No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 240: BMW Championship, US AM, + Brooke Henderson Interview

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

Justin Thomas rolls to victory in Chicago, and we discuss what that means going into the Tour Championship, the new format, and just how nuts the cash situation is this week. We also discuss the U.S. Am at Pinehurst, the Korn Ferry Finals, Adam Scott and Tiger Woods' comments this week about equipment and course setup, and a lot more. Brooke Henderson joins the show on the back half (46:10) to discuss the defense of her CP Women's Open title this week in Canada, how she was able to find so much success at such a young age, and what it's like to carry the torch for Canadian women's golf. Thanks a ton to Brooke for the time.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yeah. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Expect anything different. Better than most! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No-Lang Up Podcast. We are here in the Kille House. Got a big full house tonight. Got the DJ, Big Randy, Toronto, we're going to talk BMW Championship. Mostly actually talk about the playoff finale coming up and then

Cornfairy Finals, USAM and everything else from the weekend golf. How are you guys? I've been requested by the president of the Cornfairy Tour, Mrs. Alex Baldwin, to identify ourselves at the beginning of the podcast. Yes, that helps. This is Tron. This is TC. The next voice you'll be hearing is DJ. And I will be reading for the part of Big Red. She said, I thought she was just gonna flamethrower something. She was like, love the podcast. You guys gotta identify yourself. I said, we try.

We're not sure. I never think, I never think. Can you please stop making chicken puns all the time? That's exactly what I thought was coming. Suppression didn't lead with that. Justin Thomas is one is 10th PGA Tour event. He's 26 years old. It's a lot of money.

Jordan Speed to the 11. He's rapidly closing in on him. That's a prize me the Speed has 11. I guess it seems like it's been, I mean, it's been over two years since Speed is one one. So he won 11 before he turned 25. Yeah, it's the guy that's on his death bed is one more of the last two seasons.

Three seasons. Then, uh, you know, you can say about that. Yeah. Rory. Not Dustin. No, I mean, Rory, Rory, Dustin, Rory's already in the morgue. Yeah, that's why I was like, come on. Yeah, we,

American golf corresponded. Big Randy Dustin loves to win non impactful events. He's one like 18 WGC. Like, two points. Two points. Exactly. That was lobGC, I think. I think two points. Exactly. That was lobbed up. I didn't mean to play. I just want a lot of play out there.

JT. You know JT, fun benchmark. He's now double Ricky. He's to be fair. He's also way younger. Refuses to count the international victories. When was JT's last win before this one? I think it was, I don't know. It was, I have that.

Did anyone in Malaysia? No, the league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one.

The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league one. The league bad. And that final group in the win. But yeah, he had a wrist injury this year,

which kind of sat him back for a little bit. But it is, so we were kind of talking, you know, some people are bitching, like, oh, I can't believe, you know, he's had kind of a shitty season, and now he's at the top of the tour, leading the tour team, tips like, no, this is the playoffs, like,

I know it doesn't, it's an actual playoff, but people that were mad about Reed going ahead of Rory in the fed It's like no dude like what else is this thing right? It we have it has to be volatile or else. It's not interesting Florida, Marlon's won the 97 world series that I was just getting ready to go for that Many people forget that Thank you so better. I had a dive for every time Tron's trying to shoe or that in conversation. Why were you an Indian fan? try to shoot or that in conversation. Why were you an Indian fan?

I was a Braves fan. Levant Hernandez got every, like they kept moving the strike zone farther and farther and farther. Oh, that's rich of coming from a Braves fan. That's right. That's right. Rainy Deami World Series game left.

Let me tell you about this, glam and mad ex zones. Mad ex is a, mad ex is so violent. Because of the strike zone. I don't really get a half a foot on each corner. I just remember that one game in the NLCS, the one here, live on Hernandez. It was two and a half feet outside by the end of the game.

Was Angel Hernandez the one calling it for Levant? Listen, I don't know. We're a baseball podcast now here. I'd know we want to branch out here as the season goes coming to a close. That's not good. I'm gonna watch the baseball game guys coming to a close not good I'm going to say yeah it's another dynamic high growth sport that we're looking to break into baseball. You get you guys for for you can talk about a keynote if you want to. It's a brandy's probably logging into redzone.com.

Well, I I I don't know what you guys I honestly couldn't wait to refresh and see the leaderboard for next week's tour championship. We have the first ever handicap PGA tour event. I mean, is it really a leaderboard or is it, you were looking for the projections? For the projections? Yeah. What do you mean? The projections.

Like, you know, it's a projection for next week. Well, it's already, what do you mean, it's already set? No, I know, but it's like, it's the culmination of every FedExCub live projection they've done. Which I missed. I need Sansi on the board. I need, you know, I need them with the projections. I need them marking up the screen. I missed that today.

Really, it's, and we're not going to get that this coming week. I think it's the only hole I see in the new strategy. Can I say one thing? You can say. Thank you, bro. No. We're not going to do any coverage takes.

None. But there's one thing I do want to say, which is I landed this week. Thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you, bro. We're not going to do any coverage takes. None. But there's one thing I do want to say, which is I landed this week. I was on an airplane, no big deal. Cool. landed. We're flex. Open Twitter.

First, like I see is Peter Costas, flaming the NBC coverage, talking about how they're showing too many projections of things that aren't going to come true till next week. And I was like, dog, imagine what it's like to watch every single week. And so I tweeted like, Peter, welcome to the resistance. And he deleted his tweet. Ah, yeah, I was kind of bummed. The deep state got him.

I don't know how he was. He shares, you know, he actually was on the opposite side of you, he was not into the projections. I noticed. Well, this isn't a projection. This is real now. Justin Thomas has a two-shot lead. We've locked it in. Yeah, it is't a projection. This is real now. Justin Thomas has a two shot lead. We've locked it in.

Yeah, it is. It is. Should we go over it? No, we can now call the tour championship. Which deed? It's official. You should tell Freddie that you were on an airplane this week. He would be psyched.

Every time I get back from a trip, he'd Freddie was on an airplane. Oh, no, no. Justin Thomas is 10 under par. Patrick Cantlay is eight. Keppka's seven. Reed Reed 6. Rory 5. And then a whole group at 4. Ram Kutcher. Shoffley Simpson. Answer. And a whole group at 3. Woodland Fienal. Scott DJ Matsuyama. The group at 2 is Kasey Rose

Snettaker. Fowler Kisner. The group at 1 under Leashman Fleetwood. Conner's M and Revy. And at even par leading the pack, first ones out, Bryson DeChambo, Louis Hughes, Taze and Charles Howe III, Lucas Glover and Jason Cocrack. Bryson with a cool chance to set the pace out there. That's what I was going for. I was saying before we went on air,

par is certainly not irrelevant. It's pretty cool. Absolutely not. Did you see how slow the caddies were at the USP? It's basically, we're gonna get to that. It's a caddie. It's a caddie. I just wanna go on record before we dive into

tour championship. I've never, ever been a fan. I've been a bunch of times from Atlanta. I'm actually looking forward to it. Oh yeah, this is gonna be awesome. Well, here's what I'm afraid of though. As of like mid-morning on Thursday, it's gonna just be like a shuffle of a normal tournament.

Like it's gonna kind of lose its appeal a little bit. But I'm afraid so. I'm afraid like these guys starting it even or 200 or 400 are just gonna add like, you know, 95% of them are probably gonna light themselves on fire but one of them's gonna, they're gonna be playing so aggressively and so, for sure.

I feel like from a Philist, or from a psychological perspective, their approach this week is gonna be so much different than it would typically. Well, so going back to Randy's point about the coverage last week, this is not a coverage that's not working. But I think your point was,

it all feels, especially Thursday, Friday, even Saturday sometimes, it all feels, I think especially Thursday, Friday, even Saturday, sometimes it all feels so arbitrary, right? Where it's like, here's a ROM shot and here's a Rory shot and here's a, sounds good. Sounds good. Sounds good. Yeah, don't feel like playing off the phone. It just doesn't feel like, we're not gonna do this. No, just stick with me. It all feels like a little bit random, especially on Thursday, Friday, until something like really takes shape. And I think, yeah, to your point, Tron,

it's like, boom, the story's there. Like, what's JT doing? He's got the lead, Friday, until something really takes shape. And I think, yeah, to your point, Tron, it's like, boom, the story's there. Like, what's JT doing? He's got the lead. Like, you know, is somebody catching him? Is anybody charging? And like, I don't need to see those guys who are, you know, 10 shots back or whatever.

Well, it's funny to how we were just learning how it all plays out with, you know, usually there's a payout for the tour championship and then also a FedEx Cup bonus based on where you finish. Now it's just all combined. Everybody that's in the in the tour championship gets like a one payout that is combined. So last place this week, $395,000. Just for showing up, if you finish in the top eight, you make over a million dollars.

The winner obviously gets $15 million, runner up five million, third place is four, and then fourth place is three, 2.5 million in the top five. It's absolutely nuts. It's a sweepstack. It's a little sweepstack. It's a little sweepstack. It's a little sweepstack.

You're my favorite part of the FedEx cup, is the fact that the guys that lost their cards get a bonus too. It's sure. It's quite well. Just the one 26 to 150 guys, and they still retain some status in some way. So let's talk about this change a little bit and the reasons for it because I am like you, the tour championship is, it's like any other tournament, like if it's a good finish and there's interesting people

coming down the stretch, like sure. You know, obviously we were all glued to it last year when tigers coming down the stretch, but the changing up the nine certainly helps. That helps for sure. There's been some good ones in the last. Yeah, totally, but it's okay. It's so dependent on the competition, right?

There's been some shitty ones too, where they're either runaways, or there's no drama, or whatever. So what I'm also with you, like I'm so, I'm really legitimately psyched to watch this year. And I think a really cool thing that they've done is like, it seems like they've looked head on at,

okay, this is really confusing, and it's really hard for people to grasp. Why are there two trophies? Why are there two leaderboards? Why do I care? This is so hard for me to understand. And I think that they finally kind of put the fans view of this ahead of the players view of this.

And so from like a competitive golf purist standpoint, is this good? Hell no. It's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But as like an entertainment product, I think it's awesome. They're steering into the entertainment. Exactly. So we've been screaming,

which I think deserves kudos. Oh for sure. Hearing it's awesome. Yeah. Quiet golf club totally. I'm, and it's gonna be fun, but like I said, I'm just a little worried that by Friday, it's just gonna be like, okay, well here's the leaderboard

and like it's gonna be kind of the same as when you check into the leaderboard and it kind of is like that. It's like the guy is starting at one under or two under, if one of them, it's like following a Cinderella in the, in the, yeah. Right. It may be a top 10 guy in the world doing it, but it still feels like a Cinderella.

Oh my God, this guy's battling his way back from nine shots back to the beginning of the tournament and he's in the mix now. I think you just have more context like that. You know what I mean? It's easier to wrap your head around exactly what they're doing this week. Let me throw out a hypothetical.

Okay. What if it's not cool? Yeah. Like what if JT goes out and shoots 63, 65? Then that's can't lay and kept going to shoot like 73s. But like it's's totally over. Like, was he gonna do that in the morning? But yeah, what if that would have happened anyways?

Right. Like even this week at BMW was in danger, like, you know, JT came back and it was still kinda interesting on those, you know, the back nine at least. But like, he had a, what, six shot lead to start the day, like, you know, it's just, it's around the green, man. I guess it's interesting hearing you go through, like the tour kind of caving, not caving,

but catering to the fan. Like, it's wild that they would start their super bowl in this format instead of trying something like match play or it's like how did they get here? I'm probably a lot of meetings. I would guess there's probably a lot of. It kind of blows my mind the more I think about it. For sure. That's where I'm at, too. It's almost such a big thing that that's kind of what I mean is like it's laudable to

be like dude good on you guys for trying something that is so far out of the box. Because I think to match play, like I think match play has a much, and I know people say this all the time, but match play has a much bigger downside risk. To, you know, do I wanna watch like, but whoever, Corey Conner's and Jason Kochrack, play off for $15 million?

Like not really. Well, I would argue kind of, because those guys would, you know what I mean though, if you get a disinteresting final, it can be. Randy May, I point you to, I can't remember the year, but the WGC match play, one year when it was like Kevin Sutherland and, yeah. That's what ruined the, like that's what scared the hell out of them and the eventually had to change the format. But I don't see how a non-com non competitive stroke plays any better, I guess, but you know, it's just it's the same thing as the previous year

It's just kind of simplified somewhat. I mean, it's it's the way they did it is the Basically your chances of winning were very similar to how it played out in previous years It's just identical. Yeah, well as close as they could have gotten. Yeah They've just taken away the golf tournament and just made the FedEx cup the golf tournament. Which I think, like I said, from a, like, OWGR purist golf standpoint, I think is really fucking stupid, but from a fans perspective, I'm like, okay, cool,

this, I'm in, this is actually interesting. Counterpoint to that, from an OWGR standpoint, I think this is the best thing they could have done because I don't think they should give OWGR points for the limited field. I would listen to that. Anyway, right? Well, shout out to the Hero World Challenge.

It's a success. What did they end up doing with the OWGRs giving out separate points for this? I think it's a separate secret, double secret leaderboard. That is basically going to say, like if everybody started it even, which is dumb. If that's, I hope that's how it is. But if...

Because they're not playing under those obstacles. Yeah, they're not playing that. Exactly. I could go out at, you know, 11.30 AM and quote-unquote win the golf tournament. It feels a little weird. Where, where, like, it's going to be legitimately interesting, I think, to see... Like, it's hard enough to play with a lead, right?

To see Justin Thomas. That's because they put it for Fortnite. Right. Which is... A sweet. I don't know exactly. I don't know exactly how it would have played out with the old format, but say, and I know, I mentioned this on a previous episode, but what if like Keppga goes and gets hurt? He's in third place right now,

and he's set to make like three million bucks if he finishes in that place. What if he gets hurt and like it has to withdraw? He automatically falls to 30th, like goes to the last place and makes 395. I don't feel bad for Keppka from a money perspective in any way, but it's crazy that it does come down to a straight stroke play and the points

are totally out the window. That is how points are done for the year. Keppka is gonna, I think the question's off this week. Yo, you think I'm gonna get hurt dog? I don't think I'm brittle, you think I'm fine. I think the question is, are you hurt or are you injured? I don't think I'm brittle, you think I'm fast. I think the question is, are you hurt or are you injured? But, kept your heart. Throw his seven shots back to the field.

You think I need a handicap, bro? No, easiest is for me. I think would it be classy of JT to intentionally yip a couple of putts on the first screen? Just to be very classy. We heard bones say he's possibly the classiest guy out there. Amongst the tour of the classy guy.. The tour of the classiest guy. Which I think is word for word what I said last week I didn't like about the broadcast.

Everybody's reduced down to these like parodies of class acts. That was, I love bones, but God that was tough. So if you finish inside the top 20, you make over half a million dollars, which is usually reserved for, you know, probably third place, second place. GDPs of small countries. Yeah. we're half a million dollars, which is usually reserved for probably a third place, second place. GDPs of small countries. Yeah. One of the interesting things, so like my,

my memories of going to Torch Championship back, I remember the first year it was in Atlanta. It was around Halloween weekend. And I remember following guys, so there's only 15 groups, right, there's 15 toesums out there. And by Saturday or Sunday, some of these guys were 20, 25, 30 shots off the lead. Some of these guys were being 40, 45 shots.

That's what I'm saying. They couldn't be more disinterested before. I can't imagine how it's gonna be now. But think about it now. I know, with all the your point. With all the playing for money. Yeah, exactly. Think about all the financial upside of going out

and like shooting 62 in the final round or something. It's like, yeah, every guy you beat is 10,000 bucks at the bottom of the leaderboard. Yeah, so there's some incentive down there, I don't know, maybe you're just ready to ship it by the end of the year. So how far back is too far back? It's a great question I've never had to answer

on a Sunday night before the turn of its started. I don't think anyone's too far back. I think somebody could win. Anybody could win. Let's say Luke is Glover, he's playing really well right now. He's at even, he's 10 shots back. You think? Over four days though.

It's not like it's two days. It's not like it's two days. It's not even might be too far back to actually win it. But I think anybody, definitely anybody in the top of tier. Because it's not only are you even in your F-Fart back, you have to beat. You gotta pass a lot of guys. You gotta pass 20, 20 other guys to get to the leader.

And it's not a course you go out and post 63's on. Like usually nobody runs and hides that far. So I know this is not obviously a perfect analogy, but the people who finished, so JT was 25 under par this week. The people who finished T31 were 8 under par. What, what is that? 19 shots?

17. 17 shots. So listen man, it's possible. And that's the top 30 guys. And obviously like there would be a different dispersion, it'd be first to last, not first to middle of the pack. But the guy who finished last place this week, shout out to Nate Lashley, three over par.

It's a tough week out there guys. 28 shots back over four rounds. So like, yeah, 10 shots, man, it can happen. Last place was three over par this week. Yeah, about that. Well, these guys are just so good. What a back to back years, the setup of this event has been quite, quite, quite easy.

I know rain is a factor, softness is a factor, but why don't we get to some of that? We have some quotes on that. Before we do that, how about a quick break for a word from our friends at Callaway Golf? You heard us talk about the new Epic forged irons lineup. I thought, Randy, I thought you were going to get in some Epic forged irons, but I saw the way you were hitting the Rogue Pros recently, and I don't know if you are going to be making the transition. You should switch those. Well, here's what you should get. The... Calaway came out with the, Calaway, the number one hybrid engulf,

just released the Epic Flash hybrid. Do you have one of these yet, Randy? No, I gotta talk to Chad. How many hybrids do you have in your bag? Two. Okay. But I own three, but I'm only gaming two right now. He's aspiring to have somewhere

in the seven, a seven ironing up, I think it's like we said, we're building. And there are multi-purpose at Jack's Beach, because you can bump them around the green Oh, yeah, you can you play full with them the epic flash hybrid is Engineered using Calo is most advanced hybrid innovations like jailbreak technology ultra thin face cup and Precision shaped tungsten waiting to deliver total performance in a premium design Caligolf dot com or your nearest golf retailer to add the epic flash hybrid to your bag today.

You want it, Randy? I see you're in front of your computer, you're not doing it. I'm gonna order it now. They can rip my apex hybrid out of my- From my cold dead hands. Every time I play with that thing, that's just such a good club.

Well, why don't you take us through some of the things that Adam Scott had to say about the tournament set up this week? Yeah, I think a lot of people, be it because the tournament was similar to a lot of other tournaments. We've seen this year or just kind of a runaway by JT or whatever, but you're kind of looking for something to talk about this week.

And I think this week it was wire the score so low, wire, you know, Medinasus theoretically incredibly, incredibly difficult. It was the rating like 78.6 or something like that. And Adam Scott had some quotes quote, if a golf course is soft, we're just gonna tear it apart. They haven't figured out yet that long means nothing to us. You can't build it long enough. I'm not challenging them to build longer golf courses.

I'm challenging them to build smarter golf courses. If you require us to shape T-shots to get it in play, we're going to struggle. We just play straight. Everything's straight. If you had to draw a driver to get it in the fairway, we're going to start seeing different scores. But while there's an option to go over trees and go over bunkers, it's just relentless, which I think some of the lines like Rory took this week were offensive. Ignorant. It's like, not the way we're supposed to be doing this. Yeah, and it's just, I don't know, I mean, it's a lot of this stuff that I think we kind of hammer on

with course setup and stuff all the time, but if you hear the pros say that, and then Tiger had some quotes as well. Yeah, this one's pretty interesting, maybe a little longer. You forgot the ink. Oh, sorry. And, quote, shout out to Dan Carlin. This is from Tiger the Cat Woods, Eldric Taunt Woods. Many people forget his middle name's Taunt. I never forget that. He said, quote, I think that's the way the new game has played.

We were talking about it earlier this week, and when I first came out on tour and before me, especially, there's a lot of one irons and stuff off the tees. You just try to get it in play. Now you pull out driver, bomb it down there, and you're looking for three to four good weeks a year. That's how you play. It's not consistency. It's not about making a bunch of cuts.

It's about having three or four good weeks a year. That's the difference the guys understand that. Today's equipment. You can maximize a driver and just absolutely bomb it And some of these guys sacrifice stuff around the greens or short irons for the driver the drivers the most important club in the Bag now just because of the way the game is played I think the point of that being like with driver in your hand You can just rear back and swing as hard as you possibly can and just not have to be worried as much as when he first came out of tour about

The biggest of big misses. Well, that's an hankaney. But to that point too, I mean, he's talking about just having a few hot weeks being what does it for you, so the game is so top heavy, like for reward, FedEx Cup points and money at the very, very top. And like, you know, having winning one event is better than like having five straight top five. So like that's just the way it works out, math wise. And it's, it's, I don't know if that's good.

I think it's good for the entertainment part. Like you need something huge dangling at the end of the tournament to get people to watch it. But like, it leads to people having what I think are very bad, just overall bad opinions on somebody like Tony Fiennell, who plays unbelievable, consistent golf. He had a rough stretch in the middle of the year, but he top 10s all the time, top 5s all the time.

His only win is an opposite field event, but it leads people to start thinking that that's not a really, really good golfer. So he plays a rough, patient golf off the tee, too. He does it a lot of iron, tough the tee, does that sort of thing. I think going back to Adam Scott's points, where he talked a little bit about in some quotes afterwards about just firming up the greens and different ways to challenge dog legs,

where it's not framed by a tree, it's framed by something on the ground, right? Like a bunker or kind of going back like I think it'll be really interesting to watch a lot of these guys play Roa Melbourne in December for sure. Like for people that grew up playing golf courses like that. I imagine a me's been out on tour for a long time and played all over the world, but it's got to just be like, guys, what are we doing here? This is not like that fun.

I mean, watching golf balls stick in rough around the greens at Medina and watching guys slide a 60 degree under it and flop it next to the hole and stop it. Like that is not fun. You know what? What is fun? Watching guys chip around the greens at Pinehurst this week because that is like short grass and the ball running away from greens and going and really punishing spots is way more interesting for top players than you.

One of the exciting thing in the game is when the ball's on the ground. Because the player is less control over it. And they truly have to control their golf ball versus in the air, they know exactly where it's going. They know exactly where, how far it's going, how it's going to react when it hits the ground. So, you know, yeah.

It was just wild to see, I'm sure we're going to get into a lot more on the USM, but I was to it solid earlier and it's like every time the ball hit somebody's club face Immediately the reaction to USA was like stop stop stop stop slow slow slow bite bite, which I think It's really were too dialed up if you ask me. I think it's unnecessary. I think for that can confirm For those surfaces. I mean Pinehurst holds its own so well and watching the way some of those balls are rolling out. And if the USGA is actually like really concerned about pace of play, like look no further than what how long it takes to put out.

I'm working on something in that regard. I think I have some insight as to why play is really so. My thing with equipment and the ball and everything is in just how far, like whatever, whatever, it goes too far, it still doesn't spin. Which I think was Adam Scott's whole point, right? And like, there is something that's, it's kind of like a 201 class when you really are starting to think about, you know, like, you're not gonna be able to hit a fairway

unless you're shaping the ball the correct way. And that's something that like, as a very, very casual golf fan, I never, ever thought about that. And the more you talk to pros and the correct way. And that's something that like, as a very, very casual golf fan, I never, ever thought about that. And the more you talk to pros and the more you think about great architecture and stuff, the more you start to realize how many different protections there are

that you can put into courses. And that's such a cool one that is not seen. And then of the ball, because of your, you're in the rough, and you're trying to hold a green from the rough for you're trying to manage a fly or lie and the ball does spin like Cool good luck. You're not, you know, it's it's a lot harder is do you think the worm starting to turn with all this? Like I've pros spoken up like this in the past or is this does this feel kind of different or you know

What do we make of this? I feel like the cat's been I think the the cat seems like the, the, the key to all of it, right? But anyway, really far, really far. Uh, I, who knows if anything will, will happen from this, but it is different, it's different than us sitting around talking about it, I think. I mean, a lot of people kind of roll their eyes when we have this conversation, I'm like, kind of like guys, look at, look at two guys that are talking about it right now. This is a, this should be a real thing. Well, like the fact that the course record stood for that long

and then gets broken by five. J.T. broke it twice this week. I mean, that's insane. And then, but then on the flip side of it, talking about Kat, like Jack Nicholas has been banging on this for 25 years and nothing's happened. So, you know, that's kind of porous, some cold water on things too. The only thing I'll say is, look at when the players start to get involved, look at how

quickly people react. When the players really, when it reaches a tipping point and we'll recency bias, but look at the slow play stuff, we've been talking about slow play forever, and all it took was a couple players to see the right tweet and start blowing somebody up and all of a sudden, like, okay, we're investigating the policy. We're looking at it all right now. We're gonna really check this out.

And so I think we know the answer to that, though. Well, of course. Yeah, listen, yeah, you don't need to study to get the lady as Caddy's moving. But I think with stuff like the equipment stuff, it's like, yeah, I agree, like hearing Tiger and Adam Scott to like world number one players start to talk about it.

It's like, man, that's not nothing, I don't know. Because Tiger's probably the guy that should be pissed off about it the most, right? He's the best, yeah, he's the most talented in the new July for Sean. So much and his pride. Without it out. Shout out to this tweet we just saw from SB Straight Vibe

and almost a huge day for John Peterson today with Patrick Katelyn, almost winning. That's true, that's great. I thought you were going to say with the kid that Chandler Phillips kid, they got blown away. That's also a big shout out there. Let's dive into the USA and then I think that's a good transition point. TCU went up for a couple days this week, watch a little golf up there.

A new format they had, they used two golf courses there, the fourth and the second course there and did that for the final. 36th whole final at first time. Have never watched it. I mean, we can give Mr. Ogletree is the champion but I think we all agree it does have an asterisk, right? I mean, yeah, a lot of people were saying that, that had certain participants read the qualifying information

in schedule a little bit closer. You know, there could have been a much different field that took place. If it had been communicated, but you're gonna say it's called association, I think. Instead, we got to scum me ask, WD. Yeah. It was a very legitimate WD. I had a commitment to my family. You guys are my family.

For those who can't remember, Solid tried to qualify for the USAM and thought that it was a one-day qualifier What it was actually a two-day qualifier. I knew it was 36 holes I just thought it was all in one day and we had a flight to cab at the next day. Solid real quick Did you just mister a guy like? 14 years younger than you. Yeah, he won the USAM Mr. a guy like 14 years younger than you. Yeah, he's the one the USM. He's part of the USPF now. Bobby Jones is Mr. Jones, right?

He's the USM Jones. He's a Georgia Tech guy. Mr. Jones, actually he becomes the third Georgia Tech guy to win the USM. Also Mr. Koocher. Mr. Koocher. I also see your Koocher. I've missed your Koocher.

I missed it because I forgot his first part to the world. It's Adam. Shout out Adam. Good plan. Is it Adam because it says Andy Ogletree here for his own charity? For sure, Andy. It's Andy.

I think it's wearing the prep, we said. I kept calling him. I called Ogletree after the Georgia linebacker. I'm like, Joe Buck, I got some bad. He's so happy. He will be fired, don't worry about that. Could be a super nice, it seems like a super nice kid. Good game.

He's so Georgia Tech it hurts. Do you want to unpack? I'm just gonna leave that thing. I don't know what to do with that. Anyway. Well, so I think one thing that was a little bit, you know, not to take anything away from his win, but I do think just talking to people up there this week,

there was a definite kind of, not a poll over the whole event, but you could definitely tell that like the top five or six players bounced, like they weren't there, like there's such a massive, big turn pro between Morikawa, Hoveland, Wolf, Wilgordon, Justin, so like those guys where it's like,

you know, the fact that they're, that they're off basically, you know, basically winning PJTWR. Yeah, it's like, you know, it kind of, it kind of makes you think a little bit, you know, but personally I'm shocked, like after falling, I've been seeing for a couple days,

I'm shocked that he didn't win. I mean so all credit to Mr. Ogletree. Mr. Ogletree. Well I mean this is totally half-baked idea here but like should the USAM move up? Like should it be earlier in the year so that you know as soon as guys are graduating college they go play the USAM and if they want to turn pro they can do it right then. Or is this is is gonna keep happening? I mean notes kind of always been in this in this time frame. I think it's just always going to keep happening.

I mean, you got to pick a date, you know, you got to pick a date at some point there's going to be a cutoff where like certain events are in certain events are out. And once you start trying to move it all, like you can't, it's like you can really do it like during the school year, right? And so many people are going to turn pro after NCAAs. And well, I'm just saying it's so like for the qualifiers down here, it'll be in one day. No, just tell it. Yeah, no, I'm just wondering,

like literally next year, what do you think it's gonna be? You can do it. Like, you do look at a guy like Raiden Borneberry who went pro last year and he doesn't have a card anywhere and he's going back to Q school and all that. So I think some of this may be solved

by the Tours U program. You spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, to the South Florida. They're bringing Larry Coker up a status in. It's in development right now. So it's basically a path for the top ranked college players to go straight to the corn fairy tour. Based on their body of work. Oh, that's right, that's right. That's the dumb one though, where you gotta be a senior. Well, it's not been rolled out yet,

but many people are saying that, yeah, you're gonna have to go all four years and, uh, yeah, all that stuff. They're still tweaking it. The NCAAs and we'll, which shout out to, you know, Moracala and Wolf and Hoveland, all of which are succeeding despite leaving early. Are Moracala graduation maybe? I don't know. Who can say?

They're all good. They all went pro and something other. Well, that's what I was going to say. Many people go pro and something other than sports. I don't know how you can cater this all went pro and something other. Well, that's what I was going to say. Many people go pro and something other than sports. I don't know how you can cater to the pro, to these aspiring pro. Are you saying it's discriminatory? It's discriminatory against, you know.

No, I don't know. Let's do this. Let's get back. Let's get back. So TCE were up there. I mean, first of all, at least for like a television viewer, I remain that Pinehurst is like the greatest championship viewing golf

course to watch. Yeah, I was kind of, I went up Thursday, Friday, left my wallet on the kitchen counter, I realized Alex calling about two hours in the trip. Great, so I double back. I got there about four, five hours later than I was expecting to, but walked around a lot on Thursday and I don't think I've ever seen a course look as good as fine-hers number two did on Thursday, and then it rained,

it rained like crazy on Friday, they scooted T-times back to match up with the TV window and then sure enough. It rained just pours for about an hour or so. But yeah, I mean, the course look just absolutely unbelievable. The no ropes thing. Like I've been to the US junior AM a couple of times before but never been to the US AM.

The no ropes thing is like a game changer. And just how much it feels like you're just traveling back in time to watch a golf tournament back in the 20s or the 30s. Especially a pine herds where everything feels kind of throw back and vintage and stuff in a good way. Like it's just a very... Like it really accented the way that there's not really any rough and there's not...

Like it felt kind of like there were no boundaries, right? You know, the fairway is kind of just fade into the waste areas and... Which those waste areas are looking low-key thick or thicker than I remember then. I was a big time punishment from missing fairways. Yeah, missing fairways. Yeah, I think the way that those have come in versus, you know, I was talking to somebody the other day and they said, yeah, you know, I like number four, it just looks so unnatural.

It's like, well, yeah, it's brand new. Like, you gotta give that stuff. That stuff's really hard to make look natural. You gotta give it a few years. It was a fuzz. If you thought it looks unnatural now. A fuzz with potbunk. I was just gonna say, imagine when you had,

you have potbunkers full of grass. What'd you think of number four, first time seeing it? First time seeing it. It was really cool. There was one hole out there that, you know, guys were a little pissed about where, like if you could carry it 310, 315, you're, you're basically having like a flip wedge in,

other, and then everybody else gets, you know, it's like 220, 230 out. It was like that whole at Stream Song Black. Number three. Oh, love that whole. Exactly, yeah. But yeah, I'm really other than that. Love that, walked around that on Friday morning a little bit.

Just the whole buzz around town too was, it was the perfect mix of like, there was a general buzz and just everybody was excited, but without it being jam packed, like for a major or something like that. Like you knew something special was going on but you could actually get out and enjoy it and watch the golf and go to the bars and bunch of media people, agents,

like all the people you expect to run into it a major were there, but just without all the other bullshit, which is nice. That's why Mr. Nicholas refers to it as a major still. That's classy. So I told my wife I'd be home Saturday morning, Friday night, so I came home Friday night, so I wasn't like baking, I was trying to get beers on Friday night, and I was like, I know how this is going to turn out. I am heading home.

As far as a little bit afraid that it wasn't going to look as good on TV. And it looked just as good on TV. It was awesome to sit and watch. Like I got up this morning. It was was watching the streaming coverage from number four, because I wanted to obviously make sure I saw a little bit of that and how it compared to two. And I thought it looked, you know, from a TV perspective, it looked not indistinguishable, but like it just looked so good. It was so on, you know, it's a different golf course,

and it's built for different people. And number two is a US Open championship with a capital C type of golf course. And I think number four is a little bit more resort-y, but I actually kind of liked the difference in watching those two guys play both courses today, because like, Ogginstein goes out and I think makes like six or seven birdies on number four in the morning. It's like, dude, you're, just get them now, because like, you are not doing that this afternoon. And I think it's like, a lot of people I think would say, you know, it's, it's not as good of a test if you're not playing the same course twice, and I almost think you could make a case where it's like more of a complete test

to playing two different courses, right? He's in different muscles, yeah. No, yeah, I thought it was great that they did. And I was hoping that it would go all 36 holes. That's the one argument against it's like, if somebody would have ran away with it, they missed the last like six holes. The special in the whole country is four down through five holes

and came back and flipped it all the way around. But yeah, I've never seen, not a whole lot in golf gets you that excited and you're like, oh, fuck! You're weird to go play there. I know. I kept texting you guys the whole week and like, so we have an event at Pinehurst next next month. So

shout out to all the people who have signed up for that. But yeah, God, I borderline many people reached out last week, especially after all the coverage stuff. Do you like golf? Are you sure you even like it? I'm like, yes, I love it. That's the problem.

I never feel like I'm excited in the way that I kind of like used to be. And watching Piner's made me excited in that way, so I can't wait to get up there and play. I'll just stand there next to some of those greens. I was like, God, I got a play here next. Like, you can put there. You can put from a lot of places around.

You can, you can. And I mean, I think it matters less at Pinehurst, making it to the 18th hole, because all 18 or so spectacular, I think it'd be something different if your pebble say and it doesn't make it the 18th hole, and it's such a spectacular step. Whereas a Piner, it's like,

if it ends on 16, it ends on 16, it's a good hole, or, but yeah, I mean, I think I was a little bummed that the kid from Texas, or from Sam Houston's state, I should say, but William Holcomb, he was a breath of fresh and shadow life. And people were mentioned on TV that he was slow. Like following him, I didn't, like his pre-shot routine was deliberate and he had that little shimmy and all that. But I didn't think he was that slow. Like he was getting his stuff

done ahead of time. He had a local Pinehurst Cadi who had someone that was aggressive facial there I've ever seen. Who was it? Was he Scottish or Irish? You couldn't tell from his accent. But like, watching here and those two go back and forth on numbers and stuff was like, that was a highlight of my golf viewing year. And there was serious, like, cause I was really excited to follow Phillips cause all these Austrians had reached out

and they're like, hey, go follow Phillips and I didn't really know his backstory. I guess his dad's been filming his rounds and he was like five and then putting him on YouTube and then they do commentary over him after the rounds. Copyrighted friends. Yeah, excuse me sir. We thought of that idea like 15 years later.

And like everybody at Target was like, yeah dude, this kid's great, but like his dad's just psycho-packed. So I was kind of like, all right cool, I can't wait to go follow this kid. And he was playing Hulk him and Hulk him just to hold the show. And then. To the week maybe was from shoe pack,

saying that as soon as Hulk him got bounced, so gets bounced from the, from the semi-finals, loses out on a spot in the Masters. And like 30 minutes later, he's done like his interviews and all this press from stuff. And then he's out on the cradle with a bag of beers

with his whole family, just like hitting shots. And like, I don't know. That speaks to a lot of things. Obviously speaks to what kind of person he is, which is really cool, but also speaks to just pine herst and how you kind of literally all you want to do is just like keep playing more golf.

It was so cool to see people out there, like because they kept that basically reserved for guys who had already got balanced or who were in the tournament this week and then, you know, select others in that. Like it was so cool to see people right there next to next to 18, basically, you know, coming up the cradle and all that. I will say for the final today, you know, we're talking about a lot of things going on with pace

playing golf, it was abysmal. It was, and I know it's a different look because you're only following along match, and the camera stay right there with you, and the Fox obviously did an awesome job getting re-entited and hearing the whole conversations just like, do like one, guys, run some commercials. We're fine, like this is totally,

we're gonna forgive you here, you're gonna run commercials here. And it was just tough, had a tough rhythm to it, I will say. It was, like there were a few media people there kind of complaining about how they're just more in any heavyweights other than Augustine, I guess, but like otherwise it was all kind of underdogs, all. I don't know if I really, I didn't know where, but I don't know if I really get that.

I guess if you have to write about it, you would care about that, but are there really that many quote unquote heavyweights in Amateur golf? Like if you're tuning in to watch this, you're gonna watch whoever's playing, right? Well, does that just mean you have to do more work to figure out the bad hours? Well, I think that was part of it.

And then they were also like, you know, I'm trying to write about Walker Cup or this and I was like, dude, like Austin Squires, I followed him for a while. And like, like him playing the kid that's a junior in college who's dad's the pro at high school. Or in high school who's dad's the pro at an old way really where they had the US women's ant last week. Like that was awesome to watch, Squires,

he goes to university since an addy. You know, like there was two brothers that left in the, I think in the round of 16, they were still there. So people were like, how could these two brothers play them? Like the cootie brothers? Yeah, the cooties.

But I do think the greens were a little bit too fast. Did you go to the burrito? I did. I went with actually one with my caddy, Joe's wickle. Good player in his own right here. Good player in his own right. Did you see Dana Murphy there? I just, I don't know. That's unfair.

That is classless. I'm just joking. Why just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just joking. Why don't we talk a little Corn Ferry finals. Scotty Sheffler wins the nationwide, what is the, nationwide children's hospital championship? I thought you were going to say like the nationwide tour. Like dude, it's been like two other sponsors. You win the buy.com tour championship. Boy, these dot coms are really taking off.

Buy now, if you can. Brennan Todd, BoHosler, and Ben Taylor, all tied for second. So they locked up tour cards for next year. Robert Streb and Brandon Hagey finished it, tied for fifth. I don't know if that gets them in and I think it's kind of like, dude, just make a cut and you're probably good. I think Shephler winning, like in and was solo six, I think,

but the fact that there was so many guys tied for fifth, but the fact that Sheffler won, and he's already got his card. Takes a bunch of points out of the mix. Yeah, so good be for Curtis Luck, our guy. He finished tied for seventh, Victor Hovelin finished tied for 11th after opening with 64. It looked like he was just gonna lock it up

right from the get go, but he should probably still be fine. Just needs a couple good top finishes. He needs like a T25 or something. Yeah, it won't take a whole lot. It's different this year. With only three events versus four, it really tightens up. It makes, puts that much more value in a top 10 finisher or like for Havelin a top 11. So. Smoking Scotty. Second, second win in the year. Top 11, so. Smoke and Scotty, second win in the year. Stud. Absolutely. I'm taking him first in the Fred Ex Cup playout.

Well, Fred Ex Cup tryout. That's interesting, is you, yeah, you might be in last place. You might have, you might have, you might have, you absolutely might get that chance. For those that have followed the season long race for the Fred Ex Cup, I think it come, if I've done the math right, if SungJM finishes in the top 13, I'm gonna e-crandy out for the title. I think it come if I've done the math right if sung J.M. finishes in the top 13

I'm gonna eek Randy out for the for the title and if he finishes anything other than that Then Randy's gonna be the winner your pizza party your pizza party is gonna be soulless though. It's all hired guns Mercenaries, there's no there's no hard on you didn't even draft them. You didn't let me You don't even know each other on your team. No, not at all We operate on an individual basis. We lock ourselves in our room and we stay focused. You guys are like the dream out. I will not take any critiques from that side of the table at all.

Tee-Tee's going to be last place. General Hummel's guys in the rock. Punch a mercenary. Mercenaries get paid. My guys feel so bad about their performance this year that each of them is gonna take me out for pizza. Talk to Hank and Chase right around already. You guys all passed on SungJM and let me have them with the lat with a little bit.

I was saying if there was two things, I think we knew immediately after the draft and did where like Cash, one of us probably should have picked Lucas Glover. And we probably should have just like let Sally have SungJM. Those are, I mean, those feel like two mistakes I could come back to bite.

For God's sake, Neil drafted Roberto Castro first of all. That was unexpected. Yeah, I think some of his scouts may have been fired shortly after that, at least mid season. All right, we are, we have our event coming up this week, the summit in Denver. We'll be out there Thursday and Friday. Looking forward to that. Hopefully catching a little bit of toward championship on the weekend.

But getting out of Fortifer, the week for the most part and getting up to the Rockies, looking forward to that event. Gonna have a live podcast out there with special guests, which you'll hear next week on the show. And I think we're announced it. Did we? Okay, it's Tom Doughke. And then on the back of this episode, as well, we have a chat with Brooke Henderson

earlier this week as the CP Women's Open, better known as the Canadian Open. This is this coming week on the LPGA tour. She is, of course, defending her title there. And we've been wanting to have her on for quite some time. And we caught up, I wanted to do it in person. We chatted over the phone earlier this week and should be about a 30 minute interview talking about what it's like to kind of carry the torch for Canadian women's golf and what it's like to be a rock star in Canada and her career today, so that was a lot of fun. Did you ask her about bagged milk? I did not ask her about bagged milk.

You maybe can get her bagged on the phone. Yeah, I can't give a fuck. I can shoot her message and see if she can, you're looking for an official statement on bagged milk. Well, I know she's big into big in this cereal. She loves cereal It's like one of her passions. So I was just she's like she likes lucky I like charm so natural follow up. Yeah My research did building off the cereal question

Anything else before we turn it over to Brooke You got a couple things to get off my chest Just check it. All right, thanks everyone for tuning in. Everyone enjoyed the Torch Championship and without for the delay here is Brook Henderson. Pride of Canada, all the Canadians have been all over us for not having you on yet. Brook Henderson, welcome. How are you? I'm doing very well.

How about you? Good, thanks. You're defending your title. We're recording this the week before the CP Women's Open next week. But I want to get to talk about your win there last year, of course. But I want to go back. What was it like the first time as a Canadian that you played in that event? I was 14 years old when I played my first Canadian Open.

And it was a dream come true, honestly. Just being able to hit balls next to my idols, walk into lunch and into the locker room and, you know, have my locker right beside so many people that I've admired for so long. And, you know, Lori Cain, who was, you know, who's been an incredible role model and really the face of golf in Canada for a long time. And, you know, she came up and introduced herself to me and you know it was just amazing feeling and although I didn't make the cut that that time I felt like I learned so much and it's really helped

me from that point on just kind of knowing what to expect in those LPJ tour events. What is it and you've had so much success at such a young age what is it about women players that top talent seems so much more ready to play at a really, really high level at a younger age? I don't know how well you can compare that to the men's game, but why is it that people come out, you know, yourself, Lydia Coe, and so many young players, Nelly Corda, Jessica Corda, come out so ready to play

at such a young age? Do you have any insight as to why that might be? Not too much. I guess just in science class, when you learn that girls, maybe mature a little bit for the guys, too, but just physically and mentally and everything. But I think just watching Lydia Coe succeed at such a young age for me, that was really inspiring.

Even though I had dreams to play on the Opi Jator tour just watching her get the job done and compete against the best in the world and be number one in the world at such a young age and I was like, wow, you know, if she can do it, I can do it too. So I think there's just been a lot, maybe more success at a young age on the LPJ tour and people realize that they're capable of it as well. I mean, were your nerves when you're teaming up at age 14, how do they compare to how you teed up in an LPJ event now? Yeah, I was shaking a lot more back then.

But like I said, I just learned so much from that weekend, just understanding even pressure and that experience and nerves for one thing. I've just been able to be a lot more relaxed and just gained so much confidence since then. So when you teed up at the CP Women's Open, which is basically the Canadian national open, does it feel a lot different than most other tournaments feel for you? Absolutely. Right from the get go Monday morning, there's a lot more demands on me, a lot more requests from media

and fans and I love it, it's really special. People come out from all over to support and even my practice runs, I have hundreds of people following and it's like this doesn't normally happen on week to week on the LPG tour. So it's really special and hopefully I can play as well as I did last year that would be outstanding. But I think just to go into this week as a defending champion, enjoy the crowds, enjoy the energy and hopefully get four solid rounds together. When you won last year, how does that compare to say winning a major championship, which you've also done? I've always said that the Canadian Open was like the sixth major on the LPG tour

for me. I'm always trying to peak that week. And so, winning it last year, it was like winning a major championship. It was very similar to the feelings I felt in 2016 when I won it to Hawley. And, you know, it's very meaningful, very important, and I'm just looking forward to the opportunity to either win a major or win a Canadian Open again. So we touched on this a little bit talking about the age stuff, but I think this is a slightly different question.

But just to set the scene for people that maybe don't know your Wikipedia page, the Canadian press female athlete of the year for 2015, 17 and 18, you won your first major when you're 18 years old at the 2016 KPMG. Women's PGA, and it's a hard question to answer no to without coming off too cocky, but I'm going to try. But were you surprised, I guess, to have so much success so soon and how much did life change for you in that time period? You know, I always felt that I loved the game of golf and I felt like I was really good at it. You know, playing my first LPG Tour event when I was 14, it was kind of like an eye opener.

It was like, you know, if I continue to work really hard, I get some breaks. You know, maybe I can make a career out of this. And then, you know, I was 17, I won my first LPG Tour event and that was unreal. And, you know, I felt like so many doors were opened and I just built so much confidence and then you know going into the 2016 season, I had like 11 top 10s in a row or something and then I had no win yet in the season and then I went into Sawhale and you know everything just went really perfect that week and I was able to beat world number one in a playoff. That's one of my first majors. So, I mean, it was just like a dream.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to think that it was actually happened. So, I think in a way, I mean, I always had big goals and expectations. But yeah, I've been surprised at how successful I've been over the last four or five years. What was the process like? It kind of explained it for maybe the people that don't know, you're having all the success at a young age, but the LPGA having the rule basically that you needed to be 18 years old to be a member.

So what was that, did you file a wafer to try to get special membership? Or what was that process like? You won the event at 17, how did that change things for you? And kind of set the scene for us there. Yeah, you know, when I was 16, I was just, I was playing a lot of amateur events. I was winning a lot. I went to number one world amateur ranking, I guess, in September.

So I was just maybe turned 17 and that year I petitioned the LPJ to let me try to go to qualifying school. Not to try to join the LPJ, but just to try to go to qualifying school before my 18th birthday. And they said no, so I sort of had to do it the hard way. I turned pro when I was 17. I went to Monday qualifiers. I asked for as many sponsor exemptions as I could get. I qualified for the US open and any other tournament that I could qualify for. And, you know, I just tried to go in and play my best at every single week and it just happened that in Portland that year. I Monday qualified and then I won the event later that week.

So, I mean, it was just sort of a, it was a hard battle, you know, traveling all around the place. Just trying to find somewhere to play and try to get my LPG tour card somehow. And then once I won, I petitioned again and they said I could be an LPG member. And that's the rest of history, I guess. Well, we kind of started, we dove right into some of the, your successes in early professional golf, but kind of take us back to the beginning where you learned golf from. And I want to kind of dive into your relationship with your sister who is your caddy, your older sister, and how did you learn your game from your family, your parents, and how did

you end up playing golf competitively? Yeah, so my sister and I really started playing golf pretty much at the same time, more six years apart, so I was like three, four years old and she was around nine. And it was just really fun for me to go out and play with her and also with my dad who was still my coach to this day. So the three of us would be out long hours in the summer and after school,

just practicing and hanging out. And if I wanted to be with them, I had to go to the golf course. So that was another reason why I just loved it so much. It was a family thing. It was bonding and you know my sister was so talented and you know she made Candace National Team when she was 14 and she went on to a golf scholarship in the US and it was fun for me to watch all of her success and to follow around on the weekends and my dad and I

would be walking the sidelines watching her play and I'd find a stick or an umbrella and I'd be swinging it trying to mimic her swing and that's really where I learned to play and I'm just so grateful that she's my caddy now and we can enjoy this journey all together. On that note, your swing is very unique. It doesn't look like really any other golf swings I think I've seen.

Where did you learn it from? And is it something that was just kind of like your natural swing and like you mentioned your dad is And is it something that was just kind of like your natural swing? And like you mentioned, your dad is your coach. Is that did he ever try to change your, the length of your back swing, or any of your motion? Or was it just kind of like, here's how she, how she does it? Let's harness this as best we can.

Yeah, you know, a lot of people have said that my swing basically looks the same as when I was five years old. So that's kind of cool. But, you know, I have a lot of very unique things happening in my swing, but they seem to work really well. So, you know, my dad and my sister, they always just try to fine-tune a little bit, but never big changes. And, you know, when it's working, you know, you don't really want to try to revamp anything or go into big fixes. So we try to keep it pretty simple.

More work happens on strategy, more than technical swing thoughts. Have you ever received, I mean, I know a lot of people, you know, anywhere in media and what not, will think that there's swing experts or critiques. Have you ever received any real critiques from people in media anywhere or any coaches say, she needs to change this, needs to do this. And is that something you need to consistently block out? You know, when I was growing up a lot of people said like my backswing may need to be a little shorter and I've always I've always gripped up on my clubs and they wanted me to

lengthen it out. And just you know small things like that that my dad said, you know, it's working for her right now. Let's just go with it. You know, she's being successful. And, you know, I'm really happy that he kind of stepped in and didn't make those changes because you never know what could have happened.

And, you know, I'm just, yeah, just grateful and very fortunate that my swimming has worked out so well the last few years. And, you know, I think I'm very fortunate as well not to have had any injuries and had to change my swing for that reason as well and I think until that happens I probably know swing changes will happen. How has your game changed or evolved since you came out onto the tour or has it I guess maybe a better question?

You know I think every week out on tour, you learn a little bit, you learn a little something. And, you know, I think playing all around the world and playing on different types of grasses and different weather conditions, different styles of golf courses as well. So I'm always broadening my skills and, you know, getting a little bit better,

which is really exciting. And I think another huge thing that has really been important to my success on tour is my short game. I think just spending time with the best players in the world, watching them practice, watching how talented they are around the Greens has really helped me in making a lot more confident when I step up to a small chip around the greens or even putting. That may not still be a strength of my game, but I'm a lot more confident. I feel that I can get the job done more consistently.

For me personally, I think I sometimes I grow a bit tired of the hockey stereotype that comes with Canadians, you know, in any one that Like if the Canadian opened this year on the men's tour They you know they had the hockey rink set up around along the tee box whatnot But with you it's actually true. You were a goalie growing up. Is that right? Yeah, that's right Were you a competitive player? I got was it a serious Serious sport for you and how did you end up kind of shifting away from that towards golf? Yeah, I loved playing hockey So I'd play golf in the summer and then hockey in the winter sport for you and how did you end up kind of shifting away from that towards golf? Yeah, I loved playing hockey.

So I'd play golf in the summer and then hockey in the midterms. It was a lot of fun for me. My dad was a goalie, so it was cool for me to kind of follow in his footsteps and be a goalie as well. And I feel like mentally and physically it gave me a lot of strength. You know, I had to carry around a lot of equipment. I trained with my teammates. I'd skate around like they did, but I was carrying a lot of strength. You know, I had to carry around a lot of equipment. I trained with my teammates. I'd skate around like they did, but I was carrying a lot more equipment. So I got, you know, sort of strong and sort of powerful from that.

And then, you know, mentally, there's so much pressure on being a goalie, either the hero or you're like so far from that. So I think just kind of being there when your teammates depend on you. I think I've really kind of carried that over into golf now when I'm coming down the stretch and I need to hit some good shots and kind of lean on my hockey background. But it was it was a great time in my life for sure. I haven't skated in probably five or six years now. But I can't risk that it's you can't risk injury now at this point, right? Yeah, that's right. What it's always kind of I guess for you know, I'm an American and most of our listeners are American But the pride that Canada seems to take in you has always been really intriguing to me Do you feel like more of a rock star when you go to Canada than you do say walking around in the states and whatnot or what what's kind of the The reaction like when you're back home in Canada.

It's pretty cool. It's really special. It's kind of hard to do things again, though, without somebody coming up to you, but I love it. I never thought I'd be in this position where I'm just out having dinner and people come over for autographs or for some pictures.

So it's pretty neat. And in the US, when all snowbirds are down, I get that as well. But hopefully over the next few years, I can continue to win more events and get more popular around the globe. Where is your home base now? And where do you play your golf?

Yes. So in the winter time, I'm based in Florida and down near Naples. And I love it. It's perfect weather and perfect place to train and kind of hang out and relax. So I love that and then you know in the summer I like to come back to Canada Stay under the heat and kind of spend time at my cottage That's I'm I'm waiting on that plan. We live in Florida and I'm so sick of Florida summers This is my second one and I'm like okay. I need to be be on the Canada plan. I could spend summers in Canada and winters in Florida.

Are there any famous Canadians that keep close tabs on your status or stay in contact with you throughout your year's on tour? You know, sometimes when I win an event, I'm sort of surprised that people that reach out and say that they've been watching and it's kind of it's kind of cool for me you know at Wynne Gretzky I was talking to him this year at the LA Open and he came up to me and said your friend to watch and I was like wow that's really cool he's coming from here and you just never know who's paying attention and who's watching out there. And, you know, my minister tweeted at me when I won a few weeks ago and it's just

kind of as I mentioned before, sort of surreal. It's really exciting, though. And, you know, hope they can just kind of keep it going. Uh, what are some of maybe your goals, either short term or long term? I know a lot of professionals are pretty hesitant to share what their goals are because they get held up to those standards by the media, but do you have any particular goals that you're working towards? A big one for me is scoring average. The last couple years I've been under 70, so I

like to keep that going. And I feel that if my scoring average is under 70, then I'm putting myself in contention in a lot of weeks. So if I feel like if I can accomplish that then you know good things will come in the future and I think you know to reach that goal you kind of have to sharpen up your skills especially in the short game for me. I feel like ball striking is really a strength of mine. So you know continuing to work on that putting chipping just being a little bit more confident there and you know hopefully more wins will come due to the scoring average. What, I got a couple of just random, grab bag-ish questions here, but I'm always curious

to ask people, what's the most disappointed or heartbroken you've been after an event and what would the lessons you learned from that event be? You know, I think last summer I was leading the marathon, which is a tournament in Ohio. I was leading, I think, all three rounds leading into the final round. I played great. The first maybe 12, 13 who was on the final round and then down the stretch, you know, nothing seemed to go right. And I just sort of felt like I gave the tournament away. You know all I had to do was par

in and I made a birdie and then a couple bogeys. So it was sort of, you know, leaving that 18th green I was very disappointed and just how I performed those last five or six holes and I think that experience, knowing how bad it felt right after, kind of made me dig a little deeper. The next time I was in contention, and that next time I was in contention, was a Canadian women's open. So I think that experience was sort of meant to be.

I learned so much from it, and then I was able to use what I learned at the open, and when a tournament that I was dreaming of since I was a little girl. Yeah well I think you may have just answered that but I was going to say on the flip side what's the most overjoyed you've been? I had a feeling it was between that and the KPMG women's PGA that you won but is is there a way to is there a way to rank those one and two at all? I think just tied first for sure. Yeah just when I won 2016, it was my second win on tour and it was my championship. So just so special and I think both wins for me were pretty

emotional and just, you know, very meaningful. What do you think of the overall direction of the LPGA tour? And I know you haven't been out there, maybe, you know, as long as the people that the players that have been out there since the late 2000s and early 2010s kind of saw a different era of it. But our understanding seems to be that most of the women are pretty thrilled with the leaderships and the development of the schedule and what not. Is that is that pretty consistent with what you believe in the overall direction of the tour? Yeah, absolutely. I would say it's trending in the right direction and everything seems

to be going great for the tour right now. You know, purses are increasing. There's more tournaments every single year and the talent of players, the depth of players, I think, is continuing to get better. And, you know, we're a global tour and even people from different countries are coming and joining the tour every single year. So I think it's really exciting to be a part of. And I'm just looking forward, I've been on tour for four or five years now, and I'm looking forward to the next 10 years and just seeing all the differences and the increases that we are making.

We've had Mike Juan on and talked to him about his overall philosophy and how he treats sponsors as part of negotiations and welcoming them into the tour. How does that message get delivered on to the players? In our experiences, we've had in programs, it seems like the players are just so engaging, more engaging than on the PGA tour. How does that message get delivered down to the players? It seems like you guys have all kind of our arm and arm to say like We are all in this together and we need to do all these things to help promote our tour So I'm curious as to like what what kind of things the tour does to deliver that message to you and how you guys execute it

Yeah, I think on the LPG tour we realize how important the sponsorships are and we realize how great we, you know, we have it on tour to be able to play the game that we love. And we're always pushing for improvements and getting better, but we're also very happy for the people that have supported us and, you know, programs to us are fun. It's another way to see the golf course. It's a great way to meet new people. And I feel the LPJ tour is great and Engaging with fans and especially inspiring the next generation. So I feel like we are all very grateful for where we're at We're very hopeful for what's to come and you know just trying to really enjoy it and be the best that we can be out there We talked a bit about your sister who is your caddy, but I'm curious, I'm sure you get this question a lot,

but do you guys ever, ever, ever bicker back and forth like sisters are ripe to do or is it a pretty professional relationship? How do you guys mend that bridge between family and professionalism? You know, surprisingly, we get along extremely well. And if we ever do have a problem, we get over it pretty quick, which I think is why we have been so successful over the last four years. And I think we sort of came up with a system when we first started

a player caddy. And you know, at the end of the day, I'm the player. I have to be happy with the decision that we make. So she can give me a ton of different options. She can express her opinion. And sometimes very strongly, she expresses it. But at the end of the day, I have to be comfortable with it. And I'm the guy hitting the shot. So I think she's the boss, maybe off the course, but on the course, that's definitely me.

And I think that's worked out really well for us so far. What do you think the future of the game holds as far as potential crossovers between the LPGA tour and PGA tour? You hear a lot of half-baked ideas out there of crossover events. Is that something you think there is a serious appetite for for the women on the LPGA tour and is it something you can picture happening in the near future? I know, I think it'd be really fun. I play an event every year that CBS Health Charity Classic and my partners are Kagan Bradley

and Billy Andrade. So it's PJ tour, Champions tour and LPJ tour. And it's so fun. And we've also won it the last three years. So it makes it a little bit more fun. Yeah, that's going to be fun for you. But just seeing how powerful the men's game is and how talented they are. It's a lot of fun for us, us girls, to see that and to play and be partners with them.

And I think it would be a really cool experience for the fans as well. And no, this is probably a hard question for you to answer. I mean, seeing that you're still only 21, which I had to do a double take when I saw that on your Wikipedia page. But how long do you see yourself playing LPGA tour golf? I know it's a tough question for women. And some people, Lydia Kog got a lot of backlash when she said that she doesn't see herself playing past the age of 30.

But is this something you see yourself doing for a long, long time, or is it something you maybe haven't thought of yet? Yeah, you know, I'm not really sure yet, you know, every year I'm just trying to get a little bit better, trying to push myself, and I think the thing with sports is you never really know how long your career is going to be. You can be very hopeful for a long one and successful one, but you never really know, and I think just continuing to improve and get better and you kind of see where this leads. Do you consider yourself a veteran yet?

I sort of do. Yeah. Which is kind of crazy. But I feel like I have had so many great experiences on the tour. And you know, the last four or five years have gone by so fast but it's been so much fun and I feel like people come up and ask me stuff which is a really neat experience for you know like you said 21 year old. Well what is was there anyone that mentored you kind of when you came out onto the LPGA tour and what are some of the most like important lessons you learned early on? Elena Sharp, who is also a fellow Canadian. She's been on tour for well over 10 years now and she has been a huge mentor and a great

friend to me since I first started and just little things like what hotels to stay in, what airport to fly into, where the good food is, just the small things that you don't really think about when you're traveling around, but they make the world a difference. And she was there with that. And that first year I played on the LPJ tour,

we played a practice round pretty much every week together. And she was kind of helping me around the courses. And I owe her a lot for all the success that I've had and you know she doesn't want anything back in return she's just doing it as you know a great friend and a role model. That's what Canadians are though. That Canadians are nice like that. This is our our favorite question to ask. When was the last time you paid for a round of golf? Ooh, I don't even know. Maybe like eight years ago, six years ago, maybe.

It's been a long time. Everybody freezes up on that one. They never know the answer to that one. I'm curious, is there a player on the LPGA tour that you look around and say and kind of wish you had a particular skill that they had or wish you could do a certain thing like they do. For instance, like, were we asked Rory this

and he said, Rory said, I wish I had Steve Stricker's wedge game. Is there a skill of yours you'd trade out for a particular skill that somebody else has on tour? You know, I think there's so many talented players at the top of the LPJ tour that sometimes I do look around and you know, Gen. Young, like I could put like her, I feel like I would win a lot more, you know, Mae Jitani-Groom, her wedge game, and like around the greens is phenomenal. So it's such soft

hands and sometimes I'm thinking I kind of want to mimic that. So I feel like the more you look around, there's aspects of everybody's game that are very admirable. And you know, sometimes you try to just kind of pay attention to what they're practicing on and try to try to match that. And we shout this from the rooftops anytime we have any conversation about LPGA tours that there's so much that male amateur players can learn from LPGA tour players and how you guys how you guys navigate golf courses and get the ball into the hole. I want to know the first time that you came out on the LPGA tour, who were you most star struck by? The first time that you see them

on the range, you look over and you say, whoa, I'm on the same range as so and so. Who was that person? For me, it was probably Morgan Ple. She was my huge role model growing up. I loved to watch her play on TV and then when I was hitting golf balls at the presider and seeing her in the friends and sometimes it's just funny, I told her that for the first while, first couple of years, I couldn't even really talk to her because I was still so nervous and like, just in awe of her, but now we're getting along a lot better.

Mm-hmm. Did you ever imagine that you'd be able to call yourself an Olympian? You know, I think that's another thing that growing up, everybody wants to go to the Olympics, everybody wants to compete and you know, have the chance to win a gold medal and to have the opportunity to do that in 2016 was amazing. To be in the Olympic Village with that, those amount of incredible athletes. The best in the world was just an amazing experience for me.

Well, what do you remember the most about that week? You know, I walked by Simone Biles and that was really cool for me. She's so powerful and the best at what she does. And I think just seeing athletes like that, you know, Penny Alexia, who is also Canadian Olympian who did really well at Rio in 2016. So I heard as well. So I feel like you're just crossing paths with the best athletes in the world. And that's an amazing experience. All right. A random one as we get close to wrapping up here. But what is the most,

though, either the worst golf shot you've ever hit in a professional event or the most embarrassing golf shot You've ever hit in a professional event who You got to make us feel like like you guys are mortal in some way here. I feel like probably Probably a skull, but at the time tend to work out pretty well you know seeing a pork a couple years ago I just had a little wedge but didn't hit it quite as cleanly as I would have liked pretty thin and it still ended up on

the green I was still putting for birdie so I can't complain to that. Oh that's your most embarrassing shot you still hit the green with a with a skulled wedge come on. I got a great bounce did it hit someone is that why I got on the green I just hit into the bank it's really hard all right we'll broke best of luck next week and enjoy the week and I know you got it it's gonna be a crazy one so we really appreciate you you taking the time with us today and we'll be rooting for you hard next week well thanks so much you bet take care

Cool thanks so much. You bet, take care. Give it a big round of applause. Be the right club today! That's better than most. How about it? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different?

Better than most.