No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 883 - LPGA: Lydia Ko's Golden Career, Big Tournaments Ahead, and US Amateur Champ Rianne Malixi

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Randy, Cody and Jordan are back with another LPGA focused pod on the heels of Lydia Ko's win at the Olympics to secure her place on the Hall of Fame. We recap Ko's incredible career, look ahead to the next few weeks on tour including the Solheim and Curtis Cups. Plus, Jordan catches up with Rianne Malixi who followed up her win at the US Girls' Junior by winning the US Women's Am last week at Southern Hills (1:19:00) 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 Support Our Partners: Yeti Titleist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome into the NoLayingUp Golf Podcast. This is an LPGA edition today. My name is Randy and I'm joined by two colleagues. First, Cody McBride down in the heart of Texas. Cody, good day, sir. How are you doing? We're great, big, excited to talk some LPGA with you, buddy. Also joining us from Florida, Jordan Perez. I understand, Jordan, have we just made a move?

Have we gone through the ever dreadful moving process? Yes, we have. I've moved to an undisclosed location. Let's just say, adulting is weird. I've gone through these periods of my life in which I have adulted more than others, and this is certainly feels like peak adulting. So yeah, lots of firsts guys, as you know, lots of firsts in this season of life for me. Little overwhelming, but all good things for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Just give it a few weeks. You'll settle in in no time. I hate overwhelming, but all good things for sure. Yeah, yeah. Just give it a few weeks. You'll settle in in no time. I hate moving, but best of luck. Good luck. Congrats on the move. We have a great show in store for everybody today. We're gonna take a quick look ahead

of what's around the corner on the LPGA schedule. Of course, they're playing this weekend at the Scottish Open and then we stay in Scotland for the Open Championship. We're also going to look back a few tournaments to cover, of course, the Olympics and the Portland Classic being the two specifically. And then Jordan's going to lead us through what we need to know, what we've missed about amateur golf this summer on the women's side. And then we have a very special interview to cap things off and that is with US Am champion, Rhianna Maloxy. Jordan, am I pronouncing that name correctly?

No, Vic, I'm sorry. I totally botched her entire name. It is... I'm, guys, that's it for me. I'm leaving. It's that's it for me. I'm leaving. I'm out. It's Rhianne Malikse. Okay. So close.

I think I was kind of close. So close, buddy. I like the interpretation, but yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. Rhianne Malikse, she had a hell of a win and Jordan spent 15 minutes with her. So great way to end this episode. Before we dive in though, Cody, who do we need to thank? I believe it's our good friends at Yeti.

That's right, Big. Speaking of things that are happening down in Texas, thank you of course to Yeti, our presenting sponsor of all LPGA content for this year. And Big, I'm feeling it just like Yeti's feeling it right now and it's back to school season. I just want to highlight a couple things you can find available on their great website, Yeti.com. Backpacks, a number of different hard water bottles, whether it's a Rambler or anything else, different drink tops, different colors, customizable

options. But really when we get think of back to school, we think in a backpack, we're thinking of lunch boxes, all of those available for the people out there. Of course, please check them out at Yeti.com. And thank you to them for not only supporting this show, but supporting LPGA golf as a whole. Kudos to them. God, where is the summer gone? I can't believe it's back to school time.

I can't wait. Put them in school. I know. Well, let's thank our other great sponsor and that is our good friends at Titleist. Cody, what can you tell us about Titleist? Thank you, Big. This is brought to you by Titleist,

the number one ball in the LPGA and the choice of recent winners, Lauren Coughlin and Maurya Chutanigarn as well as the newest edition of the LPGA's Hall of Fame Lydia Co. Lauren won her first title at the CPKC Women's Open playing the Pro V1. Maurya and Lydia trust the performance of the Pro V1X. In total 76% of the golf balls played on the LPGA Tour this year have been a Titleist. Choosing the right Titleist golf ball is all about flight, spin, and feel. In comparing

Pro V1 versus the Pro V1X, the Pro V1 will fly lower and spin less in the long game while producing similar greenside spin and softer feel. The Pro V1X will fly higher, spin more in the long game, and have a firmer feel. And then there's the Pro V1X Left Dash, the choice of this year's US Open Champion, which offers high flight similar to the Pro V1X, but with dramatically lower full swing spin. The best players in the world are playing a golf ball that's fit to their game. You simply can't play your best golf otherwise. Head over to Titleist.com to start the fitting process and find out which Pro V1 is right for you. Awesome.

Well, thank you very much to both Titleist and of course, Yeti. Awesome sponsors. As I mentioned guys, really good stretch of play ahead. The women this week are at the Scottish Open that's being played at Dundonald Golf Links in Ayrshire and Celine Boudier is your defending champion. Of course this was her second consecutive victory last year coming on the heels of the Evian Championship. We have a good field. It's headlined by Ayaka Furuwe, Lilia Vu, Jin Young Ko, Minji Lee, Brooke Henderson, Rose Zhang will be over there.

One notable absence, Cody. And it sticks out. And I went back and looked, she's never played this event, so it's not something that's just going on this year. But what do we think about Nellie Korda not playing in the Scottish Open? I love it. What's the issue?

Oh, you got gripes. You're gonna say, oh yes, the number one player in the world Open. I love it. What's the issue? You got gripes. You're going to say, oh, yes, the number one player in the world should play all over the world, but that's not the way that she chooses to formulate her schedule. And it's a week before a major championship. She's coming off a pretty grueling week, I'd say, for her. Probably expectations didn't fulfill them at the Olympics and she wanted an off week. So I don't know if she made her way back to Florida.

I don't know if she stayed over in Europe. I know Jess has been over spending time with family across Europe. So who knows? Maybe Nellie set up a European base for the week being to prep for St. Andrews, but I have no issues with this at all. I don't really either. I just found it curious in the sense that, of course, the Women's Open, which will be the week following this, is at the old course, a great Lynx test. I would just think you would want competitive rounds on a Lynx golf course in Scotland. And hey, listen, she might be up in Scotland.

She might be playing a ton of Lynx golf and getting her practice in that way. Who am I to question her setting her schedule? It's worked really well for her overall this year and throughout her career. I just selfishly, you know, the more we could see Nellie playing Lynx golf, selfishly, I would love that.

But we'll have to wait another week to see her on the old course. Jordan, any thoughts and any disagreements there? Where in the world is Nellie Korda? Go play, get some competitive rounds under your belt, girl. Like you've been doing the same thing and skipping this event for years. Just just come on, just try something else. I don't know. I feel that way, but I also understand the rest component. Do you, but at the same time, where in the world is Nellie Korda? I will say the Open Championship has, of the five women's majors,

it's where she's had the least amount of success. So I'm not ready to direct causation to that fact, but it just all a couple signs. You know, she hasn't been in the greatest form lately. I don't know. A lot of things point to like, I would love this to be a competitive week for you. But again, who am I? I'm just a eight handicap podcaster. So I don't know. Well, I was. Yes, I agree with you. I think it would be nice for her to get a couple more links reps in you mentioned her record at the AIG women's open and it's not not that good. Only one miss cut but really her highest finish has been a t nine.

And you said it's our worst performance of all the majors I actually will differ with you on that. I think she has a worst performance at the KPMG women's PGA. The only real shining spot there is like that one victory. She's got a slew of miss cuts. The only other thing was a T3 finish. That T3 and that win in 2021 really anchoring her. She doesn't play good at KPMG. Now she doesn't really play good at the AIG Women's Open, but I'll say this is that I think St. Andrews is kind of a different beast. I would say you're playing with the wind and of course, Randy, this is where I want you to school me.

Please do it. But wind and obviously the ball running and some firmer conditions is things that she's not necessarily used to playing her golf on the west coast of Florida. But we also know that she travels around a lot. And I would say if there's any place where there is kind of wind, I would say it's, it's Florida. So I think it's more of the ground game of things, different weather temperatures that just kind of throw her off. Now we saw her last year at Walton Heath. Of course, she finished T11 there.

She could have won that tournament twice over if she actually made a putt. And I think we saw that close up. She missed so many putts. I don't have the stats on me at the time, but I'll go back later on for our AIG preview to bring them up. But she hit the ball so good, she literally just couldn't make a putt. Now there's a big difference between the burbs of London when we talk about Walton Heath and getting up to Fife, correct, in St. Andrews.

But you see, this is all my research, baby. I got to go. You're on top of it. I would say reps are needed for that. But JP, you brought up a good point in rest. And it's just one of those things with Nellie and we always pride her on being kind of firm to her schedule and not really, you know, burning herself out. And we saw that early in the spring when she went and played that, you know, five, six week stretch on her own

and was on the road for the first time in a really long time. And since then we've seen like little pods, you know, two tournaments back to back. I don't think she's gone three events in a row yet, but you know, when everybody else on the LPGA tour got an off week, last week, she was out there grinding at the Olympics.

And I'm sure that that not only was an emotional event for her because of the results, but there's just a ton of cool shit that goes into being an Olympian. And I hope she was able to suck all that up to get, you know, find hopefully some new motivations and everything else and kind of kickstart the rest of her year because I don't want this year of Nellie to end. I think that's a great point about I really hope she was able to have a full Olympics experience and go to other events and have fun in the Olympic Village. I'm not sure if she did that or not but yes. Don't you want to know? I I wanna know, come on Nelly. Yeah, I would love to know,

but I'm sure that wears you out like you said. And so taking this as a rest week, it's starting to make more sense as I hear you talk through it. Isn't it weird like the week prior, cause she didn't play Portland because she was, I would say she's getting ready for the Olympics. So she had an off week there,

but really it was just hot girl summer. Like she's out, you know, living the yacht life, doing whatever she wants. And I think that's the rest and relaxation part of it that Jordan was mentioning. But this year of Nelly, all these wins and everything, of course, we only have the one major and that's to Chevron. Her best finish outside of that at the major so far, four of them there to complete,

was T for 26. And we have two miss cuts in there. We got to do something. And I know this is asking an awful lot for a tremendous year, but we got to really have a good showing coming up. I don't know because there's still so much left on this LPGA calendar that somebody else could run up there. We already have a couple other multiple tournament winners like could run up there and actually make it, make this a discussion for what player of the year and everything else is gonna look like. I think that's exactly right.

You know, a couple of months ago we were, we had ended the player of the year race and Nelly, it's stalled out a little bit. Some shocking results in major championships, like you said, a couple of missed cuts. And yeah, and also just the old course, it's history, it's prominence in the game. Like this is a venue where a worthy champion like Nelly,

we really want her to put her mark on the game and on the season that she's having and to win at the old course would do just that. That's two weeks from now. We're going to have the three of us, our little trio here is heading over to Scotland this weekend. Jordan has never left the country. I'm so excited for her to not only travel internationally, but to get up to St. Andrews. It is so much

fun. We have a big week in store for everybody we're going to do. We're going to have a preview a deep dive into the prior AIG women's opens played at the old course. That's look for that Tuesday, we're going to have a happy hour show Wednesday. We're going to have live shows at the conclusion of play both Friday and Sunday. And on top of that, we're going to have social content. Jordan, I know you're planning to write at least a couple pieces. We're so excited to cover this championship. Yeah. so many emotions swirling around the next week. I mean between my first international trip and just going to St. Andrews. I mean, I'm stoked and I'm

excited to get the writing juices flowing again. I think there's a lot of cool storylines heading into next week. And I yeah, I'm still processing it guys, truly. Like I can't believe I even get to go and do this. So just so stoked. We're looking forward to it. An important thing to note besides, we're gonna crown a major champion next weekend. The Solheim Cup teams will lock. So the points race and the qualification systems

will be set in stone at the conclusion of the AIG Women's Open. The Solheim Cup, of course, is coming up in just a few weeks, September 13th through 15th. A little news today. The 2028 Solheim Cup has been awarded to Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. Cody, any thoughts on that? I know it wasn't that much of a surprise. Are you happy with that decision? Does it excite you? I mean, we heard about this two years ago, three years ago, I think, when they're like,

hey, what about this for Solheim Cup? And we're like, I don't know. Now, obviously, immediate reaction is probably like, boo, like not good. But that's just coming off of, you know, the men's PGA championship kind of stink and everything else like that. But I actually think that Valhalla sets up really good

for team competitions. I think it sets up really good for the women's game. I think there's the different team options and everything. Now you could say it's more of a test on driving distance than it really is accuracy, but it'll be interesting because it's one of those things where team events and, you know, unlike the Ryder Cup, the host team doesn't really get to set up the course the way that they want.

So it doesn't really favor, you know, being outside of like the crowd support and everything else like that travel. I guess you could say that I don't know if Americans go over to Europe. They could be a little bit of culture shock or whatnot. That's not the way it is at the Solheim Cup. The LPGA and the Let set up the courses together. They it's very much a combined team environment for the best of the event as a whole. There's no such real thing as home course advantage when it comes

to the course setup. So I think that everything there is going to be fine. I also know that Ball Hall is a place and you're kind of seeing this history of the LPGA taking Solheim Cups to mid markets where they're looking for golf, and they have really good fall golf weather. And I know that's Louisville. And I know that there's an ownership group at Valhalla once the club bought it away, or not the club, I guess, but the four guys bought it away from the PGA of America outright. And I'm sure this was a really good deal for them. So all of that to say, yeah, I'm kind of excited to go to Louisville in the fall. And like have really good weather and and check it out because I think

again, it sets up way better way better for a team event than it does individual. 100% Cody, as long as we vow to never have a stroke play event ever again at Valhalla. I'm good with this, truly. It is a great part of the country. You know, Louisville, you could you could draw a, I don't know how many miles circle and you have a ton of population bases, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, Lexington, Nashville,

it's it it should draw a nice crowd. Louisville is a fun city, as you said, this time of year, kind of late summer for them, that the weather should hopefully cool off a little bit. And you know, folks can go watch some horse racing, they can do some bourbon tours, whatever floats their boat. I think it's a good location for 2028. So I'm glad that it's been made public and finalized and we look forward to that edition of the Solheim Cup. God, I can't wait to even think about what that team could potentially look like though. I mean, are we gonna have like,

is Anna Davis gonna be on that team by then? Like how many years is she gonna stay in college? Is she gonna finish seeing this thing out? I mean, Jordan, we could just go down the line. Are we, is Ein Don or are any of the other Swedes that are coming up that just graduated, they're going to be on that team by then. It's so much to look forward to. I'm very, very excited. Guys, we can like run down the Curtis Cup teams later and like definitely do some like

way too far in the future Solheim Cup potentials because there's so much overlap. I mean, yeah, I mean, 2028 I'm already like, okay, so you're gonna be in Sunnysdale this year, but you'll be right over in Louisville, like two different vibes and I'm ready for it. Definitely different vibes. Big, you mentioned it earlier though.

Yeah, I think it's a great area and kind of Solheim Cup aside and very, very excited in the next two weeks to know who those teams are actually going to be. We actually sat down and did a little pre-recording with the American captain, Stacey Lewis. I'm very excited to get that recording out there because she's fired up. We know captain Pedersen's fired up. And I think this year's Solheim Cup is shaping up to be an amazing event as well, right outside of our nation's capital. So we got plenty of not only heartfelt NLU and LPGA

supporters there, but like just golf lovers as a whole. Get these events to markets where people want to go actually out, watch and support. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Look for that. watching support. Yeah, yeah. Well said. Look for that. We're gonna we're you know, once we get the open championship behind us, we're gonna turn our our guns towards the Solheim Cup. We'll have a lot of good content coming out in the lead up to that. So with that said guys, let's let's take a a few moments here and and just look back on the last couple weeks on the LPGA Tour. And I want to start with the Olympics. I know the guys did a good job last Sunday night

talking Olympics and Lydia Ko, but I want to get into it a little bit more. So for anybody that might have missed that episode or just missed the women's golf portion of the Olympics. Lydia Ko of New Zealand is your gold medalist by one shot over Germany's Esther Henslite and two shots over China's Janet Lin. Lydia Ko becomes the first golfer, male or female, not only with multiple Olympic medals, but she now has the complete set. She's won a bronze, she's won a silver,

and she caps it off with a gold medal this year. And of course, with this gold medal comes another point, her last point needed to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame, which is a big honor. It's an exclusive illustrious club. I'll speak on that in just a minute. But I wanna deliver our Mizuho winning moment right here guys.

Mizuho Americas, they've been a great partner of ours. Mizuho America is part of the Mizuho Financial Group, the 15th largest bank in the world. They do a lot of corporate and investment bank serving corporate and institutional clients. They advise fund businesses looking to go public, raise money, expand operations and connect with large investors. Wonderful sponsor of this podcast. And they task us with finding a winning moment when they do these segments. And the Olympic, listen, I would love to play the actual press conference.

The Olympics guards their media like Fort Knox guards the gold there. So you're going to have to hear me read Lydia Coe's answer here, but she was asked by a reporter, can you quantify how surreal it is to win the gold medal and to qualify for the LPGA Hall of Fame? And this is all gonna be a Lydia Ko quote here. She says, you know, being two points away last year was actually quite difficult because as much as people say it's only two wins,

I know how difficult two wins are, especially in this day and age. You don't win multiple times and not many players win multiple times in a season. So I think that put a lot of pressure on myself and so I struggled in 2023. But to win the first event of the year at my home club at Lake Nona, that took the pressure off and I knew that if I worked on the right things, that one tournament could happen at any point. Did I imagine that I was going to do it at the Paris Olympics?

Probably not, but this is definitely the coolest way to do it. And I was, you know, not going to lie, I was gutted when I lost in the playoff in Bradenton, Florida. That was earlier this year. I knew that Nellie had played amazing and that she finished amazingly, but still I felt disappointed with the way that I had finished, but I felt like if I kept working on the right things, it was going to happen. I struggled a little bit in the middle of the season between May and June, but I worked hard with my coaches and my coaches really made me feel more comfortable.

I was telling one of my coaches that I feel really good, like better about my game and for it to have, and for it to have all come together here at the Olympics, it's really cool. So it's rewarding for the whole team and family." End quote. I much, much would have rather heard Lydia saying that, but that is our Mizuho winning moment.

And I just really love that quote for a couple of things. Lydia, as she's grown older and matured, like to a player, I think everybody loves Lydia Ko. And I think she's done a fabulous job of just being more open, letting us inside of her thinking. And I really appreciate her talking about like, not only how hard it is to kind of get those last two points for hall of fame induction, how gutted she was in, in Bradenton earlier this year, when Nellie clipped her, uh, kind of came from nowhere, beat her in a playoff.

Like that's, that's real. That's raw. That's of course she was disappointed. And for her to verbalize that, um, I really liked, and then it, it's awesome to hear her talk about how, hey, I've struggled this year, but my game's in a really good place. And I just, I'm left, the whole thing has left me really happy for Lydia Ko, for her to have this moment. I love kind of the book ending. She has every Olympic golf medal there possibly could be now.

I just think she's such a worthy champion. I'm not sure how much longer we're gonna get to enjoy Lydia Ko. That's one of the big things coming out of this Olympics is just how much more golf she wants to play. But I guess that's a discussion for another time. Guys, Jordan, let me start with you. Are you a Lydia fan?

And how satisfying was this to watch her win and gain entry in this manner? Yeah, it's really, it's a little emotional. I think over the past few years, and again, I kind of trace back to the fact that my golf watching life is pretty young, but over the past few years, just in general as a consumer of sports, I've really come to appreciate late career surges. When we saw Phil one in Kiowa, when Rafa Nadal went on that incredible run of majors. And so I think, you know, watching Lydia kind of accomplish something like this, it puts into perspective, you know, it's interesting. I think a lot of times the third there's a greater sense of gratitude from a lot players or athletes

when they're at the tail end of their careers. But I think in some way, they've learned to kind of control their fates a little bit better. And there was just this sort of selectiveness and dedication from Lydia in knowing that she wanted the gold and that's what she went after. And I think, you know, the Golf National for all the flack that it gets, I do think it's set up pretty well for Lydia. So I think in a way, you know, just had such a deep level of understanding. And I have to imagine coming into this year, that probably was the one thing she wanted more than anything else. And her also kind of saying that she wouldn't be competing in an Olympics again.

I mean, it just, it makes that scene of her getting emotional at the podium kind of saying that she wouldn't be competing in an Olympics again. I mean, it just, it makes that scene of her getting emotional at the podium kind of even more richer. And so I think this being the entryway to the Hall of Fame was, could have been more of a storybook. I don't want to say finish because it's not the end, but certainly, you know, sort of that storybook scene that she would have wanted. I don't think it could have gone any better. I think that's well said. Cody, anything to add? No, we talk about her future and what kind of she's going to

do. I think the only real information that we have, it came from her Instagram post and just saying that, yep, you know, her reflecting on winning the gold this year and saying that it's, it joins her silver and bronze, which is funny because early weeks she talked about, she has no clue where those metals actually are at, but now she definitely knows where the gold is at, that this will be her last Olympics.

And I don't know if she's, I'm assuming that she's saying that in four years, whatever is going to happen, this is no longer going to be the case for her of playing a year in, year out, a professional golf schedule. And I think it's so cool to look and see the growth and maturity of a 27 year old woman who is now married, who

is now very excited at what the next kind of chapter of her life is, but nobody really knows when that, you know, when this chapter is going to end and the next one is kind of going to roll over and open. It's awesome. I appreciate her getting the point. And I also wonder if maybe it was a little bit of a pressure release because there's so many other things going on around the Olympics that it wasn't an LPGA tour

event where the sole focus was as soon as she would get in contention that every storyline would have been, you know what this would mean, you know what this would mean, this would be your point. And we saw that in Bradenton. And I give a lot of people jokingly, of course, like some shit about it, is that, you know, on that 18th hole when she ended up, you know, hitting a not very well approach shot into her final hole and really had pressure on her from a charging Nellie. The fact that that golf ball almost landed in the bouquet of roses and what that foreshadowed

for the rest of the spring and the summer, it's crazy to look back and think of it. So hopefully this opens the door for a great rest of the season for her. Again, honestly, we talked about the Solheim cup. Now we're talking about the gold medal. We're talking about Lydia Ko retiring and the fact that somebody who's from New Zealand, and it's a fact that like, how come we haven't figured out a way to have a team event here, President's Cup like event, and I understand the international event, and I understand

the International Crown and that's great when they're able to hold it and everything. But that's not one of these. You know, that's not the Solheim Cup, the President's Cup, whatever it is, like the fact that that we let Lydia's entire career slip away from us without having something like that, I think is like what hits me of like, man, that's sad. Like how come we haven't been able to figure this out yet, man?

And you talk about like growth for her and getting to the 27 points and everything, and she's won all over the world. It's not just LPGA and or LET events. There's, you know, KLPGA events. There's Australian LPGA events. She's just a great ambassador and not just like within the locker room or to us schmoes and media or anything else. It's everybody when it comes to like not just the women's game, but the overall game of golf. Everybody just raves about Lydia. And it's sad to think of her leaving that at such a young age.

But also at the same time, I'm like, yeah, go do it. Go chase whatever dream that you want to do. It just kind of has me like, you know, tied up in some emotions. And you go and like dig deeper into your record, her record, and I know you're gonna give a great rundown here in a little bit, but like, the fact that we're at where we're at and she has the two majors, the Chevron and the Evian,

and that's it. And I'm like, wow, you know, there's so many other close calls that are out there and like, you can go do it, go get it. But you know, it's just weird. It's just a conflict that I have. Well, I think what makes it really weird is in what women's golf is so unique compared to men's golf compared to a lot of the sports that I would say we follow, right? In that Lydia Ko has a Hall of Fame career now at

the age of 27. And she's won majors, she's won Olympic medals. Like we said, she has earned her way she has played her way into the Hall of Fame. I don't blame her one bit if you kind of look around and she we know she just got married a couple years ago, I'm sure they are thinking starting a family. It's just kind of the nature of what she was able to accomplish and how quickly she was able to accomplish such things that here she is. She's still very much a young woman.

It just boggles my mind that she's still 27. And it's like you've had such a successful professional career, and yet you still have your whole life ahead of you. It's really a cool thing, and anybody should be so lucky. I just, we should appreciate, however much golf we get from Lydia Ko

from this point forward. I just personally, I really want to make a point to appreciate it, to watch her as much as possible. You know, it kind of reminds me of on the men's tennis side, even Serena Williams too, on the women's tennis side, I can, I've been kind of the most analogous situations where we know the career is ending. It's been a Hall of Fame, great career, and it's not necessarily about stacking more titles. It's just, hey, let's appreciate it while they're still competing. And so that's what I plan to do. I can't wait to watch her in St. Andrews.

But you're right, Cody. I think it's important for... I loved going back through this, and I think anybody listening, I just want to kind of go back and talk. Lydia Ko has made 255 career starts. I believe this is just LPGA Tour. She's made 238 cuts with 114 top 10. So some insane ratios there. She's won 20 times on the LPGA Tour, but Cody, as you said, she's won all over the world. She's seven LET wins. She's won once on the KLPGA. She's won

a number of times in Australia, New Zealand, the aforementioned two majors, three Olympic medals. I mean, it is a full trophy room that she has. And now she's the 35th member of the LPGA Hall of Fame. It's a very illustrious group of women there. Lydia Koa is an amateur. Okay, let's go back to 2012, 12 years ago. In August of 2012, she became the youngest winner in LPGA history at the Canadian Women's Open when she won at the history at the Canadian Women's Open when she won at the tender age of 15 years, four months and two days. Just wild to think about.

With that win, she was the first amateur to win on the LPGA since 1967. She would go on in 2012 and 2013 to win three more times as an amateur. In fact, she played in 15 LPGA events as an amateur across those 2012 and 2013 seasons. She did not miss a cut and she earned low amateur at six different major championships. It's just Jordan, I'm not sure. I'm going to put you on the spot. Who do we, like who's the best 15 year old amateur in the world right now?

Well, I don't want to make any asterisk jokes. It's Osterisk Alley. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, asterisk is great. I think she made a cut at a major this year, right? And that's a wonderful thing. Like imagine her being a four time LPGA winner at this point.

It's just crazy. So anyway, Lydia Ko, we get to October of 2013 is when she actually turned professional. And so her first full season on the LPGA Tour was 2014. She wins the Luis Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year that year, the youngest winner in the history of that award. She's the youngest player to reach the 1 million and 2 million career earnings milestones. In 2014, Time Magazine names her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

She will go on to be the fastest player to reach 3 million in career earnings, 4 million, 5 million, 6 earnings, 4 million, 5 million, 6 million, 7 million, 8 million, and 9 million. She becomes the youngest player, male or female, to reach world number one when at 17 years old, 9 months and 9 days, on February 2, 2015, she goes to the top of the Rolex Women's World Golf rankings. In 2015, okay, she had just turned professional in October of 2013. In 2015 she became the youngest player to reach 10 career LPGA Tour victories when she won over in Taiwan. She was 18 years old, six months in one day.

She's the 2015 Rolex player of the year. She wins the Tour Championship that year. We roll over to 2016. She wins the Chevron Championship, becoming the youngest female to ever win two major championships with that win. And she's the youngest golfer, excuse me, the second youngest golfer, male or female, to win two major championships behind young Tom Morris after he won the 1869 Open Championship. Obviously she didn't keep that pace going

throughout her whole career, but I just I mean, I, Jordan, you're, you're much younger than Cody and I, like, Cody, I can remember this. And I still don't think I've fully appreciated what she was able to do at such a young age in the world of professional golf. It's just staggering to look back on. Yeah, it's, it's hard to find comparables because there is no other one. I mean, I'm sorry. The Morris family, I think, major kudos

to her family and the people who support her, which ultimately as she continues to grow, others, if there ever is a Lydia Ko story, could say, also, the family has been a detriment at times. I think that they're a very proud Korean family who everything kind of runs through dad and it's come into conflict with people who have been around not only in professional circles, but personal circles as well, as Lydia kind of continued to grow. And, and we mentioned all of those victories and awards and everything leading up to 2016. And the vast majority of that is thanks to the coach that she grew up with in New Zealand.

I'm trying to think of the guy's name right now. I know it's Guy Wilson. And then Guy Wilson kind of handing everything over to David Ledbetter in the Leadbetter Academy. And that's where we kind of get at the end of 2016, where Lydia is becoming this major superstar and you see her depart the Leadbetter Academy and that coaching circle. And there's a lot of things that they tried to do with Lydia in her swing. And I think that's where she kind of goes off the deep end a little bit. And there's been multiple caddy changes within this that you didn't bring up.

And there's not only swing instructors, but club deals when the big change from Calaway to PXG and, and you just kind of saw, I guess, the business side catching up with the performance side of it and the negative side effects of that at times. And I think the coolest thing about Lydia Ko and this phenomenal career that she's had as a 27 year old is that she's really had like three different careers. She's had two comebacks already, which is crazy to think about. And like to wrap your head around how we got to the finish and you brought us to the start and we started to tell this story. It's just nuts to kind of look at and go, wow, this is incredible.

Yeah, it is. I mean, Jordan, I mean, I asked you about who the 15 year old right now, but like truly, I know you know you were honestly probably too young to kind of appreciate Lydia in the moment. Don't age shame her. How dare you? You can fully age shame me because that was not even when my golf watching life started. So I-

What were you watching? That was just peak basketball watching. Yeah. Where was LeBron at? Was that a big heat seasons going on, everything else like that? Pretty much. It's interesting, like, Randy, the timestamps you kind of give for Lydia's career, 2015 in particular, I was graduating high school.

I was not doing anything remotely as remarkable or cool. And I say this because I am also 27 years old and Lydia Ko and I should not even be in the same room, okay, because that's, yeah, I'm looking pretty embarrassing right now. I bet you guys could tell some good stories together though. Could we? Of course. I don't think it's possible to try to compare your life to somebody who's a professional

athlete. And I think you have a lot more to give. And you've done a ton, Jordan. So don't cut yourself any short there trying to compare yourself to a Lydia Ko. Maybe I'll go buy a gold, a gold medal now. Hell yeah. Jordan, to be clear, I am coming at this from the angle of, you know, I don't know anybody more passionate and into amateur golf and certainly on the women's side. And you know, you just lived through the Rose Zhang amateur career,

which was extraordinary for its, you know, for her own reasons. I'm just, my question to you is, can you imagine somebody approaching what Lydia was able to do at these ages again? Like it just, in today's day and age, the hype, the excitement, it just, it doesn't seem like it would even be possible. I do this thought exercise a lot when there's an amateur I'm really excited about, or B, Rose Zhang, because I, obviously, having emerged out of the post-Rose Zhang amateur career era, the counter was often Lydia and her career and what that meant. I think there's two different coins, right?

You can look at Rose's career and you can say that was a remarkable once-in-a-lifetime type career, one of the greatest careers we'll see for its own reasons with regard to competition and just how good players at amateur golf have become. And we can even touch on that later when we get into more Curtis Cup team announcements and things like that. But I think if Lydia's career was to play out now in a modern context, I mean, I can't imagine the coverage would just go.

I mean, I think it would be perceived so differently. It would take off so well and maybe it would mean Lydia would have played college golf, maybe because now there's an IL opportunities. Maybe it would have meant she did the same exact thing she did before, right? And so I always wonder, you know, with careers like that, how they would be handled and maybe would they even take the same path? Would they have played maybe more high level amateur golf events? Would they, would we have seen them at ANW? Would we have seen them at the US Women's Am, the British Am doing that kind of rotation of events frequently

to basically achieve that pantheon and then move on in the way that Rose did, right? And so I don't know. It's a fun thought exercise and I go through it a lot because, you know, I think Lydia is the gold standard for that. And I think maybe that takes on a different interpretation now and especially in women's golf. I think in particular, it's fun to kind of speculate because so many careers happen, so many great promising careers happen internationally

and all the paths look different and they all mean something unique and interpreting that success I think is always really fun. But being able to kind of, you know, speculate and wonder what that career would have looked like, how that would have been perceived, what the coverage would have looked like. I mean, you know, would she have been able to handle it the same way? Right? Because the it would have been entirely different ballgame with how further into social media we are now. Yeah, that's a great point. And I do think that it's I think Lydia has been there's a huge weight that was placed on her shoulders very, very young, way younger than than anybody probably deserves to carry

that. But I also know that she had great role models and was shielded a lot from it. If you want to talk about like her Korean heritage, like the fact that she grew up during NG's heyday and like, you know, she was carrying the brunt of that media attention and that kind of shielded Lydia, like especially when she was first coming out later all the way up until she retired. And then on the same side of it in the States and everywhere else that's more English speaking, Michelle Wee West and her being like that face, that focal point, it definitely shielded

Lydia. And I know that they're like, she has these relationships specifically with Michelle, you see that with Danielle Kang, like everybody kind of took it up, you know, upon themselves to kind of look out for Lydia. And they joke around and you'll see it a lot of like being, you know, a lot of people call Lydia their little sister. And it's just kind of cool that you saw the tour come together and kind of embrace her and protect her. Not saying that all of that pressure wasn't still there weighing on her shoulders and everything else like that. But during that that period of time

definitely aided I think, by having really good mentors around her and kind of shielding her. Yeah, yeah. Lydia's great. Well, we'll, we'll put that there. I did we'll probably revisit this if and when Lydia decides to call it a career. I think there's much more around this whole discussion. She's just been a fascinating, obviously, super talented, super accomplished person in the game of golf. And it's She's so nice.

And she's so nice. And she's so nice. I know. Yeah, she's amazing at what she does. But in a world where a lot of people don't act like that, she is one of the nicest people that you'll ever meet and will answer any questions and looks you in the eye and maintains eye contact and knows how to do all this stuff, which I think like, at the end of the day, like she's just going to go down as like one of the all time great human beings that played, you know, the highest level in professional women's golf, but big, we talked

about a lot about the three medals that she's won now, but really focusing in back on this Olympics, I got to give a huge shout out to Esther Henslett silver medal kind kind of came out of nowhere to do that. Two strokes behind Lydia and then Janet Lin coming in for that bronze. We joke about the landlord all the time, but it was awesome to see her and we obviously know what the medal counts mean to China and everything else like that. It was such a bunched leaderboard, really with nine holes to play coming into

that final round at the Golf National and to kind of see Lydia separate herself and then Esther get to two strokes and then end up beating Janet by one. And the reaction really from Esther, you had her waiting in the clubhouse kind of trying to figure out what Lydia is actually going to do down the stretch. But then when Janet really realized that, Hey, I got that bronze medal. And like, you just saw the emotions come out of them. It was a great finish to something that, that I think the women and the LPGA tour, the LET put a lot more emphasis in, in, and highlight on the women's Olympic games. Cause I think that's probably because they've had like their champion shine

the brightest at it compared to the PGA tour or DP world tour or anything else like that obviously changed this year with Scottie Scheffler, but I mean, you couldn't write up a better finish to this Olympics. Exactly right. I think the only thing to add on Esther Henslett would be we both have her on the European Solheim Cup team projecting. Yeah. Would be shocked, especially in light of her performance here at the Olympics, would be

shocked if she's left off of that team. For people who don't recognize Esther, she's a very tall German player who you've seen. Top 10s of two majors this year, Chevron and Evian. She's growing into her professional career. She's had an awesome season so far. We probably need to look at the Rolex rankings again at some point in time and try to figure out point allocations and how she is behind some of the players that she still is behind. There's some waiting that's kind of throwing everything off from previous years. Very good finishes that are holding a lot of these Solheim Cup players up there.

But if she's not on this team, I think it's a huge detriment to them. And that's coming in looking at the squads being like, wow, they really could, you know, Team Europe could travel with that same team and be very, very competitive there. But if you leave Esther out of there after the season that she's had and really the form that she's showing now, and I honestly am expecting her to play very, very well at the old course, it would be a detriment, I think. Real quick on Nellie, I just want to ask you, Cody, I think. Real quick on Nellie, I just want to ask you, Cody, what do we make of her making a lot of big numbers? She carded two sevens in these Olympics.

One was a quad, one was a triple. Of course, we know she made the 10 on the par three at the US Women's Open earlier this year. Even her second round at KPMG, she had four sixes on the scorecard. Is it just one of those things or is there more to read into this? I feel like she should be able to avoid the absolute carnage a little bit better than she has been. I agree. And not only avoid the carnage, but it seems

like she once there's something, once a bad swing happens, it feels like she is the one that to compound her mistakes and everything just kind of gets really, really fast for Nellie. And that's something that I picked up. Obviously, US women's open. I still stand by the fact that like, that was a good shot that probably was like a yard, probably even less than a yard short. But she knew, she knew for a fact she could not hit that try to hit that green middle of the green with a wedge and have any chance of keeping it there. And then you compounded everything after that,

which hidden that chip way, way too far and just kind of ping ponging it around there. Kind of the same situation happened in Paris, and you just saw it get really, really quick. What I will say to counteract that, and I'd say that was the big mistake early on in the Olympics competition. The seven that she made on 15 during the final round, she had to go for something. And I'm honestly very proud at how Nellie kind of fought back. She didn't kind of lay down and give up and just kind of say, nah, I'm out of this. Kind of some Rory situation there. Obviously with 15, they did almost the exact same thing. Nellie actually hit a better shot after her drop there if

it counts for anything, but overall disappointed. She's got to figure out these big mistakes because again, it's not that mistakes don't happen. It's that she has this tendency to let it snowball so fast. Well, that's yeah. Going back to the second round, you know, where she hits it in the water and like that, that's got to be a double at worst, right? You know, regroup, hit the green, two putt, get out of there with a five. I just feel like she, and I'm, you know, she knows this too, but like you just can't let that mistake turn into a seven, which torpedoes your whole week then. And as we look to the old course, you want to talk about a few landmines and bunkers and you can make some

big numbers out there from some unexpected places. And I just, I don't know, that's got to be so frustrating because I know it's so frustrating for me watching the golf turn. It's like, God. because I know it's so frustrating for me watching the golf. Yeah, it's like God. Yeah, another thing we talked about, you know, Nellie and kind of her season Hannah Green again, another multiple champion here had a heck of an Olympics ended up coming in tied for fourth and really outside of her opening round and you could put Charlie Hall in the same boat. They just had real stinkers for opening

rounds and then Hannah and Charlie played phenomenal from from there on in obviously Hannah with a higher finish there. Happy to see Rose being in contention not happy with that final round. It felt like there was a lot going on. I know they were put on the clock after like the third or fourth hole. And it just kind of got away away from Rose. Now, she needs to be able to compose herself and deal with what's going on in the situation when those smaller putts kind of slip away from her and everything else like that on top of being put on the clock. And there's a conversation

going on about slow play and how to get these, you know, these players around. And we saw that last week at the Wyndham, but I'll say the same thing for this Olympics, putting them off in threes and expecting them to be able to keep up with any sort of time par based off of TV coverage is just not putting the tournament in the best situation to succeed there. Again, no excuses for Rose. She just kind of laid a stinker there. Final round 74, I think it was.

That was a little disappointing. I would have liked to have seen her rise to the moment, be in the mix, you know, at least. And she did even come into 18. I think, you know, if she Eagles 18, maybe she gets into a playoff for the bronze. But that to me was the biggest disappointment. Coming into this week with her competitive experience at LaGolf, would have liked to have seen a better fourth round

from her. Yeah, same thing. Kind of disappointed with Lily Vu. I thought that she would kind of rise to the occasion there. She ended up finished T for 36. Just didn't really have it. I think kind of disappointed with Lily Vu. I thought that she would kind of rise to the occasion there. She ended up finished T for 36. Just didn't really have it. But I think that the glowing brain, like what in the world is going on here was Leona McGuire.

She took DFL rounds of 78, 89, 83, 71. I don't know. It tells me that there, those aren't the scores that Leona shoots. That's not what she eats. That's not what she's about, Ben. And especially when it comes to an Olympics and representing her country and everything else like that, there has to be something else going on there. I'm very keen to see what she does at the Scottish before the AIG because I think a lot of people really like her around the old course. She just kind of got that grit in her. She's a dog. She's going to stay out there. It doesn't matter what the conditions are and grind it

out. Well, yeah, but you can't do it when you're putting up these numbers. I know. And fast forward to the Solheim Cup, like, she's going to put her Solheim reputation to work if she's coming in with bad form, I still wouldn't count her out for earning three and a half points for points, even if she does come in on poor form. But that will be interesting to see. Real quick, guys, Jordan, I want to get to our amateur golf catch up. I'll just mention quickly the Portland classic, Moria Jutanigarn earns her third career LPGA victory out at Columbia Edgewater Club.

I think besides, you know, congratulations to Moira. I think two things coming from this event. One, heard the announcers talking that this event's in a little bit of jeopardy as early as next year. So we'll be curious when we start to get some hints at the schedule if there's going to be an event out in Portland. I hope there is. I think it's a great part of the country for the women to play. Obviously not a great field at all this year because of the Olympics, but I think that's more of a one year aberration than a year over year trend.

The second big thing I thought was Angel Yin, really needing to display some form to gain Stacey Lewis's confidence for a potential captain's pick. She finished tied for second. She put four really good rounds together. Kudos to her. Somebody that

I selfishly hope is part of the US Solheim Cup team, but of course we shall see in a couple of weeks. And I guess third, I'll just sneak in Lauren Coughlin, another top 10. She finished tied for ninth, so good on her. I know she was extremely tired and kind of running on fumes by the end of that tournament, but another good result for her. Yeah. Congrats to Moria. But I would even say the sneaky thing there that a lot of people didn't talk about, Aria

or Avis sister also in the top 10. T9 right there with LC. So good for them. There must be some about Portland. Yeah. Yeah. All right. With that said, Jordan, I asked you, we asked you

before this episode to kind of come with a bit of a, hey, what do we need to know about women's amateur golf this summer? What are the big things we've missed? Tell us a little bit about the Curtis Cup coming up. So let's dive in. I asked you for the five most important results in women's in women's amateur golf this summer. Do you have a list and I think if you do, let's run it down from five to one. Oh, in order. Oh, we can. Yeah, we can do no particular order. Okay, great. Great. I don't have any order. I'm, first of all, very excited to come on your program

and talk about women's amateur golf. Always a pleasure. But yeah, guys, it's been a pretty interesting summer. I think coming into the summer, we've kind of had this little out with the old, in with the new theme. We're seeing a lot of the faces that we got to know during that two year stretch of Curtis Cups in 21 and 22, either concluding their amateur careers or kind of taking like one

last summer, making a few last pushes to make that Curtis Cup team. But along the way, we've gotten to know a couple of interesting rising stars. So with that, I'll just kind of start. I'll start since I just talked about the Curtis Cup. I'll start with one big name who's kind of come out of the woodwork in her final year at the University of South Florida. But Melanie Green winning the British women's am to up over I think her was Lorna McCClimate, if I have that right. She became the first woman from the United States in nearly 30 years to win the British women's am. The last person to do it was Kelly Keene in 1996. Sorry, 1996, not 1996. Sorry,

I'm not trying to age her there. Lots of aging in this podcast. I love little stats like that. Yeah, it was sick. And she won without a caddy too, which is really uncommon in these finals. I thought that was really sick. She just, like I said, just finished her career at South Florida, was kind of a late bloomer, but she's proven to have a really interesting skill set. And I think that's what really made her a compelling case to make that Curtis Cup team, which we'll talk more about in a little bit. But yeah, I think

that was the first one off the top that I wanted to highlight. Second one was Katie Craig from, I think she was from Western Kentucky. She won the women's north and south in June. She's actually an aspiring golf architect and she said she kind of leaned on those sensibilities to win the women's north and south. She beat Wake Forest's Macy Pate, who's another really promising rising star in women's amateur golf but that was really cool to see. Yeah, a name to keep an eye on. Yeah, for sure.

In the design game. In the design game. I had this third on my list, but I don't feel like it's in third place necessarily, and we'll get into it some more as well. But Rianne Malikse winning both the US Girls Junior and the US Women's Amateur, becoming only the second person to ever win both of those in the same year but also just the only person to ever rematch the person that they played in the girls junior final that defied every single

possible law you could make out of probability. And I also think it kind of tests the idea that match play is sort of based on the luck and who you get matched up with. I don't know. I really think those two were the best players in both of those fields that have a little bit of overlap, but really not much on two very different golf courses. Maliksi really, I mean, she was dominant all week at LCAB. She made 14 birdies through 29 holes in the US girls junior final, which was insane. I tweeted this, that she was literally playing video game golf.

It was so unreal to watch. There was more of a back and forth in the final at Southern Hills. It was interesting because of weather. They split the 36 hole final. So on Saturday, they played 18 after the semi-finals finished. And Asterisk Talley went into Sunday having a one-up lead. And then they went into a lot of back and forth on Sunday.

Rianne in particular was really good at digging comebacks though. She has a lot of good body language and is just able to really stay in it and her consistency particularly with her ball striking I think really kept her in it. She made some incredible shots. One in particular she almost hold out on the 16th hole that they had played on Sunday. And it was interesting. And I talked with Rhian a little bit more about how she was feeling coming into that day and how she handled both of those very different finals.

But yeah, she'd given up. She tied, I think they got there after 12, they had tied and she'd given up three holes and then won the next three holes. And that's how she won it all. And so, yeah, I'm very excited to see the rest of what Rianne Maliksy's amateur career will look like. She's got one more year before. She's got a verbal commitment to Duke University.

So one more year before we'll see her in college golf. And I put this in our Slack at some point, but I said she would ruin lives in college golf and she's already got a head start. So very excited to see. A couple of things there. One, hate that she's going to Duke. Duke doesn't need any more superstars in its midst. Do you happen to have, you said that she was the second person to do the US girls and US AM in the same year. Do you happen to have, you said that she was the second person to do the US Girls and US AM in the same year. Do you know who the first is? You, John Song. She did it, I think it was 2016. Which just, yeah. That in itself, and you know, if you want to go calendar year, I guess in theory you could say Rose is also in that company as well

But in the actual Numerical year they are the only two Okay, I Wonder hmm. It looks like I was just googling Yun Jong Song She is a professional golfer. She must be playing over in Korea. Interesting.

I would have thought it would be a name that we would all know. That's super interesting. All right. Sorry, I interrupted you. A couple more big results. What do we have? All right. You asked for five.

I'm going to give you six because we technically squeezed in two with Rhianne, but I don't think that should count. Luis Raidquist winning the European Ladies amateur. She went into the Sunday of that event with the overnight lead and held off Meja or Tengren and Andrea Rivellta on the back nine to kind of take it all for herself. And well, actually with Melanie, I should have mentioned this, Melanie got an exemption after her British women's am win

into the AIG women's open. And Luis will also be at the AIG women's open with her victory. So it will be very cool to see some of those names out there next week. She was, she's from South Carolina, right? Yes. Another strong Swedish player coming up.

God, they're so good. It's nuts. Trying to think where else. Trying to remember who she, she lost a couple of years ago too in the women's am, right? Trying to remember who she ended up losing to. Anyway. I can't remember off the top of my head. Come on. Anyway, come on. Yeah, come on.

Another Swede who would have thought they're coming. Tremendous. Yeah, they're coming. Tremendous run down here. The one name that you haven't mentioned that we started out a real hot beginning of the year, Lottie Wood.

Kind of what's Lottie been doing? She's been playing a lot this summer. We obviously saw her almost in every major championship. She was in, has she been in any other big women's amateur events or anything like that? We haven't seen much of Lottie since the US Women's Open. No, haven't seen much of Lottie Wode at all. We'll get to see her also at the AIG Women's Open next week

with winning the annual and got her into that event. But no, hasn't really, hasn't been a summer of Lottie Wode. It's been a little quiet on that front for the number one ranked amateur. A lot of the kids, okay. One more big result that I'll name and then we can do a small list of honorable mentions. Farah O'Keefe winning the women's Western. She defeated Elise Lee and broke the medalist's curse as many coin it. She's one of like the

newer rising stars. She's coming out of Texas. So it was nice to see her earn a win this summer. And yeah, just has been really climbing the Wagga ranking and was kind of gutted there for Curtis Cup spot. And we'll see kind of how she fared as we reveal that list. Very quickly, I'll give out some honorable mentions. Lay she in at the Southwestern women's amateur, Annabelle Pancake at the Sea Island women's amateur, and another name I'll probably botch, but I'll do my very best, the Nana Kuchansani at the LNGA amateur. Those

were all the very notable wins this past summer. It's been a very fun summer of women's amateur golf, kind of a reset year, but we're getting to know some newer faces and I think that's always a lot of fun. That's awesome. Thank you very much for putting that together. I can't wait to see some of these names over in St. Andrews too. That will be wonderful. All right, last thing, Curtis Cup, when is it, where is it, and who are the names people need to know, who's favored? So the Curtis Cup is the weekend.

Dates-wise I don't have that off the top of my head, but it is the weekend that is following the AIG Women's Open. You guys look like you're looking it up. So that's going to be the last week of August. Yes. August 30th through September 1st at the famed Sunningdale Golf Club in England, which is so awesome.

In the Heathland, Cody, that's our part of the world from last year. You didn't get an invite over there, Big. I don't know what your deal was. Anyway, anyway. I think that was above our pay grade. Jordan, continue please. Yeah. So thanks for looking that data. But yeah, we just got the official confirmation

of the Team USA, Curtis Cup teams. So both of those teams between USA and GB and I are finalized. I will, if you guys prefer I start with GB andI or Team USA, what's your preference? Start with GB&I because I think US team, I would guess is probably favorite. So give us a few of your favorites from GB&I first. Sure, let's do it. So GB&I was decided before Team USA, but GB&I is headlined by Lottie Wode, the number one ranked amateur in the world as we just discussed.

Hannah Darling will be playing her third Curtis Cup. She'd be- It seems like she's been an amateur forever. I was thinking that exact same thing when she got named again. I'm like, I feel like you should be on the outs, but you're not. I know we're not talking about Team USA here yet, but Rachel, you did a coon.

Keen. Keen, same thing. Been an amateur too long. Yeah. Like I think Rachel's older than Lydia Ko. She's been playing amateur golf since Lydia was an eight-year-old, it feels like. I didn't think about that, but they're not that far apart in age.

Sorry, Jordan. We interrupted you. No, no. So after Hannah Darling is Sarah Byrne from the University of Miami. She's had a pretty good college career over there. Euphemi slash Mimi Rhodes was also named to the team. Anya Donigan from LSU also made the team. If you guys remember, she was almost the low-am last year at Pebble. And Patience Rhodes, who is the sister of Mimi Rhodes, They'll actually be the first sibling duo since Leona and Lisa

McGuire in 2010. And then finally, Beth Coulter rounds out that team. So that's your GV&I team. GV&I is, I don't think they are ranked as high as the previous GV&I team, which is a little concerning. Now, yes, they've got more experience over there. If that feels a little bit better, however, that last GB&I team got kind of demolished. However, one could say the last team, USA team, is a little bit better than this one. I'd argue maybe, maybe not. They do have the best player in the world in Lottie Wode. She's got a pretty good match play record

in general. She actually, and sorry, let me correct myself. She did play the British women's am the summer. She made the sweet 16 and in 2022 she won the R and A girls amateur. So she's got a pretty good match play record over there. And honestly, I think having Hannah Darling on that team as a vet is gonna be tremendously helpful for them. She's personally, her game has just grown a lot, but also just as a person, she seems like she's really just settled herself

and become so much more of a confident player. She kind of was talking a lot about that at Anwalt this past year after she had contended on that first day. And yeah, I think Anya Donigan is someone else who, like I mentioned, was almost a low am last year at Pebble. She has just some really good championship experience in general. And yeah, but I think the one not so secret weapon, but I think the one thing Team USA needs to be a little bit worried about is their captain. You guys know who the captain is?

God, I'm sheepishly, I do not. For GB&I? Yes. Yeah, it's Katrina Matthew. She's a heavyweight. Terrifying. Katrina Matthew. Mm-hmm. She's a heavyweight.

That's terrifying. It very much is. True hitter is hitter. You're right. They absolutely, Team GB and I got stomped at the last playing of the Curtis Cup. 2022 at Marion, they're beat 15 and a half to four and a half, but that's not the squads at all that are going to be represented this time.

So Team USA, who do we got? Team USA. All right. So that team was just finalized yesterday. We'll start off with, so the three automatic picks were off of world ranking were Jasmine Koo, Zoe Campos, and Catherine Park. Quickly, I'll just kind of describe them. Jasmine Koo, incoming freshman at the University of Southern California. Catherine Park is also at the

University of Southern California, and Zoe Campos is at UCLA. So a lot of previously packed 12 talent to round out those top three. Then the rest of the team was just finalized. That would be three time, now three time, Curtis Cup selection, Rachel Keene, who has famously won both of the winning points for the past two Curtis Cups. Anna Davis, who will be playing in her first Curtis Cup. She was an alternate for Marion, but she'll actually be playing her very first Curtis Cup, which is really exciting.

US Women's Zam champ, Megan Schofield, will be playing her first Curtis Cup as well. And Melanie Green, who I talked about earlier, who won the British Women's Amateur, it will be part of that team as well. And lastly, the Summer of asterisk tally continues. She rounds out that team. Yeah, I can, I don't guys, I don't know where to go. Do we do we do I run the credentials for this team because it's pretty talented. No, I think there's time to get into that. Just put your name on who's going to win and give us a score prediction.

I think it'll be Team USA. They're too stacked. They're too good. Last time at Marion, I was like, there's a real case to be made for Jimmy and I. And I think there was some, it was a little bit valid because. They were a better ranked team as compared to this team. I don't know that it's going to be. This is gross, Cody, she's not willing to just put her name on something. I know she's just having she's ha and she's trying not to piss anybody off. How can I you know, do I just predict a close one?

Come on JP. Guys, I've made the case before for completely eliminating GB and I it was very inflammatory. A lot of people were upset about it. It is it is documented. We can get into that at another time because I am happy to read this with that soapbox, but I think it'll be closer than it was, but not by much. Wow. What a political.

Really going out there. Good job. I think it'll be close, but she won't give us an actual score prediction. Tough. No, I can't. Guys, I was a little embarrassed after Marion. I thought it would be close. It was not close at all, in fact. Well, Jordan, in all sincerity, thank you for the catch up on the world of women's amateur golf. It's a great guy.

You stack the AIG Women's Open to the Curtis Cup. To skip a week to the Solheim Cup, we have wonderful, wonderful high level international golf, both at the professional and amateur level. Thank you, Jordan. Please stick around. Anything to set up your interview real quick with US Am champ, Rianne Malikse? Yeah. Rianne and I had a fun chat the morning after she won the US Women's Amateur, just kind of talking about the crazy summer that she's had, pairing for both championships in the moment. There's a great story in there about the caddy that she

met at LCAB who she brought to Southern Hills who was a tremendous part of her success. And yeah, we kind of talk about her future plans and just kind of, you know, processing everything that's kind of happened in the moment. Some really cool highlights from the past weekend as well. And yeah, Rhian's phenomenal and it was a fun interview for sure. Awesome. Well, everybody enjoy. Thank you and we will see you next week from St. Andrews. Rhianne, congrats on winning the US Girls Junior and now the US Women's Amateur. I know it's been a whirlwind of a past month for you. You're now one of nine people to win

multiple USGA titles in a year, but only one of two to win a US Girls' Junior and a US Women's Amateur. I mean, I can only imagine the celebration last night was even bigger than the one for the Girls' Junior, right? Yeah. Thank you for having me, Jordan. And yes, it's been very hectic since the last 12 hours or so. And yeah, I'm just trying to soak it in right now.

When you finished up on 18, it looked like you were in, you couldn't even believe what was happening, especially when you went over to hug your mom. Yeah. Because I was one down starting the match on that Sunday afternoon and finished the match three and two and I was like, it was like the match was going back and forth all time. And I just couldn't believe it. And yeah, I just wanted to hug my mom, which I was really proud of. And I'm just really happy to see her. And yeah. Chances are you'll probably be the only person to ever have a rematch from their girls junior match.

The fact that you and Asteris played each other again was just so crazy. But let's go back to the girls junior for just a second. You were so dominant that week at El Cab. Your ball striking was incredible and you managed to pour in some incredible birdies in that final match. I mean, you had 14 and 29. I mean, that's just wild. I know you had struggled with some negative self-talk in the past. I mean, how validating was winning the girls junior and showing you how hard all the work that you put in had finally paid off. Yeah, it feels amazing. Bridging almost 50% of the holes I played in, it's just crazy.

Yeah, it's nice to see that hard work paid off that week. And I know you did say I was kind of self-deprecating last year. And I think I realized at the beginning of this year, everything is just all about perspective and everything just went high and roaring ever since 2024. And it's a good thing my dad helped me maintain a really positive mindset. And I'm just really grateful for his support. Yeah. I'm going to get into a little bit more of the support you had during these championships, but I do wanna talk about your dad.

I mean, what were the kind of things that you guys been working on? Honestly, I'm very grateful for my dad because he sacrificed a lot of time off work just to accompany me train. And yeah, we talk about all the stuff I've been doing in training, you know, all the things that I can work on, what I can improve on.

And I've been fixing my diet lately. I've been eating more, just really getting more on protein and really just trying to gain muscle mass since I kind of like lost weight last year. And I did lose some distance back then. And then we kind of worked on that. And then he really just pep-talked me just a lot on my mental game and yeah, just really trying to see the positive side of things. I think one of my favorite stories in golf this year is the story of you and your caddy,

Carmen Fletcher. I got a chance to talk to Carmen a little bit during the girls junior. And for people who don't know, Carmen is a college golfer at Alabama State who was working at LACC this summer and decided to caddy for the week at the girls junior at El Caballero. And from my understanding, she ended up without a bag for the round of 32. And that's how you guys got paired together. And then you guys won that entire week. And then you guys find out she worked at Southern Hills and you win the whole thing again. Tell me about your relationship with Carmen and kind of how that came to be. Yeah, Carmen's amazing. She's just a good last to be with. She's very chill but very funny

at the same time. And yeah, I had a caddy before I had Carmen, the US girls, but he couldn't caddy for me after the round of 16, I think. And then I had to email USGAs that I needed a caddy going onwards. And then I got Carmen. And then I was so surprised that we won the whole thing and then when she realized that we were playing at Southern USM and then she messaged me, hey, can I caddy for you? And I was like, because she used to work there last year and I was like, oh, that's going to be so cool. I want to have you on the bag again. And then we booked the whole flight and everything and then boom, it it's just here we go. What was that whole, so you spent, you kind of spent

half your week at the girls junior with Carmen but then you get to spend the whole week with her. I mean what was it like having a lot of that knowledge and not only being there but then being with someone you were already comfortable with? Yeah I'm very grateful because I got to be comfortable with her right away ever since she started caddying for me. Yeah, she lets me do my own thing. She's just there for confirmation and stuff, which I really like because I didn't really like another voice in my head whenever I'm playing, but she's just there to support and to really confirm

on if I'm doing the things I'm doing right. And yeah, she's been really good to me all day, all week. Let's talk about the US Women's Am. You played Annabel Pancake, Anna Huang, Charlotte Schremmer, Catherine Rao, Kendall Todd, and then you get a rematch with Astrik, which we'll get into in a little more in a few minutes. But it seemed like this past week was a little bit more of a grind than the week at LCAB and the greens were pretty fast. I mean, talk to me about how it tested your game and what kind of adjustments you had to make. Okay. Honestly, the first thing I noticed when I did my practice run was just it was quite

a tough walk. It was very undulating. Southern Hills has some very diabolical greens and there are some parts I couldn't really read and I really had to ask Carmen what she was reading and then I was kind of like reading the opposite reads and it was kind of like a really tough grind out there. And yeah, playing with a lot of amateur and collegiate golfers was just tough for me. A lot tougher than LCAB and I really had to grind things out and really had to stay patient throughout the whole week and which I really did a good job on. It seemed like there were a lot more

close matches during your week this past week. I mean, at what point did you feel like you might have gotten comfortable, really feel like you were understanding the golf course more? Honestly, on the first match play when I played with Annabel Pancake, I think I kind of like had this confidence booster because I know Annabel is a really good match play player. I've seen her play since I was like 14 or so and then she was just really dominant when it comes to match play. And then when I got over the round of 32 onwards, my game just kind of like skyrocketed and

I kept on winning matches and then I just kept grinding out there. Now for a lot of people who don't know much about your amateur career, you've played a lot of international golf. You played in a good amount of professional events. I mean, you've played a really good variety of events and have tested your game so many times. Coming into an event like this, I knew you had some history playing this event for a few years, but what kind of confidence does that create? And I mean, how has playing so much of a variety of golf really contributed to your game?

Yeah, being able to be exposed to professional events, good amateur events abroad, internationally, it's a good experience to have. I was at the British Women's Am like a month and a half ago and I was playing in Lynx Golf which is a really good experience for me even though I missed the cut. Just really being able to compete on a variety of golf is just amazing and it really helped this week and really being able to use that experience in handling the pressure just really helped a lot. Now when I first heard about you, you were playing the PXG women's match play a few years

ago. And I remember thinking like, who is this 14 year old who's like beating all of these pros? This is so crazy. I mean, how much do you love match play? Like I got to imagine it like really fires you up. Yeah, I'm a pretty competitive person. I really like quote unquote beating people ever since I was younger. Match play is just so much different from stroke play because it really depends on how well your opponent is playing. It's all about momentum. And if you get that momentum on your

to your advantage, it's a really good feeling to have. So I really love match play. I think when coming into the final, you kind of knew what to expect from asterisk. I mean, you the girls junior wasn't the first time you'd ever been around her. You'd had some exposure to her previously, but this was a really different 36 hole final than the girls junior. I mean, for one, it was split over two days. So you play 18 on Saturday and then you play 18 on Sunday. I know you struggled a little bit there on Saturday and I'm sure overnight it can be pretty tough to kind of stay into it and get focused and refreshed to finish the match the next day.

And I remember at one point in one of the interviews you mentioned struggling a bit with your putter when you were warming up on Sunday morning. How did you manage to kind of reset? Yeah, it was kind of like new to me that we had to play the finals on two days. I was kind of like really tired on that Saturday. I had to play 36 holes. And then on Sunday, yeah, I was struggling with the putter while I was warming up. I was like kind of like frustrated honestly because none of the putts were dropping.

And yeah, after that, I had to like stop and really forget everything I did in the range and that short game area and that putting green and just really went straight to the locker room and really had to calm myself down. And yeah, I did really have to meditate and really give myself a really good pep talk. Was that the most nervous you'd been in your life? I'd say yes. I've been very nervous at that time. But when I started that match, I was like, yeah, we're good to go. How do you kind of get into a rhythm in a zone and maybe not let your opponent kind of affect what you're doing? Honestly, just really focusing on yourself

and not really thinking how well the player is doing in the match. I know Astris is a really good player, but all of us are bound to make mistakes at one point and both of us did make mistakes on that match. And I just happened to minimize those and we're just really trying to correct things around and I just happened to make good shots at the right time. I know this match was pretty back and forth kind of compared to the girls junior and I think the 20 footer you made on 14 was one of the coolest shots and then you nearly hole out on 16. I mean, it was such an incredible comeback to see.

Just kind of walk me through that last stretch that you had there. So yeah, after hole 12 where we both tied for pars, I treated the last hole 13 onwards as my last four holes like I did in training with my dad where he always told me, you know, last four holes just finish strong, just don't make bogeys. And yeah, just do your best in each shot and then hole 13 I made a really good second shot with my 5 wood stuck it to around 20 15 to 20 feet downhill for eagle pot and then finished a birdie there and then made a 20 footer on 14 I think it's a good thing I'd hit the pin or else I would have been off the green. And then 16, I made a really good second shot, six iron into the wind, stuck it to like 10 feet, made the putt, and then the last hole nearly hold out from the bunker shot. And I was surprised

that it still hit the pin. It's safe to say that those two pins saved my life there. But yeah, it's been amazing and drained the pot. And yeah, we celebrated after that. Talk to me about the celebration last night. I mean, I can imagine it's a little difficult to find places to celebrate in Tulsa on a Sunday night. But I mean, you still must have had a good time. Yeah, I just had a really good dinner with my mom at Longhorns Steakhouse near here in my hotel. And I really had good chicken fried steak. And yeah, we had a really good night. Oh, I love that. That's awesome. Gosh. Sometimes Longhorns can come in clutch like that. That's incredible. So I want to talk about some of the things that winning this championship brings.

The girls junior was already giving you a pretty cool schedule, but now you already had a spot in the US women's open, but obviously you get to play that. And now you'll get to play in a few more majors. You earned an exemption to the AIG women's Open at St. Andrews, the 2025 Chevron Championship and then the Evian. I mean, I know the first of those is coming up pretty soon. So my question is, will we see you at St. Andrews? My schedule definitely changed after this week, but yeah, unfortunately, I won't be able to compete at the AIG at St. Andrews just because

I won't be able to get my visa on time. So instead of playing AIG, I'll be playing in Korea instead for the Hanwha Classic, I suppose. Yeah. Cool. Well, I mean, the part about St. Andrews, just that's really unfortunate to hear, but it's still exciting that you have still got a pretty revamped schedule. There's still some majors to look forward to, so that's awesome. But where can people kind of expect to see you for the rest of the year? Honestly, I'm still sorting my schedule out.

I'm pretty sure I'll be going back and forth to Korea because after this, I'll be having another event in Korea on September. And then for the rest of the year, I think I'll just be staying in the Philippines just training and hopefully there'll be more invites abroad. Awesome. And I know you'll get to play ANWA again next year. So that'll be really exciting. And then there's a lot of good amateur golf kind of on the line and in your future, but you've got a verbal commitment to Duke from what I understand. I mean, how exciting is the prospect of college golf?

Oh, super exciting. It's also nerve wracking at the same time, just because you have to meet those requirements from Duke. And as we all know, Duke has a really, I'd say tough requirements. You have to do a lot of classes and all that. It's really hard taking classes while competing at the highest level of golf. And yeah, I think I've done a good job at that. And yeah, it's really exciting that I verbally committed to Duke and yeah, I love the campus and everything and the coaches. So what's your school schedule like? Are you finishing up high school this year? Kind of

what do you got left? I'm a senior now. I'll be finishing up school, I think, May of 2025. That's super exciting. And do you go to the high school in the United States? I'm homeschooling the Philippines, but I study through a US curriculum. Okay, awesome.

That's super cool. Well Breanne I'll let you go I know you've got a lot going on you've got a flight to catch to get back to the Philippines but congratulations and thanks so much for spending some time I'm so excited for you. Thank you so much for having me. Be the right club today. Be the right club today.