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 Bride Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg.
Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump.
Welcome to the Frida Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're still trying to process the twenty twenty four US Open. Bryceon de Shamba won at Pinehurst number two in thrilling fashion, and Roy McElroy recorded one of the most heartbreaking runner up finishes in golf history. Maybe
I don't think that's an exaggeration. Now, before I bring on Andy Johnson and Joseph Lamania to discuss our takeaways from the championship, including some chat about how Pinehurst number two fared in this tournament, I'd like to talk a bit about Goodwalk Coffee. Goodwalk is Frida Egg Golf's official coffee partner, and in my mug this morning, my little glass mug that you'll sometimes see me sipping from in
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dot com slash fried Egg check it out. All right, I'm going to bring on Joseph Lamania and Andy Johnson here to discuss some takeaways from the twenty twenty four US Open. Andy, first of all, how are you doing today?
I'm doing great. I guess say I'm on and on adrenaline. I was still Joseph and I had a very early morning. We left the Pinehurst area at four fifteen for our flights, and I gotta say I was on the plane still buzzing from yesterday. That was an electric golf tournament.
Joseph, how are you faring, Garrett?
I'm great. I think similar to Andy. I was on the flight this morning just kind of taking in what had just happened and realizing the significance of that tournament yesterday. So I'm really excited to debrief it with you guys.
All right, Well, let's first talk about the kind of contenders in the tournament, the basic action of the tournament, before we dive deep into Pinehurst Number two. The architecture, the presentation, the various issues around that. So does anybody have a Bryson related takeaway that they can dig into right now?
I think for one huge takeaway for me, Garrett is that Bryson De Shamba's short game I did not appreciate it enough coming into this week. I think that was a huge story on Sunday, the number of short game shots that Bryson hit that were excellent. Obviously the bunker shot on eighteen is going to be the one that's remembered, but even getting up and down on two that was a heck of a short game shot early in the round. The up and down on eight was incredible, like time
after time. The little wedge on ten to make birdie where he had a tiny landing zone at a crucial point in the round, like, Bryson's short game was super dialed. And that's something that I'm going to take with me into the future when I think about Bryson in major championships.
I think one of the things with just in general with Bryson that gets a little underappreciated is his history of being just a really well rounded golfer. He was an extraordinarily great amateur player, and he won the USAM and at the time early in his career, I think like what was what was his game was really built around was all around talent. He struggled with putting mightily until he found the armack putter. I think he's struggled a little bit around the greens, but he seems to
have figured that out. This is a guy that, like has been a great ball striker, has been a great all round player in general, but he has plugged his holes. He has improved, and he's I think like one of the things that goes underappreciated is just like the whole evolution of his career. Like I don't think we've ever seen a player take on so many forms so young
in their career. Like I don't know what what Bryson de Shambo is gonna look like in five years, because we've never seen the same Bryson to Shambeau for five years or two, let alone two or three years.
You know, has his short game always been as good as what we saw this past week or was this past week a new level for him in that area?
It looks better. I mean, it's hard to tell because the data on live isn't as granular, but he was always pretty average around the greens. And I think something that has been debated I know a lot of people who are into the prediction oriented stuff with Bryson is that the single length wedges could make some short game shots more difficult. But he seems to have figured that out.
And I've even seen some people saying that the single length wedges might have been beneficial on the green Side Bunker on eighteen, his final hole in that shot that's going to go down in history, that he was able to generate a little bit more speed, which was helpful in that situation. So I think there's a store a case to be made at least that Bryson to Shamba's kind of figured out a lot of those variables.
So both of you were on site this week. Both of you witnessed the reception of Bryson to Shambeau by the gallery, which seemed really notable throughout the week. We've seen Bryson gain in popularity this year, but it's easy to forget that just last year he was getting booed still at major championships and it wasn't uncommon to see a gallery turn on him. This week was the opposite and so Andy, what what do you think is different now? What has changed?
Bryson is incentivized by popularity. He he is a YouTuber.
He loves being loved.
He understands I think, like there he said in his press conference. I don't have the quote pulled up in front of me, but he said something along the lines of like I understand what goes into the production of content. I understand what it's like to be behind the camera, and I understand what it's like to be in front of the camera. And he also studies what does numbers? You know, he understands the full scope of like today's society is like popular, how people become popular online? And
I think that whole experience. If you think about Bryson to Shambeau, he would he was like testy with cameraman before. He didn't like cameraman getting into his business. He's completely shifted, and I think a lot of that. I think like a lot of his growth and I I'm sure people are tired of hearing about this, but like, I think a lot of his growth has to center around the
YouTube thing and becoming a content creator. He's gotten way more comfortable as a person He's got a huge number of fans and followers, and I think he's always like as you allude to, he's I think at the core of Bryson, he's always just wanted to be loved, and the Internet has given him an outlet. And now he's learned how to take his Internet personality and translate it to major championship golf on a Sunday, and I have
to say, I think it's a weapon. I think that the roarers and just that that energy has an impact on his competitors.
Garrett. I know that there was a lot of chatter about this on social media, but I think it was so striking to see in person that Bryson is constantly listening to what every all the fans are saying around him. And I don't know how much that shown through on the telecast, but like on Saturday, people are making comments to him constantly as he walks down the fairway and
he is acknowledging them and responding to them. He's about to hit a drive on ten on Saturday and some fan yelled like, this is number six at bay Hill but without the water makes no sense, But Bryson thought it was funny, like laughed and like looked up at the guy like he it must be exhausting. But the difference between like a Rory who was pretty locked in the entire weekend kind of blocking everything out, and Bryson was unbelievably striking.
I think it's the difference between Bryson and almost every single other pro golfer who like the way they play golf and the way they've been taught to play golf is to not acknowledge anybody around you stay in your bubble, and like, I think that's been part of like the ethos of the sport, is that it's you know, it's it's very polite and courteous on the outside and the players stay very keep everything inside. I remember as a kid growing up, there was a lot of backlash to
the way Tiger fists pumped from the old guard. Then Bryson kind of brought up Tiger and his energy as an inspiration in his press conference. I think it's similar. I think we're at like Tiger made it okay to be a little bit more expressive and demonstrative. I don't think that golf really like evolved and took the ball
much from that. You know, there have been a few players that have been like I think JT when he role in is pretty expressive about like he wears his emotions on his sleeve, but for the most part that that didn't really translate. This might be the next evolution, and this the way he acts inside the ropes and the way the fans respond is much more like other sports.
I will say that this interactiveness with the gallery probably works a lot better when you're playing well and the fans are behind you than when you're not playing well and the fans maybe are turning on you a little bit. And I think that that was probably a big part of his problem previously, because he was really attuned to people yelling Brooksy at him and saying things to him on the course about how he's lame and stupid. That got to him. And now it's the opposite. It's the
opposite kind of reception. But this doesn't last forever. Right. The public affection that he's getting, that anybody gets, that any celebrity gets, is a temporary thing, and so I wonder how he's going to deal with it when things change, because they will. I'm not saying they should, but things will change.
I'd be interested to see how that goes. I think one different Scarrett though, is that he has his YouTube channel, which I know we've already hit on. But I think the ability to craft his own image, like Bryson knows that whatever happens on the golf course, like he can go tell his own story once he gets off the course when he creates content. So I think having that platform and being able to create his own image gives
him some level of control of it. Maybe he'll be able to deal with a little bit of criticism better than he was before.
I think he's also going to have more support when things are going poorly because he's just got so many more fanned than he had before. Like he was kind of different and people didn't really know what to think about him, and then he had moments where it's like, you know, I don't really like what this guy did. And at this point he's got a core legion of fans that are going to follow him and support him whether he's playing great or poorly.
You know.
I I think it's crazy how popular he is I and it showcases the power of YouTube.
Why don't we talk briefly about Rory McElroy. This was just one of the most brutal losses that I can remember seeing in any sport, including in golf. I remember watching the nineteen ninety six Masters that final day. That's right when I was like getting into watching professional golf, and yeah, that was heartbreaking for Greg Norman. But he lost that tournament basically on the front nine or early on the back nine. Nick Faldo was just playing better,
and Faldo won by a substantial amount. And so I guess my takeaway from what happened to Rory on the last three holes, missing two putts that were not much more than three or four feet in the case of the sixteenth hole it was a two and a half foot put was just that I haven't seen something quite that painful in a major championship in golf, I think. Ever, I'm not sure that I have a historical comparison here. It was really hard to watch, really hard to process,
and I'm still kind of reeling from it. I feel so bad for him.
Yeah, I mean, it was gut wrenching to watch. Anybody that's played golf has had probably an experience like this, whether it's to match with your friends or whether it's in the club championship and to have that happen when you're widely considered one of, if not the best player of your generation, who's on a ten year major slump, who's had numerous heartbreaks along the way, and seemingly had the tournament in the palm of his hand with with two and a half holes to go, have it to
all slip away in that fashion where you know it was it was a short putting something that he had done extraordinarily well all year long that failed him. It's it's brutal. It's going to be I think, like one of the big stories now the rest of the year is is what what do we see from Rory McElroy. And obviously there's one major left this year, it's at Troon, and then there are a long it's a long season.
Like one of the things about the way the majors work now is there's a long time before next April and and for some people who might have had a year full of no contention, that's a that's a good thing. They can refocus and come back next year. For someone like Rory, who's who's had a who went through this and he could win at Truon. But if he doesn't win at Truon, it's gonna it's gonna be at the top of his mind the rest of the rest of
the year. I imagine it's gonna he's gonna think about this for probably the rest of his life.
Yeah, Garrett. Similarly, my big takeaway from it all was like, twenty five thirty years from now, when we look back on Rordy's close calls, some of them may get jumbled together a little bit if you're just looking at the leaderboard, the final leaderboard at least, But this was like by far the most devastating, heartbreaking loss that he had. It's
not even close. And I think so many of these close calls Rory hasn't been getting in the mix, like making birdies, hitting those shots, like having the ball striking and the putting line up. And he actually did it this week, Like he put four birdies together in a crucial stretch of the round nine, ten, twelve, thirteen, Like he actually was doing what he needed to do to win and looked locked in, had a two shot lead with five to play, was leading on the sixteen green,
just needed to avoid mistakes coming in. It felt like he was actually going to do it in a way that was completely different than all these close calls before. And then look he lost it, like this wasn't Bryson just going out and taking it from him. Rory lost it. He missed two very short putts. I know. The one on eighteen wasn't that was kind of difficult. The one on sixty was not difficult.
Yeah, because he was he was above the hole on eighteen right.
Eighteen was a hard put in a vacuum.
Yeah. And that pin, that pin is on like a tilted section of that green, the Payne Stuart pin.
Yeah, it's a hard pin. That was a hard putt on Thursday morning. If you put Teeing off ten. That was a hard put on Sunday afternoon to set the clubhouse lead at six under. It was an extraordinarily hard putt. And then when you throw in that he pulled a less than three foot putt two greens earlier, and it was a hard left to right slider. That is a It just ramps it up to an extremely difficult putt, and missing low right is probably the natural thing to
do after a pull on sixteen. That's kind of what happens.
I hear you. I hear you on that. I agree. It was difficult, but those are the puts you have.
To make if you will win, right like and he made a lot of putts that he wasn't supposed to make earlier.
Sure, sure wasn't supposed to I mean, yes, but those are the putts you have to make if you want to win the US Open, right like Tiger in two thousand and eight. The putt he made it Torrey Pines is a heck of a lot harder than the putt that Rory had on eighteen. It was four feet. I agree it was hard, but I'm not gonna I don't want to let him off the hook too much with like the putts on sixteen and eighteen. You gotta make those pots.
Yeah, I And And to your point, Garrett, about making putts he didn't he wasn't supposed to make. I watched a lot of Rory McElroy this week. He had so many putts earlier in the tournament that were similar range, Like his strategy was to hit it to that range, and he had you know, after after really Thursday, Friday
and Saturday, he made nothing. And he had so many puts that burned, edges, hit hit corners of the cup that didn't drop and it felt like it was interesting because like in a way, that round on Friday felt like his round at LACC on Sunday, his round at Saint Andrews on Sunday where he was in really some really good spots but he just couldn't get anything to
get going. And you know that's what you do. You play the averages out and you know you're gonna make some, and he made them, and he made him in a spurt and it was really similar to Quail Hollow, where it felt like he was going to a gear. He did go to a gear. He went to a gear that nobody else had, and unfortunately it just you know, I think there's a lot of psychoanalysis that you can get to as to what happened between sixteen seventeen and eighteen.
I think I think one of the unfortunate things is that an extraordinary bogie is going to be obscured on fifteen. The shot out of the Native on fifteen, to keep that on the green was out of this world good.
That was such. That was difficulty twelve out of ten, and he kept like keeping that on that green from that lie was unbelievable in having a a chance at par, But I mean it's too bad because he did everything he needed to do in the week, and then the final three holes he kind of just had problems with short putts.
In interpreting what happened with Rory down the stretch, there can be a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking and I don't want to get too deep into that, but a couple of things that I want to point out that got a little bit hidden about his play down the stretch were one that t shot on fifteen that skidded over the green. Maybe there was some bad luck involved there, but also just seemed like he overshot the green and missed in really the wrong place. There weren't that many
misses long on fifteen. On Sunday, there were a few, and nobody made par from back there, and that's why there weren't that many players back there, because everybody knew that that was kind of the deadly place to be on that hole. And then on eighteen, apparently Nick Faldo pointed this out on the Sky's sports feed. Shane Bacon told me about this this morning, But Rory pulled driver
on that tee for the first time all week. Evidently he had just hit three wood off of that tee every other day, and I'm not sure if there was a rationale for the driver that were just not privy to. There probably was, but there were some decisions in those last few holes that maybe are getting overlooked because of how spectacularly hard to watch those putts on sixteen and
eighteen were. And it brings us back to this old question of you know, maybe old at this point ten year old question or five year old question of whether Rory could use some more guidance out there on the course and making his decisions.
And you don't know how you feel the shot him fifteen. I'd like to see it again. I think that's pretty fair, Garrett, because long big death.
Yeah, it did take a big bounce. It did take a big bounce. I felt like it was.
It came out low, it was fading. It looked like a good shot. I was right behind the tee box it was. I mean, you want to hit a cut into that green? It was cut and it took a monster bounce.
Okay, fifteen, sure, if that can be litigated. I actually don't agree necessarily on eighteen. If he was feeling confident with driver, that's a hole that a lot of golfers were hitting driver on all day. It doesn't get super narrow at driver length. In general, if you're deciding between three wood and driver, like driver's often a good call. I don't have a problem with that. If he felt good over it, had some adrenaline flowing, and felt like
he could make a good, confident swing. I think we have a tendency when a player hits a ball in a bad spot off the tea with driver to suggest that it should have been three wood coming down the stretch, and he might have he needed to make birdie as well. Right if Bryson makes that put on seventeen, so I can get with you a little bit more on fifteen. I don't think driver was a foolish decision on the last hol.
I think if you're gonna examine some decision making, like one area that like I've thought about a lot today. It's funny, like he host on this cross country flight. I'm just reliving, like thinking about like basically the entire tournament, the whole time flying. And one thing I centered on was the way he played five all week. He drove it right down the middle of fairway. I think all four rounds he was in great position and he played the whole even par birdied it the first round. He
bogied it on Sunday. He made a spectacular par in the second round when he found the waste area that claimed victim to Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schoffley in the same group. I wonder what he would have done had he not watched those guys, because I think he might have tried to play the heroic shot and that's why he kind of t I had to do on Sunday, But like I might zero in on that hole as like the hole that he misplayed the most in terms
of the week. There was like a very clear miss there and the miss was was long, right, And I want to be clear here, it's hard. Everybody who plays golf, nos, it's hard to miss it exactly where you want to. But like that, if you miss it, if you dumped it right, it was great spot to basically every pin on that on that green if you can get into
that long rite collection area. And the one thing that everybody knew, yeah, every one thing everybody knew where you couldn't go was left and he found himself there twice. And like when you look at that hole his length, he's hitting mid irons into that par five and to play it even par for the week is super disappointing, especially since he played from the fairway for four or four days.
At the same time. Once again, Rory McElroy was in position to win a major championship, and he has been in that position so many times in the past few years. That's another thing that's going to get lost in the discussion of what happened in the last three holes. Rory was there yet again, and that is incredibly impressive, and I think some credit should be given to that, along
with criticism of those missed opportunities. All Right, before we get into what I think will be a more uplifting discussion of the course and the course set up at Pinehurst number two, because there was one thing that went amazingly well this past week, and that was Pinehurst number two and the way it played for these golfers. Before we get to that, I'd like to talk a bit
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can start wherever we want. Why don't we go to you first, Joseph, Do you have a Pinehurst number two related takeaway that you'd like to set us off with?
Oh? Yeah, I have a bunch. I think the main one for me, the perched domed greens have a lot of benefits in the way that they play for professional golfers that I think the main advantage of them, at least in ten the world's best is that there are so many shots out there, both on approach shots and short game where you can't go long or you have a serious problem and you often can't go short right or you might have to try that shot again it
may roll back to your feet and so the right left. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, but there's so many times where you have a great example would be Bryson in the bunker on five right of the green on the Sunday on the final round, where he's got such a delicate bunker shot and it's absolute death long of that pin. That how confident you are in your bunker game determines how aggressive you can be with that short game shot. And you saw it
like whole nines. Another example to the front right pin on Saturday, Like how confident you are with your short game kind of dictated how really really how well you could how close you could hit it to the flag, or else you're gonna have a problem both long and short. We don't see that that often in professional golf, Like there's usually danger in one direct but not the other, or rough stops it if you go too far long.
There's not this like, oh I may have a serious problem if I hit this three feet with three feet too much pace. So I think that's just such an exceptional test of short game and it really shows who has their stuff that week.
Yeah, I completely agree with this, and I think it it. I think the things that stood out, like there's a couple of things that stood out about about Bryson and Rory who separated themselves, but to me, they're both of their short game shots over the especially over the weekend.
It was just a different level than everyone else, and it it seemed, you know, like what you illustrate on the fifth hole was that's an awesome depiction because you saw so many players so afraid of long in so many cases that they you end up with twelve feet. I think like this is the beauty of when the ball is on the ground and when there is fear
of where it might go on the ground. And I think that's what Pinehurst does really through the entire golf course, because there's also that fear off the tee where when the ball's rolling and you just are terrified of it going into the waste areas because you just don't know what's going to happen. And I've seen a lot of
people complaining about the waste areas. Garrett. I thought you had a great Twitter thread that, you know, Bryson, everybody's saying he didn't get penalized, but he hit it in all these waste areas and he only hit one green out of them.
Absolutely, I think part of this, and I'm putting my tinfoil hat on right now, I think part of this is that on the telecast, we heard Brandal Shambly talking a lot about how lucky Bryson was getting. Bryson would hit a drive offline, it would trundle into the waste areas and Brandle would pipe up and say, up there he is again getting off scott free, or something to
that effect. That's not an exact quote, but the thing was those lies, although they weren't completely boned, he didn't find like the middle of a wiregrass tuft, which by the way, is pretty rare at Pinehurst most of the time it's kind of these in between lies. Bryson found some kind of scrapy, weird lies, and guess what, he played really well out of them. He advanced the ball generally far enough to get up by the green. There was one time that he wasn't able to do that on.
Twelve I think it was, and on eighteen and.
On eighteen he but he got up into the region of the green.
But then he hit in us history.
And that's what he was doing. He was missing greens out of waste areas because guess what, it's really hard to control your ball, even out of a good lie in these waste areas. They're sand. I mean, think about that, right. You can't compress it off of the surface like you would if it were on Pinehurst's Bermuda turf, and so you're going into these extremely penalizing, difficult greens, you think you're going to be able to hold many greens out
of the waste area. Well, that's what that stuff is doing. And if it were consistent Bermuda rough, then guys would be hitting the same kinds of shots where they wouldn't be hitting greens. They would be kind of finding the areas around the greens, but it might be a little bit easier, and it would certainly be more predictable. The
essence of Pinehurst waste areas is their unpredictability. Let's not leave that behind just because we're mad about what happened with Bryson's balls on the last day of this Open.
I just want to point something out here too. We already watched a US Open where Bryson missed fairways in thick rough and hit a bunch of greens. We watched that at Wingfoot. Yeah, he would just hit it into the rough and then hit it onto the green from the thick, gnarly rough like we've seen that. This to
me was a way bigger deterrent to Bryson. Bryson wasn't aiming down like the right half of a fairway and saying I'm just gonna blast it over here and maybe I'll be in the fairway because this is the way the green opened. I mean, you could tell that that the wiregrass was giving him a great deal of stress. Just look at how long he was taking to hit those shots. I mean, like the shot he hit into
into eleven. I wasn't back there, I didn't see the lie and I haven't watched the coverage of it, but you could just tell by the sheer amount of time how tricky that shot was, and it wasn't a great result. He ended up in that front left bunker and made a really good up and down. I think what's really great about Pinehurst just in general, is that if you hit a poor shot, whether it's off the tee, whether it's approaching the green, you have to hit a great
shot to make par. It could come in the form of a long putt, it could come in the form of a great chip shot, it could come from the form of a great recovery shot from the native. But like two, when you get out of position there something you have to do something superb to make the par And I think That's one of the things that I'll take away from Pinehurst is just it does such a good job of drawing lines, and I think what in giving viewers and understanding of that's good and that's not good.
Anything on the green felt good this week. It was like, Okay, they're on the green. Anything slightly off the green, it's like, all right, it's gonna be. They're gonna have to get up and down. That's not easy. Then in certain places you're like, oh, that's impossible. Up and down like Bryson's left of eight, which he miraculously got up and down and then off the tee. It was such a it was such a like it on the edge of your seat.
Like I found myself like running inside the ropes trying to go see what the lies were because you're so excited to see what happened to someone when they went in the wiregrass.
I feel like there's a perception after this tournament that you could just kind of bomb it and spray it around, and I just don't think that that's accurate. Garrett, Like, there were plenty, I don't know what how many shots the telecast showed. There are plenty of lies in the wiregrass that were harry that snagged players clubs and they made big numbers like that did happen, So I think it's inaccurate to suggest that Bryson just bombed it around
and got away with it. He shot tied for the worst score on Sunday of anybody that finished in the top ten because he was getting penalized for his errant shots, and he put on a magnificent short game display. You could go through a bunch of the holes on brilliant
shots he hit to get himself back into position. And like one other small thing about the wire grass, sometimes and we can get into like whether or not the wiregrass was overdone, but sometimes the wiregrass affected players' stances, and it may not the ball may have been lying cleanly, but like Bryson on ten, he was having a very difficult time standing and figuring out a good way to make a stance that he could hit a long iron on the on the par five tenths. Like the wiregrass
was a penalty. The notion that you could just blast it around and then go find it isn't accurate. And if you go through Bryson shots, you're gonna find a lot of situations where he showed some restraint, wasn't just bashing it, or when he found himself in native area, he paid a significant price for it. So I don't I reject that it didn't that this US Open wasn't about accuracy at all. It wasn't a hardcore accuracy test.
It wasn't, but it wasn't a bomb and gouge type of setup by any stretch of the imagination.
I love your point about the stance because that's one of the ways that you can mess with a good player the most. Is like where Bryson's generating power, where you generate stability and a golf swing is from your feet, and those wire grasses are clumpy, they're tough, they sit up the roots like sit up above the ground, and you could get really awkward stances in there. The other thing, I just like would love to point out who would you say are the three best drivers of the golf ball in the world.
Scotti Scheffler's one of them. So I don't want to I have him.
He drove it terrible by his standards, and guess what he had, like the worst tournament of his year.
Basically Cam Young Rory would Bryson. I know, I know you're going for Bryson, Scotti, Scheffler, and Cam Young would probably be my top four.
It allowed Bryson to Shambeau and Rory McElroy a stage to showcase that are immense off the t talents that few players can match. And for Rory, I think he gained seven shots on the field off the tee over the course of the week. For Bryson, he was not that far behind. He gained like five. But I think a lot of that reason that number was low was because he drove it bad on Sunday. He didn't pick
up really any shots on Sunday. And I think most people will know this that he had to swap out his driver, and I think like that that driver swap, I think showcases how tough it was, this small little change to a new driver head that wasn't, as he said, worn in enough. It needed to be hit fifty more times to be right the right head. For him, that driver head change caused like him to go from maybe the second best driver of the golf ball in the tournament to average.
Joseph, I want to put this to you. I think we all agree on this subject. So I want to kind of throw a little, you know, a little n the works here. What we saw this week was the two longest drivers of the ball, Bryson to Shambeau and Roy McElroy, separating themselves from the field. We saw Bryson missing a bunch of fairways on Sunday and still winning. How can you make the argument that Pinehurst number two is not a bomber's paradise based on this result.
There's a few ways to go. For one, it was a hard cour The course plays long, and there's a lot of long irons, and oftentimes the longest drivers in the field are the best long iron players. And I think that that's true of both Bryson to Shambo and Rory. They hit a lot of good long irons and so yeah, they're at the top of the leaderboard.
As they both played well at bay Hill over the course of their career.
Right and Bryson, for him, long irons are like his seven and eight irons. By the way, just to interject here real quick before you finish your point, Bryson's shot on the par three fifteenth hole on Sunday was a good representation I think of how high he hits his irons at that distance. That was an enormously long shot for the iron that he hit. I think he probably hit an eight iron, maybe a seven iron, and it was way up in the air and it landed pretty softly.
I mean, the announcers were worried that it was going to roll off the back of the green based on where it landed, but it checked up because that thing went way up in the air.
Right, So you're getting some of that right, Like, yes, long hitters are going to do well in part for that reason. There's a bunch of t shots out there that just aren't that bomber friendly. Right the first hole, there's no advantage to being a bomber, Like everyone's hitting a long iron out into the center of the fairway. The seventh hole, Bryson got daring and did rip a driver, but that's really risky, and a lot of golfers laid way back, including Rory, who took a super conservative strategy
off the tee there. So there's a mixture of holes that are bomber friendly and not so much.
Three most days was just laid back with an iron right thirteen until they made it driveable, which I think if we want to get into critiques was a bad drivable part four. I think it finally puts to bed that every drible four is a great drivable par four. But yeah, there are a lot of holes that took it out of their hands.
But there are also some holes that are pretty bomber friendly, right like twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eleven, yeah, ten.
Probably ten, Yeah, ten would be the number one hole for me, where it's just like, you know, it's it's not the easiest hole in the world, but it's a pretty straight line uphill fairway and you're looking at it and you're like, well, there's really no use in doing anything fancy here. I'm just going to crush it up the middle.
Even eight is kind of like that too. But the thing is, when you got offline, you found danger and there was an opportunity to make a big number. You don't want to stand there with a four iron in your hand, maybe not the best stance in your ball, not exactly sure how it was going to react out
of that wiregrass. So I don't know the kind of points Brandle was making on the telecast, and I've seen a lot of that sentiment expressed on social media, but I don't think it's accurate that it was a just hit it wherever and then go find it and hit it from there. That's not the way it played.
I think one thing to call out, and I, you know, I'd be curious what you guys think is a critique for Pinehurst number two in the way that the USGA went about setting this up this year. The fairways played extremely slow and soft given the weather conditions for the week, and comparatively to twenty fourteen, where we saw an extremely
baked out Pinehurst. I have a hunch that the premise and desire was for the golf course to look more green for television, and I think with that it made the fairways play a little bit wider, giving players a little bit more wide berth, and also limiting, you know, the amount of balls that got to the edges running into that wire grass. And I'm curious what your guys' thoughts are, but those fairways were significantly slower than twenty fourteen, and there was absolutely no reason for them to be
slower unless it was an intentional decision. And what could that intentional decision? You know, Like I, as I think through my head, television's always loved a good green product.
Garrett, go first, but I actually kind of disagreed, go ahead, go ahead.
I'd actually don't have any useful information here. The USGA did not release any information about how they prepared the fairways. They were very thorough in communicating how they prepared the greens, and they were restrained almost to the point of being tentative, but not quite. They were moderate in their presentation of the greens. They were stimping at about thirteen to fourteen all week, which is pretty damn fast, but they could
have made them more fiery. Now. I don't know if they watered the fairways more than they did in twenty fourteen, or if there was just a little bit more rain in the lead up to the tournament.
What's your sense, Andy, they were soft, Like from the beginning of the week, sentiment of players was fairways are really slow. I think some of this also goes to like preventing the chimer around the green thing. They wanted to keep the grass around the green a little healthier because when that grass burned out, it gave more incentive for putter to be a choice rather than wedge. But I think also with that those fairways being wider benefited
some of some of that length off the tee. I think that is one of the things, like where it gave a little bit wider berth, and the way those fairways move on diagonals got counteracted a little bit. I spoke with numerous players who played both twenty fourteen and twenty twenty three, and one of their biggest points of emphasis was how much slower the fairways were.
Okay, I actually do agree with you on that, Andy, I thought overall on the total firmness thing, I thought where we may disagree is that they didn't really push it on the greens. They aired. They kind of decided to make the greens to make the decision that the greens should play fast, but not as firm as they could. And maybe I'm in the minority here, I actually agree with that decision.
I agree too. I think the greens were perfect.
I think they were perfect.
I think when you get those elevated greens, you have to provide you have to provide the ability to hit good shots, and you have to provide the ability for every type of player to hit a great shot. If you would have made those greens, Firmer, Bryson and Rory would have run away even more or because trajectory of your shot in would have been you know, the main thing.
You know, like if you get a guy hitting a three iron on the fourth hole or you know, a three iron on the on the sixth hole, who's a shorter hitter versus a six iron, You're just with the severity of the false fronts, you can't land it short of a lot of those greens and have it roll up. So the greens have to be have a level of receptiveness to allow players to land them on the greens
and stop them. Now, no matter what level of receptiveness they are, the high ball hitter is going to have an advantage, but you have to allow the shorter hitters a chance.
I agree, And it's not even just the short hitters, like you need to give every player in the field a chance to land the ball, even the long hitters. Fifteen if that had gotten much Firmer would have been
basically unhittable. And what I think, maybe sometimes I disagree with some people at Frida egg On not not really, but I think fast greens are necessary ingredient of testing the world's best and when players short sighted, if you sacrifice too much on green speed to preserve some pin locations. They're going to get up and down in a lot of situations where I think the greens being faster presents a better challenge.
So I where I'm going to push back is you'd have more putts like Roy McRoy had on the eighteenth green, which are puts that pro golfers don't see very much. And three four footers, as we just saw when you got to play them outside the hole, are a lot tougher than your four footer right center, and that's the type of stuff that can get in players heads.
That's fair, But also on the ninth hole when players are trying to when they mishit, their t shots to a front right pin the part three and they have to put over that ridge and keep it on the green and control the speed. It being at a high speed but achievable was a really good test. And the more you slow those greens down, that putt gets a lot easier. So I'm actually in favor of a little bit of receptiveness in the greens and an ultra high speed. Garrett, how do you feel about that?
I'm fine with that, and I was fine with how they presented the greens in general this week. They were receptive to really good shots, generally from the fairway, generally from good angles, and they were very rejecting of less good shots from less good positions. And I think that that's probably the goal that you're going for when you're setting up Pinehurst number two for a championship like this.
They were restrained. They watered the greens every single evening, they'd double cut them in the morning, and didn't roll all of the greens every day. They rolled select greens the first three days and rolled none of them on Sunday morning. If there's one thing that I kind of wish they had done, I wish they had pushed the greens a bit more on se just from my perspective as a viewer being entertained, but from a competitive standpoint, I understand why they did what they did. They set
the course up to be slightly more gettable. On Sunday, the scoring average was about a stroke and half lower than it was on Saturday. Part of that's because thirteen was driveable and six was shorter, But to me, just looking at shots coming into those greens on Sunday, they were noticeably, if very subtly more receptive and I think that was intentional, and my choice as a sicko would have been to kind of let things off the chain a little bit. But again, get why they did what
they did. This is the new way at the USGA. You don't have Mike Davis back there, like, you know, trying to push the edges. John Bodenhammer and his setup crew are very restrained, very moderate, very smart. They want to present the most challenging championship in the world without driving the players crazy and creating a pr crisis for themselves. And that is completely understandable, and it's represented in this setup this week, which was so successful and so smart
that I can't help but just tip my cap. Good job.
Yeah, did you guys think this was like one of the best setups in recent memory? Like I'm having trouble thinking of a major championship setup at least over the last decade that compares to this. I thought it was phenomenal.
Yeah. I mean, you have the advantage of pretty consistent weather through the week, like no weird weather conditions, not much wind. It was warm, obviously, as you guys experienced, but it wasn't crazy at any point, and so they were able to be pretty steady with the way that they were maintaining the greens. And they also had the
advantage of one of the greatest courses in America. And that's you know, if you set up Pinehurst number two properly, it's gonna be awesome, because this course is awesome.
Think they could have had a final score of basically whatever they wanted. They could have probably gotten it to like minus ten would have been probably, like you know, if they wanted wanted to make it a little easier. I think they could have gotten this thing to wear plus five one if they wanted to. And that gives you without it being super silly. I think, like a couple notes, just a couple of notes. They never used a right pin on ten. That was a miss. They never used the right pin on eleven.
That was a miss.
Oh man, that little front right pocket of that green, that's so cool.
Yeah, come on the third. I think that. I mean, if we're gonna critique with a fine tooth comb here, thirteen was a big miss. As a driveable part four, I think there were better options, yep, for drivable fours. I thought three was awesome. Three is an awesome drivable four,
just as an anecdote. I was following ZB on Saturday and I was going to the sixth Green and I'm walking on the on the pathway behind five to the six te and I see Terrell Hatton's fall on the path looking up at that backpen, and I'm just like, oh boy. And then I walk a little bit further there's Tom Kim and I just like stopped. I was like, well, I'm gonna be sitting here for a little while.
I got out your popcorn, and yeah, stayed where you were.
I mean, that was awesome. I think there's also a question of is five a better hole from an uptee.
I think it's a great hole from any t I love it.
Well, here's here's the point. The only two players really were reaching the point of the fairway where it can't, and those were Rory and and Bryson.
Interesting, that is.
A better, unobjectively better approach shot, no matter what the yardage into the hole is. With a hanging downhill lie, that is just at or harder shot. I will take the flat lie, and I'm sure the data people will kill me for this. But if there's trouble to do this, if there's trouble short left or all left, and I have the choice of a dead flat lie from two whatever two fifty two sixty or a hangar from two point thirty. I am choosing two fifty to sixty all
day long. But no pro is going to hit three wood off a front of forward t They're always going to take that upt And I think you would have just seen way more people find left unintentionally. Who was the guy that found left twice? The guy that got it to the side hill twice? R got it to the side hill four times. Yeah, that brought left into play because of how far up he was. Nobody else was getting up there except for like Bryson a few players. So like, I think that was actually a big miss.
Was that was moving up that that fifth or moving back that fifteen, which I think is a new box they built it for. They didn't have it in twenty fourteen.
And I guess the other way you could get there is with firmer fairways too right, I mean, that's firm farewell get there.
Yeah, And you know, in the spirit of nitpicks, I agree about thirteen. I tweeted about thirteen on Saturday evening saying, I hope to God they don't set this up as driveable tomorrow because it is such an interesting two shot short par four that presents legitimate options for players who want to lay up and players who want to push it up just short of the green where you might have a really really tricky shot from the left side of a fairway that is turning on a diagonal there,
A lot of players chose to lay up. Most players chose to lay up, including Bryson. He was sitting there contemplating it on Saturday, saying, I might try to take out driver here and just blast it up there, but nope, I'm going to hit an iron, don't boomy. It was great little theater there on the tee, and then he dumped it in the bunker on the layup. I mean, Bryson, who hits driver everywhere, laid up on that hole because
it presents an interesting question to players. When the tee is back in the three sixty to three eighty range. When you make that hole driveable, there's no decision anymore. Players are just sort of peppering that green with driver. In Bryson's case, Threewood, it didn't give Bryson or Rory really anything to think about on Sunday. They knew they were going for that green. They figured they would probably miss the green. In Bryson's case, he did hold the
green because he was again hitting three wood. But they were fine with the outcomes up there, and there was no legitimate decision being made. And that's what I want to say about about thirteen basically, But I want to transition us into having a more general discussion here, just to wrap up getting out of the minutia big picture Pinehurst number two as an anchor site. My takeaway here is that Pinehurst number two is or could be the
USGA's Saint Andrew's. And that's not to say that it's as great of a course, or that it has as much history or as much importance to the history of golf, but Pinehurst could be the true anchor site. I have no problem with the US Open going there one and a half times per decade even now. The aspect of the USGA's site selections approach that I do question is taking the US Open to Pebble Beach and Oakland with almost the same frequency as they do Pinehurst, because to me,
Pinehurst is the greater and more obvious anchor site. I think Pinehurst should have a unique status when it comes to hosting US opens that shouldn't be also given to other courses, even to courses as iconic and as great as Pebble Beach at Oakmont. So what are what you think of that?
Yeah, similar takeaways. I think maybe the bigger critique on the anchor site. It's not even the anchor site. It's just locking up venues for so far out that like, maybe that's a bigger problem than anchor site. I've never really had an issue with the every five years thing with Pinehurst. It honestly feels like a pretty reasonable time between championships and the golf course is so good that
I'll be excited every five years. I think some of the something we didn't talk about so far in this pod is the way that the tea boxes and the greens are close together and the environment that that creates where players are watching each other and it's tremendous theater. I think when you return to a venue every five years, you have the data from the past one. You know which pin locations work, you know which firmness levels. We're talking about an area of the country with predictable weather.
It's dry it's going to play well. So of all anchor sites they could pick, I think Piners number two is awesome and I'm gonna look forward to it every five years. I'm not gonna feel like, man, we were just here. Five years is a pretty decent amount of time, So I'm with it. Yeah.
To me, I think the thing that I have a problem with with anchor sites is I think that it cuts against the ethos of the US Open in general. America or the United States is the country with the
most great golf courses in the world. There are a lot of great golf courses in a number of countries, but no other country has the sheer number of great golf courses and the diversity of great golf courses, types of golf courses and top you know where they are locales like that, that rich diversity of different areas of the country. To me, the issue when I zoom out and look at it is just between Pinehurst and Pebble.
Of of US opens every ten years, are going to two places, And you know, I think Pebble has a lot of great history. It's revered, it is a spectacular place to watch golf. It's a spectacular place to visit for the scenery. I think the golf course. If I was looking at if I was ranking golf courses in terms of the way they test modern players, I would put it near the bottom of the golf courses on
the that are that it's associated with. With this list of US Open candidates, not to mention, June is just a bad time to be there. You're gonna be it's gonna be foggy, and I think so, I think my issue is just the sheer quantity of them. I did an exercise before this tournament where I kind of listed out like courses that could host across the country and like taking out this really a lot of the South
because of just the heat of June. I got to like nineteen golf courses that were great hosts all across the country, and to me to have between you know, let's just say Oakmonts once every ten years, the fifty percent of the US Opens like it just it's not representative of the country overall as a as a golf place. And that's what this tournament should be about. It's the
United States Open. The United States Open each year should be the best players in the world taking on one of the greatest golf courses in the United States in different areas that are different styles. I'm okay with like hack it out US opens every once in a while. I think it'd be a mistake if pinehert if we just hosted everyone at Pinehurst, it would reward certain types of players. The event should thrive on its diversity, its openness, and the great golf in America. That should be the
core tenants of the tournament. And I think like I'm okay with Pinehurst being there regularly, especially with the USGA now headquartered there. I was like floored with overall the whole setup. I thought it was really great, But I have a problem with all the other ones that have so many It just it has it really limits the amount of variety in this championship, which should be a core tenant of the championship because there's a lot of variety in American golf.
I think we're aligned with this. It sounds like if you're okay with Pinehurst hosting on a regular basis because of its association with the USGA and becase because of its excellence through and through as a championship test and as a tournament venue for spectators, for TV for everything. I think it sounds like we agree. I also like the general idea of making the United States Open a truly United States tournament where you go all over the country and see all the great courses that this country
has to offer. The only problem with that. It's a great idea and concept. In practice, what you get sometimes is an LACC type venue, wonderful golf course. But this tournament this year blew it out of the water in terms of the on site vibe, excitement, and sense of
real stature and importance that became really, really clear. I think La North is a wonderful, wonderful championship golf course and it and it didn't get its due last year during the US Open, but it did not thrive as an on site spectator experience, and that came through on
the telecast and it affected the entire championship. And so I think that the issue with going to many many different courses is that these days so few courses can host the way that Pinehurst Number two hosts, and you have a lot of courses that can kind of do it, but might not get all the way there like LACC.
That's it's a fair, fair critique. I think, but I think it's more important to It's one of the things that makes the tournament so unique. Like, was what was the most times that that Jack Nicholas played a repeat course? And is a US Open career. I don't have it in front of me, but I can't imagine that. You know, in a twenty year career, you could play a course four times, So I don't think that would happen.
Yeah, I think one of the huge things that has changed with modern championship golf is the needs that commercial must meet. Yeah, commercial needs, hospitality needs, infrastructural needs. I mean, the US Open in the nineteen twenties could go any old place, you know, it didn't matter. They could just go to the best golf courses. They didn't worry about it. But the need for a RODA and for a tighter RODA has really started to come to the fore in
the past several years. Even this has been a fairly recent trend that the championships have gotten to a size and a complexity that you just need venues with some experience hosting this kind of stuff. But like you, I do hope they continue to try to keep the road afresh, to bring in fresh blood, because otherwise the National Championship starts to feel a little bit more stale and that's a big danger for it.
Oh well, breaking news, Rory's not playing the Travelers.
There's a statement on Twitter.
Yeah, so I guess we're gonna have to wait to find out if you can withstand the ultimate pressure until another event.
Huh, the ultimate pressure of the Travelers Championship of.
A signature event.
Yeah, hey, listen, I am going to defend the Travelers Championship until my dying breath. That's a great tournament in any case. Yes, Rory's Rory's not coming back next week, and we can kind of understand why that might be the case. All Right, guys, thank you for coming on the pod. Thank you Joseph, Thank you Andy. We'll do it again after the Open Championship in a few weeks.
Here.
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