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 Fridaygg, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg.
Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Welcome to the Fridaygg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison here with Joseph Lamania and Andy Johnson, and today we're doing takeaways from the twenty twenty four Open Championship. This episode happens to be brought to you by good Walk Coffee, our official coffee partner. A very appropriate ad read for this episode. Goode was incredibly important for me getting through this past week and remains incredibly important because I'm still
recovering from the disruption to my sleep schedule. In my mug right now is the fried Egg Golf Blend from Goodwalk. This is a bright and vibrant organic coffee roasted to a medium light level. We also have a Shotgun Start blend for those who prefer more of a medium dark vibe. Goodwalk is a great company that we're very proud to be working with The founders are golf nuts, who also happen to be coffee nuts, and they buy high grade beans from around the world at fair market prices, and importantly,
these beans happen to be very very good. So go to Goodwokcoffee dot com slash fried Egg and use the code fried egg all one word at checkout to save twenty percent on your entire order. Using the same code to start a coffee subscription, we'll save you thirty percent on your first order and then save you ten percent on all future ship men. You can pause, skip, or cancel your subscription at any time on the website. So again, Goodwockcoffee dot com slash Frida Egg. All right, let's get
started with takeaways from the twenty twenty four Open. As usual for our major wrap up pods, I'm joined by Andy Johnson and Joseph Leamania. Andy, how you doing.
I'm doing great, Garrett, I am. It felt nice to sleep past like five am for the first time in a few days today.
That was that was delightful.
So, you know, just kind of getting recalibrated on a normal schedule, although I do love the open schedule covering in the States where most majors. We kind of like it's like a morning till nighttime day for four days straight. These days like you get time to have like your normal life.
I agree with that. The day, all of a sudden, seems really long when you're covering the Open from the States. Joseph, how's it going with you?
I'm doing great. I think this tournament inspired me more, like been more excited to talk about golf after this particular tournament than any other one this year. So I'm really excited to do this all right.
So just to set the scene here, our twenty twenty four champion Golfer of the Year is, of course, Xander Schaffle. Xander shot sixty five in his final round at Royal Troon to win by two shots over Justin Rose and Billy Horschel. Also in the mix were Tristan Lawrence. I think we all learned how to properly pronounce his name this week, though A shotguns start is still muddying the
waters with that. Russell Henley was in there, Shane Lowry was in there, but really it was kind of a three golfer race between Shaffle A, Rose and Horschel, and Shoaffle A pulled away at the end. So Andy want we start with you, what is your first takeaway from this tournament.
I mean, I think my first takeaway is I think we have to reassess where Xander Schaffley is in the hierarchy of best men's professional golfers. This major year with top tens in every major and two wins, not to mention a second place of the players, which you know kind of goes untalked about, is an extraordinary year in the biggest events. I think that's what we want from golfers in general, when when you talk about, you know, what a star player is is you want them to
show up in the majors. You don't want them shown up to you know, Heritage or TPC Craig Ranch and winning by eight and that being the triumphant moment of the year. You want them to be in the arena and really contending for major championships. And I think Xander
Schoffley he was a great all round player. I think he was a great major championship player before this year, but he started working with Chris Como, added a significant amount of yardage and now we see an ultra elite Major championship player that is the better the tougher the golf course, the the more well rounded the test, the more it suits Sanders Stoffley's game. I don't think it's out of this question, out of this like, out of the realm of possibilities that he is the most well
rounded player in golf. It might be just a fact there are no weaknesses in his game, and I'm super excited to see where it goes from here. Xander to me seems like a player that's got the makeup just based off his career. There's not really any injury risk. He's consistently improved. So what do the next three four years look like for Xander Stoffley? And could we be talking about, you know, the best player of his generation?
Andy, I mean you said it, the major championship performance. Xander now has played in thirty majors and he's finished in the top ten and fifteen of them, so fifty percent of his majors he's finished in the top ten I've seen. I don't have the full list of players like who have finished in fifty percent of their top tens and their first thirty starts. I know Brooks Koepka did it. It's rare though, and we will see how
it ages. I'm sure that's a percentage that will go down over time, as it does for most players, right like once once he's thirty seven. I don't think we can expect him to continue at that clip, but I mean, he's in elite territory. There aren't many golfers who boast a fifty percent top ten clip in majors, and he's been doing it since Aaron Hills right when he when he burst onto the scene first major, his first major,
right he finished in the top ten. So it's reasonable to talk about him as one of the best players in the world right now. Agree that he's more well rounded than somebody like Scotti, who clearly has deficiencies with the putter. Who else are we even talking about as being as well rounded as Xander Schoffley.
I think the other thing everybody golombs down the fifty percent top ten. To me, maybe what's more impressive is eight top fives. I mean, over over twenty five percent at the time he's played major from his first one. You know, a lot of times you have that skew of like your first seven majors, you could kind of just throw out the window. I saw people comparing camp Smith's first majors before Live and majors after Live, and it's kind of like, well, it's a junkstat because you're
going back to twenty thirteen. You know, was Xander he has come on the scene. I mean he he's sectional qualified into his first Major and like effectively since then, he's been a top ten player in the game. Before that Major at Aaron Hills, I think there are real questions whether he was going to keep his card because it had been a struggle, and now he's been a world class player since and he just continues to improve.
So who is the player of the year this year on the PGA Tour? Can we start that debate right now?
I'll let Joseph answer that.
Look, I think it's this is maybe what everyone's gonna say. I think it's into not indisputable, but I feel very strongly that if any player is teeing it up tomorrow, like I'm taking Scotty Scheffler against anybody else in the
field and feeling really good about it. But to me, I do believe that Xander Schoffley should be the player of the year, considering he won two major championships and all due respect to Scotty, like it's been a ridiculously impressive year, but wins in limited field events, though they are extremely impressive and there's a lot of depth of talent there, those aren't going to age the same way ten years from now that Xander's two major championship wins are.
So Xander finishing in the top eight and all four majors this year with two wins, that does more for me than wins at the Arnold Palmer and at the RBC Heritage and things of that nature. So, Eileen Xander at the moment.
I think the other thing about it is the variety of major wins Valhalla to Troon, it's a big it's a drastically different up in course. And I think, like, if we wanted to nitpick Scotty, He's got two major wins. Xander's got two major wins. Both of his are at Augusta National, which seemed like a place that fits his game perfectly. I don't think like Scotty's had chances, but there hasn't been the major that slipped through his fingers.
Really would you agree with that?
Yeah, sort of, Like I mean, he just doesn't he didn't have as much history as Xander does at this point, he doesn't have the experience of toiling for years and coming up short in major championships and then finally breaking through. Scotty's story is a little bit different. He had a very quick ascent once he got on the PGA Tour. I mean he was kind of, you know, working toward that level for a while. But once he broke out, he really broke out, and he did so fairly early
in his PGA Tour career. So yeah, it's just a little.
Bit different it to me, like Scotty is I called him on the Shotgun Start, like a major championship zombie. It's like he's he's like un he just is unkillable, Like it's just always gonna be around.
It's like always.
But to me, like a lot of times he either has it and he's gonna win and and we've seen that at Augusta National twice now, or it's like this, I finished eighth, But I never really you never really felt like he had control, right. I think that's an interesting thing because even Xander, when you go back, he had a lot of majors, Like there was a moment in time and during the Carnoustie Major where you're like, he
is winning this tournament. And I don't think we've really had that with Scotty in any major outside of the two that he's won. And it's just it's just and maybe it's just Scotty gets the deal done and and Xander didn't. But it's just something I've noticed, Like even lacc last year, he had a great chance, but he did nothing on Sunday, right, there's never a point in that major where you were like, Scotty's gonna win.
Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's that if he's putting, he wins.
Yeah, I mean.
And it's interesting that the fastest greens where a lot of times, a lot of analytics people say Putting's devalued the most at at the Masters, is the one that he's won twice. I don't you know, you if you want to compare the major's numbers between Scotty and Xander, twenty one events for Scotty now twelve top tens, eerily very very similar, six top fives, so you're basically like
running the exact same percentages effectively like identical percentages. And I think so Xander's got twenty three top twenty fives and third events. Scotty has sixteen and twenty one. I mean they are like effectively running identically identical numbers in these majors. Xander just has a little bit more sample size. It's pretty interesting, Like, I don't you know I would I would have been I think it would have been crazy at the beginning of the year to say that
Scotty and Xander are pretty close. But after the two majors, it's just amazing. I guess I'm always reminded at major years like how much majors matter, like what the weight they add to something. And for Player of the Year, I think this is you know what it all comes down to. The ultimate prize.
Comes down to the FedEx Cup. You know what would be a really what would be a funny situation is if Scotty won the Net Championship at East Lake and Xander Shaffle actually won the tournament, Well, that would be.
Fun Xander has won that tournament the gross division a couple times and not great at that course, and not won the net tournament. And I from what I gather from this is a this is a shotgun start special unsubstantiated rumor that he is quite disgruntled about this fact and that that it may have been.
Like I I agree with him.
How come if you win the gross event there is not counted as like an official win.
Because if you go to wow gr page it is counted also.
Not to take it in a different direction, that's very different than takeaways from the Open, but some of the official World Golf Rankings, board members and the talks of why Live doesn't get points being there's some conflict between
team success and individual success. I mean they do give OWGR points to the Tour Championship, which you could argue there's a little bit of a conflict there and if you're playing for your net score your gross score, so maybe a little bit of a contradiction in there as well. But that's that's a little bit of an aside from an Open Championship conversation.
Food for thought. Why don't we get back to the Open Championship unless there are any other notes on this discussion we're having right now, Andy, do you have something else?
I just have on Scotty both major wins, he was the fifty four hole leader, and maybe that's just he's the front he's the front runner, he's the front runner. Everyone thought Shane Lowry was where he gets out, and I could see it like overcoming Scotty Scheffler with the way he hits the golf ball is like a seemingly insurmountable task. But without the putter, without that putting prowess it is, it makes it a little bit harder for him to come from behind. You know, you have to
make birdies. And I think that's the thing when you look at Xander's round, I mean a final round sixty five, just bogie free, didn't have a par putt longer than three feet, Like he put together a masterclass yesterday, and the only way you do that is with just supreme all around skill.
Yeah, he was awesome. And I think that the part of the solution to this question that we're asking about the difference between the way that Scotti Scheffler wins majors and the way that Xander Schaffle seems to win majors is that Scotty's ceiling is just really really high, and when he's putting well, he runs away and hides. Xander grinds you down through overall excellence, and that wins you
a lot of tournaments. That gets you a lot of high finishes, but it doesn't necessarily make it so that you run away with tournaments in the way that Scotty is clearly capable of. So it's an interesting contrast between these two players, and the fact that their last names are Schaffle and Scheffler's just hilarious to me. My wife still doesn't know the difference between them. When she sees one of them on the leader board, she can't figure out which one they are, And that's just kind of
a funny thing that's happening in golf right now. We've got Xander Schafflin, Scotti Scheffler. But to get back to Royal Troon and the Open Championship, Joseph, I'm curious to hear your first takeaway.
My biggest takeaway from watching this was that nature has a way of making you feel small, like when you're battling the elements when there's wind.
Like nature finds a way. Is that the Jurassic Park motto.
I've never even seen Jurassic Park, so I can't speak to that.
But I've never seen Jurassic Park. Oh my gosh, Will Knights hasn't seen ace Ventura. Oh he has now, well, Joseph you're gonna have to watch Jurassic Park. You can't use the generation Z card here. I'm sorry, you've got a Jurassic Park.
There's other higher priority movies on my list, so maybe. But with natural topography, with wind, I think nature has a way of making you feel small and therefore making the shots big. And some of that might be subjective and just being a human being faced with big scale you're by the ocean. But also, I mean wind does is a natural rollback. The ball does not go as
far in the wind, and some of that's designed. Some of that's the way that Royal Truon is set up, with wide misses getting crushed in the gorse bushes and it's really scary to stand up there and rip a driver. You know, if you hit it, if you mishit it a little bit, it could go on the train tracks on eleven. Like, there are all these instances at Royal
Truon where you can get yourself into trouble. But I think what has this major solidified for me is that so infrequently in professional golf is is it a battle against nature? And I think the Open Championship has really distanced itself from the other Majors and from every other tournament that we watch most weeks that it is a battle against nature. Augusta does a great test it is the furthest thing from a battle against nature. That's like
the most unnatural golf course you can come across. Hurst was great, right, but that's not that's not really a battle against nature. Like it's warmed the balls flying forever. This felt like a true battle against nature. And I think the Open Championship has really given itself an identity more and more as golf feels more homogenized and overly manicured.
I was I was talking to my neighbor last night, and my neighbor is A. He's like A he's like a writ writer and podcaster in the outdoor space. And he's like a big surfer, very very casual golfer. Hasn't played golf in like ten years. He says he watches ESPN Plus and said he he said, the thing that's stuck out to him, he's like the the that golf tournament was super cool and it was unbelievable to watch
these guys fight against the elements. And he's like, usually I turn on the TV and it just doesn't everything.
There's a sameness to everything, and he's like, I love and if you think about like he's written a lot about surfing, surfing is an outdoor sport that the wave is going to be different all the time, and there's that idea of like, you know, surfing against the elements of the wave, right or outdoor sports you think about like different, whether impacting how you ride a bike or run a race.
Like there.
The element aspect of golf like that, I think was one of the things that made this tournament so amazing was the changing winds. The way the golf course played differently every day gave it this like Okay, there's something new to attack. And I know that every golf course, every every round can't be like that. Not every golf course is on you know, on the ocean, you know, on an island in the ocean, right, But there are things that they can do from a setup standpoint to
break the homogenization of professional golf. I just don't think I think we're so far away from ever having that type of mentality where we think about like every day is a new test. And I thought that's one of the things the big themes of this week that resonated with a lot of people. Was the idea that every day was drastically different there and it was cool. You turned on the TV. I can't wait to see what they're battling today.
Yeah, and you know you don't even get this every week in links golf. No, we didn't get it at Saint Andrews with Rory and Cam. We didn't really get it at Hoylake with Brian Harmon. We got a little bit of it. We got a couple of days of really interesting weather, but we also got a couple of days of low scoring conditions and fairly placid weather. This
week was perfect. But you're more likely to get this kind of weather to get this kind of battle against the elements, as Joseph is putting it, if you play more links golf. I don't think there's any other way to manufacture this. Andy. You said there are some set up things that you could do to make every week more like this. What do you think some of those things are, because I think that they're always going to fall short.
I just think I think when you go to a golf course, when you're hosting an event at a golf course, I don't think it's unreasonable when somebody's playing for twenty million dollars, when there's a twenty million dollar perse that the player's job should be to get prepared to play every tea box at the golf course. I think they already have an issue with early rounds, like the early
practice rounds. The value of a practice round ticket or attending a practice round is diminished with the less and less practice rounds that people play.
Make these guys prepare.
I'd love to see sometimes they play a five hundred yard hole three hundred and twenty yards the next day. I think, like we see that when you change things up, and what this week like when things change, it flummex'es players.
And I don't. I don't.
I think there should be rather than a test that everybody knows the questions for and you have you have three days to prepare for the questions you know are coming. I always thought a test in school where you didn't know what the questions were was a more challenging one where you had to prepare for everything. And then the test came out. Oh, I thought they were going to
use this team, but they didn't. I swore that they were going to ask me a question about this, but they didn't to me golf, and I know there's some some constraints with infrastructure in different things, having to move rope lines. To me, there there needs to be especially when you know that you have less interesting weather, less bouncy soil, and dramatically less interesting golf courses, you need
to do a lot. That means you need to work really hard on the setup, and to me, the setup is mailed in every week.
I think with that too. And this is a little bit different. Andy, you're kind of saying, given the constraints or given the courses you have, here's something you could do slightly different direction here. But I just think it illuminates the need to prioritize venues. That wind is a
reliable factor. You can't guarantee it, but I think it highlights the value of a championship venue like Kiowa right, like the ocean course at Qe Island, where it's on the ocean and it's reliable that you're going to get some level of wind. So to me, that was a huge takeaway. I don't think there's many championships where on Wednesday someone's asking you about who you like and you're like, well, I need to the forecast is going to play a
huge role in that. Like how I'm frying myself checking the forecast almost hourly the weeks of Open Championships and it's just not like that many weeks in the professional golf calendar.
Yeah, you need to go to courses where there is some expectation of weather on a regular basis. But it's tough because not many courses are like Links courses in the sense that they can handle that weather. The ability of Links courses to stand up against the worst of conditions and remain playable is something that's fairly unique to the coasts of Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland. I mean it's
fairly unique. It's not completely unique, but you find those courses there that you can play through conditions, and then you also happen to have an organization in the RNA that runs the Open Championship that allows play to continue. And I'm not sure that the PGA Tour is really prepared to do that, or even if the DP World Tour has that kind of courage at this point. But that's a key part of this, that the courses can survive. The courses are hardy.
I mean, I think like the overarching thing here is natural. With the way golf has gone in the optimization of pro golfers, the very best defense is natural elements. That is that's it, right. Wind is the ultimate way to test the best players in the world. Wind, I would say, wind, followed by firm turf, you know, architecture and farm firm turf in there, and then followed by probably topography. Topography would be my last thing.
Let me put a pin in this with a couple of quotes from Justin Rose and Billy Horschell, both of whom contended for the win on Sunday.
And play a lot of PGA Tour golf.
Play a lot of PGA Tour golf, and play a good amount of European Tour golf. Both Horsell and Rose have experienced with that for different reasons. Horsefell because it just seems to be a passion of his, which is great. But Rose said, there's very few stock shots that you hit on the golf course this week. That's probably why there's a bit of unpredictability to the look of the leaderboard.
Horsechell says, I enjoy hitting little bunch shots. I get tired of golf where you're making false wings and you lean into a certain number and it stops. I like when you have to be creative and find a way to get around the golf course, and I think I've always done that well for the most part. I think that those two moments in the press conferences after the round on Saturday, those were both comments that they made
on Saturday. Get at the very simple thing that needs to happen in golf tournaments if we want to see real skill, real golfing skill come to the four and that is making it so players aren't hitting stock shots. It's as simple as that. You mentioned topography, Andy, I think topography is one of those things that makes players not hit stock shots. That's what Augusta National does so well.
Even though you can't necessarily count on the elements playing a big role at Augusta, and they did earlier this year, but that doesn't always happen. What you can count on is that players will be hitting from uneven lies and hitting non driving range, non stock shots, and so that's that's really what we've got to strive for in different ways, because not every course is a links course. Not every course can offer this this combination of elements that take
players out of their comfort zones. So let me get to my takeaway, and it relates to what we've been talking about, so we can move on from it fairly quickly if we want. But my big takeaway from this championship is to maintain the integrity of the competitive game. And I don't mean to be too melodramatic here, but I really think that's what's at stake. The major tours just need to visit links courses and authentically links like venues more often. That's something that I think needs to happen.
I think that's obvious. Now. I don't believe it is going to happen. I think there are a lot of obstacles in the way of this occurring, but it just seems obvious to me after watching this season of golf and seeing the varieties of golf that were played at, especially the major championships, that you just need to go to the links of Great Britain and Ireland more often with the best players in the world in order to truly test them and truly figure out who can play golf.
Right now, the DP World Tour goes to essentially three does three Links tournaments per year unless I'm missing one Scottish Open, Open Championship and the Dunhill Links. That's obviously better than the PGA Tour, which participates in the Scottish Open and the Open Championship. We've got to figure out ways to bring more or links courses into at least
the DP World Tour rotation. A tournament at a Lynks course in England, maybe one of the links courses that has been left behind by the Open Championship, like Royal Saint Port's or Princes or Royalhythm in Saint Anne's which doesn't seem to really be in the road to anymore. You could maybe have a tournament in Wales, go to a Royal Port Call on an annual basis. They seem willing to host tournaments. You could go to some links courses in the Netherlands. There are options here for the
DP World Tour. I don't think it's really going to happen, you know. Shane Bacon asked Keith Pelly this question a few years ago, is there going to be a link season on the European Tour? And Keith Pelly said, essentially I brought that idea to the players when I came on board and they said, no, it would be too difficult for us to play links golf more than two weeks in a row, and so that would be a big hindrance, and I believe also the finances would be
a big hindrance. Now, is it ridiculous that the players say we can't play links golf more than two weeks in a row. Yes, that is totally ridiculous and it indicates everything that's kind of wrong with the standardization of strategy and play in the pro game right now. But that is what the players believe, even on the European Tour. You can imagine that the pack on the PGA Tour would feel even more strongly about it. So that's where
we are. We got to see more links golf, but there's not a great path to incorporating that into the major tours.
I think this is I guess this is the big carrot of what's going on in the greater golf world right now with the potential unification of golf, reunification of golf, and the potential for a World Tour, because I would throw in more than just links golf. I think everybody that watched the President's Cup in twenty nineteen at Royal Melbourne has a thirst for sand Belt also being a
part of this. And I think that this this week kind of cemented to me that that the best I think there's you know, there's a class of best players in the world. He's Andrew schoffley' is Rory McElroy, Scottie Shufflers, John Rams. They're going to be great at all types
of venues. But this week solidified to me that there are players who are drastically undervalued in terms of the way we think of them as players because of the style of golf that they are forced to play week in, week out that doesn't necessarily fit their skill set, that doesn't really activate their shot making abilities that they might have over other players, and lead to them being middle of the road players who are actually far superior on
different surfaces. And I think like the great Carrot and the great opportunity for golf is kind of looking at the venues. Joseph hit on this venues matter, You hit on this with links, the idea of Link season. But the unbelievable opportunity is to really examine and figure out how do we make golf the most compelling it possibly
can be? And anybody that watched this week, I would have a hard time not believing that this should be a central part of your schedule, that this type of golf should be part of, say the twenty events that the top players play. Do you think that we should have twenty percent of it beyond links golf? Should there be four events and that you know, if you have four events, there maybe a sand belt event or two. You know, you get to that and you know it.
Just to me seems like we should be thinking about the way you put that schedule together. If it's a world tour, if it's got billions of dollars behind it from various funders, whether it's the private equity money or potentially the the PIFF money, the Saudi Arabian PIF money, can you build a tour that really highlights the world of golf and also builds storylines when you go from from locale to locale. Of these are these are the
types of skill sets that we see rewarded. The types of skill sets that were rewarded this week were dramatically different than those on the PGA Tour. In general, there was a creativity. There was a very clear lack of youth on the leader board. There was I don't know where the youngest player finished, like the you know, I don't think there was a player under twenty five that was even like a factor. I didn't even see shots from a player under twenty five in the last couple hours of the telecast.
What did they You know, Jordan wasn't it. He's twenty eight or twenty nine.
I know, But he's a relative to these other guys. He's pretty much two times in a row for Matthew Jordan. By the way, at the Open Championship, props to him.
He's just a link specialist. But that's like the point.
Matthew Jordan has been struggling on the European DP World Tour and they play all over the world, but for some reason, when it comes to links golf, he becomes one of the best players in the world. He grew up playing it. Like these are the types of storylines you miss when you don't have that reliable around the
world schedule. And I think like this year, like this year, if you could take the Irish Open and make it a signature event, and if you had had you know, the Genesis Scottish Open, the Open Championship, and then you have the Irish Open a royal county down. All of a sudden you're starting to see what it could be, but that that's probably going to be a sparsely attended event,
you know. I think, I know Shane Lowry and Rory are playing in it, but like that will be a sparsely attended event that should have a great, great field. So to me, it becomes about build out the schedule, and I think, like we say, it's far flung, it's it's but this is literally the time when it could be a possibility. Once once this gets locked in the
negotiations are over, that's when the opportunity passes. To me, we have to look at this worldwide schedule because for a golf fan or a viewer, it adds so much interest, storylines and like potential elements for players to battle against.
I don't have a whole lot to add Andy. I think it's yes, setting up the schedule that way, but also doing it in a way that's sustainable. And all I mean by that is it has to be within the best interests of the venues to host those events over a long period of time, and it seems like that's something that golf is struggling with, like, why do why would some of these historic private venues want to
host professional golf tournaments? Is a reasonable question. Even a place like Riviera, unless Golf or you know, the re unified entity or the PGA Tour or Live, unless they own all of the venues, you're always going to be negotiating with those clubs. And so I think that's just something that we'll see over the next few years how golf handles that question if they're building new venues, hopefully prioritizing visiting parts of the world that create these kinds
of elements. But it's just it's a relevant factor. Like even if you set up the schedule for the next three years to prioritize that type of golf, ten years from now, it still has to appeal to those venues to bring the best professional golfers in for a week and give up their course.
Sorry, the real young guy on the leaderboard in the top ten with Sung JM, of course, and I shouldn't be forgetting Sung JM. And then Tristan Morris is twenty seven, but there was nobody who was like twenty or twenty one in the top ten.
I mean, I think it's interesting too in I don't want to like, you know, but I don't want to like shit on anybody or anything. But when you think about like the wave of these great talents, these optimized players, and this is a small sample size, and I think if they played more golf, they would probably play better in this in this theory. But you go down the list of guys that you would say are track man golfers.
Gordon Sergeant was bad, you know, and I think he's young and it's not fair, but Wyndham Clark was bad.
I think.
I think you look at even Ludwig aber Aberg, who's had a great start to his career, but to me, it seemed like this golf just was different in something he wasn't really prepared for.
Andy.
I think maybe the best example could be Davis Thompson, who came in basically red hot. He's twenty five, coming off a T nine at the US Open, a runner up at Rocket Mortgage and a win at John Deere Classic. Finished T forty six at the Scottish and T sixty six at the Open, including a seventy eight or seventy nine on Sunday. I think he's a great example.
Minwu Lee would be another one that I would throw into this boat. Right, Like, you see, all these players and a lot of other players played well, but Akha Batilla has been one of the best players in golf and Oxhay's you know, there have been some amazing quotes from Akshay talking about firmness on the PGA Tour and
the adjustment to NONPGA Tour of events. I think he was talking about the US Open where he's like, it took me a while to get used to this firmness, you know, and then it took me a while to go back to the softness of the PGA Tour. And I think this is the thing, is that if you it will breed better players like we want to see. I think like one of the things that Jeff Ogilvie said on the pod years ago was like the saddest I think he said this to me at a dinner.
The saddest thing about pro golf is that we don't get to see the best players in the world hit all the shots they can hit because the venues and the setups don't ask them to hit the shots that they can hit. This was a rare week where we saw the best players in the world hitting the full arsenal of stuff in their bag to attempt to maintain their position on the leader board. Like they had to pull out everything they had, all the skills and it It just was beautiful to watch.
Yeah, who knew that Scotti Scheffler had a cut stinger in his bag? I didn't really until he used it on the eleventh hole this week because he kind of had to. And turns out he has that shot, which is which is pretty cool. All right. Before we get to our next set of takeaways, a quick word from
USGA memberships. For more than one hundred and twenty five years, the USGA has been working to ensure that golf has a strong future, and for almost fifty years, USGA members have given back to the game they love by supporting programs initiatives that affect every aspect of the game. These include junior golf, environmental sustainability through the work of the USGA Green Section, the history of the game, and some
of the biggest championships in the sport. On top of making a difference for the future of golf, USGA members also get back some great benefits like a US Open or US Women's Open member hat, a personalized member bag tag, a subscription to USGA's Golf Journal, which is terrific, and more. You two can give back to golf and get back great benefits by visiting USGA dot org, slash fried Egg and becoming a USGA member today. Okay, let's get to some other takeaways. Why don't we go to you, Joseph.
What do you have as a kind of secondary takeaway from the Open Championship of twenty twenty four. Yeah.
I don't want to cherry pick or overreact too much, but I think there's something to Scottie Scheffler's putting this year. He is clearly not a good putter, yet since changing to a mallet, he has gained strokes in nearly every event that he's played, mostly on the PGA Tour. That the two big exceptions are Pinehurst and Royal Troon, where he finished almost dead last and putting in each of
those events, And I think there is something too. It highlights the homogeneity of the test that is offered week in and week out. Pinehurst might not be appropriate, that might be a little bit closer to what they see week in and week out, but especially Truon. I know, Andy, you're on the green speeds thing, and that's I think there is something to that that Scotty struggles to find the center of the putter face on greens like at Royal Truon, which are a little bit slower. You're dealing
with putting both into the wind downwind. It's notable that in the three Open Championships with shot link data, I mean, Scotty has lost strokes putting in all of those. I think it's something to look for specific with Scheffler moving forward in Open Championships. Is he always going to put poorly on these types of more field based, slower greens
where you got to strike it properly. But also I think it's just potentially, I don't want to overreact, an indictment of the homogeneity of the putting test that we see week in and week out.
I think one of the things too, is that those two tournaments, I think you hit up a setup, Like the goal of PGA Tour setup is to set up the course so it's very similar, same speeds, same sand, you know, weekend week out like that is their goal. Their goal is to be, you know, like a hotel franchise where I check into a Marriotte and I know what I'm getting nice analogy.
This is great.
I come to a PGA Tour event, I'm a member, I know what I'm getting into. We're having to travel week in, week out. That's enough test, you know, So let's make the golf course in the setup is similar to last week as possible. Is, I think is the overarching goal of the setup team. It's fascinating that you highlight these two events that he struggled with, and they are set up by different governing bodies. That means there's a different threshold for the amount of slope that you might.
Put a hole location.
Maybe these holes have been cut on a little bit more slope where all of a sudden you have to match speed and line more reliably. When a pin is on more grade slope, that means it's going to break more. And I think one of my big biggest complaints about PGA Tour golf, if you watch it regularly like I do, is that rarely inside of ten feet do you see putts that are played outside the hole.
It is like right edge, left edge.
So then all of a sudden, when you don't have to play it inside or outside the out you know, really far outside the hole. Pace and line don't matter as much when you have to play a cup out right on a five foot putt, all of a sudden, hitting the ball exactly the pace that you want, which means hitting the ball on the dead center of the sweet spot and matching said pace with the line becomes paramount.
This is testing putting skill requires you to match pace and speed, and I just think on the PGA Tour frankly, like we don't see that because they don't have very high thresholds. Like in speaking to a lot of architects that have worked with the PGA Tour, they are their number one thing when new greens are being built is the grade of slope in pinnable areas, Like they just won't use areas of the green if they aren't under one and a half percent slope.
And don't get us started on the sand that PGA Tour sand. You know, there's a there's a PGA Tour venue coming up Black Desert Resort in Utah where they're using kind of the standard PGA Tour sand and it really doesn't work in the environment of that golf course, which is a pretty cool location. But more on that in the future. Joseph, I do want to raise another
point with Scotty's putting. Another possible cause of it, aside from the greater difficulty of greens that are set up by the RNA and the USGA versus the PGA Tour, and that is just the pressure factor. You know, is this where we can just be Zinger and say that it's that it's pressure when when Scotty is put under pressure, he is less likely to keep his putting stroke together.
And you know, when people are sort of mechanically we're mentally fragile with a particular shot on a golf course, they can often get through day to day, week to week PGA Tour events, but then when it comes to the pressure cooker of a US Open or an Open Championship, it's a different story. Now. Of course, to Scotty's credit, he won some really big tournaments this year and held
up under pressure. But I guess then my question would be how sustainable is any given technical or equipment fix For Scotty Scheffler, he switched to the mallet and that had immediate, noticeable, trackable results for his putting. It was obvious that that was at least partly the source of his revival on the greens this year. Now, maybe we're seeing kind of the inevitable regression. The honeymoon period is over. The honeymoon period lasted for a long time, several months.
Usually a honeymoon period with a particular putting stroke or putter doesn't last that long for normal players, but it lasted a while for scar It doesn't seem that it's permanent from the evidence of at least this week and Pinehurst. Does he then move on to a new fix, a
new kind of equipment. Does he bring the broomstick into play, and does that give him a similar kind of result where he is red hot at the beginning of the season, winning everything, and then gradually regresses as the season goes on and he forgets some of that, you know, flush of the of the new stroke or the new equipment. So I wonder if this is just a pattern that we're going to see with Scheffler.
I think you raise a few different points, and it should be noted like Scotty Scheffler gained strokes putting at the Masters, Like I don't want to go too far in the direction of he only gained strokes and PGA Tour Events'.
Gamer no he dealt was difficult greens.
And not just as a comment about Scotty, but like, are we making too much of the different setup? Like I'll qualify it that way, but it is interesting. Like Aksha Batia is another player who kind of went He went to the broomstick, and he's been a much better putter. He also lost strokes putting at this Open Championship, not
a lot, he was pretty close to zero. But I think what it could illuminate is that by throwing variety, by throwing different tests putting and wind different green speeds, it that is probably a good way to identify who can really put over a long period of time. And I think Scotti Scheffler will be a good use case to look into where he puts well and where he struggles.
All right, Andy, do you have a last takeaway for us?
I think my last takeaway and I've seesaw on this topic a lot, but my last takeaway is the open to my favorite golf tournament to watch a lot of times, I'll say the Masters, and I think the Master's benefits from like you've been, You've been, you haven't had major championship golf for nine months, but then when you get through the string of major championship golf, I always feel like at the end of the Open that it is my favorite And I'm just gonna say it is my favorite,
uh version of the game of golf, and it's my favorite tournament to watch year and year out. I can't wait for next year with port Rush, but to me, the Open offers just there's such a simplicity about it. Like I think one of the things that I love is that there isn't noise about setup year and you're out, because the setup is like, this is what the golf course is, and this is what the weather gave us.
Like there's just like a an aspect.
Of how the Championship plays out, the spirit of it and the the you know, simplicity of it that just makes me happy. And I just I love watching it year and you're out and it's my favorite tournament. You know.
What's so great about watching the Open Championship in the US and partic is that it pushes avid golf fans so far out of their daily routines that they have to kind of create specific traditions for the Open. This is at least what I've done, you know, living on the West Coast, it's especially difficult because basically the meat of the Open is happening when I'm normally asleep at least on Thursday and Friday, and so for the first day, I usually stay up late to see the opening tea shot.
And we've turned this into a kind of a social media thing where we have different shifts during the first round of the Open, and that's been really fun too, and a new tradition. Typically on Sunday, I'll get up early, and my parents live about fifteen twenty minutes away, and I go over and watch the Open with my mom and dad. And I do that because you know, my family's usually a sleep and so being up and making coffee and eating breakfast and watching TV is not necessarily
the best thing for them on Sunday morning. So I'll go over to my parents' house and watch it with them. You know, there's no other major that is like this because of the unusual time that it's on. For US people, us based people in particular, you have to create new routines just for this week, and that's part of what makes it really stand out for me. That's not necessarily anything about the course or anything about the tournament, both of which are really great for their own inherent reasons.
But that's one reason I love it because it just it makes me do different things than I normally would do to watch a golf tournament, and I have those associations and memories year on year, and that's why it's my favorite golf tournament as well. Where do you stand on a just is this your top or would you go another direction?
It's always been my favorite tournament of the year, and for all the reasons that you guys just described. One that's slightly different but related to your tradition, Garrett. I mean, it's fun sitting up late on Wednesday night, ten pm eleven pm knowing that the golf tournament starts in just a couple of hours and that you're going to wake up into the middle of action like that is a
rare It's a rare time in professional golf. You might wake up into the early and the third round of some tournament that's in the United States if you're on the West Coast, but they aren't the most meaningful players like you have top players teeing off at three am in the United States time and you wake up directly into that round. I think it's really cool. You sit up late on Saturday night, tournament starts in a few hours. Like you mentioned, Andy, what is the weather going to be?
Just that experience really stands out for me. Not to mention the type of golf that they're playing, that it's an attractive style of golf, the whole ritual of it. It's really separated itself for me, And yeah, it's my favorite.
You know. Now. The funny thing is it's July and I'm looking at the rest of the year and I'm thinking to myself, all right, what is there to look forward to? Now? I'm not complaining. Yes, it is a little bit weird that the major season ends in July. That continues to be a bit odd. But what are you guys looking forward to for the rest of twenty twenty four When it comes to golf, what should people keep tuning in for in these next few months.
I'm excited to see the new Eastlake Andrew Greens renovated it.
I think I think it's super hard.
Just no matter how it turns out, I think that the idea of renovating a golf course in a single year. We saw it with Colonial and gil Hands this year and I think the golf course was was like very playable, but it was like, you know, it's hard to renovate a golf course in a year, and getting it done itself is like a is a an accomplishment that should be you know, praise. But East, like, I'm fascinated to see what it is. This is a golf course that is important in men's pro golf at the time being.
I don't think ideally you'd have East like being played in August, but that's where we live, that's what we're at, and I think it's it's a pretty neat piece of ground. It's got a a neat purpose in in mission, in the community, and it hosts this big tournament that you know, kind of has become more about money and less about the idea of it being the Tour Championship, which itself was a nice identity. But I'm excited to see that.
I'm excited to see what Andrew Green's done. And then the other thing, the other big thing, Royal County down for the Irish Open is must see TV.
Oh yeah, we're not through with coffee Golf and Royal County Down Irish Open is happening in September, mid September, I believe. And then the Dunhill Links. I love the Dunhill Links, and you know, it's such a great thing to wake up early for. It doesn't seem like really anybody else watches it. Maybe it's hurt a bit by the fact that it's got that pro am format and so got these kind of pebble beachy vibes which don't
necessarily work to its benefit. But the courses they play at the fact that it's at the Old Course, I mean, talk about a burly golf course that can deal with anything. Hosting this many tournaments the Old Course is just incredible, and the fact that it hosts the Dunhill Links in addition to everything that it does every year is awesome. Now, on the subject of the Old Course, we've also got a women's major coming up. We've got the Women's Open.
I don't think it's called the Women's British Open anymore. They went with that nomenclacier for a while, but now they've gone to the Women's Open Championship that will be at the Old Course as well, and that's something that I am looking forward to tremendously, And so as much as we talk about there not being much Links golf on the schedule, we're getting at least a little bit in the late summer and early fall of this year.
We've got the President's Cup coming up as well. Joseph, anything in there that you're looking forward to for the rest of twenty twenty four or have any other things to throw in.
I would say I was going to say two things. One, the President's Cup drama, like the around the picks and that kind of stuff. The event itself may not deliver, especially with the international side being a little bit depleted, not having live golfers participate, like it could be lopsided, we'll see, But the drama around it and who gets picked, who gets left off the team, that's always interesting. And
then yeah, the Irish Open. I'm so excited to watch Royal County down and experience link Skulf the way that we just did that. As much as I wish it were a bigger part of the schedule, it could be a huge bright spot in the fall for golf fans and be something that we all look forward to. So I'm really excited for that, all.
Right, Joseph Andy, thanks for coming on the pod.
Thanks Garrett, Thanks guys.
This episode of the Frida Egg Golf Podcast was produced by PJ Clark. Thank you, PJ. It's been a great season of men's major championships, So thank you to all the listeners out there for following along. If you enjoy what we do on the Frida Egg Golf Podcast, then I think you would really like Club TFE. That's our membership. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership to
see everything that goes along with it. There are a lot of benefits that are exclusive to members, including content that we produce on a weekly basis, like in depth Course profiles, Tour Guide, which comes out on Wednesday typically and gives you some intelligence on what to look for on the PGA Tour and other golf tours around the world. And Design Notebook, another weekly feature where we cover the
happenings in golf architecture. So lots of good stuff in Club TF We're very excited about the community that we're building there. Again, go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership to see what we're offering there. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back again soon with another episode.