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All one word capitalize the fe f so fried egg Fall twenty for twenty percent off your order. Today's episode is with Jeff Ogilvie, who of course won the last US Open at Wingfoot the two thousand and six US Open at Wingfoot. It was great to talk with Jeff as it always is and get insight into Wingfoot and what he expects this week and what he went through in six. As US Open week is pretty much here, we will be chalk full of coverage on our various
channels at the Frida Egg. So a couple things to look out for if you don't already, be sure to subscribe to our free newsletter. It is sent out during major weeks every day and you'll never miss anything that we do or anything that's going on in the championship. On the podcast, we will have a couple new episodes, including a Frida Egg's Story from Garrett that will be centered around the US Open at Wingfoot, a historic US Open at Wingfoot. And then also subscribe to our YouTube
page and check it out. We have a great video of Wingfoot up with Gil Hans and Jeff Ogilvy talking about the greens. And we will also be debuting our second episode of Digging into Design, which will feature Gil Hans talking about the West Course at Wingfoot. So that'll be kind of like a it's kind of like a
podcast that Digging into design series, but with video. So when he's talking about features on the golf course, we're going to show you what he's talking about, or historical photos that they use during the restoration, we're going to show you. I think it's just a better format to talk about a golf course than necessarily a podcast, which we've done a lot of over the years. 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 a set. You want to find my.
Ball in a bright egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg Frida egg, Frid Egg, Brian egg bride egg brid egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off with the.
Be It will be a game. It will be a make or break for him. Actually, I mean you can tell right now, for you, like the way you look at things changes a little bit, you know what I mean? Like he might just not want to be overseas as much and you want might want to be at home a bit more. And I don't know, we'll see it changes a few guys, some guys without a conscience keep playing well or better, you know, guys with a conscience, and he is one with a conscience.
I don't know. It's fifty to fifty after kids, you know, it's different.
Do you believe so this is a question I had for you. Will it wins right after baby? There's been a lot of study it like not studies, anecdotal stuff about basketball guys having a baby and then shooting. They're unconscious shooting for a couple of weeks after. Do you do you believe in any kind of post baby bump.
Yeah, I would believe in a post baby bump short term that it would be potential that it would because you're so high on life right it is. Nothing is better, like it's the everything is good, you know, And it's quite a scary thing having a baby, you know what I mean? Like this all of a sudden you think there's things that can go. You've never worried about stuff before your life, and now is that you're worried about things going wrong? Or is this baby going to be
all right? I hope everyone's healthy. I hope my wife's all right. So when it all happens and it's just such a happy moment, I think you can get a bump.
I think long term, it's a challenge for a guy who wants to be around his kids and his family because the tour life is and when you're a home you're at the golf course all day and then you go away all the time, you know, and it's not all the time all the time, like three weeks is three weeks, you know, So handle that stuff different, both sides of it, I think.
And your kids can only travel with you for so long until they have life.
Ours came till the first one went to school, really, you know, and then which is five years, and then, yeah, they need their lives. Yeah, they need their friends, and they're set up and it's not fair to them to get dragged around the world. So it's fun for them a little bit, but not every week.
You know.
There's some there's some guys on tour who like homeschool their kids and they do it pretty much full time travel with their kids. But that's a full commitment too. That makes playing the golf different too, right.
Yeah, And it's gotta be tough on the kids because they don't you know, they're friends, you know.
But yeah, it's funny.
It's funny, especially it's the same the tour life is interesting like that. It's my kids had a bunch of friends for the first five years of my oldest life and four years of the next one. Their friends were two friends kids of my is in all our friends.
Our world was there. And then they start going to schools and they move on to their.
School friends and they don't know any of the other kids anymore that they grew up with, the first five Because it's quite an interesting world, the tour world. If every five year runs of like kids coming out and then they disappear and new ones come out, you know, because everyone goes to school and stays at home all of a sudden, that's interesting.
The other thing that's different about golfers and kids is that your guys' careers are generally longer and into your life later than a you know, a football player. They're done at twenty eight, twenty nine, basketball player very rarely over thirty three. And you know, you guys could play the senior Tour all the way till you're sixty. You know.
That's the interesting thing about our careers is I start with all these I mean, it was me and Scottie and Justin Rose and Immlman and Garcia and all in that sort of thing, and then luc Donald and Palter and gradually people have kids and like and then later on other guys have kids, and my kids are kind of teenagers now and Scotty's are really young, and like, it's just the different phases of things, like i start bringing kids out on tour and I'm dragging diaper bags,
you know, through the airport, and I'm like doing that sort of nightmare thing, which is great.
It's a great period of your life, but it's also crazy.
And then I get I'm finally over that, and you start going on your own and it was just kind of fun too, right, but then you've got the tragedy you're leaving your kids at home, you know, and then there all your friends are now carrying the diaper bags around and.
You're back to doing it solo.
It's just funny because the career, like you say, it goes for like thirty years or more.
You live people's lives with them in a way, you know.
Junior go off when they're single and you're young, and you kind of run around and you all kind of get married and then you all have kids and then the kids and wives are all stay at home and you're back to single again by the time you're late forties, you know what I mean, not single, but traveling solo again. You know, it's just the journey you take on tour is not It's not the same all the time. Like as your life changes, the way the tour works changes. You know, it's kind of fun.
It's got to be a cool part when you all get on tour and like everybody's starting to have success. That's got to be like a cool moment when everybody that you grew up playing with and around around you has you know, made it, And then that.
Was the best. It was the best.
I mean my first year in Europe, we had five people in the house. We had a caddie drummer he was caddying for me, and we had Steve Allen who was playing in Europe at the time, who's played a lot of PJ Tour and web dot Com, corn Ferry, Marcus Wheelhouse and Steve Alca who still plays up and down from the corn Ferry. So we had four golfers and if one of us came home on Sunday night and made ten thousand pounds, so if someone has made five figures.
We went out all night. That was it.
We were celebrating for a week. If one guy made ten thousands. Now it's like fifteen thousand for last place at like the John Deere or something, right, but if someone made ten thousand pounds, we were dining out for three days on how happy we were for our friends and to see guys fight for their card and have that great week late in the year, or some guy gets his first win, or that journey through as people come up through, it's just it's a brilliant period.
It's fantastic. Yeah, and you.
Hope cutle of guys struggle, but a couple of guys are going well, and like, it's just a great journey. Golf like that when it goes well. I mean it's a brutal one when it doesn't. But those days are fun.
And in a way, you don't get teammates in golf, but you get your guys that you essentially spent your whole life with.
Yeah, I mean I've spent my life with well, my working life with the same bunch of people.
Generally.
Yeah, it's it comes and goes. You're definitely on the same team. In a way, you're never very rarely. Like I think if we played match play like the tennis, if it was to tennis head to head, I think the locker room would be a little bit frostier, you know. But because seventy two half stroke players a brutal thing to do any and also there's more than one winner in a stroke play tournament. As the guy hasn't made a cup for a while, he finally makes a cut, he's a winner, you know.
And there's a few of them. Every week. There's a guy hasn't had a top ten for three years, he has a top ten. He's a winner. The guy like wins the.
Tournament a winner everybod there's lots of little winners. Whereas match play there's a winner and a loser. So the fifty percent of every day, half the people are headless and they don't like the burther the guy that just beat them right.
Stroke plays different.
If you haven't had a good tournament, you've had a run of twentieth and you have a tenth, that's a good week.
It's like a mini victory.
So I think because it's like that, we're all quite happy to we want everyone else to do well anyway, because we realize a good year is only winning once or twice and three times or something. That's ninety five percent of the tournaments we play, other people are going to win, So you'd rather your friends win those than everyone else. Right, It's such a hard job. Who if someone asks you for help on tour, everybody helps everybody.
No one says, nah, I'm not going to tell you that because it's just such a hard it's not going to make the guy beat you. It's just helping him because you've needed help before.
You know. It's such a So no I saw that golf.
Yeah, I was looking at like John Rahm after he won BMW eleven wins and at the time one hundred and four pro starts, but that includes some as an amateur. His win rates like eleven percent, and it's astronomic. You think about it, it's like, oh, that's not that high, but Tiger Tiger's twenty two, and then there's nobody else higher than John rob at eleven percent.
Eleven's outrageous. I mean one in ten. I mean, if you play thirty a year, that's three tournaments a year. That's pretty good, right, but comparative comparative to other sports, it's like the numbers are like, what, really ten percent?
Come on?
Yeah, you think about baseball, they always make that joke about, oh, if you bat three hundred year hall of famer in golf, if you yeah, five percent win rate, you're you're well, all time greats.
It's like a measure of like filing the least as opposed to winning that he's doing the most right. Baseball hitting is the same. Yeah, if you hit it three out of ten times, you're Hall of famer. That's kind of nunty, right. If you win two out of every ten tournaments, you're the one of the best golf. You're the best golf of all time. Like, it's just crazy.
Crazy though, by the way, that's one out of five. Oh my god, that's unbelievable.
And that includes like the last ten that is unbelievable.
That concludes a few years where he didn't win any Yeah, you know, it's just outrageous.
I didn't have time. I was going to look at what it was from ninety nine to nine. It would probably be closer to thirty percent.
I think it would have to be, wouldn't it. I Mean he had a couple of seven, eight nine win years didn't.
He Yeah, And then it's like the top ten rate is insane. It's like, I think he's fifty over fifty percent of the time he's finished in top ten.
Which is not even right, is it?
Such people have no idea when they look at his numbers, if they only watch Tiger's numbers, they just think, oh, yeah, top ten easy.
It's not that easy.
That was the thing that I came out of it as I looked at like Ernie and Phil their win rates were seven percent, and it was and then you look at like Rory DJ They're at seven eight percent. And obviously, you know, Phil and Ernie have dropped some because of you know, the last six years of their career. But yeah, my conclusion was we should be comparing all the next big thing to Phil and Ernie, not to Tiger.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Targer is the outlier. You can't use him. He's not the you can't use him. It's the numbers are so distorted from the rest that Targus Targa. You know, Jack's numbers are pretty nutty too. He won out a twenty percent of his tournaments.
He's how low.
Yeah, I think Hogan was thirty percent.
Considering he was over two hundred at the start. It's pretty nuts in it.
Andy he had a like a life threatening car crash in Yeah, it's nice. The all type greats you know, are really great. I'm interested to hear your thoughts two years in. What do you think of the FedEx Cup playoff format?
I think it.
I was on the pack when we were talking about this, and it was I guess the issue that everyone had with it was was just a bit confusing, Like the whole time, it's always been confusing, right, Yes, it's never been obviously simple to just you have to kind of read the fine print to work out what's going on. And you still kind of do in a way because it's so different. But the idea is you actually don't. It's actually relatively simple. Whatever the board says, that's that's
that's the FedEx cupboard. It's actually created a FedEx Cup leaderboard effectively for the last four days.
I don't mind it.
The right guy won clearly, right, I mean, it may not have been the best player for the twelve months season, but he was certainly the best player at the right time.
You know, he was, without a doubt the best player in the playoffs.
Oh by a mile.
I mean Olympia Fields was just that finish was just beyond outrageous. And the play golf he played there and the golf he played at Boston was just not that's not human, you know.
And then to go and win, I know.
He technically didn't win East Late, but he won East Late. Five in front finishes it off for Clark. I mean, yeah, he when he's there like kissing, his quotes perfect when he starts when he's feeling it, Like what do you say when feeling it? I just try to make a bit of money to fill up my bank account, Like I ain't catching that guy.
That's actually true. You're not catching Dustin when he's feeling it. It's a bit like Rory.
Him and Rory feeling it would be interesting, you know, because they both go so crazy low and like dominate fields. You know, Brooks dominates tough golf courses and he dominates that down the stretch thing, you know. But Dustin and Rory, they just they don't have a governor when they get going, they just it's fun to watch.
To win by eleven with like the world, I mean, what are the best fields of the year. It's just I don't care where it is. It's insane. You won by six? Were you just in the zone that week.
Cappellau I won by six? Yeah, I played so well that week. And it's funny. I started six in front
and those leads are really hard. On Sunday, It's the only time I ever had any sort of significant lead, and it was really weird, and I played kind of weird tents and stuff the first eight holes and I was back twenty one in front, going up nine, and then I made a great eagle on nine at Cappelua, and then I was away right and I ended up winning by six, but winning by eleven, and I was just that was the best I ever played, probably on
a course it really suited me. And there's only thirty guys there, So winning by six a Capellau is not winning. Winning by six somewhere in a full normal field is more impressive, right, because you've beat more guys, so eleven guys at Boston on a course that would be hard to separate because everybody finds it relatively easy to make a few birdies, you know, it finds a good player that's actually wing foot relative to like a Boston. I
think they're both that it's a good comparison. You still find great players who won at Boston all the way through if you look at who have won there, and it's always been low, but it's always great players. So it finds players who have every shot right and the best player in the currently at the moment just one by eleven, so their play. It's finding the best player. But also Olympia Fields found the best player too, you know the next week And that was.
The thing with Boston too, was Harris English was kind of out on his zone and second too. It was clearly the second best player that week.
It was a bit like the well, the last time we saw something like that was truon right with Stenson and Michelson. They just, i mean third played the best tournament ever, true, I mean the best. They played the third best Open championship ever and they finished third by fifteen shots or something.
But yeah, Boston's great. That's a good course.
I'm glad it's it's certainly a longheaded course, like a massive advantage to fly the trouble. But yeah, Dustin, wow, what a level they're playing at the moment. But like in two weeks time, that could be the JT, you know, and two weeks later it could be Brooks could be coming back. Well, Brooks a bit hurt, but when he gets fit, he could be that guy that's Rory could easily just go bang.
You know.
It's like we've never had we haven't had a lot of this for a long time. There's ten potential number oners in the world, you know, and then there hasn't been before maybe more.
I've always thought that winning tournaments is one thing, but blowing out people is a whole different level of goth.
Yeah, that's true.
It's it's just and I said, I only ever did it once and six again, it's a sure short field isn't that thing.
But I was playing so well at that time.
And so for these guys who Tiger and Dustin that who can routinely like just annihilate fields, the level they're playing at is so far in front of everyone else in the field.
It's just crazy.
You know.
It's amazing that people can get as good as Dustin is, don't you think, Yeah, Like it's wow. It's just what thirty under a week, I mean, six under a day is not thirty under a week. You're six shots short. If you shoot six under a day, you're six shots behind Dustin. That's that's not case level, you know.
So that's this is my issue with the with the FedEx Cup Final. I make it to East Lake, I could go out and shoot sixty five every day, and that when on an extraordinarily tough golf course. I think, if you're there, everybody should have an equal shot.
Well, this is a big argument, right, No, so I've been I was in the pack the whole time this happened. The argument is you've got to find the balance between rewarding the season, rewarding the twenty five starts everyone's made, and having a playoff. A true playoff would be exactly as you say, you get to East like, the winner of East Like wins at all.
You know, that's the true playoff.
They don't want to do that because the players are never going to vote for that, because the players want to get rewarded for their body of work. So this is a compromise between the body of work. Mathematically possible that everyone in the field can win, but they make it difficult for the thirtieth guy to win, and they make it easier for the first guy to win.
Really, they want they want it to be a playoff.
I think deep down, if Ponovidra had the chance that they would go a little more aggressive on that. But the players have to vote for it because it's the players organization. Players are never going to vote for that, you know, because they don't want the guy to be one hundred and twenty fifth getting into the first one find his way somehow having a miraculous week finished.
Thirtieth and win and win it all. You know. That's the players hate the idea of that. That's done.
That's what makes the idea. Yeah, that's what makes the NCAA Tournament the greatest three weeks in in sports.
You know. And and I think that would be brilliant. I think I always.
Thought it would be nice to top thirty, to get rid of some to get rid of a part of the field every day. You know, maybe you play the first thirty six withth of thirty and you get rid of fifteen, and you've got fifteen going out on Saturday starting at scratch and you get rid of five and then you all go back to square on Sunday and you've got ten guys fifteen million dollars add in holes go like that would be.
TV, you know, or eight guys or four guys or something. Can you imagine.
But again that's probably a little aggressive for people, you know what I mean, I don't mind. This is the best version of it so far.
I think.
I don't I like the five guys having a chance. You know, there's two schools of thought. And now they have that Windham rewards, right.
Yeah, which is why they put that in because of to reward the season, to kind of soften that for the players. We're going to look after the guy plays the best for the year, you know.
So now that you have that, I think that you got it. I think East Lake's got to be anybody there can win because you've made it. You've made it all the way there. Nobody there has had a bad year.
No, and I mean nobody gives the best golfer in the world a head start at the Masters every year exactly.
Rons to start at the same score you was open.
It's like, and yeah, I agree in theory that it would be really great to have it all come down to a few guys on the Sunday go boys. What TV that would be, what entertainment that would be, and what pressure you'd see guy. I mean you'd actually see fifteen million moves a needle for a lot of people, you know what I mean.
Yeah, and like down the stretch all the stuff. I mean that we've got it a little bit yesterday, but they didn't acknowledge it. But like JT and Xander were clearly they were work because I mean they're playing for two and a half million dollars. Yeah, and I mean it's more than a win on tour.
Yeah, it's nuts. It's a strange thing. How much money. It's amazing. It's a good thing.
Look, I always liked east Lake every version I played of the Tour Championship.
I liked this one.
I haven't played in this format, so I'm not sure, but I just like when the guy who was playing best at the time wins it.
And this time that happened, so I think, look last year it happened too, Which is like the big thing for this is like Rory was clearly playing the best of anybody last year and DJ was clearly playing the best of anybody this year and they both won. So I mean that's the big saying.
You know, if you look at the winners since it was AD seven, it started we started it. If you look at the guys who have won it, it's pretty much with the exception of Bill Has, who at the time was clearly I mean, I mean, he's a lovely bloke, but he was like twenty third or something going into that week. With the exception of Bill Has who's a great player and worthy of winning anyway, it's been VJ, Furick, Tiger, Macelroy, Dustin like it's been the who's who of the tours.
So it has identified like the superstars. So the format does find the superstar. But it would be nice if there'd be more Bill Has stories.
I think, yeah, because I think that's what makes it.
Doesn't He won't even notice the fifteen game in his bank account, you know what I mean, Well, he will fifteen, you do, But you know what I mean, whereas the twenty seventh guy in the field or something, I mean, that's a life changer. You know, He's not saying fifteen million in career earnings, whereas Dustin's probably got fifteen career earnings, you know.
Yeah, I think he's up to like eighty six million now with.
This combining all the fedect the bonuses and stuff like that.
And I mean just on course. I saw Scottie Scheffler. He made two and a half on the course this year. Then he got two and a half bonus or something like. He may end up making five million dollars and his best finish in a tournament was third. Yeah.
Look, it's good to be it's good. It's a good time to play good. Yeah, you know, it's a good time to play. Well, there's I mean, it seems to this point it's been recession proof, and I think, to be honest, COVID has actually helped golf, you know, because it's you're never going to have trouble getting people back to golf tournaments because you can keep people separated, right, whereas football stadiums, basketball stadiums, that's like just patrio dish
for like viars spreading, right. So I mean it's golf is and it's a healthy exercise thing that you can doubtdoors and keep yourself saying. I think golf is just going to get bigger, I really do, even more popular. And the thing what golf needed, COVID has been what golf needed.
What it's the dirty secret of the whole thing is that the pandemic is like the best grow the game initiative that the golf has ever had.
Yeah, the power brokers in golf got together. Yeah, this is good for us.
Yeah, I want to change gears. We got us Open coming up. Yeah at a venue you wont good tournament weeks. I always remember weird little things. Is there a small moment, like a small little thing that you remember vividly from six that's not not making a putt like you know, the back nine, but any kind of small thing that, whatever you think about it, you remember.
My most vivid memory is kind of silly. It's not silly, it's obvious when you think about it. But we stayed there. We were there for two weeks. We played West chest of the week before, same hotel, the whole thing, and the World Cup was on. It was the World Cup soccer was on and Australia had got in the World Cup for the first time for my lifetime anyway, and
we we were in the group with Brazil. And on Sunday morning, I was in the fitness trailer like next to the range, and I late started my warm up because Australia was playing Brazil because it was such a big deal, you know, And we end up we played really well.
We ended up losing the match.
But I remember my vivid memory is watching Australia play Brazil on Sunday late. It was Saturday or Sunday. I think it was Sunday, and I late started my warm up because I had to watch the end of the football game.
It's kind of silly, so Sunday that was Sunday. For Saturday, I'm pretty sure it was Sunday. It was definitely late in the tournament. I have to go back and look at the schedule of that tournament. But yeah, because the fitness trailer was a refuge for us on tour because there's a TV in there, and like the fitness trailer back then.
It's a bit more popular now, more guys going it now, but it's been a growing thing. It's one of those things. In January, everybody's in the fitness trailer right, but by the time you get to like April or May, like the news resolutions are gone and only the guys who were always in there in there. And I used to just didn't do much, but I stretched a lot of stuff.
So I went in there every morning, and you would the guys who were always in there were always in there and we would just watch TV and stuff in there. It was a great little hangout. And that week in the wing foot it was right next to the punt and green, so it's a little refuge away from all the craziness. You know, it's just players and trainers are sitting in there watching TV and stretching and warming up and we're watching the football in there.
It was brilliant.
Anyway, Ian Poulter walked head to toe pink on Sunday. That's one of my big memories too.
Well.
I play with my playing partner second last group, and he was in that Doug Sanders kind of phase of his life where everything he wore had to be the same color. And it's Father's Day in New York and it's pink hat, pink shirt, pink shoes, pink bag, pink headcovers everything. And I was invisible in my group, right. They didn't even see me because it was like he just let off this lightning rod of lets just attack me and yell at me because I'm drinking. I'm wearing all pink today, baby pink.
Oh my goodness.
So he actually really looked after me because I had an unscathed like five hours through a New York crowd, you know, because they didn't even notice me because I wasn't wearing pink.
It was brilliant.
That's those are the days of AGP design.
I JP design.
Yeah, And he had all those He had all the foot joy classics of the icons. I think that I guess the icons of foot Joys. And he had like every custom color that there was at that time.
He had.
They had a lot of guys on to a travel with these club glove things, and he traveled with like five of them, and one of them was just full of shoes, like just full of foot He had like seven pairs of foot jowers he wore for the week because they all had to match his stuff or a production.
How many shoes did you travel with?
Two? Usually I would have two.
Like a wider, a black, or two different and I would kind of rotate them day to day. But I became very I'd just wear a pair of shoes out and I'd get a new pair. I was kind of more that way, like they're very important shoes, you know for a health perspective. You know that they're feeling good and you're not getting blisters, and you kind of know where you stand. If you like some guys wear new shoes all the time, I couldn't do that.
He did.
He just gave a whole bunch away I think on the Instagram this year. Actually he signed a whole bunch and he raised a lot of money for charity, which is really cool. But he had he was like Dug Sanders, He had hundreds of pairs of shoes.
I did a spartlight thing on that open during the quarantine and went back and watched it. And I have to say that the fashion across the board. Your your outfit was the one that Mate holed up today out of everybody. But you know you had, you had the baggy shirts. You had if your equis in the button down, short sleeve.
Yeah, I mean it's funny when you go back right the parish, the amount of material and some of those shirts in that period.
And it got better by that point.
As you said, mine was like I mean, Perma was pretty cutting edge at that point.
And I was actually wearing probably the most conservative thing out of my closet that day, which I was glad.
Someone gave me advice when I was really young, I said, where wear something that you like? Wear your favorite stuff on Sunday, because if you win, you don't want to wear that ridiculus. You don't have that ridiculous shirt on the wall of the locker room for the next fifty years. Right. I can't remember if I made that choice, but yeah, I was happy with I was happy that I won the US Open, and I'm still happy with what I
wore that day. Definitely don't regret it. There's some you go back, some of those ones in the seventies were amazing. What they used to wear, just amazing. There's big Ponty color. Wasn't the big white beilt.
Yeah, I feel like the eighties was actually the best time for golf because the guys, yeah, they hadn't wore they weren't They weren't all wearing hats at that point.
You know.
I like the no hat look if people could pull it off.
Yeah, the no hat thing, or the big fluffy like almost the perm outside the visor and stuff like the legendary stuff. Yeah, flaps on the shoes, remember the flaps of the shoes over the laces.
Saddle were they called saddles or no.
I was something to stop water getting in the laces or something, and it was like you had these little that's.
What it was for. I think, so, yeah, I didn't even know that. Let's bring those back. I might, I might have to get a pair of shoes. So question So six plus six obviously extraordinarily hard. There's obviously the massacre. It's never played easy. Can the wing foot be overpowered?
No, not how they'll set it up.
I mean, I read an article this morning in I think Shackelford posted it.
It was in Rochester West Westchester Journal News.
And apparently the rough is nuts and they've spent all summer like fertilizing the raft and walling the raf and stuff. So I don't believe you can hit enough fair ways. You're not going to be able to make birdies just bomb and gouging it. I don't think, because the greens are such that if you're coming out of the rough, you might be a hit on the green with the weird j other ruff, but you won't be able to get anywhere near the hole and you're risk missing in bad spots.
So I don't think you can overpower it.
I think power will be is a massive advantage in thick rough, like it's an enormous advantage in thick rough just because you can get it out of it and you can get it closer to the green. But the guy who wins will be Everyone will look back and it'll be like, Wow, that guy got up and down a lot.
That's the guy who'll win.
It'll probably be a long hitter, because the best golfers are all long hitterers anyway, and everyone will talk about, oh, well, it's different now because it's a long but that it'll be the guy who gets it up and down the best and managers who can make pars after missing fairways. That's kind of what I did best that week. When I look back, was inside one hundred. I was really really good. So if I missed a fairway, it wasn't
the big stress. I'd laid it up just somewhere sort of short of the green, and I just got them up and down all day. And you can play wing foot from short, you can't play wing foot from like past pin High because you're always coming down the hill.
Yeah, even Pennhigh in the wrong spot in Pinney's too far. Yeah, it's like you have to but then you then you have to deal with those false fronts too, you know.
Yeah, there's there's that aspect to and there's quite a few greens that have kind of a bit up in the air and you've got to fly it.
All the way up there too, So it's a good look.
There's enough elevation change to make difference that there's eighteen crazy greens as you've done that the beautiful and scary.
I mean, it's you can't overpower it.
Power is a massive advantage, but it's not it's not the winning formula there.
You're going to have to get it up and down a lot.
Like someone like Ram, I mean Ram sixty play around the greens out of the otherworldly sometimes if he brings that sort of short game, it's that sort of player, you know.
Yeah, the balance of his game is just he's not he's great at everything. There's nothing that you look at and say, oh, you know, he really needs to work on that.
No, the only weakness you would say is the one that most of us have is he gets a little bit spicy from time to time.
But we all do.
That, right, and that's just part of it. And he seems to be way better on that front than he was before. Like he seems to actually be progressing and learning and he's still because he's looked like such a big grown up man since he was young.
He's still only what twenty four?
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, he's got the world of his feet, that kid, and the emotion is good in situations like those, you can I mean that being a fiery guy.
That's the guy who holds.
That part on top of dust and that you know in that playoff, the fiery guy, you.
Know, I just it's it's good. He wants to.
Yes, it would be. Wasn't that the most unbelievable finish? That was an unbelievble finish? Yeah, someone like that would be my pick. I mean Tiger in his prime, you know, textbook Tiger player. Great short of Phil too. It's a great field place because it's it's it helps to be really good with a long game like that's obviously a big advantage, but you've got to be out, You've got to do the second two shots in every hole are
really important. You know. That's sorry, they're not the second, Yeah, they're third and the fourth shot in every hole.
I just stopped back to the beginning of this conversation. How good would Ron be as a tennis player? With how fire he is.
Yeah, wow, Spanish tennis players.
Yeah, I mean be interesting because tennis seems to tilt people with that I mean people with that headspace. Tennis seems to really drive people over the edge. And it's a little bit more racket smashing. And what a shame about the joker thing the other day that he was open, but yeah, it seems yeah, I couldn't play tennis.
I would have breaken too many rackets. I wouldn't been out of handlet you know, been.
Crazy golf, you'd see so many more broken clubs. If golf was was just match play all the.
Time, absolutely, and the relationships between the players would be awful, you know, because guys would get guys. You'd have a guy's number, and you would beat a guy three times in a row, and it would just annoy the guy, you know, and that would be that would be going around everywhere, you know.
It would be.
I played a match against this kid once and I had a big lead on the back nine and he starts cutting into it and I didn't give him an eighteen inch putt and he missed it. He went nuts, nuts, went nuclear on me. He was so mad and I'm like, you missed it. And then the next one he did give me like an inch putt, and then at that the match he wouldn't shake my hand.
I love that's the best. I love that.
That's the best part about matchplay. I miss that would be the good side, the bad side of the match players were to the relationships on two wouldn't be as good, but the bad the good side would be you'd have fun stuff on that go on so.
Weak foot, What would you say the five to ten shots? Obviously it's a us O, but you've got to pay attention to every shot. But what what are the five to ten or a handful? No number specific that just really grab your attention that you know you're thinking about maybe ahead in the round.
Well, firstly, whether you t off on one or ten, they are both brutal holes. To start on ten is a brutal hole to start on there'll be a two t start. I imagine ten is. It's probably only what a seven of them these days?
Oh? Really? Really?
They built it back towards it's right next to the pro shop.
Okay, so let's say it's a six sign. Maybe it's a small green elevated. If you miss it, you're not getting up and down. It's a stunning hole. But what if you miss it, you make you miss the green. You probably making Vogue your first hole. That's kind of sucks. And the first green is the same. I mean you could hit it just twenty feet in four part you know this story, was it seventy four that Jack patted off the first green?
I think had a four.
Yeah, so that's the I think one intend to start. If you start on one of those, that's really tough. I think the third, if I go around the court, the third is a brutal hole. Billy Casper famously laid up four days in a row, played it as a part four and got up and made played as a two shot hole and made four for four times.
That's a key hole.
I think five and six are key holes, although fives are part four this time, so five was a part five for us.
So that was five and six were birdie holes.
That was the only little two hole BIRDI stretcher on the course when we played five and six.
Now it's five, it's going to be interesting night. Never part four.
I mean, wow, that's gonna be really really hard, insane, like completely insane.
It was a great Part five.
It was the only hole that was reached at part five that was reachable because twelve wasn't reachable. Wow, it was border unreachable. And it was the one little respite if you get the fair way. Okay, at least I'm going to be able to get this next to the green and have it up and down for Bernie. And the next one is the same because you could you had like a little sand on in six, and then
after that seven. I mean it's only like a nine nine, but seven is a brutal little pat three and then eight nine or two of the hardest part fours in the world back to back.
And so you singled out those birdie holes, is it? Because hitting a good T shot there just makes a world of difference and gives you like some sort of life as opposed to like say the fourth hole, where you got to hit a good two good shot. You know, most holes you got to hit two good shots. But there you have a chance if you hit a really good T shot at getting one back.
Yeah, And they're so rare birdies and us opens at places like wing Foot, I mean there's single digits for the week kind of birdies, you know, so you want to be under before you're over and around you don't want to if you get three over after five, it's like you just can't see three birdies to get it back to even part.
It's just so hard.
So when you had birdie opportunities are almost more pressure in the US Open because you have to make them, you know. So that was a stretch and you very rarely get two in a row because the rest of the course around that was really difficult. So seven, you're always more pressure on the hole. You can make birdie seven, you can because it's a short iron. But seven is one of those typical wing foot holes in that no, a typical US Open style hole that if you hit
a good shot, you can make a birdie. If you had a bad shot, goodness gracious, you know that grains quite a long way up in the air. And again, short irons, you feel like you're a chance, so you get maybe a little bit more aggressive, but then you miss it just a little bit and you actually make five all of a sudden on an easy hole.
Now you've done.
You've just made double on a hole where everyone else has made pa It's just it's the relentlessness of a US opener at a place like Wingfoot, it's just seventy two holes of really difficult holes, and you're going to make more bogies than birdies. So every bogie is heavier than a normal bogie because it's so much harder to get it back.
You know, you can have to hit.
Fairways, I mean the long The long part for is you have tip fairways because you're not going to get it there in two or you're not gonna have any semblance of control coming out of that raff.
And the short holes, the shorter holes like the six eleven.
Not many of them really, I mean six eleven, I'm struggling for any more short holes that you really loved it.
The fairway too, so you can get that wedge.
You know, you want that wedge because you just don't have that many chances to have that wedge. So, yeah, what a brilliant place. Yeah, I mean, it's the more
you think about the course. I've obviously talked about it a lot recently because of this coming up, and people were interested in It's it's hard to see anything other than a guy who plays really well all week winning, you know, And I know that sounds dumb, It probably happens everywhere but you're not gonna be able to have a have a weakness in.
Your game that week.
You're not going to be able to work around a dodgy driver or a like get around your your eyrons aren't that great. You're gonna have to do everything well or you're just gonna get completely beaten up. You know.
It's like the reverse of the Masters finish. I remember last two thousand and six, the last six holes were six of the eight hardest holes on the golf course.
So it's kind of that reverse where you know, the Augusta you always have the guy posting early and you're like, oh, he's in the clubhouse at ten, you know, and then yeah, it's like, well, in twenty minutes you realize how just doesn't matter that the guy's at ten, But at wingfoot it's like, oh, he's in at eight plus eight, maybe he actually has a chance.
And the laders are the laders are at four over with six to play, He's still got a chance.
Right.
It was like, well, six I think out of the last it was the last five or six groups, so ten or twelve guys. I was the only guy to part of the last four holes out of the twelve best players of the tournament, which is crazy. And I had to get up and I had to chip in and get up and down twice for I got up and down on sixteen from fifty yards. I chipped in on seventeenth par and I got up and down from the front of eighteen.
So what a finish.
And if you go before that, thirteen is a strong part. Three yeah, probably five.
Iron at the moment, six iron maybe four iron could be probably.
Over two hundred. It's over two hundred and fourteen's are strong strong part.
Four.
Fifteen is a strong part. Four sixteen's I think the longest part four in the course. It was in O six it was five hundred and six. Seventeen's a really awkward little hole with a narali little green, and eighteen is eighteen. I mean, mister fairway and you're not making par so ah, yeah, what a finish. Eleven and twelve they're a chance tens of tricky howle but have hit the ten eleven, twelve. He hit a good shot on ten, ten, eleven, twelve, Twelve's apart five. It's a long one, but these guys
are along right. But after that thirteen through eighteen, what you said was at six to the last the hardest eight holes in the Classic?
Yeah, last six last six holes were six of the eight hardest for scoring.
RAS not not surprised. Was that just sunday it was a whole week?
Yeah, well, yeah, that's amazing when you think about how hard some of the other holes are.
Yeah, it's like that though. It's that sort of course.
So again, starting on ten on Thursday morning, that's a tough draw, you know, if you're one over after three and then you've got those holes coming.
So well, it's interesting how each nine has gives you almost pockets of scoring where you've got now without five, it's it's six, seven really and then nine. But then on the back it's it's eleven twelve, and that's it.
It's eleven twelve and then you're done. Yeah, that's your scoring done. I mean massive drives away Dustin or Brooks or Rory or these guys can hit drivers, they can hit wedges into some of these holes that I can't see wedges into, right, But there's not many, you know, there's you're gonna have. There's not gonna be You can't just waale away with driver of the Bryson approach and see if it works out. It's just it's too long a week to have that many shots out of rough,
you know. You just you just can't go all seven eight nine times around being the rough. And I think if you're trying to hit it three thirty three forty on every hole, you're gonna hit it through some corners and it's going to be fair, firm fairways. It's gonna be tough to that many fairways and that us open ruff. I guess from the evidence that I've seen actually this morning on what the ruff's gonna be like, you're just not going to be able to play around with a
rough too much, I don't think. So they'll start backing off the tea a little bit, you know, and then they'll have a bit more long So it might be interesting that way. We'll see what it'll do to the modern approach. But I think you're just not gonna be able to take liberties with the rough like you can.
Some other aspect of it. Is the September date, I think they're going to be able to push the course a little bit more than you would in June. You know that this is the best time agronomically for golf courses in New York.
I would have thought, by a long way and hopefully some trees in started turning maybe a little bit. It's probably not cool enough yet, but it's Yeah, the fall is always in the Midwest New England area, the fall is the best time to play golf, you know, by a long way.
Yeah, it's the end of summer.
So you've had great growth, and you've kind of it's firm, and you haven't had too much rain, and it's cool nights, and it's not light or it's not light till nine o'clock at night, so you can stress to great they get the cool kind of darkness for longer. Yeah, they could be really fast. It'll be probably in better shape than it was last time, just because of that, you know,
maybe because of any other factors. But having it at the end of summer rather than the start of summer's got to be an advantage for agronically, agronomically.
Or to think.
And they've had less play. They had less play this year, I imagine, right, just naturally because of COVID probably.
Too, maybe more everywhere had record play.
I wouldn't imagine that was don't come to Melbourne don't come to Melbourne. When allowed to play golf in Melbourne.
It's a well at least I've got We've got a lot more cases though. So something you said about hitting it in in the rough, you can't hit it in the rough all day. Would you say that it's a lot of the US Open is about stress management, almost keeping the stress off you for long periods of time.
Yeah, I think absolutely.
I mean it's a long week if you've even if you're making them a six foot of for par, even if it goes in, it's anxiety inducing before you hit it right. You've got this, I've got to make this part for power, going to make this part, got to make this was a tap in.
It's you just go tap it in.
There's no mental energy drawn from just a tap in. But if you've got six you could shoot even par. But every one of those part of pars was a six foot part. You're going to be pretty at the end of that day. But you should even par. If you've just put it up from thirty feet and tapped it in every hole, you're going to think that was kind of easy. So there's ways and there's ways, and if you're in the rough, you're just going to have long par puts all week and it's just going to
wear you out. It's not that you can't do it, it just mentally wears you out. That guy who plays the front nine and he hits eight greens, the only one he missed was on the front edge. He's tapped it in for par for the front nine. He's cruising around like hasn't used any energy yet. The other guy who shot even part, he's hold six, he's hold six eight footers and two five footers, all left to righters and downhillers. He's on the same score up to nine holes,
but he's used to all his energy up. So that's that's like you said, it's the stress avoidance.
You know, you don't want.
You just don't want those you get in situations that are plays like wing foot where you've missed the green. It's like, right, I know I can't make par. How do I not make double? You know? And those kind of management situations where you've got to hit your bunket of forty bunker shot to forty feet just because it's going to be somewhere you could too put from. You know,
those situations where you're out really quick and grind your feet. Yeah, and if you're hitting in the roff all the time, you're gonna have You're just gonna have situations like that because you just even if you can move it out of the rough, which it doesn't sound like you're going to be able to move it too far.
Even if you can, you can't move it with any control.
You know. It's just you're kind of trying to get it to an area where maybe you can get it down from You're not like trying to get it close. It's just yeah, stress stress management is a good way to it's energy preservation, you know. And sometimes it's not under your control. I mean, we all aim it in the right spot and it goes there, or it doesn't, you know, like we tried it at the rough. I mean,
but you could certainly there'll be an experience. It's the sort of course it's got some new quite a lot of depth and nuance to it because it's one of those it hasn't really been messed with since the old days, right, so it's an old nuance. You kind of course you would think experience does well, there's a there's certainly an added advantage experience there than say there would be over all right.
Olympia fields, I don't know.
I want to pick on Limp fields interviews great, but Wingfoot's just got a little bit extra, you know. And I think the as I said, Tiger in his prime would be primo for Wingfoot, you know, because he would just love the challenge of the under the whole thing and the plotting it around and playing it smart and
hitting irons off a lot of teas and stuff. I think the guy who embraces that challenge of how do I best manage this as opposed to just plays just tries to play a good version of normal tour golf. I think the guy and embraces it has a chance to do really well because it's that sort of.
How would you spend your time leading up to the tournament? Would you just go about your regular practice round nine nine? It seems like most guys just play nine nowadays, or would you spend more time doing different things out there versus a regular tour start.
Well, look, I love the US Open clearly, but they ruined Monday to Wednesday in the US Open when they started having tea times in practice rounds, and they don't let us tea off without tea times, and it's a two tee tea time, so they have a morning wave and an afternoon wave. Because normally on two of like pros thirty times a year we turn up and we make Tuesdays work. There's no t sheets. We just get there and it just works. Some guys want to play it.
You just kind of find your way to the tea and there's a couple of busy moments, but you pair off with your guys and you play.
It actually works really fine. The USGA don't trust us to handle that situation, so.
We have to put our tea toe and you're booking them like so they're four balls from seven o'clock in the morning, off one and ten from seven till nine, and then there's four balls from like twelve till two.
Well, four balls in every group. It's just a six hour round. It's a three hour and nine holes.
There's fifty autographs off the back of every green, which is kind of fun, but everybody's hitting fifty chips on every hole and everyone's taking twenty five minutes to play every hole every group.
So after three hours of that, no one's going to go. So I'll do that again.
Can I go to the back nine like that, please like, So that's why that's happened. Everyone would play eighteen holes if it was eighteen holes like it was. Everyone plays eight en at the Masters because you play it in four hours and it's great fun. You know, you practice rounds at the US Open a miserable Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Thursday it is great. But that's partly why everyone plays nine because it takes six hours to play
out in holes. I always found the best practice round to play one really early, like eight in holes, really early. First group at seven o'clock one is not too bad, and then last I liked Wednesday at two o'clock actually because quite often everyone's so pumped and so excited. Monday morning is the busiest time at the USA because everyone's so Jackson be there. Right by the Wednesday afternoon, everyone's gone. They're all tired, they've all been hitting balls and practicing
and hit a million ship shots. Wednesday afternoons a ghost town. So that was always my go for thing. But yeah, everyone does just play nine holes. But what I would focus on in the lead up, knowing what I know from two thousand and six, I would have spent the last six months on the chipping, you know, working on sixties whenever I could find some heavy rough to chip out of, just get really really good around the greens, because that's what I was doing well at the time.
I didn't do that on purpose in six it just happened that I was working on my short game a lot, and it happened to be the thing that I think was the separator for me at Wingfood. So I would do that again only because of what happened last time.
But in the week leading up the managers the way is, oh, you couldn't hit enough shots from inside fifty eighty yards, you know, around the greens, out of the raft and just really get a good feel for getting it up and down somehow and get a feel around the greens. The hitting it you can work out wherever. You can just look at the book and work out kind of where to hit it sometimes. But the short game stuff
that really is a form thing. You know, it comes and goes, and if you get really sharp and you have that feel, So I'd be doing a lot.
Of that, I think.
Would you say that there's any venue do you feel like there's a stylistic it could look completely different. But from the way the course plays, is there any camp within, whether it's US Open venues or tour stops, anything that is somewhat similar to Wingfoot in the way you have to play.
I think I think like wing Foot, Oakmont, Shinnecock, Pinehurst, maybe even Pebble, like prototypical US Open venues, but are all really different. You know, wing Foot Oakmond are very similar, and it's all about the greens, you know, really old school greens, crazy greens that you couldn't build them today. They like they wouldn't give you another job if you built those greens in to day, but yet everybody loves them.
You know, Pinehurst are same. You couldn't build Parhurst number two now, it's no way, you know, So I think there, yeah, if they've just got such a great kind of structure and like the way they were built to begin with, to just easily set them up for US Opens, I think Wingfoot is. I mean, I know it's there and it's rose colored glasses because I won there and all that, But Wingfoot's about as perfect for a US Open tournament,
a big tournament, as any venue gets anywhere. Like they're really it's a world class course that's always going to be hard enough. You could set it up easier than they do, you know, but it would still never be very easy because the greens are so challenging. It's thirty six holes, so you've got that scale, right, You've got that big clubhouse, you've got you can use the other course for the range. You know, You've just got scale
to put all the stuff. And it's just it's not a it's a course that's somewhat intimate, a big course, but it's all kind of close together so the crowd can kind of see everything really easily. And it's close to the best US Open venue actually saying that. I don't want to say that just because they're coming up to it, but can you think of a better one? I mean, Oak one's a great one. Oak one's a great one.
It's easy to get two too, for a lot of different areas. You know, it's not if you're if Shinnacock's awesome, but it's the pain that they asked for everybody to get to because unless you're staying on the other side of the island, the traffic's just insane. You know.
Oh, Shinnecocks are not made to get to Yeah, it's brutal to get to yeah, because there's only one way in.
Yeah, I would. That's why I was My next question was going to be where does it fit in? I think if we went with a tier, you know, it would be like picking out the best golfer in the world. Right now, it depends on what week it is. For the best golf course of the world. It is what's what's the best golf course of the world. What day of the week is it? You know what am I in the mood for?
Yeah?
I think with this one, I think it's in that first tier of US Open.
Absolutely absolutely.
I mean as course, as I just mentioned, you got Armond, wing Foot, Shinnakock panas probably Pebble and Pebble when we played in the pro am is. Pebble is brilliant, but it's not a US Open. But it's a very set up a ball course because it's on side slopes and small greens as soon as it gets firm. I think Pebble's a great US Open venue. They're Tier one. I might have missed a couple there, certainly. Yeah, you can't put anything in front of Wingfoot as a tournament venue,
can you? With everything that's got going for it's certainly in the top tier. I mean, Pinehus is a brilliant week. Oak Month's a brilliant week. But Wingfoot's got twenty million people living within an hour and a half probably, as you say, easy to get to all the other advantages. Yeah, top top, top tier. And you shouldn't always go to top tier things because I think some of the other US opens are really really interesting. I mean I thought
Chambers was really interesting. Unlucky that the greens Day there were, but it was a really interesting tournament. I really enjoyed that one.
Did you ever play the country You'd never played the country club?
I didn't play the country club.
Nov Does people ever tell me that that's going to be just a bloodbath in a couple of years.
I don't understand that mentality.
It annoyed me a little bit reading the article's Wingfoot this morning about uh, this is going to be a great wing Foot open that we all remember, hopefully it's eight over par It's like, I don't mind if it's over. I mean, as I'm glowingly talking about how good Oat Mountain Wingfoot are and we always shoot way out of parate those two courses. But if the intent is to get people to shoot out of a power, I don't like it. It's kind of like if it happens. If it happens, that's fine.
I don't understand it, like that was.
Part it was. It just naturally, like the weather allowed it to be super firm. And the golf it's a US Open golf course. They've had US Opens at it, and the scores were you know what, two guys ended up under par, three guys ended up under par, and Wingfu was obviously much more difficult golf course than than Olympia Fields.
Is yeah, so if it naturally, I mean we're the dependent. But you've got a bit of wind Olympia.
Fields, right, Yeah, a little bit the first day, but enough. Yeah it wasn't crazy windy, but it just hadn't rained for three weeks, so it was firm.
I just like a setup.
And I think when foot see what the great, great great courses do is that even if the setup goes over the top, and they've absolutely gone over the top, it setups. I mean, Shinoko a couple of year ago is over the top. Don't care what anybody.
Says it was.
If the great courses seem to be able to weather that and still have great tournaments and great people win. You know, that's what brings a top tier course like wing Foot at five over or five hunder, great players would win, you know, outside.
Of me, Oh come on, but you're the tame player in the world.
Been silly.
But like there's other courses that might not do great courses, however, you set them up create great championships.
You know O six was a great championship.
I mean with an hour to play, what a last hour of a tournament, right Shinacock always provides a great finish. It was a brilliant finish there a couple of years ago, you know, like Pinehurst was dominated. You know, pebble is usually dominated to usually someone separates. It's interesting. But like good play, it doesn't matter how you set up wing Foot, great players are winning, it'll be a great tournament. That's Halo and the massacre was apparently just absolutely the carnage.
But he was one of the best US Open players of all time and he stood up you know, Zella and Norman and then they were both at the top of the world at that time. It's like the great courses create great champions. Yeah, however you set them up and there that that's the top tier. The top tier are the ones that do that continuously repeatedly in different situations. The best players always come out on top. That's at
least from a competitive measuring stick. That's a good measure of a good course, you know.
I mean, yeah, O six you had Harrington, you had Vja, you had Phil Manty. I mean the Furick he was. He was the one. I think that kind of doesn't get enough of. Wow. He you know, everybody obviously always talks about Phil in Mantia a little bit. But Furick down the stretch, he gave, he gave up. He had probably is kicking himself as much as those other guys are.
Every one of those guys you mentioned had as much chance as me or more with four holes, four or five holes to play. Yeah, it's yeah, that was the who's who of the time in O six it provided the top ten was like eight guys who were always up there in majors.
You know. It was That's that's what happened in O six. It was those guys.
Tiger was the only exception, but his father, Earl had just died. His father had just died after the Masters, and he hadn't really played for six weeks, and he righted the ship when he won the next two majors after that, So he worked it out.
But ferrex Us Open, the only exception there was Tiger not being up.
Ferix Us Open record during that like five years is bananas, really.
So he won Olympia Fields, he was got top five, I think he was.
He finished second the year before that, he was in He was in the mix at the Oakmart the next year when Cabrera won, I think he finished second. And when at Oakmart, to Cabrera, he should have won that way.
That's a big one for him because he's a Pittsburgh guy, right.
And everybody thought he was going to win. And I think he made bogie or something on the last whole. I can't remember exactly what happened, but.
I remember Cabrera pumping hitting that last few I'd open nth with driving at like three twenty five. Ye, Cabrera was just nuts at the time.
Cabrera is one of the great golf stories.
Awesome.
Do you play with her much?
It's funny, so naturally gifted. I play with him a ton. Yeah, we were on some President's Cup teams and stuff. He's a legend, so talented, almost.
Worked too hard.
He was like the there's this thing in golf about hard work, right, and like this guilty and because he came from really poor upbringing in Argentina and he just worked.
Really he was so naturally gifted.
He was probably one of the ones who should have just turned up, like fred Couples, to the golf course every day, played golf, had bit of fun and gone home and had a couple of beers or something, you know what I mean. But he actually went home and hit balls all day every day and actually kind of wore himself out by grinding too hard.
I think, yeah, it makes sense, totally makes sense.
Supernaturally talent. All those argies are complete flushes, you know, legend like two majors.
I mean, what a career Cabrera.
He was as good as he nearly won the one that had won. He was in the playoff for Scotting at the Masters. I mean, he's the real deal, Cabrera.
Flusher.
You mentioned Couples, You channel the little Freddy Couples before a you're of wing foot when with watching watching sports instead of you know, getting into your warm up.
Yes, yeah, absolutely, that's the mean.
Like at the time, you just think why would you be doing something like that, But like when you look back, it's like, that's actually the important stuff is to is to somewhat somehow take a little bit of the seriousness out of it. You know, it's not life or death. The golf tournament. You know, one hundred and fifty five guys go away every time not winning. Isn't the one
guy who does. And you lose nearly every tournament you ever play, and you're fine, You're still breathing, and you get to play next week.
You know, it's not the end of the world.
So I think guys like Freddie and Dustin just have the natural gift at taking a level of seriousness out of it that some of us can't, you know, and it just gives them an advantage in situations like that.
I think, yeah, Freddie gets bag guy, but that back in derailed them. I mean, he was he was getting right to he was winning everything, and then he heard the back and everything. Hey, so let's uh, let's wrap it up here. But I want I need to get your your winning predictions, your score and in winter, well.
About a week ago, I predicted to somebody even par and Dustin Johnson. After reading a little bit, I think it'll be over par, and I'll go with John Rahm because I think his short game. Dustin will have a little bit of a it's going to be hard to back up what he's just done.
That's he's almost too hot.
He probably had a few, He's probably had a few beers the last couple of days. I would have thought, maybe not that.
He won't be trying his best, but mentally emotionally, there'll be a period where it'll be hard to keep playing how he's playing. Ram will be a little bit hungry, you know, he's just won a tournament around of course, the most recent tor him around the course. That'll be us even like those two are at the top, and he's just got that. He's got the flare around the greens, you know. And I'll say he'll win it three over.
It's a strange setup with the Major, with it right after the playoffs, where all these guys have played three weeks in a row. Where I was talking to a buddy of mine this morning who's on web, and he was talking about how he's played, you know, four straight weeks, and you know, he was like, I'm going to try and stay away from the golf course a little bit. He's like, because you know, I need to stay away a little And I'm like why, He's like, well, I've
played four straight weeks. There's been a lot of golf. But I'm just tired, you know.
Yeah, and it just wears. Yeah, leading to like leading like those guys do every week, that's just a tiring thing to do.
Yeah, in the mix, it's different. And he's played well recently. He's like in a lot of great golf, which takes a lot out of me.
Yeah.
Absolutely, and Rory, you'd think it would be. Yes, there's a bump when people have babies. But still, well, I mean that's a hard one.
I kind of wanted to take Rory with everything, like I feel like this is kind of I mean, it's crazy he has one major since twenty fourteen.
It's just nut, it's not I can't understand that.
Yes, and I feel like this could be like the shift, like the just the perception that change that he needs because something's going on. There's the It's the only explanation I can see is that the majors have gotten in his head a little bit. But that's but Rom. It's so hard not to pick Rom.
Well, he has he ticks every box. And as I said, like it's a similar game to him and Dustin. They hit it miles, they hit it straight, they're great with everything. Ram has just that flare around the greens. You know, those of those guys right at the top, they've all got great short games. I'm not I mean, but Ram has that Spanish flare, you know, the extra little bit around the greens that might be a difference maker, and that sort of cour on that sort of course.
But look, Web Simpson could.
Win, you know, Patrick Cantlay, Patrick Cantlay could win. I mean, Maracauer could win without himn thinking about.
It, you know.
So Adam Scott.
Scotty could win. He was there in six. I mean, I wonder if anyone how many of the guys were there at six. Dustin wouldn't have been there yet.
You know who's a sneaky greet a great picture of the golf bar who never gets any credit for it. Tony Now, yeah, great short game, absolutely, but not great he Yeah, I don't know, it's going to be that guy who's I was putting really well at the time, and putting on us opens, especially late Thursdays and Fridays, when the full field has been over.
The greens your late teachers. They they're fast and a bit ropey because of the size of the field. Usually it's the great putters who put well, So the guys who put well at Riviera, the sort of guys who all put well. Guys who put well in California will put well at Wingfoot, you know, some slope kind of fast greens. That would be my that's DJ, I think it DJ, Yeah, it's it's it is. It's because that all of a suddenly the West Coast is a unique
putting experience. But Westchester County up there is a similar green. There's a bit of a power issue, similar grassing as the California greens, and they can get fast and slopey and smooth in the morning and bump in the afternoon. That is usually only the elite putters, you know, on stuff like that or that, that free part of the guy doesn't stress about putting, you know, which would be a dust and he's an elite putter, but he's certainly a non stress putter, you know, Sneeka. He used to
make everything in California, MARACAUI. He's just one there. They're not the same, but there's a similarity to putting oldist that at Riviera and wingfoot surface of the green wise and speed wise.
Man, this would be so good for Brooks if he was Yeah, it's.
Brooks absolutely, and it's as Brooks the courses I've ever seen two years ago, you know, if he was healthy and yeah, absolutely.
All right, excited for this week, any anything you're particularly excited to watch.
I'm just excited to watch the whole thing. I'm really the whole thing. Really, I'm going to soak it up. It's it'll be uh nostalgic a little bit to watch it, you know, I mean, it's just interested to see it.
Bub bubbera. You're not playing.
It's a shame.
When we were going back at up until March and the COVID thing. I was certainly going to be there playing if I could, but be there either way, and I can't, So that's a shame. But it'll be fun to watch. Since it's been such a crazy year that golf is. As I said at the start, all of us they started when they started canceling the Masters, scanning all this film and say, oh my god, it's like armageddon for.
Like tour golf. But six months later it's like too golf.
Golf is actually doing it better than every other sport, and it's powering, and we've forgot tournaments and FedEx Cups and we're having all these majors and it's like wow, like.
Just excited that it's happening.
You know, I just want to watch because the big memories wing foot for me in that tournament was the last hour. Because of how the last hour was, I'm looking forward to seeing the last hour again, you know, like you we can actually get five or six guys with a chance with an hour to play.
Oh, it's going to be fun to watch.
You know.
Have you ever rewatched that? Is that something you've done.
Entire I haven't watched it, and it is an entirety, like the five hour coverage or whatever. But I've watched the last few holes a couple of times, and I've been to a bunch of dinners and things where they'll show footage from the thing, like as part of the talk or something. But I've never sat down and watched
the whole thing. Start to finish, I should, but see I'm on the coverage early up to about the first five or six, and then Phil kind of takes over the coverage for most of it, you know, and I kind of pop up there towards the end because there's so many guys in contention, and it was Phil's kind of coronation week Tommy Roy, you know, I mean, they picked the guy who's going to get the most ratings. It's perfect, right, So it's not like watching me play
seventy eighteen holes. You probably saw me play. You missed a punch of me in the middle, you know, in an odd put here or the odd shot here.
So they put the final two hours up on YouTube, and that's what we watched when we did this spotlight thing, and it was the coverage opens with Kenny Ferrin. Yeah, he's just really bad.
That's the it's just the trivia question at the trivia who played with Phil in the last round?
You six?
K Ferry was playing really way out a little sweet spot. He played well for a couple of years in there, and he was playing the last trip he was open. But yeah, he didn't have a good day that day.
I don't think he Now the crazy thing was he hit a wedgshot on eleven or something. He was like slamming his club and he was plus seven.
At the time.
It's like, dude, you're in it. You're in it, and he's like melting down. Yeah, and you're just like but yet, you know, it's just like one of those things where he probably felt like he was shooting a million. You know, it's funny because.
Yeah, that's the best advice I got. I got.
Judy Rankin is while my wife's sister married Judy Rankin's son. So Judy Rankin is my wife's my sister in law's mother in law.
There you go. So anyway, so.
Judy is close. I've been close with Judy for a long time. And Thanksgiving dinners and stuff, Judy's there. But anyway, I get a note on Sunday morning or a text from Judy on Sunday morning saying, and I'm too behind playing in the second life group. She goes, never be everyone always opens a newspaper on Monday morning and they're surprised about how high the score was that won the US Open. Never think you're out of it today. You never know what's going to win, and that was exactly
to your point with Kenth Ferry. It's say, that's the thing, however bad it's going in the US, it's always higher the score that wins than you think, so you.
View it like that.
You know, it was really good advice, you know, just wait, wait for everyone to go away, as opposed to kind of panic enforce it.
This is a good advice.
It's good advice for almost everything.
Yeah, yeah, in life, U havings especially Yeah, because you're two over after two on Thursday and you're like calling a travel agent, right, but everybody's two erraughs.
You know, it's like it's just part of it. You just ten over could win the tournaments. They're just hanging there, you know.
All right, well, hey, thank you for coming on. Excited to hear your thoughts after and look forward to another, hopefully as dramatic of one as say.
Yeah, I mean that's what I'm going to be brilliant.
If we could get the five or six guys with a chance for an hour to play, it would be great. I mean, if it's a procession that's fun to watch too, right for guy wins by five, But any lead it's not going to be safe. You know, like you said, if a guy posts six over and you're three over on the fifteenth te I haven't. They're not giving you the tournament yet, you know. So yeah, it's gonna be fun to watch
And off America and manage