No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - NLU Podcast, Episode 330: Peter Kostis, Part II

Episode Date: July 15, 2020

Our man is back! Peter Kostis joins to talk a bit more about golf on TV, why streaming happens and what those days are like for announcers, and the next deal. He also details some stories from his time at Augusta, including a great Greg Norman story. We also pick his brain on his teaching, what Bryson is currently doing, technology, Formula 1, and a great Tiger story near the end. Thanks again to Peter for the time.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to be the right club today. Yes! That is better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. talk about a variety of topics, not just TV. We do some TV stuff up on the front part and then some just some stories of his years on the road and where he sees the game going, Bryson, all that good stuff. We talk a lot about what's in the hands of tour players. We talk about Phil and Xander.

They're Maverick Sub-Zero drivers. We talk a lot about what's in our hands, like my X-Forge Irons, Neal's Triple Track Golf Ball. But very rarely, I think this is the first time ever that we've talked about what is on those hands. And that's the Callaway Tour Offensive Glove. It's what gives Callaway professional staffers around the world trust, and it's what we wear. When we're out on the course,

I remember I put this on for the first time at the Epic Flash launch event last January. And I remember asking the guys, like, hey, can I take this home? Like, I've never worn one of these. Is this an actual tour glove? And they're like, yeah, I mean, we can get you some of these. They are that good.

I go through these very rapidly, of course, because I got glandular issues, but Trons now got them in left hand right hand. I don't know if we've seen that combination used just yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if he does do that. The Callaway Tour authentic is tackier. It's softer and thinner. It's made from premium Cabrera leather.

And it's infused with grip tech for a second skin fit and a 20% increase in grip performance. So check out the Calloway Tour authentic glove at callowaygolf.com. And for this Tuesday's Calloway shout out, a hearty congratulations to Patrick Sully Sullivan for breaking par with his Apex Pro irons at the Essex Country Club, Donald Ross-Jim. So from one almost Sy to another selly, what a world, there you go. So without any further delay, here's our conversation with Peter Costas.

So it used to be, we would call up Rory when we needed a big boost in podcast downloads. How does it feel to now be the guy we go to when we're looking for a boost? That speaks volumes about your podcasts. How far we've followed. I've enjoyed them all. You guys have been great.

And hopefully we can keep the popularity going. Well, what was your reaction like on your end to your first snow laying up podcast experience? It was really well received. I got my Twitter followers, I'm 90,000 of them, or whatever I have, not as many as others, but it's still a significant number. And they were, they were extremely positive about the whole thing. They were glad that I spoke truth to power, and they wished that more people would do it.

Having said that, most other people have a paying job and bosses that they have to have to be kind to. So it affords me the opportunity to kind of say what I want now. Exactly. And kind of contrasting that, I think, with our interview with Jim Nance, which I believe you listen to. But whatever your thoughts on that, I guess it was kind of the difference between the two, I think, is, you know, what you just said and that he's currently, obviously still with CBS and you're not and able to speak on a lot different things. Well, yeah, I listened to it.

Back in the day when you guys first kind of took on CBS and the way they produced their golf shows, I think almost everybody at CBS was taking a back by it by a little bit because we felt like you guys didn't really know what was going on behind the scenes in a TV telecast and the way things work. Subsequent to that, you guys have done your homework. You guys have become much more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of broadcasting a golf

tournament on television. Jim, when as far as Jim could go, given that he's the voice of CBS sports. Right. No, that makes total sense. But I'm curious, you know, with when we spoke in February, you know, you're everything with the non-Renewal, your contract or firing or however you want to phrase it, it was probably a little more fresh back in January. Do you view anything differently

about, I don't know, anything related to your job or golf on TV or anything differently after a few more months now away from it all? No, I mean, listen, golf on television right now is truly unique. It's being done in a manner that's never been tried before. CBS is the guinea pig. NBC will have a chance to do it here in a few weeks. It's extremely difficult, but I think they've done a superb job to the point where people are bitching about coverage as if it were normal coverage with a full allotment of cast and crew and equipment and the whole thing. And it isn't. I think that they've done a great job. My feelings about management haven't changed

in any way, shape or form. They have a long way to go to understand the game of golf, the viewers who watch golf, and what needs to happen to make them happy. You can say what you want about Gary and me. You can say that we were stale, whatever, it's fine. That's all cool. It's fair game. But we talked to the viewers.

Or we tried to at least, you know, when I did my swing visions. I didn't talk to other tour players. I didn't use tour speak. I tried to use simple language, communicate to the 10-tall handicap at home. When Gary was talking about a shot that was misplaced or whatever, he goes, ah, you buddies at home, you guys know exactly what this guy's feeling like, because you do this on a regular basis. So we try to talk to the viewer to enhance the viewer experience. Now what I'm seeing on television is a lot of pros

talking back and forth, the other pros in pros speak, and I'm not sure that that's all that appealing to me. Where I was kind of going with that and not to poach too directly from your appearance on the McHeller podcast, which was excellent by the way, but you sounded much more relieved to be kind of away from, I believe the phrase you use of something along lines of the propaganda machine. Yeah, you know what? I have made peace with everything. Whatever those stages of mourning are,

I went through them all. It's all cool, especially in this COVID-19 environment, I'm quite frankly happy not to be out there, exposing myself to possible health risks and so on and so forth. And I don't really need to, after all the years that I've done it, I don't need to play the game any longer. And that's fun for me.

It's so refreshing for me to be able to, to answer questions honestly and not politically correctly, like I said before, speak truth to power. Well, were you live streaming the golf this past Sunday at the work day charity open? I did. What are what are, take us there. What are days like that like for an announcing and production crew? It's 10 times more work. You're out there earlier, you have to obviously get started earlier to do your life to tape telecast. And then as you come down toward the stretch, there's always the stress of how is this show going to time out? Is it going to fit in a three hour window?

Are we going to have a playoff that's going to extend it? Because then especially if you're still live to tape past the three o'clock Eastern time, when you're actually coming on the air with the beginning of the tape show, that's really difficult to time out and edit and do all the things you have to to make it fit into the original three hour window.

So you saw toward the end and the playoff, they went to black screen and everybody was complaining about that. And I understand the complaint, but what they were doing was they were shutting down the tape machines to save time to try and fit the show into that three-hour window. It was a technical issue with a rear, not that CBS didn't want to show

what was going on in between shots. Can you shine some light on this for golf fans as to why this happens? I understand it that it has to do with the contracts. I understand this is a specific criticism that is not directed at the golf channel, is not directed at CBS, but the answer just doesn't fly for a lot of people that want to watch Conmore Cowow and Justin Thomas on their television Duke it out live and why that can't happen. Is there anything beyond? Hey, this is kind of how contracts work. This is how live TV works beyond that you can share with listeners that kind of helps explain

Why that was the case this past weekend? You know, I Wish I could but the reality is that the contracts are fairly iron-clad, and they're not conducive to calling audibles. Even though the thing that would have been really cool is to either put it on the CBS Sports Network on cable, or put it on the CBS Network live live and then rerun the show during the original time or take the time buys or whatever you have on a Sunday morning and put them at the three o'clock hour. You know, and you'd like to think that all of those things could take place and you could do the right thing for the right reasons. Unfortunately, there's contracts and not just not just with the PGA tour and so on and so forth with this contracts with the other entities who bought that time on on CBS or whatever. So it's a very complicated situation and I wish there was a way to simplify it in a situation like that, especially given that there's basically

no live sports on TV right now. Because I would imagine CBS can't love the fact that they have to, you know, air a replay. Like if they had it all their way, they would love to be able to show it live. And I understand there's other programming that, you know, he's booked very long in advance. But that's to your point, though, the CBS Sports net is one option and then back to golf channel live, this will be my other question, which I'm sure there's complications to come with that as well. But that's where I think a lot of golf fans are saying, wait a second here, there's a lot

of, there's PGA tour live, there's blah, blah, all this stuff, and we still have to go online to watch the final round. It is a hurdle for some people, And I know streaming is kind of going, you know, a certain direction. A lot of people think that's the future. But do you believe there's any hope for golf fans in the next TV contract? I know you probably don't know all the specifics of it.

But is there hope for that this kind of thing won't happen, you know, in the future? I have no idea because I don't know what the contract entails. I do know there's going to be one production source that's going to be basically PGA tour controlled. And again, is golf channel willing to pay CBS to put the program on live? And how much does it cost? And what's the feed charge? You know, there's so much involved in that whole thing. You'd like to think that the new contract

would take care of things like that. But like I said in our very first podcast, I'm not sure that there's anybody in the upper echelon of the PGA tour or the networks who care all that much. I believe a rat's ass was like, that was good. I was going to see if you soften that stance about no, about the viewer. Yeah. No, that, you know, it's, it's a business situation and they're not doing it

for the love of the game. And that's, that's where it's, you know, obviously we have, uh, it made a probably to our detriment to, you know, obviously we have made a, probably to our detriment to you know, our relationships with a lot of networks and the tour. I've just been like kind of screaming on behalf of golf fans like, hey, you're gonna need a whole new generation of people watching this if you want to keep paying this out and you know, keep the money coming in the way that it is. And there's been, there's threats.

There's threats out there to the PJ tour, and it just seems amazing to me that there doesn't seem to be action on making the experience better for viewers at home. But, you know, I think, did I tell you about Steve Jobs, the Lost Interview? I believe you did. It's on Netflix, and I encourage you, and everybody else to go and whether you're in business or not

If you want to educate yourself Basically, he talked about the importance of always Improving your product and if your product was good enough You didn't need to market it so much it would sell because people wanted it and and I don't know that The PGA tour Cares is much about the product as they do about the marketing. And as a consequence, you know, you've got to take your fight to them. You've got to take your fight to the tour and make them aware of what their constraints

on the networks are doing to the viewer experience. I mean, you can yell at me or Jim Nance or whomever you want or yell at CBS or NBC or golf channel in a general fashion, but they aren't solely responsible for the product you're seeing on TV. Right. They're giving playground and so much sand and, you know, they got to play in that playground. I wouldn't say I yelled at either you or Jim Nance, by the way, just because I'm not kidding. I wouldn't say I yelled at either you or Jim Nance, by the way, just for the right.

People are mad at me for not yelling at Jim enough on that one. No, I think it's, you know, gosh, my takeaway from that too was just, there's criticisms to be spread around and I don't want it to get dumbed down into like, you guys just hate everything you do. The CBS does. You don't understand that they're, you know, they're, you know, the contracts. Let me say, the first issue with problem solving is to identify the problem. The second issue is to come up with a solution.

And I hear a whole bunch of people identifying problems, things that they don't like. But I'm not hearing many solutions. I think we need to focus on that moving forward. We need to be positive about what we would like to see, how we would like to have a red channel, or whatever down the road. Where is golf going to be in three years, in five years, in 10 years?

It is what it is this year. And next year, it's the end of the original contract. What's it going to be like in the next ten year contract, and have they made room for improvements along the way, or is this going to be a hard and fast ten year contract with X amount of commercial minutes and this and that and whatever. You know, let's come up with some solutions. And that's why I'm screaming it from the rooftops right now is you. So you did yell. Oh, I didn't yell directly at people, I wouldn't say. More so the at the executive level and at the tour level that it's like, hey, let's get

this, you know, figured it out. I've told this directly to Jay Monhan too, of just saying, hey, our generations have in a hard time with this 18 minutes of commercial allotment. It's a lot to ask. And I hadn't thought of it this way until Jim Nance said it on the pot of like 54 minutes every Sunday that I go sit down, I was like, whoa, that is. When you add it up even more, it's just like,

that's not really working for me. So to your point, I don't have the solution. I don't have the answer, and I don't have the experience to be able to answer these questions. And I know there's a lot of other parties involved. All I'm saying is I want the fan to have a voice in the room of like, hey, guys, we're not gonna always sit around and watch this

if it continues to look like this for the next decade because people do have things to do. Yeah, and it may come to the point where, you know, the other avenues that we have, like, at the Masters, you know, the Masters Live, Amen Corner, things like that, that are basically commercial free. It may end up being more popular than the actual broadcast itself at some point in time. Then, obviously, it's, you know obviously, it's just like a dance sniper and the Washington Redskins, right?

He isn't changing the name because it's the right thing to do. He's changing the name because he's under financial duress with FedEx and Nike and all these other companies threatening to pull their money away. And so that's the key. You got to follow the money and figure out a way for the money to fall in line with

TV golf on the future. I love that. Follow the money. Now we're going to direct all of our, uh, all of our feedback directly to their sponsors. And say, hey, he, he, he, go. Go to FedEx. Yeah. Right. Go to FedEx. Yeah. Right? Go to FedEx. You want to put up all this money. Fine.

You don't need FedEx mentioned every 30 seconds. Right. You don't need a FedEx update every two minutes, whatever. You can enhance the viewer experience if you just took a little bit of this away and a little bit of that away. That's a few more minutes of actual golf time. And that's what I feel almost bad for FedEx in a lot of ways in that they are the main

ones funding this tour and giving, they're getting obviously exposure out of it and they do it for a certain reason. But like they're giving these players, you know, the motivation and whatnot and the means to make all this happen for entertainment purposes that I can't imagine they're really thrilled with how it's all been implemented. Admittedly, it's hard to do with that much money involved from FedEx and feeling like you should be mentioned in them every time, but it just,

it doesn't seem to work for a lot of you. I just, a simple thing, like putting the projected standings on a Thursday up on the screen when a player's graphic comes up. It's like, that is not relevant information, you know? And here's my point. I don't think that that's, you know, I don't think the networks or the tour are being magnanimous in putting those things on.

I think it was part of the contract. I think when FedEx signed up, they were guaranteed X number of mentions, X number of spots. And if it wasn't enough, they gave more. And they finally came to an agreement. So I think it's all built into the contract. I have no way of knowing because I'm not privy to those contracts. But trust me, I don't think anybody wants to put these things on all the time. It's a permanent word to end now. So and so would end up fourth on the FedEx Cup rankings. Well, the tournament's not ending now. It's Saturday permanent word to end now. So and so would end up fourth on the FedEx Cup rankings. Well, the tournament's not ending now.

It's Saturday afternoon. So why do I have to say that? Yeah. I guess my overall point is just like I feel bad for FedEx putting this much money into it and ending up kind of looking like the punching bag or feeling like the punching bag of some of the, I don't know, sponsor related feedback. But what would have been there feeling like a punching bag, they could retract some of those spots. I'm just saying it was a mutual agreement.

Yeah. I think FedEx is probably dollar for mention is one of the cheapest ad spins that they might do. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. A quick break here to check in with our friends at herbal active, one of our, close to our best friend at this point, they have been a tremendous partner to work with. You are B-A-L-A-C-T-I-V, they are of course the CBD provider

for all things, no laying up. I hope they don't mind if I give a shout out to them in a kind of different way this week. I got some data back from my whoop, which we're gonna talk about whoop down the line, but it showed that I have a 14% better recovery when I use CBD before I go to bed. That means I sleep better, it is lowering my heart rate, it's increasing my variability,

all kinds of things. So, there's actually some data behind this now. I'm not just blowing smoke up your ass when I say that we love using herbal active and you can use promo code NLU20 for 20% off all of your CBD needs. You can go to their website, go to their frequently asked questions. They got every question, everything you'd want to know about what CBD is, what makes their product unique, one of the things, of course, being a water-based solution instead of an oil-based solution.

You've heard testimonials from us. There's other testimonials on the website for people that have really enjoyed it for anxiety or joint pain or inflammation or any kinds of things. So go to herbalactive.com, you are B-A-L-A-C-T-I-V and use promo code NLU20 at checkout for 20% off your order. Let's get back to Peter Costas. All right. Well, I think we, yeah, I don't want to belabor the TV stuff too much. I know we've covered it before and I think that kind of stuff is.

You just don't go over all the TV stuff. Now you drag me back in. It's just like a Godfather. That wasn't that difficult. All I had to do was ask a couple of stuff. You just don't go over all the TV stuff. Now you drag me back in, just like, like a Godfather. That wasn't that difficult. All I had to do was ask a couple of questions and you were ready to go. All right, let's, I want to talk a little current PJ tour stuff like that. You've been around golf for a very long period of time. So I'm especially intrigued to hear your perspective on what do you make of everything

Bryson is currently doing? Well, Bryson, in summary some regards is a lot like Tiger. They both needed to keep motivating themselves. I know Brando Shamble goes off and off on Tiger and he gave up 10 majors by making these changes and so on and so forth. But Tiger needed to keep motivated, to keep getting better, didn't always make the right choices,

but that motivation was key to him continuing to play. And I think Bryson is that same way. He's thirsty for knowledge, he's thirsty for improvement. And so he's studied this, and he's come up with a conclusion, and he added a bunch of weight and strength during the shutdown.

And we're going to have to wait and see how this plays out. For me, it's really intriguing. I read Martin Slubber's comments about they're going to take a big hard look at this program that Drices been on and what that boasts for the future of golf because they don't want to diminish skill. And I'm saying to myself, are you kidding me? for the future of golf because they don't want to diminish skill. And I'm saying to myself, are you kidding me? This guy's hitting at 350 and hitting 60 plus percent of the fairways.

If that's not skill, I don't know what is. So sometimes I wonder what these people who run the game really know about the game, what they know about distance. They just accept these perceptions as reality, and they go, oh, he's only hitting at 350 because he gained weight, eating protein shakes, and the equipment. No, he's worked his ass off, and we have to remain to see how long this will be,

will he get injured, all those things, but it's gonna be intriguing for me to watch. Yeah, it is definitely intriguing to watch. And I've maintained that Bryson is the only guy who is able to get in the lab and instantly become, I'm not saying instantly, like he's put a ton of work into this, but instantly become the longest in the game. And to your exact point, people aren't giving him even enough credit for how straight he's hitting it off the tee.

I think two things to Martin Slumber's comments there is one, hey man, how could you have not seen kind of this coming for quite some period of time? This isn't like, it shouldn't have been Bryson making this happen to say, whoa, we might need to start looking into the process. I guess where I would push back on some of that is, if the equipment had been never been allowed to get to the point where it currently is, this is not the approach Bryson would have taken. I'm not, this is not a slight at all Bryson. It's credit to him saying, these are the current rules. I have the ability to launch it very far and straight in part because of how good the equipment is and how

where I would say a diminished skill and that it has never been easier in equipment to do what he's currently doing. You flat out couldn't do something like this with 1995 equipment. Is that fair to say? Well, okay. I've always maintained, and I think, I don't know if I said this on the original podcast or whatever, but the evolution of the golf swing throughout time, you know, from the 1800s onward, the evolution of the golf swing has happened because of changes in equipment,

changes in golf course design and golf course maintenance. You know, originally, the game was played along the ground with hickory shafts and you had to hit low hooks and keep it under the wind in Scotland, etc., etc. And you had the tweed jackets and the boots. So you had to bend your elbows and you had to really let loose of the club with the last three fingers if you left hand to get any risk cock and flail in that shaft. Then we go to steel. Then we go to graphite.

We go from the feathery to the gutter perch, to the now the volata ball, and then on to the solid construction golf ball. All of these equipment changes has allowed for the evolution of the golf swing. Part of the reason Bobby Jones quit playing was health reasons. He'd conquered the golf world, but he did it with hickory, and his swing didn't work as well with steel. And he saw steel as the future of golf shafts, and he didn't want to retool his golf swing.

So he quit at the top, right? Jack Mickler wouldn't have been able to do what he did until steel came along. So you can go back and say, okay, where do we stop this evolution? At what point? What's acceptable? I don't know the answer to that.

But I will say this, as soon as they went to graphite shafts, lighter clubs, they were able to make them longer shafted. And that broke the door wide open for bigger, taller, stronger players to come into the game. It used to be, you had to be, there were very few players over six feet tall with heavy steel shafts and per-simmon heads

and the heavy steel heads on irons and so on and so forth. You couldn't make them long enough for a guy six foot four or six foot five. And George Archer had to scrunch himself down to make himself five foot nine and as a consequence, he tore his body up, trying to swing being that big with clubs that were ill-suited for him.

So now the equipment has allowed bigger, stronger players to come in with gut conditioning involved. And so now I would add one more piece to the puzzle as to the evolution of the golf swing, and that's physical conditioning. So you got equipment, golf course design, golf course maintenance, and player conditioning.

Those four things will shape where the golf swing goes in the future. Yep, no, that's interesting and very, I think, more complete way of looking at the discussion than just like, hey, the ball goes too far. But, and to your point, I don't have an answer on where I think things would have been most ideal or where things should have stopped.

I just wonder if so much of the current discussion around this could be addressed by a golf ball that spun more. And I just think that there is relatively speaking not much risk for these guys to swing it really, really hard. And that's where I think that the best way to address the fact that we are running out of real estate on these golf courses to move these teas,

to make the bunkers relevant, that if there was just more risk in grabbing driver, even being myself, like when I'm not swinging at that grade, I can reach for driver because it's one of the safest clubs because it's got the biggest head and I don't. It seems to not spray as much as some other clubs when it's not going well. And that's where I wonder if that's what Martin Slumber's means, if that's what the USGA and R&A joint report came out and said that they are starting to actually be concerned That's where I wonder if that's what Martin Slumber's means, if that's what the USGA's an RNA joint report came out and said that they are starting to actually be concerned

with distance. And that's where I'm curious to get your feedback. That's where you think that if there was a way to address this currently, if that was a way you could see going forward. Well, I mean, as you said all of that, I harkened back to what I said about 54 minutes of commercials and endless promos in every golf telecast. Everybody identifies the problem. Nobody can come up with a solution.

Everybody can identify the problem, at least with professional golf, that they're hitting it too far, but nobody can come up with a solution. There's a whole bunch of maybes that I wonder if, but nobody has any concrete solutions available. Until that happens, I don't know where we go, but I will say this, I go to a lot of golf courses and I said it before, golf isn't defined by the PGA tour and people who are paid to play golf. Golf is defined by the people who pay to play golf at the Muni, at the public course, at the private club, at the municipal, whatever.

And I don't see any of those golf courses being made obsolete by today's equipment. I don't see everybody going to the back T. I just don't. We've got back T's at Whisperock that go 7,800 yards, 7,900 yards. We've got 20 or 32 players that don't ever go back there. So, I mean, the game itself, I think, is fine with where the equipment is today. Now, if you're going to try and change the entire game of golf to rain in one tenth of one percent of the golfers who are paid to play golf because they're hitting it too far,

then I think that's a question that you've got to take a long hard look at. I really do. I think, and I go back to golf course design. Why is it that some of the most liked golf courses on tour, like Riviera, Harbourtown, Colonial? They're not 7800 yard monsters where people can bash it everywhere. With proper golf course design and proper golf course maintenance, you can do a whole lot to rein in, bomb and gouge.

Now maybe there's something you can do with a golf ball, make it spin a little bit more, maybe reduce the size of club heads. I don't know. At this point in my life, I'm not for bifurcating equipment rules for amateurs and professionals because I still think that that's part of the lure of the game. Whether it's holding out a chip shot or or whatever you can go play a TPC golf course where you saw somebody whole out of shot at Scottsdale in the tournament and do the same thing and feel like you're on an even playing field with a tour player. I think losing that would be problematic for me. I see where you're coming from there. I personally am in favor of bifurcation, just because to your exact point there,

I'm 100% with you on golf is played by the people that pay to play it more so than the guys that get paid to play it. And we don't necessarily, and shouldn't change all the rules just because the top 1.01% have gotten, in my opinion, out of hand. But to that point, also, I do think there are ways that you could address it.

I don't necessarily agree, and we can agree to disagree on, they're being that close of a tie between, I wanna play the game exactly like the pros do. Because I think people don't wanna give up their big head of drivers, they don't wanna give up their golf balls that perform as well as they do. And I don't know, maybe I'm in the minority too. I would think, I wouldn't even say most golf fans agree that distance is a huge issue.

Because one, I just don't, I don't think they really know, like fully understand what the core of it all is. And you know, a lot of people will just say, just grow the rough up, just add some bunkers. And it just kind of isn't really the point, I think, of the discussion. I want to this. I mean, for years, people have kind of downplayed the part of the equation

that it has to do with the player, players conditioning, strengthening, et cetera, et cetera. They've all said, oh yeah, well, et cetera, et cetera. They've all said, oh yeah, well, they're on the extended fast diet, they're doing this, they're working out, blah, blah, blah, but that's not really. Well, look what Bryson did. Look what Bryson was hitting it four months ago.

And look where he's hitting it now. And his equipment hasn't changed. I'll be at least, he's taken some loft off the driver. But it's the same mechanical components, right? Same golf ball, same everything. And he's hitting it freaking 30 or 40 yards farther in the air. So how do you regulate that? Well, that's kind of what I'm kind of tying all together is one. He couldn't, he can do that with the current equipment.

And if that was, and again, no fault to Bryson at all, but if the ball spun like it did in the 90s, this would probably not be the mathematical greatest approach or the steps he would be taking to shave strokes off his score by, you know, raring up and launching it as high as he does and trying to fit it in some of these spaces he's trying to fit it in. That's why I think it all works together, right? I mean, he very clearly has gotten himself in stronger and better shape and re-tooled his swing to hit it really far. I think it's the question is, like, how did we let this get to this point of being able

to do it with the equipment? And what's next? Tony Fienaels, tweeting videos of hitting 206 ball speed, are we going to see people like following this price and model, do you think? Well, I mean, I think you're going to see a lot of people try to follow it. Right. The question remains, can they pull it off? And I think, you know, to Bryson's credit, I mean, the target he's hitting at that far

and that straight, to me, is extraordinary. I mean, he's hitting at that far and that straight to me is extraordinary. I mean, he's not the longest in golf. That's a bunch of long drive hitters, you know, with wild ass swings that can hit it way farther than Bryson, but they can't find it except one out of six balls, right? 100%. So that's not playable. Well, he's figured out a way to put long drive philosophy into play because he can find the ball. I'm not sure everybody would be able to do that or want to do it. I'm

not sure everybody's going to be singularly minded enough to drink whatever number of protein shakes work out four hours at night and have such a sheltered life where you don't get to do anything else except work on your body, work on your golf game. And I don't even know how long Bryson's gonna be able to maintain that. Yep, no, it's, and yeah, I will, again, I will maintain that he is, what he has done is absolutely incredible.

And the reaction of the other pros has been the most interesting to me, Rory saying, you know, quote after the Charles Schwab saying something like, oh, I mean, what he was doing, I turned to Harry and said, holy shit, this is unbelievable. It's like, Laurie is literally the number one player in the world and he's in awe of what this guy is doing.

But I was very keen to get your perspective on that. So I appreciate that. But we didn't talk much masters the first time around. So first of all, I kind of want to, I want you to compare and contrast what that week looks like for you compared to, say, on to compare and contrast what that week looks like for you compared to, say, and just a normal PGA tour week. I always said that it's a week of work that I would never, ever want to miss.

And apart from when I was in the tower, I never enjoyed any of it. Really? No, because there's a certain stress level around there that's that's phenomenal. You never know if you've broken a rule until they tell you you broke a rule. You put your golf cart in the wrong place, you did this, did that, whatever. It's a very claustrophobic event for an answers. But having said that, I mean, having had the opportunity last year on the 15th hole, to be on the call when Tiger

took the lead in the tournament for the first time that week, that for me was exhilarating. That was extraordinary, right? So I wouldn't ever want to miss it, but I wasn't always enjoying the whole process, except for those few bits of times when we were live on the air and something phenomenal was happening.

Did you ever have tense moments with people from a gustar or the club or do you ever feel any specific instances where you felt uncomfortable? We were told things that we could say and couldn't say and it was it was probably worse back in the early days in the in the 90s and the early 90s. They were very strict. You couldn't mention money, you couldn't do this, couldn't do that. They have a list of preferred terminology.

Obviously everybody knows about patrons. Yeah, you were expected to conduct yourself in a manner that was different to the way you conducted golf every other week of the year. How differently you touched on a couple of them there, but how differently, I guess the core of this question is I recently read, I believe it's called the Making of the Masters, David Owens book. It's mostly about Clifford Roberts and how he, you know, how the masters came to be. But there's a particularly interesting chapter on television and how he dictated to CBS

how it was gonna be presented on television even as of the 1956. There was a whole bunch of back and forth on, this is how it needs to be. We're gonna be doing it almost commercial free because it's gonna encourage people to tune in every year. It's gonna make the sponsorships more valuable. And I want, I thought that was very,

just reading that now was kinda like, wow, that's just exactly what we're screaming about, 60 years later, but how does the masters compare how the masters treats their product to how, say, the PGA tour treats their product? Well, that's completely different. They are a unique entity in the game golf. There's lots of things that people don't understand. CBS got blamed for being, okay, way back in the day, the

Masters was innovative on television because CBS and the Masters got together and they spent the money, color, TVs, that kind of stuff. But then the masters became a little more authoritarian and they fell behind the times. Make no mistake about it. Nothing gets on the air at Augusta that hasn't been pre-approved by Augusta. CBS cannot innovate or do anything that they want to do without the approval of the master's committee.

So if you don't see shot tracer or whatever, it wasn't because CBS didn't want to do it, it's because they weren't given permission to do it. And so they run the tournament the way they want to run the tournament, right from the get go. They have the right to do it. It's their events. Now in terms of the viewer experience, the biggest thing for me is that there's no on-course announcers. There's nobody inside the robes except the players and the caddies. Even the rules officials who are on assigned to certain areas of the golf course are up in the woods. You don't ever see them. So when you're visually looking at the master's telecast, you see the rope lines, you see the galleries outside the ropes, and you only see a player in a caddy inside the ropes. Every other event, there's 200 people walking. You know, P.J. Championship, U.S. Open,

the Open and Europe, you're seeing hundreds of people, golf carts, whatever, inside the ropes. So that clutter's up the viewer experience, right? So the Masters is pristine in that way. Another thing which people don't understand. Originally the Masters was scheduled for this date in April because that's when the sports riders were leaving spring training, getting on the train and going back up the East Coast to start the baseball

year. And so Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts were smart enough to figure out, hey, we're going to run a tournament here. We'll get them to stop here on their way up and cover the event. They felt like the Grantland Rises and the Herbert Warren wins of the world helped put the masters on the map. So therefore they always made room for the writers in covering the event. And for years we couldn't show the front nine because Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts wanted to keep the front nine. Nobody could see any

shots because the writers could go out there, follow the players, and write their story, and kind of set the tone for what happened on the back nine. Hence the phrase, the masters doesn't begin until the back nine, or the second nine, on Sunday. Well, that was when TV started, but they kept it pristine on the front from television until there was an outcry that they could no longer resist because they wanted to protect the writers, the sports writers. All that time, CBS was getting blamed for not wanting to cover the front nine. So there's a lot of stuff that goes on there that people don't know about, that were done for, you could say, right reasons, wrong reasons, whatever, that's up to your own personal interpretation.

Well, is the fact that it's a year-to-year contract? Does that help them exercise more control over CBS? Because I mean, exactly what you said, I don't feel like I'm watching necessarily CBS when it comes to the masters because exactly what you said, I think a lot of viewers understand Augusta is dictating what is being shown on television. But does that, I guess, what gives them, I mean, we know what gives in that power, but

is it, because it come back to that year-to-year contract? Well, I mean, obviously that's going to be a part of it. It keeps CBS on its toes, but it also, in a weird way, it gives a gust of flexibility. They're not tied to a six-year contract, or a 10-year contract, that they can change. If things change in a certain way, they can change with the times more quickly

than say the PGA tour at television contract can, right? Yep. Even when CBS signed their last 10-year deal with the PGA of America, at the beginning of that, the number of hours we had committed to golf on TV was really good. Toward the end of that 10-year contract, it was really bad,

because golf had evolved so much, and television golf had evolved so much in that 10-year period. But we were stuck with that contract, right? So now it's CBS's fault that they're not showing enough PGA coverage. Why aren't they showing it wire to wire? Well, 10 year contract.

It is, and it's funny, that seems to always, wherever, whatever, you know, tree be bark up when it comes to coverage, it always comes back to, well, it's in the contract. It's like, well, all right, well, they probably shouldn't have been a 10-year contract. And I don't know who to direct the blame at on that.

It doesn't really matter. It's just like, yeah, we don't need to circle back on that. But I did want to ask you if you have some questions too on teaching, we didn't really talk much teaching the first time around. I know people, viewers are, I guess, aware that you teach Paul Casey and have taught Paul Casey for a lot of years, but I kind of want to pick your brain

just on some guys you've taught in the past that viewers might not be as familiar with. The first one being Tom Kite, and I've heard some stories of just a, of how I guess it's not even stories, it's the legend of how hard that guy would practice, but I've recently become kind of enthralled by his career and much more appreciation for his career

and how good of a ball striker he was. But what was it like coaching somebody like Tom Kite? Well, Tom used to work with Bob Toskey a lot. And obviously I worked with Bob Toskey a lot in the golf digest golf schools. And so that's how I first met Tom. And then Tom and I started working together for a period of time on his golf game. You're right. He worked hard. He had a lot of balls and he left no stone on turn. He was, he and David Pals, we

developed a 60 degree wedge at least conceptually. And in Tom's case, it had a 33 and a half inch shaft and had 60 degrees of loft. And the whole thing was designed so that with a full swing, he could hit at 60 yards. And I think it was 1982, I may be off on the year, but he led the tour in Bernie Percentage on Parfives. I know he didn't go for more than 10 Parfives in the whole year in two. Well, he perfected the art of laying up to 60 yards, and with that club, he could hit it inside a 10 feet,

probably 75% of the time, maybe higher, and he practiced that shot over it, over it, over it again. And so he ended up in like 57% birdies on par five, something ungodly like that. So he was always trying to figure out how he could score better, how he could play better. He was a grinder. And obviously working on his golf swing,

trying to make that better as well, but his forte was grinding it out. I imagine at least part of the answer to this question is every case is different, but can you broadly paint a picture as to what, and I honestly don't know how far down the Ambitr chain you teach or what level of handicap. I imagine it's pretty broad,

but how different it is to coach and teach professionals versus a 15, 20 handicap and how would you describe that difference, I guess? I learned a long time ago that the best way to communicate with tour players was to make them think that they thought of it. If you could figure out a way to get them to do

what you wanted them to do, but they were the one that came up with the idea, they would work harder on it. How would you do that? What do you think about trying this? I'm not sure. Do you think, let's try this in whatever, and he goes, do you do that? What do you think about trying this? I'm not sure. Do you think, well, let's try this in whatever. And he goes, do you mean this? I go, yeah, that.

And there you go. They thought of it, even though you were gently pushing them in a certain direction. 15 handicapper, they'll listen to what you have to say. And it's funny, you know, my son teaches with me. And he's a great young teacher. And he always bemoans the fact that player X with a 15 handicap comes to me

and I say, please do this, this, and this, and they immediately do it. And player Y with a 15 handicap goes to my son, John, and he says, please do this, and this, and they question him. Well, they don't question my authority, but they question his authority because he hasn't earned his authority yet.

He's only 32 years old and young in the teaching business, even though he's very good. And so he would always get pissed off that I would say the right thing and they would just shut up to do it. And then he would say the right thing and they would question him on it. So you've got to figure out how to communicate with the people. But basically, the amateur golfer is much more willing to accept what you have to say.

I'll be it. You've got to be really careful with what you give them because they don't have the physical skills to handle a lot sometimes. The tour player, you're going to be more precise, but they've got the skills to do it if they are so inclined. Well, with tour players, does it, is a lot of your job just basically trying to activate something within them. I mean, they've obviously gotten to this level, like they have incredible amount of talent, and they're probably looking to, you know, maintain or get up to the level of talent that they've already reached at some point. So how much of your job is just mentally like, not coddling them, but holding their hand

to getting to activating some kind of thought within themselves. If you know me, you know I don't hold hands. And I think that most of the relationships between tour players and teachers, they all have a half life. It can be because the teacher gets bored with the player, it can be because the player gets bored with the teacher. It can be because the player gets bored with the teacher.

So there's a mutual interchange that has to take place. And I'm really proud of the fact that the vast majority of my students have stayed with me for a number of years. I mean, Paul's going on 19 years now. And I still have the ability to motivate him. He still has the willingness to listen to me. And that personality click has kept us together for that long.

Obviously, the results have as well. But it's a fine line that you walk between one or the other getting bored or one feeling like, you know what, you're not pulling your weight in this relationship and so they're going to go elsewhere. You've seen a lot of top players go into a lot of top teachers and not last more than a year or two because they didn't click. They were something missing in the communication game or whatever it might be. So I'm proud. Almost all of my players have won. Those who have stayed with me for

any length of time have won tournaments. And so that's what I'm proud of, longer relationships and winning relationships. How long did you work with Steve Elkington and what was he like to work with? Steve's good. I didn't work with them all that long. He was golf machine kind of guy as well. But I worked with him for a year or two. Great guy. He was fun loving guy.

I think he's probably a little bit different now that he's not playing as much based on Twitter feed. He's busted out of his shell, safe to say. I was wondering what he was like to be around when you're with your coach and if you I don't want to say he doesn't take it seriously, but if he was always that kind of storyteller for for as long as he was very strong, we all didn't opinion it. Yeah. And I don't think that's changed. Well, tying in, you know, someone that you also taught into a story that I've been dying to ask you about, but can you tell the story of trying to interview Mark Calcivecchi after the after the 1991

Ryder Cup singles his match? Yeah, well, I didn't really get to interview him. I worked for USA Network at the time. And so we did all day Friday coverage. And obviously Mark was on the team and I was working with him. And he was five up with five to go against Colin Montgomery. And I actually asked him the other day

because I was told that he had food poisoning the night before and he kind of got dehydrated toward the end of the round, lost his equilibrium. So I actually picked up the phone and called him the other day because even after all these years we still worked together. And I said, did that really happen? I never knew that because I did know that the paramedics gave him an IV in the USA Network trailer right after he finished playing. He was on the couch, virtually out cold, and they gave him an IV and gave some fluids to get him going again.

So something definitely happened physically to him, those last four or five, six holes, where he got the shakes, lost his equilibrium. Everybody thinks he lost the match, but actually that half a point that he won ended up being instrumental. Yeah, that whole scene is just something that, like every golfer can relate to in some ways, been like, oh, I've had it going and just fallen apart.

Like, you couldn't believe. And everyone, I think, kind of felt in some way what he was going through that day. But we talked about this story in our greatest collapses podcast, and I did hear you tell it again on the Mekeller podcast, but I need you to tell the story. If somebody didn't listen to the greatest collapses of the 96 masters, what went down,

how you were somewhat a part of the story of what went down before that final round. 1996, I will always remember the year that the golf channel was born because it was 1996. At the Masters, they sent Brian Hammons. He was the only person there. They had a cameraman in Brian and he would send reports back to Orlando. On Saturday nights, I'm walking from the 10th tower after we're off the air back to the TV compound, which is behind the Part 3 golf course. And Brian was down there getting ready to do a stand-up back to Orlando. He looks at me and he goes, well, looks like Sharky's going to finally get his green jacket.

And I made the mistake of all mistakes, rookie mistake. I made the assumption that our conversation was a private conversation off the record, which he wasn't. And Brian did absolutely nothing wrong. But I said, look, Brian, I'm not sure about that. He goes, well, he's got a six-shot leaf. I said, yeah, you know, butch changed his grip. Straight than his grip earlier in the week, he kept it on Thursday,

played great, had a two shot lead. His grip got a little bit weaker on Friday, played okay, and then up with a four shot lead. His grip got even weaker today. He missed it both ways, which you can't do on this golf course. And if it hadn't been for some unbelievable short game shots, you know, he could have shot 78 today, but he's got a six shot lead. So his lead's gone from two to four to six, and everybody thinks he's playing better.

Well, if his grip gets any weaker, he could be in for a long day tomorrow. That's what I said. Now, unbeknownst to me, golf channel had bought time on the local CBS affiliate in Augusta, Georgia for the week. They bought an hour at night to do a recap, whatever. And so evidently, I didn't see it, but evidently, they go back and forth with Brian. They asked Brian what the state of affairs was in Augusta.

And he said, virtually everybody I've talked to, thanks to Greg Normer's gonna win his first green jacket tomorrow, except just interestingly enough, a few moments ago, I talked with C.A.B.S. as Peter Costas who said, that Greg could be in for a long day. Blah, blah, blah. Well, don't you know that Greg was watching?

Background story, Frank Trichinian, our producer, and Greg Norman were best of friends. Really, really good friends. And so Sunday morning, Greg called Frank and basically unloaded on Frank about me and my comments. Now, I don't know if this, none of this has happened. I walk into the TV compound and Frank screams out of his office. Costus, get in here now. Oh, God, what have I done wrong now? And he said, did you tell the whole world last night

that Norman was gonna choke today? And I go, no, I don't think so, Frank. I would have remembered if I said that. He goes, well, I just hung up with the phone with him and he wanted to put his hands around you and throw it and strangle you. So I'm going to, what is this about? Then it dawned on me that I had talked to Brian and then one thing led to another. So Frank threw me out of his office, told me it could be in stupid. And then I put two and two together and I figured out what happened because one of the texts told

me that they saw it on the golf channel. They were watching Saturday night. And so I walked back into Frank's office and back back then we don't do it anymore, or CBS doesn't do it anymore, but there was a fairly substantial calcutta, and Frank had Norman in the pool. And so I walked back in, and I said, Frank, I finally figured out what happened. This is what happened. And by the way, if all he has to do on what is arguably the most important morning of his golf life is to call you and complain about me, he's

in worse trouble than I thought, and I walked out. That speaks to his mindset exactly of where he was at that day, which I heard that story. I just couldn't believe it. I mean, that was, I came up with that. It was mechanical. It wasn't, he didn't choke. Okay, everybody wants to think that it was mechanical. You know, you can't make a grip change three days before the start of a major championship and expect it to last for the tournament. Under pressure, everybody reverts to instinct.

And his instinct was a weaker left hand grip, but he'd been practicing with a stronger left hand grip. So he had a mechanical thing going on, and he was fighting it. And then you start fighting that, and then you got Fowldo in the same group as you, and it's the Masters, and you know, you desperately want to win it, and whatever,

and it's still balls, right? That's, it'd be even more interesting rewatch now knowing Tricinian had had Frank in the Calcutta of all the zoom-ins on his facial expressions that Sunday and just that torturous, torturous broadcast of watching that all happen. That'd be, that's interesting to know. Any other, I came out of his office and offered to Shell Norman, if anybody wanted to buy him.

Ha, ha, ha, ha. Any other examples of, I'm sure, of players that didn't take very kindly to either mild or extreme criticism that you may have lobbed their way? For a period there about a year and a half, I never got to the source of the irritation that Tiger fell, but he wouldn't let me interview him. He was clearly upset about something I said, about his golf swing or iconic or my knelt-a-thing I did on his golf game or whatever.

But I never find out the source of that. It lasted about a year and a half, and then he was okay in completing the story. When I had my battle with cancer in 2013, my first tournament back was San Diego in 2014. I'm assigned to Tiger's group on Saturday. I'm walking a hundred yards ahead and I got my headphones on and all of a sudden people in the gallery are yelling at me. I go, shit, what do I do now? And say, Tiger wants you. And he was a hundred yards behind me, so I waited for him. I took my headphones off and I said, I do something wrong say, Tiger wants you. And he was 100 yards behind me. So I waited for him.

I took my headphones off and I said, I do something wrong. He goes, now he walked me over to where nobody could hear. Put his arm around me. He said, welcome back. We missed you. And he couldn't have been nicer. If I'm going to tell the world that he wouldn't talk to me

for a year and a half, I also have to tell the world that he couldn't have been nicer on my return and it was heartfelt. Wow, I don't think I've heard that story. That was, I think he was, that was shortly before he withdrew, right? I mean, that was the glute shutting off year, wasn't it? 2014? Yeah. It's close to that, yeah. Wow. A couple random things and we will let you go, I promise. But one, your Wikipedia page, this stunned me. You played football in college? Well, I tried to. Okay. I'm old enough to wear a freshman couldn't play varsity sports. I went to the

University of Hampshire. I played quarterback. I got injured my freshman year, had several surgeries on my left knee and never played against. So I never played varsity because you couldn't, you couldn't have suppression. Yeah, but good news is that's what that's what led me into golf whole time. And then lastly here we've we're we're slowly morphed maybe quickly morphing into a Formula One podcast. I think you perked up a bit when you saw me tweeting about it this past week. How long have you been a Formula One fan? Oh since way back back with Mario and Dredi and yeah, a long time. I took a little bit of a break for a while because of work.

And the F1 shows weren't on in America a lot. But then I've been a diehard fan for quite some time. I've been to the Red Bull Ring. I've been to Silverstone in England. I want to get to Austin sometime because I understand that's a great track, but I actually love it. I love everything about it. Yeah, we're dying to get to erase

once things get back to normal. And I think it was all thanks to the Netflix, the Drive to Survive series that we've talked about a lot, but I couldn't help but watch that and just wonder like why something like that doesn't happen for golf. Tell us why that can't happen. Well, I mean, you're 100% correct.

I mean, you've got, what do they call the thing in football? Hard knocks. Hard knocks, right. And you've got the drive to survive in Formula One. And those are, I think, phenomenal ways to give sports fans insight behind the scenes of what goes on. You know, unfortunately, I don't think there are very many players

who are going to want a TV camera in their hotel room two hours before they tee off in a master's or if they are willing to be part of a group of guys who are doing a hard knocks or drive to survive video series, they're going to want to get paid. You know, it's too complicated. Golfers are too fragile mentally. You know, it's funny, you can talk to a NASCAR driver, or you can't do it now with the virus stuff, but you can talk to a NASCAR driver literally a minute before they start their engine to run the Daytona 500, and he'll talk to you. Or they even talk to him while they're in the car, you know, under a red flag or a yellow flag or whatever.

But you can't talk to a golfer. If you ask the wrong question or if you ask it in the exact the wrong way, they take a fence to it, they get uptight, whatever whatever they hit a bad shot, they blame you. And golfers are not conducive to being micredeured interview during the course of play. Well, does that frustrate you at all? I mean, for a team sport, I could understand that, for a lot of different reasons, but for individual sports,

especially when their players net worth and income and whatnot is so closely tied to their brand and their exposure, does it not surprise you or frustrate you at all that pro golfers aren't better at buying into this media aspect and doing their part to help people get more into golf? There's one big difference in all of these things. The football player gets paid his contract.

Yeah. Baseball player, the driver, they all get paid their contract. The tour player doesn't get paid a penny unless he performs. And so he is going to protect his ability to perform at all costs. So in that sense, I defend the players not being willing to talk. They want to stay in their own head, they want to stay in their own space because you know what, one shot on a Friday, people say, you know, they can do an interview walking down the fairway on 10 on Friday. Well, you know what, if it sets them off the wrong way and they hit one bad shot and they miss the cut, they go home and they don't make a penny. They're not getting paid 50,000 a week,

whether they make the cut or not. So I'll take the player side in that equation and say, look, they're not getting paid. They need to be in their own head, they need to be in their own space. They need to control their thoughts. They can't let somebody else in, that might alter them and affect the way they play.

I don't think Mike and up players is such a good idea anyhow. For the odd jewel that you might get, especially if you make up a player who's not a contention, he's the one that says, I'll wear the mic today, now you're obligated to show him, he's not really in the fight and that takes away shots from leaders. So there's a whole bunch of stuff involved with Mike and up players and trying to talk to them during the round that it sounds good on the surface, but if you dig deeper, I'm not sure that I'm a fan of. No, everything you said there makes sense. I think, you know, for me as a fan, it wouldn't

be as much about, you know, wanting to interview players during rounds or anything. I get what you're saying about the one-course earnings, you take home what you earn there in the truest sense, but it's almost more off-course stuff and it's more being around for practice and shining a light on that and helps your exposure and your brand building so that you're earning a lot more off the course. If that's coming at a lot of these guys are really competitive, and all these guys are really competitive, and if it sacrifices anything on course, it's kind of what contributes to that.

But I do think there's some untapped level of exposure that the whole game could get a lot bigger if it was more inviting to new fans. And maybe I'm oversimplifying, I guarantee I am, just kind of with that series, but I was so hard to watch that and not think like, oh gosh golf would be so amazing for this because I became invested in the drivers really quickly

knowing nothing about them. And that's just something that I think is missing for a lot of golf fans. It's like we watched Chase Seaford like make a run here, but I don't know what to feel because I really don't know much of anything about him. Not that a series like that would cover someone like him, but it just kind of is the thing that I think is golf golf is really, really missing.

Yeah, I know. I agree 100%. You got to find the right way to do it. Part of the intrigue of Hard Knocks or F know, the foul language, the honesty, the brutal truth that one driver will speak about another driver or whatever. And the tour is not going to allow that. They're not going to allow their image to be tainted in any manner or form. They have an image they want to put out there and by God they're going to do it. Yeah, I you're definitely right

I just kind of rolled my eyes at that also and thinking like yeah, I mean why would you want to learn from formula one? It's only like the second most lucrative sport in the world You're right on well Peter. Thank you so much for coming back. We always appreciate your insight There's probably there's definitely enough things. I'd love to talk to you about for a part three and whenever you're ready for that, so I'm sure the listeners will appreciate this as well, so thanks so much for spending some time with us. It was great, I thank you, and I can't wait to see what I said wrong. The right stuff outweighs the wrong if there was any, so cheers, thanks Peter.

Thanks, Take care. Get a right club. Peter, right club today. Yeah. That's better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most. Better than most.