No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1087: Old Course Renovations, Weekly Recap + Jackson Koivun

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

Soly and Randy discuss the news of renovations to the Old Course ahead of the 2027 Open, plus a recap of the week in pro golf with results on the Asian Tour and LPGA Tour. Plus we look at Phil’s latest posts, Gary Player’s recent interviews, and catch up with the number one amateur in the world, Jackson Koivun (60:15), to discuss his Walker Cup experience, competing in PGA Tour events, and the decision making process on when he’ll turn pro. Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our Sponsors: Footjoy Whoop Omni If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Yes. I mean, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast, Sully here. Happy Sunday to the big guy. Hello, Big Randy. How are you? Hey, I am good. Happy Sunday to you. Happy roll the clock back day. If you can see, I took advantage.

I played a little tennis this morning, Sally. I was up early hitting on the courts here by my house. So taking advantage of the extra light. You should know better. You'll learn soon never to wish a happy rollback the clock day to the young parents. but also that's kind of that is bullshit. I mean, you're going to the kids are going to sleep the same amount of time.

Just the time changed. It doesn't really affect that much. You just got to stagger the bedtime by like 15 minutes a night. It's not that big of a deal. A little overreacting from my fellow parents of young kids, if I may say, run a show for today. We're going to talk about some renovations at the old course. A now

almost weekly update on the Phil Mickelson Sable offshore situation, which actually had some news this week. I'll talk about an Asian tour at LPGA tour results a controversial sponsors exemption we got some listener questions in there an epic Gary player interview uh and wrapping it up we have an interview at the very end of this episode with the number one amateur golfer in the world jackson coivan uh if you have not noticed in the north and if i may say in the south as well conditions starting to get a little bit more challenging

we got morning frost delays happening there's less daylight with the time change cooler temperatures throughout your round this is where you start to separate the devoted golfers from the casual golfers. This is where Footjoy excels, providing everything you need to make every day playable. The Thermo series collection of apparel is Footjoy's most advanced and versatile layering system ever. It's engineered to adapt as weather changes so you can look, feel, and play your best in cool conditions. The collection continues to grow and includes mid-layers, vest, full-zip jackets, and I am wearing the full-zip hoodie. If you're watching this on YouTube, so you can look, feel, and play your best. They've got base layers, pants, and even neck gaiters. Everything features.

features insulation in the right areas to keep you comfortable, but stretch properties where they're needed to make sure you can make a full golf swing. Very important. Basically, everything you need to play more golf no matter where you live. Don't give up yet. There's still plenty of golf to be played. Go to footjoy.com to check out the Thermo series collection. Big, where are we going to go first? Sally, I think we start with a story that broke this past Tuesday involving the historic old course in St. Andrews, the St. Andrews Link's Trust. They announced that they're going to be tweaking the old course ahead of the 2027 Open Championship, as they say with an eye on refining strategic challenges to the course. Several holes are going to get added length.

They're going to be some new T-boxes. They're going to work on some bunk rings. I believe even a couple new bunkers. And yeah, they're just giving it a spruce up. McKenzie and Ebert are going to be doing the work. So I guess, Ollie, what's your reaction to this story? Does the old course need this? Is this, you know, should we quit messing with a masterpiece? Where were your initial thoughts when you heard this story? Well, my initial thoughts were, yep, that makes sense. I think it depends on how deep you want to go on this big. It's hard to go shallow on this topic. But if you have not been paying attention over the last 25 plus years, Golf has changed greatly.

The scale of the game has changed greatly. And it honestly, I once thought you were a bad guy, a really bad guy when you brought up that you don't think the Open Championship should go to the old course. I thought that was an overreaction. I thought, you know, just you being a bad guy. That's what that was. I see more of where you're coming from, from a day-to-day perspective. I thought 2022, the low scores don't bother me. but it's really hard to argue that the modern game fits this golf course to scale the way it was designed.

I don't know if adding 130 yards like they've done here, adding a couple bunkers changes a lot of that. I think these are improvements. I know the last time we visited the old course, I walked away saying like, honestly, even for like a player like myself, you could use a couple more bunkers out there. You could use a couple more things in my way. Of course, some of the beauty of the old course is that on different days, different bunkers are in play. It just feels like there's other open road of courses that do their fairway bunkers do a better job of swallowing up offline shots and make you think about your accuracy and your runouts and all that stuff. So I'm in support of a lot of this.

I also think the game of golf should not have gotten to a situation that we were in well prior to these renovations. The 17th T-box is out of bounds. So let's let's be clear. You don't think this is the canary in the coal mine that distance and equipment might be out of control in the profession. men's professional game. Randy, listen, ignore the old course for a second. The one that gets me the most of anything, Augusta National moved a road to build a new, like not a road on their property. Like they moved a road outside of the property to lengthen the fifth hole. And Rory and Bryson hit nine irons into that green after moving the T this past go around. So if that didn't

set off the massive alarm bells when they did that several years ago, This certainly does not for me. Okay, real quick, because I know you're going to walk us through some of this stuff, but just for the folks listening, let's go back. Let's start at John Daly. Of course, everybody remembers John Daly's open win in the playoff, right? Constantine Roka holds the putt through the Valley of Sin. John Daly, that playoff was at six under par.

That was in 1995. So over 30 years, okay? Here are the subsequent winning scores at the old course. 2000 Tiger won at 19 under granted he won by eight strokes but you had a lot of people you know double digits under par five years later tiger woods wins again 14 under par 2010 Louis eustazen wins at 16 under par 2015 Zach Johnson wins in a playoff 15 under par of course the last one being cam smith 20 under par at st. Andrews So we have just seen scores and listen, I can listen to like par doesn't really matter. They're all playing the same golf course. But I do think since 1995, it's been clear to my eye that the old course is not challenging the best of the best in the same manner that I think it had been through time.

And for that reason, listen, the cart got out of the barn. when they built a new T-box off property across a cart path that was not in the original property of the golf course. Like, I just can't get that worked up. Which hole? Which hole? Because they did that. I guess I'm thinking specifically of 17. Sure. But I just, I can't get that worked up over these changes.

And I want you to kind of walk me through in detail what these changes are going to be. Because I think, I think this fight with distance and equipment and what it's done to the men's game is like, man, We've lost that battle like 20 years ago, man. Like, we're just trying to catch back up. So, yeah, talk to me about the specific changes if you don't want. And not only, I've been thinking about this a lot this week, big. And not only does the battle been lost, but we're now like 25 years into this existence

where so many people's experience with the game has just been in this era, right? So like when you talk about rollback, when you talk about doing all these things, limiting the technology. Some people truly have no idea what anyone is talking about. They don't know a world that has had this involved. We've just done it for so

long. It's like that's a, it has carved it more and more into ink how this has been done that it's really, it made it that much harder to reverse this, right? So I think we have had, we've spent almost a decade on this podcast kind of talking about what can and should be done.

And it's such a different, like, I want to get into that. that just in a second of like it's it's all left up to these people who's not or not at fault for this problem right and putting the toothpaste back in the tube is the phrase I've used for a long time of how difficult that all is to do but let me it's like the people know but institutionally you know you just look at the RNA and the USGA and it's like guys we I feel like we drop the ball somewhere along the way quite obviously yeah and but then it still becomes like what do you do now how like what do you do now like of course the ball has been dropped and I think

you know, if we had a magic, we could go back in time. Like, what is one thing you would change? I would say 460 Cc drivers are. The golf ball, the more I've thought about it big is really complicated. And I know that's probably going to sound, you're wearing a Titleist hat here. It's going to sound like that's coming from Titleist. But it is, like, there is a golf ball rollback coming.

Like, it is coming here in a couple years. Like that is, in part, has been somewhat addressed. Now, what I've heard about this rollback has me hesitant. It has me, I'm not going to be thumping my chest to say like, hey, this thing's about to be solved. Like, I don't know if I think we're going to get there and it's not a whole lot's going to change. And then it's going to hopefully be like dry. I was going to say, meaning like they're going to introduce a rollback ball and we're not really going to see much of a difference. Is that, is that the fear?

Yes. And a case could be made. It might make the gap worse in terms of the haves and the have nots, not just in the skills that get rewarded. but like it could, you know, from what I, from what I understand how the rule is written about testing the ball, testing the ball speeds and in the testing conditions, it's, it's relatively easy for the humans to get around that, right? Like it's tested on a robot at a certain speed, at a certain spin rate, blah, blah, blah, but it doesn't change, you know, it's not going to be that difficult for players to get on their trackman or foresight or whatever and optimize themselves. So anyways, that's a whole very massive conversation.

We tried to do our best in 10 minutes. I think it would probably be best spent with it with two hours, but we're not going to do that. We've done plenty of that. Let's go through what's actually happening here at the old course. So championship yardage will be 7,445 yards up from 7,297 in 2002. That's about 150 yards. I saw it written.

You know, it might be 130 yards added, but all that could be, especially with greens the size of the old course. the yardage is specific yard is day to day very greatly. So I'm not going to get too hung up in what the actual number is. On the second hole, there are bunkers down the right that are being moved in to the left and closer to the line of play. Thumbs up for me on that one.

You look at old overheads. Those bunkers are kind of off into the rough, which also shouldn't be there. And kind of move more bunkers into line of play. That's going to be a good thing. The fifth hole is stretched back 35 yards and now 605 yards, probably a good development, probably brings other trouble into place.

Still probably going to be reachable, especially with any kind of helping win for those guys. The sixth hole was lengthened by about 17 yards and a new fairway bunker now coming in down the left. A good welcome development. There was a nice big, wide, safe spot for guys to bomb a ball down the left side of the fairway. Now you've got to think about that run out in that bunker.

Seventh hole lengthen 22 yards, bringing some more bunkers into play and kind of just restoring a little bit of thought and shot value in that one. The 10th lengthened 29 yards, and there's also an addition of a fairway bunker down the left to kind of put some intrigue back into that T shot, as well as 21 yards have been added to the 11th hole,

the par three, making that whole play close to 200 yards. That could be gnarly back from a little bit of a different angle as well. So the left side of the fairway on 16 is going to be restored with two new bunkers built to avoid. There's kind of a rough area that came in, I think, I forget which open that was added and they have just maintained that rough area since then and that's become a safe spot for guys to

avoid blowing it OB down the right side and so they're cutting that back so the ball's not going to necessarily stop there and adding bunkers there. All of this kind of sounds within the spirit of what the old course is supposed to be. So I do not think the old course is a masterpiece that cannot be touched, especially if they're going to continue hosting the open there

and if technology is going to keep training the way it is and the game keep trending the way it is on what gets rewarded. Absolutely, this is probably going to be needed between every open championship at the old course. Yeah, I tend to agree. Honestly, the changes to 16 has me pretty excited, right? Because you're right. Like, each time I've played, it's just bail as far left as you want.

You might be in, you know, a little rough. It'll just depend, like, what kind of lie you have. but that one caught my attention as one that I'm like really looking forward to I think getting some length even to 11 for the pros is something that I'm excited to see like I want to see that be a long iron right if if possible so I don't mind it either I think like it again it just this round of work doesn't strike me as sacrilegious I think as much as I bagged on the Open at St. Andrews and the last time it was there when Cam Smith won it, like, it is important for the Open to go to St. Andrews. And so I think as long as the golf course is there, it should go back and the Open should be hosted there. And so I don't mind them trying to add a bit to the golf course to better test the guys and hopefully you know whether the ball rollback does a lot maybe we can make some inroads on some new equipment rules and dialing back you know making changes where

it might really matter uh to game to bring the game back to a scale that makes more sense so but absent that it's like yeah like what else are you supposed to do like if if the wind doesn't blow there like the winning scores next time around could be 25 under par. And I just think that's, I don't want to see the old course like that, man. Like, that's not really fun. And Randy, on top of that, they've had to like hide pins and put pins in kind of silly spots just to avoid the scores getting completely out of control, right? I mean, it's driver wedge on pretty much all of the par fours.

Not to mention the green speeds, right? That was the big thing. Like, yeah, it's. It's not, it's not, they haven't just rolled the balls out and tried to play it. Like, they've had to manipulate the scoring as it is. And I'm going to give you also, just for reference sake, on old, the yardage is at the old course since, so I'm going to go all the back to 1939 if you'll allow me. And I'll try to go quickly on this. But so I'll give you a hint, 1995, the open you reference the daily one.

What do you think the yardage was in 95? Just guess you may have. In 95, I'll say it was playing maybe like right at 7,000. 69.33. Okay. Okay. 1939 was 68.42. Damn. It was lengthen 91 yards from 1939 to 95. That went up, it went up 21 yards before 46, and it went up to 6936 for 55, 57, 60. 164 was 6926, 1970 was 69.51. And then for 78, 84, 90, and 95, that's a span of 17 years. It was 6,933 yards. That's the length the old course was officially listed at. 2000. It went up to 71, 15, 2005, 72, 79, 2010, 7305. 2015 was 729. It saved that for 2002. And then now we're going to be 7,000.

and 445 yards. So up over 500 yards from 1995, which will be 32 years between opens. And then from 1939 to 95, it went up a total of 91 yards. So it's happened fast. It's happened fast. And I, to me, Randy,

I just don't know how it was an alarm bells when, again, we're talking about the home of golf, like where the game started. And the game has evolved and tweaked a lot. The game used to be played. I hope I have this right, that you would hole out and you would tee off within two feet, two club links, whatever it was from that hole and play from there, like to the next hole.

Like you just, there wasn't a teeing area, right? Good evolution. I think we can agree that probably shouldn't happen. So, but think of that spirit. Like you finish the hole and then you just go start the next one right from there. So like you would just walk right off the green, especially at the old course. You'd walk to the right. And that's where your tea would be.

be why it became okay to just start walking backwards after every single green. Like that's the all. Make that make sense to me just to be able to hit it farther, just to be able to have the ball end up in the same landing areas, like to totally mess up the scale of the game, just people to start walking backwards. They're building T's on other golf courses. The 13th T is on the Eden course.

The second T's in a comical spot. I can go through all of them if you'd like me to, but like all the holes you just walk backwards to the right. Right. that comedian Pete Holmes, whatever his name is, that makes no fucking sense. That makes no sense. It just does not.

So I think there's a little discussion around who is to blame. And not necessarily like who is to blame. But like I think there's something to be said. And I know you've been thinking about this, Holly. So I want to tee you up. Like the short term nature of. the president of the USGA or the head of the RNA, right? Like who, who I feel like it's almost like what we have in business today, right?

With with these executives that are so hyper focused on the next quarter sales, right? The next quarter sales. Everything is on a such a short timeframe. And nobody's really looking out five, 10, 15 years and studying like, okay, we can juice our earn. earnings per share Q3, but like, what, what are the decisions we're making now? How does that affect or how might that affect us 10 years down the road, right? And I feel like there's a little sense of that that's gotten us to this place in professional golf. Is that fair?

Yeah, I was thinking about this after the Ryder Cup too. Like, man, why do they take this to Beth Page? And I was like, well, Ted Bishop. Okay, well, he's gone. I can't. What's the point of me getting mad at him right now? All right. Well, how do we end up with Keegan as a captain?

Well, Seth Waugh, he kind of made the call there. I was like, ah, okay, well, he's not there anymore. So, like, all these, like, decisions that are made during your short, relatively short tenure as a leader of these organizations, like, you don't hold any responsibility for the outcome of it. And I've put 0.8 seconds of thought into this, but the conclusion I reached was, like, it's so, the merging of two things here is, like, I look at the old course in St. Andrews in general. And if you've, if you've listened to the show for a long time, have you watched our video. videos, you've heard the amazing things we've had to say about the St. Andrew's links trust. And I'm going to use that word trust for a second here of like, I don't pretend to know all the inner workings of how it works, how the trust works. But like those group, that group of people

is as dedicated as a group of people can be to like serving what St. Andrews is supposed to be for the game for everyone that experiences it, right? Like optimizing it and making it as open as possible to get as many people through that golf course and have the best possible experiences you can have without gouging them like it's not the most expensive golf court it should be more expensive than it is it's not um you know they have members but they they figure out a way to get the members to play in certain times so they can just get you there and if you've ever tried to go there and try to get on that t-sheet you will meet people that will like be working their butts off to try to get you out and that is that that that's a trust like that's somebody that's like serving a different

and it's still a public park every sunday yes and that is where like golf has needed and And it's too late, but like needs like a trust, just like looking out for the best interest. And the governing bodies are supposed to be that. But and that's where it's like, am I mad at Mike Wan for this? Or Martin Slumbers or Mark Darbin or, you know, the new head of the RNA? Like, I can't really be. And I know they took taking these leadership roles with like the anticipation that they're going to need to make some changes and push the legislation through. But man, they did not create this problem.

And it is just kind of a, I don't know where to point the finger, man. I don't even, I can't point in any one, two or three execs that drop the ball the most. But I'm also just like, all right, we have Derek Sprague. Like, now that guy is partially responsible for putting the toothpaste back in the tube. Like that I'm not excited about. That's representative of some of the problem. PGA Tour is not blameless in this. Monaghan not blame this in this saying we're not going to support the rollback and anything like that.

So I don't know, man. It all leaves me, that whole thing leaves me discouraged. But you can't get upset about the changes to the golf course based on the current environment is my thesis. There's a quote from the movie, the whale, Brendan Fraser's character, asked how, essentially how he ended up morbidly obese. And he says, you know, just a little bit and then all at once. And I feel like the same thing with pro golf, right? Because in the moment, you know, we lived through all of this. There wasn't like one moment where you're like, this is the thing, right?

And it's just like, it's the frog and boiling water. I used to think those people didn't understand what they were talking about and they hated change. And this is exciting. This is a great thing. And then you get there and it's like, oh, oh, that's what they're talking about. Oh, God. Okay. Yeah, I should have listened to a little closer.

So, I mean, whether, yeah, whether it's the introduction of the new. age pro v1 or you know the 400 460 cc driver like i'm sure some people think that was probably the the point of no return but i don't know man i i will stress like it's it's probably a different well i know it's a different experience for you playing the old course personally but like i think at least we can keep solace in the fact i've been able to play the old course a couple times over the last few years and it's like it's super charming and you know every bit the challenge that it needs to be for me. So it's like we still have our personal golf.

But yeah, it's a shame that the men's pro game has gone in an area where it just bothers me that I feel like it just brings all the skill sets so close together. And it just makes it harder for greatness to stand out, which is part of the reason what Scottie's your favorite player is remarkable. So, yeah. Again, we could we could spend. And if we wanted to dive into, you mentioned the 460CC, you mentioned the ProV-1, we would have to spend a lengthy amount of time to dive in more on that. I think the more time I've spent thinking about it, the more I think a golf club size is easier to regulate.

And that, again, that can sound like me being a title of sponsor person. That's fine. It is really just like, well, wait a second here. Why do we go from having these small little drivers, you know, even per se? I don't think it has to be presumable. why do we do this and then make the faces massive and make the make a miss hit almost mean nothing for the highest level players at the game that is where it's so freaking broken man and i still think if you took a pro v1 and put a small driverhead on people the game would be it would it would i don't want to it wouldn't be like it was in the 90s but it would be more interesting than it is now yeah i mean center striking right center striking is that should be the skill right hidden that small sweet spot on on a smaller club but yeah well i got my heart rate up talking about that randy uh and there's a reminder that today's episode is brought to by our friends at whoop the

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bit better care of myself uh but it is it is a great great tool it has truly led me to making better decisions in my life it keeps me from i've learned that alcohol close to bedtime is really really bad for me. If I do a little couple drinks during the day, it doesn't affect my sleep, and I'm totally fine. But that's just one of the many insights I've gotten from this. And it's worn by a lot of the top guys on tour, but it's not just for professionals. If you want to improve your health, no matter where you are in your health journey, WOOP can help you unlock incredibly valuable personalized insights. And also you can join the official no laying up team on Woop by inputting code C-O-M-N-L-U in the community tab of the app. And if you're

interested in giving the all-new Woop a try, go to join.org.com. slash nLU for a free 30-day trial again join dot whoop.com slash nLU free 30-day trial. Randy, your guy, go ahead. No, I was just going to say I got a nice 11 strain this morning for my aforementioned tennis. You have been, you've been working on that strain.

Yeah, yeah. I got that from chasing my kids around for the last hour and a half. So, uh, Phil's back in the news, Randy. Yeah.

What happened here? I don't know. Is this morning? the Sable offshore is so yeah I got a I'm gonna pull back a little bit from this all I think shouldn't shouldn't he be managing the high flyers like if he spent an ounce of the effort that he has seemingly on Sable on his own golf team I feel like they'd be maybe a little bit better shape next year in the live season can you imagine it like the GM of the Reds was just out on social media just like pressuring politicians and blowing them up up and making super sketchy investments and that's all they were talking about on there. But I'm told the Live Golf League is a very serious. That's the thing. Like, you want me to take this seriously?

Like, you can't have one of your your managers out here just bickering about offshore drilling. Yeah. So we've alluded to this a lot. And it's only come to my attention because of how much public pressure Phil has put on elected officials in California. and it just has been made me very curious. It's just been kind of a funny thing to laugh out until this past week. I got to admit right now I'm not familiar with Hunterbrook,

which is a news organization of some kind that appears to have done some kind of reporting. I have no insight into the leanings or the credibility of Hunterbrook, but certainly seems like they are on to something here. They gave a quick little bit, I'm quoting some of their quotes here, quick backstory on Sable. So after a catastrophe, I swear there's some. golf news in this. After a catastrophic Santa Barbara oil spill in 2015 from Exxon, Exxon couldn't restart a pipeline. So in 2024, Exxon sold it to Sable, who's led by Jim Flores, whose previous

company went bankrupt. An industry analyst called this very scammy. So Sable basically bought it up and was going to be attempting to restart the pipeline. If Sable doesn't restart, everything could revert to Exxon back to Exxon for $0. So that's all this to say this is like a Hail Mary play that has been made. And Phil is one of the investors that has made this game. I was going to say gamble, but I would just say investment into Sable Offshore. If you've seen them use the code on the everything app, the dollar sign, SOC. So they got a bunch of messages that Phil has been sending in a group chat amongst the investors.

They don't sound great from Phil's perspective, but I will, I'll shine a little light to say. This is not quite the smoking gun I thought it was when I saw it. But the messages show Phil's emotional journey with the investment after the Sable offshore stock dropped recently. He said, we need an actual prayer. I'm very defeated right now and I don't see a clear path forward. I mean, how much do we think our guys in? I don't know. I'm terrified about this, man.

He was, I mean, we already had a golf league pop up because of some losses from our guy here. I don't know what could possibly happen next, especially it was just on Twitter not that long ago, bragging about Obama's being a billionaire. I really hope my guy didn't lose his shirt here. Like, that's just one of the most. It doesn't seem like he, you know, anytime you say we need a prayer, an actual prayer,

and I'm very defeated right now, it doesn't strike me that you're playing around with money that you're okay losing. Yes. I'll just say that. Yes. So after he said after selling some of the stable offshore stock, Nicholson said he bought them back because of a new,

plan and that was getting Trump to confront Governor Newsom, which could drive up any stock. And they have a, you know, they have a, uh, a link to, to a bunch of, uh, of Phil's messages right now, which are just like, we can dwell on the mistakes, but we made a reasonable and informed decision to buy a company with incredible resources and opportunity for a three to five X play with lifelong dividends and didn't work out. I do it again with the information we had. Uh, so this was just a week ago talking about, or two weeks ago about talking about latch ditch efforts. The smoking gun that, has alerted somebody in sports media here that I don't think you want to be

alerting in recent, especially over the last several months, is on September 29th, Mickelson messaged the group that we're talking about here and said, I spoke to Jim this morning, me and Jim Flores, said an announcement is coming today after the market closes. It could be an 8K or press release. Then just after 5 p.m., Sable filed an 8K disclosing new strategy and the stock jumped 8%. Again, with Phil's history of insider trading. This did not look great. Hunterbrook reached out to Phil for comment both by emailing

questions to his agent and by calling him directly. Nicholson picked up, heard Hunterbrook and then hung up. Then he warned the group chat. Hunterbrook is looking into this chat as if we have inside info. What's funny about it's we've been wrong on just about everything and we've all lost money but whatever. Then he posted the reporter's

phone number. So Phil, all this is coming out. Phil tweets this week says, so a company says, I can't say anything to you, but we will announce something at the close. I don't know if it's a dilution and the stock goes down or a deal for the stock to go up. I have to wait to see what the info is. I make no trades whatsoever and am ultra, ultra careful given past history. I don't even share that information is coming till after the close and you insinuate wrongdoing. This looks like

stock manipulation on your part and slanderous. Did you make any trades today? That's the part where I'm kind of like, for Phil, I'm like, that's a decent point. You know, he doesn't say like, hey, great news is coming after closed today, like, buy it up. He's like, something's coming today. I don't know what it is. Stock happened to jump. It isn't trending in the right direction or looking like a good bet. I don't think necessarily feels getting busted for insider trading here necessarily,

but Pablo Tori, if you're not familiar with his work, he is the one that has blown the top off the Kawhi Leonard Clippers cap circumvention alleged situation. and Jordan Hudson and Bill Belichick situation at UNC, he gets involved and says, why do I get the feeling this isn't the end of the story? Phil basically copy, paste his tweet as well. And then Pablo invites Phil on to his podcast,

Pablo finds out, to provide a real opportunity for you to answer questions. Could you please set up a time for us to talk? Thank you. Randy, that's my run through this saga. But it was a few things to help color this in, I think. Hunterbrook is actually really interesting and I don't honestly I don't know how I feel about this but it's a company that has an investigative news outlet right so that's one arm it has a litigation business arm and then kind of sitting on top of that is an investment firm that trades based on some of the litigation and reporting that those other two arms dig up and get into. So it's almost like a media firm that when they come across a story where there's

nefarious behavior, they're positioned to trade against it and make money or, you know, I guess trade forward in some instances. But I've never seen kind of that setup before, owned by Sam Copleman, son of Brian Koppelman and Nathaniel Horowitz and their board is like a bunch of investigative journalists. So they seem like their news reporting is at least legit and dogged. It's probably handing the critics though a platform

of just like, well yeah, you're just trying to manipulate the market here so you can bet against it here. I guess even if you're not, that's a hard thing to deny. Yeah. I don't know shit for shit here. so let me just say that straight off the bat but it seems like if hunter brooks involved in starting to sniff around and pablo tori like it just seems like this is probably not the end of this story i guess is where i sit right now yeah and i i want to just we've mentioned it many

times on this and i was getting a bunch of texts when this actually went through i'm like wait what did something actually happen with sable i was kind of laughing about this for a while but i mean yeah If you followed Phil's Twitter, Phil's Twitter, it's been, again, it's just like, all right, it's Phil being Phil, but just like imagine Tiger just becoming completely obsessed with like one Santa Barbara oil pipeline and just using all of his public persona to like harass Gavin Newsom and it's, yeah. So I've got a few texts from the people in the San Diego area recently as well, just like, yeah, we've been, we've been monitoring this one and trying to follow this one closely. But I guess we'll see what comes to this. Well, so one last thing. I'm reading a thing that Hunterbrook published, and they're talking about Sable, essentially leaking the news that they were doing a money raising round, right? And Hunterbrook asked the Sable CEO, you know, have you disclosed information to only like a few people, including Mickelson in this group?

and not like publicly at large and the guy came back and said that they're claiming that the audio of the supposed leak call was AI generated and it's like come on man like that's the new that's the new I was back is is as AI generated like so I that's where I'm like if this this seems like there might be more to this story which I will gladly read along whenever it comes out well again because if you just Google now, Sable Offshore Mickelson, like the headlines, like from Hunterbrook, Exxon, Spinout, Sable leaked key info to investors, including golf or Phil Mickelson. That's the one I was reading. BVM Sports. Phil Mickelson allegedly shared inside info on offshore oil investment. Even like, again, it's hard to say that he got inside info based on what we know.

Now, based on what we know, it's like, ah, I could quite easily see how you would be presented to some inside info. But it's also a bet that did not turn out. It wasn't a Dean Foods that was an immediate turnaround. I mean, this might be more like Thabel CEO gets, like, is in more shit for not disclosing stuff widely. Yeah. Yeah. I would think Phil would be smarter than to fall for insider training yet again. I would like to think.

I would like to think, Randy. Yeah. The problem is he is smart. He just thinks he's too smart. That's very, very well said. On the Asian tour, Tom McKibbon, he earned his first trip to the Masters by pulling away for a under 63 to cap off a wire-to-wire victory Sunday in the Hong Kong Open is the second win also gets the 22-year-old from Northern Ireland in the Open Championship. This is one of those things that's been dangled and great opportunities for, especially for live players to find a way to qualify for a couple of the biggest majors of the year.

29 of them went and teed up in this event. And I know there's Asian tour live synergies and all that stuff that would help drive to that. but I think 27 of the 29 players did not have a master's exemption and were there at the Hong Kong Open trying to get one and Tom McKimman gets it. So open pathway, granted a major championship birth to two major championships to a young 22-year-old that elected to take the live golf route. So I thought that was pretty good on him.

Yeah, go win the tournament and earn your way in. Wonderful. Kudos to him. Take us to the LPGA tour, Big. What happened this past week? and what's coming up. Yeah, we had a good ending. They were out in Malaysia,

the pen ultimate of the second Asian swing, the penultimate event. And open champion, Miu Yamashida, won in a playoff solely. Sully, on the first playoff hole, Bertie the par 518th.

She defeated Hejan Choi, who was the third round leader by four shots. She shot a 73, one over par. could just could not get anything going. And also in that playoff was Hannah Green, who had a 68, including a birdie on her 70-second hold to get into that playoff. But I think the story is Yamashida.

This is her second now LPGA victory, her first, of course, being the Open Championship. It just adds to a wonderful season that she is having a wonderful season for Japanese golf. You had two other Japanese women. women in the top 10. Aki EY was tied for fourth. Ayaka Fruwe was tied for ninth. And yeah, it was a good leaderboard, good event. If I'm being super honest, I was trying to stay up and watch it last night.

And they went into a rain delay and I fell asleep. And so I did not get to watch it live. And I guess there was even another like 30 minute rain delay right before the playoff. But you know, Titicum was there. tied for fourth who else was there a limb kim was tied for fourth say young kim tied for fourth and then you had lydia co was tied for ninth as well so yeah congrats to congrats to me you on her second victory randy is somebody that was dead asleep when uh Miguel rojas hit a game tying ninth inning

home run uh in game seven uh i totally understand should not make it through the end of that one but yeah uh i know i stayed up for all the baseball game of course and then i was like okay I'm going to flip over to golf. They were on the on the back nine. I'm like, this is great. And yeah, that first weather delay that got me.

So I caught up this morning. Seamsters will be recorded later this week. We will not divert into that one. But I told me about the Dodgers, man. Nobody was calling this one. What's remaining here on the LPGA tour in the coming weeks? Yeah. So the LPGA tour is still chugging along.

They have one more event in Asia this coming weekend. they're over in Japan and then they come back to just outside Tampa they play the pelican is the final full field event and then the the CME Tour Championship for the top 60 qualifiers it's a everybody starts you just got to get in the top 60 and then if you tee it up at the Tour Championship everybody has an equal shot to win the the purse the I think it's like three million it's like one of the biggest purses of the year so the top 60 sallie is what you're you're keeping an eye on these next two weeks and right now cassie porter of australia is sitting in that 60th place um i won't go into a ton of names but just a few names that are currently

outside of the top 60 our friend gabby ruffles is 69th you have uh lily avu is 71st who else Rose Zang is 86, looking like she might not make the tour championship this year. Amy Yang, you know, somewhat recent major winner. She is 98th. So, yeah, some stuff to play for either for those teeing it up in Japan this weekend or for those that are going to be at the Pelican in a couple weeks. More LPGA news this past week. There is an exemption announced for the for the,

The Gainbridge, the onica, I forget the actual name of the event. Randy, I think it's the onica, yeah, it's a long name. The onica at Pelley, I'll look it up as you talk, yeah. The Onica, Gainbridge, at Pelican, I believe. Driven by Gainbridge at Pelican. Got it, okay. So we got three different, yeah, we got three different names in there. The president's granddaughter, Kai Trump, 18-year-old, has been extended a sponsor's exemption.

She is 461st in the AJGA ranking. The SI headline, the subheadline just gave me a good laugh. It's a, I think it's like an AI summary of the article, but it said the president's granddadder received a spot in an LPGA event hosted by a Hall of Famer. Some feel it's a publicity stunt. While others believe it'll bring more attention to the tournament. I believe those two are the same exactly. The case of publicity.

I think so, but that one gave me a good laugh. some of the quotes in there as well. The C.O. of Pelican Golf Club Justin Sheehan said, I would imagine since the Tuesday announcement that this is one of the most talked about women's golf tournaments that has probably ever existed. It's on news channels and sports channels. The numbers of

social media impressions, I guess they call it, are staggering. Love it or hate it is getting people to talk about the event. Is this fair game, Randy? Listen, I don't want to make a political comment, so I will say this. I think,

Kai Trump has a large social media following. So I think she will bring some attention to this tournament. If you subscribe to the idea that all attention is good attention, then I think it's a good idea. I will say, I think Kai Trump is no different necessarily than like Gabby Golf Girl, who is in the creator classic alongside you, Sully. If she were to get an exemption into an LPGA tour event for the same reason. I think, like, just going to Kai Trump's AJGA page, her last start was late July. She went 82, 83, 86.

I guess I quite honestly worry that, like, is she going to break 90? And I don't think it's a great thing if she's going to hang a couple rounds in the high 80s, low 90s. I'm not really sure who that is serving. but um and i don't think it's serving kai trump like on a broader level so i i don't know i i think maybe she got some i i don't know why she's doing it i quite honestly think she might

have gotten some bad advice like there's no need for her to tee it up in this tournament there's something to be said for a person with a big social following um an interesting story bypassing some more talented players for a sponsor's invite like sponsors invites are that's what they are like I think there's a minimum threshold of ability you need to be able to clear from a storyline perspective like I I've been very very pro like Tony Romo and step curry and grant horvatt and some of these people like teeing it up in professional events because I and that ain't like I am very curious to see what they shoot like that is driving genuine interest in the tournament a player who finished dead last at an a jGA event in her most recent

start i think you alluded to that i'm not curious how she's going to do that i'm like i kind of i don't want to i don't want to i don't want anybody to go out there and shoot in the 90s and this go very very poorly that's not like intriguing to me so you're going to have people playing alongside of her that yeah are fighting for to get inside the top 60 like is that fair to them you know if somebody's out there shooting in the 90s Monica's husband mike mcgee he said quote, for anybody that says she doesn't deserve to be there, I think it's crazy. It's like, oh, man, I don't know. Deserve.

It's not. Deserved, yes. No, we can say she doesn't deserve to be there. Yeah, like, I don't think that's it. So the idea is to highlight women's golf and she's going to do it to a diverse crowd of millions more people that would tune in who otherwise wouldn't tune in. It's like, ah, I don't think a million people are going to watch this still. But it's just a weird spot on the calendar, too, right?

I mean, it's with kind of the end, I hate the, you're taking up a spot from a deserving player because that's not what unrestricted sponsor exemptions are for, but it's just weird how the LPGA calendar shakes out and how, you know, there's a, I think, 120 people in the field as it stands with a lot of cards still to get, or status to get to that top 60 still at large. It's just, I don't know, man.

It's a little bit controversial and we'll see what happens. Well, listen, maybe. And that has nothing to do with the politics. of her grandfather honestly like that's obviously why she got it but it's like it right it has nothing to do with that just to um i think if i don't know if charlie woods got a exemption into an event like like he has accomplished a lot more than she like right that's i'd be curious to see how he would do right like that would be you know that's good that would be very controversial and it's probably going to happen it almost certainly is going to happen in the coming

years but uh i think that's a different different question personally but and listen hey maybe the maybe the tv ratings will be super high and there'll be a ton of eyeballs on it and i i think is that good for women's golf yeah that's good for women's golf so we'll see i i'm not hold my breath though but uh could certainly be wrong all right few quick things to get to before we get to our interview with jackson coivan we got we put a call out for some questions was this TGL in cell, I still wait. I waited for you, man. I waited for you to send a question in.

You know, we did get a lot of questions about the Internet Invitational, Asiatta, Matt 34202, thoughts on being left out. DJ Zeman said, need three words from the big guy to detail his take on the Internet Invitational. I'm sure you got caught up and all that. We, Robbie Berger did reach out to me about us being involved in it in some capacity. It was a scheduling conflict for us, and we didn't really pursue the opportunity. opportunity for a variety of reasons, mostly leading with just the schedule was not going to

work. And I did not, even if I did not get a call or any of us did not get a call to be involved with this, I would not have had any, any sour grapes. I think this is a little different than how we like to do things or, you know, how we've done things in the past. I know we did the creator classic. I think that's still kind of a different category than this. I haven't had a chance to watch much of it yet, but it sounds like it was quite a compelling drama and a lot of people were super into it. And I support that kind of content. Even if we would not be involved in it, I would support that content, that kind of content being made. It seems like people are into it. So did you, I'm sure you watched it all. I don't know if I, or if you're avoiding spoilers or

anything this week, big. No, I was trying to think of my three words as, as the guy asked. My three words are going to be, I missed it. Was there some controversy, though, or something? I could try to detail it, but I'm like half in. I don't fully know. That's okay. I mean, it seems like more of a reality show than it is like a golf tournament, which again, I'm not, that's not me throwing shade.

It just kind of seems like that's how they set it up and edit it. But it seems like that's working. And they know how to do that. Like they're very proven a group of people that put that together. So maybe if they did a future one, I'm not saying we would not participate, but we did not. work for this very first one and we kind of take a wait and see on some of these things anyways so okay all right before we go big i got to shout out a couple gary player interviews that happened this

past week yeah the one that was circulating first was from the palm beach post he gave a quote when they judge players it's quite interesting they put bobby jones and arnold palmer ahead of me you can't tell me that an amateur golfer has a record that i have in golf his record is not close to mine you look at arnold's record it's not close to mine i've won more majors than arnold I won more tournaments than Arnold I won more senior majors my stroke averages were better he didn't have the record

and he was my brother but I love the fact in a way that they do that because what he did for golf and I grew up with him he was supreme Jack is number one Tiger number two

and I'm number three there's not even a question I mean move on it's not a question not even a question your response Ollie what more do you want I mean it's one of those

like I've never met a person that would rank Gary Player, the third best player of all time, other than himself, of course. So, yeah, man, maybe I don't think you're like getting an unfair shake here. People that are way more in touch with the historical nature of golf, I would trust their opinions on this matter more than I would my own. Like, I don't know how to compare Bobby Jones' career to yours. I know he won a ton of amateur majors before there was a Grand Slam. So it's what makes it really hard to compare.

But yeah, I just, it's just very, very, very, brand for Gary player to declare this. And man, Adam Shupak had an interview with him that I cannot recommend enough. Did you have a chance to read it? Yeah, I skimmed through it.

It's good. I want the audio so badly. I really do because he just gives so many outlandish quotes. I just got to read this one section. I was going to say, give the people of one or two of your favorites. Again, shout to Adam Shupac at Golf Week.

And he's asked about having, I believe, having a girlfriend now. And his quote is, I had the most incredible wife a man could have. She died four and a half years ago. For four years, I was in the desert. And then I met this chick. I said to her straight away, I don't have time for romance at 90. I said, I'm looking for an American girlfriend. She said, I'll think about it.

And that's how it started. I went to a ladies luncheon the other day, 100 ladies. And afterwards, they said, do you mind if we ask you a few questions? And I said, anything you like. The first lady said, you're 90. Do you hold her hand? I said all the time. The next lady said, do you kiss her?

I said, ma'am, I kiss her all the time. I said, before you, ladies become too familiar, I want you to know she's pregnant. That's good. That's funny. That's good content. She loves golf. She loves gymnasium.

She loves to travel and she laughs all day long. She watches what she eats. She doesn't smoke and she keeps in shape. And we want to go to a lot of places in the world together. It's incredible you can find a woman like that at 90. It's an act of God. The only trouble I have. have now is when my wife dies and my girlfriend dies my wife might be on the north side of heaven

and she may be on the south side i will say this i will say this i know it's easy to clowning on gary but i mean just read those quotes the guy's full of life oh my gosh years old you know like that's what i kind of get back to a lot when when gary player comes up is like man if only we were all so lucky you know good good for him for uh for just having that spirit when every answer has this level of zest too it's like a don rickles comedic performance man it is i'd say it's like he's he's an opener or something for a at a comedy club he's just trying out new material it's it's uh it's too much i could not do it like if i had to interact with him every day i'm happy to read the the transcripts from afar um but i am there is a large part

I mean, that's just like, man, I'm good for Gary. We need, I got to read one more, one more quote. So he said, you and Jack have become quite close and that extends to even some golf course design work you're doing together. How does that work? Gary said, he's my best friend. We have similar ideas. I'm a farmer and my brother was the world's biggest conservationist

and brainwashed me on soil and water conservation. But is blowing my mind and has become a fad in America is to cut all the trees down. We should be planting trees, not cutting the trees. down. It has nothing to do with grass growing. You have these crazy architects and crazy greenkeepers and all they want to do is cut down trees. Look at what they did at Oakmont. The committee should be penalized. They shouldn't be allowed to ever play a tournament on that course again. They cut every single tree down. It's a tragedy. Without trees, we wouldn't be able to breathe. I mean, that's that's science right there. Maybe Gary, you know, to bring it full circle,

maybe Gary is kind of angling to be the the keeper of pro golf, you know, the guy that's got the long-term outlook. That is interesting, Randy. We will be following this story very, very closely. Can I just say one thing real quick from that article that made me chuckle was Gary was telling Lee Trevino that he had recently shot his age. And I'm kind of, this isn't word for word, but Trinio goes, What's the big deal? You shot 90.

I thought that was funny. He told us that Augusta, he gave us an exact number. I think it was like 3,390 times he had shot his age. I'm sure that number has increased since then. A couple other items to tie off. On the DP World Tour, SEPstraka,

the DP World Tour came out with a statement. Seppstraka has withdrawn from the DP World Tour playoffs. He had failed to fulfill the minimum requirement of four DP World Tour events. but due to his serious personal circumstances, he will retain his membership for next season. He, if you not follow this story closely, he and his wife had a severely premature childborn

several weeks, a couple, a month and a half, maybe or so, before the Ryder Cup as well. He had a withdrawal in the PGA tour around that time, and his family's obviously been going through a very, very difficult time. His son Thomas is, I believe, recently transitioned or is going to be transitioning soon from the NICU to back home.

So obviously personal circumstances waiver of some kind being granted by the DP World Tour and I think that's obviously and clearly the right decision. So thoughts are going out to SEP and his family, of course, during what I'm sure is a challenging time, but one less thing for him to kind of stress about

from a professional standpoint. And I think a good move from the DP World Tour. On a much more sad and difficult note, we were of course stunned and heartbroken to hear the news about Cody Beef Frankie from the Foreplay podcast passed away suddenly this past week. I can't imagine what his family is going through. And I'm sure the Foreplay guys and everyone at Barstall is going through it, man. And it's awful. And I always wish I had something more profound to say in these moments. But we just extend our thoughts to those guys over there and

to Beef's family. It's been, I hope, I hope people talk, if, whenever I go, Randy, I hope people talk about me the way people have talked about beef. I got to change the way I treat people probably a little bit more because I don't think anyone would describe me as the nicest person they've ever met, but that's, that's the feedback we've heard, only thing we've heard about beef here in this past, past week or so. So I'm sure his family really appreciates all the kind words people have passed on about sharing about the legacy he'll leave behind.

But cannot imagine how difficult that it. is over there and just sending our thoughts. Yeah, I think that's nothing but condolences and you said it perfectly. I think it's just another reminder that none of us are promised tomorrow and, you know, tell the ones you love that you love them when you can. That's kind of one of the big things I always get from stories like this too. 100%. We're going to be throwing it here shortly to our interview with Jackson Coyvin.

If you're not familiar with Jackson Coyven, he is the. number one amateur golfer in the world, recent Walker Cupper. It's had great success on the PGA tour this past year. We're going to talk about his potential. I peppered him with questions about turning pro, Randy. I kind of felt bad at a certain point about how hard I was pressed him. But I was interested to hear about the process. So we'll get to that here to second.

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Yes, yes, you are. Obviously, you could ask this a lot. I do want to start there for just for the listeners' sake that maybe don't follow Amdergolf as closely as some of us do. How your status works, what you've achieved so far, what you've earned through accelerated points, all that, and how that's going into your consideration as to how you're planning out the first stage of your, or the next stage of your career. Yeah. Now I have my tour card, which allows me to turn pro at any time, either in December or in May after Nationals. That gives me the decision to either I could have turned pro after my sophomore year. I could turn pro this December. I could turn pro end of this year or I could stay for my senior year and turn pro anytime and then.

The only thing about turning pro in December would be you lose. a half a year on the PJ tour, which is very valuable for a rookie. So there's no real point in doing that. But if you turn pro in June, you get a year and a half of eligibility on a PJ tour. The accelerated program for which you earn the card, was that something that, I guess, did you have to go out of your way in any way to say, like this is, this is a main goal for me. This path is, you know, how I would, you know, the best path to me to getting a tour card while I'm in school. Obviously, there's PJ Tour You and other things like that.

I'm just curious as to how much that was a carrot for you to chase in any way. Yeah, I mean, it's, I wasn't really thinking about it in my freshman year. I didn't really know too much about it. Obviously, saw Gordon Sargent, got it that way and that type of stuff. But I kind of hit me after my first year. It's like, okay, I got a pretty good head start here to the pathway. And started playing a couple of PGA tour events, just try to get a couple more points here and there. and I was able to make some cuts out there

and just kind of keep growing that points until I finally got it. Can you take me through kind of what the modern, this is all changed, especially for some of them as I'm almost 40 years old now at this point. Like there was, for most of my sports following career, there was not NIL,

there was not kind of this modern process for making a decision. You can make a living. You have sponsors here as you're playing college sports. Can you take me through kind of what the modern decision-making tree looks like you know, for that for you. And for a lot of people that came before you, it was obvious, hey, the money's right there. Turning pro is extremely motivating. But when that maybe is not the biggest leading factor, how do you go about, you know, making this decision for yourself personally? Yeah. I mean, obviously, NIO is very nice. I'm very thankful to be born on the

correct time of that timeline. But turning pro for me is just going to be a feeling. Obviously, money's important, but at the end of the day, if I feel like I'm ready, I'm going to turn pro, so NIL is great. It's helped me the past couple of years, kind of grow a little bit of a base for when I do turn pro. It's not a cheap job. So it's been very helpful in that aspect. But, yeah, like I said, once, for me, it's just when I want to turn pro, it's going

to be a feeling. It's not going to be a monetary decision. have you talked or are you close with any maybe young pros out on tour guys that have recently made the leap have you talked with them in any way about their decision making what the transition has been like for them do you have a feeling do you have do you have a sense of like what that would look like when you do make that decision i i know a lot of the younger guys out there for sure and it's um they they talk about just the timing and how much time you're on the road how many tournaments you're playing they weekend and week out and it's just it's a lot and it's a lot of alone time and it's uh it's it's it's different because you know you come play college golf and you're with all your buddies your teammates your coaches um they kind of get you around get you to from point a to point b and it's it's very easy but but once you get out on the pj tour it's you're you're on your own and it's a lot of sitting in your hotel room by yourself at night and just just going and playing golf and

some people love it some people don't and you kind of got to learn to love it if you want to succeed out there you have pGA tour experience and i guess for for us when we're sitting and watching tv when we see that a in parentheses up on the screen we are and my mind goes to immediately like oh gosh an amateur up on the leaderboard must be so nervous probably overwhelmed by the moment but you know i guess you've competed in such a wide array of massively competitive golf tournaments and and you know So I guess when you tee it up in a PGA tour event, is it maybe as big of a deal as I picture it being when I'm watching on television? Is there any part of you that looks around and says like, holy crap, look who I'm playing

with? Or does it feel closer to some of the other big, massive amateur events that you've played than maybe I could appreciate as somebody that's never been anywhere close to that level? No, it's definitely a big deal. Okay, good. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big deal.

But I like to thank this. So what I work for, this is what I work hard for. So I got myself here and let's go do it. I mean, if I wasn't nervous on a PJ tour, I think there would be a little bit of a problem. It means I wouldn't care. But no, I definitely feel nerves on the first tee and kind of ease another round. And after that, I'm pretty good.

But especially at, like, at Oakmont, like, there's a lot of people there. And it's a tough golf course. But it's just, it's a really cool feeling. Because I ask that because obviously you've had this success for those again, I haven't followed it closely. T-11 at the John Deere, T-6 at the ESCO, T-5 at Wyndham, T-4 at ProCorp. That's the framing of that question of like, all right, tell me you were a little bit nervous for this.

But so help me marry this then. And again, as honest as you can be, what's your reaction to teeing it up in those events and having the success you've had? I know it can be a hard thing to comment on because you can say, you say, oh, I expected it. You come off as cocky. If you say, oh, that was unexpected, you come off as maybe a bit weak. But, like, truly, how do you marry up the success you've had there?

Or did you walk away from that a little bit of, did you surprise yourself in any way at how much fast success you had? Yeah, I would just say it's exciting. Obviously, whenever I tee it up in a golf turn, I want to go win. But at the same time, when you're playing against guys like Scotty Schaeffler and the best players in the world, it's a little different. But at the end of day, that's where I want to be. So I just like putting myself in those situations and just trying to push myself to perform my best. And I felt like I did a pretty good job of that this summer. and I'm just very, very happy and excited for the way it pandemic.

What's different on tour? Anything surprised you way guys practice, way guys prep, how they hit it, how they chip, how they put, anything you took away and said, like, oh, that was a little maybe different than not what I was expecting. Yeah, I would say their routines are very, very impressive. It's the same thing day in and day out. They don't do anything different. That's what makes them so good.

Or that's when they get to the golf course, what they're doing, and their warm-up. Like even that 30 seconds before they hit the ball, it's the exact same every time. That's something I need to start implementing a little more. And I would just say their wedges. Their wedges are so good. I've said that in the past. And I feel like they lap the field and amateurs from inside 150 yards.

So it's like every time they're going to make a birdie. And it's just very impressive. Is it a distance control thing, do you think, with wedges? Is it, I guess, have you changed any of your habits or practice habits, you know, since being out there and seen a couple things? Yeah, I mean, it's a distant control combined with spin control because you don't want your ball ripping back 20 feet or not being able to spin at all. And for me, my practice, I just, I know I need to just really focus on wedges and not just hitting golf balls. Just having a little more purpose of my practice.

And I think I didn't just keep subtly improving. Where do you rank in terms of speed and distance, you know, compared to the. tour if I recall you you kind of live in the upper 170s ball speed but I'm just curious as to how you felt out there distance wise and what you you know if you had a reaction to that to say like hey if I want to be one of the best players in the world I need to do blah blah blah off the tee yeah it's uh it's it's weird because I would argue college guys definitely hit it a lot further than PJ tour guys and there's definitely a reason to that and you go out there and the golf courses are twice as narrow and the rough is twice as high.

So it makes sense that guys will probably take a little bit off the gas and prioritize hitting it straight. But I'd say I'm probably pretty average if I would put myself on the PGA tour. I'd say I'm probably 175 to 177 ball speed and that's plenty for me. I don't feel like I need to go out there and start speed training. I'm pretty happy with how far I hit it. I'm content with that. I just always work on hit it straighter. well if you had like again this is a hard one for you but i can i can come up with the name that i'm

thinking of if it if it's harder for you but if you had do you have like a good comp for yourself at this level and again i i don't mean to say if you name like a major championship winner like if you said dustin johnson i'm not saying that you're i'm not trying to set you up to say that you think you're going to be dust and johnson i'm saying somebody whose mold has been successful in pro golf that you know like bryson i would not think is is an answer i would put in your head of like oh i'm going to go do it like bryson if you could do it like somebody else that's had a successful career who's somebody that comes to mind of like oh i think i could do it somewhat like that guy it's a tough question i know i i i know i haven't i would say justin thomas

seems somewhat similar to me of like around the same speed solid iron player can get really i know you kind of i guess would you describe your game as well as being you know we asked blaine barber about about your game when we were out at the Walker Cup and he just said, you just make every putt you look at. So how would you kind of classify and describe your game? That's kind of where I'm trying to lead you here with the mold of like, you know, is it a Russell Henley or something like that? Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say I'm a good putter. That would be one of my strengths. I just, I love grassing putting. I hate missing putts. So it's something I always try to perfect and it's very hard to do. And I'd say I'm pretty strong. the T, not just distance-wise. I know there's a lot of guys that hit a lot further than me, but I would say I'm pretty smart off the T and I hit it fairly straight. So that helps me.

And my iron plays fine. It can always get better and I can always get better at short game. It's another thing that guys do out there so well as their chipping is unreal. And it's definitely something I can improve on. But going back to your question, I mean, if you want to compare me to JT, I'll take that in heartbeat. Again, I wasn't trying to compare. It was just kind of like, you know, how do you? Yeah, because that, yeah, that's the, I don't know why that's the need that keeps, it keeps coming to mind for, for me.

But how do you evaluate or look at data or information? And, you know, we have a very small subset of shot link data that we have from the, from the PGA tour events that you played, and it spits out your strokes gain and all that stuff. But I'm just curious as to what you have at the amateur level. And if you are, you know, modeling that information. in any way up against the top pros to kind of figure out where your potential next steps

might be most efficiently found? Yeah, so we'll put in stats. We'll use third-party stats and kind of figure out what we did good or what we didn't do as well throughout around. And most of the time, for me, I can tell what I need to work on, but I feel like looking at stats

is a very, very good way to kind of solidify that decision. And, okay, my chipping really needs some work or my putting needs a little extra time. But I think stats are good. It's very easy to fall in the trap of looking at stats too much, I think. And it's not a perfect system, but it's really, really good. So it's definitely very, very helpful. I was talking with a guy recently who just, you know, he was saying to himself,

like, I just need to get better from, and I forget what the yard was. Like, I'm just so bad from 150 to 175. And then he modeled it and he's like, oh, actually, I'm losing all of my strokes between a hundred and one 25 and I'm a you know I feel like there's guys that have gotten enlightenment on if you actually look at it with the things I'm telling myself I'm bad at I'm actually not and not giving myself enough credit I'm curious if you've experienced any of that in any way there's there's definitely some sometimes that's happened like I said before it's very easy to get caught up in stats and sometimes you being for example if it says oh I'm I'm really bad from 200 to 225 for

this tournament well maybe every time i had 200 to 225 i hit my driver in the rough and it's just there's a lot of aspects that go into stats that that can kind of throw it off but at the same time it's a weird system in that way but it's it's very helpful to figure out what you need to improve on but you can definitely fall into a spiral of trying to improve something that's really not that wrong well it's complicated too i mean you could miss it you know if it's a 12 par three with water three yards left of the target and you barely missed your target and you go in the water you get a massive punishment for it and you say well that wasn't that bad of a miss maybe that was an aiming thing it's it is a complicated you almost kind of need someone to just

process the stats for you and just tell you what you need to be practicing rather than going down the spiral on that but man a place where it felt like kind of stats just went out the window and it was about as fun golf as i can recall watching uh you're nodding because i you know exactly where I'm going was this walker this past walker cup at cypress point yeah had you played cypress before there you know or is that the you're from san jose i would imagine you'd been there before yeah so i played it once but i actually played it in my college career um we we had a team event that stanford hosted at cypress point my freshman year so that was i played it i think four times in that tournament it was actually a match play tournament so it was kind of a good little prep but

But Cyprus is unbelievable, and that was probably the best memory on the golf course for me. So I was curious if that helped you in any way kind of disassociate the Cyprus experience from the Walker Cup experience, which is, again, kind of an overwhelming one. I would imagine that did it at least help that you had seen that place before? Because again, how some of those fogs hit when you got out to their 15, 16, and 17 and something, it was like a dreamlike sequence. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely helps for, yeah, it definitely helped. You get out to a place like Cyprus, you play at Praxtrons, you're like, okay, this is awesome. Like, there's no other place in the world.

They'd rather be, but once the tournament comes, you're like, okay, it's game time. We're playing for the Walker Cup. And obviously, don't stop thinking about Cyprus, but it just, like, something turns in your head. And it's just, it's a little different. You turn that competition mode on. You're like, okay, I want to beat this guy really, really bad. So now you start seeing the golf course in a little different way. and rather just playing it with a couple of friends.

Because I think a lot of people know Cyprus, obviously, for the views, for the photographs, for how it appeared on television. But I guess kind of being there in person, what I was, I guess I didn't have a full appreciation for was the green complexes and specifically the pins that, how it was set up for you guys.

I'm thinking about, I forget which session it was, like the back pin on 15, when it's back there on that little tier, it was just asking some very serious questions of you guys to be precise. And I'm just, I'm curious if you had any kind of reaction to the challenge that that core specifically presented and how it factored into the competition. Yeah, they had the golf were set up great, in my opinion. Those greens can get very severe to a point where they can't really get the greens over an 11, maybe 11.

And they did a good job of that. And they got them firm for sure. But they didn't, they didn't over speed them to a point where it wasn't really playable. If you look at the first hole, maybe 80% of greens on like a 4% slope. So they need to keep it at a certain level for speed, but it was set up so good. And I just loved how firm it was.

And the greens were perfect. And, you know, you play your first six in the woods, then you play your second six in the sand, and then you play your last six on the ocean. It's just unbelievable. and the setup was great and it was just it was great talk to me about playing the ninth hole strategy in that one i watch you play it a couple times uh i'll give you a chance to to brag about one of the the up and down that you had uh and again one of the one of the i think it was a single

session uh in that one but that that's such a crazy crazy unique hole if you ask me and how did you factor in the decision making on a short part four like that helping win most of the time on when to go for it. I think you went for it pretty much every time. But talking about the strategy of that whole. Yeah, I mean, I probably could have strategize it a little better. I kind of just wanted to get up there and hit on the green. But me and Tommy, my partner, we talked about it a little bit.

And we're just like, we'll just send it. And if it works out, if it doesn't, it doesn't. And singles, the first singles I was hitting it really, really good. So I was like, there's no way I'm not going for this. And I think that was the one time I hit on the green. but it's a tricky hole that green is crazy and it's pretty easy to go seven iron wedge but you could mess up the wedge shot pretty quickly so it's it's i think i like it it's a good risk reward hole and i think going for it has a good where the pin is is pretty important and

if you don't hit the green it's kind of luck of the draw and you kind of got to hit a nice little sand shot well that was you said risk reward i i said it's like one of the few true short like par fours that is actually risk reward we say that a lot but a lot of short part fours is like hey hit it up near the green and you can kind of figure it out from there yeah there's not bunkers like long and to the right of that green it's beach sand like we we saw i forget if it was in your match or not somebody on the on gb and i got lost down there and took about four shots down the right uh and didn't even get to finish the hole because of how hard that sand was and you caught a pretty tough lie when you went long was that on sunday and sunday singles

when uh yeah yeah i remember that had to play it on the slope you didn't have to get up and down if i remember right in that match but you had a pretty sick up and down three yeah that was that was pretty cool i got lucky from the sand dunes and got a okay lie playable and just kind of whacked it and it went went pretty pretty perfect when you look back at that week what's what's like the memory that you think is going to stick out the most obviously winning but on golf course probably flipping the second uh four ball match we were one down with two to go they had a put to win on 17 and we walked away with the win and then one on 18 and that was that was pretty special how did you uh i guess you know you get out to those 15 16 17 and it just kind of the golf course just enters this

it's hard to describe this euphoria that you get out there obviously if you make into that part the match has got to be somewhat close and you're going to have extra nerves on there what's what's it like crossing that road do you start feeling it uh you know kind of in anticipation a little bit more when you get over to that side knowing what you're playing for yeah it's 15 might be my favorite hole out there uh i just love that short part three but it's a little more intimidating when you got a match on the line and especially when the wind starts howling but you kind of view the the ocean and it's crashing on you a little bit and and you got a match to play. It's like, all right, here we go. We got, we got to put our foot on the gas and try to get a win here. What, who, who, you know, we focus, we hone in so much on, like, the, the logistics and all the things when we talk Rider Cup and all the experience of that. But a lot of, you know, there's some experienced players on the Walker Cup teams and guys that played at St. Andrews, some of guy like Stu Haggastead, who's played in a lot of Walker Cups before. But what is kind of the, I guess who's, who's, who's, who's kind of.

of the leader in the clubhouse amongst the players obviously you have captain nathan smith was your captain but is there anyone that was kind of like your your team leader i'm interested in the dynamics of that uh for for an amateur team like this uh i felt like we were really good about helping all each other at at the same level but at the same time when you have stew on your team who's won i think five walker cups now in a row it's pretty easy to lean on him and get some advice and he was he was really good that week obviously played unbelievable he doesn't lose very many singles matches but he he was great glad i got to know him a little better and he was very helpful in that locker what's an is there any any example or anything that sticks out to you as advice

that he that he had that uh that was helpful to you he he just gave us a lot a lot of short little speeches between rounds before rounds after rounds just kind of trying to fire us up and it definitely worked. And he just, I mean, he's, he's just a veteran and he knew what to do. And he helped us young guys for sure. Yeah. Well, it looked like a lot of fun. It's definitely a lot of fun to watch.

And I can't imagine how many, you're going to have those frame pictures, a lot of those frame pictures, hopefully in your house for many, many years, because you got to do something really, really special. So, yeah. All right. Well, appreciate your time, Jackson. Best of luck with the remainder of the year. I know we'll be following closely and, uh,

And appreciate you spend some time with us. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. Cheers.