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This episode is with Jeff Ogilvie, Jeff and I caught up for a little while, and we've started off by talking a little bit about the Masters and Tigers wins, since we hadn't talked since before Tiger sealed the deal. Part two we'll focus on the PGA Championship this week as well as Bethpage Black, So look for that to be in your feeds probably on Tuesday night. And this one's up here and we'll get you ready to go for your second major championship, the PGA Championship at Bethpage. So,
without further ado, here is 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 frid Egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Friday egg Frida egg Frida egg bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off the course.
Do you think there's something with short putts? With like I think there's like an expectation thing. You know, nobody ever struggles with an eight foot part, but people struggle with a three foot pipe.
Why you give yourself less chance to miss it? Right? I mean, if you miss an eight foot you don't you don't take it too harsh. I think you kind of start you don't let yourself miss short puts, and that's why you do well, that's why the stress. At least, I should say, you let yourself miss an eight foot It's like that's start with the ah pow put the dirty part. I mean, every pro in the world more part parts from eight feet than dirty parts. Why that?
But it's yeah, it's yeah, whatever you want the scientific term for it, but it's true. And I think the closure you get to the whole, the less you're willing to accept you might miss it, so you get tenser about it or something. I don't know.
Yeah, it's it's like almost like the expectations the wrong thing. Like if if you walked up and you expect to make it without thinking about being mad about missing it, you'd probably make more of them. But the fact that you think about missing it.
You know, I don't know, you think about missing it before you hit it, and once you missed you don't think about missing it. When you're young, you just think about missing it. Once you missed a few, Once you missed a few, then it's always in your head, right, That's why it's more it's just a pressure, self inflicted pressure.
That's why some courses I think are easier the first time you play them because you don't know where all the bad stuff is.
But that's true on some courses. Some courses it's definitely better than not know to just tell me where to hit it. I don't want to know where the bad stuff is. Yeah, I don't know. If put putting, I think there's also there's a massive psychological The guys who get like that with their putting are the ones who have always hit the ball great, and they just have more opportunities to miss. I mean, there's almost no guy who's historically not hit it that close to the whole
or missed a lot of greens. Those guys always put decently, they never have problems. It's the guys who have close their whole career they're the ones who have problems. Well, that has to be psychological.
If they didn't hit it close, though, they wouldn't be playing on tour.
You could make that argument, but you could also argue that they've seen the ball miss more, you know, because they've had more eight to twenty footers, whereas the guys who don't hit it very well, they chip it up to inside five feet every time, So they're more puts that they've hit in their life have gone in because they've had less parts from outside that I mean, this
is an accumulation of a career. But I mean Monty Adam Scott, like Lucas Glover, these guys who are like just stripe shows close their whole life eventually by the end struggle with they're putting VJ. You know, Nicholas and Tiger are like the exceptions.
I wonder you just said something that made me think of Sergio because Sergio is so he's another guy that's you know, struggled with the putter.
But but then I think, I think exactly the same.
Is his pitching the most like his short game, the most underappreciated great skill of any player, because everybody talks about how he hits it.
Yeah, he's very artistic around the greens too, like he's I mean, he's not seavy, he doesn't play the outrageous shots, but he's he always plays the right shot. He's Yeah, he's brilliant around the greens, really good, and he looks engaged, you know, like he loves loves sitting. Great pitch shots, hip shots. Yeah, he's really good around the greens, but he hits it, so he hits it so good that everybody just notices his ball striking. But he's incredible for
everywhere except inside about ten feet probably, you know. And when he works out out he wins. When he pats well inside ten feet he wins.
It seems like, yeah, yeah, that's exactly.
I mean, yeah, you look at like Westwood would be another guy inside ten feet just I mean, he'd have he'd have a couple of majors.
But again, he's had a career of being ten to twelve fifth, ten to twenty feet for Bertie on almost every hole. I mean, these guys who stripe it have just got more opportunity to miss. I mean, part of me is with Speeth with his putting, is that he just hits too many puts. And at some point Jackie Burke used to say his fix for putting was just go hit a one hundred three footers in a row, you know, And if you can hold one hundred three footers in a row, then you can put because you're
just seeing the ball go in all the time. And when you pack just eight, ten, twelve, fifteen foot of is that booty race party as good as you can part, you're still seeing the ball miss a lot and that just builds up in your head over a long period time. Maybe I don't know. That's my theory at least, Like the best putters I've ever known haven't practiced they're putting that much. I mean they're consistent, but they're five ten
minutes and then they go on. You know, they don't stand there for three hours every Thursday and Friday and Wednesday afternoons and just grinding in grooves into the green. The great putters don't do that. They come they well mean sned okay if you had some patches of practicing
a little bit. But they're consistently practicing it. But they're not like that guy who digs holes in the putt and green grooves, because I think they just they get the feel, they see the ball go in the hole, and then they're happy, you know, then they go out in the course. There's something to that. I don't know what it is.
I agree, I think like the short putts, there's something to that, like practicing long putts and short putts, but nothing in between.
Yeah, because there's.
Definitely merit to that. I mean, yeah, Tiger, Tiger always when he got on the green, it would hit just one hundred foot is the longest puts he could hit for like the first five minutes he walked on the green, and then at the end he would hit two two three footers. That was it. He didn't hit many in between. And you never saw Tiger practice his putting onto it. You just saw him warm it up. He wasn't chalk lining or getting the stringline or doing circles or anything that.
Really.
He was generally just being loose, putting around the groom with one hand sometimes like it was had a sense not so serious.
Does that make sense, Yeah, no, it does.
Lighter about it. He was on the green and he was kind of bantering with guys and banging puts all the way across the green. But it wasn't so his putting preparation wasn't so stressful and serious like you see some guys. I mean, I don't know. I mean, this is just years of watching people, watching what works and what doesn't work.
And this is what I make scuff great because there's no no true answer.
Nobody's guarded.
That's why putting so nobody's got it.
It's the most frustrating, putting, the most frustrating aspect of golf.
I find bugs me so much.
But it's the most, it's the most. It's the most black and white. Right, it's in or it's out. It's success or its failure. Whereas with a golf and like a full shot, it feels like there's a bit more area of gray. That was okay, that was gray. That was average, But I can get away with it, and you've got more shot. With a bad drive, you've got three more shots to make paw. You miss your paw part, it's over. You've made bogey. Like there's no coming back from that.
That's so true because like if you hit an average drive, it's whatever. But like when you have an eight foot slider from left to right, and as soon as you hit it, you know it's just gonna miss, like a cup rate, you're just like god, that was just terrible.
You know, you just feel awful.
And success is only success if the ball goes in. Whereas a drive, you've got thirty yards a fair way and even in the rough you can kind of you can maybe make power or it up to the green. But like a putt, it's in or it's out, like it's success or its failure. And I think that's the only part in golf it's like that, So I think that's why it leaves all the scars that it does. Hey, I can.
What'd you think of what do you think of takers?
When holy wow? Yeah, outrageous. I mean it kind of looked it on Saturday a little bit, didn't it. I felt. I mean, everybody's written it, and I mean there's been as much written about this as anything, but the he just carried that air of kind of joy or happiness and lightness on the course that he hadn't had since he was a kid. It didn't appear to me, and he just looked like he was in the right mood. And as soon as that back nine came along, it was like two thousand and two again, wasn't it. It
was incredible. He just looked he just looked so comfortable down the stretch when nobody else looked completely comfortable, you know. I mean, I think they Brooks looked great, and a few of the others looked great, but he just looked like, heyday Tiger all of a sudden, like, oh now, I remember what I'm doing everyone, get out of the way. I'm gonna win, you know. And that shot on six that shot on sixteen, it was just like was it ever going to go anywhere else? You know? It was just incredible.
Shot on fifteen was awesome too, and then and then yeah, yeah, that fifteen shot on fifteen was like perfect. It seemed like he was never he's never taking on like the really risky line, but he was taking the right line every time.
It's funny. I mean, he had this reputation in his heyday of being ultra aggressive, but he actually wasn't. When he got in Majors in the last nine holes especially, he was ultra conservative. Really never really gave himself a chance to relative to a guy like Phil for example, who clearly takes the most cavalier approach that he can because that's how he likes to play. Tiger was always like backfooting two irons and hitting him low and hitting it to the fat side of the green and kind
of that Nicholas make people beat me thing. Regular tournaments, he was pretty aggressive, but Majors he was always. He was incredibly smart golfer probably underestimated, under talked about how smart he was, and how a little danger he would put his ball in. Yeah, I mean it was great
to watch. I mean, what a comeback from what a couple of years ago he was not playing golf again and get pulled up on the side of the road by the police in all sorts of I mean, it was like, wow, coming back from that just to come on tours impressive, but to realistically be what one of the top two or three golfers in the world right now, that's pretty outrageous. Yeah.
I mean you look at act and now he's finished top six and with a win in the last three majors, Like, who would have thought that two years ago?
It's absolutely nuts?
And no, it's nuts, Yeah, it's nuts.
What was it like when Taker was in the hunt in a major? When you're playing Do you think that it had an effect people have talked about Do you think there was any Tiger effect and the Master, as you said, everybody was a little uncomfortable. Do you think that had anything to do with him?
I think a little bit. I mean, it's not what he does. It was the reputation hit for us. Wow. If you go back, he never lost a tournament when he played in the last group basically, ever, like his record of leading on Sunday and closing out the deal was what sixty and one or something like. It was just it was so it just gave you this. It was just this feeling of inevitability. It didn't matter what you did, he was going to win. It just felt
that way because he always did. And even though this was false, it made you feel like you had to play perfect. Even though he didn't play perfect to beat you. He did plenty of bad shots, but or not perfect shots, I should say, but you felt like you had to play perfect because no one's ever beaten this guy. So wow, I'm going to have to play good to beat him. And whenever you try to play perfect, you don't play very well, right, or it's very difficult to play well
when you try to play that well. And I think that was the intimidation, knowing he was going to be hard to beat, knowing you had to play really, really well, and whenever you try to play really well, you just generally don't. It's I never felt the physical intimidation or the oh, this is Tiger. It's like he's just an intimidating guy like you probably would standing up next to Lebron James or on the blocks with Michael Phelps or something. I think that'd be a little different, Like that's a
physical intimidation with guys like that. Tiger was, and he's physically intimidating because he just looked so good and he carried himself so well and carries But it was that you know, he was going to be there at the end, and you had to play one of the best rounds you've ever played, and generally, when you try to do that, you don't, So to me, that was the intimidation. And it's just that feeling of inevitability. It's just he's gonna win, like in the crowd knew it, and that everybody knew it.
It was incredible.
Watching Moulinari because you know, Molinari played with him at the Open, and Tiger had that early flurry there and then Tiger kind of self sabotaged with the bogies he made and so it was so untiger like. But then and Molinari just was kind of going about his business and nobody was paying attention to him. And then when Tiger faltered, he he you know, played really well down the stretch. But but this it seemed like the Masters.
It was so much different because he was he was leading, he was in the last group and all day, you know, he made some unbelievable up and downs just to you know, to hang on to the lead on the back. But he definitely looked different from the way he played within the Open. But you know, it could have been just you know, bad round or whatever, but it just seemed like there was a little bit different feeling and maybe that was just more pressure with the Masters and eating.
I think there's a history thing that the Master's term. He's won there, what's he won there? Five times?
Now?
Was that fine? He was so wed one? Yeah, so he's won four times before. He's clearly barely played the Masters where he didn't have a chance with nine holes to play. I mean, so for twenty twenty times in his career, he's probably come down the stretch on the last nine holes with some chance to win the Masters. Malinurry, that was his first then, if or basically I'm not sure if he'd been fringes of contention before, but let's say it was his first or second at the most.
That's Augusta. You're fighting history always. It's why Freddie always plays well, and Phil usually is around, and the usual suspects are always around because it's there's just there's ghosts at that place, and Tiger's ghosts to the friendliest ones, right, I mean, as he can win there, the crowd, the crowd, all they want to do is they just they want him to win. I mean, it's just I don't know, it's this again, there's that's feeling of inevitability that it
was just gonna happen. I don't know, it's just history there is amazing, Like it's he's just been in those holes in that position more often than anyone else, and he's naturally better at that than most people in history as well. So I mean it's a double thing. It's a double difficult to beat there. And I think at a new course where he hadn't won before, or where no one had ever played, a completely fresh place, it might be a different story, a bit more of a level
playing field. But that's the That's the great thing about the Masters is once you win, you're kind of you're it's not a level playing field anymore, you know. There's just that's such an advantage to one it before, especially four times.
Yeah, and for the guys that have been in it and failed like that's kind of what Ernie was talking about when he when he talked about it like he was he got in there so many times and every time it went the wrong way, You've start to like you're almost cursed.
Yeah, And look, it's such a cool tournament to win because of the lifetime exemption and the Champions dinner and all that little that the coolest little club in golf professional golf is that Champions, right. I mean, there's so few of them that once you're in it, you haven't got anything to lose down the last nine holes. Really, it's just I can just add to my legacy here. You're still part of the club. Whereas people who are
trying to get in the club. That's there's more pressure involved there, more more more things that construct you, bro, I mean, more things that can distract you and start thinking about Champions dinners and what's the locker room look like up there? And I don't know, I mean what goes through everybody else's head, But it's it's certainly easier to win a tournament that you've won before, and that tournament I would have said that would be amplified.
That's that's why I struggle with when I play tournament golf, is when I'm playing well and I start thinking I had like when whether it's like a USGA qualifier and I start to think about playing in the tournament, or you know, whether it's a you know, a tournament where you qualify for match play, you start thinking about match play and you're not done with your struck play. Is that same kind of stuff that yeah, I mean that you and a lot of other tour pros struggle with.
I think that's natural. I mean I think whenever I was playing really, really well in the tournament so I won, I don't think I thought about winning it until after it was over, or at least till right at the end, and I'd never it wasn't about I was thinking about winning it, but I wasn't thinking about what would come with the win. I think when you start thinking about what comes with the win or anything other than just hitting good shots and finishing one in front of the
guy next year, then you can go wrong. That's when I went wrong. The ones that didn't work out were like, yeah, you start thinking about oh well, well, yeah, if it was qualifying for a matchplay thing, or it was well, i might win a million dollars today, and I'm going to have a two year exemption, and I'm going to get to go to Kappallura and the two championship. Maybe I'll get in that. It's like, you can't hit good shots when you think about all that stuff, you know,
and then you've got more to lose. You're standing on that last team and you want to hit the last fair way. If you're thinking about stuff like that, you've given yourself a whole lot of stuff to lose, Whereas if you just completely hell bent on beating the guy next to you, it's a little bit different. I think you're just a bit more focused on beating the guy next to you rather than all the stuff that comes
with it. I mean, everybody knows you go play your friend for match play, for no money, just for pride, and it's a little bit easier to close out than if you're playing for a thousand dollars. Like everybody's feeling a little different on the last hole for one thousand dollars, you know. And I think the more kind of candy you put on the the end of it, the result the harder it is to kind of stay clear about it.
I guess, yeah, focused about it, not get distracted. And I think the Masters does that more than any place. It gives you distractions.
Yeah, that makes sense.
There's more more things to look ahead to. What you said about losing, you know, then you have more to lose if you're thick and hat which makes a lot of sense.
I mean, Tiger probably felt like he had something to lose. I mean, everyone in the last few groups thinks that they're the one who's going to win that week, or they hoping they are, and so there's they're all kind of carrying a little bit of that. But Tiger would carry the lead. I mean, he he had nothing to prove at this point. And that's the thing. He's actually been playing looking like he hasn't trying to prove anything anymore.
His whole career he looked like, especially when he was struggling a bit, that sort of kind of at least in the Mages between eight and now, he always looked like he was trying to prove something, you know, this time it didn't look didn't look that way. It was just I'm just great. Look how good I'm playing. How fun is it to play well again and getting contention. It was kind of a different air he carried to me.
And trying to prove something I think sometimes can overwhelm you mentally, at least it did to me.
Well, you're trying harder, you know, mm hmm. A lot of things you try hard, you have less success than if you just let it happen. It's like when you're trying to write. You know, if I sit down and try and write, it's probably not going to happen. But I wrote something today because I was sitting doing something else and it popped in my head and I just wrote it in an hour.
And it was like, why isn't it always that easy?
Yeah, White, for it to happen as opposed to might can happen. Yeah, it's a human knightschat. That's hard. That's the challenge.
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we're they're at trendy four US this week. This will this will air the Monday after tourney for US. What do you everybody focuses in on the low scores that people shoot out there for as as a player, do you do you look at, you know, twenty three under what wives won last year and think, God, that's crazy.
Well I played last year. It was doable last year, But I don't think we should measure that winning score on just one year. It wasn't probably a typical Dallas week in May, Like it wasn't as windy as it could be. Of course, I feel like we it was. The fairways were firm, but the greens weren't crazy firm.
So it was kind of a combination of it played short but you could hit it close to the hole and it's I don't know, it's kind of a course that I think will actually get people to develop a bit more respect for it over the time over the years. Like I think people Aaron played amazingly well ask you to shoot that. I don't know, I mean, and I don't think there's anything wrong with last scores. I don't It is kind of intimidating. Some tournaments, like Kapalou was
always like this. You'd start the tournament knowing you had to be mid twenties to win the tournament, and even part after nine holes, it starts seeming almost ridiculous that you could think of getting to that score. But I don't know. I don't think guys really think about that too much, to be honest. I think guys play the first round as well as they can, and halfway through the first round they look at the board and see see what the scores look like and kind of kind
of get a feel from that. Really, that's what I did. That's what I did. Anyway, I get a feel after nine or twelve holes. If you especially if you play all you're playing in the afternoon, you look at the scores in the morning on Thursday, and you get a pretty good sense of what the week's going to be like just after the half the field's played nine holes. Really, you just get a feel for it.
Yeah, it's a shame, it's gonna it's it rained a ton yesterday. It's rain It's going to rain more this weekend. They say, so soft again, and I think, I mean, obviously they're going to have a low score.
But to me it seemed like the course in this it.
Allows every type of player to have a chance out there. Did you feel that way?
I think every player's got a chance because it's not outrageously long, although there is certainly a big advantage to hitting it long in places. It's quite strategic, as people have talked about, you've got to there's more than one
way to play it. There's quite a few kind of central central line hazards, you know, bunkers in the middle of the fairways that you can go short of, over right or left of, and that kind of There's quite a few of these on that course, and it's quite a different test than a regular tour event, which is I think interesting and got guys it it looks like a better field this year, and I think the field will get better every year, to be honest, because I
think it's a good player's golf course. I think when you're playing well and you're a good player, I think you feel like you could separate there a little bit. I don't think the score relative to par Is really matters, to be honest with you, but it would be certainly
more fun. It's certainly more fun to play on its firm because it's and then it brings in the guy who wants to just hit low two ones off the tee all week and really run it up and play really smart, you know, like say Tiger would have done in his heyday, or isn't it softer? There'll be just kind of more sort of drivers and yeah, less less kind of need for like great angles and stuff, although the way the greens are there angle is is still
very important. There's still there's some spots on the fairway there that are awful for some pins and you have to be fifty yards on the other side of the fairway the next day, like it varies. There's a few really, there's some interesting stuff there. So good good week for a good caddy and a guy who is happy to kind of change your strategy day to day depending on the tea, positions and the pins. So I think you'll see good play regards to the scores and the conditions.
I think you'll see like the better players on tour, and I mean everyone on plays a good tour, but a good player, but the better player, like the quality class players will generally get up a top there. I would think because it's it's it's it takes more than just the normal tournament. So I think shoot twenty three under. I think you've got to do everything really well.
I was.
I was talking to David Normoyle, who was like, the uh, he's a he's a great historian. And David, yeah, so you had this great thing. I was telling him about an article I'm going to write and I'm kind of spilling the beans on this art, but like.
About score to part.
So last year US Senior Women's Open, Laura Dv's wins at at fourteen under or sixteen under, sixteen under all right, at the Senior Open Championship at Saint Andrews. So that was at Chicago Golf Senior Open at Saint Andrews twelve underwins. And then at Shinnecock US Open Brooks wins at minus four. What course was the easiest by what measure? Well, naturally, everybody, you didn't take the vape of most people of the Chicago Golf easiest by far, but they played Chicago Golf
par seventy three. They played Saint Andrews par seventy two, and they played Shinnacock par seventy so they all shot to seventy six.
In their game. So that's always been my thing about par, like it's you've got to take the relative to par with a grain of salt. I mean, it's obviously somewhat of a measure, but I mean if you made Oakmond a par eighty, is it then an easy course? No?
You know, we're still shooting two ninety for the week or two ninety four or whatever we're shooting, and like it's tear away, tearing hair out the whole way around, just because we're we end up twenty five hunder part you're not like, it's not you know, And that.
Goes to like, you know, when you play a tournament and you shoot six, all sixty eighth aren't equal. If you shoot a sixty eight and it's blown twenty five in its firm and as fast, that's a lot different than a sixty eight on a soft course with no.
Wind completely one hundred percent like you should sixty eight in Palm Springs and you're walking off gun of the range wondering what's wrong with your goal? What's wrong with your goal? You know, you shoot sixty out at Oakmont. I mean you're framing that card and putting it on the wall, so it I mean it. Yeah, it does vary. It's score relative parties, I guess important. And it's a good measure during that week, measuring how everyone played relative
to the other one hundred and fifty five players. But it's not really a good measure of difficulty, I don't think, because the thirteenth of the Masters, for example, is a really easy five, but a difficult three. You know, just if it was a Part four, it would be considered a really really hard hole. As a Part five, it's
considered a really really easy hole. But it's the same. Like, I mean, you still have to shoot to seventy two or something to win the Masters or whatever it is, and you have to play that hole in sixteen shots or whatever it is. I mean, that's difficult. Whatever the number is on the tea, it doesn't change the whole the part, but it is a good way to measure people in a week.
Yeah, I hope they That's the premise of the whole thing, is like they got to break the par barrier go under seventy and you know all the problems will be solved.
Why not just have par sixty seven?
Well, certainly the USGA if they do, if some consider them getting the set up a little bit wrong in the US Open, and a lot do and they say they don't, but they seem to have an obsession with us shooting somewhere near two hundred and eighty shots, you know what I mean, they're like four seventies to be like, that's the benchmark, that's the lowest we want anyone to go for the week. If they got that out of their head, they'd have more chance to set it up well,
I mean, shinnecoques are past seventy two? Really seventy one? Seventy two properly seventy one? I think maybe naturally. Yeah, but anyway, just set it up as well as you can. And if it's some weeks it's not windy, and at sixteen under, well the guy who wins is still the best player because he's still navigated seventy two holes at
a great course better than anybody else. The score. Nobody remembers what the score under par was two years later, five years later, unless it's historically crazy to me if they took away if they didn't care what people shot, or if you don't care, it's purely like outside of the USJ just everybody. If you don't care what people shoot, you've got much. You can just set the course up as well as you can, you know, which means some stuff can be really hard. Some stuff's going to seem
really easy. But I know Augusta seems to care what They always end up with the same sort of winning score. But it doesn't seem like they care what people shoot, you know, they just try to have their course so that the guy who plays the best that week wins. And I don't think you always get that when you focus on score relative to part, but I could be completely wrong.
I mean, this is I was wondering.
As a player, Like something I think about is you got all these tea boxes on these horse Why does every day of the week they always put the tea backs in relatively the same position for the most part. Why isn't like the lower tee ever used for a tournament? Like why aren't they ever putting it up there? Is it because of like the infrastructure?
I guess it's Wow, there's some somewhat. I would say the PGA Tour as good as they are at setting up golf tournaments for zero controversy. You know, their genius is never having a bad I've never seen a bad pin in twenty years and a PGA Tour event, Wow, I have some average ones, but not outrageous ones. US Opens I've seen twenty, right, and I've played far more,
far more PGA Tour events. The US Opens Australian opens have had historically had some crazy setups and like and walk offs with the greens get too fast and stuff way way back. But like, generally the PGA Tour masters are having like a controversy free setup. But because of that, I think there's a lack of imagination sometimes in setup because they're so good at avoiding the crazy stuff that sometimes you have to kind of risk a bit of crazy stuff to get more interesting. You know. It's their
business model to not have controversy. They want the golfer to be the star on Sunday afternoon, not the golf course. That's the mile. These guys are good, or they used to be good. Now they're living under path. But it's the nature of trying to avoid controversy is you're going to probably lose a little bit of interest. I still think they should path three. Certainly we play a lot on tour that seemed to be one eight seven, one ninety one, eighty eight and one eighty six for the week.
You know where there's certainly scope on every course in America that's got multiple teas to have it at one twenty with that crazy little front pin and then two fifteen the next day and funnily loove Mike Davis who started doing that. Remember in the US Open Tory Pines, Tory Pines, he put fourteen way up, way up that day, drivable and a few different things, which I think is great.
I think you should have more often August to do a little bit or gust to play that fourth t off the members team once usually that's really the only tea they do it. But that's sixteen. They move right up sixteen, they move right up that one day usually sort of twenty thirty yards up from the back to that right pin. Especially it's done a little bit. It's not done enough.
Though, yeah, especially with courses that are like seventy five hundred yards like where they might not use every back tea. Just change it up a bunch every day. I think that you'd get a better player. It's not like the same thing. It's like you're asking the same question every single day, or you could ask a bunch of different questions.
It's certainly when Mike started doing that in the US Open, that was certainly in the practice rounds. Very interesting to see. Everyone has had theories about which Holey was going to do, which path four was he going to do it too? And which hole shall be practice teeing off and all they're cutting this front tee on twelve, we should actually hit a shot off this just in case. And it created such kind of confusion or anticipation, or it made
your preparation a little bit more difficult. And I think preparation is a big part of it too, right, So if there's always the threat, if they'd do it enough that it's always a chance to make a five hundred yard path or three eighty, or to make a two hundred and fifty yard part three one seventeen or something. I mean, I think it's if they'd do it a
little bit, it throws. You can't just walk from the fourth green with a six on in your hand because that path three is always a six on you know, I mean, which happens a little bit onto it you kind of you know what club you hitting off the next tea before you even get to it a little bit.
It's some of the most interesting times, or at least for me, my most uncomfortable times on tour, or when I don't know what club to hit off a tea or what strategy to play because it's we've been thrown a curveball, you know.
You know. The thing too, is that especially with classic courses, with all the new back teas, sometimes the angle when they had to get the distance, you know, it almost like makes the T shot easier because it it gives you like more, you know how when you move it onto an angle, it might open it up a little bit more, make the T shot, and then you put it up on the original tea and all of a sudden you're standing on that tee and that the look of the hole just doesn't it doesn't feel as comfortable,
and that it's what you're saying, is the comfortability. Like I know, when I move up and play up sometimes I'm like, I don't know where to hit the ball.
Well, I always like we go play. I mean I've played Whisper Rocketnet. I mean a thousand times, I don't know. And sometimes when if you go out with say the older members or the members who don't want to play off the very back teas like we do, we'll go up to like the one tea up or even two teas up. That's harder for me because I don't know how club you hit off any tea because it's just a routine off the back teas. I just pull drive out there and three with there and this is a
four iron t shot or whatever it is. But it's always I don't have to make a decision. Whereas I go up to front tees, it's like, oh, what can I hit here? How do I run it? Can I run it out there? The angles are all wrong, the distances are all wrong. And you could do that four days in a row around a same golf course to pros every year, really on courses that it works, and all of a sudden, that runout that's never been in play is in play. You know that bunker that you
always carry all now you can't. And it just that seems like quite an interesting way, And another's just another layer to it right, another layer of complexity.
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