Welcome back to the Fried Egg Podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at Zero Restriction. This week's Open Championship can become a battle against the golf course and the elements. This week's weather forecast at Royal Port Rush clearly looks like we got some rain and some wind in the forecast for the weekend. Zero Restriction
makes some of golf's best rain gear. It's so good that Tiger Woods in the US President's Cup team will be turning to the Z two thousand rain suit during this year's matches at Royal Melbourne. You know, the great thing about the Z two thousand is it is a lightweight rain jacket with its their lightest weight rain jacket with a little stretch, so it's great to wear when it's warmer out like it would be now in summer.
It won't be that warm at Royal Port Rush, but it will be warm at your local club if you're in the States, So check out Zero Restriction and their rain gear if you're looking to upgrade your stuff. Welcome to Open Championship Week and our latest podcast with Jeff Ogilvie.
In this episode, Jeff and I talk about how track man has changed this generation of golf swings, improving at golf and kind of how difficult it is at the professional level, his experience playing in the Open Championship and what he expects from this year's Championship, and much more so. A great episode. If you haven't checked out our pro shop in the recent times, be sure to go over there. It's at Thefrida egg dot com. We have a We have a bunch of new merchandise which includes new headcovers.
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date on everything going on. Now Here's Jeff Ogilvie.
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 fried egg Frida Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida fridagg bride egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off the golf course. They should get one of those Rolex serious events somehow.
I thinks, and eight series of that'd be out right.
Just want to be the right, the coolest and it's the best. Like I mean, you saw the Scottish today. They pushed the start so that for American viewership, right, uh huh. And it's like Australia. You get primetime viewing in America prime time.
It's perfect, right, I mean everyone gets time from work and watches it.
Golf it's perfect, right, unbelievable, And it could be the winter. It would it would be like the perfect I know they have the Dubai, but Australia would be the perfect kickoff to the season for the European Tour.
Yeah, it'd be like F one, I mean the Open Tours like F one, Right, they kind of just go everywhere that wants to have a tournament. It's not America really, it's almost exactly the Formula one an Australia start because it's European winter, right, it's perfect. Start south and move north like South Africa and Australia first cruise up through Asia, end up in Europe.
Yeah, yeah, because that they go through Asia. Yeah, and I mean they could. I don't know, they're going to figure out how to do the Middle East because that's obviously where all the money is.
But there's there's no shoulds in what I mean, it's just do whatever. But there's certainly Australia is a powerful, good enough golf country with good enough courses and a good enough country to visit to have one or two like real tournaments, you know.
Yeah, yeah, you you watch any of the that Wolf Marikawa thing.
I just wanted to highlights. I was we went out doing something or something. It comes on really morning for us. I watched the highlights. I mean pretty pretty impressive. I mean, Wolf has been I watched him play. He was down here Master of the Amateurs. Yeah, he played Royal Melbourne. This is January maybe is that when that's on January? Yeah? Anyway, Yeah,
it's pretty legit. He hits it really well. I mean the guys on tour have been talking about how he hits it for the last year and a half because he's a Gigi Swing Tips guy and he's always on the Instagram and like we'd all heard of him. Didn't disappoint.
They don't disappoint anymore, do they these kids now? Although what happens with almost all of them is that they often they have an unbelievable first eighteen months and then they kind of come back to reality for a while, and it's that next run if they're going to be like legit or not, you know, for a long time, like Bryson outrageous when he first came out, completely lost it for six months or whatever, and now he's one of the best players in the world.
Right.
Ryan Moore unbelievable straight away, got his card on invites, struggled for four or five years, and gradually worked his way back to being a great player. You know that Jordan great start, kind of struggled. It's hard to kind of you win your fourth or fifth of event or whatever it is, it's hard to keep that going, you know.
I feel like other sports have that too, where like if you have a great rookie year, a lot of times guys have like they call it the sophomore slump. But I think Jaki Nieman just went through it too. He was he was playing terrible at the beginning of the year and he started he's he's been playing great the last month or so.
It shows the value in winning. I mean, these kids come out of college and I was the same. We're all the same. You're beat up on everyone around you when you're about while you're turning pro because you've beaten up on everybody and you're just used to winning or at least contending in every tournament as soon as you get out there. It doesn't really matter who you're playing
with it first. And then after a while, like you realize that everyone's really good and you're not winning quite as often, and like kind of that shine of the confidence goes away. But there's a massive advantage in like just beating up on everyone around you at whatever level it is, because then you move up and you just you're used to beating up on people.
Yeah yeah, but yeah, and then once you have a rough patch, like that's the first time and a number of years you've probably ever felt like you're the one getting beat up.
The first rough patch you've ever had when you have your like if if Wolfe has a rough patch, it'll be the first one he's had. It doesn't look like he's going to I think he's his his action is extreme, like his technique is extreme, but it's extreme at the right end of extreme, you know. I think we'll see accepted golf swing logic get changed a little bit from
he will. He shows you that there's another way than like just how we've always thought, you know, and his way is actually might actually be better because it's kind of got built in. It's almost self correcting, you know. I mean, he crosses the line so much that he has to shallow on the way down or he's not going to hit the ball like. It just forces a great downswing, you know, And so he can hit it as hard as he wants, because the harder he hits it,
the better it is. Kind of it's this kind of interesting situation.
Do you see this kid, Stephen Fisk, by any chance, he's a at Georgia Southern. He played really well in the NCAA as he was like top five, but he won like six or seven times this year. He has the course record at a whoopie and he's got this so they were like the consensus kind of to the best players. And he doesn't like set his hands at address. It's a crazy sweat.
Stephen Fisk, Like Stephen Fisk, I haven't seen it. No, I mean I think I think what's happened. I mean, you and I grew up, and I don't know if we've touched on this before. I think we have a little bit. But you and I grew up on the video camera era. You know that led better video camera. It was all about making it a lot. These guys have grown up in the track man era, which is all about making it b right. You know, it's all about the numbers on the screen, the strike on the bowl,
the ball flyt. It's it's about what it should have always been anyway, right. So but Hogan made it about the ball. He didn't know what his swing looked like. It was all about the ball flight, the spin and how it was going and how solid it felt and the speed and all that. That's all anyone's learning now, these kids. So you end up with all these unique actions because everyone's got a different way of getting the club to the right impact, right, We all have a
different path to get there. Now. No one's telling us that you have to take it back here and have the club outside the hands and balance this and all that. They're letting you find your kind of pathway to get that great impact. So you're seeing all these unique actions, but the unique actions that hit the ball really well.
I think it's a great period and technique and it's opening people's eyes, like it's I saw this horrific Twitter comparison of pre led better lydia COO to post led better lydia co And I'm not going to completely blame Lead on this because she was working on it just like he was talking to her. But the pre swing was so beautiful and so fluid and so great, and the post led better one kind of looked good in static pictures, but the flow was all gone and it
was just like, wow, what are we doing? Like I think it was really fault because that's just the process that our generation always went through. You know, you went to a coach, you got on the camera, and you you got everything all squared up and neutral and nice, and then oh you should be able to play well now, you know, it's just a I think we've it's a good period for kind of getting past that vanity of how it looks.
You know, well, that's a I feel like that's we kind of had this and you make a great point about the video camera because we lost the variety in golf swings for like a twenty year period where only like everybody like, oh, look at Jim Furic, how weird his swing is, But that was like really the only one it was.
And Rocko Rocco had a bit of a unique move media eight and Duvar was kind of unique, but there's they were few and far between, like and usually those super unique guys are the ones who hit the ball well for a long period of time. You know, Jimmy's been probably the best ball striker on tour. Really, if you take if distance isn't one of your measures, if your measure is straight like ball flight control, move it
both in consistency. I mean, Ferrex number one in my career with a swing that is kind of a different version of what Matthew Wolf is doing. Really. I mean it's it's it's way inside with deeper the hands and gets way up there across the line so he has to shallow on the downswing. It's a different version of a similar kind of thing. And they're both crazy straight hitters, you know, different styles, and you would never get like that if you learned like you and I did you
know the whole leed better? Ear? I mean, I'm not led better. I'll put him, but his name up the top because he kind of, unfortunately will get picked on in this because every coach was doing it. Just getting on camera and getting this set up, ball squared and everyone was standing in front of a mirror was like memory.
We used to get tape on the mirrors and like get our setups all like that, and it's like wow, completely detaching from what it feels like to hit the ball, like it all became about the look of it, and we all did it and we still do it a little bit. And I woke past a mirror with a golf club woul look at us, but we all do it.
I had, I had, I went, I got this lesson. I went to this new instructor once I was like twenty two or something, and he had me like pausing at one spot so I knew how it felt and everything. I went and played with my buddies and they were like, what the fuck are you doing? And it was like it was. They still talk to this day about that. They're like, you remember when Andy had that like hitch in his swing because of you know, and it was like, you know, a one lesson and done, like I was.
I never went back to it. But it was so funny because it was like the worst month of golf I played trying to do that, you know, and it was all about trying to get it to certain positions.
Which is comedy really because the swing is it's dynamic. It's never actually not moving. If you look at the best ball, even it's set up, Lee Trevino was walking around and moving his feet and I mean, no one stands. It's a It's a moving thing, right, So to try to get static good positions seems the wrong to It's like reverse engineering, you know. It's it's the wrong way hit good golf if you if your focus is hitting great golf shots, you'll end up having a good swing.
But if your focus is having a good swing, you'll never hear good golf shots.
You know.
We're trying to reverse engineer it a little bit. Yeah, And that seems to have turned around because I think track Man is making us realize we're getting there's a different level of vanity now. The vanity has moved on to swing speed and ball ball speed and carry distant. That's the vanity now have part he hit it? How fasties swing it? No one ever asked me that question. When I was people ask me every day, how fasty swing? What's your swing speed? What's your ball speed? Now it's different.
It's it's interesting because like now we're we're we're worried about the rest results rather than the process of getting the results. And it used to be more about the process and then expect good results if you go about the process the way we believe is right, you know.
Yeah, But I think if you get really really like in a good focus about results, then process takes care of itself almost exactly. Yeah, for sure. And that's eapening. And and we'll shows that, you know, well.
It creates more individuality because the way you get the results, everybody's going to be a little.
Bit different, definitely. And that's for don't you think. I mean, it's more fun to watch when you watch those old when you watch old golf on TV. I mean, I know this is a novelty factor, but I watch a lot of old golf, so it's not like a novelty factor for me. But the swings are just the best.
You know, some guys address it way out of the neck, and some guys are way across the line and have a little weird hitches in their swing, and everyone does something a little bit weird, really wide stance when they part of everyone started it. There was that period there that kind of last twenty years where everyone was really kind of trying to look the same.
I mean, look at the way Jack put putt it.
Why hasn't anyone else ever done that? Right? Be'st putter ever? Like it's bizarre, Like every now I get in the in front of my mirror at home or I'm like I'm my carpet and I'm trying to put and I'm like, that's a really good way to part, because you feel like you kind of he always said, he was like I felt like he was looking on a short part. He was looking at the ball in the hole at the same time, you know, which is kind of crazy. And it feels that you get right behind It's like,
how do I miss especially short ones? But no one does it. We all kind of stand up there neutral like it all our lines square and straight.
And brace and trade.
To part like Jack did. He tried to.
Do that SATs out. I think he tried to feast the.
Hole Yeah, see, Bryson's impressive though. I mean Bryson Bryson no stone unturned, right, and he's found his way.
He's like my favorite and least favorite golfer to watch for various reasons. I love that he tries some new stuff and that he's like, you know, always experimenting, but the same token. Like sometimes I just I'm like, God, you know, this is just too much.
I mean, he could end up like I'm sure he won't, but he could end up on the back of some range in palm springs, like with macogrady like and stuff attached to him everywhere and doing some really weird stuff, right, because he's at some point you can't you can't go that it. There's no deeper to go, like where you're gonna go. You know, you can't go any deeper than the moisture content in your grooves on at seven forty
five in the morning at AUGUSTA or something like. At some point you just got to hit golf shots, you.
Know, how about this? Klin Morrikaua has led his last two events to two consecutive weeks. He's led the field and strokes gained approach.
Yeah, he seems to hit the ball really well. I haven't actually seen him hit in the flesh. I've seen I mean, I said, Matt Wolf ht it in the flesh and he it's a hard But Maricaua seems the real deal. You know what's with this cal golfers? I mean, how many cal golfers have got on tour in the last ten years? Tons, right, I'm Michael kim Me went.
To They're all from California. They play golf all year round, they don't have winter.
You think that's the thing.
I think it is a little bit and they're smart. You know, you gotta be smart if you.
Go to cal Do you think it's twenty or so years after Tiger and Phil the two best players on tour came out of California. Do you think that has anything to do with in states in America or do you think I.
Don't know, like Illinois, we've never had a great golfer.
Da Points is on tour.
Yeah, but you know, kids, kids aren't growing up saying I want to be like d A Point.
No, No, yeah, I don't know whether it is massive, right Minnesota, Wisconsin's got a cup, So I had some prettyer golfer as I see, you can't blame that. I know. Why do you explain Jerry Kelly and Steve Striga.
I don't know. I mean that's we've had good golfers. We've got Mark Wilson, but you know, I mean even there's Tom Hogy. But the how many golfers are from California on tour? It's a lot.
Florida, California, Florida and Texas. Yeah, and Carolina's Yeah, it is a very it's certainly. See were in Australia, we don't grow up with that thing. You can play golfer anyway. I mean generally everyone comes from Melbourne and Sydney in Western Australia, really generally, because that's just where more the people live. Wrought. But we have we have twelve month golf.
Really yeah, yeah, I think twelve month golf to big. But then I think it can be also a disadvantage because like you don't have any anything else, you don't have perspective, You can get worn out, you know, Yeah, did you take breaks.
A lot? Now? I'm taking my brack round now. I never took prank because I was obsessed, Like I would play off on Christmas Day if I was allowed to get out of haus. But I didn't do it to get better. I just did it because I locked playing golf, Like why would I do something else? Yeah, just loved it everything about it.
I just I was reading something. So there's this famous venture capitalist who believes that, like, say, you know you've got skills right as a person, you can only improve. He believes two standard deviations from So, if you're really bad at something m h, you can't get to like being really good at it. You can only get to like average, okay. But if you're really good at something, you can keep improving to become like the best. So his point is like, don't work on your weaknesses, work
on your strengths. Like, how do you go about improving when you're like one of the best players in the world.
Well, that's the thing, right, Has anyone ever worked that out? I mean, ask Jack, because Tiger's career has been outrageous, but it probably is chasing to improve from kind of that, O two, kind of that next s out of six or seven years, he's just still great. But it was harder for him, right, Like he didn't get better, I don't think, and he got better at maybe closing the deal or something. But his physical game wasn't as good in that period, and that was chasing to get better.
I don't know what would he've worked on. I don't know. See that's the thing, like I've always had this. You talk to like a Mark Brody or these stats guys and they're like, oh, well, you just got to get better at this. Well that's cool. I knew that I had to get better at that area. It's not that easy to just get better at something in golf, right, you need to hit the ball straighter off the tee. Woh, okay, I'll just go work on that, you know, and work on that every day, right.
And knowing you have to hit straighter is like that's a good thought in your head when you're getting ready to hit a T shirt. I need to hit the straight you know.
Well, you just have to hold more parts. Okay, practice my pudding more like it doesn't usually work like trying to get better at something and golf. That's actually an interesting point there, go I made because people say to you all the time, we'll just get better at your wedge game. Well, I practice wedges every day, but I'm not getting better because now it's a thing right. Ever, I have a wedge on a golf course, well I got to hit this close because I've got to get
better at it. So it's a hard game. It's not like, I don't know, if you were a runner or something and you run marathons, you can measure your level of fitness. It's like, oh, well, you can adjust your training and just train a bit harder and your fitness level probably improves at some point. Golf, if you're not holding enough six footers, just going to the green and hitting six footers and working our technique is no guarantee that you get a hold more six footers. In fact, sometimes it
goes the other way when you do that. Golf is a hard game to work on like that.
Yeah, I feel like sometimes when you're really working hard on something, then you get more frustrated when you're on the course and it doesn't work out, and then you almost actually get worse.
I feel like I raised pressure on myself, like if I'm like plenty of times i've you know what, I needed my home more parts this year, So the whole off season, I'll just I'll do all the right things.
I think it seemed like the right things, like competitive practice and getting myself under pressure and hitting a lot of various parts and to doing the whole thing, and I'll come out and I'll put awful for a few months because when I'm I'm just too in my head about my putting because I've just been putting too much.
But that's the way my head works. But when I the best periods in my game, if I went and just went to wisp Brock and I just played every day for three or four weeks and played with those boys, the Kenny Towner Gowers and the Kevin Chappels and the Chez Revis, and I had a few six footers I'm fifteen and sixteen, like downhill left or right to like to win the whole or to not lose the whole
order to keep the match going or whatever. Even if I had like just one or two of those a day, that would be better than hitting four hundred parts in the green because I learn a lot from that part, you know. And if I did that every day, then I'd start putting well. So it's interesting, like Chase, seeing improvement for me actually always made me go backwards. You kind of gotta let it improves.
Yeah, I think it's got something too to do with uh, like running, isn't it. It's a reactionary movement, right, mm hmm. Like golf is one of those few sports where you you're thinking about it all the time, like you're you have, you're thinking about it before you take the stroke. It's not like you're catching a pass or catching a fly ball, which is like natural.
Yeah, right, you're thinking about it in bed the night before, right, I mean you're always thinking about it.
Yeah, it's it's crazy. I was thinking about that, you know, Woodland. I was looking at Woodland and you know, you look at it and you're like, God, if he was just average all the time around the greens and on the greens, he'd be like one of the ten best players in the world every single year because of how good he hits it. But then I was thinking, and I'm like, well, how hard is It's got to be so hard? It's easy to say, oh, just be average.
You know, but you know, yeah, as easy as the long game is for him, the short game is just as hard the other way, right, it's late. But it's like Jack, his short game wasn't amazing because it didn't need to be right, Like if you grow up a bad ball striker, you probably have a good short game because the only way you could continue improving the scores you were shooting and stay at the level you needed to be staying at was by getting better at that
pit that you that you were good at. Exactly like that guy said, you know, you just get better at the short game, better at the short game, better at the short game, because otherwise she would be you wouldn't be playing golf anymore because you wouldn't be improving. Does that makes sense, you know? Just it's and great ball strikers, the Adam Scott's, the guys who hit it well for twenty five years, like they just never hit a bad shot.
They are generally outside of Tiger and Tiger and Jack. Generally, putting issues come for those really really like guys who stripe at Montgomery, like the guys who had it next to the whole their whole career. They end up bad putters because they've just had too many chances to miss. They've just seen it miss more often. It's not their fault. There's so many inbuilt psychological hurdles in golf, you know, like to keep that balance in the middle, so.
What we were talking about. They're thinking about it puts more.
Yeah, that's what.
I'm convinced that Scott switches putters so much because he's he's told himself he figured it out this latest time he switched, you know.
And there's something to that, right, I mean, like Phil if I mean Phil sometimes is a genius and sometimes it's a little bit not so. But whenever he decides to do something, he's so convinced that it's the answer that it works, right, like it works for him. Because if you're that convinced you're right, you probably are, you know. And Adam is doing a little bit that with his putting.
It's funny. I think it's hard for God like Adam when every time he comes off for fifteen years in the media are like, oh, if you could only have held a few of those putts at him. You know, it's just they've made him a bad putter, you by by just telling him he is one, Because I promise you I've known him since he was about fourteen. He's always a great putt.
Yeah, in a bad putter by you know, a guy that's contending in majors every you know, a couple of times a year for fifteen years a bad putter, like you're still a really good buttter.
You know. He was an old legal putter. I mean he'd won like fifteen or sixteen times around the world of twenty times or something. Hutting how he always putt it. Yeah.
The thing is like if Adam Scott showed up and played a club champion, you know, at a local club and a match, he would he would look like, you know, a Greek god on the greens compared to the club champion. Yeah, like that's the other aspect of it that gets lost as you're talking about. That's true, You're right, Yeah, marginally better at the professional level is like you know, that's that's leaps and bounds better than the best club player, the best amateur in the city.
And good putters on tour, by the way, are outrageous how good they are, Like you can't believe even guys like me who have been out there a long time, it's still amazing how many parts of guys hold on through. It's incredible. So that is the I mean, the level that he has been compared against is almost unrealistic. You know, it's just outrageous. Guys like stricter in that. I mean
speF there for a period. I mean it's twenty foot was just pick the ball up like you can go days WITHO holding a twenty foot normally, even good putters that whole five a day. You know, it's crazy stuff. Tiger was the same, just hold everything. So the measure is unfair, You're right.
The thing that's interesting too, is like so Luke Donald when he was on the podcast, he talked about when he played in the final group at Me with Rose and how he after that round he just was like, God, I gotta be able to hit it like him, and I think like and he was like, and then I like, you know, I went on this, I tried to change my swing. I tried to do all this, and I
think in my head, I'm like Rose. If it had gone the other way, Rose might have been like, God, if I could just put in chip, like.
Luke, it's funny and grass is always greener. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, we'll pick on Adam for soon because I know Adam really well. But there's a couple of times he'd been like out there, he's top five in the world and he gets paid with dust and or something and you'll come off the golf course or he'll be at Toddless the next week's saying I need to hit the ball further. And Adam's the best driver I've ever seen. Really, it's at three fifteen at the middle of every fairway,
like an unbelievable driver of the ball. It's just there's five guys that can hit it fifteen past him now and he doesn't like it. Right. The reason you're not you didn't win. It wasn't because the driving was the best driving in history. Right. I wasn't anything to do with that. But we don't see that, right. We don't see what we do well. We only see what we
do bad. Sometimes I think we compare ourselves to other people. Yeah, and it's funny, is you know that you're comparing yourself to the other guy, wishing that you could do something like he does, and he's looking at you just the same, going, oh, gez, I wish I could do that like he does. Funny why we locked that?
Yeah, that's why it's such a great game, you know. Now for a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode is powered by Tdomeritrade. Whether on the course or in the market. It helps to have a second set of eyes to keep you on your game. That's why ted Ameritrades Trade desk is here to gut check your strategies so you always feel confident teeing up a trade. Visit tedomritrade dot com slash Friday egg to learn more about what their trade desk can do for you, Member SIPC.
Now back to Jeff Ogilvy. Hey, your first first open ninety nine. Welcome first major ninety nine at Carnousti. What was that like? Wow?
That was crazy. I mean, I don't know if anybody knows the history, but the ninety nine, the Vandervelt one was an absurd open, right, It was crazy. It was my first year as a pro. I tried to qualify I think a couple of times before as an amateur, but never made it. First time in Carnoustie, so I was pretty excited. And we got there and the fairways were some of them were like eight yards wide. It was rageous, I mean it was and it was lost
ball on both sides of the fairway. They said they hadn't fertilized the grass, but you know, they'd fertilized the ruff. It had been raining, it was green. It was absolutely unplayable, completely unplayable because of the how narrow it was in the raff. I think the cut I missed the cut. I think I shot I had like eleven or twelve over. I think the cut was nine maybe nine over, and I think the playoff was at five or six over. Wasn't it is about right? Van Velden Hollari. It was tough,
So it was It was amazing to be there. It's an incredible event. Anyone who hasn't been one Open, who's a golf fan needs to go to an Open because they're really cool things. It's just a different I want to say that. I mean everyone tells that they're the best fans in golf, and they probably are, but it's just a different feeling, and it's just it's it's a
national it's just a national treasure. They Open in Britain and a lot of people, even if they're not golf fans, they just go to the Open because that's what you do in July in Britain. You go to the Open and there's a ton of people and it's just just a great tournament. So that one was disappointing. So my next one. I didn't play two thousand unfortunately. That's the Tiger one at Andrews, and I think.
I played you were oh one at Lithm O one.
At Lithm's right. I missed the cart there too.
Those were your thirst two majors.
First two majors I want at Lithm. I got into that through lock Loanan. I think I finished top ten or something at lock Loman the week before Scottish Open. So that was good. That was a bit more comfortable the second time, but I missed the cut again, I think, didn't.
I yeah, yeah, at my record.
Yeah.
Then then he had a t fifth and No. Five at seen Andrews.
Okay, yeah, I played well, that was a funny fifth. That was the first time I kind of got in the mix, but I wasn't really in the mix. Tiger was way in front and I birdied three last four. I buried. I burdied seventeen. I buried the road hole on Sunday, which was pretty fund in there, but I hold like a twenty foot from like Pini right and made it big stands a massive stand behind seventeen on the road holes across the I of the road and it's just enormous. I don't even know how many people
get in a lot, so that was pretty exciting. And then Birdie the last and kind of went from twelfth to fifth in the last three holes, which was pretty fun.
How did how does the way you play in an open change from say, your first time at Carnousti to later in your career? Do you do you approach things? Definitely?
Well, it's funny. I had probably a pretty for someone who didn't live in Britain, a pretty good education because three years in a row we were in a really fortunate situation. We got to go over and play amateur golf, so we'd play the Brabazon Trophy, which was the English stroke play, which was all we played on it Rowls and Georgia's and places like that. I played the Amateur three times, and I played the s and andrews Lynx Trophy three times, which was just the best tournament the world.
Really is an amateur forty pounds to play four rounds around the old course or three rounds in the old one around the year. That was amazing. So I'd played a lot of Links golf, so I kind of feel like I knew what I was doing but the trouble with the Open or not the trouble is probably the good thing about it is you don't know. You don't
know what you're getting until you get there. Sometimes it's bouncy and firm and dry, like Hoylake six, there was not a blade of green grass on the course except for the greens where target hit iron off every tea. That was brilliant. And then you'll get to one the next year where it rains whole time and it's really soft, and not soft but damp, and the grass is wet and it's a completely different style of golf. And then Burkedale when Harrington won and Norman was nearly not nearly one.
I mean that was blowing fifty and that was a seven or eight overcut, and then you get no, this is a five undercut the next year. So it's a it's just infinite variety the Open. But I tended to like to go over there early. I didn't like to play the John Dear very much because I thought getting in on like really early on month or like lunchtime on Monday, was a bit late jet lag wise. And Morlene and Illinois to the coast of Britain's generally not.
But you're kind of you're changing the playing field a fair bit there, so I'd usually go.
We'd go over there about the way sale Stales are a little different.
Star's a little different, the type of golf You've got to play a little different, temperatures a little different, scenery is a little different. I mean, John did is a great event. I ended up. I played it a lot and I enjoyed it. But whenever I was like contending in the Open, or what I felt like I was in the mix for the Open, I would We'd go early, like the Wednesday and did it with Adham a few times.
We'd camp at Snander's and play a few holes and then play a few days and then go up to Turnbury or wherever we were going, or go Turnbury is a good place to go camp for a few days before and open. So I'd always go and play because I just love my Lynks, Junkie, I just love playing them.
So I would did you like playing like the Scottish or Irish Open or would you rather just kind of play casual golf?
No, I would like to play the Scottish and Irish Open, I mean I think now, but the schedule wasn't like that ten years ago. It was the Irish Open was at the k Club or something and an inland course in the Scottish Open was at lock Lemon for a long time, which is basically like playing Mirfield Village, you know, like it's not to do with links. So I kind
of got off doing that. And now they've come back the last sort of six or seven years and they're playing links two weeks before the Open, which is great and I would be all over that, but Rory said this week you just want to have a scorecard in his pocket. There's something about having a score card in your pocket the week before, especially with somewhat similar turf
conditions and stuff. It's different. It's funny because when you go to the when you go to the UK and you see it every year, the guys who've been playing us for the last twelve months, they get their sixty out when they chip it on the first green, they get the sixty when they're chipping it on the third and the fourth. But by the end of the week they're chipping with six eigns again. You know, like it does affect you. You do use different clubs. I go
the peach out to it, you're probably the out. I don't know twelve times around you know, probably four or five shots into greens with pitchers in a par fives, and every time you miss a green, you just get your sixty out. The minute's out they open. I only ever get the sixty out if I'm in a that's it. Around the greens. Every other pitch is whether fifty four or a fifty or like a nine iron or something,
it's it's two iron gets back in the bag. You know, these new driving irons that these all these manufacturers make. I might drop the hybrid or the even the three would sometimes and just have like a just a nuclear two iron that goes really long and low. So it's a different style. It's a fun way to play. Don't hit it as hard. I usually end up hitting its soft by the end of the week rather than harder keep the spin off the ball. It's definitely a different
we would all the golf world would look different. Professional golf would look different if we played courses like that every week, Like the swings would be different, the ball flights would be different. It's the same game, but it's just just off to one side a little bit from what we used to.
Yeah, do you think with you know, the different style, do you think that's why we see you know, it seems like almost every year we get, you know, an older guy making a run that you know saves fifty fifty plus.
You know, like the the advantage of power is nullified a little bit, like it's a bit more balanced. Say, I mean, I'll pick on bethpage Black, not picking on it, but just for an example, because it's obvious you can't compete there really unless you can hit the ball three hundred yards in the air, it's just not going to work out for you because it's just too long. The ball doesn't run and that's all carry whereas you got to say, turnbree in what was nine when wat's nearly one. Yeah,
that that's super windy, crosswinds, really bouncy and firm. Length really just gets you into more trouble if you can't do it properly. So everyone ends up kind of plodding their way around and kind of just finding their wa around the course because it's so difficult. You just want to get the ball on the ground and run on the ground, and all of a sudden, Tom Watson's now the best player in the world are doing that, you know,
so it can change. But then if it got dead still a turnally the long hitters get their chance again dead still and soft. So it kind of just changes the style of golf you need to win so quickly we just weather and wind that the guys like well, say Watson or fifty year old guy who's been out there a long time really gets it. Someone like Phil or Tiger even now, they're going to adapt to that a lot quicker than other guys who haven't seen that sort of stuff before.
So with so we've got like the Masters Augusta, let's just call it like strategic golf. But then you know, we'll call I think feel like the US Open and the PGA are kind of similar style tournaments usually, right, but one just set up a little a notch softer. And then you've got links GoF do you do you think? I'm curious is Australian samd Belt golf a different style than links golf American golf.
It's it's kind of like a well, Melbourne golf is like the sand belt what we think of as austrain goal. I mean, people outside of Australia Royal Melbourne, Kinks and heath, the sand belt stuff. That is kind of a hybrid between Links style golf and like kind of that Parkland US golf. It's not as extreme and kind of wild as Links golf, not quite as close to the coast, but it is quite firm. The ball rolls a lot. It's much more about angle rather than the lie you have,
if that makes sense. Like the US, if you get a good lie, you can pretty much get it next to the hole unless you're really in a bad spot. It's whereas Britain, it's less about your Links golf when it gets firm like that in Melbourne, it's less about really the lie you have, and it's more about your angle. If you're in the right angle, you can generally work with your going up the hill or whatever, and you
can use the slope. If you're on the wrong side, it's a real So it's kind of it's a bit of a hybrid between them both A minutes kind of more. It looks more like American golf on the surface, but it plays more like Links golf when you're actually playing it. That makes sense.
See that's the that's the case why Australian Open should be a major.
Well yeah, I mean astray, it's like playing on Long Island. Anyone who's ever played Shinnacock, or like seeing the way Shinakon plays outside of like the USGA set up, sam Bel golf plays a bit like that. You know, it's a little bit postal, but it's a little bit firm, but it's not quite as fiery and kind of random. Linx golf is quite random. It seems random when you first play. It is that crazy bounces?
What what do you think about the is it is a draw? Were you ever on like the wrong side of a bad draw? Is the draw really a big deal as everybody makes it out to be? In Open?
The draw can be. I mean it can be a complete game changer. It completely put you out of the tournament if you get in the wrong one. Were the worst one? I got the burkedar one that Harrington won. Funnily enough, Harrington was the group in front of me, and he won the tournament, but no one else within an hour each side of us even made the cut. Like he just freaked out. He made the cut on
the number and had a really good weekend. I think I made I think he actually birdied like two of the last three on Friday to sneak in by a couple and then had a great weekend and one but that one it was it blew hard all day on Thursday, really hard. But in the afternoon it blew and rained like really hard. So we played in fifty mile an hour winds and rain, whereas the morning they just played in fifty mile in hour wins and that's it was
a big difference in scores. You can get really really unlucky because you have guys on the golf course at six point fifty in the morning and you have guys on the golf course at eight thirty at night. I
mean that's fourteen hours difference. And on the coast, I mean it can be you get have four different days in one day, like when you're that close to the coast, and you have these weird situations where it'll be dead still and the tide will change and the wind will just stop blowing the other way, or the wind will be blowing off the left and then you'll just turn around and it'll start blowing off the right just for fun.
Like it just changes all the time, and you see the storms coming in over the water and stuff, and yeah, it's a drawer is really really important. Generally, I think it's kind of even probably, but you can get really unlucky and it's so annoying, and you know you've got unlucky out for three holes that you can just tell. And it's so depressing when you've got to wait a whole another year because you just know you you're really you're really going to be struggling to get anything done.
So have you played port Rush?
I haven't played port Rush. No, it looks incredible, Yeah.
It looks really cool. So I've been seeing kind of everybody describing port Rush as a fair links course, like in in the same vein of as Brokedale. What what's the difference between what makes a fair links course like when a pro ss it's a fair links course.
Well, I don't ascribe to the I don't like this. I actually like the randomness. But generally the pro's position is they don't want to hit a shot that they'd normally be a good shot and they haven't bounce into the wrong spot, you know, and when a lynx gets fired.
Some of them are extreme like this, like a Saint George's, like a Sinnandrew's those places get it's seemingly on the surface, super random, Like you hit a shot and one time it bounces to the right, the next time it bounces hard and runs over the green, the next time it bounces to the left. Like that stuff pros hate. They like to get the result from the shot that they
knew they were going to get. Like in the US, you hit a five one two hundred yards, it lands at one nine and it stops at two a one or something, you kind of know, whereas that same shot in Britain it could run twenty when it lands, or it could just hit an ups open stop. Pros hate that sort of stuff, that kind of quirk. But funnily enough, the quirkier it gets by the end of the week, usually the higher level of the player that wins, you know, like that's well, I mean, Watson won around the bouncy,
quirky ones. You know, those great all time legends. They find a way Standrew's, i mean, finds finds the number one golfer in the world very often. Tiger in his two when he was in the most form, the two Sanandras opens, he just dominated him, you know, with all the quirk in the world. So I would argue that that's more fair because the best golfer is won by more, you know, but the standard position is and I agree
with it too. It sucks when you're a pro and it's your thing to hit a great shot and see it bounce into a bunker and know you're going to make bogey and it wasn't your fault. But if you take a higher perspective and you look back over the week, generally, any shot that's a well struck shot will generally go in a pretty decent place generally, especially if you've chosen the right shot with the right club. It's a and
it's all in front of you thing. I don't understand that phrase either, Like every golf course is in front of you, you know, Like what are you looking backwards when you're playing? You know what I'm saying, Like you walk backwards up the fairway. Every course is in front of you. Like, I don't know, I know what that means really, but I hear port Rush is really penal Scotty. I was reading about Scotty this morning on somewhere Doug Fergie's article, and he was saying it's gonna be really
pain off. It's a lot of reloading and stuff, so that'll be interesting. Must be green ruff.
Yeah, I'm sure it's going to blow up there too, got to that's the last two weeks, the Irish and Scottish. It's just spent dead.
Yeah, I mean that renaissance. I mean that's not built for a golf course where they just played the Scottish Open and not a golf tournament. I should say that's a that's a really beautiful place. But talking about par they probably just for sanity's sake, should have adjusted part a little bit there for those scores and they didn't really get the win they should. But Ireland, I would think, is generally a little bit windier. Maybe it's pretty small island,
pretty windy place. I don't know, it's a fair I think pros like it to not be so fiery bouncy too, you know, like Ho Lake. That was another one that was completely The ball was running fifty yards when we played Halllake in O six and who won te tiger. You know, so on the surface it seems unfair and I used when I first got there, I thought, this is a joke. Good shots going a bad place. This is ridiculous, he can a good player show himself. But by the end I started thinking, you know what, I
think almost the quirky year get it. It's to the good players advantage or to the complete play who's got all the shots. It seems to always end up that way. It doesn't seem that way if you measure it all on just the basis of one shot or two shots, But if you go on the basis of two hundred and seventy five shots, it seems like it's it's a it's a it finds the better player somehow.
I imagine that the firmness, like it's consistently firm at an Open, more so than any other event, and that's gonna separate the good from the great play, or the good from the mediocre play. More. Did you feel like when you came into and Open with in good form, you played accordingly and when you were maybe struggling a little, you say, struggled more so than most tournaments.
I feel like the Open, you can't be struggling with your ball striking, like the traditional thinking would be like the US Open be a ball striking test, right, But I but I actually found that the Open the British Open was the ball striking test, and that the US Open was the short game test. That's what I found I could. I found like a US Opens, I could hit the ball ply, find way to just kind of scratch it around somehow, getting it up and down the Open.
You can't fake it if you've got a twenty mile an hour crosswind and you've got like hey on both sides of the fairway and bunkers, you're not going to get on the grand toot irregulation. You can't fake it under that fairway. There's no You've got to hit a real shot. I always found that if I wasn't hitting it well when I went there, I struggled mightily. But if I was hitting the ball well, then I would
usually go all right, like under control. Well, you know, crosswinds are the biggest equalizer in your ball striking, especially cross wind You get crosswinds a lot of these links. They're not all out and back, but they often they'll go out for five holes and like they'll go in eight lines for five holes. Quite often you'll get three or four holes in a row, like running along the coast, and if you're pumping off the left and you're not very good with that twenty mile an hour left right wind.
And you've got five holes in a row with a left right wind, you know, like ten shots in a row or whatever it would be. You're not getting through that stretch. Well unless you're riding that shot. Well you know where, say the US Open, you're gonna the other ones. I feel like you could save yourself around the greens, but the Open's got more you're not making You're not saving it. If you hit it in a links bunker off the fairway, on the tee, you're chipping it out.
There's no amount of skill that can actually get you to make par. Really, you just take your penalty shot and go on. I find it a ball striking test more than anything else, and such a fun test too.
It might be kind of counterintuitive with everything else in Gothic by setting up the US Open to be the toughest test. It makes it a short game competition in a sense because everybody is going to miss a little bit.
But because it's so hard, right, I mean, nobody can hit everything there.
Right, yeah, But with the Open, the Open by their kind ofwithstanding the ninety nine Carnoustie where it was ten years wide, and hey on either side. But their belief of like just letting it happen. It becomes the ball striking test because if you if you're playing really well, you could conceivably hit every fairway in every green.
Yeah, for sure. I mean the nice thing about the Open from that kind of what you just mentioned is that nobody knows who the setup man is, Like, what's his name? Who's setting up there? You probably do right, but nobody else does.
I only know Martin Slumbers because I think he's got one of the best names in golf. But I don't think he sets it up. He's just the guy that he did. He sprung the driver test last year on everybody. Murty sleeps, yeah.
Mighty sleeps well. They generally you play, if you go to Port Rush and any other time, you'll be playing the same course they're going to play this week. I mean, it'll be in better condition. I'm sure the RNA gives them a bit of a budget to like spend a bit more money on the course and have a few more staff and have it all a bit neater and like kind of nicer, and maybe the ruff is a
little bit thicker than like the members play. But generally you play port Rush how it's supposed to be, or you play Snandre's how it is, or you play St. George's just how the members play it, and you're just off the back teas and just go have at it. Boys. And if it's windy and it's firm, you get a par and it's soft that doesn't play. You're going to
go under. That's there. They kind of just leave it up to God in a sense, you know, whereas the USGA try to manipulate the playing field to kind of get the result they want, you know, and look, it works sometimes on one side, and it doesn't work on you know, sometimes the open backfires, but if the weather's crazy or it's dead still or whatever, but it doesn't really, it's just just a different approach.
Seems like the setup, like I mean almost only the really the big philosophy philosophical difference is green speeds. That's why they're able to just not do anything, like they just set it up. It's like, well, we aren't going to let the greens get out of control because that's where most of the problems happen.
Well, yeah, usually, and we look, they're lucky that they don't even have the chance, right because they know it's going to blow. They know it's going to blow, and they just can't. They've just never got the option to try to get them fast. Plus links greens just don't get that fast, I don't think. But the only issues I've ever had in opens or at Scenandra's, the last two opens we payt at Snandra's had big windolays because probably the eleventh green was cut just a little bit fast,
you know. But you get situations at Snandra's. I come to which one it was five or ten or fifteen, I can't remember. I think it was ten. That the fairways were rolling faster than the greens, like and it was the last one we had to play. I think
it was ten or fifteen fifteen. They had to put dots around, like little tiny little dots around the edges of every green, so the caddies front of the greens were in the back of the greens because and the rules for because that was when pins needed to be in and out for green because you couldn't tell the difference between the fairway and the green. That's the old course, and that to me, that's actually ideal. It's like really really cool right, But from a tournament perspective, like with
all the it would be different. Now. I guess you know you can leave the pin in, but they had to mark out the edge of the greens, so the fairways that snandras can roll at ten I reckon sometimes, which is interesting and then we're going way off topic. But the thing about the open is that when you have like kind of slower, flatter greens bring it makes it more of a ball shriking contest. You know. It
balances the test. I mean, putting is difficult. A dead straight up from four feet with a little bit of pressure on you for anybody is kind of a bit of a mental test, right, we aren't testing. The putting end of the game is the mental test. The hitting end of the game is the physical test. Right. It seems to balance it out a little bit. The balance and the links between how well you hit it and how well you put seems to be a bit more measured,
like a little bit more equal. Sometimes you get to these ultra soft courses like a normal PGA two of it, like in Palm Springs or something, and it's all about putting. The whole field can hit it inside twenty feet on every hole because the shots are really easy. So to whoever holes in most twenty foot is at the Open, it's only good ball striking that gets you to twenty feet, right. Yeah, it seems to be.
The firmness has a factor there too.
Uh huh. Yeah, because I M not too fast.
Because if you toll one at a firm links course, if you tow one and you got a little hook spin, it's not stopping twenty feet away.
Yeah, that's just a bit. It's a bit more depth to the test to something. But I kind of like, look, I think most golfers in the world would love a bit of anxiety from the putting taken out of the game. You know, generally speaking, thirteen thirteen on the stimp greens with holes on sides of hills is a good anxiety inducing situation. You know, you got to links all that, you just get all the fun of hitting the shots, and then you just get down there and you try
to roll the put in the hole. It's not like the be all and end all putting. It's very important, clearly, but it seems to be just more balanced. It's less of a putting contest and more of a you know, if you hit the ball well this week, you'll do all right. If you put well this week, you'll do all right. But it doesn't seem to overwhelmingly suit one side or the other. As I said, it's more of a ball striking contest before, but I think golf is generally more of a pudding contest, at least in the
winning the tournament situation. It's the guy who holds the most parts, and I think the openers the guy wins the tournament probably as the goal hits the most good shots. That's what it feels like to me.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just it's become my favorite tournament to watch year and year out. I think the last few have just been so good too. Like last year at Carnoustie. You know, it was playing so fast and everybody's like, oh, are they just going to bomb it? You know, bomb it up and you know, play bombing gouge,
and sure enough, like it was. I'll never get the Like Thursday morning, you know some people are just trying to hit driver everywhere and they were just they just got blown off the face of the earth, you know, trying to trying that strategy, and it became I mean and you look at the leader board, like the guys that were up there last last year, and it was
like what more could you ask? You had a variety and styles of play, but they I mean you had Molinari was playing the best golf of anybody in the world at that time, and Tiger and you had Speeth and you had I mean, it just it's such a beautiful version of the game.
It just gives everyone a chance. Right. It's very democratic. If you're really really good at an aspect of the game, it is really rewarded, you know. And and it's a mental test too, right. I mean, Jordan is always going to do If Jordan's informed, he's going to do well and opens because he thinks well for opens. You know, He's got that kind of mature kind of golf think, you know. I mean it's hard to see imagine Dustin
not like presenting in a few of these. He hits the ball so well, but yeah, probably has to take the dry rout of his hand. Probably. You go out there with a great too on and like kind of I don't know, Like it's a it is very democratic. I mean, Zach Johnson can win it. S Andrews and Brooks can win somewhere else and like it's everybody can win.
You know, Rory is the batting favorite, and he's going to be playing in his home hometown. What you played a lot of golf at at high levels, but you know, very rarely in front of your home crowd. Is it is it different playing at home when you have a played there very much?
Yeah? I think so. I mean he's gonna I mean, I can't even imagine what it's like for him. I mean, to be as big as Rory is anyway, and to do it in Ireland and to do it at home. The Open hasn't been there for fifty sixty years or whatever, Like it's a big deal. Like it's going to be hard for him. Hopefully he can. The first round is going to be the hard part for him, you know, those first six holes, first nine holes. If he gets in and he's kind of doing it right out, you'll
probably get comfortable. Like whenever I've the nerves and the pressure for me, always felt like pre first t you know, I feel like once I got on the golf course, regardless of the situation, oh now I'm happy. Like it's the off the course that I'm uncomfortable with all the attention and all this stuff. As soon as I get on the court, well, this is what I know how to do. I'll just do that. I know how to play golf, you know, so I can just do this.
But that lead up and that pressure, I mean, how many people are going to be yelling Rory at him everywhere he steps, like everywhere. It's going to be tough. It's gonna be like Wheezy in the Canadian Open, you know, a few times. Like It's just hopefully it doesn't become a burden. It's hard to carry. Is what a story that would be? Would be pretty special?
Yeah, it would be incredible. It's a I think, like I think that's one of the sneaky tough things when you play at home, is like there's an added layer of expectation, an added layer of like just one extra dimension of to the game, which would make a win even more unbelievable. It's who do you think, I mean, who would you be picking this week?
Well, he clearly is a he has to be looked at as a Rory obviously Brooks and Dustin Scottie. I mean, it's probably a good one for Adam because as I said, it's the open I would say is his best chance at the moment because it doesn't probably require as much putting. Level of putting. It's a real ball striking test, especially if it's windy. Well, so you who you picking? Let me let me have a thing for a minute. Is there a field list I can look at?
Yeah, you find find it. The one of the things that joke said on the pod which was really interesting about port Rush was unlike almost every other rot of course, port Rush has because of when it was built. It has a cohesive set of greens. So Colt built you know, eighteen green. They have two new holes, but sixteen of the eighteen greens are the original Colt greens really, which
is like pretty good. Yeah, it's so he said. He was saying, you know that that they have it has a more a little bit more complex green green complexes hole a hole than a lot of the Rota courses. Other like Mierfield, he said, it also has unbelievable green so too.
I will Millfield's greens are great. I will say, how about I always picked Louis right because I just lose my favorite goalver. He's just complete, you know, like it's just he has he doesn't have weaknesses, right, and and he's finished second in every major, so he clearly is good in the big, big big thing. And he was up there somewhere recently winning in the PGA or somewhere another he was open a roundabout.
I think, well, and he's like what you talked about. It's a ball striking test, like there's not many, you know.
And he hits half shots well, and he hits like he's quite happy to hit a little dinky five iron from one fifty like he plays like that anyway. And Fleetwood he's probably a little bit not quite a sh doesn't have the shine that he did this time last summer, but he is a ball striker. He's going to win one of these soon, he is. Rory would be my favorite, and I go Louis in Fleetwood is my These dark horses, not many dark horses, but I.
Might Moulinari could be a good pick. He hasn't played that great though this year. You know, Repeating's gout.
Is tough too, ram and have to be a chance, you would think. I mean, he's he's a thumper like he hits the ball, he hits a heavy ball like he hits that kind of low spin really like a perfect ball for the UK, like it's it's I don't know, this's just something about the way he strikes it that I think could be really really impressive there. And he just won in Ireland last week right or two weeks ago.
That he seems like a guy that if he wanted to, could hit it twenty yards thirty yards further. But he hits that low you know, low little cut as opposed to hitting that high launch bomb.
He's funny on the range. You get him on the range and he does he hits at three ten, three ten, three ten, and then he like goes at one. It's he's got gears on top of his gears. He has got multiple more gears. He doesn't use. He's a big kid, and he swings it really efficiently. He creates really easy. He's he just he gets emotional right, so that that helps you if you get in the right situation at
the right time, you know what I mean. So if he can kind of they uh say that there's the Spanish tend to really kind of and the Italians, like Millinariy, they get so into it that if you get when they get in that kind of mood, they're almost impossible to beat, you know, but when they get in the bad side of things, it kind of goes quickly the other way. And he's very like Sergio kind of was, so if he's feeling it, he's got a perfect game for there.
I read that that article you did about temper. Oh yeah, what uh? You know, it was interesting. It was like how you you ran a little hot younger, but then it, you know, like you grew like so ram. Everybody always is like, well, temper, like, you know, can you control it?
Like what you know in your experience with like dealing with like temper and competitive golf, Like anybody that's played competitive golf understands what a tempt you know, like there's nothing more frustrating, Like how I mean, like, how do you use it to your advantage?
I think when I went when I was young anyway, and I'd get filthy angry, and then I'd be angry for about four holes, and I kind of worked out after a while that I wasn't angry at the shot anymore. I was just angry at myself for getting angry again, you know, And you get into this spirals like you're such an idiot? What are you doing? Like, come on, man, what are you doing? You're an idiot and you're just all five holes later, it's like you've just made three
focuses like what was I doing. I don't think you ever get to the point where you don't have that kind of flash of anger come up when you frustrate yourself, because otherwise you wouldn't. The type of people who want to be competitive are the people who are going to be like that, Right, If you don't care at all, then you don't probably make it to that level. Right. And look, but dust I mean there's outliers. I mean, Dustin doesn't seem to know how to get angry, you know,
and he's the best player in the world. Brooks doesn't look like he knows how to get angry, but most I mean, Tiger's the angriest player I ever played with. But he was also the best at turning it to flicking the switch back on. And he he used anger in a positive way. I mean, his next shot when he was angry, it almost focused it. He got angry to focus himself, you know, stop chatting to the boys. Come on, Tiger, you Tiger was the said a good shot,
Come on, don't be stupid, and he would. He would hick his bag or something and yell at Stevie or something, and then thirty seconds later he looks like the best goal from the world. Again, whereas most guys are three holes, lady, you can tell that they're still mad, you know, heads down and grumbling under their breath after every shot and I shot again, what are you doing there? I mean, it's we all have. I just got better and better at just getting it out and then getting it away,
and then I had period. It's actually recently where i'd like internalize it. I think internalizing it's bad. I think what Ram does is actually really good. You know, you just got to find ways to do it that doesn't with other people off. You know, that doesn't leave any scars in your brin.
You know, it's and that's the thing.
It's like such a frustrating game.
It doesn't put any people anybody off if you win and you get angry every once in a while, like Tiger proved that because you know, like he would drop f bombs, he'd throw clubs, you know, and and rom it just because it seems like it sticks with him once he gets you know, like you can see it growing and then all of a sudden it's like an eruption. And it's so what you said is so true. Like I I used to have a temper and I would get I would get mad at myself for getting mad.
I mean, what sort of a situation is that? I mean, how dumb is that? But we do it ron, This is crazy, It's.
I don't know, that's well, that's that's one of the things with golf. It's just the that's the mental side of it too. It's like there's nothing worse than when you you make a mistake in your you know, you know you had thought about that before you made it, you know, and it's just like you're just such an idiot.
Yeah. I just think ideally, if you can flip it to like positive, if you can flip on onto the positive really fast, like let it fire you up and come on like you know, like kind of football is slapping each other on the helmets and stuff to fire each other up. But if you use it like that anger, I think that's how kind of Tiger did. I think.
I think he used it to focus himself. Whereas say I'll pick on ram or say Sergio or one of these guys, they tend to it changes their mood so that it kind of a dark cloud goes over in for a few holes, you know, and so they're more susceptible to like getting frustrated about the crowd or the marshals, or their caddy or their next shot. The good players, it's almost like the anger blows the clouds away from clarity. You know, they're not the good plazas, the the mentally
good guys. But saying that, I mean Tiger was, like you said, he was dropping f bombs, he was winning every week. Jordan, when he was at his best, he was certainly on the edge, you know, right on that kind of edge of anger all the time. When Jordan was playing well, him and Michael were very animated. So and he was the best player in the world. So there's no and Bryson he's completely psychopathic. Sometimes Bryson right,
but doesn't affect their score, doesn't seem to. He might wear you out emotionally, but it doesn't seem Sometimes some guys seem to need to be in that sort of kind of white line feverish kind of mindset, you know, to get the best out of themselves and other guys need to be like Freddie Copple's or Dustin you know, just like just a good shot.
Is that it could like heighten your focus in a way because it, like you know, it gets your you going a little. Do you do you ever feel like you're kind of like a tournament you're like sleepwalking almost.
Very regularly, And that's partly I think the nature of tour golf is groundhog Day, right. You're just every week you're on the range on Tuesday with the same guys. You're in a different town, but it's the same guys in the range. You're working on the same thing. So you're going on the pudding green for an hour, You're going to go play your practice round, and you do it on Wednesday. In the program, it just becomes very like that, and that sort of thing becomes a bit.
You just start going through the if you're not playing well, it's very easy to go through the motions for a month and then you're not getting mad, right because you're just kind of mechanically going doing your process, doing your thing. It's when you're really fired up about a tournaments where you've got to be careful with your anger situation. Yeah. Yeah, I think I was always playing in front of my Whenever my dad caddied for me when I was young, that was my angry day because I didn't want to
let him down, you know. And funnily enough, when i'd get angry, that was what let him down. Because I was getting angry you didn't care how I played. So it's ironic. How have anything.
The dad caddy is one of the hardest things to deal with in a tournament. Yeah, it's stuff.
It shouldn't be sh be the best, right, should be the most comfortable, great situation. But the person in the world we want to impress the most is standing right next to us.
It's tough, it's hard. I'm taken out of Scott That's good.
Cool, thank this week.
Yeah, listen to this, Listen to this forum. He's barely played this year. I kind of like that. But twelfth of the players, eighteenth of the Masters, and he was like in that, that's it. That eighteenth is deceiving eighth of the PGA, second at the Memorial, seventh at the US Opens.
Yeah, he's on form and he's playing. I mean we talked about it the last couple of years, Like he started having kids and stuff. He's had a couple of kids in the now, like getting the schedule to like balance all that out, and he's all great going away for a month, really working hard and coming back and being informed. I always needed to kind of play in the form, but he's been. Really he can get He's
like Tiger. He can get ready without any tournaments beforehand, and he loves this process of getting ready for major's is his favorite thing. He's been there for four or five days already. He's been playing with Darren Clark. He's he loves that kind of camping there for two weeks and just getting his house and just doing his own thing and really grinding and winning the tournament. So again, it's all about the start. There's so much in these tournaments.
It's about the start for these guys, for everyone. If you get off and you're you're top fifteen or twenty after one round and you have a nice round and you're kind of in the mix of say, it takes all that pre pressure and all the build up is gone. Now you're in the torn. Now you're just doing what you know how to do. But you go out and you're kind of two over after seven and you feel like you've got a bad draw and it's windy and your swing feels a bit weird or something that it
gets tough in that situation. Get off to a good start. Any of these guys can win. Starts important.
I feel like that starts the hardest thing to competitive golf.
It really is, as I said, because the pre for me anyway, the pre tournament, the non golf stuff was the stuff that I was uncomfortable with. You know, as soon as I went down that hit it on the fairway, if I was playing okay, it's like, this is what I know how to do. You know I can do this.
It's all they're trying to go to. In contention, or before a big tournament, you have a sleepless kind of night the night before and you're kind of worrying about the weather and if I've got enough food in my bag and how many golf ball should I take, and I wonder if my caddy's going to sleep in and is he at the park or not, and all that stuff you get on the golf course, you just it's golf. And almost everyone on tour is the same art she start playing golf. This is what we know how to
do and we're comfortable. But there's so much build up now and there's so much media attention and just so much kind of talk, so many like kind of outlets to you can't get away from it. If you get on the Twitter or the Instagram or the Internet, or you watch golf channel or you watch an you just can't get away from all the mean this we're talking about.
It's just there, right, It's tough. That's why. That's another reason I think the start is really hard because there's probably fifty guys who think they're an outroute, they're an outright definite chance to win this tournament. And and that puts your puts you through all sorts of emotions, you know, if you think you're a chance to win one of these things and life changing thing important important, it's it's been made so important by the golf world these tournaments. There's a lot of pressure.
I feel like too. If you have, like you know, if you miss, say you just miss one left in your first five shots, that miss left is more memorable than if you miss that if you hit that same shot midway through your second round.
Oh, if you do it early, yeah, yeah, that first t shots really key. There's a couple of key shots. I mean it's there's that first driver or the first t shot of the first hole. If you hit that one down the middle, that's usually that's settled, very settling. You know that you have that cruisy, easy first hole. You know, hit it down the hit at the fifteen feet or whatever you hit. A good party goes in or it doesn't. But you have that zero stress whole.
You don't have a drive at the rough, like get a flyer over the green ship it down to eight feet and have it down. Here'll love to write for part. Even if you make it. There's different ways to make par on the first hole, right, it's you love to kind of get into the tournament and the stress kind of gently. You know that nice cruisy par or Bertie on the first hole, no no problem, no fairway, bunkers, no plug lies. Yeah, it's but you can't guarantee that.
I mean, they could get to the first two on Thursday and it could be blowing fifty in raining, you know, and like all your preparation goes out in the window. It's like I haven't played in three layers of rain gear for a while, and like beanies and wearing my rain gloves and.
Just hoping to hang on to the club.
Yeah, it's I mean, it's so disappointing too when you have these built up and you get that crazy forecast for the first day or the second day or something. Stuff. But it's such a good tournament. You can tell both of us love it because the way we're talking about it.
Yeah, I'm excited to watch chake up my alarm set. What the schedule over there has got to be.
It's not at night, but it's kind of brutal. Yeah, it's not much sleep this week. It's kind of I think it kicks off about ten at night and then then you settle into a night of trying to sleep but leaving the TV on, and it's pretty unhealthy.
Yeah.
I'll probably just record it, wake up in the morning and watch it, and as there's a winter right here at the moment the kids go after school, I watch it during the day. Maybe.
Yeah, let's say I'm I'm going to be up. I'm gonna be unfortunately, you know, having to be Oh.
You've got to get up at what two or three something? Four?
Yeah, three three, so three it won't be bad, but uh, it'll be it'll be a good tournament. We'll uh, we'll have to talk afterwards.
You know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean it's not i mean, look going to Northern Island too, It's like it's not historic, but it kind of is. It's a historic for a new generation, right, what's it sixty something years since it's been there. Pretty sweet and it's funny that, especially from an American perspective, this will probably be a big open because Ireland, America and Ireland have like a connection, you know, whatever it is. Americans have an affinity for
Ireland much more than they do Scotland. There will be more people tune in just because it's in Ireland, I think in the US at least, because as an infinity that Irish golf trip, the American kind of pilgrimage to go play golf in Ireland is quite a historic thing to do. You know.
Americans too, Yeah, you know, like that's a it's a big deal.
As they It's plenty who claim to be Irish Americans. I mean, their family has been in America for seven generations, but they're still Irish, right.
Chicago's the capital of Iris the Irish America.
You know, I thought Boston was No, I don't know who knows.
Everybody, Yeah, you got that one. It's like everybody.
It's like everyone claims it.
Yeah. So all right, well we'll talk soon, but thanks for coming on as always and uh, you know, letting your expertise and knowledge here.
Good stuff, no worries. Enjoy, enjoy the ipon. We'll talk after.
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