Fairway Rollin' - Ep. 28: The Honda Classic, Rule Changes, and Mark Crossfield

Episode Date: February 28, 2017

Geoff Shackelford and Joe House discuss Ricky Fowler's bizarre win at the Honda Classic (03:00), Johnny Miller's criticism (04:00), and the upcoming changes to the rules of golf (15:35). Then they welcome golf instructor/equipment reviewer/travel guru Mark Crossfield to share how he used honesty to build an online presence (24:00) and answer a few questions from the Callaway Community (27:00). To close out the show, Geoff and House preview the WGC-Mexico Championship (45:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, house. You know why I'm excited this week? Talk to me, Shaq. Our favorite unscripted online golf shows back. Of course, I'm referring to Callaway Live. Season three, we got a sneak peek at the guests. And, you know, they may not live up to the standard that you and I said when we were on the show in season two. No doubt.

But so far, it's looking pretty darn good. Now, the show, of course, has not been picked up by Golf Channel NBC or CBS, but it can be found on YouTube or CallowayGolf. And, of course, it starts Tuesday at that great time, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific, with none other than 2018 Rider Cup Captain Jim Furik. And the following Tuesday, our former Shackhouse guest. And occasional listener, I think, still, Mike Tariko, which I can't wait to hear that one, especially now that he's a voice of the NBC Olympic primetime coverage. So everyone, there's also some good news.

Those of you, of course, all of you I know, signed up for the Callaway community and of course to kick off this Callaway live season, you can go on there and take a guess at how many times Perry says Rider Cup on the show with Jim Ferrick and the winner will get a, is it a house? Is it a set of, is it a dozen, 58? Oh, I think it's just one ball signed 58. The Chromesoft that Jim Ferrick used in his 58.

So anyway, go to the Calloway community to sign up and check out that promotion to get that ball and do a little drinking game on Harry Seng Rider Cup during the show. And, of course, tune in Tuesday at 9 Eastern for Calloway Live. And you can find that on YouTube or Callowaygolf.com. Let's go to the Shack House. House greetings from La La Land, home of another wonderful Oscar ceremony. Actually, the craziest one we've ever seen. This is the Shack House, brought to you by The Ringer.

What's going on? I am very, very, very excited. I have my first golf trip of the season coming up. Oh, okay. This is, I'm about to knock off the rust. I'm headed down to Florida, northern Florida. We're going to spend a couple days with the Travis Fulton, the lead instructor Golf Channel Academy.

He's currently working with Charlie Rimer on the Rimer project. You heard about this, Jeff? I have. I have. Yeah. So it's, he's trying to help Charlie get. ready for the senior tour, I guess. Oh, he's going to take all of his powers.

He's going to take a couple days off and he's going to spend some time on the Grimer project. I'm very excited. We have a couple great giveaways that we are going to push out there by way of the Calloway community. This is for the Friends of Shackhouse. You're going to have to go onto the Shackhouse central portion of Calloway community. We have some great combinations. I'm going to tweet these out and all.

also be in the Callaway community. We have some OGO bags and some, we have a great big birth epic. We have a micro hinge, the Odyssey O-Works 17 putter with the microhinge technology. A lot of stuff, a lot of giveaways for this exciting, exciting knock off the rust 2017 adventure.

Nice. All right. Well, you had to be excited watching the Honda Classic, just getting into the kind of the mode with the lakes and the palm trees. It was kind of a wacky, wacky finish. Good weather, but wow, what a strange day. And if you were flipping it all over to the Daytona 500,

there was that train wreck kind of going on. And then, of course, we finished the day off with the Oscars train wreck. But I'm just fascinated by Ricky Fowler's Wynn House because it was so bizarre. And the response today, the millennial police are out in force, and, man, are they unhappy with Johnny Miller? Wow. I didn't know that you could hit balls in the water and make some doubles and look a little weird and escape criticism. What is the deal? I mean, he played a nice tournament. He won by four, but it was, it was ragged. It was a weird final round. And some of the other guys' misses were, they were horrendous. And Johnny and the guys called it out.

And that's all it was, right? Am I missing something? It felt very much like a Florida golf event. You and I had this little mini debate in terms of West Coast swing versus the Florida swing. And one of the points about the Florida swing is the challenges that those courses present and the unexpected weather, the kind of Florida wind. And that's what we had on Sunday. To me, Ricky won the tournament on Saturday. He shot that 65 on Saturday. And then all he had to do was maintain.

and maintain he did. One of the things, the stat that jumped out the most to me about his performance this weekend, he was 57 of 57. That is 100% accurate on putts from seven feet in. But he also rolled in a number of bombs, including one on number 12 on Sunday, which was delicious because Jack Nicholas joined Dan Hicks. in the booth. I think Gary Coke was in there also.

No, no, it was Johnny. It was Johnny. It was Johnny. That's right. Johnny and Dan. They were talking about their fishing trips. That's right. I blew it.

Well, Jack was gently criticizing some of the analytics that go into the way that these guys think about Pat putting. And they were particularly talking about mapping out the green. And right as he's getting out the gentle criticism, Ricky rolls in a 40-footer. and Jack and the guys took it in perfect humor, perfect good humor. I mean, Jack said, well, I guess I got to shut up now. Yeah, yeah.

And of course, the irony he left out is that he was, took the model of a guy here in Southern California for yardage books and mapping out courses. And he was a real pioneer with Dean Beeman taking off the inspiration of Gene Andrews of mapping out courses and really kind of pinpointing information. I mean, he never pulled out a book and on a green. He went by feel on greens. But I did think it was kind of funny that, of all people that bothered him. Although I do, I mean, I watched it at Riviera a couple of weeks ago, House. It is fascinating to me watching guys, hitting a putt, then going to their book for the follow-up.

It's not something I can relate to in terms of putting. But when it works for somebody like Jordan Speeth or Ricky Fowler, it's hard to knock it. And on an overall note, just in response generally to Johnny and, you know, the NBC coverage at large, you know, I very much enjoyed the return of golf to NBC because to me, it's a pretty, I hate to be derisive of our good friends at CBS. But, you know, the events on that West Coast swing between, you know, the Phoenix event and then the pro. am at Pebble to get some serious golf or serious golf fans. This is basically golf coverage for golf adults when we get back on to NBC. And it includes Johnny being critical of what he sees. He calls it exactly like he sees it. I very much liked the one component of the NBC

coverage where they had a tracer split screen. They showed the tracer kind of overlaid over the rooting of the golf hole. And you could see guys, you know, you would watch live, see them tee off. You can't obviously track the ball. But if you look over to the side, you can see the line that the ball's taking. It was very helpful with so much water on that course to kind of see, oh, this one's going to be a splasher. And I like that element of the NBC broadcast.

Yeah, no, that was great. Fox, Fox, I think, was the first to do that, or maybe Sky. But I know Fox did it really well at the U.S. Open last year. They did a great job with that. Yeah, it got people excited. I'm glad to see NBC has something similar. But let's kind of big picture. I'm curious about this from all sports perspective,

because you watch a lot of sports. And I think we have a problem here. We've always had it in golf. And I feel like this was not a CBS or an NBC thing. I think that Faldo Costas, Baker Finch would have been critical of some of the shots we saw down the stretch really yesterday from several people, not just Ricky.

I mean, there were, you just, you just couldn't believe where some people were missing the ball when they, when they just couldn't miss it in those places. And they were critical. And I, I'm worried that our sport is really more sensitive to this stuff than any other sport, that when you have Luke Donald or Rory McElroy going on Twitter and taking on Johnny for just calling it like his season, frankly, I, you know, I just didn't see him saying anything that he hasn't said before. but now with this added social media element, the added sort of sensitivity of players watching

or younger players not used to what Johnny does. I mean, the players have always had a problem with Johnny's critical nature, and so that's why Johnny's kind of always done his own thing. But now it seems like they're more sensitive than ever. And I guess this also gets to the Papariz debate, but what, I mean, Johnny has the credibility to say this stuff. people maybe can't. But do you think this is a danger for golf on television that we can't have

people be critical while other sports have Charles Barkley's and John McEnroe's taking the viewing up to another level because of their criticism? It's only a risk or a danger if the broadcasters on board the criticism. And I don't, I'm not worried about that with Johnny Miller. And I'm definitely not worried about that with Nick Faldo either. I mean, those guys need to keep calling it exactly how they see it. The only thing that's really sort of changed is the ability of the players who are consuming the broadcast in real time to respond in real time to what they're observing in the broadcast. But at the heart of it, who cares what the players think? Who cares if they feel like they need to, you know, sort of jump in and protect their fraternity?

It makes, it's an interesting dynamic where, you know, it presents an opportunity for guys the next day for the golf news media to kind of aggregate the comments and go through and see, you know, all the players. Oh, Johnny shouldn't have been critical here. But as far as I'm concerned, it adds to the overall flavor of the broadcast, the flavor of the presentation of the game. And I don't have any problem at all with the guys jumping in when they see fit. I just certainly would regret it if it affected the broadcast in any way, shape, or form.

Well, it's affecting the broadcast in the eyes of some people because they don't like that Johnny is being critical. And that's what worries me is that, well, I want him to be that way. I want Faldo to go berserk when somebody's going for 13 at Augusta and two, and he thinks it's just a stupid decision. And I'm worried that this kind of younger group is not aware that this is, this makes, it's entertainment. And part of the drama is that we have these people who, who just don't care, and they are, they call it like they see it.

And it's what makes McEnroe so fascinating in tennis. And generally tennis players are more interesting analysts anyway. way. Golfers seem to be so worried about being critical of golfers. And I don't know if that's just sort of the nature of our sport. It's a more genteel sport. But I think it's something to watch because I'm just startled. You know, I just saw Golf Digest has a slideshow harping on all the things that Johnny wouldn't like based on that yesterday. And I mean, I know this is just kind of what we, what they do now to get clicks. And it's, it's Ricky. And so he has a fan club that will, will feel like they're victims of Johnny's criticism.

But my gosh, it's just, wow. I think it's really a concern that. And then when Johnny's gone, I mean, you know, there aren't a lot of multiple major winners looking to get into broadcasting. So does that mean the next person is going to be pulling punches to kind of appease this kind of younger audience? I don't know. Yeah, I'd be greatly disappointed if we see any deference whatsoever creep into the broadcast. I mean, I think it's perfectly acceptable to have two different points of view on what we're all kind of consuming in real time.

The players all come by and honestly, they're inclined to protect one another. That's wonderful. And the players in the broadcast, the guys that have really accomplished great things in their careers, keeping it real is crucially important to our overall consumption and enjoyment of the game. And that was very much true. The best example of it that I can think of is the U.S. Open last, summer. I mean, Fox to its credit and everybody in there, Brad Faxson, and I'm sure I'm going to leave somebody out. But those guys, yeah, Zinger, right, gave in the moment real-time, you know,

reaction to what went down with the rules fiasco there. And the players who were watching and got on Twitter were equally giving real-time commentary. All of that added to the overall enjoyment of the broadcast. I mean, you know, it made it very interesting and compelling to have kind of that real-time input. So I sure hope nobody in the Gulf, you know, television business feels motivated to do anything to shut down any of the criticism. Well, we'll see.

So, House, you open the door there to the topic of rules. But there are some big, big rules announcements coming this week. And those listening to the show later in the week will know what they are. But we're going to preview a few of what we think. the rules changes are going to be. But before we do that, we want to talk about our friends at Callaway and the number one irons and golf. And why are they number one?

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It's a really cool tool. It's easy to use. It's very interactive. And then once you kind of go through that, look for a fitting location near you and go get yourself some Calloway Irons, the number one irons in golf. All right, Howe.

So have you heard it all about kind of what's going on in the rules of golf? They're going to simplify the language. It's not going to take a law degree anymore, supposedly, to read the rules of golf and interpret them. So that's a big thing. But they're expediting this. So normally they do this like every four years.

So 2020 would have been the next rules changes. And they're actually going to push this a year ahead. And then probably I think 2019 January 1 will be playing this new set of rules. But beyond the language, they're actually talking about rolling out all sorts of stuff. And I think some of it's going to be very well received. And some's going to be a little controversial because so much of it is about pace of play. And so, I mean, I think the number one thing probably to watch, and it's going to be controversial, is they are going to go for a full-on endorsement of rangefinders and they'll be

usable in all competition. And that's going to create a wonderful, wonderful little five-family dispute, I think, between Augusta National and the governing bodies. Because I just don't see the day when Jordan Speath walks on to the 12th on Sunday at the Masters. And the crowd gives them an ovation and then he pulls out his rangefinder. I just don't see the lords of Augusta going for that. So I have to tell you, I did not really do any investigation of the upcoming changes. There's nothing out there. No, no. Yeah, yeah, let's be clear.

There's a Wednesday unveiling of this. So there's not much out there. But this rangefinder thing is stunning. I can't believe it. Let me ask you this. The thing that I was anticipating and what I observed in some of the, the golf media writing so far this year is that they're basically going to take into account the difference between those of us who play golf for fun and the professionals.

So if it was the case that the governing bodies wanted to approve range finders for those of us who play the game mostly for fun, but I could see it in some competitions, amateur competitions and the like, but left that a lot. alone entirely for the folks competing for real prize buddy on the professional tours, that makes perfect sense to me because as we sit here today, what do the pros need a rangefinder for? Well, okay, so we're at that situation now, and you've touched on a very interesting thing. When you kind of go down the list of some of the things that are being leaked, so many

of them revolve around the pro game. And it's hard, and again, we'll see the whole unveiling and how they put it. but it's hard not to look at kind of these different things that they're doing. You know, another big one, I think we're going to finally say goodbye to caddies lining players up, which again, pro golf issue, not an everyday player issue. The lost ball search time is going to be reduced, which, again, I don't see how that's an issue for the everyday game as opposed to the pro game, because how many people are really out there with a stopwatch when somebody loses a ball.

And I think what you've touched on is that this is kind of leading us towards the bifurcation of the rules. And this will that'll wig the USGA and RNA out. But I think that's kind of where we're headed, which is where a lot of us have felt isn't such a horrible thing. Yeah, we don't have the benefit of playing by the rules that the pros play by. I mean, I, the countless instances where I'm confronted by situations that I'm not sure the right way to proceed that are peculiar to the conditions.

of the public track that I'm playing, you know, there's all, I'm not going to do a good job of coming up with the right example. But one example is like what Ricky Fowler was confronted by yesterday. He got a free drop from a seam in sod that was on the face of one of the bunkers on the back nine yesterday. And he got a drop because he and the rule official were able to conclude that there was a seam there that was, you know, a product of fresh sod. I don't know when I go play my public track how recently they sodded the thing and whether the seam that's there

is a product of the recent sodding or not. And I don't have any idea whether or not I'm allowed to drop. But most of the time I don't, and I hit out of a crazy lie and end up, you know, three shots or four shots worse for it. Yeah.

Well, I think it's just going to be fun to watch because I have a feeling that they're very excited about this and they're very excited about the simplification of the language, which is great. But just from what I'm seeing, I'm seeing a lot of changes that really are directed at the pro game, the game we see on TV, and that won't have a whole lot of impact on the everyday game. And I think there might be tapping of spike marks. It could be possible. Touching the line of play on a putting green is the one I've been teased on.

So I don't know what it means. So we'll watch, but I do think it's going to be fascinating to watch it from the perspective of are they basically lining this up to have a pro set of rules and then kind of an everyday version of those rules? And it's, it could be interesting. So, House,

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know what he's doing. They Google a golf club. They're thinking about buying. They Google a golf course in the UK. And Mark has really become a disruptor of sorts in the review world. He's a purist. He's a golf instructor. He really has knowledge in all parts of the game, but mostly just a passion for it. And he's very adept with technology. Of course, you can check him out on Twitter at four, the number four on golf online. He's four golf online. He's four golf online. at YouTube where he's kind of a YouTube star in the world of golf. He gets several many 20, 30,000 views on these videos. And his reviews are very entertaining, a lot of fun.

Joining us now from the United Kingdom is Mark Crossfield. Mark, thank you so much for joining us late in the evening. Welcome to the Shack House. How are you? Yes, I'm good. Thank you. And thanks for having me. It's an honor to enter the Shack House, as I'm sure they say.

For people who don't know what you do, you've built a website, you've built this reputation as an authentic voice, reviewing courses and equipment. How did you get into this? I used to sell golf equipment. I'm a golf professional, so I used to sell golf equipment on a website as well as in an actual shop. And I just started posting reviews of the equipment I was selling because people would ask the same questions over and again so I thought well I could answer lots of the same questions if I just put some content out there and directed them to the content and it became quite obvious very quickly that people wanted this kind of voice this honest voices they kind of hadn't ever heard before really

because the voices before that had always been kind of media voices which maybe have different agendas to what I had which was just to put out good advice about the equipment I was trying to supply to people. But I just fell into it by accident, really. Yeah. So, Mark, how do you push out your content? YouTube is my main kind of animal, if you like, and I do a series of content on there.

I do course reviews. I do equipment reviews still. I do teaching things on there as well. So I do teaching bits where I try to challenge my audience. I've just started some daily vlogs. So Monday to Friday, people follow me through. my daily life as a golf pro and as just a normal person. But that's going out on YouTube, but it also gets circulated on Facebook and Twitter.

So it's all very social post stuff, really. Well, so that's a perfect segue. Jeff and I are part of the Callaway community. We have our own little stop there called Shackhouse Central, where folks in the Calloway community can ask us questions. and we put out to that community, we asked them for questions to put to you. So we have a handful of questions that came in from folks from the Callaway community. One of these, let's see if I get this right.

We have Tyler W.A. 525. Tyler is curious. He says the catchphrases. Do they just come to you or do you spit them out in the course V logs and they catch on? I'm not sure. I mean, yeah, they just organically happen about anything we're saying. None of it is script. Certainly the stuff on the course that he's talking about.

I think people just latch on to the way we talk. I think the English accent or certainly some of the words we're using just resonates with different people around the world. But I think people just enjoy watching me and Matt, certainly when we're playing the course, is having a lot of fun together because I think a lot of people forget that sometimes on a golf course. What is the origin of stuck in?

There was no origin. Again, it was very organic. Let's get stuck in means like let's get started and let's get into this and let's kind of, you know, get really stuck into it. So let's not just kind of do infomercial. Let's take it apart and take it a bit to see if it does work or not. And I kind of just would say it, you know what it's like when you do video, you just say you need something that's going to trigger the next bit, don't you, sometimes? just would always end there before going to my intro. And I think, and people just kind of kept with it really, again, very organic how that came about. You know, Mark, I think what is

entertaining as your videos are, and your presence and your personality, I think what, the reason we really want to expose you to more people who don't know what you're doing is you're a disruptor, for lack of a better word, it's a, it's sort of a hipster Silicon Valley term. But you, you have really become, and a few other sources, the place where a lot of people go for reviews and feel like they are getting a more honest review. Is that a product you think of your approach and your style and your genuine personality as much as it is a statement about kind of where the big media has gone in terms of how they're reviewing things?

Yeah, I mean, it was never a, I mean, I never really took any note of what the big media kind of ever said. I've always been very skeptical of the big media, if you like, and understood that there are different agendas there. I'm a golf pro, so students want to know how to get better. I see my audience as students, anyone who wants to subscribe or come along on my journey. I see them as a responsibility, like for me to make sure I know as much as I do about and give them the best information I can give them. So when you come from that, it's impossible not to be honest, because the only way anyone's going to be improved or improve their game is if you're honest.

So to me, it's like something I've not even, it's not even a thought for me. And I think that's what really separated me at the start, the big media, as you call it. And the other kind of fringe people doing it is, again, people just weren't used to someone saying, oh, I don't like to look at this club, or this one doesn't feel as good as that one. You know, they just weren't used to that. They were just like, wow, this guy's just literally saying what he thinks.

And I think, even on YouTube now today, you know, big media tries to go and do things on YouTube, but often the audience don't own their platform almost. The audience like the fact that they own that platform. form to a certain extent, I think. I also think big media get it very wrong. I kind of sit here and do giggle a bit at what they do and how stubborn they are to see maybe some better guidance.

But that only works to my advantage. But, yeah, I think when you're coming at the angle as a golf pro teacher, there's kind of no angle. The only angle is I'm just trying to make people better and understand them, really. Well, that's another nice segue. I have a question here from an manual T of the Callaway community. And he says, first off, make sure you thank Crossy for his honest reviews.

He says it's nice to watch a review from a guy with a human swing speed as opposed to the superhuman swing speeds that you might see in some of these artificial videos from manufacturers that you were talking about. His question for you, Mr. Crossfield. As an instructor, what do you find is the biggest mistake that golfers who may be getting older, I might fit this category, as we get older, what mistake, what's the biggest mistake you see us making, and what can we do to try and work on swing speed? Okay, I mean, that's a tricky question.

So the first part of that, the biggest mistake I see golfers make who have played for a long time is made. to maybe open minds and try newer angles. Certainly not the language I use in my lessons challenges people to have to think in a different way. Certainly the physical one-to-one lessons that come and see me that I still do, one of the biggest reoccurring things that they say to me is, wow, no one's ever told me that.

You know, you explain that in that way. No one's ever said that to me, and I've had hundreds of lessons before, what have you. So I'm certainly going to get a lesson by someone who's using good launch monitor measurable devices, which is what I use to quantify any of the statements I give to my students, would be a first step to improving. I just think golfers get stuck in.

My dad's probably been practicing his takeaway for the last 25 years. How long can you practice adults' takeaway for? Do you know what I mean? At some point, it had to have got it right, surely. but yeah so for me it would be that maybe trying to think outside of the box with where you're going with your lessons or ideas for speed

if you're getting older and for speed is a tricky one sometimes it's maybe not about creating more speed it's maybe more optimising what you put in so what I mean by that not many lessons I teach get 100% out of whatever they put in they've got power leaks through angle of attacks and spin rates and launch angles.

So you can often gain some yardages for students by improving their delivery rather than improving their speed. Ethan Ganoet of Calloway submitted a couple of questions, and I'm going to play off those. Because a lot of what I love about your reviews is that you're thinking of the customer and you're really kind of trying to separate the pro game from the recreational. So two parts on that. Do you think too many people try and build their game based on what they see PJ tour players doing as opposed to what Ethan wanted to know, LPGA tour players? And then also are they making that mistake in their buying habits too? Yeah, I think there is a bit of that.

I mean, I think companies are all so clever in the way they are last leap, you know, tour players. because it does sell this romantic notion of players boom-knit long ways and winning events. We want that. So, yeah, I think I do see that a little bit. I think I see golfers. I mean, if you just have to go online, a big search term, if you want to make a video which gets searching, is how to hit the ball long ways, how to it's all 300 yards,

those kind of videos, which really don't help golfers as a general rule. they tend to confuse them more than help them because you just have to look at the PGA tour. That average is about 285 yards. So your average Joe learning to hit 300 yards is kind of missing the point a little bit there. So yeah, I think people do look sometimes in the wrong directions for improvement, definitely. But on the flip side of that, I mean, it's good to watch how some of the best players in the world deal with issues, you know, when they're struggling and deal with success as well.

I think you can learn from those as well. It's what you take from what you see. I think is always the skill, isn't it? It's the lesson you choose to hear from it often is the trick, which is kind of very person-specific most of the time. So I have a little bit of an off-the-beaten path question for you. Also from Ethan, we know that you, Crossie, have attended the links at Petco Park event, which is this very cool Callaway and San Diego Padres, the baseball team,

collaborating and putting in a little nine-hole adventure inside the baseball stadium. If you could build your own temporary golf course anywhere in the world and in any venue, what would you choose? To be honest with you, it was quite hard to peak Petco for me because I had never seen a baseball stadium in my life. So it was fun to go and experience something so different to what I have ever really seen. I mean, apart from having one in your garden, and I'm lucky enough to have a putting green in my own garden,

I think Petco is really going to pop it for me. I mean, it wouldn't have to be that one, but, I mean, there's no problem going to San Diego, is there? It's one of the most beautiful places I think I've ever been to, apart from maybe Sydney, you know, a city that pretty near. There's such a beautiful coast. line. It was a treat on many levels for me to go and do that.

So apart from my garden, I think Petco would be kind of second or joint first of it. That was a lot of fun. I would have guessed maybe Wembley. What about, you know, perhaps one of the iconic stadiums? It is, yeah, but I'm not a massive football fan, you see. So that one doesn't kind of mean that much to me. I'm not. Some plays a lot of football, and I like watching him.

But, yeah, I'm not a huge football fan. That's one of the biggest questions the Americans often ask me. What team do you support football-wise? And I don't really support any team. I watch some of the big events, the World Cup, European Championships. But I don't follow league football at all, really, because unfortunately there's too much cheating in it, and I find it hard to watch sometimes.

Mark, one of the last things we want to ask you here, so I see you as a little bit of a futurist, but also a little bit of a traditionalist. I think that's why you resonate with people that you love some of the sort of traditions of the game. And you're kind of a classic golf instructor, core golfer, but you've embraced all this technology and social media in ways to circumvent a lot of the ways people learn about clubs or equipment or courses or instruction. And this question came from Gene M in the community. And I'm totally interested in what you think. Where do you see golf, and I know it's kind of broad,

it's thing golf, but where do you see golf going in the next five years? Take any part you're most fascinated by, but I would just like to hear kind of where you see things going over the next five years or so. I mean, I don't see far. I think golf is a little bit like human evolution. It's slow and it's slightly painful, but it's beautiful at the same time. I'm not sure five years is a long enough time span. You know what I mean?

It would be like saying where will humans be? be in five years time. Well, we'll probably still have the same amount of fingers and we'll probably still be moaning about the same thing. But, I mean, I think in golf, it has a lot of big decisions to make. Obviously, there's lots of press and kind of buzzwords of grow the game and all those kind of things. Lots of, I mean, European tour of just taking on

or trying this new sixes format. I don't know if you've seen that or got any, that's got any press over your side of the pond where they're playing. six holes, little matches. Yeah, but I mean for me, I just, I don't, I don't need golf to change. I'm one of these people that I think the sport is brilliant and I love it.

I think golf needs to change, try and influence people into it, into it, the game and play more. But that's not anything to do with golf. That's to do with lifestyles. It's to do with finances. Still in our game, you know, you've got venues that are still arguing

if they can have male or female members, which, you know, is just in this day and age, blows my head off. So I think golf has its issues, which will develop over five years. But I hope they don't need golf to change. I don't need to do fixes. I don't need to do X amount of holes.

I like the way it is. I just think some of the traditions that have built around it, an eccentric kind of game, I think, need to change, and are changing. lonely, but you know, 50% in this world

is made up of females, you know, let's get more of them playing and the game instantly grows overnight,

doesn't it? But boys' clubs, it certainly is in the UK, the harder it will be for those people to join in. So,

yeah, tricky question. I think, again, for me the biggest thing now, I don't think five years is

enough. Because I'll remember it's been around for hundreds of years, so the evolution of it is always going to

be slow. It's got so much tradition in it, which is it's a good thing as well, isn't it? So, Crossy, one last question. Thank you so much for joining us today. This, everybody will know that this is not a setup. Because we don't know the answer to this. Shack and I do not know the answer to this question. We want to know what driver is currently in your bag.

At the moment, it's the sub-zero epic driver. Oh, boy. Oh, good, we don't have to edit. That's obviously the correct answer. But why? Well, how did that find its way in your bag? Yeah, because your review was a little, your first review was, I thought, a little lukewarm, as I recall. Well, it wasn't.

The review for the epic was as honest as it didn't. The epic standard version for me didn't really do anything. It kind of just fell into the masses, if you like, but the epic sub stood out. I mean, it was the first driver where I was starting to get a few more yards, and that's because it's a low spin model driver and that suits me.

But the thing I like about it is it doesn't go too low. It stabilises kind of between your goal, picky audience, I understand this, 1,800 breaths to about 2,400 yards. It stays in that genre, which keeps me at a consistently decent level.

So, yeah, the epic driver for me was pretty average, but the sub-zero certainly stood up and felt nice and looked good. Well, Mark, where would you, just so we can kind of direct people where to find you, obviously you're on Twitter at 4Golf Online, you're on YouTube at 4Golf Online,

and Mark Crossfield.com. What's the best way for people to kind of start getting a flavor for what you do and enjoying your coverage? So definitely the best place is YouTube, because that's really the best place to start and move out from there, I would say, which you just search for Golf Online. It's the number four or just my name, Mark Crossfield, get you all the social platforms from Instagram to, it finds me on Twitter as well as on Facebook.

But YouTube's really the best place to start. That's where most of the content goes, and you'll get the full array of kind of the different things I try and do on there. Perfect. Thank you so much, Crossie. We appreciate you staying up late. for us. No problem. Thanks for having me, guys. It's been a pleasure and hopefully catch up with you soon. Yes, indeed. Take care, Mark. All right, well, we thank Mark again for joining

us. Hey, House, before we get to some intel on the WGC, Mexico, I've got hot information off the presses. We just want to give a little shout out to the new number one fairway woods and golf. Of course, we are talking about the epic fairway woods from Callaway. That's right. Number one, the driver has been getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so. But don't sleep on those fairway woods because these babies are red hot. Calloway outfit of these fairway woods with a feather-like crown made to enhance forgiveness, power and accuracy. Then they cranked up the ball speed and notch with a fourth generation of its hyper-speed face cup technology. Henrik Stenson, who famously relies on his three-woods that he particularly liked that the ball speed was higher with a new epic three-wood,

and his distance control was better. So it'd be fun to see him using that. But don't trust us. Go to callawaygolf.com for pictures, more info, all that good stuff. And congratulations to our friends of Calloway on attaining number one status in the woods world. That is a big, big deal. All right, Hustle, the WGC, not Trump Doral this week,

heads to Mexico City. Are you excited about this? Do you know anything about this place? I knew nothing, so I had to make a few calls. Absolutely nothing about it. All right. The most intriguing thing is the elevation. But I have to, before we get to talking about, you know, Mexico, I just want to do a very

quick second on what a missed opportunity this Dural thing is. Can you imagine this week if the tour was headed down to Derao and President Trump was there to, you know, meet and greet and, you know. walk regally around and, you know, run the show. He wouldn't leave Washington. He stay up there right now. He's not into traveling down to Florida to just mingle around at a golf tournament. I'm just sad about, I'm sad about the missed opportunity.

I mean, it would be a great weekend of television. All the top players in the world, 50 best players in the world with the exception of poor Jason Day. So that's my lament. I'm lamenting this missed opportunity, the miscalculation on whether or not President Trump might win the election. I think that had to go into Brother Fincham's thinking when he so readily walked away from Doral. But we'll set that aside. We'll focus on Mexico. Yeah.

I think we went through that in another show where I explained all that. It's an annoying story to tell because it's kind of one of, I think, of greed and not really. really wanting to be a little more patient with, yeah, there were a lot of antics involved, but I'm just sorry. I'm sorry for the people in Miami. It's a great golf market, supported the tour a long time. And they had a great tournament that the tour made into a WGC and forget Donald Trump. But the price tag for a WGC event is $4 to $5 million more for a sponsor.

And that just limits who can sponsor these events. And so we have this situation where Cadillac left. there were very few options to replace and they blame President Trump's personality as a reason they couldn't attract somebody. And I think it's, I think I thought it was hogwash then and I still do. And so where you've got this situation now in Mexico, which I'll be honest with you, I was not very excited about, but after talking to Gary Young, who's the advanced rule staff member, so he goes downhouse, makes a few visits before the tournament. And then he's down there a week before the tournament. So it's, I got some great intel. And the course has a lot.

a what sounds like a very strong bias that people are going to want to keep in mind with their their their fantasy plays or just kind of watching who's going to do well here and and i think it's something to factor in if you're kind of looking at this event as a master's preview i don't know if it will be you know i feel like honda riviera pebble beach all these events and all these winners we're getting are just perfect and it's just just what you want going to the masters like every every potential master's winner now basically except I'd say Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson has had a week to kind of hang their hat on that gives them confidence maybe throw in Justin Rose there too although he's playing very nice golf so I but that's

said house this this golf course is very narrow and as you noted the elevation is significant Gary said anybody down there goes up a flight of stairs and they're winded it's 7,600 feet I don't think we've had a big time golf tournament at a course of that elevation since Castle Pines, which a lot of the players in the field know nothing about up in Denver. And this is actually at a higher elevation than that. So we're going to see some 200-yard nine irons, I think. Well, they have, the course has six par fours that are less than 410 yards. Yeah.

So it better be narrow at that elevation because otherwise we're going to see guys trying to drive 400-yard holes. Yeah. Yeah. the first hole's driveable, the second hole's kind of drivable. In the 18th, 388, Gary says it's not drivable because it's uphill. But I think the thing that's interesting, he explained to me is the golf course, they have pruned up the trees, but you drive through these shoots, essentially. So this is going to be a straight driver's week. And I think that's a first thing to note.

And then he said the greens are, they're going to have to watch. They're keeping them at 11.5. They said they're sneaky. You look at photos of the course. The bunkering's awful and it's tired and it needs to be redone. and kind of move closer to the greens. So I don't think there's going to be a lot of precision required into the greens in terms of bunkering and all that.

But the positioning on the surfaces, according to him, because of this slope, and the whole property is kind of a tilt. So I like somebody like Spieth on a course like that because he's just so good of picking up local knowledge faster than other players. I love somebody like Furek, who's the same way and drives it so straight. So those are obviously the two kind of standout picks when you hear about this. but it sounds like a place that we will actually kind of, I think we won't mind everything is going well,

he said in terms of how you get there and the security and the sense of feeling like it's a good place to be, which was the big concern. And I think that's important, obviously, in general, because we want everybody to be safe. But also it puts the players in a better mood if they feel like the whole thing is good. And then you just get a better energy in the tournament. So everything he told me,

suggested that's a positive. Okay. Well, you just mentioned a couple guys. I have my eye on, I'll say another three or four names. I'm going to keep track of. I'm going to look at some odds, maybe a little Mexico play. I might put down a couple pesos. Jeff Shackleford, guys. I like guys in form.

So I'm looking at, you mentioned Justin Rose. I like Justin Rose here. Obviously, DJ's number one in the world, I don't know how you can leave him off of any kind of a roster. I liked very much what I saw out of Gary Woodland this week. The guy was burning edges. I mean, he was right there. He was poised to give Ricky something to really sweat about when he got within a stroke

there on the back nine. But poor Gary couldn't get any of those puts to fall. And John Rom's been hot all season. So John Rom's going to get a nice look for me as well. We may have to have a little side wager. Maybe my four with your four. I love it. Let's do it.

My four are Ferrick Spee, Paul Casey, and Sergio Garcia. and that's all on driving accuracy, you know, good to great form of late. And so that's who I like, and I think it's something to watch for. But again, I don't know if this is going to really tell us a whole lot going into the Masters, other than kind of what Gary said about the way the Greens will play. So, yeah, should be a good, good week, but it's definitely not to Rale, and that's, I think, a huge, huge bummer. And we're already hearing rumblings that this event will fall in the same week next

year, which I'm not quite grasping either, but we'll deal with that when we come to that. How's anything else in the world of golf? We need to kick around before we say goodbye. Just I'm knocking off the rust this week, Mr. Shackleford. I couldn't be more excited. I have not. And this is the part where I promise I would have to apologize to everybody. My great big Bertha epic driver remains in its plastic.

I have deliberately not unsheathed it. I have to tell you the level of excitement that I have for this. Maybe you should leave the plastic on for the first few hits just in case, you know, you don't want that big skeech mark on the top right out of the chute, you know. Well, it's inevitable. It's inevitable. We're knocking off the russ and everybody should check the Twitter and Callaway community.

Shack Cal Central there. Yeah, Shackal Central because we're going to do these great giveaways. We have a couple great OGO bags and a great big birth of Epic. driver that you can leave the plastic on if you so choose, as well as the Odyssey O Works putter with the microhinge insert. So your friends at Shackhouse are giving it up, my friends. Beautiful. All right.

Well, we look forward to following that on Twitter and in the Calloway community. And hey, everybody, don't forget, if you love Shackhouse, please subscribe wherever your finest podcasts are found, iTunes, Overcast, SoundCloud, you name it. Please subscribe to Shackhouse. We love having you. and it helps us out a lot. Have a great trip house. Enjoy the great weather, hopefully, and we'll talk soon.

Can't wait. Yeah, Ringer people. Today's episode is brought to you by The Ringer NFL show. This week is the NFL Combine, and our football experts are live from Indianapolis, breaking down everything you need to know. You can subscribe to the Ringer NFL show at iTunes.com slash the Ringer,

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