Kevin Moore on Tournament Course Setup and Analytics-Driven Strategy

of The Friday Egg. Hey, hey you're back.

should be a really interesting person to talk to. So, you know, in addition to being a professor of mathematics education at at Georgia, the founder of the course management company you talked about, Squares to Circles, he's also involved with a new club and finally he'll be a participate a participant in our roundtable at the Thoroughbred, which takes place on Saturday, October twelfth at Ach and Golf Clubs.

So that should be a really interesting discussion as well. Yeah, yeah, that should be fun.

and reverberates with that. But you know, this one he went in on course set up and he sort of conflated two things he doesn't typically conflate in terms of mixing strategy and shot making along with course setup, which has really made it a sort of a jumbled mess. If I'm being honest, I think a lot of it was in reaction to unhappiness with display and everything. Obviously

is a very articulate and very intelligent golfer. But yeah, just in terms of the comments that were there, there's just a whole lot that was meshed together, right.

see all across the PGA Tour. So maybe, I mean, he definitely could have been speaking just relative to his recent experiences what he spoke to with Renaissance in the Old Course in Carnoustie as well as Kings Barns. They didn't see the toughest conditions. So you run into those courses and it's not a very penalizing game. There's not, honestly for a pro tour player on those courses under those conditions, there's not a whole lot of thinking going on in a lot of cases, so you just hit

it out there. You know where line you're taken, hit it, find it, hit it again. We're certainly on a more penal style golf course, like the typical PGA Tour course where they're bunker at two seventy two ninety three ten playing into greens that are decently bunkerd possible water hazards. There's some thinking going on where okay, there's a if I missed this shot by five to ten yards, there's

a decent penalty to be paid paid. And it's also an aerial game, so there's a little bit more control, where on his most recent experiences, where it's a little bit more of a ground game, you have a lot less control, so you know where you're hitting it in. From there, it's just take the rubbit of green and

go from there. So maybe you know, maybe he was tainted a little bit by his recent experiences and not really thinking about the whole landscape of the European Tour could be one case, but it's certainly the case in the PGA Tour. There is thinking that goes involved just because of or along and a round, just because of the penalties that exists across most golf courses there.

driver and we're going to play off that. Now, if there is a penalty on in play, well housing that penalty. How much of a corridor do I have where the penalty area exists? And if there's enough there, then it's like, okay, let me step back a club and say what where

does that club put me? And go from there? Right, The objective is with today's game, with the way the rough is, the aerial in the and supporting an aerial game in the greens, get it up as far as possible as much as possible, you know, And that's ninety percent of the golf courses they play. And then obviously

playing into the green. It depends on the length playing into it, but typically these players are hitting mid irons to short irons in so it's a it's a pretty aggressive game even from there with the softness of the greens, which again that was perplexing when he talks about firmness where a lot of the a lot a decent amount of the court course condition on the PGA tour is soft. Now you do have your exceptions. Murfield gets pretty firm

as one example, when they can get it there. This past year was definitely not that with the rain, but you know, Jack likes to firm that up. I'm sure a lot of his renovation that's going to happen. It's going to be geared towards always having that the conditions.

But a lot of the courses, the greens are soft enough that you know, pins are pretty accessible even when they're tough, and that worse, you're just going a couple feet inside of them, you know, five to ten feet inside of a pin towards the bat side of the green and playing from there. So a little bit of thinking on that, but not a ton yeah.

aggressive they want to play. And Chapolo Peck is a great example of that, where you know, we know from dispersion driver three wood, two iron, it does doesn't matter that much left the right, you're still getting pretty wide with all three of those clubs that say, so, now you have the situation where, well, all three of them are going to bring in trees. So what do I decide to do? How much do I take into that account?

And we saw a very different play down at Mexico into to be supportive of that, we saw a nice variance in leaderboard in terms of how people played the course, you know, maybe a little better than we'd see in other tournaments. So obviously still still privileges pushing up a lot of cases, but we saw some nice variety there, more so than maybe other tournaments.

to see that. So you know, that's just where we're at in terms of a game, and you're gonna expect to see a bomber as a winner probably more often than not. But yeah, really what's important is looking at the top ten, the top twenty, right, because let's face it, like the guys winning tournaments, they're all around great players, right, most weekend week out. Yeah, we get a couple of crap shots that come out and they just win a tournament, disappear,

or they get hot. You know, this point's been made with Cameron Champa, and Andy's made this point several times that he's that type of player that will probably get hot for a couple of weeks, and if he does that every year, he'll probably get a victory as well, right, because he's got enough of a game and the distance

is privilege that he'll get there. But by and large, the winners are just great golfers, you know, and the week they win, yes, distance helps put them in position, but they also are maybe outliers in the putting or outliers and approach relative to their normal game, so they're at least making it up in other areas and then across the top ten or top twenty and see variance there.

I mean, that's just more compelling pro golf. Right if at least we're seeing everybody up on the leaderboard be a little different, it's a little bit more watchable, at least to some of us that pay attention to that stuff.

But with the distance you have that every single day you go to the golf course, which is something that I think some people like tend to and that's always going to be a huge advantage if you're long, But it seems to me that it's become more and more advantageous as you know, as players have gotten longer. In accuracy, you know, it's to keep it on the plan. There's less downside to hitting it far today than there used to be or hitting it hard, So to.

everything look like? And would it be manageable in a way that you could still play the game at a very competitive level. Because to your point, like in terms of hitting it far, you know, when we look at the strokes gained it and I don't know what it's say over the last two years, but you know it's basically approach where it's basically trended to where like to be a top player, it's almost forty percent approach and

forty percent driving. You know, maybe you could argue thirty five percent thirty five percent just in a sort of upper echelon area, And question is is that good for the game? Right? Like is you know, if I just said, okay, from a mathematical standpoint, what would be Like Rory's comment was what a complete player? I think, well, what would

be a complete player? Be the best players in the world we or the like their trends would be okay, twenty five percent strokes gain attributed to putting, twenty five percent strokes gain attributed to around the green, twenty five percent approach, twenty five percent driving, or you can match the percent just to the number of strokes played from those positions, right, So like if you play thirty percent of your shots from around the green or on it, well,

thirty percent of a winner's category should come from those areas. You know. Maybe that's something you know, that's fun to think about in terms of what would we want a complete player to be and what we how would we want that privilege.

Adam Scott was close, but nobody else, you know, nobody else really was close outside of Adam Scott to doing that.

That's someone that all around is a good player, does a lot of things really well, can hit a lot of golf shots, and sees a lot of golf shots. Right. Those guys seagull shots more than other guys in terms of just feeling comfortable in a golf course and seeing a shape and how much they would benefit from something that brought back more shape into the game and what we would how would we see that correlay or associate with different strokes, gained data in the statistics behind things.

the why axis of a hole. How deep into the hole should I push the ball in order to get the best results. Architecture geeks, on the other hand, tend to think of strategy more laterally along the X axis. What side of the fairway do I want to be on in order to open up a view of or

an angle into the green. Now, as somebody who has a foot in both camps and the analytics camp as well as in the golf architecture geekery camp, I'm curious what you think about the claim that a lot of analytics driven course management folks make about hunting angles and the fact that that's not something that anybody should do on a golf course, right, That you shouldn't be trying to get to a particular side of the fairway, that you should just sort of pick a target that makes

it least likely that you're going to find yourself in a penalty hazard, and that essentially lateral strategy as architecture folks have thought about it for over a century is irrelevant. Do you agree with that? And could you explain that position?

from a game? Like I thought your interview with Robert Crosby, Bob Crosby's phenomenal, and you got into the sense of like golf is a sport versus golf as an adventure, and we could go down all those rabbit holes as much as possible, But I'll start with just to think about, like, okay, in terms of the pro game on the typical TPC golf course, angles and that sort of stuff, even on a even on a soft trinity for us, that's say some of that's not super firm and the ball's not

getting away. Angles don't matter. I mean, it's an aerial game. They they're playing along the y access they know how far their ball carries. Picking up, you know, trying to move over to an angle, but then having some of your shot dispersion play into a bunker. That's just that's not smart, right, You're better keeping that entire shot dispers an out of the bunker and playing to the lowest

basically your lowest expected value. I saw that conversation with Scott and some other people, you know, the idea of blackjack was brought up, and it's a probability model, is what it is, especially when there's no variable of a ground game, right, and that your angle coming into a green. I mean, how often do we see on the pro game where there's a pin cut beside behind some slope where coming from that angle over the slope, you can't

stop the ball at the pin. You just don't see that out there, right, And that's the beauty of links golf where you do have that, and you also have playing corridors that allow that. Right, you can have an eighty to ninety yard corridor where an average shot dispersion for a driver is anywhere from you know, sixty to seventy five yards. So you need that playing corridor to move that around. If you're thinking just strictly from the analytical probability model, you need a huge corridor and you

need to angle to actually matter. So you need to turf conditions or to playing conditions to matter, or at least yardage in just the matter too. You know, some dog wags could get into it like a dog leg. With a center line bunker combined with it, you might be able to make up some differences there.

to a golf hole? And then the other question, implied on the other side of it is should architects be designing courses that supposedly summon these decisions?

You can't control your ballflight that well, So don't be like, oh, I'm going to hug this bunker over here, because now you're just bringing in the bunker where I mean aim down the spair way and just play to that, and then half your shots are going to end up over there and you'll get the good angle the other half or not the good angle. But guess what likely the conditions are going to afford you playing a direct shot

to the whole. Anyways, if you're a high level player on a typical course on what in terms of what they play right now? I mean, should how to design against that? It's I mean one aspect of it. It's really hard because playable with right like in terms of a player's dispersion, the designing for that, how wide a hole would have to be. That's a really hard thing to design towards. But you can do it like what

you're looking for. And this relates to a point Garrett, that you made in the sort of driveable part four article that you made. Okay, like, what would a good like mathematical hole be that includes decision making? And this could because of angles or it could be because of distance the yax's how far do I push up them back?

every player would make a three or five from. So you'd see the same average between the two options, but you'd see bigger variants in one of the options. First, the other one being a safe option where hey, not much variance in you're scoring, you kind of know what you're going to score from there, and then huge variants in the other option. And we could extrapolate that across you know, three or four different options of playing a

hole and a different variance that you would see. So in terms of strategy and mathematics, that would be an ideal hold of design, which you could do by taking a look at stroke gain and positioning hazards. Think of like where your ball lands, you haven't expected value from it, and what kind of hazards could we put around those

to change that to some number? And then if we pull back, okay, what can we do from there to make it so it plays the same average as that other area, and you could go through and design of course like that. I have no idea how interesting that would come out or what. And again, we're designing for the top point one percent of golfers. Is that something we really want to go down? Like, I don't care what people say when they say, oh, change happens or whatever.

It's like, No, the top level game matters. It influences the entire rest of the game. People watch it, people pay attention to it. Golf clubs strive to be what tour courses are. I mean, they're the they're for better or worse, a big vocal part of our game, the top level players and what they do. So we can't ignore that. So I hesitate to ever put down on paper what you know, what it could be, because I mean,

that's the Pandora's box. If we put it down as soon as we are going down that level or that road, I don't know if we end up in somewhere. We want to be those of us that think about golf also as the game, as the adventure as you like to talk about, which which I really really care to do and I really value and think that's a that's what ultimately is healthy for the game, is that aspect

of it because we're not we're not tour players. My game looks nothing like a lot of college coaches, a lot of college coach kids I work with, and it definitely looks nothing like a tour players game. And I'm an okay golfer, so I hesitate to ever to ever, Yeah, push towards something that really just privileges the pro game.

so I can't. Everything I'm doing is kind of spit ball a little bit from just.

done because the positions matter a little bit more. Conditioning matters a little bit more, slopes matter a little bit more when you're play into the green at a lower trajectory in the ball is going to be on the ground and running a little bit. Where the ball lands matters a little bit more. And understanding that, Okay, the short shot in my dispersion pattern, here's the consequences of it. The long shot in my dispersion pattern, here's the consequences

of it. What does this mean for playing into this green and how I need to play into say a

front pin, back pin, left, right, and so on. And you compare that versus a tour player that's stopping things primarily with trajectory, and those questions aren't playing into green or the longer is are no longer as much of a concern because if we're stopping it with trajectory and the conditions are allowing that when the ball comes in, it's kind of selling down where it is, right, even in terms of my own game like that, that's the transition I've seen a lot in it that playing into

a green is just I don't have to think too much, like I don't worry about the ball getting away from me once it gets on the ground, which is, you know, very different from experience that, say, overseas. I think that's a little bit more a kin you know, if you think of a PGA tour player playing overseas on really really firm conditions, that may be more kin to an LPGA player and how they're playing into the greens. But again, it's a great example of how technology has helped the

highest wing speeds. Right, That's where you see the biggest dividends in ms in terms of what we see.

they're trying to accomplish when they're hitting a golf shot. Right. Use my dad as example. You know he's getting older, and you know two twenty two to ten used to be a shot he would get to the green every time, and now he tries to pull out the three wood and hit it and it just doesn't do anything positive. So when I or whatever I'm playing with him in like a best ball, then it's like that, just hit it up there one hundred and eighty yards and play

from there, right, and the scoring average comes down. It's pretty natural. And also just every player good or bad things there, they hit tighter golf shots than they do so definitely just in terms of a dispersion pattern for any handicapper to understand, like, okay, on your best day, the quote I always uses on your best day, you're worse than you think you are because your dispersion pattern is always in play. Like even on our best rounds in our life, we typically hit a foul ball somewhere.

We just often forget about it because we hit it from the trees and made a birdie. So that's something they can always take into play. On the flip side of that, at the top level, everything exists on the margins. It's essentially f one racing at the pro level or high level college, at the top level of college, because you can't gain a shot. You just can't. You're already you know, the top level college players already shooting sixty nine, seventy,

sixty eight, sixty six, sixty five, sixty seven. It's just you're not going to pick up a full shot somewhere. But you have to pick up a tenth of a shot or a fifth of a shot, or a half of a shot over the course of one round or two rounds. So just in terms of an absolute difference, I mean, it definitely can make more progress at the top or at the higher handicap level than the lower handicap level, but it's still making a difference.

in everything you do and say. But at the same time, you are very well qualified in mathematics, in analytics, and you are on a venture right now to demystify the strategy of the game, right which is essentially a rationalist enterprise. Do you have or feel those two parts of yourself coming into conflict?

So in terms of the romantic aspect, yes, we have this huge emotional attachment. Golf is an adventure and it takes us on this sort of spiritual, soulful walk that makes us challenge ourselves and really pulls out the worst of us and the best of us all at once, right, really exposes our ego, our moral character, everything that we do in it. Right, we're always facing difficulties, having successes

and having to respond to those. But at the same time, like when we think about it, especially a lot of the conversations you know, the three of us have and amongst our friends and ourselves, you can't just rely on those responses to dictate, well, what's good for the game,

what's good for me as a person? You know, what's healthy? Right, Because addiction is a great example of if you don't question things, it's easy to become addicted to something because you just yeah, this is great, this is great, this is great. Stimulus, stimulus, stimulus, and all of a sudden you're addicted to whatever it is that you're getting involved with.

In golf's the same way where we have to think about, okay, well, what is in terms of the tent in the game and the things that enable it to have this character in this soul, like what enables that? And now that moves into more of a rationalist, you know, rationalism type of mindset where I need to break down my own thinking,

my own experiences and what contributes to us. And so I can take the same aspect with the strategy side of it, where yes, there's some days where it's like, man, especially as I'm doing like a Reese Jones course or something, where it's just like what I'm like, what am I doing here? This is this is boring, and this is not enjoyable for me. Yes, this is challenging for the players and creates the good par score or whatever it is you want to say it does, but what's going

on here? And that gives me an opportunity to inject

some of the romanticism of the game into it. When I'm working with especially individual players, to help help them understand the architecture that's there, what they're seeing on the golf hole, what makes it, what makes really a compelling golf hole versus what makes something that's just very formulating, and help clarifying their own think you know, these like even these top level players, they'll build play say a core Crunshaw, a Pinehurst, a pine Valley, A name your

pasta Tampo that say, they'll play those and just think, man, what an awesome experience that was. That was that was amazing. But then I'll go play all their tournament golf courses and to them that's also a great experience or whatever. So helping them be reflective and thinking about, like, what was so amazing about pasa tempo posita tampa? You said you love that? Why did you love that so much?

So I enjoy the sort of teaching us side of the strategy management where I can take it a little deeper than just how to play a golf course, but also thinking about the design of a golf course, what goes into it and what really piques their interests the most, you know, So that moves from that kind of blends the two together to maybe help them become more romantic with the game in terms of the course design and understanding why why architecture is important even if it doesn't

challenge their game. Right, if they go play a Corey Creutshaw that's not set up very difficult, it's not going to challenge that much, but they can still hopefully appreciate the golf course for why it's there outside of their own own golf game plane and even experience the experience or even enjoy the experiences that they had and say, hey, I shot sixty two there, but the andyes, adjusted par point, maybe sixty two was my adjusted park for that golf

course because of the playing conditions that were there. And yeah, that webshot that I had to take off a backboard and suck back, Yeah, it was easy to get the five feet. That was awesome to do. And I should get that the five feet. But if I would have messed up, have sucked it back off the green, and I would have not made Bertie, So you know, get him to appreciate those sorts of things. It is something that I enjoyed doing as part of the the analytics side of things.

hole becomes hard. It was that I forget what tournament was last year, and I was sitting there and there's a college team talking about it and they changed the par five to part four and one of the players was like, man, that hole is so hard and it used to be an easy Part five and like it's like, no, it's the same hole. It's literally the same hole that's there. So so yeah, definitely part And I mean even on the psychology side, right, the loss of verse sort of

nature of people changes how they play. Even though it shouldn't, it still does.

That so much is known now about the golf swing and about course management, for instance, that players are very rarely at a loss, players are very rarely dealing with ambiguity and mystery, and there is a kind of business like efficiency in the way that the best players approach golf. And to me, it reads very clearly through the television that that's happening, and it makes me lose a little bit of interest. Does it make you lose interest in

the same way? And if not, why, and then? And what are some of your thoughts about how some intrigue and mystery could return to the game.

So with distance gains, distance gains aren't absolute, they're relative, right, So it's not like, oh, all of us shifted up ten yards. No, that's not how it worked. That's how it worked. You know, that wouldn't be such a big deal. But it's like, no, you have you know, maybe I gained five, but someone ahead of me gain eight yards and someone maybe had that because of ball speed, gained twelve yards. Right, So like the absolute difference is between

the distance change. The distance differences have grown an increase, right, which in terms of like the spirit of yeah, I believe, yes, pros play a different game, but it's much cooler when we kind of it kind of resembles what the game we play, right, So we lose that there on one piece of the argument. So I would like to see

that shrunk down. So that obviously brings in the idea of rollback in some sort of form, regardless if it's shrunken driver, heads, wound and ball for Simon, Ballata Hickorys. But we could sit here and argue all day about

what we want to go back to. But I do I do think there's some viability in that, in that argument, in terms of rolling back to something and changing in technology somehow, if if some of the principles that are wrapped up in the game or something we really value and want to see in the pro game as well.

And now on the flip side of that, this idea of expiration and optimization and just making the game inquisitive again, I would I could see that as a significant strength that movement and actually doing it, because it would even for the OEMs, open up a whole new revenue in pursuit. Right, Oh, shoot, we're going back to this technology. Well, frankly, let's say it's persimmon. Let's just go there. We'll say it's Persimmon

with a lot of balls. And that's not a personal preference in mind to go to that version of it, but let's say that's what it is. All of a sudden, everybody in the game of golf at a high level is to think how do I optimize that technology? Right? What does my swing speed need to be? Like? Can I actually have this huge swing speed with you know, hitting up on the ball trying to launch at this angle? All that has to be figured out again? And what does that mean in terms of how the game's played?

How does course conditioning now play a role in that? It would just sort of open up a new you know, path to go down and have to figure out, which I think could be could be exciting. You know a lot of people talk about it, we'll turn people from away from the game, And I don't know if I buy that argument. I think Bob spook to this a little bit on the on his his podcast that maybe in a short term you'd have a few people leave,

but really would they? I mean, is if all of a sudden you put for Simon in the fifteen handicappers' hands, is it really going to change their one just their scoring and how they play the game, but also their enjoyment? Is that are they really playing the game because they have a four hundred and sixty cc tailor made in their hands? Where they playing it for other reasons? You know, would and that's and also for Simon has great self

correction off the face. People people think like, oh, the argument for rolling back stuff means like, oh, you're going to hit it one hundred and fifty yards off line. That's not the case. It actually brings more variability in the y axis if anything. Right, that's where we see huge variability where with the current drivers. Right, it's like, well, I hit the heel, I hit the toe, I hit off the top of the face, I hit off the bob in the face. Oh, I hit on the toe

on the hot spot. I mean, the balls flying pretty similar distance.

go so far offline. Then with one of my buddies and it's like, and I gave him my per Simon driver the last time we played, and he hit like three shots with it, and the worst one was only like thirty yards off line, because like it can't go as far off line, I.

I was just watching this guys. He needs a driver that doesn't go as far. He would score so much better and also there would be less death and property damage in the wake of his playing this golf course.

in this, right, and how was that experience? What did you learn from it?

we brought together a bunch of guys. Just it's exactly what you said. We're gonna play for simmon, We're gonna play blades. Uh, those are the rules. Whatever ball you want, modern or not, that's fine. Every other you know, rules on board, modern putter, old putter, however you want to do that, that's fine. You know. Jeremy is Louis Little

Golf helped us out participate in it as well. Uh. And we just brought a guys with two teams sort of Ryder Cup style where we did going back to the spirit of the game, four ball, alternate shut and foursomes in the morning and we played singles matches in the afternoon and just and just had a blast. And I think sweet a place like Sweeten's Code. If you talk to me, I talked too much about the place, you know, It's one of my spirit courses in love

with it. Just appreciate what Rob Patrick and Tadd and everybody created there. But playing a place like that, I think really helps accentuate the benefits of plane the golf that style, with the trajectory, they'll they'll run out the ground game a little bit more. Just how much? How much more you notice? You know, I've played I don't know how many times I've gone around Sweeten's probably one hundred at this point or so. And that was. Honestly,

I've never seen it in that way. I've played Hickory's on it. I'm not a great Hickory golfer, so I can't. I'm sure Tad King has already seen Sweetens the way I saw it with for Simmons. But it was just fascinating how much more of the ground you saw with the ball rolling, how much more thinking you had to do playing into greens, playing just set up shots there, that sort of stuff. It was absolutely fascinating.

that's not natural for that club. You have to think about the implications of that. Where is this going to land, how is this going to run out? What's my miss going to be? All those things come into into the mind where now it's like I have to control the trajectory. What trajectory do I wanted to come in at? And when you're playing a course like a Sweeten's Cove or you know, think of your favorite firm and past golf course.

I probably plays like Shinacock, right, those questions actually matter or the old course, and you have to think about those. I mean, one of the things I was just talking with the college coach recently that's both a friend and a colleague of mine, and we were just talking about how college a lot of college kids, even your best kids,

don't know how to hit golf shots right. They can have a wedge in their hand, and if it's not the exact yard to just they need, they's somewhat stabbing in the dark, or they're just going full bore at everything. So even something as simple as like hey, go play with the half set, because now when you're one sixty in your nine irons not in your bag, you have to think, well, do I do something in the wedge?

Do I do something with the eight iron? What do I have to do with this club to make it go the distance, land where I wanted to be and do what I wanted to do when it hits the ground. And to me, that is just it's just more interesting golf. I just find out to be more pure form of golf because it just engages the mind so much more, because it engages both my analytical and just sort of creative multiple options mine.

taking into account the modern ball. Now, if we're talking if we wound the ball back a little bit, with a ball with more curvature on it, things do have to be thought about a little bit differently because and this is actually one of the open questions why I always say I don't have an answer, because I honestly wonder what does a dispersion pattern look like if we were had a seven iron with a wound golf ball right, does our left the right dispersion change significantly? And more importantly,

does our dispersion within it change? Do our percentages change where like our fifty percent of balls are a little wider, a little more narrow Like those questions would have to be thought out, and I don't have an answer to those because honestly, I've just never sat down with one hundred wound balls and hit seven irons to see what would happen versus my seven iron, And we grabbed a you know, a b toad or something like that and said, hey, hit these seven irons for me and I'll hit your

seven iron. That's see the differences and in the same level like persimmon to like the modern driver, I think what changes there is a little bit of how the ball flies. It's not going to have as much carry and for me personally, it's going to have a little bit more run out. So I'm gonna have to think about that now, like, Okay, this ball is going to be on the ground a little bit more. It's gonna

have some curvature on it. When my ball gets on the ground running, if this thing's firm and passed, where's that ball going to run to? And what are my consequences of that? Now, if we're on a soft course, I'm going to be honest, the balls not running much, there's not too much to think about. You just where's this ball gonna land? And that's all I need to know,

And I'll design everything based on that. And my distance might be a little less with the persimmon, but guess what, like, my dispersion is probably gonna still be pretty similar, and the way the holes are played are going to be pretty similar other than adjusting for distances. But you start putting it firm and fast and the ball's curving, Now you know it's the whole point that's made. Once that ball's out of the on the ground and out of

your control, that's that's where things can get scary. So you have to think about that a bit more so.

got admit it was. It was special. It had It was almost like walking back in time in a lot of ways. I felt like I was back in Pinehurst, like in the nineteen fifties, or how pine Hurst would have felt in the fifties, with just this sand sort of sand hills sand belt style golf course weaving through a neighborhood, which is aggressively cool contours throughout the entire course, especially playing into the greens. I mean, I'll never forget

the fifteenth green. It reminded me of this Walter Travel Travis green up at kate Arundel that was just had this huge tier kind of cutting right through the middle of it where you walk up and you're like, that's just the coolest green site to put that there and place that down and just made you think about like, Okay, again, I can't control my angle, but if I'm on this side of the fairway, like how I'm gonna have to play into that green versus I end up on that

side of the fairway, what I'm gonna have to do and how can I use the ground to help it out? So I'm just, yeah, really looking forward to getting back to it and getting experience it again and just having it come alive.

it a bit more now. But yeah, my analytics hat on is I'll echo I guess Scott Fosse. It would be like, yeah, but you're playing through a worst score. To me, that's still golf, right. I go around Sweetens a lot of times when I'm playing there and I'm not playing to my best overall score. I'm playing to my best score along a certain path. I'm trying to execute every shot as best I can along a certain path, and that's to me, that's still golf. But yeah, I'm not gonna doing.

that's what matters now. I think what this really speaks to is also what I believe is a true the true spirit of the game and aspect of it too. And and you know, my fifth time I mentioned Bob Crosby's podcast with Garrett that he spoke on this too. Golf is not about fairness, right, variability, chance rubbed the green and luck should be part of it. And that's if you look up how a game is defined. I think under the definition you even have chance or luck

as part of defining a game wor sport in its outcome. Right, it's an or it's skill like athleticism or luck. So you should have all aspects involved with it because part of golf is also it's egocentrism, right, it's feeling with your own ego to accept, Hey, yes, I hit the perfect shot there, I got a bounce that put me in the road hole in the monker, and that's just what it is, and I have to deal with that. I have to get over that to move on hit the next shot, realizing that was a one in a

million break. That was bad. But I need to bounce backward and still try to score the best I can from the next shot. And I think that's a critical important element of the game that makes it more interesting than that. Go hit a great one day, shoot thirty eight, Go hit it great the next day and shoot twenty nine. That's just I think that's beautiful.

be straightforward. When I hit a good shot, I should be rewarded. But over the time I've come to realize, like, no, that's you know, part of the game does reward good shots, but it's okay when those aren't always rewarded. But still your ability to rebound after that. And why do we think places like Shinnacock and Augusta, especially when Augusta's firm, Like why is that the most compelling golf to watch? I think it's because, both as a player as well

as a spectator, we get that element. We get that luck element when Tiger hits it in the middle of the trees but then plays it off a bounce and one time on eleven it bounces perfectly down in the middle of the green and the other time bounces off to the right of eleven. Now he's faced with a tough up and down like that. Variability makes golf much more compelling than a point and shoot model in my personal opinion.