I miss the 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 Friday Bride Egg, Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the course. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Egg Podcast. Today, I'm joined by PGA Tour Champions Star and former PGA Tour winner Paul Paul. Thanks for coming on.
Good Thanks. Star kind of caught me off guard, but Journeyman been more the title, but I'll pick Star for this time.
Hey, you got some wins on the Champions Store.
I do have a I do have a couple.
Yeah, you know, former assistant Ryder Cup Captain. They don't they don't give that out to anyway.
Well, you know, I can base the argument that the fact that I was an assistant Ryder company belies that argument. But yeah, yeah, Corey saw something that nobody else saw that was quite the experience.
So to kick things off, I think you're you're most known for your fifty nine and I'm I want to know about what went on, you know, the night before the preceedings to the fifty nine. You know, was there anything that was different than a usual you know night before a tournament.
No, not really, And i'd really been actually been struggling a little bit. I think I'd missed three cuts in a row prior to and you know, it was going through my usual prep that week and then Wednesday in the program on on Wednesday morning, and as soon as we got done, you know, the skies opened up, and I mean it rained so hard. I remember I was trying to go to the I think I was trying to go to a store and you could get out of your car because it was flooding everything. And so,
you know, normally you'd be practicing Wednesday afternoon. That was a Wednesday. I knew he just kind of watched it at the hotel and watched it rain, which obviously led to little easier scoring conditions the next day. But no, nothing, nothing. I had no expectations. Zero.
Yeah, it's Golf's the funny game. And uh I remember David Devall saying that he like never hit balls a lot because when he was struggling, he didn't want to hit balls, and when he was hitting it good, he didn't want to hit balls to, you know, lose rhythm. Was that the type of yeah, I don't.
I tend to I have, you know, if I'm really struggling sometimes look at my Caddy will talk about going to the range and having to purge and just trying to get all bet swings out. But I do think
there's you know it. I tend to try to do a lot of reflection, so I think, you know, some of the best practice that get done is kind of sitting down, like I said, like that Wednesday or it rained, and you can kind of think, hey, I've been struggling, why I've been struggling, And sometimes you know that self analysis is an important part of it, and I tend
to do that a lot too. Having said that, there are times when you just feel lost, and there are plenty of times in the range where I've hit it that and just said, you know what, I don't need to hit it. I don't. I'm gonna go practice something else.
This is awful or even putty it kept on. You throw down a ball at four feet and try to make ten in a row, and you can't make one in a row, and you you know, sometimes the best thing you can do is just you know, hey, today's not your day, Tomorrow's another day.
Yeah, I think everybody's been there with like the shot cut.
It happens, Yeah, it happens. You know, your linement gets a little squirrely and something something's just not registering for whatever reason. Maybe you you know, you sat, you slept funny that night, and you're hips get a little owl. Who knows. So there are there are things that happen in our sport, and sometimes we tend to especially younger guys.
I knows, I've gotten older hopefully experience sometimes you can you can't kind of practice yourself into a funk, and sometimes you just need to say, step step back, take a look, take a breath, and say to level their day, we'll go back to work.
So as your perspective on just the game. And you know, getting ready for tournaments changed a lot over your career.
Yeah, again that goes back to experience. I'll never forget. I was, I don't know, middle of my career playing Hartford and i'd had a really good tuesday. I played a practice round and really really had a good couple you know, went to the range and really hit the ball, really really happened with everything. You know, went to the chipping you work on a short day and chipping everything in. I went to the putting rain and making thirty footers.
I remember talking to John Wood, who's a caddie out there. I think he's working for Matt Kotcher now and going then you know, hey, this has been kind of you know, I can't I don't know what to practice now, I'm making everything, I'm chipping in and I'm picnic good, and he goes, let's just go home. Yeah, you've done, You're good.
And then again the same thing happened. I was at the prime got ready down, so I actually took thirty six hours, didn't touch a club, went out a shot, out't know ten or eleven under for the first two days. And it's kind of funny how this concept of of over practicing. I have five hours of daylight. I need to use that. And sometimes, as a younger player get
caught into this. I need to I need to work, and sometimes the best thing you can do is say, hey, things are good, let's go relax and get ready.
H I think I find that in my older age. You know, I played amateur stuff, but I've as I've gotten older, I practiced way, way, way less, and it seems like I almost better than I was when I practice all the time outside of it.
But I think part of that, part of that scouse were better. Part of that Scouds were better at practicing. We get more focused on our practice. We kind of said that you get you get you get good at setting goals your practice, you get good at you know, just getting better at practicing. You can get more done in an hour when you're at my age now that I could get done that, you know, two or three hours when I was twenty five. They really know I was doing. And so I've gotten a better idea of
what it takes and how to play well. What I need to do. What are what are my strengths? That self evaluation issue that you need to have if you're going to get better, I mean on a self evaluation is something that every I don't care what your whether, you don't care what you do for a living, you need to have that. And sometimes it's you think and need to go to work, but sometimes hey, things are good, you need to go rest and be ready to go apply.
What in terms of like self evaluation, it had how much has stats changed the way you can do that.
You know the problem with golf stats is they tend to be intermixed to some extent. Now they have these new ones. It's these the engineers that come up with about strokes, game cutting and driving and whatnot, and I'm not sure how they work. I'll be honest with you. There was something someone had told me. I don't know if it's true or not that that when I shot fifty nine, I had like the greatest stroke screen putting around and they had ever measured. I don't know if
that was durious of that time. I don't know if that was true or not. And I don't know if you even find that out. But the problem you have with some of the staffs that's take you know, you know, say putts per green and regulation. You know, if I had a good drive in the ferway and hold my whole five iron, I have zero puts for green and reulation in the course of this tour. I'm the best potter on tour. That seems odd. I haven't putted, you know.
You know bunkers, you know sand saves. You know, if I hit a three feet and miss it, my sand game and I'm forty two percent. That doesn't mean I need to work on my standing any work on my three footers. There's a lot of so there's a lot of intermingling, and after that the evaluation actually kind of I would actually say the opposite. You need to be enough self aware about yourself and again to you know, know thyself is probably the best piece of advice you
could give a young players. Know who you are and you know what you can do, and against evaluate. But if I go out and look at the stats and seven forty Sam says, there's there's a deeper deal there that you need to dive into. And but again, if a player can place for six months and can't realize what he's struggling with, then that's that's another set of problems.
Yeah. I think you see a lot of times when when players try and like you know, they have a lot of success and then they try and you know, you know Martin Kaimer famously, I think he was trying to add a fade or a draw. I think it was a draw for Augusta a draw, yeah, right, And uh, you know Luke Donald, you know, went on a quest for more distance when he was world number one, did you ever have anything like in your career where you tried to implement something and it it just was the wrong move.
Now, we never really went down that path as on how I evaluated myself. I take the loose. I can't. I can't you know, for me to be you know, Martin Kimer, when you played bad, was a better player than I was. Let alone, when he played good, he didn't choose Yeah, not yet anyway. The lou Donald issues is though again got the number one in the world. That's that's a stratosphere that I never even looked at, but he looked at it and try to get more length.
And that's a part of That's an age. He's thirties, in his thirties, and he's looking at how the game is changing. You know, I've always been a short hitter. Kind of my last ten years on tour, I was in the bottom ten percent in distance, and I never really tried to hit it farther. I said, well, I'm never going to hit it farther or he's not significant. I always tried to figure out way to hit straighter.
I said, if I'm going to hit it, if you're going to drive it short, you have to drive it straight. I mean, if you're in short and cruk that you know that's again that's a whole other set of problems that I that I so I never tried to to make to fix the things that I think maybe deficiencies. I tried to make my strength stronger. I was always kind of way I looked at it improving my game. For me to be successful, I need to drive the ball in the fairway and you need to make potts.
If I do those two things, I'm probably gonna be okay. And I always felt that that's kind of goes back to that evaluation. I remember Ry McElroy saying something kind of similar, saying that you know, he had a weakness, and I don't know what. Be honestly, I don't know what Rory mcroy's weaknesses are, as I haven't really seen them. Saying healthy seems to be his biggest problem playing soccer, probably maybe not high in the list of things he
should do. But he mentioned that he didn't want his weakness was X. He said, I don't want to spend so much time trying to make X better that I lose my strength. And I thought that was a very profound thing to say. His strength is driving a golf ball and long and reasonably straight, and that's how he when he does that, he's very difficult to beat. And I'm the same I need to drive the ball straight
and I need to make putts. And so that's where the bast majority of my of my thought process goes, not trying to fix what, you know, deficiencies I might have. And obviously, if I'm fat hooking five irons, I'm gonna go figure out why. But I mean, if I if I'm more comfortable hitting a draw, I see no reason
to work on the faith. If that that, to me, that would be I would need to have everything else in such good shape that to where I would do that make that kind of that kind of change would have to be you know, I'd have to be in a much better in a great place.
Zach Blair who once said to me and and Zach is, despite what he says he's one of the shorter hitters. He always says, you know, I'm one of the longest hits. Zach Blair, younger guy.
Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, yeah.
He uh he's a shorter hitter, but he you know, he hits it really straight. He found himself, he hits He hits driver almost everywhere on tour. Did you find that much like hitting a straight you know, on tighter holes? Hitting driver gave you.
A yeah to some extent? To some extent, yeah, I mean to me, if guys who drive it reasonably straight and who are in the top safe twenty and driving accuracy tend to hit driver more because they're more comfortable hitting dr I think I hit my driver straight and I hit my three with off the tea. I definitely think i'd hit my driver straight and I hit you know, for what or a long or a hybrid off the tea is. It's just it just to me, unless there's
some reasons, there's a really compelling reason. You get holes where you know, you out there two hundred and fifty yards and it becomes twenty yards alive with the hazards and you're gonna lay up obviously, But generally I hit my driver just just straight as anything else. And again it goes back to what I said before. If I'm
not driving it good, it really doesn't matter. So if we've got a fairway that's thirty yards wide with trouble, I'm not hitting driver into that fairway to the vast joring at the time, I'm probably not having a good week anyways, good.
Way to look at it.
But yeah, I mean again, you live by this and die by the sort of a little bit, and and you said these are things that I generally need to do. Now you can obviously get that's a that's a big long term concept. There are rounds where you kind of to drivers not feeling good and you're just getting it to getting it in the house to survive that round and get to the range and figure out why you're
not doing whatever you need to do. There are times and again you get a little bit out of whack and you have to kind of way to fix that a little bit. And so you will, I will manipulate the round or am I hit three woods or whatever just to get the ball in play and get it on the green and get that get through that round as little damage as possible. That happens. But on a big from a big picture standpoint, you know, my strength is driving it straight.
So with your career, like one of the you know, uh, I guess a stereotype for Californians and Florida Philoridians is that Californians don't play well in Florida, and Floridians don't play well in California. But you know two of your best tournaments happened in Florida. You know it was it? Did you just buck the trend? Or is that just a you know, a a not a real thing.
I think it's again as experienced. The first time I took a look at Bermuda grass, to me, it was like, you know, I couldn't figure out how your tail of what was going on there, But you know I got to I got through that. I would argue that the bigger problem is going from Florida to Californian putting in Polana, then going from California to Florida and learning how to put on Maria to Brina grass. Now, to me, is much more consistent. You can kind of if you spend
some time and get some experience. It's it's to me, it's Bermuda tends to be a much better, more consistent putting surface than Californian struggle on Polana too at times. And but uh, going from a place where you know, you watch the at and T and that's the way you've got reasonably you got you got tough saying tough soil conditions to grow grass, and you got pumping grains and they got quick, and you know, you just have
to accept that. Some of those courses Tory Pines as an example too, where you're going to miss a couple of three footers during the week even when you hit good potts. That's not the case in Florida. You can get going in Bermuda grass. I don't care who you are. The good puts they generally go in. And it's not a function of it's a function of dealing with that situation. California is just deal with missing three footers every once
in a while when they hit good pots. In Florida, if you get the Marina grass is in good shape and you hit a good putt, they generally go in. That isn't the case on Polanna sometimes.
Yeah, I lived in la and spent a lot of late afternoons playing Rancho Park, which, yeah, those things got pretty bumpy.
And from yeah, I grew up in a recreation park and you play in the afternoon bumpy Polana. It's yeah, it's a test of your patient. So you know, you go from you know, and when you go to Florida and we play wherever. We'll play at Boca Ratona and we'll play in Naples. The greens are perfect. They're permuta, but they're perfect if I hit a four footer on
the line that's read correctly and it goes in. I've had plenty of four footers a pebble Beach or Riviera or Tory Pines, and I thought I hit a pretty good pet on the rune. I was trying to hit it and it just kind of didn't go in. That happens.
It's well, you know, people talk about like agronomy being a huge thing that's like gone through a big, you know, advancement in the game over the last twenty years. Having had a career that spanned like you know, you know a long time, have you is that you know, would you say that's really, you know, changed the game.
I think it's changed the professional game. I can't I can't speak for cause we're going in a golf course. They're spending a lot of time to get the golf course hit ready. I mean, a normal golf club doesn't have that kind of money to spend that they that say a tournament site is going to spend to keep the course in tour shape. But having said that, yeah, I mean the golf course conditioning has lowered scores. The fairies
are better. The grasses that need less water and can stay so you know, the greens are smoother and stay smooth longer. Soft spikes of the know, if you have firm greens, you know you don't get a lot of rain. Soft spikes are make I think make a big difference over over metal spikes, which is this is what on the PJA Tour, capty more than twenty five percent of the guys that wearing metal spikes anymore. And with firm greens that makes a big difference, especially for the guys
playing and say later in the afternoon. But agronomy has made a big I think agronomy is is a big part of why the golf scoring is so much better people. You know, if you watch major champions We played the the Open Championship at Turnberry the year that Watson lost in the playoff, and I'm playing pressure with Kevin Sutherland.
We played really we were playing like in the We're both playing at four o'clock on Thursday, so we played like at three o'clock in the afternoon, two o'clock in the afternoon on Wednesday as a practice round, and we got done and the superintendent was on the eighteenth green and we were just stunned by how good the greens were. And and you know, and this is seven o'clock in the afternoon. This is the little last guys. You one hundred and fifty guys that played, and they hadn't even
moted yet. And it was perfect. I mean, it was absolutely perfect. And you know, if you if you read the green right from twenty feet and hit the butt, you're making it. There nothing to keep the ball. I don't know if that was the case twenty five years ago.
Yeah, with the Champions story, you know, as the pen the setups are as I understand it a little bit more benign with pins more in the middle. Does it make it more of a putting contest?
I wouldn't necessarily. I think that, you know, our pins are all going to be four or five from the edge, Like the difference is probably more length. You know, we're playing golf courses that are between sixty nine and seventy two or three. Well, the PJ Tour is playing between seventy two or three and I'm assuming almost eight thousand now I think that's a bigger difference, and we're probably playing we're playing golf courses that are that are take
away are majors. But you know, let's take the We just played the Schwab Cup Championship at a Phoenix country, but we basically played it. The member wanted to put their golf course in the best possible shape they had for their member, guests or whatever. That's basically what we're playing. We're playing you know, rough penal but not unplayable. Greens are perfect. They're trying to get you know, trying to
get anything firm, but that's a weather issue. So we're playing, we're playing golf courses that they aren't trying as hard to make it as difficult either from a offen Our fairways instead of being twenty yards twenty five yards wide, are going to be thirty to thirty five yards wid Our greens instead of being trying to get to twelve or thirteen, we're trying to get to twelve, eleven or twelve. There's just little slight differences that that tend to you know,
bunch the field. I can go back to what you're saying, you know, putting it, but putting to answer your question, now, putting you used to should be a statement that you knowed you drive for show in putford, Dellen, we've obviously proven it. That's not the case in professional golf. But everybody's a good putter is now a prerequisite to being a professional golfer. If you're not a good part of
you're not professional golfer anymore. It used to be guys could ball strike their way around and be average putters and be pretty consistent good players. Just isn't the case in the game today, mainly because of the conditioning of the greens.
You know, speaking to the transition from the PGA Tour to the Champions Tour, what would you say is, you know, the biggest difference outside of say the course set up in you know, rounds in three rounds.
Versus four, Well, I think the biggest difference is that you're playing against your basically one generation of players, you know, generation being about ten years and the most of the players are between fifteen and sixty. While the PGA Tour you might play against through four generations of players. You got twenty year olds and forty five year olds playing out there, and so you're playing against you know, we're playing against I'm playing against the best of a generation.
They're playing against the best of all generations. But once you get inside the ropes, it's the same thing. It's just as the competitions are saying. You're trying to do the same things. You're trying to beat the guys and trying to play the best you can. But the difference to me is that I'm only facing If the PGA Tour were for twenty to thirty year olds, it'd be very similar if we had it. You know, the Champions Tour is just one generation of players.
One of our I send a tweet out to get some listener questions, and one of our listeners had a question that related on that, with like the influx of cash on the PGA Tour now and do you think that, you know, fifteen twenty years for now, there's going to be less players playing past forty.
You know, that question gets has been brought up. I think as persons have increased, you know, probably since the nineteen fifties. I mean, I'm sure the people in nineteen fifties couldn't believe how much money the guys in the seventies were playing for, and in the end of the day. You hear a lot of players talk about it, but we all like to compete, you know, we don't once you get past the money. The guys who are really successful, I don't care what sport it might be, and wanted
to want to compete. And you see that in other sports too. Guys seem to hang on longer than they should because they think they can still compete. They still want to do that, that compete and golf, you're lucky you can do it. I mean, nine ers winning tournaments at sixty and he's going to win tournaments next year at sixty one. And that drive to compete is always going to be there, regardless of where their bank account
may be. And everyone talks about you know, while there's the these thirty five year old kids, they say, I'm not going to play the Champions to it, and they're
forty five. We'll see, and then they're fifty, they're playing the Champions Tour because this is what we do and we want to be We want to you know, maybe it's ego driven, I don't know, but you wanted you want to compete, and you want to show your skills off and you want to see what you can do, and you really can't do that with it, you can't. They can't do that in other fields. They can go
into television and whatnot. But the reality is what they've been doing their whole lives is competing against their fellow players, and that drive doesn't go away just because your bank accounts bigger.
Yeah, I mean I think that same way. Like my wife does not understand why I play in like mid am events around the States, But it's just, you know, the there's nothing like competition.
And you know, he challenges yourself. And Jack Nichols talked about retiring when he was forty and he's still playing the Masters. He've just one of the Masters when he's fifty eight. All these guys talked about that. I've always talked about, I'm not going to do this longer than next, and they all them doing it until they're sixty. So there's nothing that tells me that that Ricky Fowler is not in the same way.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like what else are they going to do? Just play money games right now?
There's plenty of other things that I think, there are plenty of things they can do. They're all smart guys, I mean, you know, these things are all really smart guys, but what drives them to be Ricky Fowler is this competitive nature. What drives Jordany on Justin Thomas to be Justin Thomas as his competitive nature. And then that's not going to go away because they're doing golf course architecture or they're doing something else. They're still going to have that desire to compete.
You know, having played on the Hogan Tour, which was then the Web, then you played on the.
Another way around the web to it.
Yeah, then then I got it all mixed up, the PGA Tour and now the champions Right, How would you kind of contrast the difference that what? What are like the little things that you enjoyed about each Maybe not the most obvious.
Yeah, the Hogan Tour, I was being just compiled, no idea. I'd never played any national level golf, however in college, I never played in NC double as, I never played at USAM, and I've never really done any I didn't even know anybody out there. I did even heard of these people except maybe which you read in Golf digest. I never really paid that much attention to who was a great player and college golf. I remember were playing one a PJ Tour event when he was a college player.
He won the Western Open, I think, and he played at Oklahoma State and we played against him, but you know, I didn't know anything. Okan Tour was just kind of like to me was the biggest thing was was going out there and playing and and and that's when I first realized that, hey, you know, maybe there is a future playing I was at that point. I was just got in my college degree and I was kind of you know him and hung and you know, give it
a couple of years and see what happens. And I had some success, you know, and it kind of allowed me to kind of re evaluate in the sense I what what my goals would be, my goals were. You're obviously your ultimate goals will be the best player in the world, but those are you have other goals too, and kind of see where this goes. And it kind of went in a good direction. So I kind of kept going and it, you know, here I am today. PG Tour. It's a pretty cool thing, you know. I got.
I got. I got to play for whatever it was, fifteen years the Tiger Woods. And to know that when you're playing a tournament you're playing against you. It's the ultimate challenge. And the European Tour has gotten better. But when I played the PGA Tour forstal yearly it was that week when I won bay Hill, it was the
fifthest field in the world that year. This concept of and then maybe that's just your ego, that you you've got a chance, you're playing against the best possible players and you're one of them is a pretty cool thing once you step back and take a look at it.
Now you're not thinking that I'm the first team. But like in the offseason and especially the last few years now that I've you know, gotten older and kind of seen what's going watching the kids today, got hey, I got a chance to do that for twenty years, that was That's a pretty cool thing. You know. Maybe I'm too much of a fan of professional golf, but you know, having a chance to play with Tiger, I shot twenty eight playing the first time played the Tiger Woods, I
shot twenty eight on the front nine. Things like that, you know, against the greatest players in the world. That's just a cool thing to be able to do. I see that in other sports, Baseball. I have a big baseball fan it's gonna be pretty cool out and play center field for the angel in your my trap. That's that's pretty cool thing. And then the Champions Tour it kind of gets back to what golf is really about. And you and you and you, and you know, golf is a great a great sport. It's it's a it's
it's you play. But when you're not playing golf, you play golf for fifty I play a PGA Tour event, if I say a Champions Tour event, I'm actually playing golf for about fifteen minutes, you know, you know, I'm hitting and playing, hitting my hopefully sixty five shots at about fifteen minutes. So you know, you realize how you know, how good the people are in golf, because you get you have all this time to to talk and spend
time with them, you know. And and I look back over the years and some city, how would you describe the PGA Tour And it's a bunch of guys who you'd love to have as your next door neighbor. And golf tends to breed that in our sport. And that's one of the nice things about the Champions Tour. You go to player dining and you have a choice of fifteen different tables you can sit there, and you know fifteen of them are going to be pretty good guys.
You're going to enjoy a conversation with all eat lunch. And I think that best describes our game. The people that end up playing our game for long periods of time tend to understand that part of our game. The people who don't like the etiquette and don't like the slowness and don't like that stuff tend to go play
other sports. They get bored when they're ten years older, twelve years old, or fifteen years old to move on, while the people stick it out tend to be you know, I've always said about the first t is that you know, what junior golf makes is not great golfers. It makes great citizens. And golf's always been very good at that.
Yeah, I mean you could say that we all have We're all we're all sick os. You know, we are all self deprecators that like to give themselves a hard time for this pursuit.
Well, golf tends to produce losers. I mean I played five hundred PGA Tour events and I went twice. I mean, if you eventually I will admit that golf eventually gets to everybody's driver a little bit crazy, but probably in a good way, because you do it's the greatest players in the world, you know, are losing the majority of the time, and that's difficult to deal with at times.
So you spoke about playing with Tiger a little bit, and I'm curious as to you know, I've heard a lot of other players talk about like there was this intimidation factor. What was it like being in the ropes with him? I mean, obviously you shot twenty eight that first sign.
Yeah, he uh. You know, first of all, Tiger I probably did sing knew, but you know, we grew up in the same place. He was, you know, a five year old kid hit involved at Hartville Park and it's a part three course. I had a lighted range and I was, you know, sixteen or seventeen, so we kind of you know, he grew up in the city next door to me, and we actually the Navy course which he talks about playing a lot, where he ran into
some trouble because of the color of the skin. My dad was a military guy and I played golf there a lot, too, So it wasn't Tiger didn't have that same effect on me because I knew I saw him when he was five, hitting balls of the range. I mean, had a different, slightly different perspective of having said that he's a you know he good players can know that. They know that you're intimidated, not necessarily by the person, but by his skill set. He didn't intimidate me as
a person. He intimidated because he was so freaking good. I mean, I played with him at the practice round on Wednesday before the US Open at Double Beach, was John Cook and Marco Mayor and myself and Tiger Woods on Wednesday morning, and I don't know, I don't know if it's intimidating, but there's no way I was going to beat him that week. And I missed a caud, but there was no way anybody was going to beat
him that week. And I knew that on Wednesday. And I don't know if that's intimidation or just respect, but I do remember it was an instant. We're playing together at the Buick Open in Michigan, and you know you're playing with Tiger, You're gonna have the are gonna be five deep on every hole, which you know we weren't.
We were in the top twenty maybe and on the in the fourth hole, I had about a three or four foot for par and he he'd cut it out and he was just waiting to go to the next twa and I looked at I look up at the whole of the last time before me to get my tott and so he takes a picture, flash goes off anyone taking a picture of me. Tiger was somewhere, but I happened to catch it in his eye in my eyes, and I started used to you know, I was smart enough the back of way and you're blinking and was
kind of catch off guard a little bit. And I'm sitting there trying to get my vision just to stop, you know, to get cleared up before I can hit this three footer. And I walked in there and I finally hit this button, knock it in, and I'm kind of walking up with Tiger, and I well, I was he I'm thinking he's going to say, you know, sorry, you know, you know whatever. He just said, welcome to my world, because it happens to him every shot. You know, he has to deal with that stuff. And you know,
he wasn't intimidating he was. He just said, this is this is if you want to be you want to be a great player, this is what you got to deal with. And he dealt with that and still won. I mean the fact that again, how he won. How these guys Nicholas and they put Nicholas and him in a similar category, How they could you know, win at that clip. What are those circumstances. It's pretty impressive. We've already forgotten how good Tiger was. We've completely forgotten. Yeah, I completely forgotten.
This week with it coming back. It's you know, you I was reading this morning all these you know stats, and you've seen it all the week with people putting stats out there. I mean, it is unbelievable how good he was.
They had they had an ever to Jason Day when he won the PGA listening straight and then he quite good the rest of that year and into the next year, maybe he won the match Player or something, and they had mentioned that he had won seventeen seven out of seventeen starts, which is ridiculous. I mean, that's just a ridiculous thing to do on the PGA two. I guess the best players in the world have seven wins in seventeen starts. Tiger did that seven different times. I mean,
that's just that's ludicrous. Again, Jordan Speace had a great start to his career and as channel, I don't know if he still does it might have a chance to the youngest person ever won the Grand Slam, you know, the career Grand Slam. Anyways, we talk about you. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's not even I mean, Tiger, Jordan Speace is a great player, maybe the best player in the world. We've got Tiger would like a news for everybody.
It's uh, I mean I was as a stat to that is like Jordan Speed smissed thirteen cuts in his career, Tiger Smith fifteen and Tigers started his career was two.
Right, It's it's ridiculous.
Yeah, it's uh. That's my favorite set I read that I had never heard before was the His forty European Tour wins is third all time and he never played one full season on the European too.
Yeah, I understand. I thought it one time. He wanted he was the all time leading money winner on the European Tour. He was definitely the top two or three just based on you know the events, you know, you know, he's just there's a dominance there that we've forgotten.
What what have you been watching? What do you expect from you know, this week? And do you know his you know, do you think there's anything uh, you know left in the tank for return?
Obviously back to the conversation, the guy who wants to compete, he loves to compete, and there's you know, he's the ultimate that I would say if all the players we've talked talked about he I think he loves that competition as much as anybody. Whether his body can allow him to do that, it's a different question. Again. If he's healthy and can play, he's going to be he's gonna he's he's going to have some another player for all
those guys to deal with. If you know he has again he has that that intangible that you have to have to be that good. I mean, there there are plenty of players over the years who have had incredible and let's say take Tiger Wood's won seventy tournaments and he won I think it's what fourteen majors. And you take another player like say Davis Love, who won twenty tournaments in one major, well, Tiger's not five times better than Davis Love. There's an intangible there that Tiger has
that Davis didn't have. And Davis is one of the twenty greatest players of all time, maybe twenty or thirty greatest players of all time, and Tiger's that much has that much better. So Nicholas had obviously had it too, and you think there's probably three or four guys, so that intangible doesn't go away. So if Tiger's healthy and can play and can get you know, said gets a few some reps under him, there's nothing that tells me that if his body lets him play, he won't be a great player again.
Yeah, outside of Tiger in that era, who did you think was the next best player?
Yeah, obviously Phil. I mean, you know, Phil did it over a longer. Phillas VJ had good years, Erniels had good years. Phil did it over a decade, you know, and Phil kind of had that had that swash buckling attitude. But still one. I think Phill's one close to forty events, I'm not sure exactly what it is and five majors and he really didn't start winning. He once started winning majors a little late in his career and he still
won five, he won three. You know, there's nothing that says he might not win the US Open in the next few years too. And when they career, Dan slam and I think he was definitely the second best player they had that Steven. If you saw the stat on on Twitter about from you know, the tour from nineteen ninety seven to sometimes two.
Thousand oh the top fifty things, well.
The top the relation to PARR Major championships, that Tiger was one hundred and twenty eight under. Phil was third at like one hundred and twenty eight over.
Yes, Steve flesh.
Flash was actually Steve Fleshy was the flushy good friend of my flesh. He was number two at two hundred and fifty shots, you know over at you know, it was a fifteen year period or something. I mean that's a but it shows you Phil, you know, flush he's a fush, he's an underrated player, and he's tremendous talent. It doesn't surprise me as his name of it, but it shows you how good Pill was at that time. I mean so in a sense amazing how big a
person feels, a big personality it feels. I always consider Phil a friend and he's I've always liked so to be that big a personality and can completely overshadowed by Tiger Woods tells you how again how great Tiger Woods was.
Yeah, that's a good point. My listeners are gonna get ask for me. I always contend Ernie was number two in that era, so.
Ernie had Ernie. Ernie definitely competed. It's hard sometimes he was Ernie still slightly in the era where the European Tour and the PGA Tour were apart. So it's hard to measure Nick Faldough, I mean, Nick Faldo, how do we measure How do you measure Colin Montgomery have? Do you measure something these guys? Nowadays, it's a little easier because there's a lot more competition among the top players from both tours or from the world. I guess now
you'd call it. Back then, Ornie didn't still was bouncing back and forth and it was it didn't have the same we didn't have the ability to so he could be a reasonable choice there. It's just harder to figure out because there wasn't so much intertur competition.
Yeah, if you look at their major championship stuff, I mean, they're they're so close. It's it's you know, I think they're like they're separated, like top all time top tens is like they have like one or two uh between them, and you know, one win more.
For Phil right and Phil again fills a bigger personality. Yeah, and so that tends to help him in those types of rankings. Too.
American too, you know, there's this American buys sure.
Sure.
So with a kind of spanning this era, there's been a lot of talk about bifurcation in the game. You know, where where do you kind of stand on the golf ball and technology?
Well, again, this is you know, we're running a business and we can talk a lot about how I think some of these concepts. Well, first of all, this concept that we need to play eight thousand yard golf courses is an interesting concept. I know Chamblie talked about it a lot on Twitter. It's Chembley's fun to follow because he'll always say crazy stuff. And but again, no one if you look at you look on the PGA tour, I'd say the two courses at places the shortest on
tour a Hilton Head and Colonial. No one shoots thirty end at part they're shooting actually higher a bitch of the stroke coverage of those relations apart is higher than average up tour. So length is not the it's not the end all to be. I remember we at the Houston Open. I don't know, I've got twenty fifteen years ago they switched over to displays redstone thing. It's called
the thing. It's called the Houston Golf Club now. But we played the members course the first couple of years and the back nine was four a little over four thousand yards long. And I remember playing the practice round and getting done and God, this hit a bunch of three woods every hole. What the hell they had it that it was four thousand and thirty yards as a back nine. Thank god, Holy that's long. When they shot in tred couples, I think one day he shot twenty
two hundred. Park length is not going to deterred scoring. So the ball, you know, forever, for all the greatness that the golf ball has, which it goes farther and spins glass, well there's a way for architects to deal with that. You know, just watch the tour players play the ten Folt Riviera and how bad they mess it up. You see a lot of you see twos and you
see sixes. You know, length is Apple's a three wood, the three wood part four for all these guys, and they struggle with So there's ways to deal with that. That that the golf ball is harder to control distance wise. So there's ways for architects to to fix that through making distance control being more important than you know, being able to hit your pitching wedge. You know Marion for the US Open, till Micholson, you know he had a
pitching legend. I think it's fourteen to part of three thirteen whatever the short part three is by the clubhouse and then and then the next role, he had two wed shots that he hit the wrong distance and he went bogey bogey and left he was open. Not because he didn't hit it, didn't play a five hundred and fifty yard part four well, but because he didn't hit
wedge at the right distance. And the architect you need to figure out a way to make distance control more important than When you do that, then the players will demand up all that they can control better. But right now we're not doing that with architecture. We're just making it longer to where distance control is less important.
That's I had Bill Corr on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, and he said, when a reporter called him about, you know, how he was going to combat the distance problem with Trinity Forrest, he said, you know, I want to make golf courses shorter and wider and make it more about them hitting it the right distance and the right line. You know where it's you know, they have to pick a line and they have to hit it execute the distance on that line.
What's the hard what's the hardest hole in Major championship golf under pressure? It's not. It's twelve in Augusta, which forces you to either hit it at the right side of the green. It's forced you to hit the right club. You hit it at the right you know, And it was just throw a little bit of wind in there, and guys struggle because distance control is harder with the new golf ball. If you hit your nine nine hundred and sixty yards, one hundred and fifty yard shots a
lot harder. But if you hit your seminiro and one hundred and sixty yards, one hundred and fifty yard shot is a lot easier. I think that mathematically makes sense. Being skilled being the same. So when you start, when they start hitting the ball farther, it makes the gaps
between the clubs bigger. So architects by by straight Chamblie with burying me on Twitter with this, but between lengthy and the golf courses plays into the hands of the long hitters into the golf ball while shortening and tightening. And again what Bill colere saying, making guys hit at the right distance, and you do have angling greens and whatnot. You know, we're hitting it twenty feet pin high left is no good or twenty feet pin high rights no good.
You know that makes them hit the ball not only the right disc, but also you said the right line.
Yeah, I agree with that, and it's yeah, I think that's where like, that's where Die changed everything with Harbortown was he reintroduced this idea of like, it's not just about hitting it long end straight, it's about hitting it straight and the right distance and right.
Now colonials like that and again Coloni.
Farware, Yeah, it's port worth.
You just have to firware.
Yeah, and it takes driver out of so many of those guys hands because of those dog likes and right you.
Got you get well, you gotta shape it, which is harder to do with today's ball. Yeah, it's harder to hit shots because spin enough.
That's I noticed with all the you know, like the famous shots from nineteen ninety nine versus the famous shots from like twenty seventeen, you don't see any All the shots today are just these towering you know, three woods or irons.
Right, it's dead straight like.
Versus the recovery shot.
But there's a pretty big caveat here. And I think is that's not talked about, and the professional golfers of today are taking advantage or figuring out, what do I need to do to be successful. If tomorrow they decided to completely to shorten the golf ball and make it spinnier and make driving accuracy and distance control the most important thing in golf, and they could do those things, you wouldn't be any good After a couple of years.
The same guys at the unpopped, Yeah they So I do think, yeah, because the best players figure this out. Best players are the best players for a reason. So you know, back in the day when Tiger and Phil it's driving when they weren't driving it great, if driving accuracy were the most important thing in golf. Those guys would have had a totally different style of play and still be the best players. They've adapted themselves and figured out the best way to be competitive under these circumstances.
And the great players do that. So some of this stuff, to me, some of this stuff to be is a little cringe wordy. When I hear about the way the game has played today, well that's that's a chicken an egg issue, and I don't I think it's very unfair to today's top players to say, well, the ball and
this and that and the other thing. Well that they they're playing the equipment that they've been given and figured out the best way to be competitive with that equipment, and so to say that that equipment is why they're good, I think is a completely wrong. I think it's the other way around. These guys are great players, and the figure they have to be the best with the equipment, and today's says that Jack Nicholas were playing today, he'd be playing like those guys.
Yeah. I think TrackMan is underrated in it too, because it's taught everybody how to, you know, get to where they're perfectly optimized.
Yeah, can I'm sure it does. I mean I've never done that. I like what Dustin does with track memory. He optimizes distance, yea, he figures out how far to hit each shot. He's turned into the best short iron the ledge player in the world from the fair way. You know, cor the stats and and that says, that's got to be pretty scary if you're Barry macroy and h's where he is and he turns into a great player from one hundred and fifty yards. But again, I
think it does a disservice to our top players. And I think that there it's just that they're not there because of the equipment. They're there because they're the best players. And don't under don't go over and forget that.
So I want to get you out of here. We had some some listener questions. I wanted to get to real quick. Okay, Sean Martin, friend of the pod, and you know, a long time golf writer wants to know your best story from days as a substitute teacher.
Wow, I mean, you can't repeat those. Do you have secrets? And we'll keep teaching stays in substitute teaching, I can remember, I remember the luckiest thing I can remember as lucky. I got lucky. One time, as I told the story, I was working a seventh grade pe class and some kid behind was you just I'm trying to take roles. I can roll out some basketball so they can do whatever they want to do for half an hour. And so it's in p He's always chaotic and trying to
just to get that they have assistant. He's stand in a number of whatever numbers aren't standing on that to Mark Abson and uh, this kid was behind me while I'm taking roll and he had his jim shorts, you know, down around his thighs and his shirt tucked it and he was dancing and whatnot. It's a long story. Hope you have time, and I hope you and kids are kids are giggling and whatnot. And and I finally figure out and I go, hey, you could stop like an
idy and get out your number. And he goes, hey, you can't call me an idiot, he says to me. I go, well, I can call you. And I said, you're actually like an idiot, but get on your number, and he goes, well, he started giving me a lip about it. I say, hey, look, you know I don't care. Once you head on down to the office. I'll just mark the absent and you can have your You can
deal with it tomorrow. It's not my problem. And so I sent him off to the office and goes to the office and I finished role and finished the class, and you have to go back down to the school. Let me grab a little car. Did you sign out? And that's how they know you were there? And nobody signed me out and the principal wasn't none on my card. Then go talk to the principal. You know on I don't need to go to the principal's office too. I did that when I was a kid. I don't need
to do it now. And so I walk in there and he goes, hey, did you send a kid down here, saying yeah, I did, and he goes he said, you called hi an idiot, and I go, well, no, I did so, I said, I said, he's actually an idiot, and he goes, well, we don't want he starts going in and we don't like to use that kind of language with her, which might be reasonable. Well I know, and
I go ahead, you know this is he's addiction. He has a dictionary on his desk and I go open a dictionary and look up the word idiot, and he started looking at me. He just do it, and he so, and I don't know what it's going to say. So I said, this is I explained to him what his student was doing. And he had Jimmy shorts down around his knees and his shirt tucked in and he was dancing like whatever behind me. Yeah, again, he looks up it.
I go, what's the first word under idiot? Now, I don't know, I have no idea what it's going to say. And the thing it says is buffoon, which is just stupid luck. It's a dumb luck on my part. And so I go, look, I don't know what kind of school you're running here where you think it's okay to act your students to act like that. But you know, if you don't want me again, they have they have a massive shortage of substitute teachers. They probably still do today.
And if you don't want me coming back here and teaching your classes, I'll be more than happy to tell them enough to send me here anymore. You know, I'm moren't happy to tell all the other substitute teachers don't begun there either, And they kind of looked at me, looked at the dictionary, looked at me, signed the card and said, no, I think we're okay. But I was try the luckiest thing. It's maybe one of the five luckiest things that's ever happened to me because I could have said anything and
it said buffoon that particular dictionary. I said, buffoon isn't exactly what he's acting like. Maybe you guys can do a better job of getting your kids to act better, you know.
I feel like buffoon needs to be used more in.
The Yeah, it's a great word.
It is. I mean, it's quite if you call somebody a buffoon is pretty insulting.
Yes it is.
I agree, that's fine. So I DK in Massachusetts wants to know, wants you to rank w reck Park, Skylinks and El Dorado and uh and and best or worst.
Well, I mean, I'm by reck Park's one of the great municipal courses, you know, the original Virginia Country Club and it's been around since the reck Park's been around one hundred years almost, And I would I would argue reck Parks won a great minisalant off courses in the country about the world. So that's that's an obvious number one Skyling's Eldon Rodders probably two in Skyland's three. They redid Skylink, but for no apparent reason. The old Skylings used to be fun. They used to have a game
out there on Fridays. You go out and play and guys, you know, you get a guy out there with you know, a six a sixteen pack of beer and a broken for wood and seven irons and a putter and shoots sixty five all day long. And it was a it was a fun game to play with. And eld Roda was a good Eldorado. They've done a good job. You know what they've done that for for municipal golf courses. You know, like my what I would say is you go play. I haven't play Skylis much lately, but Elder
Rod of reck parker terrific condition. And consider they are getting I don't know, I mean, I don't know your rounds of golf they get. They got to get one hundred thousand rounds a year there. It's amazing.
It's it's a Recklar Red Parks iconic.
Reck Park's iconic. Didn't like it.
Reck Park. It's like Branchip Park produced a lot of PGA Tour players.
If I ask you, guys at Joe John Merrick, you know you go back to the Jamie Mulligan deal. I wouldn't surprise if Patrick Cantley played Summer Reck Park growing up, you know. And then there's a story that hasn't you know, it's starting to get told. Well, what Patrick Cantlay did last year? Get a tolling off on a tangent about Long Beach. Here's the guy who took off, didn't play for four years and injuries and whatnot. You know, had his best friend and caddy died in his arms, and
you hit by a car. Show up last year, played twelve events, make twelve cuts, make Tour Championship and then win the second start. So he lost fourteen events, He's made fourteen cuts as a win Tour Championship. I mean, how many guys in the history of the sport could have taken four years off between twenty one and twenty five and then the tour championship in twelve starts. I can think of about three Nicholas and Wood and maybe Holding get hit by a boss in one three major.
So I got to give him some Very few people could have ever accomplished that, and I don't know that that story is being told. Then he won obviously won at Las Vegas here in the in the fall. I mean, this guy, this kid is unbelievably good. I mean I've played, I played with him and a few times and it's he's better. He's he he just went out and playing with us at Virginia. He's better than I ever was,
and and talking about a limitless expectations. That guy's going to be a really good player for a really long time.
Yeah, I hope he stays healthy. I did this article last year.
It's a lot of work.
The uh. I did this article twenty five the top twenty five Americans under twenty five. And I was going through it and I, you know, I haven't, you know, play an amateur golf. You remember Patrick Cantley, you know, like and I saw he was still twenty four. I was like, he's got to be in this top twenty five. And then he came back. I was so excited. But people forget, like, you know, like this was a guy that completely overshadowed speed at that at that same age,
like you know, like it was Patrick Cantley. I mean what he did when he was nineteen, was out of this world. I I I'm really excited if you know, if we can get you know, ten great years of Patrick Cantley, I'd be really awesome. I love his doing on the course too.
He's got a good plan. He's got a good plan about hisself, and you know, him and Jamie really worked hard and done a lot. You know, it's it's obviously you know, I'm a big Jamie Mulligan fan. Who's his teacher, And Jamie Mulligan has taken three kids basically high school kids, made him tour players. There's everything. I understand that. Butch Harmon's a great teacher. But he made Tiger Woods better. Well, I think I could make Tiger Woods better, can't.
You know?
He took John Merrick, Patrick Cantley, John Mallinger. These guys were just high school kids slash college kids, just kind of especially American, can't way it's just kids. Junior programs at their club turned them into tour players and tour winners. Now that's unprecedented in my opinion.
Yeah, he's I feel like, yeah, that that is a story that probably should be.
Told and then we won't say what what Jamie's done for John Cook and Luke List and Peter Thomas Ulo myself. I mean, there's a long list of people who have worked with Luke. Luke List worked with him for a year and once my guy struggling to keep his card. He had a great year last year, and I expect he's gonna have a great year this year.
Yeah he I mean, he was a like a top twenty machine last year.
And yeah, he's a he's a really good player.
He he hits it so far as such a you know, it's like that's a guy with a ton of potential. Let's say, you know, you look at a guy that could win five times in two three years and definitely one.
Jamie's got another guy, Max Homo, he's worked with is a really good player.
He's uh, he's a funny guy, just from following them on Twitter. So we do this thing. We won't get you out of here, so you don't know, we don't take up too much of your time. We do this overrated underrated. So it's just a question. You gotta say overrated or underrated. There's no properly rated.
Okay, all right, mock Turtlenecks, way underrated.
I'm you know what, they might be ripped down so much that they could be underrated.
Another way underrated. They're very comfortable, they are, especially if you guys don't have especially guys who don't have shoulders and big necks.
All right now that Furik posted fifty eight is fifty nine watch overrated? And this is from Derek Goss.
Yes, the overrated. Yeah, over the fifty nine watches overrated. I would think that they sent enough of them there and fifty eight change things little, but sure.
Somebody else if somebody asked us, and I forgot to write down who was more pissed after your fifty nine stricker that he wasn't leading after shooting sixty or you that you were only leading by one after that?
To me, it had been me. I mean I woke up next morning with the Starbucks, came back turning theater and I was three back. He was not leading the turnam that was three back. He almost hold it on the last hole too. I think he columns caught the edge of the hole almost hold it for fifty nine the last hole with like a long iron or something that.
Was during his run there where it was.
Hey one over here, I mean beating stricker. John Deere was like beating Tiger Firestone, you.
Know, between him and Zach Johnson. It was those guys. That golf course just Taylor made for that. I mean their local agree.
It's uh yeah, I agree.
But that's an example, not a long course.
No. And again that golf course if you played there in the fall. We played there right in the middle of summer where they can't get it firm. We played there in the fall when they got firms. Would to see the scoring like that. It's a better golf course than that. It's just there so you can't play everywhere at the perfect time of year.
I grew up and we'd have like tournaments in October there. It was tough, especially cold.
Yeah, it gets firm. It's not that easy.
Yeah, cold and wendy and firm. That place has teeth, right all right. The last last one from al Pandera the button, the top button, butting the top button of your shirt.
Mm hmm overrated, under it, way underrated. I mean again, that's that button is there for a reason, isn't it. I mean I never again when you have a big knack and I have like a nineteen inch nineteen in the quarter atch neck. I make dress shirts, so if I don't button the top button my shirt, I need to have a gold chain to play. But sure it would be the collar would be so play. That's why I do it. There's a caller. I mean, I don't have I don't if I had like a little neck
and the buttons just stay right there. But if I don't button that button, my whole shirt opens up like you know, a nineteen seventies disco dancer.
See, that's an interesting perspective. I am so anti the top button, but I have a skinny knack.
Right, So it wouldn't make sense for you when I do it.
I'm my god, this just doesn't This would never look right.
But I'm not the only person does. Somebody else is doing it now too. I don't know who. There. I thought there's a somebody else that done it.
Bubba does it, and there you go. I mean Daval did it for a while, Tiger did it for a while. Yeah, of course that's some good company.
Devall and Tiger exactly. Buba Bubba's one two Masters talk about over the Masters is the most overrated golf tournament in the world.
Yeah, I do you think that has to do with them playing the same course every single year.
I think that has a lot to do with I think it has to do with I think Augustus only is the smartest, for the four Majors are the smartest people. They make the show, the golf course, you know, the USGA makes the sh show par and you know, but they do such a great job that they have no problem.
They love. As a matter of fact, when when again Nicholas shoots sixty five and making eagles the last day and making hitting good shots and being nobody rewards good play more than Augusta National on Sunday, no tournament and they do. So there's so there's nothing. It's the it's the most underrated telecast. But from a tournament standpoint, to me, it's it's overrated. But they do such a great job of creating drama with their golf course. They aren't trying
to make it play the hardest on Sunday. They're trying to make it play the most exciting on Sunday, And every other tournament misses that. Every tournament misses that. They're always talking about Sunday pins, with the Sunday pins of the gusts that are a lot of the easiest ones they're in like the Fun Team eighteen sixteen, eighteen's in the bowl, but in seventeen's in a very difficult spot where you make a mistake. It's a problem that they do.
They're they're set up, they have they have perfected golf course set up, in my opinion from a whole location stand point, perfected it and nobody else does that.
Well, the players is starting. You know that the PGA Tour has done such a smart thing with the players having it at Sawgrass year and year out, because now when you come down the stretch of everybody knows what's coming versus when you play, you know, a US Open at you know Aaron Hills or Chambers Bay, nobody, nobody.
Has a clue what's going at right, right and again. But the USA is trying to make us j is trying and also would never stick the pin. If the USJA ran the US Open at at Augusta National on sixteen on Sunday, the pin wouldn't be there, so you wouldn't see all the drama. The tiger Woods chip, in which one of the greatst iconic shots in golf when he beat the marc Up. You know, Nicholas almost hold it there in eighty six when he won, they wouldn't put the pin. They put the pin back right, and
everybody making double and everybody kind of going, okay. You know the year I played, the year that Zach shot, I think it was Zac shot. One of the part won the tournament taking a lay from Zach. But I'm sure the ratings weren't as good. Then you get bad weather and over par wins a gust, it's not as good. And you know when you get fifteen hunder par and you get a guy, you know birding, you know, Birdie in the last holes to win that people love that stuff.
Yeah, that's a good finish.
It's like and it's not like everyone's doing it either, gus that spread it out on Sunday, you get two or three guys in a chance to win. It's there's plenty of guys shooting seventy five on Sunday, whether guys are shooting sixty five.
So you know, last question, if one one course that never hosts tournaments that you'd love to see, say, say the PGA Championship could go anywhere and this is you know, and they didn't have to worry about grand stands or anything, and it would be the permanent host of the PGA Championship. Where would you go with it?
To me, the best golf course I've played is pie Valley, and I think it bes again. I think Pine Valley would be very similar to Augusta National. I think you'd see the low score, lower scores than you'd expect. You know, ten or fifteen under might win the tournament. But I think even parking finished, you know, six or seven, so it's spread things out. Guys would get rewarded for good shots and penalized for bad shots. So that's literally what
we're looking for. And the USh tends to tends to penalize bad shots and good shots at the times gust that very rarely does Augustine National penali is a bad shot, I mean a good shot, very rarely. And Pine Valley's like that. Pine Valley tends if you out and play good, you can shoot a good score there. I know that, you know. But if you don't play well, man, you can shoot a million there, and I mean a million,
And I like that. I think another calf course is like that, though maybe again the equipment may have changed the cyper's point to the golf course that if you play good you can shoot seven or eight in a part you played that you shoot eighty in a hurry. And that's that's that's a great thing about golf. Too many golf courses are today we've gotten into this golf
course have gone hardware. Good round is seventy and a bad round in the ninety five of the teak out pursh where a good round with sixty five and the bad round seventy five.
Yeah, that's I I agree, I agree, I like. I love golf courses that allow you.
Augusta does that a great job of that for the pros.
Yeah, that's uh, we're on the same page there, I I that's I'm excited to see Trinity for us. You know, modern designed by you know, a great architect. That's I think what's kind of lacking with the you know, it's the explosion in the driving distance is that you know, you know some of the golf course you know playing but you know these guys don't design golf courses for them for the PGA Tour pro you know.
So that's right. We need more of that too. We have too many golf plerses being designed for pros and not enough golf courses being designed for the everyday player. Yeah, this concept of seventeen sets of teas to me as bad for our game, not good for our game. It takes away from the what's great about our sport is that everyone kind of played the same course. And the
golf ball has effected that a little bit. But we don't, you know, we golfers should have three or four, three sets of teas, and they should have a front, metal and back and that's all you really should knee and if you need more than that, then maybe get to look at your design and not necessarily look at the figure out how to make tolls longer.
Yeah, yeah, I figure out how to make them wider.
Again, I get again. I told this to Fell and you didn't that tight had this conversation that the biggest deturn, you know, rough to me is the worst hazards in golf, and it just penalizes, you know, if you get a golf first like the US Open, and you can go twenty yard white fairways and knee deep rough that favors long hitters but does not favorite short hitters because everybody drives in the rough. And I figure long and the rough. You mightley get it up by the green, but you're
short in the rough of chipping out. So I always thought that if you really wanted to make it fairy again, I think trees are great urns. I think dog legs are a real dog legs are great deterrence, and again wind and then firmness and then angles, you know, forcing players to hit the ball on the pick a line and hit it on that line. If you don't, you gotta pentalized and hitting at the right distance. That's how
you make the game harder as supposed to. Just let me tell you something, and from an architecturals, now, I don't mean that if you have a five hundred and twenty yard part four that's difficult. All you need is a tee a fair way in the green. You don't need anything else to make a three hundred and thirty yard part four difficult. You actually need some imaginations skill And take the fourteenth hole at Nearfield Village, one of
the great short part fours in golf. Jack did a good job of thinking you hit the ball on the right line the right distance. Twelve all against the National is a perfect example of that. Anybody could make the a two hundred and fifty yard part three hard. It's not that difficult. You just need tea in the green. That's it. You know, it could be anything. It's going to play difficult. It's making the short one that the one where everyone can play difficult. The challenge is good
players and allows bad players to play. That's the skill in architecture that we seem to be losing a little bit.
Yeah, I mean, I bang that. I talk about narrow fairways and and favoring the long hitters so much. You know, if you miss the fairways like the twenty yard wide faaraway, everybody's gonna miss a handful of times.
Well again, the straightest driver on tour it's about ten out of fourteen faraways, and the most crooked driver on tour hits about seven. Yeah, that's and the three fairways.
I think that's why you saw so much good, so much variety at Aaron Hills was because these faraways were wide and guys could go out and hit twelve fairways.
But I thought it was a good turn. And the USJ doesn't like those kinds of scoring. I think, did he shoot fifteen when he shot there? A pretty decent under four but again I think we've That's where the us J is wrong, is that that score is the champion. It wasn't hard to figure out who the best player that week was, and to me, that means you've done your goal. And when Rory got sixteen hundred Congressional, it wasn't hard to figure out who. It's not like some
flukey guy who didn't. He deserved to win, and you can, you can. You guys are into this. You go back, and the lower the score is relation to par, almost invariably, the more worthy the champion was. You know, when two over par wins the Overville Moody ones, when eight under part wins, Jack Nicholas wins, that's a great point and we Augusta does it again. I hate to say this,
A Guesta does a great job with that too. But when you see really low scores in major championships, a lot of times it's Tiger Woods and Jack Nicholas and guys okay, Rory McElroy, Jordan Speed. Mean, I think this Kupka guy and he pronounces name, this guy holy, he can really apply. Man, he's gonna win a lot of major championships.
I would guess, Yeah, he he's got a lot of game. There's that much.
He has a lot of games.
Yeah, he hits the great, he puts well, and he chips well, it's not like there's any holes.
So is known.
Well, Hey paul I, I appreciate the time.
And yeah, no problem, and.
Uh I'll see you that. You guys got the senior players that of course. I uh I grew up playing around and more. Yeah, old school Donald Ross course. So we'll see you out there next summer.
Yeah, come find me
All right, Thanks a lot, and thank you