these like legendary players is immeasurable.
I think, like it's really really big. Look at Gary Player twenty fifteen years later. Twenty years later you got Ernie Els and Retief Goosen and stuff, and then those guys Inspire Schwartzel and Nimmelman and all that. It's like these legends ten or fifteen years later inspire and Tiger did that for the whole world, but he certainly did it for the American kids, you know, the JT's and the.
Jordan's and the Rory I mean, Rory's obviously a big Tiger fan.
Like, yeah, that's totally The way to look at it, too, is looking ten to fifteen, fifteen to ten to twenty years after and seeing where they stack up, Like the I just wish the owgr went back further, you know, like it only goes back there. Yes, yes, like you can look at the McCormack rags, But that's the way to look at it. Is like the impact of having number one player in the world on a country's golf, like a true legend. It's got to be. You're I'd
never dad the Australia like that. You're totally right, because, like you know, there aren't as even there's still a lot of great assis, but like there aren't quite as many.
Yeah, the influence is here. I'm it's a massive influence.
You just can't. I mean, Pede Coostas is a very wise man about golf.
Back at the back of the range at wass Brook one day He's like, look, everyone who's always trying to copy and follow out the best pier in the world at the top.
You guys, everyone in the sixties is trying to be jacket Run.
The seventies of trying to be jacket run the eighties Johnny Watson or Norman or Sevy or something.
And then everybody's trying.
To be those guys who are number one, dragged the standard of the sport along, you know, and they inspire kids to be like that. And I think the more magnetic and the better they are, the more like Greg Norman or Tiger Woods, Ronald Palmer they are, the more influence they have, and especially from a small country like Australia or South Africa or even the UK England, I mean Faldo.
I think Jacqueline was a massive influence on guys.
Like Faldo, and then Falo inspired Luke and Justin and Paul Casey and those guys are going to inspire like the next generations, you know. So I think it's very important having those charismatic leaders of the sport. I think very important. It's very influential. I think it changes the way the game is played by people.
The history of golf histories. So I love reading. That's something that the quarantine kind of led me down, was reading all about all those old school players I never got to watch. It's just amazing to read about how much Europe change from those five guys, you know, Seve and Sevi and uh foul dout Lyle and Woozy.
You got her hang out of Woozy a little bit way back back in Europe. He was still playing. I'll play with a few times when I was my first couples in Europe, played prectureing with him at the Masters, a couple of times, played the Past three with him.
He's a legend, so small.
Like five foot four, but yeah, one of my favorite golf swings ever ever, fantastic.
That's the guy I want to have a have a sit down and have a few beers with of all the all the European tour guys.
Yeah, he's an experienced man in the pub for sure, old school.
Obviously big news in America a couple of weeks ago. What what is your take, I sue he saw what happened with Patrick Reed. You got any thoughts on that? What do you like? Everybody's kind of been perplexed. I it was a weird situation, you know what happened, and I, uh, the thing that Ratt'll be like, I couldn't understand why I picked the ball up and moved it, you know.
Yeah, for me, I'm with you. I mean, I don't understand.
It was a very gray area and he probably didn't actually break a rule.
Yes, that's how I feel, right, but.
It's certainly not in the spirit of the game the way I've always played it and most of the people I've ever played with Generally, if you're going to touch your ball, you're getting your guys over there to say, hey, guys, I just got.
To check this, you know what I mean? Like fair enough We'll let him say that.
The marshals, God bless marshals, they make golf tournaments better, but they don't always see it how it happens.
And if she said it bounced, you can't take a marshal's word for it.
Usually Anyway, if he thought it bounced and he was doing it and he thinks that's the way to do it, then I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that one. But nobody I know who I've ever played with, would pick the ball up without getting people over there. Nobody like nobody the reason why that's that's the reason why the locker and that's the reason why the locker room flares up. One because of what happened back in
the Bahamas. That was pretty blatant, and nobody really liked watching that, so his track record didn't help him.
And two, nobody on tour, nobody in the locker.
Room would do that like without their guy, without at least saying, hey, guys, I'm going to check if this is plug come over and check it out or getting the official. Nobody puts the hand on the ball of that, So I think it was poorly, poorly handled by himself. And I don't understand why the tourist so apt to defend you know, I mean poor behavior, Like you know, I mean, it's just not the right way to whether
it's whether you're with whatever line you wanted. The sea word, I'm not going to put on it for that actual incident, but it was not the right way to do it. And he should know that because everyone on doing knows that's not the right way to do it.
Yeah, that's that's when I keep I'm like, I don't know why they go out of their way to defend what, you know. That's where I kind of like am perplexed, especially like I don't think he didn't necessarily do anything wrong, Like and there's no evidence that like proves that it didn't embed Like people say, well it bounced, they couldn't have embedded, but like, you know what, like nobody saw
it right. But like the fact that he picked the ball up and then you know, if I'm going to check a ball and I'm going to call an official over, I'm putting the ball right back to where it was. You know, It's like I don't know why the ball was eight feet away, Like I've never seen that happen before. But I don't. It's I just where I get with
this all the time. And I don't know if like golf is this game of honor, right, but we're playing, you're playing for millions of dollars, and if Patrick greed, I just he's everybody's looking to take it. Like it's kind of like we see it with koutre Last, Like everybody's trying like you're always trying to get an advent tea to drop, Like that's just kind of like you're out there like anybody that's played tournament golf knows like you're trying to get you know, drops in certain situations.
But like there needs to be like they can't have that kind of stuff happen because it just brings into like doubt about the whole thing, you know.
The game.
Yeah, there's two things. One I think a normal reaction. I think people don't like his defiance. So I think people react to the defiance. If he came up and said, oh did I do that? Oh sorry, I thought that was the way you're supposed to do it. I'll do it different next time. Everyone would be like, oh, that's all right, But he's like, no, I did it right, I did it just is so defiant that people don't like that attitude. And I think the defiance, I actually
I think Patrick's fine. Just don't understand why he can't just say, look, sorry, I messed that up.
I'll go on.
I mean, it wasn't cheating, but if you want me to do it a different way, I'll do it a different way.
And on you go.
But the game, to the bigger point is the game only functions. It does not function as a sport. You can't have a rules official and a camera on every player.
And even beyond that, all golf we all trust that the people we play for twenty on the weekend, or the people we just have fun with, or anytime we're playing golf, we are trusting that they're hitting the ball from where it lies and they're playing under the same rules as us because they're on the other side of the fairway and in a normal tournament on different holes spread all over the golf course. Everybody has to buy into this culture of honor. Otherwise the game doesn't cease
us to function as a sport. It just doesn't work. That's why it's important. So I yeah, I'm just it's a bad it's a bad example on TV. And I'm kind of glad that most people seem to flare up about it because, as I said, I'm not going to say he did anything wrong, but the way he did it was not the way everyone else in the locker room would have done that sort of situation or not most And it's it's just he should know better.
He should know better.
You go on to it.
You know how to do things.
We all know how to take drops, you know, I mean, and the process involved, and he just blatantly did it a different way.
Yeah, And it's just like it's kind of like media, Like I if if somebody reports something, you cite them, you know, I be like saying, like, oh, you know, like try scoop somebody's story break, you know, like it, you know, act like it's your story break when they did it. You know, it's like nobody does that. It's like a real media person, I mean. And then you
could go all different directions with that. But the other thing about it is, I like want to love watching Patrick Reid play golf because it's so he plays such a drastically different style than everybody else in the top fifteen in the world. You know, it's extraordinary that he's so freaking good when he like doesn't play the way the other guys play.
Now he plays so good. He's such a good golfer. I'm a big fan of his golf. Like I like how he plays, I like how hard he works, Like I mean, he's one of the coolest to watch on Sunday in the last night I was. And if it's in he says, brilliant and watching the rider cups and stuff, I mean, fantastic, what entertainment, Like a brilliant golfer. And he doesn't need he was clearly going to win that tournament regardless whether he got an advantage in that situation
or not, it doesn't really matter. He's winning by five. Like he's an unbelievable player. It's sad that he's tarnished like that, you know, because he's worthy of attention because he's that good.
Yeah, Because that's like the thing like everybody talks about like how there's such a lack of style stylistic difference in golf today, and it's like, this is the guy, this is the guy that's different, and it's just like why why does this have to be Why do you have to keep doing this stuff, like I want to enjoy watching you play golf, but it just makes I don't know, it's it's frustrating. I'd a mac and Ro.
It's a bit of a mac and Rod thing though, right. He kind of almost fades off people being mad at him. Oh yeah, it seems to only happen when he's playing great.
You know, I.
Just can't believe, you know, like you think about the round he played on Sunday, the day after all that stuff happening, and it's like how many guys could deal with all, like every the entire golf world talking about you and then go out and shoot, you know, and just dust everybody on Sunday.
I'll have trouble leaving my hotel room, like in that same scenario. You know, if everyone thought I'd done that, I would be hard to work. So everyone's built different, right, And He's like, if more people will look on watch on Sunday to see like it's what's going to happen, then it's good, you know. I mean, even if it's a good or a bad, it's not the Howard Stern. They turn on because they want to hear what he says next, whether it's good or bad.
You know, they all listen.
I mean Patrick might be helped like that a little bit. People just want to say what's going to happen, so they watch. So that's a good thing, I guess. But great, it's a bad thing. Yeah, it's a bad thing. I mean that's the yeah, the media side of it. But it's a bad thing if people think that golf is about trying to get away with one, like that headspace of trying to get away with one, it just doesn't
work in golf. It's just the sport just doesn't work unless everybody's buys into the kind of honor of the whole thing.
Hey, so big news for the USGA. I don't know if it really dos. It's just kind of like a they're just going to look at things closer, and they're it seems like they're pretty defiant that there is a distance issue in golf and something needs to be addressed. What were your thoughts on the USGA rollback talk.
Yeah, it was a bit more.
The last two or three years, we've the distance inside report that we've all got excited about one way or the other excited and then this one's I guess a little bit more of a progression from that, like kind of more specific and stuff what they're.
Looking at stuff. I don't know. I just think.
Clearly, I think everybody understands that if the best players in the water eating lob wedge is in the par fives, it doesn't work. Like, you know, if everyone's just going over the corner on thirteen in Augusta and hitting a wedge into the green which will eventually happen.
Unchecked, then that doesn't work.
Also, I think a lot of people acknowledge like just a massive step back. The massive step back is fraught with all sorts of potholes and rabbit holes, and it's a scary thing. I think it's it's an interesting time in the game. I said, I think there's too much focus on length, and I think length I don't think length by itself is really the issue. I just think it's easy to hit it straight and long. You know, Well,
there's two sides of this. I think when you've got the richest club in the world spending like tens of millions of dollars to buy real estate to just preserve their whole, I don't know if that's Augusta might be able to do it, but every course in the world can't do that. So at some point a ball going three point fifty three sixty three seventy wherever it's going to go is too far for all the golf course.
It's just too far. What you do about that, I don't know.
As I said, I think the beauty of the game is that is the balance between the golf course being the challenge and the equipment being the challenge. You know.
I'm less about the length and more about it. I'd like to see at least pro's clubs be a little bit more difficult to use, so then you wouldn't need to make the course quite so difficult, because I think you when the average player goes and plays Beth Page Black, I mean, they're loving it because it's an experience and as Beth pay as Black, but really it's not a fun way for the average guy to play, because it's not a fun way for pros to play unless you
hit it three fifty in the air, you know. I mean, So, I don't know really what I'm saying here is, but what I'm like, I like golf. I feel like golf for me, at least, is the best when the course is a challenge but not out out difficult, and the golf clubs to use are a challenge but not impossible, you know. I mean there's that balance between sort of easy course and hard equipment, and or hard course and easy equipment.
I think that's got to stay.
There's got to be that sort of balance in there, and I think that's the way you can kind of keep.
Long and the short of golf together.
I don't have any air that made sense, but I think while everybody obsessed that there are reports and these focuses all about length, and I don't know if out and out length is really the issue in how these guys or how everybody can it so far. I mean, if you go back to Greg Norman's days, Jack Nicholas's days, or Watson's days or seventy, all these guys they all out and Arnold, they all out powered everybody. They hit it miles, you know what I mean, As a few
Bryers have brought up. But it was very difficult to do that, and they were the only guys who could because if you missed the sweet spot, the ball went sideways.
So only the very very elite.
Now the drivers are so good that everybody can go at it as hard as they can and get a reasonable result without the extra genius.
That those other guys had. So I think.
I don't hate the length. I hate that it seems to be easier to hit it straight and long. It's actually the safest club in the bag now, driver And I don't know that's a good thing because the drivers are great, right, But I think you can lose the balance of the game a little bit when it's like that.
Yeah, I think in it obviously, I think there's there's something to be said like every game of like every in the NBA, more players shoot threes now than ever before, and from further away than ever before, Like the really great ones can shoot threes from forever. Like in the NFL, guys throw the ball and there's more quarterbacks that throw
the ball well than ever before. But the thing that I think with golf that makes it tough is and I and part of me sympathizes a little bit with the players and the really great players, is that there's a cloud of is this the athlete or is this the equipment? You know, is the equipment so good that this athlete is so good? And I think that's unfair to guys like DJ or Rory or even Bryson, Like Bryson's unbelievable golfer. Like I think you put any club in his hand, he's going to figure it out and
he's gonna hit solid. And I think it's unfair that there's this skepticism that is cast over them because of equipment, like and having a little bit more challenge in order to hit it. Like you said, the distance is one thing, but the ease to keep it on the planet is another thing.
You know.
Yeah, for me, it doesn't come down to what's look I mean from a personal preference, Like if we pick a hole that we all know, like thirteen of the Masters, and the way everyone's going to end up playing it is just hitting this big straight high bomb over the corner, and the old scoorelway would be to try it, you really had you thought about it for two or three holes, about how I can get this drawer around the corner
and are going to draw it. To me, it's more fun to hit the shape around the corner than it is to hit the big high straight bomb. So regardless of how what clubs people hit in or any of that, to me, the game is more enjoyable slightly a different way than it is now.
It's an enjoyable to hit the ball a long way and hit.
It straight, and to smash driver and like to play it, and that's an enjoyable thing too, But it's more enjoyable for me when there's more of a there's more than just one way to skin a cat. I mean, I think golf has become pro golf, at least at the elite level. There's becoming one way to play, and I think golf is more interesting when there are more ways to play. And I don't think I think lengths should
be a big part of game. I think the people who like Dustin and Rory should have a big advantage in Bryson for how far they hit it and how straight they hit it. I actually think they're getting short changed.
I agree with lady you know.
A little bit.
I think the elite guys are actually getting a little short changed. And I think I wouldn't even begin to know how to tweak equipment to make that happen. But there are one hundred legitimately great drivers of the ball on tour these days, maybe more. You know, when I first got on twenty years ago, there was six, and like forty years ago there was two. You know, so
is that good or bad? Certainly people are getting better, as you say, but I think there would be more separation of the top ten or twenty or thirty, which might make for more interesting viewing him.
Might not. I don't know.
I watched a it was maybe a first round or a practice round. Last time the BMW was at Conway and I watched. I watched Rory and he was playing with Ali Schneider Jans, who's a very good player, right, And I watched them play almost the entire round, and I just I saw, like Ali Schneider Jans h you know, he hitting it right around Rory like all day. A couple of times he's fifteen yards past him. They're both
hitting driver. And I just thought to myself, I was like, in what world, Like why is Ali Schneider Jans Who's like, now, no slight, this is not meant to be a drive by shooting of Ali Schneider chance, but like he doesn't he have a card now? And it's like, how is
he even in the same ballpark of Rory? Off the tea every hole, Like it just was like kind of like an eye opener to me, And this was three or four years ago, and I just was like, that's where I started to think, like, God, Rory's the most short changed of anybody.
Out of this. Yeah, he's the great normal of our generation.
Maybe you know, he would have been pretty special with the old stuff, but so with Dustin there's more of them now, I think.
And as I said, that goes back to like as I said.
Moore too, Yeah, and that whole Tiger influence and everyone grew up seeing a high level you know, he made length really cool too, and like it was.
I mean, there's so much goes into this.
That's why I don't think you can narrow it down to one little issue. I like, evolution, Like you use the word evolution, Golf evolves, and I like it's great that it's evolved from leather of stuff balls so like.
Like graphite shafts and titanium, right, I mean, it's great.
It's part of the coolness of the game, right, amazingly like, but there's.
There's a balance that needs to be there.
You know, the argument that people enjoy golf more now because the equipment's like, that's completely false because you're saying that the goal the members of Conway Farms in nineteen seventy five, that probably wasn't even there. The members of Madonna and any I didn't enjoy golf then, you know what I mean, you can't, you can't use They loved it. That's why they played it, and that's why golf was a big sport.
So the argument that it's enjoyed more now than before is false.
Now if you move the equipment back a little bit, maybe like people wouldn't like going back to wind up windows on their car. You know, once you've got power windows, you like power windows. Right, there's another.
Element to it. But and it's nice of the evolution.
It just seems like the biggest problem is that we're sitting here and there's fifty podcasts going on in every week. I'm talking about this very issue. Everyone's only focused on this one thing and then maybe not noticing other stuff. You know.
I think that's a side thing that's not good.
And it's as I said, I think the focus is way too much on length. I think hybrids have changed professional golf so much more than the length we had. It's in credit, it's not even close. I mean, hitting at two twenty in the air. Two thirty in the air twenty or thirty years ago was only for the very,
very very elite of the elite. You know, Now everybody it's at two forty in the air, out of the rough, you know, like it's it's that that's changed it more so, I don't know how you even begin to address issues like that. I think if you just made the ball go small shorter, say, if that was what someone wanted to do, I don't think you fix what I think
is not fix. You don't really change much, you know, As I said, I think the beauty of the game is that kind of that balance between it's really just hard to hit a golf shot and the challenge that the golf course presents you. And I think that's why
it's so enduring, you know. But if it's all about a really hard golf course, impossible shots everywhere, but with equipment that you can maybe hit them, there's that's one end of the spectrum, and the other end of the spectrum is golf equipment it's impossible to use, and of course it's got no hazards on it at all. There's somewhere in the middle of that's the best, right And I think you've got we've got to sort of find that middle ground.
Are we there at the moment? I don't know.
I mean if you look at all golf outside of the PGA Tour or the top one percent, golf's probably great, you know. I Mean the trouble is that top one percent has such a massive influence on the way people set their courses up and the way people try to play golf that it's getting a lot of attention.
Yeah, and perfect segue here. You know, so you just got hired, you Mike Cock, Ashley Bead just got hired for Medina's master plan. You know, like that's like a perfect golf a perfect example of golf course that is kind of in that scene like Augusta Nashal buying a property like m Data can't buy a property, and you know, it's a golf course that history has been reached with major championships. What do you do in this this landscape?
But I'm interested to hear about getting the projected. What you're excited about and in any any early thoughts about that.
Yeah, well, firstly, it's super excited. I mean, what a job.
I mean, it's kind of the one of the dreamiest jobs that we could get obviously one of America's most famous courses, tons of majors, rider cups, future President's Cup. Yeah, so incredibly excited. I mean getting the job was it was remote, I mean normally because of the COVID thing. Normally we would be over, we would walk the course, we would come up with all sorts of stuff and meet with the board and that was all sort of remote internet research. The boys were picking my brain on
my experience. The O six PGA was my real experiens there.
With Tiger and Phil.
With Tiger and Phil first two days, Yeah, that's my biggest ever draw. So I remember it pretty vividly. That was a crazy day, crazy two days, unbelievable, but so yeah, the boys dug up all information, actually found some historical photos and stuff that Madonna didn't even have, you know, came up with a pretty good thing, did all the proposals over zoom meetings and stuff, and it was it worked.
It's great.
We're so excited, really excited, can't wait to get there. And as far as what do you do? I think a trigger for Madonna was JT shooting twenty seven or twenty eight hundred. A couple of years ago, weren't it when they presented what they thought was a super difficult test, And I think it was just I'd like to not a just a bit of an uh, I don't even know. I'm not losing the word. But a sign that long and soft with perfect grounds, two guys are going to go low. You can't make it too long and rough
doesn't really matter. And if it's soft in the grazy rolling good people are going to hold parts. I think.
A bit of if you can find a way to get it a bit firmer, you know, and maybe uh.
Take length out of it a little bit. If you've got it a little bit firmer. There's some dog legs there. There's quite a lot of undulation. It's a great property if you can get the ball bouncing a little bit. All of a sudden, driver over the corner runs through into the trees, you know.
So you've got to maybe shape around the corner and do some.
Stuff like that. I think that's the only way to do it without being able to get long. Yeah, it's a cool place though, what a property.
It's an unbelievables one of the best properties for golf in Chicago, and that the thing I was at that event, and the thing that like was so jarring having played their handful of times and like, it's not it's not an easy place to play golf, like regardless of you know, for anybody. But you look, you're walking in the rough. You're just like, it was unbelievable how thick the rough was, and it just it had seemingly no impact at all.
And obviously the weather they got handed was brutal. It just dumped rain, but it was It's kind of and I think that event in a way. Obviously I think it impacted Medina's future, but I think it impacted a lot of golf courses like Medina's future. They looked at that and we're like, oh wow, like we something. You know, there's a we need to present a different type of test because that old test that worked for you know, fifty years and was considered the way to test players change.
You know, there was a shift that week because it was nuts.
Yeah. I mean I think the focus is.
Again another byproduct that's probably not great about everyone obsessing about length is.
It makes the setups.
Everyone focuses on length, so they make them soft, they make them long, narrow, and if it's soft with good surf, a soft course with good greens. Unless it's like outrageously impossible like Beth Page and you just ring every green with bunkers and rough, guys are going to go low. Two guys are going to go lower. The perfect example this week that Riviera Riviera on paper and on the ground in the same condition as Madonna. The guys would
shoot in the twenties every time. But it's got West Coast greens, which the power greens will generally in the afternoon get bumpy. They're firm, being very slopey, so you would argue that by the end of the day they're kind of poor. It's a poor surface but firm, whereas Madonna is a perfect surface but soft. You know, I mean, Madonna's proably five hundred meters long, five hundred yards longer or more. But riv it's just got real challenge around
the greens. They're really they're firm, and they're no guarantees from twenty feet like patting off three feet even and they'll be they'll be single digits of twelve or thirty under parol in Riviera or something like that.
Every single year.
It presents a massive challenge with really no rough but just a bit of a bounce on a green and slope.
That's interesting ground too.
Yeah.
I mean look Ribs and it's one of the probably the best golf course in the world on a bad pazz of land.
Right.
Yeah, it's incredible and it's an unbelievable I'm not taking anything away from rivi Era, but if you looked at the numbers on paper and walked walked each course, you would all predict people would shoot lower scores at Rib than they would at Madonna. Mcdonna looks a big grand test with some big shots over the water and up and downhills. It's like Rib seems like, oh yeah, I could get my way around here. But it's completely different.
And I think it's mostly because it's firm and the greens are a real challenge and you can't really overpower riv because the challenge is all up at the green end of the course.
So I think.
Perfect greens that are soft two guys will go low. Just firm, firm conditions, I think is really the their way. And as I said, they Madonna that you had sometimes you just don't have a chance.
Right.
It wants the rain in Chicago, it rains in Chicago, right, there's not much you could do about that. But yeah, I think firmness. I mean, you can't have bad greens. And I'm not saying Riviera bad greens at all, but those West Coast greens. I think golf is interesting when you get that afternoon grain effect, you know, like the
greens is almost too good. Now there's ho perfect And if they're soft, you can hit it on the green from anywhere, So then your decision off the tea is less important because you can miss it right or left and still hit it close. But if it's firm, you can only be on one side of the ferry or the other, you know.
I think.
Do you see how they changed up the setup mid tournament at Pebble a little bit with they use the different the right t on ten, the three ninety five or three fifty three sixty t on ten, and then they they've made five like one thirty one day, and then they did they moved the team way up on four.
Yeah, I saw him do that. Actually, I like they do. I like that do that?
Actually it was better from a variety of teas, right, because it has a massive variety of teas that people don't know when you're there. There's a ton of tees, different angles, and yeah, it was great.
I feel like that's one thing that is it explored enough, is like the idea of like you got to be prepared to play the entire golf course and we aren't going to tell you what teas were playing on what day.
I think that's the best thing that Mike Dave just did was doing that.
Like we get to Tory and there was all these rumors that he was going to play fourteen as a driveable hole, and like we couldn't work out what do you mean?
And everyone's trying to like work out what.
Yardages they were going to have from teas and caddies were scrambling and they were comparing books.
About where's he gonna have this tea.
And then every year for a few years after that, there was this rumor that he was going to pay one of these long part fours is a short part four and like drive everyone nuts in practice rounds because we couldn't work out which one it was. But it was a great thing. You know, what is a there's two? There's there has traditionally been like the path three's you just play the four back to you just go back
back back back four days in a row. You get the five on in every hole every day on the fourth and seven on every day on that and it's always a six on on that whole. I think moving at one hundred yards one day, two hundred yards the next, one hundred and seventy the next.
That's way more interesting.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, so I like that they're doing that, especially at Pebble, because Pebble is a place that it really I mean four changes completely. Five goes from really tricky to maybe you kind of get more aggressive from a short tea.
I think sometimes, well, it seemed like it like really messed with abound five, like they just didn't know what to do. They kind of were like a shock that it was up there.
We've played that.
I feel like I've played that team in the US Open, maybe like in Web Simpson's Yeah maybe, but yeah, I like it variety. They shouldn't do it because that's the tea that the am set off every time when we play in the pro am.
I think the one in front of the ditch.
Yeah, they were saying is because there is no ams and no fans. It's like, I don't understand that at all. Like, I don't understand why you can't. Like you're running the tournament, you can do whatever you want.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think there's again it's that length thing. I mean, everyone's sort of.
Everyone.
It's like pins. It's like sixteen at Phoenix, the sixteenth green at Phoenix. When you watch it, it's firmer than the other ones. They actually set sixteen up to be harder than the other hole. It's like ten at riv they still have green harder, absolutely, and they shouldn't. They should be the other way around. Sixteen at Phoenix should have a hole in one. It should be like sixteen at AUGUSTA. I should have a hole in one pin.
And there should be one day where everybody's just having hole in ones and like lipping it out because you know what I mean, that's where everybody wants to see he's actually a good shot. I mean, sixteen August is still a real hole, right, But like I've always told them, but they always seem to make that green a little bit firmer, harder to hit.
It close than the other seventeen greens.
And it's the upside down mentality aricon, you know, So I think it shouldn't always be set up. Everyone always sets up every hole to be as hot as I can. I think every now and then you should set them up to be easy, like confusingly easy too.
I think it's more interesting that way. It should.
Yeah, it should be a mix like that's I mean, that's the beauty is Like my favorite thing is like a green where you've got a really easy setup, like you can play I'm trying to think now off the top of my head, but like you know, there's tons of places where you could have a pin in a place that's super easy, and then the next day you can put it somewhere where you know, fifteen at riv is a good example of like if you put the pin front left, it's always a hard hole because of
the length. But you put that pin front left, people are going to make birdies. When they put it back right.
Nobody makes birdies absolutely absolutely, So I think the day you have a front left, you have a front team. Maybe like you haven't played quite easy Saturday and then really hard Sunday or something else. And I think most courses, and I think the better the course, the more you can do that.
I mean, look at the Masters I mean they Augusta.
You can set up almost every whole relatively easy, and you can set it up almost impossible because of the pin, you know St Andrew's roll, Melburn, all the great courses do that, and Riviera they should do that more often, for sure.
Yes, nobody cares.
Nobody leaves Tornament really unless it's a scoring record thinking oh that course wasn't any good. They shot eight in under this week, that must be a shit. Nobody thinks that. I mean, who thinks that. They walk out saying how good was that? Where what we just watched today? You know, it's amazing?
Yeah, that's exactly that's I think par goes back to par. Just got to get it, get away from it. But or the mentality of it is really the mentality of par because like, yeah, if and it should, I think the other thing it would do is like these guys don't play practice rounds anymore. Right, if you got to play the entire golf course, probably gonna play a little bit more on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
The golfers have become pro.
Golf has become a science experiment in a way, and they're very good at it. You know, Yeah, this is getting all the numbers right and working on the range and doing all your things. So when you go on the course and the artist books are so good that you just plug in the numbers and go, it's not you're not playing practure ons Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and like crafting out a way to play the course anymore.
It's but the level is so high now you can't you can't.
I know, they're really good.
I can't argue with that. It's really good. Yeah, variety, Like.
You said, if there was always like infinite variety and setup, then guys would have to play more practice rounds.
And that's good.
Yes, absolutely, all right, it's all good. It's all good.
That's that's it. That's all we're talking about. You got anything else you want to talk about?
No, I uh, we're locked down again for a couple of days, so.
No golf, but back to it soon.
Overfully, you've been playing a lot.
I played a bit.
Yeah, I played a couple of the I played that Player Series event and the tournament the week before. It was a small tournament. I was playing quite a bit through our summer. Yeah, recently, but it's feeling right. I was getting a bit eancy to come and play some real tournaments. Actually after I played a couple, but travel in the quarantine and kids back here and just the way the world is. We'll just play that one one by one.
I guess, Hey, did you go down to that Linesdale place that you guys opened yet?
Yeah, Lovestale. Sweet, it is really good.
You've obviously seen the drones and stuff, and then it's really very photogetic.
It's really cool. Yeah, so fun.
Yeah, it's just it's basically open for the members. It's open now and we're just finishing off the path. There's a little part three course. It's gonna be a range and a POS three course. It can be all the you know what I mean. And that's opening. That's opening in a month and then it's then they were away. Yeah, it's a greade play. It's really really fun.
One thing that is super cool that I've seen that we talked about the Player Series. Super cool event in America. The Wisconsin State Golf Association hosts a par three tournament at the Sandbox, which is at sand Valley, and it's all ages, all handicaps, it's vetted women. They have a men and a women's tournament. But like a couple of years. I mean the longest hole out there is like one hundred and fifty yards. The first year they did it,
they have college players playing in it. They have you know, it's all amateurs a four handicap one really because it's all short short shots. Yeah. Yeah, you take driver out all of a sudden. That could be a cool event to do, like Lotsdale the Part three course.
A Part three event would be great.
Like actually Australian Part three Championship.
We could do that and you have so we should.
We wanted to do it a shady like like leading up to Colonial you know.
What I mean, have a little thing it like they've got a great little path three.
Be interesting to see if you play seventy two holes around a legitimate Part.
Three course, who would actually be the best golfer? That would be That would be fun to watch.
If I went and watched the Part three it was incredible. I mean you had you have like sixty sixty five year old women playing, then you have twenty one year old college kid playing and it was I mean, like I think the anybody could win the tournament because it's so short.
You know, do you think if that was golf. Do you think Rory, Bryce and DJ would still be the best.
No, do you think that.
Do you think Rory would beat Zach Johnson in one hundred and fifty yards and in contest?
No chance, no chance, Wow, not no chance. Rory's rety amazing.
You'd have some chance, obviously, but yeah, there are some specialists in that area.
It'd be interesting, it would be interesting. You're right, it'd be really cool.
I mean maybe not every week either, but like there's not very many legitimate Part three courses though, you know, most have been becoming they're becoming cooler again.
Now, you know.
With the horse Course, Prairie June or PRAI Prairie Club, right, and August's obviously always been there, but like and Pebble, they're building that one again. And Shady did theirs, and I know Bill and Ben have done a couple, and Tom's done one or two, girls done a few, Like.
They're becoming cooler.
So if you had eighteen legitimate pat threes, like like legitimate ones, you know, inside all inside two hundred, that would be an interesting tournament.
It'd be an incredible it would be incredible to watch the PGA Tour play that I mean getting or you know, that would be such a cool PGA lpg A crossover.
Yeah, the junior thing.
Everybody everybody plays straight up, you know it would be that'd be my favorite tournament of the year.
Wow, we've got a fun a venue.
All right, Hey, this is fun and uh, good luck with quarantine and we'll talk to you soon.
Oh it sounds good. Cheers man,