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 frid.
Egg Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg, Brian Egg, Frida Egg, Bride.
Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the hump course. Welcome to the Friday Egg Golf Podcast. I'm Garrett Morrison, and today we're talking about Valhalla Golf Club. We're talking about Rory McElroy, and we're looking back on some details of the twenty fourteen PGA Championship, which we think will really inform and illuminate what might happen this week during the twenty twenty four PGA Championship. Here to discuss all of that with me is Joseph Lemania. Joseph, how you doing, Garrett?
I'm doing great. I love talking major championship golf with you, so I'm really excited to do this.
So we both watched the final round telecast of the twenty fourteen PGA. We used our we used our inside media connections to get a hold of this video because it's actually not available publicly. Maybe maybe it should be maybe just throw that up on YouTube. It would be cool to have it. But in any case, we got to watch this telecast and mainly we were looking at it to collect some observations about the golf course, how certain holes played, what kind of playing style. Valhalla tends
to prefer all that kind of stuff. But just to give people that the high level summary of what happened on that Sunday in twenty fourteen, the tournament basically came down to a four way duel between Rory McElroy, Ricky Fowler, Phil Mickelson, and Henrik Stenson. Now I had forgotten that Stenson was so involved in this final round, but he was actually tied for the lead at one point on the back nine. In any case, that the big drama was between Rory, Ricky and Phil. Ricky and Phil were
in the second to last group. Rory was in the final, pairing with Bernard Weisberger. Poor Wisburger was pretty much dropped from the coverage by the back nine, even though he didn't like play that poorly until the final several holes, but you know, he wasn't truly a factor. But Ricky and Phil made a big charge on the front nine, really exciting stuff from them in kind of the middle stretch of the front nine, whereas Rory faltered a bit.
When Rory was standing in the tenth fairway, he was actually three shots behind Ricky and two shots behind Phil, But then Rory eagled that par five the tenth hole. Ricky and Phil kind of stalled out for the rest of the back nine, and Rory made a couple of birdies and they finished in the dark on eighteen, with Rory playing his first and second shots up into Ricky
and Phil. It appeared to me that Ricky and Phil were kind of okay with him hitting his drive up into them, but the second shot was a point of contention. Famous ending to this tournament, it was nearly dark, there had been a rain delay earlier. That's why they were kind of pushing darkness as they were playing eighteen, and Rory won by one shot over Phil, two shots over
Stenson and Ricky. So in all this Joseph and all this kind of Sunday action from twenty fourteen, were there any moments that jumped out at you, Gared.
I think you did a great job setting all that up. Admittedly, when I watched this, I was kind of looking for more of how the golf course was playing than like specific moments. I think the main things that I will take from watching that telecast Phil the whole scene on eighteen is infamous and it was really fun to relive that. I do think it was a bit absurd that Phil and Ricky had to let Rory hit his second shot.
Into totally totally I am on I am on Phil's side here me too.
I mean it was completely ridiculous, and I think the drama of Phil having a chance to hold out his shot for eagle and that being interrupted significantly with Rory's approach shot into eighteen, and then Phil steps up after Rory hits the approach shot and nearly holds it was I really respected the way that he gathered himself to hit an unbelievable chip shot, So that was one of my biggest takeaways.
Yeah, and Ricky ended up free putting right. He seemed rattled by it all. Both Phil and Ricky were really pretty classy about it and didn't take the bait after the round two express their displeasure. But Phil had a long conversation with the rules official on the eighteenth green I'm sure to the effect of what the hell is going on here? And I get it, you know, But at the same time, from Rory's perspective, he's thinking, if I don't hit up this second shot, I'm probably not
going to finish today. It seems like the weather forecast also wasn't good for Monday, so who knows when Rory would have hit those final shots, and he would have had to keep that kind of mental intensity and focus going for another potentially couple of days, and that would have been a very difficult position for Rory. But it was totally puzzling. I think it was just a bit of a clusterfuck, and nobody knew what was going on, including the rules officials. So as far as moments for me,
I mean just this three way duel. I mean, Stenson was involved, so, but he was a couple of groups ahead and so he was definitely being covered by the telecast. But the true duel was between Ricky and Phil in the group ahead and Rory kind of waiting on every shot behind them, watching everything they did. And the telecast showed this really well at a couple of moments, and it was clear that, you know, Phil and Ricky were
kind of getting buddy buddy about it. A lot of fist bumps and you know, congratulating each other on good shots and things like that, and there was Rory and the group behind kind of you know, I think he was getting frustrated by it, and in fact, actually he admitted afterwards that he was annoyed by the way that they were carrying on with each other. And on the back nine he just locked in and absolutely blitzed that. Well, he didn't blitz the back nine, but he did what
he needed to do. He had an eagle and two birdies on that back nine when everybody else was sort of stalling out and making a bunch of pars. But I loved the particular moment on the sixth tee when there was there was a big backup on the sixth tee and Rory arrived after playing some pretty poor holes in the opening of his round and watching Phil and Ricky Hull putts and chip in and do all this stuff.
Rory arrived on that tee and did not say hi to Phil and Ricky, did not talk to them, sat off to the side and waited for them to play.
And there have been descriptions of this scene, most notably by Shane Ryan and his books Slaying the Tiger, and the scene was awkward, and we saw a little bit of it on the telecast where there was actually this great shot which started on Rory kind of sitting off to the side of the tee and there was a zoom out and in the foreground Ricky was revealed kind of sitting there, you know, standing there with an awkward expression on his face as Rory sort of stared them
down forfar. So there was some tension between these players. I think Ricky and Rory are are friends. Rory and Phil clearly, I don't think have ever really seen eye to eye, you know, there's a little bit of juice there. So really really fun final round overall.
I think part of what you're hitting on is one of the biggest takeaways from watching this, which is the it was a different Rory McElroy in twenty fourteen than the Rory McElroy that we watch weekend and week out ten years later. I think the free flowingness of his game is clearly a little bit different, and even though he looks confident right now coming into this tournament, there's a little bit of a different swagger to the way he was playing that final round in twenty fourteen than
anything I can recall him playing recently. You know, I do think part of this story there is that Rory's length advantage and the way that fit golf courses ten years ago is different than today, and he's a little constrained as part of how easy it's gotten to swing the driver and how far the golf ball goes is the advantage he had in twenty fourteen was just bigger and perfectly at Valhalla and let him free wheel. And
I think that's evident from watching the coverage. So both maybe with some of the behavior and the way that he was, I think there's more of an alpha to Rory in twenty fourteen, both the way he swung the golf club and maybe some of those moments like you're alluding.
To, absolutely, and this is kind of what happens with people, you know, and Rory and I are kind of close to the same age. He's five years younger than I am, and so you know, ten years ago he was a young man, you know, very much on the upslope of
his life, you know, going towards the apex. This turned out to be kind of be the apex twenty fourteen for him, but of course he didn't know that at the time, and we didn't know it, and there was a kind of freedom and hopefulness in the way he played golf, like he was just going to keep getting better and better and better. And that has gotten you know, it hasn't been taken away from him necessarily, but he has lost a little bit of that confidence and hopefulness
about his golf game. And that's kind of what happens when you get older. You mellow out a little bit and you lose some of some of that edge that allows you to do incredible things when you're in your mid twenties. And so that's the Rory we saw here. The real reason, Joseph, that we watched this round, though, was to get a sense of how this golf course played in twenty fourteen and how it might play this year,
ten years later. I think that we saw that the game is different now, but it's sort of like a just a more extreme version of the game that was being played at Valhalla in twenty fourteen. Distance had really started to get out of control then, and the way we saw Rory playing that golf course is probably the way that we're gonna see a lot of golfers play the golf course this week, So as it relates to the course, what are some of your big big thoughts there?
I mean, Gary, I've there's a chance I'm wrong about this, but I feel fairly certain we are on pace given the weather conditions this week and the lengthening of the golf course, the way it sets up, like, I think we're projected to watch an extreme version of a major championship, one that is about as friendly to big hitters as a setup can be.
An extreme version of a PGA Championship, especially right.
Yeah, but I mean an extreme version of any golf tournament. Like, I think this is going to be as much like hitters, only you bombers bomb away, and a part of that is going to be the soft conditions and the ways that the golf ball just isn't gonna roll. And so I think what's instructive about watching that twenty fourteen PGA Championship was that the conditions were similarly wet, and I think the I think it's gonna play a lot like it played in twenty fourteen. So I agree with you
that the game has changed. We will talk later about some of the players that that favors. But I think we should set the expectations here, and other people are saying the same thing. But we might watch an extreme version of bomb and gouge golf this week.
What is it about this course that favors that style?
Well, I mean, one the obvious point is the sheer length of the golf course, and it's been lengthened since twenty fourteen, so you're gonna have so many driver six iron, driver five iron. I mean, Tiger has already talked about this week, has already talked about it this week that there are certain holes he hit like driver wedge to one when he played this I believe he said in twenty fourteen, and now I mean he hit driver five would and part of the reason the moisture is a
huge part of the story here. Coming out of the rough, even you're gonna have shots that when they land on the green, they stop and you're gonna be able to hold the green even from the rough. The fairways are also gonna play much wider in these types of conditions because the ball just hits and sticks immediately, so you don't have to worry about controlling the ball. As much and hitting something down the center of the fairway that rolls and ends up on the right edge or the
left edge of the fairway. It's pretty much hitting and sticking. And I think that's something that people should kind of burn into the back of their brains before this tournament starts, because that's what you're gonna see.
Here's something that Justin Thomas said earlier today. We're recording this on Tuesday. Justin Thomas said about Valhalla, for the most part, if it's a par four or five, you're just grabbing a driver when you get to the tee and you're just hoping you hit the fair way and then you're probably going to hit somewhere between a five and an eight iron into the green. That pretty much
sums it up. That is so much of this golf course where you hit it as far as you can off the tee and it's all carry distance, right because as you mentioned, the ball is gonna stick and hold even though the fairways have been regrasped with Zooija. We've seen the weather forecast for this week. It is going to be wet, and so you hit the driver and then you're going to have a fairly long approach for these guys, it's not going to be a bunch of wedges.
It might be more wedges for some of the longer players, but most of the field is going to be really tested with their mid to slightly shorter irons. And that's the golf course, right And this is a PGA Championship golf course these days. This is the style of golf course that the PGA Championship has gone for. And I don't know about you, but not my favorite type of golf course to watch Thursday through Saturday. I think it's
going to be pretty sleepy. But then when we get to Sunday, we're probably going to get a bunched up leader board and it's probably going to be a bunch of players that we know about. Because the players that we know about, the top ten players in the world, tend to be the players who thrive on this kind of golf course, who hit it really far and are really good with their mid to long irons. We're going to see those players in the mix more than likely. If they show up with any kind of chipping and
putting form, that's who's going to be there. And so that kind of sets you up for an exciting Sunday, even if the three days leading up to that are not as exciting.
Right, A lot of things to react to you there, Garrett. The only thing I would quibble with a little bit is that there actually are a couple opportunities out there on the golf course to hit less than I think that's one of the stronger points of this golf course, even though I'm not a huge fan of it in general. There are a couple t shots that, especially if it were firmer, the three wood versus driver decision that players would have to make is kind of interesting, Like the
Ninth Toll is an example of that. But again, with it being wetter, we're not going to see as much of that. To your point about the style of golf, this is my least favorite style of golf to watch, where the golf ball just isn't rolling at all. Everything's hitting and sticking. It's all kerry distance. I guess the exception or my least favorite would be if this were
more of a wedge fest. But at least here there's going to be long iron play, which to your point, is going to bring a lot of these long hitters in. So yeah, we're probably going to see a leaderboard on Sunday of some of the top players in the world and a lot of really long hitters, right your Brooks, Bryce and Scotty Rory. So from an entertainment perspective, I think Sunday could get pretty interesting, even if the golf
shots themselves aren't that interesting. One tournament that I wanted to throw at you, Garrett, and I'm just curious for your reaction to this. I admittedly this is a golf tournament that maybe a lot of people don't remember, and I only remember it because I have personal connection to the golf course. But this Valhalla reminds me more than any golf course of Crooked Stick, which is another Midwest golf course long and in twenty twelve they hosted the
BMW Championship there. Leading into that week, it rained all week. It was extremely muddy. And only really remember that because I was at the tournament. The final group that week was Rory, Phil and Tiger. And you just talk about long hitters not always the most accurate. It's interesting the way that that leaderboard kind of paralleled to twenty fourteen
PGA Championship. Not Tiger wasn't involved, but Lee Westwood finished high on the leader board at the Crooked Stick tournament, and I believe in twenty fourteen he was the first round leader. A lot of parallels in how that golf course is going to play. I think this is just a very clear hit it long. You don't have to be the straightest driver of the golf ball, and then you're firing six and seven irons in that stop on
a dime on the green. So I thought that was an interesting tournament to reflect upon because both some of the names line up, and also the style of play is so similar that you have like a Robert Geragis in the top five at Crooked Stick who was just a bomber that didn't have much short game or wasn't the best potter. So I think that's what we're going to see.
That's kind of surprising to me. So I'm not nearly as familiar with Cricket Stick as you are. Obviously you, I believe played the course a lot when you were a kid, and so so what about cricket. It's a Pete Die golf course. Normally we would think of Die championship golf courses as being in a different mold than Valhalla in terms of the play style that they most favor. So what about cricket Stick is kind of similar to Valhalla to you.
Well, there's a lot of it has to do the width of missus and how much it penalizes you. There's a lot of shots at Crooked Stick where you can kind of take trouble out of one play on one side and then just bash driver and if you miss a little bit and you're just in the rough, it's not that big of a deal, especially if the greens are receptive and you can hold something coming into those greens. So, you know, I think what's really interesting about that golf course.
Not to make this a full blown discussion of cricket stick, but John Daily, Dustin Johnson, and Rory McElroy are some of the champions there in the most high profile events, some of the most high profile events that have been hosted there over the last you know, thirty years. Those
are bombers. And it can be counterintuitive sometimes when you see a course that is there is some thick rough and there are some trees, even though there's not a ton of trees at Crooked Stick in particular, but it does lend itself to that kind of bomb a lot of the t shots you can just aim somewhere in bash Driver.
Let's get into some specific holes at Valhalla. You know, when you were watching the Sunday telecast, did any holes stand out to you as being interesting on the one hand or just representative of the golf course on the other hand.
I mean, it's a lot of browny par four's and like ripping five irons into greens.
So yeah, second hole at Valhalla, I feel like is probably a good example of what players see a lot at that golf course. Right, it's a converted par five. It plays as a part four for the pros, it plays as a par five for the members, And yeah, that hole just is all about hitting your drive as far as you can so you can have a reasonable mid iron into that green.
I'm probably teeing you up here, Garrett, and you have both more informed and probably stronger opinions, more important takes on the golf course.
So I'll leave some of this to you.
But I think the fourth hole at Valhalla, it's one that I'm sure you're eager to talk about, but I think from watching the telecast, that's one that even though it's a short part for where you're hitting driver wedge or you know, maybe three would, but I think especially in these wet conditions, you're going to see a lot of driver. To me, that was pretty indicative of what we're going to see this week, where you can blast
something up there pretty close to the green. The angle that you're going to be coming into that green with really doesn't matter, especially when it's wet, And I think something interesting about these kinds of conditions or that when you're hitting a wedge, spin control on wet greens is
a pretty big factor. And sometimes when you're coming out of the rough, if you have a good lie in the rough, that SHOT's almost easier a sixty yard shot out of the rough when you have a fine lie and you don't have to worry as much about if it were really firm, it would be different, but it's not. So the ball just kind of stops and maybe rolls a couple of feet. That's such an easy shot that I think you're going to see a lot of that,
in particular on the fourth hole. So I don't know if you have any other comments on the fourth.
But with Rory, we saw Rory Landon's some kind of almost casual water and have to hit a wedge out of that and it didn't check up the way he expected. Yeah, the fourth hole, I mean, it's one of the few holes at Valhalla that produces different strategies off the tee because there are two basic sections of that fairway. There's a short section of the fairway from the tee and
there's a long section of the fairway. And to get to the long section of the fairway, you have to hit a longer club and you have to carry a bunker and kind of thread it between that bunker on the left and another bunker on the right. I may have my right and left mixed up. You're right, you're right.
If you clear the bunker on the left, but leave it a little out right, you might get an app the bunker the right.
Yeah. Yeah, So it requires a little bit of precision and a little more length obviously to get to that section of the fairway and have the shorter shot into the green. Then on probably one day of the championship, the PGA is going to set it up as driveable. They did that in twenty fourteen on Saturday and pretty much which everybody went for the green in that situation. So it wasn't much of a choice, but it was
a driveable par four. The thing about the whole that is lacking a little bit, aside from the shaping, which is awful looking, there just totally awful looking. We can talk about that if you want, but the shape, just the ascetics are so so bad. The thing that's lacking about the whole to me is that the green is just not all that interesting and the surrounds of the
green are not all that interesting. And one common characteristic among the greatest short par fours in the world is that really interesting things happen around the green because of the contouring of the green, because of the nature of the surrounds, there's always something going on with a great short or drivable par four that is on another level around the green. The fourth green, as far as I can see, is pretty simple at Vallha. It's not all
that contoured. There aren't many really terrible misses around the green. There's not much of that danger, right. The thing about great short part four is that there's some threat. If you miss in the wrong place, you're absolutely dead. You can make double bogie almost nob but nobody made double bogie on the fourth hole in the twenty fourteen PGA Championship. I think it was one double bogie out of the entire field during all four days. So it's just missing
that element. And so it could be kind of a cool hole because there are different strategies off the tee that you could adopt, but it doesn't really follow through around the green.
I think core to this conversation both in twenty fourteen and how it's going to play this week are the conditions and given how what it looks like it's going to be in soft, I think you're crazy if you don't send it up there somewhere around the green or leave yourself like fifty sixty yards unless you have some crazy wind or that shot sets up terribly for you
like that. That's one where you're sending it. But I think to your point of not having the like terrible misses around the green and it not being penal in certain locations, short sighting yourself just isn't gonna be that big of a problem this week. And that was one of my biggest takeaways from watching that twenty fourteen telecast. Probably the best example I can point to is the sixth hole. We can talk about that whole if you
want Phil Mickelson. I don't know exactly what club he had in some kind of long iron into the approach. Maybe it's like two hundred and twenty five, two hundred and thirty yards something like that. On his approach shot, maybe a little less, and he hits this hard rope that doesn't cut back for him, and it just stays right of the green instead of bouncing into a bad spot like taking a hard bounce, it lands in the fairway near the green and just kind of stops. It
rolls a little bit, but stays in the fairway. Not only does it stay in the fairway, but then his chip shot isn't that difficult. It's doable because the greens are soft and he's hitting from the fairway. Like that's what you're going to see this week. You're just going to see so many instances where you wish maybe there was a little bit more of a penalty for missing
in the wrong spots. But you're gonna be able to get up and down pretty routinely because the greens aren't that sophisticated or contoured, and the conditions are going to be so soft.
Yeah, So I mean, there's just a lower priority on accuracy all around, and I should mention, like we're talking about design, we're talking about setup and conditions. Something that's great about Valhalla is the crowds and we saw that in the twenty fourteen tournament. Louisville is a great city and the crowds really come out for a PGA championship that's held at this golf course, and so we can expect that to be a really wonderful aspect of this tournament.
That was missing last year at Los Angeles Country Club. Will noticed it missing at the US Open. That is, people notice that that element was missing and it made a difference. And so it's going to make a difference that Louisville's going to come out for this tournament and it's going to be hopping out there. So I should mention that, let's get back into design. Any other holes we should touch on. Should we talk about number seven,
the double fairway part five? That's one that probably people are going to notice.
Well, I was going to just quickly add within that same vein, I think another strength of Valhalla, this isn't
all negative. I think another strength of Valhalla is that there are certain holes that have distinct character to them, and that people if they watch from Thursday to Sunday, they might be informed enough that already by Thursday they know what some of those holes are like six, seven, eighteen, But especially by the time Sunday rolls around, I think they'll It does a pretty good job of showing of
ingraining certain holes into your head and under. Some of those holes have a lot of character, even if maybe we would take issue with some of the design, Like people are going to know what to expect, and I think that is a strength of a from a television perspective. So if you want to talk about seven, six or seven, I think those will be two holes that viewers should be pretty tuned into.
Yeah, so six is basically a forced layup followed by a pretty long approach, Like we're talking two hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty yard approach uphill across a river. That green was moved way back for the twenty fourteen Championship. It used to be more of a short iron over the river to a green that was
pretty close. So now it's kind of a funky hole where you have a layup off the tee because there's only so much fairway that you can use you can't vomit on this hole, and then you have a pretty long approach, and so it's a little bit awkward, but at least we get to kind of see a long iron right. We get to see players try to execute a longer shot from the fairway, which is more and more of a rare sight these days. It's not to say it's a good hole, it's really not, but you
know there's one positive of it. And then seven is a par five where you can choose between kind of an island fairway but not really an island because you can miss it and not be in the water, but an island dish fairway on the left and a more conventional fairway on the right. And the fairway on the left shortens the hole significantly gives you a better chance
of going for the green. And two, the green is closely guarded by water on the left side, there's a bunker kind of short right of the green that also kind of narrows that gap, and so you get an advantage for going for the fairway on the left. And in the twenty fourteen championship, we saw some players going right. We saw more players going left, but there was certainly a spread. There were choices that were being made. It
wasn't obvious where to play. What would you expect this year, Joseph, Like, in terms of the choice off that tee, do you think we're going to see more of a tilt towards one or the other, the safe option versus the risky option.
Yeah, you're gonna see a lot of people go down the fairway on the left, And if.
That's good, that's kind of what I thought, Like, I don't see any reason not to if you're long enough right.
I don't hate the hole. I think if you changed like a couple things about it, it would probably play a little bit better from a risk reward perspective. I think in this case the reward is tilted a little bit too far in favor of going down the left that left fairway, Especially in soft conditions, Garrett, it's easier to hit that fairway on the left, and it's easier to hit something into the green that stops you. Don't you as long as you carry the water, your ball
is gonna end up in a fine location. Going down the left fairway shortens the hole by like a good forty yards. Another shot I have in my notes from watching that twenty fourteen telecast. Rory goes down the left side, doesn't hit a good approach into that green, and leaves himself in kind of a bad spot just right of the green, a little kind of pot green side bunker there. But he's able to get it up and down even despite being short sided, because he's able to put some
spin on it and the conditions are so soft. Given how soft these conditions are going to be, going down that left side is going to be a really good option unless there's some kind of wind that makes it really uncomfortable, and something I would watch for as a spectator, even if if you're just watching practice rounds or golf channel coverage leading up to the tournament. How playable is that rough that's just a little bit left of the fairway on the left fairway, because golfers are gonna favor
the left side of that left fairway. Sorry, a lot of left here in this description, but there's a creek that runs along the right side of that left fairway, so you need to favor the left side a little bit. Especially if that rough is playable down the left side, you're gonna be fine hitting out of it. And getting something to stick on the green, so you're gonna see a lot of guys go that way.
I just think the right side is too treacherous right for the safe op. It's really heavily bunkered. The second shot from the t shot landing zone, the second shot that you hit the layup is really awkward, and the
green is pretty heavily guarded from that angle. So it would be one thing if like just that it were a bit of a smoother path over there on the right side, And it would also be a little bit different if the tea were relocated to the right so that the safe option were right in front of you.
But the place where the championship tee is makes the left option seem easier because you have to play at an angle way out to the right to that right hand fairway from the championship tee in order to get there, and so it just seems simpler as long as you can make the carry and have some kind of confidence that you're going to hit the fairway on the left,
it seems pretty obvious that you play there. So I agree that the risk reward equation of that hole really seems tilted toward playing to the left, especially in wet conditions. So a little bit disappointed, But to the whole's credit, we saw a variety of strategy in twenty fourteen, So maybe there's something that I'm missing about it. Maybe we'll see some of the same stuff this year, but I
kind of doubt it. I think the game has changed to a degree that we're just going to see players kind of adopting mostly the same strategy on that whole. That's what I was going to say.
The game has changed a lot since twenty fourteen, so just golfer's general approach to course management has changed enough that I don't think unless conditions are pretty funky, you're going to see everybody going down the left. And like you said, if it were really firm and baked out, then maybe you would need to go down the right a little bit more to bounce something up to the green.
And if you couldn't hold anything from that left fairway, like it was so firm that especially if you were in the rough you were dead, you might see a little bit more going down the right. But when it's soft, I mean, it's pretty clear where you need to go, all right.
So we've talked a lot about the front nine. I think, you know, to me, most of the interesting holes to talk about, not necessarily the best holes on the course, but the ones that I feel most compelled to talk about are on the front nine, And so that's kind of why we focus there. But when you're thinking about the closing stretch, let's say the last four holes at Valhalla, what do we get there?
I mean, the main note I have is going outside of that a little bit. The fourteenth hole, I think is a huge note coming into this tournament because it are three well, and it was two hundred yards and twenty fourteen, and now it can be stretched back to two fifty and no alterations have been made to the
green or anything. It doesn't Jack Nicholas, the architect of this golf course, sounded from an interview I read with Links magazine a little bit disappointed to see this tea moved back, and he thinks they should play from that forward tea.
This is a perfect example of why this is a bomber friendly golf.
Course, because if they play it at two fifty, it's a fairly small target for coming from that distance, and the guys who can hit something really high and who are hitting less club into that green like a Rory, like a Bryson. Great example of why they have such a big advantage. So that's honestly the main note. I have the closing stretch geared. I don't know if anything stands out to you. The sixteenth hole is a really bomber friendly hole that kind of weaves right and you
can take it over trees. That is the play that I would advocate, especially in soft conditions, like fire that driver if you can, if you have the height and the firepower like Rory did in twenty fourteen, like rip it over the trees down the right.
So and that's what Rory had that made that hole not dangerous to him, whereas it was dangerous to Phil who made a bogie on that hole. And that was the decisive moment. I mean, Rory didn't burdy the hole, but he had an opportunity to, and he was so locked in with his driver that I don't think there was any way that he was ever bogging sixteen. He had a nine iron into that green. A lot of other players at the time were hitting long irons and hybrids into the green, and that just gave him such
an advantage. That was really why he won that tournament because he had that kind of advantage with his driver. We're gonna see more players playing that hole the way that Rory did in twenty fourteen, just bombing that driver up there. They'll have a short iron into the green. This used to be a long part four. But this is where the game has has evolved to. This is
this is why we're dealing with. It's unbelievable, but yes, that is a short part four for Rory now because he can hit his driver three hundred and fifty yards if he goes full out at it, if he has no reason to hold back. That's how far he's hitting his driver. Maybe he'll have a wedg end of the green this year. I don't know, but you know, this used to be a long part four. They changed the green, but it's always kind of been a long part four.
In nineteen ninety six and two thousand, this was clearly a long part four, one that players were really challenged to get home in two on and now it's just totally different. You can't make a hole long enough for players these days, and this is one of the best representations of that now. As far as like general observations
about the closing stretch at Valhalla. Fourteen through seventeen are all pretty difficult golf holes, and there are also holes that don't have I don't think a lot of variants in terms of scoring. I don't think we're going to see that many double and triple bogies on these holes. I don't think we're going to see that many birdies
on these holes. And for that reason, I think it's a pretty uncompelling finish to a championship golf course because what we like to see, at least a little bit, is some variety, some opportunity, some danger, some places where the championship can swing by two or three shots on a single hole.
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it's difficult for a lot of golf courses to create a lot of volatility and scoring when the the course is damp like this is going to be. But yeah, yeah, it's super bomber friendly. That's a huge thing to keep in mind.
Speaking of a product that is super bomber friendly. Bushnell rangefinders, I don't know if they're wow friendly, you know. I mean, I think they're probably friendly to everybody, even if you're not a bomber. This is going to be a useful product, but I needed a segue, so you know, leave me alone. Bushnell makes great rangefinders. These are industry leading rangefinders. Here, this is the good stuff. So new from Bushnell is the pro X three plus. This is the most powerful
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locked on to the flag. It gives you a locking slope switch. This is it's legal for tournament play when the slope mode is disabled, so it gives you you know, you don't want to be caught with slope on accidentally, and so this allows you to be confident that you have slope off in the right situations. The pro X three plus great product from Bushnell. To learn more about this new range finder, visit Bushnell golf dot com. All right, Joseph, let's talk a little bit about Rory McElroy watching the
twenty fourteen PGA Championship. What are some things that you saw from Rory that impressed you.
Yeah, I mean we hit on this a little bit, like he's definitely playing in that tournament with a certain swagger and a certain confidence that I don't want to say it's been completely absent, because I think at times in recent memory he's had a similar level of confidence.
And he describes himself as a better, more complete player today than he was back then, which I think there's some merit too, but I think that just the bigger point is this is as good of a setup for Rory as he's gonna have all year, and that ability to freewheel with driver a lot and it lands a yard away the rough, but it stays in the fairway. Like that's a huge advantage where he has here versus somewhere like Pinehurst. So I think he'll try to channel
some of that energy he had in twenty fourteen. There are just more golfers in the world now who can keep up with him, so the advantage is a little bit smaller there. I didn't I don't have a ton of notes from the way he played in twenty fourteen other thanse he was swinging the club really well in the golf course set up like pretty ideally for him.
It just seemed like he could bring his C game and he still would have won this tournament. And he kind of did on the front nine. Like he did not play well on the front nine in twenty fourteen, he was won over, which for him on that golf course and those conditions not very good at all. I think he was bothered by the slow play. He seemed to be getting frustrated. He wasn't great on the front nine, but he did exactly enough on the back nine to
win the championship. But none of it seemed like a stretch. None of it seemed like he was playing saying really beyond his average ability. You know that eagle that he made on the tenth hole, he necked that three wood going into the green, and Peter Alice actually called this out on the telecasts, but once the ball rolled up onto the green and within ten feet of the pin, he kind of apologized, But he shouldn't have apologized. That was not an intentionally shaped shot. Rory hit that ball
on the neck, but he was. He turned out fine, and he made eagle on that hole. It just, you know, he was so in command of that golf course. He had such an advantage that it just seemed like there was nothing that anybody could do. And Phil played brilliantly on that day, but he started three behind. How are you going to catch up to Rory when he's playing, when he's hitting his driver like he hit it in twenty fourteen on this golf course, it just doesn't seem
like it's possible. But as far as like things that have changed about Rory, we've criticized Rory before for being kind of overly aggressive and maybe too cute. With his shot shaping and his ways of trying to get at pins and things like that. Did you see any of that from him in on this on this Sunday? You know, do you think he's going to like approach the golf course differently now than he did then?
I think, fortunately for him, you can do You're gonna be able to do a lot of that this week and play pretty aggressively. The main issue I tend to have is that he hits I think some unnecessary like you know, a five iron with thirty yards of curve on it that I just feel very confident he should not do. And with the absence of wind this week, like, I really don't think you need to do any of that. I would like to see a lot of moonshot seven irons that are anywhere between, you know. I mean, he
can get pretty aggressive. He might hit a few to six feet, but like a lot of them, hitting a lot of greens to eighteen feet and rolling in some putts is probably going to be the recipe. Like in the twenty fourteen final round, you're talking about how he was had such a big advantage and kind of cruised. He got hot on the back nine and that's how he won. He missed a couple of putts on the back nine.
Yes he did. He did yeah on eleven specifically, Like he's stuck it pretty close on eleven and he missed that putt.
So that's the thing. Like, I think he's gonna have so many opportunities this week and other golfers who also hit it long that you can be really aggressive off the tea. You can be pretty aggressive. I wouldn't be overly aggressive, but you can be a little more aggressive here than most courses into the greens because short sighting yourself just isn't as big of a problem and you can kind of stick it. It's not going to bounce
into a bad location. So I would expect an aggressive rory that if he's making pots, he's right in the mix.
Okay, So when you're thinking about course fit for this week and players who fit this style of play, who are you looking at.
I don't think there's gonna be a ton of surprises here. I think your long hitters, maybe there are some. I think long hitters who you have some long shot potential. I think there's gonna be a lot of discussion around. There's only a few golfers who can win. I actually think that there are some long hitting outsiders that'll have a chance. But the main name that comes to mind for me that I think is just a smash course fit is Bryson, and he's getting some steam coming into
this tournament. It's not a sleeper, but I think the way that this golf course fits Bryson, it's a pretty dream scenario for the big golfer here. And I think maybe an underrated part of Bryson everyone's aware of, like the meticulous approach he takes to his game and the
way he calibrates his yardages. But I think especially with there being some moisture and how that impacts when there's a little bit of water between the club face and the ball, like nobody takes care of those variables as well as Bryson does and figures it out on the range. So I think when you have all these factors coming together, it's really good spot for Bryson to Shambo. How about Brooks,
it's a good setup for Brooks. It just it feels like the PGA Championship is almost Brooks's French Open to rough in Adal like course after course, you know, maybe Southern Hills wasn't perfectly suited to him. He could have won there if he had been had been playing well, for sure, But Okill, I mean, you couldn't have come up with a better course for Brooks Koepka to win on. And I think the same is true I Valhalla. It's gonna be wet, the rough is going to be high.
This is Beth Page Black, this is o Kill, this is a PGA Championship golf course, and it just seems like it's absolutely tailor made for him. He won on Live recently, but that doesn't even really matter to me, because Brooks can show up at this kind of tournament and he'll he'll just be in contention on Sunday almost no matter what. I feel so confident about this now,
whenever warning to the audience. I'm a notoriously terrible predictor of golf tournament outcomes, but this just seems obvious to me. This is such a brooks Keptka golf course, such a Brooks Kepka forecast. Yeah, in the last ten years of the PGA Championship, Brooks has six top tens. I believe second, I believe the second best number there is for top tens and for Brooks, three of those are wins, so nobody's been better in PGA's It's a great setup for him.
I just it's also a great setup for Scotti Scheffler. And it's also a great set up for John Rohm, who nobody's talking about. But John Rahm could absolutely win this golf tournament, right, Ludwig, Bryce and Rory like a lot of names who could get involved here. I don't even think it's crazy that Phil Mickelson. I don't know that he's gonna win, Garrett, but I think the chances of Phil finish, the chances of him finishing in the top fifth teen, I think are fairly high.
You know, it's kind of crazy, but uh yeah, I mean this is well, let's talk about that. Why is this such a good course fit for Phil? Specifically because he has top ten in every PGA championship at Valhalla. He was t eight in nineteen ninety six, he was t nine in two thousand and of course he almost won in twenty fourteen, So why is this so good for him? This golf course? And Phil's a long hitter.
He doesn't hit it the most accurately, but he's a great long iron player. I think Phil's approach to a golf course like this is generally pretty intelligent, and I guess a big thing Garrett that almost wanted to mention earlier. I feel like you're gonna hear a lot on the telcast like driving accuracy, driving accuracy, driving accuracy, and they'll talk about how thick the rough is and why you
can't be in there. That's true, you don't want to be in the rough, but it's how the ball gets there is a huge piece of the puzzle here, and the fairways are just going to play so much wider this week with the rain that Phil's as long as he's hitting it remotely straight, like he's gonna give himself a lot of opportunities. I don't think he's hitting the ball well enough to seriously contend, but if he finishes tied for ninth or something like that, it wouldn't shock me.
Yeah, I mean, I think the answer to the Phil course fit question is that if you have a golf course where accuracy off the tee is relatively deemphasized, it's probably gonna be a good fit for Phil. Augusta National. Many other courses we know to be great fits for Phil Nicholson. Phil is so good at every aspect of the game basically aside from strictly driving accuracy, that if you have a golf course that takes that a bit out of the equation, he's just going to have an
advantage because he's extraordinary in his iron play. He's long, He's obviously a great chipper. He's a great chipper out of rough, you know, like he's also a great chipper off off of short grass. But I've seen him do magical things out of greenside rough in his career. He's
just really really good at that stuff. One name I was kind of wondering about, and I think that this is Vahall is a good fit for this player, but I'm not sure about his current form and whether any of that's going to work out for him this week. But Victor Hoveland, if this were last August, wouldn't he
be the favorite going into this tournament? I mean, putting aside the fact that he was the best player in the world at that moment, this course would have really seemed to suit the Victor Hoveland of late twenty twenty three. Really well, you've got rough around the greens and so you know, the chipping woes are maybe not as significant, and then you have everything else about the golf course which would seem to suit Hovelin' Styf totally.
Victor Hoblin's an interesting name coming in this week because there's not a lot of confidence in him, so he's kind of become a sleeper, and he was arguably the best player in the world at the end of twenty twenty three or in the fall of twenty twenty three. Personally, like, I don't have a ton of confidence in the state of his game. It sounds like mentally like he might be battling some swing demons, and.
Yeah, it sounds like his full swing is kind of not in the right place right either.
Yeah, right, So if it was just the short game argument, maybe you could get behind it a little bit more. But I think when he's battling some full swing issues too, there are just too many talented golfers that I'd put ahead of him. But no, Garrett, there are a lot of golfers like that this week that wouldn't shock me if they get up into the mix way more so than at Augusta. Like I think, justin Thomas, right, that's
an interesting name. This week, who has shown he played well at Kuaile Hollow last week, some of the Midwest and the local ties. I think that gets a little bit overblown. But Justin Thomas is hitting the ball farther now. I think he just changed to a driver that gives them a little bit more distance. Like he's somebody at least have to consider.
Yeah, and then you've got the kind of perennial Major championship, top fifteen, top twenty guys like Will Zalatorus, Xander Schaffle, Patrick Cantlay. You know, I'm not necessarily backing any of these players to win, especially Schafle and can't lay until they show me that they can do something on Sunday. I may I'm maybe not super confident in them, but again, a golf course that suits them pretty well. And you know we're mentioning all these names. Here are players who
could do well. There are a lot of players who are probably not going to do well this week. Right unless they have an extraordinary week, they really have no chance. And that's a lot of the field, right Yeah.
I mean, if you don't have a lot of distance, you're gonna have to put lights out.
And chip probably really good long irons.
Yeah, yeah, I mean you're gonna have to make some you have to make a lot of fifteen to twenty five footers. I guess the one name Garrett throw you that think is gonna play poorly. Not to make this, not to dump on somebody, but I think this is
a really bad setup for Jordan Speed. Not only some of the ball striking issues we've seen recently, but I don't think this is the type of setup you want to have a wrist issue and some of the chopping out of wet rough That feels like a bad scenario for somebody like Speed.
All Right, any final thoughts about Valhalla or this upcoming championship. I think I think we've we've gone through some stuff that we're kind of excited about, but in general, you know, maybe maybe not the the kind of venue, the kind of championship that really gets us going.
Yeah, I think we're headed for an extreme. My favorite type of golf is the where there's a lot of intrigue when the ball hits the ground, and we're headed for the polar opposite of that. Basically, I think the redeeming qual is that it's a lot of long irons versus a soft wedge fest, but this is going to be I think about as bomber friendly of a setup as we've seen in recent memory. So that's where I would set people's expectations. I'm still excited for the tournament.
There's a lot on the line, but it's not a style of golf that I think is particularly compelling. So that's kind of where I land. How about you, Garrett, Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think, again, to go back to the point I made earlier, this is a Sunday appointment viewing kind of tournament. I mean, any major
championship is on Sunday. But I think that the silver lining here is that this is a golf course and this is a set of conditions that will make it likely that will have a close final round battle between golfers that we know about recognize as great players. And that is a great thing. That is something that shouldn't
be discounted. And frankly, courses like Hoylake, the Old Course, I mean, the Old Course worked out really well in twenty twenty two with a cam Smith Rory McElroy duel, but you know that could have been a championship where we saw a number of different outcomes that might not have been as entertaining on Sunday Pinehurst number two, we could be depending on how firm they get it out there, we could see a repeat of a Martin Kimer type just running away with it on Sunday.
About Augusta, Yeah, I mean seriously, we haven't had a super close Augusta tournament recently, even though they've been really compelling, and so you know, my own preference is to be able to watch great golf shots at an interesting golf course four days of the championship. That's what I like.
But I realize that not everybody shares that preference. There are a lot of people who actually prefer the golf course to potentially be a little softer and slower and more bomber friendly, so that you get this kind of closely packed leader board with your Brooks Kopka's and your Rory McElroy's and your Bryson de Shambos battling it out on Sunday because they are the only ones who can go really really low on this type of golf course with these types of turf conditions. And I get that.
I get that, and I'm looking forward to Sunday I just like golf shots more. I like golf courses more. I like Thursday through Saturday, and so I don't think we're going to get as much of that this week. And I could be wrong, and I'm open open to being surprised. I hope I am surprised, but I think that's what we're looking at. I agree. All right, Joseph, thank you for coming on the pod. As always, we will reconvene after this PGA Championship to talk about how
either right or wrong we were in this podcast. A delight to talk to you is always. Have a great week. Thanks for having me, Garrett. It'll be fun. Let's see how it goes. This episode of the Frida Egg Golf
Podcast was produced by Matt Ruschius. If you enjoyed the in the Weeds discussion that Joseph and I just had on this podcast about golf course design and architecture and its relationship to competition, if you like that kind of stuff, I think you would really enjoy Club TFE and the content that we're doing in there on a daily and weekly basis. Go to the Frida Egg dot com slash membership to see everything that's offered with clubtfy is not just content, but you know, if you're into this kind
of stuff, clubtfy is the place for you. Thank you very much for listening, and we'll be back again soon. In fact, back again right after the PGA Championship for another episode. Dot