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 brid Egg, Frida Egg bride Egg Lie.
I'm about ready to run off of the hump course. Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison, and today we have takeaways from the twenty twenty two US Open. So things got off to a pretty strange start early last week in Brookline. The chatter at the country club was all about the Saudi backed lived Off Invitational Series and the threat that it
poses to the PGA Tour. The topic came up at almost every press conference and behind the scenes, it seemed to be the only thing people wanted to talk about. And that's understandable. It's a huge, air defining story, but I have to admit it was a bit of a relief when the golf started and we realized that we had a great tournament on our hands. The country club
was demanding, but not sadistic. The conditions were blustery, but never to the point the play had to be stopped, and the proper golfers, the ones who show up when the course is tough and the wind is strong, rose above the fray. Rory McElroy, Colin Morricawa, John Rahm, and Scottie Scheffler quickly got themselves into contention, but late on Sunday, everyone's focus was on a duel between two less well known players. Will Zalatoris from San Francisco by way of
Texas and Matt Fitzpatrick from England. Both have played well in recent majors. Fitzpatrick made it to the final pairing at this year's PGA Championship, and on the same day Xalatoris narrowly lost in a playoff, so it wasn't surprising to see the two of them trading blows down the stretch at the US Open. This time, Fitzpatrick was just
slightly better. He arrived at the seventy second hole one stroke ahead of Xalatorus, and after pulling his drive into a fairway bunker, Fitzpatrick hit the shot of his life, a nine iron that he squeezed around the lip of the bunker and faded back to the middle of the green, eighteen feet from the pin. That is how you win a major championship. To discuss all of this and more, we have four guests today. We have Palo Ugetti, a staff writer at ESPN dot com, to sum up the
big storylines of the week. We have Ryan Barrath of golf dot com to talk about Matt Fitzpatrick's recent gains and distance. And we have Bradley Klein, a journalist in golf architecture historian, and he'll say a few words about the course and the way it was set up. But first we're going to talk to a player who was actually in contention at the country club. I'm talking about
the PGA Tour pro Nick Hardy. Nick has been on the Friday podcast twice before and has been on an absolute tear since coming back from a wrist injury about a month ago. Nick is truly one of the good guys, always fun to talk to, so we figured we'd start with his story. All Right, I am on the phone with Nick Hardy, who was t fourteen this week at Brookline. Great performance from Nick. He is currently in the car talking to me on the phone. So Nick, where are you headed right now?
I'm headed to Hartford the next event at the Travelers so can't wait.
Yeah, that's a cool event. Have you have you played in the Travelers before?
I have.
They gave me an exemption actually in twenty eighteen. It was my first PGA threwer started as a professional, So wow, yeah, definitely good, good memories and it's just a great event. I love this event.
All right. So you know you had a great week at the country club, But why don't we start A couple of months ago you were dealing with a wrist injury, So maybe you just tell me a little bit about the issue that you were having and what made you ultimately decide to take some time off.
Yeah.
So I heard my wrist in Louisiana at the Zurich Classic. It was a week where I really actually felt like my game was turning around. Finally, I told my fiance Liz on the drive to the Sunday round at the course and like, no matter what happened today, I'm very happy with where my game's headed and the direction I feel with my game, and I'm just excited. And then that day I heard my wrist and I was diagnosed.
I was like out for a month. So now looking back on it, that risk injury is a blessing in disguise, and I think it really just helped settle my thoughts. I just stopped thinking about golf for a couple of weeks at least, and it gave me clarity, I think in the game. Again, among other things that I changed in my lifestyle kind of I made some tweaks to help maybe help my better my life as well, just
outside of golf. So just among those certain things of how it happened and how it transpired, it all kind of helped towards my comeback.
So, if you don't mind talking about it, what were some of the adjustments that you made to your routine or your kind of approach to the day to day.
Yeah, you know, alongside with clearing my mind with you know kind of maybe some negative thoughts and some just overtrying complicating, especially with certain areas of my game, I kind of lost my confidence really my putting mainly for a while there, and it really affected the rest of my game, and so that just you know, flowed down my thoughts. I had a really good putting week at Zurich, but I know I got hurt and then really all I could do after a couple of weeks on the
shell was putt. So I practiced my putting a lot for a couple of weeks when I couldn't even hit a ball, So that putting in the time there helped for that helps solve that. But I also started using a Neuropeak pro and Intel belt and that was crucial for me. I did practice my breathing two times a day, and it you know, it's really a score system that scores you and how well you're doing really just how your heart is connected to your breathing, and so that
helps a lot. I started taking daily magnesium supplements. That's really helped me just everyday life kind of relax and chill,
and I think that that's helped a lot too. And then when I came back from injury with my wrists and started hitting balls, I noticed that in order to protect my wrist, I had to swing a certain way when I came back for that first Glenn Club event on the corn Ferry Tour, and that that way I was swinging really helped me control my spin and distance better with my long irons or and now with my long irons my short irons, and so I was very surprise because wow, I was like wow, like the things
I kind of need to work on my swing are really helpful for coming back with this injury and trying to maintain not hurt this injury.
So interesting all.
Of that kind of added together. I can get into more detail if you'd like about the kind of the feelings in my swing that helps go.
That way, if you want, Well, I'm curious. You know, we don't need to get too deep into the weeds. But it sounds like, was it just that you weren't using your wrist to save your swing anymore? You kind to kind of keep it stable in order to prevent injury.
Yeah, So it was my left wrist that I heard. And in my swing sometimes I just get a little narrow and I pulled down and my my golf swing, and it causes me to kind of lose space and effectively just kind of pinch the ball and hit high spinners that kind of don't don't aren't very good trajectory. So it forced me to use my body more and be softer in my in my lower body to start my transition and then all also slower with my upper body pulling, and so that kept me wide and that
kept me hitting you know, nine irons. Able to hit nine irons, pitching wedge just low and off speed better. And it's something I've always worked on, but it was just it just kind of made me realize, Wow, yeah, like this is the way I need to swing all the time.
Yeah.
Well it's interesting, you know. I mean, if people have listened to your past podcasts with Andy, You've been on the Frida Egg podcast twice before, they know that you're a golf nut. You know, you play a lot of golf, You're really into. It was taking some of the time off just sort of helpful from that person, from just like removing yourself from the usual like all golf all the time routine and just doing something else for a while.
Absolutely, I mean that on top of it was probably that was the biggest beneficial thing it did for me, because as we all know, golf is such a mental game, and I think I caught myself just spinning my wheels for a few at leates a few months, especially the first just ever since January, I'd say, just spinning my wheels and trying really hard. And you know, every night you go to bed, you just wake up the next day. I want to wake up the next day and like Okay,
this is what I gotta do to figure this out. Really, it just made me take a step back and just lose sight of the game for a couple of weeks. And when I came back, all my thoughts were clear again, and I'm not spinning my wheels now. I'm able to hit the ground running and really just move with it.
And that was the biggest thing. I just taught me a lot of lessons on perspective, taught me how far I've come in the game, that I've really put in the hard yards, and I've earned myself the right to just believe in myself and I'm not gonna get off. I can take a few days off and look, I proved to myself, I could take thirty days off, come back and almost win a tournament like I am. I'm not gonna lose my fields. I'm not gonna start getting in bad habits if I just take time off.
Yeah, you've paid your dues already. You don't need to keep paying them every day, all the time, exactly.
And that's how I operated really in high school and college a ton, because I actually did need to keep those going, because I just my fundamentals weren't as good, but now I realize how good my fundamentals are. And it taught me, hey, like you can relax a little bit when you get off the golf course, we're not thinking about golf one bit, or just totally detached and really enjoying my time with my fiance or thinking about my family more, or just being away from the game.
When you're away from the game is so important. And I feel like over the course of the last three tournaments that since I've come back, it's really shown that.
Yeah, for sure. All right, So it wasn't too long after coming back that you entered the US Open qualifier, So just quickly tell me about that day and what it was like, you know, qualifying for the tournament.
Yeah, it was. It was crazy to day. I played the thirty six hole qualifier and I played the first i'd say twenty five holes really well. The last eleven holes I finished very poorly. I finished three over with no birdies in the last eleven holes, and it was really disappointing finish. And I finished just outside the top eight qualifiers and it tied for ninth. So I was in a five man playoff just for first alternate, and it ended up going five holes. So I played forty
one holes that day. I got to the golf course at six am and left the course at eight forty five pm.
God all right, well, so tell me about the playoff. How did that go?
It was a wild all five minutes, had thirty looks. On the first hole, no one made their putt, and then we went on to the next hole. It was the short part. Four We all had wedges. I hit the closest to about seat, everyone else had around fifteen feet and the only person that make their part was Jim Herman. So I knew, I knew I had to make it, but either way I was going to continue in a playoff for second aulder, so I had to make it in order to get first ault. It made
the putt one of the twelve. Twelve to thirteen are the hardest souls of the course. Twelve I made about a five foot slider to extend, and then on thirteen I made a twelve footer that broke about five feet to extend, and Jim made a putt from like five six feet to extend after my made by putt. And then on the fourteenth hole it was pitch black, almost pitch black you can barely see. I knew it was going to be our last hole and I hit a wedgend there to about eight feet. Jim hit it to
about eighteen feet. Jim missed it, and I made it, and that that's what did it.
Wow.
And just to give context for people, Jim Herman is a two time PGA Tour winner, maybe a three time PGA Tour winner, not exactly sure off the top of my head, but this guy's a player. So it was you versus him for that first alternate spot. You So you were first alternate And at what point did you know you were in the tournament?
Uh?
Friday night. So I was like technically the last official man in the field before the official field came out. So I think I was second or third overall first, you know, first alternate, So among all the all the qualifying sites, I was, I think second or third. I think Tiger pulled out, pull A, Katy pulled out, and then I got I got a spot because there was a couple of different exemption categories for a winner in Canada that didn't win, So that's why I got in Friday night.
Gotcha all right? So you're at the country club first two rounds, you shot sixty nine sixty eight, which are some incredible US Open rounds. What were you doing well on those days?
Yeah? I was really managing my mind and managing my patients and managing all the you know, surrounding things around me really well. I was highly focused. I drove the ball well the first two rounds, and I just missed in the right spot, and that's that was the key. I didn't make a lot of mistakes. I think I only made I don't know, maybe six birdies. But I made very few mistakes as well, So it was just
a solid couple of days. I was definitely in the harder wave too, so I was pretty proud of the way I played the first two rounds.
Mm hmmm. Is this your Was this your fourth US Open? Am I right about that?
Yeah?
Okay, So obviously you have some experience with this tournament. What have you learned from past US Opens that you were applying on those during those first couple of rounds.
Yeah. I learned the value of patients, obviously, and I learned that when you get rhythmic shots, when you get opportunities to get in a rhythm, you take it. Because the US Open it's just utter chaos when you're playing. Sometimes it's just you're you know, it's hard to get it's hard to hit string three four five six fairways in a row. It's hard to string three four five
six greens hit in a row. So what I mean by that is like, if there's times where you know, you don't want to be over aggressive on the first rounds, you just want to kind of get the ball in the fairway, give yourself some kind of string, some momentum along. So that's that's kind of what I've learned in the US Opens and how to play and how to go about it. That was key.
So you were t eight going into the third round. What did it feel like to be in contention at a tournament this big? I mean, you've been in some big spots before, You've been in some pressure spots, but I think this was sort of new territory for you, very new territory.
I was, you know, in contention of a major in a week, and I've never done that before. But I was weirdly relaxed, and I felt very prepared, and I believe in myself was very high. So I just felt like I'd manifested this for a long time, and I think that's what really helps me. The third round was incredibly difficult because of the conditions and the golf course changed so much as I played Friday morning. It was
tough for me to get adjusted to that. But I actually played pretty well all things, considering the front nine and getting adjusted to that and just the crowd and the whole experience it was. I was proud of myself for that. I definitely think I came out much more ready to play Sunday because of Saturday's experience.
Right. Well, So going back to step for a second, I think that something that people need to recognize about your first two rounds, the sixty nine and the sixty eight, is that you played late early, right. You were in the afternoon wave on Thursday and the morning wave on Friday, which turned out to be the more difficult draw. I believe it was about a two stroke difference, Like it was two strokes harder to play when you played, but you still fired those rounds, which is which is pretty cool.
So Saturday, you mentioned the course was different, the conditions were different, and tell me about how much more difficult the course was that day.
Yeah, the greens were extremely firm, and that also makes some harder pot because they get a little last year, they may get a little less true to Pott, and just chipping on the greens is super tough. And predicting how it's gonna bounce, that's really just the toughest part is the scoring part. So you got to go in
not really expecting to make many birdies. But I guess said earlier, I learned that you got to get some rhythm going and the best you can try to string along some shots where you can kind of get into momentum in a groove. And it's really hard to do that, especially Thursday or sorry, Saturday's round it being that windy, and especially the wind direction changed. That wind direction was probably the hardest direction that we played.
Yeah, it was coming out of the north, it was cold. Yeah, it was just a tough day. You ended up shooting seventy three. I believe in that round you had a triple bogie, and so a portion of that seventy three is is certainly due to that just that one hole, I suppose.
Yeah, that triple bogue is really unfortunate. I had a great shot too, and I just hit the back of the green and bounce in the festuo grass right against the big rock wall, so I had no shot and I hit it was you know, it was unfortunate because I actually hit such a good shot to get there, but my only option was taking up playable about fifty yards further back towards the tea box, and I hit a very poor recovery four shot that landed short of the green and the rough, and I hit that on
a two putted for a triple. So it was really unfortunate because I walked away with the whole feeling like I didn't really hit any poor shots to get there that triple bogue. But that's what can happen to us open. You get a little off with the club decision, Like I missed one club decision and it cost me three shots, so that that was very unfortunate, But I was really proud of the way I came back after that and buried the next two holes.
You did, Yeah, So that was on the thirteenth hole, obviously a tough part four that's not played normally by members. You know, you're playing two holes in one there and a kind of a classic country club punishment there. You missed the green and all of a sudden you're infescue and rocks. You know, that's that's sort of what that place delivers. But in any case, going on to Sunday, just take me through the early part of year round. You started pretty hot.
Yeah, No, I started hot with the putter. That was key. I had two solid shots in the first hole. Was definitely feeling the nerves. But once I you know, made a nice part of the first soul that settled me down. And hit a great shot into two that went over the green, hit a great chip out of the fescu grass next to the bunker, who was a terrible lie and just did good to get it too about eight
ten feet. I made that putt and then I got a great another grade up in down on the third goal out of the bunker, made another nice little twelve fourteen footer for par and then I hit a nice shot out of the Rufio number four and made another about fifteen footer for Bertie, and then made another fifteen footer on five for Bertie, and then made another fifteen putter on number six for par So. I was feeling
it with the putter. I did look up at the leaderboard after number five and I was like, oh wow, two shots back, so I knew I kept playing the way I was playing, it could really go my way. I don't think I was like the moment was definitely not too big for me. It's just the US Open really was expose any sort of thing in your game that may not be the best, and I didn't drive at my best over the weekend. I kind of mishit
a t shot at number eight. It left me in the first cut in the left side, and I kind of didn't have an angle to go for it, and I wish I was a little more aggressive there. I laid up way too far back and I could have hit three with much closer to the green or even I was considering driver off the deck. But that was a gutsy shot. But you just got to play that whole smart and I did in a good eight iron
into that green. I just kind of hit it a little too far right and you came back down the slope, so and then I hit it over the green and missed about an eight foot or from bogie. So it was definitely a tough hole. I'm definitely bummed about the eighth hole. That's where things willmentum change and then you got a tough stretch of holes after that. Nine, two thirteen are very very tough hole. So yeah, you know, the rest of the day, I'm not very pleased with
how it turned out. Walked away feeling a little uh snake bitten about the rest how it went the rest of the day, But it was super super good experience for me.
So just overall, what do you think you're gonna take away from this experience and carry into tournaments like like the Travelers this week.
Yes, my focus and the simple to no thought, especially when I'm away from the game, away from the course, my focus level and how strong my mind is. I'm very proud of the way that I've come back from this injury, and I think I've just shown my capability of playing out against the best players in the world
so far, and I believe I can win. And I think if I keep putting myself in chances like that to win on Saturday and Sunday, I've walked away from my last three events on Sunday feeling very i would say slighted, not very happy with the way things finished. So I think if I keep staying patient, I'll walk away from one of these Sundays, either with a trophy or just very proud and happy the way I finish.
All Right, Nick, it's always fun to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time. Congratulations on a great performance this week, and good luck going forward. Man.
Thank you very much, thank you.
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Go to golfblueprint dot com and use the code OG twenty for twenty dollars off the first month of a player's membership. That's golf Blueprint dot com OG twenty. All right, on with the episode. Next up is my interview with Palo Ugetti. Palo is a staff writer at ESPN dot com and he mainly covers college football. He also used to write about the NBA for The Ringer, but lately he started reporting more and more on golf, and he was on site in Brookline all this week. So let's see what he has to say.
Yeah, it's funny, you know, I never expected golf to be part of my coverage when I took this job at ESPN. But given that the golf the gollege football season is so short and there's a long offseason. It was kind of like, Okay, what do I do now? What do I kind of put in my time just you know, to buy my time for the for the
football season. And really it just kind of happened out of nowhere where I covered one Latin American Amateur Championship, shortly in part import because I speak Spanish, so there was like an advantage there to talk to some of the players. And suddenly, you know, I'm being asked if I could go to the Women's Open and then the men's Open, and you know, so I think it's happened all really fast. But it's been a lot of fun.
I mean, I recently got into playing, like about a year and a half ago, so it's all kind of coalescing into this big like golf, I don't know, golf golf interest, and it's been cool to get a chance to, you know, as I'm playing more and then finding out more about the game, like being up close to you know, obviously the best players in the world for sure.
When was the Latin American am that you covered? Was that just like last year?
It was this year? It was early this year. I don't remember exactly one month, but yeah, it was this year's Latin American Am, which was awesome. I mean it was It's really cool, Like those events, I feel like are really cool because you get to just get to know a bunch of stories, a bunch of different players who were you know, coming up and from different countries, and so it was a good like initial experience. And then the Women's Open last week was awesome at Pine Needles.
That was a great tournament and also a lot of a ton of good stories there. So I think I was slowly making my way to the Men's US Open here and which which I mean quite quite a first men's tournament to do, but it's but it was a lot of fun to get to be up close for that.
It is incredible. I think it was an all timer. So so you got a good one for your first men's US Open. So let's get into it. You know, if I were to ask you for one big takeaway from this week, like, you know, one major thing that you'll you'll remember and keep in your mind for this tournament, what would it be?
Obviously, Fitzpatrick's just shot on eighteen that that feels like it's going to be remembered out of the bunker, you know, I was right there when he hit it, and when it landed, it's just was an explosion of cheers, and it was just just a crazy moment. Like as soon as he was in the bunker, I was like, Okay, this is going to a playoff. And the fact that he was able to win it all just right there
on eighteenth hold that was crazy in itself. But I keep coming back to Sala Taurus while was Ala Taurus. For some reason, there was something about him, maybe just the way he talked in press conferences or the way he kind of came off before Sunday's round and then even after Sunday's round. I don't know there. I think I'm attracted to the mental aspect of the game. I think a lot, and he seems to be very much willing to kind of lay it all out there and
just say, you know, this is how I'm feeling. And then also like you know, he literally said I'm three strokes away from a few strokes away from being a three time major champion, and you know, nobody could argue that with him for that. So I think for me, like I keep coming back to Sulla Taurus because there's a path where he's suddenly the guy that we're talking about instead of somebody like a Scottie Scheffler, And I don't know, I find him fascinating and I just wonder
where he goes from here. And it feels like he's going to win a tournament sooner rather than later. But the fact that he kind of just finds himself in this similar situation it must be tough, you know, for him to deal with mentally.
Yeah. Well, so he lost in a playoff at the PGA Championship to Thomas and he comes here and although there was no playoff, it really did feel like a shootout between Matt Fitzpatrick and will Zalatoris down the stretch, even though Scotti Scheffler was also getting into the mix during the final holes as well, But it just didn't feel like Scheffler was ever truly kind of part of the main story. The main story was Xalatoris versus Fitzpatrick,
and Fitzpatrick prevailed. So Xalatoris did you follow him at all this week? Did you talk to him in interviews? What are just some of your observations about his playing style and his character and was it, you know, something in there that made him appeal to you.
I caught him on the last few holes on Saturday and he was coming in at the lowest round and people were amazed at the rann who was putting together really because of the conditions in the weather, and he was just hitting everything so well. And I just the putting thing is so fascinating to me because he knows. It's clear that he knows. There was so much chatter about it putting, and I love that. I love that.
I love that he's not like ignorant to the fact that, you know, people have theories about his putting or or zab rudering videos about his putting. Like I love that, you know, and I think it's great that he's like kind of lean almost leaning into it. Like today he called out the Instagram morons. He said, uh, that we're discussing his putting.
Uh wait when did he say Instagram morons? Was this in a post round interview?
It was I would have to pull it up. Let me, let me just pull it up really quick, because it was honest.
So he was probably talking about people like, you know, sharing videos of his short putts, because it's his short puts where the issues crop up or seem to crop up. He makes a lot of them as far as I know. But the stroke is is hard to watch because there's a hesitation and an adjustment that happens with the putter head on the on the backstroke and and then eventually
he's able to bring it through. But there's definitely a glitch there, a kind of stammer I guess in the in the putting stroke is how it would how I would describe it. That's not they are on the longer puts. In fact, his longer his twenty footers this week were dead eye. I mean, he was making a lot of them and getting close to making a lot more of them. But it's his short putts where where the demons seem to sort of pop up a little bit.
Right, Well, I almost think he's he's he strikes me as somebody who's super self aware of his game, of just his whole self. And he said that on Saturday after his round. You know, like I'm playing defensively, he said, defensively aggressive. Basically, you have to play on this course, you have to be defensively aggressive. And he said he's just leaving himself with twenty five twenty to twenty five putts so that he knows, you know, he can get
him close. He doesn't have to make them, but if he gets him close, he'll have very short puts to be able to, you know, just move on to the next hole. And I think for him, it was interesting to notice that he was, you know, he wasn't very aggressive out there. I mean, he laid up on the short part four fifth hole every day, which I mean that hole was I was right there next to the green today. I want to just watching that he laid
up and it worked out fine. But then Fitzpatrick drove the green, which was insane, like that was.
A great shot, one of the best shots of the day, one.
Of the best shots of the day. So he's he seems so in control of his game that it's almost like, I wonder if you were letting yourself go a little bit more, maybe those are the chances you need to take right to be able to get over the hump. I don't know, like it's one of those things where it's hard to tell, right, it's hard to tell what is what is exactly holding him back? And I don't
think there's anything holding him back. And he even said, you know, it's a few inches here and there, a break here and there, and so I don't know, I just find him fascinating because I think, you know, something I wrote on Saturday is, you know, usually we think of success for athletes as linear, right, and even in the NBA or any sport that almost that's almost never
the case, right. But what he was saying is almost like the failure has been linear because every time he fails or he comes close and he doesn't win, he learned something else, He picks up something else and feels more confident to where he said, you know, after the PGA Championship he felt, Okay, I can be one of the best players in the world, which you know, he kind of showed that today in some ways.
Yeah, I mean I wonder at what point the learning from failure stops and it just becomes scar tissue. Did you get a sense from him after the round this week what he was at least trying to take away from this experience in order to make it positive for the future.
Yeah, it was interesting because in some ways the questions directed at him were, you know, how do you pick it back up? You know, how do you what do you learn from this? And you know, how do you get over this? And he was pretty honest, I mean honestly he was. He said, you know, I haven't had time to process this one. This one will probably sting more than the others because he was so close and you know he's going to be time to process it.
But he did say I'm glad that the open is only in a few weeks now, way he can get back at there, get back out there. And so I think he seems like you're in a pretty good spot, you know. I he was literally this was like, this is a random observation, but I thought it was pretty interesting.
And I'm sure this happens all the time. But he was answering questions while three TVs around him were showing Fitzpatrick raising the trophy, and at one point they cut the TVs off because they probably realized, like, Okay, this is kind of awkward position to be putting Will in.
But then they brought him back and then suddenly, you know, he's finishing Upany's interview and Fitzpatrick is coming in and you hear all the cheers, and I don't know, like I mean, as a human being, you would think that that would get to you in some way. But he seemed pretty composed of it all.
Yeah, yeah, did you pull up the Instagram moron's quote?
I did. I did here, let me let me read it, let me read it to you. So he said, I honestly don't know what to take from this, yet I was pretty pleased, just because I'm known for my boss striking. And then he you know, he's talking about the putt on eighteen. I'm sure all the Instagram morons are going to say, has something to do with my left wrist flextion coming down, But I promise you it's got nothing to do with it. I think, just keep doing what
we're doing. This one's stinks for sure, but I know that we're going to get this.
So there you go. That sums it up pretty well right there. Yeah. I mean Salad Torus whenever I see him in an interview is. I made this joke on Twitter this year about how he's like the golfer that you want to take home to meet your parents because he's so well spoken. He comes across as friendly, as very intelligent, as self deprecating, but it also seems to bring with it this what you refer to earlier as a self awareness. And then that occasionally pops up in
his golf game. I wonder if that's something you've thought about, whether that that aspect of his personality, that the self deprecation. He's not dull, you know, he's not like really low kind of energy like Scottie Scheffler and Dustin Johnson are you know, not that those guys aren't intelligent. I think that's a trope that we need to get rid of that DJ and Scheffler can't be intelligent, They just have
a really different and lower energy. And so I wonder if Zalatorus's energy just being at that kind of higher frequency, if that can be something that will sort of limit him in some of those big moments.
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think he's not low energy, but I wouldn't even say he's high energy either. Like it's he's sort of just is right there in the middle where he can be, like you said, self deprecating, but also just kind of explain golf to you in some ways, Like he's not hesitant to be like, Okay, this was a shot you know I was thinking about, you know, and he even talked about Fitzpatrick's shot like he raved about it, you know, he said, you know,
it's a one in twenty shot. It's a shot that will be showing in highlights over and over again. And so he I mean, honestly, maybe to put as simple like, he just seems like a golf nerd, right, who is able to not just talk about golf in a nerdy way, but also like express it in a way that's very proper and like, you know, it's very clear. And I think that was interesting to me, is he he He
wasn't hesitant to show his what he was feeling. He wasn't hesitant to show you know, hey, I thought about this or did this or like, oh it, yeah, it
sucks that I haven't. I've been so close, but I haven't won, you know, and I to me personally, that's just like a refreshing perspective, right, And you mentioned Scheffler, and Scheffler you know he tries, you know, he says things here and there, but he's also like, you know, when I play good golf, it's fun and and kind of that's it, right, yeah, exactly, And honestly, I Fitzpatrick
similarly had some great quotes too. He's able to kind of you know, dissect his game dissect his round and talk about, you know, what he was thinking on and obviously, you know, from a media perspective, that just strikes a different chord, right, And I think I do wonder if, like, you know, how how that relates to the game, right, whether that changes things at all, because somebody like Scheffler or Dusta Johnson, do they just go out there and play, right,
and these these other guys, like do they overthink things?
Do they?
You know?
And obviously now we're just kind of projecting that onto them in some way, but it is part of part of you know, it's such a mental game that you do wonder if if some of that stuff gets to them a little bit.
Yeah, I mean, Fitzpatrick certainly is well known for taking a meticulous, scientific approach to his game, and that certainly seemed to pay off this week. He has improved substantially over the past few years. The moment that's going to get remembered is that shot from the bunker, the fairway
bunker on eighteen. An incredible shot because when the ball trickled into the bunker off the tee for Fitzpatrick and settled kind of not far from that lip, my first thought was is he going to be able to get this to the green or is this is he going to have to take a lob wedge and kind of pop this out onto the fairway. Now, you said that you were out there, you were looking at this shot,
So could you set the scene for me? Where were you and what was going through your mind about what his you know, prospects were.
So I was right behind the flag, just about behind the flag and you know, kind of by the TV tower, and of course everybody's you know, as soon as they see the ball going in the it's a huge like whoa, Like okay, here we go, like you know, playoff, thinking about all the different possibilities, like okay, it just got real, you know. And and even Zala Turis referred to it as a match by situation and it did feel that way,
you know. And so you know, I'm standing back back there, everybody's crowding around that, you know, anticipation, and suddenly you see the ball just land so perfectly. And I was waiting for it to land in the front bunker, right the bunker that's protecting the eighteenth Green, because I was thinking about John Rahm the day before and how he landed in the bunker and how you know, obviously he wasn't able to get out of the bunker the first shot and the second shot he just ended up being
in the front bunker. And I wonder, you know, it's crazy because you think about what was the thinking between just like just going for it, you know. I I like Zala Taurus called it baldsy, you know, and I think there's probably not a better way to describe it. And so it was just absolute, you know, pandemonium when when people saw you know, him land there. And what was even more fun was the fact that when Zala Trus hit it, he had it just inside Fitzpatrick's ball.
So it was just like this, it just felt like this very you know, almost like a boxing match where like one fighter lands one punch and then the other lands a better punch. And of course, like you know, Zala Taurus had the pressure on him and he had to come back. But you could feel the atmosphere of just like, okay, this is we're we're witnessing something special, something we rarely get to see. You know, usually you get to see the leader come up right and try
to finish off the round. But the fact that both guys were in the same group and just trying to finish it off and trying to hold on for Fitzpatrick and really try to come back for zala Taurus. It was it was a perfect sports moment in that sense, because you really had, you know, here's here's my shot, here's my shot, you know, and and and and that's it. You know, there's no I mean, Scheffler obviously was in the clubouse of five under, but at that point it was just about the two of them.
Yeah, it really did seem that way. So, yeah, Sheffler was at five under, Zaladtorus was five under, and Fitzpatrick was standing at six under, and which ended up being a winning score. But there were a lot of potential scenarios that could have played out there, because if Xalatoris birdied the hole and Fitzpatrick part it, they the two
of them would have gone to a playoff. If Xalatoris birdied the hole and Fitzpatrick bogied it, then Xaladoris would have won outright, and there could have been a three way playoff as well, which was starting to seem like the most likely situation that Xaladoris would par the hole and that Fitzpatrick would bogey it, but that didn't happen because that was such a sensational shot. Now looking at it from the television viewers perspective, my thought was that
lip of the bunker is a problem. Ye that's blocking his route to the pin. And what it looked to me like he did, and I'm gonna sure if you remember the ballflight, but that he was really he was really specific with the initial start line of the shot. He was discussing that with his caddy, and it looked to me like that start line was well left of the flag. It may have even been left edge of
the green. But he was able to cut the shot out of the bunker, he was able to hit a fade, and it was able to get it up pretty quickly. I'm not sure if it passed over the lip of the bunker and if maybe he missed his line a little bit to the right, but it seemed like the intention at least was to kind of start it just outside of that lip of the bunker and let it fall back to the right toward the pin. And just like the ability to do that in that situation from that spot is incredible.
I mean, I think if Fitzpatrick said he hit a nine rate and it was funny because he said, you know, I don't even think about it, like it was like I just I play fast, and you know, I think it just natural instinct or natural talent took over and I aimed left.
I think.
I think my fellow colleague Kevin van Malcolmberg has a column about you know, being right there in that like right behind Fitzpatrick for that shot, and I believe he did say, you know, he aimed left right to maybe get over the bunker and have that ball flight in. But yeah, I think it's just eighteen was such an interesting hole. I mean I was also them during when they were on fifteen, and it's one of those things where you're just like, how does how do things turn
out this way? Obviously the course factors into it, but Souad Tour has hit a better t shot, but he ended up in the rough and then Fitzpatrick hid him more further right, but he had handed up a better lie and he had a shot that was incredible too. Like I think if if he wouldn't have had the shot on eighteen, we would be remembering the shot on fifteen because he just perfectly shaped it into the green, and it was just and Sala Tours could barely get
it up there off from the gruff. So it's just you know, these little breaks, right, these little moments, these little small you know, different different things could go different ways and it would have been a different tournament. But that was I thought that was another memorable hole because I think that's where things shifted a little bit as well for sure.
All Right, well, Paula, thank you so much for joining me for this little segment. Appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to saying more work from you from golf tournaments.
Thanks no, thank you guys for having me. I love the podcast and great to be on.
All right. I am here with Ryan Barrath, who is now the senior editor of Equipment, the senior equipment editor at golf dot Com. Ryan, you've been on the podcast before. You're back for a quick takeaway segment. Where are you right now?
I am outside of Connecticut for the Travelers Championship. I was at the US Open for a couple of days earlier in the week, went home back on a plane, and now I'm back on the road covering equipment again.
Sweet all right, So I wanted to have you on to talk specifically about some training and equipment issues with our twenty twenty two US Open champion, Matt Fitzpatrick. A big part of the story this week was Matt Fitzpatrick's distance gains. You look at him and you don't think that he's going to hit the ball that far, and indeed, a couple of years ago he really didn't hit the ball that far. He was kind of in like the Web Simpson Zach Johnson area of the distance stats on
the PGA Tour. He's added quite a bit of distance since then. A really informative stat I saw earlier today from Joseph Lamannia was that his percentage of drives over three hundred and fifteen yards has risen from around ten percent to around like twenty seven percent. So he's, you know, he's hitting a lot of drives way out there. He kind of has that bomb ball in him now and in terms of driving average, he's now around kind of tour average, So he has added a significant amount of distance.
It was a big talking point on the telecast this week, and you have some information about how he went about that, So could you just give me a sense for what the basics of that story are how did Matt Fitzpatrick add that amount of distance?
So there's a couple of facts here. One is his equipment. He is extremely optimized. One of the interesting things about a lot of players on the PGA tour is they are not completely optimized for distance. They're optimized for maybe a little bit more accuracy because they have power in the tank, as you would say. But for Matt, all of his equipment is designed to, especially with his driver, I mean, is designed for optimization of launch and spin.
And what that comes down to, which is a relationship to clubhead speed, is ball speed. Ball speed is one of the most important factors when it comes to looking at distance potential that you're able to create, and the more ball speed you can create, the more distance you're going to create. You can see players with extremely high
clubhead speeds that might not necessarily be extremely efficient. Well, Matt has put himself in a category where he is extremely efficient when it comes to his equipment just for optimization. And we saw that, I mean, there was a number of times where people pointed out that he drove it
further than Dustin Johnson. And you know, five to ten years ago someone would go out and see Dustin Johnson and he's probably one of the longest players on tour and to think that somewhat unassuming British man would put it by him a number of times that the US Open this week was something to watch and I think, as you said, a lot of people took notice very quickly.
So the equipment is optimized. There's been some training that has gone into this as well, right, and you have quite a bit of information about a specific method that he's been using. I believe he's been working on some technique stuff, as anybody would if they're trying to gain some distance, and so he's kind of shut down some of those distance leaks that he had before. Your colleague at golf dot Com, Luke Cardanen. But tell me a little about the STACK system.
Yeah, So the STACK system is essentially an overload underload program that was developed by Sasha McKenzie and Marty Jertsen. Sasho is a Canadian biomechanist and a lot of people
are familiar with Marty Jertson. He's a VP of Performance and Fitting at Ping Golf and one of the things that I know he's talked about in the past, and I had the chance to interview before was you know, Marty's a very accomplished player, and I believe he was playing in a PGA Championship or a US Open and he saw that he needed distance, Like he realized that, you know what, if I need to play at the big boy level, I need to be able to get it out there where with a lot of these players,
and you know, they work to develop this overload underload and a lot of people familiar with it with baseball. I would say close to ten years ago this started becoming saying something where players would throw something heavy and then throw something light, and throw something heavy and throw something light, and it basically trains your body to actually move faster. And the stack system is that for golf, and it works with a basically a single stick that
allows you to adjust the weights on it. Extremely heavy, extremely light. It can somewhat it can basically replicate the overall weight and feel of your driver, although it is abily forty two inches long, so a lot shorter than your driver. And you can you go through this program, and the program, thanks to Ta Sasho and Marty's begain very very smart people, creates an individual program based on your driver swing, based on where you are losing potential.
Because it goes through a baseline setting program that is basically like close to it's what. It takes about twenty five to thirty minutes to go through. It's a lot of swings. And one of the reasons I'm familiar with it is because I'm a user.
I was.
I would say that I was a relatively early adopter to this, much like Matt. I was someone who was not overly long. I mean Matt was much longer than me anyways, but you know, to see what is potentially potentially available through also not only like creating and reducing those speed leaks, as you say in your swing, but also finding a program that's going to work. And for Matt, I mean I was at the range that came open a couple weeks ago now, and he was out there
using this thing over and over again. And it's it has warm up programs, it has programs that are you can use like in more and off seasons, so they're like really more heavy training programs, maintenance programs.
It's a really cool system.
And again, you know, I don't I'm just an advocate for it because I didn't think that I would have the potential to gain the speed that I did when I started using it about a year ago. And it's impressive. And for Matt, I mean, you know, for someone who average, say under one seventy to hit ball speeds into the low and mid one eighties at the US Open this week, that is a big, big jump because ball speed is king when it comes to creating distance, and he's obviously
done that. And you know, the stack system, again is something that has as baseball pitchers have used it to gain speed. It trains your body to move faster. You don't have to bulk up Lake Bryce, and you can get stronger, but you don't need to bulk up like you see a lot of these players try to do. You got to protect your body in certain ways when you are moving faster, but it comes to down to training your body to actually make that speed and control it.
And obviously he did a very good job of that and it also helped him, you know, hit it straighter too, which is very important.
Right now, Okay, so this is not an ad for the Stack system. You're not endorsing the Stack system. You're somebody who has used it. We're talking about this because it's a pretty common thing that tour players are doing now. They're using these speed training programs. Are ones other than the STACK system out there? What's the one that's like really well on the one that kind of is maybe the best known. What's it called it? Like it's like the different sticks?
Yeah, was like speed sticks. So they they have so the difference again, very similar programming. Stack uses like an app. They have other programs that are within the this. I think, I want to say it' speed six. I don't know, I'm I feel like I'm.
Something, I feel like simplified. I can find different examples of this out there. And players use these things, you know, and and essentially it's like it's like weight training kind of, but it's it's the golf swing exactly.
And uh, you've seen like Phil has used them in the past, I know, you know everyone talked about Phil like keeping his distance into his fifties, which is a very impressive feat overall, and you can see him out in the range. So he'll use these things these ways.
The really fast swings, right yeah. Same kind of like a minor meme for a bit when he first started doing it, because it looked so ridiculous. But what he was doing was he was like training himself how to swing super fast. And it might sound kind of stupid, but it seems like one of the big things that you need to do if you're trying to gain distance is just swinging faster. You just have to get used to whipping the club through faster. And that's what these guys are doing now.
And one of the fasting things. And I've worked with people like about this and I'm not I'm no expert in the field.
I'm just a user and.
Have absorbed a lot of information around people and gone through this process is the fact that you can only swing as fast as you can stop it. You know, you can only put an f one car can only go as fast as it's able to stop or else it doesn't work right. And so part of this is your body being able to control that speed and know where it's going. These are players at the highest level, So again we've got stacked. There's the super super Speed. That's it, so super.
Speed, yeah, that's yeah. Yeah.
And then there's another one called the sling Shot, which is a relatively new product, and they all offer different kind of ways of doing this using either timing devices or interchangeable weights. Slingshot is one that has a number of interchangeable weights. The speed sticks has a number of different sticks, so they're not interchangeable. You'll see other versions of these as well, but it's it's essentially an overload
underload program. And from Matt, this is one of the things when new work in club fitting and club building, and you see all the time, how do I get in distance? How do I get di how do I You can optimize as much as you want, but you know everyone says, oh, the shaft is the engine to the club, or the club adds anger to the club. Your human body is the engine of the golf club. You cannot make a golf club go faster unless you're
able to swing it faster. You can do little things to tweak it, maybe make it a little lighter, a little longer, but the potential comes from you as the human being. And Matt's the perfect example of someone who you know, really doesn't mess to his equipment. He's got some fairly old gear in his bag, newer driver relative a newer fairywood, newer I mean we're talking clubs in the last five years, and his driver is a new current model, but he's realized that, you know, I'm going
to change my body. If I'm going to do something really important, it's going to be training my body. And Bryson gets a lot of the attention for what he created and the drive Bay Hill and all these different things. But over the last two years, it's progress, progress, progress, and obviously it worked out for him taking it home Brookline.
Yeah, it seems like a pretty durable model for Matt Fitzpatrick. He's not going anywhere. Would expect him to win on the PGA Tour a bit more, but he's starting to seem like one of those major specialists, one of those guys who just shows up when the course is good and hard and when the pretenders are going to fall away. You know, that's when Matt Fitzpatrick is going to thrive. And part of it is due to this really smart work that he's done on his game. All Right, thank
you so much, Ryan, appreciate it. Have fun in Connecticut this week. That's a fun tournament. That's cool that you get to go to that one. Looking forward to seeing your work out of there, and we'll chat again soon. Thanks for having me, all right, I am on the line with Bradley Klein, who is a golf architecture historian. He was also on site this week to write some articles for Morning Red, which is now a sports illustrated company,
so you can see his work there. Brad, you were at the country club this week when.
Exactly this week I was, well, I was at media day three weeks ago and played the course, not from those tees, I played them from more forward, these like sixty one hundred yards. And then I was out there all day Wednesday, all day long, and then walked with a couple of players inside the ropes, and then did the same thing on Friday.
Okay, So just talking about the course itself, the architecture that you saw out there, the setup that you saw out there. What is your number one big takeaway from the week?
I thought the.
Course was absolutely brilliant. It held up, It presented an amazing challenge. In some ways, it was a little bit more of a typical or classical throwback soap and set up. Didn't have the wide stairways of Aaron Hills, it didn't have the contrivances of crazy fast greens with the surrounds that rolled out forever like Shinnecak Hills in four and in twenty eighteen. It was a wonderful combination of fairly small greens. You noticed there was no short there's no
short class rollouts around there. You rolled into sand or graduated rough and the very precise cuts. The course is not long. It was like seventy two sixty four. I think overall probably played a little short reach day, but because you had wind and the course was firming up each three days until the rains came Saturday night. But you know, you saw the scores were rising when the
wind and the dry weather came up. And then all of a sudden this morning, because of the three tents of an inch, course was a little more receptive shot. This average score went down. But it was a stunning, perfect test for modern tour players. It was not bombing Gowage. You had to be precise, a lot of inconsistency in the lies and bunkers, around the bunkers and in the rough. The other thing you saw which was interesting is because
you had so many layer cuts. You know, you had fairways cut, then you had five foot wide intermediate at an inch and a quarter. Then you had an eight foot wide path that was two and a half to three inches. Then you had more intense rof at four inches, so a lot of times of all rolling out would come up right against the edge and you couldn't tell, if you know, your house of protects in the heavier grass and your lie was in the slightly shorter grass. So you had a lot of difficult, complex lies and
shots to have to deal with. And I just thought it was a fantastic open. Nobody lost it. Fitzpax had played brilliantly. It's just fabulous, absolutely fabulous open.
Yeah. So you know you were there on Wednesday and Friday. The word was that on Wednesday the course was pretty fiery, and then on Friday they slowed it down just a bit with some water. Did you see a difference in how the course was playing during that last practice round on Wednesday versus how it played on Friday.
Well, there was a lot less wind than the wind. It was the same wind as on Thursday. In other words, it was a reverse wind coming out of the east on Wednesday, as I recall, and then it came out of the northwest for the last few days. So what I did see was that the wind pretty much laid down and it was warmer also, and then the temperature dropped over the weekend, so it ball doesn't go quite as far. But they didn't tinker with that golf course
very much. They might have put a little water in because it was supposed to rain on Friday and it never did. So there was a little bit of control, but not much. And I didn't see any I didn't see molars in the rough, so they just let it go. And you know what's very impressive is the strength. Now I was there in eighty eight, so that's the day. Those are the days of you know, the old wound golf ball and Curtis Strange, you know, hitting at two
fifty five off the tee. The athletes, now they weren't athletes then, are so much stronger, and they can attack the ball with so much force on a vertical plane that allows them to flush through the rough and so because it's not quite permuta, the ball doesn't go to the bottom of it get completely covered for the most part, so that they can muscle their way out and you know, they're hitting seven irons one ninety. But that's the modern
athletic golf point. And what's interesting is it's everybody is learning it. There was much attention paid to Fitzpatrick having increased his swing speed from one twelve to one nineteen miles per hour over the last two years and what that allowed him to do. And he's not a very big guy, you know. You look at the two guys, Xalaturus and Fitzpatrick are fairly slight looking, but boy did they get a lot of velocity out of the swing. So I think the graduated roughs here actually worked really well.
The one regret I always have with these setups is because of the spectator trampling at the far edges. If you missed the fairway by fifty by ten yards, you have a very difficult line to deal with it. You miss it by forty yards, you're in trample down ground. I don't think there's any way to deal with that other than keeping spectators off.
Which you don't want to do. But it is sort of graduating in the opposite direction from from what the intention is. So you refer to the nineteen eighty eight US Open at the country Club, which you attended. You know, the course then was prepared by Reese Jones. That was that was the Reese Jones restoration. You know, the kind of that. You know, we discussed this in the podcast that we just released about the Open Doctor. That was kind of a really important moment in popularizing the notion
of restoration. You know, I'm not sure how how vividly you remember the details of the course from nineteen eighty eight, but if you were to compare the course now to that course then at the eighty eight US Open, what are some of the main differences that jump out to you.
Well, there are half as many trees, and there's twice as much or three times as much rescue tall knee high grasses. And you know, when I look back now and I think about, what was that restoration talk all about. Because the fairways were fairly narrow, you couldn't get the ball to roll quite as firmly because of all sorts of technology. I do think there was some greens expansion
back then. They lengthened the golf course. You Know, what I would say is that the country Club even then presented a very different image than many of the old golf courses that were on the tour, or for that matter, on the US Open rota. If you think back to what Congressional or Olympic club certainly Oakland Hills, which was just tight ribbon fairway, lateral bunkers left and right. You did have more offset bumpering at the country club back then,
and that was accentuated. They were expanded a little bit, so you did have that sort of I would say, particularly the offset bunker, and I remember that very distinctly in dealing with those praggy mounds like on third hole or the long four part tenth hole. So what was achieved this time around, through Gilhans and through Superintendent Dave Johnson and the USGA prep with Darren Bivard as a championship agronomist was a real master work of fast down
the middle and very demanding on the edges. And it just worked out, you know, if you notice, because all the talk all week was about the Saudi Toller and Greg Norman and all that other stuff, people forgot the golf course and there was not a single The biggest issue on the whole golf course all week was whether Justin Thomas should have gotten a drop from the fairway at the drain on Saturday. That was it. Nobody had a single complaint, well.
Which seems to be kind of the goal right now, right for the USGA setup team that the course is not really the story, or at least that's that's what it strikes me that they've been trying to do. You know, they want the course to be maybe the story in the early week in the sense that we go to a different course every year. But if the course is a story later in the week, then to the USGA right now, that will usually mean that it's not good that people are talking about the setup in a negative way.
But this week that wasn't really the point of discussion.
The golfers should be the story on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday should be about the competition. Now. Part of the difference, I want to be careful how and say this is that Mike lan is not an aspiring architect.
He's a businessman, right which Mike Davis was has since actually gone into architecture. And that's not meant as an insult to him.
To be fair, Mike Davis didn't bring a lot of innovation to the golf course set up. That was evident today. You had a brilliant short four part the fifth hole that they could go for, which, by the way, played a level park today didn't even play under book. What Mike Davis did introduce was the graduated rough and the
importance of shifting that kind of categories of holes. You had short fours and long force, and you had, you know, like you had this time around, very demanding long four pars, like that tenth hole that played way over par, you know, the one with the second shot way up the hill.
So I give him credit for that, and he certainly made the USJA take more of an investment in the course set up in a more varied way than just a punit of single file, you know down the middle of the twenty two yard wide fairways, so a lot more variety out there. You know, some of these fairways were forty yards in the in the landing area and then a narrow down to twelve in the chicage like you had on the third holes or the tenth hole.
So I just thought the variety was brilliant, and you had because you're taking out all these trees, you have a lot more wind across the golf courst. So people don't appreciate the impact of wind as something that sort of pops up. Once you've taken trees down, it's still a tree golf courst but it was a lot more openness to it as.
Well, right and inconsistent trees, and so the winds become sort of unpredictable because there are places presumably on the course where the winds are kind of you know, it feels a little more still, but then there are more open places where the wind plays a big role, and so the player always has to be thinking about it. It's not a constant thing, it's a variable thing.
Well. The perfect example of that little dropshot Part three eleventh hole, which I believe played to part today or maybe a little bit over. Because of the front hole location and the fact that you put the ball up in the air, it's only a gap wedge or a lob wedge. All sorts of things can happen to it. So it's a combination. And guild Hens and his team did a very good job of expanding the greens and
then pushed the edges rolled out. You saw that all the time, particularly in the part three is where you and we saw this repeatedly during the week where you had to judge, you had sort of weigh the approach shots, so you landed just down the green and let it roll out. If you landed the ball too far into the green, it would roll through into the heavy rough and you'd have a very awkward downhill shot from an
uncertain lie. So that's where you know a lot of shots were lost just on those pitches where you're trying to control it but you're also guessing at the lie. So all that stuff, to me was just brilliant to observe.
So I'm on the record as being a little bit nostalgic for the fiasco US Open. You know, the US Open that just kind of spins out of control. There are various examples of this, the ones where the players get really angry at the course set up, when maybe the USGA loses the greens a bit at some point during the week. Those are just really entertaining. They're distinctive kind of in the world of go. There wasn't really any other tournament that could go wrong like a US
Open could go wrong. And I understand why they've moved in this more professional direction.
Now.
They really have control of the courses now and six under has won the past three years, and so it's clear that they're shooting for a number somewhere in those kind of mid single digits under par as opposed to over par or around even par, which I believe was more the goal back in the day, maybe during the Mike Davis era, and certainly before that. And so I wonder if if you you know, given that you love
the setup this week? So did I. I thought it was brilliant, but it's also representative of a kind of new phase of USGA setup. Do you share that sort of longing occasionally for a US Open that that goes really crazy or is that something that you don't look back on as fondly.
No, I hate it because all it does is make for easy sheep kind of press that is uninformed about what usually goes wrong. I'll give you an example of how they manage it though. Here's a great example of the fourth hole. They've been driving over a blind to a flat fair away and then the green all four days, the pin was in the middle left. They that green
slows hard right the left. They could if they put the pin on top right that we'd still be playing that round because the ball would never come to a stop. So they they're smart enough now now, and they also have moisture meters they have they know exactly what the wind is going to be they know exactly the condition of the turf in ways that they're much smarter about. I mean, to me, these sort of setups play to my strength, which is I have and I spend a
lot of time with these guys. I feel for the superintendents. I've known Dave Johnson, the superintendent, I've known him for seventeen years now and worked with him. Are a couple of courses included back when he was a nine hole guy at white Nesville. So I find it more satisfying to see their skills come through. So but that's just because I'm a snob, I guess or something. You know, No.
I think I think it means that it's more empathetic. I guess.
Yeah, the car wrecks are kind of weird to watch, but it's not a great way to finish. I was. I was at Shinnakok in two thousand and four four and saw what happens. And the other thing is I hate it when pros complained. I'd rather give them a playing surface that they have to show their skills. And you saw that this week. Some of these guys knew that they could do it, and you know it didn't
reward Bryson to Shamba style of golf. You had to control the ball, so I thought it was pretty well done in that sense.
Yeah. Well, I mean I got to say it, even even though I do have a kind of affection for some of those fiasco US opens just from you know, the car wreck watching point of view, because I'm not as good of a person as you are, Brad. That's
that's basically what it comes down to. You have to say that the finish today, the final round, the shootout between Xalatorus and Fitzpatrick, with Scheffler kind of poking his head in there at the end as well, completely justified this new approach that the USGA is taking where they're a bit more conservative. They're a bit more you know early in the week they kind of keep the governor on a bit. That approach has been justified by by
the competition. It was really fantastic. All right, Well, I've kept you long enough here, Brad. Thank you so much for stopping by, and hope to talk to you again soon.
You know, they gave me the Green Section award, Dave Johnson. If the superintendent next year at LA North doesn't get it, we'll know he's screwed up.
Thank you to Nick Hardy, Paalo Yughetti, Ryan Barraff, and Bradley Klein for those interviews. What a great week at the country Club. Just one of the best majors in recent memory, and I cannot wait for the Open Championship at St. Andrews. If you've been enjoying the Friday Podcast, please do us a favor and leave a rating and review in iTunes. That's maybe the easiest way to support what we do, and it really helps us reach new listeners. That's it, Thank you for listening and we'll see you soon.