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 brid egg.
Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg Bride Egg.
Lie, I'm about ready to run off of the.
Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Golf Podcast. I am your host, Andy Johnson, and today I have a podcast for you. It is about Jordan Speith. As the title may suggest, we've done a couple of these podcasts over the last few months. Garrett and Shane Ryan did one on Rory McElroy after the US Open. Where's you Go from Here? We did one, I did one
with Joseph Lamanna on Justin Thomas. And today I am joined by founder of the of Normal Sport, the Normal Sport newsletter Something Worth subscribing to, Kyle Porter, as well as Joseph Lamania, and we're going to talk in detail
about Jordan speed. It was fun going back and looking at this as his career, you kind of forget a little bit all of the success and the records how great his early career was, like historically great early career, and I think coming off this risk injury, we're kind of at a crossroads, so I'm excited to jump into that. Before we get into this pod, let's talk about our friends at the USGA. With the USGA's GS three ball, There's never been a better time to invest in the
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slash GS three dash ball. All right, let's get to our pod with Kyle Porter and Joseph Lamana. All Right, today's topic. I am joined by Kyle Porter and Joseph Lamonia. Today's topic is none other than Jordan Speith, the Golden Boy, who may have lost a little bit of his shine in recent years. Just he's not really a boy anymore too. What do they turn does he turn into the Golden Man.
I gotta jump in. Is it? Is it the Is it the Golden Child or the Golden Boy. Because we have gold we also have gold Boy.
Which is well gold boy. I don't know where a gold boy is these days.
That's that's also true.
He's somewhere buried in the basement of the Global.
Home, maybe just like the Chosen One or something. I don't know.
It's anyways, I you know, open this up for discussion. This is one of the more wild career arcs we've had in modern professional golf. And I think he's thirty one years old. It's a fascinating time in the speek career. Obviously, at the end of this year he had a you know, and throughout the year a risk injury that greatly hampered his ability to play golf and with pain free and he is now reporting pain free in the wrist. And
twenty twenty five is right on the corner. So, as you guys look through the career, was there a favorite moment that you pulled out?
Go ahead, Kyle, I know you got It's probably hard for you to narrow down.
To one, but go ahead.
There's so many. I think that the You know, people always think about the Masters with Spieth, right, and I think that that's pretty obvious. He's competed or contended for four or five, like legitimately contended for four or five of them. The one that I go back to, though, always is is Burtdale. It is twenty seventeen at Burtdale, and I think that Spith has been an even better open player than he's been a Master's player. And his
like the whole you know, thirty minute hole. I can't remember what number it was, twelve or thirteen or whatever it was, and then he falls back with Coucher, and then Coucher plays the rest of the way one under, like the last whatever it was six holes, I think he plays one under and he gets steamrolled by Speed. And I thought that year and that maybe even that event was really Speed at his kind of apex in
terms of like all his skills working together. And we'll get more into that later on, but that to me really stands out if I look at the entire Jordan speed arc.
It's funny you mentioned that one Kyle. I went back and rewatched the final round at Brickdale in preparation for this pod, and speaf so he hits that wild t shot on thirteen and honestly going back and rewatching it maybe a questionable drop on if it was actually back on a straight line, maybe range I think definitely, Yeah, I just didn't remember it as much. It looked like it was really pushing it. He plays his last five holes five under, and that part I don't remember as much.
Like he sticks the approach shot on fourteen a part three almost he almost made it. He almost made it. And then eagles fifteen, it's unbelievable boat racist couture coming in. That one really stands out to me. And then the other thing is twenty fifteen, how involved he was in every single major. It's just unbelievable at that age that we had a player who had a legitimate chance of winning all four. So that would any of those are the ones that stand out for me.
I wrote down twenty fifteen, like, is this is the closest we've seen to the career or to the Grand Slam in a year? You know, one shot out of the playoff at Saint Andrews and then you had this epic duel with Jason Day at the PGA where it was like two guys could win the tournament. They were trading blows. That was a like underrated great tournament at
Whistling Straight. With regards to Burkedale Kyle, I I completely agree, like in terms of like if you if you broke down, like the way Jordan Speith, the dominance of Jordan Speith in his early twenties was like this chaotic masterpiece, right, like everything was in question, like everything was in the realm of possibility, Like you could see just a complete
foul ball off the tee, a walkie approach shot. But at the end of the day, like the thing that like you had to say about him was like and I think like this was like so evidently clear when he played with Rory McElroy at the Masters that one year, Like he he just knows how to get the ball in the hole. Yeah, Like he he just has this innate ability to to just like score.
Yeah.
For me, I go back to the to the at and Tu National in twenty thirteen, and this was a couple of years before I was in golf, and at the time I just was playing golf. I watched a lot of golf, and I remember watching golf on like Friday afternoon and Jordan Speith at the time was nineteen. He was playing on a sponsor's exemption, and like I remember he shot like I think he shot sixty six and he you know, and it's like you're watching this kid and it's just like, God, this kid is good.
And at the time, like outside of Tiger, we hadn't seen like these like teen prodigies, you know, and this youth wave, like Jordan speak to me, is kind of at the forefront of this youth wave. He was really like the first one. Can't lay. You could argue before he had his injuries was what might have been the first one. But Jordan Speath is just this teen sensation and I remember watching it and just being like, God,
this is so so different. And that tournament and that summer obviously he missed Q School, he missed he him and Brooks Kopka actually were at the same site. You guys know what site they missed at second stage? Did you find this?
Did not find this?
What course got him? Craig Ranch TPC Craig Ranch, Hey, I hate.
That shoot twenty under and miss out.
Yeah something.
Both of them were like I couldn't putt into the ocean. I couldn't hit a putt in the ocean, and it's like, well, maybe that is like the that is like the ultimate side that the course is just putting contest and it's a bad test of golf. Is that in Q school? Both of the there's an article on PGA tour dot com where they talk about it, and both of their
individual quotes were like, yeah, we couldn't. I couldn't hit a pot into nocean that week, and it's like these two generational talents missed out because they can't put it. It was like, I think Brooks was like, I hit it great, just but it's like if the course doesn't allow you just hit it great and put you know, average and get out. It's it might have a little bit of lack of teeth, but but to me that that that tournament. You watched it and it was like, God,
this kid has got something different. And then sure enough he wins a couple of weeks later at the Deer Run at Deer Run and uh ends up making it deep into the FedEx Cup playoffs and gets a a spot on the President's Cup team and it's like kind of off to the races from there.
I think what was so interesting about that that sort of time period. I remember talking to people that were kind of close to it that were like, gosh, is this guy is he good? Like you could cause you watch him, I mean, you're you're right, and he like you watch him in it in in this what is begad come what I kind of call like the track man era of guys who have just have these like manufactured swings out of a laboratory that are beautiful and like perfect and whatever. You watch him and it's like
this chicken wing thing. It's just it does it never looks good. I don't know what the NBA, there's probably an NBA comp Joseph where you're like, this doesn't look good. But he's putting up like twenty seven a night, every night and it's pretty efficient, right, And.
I feel like the early SGA, early SGA, everybody's like god, and it's just like the herky jerkiness.
Of SGA, like Clippers ESGA, No.
Like early Thunder when he when he started, everybody's like, is he really like one of the ten best players in the league.
Yeah, okay, that's good. Do you have a do you have a different comp Joseph?
No, I actually like that camp. But maybe I don't want to jump ahead too much, but I think what's interesting that since you're saying that, Kyle, one thing that really stands out to me with speech kind of a theory I've had about his entire career is that the game has changed an enormous amount since twenty thirteen, twenty fifteen to now, and I think Speed's game did not does not hold up to the track man era and
the way that things have gotten so optimized. Jordan Speath was always a player who's been making mistakes, and that's largely been carved out of the game. Dude, a track man, course management, all of the above. So when you go back and think about, well other players were making mistakes too, Speith has some weird data anomalies happening. In that era, he was making twenty five percent of his putts from fifteen to twenty five feet, like far in away the
best putter from that range. It was such a bizarre skill set that when I look at this, I think a lot of things are true, But it's almost like an NBA player who came into the league in like twenty fifteen sixteen was really good from the mid range. And then that kind of got carved out of the league over the next ten years. Like I kind of think Speed's game just doesn't suit the modern era, particular.
To margin Rosen.
I mean, it's not unreasonable.
So, Joseph, you said a couple of different things in there that I think you're saying like they play into the same thing, but they're they're very separate to me. One is Speed's swing and swing speed, which I think have always been kind of average to above average. And the other is this course management, which has obviously been pilloried on Twitter and elsewhere and has always been average
to below average. So do you feel like one of those plays more into kind of what you're talking about with the what what I hear you saying is Speth has regressed to kind of his mean over the years. Do you feel like one of those has played more into that than the other?
You know, I think it's both maybe a little bit of Speed regressing, but I think the overall baseline and professional golf has just gotten a lot higher around him to where he can't get away with those mistakes. But to your question, I think the course management and the big misses is largely responsible here. Like I was watching the twenty fourteen final round of the Masters for this, and he's in the final round with Bubba. I don't know if either of you went back and watched this.
Like Jordan's hitting three would off the tee on number eight, and that's just something you don't see anybody doing. Now. He ends up bogeying number eight and that's where he gives up his lead to Bubba. Then he boge's number nine as well, and Bubba's up by two after Bubba Birdie's number nine and the rest is kind of history. In that event, I just think in general, you could get there was more of a margin for air in
that era when a lot of golfers weren't optimized. You know, Jordan's trying to hit these different shots, trying to curve the ball and having these big misses, but other guys are kind of doing that too. Now that doesn't exist, right, Like you watch Scotti Scheffler in the way he plays. It's speef has to get so hot with the putter or be so much more talented than other golfers to overcome that, And I just don't think he is. He's
not the ball striker he was back then. Plus other guys are like Scheffler and they're not making those mistakes. So I just think it's a really uphill battle for speed to get in the mix at the highest level of professional golf. In twenty twenty four, twenty five.
Speaking to that, I mean, I kind of look at Jordan Speith and I think, like, we can't know, Like I think he had he had a hand injury that I forgot about, and now he had the risk injury, and we can't be sure exactly like how much of
swing changes are caused by these things. But when I think about speed, and a question I would have is like I wonder if in twenty seventeen he felt the need to change because he looked at some young players and said, wow, like I need to get better at X y Z. And I think this is like the hard thing at being at the top of the game. We saw tiger Woods undergo I mean Tiger Woods like threw away years undergoing swing changes, and it's always wild to me. It's like, you're the best player in the world,
And this is something I'm fascinated about with Scotti. Scheffler is like he seems just dedicated to his what he does and there seems to be no appetite for changing anything. He's like the most boring creature of habit and that's perhaps the best way to keep playing high level golf. But Speith and Cameron McCormick, they seem like they they're restless, and I think like this is part of what people like about Speth and what the magnetism of Speth is.
Like you watch him play and the microphones on him and Greller, and there's like this restlessness to him. But that restlessness comes through with what he's done with his golf sway, and he went from being this great great tea to green player. He was a very good tee to green player, and now he is not a great tee to green player, but he's a lot faster. And I found this thing, this Brandle clip from twenty twenty three.
I watch this.
He called this is what he said about speeces swing changes, one of the more baffling things I have seen in twenty plus years. Sitting in this chair. He then went and he did a detailed swing breakdown. I'd recommend everybody watch it. He's good, really good. Brandal thrown heat here and he says, when you look at the swing. You say, it's kind of the same, but it's not. Those little differences have changed his DNA. In twenty fifteen, he was riding the bullet train to one of the best players
of all time. Now he's still a good player, but nowhere near as good of a player. He's not in the same league as he was in twenty fifteen. And I think like he's like I think, like the hardest thing about golf is an imperfectable game, and you feel, you feel, even when you're the best player in the world, you feel the pressure to perfect this game, and that pressure to perfect the game leads great players to make
irrational decisions about how they play the game. And I think, like when I distilled down Jordan Speth's career, that's kind of what I see, is like the tinkering is eventually is what led to him losing his special sauce.
Yeah, And I think I don't think he's talked about like all the variables that went into some of those swing changes, like oh, well I saw these other guys getting faster, or I thought this was more repeatable, or I you know, there's there's a million reasons to make swing changes, and the brand O. The Brando video is it's really fascinating, like talking about how he's more shut than he used to be and how I mean if you look at the numbers, like he's a he was
a better driver in twenty twenty four than he's been in a long time. Yeah, right, And I think, what, what's weird and what you don't what we don't know, and maybe what twenty twenty five will tell us is his approach play has gotten so bad and so mediocre like that. The thing for me was speed. People talk about the putter and like, you know, some of the stats that Joseph mentioned there he was the best iron player in the world and it wasn't really that close
in twenty seventeen. I thought that was like the most repeatable version of speed, where it's like, okay, this is a sticky stat like you're the best iron player more so than like chipping in and making thirty footers and whatever. And that's the thing that is just consistently since twenty seventeen, falling off, falling off, falling off, and now he's like
a bad iron player. Now you look at it and you're like, okay, how much of that I remember twenty seventeen he wins pebble, and there was another top ten player that was like, this is problematic because it's not him making twenty footers, it's him hitting it to ten feet every time or fifteen feet every time, and that is like, he's gotten really good at that, and that's a problem because if he's doing that, he's gonna make some of those fifteen footers inevitably. And you just wonder
how much of the wrist was. He's blamed it on the rist some in twenty twenty four, but I wonder how much of the wrist was playing into his inability to hit some of those iron shots that he used to hit.
One thing. I think we to zero in on a little little bit on this timeline. I feel very strong, strongly and confident that speeds like iron play and some of those issues are not tied to the pursuit of speed. Jordan's game drops off a lot in twenty eighteen and then really bottoms out in twenty nineteen, and that's not a period where Jordan's trying to pick up a bunch
of speed. That's where I believe, in having talked to some people were somewhat close to Jordan like that's when I think they really tried to get to figure out what was going wrong versus Jordan thinking that speed was the difference between him winning and not chasing speed and then losing some of the iron play. I don't think that's really how the timeline went, So I would throw the challenge flag on that a little bit.
You know.
One of the things I think with Speed is these kind of like for golfers, like I think the first modern modern golfer.
And we talked.
I talked about how he was on the on the front edge of the youth movement that we've seen over the last decade on the PGA Tour, but he also was like the first player on the kind of press handling. And I think that makes it hard because we've never you know, it's always been like this pre arranged appearance thing and he talks before you know, tournament rounds. But there are he I think like Rory like in his early career had a little bit more of that traditional
golf media where it was like sit down interviews. He's done these Kimmage interviews forever and it's kind of part of his thing. Like the Speed thing is like sponsor shoots pre pre determined press, you know, handlings and like you know, with I don't want to say oversight, but like you know, it is. I just think he's like the most He's the first golfer we've seen in this
modern era of media where it's really like cultivated. And part of that is like it leaves when the careers don't go exactly the way you it leaves a lot of questions that probably won't get answered until he's done playing. Until when he's done and he reflects back to and says, like the tell all of this is really what happened, you know, And it's a it's a fascinating aspect of his career. And I think it's what makes one of the things that makes him so compelling at this point
is he's thirty one. Theoretically he should have years and opportunities to win major championships ahead of him. The driving is so so like encouraging from last year. And as you guys said, like the iron play from years ago. That's the thing. If he just remained a great iron player, he wouldn't have fallen. He'd still be making national teams like the Ryder Cup and President's Cup on merit you know, like there are tons of streaky putters on that are
in the top fifteen of the world. You know, it's just that he's it feels like he's lost the fabric of who he is. All right, let's take a quick break and talk about our partner, True Golf and their launch Box. You know, this could be a good thing for Jordan speath Us at home. You know, all it's an all new portable launch monitor and golf simulator. Now that his risk is feeling better, I hope he has a has a launch Box in his basement. I'm sure
he does. Launch Box seamlessly connects to your PC or iOS device, and it makes it easy to play golf courses or improve your game year round. You could do all kinds of things. You could go to the range, you could do like wedge competitions, you can play golf. A couple of things that launch Box offers. It's simple to set up, instant shot recognition, accurate measured data, and an easy Wi Fi connection. Launch Box is optimized for indoor use and it could be used outside off of
range mats. And you know, this is just a great thing for the winner. It is the time of year that you want this, you could set something up in your garage, you could set something up in your basement, or you could set something up outside. If you want to learn more about launch Box, visit true golf dot com slash egg. That's tru golf dot com slash egg. So I think this is a good time and to
kind of run through the timeline of his career. When was the first time you guys heard about Jordan Spieth, Kyle?
I mean mine was whenever he made his first what was the first professional start that he made as an amateur? The Byron Nelson. The Byron Nelson. Yeah, that's I believe that's when I heard about him for the first time.
He was he was tied for seventh after the third round in that finished sixteenth, what about you, Kyle.
Which I think was his best finish at the Byron Nelson. I think it might still be his best finish at the Baron Nelson.
Sixteen now that he's at Craig Ranch. Now is that Craig Ranch as a speech stopper?
That was my That was my first time also because I had just moved to Dallas. I moved to Dallas in twenty ten. So when was what year.
Was that I would have been twenty ten.
Okay, so yeah, it was like a big thing here.
Maybe that's that's why he blew up. Was because you moved to the area.
For sure, I was I would not be in golf for another two years. But it was definitely that was definitely the reason.
All Right, let's provide like a little bit of context of his just I I kind of like forgot when I started to do this, like just running through the timeline, just how insane the early career was. And I know how insane it was, but when you like dig into it, you're just like, this is nuts. So he won the US Junior twice. He's the only player to do that to win multiple US Juniors other than Tiger who obviously
won three times. He was number one of the AGGA rankings as a junior, so prolific junior golfer, like we talked about. Played in the Byron Nelson in twenty ten, finished sixteenth. Then he also made the cut again in twenty eleven, So when he was sixteen seventeen, he's making PGA Tour cuts, finished thirty second. He went to Texas. He played one one year at Texas and he played on that twenty eleven Walker Cup team. So as a
freshman at Texas, he won three events. He had the low scoring average as a freshman, the team won the national championship. He was All Big Twelve, Big Twelve, Freshman of the Year, Player of the Year, and first team All American twenty twelve. So he's still a freshman. He's the low am at the US Open. I mean, he's just piling up like every consequential accomplishment that you can have as an amateur. Then when Patrick Catley turned professional, he became the number one amateur in the world in
the Wagger Amateur Golf rankings. So at this point he decides to turn professional, and it was actually like, I think, like this is I think one of the things with modern golf now in PGA tour U and I think this is one of the thing I don't. I think it's good that kids are staying at school, but I do think like Speith is actually an example of why
PGA tour you could be not great. He turned pro after missing Q school and if he doesn't turn pro until his senior year, do we miss the best speak years of his career.
Yeah, I think it's I think it's interesting to think about because he had that I think Sean Martin wrote about this, but he had that decision on KFT or should he go to the Puerto Rico event? Should he stay playing KFT They were going to like Columbia or somewhere like that. Yeah, And he goes to Puerto Rico and finishes second and then goes on to get his car to believe at Vos Bar and then wins John
Deere and it just accelerates this timeline. And I think, you know, one of the things we get so excited about in any sport, Andy is how how good are you at a at the youngest age possible. Whether it's basketball football, it's a little different because they have restrictions on when you can enter the league or whatever. But basketball base this is like a huge baseball thing, like
Juan Soto when he was sixteen or whatever. And and so I do think, like I think net PG two or you is like PG two, You is a is a net win. But I do think it kind of prohibits your like twenty your Tom Kim type from getting out there and and figuring out like, Okay, this is who they, this is who this guy could be as a professional.
Yeah, I mean I think like you're taking a huge, huge risk if you buy, like if you know you're really good. It's like, okay, like this is a guaranteed way for me to get a card. It is like a it's a it's an interesting moment because, like, you know, you see these guys like Ludvig. I always especially researching this. You think about like Ludvig, who gets this card at twenty three and he's been great. Think about what Jordan
Spieth had done before he turned twenty three? Oksha Okshay, Yeah, ok Shay's you know, he would be a senior now, but instead he's won twice on the PGA Tour and probably right if you pick the Ryder Cups teams right now, he's a fringe Ryder Cupper.
Right Yeah.
Like so it's just an interesting thing. So he doesn't make it through Q school. We talked about this. He falls at Craig Ranch, but he still turns pro and it's midway through sophomore year at Texas he leaves, Uh, he leaves the long Horns.
I'm sorry. I can't wait until the speF documentary comes out and we get ten minutes of Andy talking TPC Craig Ranch and how it was like Spea's ultimate downfall. That's going to be incredible.
He so he missed by three. He finished eight under, tied for twenty six. Brooks, Brooks and him both finished eight under. It's wild. I mean, like talk about like a so so Brooks goes.
To Europe Challenge to your baby.
Yeah, and that's how he he takes this and Speth goes, I'm just gonna take sponsors exemptions because at this point, I mean, he's the golden boy. Brooks wasn't going to get sponsors exemptions, right, I think like it's a it's actually like a fascinating Brooks speF like this this moment in time, and like two completely different profile players and now when you look at their major careers, their resumes, it's like very similar. They got their completely roundabout ways.
It's a it's a it's a great story. There's a PGA tour article that's that's you know, not super in depth, but it's it's it's a thought provoking article just because of where they are right now. So anyways, as Kyle illuminated, he goes to Puerto Rico bellspar gets conditional status like special temporary status, and then John Deere he wins the playoff famous shot that hits the flag and goes in. There's a sliding doors of like, what if that doesn't go in.
It's kind of it kind of goes in the water. I think it doesn't go.
It's just it's a very very is So then he goes to the President's Cup and uh, and then you know, you go into the next year and it's uh, it's it's just this is where it starts to go, right. He finished eleventh of the FedEx Cup after getting his card with no status, which is which is wild, got him into the Majors, and by the end of twenty thirteen he goes from no status to the twenty second ranked player in the world. I think, like when spieth
Mania like kind of starts to take off. It's it's the It's the Masters twenty fourteen, he shares the fifty four hole lead with Bubba Watson and finish his second He's the youngest runner up in Master's history and he and he's now into the top ten in the world golf rankings. He's twenty twenty.
And that Saturday night, You're like, I think he's going to win the Masters, Like that's how solidly he had been playing. It wasn't It wasn't like oh this guy like shot of third round sixty five and jumped to It was like, I No, I think he's going to win.
And I think, well, the Masters in speek is is at this time he is just the perfect Masters player where enough distance to get over the hills, enough distance to take advantage of the par five, really good iron player, exceptional short game player, so you can, you can miss, you can you can avoid taking on some risks and know you can get up and down. And then at this time, also he's a great, great putter.
I was gonna say specifically he's always kind of had short range putting issues, but unbelievable from outside of ten feet where if you're hitting a lot of smart approach shots to twenty five feet out of Gusta like he's giving these pots a run over and over again. So yeah, I agree with you, Andy, pretty much the ideal Augusta player.
So you spoke about the short range putting issues that was the issue at Craig Ranch when he missed Q school. The quote is, so I remember hitting like sixty five of seventy two greens. Maybe not the hardest thing to do out there now that we've seen in a couple of years on tour, and I just couldn't put it
in the ocean. And then I worked a lot on my putting that off season, and then I started to really make some and have good finishes in the next spring, and it got me status and running on the PGA Tour. Like something that I that just popped into my head when I read that, is like, do we just get like a super nova hot streak for three years on the putting green?
I mean, I would say no, because what's bizarre about Speef's putting is he's always been bad from short range, even including during that stretch, he wasn't great. He's he's one good year from three to five feet and that's in twenty sixteen. Other than that, he's always been basically outside the top one hundred. Where I think we get a pretty hot putting streak is that fifteen to twenty five foot range when he's making them five percent more
often than anybody else in the world. So, but he's even been able to kind of maintain that over a decent period of time. So I agree, yeah, to an extent hot putting, but it's more just a weird dichotomy between the short range putting and the long range putting. It's really bizarre, and I don't think we've seen that with any other player, at least in the last ten to fifteen years.
I think that quote kind of and this goes back to your point, Joseph, that quote kind of ties like it gives you a little bit of a lens into to speak, this is his really probably first failure as a golfer. And if you look at that, then then I worked a lot on my putting that offseason, So like, is that what happens? Is like when he feels threatened, he just goes to work on his weakness. And maybe that's where the swing change stuff with the with the
iron play happened. Like the iron play slips and like alarm bells off, I need to work on my iron.
Play, Yeah, I mean I want to know, Like I am desperate to know more about the swing changes, the iron play, all of that, because even I mean I remember twenty fourteen, fifteen at the Masters, he led after like seven of the eight rounds that were played something like that, or maybe it was fifteen sixteen. I mean he led after almost every round and it was because yeah, he was the long range putting, but he was also knocking down I mean he was like ripping at flagsticks
all over the place. Like his iron play was unbelievable. His driving has always been like yeah, okay, like if he gets if he gets hot, like it can be repeatable. But I just I always, always, always go back to the iron play. Some of this is just pushing back against like this speek narrative of oh he made every thirty footer he looked at It's like, no, he didn't. He was an amazing iron player and he made like Joseph said, like he was really good from fifteen to
twenty five feet. But yeah, I just I constantly go back to the iron play and wanting to know, like why that's so different now than it was back in fourteen, fifteen, sixteen seventeen.
I think when you you have to think about like how everything interacts as with a player, I think like that's like an important thing to think about, is like how does every part of your game relate to the other part of the game. And when you think about Spith, the little bit crooked driver was fine, and why it was fine was because of the short game, Like you can afford to be a little bit crooked off the
tee if you're really great around the greens. We see this with like cam Smith is a great example of this, where like you can afford to have a little bit of a crooked driver when you're a magician around the greens.
And Speith was that like the the key though to that and what cam Smith for example, has, and maybe maybe it's not as prolific as when he was maybe the best player in the world, like what Spith had and cam Smith had magical short game, great iron play and solid putting like couldn't get really hot and cam I think that's a disservice one of the best putters
in the world. But like you think about how those those inner play, right, you can't be a crooked driver and bad have a bad short game because that's going to lead to like a lot of bogies. So that iron play was fought, Like you know, you think about like the fabric of the player and that that whole whole picture works. And I think, like what happens is people get too maniacally focused on like fixing what's bad and lose sight of like, Okay, how does everything relate with me?
Well, and think about think about the places where cam Smith and Speith have had a lot.
Of success, like USA Open Championships.
Yeah, Chambers Bay.
Chambers Bay. I was going to say, that was an interesting one to see cam Smith right in the I think he Cam Smith, Patrick Reid and Jordan's Speith are always going to kind of show up together.
Because those are places where you can hit, you can miss and hit recovery shots that are either put you in position to score or to say, you know, like, I don't is speak ever gonna win a modern PGA. I don't know, Like it doesn't seem like it, you know. I just think and we can get to that later on.
But I think it's interesting to look at what you're talking about, Andy, which is like, how does your skill set fit with not only how does it play, but how does it fit together when you're playing some of these major championships and big events. And there are certain courses that it fits together way better than some other courses.
I mean, like you, for example, if you compare him to Jason Day that at this peak time when Jason Days and him are the two best players in the world. Jason Day is a great driver of the golf ball, great around the greens, great putter, pretty mediocre iron player. Yeah, but like you think about, like how does that relate? Right, Well, he puts himself into position where he's going to hit enough approaches that he's going to hit good ones that
generate birdies. But is is iron play his forte No Speeth meanwhile, is the complete opposite, where he's not going to put himself in as many great positions to approach the green as Day, but he's going to convert on more.
Right.
It's just like a fascinating thing. And Day's short game bails out mediocre approach play base short Day's short game and putting. Like when you start like that's I think like what gets missed sometimes with like the really data driven analysis is sometimes you miss like how these things like it just becomes like, look at how bad this person is at this. It's like, well, like all these other things work together to to mask that, right.
I think, especially zeroing in on the relationship between approach play and around the greens and when you're very good in like Speth is Speth was almost every hole presents an interesting Okay, if you hit a good drive, then you're probably gonna you have a good chance of hitting it close. If you don't, you have a good chance of getting up and down. Like one example I think is always important to throw out is if you hit the green, your strokes gained around the green is gonna
be zero. You're not even hitting a chip shot. So speF like have being elite in both of those categories. Like you're saying, Andy, it works incredibly well together on a course like Augusta.
So yeah, and if your day in twenty fifteen, it works really well too, because it's like, Okay, I'm not the best approach player in the world, but I hit it really far, I hit it pretty relatively straight, and I am going to put myself in a lot of opportunities. And when I don't hit a great approach out, I'm getting up and down, you know.
But now we have a player in Scotti Scheffler who does everything well, and more players are doing everything well. And I just even if Speth hadn't gotten worse, I think he was gonna run into this problem eventually.
So I think like a speF were this is something that's speF unlocked at Augusta National and he might not have been like the first, but like when you think about like think about the eleventh hole and I think this is like I think about this with Jordan Spieth all the time, and now this is exactly how Scotty Schffler plays the eleventh hole. They just dump it right.
There's just no need to even hit the ball anywhere near the water left because their short games are so good that if you just put them on short grass right of the green, they're gonna get up and down like almost every time. And it's like this is that exactly that inner play and how like these games, this this pairing of iron play and short game works so well at a lot of places. Is like, okay, I'm just gonna dump it. I'm Scheffler talks at it. He
aims at like right at the right fringe. Yeah, and it's just like that's where I hit it, and he just hits it right and then he just gets up and down and it's just like, okay, I'm taking what we saw happened to Ludwig off the board on Sunday when he hit it in the water this year. You know, it's just like, this isn't going to happen. I'm hitting it over here, and I'm just gonna get up and down. I'm gonna walk away with four most days. In twenty fourteen,
we're going back now. He gets picked for the Ryder Cup. He's the youngest American to play the matches since Horton Smith in nineteen twenty nine. Obviously, I mean, he's just like, there's so many of these when you go through his
his bio. Twenty fifteen wins the Masters. He breaks the thirty six hole scoring record at fourteen under, broke the fifty four hole scoring record at sixty under, ends up tying the seventy two scoring record with Tiger, and he became the second youngest to Tiger to win the Masters, first wire to wire winner since Ray Floyd. That was such a dominant performance, it only gets better. Twenty fifteen wins the US Open. He beats DJ and Louiu Stason
at Chambers Bay. Became the sixth player ever to win the Masters of the US Open in the same year, first since Tiger Woods, younger, youngest winner of the US of the US Open since Bobby Jones, the.
Youngest to win two career majors since Gene Saizen. I think it's said I was watching this broadcast backs, Yeah, sixth player ever to win the Masters in the US Open in the same year. And that's another one of those great what ifs andy the Dustin Johnson three pot on eighteen, that a lot changes if he makes that potter, if it goes to a playoff, like that's one of the speef I think, probably one of the biggest what ifs well.
And the way it finished, right where he burdies sixteen next to the train doubles seventeen and you're like, I mean, it's it's kind of the epitome of the of the speeth roller coaster, and then I believe he birdied eighteen, yeah, to eventually to end up winning it. That was actually the first major I covered in person, and I remember it was when the US Open was still eighteen hole, the Monday eighteen hole playoff, and I remember I was like so excited to be out there. I was like, oh, yeah, well,
I'll go eighteen holes with these guys. That'd be a blast. And all these other people that were in the media center were just just so excited that DJ missed the putt so that they didn't have to stay and cover it on Monday, and I was I was bummed. I was like, Oh, I want to watch another eighteen holes with these guys. That'd be amazing.
Do you think the USJA, if that happens, gets rid of the eighteen hole playoff?
Probably?
If that, like, if if they play eighteen on Monday and then.
You have, you could have had this like epic duel. Yeah, maybe it's still still in existence.
Yeah, that's a good point.
There was a camera McCormick quote after Chambers that I thought was interesting. So this is from Karen Krause's New York Times Space. Cameron McCormick, who's worked with Speed for nearly a decade, said SPIE's ability to perform in the clutch could be traced to his quote bulletproof self image. No matter what happened previously, he can will the outcome to his desire. That makes me think of the Harrington quote, the Padrick Harrington quote where it's experience paraphrasing here, it's
not exactly this, but experience, isn't it? Everything is cracked up to be. With experience, you gain scars tissue wasn't what it was. And I think that's like an interesting aspect of golf. I like, when I am I long ago competitive career, I I had some trouble playing tournaments at my home course, which is so counterintuitive. You think it was it was easy, like you know the course, But what I found was in tournament pressure. I would think about all of the times that I struggled on
the course where not to hit it. And I think like at this point in Speace career, he's never had any like his one moment of bother was the Q School thing. He's just been on this ascendant trajectory and I wonder if like part of this also mentally, he's lost that bulletproof self image. He's realized, especially at this point in his career, that there are players that are better than him. That's what you're saying.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's multiple things in one, Like the swing gets worse, he's hitting the ball worse, and he's I'm the twelfth hole of Augusta. You have to bring it up right, Like you want to talk about scar tissue. I don't think any golfer has as much scar tissue on one specific hole as speech does on twelve at August. He's hit it in the water there a bunch of times now, so I think there could be something to that. But also he's just not hitting the ball as well.
Yeah, I think one thing with this Andy is is when you have somebody like that who has been generationally good at every age, it gets very difficult for that person to start to make these decisions out of humility. And so what I think Scottie Shuffer's superpower is is is his humility. He is willing to say, hey, I can hit this shot probably seven out of ten times, but because I can't hit it three out of ten times,
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna take it on. I'm gonna lay up over here, I'm gonna hit over here away from trouble. I'm not going to short side myself. And I think so often speak whether it's because he wants to prove it to himself or prove it to other people, or because he's just done it for so long, I think he has a hard time making smart choices
on the golf course. And yes, you can obviously like he's lost something with his tea green game, and so you combine those two things, and it results in a lot of like disastrous holes or disastrous nine hole stretches over the course of the last you know, since I would say since twenty over the last seven years. And I do wonder if that is rooted in the fact that he won the US Junior twice, he won the Masters, I mean, all these things first, since Tiger first, since
nineteen nineteen. You know, it's been a hundred years, and you start to think like, oh, I like, it's hard because you want to have that self confidence, in that self belief, but you also have to pair it with like a wisdom and a humility on the golf course to not think take things on that you shouldn't and to hit places that you're like, that's boring. I don't
want to do that. But the best players, I mean, that's what Scotti Scheffler is doing over and over again, and that's why he's the that's part of the reason he's the best player in the world.
I mean, Kyle, I think it's very smart to draw the comparison with Scheffler, and I think, like you're saying, Scotty's mind is okay, I can do this seven eight times out of ten, but what happens when it goes wrong and speed is very stubborn in the I see this shot, I don't care what happens when it goes wrong, Like I can get myself out of it. I'm hitting it, But it doesn't really work out that way for you in the long run if you keep making those mistakes.
I do think also at this time in his career twenty fourteen fifteen sixteen, Speath emanated a maturity paired with an innocence of youth. And that's an unusual thing. You get guys that are nineteen twenty twenty one, they're they're usually pretty immature. And I think some of that is rooted in his upbringing, his family life, his sister having special needs and her getting the lion's share of the
attention within their family. As he was growing up, he had to like and I guess what I'm getting at is there was this perfect balance of like personal maturity but also like innocence within golf and not having that scar tissue that I think really work to his advantage as a twenty one year old that not a lot of guys have. And obviously, when we talk about these things,
there's like a million factors. There's a million variables. We're just sort of calling out the ones that are most prominent or that we see most prominently that I think played into some level of like generational success at that age. And that's one that it gets talked about in terms of like, oh, speak's a good guy, or like he's always like his family has shaped him or whatever. But I think not to make it too much about golf.
I think it's really helped him, or it helps him at that age as a golfer as well, because he had a maturity that the Patrick quote maybe sometimes you lack a little bit of that maturity at twenty twenty one, and he had it, and it paired perfectly with where his talent and where his kind of innocence as a golfer was at as well.
Yeah, and I think you're hitting on what makes golf superstars so fascinating. I think when you talk about a lot of other sports, most other sports are reactionary. Your background, your upbringing can shape how you approach the preparation for the game, but then you get in the arena and it is very much a reactionary skill driven, athleticism driven sport. With golf, the interplay of mental eight and performance I think is more correlated than any other sport in the world.
The one that would would jump to mind is like is like pitching in baseball, I think is like probably the closest comp to golf where you have like that interplay of mental like you have to think before every pitch, and I think like that that's the fascinating thing with Jordan Speith, especially because of the uniqueness of his personality that we see come out in the conversations with Michael Greller.
So he closes out twenty fifteen T four at the Open, one shot out of the three way playoff second at the PGA to Jason Day. Absolutely, I think like one of the best tournaments that nobody talks about was that was that duel?
It was it was a mini version of Phil Stenson. Yes, the fifteen Open, the seventieth hole he makes that long birdie, So sixteen he makes that long I mean, it was a it was a bomb, and you're like, this guy's gonna he's going to win the Grand Slam like it legitimately felt like he was going to win the Grand Slam at that moment. He he buggied the road hole and then he hits a ball. I it looked like it was headed for the first tea box on eighteen. I mean it was. It was so left. It was unbelievable.
And he still has a chance to tie and get into into the playoff. But I just think taking you know, he took the he took the Grand Slam to the what was at the two hundred and thirteenth hole or whatever of the of the year. That's that's extraordinary, Like that's not going to happen very often in a golf year, and that was just it was a really special year like that was it was. It was just so much fun to cover that and to be like just to
witness it, to experience it. It was it felt very very unique and like something that we're probably not going to see very many more times.
I'm wonder I was wondering, like, legitimately, do you think anybody is going to be this close ever again?
Well, you've got you know, now, the order of the majors is different, right, So in terms of like I think it's probably less rare to win the Masters and the PGA in the same year. I'd have to look that up. Off the top of my head, I can't remember. So I do think somebody could take it to the US Open.
But but then that far into the US.
Open, he lost to what four guys that year at the Majors, four guys I don't legitimate and back nine.
You know, as you said, I mean he buggies the road hole and doesn't birdy eighteen. Yeah, at St. Andrews, like usually that's a you know, part four and a half, part three and a half. Yeah, and he doesn't get that done, and then the day thing, they're going back and forth all Sunday.
Yeah. No, I don't think. I don't think anybody will get that close. I mean, what's my timeframe, like ever.
Again, I mean in the next in your lifetime covering the sport, So we'll say thirty thirty more years, twenty twenty five, twenty years, twenty five years.
I mean, Joseph's got like forty years left. But no, I don't think. I do not think that anybody will get that close. Again.
I'll say somebody gets somebody wins the first two and is in the mix out of third in the next thirty to forty years. But I think there's almost no chance that they do it at that age, that they do it when they are twenty one years old, that's not happening.
Well that's where like I and maybe I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but my I've really struggled for a comp with Speeth over the course of his career, and the one that I've finally landed on that I think I'm going with is uh is Sevy right, because it was the age thing. It's the Masters in Open Championship thing. It's the sort of like the sum of the parts or the I always mess this up. The sum is greater than the what am I trying to say, Joseph, you got it?
Yeah, the sum is greater than the all the parts.
Right exactly Like you don't look at and Joseph and
I talked about this several years ago. I think we were talking about Shuffler, but he was like I always just said to me, I always trust guys that it doesn't look great necessarily because it means that they have done it like they have, Like because guys look at him and it looks great, like Gordon Sergent gets the benefit of the doubt at every Ram Davis, Yeah, because you're like it looks amazing, and guys where it doesn't look great, you're like, this guy has probably not gotten
the benefit of the doubt. He's had to actually do the work and actually accomplish what's in front of him, and you just trust it more. And that's where it was speed. It was like he was like, you know, he just he was so good at scoring, at winning, and I don't understand how that part. I don't think it has gone away, and I think he could win more major. I think he will win another major at some point. But yeah, it just is crazy that it has like dissipated this quickly.
Yeah, all right, were we ready to move on from twenty fifteen, Yeah, twenty sixteen Masters collapse. I don't think we need to really go into this that much. How many do you have a six shot lead at the turn five, at the turn five, at the turn obviously the twelfth hole is one of the most memorable scenes in Masters history, and Danny Willet wins, and then there's real talk about like can he come back from this? Is it possible for him to come back from this? Because it was
such a i mean, historic collapse. There were a lot of Greg Norman comps I think the one that resonates the most with me is maybe Curtis Strange when he turned with a he opened I think he opened the Masters with a forty on the front nine, but he turned on the back on the back nine with a five shot lead or four shot lead and and lost, just just fell apart. But he quickly wins the Dean and DeLuca. Remember that sponsor, of course, the Denons. I love that, the Dean DeLuca, Dean and DeLuca. That year
he has a good twenty sixteen, twenty seventeens. The next really good year won the AT and T. It was his one hundred start. He's the second man along with Tiger Woods, to win nine times before the age of twenty four. Keep in bind, like Rom. This is where this goes back to the PGA Tour. You thing Rom like Ludvigs, I think twenty five.
Yeah, at age twenty four when Ludwigs like playing his first year on tour, Spith had won nine times and won two majors, finish runner up in two bastards like wild.
Yeah, it was crazy, I mean, especially when you with all the stuff he did in in junior golf too, right, like he was and he got a year of college. I mean, he was just he hit the he hit the check mark head of every apex that he could possibly hit.
I think he was contended in six majors by now, like he could have had. He was within striking distance of six major championships.
I think, Kyle, your Sevy comp I is like you know, I I always think about Sevey and Speeth and it's like sometimes with golf, your best golf comes when you're eighteen, nineteen years old, seventeen. Everybody always says Sev's best golf
was when he was like sixteen. You know. It's the unique thing about golf, right where like the physicality in most sports is is centers around like when you reach your physical prime, like the NBA it's twenty seven, twenty eight, NFL, it's getting younger, but it's you know, very speed and strength driven. With golf like that that basic level of man's strength isn't necessarily a prerequisite, so you get these players that play their best golf at a young age.
Yeah. Well, I think I think the other thing about that, Andy, and you you have turned me on to this idea over the years of just like the idea that it's very very difficult to remain at at a major winning level for a long time, right, Like what DJ and Rory have done to at least be at that level even if they haven't won majors for like a longer than five year window is very unusual. And if you
look back, I was looking, I tweeted this out. I was looking this morning at like what's guy's major winning span? And it has this on you can go look at it on Wikipedia, and so like Arnold Palmer six years, Tom Watson's like six years. Tom Watson won eight majors. He did it in like six years. I think Hogan won like nine, he did it in seven years. I mean, it's it's very very unusual to extend that beyond eight, ten, twelve years. It just doesn't happen very often. Sevy, I think,
won his five in a nine year span. And I do wonder if we'll like back on speed and say, well, I mean he just he won all of his majors between twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen. And that's just what it was.
I mean Duval had like a similar hot burn, you know, at an older age. Right, Yeah, here it was like basically two, three years, and then it was he wasn't the you know, the best player in the world.
That's why like Ernie and Phil doing what they've done has been I mean, Ernie was eighteen years I think nineteen ninety four to twenty twelve. Phil was seventeen years, twenty and four to twenty twenty one. That's that's crazy, Like that does not happen. Obviously, Tiger in ninety seven to twenty nineteen, twenty two years, that's very very unusual. Nicholas was a long time, but it doesn't happen very often. And I do wonder if we'll be back and say,
like I always thought speed would get it back. But we're only saying that because we're kind of in the middle, Like we're kind of we're kind of growing up in our jobs with Speth, and he was like the guy that made us excited about writing and podcasting and covering golf. But if somebody in the future is like, yeah, of course, like that's just how long you win majors for like, it would have been weirder if he did win a major at thirty four, then if he didn't, like that
was just that's just kind of how golf. How professional golf is.
Kyle completely and can I give you kind of a bad stat on that. This was the one that's probably the most least optimistic for Speed. But while we're here, so Jordan Speed's finished in the top ten four times since twenty twenty one, but a lot of those were not super competitive, like had a low final round, or like getting a bunch of strokes and putting in the last day or something. It wasn't really in the mix.
Okay.
Jordan Speith has been within three of the lead in ten major championships in his career. Nine of those were between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen. The tenth was in twenty twenty one at Royal Saint George's. Since the start of twenty twenty two, Jordan has not been within seven shots of the lead after three days of a major or seven is the closest he's been. So we're going on three full years now of not being anywhere remotely in the mix at a major. Pretty it reinforces what
you're saying about that window. But that's kind of a tough like not even being within seven.
Oh, this is why we're having this discussion today, is that where it feels like with the wrist, we're at this crossroads.
Yeah right, yeah, yeah, I agree. I looked up since he won that twenty seventeen Open Joseph Barkdale, most top tens majors since then, so August first, twenty seventeen, Rory's got fifteen's Andrews got fourteen, Ram has thirteen, Scotty and Brooks have twelve, DJ and Fenale have ten, more, Kawa has nine, camp Smith has eight. Keep going down the list. Salatorus, Reed, Fleetwood,
Bryce and JT and Speeth all have seven. So he is not I mean, he's like kind of like relevant, but it's not within you know, there's ten guys ahead of him in terms of like competitiveness at majors. And what you're saying makes it even worse, which is that, yeah, those are like top tens, but it's like, I think he finished top ten at Saint Andrews in twenty twenty two. He did? Was he uncompetitive? Was he involved? Ever? Well?
Yeah, I had a stat seven top fives in his first eighteen starts as a pro in majors. That has three wins in there. Yeah, since then, he's five of twenty eight for top five. One of those top fives was the best Page one where he had I think it was like the most strokes game putting of any major performance ever, but he was still like eight or nine back. It was a third of five.
Rooks and dj I followed him that Saturday at beth Page. It was him and Brooks were in the final pairent and they looked like they were playing different sports. It was like, I don't think Spith found the center of the club face. It was unbelievable. It was unreal that he finished in the top five that week.
So I think this is like the thing too, is like that illustrates how you could have a hot putter like maybe he could. The putting was unsustainable of his early career. It was, but it doesn't mean it wasn't sustainable for weeks and spurts. And I think that that the beth Page setup just in general was never going
to fancy speed, right. I mean, I remember podcasting with Jeff Ogilvie in our preview and was just like, listen, if you don't carry it three hundred yards or three hundred and ten yards, you have no chance.
This week.
It is going to be someone who is at far and high and it just played out exactly that way. But the I think, so he wins the Open. We talked about that in pretty detail at the start. I just wanted to put this, put this the stat out there. So he wins the twenty seventeen Open. He beats Koocher
by three. He has that incredible finish. As you guys highlighted, He's the second player in the history of golf since Jack Nicholas at this point to win three of the first three of the first four majors before twenty four.
It's crazy. I almost feel like we underrated what he was doing.
Right, Like I looked back at this and I'm like, God, like these there were Tiger comparisons, doing it in a completely different way than Tiger, but like we had never seen anything like this in this generation.
Yeah, and it was on the heels Andy of that weird like Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaimer, like that whole deal at the beginning of twenty tens, and obviously he had Rory kind of emerged from that, but.
This has like made us forget about Rory.
Yeah, this was and this was kind of the first I'm gonna probably regret saying this, But in my mind, off the top of my head, this is the first American, like young American that it was like, Okay, this is you know, this could be amazing, like in the post Tiger scandal, knee injury all that. Obviously Tiger was amazing in twenty thirteen, but in terms of young Americans, I think he was kind of the first guy to emerge out of that era.
Yeah, you hate it, you hate Anthony Kim.
I already regret it. See I told you I would.
Three times, three time winner Anthony Kim.
Yeah, I guess would be the other.
Yeah, Ricky. Ricky had maybe this much buzz, but not quite the accomplishments.
Peace never one of players.
I think something that sticks with me. A media executive told me this, a broadcast media executive. He said, there are two players other than Tiger that moved the needle for ratings, Jordan Speith and Rory McElroy. And that's it. Yeah, nobody else matters. No one else matters. And when you like look back at ratings, we're doing your review on the Shotgun start and it's it's so true. It's like the only thing that moved the ratings numbers last year
on the PGA Tour, where was Rory McElroy. Jordan Speed didn't have any moments that move the ratings, you know, but those this guy's like, there are two players other than Tiger and that's it that move ratings.
I forget exactly what I was watching it. I think it was some random PGA Tour live event, and the commentator is basically he's involved with junior golf in some way, and he said, if you ask junior golfer who their favorite player is, like half sixty seventy percent of them
say Jordan Speed. And it'd be really interesting to see that over time now and if we're still there, if some of it, if that's shifting a little bit to somebody like Bryson, But I think Jordan Speed's griphold over people who are currently like fifteen, Like he's a lot of those golfer's favorite player. Well.
And this is something that I've grappled with my entire career, because my career is basically coincided with the the Rory more honestly more so with the Speed era, but most of Rory's as well, is what what is it about Speed? Like he's just this kind of I think poor Ath called him a milk toast white guy, just normal looking guy from Dallas, Texas who's good at golf. And I think part of it, Andy is the like what you're just saying of like winning at that age is so
so unique and unusual. But I think another part of it is like, and we've talked about this a bunch probably on Twitter or other podcast, is just the idea of like he he reminds you of yourself at times when he's playing, because you're like, yeah, this is I mean, like I think I can hit that shot legitimately and he but like the flip side of that is like some of that that is alluring and compelling about his
play Joseph was saying, was saying this earlier. Everybody else is kind of caught up to it from a course management and from all these other perspectives. So it doesn't I don't know if that formula necessarily works anymore, but he definitely hit at a time where people were looking for somebody to love and to kind of latch onto in the golf world.
Yeah, so after Birkdale, I don't want this to sound harsh.
Here we go. Wait, how many. Can we guess how many times he's won after Birkdale.
Like just do you know?
I don't know? Okay, gus uh, I'm gonna say twice correct.
I mean, see, so twenty eighteen Birkeday or twenty seventeen Birkedale two wins since twenty twenty one Valero Voalera, that's right, twenty twenty two RBC two wins one of a C level PGA Tour event in the Valero maybe d probably see.
I bet you meant sea level, like the ocean. I was like, I don't San Antonio, uh.
Sure where it is. It'd be like a thousand feet And then RBC, which was that was a good field.
I mean, how many other tournaments has he even been in the mix at?
That's the crazy thing. And it's like and it's like he's in the mix on Saturday and then it's like, oh he finished ninth or he shoots sixty five on Sunday and everybody's like, wow, he's bad. He's about we're about to see a speed run, and I think like at this point he's kind of that that's even gone where the optimism for the speak run is gone. I
know this is not like this. This is not the most you know, modern stat but I just found it, like jarring scoring ranks, So scoring average rank, this starts in twenty twelve, ninth, fourteenth, first, fourth, first, twenty eighteen on eighteenth, thirty fifth, ninety third, twenty fourth, ninety fifth, thirtieth, and that it didn't have this year's in the Wikipedia on the Wikipedia page. I didn't look it up, but it's just like that. One's gonna be probably seventieth.
Yeah, he only had one top five this year and it was at Kapolu, all right, in twenty twenty four.
Does that even count as the top just like fifty players in the field. So that leaves us here where What are your thoughts for the future of Jordan speed.
Well? I think, first of all, one of your one of your all time great calls was speak being just a guy, because that was not obviously a popular opinion at the time, but the numbers.
Lots of people hate it on it.
I mean I was probably among them, but the numbers have borne it out. I mean, I don't remember when you first said it, but it was it was very smart.
It was like twenty nineteen.
Yeah, so you had a little bit of data, but you know, look, I think that I think that twenty twenty five and twenty twenty six will be very telling for what we get the rest of Speith's career. But here's my opinion is, like, you can exist as a one to one and a half strokes gain per round guy, which is like a top helped me out Joseph twenty five to forty type guy.
It's a little different with the way the game structured now, but sure.
And still go out and win a major too. I think I looked up since January one, twenty fourteen. Now I know we're taking it back to when he was like uber competitive his at the beginning of his career, so when his major career started, most top tens at the Open End Masters, Like if you only look at those two majors, the Open Championship and Augusta Rory has thirteen, Spith has eleven, nobody else has more than eight. John Rahm has eight. So I think he will definitely contend
at one of those and potentially win one. But I don't think we're getting twenty fifteen or twenty seventeen speed ever. Again, in terms of a week in, week out top ten type guy, Like I just don't think that guy is going to exist. But I do still think even if that guy doesn't exist, you can still go win a major championship. You can get hot with the putter for a week, Andy and be I mean it's like Phil right,
like Phil at Kiowa. You're like, oh, he just remembers like what it's like to win a major when you're in the mix. And I think we get one of those weeks, maybe a couple of those weeks from Jordan Speed over the next ten or so years.
Kyle, I know you're not expressing like a ton of optimism, but I think you're I even think you're expressing too much optimism.
Personally, I do optimism.
I think when Jordan speF seeing that he has not been with it closer than seven shots of the fifty four hole lead in the last three years, and knowing the typical career arcs his approach play being bad, plus a firm belief that the way Jordan's spif won a lot of his majors doesn't work as much now, Like every single one of these majors we've talked about, none of them have been the like clean, mistake free like maybe the twenty fifteen Masters, but all of these have
these wild shots that he then recovers by holding a twenty five footer. I don't think that's gonna work going forward, and he'd have to approve his improve his iron play a lot. I'll say, like small chance that he wins a major again, but I think it's very low, and the chances of two majors, like I would be willing to bet a lot of money that that does not happen.
I I'm gonna go more with Kyle here, I think. I think one of the things and why I will I think I think Jordan Speith will have It's not the same circumstances, but kind of like a Ben Crenshaw type career where there's like one final sendoff and we we get that last major.
So we're talking about him like he's like forty eight.
I you know, I think one of the things that I think he loves the game, I think he's like hyper hyper competitive, and one of the things that that will do will like I think like there will be a lot of players that would be in his position, you know, with different mentalities and be like, you know what, it was a great run I think the guy's going to just keep working. He's he's crazy. He like I think he's crazy in a great way, like golf crazy. Where he's not going it is going to be a zero.
Like he knows what he was and he is now on this quest whether he goes the right places. And I'm kind of in the camp of Brandle, like you completely screwed up your DNA and you know you kind of need to piece it back together. You've lost it. But I do believe that's there will be a no stone unturned approach to getting back to one he once had, because I think deep down he probably craves that more than anything in his life, to get back to that feeling of I am the best player in the world.
I don't think he's ever going to get back to that, but I do think between the Open and the Masters that he will get one more and it'll be a kind of a blip on the radar. We'll look back be You know, there are a lot of these over the history of golf where it's just like, oh, he picked one off late in his career and it makes the career make more sense. It's like, really like a lot of guys with two majors, it's like, oh, he shouldn't have been one major player. That second major gives
him something. With Speth, it's like he can't end as at where he's at now, Like he burned so bright that there is like he should have four, right, and that's what he's going to get out of it at the end of his career. I think, like can he get back to where he's consistently a top twenty player in the world would be a question, And I think Joseph you're probably know on that.
I was just going to say the same thing. Can you ever get back to being a top ten consistent player? For sure? No? For me, I think top he could push like eighteenth, But I don't see Jordan Speed being a top twelve golfer in the world.
Again.
I think that's very unlikely.
Yeah, I think I agree. I think he could be. I mean some of the guys in the well, it depends on what we're using as top twenty, as THISWGR, as a data golf you know, like there's a million different ways to view it. I think like his ceiling right now is like being a top like the twentieth best player in the world. Consistently over time. You look at some of the guys in the top twenty and you're like, I mean, it's not like, you know, rife with like superstars. So I definitely think he can get
in there. But in terms of being a top ten guy, I don't. Yeah, I'm I think I'm I'm with Joseph. I think it would be more concerning in terms of like him winning another major if the way that he won his previous majors was not kind of like he's just a scorer, right, if like, if he did it because he was like a very track many perfect swing, like all all these types of things type golfer, and that was gone, you'd be like, that's a very difficult
thing to get back. But because at every stage in your career you've just been a score and you've just figured out how to win, I think I can trust that he can figure out how to win one more of those. Do I think he's going to win the Career Slam? Probably not. Do I think he's going to get to five majors? Probably not? But I do think you can figure that out for one week, like Phil did,
like Ernie Els did. I mean, you were just describing Ernie El Sandy where he picks off one at the end of his career, You're like, oh, it makes more sense that he has four than he has three.
Yeah, I think. I think like the most encouraging thing if you're in the Speed camp is the driving of the golf ball. Last year it was a bad year. But if he's a top twenty driver of the golf ball and the top twenty approach player, that the thing about speed is that you will look at him at the Masters and you will like, if he can get to that level, you will he will be a top five favorite of the Masters, and you know, over time, if the stars aligned and he plays great, it's hard.
It's he's a hard guy to beat. At Augusta National.
We didn't talk about the sixty four. That could have been a sixty one. And I guess when he hit the trees eighteen more likely to win another major? Rory or Spith Rory, Rory.
Not close.
Rory's got got four opportunities every year, no matter what. I don't think you could say that Spith has Spith is not going to win Quail Hollow. There's no chance of him winning quail Hollow zero.
That's true, he also has five years on Rory, does he.
I would say that Rory's game has aged way better than Speed. Yeah, I think Rory's got a longer like in pure years, he's got less time. But I think of an elite play Rory's got depending on how long he wants to play, six years.
I mean, but like so much of Rory's is predicated on speed and like how far he hits it and stuff like that, doesn't that age worse than what speed does? Well? I don't know what speed does right now, but.
I don't I think Rory's got a guarantee, almost a guaranteed three to five years of four attempts a year of cracking a major, So you might not have any more.
Okay, Okay, I mean I think I'm with you guys, but I think I don't think it's like I think it's.
A I don't think that one's close.
What who do you think ends their career? Who do you think has more top fives and majors from this point forward? JT or Speed? Jt Uh.
I'll say Speed.
I think I'd go JT.
So who in their career with more majors? Speth or Scotty.
Are we serious, yes, s Scotty. Scotty, Well, that's a great question, because I think like you can be a prisoner of the moment.
Yeah.
I mean, if we did this podcast in twenty sixteen, we'd be saying the same things about Jordan that we were saying we would say right now about Scotty.
Whenever we first got into this. Andy, Rory and Spieth held at the end of twenty fifteen, or I guess after the US Open twenty fifteen they held all four majors, right, because as Rory won the fourteen Open in PGA and then Speth won the fifteen Masters in US Open.
I think speed plus one would be a pretty good speak. At four, I'd feel differently than Scotty at two.
I'm not sold that Scotty's game translated outside of Augusta National.
I'll take Scotty to win at least four majors in his career.
I think that's like my best skip Bay list take right there.
For sure, Ricky's too short. This is the whole thing, though, right is It always seems like yeah, obvious.
Except that I'm giving Jordan a very low chance of winning one. Again, I think a realistic line for Scotty is more than one at this point, one more more than one more.
Yeah, I think that's I think that's fair.
I think that's the thing. I started covering golf in twenty fifteen, obviously a fan, but when you cover it as close as we do, I think the thing you learn with age is how how fleeting major championships are, like how hard it is.
Just I agree, but you're not taking, you're not giving Scotty. You don't think the line is at least one and a half more.
I think I put Scotty at at four and a half, right right, I think that's putting him past. Yeah, I speer question, but I think it's like it's not a foregone conclusion, Like getting getting to four is really fricking
hard in it And as as Speeth JT. I mean, you go down the list, it's just you never know when the bottom is just going to drop out, and when it's almost like I just like sometimes think like it's like you get in the moments and the ball bounces the wrong way a couple of times and it's over.
Yeah. I mean that's what we're saying with the six year window, the seven year window, it's like and those are long windows. These are like the best players ever.
Yeah, it's like Scotty if you go, Scotty's window starts at at Harding Park. Really yeah, which was twenty twenty one.
I think I think an interesting one is does Mark how ever, win another major? Right? Like you, You've got all these guys that it just and I think that's what it's. Yeah, I mean, this is what I love about the majors and about the speed conversation. Is it just you start dishing out your you add up. It's like doing NFL win totals at the beginning of the year.
You start adding them up, right. I don't think the math on this works out right where it's there's only four of them a year, which is the kind of the beauty of it. And I don't know, it'll be interesting to see where which direction speed goes?
All right? Any parting thoughts on the speed this course? Are we good to go? I want to give you guys your space final word style for the final word style for PTI, but I think we've an hour and thirty minutes. I think we've kind of hit on everything.
Yeah, I'd just like to publicly apologize for my microphone issues that we had earlier at I don't.
Think anybody's gonna know that's what Pj's here for.
Well they're not going to know, but it threw off my rhythm and it took me a while to get into the flow of the game. So I'm I feel back point at Groller, good to go.
I think we've been a little pessimistic towards the back end of this. But one of the most electric golfers that we've seen in the twenty first century, and like the beginning of his career, we may never see again. So I don't want to come across too negatively on speed.
I would love to see him win again. It just seems like if we will come back to this moment in time in twenty twenty five and look at it ten years from now and realize, like all the signs were there that it was closer to the end than maybe we would have liked to admit.
If he was an LPGA player, we might be talking about he doesn't have enough points to qualify for the Hall of Fame right now.
What a take?
Kyle, Kyle, do you what do you got going on with norbal sport? Over the next couple of weeks the holidays and into the new year. I just I was. I'm a paying member of Normal Sport. I recommend it to everybody. What do you have coming up?
Thank you for saying that, Andy, We actually don't have a ton. We're gonna do a bunch this week. I don't know when this is being posted, but.
We've been posted tomorrow.
Okay, so this week, but we're going to shut it down after that. We've been Jason and the team that we have over there has been working really really hard over the last three months since I went full time with it. So we're going to shut it down for the last two weeks and then get cranking again during during kapalou. So we don't have a lot. I would encourage people to go to normal sport dot com, become a paying member if you if you can, if you want to to support what we're doing. It's been a
ton of fun. You guys have both been helpful and encouraging with it, so I couldn't imagine it being this much fun, but it has been, so it's been great.
I think my one thing support independent journalism. You are doing your thing. Independence is a is a great thing. But it it The best way for you to to for anybody to remain independent, is for people to support your your membership, your era, and and it goes a long way, and it gives you endless hours of entertainment. I am excited every time then the normal sporter hits the inbox.
Appreciate that.
Andy, all right, we'll be back later this week. Thank you to PJ for editing producing this podcast. We'll be back later this week with another pod. I think we're going to try and get two more in before Christmas. Get you loaded up for the holiday stretch, and and maybe we'll drop another Easter Egg or two in there over the over the holidays. But excited for the rest of this year and going into twenty twenty five. Thanks for listening, and I have a great week.