I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. And when I find my.
Ball in a fried egg Friday egg, the dreaded Frida egg, Friday Frida Egg, Brian Egg, fridagg Bride egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off of the hump course. Welcome back to the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and today I am.
Joined by Henry Shimp.
Henry is one of the co founders of the Tie Podcast, a podcast that talks about golf, specifically competition and golf course architecture, as well as he talks a lot about food too. He's a He's a big foodie. Henry was on the Stanford men's golf team. He was a co captain on the twenty nineteen twenty twenty team, and he was on the five man Stanford team that won the twenty nineteen NCAA National Championship. So Henry's quite the player.
I apologize I lost my voice. I don't know if I have a cold or not, but I've been I've been voiceless for a couple of days.
Now.
I want to get this episode done apologies for the voice. It definitely sounded better, I hope. Anyways, Henry played in our event last week at Brambles. We hosted an event, well the Brambles hosted the event, but it was a event where we had teams from Tree Farm, Brambles, Friday Golf Club and the and we competed in a match play event using equipment that was made before two thousand
and four. So Henry I found a very interesting discussion with Henry as he is somebody who had never played the equipment that he played in the event, and is a player that is a I would say an elite am still at this stage, but you know, someone who competed against and had the game to play in a national championship at Stanford. So he's competed against some of the best players in the world and still can really
get it around. So I thought it would be an interesting conversation to talk about playing really for the first time with significantly less forgiving equipment than he has played his entire life, and the things that he noticed from that. On top of that, we get into a couple other topics that he had some thoughts. So before we get to Henry, let's take a quick moment to talk about our friends over at Repsodo and their MLM two Pro, a launch monitor and simulator that's seriously impressive. This is
a great product. It is one of the things I love about it is just its cost. It is six ninety nine. It's what you pay for a new driver, and this launch monitor gives you like very high, highly detailed data numbers at tracks fifteen, key metrics, spin rate, club path, attack angle, all the good stuff. Unless you play over thirty thousand courses virtual courses. So whether you're working to actually improve your game or just looking for an excuse to play more golf, this thing does both.
I really should have fired this up before we play the retro clubs. I could have been really dialed in.
I didn't.
I went to this golf course and to start hitting them and try to figure out the distances on the fly.
It was tough.
My first t shot was at par three, just thinking I hope this nine to iron goes the right number. If I had to use my MLM two Pro, I would have been able to get that dialed in right now. You can grab the mL M two Pro Holiday bum Bundle at rap Sodo that's r ap s o d o dot com, which comes with twelve titles or callaway RPT golf balls and if you use add the code frieda Egg that's Frida Egg one word at checkout rap sodo will throw in another dozen golf balls for free.
That's twenty four free golf balls in total. So head to rapsodo dot com, use that promo code Frida Egg and check out the MLM two pro to play more golf this winter. All right, let's get to Henry shim All right, Henry shimp I, guess founder, co founder the Taie Podcast, a fellow takesman of golf Internet.
It's a pleasure to have you on. It was a pleasure. I spent this week or last week with you.
At Brambles for our event, and I thought it'd be fun to just check golf for a little bit. We played an event called the Vintage, which was fun. It was like an expansion of an event we had last year where we did a hickory match. This year it was pre two thousand and four equipment and we had four clubs and we played a match and you competed. You played golf at Stanford and you were playing equipment. You're dating, you know, I'm dating myself. I played this
equipment when I was in high scho cool. You had never played this equipment, this type of equipment, smaller heads, a little bit, smaller sweet spots. I would love, you know. I thought this was fascinating. We played our first match against each other. The idea of somebody playing equipment that they had never played before in a match. What what was it? What were your grant takeaways of playing the
equipment you played? You had a nine to seventy five j driver and then you had some some seventies played irons, which which seemed like they were a struggle.
Yeah, that's correct. For first of all, Andy, I appreciate you having me on. It's fun being together last week and fun to break it down now. And yeah, so the the equipment definitely quite a bit older than I was. The driver actually was from a I guess a teammate. You know, we were each representing clubs there. I rolled in with a putter, a sand wedge that I swear this sand wedge was six inches shorter than a standard sand wedge. I had to like get on my knees
to hit with this thing. A pitching wedge through two iron. The two iron like you know people use the term butter knife. I mean genuinely, the ball was six times larger than the head of this two iron. And then I originally had this it was like a per Simin sort of situation. And I got out there and looked at this thing, and I was like, I actually don't know if I'm gonna have a club that I think might go halfway straight that flies over two hundred yards.
And so fortunately that nine to seventy five j came in, which was really that was not that difficult to hit. I mean, certainly if you miss it, it's you're gonna lose some yards and it goes a bit offline, but it's not nearly like a Percimon where the ball might just go backwards if you don't hit the center of the club face. You know, one thing that comes to mind, I had a fleeting thought midway through the first round.
I hit an iron shot that was, you know, not the greatest, and I was like, man, I wonder what the I wonder what the li ankle is on these things. And I was just like, you know, sometimes ignorance is and things that are in your mind are going to hurt you more, so I decided to just throw that away. But yeah, it was. It was quite an interesting experience, but a ton of fun. I think Friday Golf Club, Well, he got the match, and I'll get it on the record now because you know, I'd rather say it myself
than you. You, you know, with your partner getting some some generous help from the pencil. Let's say, you guys did in fact take the match, so I'll give you the nod there. Uh, but you know, you guys picked a great golf course to do it on.
So you guys, you guys were you guys were talking about your visit at the Oval office, getting your with your your national championship rings from your years at Stanford, while while my partner was collecting as his dots and exactly destroying it, destroying it with six foot bar putts for verdie.
Which I have to say those. I mean, you know, there's kind of a way that people are supposed to look based on what they're handicap is over a six foot or to win a to win a hole, and I feel as if a five, a four or five handicap, you're supposed to see a couple of dicey strokes, and I mean your boy Kevin like dead center every single he looked like John Rahm with a putt to win each of those holes. So it really had me questioning
the stroke situation. But it's water under the bridge. It was a fun match, and uh, and here we are.
Well, I got to say after you left, I had I had a group of my college friends come play and we played, and I was I was dolling out a shot a hole and it was excruciating A shot a hole like it. It is so hard even against like they, you know, they just managed to make you know, like you're just always having to make better than par to win a hole like and oftentimes you're making birdies to have like that. That is an exhausting format. When you're giving up so many dots, you know, you're when
you're double dotting a lot of holes. That was that was challenging.
What is the worst number of strokes? Let's say that it's between one and eighteen. What's the worst number of strokes to give up? I have you know that? You said, fellow take Smith takes mean I have a take here. What do you think the worst number is to give up.
I mean, like eighteen is bad. I do feel like it depends what type of match.
It is, right.
I do think like if you play a singles match against a high handicap, I feel like you are immediately as a lower handicap, you are immediately going to just there's a real chance that they are just going to be completely overwhelmed by the moment and it's over before you even Like, as long as you hit a really good T shot off of one, it's over, Like you can end the match on the first T. I would I would say that I think like eight is a dangerous spot because that means that the player is like
pretty good.
So yeah, that's where I'm at. I think it's like, let's call it, you know, ten with plus or minus two basically because what I where I go there is it because I agree with you there on the someone might be overwhelmed by the moment, you know, if it's one or two or three, it's like you're just kind
of not that far apart. But what I don't like coming at it from the other side, if you were the person that's giving the strokes, which I think you and I are probably in that situation more often than not. I don't like not knowing where the strokes are coming, because I'm not one that's really like looking at the card and all that stuff. And you know, typically you also find cagy competitors. I will say your partner was one of them.
They'll cut they'll kind of just drag them through the mud here.
They'll let you know when they have, like you know, when you have a ten footer for birdie and they have twenty feet for par they're like, oh, by the way, I'm popping here, and you're like, you gotta be kidding me. So what you're telling me is now I don't even have a putt to win this thing. And so I like that if it's like two, you know, it just comes in a couple times. If it's eighteen, you just know where you're at. You're just giving a shot every
single time. But it's when you're like, oh god, now I have to give one. Oh now we're square. I don't like the uncertainty of win or the strokes coming. So anyway, we're going to talk the whole time here about dotting cards.
Well, I mean the other thing about this and match play. I think this is like a misnumber I think match play should be played at like sixty percent handicaps and this and now high handicappers are going to come at me and say, this is just low handicap, you know, professing. But what makes a low handicap a low handicap is
they don't make big numbers. What makes a high handicap a high handicap is that you make triples and quads in tens, and those things just destroy your rounds, destroy, just like mass destruction in stroke play and in match play.
That only counts for one.
One of the takes that I've had on handicapping. And tell me if you feel differently here, but if you play with someone who, let's say you're giving fewer than about six strokes, something that I've come to realize over the years is that what the handicapping is doing there. I've always had this take, you know, you say sixty
percent of handicap. I've always had this take that there should be a bunch of half shots given rather than full shots, which I know is kind of ticky tacky, and it doesn't really work within the way the game is. But if I'm playing someone who is up a two or three handicap and they're not getting a ton of shots,
but they are getting some. Basically what those call it five six however many shots are going to do is say you're that person's supposed to win certain holes, and then I'm supposed to win certain holes because handicapping is a bit convoluted where it has so much to do with the yardage. So they happen to get them on par fives, and then they don't get them on two
four par threes. And so what happens there is someone who's you know, a two or three, They're going to be in the hole for the most part on a par five, and all of a sudden, they're hitting the equivalent shot that I'm hitting from two to seventy from seventy yards. They're just supposed to get that hole. But then the script flips when we go into a long par three and we're both inting a three iron and
they're not getting a stroke. And so realistically, when they're only a small number of shots given, it feels like, hey, I just need to get those like hard par threes. They need to get those par fives, and then the match kind of washes in between. But it does feel like tight, like if it's sub five. It would honestly be a lot more fun to just give a half shot on like every other hole or something like that.
Yeah, I can see that. I do like I like small spreads. I feel good if I'm giving two or three shots, Like I feel like there's so much pressure on the person that if you're giving two or three shots. And I didn't anticipate talking about this for this length, but I feel like when you only get a couple pops, the gravity of the pop holes then often make them crumble on the popoles correct, if that makes sense.
They know they have to be de Yeah, it's like a huge deal.
And if you if you happen to sneak out and win one of the pop holes, it is like extra devastating.
It counts as two holes.
Almost psychologically, where they're like, I can't believe I just lost the hole that happened with me in one of our matches, the singles match, was I won two of the five pop poles and or maybe three of the five popoles. And when you do that, it's just like, well like I don't know if I could beat I can win you know, five or six of the non stroke hooles against somebody you know.
I don't know.
The matchplay psychology though, is like what makes the game special so much so and why there should be like way more match play in golf. Uh with Let's get back to the equipment. This is what I wanted to talk about. You you obviously you played at Stanford, you played, You've played in multiple usams, You've made match play at the US AM.
You know, you've played a very high level of golf.
What do you feel like when you were playing, particularly the Irons, How was your mindset different with this older equipment than the equipment that you've played the rest of your whole life.
Have you heard the term chaffua before for short game? Yeah, I feel like schaffua soft hands been an FU attitude applies to like, especially when you talk about like really legitimate golfers, actually legitimate golfers, Rory macelroy, guys like that. It applies to every part of the game. I mean, I think about, you know, some of the best shots that I've ever witnessed on TV or non TV, but like you know, Rory shot on fifteen or AUGUSTA this year,
obviously that comes to mind. You know, DJ's drive on the eighteenth and the twenty sixteen us open to me
and at a much much, much lesser level. Kind of feel like I can relate to that in terms of how I've thought about different shots I've had, Like there is that just like Okay, I'm I'm going to take that f you mentality, stare down the flag and just swing, because I feel that anyone who's really a single digit or better sort of golfer, it's amazing with where equipment has gone that contact take away, like a soft handed pitch shot where you're thinking about hitting a spinner or
a lie out of the rough. Contact is not a variable in the game of golf anymore. No, Like I think if you asked Rory McElroy how many times out of the fairway with a seven iron in his hand in the last ten years, has he actually thought about contact, I feel pretty confident in saying he would say, it's just not something I'm thinking about at all, unless it's in a divid or hitting a backfoot drat. I don't know,
but I just do not think people consider contact. Whereas you take an iron from the sixties that you know has a li angle that who knows what we're looking at here, and you just simply can't say, you know what, I'm just going to turn the shoulders extra hard here because I'm a little bit nervous, and the way to handle nerves is to just be an athlete and actually be even more aggressive and swing harder at the ball.
It's like, it's quite the opposite. Your mind really does first go to contact and just making a good clean move at it and trying to hit the ball out of the center because everything is just multiplied so massively. Where with a modern seven iron for a scratch golfer, let's say, you know, if they hit a not a terrible shot, but like a bottom coure tile shot somewhere in there, you know, instead of landing the ball within twenty feet of the whole, they probably land it within
fifty or sixty feet of the hole. Whereas with this old equipment, I mean, you can miss it by not all that much, and all of a sudden, like one seventy eight can become one p fifty two. And you know, Brambles, the course that we played was very generous to this, and that not that it's not a difficult golf course for it, because around the greens and sort of getting your ball to stop near the hole was certainly a difficulty, but there weren't all that many penalty shots to be taken.
I mean, imagine going out to a golf course where there are a lot of forced carries, you're hitting over water, they're creaks, there's o b all over the place. Then all of a sudden it's just magnified by God knows how much, because then you're just taking penalty shots left
and right. So I think from a psychological standpoint, that's the biggest thing I'd call out is rather than like being more athletic, being more aggressive anytime you're extra nervous or have you know, a longer shot in hand, whatever the case may be, it certainly goes the opposite way where you just focus on being smooth trying to make a contact. And you know, people people talk about the values of swinging a person and driver or something like that here and there, and when you do it, you
understand what that means. When when your mind goes back to just the let's make a clean move and try to hit the center of the face.
I just I notice it, like when you're looking down.
At the club, you your mentality with a modern driver, it's just like I'm gonna move my body in a manner to create the most explosion, and with it, with the smaller head, it starts to become like I'm going to move my body to ensure that I have the best chance to hit the center of the club face. And those are two very different thoughts, and there's like
way more care. Ironically, I think swinging the smaller, smaller headed clubs with some regularity, even if it's like once every couple months, dramatically helps the other one.
But what I've what I've seen and I think you hit on this.
Is that what with the modern clubs now, it doesn't feel like you miss distance wise, it's never been easier to hit the same distance because that sweet spot's just gotten so big and the the the off center hits have gotten so for the forgiveness is just through the roofs where where it's never been easier to hit shots pin high, and it's never been easier to hit drives like a similar distance no matter where you hit it
on the face. But when you introduce like older equipment, what it does is that forgiveness goes away and all of a sudden, like you have distance variability, which I mean that's how you get really far away from targets because you might miss. You know what you said, it might be fifty feet if you're but you're fifty feet pin high right as opposed to fifty feet right and fifteen yards short. You know, like that that compounding effect.
And I think you something you said it was like very illuminating, like in.
A way.
The best test of solid contact and the sport that remains is pitching.
Absolutely yeah, I mean going off of that, but also some of what you're saying there, like it shows you very quickly that I feel what manufacturers have really solved in the last fifty years or perhaps just come up with altogether, is a concept of gearing the number of shots that I hit, where you know, we've all hit plenty of golf balls in your life, and you sort of have an expectation at contact of what's going to happen.
You know, if you hit a four iron and you catch it on the toe basically the way it works these days that probably has to do with the club face being a little bit open at strike and therefore it's gonna start a little bit right and you caught it on the toe, and the concept of gearing is such that the fore ironm is gonna start a bit right, and it's gonna draw back, and maybe it flies seven yards shorter, but it spins a little bit less and then it chases out and all things being equal, the
shot turns out not too dissimilar, whereas back in the day these clubs, actually it was quite the opposite, where the fact that toe hits actually they start writing and go right is such a crazy concept, and it really is. It is illuminating on the way that people used to swing the club and what that meant for delivery. We talked about this, and you joke about this here and
there on pods. It's wild that not only is there less of a premium place these days on center contact, there are actually times when you're not even look looking for center contact. You know, you like to joke about Bob McIntyre, how he talks about towing his driver, and you know, we all know that a high toe is like, maybe I don't bet I'm nearly good enough to be trying to high toe the ball, but we know that that's like the best hit in the game. It takes
spin off of it. It launches a bit higher, it's going to turn over and it's going to go forever, Like that's the best t ball you can hit. I also feel like, like when I feel like I'm really really hitting my wedges properly, if I'm able to hit a seventy five yarder that's bouncy, not a super deep divot and off the toe, that's like the best shot you can hit, because it's that sort of low, tight draw that skips in there and then spins really nicely. And I'm not going to I had this ridiculous theory
in college. I used to joke with my teammates about that. I just I truly don't think I can go there
on this podcast. But basically what the theory was is that you actually don't want to hit a wedge shot out of the center of the face because you fly it the right distance and it spins too much, Whereas if you fin it a little bit, it spins less than it flies shorter you chunk it a little bit, it also flies shorter, spins less like center contact is actually these days, it's like too good to hit it out of the center, and it can actually be convenient to miss.
It well it's where if you can get really shallow with the wedges, it's like you know where your contact is coming in really shallow. It's so beneficial because you it's not going to spin that much. But then also and it comes out lower. But also if you catch it just a little thin, there's no repercussion, right, It just it's going to come out of a similar window the margin for error. It's like a different swing that
maximizes it. And like, yeah, like a lot of cases you don't want it, especially tough pins that if you miss it just a little bit and you get a little bit less spin, you can get up onto shelves a little bit easier.
Yeah. Absolutely. What do you think about This is something that I spoke with a few guys with at the event, and I think you and I might touched on it briefly. But what do you think about how newer equipment has informed pace of play? Obviously a big topic of conversation in the game today. Do you think it slowed things down sped it up?
This is this isn't a very I think this would be most people would say it increases the pace of play because of it helps players. I think it's done the opposite, because one of the things that I notice when I play older equipment is my missus just like get on the ground faster. They don't just like fly into oblivion. And when balls fly into oblivion, that's when you have really long searches for golf balls. And you know, the other aspect of it is that the equipment has
made modern golfers better. And what the what the knee jerk reaction of, Like, Okay, golfers have gotten better, agronomy has gotten so much.
Better in order to challenge golfers.
And I think like the biggest thing that slows down pace of play is green speeds and the effort to push green speeds. You know, if you I you know when I played growing up, like green speeds like you if you played on a ten, it was like fast, you know eleven. I remember there's a junior tournament in Illinois when I was like, you know, thirteen that everybody used to talk about they got their green stone eleven. Like now you play like a junior tournament and it's
like a big junior tournament. If they're going to talk about green speeds, it's gonna be a fifteen, you know. So that is all centered around combating technology in my opinion, and obviously there's there's advances in in agronomy, but like when your greens are ten or eleven, you can leave
putts dead. When they're fourteen or fifteen, you there is no such thing as just like leaving a thirty foot or two feet away, like they just run run away from you, and that those two footers turn into three or four footers all of a sudden.
Those take a lot more time. And so I think, like technology, like the misses.
When when the ball doesn't go as far, the misses aren't as big, so you don't look for as many golf balls.
Yeah, what do you think?
Yeah, you know the word that I had in my head all week playing this equipment, I'll dress it a little bit more, just directly on the equipment itself, because you're exactly right on how it's informed setups. But the word I had in my head all week was just analog, like you grab these putters. They didn't have lines, they didn't have dots, And I'll a lot of this stuff like like linear versus non linear putting, You kind of
can't split the difference. You either have a line on your potter, you have a line on your ball, you're seeing things with generally straight lines and trying to put that way or you're not. But if you don't have a line on the putter, but you do line the ball and you're trying to see linear but it doesn't really you can't really do it that way. And so with this old school equipment there's a little bit more of a sense of just like, hey, you got to throw it down, take a look and feel it out,
you know. Now, speaking on like iron play back in the day when it was more about just like hey, can you hit the center of the club or not, it just it felt for me like I wasn't thinking quite as much about like is a is it a three quarter seven iron with like a little cut that maybe takes a little off and spins a little extra and holds up into the wind? Or do I hit like a tight draw with less club or do I
do this? It was more of I could kind of hit any of these three clubs that are somewhere in the ballpark, but ultimately if I don't hit it, well, it's just not even close. So I found myself hitting a lot more where I was like the last shot went a little bit shorter, so I'll take extra here and swing a little easier shots don't. There are no nuclear shots. You don't just happen to hit one forever.
It's just not really how the old equipment worked. And so again, it's like, you know, when you take away the variable of contact as has been done today, it introduces like eleven different variables. And so that's why you see these guys. I mean, I think people can pace the play. I understand it, but I why people don't like it. But I also understand it from the other side. You know, when you're Scotty Scheffler like, and I don't.
I don't think Scotty is a particularly slow player, but I was going to say, when he's sitting there, when he's calculating eleven different things on an eight iron, it's because he's optimizing for like eleven different variables. These guys actually are that tuned. But you know, if they're just focused a little bit more on I just got to like fundamentally like hit this ball pretty well, as opposed
to knowing that that's the case. I personally felt like it took away a lot of the decision making and just made you say, line target club swing.
You know, yeah, I hear.
What you're saying is because your focus becomes more singular on just making solid contact rather than all the other things you do. Become more singularly focused on just solid contact.
I think.
One of the aspects of the game that never gets brought up in the technology debate that you brought up is the putter. Putters aren't so much easier to hit today than they were years ago. There's so much more forgiveness. You were using a very old blade putter and what you know, like if you don't hit that dead in the sweet spot on a lag putt, you're looking, you know,
it's an embarrassing putt. I think like today's putters are always, you know, fly under the radar of like how have we de skilled the game putters?
Yeah, I mean to that point, like there's there's basically no one that I can think of, hardly that putts with something even close to take away the exact putter itself, but putts in the style of of what it was like to put forty years ago. I mean, so like at the the Cameron Studio, I'm blanking on the guy's name. Have you ever been there before Andy to get fit and go through the whole deal.
I have not. I have not.
I've gone through a Putter fitting. I know how it works generally. Yeah, you know, it's it's wild. I think I think there's an important conversation point here.
A lot of of this.
Technology I think has been really good for like average players, but I don't think it's necessarily been good for the elite level of players in the the elite game and showcasing how talented players are.
Yeah, no, I think I think that's right. I mean, I was gonna say briefly on the like the fitting studio that they do, the guy who does it there, it's like it's like almost a one man operation when it comes to the fitting, and you know, he's seen every great stroke in the game, and it's kind of cool that the four if I'm not mistaken that he calls out or like Tiger Ricky Anthony Kim and can't lay are the four strokes that he looks at. And it's just like these guys simply do it differently. And
you know this has changed a little bit. Ricky's done some different stuff and AKA, I guess he is technically doing something these days, Andy, I'd be lying if I said I know what.
He's doing hutting incredibly too.
Yeah, exactly, we just don't know. I wouldn't know the stats. I you know, I haven't seen I can't say I have seen what he's what he's game in these days. But anyway, let's let's go back to you know, when these guys were, like early twenty is when you know, these strokes are on camera that he likes to use, and those guys use you know, basic blade putters that are more modern, but they stroke it in such a way that they didn't necessarily need all of this new technology.
But you know, kind of hearkening back to the pace of play. It's like, you know, I think about the way I putt and I can't say I do all this stuff anymore. Andy. I kind of I'm a little bit more of a just throw it down and let it rip these days sort of guy. But I mean, I've got the superstroke with a claw. I like, I'm a linear guy. I like to put the line on it and all of that stuff. Regardless of how quickly you go through it, it just simply slows the game down.
The ultimate version of this is and it's like, he's my favorite guy to watch putt and slowly but surely becoming maybe my favorite guy to watch play golf in general. Bryson Shambell, he does like the full thing, and I think he is the one that like, I just watch him and what comes to mind is just simply the standard deviation feels. And it's not that he's a fantastic putter.
It's not that he's necessarily the best putter out there, but it feels like he has eliminated the most variables, and it really does feel like it's just simply a product of how well did he go through his calculations, because I just don't see him miss putts that are, oh god, he just hit that way too hard, or he just missed the line by a mile, or I guess even more so, oh he just made a bad stroke.
It's much more of a sense of, hey, he just like he misread that by a ball and the pace was right and he just happened to miss the putt by a bit. But it has become such a calculated thing, and that goes all the way down to the equipment, where if you're just giving a little stick in a ball which is what it feels like using that old stuff. Like I immediately grab that putter you're referring to, and I was like, I can't claw this thing. I can't put a line down. I can't I can't hardly read putts,
like I'm gonna throw the ball down. I'm gonna look at the hole and not. I wasn't doing the heads up putting thing, but I'm gonna a look or two and just kind of let it fly. And I am not at all one that's going to advocate for Oh, that's how it should be, you know, like that's our soft to pace a play, because that's just simply not realistic with where the game is gone and all the R and D and all those things. That just wouldn't
be something realistic to say in my mind. But it is illuminating to play with that stuff and see what it looks like. It would be absolutely fascinating to see a match, like I mean, if we wanted to go down a PGA Tour rabbit hole on the product and just trying things in this new format of the PGA Tour, like do a match, do one of these one off Scotty Rory things and have them have them play. I mean, you know, sponsored by the Fried Egg Andy play with old stuff and let's see how but let's see what
those gets what it looks like out there. I don't think that they would have the yardage books out, you know, with the pencil and like writing down every single number. And maybe that's a product of it being just some little silly match, but I just can't imagine that it would look quite the same as someone.
You know, you played against a lot of the younger players on tour. You know, with this equipment. Do you think there are certain players that you know of that would would be better, be more rewarded, and then certain players that you know, maybe I wouldn't be thought of the way they are thought of now if if you know, I think for the most part, what we've talked about, if if clean contact was the ultimate reward.
Yeah, that's a really good question. I hadn't really thought about that. But for whatever reason, Colin wore Cow does seem to come to mind of a guy that it feels like he just he hits the ball and he just plays the game. You know, he's not been on his best form the last year or so, but everything with him is just like very proper. I feel like more Cow is a guy that would probably be moderately elevated with the game. You know, you and I had
this conversation when we were out at Brambles. I think it's easy to say, like, oh, you know, you give this driver to Rory and like, you know, the superpower's taken away. I think that's complete BS. I think he'd blow your mind with any any golf club you give him. And that's not just because there's a poster you can't quite see on my wall of Rory. Here's a funny one.
I think that's the It would have the opposite effect of Rory in terms of I think his superpower grows. I think so too, Yeah, because if you look at how much he used to gain early part of his career, drivers have gotten more forgiving over time. There are more high speed players than early in his career. But the other factor is, like he's gone from a one point four off the T to like a point six off
the T over the last ten years. And you think about that, the tense of a shot per round or so you know, and he he's diminished there, but he's still like a top fight player. But like a lot of that I think is the forgiveness of the driver's gotten so insane from twenty fourteen to twenty twenty five that you can swing harder with reckless abandon more reckless
abandoned than you could in twenty fourteen. Now there are, on the other hand, a lot more players that could swing at a high speed, which would you know, But I think that number would be a lot higher if the drivers were less forgiving.
Yeah, I will say this is kind of going just a little bit deeper perhaps on swing mechanics and like physics. I do believe that particularly with the driver, the older stuff gives rise to a hitting up on the ball, not down and be cutting the ball as opposed to drawing. I found that the draws it just gets like much much more dicey quickly. I think JT would be really
nice with the old equipment. I think the finesse in his game also, like you can't really hit those sort of finesse shots if you're not really consistently out of the middle the way that he's able to hit his wedges, and he seems to use tempo as a variable in his golf game that not a lot of guys do, and I think that the older equipment probably works better with that stuff the one that I had in my head that I really, I truly don't know what to
do with this. On one hand, I think Scotty finds the center of the face better than anybody in the game. I sometimes feel as if the way in which he does it, the way he finds the center, you don't know how it's going to happen, and I simply have no clue what to make of it. I think I would probably like, if you, if you maybe bet on it, I'd say good is good, and he'd probably beat people
by even more with the old equipment. But there's a possibility because I at least felt like, you know, sometimes say you get a little bit too steep with a seven iron or something like that, but you know, you still deliver the club pretty well and you're able to just like be a little bit steeper, take a bigger it, and you still had a really nice shot. Scotty seems
to do stuff like that a lot. It doesn't seem like it works very well with the old equipment, So that makes me think maybe that it could be a little strange to see him play with old stuff. But again, if I had to bet on, I would say that, you know, good just becomes better and he probably beats people by even more.
I mean, it seems like people are trying to spin up golf content ideas left and right.
The best ones are not.
Being explored, which is have these guys play with different eras of equipments. The most fascinating, you know, question in golf that remains unanswered is what would these different players look like?
Could we do a tournament that was that.
Obviously there's a lot of money and equipment and that's probably what's prohibiting all of this from happening, but it remains like.
A huge question.
All right, let's take a quick break and talk about our partner, Club Champion. They aren't going to get you dialed in on clubs of yesteryear, but what they can do is get you dialed in on clubs of today. All the forgiveness, all the benefits of scoring with the modern clubs. Club Champion is going to be the ones
that do that best. We're excited to have them as a partner again in twenty twenty five, and if you're looking to improve your game this year, Club Champion has the most highly trained fitters in the world and in the house university that trains every fitter.
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Manufacturers to stay up to date on all the latest innovations. Every store has sixty five brands. Over sixty five brands, which equates to nearly seventy thousand different head and chaft combinations. If you want to go check out Club Champion, you will get a free driver or iron fitting with a club purchase using the code Frida Egg at Club Champion dot com slash Frida Egg. All right, let's get back to Henry Shimp. I had I had you prepare a
couple other takes. I know you're you've got your golf takes. I had to prepare three takes to go with this conversation.
What let's hear of the three takes?
He's rapid succession or conversation?
No, no, no, okay, okay, so we can let's unpack each one.
I fear that this first one could we might take this thing to the two hour mark or something. But okay, okay, first one architecture.
I don't know if my voice can handle two hours.
Architecture oriented, So Andy, you are truly ground zero when it comes to the development of golf these days, and there's a lot of cool stuff going on. There's a lot of cool stuff that's been done in the last five to ten years. There's a lot of cool stuff that's going to happen in the next five to ten. This is partially wishful thinking, or perhaps where I just want to see the game go, the game of golf course development, partially where I think it will go, and
what we're already seeing to some degree. But the model for that was basically informed by sand hills and band and dunes. You could say the model for the last fifteen twenty years has been fine, sand doesn't matter how remote it is, find unbelievable property, tons of acres. If you build it, they will come. And there's been a lot of cool stuff that's come of that. Now. I don't know if we're in the sixth inning. This is
not financial advice for anybody. I don't know if we're in the sixth inning, eighth inning, or midway through the ninth on the state of the market. But I do not think we're in the second inning of a bull market. And so you're already starting to see some really neat projects come more urban, not purely urban, but closer to city centers. And I think that's contingency planning on if
a project doesn't do well. You know, the game in the last ten or so years has been, hey, just go deeper into super deep pockets and keep it afloat, because all of a sudden, if you have a really remote project that people can't travel to and they're not interested in because of the golf course, you don't really get to solve that by going half public or something of that nature, especially if it's super remote. But if you keep it closer to the city centers, then you
know you have a better opportunity there. So I think that we're going to continue to see more of that. A project like Rodeo Dunes that's only forty five minutes outside of Denver. You know, there's some things in Texas. I don't know how much of these projects are being shared yet, so I'll just leave them incognito. But some things that are pretty close to the city centers as opposed to super far away, and you know, it gives
me hope that maybe more of that will happen. I think, you know, some of the architects that are starting to become much more in vogue the ocms of the world, Kyle Franz. You know OCM for example, like being on Australian guys those Melbourne sand Belt courses. They get a golf course in a range one hundred and twenty acres and a lot of the stuff that's been in the game the last ten years plus is it's built on
thousands of acres. And so anyway, I'll close this one out by saying, I would love to see a push to you know, the first line item. I've done a little bit of real estate development in my days. If the first line item on the budget is more so allocated to the land, a little bit more expensive land closer to the city centers, something that's a bit more accessible on smaller acreage, is where I think the development world could be going.
Yeah, I think this is well.
I think we have to look at the whole market as a you know, kind of a it's a bell curve, right and you have the most courses in the middle, and if you use like just Tom Doaks scale of zero through ten, the most courses are like threes and fours. And right now, with the way like land costs and where great sites are for the most part, they're remote. Where sites are great sites are available, and I think
people are like gung ho, I'm building. You know, if you're going to spend the amount of capital to build a golf course, you want to build a nine or ten, or at least believe you have the opportunity to build a nine or a ten. And I think like a lot of that comes down to, like a great site, but great sites for the most part, and there are there are absolutely exceptions to this rule. Great sites for
the most part are far away. You know, that's where you're going to be able to find one thousand acres of land, sand dunes, and and you know, sometimes they're closer. I think what's interesting is that there's a hole in the market for America in general, could use like American golf would be so out of this world if you could just wave your magic wand and add three hundred sixes or sevens to within market major metro markets, and that's totally feasible with the golf courses that exist right now.
So to me, one of the things I think about is like people have become so die hard devoted to like finding the greatest site in the world, and they're building like exceptional golf courses. I think I was talking with somebody recently about a new golf course, Hey, where do you think this is? And they were talking about the world or the US Top one hundred, and I was like, yeah, But like in the last ten years, there's probably been thirty golf courses built that are American
Top one hundred contenders. So the bar for the top one hundred in America has gone up significantly because of all the new development. And I think like it goes a little under the radar, like how good some of these golf courses are. You know, We've almost become numb to it. And it's you have these Sacred Cows, which are historically the the you know, the greatest golf courses
in America. Everybody knows them. They aren't moving out of their spots, if you like the rankings, They are not going anywhere, right, Like, nobody's gonna say that there are better baseball stadiums than Fenway and Wrigley.
Nobody's going to say.
That they're just you know, pts shrugging. He believes otherwise, But nobody's going after the Sacred Cows. And it's the same with golf. And I think like the reality is is it's going to be exceptionally hard, exceptionally hard to build a top thirty golf course in America because of the competition, right, like you're starting to knock out, like
the places you're knocking out. Is like not like you have to build a golf course that's better than Garden City, but you also have to eclipse the history, Like the golf course has to be so much better to eclipse the golf course plus.
The history of these places.
So I think like where there's like a genuine hole in the market is like, well, there's like a huge, huge need for really good golf and really good golf architecture, but not exceptional can be built on any type of site.
Like all you need is.
Clever golf architecture, which you know, the modern architect at this point, like we've never seen such educated and talent as many talented golf architects as now. And I think that to me is what you know, a lot of the projects I'm most interested in. I think they'm interested in some of the far flowing destinations like and how great they could be. But to me, what's more interesting is like, how how do we get more good golf because the vast majority of the golf in America is not good?
Like from a golf architecture standpoint, how.
Do we get more good golf that's readily accessible to the general public in major metro markets. Yeah, like people poo poo like sixes on based off of Tom Dooks scale.
But if you outside of.
If you took out New York and maybe Philadelphia, in almost every other city, a top ten golf course in that city is a six.
I really like the way you're putting it with like putting them on the bell curve. What you're trying to accomplish. Everyone obviously is trying to They're trying to do a ten. They want a nine or a ten. And that's why I think we we pursue these far flung destinations. It's a really interesting concept to say. So I'll go two really specific sites. I think you'll know both of them.
I've always had in my mind like you could do and you could absolutely do an eight, not as like a restoration, not as a renovation, but like a full blown by the land redo the golf course at now I'm blanking on my two sites, the one in Charleston that's very low Patriots Point. You can do an unbelievable in town golf course there. And have you ever seen Crystal Springs, Like halfway between San Francisco and Palo Alto area,
Crystal Springs like this unbelievable site. It's a it's a twenty seven dollars or something municipal that like sits right up above the bay. It's it's unbelievable. It's sort of across the way from Halfman Bay. Two very specific but random sites. But you know, it'd be really interesting to say, hey, let's do some great stuff urban and try to print
some sevens and eights, like really really good stuff. And you know, rather than having to allocate so much towards all the new stuff and buildings and all of those things, take the same or possibly less capital and simply apply it to other things with a little bit different, you know, a little bit different agenda. Now, Andy, you and I, if we had nine figures to go through at golf course, you and I could just go do this. But here we are. So that's why we're on a podcast talking about takes.
That's why we get to talk about it.
And not do it exactly. Now, should that take us to take number two?
Yeah?
Take numbers, take number two. This is like seventy five percent serious, maybe even more. To be honest with you, I've only watched one break fifty. It was the most recent. I think we're going to see We're going to see Steph get more than ten PGA Tour starts, and I'm here for it if he does. And well, I want to say I was extremely impressed with Steph's game, Like
it's just good. He's one of the few guys that and you know you're in the barrier, you've probably seen him swing live before I've gotten the chance of time or two, and it's like he's one of those guys that I would say a lot of professional athletes. Tom Brady is one that comes to mind. Swing's actually pretty good and the product is like really really horrific. Steph. The swing doesn't blow you away, but he hit some shots.
But I think, particularly with the PGA Tour being a for profit entity, like when he first started getting those sponsors exemptions to the Stonebray thing, the Cornferry event, I was like, what on earth are we doing here? I was kind of a like, hey, there's a guy out fighting for his job, which is still the case. But when we're when we're talking dollars and cents, it makes
a lot of sense spelled another way. And with the PGA Tour being for profit, if he continues to do stuff like break fifties on YouTube, it does probably make sense to happen. And unless he goes out and starts shooting nineties, which he certainly could, but I think that that would be realistic. So again, seventy five eighty percent serious, We're going to see some stuff.
I don't disagree. I'm old enough to remember the Tony Romo era.
Oh goodness that came to mind.
Yeah, I mean, and they came hard and fast, and like you know, I know Tony Romo is a great Cowboys starter. Maybe not great, but like, you know, a beloved starter for the you're talking with Steph Curry, like all time superstar pantheon of NBA players, you know, which is you know, the most recognizable super star driven league and like genuinely like beloved by everybody that's ever encountered the man. I don't I don't disagree. I think ten's
on the table. I wouldn't be surprised if he made cuts like you think about the Stonebrak thing he did this in twenty seventeen.
Four, Like that is like that's really it's really really good. I mean, I'll say this that there's a you know, some people probably watched that video and said, I don't know that that Bryson played any better than Steph. If you right now, if Steph and Bryson both pegged it together first round of the US Open at Shnnacock and and Bryson lay's thirteen shots out no fifteen shots, I'm hammering Bryson like in a US Open setting on a real like it's it's gonna be. This is This is
true regardless of the level of the game. Like if if a scratch and a ten or scratching a five, go play a muni, who knows what might happen If a scratch in a five go play Shinnecock. The scratch with giving ten is going to hammer them.
But yes, you know.
The Black Desert, which I know people have taken to and I think it's cool event as well, But an event like that or there, you know, there are a million examples we can go with here, Like they Craig
Ranch like they can they can use the boost. I mean, shoot, even even though the I don't know what they're calling it these days, but whatever's played at Kuaile Hollow, even though that's always been the truest I guess, even though that's the you know, even an elevated event, which I guess that that probably goes a little too far here, but that's always been let's just call it like a you know, upper level PGA Tour event. Like Steph's a
Charlotte guy. Put him in. I mean, you're gonna sell the tickets.
The the issue with this from a competitive standpoint is that Steph's going to get all these starts when he's forty years old. Yeah, and I would have been interested, and you know, you can't do this because he was one of the greatest basketball players ever.
He did the right thing.
I would I would genuinely be interested in. Like you know, it's the divergent path. Like everybody talks about if Lebron played football, what would you have been? You know, I don't know if Lebron would have liked to getten hit So that's like a big, you know, question mark in the Lebron football camp, But like, what would Steph's career in golf look like if you legitimately tried. I don't, I don't know. I think he I'm interested to see. I could see him playing amateur stuff? Would he can
he become a midam menace? Is he good enough to be a mid aam menace?
So we'll close it out here. That's exactly where I was going to go, kind of zagging from the whole PGA tour starts thing like when I watch stuff, I'll go back to the whole upset that he's he'll.
Get his a.
Yeah, now we're going into status stuff. But like I'll go back to the whole Hey, like if he's playing Rory and Bryce in big events, like they're they're going to run nine circles around the guy and there are no two ways about that. I don't care how much time he puts into it. That's just that's just the fact of the matter. But I watch him and say, like, could he, you know, make a us am and mid am and like maybe you know, maybe do some stuff
I could. I could be convinced of that, So I would I would rather see him do that than you know, kind of go because I mean, could he make a cut, Like you said, that's that's within the realm of possibilities, but it's still very unlikely. I think it would be more fun, and I mean, shoot, it would be more fun for like amateur players. You know, it'd be pretty darnk cool if he's out there pegging in the Western amateur like, because Romo used to do that, which is
like cool, but it's not. It's just not Steph. And I know that there's some like there's some cowboys fans that are gonna think that's ridiculous.
But you know, dude, I used to play the will County Am in Chicago South South Side of Chicago in April and Tony Romo would play in it.
It was wild.
You're talking about County Am and Tony Romo would play and there'd be like hordes of cowboy fans out watching him.
Yeah, it's like this was I'm in my like mid twenties.
Charlie Woods anyway, So Steph, I think it's uh, I guess it's just like it has me. It has me curious after seeing him put like real stuff on tape because that was like, uh, no two ways about it. It was YouTube golf. The guy hit some shots and it you know, it made me. He's talked about the whole Hey, I want to go lean into it when I'm done playing basketball. And I've known that, like the guy can play a bit. But I was like, ah, you know,
that's that's cute. But this is this is something I'm monitoring. I'm monitoring the stuff situation.
Also, the the Corn Faery Tour start was super incredible, like like in the seventy four to seventy.
Four middle career. Yeah, this is not like Jordan rides the bus, went and took a sabbatical to focus on golf. This is like middle of winning NBA championships, shooting real scores out there.
Yeah, like not not embarrassing, and I think, like that's that's the thing like made And it wasn't like sixteen parts, Like he made birdies every round. That's like I think one of the barometers of like you know, like he created scoring opportunities for himself. And I'd be I'll be really curious. I My question is does he carve out.
The time to do the amateur stuff.
I think he might just like have too many obligations in life to really give it a go, yeah, yeah, it's what's your last one?
All right, final thing here, Andy, I'm going to double preface this one and say, A. I really want to be wrong about this take and b. Tiger Woods has made me cry more in my adult life than anything. And this is globally, this is not just sports. But we sit here and talk about the Ryder Cup conundrum and how the US we just have this like, oh, he was a major champion, so he's captain. You know,
he's a great players, he's a captain. And then we just completely own goal ourselves and say, well, the savior to this all is for Tiger to be the captain. Like, in the same sentence, someone says, what are we doing just because he won two majors? ZJ was the captain? He was the worst captain of all time. Yeah, so we've got to get this straight. We've got to get Tiger to do twenty seven. And I'm like that it doesn't quite compute in my mind. So, like I said,
I want to be wrong. I love Tiger Woods, but I just don't know if that is quite making sense in my mind that just because he was the greatest player of all time that he's going to be it. I guess if you look at the Luke model, which feels like it has become a model, this doesn't exactly feel completely analogous.
Oh, I think Luke Donald is like a unicorn. People are like, use the Luke model. He was number one in the world, but he was a thoughtful number one because how he had to get to number one was different than everybody else, which is like just relying on
like pure physical traits. And Luke Donald was an exceptionally talented player, but he got there by using his using analytics to realize, like I have to maximize my approach short game and putting, and he did it over a two year window where he became just out of this world. If you go back and look at the data on his approach play, short game, and putting, like out of this world. You know, he was basically like every year for a couple of years, it was like four to
third second, you know, in those categories. And he's the unicorn in this and you know, Tiger is going to get it because people are, oh, he's a tactician, you know Call of Duty, like he loves playing Call.
Of Duty strategy.
He obviously was an exceptionally smart player on top of how talented he was with moving targets and all of that. I will say something I noticed in his return to golf. For a period of return to golf, he was ultra conservative off the tee, Like, you know, he was someone that did not like I don't I think he probably like laughed at people that were like, hey, hit driver, you have like such an advantage if you hit driver here.
He's like, no, we hit iron here, you know. And I could see him looking at data.
That somebody gave him of optimal pairings and he's just like, no, this doesn't work. The other aspect of Tiger as a right like he was never a great Ryder Cup player. No, you know, my entire life lifetime was marred with like Tiger, who could that we can't figure out who to pair with Tiger? Like Tiger's disappointing at the Ryder Cup. And I'm I'm just I don't know, I don't know if
if he's always cracked up to be. I'm a big believer in you know, the better coaches in almost every sport were not uber successful players exactly the oftentimes the best analysts, like look at Brandal Randall agree, disagree. I know there's a lot of people that dislike him. I mean Brandal, and I don't see ey'd eye on a
lot of things, But damn I respect Brandal. I mean the guys maasball tape, that's sure for twenty plus years now, and he was a nothing burger PGA tour player, and I don't think it's disrespectful to say that he made it to the mountaintop. He was a great college player, he won the Beef, the Open. But you know what he does, he puts in the fricking work. And the problem with Tiger as your captain is Tiger has a lot go even though he's not playing. Tiger's got a
lot of stuff going on in his life. And you know that's foundation stuff, design stuff, Like you need somebody who can devote their life for two years to the process of being a Ryder Cup captain and all that goes into it, and thinking about the championship, talking to a lot of smart people, not using those people as like the Bible for various things, but rather like taking things from all of them. Is kind of similar to go to golf architecture as the way Crump put together
Pine Valley. He brought in all the smartest minds on golf course design, had him come out, talked to all of them and used little pieces of everybody's work. And that's what you need to do if you're the Ryder Cup captain is you need to assemble a very talented team of people and consultants or whatever you want to call them. Consultants probably the wrong term because then they're probably.
Just stealing from you. Sorry, consultants everywhere.
But you you bring, you enlist a lot of smart people and you listen and you take the time to hypothesize and come up with your own strategy. But like it requires a thoughtful person with a lot of time to have that super success. And it ain't Kegan Bradley who spent two years trying to make the team. It's not Zach Johnson who lacked the super thought fullness part
of it, and as Zach Tiger was. Because I think Tiger's thoughtful enough, I just don't think he has the time available to devote to make really thoughtful decisions that the other side's are doing.
The way I see, you know a ton of great points there, the way I would see it working working as in The way that it could work out positively is if someone said to Tiger, you're the captain. You know that you already have all the respect of the players. They want to run through a wall for you, et cetera, et cetera. What we want you to do is think about, Okay, what separated you in your career from a preparation standpoint.
Are what are the behind the scenes things no bad jokes here, that you were doing that helped you be better than everybody else at the game of golf. The way that Zach has seemingly thought excuse me not Zach, the way that Luke has thought about every aspect of what it takes to perform and go lean into that stuff, and then when it comes to everything else, just you can sign it if you'd like, but let other people focus on it. And I actually I think Tiger I
have heard some things. I'm sure you've heard a lot more Andy, but when it comes to how he's been involved with I don't know what they're calling it, but the board, you know, these negotiations, I've heard really positive things on. He is a guy that wants to say, hey, like you understand the business of sport at a deeper level than I do, help me understand it better. And
he is a question asker. He's someone that he by definition has a massive ego, but I think he equally can let the ego down in the right settings to you know, try to be a great captain. So it could work, But I don't I don't have faith. Maybe where I would go is then I don't have any
faith whatsoever in the US Ryder Cup team system. To approach it that way, they would say, Tiger, the rains are yours, you're the magic man, Go go wave the wand in which case I think we're just as well off with don right just captaining the ships.
It wouldn't be crazy.
That might mean it's Uh, it's been a it's been a good chat.
Yeah. Uh, Henry.
People can find you in your podcast, the Tai podcast. Uh, it's on wherever you get your podcasts. Big thanks for coming chatting. It was fun, fun spend some time with you this week at Brambles And Uh, I'm excited to give my my voice a rest here.
Yeah.
Thanks Andy, And uh we'll be back for the Vintage next year. Look forward to pegging it again with those clubs. And you know, I don't know if we said it Team Frida Egg did, did you know? Take They took the crown, So.
Of course, Correer, you guys can work on your roster, you know, and maybe Enlissa captain next year and start to start to plan, plan, plan, now.
That's the goal. Thanks Andy, cheers.
All right, big thanks for listening to another episode of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am once again very sorry for my voice which was causing me some problems during this episode.
Big thanks for PJA. That was a bigger lift than usual.
I had to cut out a lot of coughing and there, and I'm gonna stop talking now because it hurts, and we'll talk to you next week. Thanks again for listening to the show.